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horseshoegirl · 1 year ago

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Set Me Alight - Part 4: One Way Or Another

📜Midge... Don't....Don't... Ugh, never mind. She's going to do it anyway.

I had to split the chapter again! I didn't want to overwhelm the word count, so the banner I posted before will be used for the next one! Which will be posted within the next few days!

❗️+18, Minors DNI, Strong Language, Enemies to Lovers, Original Female Character (s), Short OFC, Bradley Bradshaw x Natasha Trace, Verbal fights, bullying, description of injury (A bruised wrist), camping, and pranks.

#4.4k

Part 3 | Masterlist | Part 5

The first rays of sunlight shining through the canvas of your tent are what stir you awake the following morning.

It’s a struggle to open your eyes with the aftermath of how much you cried yourself to sleep last night. The skin under your eyes and your eyelids simply ache, and you want to sink yourself down into the ground, never to be seen nor heard from again.

However, each gentle breeze caressing the side of your tent and each chirp of a nearby bird is slowly coaxing you out of your sleep. It seems peaceful, serene even. Like all was right in the world.

Then the first sharp throb of your wrist pulsed up your arm, and you were dragged back to the harsh reality of what was this fucking mistake of a trip.

Right. The fall. Your wrist. The two she-devils.

Seresin.

You can’t help but cringe as you cradle your wrist to your chest, willing each aching pulse to fuck off and go away. There was no way you’d be able to paint today or tomorrow. Maybe even the rest of the week. The realization stung so sharply you wanted to cry - you'd miss out on all the prime spots, the best angles and outlooks, even the waterfall today, all because the fucking asshole decided to scream, “Look out, there’s a bear!”

If there were ever a time for you to swear at the universe for the cruel joke it was playing on you, taking away your only solace and leaving you with nothing but anger, frustration and one Jake Seresin to put up with, you'd find the tallest mountain in the park and scream, "Go to hell."

You opened your eyes to the thought, staring at the corner of the roof of your tent. While you might not be able to hold a paintbrush, there were other things you could do to pass the time.

Eagerly sitting up and sliding your legs out of your sleeping bag, you reached for your clothes and quickly got changed, hoping no one else was up. If you had any chance at getting back at Jake for your predicament, you couldn't be seen doing it.

It had to be a prank. Something classy and of the same calibre he started, but enough to drive home the fact two could play at this game. And that you wouldn't resort to his level by injuring him - not that you could.

To your surprise, when you finally opened your tent, hoping to take in the morning air, you were treated to the sight of the map in its clear plastic bag and the silver compass placed directly on top, sitting on the ground in front of you. You had forgotten them completely last night in your haste to escape the chaos and embarrassment, and for a moment, you stood there, wondering who had done such a thing.

It was a small act of kindness, one that quieted your anger towards Jake for a moment.

Your mind raced through every person who could have done such a thing - Nat with her concern from last night. Bob's quiet kindness, perhaps Grace or Cora, both of whom had shown moments of empathy and understanding. Even Maybe Mickey, or Javy or Rueben, to make up for their girlfriend's behaviour.

The thought that it might have been Jake briefly flickered through your mind, but you quickly dismissed it. He sought out every opportunity to tease, provoke, and hurl insults at you when he could, and you felt stupid for even entertaining such a thought.

With a mixture of curiosity and gratitude, you made a mental note to find out who was responsible and thank them for the kind gesture.

Lifting your head, you took in a deep breath, the crisp morning air filling your lungs and the earthy scent of the woods filling your nose. Light filtered through the trees, and their leaves seemed to rustle with the breeze. Along with the birds, you could have sworn you heard a squirrel or chipmunk, too.

Something had to be wrong. The campsite was too quiet.

Unlike yesterday, when Jake woke everyone up with his crazy-ass antics, everyone was still content to be tucked safely into their sleeping bags. You looked around, half expecting to see him lurking about somewhere or about to stir up trouble.

While his tent had been left open, he was nowhere to be found.

The metaphorical light bulb went off above your head with the realization you had your chance to set up and cause some shit without ruining it for anyone else.

The smile that crossed your face at that thought alone could have rivalled even that of the Jokers.

Approaching the firepit, the memory of last night still fresh in your mind, you noticed Jake had already taken down the food cooler from the nearby tree. It sat next to the little stone monument, waiting for Bradley or Nat to start handing out everyone's food packs.

You checked over your shoulder once, then twice to see if the coast was clear, before kneeling down and carefully flipping open the lid. You searched each one until you came across Jake's and your own, pulling them out and placing them side by side.

The little bottle of sugar Jake had brought with him for his coffee was at the top of the bag. You smirked in glee, knowing Jake would have no idea you messed with his bag, given its easy position. The man was so anal about things, his hair, his outfits, he'd notice if it had somehow fallen to the bottom of his bag.

Then, you found what you wanted out of yours.

Your container of salt.

It was the only thing you could think of right now. Fuck with his coffee, or at least something that he could put into his coffee. It was cheap. It was harmless. Probably even childish. But considering he actively went out of his way yesterday to prevent you from having yours, this was fair game.

Grabbing a spare container from your bag, you quickly unscrewed the lid, pouring Jake's sugar out into the safety of the container before reaching for the salt. You worked as fast as you could with your injured hand, grimacing as you tried to prevent any grains from spilling over as you refilled Jake's bottle.

After pouring his sugar into your own bottle, you quickly tidied up, making sure there was no evidence of your impromptu switch. You stood up, wondering what else you could do with the time you had or if something as simple as that would be enough, at least for today.

But the sight of Jake's tent, left wide and open, was another opportunity you had to take advantage of... Right?

It wasn't like Jake to leave his tent open. It either meant he intended to come back right away, or he forgot he had even left it open. You looked to the trailhead, then to the general direction of the area the group had chosen as 'the bathroom.' Jake still hadn't made his grand appearance.

"You shouldn't,' the angel on your shoulder screamed.

"Do it," the devil on the other murmured.

Your feet carried you forward, and you hesitantly approached his tent as if you were about to be arrested for murder. Resting at the entrance was his fishing bag, and you kneeled, undoing the zipper just enough to peer inside.

There was a tackle box full of hooks, lures, and other small items—a couple of bobbers and sinkers, snap connectors and an extra fish gripper. There was a knife and even a roll of fishing line; you gave into the urge to pull them out the second you saw them.

The lack of his fishing rod indicated he had definitely gone off and found a body of water or pond to go and attempt to catch something. It made you anxious, knowing you were working on borrowed time. Without really thinking, you unsheathed the knife from its case, letting out a painful yelp, only to spin out some of the wire and cut a sizeable length of it against the ground.

What for? You had no idea. But you had time to think about that later. The possibilities of what you could do with something like a piece of wire out here in the wilderness were endless.

Your heart rate spiked when you heard voices coming from one of the tents, and you quickly tried to put everything back where you found it. You shoved the wire into your back pocket and accidentally popped open the tackle box as you jammed the knife back inside.

Your hand screamed at you, already pushed to its max, as you scrambled to carefully pick up the fallen hooks from within Jake's bag, already knowing you probably missed a couple. One caught on your bandage, and you didn't bother removing it as you snapped the lid shut and zipped up his bag.

Racing back to your tent, the zipper of Bob and Grace's tent was being pulled up. You skidded to a stop and kneeled next to the map, swearing softly to yourself as you grabbed the stowe-away hook and shoved it into the front pocket of your pants.

You could only hope Bob thought you were getting up and emerging from your tent for the first time this morning.

Bob stepped out, having seen nothing of your hasty retreat back to your tent, and offered you a soft "good morning' accompanied by a smile.

"Morning, Bob," you greeted him with a smile of your own, trying to calm your breathing. "Do you know who did this? I want to thank them."

Bob looked down to where you were pointing and shook his head. "Sorry, Maeve. I didn't see who. It was there when Grace and I went to bed last night, though."

Not Bob. Or Grace. Hmm.

With nothing else better to do, you offered to help Bob start the campfire while Grace got ready. You arranged the kindling and small logs as Bob gathered some of the bigger ones Bradley had cut the day before. It was a few minutes before the two of you got a decent-sized setup, and in that time, Grace had joined you two, promising to get to the coffee first so you'd have a cup before venturing out for the day.

You always thought her name suited her - literally always a saving grace.

You held up one of the sticks as you were breaking up a few to add to the pile, twirling it as you inspected the top. "This would make for a good Marshmellow stick."

Bob dropped the log he'd picked up into the pit before settling himself down next to you. He reached out and took the stick from your hand, playing with the top of it like you would messing around with the sharp edge of a knife.

"This one?" Bob said, examining the stick closely. "Nah, it's too flimsy. It'd catch fire before you got that perfect char."

You quickly catch on to his meaning, and you gasped at him in horror. "Bobby, No.. that's just...a Marshmellow shouldn't be crunchy."

"I've always made them like that!" he exclaimed in protest.

"That is so wrong, so so wrong!" you cried out. Grace makes a gagging noise in agreement with you. "The burnt part is carcinogenic, Bob. Listen to Maeve," she tried to encourage him.

"You can always take the burnt stuff off," he pouts.

"That's not the point of a Marshmellow on a stick. You want them crispy, not fired to hell."

"Is that where you make yours?"

You turn your head towards him, shocked. Then, a bout of soft giggles racks your body as Bob starts to sport a grin. "Damn, you woke up snarky this morning."

"It's not my fault you two like eating fluffy clouds and chalk dust," he joked, knocking your shoulder playfully. You and Grace share a look and continue to giggle, shaking your heads.

It took a little bit for Bob and you to get the flames to catch. But eventually, after some poking, prodding and waving, the flames erupted and grew steadily, crackling happily.

You stood to high-five Bob, celebrating after your struggle. But just over Bob's shoulder, you see Jake walking down the path, fishing rod in hand, and it quiets you instantly. His gait was easy, and he appeared lost in his thoughts, watching each of the steps he took. He seemed tired, with bags under his eyes and his face weary.

You missed the way Grace and Bob shared a look at one another.

Once he reached the edge of the camp, Jake lifted his head, his eyes immediately meeting yours. You want to glance away, but you can't bring yourself to. There's a strange mix of emotions swirling inside you - curiosity, irritation, maybe something else you can't quite put your finger on.

Jake holds your gaze for all but two seconds before it's travelling down to the bandage on your wrist. He knits his brow, and a pained expression strikes his face. It's enough for you to instinctively tuck your arm behind your back and drop your chin to your chest in embarrassment.

Grace calls out that the coffee is ready, and you twist, reaching for the cup she's holding out to you. You grab it eagerly, offering a quiet 'thank you' and bringing it up to rest just before your nose, taking a deep breath.

The smell seems to calm you down but does nothing for the image of Jake's reaction to your wrist playing in your head.

Was that guilt you saw? Or lack of sleep? Did he lose sleep over it? Over what happened last night? He did try to call for you. But why? Why? The idea that Jake might actually feel remorse was unsettling, challenging even.

Despite yourself, you glanced back over your shoulder. Jake was already gone, off to greet Mickey good morning with a hug and slap on the back, and you felt ashamed for even having looked.

'No, it couldn't be,' you mused to yourself, 'Jake's not the type to feel guilty.'

You smiled into the rim of your coffee for a moment, thinking about what he might do or react when he tasted your salty surprise.

"What are you smiling about?"

You jumped as Mickey bumped your shoulder with his. "It's too quiet for the two of you this morning."

You shrugged, trying to suppress your grin. "Maybe he's feeling guilty for yesterday. I don't purposely start shit with him, Mickey. You know that."

Mickey didn't answer you. Rather, he reached for your hand, carefully lifting it up so he could inspect your wrist. "Can I take a look at it, Maeve? Please? I promise to be gentle."

You sighed. "I know, I did a shit job of wrapping it last night."

Mickey shook his head. "I only want to make sure there isn't any permanent damage."

You paused for a second before nodding. You let Mickey guide you over to his chair, allowing him to help you sit with a gentle hand on your elbow. He kneeled in front of you, placing your arm on your lap as he worked on undoing your bandage.

"How's the pain?" he asked as he started to unwrap it.

"It doesn't hurt as much as it did last night, though it's throbbing a bit."

"That's probably some swelling," he offered, not unkindly. Mickey made sure you kept your eyes on him as he unveiled the damage, hoping to provide you with some reassurance. You appreciated it, knowing you'd jump to conclusions before knowing how bad it truly was.

He had already unwrapped your arm when he lifted his head, about to ask you if you were ready to see the damage on your wrist, when his eyes tracked some movement behind you. The corner of his mouth wobbled, and he shook his head, immediately setting his back on to you. You went to look, hoping to change whatever caused him to frown when a quip from the other side of the campsite stopped you.

"Need someone to kiss your boo'-boos, Midge?"

Oh, that bitch!

Mickey stopped what he was doing in favour of placing a hand on your thigh, preventing you from leaping up out of your chair. You tense at the touch, and you are sure it's the only thing holding you back. But you wouldn't be you if you didn't offer some type of snarky reply in kind.

It was there, ready to be unleashed. That was until you heard Jake's voice boom from somewhere behind you, the man stepping forward as if he were on a mission.

"Oh, would you give it a fucking rest, Jessica? Unless you're a certified medic now," he points to Mickey, "I doubt your expertise extends to anything beyond Instagram filters and badly photoshopped pictures."

What. The. Fuck.

Your mouth drops. Your face flushes. And you can't help but stare up at Jake as he confronts them - On your behalf. There's even collective 'oohs' filling the camp, and Bradley's rapidly looking back and forth between you, Jake, and Jessica, wondering what the hell happened to warrant such a reaction.

It's the first time you've ever heard Jake speak to Jessica like that, let alone defend you. Are you not sure how you're supposed to feel about the response? Grateful? Happy? Appreciative? Angry he felt the need to defend you?

Why the hell did he defend you?

"She got hurt last night," he points out sharply. "So I don't understand what your point is in saying that. And honestly, it's just getting old and, frankly, pathetic."

Jessica's eyes widen and her face starts to turn red, her rounded cheeks almost looking like cherries. She jolted back, recoiling as if he had dealt her an invisible blow, and her gaze briefly darts to Rueben, then back to Jake.

Conflict is written all over her face.

"Come on, Jake, she didn't mean it like that?" Veronica counters, stepping forward to slide her arm under Jessica's in support.

And in a surprising turn of events, Jake starts to laugh. Mockingly.

To them.

"How does she mean it then?" he turns to Veronica, sarcasm laced into his tone. "What's the point? A Joke? Scarastic comment?"

Jake's face suddenly lights up, a look you are all too familiar with when going head-to-head against him. You cannot help but chant inside your head, Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit.

"Maybe throwing a peace sign up at the end of it as you do in your photos would have helped, but I can't say that's what I would have done when someone has been hurt."

You could swear your heart was beating out of your chest. This didn't make sense.

"Come on, Man, that's not right. Anyone who knows her should know she's not like that." It's Ruben, this time, standing up for his girlfriend, though you can detect a bit of nerves in his tone.

And Jake sneers. Sneers! "Some shakey moral high ground, if you ask me."

"Dude..."

Jake shakes his head, grabbing Rueben by the elbow and pulling him close. He whispers something into his ear, and Rueben's eyes widen. It makes you grip the armrest tighter, maybe in some mediocre attempt to assure yourself you didn't fall down a hole instead of your tent last night and wake up in an alternate dimension.

"It's just badly bruised. Nothing's broken, and the tendon is fine. I would try to keep it wrapped, though."

Mickey prodded at your bruise, and you hissed from the pain, immediately drawing your eyes away from the interaction, finally taking in the damage done to your wrist.

It's ugly, to say the least. It's somewhat ironic that you are already comparing it to smudges on a painter's palette rather than something real and painful marking your own body.

The centre of the bruise was a deep, angry purple, the colour rich and dark, indicating just exactly where you hit the ground. Surrounding it was a halo of different shades of blue, varying in intensity. Some looked like deep twilight, while others were lighter, reminiscent of faded denim. And there was an edge of yellow-green, giving the false impressing it was beginning to heal, though it was very much a fresh injury.

The sight only confirms what you thought this morning. There was no chance you'd be painting at any point while on this trip.

"I'm going to get Cora to wrap it again to relieve some of the swelling. She'd have our asses if we don't let her do it."

You shutter. "Don't I know it."

As Mickey left to find Cora, you tried to figure out what happened. While everyone else had finally woke up and was venturing around the camp, Jessica and Veronica were nowhere to be found. Neither was Rueben, for that matter. Jake, however, was extending his Yeti mug towards Grace with a grateful nod, who was going around filling cups of coffee after having watched the spectacle.

You knew what was coming next. Sitting on his chair was his food bag, and Jake kneeled next to it, placing the mug on the ground to rummage through it. To your surprise, the sight fills you with guilt, and you battle the urge to tell him what you did.

After all, he didn't need to call out Jessica for what she said. But the angel and devil on your shoulder are vying for your attention, and you don't know which one you should listen to.

Be the better person, Maeve. Tell him not to drink it.

Sit back and watch the show, Midge. He deserves it.

Your internal conflict of should or shouldn't is decided for you when Jake finally grabs onto the tiny bottle and dumps a little bit into his coffee. You scrunch your face as he closes the lid and lifts the Tumblr to his lips to take his first sip.

His reaction was immediate, sputtering out his coffee with the grace of an angry camel, and his mug fell to the ground with a loud clank. He stands, racing off towards the bush, coughing and gagging as if he were about to bring up whatever was in his stomach.

You wouldn't be surprised if he did.

But where you thought you'd be rolling in laughter and enjoying his little misery, you're wincing instead. Both elated he was getting a small ounce of karma and mad he had to be anything but kind this morning.

"Why is Jake gagging and throwing up his breakfast over in the bush?" Cora asked as she kneeled down in the same spot Mickey had been.

"Not too sure. Maybe he mistook the salt for sugar instead," you answered her, holding out your wrist for her to wrap.

Cora had already picked up your bandage from where Mickey had placed it in the cup holder when she regarded you for a moment.

She shook her head. "Midge, you didn't."

You eyed her as she started to wrap your arm. "You can't tell me he didn't deserve it after this?" you say, lifting your arm as she securely tightens your bandage around your thumb.

Cora bites her lip in concentration for a second, careful to mind your hand as she pulls the bandage tight, allowing for relief but mindful of how much it hurts. You let out a soft cry as she pulled the material over the most painful part of your wrist.

"I suppose it's a harmless prank," she remarked once the worst of it was over.

"Be glad it didn't do more."

Cora lifted her head, though she didn't stop wrapping your hand. "Did you do more?"

You shook your head. "I'm not saying anything."

And you didn't want to, even if you did or didn't. Jake was alarmingly kind this morning, and anything you said or did in addition to this would make you that bitch in all of this. Cora would be the last person on earth to judge you for pulling shit like this, but that didn't mean the rest of the group would.

It seems your point is nearly proven, too, when Nat pulls you aside in the breakfast line, glaring at you like a mother extremely disappointed in her kid.

"Is that it?" she asked you firmly, jerking her head over towards Jake. "With him?"

She stood with her arms crossed, her posture rigid, and you only offered her a small, toothy grin. "You can't tell me he doesn't deserve a little karma for this," you say, holding up your wrist.

Nat eyed your hand, her face still hard. "You got hurt last night, Maeve. If the two of you keep this up, it's going to escalate, and things are going to get worse."

You shrugged. "It's just a harmless prank, Nat. You know I'm capable of doing much worse."

She does know, having been your accomplice back in school. The two of you were in charge of the student union's annual April Fool's trick for three years in a row. To this day, you're pretty sure some of those crickets were still alive and pissing Dr. Flynn off in his lecture hall.

There was a moment of silence as Nat weighed your words, prompting you to say, "He woke all of us up yesterday morning by banging a pan, he wanted us to lug the cooler up that hill, and he screamed bear, resulting in this," you hold up your arm. "Salt in his coffee? That's minuscule in comparison."

"Alright," she finally said, her voice firm. "But it stops there. We don't need the drama."

"Alright, Mom," you joked, grabbing a bowl of oatmeal. Satisfied with your answer, she let you go, guiding you back to your spot in the line. After collecting your bowl and while she was getting hers, you leaned over, resting your shoulder against hers.

"You got to admit, though, the look on his face was worth it alone."

Nat couldn't help it when she sputtered out a laugh at the memory, and you giggled softly as you swayed back to your tent with your food.

You wondered if something as simple as switching out sugar for salt would be enough to fuck up his day. Or if the guilt building in the pit of your stomach would stop any time soon. After all, Velma Kelly in Chicago was right.

He definitely had it coming. Anyone would have done the same.

...Right?

Careful, Maeve - Nat's not happy.. Not at all...

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Part 5 - I can't go on without you - is being edited!

~ Lucky ☘️

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laura1633 · 1 month ago

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Hi, I associate this blog with a safe space, and I have a need to talk about receving a comment on my fic, you are such a kind person and I guess I need a pick me up of sorts after this (so sorry for spamming your inbox, just .. yeah)

So, it's a lestappen long fic, the longest thing I've ever written and it takes so much time and effort, and I know the most important thing is to write for/me/, but I like feedback, I love when people notice details and tell me what they liked or what was interesting ect, I like questions when someone is curious about what happened and why, where the story is going

What I don't appriciate is a comment that says smth along the lines of "I like your fic but absolutely HATE how Max is in that fic, he's so stupid, why does he act like that, Charles should be with someone else, why max's friends even bother with him, he's boring and I would stop reading the fic if there was only his pov and not other characters"

And I was like, dude, if you don't like it, if it frustrates you so much, go and read smth else! it was like this person missed the whole point of the characterisation and what Max had went through in the fic. And why this person even thought to write it like that? They can feel however they want, I read books when I was frustrated with the main character actions or I had trouble empathising with them but I never thought to write that to the authors face! It was like someone was giving me a compliment on everything else but not the main focus of the story. How the hell am I suppose to interpret that? "Oh, it's great but change everything about the main character becuase he's annoying to me"

It's just so discouraging sometimes. Especially because I tag everything and I always try to make characters motivation belivable so yeah...

And it's so stupid because that person comments on every chapter since the beginning and it was always nice and now like 4 comments about how they don't get how anyone could like Max in that fic lol

It isn't the first time this happened, on my other fic there was a comment similar to that to like "oh, the actions of the main character made me not enjoy the fic, he was bla bla bla and it was a dealbreaker for me" ok, then don't leave kudos and don't freaking comment! I tagged everything, I tagged the conflict, if I wrote it like you wanted there would be no fic because there would be no plot! If you want a character writen a certain way do it yourself! Ugh

Sorry for the long rant, I had to get this off my chest somewhere and I don't anyone to vent to about fanfics.

Thank You so much ❤️ I love your blog 💕

Hi anon,

I’m glad you felt able to send this ask and there is absolutely no need to apologise for ranting about this. I completely understand your frustration. Always feel free to come and vent here.

I know that we all say that the most important thing to do is write for yourself but I also one hundred percent agree with you that given the amount of time and effort we put in it is only natural to want some engagement. It’s always fun when people pick up on little things you add into a fic or enjoy it so much they want to discuss it further. Seeing a nice comment on a fic is an amazing thing for an author.

Sorry that you’ve received a comment like that. Its clear they love a lot about your writing otherwise they wouldn’t be reading the story so its so odd that they would want to focus on a negative. I am the same as you, there have been characterisations I don’t like but I know that that is just a personal preference so I don’t feel the need to put that on the author. I think the process of writing and reading and sharing fanfics is all about joy, even when the topics are dark. Its about someone spending the time crafting something and putting it out there for free for others to enjoy. I don’t think its ever the place to leave negative comments.

I really hope that this doesn’t discourage you. I think some people get very clear ideas in their heads about what they expect a character to do and what they want to happen and then don’t like it when that character acts differently than they expect. Especially when it comes to real people. It sounds like you like to craft more complex characterisations which is what people are like in the real world, people have aspects of them that can be difficult to understand at first. I think thats a really interesting thing to try and get to grips with in fics. It might not make all the characters easily accessible but it adds depth to the story and gives them room to grow. It’s nothing that you are doing wrong.

I’ve seen a few authors receiving comments about readers wanting the story to go the other way and not being happy about the author’s vision but at the end of the day it is the author’s vision that they are bringing to life and they shouldn’t feel compelled to change that because it doesn’t fit what someone wanted. I am sure there are other people out there who understand and enjoy your characterisation.

I agree whole heartedly with you about people writing stuff themselves if they have very clear ways they want characters portrayed rather than leaving negative comments.

Fanfic writers write for free and people spend a lot of time on their fics. They are just trying to share something they have created in the hopes someone else will be able to enjoy it. Fanfics don’t require critiques or reviews, they are all about enjoying and celebrating something together.

Best of luck with the rest of your fic anon <3

#laura1633 asks

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ogatas-beloved · 6 months ago

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Knock Knock

Description: A rash of suspicious disembodied knocking has spread throughout the school and Tsukishima is trying to find who's behind it. Written for JanAUary Prompt #8 - College Setting: College AU Ships: Morgan x Tsukishima Warnings: Slightly suggestive, Usami Dividers

This whole thing had started about a week ago. Morgan had been invited over to Usami's dorm on a Friday night for one of their fairly regular meet ups. When it got there, it had let itself in, as it usually did, and made itself comfortable on the couch. It could hear Usami messing around with something in his bedroom, things clattering to the floor and bumps against the wall. He emerged shortly after from the bedroom, carrying a stack of DVDs and grinning like a mad man.

"Every time I come over for girl's night, you tell me 'oooh this movie's supposed to be soooooo scary'-" Morgan poorly mocked Usami's voice, "If one of these stupid movies doesn't make me piss my pants tonight, I'm actually killing you this time."

He snickered and sat the DVDs down on the wooden coffee table in front of Morgan, "Ohhh, trust me, Morgan. These ones are something special. I had to go through a lot of trouble to even get my hands on them."

Morgan grimaced, "This better not be red room footage or some freak shit like that."

"Ooooh that would be something-" He sighed dejectedly as if disappointed that he hadn't managed to get his hands on real footage of murder, "But no. Just banned horror movies."

Morgan crossed it's arms over its chest and leaned into the plush back of the couch, "Well, maybe one of them will be worth while."

Usami took one of the DVDs out of the case and slid it into the player, but before he could even make it back to the couch, there was a loud pounding at his door. He stopped and cut his eyes at it angrily, stomping over to the door and yanking it open, ready to yell at whoever was there for interrupting their movie night.

When it didn't hear any screaming from Usami, Morgan turned around to see what was going on. He was half leaned out the door, craning his neck down the hallway, looking side to side at rapid speeds.

"What the hell are you doing?" It questioned.

"There's no one here!" He pulled his head back in and slammed the door, "The bastard ding-dong-ditched me!"

"Ugh, that's one of the dumb ass pranks in the book," Morgan rolled its eyes, "Whatever, man, let's just get back to the movies."

Usami huffed and pouted but agreed, he returned to the couch and the two began watching the first movie- but not more than a few minutes into it- the same thing happened again. A furious, aggressive knocking at the door, so hard it was rattling the entire door.

"OH, YOU'RE BACK, HUH?!" Usami shot up and investigated the sound again only to be met with an empty hallway once again.

Morgan quirked an eyebrow as it leaned over the back of the couch to watch him, "Damn, how are they getting away so fast?"

"I don't know, but I'm gonna catch 'em if they do it again!" He turned back to Morgan, he was grinning but a vein was also popping out on his forehead. He was pissed off, no doubt, but he also seemed excited about the prospect of confronting the prankster.

Unfortunately for Usami, he never did get the chance to do that. Throughout the night it happened several more times, each time he would be at the door within seconds- by the end of it he was even waiting by the door for them each time- and yet he still found no one. Usami was getting more and more angry, but Morgan was feeling a bit more anxious about the situation. It couldn't understand how someone was doing this and managing to get away so quickly. Usami's dorm was all the way down at the end of the hall and there weren't any other occupied rooms close by enough that someone should be able to slip off into one.

That night had only been the start. This mysterious, disembodied knocking spread like a plague throughout the campus. Each night multiple different people would report the knocking at their door. It hit all over, dorms in completely opposite sides of the campus reported hearing the knocking at the same time- and no one ever found a culprit when they opened the door.

Which brought them to today, Morgan, Sugimoto, Koito, and Usami were sat together at a table near one of the on campus restaurants, eating their lunch and discussing the rumors that were floating around the college.

"I heard it's a big group of people who coordinated this thing," Sugimoto said, crumbs falling out of his mouth from the sandwich he was currently chewing.

"A bunch of little fucks and when I get my hands on them, I swear," Usami's eye was twitching and he was gripping the table like he wanted to break it in half, "I'm gonna have fun bashing their heads in for this."

"You mean you guys believe its people? You don't think its… a ghost?" Morgan asked.

"No, because that's ridiculous," Morgan looked up when it heard the exhausted sounding voice at its side, Tsukishima was now standing at the end of the table looking somehow more tired than he usually did, "It's just a bunch of punks messing with people."

Morgan pouted and crossed it's arms, "Oh, yeah? How come nobody's seen anything then, huh?"

Tsukishima rolled his eyes, "There's plenty of places they could slip off to after knocking."

"Not by Usami's dorm!" Morgan defended, "His is the only one in use down that hallway, the rest are locked up!"

Tsukishima exhaled through his nose and groaned, "So, they might've broken into one, Morgan."

"Why would they do all that just for some stupid prank?" Koito piped up.

"We're working under an assumption the 'prank' is a distraction from something, maybe theft." Tsukishima offered, "Look, if you guys notice anything out of the ordinary- and I DON'T mean ghostly, report it to me immediately."

"Hmm… Hey, has there been any sort of pattern to the knocking?" Sugimoto asked.

"Pattern? Hmm… No, as far as I know it's been random."

"You have a list of the dorms that have reported it, don't you?" Koito asked, "Can we take a look?"

Tsukishima groaned and rubbed his temples, "Can you all stay out of this? I'm the RA, I'LL handle it. I don't want you three pulling some stupid crap on me."

"You're not handling it quick enough!" Usami cried, "You should let us take over for you, I bet we could find the criminal."

"I don't want YOU doing any investigative work," A look of utter disgust crossed Tsukishima's features, "Not after last time…"

"Awww, but Tsukishima, we just wanna help…" Morgan pouted and looked up at him with the biggest, saddest eyes it could manage.

He sighed and reached into his pocket, pulling out a folded up piece of paper and throwing it onto the table, "Fine. Here's a list of reports including times and dorm numbers. Maybe you can figure out if there's a pattern or not."

Sugimoto took the paper and unfurled it, laying it out on the table between them. The three of them all hunched over the paper, inspecting each report carefully. Morgan gasped as it noticed something about the room numbers, Koito seemed to have picked up on it too, but Sugimoto and Usami still seemed lost.

"Did you see something?" Usami asked.

"Yeah! Tsukishima, look there is a pattern!" Morgan cried.

"It's right. Look, they're hitting corresponding numbers on each sides of the building, skipping a number for the next day, and then going back to that number the following day." Koito pointed.

Tsukishima investigated the numbers himself, he squinted at the paper, "Oh… wow, you're right. That is what they're doing."

"Right! So, if we follow this pattern the next dorm numbers to be hit should be…" Morgan calculated in its head which number would be targetted on each side and then frowned, "Oh… my dorm and Sugimoto's dorm."

Tsukishima nodded, "That's good then, now we have an angle to try to attack it from. I'll need both of you to keep an eye out tonight."

Sugimoto saluted, but Morgan whined pathetically and wrapped itself around Tsukishima's arm, "You can't be seriouuuusss!! By myself??"

"Wh- Yes, why not?!" He tried to wiggle out of Morgan's grasp but its grip was just too tight.

"Tsukishimaaaaaaa, you gotta help meeeee!! Can't you come over tonight?! What if it really is a ghost, I'm scared!!" Morgan sobbed, nuzzling its face into his side.

"I- f-fine! Fine, I'll be there!" Tsukishima agreed, "Now… let go."

"Oop! Sorry!" Morgan released his arm and smiled at him, his face was beat red and he refused to make eye contact, looking off elsewhere in the cafeteria, "Thank you, Tsukishima, you're so sweet."

"Yeah, yeah." He waved Morgan off and grabbed the paper up from the table, "I've… gotta go now. I've got other things to take care of. I'll see you tonight, Morgan."

He gave a quick wave and made his way out, the moment he was gone, Usami was immediately pouncing on his opportunity to get involved too. He grabbed Sugimoto by the shoulders and shook him roughly.

"Well, if Morgan's got Tsukishima, you need a partner too, don't you?! Don't you, Sugimoto?!"

Sugimoto pushed back away from the table and grimaced, "Uh- I don't know about that-"

"Of course you do! I'll be there at 7!"

Morgan sighed and shook its head, "Well, I've got to get to my next class, I'll see you guys later."

"Oh, goodbye, Morgan!"

"Don't leave me here with him-"

Sugimoto's protests fell on deaf ears as Morgan stood up from the table and waved, Usami continued pushing in his direction and insisting on 'helping him' when the pranker came to his door. Morgan frowned as it stepped out of the cafeteria and head toward its class. It was NOT ready for tonight.

At around 7:30 that night, as Morgan was in the kitchen making itself a sandwich, it heard a knock at the door. It panicked and froze up- until it heard the voice on the other side.

"Hey, Morgan, you in there?"

Tsukishima. Morgan had forgotten he was coming tonight. It breathed a sigh of relief and opened the door for him. Immediately it threw its arms around his shoulders and pulled him into a tight hug, smashing his clipboard into his chest as it did.

"Thank you sooooo much, Tsukishima, I would be so scared staying here by myself tonight!"

Tsukishima awkwardly patted Morgan's back and maneuvered himself out of the hug, "It's… no problem."

"Well, make yourself at home!" Morgan stepped aside and gestured into the room.

Tsukishima nodded and slid past Morgan into the living room and took a seat on the couch, Morgan shut the door and joined him, standing behind the couch and peering over at what he was doing. He was intently focused on a page on his clipboard.

"What's that?" Morgan asked.

"Just reviewing the information about the prankster."

"Or possible ghost."

Tsukishima sighed, but smiled softly, "Or possible ghost."

Morgan grinned and leaned further down, practically laying on Tsukishima's shoulder at this point, "So, when I was at Usami's the knock happened around 8 and then it kept happening for about an hour."

"Yeah, I'm seeing a lot of reports of it happening at those times around the school too." Tsukishima confirmed.

Morgan leaned in further, its cheek brushed against Tsukishima's, its breasts pressed against his shoulder, "Uh… Morgan…"

"Hmm?" It looked over at him, immediately noticing how close it was now, "Oh! I'm sorry!" It shot up and walked around the couch, sitting comfortably beside him instead.

Tsukishima's face was bright red, he didn't make eye contact, just continued to look at his clipboard, "It's… okay." He coughed and decided to change the subject, hoping to aleviate some of the tension in the room, "So, Morgan, do you… really think it's a ghost?"

Morgan smiled awkwardly and rubbed the back of its neck, "Uh, well I dunno. I mean, I don't think I… fully believe in that stuff. But… sometimes my paranoia gets to me, ya know?"

"Oh, I… I'm sorry. That must be tough. I'm sorry if I… was rude about it." Well, looks like his attempt to clear some of the tension had backfired.

Morgan shook its head, "No, it's okay. I get it. It is… silly. I just… you know, my brain was having a hard time grasping how quickly they got away from Usami's door the other night."

"Well, that is odd," Tsukishima agreed, "I… don't know if it'll help to hear this, but we did find evidence this morning that someone had broken into the empty dorm across from him."

Morgan sighed, "It does help, a bit… and you agreeing to come here and sit with me even though you thought it was silly helps too, Tsukishima."

Morgan gently rested its hand over his and smiled at him sweetly. His face flushed and without even realizing it, he began leaning it toward Morgan. It matched his movements, their faces inching closer. Tsukishima pressed his lips chastly against Morgan's, it quickly threw its arms around his shoulders and deepened the kiss. Morgan laid back onto the couch, pulling Tsukishima along with it. His hands traveled up its side, pushing underneath its shirt.

He broke away from the kiss and looked down at Morgan, "Is this okay?"

Before it could answer, a loud banging sounded from across the room- the door. Morgan yelped and clung to Tsukishima in fear. He sat up, Morgan coming along with him- he gently rubbed Morgan's back and eased its arms off of him.

"It's okay, it's fine. I'll go check it out."

Tsukishima stood from the couch and slipped over to the door, he peered through the peephole but saw nothing. Morgan followed, huddling up against his side for protection.

"There's no one out there. They must have run already."

Morgan nodded, "They do it fast. But they'll be back, they did it a lot the other night."

Tsukishima and Morgan waited by the door in silence for the second round of knocking, and when it came, Tsukishima was quick to throw the door open, hoping to confront the pranker. But… once again there was no one. He stepped out into the hallway, looking both ways. The nearest dorm was much too far for them to have gotten inside already- but there was a maintenance closet on the other wall adjacent to Morgan's door. They'd have to be very quick, but it was possible they had slipped into the closet.

Tsukishima approached the closet, Morgan peaking its head out of its own door and watching him. He grabbed the door knob- it was unlocked, that was definitely suspicious. He yanked the door open and found- no one. He stood there in shock and confusion, how was it possible? Where had they gone?

"Well?" Morgan called.

He turned to it and shook its head, "There's… no one in there…"

Morgan slid out of their dorm, and over to Tsukishima's side. They both whipped around at the sound of footsteps speeding down the other side of the hallway- Sugimoto and Usami, with two other boys they didn't recognize in tow. One of the boys was bruised and bloody with a swollen eyes, the other was trembling in fear as Sugimoto dragged him along.

"We caught them!!" Usami was grinned madly as he skidded to a stop in front of Morgan and Tsukishima, presenting the pranksters.

Tsukishima stepped in front of Morgan, glaring at the boys, "Names. Now."

The two boys shakily told Tsukishima their names, he took them down on a notepad and nodded. "Who else is working with you?"

The boys looked confused, the one beside Sugimoto spoke up, "What do you mean who else? It's just us two."

Usami whipped around and grabbed his arm, twisting it behind his back, "Don't lie to us!!"

"Ah!! I- I swear I'm not lying! It's only us!" He cried.

"Let him go, Usami." Tsukishima ordered, "If there is someone else, we'll find out later. I've got to talk to administration about this anyway."

Tsukishima turned back to Morgan to find it trembling like an Italian greyhound and tears welling in its eyes, it grabbed his arm and hugged it tightly.

"It really was a ghost, Tsukishima!!"

Tsukishima patted Morgan's head gently and instructed Sugimoto and Usami on what to do with the two pranksters they'd caught. After the four of them were gone, he carefully guided Morgan back into its dorm and sat it down on its couch.

"Tsukishima…"

"Yeah, I… don't know what to tell you about that."

He thought about the knocking, the empty hallway, and the closet. The two boys had been caught at Sugimoto's dorm, which meant they were on the other side of the campus. It was still possible they were lying about there being another prankster, trying to protect their friend, but...

"Will you… stay here tonight?" Morgan asked, "I- I don't wanna be alone…"

Tsukishima nodded and made himself comfortable beside Morgan on the couch. It cuddled into his side and hid its face in his coat. Well, they might be haunted, but that wasn't so bad if it meant he could spend more time here with Morgan. And if anything else were to happen tonight, he'd be here to make sure Morgan felt safe and protected.

#selfshipper #self shipping #self insert oc #self ship #self inserts #self shipper #self ship fic #self ship community #self insert community #self insert #golden kamuy #tsukishima hajime #usami tokishige #falling.into.janauary #mollys writing #rom; 🌙 moonpie #ship; I'd give you the moon #s/i; morgan kneynsberg

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corsair-mercenary-companies · 3 months ago

Note

[dedsiggymessage.omf]

[From a bed in an Eschaton medical bay, Sally stares into the webcam. She is beaten within an inch of her life; bruises, cuts, one eye swolen shut, burned along her arms- no, her arm. The other is missing, a red-bandanged stump in its place. The lioness is in worse shape now than how Postage found her all that time ago. And yet, a toothy, pantheran grin spreads shamelessly across her face.]

Hey Siggy. remember the gift u gave me? well it answers just fine.

[She cackles loudly, but that cackle quickly turns into a wet, red fit of coughs.]

ACKK. ugh. ouchie...

[The front of her hospital gown is stained the hue of her eyes. She doesn't seem to notice.]

anyway... seein how ur fuckin cooked i thought id talk 2 u 1 last tiem. and nott even 2 make fun of u!! can u believe that?!

U know wuts fucking confusing? somethin i think is pretty goddamn funny? theres a part of me that wishes ud live.

not cause i forgiv u. not at all. i hate u so fuckinf much. but i wouldve... lieked u to see wut i do next.

[She yanks her webcam forward, and the manic closeup sways slowly due to her wounds, and a cocktail of sedatives.]

im gonna gett as strong as u Siggy. i dont care if it takes a fuckin 100 years ill surpass u. ill use those years 2 PROVE SOMETHING. hehe. heheHEHAHA! ACK! uGh.

[Her latest giggle turned cough leaves a question lingering in the air. Is Sally still a little high? Blenderr still clouding her brain, just slightly? Her biomods... do they carry the visions and delusions with her for longer?]

[Suddenly it brings the device nearly up to its eye. A crimson pinprick even now.]

things. liek us. DONT. HAVE. TO END LIEK U. SINGAL!! WE DONT!!!

[It huffs and puffs a few times, then pulls the cam back again.]

i know~ u know~ what a raging dick uve been~ i heard it on the broadcast... choking out of u after my cub died. the stims usually make u giggle.

u sent ur favorites after ur fuckass copilot. and its not for revenge is it Signal? 'least not just for that. hehe. u WANT ME 2 BE RITE dont u? some small sliver within that withered husk still has some. hope. that this FUCKING NIGHTMARE can be better~

if i misred u? idk. fuck u and tell Sobek i said hi.

if i read u rite tho... i gott a question. nott a Corsair 2 a traitor or an enemy 2 an enemy nott a mourner 2 a killer.

a little monster working into its prime to a older, stronger, dying beast.

wut mistakes did u make that led u here? wut do i do to avoid the same path? to walk a brighter 1 than u did? if u giv me advice that aint dumb an stupid i might even use it.

[Begin Video Playback]

[Signal sits mostly in shadow. One glowing cybernetic eye peering from the darkness. They're seated, slightly hunched over their silhouette as if you gave a crow a human body.]

So you finally used them....

{A laugh shudders through their body}

You want to avoid being me? Stop the stims. Stop piloting. Retire. Go home.

Because those stims are a curse. Other stims stop working after long enough.... You won't feel rage you'll love every second of killing. Friend. Foe. And at the start you'll be horrified afterwards... And then.... Then you become numb to it. Eventually it'll just spark joy.

Your organs will fail. And your body will collapse.

Piloting is a curse. And those are a one way express ticket to seeing the finish line. Leave the mech. Leave the war. And do what Postage did, what Mac did, what Booker did. And retire.

//Signal\\

#lancer rpg #lancer ttrpg #lancerrpg #lancer #lancer rp #oc rp #corsair mercenary company #lancer oc #oc rp blog #pay your mercenaries #signal in jail

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ninjapotatohead · 7 months ago

Note

Hype culture is just as destructive as outrage culture. I don’t want to make people feel bad. It’s not for the cringe. That isn’t the point. The point is that blind hype is CONSTANTLY dragging Sonic down.

Ive heard the same argument over and over again, “ugh can’t you just let people enjoy it and be hyped it’s FUN!” Literally anything is fun when you don’t think about the consequences of that instant hype and fun. You don’t really think about how this affects the overall lifespan of the character as a whole, you just enjoy that momentary high you get from anticipating a “new Sonic thing” coming out soon and OOOH what’s it gonna be like?!

But then that thing comes out and most are let down and then they immediately run to seek out their next high. You come, you ravage, then you leave.

You’d get about the same amount of “enjoyment and hype” from a sonic shaped box that can either have gold or a pile of shit in it. It’s a gamble, and you are addicted to that feeling of wonder. Even after you discover it’s a pile of shit over and over and over you still come back with the false hope that maybe the NEXT one will actually have gold in it!! But you don’t actually care if it does or not. Those moments before you open the box is all that matters.

That’s not the bad part though, that’s just the human condition. PROVEN human condition I might add.

It’s like watching your friend kick a beehive over and over and instead of telling them to stop or trying to pull them aside, you just shrug and say “Eh let’s just stay positive and see where this goes. I don’t want to be negative and ruin the fun! Look at how much fun we’re having!” Ol and behold your friend gets hurt, everyone around them scolds and mocks them for what a stupid thing they did. But you won’t worry about that. “Next time we’ll just kick the beehive a little differently and be MORE supportive!!”

You’re not helping. You’re enabling.

Why encourage that shit? Cause being positive is good, no matter what the result is?

Just because you CAN be positive about something doesn’t mean you SHOULD, especially if it’s creating an ugly pattern that Sonic’s being put through over and over and you people just keep egging it on.

I will always be the angry old man yelling at clouds on this one but I’m standing my ground.

I said the same shit about No Man’s Sky and people said the same thing to me then. Game came out and people were not happy with it. The devs ruined their reputation.

I said the same thing about Forces, people said the same argument again. Game came out and while a lot of people tried to convince themselves they liked it, over time people began to realize just how flawed and lazy it really is. Almost every respected critic on YouTube has little good to say about it and plenty to mock. And these people aren’t IGN, these are critics and reviewers with real understanding about games.

I said the same thing about Fallout 76 and well you get the idea by now.

Why oh WHY do you keep doing this? You know what the definition of insanity is?

Stop doing the same fucking thing over and over again and expect a different result. Sega doesn’t care if this is good or not. Paramount doesn’t give a shit! I’m starting to think the directors may have their fair share of what Shaun Murray gave us a taste of.

I know you must care. You HAVE to care. I GET not shitting on something for no reason. I understand why keeping a hopeful outlook can be good, but did you know you can do BOTH? I’m hopeful they will CHANGE it. And if they don’t I’m not going to roll over and let Sega have their way with Sonic AGAIN. Of course we’re going to make a stink about it, because we care. You don’t want to shit on it because you care.

We all want the same thing, for Sonic to be GOOD again, but turning a blind eye to its faults and fuck ups for the sake of getting more of that precious high you crave is hurting it more than anything.

I know this is jumbled as fuck but it really pisses me off when people dismiss the justified uproar as just hating or shaming.

Like I always say, the Sonic fandom is its own worst enemy.

#spud's inbox #sonic community nonsense

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strangerfandomfiascos · 7 months ago

Text

Hey everyone :)

I'm participating in WIP Wednesday for the first time ever and I made a poll asking what people would like to see (Link here)

It would be so appreciated if people could give me their thoughts on these snippets of my current WIPs ❤️❤️ Looking forward to posting on Ao3 as soon as I can! Some are much more developed or time pressing than others but I hope to have at least one out before the new year with the rest closely following 😊 Some of these paragraphs are also pretty disjointed/unpolished but lot of them are still in the early writing or editing stages.

Hope you enjoy!

WIP Wednesday Snippets for December below ❄️❤️✨️❄️❤️✨️❄️✨️❤️❄️❤️✨️

Multi-Chapter Steddie Steve Centric Fic (First Chapter)

“I don’t know what to tell you, Robin, I was just so excited for the working week that I couldn’t sleep last night” Steve deadpanned, ignoring the pit gnawing its way through his stomach and making his chest feel a little too tight. Thankfully, the joke had worked as he’d intended as Robin’s expression went from sceptical to straight up disdainful.

“Ugh, don’t remind me! I actually think I might die if it gets any hotter. I’ve tried talking to Keith about fixing the AC and all he does is grumble at me with a mouth full of Cheetos.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. My hair hasn’t looked this shitty since eighth grade, this humidity is awful for it”

“I don’t know about that, sailor boy. You forget that I also worked with you last summer so I know what you tried to hide under that hat when it couldn’t handle the humidity.”

Steve grimaced at the pet-name as his mind was suddenly assaulted by flashbacks of a Russian guard calling him the exact same thing at Starcourt, except he had worn a cruel smile in contrast to Robin’s playful one and had delivered a swift punch to the gut shortly after.

“God, I hated that stupid hat” he said with a shudder “and it didn’t hide shit, it only made me look worse.”

“Well, you don’t have to wear one for this job, at least. Just gotta put up with Keith and assholes who return their video tapes all tangled.”

“I’ll take Keith and tangled VCRs over screaming kids and floors that’ve been puked on any day” Steve replied, and he meant it. Working at Scoops Ahoy had well and truly sucked, even before all of the Russian and supernatural bullshit. He’d only been working there in the first place because his asshole of a dad had wanted to punish and humiliate him for not achieving good grades or getting into college.

‘Since your worthless hide can’t even get into goddamn tech then the very least you can do is find a job lowly enough to take you on so you can learn some fucking responsibility for once your goddamn life’ he had spat at him, full of virulence and contempt with the harsh aroma of whiskey accompanying every last syllable.

If he was being completely honest with himself, which was something that he also sucked at doing, Steve wasn’t entirely sure if he’d even wanted to go to college. He’d applied to the Scott Business School up at Indiana State because he didn’t know what the fuck else to apply for and he’d wanted to keep his dad happy plus stay relatively close to Hawkins so that he could still visit the kids. He’d barely looked into the university itself and it was the same story for the other couple of in-state techs he’d also applied for but in the end it hadn’t mattered, he didn’t get into any of them anyways.

Steddie Winter Exchange 2024 Oneshot Fic

“God, can we just go back to laughing like we were inside earlier?” Steve groaned as he carded a hand through his un-kept hair anxiously.

“Sure dude, I can go back to laughing. I mean, just looking at your hair right now is making me want to laugh my ass off” Eddie said with a wolfish grin.

Steve blushed and touched his hair again, suddenly feeling a little self-conscious.

“Shut up” he laughed nervously as he felt the flush creep up his neck and onto his cold cheeks. “I haven’t exactly had the kind of day that called for making myself look presentable.”

“No no, it’s cool man” Eddie continued to chuckle. “I actually like it when it’s super messy, it’s cute.”

What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the –

Steve could feel himself going even redder and he just hoped that the shimmery glow of the moonlight wasn’t enough to illuminate the colour across his otherwise pale features.

“It is not that messy!” Steve sputtered as butterflies swelled in his stomach, unsure if it was from annoyance, amusement, indignation or something else…

“And it’s not cute! I just haven’t had the willpower to do anything to it recently” he argued as the flutter in his stomach intensified when he felt Eddie’s devilish eyes on him accompanied by an amused smirk.

“Oh come on – you can’t tell me that this isn’t cute” Eddie suddenly leaned forward, grinning whilst he reached out and ruffled Steve’s hair, much to the other’s outrage.

“What are you, Eddie – no!” Steve squawked in protest, trying to lean away from Eddie’s batting hand and falling off his lawn chair in the process. Eddie just continued to laugh hysterically, tossing the his cigarette held in his other hand to one side and following Steve to the floor.

“Munson – hey! Oh my god, stop!” Steve cried, but even he couldn’t contain his own laughter now.

Eddie did not stop. Instead, he tried to pin Steve to the ground and it wasn’t long before the two of them were in an outright wrestling match on the dirty, cold patio floor.

“If it wasn’t messy before, it certainly is now!” Eddie cackled between laboured breaths, wrangling with Steve’s flailing limbs until he eventually lost the upper hand. Steve managed to hook a leg around Eddie’s waist and swiftly flipped the two of them over so that Eddie now lay back flat against the ground and Steve suddenly found himself on top, panting.

Multi-Chapter Edmund Pevensie Centric Fic (First Chapter - Casmund much later down the line)

Peter and Susan had only been five and four when baby Edmund had come along but their young age hadn’t stopped the two of them from being totally awed by the little creature they came home to one morning after spending the night at Aunt Mary’s. They had known that their parents had been expecting of course – there had been many days spent together as a family at home where Peter been diligent in his efforts in helping his mummy carry heavy objects around the house or pulling the chair out for her to sit at the dinner table, whilst little Susan had dutifully brought her sloshing cups of tea and platefuls of biscuits, all under the twinkling, watchful eye of their father. Fascinated by the bump that their mother carried for a number of months, knowing just how precious it was, they had spent countless hours huddled beside her on the sofa watching for the flutter of a kick, their soft fingertips gently feeling for the press of a foot or an elbow or a hand.

They knew what a baby looked like, having seen so many at the park or in London’s bustling streets but nothing prepared them for the one waiting for them bundled up in their exhausted mother’s arms that warm July morning.

It was as though two of them had been put under a spell the moment they had arrived atop of the stairs and peered apprehensively around their parent’s bedroom door, totally transfixed by the sight before them.

“It’s alright my darlings.” Their mother had said softly. “Come closer and meet your little brother.”

Eyes wide with curious mesmerisation, Peter and Susan had cautiously made their way to their parents’ bed where their mother lay whilst the bundle cooed and snuggled into to her. Their father stood beside her, looking tired but proud as he too had beckoned them to sit atop the covers.

“He’s so tiny” Susan had murmured as she had reached out a hand to gently stroke Edmund’s raven black hair and soft, pale cheeks.

“Can I hold him?” Peter asked tentatively, wanting very much to cuddle his baby brother yet being afraid to, for he had looked so small and fragile.

Helen smiled. “Of course you can sweetheart, come and sit up here with me” she’d said, allowing room for her two eldest children to sit closer beside her, being careful not to jostle her as they did so. Peter had nestled into her side whilst Susan had leant on him too before she showed them how to hold their new sibling and gently passed Edmund into the anxiously awaiting arms of Peter.

“What’s his name mummy?” asked Susan, whose wide, star-struck eyes never left the little baby in front of her. Helen looked distant for a moment, her kind features becoming filled with warmth, despite the bags beneath her eyes and her clammy skin.

“Edmund. This is little Edmund” she replied while her husband rested his hand on her shoulder affectionately.

“After your grandfather” he said fondly as he and Helen shared a smile.

“From the Great War?” Peter asked, staring down at Edmund in wonder, allowing him to wrap his tiny hand around his pinkie finger.

“Yes.” his father answered with a hint of sincerity to his tone. “He looks just like him. He’d be so proud of you, my love.” He added, squeezing his wife’s shoulder once more and giving her a knowing look.

“He has our eyes” Helen murmured quietly. “Just as Peter and Susan have yours.”

Multi-Chapter Snape & Lily’s Daughter/Harry’s Half Sister Harry Potter Fic (Prologue/First Chapter)

The forest surrounding Godric’s Hollow shook softly as whispering gusts of wind moved between the skeletons of trees. In the moonlight, each branch glistened with the sheen of autumn frost; each and every shape and shadow standing stark against the forest’s silvery glow. Leaves the shade of singed orange skipped along the cold forest floor with every sigh of the wind and far off sounds of a fox’s screech and an owl’s call could be heard as they were carried through the trees.

In the golden glow of the rustic porch at the back of the Potter cottage, a girl of eighteen sat upon the worn redbrick steps with her long red hair hanging loose past her shoulders and gloved hands wrapped around a steaming mug of pumpkin spiced tea. Her green eyes sparkled under the moon, radiant with you but also heavy with weariness as she gazed out at the looming forest past the red brick wall ending the Potter land.

“Lily?” a voice called from inside, followed by cautious footsteps.

“Out here” Lily called back as her heavy thoughts were interrupted and her gaze was pulled from the abyss of the shadowy forest ahead of her.

“Are you not freezing to death out here?” the voice of James Potter came fretfully from behind her as she turned to see her fiancé stood in the rustic old doorway. “I can feel the draft from the kitchen, are you alright? You’ve been sat out here for almost a half hour.”

“I hardly noticed how much time had passed until now until now” Lily admitted as she turned and gave him a soft smile. “I’ve been too busy staring off into the night.”

“Hmm” James mused. “That forest always frightened me as a child after nightfall, even if I’d spent the day playing in it with my father.”

“I don’t mind it. The sounds of the trees comfort me, even in darkness” Lily replied, eyes still looking to woods beyond the threshold of the Potter garden.

She was about to get up when she suddenly inhaled sharply, back straightening as one of her hands instinctively moving to her stomach.

“You alright?” James asked, concerned.

“She’s moving again” Lily said with a smile. “I doubt it’ll be long now.

James looked pensive for a moment, worry still etched into his features before he offered the red-headed girl a hand.

“Come on. Let’s get you inside, before you both catch your death.”

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georgiapeach30513 · 2 years ago

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That September Night, Part 1

Summary: Unlucky in love, you go against everything you have ever believed, and signed up for The Bachelor. You didn’t want to, but didn’t want to miss out on the experience. You didn’t expect the bachelor to be the ridiculously handsome Nick Vaughan. Didn’t expect an instant connection. But you also weren’t prepared for the drama, the anger, the hate, the worry, the constant cameras, or Nick’s need to steal you away from the cameras any chance he could.

Pairings: Nick Vaughan X Reader

Rating: fluff

Warnings: mild language, the start of gossip, 18+ ONLY

Word Count: 3.9K

Series Masterlist

*dividers created by @firefly-graphics

You smile as you look around the third location of The Bubble Bea Beanery. What started as a cute quaint coffee and tea shop had turned into something so much more. Growing beyond your expectations. The new site was coming along perfectly. You didn’t even have to tell your assistant what you wanted, she just knew. It had the same vibe as the other two locations, but each store had its own unique spin and personality.

Your cousin yells your name as she slings the door open,and you turn to greet her. Spinning around in the store with your arms spread wide and the biggest smile on your face. You were so proud, “So we need to talk,” Chelsea starts off, without even a short sweet hello.

“About what?” Chelsea was always up to something, and always getting you in trouble.

“You know I love you, and I love what you’re doing here. The Bubble Bean is adorable.”

“But?” There was always a but. Especially with the way she had approached this conversation.

“You don’t have anyone to share it with.”

“Ugh,” you scoff, rolling your eyes as you head towards the storage room. Chelsea follows you, wanting to start speaking, but you cut her off, “Do you not think I haven’t tired? You act as if I hole up alone every night in my apartment. I don’t. I just don’t think there’s anyone worth my time. I would rather be single than settle, and…why are you smiling?”

“I did something stupid, but it paid off,” you open your eyes wide as you hold out your arms, glaring at her. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You are smiling, and you said you did something stupid. I’m not doing speed dating nonsense.”

“I’m not asking you to. I…I can’t proceed down this path without your consent.”

“No.”

“You don’t even know what it is,” she counters. Following you as you walk further away. Starting to pack up bags of coffee beans. “I’m trying to help you.”

“No.”

“But I want to help you.”

“Absolutely no.”

“Please, just hear me out,” sighing, you stop your movements and give her your undivided attention. “It’s not the best timing. And before you say anything, just listen. I know you’ve got the third store opening, and there’s still so much to do, but I signed you up for something.”

You roll your eyes because it was always something she was wanting you to do. Cousins, but also best friends. She found love early, and had children early. Now she wanted to live vicariously through you as you navigated trying to find someone that was worth having more than three dates with. “You were approved to go on The Bachelor.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“The season you're on has a music producer named Nick Vaughan on it, and…”

“Shut up! The Bachelor? Like the show we have a FaceTime call every Monday night to watch?” Chelsea nods her head, and reaches into her pocket for her phone before she shows you a picture, “This is Nick?”

“Yep. And I know what you’re thinking…”

“He’s hot.”

“That is not at all what I thought you were thinking. But I’m going to shut up, you work it out in your head. Can I make a bubble tea?”

“No,” you groan, trying to think things through logically. What would it actually feel like to date a guy that was obviously dating twenty other women? To know that you weren’t the only person he was talking to. You wouldn’t be the only person he was spending time with. Was developing sincere feelings even possible? You enjoyed the show, but that didn’t mean you wanted to be on the show. That was a lot to think about.

“We’re on time crunch. There’s other girls that want to be on. And they chose you. I don’t know what the criteria is, and I’m not going to pretend to know, but The Bachelor with that hot guy. What do you have to lose?”

“I’m opening up a new store.”

“And Claudia has made all the decisions. You just told me that yesterday.”

“But it’s not open.”

“Claudia and you hired several new employees. Rick is going to test them on their coffee making skills. Babes, even though you’ve got a new store opening, you’ve got this down. It’s completely perfect. And you can do this. You can go on this stupid show and have fun. Maybe make out with a hot guy, and make your last boyfriend that lasted a total of three months, jealous. You could have that hot man make out with you on camera, and try and get it in. And every man that used the excuse that they weren’t in the right place in their life can swallow rocks while you fuck Nick.”

“You can’t do that. It’s what the fantasy suite is for,” it actually didn’t sound like a bad idea. It sounded fun. But could you trust everyone on your team to make this store happen?

“Okay, you get to travel, have fun, meet this incredibly hot guy, spend time with women exploring different locations, and then there’s this possibility of finding love. How bad could this be?”

“Why would you say that?” You ask, childishly stomping your foot. She knows how superstitious you are, and that was not necessary. “You have ruined everything now.”

“So does that mean you’re going to go?” Chelsea taps her knuckles on the cabinets three times before you ever nod your head yes. You were going to do it, but it was only to have fun.

Nick rubs his hand over his brows, scrunching his eyes. He is annoyed. “Why am I doing this again?”

“It’s good publicity,” Nick’s hand slaps down on the arm of the chair as he glares over at his manager. “You said you didn’t have time to date, and you weren’t into just sex. Here you go. You get to date twenty-six women at once.”

“Sounds exhausting.”

“And they all know that you’re dating all of them,” Nick rolls his eyes, settling back more into his chair. Dating around out in the open when you were the only male, and the women lived together, “Nick, it’s for a few weeks. What is the worst that could happen,” Nick’s eyes turn into saucers as he stares over at his manager, and Mickey taps his knuckles on the table beside him three times.

“Seriously? You know I hate sentences like that.”

“And I did your odd little ritual or knocking on wood three times. You signed the contract though. You’re doing it. Just have fun. Meet women. Enjoy yourself.”

Nick did not think he would enjoy himself. He thinks this show is going to be corny. The only thing he can hope for is maybe some fun. Maybe get to meet some attractive women. But he knows the drama is coming. He knows his normally private life is going to be exaggerated to make it look more exciting on television. Fake dates, and too many women; a lot could go wrong.

Nick looks out at the property of the mansion, shaking his head. The women are gorgeous. They seemed interesting, and first impressions aren't everything, but there was nobody he had met that he actually saw himself with. There could always be something more. But it was starting to feel monotonous.

Gorgeous women. And this was just speed dating. It is all it was. He says his hellos, nodding his head. He’s polite, and notices the camera. They all put on a show for him. They wanted him to remember them. And still they blurred together.

He looks over at the producers, giving them a curt nod as he sighs. “How long is this supposed to last?”

“You signed the contract,” a nameless, faceless producer reminds him.

“Right. Is that all of them?” He had been standing here for ages. When they shake their heads, he lets out a dramatic puff of air. “She’s late?”

“Yes. Her driver.”

Nick wants to fire the driver. “Is she the last one?” Another nod from the producer. This is what he didn’t like. Things weren’t in his control here when in real life they normally were. He was the director of things in the studio. He told other’s what to do. And now he was being controlled by people he didn’t know and a bunch of giggly women. He is already exhausted thinking about it.

“Finally,” Nick whispers as headlights shine on the damp pavement.

Pursing your lips, you exhale slowly as the car rolls into place. He looks annoyed. This was a terrible idea. He couldn’t even look at the car. The driver couldn’t find your location. You knew you were going to be the first to be sent home. You couldn’t even see his face. He was disinterested before even meeting you because of something beyond your control.

Grabbing onto the door handle, you pull the lever, and step out of the car. Nick’s head tips forward, and your eyes lock in with his crystal blue eyes. “Hey,” he says with a boyish grin.

“Hey,” you smile back. His pictures didn’t do him any justice. He is handsome, but it was so much more than that. There seemed to be a young mischievous quality about him. You give him your name, and he pulls up your hand up to his mouth, kissing over your knuckles.

“I’m Nick.”

“I know,” he hadn’t dropped your hand, and you had no intention of removing it. “I’m sorry. I’m nervous.”

“I was,” you clear your throat, looking down to the ground. It was too soon. You did not want to be the one saying you were in love the first night. “So…uh…what do you do?”

“I own a couple coffee shops. Putting up the third.”

“I love coffee. What’s it called?”

“The Bubble Bee Beanery,” Nick’s eyes somehow get brighter, and his smile widens. His thumb starts making shapes on the top of your hand, and you become even more nervous. Who was this man to get you to act like a school girl?

“You’re a New York girl?” Staring at him confused, you nod your head. “Upper East Side?”

“Yes,” your word drags out. Had he done some research on you ladies, and he just knew it was you.

“I love the Bubble Bee. My order is the Metropolitan. I don’t always get to go in there; my assistant gets it most of the time. I prefer the flagstone store. And…that’s yours? I’ll admit the bubble tea is not really my thing, but the coffee is top notch. Naming specialty drinks after parts of the city is cute. It’s just good coffee. Not too gimmicky. And you did this show for what reason?”

“To hopefully find love. Isn’t that why you signed up?” You couldn’t tear your eyes away from him, even if you wanted to. He still hadn’t quit touching you. His hand was steadily in your own.

“Yeah. Yeah, I did,” his eyes coast up and down your body, admiring every bit of your soft curves. You are surprising to him, in the best way possible. Not at all stuffy like the other girls. There was a playfulness. A soft quality. While everyone else was just trying to be sexy, you are being lighthearted.

“You should probably head in for cocktails.”

“Will I get to talk to you the rest of the night? Or are you going to mingle some more?”

“I have to mingle. But I definitely want to see you out in the garden. Just you and me. Bring a drink,” a producer beckons Nick over to him, and Nick runs his thumb and forefinger over his beard. Making you weak, and visioning sinful thoughts about him. Maybe this experience isn’t going to be too bad. And maybe you could at least have some fun. You did like what you were seeing.

It feels weird to be in a house of women that are looking at one guy. The same guy that you couldn’t keep your eyes off. The very man that you had to keep telling yourself that he was not locking eyes with you. He couldn’t be sitting on a couch with four other women, and his sight drifting to yours. That was most definitely not what was happening. Never.

Nick stands from the couch, giving each lady a nod before walking right over towards you, his hand going towards your free hand, “What are you drinking, bellissima?”

“Are you Italian?”

“Not that I’m aware of. But beautiful just seems a bit too cliche tonight. Bellissima has a spark. What’s in your cup?”

“It’s a whiskey sour.”

“Hmm,” he says with a grin, pulling your hand into his. “Follow me. Let’s get a bit of privacy.

Holding onto your hand, he leads you outside, and you hear whispers immediately. Could feel eyes stabbing in the back of your head. You were going to be talked about. You had seen the show enough that anytime a girl was pulled away from the group, everyone had something to say. You didn’t go to Nick, he came to you. Now you were a target.

He sits down, and pulls you right along with him. His arm wraps around you. “If we were here, I would have already taken you home.”

“What makes you think I would have followed you? I’m not that kind of girl, Nicholas.”

“Oh, she likes using the whole name when she’s calling me out. So, what kind of girl are you, Bella?” Your brow perks up, and you find yourself leaning slightly more into him. “I can’t go around calling you bellissima in front of the other ladies. They’ll get jealous. So, Bella, what kind of a girl are you?”

“Someone who wants a partner. I can do life by myself. I just want to enjoy life with someone. I don’t need a man, I want a man. Have our shared moments, create new memories, and have fun.”

“Well, this show is for marriage,” you’re not an idiot. You knew it was for marriage, and respond with a grin, and a slight nod. “Clearly, you want to be married, so that’s good.”

“And what about you? Is marriage something you’ve wanted?” There is something oddly liberating about not holding back with this line of questions. Both of you knew the end goal, and that was marriage. You didn’t have to go through months of dating only to realize he didn’t believe in marriage. Or waste your time because you were not the girl he wanted to marry, he had a different vision. It was always an excuse, but it was never you they wanted.

“I’ve always wanted marriage. I’m a bit of a hopeless romantic. I find women nowadays don’t align with what I want.”

“Oh,” he had to have a flaw. And here it was. He was going to tell you. He had a sick idea of a housewife that had no personality. Of course he had to have something wrong with him.

“I want…I think people see me as a way to meet celebrities. I want to be able to bring my girlfriend, or wife with me to parties, and events. I just don’t want her to run off with one of the artists I’m working with. They have the fame, and the adoration. I have the talent behind the scenes, why would they want me?”

“Why would they not?” He gives you a serene smile, but you know he’s been hurt. From the sounds of it more than once with a cheating girlfriend. “If someone is going to leave you like that, or cheat on you like that, they never loved you to begin with. It was a means to find someone else. I hate cheaters. I’ve never understood it. Just leave. Cheating hurts everyone involved, and nobody realizes that until it’s too late. Oh…”

You take a deep breath in as Nick’s nose touches your own. His cologne mixes with the beer he had been nursing, and it makes you dizzy. It isn’t until he pulls your drink out of your hand that you realize that your legs were laying over top of his. Things felt comfortable, and you had only met this man.

“I’d like to kiss you,” Nick’s lashes flutter on your cheek, and you want nothing more than to touch his lips with your own.

“You say that to all the girls here,” it was the first damn night, and every movement of your mouth has your lips brushing up against his.

“They’re boring. Let me kiss you,” you respond by puckering your lips and pulling him into you. You had told yourself that you wanted to have fun, and didn’t want to hold back. You didn’t believe you could find true love on this show, but getting to kiss a sexy man was worth it.

“She’s already kissing him,” Nicole says as she marches back to the other girls. “She’s going to be a problem. She’s a fast mover. She probably said something to him when they first met. He couldn’t take his eyes off her.”

“It’s the first night. She’s just trying to get a rose,” Holly sighs. Everyone was here for the same thing, and that was him. It sucks that she wasn’t the one to get a kiss, but she couldn’t fault you.

“No, they’re totally making out. It’s the first night.”

You have to pull away from Nick, gasping for air as you stare into those bright blue eyes. Noticing all the different shades that made up the color blue that was unique to him. “You felt it?” He whispers. “Don’t play games, Bells. I’m not. You’re getting the first impression rose. I’ve…I need some air.”

There was a difference with kissing him. Nothing had ever felt better. Nothing has ever even tasted better than his lips. His tongue. And there were cameras capturing it all. Even the tightness of his pants, and quick departure.

Jena grabs the card, squealing as she starts to open it, “Make sure you’re laser focused,” after she says your name with the other group of girls, you lose interest. You are going on a group date, with something that involves lasers, and you are getting to see Nick again.

“So is he a good kisser?”

“Hmm?” Looking up from your bland coffee, you stare at one of the nameless contestants. You couldn’t keep up. There were so many of them.

“You going to play innocent when Nicole saw you and Nick kissing. So was he any good?” You didn’t have to listen to this. You aren’t opposed to making friends, but the point of the show wasn’t them. It was him. “That bad or that good?”

“What do you want me to say? Nick and I kissed. I’ll admit to that, as to everything else it doesn’t matter. I’m going to get dressed for the date.”

“He left the cocktail hour. Barely talked to anyone. Maybe her kiss was the one that was so bad he couldn’t stand being around her.”

“She got a first impression rose. I don’t think it was a bad kiss.”

“And he still asked her for a group date.”

They weren’t slick, or quiet. No wonder there was always so much drama on here. You could hear everything. And you learned quickly that if you didn’t hear it someone would tell you what you missed. A constant trying to pit everyone against each other. It was going to be a long seven weeks. If you made it that far.

Laser tag. Of course that’s what the date card meant. And of course you being caught making out with Nick had everyone immediately wanting to go up against you. Not all could. You had to be put into teams. Your team got lucky, you’re an excellent shot.

“Oof!” You choke out as someone pulls you into a hidden alcove of the arena. Back slamming against the wall, and then the softest touch of his fingertips run down your side, “Nick, we can’t…”

“I had to see you. There’s never enough time with you. There’s no cameras here. And I can’t stay away. You feel it right?” Biting at your lip, you nod your head. Trembling as his hands grips to your hip. Fingers digging into your skin, while his thumb makes shapes on your stomach so tenderly. His hand rests on the wall beside your head, and you suddenly understand all those romance novels. This is the perfect angle for him.

“You’re getting a rose,” he informs you, biting at his lip. Unsure of whether this was part of the show or not, but you liked it.

“I don’t need you to tell me that.”

“I want to be open and honest with you about what I’m thinking. You’re getting a rose. You’re not going anywhere, and from how I feel right now, you’re not going anywhere anytime soon. I need you to stay and see where this goes. Kiss me.”

Shaking your head no, you pull him closer. Your hand drops the laser gun and you run you shaking fingers up his back, “You better kiss me, or I’ll make sure Nicole gets a good shot at you.”

“This is too fast,” was it the show or getting caught up in the feelings that made people fall so fast. When you watched the show you laughed at these women. Now you understand. You could see it happening, and feel it right before your eyes. It didn’t even feel free.

“So? This is not a normal way of dating. This is entertainment for millions, and this kiss is just for us. Kiss me like you wanted to last night. No cameras. No bullshit. Just…” your hand coasts to his neck, and you pull him into you. Slotting your lips on his, and the hand beside your head moves to the back of your neck, and he presses his weight into you.

Breathless isn’t even the word. It’s shocking. Lightning sparks through your veins when his tongue licks over your lips, and you grant him access. Whimpering in his mouth, and clinging to him so tightly. This wasn’t a normal first kiss. This was just the beginning of passion. Had this alcove had more room, you would have been pulling him to the floor.

Nick starts ghosting his lips down your jaw, settling on your neck, and gives you a tiny little nip. Rolling his hips into your body, “Nick, we can’t.”

“I want to.”

“I want to, too, but,” your words drown out as his mouth dips even lower on your body. “Nick, please.”

“I love that word coming out of your mouth,” you mewl as he kisses down your chest. Fingers weaving through his hair. “My god, Bella…”

“Stop. Stop stop,” he stands up immediately, staring at your kiss bruised lips. “They already hate me.”

“I saw the footage. It seems to just be a couple that hate you.”

“I watch the show. I know how girls can be. Just…I like this, but we have a contract. And not all of us want to buy ourselves out of it. This was fun.”

“Maybe, we’ll do it again?”

It was cruel. Having to follow someone else’s rules, and not just your own. They weren’t even Nick’s rules, but the studios. “You know where to find me,” you playfully answer, and his eyes drift down your body as you begin to leave.

“I’ve got a rose just for you,” and let the games begin.

Masterlist

Taglist: @tis-thedamn-season @marveloustaylortot @pono-pura-vida @sstan-hoe @missusbarnes-rogers @peaches1958 @seitmai @smile1318 @andydrysdalerogers @cjand10 @midnightramyeoncravings @maroonsunrise83 @kmc1989 @patzammit @misshinson @jlw2334 @sebsgirl71479

#that september night #the bachelor #the bachelor au #nick vaughan #nick vaughan x reader #nick vaughan x fem!reader #nick vaughan x y/n #nick vaughan x you #nick vaughan fanfiction #nick vaughan fics #nick vaughan fic #chris evans #chris evans character #before we go

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stuck-in-my-past · 1 day ago

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1:47 currently it is just soo.. Lately with everything going on I have been feeling well low? I cried the other day thinking of the worst. I know i shouldn't bee thinking so negatively but I just broke a bit. Felt like my whole world was crumbling down once again. Instead weirdly enough I thought of what my family and friends would tell me to do, a deep breath to compose myself. hmmph composure yea right more like after I finally stopped sobbing. I have to put on a brave face even if it does feel so bleak nothing to strain myself just try to focus on today on my current thoughts. Anyway I thought of Leon~ I know I know it's like I'm obsessed with him I'm not I swear. Believe it or not when I was younger I was actually afraid of him yea ,like whenever he appeared I was somehow scared he was gonna beat me up or bully me for some reason. One of the only characters I felt lame around if such a thing is possible I now tend to think I'm pretty cute but that's not the point. So right now with the fan blowing in my face it kinda feels like I can't breathe at times not like I'm drowning but you ever been on a car ride and the window down you're going a bit too fast you have to pause to take a breath? Yea like right now probably cause I haven't gotten much sleep and lately my body is soo hungry probably stress i sometimes stress eat ok shh …… The thought of having someone in bed next to me just keeping me calm and at ease. He would probably tell me some cheesy joke or corny line about never giving up into despair? He seems the type not like nagito type he wouldn't force you to hope but yea like a nudge here and a "don't worry buddy"while he ruffles your hair giving you a warm smile that makes you smile and even giggle a bit. Personally I think his smile is so precious like aww my heart but also like I could stare at you for hours

I toss and turn staring at the ceiling the wavy texture slowly morphing into vivid images in my mind like a moving picture wow who knew a popcorn ceiling could be so entertaining. I turn my head glancing at my floor lamp Ugh I really should turn it off not like I'm even actively using it. you're just wasting electricity my father would say. With a deep breath I glance at the clock mot really paying attention instead my mind focuses on the vivid red light. With that I groan grabbing at my arm man lately its like my scars and heart have been hurting lately. Not like I don't take care of them or anything just been hurting a lot more lately don't know why same with my neck. The other day I remember my dad asking me if I wanted to play on the piano (keyboard) I didn't but he did show me some music he enjoyed back in his day, also told me about his life growing up. It makes me wonder if I'm some kind of mistake I feel so soft compared to my parents the hardships they've been through and here I am just crying alone in my bed like every other time something awful happens. Sire I try to help others bit only.. god I feel so pathetic crying just for crying. Stupid I know you feel bad for crying? quell yea I do.

With that as I sniffle wiping away my tears I try to listen to music but instead I feel like such a coward calling him ..Especially at this hour. Ugh I feel so weird I want to be comforted by why by him? either way I snort the moment I hear a slight groan on the other end. "hmm ugh.. Hello? " I freeze I press mute before giggling to myself, is this dumb..no seriously this is probably a stupid idea but I did it, I called him for a reason why? why now… why now is my mind my brain bringing up the possibility he's with her. Eww I feel weird I could have just asked her she's supposed to be a friend right so why not her ? Sorry Evie I swear I'm not trying to make it weird but now I kinda have to admit that I do feel a bit weird . A soft huff on the other end his voice more alert concerned even " Uh..Hello.. Lilly?…can you hear me?…Did you fall asleep on your phone again?" Some sort of guttural sound not even a squeak more like a growl as I try to respond unmuting my phone. instead all he heard was me babbling no stammering trying to speak, embarrassed I take a deep breath and exhale trying to calm my nerves. "Ahh~sorry just..had a question but it feels so dumb now..seems so trivial but now I just kinda feel like a fucking dick for calling you so late"

A chuff escapes from his lips before he could actually speak his mind. He sinks back into his chair his hands running through his hair before scratching his head. His tone canty he sniffles "Must be a hell of a question" a soft hum " Well shoot then don't got all night, well" He glances at his car radio the clock staring back at him he fiddles with the knob lowering the volume.. With a slight panic in my voice I small hard trying to think of something to say. Shit what the fuck do I ask now?? Hey come over I'm sad and need to be told everything is gonna be alright. don't mind that I'm the one who called first in the middle of the fucking night?! I shake my head trying to think think think think girlie!! Instead all I can hear is a fucking metronome in my head, or is that my heart ugh god stop being soo.. A deep sniffle I yawn "this is kinda embarrassing but can you come over? like its kinda like.. I'm sad and like I don't know I feel like you're always good at helping people.. " I can hear his huff " Oh so I'm like the resident cheerleader then. great yea sounds wonderful .. Sure why not not like I got anything better to do" I wanna ask if he's being sarcastic but I can hear him start up the car as he hangs up. Oh why do I feel so stupid..so soo guilty I should be fixing my own problems .. right?

As soon as I hear a knock at my door he sends a message "I'm here I guess" I make my way to the door I look through the peephole and laugh he looks so silly from this angle. With a thin smile I wave him in. He rolls his shoulders making himself comfortable on the couch rubbing his eyes. Based on his expression I take it he hasn't been getting much sleep either. Do you want me to-" he cuts me off "Nah nah its fine" With that he crosses his arms his face looks pitiful I feel a pit in my stomach. "So what is it What's your issues..what's on your mind?" he continues.

#personal writing #eww i'm worried I come off as pining #unfinished work ♣

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biteyoubiteme · 4 months ago

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Hiii hello how are you? Are you looking for compensation after reading this fic and want a direct line to scream through? Look no further because ill prob be screaming the same things you want to at ash until the day i die. this is all spoilers btw-

I love ashs writing its not even funny like i could go on and on about this. I did not think i would ever be as speechless as i had been after finishing heartworm but ash has outdone herself and shoved a knife right into my beating heart that only bleeds for her. Even just opening this i did not know what to expect i have been working with ash for the event but only a little bit, there is hardly any crossover for our fics so i went in so blind and reading this line- ‘there was a girl loved by death’. AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH ALREADY ASH YOU HAVE ME- how i was silenced, i know its simple but it feels so like a book opening like not a book opening but a book that i have in my mind opened to witness all that is coming next-

At the start of this im so hooked on you have no idea it feels hazy like foggy, dark, and dare i say mysterious. The Hunt would love a chase, and you don’t want to become their next.

I love the lore ive been a nerd for a long time and eat up anything that has to do with the wild hunt and reading this just fixed me and broke me but mostly fixed me.

And he’s the one who’s plagued you with his attention. Death. “Why do you keep your back turned to me?” he says. “I frighten you. That hurts.” His voice lilts with amusement and sharpness. “I wish that you would face me.” You’re not fond of the way that he speaks to you with a familiarity. THE ALLURE PLS HAVE MERCY ON MY SOUL i love this so much i can feel the way his voice is in the woods now. Its such a start to a fic i'm so in love.

And though he sounded entirely playful, you are shaken by the sorrow that you find in him now that you’ve turned. Even more so, you’re not sure why you feel it echoed somewhere in the hollows of your bones. “I’m sorry,” you say. It trembles terribly. You want to say that you’re sorry you caught his attention, but it seems you’ve always had his attention. It’s more that you are petrified down to your marrow that the time’s come that you face this… strange infatuation. Here he stands: the one who leaves hollowed out husks of creatures at your doorstep. Should you run or thank him? Is Death as prideful a creature as the other kinds that inhabit Aethera? “I don’t mean to…” THE FEEEEELLLINGS I HAVE AAAASSSSSHHHH PLLLLSS His voice is even more magnetic now that he’s so close. I'm attached to him in an unhealthy way.

“Nothing is more certain than that I will greet every living thing eventually. I’ll come to take you, too, when the time comes.” knowing what i know now i could but rip at you with my bare hands after seeing this line again-

“Yeonjun.” He tilts his head, strands of sparrow hair brushing over his watching eyes. “Most don’t know it, but you’re not most people, are you?” Your breathing had just begun evening out. It’s a shame, the way that it kicks back up at the way he looks at you. “What do you mean?” you say, but of course you know. Nobody else is given dead things like you. Ugh a gift, i love the power in names and in a fic like this feels so heavy and im just eating it up its hitting me and it hurts im covered in bruises-

then landing on your eyes where he searches and finds something that sends his throat bobbing with a thick swallow. “I don’t mean to be your monster. It’s only that…” He steps back again. “You remind me a terrible amount of someone I once knew.” I DONT MEAN TO BE YOUR MONSTER STTTTTTOOOOOPPPP IT NOW STOP-

All the stories that you recall being told, all those cautionary tales passed down through word of mouth around a fire, end with some stupid girl thinking that the monster could be changed or tricked. You’re willing to bet that the man in front of you, no matter how human he looks or how enchanting his words are, could be neither. Ugh i love your writing someone take me out

Having a face for the thing that’s made your life the way it is is strange. Seeing him in the flesh, with handsome eyes and a taunting mouth, looking something near human, you think you’ve come to resent him for it. How dare he ruin your life? He, more than anybody, should know how fleeting life is. What is in it for him to deface what little time you have? You keep going back to that thought: why did he ever even appear to you in that forest? There is not one story in which you remember Yeonjun showing his face to those he hasn’t come to claim. Death makes his visits swift and purposeful. When i tell you how i would never be able to get over this fic like just this alone uuuuggghhh

AND THIS knowing death has come i love it sm Now, more than ever, he should keep his distance. You know one thing that you’re sure nobody else does: Death’s come to visit.

And i love this feeling him before seeing him the same kind of feeling as the start with the woods i love it i love it i love it sm A chill trickles down your spine. You feel his presence before you even see him; it’s a feeling that you used to get fleetingly, as if something far away was tugging at you. But then he became real, a living thing in front of you that can touch, and that is much different.

Continuing to blink at you, his eyes narrowed in a strange grimace, Yeonjun says, “Death follows me, too.” when i tell you im here sitting in my living room on the edge of my seat- like knowing more of his lore just puts me out bc i know this is going to be painful “I loved a girl from this village once. When I was human, no less than you.” You falter, mouth falling open to ask all the questions that flurry through your thoughts. You settle on one. “You were human?” “I was,” he says ruefully. “And I had everything. I had the love of my life. I think that even the most bitter of creatures on this island had envy for our love. She would braid dandelions into my hair, and then I’d braid them into hers.” He swallows thickly and pauses, as if the wound was still festering and fresh. “And then she died. She died starting our family. She died because of me, in my arms.” STOP IT ASH COME PAY FOR MY THERAPY RN RIGHT NOOOOWW So I went where I shouldn’t have gone, and angered something much bigger than myself. They thought it would be a fitting punishment for me to live an eternity, the King of Death who could not bring back his dead lover.” ASSSSHHHLLYYYNNNN IM SUING YOU

Yeonjun’s already on it. He puts his knees into the dirt and dried wheat to kneel by it, running his hand over the beast's pelt in long strokes. The small buck flinches at first but relaxes once he learns that his touches are gentle, not the gnashing of hungry teeth ready to make him a meal. Blood runs like lead through your veins. You say, “Can we help it?” He shakes his head. “He’ll die.” Whip-lashed, you swallow thickly. He says it so unphased, and you’re sure he is. You can hardly make yourself mirror that serenity that he exudes as he runs his hand over its flank, but you get on the ground beside him anyway. Eventually, he’s gone. Quiet and at peace, no longer hurting. This time, when you look over to Yeonjun who still smooths over the deer’s skin even as he goes, guiding him delicately into whatever greets us when we go, you see death as a gentle thing. When i tell you i love scenes like this, small but in comparison but overall so impactful to the characters, i eat them up and its so soft and gentle i love it sm-

Sometimes, sitting here with him when his face is made soft by the orange glow of the fire he puts on, you forget what he is. “Do I scare you?” “No.” “No?” he echos, pushing himself up so that he leans back onto his palms. “Isn’t that strange? Pretty little thing says she’s not afraid of death, but her heart races when I’m near. Her sweet heart jumps at just the brush of my leg. Are you sure you’re telling me the truth, love?” Your blood roars in your veins, inflaming your cheeks and making your head dizzy. Nobody’s ever looked at you like that before. Hair prickles on your skin. “Yes,” you breathe. Ugh the intimacy in nothing but a question and i love the parroting back of the ‘no’ and the term of endearment being love- ive melted

It sounds like he’s barely holding the gates on something endlessly consuming. Something that might break loose on the two of you, and leave you changed forever with its hungry, gnashing teeth. His head hits your collarbone. “Tell me to stop. Please, tell me to go. Because I don’t know how.” ID LET HIM EAT MY HEART “-All I’ve ever done is ruin. All I’ll ever do is ruin. I won’t ruin you; not again.” That rings bells somewhere outside the heavy fog that’s infiltrated your mind, but they don’t sound too alarming when he looks as though he wants to drag his teeth over your heart to taste its beating. UUUUUUUUUGGGGGHHHH

A strong moment of silence- “I want you to beg me for it,” rumor has it that user biteyoubiteme has not recovered from this line.

It reeks of mud—everything around you begins to smell of earth and decomposition.You know that if you open your eyes, you’ll find yourself sat upon the pale white steed of the Undead King, its eyes white and its knobby knees almost as famous as the leader of The Hunt himself. YOU DONT GET IT I LOVE THIS SM i love the wild hunt lore i love this vibe i love this feeling i love this- And when it does, your blood begins to sing along. The wind whips your cheeks and your hair, and you begin to laugh with them. The Hunt twists and turns and dances through the air, an apparition in the night, but nothing more than that.

AND THE HAPPINESS I FEEL- i know that i will only feel pain i felt it coming i know it is bc i've read it already and also because this moment was a bit haunted with the notion that i knew death was coming- Your legs threaten to give out on you, veins still thrumming, but, oh, do you feel alive.You feel more alive than you ever have, more than you ever could have hoped to have known. Mind spinning, you stumble. Yeonjun catches and steadies you before you can go scraping your knees on a rock.

Im going to start sobbing now- You’ve come to adore his wicked delight, the way his smile cracks over his face and the facetious raise of his brows, more than you fear it.

“...Huh?” Your belly goes up in knots; terrible knots done up tight and fast. Ash fix this wrong you have created, this hurt that has come to take from me pls- When you can no longer fight the strangling tightness in your lungs and your dress is as heavy as your heart, you take off. And it hurts so much because your writing is just so good like im rolling around on the floor bc i know the pain is here and now-

And you assume you sound like a choking, dying animal with how you choke and heave on them, but he was the one you might’ve dropped your head and cried to, so what’s the use of making it pretty? No; you let it all fall as it is. Pov this is me at the end of the fic lol <333 hehehehe so cute so fun so not heart wrenching-

There’s a few beats of long, dreadful quiet as he takes in the state of you. He drags his eyes down and they become liquid flame—something different from the impious delight that he is made of. He becomes the King of Death. Okay pause a bit bc is it wrong for me to be like- ‘oh hey hottie’ like in this moment like it was only for a second but-

“Don’t do this,” he says. “Let me hold you while it hurts. Don’t push me away. I can’t… I won’t lose you again.” yeah im paying for my sins for finding him hot in that moment because now im in pain again hahahahahah yay!

“No. That’s not fair. I have spent an eternity loving you. I spent the entirety of my immortal, monstrous life searching for you, just so that I might find you in any form. I would have been glad to find you as a leaf in a tree, as long as I found you. But, then, I find you alive. Alive and back, as if… it never happened.” He steps toward you, aching to be near you. His voice wavers. “Please, don’t do this to me, love. Please, just let me have you again. I’ve waited… I’ve waited and I’ve waited, and I finally have you, and now you’re looking at me like I… Like I’d ever hurt you. Finding death—finally getting to die would be worth nothing if you weren’t there with me. It was never about that.” ha ha hA HA HAHA ASH WHY WHY WHYWHY WHY WHY- HUH YOU LIKE HURTING ME? HUH? YOU FIND THIS FUNNY? Real tears REAL ones came down my face like say sike rn pls pretty pls take it back and delete it pls :))

A gentle breeze makes your hair dance, but it does not whisper anything to your ears. Something’s circling over head, but it doesn’t caw in the cadence of his laughter. I love your writing sm dont play with me.

But entirely familiar in the face of your best friend. That shine in its eyes as it stands there, nose still twitching, makes your chest tighten up. sobs -

You’ve killed again, in every way that counts. Sobs harder wtf ash-

Now this is the moment i knew i was in trouble, ash has come to collect her dues on some long lost list of transgressions ive done in a past life- “Bread?” you say and slant your lips into a smile. Bringing it up, you offer it to him. His smile wrinkles his nose and curls at the edges. Entirely him. Yeonjun accepts the bread, ripping a bite out before throwing it away into the sea of green. Once he’s chewed, he leans in and captures your lips in a kiss that’s utterly at odds with his sharp mouth. Your lips move over each other gently, save for an indulgent nip or bite here and there. He pushes you back into a bed of sweetgrass, never letting your lips go. Not to breathe, not to say something that’ll pale in comparison to the sweetness of your mouths on one another. He kisses you until he’s had enough to fulfill a lifetime without it, and then some more. The moment starts so simple, over bread like its nothing- simple enough like a paper cut i swear because it burns and im bleeding tears- “My love forever. I waited for you so long, and I would do it again.” Lowering his voice to a honeyed whisper, he adds, “I would find you no matter what.” ruin me why dont you- still just two forms bending the grass into your shapes. Kill me in the worst way-

“I know,” he says. And this is the line that broke the heart of user biteyoubiteme- she has died dead and will never come back from the dead, you can all blame user @hyukascampfire <333333333

“Will you be with me? I won’t be there alone?” He tucks some hair behind your ear reverently and then leaves his hand there. “I don’t know,” he answers. “But I won’t leave you. I’ll stay right here with you.” YOU LIKE SEEING ME CRY DONT YOU HUH? YOU LOVE HURTING ME? YOU LOVE TWISTING THAT KNIFE HUH? HUUUM?

Maybe, in some years, somebody might dig up your bones and find you immortalized like this in your love. Your bones bowing toward each other, as if even death were not enough to stop you from reaching for each other. Or maybe they’ll just find yours, and Yeonjun still curling into them how you know he will for an eternity more. Either way, the going is still slow and gentle, as death always is. This reblog was made in loving memory of cam, otherwise known as user biteyoubiteme on tumblr dot com, slain at the hands of ashlynn, otherwise known as user hyukascampfire on tumblr dot com, to show your condolences read this fic in its entirety over and over again to share even a fraction of her pain-

ash you're getting my therapy bill sent to you

THE TERRIBLE HALF-TRUTHS OF THE UNDEAD ҜING

⠀(🍂 ) 𝓡EVENANT in folklore, a revenant is a spirit or animated corpse that is believed to have been revived from death to haunt the living ... ( 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑦𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑡 )

1︎5.5k revenant!yeonjun · ƒ ! r ft. soobin ⸺ ✴︎ 𝖿𝖺𝗇𝗍𝖺𝗌𝗒 ... smut, violence, angst, death, animal death & vivid descriptions of animal death, major character death, unprotected sex, cumming inside, dry humping (because bring it back), biting, dom yeonjun sub reader, mentions of death in childbirth, reincarnation, teasing, breast worship, yj calls reader ‘my love’, def some typos

🪶 ⦂ how fun is this collab? :,) this fic was so fun to write. i personally believe that tsfawc enjoyers will love this one,, but you'll have to read it to confirm that, right? hehe. and of course, go read everybody else's if you love this one! they're all set in the same world, and everybody worked so hard on these fics. send some love their way!

rꫀׁׅܻblogs & asks arꫀׁׅܻ always apprꫀׁׅܻciatꫀׁׅܻd!

𝒪𝑁𝐶𝐸 𝒰𝑃𝑂𝑁 𝒶 𝒯𝐼𝑀𝐸, in a land far, far away, where the treetops touched the soft clouds of the sky and the water sparkled under the glowing sun, where mountains rose high, and long, deep caves ran through them, where the sea met shore in collisions of swirling, foamy punches, where the undead walked among the living, where the winged flew above the finned, there was a land where things beyond reason and rhyme existed perfectly true. Among those strange beings and within the veils of Aethera, there was a girl loved by death.

He sits on your shoulder, a dark, boding shadow and glared at those around you with promise in his eyes.

That’s how it seems, anyway. That’s how everybody looks at you. They dodge you, whisper about you, evade your gaze as if he might reach his claws for them next if they linger for too long.

Crows with dead eyes arrive at your doorstep like some lover’s cheeky gift, other poor creatures like fat grey mice are left to rot in the wheatfields, and yarrow stocks wilt outside the wall of your room. If Death thinks that you are flattered, he misunderstands you. You are terrified of nothing more than dying. The first time, it was a sly joke. Then it happened again, and you watched their eyes change. And it happened again and again, and your people are a suspicious type. Something can only be a coincidence so many times.

When you began to sneak into a little shack with a village boy, you thought that maybe, somehow, this would all pass. He died too. There’s really no coming back from that, is there? You don’t blame them. You’re not the freak that they all believe you to be—none of them get close enough anymore to know that, though.

The wickerbasket’s handle creaks under your fist. You usually only forage along the shallow line of the forest; you pluck from bramble bushes topped with plump berries that crawl between trees during the summer, and when the crab apple tree’s branches hang heavy with the fruit, you snatch those up too. You’re more useful to your family out here, in the woods that they deem just as cursed as you. Where you won’t be their burden.

Crisp autumn leaves crunch under your boots. You scan between them—more grey and rotted this late in the season than fresh and orangey—for the edible mushrooms and roots that you usually forage at this time of year. The basket’s already pretty heavy with a variety, black morels and sorrel and burdock, as you bend down to pull a truffle from the dirt against a tree.

You drop it down with the rest of your finds. The basket smells like earth, no doubt your hands do too. You dust your palms off on your skirts and go to rise back from your squat.

A deep, billowing horn pierces the forest’s silence. It’s both far away, wiggling between the whispers of rustling leaves, and much too close. It draws out. Long. Bone-chilling. You freeze, scanning between each tree trunk and praying that you won’t find what you fear you might.

You are much deeper into the woods than you usually are. Than you ought to be. And you know what that horn means—you know that it means something far worse than what you’d been afraid of, coming into these woods. Much more primordial than the hide-behinds you were scared you might find this deep, much less avoidable than the faerie rings you stepped around.

Why would The Wild Hunt be here? A shudder runs down your spine, and you curl your fingers into your skirts and lift them as if to prepare to run, but you don’t. Your feet find root in the forest floor and all you can do is stand terribly still in catatonia. Their horn sounds again, and a procession of wicked whoops and howls follow. Wild hoofbeat rumbles under it all—the hunt and their rides. You hope that they’re just passing through, and you won’t so much as see one of those wild riders. There were plenty of folktales that the matrons of your village would bolster to terrify you as children, but you knew even then that their stories of the riders, with their flesh falling away from them and their pale or beady eyes and their gnarled maws and frightening figures as they rode on the backs of equally terrible steeds, were not fabricated. They are not a bogeyman or a wailing banshee; they are death made in the flesh, and they are here. In your forest.

Your legs won’t work. You curl your clammy fingers tighter around your basket and lean into the tree beside you. How deep had you wandered into the forest? Hopefully not too far; when you gain the courage to run, you hope that they do not send their hounds to snap their foul breath on your heels. Maybe just standing here and blending into the trees is best. The Hunt would love a chase, and you don’t want to become their next.

The next call comes and you throw that all to the wind. Your heart pounds against your ribcage as you let your basket clatter to the leaves and you take off. You fly over roots and shrubbery and between the trees, your blood roaring in your ears faster. You’d oblige if you could.

Above the loudness of your frantic mind, the harrowing whinnies and The Hunt’s ruckus dulls until it’s faraway again, and then it’s gone. Well, you don’t stop to check if they’ve really passed through the forest. You just run.

“There you are, love.”

His voice cuts through your frantic escape and stops you dead in your path. You almost go crashing down over the ground with the force that you dig your heels into it. Though the voice is non-threatening, you don’t turn to face the source.

He speaks again. You already know who it is. He, old as the earth you stand on itself, leads that band of wild riders. Is the king of the undead, collects souls for reaping.

And he’s the one who’s plagued you with his attention. Death.

“Why do you keep your back turned to me?” he says. “I frighten you. That hurts.” His voice lilts with amusement and sharpness. “I wish that you would face me.”

You’re not fond of the way that he speaks to you with a familiarity. But then again, you’re not fond of dying, either. Your legs are boneless beneath you. Turning, you slowly indulge him, though it takes a great amount of willpower to not run again like your jittering jaw and trembling hands ask you to.

The King of Death stands tall and utterly preternatural, leaned against a crooked tree in the woods behind you. His smile cracks across his face in a jagged way that suggests he finds you amusing, but none of that meets his eyes. They’re the color of the greyish, rotted leaves beneath you. The dark shadows beneath his eyes are the only thing belying the weight that his infinite life might have on him. That, and the hollowness that rings from him.

He pushes off his tree, fixing his cape that cascades over only one of his shoulders. It’s tattered and falling apart like the rest of his clothing, though you think that the bronze stitching and swirling oakleaf patterns in the black say that they might have been immaculate at some point. Or maybe they weren’t, and they had started that way. He is Death, anyway. “You’re sorry?” he says. “Why are you apologizing to me? You’ve hardly done a thing to warrant it.”

Faltering, you wet your chapped lips. You’re not really sure. Holding back another apology for fear that you’ve offended him and he’ll now strike you down for it, you say, “I thought that, maybe the hunt was…” Wow, you sound stupid. You can see in the sly smile his lips form that it amuses him. That’s almost worse than angering him: intriguing him. What you really should be doing is boring him so that he’ll find you a waste of his time. Then, maybe, he’d give up haunting you.

“After you?” he finishes. Shaking his head, he says, “My hunters only answer to me.”

“Oh,” you say plainly. Part of you wants to ask why that should comfort you, especially when you’re the one that he sends little bits of death to, but rationality keeps those words in the back of your throat. You don’t really want to know. “Why are you passing by here?”

Something akin to old longing passes through those witty eyes, and then he eats up the distance between you with languid steps of his long legs until he’s nothing more than one last step in front of you. The closeness consumes the air in your lungs, leaving nothing for you but short and shallow drags. The forest has gone dead silent aside from the sound of it. His voice is even more magnetic now that he’s so close.

You recoil when he brings a hand up to brush the pad of his thumb over your cheek and then cup your jaw, as if afraid that he might snuff you out here and now. His fingers are softer than you thought they might be, and the lines of his face sharpen into what you think is hurt. Hurt that you flinched?

“We go here and there,” he says, “but it’s been a very long time since we came here.” There’s a certain thickness to his words; a certain tension coiled over them from something that you’re not privy to. And yet, there’s a farawayness, too. You bet he’s full of a lifetime of secrets. Lifetimes of secrets. “But I think I’ve found myself a reason to finally return.”

Breathy and still struggling to flatten out your breathing, you ask him, “Why?”

The Undead King’s smile turns wicked once more, and he doesn’t answer you. It’s awfully eerie.

“Do you have… business here?” you try again. It’s a roundabout way of asking, do you have someone to take away?

“I have business wherever the living go,” he says, letting your face go but not giving you any more room. You narrow your eyes. He’s quite good at non-answers. “Nothing is more certain than that I will greet every living thing eventually. I’ll come to take you, too, when the time comes.”

Your mouth dries up. The entirety of your home, all the people you’ve ever known, fear you for all the death you bring. Not one of them fears it more than you do. You’ve seen it enough to fear its frightening finality.

The drop of your face must’ve told him how much that scared you. “Dying is not such an awful thing, love. Living pales in comparison.” Searching your eyes, he adds, “But I’ve not come to take you.”

That’s easy for him to say: that death isn’t something to fear. His words don’t calm your thundering heart, but you offer him a, “Thank you…” It trails off toward the end when you realize that you don’t have his name. If he has one, anyway.

“Yeonjun.” He tilts his head, strands of sparrow hair brushing over his watching eyes. “Most don’t know it, but you’re not most people, are you?”

Your breathing had just begun evening out. It’s a shame, the way that it kicks back up at the way he looks at you. “What do you mean?” you say, but of course you know. Nobody else is given dead things like you. It’s not like you yourself are very strange; you like pretty dresses and sharing gossip with friends just as much as any other girl your age.

Giving you another one of those knowing smiles that he uses just like words, he steps back. “I’m sorry that I scare you how I do.”

You don’t answer him. What could you say to that? That he doesn’t? That would be a lie, and he would know it.

Yeonjun’s eyes flit over your face, over your cheeks made pink by the autumn cold, lingering on your lips for a few unexplainable beats, and then landing on your eyes where he searches and finds something that sends his throat bobbing with a thick swallow. “I don’t mean to be your monster. It’s only that…” He steps back again. “You remind me a terrible amount of someone I once knew.”

“Who?” Though your shoulders relax a bit with some distance between the two of you, you do your best to not let your guard down. All the stories that you recall being told, all those cautionary tales passed down through word of mouth around a fire, end with some stupid girl thinking that the monster could be changed or tricked. You’re willing to bet that the man in front of you, no matter how human he looks or how enchanting his words are, could be neither.

That doesn’t explain the ache in your chest when he holds your eyes for too long. But you shove that feeling way, way down. It’s nonsensical.

His voice takes on a parting tilt when he says, “It doesn’t matter anymore. Death takes us all.” Yeonjun dips his head at you. His smile wavers. You’d think that crooked smile on his mouth was indelible had you not seen it twitch down at the corners only for a moment. If you’d have blinked, you’d have missed it. “You think I’ll hurt you,” he says, “well, don’t let me stop you. Go ahead, run. I apologize for your basket.”

Death takes us all. You’re not sure what that’s supposed to mean, coming from him, but it sends a cold wind up your spine and goosebumps crawling over your skin.

He watches you go. You don’t look back when you do, but his gaze sits on your back until you’re sure you’re out of his sight. When you return to your home, your mother asks where the basket full of ingredients for supper went.

You imagine what her face might look like if you told her the truth. But that was impossible, so instead you tell her some stupid story about a wolf that startled you so bad that you ran home paying no mind to where your basket was. It’s close enough to the truth.

༺ ꘏ ༻

It doesn’t matter what you do; you can’t get his face out of your head. While you cut butter into flour and then roll out dough, simmer fruits over flame and you slice cheese off blocks, you replay that meeting in the forest. The memory spins and turns over no matter how hard you try to put it away from your thoughts.

It’s not every day that somebody meets the likes of him. You can’t blame yourself; he had such captivating eyes. Dark, playful, and endless. There they are again. You sigh and dust your hands off. Maybe you are just as strange as they all think that you are. Morbid curiosity is like that, though. Taking the most normal of us and making you wonder what you absolutely should not wonder about.

And you absolutely should not wonder about him.

The sun has begun to hang high in the sky, but the breeze that crawls through the window you pulled open before you got to work is a crisp one. Autumn’s really come, now. Outside the window, a huddle of children play around in the leaves that you’d raked up. You’ll have to rake those back up, but you hardly have the heart to tell them to take their playing elsewhere. Their giggles and small voices waft in with the breeze, and a traitorous part of you yearns for a family that you know you’ll never have. No man would risk that fate, not after what happened to the last man who paid you any attention. You grit your teeth at the memory.

Moreover, why on earth would he even look your way? You wish there was a plain way to ask him why, or even to plead with him to stop. Whatever it is he’d ask of you, you think you might give him. To get back to living, you would.

A deep, familiar voice from behind you gives you pause. “Want some help with that?” Soobin says. He stands in the doorway, his head nearly brushing the top of the frame. It’s made too small for him. Most things in your tiny village were made too small for Soobin. There had been a time where you’d been taller than him, that had hardly lasted long enough.

“As if,” you dismiss and gesture at his dirty hands. He’d no doubt been out working his family’s field, his tunic sleeves rolled up to his elbows. “Cow shit isn’t an ingredient.”

Anybody else might’ve scoffed or taken offense, but he just laughs and invites himself in anyway. It never fazes Soobin. He doesn’t let you push him away.

It’d be better if he did. How long before he ends up dead, too? Alive one moment, and then a husk without a soul next. You don’t think you could handle seeing cold, dead eyes where the annoying, warm shine should be. Of course it would be better if he stayed away, if he had half the mind to. Even most of the children have heard enough from their mothers to stay a healthy distance. He’s not too much better than a child, though.

“Isn’t it?” he says. His cheek is smudged with whatever sort of dirt he’s got on his hands and under his nails. “I’m done with work for the day. Want to go out to the field?”

You two have always ran off and avoided your life in between willowy, flaxen wheat stocks. They were just tall enough at this time of year to hide you away. But, for some reason, your stomach does a quick flip at the thought of being outside. It’s silly; couldn’t he find you here, too? “I’m busy,” you say. You’d already kneaded this roll of dough plenty, but you dig your fingers into it and begin again.

“Busy?” he scoffs, “Since when are you too busy to get away from work?”

Gritting your teeth, you let the sounds of your kneading answer. Now, more than ever, he should keep his distance. You know one thing that you’re sure nobody else does: Death’s come to visit.

His brows shoot up in your peripherals. “I don’t get answers today?”

“I’m sorry,” you say, giving up working the over-kneaded dough only because your arms ache. “Why don’t you go talk off the ear of some other poor village girl? I’ve heard as much as I can handle today. And then when that one’s tired, you can bother the next, I’m sure.” You soften the words with a quick smile his way. No matter how many times you say something sour in hopes that it’ll send him away, as soon as you glance up at his face, you reel it in.

His company is all you’ve ever had. The least you can do for him is make sure he doesn’t end up like carrion, even if he chooses to take that risk himself. You don’t know why he does.

Voice playful, he says, “I’m glad to hear that you believe I’ve got ladies falling at my feet, but I’d rather not annoy a pretty girl, so you’re my only option.” He pokes at the sleeve of your simple cotton dress. “Should I drag you out of here? Don’t your arms hurt doing all that?”

“Oh, you are a refined man, aren’t you?” you say, shuffling out of his reach. Damn him, he makes it difficult. “Well, I am a pretty girl, so you should take yourself elsewhere.”

Soobin smiles easy. “I’m bored out of my mind. You’re just going to let me suffer?”

“That’s not my issue.”

“I’d argue that it is,” he says. “Come on. Why are you giving me a cold shoulder?” Leaning, he tries to get a look at your face. “Did I upset you? I wasn’t aware that you cared much about what I thought.” When you spare him a sharp glance, he says, “I think you are very, very beautiful. Would you stop ignoring me, now?”

You wish you could fall into the easy banter that comes with being around Soobin, but you can’t. You can’t let him be around you. “Soobin, stop it,” you say, draining your voice. You don’t look at him while you say it.

Going quiet, he seems to notice that today’s different. His gaze is heavy as he stares at you for a few long moments. Crossing his arms over his chest, he asks, “What happened?”

You swallow. “Nothing. I’m just doing something.”

“Oh, alright,” he says, tone inflicting in a way that says he doesn’t believe you one bit. He pushes off the counter. “I’ve put up with you pushing me away for years. You think I don’t know what you’re doing?”

“Soobin,” you warn. If you look at him, you fear you’ll be forced to watch the only one who never cared much what a risk it was being around you leaving. So you don’t.

Your friend raises his hands in the air defensively. “Okay, then.” He makes for the doorway with languid, lingering steps. As if he doesn’t want to leave. “Tomorrow..”

That’s both a threat and a promise, knowing him. Sighing and watching the rowan tree out your window sway, you bid him a curt goodbye.

If only that jerk took offense to things. It would make things an awful lot easier for you.

༺ ꘏ ༻

Being out in the wheat fields brings you peace when you’re alone, but you find it to be terribly lonely. The earthy, sweet scent of it wraps around you, and the stalks whisper against each other in a soothing way.

When you look beside you, the patch of wheat imprinted with the shape of your bodies is empty on his side. You are quite weak; it makes you want to go knocking at his door for his company. But that would be the selfish thing to do, so you card your fingers between the golden straw instead.

A chill trickles down your spine. You feel his presence before you even see him; it’s a feeling that you used to get fleetingly, as if something far away was tugging at you. But then he became real, a living thing in front of you that can touch, and that is much different.

“Why is it that I always find you out in the wilderness?” Yeonjun says. His voice comes from behind you.

Has he been watching you? You stand and dust your bottom off, heart kicking to life. “It’s nice out here,” you say. In truth, you haven’t come outside since that day. You’ve dodged Soobin and made a million excuses as to why you won’t go anywhere past the fences of your home. “I like to… watch people go about their days. It’s interesting.” It’s true—you always watch from afar how the village folk interact. How groups of girls your age link arms and whisper to each other, how neighbors come together to fix up a shoddy fence. You watch them be a community that you are not a part of. Watching it tastes bitter sometimes, but mostly you take pleasure in imagining yourself there with them. You’re not sure why you try making small talk with him, but what else? Should you go running again? If you were to listen to your pattering heart, maybe that’s what you’d do. He’s hardly shown you any bad will, though, and he’s the one that’s come to you. Maybe it’s silly to wait until something bad happens to be cautious.

A thousand pounds in stones sit at the center of your chest, though, and his voice makes them feel lighter. Why on earth that is, you’re not sure. It’s a nice relief regardless.

He smiles. It's different from the ones he showed you before. It’s knowing; more sweet than cracking over his face like the smile you would expect from the likes of him. What use might he have in being sweet? “Could I join you?”

Blinking dumbly at him for a second, you nod. “Oh, uh… Yeah.” Settling back down into your spot, you spare him a few curious sideways glances.

The breeze billows over the gold stems, moving them like gentle waves over the ocean and blowing your hair in it too. The flattened bits rustle under his weight. He doesn’t even turn his face toward the village; instantly, his gravitational eyes are on you.

“Do you come here often?”

“I do,” you answer. Mostly when you and Soobin have too much to do and not enough will to do it. “It’s nice. The village doesn’t like me much, so it’s easier out here.” You don’t mention that mostly you don’t come here alone.

Yeonjun’s face becomes far away. It looks strikingly like somebody forced into an old, unpleasant memory. “Don’t like you?” he asks, “What reason would they have for that?”

“They fear me. Things go wrong around me, that’s all.” You pluck at the hay absentmindedly. “Things die. They’re smart to stay away.”

The hay whispers much louder for the long moment he remains quiet, digesting what you’ve said. Maybe deciding what to say, considering that it’s his fault.

“Die?” he asks, voice inflected with surprise.

Turning to him, your brow creases. Shouldn’t he know? He’s the one that’s done it to you. “Everything that gets too close ends up dead. Everything,” you say, resting your temple on your knee. “So, I guess, I just keep it all at arm’s length.” You look back at your tiny village, a collection of familiar, un-familiar thatch-roof homes.

Continuing to blink at you, his eyes narrowed in a strange grimace, Yeonjun says, “Death follows me, too.”

What? A laugh of disbelief bubbles up in your chest. Of course, death follows him. You cover your mouth with a hand to obscure your laugh, but you just giggle at him harder.

A laugh twitches at the corners of his mouth, too. “I mean it,” he says. The lines of his face become distant again, eyes both trained on your face and melancholic as if the sight reminds him of something.

It ignites a question in your mind about something he said in the forest. “You said that I reminded you of somebody,” you say, testing the waters. “Who?”

A muscle feathers in his jaw. He looks away, as if he can’t look at you while he says it. “I loved a girl from this village once. When I was human, no less than you.”

You falter, mouth falling open to ask all the questions that flurry through your thoughts. You settle on one. “You were human?”

“I was,” he says ruefully. “And I had everything. I had the love of my life. I think that even the most bitter of creatures on this island had envy for our love. She would braid dandelions into my hair, and then I’d braid them into hers.” He swallows thickly and pauses, as if the wound was still festering and fresh. “And then she died. She died starting our family. She died because of me, in my arms.”

You don’t know what to say, so you just look into his shining eyes as if that’ll help. You’re not very useful with people, much less comforting them.

“I couldn’t accept that. I wouldn’t. So I went where I shouldn’t have gone, and angered something much bigger than myself. They thought it would be a fitting punishment for me to live an eternity, the King of Death who could not bring back his dead lover.” The harrowed look that he gives you, only briefly, has your chest heavy all over again. “They have a sense of humor, the forces.”

You imagine what it would’ve been like for him to lose his lover in that way. How far he’d gone to try and have her back, but death does not give back. Where had he gone to have been turned into this? An immortal thing, forced to roam the world and scoop up the souls of the living for an eternity? To be bound in ancient bones and made to remember forever how you had lost your lover?

The grandness of what you want to say is too big, but all those words feel pitying and patronizing in a way that you don’t think will actually bring him any comfort. Rather, you doubt anything you say will be able to patch up a wound older than you could imagine. Simply, you offer him a raw, “I’m so sorry.”

Yeonjun lets a crooked smile replace the trembling at his lips. “As long as I live, so too will she,” he says, placing his palm over his heart. “Death doesn’t so much happen when we leave behind our bodies, but when we’ve left the minds of the living.” Narrowing his eyes at you, he brushes hair behind your ear with his knuckles. “I know she lives on, somewhere out there. Somewhere. I’ll find her.”

That intrigues you. “Is there some way that you could bring her back?”

The grim light in his eyes tells you his answer. “My curse is to take life,” he says, “not to give it. But the one who made me this, he is cruel in a twisted way. If I were to find her, as a human or an animal or a blade of grass in the forest, only then could I rest.”

It is cruel. “You’ve been searching, then,” you conclude. “When you find her, you’ll both be able to rest.” But how could he find her, if as he says, she could be any living thing? Where would he even begin?

Slowly, he shakes his head, throat bobbing. “Death needs a farrier.”

She would become what he is. You swallow thickly. Was it not him who caused the deaths that follow you? Or, at least, it was not on purpose?

Opening your mouth, you go to tell him that you’ll help him look. You’re sure you’ll be of no help. He’s spent an immortal lifetime searching, and he still hasn’t found his dead lover. Nobody would know better than him where to look.

The ground shakes beneath your palms with impact, and something cuts through the wheat. The noise of its bleating becomes nearer until the both of you scramble up to find out what’s in such distress.

A deer stumbles around wildly. It looks lame, but you don’t see anything wrong with its legs. Your throat tightens at the awful sound, piercing and sad. Frozen, you watch it try to stay upright before it finally collapses down, legs still kicking as though it still wants to run but its body has begun weakening on it. “Oh my god,” you say, stumbling back. The sounds; its sounds are awful, echoing in your bones and constricting your thoughts until they’re a pinched panic.

There’s an arrow lodged into its ribcage, deep and at a terrible angle. You already know that it’s pierced some vital organs, if not its heart. It continues to writhe on the ground, not ready to give up. You’re not sure if you should approach it—you don’t want to scare it, and you can tell by the look in its wet eyes that it already wants to be away from you.

Or, maybe it had come to you. How else had it found the two of you in the middle of this field?

Blood runs like lead through your veins. You say, “Can we help it?”

He shakes his head. “He’ll die.”

Whip-lashed, you swallow thickly. He says it so unphased, and you’re sure he is. You can hardly make yourself mirror that serenity that he exudes as he runs his hand over its flank, but you get on the ground beside him anyway.

The buck’s breaths slow to desperate drags for breath. For a few long minutes, the two of you sit in silence and stay with him until he no longer fights, until his breaths are ragged. You feel his side, still warm and alive, but you see the life going from his eyes. You sit here, talking to each other about nothing just so it hears gentle voices as it goes, for a while.

Eventually, he’s gone. Quiet and at peace, no longer hurting. This time, when you look over to Yeonjun who still smooths over the deer’s skin even as he goes, guiding him delicately into whatever greets us when we go, you see death as a gentle thing.

༺ ꘏ ༻

Though you never seek him out, Yeonjun always finds you. In hidden places, away from prying eyes, he appears behind you and makes himself known. Well, you have a feeling that he watches you for a while before saying anything. It’s hard not to feel the strange tingling of his gaze over your form. It’s akin to the sixth sense that’s supposed to keep you safe out in the dark hearts of forests, an innate feeling that tells you some beast with a rotten, pale maw watches you between the trees.

Yeonjun doesn’t feel rotten, though, preternatural and eerie as he is. As you shirk your duties and talk with him for hours, you stare into ancient eyes and watch his crooked mouth move around his words and you feel an odd comfort. As if he’s the only one who’s ever understood you, or maybe that your strangeness pales beside him and for once you’re nothing but who you are. So many nights, the sun fell on your talking until the night insects buzzed from the grasses and your eyes were heavy.

Sometimes, as you dozed off with your back to a hay bale or a hardwood wall of the abandoned home beside yours with its sagging thatched roof, you caught such festering longing in his his eyes that you’d let your lashes fall and pretend to sleep so that you could imagine what it was that he longed for. No doubt his lost lover. When you imagine him, bound in bones and coming back to haunt the living for an eternity as he mourns her infinitely, searching for her in impossible places, your chest aches with a gnawing intensity.

It’s a terrible, cursed existence. Even the nothingness of death becomes a paradise beside it.

“Is it scary?” you ask into the air, sat criss-crossed on the thick duvet of the bed. He sits across from you, looking perfectly lazy. Moonlight pools in like sterling mist through the shutters.

“What?” He watches you, sitting in your plain dress, as though you’re the only thing in the world.

You’ve begun to wonder. Wonder about those looks he gives you.

Shifting, you fix the shoulder of your soft chemise where it’s slipped down when you catch his eyes lingering on it. His throat bobs. “Dying,” you elaborate. “Is it really nothing? After we go, all of it was for nothing?”

A slow smile tugs his full lips, made a bit red in the middle where he likes to worry it. It’s such a human habit to see on something so far from human. “Hardly,” he says. “It’s like going home, right where your soul is supposed to be. Who do you think rides with me?”

Furrowing your brows, you tilt your head toward one shoulder and let your hair pool there. “The riders are dead?” You had thought they were undead in some way like Yeonjun, other sorts of revenants come back to life with their own purposes. Then, are their creepy horses dead, too? A chill goes down your arms. Sometimes, sitting here with him when his face is made soft by the orange glow of the fire he puts on, you forget what he is.

“They are.” He nods, leaned back onto his elbows, his eyes alight with a hunger that makes your insides feel funny. “It doesn’t stop once we’ve died. You don’t need to be scared, my love. So many things end, but then so many things begin. The earth no longer holds you down, the weight of being is gone. You don’t know anything like it; you don’t know leaving behind the pleasures of earth to know the ones that only the afterlife can show you.”

His eyes laced with something entirely else, he adds, “And it’s not the end. Not for everything. For some it’s only the beginning, and for others, those who have not yet fulfilled their purpose, they come back to the flesh. They return.”

You can’t tell if he means himself, or something else. The weight in his eyes, dark, endlessly swirling pools, makes you wonder again why it is that he’s lingering here: the place that he had not visited once since the death of his lover, for the fact that it still hurts too much. Why his shadow of death, his fault or not, was tangled in your soul enough to brush its fingers over the things around you.

“It’s scary,” you say, breathy. The thought of eternity.

Soft hairs brush over his eyes as he tilts his head at you. “Do I scare you?”

“No.”

“No?” he echos, pushing himself up so that he leans back onto his palms. “Isn’t that strange? Pretty little thing says she’s not afraid of death, but her heart races when I’m near. Her sweet heart jumps at just the brush of my leg. Are you sure you’re telling me the truth, love?”

Your blood roars in your veins, inflaming your cheeks and making your head dizzy. Nobody’s ever looked at you like that before. Hair prickles on your skin. “Yes,” you breathe.

Feral delight sparks in his eyes, black as pitch. His smile turns up all feline at the crooked corners. “Crawl to me, then.”

Like how fire licks up oxygen in any room it is in, his words steal the breath right from your lungs. What does he think you are? You blink at him wide-eyed and dumb for a moment.

How can he say that as though it were nothing? Moreover, how does the ravenous flare in his eyes, his head tilted back as he watches you down his nose expectantly, do that to your belly?

Your mind glazes over with something thick and heady, and you damn the nerves in your belly and begin to crawl from your end of the bed to his. His tongue darts out to wet his lips, making sure you feel every inch of the taunt in his eyes as he trains them on you. When you’ve gotten to him through the thickness in the air, you settle into his lap and bracket his waist with your thighs.

Yeonjun takes the soft fat of your hips in his fingers. “Fuck,” he says. It sounds like he’s barely holding the gates on something endlessly consuming. Something that might break loose on the two of you, and leave you changed forever with its hungry, gnashing teeth. His head hits your collarbone. “Tell me to stop. Please, tell me to go. Because I don’t know how.”

“Don’t,” you say. “Don’t stop. I want it, Yeonjun. I want this.”

He straightens, pupils blown and eyes as tense as his set jaw. “No, you don’t understand what you’re asking for. All I’ve ever done is ruin. All I’ll ever do is ruin. I won’t ruin you; not again.”

That rings bells somewhere outside the heavy fog that’s infiltrated your mind, but they don’t sound too alarming when he looks as though he wants to drag his teeth over your heart to taste its beating. It doesn’t touch the ground, when you want him to, so badly. So badly that you taste it on your tongue and it tinges your words as you tell him, “I do know what I’m asking for. I want you. Yeonjun. Don’t you want me too?” Voice and confidence wavering, you pull back. Maybe you’ve read this all wrong. A tickling shame crawls over your skull. “Do you not want me?”

“You think I don’t want you?” he says, straightening up and meeting your gaze. His breath is hot on your mouth. “I want you so fucking bad. You are in the marrow of my bones. Fuck, I have done nothing but want you, but I am foul. I will only hurt you.”

He takes your hand and places it over his chest, where a heart should be. Beneath your palm, you do not feel the thumping of an alive thing. Yeonjun has no heart. You knit your brows and examine the strain of his features. Does he think that you’ll be disgusted? Maybe the girl you were in that forest might’ve been, but being near Yeonjun has changed you in ways you couldn’t start to put your finger on. “I’m asking you to,” you say. “Show me what you want to do to me. What you’ve wanted to do to me.”

Searing silence burns between you as he drinks that in, and then he shoves you onto your back. Supporting himself with an arm beside your head, he curls his fingers into your hip and nudges your thighs wider. He doesn’t lift the hem of your chemise like you expect him to. No—Yeonjun begins to grind himself into your cunt through all the layers of your clothes. Though your dress is bunched up and his pants lay between any real contact, Yeonjun’s hard and that friction tastes fleetingly sweet.

“I want you to beg me for it,” he says, grinning down at you with cruel intention. “Beg me, and make it so pretty.”

You let little sounds linger in that back of your throat and become hungrier each time he grinds against you. It’s so much, mind swimming and sparks spraying up your spine, and yet each time it is not near enough. Damn that foxish smile on his face; you beg for him anyway. “Yeonjun,” you breathe, curling your fingers around the wrist of that hand with which he pins your hip. “P…lease, will you help me? It feels so good; I want more, please.”

He raises his eyebrows at you and an eager grind comes right over your throbbing clit.

You know he wants more than that, but mortification already is making your voice unsteady and your cheeks burn. “Yeonjun,” you huff, hips wiggling.

The king of the undead delights fully in your shame and rewards you with more of those pointed, dry grinds. Your legs tremble; he’s giving you so little, and yet your need takes it and magnifies it into something grand.

Though he pretends he’s on some high ground, you hear his shuddering breaths each time his fucks his hips against you. He feels that roiling, liquid need in his belly just as vehemently as you do. The room fills with your breathy pants and grinding bodies. You catch your lip in your teeth and begin to meet him half-way. Your moans are low and sweet, and each one sends his jaw tighter.

You twist and grind against each other like fumbling teens until you’re coiled up so tight that he has to pull himself away. Your throbbing cunt protests, but you know he doesn’t want you cumming like this.

“You want me to show you what I’ve wanted to do to you?” he says, working at his pants. His eyes are so drunk on you, and his cheeks betray his state. “Open your legs, my love. Let me show you a little death.”

Throat gone dry, you slowly let your thighs fall open. The dull throbbing between your thighs roars to life. He slides your skirt up your leg, stopping when he frees your knee to pepper a few hot kisses into it. Once he’s got it bunched up at your ribcage, he runs his tongue over his dry lips to wet them. “Fuck. Such a pretty pussy. I want to fucking eat you up.”

“Yeonjun,” you whine. His name is all you can muster out, anticipation sharpened to a knife point.

Flashing his teeth, he purrs, “You like that, you filthy thing. I bet you’d like for me to fuck you till your brain’s gone and all that’s left is my name. Isn’t that right? Is that what you want?”

Your thoughts stall and you nod, making your mouth into a filthy pout. God, how you want that. Maybe he’s right about you being filthy. Coming from him, it sounds like a delicious thing to be.

The pretty, leaking tip of his cock brushes your clit as he slides it up and down your slit to collect the mess there. Your thighs jump to close before your mind gets the better of it. He does this a few times—up and down, letting you feel and get used to the size and length of him all the way till his cockhead kisses your clit and you squeak.

“Are you comfortable, love?” he asks, shifting your hips with strong hands. “Do you need anything from me?”

It’s so at odds with his other, nastier words. Your head spins, the moonlight blurring. “I’m okay,” you tell him. “I… just want you. Want you to put it in, want to feel you.”

His cock catches on your hole, and he begins to push forward with promising pressure. But then he pulls back, smiling downturned. You whine; why can’t he save his capriciousness for later? You’d almost had it…

“I could give it to you, or I could not…” He hums. “Wouldn’t that be so cruel of me? To leave you wanting?”

You flutter around nothing. Every inch of your body buzzes. Alive. You are more alive now, at the promise of Death’s touch, than ever before. The irony might be something to wonder about if you weren’t dribbling down onto the bed sheets with crude need. “Stop it,” you say. Your voice is whiny. You’re glad you can hardly hear yourself past the pounding in your bloodstream.

That delights the King of Death. He wrinkles his nose at you, burning you alive with his eyes as he presses his palm to your belly and guides himself into you with his free hand. You wrap around each inch of him slowly. The air between you bows under the weight of your gazes; he holds your eyes the whole way, inch by inch until he’s seated fully into you with his groin flush to your body. He stretches you to fit, and yet it’s just right. You could ask for no more or no less; you might even think your body was made for him, were you not too busy circling your hips to feel him.

“Good?” he says, squeezing your hip. “Do you need a moment?”

Pursing your lips, you test out the shape of him with another wiggle. “Maybe… Maybe a second.” Truth be told, you need a moment to grapple with the sparks sprinkling over your mind more than you need a moment to adjust to his stretch. You let out a shuddering breath.

He traces circles into your belly, just beneath your navel. The pad of his thumb goes round and round, warm on your flesh. “As long as you need,” he says, but it’s more like a triumphant, playful coo. There’s that lopsided smirk. One day, you’d like to kiss it off him. Taking that hypnotizing finger, Yeonjun trails it up your stomach, over your ribcage. He hooks it beneath your dress and drags it higher, revealing the soft swells of your breasts to the air. You shudder, body so, so hot that your nipples peak and tighten against the cool air.

“Such pretty tits,” he says, brushing his knuckle up the underside of one. “Everything about you. Such a pretty, pretty body. God, I don’t know if I want to worship it or ruin it.” His breaths fan over your skin as he bends down and pops an eager nipple into his mouth, lavishing it before releasing it with a lewd pop and letting his mouth fall all over your breast. Lick here, nip there, until you’re squirming adequately and squeezing him like a virgin. Then he blows cool air over it and watches with eyes like a cat toying with its prey as you shudder harder, your chest jumping. “Fucking look at you,” he sneers.

“Junnie,” you say, lost for breath. You think you’ve walked yourself into the lion’s den.

His breathy laughs fall over your breast. Taking his teeth, he drags them over your skin, right over where your heart thunders a rhythm fully for him, and then he bites. Nothing more than a shallow mark, the shape of his teeth in your soft tit. He lingers there, admiring the sight before he straightens himself up again.

“Fine.” He pulls out of you slowly, but you know what comes after that, so you savor every second of it. “I suppose you’ve wanted after it long enough. Let me hear your sweet voice again, my love.”

Yeonjun fucks you just right. His cock nudges right up on your sweet spot as if he’s done this before. Like he knows where to find it. You gasp and whine—you’re just happy he’s finally giving you something.

“Oh, fuck,” you mewl. His shoulders wear the red crescent marks of your nails. “That’s—so good right there.”

Ever egotistical and cocky, he croons, “Yeah?” Rolling himself back, he makes it his mission to hit it ruthlessly.

A sharp, pitchy sound comes tumbling past your lips. You bring your hand up over your mouth, letting your eyelids dust your burning cheeks so that you can brave the flipping in your spine and deep in your belly. It’s nearly insufferable—the way pleasure licks up your spine, how it spreads out into your veins and takes control of you.

“No,” Yeonjun growls. “Don’t you dare close your eyes. Let me see that look in your eyes when you cum.”

Your eyes are heavier than they’ve ever been, but you open them. The sight that greets you is worth the effort. Yeonjun’s lip twitches and then he throws his head back, the column of his neck on display as his Adam's apple jumps around a thick swallow.

If that sight wasn’t enough to send you teetering down into whatever depths of lust and ecstasy that he crawled out from, then the angle he hits as he pushes one of your thighs to your chest is. The world frays, deep tremors starting at one small point in your cunt and then exploding up through your stomach and down the back of your thighs. Your chest arches off the bed and you mewl helplessly, fighting and embracing your orgasm in an intoxicating death.

“Oh, fuck,” Yeonjun growls, strained with something whinier as he watches you shake beneath him. “Fuck. I’m gonna—fuck, I’m gonna cum…” His voice chokes as his hips become stuttered more than pointed, the slick sounds of your own release tangling up with his grunts and pants until he shudders and stills, cumming into your puffy, fluttering cunt.

You both catch your breaths as if there’s no air in the room left for a while. His hair’s damp on his forehead, as is yours on your neck, and his eyes droop lazily. More lazy and content than you’ve ever seen him.

Collecting you to his chest, where only your heart thumps away frantically, he presses his mouth to your ear and says, “Do you think death is so scary now?”

With your limbs nothing more than boneless and liquid pleasure floating slowly through your thoughts, you smile.

A little death can be more visceral than living, you think.

༺ ꘏ ༻

The tree stump beneath you makes your tailbone ache. You sit criss-crossed, watching Soobin work away at the soil and tend to that section of the fence that’s begun to rot and sag. Your mouth moves endlessly, filling the space that would otherwise just be made up of his grunts of hard work.

“You know, you ought to help me if you’re just going to sit and watch,” he says, straightening to swipe at his forehead, sweaty despite the cold in the air.

“Totally improper,” you say, smiling at him cheekily. “Are you saying that you can’t handle yourself, strong man?”

He glares at you with the venom only somebody made to put up with hours of chatter could muster. “What’s got you so talkative?” he says.

You know he means why you’re suddenly not glaring him away. You can’t tell him that you’ve spoken with Death himself, so instead you say, “Nothing.” Letting your legs dangle down, you smile at him.

Yeonjun hadn’t done any of it. It’s a comfort, to some degrees, to know that. It’s not your fault that they died. Being around them, being around Soobin, won’t make them turn up dead. The rest of them still don’t know that—and they wouldn’t believe it, anyway—but the black shadow hanging over your shoulders dissipates.

For the first time in so, so long, you do not feel marked by death.

“Sure.” His smile tilts. “A week ago, you wouldn’t even look at me.”

Rolling your eyes, you decide to give him a hard time. “Not true. You just have a way of getting on my nerves.”

“I take pride in that.”

“Take pride in what? Being insufferable?”

Crinkling his nose, he says, “Knowing how to bother you best.”

“Get back to work, stupid.” Your heart soars. It’s good to have friends. To let yourself have friends is an ever better thing. Is this how it is? To be with others and not feel like their burden, or like they’re crossing their fingers behind their back to ward off whatever bad things you might bring onto them? He’s made it his mission to hover around you no matter what, but this feels different.

Maybe, for so long, part of it has been your own gloom that’s obscured it all. Maybe if you didn’t bare your teeth to anybody who got too close, it could’ve been like this always. You hate to think that your own isolation could be some part your own fault. But how were you not to show your teeth when someone tried to reach their hand out to you?

It doesn’t matter now. You shove that all down and let yourself feel the slight warmth of the sun’s glow on your skin where it peeks through the clouds. It’s a nice day, you shouldn’t ruin it with those thoughts.

The sun’s begun making its descent when Soobin’s done. He takes a long drink of water, hissing with relief and crumpling down to the ground with his back to your stump.

“Are you making any way with that girl you were talking to me about?” you prompt.

Giving you a long look over his shoulder, he says, “Don’t.”

“What?” You laugh a little, raising your brows down at him. “I’m not doing anything.”

“You know what you’re doing,” he says, voice flat as he picks stickers out of his fingers.

Soobin’s had a thousand different crushes. There was that daughter of the shepherd, and then the wealthy merchant’s daughter and her long pretty hair, and then the neighbor… Well, you could go on. None of them ever really came to fruition for the poor guy. He thinks that it’s because he’s a poor farmer’s son, but you always tell him that it’s because he’s got an insistent mouth, and that he should be more grateful that you deal with him. Your lips turn up at the corners a little thinking about it—he’ll find the one eventually, but you like the indignant look on his face when you say it.

“I mean it!” you say, nudging him with your leg. “Tell me. I want to know.”

“You won’t even tell me what’s happening with you. Until one of us quits keeping secrets,” he says, placing accusation heavy over the words, “I’ll keep my dealings to myself. What’s it to you, anyway?”

Feeling the weight of his head as he lets it loll lazily against your thigh, you decide that it couldn’t hurt to tell him. The itch to tell somebody crawls under your skin. Especially to tell him. “You know the other day? When I was… being awful?”

His body shakes with a vindicated laugh. “If you’re nothing else, at least you’re self-aware.”

You skirt around that with your own, more awkward, laugh. It’s nice that he thinks so, but you don’t feel it. “Stop,” you huff and nudge him again. “I was foraging out where I usually go. But I guess I wandered out farther than I thought I did. You remember when they used to tell us stories, right? Like the bogeyman. That he’d come snatch us up if we didn’t listen.” Your mom especially had loved that one, back when she cared what became of you. Would she care again, if you told her that everything was fine? “Well, I don’t know if you remember the one about The Wild Hunt, but… Anyway, I was picking some stuff, and…”

Sitting up from his exhausted slouch, Soobin looks like he’s suddenly come back to life. “What?” he interrupts. His voice is strangely serious.

“What?” you say, brow creasing. “They travel here and there… but they were here. In the woods. Like, I heard them.”

Tersely, he asks, “What were you doing that deep in the woods?”

“I mean, I just kept on finding nice stuff until I just… was deeper.” You survey him. You hadn’t thought that he’d react like this. “So I ran, and then there was this guy,” you say, watching realization fall over his face. He knew those stories as much as you do—knew where you were going with this. He is as starkly superstitious as the rest of your people, you forgot. Pushing past the grimace on his face, you say, “And I knew that he was the king. The one from the stories. It was so weird; it’s like you can feel it. And I spoke to him, and then…”

Stood up now, he cuts you off once more. “Are you kidding?”

“Why are you being like that?” you say, messing with your skirts to quell the defensive bite in your tone. “I didn’t do anything.”

“You didn’t do anything? Are you trying to get killed?” He throws up his hard-working hands. “We have rules for a reason. Don’t go out into the forest, don’t make deals with faeries, don’t follow a banshee scream. And then you go and talk to the king of death? How am I not supposed to be upset about that? You know that…” Soobin blinks a few times as if second-guessing what he’s about to say, but he says it anyway. “You know that he’s the reason that they treat you how they do. You know that he’s the one who ruined your life. Why would you ever mess with that?”

You push yourself up from the ground, eyes burning. That stings like a cut. “He didn’t do it. None of it is his fault,” you say, furrowing your brows. “What are you trying to say, Soobin? Just say what you want to say. Come on.”

“He didn’t do anything?” He scoffs, letting a heavy silence hang suspended in the air for a moment before saying, “Is that what he told you? And you just believed it? Listen to yourself, does that make any sense? He’s played with your life like it’s some fucking toy, and now he’s come to rub it in your face. Think about it: do animals just fly into anybody else’s windows and die? Do the trees that they pick from just end up dead? It’s his fault that they all treat you the way you do.”

Mouth opening and closing, you don’t know what to say.

He sees the hurt in your burning eyes and tries to reel it back in. “What I’m trying to say is—”

“I know what you’re saying,” you say, grabbing up the lunch you’ve been nibbling on. “I know exactly what you’re saying. I just never thought you’d say it out loud.”

“Say what?” Soobin says, his voice raising behind you as you storm off.

That you think it’s my fault, you want to say. That they all die because I am a plague, and you are a charity worker for being my friend. Instead, you just leave and try to choke down the tightness in your throat.

༺ ꘏ ༻

You curl your arms around yourself, the night biting cold. Yeonjun had dragged you from bed, and who knows what hour of the night it is? If the heaviness beneath your eyes is to judge it by, it’s far too deep in the dead of night to be outside with your boots half-laced and nothing but your sleep chemise on.

You might’ve just stayed wrapped up in your blankets if you weren’t so lonely as you’ve been. Soobin’s been scarce. The most you see of him is in the fields from morning to afternoons. You hope that he’ll stop by your doorstep and knock so that you can groan about it but swing the door open anyway each time, but he doesn’t. He thinks that you won’t want to see him, and so he allows you your space.

That couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s hard to be the one to come back after a conversation like that, though. You watch him from the windows and hope he understands at some point instead. It’s an awful lot easier.

Other than preparing meals and window watching, you’ve been up to nothing much at all. You hadn’t realized how much you had, but you feel him in his absence.

“It’s cold…” you say. The fog of breath that punctuates it makes your point. Whatever he’s brought you out here for, you have no doubt it’ll be something strange. The grin on his face tells you as much.

Leading the way, he heads for the Darkwood. “Only you would come rushing out without a cloak for your shoulders.”

“Well, only you would drag me from my nice, warm bed at this time of night. For what?”

“Can’t anything be a surprise with you?” he says, shooting you a cheeky glance over his shoulder. “Surprises are fun.”

“Surprises!” you say, working your legs to catch him. “Not surprises that involve you bringing me out into the woods. You know, it’s awfully suspicious. Somebody who sees this might think that I am the type to… sneak out with men.”

“Aren’t you now?”

Your lips tug down. “You know what I mean.”

He laughs in his airy way, a twig snapping under his foot. You’re well in the woods, now. Probably somewhere near where you’d first met him.

Lifting a brow, you look at him expectantly. Maybe a will-o’-the-wisp will come floating through with its light bouncing off the trees. That would be a nice surprise, you admit.

Yeonjun circles you. His presence behind you tingles in the way it always does, but true chills erupt when his breath puffs against your ear. “Close your eyes. I have something I want to show you.”

Your mind wanders back to what Soobin had gotten so twisted up about. It might be naive and reckless and against everything you ever learned, but you let your eyes fall shut to blackness. If he was going to hurt you, you imagine he’d have had that opportunity a mind-numbing amount of times before.

“Are they shut?” he asks, waiting for your nod. His voice comes from in front of you now. “I want you to keep them shut. You can’t open your eyes, or it will all go away. Okay?”

“Okay,” you breathe, mind full of a bounty of questions. You don’t even know where to begin to assume what he’s got going on, so you stand there shifting your antsy feet.

There’s a strange, rustling sound that catches you off guard with your eyes closed. It drags on for a long moment. Curiosity pries at your eyes; you want nothing more than to just crack an eye open to spy the source of the ruckus.

It’ll be gone if you do, anyway.

You let out a surprised squeak as something rises up beneath you, as if risen from nothing more than the dirt and roots of the forest floor, bringing you up from the earth. You wobble and send your hands out to find a perch.

A horse. It’s a horse, its mane so tangled and windswept, but matted and clumped with leaves that crunch under your palm when you find them. It reeks of mud—everything around you begins to smell of earth and decomposition.

You know that if you open your eyes, you’ll find yourself sat upon the pale white steed of the Undead King, its eyes white and its knobby knees almost as famous as the leader of The Hunt himself. It chuffs beneath you.

“Are you ready?” Yeonjun says over your shoulder. You can hear the feral grin in his voice. It’s the leader of The Hunt, a creature of folklore, that sits behind you now. He curls an arm around your waist and tugs you closer to him, securing you against the wall of his chest. “Hold on tight, my love.”

The call of the wild, that horn, bellows again like it had the first time you heard it. Rather than coming from nearby as you thought it would, it dances between trees far off just like it had that time, too. Your heart jumps up into your throat.

Taking off with a howl, the Wild Hunt follows it.

You dig your fingers into Yeonjun’s at your waist. Weight melts away, and you know you’re in the air. Your belly swoops in tandem with the howls and hoots of the riders, heart palpitating to the hoofbeats. How there’s hoofbeats as you ride through the air, you’re not sure. The ghostly fleet manifests around you in vivid imagery, though you squeeze your eyes shut. They are wild enough to imagine just what they might look like: with their clothes and flesh in tatters, with their eyes beady or pale, with their hounds piercing the air with their calls and running alongside them, they are a perfect personification of freedom.

Whip-lash sends you reeling, body going rigid. You grit your teeth and squeeze your eyes harder, wishing that you’ll touch ground soon and that everything would become real again.

Yeonjun feels you go stiff. Bringing his head back to your shoulder from his own delight, he says, “It’s okay. You’re okay. Let it into your bones. Do you think I would let it hurt you?”

He is their leader. If it got too much, you know Yeonjun would be there to catch you. Curling your fingers into his, you release that tension and allow their drumbeat to echo through you.

And when it does, your blood begins to sing along. The wind whips your cheeks and your hair, and you begin to laugh with them. The Hunt twists and turns and dances through the air, an apparition in the night, but nothing more than that.

It comes to a slow, eventually, until the noise and even your steed crumbles back down into the dirt it appeared from. Your eyes pop open hoping to catch at least a glimpse of them, but only the dark forest and pale moonlight answer. Your legs threaten to give out on you, veins still thrumming, but, oh, do you feel alive.

You feel more alive than you ever have, more than you ever could have hoped to have known. Mind spinning, you stumble. Yeonjun catches and steadies you before you can go scraping your knees on a rock.

“Oh my fucking god,” you say.

The laugh that Yeonjun breaks into has you sending him a glare, but you break too. Everything about him is ironic; and how ironic indeed that Death himself should show you how to be alive, rather than to just live?

༺ ꘏ ༻

The air is so fresh in your lungs when you step outside that it nearly burns. You clutch your basket of warm fig tarts. Songbirds trill and fly between tree tops that slowly become more bare the deeper you fall into the season, singing their sweet songs that sound like new beginnings.

Raising your hem from the ground churned up into mud from the afternoon’s trickle, you prance into town with a lively pep in your step. You spent all last night making these—Yeonjun had kept you company, watching you how he always does as you pored over making them just right. His cruel snicker when the jam had simmered over flame for too long and became too thick bounces off your bones in a sweet melody. You’ve come to adore his wicked delight, the way his smile cracks over his face and the facetious raise of his brows, more than you fear it.

Sending small smiles to the people that you pass, you stop by a huddle of kids digging sticks into the mud. They look up at you with curious eyes, stopping to gawk.

“Hey, guys,” you say, pulling back the cloth laid over the sweets. “I’ve made some fig tarts. Do you like fig? I bet you’ll like them; they’re sweet.”

The kids stand up, eyes big as they share a look. They don’t let out so much as a peep before they scurry off home.

You blink. Well, you’re used to weird reactions, but that was… different. Picking up your deflated shoulders and hesitant limbs, you make a shoddy attempt at not letting it dampen your good morning. You were expecting wary looks, anyway.

You head down a little further toward the far side of your home village, the side that breaks off after a fenceline into a great, grassy field. There’s a bustle, mothers washing their clothes in pails and hanging them up to dry and a few others whispering at each other lowly as they go about their days.

An old woman so old her back curves and her fingers have gone knobby makes her way to wherever the day’s duty demands her to be. Your neighbor—an eccentric old lady bound in her times. You decide on her: the elderly are forgotten by the young. She might enjoy knowing that her neighbors still know she exists.

“Hello,” you say, showing her your basket with a hopeful, excited heart. “I have some treats that I was wanting to give out. I know they might not be much, but would you like one? I’m not the best baker, but I do it often enough.” A face like that, dragged down by her years on this earth and not long to death, has no doubt spent many years making meals for her family. You imagine your goods would be nothing beside hers, but it’s the gesture, no?

“Oh, girl,” she says, voice crackling as she clutches her shawl tighter around her shoulders. “I’m afraid it’s best if you found yourself missing from this place. Hurry yourself up and spare the drama.”

The incessant cawing of a crow from a clawed tree fades into the background as you furrow your brows and lower your basket to ask, “...Huh?” Your belly goes up in knots; terrible knots done up tight and fast. You haven’t got a clue what she’s talking about. Elders always did speak a bit strange, though. It could be nothing much; she’s a stern old lady.

But her eyes are not angry and glaring in the way that a harrowed old hag might turn her nose up at the youth. They drag down with a cold pity.

“Listen to me, girl.” She points at you with one of those worn, sun-spotted hands. “You had best leave. The boy’s gone, and they are already not fond of you. Who will they point their fingers to?” the woman says. “I hardly know you, but I would hate to see it.”

The rest of her words fade into the roaring in your ears, the feral drumbeat of your heart like a wardrum in the cage of your ribs as it beats against them as if to escape from you. You don’t feel the basket in your hands, don’t feel the solidity of the earth beneath your feet, and don’t feel a single one of your thoughts like tangible things. They flit as if liquidated into a rotten, sick mush.

Nothing. You can think of nothing. Nothing real; nothing holding you to the earth.

“What?” Your voice hardly reaches your ears, but what does is weak and broken and like a plea for her to tell you that it’s not really what you think it is.

And if you could see or hear anything beyond your fraying little rift in reality, you would’ve heard the man coming up to you. You would’ve heard the words coming from his angry, sneering mouth, and would’ve done something when he picked up a pail of water, and you would’ve been shaken by the nasty ice water that runs down your frozen body and plasters your hair and clothes down as he pours it over you. But none of it cuts through your stupor.

He yells some awful, stabbing things at you, and a few others join him. They tell you that you are nothing but a plague, tell you to leave and to not come back here.

But this is your home. Where else would you go?

With your sopping wet dress clutched in your shaking fists as though that might keep you grounded, you choke down the tightening of your throat and sift through their faces, searching for his face. Those brown eyes, brown and always shining with nagging playfulness, do not come up anywhere. Jaw trembling, you search harder. Out on the field where he should be at this time of day, at your doorstep demanding that you go spend the day doing nothing with him, in someone’s yard helping them fix up a broken fence, no matter where you look, neither his broad silhouette nor his cheeky, dimpled face is there. You continue to stand stricken dumb, looking for him even though you know by the churning in your belly that it’s true, and you’re just hurting yourself trying to find him right where he should be.

Fine. Alive. Untouched by your disgusting, destructive presence.

When you can no longer fight the strangling tightness in your lungs and your dress is as heavy as your heart, you take off. The hem of your dress drags in mud and sticker bushes and catches on stray twigs, and you don’t know where you’re going, but you just run. You’ll give them what they want.

You stumble, probably like some lost, undead thing, until you find yourself at the edge of the forest. Only then do you let the wall of whittle-edged tears roll down your face. And you assume you sound like a choking, dying animal with how you choke and heave on them, but he was the one you might’ve dropped your head and cried to, so what’s the use of making it pretty? No; you let it all fall as it is.

Soobin’s dead. Soobin’s dead, and it’s nobody else’s but your own fault. You clutch your chest to staunch that old ache that’s grown teeth and tears at your heart; you have and will always be the end of everything that comes near. You are just as much the plague that you began to pretend, to believe, you weren’t. It was your stupid hope that maybe you could have something and not watch it become carrion that drove that pick. It was by your hope that he’s gone.

The hair on your arms begins to raise. You pick your head up and find Yeonjun standing in front of you.

“What happened?” he says. The chills on your arms prickle furiously at the words, furling out distant and yet furious like the center of the fire.

You shake your head, wiping your soaked cheek.

“What the fuck happened?” he growls again, taking your face into his hand. “Who did this? Who did this to you, my love? I need you to tell me who the fuck did this to you.”

Letting the venom in your mouth out, you shove his chest and say, “Get away from me. Don’t fucking touch me.”

Yeonjun’s face twists up, looking scalded. Not surprised, though. “Don’t do this,” he says. “Let me hold you while it hurts. Don’t push me away. I can’t… I won’t lose you again.”

All the pieces that you had been putting into the corners of your mind snap together at that. As many suspicions as you had, though, it feels sour hearing it confirmed from his mouth. That you are his dead past lover, reincarnated or whatever you are. That it was his presence—because even though he stayed away for centuries, a part of him still lingered with you—that now has torn down everything you ever thought you could love. He, standing there in front of you like a kicked puppy, is the ruination of your life in the flesh. The flipping of your stomach is nauseating.

“I hate you,” you spit. “I hate you so much.” You repeat it a few more times, and you sob it into his chest as he takes you into his arms. “Is this what you wanted? You’ve been waiting for this forever, haven’t you? To find me again, so that you can die and fucking leave me here. So that you can make me exactly what you are, while you get your peace. You are a liar and a thief. All you’ve ever done is steal and take. How could you do it? Huh? Tell me…” Your voice trembles and staggers off. “Tell me how you made love to me, how you made me believe that you loved me, and all you ever wanted was to save yourself? You betrayed me.”

Pulling back, Yeonjun says, “No.”

“Yes,” you say, stumbling back away from him with a shaking, accusatory finger pointed at him. “Yes you did.”

Fingers itching to reach out to you, he holds them back by curling them into fists. “No. That’s not fair. I have spent an eternity loving you. I spent the entirety of my immortal, monstrous life searching for you, just so that I might find you in any form. I would have been glad to find you as a leaf in a tree, as long as I found you. But, then, I find you alive. Alive and back, as if… it never happened.” He steps toward you, aching to be near you. His voice wavers. “Please, don’t do this to me, love. Please, just let me have you again. I’ve waited… I’ve waited and I’ve waited, and I finally have you, and now you’re looking at me like I… Like I’d ever hurt you. Finding death—finally getting to die would be worth nothing if you weren’t there with me. It was never about that.”

“I could never love you,” you say, matching his steps forward with steps away from him. “I could never love a monster that does… Does nothing but kill. Take.” You know your words are cruel, but you need them to be. You need him to hurt, you need him to go so far away from you that never again will you cause another living thing’s death.

“You did.” Yeonjun’s mouth cracks into a pained smile, sharp at the corners. “You loved me just as much as I love you, once.”

“Just leave me. Leave me, and I wish to never see you again. If you love me, then you’ll give me that.”

He looks at you, clever eyes intense and glassy, for a long time. And then he says, “Would that make you happy? Would it make it so that you could live a happy life, and find yourself something to live for?”

What’s left for you? A small village that won’t ever embrace you? No, it wouldn’t fix your life. But you open your mouth and tell him, “Yes.”

“Okay,” he says, brushing his knuckles over your cheeks reverently. He swallows in your features, running over them for what he knows is the last time he’ll be seeing you—the very last time he’ll see the face of his undying love. When he finally opens his mouth again, his voice is gentle. “I’ll leave you. If my being here hurts you, then I won’t be selfish. I love you, darling.”

Don’t go, you want to tell him. Please don’t leave. Please, hold me. But your mouth is dry, and you let the radiant hurt in your chest stop you. You let him go.

༺ ꘏ ༻

There’s only one place you can think of going to. It’s the only place your vagrant feet take you.

His spot still is held sacred by the flattened, gold wheat stalks. Your best friend, still living here on Earth in at least one way even if he’s not here to listen to your stupid rambling. And he would maybe complain, but he’d always listen.

The last thing you’d done was fight with him. What an awful thing—what an awful way to repay him for being the only one who ever dared to get close.

You sit in your spot, beside his, and rest your chin on your knees. If only the ground beneath you would open up and swallow you whole. You’d deserve it.

What’s left for you? Is there a place in the world that would keep you happily once they see what you do? No. There is not. You wish you knew what to do; you wish you had somebody to ask.

Releasing a long, tight breath, you just sit and wait for something to give you answers. A gentle breeze makes your hair dance, but it does not whisper anything to your ears. Something’s circling over head, but it doesn’t caw in the cadence of his laughter.

The day moves along without you. You’re not sure how long you sit, but it stretches somewhere between a few minutes and eternity. No matter how long you wait, there are no answers. No matter how long you mull over it.

Conceding, you begin to push yourself up from the ground. A rustle in between the foliage stops you before you stand.

A tawny hare leaps out in front of you. It sniffs around you, nose twitching. Then it stands back on its haunches. It stares straight at you, an intelligent light in its eyes that knits your brows. The wild thing stands there with a purpose that is uncharacteristic of a forest animal.

But entirely familiar in the face of your best friend. That shine in its eyes as it stands there, nose still twitching, makes your chest tighten up.

“Hey,” you say, as if it might answer you. Your eyes well up with hot tears again. Of course, it doesn’t.

Maybe you’ve gone mad, but you know that it’s him. That idiot, coming to show you that he’s okay in the afterlife—to visit one last time and to let you know that you shouldn’t worry for him or cry for him. Look at him, full of life once again, he seems to say. The hare blinks its beady eyes. It lingers there for a long time, the ease of peace found in his gaze that Soobin hadn’t had in this life, saying that there is still something waiting out there for us once we go. You reach out a hand. He does not flinch as you scratch behind its ear.

“Okay,” you whisper. “I’m glad to know you’re alright. I know what I need to do, now.”

He blinks.

You laugh a hoarse, breathy laugh, familiar in only the way that Soobin could achieve. “You look stupid.”

Indignantly, the hare stops a bratty foot in a way reminiscent of one of Soobin’s huffs before it settles back down onto its forelegs and scurries off. He goes to live out this new form of life, because it’s true: life does not end in death. He’s shown you that.

Maybe, like this, he’ll find that pretty lady that loves him the way he deserves. That loser.

༺ ꘏ ༻

You spend only one night in your home and you know that what you’ve chosen is right. After spending your day out in the field, you sneak under night’s cover into your husk of a room and let yourself sleep there under the covers one last time. When morning breaks through the window, you gather your weary bones up and leave.

You run into your mother on the way out. She doesn’t yell at you to leave, but her eyes have gone cold. Colder than you’re used to. You’ve killed again, in every way that counts. So you don’t bother with bidding her or any of them any grand goodbyes. You couldn’t handle the relief you might find falling over them, should you.

Plopping down to the floor, you take a few bites of the cheese and bread lathered in sweet jam that you’d swiped from the kitchen. The grass is long and willows in the wind, bending and dancing prettily. It’s so soft; you enjoy the feeling of it beneath your fingers in your quiet serenity. The scent of it, fresh over the baseness of dirt, you breathe into your lungs.

It would be the loveliest place to spend the rest of eternity.

For the first time, Yeonjun appears in front of you rather than behind you. He materializes from nothing, his elbow on his knee as casual as if he’d been sat there the whole time. The darkness beneath his eyes seems heavier, but then again you know that exact heaviness. It sits right in the very center of you.

You both are quiet for a bit. You let the tall grass whisper, instead.

“Bread?” you say and slant your lips into a smile. Bringing it up, you offer it to him.

His smile wrinkles his nose and curls at the edges. Entirely him. Yeonjun accepts the bread, ripping a bite out before throwing it away into the sea of green. Once he’s chewed, he leans in and captures your lips in a kiss that’s utterly at odds with his sharp mouth. Your lips move over each other gently, save for an indulgent nip or bite here and there.

He pushes you back into a bed of sweetgrass, never letting your lips go. Not to breathe, not to say something that’ll pale in comparison to the sweetness of your mouths on one another. He kisses you until he’s had enough to fulfill a lifetime without it, and then some more.

“My love,” he whispers into your skin, his breath hot on your collarbone. “Mine,” he says, pressing a kiss into the column of your neck, and then he says it again with a hot kiss to the place where your dress suggests your breasts. He says it a handful more times as he pushes your skirts up your thighs. “My love forever. I waited for you so long, and I would do it again.” Lowering his voice to a honeyed whisper, he adds, “I would find you no matter what.”

Laughing softly, you run your fingers through his raven hair to better see his eyes. You know he would.

Gently giving you one more of his lingering kisses that make your skin tingle, right into your bare shoulder, he presses into you. You loose a soft breath, wrapping your arms around his shoulders. The beating in your chest slows to a content purr as he begins languid thrusts in and out of you, rolling pointedly and unhurried.

Yeonjun makes love to you in a thousand dusted kisses and sweet words, your hands holding each other’s soft edges. Yeonjun traces the lines of you, taking the pads of his thumb down your cheeks and your lips and then his hand over the swell of your breasts and down your belly and over your thighs. Clamping down on him as your belly grows tight in the way it had the first time you had done this, your thighs begin to shake.

Breathlessly, as you hurdle over the edge, all that you can say is, “I love you, ‘Junnie.”

Yeonjun smiles at you and then presses his face into your neck. He doesn’t even brace himself against the grass to chase his own peak. Neither of you want this to end; you want to hold on to this moment and let it span forever. Slowly, Yeonjun rolls up into you until his hips finally stutter and he cums into you, his cheeks pink. The weight of him above you as he shakes with your shared ecstasy, and even as you both have come down and are nothing but lazy, is the only thing in this world. He is the only thing in this world.

Once you’ve both evened your breathing out, you roll apart and face each other, still just two forms bending the grass into your shapes. Blinking slowly and digesting his features one at a time—the angle of his eyes, softened but never tamed, the line of his nose, the line of his mouth always so proud and playful, and that pretty dot below his left eye—you let them solidify fully in your mind.

“Yeonjun,” you say, finally meeting his eyes across from you. “I want to go. I’m ready.”

The gentle, knowing look that he gives you soothes over the way your heart begins to race in your chest in rebellion. “I know,” he says.

Of course he had known. Yeonjun had been called here to ferry you into the afterlife. He had known the moment he appeared in front of you that his last soul to reap would be you; an ironic circle of karma that should be cruel, but you two make it something sweet. Chewing on your lip, you will your hands to not shake as you curl toward him. You’re no longer scared of going. You know that if you’ll be with him, it will be okay. It won’t be so scary. A hot tear rolls down your temple and then drops into your hair. “Will you be with me? I won’t be there alone?”

He tucks some hair behind your ear reverently and then leaves his hand there. “I don’t know,” he answers. “But I won’t leave you. I’ll stay right here with you.”

You lay there for a long time. Chatting and giggling and just looking into each other's eyes, until your heart becomes slow and all you feel is the wind singing in your blood. Yeonjun presses one final kiss to your forehead.

Either way, the going is still slow and gentle, as death always is.

🪶 ⦂ tears. omfg i cried writing this which could totally be me being a bitch baby but it DAMN. omfg.

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