#but the animation is... surprisingly good in 3
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suddencolds ¡ 2 days ago
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duffel bag, packed light (yves/vincent AU fic)
Hello! Happy (definitely-not-late) Valentines day. <3 I hesitated on posting this because it's a little disjointed, but I think I need to kick it out of my drafts (go! leave!) before it gets stuck in there forever.
My kind anonymous prompter dropped some of the most fire prompts known to mankind in their submission 😭🙏 These are the two which I went with:
Write an AU oneshot that is completely different from the current Yvescent setting using a combination of 3 or more of the following emojis: 🏝️🎒🛳️🗓️📓🌧️🍱🌠🎬 + hear me out what if we got um spicy kink!Yves or kink!Vincent au 👀 and flowers or an irritant of your choosing
This whole fic is AU!Yves + AU!Vincent w/ the kink, in which they are not coworkers, but instead meet as strangers on a cruise, and Yves turns out to be allergic to something unexpected 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️. I should apologize for the long exposition; the first half of this reads more like a character study. If you don't care about how they meet, you can scroll down to the section labeled "Firsts"!
—
The stranger breaks the silence first.
“It’s a nice view,” he says.
They’re on one of the rooftop floors. It’s surprisingly crowded out here—apparently Vincent’s idea to take an evening walk was far from original. Vincent looks out at the unending expanse of water before them, the sky dark, the cruise deck high enough that the waves below them are almost too small to make out.
“It is,” Vincent agrees.
“I’m sure you’ve seen the ocean plenty,” the stranger says, leaning out onto the railing. The wind picks up on the strands of his light brown hair. “Assuming you’re a cruise person.”
Vincent contemplates going with the assumption. He is not obligated to tell the truth, of course—that he is terribly out of place here; that, if he’s being honest, it is a little strange and embarrassing to be here alone.
“I am not a cruise person,” Vincent says. “I won the tickets through a work raffle.”
“A work raffle?” The stranger turns to him, perking up.
Vincent nods.
“You’re kidding me,” the stranger says, suddenly animated. “You should’ve bought a lottery ticket right after, with that kind of luck.”
“I think I’ve used up all my luck reserves,” Vincent says. “Out of everyone who could have won, I may be the least suited to be doing this.”
“What does that mean? That you don’t like cruises?” When Vincent shakes his head, the stranger stills, contemplative. “Do you get seasick or something?”
“I am not the kind of person who would pay for a cruise.”
“Huh. Well, I guess it’s a good thing you didn’t have to pay for this one.” 
Vincent supposes that is true. His coworkers had been happy for him when the announcement had come out—are you serious? I’m so jealous! And you’re going to love it! And Take lots of pictures! We’ll definitely be grilling you for them when you get back!—he thinks he probably ought to be happy, too, considering how expensive this kind of thing would be normally, considering how statistically unlikely it had been for him to win.
Instead, he’d felt a sort of blankness, bewilderment veering on apathy—but it would be ungrateful to turn this kind of thing down, or to sell it off to someone else, wouldn’t it? In the end, he’d nodded a little stiffly at them, and smiled, and promised them their pictures.
“And what about you?” Briefly, Vincent entertains the possibility that this stranger is someone who takes ten cruises a year—the exact opposite kind of person that Vincent is, the kind of person who likes being hundred of miles out from the nearest coast, who likes the extravagance of the room service and the on-deck waterslides and the quaint high class diners, who likes talking to strangers. “Is this your hundredth cruise?”
The stranger laughs. “It’s actually my second. I was planning to go with someone. We bought two tickets way back—not company-sponsored, by the way, though I wish they were.”
“Did they decide to call it a night early?” Vincent asks.
The stranger laughs—a short, curt laugh. Vincent cannot tell if it’s genuine. “She’s actually not here. She couldn’t make it.”
It seems strange, to Vincent, that someone might miss something as expensive as a cruise. “Something else came up?”
“To be frank, I was in a relationship with her up until two weeks ago,” the stranger says. Then he laughs again, a little self-deprecatingly. “Sorry, that’s probably too much information.”
“Oh,” Vincent says. “I’m sorry about the breakup.”
The stranger waves a hand. “It’s fine. She left me the tickets, which wasn’t cool, but I found someone to resell hers to, even though it was sort of last minute. Facebook marketplace is the maker of miracles. The guy who bought it is somewhere on this ship, though I don’t think I could point him out to you.” 
“Are you alright?”
The stranger blinks at him. He looks a little caught off guard. “Sorry?”
“With the breakup,” Vincent clarifies. “Two weeks ago is still recent. Are you alright?”
The stranger is quiet for a moment. “That’s very considerate of you to ask,” he says, at last.
Vincent looks away from him. “That’s not an answer.”
The stars are starting to come out. The ocean stretches out, wide and dark, beyond them. The stranger says, after a moment: “With a view like this, who wouldn’t be?”
He reaches up a hand to swipe at his eyes. His sleeve doesn’t linger for very long. If Vincent weren’t looking, he might mistake the motion for something casual, something unassuming.
The stranger squeezes his eyes shut, and takes in a breath. The exhale that follows is carefully, meticulously even. 
Vincent doesn’t know what it is that prompts him to open his mouth. It’s a stupid, impulsive decision, directed towards someone to which he has no allegiance. It’s entirely unlike him.
And yet.
“My cabin number’s 3-75-F.” he says, before he can think better of himself. “If you need company, or if you want to talk about how your ex was the worst person on earth, we can get dinner, or just take a walk. If you don’t, I won’t take it personally.”
He turns, starts off in the direction of the deck entrance—this is preferable, he thinks, to sticking around to hear the stranger’s response. Judging by the size of the cruise ship, there are probably two thousand people on board. Vincent tells himself that it’s statistically unlikely he will run into this particular stranger again, which means his offer doesn’t have to mean anything at all.
“Wait,” the stranger says, falling into step with him.
Vincent turns.
“That actually sounds really nice. I’m glad you offered. Dinner, tomorrow at 6?” The stranger extends a hand. When Vincent looks up, he is surprised to find that he’s smiling. “I’m Yves.”
Vincent takes it. “Vincent.” he tries to keep his surprise out of his voice. “I’ll be free.”   
Yves says: “Great! I hear there’s a restaurant on the third floor which people really like. Do you like seafood?”
“Seafood’s great.”
Yves grins. “I’ll make the reservation tonight. Goodnight, Vincent.”
“Goodnight,” Vincent says, before he can second guess himself into taking it back. He has the distinct sense that he’s just gotten himself into something he’s fundamentally ill-equipped to handle.
—
In truth, the first time Yves meets Vincent is not the first time they meet. Vincent meets Yves for the first time when he’s in line to board. This, like their second meeting, is a coincidence.
— 
Before.
The stranger is smiling.
The girl he’s talking is interested in him. That’s the first thing Vincent notices. It’s not a secret—it’s evident in the way she cranes her entire body towards the stranger as he speaks. Evident in the way she laughs, her shoulders shaking, after he tells her something Vincent can’t quite decipher; evident in the way her eyes snap to his hands as he gesticulates.
Briefly, Vincent wonders how they know each other. A couple? But the more Vincent watches, the more he realizes that that doesn’t make sense. His body language is so deceptively open, as if to dismantle any line upheld between the two of them, but he is careful not to touch her. Likewise, she doesn’t reach for him, even though—from the way her gaze lingers on his arm, too long, loaded—Vincent thinks she probably wants to.
Long-time friends, then? Whatever the stranger is saying is too novel, and the girl is nodding vigorously at him, now, and Vincent can see that she’s trying to make a good impression. Have they just met tonight, then? The girl rummages through her purse for her phone, pauses briefly to type something out. Holds the screen up so he can see it.
The stranger leans in, his face intimately close to her, to peer down at it, too. There is something so confoundingly thoughtless about the gesture. It is almost as though there is a gap in how long they have known each other—as if she is, to him, already a longtime friend. There is no nervousness to the way he regards her, no pointed self-consciousness.
It’s a little interesting, Vincent thinks. He wonders, briefly, if the stranger knows that she likes him.
What strikes him about the arrangement is how open he is. It’s peculiar. It is as if they are not strangers at all. He holds the conversation seamlessly, with such warmth that Vincent marvels at it, as easily as if he has known her for years.
—
Dinner.
It’s around 5:41 when Vincent hears the knock on his cabin door.
The cruise room is more comfortable than he’d expected it to be. The ship is large enough that it feels oddly stationary, and the room—despite its relatively low ceilings and narrow walkways—has an excellent view of the ocean when he pulls back the curtain—the unmoving blue line of it, the inky sky above it, the clouds low on the horizon. 
Vincent, who had been half expecting Yves to not show up at all, puts his book down on the nightstand and heads towards the door.
When he opens it, Yves is dressed in a button-down collared shirt and slacks. He looks boyishly handsome, Vincent thinks—kind of like he could be a movie star, probably someone who would play a childhood-friend-turned-lover. 
“You’re early,” Vincent says. 
Yves checks his watch. “I guess I am. Did I catch you unprepared?”
“No, I’m ready,” Vincent says, nodding towards the hallway. “Lead the way.”
The living quarters on the cruise are ordered in neat rows. They head down a long hallway toward the central elevators. Yves talks about his morning—about how he’d spent his time perusing the second floor shops, how he’d played one game at a casino, won twenty dollars, and now he’s determined to never go back. (“I need to keep the net positive,” he says, “statistically unlikely as it is.” “You’re already doing better than everyone else in the casino,” Vincent says.)
The elevator ride is short. The cruise technically has fifteen floors—more if you count the partial floors at the top: the rooftop bar, the rooftop garden and grill.
“I can’t wait till we get to shore,” Yves says. “Not that the cruise isn’t nice, and all, but whenever I take a walk on deck, it never really feels like I’m stretching my legs.”
It’s Thursday evening. They’ll dock early tomorrow morning at the Amber Cove cruise island, spend a few hours there out on the beach, and then head back onto the cruise for their next stop. Vincent has packed swim trunks, sunglasses, a couple bottles of sunscreen, but the idea of going to the beach on his own feels distinctly out of character. He’s never been the kind of person to seek out experiences like this—sunny and indulgent—on his own, without someone else to pull him into them.
He supposes this isn’t really an exception. The company tickets which landed him on this ship in the first place were the catalyst to everything.
“You haven’t eaten here before,” Yves asks, as they round the corner to the door of the restaurant, “have you?”
“No,” Vincent says. “I’ve only been to the diner on the second floor.”
Yves smiles back at him. “That’s good. I don’t have to cancel my reservation, then.” “I wouldn’t have made you cancel it anyway.”
“You seem too polite to do that sort of thing,” Yves says, with a laugh. “There are too many things to do on deck for me to be dragging you to the same few places.”
Yves relays his reservation name and time to the waiter, who shows them to a table by the window. The restaurant is dimly lit—the majority of the light is coming from a single candle that sits in front of them, next to a vase of tastefully arranged flowers.
“This place is very romantic,” Vincent says.
Yves blinks at him. “I guess it is. Does that bother you?”
Vincent thinks that he can easily imagine another version of this evening—a dinner in which the seat across from Yves is occupied by his ex. An evening where they talk and laugh over a shared bottle of wine and eat the best seafood on the ship.
“I can see why you would have wanted to come here with her,” Vincent says. “I’m sure you had a lot to look forward to. I’m sorry.”
Yves glances back at him, his expression unreadable. Then he looks down. “You don’t have to be sorry,” he says. “You didn’t have any part in it.”
“In your decision?” “In hers.” He shakes his head with a laugh that doesn’t quite show in his eyes.  “It wasn’t mine to decide. She rekindled an old relationship at a bar. It was with this guy who went to the same college as the both of us, though I didn’t know him that well.”
He unfolds his cloth napkin and positions it gingerly on his lap. “I didn’t even know that they were friends, or that she would be meeting up with him. We were still together when it all happened, and then suddenly we weren’t.”
“That must have been painful for you,” Vincent says.
“I probably should’ve known better,” Yves says, tilting his head up to the ceiling. He smiles, a little self-deprecating.“I think there were probably signs that I missed. It’s the sort of thing you dwell on, you know. If everything really came out of left field, or if she’s already been falling out of love for a long time. This is depressing, but I keep thinking about—well, if maybe I could’ve done something to fix things if I’d realized it sooner.”
“You shouldn’t have had to,” Vincent says. 
Yves blinks at him. “What?”
Vincent looks down—at the flowers between them, arranged artfully in a shallow glass vase. “You shouldn’t have had to do anything. You shouldn’t have had to speculate at all.” He doesn’t know why he’s saying this. It is none of his business, he knows, and besides, it’s not as though Yves has asked for his opinion. He finds himself thinking, abruptly, to Yves’s conversation with the girl in line, a couple spots ahead of him—the girl smiling, leaning close; Yves somehow reflecting back her interest with warmth.
It is part of the reason why Vincent is here, right now, if he’s honest with himself. Vincent understands exactly why people would be drawn to that particular sort of warmth. It’s the sort of warmth he doesn’t know how to cultivate, probably wouldn’t be able to cultivate, even if he tried. It is evident even now, in the way Yves seems to so readily offer his ex the benefit of the doubt, in the way his warmth extends towards her still.
“If she was having second thoughts, then she should’ve said something. You shouldn’t have been expected to read her mind,” Vincent says. Perhaps being so honest is overkill, but even if no one else in Yves’s life will say it, Vincent finds he has no such reservations. “At the very least, she should’ve ended things with you before looking for other options. Frankly, your ex sounds like a terrible person.”
Yves blinks at him, a little taken aback. “I’m sure I’m giving you a very biased impression of her. She’s a pretty reasonable person.” 
“Reasonable people can do bad things,” Vincent says, crossing his arms. On some level, he understands—of course Yves, with his proximity to the problem, would not see it this way. “Your ex hooked up with someone behind your back. I find it hard to believe that someone who had your best interests in mind would do that.”
Yves seems to consider this.
“I don’t think I’ll be in the business of forgiveness anytime soon,” he says, as if he is choosing his words carefully. “You’re right to say that what she did was pretty terrible.”
Vincent raises an eyebrow. “But?”
Yves is quiet, for a moment.
“I think it would be easier,” he says, at last, with a small smile. “If I thought about her that way.”
It’s a confession that Vincent has already figured out. “You still think highly of her. It makes sense.”
“She was my best friend for three years.” he shakes his head, smiling. “I thought—I don’t know what I thought. When I thought about a future with her, everything seemed so intuitive. Like all the problems that could come up would be things we’d already know how to work through.”
The waiter stops by their table to ask them for their choice in refreshments. Yves greets him with a polite smile—one that Vincent finds no holes in—and asks for one of the drinks on the cocktail menu. Vincent picks something at random, to match.
“Sorry,” Yves says, after the waiter leaves. “I didn’t mean to get into such a depressing tangent. We don’t have to talk about my ex. I’ll give you time to actually look over the menu.”
Vincent says, “You don’t have to apologize. I won’t take long.” He opens the menu—it is nice, he thinks, that all the food and drink is included in the cruise fare which he didn’t have to pay for—makes a mental list of all the items which look interesting, and stack ranks them in his head. Then he shuts the menu and sets it off to the edge of the table, so the waiter won’t have to lean over to pick it up.
He feels, without looking, that Yves is watching him.
“You weren’t kidding. You’re very efficient.”
Vincent meets his eyes from across the table. Yves has his own menu open, too, but he’s pretty sure Yves has been waiting for him. “You decided more quickly than I did.”
“I cheated and looked up the menu beforehand,” Yves says. “I didn’t want to subject you to my indecisiveness.”
This makes sense to Vincent—as does the early knock on his door. “You were looking forward to eating here.”
“With a hot stranger,” Yves says, with a laugh. “Yes.”  
The compliment is unexpected. It settles something inside of him, something nervous and wanting, though Yves says it offhandedly enough that Vincent thinks he probably shouldn’t take it to heart. He raises an eyebrow. “Am I still a stranger? We’ve exchanged names.”
Yves laughs. “I guess we can be acquaintances, then.”
The waiter arrives with their cocktails—Yves’s has a sprig of lavender near the rim, and Vincent’s has a dried orange slice and a stem of mint—and sets them down in the middle of the table. They place their orders.
After the waiter leaves, Vincent shifts his cocktail a little closer to him. He’s not much of a drinker, but his drink of choice is usually on the sweeter side. 
“Does it live up to your expectations?” Yves asks.
“The drink?”
“The cruise.”
“I don’t know if I had many expectations to begin with,” Vincent says. “The ship is bigger than I thought it would be. I’m still finding my way around.”
“Have you explored everything already?”
“Not everything.” Vincent thinks through his morning. “I walked around the shopping center, and then the fourth floor plaza.” he says. “I stopped by the theater, too, though I didn’t sit down for a show.”
He thinks, distantly, that perhaps the ship’s amenities are getting wasted on him—during his walk through the shopping center, he’d briefly thought about bringing gifts back for his coworkers and ultimately decided that if he’s going to do any shopping, it should probably be on his last day here, not his second. “I went up to the deck to see the pools. There were more distinct pools than I imagined—I had assumed they’d all be connected.”
“Did you go swimming?”
“I didn’t.”
“So you just walked around all twelve of the pools,” Yves says, incredulous, “without ever getting in?”
Vincent can see how this fact could potentially be off-putting. “The pools were all pretty crowded. I decided it’d be more symbolic if the first time I change into a swimsuit is tomorrow, after we dock.”
It isn’t entirely the truth. Truthfully—and he thinks this might be worse—he’d been more preoccupied with taking pictures of everything—nicely framed shots of the different pools, the different entrances of the shopping center, the crowds gathered around the theater for the midday show—half so he can have something to show his coworkers when he gets back to work (and thus, dispel any accusations of his own ungratefulness around winning) and half so he can have something to send back to his family (particularly Ji-Sung, who he thinks will get a kick out of seeing all of the amenities).
“You’re really serious about this,” Yves says, looking strangely amused. “Are the vacations you go on always so structured?”
Vincent says, “something like that. The cruise is not the main attraction, anyway.”
“For some people, it is.”
“For the same people who make it a mission to take a swim in all twelve of the pools, maybe,” Vincent says, and Yves smiles.
Yves, as it turns out, is an easy person to talk to. Vincent finds out that he doesn’t get seasick—or carsick, for that matter—but that he feels a little claustrophobic if he doesn’t go up to the deck (“to remind me that we’re actually still making progress towards some destination,” he says. “That way, I don’t feel as though I’m trapped in some giant feat of human engineering.”) He finds out that Yves has two siblings, both of them younger; that most of his extended family lives in france; that he likes vacationing in warm places; that the next time he steps foot onto a cruise, it will probably be with his younger sister and his younger brother. That he’d been working late for three weeks in a row to make this trip happen; that it feels a little wrong, now, to have nothing pressing to do.
It turns out to be a nice night, after all.
—
Firsts.
The cologne is an offhanded purchase. 
It’s not something Vincent thinks much about when he picks it up. It’s on the third day that he purchases it, after he holds too long of a conversation with the sales assistant—who seems to have an uncanny ability for translating whatever it is he says into one recommendation, and another, and another—to feel like he can walk away unguiltily. In the end, he settles with a tall, sleek bottle with a wooden cap. The cap is lined in gold—to suggest that this is a classy choice, presumably—to match the serif lettering on the front, which says Wood & Flame. 
It’s not something he intends on using, either—that is, until Yves messages him, dinner? And then, a moment later: feeling kind of lazy tonight. Mb we can order in 
Vincent texts back, Sure. Let’s order in. 6:30? 
Yves’s response is immediate. You haven’t been to my room yet, right? I can host :) 
It doesn’t mean anything, Vincent thinks, that the dress shirt he picks out is the newest one he owns, that he spends time ironing the creases out of it. It doesn’t have to mean anything, when he lingers longer than usual in front of the bathroom mirror, suddenly apprehensive. Yves is asking him out of friendly camaraderie, and nothing more. He runs another hand through his hair, catches himself, lowers it. Fixes his tie, straightens his collar, finds himself having to fix it again.
With a hot stranger, Yves had said, as if it was nothing. So offhandedly it seemed almost like it didn’t even matter—a throwaway comment, maybe. 
The cologne is an afterthought—he spritzes some on his wrists, and then, upon further thought, sprays some in behind his ears. It’s probably not going to be noticeable anyways, unless Yves gets close enough, which is unlikely. The scent of it is somewhat mild, understated—that had been one of the factors which had led him to pick it up in the first place—even when he lifts his wrist to his face, it’s not nearly as obvious as he expects it to be.
The bottle is large enough that it seems as though it will never run out—the liquid in it seems to be at the same level as before, even though he feels like he’s been generous enough in his application of it. He’s starting to think he won’t have enough occasions to wear it to.
Perhaps he will get some mileage out of this purchase tonight. Or perhaps, optimistically, this bottle will last him the rest of his life, he’ll never have to shop for cologne again in his lifetime. If he thinks about it that way, it doesn’t seem like such a financially bad investment.
—
Through his walk down the long, narrow hallway, and up two flights of stairs, Vincent prepares himself for the moment when Yves opens the door.
He’s still caught off guard, though, when the door swings open. Yves is dressed in a green button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows—the shirt is loose-fitting, but the way the fabric tightens around his arms does not do a good job of obscuring the muscle definition underneath—and well-fitted khaki chinos. His light brown hair is tied up in its usual low ponytail, but the strands which were too short to secure are tucked behind his ear.
“You made it!” He grins—it’s the kind of charming smile that completely overtakes his features—and steps aside to let Vincent in. “Now you can compare how different the rooms are three floors up.”
Vincent looks past him, at the arrangement of the room. “It looks like the same elements have undergone a few different transformations,” he says. “The wall art in this room looks more like it’s trying to remind you what you’re here for.”
Yves follows his gaze to the large landscape painting which hangs in the living room, to the right of the TV. It’s a watercolor drawing of waves crashing onto a white sand beach, except it’s drawn in a way that the waves closer to shore are saturated and dazzling, and the waves further from the shore fade out in color into the horizon. There’s faint detailing of buildings in the distance, too. Vincent is pretty sure it’s supposed to be the shoreline of Nassau, which they’re set to dock at two days from now.
“Huh,” Yves says. “It’s sort of like it’s taunting me. What’s in yours?”
“Mostly abstract art,” Vincent says. “Aside from that, a photograph of a conch shell, up close. There’s also a photograph of a ship out at sea, with no land in sight.” 
Yves laughs. “That’s pretty ironic. I heard that lower floors are better for seasickness. It would probably suck to be seasick, and then when you look up you’re forced to look at some sailboat in the middle of nowhere. Super on-the-nose.”
Vincent smiles. “It’s probably a good reality check.” he presses closer in to leave his jacket—which he is realizing now that he doesn’t need, but which he brought with him just in case, on the occasion that their evening culminates in a night-time walk on the deck—folded on Yves’s couch. “Were you thinking of ordering room service?”
“Yep,” Yves says. “I think everything on there is complimentary except for the wine. Do you need the room service menu?”
“I took a look at it already,” Vincent says. “I recalled that a certain someone does his research early.”
Yves looks briefly taken aback. Then he laughs. “You caught me. I totally did look at it beforehand. Though I was ready to act indecisive if you needed more time.”
“Very gentlemanly,” Vincent says. “Should we call in?”
Yves ends up calling for room service, on both of their behalf. (“That sounds really good,” he says, when Vincent recites his order to him. “It was probably my second choice.” “You can try some when it comes,” Vincent says.) He orders wine, too, to share, and waves off Vincent’s offer to split the cost.
After that, they settle on the living room couch. Yves says: “I’m thinking we can put something on while we wait for dinner to arrive? But probably not something you care about too much, because I might talk over it.” he passes the remote over to Vincent.
Vincent flips through the channels. There’s some sitcom which is playing which seems somewhat suitable, up until one of the couples gets into a sincere-seeming argument onscreen and Vincent thinks that, considering Yves’s semi-recent breakup, maybe everything with romance should be quietly vetoed. He eventually settles on one of those reality TV shows where people have to partake in increasingly difficult obstacle courses in order to not get eliminated.
“These are always fun,” Yves says. “You know about hysterical strength? I’ve always wondered if being nervous on these kinds of shows helps you or hurts you.” 
He reaches up with a hand to scrub at his eyes. Vincent looks over at him with a frown.
“Are you tired?”
“No,” Yves says. He blinks, and then sniffles—if Vincent isn’t mistaken, his eyes are a little watery. 
“Bored of the competition already?”
“Not at all. I think these kinds of shows are manufactured so that you can’t get bored.”
“There’s probably an optimal amount of nervousness,” Vincent says, “to answer your question. I’ve found that to be true with public speaking.”
“Huh,” Yves says. “Does your work require a lot of public speaking?”
“Not particularly. Mostly internal presentations, occasionally a conference.” He looks over at Yves. “If you weren’t tired before, talking about my work is going to make you tired for sure.” 
Yves laughs. “No way. I love hearing about other people’s work.”
“It’s not very life or death. There are no obstacle courses. Just a lot of regression analysis.”
Yves blinks at him. “Do you work in business, by any chance?”
Vincent nods. “I’m a quantitative analyst.”
“Huh,” Yves says, contemplative. “I heard it’s very competitive.” He sniffles again, quietly enough that it almost goes unheard. “You must be good at math.”
“A small subset of math,” Vincent says. “What do you work in?”
“Wealth management. It’s a little more client-centric, so I had to plan pretty far ahead to take time off for thihh-!” The inhale is sharp, unexpected. They’re sitting close enough to each other that Vincent can feel Yves stiffen beside him, can feel the sharp upwards stutter of his shoulders as his breath hitches again. “hHeh-!” He pivots away from Vincent, burying his face into his elbow—polite, Vincent thinks—and then, after a long, torturous moment, loses the fight to a loud, vocal, “HhHEh-IIDZschH-iEEw!”
Vincent wills himself not to look. “Bless you,” he says, staring straight ahead. Onscreen, a contestant loses her balance on a high mounted totem and drops straight down into the water, much to the dismay of her teammates. It is a wholly ineffective means of distraction.
Yves’s sneeze—like Yves—is painfully Vincent’s type.
“Ugh,” Yves says, sniffling again. He lowers his elbow slowly. “Sorry about that. Where was I?”
“You said you had to plan far ahead to take time off,” Vincent says. It’s no small miracle that he remembers this.
“Right, yeah,” Yves says, and launches into a story about the hoops he’d had to jump through to make sure all the clients he was assigned to would have their needs accounted for.
“That’s a lot of work for a week’s absence,” Vincent says.
Yves laughs. “Yeah. Sometimes the pickier clients really hate the idea of not getting round-the-clock attention. I’m— hh-! hHEH-!” He reaches up with a hand to scrub at his nose, though the look of ticklish irritation doesn’t quite leave his expression—Vincent really shouldn’t have looked. After a moment, he lowers his hand, takes in another uncertain breath, as if he’s still testing the waters. “Ugh, I lost it. I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s gotten into me. This must be distracting for you.”
Distracting is an understatement. “Don’t worry about it,” Vincent says. “Is it worse during tax season?”
“Oh, yeah. No one in their right mind really takes off during tax season, snf-! It’s not like, officially against any rules, but it’s pretty openly acknowledged as one of those suggestions that’s not actually very optional. That doesn’t affect you guys as much, does it?”
“No,” Vincent says. “My free time is mostly dependent on project deadlines.”
“The ticket you won happened to not conflict with any of those?”
“I brought my work laptop with me,” Vincent says, a little sheepishly.
Yves’s eyes widen. “No way.”
“It’s not like I’m working long hours,” Vincent says. “Just some catch-up work, here and there. I don’t want there to be any surprises when I get back.”
“Always putting out fires,” Yves says, shaking his head. “It’s probably good that you won the—” He reaches over to lay a hand on Vincent’s arm—presumably as a comforting gesture—only he wrenches away at the last second. “The— Hheh-! Hh… hHEH-!” There’s another brief pause, as though whatever is affecting him has left him stranded again on the precipice of a sneeze. For a moment, Vincent prepares himself mentally for another false start.
But then Yves takes in another sharp, ticklish breath, and it turns out to be enough to set him over the edge. “hh’hEHh’iITSSSCHh-EEw!”
The sneeze snaps him forward at the waist to meet the crook of a hastily-raised arm. It’s just as attractive as the first, if not more—Vincent can hear his voice in the ending syllable, can hear the ticklish desperation in the release. Yves keeps his face buried in his elbow for a moment longer, sniffling wetly.
It takes everything in Vincent to not visibly shiver. What are the chances, really, that the attractive stranger-slash-acquaintance he’s having dinner with—someone who, when this cruise is over, he probably will never see again—just happens to have a sneeze which happens to be perfectly aligned with his tastes?
“Bless you again,” he says. “Are you okay?”
“I feel fine,” Yves says, with another sniffle, his eyebrows furrowing. “I don’t think I’m getting sick. I was fine earlier.” 
“Are you allergic to anything?”
“Not that I know of,” Yves says. “No seasonal allergies. Nothing pet-wise, either.” 
Vincent tries, and fails, to think of what else might be causing this. The cabins seem too clean, too well-ventilated, to be dusty. There are no flowers anywhere in sight. Is Yves coming down with something, then? But he’d said I don’t think I’m getting sick, with the certainty of someone who probably isn’t. 
“Let me know if you start feeling worse,” Vincent says.
Yves smiles at him. “I will. I’m really fine, I promise. It’s just—” he reaches up with a hand to rub his nose. A distant look crosses his expression for a moment—as though he’s warring against the need to do something about it—before his breathing levels off. “—tickish, snf! Not unpleasant.”
The sneezing doesn’t stop. Yves, for the most part, proceeds as though he’s completely unaffected by it—he’s no quieter than usual. It’s as though every time he feels the need to sneeze, he is intent on ignoring it until the need is too pressing to ignore. When that happens, he turns away just in time, except for a couple close calls when he misjudges and instead doubles forward with a sneeze directed into his lap, sniffling afterwards. 
Vincent blesses him intermittently, but otherwise offers up no comment. Yves apologizes sheepishly, after the fourth or fifth sneeze, for interrupting the show. Vincent doesn’t tell him that he probably couldn’t care less about the show. Truthfully, he has no clue what’s going on onscreen anymore—obstacle course shows are interesting, but not that interesting.
Dinner arrives not too long after. Vincent can barely focus on the seafood pasta he’s ordered, though he offers Yves a bite, as promised. Yves unfolds one of the napkins room service leaves for them and blows his nose quietly into it. He sniffles afterwards—as though his nose is properly running, now—and resumes talking as usual.
Vincent crosses his legs, does his best to ignore the heat radiating below his stomach. This is really bad timing. The entire inexplicable setup—the fact that they’re sitting so close to each other; the fact that he can physically feel Yves tense beside him, rigid with anticipation, his shoulders jolting upwards with every inhale—is honestly nothing short of torturous. 
It’s worse, too, that Vincent can see the ticklish irritation in Yves’s features—the crease of his eyebrows, the fluttering eyelashes, the sharp, uncontrolled gasp—before he wrenches forward with another desperate sneeze. It’s always a full-body endeavor—something that snaps him forward at the waist, leaves him bent over, a little breathless, sniffling wetly.
It absolutely doesn’t help that the underside of Yves’s nose is slightly flushed red, now, from the unusual attention—perhaps this is to be expected, seeing as Yves keeps rubbing it. More than once, Vincent contemplates asking to use Yves’s bathroom, and subsequently, well, getting rid of the problem at hand. Yves has no idea what this is all doing to him. After all, how would he know?
It’s only when they’re almost done with dinner that it clicks.
“Hold on,” Vincent says. Yves had said he wasn’t allergic to anything, but there’s a first time for everything, right? Particularly, there’s always a first time exposure to allergens. That first time might come later in life for those that are less commonplace.
It seems glaringly obvious, in hindsight. Yves hadn’t been sniffling when he’d opened the door for Vincent, had he? From the way he’d reacted to the first sneeze, it didn’t seem like this has been going on for long.
But of course. He’d been so focused on the environment that he hadn’t considered it. There’s only one thing Vincent did tonight which was pointedly out of the ordinary.
The realization leaves him feeling suddenly cold.
“Yves.” Vincent flinches away. “I think I know what’s causing this.”
Yves pauses. “What is it?”
“I’m wearing new cologne,” he says. “I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it earlier. I didn’t think much of it when I was applying it.” He feels a little like an asshole, now that they’re discussing it. It wasn’t his intention to leave Yves suffering. He hadn’t known. But still, the fact that they’ve been sitting in such close proximity this whole time definitely hasn’t helped.
The last thing he wants to do right now is look at Yves, but he forces himself to, anyway—wrenches his gaze upwards until he meets Yves’s eyes. “I’m really sorry. I should’ve made the connection earlier.”
Yves blinks at him. He doesn’t seem as upset about this as Vincent thinks he should be—strangely, he doesn’t seem upset at all. “Are you saying you think I’m allergic?”
“Allergic, or sensitive, yes,” Vincent says, frowning. “In any case, I take full responsibility. I should probably just—”
“Wait,” Yves says, reaching out with a hand to latch onto Vincent’s wrist. “I haven’t been allergic to anything before.” 
“It’s probably not something common,” Vincent says, wondering if he should pull away.
“You applied it to your wrists?” Yves asks.
Vincent nods, a little stiffly. He doesn’t quite trust himself to speak. It feels like Yves’s fingertips are burning holes into his arm.
Everything that happens after happens in a flash. Yves tightens his grip around Vincent’s wrist, pulls it gently towards him, and leans down to take a long, indulgent inhale.
Vincent feels all of the blood drain from his face. He rounds on Yves, wide-eyed. “What are you—?”
The reaction is almost immediate. Yves drops Vincent’s arm as if he’s been scalded. He shuts his eyes, barely turns to the side in time for a harsh, “hhEHH’iiDZZSHH-iEW!”
The sneeze is so forceful he coughs a little afterwards, his eyes watering. His shoulders jerk upwards again, his nose twitching. “hHEH… HEHH… hehH’IITSSCHh-EEW! Ugh… coughcough, you’re right, it’s defidetely… hHEH—!!”
Vincent can only watch, frozen in place, as Yves jerks forward again, burying his nose into his sleeve. “IHHHh’DZschH-IIEW! Snf-!” He lowers his arm slightly—Vincent can see him scrunching his nose up, trying to rid himself of what must be the worst tickle he’s been faced with all night. That thought sends a wave of electricity down Vincent’s spine. “Hh-hHeh-! Definitely the cologne that’s… hh-! that’s… hEHH… setting me… hh… HhEH’IDDzShHH-IIEW!! —off, snf, f-fuck… hh-Hehh-hhEHH’IITTSHhh-IIEEW!” The sneeze explodes from him, barely contained, snapping his entire body forward with the sheer intensity. Yves barely manages a breath in between before he’s doubling over with another: “IIIiDDDzSCHHh-YyiEW!”
Vincent swallows hard. He’s, well, so turned on that he can barely speak. It feels a little like the heat he feels—more of a full-body-flush, at this point—might actually melt the clothes off of his arms. “Bless you.” It’s remarkable that his voice manages to come out as evenly as it does.
He stands, heads over to the coffee table to retrieve a small box of tissues. Takes in a deep breath.
When he gets back to the couch, Yves has cupped both his hands over his nose and mouth. Vincent tilts the opening of the tissue box towards him without comment. 
“Thadks,” Yves says, with a laugh. He takes a handful and blows his nose. “I needed those. That was probably ndot the best idea, in hindsight.”
Understatement of the fucking century. Vincent stares at him, disbelieving. “Your first idea after learning you’re allergic to something is to test it out?”
“Scientific rigor, and whatnot,” Yves says. “I had to be sure. Like I said, I’ve never actually been allergic to something before. This was quite the… hHeh-!” He raises the handful of tissues back up to his face, his gaze going unfocused. “Just a sec—hh… hH… hHEH’IIDZSCHh-IIEW! snf!”
“Bless you,” Vincent says. “I guess this answered your question, then.” Yves laughs. “It definitely did.”
“I think you—” Vincent places the tissue box—which is at risk of falling off the edge of the couch—directly into Yves’s lap. “—should take this.” He takes a cautious step backwards. “And I should go take a long shower back in my room.”
Yves looks up at him, still a little teary-eyed. “It doesn’t bother me that much,” he says earnestly. “It’s just sneezing. I don’t mind it.” Just sneezing. Vincent shakes his head.
Yves stills, his expression probing. “Unless…” His voice comes out a little softer, now. Uncertain. “...Unless it bothers you?” 
That couldn’t be further from the truth. Not in the sense that Yves means it, at least.
“It doesn’t bother me,” Vincent says. “But I’ve been in your situation before, so I know what it feels like. I… know it isn’t pleasant.”
This information seems to surprise Yves. “You’ve experienced this before too?”
Vincent nods. “Every spring, more or less. I’m allergic to tree pollen.” His face feels hot from the admission—it feels strangely inappropriate to be admitting this, but then again, it’s not as though he’s bringing it up out of nowhere. “You can imagine that’s harder to avoid than a singular kind of cologne.”
Yves’s eyes widen. “That sounds terribly - hhEH-! hH… HEHh’iITSHH-iIEWW! snf-! terribly incodvenient. I can’t imagine having to deal with this feeling for an edtire season.”
“It is. That’s why I don’t want to subject you to this for longer than I have to.” He steps past Yves to grab his jacket from the couch, which he ties around his waist. It will be better for both of them if he leaves now. “I really should shower and get changed. Your symptoms are not going to get better if I stick around.” 
Yves seems to be coming around to this. “Sorry to have to end things off early,” he says, frowning. “You came all the way here.”
“It was barely a walk,” Vincent says. “And this wouldn’t have happened if not for me. I should be the one saying sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Yves says, with a laugh. “It was an illuminating experience. I’ll see you, then?”
The possibility is so fleeting that Vincent almost dismisses it. Could Yves really be disappointed?
“I have some Claritin back in my room,” Vincent says, trying his luck, though a part of him recognizes that this kind of confidence is categorically unlike him. “We can resume our night when you can get through two sentences without having to sneeze.” And after Vincent takes care of something else, and preferably spends enough time in his room flipping through boring travel pamphlets and sensational catalogues to get his mind out of the gutter, so he can face Yves again with some semblance of normalcy. “...If you still want to.”
Yves brightens.
“Of course,” he says, with sincerity. “I’ll look forward to it.”
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palettepainter ¡ 2 days ago
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ZOOT COUSINS DOODLE DUMP!! Lazer and Penny themed!! Sorry this one took a while, I ended up coming up with some awesome ideas on the Muppet server I'm on thanks to the help of my friends so it took me a bit to decide which doodles to post now and what to develop later
Brief lil notes on each drawing
1)Before he perused music and eventually became a DJ Lazer had a part time job working in a hair dressers his father frequented. Lazer thought about perusing it as a permanent career, but ultimately his heart was set on loud, heavy music. He helped Zephyr and Liv dye their hair when they expressed interest in trying it out
2-3)the twins as kids. Gavin (aka Lazer) has always been the more extroverted and outgoing of the two, with Penny pre her transition being the more withdrawn, quiet and antisocial one. Naturally this made Penny a target for bullying at school, which lead to Lazer getting into scuffles with classmates when standing up for her.
This was a factor that lead to Penny becoming so blunt and honest with her opinions after her transition, gaining the confidence to speak out when she sees something that she believes or is wrong, and why it is Lazer and her - despite their differences - are as close as they are
4-7) The twins's dad Carlos became close friends with Tina before his career as a presenter took off and before he became a farther, which meant that the twins would often be dragged along on trips to New Orleans when Carlos was in town visiting, which meant they were kind of forced to hang out with Teeth from an early age. Lazer and Teeth didn't become friends until later down the line when the two had started to flourish in their music careers (as a teen Teeth found Lazer to be a bit overbearing for his shyer self), but him and Penny became surprisingly understanding of each other. As teens both Teeth and Penny struggled to talk with their parents about certain things (Teeth for his dreams about music and Penny being in the closest about being trans), so overtime grew to become better at talking to each other and being their to support the other
After Penny's transition she was very nervous to see Teeth again after so long, especially given how much she had changed since they were kids. But it didn't take long for the two to hit it off as though nothing had changed and no time had passed! To this day Penny thinks of Teeth as one of her closest friends outside of family
8)Doodles of the goobers. I love Doddie's hair, drawing it all flowy is fun! Also I had an urge to draw her in Yor's iconic red jumper from Spy Family. I feel like it'd suit her! Lazer loves his pretty girlfriend very much
Doddie belongs to @posies-and-bundles
9-10) Lazer is a dad!! During the rise in his career when he began to properly grow in popularity, Lazer was getting stressed and burnt out from the workload. He had heard pets had calming affects on anxiety and stress, so brought what he believed was a kitten...turns out no, he hadn't brought a kitten. When Dubz kept growing, and especially when she sprouted wings one random day, Lazer discovered that Dubz wasn't just an ordinary pet and was more likely some weird creature like Animal. Que his panicked realisation of sudden parenthood:
"Welp guess this kid is my responsibility....oh my god- this kid is MY responsibility!!-"
Despite his panic and stress, the restless nights and anxiety, Lazer quickly grows attached to his weird little hairy baby and vice versa. He sought out support from Penny and Floyd (he and Floyd became good friends as kids), the latter of whom offered some pretty good advice for handling bizarre baby creatures, and Lazer later named her Dubz. Penny insisted she needed an actual name, so Lazer then changed it to Dubstep Gabrielle Hernandez. He wuvs his daughter so much he's such a girl dad, he takes Dubz to the shack often so Dubz can have playdates with Lottie
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ellipsesandawkwardpauses ¡ 17 days ago
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do any of you play Magical Drop? or at least know what those games are and have any of you played Magical Drop Ⅵ? i... need to know if the game is worth buying... i've only played Ⅱ and Ⅲ. if you haven't played it and have no clue what it is then. idk you just get to see this.... somewhat ok drawing i did of my favorite character from those games
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notbecauseofvictories ¡ 1 year ago
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man, the world seems terrible and full of bad things, and then you read about the Chicagoan who started developing ramen recipes with meticulous (even obscene) attention to detail, or an Irish hurler who decried state-sponsored spending for sports complexes live on air, or well-considered analyses of films or animated television shows and whether they are narratively/dramatically coherent, and it's....well, it's okay to be here. I like it here.
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up-the-anti ¡ 26 days ago
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only 9 months till hallow,een,,
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Velvet and Veneer from Trolls 3! 💚🤍
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sysig ¡ 1 year ago
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Rosawatts, from memory (Patreon)
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shy-sapphic-ace ¡ 6 months ago
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I JUST FINISHED CARDCAPTOR SAKURA WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH NY LIFE NOW 😭💕
#oh my gosh I am so in love with this cute lil show#I loved this so so much! (okay the next few tags are going to be me gushing about this show)#and it’s SURPRISINGLY queer for a kids’ anime from the 90s??#anyway Sakura and Shaoran are so cute :)#and Touya and Yukito are also so cute!! <3#but also? Yue/Touya/Yukito is canon in my heart#Touya gets two boyfriends for the price of one :)#oh oh and a canon nonbinary character!! that was pretty awesome#really though if I ignore the few weird ships this show is like perfect!!#so cute and happy and really well-made#the artstyle was fun and the characters were actually so good!#TOMOYO MY BELOVED#she’s perfect and I love her with my entire heart#her and Sakura are so so cute (but not as a ship cause. cousins)#and I just learned that Tomoyo and Meiling is a ship and I’m?? kind of in love with that idea??#oh and one more thing— that scene where Sakura tells Yukito she has a crush on him?? FUNNIEST THING EVER#she says ‘I really like you…’ and he’s just like ‘oh you like me just like your dad? :)’ and then. he was right#I just thought that was sooo funny#and THEN she said ‘oh so you’re in love with my brother?’ and he just said ‘yeah :)’#and then she gave him her blessing#urghhhh cute#really though Touya and Yukito… the boyfriends ever <3#when I started watching this show I was looking for something happy and fun with a bit of gay#and that’s exactly what I got <3#plus a few bonus beloved background characters I’ll always love <3#cardcaptor sakura#(my beloved)
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owls-den ¡ 2 years ago
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Hi. It's been a hot minute, huh? Here, lemme just drop my Trip rival to Benga from childhood art riiiiiight here!
More seriously, it's such a shame they never interacted!! It would have been really cool!! I can totally see Benga get overly excited to show off his cool (boring ass) rival to everyone!! Trip gets annoyed at Ash being overly enthusiastic and noisy about things... and then his best friend rival pops in and you're like "ah, yeah, checks out". Love that for them.
We don't have much characterization for Benga but I hc that he likes to randomly lift in a big Beware hug people at random. No one can escape Benga's unconditional love.
I've got more art of them coming soon, I just wanted to post the first batch since I haven't posted in a while haha! I'm still alive and STILL BRAINROTTING GOD DAMN IT IT'S NEVER GOING AWAY, IS IT?? LET THEM OUT OF MY BRAIN!!
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goosewhumps ¡ 1 year ago
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Hi <3 what are your favs or top 5 whump shows/animes/movies/manga/etc. :) just your favs to recommend or stuff you keep rewatching/reading
aw hi! thanks for the ask! idk if these are in order but they're some of my faves! Gave a little bit of reasoning too for fun. surprisingly, choosing 5 was kind of hard, so my picks are probably kind of weird!
-Detective Conan
Love the couple episodes/chapters when Conan gets shot in the cave and then Ran gives him blood. Gotta also love when Shinichi shrinks back down into Conan <3 lots of good stuff in detco
-Vanitas no Carte
Every whump scene in vanitas is so good. of course you gotta love the blood drinking scenes, but i also really like when Vanitas is sick and being taken care of in the cabin
-Persona 5
Love the interrogation room scenes and the rescue afterwards <3 in both the game and anime
-Dragon Quest XI
probably a weird pick, but it got me back into whump a few years back! There's lots of scenes where the protagonist passes out and the like and i love it. it's a bit hard to recommend because it's so long, but it's an incredible game even without the whump!
-Danganronpa
obsessed with the scene in the first game where Makoto gets a concussion and is trying to stumble back to his room. And then like immediately after he gets all sick and delirious ^^
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darklight-owl ¡ 3 months ago
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I can’t believe I’ve never drawn him
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yuriyuruandyuraart ¡ 2 years ago
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BTW, I went through my photos yesterday and remembered the time us simps went to jail and were surrounded by pretty ladies in, like, an alleyway or smth, where we got kisses.
.
And flustered Nightmare.
HHHHHHHH-----
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how could i forget the simp jail arc....too bad night won't allow anyone to get away with flustering her without some sort of punishment so you're welcome? >;) <33333
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torterrachampion ¡ 7 months ago
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Finally watched the vnc stage play and this fucks actually
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cleocatrablossy ¡ 8 months ago
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Researching how the fuck people kiss for the prompt thing has lead me to some strange places
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wileycap ¡ 1 year ago
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Selected Excerpts From The Fire Nation Royal Palace Servants' (Unofficial) Handbook
Or: Revisions To Normal Protocol After The Ascension Of Agni's Exalted Flame, The Dragon Of The Sun, et cetera, Fire Lord Zuko
1. Agni's Exalted Flame, The Dragon Of The Sun, et cetera, Fire Lord Zuko should not be referred to by his full titles and styles, no matter the context. This appears to annoy him. "Fire Lord Zuko" and "Lord Zuko" are acceptable, as well as "your majesty" and "my Lord".
1.1 "Lord Hotman", however, is unacceptable.
1.2. Even if the Avatar specifically requests you to address Fire Lord Zuko as that.
1.3. In fact, any attempts by the Avatar, the Lady Beifong, the honorable Tribesman Sokka or even Master Katara to get you to address Fire Lord Zuko by anything other than his proper title should be disregarded.
1.4. Referring to Ozai of the Fire Nation (titles rmvd, dishon.) as "The Loser Lord", however, is acceptable.
2. Fire Lord Zuko is aware of the concept of mortality, but does not seem to understand how it relates to His Majesty. Following activities should be discouraged: Free climbing, glider usage, contact with exotic animals larger than a turtleduck (or smaller, if the animal is known to be venomous), amateur theatre productions, cooking, sailing, spelunking, botany, please see full list in the Matron's office.
2.1. It should be noted that His Majesty's belief that mortality does not apply to him does not appear to be completely unfounded. After several "close calls", it has been decided that upon his demise, Fire Lord Zuko should lie in state for at least two weeks.
2.1.1. We do not want another incident.
3. The turtleducks in the Western Pond do not need to be fed by the servants any more.
3.1. However, the turtleducks should be rotated out at regular intervals in order to prevent overfeeding.
4. At any official social functions, at least three servants should be vigilant in case His Majesty tries to tell a joke.
4.1. It should be noted that there is no concern for His Majesty's jokes being offensive, crass or otherwise contrary to good taste. They are simply very bad. His Majesty always ends up embarrassed.
5. Any children left unattended in the Royal Palace for more than 15 degrees can be retrieved from the Fire Lord's office.
6. Should His Majesty go missing, the following places should be searched: roofs and any high places, cellars and secret passages, the fur of the Avatar's sky bison (which is surprisingly deep), and every place that an ordinary five-year-old would think to hide in during a game of "Hide and Explode."
6.1. All of the Imperial Firebenders as well as any soldier who wears a mask during the course of their duties should be questioned.
6.1.1. Important note: Some of the soldiers who are especially close to His Majesty can perform a passable imitation of him. Efforts should be made to prevent an uneducated soldier from, say, conducting a meeting with the Minister of Agriculture.
6.2. After the recent incident, that list is expanded to include the Kyoshi Warriors and any other groups that might wear concealing full face paint.
6.3. If all of these measures prove ineffective, a letter should be sent to The Dragon of the West, Prince Iroh, asking His Highness to return His Majesty.
6.4. If a ransom note is delivered, it should be immediately checked against the handwriting samples from the honorable Tribesman Sokka as well as Avatar Aang, before any other actions are taken.
6.4.1. Replying "Good luck, he's your problem now" to a ransom note is absolutely unacceptable.
6.4.1.1. To further drive home the point, the Royal Archives are required by law to preserve every single piece of royal correspondence. That thing will end up in a museum.
This handbook will be updated should it prove necessary.
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hencheri ¡ 1 month ago
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make you mine
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18+ mdni.
You've never suspected the evil would have taken the form of Jay, a hot guy from your college, but when he takes interest in you, you rapidly discover the secret he's been hiding.
pairing: jock!jay x fem!reader
wc: 5.7k
warnings: graphic description of gore (mention of blood & injuries), dubcon, implied inexperienced!reader, unprotected sex, jay's kinda mean but hey he's evil so ain't my fault lol.
a.n.: jennifer's body au cause why not. old fic from an old blog, but it's still my fav of all time <3
Jay thinks he never felt that much pain in his whole entire life. It’s like his soul is screaming from the inside out, as if someone stabbed him in the stomach, tearing his guts apart. 
Oh, but that’s what actually happened…
How can he still be alive? He swears he was dead seconds ago, losing liters of blood through the cut in his stomach. But he’s very much conscious right now, getting out of the woods he was brutally murdered in. 
Well, is it still even murder if he survived? 
It doesn’t matter anymore anyway. All he can think about at this moment is how hungry he is. He would devour anything he can put his hand on, and god, why does the person on the other side of the street look so… edible? 
He feels the dried blood that dripped from his mouth stick to his skin as his hands are stained in the same red substance, holding his stomach where, surprisingly, he is no longer bleeding from.The pain is atrocious, but he needs to fucking eat, and so he approaches the person faster. 
The moment they notice him, their eyes grow bigger and they let out a strident scream, but Jay gives them no time to leave.
He doesn’t know what in the hell possesses him to jump on that poor human, his teeth becoming sharper than they ever were, shredding their neck in pieces, their screams slowly dying down as he eats like a starved animal.
The fresh blood is coating the dried layer on his chin. He feels like an uncontrollable beast, and he’s literally acting like one right now. No one with a right mind would have ever done this… but it’s like he isn’t a human. 
He was revived from the dead, there’s nothing human about him anymore. Nothing.
He has an idea as to why this happened. 
Those girls — that girl band who he seemed so enthralled by — sacrificed him, and for what…? For fame? For money? Whatever it is, they killed the wrong person because obviously the sacrifice didn’t fucking work. He’s still very much alive. 
He’s cursed now, that’s for sure. Or whatever the hell is happening to him. 
He looks down at his victim; it’s a man. 
He suddenly feels nauseous, vomiting what he had so far swallowed. A dark liquid comes out of his mouth, and god, it’s even more painful than the cut in his stomach. 
He feels disgusted by himself — why isn’t he full? Eating felt so good, considering how starved he was, but it’s like he ate something … expired. 
What’s wrong with him… He ate someone’s guts, of course it doesn’t taste like a 5 stars meal. Then why did his instinct tell him to do that? 
That’s fucked up. 
The next few days are horrible for Jay. 
After that night, he doesn’t eat anything except for raw chicken and other types of meat that are just not enough to satiate him. It doesn't taste good either. 
He lays in bed most of the time, having no energy, skipping the gym and his practices, which he usually never does. He gets texts from his friends, but he doesn’t bother to check his phone. 
It’s on Sunday night that he decides to leave his bed, going to look at himself in the mirror. He has big dark circles under his eyes — not particularly flattering. He’s still very hungry, but none of the food in his fridge makes him want to eat. 
There’s one thing he’d want, though… 
It’s when he receives a text from a specific person that he knows what to do. 
iseul: hey, jay. wanna study together for the finals?
—-
“Hey, man,” Jay’s teammate, Jungwon, greets him. “Heard about Hana? That’s fucked up,” he says, walking beside his friend. “And right after Iseul… My parents refuse my sister to go out alone now.”
“Yeah, I heard,” Jay replies, not really caring, but still listening. 
It’s not like anybody liked Hana before, he doesn’t understand why everybody suddenly cares now that she’s dead. She needed to die to finally have some importance. How sad. 
She wasn’t that good of a laid either, so really, what’s the matter? Sure, it’s tragic, but who’s going to miss her besides her family. 
“Can’t be an animal at this point,” his teammate says under his breath, “Do you wanna know what I’m thinking?”
Not really…
“What?”
“I’m thinking it’s gotta be some ‘Jack the Ripper’ kinda guy. You know those freaks who wanna be the modern this or that.”
Kind of offensive… 
Jay rolls his eyes without Jungwon noticing, snickering at his words.
“The police’s saying it’s a bear or some shit,” Jay explains, reaching his class. “That’s more believable than your ‘modern Jack the Ripper’.” He mimics quotes with his fingers, stopping in front of the classroom. 
Jungwon still doesn’t seem convinced, but it’s not Jay’s job to make him less stupid. He can believe what he wants, he’s not an investigator even though he thinks he is. 
“See you at practice, alright?”
“Yeah, later, man.”
Jay has never been very attentive in class. He doesn’t care about a lot of things and college is one of them. He wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for his parents and their high expectations of him. 
He’s looking outside the windows, noticing the grey clouds, heavy rain pouring from the sky. A flash of lighting breaks through the sky, hearing the thunder a second after. 
Nobody seems attentive either, all interested in the thunderstorm that’s starting. It might be the strongest they’ve seen in a couple of years. 
“Crap,” the teacher says as the electricity is cut off, surely because of the thunder. 
Girls are gasping, some of them whispering to each other about how creepy the situation is while the professor waits for the power to get back on.
Jay’s phone lights up as he gets a new notification. He takes a look, reading the text he just received. 
jungwon: practice’s canceled.. 
Great, Jay thinks. He really needed to get some steam off, but it won’t happen today. 
“Sir!” A girl raises her hand, catching the attention of the professor. “All classes got canceled. Can we leave? Apparently the power isn’t coming back for a few hours.”
The professor seems quite disappointed, but he lets everyone go back home, seeing no point in staying if he can’t teach. 
While exiting the classroom, Jay gets bumped into by someone. He doesn’t move much, but the person drops their books on the floor, bending down to pick them up hurriedly. 
“Shit… Sorry, I wasn’t looking where I was going,” you apologize, standing back up when you have all of your books in your arms.
“It’s fine,” Jay mumbles and you give him a straight smile.
He recognizes you from highschool, a girl he never talked to, but who he knew the name of. Then, he watches you walking away for a short moment, eyeing the curves of your silhouette, memorizing it. 
—-
You’re in the cafeteria, sitting with your friends, waiting for about a good 30 minutes now. The storm from yesterday is still ongoing, and the power is very unstable, cutting off every now and then.
The finals are scheduled for today and the administration told the students to come regardless of the storm, thinking it would stop during the night. So you’re waiting to be sent to the gym where the exams are usually taking place, but seeing the electricity goes off and comes back every second, it isn’t the best time to start an exam. 
People are free to go, it’s college after all, but most of the students are staying in case a decision is made. You know you wouldn’t want to skip your exam, that’s why you’re staying, even though it’s starting to get really long. 
No murder has happened since the beginning of the storm, confirming the police suspicions that it might be a wild animal doing this. A bear wouldn’t come out during a thunderstorm, hence why no bodies have been found or anyone going missing. 
You don’t really know what to think of the whole thing. You never really experienced anything of the sort before, only ever seen it in the news, taking place in a far away city. Now, it’s really different to be a witness of it.
You don’t understand how an animal would do such a thing, especially since they aren’t known to attack humans, or… eat them. But everybody is kind of desperate to find a culprit. 
As you’re looking through your notes, you notice that you’re missing a piece of information that you absolutely need to know for your test. You would ask your friends, but none of them are in this class with you. Plus, you forgot your book so the only solution would be to go to the library. 
The place is lit up by candles and oil lamps. The power doesn’t seem to have come back here either. 
The librarian isn’t even here, so you can’t ask her for directions, which would be really useful, but you’ll do without. You go to the biology section and start searching for the book you need. It takes you some time, carefully looking through the shelves until you notice an older edition of the book. You hope what you need is in there.
You start flipping the pages to the right chapter, but you jump out of surprise and drop the book to the floor at the sound of someone else’s voice. 
“Aren’t you supposed to attend your exam?”
It’s the guy you bumped into yesterday; Jay. 
What’s weird is that you didn’t hear him at all, you could have sworn you were alone in the library. You suppose he’s a really quiet walker.
“Uh, y-yeah,” you stammer out, furrowing your brows. You bend down to pick up the book, his eyes following your movements closely. “Just had to come here for this,” you say and show the object in question in your hand. “What about you?”
He leans on the shelves beside him. 
“Didn’t feel like wasting my time back there,” he explains and you nod, not really sure what he wants exactly… It’s not like you’re friends or anything.
You can’t see much of him with the low lighting in the library, but you still catch on the way he’s looking at you intently. It makes you slightly uncomfortable, considering he’s towering over you with all his height. And Jay is very tall compared to you. 
“Is- Is there something else you wanted to ask me…?” You manage to let out, voice a bit shaky and uneasy. 
“Are you scared?” he asks casually.
He steps closer to you, and you don’t understand why you don’t step back. It’s like you don’t dare.
“What?”
“The storm. Pretty intense, right?”
Is he really interested to know if you’re scared of storms or is he playing with you? Why would he even play with you in the first place, that’s what you wonder. 
His behaviour really confuses you. It’s true that you don’t know him, but he isn’t the type of guy to just… creep girls out. Maybe it’s not his intention though?
“Oh, yeah… it’s nothing I've ever seen before,” you confess in a small voice. 
“Me neither,” Jay replies. 
You hold the book against you tighter like it’s some sort of protection, or just as emotional support. You don’t know what’s up with him, but it has you feeling some type of way… 
You feel the knot in your stomach getting tighter as he gets even closer, trapping you between him and the bookshelves. 
Yes, you’re scared, but not of the storm… of him.
And… there’s a part of you that likes it — likes the attention he gives you, the way his dark eyes look at your body. His gaze makes you think of a carnivore, a predator. 
You’re the food he was looking for. 
“It’s really loud, isn’t it?” he observes. “I wonder… if you had to scream, would anybody hear you?”
That startles you right away. 
“Jay-” Saying his name seems to catch his attention, his eyes looking directly into yours. “Stop it.”
He doesn’t break eye contact, and you’re destabilized by how long he can hold your gaze, a shiver running down your spine, making the hair on your arms stand up. 
It’s only to whisper in your ear that his eyes leave yours. 
“Stop what exactly?”
His hot breath hits the side of your neck, hearing your heart pounding in your chest, the knot in your stomach becoming heavier and heavier. Your hands clasp around your book, holding onto it for dear life as you gulp down the excess of saliva in your mouth. 
You scrunch your eyes shut when you feel his hands on your hips, fingers sneaking under the hem of your top. Your core heats up, blood rushing to your cheeks.
“What do you want?” You breathe out, opening your eyes when Jay faces you again. 
He takes the book from you, putting it back onto the shelves, not caring if it’s the wrong placement. 
“Just a little bit of fun,” he answers, “wouldn’t you like that, hm?” He slips his index finger under the band of your skirt then, pulling you closer to him, his lips only centimetres away from yours. “I know girls like you are too shy to ask for it… So I’m making the first move.” 
“No, I-” You begin, but don’t have the time to finish your sentence. 
“It’s fine, I’m gonna take the lead. You don’t have to worry about anything, pretty,” he tells you, tilting his head and pressing a light kiss to your lips. Surprisingly, you reciprocate it. He pulls his hand away from your skirt, putting it around your neck instead. “I knew you’d be into it, you’re a little freak, aren’t you?” 
You don’t know what to answer. Is there even anything you can say back to him? What’s the point of lying when he has you trapped between his large body and the bookshelves, his slender fingers gripping your neck, his lips brushing over your face. 
But would that be really a lie saying he’s wrong about you? He doesn’t know you…
He kisses you again, this time sloppier, his tongue dominating yours easily. He nudges your legs open with his knee, his other hand swiftly diving under the hem of your skirt, groping your flesh in a lewd way that keeps you out of breath — apart from the fact that his tongue is currently exploring your mouth. 
He graces the bump of your pussy with his knuckles, making your knees buckle at the unexpected contact. He rubs the pad of his middle finger over your clit, a whine escaping your throat, muffled by his mouth on yours. The moment is brief until he slips his hand into your underwear. 
You try to make him stop by grabbing his wrist, pulling away from his lips to pathetically whisper a ‘please’ that makes him chuckle. 
“Already begging for me, sweetheart?” He softly laughs, smirking at you. “Excited by the idea of a guy’s fingers in your little cunt instead of yours? Is that it?”
You frown because that wasn’t the reason why you begged him, but now that he said this… your thoughts are going into a completely different way. What’s wrong with you?
“Do you wanna know how it feels, baby? How it’s like to have your pussy stuffed by someone else’s fingers…” 
He’s not waiting for an answer as he starts stroking your bud of nerves in slow circular motions, applying some pressure to really make you feel it. You let out another whine, this time of pleasure. 
Jay then shifts down to your entrance, circling it with a lot of delicacy, but this gentleness of his doesn’t go on for long as he pushes a finger into you. You bite down on your bottom lip — the size of his fingers are in no comparison to yours. Your eyes well up in tears, little cries escaping your mouth when he adds a second digit. 
“I know, I know,” he whispers, “must be uncomfortable, hm?” You nod your head, confirming his words. “It’ll feel good soon, I promise. You’re used to the feel of your tiny fingers, it’s normal…”
When he says this, you have a hard time believing him. How could it feel good when you weren’t at all prepared for this — when it’s not what you wanted. 
He begins to move his fingers inside of you, slow and long strokes at first, circling your clit with his thumb at the same time. He curls his fingers, making a little hook, patting your sweet spot. The intrusion is uncomfortable, but it progressively gets so much more pleasurable as he thrusts into you at a regular pace. 
Tears are still falling down from your eyes, eyelashes wet and sticky, but they aren’t the result of your pain… 
“You’re pretty when you cry,” Jay murmurs beside your ear, butterflies in your stomach when he tells you this. 
He unwraps his hand from your throat to instead grab your thigh, placing your leg around his hip. You now feel his fingers way deeper inside of you, gently and deliciously stimulating your g-spot. You dare to look down where his left hand is operating between your thighs, sliding in until he’s knuckles deep into your pussy. This makes you breathless, head rolling back on your shoulders and hitting the shelves behind you. 
“Oh, my god-!” You exclaim when Jay’s ministrations bring you so close to your orgasm. Your legs are twitching, your body warning you of your approaching high.
You’d probably be more aware of his hard cock trapped in his baggy jeans, but you literally cannot focus on anything else other than Jay fingering you, hitting your sensitive spot each time he thrusts in. 
“That’s it, baby,” he encourages, moving faster. “You feel it? Huh?” He asks and you croak out a weak ‘yes’. “Tell me how it feels.”
You hate his questions — you hate them so much. He knows how you feel, but he wants you to say it, he wants you to say that you enjoy it, and… your body really does. 
“G-Good.”
“Yeah?” he breathes out, fucking your cunt with his fingers, enthralled by the little moans you let out.
“Yes,” you confirm, closing your eyes and nodding your head. “Fuck!” You curse out when you finally reach your high, grasping onto his forearm as you ride out your orgasm, your entire body shaking. 
Jay helps you by slowly rubbing your puffy clit in circles, telling you more dirty words in your ear, all said in the sweetest voice, as if what he’s doing can be described as anything sweet. 
“Good girl,” he praises, “see, I told you it’d feel great.”
He still has his head in the crook of your neck, and you frown at the feeling of sharp teeth against your skin. It’s barely there, just brushing over it, as if hesitating to act… but Jay retrieves back, looking into your reddened eyes. 
He could stop there, but he won’t — though he got what he wanted, he needs more… 
He pulls his hand out of your panties, fingers glistening in your arousal. “Open wide for me, baby,” he instructs. 
You glance at his hand, a little repulsed. You’ve never thought of tasting yourself and it’s surely nothing you’d have ever done if not for Jay. 
You then reluctantly open your mouth and he enters his wet fingers in. 
“Suck,” he adds on, expecting you to follow his orders, and you do without a second thought. 
He stares down at you while you lick his fingers clean and he slides them a bit deeper, pushing down on your tongue. The taste of yourself isn’t what you thought it’d be… It doesn’t taste much, in fact. 
He removes his fingers from your mouth only to put them in his own after. “As sweet as you are,” he grins. “Turn around.”
You hesitate for a moment, looking at him credulously, before doing what he asked you to do on trembling legs. 
“Are you…?” You say under your breath, looking over your shoulder and seeing Jay pulling the zipper of his pants down. 
“Going to put my cock into you?” he finishes your question, “yeah, I am.”
You stop breathing at his answer, sensing his deft fingers touching your thighs and hips, going under your skirt to drag your panties down. 
He soon gets his cock out of his briefs, pumping himself a couple of times before aligning his head with your dripping entrance. His right hand keeps your skirt crumpled up over your ass, laying the other one on your hip. 
“Careful, sweetheart,” he says softly beside your ear, “because this might sting a little bit more than two fingers.” He swipes the head of his cock through your sticky folds and all you can do is moan pathetically at the feeling, lewd, wet noises echoing in the big library. 
You can’t see his length even with the way you contort your head to look over your shoulder, but you’re still able to see his chest and hips moving as he pushes his cock into your pussy. Though you have no idea what he looks like, the painful feeling of your cunt getting stretched out to his size tells you he’s really big. 
And he was right. This hurts way more than his fingers, the two feelings are not comparable at all. 
“Jay-,” you cry out, holding onto the shelves in front of you till there’s no more blood in your knuckles. 
He hears you, loving the sounds you’re making because of him and the way you say his name with eyes full of tears. When he bottoms out inside of you, his pelvis flushed against your ass, he lets out a low grunt and throws his head back, closing his eyes to savour the pleasure entirely. 
You involuntarily clench around him, making him tighten his grip on your hip. He then starts thrusting into you, his cock sliding in and out of your pussy at a slow but harsh pace. Each time he bottoms out, Jay makes sure the skin of his thighs slap against your ass, the sounds almost as loud as your little moans and whimpers. 
But the storm is so intense and noisy that he’s pretty sure nobody else in the library could hear you — if there was anyone else here apart from the two of you anyway. 
Your wetness allows him to fuck his cock into your pussy back and forth, welcoming him so perfectly without any restraint. It’s almost impossible for him to not hit your sweet spot, and he reaches so much deeper when he lifts up your thigh with the hand that was previously placed on your hip. 
You don’t know how long you can stay in this position, especially when Jay’s drilling his cock into you like nothing else matters. It’s like he needs it from you, and as the pleasure only builds up in you, you start thinking you need it desperately, too. 
You’re breathing heavily, and so is he, feeling his hot breath on your neck when he tilts his head down closer to yours. You can clearly hear his breathing now as well as his deep grunts that leave his mouth every time your walls close tightly around his girth, literally sucking him in. 
“Shit,” he curses out as he pushes lightly on your back, deepening the arch of it so your ass is flushed against his pelvis. “How could I have ever missed out on you… You’re so- fuck,” Jay chokes out, not finishing his sentence, but you have a guess on what he wanted to say. 
He then kisses your neck pretty messily, but it only raises the temperature of your body, your skin boiling hot under his soft lips. He leaves a wet trail behind, going up to your ear, down to your shoulder. 
Telling him to stop isn’t even possible anymore, it wouldn’t make any sense… would be absolutely stupid when you’re so close to your second orgasm. 
As he thrusts into you, his balls slap your pussy, and the sounds are just too vulgar, but it’s honestly arousing you so much. Jay lets go of your thigh to take a hold of your jaw, turning it around so he can look at your face. 
Your mouth is ajar to let out big puffs of air, and it’s the same for him, his breathing being irregular and heavy. He didn’t think he would ever need something that badly, which is making you his, surprisingly enough. 
Making you his in whatever way possible; whether it’s by fucking you or eating you — or both. Jay doesn’t care, he just wants it. 
It doesn’t take long for your second orgasm to pass through you, arms and legs shaking as the knot at the pit of your stomach snaps. Jay feels it very clearly, your walls hugging his cock terribly tightly, bringing him closer to his own orgasm as well.
“Holy fuck,” he hisses, his hip thrusts accelerating, literally burying his cock in your cunt until he slips out. He rapidly strokes himself and cums on your ass, strings of white cum falling on you. “Oh, god…”
He stays in this position for a couple of seconds, catching his breath. He then slightly backs away, making sure to keep your skirt crumpled up over your butt, looking at the mess he made of you. 
Suddenly, you both catch on the voices entering the library, making you rush to dress up and clean yourselves. 
—-
You’re in your bedroom, studying and writing down in your notebook while lying on your bed. It’s relatively quiet in your house, hearing the TV downstairs playing and the ceiling fan above your head running. 
The ringtone of your cell phone breaks the silence, buzzing on top of your bedsheets. It’s a number that you don’t recognize, but the first digitals show that it’s a number from your area, so you pick it up. 
“Hello?” 
“Hey, pretty.”
“Uh, who is this?” You ask the person on the other side of the line because you have no idea who would call you like this. They must know you.
“Take a guess,” they say, and their tone is oddly flirty. 
You frown, starting to remember where you heard this voice for the last time… And in which situation exactly. 
“... Jay?” 
He laughs at that and you can imagine the cheeky smile he’s sporting right now. 
“You got it,” he replies, “see, I knew you’d remember me.” 
You immediately feel uneasy despite the fact you’re just talking through the phone, but things have happened since your encounter with Jay.
Things such as more dead girls, all brutally murdered by this supposed ‘animal’. 
You suspected nothing until you noticed how tired looking Jay was a day or two after what happened in the library. Normally, you wouldn’t have looked at him, but you literally couldn’t get him out of your head after how intimate the both of you had been. 
Every time he was in the same hallway as you, you’d give him a glance and nothing more as you were too shy to talk to him or even look at him for too long. 
But sometimes you dared to watch him a little longer when he didn’t know you were there. 
And you saw the dark circles, the bad attitude he had with his friends, and the disdain look he seemed to give to everybody. You also saw him get in his car with a girl. You were jealous for a second, but you felt totally different the next day when that same girl went missing and that Jay was doing fine again. 
At first, it was just silly thoughts, but it was too strong of a coincidence, you couldn’t think about anything else. 
Jay’s an incubus.
“Yeah…” You say back, shoulders tense as you sit up on your bed. “How did you get my number?” 
“Asked Jungwon for it,” he simply explains. “You did a project back in highschool together. Remember?”
You do remember. You were so stressed out about it. Paired with a popular jock? You believed the teacher was against you, but it turned out that Jungwon was way nicer than you thought.
“Luckily, you didn’t change numbers.”
Lucky for who?
“Right,” you huff out, looking through your window, a shiver passing through you at the thought of Jay hiding somewhere.
“What’re you doing?” he asks.
“Uhm, just studying… Why?” 
“Wanna go out with me?” Jay proposes after a few seconds of silence. 
You look through your window again. It’s dark outside. This would be such a bad idea… 
“It’s 9 p.m. on a Thursday night,” you begin, sounding way too bitchy for his liking, “where would we go? And why would I even go out with you…”
“The park’s always open,” he adds.
“What-”
“Relax. Nothing bad gonna happen, alright?" his voice resonates through the phone, hearing a slight laugh after. "I miss you, that's all."
You bite down on your lip, shaking your head to get all of your stupid thoughts away. As much as you hate to admit it, you love hearing that from Jay. That’s all you wanted him to say since he left you in the library… tell you he needs you as much as you need him. 
But this isn’t the time for that — there won’t ever be another time anyway. 
You respond nothing and so he takes it as a yes. “Send me your address, I’ll come pick you up in 10 minutes. Put something pretty on,” he chuckles, hanging up. 
—-
The park isn’t an open space with benches and a fountain. It’s basically the woods where you go for hiking. There are paths you can follow that will all lead you to the same place at the end. 
You could have thought of something smarter, or less dangerous, but you didn’t have any time. Jay showed up at your entrance precisely 10 minutes after he hung up and you weren’t exactly ready to see him just yet. 
You had to get in his car anyway, the whole ride being quiet until you arrived at your destination. Your stomach churned up the moment you entered the woods, Jay behind you. 
Your heart is still beating super fast right now, whether it’s because you’re absolutely scared or because Jay is kissing you feverishly, it doesn’t matter. You can’t do this, and you don’t know how it might end for you if you let yourself be distracted by him. 
“Jay,” you manage to say between kisses. You push harder on his chest, making him stop from putting his tongue in your mouth. “We need to talk,” you say firmly. 
“About what?” he chuckles, diving back down to the crook of your neck where he plants wet kisses, his hand sneaking up under your dress while the other holds your hip. 
You squirm, fighting hard to not let yourself give in to his touch. 
“I saw… I saw Kazuha and you getting into your car the other day,” you confess and he backs away from your neck when he hears that, looking intently at your face. 
“And? You were jealous, is that it?” He questions, lifting one eyebrow. 
“No! I mean-,” you answer right after, thinking about what to say and how to say it. “She went missing the day after you saw her, and-”
Jay gets visibly annoyed, trapping his bottom lip between his teeth. He lets go of you, still looking at you, but not with lustful eyes anymore. 
“What? What are you trying to say, huh?” He huffs out. “That I killed her? Fucking crazy.”
Is he really guilty? He has to be. You know he is. 
“Back in the library,” you begin to say, “were you… did you intend to kill me?” You eventually say it all, breath caught in your throat as you watch Jay registering your words. 
He sighs, “why would it matter?” You frown at that, about to respond, but he steps closer to you, trapping you between him and the tree again. “Just let me take care of you, gonna make you feel so good, baby…” 
He slips his hands under your dress so rapidly that you don’t have any time to react, immediately overwhelmed by his groping and his lips all over you. 
But you get back to your senses, using all your force to push him away. You succeed to have a safe distance between the two of you.
“So you’re admitting it!? You wanted to- to do the same thing to me!”
“No,” he disagrees, his voice harsh, sounding quite annoyed. “I just wanted- Fuck!” he exclaims angrily, but it’s like he doesn’t know what to say. 
“You could have had everybody you wanted, Jay,” you state, looking him into the eyes, “why me?”
He looks back at you and you wonder how you couldn’t have seen it before… The evil. 
“Why not? You’re hot, kinda stuck-up, but I had to try it, you know,” he chuckles. “For a nerdy girl, you sure know how to take dick.”
This angers you to a point… 
“Fuck you!”
And without thinking twice, you reach down to pick up the pocket knife you hid in your boot before. 
You open it and you rush toward Jay, stabbing him in his lower stomach. You retrieve the knife a bit too hastily, resulting in you dropping it and falling down on your butt to the ground. 
Jay also falls down, holding onto his stomach, red blood dripping out of his cut onto his hands. He yells out many curses, sucking air through his teeth to appease the pain as much as he can. 
You watch him, startled and out of breath, eventually turning around and searching for your knife through the dirt and dead leaves. When you find it, you get back up and to Jay, but he isn’t there anymore.
He has completely disappeared. 
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