#but I just think it’s so wonderful that mc now feels good enough about their life on earth to die

[hyukascampfire]

To: Someone From a Warm Climate

wc: 23.2k

genre: smut, angst, fantasy violence

pairings: faerie!taehyun x human!reader, faerie!yeonjun x human!reader

synopsis: a life lived as a human among the fae is one hard-earned. the folk are built of indescribable beauty, and of debauchery and mischief. for some, a life lived subservient to the folk is just fine; but to those who dream of something more, they would spend their lives clawing and biting to make it happen.

you, looking for a way to escape a life as a faerie’s human servant, put a new foot forward thinking that any life could be better than that. but, when your first assignment as a king’s spy is alongside a brooding, icy faerie man, you begin to wonder what your place in this foreign world really could be.

a/n: this part, i put my heart and soul into! i rewrote so many parts and agonized over following the path that i most wanted the story to go down—i hope it shows! xoxoxoxo, love ya! again, this is a long one, so pls let me know about spelling mistakes :,)

! warnings: angst, unprotected sex, voyeurism, orgasm denial, jealousy, angst again, dubious intentions of multiple main characters... poor mc has no idea who to believe

playlists: taehyun | yeonjun | series

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You had hoped that learning of Yeonjun’s relationship with the same crowd who have made attempts on your life would be enough to rattle your brittle heart into sense. You really had. As you watch Taehyun, bent over the war strategy table, though, you wish you had more time to sort it out in your head. You hate the thought of settling on half-baked answers and information all for the fact that time is not on your side. When had time ever really been kind to you, though? It had not made exceptions when you were small and innocent in your cradle, had not slowed down to allow you to at least cherish your final moments a normal child with her human parents. You can only fantasize who you would be if you had been given just enough time to know that gentle love. Even now, time makes your choices for you.  

Taehyun looks over those metal figurines as if searching for something in them. There are more of them stood and strewn out on the map. It reminds you how you are now faced with a plethora of newer, more powerful players.  

You miss when this had been a simple spying mission—when your path forward had been unobscured and clear. You envy that version of yourself: able to believe that bad things presented themselves as such. The world had been clean-cut. Evil had jagged teeth and foul breath, and good had soft edges and sweet smiles. You’re not sure where that distinction lies anymore.  

“How’s your shoulder?” you say, making your presence known. You’re sure he had been keen to your presence from the moment you’d entered the estate, though; not only thanks to his better hearing, but also because Taehyun is constantly assessing his surroundings. The smallest insect could hardly sneak up on him. You push off the doorframe and enter the room. 

He nods his head once in greeting, but he doesn’t tear his gaze away from the table’s ensemble. “It’s doing fine.” 

Sighing, you decide not to push it. The sight of that puncture had been ghastly, and it wreaks havoc in your belly every time you replay it, but the tick in his jaw when you mention it tells you enough of how he feels about disclosing whether or not anything might hurt him. How many times in the past few weeks had you forced him to do just that? It’s no wonder that the two of you butt heads so terribly. Allowing you to stitch him up must’ve been the extent of how far he’d let you see him in need of help. 

You gesture toward the table. “Have you decided when we leave?” 

Taehyun answers you with a strained sigh out through his nose: a testament to how he’d been mulling it over. He levies those figures a few more moments of his gaze as if they might speak an answer for him. They don’t. He concedes to their lack of direction and turns to you. “Every moment we spend here, we risk our identities further,” he starts, crossing his arms over his chest.  

You wince. He still believes that you’d at least contained some of your identity by taking out those three faeries. You know better. Even the bard in that tavern had known what had happened; it’s why Yeonjun ended up finding out in the first place. Even if not all of them had been a part of that rebellion, it’s reckless to assume that there were no more than that. 

Continuing, he says, “And judging by what we’ve picked up, we need to get it all back before the solstice.” He doesn’t pace as he thinks. Only the faraway look in his eyes betray the noise in his head. 

You hate the way it sounds like he’s going to demand that you leave immediately, and you hate how it sieges your tongue and makes it dance into a pitiful ploy to stay. To give yourself some credit, it’s better that Taehyun knows every bit of information you have. This moment is desperate for informed decisions. 

“I saw Yeonjun this morning,” you blurt. The words bubbled and bubbled behind your lips until they’d found the tipping point and spilled out. You’d agonized over what to make of it all for hours: that Yeonjun had been as deceitful with you as you’d been with him, that you are a sorry human girl that had wedged her way into the cross-firings of a war much beyond yourself, that you still have the gall to consider your own feelings despite its grandness... None of that worrying had led you to a conclusion that both your heart and mind would agree on.  

Taehyun’s gaze snaps to you, contained and remote aside from the twitching at the corners of his lips. The intensity of it makes you waver, but you have no time for wavering.  

“He’s... been made aware of our purpose here. He knows that we’re spies,” you say. As you watch him try to piece that together, you add, “He’s part of their rebellion.” 

Now he laughs, barbed and full of mock and disbelief. “The prince is rebelling against his father? He thinks he’ll find the throne like that? What’s his plan for when this falls through? For when his father hears of his mutiny? The prince will lose his head.” 

The thought makes you nauseous, despite how Yeonjun’s image has grown to be something murky. You don’t know what Yeonjun’s intentions are in aligning with the rebellion here. You hardly know anything about his relationship with his father and the High Court aside from the fact that he feels suffocated by his life back there. You’d assume that there’s a lot more to his reasoning, but you’ve learned your lesson about assuming that you know who people are. The inability to lie comes with the need for secrets. The thought that perhaps Yeonjun is only making a shady attempt for power crosses your mind, but either your own reasoning or your own stubbornness shoves it down. Nobody in faerie would hand their fealty to a prince who’d taken the throne of a long-standing king by those sorts of means. He’d be a king with no denizens to preside over. 

You interject Taehyun’s parade of scoffs. “He told me that war is coming, that it’s been coming.” 

His face drops, and he straightens up. “Of course it is. It’ll begin the moment we return with what we’ve found.” 

Your lips go a bit numb, and then your fingers follow. You know that this is your duty—it’d been this all along. It should come as no shock to you that he intends to relay this all to The King. But that was before you allowed your heart to make its home here. How simply he demands that you return to those lands with information that would kill Yeonjun... it has acid crawling a path up your throat. 

You make your best effort to ensure that your voice doesn’t falter as you speak. “He offered us protection as long as we stay here,” you say. “We don’t have to leave now.” You try to catch his gaze as you add, “We don’t have to leave at all.”  

You know that Yeonjun plays a part in the rebellion, but you don’t know how deep his devotion goes, and you also don’t know to what ends you can trust his intentions. How far do his loyalties to the rebellion go? And, where do his loyalties to you stand? The thought that he may have never loved you at all... it’s been a plague to your heart and mind from the very moment he’d revealed the truth to you this morning. Your guilt has chipped away at you without mercy—you’ve spent so many awful nights wishing you could unload your deceptions in front of him. How had it ended up so trivial in the grand scheme of things? How are you the one left feeling betrayed? 

You really, really cannot imagine having Yeonjun’s blood on your hands. He is one of them—a creature deception, and yet you still cannot shake those stolen nights from your bones. He had been your first. He’d made this place a home for you, where you had never had a home. It’s pitiful to search so deeply in someone else for your own strengths; even you can see that. Nevertheless, you do it. You suppose that a pair of warm arms and sweet words will do that to someone, no matter if you know that they could rot you like sweets do the tooth. It’s not unlike drunkards who find their day’s comfort in their drinks, even as it rots their body and mind away. Anything for a stretch of belonging and bliss. You're desperate for it. 

Taehyun’s sinewy words rattle your wandering mind back to reality. “He tells you that he is a member of the same group of people that have tried multiple times to kill you, and you believe him when he says he’s going to protect you? Still?” he spits, shaking his head. “What makes you so sure that he’s not just keeping us from running? That he isn’t handing us on a platter to his rebel friends? You’re going to get us fucking killed.” 

Blood roars like frothy-white rapids in your ears, warring with the echoes of his honey-glazed exclamations of love. To some capacity, he had to have meant those words. Faeries can’t lie, and he had said it so plainly. He loves you. 

“We can’t leave yet,” you say, stepping toward him on legs that you fear might collapse beneath you. “You said it yourself; we can’t return without the whole story. If we return now, we could be missing something.” You study the frosty set to his face and suck in a stabilizing breath. “Please, Taehyun. Please trust me on this.”  

You sound desperate and pleading, but you don’t reel it in at all. You are desperate and pleading. You have no intent of returning as some successful spy and continuing a life of deception and violence. It’s not who you are; it’ll never be who you are. Maybe this world tries to ask it of you, but you refuse to concede to it. 

“Part of our job is staying alive,” he says, his body rigid. He doesn’t like where you’re going with this, you can tell that much. 

“Is that what you want? To be a pawn of war? Isn’t that what we are if we bring this information back?” you challenge. “Don’t you think that if the prince of all people has turned against him, then serving at his hand is the wrong choice? I don’t know The King—I’ve never even seen him! Why should I be excited to serve him?” 

“The prince has more reason than anybody to want his father off his throne.” 

“That’s not what I’m saying,” you say, stepping further toward him. Though, it does make you revisit those thoughts. If vying for the crown is really Yeonjun’s intention, you suppose he’d have no problems pleading with you to stay in order to tie off loose ends. You wish you could see it all from somebody else’s untainted eyes. “What I’m saying is, do you want to be a spy? What has The King ever done for you to earn your loyalty?” 

Taehyun looks at you with disbelief, the corners of his mouth tilting down. “I don’t care about the damn king,” he snaps, and then gestures down at the table with all those figures. “The Queen operates on necessary evils. Where she can find a string to pull, she will pull it. My father was her general for a reason. Do you think she would keep him unless she approved of his violence? There is no good side to this war—just sides. If you’re suggesting that we stay here and try to forget that we came as spies, then you can forget it.” 

You glance over at the war table and wonder how you’ve become a moving piece in ancient faerie politics when all you’d set out for was a purpose. You’d been so warped by your bitterness with your upbringing that you’d failed to see how anything could be worse than that. You’d been so excited that you jumped willingly into dark water without knowing how deep it was, and now your feet can’t touch the ground. Is this the purpose you want? 

“Leave, then,” you say, stepping back. “You can leave. Just let me stay here. Please.” 

Something in Taehyun’s expression flips, so subtle that you can’t name it. It unsettles you, your hair standing on edge. There is something in his eyes that you do not like.  

“So, that’s it?” he says, his voice odd too. “That’s all it took for you to hand your future over on a leash to him?” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” you stammer. The only ones with a collar around your neck are the spies. They’re the ones who insisted on that geas—the ones who needed to compel you with their faerie magic.  

“It means that you got all the way here, uncovered a whole rebellion, and made a life for yourself, not handed to you by a prince, and you’re going to trade it in. It means that you’ve let him convince you that you are weak and need to be coddled.” 

Your fists curl tight and dig your nails into your palms. “I never wanted to be a spy,” you grit out. Yeonjun is not the reason you want to stay here. He may be part of it, but you’ve come to be utterly unwilling to return to that spy den like it’s your home, or something. It’s not. You’d slept there for one night. Beyond just your word and that geas, what reason do you have to return? 

“You didn’t? And yet, it’s what we are, isn’t it?” he says. “Do you think that I dreamed of being a spy? That I do it because I love it?” 

“Then, what do you do it for, Taehyun?” you say. “When will you begin living your life for you?” 

Taehyun seems to consider your words for a few long heartbeats, and then he seems to settle into something in his head. You allow yourself to let go of some of the tension in your shoulders as you watch his expression morph into something much less poisonous. 

You hadn’t expected him to react like that. 

“Do you have any weapons on you?” he says. 

Faltering, you sputter out, “What?” You look over the room. The last time you’d been in here, you’d sparred. Does he intend to properly fight you in here now? Had you pushed him too far? Shaking your head and feeling at all the places you usually tuck your blades away, you say, “No... I don’t.” 

“Get some. Where we’re about to go...” he trails off, as if reconsidering, but then he continues, “I’ll get you a hag stone.” 

You furrow your brows, not taking off to do so. “A hag stone?” you echo, thankful that he isn’t trying to duel you, but wary at the need for such a faerie ward. Hag stones are of the more serious class of wards used to protect humans from faerie enchantment or glamour. Most often, humans would string theirs up with a bit of thread through the hole of it and wear it around their necks as a pendant. Unlike turning one’s clothes inside out or taking red berries on your person, hag stones protect against the more devastating faerie magic. You shudder simply wondering what you might need a hag stone to protect yourself from. 

He nods a bit solemnly. “Kelpie do not let a meal or trick pass them by when they wait so long to have them.” 

You look at him with wild eyes, hoping to see him laugh or play his words off as a joke. He does not, but of course he doesn’t. Taehyun doesn’t waste his words on jokes. 

“Why... Why would we be going to a kelpie?” you ask him, laughing around the ball of fright in your chest. 

He lends you a wretched look. “I have old debts to call on.” 

❉

The forest in which Taehyun leads you is untamed. At some point, the sound of nature’s buzzing tapers off, and you know that you’ve entered a deeper forest than you ought to be sticking your nose in. When the forest goes silent, it’s only for one reason.  

You’d grown up here. Maybe you’d been born elsewhere, but that does not negate the fact that you had grown up scared every day of the powerful creatures that inhabit this world. Your fear has ruled you for your whole life, and you let it. You’d be a fool not to. It’s how you survive in this world. Your limbs tremble; they plead with you to listen to everything you’ve ever known—do not mess with what is bigger than you.  

You step around frost-capped puddles and dance between briars, careful not to snag yourself on their claws. It unsettles you further that this part of the forest is so untrodden and overgrown. With no folk coming through, you fear how the kelpie might behave when you make an audience before it. Will it climb straight from its frosty swamp and drag you back down with it? Is the hag stone you clutch at your chest enough to keep you safe? 

“I don’t understand why we’re doing this, Taehyun,” you say, delicately avoiding any tumbles as you speed up to gauge his feelings by his face. You’re not fond of the remote blankness in his eyes, nor the staunch determined set to his jaw. “That thing might kill us, and your shoulder is hurt. You shouldn’t be out here; you should be letting it heal.” 

“I know my limits,” he says. 

Grimacing, you return his curt tone. “Taehyun.” You grab at the material of his sleeve with urgency. When he stops to look at you, you continue. “I want you to actually listen to me. You’re being unreasonable. Yeonjun said he’d use his pull to protect us. Both of us. We have no reason to be out here, you’re just putting us in danger.” 

He lets your words stew in the air for a moment before saying, “I’m the one putting us in danger? Me?” He scoffs. “We are about as safe dealing with a kelpie as we are living off his promises. I’m doing what’s best for us. Trust me.” 

You’re winded by his choice of words. You’ve become wary of dealing out your trust so frivolously. Those two words ring alarm bells. 

“But where is this coming from? You didn’t want to stay.” Your breath furls out in a plume of white smoke in front of your face as you speak.  

He looks as if he doesn’t want to answer that. It only makes you more apprehensive. Your limbs fill with lead, planting you where you stand. “Taehyun, I’m scared,” you say. “Isn’t finding help from a solitary faerie a bit too far? How is trusting Yeonjun any more dangerous than that?” 

Taehyun steps toward you. “He is going to kill us. It’s not if, it’s when. That bastard is going to hurt you. This... This is for us. We are self-sufficient; we don’t need his protection shit.” A bitter tang colors his words. “I know that you’re scared. I won’t let it hurt you; I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise that you’ll be okay. You want to stay, don’t you?” 

You nod. You would even make deals with a kelpie for it.  

“Okay, then, let’s go,” he says, taking off with those words, effectively punctuating the conversation.  

You follow him. 

You grow more anxious the deeper you trudge into the forest without any consolation as the daylight begins creeping away. Following behind Taehyun, the wind whips at the perfect angle so that his form takes most of its terror, allowing you a respite from at least some of the brutal cold. You don’t feel any remorse using him as a shield against the elements—frost runs through his veins. He doesn’t shiver or wince at it. 

Taehyun stops a few feet before a wintry mire framed by crystallized cattails and reeds. Your heart stutters as he looks around to ensure that this is the right spot. The water is dark and deep. You stay a healthy distance away from it. You do not want to find out just how deep it is. 

“Where is it?” you say, keeping your voice low as if the beast might lunge from the water and snatch you up if you don’t. 

Taehyun surveys the forest surrounding you and then the body of water as he always does, and when he looks to you, you already know he’s calculated and planned. He doesn’t face a situation without thought—that notion soothes you, even if it’s to the slightest degree.  

“It won’t come until I call it,” he says, gesturing at those murky and horrible watery depths. Swallowing hard, you consider how close you stand to it. You take a shuffled step back. “When you see it, you need to stay calm. Don’t let it see your fear. It’ll find it amusing and latch onto you. Do you understand?” 

A rush of heavy dread spreads from your core and seizes your lungs at his words. You’ve made it this far. You want to stay. You want to stay, bad. If this thing outsmarts you, you will not go down without swinging this time. You have your daggers, and you know how to wield them. Bravery is most of the battle, isn’t it? 

You muster a nod, trying to give yourself a brave heart, but Taehyun shakes his head. Your eyes must betray how stricken you are. “Do you understand?” he repeats, his voice sharp and grave. 

“I do.” 

He accepts your words, pressing on. “It will try to trip you over your words and spin you into a trap with tricky words. Do not entertain it, even as it tries, okay?” 

You’ve been terrorized by faerie tricks your whole life. You can handle their schemes just fine. “Okay.” 

Taehyun frees a blade from its hiding place and brings it to his palm. He slides it there, slicing it open. Crimson creeps from the slit, running in between his fingers and trickling onto the snow. He’d cut pretty deep. 

“Why are you—Taehyun?” you say, stepping toward him as he curls his wounded hand into a fist over the water, shaking it so as to let the droplets down into the black water. You regret those steps you’d made toward him as something comes crashing through the surface. 

No, rather than emerging from under the surface, the beast is born from the water, manifesting from it as something gangly and wretched. From its pointed ears to its hooves, it pushes up from nothingness until it is standing there, real and terrible before you. Its skin glistens with a thickness like oil and its hair and tail hang in heavy, seaweed-like tendrils, plastered against its body. The scum floating on top of the water clung to its hair and pelt as it rose, twigs and the like poking from its withered body. A bridle cages its head, leather reins dangling down. Of all its awful things, you believe that its eyes are the worst—bone-white and piercing, they send a terror down your spine that solidifies in your bones. You know you will not soon forget the ancient soullessness that lives there. The folk do sometimes resemble the places in which they hail from; you suppose that the kelpie bares striking resemblance to the swirling water that sits at its feet. 

You try not to choke or gasp or react in any way at all, but it isn’t easy. You focus your adrenaline on keeping your breathing as even as you can manage. 

“It has been a long time since I’ve found a human at my doorstep,” the creature says, steam blowing from its nostrils as it snorts. How long might a long time mean to a faerie, especially one you know is so ancient? You hope that your presence does not intrigue the beast at all. 

Taehyun swoops in before you can speak, and you are boundlessly thankful for it. “I’ve come to call on the debt you owe me,” he says. He doesn’t leave any room for any familiarity or playfulness. 

“Is it that time?” the kelpie says, placing one hoof down onto the snow. It had looked so incorporeal and liquid that you half expect it to burst and turn to water as it does, but it climbs out just fine. Very real.  

Taehyun eyes the kelpie as it makes land, dribbling with water and its kelp hair swinging. You swallow hard as it disregards his presence to observe you. You’re used to the folk disregarding you, not this. How many years had you yearned for their attention? Right now, you scare under it.  

“For what do you need my help, boy?” it says, voice gurgled, “And why do you bring this human along? Is it for her? Or, rather, have you brought her as your peace offering?” 

Your legs tremble beneath you.  

“I don’t owe you any peace offering, kelpie,” Taehyun says, his head held righteously high. “You’ll offer me what I ask, or you’ll suffer for it.” 

Shifting under the tense atmosphere, you still don’t speak. In Faerie, debt is law. The folk live by a law that is, like many other things about them, foreign to you. Whatever natural laws by which they govern themselves are vastly lost on you—but of keeping promises and respecting debts, you are very aware. They hate to be indebted—you’re sure it’s why this kelpie is so peevish. You hope that the folk’s need to balance their debts is enough to keep it hospitable.  

The kelpie makes a rumbling and throaty sound that mimics that of a laugh. It rumbles the ground below your feet. “Just as rigid as the last time we met like this,” it says. “I wonder if it's because you’ve inherited your father’s stone heart, or because you fear me?” 

The kelpie remains playful with its intonation, but tension lies thick and dangerous beneath both of their words. You know well enough that the beast is not being light-hearted.  

Taehyun holds his face firm. He refuses to give an inch. “Do not try that with me. You have your word to upkeep for my help.” 

Shimmering under the moon’s light now, the beast treats us with a long moment of hostile silence. You can feel its malintent despite how hollow those eyes remain.  

“What do you ask of me?” it finally says, whipping its drooping tail behind it. 

“There is a rebellion here,” starts Taehyun, shoulders relaxing to the slightest degree as the kelpie defers, “The north is uneasy. I’m optimistic that you’ll lend us your protection and hand, whenever I call on it. Regardless of it being in my interest, I’m sure that you aim to keep your lands peaceful, no?” 

“Rebellion? For what would anything of the courts be in my interest? Of their rebellion or even just their ridiculousness, I do not care. I’ve left your gentry to you, leave me to mine.” 

Taehyun’s nostrils flare. “I’m not asking you to care about the courts, I’m asking you to lend me your help when I ask of it,” he grits out, “Or, rather, I’m not asking. I am informing you that I am expecting you to uphold your debt to me, and you’d better be ready to do so. This is just courtesy.” 

You feel the kelpie’s offense in the hollow quiet that follows Taehyun’s demands. Among many things, the fae are prideful creatures. Your stomach is in terrible knots. Taehyun is just trying to regain the power in the situation. You know that. It doesn’t make you any less scared for your life. With an ancient creature like a kelpie, it is paramount to earn its respect, or else it will push you around. 

Worse than that. It will drag you down into its waters and make your soul into a meal. 

“It’s a pity you think that hag stone will save you from me, human.” The kelpie turns its attention back on you. You bade your knees not to crumple. “It takes much more than that to protect you in places like these. Perhaps you’ll be safe from petty enchantment, though.”  

Taehyun shoves his words in before you can give the kelpie any sort of reaction. Not even a tremble. “Understood?” 

“You’ve made deals with our kind before. The magic reeks on you. It’s lousy enchantment, I could dissolve that geas for you. All you’d have to do is climb up on my back, and I’d grant you your freedom.”  

You can’t help but perk up. The prospect of ridding yourself of the geas placed over you is a painfully delicious one. 

Bristling, Taehyun steps between you and the kelpie. Whether he does it to fight off the beast should it lunge at you or to prevent you from approaching it, you’re unsure. “Do not,” he says. 

“Wasn’t going to.” You say it, and of course it’s true. The kelpie is poking around to see what will most entice you. Regardless, you can’t deny how awfully you wish that geas were gone. It’s the one thing that you fear will tether you to The King’s bidding. No matter how you armor yourselves from the rebellion here in the north, what’s to stop the spies from tugging on the enchanted leash? One command from Cricket, and your body would betray you and walk the whole way there itself. 

Though you don’t verbalize your interest, the kelpie no doubt sees the interest alight in your eyes. It pounces accordingly. “Unless you’d prefer that I give you a whole other enchantment. Protection against any of our kind’s glamours? Permanant true sight? A touch to my pelt would be all it would take for you to make yourself free.” 

Taehyun clicks just the hilt of his sword free from the sheathe. “Stop with the tricks. You can find your fun elsewhere.” 

Like the swampish water behind it, the kelpie stands there totally still, studying Taehyun. You really wish this altercation could wrap up at any pace faster than it currently is. You’re itching to escape those white eyes. They’re much more intimidating as night settles in. What sort of thing had Taehyun even done to indebt a creature like this to him? Once again, you’re left confronting how little you know of him and his past. By the time you’ve come to terms with the last thing, the next arrives to remind you that the folk lead much longer lives than you do. 

It finally speaks again. “Why have you brought this human with you, Lord?” Its furls out the term like a weapon. This bitter intonation that you’ve seen be used multiple times to speak of Taehyun’s title sticks with you. The title is a taunt. In this case, the you know it comes from the kelpie’s place of utter indifference and lack of obeisances toward whatever sovereignty the Courts may claim. The kelpie only answers to the land.  

“Because I needed you to know that your protection will extend to her. Know her face, learn it so that when I call on you, you’ll play your part correctly.” 

“I fail to see why you dote over her safety. Who is the human to you?” The kelpie takes a step forward, its powerful muscles rippling with the moon’s white light on its ink pelt. You mirror it with a step back. Taehyun stays put. “I owe her no help. That’s not how this works. I concede that I am bound to your help, but I do not repay double. You overestimate my generosity.” 

You watch as Taehyun takes on a posture that you’ve come to recognize as his offensive posture, potent adrenaline twisting up your stomach and sending your heart into a fit so fierce that you feel it in all your pulse points. You’re sure that swords are a laughable matter to the kelpie. Iron, though, you’re sure would still burn. Turning your hands to fists, you make a conscious effort not to find your iron weapons. If the kelpie were to see that, it may escalate things. You do not want to escalate.  

It’s only smart for you to consider your disadvantages: Taehyun is wounded. He had literally been struck by an arrow last night. You’re so far into the woods that running would consist of stumbling over roots and avoiding thorny bushes. Taehyun might know them, but you’re fully unfamiliar with a kelpie’s weaknesses, or if they even have any at all. You’re better off appeasing the beast.  

“Taehyun,” you warn. 

He pays it no mind. “I said,” he snarls, “stop with the tricks. You owe your very ability to draw breath to me, and beyond that. It was my neck on the line to grant you that. What I did for you was worth many debts. If you want to settle it all to even, you’ll do it. Don’t play this like a fool.” He doesn’t address the kelpie’s first question. 

Taehyun creeps toward the kelpie. You’re not sure where he sources all that fearlessness from inside himself. He’s way too close for your comfort. “What are you doing?” you hiss, quiet and meant for just him. There is no way he intends to fight this thing right now. You’d prefer taking the risk of trusting Yeonjun’s word over this any day. 

“Even the general”—the kelpie spits that word with a similar distaste as he had Taehyun’s title—“knew when he was in over his head. Ask a more respectable payment of me.” 

You suck in a breath. “Let’s just go,” you tell Taehyun. “We don’t need to do this; we didn’t need to in the first place.”  

As Taehyun takes one last step toward the kelpie, he reaches a sword’s distance from it.  

Really? Is this happening right now? 

“I’m giving you grace right now, kelpie,” he says, his voice pure warning, “My father is the one who landed you like that. It’s humorous that you’d even speak of him while we’re sorting out the debts that you incurred because of him. I suggest that you give up the sly act.” 

Once again, a charged and meaningful pause rings throughout the forest. The silence speaks volumes of how the kelpie takes his words.  

It’s a flash of movement, the two dark figures like blurs as Taehyun’s hand flies out to grab a hold of the reins that hang from its head and the kelpie rears back with a bone-piercing, harrowing whinny. He braces himself on its side and uses its flank to push off of. The creature bucks fast, but Taehyun is faster.  

The rage that it bellows with guts you. The forest ground trembles with its frantic clambering, hooves battering the snow.  

The kelpie’s frenzy ends as Taehyun takes the reins in both hands. It doesn’t make any more attempts to send him off, nor does it stumble about wildly. It settles. The kelpie bows its head. Your hands cover your mouth. They’re ready to muffle your scream. You wait for Taehyun to become one with the beast’s figure and for it to drag him down to the depths of its water that don’t see the sun’s light. Nothing happens. Instead, he slips off the back of the kelpie without any trouble, landing with a thud back on the ground.  

“Fix your appearance,” Taehyun commands.  

You allow a sound of surprise to slip as the beast melts down, shedding water to the ground and crumpling over. You watch it shrink all the way down until, where once the gangly beast had stood, the form of a faerie man stands. He unfurls from the forest floor to his full height, taller than Taehyun and reedy in his limbs. His hair cascades down from his head in shaggy, damp brown locks with twigs and leaves tangled in. Sharp faerie ears protrude from it. It confirms to you that this is just another form of the kelpie, not someone else entirely. 

“You’re a fool,” the man says, turning on Taehyun with wild eyes.  

You join his confrontation on Taehyun. “What the hell is going on?” you say. You’re still jittery with the urge to run. 

Taehyun entertains only you, saying, “I hoped that he’d just make things easy in the first place.” 

The man, dripping with water from his tattered, sopping rags for clothes, sneers. “I would not serve you if you fucking killed me. Of course you had to take my bridle.” 

You give Taehyun an expectant look. You’re in dire need of being filled in. 

“His bridle,” he says, grabbing the reins that still hang from the man’s face even in his human form and tugging him into a walk into the forest, “I grabbed it. He serves me, now. He can hate it all he wants, but he’ll do what I ask.” 

The thought makes you deeply uncomfortable, but you can’t pin exactly why. It lives somewhere around the place inside you that loathed the way the folk made your kind into their glamoured servants.  

“We’re just going to bring him back with us?” You trail them tentatively back through the woods that you had arrived from. “Like a prisoner, or something?” 

“Exactly like a prisoner,” the man says, excited to get a hit in on Taehyun. Of course, he’s unhappy.  

He stumbles as Taehyun tugs him forward by his bridle. “Shut your mouth,” Taehyun says. It’s more commanding than angry. “What’s your name?” he asks him.  

The man looks as though he wants to deny him that knowledge. Names are a powerful thing to a faerie. They spend their lives hiding them away—to give away their real name would make them totally vulnerable to the whims of whoever knows and uses it. However, you assume that whatever hold Taehyun has over him now works in a similar way, and his lips move despite his revolt.  

“Beomgyu,” he answers, eyes full of bite. 

You climb between a pair of close-resting, gnarled trees. “Does he have to keep that thing on, Taehyun?” you say, struggling with the sight of him being dragged along. It’s unsettling. “Like, does it work without that?” 

Stopping, Taehyun reaches up to pull the bridle off and around from Beomgyu’s head. He lets it fall to the snow. “You can use his name if you need to command him and I’m not around. He’ll have to do what you say.” Pushing Beomgyu into a walk, he says, “You’re going to protect us if in any case we need it. That includes her. You’re going to stay within my estate, unless one of us brings you somewhere. You won’t try your hand at any escape, and you won’t make any attempts to harm us either directly or by omitting something you are aware will do so.” 

You rub your hands together to generate heat as he lists his commands. Why would he even need those precautions, if Beomgyu is supposed to be his compulsory servant now? Would that not mean that he’d be unable to harm him? Either Taehyun is being extra precautious, or the command he has over him is weaker than you had thought at first. Beomgyu scowls the whole way through. Perhaps if Taehyun had not spoken those exact words, he would have lunged at him. 

As the kelpie stalls, Taehyun urges him forward once again with a shove. “Walk,” he snaps. “You did this to yourself. If you’d been a respectable man, I’d have only asked for your help when we needed. Now, you’re following us everywhere.” He allows him to stew on that for a little before saying, “You do your job well and I’ll let you return to your waters. I’ll forget I even made you my servant, and you’ll live knowing you’re no longer in my debt. You’ll not have to worry that someone might tame you again, because I already had, and I won’t even utilize it. We’ll never even make each other’s acquaintance again. You’ll be free to toil in your forest, and I will stay far away. All I need is for you to keep us alive and unharmed.” 

At least he doesn’t intend to keep him forever as an eternal servant. Most faeries that fall into debts work their long lives as living servants. Your years as Nut-hatch's worker taught you how that life whittles your soul down. Hundreds of years of just that is unfathomable. Maybe that is the cost of betraying honor here, though.

“So be it,” Beomgyu says, teeth gritted.  

You continue to trudge through the forest behind them. 

❉

Once you’re within the walls of the estate and Beomgyu is given a place to stay, you turn to Taehyun. “What part of that was safer than trusting Yeonjun?” you say.  

His eyes drop closed and he sighs. “It was worlds safer,” he grits out. “I knew what I was doing. You had that hag stone, and I’d have cut him down if he tried anything.” 

He stretches out his shoulders, shifting them uncomfortably under the fabric of his tunic. You know that his sewn-up wound bothers him. Could it be getting infected? You hope not—an infection this early on would most definitely mean it would be a nasty one. If only he weren’t insistent on pretending that it’s nothing. “I don’t think you could”—you gesture at your own shoulder—“you’re going to infect your shoulder. I don’t know how to treat an infected wound that big.” 

“I wouldn’t have even gone there if I thought I couldn’t handle it. I had a plan. I can protect us just fine.” 

Us. You’ve been wondering what your purpose here might become once you abandon returning to your duties. Would you be staying with Yeonjun? If he betrays you, and Taehyun were to push you out now that you’re no longer partners in duty, where would you go? Crawl to the doorstep of some random faerie to place yourself in their services, just to find yourself a warm place to stay? Taehyun now makes it clear that he still sees the two of you as a pair, but why? You still can’t understand why he’d suddenly switched up the moment you said you’d stay here even if he left. Realistically, he should’ve killed you for being a traitor to the king that he serves. You know that his intentions are more complex than that, but you fail to grasp where they lie. His actions and his words clash.  

“And when Yeonjun doesn’t betray us? What will all of this be for?” 

“This doesn’t stop at the prince,” he says, “there are more players than just him and The Queen. Any one of them could determine that we’re liabilities. Don’t you think that we should prepare for that? We came here as spies infiltrating their court from the very king that they rebel against; of course they’ll have plans for us. 

“It’s still best that you stay your distance from the prince from this point on, regardless, unless you bring the kelpie.” 

Your mouth drops open, brows pinching. You don’t like the thought of being chaperoned at all. If Yeonjun is to betray you, then it’ll be your own fault. You can take the consequences of your actions just fine. “I think I can make that decision for myself,” you say, voice low. “And I can protect myself, too. Are you saying my skills aren’t up to your standards? Well, I didn’t spend that time working on them for nothing, and I don’t plan on stopping. I know I’m not perfect, but I think I can at least use a dagger adequately, no?” 

“You know that’s not what I meant,” Taehyun says, eyes flat with frustration. “You can protect yourself well. I know that. What I mean is that you shouldn’t rest your life on his integrity. I have no doubts that you’d be able to protect yourself from him alone. He’s delicate. The King doesn’t pamper his children, but I have no doubt that the prince hasn’t wielded a sword anywhere other than in sparring. But you don’t know if you’ll ever truly be alone, and you don’t know whether or not he’s setting you up. I think you can at least agree that it’s best that you can acknowledge that and behave accordingly, no?” 

“I rested my life on your integrity today. Am I supposed to trust you blindly, too? What if you’re just stringing me along until you kill me for my treason to The King? You were his spy, no? How many years did you serve him? Why have you given it up so easily? Why are you staying here? None of it makes sense to me, but I still trusted you. Was I wrong for that? Are you a liar, Taehyun? Does your tongue tell lies?” 

His eyes crystallize, a few degrees colder than you’d seen them all day. “I can lie,” he says. “But would I have done what I did today if I intended to kill you? It’s time that you see that actions tell you so much more than words ever will.” 

Again, he treads around your questions about his intentions. “Why are you staying here?” you repeat, studying him with your suspicion.  

He’s quiet. 

“Answer me,” you demand. 

“Is this not my home?” he says. 

Unsatisfied, you press more. “I thought you hated this place. Why would you want to stay here? Don’t you have an awful reputation here?” 

His eyebrows shoot up, but his face stays hauntingly blank. You’re used to his blank mask, but this feels different. “If you think that I left here because of my reputation, then you’ve fooled yourself.” He begins making for his quarters. “I have obligations to fulfilling my father’s role as Lord of this estate,” he says before turning and ending the conversation on his terms. 

That leaves you just as confused. If he cared about his responsibilities here, he would’ve never left them in the first place to become a spy under The King. It makes no sense. Whether or not it’s true, you’re positive that you aren’t getting the whole story. You sigh and drag your feet bed-bound. You hope to never have another day as unending as today again. 

❉

You dodge Beomgyu for the entirety of the day, not sure what to make of a new presence around the estate, even if it’s an indebted servant beast of a presence. You’d half expected Taehyun to rope him up in the horse stalls outside, making that his permanent residence, but he’d given Beomgyu a place somewhere in the servant’s quarters. You’re glad of it—you may be wary of him, but you don’t wish anything like that for him. Now that he has a more human form, you find yourself able to empathize with him more than you were when he was a hulking, killer water horse. He doesn’t necessarily run around much—without a doubt because he’s not the happiest about being forced into Taehyun’s servitude. You don’t blame him. 

Despite your efforts, he enters the kitchens while you’re alternating between chomping on a slice of bread and a platter of dates. He eyes you. Though in this form his eyes are not as piercing, they’re still heavy.  

You offer him a slice of the bread and push the platter toward him. “Hungry?” 

He shakes his head. “I don’t eat the way you do.” 

Then why’d he come to the kitchens? Either he’s exploring, or he came looking for you. “Not even like this?” you ask, gesturing down to his form. 

“I eat when someone is foolish enough to come to my waters,” he says. “I thought I’d be eating yesterday, but the Lord subverted those plans, didn’t he?” 

You laugh a bit, though it’s absurd to laugh about being eaten with the same creature that had intended to do so.  

“I sometimes go for more years than the entire span of your human life without eating,” he says, tilting his head to one side. Shaggy locks of hair follow his head with it. It’s unkempt and in dire need of a washing to rid it of dirt. 

You gesture at his dirt-smudged cheek. “Do you want to clean up? I’m sure Taehyun has some clothes to spare for you. There are some pretty nice bathing quarters, here, too. The kind that makes you reluctant to get out.” 

A wry smile cracks across his face, a bit feral like the rest of him. “I’m not afraid of some dirt. These are my clothes. I’d go naked before dressing myself in his.” 

“Okay, then,” you snort, shrugging. “No baths.” You rip a bite out of the wrinkled fruit in your hand. “How did you even end up... in debt to Taehyun?” you ask, eager to fill yourself in. If Taehyun insists on not telling you anything, you’ll find it in other places. You’d picked up that it had something to do with his father, but you need to know more. The more you’re able to piece together, the better you’ll be able to make sense of Taehyun’s behaviors. You hope so, at least. He holds is truths very close to himself, and almost everybody else seems to harbor a poignant distaste for him. 

Beomgyu’s face sours up again. “I had a dispute with his father. The General was going to raze my forest and kill each one of us. I’d called on him and asked for his help. I’m not sure what he did, but The General never came. If I knew it’d land me like this, though...” He grimaces. “I’d have just let him make me history.” 

Reigning in the laugh that bubbles in your chest at his resentment, because you’re positive that you finding humor in his misfortunes would ruffle him, you nod and pocket that information. “Then, why didn’t you just agree to help when he tried to collect your debt in the first place?” 

“I was going to,” he snaps. “He’s just a prideful creature. No patience. If he’d waited a few moments, I’d have agreed.” 

Humming, you don’t tell him that he’s definitely the one who wound himself up like this. Taehyun had made it clear multiple times that Beomgyu needed to stop playing around.  

Taehyun’s voice comes from the doorway, cutting into the conversation with its matter-of-factness. “Speaking bad on my name while I’m away, kelpie? Should I amend your list of commands to include watch your mouth?” His tone is bare and humorless. 

Beomgyu bristles beside you, about to rebut him before you spy the weapon at Taehyun’s hip and interrupt before they can come to verbal blows. “Where are you going?” 

Taehyun rips his icy gaze from Beomgyu to you. “To Court,” he answers, plain and as if it were obvious. 

Furrowing your brows, you say, “Court? Why didn’t you tell me we’re going? I don’t want to get ready in a rush.” Your mind turns. You weren’t even sure what you’d be doing now that you’re no longer here as spies. There’s no need to infiltrate Court, now. Would you just be attending as revelers? Not to mention that Yeonjun no doubt has no clue that you’re even staying. You hadn’t seen him since you’d ran to him yesterday morning and had your world thrown for a loop as he revealed his truth. How had so much happened in one day?  

His mouth hardens. “You’re not attending with me,” he says, knuckles turning white over the pommel of his sword. “You’ll stay here with him today.” 

Your heart thrums in your chest; not with fear like it had been doing so much over the span of the last few days, but with anger. “What?” you say, voice strained with shock. “No. I’m getting ready; wait for me, or don’t. I don’t care.” You spin on your heels to do just that, gritting your teeth. He thinks he can tell you what to do? Is that it? You don’t care what he’s done for you, or what power he thinks he has over you because of it. You’d left your life of taking commands behind for a reason. This was supposed to be new beginnings, not just your past life under a new skin. 

He catches your upper arm frantically. Whipping your head to him, you rip yourself away from him and back off. “I said, no!” you say, lips twitching into a heavily emotional scowl. It’s not just that he’s telling you to stay back today. You know that what he’s doing is much bigger than that. It sends memories of a life in a seamstress’ cottage flooding back. You struggle to keep your head afloat, to keep yourself from drowning in it, but they’re old and deep wounds. 

“Oh, look at that,” Beomgyu croons. “You are just like him. Except, your father was a general, so at least he had some reason to believe that folk would obey him. You? Not so much.” 

Taehyun’s head snaps to him. He barks a command. “Leave.” 

His eyes flash and he reels against it, but Beomgyu’s body moves against his own will. There’s a spark of ravenous hate smeared across his lips and in the glare he gives Taehyun as he leaves. 

“So, you’re just going to hand out commands and expect them to be followed now, huh? Because you’re suddenly just... taking up this role as Lord? Well, you’re not my Lord. You’re not his, either.” 

He crosses his arms over his chest. “Stop that.” 

Laughing a bitter laugh, you spit, “Stop what? Oh, I’m sorry. I should just obey you like a good human does, huh? ‘Cause that’s what we’re for, right? My bad, I’ll get a head start on working around the estate—what would you like for dinner, my lord? Or, do you need me to press your clothes?” Your words are angry, but you choke toward the end around the lump of emotion in the back of your throat. 

He takes both your arms into his hands, his brow furrowed hard. “Stop it,” he snarls. “Stop it, damn it. Don’t do that. You’re not a servant here. Don’t you try to cry to me, I expect better than this from you. That’s not it at all.” 

You shove back on his chest, putting some distance between you. “I’m not crying,” you say. “And, so what if I was? There’s nothing wrong with it. I think it’d do you a little good to cry some time.” 

“It’s weak,” he says. “Pitying yourself just ends up making you a fool. If you just sit around and wallow, you’ll just stay where you are. The only thing you can do is act.”  

That sounds about right coming from his lips. “Is that what your father taught you?” you ask. “Well, he was wrong. You can cry and try and take care of things at the same time.” 

“I’m just asking you to stay back today,” he says. 

“Why?” you say, throwing your hands up in exasperation. “Tell me why? It’s not like we’re spying around or have some sort of mission to keep secret. Why can’t I just go enjoy it like that for once?” 

“Can you just do this for me?” Taehyun says, jaw tight. “I just need you to stay.” 

You’ve become sick of him not telling you things. Being in the dark never feels good, but it especially feels like shaky ground now. If he thinks you’ll be attacked, so what? You’re the one who wanted to stay here. Let you come. You’re better off being attacked as a group of three than he would be by himself, no? 

You decide to lean into his own concerns to appeal. “What if they’re waiting for you? Wouldn’t it be better that Beomgyu and I are there? Isn’t that why you did that whole thing yesterday?” 

He shakes his head. “If they are, then it’ll be easier for me to slip out if it’s just me.” 

Crossing your arms over your chest, you determine by the solemn lines to his face that he’s not going to give. “Fine,” you say. “I’ll stay here today. If it’s so necessary, I’ll stay here. Do you want me to stay inside the estate, too? Could I go see Yeonjun?” 

“I’d prefer that you stay here,” he says, slow and measured and veiling tension. 

You shake your head, pairing it with a tired laugh. “Yeah, right, I forgot. He’s a threat too. Well, you have fun then.” Turning and departing from the kitchens, you leave behind your bread and dates. So much for lunch. 

❉

Reaffirming Taehyun’s ability to lie, it was not just that one day. The next day, Taehyun slipped out for Court, sword on hip and pleading with you to stay in the estate on the terms that he believes they still might have an attack planned for you. It turned into a week that you were cooped up in the estate, and then two. The same walls you’d once looked at in wonder for their beauty became the ones you stared at mindlessly during the most boring of hours. 

You spend most of your time listening to Beomgyu drone on and on about the ways he’d tricked faeries and humans. He’s quite odd, but it’s not like you can blame him for it—most of the folk are odd to you, and he’s an ancient beast among them. You feel like that warrants a spunky personality like his. He’s nice company, anyway. Such a long life lends you an impressive wealth of stories. 

You can’t help but think about Yeonjun. He’s got to have seen Taehyun at Court by now. If there haven’t been any incidents at this point, doesn’t that mean that he doesn’t intend to betray you? The images of him thinking that you’re avoiding him makes you want to slip out to see him. You not sure why you don’t. Maybe the lies that sat between you affect you more than you thought they did. You’re quite the hypocrite, though. You’d kept secrets just as much as he had. 

You miss those stolen nights you two had shared. A knot, queasy and pessimistic, sits in your belly each time you lay in your bed and remember them and tells you that you’ll never see anything like that again. You’d allowed a girlish part of you to blossom beside him—a part of you that could throw caution to the wind and melt into the fun things in life.  

As you rot your days away in that estate that has become more like a dungeon than an estate, you allow yourself to miss him only a little. Once it begins transforming into a certain impending doom about how you’d thought that staying here would be everything you’d ever wanted, you find something else to do. If you aren’t toiling around by yourself or listening to Beomgyu drone, you’re practicing your combat skills. The times that Taehyun stops in to help you, it ends with you insisting that you’re fine to make appearances in Court by now, or at least see Yeonjun with Beomgyu in attendance. He never agrees. Each time, it’s the same awful excuse: Tensions are worse. He doesn’t know if they’re planning something. When you ask why he demands that he can attend, but you and Beomgyu can’t join: He’s a lord. It’s his duty to attend Court. 

The solstice is nearing, too. You’d looked forward to it, honestly. Hopefully Taehyun will let you attend by then. 

You sit crisscrossed on the hardwood flooring, running your fingers through your hair. Beomgyu is stood a couple feet away, and makes big gestures as he explains the one time he’d been called to attend Court as a solitary faerie. Moments like this have kept you grounded over the weeks. 

“And the stupid crone tried to say that I was wrong for catching him,” he exclaims, crossing his arms over his chest and shaking his head as if the ancient memory were still as fresh as day one.  

You laugh. “What did you even do to end up there, anyway?” you ask. You can hardly picture Beomgyu in the setting of Court, even more so meeting with The Queen and her council. Moreover, you’re intrigued to know what he’d said to talk himself out of trouble. You’re amazed that he managed to make a sufficient enough case to save his life. 

“They said that I’d been taking too many of their folk—hah! I must eat too, you know? Oh, the pretention! Do they expect me to starve? If a fool lands themselves on my pelt and then in my waters, it’s only natural that they’re eaten. I’m simply freeing them from one more mud-brained fool. The Courts are full of those, too. It’d take me a millennium to eat them all. What are they so worried for, I wonder? They do the very same to their own people.” 

“Aren’t they ridiculous?” you say. Like you, he’d been an outsider in Court. Though you’re sure that it’s just as, if not more, intricate to those well-versed in it, to the ones like you two... It’s odd to see. You had grown used to it in the time you spent there, but you still know what the first day had felt like. Anyway, you hadn’t spent as many days there as you feel you had. All that had happened had bloated that time in your memories. “To be quite honest with you, your kind are all so odd to me. I grew up among you, but still... my instincts are always kinda at odds with my surroundings, you know?” 

Beomgyu considers that for a moment, as if trying to view the fae from a human’s eyes. “Even when we look so similar?” he asks you, grabbing at a lock of his hair and making a round gesture over himself. 

You nod. “Even in this form, you just... I don’t feel like I’m looking into the face of another human. Maybe that’s because I watched you turn to this from a horse, though.” 

“A kelpie,” he corrects. “What gives it away?” 

“Sorry, a kelpie,” you snicker. You look over his face. It’s so close to right, but somewhere in your mind you can decipher that something is not right. Like all of the fae, though, there’s an unspeakable beauty there, beyond explanation. It demands your human attention. Even the most terrifying are beautiful. “Well, for starters, your ears. They’re pointy. All of you have that, and none of us do. And then... I guess”—you narrow your eyes—“your eyes? They’re just different. And your limbs are pretty lanky, too.” 

He frowns as if he’s unable to see it. “You don’t sound so sure,” he says, joining you on the floor. “I’ve had quite some time to look at myself in my life. I don’t think I ever saw any of that when I was in this form...” 

“I’m sure you did,” you say, lips turning up in a playful mock. A water creature no doubt has an eternity to stare into the water at themselves in its rippled reflection. “Did you do a lot of that?” 

Scowling, he huffs. “No. But I’m sure you would, if you looked like this, huh?” 

You roll your eyes. “You’re ridiculous.” His face morphs from dismay to careful concentration. Frowning, you look around and ask, “What?” 

“I hear somebody,” he answers, pushing off the floor. 

Your spine tingles, but you search for the logical explanation. “Like... Taehyun?” 

“No... the walk is definitely different.” He strains to listen. “He’s usually pretty quiet. This one... they don’t conceal their footsteps.” 

Neither of you can get to a window to scope anything out before there’s three heavy knocks from the door, the metal knocker ringing. You shoot him a wary look and tilt your head toward the door. You mouth the word, answer? 

He considers for a moment and then nods. Well, he’s the one able to hear their approach. You trust they’re at least not imminent danger. You pull the door open. A breeze of frost comes rushing in as you do, blowing your hair and as jarring as a hit to the face might be. You’ve been cooped up in here for so long you’ve forgotten how bitter the cold here is.  

Behind the door your eyes lock with a pair of inky ones, settled into a pinched and snooty face. “Letters from the palace I have for you, my lady,” she says, her voice mousy. She holds out a stack full of letters to you, all held together by some twine. 

An errand runner. You furrow your brows down at her and accept them. The little hob wrings out her long fingers. “From who?” you ask her.  

She bows her head to you hurriedly. “Oh, from the prince, my lady! He sends these for you!” 

You look down at the stack in your hands, and your heart begins to run amok in your chest. He’d sent to you? You thank her. She scurries off in the snow and you close the door, sharing a look with Beomgyu. 

“The prince?” he says, brows shot up. “Meaning, The King’s son? He’s sent letters for you?” 

Nodding, you hold the stack close to you. Your feet ache to find your quarters and to begin tearing into each one; you’re ravenous for any sort of word from him. Does he hate you? Does he miss you? At least he still thinks of you. You’d worried that he might’ve found another lady of the court to dote on in your absence... 

“Yeah,” you say over your shoulder, more interested in tearing the letters open than explaining to him why the prince would be sending you letters. Curiosity sits in his furrowed brow. You hadn’t exactly prattled on about Yeonjun to him. Had you even mentioned him at all? 

He tags along as you head to your room and plop onto your bed. You don’t tell him to leave you; opening these letters alone... You appreciate his presence in some odd way.  

Unstringing the pile, you pull the first one out and run a thumb over the wax seal that identifies it as definitely from the High Prince—a fine silver dusted over white wax and branded with the image of Yeonjun’s insignia, the fox. It’s uneven and dribbled, clearly sealed by Yeonjun himself with the insignia ring he often wears on his finger. You pry it open and then unfurl the parchment inside. 

Do you intend to return to Court? Perhaps we keep missing each other. Though, the Lord is always there. I wonder where you are. If my letter reaches you, please write me back. Or better, come see me. My doors are open to you.  

They always have been. 

Yeonjun 

Beomgyu’s gaze burns holes through you as you read this first one. You sigh, pressing your lips into a thin line as you reach for the next one. This one twists a hot knife of guilt into your belly and up into your heart. 

Have I done something wrong?  

The General’s son continues to attend Court, and though I seek your lovely face beside his, you’re never there. I’m under the impression that he wants you not seeing me. Although, perhaps that’s only because I loathe what your absence might mean otherwise. 

Is it because I learned of your identity? Is it that you think I hate you? 

Allow me to make it utmost clear: I do not. I doubt I could if I tried. You’re quite the heart stealer.  

I know I sound a bit ridiculous telling you I love you when we only knew each other for so long. I understand that. It’s that sort of love that ought to burn bright and short, right? But I won’t let it. Not us. 

Some might say that a love found so easily is fickle. That it doesn’t exist. I say it does, because I have felt it. 

Do you remember how it felt the first time our eyes met, too? How odd is it to feel something so deep inside you, but also so far beyond your reach that you cannot alter its course?  

Please write me, pretty. If I can’t see your face, at least allow me the pleasure of knowing that you’re okay. 

Yeonjun 

“What do they say?” Beomgyu asks, timbred voice whipping you apart from the words on paper that manage to send your heart hurting.  

You’re not entirely sure how to tell him that they’re desperate letters of the High Prince’s love for you, a worthless human girl that had avoided him on purpose. He probably wouldn't believe you, anyway. Leaving behind your old life, you had pleaded with the sky to make your life something worth note. It seems that it had answered. Life works in odd ways.  

“A lot,” you say, brushing him off. Your voice cracks with the word, though,  

Hearing the veiled emotion, he frowns, inching forward to take a peek. “Why are you upset?” he pries, and then gasps as a thought formulates in his head. “Have they called you to be tried by the council?” He considers his own suggestion for a long moment and then shakes his head. “You hardly have gone anywhere enough to cause that degree of trouble, though.”  

You let your face drop into your hands. Is the tremor in your chest from laughter, or from crying? You can’t tell. Maybe it’s both. 

The kelpie makes an unsure sound, clearing his throat. “I... uh, I jest...” 

Collecting yourself, you say, “No. I’m not being called in for trial.” You reach for the next letter.  

The next envelope has dried up rose petals that come falling out when you pull out the letter. The flower of love. 

Have you left the north? Could you not have at least lent me one last look at your face before doing so? I don’t mean to be so pathetic, but my heart is lonesome. I thought we’d have more time. Hadn’t you wanted to stay with me?  

If you still reside in his estate, I send these letters to you. I’m not sure if they’ll reach you, but I hope that they’ll move you. Don’t you know that I’d give you anything? 

Please come see me. I beg. Let’s talk. I just want to know what’s wrong. 

Yeonjun 

Why hadn’t you at least gone and told him that you’ve stayed? How had you allowed yourself to feel fear when you think of him? You don’t deserve his love.  

You don’t even know if you deserve love at all. All it would’ve taken was one night of slipping out. He deserved to know that you’re okay. You don’t remember being this selfish. When had this happened? Maybe this is just what happens when someone spends a lifetime not allowed to think of themselves before serving others. You don’t want to be selfish, though.  

The next one you open is more raw. Hurt. The paper, scrawled in writing that becomes less elegant and more frenzied as you read down it, crumples in your hand. 

If you think that I’m the sort of man that will easily forget what we’ve shared, I am not. I love you. I love you. I love you. Please return to my arms. They ache for you. They remember your weight, and they won’t soon forget it.  

Do I need to say it anymore?  

I love you, darling. It’s making me sick.  

Yeonjun 

You stuff the letters back in their envelopes and shove them into a box in your wardrobe. If you don’t, you’ll read them over until you’re ill. Once over was enough for you. 

❉

“The Lord would have my pelt if I let you leave,” Beomgyu, crossing his arms firmly over his chest, says. “Let alone by yourself.” Realizing that his words insinuate that Taehyun holds any true power over him, he backtracks. “If it weren’t for the harness, I’d be unconcerned with his anger, but... Of course, you know, I’m obligated by my imposition to his word, so...” 

Tugging your boots on, you say, “So, tell him I commanded you to stay. You’ll be fine.”  

You had waited for Taehyun to leave for Court, anyway. You have hours of the night to sly-foot your way around him. 

You’d moped around for a few more days, your gut heavy with stones each time you remember Yeonjun’s letters. Stuffing them into a box, no matter how deep into the corner of your wardrobe, still could not wipe those words from your mind. You’d turned them over and over until you couldn’t handle imagining him writing those letters with a hopeful heart any longer.  

The solstice is only a few days away now, too. You’d been bound to the estate for weeks. Although you’re unsure what Taehyun’s real intentions are in boarding you in, you can no longer even care if leaving will end up getting you attacked. You’ve become a bird with clipped wings.  

Even if your wings are out of order, you’ll walk your way to your freedom. Hell, you’d crawl there. It just so happens that Yeonjun’s doorway feels like freedom in this moment.  

Like he’d always said, the doors remain unbarred. You don’t even have to use the metal knocker; you just push through the doors of swirling white engravements. Just as if nothing had changed. He’d been waiting for you. 

Instead of Yeonjun in his quarters, you find a brownie diligently working on doing up Yeonjun’s bedding. When she turns to you, her hands continue their efforts. 

“The prince is not here right now, dear,” she says, snout twitching. Round eyes recognize you before you can introduce yourself. “He’s only just made for Court, though. You should catch him quite quickly, if you mean to.” 

It seems he hasn’t given up searching for you in Court, either. You offer her your gratitude and slip out from his room. Picking up the hems of your dress, you race to catch Yeonjun before he’s arrived at Court. Once he does, things get more sticky—if Taehyun spots you... Pushing down the anxiety that bubbles up at the thought, you cross your fingers. Let luck be on your side.  

Your Court dress, though heavy, feels nice on your skin. Although you often look down on court goers for their pompousness, you can’t deny how good it feels to fit in. That’s perhaps the reason you cling to Court the way you do; you’re beyond desperate for belonging. 

On the plush, snow-dusted bits of the forest’s floor, you spot a set of footsteps. They’re quickly being filled with the flurries. You clasp your hands in an overwhelming bout of gratitude—luck had listened, this time. Those tracks are as fresh as can be. You double your pace. 

Around a bend, you’re overjoyed to see his figure walking there. Finally hearing you coming over the roar of snowfall, he spins. His face pinches and then drops as he recognizes you. 

“You... You came?” he says. Disbelief flips his lips into a frown. “You got my letters?” 

“I did,” you answer, catching your breath. “I’m so sorry.” 

A few feet float between you, the space not yet closed but so magnetic. His cheeks are tinged pink with the cold. Yours must be too.  

“I’d thought you left. I thought I’d never see you again.” 

Your chest caves in a little at the hurt in his voice and the way it clashes with the longing in his eyes. He wants to be angry; he wants to yell at you. He can’t do either when he’s just thankful to see your face. You had missed his just as much. 

“I’m sorry,” you repeat. “It shouldn’t have happened.” 

Yeonjun approaches you and takes your face into his hands. His fingers are ice on your skin. He swallows in your face, soft black eyes darting from your eyes to your lips and around the rest of it; just like he’d begged you to let him do in his letters. 

“Why?” Yeonjun asks you, brushing your hair back with his fingers like he’s just testing the feel of it. 

You don’t know how to answer him. You could tell him a lot of things: Taehyun told me to stay away. He had told me that you’d hurt me. I’d started to believe him. I became scared of you. We had lied to each other. None of them feel adequate in this moment, so you shake your head. 

His eyes harden to a degree as you don’t answer. “Why wouldn’t you come talk to me, pretty?” he urges. “If something was wrong, why couldn’t you come to me? We can’t leave things broken. I sent you weeks of letters. Weeks.” 

Weeks? You’d only seen four.  

“Finally, I got smart enough to send them when he’s at Court. And then you show up here. Tell me, how am I to think that you’re okay? When he won’t even let you speak with me?” 

You blink once. Twice. Taehyun had been intercepting letters. A pit of anger flares in your belly. Whatever this protecting thing he’s doing really is, you’re sick of it. Since when had he become your keeper? He’d demanded that Yeonjun was trying to do just that, but here he is, and you have no clue why he’s doing it. 

“I didn’t know you’d sent letters until yesterday,” you tell him. “I should’ve come and seen you.” 

Running his thumb over your cheek, he murmurs, “You’re not going back there. Please, tell me you’ll stay with me. If you’re to stay here in the north forever, let it be with me. We can’t slip around like this forever.” 

Shaking your head in his hands, you pull back. You can’t decipher the dread that washes over you at his suggestion once again. Your heart is wary with the need to do just that—to not return to the estate where you’d become some sort of prisoner. Something washes over you and tells you that it won’t go the way you’d wanted, just as most things in your life hadn’t. 

Seeing the way you retract, Yeonjun becomes more desperate. “Please,” he says, hands finding your shoulders to hold you as if you’ll leave him there.  

“We’ll figure it out,” you say. “Just give me a few days to think about it, okay?” 

His face stays drawn as if he wants to argue it, but he relents. Taking your frozen hands into his own and wrapping them up in attempts to warm them, he says, “Okay. Okay, let’s get away from this blizzard, then. I’ll wait for you, love.” 

Your chest sizzles. The cold isn’t so bad, today. In a way, you’d missed it. You nod.  

Yeonjun brings you to his chambers and urges you to settle into a plush seat. You run your hands over the embroidered whorls of thread on the cushions as you watch him rummage through a chest. “What are you looking for?” you ask him, drinking in his figure. He’d switched his Court shirts for some more comfortable wear, but even in those he looks princely. He’s so pretty. Your heart flutters as he fishes out what he’d been searching for and turns to you with a smile. He settles beside you carrying a leatherbound book and a miniature wood sculpture of a girl. 

“These,” he says, setting them down on the cushion between you.  

You pick up the wood thing, looking over its painted pink cheeks and feeling the carvings that make its face. It’s fitted with a dress; one unlike any you’d ever seen. Your brow furrows. “What’s this thing?” you ask. 

“It’s called a doll,” he says explains. You feel his eyes on you, watching your reaction, not on the thing in your hands. “Human girls carry them around to play with. They change the dresses and stuff. They even make things for them to hold, but... I couldn’t get ahold of any of those.”  

Heart stuttering, you look at the wood-carved thing. “Human girls?” you ask, imagining a life where you too could have worried only about what dress your toy would wear. You revere the resilience your younger self had to have. At least you didn’t know any better; you didn’t know how you could’ve had it. That ignorance saved you. The painted eyes of the doll stare back at you. 

“Kinda cute, huh?” he says, smiling and scooting closer to fiddle with the thing’s hair. “They even do their hair up all pretty.” Looking back up to you, he says, “It’s a shame that no human who has ever grown up here knows of things like these. Simple joys.” 

You nod, a little choked up. “Yeah. I wish I had. It would have been nice to have something like this as a girl.”  

He tucks some hair behind your ear to get a better look at your face from the side. “How did you ever end up being a spy?” 

Tearing your gaze from the doll to meet his, you find a sadness there despite you not even having told him yet. It’s as if he knows it’ll hurt him already. You fiddle with the little doll’s dress as you recount. “I was a servant to a seamstress,” you start. “A royal seamstress, too. She was favored well by the gentry. She brought in hordes of clients and made dresses and Court clothes for them—but, really, her work mostly ended at being there to hear what they’d want and inlaying the dresses with her magic when they’d ask for it. The rest was my work. Taking their measurements, making their dresses... I worked her shop as soon as I became able to.” Memories of cruel and wicked faces that snickered at your expense or those who found it entertainment to scare you come back, as fresh as ever. Those memories never leave you; the ones so early on that they’d calcified into permanent parts of your personality. That terrified little girl will always be somewhere in your mind. She surfaces quite a lot, these days.  

“There was this one time...” you say, trailing off to trudge up a more awful memory. “A Lady had come in to have a dress made. She brought a guard along with her. He was this massive troll with grey skin like a toad.” You’d recall his details without any trouble for the rest of your life, you think. “I’d ran off to grab some fabric for the Lady, and he followed,” you say, voice wavering just how your little heart had wavered as you had turned around from the bolts of fabric to see the goblin stood there. “He yanked me around by my hair until I sobbed, and then he had me get on the floor and beg him to let me live.” You know now that of course he wasn’t going to kill you—he wouldn’t want problems with Nut-hatch—but you hadn’t known it then. You thought you were dead. “When he had enough of his fun, he let me go. When the other two saw how hysterical I was, all I got was being asked why I’d left them waiting so long.”  

Yeonjun asks, voice soft and tender, “The seamstress allowed that?” His eyes are heavy with a mixture of emotions. You see sadness and anger there, but also something a bit more. 

“Nut-hatch?” you say. “Of course.” They’d known what he was doing in there, of course. Even a human could have heard it. As long as you served your purpose, the folk could not care less. 

He looks taken aback at that, recognition turning his brows up. “Nut-hatch? You worked for Nut-hatch?” he asks. 

Nodding, you hum. You had no doubt he’d know her name. Her work was well-renowned in his father’s court and beyond. “I did.” 

His eyes rake over you for a long few beats before he turns your face up. “Their names?” he asks. 

“Huh?” 

“The goblin and the Lady. What are their names?” 

You try to tug at the threads of that old memory. “I don’t remember,” you say. Much of it is fresh, but you hadn’t committed their names to memory. Inconsequential in the grand scheme of it. “It’s okay. It’s passed now.” 

He doesn’t look very convinced, mind wheeling behind his eyes. You don’t want to stay on this memory for too long. Pushing it back into the dusty corner where it stays, you continue explaining. “I accepted that as my life for a long time, but... At some point, I just wanted more. I imagined all the ways I could find a new life as a human here. There are so many other things I’d preferred, but the only one I could manage was that. Even that, I was wrong about. I’m not really made for that, you know?” You lighten your tone in hopes that it’ll make your chest feel lighter as well.  

He listens intently and then leans forward to press a kiss to your forehead. Pulling you into his chest and keeping you notched under his chin, he says, his voice smooth to your ears, “I’m so happy you’re here now, pretty.” 

Letting out the weight in your lungs in a long, meaningful sigh, you melt into his touch. It’s difficult not to when his body is so warm against yours. You revel in it for some time, just letting him smooth over your hair and rub your back. You try your best not to let any old, sad emotions pour out through your eyes; this is a happy moment. You’ve made it. Perhaps things had been harder than you imagined they’d be, but you knew it’d be a long journey when you escaped that sewing cottage anyway. 

Peppering a few last kisses to the top of your head, he releases you to pick up the book he had also grabbed from that chest. On the front it reads: Pride & Prejudice.  

“A book?” you say, looking over the brown leather and gold printing. It’s an unfamiliar name to you, but you never read much anyway.  

He nods and pries it open. The spine crackles with age. “It’s also from the human world.” Thumbing through the pages, he adds, “It’s a story. I read it often, it’s quite a nice one. I want to give it to you so that you can read it too; it’s a beautiful love story.” 

You lean in to take a look at the words, too perfect to be handwritten. “Where do you get all this stuff?” you say. It reminds you of he’d brought you to that market for human goods. He seems to be interested in things that are human. Perhaps that includes you. Either that or he continues to show you these kinds of things for your sake. 

“I lived in their world for some years,” he says, flipping through the pages. “It’s quite different. Though... I found myself not wanting to leave. When the time came, I brought these back with me to remind me of that time.” 

Lived? Not just visited, but Yeonjun had lived in the human realm? Your heart flurries with a lifetime of wondering what your true home was like. How ironic is it that he knew more of humans than you? That you’re the one asking him questions about your kind? “How long?” you ask first. “And why were you living there?” 

“Just for something my father wanted me to do,” he answers, “Somewhere around a decade, I believe.” 

He’d spent ten years there. Multiple things click into place—no wonder he’s so able to understand your human emotions. No wonder it feels as though you’ve been seen to a different degree by him than you’d ever known before. He’d spent years with your kind. “What is it like?” you say, not sure where to begin with your questions. 

He smiles fondly. “You wouldn’t even be able to believe me, pretty. You’ll just have to see it.” 

See it. “You’d take me there?” you say.  

“Of course,” Yeonjun says, frowning. He takes one of your hands into his, pressing a kiss to it. “You deserve to see it.” He presses another kiss to your skin, now at your wrist. The hair on your skin raises at the contact. His eyes find yours as he begins a slow ascent of kisses up your arm. Each is warm and sends your spine blazing. Once he reaches your shoulder, he slows down, leaving a long moment between kisses. He continues this pace—one that both makes you wish he’d slow down and that he’d hurry and quell your want—right up the juncture of your neck and up the column, too. His controlled breaths puff out like fire on your skin where his mouth lingers. You let your head back to help his path up. He places one final kiss at your jawline before his lips land on yours, drunken and in no rush at all.  

You can’t help the visceral urge to run your hands over his soft skin, to check if the warmth there was real or if you’d manifested it in your longing. Yeonjun breaks this lethargic kiss just to laugh, but he’s quick to recapture your lips. He meets your hand and brings it under his silken shirt, guiding you up the soft planes of his abdomen. 

Pushing you back, he whispers into your mouth, “I missed you so much, pretty.” 

You rememorize the gentle muscles of his stomach beneath your palm. “It was only so many days,” you tease, “you’re just horny.” 

He lets go of your hand to begin slipping down your dress from the shoulders. “Yeah?” he hums, gobbling up each inch of skin that he reveals. “I suppose I am. It’s a gift to be able to love you in this way.” Once the fabric is clear of your hips and he’s tugging it down your legs, his face turns sly. He studies your wettened core. “I think you missed me too, though, love.” 

You drag your bottom lip into your teeth. You had. Your chest thumps rhythmically in your chest, syncing like symphony with the throb between your thighs. 

Blood sings in your veins when he places his palm right on the boundary between your lower belly and your cunt. Your stomach soars, too, so excited by his touch so near where your body craves it. He runs it up, feeling the curves of your body, up to your breast. You expect him to stop and pay attention to your chest, but he presses his hand down right over your heart and feels its beating against his palm. His eyes flutter to a shut, and he leaves his hand there for a few moments, relishing in it.  

“What other purer form of love can I show you?” he says, tapping on your hip. “On your hands and knees, baby.” 

You flip, your limbs a bit clumsy in anticipation. Once you’ve found your way there, he dances his fingertips on the small of your spine. 

“Did you think of my touches while we were apart?” 

“Mhm,” you hum. Especially on the nights when the estate seemed the emptiest. Some nights, your fingers were just not enough to save you, and you’d contemplate making a big escape to find him.  

“Well, I shouldn’t make you wait too much longer then, huh?” he coos, running that hand down to ghost touches over your slit. Though minimal, you jolt. You’d been so ravenous for this. He’d worked his shirt off so that when he leans forward to meld his chest to your back, it’s his skin that touches yours, not fabric. His hand stays ghosting touches that leave you softly gasping. 

He teasingly pinches your clit, laughing in your hair at the sharp hiss it draws from you. “So reactive,” Yeonjun muses. His fingers find their way to your hole. He dips the middle two in. “Just like the first time we made love like this. Your lovely face is burned into my mind, pretty. You have such hungry eyes.” As he pushes his fingers in, he uses his free hand to tilt your face against the cushion so that he can better see your eyes. 

You sigh, shuddering and breathy, as he begins to curl his fingers. It only takes him a few curls to rediscover that spot that has sparks flying behind your eyes. 

“There?” he asks, chin on your shoulder. “That feel good, darling?” 

Your muscles tremble at their own accord, rendering your huffs trembled as well. “Yes,” you answer. Each meaningful curl hits its mark, knees unsteady pillars that dig into the cushions. “So—so good. Please don’t stop.”  

He maintains a sickening pace—your muscles twitch around his giving fingers, just enough so that your entire body buzzes and your stomach twists, but not enough to send you shaking yet. You collapse down from your elbows, chest in the cushions. He brushes back the hair that obscures your face with the movement, adamant to see your face.  

He eggs you on by curling deeper; faster. Your answering groan is shaky and tense—you can’t get enough of the knot he curates in your belly, but at the same time, it’s daunting. He sits back, but his fingers don’t falter. His free hand explores, feeling your body up for all the time he couldn’t.  

Stomach taut and brimming on your peak, you suck in a breath. Your orgasm sits so close, running a line of electricity from between your legs up to your spine, raising goosebumps on your skin.  

Your eyes fly open, mouth ready to scold, as Yeonjun pulls his fingers from you. Your chest bubbles up with frustration, your orgasm drifting off to somewhere else. “Why?” you ask, cheeks burning. It slips and slips away from you, hole twitching around nothing as if seeking out just enough stimulus to bring it crashing back. “I was so close.” 

His hand soothes the loss ever so slightly by circling your cunt, but he does not make the mistake of offering you any touch where you most need it. It only prolongs the float down, keeping you suspended. You abhor it.  

“Please,” you whine. 

He doesn’t entertain your whines. He only continues to deliver just enough to torment you until he’s sure that you’re not so wound up that you’ll cum the moment he touches you, and then he slides his fingers back in and begins building up a more tense knot with pointed curls. Your insides delight in the return of attention, falling almost instantly back into a brutal climb. Yeonjun doesn’t bother with languid, teasing strokes now. He aims for your ruining. 

You writhe against the cushions. Your heart is a fluttering bird in your chest, trilling at the prospect of your release. It’s so close—so close that you might be able to just touch it. It tastes like honey on your tongue, painting your words sweet. “Love you,” you tell him. “Love you so much.” 

Yeonjun rewards your sweetness with his free hand on your throbbing clit, sending your hands gripping at the cushions. You wiggle your hips helplessly in search of just the right amount of friction that it’ll finally give you want you’ve been wanting. “Yes,” you mewl. “Yes, so close—” 

“Wait, baby,” he commands from behind you. “It’ll feel so much better. I promise. Hold it back.” 

He reins in his touches once again, not stopping like last time. It’s not enough to put a stop to the orgasm rippling right under your skin, right at the edge of ripping through you. You can’t hold it back; it’s right there. 

“No,” he says, once again ripping his touch from you. It doesn’t stop anything—you go rigid just before it crashes over you, and then you’re shaking without his hands even on you. You cum with a vengeance—body reclaiming twofold what he had denied you.  

“Holy shit.” Yeonjun groans watching you come unraveled without his help. “So riled up that you’re cumming by yourself, pretty,” he says, running a hand around to feel your belly muscles twitching and the way they roll along with the twitches of your hips. He eggs on your orgasm with gentle touches at your clit, sending you jolting, until you’re a panting mess and he can tell that you’ve had enough. 

You attempt to push yourself off your chest, but he gently guides you back down with a palm against your back. “Stay there, pretty. You can handle a little more, right? You did so well, I know you can. Let me make love to you, darling.” 

The cushions are awfully warm against your skin and you’re still dealing with the waves of pleasure that drift up from your cunt, but you nod your head for him. “’Kay,” you say. 

The rustling behind you tells of how he’s slipping out of the rest of his attire. You lay boneless as he does, focusing on the waves running down your thighs. It’s ecstasy in its purest form. It floats through your veins, addling any consciousness and breaking you down into what you are at your core. 

The familiar prod at your entrance jolts you back to life. As he presses in, he presses a hand to your flushed cheek. It’s a welcome temperature difference—you feel set ablaze in some sort of languid flame, one that takes its time to consume you. He laughs softly. “You’re burning up,” he says as he bottoms out, as if the feeling of him filling you up isn’t rendering you jittery in anticipation. “Ready for me, pretty?” he teases, taking your hips into his hands. “I need you to make those pretty sounds for me. I want to know that they’re just as sweet as I remember them.” He punctuates his sentence with deep rolls of his hips, aiming where he knows will have you singing. 

You’re helpless to the chorus of ‘Oh's and ‘Yes’s that he draws from you, the smacking of his hips and your sweet moans much too loud for you. You dread the thought of his servants hearing you and push your face into the cushions, muffling the array of sounds that bubble over. It’s all you can do—you could hardly contain your sounds. 

Your scalp strains as he tugs your head back, tugging your face from the cushion. “None of that, love. I waited too long for that. Don’t hide your pretty voice.”  

You shake your head. “Too loud,” you pant. “They’re gonna hear.” 

“I don’t care who hears you. Let me hear how good I’m making you feel, or I’m going to stop. Do you want me to stop?” His fingers cling to your soft hips, betraying how much this is affecting him. You know that he hardly wants to stop. 

You’re turned to mush, though. In this moment, being heard feels nowhere near as awful as Yeonjun ceasing those dizzying thrusts. You shake your head, scalp aching against the movement. “No,” you say, breathless.  

“That’s what I thought,” Yeonjun taunts, letting your cheek drop back into the fabric. “Let them hear our love. Let them hear how real it is, darling. Louder.”  

You tentatively let your sounds out into the thick air, but he decides that it’s not enough for him. Taking his hand off your hip to brace himself on the seat’s plush armrest, he doubles down his thrusts, feverish and desperate to guide you both to a beautifully explosive end. Your mouth drops open, unfiltered words and sounds spilling out from your chest as you grab at the cushions for help. With the hand that he doesn’t use to deliver those wild thrusts, he encases your hand in his own, threading his fingers between yours.  

For a few more incandescent moments, Yeonjun’s room only consists of your unabashed cries, his alternating grunts and whines, the rhythmic and hollow smacks of his hips to your skin, and the musk of your passion. Frantic bodies dance against each other, skin against skin in the purest way. Your thighs tremble pathetically, his cock brushing against your sweet spot until you squeeze your eyes shut and ride out the quivering of your cunt around him. You squeeze his hand as you shake. 

“Yes,” his pretty voice whines, “Just like that.”  

Picking up his pace, he chases to join you in your orgasm. He pants behind you, desperately fucking into you until his hips stutter and he stills, falling into your shoulder to deliver needy rolls and shooting warm spurts of his release into you.  

You two stay like this for some unhurried moments. You focus on his heartbeat; feeling it thudding against your back reminds you that he is real, and he is love. You hold his hand in yours a little tighter. 

❉

“I doubt that this will go exactly as you believe it will,” Beomgyu says, watching you do your hair up. Your eyes meet his in the vanity’s mirror.  

Arms burning as your hold them over your head, your words come out clipped with the ache. “It worked yesterday, didn’t it?” you say. You push a filigree comb into your hair to secure it up. “I got back hours before he did.” 

“I’m not saying that Taehyun is right,” he says, “but I think that it would do us both a favor if you practice a bit more precaution.” 

“What, are you afraid of Taehyun?” you ask, raising your brows at him in the reflection.  

Your taunt hits its mark, Beomgyu shifting in your bed and scowling. “Of Taehyun, never,” he parries, “of the fact that he could ask me to do anything and I’d do it, yes.” He shakes out his lightly matted tresses, a habit you’ve noticed over the passing weeks. “I played a little too closely to the fire with him once, and it landed me like this: no longer the owner of my being. I’d sooner chew off my own fingers than become his obedient dog, but I believe you also know that it’s best to soar low with this, no? Are we not together in this?” 

You press your lips into a thin line. In a way, you’d come to an alliance of sorts with Beomgyu. Despite his being a kelpie, the two of you are not so different now. Both confined to these walls, listening to Taehyun when he commands it. You don’t want any of your actions to snap back on Beomgyu, though. With you attending Court today, it’s almost definite that Taehyun will see you. You turn to face him. “Why don’t you join us, then?” you offer. “I’ll tell him myself that I commanded you to come with me. I’m sure he’ll be less upset if I have you there with me.” 

He gives it a thought, his eyes looking as tired and sunken as they always do. “I’m not one for Court,” he says. 

“But I’ll be there,” you plead, unable to help the twitching of smirk on your lips. “If we do it together, it can’t be so bad.” 

He frowns, but you can see that you’ve won. “I grieve for how the forest left me to my own,” Beomgyu grumbles. 

You surge up from your seat, eyes bright. “You’ll go?” you say, giddy to return to the thrill of faerie revelry and also to see the strange kelpie in the center of it. 

Grimacing, he answers, “I will join you.” 

You take his hands into yours and press a cheeky kiss to his forehead. “You’re not so scary as you try to paint yourself,” you tell him, watching as he catches bait. You laugh as he glowers. 

“Don’t push it.” He climbs off your bed. “I’m scarier than you should imagine, girl. I do this for my own reasons.” 

You pull a patronizing frown and nod. “Of course, I know.” 

You don’t have to wait for him to get ready to any capacity; he tells you that he has no intentions of making any impressions, and you’ve seen faeries in far more drastic states of disarray. Many show up for their reveling in just their skin. 

Beomgyu drones on about how he detests the audaciousness of the gentry folk while you make for the hall. The forest around you is as quiet as you remember it being when you’d first met him. It reminds you that, no matter how used you become to him, he is a creature to be feared. The little folk are right to hide away. For you, though, his might is a relief: should Taehyun be right, you’ll be safe. He moves at your beck and call. Though, the thought of forcing the kelpie to carry out your will is an uneasy one that you do not strive to fulfill. 

Once the buzzing of Court comes into earshot, wonderful faerie music along with it, you breathe it in. “First time in... how long since you’ve shown your face here?” 

“Perhaps four-hundred-something years,” he answers, looking over the scene with as much distaste in his face as his voice. “We solitary folk don’t make ourselves known here unless to bow to a crown. I do not bow to any crown.” 

Itching to find your prince, you gesture toward it. He should be fine—Court is supposed to be an insouciant place. “Don’t they host anybody who decides to come? Faerie hospitality, and all that? You’ll be fine.” 

“It’s all hospitality until you step foot from those trees,” he says. “And even hospitality is sometimes betrayed. You know how capricious we can be, I’m sure.”  

You approach the warm lights, but his words remain with you. It beckons you to remember that their minds are fickle and fundamentally different from yours. However you think they may act, they might act in the complete opposite way. You should at least let that guide how you conduct your actions a little bit. 

As you breach the pillars of trees and are finally surrounded once again by their pinched faces and gangly limbs, you search for both Taehyun and Yeonjun. You see neither, and so you make your way to the tables to seek snacks. You scour them for something sweet to chew over as you wait for him to appear. He’d said he’d be coming around this time, right? You surely hadn’t mistaken the time he’d told you? 

Beomgyu speaks from beside you, observing a hag that loiters nearby. “Is he not here?” he asks. 

Shrugging, you say, “He’ll be here soon.”  

You watch the hag inching closer, bent over with age; though, you assume that’s she’s been old for the entirety of her life. Her pointed ears droop from her thin tresses of silver, cuffed with gold.  

Turning from her, you gesture over the cavorting crowds, more frantically chasing their merriments than ever before. The solstice arrives tomorrow; they welcome its presence with their excitement. “This is all for the solstice?” 

He offers you an affirmative nod. “Just some excuse to entertain themselves like this,” he explains, “the solstice will arrive whether they encourage its coming or not. I believe that they just enjoy this debauchery too much.” His hollow eyes rake over the throngs. “Anyway, many of them are just here because it’s the only time that they’ll see Court. Otherwise, only the gentry gather here.” 

“What makes you any different than them?” you ask. “What makes you so averse to offering your allegiance to the High Courts? Would it not be nice to have their protection, and to keep them off your back?” You seek Yeonjun once more in the crowds, but still, he doesn’t appear. “You know, so they don’t call you in for things like eating too much?” 

“I do not surrender my sovereignty to any. Come they to my doorstep and demand that I do, I could not care. I’m content with the way I make my life.”  

His refusal to do just that must be why Taehyun’s father had come to claim his life. You’re sure that it’s also why the coming of the General’s son to steal his autonomy must’ve made him so angry. You don’t blame him.  

Why would The Queen demand fealty from the solitary folk? You’d thought that, like the High King, she’d leave them to their forests. If they’re all as adamant as Beomgyu, it seems like a lost cause. 

“Well,” you say, “I’m glad that—” 

A gnarled hand, fingers knobbed against your skin and skin about as soft as tree bark, tugs your arm. You spin to find who owns it.  

The hag’s eyes remind you of Beomgyu’s, piercing and dull with the weight of a long life. Though, hers are much more unsightly than his mud-brown ones, saggy eyelids drooping over a pair of eyes with ink-black where the whites of her eyes should be. She pulls you toward her by your skirts.  

You tug yourself back, pinching your brows. “Who are you?” 

She points her clawed, grey hand out at you, bangles of gold and chunky beads jingling as she does. “You, girl,” the hag says, urgent. Her voice is harsh and it crackles as she speaks. She reaches inside of her furry robes and produces a wood trinket from it. In her palm that she shoves at you lays a bit of wood carved into the shape of a wolf, painted in black. Its shaggy black fur reminds you of the kind Taehyun would sometimes wear over his shoulder.  

“I don’t need that,” you say, rejecting her hand. Nothing in faerie comes for free—the hag just sees a human girl that she can offer free things to in hopes that you’ll know no better and take. Then, you’d be in her debt, and she’d demand something from you. You do know better, though. 

“Oh,” she says, shaking her head as she draws out the word. “You do, girl. Take it, take it. You need it, I know it. Take it, I won’t hold it to you, girl, just have it.” Razor teeth appear behind her curled lips. “It is dormant with me. But, in your hands... Take it.” She shakes her jousted hand out at you each time she demands that you take it. “It offers you protection. It would do no good in my possession. It beckons me to give it to you, its pleas are so loud—loud, loud, loud! Take it off my hand, won’t you?” 

Her urging unsettles you, but so do her words. You assume that it’s inlaid with some sort of protective enchantment. Why would you need protection? Although, she could also just be fooling you. She could be holding a perfectly plain hunk of carved wood in her palm for all you know. You shoot a look at Beomgyu. If she were any trouble, he’d tell you. 

He looks about as lost as you do, shrugging. 

“Oh, sakes!” the hag grumbles, clutching her robes to her body. She takes Beomgyu’s hands and places the thing there. “There. I have no reasons to be here fooling humans. Useless debts, what could you give me? Nothing I need.” She points a sturdy, twiggy finger at you. “Keep it on you, girl, else it won’t do its work.” 

With those final ill-boding words, the hag hobbles off, her curved back disappearing between the gaps in the crowd. 

“Here,” Beomgyu says, regarding the trinket with his observation. “That hag really wanted this to be yours, so I think it ought to be in your hands.” He tries pushing it off to you. 

Laughing, you don’t reach out to take it, darting his hand with your whole body. You hang your hands in the air. “I’m not taking that thing,” you say. “She handed it to you, so I really think it ought to be in your hands.” 

He deadpans. “I’ve just been collecting myself a heap of debts, haven’t I?” He closes it into his fist for his lack of pockets. “What’s this one to add?” 

“Does it... feel like it has anything bad on it?” you ask, remembering how he’d identified your geas. “Like a curse, or a bad enchantment, or something?” 

Shaking his head, he says, “No. I feel it does have a protective purpose, but the magic there is... odd. Hard for me to decipher. Probably that hag’s.”  

You purse your lips, nodding. Regardless, whatever protection that thing might have offered you, you’ll be fine without it. 

Shaking off the odd interaction, you resume perusing the snack platters in your wait. You skip over glazed pinecones. Those would be terrible on your human stomach and teeth. You can only imagine how they’d jab at your gums. You opt for a helping of braised fiddlehead ferns. Chewing on the furled thing, you entertain yourself with the revelers. Littler folk dart in and out of legs. Long-limbed gentryfolk with flowers in their hair spin with interlocked hands at the center of the clamor. Sharp-eyed faeries with even sharper mouths speak in clusters, no doubt scheming. In all its oddness, you’d missed it.  

 A silk-smooth voice steals your attention. “A kelpie?” Yeonjun says, regarding Beomgyu beside you. “Now, how did you manage to befriend a kelpie? Even better, how did you drag it here?” 

Your chest lights up. “Long story,” you say, brushing his curiosity off. “What took you so long?”  

He’s dressed in his Courtly best—cuffs made of ruffle and an array of rings decorating his fingers. They catch light as he brings his hand up to run a hand along the expanse of your collarbone. He hesitates to answer for a split second. “I ran into Kai on my way,” he explains. “He’s performing here today and for tomorrow's solstice.” 

Accepting his answer, you go to tell Beomgyu that you’re going off, but he’s not even there as you turn. He must’ve wandered off as Yeonjun had arrived. 

“Want to join them?” he asks, tilting his head toward the dancing bodies. Soft black strands drift over his eyes.  

Shaking your head, you offer him some of the sweets you’d been eyeing, knowing that he’s got a knack for sweets. “Not today. I think I want to remember all of tonight, and, well...” Memories of the way you’d danced uncontrollably until it’d fade to black lick at your mind. You want to revel in your return to normalcy fully, not with a buzzing mind. You can’t deny the allure of that tingling in your bones as you hear the faerie music, though. It curls a wild finger at you, beckoning. 

An uncomfortable look passes through his eyes, gone as fast as it had come. “All right, darling,” he hums, accepting the sweets. “Does the Lord know you’re here?” 

Lips tugging into a faint frown, you say, “Not yet, I think.” The quick expression doesn’t go unnoticed by you. Unlike the ice the Taehyun offers you, Yeonjun wears his feelings all over himself. It’s just one way that they are fundamentally different. “Is something wrong?” 

Yeonjun looks taken aback at your asking. “I’m doing just fine,” he says. “Why do you ask?” 

He does not say nothing wrong. You know it is because he cannot lie. You look him over. What had happened? And, why is he averse to telling you the truth? “Just thought you looked a bit upset.” You shrug. “Did you want to dance?” 

His nose crinkles with a laugh. “No, pretty. I’d be in your presence doing nothing and still be content.” He takes your hands into his, the metal on his fingers biting cold against your skin. “How about we go listen to Kai play?” 

He leads you to where the musicians work at concocting their works, claiming a chalice of some drink from a table on the way. Kai, of course, stands away from the rest, back to a tree while his fingers dance on the strings. You look around for Taehyun from here, but still, you don’t see his face. 

Yeonjun holds the chalice’s neck between his middle two fingers, sipping from it. “It’s nice to know that even as this season ends, I won’t be forced to go back there.” 

His pretty lips wrap over the edge of the chalice as he drinks from it. “Won’t your father know something is up when you return?” 

Nodding slowly, he grimaces. “I suppose that time has finally come.” 

You squeeze his hand in yours. “We both sacrificed things to be here, huh?” you say. You don’t know a lot of what Yeonjun’s life back in his home court was like, but you know that it would be hard to revolt against your own family for anybody. Even for the prince of Faerie. 

He captures your eyes, his soft brown ones making crescents with his gentle smile. “We did,” he muses. 

“Remember our first night in Court?” you say. You’d been so uneasy, searching for a place to fit in. Then, from the crowds of overwhelming faces, he’d appeared, all charm and welcoming smiles. How couldn’t you have let your heart fall? 

Another flash of disconcertment flashes, his smile faltering. He hides it behind another sip of his drink. Swallowing, he nods, laughing off-kilter. “I do. I think watching you dance that time was the best thing I’ve ever seen.” 

Odd, but you don’t push the issue. If he says that he’s fine, it must just be something to little effect. “What made you come up to me that night?” you say, remembering how confused you’d been when such a pretty gentry boy had taken interest in you. You’d agonized over why he’d done so for long, and sometimes you still, but you’ve made some peace with it by now.  

His lips are tight. “I... It’s hard to explain.” 

You accept that answer at face-value and let your head fall into his shoulder while you watch Kai dutifully work at his songmaking. Among those making the music for Court, his contributions stand out as the most enthralling. Faerie music is too elusive for you to decipher why, but perhaps it’s just his lazed passion. “I understand,” you say. His shoulder is tight and less cushy than you expect it to be. Looking up to him, you frown to see how he’s looking down at you, eyes stormy. He looks like he’s sick to his stomach. You go to ask if he’s going to be okay, but he speaks before you can. 

“Pretty, I... I have to tell you something.” He pulls you off of him to look into your eyes. He’s always been so steadfast and sure, but now his gaze wavers. “I’m so sorry.” 

Your stomach drops. You don’t like the way he’s looking at you. “What?” you say, a tingle in your spine telling you that something isn’t right; that you’re not going to like what he’s going to say. “Yeonjun, you’re making me nervous. Is something wrong?” 

You know it’s awful and you’re not sure why you do it, but for a split second, you inspect the hall for possible attackers. A terrible bout of potent adrenaline makes you want to run or cry. Beomgyu is here, right? 

He swallows hard, face a ghostly pallor. “I can’t keep doing this,” he says, voice trembling. “I need to tell you the truth, it’s... it’s been eating me alive. I can’t look into your sweet face and know...” 

Acid climbs up your throat. Your heart joins it, thick in your throat and choking you. “What? Know what Yeonjun?” you ask, lips trembling. Your skin prickles, hair raising. You may throw up. He looks stricken in place, not answering you. “What?” you demand. 

“I didn’t come up to you for no reason that day.” 

Your heart, still caught in your throat, bursts. It’s a horrifying, bloody affair. “No,” you say, shaking your head. You feel so removed from your body that you can almost envision how your blood-drained face might match his. 

“I knew that you were the spies the moment I saw you. It was....” He sucks in a breath. Your world spins around you as you wait. “I was supposed to determine who the spies were. I was supposed to have them killed, but pretty, I knew I couldn’t do that the moment I saw you. I thought it was just going to be some... some random faerie that I’d...” 

If your world was spinning before, it’s now flipped upside down and inverted. “No,” you repeat, a guttural plea that you know won’t change anything. It’s the only word that your mouth will make for right now, though. 

You’re hurt. You’re scared. You’re angry. You’re frozen. 

Yeonjun grabs for your hands, but you rip yourself away from him, your glaring eyes so at odds with your wobbling lips. “It doesn’t change anything,” he says. “It doesn’t change how I love you now. You know I love you. You know I love you, right? I’m so sorry. I would never hurt you. I did my best to protect you. Please, I never wanted to hurt you,” he rambles, frantically grabbing for your arms as he falls down to his knees before you. 

A few faeries around you gasp, and a blur of their commotion forms around you. The crowned prince of Faerie just went to his knees. Your eyes dart wildly around their guffawing faces, and between a space you spot a familiar face: cold eyes and a cracked mask of indifference. He looks right at you. 

What on earth is going on? How is this life right now? You snap back to Yeonjun in front of you. 

“Please, don’t look at me like that, pretty,” he pleads. “Please.” His voice cracks, eyes frantic. “Slap me. Tell me you hate me for it. But please, don’t look at me like you’re scared of me.” 

Tears scald your cheeks. 

“I know that it’s selfish of me to ask you that; I know, I know it—but please, I can’t handle it, love. I was never going to let anything happen to you, I knew it the moment I saw you. I felt it right here”—he gestures to his beating heart, the one your hand had felt and cherished so only last night—“I knew that no matter how big my ambitions were, they would never be bigger than that.” 

You can’t listen to any more. His words pour out onto your skin, but they all slip off like rain upon a beast’s winter pelt. None can penetrate the ringing in your ears. 

Yeonjun sees how retracted you’ve become. “Pretty, please,” he says, slower and more dire now. “Say something." 

You don’t know what to do. Your feet are rooted fast to the ground, but you know that you have to leave, or else you’ll start creating excuses for him. You know yourself too well to let that happen. 

Picking up your skirts, you manage only a few words to part him with. “Though your kind can’t lie,” you say, “you have been the biggest liar I have ever known. You said you loved me.” 

“I do,” he says, shaking his head, eyes twinkling. “I do.” 

Maybe love is a different thing to a faerie. 

You take off. He calls for you, but it’s muffled by the restlessness of the folk around you and the still-playing music. You dart between openings and bounce off bodies, lights and angry faces a blur in your frenzy. Most folk don’t spare you even a glance; nothing could pull them from their merriment. But others gawk at you like you put on a performance, greedy eyes drinking in any amount of fanfare. Their eyes itch under your skin. Crossing the expanse of the hall has never felt so arduous.  

You’ve become their spectacle. 

Breaking into the cold night air, you don’t run home or collapse to your knees in a sob. You hold your dress hard in your hands, the one he’d gifted you among so many others, its fabric bunching in your fists, and stand there as if frozen staring into the tree line ahead. You don’t move and you don’t think; both would remind you that this is real and that you are a fool. You just allow the bitter air to swaddle your skin. 

You don’t even know if you doubt that he loves you. You don’t even know if he actually never intended to hurt you. Had there been times where all you’d done was look at him with starry eyes, and he’d look at you deciding whether or not to have you killed? 

Why are you even here? There is nothing left for you. Whatever simple joys you thought you’d found, they’re gone. You’re so far away from home, and you’ve nobody to call home. You’d left behind your beginnings of a purpose, and now the only purpose you serve is to rot away in Taehyun’s estate because you demanded that you stay here. 

All that time you’d spent worrying, and still, you walked yourself into this. You’re a joke. 

White breaths unfurl into the night air before you, floating off to join the snowflakes and heavy fog. You just watch those fluffy flakes fall for a while. 

Snow creaks under a few footsteps behind you, someone letting you know that they’re there. “You’ve gotten awfully good at sneaking around,” Taehyun says. 

You let your head fall back, sighing slowly out through your nose. Turning to him, you spit, “I understand. You were right. I got it, okay? I don’t need you to come here and rub it in.” 

Beomgyu approaches from behind Taehyun. 

Taehyun doesn’t say anything for a bit, ice-hard eyes darting all over your face. “Take her back to the estate,” he tells Beomgyu. 

Glad to escape him, you begin your way on your own. You know that he’s only looking at your break down as pathetic. Perhaps it is, but recognizing that doesn’t make it hurt any less. Wind lapping at your wet cheeks have them stinging as you walk. 

Beomgyu awkwardly trails behind you as you follow the path that had become trodden in the time that you and Taehyun have been here, foliage and shrubbery broken down to make somewhat of a path. 

He doesn’t speak; you don’t expect him to. Instead, you break the quiet yourself, unable to stand only the sound of wind twirling between trees. “I should’ve taken that ridiculous charm thing,” you say, laughing through your tears. That hag had absolutely been able to feel what was coming with you with whatever intuition that the magic in her bones lends her. 

“But then,” Beomgyu says, “you wouldn’t know the truth.” 

That’s true. Not knowing the truth doesn’t make it untrue, but at least it spares your fragile heart. “I don’t know if I’d mind that,” you tell him. “I think I’d prefer it.” 

Ignorance is bliss, as the saying goes. 

❉

You don’t remember falling asleep. You remember climbing into your bed, dreading that you’ll be in your head all night, but to some mercy, you’d found sleep not long after that. 

You’d pulled yourself from bed, no matter how it had grown a gravitational pull and insisted that it’d hold you warm while you weep. If you hadn’t, you might not have gotten up at all. As a girl, you’d force yourself into the day’s routine when you had your worst days. It’s the only way that you live through it. You’d also made an effort to walk past your wardrobe. It carries so much of him: the lovely things he’d gifted you, his letters, and that book he’d lent you. It’s not that you don’t want any of these things; to wither away in your bed, to go through his things and wonder how someone who’d showered you so had meant to be your killer, to drag your feet... It’s that you can’t. 

You poke your needle through the fabric. On the cut of white fabric stretched inside the embroidery hoop, you’ve embroidered a dozen woven wheel stitch flowers of different colors and types. Your bottom aches against the hardwood flooring and your lower spine strains, but you don’t pay any mind to their complaining. You just continue to embroider the little flowers. Some are poppy, some rose, and some you’d made up just to have more to stitch. 

A knock resounds through the war room from the doorway. You look to see Taehyun there. He’s dressed in his Court attire. 

“You should get dressed,” he says. “It’s almost midnight. If you want to make it in time, you’ve got to get ready now.” 

Since when had he decided that you’re okay to go? It’s as if this elusive threat that’d he’d been so careful has up and disappeared. “You can go. It’ll take me too long to get ready.” 

Truth be told, you’d go sick seeing Yeonjun’s face, and you know without a doubt that you would. 

“It’s the solstice,” Taehyun says, stepping into the room. He looks like he wants to say more, but he doesn’t. 

Despite how much you had wanted to see it, your heart is too apathetic for it to be worth anything now. Returning to the same faces that had seen your demonstration and no doubt now talk of it... You’d rather finish your fifth rose. “I know.” 

He hesitates, studying you while gears turn in his head. “Hadn’t you thought that something would happen on the solstice?” he says. “Come on. It’s worth seeing how this unfolds.” 

“Why? We aren’t spies anymore. I don’t care what happens in their conflict. It’s well beyond my control as a human here.” 

He grimaces, but you don’t recognize the look there to be anger, more a rigidness. He rests his hand on his sword as he always does. “Then we’ll stay here.” 

You furrow your brows. “Huh?” 

“We can celebrate the solstice here,” he elaborates. “We don’t need to do it there. Plenty of folk celebrate on their own.” 

It dawns upon you that this is his stilted attempt at comforting you. It’s the only way he knows how. You push off the ground. You couldn’t ignore this sliver, however little, of tenderness. You’re not sure if you’d ever see it again if you did. You’ll take anything to distract your mind, as well. You can’t escape the image of Yeonjun’s eyes as he’d pleaded with you from the ground. “I’m not sure Beomgyu will join us, though. He doesn’t believe in the need to celebrate the solstices.” 

“He will if I command it,” he says.  

“What, you’re going to command the poor kelpie to sit and watch a bonfire with us?” you say, imagining how he’d brood. 

The north is wickedly cold at all times, but it’s especially so after night falls. You shuffle closer to the bonfire that Taehyun had built. It’s multitudes smaller than the bonfire you’d sat around with Yeonjun, but it’s warm enough for just the two of you. You quickly shove down those tainted memories before they sting. A lump of emotion forms in your throat before you can, though. You clear it. “Is there anything special that you’re supposed to do?” 

Feeding one last log into the flame, he watches it catch. “We started this really early,” he says. “The fire is supposed to keep you warm and represent the sun’s warmth until sunrise...” He trails off, sliding the cuffs of his shirt that he’d slid up to his elbows to tend to the fire down and sucking in an awkward breath. He looks between the fire and you as though he’d not fully thought out his offer when he’d made it. 

You face your palms to the orange flame, letting the roiling waves of heat warm them. “It’s nice like this.” 

The flame sizzles and pops, spewing sparks and eating up the wood, for a few long moments. You’re not in a talky mood, and Taehyun doesn’t seem to know where to begin on conversation with you that isn't functional. No snow falls around you, and any wind is cut by the estate. This—a place to lose yourself to your mind—is both the thing you need and what you most should not have. 

Taehyun stands watching the fire twirling, his arms over his chest.  

“Is your shoulder healing fine?” you ask, once the air starts feeling a bit heavy with the weight of the prolonged quiet. “Are my stitches holding up fine? No infection, or anything?” 

His gaze flicks up to you. “You stitched it up pretty well,” he answers. “I saw the flowers you were making. You’ve got a good hand.” 

Frowning, you say, “You didn’t say it’s not infected...” 

“It’s not infected,” he says. 

That could be a lie or the truth, you know. But... this sort of deception, you’re more comfortable with. Your human mind can pick up on these subtleties, can catch the careful intonation of somebody trying to hide something behind a lie. “Could I see it?” you ask him. 

He hesitates, expression flat as his eyes convey the extent of his consideration. “You can.” He grabs at his tunic, the fabric the only thing his frost blood even needs to wear out in the cold, and pulls it over his head. 

You swallow hard and fight the flush to your cheeks at the sight of his scar-flecked flesh, his muscled abdomen disappearing as he turns around to show you his back. When you’d last seen his bare skin, you’d been so high on your fear and adrenaline that you’d barely flinched.  

Blinking, you focus on the arrow puncture at his shoulder blade. It’s done some healing, but tinged by an angry red and visibly swollen around the stitches. You curse. 

Of course, he’d rather let his shoulder rot away than admit that he needs any more of your help than he’d been forced to allow. That would require admitting that he’s not just an impenetrable wall of ice. “That is definitely infected,” you say. “Were you just going to let that kill you? Infections like that are beyond help once they get in your bloodstream.” 

“I’ve had infected wounds before,” he says, preparing to put his shirt back on. “This one is nothing. It’ll take a bit longer, but... It’ll heal up fine.” 

You grab his arm. “Just let me clean it a bit,” you insist. “It’s not that big of a deal. You’re not scared that it’s gonna hurt, are you?” 

Sighing, Taehyun says, “I thought you wanted to enjoy the solstice.” 

The hopeful girl you’d been had wanted that, but now it’s just a reminder of everything you don’t want to remember. You wave your hair in the air dismissively. “We did. Come on.” 

You find a bucket to fill with water and cloth along with some stash of ancient spirits in the kitchens, their containers lined with a layer of dust so thick that you know they’re left over from Taehyun’s father. He watches you gather it all. 

You beckon him to turn and show you his shoulder again. He does, bracing his arms on a counter and letting his head hang. You spill out some of that strong liquor into the wound. You’re not really sure if it’ll work as a disinfectant, but as a girl you’d seen an older woman pour it over her wound once, and it’s all you know. 

Gently dabbing at his shoulder now with the water-soaked rag, swollen except for where the stitches sinch it, you say, “You should’ve been going gentle on this thing.” 

Taehyun doesn’t make any fuss as you prod at the wound. “I had more important things to concern myself with,” he says plainly. You press the wet rag to the wound and hold it there, and he begins to try and redirect the conversation to anything other than about himself. “What did the prince say to you at Court?” 

Your stomach drops. “It was nothing.” 

“I know that’s not the truth,” he says, picking up his head to try and look over his shoulder at you. “Tell me the truth.” 

You take the long, torn strips of cloth and begin wrapping it around the expanse of his broad shoulders in a sloppy and amateurish wrap. As long as it shields the wound, it’ll work. “That’s rich coming from you,” you say. “There’s plenty that you lie to me about. You even lied about this.” You tap his shoulder. 

Turning now that you’re done, Taehyun eyes you. You don’t know if he’d been able to hear anything over the sounds of Court or if he’d heard it all with his better hearing ears. You can’t tell which it is.  

“I’ll hear it from some Court gossiper anyway. I think you’d prefer to tell me it yourself.” 

The thought of that scene being a topic of Court gossip makes you ill, but you know that it’s true. The folk love the show, especially one that includes a prince of Faerie on his knees in front of a human. Red-hot embarrassment takes a leisurely stroll up your spine. Your biggest fear has taken flesh in the cruelest way possible.  

Well, if he’s going to end up knowing anyway... You’d prefer it’s from your mouth. You don’t know what sort of conflated half-truths the folk might come up with, since they have no more idea what happened than what they saw. “He was supposed to kill us,” you say, chest too tight to explain it in any depth. “Or, at least, find out who we are, so that we could be killed.” 

Taehyun doesn’t look shocked. He nods. “So, they anticipated our arrival, then. The odds had been stacked against us from the beginning.” 

You nod. Would you have been able to escape? If things had never become entangled between you and Yeonjun, would you and Taehyun lived beyond the first day? Taehyun is strong and you know that he’s no doubt survived plenty in his life, but you’d have been caught completely unaware. “Yeah.” 

“I told you that he’d show you his colors eventually.” 

You want to fight him on that, but you can’t. You have nothing to say. He’d been right. 

What’s left for you now that he has?  

END PART 4

a/n: RAHHH! like i said, this part gave me a bit of grief because part 3 was left so open ended—i had so many options and paths i could follow, but ultimately, i chose this one! how do we feel?

taglist: @lvrs-street2mmorrow , @soohashits , @f4iryfever , @arcturus444 , @linqed , @serenityism00 , @immelissaaa , @luv4cheol , @lickingan0rchid , @20-cms , @hhoneylix , @beestvng , @sanshiningstarhwa , @hyucktapes ,

[angxlofvenus]

Hii! I saw your requests were open and I thought I'd give you a hc/fic idea:

The brothers (or whoever you'd like to write for) reacting to Mc using their shampoo/ soap in the shower for whatever reason ^^

I hope this makes sense to you lol, anyways I hope you're having a wonderful day/night, don't push yourself too hard, and drink water!! You can also take any creative liberties you seem fit, or if you decide you don't want to write it I won't be offended ^^

°˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°

Thank you so much for the request!! This is absolutely adorable, I hope everything is to your liking, Have a great rest of your day/night !! Genre: fluff Ship: Reader x brothers + Diavolo (individual headcanons) TW: clingy demons, minimal cussing, no use of readers' pronouns, second-person pov

When You Use Their Shampoo

Stepping into the shower, You were greeted with the nice hot/cool water raining from above, Going to start your routine, You reached for your shampoo bottle only to find it empty! Looking around you spotted his shampoo and conditioner, surely he wouldn’t mind… right?

Lucifer

100% smells it on you no matter how little you used

Won’t tease you in public but as soon as ya’ll are alone? Ho ho, he’ll never shut up about it

Smug, the definition of smug

You had to go and inflate the ego of The Lord of Pride even more

Very possessive afterwards

Congrats, You know have a scary guard dog demon!

Mammon

He probably wouldn’t even really notice at first

He’d probably compliment how good you smell, Then would slowly realize…

Great, Now he's yelling gibberish while his face slowly gets redder and redder

“You’re gonna give me a heart attack, don’t do that to me!” But will become very clingy

If you say his shampoo smells good, he may lose his mind.

“Well of course ya wanted to smell Like the great Mammon!” 

Levi

Poor awkward nerd

He never saw this coming

I think he would realize you used his shampoo but won’t say anything

Flustered to the max

You have broken him

Levi.404 has stopped working, please reset.

After like the third day, You’re gonna have to bring it up

Secretly really likes it, Won’t tell you that though

Satan

I think he is very picky about scents so he knows as soon as you walk into the room

A little bit of a tease, asking if you were trying out a new shampoo

Smug 2.0 

He would tease you a little bit around the others but not bad

He would flood you with compliments, You using his shampoo would make him very lovey-dovey

Expect him to ask for ya’ll to just use the same stuff from now on

Asmo

Oh honey, he knows.

He knew before you even got out of the shower.

But that doesn't mean he's any less excited!

Better plug your ears because he will let out the loudest squeal known to mankind

Seriously, Lucifer may come and check on ya’ll helicopter mom

Asks what you do and don’t like about it

He just wants you to feel as fantastic as he does when using it

Everyone will know you used his shampoo, He brings it up in every conversation

Would also 100% ask you to use his bath products 24/7

Beel

Now Beel has never been really into insane products like Asmo or Luci

So he may not really recognize it at first

If you decide to tell him, This man will become a happy demon puddle

He’ll give you a big smile and tell you you’re free to use any of his stuff at anytime

We don’t deserve Beel

Will bury his face into your hair and just stay there

Takes you out to Hell’s kitchen that night just because he loves you so much

Belphie

Oh this little shit

Tease! He won’t quit bragging!!

Smug 3.0

Such a brat about it too, He won’t let anybody near you, Well of course he’d let Beel, but who wouldn't?

He has practically locked you up in the attic with him

Why go outside when ya’ll can cuddle? 

Diavolo

Has really expensive products 

He may even have a custom scent

If so, He’ll know instantly that you’ve used his shampoo

He’ll bring it up with a large grin on his face

When you confirm his suspicions, he’ll just laugh

He’s so happy ya’ll are close enough to share things like that, You have no idea!

He may make a sly comment to Barbatos or Lucifer just because he’s a little possessive

Will follow you around like a lost puppy, Now Barbatos is mad at you because even less of his work is done

He can’t help it! He just loves you!

Will be the third on my list to offer ya’ll to just share bath products

[thedevilspearl]

asking them stupid questions — all brothers

a/n: having a hard time writing smut atm so here’s some silly headcanons with the brothers. i was really tired when i proofread this so there may be some mistakes.

tags: 2k words, no gender specified, reader x lucifer, mammon, leviathan, satan, asmodeus, beelzebub + belphegor. (belphie’s is a little suggestive).

𝐋𝐔𝐂𝐈𝐅𝐄𝐑

lucifer has had enough.

it’s been a long day and he wished for a quiet night in his office to relax with some tea while overlooking the bills his brothers have riled up.

but he’s quite distracted tonight.

peace and quiet is not an option. especially with you loitering, floating around his office and touching all the trinkets and décor. you’ve never shown interest in them before, but tonight, all of a sudden lucifer’s office is the most inviting place in the world.

“mc?”

“yes, honey?”

“is something the matter.”

there is a painstakingly long silence before you answer. “….no.”

letting out a little sigh, he asks, “are you quite sure?”

you hum with a subtle nod, barely looking him in the eye and he is now certain something is wrong.

“mc, please. if you aren’t feeling well, you can tell me about it. you don’t need to make this difficu—”

“would you still love me if i was a worm?”

“what?” lucifer’s voice croaks.

“it’s just that i felt sad thinking about how you might not love me anymore if one day i turned into a worm and couldn’t turn back into me.”

“mc, in what world would you ever turn into a worm?”

“most likely this one. remember that time mammon accidentally turned me into a sheep in spells class? i was cute as a sheep, so it was okay. but as a worm, i’d be small and slimy and gross. i’d be unloveable.”

“that is enough,” he rises from his chair, speaking with command but still gentle enough to not upset you further. “you shouldn’t think of such things. it is so silly of you to think i would ever stop loving you.”

“luci….”

“if i must spell it out for you, then yes. i would still love you if you were a worm and i would carry you everywhere with me to ensure you’re never lost or hurt. i would need something small and protective to carry you in, but yes. i will always love you.”

𝐌𝐀𝐌𝐌𝐎𝐍

“if there was a zombie apocalypse and i was bitten, what would you do?”

“hah?!” mammon’s face contorts at your random question. “what are ya talking about?”

“i’ve been thinking about that movie we watched….the zombie one. and just wondered what it would be like.”

“gave up on surviving already, did ya?” he chuckles, collapsing onto his bed beside you, his hand resting on your waist.

“no, but i wanna know! what would you do if i turned into a zombie?”

“well….what are the options?” his smirk earns him a playful smack on the chest. “hey! i’m serious. i’ll be so sad that i won’t be able to think straight, so ya need to give me some options.”

“fine,” you pout, scratching your brain for solutions. “i suppose the most humane thing to do would be to kill me. you know, to make sure i’m not forced to live as a mindless zombie eating other humans.”

“okay….”

“or you could tie me up, maybe chain me, and keep me alive by feeding me living people.”

“why would i keep ya around if you’re gonna stink like a rotting corpse?”

while mammon laughs, your brows furrow with annoyance, mostly feigned but there’s a small sense of hurt in there when you think about mammon not wanting to keep you after you turn into a zombie, despite it being completely logical and reasonable.

“hey,” his voice is soft as he leans over and kisses your cheek, “don’t worry. i’d handcuff us together and let you bite me. then we can be zombies together and never be separated.”

𝐋𝐄𝐕𝐈𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐍

movie night always means one thing, and that’s you and levi curling up with tangled limbs and a hoard of cushions and blankets. a joint blanket burrito with little space between you but that’s a good thing.

the closeness makes it cosier.

tonight, you opted for a more emotional movie. a romance, but romances are always emotional for both of you. that’s why you try your best to stay away from the romantic movies and stick to action packed fantasies or sci-fi’s that are the furthest thing from romance.

but there was a new and popular movie making the headlines and levi couldn’t wait to watch it. you knew watching it was a lost hope, and now you’re sobbing in levi’s arms watching the struggles the love interests are going through to get to each other.

“i’m so glad it wasn’t that difficult for us to be together,” you sniffle, feeling a wave of gratitude take over. “i love you, levi.”

“i love you, too,” his voice trembles and he quietly wipes his own tears.

“hey, levi?”

“what is it?”

“can i wipe my nose on you?”

“what? no!”

too late. you buried your head into his chest, wiping your face clean and covering his favourite shirt in snot.

“gross!”

“i’m sorry. i wanted to get a tissue but they’re too far away. i didn’t want to leave the burrito.”

“it’s fine,” he grumbles, begrudgingly patting you on the head to tell you it’s okay despite ruining his shirt. “let’s finish the movie.”

𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐀𝐍

“would you still love me if i told you the truth?”

satan tries to hide his piqued interest, like he usually does. he likes to come off as the too–cool–to–show–i–care kind of guy but the truth is, he is more invested in this truth than anything else.

he nonchalantly turns the page of his book and with a swipe of his tongue over his lips, he asks, “what truth?”

“that i’m really a lizard.”

well, he wasn’t expecting that.

he watches you intently over the pages of his book. you stop pacing around the library and make your way to him, showing no expression on your face. usually, he would be quite good at reading your face but in all honesty, he can’t tell if you’re serious or not.”

“a lizard?”

you nod. “a lizard.”

“you don’t look like a lizard.”

“that’s because i’m a lizard pretending to be a human.”

“a what now?” he shuts his book, sitting upright from his laid position. he tried his hardest not to give in to your silly but mysterious notion but he is far more interested in your explanation.

“you know about the lizard people, right?”

“i do not.”

“so i just exposed myself for nothing?”

“what in the devildom are you talking about?”

“it doesn’t matter. forget i said anything. if anyone finds out i told you, i could get killed.”

“please tell me that isn’t true.”

silence.

you refuse to even look him in the eye. surely, you are joking. there’s no way you’re really a lizard, let alone it be possible for lizards to be secretly living inside of humans. what kind of conspiracy would that be?

it’s unimaginable, even for demons. but whether the lizard thing is true or he’s falling for a joke, you still need an answer to your question.

“yes,” he pulls you into his side. “i would still love you if you were really a lizard.”

𝐀𝐒𝐌𝐎𝐃𝐄𝐔𝐒

“asmo,” you sing the demon of lust’s name, catching the attention that he would devote to you at any given moment. “can i ask you something?”

“go ahead, my dearest. fire away.”

he winks, hoping it would be something on the more flirtatious side, but instead you fill his mind with a grotesque image.

“what would you do if you could never touch me again?”

he immediately smothers you with a hug. “what are you talking about?! of course, that would never happen!”

“but what if?” you snuggle into him further. “what if you could never touch me?”

he hums, thinking of any solution to be able to touch you again.

“i’d cry,” he says simply. “i’d cry a lot.”

“aww,” you pout. “i don’t want you to cry.”

“and i don’t want to imagine a world where i can’t hold you like this,” he kisses your lips, “where i can’t kiss you like this,” he lifts up your hand and intertwines your fingers with his, “where i can’t hold your hand like this.”

“asmo….”

“i don’t know what would ever cause me to never be able to touch you again, but it would be the end of my world if it came true. i don’t know if i’d be able to live.”

“you’d still be able to see me and speak to me.”

“but not being able to touch you when i see you and hear you is the most painful torture imaginable. but you know what that means, right?”

“what does it mean?” you squeal and his hands tickle your sides.

“it means i need to do all the touching i can now to make up for it!”

𝐁𝐄𝐄𝐋𝐙𝐄𝐁𝐔𝐁

“hey, beel?”

“yeah?”

your quiet voices fill the dark path home from rad. beel always walks you home; be it in comfortable silence or deep conversations, you don’t imagine walking home any other way.

and the quiet air of the evening provides the perfect chance to ask him a question you’ve been waiting to ask all day.

“can i ask you something?”

“sure.”

“if i had five million cheeseburgers and you could only eat them if you slapped me in the face, what wou—”

“i’d slap you in the face.”

“i didn’t even finish my question.” you yelp, brows furrowing in frustration.

“you don’t need to finish it. i’d do anything to eat that many cheeseburgers.”

your feet plant in the ground and beel doesn’t stop walking until your hand which holds his pulls him back.

“are you serious?”

“uhmm….i think so?”

you’re grateful for the fact that he’s rethinking his answer but it was a shock to hear him say he’d slap you so firmly in the beginning. it was a stupid question to ask in the first place, but you never imagined beel ever wanting to hurt you.

he tugs on your hand and you continue walking with him, picking up the pace to get home.

“mc….” he asks. “did i say something wrong?”

his obliviousness to his own words is a harder slap in the face than the slap he promised those five million burgers.

“you said you’d slap me, beel, and it makes me sad.”

“hm….we can go halfsies on the burgers?”

“huh?”

“i’ll slap you and then we can share the burgers.” he promises. “you’d feel bad because i slapped you. and i’d feel bad because i slapped you. so to make it better for both of us, we can split the cheeseburgers.”

you look at him, astounded because you don’t know if his explanation makes his answer better or worse.

𝐁𝐄𝐋𝐏𝐇𝐄𝐆𝐎𝐑

a cuddling session in the attic with belphegor is exactly what you needed after a long, draining day. you naturally made your way up to him as soon as you had some free time, desperate for his warmth.

but belphie had a different warmth in mind with all the kisses he litters up and down your neck.

“belphie, i’m tired.” you whine, but still urge him on to kiss you harder.

“then close your eyes. i’ll kiss you until you fall asleep.”

your heart swarms with the thrill of his words, the promise of being here and showering you with affection even on your worst days.

“is something wrong?” he asks.

“no. why?”

“you’re not falling asleep.”

“that’s because you’re kisses are keeping me awake.”

“they’re meant to help you fall asleep.”

“i hate to break it to you belphie, but they’re having the opposite effect.” you tease.

“is that so?” he nibbles you ear. “what about this?”

you arch into his body, sensitive from his kisses and now the more urgent movements of his lips ignite a fire in your belly. his lips graze you, teeth nip you and tongue swipe over your skin. he sucks hard enough to leave bruises, and kisses softly on every mark he leaves.

“belphie….” the soft whisper of his name catches his attention. “how many ghosts do you think are watching us right now?”

he ceases for a moment, then lifts his head from the crook of your neck. “what?”

“what if there’s ghosts watching us right now? and what if they keep watching us while we….you know….?”

“i never thought of that before.”

“it’s weird, right?”

“definitely. let’s never have sex again.”

[meo-eiru]

*cracks knuckles* here I am again. this time with Micah as my victim

so at first,

you definitely should add some more story to him. so far, if I'm being honest, he feels a bit too plain to me. but oh boy, what a potential I see here!

alright lets begin

omg look at him! such a hypocrite! how smart it is, to put all blame on MC while being just as (actually even more) sinful. and he sure hides well; it's your fault, isn't it? oh you and your sinful mind.

buut despite him not really being my cup of tea, I still do like a good old concept of ugly insides, hidden behind a beautiful shell (if that's the vibe you were going for).

Micah seems so pure, so holy, almost like an angel (you played smart by adding a lot of white in his design) – but behind that pristine facade? he's ugly. and that shell eventually starts to crack, because no matter how pure he may seem, Micah is just as human as we are, and definitely not a good one. and what are we, if not a bunch of cruel, egotistical animals? and deep inside he's exactly that, sickeningly human. with that in mind the very first comic you did abt him is actually pretty hilarious to me. your desires? what about his desires, which are strong enough to ruin your whole life?

I kinda feel like he's also a little pathetic in his own way; if he can't make you fall for him, he will break you. isn't it like a very cowardly move? he wants you badly enough to use whatever method it may require to have you, but will never admit it.

but let's talk about that strange desire to destroy MC's purity. why? to make you just as dirty as he is? cute, but doesn't seem like a full explanation to me. he's a priest, right? and even despite those dark insides of his, I feel like Micah still kept at least some of the priest mindset. I mean, they're raised and taught with a very strict discipline. so I feel like deep down, he feels bad (not ashamed, but in a "how dare they" way) for his attraction to you, and punishes you for that attraction. it's not your fault, of course, but who cares? you managed to destroy his perfect, clean facade, which he was methodically building for his whole life with simply your existence. isn't that unfair? so now you must fall into the depths of hell with him.

I like how we can't justify him. Micah is perfectly aware of what he is doing. and of twisted nature of his feelings too, I think, yet still chooses to indulge in his desires, even if it hurts you, the person he was supposed to love and cherish. he makes me feel an absolute, poetic rage, and I love a character I can hate. (don't get me wrong, it meant to be a praise)

and I absolutely adore his design. also if I was on point with the idea you meant for him, that is wonderful too. if a character makes me feel something, I like that character. but girl, you really should add more details about him. because everything I've written here is, basically, just my own brainstorming and bare theories. Micah needs to have more meat on him for a full character analysis >_>

but anyway, I actually have a question.

what if MC wasn't in any way pure? what if they're a complete opposite of that word? count it on my love for hunchback of notre dame

unlike the nun MC, I suggest a MC who fully embraces their sins. like an evil succubus, they enjoy the joys of being tainted. they know what influence they have on their dear Father Micah, and isn't ashamed of that. I feel like that would make a pretty interesting story

(cough cough draw him blushing and moaning and my life is yours darling)

Another absolutely incredible ask I'll have a field day answering.

I do agree with him being a bit under developed at the moment. Micah was a bit unfortunate as in he was never meant to be an actual character. He was just a momentary creation who existed for me to study color theory. A beautiful man of flowers who didn't have an identity.

Then he joined the cast when I was busy with working on commissions and the 5k celebration comic so I didn't have the time to draw his introduction comic with the things I had planned for him, though I've been trying my best to explore him a bit more thru asks like this one. The fact that I don't want to spoil the stuff I'll draw in his comic is also holding me back a little.

I think Micah is evil, but not completely bad. A man who was born twisted, who was raised into goodness, and even with all the love he received never truly got rid of his inner darkness, but just once, just for one moment, I think he had good in his heart. And that is when he first saw you.

With all his twistedness, all his evilness, all his darkness, I think that love he felt for you was truly pure. Because in his eyes you appeared truly beautiful, like a pure lily.

But Micah isn't a pure man, neither does he want to be. So he prefers to pull you down to his level, so that you two can be sinful together. A truly impure way of feeling that pure and innocent love.

I have gotten asks about him with a more rowdy darling, one who isn't a nun or one who is more sinful. I've been really brainstorming about it but I don't think it would work. Not because I personally can't force the story into being like that but because I think it was just not meant to be like that.

You see I do come up with the characters, but I don't control their actions. If the character is unwilling I can't shape the story to my will. Because that story is their life and they control it. The best I can do is to try to fill the gaps I can.

I might prefer submissive yanderes, I might want Micah to have a more sinful darling instead but it wouldn't be Micah's story anymore. That's one of the reasons why he's so different from the rest of the boys. I'm not super into very dominant guys, I could probably count the ones I have with one hand, it wasn't my intention for Micah to be the way he is, but I don't think he could've been any other way.

Micah was just meant to be manipulative, a gaslighter, a dirty man who'll pull anything to push you below him.

I guess me looking at my stories from an actual novel or manga perspective also contributes to this. Father Micah exists to shine with a darling who he can soil.

Now the darling can maybe go against him in the future, she might rebel or give in to his sinful ways, but that's a different story.

[kalims]

what's that on your face?

⎯⎯ some type of, red smudge?

cw. gender neutral but mc wore lipstick (briefly)

leona just liked you.

even if it took him less time to realize, and more wasted on just denying the thought; he knew there was something off when his eyes seem to focus from it's blurry lens full of sleep when his eyes land on you—that's not normal cause one of the things he does is space out when someone's talking.

it's not that he hates the person, he's just not interested in listening. his time would be spent better if they'd close their mouth and let him continue his sleep.

maybe that's what he likes about you. whenever you're around of him even if his eyes close, he can't seem to control his ears cause as much as he wants to block out the words you spout; he still listens attentively.

he was never one to sleep easily in noisy environments (not that he can't, he just wants peace. get it?) but there's something about your voice that lulls him to sleep. he isn't too upset about missing out on whatever you talked about when he drifts into the euthymia of dreams, cause even then. you show up when he isn't even awake, he could still hear you talk there anyways.

awake or asleep, you're everywhere. leona feels that he's neither irritated or elated about the fact.

should he even be upset when in the back of his mind—when you notice he's fallen asleep from his still stance from the grass floor you immediately shut up.

weirdly enough he feels cold for a second but that's quickly fading away when he feels a new type of warmth near him.

he wonders what you do when he's asleep cause he knows that's most likely you.

"what's that on your f—"

"..."

leona should be offended at ruggie unable to keep his gaze on the man's face before bursting into a fit of giggles, more so even finish his question.

with a furrow of his brows, and a cross of his arms. leona casts a steady, nonchalant look at ruggie, albeit confused. "what are you on now?"

he watches ruggie lean on the wall, almost having slid to the floor from how much yapping he was doing. he quirks a brow in intrigue but there's just really more impatience that curiosity from his tensing shoulders. what was wrong with his face then? last time he knew he was awfully handsome.

(you didn't fail to comment on that hours ago anyways.)

leona releases a long drawl of a sigh. he wasn't that bad looking, and even if. ruggie's seen his face for a long time. everyday, yesterday, just this morning. his face can't have shifted to that of a clown in a day and he really wants to believe it has if his normal face is something to laugh about.

you frown too much. stains your pretty face. he scowls, rubbing his ears. please leave his thoughts.

were you right?

he debates on just walking out because he can't deal with this but ruggie's just wiping the last of the stray tears that he spouted midst his fit of laughter. leona notes that he, essentially isn't looking at his face—but his forehead.

his frown deepens. "did I grow a damn third eye or something?" some type of spell that landed on him and no one told him about?

ruggie chortled even harder.

"you and (name) been busy being love birds?" the hyena pauses, grinning. a look of amusement. "ah wait. love lions?" then laughs at his own correction and joke.

leona doesn't find it funny at all, not a single muscle in his face strains into anything but the dead look carved into stone. he's heard a good portion of ruggie's lion jokes and it was getting out of hand.. and unfunny...

the hyena doesn't even give him an answer. too enraptured into shitting tears, the watery drop in the edges of his eyes are prominent and even slides down his cheek every time he has to blink but he even laughs harder.

to think he assumed ruggie was done when he was able to speak.

no, he laughed even harder.

with ruggie not responding to his questions—well, not that he's able to with the amount of snorting he's been doing that just takes away his ability to speak real, actual words. leona's forced to deal with his inner monolog picking out what he's done this time.

but please. if taken literally he doesn't do much.

what was so damn funny about his face?

leona's face twitches into a deeper look of irritation, his voice is drowned out by the loud laughter from ruggie so the boy can't even hear him and he doesn't even want to raise his voice.

if anything, you just kissed his face a while ago so if there was something wrong with it he would've been made known to that.

...

to be specific you kissed his forehead.

leona pauses. raising his hand to swipe his thumb finger against his forehead, the crease of his brows twitches when there's a pigmented, red shade on his finger. having more similarities to pink than the actual color due to his smudge.

seven.. he literally walked from the botanical garden, to the mirror chamber and now savanaclaw. his very existence demands respect and he's reduced to this.. man with a lipstick stain on his forehead like some type of mark.

oh.

oh.

leona can't help the huff that excludes from his mouth, partially stumped by your mere audacity and the whole predicament he's stuck in. even with all the realizations he's going through ruggie is still dying on the floor so he ignores him since the boy wasn't much use to figuring it out anyways.

it really wasn't that funny!

the other portion... maybe a bit smug, with all the goating he's made about you being his you were never too vocal about him being yours.

while there's been some kind of mutual understanding between you and leona, non-verbal. him, yours. and you, his.

you were bordering between the line of being loud about it and keeping it a tight label between the two of you only. but you were never this bold about it. the most you've done is probably mess with him in public.

but he can't deny there's some strange satisfaction within the thought of something of yours on him.

he shakes it away before it starts encasing his entire brain.

next day he makes sure every beastman can smell him on you, everyone else? feast your eyes upon the necklace (that he totally did not force you to accept) he always wore around, now fit rather snugly around your neck.

he always returns his favors after all.

note. behold my half assed writing isk eat well. not pr

sorry guys been busy yk, school been starting (LIE CAUSE IVE BEEN ACTUALLY WATCHING KEEGAN EDITS AND READING HIS FICS KWNSKANS)

com me <3

[strwberri-milk]

Hi! How are you? i would like to request about Mc remember her past life, and she goes really overwhelmed about it...to the point that when she sees Rafayel, she gave her a kiss. The first one for them. And obviously he melts for the kiss. Smut

the way you just ended the ask with Smut. reminds me of that video where the guy just goes "Belt" also i didnt feel like going the whole smut route - if you want the smut hoestly, id say you can just look at this bc soft smut hcs are the direction i'd take here <3 maybe one day i'll write a full fledged fic but rn i have my hands full w boothill [pensive]

The dreams you had were slowly getting more and more realistic. You didn't quite understand why or how they were starting to come about but you first brushed them off as just that - dreams. You didn't think that there was anything too serious about them until one day you suddenly get the sense that everything you're dreaming about is somehow real.

Rafayel was on a business trip so unfortunately you couldn't even talk to him about this, struggling with these emotions yourself as you try to sift through them. Somehow, your dreams line up with the things he teases you about and you start to wonder if he knows something or if it's some weird after effect of being reincarnated?? You can't figure it out and you don't want to blow up his phone with your ramblings so you keep it to yourself until he comes home.

He shows up at your door, beginning to tell you about how he wasn't even able to go home because he missed you so much, wanting to see you right now when you look at him with tears in your eyes. He's startled to say the least, panicking a little as he asks you why you're crying when you suddenly grab him, kissing him hard.

He melts into your touch, desperate to feel your touch. He's always wanted you, always wanted to be with you but never thought that you felt the same. He just prayed and hoped that one day you would remember, that he'd be lucky enough to be with you. Even if you don't remember he doesn't mind losing himself in you like this right now, closing the door behind him as you lead him to your bedroom.

He takes you passionately, keeping you on your back and doing his best to make you cry from ecstasy. He repeats over and over how much he loves you with each bucking of his hips, kissing you breathless and telling you he's wanted you from the moment he saw you. He showers you with attention, bringing you to the peak over and over again. He's insatiable, desperate for you to feel good because of him and making up for lost time.

You're exhausted and barely coherent by the time he's done but he holds you so close. You can hear the beating of his heart in your ear, memorising the sound as you remember that it was taken from you before. You confess quietly what you've seen, the things you remember. He holds his breath, looing at you desperately as he asks if you really remember. When you confirm he holds you so tightly, telling you to rest for now and then the two of you can discuss what's next at another time.

[harunayuuka2060]

MC: ...

Leona: *has been "subtly" observing them*

MC: ...

Falena's wife: ...

Falena's wife: Back to our discussion.

MC: Yes. You're hoping that I would be of help to His Majesty now that his health is deteriorating.

Falena's wife: Yes. Would it be possible for you to extend his life?

MC: There are factors that we need to consider. Does he still want to rule this country?

Falena's wife: No. He wants to live longer so he would be able to witness Cheka and Liora grow up into fine princes, and your second child to be born.

MC: Hmm. I could strengthen his heart, however... He likes to eat things that aren't good for him.

Falena's wife: *chuckles* We could just instruct Kifaj to be strict on him.

MC: In that case, I will start on the treatment.

MC: How are you feeling, Your Majesty?

The king: I'm feeling great. *chuckles* I think I could yell better on Kifaj now.

Kifaj: And I will do better to ignore you if needed.

The king: Anyway, is it true there will be a second-born?

MC: It will not until two years, Your Majesty.

The king: Oh. It takes that long?

MC: Yes.

The king: Oh. I see. How come? Isn't pregnancy supposed to be nine months?

MC: It's different with transcendentals, Your Majesty.

The king: *sigh* Well then, I guess I have to wait that long.

The king: I wish it's a girl this time so the Kingscholar will have their little princess.

MC: ...

MC: A princess it is.

The king and Kifaj: ...

The king: That's wonderful! Kifaj! Buy everything that will suit our baby princess!

Kifaj: Yes, Your Majesty!

MC: Again, the baby will not be born until two years.

The king: That is fine! Knowing that it will be a princess is enough!

Leona: *staring sternly at them from behind*

MC: *carrying Liora*

Baby Liora: *seems curious why his father is staring*

MC: What is it, Leona?

Leona: *walks and moves in front of them* The request you've been trying to delay.

MC: ...

MC: Sharing your mana to me is out of the question.

Leona: Tch. But I want to help you and I don't want to see not waking up for days again.

MC: ...

MC: How long will you try to insist on this?

Leona: I don't know. Maybe until you give me an alternative?

MC: ...

MC: I could give you one, but it would cost you a great inconvenience.

Leona: What is it?

MC: Cater our daughter for me.

Leona: ...

Leona: How?

MC: Like how I catered Liora. I will transfer the seed in your heart.

MC: You must keep your emotions stable.

Leona: Alright. I can do that.

MC: ...

MC: Alright. Come closer.

Leona: Yes- Mmp!

MC: *pulls themselves away* Give her back to me after two years. The same way that I did just now.

Leona: *blushing* That's a kiss you-

MC: I wouldn't call it as such. Now leave and stop bothering me for today.

Baby Liora: *waves at his father*

Leona: ...

Ruggie: *almost got choked on his food*

Ruggie: *then laughs*

Leona: *frowns at him*

Ruggie: That's a lot of trust, man. To think that MC allowed you to take care of your daughter.

Leona: Yes. But in the end, they're still the one who's going to birth it.

Ruggie: Though, are you sure you're up for the job? Two years is quite a long time, you know?

Leona: Yes. What do you take me for?

Ruggie: Impatient, easily annoyed-

Leona: *glares at him*

Ruggie: That. That's what I'm talking about. MC has always been cool-headed that's why Prince Liora has no complications and they carried him for three and a half-years.

Ruggie: I wonder how you are going to manage that.

Leona: It's my future daughter we're talking about here, Ruggie. I will do everything for her.

Ruggie: Okay. Why don't we start first by you eating vegetables?

Leona: *scowls*

Ruggie: It's for the baby princess. *amused by his expression*

Falena: I'm glad you have entrusted the development process to Leona.

MC: He wanted to help so I let him.

Falena: *happy sigh* I could already imagine what my niece would be like. *chuckles* *is imagining a snobbish baby and will frown at the sight of anyone*

MC: *knows what he's thinking and couldn't agree more*

[another-lost-mc]

Imagine wearing more and more revealing clothing each time you visit Levi's room for a gaming sesh. Too embarrassed to say anything but in your actions screaming "I AM SO INTO YOU PLEASE DO SOMETHING"

A/N: That's how my MC would try to get his attention. Too shy to be direct and, y'know, use words, but brave enough to try and coax him to make the first move.

LEVIATHAN x gn!Reader, 0.7k words, NSFW/MDNI.

Warnings: masturbation; suggestive but not super explicit content.

Oh, he definitely notices when you start wearing different clothes around him. He didn't think this was your typical style and he's not sure what to make of it now. He's too embarrassed to ask about it in case you think he's a creep for noticing, so he tries to ignore it—badly.

He's more flustered than usual, rubbing his clammy hands on his jeans between matches because the sweat on his palms makes it hard to grip the controller. The first day you walked into his room, showing a teensy-bit more skin than usual, his eyes naturally gravitated to the teasing glimpses of bare skin you exposed. It probably wasn't even on purpose, either—it just happens when you lift your arms in a stretch, or when you bend over and your new pants rest lower on your hips.

Sometimes he's close enough to feel you shiver on the sofa beside him, and he hands you a hoodie to borrow. You know, to cover up in case you're chilly. He doesn't understand that it's his proximity and your desire for him that makes you tremble with pent-up frustrations, and not the cool temperature of his room.

The more lovely, touchable skin you show him, the more nervous he becomes. It's too good to be true, it's his imagination running wild, he's played too many dating sims—those are his excuses when he tries to convince himself you're not doing this on purpose. And even if you were—and to him, that's a gigantic if—why would you want him of all demons?!

But he doesn't realize that you're just as nervous as he is, anxiously waiting for him to get a clue and show some initiative and do something. You scoot closer to him until the outside of your bare naked, smooth, squishy thigh presses against his. He can't feel you through his jeans, but just knowing you're so close to him is almost enough to send him reeling. His traitorous mind wonders if you can feel when the rough denim scratches against you so lightly whenever he shifts in his seat, or when his leg starts to bounce with nervousness or anticipation.

He wonders why you don't give up and move away, because he's still convinced that you wanting him is a mistake.

You wonder what he's waiting for, because you know he stares at you when he thinks you're not looking, and he fidgets with his hands when you think he might finally reach out and touch you instead.

It feels like you're at a stalemate. You can't possibly wear any less clothing unless you want to parade into his room in your underwear or completely naked. Even then, you're positive he'll find some ridiculous way to logic himself out of the very obvious truth: you're offering yourself to him on a platter, and all he needs to do is reach out and help himself to a little taste.

This evening's gaming session ends like all the rest these days: Levi vibrating in his seat while his eyes dart around the room and look at everything but you, while you sit next to him on the couch wearing shorts that are a bit too tight and a crop top that is more decorative than functional.

You think about pursuing the nuclear option—asking Asmo for advice—when you realize you left your D.D.D. on the sofa in Levi's room. You've only been gone a few minutes so it doesn't even occur to you to knock when you get there, but your hand pauses on the door handle when you hear—well, something unusual. It's not the TV and he's not on his headset either.

Your hand claps over your mouth to muffle your gasp when you recognize the rhythmic, wet sound of skin-on-skin, and if you press your ear against the door you can hear his quiet whines and groans too. The sofa springs are creaking too so he must be on the couch, thrusting his hips desperately into his fist while he bites his lip, trying to stifle the moan that sounds suspiciously like your name.

You were waiting for him to make a move, and this is probably as good as it's going to get. You take a deep breath before letting yourself inside, closing and locking the door behind you.

Obey Me! Masterlist | Taglist: @l-d-8 @mithrakira @your-next-daydream @xpixie @tortibomb @amberrskiies @angelsdilf @rensphilia @4allthefours4 @a-hidden-gem @lust--on--my--lips @beelsjuicytitties @goldenglow149 @cosmicstarlatte @alexxncl @i-am-empress-irish @ezraiix @bizarrebankai @devildomd0ll @alexxavicry @moon-i-v @ablondehoe @vinsmouke @kiirschtein @halaxia @bookoffracturedescapes

[cheapshrimpysheep]

Hi!! i was wondering if you would take requests for first years in twisted. Something like their reaction to them arguing and the reader being like “oh you wanna kiss me so bad” during it. if not it’s perfectly fine!! thank you in advance if you do!

COMMENTS: I had some troubles with this one because I didn't quite understand what you were asking me. 😅 I asked a friend who consumes more romantic content than I do (which is practically none) and she told me about characters who don't know how to express their feelings so they annoy their romantic interest. Which I think would be out of character for everyone but Ace and even him I don't believe he gets to such an irritating point.

But what I understood could be that they were arguing because they were jealous but didn't want to admit it and so MC says something like that. So I went with that one. I hope it's good enough.

I hope you and all enjoy 😉

PS: I would have liked to have written some of Epel's lines in his dialect, but English is not my first language so I didn't know how to do it.

CHARACTERS: Freshmen (Ace, Deuce, Jack, Epel & Sebek)

TAGS: Fluff; GN Reader 

WORD COUNT: An average of 300 words per character.

CONTEXT: He heard a rumor that you were seeing a dorm-mate of his that he doesn't like. He thought you would talk about it with him someday, but you never did. And the final straw was when he heard someone comment that you two had started dating. He goes to Ramshackle Dorm to clarify the matter.

The truth is: you were seeing this guy, yes, but only because he was one of, if not the worst student in the dorm and the Housewarden or Vice Housewarden asked you if you could help him study. And they promised you a reward if you could get him to improve his grades.

That student you started helping with his studies had a crush on you and he was the one who started the rumor that you two started dating.

You hear Ace knocking on your door like he usually does. When he doesn't walk right in without knocking as if this was his second dorm. You open the door and he looks sulky.

“So you weren't going to tell your best friend the news?” he asks you with a smirk.

What news? Did the Headmage give you more work without you knowing? Whatever it is, he doesn't seem to like seeing you `play dumb´. He enters and closes the door behind him. He takes your hand and leads you to the common room.

“Spit it out! What's the thing between you and that dude?” You don't really know who he's talking about until he says his name. You tell him about helping him study. “Study? That excuse is old. Even I already used that one.”

You tell him he can even ask Riddle and Trey, they're the ones who asked you for that favor. But he doesn't seem to believe you.

“Just tell me if you guys are dating or not!”

You sound almost disgusted telling him no, you're not dating that guy. And then you say: “And why are you so angry? Would you like to be the one dating me instead?”

He would have blushed if he hadn't been so caught up in the argument. He smirks at you again. “Well I would be much better than him, that's for sure.”

“Oh yeah? So why don't you prove it?”

“And I can! I could take you on the best date you've ever had!”

“So tomorrow at eight is fine with you?”

“More than fine! You will see! I... wait... WHAT?!” Now yes, he blushed completely. You chuckle. “O-OI! This is foul play!”

“You mean you don't want to go on a date with me then?”

“T-that's not what I meant. But... ha... ha ha HA HA HA... You know what? Well played!

You hear a knock on the door, louder than normal. You open the door and see Deuce catching his breath, as if he had run to your door. You tell him to go inside and get some rest in the common room.

“I need to talk to you.” You say you can talk when he catches his breath and you pull him into the common room.

“That guy you started seeing.” he says, after resting for a moment. He says his name. “Is it true that you two are dating?” You sometimes forget that he is the sincere and straight to the point type.

You tell him no. Of course not. You were just helping him study. Riddle and Trey asked you for this favor.

“Really? You can tell me if you're dating.” he tells you that with a slightly sad expression that he can't hide. You say it's true. That you don't even know why he would think you and that guy were dating.

He explains to you how he heard about that rumor. And as you reveal each other's point of view some dots are connected and you come to the conclusion that it could have been that same guy who started the rumour. And Deuce get pissed!

You calm him down and say that if you tell Riddle, it will be off with that guy’s head for sure. And while you calm him down, you end up holding his hands, that at that moment were fists. But he was still irritated.

“The nerve of that guy! As if you would ever settle for someone like that.”

“Do you think I would be better with you?”

“Of course! You deserve the best anyone can have! Not a jerk like that! I would treat you so much better! I would-” and then he realizes what he was saying. He gets all red and covers his face with his hands.

You hear a firm knock on the door. When you open it, you see Jack in a quite serious posture. “Hi (Y/N). I need to speak with you.” You let him in and the two of you go sit on the couch in the common room.

“What is your relationship with that guy you started seeing?” he says his name. And you say you're just helping him study because Leona asked you to. Something about him being an embarrassment to Savanaclaw and Leona not having the patience to deal with it. That you were better at that sort of thing.

He is silent for a moment. His expression impenetrable, he crossed his arms and closed his eyes. Pondering something. You ask what's going on and he opens his eyes and looks at you: “Are you two dating?”

What? Of course not! Why was he asking that?

“Tell me the truth! If you are then you made a really bad choice. That guy is one of those unruly punks of our dorm. You shouldn't be with him. That guy don't deserve you. You deserve better. Way better.”

“Better? Like you, perhaps?” you startle him. And he looked like he was blushing.

“I-I didn't... I mean... I like to think that I would be better than him, sure. But...” he rubs the back of his head. And you see his ears are back, like he's scared. Of your reaction maybe?

You hear a knock on the door. You open the door and Epel greets you sulkily. You greet him and ask what's wrong. “You! Something is wrong with you.” is what he answers you. “May I come in?”

You let him in. He closes the door behind him and takes your hand to lead you to the common room with him. “What's your thing with that guy?” You ask who, and he says the name of the student you were helping. You say you're only helping him study because Vil asked you to.

“Oh yeah? What are you helping him study? And why you?” he then says a few phrases in his dialect that you don't understand, but he looks upset. You tell him the truth and ask why he is questioning you.

He first answers you in his dialect and you don't understand, he then goes back to saying it in a way you understand: “Because I know you're dating him!” You look confused and start arguing with him about it not being true. And you can't argue anymore when he goes back to talking in a way you don't understand.

“If you are so pissed off because you wanted to be the one dating me then just admit it!” You yell at him, irritated.

“AND WHAT IF I AM?...” and he shuts up for a second because he realized what he just said. He looks down at the floor, lowers his voice, and clenches his fists at his side. “What if I am... I know I'm not that strong or tall, but it's not fair...”

You calmly place your hands on his face and make him look at you again. It's up to you to reassure him now.

You hear a knock on the door so loud it seems like the person on the other side is going to break it down. And then, in Sebek’s thunderous voice you hear: “HUMAN! YOU MUST OPEN THIS DOOR IMMEDIATELY AND LET ME IN!” You open the door and see him with his usual angry face staring at you.

“May I came in?” It's kind of funny that he asks permission like that despite how rushed he is. You let him in and he talks to you right there at the entrance. It's up to you to close the door.

“Report me about your relationship with the student you started seeing. Why did these meetings start and what is the status?” You try to hide your laughter by the way he's talking, like you're some secret agent on a mission. “Why are you laughing? This is a matter of the highest importance!” The fact that you don't even know why that questionnaire just makes the scene funnier.

After he tells you the name of the "subject" you tell him, still trying not to laugh, that Lilia asked you if you could help that student with his studies.

“Quite a coherent answer. But there is a logical flaw in his narrative. How could you, a human without magic, help a student from Diasomnia with his studies?”

You might not have magic, but that doesn't mean you don't know good study methods, which is why Lilia asked for your help. Sebek believes in you, but he's still dissatisfied.

“Very well. I won't doubt Lilia-sama's plans. But you still haven't told me what your recurring status with him is.” Recurring status? What was he talking about? “I WANT TO KNOW IF IT'S TRUE THAT THE TWO OF YOU ARE IN A ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP!” What? Of course not! Where did he get that idea?

“Then what are the origins of your romance rumor?” What? Well, you don't know how it came about, but it's just that, a rumor and a lie. “Are you completely sure of that?” Of course you are!

If he really likes you, then it's because one of the things he believes you are is a person of integrity. So, he fully believes your word. You see him calm down and ponder for a few seconds.

“In that case...” and then he explodes “SOMEONE IS TRYING TO DEFAME YOUR NAME! Start a rumor about you having such a fool and weak partner. HA! I knew you would recognize your own worth not to settle for such a commoner.”

“So who do you think I should settle for?”

“NOBODY. You shouldn't just settle for anything or anyone. You should get what you deserve. And you certainly deserve much more than that worm.”

“Someone like you, perhaps?”

“Well, honestly, someone like you is even worthy of someone like my liege. But if you deem me worthy, THEN YES! I shall be the one you deserve!” he won't even try to hide it, he's too proud of himself and you.

If you dropped in here out of the blue and want to read more from me, you can find it in my pinned post: INDEX

[koqabear]

Nights Like These

☆ Playlist! ☆

“It was tradition between you and your roommates to relax and drink together once a month. One day a month where you could forget about all your responsibilities and speak about whatever was on your mind. Confronting your undeniable attraction to said roommates was not what you were expecting on a night like this.”

Yeonjun x fem! reader x Taehyun

Genre: and they were roommates, a whopping 2k of “plot”, smut 

word count: 7.7K

Warnings: use of alcohol, mentions of food (they get tipsy at most) 

Smut warnings: dom! Yeonjun, Dom!taehyun, sub!mc, threesome, tae is packing !! (who else is shocked), exhibitionism/ voyeurism, teasing, reader is mentioned to be more vanilla / inexperienced, corruption (?), degrading, praise, pet names, (pretty girl, baby, cutie, etc.) masturbating, (fem) manhandling, biting, marking, grinding, oral, (fem rec.) breast play, fingering, hair pulling, overstimulation, multiple orgasms, messy handjobs, strength kink, dacryphilia, double vaginal penetration, scratching, bulge kink, size kink, possessiveness, dumbification, creampies , cockwarming (lemme know if I missed anything!)

Notes: How bizarre is it to have two regular warnings then a whole fucking paragraph of smut warnings? Only on my blog, I suppose. Listen to me, I’ve been meaning to write about double penetration on this godforsaken app but have been too scared to— I refuse to be silenced!! Enjoy while you can before it disappears from the tags!!

Nothing good came from nights like these. 

That still didn’t stop you from doing it, feeling yourself sink back more into the couch cushions as your grip tightens on your wine glass; you feel tipsy at most, and the drink in your hand is tamer in comparison to the nights where you and your roommates would go through bottles of soju and order takeout after a particularly stressful day.

On nights like those, where you were too drunk to properly clean up after yourselves, nothing good ever happened. There are too many incidents of you spilling your drinks all over the floor, waking up to a sticky floor that would have you scolded badly by your friends— not to mention the number of drunk rambles your two roommates have gone on, confessing things that would change your perception of them if you were lucky enough to remember it. 

Tonight was one of those nights. 

“Well, it wasn’t ever anything serious,” Yeonjun said, pausing to take another sip of his drink. Tonight wasn’t as bad as the other nights, and you’d like to chalk it all up to the fact that you haven’t really drunk much. But it was enough to loosen Yeonjun’s tongue, sitting back in amusement as you listened to him tell you two stories of his delinquent days, “But I seriously stressed out my mom back then. I feel so bad for her honestly, I don’t know how she put up with me.” 

“I guess that makes sense,” Taehyun says, sitting on the floor and leaning on the coffee table as he grabs a slice of pizza— it’s probably gone cold now, given the fact that the two can never stop talking whenever they drink, “no wonder you’re such a freak.” 

Yeonjun seems to bristle at his friend’s comments, crossing his arms defensively as he glares down at Taehyun. “What the hell do you mean by that?” 

They seem to be communicating as Taehyun gives him a knowing look. It only serves to make you curious as Yeonjun’s ears turn red, clearly defeated as he chooses to take a sip from his drink. The sight is enough to make you laugh, giggly as always as you lean forward clumsily. 

“What?” You say, looking between your two friends to see if you can pry out any information from them, “What’re you guys talking about?”

“Nothing just,” Yeonjun clears his throat, downing his glass as he leans forward to place it down on the table, “just some embarrassing shit I used to do, I don’t think you’d wanna hear about it.”

“Oh, but Taehyun would?” You say, raising a brow as you look towards the said man; he’s smiling, mischievous and tempting as his eyes sparkle cutely under the lights— almost giving him an aura of innocence, if you didn’t know any better, “come on, try me. We’ve known each other long enough, right?” 

“Mmm. It’s just this one time,” Taehyun starts, pausing to take a bite of pizza as he tries to gauge Yeonjun’s reaction; you glance at him, but he refuses to look at you, covering his face in embarrassment as you’re still able to pick up on the red tinge of his cheeks, “I caught Yeonjun and one of his girls fucking, that’s all… It happened multiple times actually, had me thinking it wasn’t an accident at some point. Weird time, honestly.”

“She was really into it, okay?” Yeonjun admits, attempting poorly to defend himself as his hands come away from his face. He’s clearly flustered, his hair a mess with how much he’s been running his hands through it as he listened to Taehyun tell you his story.

“Yeah? Was it because of me? Because I’ve never heard this happening with any of our other friends,” Taehyun is clearly provoking Yeonjun as the two begin to bicker, casually spilling truths that have your eyes widening in surprise. 

There he goes again— Yeonjun has dropped a fact on you so casually as you try to pretend that it doesn’t affect you at all; this time, it seems to have been revealed that Yeonjun is quite the exhibitionist. 

“Don’t act like you were quick to leave, either,” Yeonjun says, words beginning to slur slightly as he points an accusing finger at the younger man. 

“I won’t deny that,” Taehyun is the definition of evil as he grins, biting his lip slightly as he glances at you, “I won’t deny that she was cute— and who am I to refuse a free show?”

Okay, this is all taking a strange turn; you knew the two men before you knew each other way longer than they knew you, and had a very close relationship in turn, but this seemed a little too much for you— you really hadn’t been expecting Taehyun to confess that he was into watching when you pressured him into telling Yeonjun’s secret. 

It’s not like you’ve never talked about your little sexcapades, as Yeonjun likes to call them, but you never truly feel ready for them as you usually find them on the more intense side, your experiences put to shame as it all usually ranges on the more vanilla side. 

Maybe that’s why you find yourself feeling a bit hot— that, and the copious amount you’ve drunk tonight, you tell yourself, gulping nervously as you try to ignore that the way they’ve begun to go into detail isn’t affecting you. At all. 

“Dude, do you have any idea how many times she would ask to invite you?” Yeonjun groaned, throwing his head back against the couch at the very thought, “I seriously thought she was into you instead of me.” 

“I wouldn’t mind sharing,” Taehyun says, the cheeky comment immediately getting a shut the fuck up, in return from Yeonjun. It’s a bit embarrassing when you jump as Taehyun’s eyes land on you again, trying to pretend it didn’t happen as Taehyun only chuckles at your state, “What’s wrong, why are you so quiet? Did we freak you out?”

“No, just…” you clear your throat attempting to not let your flustered state show as you shrug casually, “Just didn’t think you guys would be into that.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t be?” If you didn’t know better, you’d think Yeonjun was genuinely curious as he leans forward, laying on the opposite end of the couch as he tilts his head like a puppy. He’s well beyond tipsy, his pouty lips stained and his eyes lidded as his bangs fall into his eyes; a reminder of how good he looks with long hair hits you suddenly, your stomach churning as you desperately try to keep these thoughts under lock and key. 

“I— I don’t know,” you say, biting your lip at the stutter you accidentally let slip through, “what kind of question is that?” 

“Well, we’ve told you a bit about us,” Taehyun says, his foot tapping rhythmically at the table leg as his gaze doesn’t break away from yours, “just think it’d be fair to hear a bit about you, no?”

This was dangerous territory. This type of conversation was usually only breached when you knew you wouldn’t be able to remember it the next day, but men before you are way too experienced to let a few glasses of wine get to them— they were definitely teasing you. 

Was this a normal thing to talk about between friends? Usually, you wouldn’t think much of it; you can think of plenty of times when you’ve all expressed your own stories, unadulterated and light-hearted as you all shared a laugh about it. But this, it definitely felt different; you’re not sure why, but maybe it’s because of the way you can’t help pressing your legs together, your mind beginning to stray as you take in the intensity of their eyes— dark, dangerous, still waiting for an answer as you clear your throat shyly. 

“I dunno, I’m pretty open to trying new things,” you say, trying to change the subject as you stare down at your empty glass, “Tae, could you pass me the bottle?”

Taehyun is quick to heed your request, scooting closer to you to pass you the bottle; you think you might just be going insane when he takes this chance to grab onto your hand, tugging at it slightly so you’re leaning towards him. The way you gulp nervously isn’t lost on Taehyun as he smiles tenderly, his chest pressing against your bare thigh as you try to ignore the way he’s practically laying on you.

“Are you drunk already?” Taehyun asks, ever a tease as he leans in closer to take a closer look at your face, “You’re usually a lot more talkative than this.”

“No,” you say, oddly defensive as you pull away from him; curling up in the corner of the couch, you huff, pouring yourself another glass as you ignore the way the two men grin at your shy state, “what do you expect me to say?” 

“You usually contribute a lot more to our conversations,” Yeonjun muses, scooting closer to you as he watches you avoid his eyes, opting to take another sip from your glass instead, “plus, weren’t you the one that was so eager to hear about my past?”

“When I asked, I was expecting crime stories or something,” you say, your tongue loosened as you look at your friend directly in his eyes, “not stories about you two sharing a girl.” 

There’s something in Yeonjun’s gaze that darkens as he hears you say that. You can practically feel the stares of your two friends burning into your skin as you clear your throat awkwardly, trying to not shift as Yeonjun only scoots closer to you; he’s sitting at your feet now, his arm thrown over the couch as he makes himself comfortable, a cocky smile slowly growing on his face as he speaks.

“Oh, we never shared her,” Yeonjun drawls, tilting his head at the very thought. Below you, Taehyun shakes his head, resting his chin on your thigh as he stares up at you with sparkling doe eyes, clearly tipsy by the way his cheekbones are flushed pink, “she wasn’t special enough for that.”

“You practically did,” you say, shivering at the way Yeonjun runs a hand up your thigh, stopping as he begins to play with the hem of your sweater— the same sweater that Yeonjun and Taehyun are matching with you now, a stupid gift you got them for Christmas and never really expected them to wear. 

Yeonjun can only huff out a laugh at your little comment. You look so cute as you’re cradling your glass, unsure of what else to do as you take another drink out of nervous habit, eventually downing the rest of it. Despite your tense demeanor, your eyes give you away, a dim curiosity showing through as you allow the two men to get closer still. 

“What, you don’t like the idea?” Yeonjun whispers, feeling the way you’re shifting underneath his touch as he gets closer to you, “Would it be too much for someone like you?” 

Someone like you. Someone who wasn’t as experienced or active as them, who preferred to stay with what you knew instead of trying something dangerous and experimenting. 

“No,” you bluffed, refusing to back down as you listened to the two men before you chuckle at your words, “I could handle it.”

“Could you really?” Yeonjun asks, pulling away as you feel your body yearning for his warm presence again, “I don’t believe you.” 

There are so many ways things could go now— a single choice could change the way you see your roommates forever, your heart pounding against your chest as you let out a shaky sigh. 

“What am I supposed to do?” You sigh out shakily, watching the way the remaining droplets in your glass swish around, averting your eyes to avoid their reactions, “prove it to you?” 

“Show us.” 

Your head practically snaps up at Yeonjun’s words. Your mouth has gone dry and you feel as though your tongue has gone numb, unable to articulate any words as you simply give your friend a dumbfounded stare. 

A pause ensues; they wait patiently, giving you a moment to back out and leave if you want to. But even then, they can’t ignore the way your thighs press together impatiently, your throat bobbing as you finally part your lips to speak. 

“Show you?”

The way the men chuckle at your state is downright degrading— and it makes you stifle a whine that threatens to creep up your throat, feeling insanely aroused the longer they take to say or do anything. It’s like they’re trapping you in, feeling small under their gaze as Yeonjun glances down at the pathetic excuse of shorts that cover your legs. 

“Show us you can take it, baby.” Slowly, you nod, allowing Taehyun to take your empty glass from you as your fingers slowly slip under the waistband of your shorts, proceeding to pull them off you. You feel so exposed as you watch the way their eyes follow your every move, gulping for the nth time tonight as you keep your panties on; the way they eye the cute lace has you clenching your legs nervously, unsure of what to do before Yeonjun is reaching out to pry your legs open gently.

“Come on cutie, don’t be shy,” Yeonjun smiles, an action ever so sweet and tempting as he spots the way you’ve made a wet spot on your panties. Taehyun is encouraging as he slowly takes your hand, allowing him to lead you down and place it right over your core before he’s placing his hand over your own, practically engulfing it as he forces you to apply pressure to your pussy.

“Can you show us how you touch yourself, pretty?” 

Their cute nicknames for you are enough to have you melting under their every command, feeling the way your legs open on their own, eager to follow their orders as your hand practically disappears under Taehyun’s. You still can’t help but feel shy under their watchful gaze as you slide your hand under your waistband, your eyes meeting with Yeonjun’s as the pad of your fingertips meets your clit; you jump at the sudden feeling, your mouth falling open as you slowly begin to circle the bud. 

You feel so powerful as you watch the two men become infatuated with you, unable to take their eyes off you for a second as you allow your middle and ring finger to run over your slit— the wet noises that come from it have Yeonjun biting his lip tensely, shifting in his seat as his eyes dart down to where your hand has disappeared. 

Your chest juts out at a particularly harsh touch on your clit— the material of your sweater is thin and pastel, and it allows both your friends to watch the way your nipples poke through, unable to help the way their eyes widen at the fact that you haven’t been wearing a bra all night. 

Yeonjun thinks he might go insane; the sight of you is so sweet and fragile as he watches the way you slowly fuck yourself, a broken whimper escaping you as your fingertips begin to tease your entrance. Beneath you, Taehyun is doing no better, able to get a closer look at your pussy as he watches the material dampen, wanting nothing more than to rip the material off and get a proper view of you toying with your pretty cunt.

After a moment, you decide it’s not enough. Your eyes can’t help but stray as you take in how big the hands of the two men before you are in comparison to yours, feeling your pussy clench uncontrollably at the thought of having either of them touch you instead. The moan you let out is weak and pathetic as you reach your free hand to Yeonjun, tugging at his sleeve until he’s scooting closer to you, eyes hazed and lips parted as he takes in your broken face.

“More,” you whine out, tugging at his sleeve as you bring him closer, until you can feel his breath fan against your face and graze your lips against his, “need more. Please.”

You can taste the wine on Yeonjun’s lips as you finally gather the strength to close the gap between the two of you. The taste only becomes more prominent as he pushes his tongue past your lips, allowing you to tangle your free hand into his hair as you begin bucking your hips uselessly into your hands— you can only whine weakly at the way Yeonjun leaves you messy and breathless, pulling away as his swollen and shiny lips come into view. 

“Fuck, come here,” he breathes out, grabbing onto your hand and tugging you roughly as you allow him to situate you however he likes— it ends with you seated comfortably on his lap, your ass pressing against his clear erection as he drapes your legs over his thighs; you’re practically spread open as Taehyun situates himself between the two of you, on his knees and staring up with you with such a dark and dangerous gaze that has your cunt clenching around nothing. 

“God, look at you,” Yeonjun breathes out into your ear, resting his chin on your shoulder as his hands rub teasingly on your thighs. You jump at the sensitive feeling, trying to close your legs on instinct, only for it to fail as Yeonjun’s strong thighs keep you spread open. Taehyun is only able to laugh at your pathetic state, leaning in closer to your pussy as his eyes never leave yours— he’s so close, almost able to touch you as you rock your hips toward him subtly. 

“Dripping all over me when we’ve barely even started,” Yeonjun’s words are lazy and slurred together as he leaves kisses on the column of your neck, sloppy and wet as he goes to leave marks all over you. 

Wordlessly, Taehyun reaches forward to plant a soft kiss on your panty-covered cunt. The feeling is enough to have you throwing your head back against Yeonjun’s shoulder, your panties practically stuck to you with how needy you are. With every rock of your hips, Yeonjun groans into your ear, feeling your ass press perfectly against his cock, unable to help the way he thrusts up into you, enjoying the way you yelp cutely at the feeling, jolting in his lap from the sheer action. 

Your eyes are fluttering shut the moment Taehyun’s mouth connects with your cunt. He’s making a mess of the pretty lace panties you have on, practically making out with your pussy as he presses his warm tongue on your slit, pushing against the fabric and dragging it up before he’s stopping at your clit. You’re a whining and moaning mess by now, unable to control the way your face contorts with pleasure as Taehyun sucks your clit, hearing the way your moans pick up as he runs his tongue over the fabric teasingly. 

Your panties are an absolute mess by the time he’s pulling away, and Taehyun can’t hide the way the sight is clearly affecting him— your pussy is practically outlined against the fabric, the garment skewed as the pretty bow by your navel practically begs him to unwrap you like a present. 

He does so gladly; both men are groaning weakly as they watch the way as a string of your arousal remains connected to your panties, a weak whimper escaping you as you feel Yeonjun lift your hips with no effort— you’re practically staining his sweatpants the moment he’s sitting you back down, and it certainly doesn’t help that you can still feel his hip rutting into the swell of your ass occasionally, wrapping a secure arm around your waist before he’s pulling you flush against his chest. 

“So soft,” Yeonjun mutters, his hand that was wrapped around your waist sneaking under the hem of your sweater and moving up to grope your beasts; you can’t help the way you mewl as you feel his cold hands on your nipples, sensitive to the way he plays with them, as though he knows your body like the back of his hand.

His other hand is reaching down to your pussy, his deep chuckle hitting your ears as you jump when his fingers come in contact with your cunt; before you realize what he’s doing, you feel him spreading you open with his two fingers, a glob of arousal escaping you as you feel his other hand reach down and tug your sweater over your chest— you’re left displayed perfectly to Taehyun, spread out prettily for him as he’s left to enjoy the sight.

“Isn’t she pretty?” Yeonjun hums out softly, rubbing his fingers up and down your slit as the wet sounds ring around the room. Taehyun can only groan at the sight, ever so weak for your pussy as he finally leans in to get a taste. 

Yeonjun’s other hand has left your breasts. Instead, it traveled up to get a hold of your chin, forcing you to look down and gaze at the way Taehyun’s head was stuck between your thighs; Yeonjun keeping you spread open for him, feeling the way Taehyun’s tongue lapped at you teasingly. 

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” Yeonjun whispers in your ear, like a dirty secret no one else should know as he begins humping against you at a steady pace, “Love being our cute little attention whore?” 

The way you agree to his words without hesitation should be embarrassing— but it’s not, especially with the way Taehyun is leaving you speechless, his tongue teasing at your entrance before he’s finally fucking it into you. 

He’s so sloppy and eager as he allows your arousal to coat his face, moving it side to side and listening to the way you moan whenever his nose bumps against your clit. Yeonjun holds you open all the while, and the way Taehyun pulls away to slurp lewdly at your arousal leaves you warm and flustered as you tuck your head into Yeonjun’s neck. 

It doesn’t take you long before the said man is pulling you back away, keeping his hold on your face firm as he watches the way your face changes intently, his hand moving away from your pussy to rub your thigh soothingly. 

“Look at you, such a pretty thing, letting yourself get used by us,” Yeonjun mutters, his voice dark as he places soft kisses all over your face; it’s a stark contrast to the way Taehyun only becomes more eager to hear you cum, his swollen lips sucking eagerly at your clit as you feel his tongue run ruthlessly over it all the while. 

“You have no idea how much I’ve thought of you. How hard it was to ignore these feelings, to pretend like I wouldn’t love to fuck you senseless,” Yeonjun’s confessions have a fire of desire licking all throughout your body, hearing the way he stumbles over his words, unable to take his eyes away from the scene before him, “I felt so guilty when I saw you, so cute and perfect, innocent to the fact that we’ve wanted you for so long.”

You’re a mess under their hands as the sudden confessions take you by surprise, whimpering out weakly that you’ve felt the same— Taehyun’s eyes flick up to meet yours for a second, tilting his head before he’s practically making out with your pussy slowly, the feeling of his tongue all over you making you reach down and tug his hair thoughtlessly; the moan he lets out from the feeling is enough to bring you close to your climax, unable to control yourself as you begin to roll your hips against his face. 

“Yeah? Do you think about us a lot?” Yeonjun whines teasingly in your ear, mimicking you and smiling as you moan out a weak y-yes! 

“Do you touch yourself to the thought of us?” Yeonjun’s questions are dangerous to your fuzzy mind as you nod frantically, weak to his voice as you find yourself confessing things you never thought you ever would. 

“God, I do too,” Yeonjun groans, his cock pressing against you as he reaches down to keep your hips still, bringing you back against him as you remain victim to the way Taehyun licks your pussy mercilessly. You think your mind has gone blank the moment his fingers sneak in to prod at your entrance, the way he messily kisses and sucks at your clit your downfall as you let out one last moan— you’re stilling against his face as he lets you ride out your orgasm, weak whimpers and cries streaming from your lips as you weakly cry out that it’s too much. 

Taehyun only listens to your commands once he feels you pushing at his face weakly, your eyes fluttering open weakly and your chest heaving as you lock gazes with Taehyun— you feel beyond flustered at the way his lips and chin shine with your arousal, his tongue slowly darting out to lick it all off before he’s leaning in to place a gentle, feather-like kiss at your inner knee. 

“I’ve thought about having you like this for so long,” Yeonjun breathes out, his hand reaching down to play with your pussy teasingly; he ignores the way you keen softly at his touch, still sensitive from your previous orgasm as he begins to put on a show for Taehyun— the said man only sits back on his heels, hands on your knees as he watches your face with a dark expression. 

Yeonjun’s fingers are long and cool against your walls; the stretch is enough to make you moan out weakly, falling limp against Yeonjun as you let him set up a gentle pace. You shiver with every motion he does, flinching when he curls his fingers to press against your sweet spot cruelly, focusing on it as he immediately notices your reaction. 

His lips that were once soothing against your neck have now become harsh, leaving bites and marks that bloom on your skin prettily— the sight of you marked up and leaking desperately for him is enough to have him trying to not fuck you senselessly right that second— instead, you can feel him beginning to thrust against you, his cock fully hard as he nuzzles his head into your neck.

“Please,” you beg, breathy and useless as Taehyun stands up to tower over you; his cock is straining against his sweats as he places careful hands on your waist, his chest heaving as he leans in to kiss you— you’re pulling him in desperately, hopelessly lost in the feeling of his plush lips and sharp teeth that dig into your flesh as Yeonjun begins to pick up the pace. 

You’re a mess at this point, unable to keep up with Taehyun as your mouth is left open, moans swallowed up by Taehyun as you let him kiss you senselessly, feeling Yeonjun still nibbling at your neck as you try to ignore the fact that you’re practically drooling at the way he’s fingering you, his palm rubbing against your clit as he brings you closer to your second orgasm of the night.

Nothing is piecing itself together in your mind at this point— Taehyun is panting against your mouth, and you realized that it’s because you’ve managed to slip a hand through his sweats, guided by him as you finally got a hold of his cock. You don’t remember doing such a thing, but your mind is nothing but a haze as you take in the way he’s continuously dripping precum from his head, your hand sticky as you feel him straining against the fabric of his boxers. 

“Don’t stop, please don’t stop,” you manage to whine out, unsure of who you may be talking to as your mouth is swallowed up by Taehyun’s kiss again— your free hand reaches down to grip Yeonjun’s forearm, your hips stuttering against his movements as you feel your brain going fuzzy. You know it’s more than the alcohol at this point as you feel Taehyun pulling away from you, watching as you fall apart on Yeonjun’s fingers and cum for the second time tonight. 

Your hand has gone limp against Taehyun’s cock; it isn’t until you’re regaining your breath that you’re pulling your hand out from the confines of his sweats, staring at the sticky mess on your fingers before you lock eyes with Taehyun— he thinks he could come untouched as he watches the way your tongue begins to clean up the mess, circling the muscle around your delicate fingers until there’s nothing left. 

“Shit, you’re so fucking dirty,” Yeonjun sighs out, hips still rutting against you as his fingers have yet to leave your cunt; you might just start crying when you feel him beginning to stretch you out, scissoring you slowly as he grins at the wet sounds your pussy is making for him. 

“Need you to fuck me,” you find yourself whining, your back arching at the way Yeonjun continues to toy with you, the feeling agonizing as he begins to tease the tips of his fingers at your entrance, “want both of you.” 

“Both of us?” Taehyun laughs, finally speaking to you after being a bystander for so long, “Baby, I don’t think you could handle that.” 

“No, I can, I really can,” you cry out, tugging his sweater softly and pawing his chest as you begin to beg weakly, “wanna feel you both, I can take it.” 

Yeonjun and Taehyun are exchanging silent looks— they’re communicating, it seems, unsure of what to do as you continue to ramble on weakly, unable to get your eyes off of Taehyun’s cock that clearly strains against his sweats. It takes a second before they’re finally coming to a conclusion, your body erupting in shivers as they turn their attention back on you. 

“Can you really take it sweet thing?” Yeonjun is mumbling against your skin, placing gentle kisses along your shoulder as Taehyun goes to sit down beside you; you’re nodding, hazy and clumsy as you run your hands down Taehyun’s chest, sneaking under the hem before you’re tugging his shirt up and exposing his perfect muscles. 

It’s no secret Taehyun loved to work out— but seeing him here, tan skin and rippling muscles ready to be marked by your lips, made you so incredibly needy, enjoying the way he shivers as you run a curious hand over his abdomen and biceps. 

“Curious?” Taehyun asks, shifting so that he’s sitting back against the couch; he looks so attractive as he looks up at you, hair splayed out on the end armrest of the couch while his legs remain spread out like a tempting seat— you can’t help the way your face feels hot as he pulls you towards him, his strength easily allowing him to manhandle you into position as you’re straddling his lap, right above his cock as your sweater falls back over your chest messily. 

“So damn pretty,” Taehyun mutters, breathless as he stares up at your fucked out form; you could say the same thing about him, but you’d rather express it in your actions as you attempt to grind down against him, only for it to be stopped by his firm grip on your hips. 

“Don’t you wanna feel the real thing, pretty?” Taehyun grins, shifting around so he’s able to take off the rest of his clothes, left bare under you as watches you nod needily, feeling a whine escape you as you finally get to see his cock; for a second, you understand why Taehyun had been so doubtful of your ability, eyeing the sheer size and girth of him as you inevitably feel yourself clenching around nothing. His tip is leaking from the sight of you, red and throbbing as his mind begs nothing more than to be inside you and fuck you senseless. 

Instead, he waits for you to make a move, biting his lip as he watches the way your hand looks small as you wrap it around his shaft; he hisses as you slowly align him with your entrance, rubbing him against your slit as you whimper at the way your cum runs down his cock. 

“Jesus, you’re so…” Taehyun is unable to finish his thought as you’re sinking down on him, the hiss you two share at the feeling lethal as he feels the way your walls flutter around his cock uncontrollably. 

Tight. Warm. Wet. Taehyun’s mind is racing as he lets out a loud groan the moment you’re touching the base of his cock, eyes shutting as he tries to focus on not coming inside you immediately. You’re doing no better than him, whining uncontrollably as you grind on him softly, unable to help yourself as you take in the way he stretches you out so well. 

“Shit, I don’t think I’ll last if you keep squeezing me like this pretty girl,” Taehyun breathes out, a sweat forming on his forehead as his hair begins to stick to his skin. All you can do is whine in return, slowly picking up your hips before you’re slamming back down on him— you can’t help but be loud at the feeling, Taehyun sharing the same feelings as you as he lets out a choked moan; your pace is brutally slow as you begin adjusting to his size, the wet sounds of skin on skin and your pathetic sounds driving Taehyun mad as he does his best to thrust up into you in return.

“Cute little pussy is so loud,” Yeonjun says, emerging behind you as he wraps his arms around you, your legs tiring out as you’ve slowed down to nothing but a pathetic grind. His hands find their way under your sweater again before he’s pulling it off you, your pretty tits finally revealed to them as Yeonjun doesn’t waste a second to palm at them. 

“Want you,” you mutter, breathless as you lean back against Yeonjun’s chest, “want you right now.” 

“Oh baby, I don’t think you could handle that,” Yeonjun coos in your ear, pitying the way your eyes shine with needy tears as you shake your head in refusal, “you can barely handle Taehyun as it is.”

“N…no,  I can—!” Taehyun is teasing as he thrusts up into you, jolting your body as you cry out pitifully. You can’t seem to back down though, dead set on feeling both your roommates inside you at once as you reach behind to grab Yeonjun’s bulge, “please? Please please please, I can take it, I promise I can…” 

You know Yeonjun is only teasing you as he takes a moment to think, enjoying the way your clumsy hand attempts to palm him, much too distracted by the way Taehyun has begun to roll his hips up into you. Gently, he takes a hold of your face, turning you to look at him as he captures you in a slow kiss; you feel as though you’re being devoured when you can feel Yeonjun shifting behind you, finally pulling away before he’s smiling at you sweetly. 

You’re forced to face forward again as Yeonjun places firm hands on your shoulders, pushing you forward until you’re chest to chest with Taehyun; the new position has you whimpering softly, burying your face in Taehyun’s neck as you feel him rocking his hips up into you subtly. 

“Since you asked so nicely…” Yeonjun trails off, enjoying the way you flinch as he prods his tip at your already stuffed entrance, a long moan drawn out of you as he begins to push in.

The stretch is enough to have your eyes rolling to the back of your head, clawing at Taehyun’s shoulders as he grunts at the feeling— both of your scratches and Yeonjun situating himself beside Taehyun. You’re incredibly tight as Yeonjun pushes forward, going inch by inch as he watches you intently for any signs of discomfort. He’s almost bottomed out when you squeeze the two of them, your grip like a vice as the two men let out loud moans, filling your ears like music and causing you to clench again. 

The pleasure is enough to make you dizzy as you slowly push yourself up on your hands, hovering over Taehyun who simply looks at you with hungry eyes. You can feel yourself going in for another kiss, only to crash down against Taehyun’s chest as Yeonjun thrusts the rest of himself in, his hips meeting yours as you yelp against Taehyun’s collarbones. 

Your whines and whimpers don’t seem to cease for a second as the two men begin to grind into you, shakily trying to push yourself up again before you find your strength failing you; it’s Taehyun who pushes you up gently, cupping your face with such tenderness that you can’t help the way you grow teary-eyed, overwhelmed with pleasure yet still wanting more as you allow Taehyun to direct you into a sweet kiss. 

It doesn’t take long before you grow lax against him, feeling Yeonjun slowly pull out before he’s beginning to thrust shallowly into you. Taehyun remains still all the while, his breathy moans and quiet groans of pleasure barely reaching your ears as you rock against his body, your clit being stimulated as you cry at the pleasure. 

“Look at you, barely able to handle it,” Yeonjun moans breathily, sneaking a hand between your and Taehyun’s bodies as he’s pressing against your stomach, able to feel the bulge that’s formed as both he and Taehyun groan, “are we too big for you baby?”

In a daze, you nod. You feel so full. So, so so full and stretched out as Yeonjun’s other hand goes on your hip, guiding you back into him as praises and filth exit his mouth in a continuous stream. You can’t help the way your pussy flutters with every word, his moans only riling you up more as you wish you could feel him more against you; your wish comes true as he hovers over you, his chest against your back as he slowly grinds into you, placing feather-like kisses along your shoulder blades as he drinks up your sounds of pleasure. 

Beneath you, Taehyun slowly begins to pull out; your eyes squeeze shut at the feeling, your grip on him tightening for a second as he slowly thrusts back into you. The two men slowly begin to find their pace as you grow accustomed to them, your body relaxed and pliant as they fuck you dumb. 

“So perfect, so good,” Yeonjun pants behind you, shutting his eyes tight at the way it feels to be inside you, to be able to feel Taehyun’s cock rubbing against his as well, “god, such a good girl, looks like you really can take it.”

His praise is unrelenting as he watches the way your body rocks from the way they fuck you; there’s a white ring that’s beginning to form on his cock as his eyes fall down to your stretched hole, brows furrowing at the sight of you leaking uncontrollably, the liquid running all over Taehyun’s cock and onto the couch. The sight alone is enough to have him fucking into you rougher, taking both you and Taehyun by surprise as you weakly fall apart under him.

Taehyun isn’t able to kiss you anymore— there’s not a single thought in your mind as your mouth falls open, face screwing up in pleasure as you tuck your head into the crook of Taehyun’s neck, finding solace in the space as you absentmindedly begin to suck and bite marks onto his skin. The thought of seeing the aftermath of everything you did to him later has Taehyun thrusting up into you with more desperation, eager to hear you fall apart on them as you begin to babble about how good it all feels. 

“Yeah? Feels good? I know pretty, I know,” Taehyun coos, wrapping an arm around your waist and pressing you flat against him as he kisses your shoulder. You’re practically being pushed around as Taehyun begins to shift under you, their movements ceasing as he begins to adjust his position, your tiny whines about not wanting them to stop being shushed by Taehyun as he tugs on your hair softly. 

“Be quiet baby, before you regret it,” Taehyun whispers in your ear, his heels digging into the sofa as you ignore him and continue to complain; as a result, he begins to thrust into you harshly, able to jackhammer into you as Yeonjun begins to do the same— it’s hard to go as fast as he wants to when you’re stuffed full, but Taehyun knows it’s enough by the way you grab onto him desperately, your mouth falling open as unabashed moans begin to fall from you. 

“Shit, our pretty girl,” Yeonjun groans, feeling himself twitch inside you as you blindly reach back to him, searching for his hand as he finally takes it; his fingers interlock with yours, pulling you back into him and Taehyun as he laughs at your pitiful state, “All ours. Won’t be able to get fucked again unless it’s by us.”

“We ruined you for anyone else,” Taehyun continues, reaching for your face as he’s forcing you to look at him; you’re unstable, a hand planted on his chest and the other holding onto his shoulder as you’re rocked back and forth by them, your face a mess as drool escapes the corner of your lips— you’ve been fucked absolutely stupid as you clench at their words, feeling your high approaching again as you feel hot tears escaping your eyes. 

“Holy shit Yeonjun, wish you could see this right now,” Taehyun laughs, slowing his pace down as he turns your face to look at Yeonjun; the said man only grins at you, cooing mockingly as he chases a stray tear away— he can’t help but be endeared at the way they pool at your eyes, running quickly down your cheeks and clinging onto your chin before they’re falling on your tits and Taehyun’s chest; you’re a complete mess as you choke back on a sob, head hanging at the way they keep fucking you throughout it. 

“We fucked her stupid,” Taehyun breathes out, bouncing you on him as he thrusts up harshly, listening to the way your cries pick up as you approach your orgasm. 

“Completely ruined,” Yeonjun breathes out, never thinking that he’d be able to see you like this. Laughing, he picks up his pace again, able to feel the way his cock begs for release as you clench down mercilessly against the two of them— you’re so close and they can feel it, your cunt a vice as you practically push them out with every clench of your walls. 

“You won’t fuck anyone else but us,” Yeonjun growls out, his hands turning possessive as his fingers dig into your hips, “ruined for everyone else but us. Isn’t that right, pretty?”

Clumsily, you nod, the action barely visible from how much your body is already rocking from his thrusts. But Yeonjun is still able to see it, feeling the way Taehyun picks up his pace as well as he chokes back a loud groan. 

“Say it. Say you’re ruined for us, that you’re all ours now.” 

“I— I’m—“ you’re barely able to get out a coherent word with how well you’re being fucked, your voice quivering pathetically as Taehyun cranes his neck to be able to suck on your pretty skin, biting onto your neck harshly and leaving bruises he’ll definitely be admiring later.

“Come on, we know you can do it pretty,” Taehyun encourages, his brows furrowed as he can feel his cock begin to twitch inside you, the feeling of Yeonjun’s tip brushing against his own making him sensitive as it becomes harder to keep his pace. 

“I’m yours!” You cry out, babbling uselessly as you feel like you’ll snap at any moment, “I’m yours, only yours— don’t want anyone else’s cock, you both fuck me so good, I’m only yours— all ruined—“ 

Your rambles are enough to set Yeonjun off, feeling him thrust into you harshly before he’s bottoming out, his chest pressed flush against your back as he rests his forehead between your shoulder blades; his moans are breathy and ticklish against your skin as you feel him filling you with his cum, an endless stream as his cock continues to spurt inside you ruthlessly. 

The action is enough to set you and Taehyun off like a chain reaction, feeling the band in your stomach snap before you’re practically seeing white, falling limp on top of Taehyun who quickly comes after you— he’s moaning loudly against the crown of your head as he bottoms out as well, still feeling Yeonjun coming inside you as he becomes next; you’re practically stuffed as their cum begins to leak out of you, your hole fluttering pathetically around them as they groan weakly at the action. 

“Shit…” you’re unsure of who it is that breathes that out, on the verge of blacking out as you try to regain your breath. You still feel as though none of it has settled in your mind yet, the tipsy feeling of the alcohol in your bloodstream rendering you entirely useless after being fucked into oblivion. 

You trust Yeonjun and Taehyun to be the ones to come back to their senses and clean up, but you’re unsure if that should be the case as you’re beginning to feel Taehyun’s breath even out under you— a weak smack on his chest is enough to startle him awake, barely conscious yourself as you try to pretend that Taehyun’s strong arms that wrap around your middle and Yeonjun’s kisses that span along your back isn’t enough to lull you to sleep. 

It definitely is. You have yet to feel either of them pull out of you yet, but all you can do is hope and pray that you won’t be having another spilled drink incident when you wake up again. 

As you said, nothing good came from nights like these. 

(At least, tomorrow will be the judge of that.)

[coralinnii]

Hello to you! I was wondering if you were taking requests. I just had a prompt I thought you might like! Any characters you'd like, with an s/o who can and will get violent easily if someone disrespects the love of their life? Like someone calls cater fake and suddenly a chairs getting thrown at their head. I'm sorry for asking, I just thought this was funny :)

❋ Feral!MC who defends their man ❋ feat: Epel ⭑ Ace ⭑ Cater ⭑ Malleus genre: fluff, humour note: gn!reader, no pronouns used with reader, established relationships, reader is implied to be magicless, depictions of physical fighting and violence (punching, kicking, etc),

So, I usually just randomly pick a set of 4 characters but this worked out so well it was hilarious.

All his life, Epel feels underestimated due to his fragile-looking appearance and stature. He spent his early adolescence running amok to prove himself a man but since meeting Vil, he’s learning to hold himself back. 

But that doesn’t mean his situation has changed. There will always be one or two schoolmates that continue to demean him for his looks. 

“You Pomefiore wimps are all the same. What, too afraid to get your makeup ruined?” 

Oh, there is nothing Epel wants more than to give these jerks a piece of his mind, but nothing these guys can say would compare to what Vil would do if he starts a fight here so he chose to turn his cheek on their superficial comments. 

Sadly, the offenders did not appreciate that as they started to grow red over being ignored and started raising their magic pens when… 

“Ooff!” One of the grunts fell to his knees clutching his lower half, revealing you standing behind him with a look that could scare the campus ghosts.  

“The hell is manly about picking on someone minding his own business?!” You seethed in fury as you glared at the wounded student and his friend helping him. “Epel has more manly qualities in his pinky than you do in your whole body, including that sad manhood” You sneered at the term, barely believing one could call any part of them “man”. 

You stepped closer to the two male students, one of them covering his already injured equipment. With an air of barely contained wrath, you stomped your foot extremely close in front of the fallen student, right between his legs “Leave before I make sure that you two will be walking weird for the whole school year” Your eyes glinted with not a threat, but a promise. 

With the two bullies running off, you looked to Epel. Gone was the fury in your eyes but rather concern. 

He really shouldn’t be, but darn it if he wasn’t proud of you. He wanted to praise you so much for how amazing you were. He knows now that violence is not the best option but it sure makes you look cool.

If he were his younger self, he’d have been embarrassed that someone fought his battles for him but he knew you do it out of love and never because you didn’t think he couldn’t defend himself. He’s learning new forms of power, and your willingness to fight for him was another side to strength he didn’t have growing up. 

Epel swore to continue growing up, to appreciate the strengths he found such as you, and to someday be strong enough to protect you forever.

“We can’t let Vil hear about this, but that was super cool! Ya sure spook ‘em good!” 

Ace is a cheeky bast*rd. Sure, he knows when he should shut up but when push comes to shove, he’s not afraid to say how he really feels and doesn’t care how he can come across to others. Due to that attitude, he has made a few enemies that don't appreciate his words and like him, aren't afraid to tell him that. 

“Who are you to say that about us? Acting like you’re better than us, get off that high horse of yours!” 

Ace rolled his eyes over the student’s weak insult but did nothing. Something like this isn’t worth getting hurt over. The redhead was about to put on his fakest smile and ready to satiate the poor kid’s ego but suddenly a blurry figure breezed past him and straight at the student who started this commotion. 

And the sound of something solid hitting flesh rang through the hallways

Loud gasps and curious whispers filled in as students saw that you landed a straight punch on the other student, who’s sitting stunned on the floor.

“If you didn’t do stupid sh*t, then maybe Ace doesn't have to call you out on it!” 

Boy is smug af over you getting all feral and defending him like that. Watching someone he likes fight for him and getting angry on his behalf tickles his heart. How many guys can say his lover would beat someone up for him? Ace felt shivers down his spine seeing you all fiery and angry for his sake, yelling at the dumbfounded student how Ace doesn’t have to be nice to anyone who doesn’t deserve it. 

“And at least Ace has a brain to think before doing something stupid unlike you morons! Talk sh*t, get hit!” Seeing you angrily compliment him is strangely attractive to the Heartslabyul freshman that he rather push to the back of his mind to ponder at a later date. 

As your voice got louder as your fury burned, which Ace feared might catch the attention of a teacher or worse, his housewarden. 

Always quick on his feet both metaphorically and physically, Ace used the chaotic situation to run in between the crowd and escape his enemies before a teacher ended up showing up just as he predicted. When the coast is clear, Ace will definitely tease you on your little feral child moment.

Great job, you really stroked this kid's ego 

“You sure got scary all for lil ol’ me~ You love me that much, huh?”

Cater knows how some people see him, what they say about him but he doesn’t care since in the end he doesn’t affect him that much. Words from a couple of rando people means little to him. 

It was an uneventful day, when he heard a couple of classmates whisper behind his back, words like “fake” and “clout-chaser” made purposely clear for anyone, including him, to hear. 

“Talk about vibe killers” The laid-back senior thought, a sting of annoyance managing to build in his heart. It doesn’t crush him but still, having someone insult you never feels good. 

He was planning to take the high road, pretend not to hear them and walk away when he heard a commotion from that direction. When Cater turned around, he nearly dropped his phone when he saw you…with your hands in a vice grip on one of the jeering student’s hair. 

“Say that again, I dare you!” You screamed as you looked ready to turn the poor boy bald. “Show off that loser behavior so everyone can see!” 

The student in your grasp was helpless and not even his friend could help him because any attempt made to you only made you tighten your grip on his locks. 

“You don't know anything about Cater, how can you call him fake?! He’s considerate and always makes sure not to make anyone uncomfortable, unlike you motherfu-“

You couldn’t finish your sentence as smoke started filling the space, which sent everyone in the vicinity in a state of chaos thinking a fire had started. Surprised, you released the fool in your grasp and in that moment you felt someone pull you away from the smoky mess. In your angry confusion, you nearly restarted your assault when you recognized the familiar light ginger locks and charming green eyes through the fading smoke. It was Cater that pulled you away from the crowd before a teacher finally showed up and cleared the smoke spell he casted.

You nearly gave Cater a heart attack. The last thing he wants is for you to get in trouble or worse, have a target on your back due to your fiery temper. Secretly, he felt a sense of guilty pleasure knowing how fired up you get for someone like him, plus that wild side of you is scarily appealing to him. 

Even if he prefers to hide things with a smile, he worries for your safety more than anything. He has a plethora of ways to get himself out of a bad situation so he hopes you could trust him a bit more.

He might not be able to stop you from getting into fights for his sake, but at least let him protect you when you do

“Hoo boy, that was a close one! You gotta trust me a little more, you know?~”

When Malleus saw you walking back to your dorm one late night, thunderous clouds quickly formed as he noticed bruising on your face and hands, obviously from a scuffle. 

“Who is responsible for this?” Malleus spoke calmly but the dangerous strikes of lightning raining down in the far distance spoke volumes of his true emotions. 

You shrugged your shoulders, trying to downplay your injuries as you explained that you got into a fight with a couple of students earlier that day. Malleus was curious but you looked tired and decided to let you rest for that night

Malleus heard later from Lilia that you suddenly tackled a bunch of students when you overheard them speaking ill of the dragon fae, saying how he only earned his housewarden title purely because of his powers and not due to skills or competence. 

Ok, let’s make it clear. Anybody who dares to insult Malleus definitely has a death wish, with the exception of Leona. Being one of the most powerful mages of his time and having a loyal group of guards that isn’t afraid to take someone down, anyone with survival instincts would think twice before talking sh*t about the heir of Briar Village. 

But this is true everywhere, there is always that tiny group of people that dare to speak nonsense, acting as though their actions won’t have consequences. 

Hah, they thought. 

The students who witnessed the fight recalled the sheer rage exuding from you as you continued to pummel on the target of your wrath. You were finally pulled away by a teacher and was sent to Crowley's office, which explained your late return. 

“They don’t know anything! They don’t see how hard you’re trying to understand humans for the future of fae-human relations. The lessons and training you do to someday lead your kingdom, they know none of it. None at all!” 

Malleus has Silver and especially Sebek who would yell at anyone that would even dare to breathe weirdly in Malleus’ presence, so naturally hearing that a fight broke out because someone supposedly disrespected him is a common story for him. But this was the first time he heard it was you who started the fight in his honor. 

He brushed against your cheek, where your bruise was before he quickly healed it. He wondered if humans were all reckless when in love like you were. He should reprimand you, tell you that such violence is unnecessary as petty hate is nothing to him.

Although, supposed if he were in your position, he wasn’t sure if he wouldn’t do the same, perhaps even worse. Afterall, you were his precious treasure. 

This man won’t care who started the fight, he’s smiting anyone for trying to harm you in any way (A red flag but a confusing one) 

“I would prefer you avoid such conflicts in the future, my dear. Not for your sake, but for theirs if I learn of the fools who dare lay a hand on you”

[temis-de-leon]

When Greed is too much

Characters: Mammon x gn!MC

Main Masterlist

M. Anon: good day, tennis. im an anon who lurks around your work. i find your work fascinating and I hope you may make a small oneshot for me. can you make a mammon x reader fanfiction? the pronounce doesn't matter. and the fanfiction could be about mammon and reader sneaking out frequently because mammon likes to gamble and they get caught one day and mammon took all of the blame for himself. i think it would be a good idea for a oneshot. but putting that aside, I adore your work. i like how you describe everything and your headcanons are interesting. i hope you can keep uploading. sending platonic loves.

A/N: I got a little distracted and made Mammon feel guilty af instead of taking the blame, I'm sorry, I hope you like it anyways <3 A little reference right at the end

.

Mammon had a complicated relationship with money.

He loved it too much to hate it and he needed it enough to forgive the danger it brought within. He would inlay it under his skin if he could, if Lucifer let him, making him shine under the lights like a kaleidoscope.

Cold metal between his fangs to check its authenticity, smooth paper sliding through his fingers, hard plastic shaping his wallet. Jewellery, clothes, his car. He had them because he needed it in any way, shape or form, like water to fish, riches to him. A bottomless pit that got bigger and bigger the more he threw in.

His fingers were longer and thinner than his brothers’ and more than once he had wondered if his sin had modified his body to easily indulge in it. He was also the fastest runner when he needed to and he could turn his words to honey if the situation required it. An opportunist thief, even if he disliked the term.

And he knew stealing wasn’t okay, but no amount of Lucifer’s punishments would stop him from doing so. He could manage hanging upside down for hours on end and, even when the lectures were painfully boring and made him want to die, sitting in the same position for as long as his brother decided was something he could live through. Lotan, or rather the flood it implied, was a bothersome threat and, although terrifying, the witches wouldn’t seriously hurt him unless Lucifer knew he could take it.

Still, constantly going through that was annoying, so he went to the next best thing, a place where condemned souls like him got together and did what pleasured him the most: bring money to the table. The wheel of fortune laid deep in his chest; sometimes he deceived himself, others, he was right.

Fortunately for his ego, his dignity and his integrity, Mammon had found his perfect lucky charm. Human shape and devoted to him, every time MC joined him in his escapades, his wallet came back home fatter than when they left. It was refreshing and addicting and it didn’t take him too long to actually need MC’s presence each time he left the house to gamble.

At first it was just once or twice every week and a half, then at least once a week, then three times a week, then every night. He would invite them to his room, taking advantage of the alibi their relationship offered, hang out and fool around until every single one of his brothers was asleep and then sneak out through the garage door.

It was a fun, bonding time between them. Holding hands while running from one corner of the town to another, pockets heavier and heavier as the night went by and clothes reeking of the cigars, alcohol and perfume of those who pushed them around amidst the chaos of the casino.

Mammon lived for all of that, especially now that MC was by his side, watching him thrive and win, over and over and over again. In their eyes, he succeeded and he was the one to carry the golden medal. Not his brothers, not their friends, him.

Eventually, he did what he did best and pushed his luck.

After an outstanding winning streak, they finally got to the night when everything went astray, losing every bet and every game, eventually finding themselves deep in debt with the casino and a bunch of furious patrons and, although begrudgingly, admitting that a period of restraint was long overdue.

And then they got home.

“When will you learn?” Lucifer said for the hundredth time while tightening the rope around his torso and trapping his hands behind his back.

“C’mon! It wasn’t that bad!”

He tried to smile to downplay the situation, but it came out wobbly and his fear was too obvious for his brother to ignore. Lucifer grinned with malice, eyes darkening in evil enjoyment before bending down to tie Mammon’s ankles together, slow in his movements and his words.

“Do you truly think this would’ve ended well? We both know you’re an idiot, but the limits you’re willing to cross outstand me. Bringing MC into this? Really? You moronic dimwit… I thought you would be the last to put them in danger. Alas, I was wrong”

“I’ve never put them in danger”

His immediate response brought Lucifer back to his feet, both of them now serious and locking eyes with each other. Mammon felt the rough edges of the rope scraping his skin, uncomfortably keeping him in place under his brother’s infuriated gaze.

“Taking them out of the house for hours every night, making them play games against lowlife demons and risking their safety for a few coins, what is that to you if not jeopardizing their life?”

“A few coins? We made ourselves rich!”

“Is that what bothers you about what I just said?”

“I’m telling you they were safe with me!”

Lucifer sighed, shaking his head in disappointment and going around Mammon. A noise coming from behind filled him with dread and he didn’t have time to beg for more time before something pulled his feet to the side and his body hit the carpeted floor. It barely softened the fall and soon his pained groans reached every corner of the staircase.

“You truly never learn”

“I’ll do it! I’ll learn! Please don’t leave me here! You can’t abandon your baby brother here, can’t you? It was an honest mistake!”

“Mammon”

After securing the rope around one of the beams from the ceiling, the eldest took a few steps down and looked at him from above. His voice was low, hopeless, and Mammon found that more hurtful than the strong grip around his limbs or the pounding on his head.

“You’re lucky MC’s heart shines brighter than mine” Lucifer said, leaving him speechless “One of these days you will go too far and I’m not sure who will be there to catch you”

“What…?”

“Rest well, Mammon” he continued to go down the stairs, not bothering to look at him anymore. He spoke one last time before disappearing completely. “And think about what I said, will you?”

Lucifer’s footsteps merged into the night, the lights turned off and, suddenly, Mammon found himself alone.

He was still wearing the clothes he’d chosen to go to the casino hours ago, jewellery dangling over his face and DDD threatening to fall out of his pocket. The screen lightened up, showing MC’s name, and the desperation to answer the call made him squirm enough to ultimately make the phone fall to the bottom of the stairs. He grimaced at the cracking sound.

Asmo would say it was karma for being a scumbag and he didn’t know if he should start believing that.

He wasn’t a scumbag, was he? MC was fine! Not a scratch in their pretty face to complain about and every bit of their outfit still in place and making them look even better. They had been smiling when they finally got to the garage door, shallowly breathing while they checked him out in search of any type of damage.

They were fine.

They had been smiling because they’d been having fun. Or was it out of relief? Heart beating in fear, terrified about him and the punishment that awaited them both once Lucifer found them.

Mammon craned his neck, looking at the remains of his DDD with a sting in his throat. Why did MC call him? Were they mad at him? Did they have enough? The thought of actually putting them in danger for a piece of metal, easily ripped paper or soon to be frozen plastic made his hear stop in panic.

He was a fast runner, an immortal demon with wings. It was easy for him to flee and leave his troubles behind, but MC didn’t have the same advantages. They were a human, flesh and soul in close proximity, easy to eat and forget.

A gasp escaped him at the image of his partner being tore apart and he shook his head trying to chase it away, but it was no use. He closed his eyes and it was there, like an omen or a reminder, Lucifer’s words roaring in his mind.

His name got louder and louder until It finally sounded right next to his ear. A hand cupped his neck and MC’s worried face appeared in his line of vision, but the remorse didn’t let him feel relief.

“Are you okay? Let me get you down. I got out as soon as I could, but I’m sure Lucifer knows I’m here anyways. What a way to end the night…”

He huffed at their whispers, his heart breaking piece by piece. Looking at MC and the way they carefully untied the knots, he knew Lucifer was right. The dumb human was too good for him and didn’t want to acknowledge it, choosing instead to stick by his side each day until it would be too late.

“I’m sorry” he finally said in a broken voice.

“For what, dummy?”

“I put you in danger”

MC chuckled, kissing his jaw before freeing his arms and watching the rope fall down. Mammon leaned forward until he touched his feet, noticing his body burning while he worked the knots that creased the leather in his boots.

“How did you put me in danger?” they asked with a hint of humour in their voice “As far as I know, I went with you willingly and we had a bad night. It was bound to happen after winning that much money”

“But they almost attacked us…”

“We got out of there just in time” MC interrupted him, then frowned and put their hands on their hips. “Did Lucifer said something to you?”

“No”

The lie was obvious and MC licked their teeth in poorly contained fury. Seconds later, Mammon finally set himself free and swung on the rope to reach the banister. Once he settled and stood straight, MC rushed to hug him. Both of them stayed silent and basking in the comfort that surrounded them.

He didn’t know what to say. He wanted to beg them not to reprimand Lucifer and he wanted to thank them for freeing him and staying with him beyond what he definitely deserved, but no words came out and forcing them would make him cry; and doing that in front of MC would definitely kill him faster than Lucifer could ever do.

In the end, none of them said anything, instead clinging to each other like their lives depended on it. Slowly, as if they were handling a wounded animal, MC grabbed his hands and lead him towards their room.

What did that human movie say?

He’d die for them. He’d kill for them. Either way, what bliss.

.

.

[oliver-quick-ens-my-pulse]

I Hate to Ask

Ominis Gaunt x f!reader

Summary - Anon request for “Would you please write either some HC or a scenario where female MC is just really horny so she sneaks up on Ominis and says she has something to ask him and then she basically begs him to rail her. And of course how Ominis would react to such a lewd ask ♥️”

Word Count - 1,856

Warnings - 18+ smut

You had Ominis on your mind for quite a while now. Not just for hours or minutes, but for days. You had always been much closer with him than Sebastian, but as you neared the end of your 7th year, your thoughts had gotten out of control. He had grown into a handsome man and had no idea how achingly beautiful he was. He had shot up to over six feet tall and filled out his slender frame with more muscle tone beneath his robes. He was always particular about the feel and fit of his clothes and unaware of how delicious they looked hugging his calves and thighs. His manhood.

It wasn't like he was walking around exposed, but as trained as you were on him you had imagined too many times what was beneath the straining fabric. You'd decided today was the day you would finally swallow your pride and beg him to relieve you of your suffering. You didn't even care whether it meant anything at this point, but you were desperately clenching your thighs together anytime you so much as passed him in the hallway.

You caught him coming out of transfiguration, so you hoped he would be in a good mood. You knew he didn't have this class with Sebastian so you watched as he shared some parting words with a few people before starting down the stairs by himself. You walked up to him, grazing your arm with his shoulder. He directed his wands towards you and a smile spread out on his face.

"Y/N, how are you? How was your free period?"

You swallowed hard, thinking about the answer to that question. Well, I spent the entire first half of it pining after you and driving myself mad because my own hands aren't good enough anymore.

You settled for laughing softly and pushing your hair back against your head, "It was fairly boring. I was hoping you could join me for the start of yours. I had something I wanted to ask you, but not here."

Though the halls around you weren't crowded, there were still plenty of students milling about having just left class themselves. Ominis turned towards you and gave you a strange look, wondering what you could possibly have to ask him. "Sure," he placed an arm around your back and guided you to the entrance of the undercroft. You both stepped in and the gates closed behind you. He utilized some quick spells to create a comfortable couch and escorted you over.

Your nerves were buzzing and your face was already heating up as realized what it was you were about to do. Ominis guided you to your seat before sitting close beside you, keeping you tucked beneath his arm. "What is it you needed? There isn't anything wrong is there?" His eyebrows furrowed together with worry as he looked down at you.

You swallowed hard, turmoil brewing in your head over whether to let your anxieties or impulses win. "I, erm, I've been feeling kind of strange lately, and I...I may need your help to figure it out."

You were annoyed with yourself for not coming outright with it, but his concern seemed to lessen as he responded to you, resting his wand between his legs.

"Alright. What do you mean by strange? How d'you think I can help you?" His earnest expression, ready to help his friend in need, almost made you come up with some other excuse so you didn't feel as if you were taking advantage of him. You inhaled a deep breath, drawing your knees up on the sofa, ready to spit the whole embarrassing truth out. "Ominis...I've always found you to be quite comely. And lately, I can't stop thinking about you. Lewd images keep running through my mind and I want to know if you'll help me extinguish them."

You fidgeted with your own hands, unable to face him. You felt him shift beside you, noticing the way he opened his legs and tugged slightly at his trousers. He used the same hand to find your chin and force you to look up at him.

A devilish smirk was on his lips, "I fear I can't extinguish them without knowing more about these thoughts."

You hadn't anticipated a reaction where he wanted to know more; where he steered the conversation so that he had total control. You stumbled over a few words, attempting to describe a scene before you adjusted yourself to be in his lap.

You gasped when you felt how hard he was beneath you, which made him laugh at you softly. He dragged both hands down to your hips to hold you in place.

"Just like this? Are you too worked up to use words?" His fingers tugged at your blouse, untucking it from your skirt to find your warm flesh beneath. "Y-yes," you stuttered, shivering from his touch and already arching into his palms. You felt helpless against him, you knew he must be able to feel the dampness from between your legs.

He was intoxicating as you looked up at him. A picture of confidence and lust as he was clearly toying with you. "Well, I'll agree to help you, but if you can't tell me what you want, you'll have to show me," he shrugged, "otherwise, I wouldn't know what to do, princess."

You couldn't figure out how he managed to remain so commanding even whilst essentially giving you control over the situation. He was getting off on the power he held over you.

You let out a whine as you rubbed yourself up against the stiffness in his pants, he let out a deep sigh in response. You tossed your robe off and quickly started to undo the buttons on your shirt to create a pile of clothes on the floor.

You reached to the edge of your camisole just below your ribs and pulled it over your head, leaving your top half entirely exposed. You groaned in frustration when he didn't make a move to touch you at all, his expression amused. You guided his hands up your sides and over the soft warmth of your breasts.

You yelped in surprise when he began kneading at them and pinching at your stiff nipples, "I can work with this if you continue being a good girl."

You bit your lip, surrendering yourself to his assault while you used your hands to unfasten his pants. He hoists you forward without warning, crushing his lips to yours. The kisses are hot and wet as he holds a fistful of your hair. He allows you to pull back to breathe and rests his forehead against yours. "I didn't think it was right for us to start this without getting that out of the way first."

As you took in the sheen of saliva on his lips you had to agree, but you were hungry for so much more. You brought your mouth back to his with more passion, hands now fumbling with his pants to pull out his member.

When you peeled his underwear back just right his thick cock sat up at attention just between your legs, causing you to rut helplessly against it. You pulled back from him, resting your hands behind your body as you rocked your hips against him, the thin fabric of your underwear no longer hiding much of anything.

"I want more of you Ominis. Can you — do you think you could help me get ready for you?"

He brought a hand down to your thigh, a little more harshly than he initially intended, squeezing tightly. "How should I do that? Will your thighs suffice?" You groaned in protest as he was so close to where you wanted him, but clearly teasing you. You grabbed his hand and slid it upwards so he could follow the trail of your juices from your thighs and up to your underwear. Ominis applied pressure where he could feel your sensitive bundle of nerves, making you squirm in his lap. It was his turn to gasp when you wrapped a hand around the base of his cock, giving him a gentle stroke while you tried to ground yourself. "Fuck," he murmured, "You want me here? Your cunt does seem very wet. You think if we fill it up it'll stop?"

You moaned out a pathic 'yes' before he pushed your underwear to the side. He forcefully added two fingers that went in with ease as he pumped them in and out of you, curling them to hit the perfect spot. His name continued to spill off of your lips.

"I can see how this has been a problem," he mused, "but, darling, I don't think you need any help getting ready. You're taking my fingers so well and I know my cock was made for you."

He removed his fingers from you and grabbed your hips, helping you lift yourself to line your entrance up with his dripping head. He kept a tight grip on you to allow you to sit down on him at your own pace. His moans mixed with yours and his fingers dug into your waist. He was breathing heavily alongside you by the time you took all of him, "Y/N, I hope you can forgive me."

Before you had time to question what he meant or adjust to his size he was hitting the deepest parts of you. He held you in position and pulled out as much as he could before slamming back into you with force. He kept rotating his hips until he felt your walls clench indicating he found your g-spot.

"More, Ominis, please, it's too slow," you rested your arms against his chest as he took control and found a steady rhythm to please the both of you.

"You're so tight and perfect, I — agh — I'll have to have you again and again Y/N. You have no idea what you've gotten us into."

You bucked your hips in response to meet his every thrust until your legs started to quiver and your thighs were clenched around his.

"Ominis, I'm, I'm cumming," you bit into his shoulder to contain your whimpers as you came hard around his cock. You felt like you were floating as he continued to fuck you until he released his own ropes of cum inside of you. He was panting and clawing at your back, finally at a loss for words. You collapsed against him, breasts pressed up against his chest as you felt him softening up inside of you. Your clit had been neglected this round, but it was still incredibly sensitive resting against his pelvis, making you flinch every now and again. Ominis traced shapes on your back and spoke up much softer than before, "I helped you with your problem, yes? And well...you helped me with mine, but I wasn't brave enough to ask you on my own."

It made you laugh that after all of that, he was getting sheepish on you now, "I think we can help each other regularly don't you?"

[v3x-y0urs3lf]

Our life N&F Soft moments with Step 3 Tamarack and Qiu

For anyone wondering before they read, There's:

one (1) Tamarack headcanons

one (1) Tamarack (short) scenario

one (1) Qiu headcanons

one (1) Qiu (short) scenario

one (1) headcanon with BOTH Qiu and Tamarack

one (1) SHORT scenario with BOTH Qiu and Tamarack.

This is me trying to makeup for the fact I haven't posted in a while and I STILL don't have my boundaries/request list uploaded and ready yet (I SWEAR I ACCEPT REQUESTS.)

This is before step 3 has been published so I'm just going off my own headcanons and theories on the characters.

Also, Qiu uses They/Them in this post BECAUSE both them (and reader) are painting nails.

You should be able to read this as either platonic or romantic, I didn’t mention ‘dates’ or any genuine romance - So knock yourselves out while reading this.

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Braiding hair!!

Whether you're a friend or a lover, I think she'd allow those close with her to braid her hair or at least use her hair as an example when braiding it. No matter how hard you accidentally pull it or if you stuff up and end up having to do it again, she just chuckles and reminds you that patience is key and that 'slow and steady win the race'.

With Miss Tamarack Baumann, time almost stops. Whether you're deep in thought and trying to keep total concentration whilst braiding her orange strands of hair or if there's light chatter amongst the two of you, Tamarack doesn't mind. It's just like how her Omi always says, "Sometimes everyone needs 5 minutes."

Maybe you have long-ish hair too? Great! Tamarack (With your permission) will braid your hair after you finish with hers! She doesn't mind French Braids, Box braids, Dutch, Micro, Cornrow, She may need a bit of assistance to learn, but better late than never!

No matter how short your hair is or what texture your hair is, her fingers work her magic and it genuinely feels like a fairytale when Tamarack is able to produce some of the best braids you’ve ever SEEN.

Miss Tamarack is just so, so sweet and gentle about it all. The moment feels so tender, with her hands gently running through your hair, complete silence for a moment before she speaks in that soft and comforting tone you've practically memorized by this point.

"Ah, Sorry." You wince as you accidentally tug a little to harshly on Tamaracks hair, gently rubbing her scalp as to (hopefully) relieve some of the pain you may have accidentally caused. The only response you get is a soft chuckle being elicited from the girl in front of you. "Good lord, MC, I'm fine. You didn't pull that hard..." Tamarack smiled, barely looking over her shoulder to look at you as you unraveled her strands of hair and started again. The two of you had been at this for a bit now, about 15 minutes or so. You both had made plans to go to the knew crepe shop opened in town and offered to help Tamarack get ready.

Tamarack tilted her head slightly and made eye contact with you from the mirror at her vanity. "I'm not fragile, y'know?" Whilst Tamarack was soft, nurturing, soft-spoken, She was anything BUT fragile.

Tamarack Baumann? The same Tamarack Baumann who used to run around and hide in piles of leaves in the woods? The SAME Tamarack Baumann who didn't mind when batter or such got on her clothes when she was baking? The same Tamarack Baumann who would just say 'they're just clothes.' when doing arts and crafts? THAT Tamarack Baumann?

"I know." You could only whisper in a quiet tone as her soft eyes met yours. She gently turned around, taking your hands into hers with a sweet smile. She no longer had her braces from when she was 14, no longer had her overwhelming insecurities or big anxieties about the world. Tamarack was content and this was enough for her to be able to live her days without too much stress.

“I’m not made of glass. I don’t need you to treat me like I’m my Omi’s fine China.” Tamarack snickered. She couldn’t help but tease you over this. Tamarack was no longer the small child or young teen with terrible insecurities. She had grown into a fine young woman and was ready to live her own life.

Whether her relationship with you was romantic or platonic, she knew she’d want you to be with her every step of the way. After all, You were her first friend in Golden Grove, She’d hate for you to not be there until the end.

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Painting nails!!

I've just had this idea in my head for so long - Painting nails with each other.

Even if you aren't trans or don't follow Qiu's whole thing with 'Pronouns correspond with nail polish', Either you can paint their nails or they'll paint your nails- Or you can do your own nails while they do their nails. It's up to you!

For anyone who doesn’t have much experience with painting nails, Qiu might give you some tips or show an example or two, but after that? They’re just going to make you eye ball it. You may not have very good hand-eye coordination, You may have shaky hands or struggle to keep attention- That doesn’t matter to Qiu!

They might tease a bit, but if you’re truly bothered or embarrassed with it all then they’ll stop. Qiu just wants to spend some time with each other, a soft moment for the two of you to bond. They don’t want to lose you because of some insensitive comment.

If you really want as well, Qiu offers to paint your nails as well. (I’m pretty sure In-game Qiu always has black nail polish… but that’s okay.) They’ll let you choose the colour and they’ll begin with what looks like innate expertise.

Genuinely. Qiu looks like a BOSS with how focused they are for this entire moment.

“And the award for best nail-painter goes to…” Qiu starts, a smile on their face as you look up from their nails to see them. They had taken off their green coat, but left everything else on, their white jumper, navy pants, and had left their bag just beside them. “Not you.” Qiu ends with a Cheshire smirk.

You can’t help but groan and sigh softly at that, taking a break to let Qiu’s nails dry for a moment. You aren’t able to tell if you groaned because you were annoyed by Qiu’s comment.. or if you secretly knew that they were right. After barely a moment of looking down at their hands again, You easily could tell that they were right.

“I know.. I’m sorry.” You sigh again, putting the brush back into the nail polish and looking at the remnants of black nail polish on the edges of Qiu’s fingertips.

Always the observant one, Qiu looks at you and immediately notices your disappointment. The habits you made when you were upset or frustrated were crystal clear to them, even if anyone else couldn’t tell. “Hey, Hey. It’s alright. I was kidding.” They immediately backpedal, trying to avoid a total meltdown.

Qiu’s eyes scan the table for something they could do, looking at the bottle of nail polish again before taking the brush and painting one of your nails. Due to the quick reaction and lack of concentration, some of the polish got onto the edges of your skin as well.

By the looks of things, they hadn’t truly thought that through and just looked at you with a softer, genuine grin. “I’m not perfect either.. So let’s just be imperfect together, okay?”

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Having a picnic!!

After talking it over, the three of you had decided a picnic would be a great idea to spend your time before summer break ended and school started up again.

Tamarack had agreed to make some food, Qiu brought some drinks and a few games for you all to play, You just had to bring the blanket and pick a spot in the park.

Luckily for you all, the weather was great. The sun was shining, a few kids were playing around in the playground, there weren’t a few clouds in the sky but they just provided some nice shade, and it was surprisingly warm for an autumn’s day, not too cold but not scolding hot either. In Tamaracks words, ‘it’s just right.’

The day didn’t seem like it could get better by this point. Tamarack had made some delicious desserts in an adorable picnic basket and Qiu had brought some delicious tea and board games for you all to play. What could possibly go wrong?

You all had been sitting there, resting on the checkered picnic blanket you and your mom had in the closet for years now. She was glad the old thing was finally getting some use.

Tamarack had her braid you had been kind enough to help her do just a few hours ago, and Qiu still had the splotchy nail polish on their fingers you had helped with a few days ago.

The sun was shining, laughter and joy shared amongst the three of you, the food Tamarack had kindly decided to bake was absolutely delicious, Qiu’s tea being a perfect mix of sweet and bitter. It felt like nothin could go wrong in this situation.

.

..

…

Well, apparently the small clouds in the sky has deceived you all and decided at that very moment, the clouds had decided to rain down on the three of you and cause you all to practically sprint to the all-familiar restaurant, The Diner Table.

Yusuf had graciously let you three in, despite the fact you all were practically soaked from the rain. You were given a seat at the usual booth you all used to get throughout your childhoods of coming down here together either after school or after your after-school curriculums. Even after 8 years, The Diner Table still held that ‘comfortable’ feel you had gotten when you came in as a kid.

By now, most of the food had been rained on and the tea had metaphorically and literally been spilt before the three of you had arrived at the diner.

Tamarack and Qiu were sitting in the same row, all of you glancing at each other awkwardly to just silently communicate that that was all a total fail. Though, in reality, Tamarack was the one to speak up first.

“So… Uh, good thing we’re warm now, right?” Tamarack smiled optimistically, trying to find a ‘bright side’ to look at here.

“Sure, yeah. Getting rained on, food ruined and drink gone— Oh, but at least we’re warm!” Qiu said sarcastically, it had meant to be a joke to lighten the mood.. but it seemed to have just been a bit too soon for the three of you to joke about.

Was there really a bright side to look at here? The entire day felt ruined now just because no one managed to check the weather forecast! Nothing could possibly fix this situation—

“Could I get anything started for you three?” Yusuf’s calming and gentle voice cut through the jelly-thick atmosphere, causing you all to jump slightly at the suddenness.

You all shared a glance before coming to a collective realisation. It was never about having a ‘perfect picnic’— It wasn’t about having a picnic in general! You three had just wanted to have a good time with each other, and what better place for familiarity and fun times than The Diner Table?

With a collective smile and a silent nod, you three agreed this was no better place to have a good time. You turned to Yusuf, ready to order a meal and some food. The board games were just a little damp, but they were still playable if you all were gentle enough.

Maybe this wasn’t the picnic you three had in mind.

Maybe you were all a bit silly to not check the weather forecast before going out.

.. Or maybe you were all just destined to inevitably end up in the all-familiar diner one more time.

[2af-afterdark]

Hello dear, you know why i'm here already.

We know for a fact that Casper never got to be intimate with anyone before meeting MC and for that precise reason, I'd like to know if you would you kindly give me some thoughts about Casper and MC's first time ?

Will our sweet Reaper be treated gently or will he be manhandled (gender neutral) roughly as payback for his sassy attitude and multiple murder attempts ?

- 🪰

I knew you would be here, 🪰. It was only a matter of time. You got me into this mess and you will dig the hole deeper and deeper. Lucky for you, I love this man and want to get him pregnant. His first time is really dependent on MC. My personal bias, however, is that MC should treat him gently... but keep up the teasing.

Imagine pinning him to the bed, hands on either side of his head as you lean down to kiss him over and over until he's breathless. He never knew that kisses could make it so hard to breath. Everything about this is new to him.

Slipping your knee between his legs without touching him, letting him explore and do what comes naturally as he teaches himself how to hump against you. The soft teasing as he discovers something new; how he can't stop once he starts.

How you can, eventually, figure out how to open up his shirt enough to slip your hand inside and lay your fingers across his chest. You could tease him about how hot his skin is, how much it burns and how heavy his heartbeat is. Press and pinch at his nipples to show him they feel pleasure like any other part of him.

Bully him until he can't take it anymore and makes an absolute mess of his clothing. Tease him about how cute it is that he couldn't wait but that he has to take it all off now. To finally get a look at him without and confirm if every part of him really is as large as he likes to brag.

When he asks you to take yours off to, deny him with a smile. Tell him that tonight is all about teaching him, so to lie back and learn. Everything with the same sass he's come to expect from his sunshine/nightmare. All the while calling his real name and telling him how good he's being.

He'll be putty in your hands by the time you finally get below the belt. He never imagined all the ways that mortals have conceived of to have sex, but he'll get to experience them all soon enough. Maybe your hand and mouth to start. Just enough to teach him the basics so he can get used to asking to be bullied. After all, he is very much the type to need to be picked on. Perhaps you'll even teach him about using his butt by slipping a few fingers in there.

I think the first sexual encounter doesn't involve penetrative sex because he needs to learn to beg for that first. >w> Eventually, he'll learn how to beg for a lot of things.

The first time with penetration? Well, we all know he's going to be the most bottom babygirl ever. With lots of hand holding and telling your little reaper how well he's doing. How pregnant you're going to get him and how many soul babies there will be

It shall be a wonderful night all around. ehehe

[strwberri-milk]

Heyyy💟

Since your ask is open I was wondering if you can write a fic with the same concept as your "Finding Mc and leaving you" but for Zayne or Xavier? I'm a sucker for angst 😭

unfortunately xavier like. of the three i see him just not being able to date ANYBODY else but mc. tbvh i dont see ANY of them getting into realtionships but rafayel i think of it as like. release for him and just stright copium while dating someone and using them as a substitution for mc, zayne dates someone bc he thinks its 1) what hes supposed to do and 2) hes too dangerous to be around you and 3) doesnt think you return his feelings anyway whereas xavier is just a cryptid and idt you can make slenderman date anybody if he didnt want to so his is. a little diff than the other two

You met Zayne during med school. He was so singularly focused on his career that you don't even know how everything happened. You were somehow lucky enough to find him when he was free, confessing that somehow, over the sessions he was tutoring you for as review for his own lessons, you fell in love with him. You had a good feeling that he wouldn't reciprocate your feelings but you just wanted to confess to him to say you did your best.

Surprisingly, he accepts and manages to carve out some time for you to go on a date. The entire ordeal almost seems transactional at first and you're worried he said yes only to let you down easily during the date. Somehow, one date turns to another date, then a third, then suddenly you find yourself in a committed relationship with Dr. Zayne, the youngest Cardiac Surgeon in Linkon City.

He chose not to speak too often about his childhood, telling you that he grew up in the same way everyone did. Sometimes, he'd mention a childhood friend that he had and that she often came to visit him as he was her primary physician for her heart condition. You never worried about her and had often run into her while meeting up with him after work. She had always been nothing but kind to you so you never would suspect anything.

Zayne was always kind of reserved around you but you never had to doubt that he cared for you. It's not until you're talking to your friends who are starting to get married or discussing their own relationships that somehow, the two of you just fell into a routine. Zayne was never affectionate with you but he always returned your affection. He remembers your birthday and anniversaries and always gets you the sweetest gifts. You know he's looking out for you but you get the sense that things aren't...this isn't what you want in a romantic relationship.

You ask him if he sees the relationship going anywhere, if there's any shared goals that the two of you want to work towards together or if you even make him happy. He's glad you're being honest with him but he asks you what brought it about and you have to confess that your friends seemed so much happier in their relationships whereas it felt like the two of you had grown stagnant. Hell the two of you don't even live together, moving in being something you had waited to bring up to him.

After a lengthy discussion and few days for the two of you to sit with the decision you end up having to break up. You aren't getting what you want out of a relationship with him and somehow, you know that you aren't making him as happy as he deserves.

You're glad you don't work at the same hospital at him but a year later you're invited to an event at his hospital. You're over him, for the most part, at this point but your heart still aches a little at the sight of him. On his arm is that friend of his, holding him tightly as she kisses his cheek in congratulations of whatever it was you were invited for. You know now as you watch them he never loved you as much as he loved her and for your peace of mind you decide to leave it at at that.

Xavier was an enigma. The two of you had been dating just a few months when suddenly everything changed. You were planning a date with him when he apologised for cancelling, saying that a new hunter at work needed his help and he was going to stay late to help her out.

You couldn't do anything really except realise that Xavier was cancelling more and more on you. You knew he felt bad because he'd call you or text you an apology but it seemed more like he was doing it out of obligation. You don't think he's cheating on you with her because even if you randomly called or texted him he'd always pick up and was open about where he was - he just wasn't there, with you like you wanted him to be.

He breaks up with you fairly quickly after that and it doesn't take you long to put two and two together. You followed some of his colleagues on social media and out of desperation starting stalking all of them to see if he was cheating on you. Once you found that the page of that new hunter he was working with you thought you'd find your smoking gun, only to be sorely disappointed.

She posted about him occasionally but everything was purely platonic. She never commented on anything he posted romantically and he didn't for her. It's not until months later that you see her post something about a first date with him, forced to come to terms that he didn't technically cheat on you but clearly he fell in love with her far sooner than he fell into like with you.