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egcdeath · 3 months ago

Text

out in the open

pairing: patrick zweig x f!reader

summary: your wedding night doesn’t go as smoothly as you expect it to. succession au - tomshiv adjacent (previous parts: part 1, part 2, part 3)

word count: 8.8k

warnings: failmarriage, fluff in the beginning, cheating, angst, jealousy, hurt/comfort, mentions of alcohol and smoking, suggestive content, insecurity, patrick is kinda the worst in this. he does get better though.

author’s note: full disclaimer things are pretty angsty and they only get angstier from here. cheating is a major plot point from this point forward. there will be a few happier moments but it’s mostly bad vibes and tension from this point on.

i say this with every fic i post in this universe but i truly could not have written this without the help of my succession anon!! weddingnightgate (WNG) is such a big moment in this au and they really helped me get my thoughts in order and helped me world build. i hope you all enjoy the upcoming pain!

When you were young, you always dreamed about your wedding. You fantasized about a huge venue somewhere halfway around the world that would easily fit all of your closest friends and family members and of celebrity guests who would give you well wishes for the marriage and smiled at you in spite of their envy at your beautiful event. You imagined a gorgeous, intricate dress with a train so long that you’d need assistance going down the aisle, a cake the size of your tallest guest, and a groom who was as handsome as he was loving, pressing the promise of True Love’s Kiss onto your lips after he read you his vows.

Maybe your enthusiasm for weddings was fueled by a few too many movies where the princess found her prince charming and lived happily ever after with him, but you still fell in love with the idea of love, and the thought that a wedding should be as beautiful as the love itself was.

You would never forget the first wedding you attended, despite being so young that you shouldn’t have really recalled it. You somehow managed to worm your way into being the flower girl at your aunt’s wedding, skipping excitedly down the aisle of the beachside venue, tossing flowers with reckless abandon. As you watched the rest of the ceremony from the safety of your mother’s hip, you couldn’t help but to imagine yourself being the one to walk down the aisle someday.

Much like your first wedding memory, you also couldn’t forget the first time you learned about divorce. Though you were young, the memory of your best friend crying next to you during recess as she sobbed out the news that her parents were splitting forever stuck out in your mind. You’d been fed the idea that love was strong and everlasting for so long, that the very notion that there were some things that love couldn’t withstand rocked you to your core.

From that point on, you became more grounded in your approach to love. Love was rarely a fairytale, and it was naive for you to assume that your future wedding would be one either.

As the years went by, you grew more realistic about your expectations for the future. You found a boyfriend who you dated throughout the latter half of your undergraduate years and through your time in business school, and fully expected to settle down with him—though you knew you’d be settling in the most literal sense. While he was a stable figure in your life, he was boring, and his aspirations in life for both you and himself didn’t align at all with what you saw yourself doing. He wanted a wife, and you wanted to make a name for yourself doing the work that was meaningful to you.

When he got down on one knee in front of you, you realized that you had two options in front of you: follow your own dreams or follow his.

Naivety be damned, you chose yourself and never looked back.

In your pursuit of making your non-love related aspirations come true, you abandoned all hope that your pipe-dream of a fantasy wedding would ever come to fruition. It occasionally felt like your hopes were incompatible—to be a successful businesswoman meant giving up all prospects of a romantic life. It seemed like everyone you encountered was put off by your lack of work-life balance, or wanted to hunt you for sport and turn you into a trophy wife.

You’d practically given up all hope by the time you met Patrick, fully expecting to be able to use him for a brief fling and a connection to get into his family’s company. What you weren’t expecting was to find someone whose company you genuinely enjoyed, who understood you on a level you hadn’t experienced with anyone else, and a love that occasionally left you wondering if you were a protagonist in the movies you loved watching as a girl.

If someone told you that years after meeting Patrick, that one day you would be gazing into his eyes with tears in yours as you listened to his vows, or telling him that you do take him to be your husband, to have and to hold, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, ‘till death did you two part.

Your wedding ceremony felt straight out of your girlish dreams, with Patrick’s beautiful family castle serving as the venue, paparazzi-worthy guests, a dress that felt like a direct product of your wildest imagination, and a groom that seemed to be as close to a prince charming as reality could get.

You were on cloud nine throughout the ceremony, basking in every single moment. You felt like you were floating by the time you got to the reception, your brain in the clouds as you and your now-husband cut your massive cake and gave toasts.

It was all a blur in the best way possible, your elation making what you thought might be an embarrassing moment of a first dance exciting, and the subsequent socializing with guests substantially more bearable.

What was slightly less bearable was the speed at which you were separated from your husband, the two of you occasionally catching the others eye from across the room, but otherwise being separated from surprisingly demanding guests who wanted to wish you luck on your marriage or excitedly share how amazing they found the ceremony to be.

Occasionally, you were able to squeeze in a brief moment with your spouse, bringing him a flute of champagne and momentarily pulling him away from an exceptionally chatty shareholder, but you seemed to be frequently whisked away from each other.

After what felt like a lifetime apart from each other, you felt the familiar, comforting warmth of Patrick’s hand on your lower back as he approached you from behind. When he announced to the extended family members standing across from you that he needed a moment alone with you, you almost leapt with joy. Nothing seemed more appealing than a private conversation with him after a long night of socializing with friends and colleagues.

It almost felt ironic that during an event that should’ve been focused on the two of you as a pair, you were separated and kept apart by people with business pitches and opposing interests, excited to hop onto whatever opportunity your union might bring them.

Patrick took you by surprise as he led you up the stairs and to your bedroom. It seemed a little early to begin your wedding night festivities, but if he was really that enthusiastic about it, you were certain that you could share some of his excitement.

“Thanks for getting us out of there,” you commented as you shut the door behind you. “So much for not talking about work at the wedding. I guess it’s too much to ask for one day to celebrate you being my husband before talking about the business again.”

You walked over to the vanity, preparing to touch up your makeup. You shot a glance over at your partner, who cautiously sat himself down on your bed, fidgeting with his hands as he did so. Not paying him any mind, you began to reapply your lipstick in the mirror and looked at his reflection, catching that he seemed to be in deep thought, but not thinking too much of it. It was probably something a shareholder told him. Maybe his sister was planning yet another attempt at a hostile takeover of the business.

“Husband. Wow, you’re my husband now. That feels so crazy to say. Husband, husband, husband,” you mused, a ball of excited energy. “Well, husband, what did you pull me in to talk about? Is it Sherry’s dress? It’s really hideous. I can’t believe she would wear something like that to our wedding,” you continued to ramble. “Or do you want a sneak peak of what I’ve got going on under this dress?”

You were shocked to find Patrick mostly unresponsive to your rapid words. He was never one to turn down the opportunity to gossip about his social circle or flirt with you. You pulled your attention away from yourself in the mirror and turned your head back to look at your husband, only to be met with a mostly unreadable expression, apart from the hint of a sad smile on his face.

Suddenly, things didn’t feel so fun. For some unexplained reason, you felt a small pit appear in the depths of your stomach. While you didn’t know exactly what was wrong, something obviously didn’t feel right. There was no reason for your partner to be looking as unsettled as he did on his own wedding night.

“You’re not having second thoughts already, are you?” you stood up and began to approach him from where he was sitting on the bed, making it more apparent to you that his brows were drawn together in what could only be the beginning of a frown.

“Of course not,” he assured you, though guilt was written all over his face. You weren’t sure how you should interpret your husband looking like a child who just broke an expensive vase on your wedding night, but whatever it was, it couldn’t be good. “But I need to tell you something.”

“What?” you laughed nervously, the small pit that appeared in your stomach growing into a slightly larger pit. As much as you wanted to dismiss it as nothing, the heavy tension hanging in the air warned you that the odds of his confession being nothing were growing slimmer and slimmer with each passing moment.

“Uh,” he paused as if he was considering his next words very carefully—almost as if he didn’t want to say them at all. You desperately wanted him to speak, rather than keep you hanging. With your nerves exponentially growing with every passing second, you began to feel like if he didn’t say anything soon, you might throw up all over your reception dress.

“Patrick, please spit it out. You’re kinda scaring me,” you could already feel yourself growing upset, despite the fact that he hadn’t said a single word to indicate what was going on with him. Your heart quickened in your chest as you anticipated his next words, despite not having a clue about what might come out of his mouth.

“We always said that if something happened, we could handle it like adults,” the statement was vague and simple, yet Patrick seemed to be choking it out. His cryptic message rattled around in your brain as you desperately searched for meaning in them. Before you could even begin to ask him what he meant, you registered the dismissive, callous language.

Though he didn’t say it often, he had confused you with those very words before—the verbiage alarmingly reminiscent of what he told you before your bachelorette party, or when you brought up the lack of an infidelity clause in his prenup.

If anything ever happened with anyone else, we could both handle it. We’re adults and we can handle things like adults.

Though his words were curious, you dismissed them at the time, never expecting that to be an issue. Of all of your problems with Patrick—his difficulty expressing his emotions, his complicated relationship with his family, his lack of experience in love—you never expected infidelity to be one of those problems.

You swallowed, your saliva feeling thick and poisonous as it slowly crept down your throat. “Honey, what do you mean?”

Patrick didn’t speak, looking down at the pristinely folded sheets in front of him rather than at you. “I’m sorry,” was all that he managed to get out.

You looked at Patrick blankly, waiting for him to tell you that whatever you were assuming wasn’t true or that he was pulling some sort of cruel prank on you. Instead, all you were met with was the sound of blood urgently rushing through your ears and the faint bassline of whatever song the DJ was playing at your reception.

“You know that love is complicated for me,” he looked in your direction, but couldn’t sustain eye contact with you. “Can we be adults about this?”

Once it became clear to you what exactly Patrick was trying to tell you, your knees gave out on you, the rest of your body overwhelmed with the unfathomable information that your brain was trying to process. Patrick cheated on you—and he was telling you just hours after you got married.

The truth of the situation sucked the air right out of your lungs and the strength right out of your body. Your knees buckled under you, and you desperately seeked out anything you could sit on. You settled on the foot of the bed, across from where your husband nervously sat.

“Fuck,” you dug the palms of your hands into your eyes, surely smudging the makeup on your eyelids as you attempted to collect your thoughts. “Who was it?”

“It didn’t mean anything to me,” he pathetically attempted to explain away. It all sounded like gibberish to you. For all you knew, your husband was speaking a totally different language to you.

Despite your question and Patrick’s non-answer, you somehow felt like you knew exactly who he’d been with. The answer was all over his discomfort when he saw you talking to the woman without him by your side, and the way she sized you up and attempted to psych you out of marrying Patrick not even 24 hours ago.

“Was it Tashi?” you asked, not even listening to his empty words and keeping your face frighteningly neutral. You spoke the words like you were playing a round of Guess Who, calm and even despite the budding feeling of dread in your stomach.

He didn’t respond, but he didn’t need to. His deafening silence was answer enough

“Can I kick her out?” you asked with an alarmingly stable tone, still mostly unable to process this information, but knowing that it wasn’t good.

“Yeah,” he replied quietly, head still hung and unable to make eye contact with you.

As you took in the truly depressing sight in front of you—your husband’s hunched over posture, a shame so strong that he couldn’t even look at you, and his clipped, short answers—you couldn’t deny that you were tempted to comfort him. In any other situation, if Patrick was feeling a fraction of the negative emotion he seemed to be feeling in that moment, you would instantly be at his side, holding his hand reassuringly or holding him close in a way that told him that if no one else was there for him, you would be, but you weren’t sure you could legitimize his bad behavior with such a response.

Instinctually, you reached out to touch him like you’d done a thousand times before, giving him a hug before a big event or spooning him after a family member said something that got under his skin, but you instantly reprimanded yourself. Despite how sad he looked, Patrick was the one who hurt you. You were the one who deserved comfort.

You opted to pat Patrick’s back instead, a strange and impersonal action. For a moment, you felt less like his wife and more like a practically estranged family member, not sure how to greet you after meeting you for the first time three Thanksgivings ago.

Your husband barely reacted to the stiff action, only looking at you wordlessly with glossed-over eyes. You got up from the foot of the bed and left wordlessly and neutrally, a robot whose only orders were to get out of the bedroom and shut the door behind you.

The moment the door closed, the next goal settled into your mind—you couldn’t let Tashi spend another second in the venue, socializing with your family and drinking the wine that your parents so kindly provided to the wedding, as if she hadn’t been partaking in an affair with your husband.

You felt half a bride and half a zombie as you left the confines of the bedroom and wandered the hallways. You were stone faced as you made your way back to the reception, trying to wrap your head and heart around devastating information that was shared with you at the most inopportune time possible.

You made a slow march down the stairs, movement hindered by your dress, and imagined what you might say to Tashi once you saw her. You should’ve known something was off from the start. You should’ve trusted the bad feeling you had when she sized you up at the bar, smirking at you like the cat who got the cream before feeding you anecdotes about how sleazy your husband used to be for no apparent reason. You should’ve trusted that feeling when Patrick rushed over to pull you away.

You wished you paid attention when Patrick faintly smelled of feminine perfume when you surprised him by coming back from a business trip earlier than anticipated, or when you noticed a bracelet that didn’t belong to you sitting on your coffee table, one that disappeared the very next day. It was so easy to write the signs off at the time–the fragrance of your personal chef and the jewelry of one of his sisters–but it no longer felt that simple. Patrick was a lot of things, but you never expected that a cheater was one of those things.

The thought of Patrick with someone else made you nauseous, especially in your own home. You faintly wondered if they’d fucked in your bed or on the couch. If the answer was yes to either, you desperately wanted to burn the pieces of furniture. In fact, that would be the first thing you set out to do when you returned home after your honeymoon. Maybe you would even beg Patrick to move to a new place, one not haunted by the memories of him and another woman.

That was, if your relationship even survived through the honeymoon. Let alone the night. You didn’t have a clue what your next steps would be. Would you be the fool who stays with a man who proved himself to be disloyal? Or would you be the fool who offered herself to the wrath of one of the most powerful families in the world? You would lose your husband, your job, and your livelihood in one fell swoop, surely being banished back to your family home in Minnesota, destined to be a receptionist at your father’s law firm for the rest of your life.

The entire situation felt surreal in the worst possible way. You couldn’t believe that while you were dealing with the aftermath of this information, Tashi was waltzing around at your reception. More than that, you couldn’t believe the information itself: Patrick cheated. Your fiancé cheated. Your husband cheated on you.

The same Patrick who became a groomzilla, laser-focused on giving you your dream wedding, cheated. The same man who confessed that he didn’t know what love felt like before he met you cheated on you. Your husband, who went out of his way to do anything to make you happy, even at the expense of his very powerful family, hadn’t been loyal to you.

None of it made sense. Maybe you would walk back into the room and your guests would jump out from behind tables and reveal that this was all a cruel joke—a little hazing as you officially became a Zweig—their laughter filling up the room at the thought that you would ever believe something as ridiculous as Patrick cheating on you.

You bit back bile as you walked into the room, the party continuing on the same way it had before you left and before you reentered—no prank to be found. The cacophony of loud music and the chatter of your guests filling your ears once more—what felt fun and exciting just moments before, now being far too overstimulating for someone trying to process information that could fundamentally alter the course of their relationship. You did your best to block out all of the extra noise and focus on your goal at hand.

Find Tashi. Send her home.

You weren’t sure what you would actually do when you saw her. Would you yell at her? Slap her for being a homewrecker? Cry at the sight of her? Laugh at the absurdity of your husband telling you that he’d been having an affair with her on your wedding night?

Peripherally, you heard someone call your name excitedly, only slightly pulling you out of your trance. Still, you couldn’t find it in you to acknowledge whatever excited friend or family member as your eyes set on your target. Tashi Duncan, Patrick’s coworker and ex-girlfriend.

Where you admired her beauty and confidence just a day before, you found you now resented every positive aspect about her. As she stood by a table and talked to one of Patrick’s sisters, surely bored out of her mind by the delusional ramblings about his sister someday being the president, she nodded and smiled diplomatically.

As you really began to think about it, you realized that she was the perfect candidate to be Patrick’s wife. She came from a background similar to his, his sisters liked her far more than they liked you—though that didn’t mean much—and physically, she seemed to be exactly your husband’s type.

Part of you wondered if she was feeling as miserable as you were; if she’d spent the day imagining your wedding to be her own, if her own jealousy was blinding her the way that yours currently was blinding you, or if she’d begged Patrick not to marry you during their work meeting the previous night. The other part of you wondered if she thought of you as pathetic as you currently felt—a stupid woman so blinded by her own love that she overlooked every beaming, bright red flag.

Your pace quickened as you walked towards Tashi, heels clicking annoyingly as they marked your pace. As you made your way to the table, you found yourself growing more anxious, the first real feeling you’d felt since Patrick shared with you the truth about his infidelity.

“Hey,” you greeted Tashi and Patrick’s sister, voice surprisingly even for how agitated you were. “Mind if I chat with Tashi?”

“Go ahead,” Cornelia shrugged. “Let’s stay in touch?” she asked Tashi, who politely agreed and watched the other woman walk off.

Tashi opened her mouth to speak to you, presumably to comment on something asinine about the wedding, or to make an observation about your wedding that you’d already heard a thousand times that night. If you weren’t so upset, you would make a bet with yourself on whether she’d tell you how beautiful the wedding was, or how beautiful you and your husband looked at the altar.

“Your housing for the night fell through,” you explained in a very level tone. It wasn’t the best excuse, but it was what came out of your mouth.

“Oh?” she asked, sounding more than a little skeptical, before lifting her drink to her lips. “Do you know where else I might be able to find lodging at this hour?”

“No,” you replied quickly and with ease. “Actually, it’d probably be best if you just went home now.”

“Home like…?” she trailed off and eyed you curiously.

“Like back to New York. I’m sure you can find a flight.”

She laughed in slight disbelief. “You realize this is a work function for me, right? I have work to do.”

“I’m sure you can do that work back home,” you dismissed, not backing down. By now, it was clear that Tashi was putting together the pieces of what you knew. In fact, you could pinpoint the exact moment when it occurred to her why the two of you were having this conversation in the first place.

Maybe it was the lack of your now-husband beside you, or the barely concealed emotion on your face. Regardless of what was your biggest tell on the situation, you continued to stare her down, resenting the way her lips shifted into a small smile, as if she still had the upper hand and knew something that you didn’t. It was almost as if she found the whole ordeal to be a little amusing, which only bothered you more.

“No need to make a scene at your wedding. I’ll be on my way.” She lifted her glass up once again to finish the drink off, but you stopped her.

You returned intense eye contact with her as you took the stemware right out of her hands and put it to your own lips, finishing the drink in a few large gulps. Though your action was impulsive, it felt like somewhat of a necessity. You desperately needed the liquid distraction from your less-than-ideal situation, and you didn’t want to give her an excuse to linger at your party a single moment longer than she needed to.

She continued to stare at you, her expression somewhere in the middle of being impressed and weirded out. “Alright then. Well, congratulations on the wedding.”

“Fuck off,” you spat out, turning on your heel and walking away without bothering to see if she stayed or left.

You made your rounds around the reception, smiling and talking to your guests with a fake smile plastered on your face. The shock of Patrick’s initial confession wore off shortly after you told Tashi off, but you still couldn’t help but feel completely numb to the situation. How else were you supposed to react when you found out the love of your life was sleeping with someone else?

You continued to man the reception on your own, occasionally scanning the room but not catching a glimpse of your husband. You wondered if he was still in your bedroom, head in his hands as he wondered if he just opened a Pandora’s box on your relationship, or if Tashi went to go find him to discuss how poorly you reacted to the information. For all you knew, the two of them could be laughing at you or having sex in your wedding bed at the same time that you attempted to pretend that everything was perfectly fine. You grew faint at the mere thought.

Eventually, you felt a familiar hand on the small of your back, something that typically was a welcome, comforting gesture. Instead, you wanted to flinch away from his hand like it was hot. You couldn’t believe that Patrick had the nerve to touch you like everything was fine after dropping such devastating information on you. Then again, at least he wasn’t hooking up with Tashi one last time.

Still, even under the spell of a sadness that hadn’t quite settled in yet, you leaned into his touch instinctively. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t feel as comfortable as it did a few hours ago.

“Such a beautiful ceremony,” a family friend of Patrick’s gushed to you. “You two have something really special.”

You felt Patrick’s eyes sear into you, desperately pleading for you to look back into them and show him that everything was going to be okay. That what you had was special enough that you’d be able to move past this. Like adults, as he said to you earlier.

You weren’t so sure that you could.

The rest of the night moved painfully slowly. Where the two of you socialized separately before his private conversation with you, he seemed to be attached to your hip now, bringing you apology offers of champagne flutes and hor d'oeuvres.

Though he pleaded with you to handle your situation like adults, you wanted to act more like a petulant child. If you had it your way, you would reject his offerings of food by tossing them onto the floor, or throw a glass of sticky alcohol in his face as if you were a Real Housewife.

If you had it your way, Patrick wouldn’t have cheated on you in the first place, and you’d be celebrating your wedding without the baggage of uncertainty for the future of your relationship.

As you walked through the reception, you weren’t particularly angry or sad, you just felt numb. There was a strange concession in knowing that what happened in the past already happened, and that there was no way for you to change your husband’s behavior. For a moment, you wondered if the numbness was a symptom of the shock that was Patrick’s confession, or you would feel the dull thud of nothingness for the rest of your life.

You let out a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding as you watched the last of your guests filtered out of the venue, relieved to finally drop the façade of being a happy newlywed and to embrace the true feeling of shock that had been biting at you all night.

Somehow managing to break away from your suddenly very clingy spouse, you wasted no time gathering an unopened bottle of wine for yourself, along with a cigarette and a lighter, which you unceremoniously exchanged with a caterer for a Venmo payment. You then headed outside to a balcony that overlooked a beautiful sprawling garden.

You looked out on the neatly trimmed hedges and the bench where you sat with Patrick not even twenty-four hours ago and distantly thought about how perfectly the night should’ve gone. You got married at a beautiful venue, had every detail down to the positioning of napkins meticulously planned, and most importantly, were marrying someone you genuinely loved and couldn’t see yourself living without.

It was all rather devastating now, to see how just a few words managed to ruin what was supposed to be the happiest day of your life.

You took a swig from the bottle, lamenting the fact that his affair partner had been drinking this very wine earlier that night. At the thought of Tashi, you took yet another hefty swig.

Just as you reached for the lighter to light the cigarette you so desperately needed, Patrick burst through the doors of the balcony, slightly out of breath and sweat beading on his forehead. In between his heavy breaths, you swore you caught a sigh of relief.

You couldn’t say that you were pleased to see him—after all, you’d escaped to the balcony to get a little time alone and to think through the night—but as you took in his dramatic entrance and disheveled appearance, it became abundantly clear to you that he’d been urgently looking for you.

“Want some?” you asked, gesturing to the bottle. Your question was more than just an offer for a drink, but a peace treaty, offering Patrick to stay outside with you despite your more complicated feelings towards him.

“Sure,” he agreed, still slightly out of breath. He collected himself as you passed him the bottle, locking eyes with you as he took a swig from the expensive drink. It felt like time moved a little slower as you watched his lips wrap around the opening of the bottle and the way his Adam's apple bobbed while the drink went down.

You suddenly realized that complicated didn’t even begin to cover how you felt towards Patrick. You loved him more than anything, and you were sure that you needed him in your life—but beneath the thick layers of numbness was a reservoir of hurt, far deeper than you ever imagined you could harbor for the man.

He passed the bottle back to you, his hands gently brushing over yours. Momentarily, you felt scandalized by the action, unsure if you should feel your cheeks heating up from the small touch or if you should flinch away from it. By the time the brief moment was over, you hadn’t done either, electing to set your gaze back over the rail instead of at your partner.

Patrick stood silently beside you, not requesting anything more to drink or even attempting to make small talk. It seemed that he was just as aware as you were that he’d changed your entire dynamic with just a few words. You wondered if he realized just how much he’d fucked both of you by fucking someone else.

You shivered in the cold night, your dress not providing you much coverage in the elements. If your wedding night had gone any differently, Patrick would’ve offered you his suit jacket, draping the item over your shoulders and kissing you sweetly. Then again, if the night had gone differently, you likely wouldn’t be shivering on the balcony in the first place.

You squatted to set down the bottle on the ground and rediscovered the cigarette and lighter. Though you weren’t usually one to smoke, you desperately needed it after the shitshow that was your wedding night.

Though you put the stick to your lips, you struggled to light the cigarette, the frigid breeze making everything slightly more difficult. It didn’t help that you hadn’t smoked since you were a teenager, giggling with your friends as you clumsily attempted and failed to light up the stick, the match pinched between your fingertips quickly burning down. The contrast between the silly memory and your far less silly reality felt jarring, to say the least.

“Here, let me,” Patrick said softly, taking the lighter from you and cupping his hand around the tip of the cigarette. You tried not to look at him too closely as you listened to the soft clicking sound of the lighter. Though he should’ve focused on the action so he didn’t burn his finger tips or the palm of his hand blocking the wind, he didn’t seem to be able to look at anything but you. The light of the flame briefly illuminated both of your faces, momentarily giving you a better look at his sad eyes.

You inhaled as the flame touched the tip, and turned your head to exhale the smoke, not wanting to blow it in the face of your partner or have to spend another second under the scrutiny of his intense eye contact.

Even as you looked away and into the garden below, you could feel Patrick’s eyes burning into you. You were sure that if you looked back over at him, you would see him looking particularly downtrodden, lips parted for words that were on the tip of his tongue that he couldn’t quite say yet, and eyebrows drawn together in a way that only seemed to highlight the sadness in his eyes.

Unspoken questions lingered in the air like the smoke from the cigarette dangling from your lips. Though you didn’t care for the smell, you were pretty sure you preferred the smoke to the questions.

Finally, a quiet question was spoken into the air, “Can I?” Patrick asked, his eyes flitting from your eyes to your lips.

“Sure,” you replied noncommittally as you pulled the cigarette away from you and passed it to your husband. Electing to watch him instead of the unchanging garden, you observed as Patrick’s lips closed over the space where yours had just been, covering the hint of a lipstick stain that you’d left on it. After a long drag, he passed the cigarette back to you, his hand brushing softly over yours once more as you did so.

This pattern continued, a heavy silence falling between the two of you as you shared the cigarette, your hands caressing the other’s softly.

“Here,” you murmured as you approached the filter. Instead of passing it back to Patrick, you brought it up to his lips, watching him intently as he breathed in the smoke.

For a moment, all you could see was his face, illuminated by the burning end of the cigarette, pupils blown with something you couldn’t quite place. You weren’t sure if you wanted to ravish him right there on the balcony or push him off of it.

He blew the smoke right back into your face, electing to still share the last of the cigarette with you. You wondered if that meant anything. It probably didn’t.

The two of you stood looking at each other, staring wordlessly as you waited for the other person to move a muscle or say something—anything. For a moment, you considered telling Patrick that you wanted an annulment. But then again, that wasn’t exactly the truth.

“I’m going to bed,” you broke the silence with your announcement. “I need to change out of this dress.”

You wished it were that simple. You desperately wanted to scrub the day off of you and to pinch yourself until you woke up. Surely, this couldn’t be your actual wedding night. Maybe you could wake up in the morning and find that this was all a bad dream—the manifestation of anxiety before your big day.

But, as Patrick trailed behind you in the hallway as if you would disappear if you left his sight, you were pretty sure that this was the reality. You wouldn’t wake up and find that your husband had been loyal to you.

Your return to the room was a silent one. The moment you stepped foot through the door, it felt like you were back in that horrible moment; like Patrick was moments from revealing to you that Tashi was the tip of the iceberg.

Bile rose in your throat once more. You made a beeline to the bathroom, hoping that the change of scenery might halt your thoughts altogether.

You stepped out of the bathroom with an entirely different mindset than what you had as you entered. Sure, your wedding night wasn’t at all what you expected it to be, but it didn’t mean that you couldn’t put it back on the right track. In the bathroom, you slipped on a silky nightie, what you hoped would be a reminder to both of you that this wasn’t any old regular night, but your wedding night. Though, with the day you just had, you weren’t so sure that either of you would be up for a particularly romantic night. You guessed it couldn’t hurt.

You left the bathroom as a woman on a mission, your eyes set on Patrick as you crossed the bedroom floor to get to him. Though he’d been laying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling like it had the secrets to the universe written on it, the sound of your entrance drew his attention over to you. You gently bit your lower lip and hoped that your face said ‘sexy’ rather than ‘so nervous you might be sick.’

His eyes stayed locked on you as you crawled into bed, and you hoped once more that the action of you moving towards him on your hands and knees didn’t appear as desperate as you felt on the inside.

It felt like your evening consisted of one desperate plea after another: Please don’t do this to me. Please just pretend that everything’s fine. Please don’t leave me.

He followed your lead as you trailed your hand up his arm and looked at him as seductively as you could manage before pushing him down onto the bed and straddling his lap. Distantly, you wondered how Tashi imitated things with him—if she did anything that Patrick liked more about her than you. You did your best to push that thought away, but failed miserably.

Mechanically, you ran your hands through his hair and kissed him passionately. You tried to ignore the lump in your throat and reminded yourself that it was just Patrick. Things weren’t all that different, except for the fact that he was your husband now—and that he cheated on you.

You tried once more to push that thought out of your mind as you moved your hips against his lap, but your attempts were in vain. It certainly didn’t help that as you kissed him, you tasted the cigarette you shared earlier in his breath—an unwelcome reminder of the awkward tension that lingered between the two of you after he shared the truth about his infidelity. And surely, it was just your mind, but his lips almost tasted like the chapstick of another woman.

Suddenly, all you could think about was Tashi with your husband. Him and Tashi in your bedroom, or in a hotel room, or on your couch. Did she do anything special that drove him crazy? What did she have that you didn’t?

Your body said one thing, but your brain said something completely different. You did your best to power through the thoughts of your husband being with another woman, but you were beginning to realize that when it came to cheating, you weren’t all that tough. You bit down on Patrick’s lip in what you hoped would be a light nibble, but the taste of iron quickly filled your mouth.

You slowed down your movements as your thoughts sped up before you gave up entirely. You supposed it was a classic case of mind over matter, and your mind was not nearly as strong as any of your physical urges.

You shifted off of Patrick far later than you should’ve, feeling like a complete and utter failure. You couldn’t even do the one thing you should’ve been able to do during your wedding night. No wonder he found solace in someone else’s body.

“I’m sorry,” you said weakly, your voice barely above a whisper. “I can’t do this. I’m sorry.”

It took you rolling off of Patrick to realize that his face was damp, eyes glossy with a thin layer of tears threatening to fall. The pit in your stomach that had been steadily growing since Patrick pulled you aside to tell you something finally came to a head when you realized that your husband was crying.

“Why are you sorry?” he asked, his voice cracking on the last syllable of his question.

A fresh tear rolled down his cheek, which was then followed by a few other droplets. He turned his head away from you and wiped them away quickly so you wouldn’t notice them, but the damage was already done.

You’d never seen Patrick cry before—not when you watched sad movies that left you bawling, not when the two of you watched advertisements for puppies in shelters, not even when he thought his dad might be dying. To see him shed tears over you felt particularly unsettling.

“Patrick?” you said his name softly, like he was delicate and going to break.

“I should be the one who’s sorry,” he looked towards you once more, eyes now rimmed with red. “I ruined everything already. I'm so sorry.”

This was a complete wild card on top of a stack of wild cards. If someone told you that your wedding night would end with your husband telling you he cheated on you, a pathetic failed attempt at sex, then watching your partner cry for the first time in front of you, you would’ve laughed in their face.

His crying continued, becoming slightly more intense as sorrow racked through his body. You’d never been in a situation like this before, so you were completely unsure of what to do.

With all prior restraint to show him physical affection gone, you awkwardly slotted your arms around your husband. He automatically leaned into you, burying his face in your shoulder as he continued to shed quiet tears. Your shoulder quickly grew damp as you threaded your fingers through his curls, the repetitive petting being just as soothing for you as it was for him.

Despite it all, you still felt a general sense of nothing at all. You were beginning to grow concerned, knowing that deep down there were certainly emotions that weren’t ready to approach the surface. You worried about what it might look like once those feelings finally came out, but that was the least of your worries when it came to your weeping husband.

Patrick continued to cry quietly, the only sound in the room being his soft, occasional sniffles. You couldn’t even place how you felt or how long you sat there stone faced as you cradled your husband.

Eventually, the tears on your shoulder dried and the intervals between sniffles grew further and further. Soon, the soft sounds of weeping turned into the long and deep breaths of rest. Between you playing with his hair and holding him, he must’ve fallen asleep. You couldn’t really blame him—given your eventful day, your all-nighter the previous day, and the energy it took for him to cry.

You gently laid Patrick back down on his side of the bed, pulling a blanket over his chest and pushing back the hair on his forehead to press a kiss to him. He stirred slightly against the forehead kiss, but didn’t seem to wake up all the way. Even when your feelings were complicated towards the man, you couldn’t help being affectionate towards him. In some ways, you felt like you needed that affection just as much as he did.

You let out a long sigh as the reality of everything truly began to set in, and you no longer had to be strong for your weeping partner. You couldn’t wrap your head around the sight of Patrick crying for the first time, or the fact that he cheated on you. You flicked off the bedside lamp, the only source of light in your otherwise darkened bedroom.

You rolled over in bed and laid on your back, setting your hands on your stomach and staring up at the ceiling. You traced your eyes over the pattern of the ceiling, though it was dark and not all that clear. You wondered if you looked at it long enough, if you’d be able to make some sense out of it. You glanced over at Patrick and wondered the same thing.

You just couldn’t understand why he’d cheat on you. You’d always been under the impression that he was just as happy in your relationship as you were. Despite his promiscuous past, he never seemed like the type of person to not be loyal to you.

You noticed a teardrop trail down his cheek in his sleep, and you gently thumbed it away. The small movement turned into you tracing a line down his nose and over his lips, then over his eyebrows and back down through the few freckles that dotted his face. Maybe if you watched him long enough, if you learned every detail of his face, someone would reveal to you why he’d done something so illogical and cruel.

You worried about how the two of you could move forward from something like this. Though Patrick always approached the topic of infidelity with a dismissive attitude, cheating had always been a deal breaker for you in your past relationships. It shattered your trust in a way that was so foundational, you couldn’t fathom a world where your relationship with Patrick stayed exactly the same after this.

Part of you knew already that moving forward, you’d constantly wonder if he was genuinely working late or if he was having an affair, or if his eye was wandering at events despite you standing by his side. And that was just trust when it came to relationships—obviously his lie was far deeper than just that. Now, you knew that Patrick had the capacity to hold a secret that massive from you, then share it at the worst possible time.

In fact, his timing felt so terrible that you momentarily wondered if it was some sort of power play. Was Patrick trying to remind you that you weren’t equals in this partnership? Was he trying to manipulate you by only sharing this information to you after you were married to him and couldn’t easily call everything off?

Your stomach turned at the possibility that Patrick wasn’t really who he said he was, and that you’d been baited and switched. You recalled the first time you met Patrick’s family, how he switched on a dime and became far more calculated and cruel to them than you’d ever seen him be with you. Was that the realest version of your husband, and the person he was with you just a façade? Was this some sort of long game he was playing with his family to piss a few people off? Did Patrick even love you?

For the first time in your relationship, you felt like you didn’t know who you were sleeping next to. Surely, this couldn’t be the same Patrick who you set out to have a quick hook up with, and ended up talking to him for hours. It couldn’t be the same Patrick who held you tight at night and gave you kisses every morning in your kitchen. The same Patrick from your vows a few hours ago, whose hands shook as he read from notecards and declared his love for you.

You frowned as you looked over Patrick once more. You resented how he was able to sleep so peacefully after inflicting such hurt on you. Did he even understand how destroyed you were? You couldn’t see yourself sleeping through the night in the foreseeable future, your head too filled with questions about your relationship and questions about his relationship with her. Would they continue the affair? Would they still work together after this, leaving you to wonder for the rest of your life if they were still going behind your back?

You desperately wished the thoughts would stop, but they kept coming, punctuated by the sounds of Patrick’s soft snores behind you.

By the time the sun began to peek through the blinds, your hand was on Patrick’s face once again. You wondered how it was possible for him to hurt someone he loved as much as he loved you, if his definition of love was so skewed by a lifetime of abuse labeled as love from his parents, and siblings who used cruelty as a form of affection.

Maybe you should’ve listened to the warnings everyone gave you, from your parents who warned that your husband and his family may be more than you bargained for, from his sisters who never seemed to be able to fully wrap their head around Patrick committing to someone, let alone you. Maybe you should’ve even listened to Tashi’s coded warning about his inability to commit and stay loyal. It seemed like everyone saw the fate of your relationship coming except you.

With the early morning light illuminating the room, things felt a little clearer for you. Beneath the numbness that protected you the previous night was a more painful undercurrent of hurt that was already beginning to eat away at you.

For the past several years of your life, you hadn’t had to deal with any painful feelings on your own. Patrick was always there beside you to hold you tight and reassure you that everything would be okay. As you laid next to him, you realized that despite all the pain he’d inflicted on you, all you really wanted was to be held by him.

Knowing that he was sleeping peacefully beside you, you opted to hold him, draping your body over his and pulling yourself as close as you could manage to him. You leaned your ear against his back, taking in the warmth he gave you and listening to his heart beat. As the two of your breaths and heartbeats began to match the other’s pace, you lamented that even now, your hearts beat as one.

For the first time that evening, your eye prickled with the threat of tears.

You lost track of how long you held your husband, but it was long enough to notice the pattern of his breath changing. You’d woken up beside him enough times to recognize that he was clearly awake, yet he made no other indication to you that he was awake. He wanted you to hold him. You wondered if he thought this might be the last time you ever do that for him. You wondered if it was the last time you’d ever do that for him.

The two of you pretended to be asleep despite the fact that you were both obviously awake, but no one commented on anything. After your arms began to grow numb, you turned your back to Patrick, hoping that he would return the favor and give you what you really wanted. You were pleased to find that he just as eagerly wrapped his arms around you, holding you tight and breathing quietly in your ear.

The two of you sat in complete silence, pretending you didn’t know what the other person was doing. Somehow, it felt like that was about to become a recurring theme in your relationship.

#patrick zweig x reader #patrick zweig #patrick zweig x you #challengers x reader #challengers fic #patrick zweig smut #art donalson x reader #reader insert #josh o'connor x reader #josh o'connor #patrick zweig angst

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brainddeadd · 25 days ago

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Anyone But You

The last person you ever wanted to see again was Nico Hischier. Yet here he is, standing across the crowded wedding venue, looking better than any man has the right to in a tailored black suit. His dark eyes lock with yours from across the room, and that familiar smug grin spreads across his face.

Of course, it had to be him.

This whole destination wedding in St. Barts was supposed to be a fun escape—a chance to celebrate your best friend’s marriage and sip cocktails on the beach, not get trapped on an island with your former best friend turned bitter ex-flame. Fate, or maybe some cruel cosmic joke, decided otherwise.

It’s been two years since things exploded between you and Nico. Two years since you let feelings fester into something complicated and combustible. You walked away, he didn’t stop you, and neither of you looked back—until now.

At the reception’s cocktail hour, you try to melt into the crowd, but it’s impossible to ignore Nico’s presence. He’s everywhere—standing with the groomsmen, charming the bride’s family, and laughing in that way that used to drive you wild. You almost make it to the bar when a familiar voice stops you cold.

“Y/N,” he says, his voice smooth as ever.

You turn slowly, forcing a polite smile. “Nico.”

He leans casually against the bar, the same cocky tilt to his mouth you remember too well. “Didn’t think I’d see you here.”

You arch an eyebrow. “You mean at my best friend’s wedding?”

Nico chuckles, and it’s infuriating how good he looks doing it. “Right. How could I forget?”

“Must be all the concussions,” you say sweetly, the corners of your lips twitching.

He lets out a low laugh, clearly enjoying this more than he should. “Still as sharp as ever.”

“Still as annoying as ever,” you shoot back, grabbing your drink and turning on your heel.

But as you walk away, you can feel his gaze following you, as if the past two years never happened and the pull between you never really went away.

Over the next few days, avoiding Nico proves impossible. The wedding itinerary is packed with group activities that throw the two of you together at every turn—beach volleyball games, rehearsal dinners, sunset cruises. It’s like the universe is forcing you to confront whatever unresolved tension lingers between you.

And the tension? Oh, it’s thick.

“Still can’t serve to save your life,” Nico teases during a volleyball match, his grin too charming for his own good.

You scowl, brushing sand from your legs. “Still can’t shut up, I see.”

He laughs, low and familiar, and for a moment, you forget why you hated him in the first place.

But then the memories rush back—how everything fell apart between you, the things you left unsaid, the way he never fought for you when you walked away. And just like that, the irritation returns in full force.

The tension between you and Nico finally reaches its breaking point when a tropical storm traps everyone indoors. Somehow, you end up stuck in a tiny beachside cabana with him while the rain pours down in sheets outside.

“This is ridiculous,” you mutter, pacing the small space. “Of all people to get stuck with…”

Nico lounges on the couch, unbothered, watching you with that infuriatingly calm expression. “You act like being stuck with me is the worst thing in the world.”

“It is,” you snap.

He smirks, clearly enjoying your frustration. “You didn’t seem to mind me so much before.”

You whirl on him, heart pounding. “That was a long time ago, Nico.”

“Doesn’t feel like it,” he murmurs, his voice softer now.

The air between you shifts, the weight of everything left unsaid pressing down on you both. The storm outside feels like a reflection of everything churning inside you—anger, regret, and that damnable attraction that never quite went away.

Before you can think better of it, the words tumble out. “Why didn’t you stop me?”

Nico sits up, his expression serious now. “You walked away, Y/N. What was I supposed to do? Chase after someone who didn’t want me?”

“I did want you,” you whisper, the truth spilling out before you can stop it.

He’s on his feet in an instant, closing the distance between you. “Then why did you leave?”

Your breath catches as his gaze drops to your lips. “Because I was scared. Scared that what we had was too real. Scared that you’d break my heart.”

Nico’s hand cups your jaw, his thumb brushing your cheek. “You broke mine first.”

And then, suddenly, he’s kissing you.

It’s not gentle—it’s messy and desperate, years of frustration and longing pouring into the kiss. You kiss him back just as fiercely, your hands tangling in his hair, pulling him closer. It’s a kiss that feels like an apology, a confession, and a second chance all wrapped into one.

The storm passes, but nothing between you and Nico feels the same. What started as playful banter and unresolved tension has shifted into something deeper, something neither of you are ready to admit aloud.

Over the next few days, things get complicated. You catch yourself watching him when he isn’t looking, noticing the way his smile softens when he talks to you. And worse, you start wanting more—more time, more moments, more of him.

One night, beneath the glow of fairy lights at the reception, Nico pulls you into a slow dance. His hand rests on the small of your back, warm and steady, as you sway to the music.

“This feels dangerous,” you whisper, your heart pounding in your chest.

Nico smiles, his forehead resting against yours. “What’s life without a little danger?”

You laugh softly, leaning into him, and for the first time in a long time, everything feels right.

The wedding weekend comes to an end, but you and Nico aren’t ready to say goodbye—not yet.

As you stand together on the beach, watching the waves roll in, he takes your hand. “So… what now?”

You smile, squeezing his fingers. “Now, we stop pretending we don’t care about each other.”

Nico grins, that familiar mischievous spark in his eyes. “Good. Because I don’t think I could let you walk away again.”

And this time, you don’t plan to.

#nico hischier x reader #nico hischier fanfic #nico hischier imagines #° braindead writes #nhl x reader

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joyejoyu · 4 months ago

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Heyo, Bromatoes!

🍅 <<TMTO>>'s 5th anniversary is coming up and we're inviting you to celebrate with us at our new beachside venue! 🏖️☀️

Indulge in refreshments, win amazing raffle prizes, draw, gpose...whatever floats your boat!⛵️ Food menu and Raffle Menu:

🍅Staff will have the [🔶Meld] status on for easy identification 🍅You will be receiving in-character /tells from staff as to not clog up /say chat! 🍅Please reserve /yell chat for staff 🍅Make sure to put away minions 🍅You may use #TMTOANNI2024 for posting on social media

FC doors will be locked until the times listed on the event poster! This is due to the fact staff members will be having meetings inside the <<TMTO>> household before it begins! You are free to wait in the front yard if you arrive early~🤗

We'll cya there~

#ffxiv #ffxiv dawntrail #tmto anniversary #tmtoanni2024

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heydusfa · 1 year ago

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There's A Place

📍 DEMO (soon)

CONTENT WARNING: Project contains explicit language and sexual content. Viewer discretion is advised.

There's A Place (TAP) is a light-hearted slice-of-life text-based game set in a world where supernatural and non-supernatural beings live in harmony.

Want to check out a werewolf band? Earn a sweet bonus from a location brimming with potential? Hook up with a phoenix who dislikes your company? [Insert other plot logic gaps and coding nightmares]? There's A Place waiting for you…

"With just a tap, find a place that's more than apt"

There's the jingle that greets you at work almost everyday. With a tap, you find yourself moving to Serenia in your mid-20s to work at There's A Place, an event venue agency. Tengus almost losing it as a traffic marshal. Neon-lit diners with lamias serving alongside robot waiters. Werewolves manning beachside services. Nothing's out of the ordinary when you're living in the capital. But you're here to work. And with work comes great challenges, like that pesky sales target seemingly out of grasp. Luckily, there's a friendly (well, mostly) cast of characters to accompany you. Some pursuable, some will pursue you, mostly supernatural. Will you go places with your corporate achievements, new contacts, or both?

A customizable MC: Choose your species, appearance, and personality.

5 love interests & 3 side interests: Go places with a vampire, tengu, werewolf, mermaid, or witch. With a phoenix, another tengu, and a half-elf possibly dropping by. TAP shall not be responsible or liable for any consequences arising from interest development.

Lots of locations to explore: Upsell, upkeep, upfront full payment please. Discover new locations to make money off. Satisfy your clients with attractive deals. Maybe even explore each other's bodies while you're at it?

A new dev everything 🤡: Just, manage your expectations. Have none!

⚠️ Probably bland and boring, not by design but by ability. Not for those wanting to delve deep into supernatural lore or looking for angst/drama-loaded relationships, sorry. There are plenty of tasty ones out there!

Alipha Nyseth • 29F, Vampire • Looking for a wedding venue

Known as that gaming influencer with an ash blonde choppy lob, Alipha's well-loved for her humorous gameplays. With how chill and composed she is, one might wonder if she's really related to her siblings. You first met her under the setting sun, warm amber eyes following your every move.

Kaizer Okubo • 25M, Tengu • Looking for a venue for his company's D&D

Kaizer's ever-changing fashion style is a stark contrast to the permanent mischievous glint in his brown eyes. His quick wit and reliable grin earns him high trust with his company. His gaming expertise parallels his love for food, though you may know this from an interrupted dinner.

Maeve Raydon • 26F, Mermaid • Looking for new experiences

Extremely hands-on, be it at work or with friends. With her can-do attitude and attention captured by new ideas every other second, Maeve is a whirlwind of wavy hair and toned muscles. Her upbeat personality is only bested by her bright smile when she had asked for your preference.

Penn Tzeyk • 23NB, Werewolf • Looking for a baby shower venue

When they're not working up a sweat in their trusted athleisure wear, they're uploading a new baking video inspired by a family member. Penn's dark brown skin is often caked with flour and food colouring, a look they're proud of. They shrugged it off when you bumped into them and their cake.

Thaddeus Qerlart • 25M, Witch • Looking for a payrise

Usually described as a hard-ass despite his soft, chubby build, Thaddeus keeps a distance from just about everyone. His cranky mood may be attributed to long hours at work. All he wants is to live comfortably with his loved ones and maybe a cat?

Ages are in human years for most of our understanding.

the above is subject to changes. a short project to hopefully kickstart everything else. inspired by reddit user Professionalarsonis' writing prompt. some artistic liberties were taken. feedback / thoughts / whatever welcomed :)

#if wip #interactive fiction #twine game #twine if #there's a place #tapgame

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yetanothersparrowofthedawn · 10 months ago

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St Jude

Series Masterlist

Word Count: 5k

Pairing: Jake x Reader

Genre: Angst, hurt, ex!Jake

Context: Y/N’s Bachelorette Party and an open bar don’t mix very well for one Jacob Thomas Kiszka.

Disclaimer: English isn’t my native language, so I apologize in advance for mistakes and awkward wordings to come.

Previous Track: The Way I Loved You

Chapter soundtrack: St Jude – Florence + the Machine

Another conversation with no destination, Another battle never won, Each side is a loser, So who cares who fired the gun? And I'm learning so I'm leaving, And even though I'm grieving, I'm trying to find a meaning. Let loss reveal it. St Jude, the patron saint of the lost causes. St Jude, we were lost before she started.

(By the way, for every ‘Chapter Soundtrack’, basically the idea is that it’s a song that YN eventually wrote with that chapter of her life in mind)

Alright, let’s get into this.

_______

The Florida sun dipped below the horizon, casting a warm glow over the expansive beach. Gentle waves whispered tales of excitement as the beachside bar awaited the arrival of the bachelorette and her entourage.

The atmosphere was charged with anticipation when Sam, Danny, and Jake walked through the door, greeted by a lively crowd of friends and colleagues of YN’s.

As they took in the venue, Sam couldn't help but chuckle, "Well, would you look at that? The three of us are early for once!”

Danny grinned in agreement, “Must be some kind of cosmic event."

Jake, however, remained unusually quiet, his eyes scanning the room as though searching for something elusive.

The trio made their way to the bar area, where the clinking of glasses and the murmur of conversations offered a lively background. Sam raised an eyebrow at Jake, sensing something brewing within his brother. "You alright, man? You're quieter than a library on a Sunday."

"Yeah, just tired,” Jake took a sip of his drink, the bitter taste doing little to soothe the turmoil within. “Probably just need more of this," he quipped, attempting a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. Truth was, he had been having a hard time getting proper sleep. Eating too, but he’d blamed it on the stress of their upcoming album.

Guests mingled, sharing anecdotes and laughter as the sun set over the horizon. Yet, Jake remained on the periphery, a shadow among the revelry. His gaze occasionally flicked towards the entrance, a subconscious yearning for something unseen.

In a sudden burst of energy, YN and her bridesmaids, including Josh in his bright pink bridesman attire, finally made their grand entrance. The room erupted in cheers and applause and the air filled with an infectious effervescence.

YN, radiant in her sparkly dress, moved with a grace as she made her way through the crowd, greeting friends and well-wishers. Jake was surprised to feel his chest tightening with an indescribable unease.

As YN approached the trio, her infectious energy lit up the space around her.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, behold the miracle,” Sam playfully teased, “she has arrived, and only an hour late!”

"Very funny, Samuel,” YN chuckled, giving a light shove to his shoulder.

Danny smirked, raising his glass. "Taking punctuality lessons from Josh, YN?"

Amidst the banter, her eyes met Jake's. "Hi," she beamed at him, her tone warm and friendly, “I’m so glad you could come.”

"Wouldn’t miss it for the world," Jake replied, a slight smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

As the night progressed, the sky darkened, and the party came alive with the sounds of music and champagne bottles popping open. The bachelorette, seemingly everywhere at once, danced from one group to another. Her laughter mingled with the rhythm of the music, a joyful symphony that echoed through the night.

Meanwhile, Jake found solace at the open bar, the cool glass in his hand offering a temporary escape from the overwhelming ambiance.

Each drink served as a futile attempt to drown out whatever was going on with him as he watched her from a distance. The alcohol in his empty stomach brought a temporary numbness, but the reprieve was only fleeting.

The atmosphere in the venue grew electric as the bridesmaids gathered to present YN with a playful gift—a sparkling tiara adorned with rhinestones spelling out ‘Mrs. Styles’. The crowd erupted in cheers as they crowned her, and YN, with a laugh, embraced the moment, wearing the gift with an air of mock regality.

Jake, however, felt an odd pang in his chest at the sight. He could’ve sworn the glittering tiara had been taunting him.

The night wore on and the tension within the guitarist continued to escalate amidst the pulsating beats and laughter. The bar, as per usual, turned out to be both his refuge and prison.

His gaze regularly flickered to her figure, unable to escape the magnetic pull she exerted, however much he tried to convince himself otherwise. And she looked so fucking happy.

The event carried on, and it seemed everything and anything only added fuel to the growing fire. A well-intentioned bridesmaid, unaware of the complexities that lingered beneath the surface, approached Jake to toast to the newlyweds.

A bitter taste lingered in his mouth at the girl’s words, and he thought he might just get sick all over the poor girl. It’s probably just the whiskey, right?

He somehow managed to retain composure, turning back to the drink he was nursing while the confused girl walked back to the dance floor.

It’s only a while later that a familiar voice interrupted his wandering thoughts.

“One Negroni, sugar.” Patty. “And don’t skimp on the Gin.” YN’s manager materialized to his side as she addressed the bartender. After a moment she turned to the guitarist. Leaning against the counter, she broke the silence.

“It’s nice for you to have come, Jacob.”

He clenched his jaw at her words. Yes, that was him, Jacob nice-guy Kiszka. He absolutely had not considered setting himself on fire for the past three hours.

The two of them once had a lovely friendship, if you could call it that. They never had that much in common, but they’d always shared one priority. YN’s well-being. Everything, of course, had turned sour when the rocky days of his and YN’s relationship creeped in, forcing Patty to step in more than once.

Memories of years past came back to Jake. Hushed conversations between the manager and him. Arguments behind closed doors. It’s for the best, Jacob. She won’t admit it, but she’ll eventually break if you two keep on going that way. It’s a necessary evil.

Patty had almost always been right, of course. Still, the bitter memories left his very flesh feeling raw.

“I can’t imagine it was easy,” she continued with a knowing look. Jake stared at his glass in silence. “But trust me, this, it’s good. It’s right.” she stated, “I suppose some things are just- meant to be.”Jake knew exactly what she’d meant to say. And some other are not.

He couldn’t help but wonder if Patty truly knew YN. Not the performer, not America’s sweetheart, not the tabloid-pleasing, award-winning, photo-posing girl. The true YN.

To be fair, she probably did. After all, Patty had been by YN’s side much longer than he had. She’d protected her in ways that went far beyond her role as manager. She’d cared the way a mother does. She’d wanted the fairytale for YN and, of course, with that came the prince charming, on his white fucking horse, with his stupid fucking English accent.

The chaos that clung to Jake’s very skin had most definitely clashed with that picture. Of course, the early days were fine. More than fine, in fact. Before Patty had witnessed them at their worst, she’d seen them at their best. But when the time came, when the chips were truly down, she had, of course, put YN’s interest first.

“If that make you feel better,” Patty carried on, “I’ll still look after her in London.”

Jake’s heart skipped a beat and he thought he might have misheard. He finally looked up to meet her gaze. Patty nodded, as sad understanding in her eyes, “They’ve been looking through houses, for after the honeymoon.”

Jake’s grip tightened around the glass in his hand. He might have burst out laughing had it not been so ridiculously tragic. He hadn’t even considered that an option. Why couldn’t Harry just move permanently to the US, huh? If he really was so giving and good? Why couldn’t he make that sacrifice? Asshole. And why on earth would YN ever accept to settle down with that guy to the other side of the world? Since when was she the kind to just follow someone around?

“You must be happy,” Jake eventually mumbled, taking another sip.

He couldn’t help but act as though it was all Patty’s doing. As though she had somehow planned the whole thing, the way a Bond villain does. As though she had wanted to make sure YN remained out of reach forevermore.

Maybe it was simply easier to believe that, than to accept the fact that YN, his YN, had wanted to follow her husband so far away. 4000 fucking miles away to be precise. That she had chosen all this.

“I am,” Patty replied with a gentle nod, “so long as she is, too.”

Some voices beckoned Patty back to the dance floor and with a gentle squeeze of his arm, she finally retreated. “Go easy on the whiskey, Jacob,” she uttered as she walked away.

Jake let his mind wander. A London townhouse. With a backyard and a fucking cat. An extra room on the second floor, just in case, with walls waiting to be painted in shades of pink or blue. Fucking baked beans for breakfast. And tea. Yeah, Harry probably drank tea. Harry probably wasn’t one to drown himself in booze and send the car flying off the road, glass shattering all over her skin.

YN would go to bed without worrying about where he was. Harry would be in bed before her, probably reading some posh poetry collection; reciting some Keats verses as she slid next to him.

Jake had never been one for words. It had been the delicate strumming of his guitar that filled the air when YN slid next to him in bed. Of course, that was before the stupid fighting, the tears, and the nights away. She must’ve had gotten used to sliding into an empty cold bed, with only the sound of city construction nursing her to sleep.

Now he was the one going to bed alone. Or he might as well have been. The coconut-smelling girls coming in and out of his apartment didn’t exactly constitute company worth mentioning.

A bitter ache ran through him, and he ordered another drink.

It was around two in the morning when toasts started echoing through the venue.

One of YN’s bridesmaids, took the stage. As she stepped forward with the microphone, the room fell into a hushed silence, the soft murmur of the ocean outside the only background noise.

She spoke eloquently, weaving tales of love and destiny, her words painted with the vibrant hues of celebration. "And here's to the happiest I've ever seen YN," she declared, raising her glass. "It's like fate itself intervened to bring her and Harry together. It's a love story for the ages, one that was truly meant to be."

Jake, further lost in the depths of intoxication, sat at the bar with clenched fists, the whiskey in his glass nearly forgotten. Each word intensified the throbbing ache within him. His gaze fixed on YN, who smiled with genuine joy, seemingly oblivious to his anguish.

As the applause erupted, drowning the room in a symphony of congratulations, Jake felt a surge frustration. No longer tethered by reason, he downed the remaining contents of his glass in one swift motion. The sharp burn of the alcohol igniting the dormant embers of his emotions.

With an intensity that surprised even himself, Jake pushed away from the bar, his movements unsteady as he navigated through the sea of well-wishers.

Without a second thought, driven solely by a raw, unfiltered impulse, Jake ascended the small stage. The bridesmaid, caught off guard, relinquished the space, her eyes widening in surprise as Jake snatched the microphone from her hand.

The atmosphere hung heavy with a mix of tension and anticipation as Jake took center stage with a stumbling step. His jaw clenched, and a fire burned in his eyes.

"Good evening, everyone," Jake began, his squinting gaze momentarily lost in the sea of faces before him. His words slurred slightly, a testament to the alcohol coursing through his veins.

"As some of you may know, I am the ex-boyfriend and now dear, dear friend of the bride-to-be,” he paused for a second, the words making him nauseous. “Anyway, where was I?" he chuckled, the sound tinged with a bitter undertone. "Right. Y/N. What can be said about her? I mean, she truly is something, isn't she?" A nervous ripple of laughter spread through the crowd, uneasy with the unpredictability of the guitarist's unfiltered words.

Sam and Danny exchanged concerned glances, realizing that this impromptu speech had the potential to become quite a spectacle. "She's full of- surprises, a real freak, if you know what I m—" someone from the crowd attempted to interject, but Daniel swiftly got on stage, a diplomatic smile plastered on his face. He gently grasped Jake's shoulder, a silent plea for restraint.

"Come on, man," Daniel murmured, his voice low and soothing. "Let's go get some fresh air, huh?"

Jake brushed off the boy’s attempt with a dismissive wave, his focus resuming on the microphone. "No, no, no, it's okay," he insisted, his words carrying a touch of defiance. "I'm just- joking around. That's what you do at a bachelorette party, isn’t it? Recount the future bride's past adventures,” he giggled bitterly, looking to the crowd, “and boy, you would not believe—"

"Jake, let's go," Sam intervened, his presence adding a sense of urgency to the situation. The crowd's gaze shifted from Jake to Sam, to Danny, and a hushed murmur swept through the venue. Jake, however, seemed caught in a trance, his eyes seeking YN’s figure in the crowd.

Sam and Danny attempted to guide him off the stage. "Hey! Let go of me," he protested, swaying unsteadily in a mix of intoxication and defiance. "Come on, I'm just joking around!” he resisted, his hand still holding tightly onto the microphone, “Sammy, come on, you, of all people would know what I'm talking about. I mean, you did catch us fucking a couple times, didn't you?" A collective gasp swept through the crowd in audible shock.

The atmosphere shifted from celebratory to uncomfortable in the blink of an eye. Jake's words hung in the air, leaving those in attendance in a state of stunned silence.

Before Jake could utter another word, Josh leaped onto the stage. Swift and decisive, he forcefully grabbed the microphone. The screeching feedback filled the room, momentarily drowning out any further words from Jake. The abrupt halt cut through the tension and the venue filled with an uncertain hush.

Sam and Danny, each with a firm grip on Jake, guided him away from the unfolding chaos, their expressions a mix of concern and frustration. "Alright, time for bed," Sam asserted, his tone firm as they led Jake out the door.

Back on the stage, an uncomfortable silence lingered. You could’ve heard a pin drop. Josh, perhaps for the first time ever, found himself dumbfounded with a microphone in his hand and spotlight shining on him.

His gaze met YN’s. Clearly shocked, she stood completely still. Patty at her side, was offering a comforting presence by rubbing her shoulders. He searched for words to fill the void left by his brother's reckless outburst.

"Alrighty then,” Josh quipped, attempting to inject a dose of humor into the tense atmosphere, “seems like my brother has, in true Kiszka fashion, overindulged in the open bar." A few chuckles broke through the awkward silence, and he offered a sheepish grin, acknowledging the awkwardness that lingered. "You know how it is with rockstars, always a bit- unpredictable." The crowd responded with a mixture of laughter and relieved smiles, grateful for the comedic relief.

As Josh said a few more words, the music gradually resumed, filling the venue with lively beats once again. The party mood, momentarily disrupted by Jake's impulsive antics, slowly rekindled.

____

A few yards away from the vibrant venue, Sam and Danny grappled with Jake, who continued to argue drunkenly, his resistance growing more erratic with each step. The trio moved further away, the rhythmic waves providing a somber soundtrack to the guitarist's inebriated protests.

Eventually, Jake crumpled to the ground. His suit, now adorned with wet sand, presented a testament to his unwillingness to cooperate.

Danny sighed, glancing at Sam who, frustrated, chose to distance himself from the situation for a moment. Few things could truly irritate the youngest Kiszka, and the disruption of a good party just happened to be one of them.

Left alone with Jake, Danny stood silently by his sitting figure, his expression a mix of concern and frustration.

Sam returned after a brief respite, holding a glass filled with seawater. "That ought to sober him up," he declared, tossing the contents of the glass in Jake's face.

"Hey, what the fuck?" Jake sputtered, lurching to his feet abruptly. His venomous gaze settled on his younger brother, and in an instant, the atmosphere shifted. Jake, fueled by alcohol-induced bravado, was in a fighting mood.

Sam, unyielding, met Jake's gaze with a stern expression. "Just calm down, Jacob,” he urged, his tone firm but laced with brotherly concern, “You're making a fool of yourself.”

The stars overhead witnessed the unfolding drama, casting a gentle glow on the sand as the two youngest grappled with the complexities their bandmate’s emotions.

Jake stood defiantly, wet sand clinging to his clothes.

"Come on, man” Daniel's voice cut through the night, firm but gentle, “you have to know you were way out of line." He always served as the voice of reason, an anchor attempting to steady a ship tossed in turbulent waters.

In that moment, however, Jake couldn't help but despise the drummer's calm demeanor. He only wished for a spark, an ignition to match the wildfire within him, and his bandmate's rationality only seemed to fuel his own frustration.

"And what the fuck would you know about that, huh?" Jake spat with anger. His words edged with bitterness as he got up in Daniel’s face, "Always playing the calm, collected one, like you're above it all. Just back the fuck off." The night echoed with the strained conversation, the waves crashing against the shore.

Jake, fueled by a concoction of alcohol and resentment, wanted a release, a confrontation to validate the storm within him.

Daniel sighed, a weary acknowledgment of the futility of the situation. "We're just trying to help. You don’t want to do this."

Jake scoffed. Feeling the weight of his own frustration, he muttered in defeat, "Whatever.” The sand crunched beneath his shoes as he turned away, a solitary figure against the backdrop of a restless sea, “Just go back inside."

"Oh,” Sam sneered, “if you think we're about to leave you unsupervised after this shitshow, you are dead wr—"

"You should get back inside," someone interrupted from behind them. Jake's face dropped, recognizing the voice instantly. Sam and Danny turned around to see YN standing a few feet away with her arms crossed. An unreadable expression was etched on her face.

Sam and Danny exchanged glances. The tension hung in the air like a thick fog that refused to dissipate.

Sam sent YN a inquiring look. Are you sure? They respected YN's judgment, yet the worry lingered like a silent undercurrent beneath the surface. They were all too aware of Jake’s unpredictability when he drank too much.

She nodded wordlessly, her gaze shifting to Jake’s back. Her eyes, once filled with laughter and joy, now held a depth of emotion that was difficult to decipher. Sam and Danny eventually walked past her, offering apologetic smiles. They headed back into the bar, leaving Jake and YN alone on the moonlit beach.

The distant murmur of the party and the sound of waves crashing against the shore served as a backdrop to their silent standoff. The night held its breath, caught between the residue of a disrupted celebration and the muted tension.

With his back still turned, Jake closed his eyes.

The stillness was finally broken by YN, unable to bear the quiet any longer. "Aren't you gonna say anything?” Her tone was sharp, a mixture of bitterness and anger lacing each word, “you seemed to have a lot to say back there."

Jake flinched, the gravity of his actions washing over him like the freezing tide. Slowly, he turned around to face her. There she stood, arms crossed against the night chill, her hair gently swaying in the wind. Goosebumps adorned the delicate skin of her arms as she seemed to shiver against the breeze. The moonlight cast a melancholic glow on her features, framing a face etched with disappointment. Caught off guard by her candor, Jake struggled to find the right words.

"I—" he began, but before he could complete the thought, she sprung towards him.

"I cannot believe you would do this to me," she spat, her words cutting through the night air like shards of glass. A forceful push against Jake’s chest caused him to stumble backward, "you, fucking asshole!" The sting of her words hung in the air as she continued to unleash her frustration.

Jake, attempted to downplay the situation with a dismissive sigh. "Come on, no one will remember a thing in the morning," he remarked, reaching out to grab her wrists to stop the damage.

YN struggled against his grip, her eyes ablaze with a mix of anger and hurt. Feeling the weight of her gaze, Jake's eyes met hers, and for a fleeting moment, he saw the hurt reflected in her eyes. "Come on, it's a just party, for Christ's—"

"That's not the issue here!" she asserted, pulling away from him. "Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you? How could you pull that crap?" Her voice wavered slightly, and he could feel the weight of her hurt settling in his chest. "Why even bother coming?" she shook her head in disbelief, "If you were just going to—"

"Well, it's not exactly like we'll have that many opportunities to see each other,” he spat, the bitterness in his words slicing through the night air like venom, “once you officially become Mrs. Styles."

"Yes, I am getting married!" she yelled in frustration. "I know that! And I tried doing what I could to make it easy on you, but—" she paused, her words hanging in the air like a heavy curtain, "Honestly? I don't even know why I should anymore. We broke up ages ago—"

"Yeah, and whose fault was that?" he interjected, his tone accusing and filled with a bitterness that had long festered in the shadows of their past. The charged atmosphere between them crackled, the pain of their shared memories surfacing like ghosts in the moonlit night.

YN's reaction cut through Jake, the hurt evident in her downturned gaze. In that moment, regret gnawed at him, his impulsive words now a bitter aftertaste. He knew well that their breakup had been entirely his doing, fueled by demons of his own making. But the anger, amplified by the drink, had led him down a senseless path.

“Believe it or not," she stated, "things were as difficult for me as they may have been for you.” Her voice was a mix of hurt and frustration, "I honestly thought we'd outgrown all of that. But- you—saying that shit about me, in front of my friends, my colleagues, m-my future stepfamily? What is wrong with you? That’s just—” she shook her head, “do you really despise me that much?" he flinched at her words, guilt settling heavy on his conscience.

"Of course, not—" he started.

"Do you hate me so much that you can't stand, let it only be, the thought of me finally being at peace?" Her words pierced through him, each syllable carrying a vulnerability that echoed in the stillness of the night.

"No, that's not it—" he tried to explain, a desperate attempt to bridge the gap between them.

"Well then, what the fuck is it, huh?" she demanded, frustration evident in her voice. "A few months ago, everything was fine, we were fin-"

"You wouldn't get it!" he snapped.

"Well, I sure as hell won't get it if you refuse to talk to me," she retorted in exasperation. Almost six years down the line and they were still stuck, facing the same issues they did on day one.

Despite his strong front, Jake remained silent, the weight of his emotions stifling any coherent response. "Jake—” she continued, calmly, “you—this past couple of years, us- managing to be- to get along, it’s been so good, I’d missed it so much," she confessed, stepping closer until her chest touched his. Her eyes sought his, "I’d missed you so much, but this? This angry, bitter jackass? I don't want him in my life,” she scowled. Her words cut through him like shards of glass, each syllable a painful reminder of the person he had become in that moment. “And yes, I know, it probably sucks having an ex get married first but- Jesus Christ, Jacob, grow the fuck up. We're friends, aren't we?"

He clenched his jaw, his throat tightening as he struggled to contain the whirlwind of emotions. Stepping away, he attempted to shield the tears that threatened to escape.

“Aren’t we?” she repeated, her voice breaking. A fragile silence lingered in the night.

"Just—" he finally muttered, his voice laced with a bitterness that mirrored the bitterness within him, “just go back to your fucking party,"

The sadness on her face slowly morphed back into anger. She gulped, her resolve finding new strength.

"Gladly," she spat, turning on her heels to walk back to the bar.

He clenched his jaw, hands on his hips, frustration and self-loathing churning within him as he watched her retreating figure. In a futile attempt to reclaim some semblance of control, he shouted out, "Fuck you!"

She didn’t bother turning around, but without missing a beat, she shouted back. "Well, fuck you too!"

____

Jake sat on the sand alone. The weight of the night’s events settled heavily on his shoulders as the alcohol-induced fog slowly dissipated. The crashing waves seemed to echo the turbulent thoughts swirling in his mind.

"You're an idiot, you know that?" a voice erupted, and Jake didn't bother looking up, recognizing the tone of his twin brother. Josh sat down next to him, a mixture of frustration and concern etched on his face. "An asshole, too."

"Yeah, right," Jake scoffed, bitterness coloring his words. "I'm the asshol—"

"She doesn't know," Josh cut him off, gently. The words hung in the air: a heavy truth finally spoken aloud. Josh, with his intuitive understanding, had always read his twin better than anyone.

"Please," Jake eventually muttered, his voice low and strained. "Of course, she does."

"How could she?" Josh retorted; frustration evident in his expression. Jake had watched as YN got in the stable, healthy relationship he had failed to give her. And he had sat patiently as she stepped towards the life of a married woman. Yet, through it all, he had remained silent, failing to express the one thing she’d needed to hear.

"Yeah, well," Jake mumbled, eventually, clearing his throat as he stared off into the distance, "It's not like I can do anything about it now."

Josh remained silent. His brother had a point. The opportunity to come clean had passed, and the consequences of his silence weighed heavily.

"Come on," Josh said finally, getting up on his feet and brushing the sand off his suit. "I'll drive you back to the hotel."

"You're a bridesman,” Jake said, “isn't it your job to be here?"

"My job” Josh stated, “was to make sure everything went smoothly for Y/N, which I miserably failed to do tonight, thanks to you, brother. Now, come on," he held his hand out, a silent invitation, "I'll drive back here once you're in bed."

Jake chewed on his lower lip, his gaze fixed on the sand beneath him. He finally asked hesitantly, "Shouldn't I go and apologize first?"

Josh chuckled sadly, a knowing expression on his face. It was always impossible to stay mad at his twin for long. "It's probably better to give her some space right now."

____

"Alright," Josh called out, his eyes on his phone as he texted Sam, informing him he was on his way back. The ride to the hotel had been quiet and Jake had collapsed on the hotel bed the second they arrived. "I put aspirin and water on the table, your phone is charging and—" he stopped abruptly as he heard a muffled sound, his eyes lifting from the screen.

"I—" Jake muttered shakily, the word barely escaping his closed throat, as Josh approached his bedside. "I just- I don't know what to do," he managed to get the words out of his closed throat.

Josh didn't need more to understand what that meant, his heart breaking at his brother’s unusual display of vulnerability. He knew the pain that must’ve been tearing him apart. The admission hung in the air, a poignant acknowledgment of the emotional turmoil that swirled within him.

Jake had had his fair share of flings after their breakup, and he had expected YN doing the same. After all, she was nothing short of incredible, and admirers were bound to line up at her door. But marriage? That was a different realm entirely. Marriage meant forever. Marriage was the final nail in the coffin of what they once shared.

Josh sat silently at the side of the bed as Jake, exhausted both physically and emotionally, slowly succumbed to sleep.

“Me neither, Jakey,” Josh eventually whispered, pulling a blanket over his twin, “me neither.”

Next Track: All You Had To Do Was Stay

Series Masterlist

Hope you liked it! Once again, I am begging you all to interact and leave comments it makes me so happy to get feedback and reactions xxx

Also, this is only the beginning lol. I have a billion drafts for other chapters so stay tuned, peaceful army.

Taglist

@aintthatapity

@sinarainbows

@vanfleeter

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rachellaurengray · 1 month ago

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The Irresistible Charm of Libra: 20 Things They Adore

If you’ve ever met a Libra, you know they have an irresistible allure that draws people in like moths to a flame. With their natural grace and captivating charisma, Libras are the social butterflies of the zodiac, effortlessly balancing charm and intellect. Governed by Venus, the planet of love and beauty, they possess an innate appreciation for aesthetics and harmony in all aspects of life. So, what exactly makes these air signs tick? Here are 20 specific things that ignite the passion of every Libra, reflecting their unique personality and vibrant spirit.

Art: From breathtaking paintings to captivating sculptures, Libras are mesmerized by creative expression. They often find inspiration in art that speaks to the soul.

Harmony: Peace and balance are their lifeblood. Libras strive to create environments free from conflict, often acting as the glue that holds relationships together.

Socializing: If you’re looking for a social butterfly, look no further. Libras thrive in the company of others, effortlessly drawing people into their orbit.

Romance: For them, love is an art form. Libras adore grand gestures, heartfelt conversations, and the thrill of romance, making every moment feel special.

Fashion: With a keen eye for style, they express themselves through their wardrobe. A Libra’s closet is often a curated collection of stunning pieces that reflect their taste.

Intellectual Conversations: They crave deep, engaging discussions that stimulate the mind. Whether it’s philosophy, politics, or art, Libras love to explore different viewpoints.

Nature: There’s something about the great outdoors that calls to them. Nature rejuvenates their spirit, whether it’s a serene forest walk or a beachside sunset.

Aesthetics: Beauty is everywhere, and Libras have an eye for it. They enjoy crafting beautiful spaces and curating experiences that delight the senses.

Music: A soundtrack to their lives, music holds a special place in a Libra's heart. From jazz to classical, they find joy in melodies that resonate with their emotions.

Travel: Adventure beckons! Libras love to explore new cultures, savor different cuisines, and create memories in far-off places.

Justice: Fairness is a core value. Libras stand up for equality and justice, often championing causes that align with their beliefs.

Diplomacy: Skilled negotiators, they have a knack for resolving conflicts and bringing people together. Their calm demeanor makes them trusted peacemakers.

Culinary Experiences: Food is another form of art for Libras. They enjoy both cooking and dining out, relishing the flavors and experiences that come with culinary exploration.

Teamwork: Collaboration fuels their creativity. Libras thrive in group settings where they can share ideas and bring projects to life.

Literature: A good book is a cherished companion. They dive into stories that transport them to different worlds, finding wisdom and inspiration in the pages.

Relaxation: Self-care is essential. Libras know how to unwind, whether it’s through a spa day, a warm bath, or a cozy night in with a movie.

Animals: Their love for animals is profound. Many Libras have a soft spot for pets, advocating for their well-being and fostering deep bonds with their furry friends.

Gatherings: Whether hosting or attending, they thrive in festive atmospheres, delighting in the joy of bringing people together.

New Experiences: They embrace life with open arms, seeking out new adventures and hobbies that push them out of their comfort zone.

Cultural Events: From museum exhibitions to theater performances, Libras love to immerse themselves in cultural experiences that expand their horizons.

At their core, Libras are driven by a desire for beauty, balance, and connection. Their love for life and the people around them is contagious, making them cherished friends and partners. So, if you’re lucky enough to know a Libra, celebrate their passions and join them on their journey—it’s bound to be an unforgettable ride!

#libra season #libra #beauty #food photography #culture #balance #aesthetic #just girly posts #im just a girl #libras rule #art #health #foodie #just girly things #energy #libra moon

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dragoon-mid-jump · 2 months ago

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FFXIVWrite 2024 Day 2: Horizon (Modern/Band AU)

horizon (n.): the line at which the earth's surface and the sky appear to meet.

Rating: G

Word Count: 466

It wasn't fair sometimes.

Y'dehlya sat under a tree on the beach curled up in a ball away from most other visitors and stared out at the duskfall horizon, watching the waves lap upon the sand, ears flat upon her head.

She and her bandmates were preforming at a nearby concert plus taking a few days to themselves, so they rented a beachside villa. As a bonus, their partners were all able to tag along.

Well, all but hers.

Byron said his work might prevent him from joining the rest of them in the first place. Plus, even if he were to come, they were still bound to their secrecy, and this trip contained a more open public venue. They'd be hard-pressed to enjoy the trip together without getting potentially hounded by reporters and paparazzi except for within the villa.

Her heart hurt. It was a product of their circumstance, but she should be allowed to resent it sometimes, right? She sighed wistfully and buried her head in her arms.

"Excuse me, ma'am. I noticed you sitting here all by yourself. Is there anything I can do to help?" Came a man's voice beside and above her. It was smooth, gentlemanly, and most of all, familiar. Her ears immediately perked up and she lifted her head towards the owner: a Viera with wavy dark purple hair and loving brown eyes dressed in swim shorts and an undone button-up shirt smiling down at her.

"Byron!" She jumped up and hugged him tightly, burying her head in his chest. "I thought you weren't going to make it..."

Byron hugged her back just as intensely and pet her hair. "I thought I wasn't going to, either. But I'm here." Y'dehlya lifted her head and beamed up at him. She rubbed a tear out of her eye and he dried the other one. "When I got to the villa, the others told me you'd gone off to the beach on your own. I even tried calling and texting you." he continued.

"Oh." She looked at him apologetically. "I...just wanted to be alone for a bit."

"I understand, my beloved, I understand." He pulled her in for a long-awaited kiss. "If you had returned before I could find you, one of them would've just called me, and I would see you back at the villa. But, I'm happy I did." He stroked the side of her face, and she leaned into his hand, laying hers on top of it and smiling at him. Byron could hear the low rumble of her purring.

They turned towards the horizon. "It's beautiful, isn't it?" Y'dehlya commented.

"It is."

"Stay with me a while? Hold me?"

"Of course. That's why I came all this way." When Y'dehlya turned back to him, he kissed her again.

#ffxivwrite #ffxivwrite2024 #My WoL #Y'dehlya Rhikta #au: band #Ship: To Know You Again #Byron Attikos #My WoL Adjacents

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redisaid · 11 months ago

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Learning by Doing

Uh, hi there. You guys voted for me to do bonus smut months ago and I forgot about it. Then I remembered and now we're here. Bon appetite. Have some very late pre-Third War elf love hotel sex magic fluff smut.

4709 Words

Read it on Ao3!

“This is a sex hotel,” Jaina observed, her hand still lingering on the ornate doorknob of the bedchamber of what was to be their private villa for the week.

“It’s a sex resort,” Sylvanas corrected, the buckles of their bags still slung over her shoulder jingling as she stepped behind Jaina to be greeted by the same view she was taking in. “There’s a hot spring, massage parlor, restaurant. You know, all of those sort of things.”

The view in question was of a massive bed, bigger than any Jaina had seen before, which dominated the otherwise warm and tidy room on the second floor of their own little spire. Unlike the sitting room across the way, which was completely lined with these, this room had only one large window facing a sea view, conveniently far from the bed. There was a doorway opposite it, no doubt leading to a bathroom. None of these things, however, gave away the purpose of the room.

No, that would be the arched alcove above the bed, inset with glass shelves, underlit by tiny magelights. From left to right, an assortment of bedroom accessories unlike Jaina had ever seen were on display, from more aggressively obvious ones such as a selection of dildos and restraints and paddles, to things she had to guess at the purpose of, like that rack of colorful potions in intricate little glass bottles.

And while Jaina would say that she didn’t necessarily dislike surprises, she was quite certain that this was not the destination she’d have guessed, or had any way of guessing, when her girlfriend had posed the idea of taking her on a surprise vacation. In fact, she had assumed and planned for much the opposite.

“You ass,” she said to the girlfriend in question, turning to find the Ranger General of Quel’thalas herself grinning and holding one hand up in some sort of apology.

“If you don’t want to be in a sex resort, then we can go,” Sylvanas offered. “Or we can just enjoy the spa activities and take this time to relax.”

“I packed for the outdoors. Hiking, hunting, fishing,” Jaina explained her offense. “Things one assumes their ranger paramour will take them to when they’re thinking of surprise vacation destinations.”

“You had talked about wanting to spend more quality time together,” Sylvanas retorted, her free hand still in the air, but shoulders shrugging regardless. The buckles on their bags jingled again. “And since you did so while you were about to pass out on my chest last time we--”

“I meant in general. And yes I talked about it in bed, and yes I enjoyed myself very much that night, but this was just not what I expected. I packed trousers and a sturdy jacket, not robes and negligees,” Jaina went on.

“Luckily, for this type of vacation, you don’t really need clothes,” Sylvanas noted, grin widening to the point of growing lopsided, the white of her fangs on full display.

How could Jaina stay annoyed at a face like that? The stern mask of the Ranger General had been gone before they’d even landed on the beach of this island resort, replaced by the goofy grins and cocky smirks of the woman few knew Sylvanas Windrunner to be. But Jaina got to see her, in bits and pieces like this, and regardless of the venue, would have enjoyed having a week of her to herself. She had to admit that doing so in a luxurious beachside private villa sounded much more pleasant than doing so in the mud of the forest floor.

“I can hear the gears grinding in your head,” Sylvanas noted. “So, out with those thoughts. Are we staying?”

Jaina leaned over to kiss her on the cheek. “Put the bags down, you unbelievable ass.”

A quick tour of the room told Jaina several things. One was that the large bed was both soft and firm at the same time, and the coverings that adorned it were a fine, soft linen. The connected bathroom was bigger than she expected, with a large soaking tub that faced a window overlooking the sea that would definitely see use later. It housed a collection of towels unlike any Jaina had seen before, but one she already found herself being grateful for. And as one might expect from a resort in the north sea, so near the Isle of Quel’danas itself, the entire place was buzzing with magic, absolutely alight with arcane energy. From the magelights that gave the rooms a soft and inviting glow, and could be brightened or dimmed with a mere word, to that rack of potions that still captivated Jaina, some aglow with that very magical energy.

Even her elven girlfriend seemed extra charged with arcane here, as Jaina exited the bathroom to find her sinking into the bed, eyes closed and limbs akimbo, seemingly testing the comfort of it.

Jaina took that opportunity to kick off her much too outdoorsy boots and climb atop her to explain herself. “I’m not mad,” she noted with a brief kiss on the bridge of Sylvanas’ nose. “Just surprised.”

“That’s the point of it being a surprise,” Sylvanas laughed beneath her, opening her glowing grey eyes to reveal that yes, the blue arcane sheen of them was a somewhat brighter shade here, somehow. “But I take it from the fact that you’re on top of me that it isn’t a bad one?”

“No. I think I can make the best of it,” Jaina told her with another kiss, this time aimed at the corner of her mouth. “Thank you for booking it.”

“You’re most welcome,” Sylvanas said with another laugh. “And if you’d like to take a moment before we start the festivities, there’s snacks and champagne in the kitchen.”

“We’re in a sex resort, Sylvanas,” Jaina noted, this time kissing the other corner of that devious little mouth, which had curled upward into a smirk. “You didn’t bring me here to eat snacks.”

“I suppose I didn’t,” Sylvanas answered, pulling her into a proper kiss.

Teasing the sharp tip of fang with her tongue, Jaina wondered at how they’d ended up here, or together at all. A chance meeting in Dalaran had seen her befriending Sylvanas not long ago, introduced to her in a hurry at a restaurant by her younger sister and Jaina’s friend Vereesa. The defender of the high home of the elves herself then was suddenly full of excuses to come back to Dalaran after that, excuses that eventually led her to the bedchamber of the Kirin Tor’s newest agent not long after that. And now to celebrate the first year of their relationship, they were sinking into the bed of what was apparently a sex resort.

And Jaina didn’t mind it at all. This, she decided firmly, was much better than camping in the woods.

“What do the potions do?” was Jaina’s immediate question upon breaking that lingering kiss.

Sylvanas laughed beneath her, wrapping an arm around her waist to hold Jaina in place through her laughter. “I saw you eyeing them. That’s the first place you want to go?”

“I can sense the magic in them,” Jaina told her. “And frankly have never encountered magic geared toward sex before. Call it an academic interest.”

“Always academic with you,” Sylvanas teased, plainly ignoring the request to fiddle with the buttons of Jaina’s sensible cotton button up she’d worn expecting a day filled with a different kind of physical activity.

The labels on the bottles were no help. Though Jaina could read the Thalassian script with ease, the names on them meant nothing to her. Serpent’s Kiss? Leviathan’s Hunger? Cloud Nine? Even in a place as nice as this, the names might as well have been the same as some cheap love potion sold on the docks in Boralus to lonely and ignorant sailors. Jaina could only hope these weren’t just tinctures of low quality rum and lavender, not that she had any idea what was in those dockside love potions, not at all.

“You’re avoiding my question. And here I got the impression that you once frequented this place. At least you seemed to be very familiar with the way to this villa of ours,” Jaina noted.

“I’m just good with directions,” Sylvanas misdirected, freeing the first and second buttons from their hold on Jaina’s blouse.

“The receptionist said, ‘Welcome back General Windrunner’,” Jaina pointed out, taking her gaze from the potions to grab Sylvanas’ hand and stop her quest to rid her of that sensible cotton shirt.

“I may have frequented this place with other guests in different times,” Sylvanas acquiesced. “But I especially thought you might enjoy it, and must confess I’ve wanted to take you here for some time now.”

“So what do the potions do?” Jaina pressed, and slid Sylvanas’ hand into her partially open shirt in appreciation for that honesty.

“There are a lot of them,” Sylvanas noted, the warmth of her fingers tracing upon Jaina’s clavicle as she leaned back to look up at the rack of glowing colors. “Where to start?”

“Surely you have a favorite?” Jaina asked.

The wicked smile that lit up Sylvanas’ face told her she did. “I didn’t think we’d talk about the potions right away. I was planning on saving that for a little later in the trip, but you did ask.”

“In the interest of furthering my arcane studies, I think that I must insist, Ranger General,” Jaina demanded, propping herself up into a sitting position to cross her arms while still straddling the elf beneath her.

“Then let us not leave you uneducated any longer, my lovely Kirin Tor Agent,” Sylvanas said as she sat up with Jaina, balancing her in her lap, but also turning to pluck a potion off the rack in a flair of dexterous grace.

Sometimes, it was worth it to have a lover who was a devious little ranger at heart.

Said potion was Serpent’s Kiss itself, a glowing teal mixture in a vial shaped like a snake curled around a tree branch. A display of glass artistry that was worthy of something far more grand than a sex potion, but Jaina had to remind herself that this was Quel’thalas she was in. Everything was beautifully crafted and ornate, and if anyone would make pretty vials for their magic sex potions, it would be the elves.

Jaina decided then that she rather liked dating an elf. Well, she’d decided that many times before in this relationship--once for the access to new artisanal cheeses alone that came along with her visits to Quel’thalas--but decided again.

Sylvanas swirled the vial for her, still grinning like a cat that caught the canary as the contents glowed brighter for her efforts, and whirled in a storm of arcane sparkle.

“Let me preface this by saying that we do not have to make use of this, though I think you’ll enjoy it too. I shall tell you that for one, I drink it, and the effects last for four hours, or until I drink another potion that will reverse any of these, that clear one over there by the towels. As for the effect itself, that is best left to be learned by observation, if you’d like,” she offered.

“Then drink it,” Jaina challenged, finding an eager grin making its way to her own face. “And let me not linger waiting on another surprise.”

“Clothes off first,” Sylvanas said, and reached for those buttons again with the hand not holding the vial.

The bottle of glowing blue-green liquid was nearly lost three times in the process of their undressing. Jaina caught it the first time it slipped from Sylvanas’ hands as she pulled her sleeveless shirt over her head. Sylvanas took it from Jaina the second time and nearly dropped it in helping her shimmy out of her leggings. Her solution to this was to hold it in her mouth, but her fangs proved unwieldy to the point where she had to catch it again in the process of removing Jaina’s bra.

All in all, Jaina was almost laughing too much to be as turned on as she was by the time they were naked.

It was always like this with Sylvanas. The other lovers of her youth had been so serious in the bedroom. Sylvanas rarely was. She was serious everywhere else, a stern and hard woman who was difficult to please in the training grounds and apparently impossible to defeat on the battlefield. But in the bedroom, alone with Jaina, she laughed. She grinned. She smirked and whispered wicked things and terrible jokes in the same breath to the point where Jaina didn’t know whether to sigh in pleasure or in disgust at her lover’s abysmal sense of humor.

But she sighed all the same, and loved her more for it.

Sylvanas gave the vial one more shake, exciting another surge of arcane glow from it before she popped the cork and downed the contents. “Again, there’s no pressure to do anything you don’t want to,” she stated as she took a deep breath after swallowing. “But I think you’ll have fun with this.”

This didn’t seem to be anything. Jaina wasn’t really sure why she had to watch a demonstration of this potion, though she hardly complained about looking at her lover’s body. Sylvanas with lithe and fit, with an archer’s broad shoulders, and muscles that formed a V shape from her abdomen pointing downward to…something new. A glowing teal appendage that was most certainly not there a moment ago, erect and ready.

“You have a dick,” Jaina noted most astutely.

“Excellent observation,” Sylvanas said with another laugh.

“Then what are all the dildos for?” Jaina asked, puzzling for herself as she scooted toward Sylvanas.

“Their own kind of fun,” Sylvanas answered. “Different from this.”

“Different how?” Jaina asked.

An answer came to mind in the set of Sylvanas’ lips and the way her tongue ran across them. An answer, like many, that was best found in observation. The construct between Sylvanas’ legs was warm to Jaina’s touch, as she wrapped an exploratory hand around it, and found that it had a pleasant texture in addition to the temperature. Not exactly like skin, but still soft, and hard where it needed to be. Buzzing with arcane in a way that was pleasant to her magically inclined senses, almost as if alight with a faint electric hum.

And the fact that Sylvanas let out a little grunt as she circled her thumb around the head of it told her what she needed to know. “You can feel it?” Jaina asked anyway.

“I can feel that that feels very nice,” Sylvanas told her.

A thousand questions sprang to mind. How did this work? What combinations of enchantments did that potion contain? How were they balanced so perfectly? And who in all of Azeroth had the time to figure that out?

Whoever it was, Jaina was most grateful for their work. Another stroke wrung a low moan from Sylvanas’ throat, and she decided that she was extremely grateful.

But she had one question lingering on her mind, far more pressing than the others. “Can you come with this?” Jaina asked.

“If you keep doing that, I just might,” Sylvanas warned, gently reaching for Jaina’s hand to still it where it gripped the arcane cock. “And to prevent you from asking the question I know will follow this one, yes, there is a result of sorts from that. I’m told it’s quite pleasant for a magic user, as it is arcane in nature. For that reason too, it leaves little in the way of mess to clean up. Very convenient.”

“One more question, I promise,” Jaina ventured, letting go to bring Sylvanas’ face to hers and draw her in for a kiss. “Me on top, or you?” she asked against her lips.

Sylvanas’ answer came in the form of further observation, and she sank into that offered kiss, and used it to distract Jaina from the tight hold she took of her waist, flipping her down onto the mattress in the process.

While the circumstances and venues in which that had happened before were different, Jaina enjoyed them all, but perhaps was most excited for this one. She was just as happy to be on top, of course, but being underneath Sylvanas was always a good time. Even better now if she could enjoy it at the same time.

They’d used their share of toys in the past, and those were fun. Not as fun as this, or the sigh Sylvanas let out as the construct rubbed against Jaina’s thigh.

She kept one arm around Jaina, holding her close, and braced herself up on her elbow. And for a moment, she just looked at her, smiling.

“What?” Jaina asked.

“I think this is going to be a wonderful vacation, that’s all,” Sylvanas told her before kissing her again.

And despite the stiff insistence poking at Jaina’s leg, she kept kissing her. Along her neck and jaw, dragging the points of her fangs over the rounded shell of Jaina’s ear. Peppering her collar bones with little red marks.

Jaina, for her part, was more than ready to experiment with this new magic and learn by doing, but she allowed this teasing. She encouraged it, actually, running her nails across the broad plane of Sylvanas’ upper back, kissing along her long, pointed ears. She enjoyed the softness of her too, not just her hard elven angles, but the plush skin of her thighs, her breasts, the tender spot just below her jaw that always made her hiss when Jaina sucked on it a little.

There was a reason she put up with this haughty, off elf of hers after all. Not only did Jaina love her, but she loved loving her. She was, in fact, very glad to be in a place dedicated to that act, and with a week to continue exploring exactly what all these potions did.

Though this one, she thought, would probably be a favorite of hers as well.

Jaina knew for certain it would when she reached down between them and ran a hand over the stiff length again, feeling Sylvanas go tense at her touch.

“Inside,” was Jaina’s breathless command, and one that she guided Sylvanas to follow.

The sensation was both familiar and strange. The sense of fullness and warmth and the familiar aching stretch were there, of course. But with them was a jolt of arcane energy that at first made Jaina want to jump, but then settled into a pleasant hum that flowed through her body. She felt like a harp string plucked, made to play a pretty note, only hers came out as a shuddering breath.

Sylvanas too, seemed lost in the sensation, entering her slowly and fully, then stilling for a moment. She gave one tentative roll of her hips, then another, before letting out a moan that transformed into a sentence, “Gods Jaina. You feel amazing. I should have taken you here earlier.”

“Please tell me that we can get more of this potion to go,” Jaina mumbled as Sylvanas moved inside of her again, slow and deliberate.

“I’ll buy us a case,” she promised as she hilted herself.

Sex of this sort was good. Jaina liked any form of penetration, really, but seeing her lover so clearly enjoying her for it was something else. Even the men she’d been with before weren’t so reverent in fucking her as Sylvanas was. Each cant of her hips drew a new sound from her Jaina had never heard before. A new whispered praise. A new prayer to gods both foreign and familiar. And for her part, Jaina couldn’t get enough of it. The cock, the compliments, the building of a too quick crescendo, roiling her abdomen as Sylvanas fucked her.

She managed to open eyes that had long since screwed shut to look down between them, both amused and aroused by watching the arcane glow sink in and out of her.

“This is incredible. You’re incredible,” Jaina told Sylvanas.

Sylvanas seemed determined to keep this slow rhythm, hardly changing her pace even as she hefted Jaina up a bit with the arm beneath her, changing the angle just a bit. But gods what a welcome change it was, as each slow grind of her hips gave Jaina some extra friction against her clit now. Sylvanas seemed to realize this, and thrust deeper in, hardly pulling herself out at all, in order to keep the pressure up.

“That’s…” Jaina didn’t have to say it. They both knew. They could both feel it now. Her in the way she tightened around the construct, and in the way Sylvanas’ rhythm began to falter.

But that brought another incessant question out from Jaina’s lips, one that needed immediate answering, because she wasn’t ready for this to be over. “Does it stay hard if you come?”

“Mmm, yes. But just for asking that, I will make sure you come first,” Sylvanas warned through panting breaths.

It was a threat Jaina was fine being on the receiving end of. One she didn’t really have much hope of countering either. Her body was on a determined course, and there was little that could change it at this point. Even as Sylvanas slipped down from her elbow, her full weight resting now on Jaina, it only made it better. Her hot breath in Jaina’s ear, Jaina’s lips and teeth on her neck.

Jaina felt her body seize and clench and gods was it good. Back arched, mouth open, and Sylvanas buried as deep as she could go inside of her, she came hard. Hard enough that she was sure the hand not fisted in the sheets left a trail of angry red against Sylvanas’ back, doubly so as the elf’s hips lost their rhythm and thrust fast and wild into her.

That was soon followed by a rush of warmth that filled her, both literally and figuratively. A liquid of sorts imparted a wave of energy across Jaina, tingling her from her toes to the crown of her head. She felt as though the ends of her golden hair might spark alight with arcane. And that she might just come again for the sensation of having made Sylvanas spend herself within her, magical as it was otherwise.

“Fuck,” was all she could say to express any of that as Sylvanas went limp atop her, save for the smile that curved in the lips against Jaina’s cheek.

They caught their breath together until Jaina had recovered enough to seek Sylvanas’ lips for a kiss. “You should have brought me here earlier,” she told her as she pulled away.

“I knew you’d like it here,” Sylvanas hummed back at her, cocky even as she enjoyed the afterglow, eyes closed, head nestling atop Jaina’s chest.

But Jaina was invigorated, nerves set newly alight by that surge of arcane. And the delight of discovery, of course. Sex magic, who would have known? The elves. Of course the elves.

A tentative roll of her hips told Jaina that yes, Sylvanas was still indeed hard, still inside her, and still quite sensitive from the little moan she let out.

But Jaina wasn’t quite done with her experimenting, or with her questions. And she also very much wanted Sylvanas to come inside her again, if it felt like that every time. How was this place not crawling with eager mages? Well, maybe she didn’t see many on their way in because they were busy in their own rooms. No wonder.

It was her turn to flip them over, cautiously. And while Sylvanas did slip out in the process, Jaina sat right back down on the construct as soon as she was atop her lover, eliciting yet another almost pained groan.

“So what do the others do?” Jaina asked as she began to roll her own hips.

“Insatiable,” Sylvanas scolded, even as her hands went to Jaina’s thighs to guide the movement.

“I like this one, but I want to know all of my options,” Jaina told her.

“I meant the fact that you’re already going for round two, but you’re insatiable in both regards,” Sylvanas scolded.

“You make an adorable face when we’re doing this, do you know that?” Jaina asked.

Said adorable face was highlighted by a pair of wide grey-blue eyes, pupil dilated enough that Jaina could see it beneath the arcane overglow even. Long brows furrowed against the sensation that must have been amazing, even if Sylvanas had experienced it before. Jaina noted that she’d have to ask her later if these elixirs would work on a human, because they would definitely be trying the reverse if so. But most tempting was a fan of silvery blonde hair that spread beneath her, one that Jaina couldn’t help but tuck behind a long ear as she rode her.

“Tell me what the other potions do. Let’s see how many we can get through before you come again,” Jaina challenged.

“You’re going to be the death of me before this week is through,” Sylvanas grunted, but began to meet her thrusts with her own all the same.

“Don’t make it zero now, that’s no fun,” Jaina teased, running her hand down from Sylvanas’ face to her breast, and eliciting another gasp from her for it.

“The red and blue are temperature play. Red makes you a little hotter, blue a little colder. They’re topical, not for drinking,” Sylvanas explained.

This was addicting. The rhythm of their meeting hips, the way Sylvanas’ face betrayed her pleasure every time Jaina took her fully inside. And the way she felt in there, hard and soft and buzzing arcane. Jaina could see now why the elves would be addicted to magic. Anyone would be if it came like this.

“The cold one sounds interesting,” Jaina noted.

“It’s awful. The warm one though, I do quite enjoy,” Sylvanas told her.

Jaina wanted to make a quip about elves and their love of all things hot, but Sylvanas thrust up in a way that brushed a spot inside her that made her buck unbidden, and she lost the words she was looking for.

“Purple…makes you float,” Sylvanas informed her, though her glowing eyes had shut once again, and could hardly see the color she was identifying.

Her hands gripped Jaina’s thighs, holding on for dear life. Holding her in place too, so that she kept hitting that spot. Holding her so that Jaina could barely get out a chiding, “That’s only three, love.”

“Orange gives,” a moan, a breath, a pant, a mumbled curse. “Mirror image spell.”

Jaina had to give in then, falling atop her lover to kiss the beads of sweat forming on her brow. Gods this feeling, this closeness, this symphony of magic and pleasure. She was going to have a hard time wanting to do anything else but this for the rest of the week.

“One more,” Jaina pleaded. “One more before you come inside me again.”

“Green,” was the only word Sylvanas got out before she did, in fact, come again.

The arcane rush and frantic thrusts that followed sent Jaina to her own soaring heights again too. One intense orgasm so quickly after the other was enough to leave her dizzy and limp, draped over Sylvanas for her efforts, sated but not, awakened to a new world which required much more exploring, but perhaps in need of a few moments rest before she could continue. A few moments she intended to enjoy being held and feeling full and loved.

“Green,” Sylvanas started again, but couldn’t catch her breath to finish.

“I don’t care about green. Green can wait,” Jaina mumbled into Sylvanas’ hair. “I love you and I love this. I want to do this until I’m too sore.”

“There’s a potion for that too,” Sylvanas informed her.

“I think I love it here,” Jaina observed, though it was up to her girlfriend to determine if that comment was about the sex resort, or riding out their arcane-tinged afterglow in her arms.

It was both, truthfully.

#sylvanas windrunner #jaina proudmoore #sylvaina #fanfic #smut #when you bring your nerd girlfriend to a sex resort and she gets off on trying to figure out the sex magic #much of this can be blamed on one person who knows who they are #yeah you

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