#anti-book so please be warned

[catofoldstones]

Sansa Stark whenever the psycho bitch who killed her father or the next top contenders for Westeros’ most traumatised unaware pedophiles try to info dump & project their secrets/plans/opinions on her

[kamaluhkhan]

anti-curse

pairing: percy jackson x daughter of apollo!reader

summary: whether he knew it or not, percy jackson made the world a better, brighter place — and you intend to protect him, no matter what path the fates leads you down. fuck prophetic dreams. the future wasn't written in stone.

warnings/disclaimers: mentions of typical demigod things (battles, weapons, etc.); this is set during the heroes of olympus series so roughly follows that plot + features the seven demigods; mainly inspired by book!percy (dark hair, sea green eyes) bc that's the one i fell in love w growing up; characters are aged up from the book (reader + percy are meant to be 21-22 y/o) bc i imagine there was more time between prophecies/series....anyways, please enjoy <3

when you first met percy jackson, he almost shot you through the chest with an arrow.

given that apollo is your godly parent, you often found yourself at the archery field, which happened to be one of the first stops on percy’s tour of camp half-blood. after that first mishap, your other half-siblings were, understandably, too scared to let percy try again — frankly chiron seemed a bit hesitant as well — and you could sense that percy felt disheartened. so, you flashed the boy a reassuring smile before giving him a few pointers and a second chance. when he smiled back at you, you felt a fluttering in your stomach that told you percy jackson would be more than a little important in your life.

archery still wasn't percy's strong suit, but your gut feeling turned out to be true. you and percy had dealt with a lot since then — a handful of quests, several prophecies, more than a few near-death experiences, a titan war, and, maybe worst of all, high school. you couldn't imagine getting through any of it without him by your side, and you knew the feeling was mutual.

so, you were entirely anticipating that percy would be hurt by your announcement during dinner. 

“no way that’s happening.” percy laughs, as if he can’t believe you’d suggest something as ridiculous as not having him accompany you on your quest. he remains unfazed, takes a sip of his electric blue coke before gesturing to the empty seat next to him. “come on, sunshine. have something to eat.”

the nickname sends your heart into a frenzy as you sit next to him. you and percy had never been anything other than friends, but sometimes....sometimes you look at his dangerous ocean eyes and wind-swept dark hair and it makes you blush. sometimes you consider the way his laughter fills you with warmth and his smile holds a thousand memories, the way he teases and winks at you and you decide that he makes your world so much brighter. sometimes you remember how sarcastic and thoughtful and loyal and reckless he is, his heart of gold and unpredictability of the sea. and you start to think that maybe possibly you'd fallen in love with your best friend.

that was not the issue at hand, though. you summon your favourite food and drink, but don't particularly feel like having either. percy returns to his conversation with hazel about how the two of you would drive up to montauk after you finally got your license, any time either of you needed to escape your reality, even just for a night. you'd sit on the beach, stargazing and roasting stale marshmallows and wishing to stay there forever. hazel seems to think that sounds like a nice escape, and percy promises that once the eight of you fulfill this prophecy, you'll all go to the beach house together, which makes hazel break out into a grin.

you can't help but smile at percy who loves his friends, who has loved you for so long. that feeling is quickly replaced by a pang in your chest that reminds you what's at stake. from the corner of your eye, you notice annabeth across from you, who looks at you like you’re a puzzle she can’t quite solve. you're trying to hide it, but if anyone can read you better than percy, it's annabeth. she knows something is weighing on your mind. you briefly lock eyes with jason, who you had gone to earlier for help, from the other side of the room, where he sits between piper and frank. 

if you weren’t so distracted, you would have been able to enjoy dinner. the eight of you — all demigods of the current great prophecy — hadn’t been all together in a while, and it was nice to share a meal aboard the argo ii despite the reality of why you’d all been traveling together. leo had equipped the ship with magic plates and cups, and with the lively jokes and stories filling the air, you could almost imagine it was an ordinary summer evening at camp. you could almost forget that tomorrow, you had to go on a quest to rescue apollo and artemis from python, a monster so powerful your father barely defeated him thousands of years ago. you could almost ignore the impending war with gaea and the giants, and the doomed fate of the world if you were to fail. the one thing you could no longer ignore, however, is the gut feeling you have about the fate of the boy sitting next to you if your quest is to unfold the way you had first planned it. 

you clear your throat, an attempt to interrupt the group's conversations. 

“i was serious earlier,” you declare. “you’re not coming with me, percy. jason is.”

the smile percy had on his face fades. his eyes are filled with concern and disbelief, as he glances at you. “i – i don’t understand.”

"percy,” jason jumps in carefully, aware that he’s treading through dangerous waters like you had warned him. “y/n and i were strategizing earlier and it seems to make the most sense, given our powers combined." 

percy shakes his head. “but — but you can’t just make last minute changes. we’ve already got everything set. right, valdez?”

leo shrugs, swallowing a mouthful of chicken before responding. “i don’t know, man. i’m no expert in quests, but it seems like i’m not the one who should be deciding this.” leo looks at you, and you nod gratefully.

you've been on edge since last night, and to calm your nerves you fiddle with the gold chain around your neck. it was a gift from your father: a necklace with a music note charm that can transform into an electric guitar or a bow and quiver. thankfully, you hadn't had to need both at the same time.

“it's up to me. and i want leo and jason to come with me.”

“then i’ll come too,” percy's voice remains calm, but insistant.

“isn’t there that thing about quests usually being done in threes?”

“that is true, piper,” percy agrees. he tilts his head towards you, like he's calling on you to remember. "exceptions have been made, though. like that one time with zoe." that had been years ago, when demigods from camp half-blood and hunters of artemis joined forces. five had been sent out on a quest, but only three came back. you shiver at the thought.

"or my quest through the labyrinth," annabeth recalls.

"but won't that also change our other plans, though?" hazel asks.

"not necessarily," you pipe in, your voice more assertive. "if jason and percy just switch. no harm done."

"we're not interchangeable," percy grumbles.

"hera sure seemed to think so!" leo searches the room for positive responses to his joke, but the most he gets is a half-hearted laugh from frank. "too soon?"

you take a deep breath. "it's not a big deal, really."

"it kind of is," percy counters. "you've never gone on a quest without me."

"you've gone on quests without me," you point out.

"that's...that's different."

"why? because i'm so weak that i need the son of the sea god to protect me at all times?"

you're giving percy the coldest stare you ever have. he hesitates to hold your gaze.

"you know that's not what i meant," he sighs.

"then what did you mean?"

percy looks at you, his eyes and tone softer. “look, sunshine, let's just stick with the plan, alright? we can just —”

“gods, you never listen, do you?" you finally snap. "you're not coming! i don’t want you there, percy!”

percy stares at you, stunned. you look around the table, and everyone looks back at you, wide-eyed. they weren’t used to this side of you, your sudden outburst not fitting in with your usually sunny disposition. 

“well, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed,” leo jokes in an attempt to lighten the mood, with less than ideal results.

“you saw something in your dreams, didn’t you?” annabeth realizes. 

her conclusion makes you freeze.

demigod dreams are always significant, carrying vivid images of monsters, messages from friends or enemies. some children of apollo like you had visions of the future — pseudo prophecies that are supposedly set to unfold given the path you’re on. technically, you weren’t supposed to share your visions, something about messing with fate or destiny, but that didn’t mean you had to accept the way things were. 

what you saw in your dreams last night, what might happen to percy, made your blood run cold.

you would defy all the laws of the universe and divine rules if it meant you could protect him. so fuck the path the fates are attempting to lead you down, and fuck prophetic dreams. you refuse to let percy die. no matter how frustrated you’re acting towards him in this moment, you know he would still do the same for you.

you figure that the future isn't written in stone, right?

either way, you're willing to challenge destiny for percy jackson.

without answering annabeth, you get up from the table and take a deep breath, carefully avoiding percy’s gaze. 

“i go with leo and jason, or i go alone.” your voice is steady, fighting the heavy beating of your heart and tears caught in your throat. “either way, i leave in the morning.” you exit the mess hall before anyone — before percy — can protest.

[dreamescapeswriting]

Stray Kids Reaction || They're Sick

⤜Copyright: © DreamEscapesWriting - July 2024

⤜MASTERLIST

GN!Reader. I changed it a little just so they weren’t too similar to one another, I hope that’s alright. Please let me know and I can fix and rewrite it for you <3

Trigger warning: Mentions of throwing up as well as people being ill, please don’t read if it’s something that may upset you <3

CHAN:

As soon as you felt the weight in the bed shift you realised Chan was waking up but it wasn't his usual slow wake-up, he shot out of bed before the bathroom door slammed. You frowned sitting up in the bed and glancing over at the bedroom door that was left wide open. 

"Channie?" You called out, quickly making your way toward the bathroom and peeling the door open to reveal Chan huddled over the toilet with his head lying against the seat. 

"That's not hygienic." You teased softly, walking behind him and kneeling on the ground, carefully running your fingers through his hair and hissing when you felt just how hot his skin was to touch. Before Chan could say anything to you, a gag sounded and he threw up into the toilet again. 

"I'll be right back." You whispered, pressing a soft kiss to his shoulder before making your way toward the kitchen and reaching for everything you were going to need for him.

You came book moments later holding a small kit that you'd prepared, Chan was slumped against the wall looking pale and slightly green, if that was even possible. 

"I'm sorry," He mumbled as you dropped in front of him, taking his temperature before handing him some tablets.

"Don't be, baby," You whispered, giving him a small bottle of water before cleaning the toilet as he took everything you gave to him.

"You don't have to do all of this," He grumbled, laying his head against the wall as he watched you clean up the mess he'd made, before sitting down in front of him once again.

"I know," You smiled warmly at him, "I want to. Did you take everything?" You noticed the tablets you'd given to him were all gone and he mumbled "yes" tiredly making you frown a little,

"Bed. Come on." You told him, gently helping him up from the floor and guiding him into the bedroom, even now he was unsteady on his feet and swaying a little. 

"I'll be fine, I just need to get some food and I can go to work."

"You're going to work over my dead body." You told him, laying him down on the bed before laying a cold cloth on his forehead, his eyes finding yours as a small pout played on his lips.

"But-"

"No buts, I'll call JYPE myself and force them to put you on strict bed rest," You warned him as his cheeks began to turn pink.

"You too warm?" Concern dripped from your voice as you noticed the pink on his cheeks and he smiled, shaking his head slowly.

"Just happy to have you be so caring to me," He whined out as you gently covered him with a thin blanket, kissing his cheek.

"Try and get some sleep, there's a bucket beside the bed just in case you feel ill again." You promised him, hoping the anti-sickness tablets would help him even a little. He whimpered a little but nodded, his eyes fluttering shut as he was barely able to keep them open much longer.

MINHO:

Whenever Minho knew he was getting sick he was the type to sneak away and suffer in silence, he didn't want to be a burden to anyone else and he would hide as much as humanly possible. Only this time when he'd shown up to the dorms you were already standing in the kitchen and cooking something that smelled as though it unclogged his sinuses the second he took a bite.

"Good, you're back." You smiled warmly at him, running your hands over the apron you were wearing before making your way toward him. You took the overnight bag from his arms and placed it on the sofa,

"Go and jump in the bath I made for you," You ran your hands over his cheeks and felt how hot he was running despite it being below-freezing outside. 

"How did you know where I was?" He'd made sure to make the guy's promise not to tell you that he was coming to rest. They were under strict orders to tell you he was needed for practice a lot, he hated lying to you but he didn't want you to get sick and he didn't want to burden you.

"Minho, we've been together for a year, if you think I don't know where you slink off to whenever you're sick then we have a problem." You joked softly, placing a soft kiss on his jaw before making your way back to the kitchen.

As soon as he was done he was dressed in some PJs you'd laid out on the bed for him and the soup was waiting for him on the kitchen table,

"What did you make?" His voice was hoarse from how hard he'd been coughing lately,

"It's a soup, my grandmother used to make it whenever I got a cold, it's soft on your throat but it'll unclog your nose," You promised him as he sat down beside you, a small smile tugging on the corners of his lips.

"Thank you," He whispered,

"I know you hate it when people help you but I want to do this, baby, I want to help." You told him as you ran your hand over his, gently rubbing his skin as he nodded shyly at you. 

"I feel like a burden when I'm sick," He admitted begrudgingly.

"Don't. I enjoy getting to pamper you, usually, it's always you that pampers me," You laughed softly, giving him a spoon and starting to eat the soup together.

CHANGBIN:

A crash sounding from the living room made you jolt awake and reach for Changbin who wasn't beside you, your eyebrows knitted together as you stared down wondering where he was. It was almost two in the morning and it wasn't like him to get home so late from work, or even from parties whenever he and the boys were celebrating. 

"Shit," You heard a voice mumble before laughter sounded from the living room, followed by another crash making you head that way only to find Changbin bent down trying to clean something up from the floor. You flicked the light switch on only to find him trying to clean up glass.

"Binnie, what-"

"Shh! I can't wake Yn up," He laughed again, his body swaying slightly and you instantly knew what was wrong with him, he'd clearly been drinking too much that night.

"Lay down," You ordered, forcing him down onto the sofa and trying to get a good look at his hand, luckily he hadn't cut it on his gallant effort to clean up the broken vase that scattered the floors.

"Ynnnnn!" He yelled before he got that look on his face, his hands holding his stomach and you quickly darted to the kitchen, grabbing a bucket and running back to him, just in time before he barfed into the bucket you were holding. 

"Sorry," He grumbles, his head spinning as he held onto the bucket and kept his head inside, not daring to lift it in case he threw up again. You stared at him and shook your head, you knew that they were celebrating finishing their album tonight but you had no idea he'd come back to you like this. If you had, you would have prepared everything for him already.

"Don't move, okay?" You stared at him as he held up a thumb and you began to work your magic. Cleaning up the glass from the floor as good as you could before heading into the kitchen and grabbing some water, painkillers and orange juice. Adding everything onto a tray before making sure to grab him some plain bread to eat as soon as he was done throwing up. 

"You're the best," He told you as you placed the tray down on the coffee table and ran your fingers through his hair,

"I know," You teased, smirking down at him as he groaned, throwing up once again into the bucket in his hands, followed by a moan of disgust.

"I'm never drinking again," He told you, making you roll your eyes playfully,

"How many times have we been in this exact situation and you say that exact sentence?" You laughed, rubbing his back softly as he mumbled something about "meaning it this time."

HYUNJIN:

You pushed open the door to your shared apartment you had with Hyunjin and frowned a little, the usual welcoming scent of lavender you had burning was missing. Instead, a faint, unfamiliar mustiness hung in the air.

"Hyunjin?" You called out, walking further into the apartment and dropping off your bags, something was clearly wrong if there was no response from him. Hyunjin had been complaining about a headache the night before, but he brushed it off as a side effect of practising all day.  

"hyunnie?" You called out again, louder this time, as you made your way through the apartment toward the bedroom where you found the door slightly ajar.

There you found Hyunjin lying sprawled on the bed, a thin sheen of sweat glistening on his forehead. A pillow over his head as he grumbled something about you being too loud. You hurried to his side, kneeling beside the bed and sighing a little, you slowly peeled back the pillow to find him screwing his eyes shut. The light hurt his eyes.

"Hey," You said softly, brushing a damp strand of hair from his forehead. "You're burning up. Why didn't you call me?" You breathed out,

"I didn't want to worry you," he mumbled, his eyes closing again as you shook your head at him, you hated when he refused to ask for help.

"I'm going to take care of you," You promised, taking in the sight of him and the bed, he did not look comfortable at all. 

"Let's get you comfortable first." You carefully untangled the sheets from around him, helping him sit up enough to drink some water. He sipped gratefully, his parched lips parting for more. Next, you rushed to the windows, opening them slightly but pulling the blinds down so the light from the afternoon sun wouldn't bother him.

You spent the next few hours by his side. You changed the washcloth on his head regularly, fetched medicine, and coaxed him into drinking more fluids. You'd told the boys he wouldn't be going to work for a few days and made sure he was going to be on bed rest for a while, or at least until he was better.

"You're the best partner anyone could ever wish for." He mumbled, his voice hoarse as you carefully handed him some tea, smiling warmly at him.

"Just drink the tea, no flirting." You winked at him before he sipped on the warm drink you'd made for him.

JISUNG:

Jisung had been under a lot of stress lately at work which should have been your first hint at what sight was going to await you as you walked into the dorms one night after work. Jisung was sprawled out on the sofa, looking as though he'd been through a week of no sleep and hadn't eaten properly.

"What are you doing here?" He hadn't meant for it to come out the way it had but he hadn't expected to see you tonight, he'd been looking forward to rotting away on the sofa for the entire night. 

"It's date night," You reminded him, pointing down at your outside that you'd spent hours picking before laying your bag down and kneeling beside Jisung who looked heartbroken that he had forgotten the date. 

"Babe...I-I'm sorry." He stuttered out but you'd put your hand on his forehead and bit down on your lip, he was already spiking a fever and you hadn't been here to know how long or how bad he had been. 

"Shh, it's fine. We can have a cosy night in." You suggested, shrugging off your jacket and going to search their cabinets in look for anything other than food. They had to have some sort of medication for when they got sick, right?

"Sit up," You whispered as you sat in front of Jisung, holding a jar of vapour rub in your hand and waiting for your boyfriend to inch forward. As soon as he did you carefully began to rub the cream into his chest, making sure your hands were warm enough so you didn't shock him.

"Thank you," He groaned, his voice sounding as though he'd been swallowing sand paper all day.

"I'll make you some tea and we can watch Howl's moving castle." You suggested, gently running your fingers through his hair and smiling at him with a warm smile.

FELIX:

You'd woken up earlier than intended this morning, went and made breakfast and came back to the bedroom to find Felix sitting up in the bed, his head in his hands as he tried to calm himself down from the wave of dizziness that had met him when he woke up. 

"You look like shit," You offered as you saw the state of him, trying to tease him softly.

"Thanks, that's really nice to hear from the love of my life," He coughed out with a weak smile, his voice sounded like he'd been eating nails for days and you hated that he was getting sick. 

"You should have texted me," You mumbled, running your hand over his head and checking for a fever, he was already starting to burn up which only confirmed that he was getting sick. 

"I don't want to bother you," He mumbled, his body aching as he laid down in the sheets and snuggled against them. Felix hated this, he was normally the caring one in the relationship. He wanted to be the one to look after you and right now he felt as though he was failing that.

"You're never a bother, Lixie." You whined at him, his eyes struggling to stay open as he gave into the feeling of what his body was telling him.

When he woke up again, the smell of chamomile and honey filled the air and you were sitting at the edge of his bed with a tray on your lap.

"Drink." You ordered, holding up a small cup of steaming tea, Felix knew better than to fight you on it and he took a sip, the warm liquid soothing his throat,

"You didn't have to do this." He coughed out, sitting up slightly and leaning against the headboard,

"Of course I did," You smirked as you replied. "You're always taking care of me. Let me return the favour." Felix sighed at you, pouting a little as he looked down at himself, stuck in bed for god knows how long. 

"I just hate being useless." You hated that he was beating himself up so much so you ran your hand over his cheek,

 "You're not useless, Lix. You're just human. Everyone gets sick."

"Not you," he mumbled.

"Especially me," You corrected, scoffing a little as you remembered the last time you'd gotten so sick you couldn't leave your bed. 

"Remember last winter when I had the flu? You stayed up all night making sure I was okay. It's my turn now." Felix frowned, his stubbornness warring a little since he knew you were right.

 "I just want to be the one taking care of you. It makes me feel… I don’t know, like I’m doing something right." Your expression softened as you reached out, brushing a strand of hair from his forehead. 

"You do so much right, Lixie. You don't need to prove anything to me. Let me take care of you this time, okay?" He thought about it for a moment before nodding his head, relaxing against the pillows as you spent the night looking after him. Bringing him soup, fluffing his pillows, giving him everything he could ever need and more.

SEUNGMIN:

All week long Seungmin had been giving you the brush off whenever you tried to get him to go to yours or when you suggested going to spend time with him, you began to worry a little that something was really wrong and as you stepped into his apartment your fears were confirmed. 

"Kim Seungmin." You cried out seeing him lying on the sofa, sweat dripping down his forehead as he coughed into a tissue and whined at you for being too loud.

"Go home." He grumbled, a little harsher than he wanted but he couldn't risk you getting sick because of him, the last thing he wanted was for you to end up the way he was feeling right now. 

"No." You laughed, dropping your jacket onto the coat hook and making your way to the kitchen where you knew he had things he needed. 

"yn." He coughed up but you ignored him, preparing some tea before bringing it to him, laying it down on the coffee table and staring down at your boyfriend who appeared to be pouting at you.

"You're cute when you're pouting," You smirked, kissing his cheek softly before he moved away from you,

"You'll get sick," He moaned, shaking his head at you and covering his mouth with a tissue as if it was going to stop the germs from getting to you.

"I'll be fine, just let me take care of you." You stayed where you were standing and he sighed, knowing better than to argue with you about something since you were just as stubborn as him usually. 

"Go to bed, I'll clean up and make you some soup." He nodded, sluggishly making his way to his room and getting under the sheets, shutting his eyes for a few minutes.

A few days later Seungmin finally began to feel human again and you'd cleaned up the entire apartment, opening the windows for fresh air and bringing him hot soup for every meal so he would be nursed back to health. 

JEONGIN: 

You always said you had a sixth sense about when those you cared about were going to get sick which was probably why you'd walked into your home after work one night already carrying everything you were going to need to help Jeongin feel better.

"How did you know?" He mumbled as he saw the pharmacy bag in your hand as well as a grocery bag that seemed to be filled to the brim with ingredients. 

"Because I'm secretly magic," You smirked, hating to see him laid up on the sofa surrounded by tissues, his nose already red from blowing it so much and you smiled weakly. 

"Magcially good looking." He said, trying to pass the comment off as flirty but because he was sick it just didn't work and he coughed into his hands, whining a little at the pain in his chest.

"Come on, take these baby." You offered, handing him the box of flu tablets before opening a fresh bottle of water and taking away the one he had been using.

"From now on, a fresh bottle every time or let me wash the one you're using." You instructed him, taking some of the rubs you'd gotten from the doctors and gently massaging it into his bare chest, watching as he stared at you with love in his eyes. As much as Jeongin hated being sick he adored this caring side of you, getting to be pampered by you was one of his favourite things in the world.

"Are you going to make your famous soup?" He shouldn't have sounded as excited as he did but you only ever made it when someone was sick and refused to do it any other time.

"Yes. But only if you go and get in a warm bath, let your body soak." You kissed his cheek and watched as he practically raced to the bathroom.

@chiisaiblog @sw33tnight @kaitieskidmore97 @laylasbunbunny @stayconnecteed @saymyspringrain @toplinehyunjin @katnisspeetaprim @acciocriativity @just-aelia @choisoorin @straykids5star @midnightfrog625 @beccaskz @scarletemeterio @halesandy @junhannies @gothic4under4lord @lixie-phoria @soulphoenix1618 @aerastus @jin-from-the-block @lensfilm @elizaschuyler18 @piratequeen-impact @kpopsstuffs @chaeyoungs @delulu18 @xyahrinx @katsukis1wife @anthropologymajorkpopmultistan @blairscott @4-chan-inpadella @niktwazny303 @moonlight-the-writer @armystay89 @hadassahchan @yxngbxkkie @myyouthdonut @extrhotjne @ca11me3mily @elissasimp @piercedddriver

[wordsarelife]

—anti-hero

pairing: draco malfoy x fem!reader

summary: you hate that you’re so emotional about everything, but draco secretly loves you for it

warnings: none

“hey, guys” your voice was soft and rather quiet, but still loud enough to achieve immediate silence from your boyfriend and his friends.

draco and you had been dating for more than a year now, but you were still not sure his friends even liked you or just tolerated you at most.

“love” draco nodded, a pleased smile on his lips, as he made space for you between him and blaise.

the pairing of the two of you was quite unexpected to say the least. no one in the castle had expected draco malfoy, a slytherin through and through, to fall in love with the sweetest hufflepuff in his year, not even you. you were surprised yourself, when he had one day come to the greenhouse, asking you out for a butterbeer. the rest was history.

“how is you project going?” draco asked.

“well, it’s a bit harder than expected, i have to admit” you shrugged, but draco shook his head.

“nothing you wouldn’t be able to overcome”

“you’re flattering me”

“yeah” blaise exclaimed annoyed “please stop, your guys’ flirting gets on my nerves”

draco and you exchanged a look. “sorry” you quickly excused “i didn’t mean to annoy you”

blaise shook his head, absentmindedly telling you it was fine, before he continued biting down his toast. enzo threw a smile in your direction.

“ignore him” he grinned “he’s been bitter all morning”

“oh what happened?” you asked, rather worried.

draco softly connected your hands, shaking his head at you and whispering something along the lines of telling you about it later.

“oi, we might as well tell her, malfoy” mattheo rolled his eyes, making it evident that he heard every single word.

“i’m not sure if—“ draco tried to say, but was quickly interrupted by mattheo, who leaned over the table as if he had interesting information for you.

“he’s been rejected by tara gallagher”

“oh” you muttered, unsure what to respond.

“seems like someone doesn’t have what it takes to charm a hufflepuff” theo muttered and you turned you head in his direction, surprised that he had even listened to the conversation, as he was busy, reading a book about defense against the dark arts.

“well, not everyone has the privilege to have malfoy as their last name” enzo shrugged, as he added the words laughing.

blaise rolled his eyes, but did not say anything. you looked back and forth between draco’s friends, unsure if the conversation was going in the right direction.

you hated when the topic would fall on draco’s and your relationship. the slytherins would often make jokes about your unlikely pairing, as if it wasn’t already hard enough for you to believe that someone like draco could really love someone like you.

“maybe draco could give you a few tips” enzo grinned and you bit down on your lip.

“yeah, or maybe tara gallagher is just too clever to believe everything i tell her” the words had left blaise’ mouth before he had really thought about the implication they would have about you and draco. just when you thought it was only you thinking in that direction, he quickly threw a hand over his mouth, spotting a regretful look.

“y/n” enzo muttered when he noticed your teary eyes.

draco’s smile died down as he turned his head and noticed the look on your face.

“sorry” you quickly apologized, as you swung your legs over the bench.

“i’m sorry” blaise quickly tried to interfere, but you were already hurrying down the row to the door of the great hall.

“you’re really amazing at talking to girls” theo stated sarcastically “when you don’t make them cuss you out, you make them cry”

“i’m sorry—“

“—you better be” draco interrupted blaise.

“—but she’s just so sensitive. i mean i wasn’t even speaking about her”

“well, the implication was right there” enzo shrugged “you could’ve been a bit more considerate"

"i'm going to search for my girlfriend before you have time to insult her some more"

"i told you i was sorry"

"safe it" draco shook his head, standing up.

"tell y/n we're sorry about blaise" theo said sympathetically.

draco nodded, before he stormed out of the hall, trying to make you out. you were hiding in a dark corner, face in your hands when he found you.

"hey" draco cooed, taking your hands in his and lifting them from your face. "don't cry, love"

"i'm sorry" you sobbed and draco's face softened. he took you into his arms, trying to calm you down. you stopped crying eventually, while he was rubbing circles on your back.

"i'm sorry about what blaise said" draco apologized when you were calm enough to listen to him. "i don't think he meant it like that, you know?"

"it's not blaise" you said honestly, shaking your head.

"oh" draco said surprised, furrowing his brows. "then what is it? there has to be a reason for you to be upset"

"that's just the problem, draco" you said softly "i don't think i have a good reason, i never do"

"what are you talking about, love?"

"i hate that i am like this" you admitted, trying to escape his eyes.

"like what?" draco wondered, worry evident on his face "there's nothing wrong with you, you're perfectly normal"

"but, i'm not" you argued "i hate they way i always start crying and am upset at nothing, it's exhausting and must be much more for you"

"oh, love"

"and i get that might be the reason that your friends don't like me" you bit your lip, trying to stop yourself from crying yet again "they must think i'm acting like a baby"

"but they do like you"

"they're always quiet when i'm around"

draco looked away quickly before his eyes were back on you a second later "that might be my fault" he admitted "when we started dating i told them to behave when you would be there, i didn't want you to be uncomfortable at the way they normally are"

"oh, so you even had to tell them to tone it down, because i would be too sensible?" you whispered softly, the tears threatening to spill yet again.

"no, love" draco shook his head, touching your shoulders as you looked up at him with big eyes. "i thought they would ruin my chances with you. not because you are too sensible, just because they can be real idiots and would probably scare any girl away"

"except for pansy" you shrugged, a smile playing on your lips.

"yeah" draco laughed, happy that you weren't as sad anymore "she would probably scare them away first anyway"

you giggled at his words. he touched your face, rubbing your tears away softly. "don't cry anymore, yeah?" he asked "you're perfect the way you are. actually i fell in love with you because you're so sensible, while i wouldn't directly call the way you are sensible"

you smiled up at him with hope at your eyes. "what would you call it?"

"empathetic" draco smiled "i have never seen someone being so concerned about the well-being of bugs"

"i pray nobody kills me for the crime of being small" you recited.

"exactly" draco nodded, kissing your forehead "you're the most caring person i know and i don't think having strong emotions is wrong in any way"

"you really fell in love with me because of it?" you asked "i always thought it was something you were able to ignore or tolerate, not something you liked"

"how could i not? i was a goner after i saw you build a bed for the bug" he laughed "i should've told you, but i assumed you knew, forgive me, love"

"don't be sorry" you kissed his cheeks "i hated myself for it for the longest time, but knowing that you actually like it changes everything"

"i don't just like it, i love you for it"

"i love you too" you smiled.

"and i do think the guys like you" draco nudged your elbow "you should've seen the way theo and enzo chewed out blaise and how sorry the poor fella was. they even told me to tell your they were sorry on his behalf and blaise was apologetic too"

"he didn't do anything wrong"

"he could've been more considerate" draco shrugged "should we go back? we don‘t have to, if you're not comfortable"

"i'd like to finish my breakfast"

"good" draco nodded, taking your hand and leading you back to the table.

blaise immediately apologized several times when he noticed you, even after you had told him it was fine. the rest of breakfast was much more enjoyable with the guys feeling more comfortable now that they knew you were alright.

you were glad to have such a loving boyfriend and draco was glad that you were alright.

you cried a lot less during the weeks to follow, a result of you growing more comfortable around draco's friends and also becoming friends with them too.

after draco had told them they didn't have to behave differently when you were around the ice got broken and they weren't as reserved anymore.

theo and you would often study together. he was good in potions and you were good in astronomy so you would constantly help each other.

it turned out that both blaise and you were giant quidditch fans and were actually fans of the same team. you often spent time talking about past games or different players you liked. he even gifted you a scarf in your team's color for your birthday.

pansy, mattheo and you would occasionally visit hogsmeade together, spending the whole day in honey-dukes, testing the newest snacks and sweets and deciding on your favorite sorts or flavours.

you learned that enzo was obsessed with plants and flowers so you often got him seeds to plant and helped him in the garden.

draco was glad that you had finally settled into the group and that you weren't so afraid of your feelings anymore that you actually had the time to notice that they all found you lovely, even if they would occasionally joke about your ability to start crying so easily, especially during a sad movie.

blaise never made an annoyed remark about your emotional side again and you were happy to finally feel better about yourself and the way that you were.

—

@mqstermindswift

[violentdelightsandviolentends]

may I request an angst with evan buckley

"keep your eyes on me." promt with an established relationship please! but hes been through a lot give him his happy ending please, i love him so much 🫶🏻

Lightning Strike.

28. "Keep your eyes on me."

Author's Note - this is a drabble written as part of my 500 Followers Celebration!! find that post here. my soft sweet buck. thank you for this request <3

Pairing - Evan Buckley x Female Reader

Age Rating - 18+

Warnings - sad buck. mentions of a sort of panic attack.

Word Count - 500 ish maybe??

Masterlist. 500 Follower Celebration Masterlist.

Buck is the king of putting on a brave face.

Always strong, never faltering. He reassures everyone he's fine time and time again, smiling and cracking jokes. But you see right through him.

You've always been able to read him like a book. You don't even have to try.

After the lightning strike, Buck doubled down on his brave face. He wouldn't let anyone see him upset - not even Eddie. Which is rare. And worrying.

He seems to be coping surprisingly well, desperate to get back to work and resume normal routine. While he's stuck at home, he's been cooking, doing puzzles, watching football. You're greeted with a lovingly cooked meal and a glass of wine every time you walk through the door.

Until today.

Today, you walk into the apartment, and it's dark. No lights on, no TV blaring sound. Nothing.

"Buck?"

Silence.

"Buck? Baby? I'm home," you call.

Now you're worried.

You start striding through the apartment, navigating your way through the darkness. When you hear a sniffle, your head whips around. There's Buck, knees pressed to his chest, jammed in between the nightstand and the wall. He's curled up on the ground, head resting on his arms that are protectively wrapped around his legs.

"Buck? Hey, did something happen?"

"Yeah," he murmurs hoarsely. "I got hit by lightning."

"I remember," you say gently. "Did something happen today?"

"I don't know," he whispers. "I think I've been distracting myself. And today it all came crashing down."

"Talk to me," you urge.

Buck's lip trembles, and so do his hands. Warm, salty tears drip down his face, and his breathing quickens rapidly.

"Hey, hey. Keep your eyes on me, Buck."

He locks his gaze onto yours, and mirrors your breathing carefully. Eventually, he calms down enough to speak.

"I died. I've been so close to death so many times that I'm kinda numb to it. But this time was so real. How am I supposed to go on living my life like nothing happened, when I literally died?"

"You don't have to live like nothing happened, baby," you reassure, moving to sit down in front of him. "No one expects you to do that."

"I just -," he sighs, trying to formulate a coherent thought. "I just don't know how to carry on."

You reach out gently and place a hand on his cheek, wiping away the tears that are spilling over. Your thumb strokes his cheekbone carefully, grounding him back down to Earth.

"I know you're like, totally anti therapy -," you begin, and he laughs. "But talking to a therapist or a trauma counsellor might really help. Or maybe we find a support group. This is LA, there's groups for everything."

"You think there's a lightning strike support group?" he jokes.

"I honestly wouldn't be surprised," you chuckle. "And if there isn't? Well, we'll start one."

"I might be the only person who attends."

"Fine by me," you tease, nudging him lovingly.

You stand up, and offer him a hand. He takes it gratefully, getting up and instantly wrapping his arms around you. He inhales the scent of your vanilla shampoo, and the tension leaves his shoulders rapidly.

"I love you," he murmurs into your hair. "I'm so lucky."

"I'm the lucky one," you reassure. "Well, technically you are, since you got hit by lightning. And survived."

"I've always been one in a million," he chuckles, squeezing you a little tighter.

"Yes, you have. My one in a million, Evan Buckley."

[j2hoes]

Hopes And Fears. (Wally Clark x Reader)

Summary: Y/N’s death is traumatic. So traumatic in fact, she can’t even look at Wally without reliving what happened to her.

Word Count: 3,073

Gif Not Mine. Requests are open!

Warnings: Violence, Swear Words, Hints Of Rape?

I’m not too sure how I feel about this to be honest but it’s my first fic since coming back and I would love to write for Wally more so please send requests! I might continue with this if people like it, I’m not sure yet though.

“Homecoming game tonight. Are you nervous?”

Closing my locker, I look to my left to see Abby, my best friend since elementary school. We’re inseparable. People find it odd that we look like we are complete opposites and yet we are the platonic loves of each other's lives. She’s a very loud and extroverted theater kid, I’m quiet, shy and introverted. Though in a weird turn of events, I became head cheerleader. Kind of ironic right?

“I’m not too worried. We’ve been rehearsing everyday, sometimes twice a day. I think we might actually have our best routine yet, I just hope we can pull it off.”

“You’ll be great, you always are. Besides I heard Spencer is going to ask you to be his date for homecoming.”

Abby’s words catch me off guard. Spencer is the Split River High quarterback. While typically the head cheerleader and quarterback are perfect for each other, I’m way below his level that the thought of us being together is ridiculous. I couldn’t even imagine it, that’s how ludicrous the idea of us is. Not that I would complain, Spencer is model level attractive, an academic genius and of course, insanely popular. Any girl would die to be his homecoming date. Me included.

“Don’t be stupid.” The blush on my cheeks is a vibrant red as I speak, leaning against my locker with my books clenched against my chest.

“I’m being serious. Some of the other football guys were talking about it in study hall. Apparently he’s got some sort of big surprise planned.”

Her grin is wide, clearly happy for me, though I can’t match it. I still don’t believe it, that sort of thing does not happen to girls like me. Guys aren’t interested in girls like me. That’s just the way high school works, maybe I’ll blossom when I head off to college at the end of this year but for now, guys keep their distance. My mom always told me that high school guys like girls that are easy and that because I know my worth, guys don’t even attempt it. I’ve always hated that idea though. If nothing else but for the slightly sexist and anti-feminist ideals that it pushes.

“Not to alarm you Y/N but he’s walking down the hallway.” Abby tells me, grabbing my forearm tightly, obviously excited. “I think he’s headed this way so that’s my cue. Have fun, text me all the details!”

With that she scurries away, flashing me a cheesy smile over her shoulder as she speeds down the hallway. Almost bumping into several other students as she does so. I laugh slightly, always entertained by her antics before hearing the metal of the locker next to me clang at the sound of somebody leaning against it.

“Mind if I steal you for a second Y/N?”

Spencer’s voice is charming and smooth, a relaxed smirk on his face as he stares down at me. His eyes are intoxicating and I feel as though I’m drowning in them. There’s no way Abby could be right. God, if she is I’ll never hear the end of it. Maybe I could live with that though, especially if it does result in Spencer potentially being my boyfriend.

“Sure, yeah, okay.”

Spencer’s smirk grows wider, and as he leans in to take my hand in his, I catch a whiff of his cologne. A dark musk that matches the darkness of his eyes and hair perfectly, it takes everything in me not to collapse right then and there. My senses are completely heightened and I can feel the roughness of his hand against my palm. The butterflies in my stomach make me feel as though I’m about to explode from my nerves and before I know it we’ve made our way to the old block of showers that were closed in 2004, following an incident involving an inappropriate relationship between a student and gym coach. New showers were remodeled and these were left to decay.

Spencer takes my books out of my hands, placing them on the bench that sits in the center of the room before turning to face me. His hand gently cups my cheek and although his smile is soft and loving. His eyes hold a mischievous glint. Without saying anything he leans down to kiss me, unprepared and a little shocked I step backwards.

“I didn’t know you wanted to kiss me. I didn’t even know you liked me.” I tell him, shuffling backwards again as he continues to approach me.

“Everybody likes you. I’ve just been wanting to save this for a special occasion, and what better time than homecoming?”

With my back pressed against the wall, a soft smile forms on my face as he cages me in. Though it doesn’t feel threatening, it feels new and exciting and my insides are on fire waiting to see what happens. I feel as though I finally understand what the cringey teen movies are talking about when they discuss sex and love and passion.

“I really like you Spencer.” I whisper, voice barely audible, gazing up at him through my lashes.

He laughs, pushing his hair out of his face before leaning down once again. This time his lips do touch mine and it’s nothing like I imagined. He’s rough, hands moving down to grab my breasts , almost painfully. The softness from before clearly disappeared. As much as it is a dream come true to be making out with the guy of my dreams, I’m still disappointed that this is how my first kiss turned out. His tongue forces its way into my mouth and its uncomfortable, I know this isn’t how it is supposed to go. As I try to pull away, to allow myself some air, his hand grips my throat, holding me in place. Continuing his almost aggressive movements.

“Yo Spence, did you get the bitch?”

Finally, he pulls away. I manage to take in some air despite his hand still wrapped around my neck. He’s looking over his shoulder, nodding his head. The rest of the football team stands in the doorway, menacing looks on their faces as they see me in such a vulnerable position. I hear the click of the door lock, and the butterflies in my stomach don’t feel so good anymore. The energy in the room shifts to one of darkness and evil, no trace of kindness and love.

Spencer looks at me, and for the first time in my life, I fear for my safety. This is not the same guy that I was obsessed with. There is no sign of human emotion on his face, no sympathy or pity. Gripping his hand to try and pry it away from my throat, I feel the tears begin to prick in the corners of my eyes and upon seeing my reaction, he smiles. My pain is his pleasure. Despite my attempts at removing his hand, his grip only gets tighter and I’m pushed further against the wall.

“Let’s have some fun boys.”

—-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A dull ache radiates through my body, pushing through the pain, I force myself to stand up. Staring at the room around me, I wonder if I was dreaming. However, with no sign of my books on the bench, I take that as confirmation that what I experienced did truly happen. Blood splatters the walls and floor but with no sign of injury on my body, I refuse to believe it’s mine. Sure, what happened was bad, but not that bad.

Not wanting to stay in this room any longer, I quickly make my way to the exit, pushing open the door with more force than necessary causing it to slam against the outside wall. Making the shy looking boy who happens to be standing outside jump. I smile apologetically, about to make my way past him when I notice what he’s wearing. Clad in double denim with round glasses, he looks straight out of Friends.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t want to come in because I thought you might feel kind of exposed but I wanted to introduce myself.” He says quietly, holding out his hand for me to shake. “I’m Charlie.”

Shifting my gaze between his hand and his face, my mind can’t really comprehend what is happening. Why am I suddenly meeting someone new? By the old shower block of all places, especially after what has just happened to me. The confusion on my face must be obvious as he smiles before revoking his hand.

“You haven’t worked it out yet have you?” He asks, almost as though he doesn’t want to push me.

“You’re dead, cherry pop.”

Looking to my right, I spot a girl sat against the wall, blue lollipop between her lips that has stained them ever so slightly. Wearing a black turtleneck with a matching cap and pinstripe pants, she’s the kind of girl that would intimidate me had I seen her walking down the street. Who am I kidding? She still intimidates me.

“Rhonda, Mr Martin told us to be gentle with her!”

“I’m sorry, I actually have somewhere to be but you two look great.” I tell them, beginning to walk away and head towards the main school building.

“Did you not hear me? You’re dead, you don’t have anywhere to be.” The girl, I’m assuming Rhonda, shouts after me, causing me to stop in my tracks.

“Look I don’t know what sort of joke this is, but it’s not funny. Seriously, go find some other kid to pick on.”

As I walk into the school building, I begin my mission of searching for Abby, hoping I can find her in the auditorium or even the costume department. My search doesn’t take too long, as my assumptions proved correct. She is sitting on the stage, the theater club’s newest script in one hand and her phone in the other. Our text thread open on her screen, as I sit myself beside her, she doesn’t even acknowledge me, eyes flicking between her phone and the script.

“Abby, I need to tell you something but you have to swear you will not tell anyone.”

She completely ignores me, flipping the page of her script. Its as if I’m invisible to her, a joke that isn’t funny. Waving my hand in front of her face in an attempt to get her attention also proves futile as she doesn’t even look up. Glancing at her phone I notice she’s messaged me multiple times asking me of my whereabouts, telling me she’s seen Spencer but she didn’t see me with him, asking me if I am his homecoming date.

“Abby, seriously? This is important, your show can wait.”

“She can’t hear you.” Charlie says, him and Rhonda standing in front of me, arms resting on the edge of the stage. “Or see you, we’re invisible to them. Nothing you do is going to change that.”

“I don’t get it, why isn’t she answering me?” I ask, panic starting to set it as I grow more and more confused at my situation.

“Oh my god, do I really have to tell you again? Are you that fucking stupid? You’re dead. D-E-A-D. Deceased. Not living.” Rhonda speaks slowly, using a voice you would use for a child.

“I can’t be dead. There’s no way, it’s just not possible.”

“Yeah it takes some getting used to, but we’re all friends and you’ll come to terms with it soon enough. Mr Martin’s support group helps too.” Charlie tells me, smiling encouragingly as I watch Abby walk away with some of the other theater kids.

“Support group?” I ask, hopping off the stage to stand with the only two people that can see me.

“Come on, we’ll take you.” Rhonda states, almost as if it's more of a chore and not like she offered to take me.

—-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sitting in a circle with the rest of the group, I can’t help my heart racing as I spot the football player sitting amongst everyone. He reminds me of Spencer and that’s what makes me nervous, or maybe it’s just the fact that he plays football. Either way I can’t help but feel on edge, hence why I placed myself in the furthest seat from him.

As I take in the rest of the room, I notice the basketball team playing further down the court. Not aware of the existence of the group of ghosts sat in a circle like they’re in an AA meeting. It feels so surreal, almost like an intricate nightmare that I will wake up from at any moment. Yet everything I’ve seen so far has been pretty real.

“We have a new student, would you like to introduce yourself?” The only teacher, who I am guessing is Mr Martin asks, as I feel all eyes divert their attention towards me.

The football player has a gentle aura around him, smiling at me as he waits for an answer to Mr Martin’s question. I look away quickly, unable to face the feelings of sickness in my stomach that I get when I look at him.

“I’m Y/N.”

The group mumbles a chorus of welcomes as I stare at the floor, still struggling to come to terms with the fact that I am actually dead.

“It’s hard at first, but I’m grateful that you decided to give the group a shot. It helps us all to move forward instead of focusing on our deaths and the past.” Mr Martin tells me, offering a look of sympathy. “Charlie, Rhonda, thank you for being Y/N’s guide, I’m sure it was very helpful.”

“So how did you die? In the old showers clearly, but that’s gotta be an interesting story right?” Rhonda asks, her eyes piercing into me as she places the lollipop back between her lips.

“Rhonda, you can’t just ask people that. Let her get used to us at least.”

His voice startles me, it’s as gentle as his aura. Soft and ever so charming. The protection in his tone is obvious as though he doesn’t wanna frighten me away and I glance at him for a moment. His football shirt sits perfectly against his toned chest and a gold chain hangs delicately from his neck. He’s beautiful. Truly beautiful.

“I’m Wally by the way, Wally Clark.” His voice is directed at me, staring at me intently.

At that moment, I can’t help but be transported back to before. Remembering my screams and pleads for them to stop. Praying someone would hear me and come to my rescue. They never did. They never stopped.

Jumping up from my chair, I feel myself getting worked up as I sprint out of the room. Terrified of reliving the past. Finding myself in an abandoned hallway, I slide against the wall until I’m sitting on the cold linoleum floor. Staring at the lockers as I try to calm my breathing.

“Hey, hey, are you okay?” Charlie asks, crouching in front of me with a concerned expression on his face. “Wally’s shitting himself thinking he did something wrong. I told him to hang back while I spoke to you.”

I let the tears fall down my face as I stare up at Charlie, feeling guilty that I’ve potentially upset an innocent boy because of my own trauma. I can’t go back to the group, I know I can’t. It would be in the best interests of every other ghost if I do my best to simply avoid Wally. That way nobody gets hurt.

“I’m sorry Charlie. I can’t do it, I can’t go back to the group. I can’t see him in that fucking uniform. I just can’t, I’m sorry.” My sobs are uncontrollable and I feel bad even just for putting Charlie through this when he’s known me for all of two hours.

“It’s okay, you’re okay. Is it the uniform, we can get him to change I’m sure, I know it’s not the best look but it is all he had since he died in his shoulder pads and all.”

I can’t help but let out a small laugh, wiping the tears from my face with the sleeves of my jumper. Charlie offers me his hand to help me stand up which I take graciously. He places a hand on my shoulder as a sign of encouragement, along with a gentle smile.

“I mean it Charlie. I can’t go back to the group. I don’t want to relive the memories.”

—-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“She’s adamant she’s not coming back.” Charlie tells the group, all of them awaiting the answers he has for them as to why the new girl ran away. “I don’t think it’s anything personal Wally but she said she can’t see you in that uniform and I think she may have had something happen regarding the football players. I don't wanna speculate though.”

“So, what? Her footballer boyfriend cheated on her and now she can’t look at poor, innocent Wally because it reminds her of him?” Rhonda asks, unimpressed by the lack of answers Charlie has.

“No, I think it’s something more than that. Something deeper. I’m sure she’ll tell us when she’s ready but for now, I would stop wearing the uniform Wally.”

The footballer didn’t need to be told twice, he instantly pulls the shirt over his head leaving him in only a tight, white tank top. Charlie smiles in appreciation, while Rhonda scoffs slightly upon seeing his muscular arms.

“Okay, so I’ve ditched the uniform, should I apologize or what?” Wally asks, looking at the group to gauge their reactions.

“Maybe now isn’t a good time Wally.” Mr Martin states, trying to think rationally. “I’d give it a day or so.”

“Or maybe just leave her alone for a while. Let her come out of her shell a bit first.” Charlie interjects.

“Yeah, let's not hurt cherry pop’s feelings.” Rhonda replies sarcastically, staring directly at Charlie.

As the rest of the group session continues, Wally stays silent, playing with the football uniform in his hands as he attempts to figure out different ways to apologize. To help her feel more at home in her new life, and potentially help her overcome the trauma of her death. Despite not managing to come up with a good idea, he does decide one thing. He will do whatever it takes to make her feel safe and become her friend.

[starsjulia]

angel chapter six // pain

a/n : saddest one yet, also i’m not fully educated on seizures because when i have had one obviously i don’t know exactly what they’re doing, so bare with me if it’s inaccurate.

warnings : cancer. seizures, a lot of pain, just all in all an angsty one.

masterlist

The weeks seemed to stretch on endlessly, a mix of cautious hope and lingering fear. There had been some signs of improvement in Angel’s condition—small but meaningful steps that Leah had clung to with all the strength she had left. But hope was a fragile thing, and it shattered too easily. The decline started subtly; Angel seemed more tired than usual, even on her better days. Her appetite, which had slowly begun to return, all but disappeared, and her once-bright eyes now appeared dull, shadowed by fatigue and pain.

Leah did her best to hide the worry that gnawed at her, always trying to stay upbeat for Angel’s sake, always putting on a brave face even when her insides were twisting with dread. But then came the pain—deep and relentless—that left Angel curled up in bed, clutching her stomach or head and whimpering through clenched teeth.

One evening, as Leah sat at her daughter’s bedside, reading softly to distract her from the pain, Angel suddenly cried out, her voice raw with agony. The book fell from Leah’s hands as Angel’s small body twisted, her back arching as she let out a scream that tore through Leah’s heart.

“Mummy, make it stop!” Angel’s voice was desperate, her little hands gripping the bed sheets as tears streamed down her cheeks. Leah’s own panic rose, and she reached out to hold Angel, her arms trembling as she tried to soothe her.

“I’m here, Angel. I’m right here,” Leah whispered, her voice cracking. “Just breathe, darling. Breathe.”

But the pain wouldn’t relent. Angel’s cries grew louder, her body shaking violently. Leah pressed the call button for the nurse repeatedly, her hand slamming down in frantic desperation as if the quicker she pressed, the faster help would arrive. She watched, helpless, as her daughter writhed on the bed, her face contorted with agony.

When the nurses rushed in, Leah moved aside but didn’t let go of Angel’s hand. “She’s in so much pain,” Leah choked out, her voice barely audible. “Please… do something.”

The nurses worked quickly, injecting medication to ease Angel’s pain and bringing in cold compresses, but nothing seemed to help. Angel continued to thrash, the pain like a wildfire burning inside of her. Leah felt as though she were falling apart, her own breath coming in ragged gasps as she tried to be strong, tried to be the one thing that anchored Angel through the storm.

Then, without warning, Angel’s body went rigid, her eyes rolling back, and she began to seize. It was a sight that Leah had never experienced before and one she would never forget—her daughter’s small form convulsing uncontrollably, the sound of her teeth grinding, her face turning an alarming shade of blue.

“Angel!” Leah screamed, reaching out as if she could somehow bring her daughter back with her touch. “No, please. Someone help her!”

The nurses moved swiftly, tilting Angel’s head to the side, ensuring her airway was clear as they administered anti-seizure medication. Leah could only watch, paralyzed with fear, as the seconds stretched into eternity. She couldn’t breathe; her entire world was reduced to the terrifying sight of her daughter’s tiny body trembling on the bed.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the seizure began to subside. Angel’s body relaxed, falling still against the pillows, her breathing shallow and labored. Leah collapsed into the chair beside her, her hands shaking as she reached out to stroke Angel’s clammy forehead, tears falling freely down her own face.

The doctor arrived soon after, his expression grim as he reviewed the situation. “The tumor may be causing increased pressure in her brain,” he explained softly. “We’ll need to run some tests immediately. It’s possible that the cancer is progressing, causing these severe symptoms.”

Leah felt the words slam into her, each one like a punch to the gut. After all the fighting, all the hope, to hear that things were only getting worse…it felt like a cruel twist of fate. “What… what can we do?” she asked, her voice barely more than a whisper. “How do we stop this?”

“We’ll do everything we can to make her comfortable,” the doctor replied, his tone gentle but unable to mask the gravity of the situation. “For now, that’s our priority.”

Leah stayed at Angel’s bedside throughout the night, not daring to close her eyes even for a moment. She was afraid—terrified, even—that if she did, she would wake up to find her daughter gone. The nurses had given Angel more medication to keep the pain at bay, but there was still a haunting emptiness in the room, a silence that echoed with the aftermath of the screams.

At one point, Leah found herself trembling, her entire body shaking as if she were the one in pain. She stood and began to pace the small hospital room, desperate to do something—anything—that might keep the crushing anxiety at bay. She wanted to scream, to hit something, to cry until there were no tears left, but she couldn’t. She had to stay strong for Angel. Her little girl needed her.

It was just after three in the morning when Angel stirred, her eyelids fluttering open. Leah was immediately at her side, her hand gently cradling Angel’s cheek. “I’m here, love. Mummy’s here.”

Angel’s voice was barely audible, a fragile whisper. “It hurts,” she whimpered, her eyes filled with tears.

“I know, baby. I know,” Leah whispered back, her voice breaking. “We’re going to make it better, I promise.”

But even as she said the words, she felt the hollow ache of helplessness. There was only so much she could do, only so much anyone could do. And that thought—the crushing knowledge that she couldn’t protect her daughter from this—made her feel more broken than she had ever thought possible.

The rest of the night passed in a blur of exhaustion and despair. Leah sat beside Angel, singing softly, telling stories, and doing anything she could to keep the darkness at bay. She wasn’t sure if her daughter could even hear her, but she didn’t stop. She kept talking, kept loving, because it was the only thing she could do.

When the first light of dawn finally broke through the window, Leah felt as if she had lived a lifetime in the span of those few hours. She hadn’t slept, hadn’t rested, but she stayed beside Angel, her heart aching with every shallow breath her daughter took. The doctors arrived again, ready to run more tests and reassess the treatment plan. Leah stepped aside, letting them work, her eyes never leaving Angel’s face.

She was exhausted, but more than that, she was afraid—afraid of what the doctors would find, afraid of what the next few days would bring. There were still so many questions, and the answers seemed to be getting further out of reach. Leah had always known this fight would be hard, but she hadn’t realized just how much it would hurt to see her daughter in such agony, to feel so powerless in the face of it.

Later that morning, when Angel was finally resting quietly, Leah stepped out into the hallway. Her legs felt like lead, and she leaned against the wall, closing her eyes. The tears came then, hot and silent, her body shaking with the force of her sobs. She wanted to scream, to curse the universe for doing this to her little girl, but all she could do was cry, each tear carrying the weight of her love, her pain, and her deepest fears.

It felt like the darkest night she had ever known, and the dawn, despite its light, didn’t bring the comfort she so desperately craved. As the day began anew, Leah steeled herself for whatever came next, knowing that as long as there was breath in her body, she would fight with everything she had for Angel. There was no other choice.

For now, it was all she could do to take things one moment at a time, to stay by her daughter’s side, and to hope—because hope, however small, was the only thing keeping her from falling apart entirely.

[hero-israel]

Watching the Pro Palestine movement implode in on itself the past couple of days on Twitter/TikTok after they went full racist against Black Americans (calling them racial slurs, colonizers, genociders, etc.) is so fucking cathartic. People have tried to warn everyone for months that this movement was just as racist as it was antisemitic, with the Pro Pals using watermelon imagery, the way Arab Palestinians call Black Palestinians "slaves," the history of Arab colonization in Africa and the slave trade, etc. But now it's all out in the open, all because whites and Arabs thought they could treat Kamala Harris the same way they treated Joe Biden and had the audacity to tell Black people they should throw away their hard-earned vote "for Palestine."

And today the Pro Pals have also started targeting their previous white LGBT allies. This one is a massive case of "leopards eating my face," so I'm not crying for Queers for Palestine here (they deserve it), but the whole movement - at least here in America - is falling apart at the seams.

Doesn't appear to have trickled down to Tumblr yet, but there's been a massive vibe shift on other social media.

PLEASE tell me more!

I am not even the slightest bit surprised, and remarked on the exploitative and abusive behavior of Palestiners towards African-Americans years ago:

As a Jew, I’ve seen my share of strained, socially-expected marriages being held up as an intended example For The Good Of The Community (tm).  And I’m telling you right now – this particular arranged, loveless, abusive coupling really doesn’t look like it’s going to last.  There are fewer and fewer attempts to even try to hide the recriminations and spite.  And who’s going to suffer?  The kids.  

Anti-Israel revengists will drain #BlackLivesMatter dry, use it up and move on to their next opportunistic spotlight-scenario – probably the killer whales at SeaWorld or something.  Just like they did with one U.N. committee and conference after another, just like one film festival and book fair after another, just like Arafat himself did with first Gaza, then Jordan, then Lebanon, then Tunisia.  When someone only cares about themselves, you cannot “ally” with them – you just get used by them.  

[papurgaatika]

Kiss Me Once, Then Kiss Me Twice

Pairing: Joel Miller x F! Reader

MINORS DNI WITH MY WORK PLEASE !!

A/N: disclaimer this is so insanely self-indulgent. I got my IUD put in this past Wednesday and have been in bed with pain since then and if I could have gotten a strong man to coddle me through it, I would be 900x better than I am today. Quite frankly, I'm dying more now than I was the day of the procedure but that's bc I'm impatient and can't wait a whole three months for the side effects to pass. If you're thinking about getting an IUD please talk to a doctor about allll the side effects and which one is best for you and also yap @ me about it, I'm an open book

Also, this is not beta read, I don't care enough. I'm sorry y'all are gonna see my overuse of commas. Xoxo, peace and love on earth from me as always.

Remember that TLOU is created by a zionist so please look at the resources in my bio on ways to donate and educate yourself!!

Tags/warnings: fluff, domestic joel, reader has an IUD and has hair that joel runs his fingers through.

Word Count: 773

Summary: Like I said earlier, self-indulgent perfect boyfriend joel taking care of you after your IUD insertion.

I’m dying.

That was the notification that popped up on Joel’s phone while he was at work. He was confused, but mostly just concerned. You’d usually send him a message with an egregious amount of punctuation or emojis to emphasize your mood, so to see something so… bland was worrying. He didn’t think he would be able to sit patiently for a reply to a text and calls you instead “Baby, you alright? What happened?” His voice is soft but stressed at the same time, wanting to make sure that you are alright. 

And despite your current agony, he did soothe you. The low timbre of his voice, the way you could imagine his brow creasing, was more than any anti-anxiety pill could do for you. “I got my IUD put in.” you know he could hear just how pitiful you sounded, curled up in bed with your heating pad currently burning a hole into your skin “Everything hurts, I’m dying.” 

You were absolutely tugging on his heartstrings and he could feel his protectiveness taking over. “Oh sugar,” he coos into the phone “I’ll be over in a little bit, alright? You hang tight for me, I'm on my way.” He doesn’t even give you time to protest before he hangs up the phone and tells Tommy he’s taking an early day today, heading over to you as soon as possible.  The next half hour was spent with you curled in bed, trying to get comfortable and failing. You could barely stomach any food, the ibuprofen wasn’t doing anything, and your heating pad felt like it was barely on despite it staying at the highest setting. All of the lights in your room were off and you just wanted to curl into a hole, it was like your period cramps had gotten steroids and you were dealing with the aftermath. 

About forty minutes into your routine of deep breaths and groaning into a pillow you hear your front door open, and a gentle knock on your bedroom door. “Honey?” Joel’s soft voice calls out “Oh baby…” he drops the bags of goodies he’d picked up for you and moves to brush a few strands of hair from your sweaty forehead, laying a kiss on your skin. “That bad?” you all but manage to nod in response to his question, clutching the heating pad closer to your stomach. He pulls out a bag of chocolates he’d gotten from the store and hands you a piece. “C’mon baby, eat somethin’ for me.” 

You open your mouth and let him give you a piece of the chocolate, a smile finding its way onto your lips. “Thank you, Joel,” you whisper, looking at him like he’d hung the stars for you. “Y’know what I really need though?” you ask, taking a deep breath through the monstrous cramp that hit you “Boyfriend weighted blanket.” Joel can’t help but laugh aloud at your words, his hand running over your back in soft motions, rubbing at your hips to help keep the aches away from you. He would give into anything you asked of him in a heartbeat, and if you wanted him to lay on top of you to feel better, he would do it. 

“Alright, pretty baby. One boyfriend weighted blanket coming up.” He stands up and stretches out before he lays down, his weight practically smushing you into the mattress. You let out a sigh of relief at the constant pressure against your body, helping the pain and tiredness fade in the moment. You can see him rummaging through a grocery bag next to your bed through your peripheral vision, and letting out a snort of laughter when he pulls out a giant tub of Advil. 

You try to keep a straight face when he puts it on your side table, right in your line of sight, but you can't help the giggles that leave your lips. “That thing could cure a small village of aches and pains, honey.” you chew your lip in a half attempt to stay quiet. 

You can feel Joel shrug on top of you, pressing a kiss to the back of your head. “Wanted to make sure you were all good this weekend, I’m not leaving you for a damn second.” he murmurs against your hair “Got some soup on the way too, know you barely eat anythin’ anyway.” your heart was overflowing with how much love you had for this man. The one who had offered to take you to your appointment, to get a vasectomy so that you wouldn't have to go through the pain of this, your perfect man.

[book-place]

Anti-Hero

Warnings: tua season 1 spoilers, mentions of killing and death, cursing, mentions of drugs, mentions of heart attacks, drinking, let me know if I missed any :)

Pairings: Hargreeves siblings x sister reader

*not my gif*

Summary: When you left, all of your siblings hated you, and now you were facing them once more

A/N: Welcome to book place’s one year event!!

Inspired by: Anti-Hero by Taylor Swift

Please don’t plagiarize my work, you may reblog if you like but I’m asking that you don’t steal my hard work

I have this thing where I get older but just never wiser

You let loose a long breath and glanced hesitantly up to the tall, menacing building before you. The building of your childhood, if you could even call it that.

To be completely honest, you didn’t even know why you had come back. You hated your father and your siblings hated you, so why would you show up to the man’s funeral, when they would all be there?

As much as you wanted to turn back around and hail another cab to get you as far away from this place as possible, you put on a brave face and pushed the door open, stepping into the vast entryway.

Barely three small steps had been taken inside by you when you froze at the sound of your name being called.

“Y/n,” Allison had her lips parted slightly in shock from where she and Vanya stood at the end of the hall.

You swallowed thickly, “Hey, guys,” You greeted in a voice that was barely even audible to yourself. You toyed with the ends of your gloves nervously.

“Oh, um,” Allison cleared her throat and strode across the room to see you, stopping a healthy three feet away, “It’s so good to see you, Y/n.”

The words were forced, and you knew it, but you gave her a tight lipped smile and a nod anyway.

“Yeah, same here, Y/n!” Vanya called, and you knew in that moment that after everything, she must have been almost as uncomfortable with being here as you were.

If your original gut instinct wasn’t any indication before, then this interaction told you everything about how this visit would go.

The sight of Diego crossing to the staircase caught all of your attention and he snapped something about Vanya not being welcome back before his eyes snapped over to you.

“Y/n,” He spoke in an awkward greeting before skirting past the three of you and clambering up the stairs.

Not only did your siblings hate you, but you just got confirmation that they were also still scared of you. After all these years, when they had grown up beside you and learned how to deal with your ‘gift’, and yet, they were still wary of what you could and possibly would do.

Midnights become my afternoons

You sat on the windowsill in the attic, legs dangling out the window as you looked up at the moon and stars.

“I figured that I would find you up here, Miss. Y/n.” You heard a voice sound behind you.

Unconsciously, you smiled and turned around, “Pogo,” You greeted kindly.

His smile was something that hadn’t changed a bit over the years, “It is so good to see you.” He said genuinely, walking over until he could grasp your gloved hand and squeeze it gently.

He had always been the only one who wasn’t afraid of you. Of what touching you could do to them. Of how painful their deaths would be if they laid a single finger on your bare skin. How without meaning to, you would slowly and excruciatingly kill them.

That’s why you wore gloves and long sleeves at all times, so that no one would unintentionally be hurt by you.

“It’s late,” You hummed when you pulled away, “What are you doing up?”

“Why, I came up here to ask you the same question.” He mused.

You shrugged nonchalantly, leaning your back against the wall, “I don’t usually go to sleep until really early in the morning.” You informed him.

“Well, that can’t be healthy.”

You laughed loudly, the first time you’d done so in what felt like many months, “It’s probably not.” You agreed once you sobered up.

Too busy looking back out the window, you failed to notice Pogo glance behind him and give a hidden figure a single nod of reassurance.

The only thing that brought your attention back to him was once he gave you a slight pat on your clothed knee, “I am always available if you wish to speak about anything.”

You smiled genuinely, “Thank you, Pogo.”

“Hey, n/n.”

Your head snapped up at the sound of a new voice that spoke as soon as Pogo had left.

“Diego,” You breathed out.

“Listen,” He cleared his throat awkwardly as he shuffled into view, coming to a stop right in front of you- less than a healthy distance away, “I’m sorry about earlier. I just didn’t think you were actually gonna show.”

You smiled tightly, pulling your knees up to your chest, “Yeah, that makes two of us.”

He sighed, dropping down into a crouch before you and looking up into your eyes, “I know none of us left off on a good foot- especially with you- but I want you to know that I’m sorry. For everything.”

Your chest tightened at his words. After all these years of thinking every last one of your siblings despised you for who you were- what you could do- you never thought one of your brothers would be telling you that he didn’t actually hate you at all.

“T-thank you, Diego.” You choked out, eyes filling with tears, “That means a lot.”

When my depression works the graveyard shift

Your eyebrows furrowed as you took tentative steps towards your fathers old office, the one that was supposed to be vacant now that he was dead.

The clattering of objects only got louder the closer you got, and it was making you nervous. Perhaps someone had broken in when they heard that the billionaire was dead? The last thing you wanted was to have to resort to using your powers, because you doubted any of your other siblings would come to your aid. Expect of course, maybe Diego.

“Hello?” You called out slowly when you stepped into the room. At the sound of your voice, a head popped up from behind your fathers old desk with a wide grin, and you couldn’t help but relax slightly, “Klaus.” You breathed out.

“N/n!” Your brother squealed, jumping up the rest of the way and scrambling over to you with outstretched arms.

Alarmed, you took a sudden step back, and he stopped short when he noticed.

“Oh!” He giggled, placing a hand near his mouth, “I forgot about the whole no touchie thing!”

“What are you doing in here?” Your eyes shone in curiosity, pushing down the thoughts that threatened to swarm your mind about Klaus’s first instinct being to hug you.

“You know,” He waved a dismissive hand, “Just getting ahead on my inheritance.”

Despite yourself, your lips twitched upward slightly at the words, “Really?” You asked in slight amusement.

The man’s jaw dropped open and he stared at you with wide eyes, “Was-was that a smile I just saw? Gosh, my memories from when we were kids consisted of you being completely stone-face.” He let out a shrill giggle again, “Though, I suppose I’m now the one that’s stoned!”

Whatever form of a smile had adorned your face immediately fell and you crossed your arms tightly over your stomach.

All of the people I've ghosted stand there in the room

This was terrible.

The silence was painful to sit through. You must have looked like you had an itch with the way you were shifting back and forth on the couch you stiffly sat on beside Vanya.

Nobody was making eye contact with one another, it was just all of you- once siblings, now complete strangers- sitting in a tense circle in your childhood living room.

Finally, Luther cleared his throat and pushed himself off of the couch that was directly across from you, “So, I guess we should get started.” Everyone’s eyes snapped over to the man that had grown more than a little bit over time, “So, I figured we could have a sort of memorial service in the courtyard at sundown. Say a few words, just at Dad's favorite spot.” He spoke awkwardly.

“Dad had a favorite spot?” Allison’s eyebrows had shot up alongside yours in surprise.

Luther’s own eyebrows furrowed, “You know, under the oak tree. We used to sit out there all the time.” He looked around for anyone to agree with him, only to be met with bewildered looks, “None of you ever did that?”

You shook your head softly, looking down at your hands that fiddled with one another from where they rested in your lap.

Klaus strolled over and began talking loudly, and you sat back and watched silently as everyone went back and forth a little bit.

“Listen up,” Luther tried to reign the family in once more when they got off track, “Still some important things that we need to discuss, all right?”

“Like what?” Diego asked with a roll of his eyes from where he was leaning against a pillar near the fireplace.

“Like the way he died.”

Your eyes widened and your mouth dropped open a little as you looked at him, everyone else adorning similar looks.

“I don't understand. I thought they said it was a heart attack.” Vanya piped up in confusion.

“Yeah, according to the coroner.”

“Well, wouldn't they know?”

“Theoretically.” It was clear that Luther was beginning to realize that he had made a mistake by bringing this all up.

“Theoretically?” It was the first time you had spoken up, and you felt a couple of the others glance at you as you did so.

Yet again, your siblings began to bicker back and forth, and you sank lower into the couch cushions, not at all liking the way their voices raised more and more by the minute.

“Oh, isn't it obvious, Klaus? He thinks one of us killed Dad.” Diego’s voice snapped you harshly back to the present and a dangerous silence overcame the entire room again.

You looked up at Luther in disturbance, only to find him already staring down at you. And all at once, you felt your mouth go dry and your throat begin to close up slightly, “You don’t actually think-“

All around you, your siblings caught onto what Luther was really indicating and they adopted looks of shock. Diego let out a low whistle, “That’s messed up, man.”

“Look,” Number one stressed, “I’m just saying, according to the corner, there was nothing wrong with him. With your powers- you could painfully kill a person without showing a mark.”

You hadn’t even realized when you had stood up, but flinched back violently, as if struck, “You think I would kill him?” You whispered with tears forming in your eyes against your will.

Allison pursed her lips and averted her gaze when you desperately looked around for help, making you realize that she was uncertain as well.

“Wow,” You breathed out tearfully, shaking your head back and forth softly before shuffling out of the room.

“Y/n, wait-“

“Good job, Luther.” Diego scoffed and hit his shoulder against his brothers as he trailed after you, “Way to lead.”

I should not be left to my own devices

Somehow, not too long after leaving the living room, you ended up in the courtyard surrounded by your sibling, gazing up with wide eyes at something floating in the sky.

“What is it?”

“Don’t get too close!” Allison called, moving to place her arm in front of you and Vanya, who had your mouths dropped open and took unconscious steps forward.

“Yeah, no shit!” Diego yelled back over the wind, eyes glared against the harsh wind whipping straight at all of you.

Per usual, everyone kept shouting back and forth at one another about what to do, and in doing so, Allison dropped her arm and you were able to slowly creep forward.

Just then, someone fell out of the thing in the sky, landing in a heap right in front of your feet, but everyone was too busy glaring at each other to notice.

“Guys…” You called back cautiously, “Does anyone else see little Number Five, or is that just me?”

They come with prices and vices

You sat on the stairs with your head in your hands, still trying to wrap your mind around everything.

At the beginning of the day, you had come back home expecting to say your goodbyes and possibly even make peace with your father. But now, your long lost brother is back, and not only that, but he claims to have been way older than any of you, whilst being stuck in the body of his thirteen year old self.

“Hey, n/n,” Said brother greeted, strolling over to where you sat with one hand in his pocket and the other holding a sandwich.

You linked your fingers behind your head and tried to smile at him, but you had no doubt that it came out as a grimace, “Five.” You greeted.

Before his disappearance, Five had been the only one who truly was never afraid of you. Even if Diego claimed not to be now, you knew he was still slightly wary, and with good reason too.

“I take it things didn’t go well after I left?” He asked, plopping down onto the stairs beside you.

A small chuckle left your lips at his bluntness. Same old Five.

“No,” You agreed, “They never stopped being scared of me. And I never stopped being scared of myself.” You admitted.

He had always been the only one you could tell everything to about yourself without the fear of judgment.

The two of you fell into a silence that consisted of him munching on his sandwich thoughtfully, “You know,” Five spoke up once he had polished it off, “I think the others have always been more intimidated by you than anything.”

Your eyebrows went up, “How so?” You never really saw yourself as an intimidating individual.

“Because you’re so much more powerful than we all are… and the old man knew that.” He stood up and gave you a tight lipped smile, patting you once on your clothed shoulder and disappearing up the stairs, leaving you to dwell in your thoughts.

I end up in crisis (tale as old as time)

Allison placed a finger over her mouth to signal for you and Vanya to stay silent from where your backs were pressed up against a wall opposite of her.

A large figure in a mask came creeping through the door that you stood on either side of with a large gun resting in his grip, making your heart tighten.

Right on cue, your sister lunged out, kneeing him in the stomach and punching him in the face the second he doubled over in pain.

Quickly, you ushered Vanya out of the room and made sure she was a safe distance away before spinning on your heel to face Allison and the man, the two now throwing punches at one another with the gun discarded to the side.

Without hesitation, you dove at the man and jumped onto his back, throwing him off balance and sending him to the ground.

When he fell, Allison reeled her foot back and sent it straight into his head, effectively knocking him out cold.

For a moment, the two of you just stood there, panting and trying to catch your breaths.

“You know, Y/n,” She spoke up, surprising you, “I don’t actually think you killed dad. I would never think that of you. I was just in shock that Luther would say such a thing that I didn’t know how to react. A-and I’m sorry for not saying anything when he accused you and I know I should have-“

“Allison.” You cut her off gently, “It’s okay.”

She visibly relaxed as if a weight had been taken off of her shoulders, “And listen, I know you think we all hate you,” She took a step forward and slowly placed a hand on your shoulder, eyes searching yours for any sign that you were uncomfortable with the close proximity. “But we don’t, I promise you we don’t. You were just always isolated from us by dad- and I’m not saying it isn’t partially our fault- because it is, but we’re not kids anymore so there’s no excuse for how we acted. I’m sorry.”

First Diego with the apologies, Klaus acting like everything was normal, and then Allison. You couldn’t believe that your siblings were actually trying to make up with you.

Similarly to how when your brother first talked to you like this, tears began to form in your eyes and you smiled up at her, “T-thank you, Allison. That- that means a lot.”

She shook her head gently, “I’m just sorry that it took so long for me to be able to say it.”

I wake up screaming from dreaming

You gasped, shooting upright with heavy pants as you tried to regain your breathing and keep it under control.

You have been through this routine enough times to know what to do so well that it’s almost like second nature to you at this point.

“Y-Y/n?”

Your head snapped up at the sound of Vanya's voice. She stood in the slightly opened doorway of your childhood room, where you had just been sleeping.

“Vanya,” You breathed out, leaning your back against your headboard, “What’s up?” You swallowed thickly and tried to seem as normal as possible.

The woman hesitated, “I… I left something here so I came back for it but I heard a scream…”

You let a breath loose and allowed your head to fall back, “Sorry,” You apologized in a whisper.

She shook her head back and forth vigorously, “No, no, it’s not your fault. I get it… I get nightmares too…”

You lulled your head to the side and looked at her, “Yeah?”

She nodded, hesitantly shuffling into the room before slowly sitting down on the end of your bed when you moved your feet for her.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” She asked gently.

It was then your turn to shake your head, “No, no, it’s nothing I can’t handle- nothing I’m not used to.” You reassured.

“Well… I’m here if you ever need anything.”

You smiled softly, “Thank you, Vanya.”

One day I'll watch as you're leaving

“Five?” You looked up from your plate filled to the brim with breakfast foods your mother had cooked for you as you watched your brother swiftly walk by, “What’s going on?”

“I need to run an errand.” He answered curtly, “I’ll be back soon.”

Anxiety began to set in the pit of your stomach, “O-oh, do you want me to come with you?”

He quickly shook his head back and forth, “There’s no need, it could be dangerous.”

That made the fear double inside of you, “Are you sure you have to go?” You saw him freeze in his steps when he heard the worry seeping through your tone.

He sighed softly and turned around to face you, “It’ll be fine, I’ll be back soon. I promise.”

You gnawed on your bottom lip, “It’s just… you didn’t come back once. What’s to say it won’t happen again?”

“Me.” He reassured you, “I say that it won’t happen again. I won’t let it. I promise.”

With that, he gave you one last of his rare smiles and continued out of the kitchen.

'Cause you got tired of my scheming (For the last time)

“Oh, sorry,” You mumbled, eyes immediately turning downwards the second you entered the living room, “I didn’t realize anyone was in here-“

“Y/n.” Luther immediately shot up from where he had been sitting on the couch, “No, I’m glad you’re here.” Your quick steps to exit the room paused, “We should talk.” He cleared his throat.

You eyed him hesitantly, “About what?”

“I’m sorry for saying that you killed dad!” He blurted out, cheeks turning red as he spoke, “It’s- it’s just that I was so upset and I didn’t know what really happened so I was creating scenarios that I didn’t even want to come true and-“ He stopped himself and took a deep breath to calm down, “And I know that it’s not an excuse, but I’m still very sorry for saying that you would ever be capable of something like that.”

You stayed silent for a moment before slowly nodding your head, “It’s okay,” You said softly, “I forgive you.”

“Really?” He sighed in relief, “Good, because I was scared for a moment there because I was acting like such an ass and-“

“Luther.” You tried to push away the small smile that threatened to grace your face, “I already said it’s fine, just leave it.”

It's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me

“We’re like outcast buddies!”

You looked over at Klaus with a raised eyebrow at his words.

The two of you sat on the stools near the bar in your living room, sipping on some concoction of alcohol that was no doubt older than both of you combined and would have given your father a heart attack at seeing if he was still alive.

“I’m pretty sure all of our siblings are outcasts.” You reminded him.

He sat there, pondering your words for a moment before signing and swirling his straw in his drink, “No, no, I suppose you’re right.” He frowned a little bit and slumped his shoulders slightly.

“Do you… want to be outcast buddies?” You asked hesitantly, eyeing your brother.

Immediately, he perked up with a large grin, “Yes! Yes! Yes!” He shrieked, “We can start a club! We can print t-shirts! We can invite new members-“

You chuckled, sitting back and watching in amusement as your brother got excited over seemingly nothing.

At tea time, everybody agrees

“Thanks for the food, mom, it looks delicious.” You said sincerely.

The woman smiled softly and reached over to cup your cheek, and you immediately leaned further into the touch. Because she wasn’t actually human, she could touch you without consequence. And though you knew it wasn’t the same as if another person touched you, you still took what you could get because it was all that you would get, even if it wasn’t real.

“Of course, sweetie.” She answered with that wide, kind smile of hers gently removing her hand after a moment and leaning down to place a ghost kiss on your forehead, making your eyelids flutter shut.

I'll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror

“It’s really weird to look at, isn’t it?” Five asked, walking up and standing beside you, gazing up at the wall.

It was a portrait of you and all your siblings, before Fives disappearance and Ben’s death, hanging in some random of the many hallways of the home.

“It is.” You agreed with a sigh, eyes taking it all in.

The way Five was the only one standing even remotely close to you in the painting didn’t escape your attention. Nor did the way everyone but him seemed to have their bodies angled away from you just slightly.

You forced yourself to tear your eyes away and you cleared your throat, “Do you ever wonder what it would be like if we never had these powers?” You asked suddenly.

It had been a thought that had been eating away at you since you were at least seven, never having been voiced out loud by you.

“I try not to dwell on it,” Your brother admitted, “‘Cause there’s nothing we can do to change it.”

Despite his words, you allowed yourself, just for a moment, to picture what it would be like. To be able to hug people and shake hands without them having to worry for their life. To not be the scariest, most deadly person in any room you stood in.

It must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero

All around you, walls were crumbling down and falling every which way. Each small piece of flying debris threatening to hit you.

Not so gracefully, you stumbled through the shaking building, blindly grasping onto the walls for support as you watched in horror as the house came apart all around you for reasons unknown to you.

“Y/n!” You whipped around at the sound of Luther, Allison, and Diego each calling your name and you began sprinting in their direction at the opposite end of the hall.

They each took a large step back when you neared though, causing you to pause, despite the fact that you needed to push on so that you didn’t get hit.

“What is it? What’s happening to-“ You began asking anxiously

“What did you do?” Luther’s words and tone of horror made the rest of your sentence die in your throat.

“How could you do something like this?” Allison whispered, and despite all the chaos, you somehow were still able to hear her. Her eyes shone with betrayal.

“What?” Your eyebrows furrowed, “What are you talking about?”

“Dad always said that you only reached the tip of the iceberg with your powers.” Diego was glaring at you coldly in a way that made even your heart freeze, “But I never thought you could be capable of something like this.”

“What-“

“Your powers are to destroy.” Luther hissed venomously, “You can kill everything around you, so why can’t you demolish everything in your path as well with just the touch of your bare fingers?”

Your lungs felt like they were collapsing in on themselves, much like the walls around you, “I would never- I can’t even-“

“I can't believe we trusted you.” Allison shook her head and slowly began backing away once more, “We’ll never make that mistake again.”

The other two trailed after her once they threw more harsh glares your way, not even caring as you sank down to your knees in shock, oblivious to the house that was still caving in on itself all around you.

You had nothing to do with this, you had no idea what was happening. How could they think that you did? After everything, all the progress you all made?

Your suspicions that you had first stepped into this house what felt like years ago- when it had only, in reality, been days- were true.

Your siblings truly did hate you.

The Hargreeves 🦹- @lovanitu @your-local-questioning-agender @jvdethirlwall @ineedmorefanfics2 @sambucky8 @spidyyparker @mukbee @i-writes-things @kiyomi-uchiha777

[therandompagesblog]

SKZ Pack Chapter 24

Trigger warnings: none

Everything changed when Y/N woke up in her bed. Everything she now felt was heightened and her instincts changed. She liked it but also she didn't. This was too new for her. She didn't exactly want to be an alpha but she wasn't. She was a Luna. Luna's were much more powerful because they were mated to the alpha. Mated to the pack. Y/N smiled to herself as she thought about last night and the way the wolves took care of her as if she was the most special creature ever to exist. The way they touched her and aroused her, making sure she had her sweet release before their own. Even the dominant ones became submissive like an omega. The way they cried out to her. It was ecstatic.

Y/N got dressed and headed downstairs to see Minho who was feeling slightly nervous about her presence. It embarrassed him slightly being fully open that way, but the need to please his Luna at the height of that moment was the most important thing. Especially knowing she was considering pups had sparked something in all of them. Did Minho want pups? It was her choice. Minho was always a 'her body, her choice'. Some of the others would definitely like pups and may have been disappointed. Chan even worried she was going to be an anti-pup omega. Now that she had said it, the wolves felt more protective and needy for their Luna. Chan would be the most, he couldn't go to sleep knowing she wanted pups. There was so much he needed to put in place before having one or making one. They needed to build on their cabin to house them. They would need more assets to financially have them because some wolves were overspenders. They needed to make more nests. They needed to make sure all the wolves were ready and some of them looked petrified at the idea like Hyunjin, Felix, Jisung and Seungmin. They were petrified of the idea. Minho, however, wouldn't mind either way. He would be a good father to all his children and the other pups who where not his.

Y/N called out to Minho who shivered again but tried to compose himself at her new status. The power was radiating off of her but she was still the same precious Y/N. Their love just heightened. "Min," Y/N called out again. "Sorry, little wolf. I was lost in thought." Minho promised as he tried to stop the smoke coming from the pan. He was cursing Jisung for asking him to make this. He hated making this. "Last night?!" Y/N asked. "It was new for all of us. *Cough* I hate making this. Sorry. *Cough*" Minho started coughing, while Y/N rushed to open a window. Whatever he was cooking was completely and utterly destroyed. "Anyway. I love you no less if not more. Merry Christmas, little wolf." Minho whispered as he pulled out one of the small gifts from the draw, knowing she would be up first. Y/N opened the gift to see a charm bracelet with a book and a black love heart. She understood the book represented him as an elder, but the black love heart. "Some of them think I'm heartless," Minho whispered with a shrug when Y/N pulled him back for a kiss a heated kiss. Minho gripped her arms, he was still not used to her kisses. He felt like he was having his first kiss all over again. "Who said that about you, huh?" Y/N growled but Minho shook his head. "It's Christmas little wolf." Minho scolded as he pushed her out of the room. "Wait till tomorrow." Y/N pointed.

Y/N headed to the living room to see a pile of presents everywhere. She was stunned. Chan's card must have maxed out again. What is wrong with these wolves? Y/N shook her head trying to find one of the wolves' names but it seemed they were buried underneath hers. "MERRY CHRIST- Where the fuck is baby?" Changbin shouted, making Y/N snicker. "Yah which one of you wolves has her hiding in your room? We need to have a schedule here on who has her each night." "Binnie. I'm downstairs. Stop shouting." Y/N whispered and shouted. She heard Changbin tiptoe to the top of the stairs making Y/N gasp. "You ruined the surprise." Changbin status with his hands on his hips. He was wearing a Santa hat and Christmas boxers with tinsel wrapped around his neck. "What are you wearing?" Jeongin tiredly asked. Jeongin pushed past wearing his tartan pyjamas. "Merry Christmas baby." Jeongin tiredly whispered, giving Y/N a hug and a kiss on the cheek. "Going to have a shower before they jump in." Jeongin told her "Mmm okay." Y/N hummed.

Y/N walked back into the kitchen, helping Minho decorate the table for breakfast. It smelled so good. Minho had a talent. He never failed, except whatever he was trying to make this morning. Y/N was so excited about their plans today. The wolves usually had breakfast and opened their presents after. Then everyone would phone their family, some of them like Felix would drop round presents for a few hours while Minho and Jisung cooked Christmas dinner for late afternoon. Then they would play games, eat some more, and prepare for their skiing trip, which Y/N was so excited about.

Chan came up behind Y/N and wrapped his arms around her, hugging her tightly. Y/N leaned back and looked up at him with a soft smile. "How are you my Luna?" Chan asked. "Don't call me that," Y/N whined. "We'll keep calling you it until you accept it," Jisung stated making Y/N growl playfully. Jisung rolled his eyes and jumped straight into the food, nearly knocking Minho out the way as he tried to put the food down. Y/N sat down next to Hyunjin and tucked into her food with everyone else. It was a happy moment for them all. After breakfast, Y/N did her first Luna command and commanded Seungmin and Jisung to wash up while they waited for them in the living room. Y/N and Changbin were the two most excited because they brought a present for Chan who looked nervous at them. They hoped he would like it after Y/N's accident. Then there was Felix who was excited for his prank against Changbin.

Once Jisung and Seungmin finished cleaning up they headed into the living room excitedly to open presents. Chan took his heavy present and opened it first to see a desk inside the cardboard box. It was a black and silver desk. "Thanks, guys. I wonder who broke it." Chan said sarcastically. "It was Y/N," Changbin stated as he pointed at Y/N who shrugged. "Sorry Channie." Chan shook his head at Y/N's words before giving her a present. They each handed each other a present and opened it up, each taking it in turns. Minho was very excited about his Cookbook and felt very appreciative of her. Jisung was very excited about his new game and Hyunjin was very excited about his camera. They were all grateful for each other's presents but Y/N was overwhelmed and ended up scolding them for all the gifts. She had nowhere to put them which none of them thought about. They were far too excited about getting her gifts and spoiling her that they didn't think it through.

By the afternoon, Felix, Jisung and Seungmin left to see their family to celebrate while Chan phoned his family. Y/N helped Minho prepare dinner so when dinner was finished they were all back to celebrating. Dinner was a traditional Christmas dinner with Christmas crackers which they pulled and wore the crowns from inside the cracker. After dinner, they played karaoke and monopoly while driving mulled wine until the evening when they packed their suitcases ready for tomorrow when they would head north to the Alps. Apparently, they were seeing the Monsta x wolf pack who lived in the Alps. It was a tradition each year that the two wolf packs coexisted for two weeks to celebrate the coming of the new year and the new werewolf season. They were good friends with this wolf pack and Chan promised they were too a very private wolf pack. Chan also told Y/N they had just been mated with their omega so they were also feeling nervous about outsiders, which reassured Y/N, despite the growing coldness in Y/N's stomach. She didn't know whether it was meeting this group of werewolves or something bad was going to happen.

Taglist for the iconic readers:

@galaxy4489 @reallychaoticwoo @leezanetheofficial @mbioooo0000 @jisungs-iced-americano @maybeimmia @hwangrfrnd@wolfo2027 @kayleefriedchicken @leamueller920 @borahae-reads @jennibahng @cookiesandcreammy @jutdwae-flower @danceonmyheyday @jc003 @hpnsfwaddict @pixie0627

~ Taglist closed due to Tumblr only allowing a certain amount ~

[agere-fics]

Doctor Papa

dni: k!nk, anti-agere, agepl4y, or ddlg-esque blogs 🍄 this blog is a safe space for age regressors and age dreamers 🍄

pairing: caregiver!papa!bruce banner x regressor!little!reader

characters: uncle thor, bruce banner, reader, mentions of: steve, bucky, sam, and tony stark.

summary: you have to get MRIs done but you're nervous. thank goodness, papa knows how to cheer you up.

word count: 1,751

content warnings: MRIs, hospital gown, reader is written like they're a child's height, no mention of a particular chronic illness, please tell me if i'm missing anything

author's note: tadaa!! all done! this is the most i've written for a one shot! very proud of myself. also, this is inspired by me having to get MRIs done recently ajfhs

♡

Sometimes stuff we've done lots of times can still seem scary; which is annoying because who wants to feel anxious about the same exact thing over and over again?

You have to get these scans done by tomorrow. With every heart of your being, you wished that wasn't true but your previous scans were too old.

UGH!

Luckily, your papa had a trick up his sleeve.

He told you to stay here, in this gigantic, empty, white walled room. It was utterly boring, there were no paintings or statues or anything. Not even toys! Well, okay, you had your Mr. Rainy Day Bear but still... At least there were floor to ceiling windows- OH, and a skylight, too. Those were always nice.

While you waited for Bruce to come back, you watched what went on outside. There was Tony using his latest invention to attempt to lift Uncle Thor’s hammer. Tony still had no idea that it couldn't possibly work! How silly of him.

Bucky, Sam, and Steve stood in a far apart triangle. They were tossing around the Captain America shield like a Frisbee, guffawing, and yelling things that were joyously incomprehensible. It looked like lots of fun. Definitely more fun than MRIs. Maybe, they would let you join in later.

The double doors of the empty room swung open and papa’s humongous green form entered.

“Okayyy, love bug, I've grabbed all the cardboard pieces from recycling that weren't gross.” He grimaced thinking about the black, moldy gunk that spoiled some previously useful parts. He shrunk back down to Bruce Banner size after dumping the cardboard into a large pile. “We should have enough for our little art project.”

“Art project?” You looked at him expectantly. Your eyes were lit up with stars of joy this time, instead of meteor shower anxiety.

The idea was to make a cardboard MRI machine. Having an art project to focus on would comfort and reassure you about the process you would go through tomorrow. If he could make it fun, your anxiety wouldn't be so bad.

“I’ve seen the machine before, papa, I can make the bestest one yet!” You hopped on your toes, giddy with tight, flapping fists.

“I grabbed your sticker books and some paint, too-”

“OH YAY, THANK YOU PAPA, THIS IS SO EXCITING!!”

Mission accomplished. Anxiety gone, replaced with magical cure Art Project™. Bruce smirked to himself.

You laid down on a tall, square cardboard piece. Bruce traced your form with a sharpie as you giggled. Once you had the correct length, you both began cutting a rectangular piece and put that piece on a metal cart with wheels.

Then, you cut out half circle pieces and hot glued them all together until it made one large 4D sphere with a hole in the middle like a donut.

At one point, the glue burned you but Papa Bruce fixed it right up and stopped the booboo pain with a cure-all kiss.

Your cardboard MRI machine may look done to outsiders but it wasn't even close. It was missing the most important part of all: the stickers! There were heart stickers, stickers with dolphins, rainbow stickers, puppy stickers, stickers that had Mr. Hulk and Papa on them, too! There were even stickers of Stevey, Bucky, Iron Man, and Uncle Thor! Papa said for your birthday he'd make stickers with you on them, too.

You also painted squiggles, polka dots, lines, circles, triangles, kitty cats, and zig zags. All of them in your most favoritest color.

“There!” You stood proudly, hands on your hips. “Now, it's very, very pretty, papa.”

Papa gave you a minute and then asked, “Are you ready to practice?”

You blinked and sighed. Defeat warping your mood. “Yeah...”

Papa spun away, put a doctor's coat on, and then turned back, holding a clipboard. “Alright, are you the caregiver for Mr. Rainy Day Bear?”

“Yeah, papa.” You lightened up a little bit.

“Papa? No, I'm Doctor Doctor. Who's papa?”

“You're papaaa!” You pointed at him.

“Okay, okay I'm Doctor Papa.” He repeated, “Are you the caregiver of Mr. Rainy Day Bear?”

You tilted your chin up and did a faux British accent. “Why, yes, sir. He's feeling very, very bad and needs a scan.”

“Ah, yes, I see that on his chart, Caregiver.” He flipped through the scribbled pages on the clipboard. “Let's have. Mr. Bear lay down on the table with his head on the pillow.” Bruce gestured with his hand.

You laid your stuffie down on the pretend bed, placing Mr. Bear’s head gently on the pillow. You patted his hand for good measure.

Doctor Papa put ear plugs into the bear's ears and placed cushy pink headphones on him. The headphones had cat ears on them. Papa raised his voice a little, “Mr. Rainy Day Bear, what kind of music do you like to listen to?”

“Doctor Papa, Mr. Bear is nonverbal.” you said matter of factly. You raised your pointer finger to the sky. “I’ll answer for him. He likes The Wiggles, Papa- I mean Doctor Papa.”

“Alrighty then, The Wiggles album coming right up.” Bruce pulled out his phone, scrolling until he found the right music. “Wiggles rave?”

You nodded, then kissed the tippity top of Rainy Day’s head. “You'll be okay, Mr. Bear.”

Bruce began to push the cardboard bed into the donut sphere. You took a big, big deep breath in.

“BRRRR BEEEP AGHHHH RRRRR DNNNN-”

That breath was immediately released back into the atmosphere. “PAPAAA!” You clutched your chest, laughing so hard your legs felt weak.

Doctor Papa continued, “DRRRRR EEEEEE EHHHHHH MRRRRRR!”

You were rolling on the floor, tears leaving your eyes. How silly of your papa!

“BRRRRRrrrrrr….” Papa rolled the cardboard bed out of the donut. “How are you feeling Mr. Bear?”

“Papa, he can't hear you!”

Bruce laughed. “Oh, yeah, right.” He removed the headphones and then the earplugs. “How is the fantastic Mr. Bear?”

You lifted Mr. Bear’s paws and had him sign to Bruce, ‘I am okay.’

“Perfect! Let's take a look at your scans here…” Papa turned around and scribbled quickly on the paper. When he faced you again, he showed you the scan. It was a poorly constructed scribble of Mr. Rainy Day Bear with a big, biiiiiiiig, heart right in the middle. “I knew it, Lots-Of-Love-itis.”

You unburied the British accent. “Quite good, sir. Well done, Mr. Bear.” You placed a hulk sticker on his paw and hugged him tightly.

Papa kneeled down and asked, “Do you want to practice with you this time?”

You gave it a thought, looking this way and that. “Hmmm, will you make the funny noises again?”

“BEEEEP BRRR-”

“Not right now, Papa!” You shouted with a smile.

“Oh, during the practice?” He waited for you to finish rolling your eyes. “Yeah, I can do that.”

“Okay…” You breathed in, out, in, and out slowly. “Let's practice, Doctor Papa.”

♡

“Big day, lille venn.” Uncle Thor said as he helped tie the back of your hospital gown. He double knotted the strings behind your neck and then the ones by your hip. “There you are. All set.”

You frowned at that, looking at Thor with big, watery eyes. “Not all set.”

“It'll be okay.” His hands (placed on your shoulders) turned you to face him. “Remember your breathing?”

“Mhm.”

“Let's do it together.” He raised his left hand as you did the same. “Climb Yggdrasil, breathe in.”

You traced up your pointer finger.

“Let's sit at the very top, hold your breath.”

You paused at the tip of your finger.

“Slide down the Yggdrasil branches, breathe out.”

You traced down your pointer finger.

Uncle Thor had you repeat that four more times, until the tears dried and the anxiety flowed further away.

“Very good, great job. Let's go see Papa.” He held your hand as he walked you towards the scary room. Worse than the boring room from yesterday.

You turned the corner and there was Papa at the computer. “Hey there! The computer’s prepped and waiting for you, little one.”

You looked at Papa, then Uncle Thor, and then Papa again. “Okay… I'm ready.”

Papa led you to the metal bed. It was rectangular and thin. A sheet was laid out on it so you wouldn't get super cold. There was a thick pillow on the end that had your favorite kitty cat pillowcase on it, which made the corners of your lips turn upwards.

Papa pressed an arrow down bottom next to the donut sphere that brought the bed down to your level. He held your hand as you hopped on and then helped position you onto the center. He guided you through a big, deep breath so that your body was as comfortable on the table as can be instead of tense.

Next came pink headphones with cutesy kitty ears on them and plain boring ear plugs so that your hearing wasn't hurt from the loud noises. Papa already set up your favorite kind of music so when the headphones were placed on you, it was already playing. Bruce furrowed his brow in question, moving his thumb up and down. You replied with a thumbs up. You were ready.

Bruce handed you a panic button to hold just in case and laid a blanket over you to keep you warm. Papa kissed the top of your head and left the room.

You closed your eyes and took a deep breath in and out.

BBRRRRRRR

‘It's okay. I'm okay.’

BEEEEEEPPP

‘Woohoo, I'm doing awesome!’

REEEEHHHHHH

‘This is boring, it's got to have been a bajillion minutes by now.’

After ten years (minutes), the machine stopped and Papa walked back into the room. He gave you a high five and bunches of praises that you only heard some of because of all the ear protectors. But you could tell by his facial expressions that he was so very proud of you.

He pressed the arrow down button again and the bed began moving to an easier height. You removed the headphones and earplugs yourself, you felt like such a big kid (in the best way)!

You stretched this way and that while making funny noises which made you abrupt into hearty giggles.

Bruce held your hand as you jumped down. Next thing you knew, he was hugging you tightly, picking you up, and spinning you around and around!

“I'm so very, very proud of you, bumble bee!”

You kissed his cheek. “Thank you, Papa!”

♡

[firefly--bright]

unearthed.

jean kirstein x fem!reader, modern a.u., buzzfeed unsolved a.u.

summary ; you dont know just how many watchful souls listen to you and jean speak, waiting, watching. maybe it's just you, but the prison air feels warmer. warnings ; mentions of violence, a little horror (? literally just the tiniest bit), talks of death. cringe humor. a/n ; happy halloween my beloveds. crazy that halloween and diwali were on the same day. kinda poetic lowkey. im DEAD TIRED so ykw that means! happy fireflyfic day! (and happy diwali to those who celebrate :)) taglist ; @holding-infinity-and-a-book , @mrsnobodynobody , @hopeless-anti-romantic , @jeanscremebrulee , @berrijam , @happxme , @cherrypieyourface , @imgayandshesanime , @moonmalice , @kivernova , @potaho3frog , @xakilicious , @katestrophes , @gojo-ana , @ppushable , @zombiefiedskeivy

masterlist is in pinned post! ✿ enter my taglist! ✿

The prison wasnt eerie, which should’ve struck you as concerning. 

No, rather, the opposite, the fact that it was a little too comfortable, a little too lived-in to be considered ghostly was what you found…weird. Or maybe it was jean’s presence next to yours, the coldness of the air masked by his warmth and stolen jacket perched over your shoulders that made the air feel a little more breathable.

Connie and marco are huddled over the camera, speaking in hushed whispers - some technical jargon that your brain is too tired to recognize. 

Jean shifted from beside you, adjusting his own coat - not stolen - and thumbed the straps over his chest that snuggly held a smaller camera so it fit better over him. He cleared his throat when he caught you zoning out, “know your lines?” he asked, a prompt for you to speak your mind. 

You smiled cheekily, looking at him under the dim, sole flashlight. “By heart. Scared, jean-boy?” 

“Dont call me that on camera, please,” he says, eyes screwing shut when you shine your light straight into them. 

“Have i ever embarrassed you? You do that to yourself more than i do,” “okay that’s…intentional. It helps with the character im going for.” you snort. “Damsel in distress?” he scoffs, “i had to save you last time, remember?” “that was just an excuse for you to hold my hand, you can admit it. The cameras arent rolling yet,” you tease, bumping your shoe with his worn-out converses. He lets you. There isnt much he doesnt let you do to him. 

“Alright, cameras are gonna start in three…two.. One!” marco’s voice is characteristically calming, even at a higher pitch.

 

Your shoulders stand straighter as you look into the lens, placing the flashlight right under your chin. “hello, watchers! Welcome back to another episode of Unearth - a series where we try to gather evidence of the paranormal to see who wins - a believer,” you say, pointing the light under jeans chin briefly before settling it back under yours, “or a skeptic.” “it’s not a competition,” “right. Of course not.” you say, winking into the camera. Its jean’s turn to speak, his voice a low baritone, and you can see his breath becoming foggy into the now november air. “We are here today at the Marley Prison, rumored to be the host of seventy percent of the state’s most wanted criminals since the early eighteen hundred's. And we’re standing infront of it now and it’s fucking creepy,” “right, and it was also incredibly overcrowded, so-” “-so just, a terrible place to live in.” “yeah, but they killed people,” “...right. Most of them.” “i’ve heard it smells like shit,” you say, almost forgetting that this might get broadcasted, but jean’s eyes on you seemed to have that effect. forgetting the size of your own beating hear, forgetting where you were, melting away any proof of life except his.

He smirks, looking straight at the camera once more. “Right, that’s why i have-” he pulls out a small spray bottle. From what you could read, the text flashed, “FLOWER POWER!” and your smile turned into a laugh. “- this air freshener right here.” “right. That’ll protect us.” “if i get possessed i’d want.. It to smell, like-” “-like flower power-” “right.” now the both of you are laughing, shoulders shaking.

“Great. Let’s head inside, guys,” marco says, smile on his face, and eren puts the camera down to view what he had gathered. 

“After you,” jean says, his shoes scruffing against the harsh stones underneath, spreading his arm infront of you as a guide.

“Pussy,” you muttered, making him sputter.

-

“Alright,” you say, settling on the cold hard ground. Cell number 509, holding the last inmate of the entire prison who passed away in the very same, cramped room. Only a mattress and a sink to keep him company, a small, hand-sized window on the wall opposite to the door, meant to be locked at all times. 

“Dangerous people in this place,” you say, mostly to yourself. Your partner was on the ground floor of the vicinity, in another building entirely, investigating by himself. You decided to split up to see if that might spite any spirits to act, planning on asking questions to the different people that were barely alive, living in the space so freely disturbed. The camera crew were also downstairs, waiting on the two of you to be done. All you had was an old walkie-talkie that connected to jean’s. 

“You there?” his voice - filled with static and concern - reaches the confines of the prison cell. “Yep. where are you?” you ask, sitting in the middle of the floor, pulling your knees up to your chest, your flashlight flickering. “Im at the uh… that punishment place.” “ah. Im in Dean Cooper’s cell.” “oh,” he says. “Why dont we just use our phones for this part?” he asks, a beep following him. You smile. “I dont know, actually. Do you- should we?” “yeah that’d be.. I mean, better communication. Audio..quality - there are so many bugs here,” he speaks as you switch your phone on, dialing his number. He picks up not even a second in.

“Okay, can you hear me better?” he asks, and you rest your back against the thick wall. The door - heavy and cold - is fully closed so you could get a better experience, the full creeps. You nod, knowing he cant see it. “yep. Its crazy that people had to live like this,” you speak, holding the microphone part of your device close to your mouth, his voice on speaker. Something alive to fill the walls, more than your own presence. “Yeah. well it’s crazy that they committed so many crimes, honestly,” “i know.” 

You’re supposed to be filming. Your camera is rolling already and youre supposed to be speaking to a presumed dead person but a holy one is roaming downstairs without you and all you have is his voice as proof. “Hey,” jean calls out, and you thank good network reception and technology to have his voice be so clear, without cuts, real against your hand. “Im at the uh… what’s it called? The place where they could talk to their loved ones right now.” “ah,” “it feels weird.” a beat of silence. “Weird how?” you ask, your voice quiet. 

“Like-” theres a shifting sound at the end of the line, followed by a slight creak. “- weird in the sense that… i dont know, like, people still loved and cared for quote-unquote bad people,” 

You hum. Your head now also rests against the wall, too unaware to keep it up, too comfortable to find your own muscles. “I dont know. You’re always better with the words and shit.” he says, and you give him a small laugh. “Words and shit?” “yeah like, you know what to say.” “i mean, these people are dead, jean, theres a real small chance they can even hear us.” “i know, but like, even to alive people.” its almost 3 am, your phone says, and your heart increases in size, a little too comfortable against your ribcage. 

Have you ever felt that before? the muscle that’s supposed to be contained in a confined space now opens itself up and you have no choice but to let it. It grows, bigger, until youre body is tattered and all that remains as proof is your heart, big and timid, still beating, waiting for jean’s eyes to look at it. You havent. You wonder if any of the people half-alive in this place have. 

“I mean, love is alot of patience,” you start, your fingers fiddling with the end of your jacket. A stray piece of thread. You hear him humming in agreement and continue, “maybe they just… couldnt say it. How many times have you been able to not say that you love someone, y’know? And then you get the chance to but then it gets lost in all the other unimportant things and maybe that… maybe that’s love. The unimportant things.” you say. Your fingers feel funny, tingly, hearing his voice saying something at the end of your sentence. Youre too caught up to say something important as a reply.

So you settle. Listen. “Like, imagining this place alive… y’know. Like not in a creepy way but in like… it’s - like so much time passed, and so much was said here.” he says. His voice holds importance in your hands, and you trace shapes into the side of your phone with your thumb as if its the back of his hand and you’ve taken it in yours, cold and patient, unimportant. Tracing shapes that cant be seen. He hears them though. It’s in every pause he takes, every breath he hears on your end of the line and he wonders if you know how your alive-ness makes him braver than the night. Brave enough to know that speaking is something to be accomplished, that you’re listening.

 

He stares at the glass window in front of him, sitting on the chairs that prisoners used to sit on with hope in their eyes. At least, that’s how he imagines it. Theres a small hole in the window, enough only to catch a couple breaths and silenced sentences and he can only imagine how the other person mightve felt, seeing their loved one behind a blurry and unkept screen.

“Im not going to empathize with them, obviously, but, i feel like… i mean, obviously this place was built to be inhumane. The fact that they even included that section of the prison, though.. I dont know. it's kinda nice.” you say, and he closes his eyes to pretend youre in front of him. Its not that hard, in all honesty, because your voice fills his ears and he’d rather listen to proof of the living - with her shoe kicking his, with her voice teasing his shrieks - rather than the minute but present proof of the dead. He knew someone - barely alive souls, watching - had to be listening to your conversation but he also knew that he was listening to it too and he’d rather commit to the cold of your familiar hands than the unfortunately lived-in warmth of this place.

“It is.” he agrees, his chin tilting up, his shoulders relaxing. One hand in his pocket, the other holding his phone, microphone to his lips with the speaker on. He wasnt alone. His phone’s screen is blurry and unkept, but he wasnt alone. 

“Y’know that’s what i find kind of… i dont know, comforting? About like, something this hopeless. That, like.. There’s a recreational room that they had. Like the option was there for them to sit down there and talk, maybe. I dont know how that wouldve gone-” you say, voice ending in a self-aware laugh, making him smile, “-but it was there, right. Same with this communication room…thingie. Like the option of loving is there.” 

Your voice floats against the walls of the room, touches the glasses separating him and the world, before coming back to him. His chest feels funny, more aware that it’s there. Not just as an organ and something trivial that helps him breathe but now as something larger than himself. Something less candid, hidden under layers of clothing and skin built to be thick, raised to be soft, and it almost lays there, in front of him, inhaling the sound of your voice like it’s a new source of oxygen. And it grows. Alive.

“Option of loving,” he echoes, eyes now fluttering open and looking at the expanse of the tattered ceiling above him, spotting shapes. Option of loving. “Like even now there’s like.. Im sitting here, and there’s notches on the wall. Like the… four standing lines and then a slash through them. Like the hope of getting out isnt gone. Its… cool how humans just do that.” you say. He clings onto every word, his own little prayer against the dark, unsaid but important. Option of loving.

He looks back infront of him, staring at the glass window again. Theres gunk in the corners of it and spiderwebs claiming it as their home in a place as haunted as this. “And even if i dont… believe in ghosts it’s like…cool to think about in the sense that, i dont know, everything is a proof of life. Y’know?” you ask, ready for confirmation knowing that he’d provide it to you. Anything you’d ask.

“Thats… i didnt see it like that,” he admits, “i mean i just saw it as like… confirmation that dead people are dead and that if there’s an afterlife we have to chose a right way to live, something we’re proud of, so that we dont regret it when we’re… dead and roaming the halls, waiting to be found, yknow?” “like grief.” you answer, and he shifts in his seat, getting a bit more comfortable. He nods, knowing you wont see it. “Yeah. kind of.” “that’s…poetic. We should start a podcast-” “-shut up,” and both your voices are broken up by laughs, short and warm and proof of being alive and roaming the halls, waiting to be found.

There’s a dog howling in the distance. No light in the room that you’re in, barely any air, coolness of november flush against your skin despite your layers. His voice holds you, a little blanket, cocooning you around yourself. “Hey, you’re supposed to come find me,” you say, reminding him of his task of peering into the halls, asking ghosts and bugs to come closer to him. Whatever’s alive or half-dead or half-alive or half-already-living. “And you’re supposed to play twenty questions with your hot date,” “i think he’s pretty cold, actually,” you say, he laughs. Another shift in fabric, another creak - he’s gotten up from his place on the chair, now warmed, soon to be claimed by the prison’s musty air, but for now it’s there. Fully alive. 

“My battery’s gonna die.” he says, voice a little solemn, his footsteps squeaking against the floor, rubber on hard cement. “We have walkie-talkies,” you provide, your voice full around it’s edges with your own smile and jean almost asks why youre smiling, but refrains. He’ll ask when he finds you. Or maybe he’ll tell you he’s in love with you. Or maybe the words will get lost under all the other unimportant things that he has to say to you. 

Or maybe that’s just what love is. The unimportant things, layered, hidden, chest and heart, large, warm, growing. 

[hexonthepeach]

perfume - k.dy

pairing: f4!nct doyoung x fem!reader (past johnny x reader mentions)

genre: hana yori dango/boys over flowers/meteor garden/f4 thailand reverse harem au (mild allusions and characterization only)

warnings:

bully-to-friends-to-lovers, established relationship, polyamory, dom!doyoung, glucose father adjacent, scent kink, control over food consumption/bathing (for scent kink purposes only), gratuitous use of the l-word by anti-romantics, angst/feelings, flashbacks and history

🔞 edging, cockwarming, orgasm denial, oral (m/f receiving), passionate sex, rough sex, spanking, creampie, bukkake, consensual negotiated kink (degradation, somnophilia), anal play (f receiving)

wordcount: 20k

author's note: this is a doyoung-centered continuation of my ongoing F4 au. it can stand on it's own but i recommend reading Dive for more context. Doyoung's role in the F4 is Sojirou Nishikado/So Yijung/Ximen/Kavin (playboy control freak) so this fic incorporates elements of his secondary romance within the original/adaptations, now with y/n.

read on AO3

fic headers / dividers credit to @ saradika + please do not repost

Freshman year, Kocher International. 

Head down in your books at lunch, trying so hard to escape scrutiny from above, you pretend to be no one. 

It shouldn't be hard to be nobody, otherwise ignored and immune to whatever social contract deliberates your life. In a better world you'd be invisible. It's a superpower you'd wish for much more over the usual playground answers of super speed or control of the weather. 

Let me be unobserved, you'd thought. Let me open a door and not worry about a bucket full of dirty mop water falling on my head or the inevitable posting of a grainy video of it, posted in a Telegram channel to fulfill some checklist made up by bored, rich monsters. 

Your four-generation-behind phone with its cracked screen proved useful in some regards; you never heard about these public pillories until some kind stranger sent you a screenshot of them, usually in the context of whatever plans they'd made to torture you again.

Every notification is already a pain, driving splintered glass into the pads of your fingers. Just now you're reading a text message from your father asking you to pick up more cheap instant noodles from the convenience store on your walk home to round out whatever scraps he's picked up from the local restaurant your mother bussed tables and cleaned dishes at when she needed extra money.

"Why is Saint Kim watching you?" your friend asks across the table. She's been looking up at the room this entire time, unable to give you even a moment of her attention or assistance to finish the English homework you'd been working on. You'd been rushing all day to finish it before afternoon class, after a late morning of delivery driving for your family's drycleaning business.

"Are you sure it's not the Devil?" you ask, parsing through the lines of a book you'd bought secondhand, trying to match verse for verse.

"No," she says, shaking her head when you finally look up. "Don't react. He's coming this way."

"Shit," you say under your breath, eyes flicking to your untouched lunch. "I need you to leave now. Take these trays and dump them and I'll meet you outside of 4th. If I make it."

You don't look up from your book as you mutter, but you follow her path and her hesitancy as she internally debates whether to heed your warning or watch from a safe distance.

Your handwriting becomes a scrawl of nonsense you have to cross out in sharp lines. You begin the verse again, holding your breath as you will your entire body and mind back to a manufactured calm. 

If you can't be invisible, you can at least play your role. You're copacetic by the time you see the tips of polished black wingtips beside you, before you hear the Saint clear his throat.

“Y/N.”

He drops a familiar, school-mandated clear cosmetics bag next to your ratty backpack. The already embarrassing stash of tampons and old chapstick has a new bounty including a "used" pregnancy test stick with a second line drawn in with pink gel pen jumbled into its contents.

"You left this . . ." he says, not finishing the sentence to indicate where he'd found it. You immediately hear a titter. Your flock of spectators is growing by the second and the useful idiot at its center seems wholly unconcerned.

"Thanks," you say, not bothering to look up or to even hide the bag. You keep writing, blindly, the English words just rounded shapes flowing from your shaking hand. 

Their kind fed off attention, your only defense is to starve them of it.

The Saint clears his throat, again. Apparently he’s not just unconcerned, he’s also unwilling to leave.

"Aren't you grateful Doie found it before someone else did?" You don’t have to look up to know it's Miranda who’s asked, glimpsing her manicure as she picks up your bag, green gems shining on perfectly-tipped nails. 

"Oh this must not be hers. I didn't think she could afford this."

You think she might be diving into the stash for one of the Lilies' pointed additions but no–you watch in horror as she plucks out the bottle of perfume you'd been carrying with you since your parents had gifted you a single, tiny box last Christmas. 

"Chanel?" she says, laughing. "No wonder you smell like my grandma."

"Probably a knock-off," another of the Lilies says. Ginger, by the sound of her grating voice. Her handwriting on the board in homeroom listing out your abortions is as familiar as the pink gel pen script on the extra large foil condom with xoxo slut written on it staring at you through the plastic.

"Definitely a knock-off. You have a nose, don't you, Doie?"

You look up, finally, at Saint Kim. He's alone for once–the other one, the Devil Kim that shadows him is still up on the second level, leaning on the railing over his shoulder. You watch the Saint’s small mouth turn into a moue of distaste, nose wrinkling at the proffered bottle.

"Authentic," he says, capping it before offering it back to you. Your field of vision is obstructed by that veined, pale hand–fingernails as perfectly groomed as the rich girls who surround him.

You reach up to take your most prized possession back only to find he doesn't let go, holding tight when you try to pluck it from his fingers.

"You should know . . . " he says, sniffing slightly.

You look up at him with alarm blazing in your eyes. Every word Kim Doyoung says to you writes your next damnation. You should ignore him, run, anything–but you can't look away once you've met his assessing gaze, his tall frame limned in the fluorescent cafeteria lights like he's carrying his own personal halo. 

Even seeing him at a distance every day can't depreciate how ethereally handsome he is. You know better than to swoon at that elegant face, night-black hair pushed away from his forehead. Beneath his family’s charities and his PR-scripted concern you know he’s just another ungodly creation birthed of nepotism and curated genes.

He leans in, carefully, musical voice a whisper. 

"You should know it doesn't suit you."

The laughter that follows is deafening.

No, you think. He's just as soulless as the rest of them.

“What do you mean actually sleep?" you ask, coyly, unbuttoning your romper. "Like after we . . . ?"

"I've managed 6 hours of sleep in 36 hours, y/n–” Doyoung seems to hesitate, dark eyebrows raising, hand pushing his hair back from his pale forehead. He snaps his laptop closed, at last, shoving it to the farthest edge of the bedside table.

No–you think–not hesitation. 

Frustration.

You've seen this man before. 

All work and no play made Saint Kim into a Prince of Hell. He'd spent the first 8 hours of your date day half-present–the other in the 4 hours of sleep he's gotten since some crisis at his family’s headquarters in London that usurped your vacation. 

A whole 2 days in which he hasn't held you at all. His rules, his chance, but you can't help but wonder what has him so clenched that he's barely even touched you since your date began at 6 am Bangkok time.

You'd taken two extra strength melatonin and slept like the dead, anticipating his early-riser schedule. Only you and God had to know you'd fallen asleep next to your day tour fit ready to be fucked in it. 

You’d made yourself so pretty only to find him in the kitchen hunched over his phone, laptop softly pinging with notifications. Doyoung had still been dressed in the clothes you'd seen him in the night before, ending his conference call to laser in on you hovering in the kitchen.

"Are you upset?" Doyoung asked.

"No," you'd lied, pushing the piece of paper he'd left the staff on the counter, his English handwriting crisp and formal. "What’s this?" 

"We have a few dietary restrictions today," he’d said. 

"Are you saying I am what I eat?" You’d asked, taking a bite of a plump strawberry. "Is this some kind of prep?"

"It's for the date," he'd said, resigned. "Just be patient with me."

Then he'd smiled, disarming you with a casualness you hadn’t seen on him in a long time, rubbing his eyes blearily under his thick glasses. 

"Can we go back to sleep?"

And so you'd settled into his grasp on your made bed, scrolling Insta and waiting for the inevitable alarm–which turned out just to be Jungwoo delivering two iced Americanos in some gambit of checking your progress.

"Missed the floating market opening?" Jungwoo asked, eyebrows raised at the sight of Doyoung face first in a pillow.

You'd silently mouthed your thanks, leaving the drinks to sweat on the bedside table as you changed into your second outfit of the day, occasionally drifting in to check on your sleeping beauty.

It was a rare delight to have him so vulnerable beside you, blanket rucked up beneath his chin and his white teeth visible past the sweet curves of his mouth. Without consciousness your partner for the day is just Kim Doyoung, the gentler side of the same creature who you knew would often choose a couch to watch serial television with you over a day trip if you wanted it. 

But this was different.

Now instead of using his precious time to fulfill what you'd felt promised in his casual brushes against your back when you'd finally traveled out, or the way he'd stroked your leg at brunch under the table (every bite chosen by him, of course), you're being railroaded into lying still while he sleeps. 

Again.

You continue undressing, letting him drink in the sight of the lingerie set he’d left in your room. You knew it was custom made by the way it lifted each curve he’d already had access to, tailored for you as if every millimeter of your body was to account for.

Doyoung's cheeks are hollowed, lip chewed. He pulls his glasses down and regards you even more as you continue to undress yourself.

"You do know what the word 'nap' means, don't you?"

"I'm not the one who hasn't slept," you say. "At least let me get comfortable."

His stare pierces into you as you turn around, stripping for utility rather than give him a show he clearly hasn’t earned. You check yourself in the floor-length mirror beside the bathroom, viewing yourself through his eyes as you pluck the lace over your curves to sit just right. 

“Do you like it?” you ask.

You may as well be speaking to the floor when you turn around, finding him buried in the pillows only by the dark fall of his hair.

“You can’t be that tired,” you say. 

You're used to taking a late afternoon siesta in peak summer but you're far too excited to even consider sleep right now. For one, it's sweltering–windows open to allow the noises of hawkers and traffic not far off to drift in.

Second, you've never been more turned on in your life. 

You can still feel the tingling in your toes from when he’d slipped his hand up under the hem of your shorts, teasing at the velvety smooth skin on your inner thigh as you tried not to choke on your mimosa.

You make your way to the bed languidly, crawling up the thick white duvet with a teasing smile.

"Just stay on your side of the bed, please," Doyoung says.

"Oh," you say, collapsing on top of the covers beside him. "Well you're no fun." 

"And you're impatient and uncouth," he retorts in a way that makes you wonder if he really means it. 

"Will you at least hold onto me?"

"Too hot." He rolls on his back, flapping his half-buttoned shirt in the breeze from the fans. You sigh dramatically, collapsing into the pillows in the middle of the bed. 

"You should get naked, then.” You say. “Don't be modest on my account."

He opens one eye to glare at you, finding you relaxed and inviting beside him. His throat bobs, gaze flicking to the ceiling.

"That year of celibacy really took a toll on you, didn't it? Two hours. Indulge me."

"Please, sir," you whisper. "I've been such a good girl."

It had been a stipulation of the F4’s latest deal–24 hours for you to recover from your first night before the gauntlet began. Doyoung had been more than strict about the terms, leaving you your own set of instructions including–not surprisingly–not touching yourself.

Under normal circumstances you wouldn’t think about masturbation constantly, at all hours of the day. He may as well have told you to try not to think about a white bear for how powerful the intrusive thought had taken over since then.

"You'll get your reward. Later," he says. He's an impassable wall, stretched out beside you, so you content yourself with staring at his profile. Even under these oppressive circumstances you appreciate the light dusting of freckles on his cheek brought out by the sun, the dark lashes dusting his cheeks over the slight bluish marks of sleep deprivation.

"Yes, sir."

It only takes a few minutes for him to snap at you again.

"Stop that," 

"Stop what?" 

"Getting so handsy."

You hadn’t even realized your hand had drifted over the plane of his belly under his white shirt, too absorbed with watching the muscles in his cheek spasm as you inched nearer. 

"Can I help it when you're right there?" you ask. "I thought this was your–"

Doyoung rolls you before you can slither any closer, pressing your back into the sheets with his hands on your wrists, knees digging into your thighs. 

If the intention was to get you to stop being uncomfortably turned on it has the opposite effect: you let out a moan of pleasure, legs twisting together for friction. He slams them shut between his own, groin pressed into yours.

He's as hard as you hoped, and you lift up into him to let him know you know it.

"If you don't behave I'll have to cancel this," he warns directly in your ear, sounding as choked as you feel. "I thought you were already trained." 

"Trained to fight back," you correct, pressing against him with your own strength.

"That's not trained," he says, lifting up. "I'll blame your lack of experience and experienced partners. Nothing we can't work on. Until then you'll follow my rules or I pull you from the game. Understood?" 

You let a few beats pass, accepting there's no way out and you don't have anything to throw back at him.

"Yes, sir," you pout.

"Now that's a good girl," he says.

Just as quickly as you were taken down you're let go, inhaling deeply now that you're not being pressed into the soft bed. 

"You really don't want to play with me before you sleep?" you ask, brushing your lips against his chin as he crouches over you. You’d be a liar if you didn’t say you enjoyed the way his nostrils flare a bit, working his pink bottom lip between his teeth. Whatever arbitrary rules he’d set for your time together you can tell he’s at least regretting it right now, stiff length brushing against your bare leg as you lift your knee to test it. 

“Are you trying to make me punish you?” he asks, voice husky. 

"I thought you liked it when I was a brat," you say, cocking your head. 

Doyoung sighs, eyes half-lidded. "I do. But not when you're using it to avoid intimacy."

Your throat clenches, a hard knot forming in it you can't seem to swallow as your face gets even hotter.

“What are you talking about?” you ask. 

“I think you know what I mean,” he continues. “It’s not like we both don’t have a habit of using sex as a distraction from anything emotionally challenging.”

You gape up at him in disbelief. 

Of course you’d never been able to hide that aspect of your last relationship with him when he’d often been right outside the door. All of the F4 knew how many times your arguments with he-who-should-not-be-named-especially-not-while-in-bed-with-his-best-friend had ended in you shutting him up by any means necessary. Not that you didn’t enjoy it at the time–but rather you understood it wasn’t the most healthy template for a relationship. 

"I thought this wasn't going to be about feelings," you blurt out.

“Proving my point.”

Doyoung tsks, tapping your cheek with his fingers–nowhere near a slap but just as effective, soothing the spot with his thumb. Soon he’s brushing your tears away when they inevitably spring up and you have to turn to hide their seep into the mass of pillows.

"If I wanted therapy I wouldn't be here, Kim Doyoung," you say, trying to bury your face in the piles of soft down. 

“Shh, silly girl,” He gently pulls you out from hiding, soothing you with a warm kiss against your forehead when you stop struggling and let him hold you, releasing that surge of emotion and writing it off to hormones and the sting of rejection.

“You know I’m speaking to myself here, too,” he states softly. “Bear with me, I’m learning.” 

"Do you even really like me?" you ask, face pressed into his chest. 

It’s horrible to admit this specific insecurity but you can’t help it. Being abandoned multiple times in your life when you’d finally, finally let your walls down would damage anyone’s trust. You’d hoped this day with him would be easy and carefree and light, not dimmed by the shadows of your anti-romantic histories. 

"I adore you, actually." He settles partially on top of you, leg wrapped over yours as he props himself up on his elbow. "Which is why I want to start this right. You wanted the F4 boyfriend experience. This is mine."

"Last I checked you’ve never seriously dated anyone," you groan, sniffling. 

"Last I checked, neither have you." 

Well, that connects. You swallow your fears, relaxing into the cage of his embrace, retreating a little from the vulnerability of being exposed.

"What kind of girlfriend experience were you expecting, then?"

A lazy smile gusts across his features. You can't help but find it a bit sinister after being handled so indelicately. 

“I don’t always know what’s going on in that empty little head of yours." He accompanies his statement with a brush of his thumb across your flushed cheek, tracing your semi-parted lips in a way that sends sparks down to your core. 

"I’d like to stop guessing and actually get you to let me treat you the way you want to be treated. Have you ever asked yourself what you want?"

You panic a little, considering his words. Living with disappointment had made this question a hard one to even consider. 

"I just want a good time. Isn't that what you want, too?"

Doyoung seems to ignore your ask, drifting into a relaxed state against the pillows. His hand traces the hairline at your temple. "You know I worry about you. All the time, actually.” 

His voice is lower, a little wistful, and it’s doing just as much as the slight brushes of his fingertips to make you throb all over again. A lack of sleep must have made him delusional, you think. This is not the Kim Doyoung you know.

“You’re always thinking of how to take care of the people around you, I think you’ve forgotten how to relax and let other people take care of you.”

"Is that why you're always involving yourself in my business?" you ask, matching his tone in how breathless you are. You expect a quip, not the sincerity written on his face when he swoops in to press a gentle kiss against your lips, too fleeting to be anything but sweet and sincere. 

“What do you think I’ve been trying to do all this time? It certainly wasn’t just to get into your pants. I want you. All of you.” 

You're taken aback by his honesty. You'd always suspected his constant meddling in your affairs came from a place of interest but you'd never wanted to give him too much of a response–maybe a little afraid his fickle nature and fear of commitment would mean he’d give up on your friendship, too. 

Another thing you knew about Saint Kim: he had a tendency to run like a frightened rabbit at the first sign of emotional neediness in his partners. You'd never given him reason to believe you expected anything from him, but you'd also stopped fighting him on giving you what he desired to give.

It wasn’t just presents or expensive experiences, of course. He’d found out quickly those weren’t welcome without some cajoling. No–his art was in knowing what you needed even before you realized it, nudging it across your path. 

You’d figured out his deviousness after the umpteenth time someone was charitable at your little florist shop part time job, offering to fix your scooter in exchange for a nice arrangement for a proposal. As soon as you’d seen the fully restored bike outside and the customer didn’t return your texts you’d called Doyoung, completely unsurprised to find he was at the coffee shop next door, waiting to pick up his flowers.

“Stop being so nice to me,” you’d said. “It makes me uncomfortable.”

“What makes you think I’m giving you charity,” he’d responded, dropping a department store bag and your own custom coffee order on the counter. “You’ll wear this when I come to pick you up tonight at closing, including the jewelry and perfume. I need you to play your part again. The flowers are a consolation for the heart we’re breaking.”

He’d enlisted you as his defacto “new girlfriend” for the more difficult separations, and though you’d gotten your share of a glass of expensive wine thrown in your face more often than he ever experienced it (his type always went after the easier target) it wasn’t like he didn’t have a replacement dress ready and a nice dinner waiting after you’d cleaned off the Chateau Lafitte Rothschild. 

You have to face the fact that no matter how many times he’d treated you like his girlfriend, you’d never actually expected him to want you to be one. 

“I’ve waited a very long time for this, Y/N. Which is why I want our first time together–alone," he adds quickly. "–To be special."

It's difficult to believe him but you're spellbound all the same, watching pink dust his cheeks and his ears turn a shade darker as he most likely realizes how ridiculous it is considering him fucking you senseless the other night with the help of two other men. 

But you can empathize with his anxiety. Yesterday's Thai massage he'd arranged had helped you work out the flight or fight of anticipating being alone with him. It’s back now, but different. The way he's looking at you makes you feel infinitely naked, infinitely unlocked.

"What do you mean special?" you ask, wary, hoping to see some glimmer of uncertainty or falsehood in his gaze. You want to believe it's a lie or just some artful prank, trying to ignore your heart flip-flopping in your chest. 

It’s a mistake to let him see you squirm considering it’s Doyoung’s drug of choice–his lips twist into another menacing grin as he plays with the charm on your necklace. Another of his little gifts.

"Do you think you can handle it?" Doyoung asks, dripping self-satisfaction. “Or are you going to chicken out on me?”

You turn over so he can't see your expression, realizing he’s throwing your own words from the night before right back at you.

"I haven’t decided if I want to date you, yet,” you say. 

"Maybe not," he says. "But you'll have to pardon me for wanting to show you this good time you supposedly want while also treating you decently. Unless we're no longer friends?"

"We are," you say, biting your lip, "even if you enjoy torturing me."

"Torture?" He laughs, breathy. 

"Metaphorically speaking."

"You have no idea, do you?" You can feel the edge of his glasses as he bites the place where your clavicle connects to your shoulder, his hand snaking around your bare middle.

"You could show me," you invite, mid-gasp, as your body responds to his long-awaited touch. His fingers are almost cool in contrast to the heat in the room, tracing circles in your skin that have you squirming. 

"Is that a challenge?" he asks.

Why not?

"We don't have to have sex," you offer. "Maybe you could just–"

"Shh," he says, fingers skimming lower. "My terms. Are you going to stay quiet for me?"

You nod into the comforter, breath hitching as he touches you through the thin layer of your underwear, veined hand flexing as he molds the damp fabric to your body. It's such a delicate pressure but he's already memorized your shape, index finger sinking into your folds, gently rubbing a ring around your throbbing clit.

You're sticky and swelling with each pass, entranced by how good he is at teasing you, cherishing the way he sucks in his breath when he pushes into the indent of your hole.

“Doie,” you whine, leaning back into him, trying to get him to kiss you as he laughs into your hair. 

“Quiet,” he reminds you, kissing your cheek and teasing the seat of your underwear where they're soaked the most. "You want to take these off?" 

You shake your head, sensing it would be too easy of you to give in.

"That wasn't a question," he says, tugging down the band, leaving them trapped tight around your thighs. "I don't want you to wear them until I tell you that you can." 

You feel your core clench at the way his voice cracks, his fingers sliding back up to slowly and delicately draw a thread of moisture from your bared slit. You whine a little when he stops touching you, bringing his fingertip to your lips.

"Taste it." 

You let your mouth fall open, let him run it over your tongue, beginning from the middle and swirling over it. 

"Describe it," he murmurs. "If I like your answer, maybe I'll indulge you more." 

"Salt," you say, immediately. 

He tugs your hair, making you meet his eyes. 

"Have I taught you anything? I want specific notes. Flavors." 

You're transported back to the time he'd taken you to your first (and last) wine tasting. Spitting into a bucket and being lectured about body and tannins and soil conditions was the last thing you'd wanted to do after an hours-long trip to a vineyard but you'd indulged him, allowed one glass of what he considered the only drinkable wine on the premises. 

An unrefined palette, he'd called you. 

"Fruity and floral," you make up. "A nice lingering finish. Want a taste?" 

He looks down at you behind his glasses, equal parts amused and unimpressed. "Did you use the soap I asked you to?" 

Your brain glitches at that. Had you? You'd been in such a rush to go out–

You gasp when he palms your breast, squeezing the meat of it through the breathable fabric of your matching bra.

"I'll take that as a no," he says. "I guess you're not ready." 

He rolls off of you, leaving you in a lurch as you realize your legs are locked together by your underwear. You move to remove them, taking off your bra as well to avoid the awkwardness of being partially dressed.

By the time you're done you realize he's on his back, the hand that had been stroking you buried in his loose khakis. 

"What are you doing?" you ask, more than a little pissed off at the sight of him masturbating as if you aren't ready and willing to assist beside him. 

"Getting ready for our date. You can watch. No touching." He cracks an eye to look at you before closing it again. "Either of us."

"Are you edging me, Kim Doyoung?" Your menacing tone is entirely natural.

He hums a bit, working himself at a more punishing pace, knuckles peeking out from under his boxer briefs with each full pass over his length.

"Can't even look at me? Afraid you'll lose control?" You sidle down on the bed, beside his tensed thigh. You can smell a bit of the ozone on him from a morning in the sun, your knees knocking into his calves when you move over him.

"I don't trust you," he says, voice deeper than you've ever heard it.

"Is it touching if you finish on my face?" you ask when he finally blinks up at your presence, hovering over him with your breasts dangerously close to his clothed thighs.

"Absolutely not."

"Not touching–"

"Just. Watch," he orders.

He pulls himself free from his pants, surprising you with how dark and weeping his tip is as his thumb encircles it. Pools of white precum spatter on his lean, pale belly, your head dipping dangerously close–

"I said watch." He grabs at your hair, denied when you bend up again, showing him your dirty tongue.

He groans, fingers clenching air. "You were put on this earth to test me, weren't you?"

Still, he doesn't break his attention on the way you roll the drops you'd licked from his clean skin in your mouth, swallowing once you've fully enjoyed the taste.

"A little sweet you say," teasing him. "Drinking pineapple juice?"

"Brat," Doyoung says, but he's almost gone–eyes dark with desire, gently gripping your skull as you continue to ease in.

You're a master at following his lead, blowing a breath over the spot you'd licked, and then his length until his movements slow, cherishing the way you hold your mouth over his cock.

"If you can't give me what I want, then at least give me a taste," you say, sticking out your tongue in offering. You love the way he responds to the sight, needy and losing it when you hold eye contact, drilling into him.

"No," he echoes, weakly. He's too smart to push into your open mouth, instead driving his hips up to fuck his fist as you watch his glasses slide down his nose, eyes clenching shut. 

"You're no fun," you say. "Just a little swallow can't hurt?"

"No. Don't want to ruin it," he says cryptically, making a choked noise as you brush his fingers with your nose and he has to pull you away.

"I promise you it . . . It will be worth it," he manages. His jaw clenches as his movements relax, finally in control of you both.

"It better be," you say. 

You lower your lashes as your eyes flick between his cock and his face, stretching out your tongue to the point that drool begins to drip down your chin, splashing on his whitened knuckles and the tight stretch of his balls peeking out from his underwear. He bites his lip, breath holding as he starts to spiral.

The first thick rope of white rockets up his half-bared chest. Soon he's spurting even more, cum reaching his rucked up shirt, a little getting on his glasses. 

He's so out of it he doesn't fight as you wrest out of his limp hold. You clean up the sticky mess on his skin with your tongue, his abdominal muscles twitching under the light flicks and drags. 

"Want to give me some notes?" you ask, straddling him without resting any weight down, taking off his glasses. This time when you move to kiss him he rises weakly to meet you, lips parting to accept what you haven't swallowed. 

In truth, he tastes wonderful. Coffee, a little menthol from toothpaste and a hint of the watermelon you'd shared earlier mix beneath the coat of his spend.

He licks into your mouth until you moan, your body throbbing with unfulfilled pleasure. You follow him as he sinks back into the pillows, enjoying having him at your disposal, your core leaving wet trails on his thigh when you brush against the fabric.

"I'm going to wait until you're asleep and use you if you don't help me get off," you threaten, pressing soft kisses to his slack face. It’s no use. Doyoung has passed out again, lower teeth visible as he snores softly, forehead sheened with drying sweat.

Fuck it, you think. 

You ooze off of him to take your second cold shower of the day, and maybe get acquainted with one of the fancy showerheads in his massive walk-in while you use his special soap. 

It's not–technically–touching yourself.

Your mystery destination isn't an unknown–it's in every tourist booklet and blog you'd skimmed before your trip, thinking you'd be on your own to find a good spot to traverse to. But it still takes your breath away the moment the car door opens in the sprawl of motorbikes and delivery trucks and Doyoung takes your hand to pull you into Paradise.

Pak Khlong Talat is a bustle of energy well after dark, the time you know its treasures are delivered fresh and unbloomed, wrapped in newspaper and steeped in crushed ice. For as far as you can see the market sprawls along Chak Phet road, but even more overwhelming than the sights and sounds is the scent. 

Jasmine, roses, lavender. Thousands upon thousands of blooms strung up and tended to by night owl vendors, delicate arrangements hand-sewed by artisans streetside into garlands so well-crafted Doyoung has to tug you to keep you moving, onwards to some other unspoken destination. 

"I was worried you might hate flowers after working with them for so long. I take it you like it?" he asks, indulging you when you ask if you can take his picture at a particularly lovely hang of garlands, the purple-blue light perfect for the film you'd loaded into your father's old camera. Photography had never been your craft, but after your dad had passed you'd made an effort to capture more of your memories, cherishing what you'd taken for granted before.

“It’s perfect,” you say, admiring him through the viewfinder. "But can you look like you're having fun?" 

Your model is stiff, mouth a moue as he checks the street for other observers or a possible collision with a laden handcart. 

"Fun?" Doyoung asks, and you snap his picture on the offbeat, enjoying his look of surprise. 

“Like you've taken your date to one of the most romantic places on earth, after buttering her up with a night cruise of Chao Praya and finally letting her eat real food." 

He sniffs at a fall of marigolds, a smug look on his face that you commit to film, right before he sneezes. 

"For the record, we're eating after this. Som tam hardly counts as a meal, I just didn’t want that drink going to your head." 

You're shepherded through the vast warehouse of the main market, to an adjacent street, and into a non-descript building painted in a funereal white.

"Are we even allowed to be here?" you ask, once the key code is entered and you enter the strange business. 

"I called in a favor," he says, taking your hand, leading you up a metal staircase past a simple storefront of dried blooms and shelves laden with boxes and bottles alike.

An apothecary? An alchemist's shop? The purpose of the space eludes you.

"An atelier," Doyoung explains. "One of the most sought out in the world."

There's the distant hum of the city outside and a central air you're unused to in this climate but the upstairs is quiet–by all accounts either an office or a laboratory, or a mixture of both. The central working area is a chaotic but organized space filled with tables of glassware and dried floral arrangements contrasting potted orchids, small beakers of coffee beans littered amidst rows of labeled brown bottles.

"So this is how they make perfume," you say, inspecting a stoppered bottle labeled "Gerianol 10%".

"Not just any perfume. The best. Here." Doyoung leads you to a much less cluttered workstation, the desk arranged with the lights still on, a note detailing some instruction you can barely read before he slips it into the pocket of his slim-tailored pants. Beneath it is a notebook, scrawled with a perfect cursive English you recognize from the cards he’d included in boxes or bags whenever he’d bothered to claim their contents. 

"Sit," he instructs. You think he means the comfortable chair but before you can sit down he presses you to the desk, caging you in. 

"Sit," he repeats, hands on your hips through your slinky skirt, lifting you to the bench. You scoot back, carefully, the white blooms of some exotic flower brushing against your cheek until he can move the vase a careful distance. 

"Do you understand what we’re doing here?"

You can't possibly know what he means, eye level with the graceful column of his neck and his exposed collarbone beneath his translucent button-down, drowning in the melange of scents but most especially his clean, neutral cologne. 

"No," you say, honestly, heart beating fast. 

He picks up a corked flask from some kind of metal scale, dipping a thin thread of paper into it to waft it a fair distance from your nose.

"Before we came here--before you even agreed to this trip–I sent instructions to my friend for a specialty blend of their creation. It took quite a bit of back-and-forth–I even visited here last month to take a private class and make sure we prepared the base and middle to your standards."

"For me?" 

You feel dizzy, reaching out to take the sample and smell it again, his hand capturing your own before you can bring it too close to your nose. He wafts it for you, expectant as you absorb the details.

Indeed, it smells divine–exactly the kind of warm, bright notes that make your heart feel at ease. There’s something floral and citrus worked in, not too heavy, the finish leaving you with an impression of a lazy summer afternoon. 

“It’s beautiful,” you say. “Did you make this to match what you knew I liked?”

"Yes.” Doyoung exhales, looking almost sheepish. "I had some references. That cheap shampoo you never stop buying, the Lush exfoliator with the orange blossom, even–" he shudders a bit– "that awful Chanel you doused yourself in, in high-school."

"Coco Mademoiselle," you say. "It's been years since I–"

"It didn't suit you," he says, standing up to sample another bottle from the neat row. 

Something dawns on you, a distant memory locking into place.

"It was you," you gasp in realization. "You're the one who got rid of it. I should have known when you tried to give me that bottle of Jo Malone–"

“It had already turned. You need to store your scents away from direct light.”

“It was a keepsake!” There were very few possessions from your youth that you’d been able to hold onto–not only because your parents had been barely able to afford your school uniforms, much less gifts. What little you’d had was lost when your house was destroyed by the men your father owed money to, this small thing neglected in the destruction.

“It didn't suit you because it wasn't made for you," he continues. "You wore it because you thought it would make you fit in, when you should have made what you wore wear you–"

"Please, stop."

You have to bite your lip to the point of pain, remembering how excited you'd been to unwrap that tiny bit of luxury your parents had saved up to buy you, your mother sure the brand name would save you from another day of humiliation. You didn’t have the heart to tell them that the cutout ad from the magazine on your wall was for the model, not the actual perfume, but you felt loved by the gesture all the same.

Hundreds of thousands of won an ounce for it to only turn on your skin, well before afternoons spent on the basketball court under the thankless sun. That memento had aged from pink to a sickly rose unused on your cosmetic shelf, a totem from a time when you imagined yourself belonging. Before it had disappeared, like so many other things.

You can't remember the last time you'd worn anything, had never even gone near that section of a department store after the humiliation of being made fun of for smelling cheap.

“My dad skipped lunches and my mom worked double shifts to get that for Christmas my first year in Kocher,” you say. “Mira was the brand ambassador for that campaign, you know.”

Mira had been your idol even before you won the scholarship she’d established to attend Kocher. Perfect, beautiful, but most of all the first girl in their sphere to show you genuine kindness.

"It must be so easy for you," you say, wiping your face. You rarely cried these days but that memory was particularly painful, a reminder of how often you’d assumed Doyoung found you just as offensive. Not just your scent, you thought, but you.

Something to be tolerated. Below his regard. 

"Whatever you want, you can have. Whatever you don't like, you can get rid of. I'm sorry, I don't live in your world. I can’t just throw something away when it’s not useful."

"No," he says, quietly, abandoning his explanation. "That was thoughtless of me. I can replace it–"

“Can you?” You glare up at him. “Is this what you really want? To dress me up like your perfect doll and feed me from your hand so I’m more able to suit you?

Doyoung looks like he's going to be ill, every design in his head unraveling before your eyes. You’d feel sorry for him if you didn't know this was a lesson worth imparting.

"Don't ever offer to replace what you don’t know the true value of," you say, voice trembling.

There's a weighted silence as he considers his next words. You still haven't slipped away from him, choosing to hold your ground. How many times had you been forced to be the antagonist in some fruitless class warfare, unresolved? But then you also had a habit of finding battles in peacetime. 

You pluck the newest scent strip from his frozen hand and waft it between you, at the designated distance.

“Thank god this smells nothing like it,” you murmur. You offer him a wry smile, anger fading. “I couldn’t stand it.”

You feel Doyoung’s relief as he collapses against you, forehead against your hair as his arms wrap tight around your middle. You relax after a bit, cheek pressed to his collarbone as you breathe in his unique scent–a little like fresh laundry left out in the sun.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “All these promises and plans and stupid details and at the end of the day I really . . . Don't know what I'm doing."

"I really don’t know what you’re doing, either," you say. "But I like that you try.”

"You do?" The hope in his voice makes your iciness melt a bit. You let your hands twine around his neck, feeling the tension in his shoulders ease with the gesture.

“I know it’s not easy for me to admit but I do appreciate everything you do for me, Doie,” you say. 

He doesn’t respond in words but you savor the shift in his demeanor, like a weight has been lifted from him. You think even he didn’t know it was there. You ignore the glassiness in his eyes when he pulls back, choosing to look at his notes instead.

“Are these all the ingredients?” you ask, working out a few of the more familiar words. “What’s op–?”

“First things first,” he says, rolling up his sleeves.  "Did you touch yourself?" 

"No," you say, surprised by the shift. "I followed your instructions. No products with scents. No underwear."

You spread your thighs to make your point. His hands hike your skirt up, over the breadth of skin to your hips and then to the curl of your belly, his breath hitching as he finds you already glossy.

It had been a bit of a gambit considering your riverside excursion but he'd allowed you a lemongrass-based repellent–the scent of which is still clinging to your bare skin as he kneels down to press a kiss to where his fingers had traced earlier.

You jerk a bit, conscientious of the workspace as he spreads you, just that light touch making your nipples harden beneath your thin shirt and bra.  

“Are we allowed to–”

“Shh. Relax and try not to spill anything,” he interrupts, breath cooling your wetness. “I just need some inspiration.”

“What?” 

"You’re so good already," he says into your sex, spreading you so he can lightly tongue at your skin. “Perfect little flower just for me.”

After waiting so long, you're torn between begging and shoving his teasing licks away, hand threading through his raven hair as the notebook slips from your hand.

"Kim Doyoung–” you gasp as he spears his tongue through your upper folds, nose nudging the sensitive bud. “–if this is another round of teasing I will murd–”  

You yelp as he hunches down to wrap your legs around his shoulders, hands re-occupied by exposing you as you try to stay upright. 

“Don’t worry. You can come like this. I want to know if you taste different after.”

You don't know what he means until his mouth closes over your clit, sucking just right. You jolt, pinched on the meat of your thigh until you can relax again, making little mewls as he rolls his thumbs alongside the point of contact.

“I want you inside of me,” you beg, feeling that fluttering sensation that heralds a build-up. “I wanted to come with you inside me.” 

“Soon. Just need to be good while I sample you.” 

“Sample?” Your hand sinks into his hair in panic, tugging, but Doyoung is too lost alternating between suckling at your sex and palpating you with a circling thumb, his beautiful hands gripping your thighs to keep you spread.

“Drip for me, first.” 

“I don't think I can–”

“You giving up already?” Doyoung scoffs, smirking up at you with reddened lips, tongue-tip darting against your clit. Every brush of soft muscle makes you spasm a bit, belly tightening unfulfilled.

You shake your head, panting. “I just . . . Doie I want you inside me.” 

“You can relax and take it,” he says, tongue wrapping around your labia, sucking slightly. Your head is buzzing, every stray thought removed by his exploration of you.

“Relax. If you don't I'll just have to try until you're begging for me to stop.” 

“No, please, Doie. I'll be good,” you plead. “Just . . . need something inside. Hurts so bad being empty.”

“Hand me a pipette.”

“What?”

“The one that looks like an eyedropper,” he says, hand open to accept like he’s performing surgery. You fight to find the right glassware with his mouth still on you, efforts more focused and intense as your legs tense with each hit. You find the rubber-stoppered glass cylinder, stomach dropping. 

“Is this safe?” You ask, gripping his mussed hair tighter when he pulls away for a moment.

“If you hold still, yes,” he taunts. You seize when you first feel the tip slip inside you. The glass is cool but warms to your body heat quickly, too slim to feel anything.

“Good girl,” he says. “You’re even pushing this out, you must be so tight.”

“I am. Too tight,” you groan. “Please don’t tease me anymore.”

He ignores you, focusing on his work, pulling the instrument free when he’s satisfied.

“Not bad,” he says, dropping it on the desk beside you before he’s back on his knees with his nose buried in your cunt. “Bet you can do better than that.”

“No, please, I need you–”

“Then drip for me,” he laughs into your leg, tracing the wetness down the crease in your thigh. You tense your hold on the desk’s edge when you feel his tongue prod at your entrance, muscle breaching your hole to lick into you. He makes a satisfied noise in the back of his throat that has you plummeting just as he resumes stroking your clit through the slippery coat of your arousal. 

Finally, you think, feeling the advent of tears for how wound tight you are, how desperate you are to feel him give you just one more point of contact with the ache inside.

“Oh god, don’t stop, please don’t stop,” you repeat, the noises obscene as he drinks you in, other hand on your hip to hold you against his face. It’s not even the stimulation that makes you begin to come but the audible groan he releases as he feels you quake against his mouth, heels snagging on his shirt when the first wave breaks and those little tics inside you turn into powerful contractions around his tongue-tip taking everything you can give him. 

He keeps licking you even when you’re begging for him to stop, nose tracing down to catch a stray drop from the back of your knee with a playful dart of his tongue. 

“Was it worth it?” you ask, folding over him as he wipes his mouth clean in your drenched skirt. You know it’s just the start but you already feel wrung out and feather-light, wicking away the sweat that’s beaded on your own face despite the cool, dry air of the room. 

“Hmm?” he hums a bit, disentangling to stand up and hold your face in his hands. His pupils are blown, sweat beading on his temples, but he looks as satisfied as you hoped he would be, your arousal drying on his slender features.

“All the prep,” you say. “Isn’t that why–do I taste as good as you expected after all that?”

Doyoung looks down on you, amused. Already you feel like you’re heating up again, with how his dark eyes flit to your mouth and back up again. 

“You think I prefer you prepped?” he asks, angling his head down besides yours to whisper in your ear. “The next time I eat that perfect little pussy of yours I want it to be filthy.” 

He traces the lobe with his teeth for good measure, pulling another moan out of you. “I’ll even make sure to wait until the other two have a go at you, first.”

You feel your heartbeat stutter as he presses his lips to your pulse point, tongue darting past his lips to dab at the sweat there.

“No, precious, I wanted to make sure the perfume we make tonight matches all of you.” Doyoung’s nose brushes your ear as he breathes in your scent. “Every time I wear it I’m going to remember the way you sounded when you first came for me and me only.”

The promise of it has you feeling a different kind of heat, dizzying for how much you want it to last past this night. 

“Fuck,” you whisper explosively, eyes clenched shut to stay fixed upright, fisting the thin material of his collar as he pulls you from the countertop and against the hard planes of his body. “I need you. Now. Please.”

“I like hearing you say that,” he chuckles a bit. “But I’m going to make you earn it. You can wait a little longer. You made me wait years, after all.”

You let him guide you into his lap, in the chair, pushed into the desk as he opens the notebook to another page. And another, until you take over and explore it for yourself. In the dim golden light from the street outside you catch glimpses of colors and drawings, notes written of impressions and memories you’d all but forgotten in your haze of grief these past few years. 

There’s even photographs taped to some of the pages–ones you know well by the fact that they’d been taken on your camera. Doyoung didn’t have Jaehyun’s artistic training but he did have an eye for capturing candid moments.

November, your first year of college. You’re standing in the first snow of the season, catching flakes on your tongue. You can still feel the burn of them, hear the murmur of the city dulled in a fresh blanket of white and taste the roasted yam you’d eaten, tossing it in your mittened hands until it was cool enough to peel. 

Doyoung’s shoulder is off-kilter beside yours, unable to capture himself in the frame for all his long reach. The peek of the striped scarf you’d knitted for him in gray and blue is all that’s visible of him under his peacoat, the mismatched weave of it captured even in this poor exposure.

“Base note: cedarwood,” you read, carefully, eyes hazing a bit with emotion. Evergreen.

“I still have it, you know,” he murmurs against your temple. “I only stopped wearing it because it started unraveling.”

“I’d make you another but I quit knitting after making three scarves,” you say, wryly. “Well two and a half, actually, I ran out of yarn on Jungwoo’s and made him a hat instead.”

“I thought you were just trying to get him to hide that ridiculous military haircut,” Doyoung muses. “Keep going or we’ll be here all night.”

“Now you’re impatient?” you ask, cementing your flirtation by shifting in his lap. You can’t ignore the feeling of his erection folded against the curve of your ass, or the way he grunts when you find a better seat with it nestled between your thighs.

“Sometimes I forget you were put on this planet to vex me,” he says. You’re lifted up by the waist, a hand on your lower back the moment you’ve found the desk for support, face above the book. 

“Why don’t you try reading until I’m satisfied you know exactly what you’re getting?”

You don’t fight him, elbows bent as he rucks up your skirt. You feel your face grow warm with blood as you find yourself exposed to him again, locked in by his legs and his groping touch reaching up beneath your shirt. 

"Base notes: amber and–" you have to fight to keep your voice steady as he swats your exposed curves, hard enough to sting. 

"Ambergris,” he corrects, voice fried with delight.

“Ambergris,” you repeat. “And white musk."

"Good. And?"

"Bisabol–" you begin, corrected with another slap on your ass that hits, hard, glass jingling on the table.

"Did you jump ahead?" He asks, knowing full well your eyes are swimming with tears. 

"No sir," you say. “I didn’t think that was a real word.”

"Opoponax." He says, reaching over you to grab a bottle, dropping a thick oil on you and rubbing it into your bruising skin. "Also known as sweet myrrh. Go ahead. Keep reading."

"Source: distilled from resin from ancient groves in Somalia, bought in Mogadishu from a local orchard, all profits to fund schools and clinics for women displaced by civil war." 

"Do you believe this to be a charitable effort?" He asks, hand spreading over your buttocks. You think he might be referring more to your arrangement than whatever is written on the page.

"No," you say. Your history and political know-how might be lacking but you've seen the wrong side of kindness. "It sounds like what people write to make themselves feel better about exploitation."

"Clever girl," he answers. You feel his nose brush against your skin, testing the mingling of scent with it. "Keep going."

You turn the page, swallowing back your protests. This spread is rich with text and color, a veritable garden bursting from the page. You fix on the first entry in the upper corner, bracing yourself for another faux pas.

"Heart notes: Turkish rose," you say. "What is this, poetry?"

"Aren’t you familiar with it?"

You shake your head, lips pursed in delight at the scrawl of English. “No.”

You let out a gasp as he bites the flesh nearer your back, the sting of it surely leaving a mark by the way the pain lingers.  

"Read it," he says, dipping over you for another bottle. “You’ll remember.”

"I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, where oxlips and the nodding violet grows," you dictate, stumbling over every word and yet never punished for it. Instead Doyoung lets a steady drip of the bottle fall down the back of your leg to your knee, his fingers bringing up the rest to mix what he's already poured on you.

"Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, with sweet musk-roses and with eglantine." 

You end your recitation in a whisper, leather binding and paper gripped in your fingers as he massages the oil gently into your tingling skin, careful to avoid where your legs are locked together in arousal. You're heady with scent and sensation, awaiting some reminder that this isn't just a strange dream you’ve wandered into.

"There sleeps Titania sometime of the night, lulled in these flowers with dances and delight," he finishes for you as he paints the rest up your spine beneath your shirt. You let him ministrate on your body as the words settle, as time recedes and you face a version of your youth you’re not sure isn’t just fiction. 

That book beside you, the first time he’d spoken to, long forgotten.

“Midsummer’s Night Dream,” you say, turning to face him again, settling between his thighs as he fails to meet your gaze. You lift his face with your fingers, cheeks indented by your gentle hold. “You remembered that, too?”

“It was the first time you ever looked at me,” he says. “And it felt like you saw right through me.”

No, you’re not dreaming. You’re the architect of this moment just as much as he’ll claim to be a cursory observer if confronted on it. 

You take in his mismatched eyes–one folding a little more than the other when he smiles at you ruefully. Those freckles you’d never really spent time examining, a happy accident of the time he’d spent with you in the sun. His fingers catching yours for a moment when you weren’t paying attention.

But most of all, the haunted cast where he’d lost sleep managing someone else’s problems. When he’d still been worrying about yours.

“You’re always thinking of how to take care of the people around you, I think you’ve forgotten how to relax and let other people take care of you.”

“No,” you say, shaking your head. “I don’t think I ever really saw you until now.”

“What didn’t you see?” he asks, expectantly.

Six years of his careful distance from you, that coldness and disinterest just another mask for someone who was as raw and vulnerable and real as you if you managed to pry open their shell. His tendency towards control, towards the knife’s slice of cutting you so cleanly from his life no one would know your name unless he spoke it aloud.

There wasn’t another human being in their right mind who’d last that test, your only grace being that he’d thought you were untouchable. His best friend’s girlfriend, of course. But beyond that, one of his best friends. 

No, one of his only friends.

“What didn’t you see?”

It wouldn’t require money or taste or a family name to bring Saint Kim down to earth. Just time and small acts of resistance, like the beautiful shell remnants you’d spilled into his hands on that last trip to Maui together, when it had still been the five of you. Each ground down to a small disc with a perfect spiral at its center, a reminder of the beauty remaining in broken things.

You place the notebook in his hands, curling your fingers around his. The pages it’s opened to are sparsely constructed, besides the photographs nestled between. Only you two know what’s there, buried in black sands and blue waters. You can see his handwriting falter where he’s written the notes for this moment in your shared history, sketches of those shells, and flowers.

A single photograph of you watching the others playing in the surf, his shadow cutting across the stretch of your legs.

Top notes: Jasmine for sensuality. 

Orange Blossom for innocence. 

Plumeria, for admiration. a new beginning . . .

You recognize the creamy yellow-white flower he’d tucked behind your left ear when you’d fallen asleep beside him. A non-native plant to the island, you’d learned, worn to indicate one was taken. A weed, like you, now prized as a treasure.

“What didn’t you see?”

You pull back to look at him, giving him yourself without reservation. 

“That I think you love me . . .” you say. “. . . Like I think I love you, too.” 

He looks up at you, astounded, the chair beneath him creaking as he collapses. 

For once you regret being beside him when you’d heard the same words spoken to him by other people, pulled into their lives without you ever remembering their names. The difference between you, you once believed, was that they didn’t mean it. 

Now, you understand, they just never knew the true cost of losing him. 

You watch him collect himself, running a hand back through his hair and curling into his seat, memories forgotten in his lap, bedamned. You’re sure the engines of Hell are running hot for the way he can’t even look at you right now. 

He needs a way out, you think. You’d rather be drowned in other women’s wine poured over your head than be on the receiving end of his disregard again, the script already constructed in your mind before you’d found you had the nerve to sleep with him.

"You can be honest with me,” you say. “Tell me it's been fun but you're not interested in a relationship.”

“What?” Doyoung is just as confused as when you’d told him you loved him, as honest as you’ve been in both sentiments. 

“Your family will never approve of me. I’m just another fling you happened to take a more lasting interest in. It’s better this way. Cut me off, forget about me and move on.”

It's his turn to balk. You expect his pre-programmed response. Saint Kim's gospel for turning down the interested but uninteresting party: deflect, dissuade, detach. 

“No,” he says, face draining of color.

“It’s okay,” you say. “I can handle it. Really. We can still be friends.” 

“No,” he repeats, more forcefully.

“What do you mean, no?” you ask. “Isn’t that how this always ends?”

“You stupid girl,” he says, grabbing your face in his hands so you can’t escape, making you look into his warm gaze. 

"Don’t you get it? This was always about feelings.”

When his lips crush against yours you don't have to speak to respond, catching his head so you’re not suffocated by the raw emotion you can feel in every movement. You return each kiss until the breath is out of your lungs, until you're drowning in his scent as he forces you back onto the desk.

You’re impatient to feel him, everywhere, aware you’re ripping buttons as you open his shirt to gain access to his smooth chest, trailing kisses as far down as you can go, still unable to escape his tongue sliding over yours.  

“I wasn’t going to do this here, like this, but fuck it,” he says once he’s free, fumbling with his belt as he holds you to pepper your face and neck in a steady reminder of his affection. “I need you.”

“I need you, too,” you echo wholeheartedly, helping free him out of his clothing, pulling his length to where you’re still slick with oils and cum and ready for him. God, you think you’ve never been more ready to break around him, to show him what he’s brought out of you with this game.

“Please don’t make me wait anymore,” you whisper. 

You watch his face, breath held and heart stuttering as he sinks into you slowly, both of you gasping at the way your heat resists each measure of his continuous thrust. It feels like he’s barely in you when he stops, making you moan in dismay.

“Doie, please,” you say, trying and failing to wrap your legs around his slender hips to capture him deeper. You’re half out of your mind with that burning weight inside you remaining still.

“Say it,” he says, taking off your shirt to have access to your skin. He pulls down your bra, nipples tugged between his fingers as he assaults your neck with his tongue and teeth.

“It’s special,” you choke out. “Thank you, please–”

“Say it,” he corrects, twitching inside you but not moving an inch more. He curls down to nip at your breast above the lace, sucking a mark into the softest part. “Without the ‘I think’.” 

“No,” you resist, realizing what he’s asking too late. Your nails sink into his half-bared shoulder, head rolling against his. “You don’t get to torture me for that.”

“Don’t chicken out on me now.” Doyoung laughs against your cheek, hand splaying around your hip to still your squirming. “I can do this as long as it takes.”

He thrusts, just a little more, making you cry out in desperation as the contents of the desk tinkle behind you. 

“Fuck,” you breathe. “You think I love you?”

“So, so close.” He pulls out, rocking into you again to feel the seize of your entire body when you anticipate just how far he’ll go before denying you. A little more, at least, and you can feel how much it’s taking for him, see the strain in his body as he holds back.

“You love me,” you tease, this time not a question, no you think. “Saint Kim loves me.”

He sheathes himself in you fully, gripping your nape to kiss you as you clench involuntarily around him, protests in the back of your throat muffled by his tongue sliding across yours. He tugs at your bottom lip when he breaks free, fully smiling now like he isn’t buried completely in your cunt just warming himself instead of chasing his own bliss.

“What did you call me?” he asks, leaning over you to retrieve something. 

You take advantage of his distraction to snake a hand between you, slipping beneath your skirt before it’s grabbed, tight, and brought up to his lips. 

“Don’t cheat,” he says, wrapping your fingers around the cap of a bottle. 

“You never heard anyone call you that?” you murmur, opening it. 

You smell spring flowers and delicate citrus before it’s taken away, set aside when you nibble and suck at his sensitive ear to make him twitch, hands drifting across his ticklish belly down to his hipbones. He reads your intent again, stopping whatever silly task he’s doing beside you to lift your wrists to his shoulders. 

“The name is a little ironic, isn’t it?” you say, squeezing him experimentally with your thighs as you stroke his nape with your nails. You flex other muscles too–earning the grunt he makes as he feels you squeeze around his girth. 

He angles your head, pressing something wet and soft to where your pulse flutters in your neck. You’re immediately permeated with a light, airy, sweetness, the different scents revealed like a melody that ends in that richer, warmer scent from earlier. 

“Is that my perfume?” you ask. 

“An anointment,” he says, blowing across your skin to dry it and sending a shiver down your spine to where your bodies are locked together, that fullness and muted pleasure of him radiating down to your toes.

“I do seem to have a demon inside of me,” you sigh into his neck as you rest your head against his shoulder. “Do they do that in exorcisms?”

“Blessings,” he corrects, adjusting with another grunt. “We’ll find out if it worked in about an hour.”

“An hour?” you grumble. “You think you can keep torturing me that long?”

“I think I gave you the key to your own cage,” he says, checking his watch. “About five minutes ago. Does it feel like longer?”

You mumble something into his rumpled collar, making him laugh beneath you. Even just that tiny movement has you involuntarily gripping him, abdomen clenched. 

“What’s that?”

“I’llsayitifyoumakemecome,” you repeat, embarrassed enough to hide your face in the crook of his neck again. 

“You think this is a negotiation, Y/N?” Doyoung’s hands are back on your breasts, thumbing the areola in slow circles that are very much a reminder of his touch earlier on your throbbing clit. You whimper, trying to stay still so he doesn’t figure out that if he continues to do that you might have a chance–

“You trying to make me come squeezing me like that?” he asks, breath ragged. “That seems like a quick way to end this.”

“You . . . you could just fuck me,” you wheeze, feeling the way he teases your pebbled, hard nipple with lighter brushes, his mouth quirked where it’s pressed to your forehead. 

“What if I want to make love to you, instead?” he asks. He inhales sharply at your body’s response. 

“Fuck, you liked me saying that, didn’t you?”

You nod, unable to speak, holding onto him in desperation as the combination of his words and soft strokes make you melt into the pleasure of every small motion of him inside you. You realize he’s unconsciously pushing into you, too, unable to keep his hips from pressing into yours. 

Overstimulation is making you hyperaware of the scratch of his unzipped jeans against your burning thighs, the random brush of his open belt against your belly. Time seems to disappear as he holds you quietly, letting you soak up the fragrant, radiating warm reality of him.

“I can wait all night for it,” he threatens, even just his lower register making you quiver a little around him. “Count every time you twitch and moan on me until you break.”

You’d felt him flag a little while he worked but now he’s fuller inside you, stretching you wide as he twitches to life. It’s even hotter than all of this build-up, you think, knowing he can act a menace but that the idea of you surrendering to him is what’s really getting him off.

Of course, you think, mentally steeling yourself like you’re preparing for war. In a way this is something like it, up against as formidable a foe as he is. 

“Doie,” you whisper, threading your hands in his hair as you nuzzle for his lips, kissing him softly and intimately, like it’s your first time. “When did you know?”

“What?” He goes a little rigid against you, unable to hide his rapid heartbeat with how close you’re pressed to him. You blink up at him, expectantly. 

“When did you first know you loved me? Really?”

He smiles, shyly, but you see the hint of anxiety on his features beneath his arousal. There it is, you think, having to hide your own satisfaction. 

“Is this a trick question?” he asks, warily, eyelashes half-lowered.

“Not if I know the answer,” you say, smoothing his kiss-swollen lips with a touch. “I don’t think it’s in that book, either.”

“Really?” He’s intrigued, a tentative rock of his hips against you making you dizzy. “Tell me.”

You shake your head, just as playful. 

“I’ll tell you later,” you say. “After.”

He sighs explosively, nose wrinkling. “You don’t know.”

“Want to bet?” you ask. It’s always a little thrilling seeing Doyoung presented with an opportunity he can’t resist. He fumbles for the notebook beside you, almost slipping out of you when he has to reach even farther for a pen.

“Write it down,” he says, smug as a cat who’s caught something small and easily toyed with. 

“Only if you do, too,” you say.

His answer is a pained sound of agreement, adjusting himself against the desk. 

“No peeking,” you say, flipping to a page in the back. 

“Wait,” he says, grabbing the book before the nib of the nice pen touches the creamy paper. “What are the terms?”

You ponder for a moment, feeling a grin slide onto your lips. “Doesn’t our perfume need a name? Whoever is right, gets to name it.”

You can practically taste his delight as he leans in to kiss you, forcing you to pull your page closer to you. You make him wait, filling the blank space as best you can with detail as he fidgets between your legs, sending small shocks of pleasure through you both. 

“Thank you,” he says in earnest once you’ve handed him it open to a new leaf, his hand and the notebook shaking a little as he tries to write mid-air, finally resting it awkwardly atop your head in order to scrawl out his own answer.

“My eyes are closed, Kim Doyoung.” 

“You’re a cheat,” he says, shushing you with an added thrust of his hips. 

You settle back on your elbows, already enjoying your victory as you feel the tiny pressure of his handwriting, hear the scratches of his sketch. You're more emboldened than ever when the leather binding snaps shut.

“Now tell me,” you say, looking up at him coyly. 

“Can’t I just show you–”

You snatch the book from him, turning to your entry. Then, to his horror, you rip your page free and fold it shut, tucking it into the pocket of his open shirt.

“Tomorrow morning,” you say. “You had 24 hours, right? I’ll give you my answer tomorrow morning.”

Doyoung looks as if he’s tasted something sour. “You won’t tell me.”

“I’ll tell you that you won,” you say, looking down at his page. You trace the fresh ink with care, admiring his tight script and explanation. “February to April? How could I have guessed an entire season?” 

“Did you at least guess the year?” he asks, looking a little better for your affirmation of his win. 

You nod, finally feeling the discomfort of your position and resting your head against his warm chest. There’s nothing awkward about being wrapped around him like this, the late hour and strange, still space making it easier to forget the world outside.

“Hard to forget,” you say. “I thought for sure I’d never see you again after that winter holiday.”

Another break with Johnny, of course–but this one had been your choice. You’d finally felt the crushing weight of two years of contempt from the people around him, the Suh family matriarch at the center of it all, doing everything in her power to crush not only you but the people you loved. 

And then, when you’d needed him the most, Kim Doyoung had walked away from you, too. 

“I didn’t think I’d see you, either,” he sighs. “It was the first time in a long time you weren’t with us. With me. And it was my fault for pushing you away when you were just trying to–”

“It’s in the past now,” you cut him short with a finger pressed to his lips. 

The memory is painful, still–and you don’t want to sully this moment with it. You appreciate that even in his roundabout admission there’s a clear understanding for all you’d been through. You’d hoped he remembered that time from the past, when you’d first peered between the cracks in his carefully-manufactured facade.

Now you could be sure of what it meant to him. You feel like your own walls are crumbling, the light shining through. 

“So you chose the period of time when we didn’t speak to one another, at all?” you muse. “Not just one day?”

“You know what they say. Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” he says. “You were on my mind every minute and every hour of those three and a half months.”

He pauses, sigh warm against your brow. “I couldn’t tell you when I knew, for sure. I certainly couldn’t admit it, then, even to myself. But sometime then, I realized I cared more about you than a friend.”

You’d never doubted he was capable of it, never doubted it might be true. But hearing him admit it, now you know why he wants to hear it from you, too.

“Say it,” you say.

He finally looks at you again, tired but alight with amusement.

“You first,” he says.

“Who knew three simple words would be so difficult for Saint Kim?” you tease him.

“Alright. Come here,” he motions, slipping out of you with a shared groan. He pulls you to a couch under the shuttered window, settling down and forcing you to straddle him. In this position he can’t stop you from immediately taking all of him, his eyelids fluttering when you bottom out.

“You feel like heaven,” he murmurs. 

“You’re not going to last,” you laugh, delighted by the way his nose scrunches when you clench around him. 

“Says the girl who’s sucking me in like you never want me to leave.” He grabs on to your hips to roll them against his own, fingers tightening when you wriggle against him. “You’re gonna say it first even if I have to fuck it out of you.”

“Whoever comes first, then?” you offer.

“I can live with that,” he sighs, head resting back on the couch. 

You rock on your knees slowly, satisfaction warming you throughout as you force him all the way inside you. You let him hear how he makes you feel, pleading sounds and whispers every time he hits that place in your upper walls, curved inside of you perfectly. It doesn’t matter if you're in control you can’t help but hunt down that lovely rush of pleasure in your belly, twining your arms around his shoulders to steady yourself. 

“Good girl,” Doyoung praises, watching you in awe through half-lidded eyes. “You’re so beautiful. I always wanted to know what it would look like when you lost yourself with me.”

His words make you shiver, brushing his lips until he holds you against his mouth to show you how he likes it, less exploratory and more confident. It’s maddening how good he is at this, making you feel every single sweep of his tongue across yours, hand on your neck keeping you from escaping. 

“Don’t you want to–” you protest as he helps you to lay flat on your back across the length of the wide loveseat, settling between your thighs. 

“Oh god, Doie,” you whimper when he takes over, finally, finally, beginning to fuck you. It’s just as slow but at least he penetrates you fully before pulling out almost all the way, shoulders quaking as he holds himself up. 

“Promise me you'll let me dote on you for the rest of your life,” he says, not waiting for your response before driving into you again. His movements are barely controlled, grunts escaping the back of his throat when his hips snap into yours again.  

“I promise,” you hold onto him, back arching off the cushion to meet him, blissed out in the relief of each, careful stroke against your fluttering walls. That crescendo is happening whether you want it to or not, every overworked knot of muscle threatening to snap loose. 

“Promise me that no matter who you fuck you’ll always let me treat you right,” he says, voice breaking. “You’ll let me show you how I feel even when I can’t say it.”

“Yes, Doie. Yes.” You pull down on his shoulders, trying to move for you both, kissing his jaw and throat.

“Stop fighting me and take it,” he says, moving more easily with the thick coat of your cum, establishing a gentle rhythm. 

His voice has always made it hard for you to pay attention to anything else but he abuses that power now, murmuring guidance into your neck that has you tightening around him as he fucks you deep and slow. 

“That’s my girl,” he praises. “You’re taking me so well. Take all of me.”

You feel shivers up and down your body, nipples hardening tight as they brush against his chest, his hair tickling your forehead as he blindly kisses and licks at your mouth and chin. 

You’d thought he’d be concentrating on something else in his head to keep from losing himself but instead it’s you who's floating, breath captured in your lungs when he adjusts on top of you to pin your hips down, pressing your leg wide to bury himself to the hilt.

“You feel so perfect. I could really do this all night, you know,” he smirks down at you from where he’s supported on his elbow. “Is that what you want?”

“No, fuck, please,” you whine. There’s no thoughts in your head besides just how much you want that ache inside of your cunt to melt into real pleasure. 

“You want me to stop?” he asks, feeling how you begin to pulse around him as he swirls his hips up into that most sensitive part of you, his flat belly grinding into your clit. You gasp, leg locking around his, helping him work you apart.

“No no no,” you beg, face hot. “Just . . . just kiss me through it, please.”

Doyoung’s smile grows wider. “Say what you already told me.”

You twist your head against the cushion, earning his hand on your jaw as he makes you look at him while you break, kissing you between panting breaths. His confidence is written in the cocksure grin remaining on his mouth, more cruel when he bites at your bottom lip, hard, before licking the pain away. 

“Say it,” he breathes, slowing down on purpose. 

“I . . . ah,” you cry out, “I love . . . please don’t stop.” 

“What’s that?” he asks, pace punishingly slow. Your legs lose feeling, vibrations starting in the back of your thighs and tremoring down to your feet. 

“Oh god, oh god, oh god,” you repeat, nearly tipping off the edge, “I’m coming, I’m finally–”

He slows down right as you hit that crest, making you cry out in frustration. 

“Doie, I’ll kill you–”

“Say it,” he says into your lips, pulling out–too far–

“Iloveyou,” you exhale, seizing around him in time to your wildly beating heart.

“Louder.” He slams into you again, merciless.

“I love you, you stupid bastard,” you say, hanging on to his shoulders. “I love you!”

“Good enough,” he says, drilling into you until he can feel you break, orgasm sustained through the painful pressure of him losing himself in your throbbing heat, finding your mouth again, finally, to silence the repeated mantra on your tongue.

You kiss him fiercely, unloading everything words aren’t enough for, legs tied around his waist to keep him locked inside you until he’s fighting back, fucking you so hard the sound of it fills the quiet room. 

“I love you,” you repeat a final time for him, just to watch the way it makes him break, jaw slackening when he loses control, finally. 

He stutters into his own orgasm, teeth scraping against your locked lips, forehead pressed into yours as he empties inside you for what feels like forever, finally collapsing on top of you with a whimper when his arms give out and he’s as limp as his cock inside you. 

You scrape your nails across his scalp, soothing him. You don’t mind his weight, or the way you’re still pressed together with sweat and your combined spend. 

“Wasn’t so hard, was it?” he rasps, eyes dazed as he looks up at you. 

“No,” you say, shaking your head tightly. “Not for me, at least.”

“You’re not mad?” 

You know he means his inability to say the magic words but you crack a smile, just as pleased with yourself. 

“About the bet?” you ask. “No.”

Oh, it’s delicious seeing realization dawn on his face, little glimmers of surprise and horror bubbling up from his afterglow. 

“Fuck,” he says. You’re grateful he doesn’t deny it, rolling to the side in defeat. 

“Who told you? ‘Woo?”

You laugh softly, rolling over to pin him down with your leg, trapping him against the back of the couch. 

“You did, right now,” you say, relishing having him where you want him. “I had a hunch. And I know you, you’d never beg for someone to say something during sex–”

“I didn’t beg,” he corrects, grimacing.

“What was it? The first one to get me to say it? Bonus points if it’s on your cock?”

“Ah, well,” he says, perking up despite the fist pressed to his forehead in embarrassment. “Then you don’t know.”

“I’ll find out soon enough, Jaehyun wouldn’t–”

“You’re really not mad?” he asks, painfully reticent as you pull his hand away from his face and twine your fingers together.

“Not if it means I can use it as leverage,” you say, kissing his knuckles.

That doesn’t seem to surprise him, at all. 

“Good girl,” he says. “What do you want?”

A few years ago, give or take 

You’re a little too happy, an awful fact considering how much he'd missed seeing you this way.

Lately you’ve been sleepwalking through your life, all those tiny fractures and bruises finally having the time to mend–but healing is a painful process in itself. Doyoung had returned from his family’s formal Chuseok gathering in Singapore, eager to check in on you after receiving sparing responses from you via text.

You didn’t have a friend he could check in with instead any longer–not after that one girl had fled the country, the other ghosting you after their father was mysteriously laid off from a company he well knew did business with Suh International. 

He’s worried about you long before that, terrified that one last straw would break you even if by all indications you were strong enough to take it. After you’d had Johnny arrested and solicited a no-contact order you’d cut your ex off completely, moving to a tiny apartment far from where you’d grown up, changing your number. 

Only Jungwoo knew about it, and it was he who’d reluctantly offered your whereabouts to him after a few glasses of whiskey in their usual club. 

“She asked me to keep her info on lockdown. Got that hacker kid, what’s his name–Haechan? Wiped her socials off the map, so he can’t find her. He did good but you know Suh.”

Doyoung nods. They hadn’t seen him in a few weeks, probably because the idiot was combing through every civic office and apartment building in the city. Hell, he’d probably driven around until he found her by sight alone, knowing that animal wouldn’t rest until he knew her whereabouts, as stubborn about chasing her down as he was about refusing the F4’s help. 

“His mother called me to ask if the place he bought in cash was for her,” Doyoung says, knocking back his drink as he receives a text, heart sinking that it's not you. “Did you help him buy it for her?”

Jungwoo sighs. “No. I just got her rent halved with some coercion, you know? But then he goes and buys a unit in the same building with whatever stash he thought the Old Tiger didn’t know about.” 

The Devil Kim leans back, long legs akimbo as he gestures towards the server for a refill. “He’s waiting for her to go back to Chicago before he moves in. But you didn’t hear that from me.”

“I did not,” Doyoung affirms, turning away from the group of women at the bar sending looks towards their private table. “Let’s plan for when Madam Suh leaves. I can have her pull him into the London offices, considering he’s failing his courses.”

“Stone cold,” Jungwoo says, smirking. “Glad I’m not on your shit list.”

“Just don’t fuck with her,” Doyoung says. “Or fuck her.”

Jungwoo laughs into his glass. “Even I’m not that stupid.”

He’d thought he wasn’t, either. 

Not until you’d called a few days later, your speech a little slurred. He couldn’t have told you if what he was doing was important even if he was in a meeting, showing up to find you picking at a bowl of bar snacks in what he thought might be one of the nicer bars in your shitty part of town. Not as shitty as your old neighborhood, but it wasn’t a competition.

“Saint Kim,” you’d heralded him, raising an empty glass still smelling of watermelon and hibiscus. 

“You shouldn’t be drinking alone, here,” he’d said. 

You were dressed in one of your few nice outfits, a little on the revealing side for his tastes, but those had been Johnny’s you’d conformed to–animal print and thin straps, tastefully tasteless.

“I wasn’t,” you say, hiccuping. “Alone.”

For the first time in a long time fear spikes his blood pressure into overgear. Were you drugged? Was he going to have to fend off another predator who'd found you vulnerable?

You deserved the chance to move on but there was a real threat in what would happen to anyone who approached you without their permission. Johnny’s, yes, always, but the F4 had also agreed to look out for you well before your last incident at a club. 

“Who?”

“She left,” you say. He feels instant relief, reaching out to adjust the thin coverup slipping off your bare shoulder. 

“You make a new friend?”

You shake your head. “She’s nice. Met her in one of the ikebana classes work is paying for. Thought we were hitting it off but I must have said something dumb because she ran out of here, fast.”

You look up at him cautiously, too inebriated to realize he can recognize a set-up before it begins.

“You didn’t just talk about your ex, did you?” he asks, settling beside you at the bar. He orders something less ridiculous than whatever you'd been drinking, while you scroll through an Instagram feed, finger trembling over the screen. 

You look up at him, color-stained lips curving in an easy smile. “You want to see what we’re working on?”

Doyoung finds himself looking through a grid that is immediately obvious is not yours. His mouth goes dry, seeing rows of beautifully-staged floral centerpieces, the backgrounds as familiar as the back of his hand. You don’t seem to notice, going to the user’s story and tapping in vain to find the picture she’d posted.

“She deleted it already. Huh. Well, she texted me the picture–”

“Stop.” Doyoung places his hand over yours, his palm damp from the immediate flood of adrenaline. 

“So you do know Mona,” you say. You look up at him, expectantly, eyes glassy with the brand of hopefulness and naked curiosity he’s seen you charm everyone else around you with before. 

“She’s the one, isn’t she?”

Doyoung pulls cash from his pocket, not caring how much he puts down except that he’s sure it’s enough to cover the amount he’d like to drown himself in right now. Enough to go blind and burn out the phantom of that face he’d put behind him years ago. 

“Put your coat on,” he says. “I’m driving you home.”

“But I’m not–”

“Now,” Doyoung says, grabbing your wrist. He’s barely ever touched you in the years that you’ve been friends, and it sickens him when he feels you freeze in fear and confusion, that trauma response buried so deeply it's in your bones.

He wants to be kind, he wants to be patient with you. He just doesn’t have it in him to be anything to you right now.

“What’s wrong, Do–?”

“We’re leaving,” he says, dragging you out into the bitter cold evening, the streets slick with sleet, your heels catching on the pavement as you stumble in his wake.

“Stop,” you yell at his back, trying to yank your arm free from where he’s bruising your skin with whitened knuckles. “You’re hurting me–”

“You’ll live,” he says, pulling you to where he’s parked his car, the engine roaring to life the moment you manage to close your door. He can barely look at you, realizing too late that your crestfallen expression is making him more upset than the lightning strike of seeing her name again.

“You didn’t ask my address,” you say, quietly, met with his silence as he drives much more dangerously than the weather permits. He's forced to speak with you once he's slammed the brakes at an intersection, red light shading you through the windshield.

“Tell me one thing,” he says. “Did you try to set us up by having me come there?”

You’re petulantly silent now, an answer in itself.

“Answer me,” he orders, hands gripping the wheel.

“I thought you’d want to–”

“Do you think we have the kind of relationship where you can just do whatever you want and get away with it?” Doyoung’s voice is calm but he sees you flinch at his words and tone, your shoulders moving under your jacket as you begin to quietly cry. 

It drives him deeper into anger, hitting the gas with a roar of the engine the instant the light turns green. 

“You don’t get to feel sorry for yourself for this one, Y/N,” he says, already regretting every word tumbling out of his mouth. “You fucked up.”

“I just thought you could both have some closure after that–”

The car jerks as he brakes in the side lane of the service road, cars roaring past them honking their horns. Your sobs are barely audible over the idling engine and the blink of the hazards he turns on while he tries to find calm, your face turned away from him. 

“You thought that interfering in other people’s personal lives would make you feel better,” he says. “No wonder you don’t have any real friends.”

Out of the corner of his eye he can see your full body shakes still, can feel as that armor encasement you’d put together piece-by-piece over years of dealing with loveless reality falls back into place. And, years later–no, even hours later–he’ll remember how at the time he was stupid enough to think it was the right thing to say. 

You needed a reality check, he’d thought. A reminder that all the wishes and hopes in the world wouldn’t change the bleak architecture of it, uncaring by design and much easier to navigate without them. That moving on was the only path to this idiot’s dream of closure, something you knew nothing about for how often you’d let them pull you back into their world, blinded by sunk-cost and loneliness. 

All the things he wished he believed for himself, but without the benefit of your optimism.

“Fuck you, Kim Doyoung,” you say, opening the car door and slamming it shut without so much as a glance behind you. He’d waited to make sure you reached the nearest bus stop before driving off, calling Jungwoo to let him know you were here–crying in the cold. 

He'd seen you in passing.

His best friend knew a lie when he’d heard it, most especially from him. 

He wouldn't hear from you again until spring.

Kim Doyoung can’t sleep. 

He’s not allowed to. 

He can’t move either, arm going numb beneath your curled body, your breathing finally easing for the dozenth time since his trial began. You have horrible sleep habits–kicking off the covers, stealing the pillows–but tonight you’ve passed out with that same bone-deep tiredness he’d felt earlier, face beatific in the slivers of light piercing through the slatted shades. 

It’s close to dawn, he thinks, the cacophony of insects and birds outside transitioning from a quiet chorus to a full orchestral suite. Soon it will be too loud to sleep deeply. 

“Y/N?” he whispers, tentatively, not daring to move.

You don’t respond, relief rushing through him. It’s not that he’s desperate to join you in slumber but that he’s waited for you to finally surrender to REM. He needed you down. 

And you needed it, too. 

He’d negotiated with Jaehyun when you’d been in the shower, earlier, sacrificing precious moments of shared time exploring your skin and the new taste of you under the water to supplicate himself to his best friend and worst enemy in this moment.

“It’s a charter,” Jaehyun said, blinking sleep from his eyes but awake enough to be angry. “You’re not finding another one short term.”

“I emailed you the tickets. Cattle car but first class, at least,” he says. “Jungwoo agreed to give you his day, he doesn’t want to take her out until after dark, anyway. You can sleep in tomorrow.”

“Fine.” Jaehyun had slammed the door shut in his face, but he hadn’t missed the budding smile on his friend’s face. At least one person was rooting for him.

That’s how he’d earned another morning with you. As always, making up for lost time.

You’re half out of the covers, one leg sprawled over the duvet as you sleep. You’d put on one of his softer button-downs, inhaling the smell of it after he tried to steal it back. 

“Please let me wear you,” you said. “I want to dream about you.”

Being around you like this is more comfortable than he imagined, as if you’re being slotted into a position he didn’t even know there was an existing space for. He’s woken up to women in his bed but you’re the first who’s ever asked him for this, particular experience.

“I used to have this fantasy, you know, whenever we crashed at your apartment.” He’d watched you go sheepish recalling, dates omitted for a reason. “Sometimes I’d lie there and touch myself thinking about you crawling into that guest bed–maybe a little drunk or you’d forget which room. Or maybe, you just wanted me to think that. I’d be awake but I’d pretend to be asleep while you . . . used me.” 

He experiments by tracing his fingertips up your bare leg, the peek of your lace underwear beneath the hem of his shirt maddening for how it curves into the crest of your ass, presented for him. A treat dangled before him, the command to partake only that you wanted him to make it slow–you wanted to wake to it.

He sucks a breath in, erection in his sweatpants hard against the band already from just watching his sleeping beauty. He finds every mark on your leg, every fine hair, thanking Heaven above you aren’t overly sensitive or ticklish like he is when his hand slips beneath his shirt to your belly. 

He slots himself against you, carefully, as if adjusting in his sleep. He has to wait for your breathing to even out again, slipping his free hand up to your breasts. 

“Used you? Did you not get off in this scenario?”

“I mean, yes. But it’s mostly about you. You wouldn’t say anything at all, you’d just fuck me full of your cum and then you’d leave me leaking it on your sheets and go back to your room. Or sometimes I’d crawl in your bed, if you were alone, and you’d cover my mouth so the others couldn’t hear it. And the next day it would be like nothing happened, you wouldn’t even bother to ask how I’d slept.” 

He loved how much of a slut you were, when you felt comfortable enough to share that side with someone. Johnny had certainly never appreciated the subtleties of your nature–too blinded by adoration to even consider degrading you on purpose. 

No, Doyoung had known for awhile you pushed the boundaries with him to see if he’d break.

Your nipples harden even though he’s barely handling them, discovering what shape your breasts make in repose as he tries desperately not to rut into the swell of your ass. Warming himself in you earlier had been one of the hardest challenges he’d faced but it had been worth it to learn you inside and out, to know how to make you grip his cock with that delicious little cunt of yours with just a kiss or a word that pleased you.  

You don’t wake but he knows he’s gotten through to that little lizard brain of yours when your legs rub together unconsciously, pushing back into him so his cock is settled between your buttocks. The friction from the lace is like the proverbial pea under a mattress–rubbing against his cock through the layers, catching on the veins and scraping the underside of his cockhead. 

It’s already a nice ache, one he ignores as he adjusts to better continue plucking and teasing at your body beneath your shirt, until you’re used to his touch enough to truly fall back under, once more.

You're so vulnerable, completely at his mercy as he brings his hand down to test the patch of moisture growing in the fabric, that lace sticky with your dreams of him. 

Use you, he thinks. You have no idea what he wants. 

Doyoung can play with the fantasy of you crawling into your boyfriend’s best friend’s bed while he’s passed out in the other room, determined to be punished for waking a sleeping monster . . . but it’s not what he's fantasizing about now. 

He takes time in stroking you, a single finger digging in between your lips through the fabric, listening intently for your breathing to change. You sigh, one of those full exhales one does in their deep sleep, but you arc back a little, into his touch, leg falling forward crooked so you’re a little more spread. 

Doyoung wishes he could move down there and use his nose to push you apart instead of his hand but that’s not your fantasy–not this time. You didn’t want him to spoil you anymore, completely underestimating his love for it. True, he didn’t often eat other girls out, too personal or just too much of a chore to figure out what they liked, but you weren’t ever going to be with him and not come from that first. 

Just the thought of tying you up so he can spend hours fucking you on his tongue is making his cock pulse, too hard to be ignored. He quietly pulls down the drawstring of his sleepwear, freeing himself so he can replace his finger with the much wider tip of his cock, biting back a groan as he rubs into that damp, soft lace he’d known would suit you the moment he’d touched it in the display box brought to his private buying room. 

You'd never know he’d already fucked himself with it before ever giving it to you, that errant fantasy of touching you finally realized as you whimper a little in your sleep at the soft push of him between your legs. He finds where your clit is getting just as swollen as the rest of you, bouncing against warmth and the promise of unspooling that need with his help, again.

Just his precious little cocksleeve, spoiled and worshiped, showing your gratitude by begging for it even when you’re unconscious. He tests the waters of the scenario by slowly pulling the seat of your underwear to the side, easing in between the fabric and your folds. 

You twitch against him, sheets rustling. He holds still, cock jumping and balls tightening with a little anxiety. 

He only has this one chance. 

Outside in the dark and quiet of the house sleeps the man everyone knows you’re really with, the one who doesn’t have to fight for an I love you to pass your lips. You’d never understood what it felt like watching you climb into Jaehyun’s lap whenever the whim took you, pretending you didn’t know what it did to him or the other two of them watching you.

Your breathing is shallow and your hand flexes a bit, against the pillow, but that’s it. Within a minute he’s grown more confident that you’re still asleep.

He reaches over you, pressing the pads of two fingers against the front of your underwear while he slips a little deeper between your legs, eyes almost rolling back in his head at the contrast between the satiny slide of you and the rougher cling of your panties. It’s a relief as he loses himself to it, rutting from the back while he applies constant pressure to your bud.

“Mmm.” You make a soft noise, but he doesn’t pull free, choosing instead to keep a hypnotizingly steady pace fucking against you. Your hips twitch against him, seeking out more contact, but he doesn’t rush–pressing his head against the back of yours and melding with you in the softness of the pillows and sheets. 

You’re so wet you’re soaking his pants, everything he collects tickling down to his balls pressed into your ass. He’s going to stuff your mouth with his fingers, when you finally open it, make you gag on them while he fills you full from behind. 

You moan now, voice syrupy with sleep. He doesn’t care if you’re still down, not with you gently pushing back, trying to get release.  

Not yet, you little harlot, he thinks, hips going still again. He’s burning at the wait, your cunt continuing to glide against him as you act out whatever is going on in your dreams, the movement making him insane for how closely it adheres to his desire to have taken you back when you were innocent, his little virgin weed learning what her body wanted, seeking it out in his bed.

“Treat me like one of the girls you don’t really like. Use me.”

Such an unending fantasy of yours that he never wanted you, almost sweet for how dumb you are–or just willfully ignorant. He’s always liked the second one better–your little game played out that you were one of them. Dressed in that school uniform, kicking your skinned knees, sucking on a piece of candy while four college-age idiots hid their bathing-suited boners under their robes, fighting or fucking around in front of you so you could keep up that precious little illusion of immunity. 

“Johnny,” you murmur in your sleep. 

It should make his blood run cold but as with all twisted-up and tangled desires it only makes him feel ignited, pulse pounding in his head. You’re still asleep and thinking of someone else, someone not even in this house, the guilt of it passing over him faster than a cloud on a breezy day. 

He rocks back into you, this time pulling out enough that he can find your soft hole, already tight again–the only part of your body not relaxed as he forces his way past the flutter of your opening, cockhead sensitive enough to sense the more textured g-spot where he knows you’ll come fast and easy if he fucks into it. 

“Shh,” he says, finally trailing his mouth against your jaw, pushing into you softly. “Go back to sleep, baby.”

“Mmhmm,”  you reply, nuzzling into the pillow, curling into him. He pushes a knee between your legs, folding you into the bed beneath him as he begins to fuck you, finally taking you for himself and himself alone. 

You’re so warm inside, body adjusting to take him easily for how boneless you are, kitten-like mewls muffled by the pillow. It turns him on hearing the edge of pain there, the way you struggle when he pulls your underwear up so tight it sticks between your folds, clit rubbing against it the way he’d stroked himself to completion with it tied tight around his cock.

“Stay quiet or I’ll stuff your mouth full instead,” he whispers against your shoulder, feeling as always a little stupid but losing that internal cringe when you choke on a moan.

“Is that what my little slut was dreaming about? Gagging to tears on another man’s cock?”

He feels you tense at a bit at the suggestion, letting him use you in spite of the rougher handling. 

“That’s right. You said another man’s name in your sleep. Do you think that's acceptable?”

You shake your head, whimpering. 

“Such a whore you can't keep track of who's dick is inside of you. Tell me, who's fucking you right now?” 

“Doie,” you say, music to his ears. He'd always hated the nickname until you started using it. You were the only one–you were always the only one who made his chest burn with unsated desire when you said his name.

“Who owns this tight little pussy?” 

“You do,” you gasp out. 

“Are you going to forget me? Maybe I need to fuck you so hard you only think of me when you spread your legs for another man.” 

Doyoung feels electric at how easily you begin to crumble with just a few words, squeezing his dick so tight when he says something you like, even more when he makes it hurt. 

“Sleepy baby going to let me stuff every one of your holes until I’ve had enough? Use you like my own little doll?”

You nod, no longer capable of speaking except in a plaintive moan when he leaves you to shuck off his pants and pull down your ruined panties, pillow pulled beneath your belly to force your ass up. In this position he can drill into you deeper, burying you into the mattress with each thrust. 

“That’s what you get for crawling in here,” he says, fingers digging bruises into your hips to hold you down. “Keep your mouth shut and take it.”

The pleading, almost scared noises you're making have him hard and pulsing, two steps away from coming himself but in no hurry to. He pulls your hair to bring your head back, shoving his fingers in your mouth. 

“You like that?” Your cunt can't hide it, sucking him in. “Get them wet for me.” 

You drool over his knuckles, gagging as he fucks your mouth with them in an awkward rhythm to his merciless rutting. He spits into his hand when he's satisfied, fingers swirling around the tight rim of your ass so quickly it makes you buck. 

“Don't scream,” he murmurs, giving you two fingers at once. You make a noise through the pillow you're biting, gripping him tight. He's gentler with this, slowing, letting you adjust to take him.

“This is my favorite, right here,” he groans. “Feeling my cock inside you with my fingers. I'd fuck this tight little ass again but I want to feel you come like this.” 

He begins to stroke you harder, deeper, wet and sticky when his balls slap against your abused cunt. He keeps his fingers buried in you, scissoring you open as you take it.

“Come for me, Y/N, grip me good so I can fill that pretty mouth of yours.” 

It's a beautiful feeling when you begin to throb, contractions in your ring of muscle letting him know when you hit your peak. He fights the tingling in his balls, the urge to come with you painful for how long he's been holding it back. 

He talks you through it, instead.

“Such a good little hole,” he says. “You're coming so hard, baby, can feel it so well.” 

You moan, loud, as you break, loosening almost immediately, flooding him with sweet, hot warmth. He makes sure the last of those tics is gone before pulling out.

“Roll over,” he says, straddling you with a hand on the headboard, delighted by the sight of your flushed face and starry eyes. You already know what to do, tongue lolling and uvula exposed as he guides himself into your mouth, soft tongue swirling around his tip. 

God help him he's been thinking about this since yesterday, pushing deep enough to gag but not choke, fucking your mouth and the hot tightness of your throat when he hits it. It’s the sight more than anything that drives him to spill hot white ropes of cum into your mouth, pulling out to milk the last few splashes on your parted lips and delighting at the sight of you licking them with your spend-covered tongue.

“You’re so perfect,” he says, dropping down and kissing you, finally, tongues stroking each other until you finally pull free to breathe, blinking up sleepily at him. 

“You do taste different,” you tease.

“I taste like you,” he says, pressing soft kisses all over your face. “My sweet, sweet girl.”

“Did you like that?” you murmur. 

“I loved–” he pauses, watching the smile spread on your wet lips. 

“I love you, you know,” he finishes. You reach around his neck, comforting him out of instinct, but he doesn’t need it. 

“I love you,” he repeats, testing the words on his tongue now that they've flown out so easily, the tightness in his chest easing as you rise up to kiss him. 

“It's beautiful to hear you say it,” you say. “But you're right, I know.”

“I think I even know the exact time and date,” you say, reaching between you into the pocket of your shirt to pull out that torn and folded art paper scrawled with your words and an amateurish sketch.

Tomorrow morning . . .

[Unknown number] [Tomorrow morning April 13th dawn is at 6:17] [I have something to show you. Meet me on the roof of the East Wind Hotel]

Doyoung looks at the text message again, hand hanging over the railing of a dance floor, conversation with the woman by his side forgotten. With the blur of a late night and a trip to a different hotel room, with a different woman, he'd almost missed it.

Probably one of the innumerable flings he's had, Jungwoo recruiting him to get every last lick of enjoyment out of Seoul before he enlisted. His friend snatches the phone from his hand.

“No business,” Jungwoo slurs, eyes bloodshot as he focuses on the text. “I thought you weren't working hospitality anymore.” 

“It's not . . .” There's something nagging at him, like a bird pecking at his skull in time to the drone of the EM, the buzz of conversation. A sense of deja vu so strong he's forced to cycle on it. 

“Pfft. I know you don't bring girls back to your kingdom,” Jungwoo says. “Stop working and party.”

Doyoung doesn't know why he feels compelled to see the cryptic message through, doesn't know why he races across town at 5 am, reeking of whiskey and another woman’s perfume, doing his best to sober up as the designated driver talks about the change in weather, the cherry blossoms in full bloom outside the window.

The morning commute is already surging and the destination central to the city so by the time he makes it he's out of breath from running two blocks away from a jam, head pounding.

“ . . . restricted for non-guests,” someone is saying, voice recognizable as an intern he knows from his leadership program, still stuck on night front desk duty. 

“I just need a few minutes, please. I need to take a picture–” He'd recognize that voice in a hundred years if he hadn't heard it, not just a hundred days.

“What's going on here?” 

You freeze, shoulders stiffening as you turn to face him. Not much has changed–a new haircut, same ratty old sneakers–but you look different. No longer a ghost, but just as untouchable for the skittish way you hold when he approaches, only the barest relief on your beautiful features.

You don't smile, don't even say hello.

You're scared of him, again, just that thought making him spiral.

“You came,” you say, exhaling. “We need to hurry. We need to get to the roof.”

Doyoung turns to the staff. “Is the roof access still shut down?”

“Stair access only, sir.” 

Your eyes go wide at the interchange, something like embarrassment passing over your features as you begin to laugh. 

“Of course this is your hotel,” you state, smacking yourself on the forehead. “Of course, why didn't I think to check that. God, I'm an idiot.” 

“We didn’t change the name when we acquired the chain so it would be unlikely for you to have guessed that,” he says. “What are you doing here?” 

“There's no time and it's easier just to show you. We need to get to the roof, now,” you say, grabbing his wrist and tugging on it towards the stairs. 

“Y/N,” he says, holding you fixed and pointing at the elevator. “We can take it up as far as we need to.” 

You're still laughing maniacally twenty floors up. “I was going to cry if I had to go up another flight of stairs.” 

“Are you really taking pictures?” He asks, gesturing at your camera.

“No, but I started carrying it the first time someone called the police on me thinking I was going to jump,” you giggle, wiping away tears. He feels delirious from lack of sleep, so maybe you are, too, but it doesn't seem to be the case as you spring out the doors, forcing him to guide you when you're lost in the executive suite hallways.

“I managed to sneak in last time, otherwise I wouldn't have gotten this far. I'm glad you came just in time, I think they were going to kick me out.”

He's surprised at how easily things have snapped back into place between you, no mention of anything that's happened as you race up the stairwell to the roof access. 

“Will you tell me–”

“Oh thank god,” you say once your through the heavy doors and collapsed on the green helipad, growing impatient when he props the door open out of habit. He's been up here many times, nothing remarkable about the space besides the legacy sign on top, view crowded by other buildings at varying levels. 

“Stand here,” you say, pushing him into place, turning him by the arms. “Do you see it?”

“I don't even know what I'm looking for,” he says, beginning to grow annoyed. 

“Look over there, at the People's Bank. Relax your eyes, it will only take a minute.”

He feels increasingly foolish but he does what you ask, cool morning breeze clearing his muddled head. The sky is washed in a pink and blue haze, the sun cresting the more mountainous region of the city behind you to bathe the city in solid gold.

“There,” you breathe, letting out a little sigh.

“What?” All he can see is a few birds passing over the vista of crowded advertisements and neon. 

“Do you see the light?” you ask. 

“There's tons of lights–” he begins, cut short by the blinding catch of the sun's reflection on one of the characters, then another. He spells it out slowly, guided by your hand holding his to each one. 

The bank: Sa. 

The next building over, also burning brighter with the touch of the sun: Rang. 

Then an advertisement that has been up long enough most of the original message is lost. Hae.

“How did you find this?” he asks, knowing it would be impossible for him to have ever seen this without knowing the trick of the light. 

“I didn't find it. Well I did–I had to search some buildings for it.” 

Later he'll find out you climbed close to fifty flights of stairs in the last two months, had spent every waking moment not working or in school breaking into buildings before sunrise to find that exact spot, forever amused at the thought you hadn’t checked his family's flagship hotel first.

“You don't remember getting the same message from someone else?” you ask. “I was worried you wouldn't come, again.”

Again. Something tugs the memory up from the oubliette he'd locked it into, Mona teasing him about sleeping in and missing their appointment.

Mona. 

His stomach falls, checking back behind him at the door as if that particular ghost will return to haunt him.

“She's not here. I wasn't trying to set you up,” you say, recognizing the dismay he can't hide. “Honestly. And I know whatever closure you find is yours and yours alone. You were right about that, too, I'm sorry.”

You twist your hands in front of you, suddenly overwhelmed with anxiety. “I did this for me. Because I wanted to know what she tried to tell you, even if she couldn't say it aloud.”

You don't look at him, can't in order to continue. Doyoung feels like a live wire, exposed, two months of painful loneliness and a lifetime's worth of avoidance of this fact all surging through him in this moment. 

As much as he would prefer to leave he's not going to run like he did back then, when he'd ignored the hard parts to pretend like a friendship wasn't something more. Not with the stakes of losing this one.

“You once told me you were just friends, even if you couldn't be one anymore for her after you realized you loved her. How it broke you to be with someone you couldn't be with, who wanted something different.”

“Now you know. She didn't want to stay one, either,” you say. You look up at him nervously, regaining your confidence.

“I just wanted you to know that you were loved, Kim Doyoung. You still are.” 

You turn away towards the door, pretending not to have seen the tears dripping down his face under his glasses. He ignores them, too, not knowing what to say or do to make sure you never leave him again.

The spot never mattered to him, the word and it's confession forgotten in time. What changed that day was having you in front of him after so long, the way you were a reflection of him so many years ago, fighting to be by the side of someone who didn't know how to love you back, the right way.

He'd promised himself than that even if he couldn't say it, he'd show you.

“Thank you for coming. I'm sorry for interfering with your life, but that’s what friends do.”

You'd almost made it to the stairs when he'd wrapped around you from behind, the first ever time he'd held you in an embrace, unsurprised to find you shaking like a leaf as he rested a wet cheek against your hair. 

“I'm sorry,” he says. “Thank you.” 

You relax a little, squeezing his hand. In that small gesture everything is reset, everything is okay again. They won't talk about this for the next few years, even when Jungwoo asks how you'd come back into their lives so suddenly and without any indication that things had changed.

But they had. Deeply. 

“You can make it up to me by buying me breakfast,” you say, smiling up at him, wiping his cheek with your sleeve. “We have a lot to catch up on.” 

“Did I win?” you ask. 

Doyoung can only laugh, giddy, as you burrow into his side to smother him in kisses and teasing. You were put on this earth to challenge him, after all–always right there to match him in stubbornness and competition.

He presses his nose to your neck, inhaling the remnants of the scent you'd made together, one bottle for each, though you didn't have to know his formula was just a bit different.

“‘Tomorrow Morning’ has a nice ring to it, I suppose. It lingers well.”

“It was my answer, actually. I needed to see if I could break Saint Kim's vow of romantic abstinence before I made up my mind,” you say, smug as you move to get up. “Glad you were able to find out before your time was–”

You shriek as he pulls you down again, pinning you to the bed. 

“I still have a few hours,” he says, voice dangerous. “I'd like to hear you say it again.”

[whumpdreaming]

My introduction!

Hi! My name is Heather (they/them). I've been a lurker for some time, but I now realize what I've been writing has been whump all along, so.. hello!

My first encounters with whump were in Sunday school 😭😭 some of those kid's bible books were insanely whumpy for no reason at alI, and then it's only now I learn what the term actually is. I speak decent French (getting back into it after not using it for a few years), I intend to go to culinary school and become a professional chef, and my main fandoms include Overwatch, Baldur's Gate (not into it as much anymore, sadly), Epic: The Musical, and Ultrakill and FNAF (which I don't write much fic for).

This blog will never contain NSFW content! Kink blogs and antis please DNI!

What this blog will contain:

Whump (obviously)

My own writing (lots of drabbles, occasionally some of my more involved work ; aka my two big projects, a BBU story since that setting grabbed me by the brain as soon as I saw it for the first time, and various Overwatch characters getting whumped to hell and back --- I don't see enough talk about Cole Cassidy's big sad puppy dog eyes)

Lots and lots of reblogs since that's easier than actually writing 😅

Keep in mind that this isn't a NSFW blog and I won't be posting anything sexual/explicit, but I'm a fan of intense/graphic whump and things can get pretty dark. In those cases, there'll be a warning at the top of the post along with the content listings just to make sure everyone stays safe!

Some of my favorite tropes:

Living weapons!!

Gore (I'm not a fan of major character death, so I like it best when a healing factor is involved if it's very intense)

Parental caretakers

Transition/weight gain in recovery

Recovery in general, especially when difficult!

Lab whump!

Pet whump!

Chronic pain (totally not coping with this one)

Dehumanization!!

Vivisection!!

Panic attacks

Emotional distress of all kinds

Sickfics!!

If you send me any asks or requests or interact with my posts or say literally anything nice about me whatsoever I will give you my firstborn child

Some of my favorite whump blogs that inspired me to make a blog in the first place: @painonthebrain @whumpninja @defire @whumpwordsoftheday @sowhumpshaped

@sickfictropes @allthingswhumpyandangsty @writinglittlepains @whumpyourdamnpears --- sorry in advance if you didn't want to be mentioned! 😭

Btw --- check out my Widowmaker whump fic :)

Series:

Barbara Summers has a bad time with the mob (I'll update it someday I promise) ; also called "Consequences"

Intro

One

Two

Drabbles: (Electrocution+Unconscious+"Say Please") (Warm Bath + Fresh Bandages + "..Nothing. It just hurts") (Broken Fingers+Trying not to scream+"Aw, poor thing")

---

Crownchain

Character/setting introduction

"Foul Play"

"Pulling Strings"

Whump+Hurtcember: (Day 1: Collapse + Broken Bones) (Day 2: Breakdown + "This is your fault") (Day 3: Blood + Begging) (Day 4: "Help me" alt prompt + "This isn't my blood") (Day 5: Faint + Concussion) (Day 6: Touch Starved + "Please stop") (Day 7: Abandoned + Kidnapped) (Day 8: Cuddle + Fire alt prompt) (Day 9: Exhausted + Shaking) (Day 10: Touch Aversion + "Let me help you") (Day 11: "It's my fault" alt prompt + Manipulation) (Day 12: Cry + "I have nowhere else to go") (Day 13: Nightmare + Trauma) (Day 22: Self Harm + Hallucinations)

(Poisoned + Pleading + "You never do shut up, do you?")

---

Hemopenia

Stages of blood withdrawal

Stage Zero

Pilot

Not Dead

Stage One

Lively

(Delirium / Good dream with an unpleasant wake-up / "..Mom?")

---

Taby's terrible horrible no good very bad life

Intro

One

---

Various unnamed superhero things

(Anxiety attack / Apologizing / "I just.. I just need a minute.")

Febuwhump: (Day 1: Vocal Chords) (Day 2: Holding Back Tears) (Day 3: Pinned Down) (Day 4: Major Character Death, alt prompt) (Day 5: Not Trusting Reality) (Day 6: Forced to Stay Awake) (Day 7: Alternate Timeline Self) (Day 9: Necromancy)

That's about it for now!! Thanks for reading!

[supernova41st]

One small step at a time! 🛸

Tf2 x Juno!reader

A/n: This one’s for all my overwatch babes <33 ik this idea is rlly niche but this was so fun to write I’m so proud of this. Most of these can be interpreted as platonic but read however you’d like, enjoy ✨

Warnings: Scottish people, Drinking, Passing out drunk

Vocab: (p/f) - Parental Figure

Engineer

He has such a father daughter relationship with you

When you first landed on earth he was extremely fascinated by the technology your (p/f) discovered to get to mars, especially your anti-gravity boots

“So these things are just makin’ you float around?”

“Yeah! I’m not really used to earths gravity so my (p/f) sent me off with overboots!.. how do you guys get anything done while stuck on the ground?”

“We just make do with what we can, sugar”

His fav activity with you? Lounging. Doesn’t look like much but his rancho relaxer + you using your jetpack to ‘sit’? Soo cute

You guys would just be chilling in his workshop after doing whatever task it was you were doing <3

“You want a beer, Buttercup?”

“No thank you! I’m not really fond of drinks with alcohol since all we could drink at mars was juice and water”

“shoot, glad I’m not you”

He’s definitely one of the mercs who warmed up to you the fastest, he’s just chill like that.

Medic

Pls don’t tell him your from mars, weird shit is gonna happen

He’s going to treat you like one of his test subjects, at first it starts tame with general check ups but it escalated pretty fast.

When doing his uber surgery on you he decided to explore more things

“..how long was I out, Dr. Ludwig?”

“Oh not long!! Just two.. days”

“What? You said it would only take about 20 minutes!!”

“Vell yes I did say that my Martian friend, however I must say curiosity got the best of me! I simply had to know more about your anatomy”

“Uhm,, ok”

Yeah you’re so scared of him now lol

But of course you two do need to work together to try healing your teammates

He loves it when you heal him, it’s always a pleasant surprise since he never expects to get healed, like ever

“Here! I can help you!!”

“Oo, so vats how it feels..”

Spy

Yeah he doesn’t think your good for the team

Sure it was interesting to meet someone who was born and raised in a completely different planet, however your inexperience with earth was enough for him to neglect you

Once you visited his smoke room to find abundance of books, you being new to earth were excited to see all the knowledge they carried

“Wow! Can I borrow this one? I’d like to learn more about earth and its continents!!”

“Go ahead, I never made use of that thing anyways”

It always catches him off guard how little knowledge you have about earth, especially since your were chosen to go on the mission to earth

Once you randomly found a globe somewhere in the break room and got so fascinated by it

“Earths colors are beautiful, I’d really like to go the that purple one!”

“Y/n, Russia is not purple. And you don’t want to visit there, it is full of trash people.”

“Oh..I see”

He doesn’t guide you to earth like the rest of the mercs, he wants to really straighten your back and push you to your limit

“Would a croissant go well with your meal good sir?”

“Excuse me?”

“You seem like you are from the Western Europeans my (p/f) brought back to mars!! Au revoir madam, please enjoy your tea”

Tbh that moment made his heart melt by just a little bit. Hey, he’s not a monster he can have heartfelt moments.. sometimes

Sniper

You are so fascinated by him, literally just him

For the most part it’s because of his job title ‘assassin’, you’ve never heard of such a job back home.

“Is it true you earn currency to kill specific people?”

“Why of course Sheila, who else would do it?”

“Well, on mars we kinda just let them live even if we don’t like them.. that’s a thing here right??”

You love going on roadtrips with him so he can show you around, just to see get a feel of that New Mexican dirt

You two have a relation where he misses his parents despite always arguing with them, and you miss your (p/f) because you two now live on completely different planets.

On those trips you tend to enjoy chilling in the back of his trailer. You can’t stand spending another second on an uncomfortable leather seat!! So you roam around a lot in what he basically considered his home.

“How was it back there? ‘eard sum ruckus out in the front.”

“Oh right! I am trying to get use to earths gravity so I tried cleaning up here a bit, I hope you don’t mind!!”

He almost cried, you reminded him of his ‘mum’

Whenever you’re curious about any animal you always go to him, we all know Australia a place with weird animals so

“Mr. Mundee, is this spider deadly?”

“I’m not sure, you should probably check in with doc tho. Your face lookin pretty swelled there mate..”

“Oh thank the stars! I was sure this was a lion..”

You passed out from the poison.

It’s good tho, sniper carried you to Medics room like the big brother he is 🧡

Demo-man

YOURE SO SCARED OF HIM

MORE THAN MEDIC

Not only is he obsessed with the drink that you’ve literally never heard of until you arrived in earth, but the way he acts makes it seem like crack

You have so many questions, they almost never get answered because he’s either too drunk or he’ll pass out with medic dragging him out the room

“Is it true that your stomach now declines any normal drinks?”

“Ayouhhh it’s just beerdelicois burp”

“..is he going to be alright?”

“Oh no worries my Martian friend, this happens all the time.. although I can never tell if he’ll live or not”

When on the battlefield he’s always screaming and creaming, sometimes it scares you so much to the point where you ask your fellow teammates to help you

“MR. CONAGHER, I THINK DEMO IS TRYING TO ATTACK ME!!”

“Darlin’, I thinks he’s just tryna get some healing..”

“But why is it yelling.. ☹️”

Now you’re scared of Scottish people, and convinced they probably eat their youth

Soldier

He def plays a father role like engineer, but way less charm and warmth to him

He’s like a dad at a soccer game, he’ll cheer you on but aggressively, to the point where it seems like he’s booing you

In the lobby he’d always do his soldier talk, and it never fails to make you do you best

“NOW, WILL YOU HAND THAT TEAMS ASS AND FEED IT TO HIM, OR AM I GOING TO HAVE TO DRAG YOURS BACK TO MARS TO YOUR MOMMA?”

“No sir!! I’ll feed it to them!”

“THATS RIGHT MAGGOT”

Soldier is always hard on you, sometimes he calls you a ‘space commie’ just for jokes, although his tone definitely sets you off

When you unleashed your orbital ray he started screaming about ‘the commies getting to us’, you had to reassure him several times that it was something you had full control of

Scout

This guy was ecstatic when he found out his new teammate was going to be from space, scout is really into comics (even tho he can’t read) so his imagination went wild when Ms Pauling announced that he’d be fighting alongside what he considered an alien

Once you arrived he was in awe, he thinks you’re the coolest person on the team solely because you’re from another planet.

But he did quickly recognize that you weren’t use to like, anything on earth.

He handed you a cold can of Bonk just for you to look at him confused

“What do I do with this?”

“You drink it?”

“..um I don’t think you’re supposed to drink ‘atomic punch’, that sounds like it hurts 0-0”

He had to teach you how to drink stuff that wasn’t in an aluminum bag, you didn’t take a liking to it but you got used to it

Scout offered you to sleep on the top bunk because he wanted to be nice and all, huge mistake.

The next morning you completely forgot you were on a different planet, so you rolled and fell 9 feet from the bed to the floor.

“Jesus y/n!! what the hell happened?”

“I think I.. fell? Falling feels weird..”

Gets so hype when you two are on the same team, he’s so ready to clock the enemy team with orbital ray

“Scout! My orbital ray is ready!! ^^”

“Whooo! Let’s go then E.T what are we waitin’ for??”

For the most part he’s the one who shows you everything you need to know about earth, baseball is his favorite thing to teach cuz obviously

When you joined him to watch a baseball match you were so excited yet so lost

“What happens if they win? Is this a war?”

“No? Toots it’s just a game”

“Hm, intresting.. then I must try this ‘game’ too!”