#clove x faith

[abyss-of-mine]

Don't Piss Off The Nightmare Demon

Warning: bound, teasing, edging, oral (she's receiving), orgasm denial, fingering, unprotected aggressive sex

Clove smirked down at Faith bound to the bed, gently dragging his hand down her naked body. She bit her lip as he looked at her form, letting his moist finger pushed into her entrance and moved gently. She sighed at the feeling of this, but he pushed it out and traced her waist.

He leaned down to kiss her body and nibble on the soft skin, slowly moving along her curls, ensuring his lips touches every inch of her. A fire burn in her chest, craving him more and more with every press of his lips on her body: her stomach, her arms, her legs, her chest, her waist, her hips, everything had to be touched by him.

He licked her neck and heard her sigh in desire. His hand cupped her breast to rub the nipple and pinch it. He bit her jaw, creeping his fingers along her thigh, taking in her lust for him. It was amusing.

His face was in front of hers, lips inching away from the other, itching to meet. "Clove," she whispered.

He smirked and whispered in her ear, telling her things he can do to her, making her tremble as he drags out every words he spoke. His hands caressed her, moving down her dorm to her entrance, playing with her folds and teasing her inside. She was wet, ready for him insert himself in and make love to her until they're both spent. However, that has to wait for awhile.

His finger rubbed her inside, watching her face twist in frustration, only gasping when his finger slid in. He kept this up, seeing her eyes burning into him when his finger continued to repeatedly enter and exit her in a non satisfying way.

He chuckled when she cursed him out under her breath. He thought to give her something for her troubles and leaned down to between her legs to start kneading her entrance in his mouth. She gasped loudly and blushed at him eating her, picking up her thighs to dig his tongue in.

She gripped her restraints and swallowed her moans, feeling his tongue move with such determination and want. Her body bended from him picking her lower half up and had her fully on his shoulders, seeming to know what exactly she needed. She leaned her head back to moan, calling out to him and curling up at the close release of her satisfaction.

But it didn't come. He pulled his tongue out and dropped her back on the bed, wiping his mouth with a evil smirk. She bit her lip hard at realizing he wasn't going to give her orgasm. He kissed her chest and kneaded her breast in his mouth, then licking up her frame to her neck. He massaged the area, hearing small sounds of her liking it.

"You're cruel." He silence her by kissing her.

Their lips smacked and devoured each other. His hand squeezed her chest and rubbed circles on her nipples. Her body slowly calmed down, letting him continue massaging her neck and tempt her with his words. He eventually leaned back and glanced down at her entrance, still wet from earlier, and rubbed his middle finger along her folds.

She pressed her lips together and watched, his finger touching her and making the wetness squirt before pushing it to the knuckle. She cringed and turned her head away. He slowly rocked his middle finger and stared up at her face to watch it twist from pleasure coming back.

She kept her lips seal to prevent moans spilling out. He darkly chuckled and picked up the pace, watching her struggle to not call his name. Her body cringed and refused to look at him, feeling his finger getting faster and pushing roughly into her. Her opening dripped from his movement as he decided to add his ring finger and pushed the two fingers with such force that she moaned out loudly.

He reached a hand out to keep her mouth open, listening to every sound she made. She surrendered to his hand and heatedly moaned and spilled out with no shame. Her back arched, ready to let go just for his hand leave her opening empty. She cursed at him and growled at his cruel games as he licked his fingers clean.

"If you want orgasm, tell me why I should give you one." He toyed with her.

She opened her mouth to protest how stupid his pettiness was, but he grabbed her head and force her into a invasive kiss. His tongue claimed her mouth and choked her, making her unable to think and fight against him. She felt like she was in a daze when he eventually pulled away to allow her to breathe. He chuckled darkly again, lying his body on hers and biting her neck as she quietly moaned.

She calmed down once more and kissed him as his hands traced her form and down to her legs, then left her lips bare to lift her legs and stick her calves to the restraints. She tried to move her legs, but they too were chained to the bed. Her lower half was on full display to him.

He looked at it with a evil glimmer in his eyes, toying with it and leaning down to slowly lick it. She shuttered by the feeling of him. "How badly do you want me?"

She paused at his words, believing this was another game of his, but still answered. "Badly."

"How much?"

She thought on her next words carefully. "I want you to fuck me until I can't see straight." He smirked and lowly laughed at the comment.

He unzipped and removed his clothes, his member hard and stiff as he grabbed her hips and shoved himself in. His hips were cruel with rough and heavy thrusts, pushing himself fully into her. Her words got stuck in her throat and leaned her head from the overwhelmed aggression. She peeked through her eyelids to watch him pound her like a feral animal. She loudly responded, her senses leaving her at the pleasure overtaking her.

He panted and growled at his inhuman speed, lifting her hips on his lap as he destroyed her. He moaned her name and slammed against her g-spot, hearing her scream out. He emptied himself into her and kept going, watching her roll her head back and call out his name like she was begging.

He tilted his head to moan into the air, hammering himself inside again and again, dripping and spilling out onto the bed. He growled when he looked at her body, how it bended and was positioned, her arms and calves chained to the bed while she pled to him how overwhelming he was.

He called her name and shot his seed into her. He reached and devoured her mouth in his, taking her thoughts to only think of him. She choked on his tongue and weakly fought back to create an entangled mess in their mouths. He reached his hand up to release her limbs and let them relax from the restricting chains.

They rolled around the bed, clearly lost in their vicious make out session. He sat her up and pound her on his lap, lifting her up and slamming her down hard. Her back pressed the wall and grabbed his head and shoulder while she was being nailed. He licked her chest and moaned out how intoxicating she is.

They kept going until they hit their third orgasm and collapsed on the bed. Her body laid on top of him, rubbing circles on his chest and kissing his jaw, listening to sweet sighs from him.

[buriedbehindtheshed]

Fixing a Broken Wing. Kaz Brekker x GN!reader

Word count: 1419 Warnings: Minor injury description. A/N: Thought I'd start posting here as well as Ao3! Hope y'all like it. We need more gn fics. No pronouns or y/n are used for the reader! There aren't many physical descriptions either!

The frigid air was harsh on the looming city of Ketterdam. Nightfall broke on the horizon, and the tapping of a cane echoed from an open window. The usual ruckus of the Barrel was dimmed by the racing thoughts of a singular slimy bastard: Kaz Brekker.

You were an investment of his–A sly one from the Menagerie. Your silent nature and singing blades kept you labeled as an honorary Crow. You were sent on a venture for Heleen, but you were supposed to meet back with Kaz at dawn. Since dawn, Kaz had waited.

And waited. 

And waited.

An unfamiliar prickle ghosted the back of Kaz's neck as hours flew by without a whisper of you. You were never late–not for him. The corner of his lip curled into a humorless smirk. Was he so blind to have faith in Heleen to consider keeping you safe?

With impeccable timing, a soft thump came from inside his bedroom. The thumping was followed by a low croak; Kaz could've sworn you were just a large toad. You harnessed the rest of your strength to push yourself up, just enough to slump against the wall.

Kaz paced towards the bedroom, his familiar hobbled steps echoing on the wooden floors. "You're late. You better have a damned good reason for falling behind. I'd like my investments close at hand," His familiar rasp grumbled. As he approached the room, he let his eyes fixate on you. His eyes were like flint as he observed your physical state, his gaze flickering over all of your wounds with expert precision. Your tale had been a messy one, it seemed.

Silently, Kaz stalked toward you, kneeling to your level. He pressed the silver crow's skull of his cane to your chin, tilting your head lightly, cataloging each wound with a veteran's eye. Slashes, bruises, wounds - all painted a sordid story across your flesh. "Heleen?" He asked, nearly deadly silent.

You parted your cracked, bloodied lips to speak, but nothing came out. Your throat was rough and raw. You simply nodded, swallowing thickly as your eyes threatened to close. Luckily, Kaz's cane supported your chin. If your head began to lull, he would use it to angle it back up.

Kaz scowled. No one would hurt one of his own. He always made sure of it. "You survived. That's all that matters." Reaching into an inner pocket, he plucked a small vial from it. He held it to your cracked lips, his voice leaving no room for denial. "Drink. It will help your throat." And perhaps loosen your tongue enough for you to share more. Heleen could wait; his prized weapon came first.

You took in a shaky breath, parting your lips and tilting your head up. You drank the amber-tinted liquid, your face contorting into disgust as it hit your tongue. "Saints, boss, what the hell is that?" You groan, still holding the liquid in your mouth.

A ghost of amusement flickered in Kaz's eyes to see your disgusted reaction, fleeting as quickly as it came. "Effective medicine tastes of punishment," Kaz replied flatly in his salt-bitten rasp. "Consider it penance for troubling me with putting you back together. Now swallow." He uncorked a waterskin from his belt to wash away the bitter taste of ginger and cloves. He held it to your lips, tilting your chin up with his cane. His cold gaze studied your face with keen precision, filing each of your hurts.

Your heart pangs with guilt at Kaz's words. You swallowed the liquid begrudgingly. It stung your throat momentarily before a cooling sensation washed over the tender flesh. You made fleeting eye contact with him, and you swear you felt your stomach twist. "I went to meet with a client near the harbor... I think the old witch wanted to be rid of me," You hissed through bloodied teeth. "I should've known it was trouble. I could hear the rustling of Kruge." You met Kaz's eye again, and as he took a sharp breath in to speak, you blurt out: "Please don't send me back."

He listened to your story in chilling silence. Heleen was a traitorous worm in Kaz’s eyes. Ice ran through his veins as you murmured your broken tale, freezing over some long-forgotten well of mercy. When you finished, he opened his mouth to speak but froze when you interrupted him with a shaky plea. "You won't be," He whispered. The ghost of the broken boy gazed out at you through Kaz's eyes, understanding the unspoken between you two. "I wouldn't send you back if my life depended on it." 

Kaz rose in one fluid motion, looming over you like the vengeful raven his reputation had painted. His cane slipped from beneath your chin, causing your head to drop slightly. He stalked over to the small sink across the room and filled a ceramic bowl with water. Gloved hands darted around, grabbing various rags and containers. He moved back to you slowly and silently, gingerly placing the items on the floor beside you. Then, he slipped off his coat and neatly laid it down on the railing of his bed frame. He knelt once more, quick hands soaking the rag.

The silence between the two of you was deafening. Kaz’s slow, shaking breaths would slice through it occasionally, putting your mind at ease. He wrung out the excess water from the cloth and, with a trembling hand, he pressed it to a wound on your forehead. His care for your well-being seemed to trump his fears about getting too close to you. You grunt quietly as he cleans your injuries, but he makes no attempt to be any gentler. 

He put the cloth back in the water and rinsed out the crimson substance that’d once coated it. You couldn’t help but notice his encased fingertips never broke the water’s surface in the bowl – A trick he must’ve learned all these years. His dark hair fell over his forehead as he angled his head down to clean off the rag. 

He drew a handkerchief from his vest pocket and lifted a small earthenware jar from the floor. In a swift motion, he unscrewed the top and set it on the ground before dipping the cloth into the contents – a soothing salve developed from hard-won experience to ease battered flesh. With a sharp breath, he leaned a bit closer, smearing the substance into your wound.

It stung … and stunk. Your nose scrunches as the scent burns your nostrils. “What is it with you and foul medicine?” You manage to grumble before he silences you with an icy glare through his eyelashes. 

“Would you rather be infected?” Replied Kaz, arching an eyebrow at you.

“No.” You stare back at him.

“Figured,” He whispered, the corner of his lip tugging into what most would consider a lesser frown, and to you, a smile. “You’re no use to me damaged.”

Kaz’s hands soon lowered as he finished coating your wounds in the substance. He leaned back immediately and scanned over your face once more. He took in a slow breath before he stood once more. “I will leave these with you to work on any other areas my eyes can’t touch,” He murmured. “I will leave you the room.”

Your eyes follow his form as he stands and runs a hand through his hair. His dark eyes flicker over you with a softer expression now—something underlying. “Very well,” You murmur.

As he turns to exit the room, he pauses and calls your name.

You turn to meet his gaze once more. “Yes?”

“The Crows will carry your name as they do mine,” He rasped. “No force in this world will send you back against your will. You have my word.”

You felt your stomach twist at his words. Your chest was swelling with warmth, or perhaps you were bleeding internally. Your wall was breaking. It was dangerous. 

“Thank you, Kaz.” His name rolled off your tongue so easily like honey dripping onto warm bread. You rarely used Kaz’s name – You always opted for ‘boss’ or ‘Brekker.’ At this moment, however, Kaz deserved to be Kaz.

Kaz’s upper lip twitched slightly as you spoke his name. He felt his breath catch in his throat, hearing the way it so easily slipped from your mouth. He tightened his hand around the silver crow handle of his cane. “Rest,” He murmured before he made his swift exit, leaving you alone in the warm lamplight of his bedroom.

[tethered-heartstrings]

Fanfiction Masterlist!

Total fics: 33

Total word count: 336k

Updated: October 3rd, 2024

(under the cut for length!)

newest fics have asterisks **

A Little Gold Goes a Long Way, 168k

Will Graham struggles with heroin addiction. His unending seek for peace sends him into Hannibal's arms. Can Will and Hannibal reach tranquility, or will their violent nature tear them to pieces?

Vilkatas, 18k (werewolf Hannibal)

Will finds another stray on the side of the road, but it quickly becomes more than simply adding him to the pack. The lines between man and beast and monster become blurred.

The Pulse That Sustains You, 18k (MCD, but trust me)

One of them dies, and the survivor has to cope.

What the Wind Carries, 4k

Hannibal has a nightmare about Mischa and he smokes to cope

First of Many, 2.2k

Hannibal and Will share their first kiss

**A Sacrifice, a Hunger, 6.5k

Hannibal loses Mischa, and he resorts to desperate measures to bring her back. (Hannibal x Fullmetal Alchemist) insp. by this post

Smut/NSFW:

Fever, 3k

Will is sick and begs Hannibal to take care of him

Bound, 2.7k

Will Graham is tied to a chair and Hannibal sates his hunger.

Breathe, 2.5k

Will gives Hannibal a very enthusiastic blowjob

Appetite, 3.8k

Will is needy and bratty and demands Hannibal stop cooking him dinner to sate him

To Be Seen, 5.8k

Will goes to Hannibal in distress and gets relief he didn't expect

In the Depths of the Other, 23k

After the fall, Will struggles with his feelings for Hannibal and a lifetime of telling him that a love like this could, should, never be.

Let Your Tongue Taste Salvation, 27k

Father Hannibal Lecter has his faith tested and torn when a troubled stranger walks into his church seeking reprieve.

Through My Eyes, 10k

Hannibal wants Will too see himself as Hannibal sees him, and the favor is returned.

The Blood on My Lips is Yours, 7.6k

Will and Hannibal get into a fight and fuck after

Revved Up, 4.8k

Hannibal watches Will fix the car and gets turned on

Overture, 7.1k

Hannibal takes Will to the opera and shenanigans ensue

Instinct, 5.3k

Hannibal gives Will an anatomy lesson and teaches him what he and his mouth were built for (fingers in mouth)

Smoking Ficlet Series (Complete!)

(based off this post)

My Exception, 1.6k

Will is the only person Hannibal lets smoke in the house

Third Store in a Storm, 1.6k

Hannibal preferentially smokes clove cigarettes for the symbolism, and Will readily indulges him

A Flame For Trembling Hands, 1.1k

Will loses time and finds himself at Hannibal's office. His nerves get the better of him and Hannibal lends a hand.

Surprise Inside, <1k

Hannibal gets mad when Will repeatedly leaves cigarettes in his pockets on laundry day until Will leaves Hannibal a little surprise

A Shared Flame, <1k

In the hustle of fixing up their new house in the quiet countryside, Will misplaces his lighter and has to rely on Hannibal to help him

By Candlelight, 1.1k

Will and Hannibal share a cigarette in the bath, admiring each other and cherishing the body beside them

Circle of Indulgences, <1k

Will and Hannibal share the classic cigarette after sex

Pearlescence, 1.1k

Hannibal gives Will a gift for his birthday

As Autumn Creeps, 1k

Will performs smoke tricks to distract the psychiatrist in Hannibal from prying into what's bothering him

Stunning Performance, <1k

Will relishes in watching Hannibal kill someone, a work of art in motion, while smoking a cigarette, and then rewards Hannibal by lighting his own cigarette for him

Nourish a Habit, <1k

Once lift after the fall settles down, Hannibal adopts a new hobby of growing and curing his own tobacco to sate his and Will's indulgences

Blowing Smoke, 1.6k

Will and Hannibal get stranded during a storm and decide to wrestle each other for the last cigarette

First Frolic of Spring, <1k

Will and Hannibal sit on the porch and smoke together as they watch the dogs enjoy running around in their yard for the first time since winter original HHB post

art a friend made of HHB <3

Practice and Patience, <1k

Hannibal teaches Will how to play the theremin

Guiding Light of Ember, 2k

Will has a nightmare about their dive from the cliff into the sea and smokes to cope while Hannibal soothes his fears and trembling hands

tips are greatly appreciated <3

[bravo4iscool]

torn apart chapter 8 (index)

(cato hadley x fem!(plus-size!)reader)

Your hand trembles when you and your father come to a hold in front of Cato. You felt the eyes of the whole Capitol on you. He extends his hand and you watch in a trance as your father places your hand in Cato’s.

Then he turns to you and presses a gentle kiss to your forehead before leaving to get to his seat. Cato looks at you, a faint smile on his face. He had to. Your wedding was shown all over the Capitol. He had to act as if he was stupidly in love with you. 

But he wasn’t. The only girl he ever loved was dead. Killed by the Capitol. Killed by—

“Cato,” your quiet voice drags him out of his thoughts. You stand opposite of him, his hand clutching yours. There’s a smile on your face but everyone could see that it didn’t quite reach your eyes. Cato has never seen you smile genuinely, he now realizes. 

His eyes find yours and he gives your hand a slight squeeze of comfort. Then he guides you up the few stairs towards the government official that would marry you. 

He can’t help but see Clove in front of him. It wasn’t fair, he knew, but sometimes when he didn’t pay enough attention he thought she was still with him, beside him. But she wasn’t. 

The official smiles at you and Cato as he hands you both your vows. You didn’t write them. Your mother made sure to do that. Whatever it said on those cards, you've never read it but you needed to act as if you wrote those words yourself. You take a look at the written words, skimming over the sentences. Then you look up at Cato.

The official clears his throat, a big smile on his face. “ We are gathered here today to celebrate one of life’s greatest relationships–the union between man and woman and this blessing we call marriage. As you both are joined together in this marriage, I ask you both to search your hearts for the wisdom of this covenant, which has from ancient times been expressed with those ideas that come from the heart.” You can hear a round of aww's and coos from the crowd. 

He looks at you first, then at Cato. “The promises you are about to make to each other are ones of irrevocable love, fidelity, cooperation, and understanding through life and all of life’s difficult challenges.” The grin on his face is starting to freak you out. “Marriage is a commitment to life—to the best that two people can find and bring out in each other. It offers opportunities for sharing and growth no other relationship can equal, a physical and emotional joining that is promised for a lifetime.” 

The official nods at you and Cato and you take a deep breath. It was time for your vows. 

Your voice is soft as you start speaking, “I love you with my whole heart and with a passion that can't be expressed in words, only in kisses, glances, and years of adventures by your side.” You take a deep breath. “I promise to be your honest, faithful, and loving wife for the rest of my days. I pledge to honor you, love you, and cherish you as my husband today and every day that's to come.” Your vision starts to blur as tears gather in your eyes. They weren’t happy tears though. “Today I say, "I do" but to me that means, "I will." I will take your hand and stand by your side in the good and the bad. I dedicate myself to your happiness, success, and smile.” You blink a few times before you force a smile. “I will love you forever.”

What a beautiful lie , Cato thinks to himself when you finish your vows. He can see your mother cry from the corner of his eye and he wants to huff. That woman certainly knew how to put on a show. Then he focuses his attention back to you. You look so beautiful in your dress, tears threatening to fall from your face. You didn’t deserve this.

He can faintly hear the official talking to him and he glances down at his vows. Then he clears his throat. “Today, I promise to be your navigator and protector in all of life's adventures. I promise to be your best friend and your husband.” Best friend… Maybe he could do that. That didn’t sound too hard. “I promise myself to you completely. Your love gives me hope. Your smile gives me joy. You make me a better man.” You've barely been together for four weeks. You have never seen him at his worst. He was a hopeless man. “When I am with you, everything else fades to the background. You flood my senses with joy.” He avoided you as best as he could. Whenever he was with you he saw Clove. You were the one that faded into the background. “You are my life, my greatest gift.” His greatest gift would've been Clove with him right now… “I'm so lucky to call you my loving wife.” Another beautiful lie… 

Your hands are sweaty as you place them in Cato’s, the official wrapping a white ribbon around your joined hands. He has a big smile on his face as he starts talking, “Your two lives are now joined in one unbroken circle. Wherever you go, may you always return to one another in your togetherness.” You’re sure you can hear your mother sob. “May you two find in each other the love for which all men and women long for. May you grow in understanding and compassion.” Your grip around Cato’s hands tightens. “Before I pronounce you husband and wife, I want you to take a few seconds to look into each other’s eyes. Think about the happiness you’re feeling…at this moment.” There was no happiness. Neither from you nor Cato. “Let those feelings sink deep into your hearts. I hope this moment and these feelings will stick with you all the days of your lives.” The look in Cato’s eyes is unreadable as always. But you knew he wasn’t happy, nor was he feeling–even a tiny bit–of love. 

You focus on the voice of the official again, “And with that, by the power vested in me by our admirable President Snow, I now pronounce you husband and wife! Cato, you may kiss your Bride! ” 

The wedding hall erupts in applause and cheers as Cato slowly pulls you closer, planting his lips on yours. It was a short kiss, nothing major but you felt something inside you shift. And you didn’t like that. 

(previous chapter | next chapter | index)

[yeyinde]

Hi! Hope you're doing well. I just have to say that you're my favorite writer and a huge inspiration to me. Everything you write, even the small little snippets, just make me so happy.

Are you by chance still doing the WIP snippets? Cause I go feral for Jacob Seed, and when I saw you had a WIP for him I can honestly say I almost fell out of my chair.

Hiya! This is so sweet!! Thank you so much 🖤😭

Jacob Seed is one of those characters who I'd very much like to chisel open. He's so intriguing. His ideologies are so unfounded but his conviction and his reasons for them are what I find really appealing.

This is quite a deviation from what I normally do—third person, technically no reader-insert (I kindaaaaa made an OC? Oops) a bit darker (dragging me back to my slasher roots), and pulls a lot from a pseudo-religious upbringing. It is really fun to write, in theory, but is one of those fics that is mentally taxing in the sense that every piece is part of a bigger picture. Despite that, though, I could probably talk about this fic more than any others because of all the weird influences it draws from—Siken (it was originally gonna be titled war of the foxes but I felt that was a little too on the nose so I changed it to wishbone which is even more on the nose), bible mythology (in particular, the warring interpretations of Abaddon, iyjyk but also??? Abaddon and Michael, though???? 👀), and um. Cult shenanigans.

Here is a little bit about it!

He's in her head now, a sickness polluting her grey matter until it's shaded the same colour as the burning auburn around his wicked mouth. The one that splits wide, and croons about her failures, her destiny, until the rasping slur of his words are skeined tight around her gyri. Festering like a cancer she can't clove. One that sounds more like a truism each time she hears it.

Jacob has his finger on the trigger of a loaded gun with the barrel pressed tight to her cerebellum. A tool, he said. One without a master. Until now. Until him.

She can't fight him. Can't get rid of him. 

She wonders if she ever even tried.

And for some Rook x Jacob (kinda sorta but in a weird and twisted way):

Jacob doesn't give an inch even with the barrel of her Whitetailer pointed at his heart. A beat, then, where the world around her seems to shiver at the smirk he sends her way, his own hand fixed, deadly and calm, on the butt of his garish rifle. Red. 

(Of course. Of course.)

He stands on his tower, a castle of rock in the middle of the Whitetail Mountains, surrounded by unfathomable wilderness, and the broken remnants of his wolf beacons, his fallen men. His Judges. 

They lay by her feet, discarded offerings to the man who vultured her sense of self, her agency, until the person she was before all of this was lost, collateral to a war she never agreed to. She feels it sometimes, the putrefying remains of idealism and hope clawing at her skull until the tissue shreds and bleeds. Feels it like a second degree burn, a scab she can't stop picking at, and then pushes it back into its sarcophagus. It's an effigial prison in which she's both a warden and cellmate. 

It rears, now, as her patent yellow boots sink into the ribcage of a man torn to shreds by her bullets, her fists, mourning the loss of who it once was—a person of empathy and compassion. Someone who would have recoiled at the sight of viscera staining her laces, bone crunching under the soles of her feet. 

But it's gone. All she feels is annoyance. Disgust. 

They rendered it out of her. All of them pulling and tugging until bits of herself ripped apart, left behind in their regions, in their hands. Faith holds her belief. John, her compassion. Joseph, her fear. And Jacob—

Well. 

She tries not to think about what she lost in his cages. The gaping hole where her humanity once sat is heavier now that it's empty. 

It doesn't matter. Not anymore. 

Everything has been culminating to this point. To this moment. She feels the weight of it, the truth, in her bones. Unlike John, unlike Faith, only one of them will walk away from this still breathing. Her fingers tense. A proxysm. 

She finds, as the sky fades back to an endless blue and the mournful call of a loon breaks through the coppice, that she isn't entirely sure she wants it to be her. 

"Everything, all of it, has been leading up to this moment," he calls down to her, answering the unspoken assertions that bounce around the bruised fibres of her head. Hunt. Kill. Sacrifice. She gets it. She hates that she does. Hates him, she thinks, even more for making her see, for turning her into his executioner so easily. "So, Deputy, what will you do?"

If it were Faith, there'd be something about the path. About choices. About submission and surrender. Giving up agency and self in the single-minded pursuit of devotion to the Father. John, maybe a taunt. A sotto voce about atonement and true self. Of life admit the torture. A baptism in pain. 

But Jacob is neither of them. 

"Are you gonna kill me, angel?" 

She thinks about it. Really does. Lets it grind down into her synapses as she imagines a world without him. A place in Hope County where they celebrate his death and burn his body on an altar, unwilling to let the cult take him back until he's charred bones and ashes. Sure, then, that he's gone. Forever. Always. No more. 

Jacob will burn. 

She thinks about it, and she shudders. 

It feels anticlimactic despite the effort he put into setting it all up. Moving beacons and men and cages and wolves. Tracking her down through the forest until she led them to the Wolf's Den, and put a bullet in the head of the only man who made her feel some sense of footing amid a crumbling world. A place that wasn't quite home but it was something. Purpose, maybe. 

It stands in sharp contrast to the dogfight between them. Jacob and his soldiers. A commander playing a game of war from the comfort of his sanctuary. They're gone, now, and she hates that she isn't, too. That no matter what she does, how open she leaves herself, he still lets her sneak up the side of his perch until she's crouched behind a log, until she can hear the weight of his footfalls as he searches for her across the blood smeared landscape. 

It's a fallacy. He knows where she is despite the engineered confusion in his tone. What was that? He asks. Come out and fight me, Deputy. You know I'll find you—

The red dot follows her, always just a few inches from where she's hiding. A farce. She hates it. Hates that he isn't really fighting her. A marksman, he said (hoorah), but the only bruises he gave her are in her mind. Mental scars. Stupid. She hates him. Despises him. 

(Hates herself even more.)

It feels like muscle memory when she peers over the ledge, her bloodied knuckles leaving smears of her fingerprints behind. He's there. Waiting. 

Killing Eli, killing phantoms. Killing men. Killing him. It all congeals in her marrow. Effortless. Easy. She's killed him so many times already that she's sure, now, she could close her eyes and find her mark. 

Over and over again, he turned to a nebula of dust when she jumped on his back, wrapping nimble fingers around his neck. Mocking words haunting her as he dissolved into the aether. The Father will protect me. You need me. Don't fight it. Just let go. You've served your purpose. Let's say you get out of this. What's next? You go back to running errands for a teenager and a housewife? You are nothin' without Eli. 

"Come out, come out wherever you are, honey," his crooning taunt makes her hackles raise. A part of her hindbrain prickles with unease. Jacob brings a certain terror out of those dormant depths—an atavistic fear coils around her jugular. "Let's finish this." 

She wants to end him. To kill and maim and bend and break until nothing is left but bones and tissue. She wants to ruin him. Wants him to ruin her. To end this conflict at the top of a precipice she never wanted to climb. 

She says nothing—not to him, to them—but scuffs her feet against the gravel for no reason other than to make him look. He whips around, hand steady on his rifle. 

"Finally done hiding, Deputy?" 

The red dot hasn't left her vicinity since she prowled after him, unleashing hell and gunfire on the men—his Chosen, his best—that tried to keep her away from him. Hiding, she thinks, and wonders if those words are a projection. 

The Whitetailer—the only anchor she's had since she found it laying behind in an abandoned cabin—hums under her fingers. Pulses with the blood rushing through her veins. It's always been heavy. An SA50 isn't easy to carry across a landscape she mostly ventured on foot (as the near constant ache between her shoulders can attest to), but it feels both heavier and lighter than before. Another contradiction of many since she walked out of the Den and into a world on fire. Since she slit his throat and watched him turn into cosmic dust. 

It's steady, though. Unwavering. There's a gash on her arm from one of his Chosen. A bullet in her thigh. The unhealed wounds—bliss bullets and arrows—twinge with pain when she tenses her muscles, breathes in deep. Her broken ribs scream. She feels like more like a throbbing contusion than she does an actual person, still caught in the tendrils of her conditioning where his voice echoes in her head, the last notes of a song that turned her world into ashes. Only youuu… he'd crooned.

Only you. 

Only ever you. 

She gets it now. 

Or, she wishes that were true. It isn't. It isn't because maybe she's known all along. Since the bunker. Since Pratt. One, two, three. One, two, three. And then he's got you. Since she blinked into cognisance surrounded by the fallen bodies of the militia who didn't survive the training, who had bullet wounds that matched the shots she took in Jacob's trial. 

Since she went back to the Grand View and walked through the rows of cages in the parking lot. 

She gets it. 

She knows what she has to do. 

Her grip doesn't falter when she aims up. Up. His stomach. His lungs. His heart. 

"You can't. You're done. You've served your purpose, and now it's time to accept your place, Deputy. Where you belong." 

She thinks of Tammy. Of Wheaty. There's nothing left for her. Not anymore. 

Nothing except—

She wonders if there's a flash of panic in his cerulean eyes. A brief flicker of fear. But all she sees is contempt. 

"If I die, you'll be lost forever—"

She pulls the trigger. 

[zl0mudry]

Matthew Maule. A gentleman, scholar, a man of science and logic...

Well, that's who he is today or maybe he's Verden Fell, Mr. Thorn or Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac? Or Dr. Emil Corday? Hell, he might even be Dr. Alexander Sweet or Crispian Grimes! As long as he isn't D. D. Denham all should be fine.

Who he is exactly is a matter of no small amount of conjecture, but a few things are certain; he is never seen without one of his faithful feline companions, someone who claims to be him's current location is in Leavenworth, Washington, and his sense of fashion, though sharp, is a bit out of date.

Please don't use OOC information as IC information. Half the fun is the other characters not knowing. He'll tell you what he tells you.

FULL NAME: Wladislaus III Dragwlya of Wallachia

NICKNAME: The Impaler, Kaziklu Bey, Vlad Tepes

GENDER: ?

HEIGHT: 5'4

AGE: 590

ZODIAC: Capricorn

SPOKEN LANGUAGES: Romanian, German (With a spot of Bavarian), French, Italian, Latin, Hungarian, Arabic, Turkish, English.

HAIR COLOR: Iron Black

EYE COLOR: Black, no pupil

BODY TYPE: Think powerlifter

ACCENT: Transatlantic accent when speaking to strangers or acquaintances. Heavy Romanian accent when speaking to close friends or family.

VOICE: Extremely deep, hitting G1

DOMINANT HAND: Left

POSTURE: Straight, head held high, chin up, shoulders back. Noble and balanced

TATTOOS: (Unsure yet)

BIRTHMARKS: None

MOST NOTICEABLE FEATURE(S): Signature facial hair, curled mustache. Facial scars, X on his forehead and round bullet wound from a small caliber handgun under his left eye. Hairy. Claws. Unusual teeth. THICK eyebrows.

PLACE OF BIRTH: Sighișoara, Mureș County, Romania

HOMETOWN: ?

BIRTH WEIGHT: 4 pounds

BIRTH HEIGHT. 9 inches

FIRST WORDS: Scared

SIBLINGS: Mircea II of Wallachia, Radu III the Fair, Vlad IV the Monk, Alexandria of Wallachia

PARENTS: Vlad II Dracul, Doamna Eupraxia of Moldavia

PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT: Unfortunate

OCCUPATION: International Man of One Person Activities

CURRENT RESIDENCE: His remote cabin in the mountains of Washington

CLOSE FRIENDS: Bach, Dori, Wing

RELATIONSHIP STATUS: I don't think he knows even

FINANCIAL STATUS: More than $1

DRIVER’S LICENSE: Afraid of cars

CRIMINAL RECORD: War Criminal

VICES: He is a broody chicken of a man and will adopt anything packbondable, smoking clove cigarettes, good liquor/spirits, luxury food, collecting new hobbies.

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Bisexual

ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: Biromantic

PREFERRED EMOTIONAL ROLE: Switch, Dom leaning

PREFERRED SEXUAL ROLE: Switch, Dom leaning

LIBIDO: Insatiable once close

TURN ONS: Sense of humor, being wanted, submissiveness, trying to turn him on

TURN OFFS: Lying, disloyalty, cheating, abuse

LOVE LANGUAGE: All of them? Mostly acts of service

RELATIONSHIP TENDENCIES: Screaming goat of a man, but a doting one

Mr. Bad Guy - Freddie Mercury

I love you, Honey Bear - Father John Misty

HOBBIES TO PASS TIME: Master of The One Person Activity

MENTAL ILLNESSES: I think they are apparent and I'm not comfortable listing them all flat out. I'll name Misophonia, PTSD, and Depression

PHYSICAL ILLNESSES: Extreme far-sightedness, prone to dizziness and fainting, severe anemia, wheezing and coughing fits

LEFT OR RIGHT BRAINED: A little of both

FEARS: Cars, umbrellas, sudden loud noises, mirrors, being stared at, elevators, escalators

SELF CONFIDENCE LEVEL: Sometimes you feel like a nut sometimes you don't. (It comes and goes, situation dependent)

VULNERABILITIES: His temper, unable to let go, doesn't know himself, bright lights, loud noises, paranoid, can't use cars, too polite

[cushfuddled]

It's the culture now, I'm afraid. A lot of this behavior stems from a moral panic over fanfic's capacity for normalization—i.e., the paranoia that reading "bad" fiction will erode your ethics/common sense and drive you to do bad things. This new practice (where writers fill their notes with apologies and beg readers to heed the tags) makes a lot more sense when you look at it as a preemptive defense strategy.

...Or, maybe less a strategy than a shibboleth to signal one's moral piety.

In this paranoid culture, creators are taught to anticipate accusations of harm and normalization, a la "this fanfic harmed me and normalizes x y and z."

"I do not condone the acts portrayed in this story" and "please heed the tags for your own safety" are the cloves of garlic you hang in a doorway to keep out bad spirits. These phrases are meant to invoke a pardon from bad-faith readers on the basis that you mean no harm. It reminds me of the desperate "I do not own this series or the characters!" notes from the 00's, where the disclaimer provided no actual protection but created the security theater necessary to sustain creativity. It's sad to see us all so afraid of each other now, rather than copyright giants.

Getting this off my chest:

Back from a small fanfic hiatus, and I am absolutely flabbergasted by all of the fic authors now practically begging their readers to READ THE TAGS.

I’ve been seeing this warning written in summaries, in author’s notes, highlighted in all caps in the actual tags. I’ve read so many apologies written by authors in the comments in response to people chastising the author for writing what they wanted to write, for what they tagged correctly — for what essentially comes down to nothing more than having had other people actively ignore their tags or read despite them.

And there seems to be this bizarre, somehow largely accepted idea that it is the creators job and responsibility to beseech their readers to ‘use caution’ and to ‘stay safe’, to ‘be mindful of their health’…

I am beyond confused here.

Since when??? did exercising the most basic form of common sense and acknowledging one’s personal yeas and nays, likes and limitations, become some other random stranger’s burden rather than one’s own? And especially a random person who tagged their work correctly??? Does no one remember how to harness their own powers of discernment and self-regulation???

This little jaunt back onto ao3 has been unlike any that I’ve ever experienced before. What. Happened?????? Who is this new, apparently severely emotionally unstable and obstinately tags-reading resistant audience everyone has come to focus on?

It all feels so out of touch. The basic concept of ao3 is for the reader to seek out what they want, not what they don’t want. And to actually read. But there seems to have been an extremely strong shift away from reading. On ao3. A site built specifically for reading and writing. (And other fandom artistic pursuits, but not my focus, atm; though I’m sure whatever this is has crept steadily into all spaces there.)

Plummeting reading comprehension must be somewhat to blame; the popularity of fanfic amongst younger and wider audiences, as well. But… young people have always been there, as far as my own experiences go, and it was never like this. It’s as if too many readers don’t know how to make good or even practical decisions for themselves anymore, that they’ve lost the skill of choosing, and now believe that they must consume everything that passes before them; — that they have, for some reason, adopted the belief that any turmoil or dislike or discomfort felt within themselves is harm purposely being done to them by the author.

Idk. Idk, idk, idk. It’s just such a bummer to see how much nervousness and distress has entered the community. Authors notes and comments used to be hilarious fun, or a peek into someone else’s real-life world, used to be casual and full of personality, whereas nowadays, there seems to be an underlying hesitancy and distrust, a sort of growing divide between writers and readers, groups which, until recently, very much were not mutually exclusive.

--

Idiots have been around forever. The more you cater to them, the more entitled they get. It's best to shut that shit down fast and use no warnings that indicate a willingness to entertain stupid complaints.

[ltwilliammowett]

Talking gravestones

This special type of gravestone is only found in northern Germany and especially on the islands of Föhr, with 265 examples, and Amrum with 152 examples. They were given the name "speaking stones" or "narrative stones" due to the fact that they usually only have a picture in the head area and an inscription in High German underneath that tells of the family and professional life, as well as special events in the life and honorary offices of the deceased.

A Whaler tomb, Föhr (x)

These elaborate stones were made at the end of the 17th century, and in the 18th century in particular, agriculture on the rather infertile North Frisian Islands was unable to feed the growing population, so many of the male inhabitants hired themselves out on whaling ships.

These are two very special stones, left is the stone of Harck Olufs in Amrum. He was born on 19.7.1708 in Süddorf. He went to sea at the age of 12. In 1724 he was captured by pirates and sold as a slave to the Bey of Constantine in Algiers. He began as a footman, converted to Islam in the meantime and later even became commander-in-chief of the cavalry. In the uniform of an Ottoman general, he returned to Amrum in 1736 after being freed by his master a year earlier. In order to be able to marry his love Antje Lorenzen, he had himself confirmed. The relationship produced four girls and a boy. Harck Olufs died unexpectedly on 13.10.1754 at the age of 46. His wife and children returned from church and found him dead in his armchair. The right one is the the stone of Matthias Petersen who was born 1632 and died 1706. His stone is written in Latin and reports that he was very knowledgeable in sailing to Greenland, where he caught 373 whales with unbelievable success, so that from then on he was called "The Lucky One" with everyone's approval. A carved whale and Fortuna, the goddess of luck, can be seen. (x) (x)

Initially, the inhabitants took roughly worked erratic blocks of granite that were specific to the place and provided them with inscriptions. Whaling brought the men great prosperity and later sandstone was imported. In the 17th century, gravestones lying on the ground predominated. In addition, there were smaller red sandstone tiles, often with a small drilled hole and attached to a piece of wood or whale bone. Since the 18th century, upright stones, so-called stelae, were used, which have the typical elements of speaking stones.

On the right side a stone with an octant and in the middle one with a ship, Süderende Cemetery, Föhr (x)

The relief decoration of the tombs is in the Baroque and Rococo style. It is often fantastically opulent, the forms do not repeat themselves. They show angels, symbols of justice, happiness, the signs of faith, hope and love, proud ships and mills. For the seafarers, ships were mostly depicted. If the sailor died on a ship, his gravestone shows a ship under full sail. A ship without sails on the grave indicates that the sailor died on land. Other motifs could also be an anchor, an octant or a whale.

Whaler tombs, Nebel, Friedhof St. Clemens, Amrum (x)

A special iconographic tradition has been preserved in the floral motif: the husband and sons of the family are listed on the gravestone on the left in tulip-like flowers, the wife and daughters on the right in the form of four-flowered, star-shaped flowers. A bent flower indicates that the person in question was already deceased at the time the gravestone was made. The frequency of this symbolism testifies to a high infant mortality rate.

A flower tree gravestone, Föhr (x)

From the middle of the 19th century onwards, this type of gravestone began to lose importance, which was also due to the fact that whaling was slowly but surely coming to an end, and with it the lack of money.

A captains grave with an anchor, Föhr (x)

At the end of the 19th century, only very few speaking stones were made, and since the 20th century none at all.

@clove-pinks​

[hctirdle]

I know I said I had faith, but I lied. Some of the recipes you've been posting don't even bother to mention there's a difference between pepper variants commonly used in Central Europe vs the U.S. while some of them are just straight up ??? I'm sure they taste fine but they are not any variation of this particular dish that I'm aware of.

Here's a tried and true chicken paprikash recipe from someone who's had some good versions and also some horrible Hungarian school cafeteria and extended family event attempts over the decades. I've been making it like this for years and imo it's pretty good and, dare I say, "authentic".

Note to vegans/vegetarians: Chicken paprikash is just chicken prepared as a paprikash, ergo trying to make this without chicken is going to be a different dish altogether. The good news is that mushroom and green/yellow wax bean paprikash are actual existing dishes. Just make the paprikash base, adjust cooking time with your main ingredient in mind, and that's pretty much it. Garnish with chopped parsley.

Chicken paprikash (2 servings):

2 whole chicken legs (or 4 drumticks, or 4 chicken thighs) with skin and bones (yes, keeping the skin and bones does make a difference in taste and texture)

about 2 tablespoons of lard or sunflower oil or some other kind of unflavored oil (the bottom of your pan should be generously coated)

1 big brown onion

sweet (édesnemes or csemege) paprika (NOT smoked paprika, not chili powder)

salt

optional (but highly recommended):

1 garlic clove

1 sweet Hungarian wax pepper if you can find it (not to be confused with banana peppers; do not substitute with bell peppers, that's a whole different vibe)

1 tomato (canned is fine; you can also use a teaspoon of tomato paste, just make sure to add less salt later on if the paste is salty)

1/2 cup of sour cream

1/2 tablespoon of plain white flour (or cornstarch)

+ hot paprika if desired, you can add this at the end

+ spätzle or pasta to serve (something like penne or macaroni's perfectly fine; less traditionally you can also have it with rice or even just bread if you'd prefer)

prep:

dice pepper, onion, tomato (I really don't care tbh, but some people prefer to remove the skin of the tomato: cut a small "x" into the skin on top of the tomato, submerge in boiling hot water for about half a minute, fish it out and put it in a bowl of cold water or just run cold water over it in the sink and you should be able to peel it without much trouble)

mince garlic

if you bought whole chicken legs, cut them into thighs and drumsticks

Choose a pot that will comfortably hold your chicken pieces side by side, start heating it on medium. Give it a minute and add lard/oil. Add diced pepper if using. Sauté for a couple minutes until it's starting to get a bit of color and fragrance, then add diced onion and minced garlic with a pinch of salt. Keep stirring. You don't want to char anything, but the onions should have a nice golden color and lose most of their water content before you move on.

Transfer the pot over to a cold burner for the next step. Add 1 tablespoon of paprika and stir. We're doing it this way because paprika releases its oils best in hot oil, but it also has a nasty tendency to burn and ruin the whole dish. Add half a cup of water and the diced tomato if using. Add chicken pieces and coat them in the sauce. Salt lightly. Add just enough water so your chicken pieces are about halfway submerged.

Cover the pot and let simmer on low heat for 1 hour. Do not stir. If you're concerned about burning, gently shake the pot from side to side once in a while. We don't want the chicken pieces to fall apart. (What happens if they do? Tbh absolutely nothing, it just looks messy.) Add small amounts of water if/when necessary to keep the water at the og level.

At the hour mark, the chicken should be done. (I'll confess here that I usually just leave it unattended for the whole hour as I work on other stuff. Once you get the hang of it, this isn't a fussy dish you need to keep a close eye on.) If you want to get fancy, you can carefully move the chicken pieces to a plate and set aside. Mix the flour (or cornstarch) with the sour cream in a bowl. Ladle a bit of liquid from the pot into the sour cream mixture and mix again. Repeat until you have a nice, runny sour cream mixture with a smooth texture. Mix sour cream into the contents of your pot and cook on low for about 2 minutes. Don't let it come to a boil. Taste and add more salt if necessary. Put the chicken pieces back into the pot and you're done.

[castletown-cafe]

Castletown Café Episode 3: Spaghetti Code

Toby Fox being Toby Fox, it’s not surprising that he would take a programming term for messy source code and turn it into a consumable item. Normally, the in-game spaghetti code is said to be made of macarons and ribbons, and when fed to your party members, they talk about wearing it. It’s likely this item is just as unruly a code as the actual programming term itself, but we’ve made it more orderly for a proper meal, making this Tasque Manager approved!

A more faithful re-creation made with macarons and ribbon candy is a different recipe for another day. Today, this Spaghetti Code is what you’d expect it to be - real spaghetti, a hand-made spaghetti sauce, plant-based meatballs, freshly grated Parmesan cheese, and fresh parsley to top it off with. That’s right, the source of this delicious code is in a sauce programmed entirely by hand! This sauce will be the main spotlight of today’s recipe, alongside a recipe for meatballs that I used to do back when I still ate meat, which can also be made with plant-based protein. Lastly comes the assembly of this whole dish. The result is one hearty Spaghetti Code that would be worthy of serving in our Café!

SPAGHETTI SAUCE CODE:

(Recipe inspired by Rachel Cook’s recipe for spaghetti sauce, but I built off of it and put my own spin on it. You, too, can do the same, adjusting it to your own tastes).

8 Roma tomatoes

3-5 large garlic cloves

1 small yellow onion

1/2 large red pepper OR 1 whole small red pepper

One 14.5 oz can crushed or diced tomatoes with juice

One 14.5 oz can tomato sauce

2 tablespoons tomato paste

2 tablespoons cream cheese

1/2 cup vegetable broth

1 tablespoon light brown sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1-2 bay leaves

1 or 2 tsp ground thyme

1 tblsp dried oregano

1 tblsp dried basil

1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped

Extra salt & pepper to taste

It might be a good idea to get all your spices measured and put together in a tiny bowl. This can consist of your salt, thyme, oregano, basil, and bay leaves. You can also include your brown sugar here. Your fresh parsley can and should also be chopped at this point and set aside. Having all your spices pre-measured just makes it easier when you add them later to your sauce.

Wash and dry all your Roma tomatoes. Bring a pot or large, deep saucepan halfway filled with water to boil on high heat. Carefully carve an X through the skin on the bottom of each tomato (but do not cut too deep into the fruit). Once your water is boiling, place your tomatoes into the pot for about 30 seconds or until the skin on the tomatoes have loosened. With a heat-proof slotted spoon, take out your tomatoes and place them into a bowl. Let the water in your pot cool a little before pouring it out - you’ll need your pot/saucepan again later.

Now, just peel your tomatoes. The skin should slide off easily now that they’ve been blanched. Then, you can chop them up or stick ‘em in a blender or food processor and let that do the chopping for you (Pulse mode and Chop is the preferred setting if using this method).

Wash and dry remaining produce, mince up your onion, pepper and garlic (I recommend using a garlic crusher/presser for the garlic).

Heat up a drizzle of olive oil in your pot or saucepan over medium heat and cook your onion and garlic for 30 seconds or a minute until fragrant before adding your pepper. Let cook, stirring occasionally, until onion and pepper are tender and onion is caramelized.

Add and stir in the tomato paste and cream cheese. Make sure this cream cheese and tomato paste combination coats your veggies before proceeding to step 7.

Add in chopped Roma tomatoes, canned tomatoes with juice, tomato sauce, and vegetable broth. Stir in brown sugar, salt, bay leaves, oregano, basil, chopped parsley leaves, and thyme. If half a teaspoon of salt isn’t enough for you, you can sprinkle in a little extra, also, sprinkle in some ground pepper to taste. Bring to a simmer for as long as you need (about one hour minimum).

You’ve had your sauce simmering for about an hour or longer, but wait! We’re not done yet! Remove the bay leaves and blend that all up in a blender until smooth. The puree setting is just right for the job here.

Now just let your sauce cool and stick it in the refrigerator overnight, so the flavors meld together. The sauce should taste better the next day when it’s ready for spaghetti!

A sauce in progress.

Now, for the meatballs, I just buy pre-made plant-based meatballs that are pre-seasoned and delicious, and I cook them according to the package directions. But if you’d rather have meatballs made from real meat, or would rather make your own plant-based meatballs, here’s a recipe I used to use. We rarely made our own, but I enjoyed the extra work. Keep in mind that using real meat isn’t doing the environment any favors.

Also, this goes without saying, but wash your hands thoroughly and frequently if you are working with raw meat. Wash hands immediately after touching raw meat or wear food-safe gloves and dispose of them before handling anything else, and clean and sanitize your work station wherever you’ve been working with raw meat.

MEATSBALLS.JPEG

(If you’d rather make these plant-based, substitute both ground beef and Italian sausage for 1 whole lb ground plant-based protein).

1/2 lb ground beef

1/2 lb ground Italian sausage

1 minced or crushed clove garlic

1 egg, beaten

2 tablespoons chopped parsley

1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1 cup Italian breadcrumbs or panko

3/4 cup lukewarm water

Salt & pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C)

Finely mince or press/crush your garlic

Mix raw beef and sausage together in a bowl (or ground plant-based protein) and add egg, cheese, parsley, salt, and pepper.

Mix in bread crumbs and slowly add water, mixing as you go.

Heat a drizzle of olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat, and brown meatballs. Remove meatballs once the outside is browned. We will finish cooking the meatballs in the oven.

Place your browned meatballs in a casserole dish and finish cooking the meatballs in the oven for another 8 to 10 minutes, or until meatballs are cooked all the way through.

Clean and sanitize your work surfaces after working with raw meat.

Whether you’ve made your own, or using pre-made meatballs, whether they’re made of real meat or plants, your next steps are the easiest: cook your pasta and heat up your sauce, which you can stick your meatballs in after they’re done.

Fill up a pot of water, add salt if you want, bring it to a rolling boil on high heat, place your spaghetti noodles in, reduce heat to medium-high, and let cook until your noodles are tender. Meanwhile, heat up your spaghetti sauce over medium heat, and if your meatballs are ready, plop ‘em into the sauce and cover it up with a lid because your sauce WILL bubble!

Grate some fresh Parmesan cheese, chop up fresh parsley, and just wait for your spaghetti to be fully cooked and your sauce to be fully warmed. Drain your spaghetti, place some noodles on a plate, and top with sauce, meatballs, cheese, and parsley. Enjoy!

[abyss-of-mine]

Unhinged with ocs #4

Zack gripping Monica's breast and fingering her entrance while thrusting into her other hole. Him kissing and nibbling on her neck while she digs her nails into the covers, panting and moaning out from his needy hips and fingers. Once she's dripping from both areas, he flips her on the bed and pushes her thighs down on her chest to start pounding into her entrance, clearly desperate and rough.

River's back pressing against Drake's chest as he grips her thighs and bounces her on his member. Him pushing her fully on his hard shaft and getting faster on satisfying themselves. She moans his name loudly, loving how needy he is as he slams her down and climaxes inside her, only to continue pounding her.

Mary and Annalise holding onto each other's bodies and kissing one another fiercely while bouncing themselves on the toys they stuck on the floor of the shower. Mary licking Annalise's neck, drinking up the water splashing on them and pumping herself faster on the toy. Annalise squeezing Mary's breasts and having her neck attacked, moaning her partner's name as their bodies bursts in pleasure.

Wendy holding Summer's hips as she thrusts into her with the strap-on. She moans from Summer turning the setting higher on the vibrating underwear while Wendy kisses her and swirls her tongue in the other's mouth. Summer holds her head to deep the kiss and slams her body against the headboard from Wendy's thrusts. Pleasure stains the covers and underwear before switching their positions.

Quinn pants harshly at the pounding into their backside, their hands gripping the side of the table to keep themself in stay while Bruno thrusts into their hole. He grips their hips and watches the strap-on enters and exists his partner, not holding back on hammering into them. Their member drips with lust and excitement, waiting for him to finish to flip him on the table and nail him until he can't respond.

Faith rides Clove's member while he's bound and gagged as punishment. She grips the headboard and allows herself go crazy on him, pounding herself with such roughness and desire. He moans behind the gag and tenses up more and more before climaxing inside her just for her to keep going.

Jack holds Lucas against the wall, hammering into his backside and fingering his hole. He bites Lucas's neck and suddenly shoves his fingers in to cause him to shout, making a mess on his hand. Jack flips him and picks him up to nail him on the wall, pumping his member in the other man's hole and swirling his tongue in his mouth.

Emma digs her nails into Felix's thighs and bobbing her head on his member. Felix holds Emma's hips and licks her folds before digging his tongue into her. Their lust pours into each other's mouths, licking it up and searching for more. Her tongue swirl around his member and sucks his size fully in her mouth. He slithers and secretly fingers her hole to have more her arousal to spill out and eagerly drink it. They excitedly drank, then readjust their position to hug one another as Felix thrust inside her.

[hunnybadgerv]

Falling for Farah's Framejob | The Wayhaven Chronicles | Det. Bishop Vasquez x Agent Mason

Summary: Farah develops a plan and runs with it of their own accord, inviting Detective Bishop Vasquez to the warehouse to help them cook up some fun and silliness for the rest of Unit Bravo.

a/n: Reminder, Bishop is genderfluid. So, a horrible thing was heard in my own kitchen during the making of dinner and I couldn’t resist using it. Though this thing ran off with my brain. Consider yourself warned there is a lot of domestic fluff, cooking, and general silliness with a splash of pining.

Read on AO3

Falling for Farah’s Framejob

-1-

BAM!

“What the …?” Farah chirruped, her head snapping toward the detective.

Bishop raised a brow at her. It took a second for their completely serious look to give way to a tiny smirk that twitched upward. The two stared at each other, then Bishop tipped the chef’s knife under their hand enough to show the vampire the massacred clove of garlic. Farah’s brow drew together.

“You want to try?” Bishop asked with wide grin.

Farah’s eyes widened.

“Don’t go all out,” the detective warned, setting a garlic clove on the cutting board between them and set the knife down. They could just imagine Farah hitting the knife so hard the blade shattered or the clove pulverized to nothing.

Bishop talked her through where to set the blade and then Farah dropped a heavy fist atop it, which dusted them both with a fine mist of garlic. Again they looked at one another, then fell into laughter in unison.

“Think that might have been a little much,” Bishop stated.

“Guess now we’re garlic buddies,” Farah howled, bumping the detective’s shoulder with their own.

Bish laughed wildly, trying to dust some of the juicier bits off their clothes. “Good thing all the vampire stories are wrong or you’d be fucked.”

Farah froze and blinked once, then struck her best Wicked Witch of the West pose. “I’m melting.”

The detective snickered and shook their head, handling the next two cloves on their own.

“Melting,” Farah insisted, bumping the detective again with their shoulder. “What a world,” she crooned, acting like she was indeed fading away behind the counter.

“I thought you were helping me,” Bish charged, glancing back over their shoulder.

“I got you.” Farah sprang up next to them with a little hop. “Whatcha need?”

Another head shake. “Stir the rice and see if the water’s boiling yet.”

“On it.”

Bishop finished up the chopping, keeping a bit of an eye on Farah. The detective still wasn’t quite sure why they were doing this. Nate had told them that most vampires didn’t really eat, in fact he insinuated that most of them actively avoided I, which made sense with hypersensitivity and all. So, when Farah suggested that Bishop come over to the warehouse and cook with her, it was kind of a surprise.

They’d met in town and figured out a menu on the fly in the grocery store. Farah wanted to go all out, at least in the detective’s opinion. Apparently, their Southern tutor had also introduced the vampire to their hometown favorites. Bishop, however, kept the vampires’ oversensitivity in mind and planned to make sure to keep the flavors as natural and controlled as they could manage. They kind of hoped that the chocolate pièce de résistance might be the savior of the evening if the Cajun Gumbo went awry for some members of Unit Bravo—one in particular sprang almost instantly to mind.

Even with Farah’s easily distracted nature, it didn’t take the two of them long to get everything together. The rice was warming toward perfect doneness. The sauces were chilling. The flourless chocolate cakes were resting in what Bishop was sure had to be the safest hiding place. And the French bread was sliced nice and thin waiting for some the homemade garlic butter and a quick toasting in the oven. The two of them even managed to get most of the pots and pans cleaned and put back away.

As Bishop wiped down the counter, Farah cackled. The detective really wasn’t sure what they were talking about anymore, but their abs were killing them from laughing so much.

Noticing the wispy tendrils of smoke rising from the pan, Bishop nodded in Farah’s direction. “Pour that flour in there and stir it up.”

The flash of movement might have stopped the story for a second, but it picked back up as the oil sizzled with its fluffy addition.

“What’s this supposed to look like?” Farah asked.

“Wet sand,” Bishop told them, looking up to notice the intense nose wrinkle on Farah’s face.

Amber eyes blinked at them as if she was waiting for them to deliver a punchline.

“Don’t leave me hanging. What’d he say?”

Farah flashed a toothy smile and chuckled. “It just gets more wet when you lick it.”

Eyes closed in regret, Bishop’s head fell back with a shake.

“Can’t believe I’m the one that has to break it to you, but that’s how it’s supposed to work,” a low voice offered from the doorway to the hall.

Bishop’s chin dropped slowly and they swallowed at the sudden lump in their throat. Mason smirked and the detective tried not to think about the fact that he probably heard the gesture. At least they knew he couldn’t possibly hear the tingles that the sound of his voice shot down their spine. The way his keen gray eyes studied them made Bishop wonder if maybe they were wrong.

The spell broke when Mason sneered. “What the hell is that smell?” he asked Farah.

She shrugged.

“Yeah, figured this was going to go south,” Mason declared

“Oh, ye of little faith,” Bishop taunted with a sharp glare in Mason’s direction. No one criticized their cookery skills without literally eating their words.

“Whatever that is, it’s unsalvageable.”

“Bet,” Bishop shot back before Mason even finished the last syllable.

That got his attention. Mason straightened. “You’re on. Don’t think your science’ll save you now.”

“Shows what you know. That’s exactly cooking is, Agent.” Bish laughed knowingly. “Just delicious chemistry.”

“Uh, Bish,” Farah called.

The distinctly raw flour smell was venturing past toasty. Sliding up to their cooking assistant, Bish grabbed up a wooden spoon from the rest next to the stove and turned their furrowed brow and full attention to the roux. They’d made it like they usually did, forgetting that Farah wouldn’t be familiar with proper speed roux procedure. Mason’s hearty chuckle resounded off the tile surfaces with a smugness that Bish would not allow. There was no damn way they were going to lose this bet, and certainly not in the first two minutes.

Not a half a minute later, the roux was saved and another set of scrutinizing eyes manifested in the doorway. Adam’s jade gaze darted around the room like a chaperone at a high school dance. Bishop wondered if it was Farah’s remark or Mason’s that caught the unit commander’s attention and drew him toward the action as well.

“Still smells like chalk,” Mason noted. The click of his lighter being snapped open and closed repeatedly now echoed around the kitchen.

Bishop rolled their eyes then raised their hand to mimic a quaking duck with their slender fingers. “Yeah, you just keep talking. You’ll choke on every word.”

Mason chuckled at them, snapping the lighter closed and leaning forward to rest their elbows on their knees. The detective couldn’t look away if they’d wanted to. The silver finish of the lighter glinted in the low light as it twirled between Mason’s deft fingers. Their tongue darted out over their bottom lip and pulled it between their teeth. His wolfish grin and the toasty scent in the air pulled Bishop out of their trance.

Specialist Agent my ass. Troublemaker Supreme is far more accurate, Bishop thought. The roux, thankfully, was only at the strong cafe au lait stage. This time, they kept their full attention on the pan despite the fact that they could feel Mason’s keen gray eyes on them. It made their skin prickle.

“What are you making?” Adam asked.

Before Bishop even thought about answering, Farah hopped onto the counter and started detailing the planned menu. “Gumbo,” she answered in a sing-song tone.

“Chicken and sausage,” Bishop added as they stretched to reach a bowl brimming with roughly chopped vegetables.

“That’s the trinity,” Farah announced like a play by play announcer. “Green pepper, onion, and celery,” they counted each ingredient on a separate finger, “then comes the pulverized garlic.”

Neither Bishop nor Farah could recall that incident without a chuckle.

“What?” Adam asked.

Bish shook their head. “Nothing,” Farah said with a chuckle.

The veggies sizzled brightly as the detective scooped them into the pan. The chalky raw flour smell had dissipated and gone nutty and toasty. With the addition of the veg, the kitchen erupted in a lovely scent that Bishop could only describe as … green and distinctly Southern. It was one of those lovely mouthwatering scents that always made their stomach growl even if they weren’t the least bit hungry.

They were instantly aware of three pairs of eyes on them, which sparked a serious blush.

“What’s that … ?” Nate asked from the hall, rounding the corner. “Oh, Bishop. Did Farah rope you into this?”

A tiny shrug. “Not really roped.”

“Just wait,” Mason mumbled, his voice low and tantilizing. The image that sprang into Bishop’s head at the suggestion, just darkened the heat in their cheeks.

Adam shot a warning glaze across the kitchen.

Bishop was unphased, well that’s what they tried to tell themself despite the fact that they could feel their pulse beating it’s way through their jugular. It was one of the strangest things about working with vampire’s; they were far too aware of all the little things no one else could hope to notice unless they were looking really hard. And for all Bishop tried to control those little things, the effort just seemed to multiply the reaction.

Oh, right, broth, they thought grabbing the container they’d prepped for just this moment.

“Let me,” Farah said with another quick hop off the counter.

“Drizzle it. Slow,” Bishop said in a low guiding voice. They stirred tender vegetables careful not to splash any of the oil mixture out of the pan. “Stop for a sec.” After whisking the mixture smooth again, they gave Farah a nod for more. Back in their element, the detective’s full focus returned to the meal in the making.

“Surprised to find you down here,” Nate said quietly as he slipped into a chair at the table near Mason.

Adam crossed the room and stood near the window watching the night march against the retreating light of day.

“Why’s that?” Mason replied quietly over his shoulder.

“Why, indeed?” Nate asked, rhetorically as Mason’s attention returned to the human cooking for them. A little smile tugged at the corner of his lips.

“You get the sausage,” Bish told Farah with a pat on the shoulder as they shifted past the young vampire as if they were in the middle of some song and dance. Grabbing a nearby plate, large chunks of delicately browned meat got drowned in the dark stew. It was a hectic choreography they had worked out somehow over the last few hours. The detective pulled the spoon out of the way and leaned back when Farah dropped the chunks of meat into the boiling mixture, which splashed out violently.

Mason tensed, relaxing again as soon as Bishop giggled.

“Hold up. Don’t be scared.” The detective took Farah’s hand and turned palm down over the pot. “Just open, low over the surface and you won’t get the splatter.”

Following the suggestion, Farah grinned. “Nice. Good to know.”

“Not sure I buy that,” Bishop said with a laugh of their own.

“I don’t know. A few more lessons and I might be able to cook dinner for you.”

The entire room erupted in laughter, except for Bishop, who slid an arm over Farah’s shoulder and pulled them close. “Good, because I hate cooking alone.”

That seemed to calm some of the giggles in the room, and reinforced Farah’s grin.

“Time to cover it?” Farah asked.

“Yep,” Bishop said, giving her shoulders a squeeze. When Farah moved from their side, Bish saw it. “Oh damn.”

“What?” several voices asked at the exclamation, far too worried over such a tiny irritation.

Bish blinked over their shoulder at them all. “Forgot the wine. Should have added it after the broth.”

Farah looked almost heartbroken.

Wedging the bottle between their thighs, Bishop started the corkscrew then noticed the forlorn look. “It’ll be fine. Just might need a few extra minutes is all.”

Relief showed on Farah’s face. Bishop still wasn’t sure why this all seemed like such a big deal to their friend, but they hoped to discover an explanation at some point. The cork came free with a resounding pop, and the detective wandered toward the stove giving the cork a slow wiff. Smells perfect.

All eyes remained on them when they tipped the bottle and drew several circles around the pan. Pulling the steam toward their face and taking another long sniff, they dashed another splash of wine into the pot. Then gestured for Farah to put the lid on.

“Adam, do you only drink reds?” Bish asked.

“Depends.”

With a nod, they walked across the kitchen and stretched on their tip toes to grab a wine glass from the display that hung them upside down so that no dust gathered in the glass. Careful not to fully tip the bottle, Bishop filled the glass a little more than halfway and held it out to the eldest of them.

“It’s a dry white, not sure if that’s your style.”

Adam took the glass and swirled it softly before raising it to his nose. Then he took a tentative sip. He gave a silent shrug in what Bishop could only hope was at least a modicum of approval. Still it brought a smile to there lips when he crossed back to his spot near the window with the stem pinched between his fingers.

Looking around the kitchen, it was kind of strange. The five of them just gathered in the kitchen together while dinner simmered. Bishop couldn’t help but recall visits to their gran’s when they were little. It felt like this. Smiles and giggles and talking and cooking. Wonderful smells and conversation. Then there was Mason and the way his eye moved over them.

“Still smell like chalk?” they taunted, leaning on the counter and staring right back at Mason.

“There’s still a hint of it in the air,” he replied too quickly.

Bishop was almost certain he said it just to get under their skin, but this was one arena where the detective’s confidence shone. “Give it an hour, and see if you can still say that.”

“An hour?” Farah crowed. “A whole hour?”

Bishop chuckled. “Believe me, it’s not that bad. And good things come to those who wait,” they added, their gazing flicking toward Mason for a second before Farah’s forehead landed against their shoulder with dramatic flair. Bishop patted her back in an attempt to soothe the impatience.

-2-

“Aren’t you meant to be helping me with coffee and dessert?” Bishop asked.

Mason’s chuckle tickled against the shell of their ear. “Who says I’m not?”

He shifted subtly behind them. With his body pressed against their back, they’d already lost count of the number of scoops of coffee they’d put in the pot—thrice. The detective couldn’t resist the feel of him, however, and leaned back against the firm plane of Mason’s chest. The hand on their hip flexed as the tip of his nose traced the length of Bishop’s carotid. They could feel every calm breath teasing against their thin sensitive skin.

It was maddening.

Dropping their head to the side served as a silent request for more of his attention. They really wanted him to kiss them, at least, though given the fact that Mason had managed to keep some kind of physical contact with them all through dinner, a sharp bite might prove more satisfying.

Either way, Mason denied them and brought his lips back to their ear. “Just how strong are you planning on making that?” he asked with a gutteral chuckle that shook down Bishop’s spine.

Without a doubt, Mason had to be able to hear the way their heart pounded in their chest, but with him so damnably close, he’d feel the shiver his voice sparked through their body, too. Bishop sighed in exasperation, both at themselves and Mason, as they lifted the filter out of the coffee pot for the second time.

Leaning back, they tipped their face toward their distraction. “Could you please, I beg of you, grab me the small plates, so that I can get this pot of coffee started?”

Mason stared at them for a long moment, letting his knuckles trace the line of Bishop’s jaw. When his hand spread out over the side of their neck, he kissed them. Bishop’s pleased hum reverberated through them as Mason deepened the kiss, his tongue flicking into the detective’s mouth in a tease before delving farther. He broke it sooner than Bishop would have preferred, stepping to the side and opening one of the cabinets just as Nate rounded the corner.

The detective’s short hair would do nothing to discuss the flush burning up their neck. No, it’d be completely obvious how worked up Mason had them moments before. Bishop’s eyes flicked in Mason’s direction as he stretched his lean body toward the high shelf. Bastard, they thought with a sly smile. He seemed completely unphased, meanwhile Bish could still feel the heat blazing even hotter in their cheeks and at the tips of their ears.

“Hey, you two.”

Mason just nodded with a low grunt, while Bishop emptied the overfilled coffee filter and placed it back into the coffee maker for yet another try.

“What can I do to help?” Nate offered, earning a curious glance from Mason.

Bishop’s attention was wholly focused on the coffee, finally able to get the right number of scoops measured out. “Um,” they thought as they closed the lid of the pot and flicked the button on. “I need the sauces in the bottles on the top shelf of the ice box.”

“Gotcha. Oh, and Mason, Adam needs you upstairs.”

That got his attention. He set a few plates near Bishop and let his hand brush across their hip before striding across the kitchen. A little spark shot through them, then the detective grabbed a small saucepan out of a cabinet, and filled it with water.

“Anything to worry about?” Bishop asked, curious about what he’d said.

Nate gave them a tiny grin and shook his head. “Farah was getting impatient. I figured maybe you could use a more helpful set of hands.”

The heat rushed to Bishop’s cheeks again, as they set the pan on the stove. “Sorry,” they said in a sheepish quiet tone and bit their bottom lip.

“No need to be,” Nate said. He bumped the refrigerator door closed with his elbow.

As he approached them, Bish grabbed one of the bottles and set it in the pan of water. “Thanks. But we both know I could exercise a bit more willpower.”

He chuckled at them. “True, but at the start of something it can be intense, especially with someone that prides himself on that particular trait.”

“That’s the truth,” Bishop agreed. That was the perfect word to describe Mason, they thought. They pulled a tray out of lower oven and set it on the counter. With considered care, they tapped a few of the giggly little cakes out of the ramakans they’d been baked in. Holding them carefully, Bish peeled the parchment paper off them.

“Like opening a gift,” Nate observed.

“A luxurious chocolaty one.”

“Best kind, depending on who you ask.”

Bishop chuckled. “I think so. But I didn’t want to make too many,” they explained as they set the cakes on the rack once again.

“Probably a good call.”

“Yeah, I noticed I was the only one that finished dinner.”

Nate bumped their shoulder with his elbow. “I thought it was wonderful. And the fact that you got Adam to even try it should feel like a victory in itself.”

That puffed Bishop up a little and they nodded. “And I was shocked that Mason tried it.”

“To be honest, I think that’s the first time I’ve seen him eat anything.”

Bishop didn’t say anything, couldn’t really. They weren’t sure what to make of that little revelation. Instead they grabbed the plates and set out seven of them. Popping back over to the stove, they lifted the bottle and swirled it around to distribute the heat more evenly and set it down once more.

“So, what are these?” Nate asked picking up the bottle with a reddish hue.

“Sauces,” they repeated, with a wide grin.

The vampire cast a look on them that read, smart ass.

“That’s a raspberry coulis. Just cooked them down with a bit of sugar and lemon zest and strained it to remove the seeds and fleshy bits.” Bishop winced at the turn of phrase; Nate didn’t seem distressed about it, so they let it go. “The tartness pairs beautifully with the chocolate. But it could be too intense.”

“Is that why you prepared three?”

Bish nodded, he’d figured out their plan. “A French pastry cream, very lightly sweetened. Just a nice creamy accompaniment.”

“And that?” Nate pointed at the pan in front of them.

They hissed in a breath through their teeth, still feeling a little guilty about this one. “This is a little self-indulgent favorite of mine. Bourbon caramel.”

“Oh?” Nate’s brows rose over his soft brown eyes.

Bishop smirked knowingly. “Want a taste?”

“Please.” The other bottle was set on the counter and Nate wandered over. When Bishop held their hand palm up with the index finger extended, Nate copied the action, and was rewarded with a warm strip of the sauce. He popped it into his mouth before it could ooze over the sides of his finger. The hum that rumbled in his chest drew a smile from the chef.

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” they laughed, giving the bottle another swirl in the water.

Nate darted across the kitchen and back in the blink of an eye. He leaned one hand on the edge of the counter holding out a spoon, and Bishop couldn’t hold back their grin or their laughter. But they did lift the bottle once more and fill the tablespoon until the caramel started to dome.

“Vampire with a sweet tooth, huh?”

With the spoon already in his mouth, Nate could do little more than give them a crooked smile and a shrug.

Bishop snapped the dial on the stove to off and crossed back to the cakes and plates. On two, a little ocean of red filled the bottom of the plate before being topped with a perfect little chocolate confection. Two more cakes received healthy crowns of the cream. The last three plates each got a turn on the rack where Bishop drizzled them with lines of caramel, before setting the cake atop it. Then a few more thin lines fluttered over the delicate desserts.

“Maybe you should have made more,” Nate suggested, having watched the display intently.

“I did. But I figured that this might be best to start. Wouldn’t want them to go to waste.”

Nate nodded, but gave the detective an incredulous look; they couldn’t help but wonder if they wouldn’t be taking any of the cakes back home with them. “I’ll get the coffee and the cups.”

“I’ll get these.” Bishop had waited tables in high school and college and was more than capable of lining the plates up perfectly, but before they got two situated, Nate set a lovely dark wood tray on the counter near them. “Much safer.”

“Especially in this house.”

The two of them chuckled quietly as they loaded their respective trays with goodies. Bishop doubted any of the cakes, except the one plate she made for herself would get more than two bites taken out of it, if that many. They weren’t offended. On the contrary, the fact that Unit Bravo, who had no need for typical human food any longer, had tried anything they cooked made them feel proud, and a little more welcome in a way.

“Do you know why Farah did this?” Bishop asked once they’d placed the spoons and napkins on the corner of the tray.

Nate stopped near them and gave a little shake of their head. “I really don’t. But for one, I’m really glad she did.”

“Me, too,” the detective agreed. They’d have to remember to let Farah know. Maybe they’d find a really fun way to thank her.

[ficsilike-reblogged]

Blood in the Rivers: II

A/N: A shorter chapter this time, as I’ve been told putting 13.4k into a single chapter is a little overwhelming. My bad! Thank you for all the kind words for chapter one. I hope you all continue to like this story. 

Pairing: Oberyn Martell x Ellaria Sand x F!Reader (Tully)

Rating: M for canon typical violence, canon typical sexism, and some soft touching. Sometimes people just need to be cuddled, okay?

Word Count: 4.5k

Read Chapter One Here!

Chapter Two: The Perils of a Royal Wedding

Y/N had been correct. The Lannisters were the ones to note her absence and demand she remain within their sights. It was easy to explain her absence away, she had wanted to partake in the festivities—a wide-eyed look of innocence had them believing it. She danced with Tommen, a happy, skipping thing that had them both giggling to the annoyance of everyone around them. More wine filled her chalice and she wondered if Joffrey had even asked his wife to dance. 

Shouldn’t everyone dance at their own wedding? For now, she watched Tommen dance with his aunt Genna and plied herself with berries.

She noticed Ellaria and Oberyn settle at a table nearer the newly wedded couple and Ellaria, knowing Y/N was looking, fed Oberyn berries, pressing them into his mouth with a smirk that he mirrored as he sucked them from her fingers.

She fidgeted in her chair, a now-familiar stirring in her stomach, and drained the rest of the wine from her chalice, grateful when Tyrion quickly noticed and made sure it was refilled. But it was then that she noticed the guilty look on the dwarf’s face as he looked at her.

“Lord Tyrion, what ails you? Have I done something to offend?”

His smile was weak and he took a large gulp of his own wine. “No, my lady. You have done nothing wrong.” And, even though it was murmured into his cup, she heard him say, “and that is your curse.”

But then Loras appeared at their table again, happy and out of breath, before asking her for another dance. She accepted, throwing a glance toward Tyrion who waved her on, and let Loras lead her back toward the dancing couples. When Oberyn and Ellaria stepped to their sides and the dance was announced, she had to admire the Tyrell’s plan. The dance called for two couples, the pairings would switch frequently, alternating partners and steps, and allowed each of the participants to hold the others close. The dance had originated in Dorne a generation ago, and had once been deemed inappropriate for allowing same-sex dancing partners, but had eventually made its way into polite company. Loras seemed to know how audacious the plan was and beamed with a proud smile when she quirked an eyebrow. Ellaria laughed beside them, seeing the exchange, and Oberyn pulled her close for a kiss but his eyes were on Y/N. The music started Y/N let Loras pull her close for a few steps before they all stepped back and the four joined hands, moving about in a circle for a turn and then the couples changed. Ellaria greedily grabbed at her hands and hauled her close with sparkling eyes, leading her through the steps with ease.

“You know a Dornish dance.”

“I do. This is one of my favorites.”

Ellaria hummed as they turned, skirts twisting together in a wave of orange and yellow. “I shall teach you another.”

Heat curled in her stomach at the implication but she wanted it. Desperately. “I would be a faithful student.”

The music indicated that they rejoin hands and circle again. Loras squeezed her hand when they touched and shook his curls like he was moving them out of his eyes but really drawing her attention to the head table where Tywin and Cersei were staring at them. She squeezed his hand back in thanks and felt the smile she had been wearing die. Another turn with the four of them joined and the next partnering came and Oberyn swept her into his arms like he had done it a thousand times before, pulling her closer than the steps deemed necessary.

“Your bird is thriving,” he whispered in her ear. “Happy.”

Y/N didn’t respond aside from tightening her grip on his hand.

“But she worries for you a great deal.”

“Great reward comes with great risk. She will learn this.”

“Your life is precious. Whatever game you think you are playing, you do not know if you will win.”

He was right. The impending arrangement the Lannisters were planning was hanging over her head and she knew her place as a trusted loyalist could easily be snapped. But she had already entrusted too much with him and Dorne. 

Asking him for more would be selfish.

“I would see you safe.”

“As I would see you, my prince.”

He opened his mouth to say something else when the crescendo of the song started and they were forced to part, retreating back to their original coupling to finish the dance.

“You look troubled, my lady,” Loras whispered.

“I think I am.” The dance ended in Loras’ arms and he started to lead her back toward her table when Tywin Lannister stepped into their path. “My lord, are you enjoying the festivities?” Pressing a smile to her face was easy and she tried to not tighten her grip on Loras’ arm in an attempt for comfort. “I have never seen such splendor.”

Tywin smirked and glanced at Loras before focusing his gaze back on her. “I’m glad you’ve found some enjoyment, Lady Tully. Join me for a dance.” It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t an offer. And when he held out his hand toward her, she knew she would have to take it.

She looked at the hand offered to her and then cast a glance at Oberyn and Ellaria, as they settled at their table. She couldn’t help it. She knew what Oberyn and all of Dorne thought of Tywin Lannister. She wouldn’t add to their betrayal or heartache. Oberyn looked ready to leap from his seat but Ellaria had set a hand over his arm and quickly schooled her features into a forced smile before giving a curt nod.

Y/N mirrored her expression and set her hand in Tywin’s as she stepped away from Loras’ side and let herself be drawn back among the other dancing couples as the music started, slow and soft. It would have been romantic with anyone else. The older man was a graceful dancer, she had to admit, as he led her through the familiar steps of a dance she had learned as a child. He was looking down at her, she knew, as she made the top button of his surcoat her sole focus. She wouldn’t and couldn’t look at him. But his dulled scent of leather and clove was cloying at her nose.

“Do you make it a habit of avoiding eye contact with whomever you dance with?”

Y/N suppressed an eye roll and granted him a single, short look. “I apologize, my lord. I am simply trying to remember the steps so I do not step on your foot.” A simple lie.

“Did you not practice as a child?”

“I did, my lord. Far more than necessary, I assume. But this dance was not a favorite of my septa. I do hope you do not fault me for it.” Another lie.

“Yes,” Tywin said. “I suppose you did have an unusual upbringing.” He stepped back and spun her under his arm just as the other couples did the same. “I could teach you.”

Y/N nearly choked on her next breath and missed a step, her toe colliding with the side of his boot. “M-my lord?”

“You are a young, beautiful, highborn lady. You should know to dance—properly. Not those dances I know they’re fond of in Dorne. Vulgar displays.”

Her throat was tightening, stopping air from moving in or out. “I…I quite like the Dornish dances. I think they’re lovely.”

“Do you know those steps, Lady Tully? Perhaps you could enlighten me to their beauty.” The words had a strange lift to them and his grip tightened on her hand, the other curling around her waist just a fraction more.

“My lord,” she dropped her voice to a whisper to avoid him hearing the tremble she knew was growing, “that is hardly appropriate.”

“It does not have to be inappropriate. You could be Lady of Casterly Rock. You would be more powerful than Margaery and worshipped by all of the Seven Kingdoms.”

Y/N would swear her heart stopped. Was this his plan? Was he suggesting-

“And what of the Riverlands? I thought-”

“Your second son would rule the Riverlands. Your first, however,” he dipped his head closer to her ear, “would be my heir.”

The song ended and everyone else clapped, crowd moving—finding new partners, refilling wine. But Y/N could only pull her hands away from Tywin as her tongue felt like lead in her mouth. “A gracious offer, to be sure.”

“And what is your answer?”

“Lady Tully!” Y/N nearly collapsed as she heard Margaery call out for her.

“Please, excuse me, my lord.” She curtseyed, and then turned toward the head table. There was a strange buzzing between her ears as she made her way through the crowd. She barely gave it a second thought to see the knight-turned-fool Dontos waiting in the bushes as she passed. She curtseyed again in front of Joffrey and Margaery. “Yes, Your Grace?”

The new queen smiled up at her and grasped at her hands. “I-”

There was a sudden, familiar sound behind her, pulling her attention for just a moment before something pinched at her back and chest.

Margaery screamed.

The bolt was protruding from her shoulder like a terrible, blackened limb.  Margaery looked up at her with wide eyes as she felt the metallic tang of blood bubble over her tongue. She touched it—just once—as if not entirely believing she had been shot. The answering, near-crippling shock proved her otherwise. 

There was screaming—so much screaming and she could not discern one word from the other.

Someone called out her name as she doubled over onto her knees. Shaking fingers grasped the silver arrowhead and, with a strangled sort of groan, she pulled the rest of the arrow through, briefly wondering at the strange sensation of the fletching catching on her flesh. Warmth bloomed across her chest. It took her several moments to realize it was blood.

Bloodied palms slapped against the stones beneath her, keeping her from collapsing completely.

“The King!” Someone shouted. “The King!”

There was more screaming, panicked and screeching and turning into a howling cacophony in her swirling mind. She hardly noticed when someone ran to her side and grasped her face with gentle hands, trying to get her to move, to say something, to do anything. Pain grew and blossomed with every frantic beat of her heart but she could do precious little, her limbs feeling like stone. Even her eyes refused to move from where they were trained on the stone, watching, almost disinterestedly the blood start to pool beneath her fingers. 

Someone was pressing at her wound, trying to staunch the bleeding with little success. “Stay with me, stay awake.”

She lifted her head, a labored effort, and could only see the dark eyes staring back at her and then the world turned dark.

                                                        **

Olenna was sitting on the edge of her bed when she woke. The woman’s face was drawn tight with some strange emotion as she stared out into the small patch of sky visible from the chamber windows.

“My lady?” Y/N’s voice caught in her throat, dry and scratching. Pain shot through her body as she tried to lift herself up to sitting.

Olenna turned to face her, a small smile touching her mouth. “Ah, Little Fish. You finally wake.” She walked to the door and called out for the maester before helping Y/N to sit and put another pillow at her back. “Do you need more Milk of the Poppy?”

“What happened, Olenna? Tell me.” The pain was increasing with each beat of her heart but she needed to know—needed to understand.

Olenna sighed and stood straight. “It was never meant to be you, child. I want you to know that.”

“I-I-I don’t understand. And of Joffrey? What-”

The door to her chamber opened and a maester walked in, a small bowl of something in his weathered hands. Without prompting, he held it to Y/N’s lips and forced the viscous liquid into her mouth. The bitter taste was a familiar one—Milk of the Poppy. She coughed and nearly retched with how much he was pushing down her throat but sank into the pillows, mind already swimming, as he finished. “I just have to check your wrappings, my lady. To prevent infection.”

Y/N’s eyes were swimming, unfocused, as she tried to find Olenna again. “Stay,” she said, although her tongue felt too big for her mouth. “Tell me. What happened.”

“You were valiant, my lady,” the maester said as he pulled down the shoulder of her chemise. “But you were not able to save His Grace, King Joffrey. “

Her head lulled to the side on her pillows to find Olenna looking at her almost worriedly. “Dead?”

“Yes, Little Fish. He’s dead.”

“Oh.”

And then darkness swept over her like a raven’s wing.

                                                        **

The realm between dream and waking was a constant companion for the next handful of days, each one swimming into the next without much fanfare in the small haven of her chambers. The only time she had spent out of doors was when she was requested to attend the gathering of nobility for a time of prayer over the body of the slain king, and she could only stand upright for a few minutes before she was allowed to leave. She hardly remembered any of the ceremony. The maester came and went, cleaning her wound and wrappings without much fanfare.    “I need a bath, Daisy,” she murmured. Her feet felt foreign as they touched the stone of the floor of her bedroom. “I can smell myself. It isn’t pleasant.” 

The frazzled form of Daisy quickly set out to have a basin dragged in and filled with near-boiling water. She followed it with floral soaps and then helped her lady undress and slowly lower into the water. Y/N groaned as the water rose around her, already feeling more human. But her head lulled as if it felt too heavy on her neck and the room spun for a moment.

“Is the temperature too hot, my lady?” Daisy asked as she started to soak a cloth in the water.

“It is perfect, Daisy. You are too kind to me.”

Daisy smiled and opened her mouth to reply when there was a knock at the door. Y/N curled her knees up to her chest for a semblance of modesty under the milk-colored water. The knock came again.

“Come back later!” Daisy hollered.

And the door opened.

Daisy screeched and stepped in front of Y/N’s tub to shield her from the intruders, yelling about sending for the guards and Y/N, still hazy from the Poppy, leaned forward just enough to see Prince Oberyn and Ellaria standing in her chambers. A shock of orange was seen in front of the door before it closed. 

“Our guards are standing watch. I assure you that Lady Tully is well protected,” Oberyn said with an easy smile. 

Ellaria draped herself in a nearby chair with a smile of her own. “How are you feeling, my lady?”

“She is indecent,” Daisy nearly growled.

“It is fine, Daisy. They are friends and I cannot bring myself to care at the moment.”

Daisy’s brow furrowed as she turned to look at Y/N. “Do you need water, my lady? Food?” A gentle hand pressed against her cheek, checking her temperature. “If you feel faint I can call the maester again.”

Y/N smiled, knowing it probably looked crooked on her lips, and shook her head. “I am on the mend, Daisy. Thanks to your care. But, I promise you, I am in no danger with them.”

Daisy sighed and nodded. “I shall bring you fresh linens, then, for your bed.”

Y/N thanked her and Daisy quickly stripped the bed before leaving the chambers, leaving her alone with Oberyn and Ellaria.

“They have addled your mind with Milk of the Poppy.” The observation from Oberyn only earned a nod in return. “You will not feel yourself for a while longer.”

Another nod.

Ellaria stood and poked her head out the door, murmuring something to one of the guards before closing it again. She settled near the tub and grabbed the cloths Daisy had soaked and began to slide the cloth along Y/N’s arms and over her uninjured shoulder, the soaped water refreshing and hot. Y/N relaxed under her care and reclined against the back of the tub, uncaring that her breasts were starting to crest the water’s edge.

“You were kept from us for days. Oberyn said you were whisked away during prayers,” Ellaria whispered as she dipped the cloth under the water to wipe against her stomach. “We worried.”

Y/N smiled and moved to press her cheek against the warm lip of the tub. “I am sorry you were worried. I would have let you in, if I had known.”

The cloth slid up her stomach to wipe across her left breast and then the right, taking care to avoid the wrappings hiding her ugly stitches. And Y/N could not help the hitch in her breath as Ellaria seemed to take special care to make sure she was clean. She looked up at her: dark hair loose and lovely, like waves crashing in the dark, and simply watched her as she worked. There, of course, was an undercurrent of something more to it, but perhaps that was just Ellaria. Just who she was and why almost everyone was so taken with her on sight. But she knew Ellaria meant to help, too. To wash away the bitterness of the past few days.

A knock on the door had Ellaria turning toward Oberyn. “Would you answer that, my love?”

Oberyn, the prince, did as he was bid and opened the door only a fraction and spoke softly to whomever was on the other side before being handed something and closing the door again as they left. He carefully unwrapped the linen bundle to reveal a collection of small vials.

“Come,” Ellaria said softly to him, her hands pausing in their ministrations.

“Unlike you, my love, I have not been given permission to hold her as you do. I would not overstep, especially with her in such a state.”

Y/N’s addled mind was coherent enough to understand what he was saying and pivoted just enough to look at him. The entire scenario should have never happened, if she was being honest. Her nakedness had always been something she’d been told was to be avoided, discouraged, even. And now she was in the company of a man she was not married to and a woman who was not her maid—it reeked of scandal if anyone happened upon them. But she couldn’t bring herself care. She lifted an arm from the water and held it out, dripping onto the stone with a steady beat. “You have my permission, my prince. You always have my permission.” She crooked a finger at him before needing to curl a little further into the tub as the room spun.

He smiled and closed the space between them and he settled on the other side of the basin and let Ellaria pull the small collection of vials from his grasp. Y/N watched as Ellaria emptied one and then two of the vials into the water and gently swirl it around. The scent of roses and blood oranges filled her nose and pulled a smile from her tired lips.

“Lean forward for me,” Ellaria softly asked and Y/N did as she was told, nearly jumping as Ellaria poured water over her hair. Something was said to Oberyn as the water distorted her hearing but she didn’t mind.

Y/N closed her eyes as Ellaria began her careful ministrations again and she heard the sound of another vial being uncorked. Another set of hands gently started to massage her scalp and it took her far too long to realize that it was Oberyn. Her hazy eyes opened again to see him smiling as he worked through her hair, filling the room with the scent of more roses, decadent and heady. Again, his touch was gentle and he was careful as he moved her head this way or that so he could make sure he had completed his task. He had rolled the sleeves of his tunic up to his elbows and his outer robe had been discarded, draped across the window seat behind him. The entire situation finally made a giggle fall from her lips. 

“What is so funny?” Oberyn asked with a smile of his own. He cupped his hands and brought a bit of water over her hair, starting to rinse it.

“A prince is washing my hair.” She laughed again and dipped her head back to help him.

“A prince serves his people, my lady.” His voice was soft. “And it is an honor to be of service to you.”

Something bloomed in her chest then, as she looked into his dark eyes and watched him smile. It felt soft and comforting and all-encompassing all at once. It felt, as strange as it was, like home. And when Ellaria pressed a kiss to her rose-scented skin, she knew it wasn’t strange at all.

“Your water grows cold. We must get you dry.”

Before she could even think to try to stand, Oberyn hand plunged his hands into the water and wrapped an arm around her back and the other just below her knees and helped her to her feet outside the bath. And now she had no water nor suds of soap to disguise her nakedness from him. Water slipped down her clean, perfumed skin in rivulets as he held her steady, soaking the ends of his tunic sleeves. His gaze could have wandered. Could have taken in her body as no man has ever done before. But he kept his eyes on hers and remained careful and gentle as Ellaria found her a new chemise and dressing robe and they each helped her dry and into the clean clothes to avoid further injury.

The poppy had continued to retreat, leaving her now in just a comfortable haze and she settled atop the stool in front of her small, mirrored vanity as Ellaria pulled yet another jar from somewhere and opened it to reveal a bit of pink paste she started to massage into Y/N’s hands. “You have both been very kind to me. I do not know what I have done or said to earn such care.”

“You are kind to us. We are kind to our friends.”

“Is that what I am?” She asked with a laugh. “A friend?”

Ellaria set down the jar, finished, and nuzzled her nose under Y/N’s jaw. Careful hands swept around her sides to hold her just under her breasts. “We can be more when you are well again.”

“I feel like I am more to you now. I have never been held so softly.” The words were true and she never would have spoken them if her mind had been entirely clear. But oh, how she reveled in the touch.

Ellaria smiled against the side of her throat. “I would like to hold you for as long as you would let me.” But then she stood straight, touch slowly receding, and looked at Oberyn with a playful smile. “Come, my love. She is soft to touch. You have been wanting to hold her since her third letter arrived.”

Oberyn chuckled. “It was her first, actually.” He stepped closer. “That first curl of ink had pulled me into its depths and I knew I’d never be able to recover.” And soon he was at her back. He leaned down and pressed his lips to the small bit of skin exposed where her neck met her uninjured shoulder. Y/N shivered and he trailed his fingers down her back. “You have bewitched me, my lady.”

Y/N could only smile up at him in the reflection of her mirror.

His hand curled under her chin and he tilted her face up so he could look at her properly. Dark eyes seemed to drink in her soft, tired features before he slowly, ever so slowly, leaned down to press his lips to hers. It was soft and gentle and still curled her toes into the silk rug beneath her feet. The simple touch left her panting as he pulled back. His thumb pressed against her bottom lip and he smiled again. “I knew you would taste sweet.”

There was a rapid knocking at the door and Ellaria pulled it open, letting a flustered Daisy in, her arms laden with clean linens for the bed. “The Dornishmen guarding the door are quite scary, you know,” she murmured, casting a glance at Oberyn before hurrying to the bed to start her task.

“They are for her protection.”

“Yes, but I am her maid, Prince Oberyn.”

“Daisy,” Y/N managed to say, her mind buzzing for more than one reason. “Please.”

Daisy huffed and shook her head but said nothing else, pulling the linens a little tighter than necessary across the featherbed.

“We must go,” Ellaria said as she stepped to Y/N’s side again and pressed a slow kiss to the side of her mouth. “When you are able, tell one of the men at the door. They will lead you to us.”

“Must you leave?” Y/N asked. She reached out to grasp one of Ellaria’s hands but stopped as pain racked her body, pulling at the wound in her shoulder.

“We have been far too selfish with you today already. You need rest. True rest without the Poppy pulling you into darkness. We are not leaving the capital until this is finished.”

She should have asked what they meant. What they needed to finish. But Oberyn had pulled a silk scarf, black and stitched with yellow suns, from the folds of his robe and he gently tied it about her neck and then slipped her arm into it. “This will keep you still, help you to heal.”

The scarf smelled like him, of spice and sandalwood and warmth. Y/N stood and curtseyed, a little off balance with the sling, but Oberyn bowed just the same before taking her other hand and pressing a kiss to the pads of her fingers, taking a deep breath in through his nose to fill his lungs with her scent.

“Until we meet again, my lady.”

A/N: Well, there’s part two. There is a plot developing. I am thinking this entire story will be about eight chapters. What do you all think? I’d love to hear what you’d like to see, and what you hope happens. Thank you for reading. Also, if you’d like to be tagged, I’d be happy to do so. I’ve never done it before but I’d be happy to try! xx

[bangchanzz]

Lover’s Paradise

Chapter 5

JEON JUNGKOOK X READER

Summary: Idol!Jungkook and Celebrity!Y/N have been friends for years. For both of them, their friendship has always bordered on more than friends, but neither of them are brave enough to take the leap of faith and confess. But when Y/N hosts the boys of BTS at her suave LA mansion and somehow finds herself sharing a bed with Jungkook, who harbors a few dark secrets of his own, things spin out of control. Tensions rise as she shows them a glimpse of her suave superstar lifestyle, and secrets come out that could change people’s lives forever.

Warnings: Severe depression and anxiety. Mentions of suicide. Eventual smut. Mentions of sex acts. Virgin!JK. Mentions of drug and alcohol use. ANGST

Word Count: 4.4K

Author’s Note: OH she’s angsty. We love good old miscommunication as a plot device :) Enjoy! Let me know what you think!

Lover’s Paradise Masterlist

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Chapter 5

YOUR POV

You were roused from the peaceful clutches of sleep by the unmistakable noise of someone throwing up.

With a sigh you flung the covers back and slid out of bed, wincing slightly as your feet hit the cold hardwood floor. You walked to the bathroom to find Jungkook’s retching form slumped over the toilet, one cheek pressed to the cool rim. The acrid stench of vomit had you gagging in the doorway.

As an avid drinker you yourself had been in the very same position many a time and had sympathy for the poor kid. Alcohol was one tricky drug that unfortunately took a while to master.

You sat down beside him and brushed his hair back from his face, your other hand rubbing soothing circles on his back.

He looked at you, his soft brown eyes brimming with misery, tears streaming down his face. Your heart clenched. You wanted nothing more than to take him in your arms and ease his pain like you did last night, but that wasn’t an option right now.

“I don’t feel good,” he sobbed.

“I know,” you replied. “I’m going to get you some water, okay? Stay here.”

He could only nod before another wave of nausea hit and he started throwing up.

You felt bad, but as a sympathetic vomiter you couldn’t get out of there quick enough.

In the kitchen you found Namjoon and Jin enjoying a breakfast of fresh fruit.

“Hey Y/N,” Jin said cheerfully. “How was your night?”

“My night was fine,” you said, reaching for a glass from the cabinet. “Jungkook on the other hand… well, let’s just say he is currently paying the piper.”

The two older boys shared a concerned look.

“How bad?” Namjoon asked.

“He’s throwing up,” you responded, filling up the glass, “and I don’t do very well with vomit so do you guys think you could…?”

“Yeah, of course,” Jin said, grabbing the glass of water from your hands and heading upstairs, Namjoon in tow.

You sighed and leaned against the counter. Now what? Going upstairs wasn’t an option, but you were still exhausted, so you wandered into the living room to find Brandon watching Netflix on the couch.

“Hey,” you said, slumping down next to him and immediately leaning into his side.

“Good morning, Princess,” Brandon said with a grin, slinging his arm around your shoulders and planting a kiss on your temple.

“Jungkook is throwing up in my bathroom so this is my bed now.”

“Ah,” he responded absently, moving to lie down on the couch and pulling you with him. You settled in easily to the shape of his body—something you’d done a thousand times before. His cinnamon and clove scent draped over your senses, the sensation familiar and inviting as he traced little circles on your bare thigh.

But as your eyes drooped and you slowly faded into sleep you found yourself reliving the ways your body had fit into another boy’s; what it had felt like under his touch, and you found yourself wishing the body pressed against yours belonged to someone else.

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JUNGKOOK’S POV

After what felt like an eternity of throwing up all the food he’d eaten in the past 72 hours, Jungkook made his way downstairs to rejoin society. But as he descended the stairs he froze at the sight before him on the couch.

It was you and Brandon, both sound asleep with some sitcom playing softly on the TV.

He realized with no small amount of envy that the two of you fit together perfectly, like matching puzzle pieces. The two of you even looked good together, like you were destined to be a matching set.

A queen to his king. That’s what this was, and Jungkook was a fool for denying it. Brandon was a king in his own right; a king ruling over a broken kingdom of fame, sex, and designer drugs forged in ecstasy under a dusky palm-studded boulevard. He was a king of rowdy nights and drunken whispers displayed across billboards in neon lights, and as much as Jungkook wished he could deny it, that was your scene. You ruled beside him, untouched and unbothered by the inherent filth and dishonesty of it all, rising to your crown on waves of pleasure, both synthetic and carnal. You were a sex goddess, a party queen, an icon of higher living and its immortalizing qualities.

And Jungkook could never keep up. That was a scene so displaced from his normal life that he couldn’t even imagine it. He didn’t belong in your world., and he never would.

So Jungkook sealed away his heart and walked back upstairs where he surrounded himself with the better memories of you and let his soul bleed out in the soft morning light.

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YOUR POV

You woke up a few hours later to Brandon tossing you on floor like a sack of grain.

“I gotta piss,” was all he said as he stood up from the couch and walked to the restroom.

“Ass,” you called after him.

“Oh good, you’re awake,” Yoongi said, descending the staircase. “Ready to work on the album?”

“Yeah, let me just go get dressed.”

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The first writing session went fairly smooth. You talked about concepts and possible tracks, always making sure that the boys were as involved in the prosses as possible.

But throughout the course of the day, you couldn’t help but notice that Jungkook seemed to be avoiding you.

He made a point not to be close to you and would only answer you in one-word responses. You shoved the resulting gnawing feeling away because you were working, but once the session was finished and they boys left you alone, your mind couldn’t help but drift back to Jungkook.

Is he still embarrassed about the other morning?

No, we settled that.

Is it about the cuddling last night?

No, he seems more mad than embarrassed...

Is it something I did?

Should I talk to him?

Thoughts tornadoed around your head, so loud and forceful you felt like your skull might burst.

Just then, your stomach growled, so you got up, deciding it was late enough in the day for dinner.

You left your writing studio and headed towards the kitchen, but before you got there you were met by dozens of people carrying what looked to be party supplies through your house.

“What the…” you started, but then saved your breath. You already knew who to yell at.

“BRANDON!” you yell, stomping past a procession of men carrying kegs and straight to the backyard, where you found the Party General himself signing for a giant chocolate fountain on the patio.

“Yes darling?” He asked innocently, not even deigning to look up from his paperwork.

“What the hell is this?” you hissed, gesturing to a giant ice sculpture of a fish being placed in the yard.

He handed the clipboard back to a young man in a uniform who took it and left, leaving the two of you alone.

“Well,” he says, looking over his sunglasses at the ice sculpture and then back at you, “I believe it’s a koi.”

You resist the urge to slap him. “Every day I grow closer and closer to killing you in your sleep.”

“Oh, goodie.” He says. “I do love surprises.”

“Clearly,” you seethe, gesturing to the party decorations throughout the yard.

For a moment, neither one of you speaks. Brandon merely stares at you with mirthful innocence as you glare at him and fantasize about playing air hockey with his kneecaps.

“Since when are we throwing a party?” you demand finally.

“Since a few hours ago,” he shrugs, as if it’s no big deal.

“And when were you going to tell me?” you demand.

He shrugs again. “You were working, I didn’t want to bother you.”

You roll your eyes. “Oh, how very noble of you.”

“Why thank you,” he replied, his eyes twinkling with delight at your obvious rage. “I’m inclined to agree.”

“Did Caleb agree to this?” you demand, trying to figure out if you had an ally or not.

Brandon snorts. “He’s the one who came up with the idea. I just made it better.”

You stare at him, trying to sort your jumbled emotions into a coherent thought.

He reaches over and pats you on the cheek. “You should go get dressed. People will be here around nine.” And with that, he walks away to intercept a courier carrying a large floral wreath.

What even was the theme Brandon was going for anyway?

You decided that you had no choice but to go along with it, however pissed you were for being left in the dark. So, you trudged upstairs, nervous that Jungkook might be in your room, and wondering what you’ll say to him if he is.

You weren’t sure if you were elated or disappointed to find him missing. You tried not to think about it at all.

Instead, you threw yourself into getting ready, finding peace in your makeup routine. You decided on a natural eye and a red lip that perfectly matched your favorite red party dress.

It was made of a satin material that reminded you more of a nightgown than a dress, but you liked the way it shimmers under party lighting. But what you really loved about this dress was the cut outs right below your breasts that showed just enough underboob to be alluring, but still tasteful. You threw on some gold gladiator stilettos and the layered gold pendant Brandon had gotten for you for your birthday last year. Lastly, you braided your hair and coiled it around your head, making it appear like a crown. By the time you descended the staircase a little after nine, the party was already in full swing.

You immediately spot Kenzie in the hallway and ignore the gaping stares of unfamiliar party goers whose eyes you feel on your body from a room away.

“Y/N!” Kenzie squeals, spotting you. “We were just about to come find you!” she says, pulling Arthur towards you.

“You found me,” you say weakly. “Now let’s get me a shot. Or six.”

Kenzie furrows her brow. “Oh god, what happened today? Did the writing session go poorly or something?”

“No,” you reply with a shake of your head. “It went great actually. I’m just in a weird mood.”

You can tell by the hesitation in her face that she doesn’t quite believe you, but she sees something in you that doesn’t make her push further, and instead, dutifully pours you six very full shots of vodka, which you don’t hesitate to drink.

You had spotted Jungkook a few times, but he was always too far away to ever go to him, so you had stayed mostly with Kenzie and Arthur until they disappeared to go make out somewhere.

You found yourself alone in the kitchen, staring at your phone, until someone was suddenly standing right in front of you. You look up and meet Brandon’s drunken smile as he wiggles a small bag of white powder in your face.

“Wanna do some coke with me?” he asks, his grin all teeth.

You stare at the coke for a second, weighing your options. But ultimately, what have you got to lose? Not much these days.

“Sure,” you shrug. “You cut the lines.”

Brandon makes a very drunken high-pitched noise you think is supposed to be a squeal as he clears a space on the island and pulls out his wallet.

He goes first, using a crisp one-hundred-dollar bill to inhale the fine white powder from the marble.

You go next, wordlessly taking the rolled-up dollar as Brandon sniffs next to you. You do one line, and then another, wincing slightly as the drug bit the back of your throat.

The high is almost instantaneous, energy suddenly gracing your jittery nerves.

You turn to Brandon, his eyes twinkling and his smile giddy as you reach up and wipe a bit of cocaine from right below his nose. You pop your finger in your mouth, rubbing all over your gums until that familiar numb feelings takes a hold of your mouth.

“Hey, I got you this,” Brandon slurs, obviously very, very fucked up. He outstretches a shaky finger to trace the necklace you wear, taking the jeweled pendant at the end between his thumb and his index finger.

You chuckle. “I thought Caleb picked it out.”

“But I paid for it!” he protested, swaying slightly. “And just because he saw it first doesn’t mean he picked it out. I have good taste.”

You laugh. “Yeah, okay, your one virtue is good taste in jewelry, I’ll give you that.”

He leaned in close, his mouth almost touching the shell of your ear. From here, you could smell the tequila on his breath. “Don’t look now, but Jungkook is staring at us,” he whispered too loudly to really be considered a whisper.

You whirl around to follow where Brandon is looking, but you only catch Jungkook’s broad back as he walked away from you.

Brandon smacked your thigh. “I told you not to look!”

By now you’re frowning after Jungkook and Brandon really is in no mood to deal with your stubborn crush, so when you turn around, Brandon is gone.

You wonder how much Jungkook saw.

It wasn’t that you didn’t want him knowing about your partying habits, you just didn’t want him to find out like this. You were afraid that he might see you as irresponsible or immature, as many people did when you merely mentioned the word ‘cocaine’. You realized with no small amount of discomfort that you actually cared what he thought about you. You didn’t like this new feeling.

You head back out into the party, hoping to find Jungkook and maybe talk to him, but before you can accomplish that, a group of friends call you over, and you abandon yourself to the revelry, letting the drugs in your system wash through you with a euphoric high.

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The good thing about coke is that it hits fast.

The bad thing about coke is that it’s over fast.

Soon, your limbs felt heavy, the day’s work and evening full of wrecking your body finally taking its toll. You slip away from your friends, desperate to go upstairs and get away for a moment.

The piano music greeted you before you even set foot in your bedroom.

It was a sad melody, a tune that sang of loss and heartache and a sorrow so soul-deep it left scars.

You softly cracked the door to your room open to see Jungkook seated at the piano, his long fingers dancing gracefully over the keys. He had his back to you, his shoulders curved inward as if burdened by an invisible weight.

You realized that you should probably say something to alert him of your presence. The moment was too personal, too intimate, to be unknowingly shared, but the soft music was hypnotic in the way that it pulled you in. And then he started singing, and your soul shattered.

It was just a hum, a simple melody over the agonizing notes of the piano, but the emotion it carried was undeniable, like the suggestion of words without actually speaking.

And to you, that said more than any word in any language could. There were moments sometimes where the saddest of music was too happy for what you felt inside, where silence was the only tune your heart could bare as it struggled to find the will to beat.

The song wrapped itself around your very bones, the sorrow in the notes squeezing until you thought your skeleton would turn to dust. You didn’t know you were crying until a tear dripped down your neck and chest. And then one tear turned into many as the rising tide of sorrow that lived deep in your stomach threatened to drown you, and you choked on a sob loud enough that Jungkook stopped playing and whirled around.

You took the split second of his surprise to contain yourself, to push those horrible demons back into their little box inside your soul and lock them away for as long as you could manage.

Your eyes met Jungkook’s from across the room, where you watched surprise and sorrow mingle in his brown irises.

“Sorry,” you choked out, clearing the tears from your throat. “I didn’t mean to interrupt; I just needed some air.” You swallowed thickly, hoping he didn’t notice.

He dropped your gaze like it had wounded him, and instead looked out the windows on your balcony towards the sea. “It’s okay. You didn’t interrupt anything important.” He eyed you carefully and you had to resist the urge to squirm under his knowing gaze. “Are you okay?” he asked gently.

“Oh, yeah, I’m fine,” you murmur, fidgeting in the doorway. “That melody was beautiful. What was it?”

There was a pause before he responded. “Nothing. I was just messing around on the piano.”

“Well, you should mess around more,” you said, your voice soft. “That was seriously good. It was like, hauntingly beautiful.”

Another pause. “You think?”

“I know so. I am a producer after all,” you murmured. “You should work on it tomorrow at the writing session.”

“Maybe,” was his reluctant response. He said nothing else.

In the silence that followed you moved to stand in the middle of the floor.

Jungkook remained seated at the piano, lost in thought. “You love him, don’t you?” he asked, doing nothing to hide the note of angry reluctance in his tone, like a cornered animal knowing it lost.

“What?” you asked, staring at his profile.

“Brandon. You love him and he loves you. It’s obvious.”

Annoyance flared through you. “God, why do people keep asking me that?”

“Because, Y/N!” Jungkook exploded. “Everyone sees the way you two look at each other, how close you are, the way you act around each other, and it’s obvious to everyone except you two at this point that you’re in love and don’t care about the rest of us commoners.” He spat the last couple words like they were poison on his tongue.

“What are you talking about? Of course I love Brandon, he’s my best friend. I love Caleb too! We all live together! We’re friends. But just because I care about someone does not mean I’m in love with them.” The annoyance inside you was slowly building to anger as you sank deeper and deeper into yourself.

“Could’ve fooled me,” Jungkook spat, taking a step closer to you. “I see the way you touch him, the way he touches you. There’s nothing platonic about that, Y/N.”

“That’s just the way we are with each other, we’re touchy people, not that my friendship with Brandon is any of your business,” you reply, ice coating your words.

“It is my business when you keep shoving it in my face!” he hissed. “And you never touch anyone else that way,” he added, almost as though it were an afterthought. He took another step towards you and you could now smell the beer on his breath.

“Oh, is that what this is about? You’re jealous?” you demand, the alcohol and drugs in your system loosening your tongue. There was something hopeful in your words, just as much as there was malice. You wanted to hurt him, but you also hoped that maybe you were right and maybe he was jealous. Maybe this wasn’t just a friendship.

You so desperately hoped it wasn’t. You found yourself willing to give anything to have him, and the thought scared you.

Somewhere in your head you knew that you had been in love with him for a while now, but it had never really clicked until tonight.

You found yourself staring at the defined lines of his jaw when he wasn’t looking, or the cute way he crinkled his nose when he thought something was really funny. You were fascinated with the way his shirt would brush up against the powerful lines of his muscled abdomen, something you found yourself yearning to see in full. You loved the smooth way he moved, like water, with his fluid dancer’s grace, even when he was doing the most basic of actions.

You loved the way your soul felt lighter around him, the way you felt better, more whole in his presence. He was like a balm for your wounded, broken soul.

You watched his adam’s apple bob as he swallowed at your words.

“Is that what you want, Jungkook?” you demand, your voice low. “Do you want me to cuddle with you on the couch, and sit on your lap in the hot tub, and put my arms around you like this when I’m drunk?” you ask, closing the remaining space between you two and twinning your arms around his neck. Up close, you could see the flush of his tan skin, and the way his pupils were blown out to hide the brown of his irises. His breath fanned across your face; his mouth frozen in the shape of an O. His body trembled beneath your touch.

Logically, you knew this was a very bad idea. He’s your friend, and nothing more. You’re producing his album, its wildly unprofessional. You should stop.

But you threw caution to the wind and you slid your hands down his muscled arms and gripped his wrists, trying not to meet the intensity of his gaze, as you moved his hands to the small of your back, slightly lower than what would be considered proper. The back of your party dress was cut low, and his hands grazed painfully slow across your bare skin, leaving tingling trails of electricity in their wake.

“Is this what you want Jungkook? Do you want to touch me?” you whispered into his ear, your mouth millimeters away from the skin right below his ear. “Because you can. I want you to.”

“You… want me to?” he choked out, his body becoming very still.

“Yes,” you murmured, pulling back to look at the starved look in his eye.

His grip tightened around your middle, pulling you flush against his muscled chest, like he had finally realized that this—that you—were real. “Y/N, I- “

The sudden knock on the door had him releasing you and stepping away, your body suddenly robbed of the warmth he radiated.

Both of you stared at the floor as the door slowly opened and the sounds of the party permeated the dulled silence. Taehyung stuck his head through the door, the rest of his figure following soon after.

“Hey,” he asked, closing the door softly behind him. “I just came up here to check on Jungkook. Is everything okay?”

“I don’t need a babysitter, Taehyung,” Jungkook snaps. He’s standing so still, his eyes so full of fire, that it honestly scares you a little bit.

“Hey,” you snap at Jungkook, letting your own anger slip its leash. “Just because you’re mad at me doesn’t mean you get to take it out on him.”

Jungkook’s eyes flare as his focus goes back to you. “What? Are you going to sleep with Taehyung, too?”

Before you really know what you’re doing, you slap Jungkook right across the face.

Taehyung sucks in a breath from behind you, but he doesn’t move from his spot.

Jungkook slowly turns to look at you, disbelief plainly etched across his face. “Did you just slap me?”

“And? Did you not deserve to be slapped?” you demand, not yielding a single inch.

You and Jungkook stare wordlessly at each other; Taehyung using this moment to quietly excuse himself.

Even after the door clicks quietly shut behind you, neither of you speak, choosing instead to stare into each other’s faces, daring the other to talk.

You observe the scowling lines of his face, the tears pricking the corner of his eyes, and you realize he looks more betrayed than mad.

And it breaks your heart to see him look like that.

“What the hell was that?” you finally demand, breaking the silence.

“I should be the one asking you that,” He huffs, eyes flashing with hesitation.

“What is up with you? Why are behaving like this?” you ask, your eyes narrowing up at him.

He takes a step closer, placing the sharp curves of his collarbone mere inches from your face. A wicked part of you wonders how soft his skin would feel under your lips, what kind of moans would slip past his lips if you kissed just the right spot.

“You were the one who made me touch you,” he says, his voice breathy but still angry.

You were the one who made me touch you.

His words are like ice water on your skin. A sinkhole opens up inside your chest, but this time you do not fight it, you simply let it suck you in.

“Did you not want me to?” you ask quietly, but not softly.

His eyes become unreadable. “Why would I want to touch you like that?”

Everything stops. You feel the repulsion in his voice in your very bones. Suddenly your head becomes incredibly loud.

You’re tired. You are so fucking tired of this hurt, this rejection, from everyone in your life—especially yourself.

You fucked up and it’s probably cost you one of the most important relationships in your life. And now you had to live with that.

“Don’t worry, I won’t be doing it again,” you say flatly, your voice devoid of any emotion. You felt yourself shutting down.

You realize you’ve let your mask fall—the façade you cloak yourself in to mask the pain that’s always lurking just below the surface. You typically don’t let people see you like this—the real you. The dark truth of your heart.

He’s looking at you with a mixture of hurt and anger and you can’t stand the way his eyes search your face with feverish unfamiliarity.

You can’t bear to stand here with him anymore, not when you feel your heart shattering into little pieces.

It’s over.

You fucked up.

Live with it.

You don’t say a single word as you lock yourself in the bathroom; he lets you walk away.

You turn on the shower so no one can hear you cry, and you scream into a towel until your heart feels empty and your limbs are heavy.

You don’t see Jungkook for the rest of the night.

[alwayschoosechocolate]

Symbols in the snow and kisses under the birch (jjk)

Genre: fluff, (tiny bit of angst implied), established relationship

Paring: reader x Jungkook

Word count: 3100

Putting all your faith in the first snow, leaves you disheartened and annoyed when there still hasn’t fallen a single snowflake by the 1st of December. Despite your normal agreement with Jungkook to decorate for Christmas together, you’re too stubborn to wait for the universe to give you a sign and decides to take fate into your own hands. Which is how Jungkook finds you, when he returns home from tour.

Taglist: @spookidema​ @jessicarhb​

A/N: The first christmas drabble is here, my loves! May it bring you at least as much peace and love as I felt while writing it 💕 The next drabble will be up this wednesday! The schedule and themes of the stories can be found in the master post for the drabbles. If you want to be added to the tag list for this little advent calender of drabbles, just let me know!

My other stories and drabbles can be found in my masterlist 

Huffing in annoyance of the sight of the absolute mess of a space you called your attic, you tip-toed across the room towards the bright red boxes in the back that you knew contained all of your Christmas decorations. Balancing your weight on one foot as you tried not to step on some of Jungkooks old exercise equipment, you could almost reach the handle on the top box. Mumbling out a string of curse words, you recalled the small argument you had had last year after Jungkook placed the boxes against the backwall. He knew you couldn’t reach them there, but he had promised to be home to help you put up the decorations this year. And yet he wasn’t here. Sure, you had planned on putting them up next weekend, but you needed them up now and nothing was gonna change that. Not even him being away for a concert.

Still stretched out towards the boxes, you accidently knocked over another box labeled ‘Winter clothes’ in Jungkooks neat writing, sending it a defiant glance as its content spilled out over the descending staircase. Your eyes followed the clothes’ tumbling flight down the stairs and you let out an annoyed sigh. Not like it mattered anyway. Despite your hopes and prayers there still hadn’t been even a millimeter of snow this year. Thus, the early Christmas decorations.

Finally reaching the box, you let out a triumphant roar as you carefully freed it from the surrounding boxes and cradled it to your chest, as you made your way down the staircase now hidden under the coats, scarfs and hats. Placing the box in the middle of the living room, you stretched out your back for a bit as you looked around the house you had called home for almost three years now. It was decorated fairly simple, since none of you were big on trinkets. The walls were bare say for some frame photographs of family and friends. Returning the happy smiles from the photos, you connected your phone to the speakers to put on your Christmas playlist. Failing to contain the wide grin from settling on your face as you heard the first notes of ‘The Christmas Waltz’, you let yourself be carried away by the music as you started putting up the decorations.

As Jungkook walked through the door some time later, it only took him a second to figure out what was going on. He could hear the music even before reaching the door, and the smell of cinnamon and cloves hit him the moment he opened it.

An almost giddy love for Christmas was something you both shared, which is why decorating the house usually was an activity you cherished doing together. Typically, you wouldn’t put up any decorations until the first snowfall, which was another Christmas tradition of yours. Watching it together. Despite your non-Korean heritage, it had become one of your favorite Christmas traditions and you knew it was one of Jungkooks as well.

But the missing snow this year had postponed your decorations quite a bit and it had put a severe dimmer on your usual happy self. He knew it would only be a question of time before you put up the decorations – with or without snow, you wouldn’t enter December without Christmas decorations in your home.

As he made his way to the living room, he found your figure a top a chair trying to secure a mistletoe over the door leading into the kitchen. Observing you for a bit, he let his gaze follow the curve of your body as he felt that familiar feeling of home settling in his chest. As always, your presence immediately put him at easy and he felt the stress of the last few days of travelling and schedules melt away as a giddy grin settled on his face.

When the chair wobbled a bit, he quickly stepped up to wrap his arms securely around your legs, making you squeal in surprise.

“Watch out, babe,” he mumbled with a grin against your thighs, making you giggle in joy when you recognized his voice and the feel of his arms around you. “You shouldn’t do stuff like this, when I’m not around to catch you if you fall.”

Looking up at you he tightened his hold on your thighs, lifting you off the chair as he spun you around slowly to the song playing in the background. Supporting yourself on his shoulders, you sent him a happy smile, earning a soft bunny smile back, as he slowly loosened his hold on you, allowing your body to move closer to the ground and your face closer to his.

As your feet reached the ground, you let your fingers get tangled in his hair as your eyes roamed his face, taking in those features you loved so dearly.

“Welcome home, baby,” you smiled at him, before leaning forward to pluck a kiss from his lips, making his eyes light up in a smile. “ I missed you,” you added, as you tucked some hair behind his ear, a habit you had picked up from when he had his long hair.

“I missed you more.” He connected your lips in a long overdue kiss, sighing in content at that familiar taste of you. Tugging on your sweater, he pulled you flush against his chest and let his hands rest on the curve of your back. “I see you started decorating without me?”, he teased with a wink, as he threw a look around the room. “But I only see one mistletoe? That sure is a downgrade from last year.”

Giggling at his dry comments, you softly scratched at his scalp and smiled blissfully as you saw his eyes flutter shut for a moment, before he reached for your hands and pinned them against his chest.

“Don’t distract me, young lady,” he scolded in a poor attempt of dismay as the sparkles in his eyes intensified. “You know, this is our thing. Decorating the house has always been something we do together,” he reprimanded, although his words had no real weight behind them, as he was pressing featherlight kissed to your knuckles in-between his words.

“I know, but I couldn’t wait any longer,” you whined, not even attempting to free your hands from Jungkooks grasp. “It still hasn’t snowed, but I will not go one more day without our decorations. I’m telling you, guk. If I can’t have snow, at least I will have my tree and decorations up.”

“There’s my girl,” Jungkook smiled at your decisive tone, as he let go of your hands to cradle your face and press a kiss to your lips. “Do you need any help?”

“You’re not mad?”, you asked in bewilderment as you watched him walk over to peer into the box, you had brought down from the attic.

“Of course not,” he chuckled as he roamed through the box. “You’ve been waiting for the first snowfall for almost a month now. Expecting you to wait another week was foolish of me. I mean, this is the girl, who couldn’t even wait for our first date to end, before you were planning the next one,” he laughed, making your cheeks heat up at the memory.

“Can you blame me? You kept talking about your neighbor who wouldn’t stop asking you out,” you reminded him with a reminiscent smile. “I needed to make sure, you wouldn’t come home after our first date and forget about me.”  

As he looked up from the box of decorations, he couldn’t help but smile at the pout you were sporting, making his heartbeat pick up.

“I would never,” he spoke softly, letting the few items he had picked up fall back into the box, so he could walk over and take you in his arms, feeling a sudden need to have you close. “I’m so happy you saw through all my bullshit back then and took a chance me,” he whispered against your lips as he took out all his pent-up emotions and feelings on your lips. Feeling you whimpering against him, he wrapped his arms tighter around you as he felt your body melt against his. He felt your fingers tugging at his nape, drawing him impossibly closer to you as you sighed against his lips.

“Wait,” you exclaimed, suddenly drawing back and leaving Jungkook pouting at the missing contact. “Decorations. Please, guk. I really need them up.”

Cocking his head at your whiny tone, he took in your slightly distressed features and reached up to cup your cheek.

“Why do you need them up right now, babe?”

“I just…” shrugging your shoulders, you tried avoiding his observing eyes. “I just wasn’t feeling the Christmas spirit and it hasn’t even snowed, and I just need something to feel like it is actually December and not any other month.”

Instead of questioning you further, Jungkook simply gave you a subtle nod before pulling you close and placing a light kiss on at your temple.

“I’ll go get the rest of the boxes from the attic,” he spoke against your skin, making your eyes flutter shut in content. He always knew when to support you without question and when to push you. Despite the long stretches of time you spent apart, he was always the perfect partner for you. When he was home at least.

“Did you have a fight with our coats?”, he snorted, as he was met with the chaos that was currently the staircase leading up to the attic.

“No,” you whined, unable to contain the giggle from spilling from your lips. “I was punishing them for being useless. They should feel ashamed.”

Shaking his head in amusement at your words, he cleared the staircase before retrieving the remaining boxes from the attic.

You could faintly hear him roaming around the attic over the sound of ‘Santa Clause is coming to town’ and you felt yourself calm down and the comfortableness of having Jungkook home expand your heart. Home wasn’t really home, when he wasn’t there with you and just hearing him somewhere in the house made you feel more at home as well.

Humming along to the song, you continued putting up the decorations, smiling softly when you heard him cursing about the boxes, as he descended the stairs.

“Look, when we pack the boxes away this year, I’ll listen to you,” he huffed in defeat as he placed the two boxes on the floor. “It took me forever to get them out from the back.”

“Thank you for getting them down for me, babe,” you smiled at him, as you placed a sweet kiss to his cheek, before busying yourself with the content of the boxes.

Jungkooks hand fell comfortably to your hip as he leaned over the box with you, looking through the content.

“Oh, here are the other mistletoes!”, he exclaimed, pulling the tangled mess out of the box and holding it above your heads. “Kiss?”

As you pressed a kiss to his lips without hesitations, he rewarded you with a bunny smile.

“See, this is why we do the decorations together.”

“So you can steal kisses from me every 5 minutes?”, you asked dryly, although you loved his playfulness.

“Exactly. And there are at least 3 mistletoes here, so you owe me two more kisses, missy,” he smirked, dangling the mistletoes again.

Mirroring his smirk, you threw yourself against his body, making him stumble back a bit in surprise and drop the mistletoe, so he could catch you. Feeling him smile against your lips, you heart was swelling with happiness at how easy you got back to being you after he had been gone on tour. You let your hands roam his back and felt him tightening his hold on you as he deepened the kiss.

Drawing back for air, you locked eyes with him and sighed deeply.

“I missed you,” you smiled softly through a comfortable smile.

“You’re being really cute today, babe. Everything okay?”

Nodding at him, as he tugged some hair behind your ear, you felt your heart swell with love at how attentive he was with you. Maybe you were overthinking things.

“I’m good. Just missed you.”

“I missed you too,” he smiled at you, earrings dangling as he cocked his head a bit. “I’m so happy to be home.”

He pulled you close for a hug, caressing your back as he hooked his chin over the top of your head and let you rest your head against his chest, so you could hear his heartbeat. Closing your eyes for a second, you breathed in his scent and felt the comfortable warmth emanating from his body. Drawing a heavy sigh, you opened your eyes again. Looking out the window you were met with…

“Snow!”, you exclaimed, quickly untangling yourself from his embrace to run to the window. “It’s snowing,” you giggled, beaming back at Jungkook with sparkling eyes. “It’s finally snowing.”

Grabbing his wrist and dragging him outside, you ignored his weak complaints as you stopped in the middle of the garden, turning towards him and giggling once more at the feeling of the cold ground under your feet.

“It’s snowing, babe,” you repeated, this time in a softer voice as you craned your neck to take in the beautiful snowflakes falling around you, missing the way Jungkooks face turned soft as he took in your features.

“I was afraid it wouldn’t happen this year,” you half-whispered, half-giggled as the flakes landed on your outstretched hand. Suddenly hit with a wave of emotions, you looked up at Jungkook and felt the tears pressing in the corner of your eyes. “I’m so happy you made it home for this.”

“Is that what this is all about?”, he asked, voice laced with concern as he stepped up to you to pull you into a hug.

“It’s just… we’ve both been so busy lately and I was afraid that we were drifting apart a bit. But we’ve always been together for the first snow, and I just felt like we needed a sign,” you admitted, your voice muffled against his sweater.

“A sign of what?”

“That we should stay together.”

Hearing his sharp intake of breath, you immediately regretted telling him your concerns.

“No, listen. I want to be with you,” you spoke in a sure voice as you held him close by his sweater. “I do. I love you and I love us. But it’s been tough lately, right? You gotta admit that it’s been tough, Kook. It’s just…” Taking a deep breath you looked up to see his eyes already a bit misty and his jaw tensed. You hated seeing him cry. It was endearing seeing him cry over a song or a movie, but when you were the one causing it, it felt like all air had been punched out of your lungs. It was unbearable. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“But you’ve been upset,” he countered with a knowing look, tightening his hold on you as if afraid you would slip away from him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because we’ve both been so busy. There wasn’t really anything that could be done.” Your voice was soft, but not weak. This wasn’t a defeat, more a confession. Despite Jungkooks crazy schedule as an idol and your own work burden, you had never actually had any trouble making your relationship work. Allowing each other the space you needed for your careers and other friends, your relationship had remained a sturdy haven for you, when life was flying at warp speed around you. But lately your time spent in that haven had decreased severely.

“And you needed the snow to convince you, that we should stay together?”

His voice broke your train of thoughts and when you met his eyes, they were clear and stubborn.

“Well, you taught me that seeing the first snow together means we will have a long and happy relationship together,” you reminded him.

“Y/n, I told you that because you were so hesitant in the first few months of our relationship, and I know you always look for signs,” he admitted with a slight giggle. “I checked the weather forecasts for weeks to make sure I didn’t miss it. Didn’t you wonder, why we were out almost everyday during those days?”

Taken aback by his confession, you thought back to the first winter of your relationship. You had gone skating, taken long walks together, visited Christmas markets and a thousand other activities, which sure enough all happened to be outside.

“Ya,” you exclaimed, lightly hitting his chest and earning a chuckle from the man, who had been way more cunning than you thought. “You tricked me! I can’t believe this!”

Unable to keep your own bubbling laughter from escaping, you looked up at Jungkook with sparkling eyes and found his own twinkling back at you.

“You really think I would let the weather decide our relationship?”, he chuckled, although you felt the sincerity behind his words. “I love you. With or without snow. With or without Christmas decorations. Always. I promise, I’ll be better at showing it. And I will find all the signs I can to put in your way, so you will never doubt it again.”

“Guk,” you whispered and raised yourself on your toes so you could give him a soft peck on the lips. “I love you too. I’m sorry I doubted us.”

Smiling softly at you, he reached down to cup your thighs and by instinct you jumped into his arms. Sliding his hands further back, he cupped your ass giving it a light squeeze as he sent you a mischievous grin.

“It’s okay, babe. Guess I’ll just have to be better at showing you. Oh, and what’s this?”, he asked innocently with a cheeky smirk as he looked up. “A mistletoe? That’s a sign! We should kiss!”

Following his eyes upwards you snorted out a laugh.

“Guk, that’s birch tree, not a mistletoe,” you chuckled.

“Nah, babe. Trust me on this one. That is definitely a mistletoe, and if you don’t kiss me right now, you are working against the universe,” he countered, his smile growing wider with each word.

“You just want me to kiss you.”

“Yes, definitely. And preferably the entire night only interrupted by you gasping my name in pleasure,” he deadpanned as he started carrying you back to the house.

“Jungkook!”, you squealed in a giggle, before connecting your lips in an effort to shut him up, before the entire neighborhood heard him.

Endnote: Happy December 1st, everyone! 

[heungtanbts]

Surprises

jungkook x reader

2.5k

fluff

Being in a relationship with Jungkook means there’s always something new. Every day you spend with him means one surprise after another, simply because the man is unpredictable. Not in a way that makes you doubt his word or faithfulness to you – he’s rock solid in that respect, thankfully. But he’s unpredictable in a way that makes you excited to see him every time, all the time, whereas with most other people, you’d have to see them in doses and then spend some time away from them.

That’s not the case with Jungkook. He’s the first person you’ve ever felt like you could spend every second with and not get sick of. He truly is the light in your life, and he always keeps things interesting. It isn’t like the man is flying you out to Paris on the weekends for lunch or buying you surprise gifts left and right, but with Jungkook it’s always the new little things you learn about him that makes spending time with him so easy, so wonderful. He makes you incredibly happy, and there’s just never a dull moment with him.

He loves to make you smile, and does it so effortlessly. Goofy, unfiltered energy and happiness is just engrained in the fibers of his being. All he has to do is be himself and that’s enough to cause the most belly aching laughter to spill from your lips, the biggest grin to tear at your cheeks, and for your heart to be so warm and full to the brim. All the little comments he makes, the way he sees things so differently from other people and is so unafraid to be himself just keeps the surprises coming, and you’re amazed that he can still catch you so off guard even after all this time.

This time, as you walk through the front door of your shared apartment, it shocks you to see that he’s home early. But you honestly don’t know if that’s what’s more surprising, or if it’s the fact that he’s standing in the kitchen, willingly, dressed in red basketball shorts, your pink hello kitty apron draped across his naked chest, with a bright purple headband pulling back his long wavy hair, all while fanning at billowing black smoke with a bunny slipper.

Seriously, never a dull day.

“Jungkook,” you say as you kick your foot back to shut the door before strolling into the kitchen. “What in the world are you doing?” His eyes widen comically and he stops fanning for a split second, the bunny’s floppy ears coming to a standstill.

“Uhh, science experiment?” You can barely stifle a snort at his comment.

“I see.” You hum and set your bag down, unalarmed as you peek over into the pot of bubbling, unidentifiable, charred black bits. “Let me guess, either you’ve truly binged too many episodes of Breaking Bad, or you’ve somehow gone way off course with my spicy sausage spaghetti recipe.”

Jungkook scrunches his nose at that, a pout forming on his lips as he lets go of the bunny slipper so it drops onto the floor, stuffing his foot into it more aggressively than necessary. “Welp, that’s the first and last time I ever try surprising you by cooking dinner.” He huffs disgruntledly before glaring at the bubbling black pot, chucking the wooden spoon into it. He reaches behind his head, about to undo the knot of the apron and quite literally throw in the towel when you bring your hands to his arms and lower them, biting back a smile.

“I’m sorry babe, I didn’t mean to make you upset. It’s just,” the grin fully pulls back at the corners of your lips, “you literally never set foot in the kitchen unless it’s to get frozen pizza out of the oven or bug me while I’m cooking for us. I’m just shocked that you’re even in here in the first place.”

His face softens a fraction at that and he lowers his arms, hello kitty remaining untouched as he offers a small shrug. “There’s a higher chance of winning the lottery than me ever getting out of work early, so I figured I’d take the opportunity and try to do something nice for you for once.” Jungkook glances at the pot and raises an eyebrow, “which actually, now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve totally screwed up.” You tilt your head to show him the puzzled look on your face. Although, you’re glad he’s not beating himself up for messing up the recipe, like he sometimes does when he can’t get something right.

“We can sell this toxin to the government to use as chemical warfare and make bank.”

That has you properly snorting and Jungkook grins victoriously at your response, wiggling his eyebrows playfully in the way that is so endearingly Jungkook. Of course he can’t respond like a normal person, that would be just so – not Jungkook.

Shaking your head, you lift the pot and place it into the sink, turning on the water to let the burnt contents soak and bringing a newly filled pot on your way back to the stove. Rolling up your sleeves, you turn to Jungkook with a determined look on your face.

“Well then, let’s have our last meal as common folk before we sell this shit and become millionaires, shall we?” Shooting him a wink, you get an even more dramatic, cheesy one in return, his mouth open and everything, causing you to giggle as you drop a handful of uncooked noodles into the new pot of water. Side by side with your meme man looking like hello kitty threw up on him in some revenge plot of some sort, you walk with him through each step of your special homemade recipe.

“You know,” Jungkook pipes up after a few minutes of silent ingredient prepping, watching you as you skillfully mince a few garlic cloves into tiny pieces, “I love garlic but it’s no wonder why that spicy pungent shit repels even vampires. Gives you hella death breath.”

You roll your eyes playfully, “So what, you won’t kiss me if I eat a bunch of garlic? Is that what you’re saying?” You tilt your head to the side and expect Jungkook, who you’ve come to learn cannot seem to get enough of your lips, to reply with something like whoaa hang on a second, I never said that, babe. But he just leisurely grabs another bulb of garlic and tosses it up and down casually, wearing that trademark smirk of his.

“Since you love it so much, you should eat this entire bulb of garlic – raw.”

Rather than fight back, you give him a half shrug, looking completely unbothered. “That’s fine, I’ll eat this bulb and you can eat the other two. Sound good?”

Jungkook bites his lower lip, still looking like the peak of devastation even though he just lost at his own game. You know you have him there – the man who willingly chooses to sky dive three times in a row, isn’t scared of any horror movie, and lifts weights nearly five times a week for fun, can’t handle spicy very well.

As dinner slowly comes together, it seems as though Jungkook has forgotten he ever made a mistake in the first place. He’s too busy helping you throw ingredients into the boiling pot and making you double over in laughter when he suddenly throws a sausage up in the air, catching it and playfully jabbing it in your sides like a fencing sword, yelling “en garde!” all the while. You also catch him staring into the holes of an empty bulb of garlic, muttering something about trypophobia and “nasty devil holes” under his breath.

Once you both fall into another bout of comfortable silence, he suddenly becomes serious, stirring the simmering pot of sauce like his life depends on it. You watch his side profile as his tongue pokes out of the corner of his lips in concentration, his gaze firmly set on the little popping air bubbles on the surface. He’s so determined, hell bent even, to make sure the sauce isn’t ruined this time. You can see it in the way his eyes quickly flit over to the stove clock and then back to the sauce, back and forth and back and forth, as if taking his eyes off of the sauce for even one second will allow it to change from mouthwatering, spicy goodness to another newly concocted black-market poison that’s ready to kill. He keeps mumbling “2 more minutes, then low heat. 2 more minutes” under his breath, gently stirring the contents while his other hand death grips the handle of the pot.

Even though he loves to joke and mess around, you can tell now that Jungkook’s really trying, and that he really does feel bad for “ruining” this surprise for you. You’ll have to let him know before the evening ends that he hasn’t ruined anything at all. In fact, he’s completely made your day, like he always does. It’s these little moments, little things like this that have you falling deeper and harder for this goofball of a man – your caring and hardworking, wannabe mad scientist. So what if he isn’t the greatest chef out there? You wouldn’t change a single thing about him.

Still admiring his face, you body reacts before your mind can as you reach a hand up to cup his chiseled jaw. His response is automatic and he turns his cheek into your warm palm, nuzzling into it a bit as he continues to stir, those large doe eyes still watching the clock like a hawk. Gently, you thumb at his jawline, admiring his sharp and yet also soft facial features, including the barely noticeable scar on his left cheek and unconsciously, your touch and undivided attention causes a small smile to grow on Jungkook’s face.

“If I was an insanely genius druggie scientist on Breaking Bad, I’d be a pretty hot one, wouldn’t I?” Jungkook comments, his bare chest puffing up beneath the giant hello kitty face. You can’t help but laugh at the sight as you slip your arms under the apron and around his waist, pressing your body into his warmth.

“Only if you wear this hello kitty apron, then yes. You’d be absolutely smokin’.”

He wriggles his eyebrows again. “You know what they say – the kitty maketh the man.”

Before you know it, 2 minutes are up, as Jungkook has perfectly timed, and the sauce is ready to be plated over the noodles. As you set the plates of hot spaghetti down on the table, you turn to look at Jungkook who has sat down in one of the chairs, hello kitty present as well, and is not smiling anymore. He’s staring at the dishes of warm noodles with steaming red cream sauce on top with such distaste, and you know it’s not because he doesn’t find the food appetizing. The sight of him has you automatically reaching over to rake your fingers through his hair, almost accidentally pushing the purple nike headband off his head.

“Jungkook, stop it. It’s fine, love, really.”

His lips pull down into a grim line. “I just really wanted to surprise you and make dinner for you for once… You’re always cooking for us.” Giving a strand of his hair a tug, he finally looks up at you with now sad doe eyes, like he’s truly disappointed in himself. That’s when you realize you were wrong – he’s probably been silently beating himself up this whole time and cracking more jokes than usual to try and make up for all of this. Even though there really isn’t any reason to.

Scooting his chair back, you settle into his lap and wrap your arms around his shoulders, pressing a warm kiss to his forehead before backing away to look at him. Luckily, the frown on his face has softened dramatically and his eyes are lighting up more than just a moment ago.

“You putting in all this effort for me is more than enough, Kook-ah. You finally got off work early for the first time in like, a hundred ninety years, and you decided to use that time to surprise me?” You shake your head in disbelief, “I don’t deserve you, really. Thank you.”

Without giving you even a moment to breathe, Jungkook abruptly pulls you closer to him, pressing his lips against yours urgently but gently, his large, warm hands holding your hips securely and molded against his body. A flick of his tongue against your bottom lip grants him access as you sigh into him, hands making their way up his shoulders, neck, and finally curling into his dark locks. He switches between gentle bites and caressing touches that have you feeling weak, and you’re thankful you chose to sit in his lap or else your knees might’ve given out by now. With every brush of his soft flesh against yours, you can hear everything he wants to but isn’t able to say easily with words – I’m sorry, but thank you, I love you. And it’s all more than enough for you, he’s more than enough for you.

Just as a knot of warmth starts to form in your stomach, he pulls away, a little bit breathless and flushed but looking so much more content and at peace than before. Thumbs stroke at his warm cheeks as fingers run up and down your back absentmindedly, the air between you quiet but not unnerving. He just makes you feel loved, so loved. Another moment to add to your endless list of “reasons to love Jungkook” list.

Tilting his head to the side, Jungkook gives you a small smile, the tips of his bunny teeth making an appearance. “I can make pretty a bomb ass chili.” Genuinely surprised, you raise your eyebrows at him. Such a Jungkook thing to say in a moment like this.

“Can you now?” You play along, tucking a loose strand of hair behind his ear. He nods eagerly before giving you a pointed look.

“But only mild chili, nothing flavored like the devil’s asshole or whatever insane spicy level you usually like.” A laugh rings clearly from your lips that has him wearing a bright grin, and his hands reflexively tighten on your hips.

“I’m good with that,” you say with another lingering laugh, grinning right back at him, “next time?”

Jungkook kisses the tip of your nose before resting his forehead against yours, and you swear you feel your heart hiccup for a second. His kisses will always do that to you. His little quirks will always catch you off guard in the most pleasant way possible. Jungkook’s presence will always make you feel like you’re truly living your best life, because it’s Jungkook – and you are too far head over heels for him.

“Next time for sure.”