#but for that you would have to consider emotional weight in the story

[streets-in-paradise]

Ragnarok was also very fucking coward for not making Hela be the daughter of Loki like in norse mythology.

Imagine Loki being confronted with the realization that he became the shitty father he had.

[greyedian]

MAN I'm seriously so sad about season 2. Bc I wish act 2 had the same emotional impact on me as it appears to have on so many others. But rn I'm just somewhere between unable to care and actively annoyed by some of those writing decisions. Seriously the more I think about it the less I like it.

[xhyjin]

heian era sukuna as a husband!

husband sukuna! who first saw you by the river near your village, washing your hair under the soft glow of the setting sun. the peaceful moment didn’t last long; one of his cursed spirits emerged from the shadows, plucking you from the water like prey and tossing you onto his horse. before you could even scream, you were taken to his cursed shrine high in the mountains, a dark and eerie place where countless other frightened girls from distant villages had been gathered, all trembling in the presence of the king of curses.

husband sukuna! who you had heard countless stories about him in your village, the king of curses, a monstrous being with unmatched power. you always thought they were just myths to keep children from wandering too far. yet, when you finally saw him in all his terrifying glory, his four arms and four sets of piercing eyes radiating an otherworldly dominance, fear wasn’t the first thing you felt. instead, it was curiosity. unlike the other girls who cowered and sobbed, you couldn’t help but step closer and ask, “can i touch you?” your boldness caught him off guard, the faintest flicker of intrigue crossing his face, a reaction he hadn’t shown to anyone in centuries.

husband sukuna! who found himself so intrigued by how someone like you, so small, so mortal, did not tremble in fear. instead, your soft hands reached out, touching his face and arms as if he were some kind of untouchable deity carved from stone, not the monstrous king of curses. he didn’t even realize he had agreed to let you touch him until your fingertips brushed against his skin, your curiosity pulling him into a moment he couldn’t understand.

husband sukuna! who picked you out of all the other frightened girls, initially seeking only a concubine to satisfy his desires, but something shifted when he met you. there was something about your calm, unshaken presence that stirred something in him. you, unlike the others, didn’t cower in fear. you didn’t beg for mercy. your boldness, your curiosity; it intrigued him, and for the first time, he found himself considering you not as just another possession, but as something more. a wife, not a concubine.

husband sukuna! who throws the most lavish wedding the heian lands have ever seen, inviting even the emperor to show off his new wife, his queen of curses. it’s a grand event, full of gold, decorations, and luxury, but all eyes are on you, his chosen, the woman who stood by him, not as a fearful servant, but as his equal. you, his queen, now dressed in the finest clothes, a symbol of his power and the bond between you.

husband sukuna! who started to feel this strange pull every time you were near, like you were the only thing that could fill the emptiness in his heart. he didn’t understand it, but it didn’t stop him from wanting to keep you close, even if it meant pretending he didn’t care.

husband sukuna! who would rarely show it, but you could feel the weight of his gaze on you, like he was studying you, learning you. he couldn’t stop himself from being drawn to you, no matter how much he tried to act indifferent.

husband sukuna! who started questioning everything he knew about emotions, especially when it came to you. every time you were near, his heart would beat faster, and he didn’t know if it was anger or something else. he wasn’t used to feeling this way, and it bothered him more than he cared to admit.

husband sukuna! who, despite his power, couldn’t control the strange desire to protect you. he didn’t know why, but when danger approached, he felt this overwhelming urge to make sure nothing touched you, even if it meant putting himself at risk.

husband sukuna! who started seeking your company more often, even when it wasn’t necessary. he would pretend it was for something else, like business or duty, but deep down, he just wanted to be near you, to figure out what it was about you that made him feel this way.

husband sukuna! who never expected to find someone who could make him question everything, someone who didn’t fear him the way others did. you were the only one who didn’t tremble when he looked at you, and that intrigued him more than anything else.

husband sukuna! who, without realizing it, started to crave your touch. at first, it was just the occasional brush of your hand, but soon he found himself seeking out those moments, lingering just a little longer than necessary, wanting to feel the warmth of your skin against his.

husband sukuna! who never thought he’d want to spend time with someone like this, but with you, it felt different. he started planning small things just to see you. whether it was a casual walk or sitting together in the garden. he didn’t need a reason; he just wanted to be near you.

husband sukuna! when, during one of your strolls through the garden, you mentioned how much you loved roses (or any flowers you like) he made a mental note of it. the very next month, the entire garden was filled with roses, rows upon rows of them, in every color, and bloom. it was his way of showing you he was listening, even if he never said it aloud. the roses, a silent gesture of his affection, were now there just for you.

husband sukuna! who makes sure all your kimonos are made from the finest and silkiest silk, each one carefully chosen to complement your beauty. your combs, made from the finest bamboo, are crafted with delicate precision, perfect for brushing your long, flowing hair. he ensures that every little detail of your life is as luxurious as possible, from the softest cushions to the finest food, all to spoil you in ways you never imagined. every item, every gesture, is his way of showing how much you mean to him, even if he never says it outright.

husband sukuna! who found himself realizing just how head over heels he was for you when you had to leave his estate to visit your family in the village. the moment you left, an unexpected emptiness washed over him, and he realized how much he missed you already. it was then that he wondered, if I miss you this badly just when you’re at the village, what would I do if you were gone forever? he couldn’t shake the thought. you weren’t immortal like him, and the idea of losing you, someone so human, so delicate, filled him with a kind of fear he never expected to feel.

husband sukuna! who tries to figure out every possible way to make you immortal like him. he couldn’t imagine his life without you, and the thought of losing you one day terrified him more than he’d ever admit. he searched for solutions, delving into ancient texts and forbidden rituals, determined to find a way to keep you by his side forever. the idea of you growing old and leaving him, or even worse, being with someone else, was unbearable. he would do anything to make sure that never happened.

husband sukuna! who, after much searching, discovers that the key to making you immortal like him is by carrying his heir. his immortal blood would imprint on you and his child, ensuring that you would live on, as long as his bloodline continued. when you return, he is sure to tell you of his plan, his determination clear in his eyes. it’s the only way he can guarantee you’ll never leave him, and the thought of sharing his immortal legacy with you fills him with an overwhelming sense of purpose.

husband sukuna! who is the happiest man—or curse—alive when uraume tells him that you are pregnant. a rare, genuine smile spreads across his face, one that few have ever seen. the news fills him with a sense of pride and joy he’s never known, and for once, his usual calm demeanor cracks. the idea of you carrying his child, an heir to his immortal blood, makes him feel an overwhelming sense of accomplishment. it’s as if everything he’s done, all his power and control, has led to this moment. you, carrying his legacy, makes him feel more alive than he ever has.

husband sukuna! who spoils you rotten throughout your whole pregnancy, making sure you’re eating well and getting everything you need. he hunts himself, ensuring you have the freshest, most protein-rich food, and even arranges for the finest fruits to be delivered from the emperor’s lands. he may or may not have threatened the emperor into compliance, but it didn’t matter. all that mattered was making sure you were well cared for and that nothing, not even a tiny discomfort, would touch you. your well-being was his top priority, and he would go to any lengths to ensure you and the baby were healthy.

husband sukuna! who doesn’t allow you to walk on your own, no, he has four arms for a reason. you’re going to be carried by him everywhere and anywhere. whether it’s across the estate or through the garden, he insists on carrying you in his arms, making sure you don’t lift a finger. he doesn’t care if it’s impractical or if anyone else thinks it’s too much, his only concern is making sure you’re comfortable and safe during your pregnancy, and he enjoys having you close to him at all times. no one else gets to have you but him.

husband sukuna! who has a small throne made for your baby, placing it beside his massive one. with your and his child’s thrones on either side of his, he feels a sense of contentment that he’s never known before. it’s a simple gesture, but it means everything to him, his family, his legacy, all sitting together with him in his domain. the sight of it fills him with pride, knowing that soon, your child will sit there beside you, carrying on his immortal bloodline. it’s the perfect symbol of everything he’s built, and it’s all for you.

[sundrop-writes]

The Way You Miss Me

Fred Weasley x Fem!Reader

I’m not trying to say I don’t wanna stay, I just know how this story ends.

Use my body against me - and all of our history.

I hate the way you miss me. 

Summary:

Fred broke up with you. He made it clear that he was going to have a new life when he opened his shop, and he didn't need you to be a part of it. You being stuck on him was just another joke in a long line of pranks that he pulled.

And life kept on laughing at you when your fear of crippling heights was triggered by a potentially life ending mission the Order put together that had you dangling hundreds of feet over London, held up only by Fred's strength and determination.

So what does it mean when the two of you land, and he's the only thing that can stop your shaking panic? What does it mean when he's looking at you with nothing but love in his eyes, holding you tight like a lover would?

Fred Weasley x Fem!Reader. Exes to Lovers. Emotional Angst and Smut. Set during Deathly Hallows.

Word Count: 18,500

Harry Potter Masterlist | AO3 Link

Full warnings list and author's notes below the cut.

Warnings: this is equal parts angst fic and smut fic; the reader is a cis woman - uses she/her pronouns and has a vagina; there is no mention of the reader's looks, race, hair colour, etc. in any way; this fic does use Y/N (and L/N as in Last Name); this takes place mostly during the beginning of Deathly Hallows, so there are mentions of dark topics, like death, and the cult-like following that Voldemort has developed; this is Exes to Lovers - Fred and the reader dated for a while during their time at Hogwarts and then broke up; (there is flashbacks in this fic to times during Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix); the reader is half-blood - she has one parent who is a muggle and lives in a muggle city and the other parent who is loyal to death eaters (and there is a later mention of the reader's mother being killed due to anti-muggle sentiment as Voldemort becomes more powerful); there is no mention of what Hogwarts house the reader is in; the reader has a crippling fear of heights (which is a large part of the plot for this fic); mentions of nausea and vomiting (as a fear response) (no one actually throws up during the course of the fic); the reader experiences actual life-threatening danger while on a broom - she nearly falls to her death, but Fred catches her; Fred does struggle to hold the reader's body weight, so it doesn't imply that he has super-human strength or that the reader is particularly petite (I wanted his reaction to be realistic for someone of any body weight); for part of the fic, Fred is disguised as Harry using Polyjuice Potion (but there's no confusion about his identity because the reader knows he took the potion); the reader experiences a panic attack due to the life threatening fall, and Fred helps her calm down; mentions of blood and semi-graphic descriptions of George's canon injury (his ear being blasted off); there is general emotional angst from the characters being in close proximity to danger, death, and life threatening situations; Fred calls the reader 'darling' and 'love' and 'sweets' and 'pretty girl' (in sexual and non-sexual contexts).

For the actual smut section: this is not their first time together as a couple and neither of the characters are meant to be virgins; there is undertones of sub/dom dynamics - Fred is a teasing soft dom and the reader is submissive to him (and there is mentions of the reader experiencing what could be considered subspace) (but there isn't any specifically laid out roles - it's more so one person enjoying taking care of the other, especially after experiencing the emotional turmoil of a near death experience together); there is Daddy kink in this (not until a bit later into the smut section, but it just came to me and I realized it suited Fred so well) Fred calls himself Daddy and the reader is way into it; praise kink - Fred calls the reader 'good girl' specifically because he knows she likes it; lots of dirty talk (Fred has a filthy mouth); oral sex - Fred receiving (she blows him as a thank you for saving her life) (also slight ball worship); mentions of the reader 'choking' on his cock (but there is no major breathplay or breath restriction); slight spit kink (it's a messy blowjob and he loves it); teasing and brief orgasm denial (toward both parties); hair pulling (toward both parties) - not with the intention of causing pain, but to direction someone's attention and to show appreciation and affection to the person; thigh riding - she humps herself on Fred's thigh while she is still wearing clothes; penis in vagina sex; creampie kink (I'm not gonna say breeding kink, because there's no mention of procreation or getting someone pregnant, even in theory, but they are both very turned on by the idea of him cumming inside of her); this could be protected sex OR unprotected sex - he cums inside of her raw but we can all pretend that they used a magical pregnancy prevention method if you want even though it's not mentioned in the fic; cockwarming (reader doesn't let Fred pull out for a while after he cums); I think that is finally it for this fic.

A/N: This fic is titled after a song by All Time Low, which I highly recommend listening to paired with this fic. This is actually part of an idea I had for a much longer multi-chaptered Fred x Reader fic, but I kept thinking about this one moment in the fic and how much I wanted to write it - so I did. And I decided that it would make a good oneshot. And I am actually insanely proud of myself for managing to capture the same emotions in under 20k that I originally thought would take me like 50k or 100k to properly communicate. I think this is fantastic, and it's one of the best things I have written in a while - and I really hope you guys enjoy it! Especially if you like angsty, emotional, exes to lovers fics.

...

Very often, you wondered when life had become so complicated. 

It seemed that just yesterday, you were a bright-eyed young girl, dancing around a beautifully magical winter ball with the love of your life on your arm - and now, you were a confused woman who was terrified of how your life would end up because of a dark wizard and his cultist followers trying to overtake your world. 

These days you didn’t even have that lover to comfort you through all of the confusion and dread that clouded the world around you. 

You and Fred used to be perfect. That’s what a lot of people would have called the two of you - the ‘perfect’ couple. 

Your story was something straight from a romance novel - the two of you were best friends when you were young, and that friendship quickly blossomed into affection. That affection naturally led into a sweet romance. When you were with him, your life was full of moments where you felt like a beautiful, flowery, desirable protagonist because of how he treated you. Your life used to be full of laughter, full of smiles, full of romantic gestures. 

You and Fred were in the same year at Hogwarts, so naturally you knew each other. You weren’t really friends - at least not at first. You knew of each other, especially because you had some classes together. 

But you didn’t truly meet Fred Weasley until more than halfway into your first year of classes together. You had the misfortune of accidentally running into a prank that was meant for a Slytherin Prefect - someone who had taken one too many house points off Gryffindor for the twins’ liking. And after being doused with red and gold paint and tripping over a toy rubber snake that had been charmed to hiss realistically when you got near it - you were reasonably frightened and crying, and it left you the laughing stalk of the courtyard - someone to be pointed at and mocked by everyone. 

Fred hadn’t meant for it to be you. With the way he looked at you after the incident - full of guilt while everyone else pointed at you and laughed, imitating your frightening screams and attempts to jump away from the fake snake - it didn’t take you long to figure out the culprits behind it. And it didn’t take you much longer after that to plan your revenge. (Especially because, as much as Fred looked guilty, he didn’t simply come forward and apologise. Too afraid to look like a weak moron in the eyes of his brother and his other Gryffindor friends. So - on with your revenge, it was.) 

You figured that all good pranksters should be due to be a victim sometimes, too. If the twins couldn’t laugh when they were on the receiving end, then they should stop playing pranks. 

So you came up with something that you considered masterful. During your trip home for Christmas, back to Muggle London where your mother lived, you asked her to take you to a shop to buy a couple of greeting cards for your classmates. The ones that sing Christmas carols loudly when the hinge of the card is opened. Something clever, and not needing any magic at all. 

And when you returned to Hogwarts after the break, you found a moment where the twins were distracted, and you stole their book bags in order to pull off your epic, amazing prank. You taped those singing greeters into the back of their Potions textbooks - a class that you shared with them, of course, so that you could enjoy the show. And then you waited. 

You had trouble containing your laughter when Professor Snape escalated from annoyed to downright scalding angry as his class was filled with the quiet robotic hum of ‘Jingle Bells’, occasionally overlapped by ‘Santa Claus Is Coming To Town’. It was made even better by the fact that both of the twins clearly knew that the music was coming from somewhere in their surrounding area, but they had no clue what the exact source was or how to stop it. And with every snivelled demand of ‘just open your books and get to work’ - the music only started up again. 

By the time they had been sentenced to detention for disturbing the class, you were nearly breathless and your ribs were aching from trying to hold back your laughter. Which, of course, meant that Fred easily spotted you out of everyone else - who looked equally confused or annoyed with the low hum of the music. And as soon as the class ended, he brought his textbook to you, thanked you for the worthy prank, and asked you how to stop it. He looked entirely amused and impressed when you pulled the tiny device out of the back, and proceeded to ask you a million questions about it. 

You weren’t surprised when the next week, the annoying singing greeter ended up inside the teacher’s copy of the textbook on McGonagall’s desk. 

From that moment on, his crush on you steeped inside of him like a fine tea, developing from an innocent adolescent attraction to full-blown, ‘drive you crazy’, ‘I would do anything for you’, love. It was lucky for him that you easily felt the same way. 

Through the years of being by his side, becoming his best friend, pulling pranks together and trying desperately to get him to study - it was difficult not to fall for Fred Weasley. 

You had been overjoyed when Fred invited you to the Quidditch World Cup. Even though you weren’t the biggest fan of Quidditch (and Fred knew that). The only reason you had started attending the games at Hogwarts was because he joined the team. And you only bothered to attend the games he played in, so your bias could be spotted from a mile away. But in his letter, with the ticket to the World Cup slotted into the envelope, he told you that it was ‘the game of the century’ and you ‘simply couldn’t miss it’. 

You wouldn’t miss out on spending time with him, so you eagerly agreed to go. 

This left you with only one glaring problem. 

You had a crippling fear of heights. 

It was one of the reasons that you never really gotten into Quidditch in the first place. You had absolutely no interest in playing, and even less interest in watching if Fred wasn’t involved. The idea of even flying on a broom being something that made you nauseated and shaky just from thinking about it. 

The mandatory first year flying lesson was the only class at Hogwarts that you ever failed, but Madame Hooch took pity on you when she saw you crying and fisting the grass after only getting your broom about five inches off the ground. So she passed you anyway - just barely. 

When you set out to watch Fred’s games at Hogwarts, you usually had to take some kind of anti-nausea tonic beforehand to make sure that you didn’t puke all over everyone else in the stands. And you usually couldn’t even make it up to your seat to watch unless one of your good friends held your hand. But you were alright once the actual game started, because watching Fred doing something he loved was a good distraction from just how high up you were. 

Telling Fred about your intense fear had been one of the most honest, vulnerable moments that you ever had with him. Your friendship was usually all pranks and laughter, which you loved. 

But one summer day, when you were hanging out with the Weasleys, they wouldn’t stop nagging you to join one of their family Quidditch matches because they needed an extra player to make the teams even. And after the twins’ endless teasing, saying that you were ‘afraid to lose’ or that you would be ‘too distracted by their daring good looks’ in order to play properly, you broke down crying and stormed off into the woods, because you were too anxious to admit the real reason that you couldn’t play.  

Fred was the one who found you off in the trees behind the Burrow, tears still streaming down your face, and asked you what he had done to so greatly upset you. He had been terrified at the idea of making you upset, so hurt that he had been the one to make you cry. And after he found out about your fear, he didn’t laugh or mock you for it or play it off as something stupid like you thought would be so typical of him. No - instead, he wrapped a comforting arm around your shoulders and he told you that he was genuinely sorry. And he promised that he would never invite you to play Quidditch again. 

When you had accepted the invitation to The World Cup, you had forgotten how much your fear of heights played into watching Quidditch as well. The giant, impossibly tall temporary Quidditch stadium that had been set up for the event had been looming over you all day, but you didn’t want to quit and go home because of some silly little fear. 

You wanted to spend the time with your friends. You wanted to enjoy the event because the people you loved most were having fun there. So you pressed on, ignoring the inevitable, letting yourself get caught up in the pregame revelry. You walked around the seemingly endless campgrounds with Fred and George, in awe of all the decorations and the different wizards from all over the world, showing off things from their homes. You chatted and charmed along with them as they collected bets before the game. You let Fred paint your face with large, ugly shamrocks because even though you didn’t entirely care about the teams or fully know them, you were rooting for Ireland to win simply because he was. 

But the unavoidable nature of your problem became very apparent as Arthur guided everyone to your seats, and you climbed up more stairs, and more stairs, and more stairs - and the higher up you got, the more you found yourself shaking, especially when you looked down to the ground and saw that the people down there looked like little more than bugs. You hated it when your mind, naturally, went to what would happen to you if you stumbled over the railing and fell down all that way. You would splat on the ground, squashed like a bug. You would die within seconds. 

You held on tighter to Fred’s hand - he would have said that he had grabbed your hand in the first place so that he wouldn’t lose you among the bustling crowd, and not simply as an excuse to be closer to you. You didn’t even realise how badly you were trembling in his touch as you looked over the railing (still a few flights down from your final seats) with intense apprehension. 

“You alright?” Fred asked you simply. 

“‘m fine.” You mumbled out the lie, giving him a large, forced smile - hoping that he would believe it. 

You knew that if you told him how you were feeling, he would insist on escorting you back to the tent. Perhaps he would even insist on staying with you so that you wouldn’t have to be alone. So he might miss out on a once in a lifetime Quidditch game all because you had a bit of petty anxiety from being so high up. 

So you tried your best to push down all your feelings and ignore them, even if it was making you shake and making your stomach churn. When you got to the top, peering over the edge of the railing of the very, very high up seats that Arthur had gotten as a thanks for his work on helping to organise the whole thing (apparently, the higher up the better to actually see the game), you felt an incredible sense of dizziness, and began swaying on your feet. 

This was so much higher up than the Quidditch stands at Hogwarts. 

Naturally, Fred noticed. It wasn’t something he would easily admit, or even something he did consciously, but he always kept an eye on you. Partially due to a knack for admiring your beauty, that adolescent love-struck feeling always making him more prone to staring at you. But it was also partially due to the fact that he felt a need to watch over you. Whether it be as a friend or as something else, he always wanted you to be safe, and happy. 

And right now, your sickly, terrified face stood out like a sore thumb among the crowd of excited, cheering fans.  

“Y/N,” 

He called out your name in a serious tone that was so uncharacteristic of Fred, something that snapped your attention from staring anxiously at the ground toward him immediately. He cemented your attention on him when he put a hand on top of your tight, tense knuckles on the railing. His touch was warm, as always, and oddly grounding, removing even just a slight bit of that dizzying anxiety that you were feeling. 

“Do you wanna go back down? I can bring you back to the tent,” 

Of course. Just as you had predicted. 

“No.” You easily answered, shaking your head furiously, biting your lip. “I-” 

You didn’t want him missing out on such an important event because of you, but more importantly: 

“I - I don’t want to be afraid.” You heaved out, your chest tight with anxiety. “It’s stupid - people do stuff like this all the time, right? I shouldn’t be afraid-” 

“It’s not stupid.” He said firmly, quickly squashing down any self-belittling that you might be tempted to do. “You can’t control how you feel.” 

Coming from him, it sounded like the most firm truth ever. 

“If you want to stay, I’ll be right here with you.” Fred added on, giving you a warm, reassuring grin. “But just let me know if you want to go back down, and I’ll walk with you, alright?” 

You nodded, hating that even though his words gave you that nip of courage you needed, you were still pulsing with a dull panic. The undeniable reaction that fear caused in your body. 

Fred hated seeing you shaking, hated the deep frown that cut through your beautiful features - so what he did next was instinctive. He took his hand off yours and reached that arm, the one closest to you, around your back, planting his hand firmly on the railing at the other side of your waist. This trapped you in a close-knit hold beside him, something that made you feel instantly more secure - even if it was just from the warmth of him at your side. 

“I’m not gonna let you fall, yeah?” He said quietly, leaning closer into your ear to be heard - the warmth of the reassurance causing gentle tingles down your spine. “I would never let anything happen to you, darling.” 

Between the intense loving safety that he words wrapped you in with the sweet nickname he added on, and the firm cradle of his arm around your back, you knew that you would have no problem sticking it out for the game. But your brain was still trying to cope, your anxiety so incredibly nagging, and you couldn’t help it when your eyes drifted back to focus on the ant-like people on the ground, becoming shaking and nauseous all too soon from staring downward. 

“Down look down.” Fred scolded you gently, using his other hand to grab your chin, forcing your gaze back up - it ended with your eyes locked with his, admiring the way the breeze blew his too-long ginger hair into his eyes. “Just look at me, alright? It’s gonna be far worse if you keep starin’ down there. Just look at me, love.” 

“Just look at you.” You repeated in a quiet mumble, already so utterly locked in the powerful orbit of his gaze, feeling like it was near impossible to look away from him. 

You felt his forehead brush against yours before you realised just how close he had gotten. But you couldn’t bring yourself to mind. 

And ultimately, feeling the stands shaking beneath your feet as a particularly hard gust of wind came through and having another swell of anxiety rush through you was what drove you to closing the gap, sealing your lips on his in your first kiss. Fred made you brave, almost stupidly so, and you hoped that you had finally used that bravery for something good in capturing his lips. (Rather than the stupid mischief that the two of you usually got up to.) 

Fred smiled into the kiss and George cheered loudly behind him - you thought it was due to the game starting, and when you pulled back sharply to look around for the players, you were met with nearly all eyes in the group on you, clearly gawking at the fact that you and Fred had kissed. 

This included Ginny smirking almost evilly before she said: 

“Finally. I thought the two of you were never gonna get on with it.” 

This left you squirming with a mild embarrassment, and definitely not thinking about how high up you were anymore. 

Looking back, the memory was painful - not sweet or fond as it had once been to you. 

But it wasn’t nearly as painful as the memory of the day you and Fred had broken up. 

He had asked you to be his girlfriend officially only a few days after the World Cup. He wanted you to know what that kiss meant to him, and he wanted the privilege of more kisses from you, on top of the ‘honour’ (his exact wording) of going back to Hogwarts with you on his arm as his girlfriend, making all the other boys in your year ‘pathetically jealous’. Of course, it was everything you wanted, he was everything you wanted, so you said yes. 

The two of you dated for nearly two full happy years - right through your sixth year and into your seventh, until in April of your seventh year, shortly after Fred’s birthday, when everything came crashing down around you. 

It wasn’t unusual of Fred to pull you away after a class - his hand in yours, igniting fluttery giggles from your lungs as he pulled you down the corridors to whatever secret little spot he had picked out. Even with Umbridge at Hogwarts, implementing more rules and cracking down on ‘fraternisation’ between students, you and Fred still found ways to sneak off to have your private little moments together. 

So when Fred took you off to one of those private corners on chilly spring afternoon, you assumed that this was no different. You fell into the natural rhythm of pinning him against a wall, sealing your lips firmly to his in a kiss and waiting for his hand to sneak up your skirt while his tongue ventured into your mouth. You were shocked when this time, he didn’t kiss you back. He was limp and unreceptive against you, and that was when you realised that you had read the tone of the interaction very wrong - even if him dragging you away by the hand always led to making out in a quiet corner, and more than a bit of groping. 

You pulled back, looking at him with confusion and disappointment plainly across your face. 

“What’s wrong, Freddie?” You asked, well in the habit of using the nickname for him. 

Fred’s expression was filled with sullen dread, and it made your stomach twist. It truly made you fearful of whatever he was going to say next, and you took a step back from him, widening the gap between the two of you in the dusty, draughty old stairwell. You suddenly felt too cold, even with your uniform sweater and thick robes on, and wrapped your arms around yourself to compensate. 

“There’s something I have to tell you.” He announced quietly, continuing to lean on the wall that you had pressed him up against, staring at the floor, his eyes unwilling to meet you. 

What? Had he cheated on you? Did he want to break up? 

What terrible thing could possibly make this bright, funny joker so damn sad and serious? 

“What is it?” You asked, filling with dread, your throat tightening up more by the second. 

“George and I have decided that it’s about time we take our leave.” Fred announced, his eyes only flickering to you for a moment, looking for some kind of reaction. You were only further confused, and waited for him to explain. “The lease for the shop in Diagon Alley finally came through, and-” 

“Well that’s great news, Fred.” You said, trying to sound happy and upbeat beyond the tension that was still tight in your chest. You had no clue why he was so downtrodden - the joke shop was his dream, and now that they had secured a location for it, that dream was coming true. 

He heaved a sigh, his eyes turning to gaze out a nearby window for a moment before he turned back to you. 

“It means we have to leave, darling.” He said sharply. 

Your insides became heavy. 

You knew it was a very Fred and George thing - so intent on not doing their exams, desperate to escape any further academics. You wanted to ask why they wouldn’t stay until the end of the school year, but you knew that you would get answers about how they didn’t need marks from exams that they were likely going to fail anyway to run a shop that they now owned. 

It was something founded on their own talents and ideas, and they didn’t need the approval of professors marking them wrong or right in order to do it. 

It was the life they had always dreamed of. And you were intensely proud of them for it. 

So why did you still have that overwhelming feeling of dread? 

“So - when are we leaving?” You asked, trying to sound confident and firm in your words even though you knew what was likely coming next. 

You felt intensely disappointed when the all too predictable outcome smashed you in the face. 

“You’re not coming with us.” Fred said quietly. 

“Why not?” You argued gently. 

You would drop everything and go with them - you felt far more emotional attachment to being with Fred than you did to finishing your year at Hogwarts. You knew that you could be a useful hand around the shop. Any venture helping Fred would be a worthy one to you. But staring you down were the calculating eyes of someone who had been telling you over the past years how much he didn’t want to disrupt your studies with his antics, because he thought you had a ‘brilliant mind’, and you were ‘so much smarter’ than him and George. 

He thought that you could actually pull some decent - no, brilliant grades on your NEWTs and truly make something of yourself. The shop was a big dream of his and George’s, but Fred knew that you were destined for something so much greater that truly challenged and fully utilised your brilliance. So he wasn’t going to let you be dragged down to mediocrity by him. 

Realising this, part of you still ached. Why was he so intent on leaving if it meant leaving you behind? 

“Please don’t be stupid-” Fred sighed, rolling his eyes. 

“Oh, so I’m stupid now?” You scoffed. 

He hadn’t meant to let the harsh word leave his lips - at least, he hadn’t meant it in such a harsh way. 

“Y/N-” Fred used your actual name, something he rarely did, but you barreled right over whatever he was going to say with your next words. 

You were hurting now, and you didn’t entirely care what he had to say. 

“If I’m so stupid, then why should I even bother to stay here and take my NEWTs?” You hissed, twisting around his accidental slip into something he had never meant. “Or am I too stupid to even work at a silly little joke shop with you?” 

Fred scowled deeply. It didn’t suit him. 

“Y/N, this ‘silly little joke shop’ has been my dream since I was five years old!” He barked, now taking your heat of the moment words and running away with them. “You don’t-” 

“I guess I was stupid enough to believe that I was part of that dream!” You cried out in return, cutting off his words once again. 

‘You are.’ He choked down the words. ‘But I can’t bear to bring you down just because I want to be with you. I could never be so selfish.’ 

“I-” He choked on whatever he was going to say, swallowing it down. “I can’t do this right now.” 

He moved to storm off completely, hoping to speak with you later when you both had calmed down, hoping to have a proper, happy goodbye with you before he and George actually left. 

But your next words made him freeze on the spot, and wiped away all of those hopes within him. 

“Fred Weasley, if you walk away, we’re done.” You said, now choking on tears. 

You were utterly insulted that he wouldn’t even fight for you - that he wouldn’t even promise that his heart would be waiting for you after you graduated. To you, it was a sure sign that he was saying that his shop was more important to him than you were. That you were just some stupid schoolgirl fling to him; that along with the shop, he wanted to move on to other women, to find someone that he actually wanted to marry. 

You had never been a part of the dream he had for his life - you had just been a passing fancy in his eye. 

For Fred, it was all too painful. This was the conversation he had been utterly dreading since he and George had decided to take their leave, and it was going far worse than he had planned in his head. He couldn’t face the pain - he couldn’t face hurting you. He couldn’t face missing you, even during a few short months apart before you did graduate. 

So he then did something so terribly stupid, looking to bomb the relationship wide open - hoping to end all of the pain before it even started. 

“Good.” He said, barely turning his head to even look over his shoulder at you. “Would’ve been a waste of parchment writing to you, anyway.” 

With those final, painful words, he stomped off down the stairs, leaving you to collapse against one of the nearby walls in a puddle of tears - for the first time in a long time, without Fred to muffle your sobs in a comforting hug. 

You hadn’t been there to watch him and George ride off on their brooms when they finally gave Umbridge everything she deserved - you had been locked in your dorm, sobbing into your pillow because of that horrible, relationship ending fight. You had only heard from other people later that they had left Hogwarts in a blaze of glory, and you were the only person who knew for certain where they had gone and what their plans were now. 

You hated to admit it - but you missed Fred Weasley. 

You tried your hardest to get over him. You threw yourself into your studies, and you did pass your NEWTs with some of the highest marks in your class. But then, any thought of what potential career you might take on was tossed aside when the world went into upheaval at the hands of Death Eaters. And unintentionally, you were right back at Fred’s side again. 

It was a dreadful thing - being forced to see your ex on such a frequent basis. 

The last time being just a few short days ago when he had come into the Apothecary that you worked at in Diagon Alley, looking for some ingredients for a new WWW product that he wanted to make a test batch of. You had still spent last Christmas with his family, at the nagging insistence of Molly. After your mother had turned up dead and your father was missing, and you had to face the fact that he had likely defected to the Death Eaters out of fear (and the stupidity of his ingrained ‘old ways’), you didn’t really have any other family to turn to, aside from the Weasleys. 

You saw Fred a lot more often than you should - more often than you wanted to, in fact. Because the more often you had to see him walk into your shop with a grin on his face and bear the small talk he would force you into before he finally put in his order, the more you ached. You wanted nothing more than to be able to get away - to go someplace far away that Fred would never find you, so that you could finally heal, could finally get over the way he had broken your heart. 

But the country, and likely the state of all Wizardkind, was in upheaval. So many lives were at risk, and you had your part to play. You had signed on to become a member of the Order the minute you turned seventeen, and you weren’t prepared to shirk that commitment now, just because of a bit of girlish heartbreak. 

It was the reason that you were standing in the now empty residence of Number Four, Privet Drive. You had been called upon last minute to replace Tonks on this particular mission, for reasons that everyone seemed tight lipped about. But you weren’t going to question it - you were just going to step up and do your duty so that Harry could be transported safely, and hopefully go on to defeat the Dark Lord once and for all. 

According to Mad-Eye Moody, it was all very straight forward. Six of the fourteen members of the group would take Polyjuice Potion to turn themselves into decoy versions of Harry, making for seven Harrys in total, and the other half of the group would pair off with a Harry each to be their escort. 

You weren’t a huge fan of the idea of Fred disguising himself as Harry, essentially putting a huge target on his back - but the plan had already been set in place. He had already agreed to it. There was no room for you to protest now. 

“We’re not a big fan of the idea either, mate.” George spoke up when Harry protested against the idea of people risking their lives by being disguised as him. 

“Yeah, imagine something went wrong, then we’d be stuck as a scrawny, specky git forever.” Fred added on with his usual humorous tone. 

You held back a laugh at this comment, and everyone in the room eyed you harshly as you choked on your own breath. Fred smirked, proud that after all this time, he could still draw a laugh out of you. 

Your sense of humour about the whole situation was soon stamped out when Mad-Eye mentioned brooms. The group would have to be flying because Harry couldn’t apparate or use any other common form of transport without the Ministry knowing. 

“Brooms?” You questioned, knowing that your tone sounded far too panicked. “We - we’re flying?” 

“Yes.” Mad-Eye snipped curtly in return. “What exactly about my explanation was unclear, Ms. L/N?” 

His sharp tone and his glare in your direction, along with his use of your surname, instantly transported you back you Defense Against the Darks Arts classes in your sixth year, when you had been intimidated by the man - even if, strangely enough, you hadn’t been taught by the same man who now stood before you. 

You swallowed tightly, a large lump forming in your throat already - an involuntary, wicked reaction overtaking your body because of your fear of heights. Fred looked at you with sad knowing in his eyes, and you didn’t notice when he clenched his fists tightly at his sides, resisting the urge to swaddle you in a comforting hold. 

“Nothing was unclear, just-” You stuttered, breathing in deeply, trying to calm yourself. “I don’t have much experience with flying, and-” 

“Weasley - er - Fred, has already informed me of that.” Mad-Eye said, correcting himself when he realised just how many ‘Weasleys’ were on this mission and how utterly confusing that would get. “He’s insisted on taking you due to your lack of experience. Is that all?” 

Obviously, you didn’t want to publicly admit to your fear. You couldn’t reveal it as the terrible weakness that it was, especially not when there were so many other worries at play. 

“Yes, it’s fine.” You said, nodding, trying to keep the conversation short and keep the attention off you. 

“Good. Now if we’re all done dawdling, we need to get to work.” 

It was downright strange seeing Fred transformed into Harry. 

Even complete with the dorky clothes and the glasses, you still easily spotted him out of the crowd of ‘specky gits’. Maybe it was the years of practice that you had telling him apart from George that made it so easy for you, but he was still so irritably Fred. The fact that he slid his wand into his back pocket - something you had warned him dozens of times would likely result in the wand crunching in half and breaking when he sat down (and annoyed you to the point of you snatching it out of his back pocket to save it, especially before he sat down). The way he reached up to scratch his nose, the smirk on his face when he kept glancing over at the other Harry you were sure had to be George. Especially with the way they were steadily side-eyeing each other, speaking volumes with their looks and having a silent conversation that nobody else knew of. 

The fact that his eyes kept flickering to you every few moments definitely helped you to pick him out of the crowd. Even though you were used to a gentle hazel gazing at you rather than that piercing blue, there was still a unique concern behind his eyes when he looked at you from beyond those spectacles - the same kind of gentle seriousness that you hadn’t really seen from him since he had held your shaking hand on the stairs of the stands on the day of The World Cup. 

Stupidly, it only really occurred to you how close you would have to be with Fred, tightly riding behind him on the back of his broom, when you went outside and he ushered you to climb onto the back of his broom behind him. It had been a little over a year since you had broken up with Fred, and since then, you had not touched him. 

Every greeting had been friendly, but from a distance. Even when he came into the Apothecary and laid his hand on the counter, you snaked out of the way in time to avoid his fingers so much as brushing by yours. You always laid his order on the counter for him to pick it up himself, so that his fingers wouldn’t accidentally brush against yours. You made sure never to have contact with him. And now, you were being forced to climb onto the back of his broom, to hold him tight. 

But you couldn’t protest. You couldn’t demand to switch partners now because of some petty angst you were harbouring about a break-up that had happened so long ago. (Would you call it angst, or stupid, longing, painful heartbreak?) You couldn’t complain - not when this was about transporting Harry safely. This was about something so much bigger. 

Sure, it wouldn’t be exactly the same as holding onto your Fred (not that he was yours anymore - you had to remember that). He was Harry-Fred right now, so he was much shorter and thinner, and you could easily pretend that he wasn’t Fred at all. Which is what you forced yourself to think about as you swung a shaking leg over the broom and climbed on, wrapping your arms around his waist, preparing for take-off. 

It was a bit harder to pretend that this wasn’t Fred when you caught the faintest whiff of his expensive cologne (something he had only started wearing once the shop took off, something you noticed on him for the first time when he came to visit you at the Apothecary). It was definitely still lingering on his skin, something that was so painfully Fred even while you stared at the back of Harry’s wild black hair. 

It pierced your heart a little bit more when he peered over his shoulder at you, striking you as so Fred with those somehow warm, caring blue eyes and gently asking: 

“Good?” 

To which you replied: 

“m fine.” 

The most terrible lie you had ever conjured - something that was soon covered up by Mad-Eye shouting some last minute instructions and waving everyone off. 

When Fred kicked off the ground, you were immediately met with the most sickening wave of nausea that you had ever experienced in your life. You got way too high up for your liking within seconds, the houses on the ground growing far too small in your view, and you couldn’t fight the urge to shut your eyes. 

Unfortunately, it only made you dizzier, but it calmed your nerves a slight bit. You didn’t even realise how tightly you were clutching onto Fred, an utter death grip around his waist, until you heard him let out a grunt of pain from his stomach muscles being strangled by your arms with your fingers digging into him like claws, holding on for dear life. 

“S-sorry.” You stuttered out, shivering from the pure fear of it all, rather than the cool breeze that was whipping at your face. “Sorry, sorry!” 

“I’m sorry!” Fred replied - it was still strange hearing him speak in Harry’s voice, and you were glad that it was temporary. “I should have told them you weren’t up to this mission, I-” 

“I’m fine!” You barked back, hating the idea that your fear would make you unfit for a mission. But in a sense, you knew it was true. You would have spit in the face of any Death Eater, but your fear of heights was so utterly crippling. “Fred, don’t you dare for a moment suggest-” 

“We’ve been breached!” You heard someone - Arthur’s voice, shouting from up ahead. 

Your eyes whipped open and suddenly, you were filled with an entirely different kind of fear. Smoky black clouds of Death Eaters whipped through the sky around you - somehow, they had discovered the plan. And now, they were targeting all of the fake Harrys, firing off curses in every direction, looking for the real one. 

They were targeting Fred. 

That was the only thing at the forefront of your mind - they were going to hurt Fred. 

“Y/N-?” 

“Just get us out of here!” You told him. “I’ll cover you!” 

You knew that you couldn’t close your eyes now. Of course you would step up to protect him. No matter if the two of you were lovers, friends, or something estranged - you still loved him in your heart, and you would protect him no matter what. 

You grabbed your wand out of your jacket and gripped it stiffly, firing a stunning curse at the first silver mask you saw, still tightly gripping onto Fred’s jacket with your other hand. He used both his hands on the broom, gripping tighter with his legs to steer better, years of Quidditch honed skill coming in handy. His ability to be calm and fly mindfully while Bludgers were flying at his head made him a lot calmer with multiple Death Eaters firing potentially deadly curses all around him. In the back of his mind, he thought that Wood would be proud. 

You were still shaking horribly, and a few of your spells didn’t land on the first try, but you kept trying. You centred yourself, remembering what you were doing, who you were here for. In your mind, it wasn’t about Harry, it was never about Harry - it was about Fred. It was because Fred had approached you about the last minute replacement, it was because Fred was the one on the broom in front of you, the one you would have died to protect. 

You didn’t see when someone Apparated in a thick cloud of black smoke behind you, and raised their wand in your direction, hitting you squarely in the back with a heavy jinx. It was the force of a brick wall smacking you, something that sent you and Fred tumbling end over end through the sky and sent you flying cleanly off the broom because you didn’t have the instinct to grip the wood with your thighs like he did. 

You let out a shrill scream as you felt yourself falling, your worst fear coming to life. 

Thankfully, Fred was quicker than gravity - quicker than death. 

He laser focused on you, and suddenly, everyone else was gone. All the supposed danger, all the Death Eaters - even other members of the Order who might have needed his help - they all vanished in his eyes. 

It was only you. 

He turned the broom into a deadly nose dive, racing down toward you, reaching with his hand out, and in seconds, while you were still hundreds of feet off the ground - he snatched you. He had your wrist gripped so tightly in his hand - slightly sweaty, already slipping. But he wouldn’t have let go of you if Lord Voldemort himself commanded it.  

He likely would have died with that tight grip still around your wrist in those moments if someone had hit him with the killing curse. 

He slowed the broom down, turning up out of the dive, intent to get you away from the fight, driving forward. Scarily, his arm muscles were already shaking from holding up all of your body weight. 

You stared up at him with tears of pure terror dancing in your eyes, and though he was wearing the mask of The Chosen One - in those moments, the terrified, caring, loving eyes of your Fred were staring right back at you. 

As much as you trusted him, you felt yourself slipping out of his grip, and more fear swelled inside of you. 

“Freddie, help me!” You screamed, shaking, flailing under his grip, trying to reach your other arm up to help as he struggled to hold onto you. “Freddie, please, I don’t wanna die!” 

“I’m not gonna let you die!” He replied, desperation gripping his throat. “Just - look at me. Don’t look down.” 

Of course, you were distinctly reminded of that day at The World Cup. And somehow, you felt the same sense of safety with him now that you did then - even if you didn’t have the railing or even the gravity of something under your feet. 

His muscles shook harder, and he knew that he wouldn’t be able to hold onto you for much longer. 

He had to pull you up. 

“I’ve got you.” Fred huffed, straining with the effort. “I’ve got you-” 

He tried pulling you up, but his muscles shook harder in protest, and he let out a harsh, murderous scream of frustration. And then he did the only thing that he could think to do. He gripped onto you tighter, and he used his legs and his other hand to do a sickeningly sharp barrel roll, twisting the broom completely around by leaning with his right shoulder. He flipped the entire broom with the hopes that you would get the chance to be flipped back onto it safely. 

Luckily, even though you let out another terrified scream, you got the hint and hooked your leg around the wood mid-air, holstering your shaking body back behind him. You gripped onto Fred even tighter then, and one glance around told you that luckily, or unluckily, the fight had cleared off from around the two of you. 

Perhaps they had heard you call this imposter Harry by the name ‘Fred’, perhaps you had given the real Harry away and ruined the whole plan. As you squeezed your eyes shut again and shoved your now tearful face into Fred’s back, selfishly, you couldn’t bring yourself to truly care. 

The rest of the trip went on too long for your liking - you were still crawling with anxiety and eager to have your feet back on the ground. 

Toward the end of it, you felt Harry-Fred’s body shift back into the tall, more muscular form that you were familiar with (somehow a bit more muscular than you remembered, but you tried not to get caught up on that detail). You were more than relieved when you felt your feet brushing against the ground with the landing. Distantly, you heard the familiar, comfortingly worried baulking of Molly’s voice, and you opened your eyes to see that Fred’s head was much higher up than it had been before, and his hair was thankfully returned back to its bright red state. 

Molly rushed over to Fred, and there was some conversation, but you couldn’t make it out - blood was thumping in your ears, your body still overtaken by all the horrible symptoms of your fear. The moment that Fred dropped the broom in order to step away from it, you stumbled off into the grass on weak legs. 

You hardly realised that you were hyperventilating - you simply felt dizzy, felt your chest aching from the lack of breath; you noticed that your vision was blurred with tears, and you knew that you weren’t getting enough oxygen. You pressed now muddy hands to your face in desperation, trying to usher more air past your lips, and it was then that a streak of orange fell into your view as Fred dropped to his knees in front of you. He had heard you gasping, and of course, rushed to you with nothing more than concern flooding his system once again. 

“Hey, hey, look at me.” He murmured, trying his best not to panic himself at seeing you like this - he gently took a hold of your face, guiding your vision toward him. “Look at me. You’re alright now. You’re safe.” 

Of course you knew that. You knew that you would always be safe with Fred. 

But your body hadn’t even registered the fact that you had landed yet - the panic only now fully setting in, bringing with it the most cruel, shocking symptoms you had ever experienced. You did the only thing you could think of - the only thing that would truly make you feel safe. Something you knew would truly ground you after experiencing such chaos so high up in the air. 

You launched yourself toward Fred, pressing your face into his chest, wrapping your arms tightly around his waist in a firm hug as you tried to stifle down sobs. He easily accepted this, his thick arms coming to cradle your back, selfishly thankful to have you back in his arms. He gently rocked you back and forth as he peppered more soothing words beside your ear. 

“You’re alright now, darling.” He said, letting the pet name slip so easily that it frightened him. He rubbed a hand up and down your back, feeling your gasping panic all too quickly soothe away under the firm warmth of his touch. “You’re alright.” 

Almost instinctively, he laid a kiss on your temple, not entirely realising that this wasn’t necessarily something an ex-boyfriend would do - he was so ripe with the urge to comfort you, the need to make your pain go away. He couldn’t help but take a little something selfish as the empathetic waves of your panic echoed over to him. 

“I was never gonna let you fall.” He whispered, almost speaking these words to himself - a sacred promise. 

He had regretted every day since the break-up, and even if he couldn’t be your lover, he was never going to let you get hurt. 

You gripped him tighter, your breathing almost back to normal now, and you pushed your face tighter into his chest, relishing in the firm warmth of his body against you. This was something you hadn’t felt in far too long. Fred placed another kiss on the top of your head. He was about to say something entirely dangerous when another bit of chaos came tumbling through the garden, distracting him away from you and causing the words to die off in his throat. 

Remus, hauling George across the grass - and George, slumped over, a massive amount of blood dripping down the side of his head. 

“Georgie.” Fred gasped quietly. 

Your head whipped around at this, and in sync, you and Fred scrambled to your feet, rushing to see what had happened to him. Fred lifted George’s other arm to help get him inside and safely rested him on the couch. 

It was a horror show. 

The flesh of George’s ear had been blown to bits, blood smearing down across his face and spilling down the side of his neck; he was sickly pale and barely conscious. His eyes only flickered, giving you some sense of life in him when Fred called out his name after making sure he was resting comfortably on the couch. 

“Georgie?” 

There was a rare quiver in Fred’s voice that made your stomach quake. Fear. You were not accustomed to hearing Fred fearful, not of anything. Even when he had abandoned Hogwarts and dove into a career as a shop owner without a single clue if he would find success, he did so without a single bit of fear in his heart. 

But of course - seeing his dear brother like this, knowing that someone he loved had been so close to danger - it made him terrified. 

“Hey, Fred.” George croaked back weakly. 

At least he was conscious enough to speak. That gave you quite a bit of relief. 

“How’re ya feeling?” Fred asked. 

“Saint-like.” George replied, a tired smirk gracing his lips that told you he was forming a joke - something that was utterly hilarious in his mind that would only make sense to others when he delivered the punch line. 

You wanted to sob, you wanted to laugh, you wanted to scream. Of course he would be making jokes only moments after nearly being killed. 

“Come again?” Fred said quietly, tentatively. 

Perhaps it sounded partially dangerous to him like it did to you. Perhaps George felt Saint-like because he was too close to death. 

Both of you and Fred held your breath as you waited for the reply. 

“Saint-like.” George grinned. And then he lifted a tired hand and gestured toward the bloody hole on the side of his head before he delivered his glowing punchline. “I’m holy. I’m holy, Fred. Get it?” 

Fred grinned, and you let out a gasping chuckle that you knew was mostly tears. Behind you, Molly inhaled sharply through her teeth, running a hand over her forehead with the stress, and Ginny shook her head as she exhaled an exhausted sigh. 

“The whole wide world of ear related humour, and you go for ‘I’m holy’?” Fred replied, unable to resist humouring George. “That’s pathetic.” 

You knew that if either of them knew anything about the story of the Muggle painter Van Gogh, then they would have been making jokes in that lane. 

“Reckon I’m still better looking than you.” George added on tiredly. 

“You were always better looking than him.” You said, your voice throttled by tears, unable to resist. 

When you turned around to retreat, you saw Ginny clutching onto Molly, clearly hiding tears in her mother’s shoulder, Molly’s face dancing with a kind of sadness you had never seen before. You knew you couldn’t run from your pain. You had known the Weasleys for so long, loved them too much. You had a distinct kind of duty here. 

“Molly, do you have a cauldron around?” You asked, hating how choked with tears your voice was. “I can whip-up something for his pain. I do it at the shop all the time. And a Sleeping Draught, so he can get some rest.” 

It was true - one of your many duties working at the Apothecary was making and bottling simple, common potions to sell (pregnancy test potions, simple multi-use pain potions, Dreamless Sleep Draughts, cures for warts and other common rashes) - many people liked the convenience of coming in and buying a potion for everyday uses rather than having to make it themselves. 

“There’s no need-” George began to protest, but Fred easily cut him off. 

“Come off it.” Fred hissed toward his brother, not taking kindly to ‘selfless’ idea of George not accepting something for the pain he was clearly in. Then, Fred rose up from his place beside George and turned to you with a look of intense concern on his features. “Whatever you need.” 

… 

You had barely begun to set up everything you needed for the brewing when the others finally came in, bringing more chaos with them. Remus accused Harry of being an imposter, which was quickly proven false. Apparently the Order had been betrayed, which explained the presence of Death Eaters on the mission so easily. They had used inside information to know when Harry was being transported - it was only luck that they had been thrown off by the Polyjuice Potion, having to chase down multiple Harrys and not knowing which one was real (even if George got gravely injured in the process). 

Mad-Eye had been killed. 

You weren’t sure if what you felt was mourning for the man. You hadn’t known him all that well. Not the true version of him, anyway. You continued to weep quietly as you worked on the potions, but you knew it wasn’t specifically for him. His death only served to remind you how truly dangerous the mission had been - how close you, Fred, and George, and the others had all come to death. How lucky it was that nobody else had been killed. 

You tried not to let the suffocating gloom that had overtaken the Burrow due to the near failure of the entire mission disrupt the process of making the potions needed for George. When Molly didn’t have some of the ingredients that you needed, you gave Fred your spare key to the Apothecary and he popped over to get them for you. Mr. Michaelchuk, who ran the place, had always told you to ‘take what you needed’, and this was the one time you had actually taken him up on the offer. 

When Fred returned, he fussed at George’s side, helping him change into pyjamas (when everyone else had cleared out) and tucking him in comfortably to a makeshift bed on the couch, with lots of pillows and extra cosy blankets, to the point where he got annoyed with Fred coddling him. You always knew that the two were good friends in addition to being brothers, as close as two people can be, but you had never seen so much abundant affection between them. It was sweet. 

Molly came back downstairs wearing a plaid dressing gown, with a pair of tiny reading glasses balanced on her nose, her slippers scuffing along the floor. She mentioned that Arthur was already ‘snoring away’ - but of course, she had no intentions of going to bed herself. Because of course, if George was down here on the couch, it was so that she could watch over him while she busied herself with knitting - much like she had when Arthur had been on the ward at St. Mungo’s after he had been attacked by the snake. You had gotten a particularly nice jumper for Christmas that year, one that you still wore often when it got particularly cold outside. 

Fred had settled to sit on the couch by George’s feet, and the two had fallen into a hushed conversation, though you didn’t hear most of it. And of course, it wasn’t long before Molly rushed Fred off to bed, just like she had done with everyone else, wanting to give George the space to rest without distractions from visitors. 

“-just get her back, you idiot.” You hear George hiss in a whisper before Molly pushed Fred toward the stairs. 

He couldn’t possibly be talking about…? 

No. 

No, he wasn’t. 

You didn’t think about it. Instead, you let yourself get lost in the meditative process of brewing, making sure that the potions were perfect. You made sure that George was pain-free and lost to a deep, restful, healing sleep (with a few pre-brewed bottles of the potions to spare that would keep his pain at bay for the next few days) before you finally went upstairs, ready to collapse with exhaustion. 

You passed by Fred and George’s room on your way to your final destination, Ginny’s room, where you would be staying with her and Hermione, from now up until Bill and Fleur’s wedding. After which, you would return to your apartment above the Apothecary and try to resume your best sense of ‘normal’ life. All of your things were already unpacked in Ginny’s room, and you had a sleeping bag set up on the floor there. 

But of course, you naturally came to a stop at the mouth of Fred’s open bedroom doorway, letting an instinctive caring overtake you and participating in the need to check on him. 

The sight you saw made your heart ache. 

Fred was sitting on the edge of his twin bed, his posture slumped with pure exhaustion. He hadn’t even changed out of the now ill-fitting Harry clothes that he had to wear for the mission: jeans, a tee shirt, and a grey sport jacket that were now coated in dirt and traces of George’s blood, all oddly short in the limbs and emphasising his tallness, his hands still stained bright red in a way that couldn’t be washed off. 

His face was marked with tear tracks, and his tired, dead gaze was fixated on George’s still neatly made matching twin bed. A space that was hauntingly empty across from his - a sign that his brother was missing. A sign of just how easily someone precious could have been taken from him that night. 

“Freddie?” 

You croaked out, the nickname slipping out in a way you couldn’t control once again, causing him to snap out of whatever distant, depressing thoughts he was caught in. His head jolted toward you, only now realising that you had been standing in the doorway for so long. 

“Y/N,” He responded, his voice choked by tiredness, sadness. 

It was so alarmingly strange to see someone who was usually the pinnacle of laughter reduced down to this. You had never seen Fred Weasley so sad before. 

You had seen him angry, on occasion - like when someone insulted you, or when he had been banned from Quidditch for getting into a fistfight with Malfoy. You had seen him annoyed - like when he found out that the age to enter the TriWizard Tournament was seventeen, and he was only a few months away from being eligible. (You were thankful for that one, and secretly thankful when his Ageing Potion had failed). 

You had seen Fred go through a lot - but you genuinely believed that was the first time you had seen him so deflated in the face of the world. 

He rose to his feet, turned his back to you, almost as if trying to hide. He raised a hand to his face, and your heart ached more when you realised that he was trying to wipe away tears. 

“Come on, let’s get you ready for bed.” You said, moving forward, gently putting a hand on his shoulder, moving up to peel the sport jacket off him. 

You knew that the sadness, something he so rarely felt, had paralyzed him. You knew that sleep was what all of you needed right now - some rest to get your heads on straight. And you wanted to help him in any way that you could. 

“I can’t-” Fred huffed, stepping away from you, putting some distance between the two of you in the small room. “I can’t do this right now.” 

Your stomach curled into a horrible knot as he echoed the words he had spoken to you on that horrible day, when he had broken up with you and relinquished himself from your presence without a second thought. 

It truly hit you then - he didn’t want your help. He didn’t want to be near you now. He had only held you close a few hours ago because it had been a matter of life and death. He had helped to calm you down because it was the friendly thing to do. He didn’t want you here now. 

“Okay.” You choked out, nodding, taking a step toward the door. “O-okay.” 

A hot tear rolled down your face, and you moved to make your way toward Ginny’s room. You were harshly whipped across the emotional spectrum again when Fred stopped you. 

“Y/N, no.” He said, reaching out and grabbing onto your elbow. “Wait.” 

“What, Fred?” You wheezed, your body breathless and exhausted from the horrible roller coaster that you had been on that night. You knew that you glared at him horribly, but you couldn’t help it. “What is it that you want from me?” 

Fred took a step back, as though you had burned him, running stiff hands through his hair. You could have easily run off, turned your back on him and never spoken to him again. Just like he had done to you on that day so long ago. But you waited with your chest tight, waiting for him to finally give you an answer. Did he want to be friends? Did he want you to disappear from his life completely? Did he want-? 

“I can’t-” He choked out, clearly struggling for breath. “I can’t…” 

He swallowed around a fat tongue, and after a heavy moment, he finally got the words out. 

“I can’t lose you.” 

The words spooked you more than the sight of George’s bloodied, blown-apart ear. 

You stared Fred down with a ghost in your eyes, somehow more terrified than you had been when you had been dangling hundreds of feet above London. He was frantic, rapidly searching for more words to explain himself. 

“I - I almost…” He gasped, his throat tightly constricting again. “You almost slipped out of my hands.” 

He spoke the words as though they were a horrible curse, raising his hands in front of him as if to demonstrate the point, as if to demonise his own limbs for not having enough strength to hold you up. His hands shook with undistilled anxiety, with anger towards himself. 

His declaration gave you that sickly sense of nausea, as though you were back up in the air again. You realised that maybe he hadn’t been sitting on the edge of the bed, mourning about potentially losing George - but instead, he had been thinking about you. 

“I didn’t. I didn’t slip.” You replied, the words choked off in your throat, rushing to assure him of the good he had done. 

You were unable to resist the urge to reach out and take his hands in yours, steadying his grip with a firm anger of your own. You were unsure how he could be so cruel toward himself when he had saved your life only hours before. 

“You held me up, Fred. You didn’t let me fall.” 

He let out a huff, shaking his head negatively. 

You knew there was something more troubling him - something deeper that he had yet to speak of, or perhaps wouldn’t tell you at all. He grinded his jaw tightly and slipped his hands away from yours. You stood there, looking at him tensely, wondering if he was going to clue you in, or if he would simply say goodnight and let himself stew with whatever horrible emotions he was feeling. 

“I can’t live like this.” He declared harshly, his throat raw. “I can’t live with you at arm’s length.” 

So what? Was he saying that… he was upset about the break-up? 

Was he saying that he hadn’t actually wanted to be apart from you? 

A look of pure confusion knit across your features, and in the murky silence, Fred moved on to explaining. 

“I let you go once before.” 

He whispered, the words so quiet on his lips, a crazed type of regret dancing in his eyes - in an instant, you knew he wasn’t talking about the mission or flying. He was talking about how easily he let you go from his life - the break-up. 

“I let you slip away from me far too easily. And it was the stupidest thing I have ever done.” 

“Freddie-?” You choked out, more chaotic emotions rocketing through your body now. Anticipation, anxiety - that love for him that you had bottled away slowly creeping back in. But you couldn’t bear to let it flow through you, not yet, not until you knew. 

“If one of us were to die tomorrow, I couldn’t live my last day knowing that I wasted it not being yours.” He declared, the pure passion in his words causing every small hair on your body to stand up on end, making you dizzy. “I know that I’m the biggest git on earth for what I did to you, and for not apologising sooner, but please, please, please, darling-” 

You couldn’t take it anymore. 

You grabbed both sides of the sport jacket and used it to haul him down toward you, planting your mouth firmly onto his, moaning into a kiss that you had longed for, having so sorely missed the touch of his lips on yours. 

You had missed him so damn much. 

Fred was quick to keep up, letting out a delighted sigh of his own, his stomach doing flips in delight, almost in disbelief of just how lucky he was that you hadn’t slapped him across the face and stormed out. 

When your hands ventured down, smoothing across his body - he became even more delighted that you seemed to want more than a kiss out of him. And he was quick to prepare. 

He reached to his back pocket for his wand and pointed it at the still open bedroom door, performing a quick spell that slammed it shut and locked it. In the back of his mind, he was thankful that his bedroom had some silencing wards around it from the days when Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes had been in its infancy, operating their prototype experiments out of this room in the darkest hours of the morning. (Percy got sick of being woken up by the twins’ excited voices and the sound of sputtering cauldrons, and put the silencing wards around their room for his own sake, not knowing how much more it let the twins get away with.) 

Fred was surprised when you took another fitful grip on the front of his shirt, using it to direct him back toward his bed and shoving him down onto it with a strength that he barely knew you had. He fell sideways across the small twin bed, his knees crumbling along the side of the mattress, leaving him sitting with his feet on the floor and his body half collapsed against the tightly tucked-in covers that his mother had prepared before everyone’s arrival. 

He was utterly weak to your whims, anyway, and would have gone wherever you put him. 

He was expecting you to climb on top of him, something needy inside of him yearning for the feeling of your body on top of his after missing it for so long. And he found himself further surprised when you dropped to your knees in front of him, settling your shoulders between his spread thighs, forcing him to spread his legs wider apart to accommodate you. The action spiking a sharp breath out of his lips when you shoved up the hem of the shirt that technically wasn’t his and reached for the button on the jeans that fit him even worse as his cock grew to life underneath them. 

“Y/N, darling-” He choked out, breathy and sharp through his teeth, an intense wave of lust hitting him all at once. 

All night, both of you had been through the emotional ringer - calm determination, fear, possessiveness, mild relief, grief. All while trying to hold back your emotions for each other, balancing right on the edge. Trying desperately to hold each other at arm’s length. 

And now he had you right where he wanted you, where he had been dreaming of you being for months since the break-up; and for some stupid reason, some part of him still felt that it was wrong. That part of him screaming that he should be the one on his knees serving you, that he needed to better apologise-

He reached for your shoulder, clearly trying to coax you back up onto the bed with him, and you swatted the touch away. 

“Don’t-” You choked in return, continuing on your determined path, ripping his zipper down and tugging at the waistband of his jeans. “Freddie, please. Let me do this.” 

You looked up at him with a glassy heat in your eyes that he had never seen before. All the times he had pinned you against walls in quiet corners at Hogwarts, with his hand up your skirt - he had never seen you so wild, so desperate. 

Something utterly possessive rippled through you - something that screamed that you needed to have him weak and moaning for you, that you needed to worship him, to thank him for doing the impossible and saving your life. He was a strong, wonderful man and you needed to taste that strength. You needed to know that you were the only thing that could have him weak, quivering, begging. 

“Fuck-” Fred hissed out when you reached past the band of his underwear and grabbed his cock - your warm touch wrapped around his shaft felt like a deadly awakening, especially when it had been so long since anything but his own had had touched his cock. 

All too soon, he surrendered to you entirely and lifted his hips, slipping the fabric of his jeans and his underwear down completely past his thighs, letting you have whatever you wanted from him. He supposed that’s how it always went with the two of you - he would let you have whatever you wanted, even before you asked. (That’s why the break-up had gone down the way it had - it had been the one time he had been stubborn on something, not simply letting you have your own way.) 

You took him in your hand, slowly pumping his length as you admired him, gently re-familiarising yourself with his body, feeling like it had been far too long. 

“Did you miss it, darling?” He asked, looking down the length of his body at you with a cocky smile stretched across his soft lips. 

You rolled your eyes, hating the possibility of making his ego any larger. 

“Oh yes, your wonderful big cock was the thing I missed most about you,” You griped in return, hoping that your sarcastic tone was more than apparent. 

“I knew you only wanted me for my body.” Fred chuckled. 

As much as you wanted to deny it - Fred Weasley’s cock was a marvel that you couldn’t have forgotten if you had tried. 

During your time apart, it haunted your heated dreams, turning them into nightmares of pure want, your mind dangling something in front of you that you couldn’t have. It made things even worse when he would come into the Apothecary, flirting with you and flashing you a smile, showing off his broad shoulders in those fine tailored suit jackets and making your eyes flicker to his zipper in an utterly whorish way. 

Now, you felt spoiled to have it in front of you again - the perfect beastly eight inches, lean and tall just like he was, curved off slightly to the side, sticking off from a sparse patch of ginger hair. 

Your pussy clenched as you thought about having him inside of you again for the first time in so long, giving you that perfectly full feeling that your fingers never could - but you craved his taste first. You wanted him under your control - you knew part of it was driven by all the fear you had experienced that night, all the chaos that had made you feel so powerless. You needed to feel alive, needed to wield power over someone, something. 

You got your mouth on his cock with a downright feral hunger. 

Fred let out a deep moan and threw his head back, collapsing onto his elbows as the heat and wetness of your mouth enveloped the heat of his cock - it sent another wave of lust zipping through him, reminding him just how throbbing hard he was, just how much he needed you. This was made even worse when you moaned around him - you couldn’t help but to enjoy the feeling of his cock in your mouth, perfectly full, making you choke in such a beautiful way when you dropped down to take more of him. 

“Fuck, darling, shite-” 

You quickly became drunk on the feeling. 

Your eyes fell closed and you simply let yourself enjoy it, loving the fullness of his big, beautiful cock filling up your mouth. With a hand loosely wrapped around the base of his cock, your jaw wide as you began bobbing your head. Your tongue flat against the base, tasting as much of him as you could while you enjoyed the feeling of him so fat and thick in your mouth, gagging you slightly whenever the round tip hit against the back of your throat. It was a perfect, slow rhythm that agonised him and delighted you, and soon had spit pooling around your knuckles. 

The wetness drove him even more insane, especially when it allowed for your soft lips to move slicker against his shaft. 

“Goddammit, please, please, oh-” 

You could feel his thighs begin to quake and quiver beside you, and you wondered if he was close already. 

You couldn’t resist the urge to pull off - wanting to tease him a little. Part of you wanted that bit of revenge, wanting to get him back for the pain he had caused you when he had turned his back on you that day. Though you weren’t entirely cruel, and you didn’t leave him hanging out to dry completely. 

You kept your hand pumping on his now spit-slicked cock (it was that slow, agonising rhythm that caused him to pant like a needy dog), and you moved your mouth downward, giving in to the personal urge to lick and suck on his heavy balls. You did want to drive him a bit more insane, and give into your personal curiosity about what the heavy sac would feel like against your tongue. 

“Fucking - oh - darling, what are you doing to me-? That fucking mouth-” 

Fred wasn’t sure if this was heaven or hell. 

It left him stuck in some sick purgatory where the woman he loved had turned into a sex-crazed vixen, but wouldn’t let him touch you everywhere he wanted to most. Instead, he was sentenced to stare at you as your gorgeous mouth teased his aching cock, making him harder, driving him madder with every stroke of your little devilish tongue. He couldn’t take it anymore - not when your pretty fingers gripped around the base of his cock just right and your lips suctioned so perfectly around one of his bullocks. 

He wouldn’t waste the night cumming over your fist without getting his hands on you properly first. 

He weaved his fingers into your hair and yanked you back, caused you to let out a small yelp - not one of pain, but a bitter sound of complaint as you were pulled off his cock too early for your liking. The sharp tingle of him pulling on your hair caused your tongue to lull out, trailing a filthy bit of spit back to his balls that had him growling. 

Before any words could form, he leaned down and used this grip on your hair to guide you to his lips, shoving his tongue into your open, waiting mouth - something that had you moaning once again, and easily following his lead as he guided you up to sit on his thigh. 

“Don’t expect that I’m gonna waste it all over your hand, darling.” He murmured against your lips between heated kisses. “When I cum tonight, it’s gonna be deep inside your sweet cunt, yeah?” 

You moaned loudly at this. 

You had devolved past the point of words now - having his cock so thick and heavy in your mouth only making you fuzzy-headed and more needy for him. You unconsciously canted your hips against his thigh, grinding your pussy against him through the fabric of your jeans, needing more. You panted against his cheek as he moved deft fingers to undo the button and zipper of your pants while he continued to speak. 

“I need you, pretty girl.” 

He growled lowly in your ear, the pure passion of the declaration causing such intense waves of lust through you that you would have collapsed - if not for the brick wall of his muscled body holding you up. (Hold you up for the dozenth time that night, only for a drastically different reason this time). 

“I need to see you cum on my cock. Missed this pretty cunt so much, can’t wait-” 

He trailed off in his crazed lustful ramblings when he shoved his fingers past the now open fly of your jeans and into your underwear, quickly finding a distinct wetness and landing on your clit with a firm touch like a magnet. 

“Freddie!” You wept into his neck, bucking into the touch as you tumbled into a madness of your own. 

He began circling quickly on your clit, enjoying your gasps and other sounds, enjoying the feeling of you bucking so wildly on his thigh. All too soon, he was overtaken by a little pinch of mischief that always crept up on him. The urge to get you back for your earlier teasing. He quickly removed his hand and felt a smirk spread across his lips at the deflated little whimper you made, your eyes snapping open just in time to catch him licking your wetness off his fingers. 

“Fred-” You began to protest, sharp demanding in your tone. 

“Come on, get these clothes off,” He said, giving you a firm pat on the ass that made you far too weak to his whims. 

“Freddie-” You whined this time - and rather than giving into you, he brought up a fantastic point. 

“The faster you get your clothes off, the faster I can get my cock in you.” He whispered hotly against your ear, making you shiver. 

You hated that he was right. 

You stood up, moving to strip your shirt off over your head, glaring at him the whole time while he also began to strip himself. 

“Go on, good girl.” 

You hated how those words made you even wetter. You hated how easily he manipulated you based on weaknesses he knew so well. 

“I hate you.” You mumbled quietly, absolutely no heat in the words as you reached to unclip your bra. 

“Oh darling, if only that were true.” 

He said pointedly, mourning peeking through that bit of mischief in his eyes. Something you didn’t have too much time to decode as stood to his full height to untangle his jeans from his legs, knowing that you would quake in his shadow and become even more turned on from this. 

Once you were both naked, he ushered you down onto the bed, making sure that you were comfortable with your head on the pillow as he captured your mouth in another needy kiss. You moaned against his lips, easily sucking his tongue in as you tangled your fingers into that fiery red hair and gave an appreciative tug. You then tucked your knee up over his hip, opening yourself up to him - this caused his heavy cock to brush against your wetness, making you gasp into his mouth as the two of you made contact for the first time in far too long. 

“Freddie-” You gasped, unconsciously bucking your hips up, causing your pussy to wetly slide against his cock in a way that forced a deep groan out of him. “Oh, fuck, oh-” 

“Shh, darling, Daddy’s got you,” Fred replied, palming across your forehead and your hair in an almost gentle way while he further parted your thighs with a firm knee. 

His words caused you to choke on another moan. 

You had heard Fred refer to himself as ‘Daddy’ before - but much like everything else in his life, it was always a joke. He would be buying his favourite sweets and mumble ‘come to Daddy’ before tearing open the package and devouring them. He would say that his codename was ‘Big Daddy’ when setting up a particularly epic prank. (George was ‘Big Red’ and you were usually ‘Darling’ or ‘Garden Flower’. They were not the most useful or top secret codenames.) You had heard him jokingly shout ‘Daddy’s home’ when returning to the Gryffindor common room, only to have the expected laughs and jokes in return. 

You had never expected that the name would turn you on so much. But you had never, ever expected to hear it in this context. You had also never expected that it would sound so natural in this context. But it suited him so well. It seemed to only compliment the gentle kind of caring he gave you - how protective he was over you, how safe he made you feel. 

“Daddy,” You moaned in return - Fred gripped your hip with a deadly, bruising grip and looked at you with a fierce heat in his eyes. 

Hearing that word from your lips turned him on in a way he couldn’t explain. And in that moment, it took every bit of his personal will not to slam his cock into you and hammer his hips forward until you said it again, and again, and again. Until you screamed it. 

He took a hold of his cock with the other hand, and you expected him to slide into you, finally giving you both what you truly needed - but instead, he began rubbing the round head of his cock against your clit, further teasing you. You let out a gasp and looked at him with pleading in your eyes. 

“Freddie,” You whined, attempting to angle your hips up, fruitlessly trying to trick him to slip his cock inside of you. You knew him too well, knowing that once he got the tip in, he wouldn’t be able to resist fucking you senseless. But he held you down with the hand on your hip, making you barely able to move at all against his muscular hold and the awkward angle he had you pinned with. 

“Come on, sweets,” He purred, laying a kiss on your forehead, and then your cheek, trailing kisses down your neck as he murmured against your skin. “Tell Daddy what you need. Say the word and I’ll give you anything you want.” 

He began roughly smacking his cockhead against your clit, making you jolt and gasp sharper, making your pussy leak furiously against the bed. You cried out and gripped his hair tightly, almost meanly, desperate for the teasing to end. You didn’t see the way he was staring at your cunt, mesmerised by the sight of your swollen pearl kissing against his cock, glistening, wet and needy. Something that he would burn into his brain forever and most definitely revisit on lonely nights. 

“Please, Daddy!” You moaned, hoping the name alone would goad him into giving in. But you knew what he truly wanted, and you couldn’t wait any longer. “Please - fuck - I need your cock. I need you to fuck me, I need-” 

Perhaps he was truly satisfied by this, or perhaps he couldn’t take the teasing anymore himself - either way, he finally guided his cock down to your pulsing entrance and pushed in, swearing hotly under his breath when the tight, wet, perfect heat of your cunt began sucking him in for the first time in over a year. 

“Oh, oh fuck, Freddie,” You moaned, tugging on his hair. “Oh-” 

“Fucking perfect,” He swore into your ear. “Dammit, I’ve missed this pussy so much.” He choked on a groan as he continued slowly inching his hips forward, splitting you open with his massive length, making your pussy ache and burn in the most perfect way. “Good girl. So good for me. So good for Daddy,” 

You both moaned loudly once he was fully seated inside of you - you, feeling that deep satisfaction of feeling so perfectly full once again, and Fred so deeply enjoying the wet warmth of your pussy around him that was so irreplaceable because it was you. 

Sensing your need, especially after all his teasing, and after spending so long without him - he didn’t make you wait any longer. 

Fred began rocking his hips into yours at a gentle, even pace, not wanting to hurt you. From the sound of your gentle whines and the feeling of you squirming beneath him, he could tell that you needed more. He could tell that now wasn’t the time for holding back. 

He let out a gentle grunt and you became even more heated and curious as he began shifting around, some clear intent on his mind. You let out a sharp gasp when he raised himself up on his knees, poising himself in the perfect position to fuck you hard, deep, and powerful. Then, he made it even more deadly when he grabbed you by the backs of your thighs, making more air hiss out through your lips when he pressed your body practically in half, pressing your knees up toward your chest before he hooked his arms under your legs to keep them there and planted his hands firmly on either side of your chest. 

The two of you were even closer, even more intimate, and you felt him so much deeper inside of you. 

“Freddie,” 

You croaked out darkly, already feeling him so much deeper as he settled in above you. Your pussy was leaking furiously around him now, clenching tightly and waiting for him to move as a ghost of dark mischief danced through his eyes that promised you were in for the sweetest kind of hell. 

“Good?” He asked, smirking at you. 

“Yes, but what about-?” 

You wanted to warn him not to make too much noise, not to break the bed, which was already creaking in protest underneath the two of you - but he didn’t entirely care. Fred never truly cared about the consequences of his actions once he got an idea in his head - to him, the thrill was more than worth whatever pain may befall him. 

The only time that hadn’t been true was when he had made the foolish, heat-of-the-moment mistake of breaking up with you. And now, he had to make up for it. 

He put all the power into his muscled thighs (the same muscled thighs that had saved you just a few hours ago by gripping onto his broom and steadying the flight) - and ploughed forward with intense power. This began an unforgiving, hard rhythm of pounding into your cunt in hard, deep, fast strokes. 

In seconds, you were putty beneath him - he had you perfectly pinned in place so that you couldn’t have moved an inch if you wanted to, all you could do was lay there and take it. You were weak against the savage movements of his long cock fucking into your swollen pussy over and over again, filling you up in the best way you could have imagined, becoming everything you needed in the world. 

As the room filled with the harsh, wet slaps of his skin against yours and your weak moans, followed by his increasingly animalistic grunts - all there was in the world was you and Fred, the space where the two of you met, the place where he had your thighs pinned open so that his cock could absolutely ruin your pussy.  

“Good girl, such a good girl for me,” He growled against your lips - you moaned pathetically in return, flooding even more wetness around his cock, making the sound of him fucking into you embarrassingly slicker. “Never should have let you go. Should have kept you right here, right where you belong,” 

You wanted to tell him that perhaps the fight was both of your faults, that you should have reached out to him sooner and told him that you wanted him back. That the time apart had been so dreadfully tender for you too. 

But your brain was soup, only further stirred up by the tip of his cock poking around in your guts. So any words you could have said chased out of your lungs with every passionate thrust of his hips up into your wet pussy, and all you managed in return was: 

“Daddy! Fuck, oh-!” 

“Shh, darling, I know.” Fred mumbled into your neck, taking a sloppy, greedy lick of your skin. “I know, sweets. Daddy’s gonna give you what you need. Gonna keep you fucked n’ full. Never gonna let you go again. Never gonna let anyone else touch you-” 

Fred’s hips stuttered and you tightly squeezed around his cock at the words. 

Perhaps it was a wink of his personal insecurity peeking through. The horrifying idea that because he had broken up with you, you might find somebody else. When in fact, you had been so caught up on him, only thinking about him, waiting for him. (The whole time, thinking that he had broken up with you because he no longer had any favour in his heart for you.) 

“Just you, Freddie.” You breathed out, desperately trying to get air past your now very chapped lips. “Always yours-” 

“Yes, mine.” He replied, that crazed desperation returning to his voice. “Mine, my girl.” 

He sealed his lips against yours, grinding his hips tightly against your pelvis rather than fucking you with any kind of rhythm now - showing you just how deep he was inside of you, just how much he owned you, truly, from the inside out. It was something that made your stomach clench, made your body buzz with electricity, and made you whine around his tongue. 

You were close. 

Fred knew this - he knew you too well. He moved a hand down to your clit, letting one of your legs drop slightly, and had two determined fingers on your throbbing clit while he picked up the pace again, pulling his lips back from yours. 

“You gonna cum for me? Gonna cum for Daddy like a good girl?” 

His words, his velvet voice speaking to you so commanding yet so sweet, were what truly brought your orgasm to life in your belly. His voice made the fullness of his cock and the sharpness of his fingers on your clit all the more electric. You likely could have cum just from his words alone if he kept speaking to you that way. 

“Yes, Daddy.” You moaned in response. 

“Good girl. Come on,” 

He breathed hotly against your chin, his eyes now eagerly dancing from your face to the space where your cunt hugged his dick, leaking around him in such a wonderfully filthy way. Clearly, he wasn’t sure where he wanted to look, what part of the show he was more eager to witness after missing out on you for too long. 

“Come on, cum on my cock. Cum for me, love, good girl-” 

His heated words trailed off as your head snapped back and your eyes squeezed shut, your fingers digging sharply into his bicep as your orgasm rocked your body. Fred grunted as he continued to fuck you through it, his eyes glued to you, taking in every single inch of the sexy beauty that was you, the love of his life, as you thrashed and moaned and came on his cock. It was the most perfect sight he could have imagined, and he easily ingrained into his mind forever, praying that he would never have to miss out on it - to miss out on you - ever again. 

“Yes, yes darling, so good for me, so good-” He practically choked on his own words, his voice so thick with lust that it barbed the insides of his throat. 

As he felt the last weak spasms of your pussy around his cock, he stopped rubbing your sore clit and became possessed with a new need, becoming slightly selfish now. He fucked his hips forward even harder, determined to find his own pleasure inside the sweet, soft walls of your cunt. 

“Fucking hell-” He choked out a groan, dropping his head into your neck again as you petted through his hair, encouraging him through it while he unintentionally sent sharp zaps of overstimulation through your pussy with every needy, sharp push of his hips. 

“Freddie,” You breathed out. “Come on, Daddy, cum for me. You’ve been so good to me, come on-” 

He let you another loud growl and pounded into you harder, dropping his hold on your other knee and letting your legs rest to cradle around his waist as he blindly chased his own end inside your soft, wet cunt. 

“Gonna fill you up, gonna fill you up so good,” He whispered into your neck, chanting like a man possessed, sending another unexpected wave of heat through you that made you moan weakly. “All mine, all mine, darling, all mine, gonna give you what you need, fuck-” 

He tried to silence his moans into your neck as he stiffened his back and finally came - his own orgasm hitting him like a firework. He shoved his hips forward stiffly one last time, seating his cock deeply inside of you, stuffing you full, just like he had promised. He gentled grinded his hips against yours in mindless, stuttering strokes while he pumped spurts of hot cum deep inside of you - something that made your body buzz with even more heat and made you moan in return, clutching onto him tightly with your legs around his waist and your arms around his shoulders. 

“Oh darling, oh-” He muttered quietly against your neck as the last waves of his orgasm washed over him. 

It was so perfect, and made you feel so utterly connected to him. It was a distinct reminder of everything you had missed - his warmth, his caring, the thrill he gave you while at the same time making you feel so damn safe. 

When Fred moved to pull away from you, moving to break that connection, every instinct in your body screamed that it was wrong. You clenched your legs around him, digging a heel into his lower back to keep him close, and he let out a grunt - still dizzy from his orgasm and unsure what you were doing. But he settled back into place, creating a filthy ‘squish’ between the two of you. 

“Just hold me.” You said, having no clue when the tears had returned to your eyes, making your voice so clearly wet. “I missed you. I can’t lose you.” 

“Hey, hey shh.” He said, leaning up to kiss along your cheek, rushing to kiss away those tears. “I’m right here with you, darling. I’m not going anywhere. You’re not going to lose me.” 

He wrapped his arms around you, wiggling his grip between your back and the mattress to do so. This created the most stunning cocoon, forcing your two bodies even closer together - it wasn’t long before he became soft inside of you, but he stayed there for as long as he reasonably could, kissing along your forehead, your cheeks, your neck, uttering quiet reassurances that you weren’t going to lose him, that you wouldn’t have to miss him any longer. 

It made you incredibly content and warm. At least while it lasted. 

When Fred finally pulled out of you, you felt a deep sense of dissatisfaction and loneliness, which you tried to ignore. Especially because you weren’t sure if he would want you to sleep in his bed - which was something that you wanted very much, especially after the long day you had. But you weren’t sure if he wanted to be left alone to contemplate all of it, to be sure of his decision to take you back. 

You jumped to get out of the bed as though it were on fire, and when you looked to your rumpled clothes on the floor - your jeans still stained with dirt from when you had collapsed in the garden, your shirt likely reeking of sweat from the nerves of everything that had happened - the idea of putting those clothes back on wasn’t exactly appealing. 

Then, something else came to mind. 

“My things are in Ginny’s room…” 

You sighed, realising that if you wanted a pair of pyjamas for the night, or even a fresh pair of underwear, then you would have to waltz in and wake her up - and likely be interrogated about where you had been. She was all too knowing anyway, and any excuses you gave about spending the time caring for George or simply having a ‘talk’ with Fred would be seen right through by her. 

Fred hummed, and stood, and you were surprised when he comfortably went over to the chest of drawers against the wall at the end of his bed, going right to the top drawer. The drawer where you used to keep some of your things when you stayed with the Weasleys on holidays - and surely enough, a small collection of your things were still in there. 

Things that he had never returned to you after the break-up that you had never thought to ask for. You had no idea that he often came to this drawer, sneaking mournful whiffs of your scent - even used your shirts as a pillow case if he was feeling particularly lonely. 

He pulled out a pair of your comfortable sleep shorts and a large, soft, worn green tee shirt with a large shamrock on the front and a ‘94 on the back that he had bought for you as a souvenir from The World Cup. It had been your all time favourite sleep shirt, and you had wondered where it had disappeared to when you moved into your apartment above the Apothecary once you started the job. 

“I hope these still fit.” He said, handing you the clothes. 

“They should.” You said - quiet, careful not to acknowledge the elephant in the room. The fact that he had kept your things all this time. 

“Unfortunately I don’t have any panties for you, so…” He trailed off, a filthy grin plucking up over his cheeks once again when the implication hit the air - the fact that you would be commando underneath your clothing. 

“Yeah, very unfortunate in your eyes, I’m sure, Fred.” You huffed, turning toward the door. “I should go get cleaned up.” 

You let out a small squeak when two strong arms encircled your waist, pulling you sharply back, causing you to collide with the wonderful, bare, muscled, now slightly sweaty body. You couldn’t help but to melt into the touch, and you let out a quiet moan as he began kissing your neck - not in a particularly lustful way, but in a way that was purely loving and affectionate. 

“Don’t think you’re getting away from me that easy, darling.” He whispered in your ear. “Please, do come back afterwards. You know I like to cuddle,” 

You didn’t think that you had ever heard Fred Weasley say ‘please’ for anything so plainly in his life. But, as usual when it came to him, you wanted exactly what he wanted. 

“Only if you insist.” You joked lightly, smoothing a hand over his arm that was still tightly encircled around your middle. “I suppose I can clear some time in my very busy schedule for cuddling,” 

Fred quietly let out a ‘yes’ in celebration, and hesitantly let you go. He then collapsed back onto the bed, relaxing spread eagle, still confidently naked against the covers with his hands behind his head against the pillow. You couldn’t help it when your eyes did a once-over of his body, admiring the soft planes of his muscles that had come from hard work rather than a distinct workout routine and the beautiful bit of fat on his lower belly that made him so warm and nice to cuddle. Of course, when your eyes met his, he was smirking at you. 

“I’ll be waiting, love.” He told you with a wink. 

You rolled your eyes at this, biting your lip to suppress a smile at his somewhat deserved cockiness. 

You moved to leave the room with your newly acquired clothes, wanting to freshen up in the bathroom a bit before going to sleep (the bathroom was right across the hall, so you would have to sneak across the way naked and hope that nobody would catch you, but it should be fine at this time of night). But when your hand twisted the knob and it didn’t budge, you remembered that Fred had locked it earlier. 

He moved to grab his wand from the pocket of his pants, splayed out in the middle of the floor, but you reached for the jeans first. Your wand was still downstairs beside the cauldron that had brewed the potions for George, but often, you found that Fred’s wand worked fine for you. 

Ollivander and other wand experts said that a wizard couldn’t find the same kind of success using a wand that wasn’t their own, but you found using Fred’s to be just as natural, like an extension of your own arm. Perhaps it was because his core was a Dragon Heart’s String, and that heart beat for you just as fondly as his own did. Either way, it was a fine substitution. You unlocked the door easily and tossed the wand back to him where he was sitting on the bed, and then you snuck across the hall to clean up and get dressed. 

When you came back, Fred had crawled under the covers and was starting to fall asleep. When you crawled in alongside him, you found that he hadn’t bothered to get dressed, so you locked the door again, just in case. It was a basic charm that anybody could get through, but it would give the two of you a few minutes of warning to make yourselves decent if somebody did come knocking. 

It felt like the most wonderfully natural thing in the world to settle beside him, wrapping an arm around his waist while he slept on his back, putting your head on his chest and feeling his sleepy fingers brush across your head from behind. 

“Goodnight, love.” He whispered, so quiet as though he was afraid to break apart a beautiful daydream. 

“Goodnight, Freddie.” 

… 

You wondered if all of it had been a dream. 

Fred apologising to you, begging for your forgiveness, the two of you having amazing sex - it was something you had dreamt about many times before. It was something you had wished would come true, only to find yourself waking up alone in a cold bed. So waking up next to Fred, with his large, warm body coiled up against your back like a koala was one of the best ways you could have come into a new day. 

It wasn’t long before the smell of Molly’s cooking reached your nose - the wonderful fatty sizzle of sausages and the bready warmth of toast that told you she was frying up a full English (likely because she had been having trouble sleeping after the events of the night before). Your stomach gave a painful pang, making you want to get out of bed to eat just as much as you wanted to stay cuddled up with Fred. 

You gently petted a touch along Fred’s heavy arm that was wrapped possessively around your waist, and soon, he sucked in a sharp breath as he too began to stir. 

“Merlin, I missed this.” He said, leaning in to smother you with more of his perfect warmth as he somehow crowded tighter against your back, kissing along your clothed shoulder and up your neck once again. 

Your heart fluttered with the sweetness, the fondness of it all, and you wondered how such a hellish night had made way to such a perfect morning. 

“I wish we could stay in bed forever, Freddie, but I think your Mum is making breakfast.” You remarked, finding yourself more aware of your hunger as you woke up more, and more drawn to the delicious smells. 

“We can stay here for a bit longer.” He hummed into your neck. 

Just then - his stomach let out a loud groan of protest, and you giggled. 

“Come on, Big Daddy needs to eat too.” You said, using the nickname in a more playful, joking manner as you patted his thigh, untangling yourself from his arms as you got out of bed. 

You were surprised, and slightly victorious when you saw a slight blush tinging his pale cheeks because of the teasing, the way you had used the nickname. It was amazing to see someone like Fred go from so powerful and confident to fluttering with shyness. 

“I have to find some trousers,” He remarked, suddenly remembering that he was naked. 

“I’ll meet you downstairs,” You grinned, walking across to the bathroom, lucky to beat anybody else there before the others started waking up. 

When you hit the bottom stair, Fred was standing at the back of the couch with his back to you, now fully dressed in a pair of comfortable plaid sleep pants and an old Chudley Cannons shirt that must have belonged to Ron. (It was only because of many winding discussions about Quidditch among the boys that you hadn’t even wanted to hear that you knew the Cannons were Ron’s team and the twins hated them.) 

Fred was leaning over, clearly talking to George, who was still laying where the two of you had left him the night before. You hated that your instinct was to stand back where neither of them had seen you and listen in on their conversation - but you had only learned such matters from Mr. and Mr. Extentenable Ear themselves. 

“...well, yes, I would say that it did go well, but I would still have to classify the nature of the relationship as dubious. Or friendly at best.” Fred said in a rushed whisper. 

Your stomach gave a twist. This time you had to assume that the twins were talking about you. Talking about what had happened between the two of you the night before. 

“Dubious?” George’s voice baulked, clearly trying to stay hushed himself, but having a hard time restraining his volume due to frustration - frustration at not being able to get a better answer out of his brother. “The two of you had sex and you’re classifying the nature of the relationship as dubious? Are you an idiot or was the sex that horrible?” 

You choked down a laugh at this, not wanting to be caught just yet, and resisting the urge to speak up and clarify that the sex was, in fact, great. 

“No, she seemed perfectly satisfied, thank you very much.” Fred hissed back, full of sass. You would have said more than ‘satisfied’ - for once, Fred was actually being humble. “But I just didn’t think to stop and ask: oh, by the way, does this mean that we’re back together and you still love me? Or were just scared and lonely after almost dying and wanted a decent lay? Can you fill out a post-orgasm survey to clarify, please, and make sure to-” 

An arm came up from the couch with a pillow, smacking Fred clear in the chest - hard enough to force a small grunt out of him. George was certainly feeling better. You were glad to know that your potions had done him some good. 

“You should have just asked, you numpty!” George scolded him. “You’ve been mooning over losing her for-” 

“Y/N,” Fred cut off his twin’s words by saying your name, announcing your presence as that smack with the pillow had caused him to finally turn his head and spot you there. 

“Fred.” You grinned, not at all ashamed that you had been caught. 

You walked over to the couch, leaning over to find George grinning at you in a way that said he was holding back a barrage of stomach shaking laughter because of the conversation you had caught the two of them in. 

“For the record, I would call the sex more than satisfactory.” You said, a mischievous grin coming over your lips. “And I do still love you.” You announced, turning toward Fred. “I was lonely and scared last night, but that’s why I came to you. You’re the only person I want to go to when I feel that way. I missed you. And I want you back if you’ll have me.” 

“Merlin, of course I’ll have you.” Fred breathed out a sigh of relief, now grinning as well. “I love you more than anything, darling. You have no idea how much I’ve missed you.” 

“I have some idea, and it was bloody annoying.” George muttered out, only to be ignored. 

You leaned in for a kiss, naturally, but just as Fred’s lips brushed yours, George let out a loud, fake gagging sound - one that had Molly running into the room, clearly fretting and worried that George was actually ill. 

“I’m fine, Mum.” George groaned as Molly began patting down his head with a wet cloth - clearly, his night had been filled by the annoying, but loving fuss of his mother watching over him. 

“Yes, yes of course.” Molly nodded, hesitantly putting the cloth down. “It’s time for breakfast anyway - do you feel up for sitting at the table, dear?” 

“I would love to get off this bloody couch.” George groaned. 

Fred rushed around to help him up, and after a moment of struggle to his feet, you grabbed his other arm to help him along into the kitchen. 

“I suppose it all worked out for the better.” George said, smiling at you. “Even if you did end up with the less attractive twin.” 

You rolled your eyes, biting back a smile at this.

...

A/N: This fic is a oneshot, and there will not be a continuation or a 'Part 2'. This is a capsule story meant to be read independently, and in terms of the narrative, there will not be a continuation. If you are going to leave a comment, please comment about the body of work that has been written here, do not comment asking for more. If you would like to read more of my fics, please take a look at my Harry Potter Masterlist, more specifically, my other Fred Weasley fic - Kisses Like Fire Whiskey. Thank you if you have gotten this far, and happy reading!

[whoreforsexymen]

heeeey!!!! Im back with more jayce request. I would like to see jayce x reader with the prompts “Don’t act like you didn’t want to end up under me like this.” and “Shut up and take my fuckin’ cock.”. This is giving me like rivals or enemies to lovers where jayce and the reader have some heavy sexual tension under the surface. One day jayce just loses all patience and snaps and takes all of his stress and anger out on the reader

Sink Like A Stone | Jayce Talis

Prompt Fic (See, Prompt List)

Prompt(s) Used:

#2 "Don't act like you didn't want to end up under me like this."

#21 "Shut up and take my fuckin' cock."

Pairings: Jayce x Fem!Reader

Pronouns: Fem!Pronouns + Female Anatomy Descriptions

Rating: NSFW, 18+, MDNI !! You WILL be blocked!

Word Count: 8.3k (IDK what happened)

Tags: Songfic, INTENSE Smut, INTENSE Angst, VERY SLIGHT dub-con (it's not really dubcon--Jayce just get's really consumed by anger at one point--the unspoken consent is there) Hate-fucking, Lovers to Enemies then back to Lovers (??), Choking, Semi-Public Sex, Biting, Slapping, etc.

Summary: You and Jayce are ex-lovers. You hate him for plagiarizing and stealing your life's work, and he hates you for leaving him over what he considered a selfless act. After months of having not seen each other, you two get into a heated screaming match turned hate-fucking. However, Jayce may have let his emotions get the better of him.

Notes: OKOKOK, so. Be warned. This one is a DOOZY. I was in no way planning on adding 90% of the elements I added to this story. They just kind of happened.

(Special note to @milkbean69 !! I really took this and ran with it. If you want me to redo it in a much tamer way. Please let me know and I will.)

((((Side note, this is going to have to be a two-parter! Stay tuned for part two, which will be much softer.))))

‘We lie,

Cold.’

Jayce.

A name so simple, so unassuming, it would slip unnoticeably through anyone else’s mind. But to you, it holds weight. Each syllable, each breath that forms it, feels impossibly significant—a name that stirs something deep within you, a quiet echo of poignancy known only by you.

Your feelings towards the Jayce Talis you once knew were complex and hard to define. On one hand, you despised the way he insinuated himself into the council of Piltover’s most prestigious Academy, taking a seat you believed was rightfully yours—one you had fought tooth and nail to earn.

‘Dam up the river,

We can go, slow.’

His so-called “vision” for Piltover’s future, with that abominable Hextech nonsense, had directly sabotaged the plans you’d spent years perfecting. You may not have had the luxury of Arcane magic to ease trade, but you had crafted a much more practical blueprint to connect Piltover to the rest of Runeterra’s trading world.

Yet the moment Jayce and his fragile “partner” wielded their so-called “magic,” your ideas were dismissed, overlooked, and ultimately erased.

‘We don’t wanna,

Know.’

On the other hand, you had always considered him a friend—seemingly more at times—until the day he practically ripped the rug of your life’s work out from under your feet.

Not to mention he had the gall to call it his idea. “His” idea? Please. It was your idea, just re-wrapped in a fancy mystical package. You had worked on it together, after all. Jayce had spent countless hours rambling about the mysticism and potential of those tiny blue stones of his, insisting they could revolutionize everything you had ever strived to achieve. Never once did you imagine that, once he unlocked their power, he’d turn against you, abandoning the partnership and the vision you had once shared.

‘Dull down our senses,

Become numb.'

What kind of name was Hextech, anyhow? It felt devoid of sophistication, lacking both subtlety and the gravitas one might expect from something so profound. It didn’t quite capture the essence of what it was—an intricate fusion of magic and technology—nor did it convey any sense of elegance or purpose.

Although, you couldn’t deny that you often reminisced in memories of your life before his grandiose “discovery”—robbery, really— of Hextech—your idea.

‘We take our time

Ignoring all the signs

Living in fear of our lies

Never bad enough to break it

Or, good enough to feel right.’

You had spent the better portion of your youth with him, much of it tangled amidst bedsheets, consumed by a shared, desperate need to relinquish each other’s physical tensions.

‘Been in overtime,

Half our lives.’

Sometimes, you could still feel the softness of his touch, the warmth of his lips grazing your skin—and other, much more tender, places. You could easily recall how your body had ached for him at times, but even more painfully, how your heart had longed for him, too. A truth you never dared to utter aloud.

The absence of anything beyond those intense moments of passion never really crossed your mind during the thick of it all. You never questioned it, and in hindsight, you’re almost thankful you didn’t—especially after what he had done after all that time. All of the time spent together, collectively fantasizing over your dreams and aspirations of a better life for all citizens, and a better future for the next generations to come.

‘Under indecision,

We become so dependent.

On the rush,

Of the moment.’

The bitterness that had consumed your heart was unbearable now, and the thought of ever confessing your feelings to him seemed almost unfathomable—impossible to imagine how much worse it could have been for you now if you had.

By this point, you were acutely aware of how deeply you loathed him. Your physical desires had long since faded, especially since you hadn’t seen or spoken to him in months. You had even gone so far as to move to a place he couldn’t find, cutting off every trace of connection, and the bond you once had.

Your skin ached with longing for him, your body and soul craving his touch once more. Yet, no matter how intense the desire, you would never allow him a single opportunity to return to your life.

It was a painful contradiction to bear—hating him, yet craving him all the same. You felt trapped, consumed by hopelessness, unable to escape the turmoil inside.

‘Sanitize

My head.’

You hadn’t moved far—just to the other side of Piltover, away from The Academy, the council, and—most importantly—-Jayce, himself.. The distance was a great relief. In your day-to-day life, there was no real risk of encountering him, and that small sense of safety gave you some peace of mind.

However…

You often found yourself testing that peace, pushing the boundaries of the distance you’d created. You weren’t entirely sure why—maybe it was the deep, unresolved desperation for him, or perhaps a semi-conscious, self-destructive choice of yours.

‘Death murders

Everything in sight.’

Each night, you found yourself walking almost the entire length of Piltover, from your new home to the Hexgate monolith on the far end—the very place you had fought so hard to escape.

Seeing the towering structure always left you with a deep, melancholic thrum in your chest. It represented everything you had once hoped for, everything you had worked and slaved over, now reduced to rubble by its mere presence.

‘Beneath the rip in the wind

The pillar push you aside.’

That tower stood as an unyielding symbol of betrayal, a constant reminder of the anger and anguish that had shattered your world at the mercy of Jayce’s hands.

‘If I make way

I can taste your sigh.

Just like the cannibal amp

It knows sound is size.’

On your nightly walks, you would make your way down the stone pier that lead to the water, your footsteps echoing in the quiet. When you reached the end, you’d grasp the railing that kept people from tumbling over the cliff’s edge, gluing yourself to the present moment.

‘Push me to

The brink, I said

Well that bitch

Is a creep

It tried to know what I think.’

There, you’d gaze up at the tower, lost in thought—re-evaluating and wondering how differently your life might have unfolded if Jayce hadn’t betrayed you—-if he hadn’t stolen your idea and torn everything apart.

‘To breathe out passion

Or suck in fate

You think the world was made

To wield your weight

And bleed out?’

Tonight was no different. Here you were, hood drawn—- hands shoved deep in your pockets—-your bodice pulled tight as you hunched in quiet disdain, eyes locked on nothing but the ground that passed underfoot.

Your expression was sour as you traced every wrong turn your life had taken to bring you here. Your chest felt heavy, as if the weight of it all pressed itself down upon you out of sheer spite.

Your mind buzzed, a relentless whirl of painful memories spinning in a dizzying menagerie inside your skull.

When your eyes met the stark, hauntingly familiar edifice, a sharper pang stabbed deep beneath your chest, more intense than you were accustomed to by now.

You weren’t sure why, of all nights, tonight seemed to bring out the most intense surge of feelings—especially since you found yourself unusually consumed by your thoughts this time around.

Especially since, long before Jayce had perfected the Hexgate, the two of you would often come here to find solace in the sound of the waves and the crisp air of the sea. You’d toss stones into the water, or compete to see who could throw them the furthest. The bittersweet memory of how often Jayce would taunt you for your lack of coordination only deepened the pain and anger digging at you.

You couldn’t control the mindless, almost reflexive way your body reacted to such intense feelings, in combination with the familiarity of the location. Without a second thought, your hand reached for a nearby rock, and before you even registered what you were doing, you hurled it as hard as you could toward the tower.

The tower, distant and perched far out in the water, seemed almost unreachable, and your rock barely made it halfway before splashing down into the water with a sound that felt like it mocked you in the same way Jayce had. You almost felt compelled to throw another rock, driven by some irrational need to make the first one atone for mocking you—despite the fact that it, like all other rocks, had no sentience to answer for its actions.

You gave in to the irrational impulse, bending down to pick up another rock, your mind still fixated on the need to make the previous one pay. But as your fingers closed around the stone, something in the corner of your vision made you pause. A pair of shoes—familiar, yet unknown—caught your eye. Shoes that were attached to feet. Feet that led up to legs. Legs that belonged to the hips and torso of an individual you couldn’t see beyond your hood.

The rock slipped from your hand, forgotten, as your attention shifted entirely to the figure standing behind you. You hadn’t heard a single indicating noise that you had been followed, or approached from behind.

The presence was sudden, unnerving, and yet, you couldn’t bring yourself to be afraid. If you were anywhere else, anywhere but Piltover, you’d be terrified. But here, in this ”city of wonders”, you couldn’t shake the feeling that somehow, you were still safe.

If anything, it was probably an enforcer, here to reprimand you for throwing rocks in the first place. You straightened up, brushing the thought aside, and turned to face whoever had been silently looming behind you.

As you spun around, you realized—this wasn’t an enforcer.

No, far from it.

The person standing there was more terrifying than any enforcer could ever be, and certainly more annoying, infuriating, and enraging to look upon, for lack of better words to describe the instant rush of wrath that overwhelmed you.

‘Am I the reason

That you can’t look past

Your future self?’

“Your aim is still pretty shit, sunshine.” He says plainly, the nickname he had always pegged you with burning in your ears.

Your blood ran cold as your eyes locked onto the disgustingly smug expression on his face. Every hair on your body stood on end, a shiver crawling up your spine as you stood face to face with the man you now regarded with nothing but utter disdain.

You freeze, unable to muster a response, your mind clouded with a storm of rage and contemptment.

Jayce’s gaze lingers on you, almost—dare you think it—in a way that seemed concerned, longing, and worst of all—-caring.

What a hypocrite. How dare he look at you like he actually cares?

‘Got me believin’

You’ve been stuck

And glued in frequent doubt.’

“Don’t give me that look,” you snap, your fingers twitching, aching to throw a rock at his face just to make him eat his words. For a split second, you actually consider it—and you’re sure Jayce can feel exactly what’s running through your mind as he observes the way your eyes flicker between his face, and the stone you had left behind.

“What look?” he asks, concern surging through his expression again.

Did this guy have a death wish, or was he really just that oblivious? Either way, you could crack instantaneously.

“That look. The fake concern,” you snap, your eyes dropping, fists tightening, teeth grinding.

“Fake…?” He pauses, clearly lost in thought as he crosses his arms over his chest, the hint of offense hanging off his words.

You fight the urge to lash out, to make him feel something stronger than pain.

‘I know the feeling

‘Cause I can’t keep

My mind open now.’

“Yes, fake, Jayce. As in insincere. Artificial,” you spit, taking a sharp breath.

“Ersatz,” you add, the word a bitter aftertaste.

Your words cut through the air with a venomous cadence, each syllable sharp and biting, a distasteful attempt to tear through him.

Jayce looked completely dumbfounded, as if his mind had been wiped clean. The stark look of gears no longer grinding in his brain was almost comical. He was daft, no doubt. You felt a twinge of pride prod your ego upon this realization.

You couldn’t bear to stay here, not this close to him, not after everything. The thought that he was only here to twist the knife deeper into your wounds was almost more than you could handle. Your emotions, raw and overwhelming, had already drained you, and you were done. You didn’t want to give him another moment—no chance for him to make things worse, or worse still, to somehow try and redeem himself. As if he ever could.

Steeling yourself, you gather what little dignity you have left and turn away, keeping your face carefully composed. As you pass him, you deliberately knock your shoulder against his, ricocheting his shoulders in the process, a silent and singular act of defiance as you walk away.

As if to intentionally make matters worse, Jayce turns after you, his hand reaching out to grab your wrist. He makes contact, swiftly pulling you back towards him.

“___, wait—” He begins, but his words are cut short as your hand slams into his cheek. You hadn’t necessarily meant to hit him, but the motion was as instinctive as throwing the rocks—your hand connecting with the flesh of his cheek before you even had a chance to stop it—not that you necessarily would have wanted to.

The way you had wound up the slap was only amplified by the sudden pull of his hand grabbing you mid-stride, forcing you back toward him. The momentum aided the force with which you struck him.

The weight of what you’d just done hit you all at once—grief, anger, relief, all crashing together. A small part of you, the part that still cared for him, was flooded with guilt. But the darker parts of you—those that hated him, that had longed to hurt him—felt a twisted satisfaction. Besides, it was his own fault that he had grabbed you.

You’d wanted to feel his skin beneath your hands, after all, and in an oddly perfect way, this had been the way to satiate that desire.

Jayce instantly released his grip on your wrist, his hand moving to cup the spot where your slap had left its mark.

“Ah…” he groaned, wincing as he cupped the stinging flesh. His eyes snapped shut, the pain unmistakably written all over his face.

You couldn’t tear your gaze away as he stood there, his hand pressed against the raw, reddened skin of his cheek, the mark of your slap still vivid and angry. The sight of it made your chest tighten, but you couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was you were feeling. What should you feel in a moment like this? That was the question you could neither answer or shake.

You had already acknowledged, in a quiet corner of your mind, that there was a strange satisfaction in lashing out, even if it was tangled with the thorny weight of your own hurt. There was a cruel sort of release in it, one that both thrilled and disturbed you in equal measure. Your stomach churned as you fought to suppress the abhorrent feeling of shame that crept up on you.

You could feel your instincts urging you to escape—to run, to put distance between yourself and this raw, uncomfortable moment. But you chose not to listen. The urge to flee warred with something else, something deeper, a curiosity that had begun to take root. You wanted to see how this would unfold, to witness how this tension would resolve, if it would resolve at all. The satisfaction you had felt from that sharp, ringing slap was undeniable. Maybe it had been a way to expel some of the pain that had been building inside you for so long. Maybe, just maybe, it was worth confronting whatever came next, just to relieve yourself of that heaviness, even if only for a moment.

‘Make up your mind,

We’re running out of time.’

Your heart sunk as you saw the essence of betrayal soon sweep across his face. Yet, simultaneously, that added to the anger you felt. He, of all people, felt betrayal? After the way he betrayed you? That look of his repulsed you.

He looked at you, disbelief written all over his face, his expression a mixture of shock and hurt. His hand lingered on his cheek, still tender from the sting of your slap, as though he couldn’t quite grasp the reality of the moment. The look he gave you was one of genuine confusion, as if he couldn’t fathom why you were so consumed by anger.

“___…” His voice cracked slightly, heavy with emotion, but still full of that familiar, passionate lilt, the kind that used to make your heart race. When he whispered your name—softly, almost reverently—it was as if the sound of it pained him.

‘Doubt is failure

By design.’

His eyes searched yours, full of questions that hung in the air, unanswered. Why had you struck him? Why this sudden violence? The pain in his gaze only seemed to stoke the fire inside you, making the anger flare even hotter, more reckless.

“Don’t look at me like that. Like you don’t know exactly what that was for,” you spat, each word sharp, each syllable dripping with a tang that tasted like metal on your tongue. But as the words left you, the anger morphed into something far more fragile, far more devastating. Your heart seemed to crack with the weight of it, the betrayal, the hopelessness. The tears welled up, blurring your vision as your chest tightened with sorrow.

“Why… why are you so blind to everything you’ve done?” you choked out.

“To everything we had… everything you destroyed… just so you could chase your fucking dreams?”

Your fists balled at your sides, the muscles in your arms trembling from the effort of keeping control, even though your voice shook with the strain of holding back the tidal wave of emotion threatening to break free.

‘I’m burning up

Can only take

So much.’

“What about my dreams, Jayce? What about our dreams?” you cried, your voice rising, your words feeling like they could burn everything in their path. Every inch of you ached—your body, your heart, your soul—all of it pulled taut like a string ready to snap. You didn’t know how much longer you could keep it in.

“What made sealing your own future—your destiny—more important than what we built together?” you demanded, the question sitting in the air between you like a dagger.

“Why was your ambition more sacred than our bond? More sacred than us?”

Your voice cracked on the last word, your breath coming in short, jagged gasps. The tears spilled over, leaving hot trails down your face, but you stood your ground, unwilling to back down. This—this pain, this heartbreak—was something you needed to admit, needed him to hear.

“How dare you steal my idea. How dare you take the credit, and disparage it with your stupid, fucking, magic.” You were shouting now, your voice ringing through the night air, raw and unfiltered, the weight of your anger shattering the silence that had settled over everything. The contrast between your fury and the stillness of the evening was jarring—your words felt like they were tearing through the quiet, reverberating off the walls of the world around you.

“Your idea?!” he exclaimed in response, his voice rising sharply, cutting through your tirade. He stepped forward, closing the distance between you in a few purposeful strides, his figure towering over you, his height and presence suddenly far more imposing than you remembered. His broad shoulders blocked the space between you, his stance firm, as if challenging you to face him head-on.

‘I know you

Can feel it

It’s catching up

It’s getting too heavy

For both of us.’

“Since when was it your idea?” His words were fast, biting with frustration, and he was unrelenting as he moved closer, his eyebrows knit together in upset.

“‘Cause the way I remember it—we both wanted change. We both wanted to make Piltover a better, more advanced city.” His voice was now an angry force, his face craning down to meet yours, his eyes sharp, trying to drill the point home. He wasn’t asking anymore—he was demanding you understand.

But what hit you most in that moment wasn’t just his words. It was the way his anger had suddenly shifted everything. For the first time in your life, you felt small compared to him. You had never seen him like this—not even annoyed, not in all the time you had spent together. Jayce had always been the steady one, the calm, the voice of reason. But now, his fury felt like a storm—intense, unpredictable, and completely foreign. The force of it left you unsettled, and taken aback, to say the least.

You didn’t know how to react to this. His anger was like a tidal wave, knocking the ground out from under you, and for the first time, you realized just how much power he had over you—how much he could command just by his sheer presence. The towering figure in front of you, his jaw clenched, eyes burning with emotion, made your chest tighten. You didn’t know what to do with this. His anger was new, and in some way, it was almost more frightening than anything you had ever faced.

‘We lie

Cold.’

You were baffled, not just by the words he was saying, but by the way he was saying them—like a person you didn’t recognize.

You parted your lips, ready to continue the tirade that had built up in your chest, but before you could get another word out, Jayce’s voice cut you off, raw and jagged. He didn’t give you a chance to speak, his frustration spilling over, each word more desperate than the last.

“You left me. Here. Alone.” His voice cracked, trembling under the weight of everything he, too, left unsaid, considering how you fled before he ever got a chance to explain himself. It wasn’t just anger in his tone anymore; it was pain. The kind that came from a place so deep you couldn’t ignore it, no matter how hard you tried.

“I did what I thought was best for us.” He stepped closer, his voice rising in volume, matching the intensity of your own.

“I proved what I was trying to prove. For us. For our collective aspirations.” The words came faster now, fueled by the overwhelming rush of emotion that was beginning to boil over in him.

“I worked my ass off to make sure that, with the help of my Hextech, your trade routes could flourish,” he spat, his anger now matching yours, raw and unrelenting. His face was inches from yours, his breath hot as he glared down at you.

“I won’t stand here and let you blame me, let you hate me, for acting out of what I thought was selflessness at the time. I’ve gone to bat for you, countless times, to make sure you got the credit you deserved.”

His own fists clenched at his sides, the strain of his words almost too much to bear.

“But you ran. You left, assuming my only goal was to use you, when in reality, all I ever tried to do was support you.”

His words slammed into you like a physical blow, and for a second, you were paralyzed by the force of them. But then the anger surged again, hot and insistent. Support you? The bitterness twisted in your gut, and before you even thought about it, the words exploded from your mouth.

“Support me?!” You shouted, the sound ringing through the night like a bell, sharp and accusing.

“That’s what you call abandoning me to take a seat in the highest of towers?” You could feel the heat of your own fury rising to meet his, and without thinking, you shoved both hands into his chest, pushing him back with all the force you could muster.

Jayce stumbled backward, caught off guard by the sheer force of your anger, and you weren’t done. You shoved him again, harder this time, your hands pressing against his chest until he hit the railing behind him with a loud clang. The sound echoed in the air, but you didn’t care.

“In the council, no less?! Leaving me here to fend for myself in your fucking shadow?!” Your voice was hoarse now, each scream louder and more desperate than the last. You pushed him once more, as if trying to push the weight of everything you felt, everything you couldn’t hold onto anymore, into him.

The tears you’d held back were streaming freely down your face, but there was no stopping them now. The hurt, the betrayal—it all came pouring out in that single moment. The fury and heartbreak swirled together, a force you couldn’t control, and all you could do was scream at him until your voice gave out, until he understood just how much you had suffered because of his choices.

‘Dam up the river,

We can go, slow.’

Jayce had finally reached his limit. The shouting, the anger, the constant back and forth—it was all too much. He could see now that no matter what he said, nothing would make you stop. The argument had spiraled into something beyond reason, and every word he spoke only seemed to fuel your fire. You weren’t listening anymore; you were just lashing out, consumed by rage.

Enough was enough.

‘Dull down our senses,

Become numb.’

When you shoved him again, anger blinding you, Jayce reacted quickly. His patience had worn thin, and he wasn’t about to let this go any further.

The next time your hands came at him, he caught your wrists with a swift, forceful motion, crossing them tightly over each other. Before you could react, he shoved your arms into your chest, locking you in place. Then, without warning, he spun you around, pulling you harshly against him so that your back was pressed to his chest. His grip tightened, his arms like iron bands, preventing you from thrashing away.

‘Mirin myself

All by myself.’

“Stop.” His voice was low, sharp, and commanding, vibrating against your ear as his chest caged you in. You could feel the heat of his body, the raw tension in every inch of him as he held you close, his strength completely overpowering your attempts to break free.

“___, for fucks sake! Stop!” He demands, one of his enormous hands moving to take hold of both of your wrists while the other clamped down around your jaw, bringing your face towards your shoulder, where his own chin rested in this position.

Jayce had no choice. He knew how stubborn you were, how deeply you clung to your anger when you were hurt, and how you’d never stop until you’d worn yourself out—if you ever did. But right now, he couldn’t wait for that to happen. He couldn’t let you run away from him anymore.

With one sharp, decisive movement, his lips crashed into yours. It was hard, hungry, demanding—a complete storm of sensation that left no room for resistance. Your eyes went wide in shock, your breath hitching as you tried to pull back, but he followed, his mouth pressing harder against yours, refusing to let you break free.

‘Feel the caress, so sweet

Done by my hand.’

You gasped, the sound caught between your lips, and before you could protest, his kiss deepened, his tongue slipping past your lips, twisting with yours in a way that both startled and confused you. You cried out into his mouth, the noise muffled, as his hold on you tightened, his body pressing closer to yours, grounding you in place.

Every part of you wanted to push him away, to shout, to keep fighting, but Jayce’s kiss was relentless—an anchor pulling you deeper into silence. He wasn’t pulling back, not until you stopped fighting, until you let go of that anger long enough to breathe.

And though you still burned with fury, something about the way he held you, the way his presence swallowed you whole, made it harder and harder to keep struggling.

No matter how much you had longed for his touch, how desperately you had yearned for him to kiss you like this again, you couldn’t bring yourself to accept it in a moment like this. Not when everything inside you was still burning with anger and hurt.

‘Polishing this frame of mind,

Jacked it up an ax to grind.’

You fought against him, your body stiff and tense, desperately trying to pull away from his overwhelming presence. Each movement was a silent refusal, a stubborn resistance to the way his kiss was pulling at your very core.

‘Duck n’ dodge,

Stay unaligned.'

But it was futile. You were already drained, your energy spent from the crying, the shouting, the endless cycle of rage that had led you here. As his lips pressed more insistently against yours, the fight in you began to falter. The need to escape, the impulse to run, slowly began to dissolve with every second his lips lingered on yours, and his tongue explored the depths of your mouth. What remained was the sharp sting of your rage, but even that felt like it was starting to ebb.

Gradually, your body softened, the tension in your muscles melting away. The fight left you, piece by piece, until you sighed against his mouth, the sound muffled but unmistakable. With a subtle shift, your head tilted just enough to give him more room, more access, and for the first time in what felt like forever, you allowed yourself to stop fighting. The kiss deepened, and in that quiet surrender, Jayce released a long, relieved breath, sensing your body finally easing into his touch.

‘My recognition face

Some get withered

Some get fried.’

You kissed him back after great hesitation, your lips and tongue moving urgently against his, as if you were trying to make up for every lost moment in a single, heated breath. There was no holding back now. The memories, the longing, everything that had been buried deep inside you erupted all at once, and your mouth moved hungrily against his, each movement a desperate attempt to relive the intimacy you’d once shared.

‘I know we talked about

The shit we did

Each time.’

His grip on your wrists faltered, weakening as you started to turn toward him fully. The distance between you closed rapidly, and soon, your chest was pressed flush against his, your body responding to his presence with an intensity you couldn’t control. As your hands were freed, they instinctively traveled up to his face, your thumb brushing over the spot where you’d struck him only minutes before, feeling the remnants of your anger there, now mingling with something else.

‘Polishing this frame of mind

Jacked it up an ax to grind.’

You cupped his face, fingers digging into his jaw, pulling him even closer as if trying to erase the distance between you, to melt into him and make up for the time and pain that had come before. The urgency in your movements was raw and frantic, a wordless plea to feel everything at once—to collapse the anger, the longing, and the need that had built up inside you into this single, desperate connection.

‘Duck n’ dodge

Stay unaligned

My recognition face.’

His hands roamed over your body, searching for any way to pull you closer, his touch growing more insistent as he settled them on your hips, pulling you into him. The physical closeness only heightened the tension, the desire, but also something darker—something that still lingered between you—lust.

Though you no longer felt the need to escape, your rage simmered just below the surface, burning deep in your chest. It wasn’t gone, not by a long shot. It still gnawed at you, demanding to be felt, demanding some kind of reckoning. Part of you wanted to make him feel it, make him understand the depth of your pain. You wanted him to know what you had been through all this time.

‘Am I the reason

That you can’t

Look past your future self?’

Your tongue retracted for a moment, and you pressed your teeth against his bottom lip, the bite sharp enough to sting. It was a flash of anger, mixed with the heat of desire, and it caught Jayce off guard. You had shared passionate moments before, but nothing quite like this—nothing that carried this much intensity. He flinched at the sudden sharpness, but in that moment, something in him sparked, that familiar fire of tension growing even stronger.

If that’s what it would take to break the tension, then he’d oblige.

Jayce’s hand tangled into your hair, pulling you closer, his grip tightening. The sensation of your hair in his hand, the pressure, sent a breathless sound escaping from you—something between a gasp and a soft exhale. It was involuntary, the sound mixing with the heat building between you. Jayce had always longed to hear that from you, to feel that connection, and now that it was happening, he couldn’t stop.

For far too long, Jayce had denied himself any form of physical connection. Since you left, he’d been forced to bury his desire for you deep inside, locking it away with a painful awareness that nothing—no touch, no embrace—could compare to what he had shared with you. Each passing day, he became more acutely aware of the emptiness that lingered, knowing that any contact with anyone else would only serve as a stark reminder of the craving that burned for you.

‘Got me believin’

You’ve been stuck

And glued in frequent doubt.’

He tightened his grip, drawing another soft sound from you, the mix of pleasure and tension in the air thickening. His focus was solely on you now, on the way your body responded, on the sounds you made, and how this moment—this raw, unguarded moment—was pulling both of you closer to the unspoken lust that couldn’t be denied a moment longer.

You can’t help but let out a filthy little moan, whimpering along with it.

A shameless, guttural moan, that sent Jayce’s head into a spiral. He had been beyond desperate to coax those kinds of noises out of you for what felt like too long of an eternity. He was in no position to deny himself the opportunity to keep drawing them out of you.

His hands curled into a fist as he yanked on your hair, whimpers flying out of you like a flock of birds.

If you wanted to fight dirty, Jayce was game.

“Fuck..” He breathes out—eager, like a starved man who stumbled upon a banquet— as he pulls away from your lips, immediately pressing them against the skin of your neck he had exposed from his grip on your locks. He let his teeth drag along the skin, biting and harshly sucking on it in several places. Your reaction was deathly arousing. The slightly pained cries that flowed beside ones of pleasure sent Jayce’s burning temptation into orbit.

He knew you needed him in the way he had once gotten used to providing for you. His cock throbbed beneath his slacks, desperate to break free from the confines of the cloth that kept it contained.

It was arguably harder than it had ever been, his anger and inability to have you for so long adding fuel to the fire of his pure incessant need to bury himself deep inside you.

‘I know the feeling

Cause I can’t keep

My mind open now.’

Oh, how you both longed to be connected like that again. In the way all lovers know well—their unspoken second nature.

He ruts his hips against yours, your own body responding instinctively by meeting them in their attempt to seek friction.

You both emit low grunts at the new sensation, satiating the tension for now.

You felt as though you were being scorched from within, the intense heat of your desire and simmering rage intertwining, each stoking the other in a relentless blaze. Every nerve burned with an insatiable hunger, a craving that went beyond pleasure, pulling you deeper into a whirlwind of both ecstasy and agony.

You needed more—not just the thrill of sensation, but the raw, cathartic pain that seemed to heighten the fire within you. Your soul ached for an outlet, something that would satisfy the chaotic tension, where your lust and frustration could collide, erupting into something that might finally ease the raging storm inside.

You snaked your arms around his neck, giving a small jump into him as you anchored onto him, wrapping your legs around his waist. He hums darkly in reaction to the sudden motion, his hands releasing their clasp on your hair to instead latch onto the bottom of your ass—-supporting you as you clung to him.

Jayce’s head shot up from it’s spot between your head and chest, moving to a new vantage point in order to scan the area. He was a man with a mission.

A mission to uncover the perfect place, somewhere secluded and unremarkable—a refuge hidden from the world where he could channel the fury between you with ruthless intensity. It had to be a spot where nothing could interrupt the raw, unfiltered release of tension—a place where every movement, every act, could be as drastic and unforgiving as the anger that surged through both of you.

Needless to say—and in an extremely simple turn of phrase—-He needed to fuck the rage out of you— and he would stop at nothing to do so.

After a few tense moments, Jayce focused, his eyes landing on the perfect hidden corner in all of Piltover. His grip tightened on you as he began to lead you toward it. The alleyway was small and shadowed, tucked between two shops that had long since closed for the night. The buildings on either side pressed in tightly, their walls forming a dark, narrow passage that swallowed any light. The darkness obscured it from street lamps and passersby, though Jayce hardly seemed at all concerned about the possibility of wandering eyes, anyway.

The alley itself was already tucked away from the main streets, but the particular spot his intentions were set on was even more concealed—through the alley and to the right, behind the buildings entirely, not just in between.

Overhanging eaves, garbage bins and scattered crates cloaked the area, creating a thick, impenetrable shadow. It was a secluded pocket, completely hidden from view, untouched by the faintest glimmer from the street beyond.

A perfect haven of obscurity, though the lack of any inviting scenery was hardly worth a second thought. The cracked cobblestones, the faint smell of damp earth, rotting trash, and the forgotten clutter of the alley seemed irrelevant. In a place like this, where shadows held sway, scenery had no claim. Nothing mattered but the raw, pressing heat of the moment.

You sank your teeth into his neck, your hands exploring his shoulders with a quiet, persistent need. He groaned beneath your bite, his un-abating lust taking the lead furthermore, as he harshly slammed your back against the abrasive stone walls of the building. His mouth was quick to covet yours once more, lips voraciously seeking stimulation from them.

Your sensual tango of lips pressing against each other, hips grating and rutting into each other’s carried out, Jayce beginning to make quick work of exposing you to the elements, his cock still hard as ever as it brushed against your clit beneath the layers of clothing. You can’t help but whimper out in response.

With the new advantage of pinning you to the stone wall—-combined with the leverage of your legs still around his waist—-his hands grew eager, rushing to tear your blouse apart. His fingers slid between the buttons of the opening, pushing through the seam before he gripped tight and wrenched it apart. Several buttons flew free, briefly distracting from the sharp bite of the cold air against the newly exposed skin.

You couldn’t help but whine into the cavern of his mouth, the rough display of lust redirecting all of your aching and longing straight to your clit. It throbbed with intent, a desperate reminder that you needed more friction. You greedily rolled your hips into his, yielding another low, filthy grunt from Jayce.

“Fuck.” He pants against your mouth, hands kneading at your breasts, cock twitching beneath his trousers.

Oh, how he longed to revisit the memories of your past encounters, to re-enact the acts of pleasure he had learned to bring you. But in such a moment, he couldn’t bring himself to slow down. As much as he yearned to please you in the ways he’d spent so much time discovering, there was no time, now. The urgency of the present situation demanded everything from him. If he didn’t bury his cock deep within you, right now, and fuck you senseless, he’d probably keel over.

This was his last chance. His only chance to rewrite your history.

‘Am I the reason,

That you can’t look past,

Your future self?’

Without a second’s hesitation, Jayce tore your legs from his waist, practically dropping you to the ground. In one swift motion, he flipped you around, pressing your cheek forcefully into the cold stone wall with one hand. You groan out, the harsh force of his motions prodding your deep-seated anger once more. His chin reclaims its resting point on your shoulder, teeth claiming your earlobe between them as he pressed his mouth to your ear. You groan out of sudden distaste for the new position.

”Don’t act like you didn’t want to end up under me like this.” He growls into it, the words viscerally stabbing at your clit, earning a thirsty cry from you.

He spread your legs with his feet, his free hand clambering to release his throbbing cock from it’s fabric prison. He yanked your pants down, the sound of his belt clinking sending shivers up your spine as your cunt pulsated in anticipation.

You were beyond wet—the word a dull description of the way your cunt was absolutely sopping, dripping, and practically gushing for him.

Despite your evident arousal, you weren’t used to things happening so fast. You began to protest as your back arched against his brawny, bold, and burly chest.

“Jayce— wait!” You started to say, before his teeth clamped down onto your earlobe with increased vigor, your words fading into torrid moans as a result.

He pulls your underwear to the side, fist pumping his deprived cock before he lined himself up with your soaking cunt.

“Shut up and take my fuckin’ cock.” He barked.

Before you even had a chance to breathe, he plowed into you, curling his hips up to press flush against your ass. You had no choice but to brace yourself. Your hands flew to the cold stone wall, gripping tightly to keep from collapsing under the force of it all.

The sound that tore from deep within your chest was raw, loud enough to make anyone within a hundred feet of the building take concerned notice. Anyone outside of you and Jayce would have assumed you were being murdered.

It was a deliciously vile sound, thick with want, neediness, desperation, and all the emotions you had yet resolved.

“Fuck!” You scream, tears stinging in your eyes as Jayce began slamming up into you with at an absolutely merciless pace. He wasted no time by giving you a single moment to adjust, knowing full well the rough nature was exactly what the situation called for. If he didn’t give this his all, everything was at stake. Or so he thought.

His thrusts were, at their core, crude—filthy, vulgar.

Lascivious.

They had an animalistic quality, one that attested to his own desires, and the hurtful longing he had harbored for you.

Jayce grunted, huffing out as he ruthlessly snapped his hips against the flesh of your ass. He plunged his teeth into the skin of your shoulder, the hand that held your face against the stone withdrew from you. Jayce pulled it beneath your arm, wrapping around your chest to imperviously grip at your breast, using his hold on it to further aid in the force with which he was bucking into you.

His other hand moved to your neck, fingers tightening around it with a possessive grip. The pressure forced the air from your lungs, and you gasp, the sound barely escaping as your breath becomes shallow. You squirm, struggling to breathe, but his hold doesn’t loosen. Instead, it pulls you in deeper, mixing fury with hunger. Each ragged breath, each flicker of resistance only seems to make it worse, the heat between you both building in the space where anger and desire collide.

“Fuck you.” He spat out in sync with his thrusts.

“Fuck.” —thrust.

“You.” —thrust.

“For.” —thrust.

“Leaving.” Thrust, thrust, thrust.

The words he spat out were coated in intent, each one seething with the same anger that simmered inside of him. The way he moved, pounding into you, was frantic, his hips driven by a fire that seemed to consume him.

‘Got me believin’

You’ve been

Stuck and glued

In frequent doubt.’

You could feel it, the heat coursing through his veins with every thrust—his body shaking with the intensity of it. There was nothing controlled about the way he gripped you, no tenderness. Just a reckless, furious need, each movement angry, as if he were fighting to push the rage out of his body and into you.

His soul had been set ablaze, and all you could do was feel the burn.

“Agh—“ You pant, air still desperate to escape your lungs as he clenched your throat.

“F-fuck you for—-Pretending like—-you care.” You choke out.

Jayce’s blood boils, his grip on your throat tightening beyond the point of care.

“Pretending like I care?” He pants as well, exhausting himself from the force with which he was railing his cock up into you.

“I care. More than—anyone—sunshine.” He very well shouts, words still in sync with his thrusts, on exhaling with each. He was absolutely plowing you now, the familiar nickname cutting through the air that surrounded you.

You were groaning out in pleasure and pain, the contrasting feelings mixing into one as he continued his relentless assault on your cervix.

“T-Then why—-why couldn’t you just—-“ Your lungs begged for air.

“Love me—-like I love—- you?” You gasp, your voice barely audible above the hunger for air.

‘I know the feeling

Cause I can’t

Keep my mind

Open now.’

Jayce’s movements stopped abruptly, his hands yanking away from you as if struck by a sudden realization. You gasped, breath catching painfully in your throat, stumbling back into the wall, your body desperate for air that was slow to come. The intensity that had fueled him moments before seemed to drain in an instant, leaving you gasping in the silence.

Jayce felt an overwhelming wave of guilt crash over him, sharp and suffocating, like a bucket of ice-cold water being poured straight over his head. It hit him all at once, a gut-punch of realization that mirrored the guilt he had seen on your face earlier when you slapped him—raw, unfiltered, and impossible to escape. His chest tightened, a heaviness settling in his stomach as he stood there, frozen, unable to look at you.

His hips stilled, his body rigid as the anger that had driven him to this point shifted, replaced by something softer—-sadder. His heart felt heavy in his chest, sinking like a stone in water.

All that was left in the alley was the erratic—-uneven sound of your breathing, each inhale a struggle, sweat slicking your skin, catching the light of the moon in fragile glimmers. The silence stretched out, thick with unspoken tension, the weight of what had just transpired hanging between you like a shroud, heavy and unresolved.

His mind was a blur, thoughts scattered and jumbled, short-circuiting in a way that left him dizzy. He couldn’t make sense of the guilt spiraling through him, the crushing weight of having crossed a line he hadn’t even seen until it was too late. Until you said what you had said.

That you loved him.

He removes his chest from your back, pulling himself out of you in the process.

Jayce reached for you, his hands trembling as he gently grasped your shoulders, his touch softer than it had been all night. His fingers barely brushed your skin, as if afraid to make contact after everything that had just happened. With a careful, almost reverent motion, he spun you around to face him. The moment your eyes met, his chest seemed to cave in on itself, a sickening weight settling there.

His heart felt like it had physically dropped, plummeting to the pit of his stomach with a sickening thud. The sight of you, tears streaking down your face, the raw anguish in your expression—it shattered him. Every ounce of anger, every moment of fury that had driven him earlier seemed like a distant memory in the face of the heartbreak he had caused.

How could he have been so reckless? The thought screamed in his mind, impossible to silence. The guilt that gripped him now was suffocating, crushing. He’d seen your pain in the heat of the moment, but now it hit him full force—really hit him. The tears in your eyes weren’t just a reminder of what he’d done; they were a reflection of how far he had pushed you, how little he had cared in the frenzy of his own anger.

And now, standing in front of you, he couldn’t undo it. All he could do was stare at the damage he had inflicted, helpless, terrified of what he’d become.

“___…” He whispers.

[roturo]

Gojo Satoru who’s beginning to fall in love with his sugar baby!

read pt 1 before continuing.

As you slept soundly beside him, Gojo stared at the ceiling, the silence of the room amplifying his internal struggle. He reached for his phone again, scrolling aimlessly through messages, trying to distract himself. He considered messaging another of his reliable sugar babies, seeking a familiar escape.

In the days spent together, Gojo had learned things about you he had never thought to ask his other girls. Your favorite books, the way you liked your coffee, the stories behind your scars—small details that painted a fuller picture of who you were. It had always been clear that this was just an arrangement, a job with no strings attached. Talking about the other sugar babies had never been an issue for either of you.

But for the string to tense, it needs both sides to feel, but as stubborn he is, he never pulled the car off the road to the lookout, if so he would have followed his fears all the way down and choose what he really wants. 

The weight of his phone in his hand grew heavier, and with a sigh, he set it aside. Getting up from the bed, giving you one last glance before he starts to get ready and leave this time. The thought of reaching out to someone else felt wrong, a betrayal not just to you but to himself. He was beginning to see that what he felt for you was different, deeper. But acknowledging that meant facing his fears, his insecurities, and the possibility of real emotional connection.

As weeks passed, Gojo Satoru was just starting to become a stranger whose laugh you could recognize anywhere, the moments of passion now turned into his rage being dumped into you while he fucked you. Saying your name over and over again like if he stopped you would disappear from his embrace. 

Gojo Satoru glared at you, his eyes dark and full of fury. "Strip," He commanded, his voice rough as he stared at your beautiful body in somewhat awe with the new lingerie set he bought for you. 

You hesitated for a moment, the tension in the room palpable, before complying, peeling off your clothes. Gojo's gaze raked over your body, his expression with a hint of satisfaction and doubt.

"On top of the bed. Get on your knees," He growled, his voice monotone. 

You did as he commanded, your heart pounding in your chest. The air was thick with the tension between you, he couldn’t stop the feeling of loss. 

Gojo's hand grabbed the back of your head, forcing you back into a kneeling position. "I'm going to fuck you now, and I suggest you to enjoy it," He warned, his fingers digging into your scalp.

You shuddered, your body trembling under his anger. Gojo's cock was hard and ready, his size intimidating. He positioned himself behind you, his hands gripping your hips tightly.

With a hard thrust, he entered you from behind, his size stretching you in a way that left you gasping. "God, you're so tight," He growled, his voice thick with lust and need.

Gojo began to move, his hips slamming into you with brutal force. You cried out, your body arching under his rough handling. His hands gripped your hips, his nails digging in.

"Take it, sugar," He snarled, his thrusts harsh and unforgiving. "Make sure you remember this when you’re fucking another guy that isn’t me."

You whimpered, your body quivering under his rough treatment. Gojo's anger fueled as he thought of you being with someone else, each thrust stronger than the last. You clenched your fists, your body trembling under the onslaught.

His hand cupped your breast, his thumb rolling your nipple teasingly. "You like this, don't you?” He asked, his voice laced with venom. “You like to unpuzzle me piece by piece right?”

"What?..." you whispered, your body growing tense with the mixture of confusion and pleasure.

He smirked, his hips jerking faster. "Sshit," he growled, his grip on you tightening. "Enjoy it while it lasts."

The room echoed with the sounds of your sex, the cries and moans of pleasure and pain intertwining. Gojo's riled up emotions fueled his thrusts, his own pleasure nearing its climax. "Cum for me, you little tease," He spat, his eyes never leaving you.

Your moans grew louder, your body trembling under his aggressive actions. You were at his mercy, your body aching for release. "Gojo, I...I can't take it anymore," you panted, your nails digging into the mattress.

Gojo's eyes darkened with hunger as he watched your reaction. "Good, then let it all out," he growled, his hips slamming into yours, his need for you clear in each thrust.

Your moans grew louder, your nails digging into the floor, your body arching off the bed as the pleasure built like a tidal wave. "Satoru, I...I need you to claim me, completely," you panted, your need for him overpowering any sense of control you still had.

Gojo's eyes blazed with an indescribable emotion as he watched your body writhe beneath him.

It’s been a while since your last encounter, and he couldn’t stop himself from visiting you again after he went shopping supposedly for his other sugar babies but ended up considering which clothes, jewels, and things would look good on you or in your apartment. It was like airplane mode once he finished up shopping and went straight to your home, opening the door with the shared key you gave him. 

Ever since he tried to distract himself from you, your body, your smell, your smile, your eyes, he has found himself going anywhere he wants, just not home.

He has lost someone once, and he couldn’t risk losing the new piece of emotion he found in the darkest place of his interior, Deciding to set it away and be as far as possible from it. But something wrapped all of his past mistakes in barbed wire, setting a string that pulled him out of strangers arms into coming back to you.

 Every single time.

So when he knocked on your door, willing to throw away every second thought of insecurity, fuck even considering to stop being a sorcerer to spend all his time devoted to you, his biggest fear.

He could go back in time and change it, never meet you, but he can’t. So if the chain is on your door, he understands. But this is him swallowing his pride, standing in front of you, saying sorry for interrupting you with another man. 

A/N: pt3? really turn this into a serie?

tag: @staruus @bloopsstuff

[santsukii]

ᯓ✿ say you love me

ˋ°•*⁀➷ anemo boys falling for you (alt angst version here)

ˋ°•*⁀➷ venti, xiao, kaedehara kazuha, shikanoin heizou, wanderer x gn! reader

₊˚ character story spoilers, this is more or less just an excuse to write the silly little scenarios in my head involving these boys, some more angsty than others but it’s like 90% fluff

it’s not as if venti were completely oblivious to his own emotions, he understands what’s going on when he notices his heart fluttering when you’re around. when you smiled at him, it was as if his heart were beating right out of his chest. his music so clearly and beautifully graced the air, drowning out his own whispered confession of love. if he were to say it loud enough for you ears to pick up, how would you look back at him? as if fate itself were turning its head and laughing at him for falling so helplessly in love with someone he only considered a friend until recently.

to all but the archon himself, such melancholy tunes played on his lyre while sitting on the hands of a statue made in his likeness were simply meaningless and carried little to no weight whatsoever. the sky was clear, allowing him to gaze ever so wistfully at the constellations in the night sky as he thinks of you. maybe he’d find yours, reaching up and tracing the connections of the brightly shining stars with his finger. he knows he’s nothing more than a god fallen from grace, and not even you knew of the gnosis that had been taken from him. venti’s heart ached at the idea that he may never be able to scream out his love for you due to his own doubts.

yet right now, in the dead of night, he could sing of the love residing deep within his ever-beating heart. with a final song to confess to the night sky, he sings and plays so softly that it’s difficult to hear. even with that, his voice is so soothing and comforting as he sings out the love that had plagued him for a long time now. as he finished his song, he noticed the smallest amount of tears dripping from his face as he finally let out the pent-up emotions. even if he presumed you were far away, he hopelessly hoped that his voice would reach you. your beautiful smile and laugh were etched in the archon’s heart, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

if xiao met the same fate as those he once held dear, he hoped he could at least let out his love for you. it brings him peace that he can protect you as the last yaksha of liyue. he often finds himself separate from society for their own sake, his karmic debt often drawing closer the demons he swore to kill. yet, you stayed close to him despite the immediate danger you often faced. sometimes, he would find the tears pricking at his golden eyes as he reminisces the life he wished he could have lived with you. it would have been a peaceful life full of happiness and love beyond compare, surrounded by his fellow yaksha.

even with that, the light of your smile never passed him by. silently watching over you from afar during the lantern rite, he was torn. xiao wanted nothing more than to join you in the crowd, but what if you got separated from him? would he have the courage to hold your hand? those doubts landed him sitting atop a building and watching from a distance, silently hoping you’d turn around and notice his affectionate observations. as hundreds of lanterns gently floated into the air, he found himself once again fighting the urge to join you in the crowd. it would only be a matter of time before the fireworks begun, maybe then he’d have the opportunity to stand beside you and welcome in a new year.

in the bitter cold of the night air as the first of the fireworks exploded into the inky dark sky, you saw him next to you. xiao smiled gently, not saying a word as the landscape was illuminated with the bright and lively colors of the fireworks. his hand in yours, welcoming a new year together with a kiss. the one thing that couldn’t be heard beneath the explosions of color that could outshine the brightest star was his voice, saying three words he never thought he’d say again. “i love you”

he had fallen for you without a care in the world, allowing it to grow as the days go by for no reason besides the idea that he has nothing to lose by falling for you. kazuha’s heart felt as if it were bursting with love and passion whenever he looked at you. it was a whirlwind type of romance, one in which both parties involved were constantly sharing knowing glances and giggles, overly affectionate with a passion that will surely burn itself out if given enough time.

but it didn’t. he never once doubted his love for you, in fact he was quite open about it. it was bound to make others jealous, the way he was constantly sending letters with gifts when he was away on various travels. whenever kazuha was away from you, he found himself missing you exponentially more as the days went by. oftentimes, he only wanted to return to the place he belonged, in your arms. he doesn’t really enjoy being all alone, so he’d take your hand and hold it ever so tightly. you’ve always been what guides him and gives him peace of mind. your smile was like a guiding star in the darkest of nights, always there to light the way despite the circumstances.

kazuha never truly “confessed”. his actions alone indicated his love for you, and he one day just began saying he loved you. it came so naturally to him that he could never overthink it, like a second nature. those three words flowed so naturally out of his mouth with that beautiful and soft voice of his, it just felt right. what began as simply a lighthearted summer romance had quickly grown into a love that would stand the rest of time, despite any struggles the two of you may face. if nothing else, you’d face it together.

heizou is a naturally flirty person, using that to his advantage to conceal his true feelings for you. being a detective, he was naturally able to read people, yet he could never truly understand what was going on behind those eyes of yours. really, it was such a nuisance to hold these feelings in. alas, it was a hinderance to his work. sometimes he wondered if you could hear his heart beating out of his chest whenever you were around, surely it wouldn’t take much to realize what’s going on here. he’d need for you to simply let him in and he’d be the happiest man in teyvat.

it really doesn’t take a detective to figure out he loved you, it was quite obvious really. how many words at minimum would it take for you to notice his love? even with heizou attempting to hide the feelings in his heart, the summer days spent with you made his feelings soar. sitting on the beach and watching the sunset together, he really couldn’t be happier. he knew he was helplessly in love with you, warmth creeping onto his face every time you smiled or laughed because of him.

so here he was, singing and dancing in the warm sand with you under the sun’s fading light. the crashing of the waves on the shore drowned out your voices, but he hadn’t a care in the world. with his hands in yours, your laugh as the both of you fell into the cool water, he couldn’t be happier. even if both your clothes were now wet, you didn’t care even one bit as his lips met yours.

ever since the day he met you, he feigned indifference and rudeness to hide his feelings for you. he was a perfect example of using his naturally intimidating demeanor to hide the love he held for you. a puppet made without a heart, you had given him all the more reason to continue living. the nameless wanderer was so into you that he couldn’t help but smile to himself after any interaction with you. of course, he wouldn’t be caught dead smiling over you. just like magic, he was immediately done in by you without your knowledge.

he wanted to hate you as much as he pretended he did, that much was true. even after he warmed up to your presence, he wanted to stop acting like his true self around you. he wished he could just shut you out again, yet he couldn’t stop wondering if you felt the same. he assumed you did, based solely off of your words and actions without even the slightest verbal proof. with every single touch of his puppet body, his heart beat out of his artificial chest. maybe he had known you in his past life, maybe his heart broke knowing you wouldn’t remember him.

yet, you seemed to love him in every iteration of his life. he knew it all along, he said as he held your hands and forced himself to confess. the more he tried to fill the metaphorical gap between you, the more he unintentionally forced himself away. sure, he’d admit that he was greedy for your love. it wasn’t that bad to be in love, was it? under a beautiful tree surrounded by colorful flowers, he had his first kiss. hundreds of years living, but you were the only one he ever seemed to want to be around. angry looks and scoffs had been replaced with smiles despite all odds.

[deakyjoe]

Every Breath You Take

Pairing: Michael Myers x Reader (afab but no pronouns used I don’t think)

Category: stalker romance (??), smut (!!)

Summary: It shouldn’t exhilarate you so much knowing a serial killer was stalking you. But you just can’t help yourself.

Warnings: 18+ only, smut, unprotected p in v sex (wrap it before you tap it), vaginal fingering, dry humping, biting, licking, creampie, overstimulation, motorboating, pain as pleasure, slight voyeurism/exhibitionism, choking, scent kink, multiple orgasms, nipple play, over the clothes handjob, under the clothes handjob, slight dubcon (only because Michael doesn’t talk but I tried to make it as clear as possible that they just want to fuck each other), stalking, mentions of injuries and blood, mentions of murder, breaking and entering, morally questionable reader, mask is on and off, lights stay off during sex, virgin Michael, a little dark I guess (??)

Word count: 6.4k

A/N: For those who love masked men (aka me). For those who want to fuck slashers (aka me). For those who love the quiet type (aka me). For those who love a tall man (aka me). For those who love a strong man (aka me). I wrote this for me basically. I don’t think there’s much of an audience for Michael Myers fics within my followers but hopefully it reaches the right side of Tumblr :)

Consider buying me a coffee :)

It was probably disgusting how much it excited you knowing he watched you every day.

He'd stand in your back yard each night, totally still, and just look through your windows for hours. And then, when he was satisfied you assumed, he'd leave. But he always came right back the next day at the same time.

When you'd first noticed him, you'd been terrified. Naturally. You knew exactly who he was, you watched the news and heard stories. And the white mask and blue coveralls were unmistakable. You'd seen him through your window and locked all of the doors immediately. Then you waited. Patiently.

You didn't know what you were waiting for. Him to kill you... or to defend yourself. Your chances of survival were slim, he was inhumanly strong from what you'd heard. But you clutched a knife in your hand nonetheless, mirroring him in a strange way, in case you did suddenly have to fight him off.

Luckily, it never came down to that dilemma as he left a couple of hours later without even a step closer to your back door. You blinked and he was gone.

He came back the next night and did the same thing. And then the next night. And the next. And the next. Until it became a ritual.

You went about your evening and he watched. You always wondered whether he watched you during the day as well but you'd never noticed him. You also wondered what it was about you that didn't make him murder you straight away.

You were older than his usual victims, sure. And he supposedly liked to commit most of his crimes whilst his victims were in the middle of sexual acts and you didn't tend to have many visitors over. But then what was making him fixate on you?

You just couldn't figure it out.

It got to a point where you were less scared of him and more intrigued. Having him stand and stare was getting boring, you wanted to know why. No. You craved knowing why. But you couldn't ask him. You'd heard he wasn't fond of talking.

So what were you supposed to do? Just let it carry on? That was your only choice.

But things changed one evening.

When he appeared something didn't seem quite right. For one, he was seven minutes later than usual. And his left shoulder slumped forward with all of his weight placed onto his right leg.

He was injured.

And you couldn't help but feel bad for him.

So, like an insane person, you unlocked your door and opened it for him.

As you stood in the doorway staring at him, you noticed him straighten up. As if he were surprised. But you knew the man didn't show emotions, much less any that would display him being caught off guard in any way. So you put it down as your imagination or a trick of the moonlight.

But you left your door open. An invitation. Like he needed one of those.

He didn't move so you left the doorway and went to retrieve your first aid kit from the cabinet above the sink. And by the time you'd found it and turned back around, Michael Myers was standing about a foot into your kitchen.

You stared at him for a second, unsure of the emotions turning in your stomach. "Close the door. It's cold outside."

You really didn't know if you could afford to be giving him orders but considering he hadn't murdered you in the months he'd been watching you, you thought that you were probably safe until you'd at least bandaged up whatever wounds hid beneath the blue jumpsuit.

Not sticking around to see if he did it, you walked to your lounge and put a lamp on. His footsteps were silent so you kept an eye on the archway where he'd emerge from the kitchen. Which he did a few seconds later.

"Sit on the couch."

Surprisingly, he did as he was told. But you thought you might be pushing your luck so you stopped telling him to do things.

As he sat down, not relaxed in the slightest with the best posture you'd ever seen, you realised that getting a wounded man to sit on your nice furniture was probably a bad idea. What if he got blood everywhere? Too late now. You weren't going to ask him to move.

You moved towards him slowly, trying not to spook him. He still had a knife clutched in his hand after all. It was bloodstained. You ignored it.

Michael watched you closely, his head didn't move but you could feel his gaze through the dark eyeholes of the mask. It didn't escape your notice that he was still extremely tall even when sat down.

"What's hurt?"

It was a stupid question, you could see where blood was seeping through his clothes and the slashes in the fabric was clear. But given your very recent history of poor choices, an obvious question seemed like the least of your worries.

He didn't respond anyway. No finger point, no head tilt, no shrug. Not a single inch of his body moved apart from his chest from his breathing. If you couldn't see his inhales and exhales then you'd think he was some sort of dummy or mannequin.

"Have you got a shirt on underneath the jumpsuit?"

Why were you still asking questions?

He still said nothing, which you expected, but he did raise a hand to pop the first couple buttons open to reveal a grey t-shirt under the blue coveralls.

You sighed and nodded. "Um, you're going to need to- to undo a few more buttons. So I can get to your shoulder."

The blood stain was getting bigger and staining his clothes a deep purple.

He tilted his head to the side at you, the most emotion he'd shown so far. But he did as he was told again and then pushed the suit down his arms so it lowered to his waist. You didn't fail to notice how the grey t-shirt clung to him nicely, maybe a size or two too small, and displayed every inch of rippling muscle that covered him. Explained his inhuman strength.

You took a few supplies from the kit and started cleaning up the injury on his shoulder, careful to avoid staring at how his sleeve stretched against his bicep.

When you noticed him staring at you from the corner of your eye, you cleared your throat and pulled away again to distract yourself with looking for other injuries. Which was a fine idea until you realised that blood was dripping from beneath the rubber that adorned his face.

You went to lift the edge of the mask, no intention of taking it off, but his large hands gripped your wrists before you even had the chance. The knife was suddenly forgotten on the cushion of the couch.

You gasped in pain, his hold was tight, but didn't pull away. Trying your hardest to meet his eyes as best you could, you attempted to explain. "I'm not going to take it off but I need to get to your neck. You're bleeding. Lift the mask to your chin and hold it there so I can clean your neck."

There were a few tense moments of heavy breathing from him before he let go and did as you said. He was too agreeable, very out of character from all of the stories you'd heard about him. Were people wrong? Or was he acting differently than usual? How were you supposed to know?

You shook the thoughts from your head and got on with cleaning him up. You couldn't find the source of the blood so assumed it must've been coming from higher up on his face. But you weren't going to ask him to lift the mask anymore. You were a risk taker, if the night was any indication of that, but you didn't have a death wish. Mostly.

"Done." You mumbled and stepped back a few paces, looking down to clean away all of your supplies.

By the time you looked up he was standing again fully clothed.

"You going to kill me now finally?" There was a hint of laughter in your voice. If he did you wouldn't blame him. You probably deserved it after inviting a serial killer into your home and treating him like his own personal nurse.

He didn't respond, just turned and left the room. And by the time you got to the kitchen to follow him out, he was gone and the back door was shut and locked like he'd never even been there.

"See you tomorrow night then." You grumbled to yourself, assuming he'd return as he usually did.

And he did.

Uninjured this time. To your relief and, honestly, slight disappointment. There was really something very wrong with you.

But the routine returned to normal. Michael Myers would appear in your back yard every night at the same time and watch you for hours with no sign of even attempting to enter your house to murder you. And he'd leave when he was done watching whatever he sought out from you.

The initial thrill you'd had knowing he liked watching you had disappeared quickly after you'd realised there was less danger than you'd expected. And the fact that you could get so much closer to him was more exciting than anything else.

The idea of him being inside your house again played on your mind constantly, rolling around in there as regularly as a forbidden fantasy. And maybe it was. But surely you weren't fantasising about Michael Myers... right?

Perhaps the memory of his muscles and his height, just his sheer size even, plagued your brain way more often than was considered normal. The thought that he could probably just snap you in two with his large hands and impossible strength if he chose to, how easy it would be for him to break in and end your life on his will. But he chose not to.

That set your nerves alight.

So you turned your nights into a staring contest.

He'd stand in your back yard and stare into your window. You'd stand in your kitchen and stare out of your window.

And you slowly got more daring. You began to retire to bed earlier, going upstairs to your bedroom and changing right in his direct view. It was one of the few times he moved, tilting his head up slightly to see you better through the mask.

You didn't give him a full show, knowing it probably wasn't what he wanted. He liked to kill "promiscuous" people after all. But it was enough to give him an idea, a way to tease him. It was entertaining for you at least, even if he wasn't bothered.

But then one night when you noticed that he was a few feet closer to your house, you realised it was probably working.

He was tempted.

Whether it was to kill you or to do something else, you weren't sure. But you were exhilarated either way.

When he returned obviously injured again a few nights later, you sighed to yourself in annoyance. Yes, you were excited he'd be in your house again. But out of need, not want. You still unlocked your door and left it open for him as you waited in the lounge nevertheless.

When he emerged from the dark archway between your kitchen and your lounge, you looked him up and down. His stance was better than last time but he was covered in more blood. You deduced that it probably wasn't his.

"Sit." You whispered hoarsely. "Please."

Like manners were going to affect whether he killed you or not.

It went pretty much the same as the time before, cleaning the blood from him as best you could and bandaging up what was easy to access. He didn't flinch or wince, not even at the stuff that made your toes curl just from touching.

It wasn't until you were just finishing off spreading some antibacterial lotion on a gash on his thigh that you noticed he was breathing heavier than usual. You looked up at him and frowned, confused. But when he gave you no indication as to why he was suddenly almost hyperventilating, you shrugged it off and reached for a band-aid. As you glanced towards the wound to get an idea of the size you'd need for it, you realised what was wrong.

"Oh."

He was hard.

"Oh."

The prominent bulge in his crotch wasn't shy in showing you that it was there. He was big, to say at the very least.

Your mouth opened and closed a couple of times before you settled on a reassurance. "It's okay. This happens. Especially when someone is touching you a lot."

You figured this was the most he'd been touched in over a decade.

"I'll just uh..." You stood up to step away from him but he launched his arm forward to grab you by the wrist, not letting you go any further.

"Michael..."

He answered you by tugging your body into his lap, legs straddling either side of his thighs. You made sure not to settle your weight onto him, very conscious of what that could lead to.

But he had other ideas.

He planted both of his large hands on either side of your waist and pushed you to sit fully against him. And there was a lot to sit against.

You bit your tongue to prevent any noise coming out. What now? What did he expect?

His breathing was shaky as he surveyed you through the small eyeholes of his mask, hands hovering over your sides for a second.

You couldn't deny that this position, this close proximity, was turning you on. Especially feeling how hard he was pushed up against you.

He seemed to decide what he wanted to do next as his fists gripped the fabric of your pyjama shirt, suddenly tearing it open so buttons flew everywhere and then ripping it off of you and tossing it to a darkened corner of the room. His hands didn't hesitate it exploring the new uncovered areas of skin, his rough callouses against your soft flesh. He was clearly enjoying this new adventure as he appeared to grow impossibly harder beneath you. Lots of him was impossible.

The clasp he had on your breasts was almost painful but your eyes rolled back in pleasure nevertheless. You liked that he was manhandling you, the strength you'd been fantasising about since day one finally being used on you.

His hands slid down your sides until they met your hips, fingers digging in and pulling them against his. A choked moan escaped your mouth drowning out the sound of his own grunt. When Michael decided that he seemed to like that, he did it again. Rougher this time. And quicker. Then he set a pace doing it over and over again. Your hands flew to his shoulders to give yourself something to hold onto, some grounding. Because this was more than you could handle.

How could something so simple feel so good?

The feeling of his coveralls rubbing against you through the thin material of your sleep shorts was heavenly. That, mixed with his hardness pushing against you in all the right place meant you were in pure ecstasy.

The uncontrollable noises leaving you would've been embarrassing if it weren't for the fact that this was the best you'd ever felt. And you hadn't even had sex. Yet.

Barely a sound left Michael, just the occasional short groan to go along with his heavy breathing.

You couldn't quite tell where he was looking until his head suddenly snapped down and his eyes clearly fixated on where your breasts were bouncing with the rapid movement of the two of you rocking against each other. A slightly louder noise left him then.

There was no rest for you, even if your legs did grow tired and you ran out of breath because he wouldn't let you stop moving. You knew you were probably creating a wet patch on his clothes and that would only grow bigger when he finally came. You were surprised he was lasting this long to be honest. For someone who had been locked up most of his life and hadn't had any sexual experience, he had some stamina in him. But maybe he wasn't a virgin. Was your assumption wrong?

You didn't get time to dwell on it as his arm suddenly locked around your waist and he stopped the two of you. Looking down at him, he was almost the perfect picture of composure. Just some heavy breathing indicated what the two of you had been up to. You couldn't imagine you looked quite as calm.

The arm around you stiffened as he titled the two of you to the side.

"What are you doi- woah." The room was plunged into darkness as he switched the lamp off and then pulled you tight against him again. "Why did you- oh."

Your unfinished question was answered with the sound of rubber hitting the floor penetrating your ears and the feeling of Michael's breath against your skin. You didn't get the chance to question him further as to why he did that as he immediately buried his face in the valley of your breasts and rocked your hips against his to get the friction going again, his free hand rubbing up and down your thigh as the two of you moved.

You bit your bottom lip, extremely happy that he hadn't decided to just stop and leave, that this was still going. The happiness only extended when he licked a drop of sweat off of your skin and you almost screamed. But you couldn't imagine if was the kind of screaming he was used to so you bit your tongue.

Trying to adjust to the sudden absence of light by blinking, but having little success, you looked down to where you imagined Michael's head would be. You saw nothing. Naturally, the only solution to that was to move your hands up his shoulders, up his neck and into his hair. As you curled your fingers into the locks, you were pleasantly surprised to find how soft it was.

You would've smiled or giggled to yourself if he hadn't chosen that exact moment to bite into your collarbone and thrust up underneath you. Your response of tugging on his hair seemed to go down well as he did it again.

"Fuck." You whined against the top of his head, eyes scrunching shut.

That caught Michael's attention, his head pulling back and his free hand abandoning your thigh to wrap around the front of your neck, squeezing slightly when situated there.

You knew what he was doing. Mixing what he usually found pleasurable with this new experience. You wondered whether it was getting him off even more. If the way he was practically throbbing beneath you was any indication, then yes.

This added element of danger sent a shiver down your spine and an intense pulse to your core, making you rock against him without any prompting from him at all. You could still breathe but you knew he could stop that at any second if he chose to.

A breathless moan rumbled from the back of your throat as he squeezed your neck tighter, the arm locked around your waist pushing you against him even harder.

You were so close. So, so close. You chased your high like it was running away from you, rubbing yourself against him as roughly as you could. But there was no need.

Because when Michael leaned forward again to lick a long strip up from your left breast to your neck and then bit you, hard, it was like you saw the pearly gates of heaven. Or the fiery descent to hell.

Your orgasm crashed over you in hot waves as you collapsed against him, forcing his body to hit the back of the couch as your forehead met his and you gasped into his mouth, lips almost grazing but not quite meeting. Your grasp on his hair was tight, tugging on the roots like they were your lifeline. Your naked chest pressed against his clothed one, and that combined with the slight pain of the hair pulling was enough for Michael to come underneath you.

You could feel him twitching against you, only making you shudder against him more, as the wet patch on his jumpsuit grew as you predicted. The quietest extended groan left his mouth as he tensed beneath you, arms locking around you. His hips bucked up against yours a few times weakly before he grew limp.

You rested for a moment, trying to gain some strength back in your shaking legs, before you pushed off of him and stood up. Feeling around in the air for the lamp, you covered your eyes before switching it back on.

"Find your mask and put it back on." You instructed, waiting a moment for him to do so.

He didn't make any noise as he moved, as usual, and the only indication you had that he was done was the looming feeling of his presence in front of you and the sound of his exhales rattling the rubber that adorned him.

You uncovered your eyes and squinted against the sudden light, looking up to find Michael almost chest to chest with you. Well, head to chest. He was very tall after all.

Your gaze flickered down to his left hand which was slightly extended towards you. He was holding your pyjama shirt. The one he'd ruined by ripping all of the buttons off.

"Oh, thanks." You took it from him and put it back on, holding it together at the front by crossing your arms against your chest.

Probably a bad idea considering this position made the top gape open and your breasts push together to create an exaggerated cleavage. Michael didn't seem to mind as he lifted his right hand and traced a finger across the swell of your breasts for a moment before dropping his arm back to his side again.

You dropped your eyes away in embarrassment, and slight arousal, and noticed the mess the two of you had made on his blue jumpsuit.

"You're gonna want to wash that." You said, meekly gesturing towards it. You couldn't deny that seeing the stains that you'd made together was making your skin feel hot again.

He didn't even look to see what you were talking about, just continued to stare at you through his mask.

You tried to come up with something to say but nothing sprung to mind. What were you supposed to say to a serial killer that you'd just dry humped and orgasmed on top of?

It seemed like you didn't need to come up with a one-sided conversation starter though as he suddenly turned on his heel and left the room. You hesitated before following him. Stupid really since you couldn't even keep up with him at the best of times, especially not now on weak legs.

And, as usual, by the time you'd reached the kitchen he was gone and the door was locked.

He continued to return every night as normal but didn't enter your house again. No injuries seemed to be inflicted upon him for a while. You were beginning to get bored. Sighing every time he left with no hint of coming inside again.

Which is why a few days later you were very shocked by his out of character behaviour.

You woke up cold, your blankets stripped from your bed and the feeling of someone watching you sinking a chilling freeze into your bones. It was soon clear why you felt that way.

His silhouette was partially outlined by the moonlight coming through your bedroom window as he stood over you.

You shot up in bed, giving yourself a head rush. "Michael, what the fu-" You were cut off as he grasped the hand that was reaching for your bedside lamp. "No light? Why?"

He answered your question by pressing something rubber into your palm. His mask.

"Oh. Okay..." You frowned to yourself as you dropped the mask on your nightstand. What was he expecting you to do if he was injured but you couldn't see him? "I can't clean your wounds if it's dark."

It was too dark to see his face but the natural light from outside was enough to see him shake his head no. He wasn't injured. What did he need then?

"Then what? Why are you here? At this time?" You were still slightly dazed from just waking up, trying to shake some coherent thought into your head. What was the time? He'd already been and gone earlier that evening. How had he gotten in? You were sure you'd locked the door? Maybe that made no difference?

His breathing was heavy, shoulders moving up and down with his laboured inhales and exhales.

His grip on your wrist hadn't loosened as he pulled your hand towards him, resting it on his abdomen and then slowly dragging down and down and-

"Oh."

He was hard.

Very hard.

"You want me to-"

You'd guessed by this point that he probably hated hearing you talk as he was always cutting you off. This time by pushing on your shoulders so you fell flat on your back and bounced on the mattress. And then he was on top of you in mere fractions of a second.

He was smothering.

His mere presence was enough to stop your breath in your throat and having him be this close, having all of his weight pressed against you this way, practically stole the oxygen from your bloodstream.

His breath was hot on your face, his nose barely grazing against yours before he moved to trace it along your hairline and then down your neck where he inhaled deeply, groaning lowly at your scent.

You reached up to touch him but he was too fast, clasping both of your wrists in one hand and pinning them above your head.

"This doesn't work if I can't touch you." You mumbled frustratedly, more to yourself than to him.

It wasn't strictly true but what did he know? Last time he hadn't used any real technique, just done whatever felt best for him which luckily also felt good for you. He'd used the mere skill brought to him by innate exploration. Maybe this time he'd be more purposeful with you.

Unlikely.

The statement you'd made seemed to have some sort of influence on him though as he slowly let go of your wrists and let you dig one into his hair, where you gently pulled on it, and let the other drift to undo the top buttons of his coveralls. You popped them open cautiously, one by one, until your nails stroked the material of his grey undershirt. You assumed it was grey as usual.

Your fingers wandered to the neckline where you swooped the index to get a feel of his skin. He froze above you but didn't stop you.

"I'm going to undo more. Just stop me if you want. But gently." You clarified, not wanting bruised wrists in the morning which was guaranteed if he grabbed them with his vice-like grip again.

Each button fell open easily, like they were dying to be free from their clasps, and Michael didn't stop you once. And when the last one was undone, he leant back slightly on his knees to let you push the jumpsuit down so it bunched around his waist just like the first time he'd been in your house.

You took the opportunity to let your hands roam the muscles you'd been admiring since the first time you'd seen him up close. They were solid. He was solid.

He crowded over you again, breathing getting more rapid the more you touched him. He let out a soft sound when your hands reached his crotch, palming him over his clothes.

"Take them off and I can touch you more." You offered, attempting to sound sultry but sure you just sounded desperate instead.

He hesitated but did as you said, standing up to push the jumpsuit further down his legs but still not taking it off completely. Then he was on top of you again, pushing your hand against him before you even had the chance to realise he was so close again. You squeezed him through his underwear and he bucked his hips against your palm.

You did that for a while, moving your hand up and down the outline of him through the material and ignoring the ache between your own legs. Getting him riled up was a lot of fun, especially when he let noises slip every now and again. You just wished you could see the reactions on his face. Did he bite his lip? Did he screw his eyes shut? Was his jaw dropped open? You guessed you'd never know.

While those thoughts plagued your mind, it seemed Michael had changed his. And what was happening wasn't good enough for him anymore. So he slapped your hand away suddenly. Before you could even begin to utter a sentence, he ripped your pyjama shirt open.

Great, another one ruined.

His hands shot to your chest, away from where they'd been resting either side of your head previously, and he started to knead the flesh. Your back arched, pushing your chest closer to his and making your nipples rub against the fabric of his t-shirt. Michael must've figured out that the stimulation was good based on the gasp you let out as he moved his attention to your nipples, flicking and tweaking them with his fingers.

He didn't seem hesitant at all in what he was doing but it was also clear he wasn't experienced either. There was no rhythm to his touches, he just did whatever felt right. And that worked for you.

You grew extremely wet when he started grinding himself against your core from instinct alone. You wanted more, craved more, needed more.

Your hands flew to the waistband of his underwear, tugging them down a few inches to pull him free. You knew he was big but having the real thing in your hand, no clothing barriers at all, was a whole other story.

You could hear his teeth clicking shut when you started to stroke him, skin on skin, spreading his pre-cum up and down his length.

"Fuck, Michael. Jesus." You garbled, head wild with lust and nothing else. "Need you inside me."

He stopped moving at that, hands falling away from your chest and hips no longer bucking to pump himself into your palm.

Maybe he really was clueless.

"You know? Inside me?" You reached around to find one of his hands, pushing it down the waistband of your sleep shorts until his fingers met your wetness.

He wasn't even doing anything but the sensation alone of him touching you made you shiver. That was until he seemed to understand what he was feeling. His head tilted to the side, just about visible in the moonlight, as he let his fingers explore. As he grazed your clit, you squeaked quietly. He seemed to like that so he did it a couple more times, just to illicit a reaction out of you. But he got bored quickly and kept on feeling.

When he reached the source of the wetness, he pushed a finger in. You moaned. Loudly. He liked that a lot more, so pulled out the finger and reinserted with a second one joining in. Your eyes rolled back at this. And the sounds you made reached a new decibel. Michael did the same thing again and again, pumping his fingers just to feel you clench around him.

When he eventually pulled his fingers free, you whined in protest before the sounds of him sucking the taste of you off of his skin hit you. And you decided that maybe the loss of contact was okay if that's what he was going to do instead.

When he was satisfied with that, Michael tore your shorts off of you completely and tossed them over his shoulder somewhere. Then his underwear was pushed further down and he was spreading your legs apart, as far as they would go.

Your heart rate picked up further than it was already running, probably entering dangerous territory. But you didn't care. It was finally about to happen.

Michael crawled over you, shadowed face hanging above yours. You just nodded at him, wondering whether he was able to see you do it. Either way, he seemed to get the message that you really really wanted to do this. So, with a hand on one of your thighs to hold you in place, and the other on his cock to guide him, he pushed into you.

At that moment you decided that you were definitely seeing the devil in the afterlife.

But it was worth it for this.

He stretched you open perfectly, gliding in with ease considering how wet you already were. But that was nothing in comparison to how you felt hearing him letting out what could only be described as a mixture between a whimper and a pleasured groan against your ear.

If never hearing him talk meant that the noises he let out during sex made you tingle, then you'd take his silence any day.

The hand on your thigh moved to curl your leg around his waist, changing the angle so he moved into you deeper. And the other rested against your head to keep him propped up. Yours scraped down his back in ecstasy, probably leaving nail marks along the plains of his skin. You were sure he wouldn't mind, he'd had worse injuries.

He stayed still once he'd entered you, stiff but breathing heavily.

"Move, Michael." You whispered. "Please move."

And when he pulled out and slammed back in again, you were positive you could see the grim reaper knocking at your door ready to whisk you away to the tortuous pits of hell.

All you knew is that you certainly weren't seeing heaven after this.

Michael grunted, head hanging so his soft hair tickled against your skin. But he seemed to get the idea as he pumped in and out of you at a ruthless pace. Skin slapped together, your chests rubbing against one another as you bounced up and down the surface of the bed, which shuffled along the floor with every thrust.

You'd never known sex to be so loud. Maybe you'd just never had sex as good as this. Because the roaring of blood in your ears definitely wasn't helping.

You couldn't help the sounds that were escaping your parted lips, thankful that your neighbours' houses weren't close enough to hear you. Your other leg moved to wrap around Michael's waist, tugging him closer to you and locking him in place. You need him to be as close as possible, to be as deep inside you as possible.

The hand on your thigh dug in deep, certainly leaving bruises, before trailing up the length of your body and wrapping around the front of your neck. He pushed down this time, squeezing slightly to cut off your airway just a little. It excited you more than anything and made you clench around him.

That seemed unexpected to Michael as he faltered slightly before pounding into you harder than before, having absolutely no mercy on your body. You only clenched harder.

His pattern began to fumble, thrusts become more forceful but less regular. He was getting close. And you weren't far off either. You let one of your hands fall from his back and placed it between the two of you, starting to rub your clit. He took notice of this and pushed your hand away to replace it with his own, letting oxygen rush back into your lungs again.

The head rush combined with the pressure on your clit tipped you over the edge into oblivion. You choked out a muffled scream as your orgasm ripped through your body, tears falling from the corners of your eyes.

But Michael didn't let up for a second. This just seemed to give him a new wave of energy as his pace picked up rubbing tight circles on your clit and slamming into you with no forgiveness.

You approached the edge rapidly again, the raw feeling over overstimulation pushing you closer and closer. His sweat dripped onto you, creating a sheen that let your bodies slide against each other in erotic heat. You could feel every inch of him either against you or inside of you. And that thought made you come again. This time the scream was less muffled.

The feeling of you clenching around him again like a vice had Michael finally hitting his peak too, his face buried into the crook of your neck as he pumped you full of his cum. If you weren't so spent already, that would've made for three orgasms.

He bit down on the skin of your shoulder to prevent any noises coming out too loud, but he couldn't mask all of them. He twitched inside of you as he gave a few last lazy bucks of his hips before he pulled out completely, standing up and looking down at you.

You really wondered how good his vision must be in this light for him to be able to see you. Or maybe he couldn't. Maybe he was faking it.

Either way you didn't care, too exhausted suddenly to really think about it. You began to drift to sleep, desperately trying to keep your eyes open to see what he'd do next. You vaguely remembered seeing him get dressed again. But you don't remember him leaving. Or moving you to rest your head back on your pillow. Or him pulling your blankets over you again.

Maybe he didn't do any of that. Maybe you did in your sleepy state.

It didn't matter. He was still gone before you even had the chance to register what happened.

But you were pleased when the next night, you glanced out of your kitchen window and found him stood there as usual, watching you. From now on, you were just going to leave your door unlocked to make it easier for him.

A/N: To celebrate my Halloween, I watched Halloween (1978) home alone whilst my housemates all went to a party. It inspired me to write this.

[mmogurl]

Last to Fall Chapter 1 - My Demons

18+ | 10k | Aegon II Targaryen X Female Maid / Dragonseed Reader | miserable, alcoholic, often dissociative, needs comfort Aegon | virgin reader, maiden, emotional abuse, first time sex, P in V, smut, wholesome, fluff, this whole thing is actually kind of sweet compared to what I usually write.

This fic is heavily inspired by the infamous 'Nothing' scene with Aegon and Alicent. Her cold words and the way she lashes out really bothered me and I felt a strong need to stand up for him, protect, and console him. So that's really what this whole fic is about. Enjoy! Also went with a lot of musical vibing for this story. I started off listening to Collective Soul's Heavy, because I imagine it as Aegon's state of mind in the opening scene towards everyone and everything happening. And by the end we transition into Starset's Last to Fall - and the title of the fic. I know, I'm a sappy mf.

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 On AO3

Retroactive update 10/29/24: I've also decided that I'm going to try my best to fit every chapter to a Starset song because the whole Series is based off the title of one (Last to Fall) which was originally going to be a oneshot and got extended. I'm enjoying the challenge of finding one that suits each theme/ story! They're not all going to be perfectly aligned, but I'll try my best. This one is Starset - My Demons adding onto the two songs I already referenced here - but this one just felt so perfect!

Complicate this world you wrapped for me I'm acquainted with your suffering

All your weight it falls on me It brings me down All your weight it falls on me It falls on me

~Collective Soul - Heavy

—You

You have worked in the castle for as long as you can remember, always hearing the whisperings of the chamberlain, the laundress, and any other keep staff prone to gossip, that you were the late king’s bastard. There were always underhanded comments of jealousy uttered in your direction, like ‘It must be nice to have a king’s blood runnin’ through yer veins... To have yer needs met for life.’ In truth, you were worried that the Queen Dowager might see fit to dispose of you now that her husband had passed.

So far, it seems your fair looks, expertise, and agreeable demeanor has secured your position, at least for the time being, but you are not so naive as to think that will last forever.

You tended to King Viserys for six summers, and with his death you’ve been reassigned to serve the new Protector of the Realm, Aegon II Targaryen. You are mildly concerned about this development considering the rumors you’ve heard about the young prince over the years. Drinking and philandering to excess, he was rumored to be a true hedonist, only taking satisfaction when drowning himself in pleasure. It is for this very reason, that you’re surprised by your observations of your new lord within the first weeks of your employ as his chambermaid and general attendant.

You find he spends a lot of time sitting in near darkness with barely a couple candles lit in his room at night, kept company only by a carafe of wine and wearing a disassociated look on his face that could be taken for misery if it didn’t appear so apathetic in nature. It was as though he were actively trying to force himself into a mold that he would never fit into. This became even more apparent as you witnessed more of his interactions with his family, especially his mother and grand-sire. It seemed they were constantly trying to orchestrate the ruling of the Seven Kingdoms, nitpicking at every little decision Aegon made, pulling his strings just like a puppet.

You had listened from the sidelines of the Great Hall as the Hand second-guessed the king’s rulings. Even when the Aegon tried to embrace his seat upon the Iron Throne, he was made impotent by those not fit to govern. You could do nothing but stand by helplessly in saddened silence when he suffered the loss of his eldest son to assassins, while Otto Hightower forced him to parade young Jaehaerys’ corpse to the public along with his grief-stricken sister-wife, Helaena.

Day by day, your heart was beginning to ache for the emptiness you saw growing behind his amethyst eyes. And yet still he tried on most days to put a positive foot forward, even if by nightfall he usually turned back to engulfing his sorrows in drink. You couldn’t even blame him really given the complete lack of moral and emotional support the king had to endure.

This feeling of compassion built within you, until one day it peaked to a head as you made your way to Aegon’s chambers with fresh linens in hand, ready to fulfill your afternoon chores. You passed several Kingsguard as you made your way down the hall and paused outside the king’s rooms as you heard voices coming from within. The two white cloaks standing watch at the open threshold glanced at you in warning, so you simply waited with folded bedsheets in hand for the opportunity to complete your duties.

You knew you should not listen, but it was hard to ignore the distressed voice of the king from within, met by the indifferent attitude of the Queen Dowager. Oh no, you think to yourself sympathetically, she is at it again. It really did seem that tearing Aegon down piece by piece was not only a habit for his mother, but something she relished in.

“Do you think simply wearing the crown imbues you with wisdom,” Alicent’s voice echoed out against the vaulted ceiling of the room, her voice patronizing and condescending. “Those men at your council table earned their seats. It was my hope that once enthroned you would honor the burden of your new duties, be silent, and strive to learn from the more studied minds around you. In the hope that you might be half the king your father was…”

You tried to swallow the lump forming in your throat at hearing such baleful words. The king was not responding, and you could just imagine the pained look of agony that Aegon was sure to be wearing under the constant criticisms he faced as of late.

“Tread carefully,” you heard him say, barely carrying enough volume to hear from where you stood. You found yourself holding back a smile at that, happy that he was standing up to her for once. But, that only incensed the Queen Dowager more, her thirst to harm not yet quenched.

“Or what?” she says with venom coating her tongue. “You’ll hang me, as you did your rat catchers? Or have me banished as you did your Hand? I ruled in your father’s absence throughout his long illness, and Otto Hightower was as cunning a statesman as ever lived. You should humbly be seeking our opinions and counsel. You have no idea the sacrifices that were made to put you on that throne.”

You shook your head, unsure how any mother could ever speak to her child in such a manner, let alone to the Lord of the Seven Kingdoms. Perhaps it bothered you so because you had never known the tenderness of a mother’s love, but had spent many a daydream imagining what it might be like. With your idealistic and sometimes naive mind, you wanted to think that there was more love out there in the world than this, especially within the royal family. You wanted better for the young king you had grown to feel so protective of in such a short amount of time.

Aegon’s next words break your train of thought, “Wha-“ he started with an exasperated tone, “What would you have me do, Mother?”

“Do simply what is needed of you,” she replied and the frosty chill of her cold voice was evident even from the corridor. “Nothing.”

You feel tears well up in the corners of your eyes and try your best to ignore them. It was important as part of the castle staff to never appear to be listening, to always remain professional, but it wasn’t always possible when one was witness to such cruelty.

Quickly, you wipe the errant tears away as the Queen Dowager exits her son’s apartment, walking swiftly with a scowl on her face. With the king now alone in his chambers, you nod to the guards and head inside, pausing to close the doors behind you lest Aegon had wont of some privacy.

As you turned to face the room, the king sat off to the side of his table, leaning against the back of a chair, his head resting upon his hands in defeat. He did not stir as you entered and so you cleared your throat to let yourself be known. Aegon still made no move and so this time you spoke up.

“Your Grace, might I change the linens? Or should I come back later?” you ask, your voice hesitant, but filled with understanding.

He finally lifts his head, glancing at you for a moment before returning his attention to the nearly empty decanter of wine on the table.

“Fetch me some more wine instead,” he demands sullenly, and to this you nod and hurry off to fulfill his request. After what you’d heard him endure, you’d do just about anything to cheer him up now.

With a speed you did not think yourself capable, you retrieved, not just one, but two pitchers of strongwine for the king and prepared a small platter of snacks for him as well, consisting of cheese, crackers, figs, and grapes. You hoped he’d be pleased with your thoughtfulness, and sure enough, he did perk up a little at the sight of the tray you presented on the table before him.

Aegon got to his feet, walking around the chair he’d been leaning against and sitting in it instead. You filled his chalice and placed it before him, wearing an exaggerated smile upon your face, anything to lighten the onerous mood. The king surprises you when he actually notices, his composure faltering as he looks upon your benevolent countenance.

“Did you hear all of that then?” he asks, his jaw clenching slightly as he peers down at the crimson fluid within the cup before him.

“It is not my business, Your Grace,” you answer softly, not wanting to sound cold, but knowing it is not your place to comment on such things. “But, if I can do anything, or get anything more for you. Please just ask.”

“I never wanted to be be king, you know,” Aegon says abruptly, picking up the chalice and swirling the wine around inside it. “They hunted me down, forced me to be crowned… And yet, Mother tells me I do not deserve it, even though she has placed me upon the throne herself.”

You flounder with your words, uncertain of how to reply. Should you even say anything at all? Perhaps he just wants someone to listen who won’t respond with a scathing rebuke.

“She spoke of the rat catchers, bringing up the death of my eldest son as though it were nothing to me,” he continues without your input, staring into the contents of his chalice as though it might hold some insight. “She treats me as though I am nothing.”

He finally takes a long swig of the cup, emptying most of it in one gulp. Aegon sets it down on the table with a clatter of metal and wood, an almost despondent look on his face as he adds, “Perhaps I am nothing.”

“Your Grace, no! That is not true!” the words slip out, unable to hold back your feelings at his self-denigration. You immediately cover your mouth with startled surprise, knowing that you’ve overstepped.

Aegon halts, his shoulders tensing as his eyes drift up to you and his brow furls downwards in confusion. He regards you in earnest for what feels like the first time ever, his discerning gaze sweeping from your face, down to your skirts and back up again, sizing you up. “What would you know of it?”

You bite your lip anxiously, unsure of how to proceed, even though it seems by now that you’ve already gone past the point of returning to obscurity. Ultimately, you decide that if you’re going to lose your position within the Red Keep, that you’d prefer to let the king know how you feel first.

“I have seen how determined you are,” you say quietly, a lack of confidence in your voice as you address the king. “Even though it is obvious how much hardship you must abide.”

“I am the king. I do not abide anything,” he replies gruffly, but there’s no tooth in the words.

“Of course, Your Grace,” you reply as you cast your eyes downward, your posture stiffening as you stand more upright, waiting for the hammer of discipline to fall.

There is a pervasive silence that hangs heavy in the expansive chamber as you wait for the king to cast his verdict. Does he intend to overlook your impertinence or will he punish you severely?

You hear the trickle of liquid pouring and then the glass carafe clattering against the wood of the table. The sound of swallowing is audible, followed by Aegon’s lips smacking softly as he puts the chalice back down.

“Come here, girl,” he says suddenly in a low monotone.

You look up once more, hesitating; your eyes questioning as you try to understand his intentions, his expression inscrutable.

“Do I have to repeat myself?” he reiterates, his tone a little more firm, yet without the sound of malicious intent. “Come here.”

You gulp and step gingerly towards Aegon, standing before him as he sits in the high-back chair. “Yes, Your Grace?” you ask with an uncertain look on your face.

The king startles you when he turns his chair to face you, his hands wrapping around your waist as he pulls you towards him in one fluid motion. Before you even realize what is happening, Aegon has his face buried against your stomach while his fingers dig into the fabric of your dress at the small of your back.

For a moment you stand there frozen in shock, your arms out as if in surrender, unsure of how to respond or interpret this intimate gesture. But then, you feel his shoulders shake quietly, and it's that movement that clues you in to the nature of the king's actions. He is crying, albeit in his own restrained way.

Slowly, you lower your hands down, one resting on his back as the other smooths his white locks back against his scalp. You can feel him melt into your affectionate touch, his entire body slumping forward even as he continues to whimper quietly into your apron.

“Shh,” you say softly, trying to comfort him in a way that feels somehow natural to you despite the gap in caste. “It will be alright.” You are not fully convinced that it will be, but the young king needs some reassurance and you know you are the only one likely to give it to him.

You have secretly longed for a moment such as this to occur for awhile now, wishing you had the opportunity to provide the king with some semblance of reprieve. When you served Viserys, he never seemed very troubled, and was almost willfully ignorant to the problems that plagued his family. Aegon on the other hand, was tormented not only by his mother, but by the pressure he put on himself to please everyone, which was an impossible feat.

To soothe Aegon now and hold him in your arms, felt like putting one of the many wrongs he’d endured right, even if it was only a small fraction of what the man was owed.

Your fingers rake through his wavy tresses and you feel a surge of raw emotion as you tend to the king’s needs in a way you never imagined you would. Soon, his shaky breaths and silent tears begin to cease, replaced by sniffles as you continue to soothe him in the way his mother should have been for all of these years. You can sense his reluctance to leave your embrace, but there’s also a shame weighing heavy in the air for confiding such weakness in a simple chambermaid.

He nuzzles his eyes against the fabric of your dress, wiping his tears on the brown cloth before he abruptly pulls away and clears his throat. Aegon avoids looking directly at you, embarrassment evident in his now red and puffy eyes. He lets out a heavy sigh and you’re left feeling quite dumbfounded as he turns back to his wine.

For a long moment there is a tense and overwhelming silence, the only sounds present in the room are the soft pouring of wine into Aegon’s chalice and the glass clinking as he sets the carafe down.

You stare at the side of his face, feeling a knot form in your stomach at the growing distance. It’s as if he’s punishing you for witnessing his vulnerability, desperate to maintain the barrier between king and servant. Despite his aversion, you can’t help but feel the significance of what you shared, the way he pulled you in and how good it felt to hold him close.

The quiet stretches on, Aegon now occupied with emptying his cup as if trying to fill the void with drink. He speaks up once more, his tone now devoid of any traces of the exposed emotion you just viewed.

"That will be all," his words are devoid of any warmth or familiarity. "I don't need anything more from you tonight." Aegon’s fingers tremble subtly as he brings his glass to his lips, betraying his cold facade.

“Your Grace,” you say in acceptance of his decision, bowing your head to show deference. You turn and glance at the linens still stacked on top of the king’s bed and fret for a moment that you will get in trouble for not fulfilling your duties and changing the sheets. “Should I change the bedsheets before I leave?”

Aegon doesn’t even turn to face you, his eyes fixed on his chalice. His expression is closed off, distant, as he responds with a simple grunt of confirmation.

“Yes, yes. Do whatever it is you usually do,” he mutters dismissively, his voice lacking any real feeling. He lifts his cup to his mouth once more, drowning himself in the bitter taste of the wine.

You nod with the typical words of respectful assent and begin making the bed as you always do, except this time it feels different. Today you flew so very close to the sun and felt your skin bask in its heat. The absence of that warmth now leaves you feeling chilly, an overwhelming nothing replacing the typical humdrum of your chores. You can feel his presence in the room like a beacon calling you to shore, but you dare not approach him again.

When you finish your task, you leave the king’s chambers without saying a word, closing the door behind you as silently as you can.

For the next few days, the typical royal indifference that Aegon shows you is substituted for complete and utter disregard. He at least showed you a degree of quiet appreciation before, but now it seems he’s going out of his way to make it known that you do not exist to him. Aegon always keeps his eyes turned from you and makes no acknowledgment of your proximity, giving the impression that you are little more than a ghost.

Gone is the care-free spirit that the king usually possesses, always trying to pretend that he is happier than he actually is, at least when you are around him. It seems that Aegon erects a wall of guarded apathy the moment he becomes aware of you, sometimes so severe that you can actually see him transition into a frown at your approach.

You find yourself slinking around quietly whenever you must occupy his room at the same time that he is present. The mornings are especially tense, when you must bring breakfast and fresh wash water for his basin. Sometimes, you feel his eyes on you when you’re preoccupied with adding wood to and stoking the fire, but you try your best to ignore it since you can’t make heads or tails of his behavior.

For the most part, you attempt to finish the majority of your duties once the king has left for the day and not before that point. You hope that in time, the king will forget about what transpired between the two of you, and that everything will revert back to how it was.

—Aegon

Aegon has made a concerted effort to maintain his frosty disposition towards you. It’s a constant battle between his heart, which secretly admires and yearns for you, and his head, which refuses to acknowledge the vulnerability he allowed you to witness. Even still, he can’t help but feel a slight pang of sadness whenever you try to slip in and out of his chambers undetected, nor can he control the surge of resentment when he feels that he might need you in any way.

The king simply doesn’t know what to make of the tangle of emotions that twist inside of him whenever he sees your face. It’s as if the memory of his shortcomings and your comforting embrace is a fresh wound that refuses to heal. He wants to shove you from his mind, but your image is permanently branded on the backs of his eyelids.

Even his nights have become restless, with no amount of drink or pleasure helping to ease his troubled heart. In fact, he’d already tried visiting one of his favorite brothels, dragging along his drunken friends for the chance to brag at how loud he could make the women scream. He was so distracted by thoughts of you that he couldn’t even stay hard and had to call it a night without release, defeated even by the the carefree abandon of a whore’s cunt.

The only thing that helps him drift off to sleep lately is recalling the moment he shared with you, and imagining how it might have gone differently if he had not pulled away from you. His hand enveloping his rigid cock, stroking it eagerly as he envisions what it would be like to reach under your skirts and feel the heat at the apex of your thighs. The resulting climax is strong, but it always leaves him feeling ashamed and guilty afterwards, as though he’s given into an urge worse than the crudest of debaucheries.

It’s becoming more and more obvious, that no matter how much he denies himself, he wants you in an unbearable way. He wants to reach out to you, wants to apologize and thank you for your soothing care. He wants those arms wrapped around him once again, that gentle hand running through his hair. He wants to confess all of his troubles to you. How he is tired of being treated like a child, of being scolded and slapped around by his mother, and never being taken seriously by his own small council. Aegon wants to hear the solutions you might propose to his growing list of problems, instead of relying on the wine that he drinks to excess more often as the days pass, an answer that he knows is mere avoidance.

And so, the king finds himself at a crossroad, facing a decision that can’t simply remain unsettled. He can either choose to embrace his feelings for you and allow himself the chance of experiencing the compassion he so badly craves, or he can continue to repress those feelings and bury them under the weight of his own self loathing and fear.

At the end of another long and monotonous day, he finds himself sitting at the end of his table in the very same chair where he had shared a moment of weakness with you. He sighs as he pours himself another cup of wine, the burgundy liquid not doing much to take the edge off tonight.

He shivers slightly as gooseflesh erupts over his pale skin. Glancing out the window, he can see that the skies are grayer than usual and that autumn is settling in over King’s Landing. Aegon begins to worry as he considers the already dwindling food supply and the civil war that is ravaging what little they have left. His grand-sire and mother both seem to be ignoring the constant plight of the commonfolk, but he’s spent enough time amongst them to know that revolt might loom on the horizon.

The large wooden doors to his chamber suddenly open and his attention is drawn from the window, snapped to the form now entering the room. It is you, his chambermaid, carrying a bundle of blankets. You stop dead in your tracks as you notice him sitting in the dwindling light of the gloaming hour.

“Sorry to disturb, Your Grace,” you offer sheepishly. “I didn’t know you had already retired for the day.”

Aegon turns his chair outwards, sitting sideways as he leans an elbow against the table and lifts his cup to his lips, taking a sip of his favorite sweet Arbor red. He doesn’t acknowledge your apology, and instead regards you with a steadfast gaze as he tries to hide his conflicting feelings.

“What is it?” he asks, his tone tinged with disinterest.

“It’s supposed to be chilly tonight,” you answer with a soft voice. “I wanted to bring you some extra blankets and build the fire up so that you are comfortable.”

“Hm,” he grunts, taking another swig of his wine. He doesn’t respond more than that and simply watches as you begin to lay two massive quilts upon his bed, then approach the fireplace to add more wood and stoke the flames. Even now you were doing your best to take good care of him, doting on him as though he were your very own husband.

He can’t help but discreetly study the shape of your body as you kneel before the mantle, appreciating the way the firelight projects shadows over your kneeling figure. The flickering orange light bounces off your face and he can’t help but notice the softness of your features, the curve of your cheek and lips. As you rise back to your feet and turn to face him, he’s finally made his decision.

Perhaps it is time to lay these fears to rest.

He sighs softly, his shoulders slumping somewhat with the release of breath, as he gestures to the chair across from him.

“Sit,” his word is quiet, almost a whisper.

You look at him perplexed as though you did not hear him properly, an apprehension soon settling in as you hesitate to respond.

There is an air of determination in his eyes as he nods once more, encouraging you to sit. His voice now holds a trace of insistence as he shifts in his seat, sitting upright as he repeats himself. “I said sit.” Aegon points at the empty chair once more, his gesture sharper this time.

You oblige him swiftly at that, taking a seat in the ornately carved high-back chair, your legs are pressed together and your hands fidget awkwardly on your lap. Aegon reaches forward and grabs an empty chalice from the silver tray before him, pouring you a glass of wine.

“Here,” he says, his voice strangely calm in your presence now that he has finally given in to his wishes. He hands you the cup across the table, his fingers brushing against yours for just the briefest of moments. He relishes in the heat of your touch, no matter how fleeting, and offers a clumsy smile. “Have a drink with me.”

You take the chalice reluctantly, the anxiety of such taboo evident in your expression. Aegon knew it was unheard of for the staff to share a drink with members of the royal family, but it was also not typical for the king to be denied anything he desired either.

“T-thank you, Your Grace,” you offer appreciatively.

Aegon settles back into his chair, his posture becoming more relaxed as he spreads his legs. He takes comfort in the fact that no matter how much he has tried to avoid you, that you still humbly show him gratitude. That small act of polite civility has him convinced that what he is attempting will not end in rejection.

He raises his cup and toasts to you, a courtesy which seems so simple and yet holds so much significance when coming from a king. “To your service.” His eyes gleam in the fading light of day, bright with unspoken promise.

“I don’t even know what to say, Your Grace,” you squeak out in embarrassment, your face impossibly red as you direct your gaze away from him.

He can feel his confidence returning as he sees the flush of color bloom on your cheeks. It’s a sign that his attention is not entirely unwelcome, and that thought alone is enough to make his heart beat steadily in his chest.

Aegon leans forward, trying to capture your attention once more, his eyes pleading for you to look at him again. After so much time evading this very situation, he now feels hungry for it.

“You don’t have to say anything at all,” he reassures you, his tone softened but with a hint of authority as he motions for you to drink your wine.

Without wavering, you grasp the heavy brass chalice in your hands and with courage etched in your features, take a long draught of the Arbor red.

As you drink, Aegon raises an eyebrow in mild surprse, watching as you take a rather ambitious swig of strongwine. He finds he’s actually impressed with your ability, and his expression soon transforms into a smirk of amusement.

He takes a sip from his own chalice before setting it back down on the table. “You drink deeper than many of my knights, I can tell you that,” he jests with a good-humored ease, testing the boundaries of this fledgling dynamic.

Your cheeks blush once more although this time it is likely due to the wine as well as your timidity. “This is much better than the swill the staff typically has access to,” you offer almost apologetically, as though it were not proper for you to imbibe in your spare time.

The admission has the corners of his mouth curling into a grin once more, and a breathy laugh escapes his lips. It’s clear now that the two of you are finally making progress, the barrier of propriety quickly falling away as it typically did with drink.

“So you mean to say you enjoy good wine, yes?” he teases lightly, tapping his fingertips against the edge of his cup, his gaze focused on you, eager to see your reaction.

“I am enjoying it, yes,” you say with bright eyes, your guilt beginning to fade away with each sip of sweet wine you take.

Aegon can sense the increased ease in your demeanor, and is delighted by the sight of it. He knows that the alcohol has broken through the tension that’s been building between the two of you for days now and he plans to take full advantage of it, feeling even bolder in his pursuit of you.

“Good,” he replies gladly, feeling content with the newfound freedom he’s allowed himself. “Then have some more,” Aegon adds, his tone light and playful as he pushes the decanter of wine closer to you, encouraging you to fill your own cup. He can feel a pleasant buzzing in his head from the strongwine, and can tell that you aren’t far behind him.

“Is Your Grace trying to get me drunk?” you ask, a surprising riposte that he didn’t expect from you.

The question has Aegon laughing aloud, the sound hearty and full of mirth. He leans closer, sliding his elbow further along the table as he offers you a grin. That little spark of humor you show only heightens his own sense of urgency to be in your arms once more.

The king rests his chin on his fist, and raises a brow at you with a mischievous grin. “And what if I was?” he replies playfully.

“Then I’d have to ask to what aim?” you say holding onto your cup, your finger tracing the circular rim of it.

Aegon’s gaze is drawn to your fingers, following the movement as his pulse quickens. He can hear your question, but it fails to register fully as he’s momentarily lost in a daydream of those same fingers running across his skin. His mouth goes dry and his skin feels hot. He finds he must take another large draught of wine to calm the sudden surge of longing that courses through him.

“Well,” he says, his tone feigning seriousness. “Perhaps I intend to get you drunk so I might take advantage of you.”

Aegon is surprised when you chuckle in response to his daring assertion, having expected more of a demure reaction instead. “You would not have to ply me with wine for that,” you admit, lowering your head slightly as though realizing how direct your words had been a little too late.

His eyes go temporarily wide as he registers your brazen honesty, wondering if he’d even heard you correctly. “Do you jest with your king, girl?” he asks incredulously.

“No,” she offers adamantly, with all the defiance of a loyal hound. “I’m afraid I’d be quite willing.”

“Is that so?” Aegon says more for his own confirmation than to communicate it, his eyebrow raising with dubious intent.

His stiffening cock was becoming uncomfortable in his taut breeches and he couldn’t help but consider the irony that such an innocent encounter had taken on an incredibly sexual nature. The comfort you had offered him becoming like an intoxicating fuel to his loins, making you far more attractive than any other woman could ever possibly be in his eyes.

“And what would you be willing to do in order to satisfy your king?” he prods further, feeling confident that he has the upper hand now. His desire to claim everything you have to offer now undeniable.

“I-I,” you begin to stutter nervously, clearly not expecting such a blunt response from him. “What is it you wish of me?”

Aegon let’s out a sharp huff of delight at the question you pose. To his great joy it seems you truly don’t realize the effect you have over him right now. He stands from his chair, sending it backwards with the backs of his thighs. His legs then carry him around the corner of the table until he’s towering above you, looking down upon your trembling form with a burning hunger.

“The real question is.. What don’t I desire of you?” he poses the question with a lurid tone as he thumbs the neckline of your bodice. “I believe you’ll find me quite insatiable in my needs.”

You’re frozen in his sights, appraising him with frightened doe-eyes, but there is no mistaking the undercurrent of lust also hidden right below the surface. Likely, the only true trepidation you have is the thought of performing such acts out of wedlock, but it seems obvious to Aegon at least, that you should have no concerns when offering your virtue up to a king. And given the poorly state of mind he’s been in as of late and desperate weakness he has for you, it’s possible you might even be assisting in the betterment of the realms.

“You’re speechless,” he hums softly, running the back of his knuckles over your bare collarbone. “Don’t worry, I will do the talking,” he says with a smirk, delighted to hear that he sounds every bit the authoritative ruler he should. “Take my hands,” he commands softly, reaching down as he grasps you and encourages you to rise from your chair.

When you obligingly follow his orders and rise before him, Aegon then guides you, leading you towards the bed. He stops once the backs of your knees hit the wooden frame, which is now padded by many layers of newly laid quilts, and turns you away from him. His hands carefully unfasten your apron, tossing it over the footboard before he starts to work at untying the laces of your dress. He loosens them swiftly until your bodice hangs slack.

He’s very well practiced in the art of removing a woman’s clothing, whether they be a whore, a noblewoman, or even a servant as is your case. Still, he holds a certain fondness for you, a consideration that he does not offer readily to most of his conquests. You have given him something so valuable, a treasure that no other has even thought to bestow upon him, and he means to reward you well for it.

Aegon finally removes your dress, pulling it over your head and placing it on top of the apron. All that remains now is a long sleeved undershirt, a slightly more drab version of the sort all women wore under their dresses. He’d like to rip it from your body, but you’ve stirred up such tenderness within his empty heart that he is loathe to treat you in such a way.

Instead, he turns you to face him once more and takes a step back to regard you. “You truly are beautiful,” he states with a sort of quiet awe. He had never really noticed you before and he most definitely should have. What with your cornsilk blond hair and bright blue eyes. Was he really so oblivious to the people and the world around him that he couldn’t even notice such a stunning, caring maiden working directly under his nose? Had he always been avoiding any state of mental clarity and missed so much in the process of hiding from himself?

You look at him nervously, your body antsy as you shift uneasily, precariously balanced on the edge of the mattress.

“Sit,” he tells you in a hushed tone, not quite wanting to sound as bossy as he does, but trying to relieve you of your discomfort. He takes another step back once you have complied, his gaze now roaming your body, taking in the sight of you, or at least what he can see in that loose potato sack of a frock you’re wearing. Aegon can definitely make out some of your feminine curves though, the slope of your shoulder incredibly pleasing as is the way your breasts protrude noticeably through the fabric, and so too do your wide hips.

He smiles warmly at you, his eyes taking their time to appreciate the woman before him. He can’t help but ponder in this moment, how he’s never felt this way before, a lust that isn’t just physical in nature, but somehow more genuine. Aegon is no stranger to carnal pleasures and strongly desires to claim you in every way possible. But there is something more present in his heart as well, the wish to hold you close and protect you from the entire world, and to in turn be sheltered by you from the chaos of the Iron Throne.

Aegon decides then that he wants your first time together to be gentle, just as it was when you first came together. He closes the distance between the two of you and reaches out with both hands, grabbing softly on either side of your shoulders. Your soft, supple flesh gives pleasingly beneath his fingers as he guides you to lay down on top of the blankets. As you scoot backwards across the width of the bed, he can’t help but feel a sense of satisfaction that you were finally in his bed and no longer a fantasy inside his mind.

Once you’ve nestled into the plushness beneath you, he steps back again, his fingers making quick work of removing his woolen doublet. A flush of excitement blooms across his alabaster skin as he makes a show of the action, enjoying the way you watch him with such focused anticipation. He casts the garment to the floor, now removing his boots as swiftly as he can.

With his breeches already half undone and his chest exposed beneath a simple linen shirt, he is gifted with the sight of you lying in his bed in wait. The image is far more pleasant, far more intimate, than any other woman he has ever taken to bed. Your warmth radiates outward like a blazing fire and by now he is desperate to feel your heat directly. He practically rips his undershirt off, flinging it sideways across the covers.

Aegon makes his way back to you, lifting one knee up onto the mattress and crawling over the entire length of your body until he is face to face with you. His hand cradles your jaw tenderly, caressing up and down until his fingers slip up into your long, flowing tresses.

His intense, violet eyes fix upon yours, looking for any hesitation, but he sees none. It was as though you had been given to him as a gift from the gods, you who always gave and never took from him. There is a vulnerability in his expression that is rarely visible, replacing his usual display of smugness.

He maneuvers his breeches down without much effort, kicking them off once they’re low enough. Now fully settled into the valley of your spread legs, Aegon then grips the hem of your shift, lifting it up your thighs until he feels your body tense. He glances up at you and sees a pang of worry present that is perfectly normal, especially for a maiden.

The king asks the question he’s sure he already knows the answer to. “Have you done this before?”

You shake your head no as a blush of pink covers your cheeks and you bite your lip with pent up longing. Even with your inexperience and worry, he can tell how eager you are regardless. Much like he had been warring with his own thoughts about pursuing more with his chambermaid, you seem torn between your fears and your desires as well.

Aegon smiles sincerely, brushing his thumb gently along your lower lip, before leaning down to give you a chaste kiss. It was a bit of a selfish wish of his that you were untainted by any other man, and a part of him was happy to hear that you were indeed a virgin. It made him revel in delight; knowing you were his alone, that he’d be your first and your last if he had any say in it.

“Relax,” he whispered parting from your lips. “I’ll go slowly.” Aegon gazes at you again, wondering if this is perhaps too much for you, too soon. “That is if you still wish to.”

A look of panic crosses your face, as though you’re worried he might stop. “N-No! I still want to!” you affirm urgently. Your hands wrap around his back, pulling him closer to you, seemingly unwilling to let him go.

The king can barely contain his elation as he presses his forehead to yours, chuckling slightly at your eagerness. His hand slips beneath your undershirt and he slowly strokes the soft skin of your stomach, his fingers grazing over the warm plains of your flesh. Aegon’s breath hitches as he travels higher up your abdomen, finding the pliant curve of your breast.

You moan softly beneath his greedy touch, your body writhing with fervor, and your hips rising impatiently to meet him. Any question he had that you might not be fully keen about this joining was now all but diffused by your enthusiasm.

“You make such pretty sounds,” he teases playfully, feeling a sense of satisfaction at how responsive you are to his touch. He gives your breast a firm squeeze, then teases over the sensitive areola before cupping the whole mound again. His cock throbs painfully against the mattress, still bound by his smallclothes and yearning to sink into your heat.

His pulse pounds with expectation, finally feeling a sense of relief from the pent up desire he’s held for you all of this time. Aegon removes his hand from under your shift, propping himself up on the bed as he reaches down to unlace his braie. His hand brushes against your core in the process and he shivers at the feel of how wet you already are for him.

With his stiff length finally freed, he ventures a finger along your folds, growling at the silky slickness of your center. “Gods,” he utters with a groan. His cock twitches with need as he tests the tightness of your cunny, eyes rolling back in ecstasy as he imagines thrusting into you with his thick member instead of his digit.

“Are you ready for me, girl?” he asks eagerly, the question a soft inquiry as well as a warning of the impending pain his intrusion is likely to cause. At this point, he feels more like a lovesick boy than the Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, his suspense heavy as he drapes your leg around his his hip, opening you more to him. He positions his head at your entrance and presses himself closer to you.

You nod, never taking your eyes off of him as you wrap your hands around his back. Aegon rests his weight on his elbows, covering you completely as he kisses you with tenderness. He tries to express everything he feels for you with actions instead of words, his lips hungrily devouring yours with passion. Without breaking the kiss, he begins to ease into you slowly, immediately feeling the resistance of your still in tact virtue.

His arms slide down, gripping your hips on each side tightly as his chest presses into yours. You let out a whimper into his mouth as he breaches your depths, your thighs clenching against his body at the sharp pain of his invasion. It doesn’t take long for you to relax again, your walls suddenly more welcoming as the sting subsides.

Aegon parts from your lips, pulling back slightly so he can look down at you. A smirk forms on his face as he sees your lurid expression and he begins to move, his hips rolling against yours in a slow, sensual rhythm. His hands slide down to your thighs, spreading them further apart as he thrusts himself deeper inside you. He groans with overwhelming pleasure at the feel of you, his head falling forward as he picks up the pace.

He kisses you again, forcing his tongue into your mouth as he continues to move inside of you. His tongue dances with yours as he begins to lose control, his hips snapping against you with intensity. Aegon can feel his release approaching quickly, unable to hold back for much longer, he tries to hasten you along to satisfaction. His hand slides up your shift once more, squeezing your breast and tweaking your delicate nipple until it pebbles between his fingers.

You squirm under him, incapable of holding still as he drives into you with increased enthusiasm. The king grinds his hips into you relentlessly, grimacing at the way your walls tighten around his cock like a vice. Aegon’s grip on your tit becomes harder, flipping between gripping and tweaking your sensitive nipple. His lips withdraw abruptly, his mouth searching out your other breast and nipping it through your undershirt.

He grins against the cloth as you cry out loudly, your body rigid as your climax rolls over you and soon he can feel it wash over his length as well. But, he can’t take it anymore, not how tight you are or how creamy your release feels on his tender cockhead. It’s all too much and within a moment he is gripping hard to your flesh and burying himself deep within you, his spend erupting in spurts from his pulsing member.

“Fuuuccck,” he growls out, his hands finding their way beneath your back and pulling you towards him securely, trying to get even closer if that was at all possible.

You pant below him, trying to catch your breath as little spasms continue to twitch throughout your back and your thighs tremble against his hips. A warm, blissful calm settles over him as he nestles his face into the crook of your neck and inhales deeply of your scent. He feels pleasantly dizzy, his heartbeat finally slowing as the haze of lust subsides.

Aegon sighs into your ear, the tone content and relaxed. “That was incredible,” he murmured softly, his voice low as he gently runs his hand along the side of your cheek.

“It was,” is all you can manage to say, your breath still a bit ragged as you try to come down from the high.

Your hand finds its way into his white hair again, brushing up against the nape of his neck and causing him to shiver. He’s once again reminded of the shared encounter that started all of this and he’s overcome with a fondness that makes his chest ache.

Aegon feels closer to you in every possible way now and isn’t keen on the idea of parting from you, but he can feel his cock softening and the mess beginning to pool on the sheets. So he slowly pulls out of you, collapsing onto the bed at your side. He grabs one of his stray garments without looking, probably his smallclothes or maybe his shirt, and cleans up his seed from you first and then himself.

He adjusts towards the head of the bed, resting on his side against the pillows and reaching out for you to join him as he scuttles under the covers. “Come here,” he says softly, pained by the loss of her warmth.

As you get up and crawl towards him, he scoops you up into his arms. Aegon holds you close, his chin resting against the top of your head as he wraps the quilts around your form and presses himself tighter against your back. The king can no longer deny the depth and the power of his feelings for you as you cuddle in his arms. There’s a sense of deep security and comfort welling up within him, but any words seem inadequate in this moment.

Aegon kisses your temple, the doting gesture unlike anything he’s bestowed upon a lover before. “I think I’m going to sleep quite well tonight,” he muses into your hair, still cradling you in his arms.

“Are you sure it’s alright for me to stay with you? In your chambers?” you ask quietly with seemingly no clue how ridiculous he thinks you sound for asking such a thing.

His mouth twitches into a small smile and he lifts his chin to press another kiss into your hair.

“Of course. I’m the king. I can do whatever I want,” he quips playfully, his voice sounding drowsy and relaxed as he settles into the plushness of the bed. “Now, come. Get your rest. You’re going to need it.” There is a gentle warning present in his tone that you do not seem to catch, that he intends to have more of you in the morning.

You nod, twisting your back towards the mattress until you’re facing him. The expression you give him is enough to make his heart melt, those big, blue eyes like deep pools filled with bottomless love and devotion. You wrap your hand behind his neck and pull him close for a kiss, a request he’s more than happy to oblige.

Your mouth is sweet and hot against his and he can’t help but to lick the line of your lower lip before parting from you. Aegon settles you back into place, his chest enveloping your smaller frame as he holds you possessively. He feels such solace in the close proximity of your body, his limbs toasty warm as he falls into a deep state of relaxation. He’s not even aware of when the moment he falls asleep, it happens so quickly.

—Aegon

When the first light of day streams through the window, Aegon finds his eyes drifting open and then closing again, not sure of what time it is, but too comfortable to want to move. His back feels incredibly warm with the slight dampness of sweat and he opens his lids once more to see your arm wrapped over his chest. He can feel your hot breath at his neck now that he’s paying attention fully and your leg slotted between his.

Aegon’s lips curl into a satisfied smile, basking in the near domestic feel of waking up like this with someone he actually cares for. He takes your hand and intertwines his fingers with yours as he rests his own arm on top of yours.

He tries to settle into his pillow once more, nuzzling his backside into you further and bending his knees more deeply. The peace is short lived though as the doors to his chamber fling open and he hears the startled gasp of a woman. It couldn’t be just any woman, like perhaps another maid come to clean his room in place of the one that never showed up for work. No, it had to be his mother, of all the people he did not wish to see this morning.

The king whips his head over his shoulder and squints in the direction of the door. His mother stands there with a hand over her mouth, frozen in horrified disbelief as though she’d just seen a ghost. Aegon grits his teeth, sitting up with a jolt, forced to realize just how compromising this situation must look with the way he was tangled in bed naked with you.

“No, no, no, no, no, Aegon!!” she practically screams at him and the sound jars you from your slumber. He wishes you could have stayed asleep, to have escaped the madness of his family for just a little longer.

Alicent picks up her skirts so she can walk swiftly around the bed and to his side, standing there with a judgmental sneer. “This is just like Diana, isn’t it!?” she cries hysterically. “Isn’t it!?” his mother prods him further.

Aegon looks back, catching your shifting uneasiness from his peripheral vision, then turns to his mother again, suddenly feeling very protective of you. You are innocent in all of this and should be afforded the ability to wake up from your first time making love in some semblance of calm, not to one of his mother’s outbursts. And of course the first thought she would have of him was that he had raped yet another servant girl. His mother was blissfully ignorant of everything he had done as a young man, except for the acts she felt the need to berate him for, even though she had never been around to offer any kind of proper guidance.

He lets out a groan of exasperation, running his fingers through his mussed hair and tries to think of an answer that might satisfy his fuming mother, but he knows this is a lost cause.

“No,” he denies, shaking his head as he avoids eye contact with her. There is no conviction in his tone, but it’s not like she would ever believe a thing he said on the matter.

“So it was consensual then?” the Dowager Queen asks glaring past Aegon and looking straight at you.

He glances to his side and sees you nod, but interrupts before you can say anything more. “You do not have to explain yourself to her,” he says in a much softer voice, trying to shield you from his mother.

“So, she’s just another one of your tramps then!” Alicent hisses with disgust. “Is it so hard for you to keep your hands off the staff? Can’t be bothered to go into the city anymore, you need to make sure you find your pleasure within the walls of the Red Keep?” Her words are vitriolic and hateful without any attempt to understand the situation.

“I should have gotten rid of your father’s little bastard when I had the chance. I should have known better that she would be too pretty for you to resist, but I was assured that the girl’s skills were tantamount to any risk,” she continued on her tirade, barking out every spiteful dagger she could think of.

“What of your wife!? How can you carry on like this!? Oblivious to the people you hurt!?” the Queen Dowager prattled on, not waiting for an answer, but seemingly wanting to preach her conclusions endlessly.

“You know Helaena’s fallen deep into sadness ever since Jaehaerys died. Ever since you forced her to endure that disgusting funeral procession through the streets of the city.. And it’s not like we ever had a deep connection even before that, Mother.” Aegon’s voice was bitter, resentful. He was sick and tired of this farce of familial love when she barely ever showed him any hint of it.

He’s incredibly shocked when he hears you speak up, your voice quiet, but accusing, even defensive, “You’re one to talk, Queen Dowager. You hurt Aegon more than any other.”

“How dare you! You insolent wretch!” his mother didn’t hesitate to bite back, her acrimony potent in the air. “You can consider your employ here ended. Gather your belongings and leave!” she looked at you impatiently, as though expecting you to stand immediately and go. “Now!” she snarled, her nose crinkled with anger.

“No,” the king interceded on your behalf, stilling you with his hand on your hip. “You will not go anywhere.”

“She absolutely will go! This is not acceptable behavior for any chambermaid in the employ of the royal family!” Alicent was insistent, with no sign of backing down, but Aegon had enough of this contest of wills.

“Mother!” he bellowed at her furiously, finally snapping back at her with conviction. “I am the king and you will obey me!”

That finally got her attention, for the first time in his entire life he saw a flash of fear in his mother’s eyes and it only emboldened him to continue.

“You will not do a thing to this girl. She is under my protection,” he added, his ruling absolute. “And if I find that you have touched her, hurt her in any way, then I will have you hung. Just like the rat catchers.”

Aegon’s lips curl upwards in smug satisfaction, finally realizing a fraction of the true power he held as sovereign of the realms. His mother did not respond, regarding him with silent malice, her glare ever testing the limits to see if he truly meant it. When she saw that he did, his mother backed down, her shoulder slumping slightly as she relented, but not before getting one last dig in.

“Very well, My King,” she mocked with false sincerity, giving him a sarcastic curtsy. “I will leave you to your dalliances. I should know better than to interrupt a man having his fun.” She left in a flurry of resentment, slamming the door behind her with a loud thud.

No matter how furious he was with his mother, she still remained his parent, the woman who gave him life, whom he loved and had once revered above all else. Even this victory he had over her felt hollow, and he realized that even when he won, he still lost in one way or another.

He turned to you, his expression a mix of concern and tenderness. Aegon stroked gently at the side of your cheek, wanting to make you feel safe again after you’d been forced to tolerate the full brunt of his mother’s wrath. He found you to be more resilient than he’d ever expected, already sitting up and staring at him with a knowing look upon your face.

“I’m so sorry,” you say softly and almost instantly he feels something within his chest fracture.

It might have been the facade he always wore cracking, how he always projected an image of indifferent merriment so none would know how truly miserable he was. It might even have been the very fact that you had suffered insults by associating with him and yet you were still concerned about his well being.

Aegon can feel tears welling in his eyes and when you spread your arms out towards him, he doesn’t hesitate to crash into you. He buries his face in your comforting bosom and finally allows himself to fall apart in your embrace without shame. It’s probably the safest and most accepted he’s ever felt in his entire life and he knows now that he won’t ever be able to exist without you.

As you rake your fingers through his silvery locks, his tears dwindle until he is left relaxed, sated by your validation that his life is not as easy as everyone might think it is. He listens to your heartbeat as his fingers dig firmly into your back, making sure you can never leave his side. It’s a mercy, that you don’t seem to mind how clingy and needy he is. If anything, you seem born to mend his wounds, a soothing balm to his troubled soul.

You lean back against the pillows and soon Aegon finds himself drifting asleep against you. As his aching eyes begin to close, he can’t help but hope that he never disappoints you. He’s so convinced that he is a failure from the constant disparagements he’s endured throughout his life, that he can’t even fully enjoy you without worrying that he isn’t worthy of you - that you might leave him.

As if reading his mind, your hand massages gently along his scalp, cradling his head closer to your breast. “Don’t worry,” you say reassuringly. “It’s going to be alright. I promise.”

Aegon didn’t know how you could possibly promise him such a thing, but somehow hearing you say it aloud makes him actually want to believe it.

Read Chapter 2

And will you be bold Will you lose control? I could never desert you I could never let go If you fall in line And the zenith calls I'm standing waiting The last to fall

~Starset - Last to Fall

[theeoriginals]

“It was- not love at first sight, but familiarity. Like, oh, it’s you.” With Klaus or Elijah please! Something to make me feel better while I do this awful assignment 🥲

deep breaths | elijah mikaelson

pairing: elijah mikaelson x reader (no y/n!)

warnings: noneeee this is just sweet

author’s note: i wrote this at work on my phone just now so sorry if it’s not the best <3

The thing is, Elijah Mikaelson has lived many, many lives. He has had so many names, faces, stories, and voices he can hardly remember them all at this point. That, he supposes, is just part of the curse of immortality. Esther likely didn’t think that far ahead out of her grief when she turned them all into monsters. She didn’t think to consider that she wasn’t saving herself anymore loss, she was cursing her children, leading them to damnation and then blaming them for what she did.

Elijah would likely live another thousand years before he was able to fully comprehend all of the tangled, contradictory emotions that came with vampirism. A gift and a curse, like most things.

What he could for certain say was that he’s loved just as much as he’s hated. He would even argue that you can’t possibly know what it means to hate someone unless you loved them before, unless you still loved them. And although he believed that, he was not someone to give second chances often. At least not to anyone besides his siblings— though that was a different beast altogether.

Elijah knew that even if he hated someone, someone else could love that person just as much. He’d seen it often enough, felt betrayal in his gut like a stake to the heart.

Love, in all of its glory, was not often kind to Elijah.

So whenever his siblings found it necessary to tease him for being so uptight and closed off, he did nothing more than roll his eyes, because it was much easier than telling them that he was scared. Truly, deeply, in his ancient bones, he was scared. Not of love itself, but of the continuously growing sense that he would never truly find real love. And perhaps it was entirely too human of him to think that way, and perhaps it made him weak to some, but Elijah knows that his brothers and sisters more than anyone crave love just as much as he does. He knows they feel it just as deeply as he does, that want in their bones that rushed through their blood, the want for someone to just come in and never leave.

It’s hard to find that when you outlive most people. Harder than one might think, even if you fall in love with an immortal being. It’s not just that he’ll outlive most everyone he could fall in love with, either. It’s that every time it seems he’s done it, he’s fallen in love even knowing it won’t last but letting it happen anyway, it doesn’t— it doesn’t fill that void inside of him.

It doesn’t flood his mind and his body, it doesn’t fill him with life, it doesn’t make him want to breathe.

Elijah doesn’t have to breathe, but he wants someone to make him feel like he has to.

For the past thousand years he’s fought and won and lost, and he’s done his best to keep his family alive despite everything they do to drive him insane, despite the fact that they try to kill each other more than anyone else. He has been holding his breath for a thousand years, fighting and fighting and fighting. He wants to exhale.

He can’t explain this to his siblings. They would understand, he knows, but it’s something he’s never said out loud to himself let alone anyone else. Saying it out loud makes it real, and he can’t— he can’t admit it. When you are drowning, when you are holding your breath, you don’t realize you’re drowning for a long time. And the moment that you do, you realize that you can’t breathe and suddenly you’re gasping for air and you’ve all but killed yourself.

Elijah can’t admit that he’s drowning.

He sighs loudly, and it’s not an exhale and it doesn’t lift that weight off of his shoulders. It’s an expression of his annoyance with his siblings, because this far into their collective immortality, all they live for is getting on each other’s nerves.

And here at Rousseau’s is the last place he wants to entertain their petulance. You never know who could be listening, and Elijah really doesn’t want anyone less than favorable to hear about his love life, or lack thereof.

“I wish you’d just bring someone home to meet us at least once!”

“I wish I could go out and have a drink without being harassed by you people,” Elijah says moodily.

Rebekah pushes her bottom lip out in a pout and widens her eyes in a way that has always gotten her anything she wants from anyone ever. Elijah is, in fact, very aware that he and his brothers have worked overtime in making her as ridiculously spoiled and entitled as she is and yet he still manages to be surprised when she behaves like this.

“We aren’t harassing you, Elijah, we want you to be happy. Is that so wrong?”

He sighs again and closes his eyes for a moment before opening them again and fixing them on Rebekah and Klaus. “It’s not wrong. But I don’t know what you expect me to do about my lack of prospects, it’s not like the perfect person can be conjured at whim.”

Klaus lifts a finger and Elijah knows that he’s going to say something ridiculous before he even speaks. The gleam in his eye never bodes well for anyone. “I bet we could find a witch to do just that. We could compile all of your wants and desires in a partner and get a witch to mix it all together for you. Problem solved, Elijah has a soulmate!”

Elijah gives his brother a deadpan look. “Is this witch Victor Frankenstein?”

Rebekah snorts in amusement, and Elijah dutifully ignores it.

“Be creative, Elijah! Open your mind,” Klaus swipes an arm out dramatically, sloshing his drink over the side of his glass, splashing a few drops of bourbon onto Elijah’s suit jacket.

Elijah’s lip curls in distaste and he gives his brother a look of disdain that goes ignored.

“I have an open mind, what I don’t have is an open schedule,”

“You are not as busy as you like to believe,” Rebekah drawls out, finishing off her own drink. “Your life will never change if you don’t go out and do something different! You’ll be stagnant forever, and I do mean forever, brother,”

“I will never be stagnant with your dramatics, Rebekah,”

She rolls her eyes at his avoidant response. “Your love life is stagnant. I don’t even think stagnant is the proper word, it is downright nonexistent. It is extinct.”

“Thank you, Rebekah,”

“Even if you have a sleazy, completely forgettable one night stand, you need to do something. You’re constantly dealing with us, you need to focus on yourself!”

Elijah pours the rest of his bourbon down his throat, barely tasting it as he swallows. “Maybe if you did less idiotic things that I have to deal with I’d have a more active love life. And truly, I’m not sure why I’m being lectured when you two are the furthest thing from romantically successful.”

“I have a child, I’m plenty romantically successful!”

“She was conceived during a drunken one night stand with a werewolf who is now married to someone else.”

“The details don’t matter, I have a child to show for it. I have a father’s wisdom now, you should listen to me!”

Elijah raises an eyebrow. “Unfortunately, I am not part dog and therefore am actually incapable of reproducing much like you thought you were. And considering the trials and tribulations we went through with Hope, I can’t imagine I’d have any better luck in my own venture to fatherhood.”

“You’re being purposefully obtuse,”

“That doesn’t sound like me,” Elijah simpers, gesturing to the bartender for another round for them.

“I have a challenge,” Rebekah cuts in before Klaus can continue their bickering, and Elijah narrows his eyes at the determined gleam in her eyes.

“I don’t like this,”

Rebekah dismisses him with a flutter of her fingers. “The next person to walk through that door, I want you to go and talk to them. You don’t have to have a one night stand, you absolute prude, but you need to speak to someone that you’re not related to, and that isn’t trying to kill you.”

“Rebekah—”

“I don’t want to hear it. Just do this one thing for me, for your darling little sister,”

“My darling little sister—”

“Shut up, look! Someone’s walking inside, get ready to go be your charming self,”

Elijah groans and turns to look at the door as it opens and someone walks through. He sighs again, weighted, empty, scared.

When he lifts his gaze, though, he finds a woman. He takes her in— eyes, nose, lips, hair— and thinks beautiful.

The bar is as crowded as ever, no breaks in sight for the bartenders and waiters, and he’s tucked away at a table with Klaus and Rebekah in the back corner because they are particularly antisocial and Klaus really just wanted to use this outing as a way to remind everyone that they are still here, and that New Orleans is still theirs. The exit is across the room, Elijah has not paid much attention to the distance at all, and yet now.

Now, the crowd of people in between him and the door is frozen and endless. Elijah’s standing before he realizes, and it feels like he’s stepping around the people frozen mid-laugh, mid-drink, mid-bite, because the world has stopped just long enough for him to cross the room.

He parts the crowd and stops before her, eyes roaming over her face. Committing it to memory and vowing to keep it there for the rest of his eternal years.

She looks at him with a smile, blinking at him slowly like she’s got all the time in the world. There’s a necklace sitting on her chest that has a familiar blue stone hanging off of it and he inhales sharply.

He thinks vampire, perhaps a coincidence but things rarely are for him and it’s something new to think that she is immortal, too, of course more fragile than an Original but if she’s smart, and he knows that she is, he can feel it, then she’ll last just as long.

“Hi,” She speaks first, and the world starts up again, the noise comes back and people unfreeze. Now that he’s stood here before her, the world can keep spinning, but it had to wait— it just had to wait for him to catch up.

“Hello,” He responds quietly, too quiet for the bar, but she hears it anyway. “I’m Elijah.”

Her smile widens and she says, “I think I knew that already,” and then she tells him her name and Elijah repeats it for himself, and then for her, and then he turns it over in his head a hundred times over so it never gets lost.

She tilts her head slightly, looking up at him. “Were you trying to leave? Am I in your way?”

“No,” He responds quickly, almost rushed. “Not unless you’re leaving, too.”

She seems pleased at his response and the longer he looks in her eyes, he thinks he’s found a new favorite color.

“I’m not leaving,”

Elijah exhales, and the weight is gone, and the void is no more. And he thinks— oh.

There you are.

[childrenofcain-if]

Hello beautiful Author!! I hope u are doing well! So basically I am a religious follower of your blog and uuugghh!!! This story is so beautifully crafted like the script the writing style the plot even the characters seem larger than life. Honestly u have my tremendous respect and admiration.... Also I am totally in love with cedric!! angsty adorable and hot. So since today is my birthday I decided to treat myself to a snippet ... Can u please write a fluff scene where in the future after marriage yk after C achieved his dream how would M!C react to find out that F!MC is pregnant. What kind of dad would he be and how would he handle the news especially if it's a girl. (PS: I love you okay? U rock!!! ❤❤😘)

the morning started like most mornings did in your household. the sunlight filtered through the floor-to-ceiling windows of your manhattan penthouse, muted by the heavy curtains cédric insisted on keeping drawn just enough to keep the room from feeling exposed.

he was already in the kitchen when you woke up, sleeves rolled to his elbows, reading glasses perched on the edge of his nose as he frowned at his ipad.

it was a weekday, which meant cédric was doing what cédric did best: handling things.

the man could command a room full of board members or negotiate a multi-billion-dollar deal, but he always took his mornings slow, like it was his personal rebellion against the world which demanded his attention. the smell of coffee hung thick in the air, and you could hear him muttering under his breath—half in french, half in english—as he skimmed over some report.

he looked up when he heard your footsteps. the cold glint in his pale green eyes softened the way they always did when he saw you.

“good morning, mon amour,” he said, setting the ipad down as if the numbers and charts weren’t important anymore.

you smiled at him, but there was a nervous flutter in your chest that didn’t quite dissipate.

“good morning,” you greeted back, making your way to the counter. “we need to talk.”

his brow furrowed, just slightly, in that way that meant his mind was already cataloging possible scenarios. you wondered if he was running through a mental checklist: a problem at work, an overdue bill, a delayed package. he was always looking for answers before you even finished your question.

“what’s wrong?” he asked, voice low and calm, but his hand twitched where it rested on the counter.

you hesitated, suddenly unsure how to say it. for someone who had spent years speaking in boardrooms and drafting persuasive arguments, the words felt clumsy in your throat.

“there’s nothing wrong, per se,” you began, and you saw the tension in his shoulders ease—just a fraction. “it’s just... i’m pregnant.”

the silence that followed was heavy, but not uncomfortable. it was like the air had stilled, waiting for his reaction.

cédric blinked. once, twice. then he stepped back, leaning against the counter as if the weight of your words had hit him square in the chest. his mouth opened, then closed again. he looked—if you hadn’t known him better—younger. like a boy caught off guard, unsure of whether he was allowed to feel what he was feeling.

“you’re...?” he started, and then he stopped himself. his hand went to his hair, brushing the dark brown strands back, a nervous habit he’d never managed to shake. “you’re sure?”

you nodded, suddenly shy. “i took three tests. all positive. i was going to wait until we were both home later tonight, but—”

“no, no, now is perfect,” he interrupted, his voice sharper than he intended, like he was scolding you for even considering keeping it from him. he shook his head, and you could see the beginnings of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “mon dieu.”

cédric laughed then, a sound so rare and so unguarded it made your chest ache. it was a laugh of disbelief, of joy, of sheer and unrestrained emotion. he crossed the kitchen in two long strides and pulled you into his arms, holding you so tightly you could feel his heart pounding against your ribs.

“je t’aime,” he murmured into your hair. “je t’aime, je t’aime, je t’aime.”

you clung to him, laughing through the tears that had started spilling down your cheeks.

***

cédric’s reaction to the pregnancy didn’t end that morning. over the next few weeks, he threw himself into preparing for the baby with the same intensity he brought to his work. he was meticulous, obsessive even, researching everything from cribs to car seats. he vetoed three potential pediatricians before you’d even had a chance to meet them, insisting that only the best would do.

but it wasn’t just about the logistics. cédric was unexpectedly tender, in a way that made your heart twist. he read parenting books in bed at night, one hand on your growing belly as he absently stroked his thumb over the fabric of your pajamas. he brought you tea without being asked, stocked the pantry with your favorite snacks, and refused to let you carry anything heavier than a shopping bag.

when you found out the baby was a girl, it felt like the world completely shifted for him.

“it’s a girl,” you had informed him, holding the ultrasound picture out to him.

he took it from your hands carefully, as if it were made of glass, and stared at it for a long moment. his expression was unreadable, but you could see the way his fingers trembled, just slightly.

“a daughter,” he said, the words thick in his throat. “our daughter.”

you nodded with a small smile, watching him carefully. “how do you feel about that?”

he didn’t answer right away. instead, he set the picture down on the table and turned to you, his eyes burning with an intensity that made you shiver.

“i’m going to protect her,” cédric said, his voice low and fierce. “from everything. from everyone. she’ll never have to wonder if she’s loved. she’ll never have to fight for what’s hers.”

“i can already see it,” you teased gently, trying to lighten the mood. “you’ll be the dad who scares off all her partners.”

“damn right i will,” he said, his smile returning. “she’s going to know her worth. and if anyone tries to undermine that—” he didn’t finish the sentence, but the murderous look in his eyes said enough.

you leaned forward, cupping his cheek and drawing him back to you. “she’ll know her worth because of you,” you said softly. “because of how much you’ll love her.”

“and her mother,” he added, his voice barely above a whisper.

he kissed you then, slow and lingering, and when he pulled back, his hands settled gently over your stomach.

you reached for his hand, squeezing it tightly. “she’s going to be so lucky to have you.”

cédric shook his head, a wry smile tugging at his lips. “no,” he said softly, his gaze dropping to your belly. “i’m the lucky one.”

***

as the months went on, cédric proved himself to be everything you’d hoped for and more. he was attentive to a fault, sometimes to the point of driving you mad with his insistence on helping you. ehen the baby kicked for the first time, he was right there, his hand pressed against your stomach, his eyes wide with wonder.

when your due date finally arrived, he was the calmest one in the delivery room. he held your hand through every contraction (even when you almost broke his bones), whispered words of encouragement in your ear, and refused to leave your side, even when the nurses told him to give you space.

and when your daughter was finally born, cédric was the first to hold her, much to your father’s exasperation. he cradled her tiny, wrinkled body in his arms, his expression soft and awestruck.

“she’s perfect,” he whispered, tears streaming down his cheeks.

you smiled, exhausted but deliriously happy. “she has your eyes.”

“and a head full of your hair,” he said, his voice breaking.

in that moment, you knew without a doubt that he would be the kind of father who would move mountains for his daughter. he would be firm but fair, protective but not overbearing, and endlessly devoted to her happiness.

as he rocked her gently, humming a lullaby under his breath, you realized that this—your little family—was everything you’d ever wanted. and as much as you knew about how cédric wasn’t very good at expressing his emotions, it was clear as day right now that nothing would ever compare to the love he had for the two of you.

[felassan]

The Wake

By Mary Kirby | Art by Matt Rhodes

Synopsis: "Members of the Crows grieve the loss of a friend."

“We were ten years old. Lucanis had just read some book about wyverns, and suddenly that’s all he’d talk about. Wyverns, all the time, wyverns.” Illario told the story with fond amusement and an impressive amount of confidence considering that he was slung over Viago’s shoulder and couldn’t find the ground with both feet. Viago sighed and shifted Illario’s weight on his shoulder as they reached the foot of the stairs to the casino guest rooms. The casino belonged to House Cantori. Teia had sent the staff home. The windows and mirrors were all temporarily covered with heavy black velveteen to prevent any wandering souls from getting lost on their way. The tables for cards and dice games had been cleared and set instead with lavish floral arrangements of crystal grace for parting and embrium to ease a sorrowful heart. Their perfume clung to skin and clothing, but still wasn’t sweet enough to cover the stench of liquor wafting off Illario Dellamorte. Maker, Teia owed him for this. “There I was, so covered in prickle-burrs I stuck to everything I touched. Lucanis was nothing but mud from the ears down. Catarina just stared speechless.” Illario laughed.  His knees buckled, or he just stopped trying to walk entirely, and he collapsed onto the stairs, taking Viago with him. Viago cursed under his breath and tried to pry the larger man off the stairs, the smooth dark samite of Illario’s jacket slipping out of his grasp. Viago wished he’d gone with Plan A: drugging Illario to sleep in the lounge and throwing a sheet over him. But Teia’s deep, dark eyes had pleaded with him to take care of the reeking drunkard, and… Viago sighed and cursed again. For a moment, he had a clear, perfect vision of leaving Illario snoring in the middle of the staircase. Except Teia would kill him. Maybe even personally. “He was my cousin, but we were more like brothers, really. Always getting himself into every sort of trouble. And I was always right behind him, you know? Always.” Illario’s voice suddenly grew thick with emotion. “Now there’s nobody for me to follow.” Viago let out a sigh, then crouched down and levered Illario off the steps with a slightly pained grunt. “It should have been me.” Illario sounded bitter now. The rant was approaching the end. He’d repeated this speech like an actor rehearsing for a particularly infuriating play for hours downstairs as his composure crumbled and he looked more and more like he’d fought a herd of druffalo and lost. Viago lurched up the last of the stairs and fumbled with the door to the closest guestroom. For one hellish moment, he feared he’d have to pick the lock, but it opened. He dragged Illario to the bed and dumped him like a corpse. “Did I tell you about the time Lucanis took me wyvern-hunting?” Illario asked as Viago wet a handkerchief with a few drops from one of his vials. Before he could start into yet another rendition, Viago covered Illario’s nose and mouth with the cloth, knocking him out. “Another time.” Viago replied. And he left the room. 

[source]

[03jyh23]

— shooting stars!  || park seonghwa

loosely inspired by the drama shitting stars!

Most people aren’t interested in the truth. They just casually gossip to entertain themselves. No one takes responsibility for the caused pain.

idol!seonghwa x prmanager!reader

genre: angst, fluff, smut

trigger warnings: vanilla sex, honestly there's not much just kissing, touching, and... lovemaking. really soft smut. it's embarrassing, jealousy, argument, emotional distress, career-related stress, and difficult decisions

words: 8.2 k

reminder: what you're about to read is purely fiction, so let's keep it separate from reality.

!minors do not interact!

— hi there! this is my longest story so far! i've been working on it like crazy for the past few days and here we finally are. so the smut... it's not really a smut but still? i tried oh god, i feel so embarrassed but yeah i just decided to go for it. it's again requested work but i actually changed some of it to fit into my idea... anyway thank you so much for requesting!

love, monika. ♡

if you enjoyed this post, i'd be so grateful for a little love – a like or comment would truly make my day!

The office in Mapo-gu, Seoul, felt stiflingly hot, despite having already downed three cups of iced coffee. With the air conditioning out of order and repairs not scheduled until two days later, you found yourself drowning in a sea of work. Who would have imagined that working at a medium-sized entertainment agency would entail such an overwhelming workload? You should have felt grateful for landing this job, considering the effort you had put into securing it, but at times, it felt overwhelmingly demanding. Being the head of the PR department at KQ Entertainment was certainly something to boast about, especially after ATEEZ's success. You joined the company a few years back when you were the sole member of the PR team. If you claimed you believed in the company's success from the beginning, you'd be lying. When you first entered, fear outweighed optimism regarding the future. Indeed, it was no small feat for eight teenage boys to shoulder the weight of an entire company, but ATEEZ rose to the challenge with unwavering determination and passion. Now, with two active bands under KQ's wings, you find yourself constantly occupied.  

Managing the members of ATEEZ was undoubtedly a challenging task, and surprisingly, it wasn't due to any misbehavior on their part. Despite their young age and the temptations that come with fame, the ATEEZ members remained remarkably grounded and focused on their careers. You truly admired that. But when a band from such a small company starts gaining momentum, rumors are bound to circulate. Your main priority was to prevent those rumors from leaking. Which wasn't easy, as people can be cruel when they're envious. But still, to this day ATEEZ has not been involved in any major scandals, which made you proud.  

In a small company like KQ, everybody knows each other. Initially, stepping into that environment, you couldn't help but feel a bit nervous around the members of ATEEZ. Their presence seemed to exude a magnetic energy that was both captivating and intimidating. As you interacted with them more and more, you realized that their aura was indeed something special. Each member brought their own unique charm and personality to the table. You and the members of ATEEZ grew slightly closer than others, due to your similar ages, but it was Seonghwa who stood out to you the most. His effortless humor, kindness, and genuine care for others made him a favorite. Right from the start, you felt drawn to him. However, you maintained a professional demeanor, knowing all too well the potential consequences of getting too close, especially considering his status as an idol. But at some point, company dinners and parties became regular occasions, where you celebrated each of ATEEZ’s success together. And as the alcohol in your system increased, your professionalism decreased. Your bond with Seonghwa deepened, you found yourself drawn to him more than ever before. Whether it was sharing drinks, engaging in playful games, or simply relishing heartfelt conversations over company dinner, you cherished every moment spent in his company. With each passing interaction, your admiration for him grew, and before you knew it, you were falling head over heels for him. Despite the looming fear of crossing a line you couldn't return from; you couldn't resist him. What started as a professional relationship evolved into something much deeper and more profound. The shy touches and lingering glances exchanged between you spoke volumes, conveying emotions that words alone couldn't express. In the midst of loud music and bustling crowds, you found yourselves leaning closer to each other, seeking solace in the warmth of each other's presence. His hand naturally gravitated to your waist whenever you stood side by side, a silent yet undeniable declaration of the connection you shared. 

The day had been long and exhausting, and you were just about ready to call it quits when the sudden intrusion of your boss jolted you from your thoughts. Startled, you looked up to see him standing in the doorway, a look of excitement and urgency written across his face. 

"Y/N! Have you heard?" he exclaimed; his voice filled with anticipation. You blinked in surprise, your exhaustion momentarily forgotten as you leaned forward in your chair.  

"Heard what?" you asked, curiosity piqued. Your boss couldn't contain his grin as he delivered the news.  

"ATEEZ just sold out an entire US Tour!" The words hung in the air, sinking in slowly as you processed their significance. And then, without warning, a surge of elation washed over you, and before you knew it, you were on your feet, a joyful scream escaping your lips. 

"What?" you exclaimed, unable to contain your excitement. Without a second thought, you rushed forward, enveloping your boss in a tight hug, overcome with happiness at the incredible news. It was a moment of pure exhilaration, a testament to the hard work and dedication of everyone involved in ATEEZ's journey. The exhaustion of the day melted away, replaced by an overwhelming sense of pride and accomplishment. The excitement in your boss's voice was contagious as he patted your back, a wide grin spreading across his face.  

"We are celebrating tonight!" he declared with enthusiasm, his words echoing through the office. A surge of anticipation raced through you at the prospect of celebrating ATEEZ's incredible achievement.  

"Absolutely!" you replied eagerly, already picturing the party ahead. With a playful wink, your boss continued,  

"So go back to your place, doll up, and I'll see you here at 7 sharp!" You nodded enthusiastically, a smile stretching from ear to ear.  

"You got it!" You exclaimed, already mentally planning your outfit for the evening. As you made your way out of the office, the excitement of the impending celebration filled you with renewed energy. With a spring in your step and a heart full of anticipation, you packed up your belongings and bid farewell to the office for the day. The thought of celebrating ATEEZ's success and the prospect of finally seeing Seonghwa filled you with an infectious excitement that bubbled within you. As you made your way through the bustling streets, the anticipation only grew stronger. The familiar sights and sounds of the city seemed to fade into the background, overshadowed by the promise of the evening ahead. Tonight was a night for celebration, a chance to toast to ATEEZ's success and revel in the joy of being surrounded by friends and colleagues. But above all else, it was a night to be reunited with Seonghwa, and you couldn't wait to see where the evening would take you. With a smile on your face and excitement in your heart, you pushed open the door to your apartment.  

After a quick shower to freshen up and wash away the cares of the day, you set about styling your hair and applying my makeup with meticulous care. With the luxury of extra time on your hands, you paid attention to every detail to ensure that you looked and felt your best for the evening ahead. After finishing your make-up, you reached out for your phone resting on the nightstand, your heart skipping a beat as you saw Seonghwa's name flashing on the screen. A surge of excitement coursed through you as you answered the call, eager to hear his voice after what felt like an eternity apart. 

"Hello?" You said, your voice tinged with anticipation as you brought the phone to your ear, butterflies dancing in your stomach. 

"Hey, it's me," Seonghwa's voice came through the line, warm and familiar, sending a rush of warmth through you. A smile tugged at the corners of your lips as you replied,  

"Hi, Seonghwa. I was just thinking about you." There was a pause on the other end of the line, followed by a soft chuckle.  

"Funny, I was just thinking about you too," he said, his voice filled with warmth and affection. "I will see you tonight, right?"  

"Absolutely, I wouldn't miss it for anything," you replied without hesitation, "We definitely need to celebrate!" 

"Honestly, the only thing that matters is that I will finally see you," Seonghwa's voice came through the phone, filled with warmth and affection. A smile tugged at the corners of your lips as you replied,  

"Same here, Seonghwa. I've missed you." And as you exchanged a few more words of affection and excitement, you couldn't help but feel grateful for the opportunity to be reunited once more. With a renewed sense of anticipation and joy, you ended the call, a sense of warmth and happiness lingering in your heart. Tonight was going to be a night to remember, and you couldn't wait to see Seonghwa's smiling face once more. 

Choosing the perfect outfit for the evening was challenging. On one hand, you wanted to look your best – to make a memorable impression on Seonghwa after being apart for so long due to his overseas schedule. But on the other hand, you didn't want to appear overdressed or out of place at the party. After rummaging through your wardrobe for what felt like an eternity, you finally settled on something. Opting for a timeless and sophisticated look, you selected a classic black shirt for the evening's celebration. Deciding to add a touch of allure to the ensemble, you opted to leave the top few buttons of the shirt undone, revealing a hint of skin. It was a small gesture, but it added just the right amount of intrigue to the outfit. Paired with a simple black skirt that hit just in the middle of your tights, the combination was effortlessly sexy. The monochromatic palette created a sleek and cohesive look that was eye-catching. With a few carefully chosen accessories – a delicate, gold necklace, a pair of understated earrings, and a sleek clutch – you completed the outfit. As you admired your reflection in the mirror, a sense of excitement washed over you. Tonight was going to be a night to remember. 

You entered the company building, the air was filled with electric energy, a tangible sense of excitement pulsating through the air. Everywhere you looked, you could see signs of preparation – colorful balloons swaying gently in the breeze, banners hanging from the walls, and a festive atmosphere that filled the space with warmth and joy. A smile spread across your lips as you took in the sight before you, feeling a surge of excitement building within you. It was clear that everyone had gone to great lengths to ensure that tonight's celebration would be a night to remember, a fitting tribute to ATEEZ's incredible achievement. With each step you took, the anticipation continued to build, fueled by the excitement of finally being reunited with Seonghwa and the rest of the ATEEZ members. After exchanging greetings with everyone and soaking in the festive atmosphere, you found yourself nestled in a cozy corner of the room, a drink in hand. As you scanned the bustling room, your heart skipped a beat with each familiar face that passed by, hoping to catch sight of Seonghwa among the crowd, but he was nowhere to be found.  

"Y/N!" As you heard your name called from across the room, you turned your head in the direction of the sound. Through the sea of people, you spotted a familiar face. 

"San!" You greeted him enthusiastically as he approached, a genuine smile spreading across your face at the sight of him. San was always such a warm and friendly presence, and you were genuinely glad that he had come over to you. "Congratulations!" you exclaimed as San pulled you in a warm hug. With a smile, you pulled back from the hug, meeting his gaze with genuine happiness in your eyes. "I'm so happy for you, San," you said sincerely, knowing that his success was well-deserved.  

"It's truly incredible," San replied, a smile tugging at his lips as he raised his glass to clink it against yours. The sound of glass meeting glass echoed through the room, a toast to success. "It's moments like these that make all the hard work worth it," San said, you nodded with agreement. "Here's to many more successes and celebrations to come." with a smile, you took another sip of your drink, savoring the moment and feeling grateful for the opportunity to share it with a friend like San. 

''Y/N! You look amazing!' You didn't notice when Hongjoong approached you, 

"Thank you!" You replied, feeling a rush of warmth at his words. Before you could react, Hongjoong took your hand and spun you around gently, causing laughter to bubble up from within you. His eyes scanned you appreciatively, and you felt a blush rise to your cheeks under his gaze. It was a simple gesture, but it filled you with a sense of happiness.  

"Am I interrupting something?" As the question hung in the air, you turned your gaze away from Hongjoong and met Seonghwa's eyes, feeling a rush of emotions wash over you. His presence seemed to fill the room, drawing you in with an intensity that was both exhilarating and unnerving. For a moment, time seemed to stand still as you locked eyes, a silent exchange passing between you both. In that moment, it felt as though the rest of the world faded away, leaving only the two of you standing there, caught in a moment. 

"No, not at all," you replied, as you tore your gaze away from Seonghwa's, turning back to face San and Hongjoong. "We were just catching up." your mind remained fixed on Seonghwa, unable to shake the feeling of his presence lingering in the air.  

"I was just telling her how amazing she looks tonight," As Hongjoong's words filled the air, a warm smile spread across your face at his kind gesture. It was a small reassurance amid the tension that lingered between Seonghwa and you, 

"Thank you, Hongjoong," you replied with genuine gratitude, meeting his gaze briefly before turning back to face Seonghwa once more. His eyes bore into yours, and you couldn't help but wonder what thoughts lay behind Seonghwa's gaze. 

''We will leave you two alone and say hi to the rest of the team.'' San spoke, as he took Hongjoong by his arm, and pulled him behind. 

"Of course," you replied, nodding in understanding as San and Hongjoong made their way towards the rest of the team. They disappeared into the crowd, leaving you alone. For a moment, neither of you spoke, the silence between you filled with unspoken words and unresolved tension. 

“I don’t like the way they look at you” Seonghwa's words hung in the air, breaking the silence with a weight that you couldn't ignore. His voice was soft, tinged with a hint of concern that sent a shiver down your spine. You couldn't help but feel a mix of surprise and curiosity at his sudden confession.  

"What do you mean?" you asked. There was a depth to his words that hinted at something more, and you found yourself holding your breath, waiting for him to elaborate. Seonghwa sighed, his expression troubled as he struggled to find the right words.  

"I mean... I just don't like the way they look at you," he confessed, his voice strained with emotion. His admission caught you off guard, and you were at a loss for how to respond. "It drives me crazy." As he downed his drink in one swift motion, you could see the tension in his shoulders easing slightly.  

"Seonghwa, are you... jealous?" you asked tentatively, your heart pounding in your chest. His eyes widened at your question, and for a moment, he was speechless. 

"Jealous?" Seonghwa repeated, seemingly taken aback by your question. He looked at you, his eyes searching yours as if he was trying to find the answer himself. After a moment of silence, he let out a soft chuckle, his gaze dropping to his hands. "Maybe I am," he finally admitted, his voice barely above a whisper. The intensity of his confession made your heart flutter, and a blush crept up your cheeks. You watched as he ran a hand through his hair, a sign of his nervousness that you had come to recognize. 

"I just... I care about you, you know?" He looked up at you, his eyes filled with an emotion that you hadn't seen before. It was a look of protectiveness, of possessiveness, but also of vulnerability. And in that moment, you realized that perhaps Seonghwa's feelings ran deeper than you had initially thought. Your moment was abruptly interrupted by someone calling his name from across the room. Your heart sank slightly, realizing that you wouldn't have the opportunity to delve deeper into the conversation. Seonghwa glanced at you apologetically, his expression filled with regret. 

"I'll be right back," he promised, his voice tinged with disappointment. You nodded in understanding, offering him a reassuring smile despite the lingering questions in your mind.  

"Take your time," you replied, watching as he made his way through the crowd, his figure disappearing into the throng of people. Left alone with your thoughts, you couldn't help but wonder about the true meaning behind Seonghwa's words. His confession had stirred up a whirlwind of emotions within you, and you longed for the chance to delve deeper into it. But for now, all you could do was wait, hoping for the opportunity to continue your conversation when the time was right.  

As the night wore on, you found yourself swept up in a whirlwind of conversations and celebrations, the opportunity to continue the conversation with Seonghwa slipping further and further away with each passing moment. Seonghwa seemed to be caught up in the festivities as well, pulled in different directions by the demands of the evening. Despite your best efforts to find a moment alone with him, the bustling atmosphere of the party made it difficult to carve out the time for a private conversation. Seonghwa was constantly surrounded by friends and colleagues, and you found yourself pulled in different directions as well, engaging in lively discussions and catching up with the rest of the team.  

The atmosphere in the company was quiet, with only the faint echoes of the recent party lingering in the air. As the party slowly wound down and the last of the guests trickled out of the door, you found yourself alone in the room, left to clean up the aftermath. Suddenly, the sound of footsteps approached, and you turned to find Seonghwa lingering in the doorway.  

"Can I help you clean up?" he asked, his voice gentle and earnest. You nodded, appreciating his offer of help and the chance to speak with him once again. 

"Of course, thank you, Seonghwa." You replied, welcoming his company. Together, you started to pick up the scattered cups and plates, the silence between you comfortable yet filled with anticipation. Seonghwa worked diligently, making quick work of the mess. You watched him out of the corner of your eye, admiring his focus. When he finished, he looked up and met your gaze, a small smile playing on his lips. 

"It's much easier with two people," he commented, breaking the silence. You agreed and thanked him again for his help. The room was now clean, but neither of you made a move to leave. Seonghwa finally broke the silence.  

"About what I said earlier," he began, hesitating slightly. You nodded, indicating that you were listening. He took a deep breath, gathering his thoughts before he continued. "I meant what I said. I care about you... more than I probably should." His words echoed in the empty room; the atmosphere suddenly heavy. You looked at him, surprised by his confession but also relieved. His feelings mirrored your own, and you found yourself smiling at him. 

"I care about you too, Seonghwa," you replied, his face lit up at your words, and for the first time that evening, you felt a sense of peace wash over you. 

"Can I kiss you?" His words sent a thrill of anticipation coursing through you, and without hesitation, you reached out to gently cup his face in your hands. 

"Yes," you whispered, Seonghwa’s eyes twinkled with happiness at your answer. You could feel your heart pound against your chest in anticipation. Seonghwa’s touch was gentle yet commanding as he pulled you closer by your waist, drawing you into his embrace with a magnetic force that was impossible to resist. As his touch sent shivers cascading down your spine, your body reacted instinctively, responding to the electrifying sensation with an intensity that took your breath away. Every nerve seemed to ignite with a fiery spark as his fingertips grazed your skin, leaving a trail of tingling sensation. Seonghwa's lips were warm and soft against yours, each gentle brush sending sparks of electricity dancing across your skin. The moment his lips met yours, everything around melted away. All you could feel was him; his lips on yours, his heartbeat echoing your own. The kiss was soft, tender, filled with all the emotions that had been building up between you. With each press of Seonghwa’s lips against yours, you felt yourself melting into his touch, losing yourself in the intoxicating sensation of his embrace. Your heart pounded furiously in your chest, a steady rhythm echoing the urgency of the desire that coursed through you. With each caress, your senses were heightened, attuned to every nuance of his touch. It was as if a spark had been ignited within you, setting your entire being ablaze with a fierce longing that threatened to consume you whole.  

"Seonghwa, we shouldn't," you whispered breathlessly against his lips as you pulled away, a pang of hesitation gnawing at your heart.  

"Why not?" He murmured, his breath hitching as he stared at you with a look of surprise and confusion. His words resonated within you, forcing you to confront the fear that had been lingering at the back of your mind. You swallowed hard, your mind wrestling with the feelings that had been building up inside you. 

"You're an idol, Seonghwa, and I... I work for your PR team," you started, your voice barely a whisper. You watched as the confusion in his eyes shifted to understanding, his grip on your waist loosening slightly. "The rules... the... the consequences," you stuttered, your heart pounding as you tried to put your fears into words. "We could get caught... I could lose my job... and it could ruin your career." For a moment, Seonghwa was silent, absorbing your words. You could see the struggle in his eyes, the battle between his feelings and the harsh reality of the world you both lived in. But then, he pulled you closer, his eyes never leaving yours. 

"I understand," he said softly, his voice barely audible over the pounding in your chest. "But I can't help how I feel about you. We'll figure this out... together." You tried to say something, to voice the concerns still swirling in your mind, but Seonghwa shook his head and placed a finger on your lips.  

"Shhh... I've waited too long for this," he murmured, and before you could respond, he leaned in once again, capturing your lips in a passionate kiss that left no room for argument. His touch was electrifying, his lips hungry and insistent against yours, and you found yourself returning his fervor with equal intensity. There was no gentleness, no tender caresses. Instead, your kiss was raw and unbridled, fueled by a primal hunger that threatened to consume you both. With each brush of your lips, the barriers that had once held you back crumbled, giving way to an overwhelming surge of desire. In the heat of the moment, there was no room for hesitation or doubt. All that mattered was the fiery connection that blazed between you, igniting a flame that burned brighter with each passing second. And as you lost yourselves in the intoxicating rush of passion, you knew that there was no turning back. As the world around you melted away, you found the courage to voice the words that had been on the tip of your tongue.  

"Let's go to my place," you breathed out, your heart pounding in your chest as you waited for his response. Seonghwa looked at you, a slight surprise in his eyes. Then a slow smile spread across his face, transforming his features into a look of pure happiness.  

"I'd love to," he replied, his voice husky. You reached out, gently grasping Seonghwa's wrist and pulling him to follow you. His eyes widened slightly in surprise, but there was a glimmer of excitement mirrored in their depths. With a sense of urgency, you swiftly took your purse. Every movement was propelled by a heady mix of anticipation and desire, your heart pounding in rhythm with the rapid pace of your thoughts. As you made your way to the back door, Seonghwa paused for a moment, reaching for his jacket, glasses, and a mask before stepping outside. You were struck by his thoughtfulness and attention to detail. In that simple gesture, you saw a glimpse of the considerate and caring person he was beneath the surface. With a soft smile, you followed, grabbing your own jacket and slipping on a mask before joining Seonghwa outside. The cool night air greeted you as you stepped onto the pavement, wrapping you in its embrace. Feeling the warmth of Seonghwa's hand intertwining with yours sent a jolt of electricity. With your fingers intertwined, you set off together, following the familiar way that would lead you to your apartment. You couldn't help but feel a sense of gratitude as you made your way through the quiet streets, it was a relief to know that your apartment was only a short distance away from the company. 

As soon as the door to your apartment closed behind you, Seonghwa pulled you hard into his chest, your bodies pressing on each other. His kisses became more urgent, his grip on you tighter as if he was afraid you would disappear. His lips found yours in a passionate kiss that left you breathless, his taste intoxicating, leaving you wanting more. In this moment, there was no room for remorse or second thoughts, only the overpowering need for each other. You were lost in him, in the overwhelming sensation of his touch, his taste, his scent. As the intensity of your shared passion escalated, Seonghwa moved to unbutton your shirt, his fingers trembling slightly with anticipation. 

"Wait," you murmured, pulling back just enough to meet his gaze. His eyes were dark and filled with desire, but he stopped at your words, his hands coming to rest on your waist as he waited for you to continue. "I... I just want to make sure we're both on the same page," you said softly, voice trembling slightly with the weight of the moment. "I care about you, Seonghwa, more than I can put into words. But I want it to mean something, for both of us." As you spoke, you searched his expression for any sign of hesitation or doubt, but all you found was a profound sense of understanding and respect. In that moment, you were sure that Seonghwa shared your desire for something deeper, something more meaningful than just physical intimacy. His lips curved into a tender smile, and he reached up to gently cup your cheek in his hand.  

"I understand," he whispered, his voice filled with sincerity. "I want this to mean something too, Y/N. More than anything. I’m not leaving you." With those words, the last of your doubts melted away, leaving only a sense of trust and connection between you. His touch, careful and loving, trailed down your body, taking the time to appreciate every inch of you. Seonghwa’s fingers traced over your skin, leaving a trail of warmth and desire in their wake. He took his time, his hands exploring you as if he was memorizing every curve, every line of your body. Your hands found their way to his hair, tugging gently at the soft strands. He let out a soft groan, his hot breath fanning against your skin, sending shivers down your spine. His lips found yours again, stealing your breath away with the intensity of the kiss. His hands moved to the buttons of your shirt, unbuttoning it and tossing it aside. His gaze was full of admiration and desire as he looked at you, his eyes taking in your form.  

"You're beautiful, Y/N," he murmured against your lips, his voice low and filled with emotion. You blushed, a smile spreading across your lips at his words. Seonghwa leaned in, pressing kisses along your neck, collarbones, down to your chest. His hands finally moved to unclasp your bra, letting it fall to the floor. His touch was electrifying, each kiss sending waves of pleasure through your body. Seonghwa was patient, taking his time to make you feel loved, and cherished. He moved lower, his lips trailing down your stomach, making you gasp with anticipation. You arched into his touch, your fingers tangling in his hair, guiding him closer to where you needed him. "So impatient," Seonghwa commented as he moved back up, capturing your lips in a heated kiss. You wrapped your arms around him, pulling him closer. Craving the feel of his skin against yours, your hands moved to his shirt, unbuttoning it and pushing it off his shoulders. You took a moment to admire him, your gaze trailing over his muscular chest, and the defined abs. Seonghwa was beautiful, every inch of him perfect. You reached out, your fingers tracing over his skin, feeling the warmth radiating from him. Seonghwa’s hands roamed your body, the touch igniting a fire within you. He moved lower once again, his lips trailing down your stomach, making you gasp with anticipation. His hands moved to your skirt, unzipping it and sliding it down your legs. Seonghwa’s lips found the skin on your thighs, his hands gently creasing them, each touch sending waves of desire coursing through you. His lips moved up your tight, his lips finding all your sensitive spots, making you arch your back and gasp out his name. You felt his breath dangerously close to your panties, which by now were soaked completely with your arousal.  

"Seonghwa," you moaned, your voice thick with longing as you arched your back, surrendering to the intoxicating sensations that washed over you. "Not here," you murmured, your voice trembling as looked down on him with a mixture of desire and urgency. "Bedroom... Let's go to the bedroom." Seonghwa, with a deep and magnetic gaze that held you captive, guided you gently towards the bedroom. He led you to the edge of the bed, his hands never leaving your body. Carefully, with an affectionate touch, he laid you down on the soft sheets. Seonghwa's gaze was intense but tender, as if he was committing every detail of you to memory. The look in his eyes held a fervor that was both thrilling and comforting. The last piece of your clothing was slowly discarded, your lace panties landing softly on the floor. His hands, now free to explore, traced a path of heat down your bare body, each touch igniting a spark of anticipation. He kissed you deeply, a promise of more to come, before his eyes met yours once more. Seonghwa's gaze was full of adoration and hunger, a testament to the intimate connection that was about to deepen. Slowly, Seonghwa began to undress himself, his movements unhurried and deliberate. As the last piece of his clothing dropped to the floor, he positioned himself atop you, his bare skin against yours sending tremors of desire coursing through your veins. His eyes continued to hold your gaze, their depths reflecting the shared anticipation of the intimate moment that was about to unfold. 

"Is this alright?" Seonghwa whispered against your lips. 

"Yes," you murmured, your voice barely more than a whisper, "Yes, Seonghwa... I'm yours." Your affirmation seemed to ignite something within him. A slow, intoxicating smile spread across his face, his dark eyes twinkling with a mixture of love, desire, and a hint of possessiveness that sent shivers down your spine. His gaze never wavered from yours, maintaining eye contact as he leaned down, his lips meeting yours in a searing, passionate kiss. One of his hands, tender and firm, cradled your face, his thumb gently brushing against your cheeks. With the other one he steadied himself between your legs, and you finally felt him entering you slowly and gently, his movements measured and full of care. The feeling was intoxicating, overwhelming in its intensity but filled with a tenderness that only Seonghwa could provide. As Seonghwa moved, you felt a surge of pleasure that left you gasping, your fingers trailing over his back, your nails gently digging into his skin. His name fell from your lips in a breathless whisper, the syllables intertwining with the soft moans and gasps that filled the room. Each thrust heightened the pleasure, building up tension that had you moaning his name louder. He responded to your every sound, his movements shifting and adapting to your responses. It was as if he was attuned to every part of you, each touch designed to elicit the maximum pleasure. 

"Seonghwa," you moaned, as he continued to move, his rhythm steady and deliberate. He looked down at you, his gaze filled with love and desire, his expression mirroring the pleasure coursing through you. "I’m close" you whimpered as the pleasure started to overwhelm you. 

"I know, baby," he responded, his voice low and soothing. His eyes never left yours, holding your gaze as the room around you both seemed to fade. Each of his movements were measured, calculated to draw the maximum response from you. He knew exactly what you needed, when you needed it, and he wasn't afraid to take his time in delivering it. Seonghwa was completely in tune with your body, knowing just how to touch you, how to move, to bring you to the edge. A gasp escaped your lips as his rhythm increased, the intensity building as he moved. His name was a whispered prayer on your lips, the only word you could manage as you clung to him. The world around you narrowed to the feeling of him, the sight of him, the sound of him, the scent of him. 

"Let go baby," he murmured against your ear, his voice a soothing balm, grounding you in the moment. With a few more deep movements, he guided you both to the peak of your shared pleasure. The feeling was indescribable, a release of tension that left you both panting and gasping for breath. And through it all, Seonghwa was there with you, his gaze never leaving yours, his love and desire for you clear in his eyes. As the waves of pleasure subsided, Seonghwa collapsed beside you, pulling you into his arms. He held you close, his heart beating in time with yours as you both lay there in silence, the echoes of your shared climax still reverberating through your bodies. Seonghwa’s fingers traced idle patterns on your skin, a soothing gesture that eased the lingering tremors racking your body. His lips pressed a gentle kiss to your forehead, the tenderness of the gesture making your heart flutter. 

"Are you okay?" he asked, his voice barely more than a whisper. His concern was palpable, his eyes searching yours for any sign of discomfort. You nodded, a small smile tugging at your lips.  

"More than okay," you assured him, reaching up to brush a stray lock of hair from his sweaty forehead. His answering smile was warm and genuine, a sight that never failed to make your heart skip a beat. 

"Good," he murmured, nuzzling his face into the crook of your neck. His breathing slowly became more regular, his body relaxing as he basked in the afterglow. You laid there, tangled in each other's arms, your heartbeats syncing in the quiet. There was no need for words now, the silence between you was comfortable and familiar. As you drifted off to sleep, his arms tightened around you.  

You were suddenly awakened by the sound of Seonghwa's voice, harsh and irritated, a stark contrast to the gentle tone you had grown accustomed to. His distressed voice pierced the calm tranquility of the early morning as he was on the phone, pacing around the room with furrowed brows, clearly in frustration. As you sat up, rubbing the sleep from your eyes, you noticed your phone blinking on the bedside table. Forty-three missed calls. A wave of chilly dread filled you as you unlocked your phone to see the flood of messages and notifications. The first one you clicked on made your heart drop. Pictures of you and Seonghwa, walking to your apartment, your hands intertwined, were plastered all over various media outlets. The headlines screamed about Seonghwa's secret relationship, a shocking revelation that seemed to have hit the fandom like a lightning bolt. The comments section was a whirlpool of emotions - shock, betrayal, and surprisingly, support. As you scrolled through the articles, you could barely register the words. This was your worst nightmare coming to life, the very reason you hesitated to start a relationship with Seonghwa in the first place. Seonghwa finished his call and turned to you, his face unnaturally pale.  

"It's all over the news," he said, his voice barely a whisper. The room felt suffocating as a heavy silence descended upon it, both of you too stunned to utter a word. The reality of the situation was sinking in, unfolding a terrifying scenario that you both had dreaded. Your mind was racing, scrambling to make sense of the situation. All your worst fears were coming to life - the fear of getting caught, of losing your job, and of potentially damaging Seonghwa's career. This was the adverse consequence of your secret relationship, the one you had feared and tried to prevent from the very beginning. Yet, amidst the turmoil, you couldn't help but feel a pang of regret. Your anger flared as you dialed your boss's number, your hands shaking as you held the phone to your ear. He picked up on the second ring, his voice tense, 

"You need to do your job and stop this information from spreading," he demanded, his tone cold and unyielding. You felt your heart clench at his words, a bitter laugh escaping your lips as you fired back,  

"How am I supposed to do that when I'm the one involved?" The line crackled with tension as you braced yourself for your boss's response, knowing that your conversation was about to take a heated turn. 

"You're involved!?" His voice was sharp, laced with disbelief and a hint of anger. "How could you let this happen, Y/N? Do you have any idea what kind of mess you've gotten yourself into?" His words hit you like a slap in the face, and you felt a surge of anger rising within you.  

"I didn't 'let' anything happen," you shot back, your own voice rising with frustration. "This isn't something I planned or wanted. And as for the mess, believe me, I'm well aware of it." There was a tense pause on the other end of the line, the silence filled with unspoken accusations and bitter recriminations. You could practically feel your boss's disappointment radiating through the phone, a heavy weight pressing down on you with each passing second. 

"We need to contain this," he said finally, his tone clipped and businesslike. "Handle the damage control on our end, write a press release. Stay out of the public eye, keep your head down, and for god's sake, don't make things worse." You clenched your jaw, struggling to keep your emotions in check as you listened to his instructions.  

"And what about Seonghwa?" you demanded, unable to suppress the edge of desperation in your voice. There was another pause, longer this time, as your boss considered his response.  

"Seonghwa knew what he was getting into when he chose this life," he said finally, his voice oddly cold and unsympathetic. "He's a public figure, and he needs to accept the consequences of his actions. Just like you do." The words hung between you, a bitter reminder of the harsh reality you were both facing. As you hung up the phone, a sense of resignation settled over you, knowing that no matter how much you wanted to protect Seonghwa, there were forces at play far beyond your control. Seonghwa, who had been a silent witness to your conversation, finally broke his silence. His sobs filled the room, each one stabbing you like a knife to the heart. You turned to him, your eyes filled with regret and sorrow.  

"I was supposed to be the one protecting you," you said, your voice choked with tears. You could see the pain in his eyes, reflecting your own as you confessed, "This was a mistake. I'm going to get fired, Seonghwa. There's no future for us." His face crumpled at your words, a look of utter devastation replacing his earlier confusion. 

"No, Y/N, please..." he pleaded, his voice cracking with emotion. "I can't lose you." he retorted, his voice filled with a mixture of anger and despair. His words hit you like a punch to the gut. As the silence settled in the room, you felt a lump forming in your throat. The harsh reality of the situation was too overwhelming to comprehend. The words that had been exchanged between you two still echoed in your ears, haunting you. The room, once filled with love and warmth, now felt cold and distant. The air was heavy with unspoken words and suppressed emotions. Seonghwa, his eyes red and swollen from crying, looked at you. His usual cheerful demeanor was now replaced with a look of sadness and despair. He seemed like a completely different person. Seeing him like this broke your heart even more, the reality of the situation dawning on you. 

"I... I need some time," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. He got up from the bed, picked up his clothes from the floor and walked towards the bathroom, leaving you alone with your thoughts. You sat there, numb and silent, as you processed everything that had happened. You felt a sense of guilt wash over you, realizing that your actions had led to this mess. Picking up your phone, you answered the incoming call from one of the reporters.  

"This is a delicate matter, and we are currently fact-checking all the information," you replied, maintaining a professional tone. "We will be releasing an official press statement soon regarding the matter. Thank you for your understanding." 

For the next several minutes, you found yourself answering a seemingly endless stream of phone calls, bombarded with the same questions over and over again. "Who is this girl?" "Is it really Seonghwa?" "Is it official?" With each call, your heart ached a little more, the reality of the situation sinking in. You were the reason behind this mess, and with each question, the weight of your actions became increasingly clear. Seonghwa finally emerged from the bathroom, he was fully dressed, his hair neatly combed back, and his face, although still showing signs of distress, was more composed. He settled down next to you, the distance between you heavy with unspoken tension. You could feel his gaze burning into you, his eyes searching for answers in the depths of your own. But as he heard you denying what happened during countless phone calls, a flicker of hurt flashed across his features, overshadowing the mask of composure he had worn moments before. 

"Y/N," he began, his voice tinged with a mixture of frustration and disappointment. "Why are you doing this? We can't keep pretending like nothing happened." His words cut through the silence like a knife, leaving you speechless in their wake. You could feel the weight of his gaze bearing down on you, demanding honesty in the face of your denial. But as you met his eyes, you saw the pain reflected in their depths, and a pang of guilt surged through you. You had hurt him deeply with your words, and now, as you continued to deny the truth, you were only adding to his anguish. Tears welled up in your eyes, blurring your vision as you turned away, unable to meet Seonghwa’s gaze any longer. In that moment, you felt more alone than ever, trapped in a web of lies and deceit from which there seemed to be no escape.  

Once the calls ended, with a heavy heart, you began to draft a press release denying the rumors. As you typed, your mind raced with thoughts of how to properly word your denial, how to ensure that it would put an end to the rampant speculation. Seonghwa, who had been observing silently, finally spoke up, his tone filled with discontent. "Why are you denying it?" he asked, his eyes filled with a mixture of confusion and frustration. 

"Seonghwa, we have to," you tried explaining,  

"No, we don't," he retorted, his voice steady and determined. "We don't have to lie. We don't have to hide." 

"Seonghwa, we can't just admit to this. The backlash... it could ruin your career," you argued, your voice tinged with desperation. 

"And what? We lie? We hide?" Seonghwa countered, his voice filled with frustration.  

"We need to think about the consequences. The fans, the company... it's not just us we have to consider." you countered, trying to maintain your composure. 

"I don't care about that," he said, his voice softening. "I care about you. I care about us. I don't want to lie about that." 

"But this isn't just about us. There are other people involved. Our actions have consequences." you responded, your voice breaking slightly. 

"I know that" he said, his tone resolute. "But isn't our relationship worth fighting for?" he asked, his voice filled with concern. As the weight of your situation bore down, you felt the sting of desperation clawing at your heart, driving you to speak words you knew would hurt Seonghwa deeply. 

"What relationship are you even talking about, Seonghwa? We hadn't even had a 'what-are-we' talk, and everything is ruined," you spat out, your voice laced with bitterness and regret. "We kissed less than 24 hours ago, and now we're all over the news." The words spilled out of you like poison, each one laced with the bitter taste of reality. You could see the pain flicker across Seonghwa's face, his eyes clouding with hurt and confusion. But you couldn't stop yourself, couldn't hold back the flood of emotions threatening to consume you. "We need to protect you," you continued, your voice trembling with emotion. "There's no 'us' in this, Seonghwa. It's just you, and your career, and the future you've worked so hard for. I won't let you throw it all away for me." Tears welled up in your eyes, blurring your vision as you turned away, unable to bear the weight of Seonghwa's gaze any longer. In that moment, you knew that you had hurt him deeply, but you couldn't bring yourself to regret those words. For better or worse, they were the truth, the raw, unfiltered truth that lay at the heart of your impossible situation. 

"You don't get to decide that" Seonghwa replied, his voice steady despite the turmoil beneath his calm exterior. "You don't get to decide what I throw away or keep. It's my life, my career, my future. And you... you're a part of that, whether you like it or not." His words hung heavy in the air, an undeniable truth that weighed down on your heart. "We're in this together, and I'm not letting you walk away just because you're scared. So, let's face this together. Let's fight for 'us', for our future. Because, in my eyes, there's no 'me' without 'us'." You stared at him, your heart pounding. His words echoed in your mind, raw and powerful. The intensity in his gaze was almost too much to bear. Could you really fight for this? For him? Suddenly, the weight of your decision seemed more significant, more daunting. 

"I... I don't know, Seonghwa," you stuttered, your voice barely a whisper. "I don't know if I can do this. If I can put you at risk like that." 

But Seonghwa just shook his head, a small smile playing on his lips. "That's not for you to decide," he countered gently. "I'm ready to face whatever comes our way. And I want you by my side. So, will you fight with me?" 

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Literary Character

In a literary work, characters are the persons who are given certain moral, intellectual, and emotional qualities by the author.

Two Major Types of Characters

Static. The static character is one who is "flat" and two-dimensional. Such a character is usually recognized by one or two simple traits. The hallmark of a static character is that he or she will not change in spite of experience or conflict. This type of character remains unchanged by events and experiences. An example of a static character is Mistress Quickly in Henry IV.

Dynamic. The dynamic character is one who is "round" and three-dimensional. His or her personality, motives, and attitudes are complex. Such a character cannot be summed up by one or two traits. The hallmark of a dynamic character is change. This type of character will be changed and influenced by events and experiences. An example of a dynamic character is Pip in Great Expectations.

Criteria for Analyzing Character

The reader can use the criteria below in order to analyze, interpret, and draw conclusions about a character.

Appearance. Appearance generally falls into two categories: external and physical. External appearance consists of extrinsic qualities, such as clothing, jewelry, tattoos, or hairstyle. Through these external factors, you may determine a character’s taste, social status, occupation, or personality. Physical appearance, on the other hand, consists of intrinsic qualities, such as height, weight, facial expression, or tone of voice. These physical factors can suggest different personality traits. For example, a muscular physique might suggest strength; a skinny physique might suggest weakness. Be careful, however, not to judge a character on appearance alone. Appearance and reality are not always the same.

Behavior and Actions. In literature, all behavior and actions help define character. Nothing a character does is arbitrary or incidental. Small nuances of behavior need to be interpreted, as well as major decisive actions. Therefore, when trying to define what a character is like, consider what that character does. Do his or her actions reveal courage, ignorance, cunning, or generosity? For your analysis to be complete, consider involuntary behavior, such as nervous twitching, fast talking, or profuse sweating.

Biography. Often in short stories or novels, biographical information about a character will be revealed: place of birth, era of childhood, type of education, early careers, successes, failures, even the identity and occupation of the character’s parents. Such information can be used to sharpen the picture of a character, or to give added credibility to traits and values that have been identified.

Dialogue. Closely scrutinize what characters say and how they say it, for dialogue is significant. A character’s speech reveals traits and values in 2 principal ways:

Direct Expression. The correlation is patently clear between what the character says and who the character is. Nothing is hidden; nothing is subtly suggested. Direct expression requires little or no interpretation by the reader. What the character says provides immediate insight. For example, in Paradise Lost, the fallen angel Moloch states how he would like to deal with the angels left in heaven, “My sentence is for open war.” Moloch’s hostile nature is revealed directly.

Indirect Expression. The correlation is implied between what the character says and who the character is. The meaning of words may be hidden or suggested. Thus, the reader must determine the unstated meaning of a character’s words. For example, at a ball in Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Darcy is asked if he’ll join in the dancing. He replies, “All savages dance.” At its face value, the statement could be a harmless observation about dancing. Instead, it reveals Mr. Darcy as a haughty man whose sense of superiority makes him disdainful of his company.

Emotions. When interpreting a character, you will be trying to get below the surface of that character to see deeper meanings. To do so, take into account a character’s temperament. Temperament may manifest itself in some general traits, such as whether a character is introverted or extroverted, optimistic or pessimistic, sensitive or indifferent. Or, temperament may reveal itself in specific emotional states, such as anger, melancholy, anxiety, compassion, or happiness.

Thoughts. If an author uses “direct expression” to reveal a character's thoughts and values, you need only to note what these thoughts and values are, explaining why they are significant. However, a character’s thoughts are rarely revealed directly. Therefore, you will need to interpret, infer, and draw conclusions about a character's thoughts. To do so, gather evidence from the above criteria. These criteria can all come together to form a composite sketch of a character, revealing his or her true opinions and beliefs.

What other characters say and think. The statements and thoughts of one character regarding another can be a valid source of information. However, this information can be double-edged. While you may learn about a character based on the statements and thoughts of another, you will have to evaluate the accuracy and reliability of those statements and thoughts. A reliable character will usually be perceptive and a good judge of character; an unreliable character will be flawed in some way that inhibits his or her judgment.

How To Write about Character

When writing about character, you may use the following 3-step process. Keep in mind that this is a general approach.

Establish major character traits. Pin down the character’s traits. Because the main characters in a work will have depth and complexity, you should be able to distinguish at least three prominent traits. These traits may be closely related, but they must be distinctly different.

Support major character traits with examples. The traits you establish in step 1 will be based on general impressions. In step 2, however, you must support these traits with concrete examples. For example, if you assert that “vindictiveness” is a trait, you must substantiate vindictiveness with examples from the literary work.

Explain how and why your examples substantiate a particular trait. Step 3 is the most important (and most difficult) stage of your paper. You must go beyond merely linking examples with traits; you must elaborate your views of a character’s traits with explanation. Your explanation must tell how and why your examples reveal a particular trait, whether the trait is moral, intellectual, or emotional.

Note: Other non-human entities can perform in the role of “characters.” For example, animals, nature (rivers, mountains, oceans, etc.), and man-made creations (cities, machines, houses, etc.) can function as characters.

If these writing notes help with your poem/story, do tag me. Or send me a link. I'd love to read them!

Writing Notes & References

[oneinathousand]

I recently got the 1995 book Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing and Horror Cinema by Mark A. Miller and decided to put together some of my favorite quotes. I bought the first edition because it was cheaper, but the second edition had some revisions and expansions, what exactly was different I don't know (I'm sure it addressed Lee's big explosion in popularity in the early 2000's among other things), but there's still lots and lots of interesting material in here; plus, to my surprise the copy I got was signed by the author himself back in 1995, so that's pretty cool.

Anyway, here's some quotes for ya:

These first two quotes are Vincent Price talking about Lee and Cushing which I thought were absolutely darling. Here's the one about Lee:

Everybody told me that he was rather stiff and unbending and not very funny. Well, we screamed with laughter from the minute we shook hands until now. We get along just like mad... write each other rude notes and funny letters and telegrams and postcards and, you know, anything we can find that we know will tickle one another. He's one of the few actors in my life that I have stayed in touch with, strangely enough. If you get him on a subject that he likes, he's very warm and vibrant. I think he's got a wonderful sense of humor, but I don't think everybody knows how to get at it. For some reason or other we strike each other as funny, and it's wonderful fun to be with him.

Here's him about Cushing:

He's nothing like Christopher Lee because Peter's a very wiry, little fellow. But Peter is one of the strongest men I ever knew in my life. I had to do several fight scenes with him [in Madhouse]. My God! He can throw you! He doesn't fake it at all. Nobody warned me about this, and I was sort of battered and bruised. He's a very realistic and very serious-minded actor. I like Peter very much, and I hear from him always at Christmas. On our birthdays we send each other the funniest cards we can find too. He's a very gentle, sweet man. I am very, very fond of him.

Cushing was, in fact, not a little man, but of course Price would have seen him as one from his perspective lol... The part about Cushing apparently being incredibly strong is pretty wild considering Price was referring to him during the making of Madhouse, when he had spent the last 2-ish years losing a lot of weight, smoked like a chimney (the book mentions at one point that he could smoke up to 50-60 cigarettes a day before he quit), was a vegetarian, and was in his early 60's. If he was strong enough to toss Price's tall ass around like a rag doll then (which is a very funny mental image), how strong was he during his prime???

Here's a description of the Lee family cheering up Cushing for the holidays during the making of Horror Express:

He faced his first Christmas without Helen and in a country that was not even his own. Luckily he found solace on Christmas Day in the warm family gathering of the Lees in their Madrid hotel. Gitte and Christina had flown over for the holiday, and they invited Peter to spend the day with them. This was the fourteenth film in which they had both acted since The Curse of Frankenstein fifteen years before, and one that offered them many great scenes together. But their best scene together was the one in that Madrid hotel on Christmas in which Peter Cushing received the emotional support he needed so desperately. The next morning Cushing was back at the studio, cheerfully ready for work.

So sweet... For anyone wondering, this book did not mention anything about Lee supposedly comforting Cushing with his presence in case the latter ever had any night terrors while making Horror Express. I'm starting to think that story might be made up! Maybe it was mentioned in the second edition, or maybe it was mentioned in one of the interviews or whatever that Miller used for researching this book. My search for a primary or secondary source continues.

Here's actress Lorna Heilbron about Cushing and Lee during the making of The Creeping Flesh:

Peter Cushing is a brilliant actor I think. I was, of course, playing his daughter, and Peter had quite recently lost his wife Helen and was grieving for her and was very open about this. He related to me as a father and was tremendously caring and supportive, especially as he felt that I resembled Helen, so we had a rather intense relationship where I felt he really "lived" his part in the film. He came the first day on the set with his script covered, literally covered, with notes he had written about what he felt his character would do or be feeling at any particular time. He also knew down to the last detail what props he would require and had obviously chosen his costumes with immense care. Within all this careful forethought he was very flexible so that if an actor gave him something unexpected, he would respond to this and was willing to go with what was happening "now". He was charming, courteous, and clever and was dearly liked and admired by everyone. At that time he was, as I said, feeling very sad and so was clearly very vulnerable. He would take himself on his own to have a bit of a wander and, I suspect, a jolly good cry. I adored him. I didn't get to know Christopher Lee so well, mostly because I didn't actually have many scenes with him and partly because he kept "himself to himself" as we say over here. I remember he had a most wonderful singing voice, of which he was justly proud, and which would go ringing round the corridors of Shepperton. The crew called him "Rabbity Lee" because he loved to talk, which he did very amusingly and at some length. I have often felt he was a much better actor than some of his material. He and Peter seemed close and distant at the same time. They probably didn't have that much in common apart from a very strong symbiotic working relationship.

Rabbity Lee… 🥲

Next is Price, Lee, and Cushing's opinions on House of the Long Shadows, which I feel each perfectly encapsulate their personalities.

Vincent Price spoke bitterly about the film in 1991: "A disaster - because the man, whoever - I can't even remember his name; psychosomatically I've forgotten it - the guy who directed it and the [editor] who cut it... they just cut all the comedy out of it... I hated it. Desi Arnaz, who was very good in it - they just turned it all over to him so that you never had the four people you wanted to see ever doing anything at all. That was that stupid director." When asked in 1992 if he agreed with Price that the film constituted a missed opportunity for the all-star team-up, Christopher Lee quickly responded: "I do, without a doubt. He was absolutely right. It's the old, old story: get it on film, finish it in time and on budget, and if it's in focus, we can sell it." Asked also of his memories of Pete Walker directing him, Lee replied simply, "He didn't." Peter Cushing's only complaint is that he suffered from bronchitis while making the film in a cold, damp, seventeenth-century manor house in Hampshire that had no heat. Because he found working with Lee, Price, and Carradine to be "a joy," Cushing summed up the film as "lovely to do."

Speaking of House of the Long Shadows, I wanted to bring up one particular criticism Mark A. Miller had of the movie to be very ironic if you've been in the fandom for this era of horror whatsoever on Tumblr. Miller absolutely hated the iconic "bitch" line from Price, saying of it:

Instead of the good-natured, funny lines that work so well in horror send-ups like The Raven, A Comedy of Terrors, and Young Frankenstein, in this film we only hear Price's character call Lee's a "bitch" - the embarrassing epitome of the script's nasty, witless spirit. After Price's line, the film seems more like a cruel practical joke on the venerable cast than an amusing parody of their images.

I agree with many of Miller's takes throughout the book, but definitely not all of them, and this is a case of that. That line's the best part of the movie! It's Vincent Price saying "bitch" in cursive, it's so delicious! Did Miller hate fun? I can't ask him because he's dead. What if the line was an ad-lib from Price, huh? If Miller knew how popular that moment is on this website, he'd probably be baffled, lol.

[mikareo]

“ ࣭⸰ ★ FROM THE DINING TABLE . . . ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀呪術廻戦 ; gojo satoru x fem reader

⊹ ⠀⠀ is it possible to fall out of love? ...apparently so. (0.7k)

contains; exes, reader sees gojo w/ his new girlfriend, ur just the sad and lonely ex who can't get over him idk author's note; i am stressed and this is how im coping

it's been three months.

only three months since you and satoru broke things off. since satoru told you he lost feelings and could no longer string you along as you gazed at him with lovesick eyes etched in hearts; which were well deserved considering your relationship lasted a little over three years.

you loved him so much. no. you love him so much. you'll never stop loving him for as long as you can breathe, because who is he if not your soulmate? there's no one else that understands you, listens to you, and notices all of your ticks and little emotions that are blind to the common eye. satoru is the one that you're supposed to end up with; that you're supposed to marry as you walk down the aisle awaiting that bright smile he always flashed in your direction.

if you're supposed to marry satoru...

...why is he smiling at someone else?

"oh, shit." he finally notices your presence and it's somewhat insulting considering the market isn't too crowded. "hey, how've you been?"

his tone is almost condescending. why would he be asking that question? he should know that you're an absolute and complete mess over him. he should be an absolute and complete mess over you, too. you don't care that he claims to have fallen out of love. that's impossible. that's just something that happens in the movies; and if your life is anything like one of those cheesy romcoms— you desperately hope that you're not the character that gets their heart broken for the main lead.

"i'm okay." you lie. you're not okay. your heart is pounding at a rate that's so rapid you think you're about to pass out, thudding inside of your chest in its best attempt to leap from your body and land in satoru's open hands. now that you're noticing them, though, they're not open. they're firmly clasped to whoever this new stranger is. whoever his new girlfriend is. "who's this?"

he waves his hand dismissively. "don't worry about it." to which the girl giggles and leans into his side.

they're mocking you. you can't help but feel that way.

you can't help but feel your heart break into glass fragments that once were a stained glass mural of your love story. the images of him confessing his feelings after the snow melted in spring, whispering his love for you for the first time when summer began, and the promise ring he was so excited about giving you during your last holiday together, all clash to the ground— becoming incoherent memories that only you care to recall. it's clear that satoru is happily cementing new moments with this girl who's likely somewhat similar to you. she seems sweet and kind, and you hope that she escapes being strung along far sooner than you did.

"you look cute together." the smile on your face is clearly phony. he knows you well enough to be able to tell, and you're sure that she's able to understand, too.

"thank you!" she's so nice? why does he always go for nice girls? if you could take a guess, it's because he enjoys watching them fall for him...watching them give up their entire hearts for his love, only to shred them to pieces like receipt paper that he no longer cares to hold onto. what a monster.

...but you still love him.

"you're welcome." your reply is as genuine as you can fake it to be, and it's possible you've fooled her. you haven't fooled satoru, though. your ex is staring at you with knowing intent, seeing the bitterness in your soul that you hide from everyone else. "satoru, can we talk?"

please.

"what is there to talk about?" his laugh practically drowns you. you feel as if there's a weighted anchor attached to your ankle with a rope that's impossible to break apart with your bare hands. it's pulling you deeper and deeper into the depths of abyss, giggling as you struggle for air and water fills your lungs. the fish say hello. they watch as your lungs close in. they wave goodbye when your eyes finally close.

"forget i said anything."

⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ ⊹₊｡ reblogs are greatly appreciated! ˚₊⊹