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nahimjustfeelingit-writes · 23 days ago

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A Night Forgotten.

Part Seven

Present Day:

“Drop the sheet, Davis,” he demanded. “Drop it right now.”

Emoni gaped at him. “W-what? Erik—”

Erik reached forward and yanked the sheet from her grip anyway, baring her to the world once more. Then, before she could bolt and find something else to hide behind, he took hold of her shoulders in a firm grip and forced her to stay put.

“Erik, let go of me! I’ll kick you in your balls! I’m serious!” she threatened in a high voice, attempting to yank free. Emoni dug her fingernails into his forearms, embarrassed by the way he was simply staring at her. "Let go!"

“Be still,” he countered. “Stop! Just…stop fighting me, please.”

Maybe it was the 'please' that did it, since Emoni knew Erik would rather tear out his own toenails than plead for anything. Unsure what he was after or how far to trust him, but concerned by how grave he suddenly appeared, she reluctantly did as requested and stopped struggling. She watched him instead, looking for clues as to what might be the matter, but his face gave nothing away.

He didn't move, didn't even seem to breathe. He just stared at her naked breasts in complete silence. Emoni felt an instant shiver down her spine from his penetrating eyes and slow, even breaths. She could feel her nipples hardening with anticipation.

“What is it?” she asked after a while, her insatiable curiosity needing to be eased before she popped from the suspense.

What was wrong? What did he see that she didn't?

Finally, he said, “I bit you.” He released her shoulders and lightly feathered over the bite mark upon her left breast. “Right here.”

The light caress made her body instantly react. Her heart started pounding, and she went tight from head to toe with a sudden, throbbing sexual need. A small moan escaped her lips.

Erik froze, finger still on her nipple, and she could feel his body shudder in answer. Cursing under his breath, he glanced up at her.

“I didn't just fuck you. I bit you. And not just here,” his fingers ghosted between the valley of her perky, upturned breasts to her abdomen, “And here…and here…I was rough with you…do they hurt?”

“I-I don’t feel pain…Erik, are you okay?” she asked, voice breathy, body tingling and trembling. Between her legs, she could feel the trickle of her arousal as it flowed through her bare lower lips, preparing her body for him.

Erik’s nostrils flared as he inhaled and smelled her arousal. A rumble of pleasure rolled through his chest. He closed his eyes, clearly struggling to maintain some control. “ I’ve Done it. Crossed a line...”

Emoni knew exactly where his mind was taking him. He’d thought his actions last night weren’t consensual.

“Erik, no, you didn’t do anything wrong. I’m sure this was on a mutual basis. I��don’t go blaming yourself for our lack of memory. I’m sure it’ll come to us soon enough.”

“…This just…it feels off. Not what happened between us…because I’ve always wanted that to happen…it’s just the gaps in memory…”

“That's what I've been saying,” she said, practically panting now as her body went slick with desire. “Things are s–strange.”

“Emoni…” He breathed a greedy sigh and the hold he suddenly took on her right wrist to anchor him tightened just the tiniest bit. “Fuck, you smell wonderful,” he sighed. “I want–” His lips clamped into a tight line and he shook his head. “I want…”

When he opened his eyes, they burned with a dark, fiery lust.

He leaned towards her, his mouth tilting to catch hers. As his lips parted, Emoni caught the glimpse of his teeth. The gold slugs against white teeth.

The thought was instantly lost, however, when his mouth careened into hers. Erik claimed her with a languid, deep kiss, and the hand at her breast cupped her supple flesh, kneading it. His fingers gave her nipple a little series of pinches guaranteed to make her ache for more. Spine bowing in response, she arched her back, offering more of herself up to his touch.

Dizzy with sudden need to feel him between her thighs, Emoni manoeuvered them over towards the top of the bed, plundering Erik’s mouth with her tongue, licking every crevice and claiming ownership of it.

He groaned in response, allowing her to take him where she willed.

They made it to the pillows, and she reached up to fist his hair in her hands to pull him down on top of her as she laid back into it. Pressing her into the mattress with his greater weight, Erik nudged her legs open, insistent that they part to make room for him. His hands were everywhere on her, searching, finding, exploiting every sensitive spot, and then fingers were in her, spreading her open once more for him.

Emoni winced with the twinge of discomfort that came from her swollen, hot body being stretched open once again. The night's activities had left her sore and a little achy. In tune with her on a level she couldn't mentally comprehend, but still felt deep inside her heart, Erik sensed her body's tenderness and slowed, gentling his hand's movements. His fingers leisurely eased in and out of her as his thumb lightly brushed over her soft, delicate clit instead, sending electricity arcing up her spine.

Without words, he bent his head to press adoring, lazy kisses upon her throat, then lower, at her breast. As his lips brushed over the bite mark he'd given her the night before, a rush of magic passed between them, filling Emoni with its sweet, quickening pleasure. Her heart slowed in her chest and her body loosened, surrendering to him.

He was so gentle with her, so...loving.

“Erik,” Emoni shut her eyes tightly, unable to gaze into his own that was so intense.

Erik nibbled on her jaw, pressed his plump lips against the pulse in her neck, all while fingering her to a creamy mess. It was so obscene how loud her pussy is. Her face grew hot with bashfulness all while trying to fight back loud moans.

“No need to fight it, pretty girl. I see what you wanna do. Give it to me…I’m in this pussy and I can feel you gripping…this tight, wet pussy…”

Emoni pressed her face into Erik’s chest and she moaned unabashedly.

“There you go…good girl…I want you to make the biggest mess on my fingers…it’ll make it easier for me to fit all this big dick in you, Princess…”

“Oh, my god…”

Emoni’s thighs closed around Erik’s waist tightly. The sensation of release crept over her body sending shockwaves through her. Emoni arched her back, incoherent noises spewing from her pretty lips while she leaked all over Erik’s thick fingers.

“That’s what I like, baby…” Erik peppered soft kisses along Emoni’s sweaty temple, “Nice and slick for daddy to slide in…”

Emoni couldn’t believe she was doing this with Erik. Although she’d dreamt of it many times, to actually be in bed with him, skin-to-skin, she couldn’t put into words how thrilled and scared she was at the same time.

Erik lifted to look down at her. Emoni mustered the courage to gaze into his beautiful eyes. She watched as Erik brought his fingers to his mouth, sucking all her juices off with languid strokes of his tongue.

“Are you okay?” Erik questioned with a deep whisper.

Emoni slowly nodded her head, hyper aware of her hard nipples and quivering pussy. She wanted more. Erik knew it from the lusty look in her eyes.

“Emoni—”

“Please fuck me, stop talking.” Emoni quipped.

Erik paused, a sly smirk painting his lush lips.

Erik kept his eyes on her, positioning himself above her and Emoni’s eyes danced down to his third leg. Erik pointed his wide tip at her entrance and Emoni adjusted her hips so he could slide right in. Their eyes connected again and Emoni wasn’t prepared for the the long, slow glide of his big dick. The thick heft of him tenderly stretched her open, and her body adapted, easily accepting all of him. She held onto his shoulders as he lay over her, spreading her knees as far apart as they could go and welcoming him inside her.

When he was seated to the hilt, he paused, shaky and panting against her throat. His mouth lifted to her ear. “My Emoni,” he softly growled, laying claim to not just her body, but her soul, too.

“God, Erik,” she gasped in pleasure and wrapped her arms tightly around him, burying her nose in his throat as he began moving.

And as he began, something shifted between them.

Like a freight train, the recollection of the previous night hit them full force.

——

The Night Forgotten:

“Let’s get married. No stress, no family pressure. Real and authentic.”

Emoni looked over at Erik with upmost shock. He didn’t tell her where they were going exactly. But the vision of A Little White Chapel told her all she needed to know.

“Stop playing,” Emoni playfully shoved Erik although he didn’t budge, “Ha–ha–ha. Very funny, Stevens.”

Erik caught her hand in his and something shifted between them when he touched her. Emoni froze. Their eyes held on a little longer because realization kicked in.

“Erik…you’re serious?”

“Dead serious. As serious as I can be. I…”

Erik glanced at the chapel with nervous anticipation. Emoni didn’t look away from him for a second. This night was full of surprises, but Erik N’Jadaka Stevens-Udaku proposing to her was not on her bingo card.

“It’s the drinks. You’re drunk,” Emoni shook her head, “Let’s go—”

“I may be a little under the influence, but I mean what I say, Emoni. Will you marry me? Right here. Right now.”

Emoni scrunched her face up with disbelief. She wanted to slap him in his pretty face.

“What kind of proposal is this?!!! You don’t even have a ring!”

Erik glanced down at his lap. He started bouncing his leg anxiously. Emoni exhaled and she placed her hand on Erik’s knee.

“Hey…listen. I’m sorry. But…you want to marry me? Do you hear what you’re asking me right now? You could have any woman in the world. Hell, you have one waiting for you in Wakanda—”

“I don’t want her. I want you.” Erik replied.

“Erik, this is crazy—”

“Emoni, listen to me. It’s my decision to find a wife. A princess. And I want you to be my wife. I can see myself spending the rest of my life with you.”

Emoni watched as Erik turned away from her, hiding his face. She didn’t know what to do as she stared at the back of his head.

“I want you to be my wife. I’m serious, Emoni. I’ll give you the fairytale wedding of your dreams, I promise that. But…I just…I can’t explain it. It just feels so right. All of it…”

Emoni sat back in her seat. She couldn’t deny that it did feel right. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but at that exact moment, she could picture herself walking hand-in-hand inside the chapel to marry Erik. As wild as it may seem, she’d say yes. She knew she would—

“Ask me again.”

Erik slowly looked at Emoni.

“Erik…ask me.”

“…Will you marry me? Emoni Davis?”

“Yes. YES. I’LL MARRY YOU.”

Emoni clamped a hand over her mouth, so shocked by her own words.

“For real?!” Erik needed further clarification.

“YES!!!!” Emoni shouted.

A smile crept up Erik’s face and his cheeks deepened with dimples. Emoni palmed her cheeks, bewildered and surprised. She couldn’t control her shaky breath or the nervous tremors. Erik leaned over and smashed his lips into hers. They kissed in a frenzy, grabbing and squeezing each other desperately. Emoni broke the kiss and cupped Erik’s handsome face. His chest was heaving up and down like he was chasing oxygen.

“We’re really going to do this?”

“As long as you’re okay with it. Yes.”

“I can’t believe I’m about to do this,” Emoni smoothed her curls from her face, “Wow…”

“We can turn around and go back to my place. Your call. But just know this,” Erik stroked her chin with his thumb, “I plan on making you my wife and my Princess. If not today, soon. I mean that.”

Emoni knew he meant it.

She exhaled, “Okay…if we’re doing this, no games, Erik. Don’t hurt me. Don’t you ever take my love for granted. Respect me always. If you don’t I swear to God I will castrate you—”

“I’ll never harm you in anyway, Moni. I promise. I put that on my parents grave. I’m dead serious about you. No fucking games. No misleading. I’m speaking from the heart and not because of the alcohol. I want you and you only, girl.”

Emoni stared into his soul. To see Erik Stevens like this…it blew her mind.

“Let’s go get married.”

Emoni smiled with all her teeth and Erik laughed. He rushed out of the car and towards her side. Emoni didn’t wait for him to open the door, she rushed out and grabbed Erik’s hand. They walked towards the chapel, nervous energy radiating from them. Erik held the door opened for her and Emoni stepped inside. It smelled like an old church to her. She fiddled with her handbag while following Erik further inside.

“No ring…we need a ring—my belly ring! Oh shit! I don’t have a ring for you,” Emoni stopped in her tracks, “Erik—”

“Look,” Erik pointed to a vending machine filled with ring pops, “This feels like some shit out of a movie. They have ring pops. One for you and one for me.”

Emoni rushed to open her handbag and she was able to get two quarters. She placed it in the machine and turned to switch. A green and blue ring pop came out and she retrieved it. As they were about to enter, an officiant appeared from a room, startled by their presence. It was a short man with kind eyes and a bald head. He was wearing a cheap brown suit with a red bow-tye.

“Oh! Why hello! I’m Noah. Are you two looking to get married?”

“Y-yes,” Emoni spoke before Erik could, “We are.”

“We want to get married.” Erik responded with a confident smile.

“Great! You’re my second couple tonight. Uh—any rings?”

Emoni and Erik shared a look.

“Well…not quite at the moment…um…”

“We have these,” Erik presented the ring pops, “This was a spur of the moment thing. No access to the real thing. This should be sufficient enough, right?”

“Yes! We can definitely go forward with the ceremony! Any witnesses?”

“None. Just us.” Erik said.

He squeezed Emoni’s hand affectionately.

“Okay! Let’s make it happen then! Follow me!”

They followed Noah into his office. It was a cramped space with lots of photos of previous newly weds. They took a seat at the desk while Noah gathered some paperwork for them. Emoni gripped Erik’s hand tighter and he soothed her with his thumb stroking it. This was all real and not a dream.

“The Little White Wedding Chapel Las Vegas is a popular destination for many couples. From celebrity weddings to spectacular packages, there are many reasons why couples choose this location as their matrimonial spot. The best place in Nevada for a taste of Sin City’s wedding vibe. I highly recommend…”

Noah presented some forums to them to fill out. They each put their personal information down and afterwards, Noah asked them which package they would like for photography.

“Uhh…we can just take pictures from our phones if that’s okay.” Emoni decided.

She took one look at Erik and they both burst into a fit of laughter.

“Very well. We can get started if you’re ready!”

Noah stood to lead the way into the chapel at the podium where they would be wed. Since it was just the two of them, they walked down the aisle hand in hand. All smiles and giggles. They reached the podium and Erik helped her up before he stood before her. Noah cleared his throat to speak.

“Dearly Beloved and Honored, Invisible Guests, We are gathered together here to join Emoni and Erik in the spiritual union of marriage…”

Emoni gave Erik a megawatt smile and he winked at her.

“This contract is not to be entered into lightly but thoughtfully and seriously, and with a deep realization of its obligations and responsibilities. Please remember that love, loyalty, and understanding are the foundations of a happy and enduring home.”

Noah focused his attention on Erik. Emoni released a shaky breath while holding onto Erik’s hands.

“Do you, Erik take this woman, Emoni, to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, in good times and woe, for richer or poorer, keeping yourself unto her for as long as you both shall live?"

“I do.” Erik said.

Emoni blinked back tears but her smile and laughter remained. This was so crazy and spontaneous. Something she’d never think to do. But it felt so right.

“Do you, Emoni, take this man, Erik, to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, in good times and woe, for richer or poorer, keeping yourself unto him for as long as you both shall live?”

“I do.” Emoni replied.

“Erik and Emoni will now exchange rings as a symbol of their love and commitment.”

They both fumbled to open the ring pops and Erik almost dropped his but his quick reflexes saved the day. He had the blue ring pop and Emoni the green. Erik placed the ring pop onto Emoni’s finger first. She couldn’t contain her smile and her joyous laugh. Erik’s fingers were too thick so the ring pop only went on over his knuckle. He snorted a laughter. Noah watched the both of them with a content smile.

“By the authority vested in me by American Marriage Ministries and the State of Nevada, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss your bride.”

Erik swept Emoni off her feet and wrapped his arms around her waist. His lips crashed into hers and their tongue’s danced with a sloppy motion. Wet smacking filled the silent space between them, and it became awkward for Noah to stand there and watch. Way too intimate. They were in an intense lip-lock with their heads swiveling.

“Congratulations! You two look great together.”

Erik paused their kissing to look at Noah. Emoni buried her face into his neck.

“Emoni Stevens-Udaku.” Erik said.

“I’M A WIFE!” She yelled.

——

They pulled up to a hidden gem in the middle of the oasis in the desert. It was fitting for a Prince and his Princess. It’s surrounded by water, and secluded enough for privacy. Erik didn’t waste any time parking his car in one of his many garages. He wanted and NEEDED to be with Emoni. The overwhelming feeling within him called him to her. His wife. Erik climbed out of his car and practically ran to her side. Opening the door, he picked her up bridal style, shutting the car door with his foot.

Emoni’s squeals of delight made him smile. He twirled her around in his arms, careful not to trip over the grass in his front yard. He made it to his front entrance and placed Emoni on her feet so he could open the door. His heart was racing within his chest cavity. Erik pushed the door open and grasped Emoni’s small hand, pulling her inside. Emoni pressed forward, her eyes gazing around her in wonder.

“This is beautiful, Erik…”

She looked so beautiful.

“You’re beautiful…”

Erik pressed the front of his body against her back and then he curved his arms around her trim waist. Her rump against his groin sent sparks throughout his body. He was so infatuated with her. So enthralled with her. Obsessed with her. He was so thrilled to finally have her like this.

“I’m so happy you said yes…”

[say it]

“I love you, Moni. I always have…I always will…”

“And I love you, Hubby.”

Emoni turned to stare up at him as they stood within the dimly lit foyer. Her face reminded him of a fairy. Her curly hair mesmerized him. Her intellect drew him.

“Come on,” Erik guided her towards his stairs that led up to his room, “We’ve got some unfinished business to attend to, Mrs. Stevens-Udaku.”

Emoni slithered away from Erik, making her way up his stairs as if she were racing him. Erik gave her a playful look before following her, taking his time so she could have her fun. He had plans to imprint her frame into his luxury bed all fucking night long. She needed the endurance. He made it to the second landing, his eyes following a trail of her clothes. He picked up her dress, then he picked up her Dior heels, and then her handbag.

It wasn’t hard to find her, she was exactly where he wanted her to be. Erik pressed forward into his room, and his eyes lit up with absolute desire at the vision before him. Emoni was standing on his bed in her naked glory, skin glowing radiantly. He’d painted a picture in his mind many times how that frame looked like, but to see it in person…

“Damn…you got a body on you…”

Erik dropped her things on the floor and made his way over towards her.

“You got right down to business, huh?” Erik questioned.

Emoni giggled before climbing down from his bed. She made her way over to him, Erik grunting the closer she got. Emoni smiled up at him through those lashes and the innocence of her eyes didn’t match her actions. She was a true freak. He could tell.

“Why waste time? You need me…and I need you…”

Emoni started unbuttoning Erik’s shirt. He watched her intently, even took note of the little whimpers she made. Emoni smoothed his shirt from his body and then she smoothed her small hands beneath his white beater, lifting it over his sculpted body. Erik helped her remove the rest and he tossed it to the side.

“So sexy…” she whispered.

Erik let her have her fun. The sensation of her lips all over his chest and abs made his dick painfully hard. He knew she was aware of his stiffness because it was pressed against her lower belly. The gasp she released and the way she looked up at him caused Erik to pick her up and wrap her legs around his waist.

“Time to eat this pussy—”

“WAIT—I’m hairy down there—”

“Emoni. I don’t care about hair. I want my mouth on that pussy—”

“Shave me first. I wasn’t expecting you to—to eat me out—”

“Are you serious?” Erik arched a brow at her in disbelief, “You thought I was just gon’ fuck you and not taste what I’m sinking my dick into? All the times I’ve fantasized about making you cum with my mouth?”

Emoni blinked up at Erik in awe.

“Aight, I’ll shave you. But only because you asked. Otherwise, I’m eating it no matter how she look.”

Erik led Emoni into his master bathroom and sat her down on the sink. Emoni watched him open one of his cabinets and he grabbed some shaving cream and a fresh razor. He turned to retrieve a small towel from a shelf and placed it beneath Emoni’s butt.

“Okay…spread your legs…bring your knees to your chest.”

Emoni giggled. Erik shook his head at her silliness.

“You’ve had way too much to drink, pretty girl.” Erik teases.

“I can’t believe you’re about to shave me!”

“Your request, remember?” Erik said with a chuckle.

“I know. This is wild.”

“A night of firsts. A night to remember. Now, relax…”

Erik applied shaving cream carefully and then he turned on the water. After rinsing the razor, he focused on shaving away, staring intently at her pussy lips spread open and covered in foam. The brown hue of her folds against the pink of her flesh had his pipe pressed against his zipper. Emoni looked so edible sitting there on the edge of the sink watching him.

“You’re lucky this shaving cream isn’t edible, otherwise I would be burying my face in it,” Erik said.

“I love how insatiable you are, Stevens.”

Erik finished one side and moved onto the next. Without the hair, he could see vividly how fat her pussy lips are and how her clit poked out. Maybe shaving was a good idea. Now, he can lick, suck, and kiss all over her pussy.

“Almost done,” Erik rinsed the razor before going back in, “After this, I want you to lay on your back for me. I’m serious, Moni. I’m close to drooling right now. It’s best you do what I tell you…”

The warning in his voice made her body tense up. He had to grip her thigh to still her movements. When the last bit of hair was removed, Erik took his time using a wet cloth and light soap to clean her up good. He studied his canvas with ecstasy before dabbing her lips dry. He held Emoni down and he could tell from the look in her eyes she was nervous. Erik tilted her chin up so she could stare at him.

“I’m gonna take real good care of you, Emoni. I promise…”

“I know…It’s just…we’re really about to have sex…”

Erik exhaled slowly, “And it’ll be worth it. For the both of us.”

Emoni smiled at him.

“You ready?”

Erik held his hand out and Emoni placed her hand in his. Erik flicked off the bathroom light and they entered his room, the only light coming from the hall. Emoni climbed onto Erik’s bed and relaxed back against his pillows. She watched Erik take off his pants and his briefs, her eyes widening at the sight of his big dick and hefty balls. She knew he was packing, but to see it in person…

“Wow,” Emoni’s eyes were glued to his heavy dick, “Just…wow…”

“Wow? I got you that speechless?”

Erik got into bed and he was on his knees between her legs. Emoni was mesmerized. She timidly reached out to stroke the protruding veins that decorated his long shaft with her fingertips. The sensation caused his dick to involuntarily jump. That motion caused Emoni to wrap her hand around him. She squeezed slightly, stunned from how bricked up he is.

“I just—it’s so thick…and long—you fuck with all this?”

Erik laughed. Emoni was dead serious.

“Moni…are you scared?”

“No!” Emoni’s eyes were wide, “I can take it.”

“I’ll be the judge of that—”

Emoni had her lips around his tip before he could even finish speaking. Erik’s brows snapped together and he closed his eyes. The feeling of her lips snug around his tip had him lost for words. Erik opened his eyes to look at her, and the sight of her lips on him was a vision he’d begged for.

“My dick is in your mouth….”

He was stunned and happy. FINALLY.

Emoni sucked slow and steady, afraid to go too low and choke. He could sense her resistance. Erik stroked her hair to calm her.

“Don’t force it if you can’t take it all. I’ll train that throat soon enough, baby…you’ll get used to this dick in your mouth in no time.”

Emoni relaxed and sucked what she could, one hand on his shaft, head bobbing, glossy lips stretched over his shaft. This mouthy, sassy girl had his big dick in her mouth. Drooling all over his dick. Erik had to clench his fists to refrain from throat-fucking her.

“You’re such a nasty girl, Moni. You couldn’t wait to put this dick in your mouth.”

She surprised him with her lips on his balls. She put her face all in it and flicked her tongue on the underside of his dick. All while looking gorgeous. He could prematurely ejaculate from that visual alone.

“You love this big dick, huh?”

“Mhm,” Emoni’s expression said it all, “My big dick, Prince…”

Her lips were around him again. Erik couldn’t control his hips thrusting forward to meet her mouth halfway. The glossy look in his eyes and the pout of his lip was evident of his undoing.

“You’re gonna make daddy cum, baby…”

It was best she stopped. The closer he got, the more his dick sank down her throat. Emoni gripped his thighs with her nails digging into his skin. Tears trickled down her cheeks when Erik thrust forward, touching her uvula.

“I told you to suck what you could, now look,” Erik grabbed her by the hair, “I gotta feed you some more…”

“Mm!”

“Fuck!”

Erik cradled Emoni’s head and shot a thick load down her throat. She gulped it down while cleaning him off and it made him cum some more. A bead of sweat dripped from the tip of his nose as he stared down at her with primal desire. Emoni licked her lips as her eyes connected with his.

“I don’t have to ask if you enjoyed it. That was a lot of cum, Erik,” Emoni spoke with a quiver. She was still trying to recover from his dick being in her throat, “And you taste so good.”

Erik didn’t say a words as he lowered between her legs. When Emoni spread her thighs, Erik could see a dribble of her creamy essence just leaking. Before he put his face in it, he wrapped his lips around her nipple and startled sucking. They were too hard for him to ignore.

“Yes.”

“Yeah?” Erik kissed between her breasts before bringing his lips to her other nipple, “How bad you want it?”

“So bad, daddy,” Emoni clawed his back.

Erik hissed before sinking his teeth into her right nipple. Emoni gasped, the mixture of pleasure and pain so good she couldn’t control the flutter between her legs. Erik did it again to her other breast, enjoying the way she cried out. She clung to him like she wanted to live in his skin. His pulse was deafening in his ears. It felt as if all the blood in his veins rushed to his dick. The hardest he’d ever been. Like a concrete center block.

“Lower…please…”

“Beg better than that, Moni.” Erik teased.

“I’m so wet…I can’t take it…”

“You can take it,” Erik kissed and nibbled his way down her body, “You’ve been such a good girl for me…”

“Yes, I’m your good girl,” Emoni spread her legs wider, “Erik, please.”

it was her anxiousness. She kept rolling her hips towards his face like a sex-crazed woman. Erik had to give her what she wanted. Seeing Emoni so uninhibited and horny like that was breathtaking. Erik gave her what she wanted. He pressed his lips on her clit and kissed all over it before doing the same to her outer lips. Emoni threw her head back and raked her fingers through Erik’s locs.

The taste of her. He could bottle it up. She tasted heavenly. He found himself sucking and licking in tandem. Emoni sat up on her elbows to watch. Those unruly curls and doe eyes with a mouth full of her sweet pussy could make him cum again. The sound of his lips smacking sensually was akin to someone lapping at water. She was so wet. His spit wasn’t even a factor. Erik slurped her up like a famished man. With so much vigor and emotion. Emoni’s stomach almost caved in from the creeping sensation of her orgasm.

“Huhhhh! Oh! Oooo—”

Erik didn’t stop. He refused to stop. It didn’t matter that she was squeezing his head with her thighs. It didn’t matter that she was writhing and begging him to stop. It didn’t matter that she was yanking on his hair. He flicked his flat tongue up and down. Up and down. Back and forth. Back and forth. In a circle.

“Can’t hide this pussy from me,” Erik spoke against her folds.

“ERIK!”

She went to lay on her side and Erik followed. Somehow, she ended up straddling his face. Emoni had a fist full of his locs and she rode his nose, bucking her hips and grinding that fat puss into his mouth. Erik had a handful of her cheeks and he pushed her to keep going. Emoni spread her legs and tugged on Erik’s hair, forcing his head from the bed. Emoni was slow grinding and feeding Erik pussy. The unabashed cries of pleasure from her was beyond words. She was sweaty and filled with so much lust. The opposite of her controlled demeanor.

Erik sucked skillfully and Emoni froze above him with a bounce of her thighs she couldn’t contain. Her arousal mixed with Erik’s spit dripped down his chin and neck.

“Ohhhh g–g–goo–ood–da–daddyeeeeeeeeee!”

Emoni fell forward over his face and Erik allowed her to ride out her intense release. He could feel her sticky fluids on his lips and chin. Erik gently placed Emoni onto her back and he kissed up her body until his lips were on hers again. They shared the taste of her cum and moaned into each other’s mouths. Erik broke the kiss to look at her. Emoni had tears in her eyes. He thumbed her tears away.

“That was amazing,” Emoni spoke through sniffles.

“It was. Exactly what I dreamed of doing to you…now I gotta feel you around me.”

Erik lifted his hips and with one hand he aimed his tip at her drenched folds. Emoni placed her hands on his shoulders and held his gaze. Erik pushed forward and his dick sank inside to the hilt in one motion. Emoni’s eyes widened at how stretched she felt. Her walls were so taunt around his girth. Erik clenched his jaw and fought the urge to paint her walls. He needed to see how his dick looked inside of her. He sat up above her so that they could both watch.

“You fit so perfect around me, baby…”

Erik kissed Emoni while thrusting in and out slowly. He had to stop kissing her to see. It felt so good but the sight of his dick coated with cream set something off inside of him.

“That’s…that’s so good,” Emoni whispered with a tremble in her voice.

“Relax, I gotchu…”

She was shaking. He knew it was his big dick making her do that. He could tell from the way his dick split her open that it was a lot for her.

“Spread them legs, Emoni…”

Erik picked up the pace. She buried her face against her knee and just felt. Erik rocked into her warm center with his eyes locked on her. His balls slapping her ass mixed with the sound of her wet ass pussy was music to his ears.

“Damn, I’m deep in this. You hear that? This what you kept from me?”

“Fuck, Erik, FUCK.”

“I asked you a question.”

Erik went faster. Emoni wasn’t prepared. She looked up at him with tears streaming from her eyes. Erik had her folded up so his dick could dig deep and right where he wanted it with no running. He’d waited too long for this moment and she wasn’t going to escape his wrath.

“Erik, oh my goodness—”

“Answer me,” Erik growled.

“YES!”

“You played a lot of games, girl. Too many fuckin’ games. Got that ass now, yeah?”

Emoni bit down on her bottom lip and her eyes crossed. Erik felt her clamp down on him and it took all of him not cum. He made her cum though. Emoni’s lower lip quivered when he slipped out. Erik was on that pussy with his mouth to clean her up. Emoni was too weak to fight him. But she could feel herself squirting. It was an out of body experience.

“That’s okay, I like that, baby…”

Emoni finally regained consciousness and she sat up. Erik soothed her with his lips and rubbed her pussy lips with his fingers. He couldn’t help himself when he pushed inside of her. She was weeping on his fingers. The most he’d ever seen.

“Damn, baby. I got this pussy soaked. Listen to that,” Erik’s fingers going in and out of her created a gushy sound, “That’s what I like to hear. All because of daddy’s big dick…and daddy got more for you.”

“I want more…”

“You want more in this wet—wet?”

“Please…”

“Didn’t I tell you I was gon’ get you right?”

Erik wanted to hear her say it.

“Yes, daddy. Yes…”

She was in a dicked-out daze.

He didn’t ask her how she wanted him. Erik arched Emoni’s back and he was standing behind her with his dick pointed at her spread-open lips from the back. He sank back into that creamy pussy and Emoni buried her face into the sheets. Erik slipped out to see how his dick opened her up. Something in him, maybe a voice, some type of unknown force, had him putting his face in her pussy. He left teeth marks and hickeys all over her beautiful ass. With a lick of his lips he pumped that big dick in her again.

“Give daddy that pussy, Princess.”

“ERIK! erikerikerikerikerik—”

He was cracking her back so good Emoni couldn’t get a complete sentence out. To see his big dick disappear inside of her little body made him fuck her harder. Erik hooked his hands in the crease of her elbows and drilled her.

“You’re taking my pussy from me, daddy!” Emoni cried out.

“It’s my pussy, Moni. I’m taking my pussy.” Erik corrected.

“Ima cum on this big dick again!”

She glossed his dick and Erik simply chuckled.

“You’re so leaky for me.”

He was back inside and feeding her pussy what it wanted and craved with slower strokes. Emoni looked back at him with puffy eyes and an equally puffy pussy from Erik’s pounding. He stared into her eyes while he fucked her.

“Stay right there…that’s daddy’s baby…uh-huh…all night long in this pussy…”

Emoni’s eyes drifted shut and her back bowed when Erik went deep. He simply fixed her arch and pumped her with two more strokes that had her cumming again. Erik got down on the bed behind and fucked her slow from the side with a hand around her neck and his lips against her ear. He would thrust up into her and hold his dick there for a few seconds before sliding out to the tip and repeating. He buried his nose against her neck to smell her perfume. Emoni interlocked her fingers with his and lifted her leg more for him.

“I love you…and I’m so happy to have you, my Princess. I wanna make love to you in my Royal chambers…on my throne…beneath the Wakandan sunset…”

Emoni stared down between her legs to watch his dick go in and out. His words had her gripping him.

“This how I want you when I put a baby in you…I want you just like this,” Erik whispered in her ear, “Get that leg up nice and high…fuck into you slow…bury my fuckin’ dick in you…give this pussy what she wants…and cum so deep…just slide in and out of this wet pussy just like this…you loving that, huh? Having my babies? Taking this big dick whenever and wherever? Huh?…” Erik placed his thumb in her mouth to suck on, “Huh, Princess? You got a little frame but you take big dick…”

Erik held that leg up and fucked her long and hard. He multitasked by rubbing her clit with his other hand. She was at his mercy. That beautiful body. She pouted her lips and whimpered with each upstroke of his big dick.

“This angle…I’m a squirt…”

She didn’t have time. She was leaking all over his dick. And it added more slip. His dick glided between her folds and up in that pussy with such precision and ease she couldn’t even form words.

“Daddy about to nut…I can’t hold off…can’t hold this nut off—”

Erik’s fingers gripped her thigh hard and after two more thrusts he came inside of Emoni. She looked back at him and Erik tongued her down. He slowly pumped his seed into her pussy, making sure to keep it there.

——

Present Day:

Eyes connected and hearts pounding. Like a picture book, everything came back to their minds. It took for Erik to connect with her through sex for them to remember it all. And when they did, Emoni was overcome with emotion.

She told him that she loved him. And as crazy as that sounds, she did. She indeed loved Erik. And he felt the exact same way. She could feel that spark between them. And then she remembered…

They got married. She’s a wife now. The sex. They had sex all over Erik’s bedroom. He’d given her love bites, he shaved her pussy, he got a tattoo of her name, she got her belly button pierced. All of it happened last night. And she’d enjoyed it all. The emotions she’d felt at that time came back and it felt real and genuine. She could tell from the look in Erik’s eyes that he felt the exact same way. All of it so overwhelming but exactly what they wanted.

Once the tremors subsided, Erik kissed her gently, sweetly.

“You're mine, finally,” he sighed against her mouth. "All mine."

His fingers trailed between their sweaty bodies, finding the bellybutton piercing and stroking over it.

“My wife...my mate.”

The words registered, but Emoni was too enthralled with his distracting hands and lips, and with the slow rocking motion he made with his hips to stop and have a conversation about it. He was still so hard inside her, determined to prove his possession of her, and she found her body responding again.

His hips were relaxed as he rolled them, sliding forward again without haste, swaying in and out like the waves beneath them. He took his time loving her, his hold on her absolute as if she were the most precious thing in his life and this the most important moment he'd ever known. Tears pricked her eyes as she felt the first surge of desire sweep over her senses, taking her into the clouds, and with a cry, she gave herself over to it.

"More," she moaned, pressing her knees tighter against his sides to keep him from pulling out and moving off. "I need more, Erik. Please!"

His lips trailed a path down her throat, over the delicate bones of her shoulder even as he slowly worked his hips in a rocking motion that had him hitting at the right spots, making her see stars. When he wrapped his lips around her nipple and sucked, licking over the bite mark he'd left upon her breast, Emoni’s whole body shuddered in response. Nibbling electric shocks of pleasure ran the length of her spine and had her arching her back, offering herself up to him again, even as he bottomed out inside her, bringing them fully together again and again.

"Oh, my god. Don't...stop!"

A growling sound emitted from his chest again. Then, wrapping his arms around her, he rolled them so she was sprawled atop of him in a gloriously disheveled heap. With a firm grip, he resettled her over his big dick until she could feel it throbbing deep within her.

“Your turn,” he offered, and with a firm grip on her hips, he guided her to move over him for his pleasure. “Take all of it.”

Tossing her head back, Emoni closed her eyes and rode him hard, wanting to possess him as thoroughly as he'd done her. Every glide forward was met by his upwardly surging hips, forcing him deep into her slick, wet pussy.

His hands were everywhere, exploring her waist, her belly, cupping her breasts and thumbing her nipples. He traced the mark he'd left on her, played with the piercing in her belly, circling the proof of his claim upon her and causing a ripple effect of heat throughout her body in response.

“You're beautiful,” he whispered as she dug her nails into his chest, leaving behind reddish-purple, crescent-shaped divots in his skin. “So fucking beautiful, my Princess.”

There it was again—that arrogant, lordly persistence of ownership over her. Was it a declaration of his intentions, or simply a reiterating of the truth? She had to know...

Heavy-lidded and trembling with insatiable lust, she continued her relentless pace and pinned him down, meeting his warm, onyx gaze.

“We’re married, aren’t we?”

He pursed his lips and stared at her, clearly on the fence between confession and diversion.

“I’m your wife now? You saw it too, right?” she persisted.

“Emoni…”

She reached up one hand and palmed her left breast, stroking over his bite mark, presenting it as proof of her theory. Her whole body shook, tightened as she lightly fingered over the two, small piercings he'd made with his teeth. “I feel different now,” she admitted. “I feel...so much. Everything.” Desire slammed through her as she pinched the skin, pulling her nipple, and she threw her head back and wailed, “I can't stop!” Her hips were moving out of her control to a frantic pace now, fucking him so hard, the bed creaked ominously under them. “What have you done to me, Erik?! I feel so…unh!”

He reached for her. “Emoni, I‒”

She shoved him back down as he made to sit up, and bent so their mouths touched, preventing him from evading her question, again. “If you did this to me, and I'm yours now, then you're just as much mine, Erik. MINE!” She groaned now, feeling savage and powerfully possessive of her lover. She'd done her share of dating over the years, but this...this was a level of attraction that far exceeded anything she'd ever felt before. “And I don't share. Understand?”

Wonderment, then relief reflected in his face, and then there came a sudden and very final shift, as if some piece of the puzzle that had been them for so long finally notched itself into place in his brain and within his soul. A dark, feral intensity seemed to come over him.

His eyes gleamed like diamonds in the sunlight coming in through the round window nearby and his fierce smirk stole her breath.

“Fuck, yes,” he growled. “Fuck me and make me all yours, Princess. Mark me up and claim me.”

So, she did.

She rode him, sucked on his neck, wrapped a hand around his neck. Erik popped her on the ass and encouraged her to keep bouncing and fucking that dick with that tight pussy.

“I need you to shoot that cum in my pussy!”

She could feel him throbbing. Erik parted his lips and moaned her name.

“Give me what I want…I feel that big dick…let it out for me…give me all of it, daddy.”

“Ahhh, fuuuuckkkk—”

When all of the fucking and biting and scratching and moaning had reached its peak and tossed them into the storm together once more, when it was finally done and they were irrevocably mated to each other with full consent on both sides, Emoni slumped over Erik exhausted and thoroughly sated.

Quietly, she lay within his arms until her breathing evened out and her blood returned to its normal courses. Only then did she allow her mind to retake the reins.

As rationality returned, so too did the answer as to why she could remember all of the events after the reception. It hadn't just been something to do to stave off loneliness, or an itch to scratch, but because there was an undeniable, powerful connection between them...something that promised forever.

It didn’t feel on a whim. Yes, they were extremely sexual and weren't concerned about sleeping around, but as far as love and domestication were concerned, Emoni wasn’t expecting that. What had it been?

It seemed Erik’s inner jaguar had decided she was his one and only.

She couldn't deny it, either: the sex had been good—really, truly good. Mind-blowing, in fact. It had never been like that for her before, and she was guessing by Erik’s reactions during their love-making and now, with his light, affectionate caressing of her skin in the afters, that he felt the same. He radiated contentment, the same as her, and he was holding her close as if he didn't plan to let her go.

Well, that certainly explained everything, didn't it? From the office flirting to the jealous feelings every time she saw him with another women to the orgasms she'd given herself in secret while thinking of him. No wonder she'd been an absolute basket-case where Erik was concerned.

Surprising her quite suddenly, Erik drew her even closer to him, nuzzled into her hairline, and shushed her. “You're thinking too much again.”

She frowned, pushed back a bit, and rose up on her elbow to look down at him. “And how would you know what I'm thinking?”

His eyebrow twitched and a slow, mysterious smile wound up his cheek. “Because I know you, my Princess.”

He reached up and brushed her fringe out of her eyes. “Between worrying about who might have seen us leave together last night, whether we would be the talk of the office under some scandalous headline, and why it was you couldn't recall a thing we did after hitting the dance floor at the reception, I thought my head would explode. The only time that fantastic brain of yours was relatively quiet this morning was when I was fucking you.”

She gaped at him. “You… so now you have psychic abilities?”

He chuckled and in a quick move, rolled them and had her on her back again. “No. I just know you.”

“Is that so?” She didn't believe a single word coming out of his mouth and the expression she shot him made sure he knew it. “Then what am I thinking right now?”

He chuckled, and the wicked sound shot straight through her like electricity.

“You want me to propose properly, despite the fact we're already married.”

That gave her pause. She recalled the chapel and then exchanging vows. Was that really a marriage?

Sliding a hand down her belly, he played with her piercing. “I love this piercing on you. And I must say the tattoo of your name on my hip is perfect.”

She ran her fingers through his coarse hair and arched into him. “And when…will you give me…a real ring?” she asked, feeling a bit breathless from his amorous attentions.

He shrugged, dipping his mouth lower to place tiny, nipping kisses to her hips and thighs. “I have a ring back home. Waiting for the right time.” He circled the wet lips of her pussy with his tongue. “Guess my inner Jaguar decided he'd waited long enough.”

Emoni whimpered and raised her hips, silently begging him to stop torturing her and to just get to the part where he sucked her clit already. “You...you wanted to marry me before last night then?”

Onyx eyes glanced up at her as he placed tormenting, open-mouthed kisses upon her tingling flesh. “For years and years,” he admitted with an impish smirk. “Now shut up, and give me this sweet pussy again.”

She widened her legs and threw her head back on the pillow as he pressed in, making room for himself, taking her over...making her head spin.

“Oh, fuck!” she moaned, accepting that she was so utterly his.

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#nahimjustfeelingit-writes #killmonger imagine #killmonger fanfiction #killmonger smut #erik killmonger

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astrxq · 23 days ago

Text

modern!jacaerys velaryon x reader — prompt list 1.25 from my autumn party!

words: 3.7k

notes: “You have my permission to do whatever you want with me.” — modern!jace gets injured in one of his games. you’re taking care of him and his broken leg doesn’t let him fully thank you properly. requested. (p in v, mutual masturbation, kissing… idk i think that’s all)

The game had always been part of Jace’s life — an anchor that grounded him in ways you knew little else could. The roar of the crowd, the pounding of feet against turf, the adrenaline that rushed through him like an electric current. You’d seen it in his eyes, the fire that lit up when he was out there, a star player on his college football team, and you’d always admired that about him. But everything changed the moment his body collided with another player, sending him crashing to the ground.

The gasp that tore from your chest in the stands still echoed in your ears, even days after the incident. It was supposed to be a regular game, just another weekend of watching him dominate the field. But it wasn’t. The moment Jace didn’t get up, a sickening knot tightened in your stomach, and you bolted down from the bleachers faster than your mind could process.

Hours later, you found yourself in a hospital room, standing at his bedside as he came to. His leg was in a cast, elevated in a sling, his face contorted in pain and frustration. It wasn’t long before the doctors confirmed the worst — his leg was broken, and with it, his football season. Maybe even his future.

The days that followed felt like a blur, a mix of managing your own emotions and tending to Jace’s frustration. His fire, once burning bright, had dulled, replaced with a constant state of agitation. He wasn’t used to being still, to not moving forward, and now he was stuck — confined to his bed, helpless in ways he’d never been before.

You spent most of your days at his side, tending to his needs, trying to make things easier for him. You’d bring food, help him get comfortable, change his bandages, and offer your presence. At first, it felt like you were walking on eggshells, unsure of how to navigate his moods. The Jace you knew was confident, in control, and this new reality was jarring for him.

But, slowly, you began to find a rhythm. He'd make sarcastic remarks about his situation, and you'd tease him back, trying to keep the mood light. Some days, he’d smile, and you’d feel a flicker of relief. On others, he was silent, brooding, and you would let him be, sensing he needed space.

Today, though, something felt different. You’d come over to his place after your classes, as usual, carrying a bag of groceries and some takeout from his favorite restaurant. When you walked into his room, he was already sprawled across the bed, his leg propped up, flipping through the channels on the TV with a bored expression.

“You’re here,” he said, his voice lighter than it had been in days.

“Of course I am,” you replied, dropping your bag on his desk before sitting on the edge of the bed. “Did you think I’d forget about you?”

He gave you a lopsided grin, shaking his head. “Nah. You wouldn’t let me suffer through this alone.”

You smiled, leaning down to kiss his forehead. “Exactly. Now, I brought food, so you don’t have to complain about hospital food for the millionth time.”

“God, you’re a lifesaver.” He reached out, his hand brushing against your arm. “I don’t know how I’d survive without you.”

You shrugged, trying to play it cool, but his touch sent a warm, familiar shiver down your spine. It was always like that with Jace — the smallest gestures felt electric, even when they weren’t meant to be. And lately, you’d noticed a shift in the way he looked at you. The frustration of his injury was still there, but beneath it, something else simmered — a tension that neither of you had fully acknowledged yet.

After you set up the food and helped him get comfortable, you both ate in silence, the TV playing softly in the background. It was a quiet evening, just the two of you in his room, and as the night wore on, the tension that had been building seemed to grow heavier.

Jace had been staring at you more, his eyes lingering when you moved around the room. You felt the weight of his gaze, the unspoken hunger in his expression that made your heart race. It wasn’t the first time you’d felt like this around him, but now, with his injury forcing him into stillness, it seemed like all the pent-up energy had nowhere to go but into the space between you.

As you were cleaning up, Jace’s voice broke the silence. “You’ve been doing so much for me.”

You turned to him, surprised by the sudden seriousness in his tone. “Of course. You’d do the same for me.”

He nodded, but his eyes darkened slightly. “Yeah, but…I’ve been kind of a pain. I haven’t exactly made it easy.”

You bit your lip, considering your response. “You’re going through a lot, Jace. It’s okay.”

“I just hate feeling useless,” he muttered, frustration evident in his voice. “Like I can’t do anything. Not even for you.”

You sat beside him on the bed, your hand resting on his arm. “You don’t have to do anything for me. I’m here because I want to be.”

He looked at you then, his brown eyes locking onto yours with an intensity that made your pulse quicken. His hand moved to your thigh, his thumb brushing gently over your skin. The air between you felt thick, charged with something that had been building for days.

“Sometimes…I don’t know how you put up with me,” he said, his voice lower now, rougher. “But I don’t want to take you for granted.”

You swallowed, feeling the heat rise in your chest as his hand lingered on your leg. “You’re not taking me for granted, Jace. I — ” Your words caught in your throat as his fingers trailed higher, just barely under the hem of your shorts.

“Can I ask you something?” His voice was softer now, his eyes searching yours.

You nodded, not trusting your voice to speak.

“Have you ever thought about…” He hesitated for a moment, his hand pausing. “I mean, with my leg like this, I can’t do much, but I’ve been thinking…”

He trailed off, turning his attention back to the TV, as if suddenly embarrassed. “Never mind,” he muttered, shaking his head.

You let out a quiet breath, feeling the tension thicken, but you didn’t press him. Instead, you watched the TV in silence, your mind racing. Every few minutes, he shifted uncomfortably, and you leaned over to help him adjust. The cast on his leg was heavy, awkward, and you could see the way his muscles tensed with every small movement, his jaw tight with frustration.

Each time you leaned in to help, your bodies brushed together — your arm grazing his chest, your hand on his waist as you lifted his leg gently to prop it on more pillows. You could feel the heat of his skin beneath your fingers, his scent filling your senses as you worked to make him comfortable.

And each time, you noticed the subtle change in his breathing. A small hitch when your hand lingered a little too long on his thigh, or when your chest brushed against his arm as you reached across him to adjust his pillows. His breath came out in slow, uneven exhales, and you could feel the weight of his gaze on you, lingering on the curve of your neck, the dip of your shirt, his eyes darkening with every stolen glance.

Finally, after shifting him again, you noticed the way his hand clenched at the sheets, his chest rising and falling faster than before.

“Do you need to move again?” you asked softly, half-expecting another request.

Jace looked at you, his lips parting as if to answer, but instead, he reached up, his hand finding the back of your neck. The gesture was gentle, but firm, guiding you down until your lips met his.

The kiss caught you off guard, but it didn’t take long for you to melt into him. His mouth was warm, eager, and you felt the familiar tug of desire pulling you closer. His fingers curled in your hair, and he deepened the kiss, his frustration melting into something else entirely — something raw, unrestrained.

The room seemed to hum with the energy between you, the forgotten TV playing in the background as your hands moved instinctively to brace yourself against him, feeling the steady rise and fall of his chest under your palms. His leg might’ve been broken, but there was nothing weak in the way he kissed you, nothing hesitant in the way he held you closer.

Jace’s hands moved to cradle you, fingers brushing the sensitive skin of your neck, tracing the curve of your spine. The low groan that escaped his throat made your stomach twist with longing.

When he finally pulled back, his eyes were darker, more focused. “I’ve been thinking about you,” he admitted, his voice rough, “about this… a lot.”

You blinked, catching your breath. "You have?"

He nodded, his thumb tracing the edge of your jaw. You shifted, suddenly hyper-aware of the closeness between you. His gaze was hot, searing, and for the first time, you noticed the flicker of vulnerability in his expression.

You held his gaze, feeling the heat radiating between you like a live wire, drawing you both closer. The air crackled with anticipation, and your heart raced as you contemplated the shift in your relationship. Jace’s breath was warm against your skin, the rhythm of it matching the quickening beat of your heart.

He leaned in again, capturing your lips with his, and you melted into him, your body instinctively moving closer. His kiss was urgent, hungry, igniting a fire deep within you. Your fingers tangled in his hair, pulling him closer as you kissed him back, feeling the warmth of his mouth against yours.

Jace deepened the kiss, his tongue sweeping against your lower lip, teasing, coaxing you to open up. A soft whimper escaped your throat as you parted your lips, allowing him entry. The taste of him was intoxicating — familiar and sweet, sending a rush of heat through your body. You lost yourself in the moment, forgetting the world outside, forgetting everything except for the way he made you feel.

His hands roamed your back, pulling you against him, the warmth of his body igniting your senses. Every brush of his fingers sent shivers coursing through you. You felt alive, every nerve ending on high alert, responding to his touch as he explored the curve of your waist and the softness of your skin. The intensity of the kiss only heightened your desire, his tongue sliding against yours, a dance that felt both foreign and thrilling.

“God, I’ve missed this,” he murmured against your lips, breaking the kiss momentarily. His voice was husky, thick with yearning, and it sent a rush of heat straight to your core.

You breathed out a shaky laugh, your fingers trailing down the strong lines of his arms, marveling at how effortlessly he pulled you into this world where nothing else mattered. “Me too,” you admitted, the confession slipping past your lips before you could second-guess yourself.

He captured your mouth again, the kiss more urgent this time, as if he were trying to convey everything he felt through the heat of his lips and the soft pressure of his body against yours. You pressed against him, your heart racing, feeling the weight of his desire mingling with your own. The world outside faded into insignificance, leaving just the two of you lost in the moment.

Then, as if a switch had been flipped, Jace pulled back, his brow furrowing slightly as he regarded you. “I know I can’t do a lot right now…” he said, his voice low and serious. He trailed off.

You met his gaze, your heart still racing from the intensity of the kiss, but a flicker of concern clouded your thoughts. The weight of his broken leg loomed over you, and you couldn’t shake the feeling that, even in this moment, it might be a barrier.

“Jace, are you sure this is okay? I don’t want to hurt you,” you said, your voice barely above a whisper.

He chuckled, the sound low and warm, easing the tension in the air. “I broke my leg, not my ability to have sex,” he replied, a mischievous grin creeping across his face. The teasing glint in his eyes made you smile despite your worries, but the sincerity behind his laughter remained.

You couldn’t help but roll your eyes, feeling a mix of relief and frustration. “That’s not really what I meant,” you said, your tone playful yet serious. “I just don’t want to accidentally hurt you while we’re… you know.”

His expression softened, the humor giving way to something deeper. “Trust me, I’m still very much up for it,” he assured you, his fingers brushing along your arm, igniting warmth in their wake. “You have my permission to do whatever you want with me.”

He held your gaze with an intensity that made your heart flutter, and before you could fully process it, his hands found your hips. Gently, he maneuvered you to straddle him, the warmth of his body igniting a thrill deep within you. You could feel the solidness of him beneath you, and it sent a shiver of excitement coursing through your veins.

“Better?” he asked, his voice low and playful, a teasing smirk dancing on his lips.

You nodded, breathless, as you leaned in to capture his mouth again. The kiss deepened, a sweet exploration that felt both familiar and thrilling. Your hands tangled in his hair, pulling him closer as you savored the taste of him. His lips moved against yours with a slow, tantalizing pressure, sending waves of heat through you.

As you pulled back slightly, breathless and flushed, Jace’s eyes sparkled with desire. His hands slipped from your hips to your thighs, fingers brushing softly along your skin, igniting sparks of sensation wherever he touched. The weight of his gaze made you feel exposed yet cherished, a blend of vulnerability and thrill that sent your heart racing.

With that assurance, Jace’s hands moved higher, his fingertips trailing up your thighs and resting just below your waist, where he hesitated for a breath, seeking your permission. The heat of his touch sent shivers down your spine, and you nodded, urging him on silently.

He took that as his cue, his fingers exploring the softness of your skin, brushing lightly over your waist. The sensation was intoxicating, every caress igniting a flame within you. His fingertips reached the hem of your pants, slowly moving them out of the way so he could fit his hand inside and closer to you. You leaned back slightly, giving him more access, craving the connection between you as he traced delicate patterns across your body.

“God, you’re beautiful,” he breathed, his voice filled with awe as his fingers continued to explore, igniting every nerve ending with anticipation.

You felt a rush of warmth flood your cheeks, his words settling deep in your heart. “You’re not too bad yourself,” you replied, your tone teasing yet earnest, making him chuckle softly.

You felt a shiver run through you as one of his fingers began to tease you, rubbing in delicate circles, igniting sensations that radiated through your body. A breathy sigh escaped your lips, and your eyes fluttered shut for a moment, lost in the overwhelming pleasure. But then you opened your eyes, locking gazes with Jace, the intensity in his gaze both thrilling and grounding.

“Gorgeous,” he urged, his voice low and gravelly, filled with a yearning that mirrored your own. You watched as his fingers slipped inside you, and your breath hitched, a wave of pleasure washing over you as you adjusted to the feeling. Jace’s eyes never left yours, his expression a mix of awe and desire, as if every movement of his fingers was a connection between your souls.

His fingers worked you, moving with a rhythm that made your heart race, sending you spiraling into a sea of warmth and bliss. You could feel the tension building within you, every brush of his skin against yours intensifying the sensations, the world around you fading away. In that moment, nothing else mattered — just the two of you, entwined in this newfound intimacy.

You reached for him, your hands trembling slightly as you fumbled with his pajama pants, urgency and need coursing through you. As you finally freed him, he gasped, the sound raw and hungry, almost losing himself at the mere contact after days of pent-up frustration and unspent energy. You marveled at how he reacted to you, the way he leaned into your touch, his breath hitching as you wrapped your hand around him.

He breathed out your name, his voice strained with desire.

The way he looked at you, his eyes dark and filled with longing, made your heart race. You began to move your hand, your touch slow and teasing at first, feeling every muscle in his body tense beneath your fingers. You could sense the buildup of energy within him, the way his body responded to you, and it fueled your desire even more.

You moved your hand down to meet his, your fingers intertwining as the intensity of the moment heightened. Jace’s fingers continued their expert dance, sending waves of pleasure coursing through you, each caress eliciting soft moans that escaped your lips unbidden. The rhythm he set was intoxicating, a melody of desire that pulled you deeper into the moment.

Feeling a surge of confidence, you grasped his wrist gently, guiding his hand away as you leaned up on your knees, positioning yourself fully above him. You could feel the heat radiating off his body, and the tension hung in the air, electric and palpable. Jace’s eyes widened slightly as you moved, a mixture of surprise and hunger flashing across his features.

You could see the way he swallowed hard, his body taut with anticipation. With a gentle, deliberate motion, he slipped inside you, and you both gasped at the sensation, a rush of heat flooding through you as you adjusted to him.

You took a moment to savor the fullness, the way your bodies fit together, the connection transcending everything else. Jace’s hands found your waist, anchoring you as you began to move, slowly at first, savoring the intensity of the moment. His breath quickened, matching the rhythm of your movements, and you could feel him respond to every shift and thrust.

“God, you feel incredible,” he murmured, his voice low and thick with desire, urging you on. The way he spoke, filled with awe, sent shivers down your spine, igniting a fire within you.

He leaned down, his lips trailing soft kisses down your neck, leaving a path of warmth that made you shiver with delight. Each kiss was open-mouthed and warm, a gentle reminder of his presence, his desire for you. You could feel his breath against your skin, each exhale igniting a new wave of sensations that danced across your body.

“Mmh,” he murmured against your neck, his voice low and thick with longing. “You’re taking such good care of me.” The way he said it sent a rush of heat through you, your heart swelling at his words.

His hands roamed your waist, fingers brushing against your skin, grounding you as you reveled in the connection. It was exhilarating to feel him respond to your every movement, the way his body welcomed you, made you feel cherished and desired. You could see the hunger in his eyes, the way he watched you, completely captivated by the sight of you above him, the two of you entwined in a rhythm that felt both intimate and liberating.

You leaned back slightly, arching into him, seeking deeper connection as you began to move with more confidence. The sensation of him filling you, combined with his words, sent another wave of heat flooding through you, stirring a deep longing that intensified with each thrust. You felt powerful in this moment, completely in control, and the thought of giving him pleasure while savoring your own only fueled the fire within you.

With each thrust, each kiss, you felt the world outside fade into nothingness, leaving just the two of you — lost in each other, exploring the depths of your desires. Jace’s hands tightened on your waist, urging you to find that sweet spot, and you did, the sensation making you gasp, a blissful sound that hung in the air between you.

you could feel the familiar knot of pleasure tightening in your core, the world narrowing to just the two of you. The rhythmic pulse of your bodies became a beautiful dance, each movement pushing you closer to ecstasy. You moved faster, chasing the wave of pleasure that loomed just ahead, your body responding to the deepening connection you shared.

Jace’s gaze never wavered, locked on yours with an intensity that made your heart race. “You’re so close,” he murmured, his voice low and raspy. “I can feel it.”

His words sent you spiraling, a rush of heat flooding your senses. You cried out, a mix of pleasure and relief, as you finally tipped over the edge, waves of bliss crashing over you. Jace held you close, his fingers digging into your skin as he followed you over the precipice, his own pleasure mingling with yours in a beautiful harmony.

“God,” he groaned, his voice thick with emotion, as he reached his peak, filling you in the most intimate way. The sound of his pleasure echoed in the air, amplifying the electric connection that pulsed between you. You were both breathless, hearts racing, bodies entwined in the aftermath of your shared release.

As the waves of pleasure began to subside, you sank into him, your bodies still pressed close, the warmth of his skin against yours a comforting reminder of the moment you just shared. You could hear the soft thrum of his heartbeat, steadying as he caught his breath.

#luna’s autumn writing #jacaerys velaryon smut #jacaerys velaryon x you #jacaerys x you #hotd jacaerys #jacaerys smut #jacaerys x reader #jacaerys targaryen x reader #jacaerys velaryon x reader #prince jacaerys #jacaerys targaryen #jacaerys velaryon #hotd #house of the dragon #harry collett #jace velaryon #jace targaryen

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bbyhellfire · 3 months ago

Text

playing the part

eddie munson x reefer rick's ex!fem!reader

[series masterlist] [e.m. masterlist]

➠ summary: eddie gets distracted during a prison call from rick

➠ word count: 1.6k

➠ warnings: 18+ only, smut, outdoor sex, p in v, oral (r receiving), misogynistic/sexist comment from rick, flashbacks in italics

“And those cock sucking COs took it! Y’know how long I spent makin’ that batch?”

Five days. It took Rick five days to ferment his most recent batch of hooch. Two weeks if you include the time spent waiting for the commissary to restock oranges.

“Five days! Not to mention waitin' for commissary to bring back oranges. Lazy fuckers. Two weeks for some goddamn fruit…”

Eddie mutters a lifeless “That’s fucked up, man”, but Rick is already lamenting about prison contraband. In about two minutes, he'll transition to complaints about his cellmate, a young kid who is horrible at prison poker.

He knows. This isn't the first, second, or even third time they've had this conversation. But once Rick starts, he doesn’t stop. No matter how little time is left, which inmate is yelling at him to stop hogging the phone, or what excuse Eddie has. Nothing works. All he can do is play along until Rick drops the charade.

“I tell ‘im, he’s gotta show me respect. He can't bet my toilet paper 'cos he lost his...”

Running a hand through his hair, Eddie flops back into his chair as his patience ticks away with each passing second.

It's not like they were close before Rick's sentencing. Sure, they were friendly, but they were never friends. They were as close as a drug supplier and their dealer could be, but even that isn’t enough to justify these biweekly calls. Rick claims it's so he remains connected to the outside world, which may be partially true but it's not the complete truth. He doesn't call to shoot the shit, and he doesn't act without an ulterior motive. Eddie has something he wants.

“You have one minute left.”

The automated message has Eddie bolting straight up as if there is a drill sergeant breathing down his neck. Thank fuck, he thinks as he taps his rings against the linoleum table top.

"Well, that’s my cue to go. Good luck with your celly, man.”

“Wait, wait! We got time. How’s my girl? She staying out of trouble?”

He bites the inside of his cheek, slumping back in his seat with an exasperated eye roll. She’s not your girl. That's what he wants to say.

“As far as I can tell.”

“She still working at Benny’s?”

“Yeah, saw her there last week," His eyes flicker towards the kitchen clock, the minute hand creeping past the number 4 as another minute is consumed by Rick's yapping. “Rick, I really–”

“Any customers making a move?”

Now that makes his mind white out, only the memory of his last visit to Benny's Burgers flashes behind his eyes.

“Eddie, I don’t have a lot of time.” Your warning was at odds with your actions. With your skirt shucked up to your waist, you pulled your underwear to the side to expose your puffy pussy.

“Relax, sweetheart,” His words dripped like honey as he tugged down his own pants just enough to get his cock out. “We’ve got ten minutes.”

Fucking in the woods behind Benny’s wasn't ideal, but with his band’s equipment taking up the back of his van, your options were limited. It wasn't ideal, but it would do. The woods offered enough coverage to keep your lewd actions hidden, but close enough to hear Benny calling for you if there was a rush of customers.

“I’ll need to fix my ha–” Your words were interrupted with a rush of breath as he fed you the first inch of his cock. “Hair! Oh, fuck, Eddie.”

“I know. Just let me take care of you, ‘kay?”

Every nerve in his body thrummed as he pulled back before pushing back into you. While you scrabbled for purchase into the tree in front you, Eddie clung to you like an anchor, both arms wrapped around you as he thrust into you.

It's when you choked on his name that he knew he was dragging against your sensitive spot. He pushed a hand down so his fingers could rub quick circles against your clit.

“There you go, baby.”

The lewd, sweet slaps of his hips against your ass echo through the trees. He’s almost hoping someone hears. It's a perverted show of pride, one that would make him cringe if not for the suffocating cloud of pleasure. But he wants people to know that it's him, the town freak, that is making the pretty waitress feel good.

Another automated warning comes to pull Eddie back to his uncle's trailer. The familiar feeling of lust creeps in his lower abdomen.

“Not that I've seen. She’s keeping to herself.”

“Well, what about at night?” Rick presses. They have less than 30 seconds left and he is intent on using every last one. “Maybe she's got some limp dick keeping 'er warm at night?"

Eddie can't help put raise his eyebrows at that. Well...

He wasn’t planning on spending the night, but the Indiana weather had other plans. A storm rolled in, thundering with such chaos that it knocked out the power and flooded most of the major roads.

Not that he was too upset.

All that was waiting for him back at the trailer was a can of soup and the ten o'clock news. But here, he got to revel in the sight of you laid out on Rick's your living room floor, your pretty legs spread open to invite him in. Tender and inviting, he pressed slow and respectful kisses down to your cunt, acting as if he wasn't the messiest pussy eater in Hawkins.

“That feels nice,” You breathed, watching him with blown out pupils. His stomach twists, and he hopes it's because of him and not the downed power lines.

“I want it to,” He murmured, his messy curls tickling your inner thighs. “Fuck, you taste so good.”

He closed his eyes to feast like you were a delicacy. He took his time, licking and prodding, until another wave of arousal coated his tongue. You mentioned Rick rarely went down on you, and if he did, it wasn't anything extraordinary. Eddie was determined to make up for that.

“Y–yeah?”

“Mhmm. Like candy. Messy too. Think I’m gonna have to stay here a while, make this little hole all drooly. Maybe get your clit to come out and play, too." He trailed the tip of his tongue through the mess you were making, warm and wet, moving up to flick against your clit.

"She loves it when I play with her, doesn't she?" – kiss – "Likes it when I kiss her" – kiss – "love her."

“Oh God,” Your hands covered your face, but your giggles still seeped through your fingers. “I can’t believe you refer to my pussy as its own person.”

“Gotta give her the respect she deserves, sweetheart.”

“Eddie? You there, man?”

“Yeah, yeah. Sorry, just a bit…distracted.” He stammers, palming himself through his boxers. No way is he chubbing up while on the phone Reefer fucking Rick. His heartbeat speeds up to a heavy thumping that he hopes can't be heard through the phone. "No, I drove by last night and didn’t see any cars.”

But Rick just can't take no for an answer. "You check inside?"

Now Eddie's patience is running on empty. "Jesus H. Christ, no man. Fuck no! The town already thinks I'm a satanist, don't need to add Peeping Tom to it."

"Yeah, yeah you're right," Rick concedes, although the disappointment is palpable. "I know she's not doin' anythin', she loyal. But you never know with females. It's their hormones, makes 'em stupid. But shit man, you gotta lay off the weed! You're spacin’ out like that, no wonder you’re still in school.”

Yeah, no. Eddie is done. His fingers tighten around the phone, squeezing tight until his knuckles turn white. He shouldn't. He really fucking shouldn't.

“...You know? Repeating senior year isn’t gonna attract the ladies. How you gonna find a good girl like mine if you’re still in school? Gotta be a man and finish. Don’t wanna turn out like your daddy or your uncle–”

“Fifteen second remaining. Please hang up now.”

He should bite his tongue, just grin and bear it, but Eddie isn't exactly known for keeping his head down. Just yesterday Uncle Wayne was joked how he needs a padlock installed on his mouth because right now, his mouth is moving too quickly for his common sense to catch up.

“You know what? You're right. I need to find a good girl. I actually have one in mind. You might know her, really pretty. She works at Ben–"

Click!

"The call has ended. Thank you for using Securus Calling Service."

"Jesus H. Christ," He mutters. It's a surprise the phone isn't ripped off the wall considering how hard he slammed down the receiver. He runs his hands over his face, rubbing hard as if he can scrub away his words.

It was a dumb move, childish impulsivity at its finest.

So why doesn't he care?

A few months ago, he'd be spiraling. Piercing stabs of anxiety poking him all over until his skin felt raw. Chain smoking until there was a mountain of cigarette butts he could bury his head in.

But now.

Now the needles of anxiety are more of an annoying pinch. It's been months since you and Eddie started...whatever this is between you. The strict rules you initially set have relaxed from a mixture of exhaustion and simply not giving a fuck.

Eddie parks his van right out front where anyone driving along Holland Road could see. You're no longer quiet when Eddie is on the phone with Rick. Hell, last time you stood in front of him dressed in only a Hellfire shirt, calling his name like a song and curling your finger towards his room. Rick still thought it was bad reception that abruptly ended the call.

It's stupid dumb how obvious you are. Something straight out of an afternoon sitcom, all that's missing is a laugh track. And, sure, the logical thing might be to re-evaluate the situation and remember that the both of you are playing with fire, but it's too much fun. You're too much fun. And beautiful and funny and clever and kind and —

And if it means Eddie's life is now a tv show, he just hopes it ends with a happily ever after and not tragedy.

banners by @/adornedwithlight

taglist (let me know if you'd like to be added!)

@bl00d-puppy @demibats

#eddie munson x fem!reader #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x fem reader #eddie munson x oc #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson one shot #eddie munson series #eddie munson #stranger things fanfic #bbyhellfire

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lovelyhan · 2 years ago

Note

enemies to lovers prompt #10 "I'm not driving home with you..." with mingyu, thx <3

— vices & virtues ⟢

being from one of the most opulent families in the city, you're used to getting everything you want. but when you realize that your hot bodyguard is strictly off-limits, you treat him like anything else you can't have: with unbridled hostility.

★ FEATURING; bodyguard!mingyu x reader

★ WORD COUNT; 5.4k words

★ TAGS; enemies to lovers, unresolved sexual tension, smut

★ WARNINGS; alcohol consumption, cigarettes, implied/referenced drug use, self-destructive behavior in general, (probably inaccurate) discussions about drug poisoning, graphic sexual content (MINORS DNI)

★ NOTES; when i tell you i speedwrote this just in time for mingyu day,,, eugh i love you so much gyugyu and thank you to the anon who sent this in a while back!! this prompt was so tasty to work with!

★ SMUT TAGS; unprotected sex, couch sex, oral (f receiving), dirty talk, dacryphilia, size kink, mating press, overstimulation, creampie

★ SVT TAGLIST; @wonderfulshinee - @misssugarlips - @yourfavoritefreakyhan - @jeanjacketjesus - @just-here-to-read-01 - @hanihans - @venusrae - @taestrwbrry - @minnie-mouser22 - @dreamhannies - @thvhannie - @kkooongie - @gae-uls - @lenireads - @gaebestie - @ryusha-rose - @enhacolor - @ilyvern - @woo8hao - @spk93 - @tommolex - @stariightjoyy - @asjkdk - @horny4hoshi

★ MINGYU TAGLIST; @ @renjunphile - @acgyu - @potatofrieswithketchup - @pluviophile-xxx - @pretty-trustme - @zeenanigans - @noveniadelia

When the tiniest sliver of consciousness slips into your inebriated brain, you feel the cold tile of the bathroom floor being pried off your face. Well, more like you're being gently lifted off it, and into the arms of someone warm.

You nearly lean into their embrace until you catch a whiff of that familiar, musky cologne with hint of something like pine. It takes you some effort to keep yourself from bolting out of his grasp and retching your guts out in the toilet again.

You deign to squint your eyes despite the harsh fluorescent light razing your vision. Looking down on you is none other than Kim Mingyu, gaze as indifferent as ever. Unfortunately, you're too drunk or high to figure out how he even found you here, but you know there's no weaseling your way out when your father's little lapdog has tracked you down.

"What're you doing here?" you still ask even if you knew the answer.

It's my job to take care of you.

"It's my job to take care of you," he says the words in the same way you imagined him to—apathetic. Indecipherable.

"Fuck you. I don't need you to take care of me," you scoff. "My friends'll drop me off at my apartment like they always do."

Mingyu rolls his eyes. "You mean the same friends who called me because they're tired of having to clean up after your shit? I don't want to be here either, princess, but I'm actually getting paid to keep you in line, if you hadn't known that yet."

There's something so unfairly attractive in the snark in his tone, and you fucking hate him for it. Mostly, you hate yourself for even thinking that anything about Mingyu is remotely alluring.

In the end, you just tell yourself that you're an objective person. You have eyes, and it won't cost anything to admit that Mingyu is conventionally attractive. Even if you did hate his guts.

Not that he'll ever hear you admit that aloud, though.

You're vaguely aware of how the hem of your too-short dress rides up your thighs as Mingyu rises back to his full height—having no problems carrying you out of the bathroom bridal-style.

Under normal circumstances, you would've struggled. Proved that you could very much handle yourself despite being obviously hammered. But your head is spinning, and your limbs feel like they'll disintegrate any second.

Eyes closed, you press your face into the fine fabric of Mingyu's suit—breathing in the same scent that repulsed you not five minutes earlier in an attempt at anchoring your consciousness.

As Mingyu maneuvers you out of the bathroom, the loud bass blaring from the speakers at the frat party you've decided to attend last minute rings in your eardrums. You don't have to see your surroundings to know you've got onlookers. Those unsubtle comments are clue enough to know you're being watched.

Who is that? Her boyfriend?

No, idiot, that's probably her bodyguard or some shit. Her family's loaded as fuck.

So lucky. If I had a bodyguard like that, I'd totally let him smash.

The real question is: would he let you smash?

Fuck you.

You want to flash them the most disgusted look you could muster. As if you'd stoop low enough to fuck Mingyu, of all people. Don't they know who you are? You could easily let any man or woman you wanted on their knees for you.

You were supposed to stick to your regular routine of getting railed into the next day after a few drinks and sticks, but you obviously got a little too excited about the new strains your friends snuck into the party. Now you're being princess carried by a man you absolutely despise, too shit-faced to even be remotely desired by anyone else at the moment.

Still, never in a million years would you consider having this guy as a bodyguard lucky.

You can tell you're outside when the music starts to fade in the distance and the cold starts to prickle your legs and arms. A somewhat coherent part of you recalls leaving your designer jacket in the coatrack of the frat house, and if you weren't so fucking shit-faced, you would've yelled at Mingyu to go back and get it.

But just before you can consider asking him somewhat nicely, you hear him unlock a car that definitely doesn't sound like yours—making your ears perk up, and your consciousness flood back in much faster.

"What are you—?"

You thrash in Mingyu's arms until he lets you down on the ground—throwing him a stone-cold glare right after. The fact that your pedicured feet are in direct contact with the asphalt makes your rage spike further. How dare this asshole leave your Valentinos behind? He might as well have just left you at the party altogether!

"I'm not driving home with you," you growl.

Mingyu's expression doesn't even budge. "You're not driving. I am."

"Don't try to be fucking smart with me. I'm high, not stupid."

Folding your arms across your chest, you try to pretend that you're not in the middle of the street, arguing with Mingyu as your blood pressure rises to unimaginable heights.

Unfortunately for you, this isn't the first time your friends have left you in the quote-unquote capable hands of your bodyguard. But every time he did, he would always drive whatever car you chose to bring for the occasion and drop you off at your place.

When he brings a car of his own, however...

"You're bringing me straight to the old man," you grumble. "You think he'll appreciate seeing his daughter all wasted at three in the morning? You think he'll be happy with you when he finds out you let me sneak out like this? Are you stupid or do you actually want to get fired?"

"And who told you I was going to bring you to him?" Mingyu shakes his head, letting out a long-winded sigh. "Like I said, I don't want to be here either. The last thing I need is even more overtime after your father sets you straight."

That makes you pause, eyes widening with a hint of mistrust. Mingyu listens to every word his employer says. He's the perfect little lapdog. So perfect that sneaking out for these nightly escapades of yours have grown increasingly difficult with how good he is at finding you and bringing you home.

So hearing him practically say that he won't tattle on you...

"How can I be sure you're not fucking with me? That if I fall asleep in the car, I won't wake up in the courtyard of the old man's stupid mansion?"

"Do I look like I have the energy to deal with both of you at the same time?" he replies sharply, opening the door to the passenger seat with a hint of finality in his actions. "Just get in the fucking car so we can all head to bed before sunrise."

The sound of the house party still in full swing echoes in your ears from the distance. Your skin tingles a little beneath the heat of Mingyu's mildly pissed off gaze, and you let out a shuddering breath to keep yourself from giving the feeling a name.

"Fine."

...

Good news: you made it safely back to your apartment without anyone alerting your father about your true whereabouts.

Bad news: Mingyu just won't fucking leave.

He insisted that you get yourself refreshed with a shower first before he talks to you in the living room. The same guy that right-out said that you should hop in the passenger seat of his car so you'd both be asleep before the sun rises. The clock is already pushing past four in the morning, and Mingyu still insists on lecturing you before he leaves?

You of all people know how obstinate he can be. He's even more stubborn than you are, if you're being completely honest. So even if it wounds your pride to play along with what he has planned, you head back to your living room right after slipping on your usual nightgown—flashing Mingyu a look to remind him you're not at all pleased with whatever bullshit he wants to talk about.

However, your irritation ebbs a little when you see a plate of your favorite cookies sitting on the coffee table, along with a glass of water and a sheet of Advil.

Your gaze drifts from the snacks to your bodyguard, who looks more dressed down than usual. His coat is folded neatly, hanging off one side of your couch, and the first three buttons of his dress shirt are undone.

You gulp, prying your eyes off the sliver of chest he's willingly exposed before seating a respectable distance away.

"What did you want to talk about?" You try to sound casual as you leaned forward, reaching for a cookie and the glass of water without as much initiating eye contact.

"You smoked a few joints at the party, didn't you?"

You take a bite, washing it down with your drink before replying with, "So what if I did? A little kush isn't going to kill anybody, Mingyu."

"We both know 'a little' doesn't exist in your vocabulary, princess," he points out, crossing his arms with an unimpressed look. "Anyway, I'm not your father, so I typically don't care about what drugs you're taste testing every night—"

"Are you implying that you suddenly care now?"

"With a new poisonous marijuana strain circulating in the underground market? Of course I do."

You do a double take on that, staring at him hard as you begrudgingly swallow your cookie, "What? Underground market? And what do you mean poisonous?"

Mingyu lets out another sigh when he leans forward to reach for the box of cigarettes and a lighter you left strewn across your coffee table. You're even more surprised to see him lighting himself a stick and taking a drag than you were when he prepared some snacks and water for you.

"Some Columbian drug cartels thought it would be funny to infiltrate surface-level drug transactions. Long story short, they invented some fucked up strain laced with belladonna and smuggled it into the market under the impression that it's a new sativa strain."

You absolutely have no idea how Mingyu even got ahold of this information, but realizing the implication of his words has your stomach sinking with dread. If what he's saying is true, it's no wonder you were out so fucking quick tonight.

"I'm not gonna die within twenty four hours, right?" you half-joke because, Jesus, you're adventurous with your drugs, but you wouldn't willingly take something that can actually kill you.

To your relief, Mingyu shakes his head. "I don't know the science behind it either, but I was told sativa tones down the poisonous effect of belladonna by a huge margin. The worst you'll experience is a fever and a nasty cough if you don't do anything about it."

"Gee, way to be reassuring."

Mingyu scoffs before taking another drag of his cigarette. Your gaze is riveted on the cut of his jaw as he inhales the smoke with eyes closed. It's only when he flicks the ashes in a small ashtray you left by the small table beside the couch that you realize he's pushed the sleeves of his dress shirt to his elbows—exposing a good deal of his toned arms.

You immediately take a huge gulp of water, not wanting such unsavory thoughts about an unsavory person to surface now, of all times.

You might be more refreshed after your shower, but if you're starting to ogle Kim Mingyu, the strange joints you've been hitting all night might've messed with your head more than you thought.

"That's why we're going to the doctor tomorrow—"

You scowl. "Like hell I'm going to pay Doctor Yoon a visit. That guy's the biggest tattletale in the world. He'll definitely tell the old man. Oh, and I actually have classes tomorrow if you're forgetting, Mingyu."

"You're pretending to attend those now that it's convenient for you?" He smirks as he breathes out another puff of smoke. "Nice try, princess. But don't worry your pretty little head about it. I'll take you to another doctor I know—someone who won't get us both in trouble by telling your father that you've been smoking bad weed."

"Again, way to be fucking reassuring."

The silence finally settles as you nibble contemplatively on the snacks he brought for you. You're can say for sure that you're most certainly sober now, so Mingyu's words have got you thinking.

But it's a little difficult to think about the state of your health when you've got a sort-of uninvited guest manspreading right next to you on the couch.

"Aren't you going to leave?" you ask. "Just text me what time we're going to visit that doctor friend of yours."

"How would you feel if you got told to scram while you're in the middle of a smoke?" Mingyu flashes you an annoyed look. "For the third time, I don't even want to be here, princess. At least let me have this as compensation for saving your sorry ass."

He's so fucking infuriating.

The rough undercurrent in his voice. The perpetual upward curve of his lips as if he always has the upper hand. His beefy arms. His built chest.

...Not to mention his unexpected thoughtfulness when he decided to stick around and inform you about what you might've gotten yourself into instead of leaving you to fend for yourself. He even brought out your favorite cookies for good measure.

You never really know what to do with Kim fucking Mingyu. He stirs up all sorts of confusing feelings inside your chest at any given time, and frankly, you've had enough of it.

You allow yourself to relish in the pride that swells in your chest when he nearly drops his half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray the moment you crawl on top of his lap.

Mingyu's mouth quivers with some sensible words his job description probably requires him to say, but you rob him of his ability to speak when you steal the cancer stick from his fingers. In one long breath, you smoke the cigarette down to the filter—killing it on your ashtray before leaning down to press your lips to his.

With how stunned he is, it doesn't take a lot of effort to pry Mingyu's mouth open, breathing the smoke into his mouth. Once you're satisfied, you pull away with a triumphant smirk.

"Now you're done," you say, making the motions to get off his lap. "I'm heading to bed. Don't wake me up before noon for that doctor's appointment or else I'm going to slash your ti—"

You don't even get to finish that sentence. Mingyu suddenly flips you over so that your back is pressed against the couch and he's lying on top of you—both knees planted on either side of your hips as he gazes at you with an ireful glare.

"W-What are you doing?" you whisper, but in spite of the protesting nature of your words, you can't help but feel a pang of white hot desire shoot straight through you when you feel just how big he is now that his body is pressed against yours.

"Teaching a bad girl a lesson," he whispers, grabbing your face roughly. "You can't just pull off shit like that and expect to walk away from it unscathed, princess."

Fuck. That nickname he always uses never fails to get on your nerves on any other day. But when he sounds like that and has you under him like this...

"What are you gonna do about it then?" you ask.

Mingyu chuckles darkly, as he squishes your face with his big, long fingers. You nearly shudder at the thought of what those digits could do to you if you just pushed the right buttons.

"You'll just have to fuck around and find out."

When the pressure of his strong grip leaves your cheeks, confusion paints your features. Mingyu's weight eases off your pliant body almost immediately as well, leaving you to scowl at him incredulously. He doesn't even look at you as he collects his coat from where it hangs off your couch.

But before he can even think about putting it back on, something not so different from a growl resonates deep in your chest as you sit back up—tugging on the collar of his shirt to smash your lips together.

Mingyu all but groans into the kiss, but you're not sure if you can even call it that. There's nothing but hunger fueling the both of you as your tongue slides alongside his, mapping out each other's mouths like your lives depended on it.

You vaguely hear his coat fall to the floor as Mingyu goes back to crowding you against the couch—one of his strong arms circling your waist as he grinds his hips against your middle. It's nearly embarrassing how willing you are to receive his advances.

You, the same person who told your bodyguard you refused to drive home with him, are now making out with said bodyguard at four in the morning.

But then again, who fucking cares?

"You have no idea," he whispers hoarsely against your lips and you let out a stifled moan when you feel the outline of his erection rut against your clothed pussy, "how much you drive me insane. You're such a fucking handful, you know that?"

"I'm glad to know I make your life miserable," you bite back despite the fact that, when Mingyu brings down the straps of your nightgown to expose your breasts to the cool air, you do nothing about it.

Mingyu lets out a harsh laugh. "You're probably into this, aren't you, princess? You like riling me up so much so that I'd snap and teach you a lesson?"

You want to tell him that he's being fucking full of himself if he thinks you've planned this that far back. But with how massive he feels through his trousers alone, you can't say that you don't want him inside you right this second.

It doesn't help that he's giving your chest a generous amount of attention—suckling at your nipples in a way that has you twitching beneath him with sensitivity.

"So what if I am?" you say, testing the limits of what he'll let you get away with. "You talk big about teaching me a lesson but you're being awfully careful with me. Aren't you going to shove your cock down my throat to get me to shut up?"

Mingyu chuckles with a quick shake of his head, like he isn't even taking your words seriously. You let out a sharp yelp when he bites down on one of your breasts—leaving a distinct imprint of his canines on your skin before staring into your eyes.

"I can choke you with my cock next time, princess. For now, I just want to make you come until you're crying for me."

Fuck.

Mingyu wastes no time. He immediately sinks to his knees on the floor, hauling your hips closer to the edge of the couch so that he can hook your thighs over his shoulders. When he realizes that you're not wearing any underwear underneath your flimsy satin nightgown, you swear the noise he makes is near animalistic.

"Don't get f-fucking cocky," you stammer, nerves alight everywhere his lips graze your inner thighs. "I don't usually wear underwear before going to sleep! This wasn't for you."

"It is now," Mingyu says before licking a long stripe from your leaking hole to your aching clit. He holds your thighs far apart as his lips latch onto that little bundle of nerves, alternating with delicious licks at your sensitive folds.

He practically smothers his face into your cunt as he continues his relentless assault on your clit. By the time Mingyu starts to tease his tongue along your entrance, your fingers have found their way into his unruly hair—moans falling from your lips with little concern about appearances.

Mingyu pulls away for a moment, and you nearly snap at him from that alone until he eases one of those thick fingers into your wet channel—dark eyes trained on you as he stretches you out with a hungry gaze.

You don't even feel any semblance of shame when you start to ride that single digit, wanting to feel him go deeper and spread you wider. Fortunately, your bodyguard is more attentive than you think, and it doesn't take long for him to ease another finger into your needy pussy, curling them just so once he's sure he's found that spot that'll render you an incoherent mess.

The sound he rips out of you is unholy and Mingyu growls again before his mouth finds its way back onto your cunt—getting lost in the taste of you on his tongue.

"Where's the fight you've been putting up against me all this time, princess?" he taunts just before those stupidly thick fingers graze that sensitive patch of flesh inside you again. "Are you that desperate? You've fucked yourself up so much tonight that you couldn't bring anyone back home. Your bodyguard's gonna have to do, huh?"

You know you should be affronted by how offensive his words are. Mingyu might be an expert at getting on your nerves, but with how good his fucking mouth feels as he laves at your cunt like a man starved, you can't even let yourself feel any modicum of annoyance.

"M-Mingyu," you gasp as he suckles on your clit again—steadily building your orgasm from the ground-up. "I'm gonna come, f-fuck!"

Three. Mingyu slides in three fingers at your admission, and you nearly cry with how wide he's stretching you out. This time, he switches from sucking at your clit to rapidly flicking his tongue against the sensitive pearl.

Your toes curl with oversensitivity, thighs nearly crushing his head as you frame the syllables of his name in another wanton moan. When Mingyu curls his fingers inside you one more time, the tension that's been building in your stomach snaps like a rubber band.

Once you teeter off the precarious edge of release, you feel a gush of slick surge out of your cunt and into his awaiting mouth. Mingyu laps it all up—his sinful tongue catching every drop of your tangy essence. If you didn't know better, you would think he's desperate for you as much as you are for him.

It takes a while for your mind to fully come back online after that first orgasm, chest heaving almost painfully with how Mingyu took your breath away with oral alone. When you finally have your wits about you, your bodyguard surges forward so that your faces are levelled, and you nearly groan when you see the way his mouth and chin glisten with your juices.

"So fucking delicious for me," he rasps. "Gonna let me have a taste of this pussy every time now, princess? Want my mouth on you before you sleep?

"Do whatever you want, Gyu," you mewl, tugging him closer as you position yourself horizontally on the couch. "N-Need you so bad."

He sighs, unbuttoning the rest of his dress shirt as he drinks in the sight of you all fucked out and compliant because of his mouth and fingers alone. Your lips are parted, eyes glistening with tears or desire—Mingyu can't say for sure just yet.

But if he can get you this wrecked from oral, he can't fucking wait to see what you'll look like after he gets you to cream on his cock.

His shirt falls to the floor and you can't contained the awed gasp that leaves you at the sight of him. He's built like a fucking sculpture—all lean muscle and hard toned abs. It would make sense for Mingyu to be this well-built, being your bodyguard and all, but the thought of having his body pressed against yours as he fucks you into the couch is sending your mind into overdrive.

"You're so adorable," he chuckles, but you know the words are anything but a compliment. "A moment ago you were challenging everything I said and did. Now you're suddenly an agreeable little thing. Are you that cock-hungry, princess? Want something to fill that pretty pussy?"

"Yes." You don't even hesitate. "Yes, yes, yes. Want your cock in me. Want you to fill me up, Gyu. Please..."

Fortunately for you, Mingyu isn't one to tease. The moment you've given him the green light to rearrange your insides, he steps out of his tight trousers and boxers at the same time, pumping his thick cock in one hand as he nudges your thighs apart once again.

You practically salivate at the thought that you're about to take all those delicious inches inside you. Mingyu doesn't miss the starry look on your face, but doesn't take the time to gloat about it. Instead, he leans all the way forward so that your thighs are squished against your chest—easing your legs across his shoulders in a position that's not so different from when he ate you out earlier.

"Gonna fuck the attitude out of you, princess," he promises before pressing a kiss on the corner of your mouth. "You ready for me?"

You nod a little too eagerly, forcing his face into the crook of your neck as you wrap your arms around his head. "Gyu, please..."

"Alright. Since you asked so nicely."

He doesn't even give any forewarning when he bottoms out inside you in one languid stroke. A choked up noise gets caught in your chest with how sudden he was, how full you feel in such a short amount of time, but Mingyu doesn't give you any time to think, or even to breathe.

Before you can even get a single word out, he's pulling his hips back—making you feel every inch of his thick cock before slamming his hips forward with a powerful thrust that drives you further into the sofa. You let out a long-winded moan, unable to do anything about it as he pounds into you with the vigor of someone who's been putting up with your shit for a better part of the year.

"Pussy's so fucking tight for me," he growls. "You're squeezing my cock so good, princess. Is this all I had to do so you'd stop driving me crazy? Eat you out a little and dick you down 'til you forget your name?"

You can't even process what he's saying right now—too lost in the sensation of his cockhead grazing your cervix with each forward stroke. He's reaching into you so deep that you might really just forget everything but the letters of Mingyu's name by the time he's done with you.

"M-Mingyu," you drawl dumbly as he peppers your neck with bites and bruises—unrelenting with his deep strokes as your cunt flutters around his length. "Fuck. L-Love your cock so much—oh!"

You let out a gasp that Mingyu quickly muffles with his own mouth as he adjusts your positions on the sofa—easing your legs off of his shoulders in exchange for spreading them wider on the cushions. How he manages to do that without his cock slipping out of you is a testament to your flexibility, and he's already cooking up what he'll do about that information for next time.

Mingyu continues kissing you all while he plants one foot on the couch and the other on the floor. When he tugs your hips even closer it's only then that you realize that the lunatic has you in a mating press.

"How long have you been thinking about me fucking you like this?" he whispers, deciding to drag it out with slow, deep thrusts that only serve to frustrate you. "You wouldn't have let me go this far if you hadn't thought about it at least once, princess."

I've wanted to fuck you since the old man introduced us, is the correct answer but you've still got some shred of dignity. If Mingyu wants the truth, he's going to have to work for it.

"Fuck me again after this, and I might give you an answer," you rasp, meeting his lazy thrusts with some of your own to get the point that you want him to ram into you across.

"There she is," Mingyu laughs. "My nasty, sharp-tongued princess. Thought I lost you for a sec."

"You will if you don't fuck me until I black out."

"Oh? All you had to do was ask, you know."

Then and there, Mingyu makes good of that interesting position he'd unknowingly lured you into—plunging that fat cock even deeper into your pussy if that's even possible. It felt heavenly, taking all of him while your legs dangled off his shoulders, but there's just something about having your legs spread impossibly wide as he drills into you with the full intention of making you come until you're crying that does it for you.

As each second passes, Mingyu's thrusts become more erratic—hips snapping with hard, calculated strokes so fucking good that tears are starting to glisten along the lines of your lashes like he promised.

You mewl his name like a string of prayers as the sound of your cunt squelching with every thrust rings in your ears. It's insane how close he's driven you to the edge in the span of thirty minutes, and you're starting to grow fearful of how addicting it feels to have him inside you like this.

At this point, you'd rather get off on Mingyu's cock than get high from some shady sativa joint. Something tells you he'd rather have that, too.

"Where do you want me, princess?" he whispers into your ear, reaching between your legs to give you just the right pressure you've been missing on your clit. You have to bite back a sob when he presses his thumb against it.

"Inside," you whimper as he continues plunging his engorged length into you. "Fill me with your cum, please, Gyu. I want it—want it so bad."

Mingyu hisses when you clench around his cock, large hands undoubtedly about to leave bruises on your thighs come morning. When you hear that deep, sexy laugh in your ear, you know it's all over for you.

"Come on my cock first, princess. Then I'll give you what you want."

He punctuates the words by drawing quick, tight circles on your clit all while keeping up the cadence of his thrusts. With the steady stream of stimulation he's so willing to give, it's a no-brainer for another orgasm to blindside you yet again.

You cry out with bliss as you screw your eyes shut—tears running down your cheeks in cascades as you fall apart on Mingyu's cock. He fucks into you despite the overstimulation, his own high not far behind because of the expression you're showing him.

"That's it," he rasps, leaning down to kiss the tears away. "Fucking cry for me, princess."

You're not sure if you're just too blissed out to comprehend it properly, but you're pretty sure that Mingyu just triggered another orgasm from you when you feel him twitch inside—your tight channel being covered in his white hot emission.

It doesn't help that your insatiable lover continues to fuck his cum deeper into your abused cunt, taking full advantage of this position while he can.

"M-Mingyu," you beg, fingers raking across his back as he punches the breath out of your lungs. "Too much. T-Too much."

You thought he wouldn't heed your words, but surprisingly, Mingyu halts every movement to gaze at you with a hint of concern lining his gaze. Wordlessly, he eases himself out of your sore cunt, wiping the tears off your eyes before pressing a kiss on your lips.

"Sorry," he murmurs before gently fixing the straps of your nightgown. He even tugs the hem down despite the fact that his cum is currently leaking out of you. "You want me to tuck you in?"

You nod, lacing your fingers around his neck, the overstimulated mess you are. Mingyu breathes out a quiet laugh before carrying you into his arms again.

"Alright, princess. Let's get you to bed."

You don't have the heart nor the energy to protest. Besides, it's his job to take care of you, after all.

⟢ end notes: reminder to not take any of the medical indications abt drugs that i included in this fic seriously. i made all of those up. oh and this should go w/o saying but don't fuck anyone while under the influence of anything AT ALL !!!

that aside, happy birthday to everyone's favorite puppy boy mingyu! i ended up loving him a lot more as i stanned svt, and i hope everyone else gives him the same love as well! god knows he has lots to give to both his members and his fans ueueue

++ if you spotted a few errors here and there, please don't tell me or i'll die of embarrassment ^_^ this wasn't proofread bcs i wanted to drop this exactly on his bday (i am 1 hour and 34 mins late!) HEHEHE i was sposed to write an ending scene in the morning where gyu wakes up and sees her wearing his shirt while making breakfast but that'll make this too long :| i'll just leave that to ur imagination!

#seventeen smut #seventeen fanfic #mingyu smut #mingyu x reader #seventeen x reader #kim mingyu #svt smut #svt fanfic #lovelyhan #🎲 ask games #full length fic 📚#💭 request

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whereforarthur · 2 months ago

Text

It's Been Way Too Long

Request: id love a george smut, perhaps one of us have been rlly busy like all summer and barely had any time to see each other so when it gets to september time (ish) we havent realised how much we miss each other

Pairing: George Clarke x Reader

Category: Smut

Word Count: 2.2k

*****

“I think I'd miss you even if we never met.” — The Wedding Date

The London skies were a canvas of soft grays and muted blues, hinting at the promise of rain. The bustling streets below were a blur of umbrellas and rushing footsteps. Amidst the thrum of the city, a solitary figure sat on a bench in a small, overlooked park, a patch of green nestled between concrete giants. George Clarke, known to the internet as "The Clarke Cut", was a man of sharp contrasts. His online persona was vibrant, full of life and humor, but in this quiet moment, he was lost in thought, his eyes reflecting the weight of the world.

For months, George had thrown himself into his work, leaving little room for anything else. His YouTube channel had grown exponentially, the demands of content creation an ever-hungry beast that consumed his days and nights. The price of success had been steep, and he felt the cost keenly as he stared at the empty space next to him, where you, or y/n as he liked to call you, should have been. The vividness of your laughter and the warmth of your smile had been replaced by the cold metal of the bench, and the echoes of the city's cacophony.

The first leaves of autumn began to dance around him, a sad ballet of nature's end and rebirth. The chill in the air seemed to mirror the chill in his heart, a stark reminder of the seasons passing and the time lost. You had been his anchor, a steady presence that kept him grounded amidst the chaos. Without you, the city felt like an alien landscape, one he was navigating for the first time without a map.

George pulled out his phone, thumb hovering over your name in his contacts. The urge to hear your voice washed over him like a wave, but fear held him back. Would you be upset? Would you even have time to talk? With a sigh, he sent a text, keeping it light, hoping it didn't betray the tumult in his soul. "Missing you," it read, with a simple heart emoji. It was all he could manage.

Minutes ticked by, the silence stretching into a symphony of unspoken words. His phone buzzed, pulling him from his thoughts. It was you. "Miss you too, George," it said, followed by a smiling face with a tear. His heart clenched at the sight. You had felt it too, the distance that had grown between them like an invisible wall.

The rain finally made its appearance, lightly kissing the leaves before turning into a steady rhythm against the pavement. George didn't bother moving, the cool drops a soothing balm on his heated skin. The scent of wet earth and the faint smell of rain-soaked flowers filled the air, a familiar comfort that only heightened his longing for your presence.

As the drops grew heavier, his thoughts grew clearer. He knew what he had to do. Success meant nothing if he couldn't share it with the one who truly mattered. The realization struck him like a bolt of lightning, illuminating the path ahead. He had to make time for you, to prioritize what truly made him happy. The rain grew into a crescendo, each drop a beat in the rhythm of his newfound resolve.

Standing up, George tucked his phone away and took a deep breath, the rain soaking his clothes and hair. He'd rearrange his schedule, make the calls, and do whatever it took to bridge the gap that had formed. With a renewed sense of purpose, he stepped into the storm, the cold water mixing with the warmth of his determination. The city around him blurred as he set off in the direction of your flat, eager to feel the warmth of your embrace and to apologize for his neglect. The rain washed away the dust of the summer, leaving behind the promise of a fresh start, a chance to rekindle the flame that had been smoldering between them.

By the time he arrived, the rain had become a downpour, turning the streets into rivers and the air into a thick mist. He took the stairs two at a time, his heart racing in anticipation. The door to your flat stood before him, a symbol of the comfort and love that waited within. He took a moment to compose himself, wiping the rain from his face before knocking softly, his breath hitching in his chest.

When the door opened, the sight of you took his breath away. You looked tired, your eyes a bit sad, but the moment they met his, a spark ignited, lighting up the room. The silence stretched between them, filled with the unspoken words of regret and longing. Without a word, George stepped inside, closing the door behind him, the sound echoing through the small space like a declaration of intent.

You stood before him, rain-soaked and beautiful, your hair clinging to your face like a veil. The air was charged with tension, the kind that comes from months of missed moments and unspoken truths. He reached out, his hand brushing against your cheek, the touch sending a jolt through both of you. Your eyes searched his, looking for reassurance, for a sign that he truly meant it. And in that moment, George knew that he had made the right choice. He leaned in, capturing your lips in a kiss that was both desperate and gentle, a silent promise to never let you go again.

The kiss grew in intensity, a conflagration of passion that had been smoldering for too long. Your arms wrapped around him, pulling him closer, as if trying to erase the space that had grown between you. The world outside the flat disappeared, leaving only the two of you, entwined in a dance of love and apology. The rain outside was now a mere backdrop to the symphony of your hearts beating in unison, a testament to the fact that no matter how busy life got, you two were destined to find your way back to each other.

Breaking the kiss, George whispered, "I'm sorry. I've been so caught up in work, I forgot what's truly important."

You looked up at him, your eyes glistening with unshed tears. "It's okay," you murmured, your voice a soft melody that soothed his soul. "I understand. But I missed you. So much."

He cupped your face in his hands, thumbs brushing away the stray teardrops. "I missed you too. And I promise, from now on, I'll make more time for us."

You nodded, a small smile playing on your lips. "I'd like that."

With the storm outside mirroring the tumult in their hearts, George took your hand and led you to the couch. You sat down together, the fabric warm and welcoming against your cold, wet clothes. He wrapped an arm around you, pulling you into his side, and you rested your head on his shoulder, feeling the steady beat of his heart beneath your cheek.

The sound of the rain grew softer as you talked, sharing stories of the summer's escapades and the moments you'd wished you could have shared. Each word was a thread weaving the fabric of your relationship back together, stronger than before. The warmth of the room began to seep into your bones, chasing away the chill of the rain and the months of separation.

As the conversation lulled, George reached over to the coffee table, picking up a notebook and a pen. He flipped through the pages, his eyes scanning the words and doodles that chronicled your life together. "Look," he said, pointing to a page filled with sketches of the two of you in various stages of laughter and love. "I want to fill this book with more memories. Starting now."

A blush crept up your cheeks as you took the notebook from him. The promise in his eyes was more than you could have hoped for. With a shaky hand, you wrote, "September 15th - The day George realized what truly matters."

Underneath, he scribbled, "And the day I came home to you."

*****

The moment was filled with the quiet understanding that sometimes life gets in the way, but true love always finds a path back. The rain outside had slowed to a gentle patter, as if it too knew that the storm had passed and that now was the time for growth and renewal.

George's hand slid down from your cheek to your neck, his touch sending shivers down your spine. He kissed you again, this time with a hunger that had been building for months. Your bodies pressed closer, the warmth of your skin a stark contrast to the cold fabric that separated you. The rain had made the air thick with desire, and you could feel the heat radiating from George's body, his need for you palpable.

Your hands found their way under his shirt, feeling the dampness of his skin and the tautness of his muscles. The sensation sent waves of electricity through you, and you realized just how much you'd missed the simple act of touching him, of feeling his heart race in response to your touch. His hands roamed your body, exploring the curves and valleys that he knew so well, yet somehow felt new and exciting. The rain outside had become a soft, rhythmic backdrop to your reunion, a natural metronome setting the pace of your passion.

As you kissed, you both began to peel away the layers of clothing that had kept you apart, revealing the warmth and desire that had been trapped beneath. Your skin met with a sigh of relief, like two long-lost friends finally reunited. The couch cushions grew soggy with rainwater, but you didn't care. All that mattered was the connection that surged between you, a current more powerful than any storm.

The smell of damp fabric and the gentle scent of your perfume mixed with the musk of passion as you became lost in each other. The storm outside had brought you back together, and now, you were determined to make the most of every moment. The sound of the rain grew fainter as you became more attuned to the sound of your breaths mingling, the beat of your hearts syncing up as one.

George lifted you effortlessly, carrying you to the bedroom, his eyes never leaving yours. The floorboards creaked underfoot, a gentle reminder of the history you shared in this space. You knew every inch of this room, every crevice and corner, but it had never felt more intimate than it did in that moment.

Laying you down on the bed, he hovered over you, his gaze intense and filled with love. The soft light from the streetlamp painted shadows on the wall, playing across your bodies as you moved together in a dance of passion. The thunder outside rumbled in the distance, punctuating the silent promises made between kisses and caresses.

Your bodies intertwined, the coldness of the rain forgotten in the warmth of your love. The room was filled with the sound of the rain, the sighs of pleasure, and the whispers of sweet nothings that meant everything. The storm outside mirrored the intensity of your reunion, each flash of lightning illuminating the passion in your eyes, as if the very sky was celebrating your reconciliation.

The rain grew softer, the thunder a gentle reminder of the tempest you had weathered. As your bodies found their rhythm, the storm outside seemed to mimic your own, building to a crescendo before subsiding into a gentle lull. You lay there, tangled in the warmth of each other's arms, the city of London a silent witness to your love.

In the aftermath of your passion, you both lay still, listening to the fading patter of rain and the steady thrum of each other's hearts. The world outside had continued to turn, but for a brief moment, it had stopped for you both. You knew that from now on, no matter how busy life got, you would always find time for each other, because you had just survived the storm, and the calm that followed was more beautiful than any summer's day.

You leaned up to kiss him softly, tasting the salt of the rain and the sweetness of your shared love. "Thank you," you whispered, your voice a mere breath against his skin.

George smiled, brushing a stray strand of hair from your face. "For what?"

"For reminding me what's important," you said, your eyes searching his. "For coming back to me."

He kissed you again, his arms tightening around you. "Always," he murmured, his voice a solemn vow. "I'll always come back to you."

The room was a cocoon of warmth and love, the storm outside a gentle lullaby, as you both drifted off to sleep, the sound of the rain a soothing serenade. Hours passed, the city's heartbeat growing quieter as the night deepened. When you awoke, the rain had stopped, leaving a freshness in the air that seemed to cleanse the very essence of the world. The scent of wet earth and the faint sound of distant cars washed over you, bringing with it a sense of peace.

******

@gvf23

@xxkatxgracexx

#british youtubers #imagines #george clarkey #smut #george clarke fics #george clarkey x reader

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bookofthegear · 1 year ago

Text

You test the ladder cautiously. It seems solid enough, and the bolts aren’t obviously loose…well…most of the bolts aren’t obviously loose, anyway. It creaks dramatically a few times, but you don’t die.

You only descend about ten feet. The room opens up dramatically on the far side of the wall, stretching up multiple stories. In fact, you see sunlight cutting through the gloom from openings high overhead. Vast tree roots have crawled through the walls, crumbling the stone near the top. The light is almost strong enough to read by, and certainly strong enough to illuminate the brackish-looking water about twenty feet down from your perch.

The ladder ends atop an immense cement pipe, at least twelve feet in diameter, which protrudes from the west wall. On the far wall, you can see another pipe, twin to this one, some thirty feet away. A thin trickle of water flows over the lip. You hear the splash as it hits the water below.

Jimmy does a brief sweep of the upper stories and returns after a few minutes. “There’s a bunch of gaps up there,” he says, “but I don’t think you could climb up to them. Most wouldn’t fit a human anyway.”

It would require a pretty acrobatic maneuver to flip over the edge of the pipe and drop down, and you probably couldn’t get back up again. Alternatively, the ladder is more or less solid and you could anchor a rope to it and climb down.

Or, hell, you could take a running jump and try to land in the other pipe. (You slept through Physics For Non-Majors. 8 AM is a brutal time for a science class.)

#choose your own adventure #t kingfisher #ursula vernon #book of the gear

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avocado-writing · 2 years ago

Text

Sensors

rated: E, MINORS DNI

1.8k words

Human!Reader/Ramattra

He remembers you from the monastery all those years ago. You weren’t there with him, obviously; you were in charge of a little mechanic’s shop in the nearest town. He didn’t have reason to visit you often but when he did he found you… enchanting. Enchanting in a way an omnic should not feel about a human. You were always ready with a genuine smile whenever he appeared on your doorstep, a kind word and an open ear for his troubles.

You were a friend.

There was one bitterly cold winter where the weather was so harsh it had seized up the joints in one of his arms and stopped it working entirely. This was before he knew much about his own mechanics, and none of his brothers could identify the problem. So he took the trek down to you and sought your help.

You never asked for payment from the monks. You knew that wouldn’t be right. You were… kind like that. So you sat him on a stool in your workshop and experimented with his screws and bolts until he was working again, sincere in your admiration of his robotics, in your admiration of him. He was glad he was an omnic. If he were human, he would have been blushing.

He grew to hate humanity, of course. But he could never quite find it in himself to hate you. You were always that one tiny thread keeping him anchored. He tried to put you out of his mind and focus on his task. His people.

And yet… and yet.

It is night when he comes to you. He has not seen you for… years now, probably. He has lost track of time. Yet he still remembers the way into your workshop, the door that never quite locks properly. He ducks through your doorway and finds you hard at work, pink tongue sticking out from the corner of your mouth as you concentrate.

He says your name, as gently as his omnic voice allows. You jump and drop the spanner you’re holding. It clatters cacophonously to the ground.

“Ramattra,” you whisper, amazed, and for a moment he thinks that perhaps this has all been a mistake, that he never should have come here -

And then you’re crossing the shop floor, and you’ve thrown your arms around him. He did not expect this. Humans are so frustrating to understand sometimes… but then he finds himself returning your embrace.

“You… why are you here?” you ask, when you eventually pull away from him. Your hands linger on his waist, his on your shoulders. He wishes he had an answer. He wishes he has something logical to tell you in response. But he has nothing to give.

“I figured you would hate me. That’s what is… sensible.”

It is not self-pitying, nor is it quite angry. Just a statement. There is no way you do not know what he has been doing these past years. His face, Null Sector, it’s been all over the news. Globally.

And yet you still came to hold him.

“Oh, Ramattra…” you mutter, taking one of his cold metal hands in your own, “how could I ever hate you?”

There it is. The way you speak, so plainly and honestly, that makes something inside of him feel like it’s going to combust. In a good way. Humans are tricky, devious; but not you. Never you.

His hand leaves yours in order to cup your face. You suck in a breath, shocked for a second by the cold - but then you nuzzle into it, lips pressing against the plain of his palm.

“I missed you,” you confess.

“And I you.”

There is an energy thrumming through the workshop now. He’s never felt anything like it before. For once, he is on the back foot.

He is lucky you are bold enough to take the first step, then.

“Can I kiss you?”

If he had eyebrows, he’d raise them.

“You are a foolish human,” he says, but he doesn’t really mean it as an insult, “you’re well aware I don’t have lips.”

You pout in a way he finds endearing.

“Don’t call me foolish,” you sniff, and then, “...and I know. But I’d still like to try.”

He cannot deny you that. So he leans down, and you cup his face in your warm human hands, and you press your mouth to where his would be. He sees the way you close your eyes and melt into him. His hands lower down to hold your hips, tug you a little closer against him. Omnics are not really designed to feel… but they are also not designed to have an extra pair of arms hulking from their back, and he managed that. Perhaps he did an extra little upgrade of his own internals. He turns the sensors on in his body and is shocked as it processes the warmth of you.

You are lovely. Truly lovely.

He takes a step forward and you take one back, and you keep going until he has you pinned against the worktable. You rest your forehead against his and explore him with gentle and curious touches, listening to the low sound of his voice to see what makes him react with the most pleasure.

“Where should I touch you? Where feels the best?” you ask, voice husky and low.

“You should - ahh!” - your fingers have skimmed the ridge between his pectoral plates and oh is it intoxicating - “You should know, hm? You spent enough time fixing omics. You must be intimately familiar with our builds.”

You roll your eyes at him, but it is good-naturedly and without malice.

“I want you to tell me, Ramattra.”

He takes the hand on his chest and moves it lower, across the metal of his abdomen, the smooth plate of his groin. He groans when he feels the heat of you touch there. The sensors in his lower body are going haywire. A sort of pleasure he’s never felt before manifests itself at the apex of his legs, and he finds himself rutting into you. You giggle and it’s the most perfect sound he’s ever heard.

“There,” he confirms, and you rub a bit harder, using your free hand to reach up and card through the wires of his hair. It snags a little and pulls and he moans. He didn’t even realise you could reach up there, but he realises he’s bent his massive form over you, caging you in against himself; offering every part of his body up to touch.

And oh, how you touch.

“Where… I want to…” he manages, thumbs rubbing tender circles along your hips. He knows human anatomy enough to be able to take a kill shot from hundreds of feet away, but has no idea how to give it gratification. You’re reluctant to stop caressing him, even for a second, so in reply you just thrust your hips forward.

“B…between my legs,” you mutter, eyes wide and soft, “and… maybe my face, too? My mouth…”

He does not need to be prompted again. Ramattra presses one of his hands at the place where your thighs meet. The sound you make lets him know he’s done something correctly. You mewl and push further into his palm.

“Yes, Ramattra, yes…”

He’s never heard his name said that way before, but now it’s fallen from your lips he wants to hear it over and over. He thinks he’d do just about anything for you to moan it again. Part of him feels pitiful, disgusted at himself - he’s been reduced to this pathetic, pining thing at the hands of a human. The very thing he’s meant to hate.

Ah, but not any human though. You. The only one he could ever care for.

He remembers your other gentle plea, so the hand which isn’t rubbing against your clothed cunt cups your cheek. Your tongue leaves your parted lips again and brushes against the pad of his thumb. Taking his cue, he presses the digit into your mouth. Your eyes roll back and you begin to explore it, sucking it gently, fellating it - and it almost fries every sensor he has in his hands. It's so good. He wonders why he hasn’t done this before, found a needy little human to fuck.

Because they wouldn't be you.

You untangle your hand from his hair for just a moment in order to move his own under your trousers, beneath your underwear. He can feel that you’re wet down there, so he spends a moment coating his fingers with you before withdrawing them to inspect. They glisten in the low light of the workshop.

“Fascinating,” he mutters, returning his hand to where it was before you can chide him for the seemingly out-of-the-moment comment. He finds where you open, and presses against it curiously.

“Yes, inside,” you encourage, speaking around his thumb. His fingers slip into your cunt and he is engulfed by your soft, wet heat. You groan and throw your head back, thrusting forward into his touch as you do - but you are not distracted for long, doubling your own efforts on him. The hand at his pubic plate explores further back a little, and when you brush the wires in his undercarriage he makes a noise of shock so loudly that you laugh again, surprised.

“There, hmm?” you practically purr, pressing your forehead against his. If he could breathe, you’d be sharing the air between you. You stroke the wiring, the circuitry, and he begins to fuck you with his fingers. Mirroring the way you touch him. He delights in the feeling of your wetness, the way your eyes screw up in pleasure, the hitch of your chest as you get closer to the edge…

… and then you come with a bitten-off moan, fucking hard into his metal hand. As you do your fingers slip against some inner processor he didn’t have any idea was even there -

He is blinded with release. His body is on fire with the red-hot explosion of ecstasy, making every sensor feel like it is being lifted up past the heavens itself –

For a second, he goes offline.

He comes back what must be a handful of seconds later to the sound of you fearfully shouting his name, desperately trying to rouse him.

“Apologies,” he says, checking everything has returned to function properly, “I… finished.”

You take a moment to digest what he’s said, then laugh. That beautiful sound, once again.

“You came so hard you rebooted? Wow. I must be good.”

You say it cheekily, not sincere. But he still pulls you into his arms anyway. You snuggle into his breastplate, humming at the warmth he’s now churning out. This. This is what afterglow must be.

“Will you stay?” you ask, quietly, as if afraid breaking the silence will also shatter the momentary peace you’ve found together, “For a while, will you stay?”

You both know this cannot be permanent. But you are soft. And after everything, Ramattra believes he deserves a little softness in his life.

“Yes. I will stay.”

#Ramattra x reader #ramattra overwatch x reader #ramattra fanfic #ramattra #ramattra overwatch #overwatch 2 x reader

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moni-logues · 8 months ago

Text

The Surface

banner by @sailoryooons

Pairing: prince merman!Hoseok x sea witch!reader

Genre: fairytale AU/The Little Mermaid AU, smut

Summary: Prince Hoseok has only ever wanted one thing: to experience life on the Surface. You have only ever wanted Prince Hoseok. When he comes to you, desperate, claiming you are the only one who can help him, you decide to play along. You'll help him achieve his dream and maybe you'll satisfy your own dream, too.

Word count: 20k

Content: unprotected sex, oral sex (m. receiving), Hoseok has sex with someone but he thinks they're someone else, if you're incredibly squeamish, there may be some body/pain stuff that makes you go 😖, potentially a litt yandere-vibed

A/N: Happy my birthday eve to you, dear reader!!!!! This is my very first toe-dip into the world of fantasy/spn!! AND my first collab!!!!! Pleeeeaaassseeee read the warnings (and please!!!! let me know if I'm missing any or any are insufficient). I'm so excited; I struggled with plotting this fic and working out how to get it to do what I wanted and thid is actually v3.0 lmao BUT I'm really happy with it! And happy to be part of the Make Me Your Villain collab!!! Thanks to @daechwitatamic for beta-ng and yelling!!!!

Hoseok swam farther than he ever had before. Swam closer. He’d be inching forward and now he was close enough to be spotted; he knew that. He knew that that was too far, but he didn’t really care.

The first time he swam in this direction and saw the shadows of small boats cross over him, he’d bolted in a panic. Merpeople were not to be spotted by humans. Ever. So he’d raced away, not looking back.

But then he had the knowledge that humans sailed there. He knew that that stretch of water played host to life above its surface, too. They were little boats, not the huge ships he usually tailed. These were much smaller, with handfuls of humans sitting in them, pointing in the distance, holding little boxes up to their faces and lowering them again. Visible. Watchable. It was tantalising.

So he went back. Hung around and waited for a while. Did it again. Watched a boat sail over him and eventually drop anchor near the cove. Went back a third time. Saw the humans jump from the side of the boat into the water. Hung back.

The next time, he swam closer. And the time after that, closer still.

That particular day, he had time. Lots of it. There was nothing calling for his attention, nothing tying him to any place, so he edged closer and a little closer, until he could see so clearly their spindly legs kicking ineffectually through the water, their weird feet and tiny toes. He had never seen humans so close before. He wondered if anyone had. They were fascinating. They dived down and kicked back up, their limbs moving in the water to keep them afloat. They turned on to their backs, looking just like seals from below. They squealed and laughed and talked and Hoseok watched it all with rapt attention. What he wouldn’t have given to approach one. To have made contact. To have asked them all his questions.

He wished he had someone to tell. Someone who would receive the information with not even wonder—his hopes were not that high—but interest. He didn’t have anyone to share his discoveries with, his treasures, his excitement. No one else understood. Some people thought he was weird; others thought his interest in the human world was downright wrong.

But his excitement was palpable that day, floating so close to the humans, he could hear their voices. He could even just about make out their words. And then their speech took on a more urgent tone; there was more frantic splashing, some flailing of limbs. He looked around himself and rose until his head bobbed out of the water. He watched the humans spin, searching for something, pointing this way and that way, calling to each other, looking.

He wanted to help but he didn’t know how. He dipped back into the water and skirted around the edge of the group – still unseen—and then it hit him. He had been so focused on the humans that he hadn’t seen it.

The rip tide tugged him sideways with a vicious spinning force. He was lucky, because he lived in the sea and this was far from his first rip. It might have taken him unawares, but he was able to right himself and spiral through to the other side.

That was when he saw what they must have been looking for.

The rip had tossed him out on the other side of a sharp, rocky outcrop on the west side of the cove. It jutted far out into the sea, sheltering the shore from western winds, and he saw a human woman struggling to the surface.

Her limbs were slow and her face kept dipping under the waves until eventually, she just floated, barely moving at all, moving only with the rhythm of the waves. Hoseok watched with dread and fear curdling the excitement in his stomach. She was too still now, her face too low in the water. Something wasn’t right. There was something unnatural about the way she was lying there, suspended in the water.

Hoseok didn’t think before he acted. He kicked his fins and swam to her, wrapping one arm around her torso and hiking her upwards so her face was out of the water. He dragged her, swimming backwards, towards the shore. He was grateful there was a shore; the other side of the cove had nothing but sheer cliffs and sharp rocks.

He didn’t know what he would do when he reached the shingle beach, but being on land had to help, didn’t it? Land was where the humans belonged.

Hoseok dragged her as far out of the water as he could manage—which wasn’t very far because his tail churned the stones and wouldn’t propel him forwards, so he dragged himself, as well as this human woman, until only her legs were splashed by the waves.

He looked down at her, anxiety churning in his gut. How did humans die? Was she already dead? The thought was nauseating. He knew humans had hearts like merpeople did, so he pressed his hand against her chest and felt nothing. He pressed a hand against his own chest. Felt nothing. He pressed his fingers against the large artery he knew ran down his front and felt nothing. He pressed them to his neck and almost felt something, moved them around until he found the spot at which he could feel his blood pushing against them. He immediately transferred his fingers to the same position on the woman and felt the same thing.

He let out a heavy breath. Relief. At least she wasn’t dead.

But she also wasn’t awake.

“Hello?” he called lightly. “Uh, hello? Are you ok?”

She remained unmoved, but he could barely hear himself over the pounding of his frantic heart; maybe he was too quiet? Maybe merpeople couldn’t make noise outside of the water? He tried again but it elicited no response.

He watched her carefully, listening, training his ears towards her, tuning out the roar of the waves and the squawk of seagulls and the distant sound of voices. He concentrated hard, breathing carefully to slow his own heart, to quiet the thump of it against his ribs and the rush of blood through his veins. There was a wet gurgle as her chest rose and fell, coming from her mouth, but sounding from deep inside. Hoseok knew humans breathed through their mouths, not having gills of their own. So he knew she was breathing.

She was both alive and breathing. He sighed with relief. He could let his worry go and lean into his fascination.

He had never seen a human like this. Close enough to touch—he had touched her. Her hair was the colour of the sun, even wet through; the curls stuck to her skin and Hoseok dared to reach out and brush them from her face. As he took his hand back, he noticed he was shaking. Drops of water on her skin sparkled like gems, glinting in the daylight. The sun was hot—far hotter than he’d ever felt it in the water—and bright. The heat of it burnt away the water on her skin almost too quickly to notice. Hoseok didn’t think she looked all that different from a mermaid, not really. The legs made a difference, sure; she had no gills in her ribs; the webbing in her fingers was reduced to nothing, each digit separated down to the palm. But really, what difference did those things make?

He thought her a wonder. He thought her the most beautiful, fascinating thing he’d ever seen. Her rosebud mouth, lips open and plump. Her skin was smooth and dark; he looked stark next to her. Her torso was whole, one expanse of skin stretching around her back and ribs. Hoseok placed a hand to his gills, fingers playing along the edge; they were flapping uselessly in the dry air. He smoothed them down with his hand, imagined his torso like hers, uninterrupted.

He lay with his tail next to her legs. He tried to picture it split in two, tried to picture himself walking on two feet, upright. He wasn’t the longest merman, but how did that compare to humans? The woman by his side seemed long—were all other humans, too? He figured he would probably never know and the rarity of this moment, the precarity of it, dented his enthusiasm a little. But, he reminded himself, for the rest of his life, he would have this. This human woman, lying next to him, seen by him, touched by him. He wondered how many other merpeople had done that.

He’d heard the horror stories, of course, the kind that teachers tell students to scare them away from the surface. He had never believed them, not entirely. There were bad humans, sure, but there were bad merpeople, too. And looking down at this human, this woman, he knew she was good. He felt a fluttering in his chest that made his breathing hitch. Made him feel almost breathless.

He wished she would wake up and see him. That wasn’t allowed, of course. It was absolutely forbidden to make your presence as a merman known to anyone who lived on the surface. But, who had to know? Just this once. Just this once, Hoseok could have his dream come true, couldn’t he?

She blinked once, then twice, and rolled over to cough and splutter, and he panicked. The tranquillity of the moment was gone. He heard the sound of seawater hitting stone as she choked and it spilt from her lips. He didn’t know what that meant. He watched her back heave as she coughed and was gripped by an intense fear. He wasn’t bad; he didn’t break the rules; he didn’t have the stomach for it.

He was diving in the water before she had rolled back, before she had a chance to see him or even notice him. He had disappeared before he’d even made the decision to disappear. Maybe that was close enough. So much for his wishes to be seen. He just wasn’t brave enough.

Back in the water, he shuddered and realised he could breathe again. With his heart rate finally slowing, he swam towards home, his mind pre-occupied with daydreams about coming back to this shore, seeing more humans, learning some more; pre-occupied with the panic and relief and adrenalin of his last ten minutes.

Pre-occupied as he was, he didn’t see that his movements were being tracked. He didn’t see a royal aide, following at a distance, and then moving off towards the royal chambers when they made it back to court.

He didn’t see you either, though you could see him.

* * *

His mother came to see him the following day.

“Hoseok,” she began, in the quiet, stern voice that had always scared him as a child. “Do you think your father and I are stupid?”

He blinked. He hadn’t been expecting that and couldn’t see the reason behind it. That worried him. He was walking into a trap.

“No, of course not,” he answered, honestly.

“Then it will not surprise you if I say that we do know where it is you go in these waters.”

His blood turned to ice.

“We are all very well aware of your... interest in the surface. In humans and all their detritus.”

He opened his mouth to argue back but the expression on his mother’s face stopped him.

“We know you hunt out shipwrecks and follow boats along trade routes, searching the carcasses of their vessels for rubbish, hoping and waiting they might drop something valuable. We know how close you have got, Hoseok, to exposing yourself to the humans.”

He gulped. He knew he was in trouble. Probably a lot of trouble. He didn’t know what his punishment would be.

“We are not going to permit this any longer.”

That rankled. He was almost 21. An adult in any world. Permission? He found his voice.

“I wasn’t aware I needed permission to go anywhere.”

“You’re a prince, Hoseok, of course you need permission. And you no longer have it. So Sebastien will accompany you through your days for the time being, to ensure you do not go where you should not.”

“For the time being? How long is that exactly?”

His mother looked at him, impassive.

“For as long as your father and I tell him to.”

Then she swam away without bothering to say goodbye. Hoseok didn’t have any time to react before Sebastien was by his side.

“Good morning, my prince.”

Hoseok bit back a spiky retort and swam away, with Sebastien following at his fins. His mother couldn’t be serious. He was being chaperoned? It was an indignity. It was infantilising. It was entirely unnecessary. He flexed his hands into fists and out again, balling and stretching as he swam, as he carried on in his head the argument he wished he could have had with his mother. This would not do.

As he realised where he was swimming—with his new bodyguard—he stopped suddenly. He had been inadvertently leading Sebastien to his happy place, his treasure trove, the place where he kept all the so-called ‘human detritus’ he saved. He was sure his parents didn’t know about that and he didn’t want them finding out.

He swam away, ignoring Sebastien chatting idly at his side, and wondered just exactly what his parents knew. Had they seen him save that human woman? Had they seen how close he had come to being discovered? Is that what this was all about?

* * *

Hoseok looked miserable. Oh, he was smiling, and you were sure he was saying all the right things. But you knew. He was not enjoying his birthday party. There was nothing dazzling in his smile, no halo of light around his head. His laughter rang out, hollow and pitchy, not at all like the tumbling bells it usually was.

No, the prince was miserable. You were sure of it. You had noticed that he had been followed—was being followed—by one of the court’s highest-ranking aides; you saw him behind the prince at every turn, like a shadow, like a ghost. Maybe that was the problem.

You had been close as children, you and the prince, for a time. In that period when you were free, when society meant nothing to you, when prejudices and family feuds still hovered above your heads, out of reach. You had been friends and you felt it then, too, his brightness, his warmth. He didn’t care that the adults treated your family poorly; he did care that they treated you poorly. He didn’t know or care about what the adults said; neither did you. You were friends, the two of you, thick as thieves.

Then one day, all that hovered above you came tumbling down, pouring over you both like ice-water. It became more difficult then, to spend time together, to be friends. He never outright said it, broke up with you in a friend kind of way. You just ‘drifted apart’ because he was welcomed in where you were shunned; he was celebrated and everyone did their best to forget you ever existed.

You should have expected it. He was the prince, after all. And you were a sea witch. People said you were evil; the rumour had it that your whole family was. Matriarchal, and that was just the first problem. You had power. Your mother had had it. Your aunt. Their mother. The way you were told, it went back right to the very beginning. You were the latest in a very long line of very powerful witches.

It took you a long time to understand why that was used against you. You had power. Wasn’t that a good thing? You could do magic. You could achieve things no one else could. You could have made the entire sea a better place for everyone and everything living in it. But no one wanted your input; no one wanted to listen, to hear you. They wanted you to stay quiet. They wanted you to hide.

What boiled your blood was that you did. You stayed at the back, hid yourself away in a cave far from where the royal court lived: merpeople in coral towers and you, tangled in seaweed every time you so much as shook your head. You were older now and you knew full-well why they did it.

They were scared of you. They had always been scared of your family, but now, since the ‘tragic’ death of your mother, they were scared of you. Because you had a score to settle. Because you had a reason to hate them. You had vengeance on your mind.

Vengeance and Prince Hoseok.

Because no matter how much you hated it, no matter how much you didn’t want to want him, you did. You looked at him and your chest hurt with longing and your stomach roiled with hatred. How could it be that you could feel two things at once for the same person? You chose not to examine it these days. It had gone on too long and you were used to it. It felt like your natural state of being: hatred and love in equal measure. Fear and power.

No one had ever tested you. Not really. People came to you for silly little things like love potions and spells to make them smarter or charms to ward off hermit crabs from their gardens. No one wanted to see the full extent of your abilities. So you didn’t quite know what they were.

You toiled, testing yourself on little creatures, to see what you could do to them, how much you could transform them, how creative you could get. There had been a lot of failures at first, of course. So many. But then you started to succeed. And now you never failed. Everything you turned your hand to worked. Your mother had always said you were a natural and now you believed it, too.

You thought you could turn yourself into one of them if you wanted. Not that you did want. Never. Ever. You wouldn’t debase yourself, wouldn’t shame your ancestors with an attempt. But you could do it. That much you were confident of.

You were also confident of just how well you knew the prince. Better than he knew, you were sure. He probably didn’t realise quite what an open book he was to you. It was an open secret that he had a thing for life on the surface, but you saw so much more than that. He had never been able to hide from you: his enthusiasm, his wonder, his furtive glances around himself, the swift flick of his tail as he snuck between two large boulders, the fluidity and flexibility of his body the only things enabling him to sneak through. His little collection. Though ‘little’ wasn’t really the word for it, not anymore.

You had been to see it just once before. It was almost enough to impress you. His discoveries, his treasures, were displayed with such care, it almost touched you. These things, this tat, that he had found floating on the surface or buried in the seabed, he loved them. He treated them like something precious, not like the trash it so clearly was to the humans. It made your heart ache a little: his naivety, his innocence, his propensity for flights of fancy, his dreamy insistence on seeing the good in things, in people. In humans.

It was an open secret, this obsession of Hoseok’s, but it concerned his parents. Sure, he was only the youngest of seven sons—he wasn’t the heir—but he was still a prince. That made him valuable and important. It also meant he had to keep up appearances and it simply would not do to have a Prince of the Royal Court enamoured with... up there. So they had instructed one of their aides (a creeping, odious merman whom you avoided like the plague) to follow Hoseok around, to make sure he wasn’t getting himself into trouble.

Yes, you nodded to yourself, that was exactly what had happened.

Hoseok was getting sick of being followed around. It wasn’t even just that he couldn’t go to the surface; he couldn’t get a single minute of peace! Sebastien was always there and it was starting to grate quite uncomfortably.

He wasn’t enjoying the party and he was getting tired of pretending to enjoy it, so after taking a quick scan of the room, he turned tail and left. Sebastien followed, but Hoseok chose to ignore him.

“Leaving a party early?” you said lightly, as you caught him leaving the room. “Leaving your own party early? That’s not like you.”

His smile was a little tight when he flashed it your way.

“It’s only my party by technicality. No one will miss me.”

You merely raised your eyebrows slightly and raised one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug.

“I notice that you are also leaving,” he countered.

“Ah, once the host leaves, everyone else is free to go.”

His brow wrinkled a little and he scoffed.

“Don’t call me the host.”

“Careful,” you joked, “Sebastien here might tell your parents you’re being ungrateful. Look at all this opulence they prepared for you.”

He was about to spit something not entirely kind back at you before he realised that you were taking the piss. He rolled his eyes inwardly at himself. Of course you didn’t care. You never went in for this stuff anyway. He was surprised you had even shown up.

“I am being ungrateful. I would like them to stop looking out for me, stop doing things for me, stop-” he said, coming to such a sudden halt that Sebastien crashed into the back of him, “having me chaperoned like a child just because I like to swim a little farther than others.”

“I’m not sure it’s the distance they’re worried about.”

“Whatever. They just don’t get it. They think it’s dangerous.”

“What is?”

“The surface. Humanity. They think my collecting scraps from the seabed is somehow going to threaten all undersea life, trigger an apocalypse or something.”

“Ah.”

“They just don’t get it. They don’t get it. It’s not like I’m going to go up there and act like I’m human-”

“No? You could.”

He scoffed.

“Oh yeah, just go and flop around on the beach with my tail and my gills and everything. Great idea.”

“... You know I’m a fucking witch, right? I literally have the technology.”

Hoseok stopped suddenly again, looking at you, a little aghast, a little trepidatious. Then he laughed.

“Yeah, sure, one human coming right up!”

You laughed along with him, letting the subject drop, letting it be a joke. It had to be a joke with Sebastien listening in. But you were serious and you needed Hoseok to understand that you could do it. If he asked.

* * *

You thought about it more in the following days, as you watched the prince and his tormentor float around in the water. Hoseok couldn’t even blink without Sebastien there to watch him. You could feel his frustration, his impatience; you could see the dullness diminishing his shine; you could see the time it took for his lips to stretch into his signature heart-shaped smile expand—sometimes they barely made it at all. Was it the annoyance and inconvenience of having a chaperone in itself, or was he pining for a little adventure? Itching for a treasure hunt, fingers twitching to dig through sand and find something broken and useless to take back to his cave of wonders?

The whole sea knew. The prince was being monitored. The prince was being kept on a lead. A short one. There were whispers and gossip and speculation. The worst of these rumours was the one that told you his parents were doing this to get him ready for marriage. That he had been betrothed to a princess in the Caspian sea since before he had even existed and now they had both come of age, the marriage negotiations could begin in earnest.

That would not do. You could not have that.

Your own fingers were twitching; you were as frustrated as the prince, trying to work out a way to expedite this whole thing, to get things moving.

Someone’s hand would have to be forced, you realised. But whose? And to do what?

It hit you, quite suddenly, as you were drifting off to sleep one night. You had been picturing Hoseok amongst all his ‘objet d’art’: his happy face, his preening and polishing, his voice ringing out in a sweet, little tune—the one you liked to catch in your shells and store for later. It was obvious.

With each day that passed, the prince’s frustration grew. As did his misery and his little, daydreamy desires to experience life on the surface. With each day that passed, his parents were obliviously telling themselves that Hoseok was forgetting about it. He was integrating better with his peers, no longer always off on his own adventure; he was finally getting over this little ‘phase’.

It, actually, you thought to yourself as you caught the fleeting idea with a snatched hand, would work out quite nicely after all. You just had to be careful about tipping the scale.

Sebastien wasn’t stupid (you couldn’t get to his position if you were), but he wasn’t exactly sharp. You engaged him in a little idle chat while the prince was dining with his family. Commented on the prince’s interest in life ex-marina. Sebastien had responded a little too eagerly, sharing a little too much (not that he knew he was doing it—not sharp) so it was very easy for you to drop in that you had noticed the prince hadn’t been visiting his little shrine much recently. Sebastien played off his reaction so terribly that, even had you not been so perspicacious, it would have been clear he was bluffing, that you knew far more than he did and he was embarrassed by it. You shrugged, as if the conversation meant nothing to you, and glided away, certain that the seed had been planted.

All you had to do now was wait for it to sprout.

It took even less time than you expected. The sea over the next couple of days was a flurry of anxious activity. No official word had gone out, but something was happening and everyone knew it. Aides were everywhere, in every corner, under every rock, in every reef. The king and queen had an awful lot of staff at their disposal, so it wasn’t long before one of them turned up something very interesting indeed.

It was even quicker that the King stormed down to the prince’s little cave of wonders to give Hoseok what for.

You hung back and watched. Watched Hoseok’s face as it moved from dismay to anger, to fury. You had never heard him angry like that. It was thrilling. It was exciting. It was, you hated to admit it, sexy. He swam forward and you heard him confront his parents, heard his outrage.

But how his father roared. How he hovered above Hoseok, his youngest child, with a face like thunder. How his shouting rippled through the water, carrying it farther than you were sure he’d have wanted.

Hoseok put up a good fight, but he had no power. He wasn’t the heir; he had no leverage, not really. So, his father took his trident and destroyed everything. Even the very cave itself. It was rubble by the time he turned his back on his son and swam away. It was sand. Hoseok was left staring at what used to be his most prized possessions, his secret joy.

It almost hurt when you saw his face, his distress and despair. You watched him sink to the seabed and sob, then you turned around and swam away. You didn’t want to watch that. You didn’t need to. You just had to hope that it worked like you intended.

You slunk back to your cave—your presence having never been noticed—and waited for the prince to come to you.

Hoseok knew they were just things. He knew they were things most people would consider rubbish, garbage, trash, waste. But they weren’t rubbish to him. They were prizes. They were trophies. They were secrets. They were hints of another life, another way of living. They were like the key to a code. If he collected enough, maybe he would understand what life on the surface was like. Maybe once he had enough human things, he would be able to experience Personhood by proxy.

He had always known he would never go there. Could never go there. It just wasn’t done. Not even for a prince. Especially not for a prince. But his parents couldn’t order him to stop dreaming. So he dreamt and he collected and he treasured. He knew no one approved of what they called his ‘obsession’ with the surface. He didn’t care. They didn’t understand. They didn’t see what he could. They were so entrenched in their own, bigoted ideas that they couldn’t open their minds for a second to the possibility that maybe humans weren’t so bad. Maybe they had their problems, but they also had their wonders.

Even outside of his personal curiosity, he had always thought that some sort of treaty with the humans would be advantageous. They were lucky, in his sea, that the water was kept mostly clear, that oil spills only reached them as news. Their unfavourable interactions with humans were limited, but Hoseok knew that wasn’t the case elsewhere. He thought, if they could communicate with them, that maybe agreements could be reached. A relationship with the world on the surface could be mutually beneficial.

No one else saw it that way.

He sat on the sand and wept, cried, sobbed, for his secret little things that were no more. No longer secret and no longer there. He scooped up fragments of them in his hand and let them drift back down. He sifted through rocks and pebbles and sand to see if anything had been left intact, if anything was salvageable. But his father was thorough. And powerful. And there was nothing left.

* * *

The flurry of activity stopped and was replaced by an awkward tension. No one had seen the prince since the argument with the king. No one dared approach either king or queen, not even the other princes. People moved so slowly through the water, as if they were scared to cause too much of a ripple. The rhythm of everything had been upset.

For no one more than the prince. He lay on the sand next to what used to be his happy place for hours, until the sea grew dark and he should have been back at home with his family. The very thought made him sick. He couldn’t. Wouldn’t. The thought of seeing his parents again made bile rise in his throat. His blood boiled with an anguished kind of anger he had never experienced before.

Once he had stopped crying, he spent some time staring around in disbelief. He couldn’t believe that all his things were gone, but he also couldn’t believe that his father had done it. The royal family was a Happy Family, officially, but they were also usually happy in actual fact. Arguments were few. Discord uncommon. There had been little cause for friction amongst them in his life. He wasn’t used to this. He and his brothers fought as kids, but never seriously; no one ever tried to rebel in any meaningful kind of way. It was a peaceful kingdom and that peace started at the very top.

Or so it had been. Even that had been destroyed now. Peace was the very last thing on the prince’s mind. He was torn between his anger and his despair. He wanted to hurt his father, very badly. He wanted to show his father that he wouldn’t let this stop him, that not even the King could break him. He knew he was right about humans, about humanity. He would show him. He also wanted, with a kind of frenzied desperation, to set off over the oceans and retrieve a new artefact for each and every one that he’d just lost.

As time passed and the sun disappeared from overhead, his whirring mind, his racing heart, began to slow and a tiny spark of hope burst in him. There was a way, he had realised. Or, he thought there might be a way. There was a possibility. There might be a possibility. If anyone would have the answer, it would be you.

He called your name and it roused you from a mid-morning nap. You sauntered to the cave mouth and your face pulled into surprise at the sight of him.

“Prince Hoseok, what are you doing here?”

He looked a little hesitant, peering behind you at the darkness of the cave, wondering what lay back there, if all the rumours were true. He knew you. You had been close at one point. He knew you so this was fine. He could trust you; he knew he could. You weren’t going to hurt him. You weren’t like they said. Well, in one way, he hoped you were; he hoped you were every bit as powerful as people said because, lord knew, he was going to need some powerful magic. Powerful magic the likes of which could topple the royal family, people said. What care did he have for the royal family now?

But, the evil part... He hoped that wasn’t true. You’d never given him cause to believe so before.

Still, waiting at the entrance to your home (your ‘lair’ as some called it and Hoseok was never sure if they were joking or not), he felt timid. Small. Not like a royal prince, but like a supplicant. Which, really, he supposed, he was.

“I’m here to ask you to do something for me.”

You couldn’t deny your intrigue. You gestured for him to follow you inside.

He did so slowly, his eyes darting around at all your shelves, full of stuff, fuller even than his own treasure trove had been. He couldn’t imagine what might be in all the containers, what secrets or tonics or poisons they might be holding. He had no idea what it was you did, really. You were the Sea Witch and that was bad enough for most people to never ask anything more... Until they needed you, of course. Hoseok had never needed you, not until now, so he had never paid your work much attention. You flew under the radar for the most part, which was entirely by design.

“Ok,” you said, as you perched yourself on a soft bed of anemones that Hoseok didn’t dare touch. “What can I do for you?”

He took a deep breath, a steeling breath.

“I want to be human.”

You pretended to be surprised, but that was exactly what you had been hoping for. Only an idiot would have been surprised by his request, especially given what had just happened.

“Human, huh? Finally pulling the trigger?”

He looked reluctant to say any more. You raised one eyebrow at him and held his gaze. He looked away.

“My parents don’t understand a thing. They don’t know anything about humans. I want to know. I have to know. They-... My parents can’t control me.”

You shrugged and nodded and caught the look of surprise on Hoseok’s face as you turned to gather some ingredients from the other side of the cave. He hadn’t thought it would be that easy.

It wouldn’t be.

You gathered the necessary items and tipped first one, then another, into the large conch you used for mixing spells.

“You... you can do it?” he asked and you chose not to be offended by the question.

“Of course I can.”

“You... will do it?”

“I will.”

The relieved smile on his face could have lit your cave for weeks. His teeth shone and his eyes sparkled as he laughed and clapped his hands. Victory.

“Thank you! I don’t know how I can repay you.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, sunshine. There are conditions to all this, you know.”

His face settled back into seriousness, his brow knitting above his eyes. He nodded fervently.

“Yes, of course. I understand. What do I need to do?”

You paused, leaning one hand on the edge of your giant shell and looked at him with a firm, fixed stare.

“You get three days,” you told him. “Three days as a human. You’ll be human before lunch, so noon on the third day will see you turning back as you are now.”

“Oh.”

His disappointment was palpable, but that worked to your advantage, too. You forced a light chuckle.

“I’m good, Hoseok, but I’m not that good.”

(You were, in fact, that good, but he didn’t need to know that).

“Of course! Yes, three days. That’s great.”

“There is a way you can stay longer than that, but it’s not in my power.”

“What does that mean?”

You pushed off the ledge and rounded the basin, coming to a stop in front of him. You didn’t miss the two inches that he scooted backwards away from you. At a different time, under different circumstances, this might have offended you, but you had a reputation; you could hardly blame him for his timidity. He had never seen you do anything like this before.

“You have to put down roots.”

“Right... What does that mean?”

“You have to find a human woman and plant a seed.”

Hoseok continued to look at you blankly, until you rolled your eyes.

“Fornicate. Copulate. Mate. Breed. Fuck.”

His eyebrows shot towards his hairline.

“Oh... Within three days?”

“Is that a problem?”

“No!” His answer was too quick and his blushes beetroot. He cleared his throat. “No, it’s fine, but... You said plant a seed. You mean... a child?”

“Mhmm.”

He blinked, his mind reeling. You gave him a second to process.

“How do I guarantee that? It has to be a child? There has to be... it has to...?”

You nodded.

“If you want to stay up there, you need some connection to it. You need a tether. Just how it works.”

“Oh, right...”

He was nodding, but he wasn’t looking at you. You could see his eyes were far away; he was thinking.

He was worrying. Would three days be enough? And bringing a child into this? Could he? Doubt was beginning to creep in at the sides, but he couldn’t let it. He had to see this through. It felt like his only chance. And you’d already said yes. You could do it. He could almost taste it, he was so close. He had to keep going. He could deal with the seed problem later; he could hardly think about putting down roots when he didn’t even have legs to stand on. First things first and the first thing was becoming a human.

“There’s also something else I need from you,” you told him.

“Anything.”

“I just need a little piece of you. In order to make this work, I need a little tether to you.”

“You need to tether to me? But doesn’t that keep me tied here?”

You liked it when they asked questions. You smiled, benignly, but your eyes glinted wickedly.

“It keeps you tethered to me, the one with the magic? The one who’s transforming you? We can skip that step if you like, but then the spell will do absolutely nothing.”

“Oh.”

He blinked and then nodded.

“Ok, makes sense. Yeah, ok, what do you need?”

“Come here.”

You beckoned him to your side and he obeyed quietly. You took his hand in yours and plunged it into the shell; then you placed your other hand on his chest.

“Hold still; this won’t hurt.”

“What are you taking?”

“Just a little bit of soul.”

He flinched and you had to tighten your fingers around his wrist to keep it there.

“Relax, you won’t even notice it missing. And keep still, I need to concentrate.”

You closed your eyes and tapped lightly on his chest with your fingers, looking for a tap. Once you found the spot, you dug your finger in a little harder, focused hard and turned it on. You channelled it through Hoseok’s arm and tipped it into the shell through his fingers.

You were right: it didn’t hurt. He felt a weird pulling sensation in his chest and then it dragged down his arm; it was a little uncomfortable, certainly something he’d never felt before, but it didn’t hurt exactly. He wanted to look and see what his soul looked like, pouring out, but he couldn’t bring himself to open his eyes.

His soul was sweet like nectar and it shimmered as it settled atop the other ingredients. You could feel its pulse, strong in Hoseok’s heart, its rhythm airy and delicate with a stable bass. You liked it. You liked it a lot. You could feel your own shimmer in response to it; you could feel your heart flutter when you let a little of him inside it. You bit your lip to stop a smile. Once you had what you needed for the spell, you siphoned off just a little extra for yourself. Nothing he would notice – you were always careful about that.

You held him there a minute longer, just absorbing, marinating a little. Sometimes this was the worst part of the job. Some people’s souls were vile, horrid, dark, acrid, smoking things; the taste they left in your mouth wouldn’t shift for days. This, though, was delectable. If you’d had another plan in mind, you might have taken more, maybe even all of it; you weren’t sure how you managed to stop yourself.

You shouldn’t have been surprised by its sweetness. It was Hoseok. He was like that. Of course his soul would be pure as sunlight itself. It was the lightest soul you’d ever held. Almost light enough to make you feel bad for doing all this.

Almost.

“Ok,” you began, letting him go and creating a little more space between you. “We’re done.”

Hoseok opened his eyes and looked down at his tail.

“We are?”

You laughed, not unkindly.

“Yes. You might want to start swimming while I finish this off. Surface is a long way up from here.”

“Oh. But... it’ll work? I’ll be...-”

“It’ll work. Trust me. And take this.”

You thrust a little package, wrapped in fisherman’s netting, into his hands.

“Now go on. Get.”

He nodded, first a little uncertainly, but, as if he was convincing himself, each bob of his head grew surer until he was turning around and swimming straight out of your cave and up, up, up.

You gave everything in the shell a swirl, a mix, let it coalesce, then you placed your hands on the bottom and forced heat through them, so much heat that the concoction boiled, the sea water steaming around you. It bubbled and it boiled until there was nothing left in the shell but a pearl. You picked up this pearl and placed it into a clam. You shut the clam over a cord and tied it around your neck. You were going to want to keep this one close.

Hoseok was swimming so hard he barely noticed it at first. Then his tail was tingling. Then it began to hurt. Hurt enough to slow him down, to almost stop him completely. It was a wrenching, tearing, searing kind of pain that made him cry out, that made dark spots dance in front of his eyes and his head feel light. He couldn’t quite tell if his tail was moving or not; there was blinding pain and very little else, but he knew he was getting close to the surface. He couldn’t stop now.

In the space of three kicks, his tail became two, and Hoseok was overwhelmed by the agony of saltwater in his wounds. He couldn’t stop, couldn’t look, couldn’t do anything but try not to die. Try not to drown. He kept kicking, kept pulling with his arms, but his fingers were no longer webbed and they didn’t grab the water like before.

Swimming as a human, it turned out, was every bit as inefficient as it looked. He tried to move his legs in tandem, to kick and flick like he did with his tail but they wouldn’t cooperate; they couldn’t bend like his tail could, didn’t have the flexibility. Every movement sent a fresh surge of pain racing through him and he was finding it hard to breathe through it.

And then he stopped being able to breathe at all. He clutched at his ribs with one hand, expecting to feel his gills, but there was nothing. He opened his mouth to gasp and his throat was full of salt water in a way that felt wrong, uncomfortable, painful. In a way that made him panic. His lungs were burning, his throat was burning, his legs were burning; everything, everything, felt like it was on fire.

His heart was humming, beating so fast it vibrated against his ribs. He couldn’t think clearly, coherently, at all. It was all just a screaming panic, shouting and squealing and howling for him to get out, get out, get out of the water.

When he finally broke clear of the sea’s surface, he choked and gasped and coughed up water. It stung in his eyes and the taste of salt was so strong, it made him gag. He looked about himself to find the nearest shore and saw none in sight. He knew where he was; he saw the sea, his underwater kingdom, in his mind and he knew how to find the nearest shore. He just had to get there.

He dragged himself out of the waves, spent. There wasn’t a single muscle in his body that wasn’t crying out; he had never found swimming difficult before. It had always been as easy as breathing, but that, too, was difficult as a human. He swallowed seawater that made him sick, accidentally breathed it in and choked, found his breathing growing laboured and heavy when he was still miles from shore.

He lay on the shingle beach for a while, waiting to feel something other than pain. Pain and heaviness. Every movement was an effort. Every movement took active thought, especially his legs. He pushed himself into a sitting position and turned his attention to the package you gave him. He unwrapped it and unfolded fabrics—soaked through, of course. Hoseok had seen people wear clothes in books before but he’d never seen any in real life. He wondered where on earth you got them from. He briefly wondered if he wanted to know.

And despite everything: the pain, the exhaustion, the fear, the dread that was starting to settle in his stomach as the adrenalin faded, Hoseok was excited. He had human garments in his hands. They were his and he was about to wear them. He was human.

Human.

The awe and wonder didn’t last long. The friction of the fabric against his skin was almost unbearable. Was his skin sensitive or were the fabrics rough? He couldn’t tell but he could feel each tiny swish, each brush against him as he moved, with every swing of his arm and every step of his feet. It felt like the top layer of his skin was being slowly rubbed away, his soft, supple skin becoming red and raw and oh so sensitive.

The steps hurt, too. The shingle under his feet felt almost pleasant compared to the torching pain he felt in his legs. Like they were being cut open every time, like he was splitting his tail over and over and over again, the torture wouldn’t end.

He felt so heavy. Leaden. Like he barely had the energy to lift his feet at all. He put this down to the swim, the physical trauma, the lack of sleep he’d had that night. But he’d never felt the weight of his body so heavily before. In the water, he floated. The water kept him buoyed; the water supported him, carried him; he moved through it like he weighed nothing at all. On land, he felt no support. On the contrary, he felt as if the air itself were pushing him down, keeping him stuck to the ground, as if it didn’t want him to move anywhere.

It wasn’t at all like he had expected. He wished you had warned him about the pain. He wished he had known a little more before walking into this – literally walking! He was walking! On two feet! It was agony.

Trying to keep his head straight, he knew the first thing he should do was find food. He’d swum so far, he needed something. His stomach was gurgling in an angry, acidic roil that made him feel faint (or maybe that was the pain or the exertion or the atmosphere or or or). He was lucky that this beach was narrow and the town close. The shingle quickly gave way to grass, which was only slightly soothing on Hoseok’s feet, and then the grass gave way to paving.

He followed the path in the only direction it went and it wasn’t long before he found people. Humans. So many of them. He stood, stock still, watching them. It was overwhelming. The sights and sounds and smells of them. There was food grilling, and children laughing, and market hawkers soliciting, and Hoseok had no idea which way to turn. He could barely think at all. He needed-

He didn’t know what. A rest. A break. To sit down? He walked to the nearest chair – a metal frame with metal seat, next to a metal table – and sat; the chair scraped backwards slightly and the scratch of it on the ground brought a man out from the cafe the chair was sitting in front of.

“Hey, you can’t sit there!” the man called, looking none too happy. “Customers only! Those chairs are for customers only!”

“Oh, oh ok,” Hoseok spluttered. “I can be a customer. I can buy, uh-”

“No! We’re not open yet! No service!”

Hoseok thought then that it should be fine for him to sit down if they weren’t open, if there were no customers yet, but the man continued to shout, to shoo him off, so Hoseok stood and moved away. He would just have to try again a little further down the road.

That cafe might not have been open, but there were market stalls with edible wares already cooked and out for consumption. He took a skewer proffered by a weathered old lady and ate it gratefully, even though it was dry and hard to chew. She then held her hand out expectantly and it was at that moment, Hoseok realised he had nothing to trade. What could he offer? He considered the neat, net package that you had provided his clothes in and brought it out of his pocket. He tried to hand it over but the woman started cursing at him in a language he didn’t understand. He backed away from her aggression and this was clearly the wrong move. She grabbed a large metal spoon and came around the side of her table, raising it above her head.

Hoseok ran. He hadn’t known he could run. Would have claimed not to be able to if you’d asked him to at that moment, but the panic set him going and his feet stomped, painful step after painful step, until he was, once more, breathing heavy and laboured, a sharp pain between his ribs stabbing him with every inhale.

This was going to be harder than he thought.

He eventually sat at the side of the road, wondering how he was supposed to navigate this world he clearly knew nothing about. He had been arrogant in the sea. He thought he knew everything there was to know about humans. He had learnt about their culture, he thought; he had studied their ways of life, he thought. It was nothing compared to the real experience of being here. Nothing was how he expected. He was woefully unprepared.

Tears pricked in his eyes and he tried to keep them at bay because he had wanted this. He had asked for it. And you had done it for him. Hoseok realised with a shock just exactly what position this had put you in. The prince was nowhere to be found. He hadn’t told anyone what he was doing. The only person who knew was you. If they found that out, lord knew what kind of trouble you’d be in. They’d have your head if they thought you had brought him to any harm.

But you’d been willing. Supportive even. So he had to make this work. He had to make it worth it. For him. For you. He would make it work and he would return to the sea to explain everything: to show what he had achieved on the surface, to prove to everyone that humans weren’t like they all said. To prove that you had been the truest, kindest and most loyal friend he had. That you had given him all of it. That you weren’t like they all said, either.

He blew out a deep breath. There was a lot riding on this.

He knew he would eventually need somewhere to sleep, somewhere safe. He walked back towards the centre of the market and found a nice-looking woman selling necklaces.

“Excuse me,” he began, warily. “I need somewhere to stay.”

Her friendly smile faltered a little, frozen on her face as she tried to parse his words.

“Ok?” she finally returned.

“Can you tell me where I can... Is there somewhere I can sleep?”

“Uh,” she said, her face twisting into a kind of confusion that Hoseok felt he was being judged by. “I mean, you can get a hotel or something?”

“Ok, where do I get one?”

The woman looked around her, to see if anyone else was really hearing this. She shrugged.

“There are kind of a lot around. Take your pick. There’s one right there.”

She pointed over Hoseok’s shoulder at a white, stone building, and Hoseok’s smile was all the bigger for the relief he felt.

“Thank you!” he called, already making his way towards the hotel.

But things continued to be difficult. He didn’t have a ‘credit card’ for the hotel staff to ‘hold’. He didn’t know what that meant. They told him he couldn’t have a room if he had no method of payment. He tried to offer something else; he was a good swimmer, he said; he could dive for pearls? The two staff behind the reception desk gave each other the same look the woman on the stall had given him. They explained that they only took cash or credit. He didn’t have either of those two things.

He left the building and sat by the road, because there was nothing else he could do.

He tried so hard not to let doubt creep in, not to feel despair, not to start desperately wishing he had thought about this a little longer. He tried to remember things he’d learnt about the human world – things that would help him. But it was already so different here from what he had expected.

The stories he had grown up hearing about human interactions with his kind were awful; humans were brutal and cruel and hunted merpeople for sport. That kind of thing. But he thought they were kind to each other. They had a society. They governed each other: elected officials who were entrusted with their cities and countries. They made art and sang songs and raised animals whom they kept for companionship, rather than labour. Humans were resilient and tough and brave, social creatures. They came together in crisis and performed heroic feats to help others out of danger. Those were the humans he had imagined.

The ones he had experienced so far were not like that at all. Maybe they knew, he thought; maybe they could tell already somehow that he wasn’t one of them. He was different. He hadn’t even been a human for a day yet. Maybe he was doing things wrong. He was sure he wasn’t walking right—the pain made it impossible. He had shown up from the beach in clothes that had barely dried, were caked in salt. His hair was stiff and tangled with it, too. His face felt tight and rough. Maybe they were right to mistrust him.

But how could he fix it? What could he do?

He couldn’t stay there, sitting on the ground. People walking past were looking at him; it made him nervous. No one had been able to show him any generosity or kindness and the darkness of night was starting to cover everything. There were artificial lights hanging from every door, a warm glow from every window that served only to bathe the shadows in a dim, greyish light. Nothing was black, as it was in the deep ocean, but it was all muted, hard to make out, indeterminate. Scarier.

He had to get out of sight. He had to find somewhere safe that he could stay for the night. That was the most important thing.

As hot as it had been when he first arrived on the surface, he could feel the chill now. There was something naked about being out in the air, with no water surrounding him, enveloping him. Even through the fabric of his clothes (which still scored his skin with every movement), he felt the air move, felt it stiffen his skin and raise the downy hairs there. He needed shelter. He needed to be far away from people, for now. He needed to be sure that, if what the merpeople said was true, he would not come to harm this night.

It was with a heavy, sinking heart that he made his way back to the beach. He fell upon the shingle and didn’t even have the energy to cry out, to sob like he wanted to. He had never experienced pain or exhaustion like this. He had never felt so out of place—not just in this world, but in this body. Did all humans feel like this? Heavy and sore and stiff, with the world pushing down on you? His legs were still screaming; they were as unblemished and unmarked as they had been when he’d first checked them twelve hours ago, but the pain was so convincing, he thought he would look down and see his tail, mutilated, bloody, split in two just like he’d asked.

He made his way very slowly, very carefully, to the end of the beach and the edge of the shore. With the cliffside to his right, there was protection from wind, at least, and it was deserted of people. He shuffled forward and sat with his legs straight out, letting the waves wash over his feet.

That was when he cried. He cried with abandon, without thought, without hope, with an aching, broken heart. He couldn’t quite believe that it was happening this way, that all of his dreams were crumbling in front of his eyes. He wouldn’t believe it; there was good in this world and he was determined to find it, but he had never felt so out of his depth. He had no idea what to do. He had no one, nowhere, nothing.

He looked at the waves as they splashed over his feet (feet!) and he imagined sinking into them, imagined them encroaching further and further onto the shore until he was swallowed up by them, swimming, drowning. Could he drown? He was human now and humans could drown, but he was really a mermaid... Would the magic revert? He remembered what you had said about keeping a tether to him; would you know if he were drowning? Could you see him now, pathetic and weeping?

You could. With his pearl at the bottom of your basin, you could conjure up his image and watch his drama play out in the rippling water.

But the sight didn’t bring you much joy. You worried that you had overestimated him, overestimated the humans. You had spent time on the surface but it was still a foreign world; you didn’t know everything. Maybe you should have prepared him a little more, lent him a little of your human currency. You had expected his grace and charm to carry him at least through the first night but he was a different person now. Well, he was a person, not a merman anymore. He was literally out of his element. A fish out of water.

You chuckled to yourself at that one. Then you frowned and rested your chin on your palm, pondering ways that you could make this work if he couldn’t do it on his own. You fingered the clamshell on your necklace and an idea started to form.

It could work. It wasn’t how you had envisaged this whole thing going but... It could work.

With a sigh, you placed the pearl safely back in its clam and floated off to your inventory: a powder there, some shellfish here, gathering together everything needed for yet another expensive spell.

If you need something doing, you thought to yourself ruefully, you’ve got to do it yourself.

* * *

Hoseok was starting to shiver on the shore—something that he had never experienced before and something he would be quite happy to not experience again. The way his muscles trembled and his skin hurt, still raw from the fabric, but bumpy now with goosebumps that made the friction all the worse. He took his feet out of the water and asked himself forlornly what on earth he should do, but he had no answer.

He scanned the horizon out to sea and saw nothing but washed-out darkness looking back at him. He scanned the beach and the land and his attention was caught by a light, wobbling in the darkness and growing larger. It was only when the person holding the lantern stepped foot on the beach that he could see there was a person behind it at all. If he had been less tired, less sad, less hungry, he might have worried, or he might have rallied and put his best foot (foot!) forward, or he might have hidden. But he could do none of those things. He sat and watched a young woman approach.

“Goodness, are you alright?” she asked, when he was close enough to see her form but not her face.

She wore the same thin shoes that a lot of people in the town had been wearing, barely covering her feet, and long, flowing fabric danced on the shingle above them. He could just about make out her light hair and her petite height, but the rest of her remained a mystery.

“I’m fine, thank you,” Hoseok replied, knowing that he was lying but not knowing if she would see that.

“Are you sure?” she queried. “It’s not safe to be out on the beach alone at night like this. I saw you sitting here and I thought you might be in trouble.”

A glimmer of hope flicked in Hoseok’s heart. Could it finally be: a human who was like he had always dreamt humans would be? Kind? Generous? Could he tell her? Could he share his woes? Would she ease his mind? Was this what he had been waiting for?

He decided he had no choice because his only other options were to drown in the sea or starve on this beach.

“I am in trouble,” he began. “I have nowhere to stay, no food, no money. I have nothing. I don’t know what to do.”

He tried to stop his voice cracking, but it cracked of its own volition. He didn’t want to be pitied; he just needed to be helped. But beggars can’t be choosers, he reminded himself.

“None at all?”

You took a couple of steps towards him, still not close enough that he could see your features clearly, but enough to suggest trust, to suggest comfort.

He shook his head in return.

“You should come with me.”

You could see the surprise on his face, the hope that lit it, the worry that creased his brow.

“Just for tonight,” you continued. “I can give you a bed so you can rest. You really shouldn’t stay out here all night.”

Hoseok rose to his feet, biting hard on his bottom lip to stop himself crying out as the pain surged once more.

“It’s not far,” you said, before turning back the way you had come.

Hoseok followed your lantern, back up the beach, down the path, and into the town. You led him into a narrow alley with a single door at the end. It was this door that you opened with a quiet creak, then you led him inside and up a single flight of steps.

“It’s not much,” you said, attempting to sound somewhat apologetic as you opened the door to the apartment.

It was sparsely decorated and the linens were grey in a way that suggested they hadn’t always been. The lightbulb in the ceiling was naked and dim. The plant on the windowsill looked crisp and parched.

You lived comfortably underwater, despite your status as social pariah, because people wanted your little potions and spells and you could charge through the nose for them. On land, it was more difficult. Humans weren’t interested in trading for things; they wanted cash and nothing but. That made it more difficult to be comfortable here. But you had shelter and food and that was more than the prince had.

Hoseok was nervous. He hadn’t known what to expect but somehow, this wasn’t it. He had heard of the way humans warred with one another, the way they oppressed and exploited other classes, the way most of them starved whilst the few indulged. This was so much more mundane. Nondescript. Boring. Homely.

He took a look at the woman now that he could see her properly in the cold light of the apartment. She was beautiful. Not unlike the woman he had rescued from the beach, he realised. Dark skin that somehow shimmered, golden hair that almost looked like a halo with the way it reflected light. Her eyes were dark, too, deep and rich and warm. She felt familiar to him, somehow, but he couldn’t pinpoint why. He knew she wasn’t the same woman from the beach, not quite, but there was something about her that he felt he knew, had seen before. It comforted him, quieted his nerves a little.

“I don’t have much to offer,” you interrupted his thoughts with a shy chuckle. “But it’s better than sleeping outside.”

“This is wonderful. I can’t thank you enough for doing this for me. It has been a difficult day and you are the first person who’s shown me any kindness. I don’t know how I can repay you for that.”

You giggled and it sounded like chimes.

“You don’t have to repay me. Pay it forward; if you help someone like I’m helping you, that will be enough.”

Hoseok wondered for a second if he had fallen asleep on the beach and was dreaming this. Because this woman, she was everything he had dreamt; she was what he had been hoping for. The flicker of hope in his chest grew into a flame and he shivered as a warmth rushed through him.

“Would you like something to eat?” you offered and Hoseok jumped at the chance.

You gave him bread and cheese and watched him eat them, at first tentatively, and then with great gusto. Of course, he had never tried these things before, never eaten human food. You placed some fruit on the small coffee table he was eating at and he devoured that, too. His eyes widened as he bit into a pear, ripe and juicy, sticky sweet nectar dribbling down his chin. He hummed with delight and you saw the sparkle return to his eyes.

You knew what you were there to do but you were enjoying this moment. This was the Prince Hoseok you knew; this was how he should be: bright and smiling, his crescent-moon eyes alight with laughter. You sat next to him and picked at some food, too, not really tasting it because the sweetness of the moment was far too strong.

Hoseok only stopped eating when you stopped giving him food, when you only had enough left for a small breakfast in the morning and nothing else. He sat back, resting on his palms, and sighed happily.

“That was the most amazing meal I’ve ever had!” he exclaimed and you laughed.

“You are very easily impressed. There are far more exciting things to eat here; I simply cannot afford them all.”

He shook his head.

“Not at all. That was wonderful. Thank you so much.”

With his stomach finally full, his fatigue hit him full in the face and he yawned widely, a quiet wail escaping his throat.

“You must be exhausted. Please, take the bed. I can sleep on the sofa,” you said, gesturing towards the bed that sat against one wall.

Hoseok thought the bed looked huge and the sofa, small. He thought about what the right thing to do would be. He couldn’t sleep in the bed. It wouldn’t be right, would it? But he was so tired and in so much pain. He looked at the bed longingly, imagining himself stretching out over its surface, letting it take his weight. He imagined it feeling like water, like being carried on the waves, weightless. He looked at the sofa.

“Please,” you repeated. “Take the bed.”

Every manner, every point of order, every etiquette lesson was screaming at him to say no, to refuse, to offer to sleep anywhere but the bed. To not inconvenience you, to not put you out, to not cost you even more than he already had, to not trespass any further onto your kindness. But sleep was calling, louder and more insistent. His wrecked, ravaged body was screaming.

He nodded shyly and offered a quiet thanks before rising and slipping, sore and worn, beneath the sheets. He was asleep before he even had the chance to notice the way the bed fabric, too, brushed rough against his exposed skin.

You watched him. He looked peaceful; his face smoothed of any worries or concerns. He made a fine human, you thought. He was tall and lean and, despite the pain you knew he was suffering, he didn’t let it show: he’d walked straight and held himself high. Royal blood, you assumed.

You wondered how much you would have to engineer this to ensure success. Despite all you knew about the prince (and you knew a lot), this was a blind spot. He had hesitated when you told him of his conditions; the idea of a child had alarmed him. Maybe he would decide he didn’t want to stay human after all.

There were two and a half days left. That was plenty of time, you decided. You wouldn’t push; he was too delicate for that, especially after his first day’s misery. You would cushion his fall, pick him up carefully, and slowly show him both what the human world was really like and what it could be like with you. You would delight him and impress him and he would give himself to you. He would. You were sure of it. He would fall into the world that you would show him and he would give himself to you, body and soul.

You fingered the clamshell still tied around your neck. It held the pearl you created when you turned Hoseok into a human. It now also held the pearl you created when you turned yourself into one.

* * *

The thing about royalty, the thing about the privileged, who’ve never really experienced hardship, for whom doors have always been opened, is that they are resiliently optimistic folk. Everything has always gone their way; naturally, they assume it always will. Even now, after everything that happened to him yesterday, Prince Hoseok was beaming. He was enamoured. He was full of awe and wonder. He was experiencing the human world as he thought it would be.

Because of you.

It was taking a lot out of you, truth be told, because you didn’t have the riches you needed to show him a human experience comparable to his underwater life. He wasn’t a royal here; he wasn’t anyone at all. Doors didn’t open for him and they didn’t open for you. But Hoseok had his charm and you had charms of a very different sort. So you were making it work, but your nerves were rising; with every bit you put in, you told yourself you had better pull this off. You had better seal the deal, make good on this bargain you had made with yourself, see through to the end the promise you swore to your dead mother and her dead mother and all the dead mothers back until time began.

It was your biggest show. It was your hardest work. Your magnum opus.

Or it would be. If—if you could do it.

Hoseok couldn’t let on that this was his first time on the surface; he couldn’t tell you he was really a merman, that a seawitch had transfigured him, that his legs were really a tail. It was too risky, too dangerous. But he kept forgetting that that meant he had to try to hide his enthusiasm, his surprise. Everything here was new to him. Everything here was fascinating and wonderful and intriguing and he could barely contain himself.

He had no backstory. He had no lies to tell. And he hadn’t noticed that you hadn’t asked. But it was dawning on him that, if he were to have a life here, he would have to think of something to tell people about where he came from. But he didn’t have the time, right now, to think of it. There was far too much to attend to. Too much to see, too much to do.

It would have been overwhelming were it not for you. If he’d had to continue doing this alone... well, he wouldn’t have. Couldn’t have. If you hadn’t found him on the beach last night, where would he be? Sinking beneath the waves? Starving on the shore? You had lifted him up and now you were carrying him along, tethering him to the earth, providing him a guiding string to hold. He had never been so grateful for anyone in his life.

Not even the sea witch.

“What do you say?” you asked him, shortly before sunset on that second day.

Hoseok tried to think, but it didn’t really matter to him and he was so overstimulated, he couldn’t have made a decision if he’d wanted to. He shrugged.

“I’m happy to go wherever you like!”

“Hungry yet?”

He shook his head. He had sampled one of everything at the market after lunch and had to spend half an hour sitting quietly so that it wouldn’t make a return journey up his throat. He was still very far from hungry.

That was exactly the answer you were hoping for.

You led him away from town, towards the west where the land rose in a grassy slope, steep and getting steeper, until you reached the top of the cliff. You walked up to the edge and turned to see Hoseok hanging back, looking nervous.

“Scared of heights?”

Hoseok didn’t know. He had never really experienced ‘heights’, wasn’t quite sure what that meant. But the wind was stronger up here and he knew, without having to look, that the sea was a very long way down. It couldn’t be dangerous if you were doing it, he reasoned, but he’d heard too many stories of humans falling to their deaths from cliffs like these – sometimes deliberately, but often not.

You held your hand out to him and his stretched back before he’d even noticed and he inched forward until you could take it and tug him a little further and a little further still. His heart was in his mouth as he craned his neck to peer down into the foaming waves as they crashed and broke against the rock face. You didn’t let go of his hand.

“It’s very high,” he stated unsurely, not knowing if it was really.

It felt high. It looked high to him. But, in a way, everything was high. The sea had depth, not height. It wasn’t the same thing. He might have wagered that it would be, before now, but looking down to the sandy seabed from high above it was very different from looking down at the sea from the cliff edge. Something to do with the environment maybe.

Maybe the fact that he couldn’t fall off the sea and plummet to his death. Maybe that. He’d never been in mortal danger; the sea was a safe place for him and he had all the protection he might have wanted (more than he wanted, actually); he hadn’t really appreciated it until yesterday, when he had nothing and no one.

Now, he had you.

It had occurred to him. The condition of his staying a human. The three days he had to plant a seed. It kept occurring to him. It wouldn’t stop occurring to him. Not when you smiled, not when you showed him yet another wonder, not when you took his hand in your own. He wasn’t sure if he could do it. For a start, he wasn’t completely sure how all that worked with human bodies. For another, he didn’t know if you would want to. He didn’t know what human culture dictated.

You were beautiful. About that, he had no doubt. Was he attracted to you? Yes, he had decided he was. Did he trust you? Yes, as much as he could trust someone he’d just met; as much as he could trust a human. Did you feel the same way? That was a mystery he didn’t know how to solve. You had stretched out your hand to him; you had paid for him to be fed; you had let him sleep in your bed; you had taken him into your home. It suggested something, but he didn’t know what.

Just as it had the day before, his ignorance alarmed him. His recklessness in coming still surprised him. The weight of his deadline pressed down on him and he shuddered, involuntarily.

He looked concerned, you thought, distracted. You could tell he didn’t really like being so high above the sea; you wondered if it were a merman thing or a Hoseok thing. Being neither, you couldn’t know. You took pity on him and led him back down the cliffside, keeping his hand in yours as long as he would let you.

You assumed you would have to lead, that he wouldn’t take charge of the situation—judging by what you had seen so far. You mulled it over as you wandered slowly back into town. He had never really had to work for it, you supposed. He was a prince. And beautiful. And charming. And kind. He had everything going for him, which meant he had the entire sea throwing themselves at his feet, desperate to be picked. He probably didn’t know the first thing about seduction, about attraction—not really, anyway. It struck you then that there was every chance he’d be a really bad lay. There was every chance you would be, having never done it as a human before, but that was besides the point. The idea of Hoseok disappointing you left a sour taste in your mouth but you ignored it; that was not what you were there for. Good or bad didn’t matter. There was one objective and one only. Your own pleasure, your own, secret, little goals were neither here nor there. You had to stay focused.

Because it wasn’t going to be easy. You knew that. That was half the reason you hadn’t planned to do it yourself anyway (or so you told yourself...). It was going to be harder for you than some random stranger. You knew that. It was going to be horrible, you knew, looking into his eyes when he learnt the truth, when he saw you—the real you—for the first time on land. You could picture it: the shock and betrayal, the fear and hurt. It gave you pause. Because you hated him, hated who he was and what he stood for and everything about the systems and society of the place you both lived. But you also loved him, loved his smile and his eyes, his heart and his soul. You wanted him to be yours forever. You wanted him to choose you. He never would. Not really. If he knew you were here, if he knew the human holding his hand was really the sea witch who’d sent him up there, he wouldn’t choose you.

The shocked, betrayed face. The frightened, hurt expression. You sighed heavily, without meaning to.

“Are you ok?” Hoseok asked, his head tilting to the side.

You smiled brightly back at him.

“Of course! Just starting to get a bit peckish. Shall we eat something?”

Hoseok wasn’t really hungry. The market food was still solid in his stomach. But if you wanted to eat, he’d eat. He’d do anything you asked. He owed you everything.

More, in fact, than he knew.

* * *

You’d been distracted through dinner, which had been fine because, without the food to focus on (Hoseok barely ate), he could look around at everything else. He could fire questions at you (questions that were far too revealing—not that he noticed) and comment on his surroundings and commentate with barely any input required. That meant you could contemplate your task. You’d had to rush into this whole thing, take the reins with very little notice at all. This was not how you usually operated.

You were meticulous and organised because you had to be. Always on your guard because you had to be. Everything you did came with its own audit trail because you couldn’t afford to make mistakes. You had seen what that had done to your mother at far too young an age. Not that she actually made the mistake. But when you don’t have the proof of every action you’ve taken and word you’ve said, they can make it look like you did whatever they say you did.

You ate slowly, not really tasting, not really savouring. Your mind was busy, calculating. You had a day and a half left. 36 hours, give or take. There would be another night after this one. You didn’t relish the idea of leaving it until the last minute, but you could spoil the whole thing entirely if you pushed too hard, too fast. So you decided to wait.

Hoseok was determined, this time, to do the right thing and let you sleep in your own bed. He was embarrassed at the way he had behaved the night before: how greedily he’d eaten, how quickly he had relegated you to the sofa. It made him cringe. And then you had spent the whole day playing hostess to him: showing him around, paying for everything, keeping him company, and answering his questions.

His debt to you was beyond belief. He knew he should leave. He knew he should make his own way. He knew he could not rely on you – not even for the rest of his three days, if that was all he would have. He had to find a way to survive independently. He knew that. He had to pay you back. He had to make things right.

“I’ll sleep on the sofa tonight,” he announced when you returned back to your shabby apartment.

You pretended to be surprised.

“Oh, no,” you replied, “not at all. Take the bed! It’s fine. I don’t mind.”

“No way. It’s your bed. I slept on it last night when I really shouldn’t have. Please. Take it.”

You shook your head, scrunching your nose and grinning stubbornly at him.

“No. You.”

He sighed, but the corners of his lips twitched anyway.

“We may have reached a stalemate,” he announced, with solemn mock-seriousness.

You hummed, thoughtfully, running a finger along the bottom of the bed as you stepped closer to him.

“A compromise, then,” you said, poking a finger into his chest.

“And what is your compromise?”

“Well…”

You weren’t shy. Not when you were being yourself and not when you were pretending to be a human. But you were good at acting like it. You looked down and then up at him through your lashes, a small, reluctant smile traced on your lips.

“We could… share?”

You raised a hand to your face, covering your mouth, looking at Hoseok and then away and then back to him, eyelashes fluttering.

The genuine surprise on his face gave you butterflies. You could see his hesitation, watch his mind weigh his options, calculate the costs and benefits of each. He knew too little to have anything to guide him. Anything but you. And you had suggested it.

So it had to be ok, right?

“Share?” he asked, buying himself another moment to think it over, to consider what all this might mean in relation to the condition he had to meet.

You nodded, lip trapped between your teeth.

“Ok!” he answered brightly, hoping it was the right response, and inwardly breathing a sigh of relief when you beamed back at him.

It would be easy to love you, he thought and the sentiment caught him off-guard. He had to be realistic about human life. He wasn’t a prince here. He had nothing. But when he looked at you, he felt rich. He felt like his dream was within his grasp. You were everything he had ever hoped for. He could stay here forever with you, couldn’t he?

He wasn’t going to do anything tonight. Ask or proposition or… or god knew what else. It was too soon. Too early. There was still time. He told himself, there was still time. Still time for him to wake up from this dream he’d fallen into when he met you. Still time to commit to it forever.

You took the left side and Hoseok the right. You curled onto your side, facing him, with the covers pulled up to your eyes. He lay on his back, moonlight from the open shutter illuminating his face in a sharp line that crossed him and left you in the dark.

You watched him for a while: not sleeping, though he had his eyes closed.

“Hoseok,” you whispered. “Where are you from?”

His eyes opened and went to the window.

“Somewhere… close but also very far away.”

“You mean like, culturally?”

You saw him nod.

“Yeah. Where I come from is… very different. More different than I thought.”

“How come you came here?”

He shook his head, eyes trained on the ceiling.

“I had to,” was his simple answer and you let it hang there in the darkness, waiting for him to add to it. “I think I could have stayed, but I’d have got old and I would have looked back and I’d have regretted it. I’d have regretted staying there my whole life. I’d have regretted not seeing everything this wo- this place has to offer. I needed to experience it.”

“Do you like it here?”

He let the question go unanswered for some time. So long that he wondered, after he’d spoken, if you’d fallen asleep in the interim.

“I like some of it. I like you.”

It made your stomach swoop. Even if he wasn’t talking about you. Just the human you were pretending to be. You wondered how a real human woman would have responded to that.

You changed the subject.

“I thought I was seeing things when I first noticed you on the beach.”

A slow smile formed itself on Hoseok’s lips.

“You were… You saw me.”

You reached out and poked his arm.

“I didn’t want to go home not knowing you were ok. If I’d woken up in the morning to a news story about… well, I couldn’t have lived with myself. I realised, as I approached, that you weren’t really in danger. You looked like you were waiting for something. Someone.”

His smile turned rueful and his eyes flicked again to the window, outside of which you could hear but not see the waves crashing on the shore.

“I was,” he said, his voice a low whisper. Then he turned his face away from the light to look directly at you. “I was waiting for a miracle.”

* * *

You no longer had any concerns about the success of your plan. You had no doubt that Hoseok would go along with anything you wanted to drag him into. You didn’t know if he knew what his feelings were, but you did.

It was your own feelings that concerned you.

You hadn’t spent time with Hoseok like this since you were much younger. He was addictive. His smiles and his laughter and the way his eyes gleamed bright all the while. You could feel your resolve crumble and you knew it was bad when you realised it didn’t bother you.

You began to try to re-think things. Reformulate. Work out a way that maybe there could be a future, after all.

Originally, this was where it stopped. This was where your scheming—and your life—would end. You felt the guilt of having had no children: no one to pass your powers and your knowledge down to; you also felt free because you had subjected no one else to a life like yours. It was a heavy burden to be who you were down in the water. But it wouldn’t have mattered much once you were dead, which you were certain you would be at the end of all this. You can’t just ‘kidnap’ the prince, ‘mutilate’, and ‘trap’ him and live to tell the tale. Many had died for less. And you were fine with that. You were living to avenge every woman in your family, every witch, every creature under the sea who lived shunted into shadows, left out of the light, less than. Had been for years.

And for years, your only source of light, the single little gemstone glittering in your heart, was Prince Hoseok. Prince Hoseok and his angelic face, his musical laughter, his charm, his lightness, his brightness, his everything you weren’t and could never be.

You would get to destroy it all in one fell swoop. A beautiful, perfect demise.

Now you weren’t so sure. Weren’t so sure you could do it. You could do it; you weren’t sure you could go through with it. These feelings that you thought you were so used to, not controlled by, not swayed by anymore, were threatening to overpower you. You felt the tendrils unfurl, in the deepest pit of your heart, sending out shoots and roots, embedding themselves further into the bitter, twisted muscle. You could feel them growing through your veins, buds springing up like goosebumps on your skin. You felt them every time his hand accidentally brushed yours, every time you fed him some new food and barely grazed his lips with your fingers. Every time he laughed. Every time he looked at you. Every time. All the time.

Hoseok allowed himself to relax. You liked his company. You wanted him around. He hadn’t tried that hard to leave you—because he had no one and nothing and nowhere else, but also because he recognised that you wanted him to stay. He had realised that, whilst so much was different up on the surface, he was the same. And people liked him. Always had. Yes, he was a prince and there was always a contingent of the sycophantic and the boot-licking, but he had always been well-liked, even amongst his brothers, amongst the entire royal court. He was popular. He was fun. He was funny.

And he was enjoying himself.

He had twenty-four hours. That was enough. He’d make a decision. He was confident in that. He would make a decision soon and he would live with it, whatever it ended up being. He wasn’t pushing himself to find the answer just yet.

He was enjoying himself.

You took him dancing. It felt risky, given what you knew about how much pain he must still be in, how uncoordinated he might be on his two feet, but it was an opportunity to get closer, to show him something new, to show him something you could do. Because you loved to dance. Really only came to the surface to do this one thing.

Certain sea creatures danced, but not like humans did. It wasn’t the same without the sound of feet on floorboards, wasn’t the same without the weight of gravity trying to keep you down every time you pushed up. You weren’t exactly a fan of humans (certainly not in the way Hoseok was), but they had got this right.

Your worries had been unfounded. Hoseok’s legs were feeling better already, he thought, or he was just getting used to the pain. Either way, he wasn’t suffering like he had on the first day. He was a terrible dancer, make no mistake. He couldn’t understand the way people moved their legs, the way their feet moved so quickly they were almost blurs. He tripped and stumbled and crashed about but none of that seemed to matter to you, so it didn’t matter to him either. You held him close and pulled him up and around and twisted and turned and skipped and span until his head was dizzy.

He had never experienced a joy like it.

You took him on a short carriage ride, because there was somewhere else you wanted him to see. It wasn’t that far, really, but you didn’t want him to have to walk and a carriage was as new an experience to him as everything else was.

You made it drop you just far enough away that it wouldn’t spoil the surprise. You gave Hoseok nothing, answering none of his questions, not saying a word, because you were holding your breath to wait for his reaction.

And there it was.

You saw his eyebrows, first raised and then knitted together, and then softening. His eyes widening. His mouth dropping open slightly, in the way that made it perfectly heart-shaped. Then he turned his eyes on you. Was this it? Was this the thing you wanted him to see?

It was.

Like a sea of green grass with hundreds – no, thousands – of red flowers floating on the waves. Hoseok didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t seen anything like this before. It was as if he were in another new world. The red-headed poppies were so numerous, you almost couldn’t see the grass underneath; there was merely a suggestion of verdant growth propping up the riot of colour. What were these things and how did they grow in such great number?

He had been taught, growing up, that humans had no respect for nature. That they ripped up land plants and built over grasslands; they destroyed forests and valleys and wetlands all for their own ends. They would rather look at glass and concrete and chrome than the kaleidoscopic views the natural world had to offer. He had believed them, because he had heard the true stories of what human activity had done to sea life; he had received the messages of the reefs dying and oil spilling and nets catching up all sorts of things they shouldn’t. He thought, trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, as he was always wont to do, that maybe the nature on land wasn’t like the nature in the sea. Maybe things were different up here. Lots of other things were.

Now he saw that he had been entirely wrong. Acres of land lay before him. Acres of useful land that could have grown crops or laid foundations to buildings were ablaze with the bright, bright red of flowers he’d never seen before. And the humans let it happen.

As his surprise gave way to pure, wide-eyed admiration, he noticed that the humans were experiencing it the same way he was. He saw them with their cameras, taking their images (as you had explained to him that’s what they did), keeping the sight forever more. He saw them smile and laugh and frolic. He saw them and saw himself in them. He saw, also, the goodness he had always known was there. The spirit and love and joy of humanity. It was here, in these fields. It was here, in his heart. It was here, standing next to him; you, watching him expectantly, a nervous smile trying to tug your bottom lip from between your teeth.

“Wow,” was all he managed to say.

* * *

It was his last night. What might have been his last night. What could be his last night. Hoseok felt tense. Nervous. Almost sick.

He had decided. He was going to stay. If he could. If he could make it happen. If you wanted it.

He knew he had a home to go back to, if you didn’t. He would always have these three days. No one could take them away from him. And if that’s all he got, if three days on the surface was all he ever got to experience, then so be it. He was putting himself in your hands: himself, his heart, his dreams. His body.

The problem was that he didn’t know how to tell you that. He didn’t know how any of this happened on land. He didn’t know what he could or could not say, or do, or suggest. Which is why he had to leave it up to you. He’d just get it wrong.

It was Hoseok’s last night and you were wondering if you were just imagining the way he was looking at you, wanting him to be looking like that. You could bend reality, but that didn’t mean you always saw it clearly. The heart had tricks of its own.

But you had the advantage over him, because you knew his secrets. You knew that this would be his last chance; you knew that you were his only option. You knew that he wanted to stay. You couldn’t be sure if he wanted to stay enough to sleep with you.

You had suggested wine at dinner because you knew it was what the humans drank and knew it made them silly and loud and boisterous; you knew it lowered their inhibitions and made them do things they often regretted. You didn’t really know how you would react to it—your body was technically human now but you’d never been drunk before—but it had left you feeling warm and a little giddy. It had, blessedly and as you had hoped, made this whole thing easier to think about.

Because your head was spinning a little too fast to think about the bigger picture: the whys and wherefores of how you got here, how he got here, the purpose of this whole thing. You could really only think about the splendid slope of his nose. The way his shallow philtrum led to the smooth, rounded peaks of his cupid’s bow. The tiny, dark freckle there that waited, begging to be kissed. The perfect symmetry of his dimples as he smiled.

You hadn’t indulged in this since you were small. Hoseok had been your first crush. First, last. Only. As a pre-teen, you’d been silly with infatuation over him. Memorised the maps of his freckles and exact proportions of his body. You’d floated around in the sea, daydreaming about him for hours on end, not realising how far you had strayed until your mother had come screaming after you, pulling you back and warning you about being so unaware of your surroundings.

You remembered those feelings now. The fizziness in your limbs and heavy twisting in your gut. Like old friends. Hoseok, too, was an old friend. Your oldest. Your only. Now and, if you got this right, forevermore.

Hoseok had accepted the first glass of wine but recoiled at its taste, unable to believe he’d found something on the surface he didn’t like. You had then explained to him that it was technically a poison and he had been aghast to see you continue to drink it, to look around and see so many other humans doing the same. Every minute brought him something new.

You took his hand as you walked back from dinner to your apartment. It was warm and soft and you were grateful for it. Hoseok was grateful for it, too. His clothes still rubbed at his skin and so much of him still hurt, but your hand in his did not.

You didn’t let go when you reached the door, didn’t let go when it shut behind you and you let the lock click. You tugged him a little closer to you, took his other hand, kept his eyes on yours as you moved closer still.

You hadn’t done this before.

Hoseok hadn’t done this before.

You’d seen it done. You understood the concept.

Hoseok had no idea what was coming, but he had decided what he wanted. He had decided to trust you. And he’d decided to trust his gut, too. If humans were anything like merpeople (and they were), at least some of what was to happen would be instinctive.

He hoped, anyway.

You didn’t say a word, though you had planned to. You had scripted a kind of shy proposition, an awkward hobble of a speech in which you would say and ask and tell. But you abandoned it. Or rather, it abandoned you. Not a single word of it left in your head. So you stopped using it: your head. Stopped thinking.

You pressed your lips to his like you’d seen humans do.

The candle in Hoseok’s heart roared, its flame reaching up his throat and into his mouth. He didn’t have time to think. His body acted for him. For the first time since he crawled onto the shore, his body was feeling something that wasn’t pain. Was feeling something familiar. Something hot and deep and aching.

He didn’t mind the taste of the wine on your tongue, thought it was sweet, actually, had lost the acidic tang of the alcohol that made it poisonous. This kiss was like every kiss that had come before it, but also, nothing like them. Absent, the tang of salt. Present, the wet heat of your mouth and his. Absent, the way he could breathe through his gills. Present, the breathlessness that made him pull away before you pulled him back. Absent, the modest nudity in which the entire undersea world lived. Present, a kind of shy, self-conscious awareness of his hidden body.

An enormous, embarrassed awareness of the bulge in his trousers, the way it couldn’t be hidden. He had been horrified to see it, when he had washed up on the beach, two-legged and naked. He couldn’t believe that humans just walked around with everything on display like that (he had known this already, would have remembered if he’d been in his right mind); he’d felt awkward and conscious the entire time, sure that everyone could see, that it was obscene, that humans couldn’t really live like this?

But never more than now, as it strained against his trousers, which hadn’t been tight thirty seconds ago and were now constraining him in a way that bordered on painful. He kept his body away from you, more difficult now that your hands were skittering up his arms and down his chest, slipping back up his skin underneath his shirt, trying to pull him closer.

You felt a little bit dizzy. Sure, the wine, but also, this. Hoseok. The sweetness of fruit in his mouth. The heat of his skin. The sensation of a kiss—something you’d never experienced before, that you had seen, that had disgusted you—was nothing like you’d imagined. If you had thought about it, if you’d been thinking rationally, you might still have been disgusted by the way your tongues rolled over each other, swapping saliva, the way you could taste him, taste the fruit he’d just eaten. But you weren’t thinking rationally. You weren’t thinking at all.

You were feeling. And it was like nothing you’d ever felt before.

You gave into it.

Hoseok gave into it.

It was, as the humans say, like riding a bike. Though you hadn’t done that either.

Hoseok stopped thinking about it when you removed his shirt and stepped out of your dress. Legs were new to him. That was true. The human arrangement of body parts was new to him but they weren’t all that different once everything was out in the open. You had lit a fire in him and he was happy to stoke the flames. He was burning again, all over, inside and out, but it wasn’t painful, wasn’t torture. It was exquisite. New and familiar at once. Intoxicating.

You fell to your knees and Hoseok thought you had stumbled, bent down to help you up, but you stopped him, shook your head, and he stood straight.

Then you took his thick, heavy cock into your hand and licked the top. You wrapped your lips around it and pushed yourself forward, gliding your tongue along the underside, hollowing your cheeks and sucking. Hoseok gasped and almost fell to his knees himself. He didn’t know what this was, assumed it was a normal part of human sex, briefly wondered if sex actually was different here, if this was the entire act. Then he felt the head of his cock press against the back of your throat and his mind was wiped clean of thought. Replaced by a kind of urgent static that made him want to buck his hips, fuck into the hot clutch of your throat.

You had seen humans do this. You weren’t sure if you were doing it right. Not at first, anyway, but Hoseok had a pained look on his face, his mouth hanging open, his chest heaving as he panted, and you knew that was the reaction you were supposed to be eliciting. You could feel the twitch of his dick as it hit your throat, as you gagged lightly around it. You could just about hear, over the roaring of blood in your ears, Hoseok moaning, your name tumbling from his mouth like a prayer.

You were aching between your legs. You were hot and sticky and you could feel it dripping from you. You felt your walls clench and had the sudden, immediate need for Hoseok’s cock there, not in your mouth. You let it fall, wiped your eyes and your mouth and Hoseok was pulling you to your feet, crashing his mouth into yours, his hands frantic and grabbing.

Neither of you was thinking a second beyond what was happening. Gone were your concerns with your long-planned acts of vengeance. Gone were Hoseok’s worries about committing to life on the surface, about leaving his marine life behind, bringing a child into the world. Gone was the pressure of your subterfuge. Gone was the pressure of all his lies of omission. Gone was everything outside the four walls of this apartment. Gone was the whole world beyond your body in his hands, his body in yours.

Hoseok found that legs made all this much easier. They probably wouldn’t under water, but here, he saw their benefit. Saw the upsides to having two of them, of having them jointed at two places and not twenty. As he knelt over you on the dingy grey sheets of your bed, he almost laughed at the image of him trying to do this with a tail. Maybe there were some upsides to this human body after all.

He placed the tip of his cock at your entrance and pushed his hips forward, a little experimentally, testing the motion, the movement of his hips. He fell forward onto his hands, eyes closed, a long, gasping moan trapped in his throat.

He hadn’t known that humans had it so much better.

Would’ve done this days ago if he had.

You were hot and tight and wet and it was all Hoseok could do not to come right there and then. He paused, trying to catch a breath, gather himself, not lose it all as soon as he had begun.

It was excruciating for a second and the whine you’d let out wasn’t pleasured but pained. You were grateful when Hoseok stopped, though you didn’t think it was for you. Is this what it was like? You had thought they liked it. That was the point, wasn’t it? Humans mated for fun, not just for procreation. You had to assume fun would follow. It had been fun up to that point. It had been its own exquisite kind of pleasurable torture waiting for something to stuff you full.

But now he was and it was like being split down the middle. You wondered for a second if this was how it had felt for Hoseok when he grew legs. Then he started pushing his hips forward again and it tossed all thought out the window.

“Are you ok?” he asked, looking down at you with a frown of genuine concern.

You nodded. You nodded some more. You couldn’t speak because the pressure in your centre was overwhelming, the pain like nothing you had felt before. But you couldn’t stop. You wanted it. You wanted him. You had never been pushed out of your mind like this, brought into your body so viscerally, so violently, with such care. Hoseok brushed a strand of hair away from your face and tucked it behind your ear.

“Do you want to stop?” he asked.

“No.”

You pulled him down to you, down to his forearms, so you could kiss him, so his chest touched yours, so you could distract yourself from Hoseok with even more Hoseok. With your tongue in his mouth, you allowed yourself to cry out as he pushed further. He swallowed the sound and returned his own. You were trembling, your muscles shaking, your skin sticky with sweat.

So was Hoseok.

The pain wasn’t registering anymore, even though he knew it was still there. All he could feel was your cunt squeezing hard around him; it made him dizzy with pleasure. His stomach was churning, twisting; he was bracing trying to make this last.

Because he’d forgotten the point of it. Forgotten that the ending was the bit that counted. He wanted to feel you, he wanted to touch you and taste you and luxuriate in the human experience of this. He hadn’t imagined it but, if he had, even his wildest dreams wouldn’t have come close. Mermaids? He’d never go back.

He paused, to give you a moment, to give himself a moment, a breather. He kissed you, luxuriating in that, too: the way you tasted like no one else he’d ever kissed, the way your mouth was warm and wet, your tongue soft and supple. He liked the way his breath caught in his throat. He liked the way he found himself panting. He even liked the way his shoulders were starting to ache from holding his body up. Liked the way he could feel every muscle of his posterior chain move when he slowly, tentatively began to draw his hips back, when he tipped them forward again, when he set a slow, smooth motion that he found came easily to him.

Having a human body was exhausting. It was hard work. It was heavy all the time and never supported. It had been torture in the truest sense, with every step Hoseok took stabbing daggers into his legs. But he could see the benefits now. Well, he could feel them. He felt more embodied than he ever had before. Somehow separate from the world in a way that made him feel so much more connected to you. You weren’t two small parts of a larger whole. You were the whole.

He had spent time pondering the ways in which air was so different from water. He often thought water came off the better from the comparison. But this was changing everything. It was exhausting and painful and he was so aware of each and every part of his body. And with that, came a gut-churning pleasure that made his eyes water and his head spin. Water had nothing on air.

You weren’t sure it was pleasurable yet. The sharp pain had subsided and the little grunts and groans that Hoseok left in your mouth were sweet enough, but it wasn’t pleasure. Not yet. You were sure it would come. Didn’t mind entirely if it didn’t tonight. There would be other nights.

You hoped, you prayed, there would be other nights. Because it might have been pain, but it was the sweetest pain you’d ever felt. A pain that you somehow longed for, even as you longed for it to end. A pain that made you feel wanted. A pain that connected you to another living being in a way that you never had been. A pain that, in a moment of intense clarity, you realised connected you to women, human women. All human women who had experienced this since time began. You understood a little about their myths about the origin of man, and sin, and punishment.

You understood it. How this could be punishment. How it could be pleasure, too. How it could be worth it.

Hoseok could feel it coming. He was desperately trying to beat it back, to delay its onset, to make this last and last and last. He never wanted it to end, but he could feel his muscles tightening, feel his cock jumping with every thrust. Pleasure was coiling like a spring inside him, boiling rapidly, boiling over.

You gasped alongside him when he came, when his hips and breath stuttered and he filled you with ropes of hot cum. His body was heavy on top of yours, in a pleasing, crushing kind of way that grounded you. At that very moment, neither one of you was thinking about the consequences of what you had just done. What it could mean. What it meant for your best laid plans. You were lying, listening to the soft rushing of your breath and the hammering of your hearts.

It came to you, first, and you didn’t want to think about it. Because you were so full of feeling for Hoseok; feelings that you thought had faded, that had embedded themselves in you in a way that made them fade into the background, made you almost forget they were there, were screaming at you now. In technicolour. Surround sound. Unignorable. Undeniable.

But had you just destroyed him? Destroyed his life? His family?

That had been the intention. Bring down the royal family by having one of their own shun the sea for life on the surface, mate with a human. They’d have known it was you—it couldn’t have been anyone else—and they’d have executed you without trial. But it would’ve been worth it because, forever more, there would be a line of the royal family that ran human, that ran amok on the surface, that no one below the waves would ever be able to forget. It would have been their undoing without doubt. Whatever betrothals lay in wait for the princes would be broken; whatever treaties that were depending on them dashed; the reputation of the family would be in tatters. It would be over for them.

Which was what you had wanted.

But as you lay, absent-mindedly stroking Hoseok’s hair, naked and sweaty and sticky, with a penetrating ache still radiating through your core, you thought about how much that would hurt him. You saw the betrayal on his beatific face and your stomach flipped with fear. Because it wasn’t meant to be you lying here. And that made a difference.

Because you had seen him. You had kissed him. You had had him move inside you. You had loved him your whole life long and now you had to tell him that you had ulterior motives. That you were working against him. That all of this had been the result of your careful manipulations.

There had to be another way. There had been another way. That was how you had designed it. You weren’t supposed to be in this front-row seat. That was the point.

But it was too late now. And you needed a way out.

Maybe he never had to know.

Maybe you could make this work.

Hoseok’s eyes were fluttering shut. He could barely keep them open. He didn’t know if he had just secured his existence here or not. He didn’t know how to guarantee a child. Wasn’t clear-headed enough at that moment to know, for sure, if he wanted one.

He wanted to stay. Oh, he wanted to stay. He couldn’t go back now. But a child?

He felt wicked. He thought about what you might say if you ever learnt the truth. The betrayal. The way he used you for this.

He felt like a coward. He was a pampered prince who had achieved nothing on his own. He had turned to a sea witch in the midst of what amounted to a king-sized tantrum. She had risked her entire existence bringing him here. He had barely survived on his own. You had rescued him. Given him food and shelter and company and the greatest pleasure he had ever known.

He knew he couldn’t tell you the truth. Not if he wanted any part of this to continue.

Because he did. He wasn’t just using you. He wasn’t sure he was using you at all. He liked you. He wanted you. He wanted to stay, not just on the surface, but on the surface with you.

It felt too big. Too confusing. Too difficult. He was a coward, after all, so he closed his eyes and decided to see what the morning would bring.

You noticed his breathing slow, grow heavy and deep, his body relaxing further, his weight pressing down on you harder. He was asleep. That gave you time, you thought. To think of something. Some way out of this. Some way to stay in this.

But your own eyelids felt heavy, kept dropping of their own accord, and you kept losing your train of thought. You gave into it; you would wake early, go out and buy something for breakfast, figure it out in the morning.

#bts fanfic #hoseok fanfic #hoseok x reader #bts x reader #hoseok smut

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fixdex-fastening-technology · 2 years ago

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FIXDEX & GOODFIX technical department explains new energy technology

#youtube #Wedge anchor bolts #threaded rods #din975 #self drilling screws #chemical anchor #drop in anchor #foundation bolt #hex nut #flat washer #hex bolt #Photovoltaic Bracket #angle brackets #Stainless steel bracket #Bracket Clamp

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tourettesdog · 2 years ago

Text

Okay

Based on the prompts "Lancer is a good teacher and cares" and "Well, shit. He can't change back!"

For @majorastudios and @lexosaurus Word count: 9,563 Warnings: panic attacks, child neglect (more implied) AO3 Link ~

Danny would be the first to admit that he had a knack for finding himself in stupid situations.

Or, at least, they had a knack for finding him.

This was all to say that the last place Danny expected to find himself on a bright and sunny July afternoon was trapped in an elevator with Mr. Lancer, of all people.

Now, the situation could have been worse— and it was. For all the shitty luck that Danny possessed in the universe, it seemed that there was always another giant middle finger waiting around the next corner.

Danny hadn’t thought much when he heard the grinding sound of the parking deck’s elevator as one of the mechanisms securing the cable snapped. He’d been out flying when it happened and simply bolted towards the sound, determined to phase whoever was inside to safety. It had come as a shock, finding the elevator occupied by someone he knew. What came as more of a surprise, however, was the sickly glow of a ghost shield snapping into place before Danny could follow through with that plan.

It had been a close thing, putting on the brakes before he collided, Lancer in tow, with the glowing wall of the elevator.

Unfortunately, the doors had long-since shut and he couldn’t touch the crooked metal without meeting the painful shock of the shield.

Just being inside of it had Danny feeling woozy.

All he could do was stand awkwardly on the elevator floor, his stance a bit crooked as the elevator had sagged into a tilt, off-balance as it was in the shaft.

It was at least preferable to the thing crashing down to the ground floor.

Lancer, for what it was worth, was managing better than most would given the circumstances. At least, he had stopped screaming about a minute ago.

If there was one positive thing Danny could gleen from the experience, it would have to be hearing his teacher utter a hearty ‘fuck’ rather than the usual literary substitute.

Not that he had much time to enjoy it at present.

Lancer’s chest heaved and his knees shook. He leaned against the side of the elevator with his arms splayed out across the metal hand railing on that side, his eyes flickering all around the small cabin. Danny knew that ghost shields never felt pleasant even to humans, but in his distress Mr. Lancer seemed to favor leaning into the buzz of the ectoplasmic energy over standing. Granted, given the shakiness of his legs, they might not hold him much anyway.

The metal of the elevator groaned, dust cascading from the paneled roof as it slid a couple inches down the shaft, eliciting a startled yelp from Lancer as he grabbed the railing with white knuckles.

Danny supposed there was more than one reason he should stay anchored to that railing.

“H–hey,” Danny said, trying to get his teacher’s attention. He wasn’t exactly sure what to say, but he didn’t think that awkwardly standing there, staring the man down, was conducive to settling his nerves.

Mr. Lancer’s gaze snapped up to meet his own. His eyes stretched wide, as if he hadn’t noticed Phantom’s presence until that moment, even though the ghost boy had just scooped him up before unceremoniously dropping him back down when the shield burst to life.

“Ph-Phantom?” he quavered.

“Yeah, um, who else?” Danny said, the words leaving his lips before he could think better of it. He cringed as soon as they did, chastising himself. It probably wasn’t a good time to make sarcastic jibes.

If Mr. Lancer noticed the snark, however, he didn’t comment on it. The toes of his shoes dug into the dirty linoleum on the elevator floor and he licked his lips nervously, eyes still darting around the cabin as though an exit might materialize from the ectoshield.

When he didn’t say anything, Danny felt like he needed to fill the silence. Anything to drown out the low hum of the ectoshield and the rapid hammer of Mr. Lancer’s frightened heartbeat.

“So, I know this looks bad but everything is going to be okay,” Danny said. His voice echoed in the small space, the tinny sound amplified by the metal around him.

Lancer just blinked, his pale green eyes, so much duller than Phantom’s own, stretched as wide as saucers.

“H–how can you be sure?” he said.

Danny’s eyes trailed around the elevator, ghosting over the green glare of the ectoshield. It completely covered the elevator box, though the floor of the shield had been thankfully recessed beneath the linoleum.

Danny could still feel the hum it gave off through his boots.

“I’ll think of something,” he said, more to himself.

Mr. Lancer blanched, his face practically as pale as Danny’s hair. “Can’t you just—” the words died on his tongue as he glanced at the green shield once more, shivering slightly.

“Yeah, the shield kind of complicates things,” Danny said with a sigh. “Not their best design choice.”

He didn’t have to elaborate on whose design choice had crafted this coffin disguised as a convenient mode of transportation.

Lancer let out a shaky breath. “It probably seemed more practical in theory,” he said, each word as shaky as his legs.

Danny nodded, crossing his arms. “Like, I can see what they were going for, but you’d think after over a year of help from a ghost they’d consider maybe— just maybe — that trapping people in a small ghost shield suspended three stories up might not be a great idea.”

“Oh, Watership Down,” Lancer said faintly, sliding slightly down the wall, leaning more heavily against the railing. Danny hadn’t realized just how much he was rambling, or how faint Lancer was looking in the wake of his ill-timed tirade.

“Sorry,” Danny said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Probably not the best time for that.”

Lancer nodded, his eyes wide and staring at the floor. “Yes, I don’t think it is,” he said.

Danny let out a long, drawn out sigh. He ran a hand through his mop of white hair, trying and failing to focus his thoughts on anything constructive. He was uncomfortably aware of the small, tight space. Nothing quite as claustrophobic as the thermos, but without any sure way to escape it had Danny’s core thrumming uncomfortably.

Lancer just stared at him. Danny couldn’t fault the man. For all that Mr. Lancer had seen of Phantom— considering the many times he had rocketed through his classroom wall— Danny supposed that this was probably his first time seeing Phantom up close. Danny could see his own glow reflected in his teacher’s eyes— or perhaps it was mostly the light that the ghost shield emitted.

“I don’t suppose you have a phone on you?” Danny asked him.

Considering Mr. Lancer hadn’t reached to grab one, he thought he already knew the answer…

Sure enough, Lancer replied with a hollow, “Left it in the car.”

Danny tried to strain his ears for any outside sounds, desperate to drag his focus off of the small confines of the elevator. He could hear the rumble of traffic, but not much else besides that. The concrete walls of the parking garage were too dense, and the buzz of the ghost shield too distracting.

“Looks like we might have to wait for someone then,”Danny said nervously, his eyes trailing to the buttons on the elevator.

Moving slowly, careful not to startle Mr. Lancer, Danny crossed the short distance to those buttons. He was closer than Lancer was and his footsteps much lighter. The man tensed slightly as Danny moved, but didn’t say anything.

A layer of the ghost shield danced over the buttons, a rippling wall of green that sparked with electricity. It had to be one of his parents’ newer shields, judging by the bright color and the intensity of the static it gave off. Just being near the thing had his own ectoplasm buzzing uncomfortably.

Danny glanced back at Lancer, finding his teacher’s eyes trained on him. There was fear there, though also a quiet curiosity. It reminded Danny that he hadn’t seen Mr. Lancer at his parents' last few ghost seminars. That, for all the nervous fear mongering his teacher had given into in those first few months after the portal sparked to life, he seemed… much more reserved now. He didn’t show the same open support for Phantom that his students did, but Danny would take reserved caution over open hostility any day.

Glancing back at the elevator buttons, Danny bit his lip. He couldn’t exactly ask Lancer to press the buttons himself. Even if he carried him, there was no saying if the elevator would shift again once he placed him back down.

Steeling his nerves, Danny held out his finger for the emergency button on the control panel.

The ghost shield rejected his ectoplasm immediately, sending a current of electricity through his body in a painful jolt. Sparks shot out where his finger met the shield, and Danny could only watch in horror as those sparks tangled with the control panel itself. He could see the current race through the metal, rippling beneath the buttons in bright cracks and pops.

One last spark ignited at the top and, with a loud crack, the lights of the elevator shut off.

Danny stumbled backwards as it happened, hardly stopping himself from careening into the opposite wall of the shield. In the absence of the elevator’s lights, the space was bathed in a sickly wash of green.

Lancer swore again, the sound enough to have Danny spinning around to make sure he was okay. Lancer had crouched, both hands still held firmly onto the railing as he lowered himself to the elevator floor with shaking knees. At a glance, Danny could have mistaken him for a ghost with how the light of the ectoshield painted his skin.

“Are you okay?” Danny asked, his voice sounding rather small, shaky with his building unease.

He doubted that the elevator had put off much of a distress signal before it lit up like a Christmas tree.

Lancer just slowly shook his head, staring at something only he could see. He was practically sitting now, his hands shaking on the railing, barely able to hold on any longer. Thankfully, the elevator didn’t shift as he sank to the floor.

“I’m sorry,” Danny said, glancing back at the elevator buttons. A thin line of smoke trailed from the emergency button, giving off an acrid scent that mixed with the ozone of the shield.

Lancer looked up at that, the sudden movement in his periphery causing Danny to snap his attention back to him. Danny was surprised to find his brows furrowed.

“What are you sorry for?” Lancer croaked out.

Danny blinked. He stared. He looked between the buttons and Lancer, now shaking his own head. “I… broke the buttons?” he said, confused.

Surely Lancer hadn’t missed that lightshow.

Lancer’s brows drew so close together they nearly formed one line. His frown stretched almost as far, pulling at his black facial hair.

“You just hurt yourself trying to press it,” he said slowly.

Danny nodded his head, still unsure. “Yeah… and I broke it?”

If Lancer’s hands weren’t currently clutching onto the railing for dear life, Danny had a feeling they would find their way to pinch at his tear ducts— a gesture he often adopted when faced with a frustrating situation or student.

“You… you knew the shield would hurt you and still tried to press that button,” Lancer said, his voice now tinged with exasperation.

Danny’s own brows drew together, frustration drawing his teeth to clench. “ And I said I was sorry,” he challenged.

It wasn’t his fault there was a ghost shield. It wasn’t his fault it tampered with the buttons. He’d tried , and if Lancer couldn’t accept his apology, Danny wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do.

It’s not like he could storm off right now. Even if he could transform back, he had no way of knowing where the elevator was within the shaft, or how easily he could escape it without unsettling the delicate balance.

Not that he could transform. Not here, not now.

Something strange ghosted across Lancer’s face, the expression hollow and haunted, shadowed oddly by the light from the shield; it glowed so brightly off of his bald head.

“I know you didn’t mean to,” he said, his words hushed, echoing slightly in the enclosed space. “I’m not arguing with you, Phantom, I… Are you all right?”

The question came so out of left field it struck Danny dumb. He fidgeted uncomfortably, noticing for the first time that he was cradling his left hand in his right.

Glancing down, Danny saw that his glove had been singed by the contact with the ghost shield. Just like the buttons, it smoked faintly, revealing angry green flesh beneath.

He was shaking. When did he start shaking?

Clenching his hand into a fist, Danny thrust it behind his back and out of sight. “I’m fine,” he said, locking his eyes onto Lancer, as if challenging him to say otherwise.

That strange expression persisted on his teacher’s face. If Danny had to give it a name, he supposed the closest thing he could compare it to was pity. Something about that squeezed uncomfortably at his core.

Danny was used to breaking things, and he was even more used to being blamed for breaking things— whether he had a part in it or not. That button had been a lifeline, possibly the only real thing that could ensure Lancer a safe reunion with the ground…

Why wasn’t he angry?

An uncomfortable silence filled the elevator. Danny could hear a siren somewhere outside, though it sounded far too distant to be something headed their way. Danny had no way of knowing how long it would take for help to arrive, or if it even would in time.

Danny was still shaking. It had gotten worse, if anything. The glow of the ghost shield was too bright and the walls of the elevator too narrow. The tilt in the floor too drastic, the hum of the shield resonating too discordantly with his core.

Danny had crouched down too, though he couldn’t say when he sank to the floor. He hugged at his knees, suddenly very aware of the summer heat. The elevator had been stifling to begin with, devoid of fresh air and baked by the sun. The ghost shield didn’t help, putting off a crackling heat that seemed to sap the breath from his lungs. Breath he didn’t need but wanted.

When did his breathing get so heavy, anyway? “Phantom?” The voice was quiet, unsure. It sounded both miles away and entirely too close, whispering in his ear.

Danny stared at his gloves. The shield painted them green, like fresh ectoplasm over his hands. His arm still stung from the shock— still buzzed with the latent energy it gave off.

A distant echo of something far worse that still clung to him, leaving fern-like marks that rippled up that same arm.

“Phantom?”

He was Phantom, wasn’t he? That was his name, but he didn’t feel much like anything right now. More smoke and mirror than boy or even ghost. Phantom was supposed to be a hero, not some child who sank to his knees with fear squeezing tight enough at his chest to burst.

“Phantom, are you okay?” Was he okay? What did it mean to be okay? When was the last time he really was okay?

Somewhere distant Danny knew he was spiraling. He could practically feel his own awareness slipping through his fingers, lost to that tidal wave of fear.

“Breathe with me, okay?”

He didn’t need to breathe, but he still did— sucking down deep gulps of air, like some awful mockery of a fish gasping on the bank of a sun-baked river.

“In and out. Breathe with me, it’s okay.”

How many times had Jazz said those exact same words? They were practically ingrained in Danny’s psyche, as much a part of him as the hazmat suit had made itself, fused as it was to his ectoplasm.

“That’s it. In and out.”

When had he shut his eyes? For all the green staining his eyelids, they might as well still be open.

“You’re doing great. Just keep breathing.”

An odd thing to say to a ghost (not that Lancer knew the half of that), but not unappreciated. Air felt good, as humid and musty as it was. His core followed the pattern, practically imitating the humble tattoo of a heart.

He could hear a heartbeat too. Faster than his own, though slower and more timely than the pulse of a core. Human. Safe.

Danny focused on the sound. It almost drowned out the hum around him. It almost was enough to lull him into a safe, comfortable rest.

Almost, but not quite. Not enough to completely dash the ever-present buzz of the shield beneath him, dragging Danny back to the coffin of an elevator and its lurid green light.

Slowly, Danny opened his eyes. The light of the shield was not particularly bright, but it still burned his retinas. The hum seemed louder now, the static of it buzzing against his skin and frayed nerves. He blinked owlishly, his eyes roving over the rippling walls of green—

They landed on the person sitting nearby.

Danny couldn’t help but flinch back, surprised by the close proximity. With how glued Lancer had been to the railing, he would not have expected the man to move, and yet…

Here he sat in the middle of the elevator in front of him.

"Feeling better?" Lancer asked. He leaned away slightly from Danny, but did not make any retreat.

For a moment Danny wondered if he'd transformed. Why else would Lancer have risked shifting the elevator just to, what, comfort him?

Danny held up his hands, half-expecting to find human skin.

His eyes met the same pair of green-stained white gloves.

"That was quite the panic attack," Lancer said when Danny didn't answer.

Panic attack… that was definitely the phrase for it. Danny could recognize the lingering fatigue and oversensitive nerves that followed one.

That spiraling sense of losing himself still lingered too, along with tears rolling down his cheeks.

"Sorry," was all Danny could think to say, wiping at his face.

"Why are you apologizing?"

It seemed like a genuine enough question, not that Danny felt he could give a genuine enough answer.

"Dunno," he said, hugging his knees more tightly, rubbing his good hand over the other. "Just seems like a pretty inconvenient time and place for a panic attack."

Of all the places he’d had a panic attack, this one maybe ranked a four out of ten. If he was being generous.

Lancer sighed. He settled down a bit beside him, though did not at all relax. Danny could see how his fingertips dug into the linoleum like cat claws desperately trying to find purchase on a branch.

“I don’t know that there’s ever a convenient time or place for them,” he mused.

Danny rolled his eyes. “I shouldn’t be having one in the first place,” he muttered darkly.

Lancer’s brow quirked at that. “What makes you say that?” he asked.

Danny picked his head up off of his arms, glaring at the man. “I came here to save you, not to, what— have an impromptu therapy session? Whatever this is.” He gestured around the cabin of the elevator, as if this whatever was some physical concept he could point to.

“Well, we’re not going anywhere anytime soon, I think,” the teacher said. He didn’t look at Danny directly, his eyes trailing over the shut doors of the elevator. “Why not humor me?”

“I don’t feel like any jokes right now,” Danny quipped, pillowing his chin back on his arms.

Lancer chuckled, the sound odd and out of place in Danny’s ears. “No, I don’t suppose you would— frankly, I don’t either, but… humor me. Why don’t you feel like you can have a panic attack?”

Danny wasn’t sure when the script had flipped on him. It hadn’t been that long ago when Lancer was clinging to the railing, shouting in fear while Danny tried to weigh his options.

Now, sat on the grimy linoleum floor of the elevator, Lancer seemed remarkably calm and Danny… he felt remarkably small.

Smaller than usual.

He stubbornly wiped at his face again, hoping that no evidence of tears remained. Lancer might not know it was him, but he still didn’t want to be seen crying in front of his teacher.

“I’m supposed to be a hero— and a ghost. Why should I have a panic attack over something like this?” he asked petulantly, digging his nails into his knees.

Lancer did not reply right away. He was quiet, seeming to pick his words very carefully before opening his mouth once more.

“Well, what is bothering you? Was it the shock from the shield?”

Danny’s eyes roved from Lancer to the buttons almost absently. He couldn’t tell if the shock was still reverberating through his ectoplasm, or if it was the mere memory now. The phantom feeling of the tide tugging at your waist while falling asleep after a day spent in the waves.

“I don’t… I don’t think so— I don’t know,” Danny stammered, his brows bunching together with frustration as he considered it.

The glare of the ectoshield taunted him, rippling around him like light refracting through the water of a large aquarium.

“Is it something else?” Lancer asked gently.

Danny didn’t look at him. He stared at the buttons, transfixed. If he looked at them just the right way, they sort of formed an odd face with too many eyes. It reminded Danny of a ghost he saw once while lost in the zone, drifting a little too far past the Far Frozen’s snowy mountains.

“Maybe,” he said quietly. “It’s part of it, I guess, but… I mean the shield sucks, and it’s small in here and reminds me of the thermos, and it’s too hot for my core and—”

Danny stopped abruptly, his eyes locking onto Lancer’s, finding the man watching him with wide, fascinated eyes. It had his core stuttering uncomfortably and a blush rising to his cheeks, no doubt as green as the hazy light from the shield.

Ducking his head down into his knees, Danny muttered, “I don’t even know why I’m telling you this.”

Another sigh from Lancer. He was doing that a lot today— he always did, really. “It sounds like you needed someone to talk to,” he mused.

Danny just shrugged, refusing to meet his eyes. His face positively burned. “I have friends,” he mumbled.

“Are they who you usually talk to about these sort of things?”

Danny clamped his eyes shut tight, trying to calm the unsteady thrum of his core. “I guess,” he said dismissively.

A pause stretched between them and Lancer shuffled uncomfortably in it. Danny tensed as he did, worried the elevator might shift again, but it seemed as though it had found a solid place to rest in the shaft.

“Do you…” Lancer trailed off, sounding very unsure of the question lying on his tongue.

When he didn’t continue, Danny cracked open one bright green eye. “Do I what?” he challenged, tensing himself for whatever question might follow.

The look Lancer gave him would not be out of place on someone who had just watched a sad commercial with sat wet dogs. “Do you… have any adults to talk to? Any ghosts that look after you?”

Whatever question Danny had been expecting, he hadn’t expected one to strike so surely at his core. It thrummed like the strings of a violin, magnified until it reverberated through his entire being. Danny wondered if Lancer might feel it through the floor, over the hum of the shield.

“What?” was all he could say. No other words would find their way to his lips. His mind had shut down, lingering on the question with an uneasy, empty feeling that resonated from his core and hollowed out his belly.

“Is there anyone that looks after you?” Lancer asked again, his tone firm but no less gentle for it.

Danny stared straight ahead, seeing nothing as he let the question turn in his mind. His first thought was of Jazz. Ever since she found out about him, she’d stepped up in ways he could not have hoped for or imagined. She kept the first aid kit stocked. She checked him over for injuries. Jazz asked Danny how he was feeling, and wouldn’t always let him get away with a dismissive answer.

She’d even started to cook them breakfast these last few weeks. Her first few attempts were about as disastrous as their mother’s own cooking— no doubt unaided by the tainted ingredients— but she was getting better. She had a little fridge in her room now with ingredients kept far away from the lab samples, and for the first time in a long while Danny was remembering what eggs tasted like without the acidic bite of ectoplasm.

Danny opened his mouth to give Lancer an affirmative answer, but froze when the man’s first question rang in his ears.

“Do you… have any adults to talk to?”

A stone dropped into Danny’s belly as he realized with a sick sense of dread just how much Jazz had risen to the forefront of his mind as a caretaker, completely eclipsing their parents.

Danny’s mouth was dry as he swallowed a lump in his throat. He could feel Lancer’s eyes burning into him as he took far too long to answer— his silence about as much of an answer as anything else, really.

“Y–yes,” Danny said, though his shaky words hardly convinced himself.

They certainly didn’t seem to convince Lancer, either. His brow quirked slightly before he schooled his features into a softer expression. “Do you?” he pressed.

Danny nodded, even as his mind spiraled once more, wallowing through a current of memories. He tried to think of the last time he felt comfortable talking to his parents, but only flashes of uncomfortable silences and nervous lies came to mind. He tried to think of the last time he felt safe in their care, but only the memory of dodging weapons and hiding injuries swam to the forefront of that current.

At some point Danny’s nod turned into a tilt— a shake. He was shaking his head, ever so slightly. His core squeezed and fresh tears pricked at the corners of his eyes.

Lancer sighed yet again, the sound bone-weary and deep with exhaustion. “Where do you go when you’re not in Amity?” he asked. “Where do you stay?”

It was too personal of a question, one that Danny never would have thought to answer from a civilian. He’d been asked so many things by the people of Amity— shouted questions of his death and of his life before then. Each grated at his nerves and his core with an unrivaled discomfort, never something he would think to acknowledge with more than a joke, at most.

Yet… Danny didn’t resent the question coming from Lancer. It didn’t upset him, not in the way it normally did. The discomfort was there, but it had more to do with his own uncertain answer than the fact that Lancer had dared to ask the question in the first place.

It was Danny’s turn to sigh now, feeling his entire body sag into the motion as he hugged his knees still tighter, practically phasing them into his torso.

All he could do was shrug.

He knew where Danny Fenton went at night, but Phantom didn’t exactly have a place to rest his head.

Lancer shuffled a bit closer until he was sitting directly beside Danny. He didn’t scoot away, almost welcoming his presence.

“I won’t pretend to know what it’s like being in your shoes,” Lancer began, his eyes locked onto Danny as he spoke, “but I’m here to talk if you ever need someone to be there.”

Danny blinked, staring. He hardly knew what to say— could hardly find any words in his head. After a pause, all that would come out was a hesitant, “Yeah?”

Lancer smiled, the gesture small as it tugged at his lips. “Yes. I’m a teacher and part of my job is to be there for my students.”

Danny frowned at the word. “I’m not one of your students, though,” he said defensively, shuffling his feet. “I’m just a ghost.”

For one gut-wrenching moment Danny wondered if Lancer had figured him out. He couldn’t imagine how. His ghost form changed too much, both impacted by the ectoplasm in his system and by his own thoughts, as Frostbite once explained to him. The sharpened ears, the greenish tint of his skin— the broader shoulders and squared chin, more masculine than he dared hope for.

Even just the glow was enough to throw his features into a differing relief, but above it all there was one factor that Danny knew kept his identity safe:

The difference between flesh and ectoplasm. Life and death. Why ever assume something that breathed would also harbor something as innate to death as a core?

(Nevermind that he had been breathing this entire time, not that he needed it as he was.)

Yet if Lancer noticed the breathing or somehow made that leap of logic that saddled the line between life and death as surely as Danny did himself, he didn’t show it. He simply smiled sadly, meeting Phantom’s eyes with a kindness he rarely had shown to him in this form.

“Maybe not, but you must have been a student in this town at some point,” he said, his eyes trailing to his hands in his lap, fingers nervously rubbing his knuckles. “I might not be an expert on ghosts, but after teaching for as long as I have, I’d like to think that I know a thing or two about teenagers. You stay in this town enough that it must have been your home— that it must still be.”

He wasn’t wrong, of course. Mr. Lancer didn’t know the details, but his words rang truer than he knew. They echoed in Danny’s mind, as hollow and uncomfortable as they were right.

Amity was Phantom’s home. It was his home.

Just hearing someone who wasn’t Sam, Tucker, or Jazz acknowledge that had the tears pricking at Danny’s eyes spilling over.

A hand tentatively patted his shoulder and Danny leaned into the touch, finding more peace in it than he thought he should.

A peace that, like many good things, did not last very long.

A familiar siren cut through the concrete, the sound grating at Danny’s frayed nerves with a fresh onslaught of fear. He couldn’t help but jolt at the sound, jumping into the air where he hovered, staring at the elevator doors.

“Phantom?” Lancer asked nervously.

The siren practically echoed in his skull, the sound far too familiar and far too disquieting. How many times had he heard it barreling towards a ghost attack, knowing that its presence would only complicate the battle? How many times had he been glad for the warning, if only so he could escape?

There was no escape right now, however. No way for him to slip out of sight, either through the walls of the elevator or into his own human skin. He couldn’t transform, not with Lancer right next to him and his secret already hanging by a gnawed thread.

Mr. Lancer must have heard the siren himself now, judging by the way his eyes moved from Phantom to the elevator doors. Danny couldn’t help but notice that his eyes brightened with relief.

“Lord of the Flies, it sounds like someone’s finally coming,” he said, that same relief carried on a much more relaxed sigh.

Danny bit his lip, unable to answer. He didn’t resent Mr. Lancer’s joy at hearing the siren, though it did come as a dark contrast to his own roiling emotions.

“I don’t think they’re here to help,” he mumbled darkly, unable to suppress the resentment in his tone as he glared at the ectoshield warping over the elevator doors. “Not met at least.”

Danny heard Lancer suck in a sharp breath of air. He turned at the sound, finding his teacher watching him with renewed concern in his eyes. “They wouldn’t…” he said slowly, his own words trailing off as doubt crept into his tone.

Danny nodded. “They must’ve gotten some sort of alert when this thing went off,” he said, gesturing to the shield.

“But they wouldn’t… you’re not…” Lancer tried again, his words no less convinced the second time around as he trailed off, his eyes widening when they fixed on the door.

The siren was so close now, echoing around the elevator. Each blaring note of the sound had Danny’s ears ringing and his core stuttering violently with fear. He absently drifted farther away from the elevator doors, watching them warily.

“If I could just explain to them—”

This time Lancer’s words were cut off as a loud, booming voice shouted. It came from somewhere overhead, echoing down the elevator shaft.

“Is there anyone in there!” the unmistakable voice of Jack Fenton boomed. “Our sensors detected that a ghost triggered our shield. Is the ghost subdued? Are any humans trapped?”

Danny stared, wide-eyed up at the elevator ceiling. He sank back down onto the floor, cowering as he heard what sounded like metal grinding as someone tried to force it apart.

His eyes flickered to Lancer, watching uncertainly as the man gaped at the ceiling. He had to be frighteningly aware of his precarious position in the elevator. Jack Fenton’s voice, though it sent fear rocketing through Danny’s core, must’ve sounded like freedom and safety to Lancer in that moment.

And yet… his eyes trailed back to Danny with uncertainty.

It was disquieting, seeing that expression on that face of a man trapped in an elevator shaft, who for all intents and purposes should have welcomed any offer of rescue with the widest embrace.

Yet Danny thought back to Lancer’s words as he calmed him down from his panic attack. He thought of his hand gently patting Danny’s shoulder, soothing him as he cried. He thought of how Lancer, once he pushed his own fear aside, had shown nothing but kindness and fear for him, not of.

He had called Phantom his student. Had called Amity his home.

“Is anyone down there!” Jack Fenton called again, the sound of metal shifting accompanying his voice once more.

In that moment, Danny knew that he would have one of two options. There was no way his parents would disable the ectoshield without first making sure that no ghosts lingered invisibly within it. As Phantom, he was trapped, resigned to being seen. Cornered.

If his parents caught Phantom now in this position, Danny’s only option would be to try and explain himself and hope that they might understand. Pray that they wouldn’t assume he was overshadowed and give him a fraction of a chance.

But… Danny had another option.

Looking at Lancer, finding him nervously staring up at the ceiling, Danny weighed that second option.

He weighed Lancer’s words, the kind admissions of home and student nestling comfortably in his core.

It was a leap of faith, and one Danny probably shouldn’t feel more secure in than his parents, and yet… When was the last time he felt safe around an adult?

Here, in an elevator, trapped with a man who had shown him more humanity in the last five minutes than an entire town had in a year.

The choice was clear to Danny.

“Mr. Lancer,” Danny began, his voice timorous and too small. His teacher’s eyes locked onto him at the sound.

“Y–yes?” he asked just as quietly, bewildered.

Of course, he had never given Phantom his name.

Danny licked his lips. His breath caught in his throat as the metal shifted overhead again and he had to shut his eyes for a moment, breathing deeply to steady his nerves.

“I am one of your students.”

When the man didn’t reply, Danny slowly opened his eyes, finding Lancer shaking his head, his eyes never once leaving Danny.

“I… don’t follow,” he said.

More metal shifting overhead. Something heavy thumped. Danny’s core pulsed and his hands shook.

“I—I am one of your students,” he repeated, hardly more than a whisper. “Y–you taught me last year, and I wasn’t the best student but… but you helped me— then and now. And I… I’m afraid, but I want to trust you.”

The words tumbled out, a flood breaking through the dam as more tears slipped down Danny’s cheeks. He could hear talking above now, though the words were lost to the hum around him and the awful buzz still dancing through his ectoplasm.

Lancer was breathing heavily now. He looked at Phantom as though seeing him for the first time, his eyes stretching wide as saucers, capturing enough of the green light around them that they almost mimicked his own.

“D–Danny?” he said in a hushed tone.

The last bit of stone that held that flood back shattered. Tears dripped down Danny’s chin and he nodded, every inch of him shaking at that mere admittance.

He hardly even had to reach for his core. The transformation came to him too quickly, rolling over him in a warm rush that banished the chilliest parts of his core to rest within his chest. He watched the gloves disappear, the bright green scars over his hand fading to white. The lichtenberg figures were faint, though now he could properly see their winding course over his wrist and under the hem of his red sweatshirt. White as they were, the sickly glow of the shield stained the scars just as green as his gloves had been.

“Danny…” Lancer said again, the sound choked in his throat.

Danny hardly dared glance up, terrified of what he might find on his teacher’s face. Disgust? Disappointment? Fear?

He half expected Lancer to call a warning to his parents.

Danny looked up when the elevator groaned, startled as he felt it shift slightly and heard an alarmed sound from overhead.

Lancer was looking at him still, but it wasn’t with any of the fear that Danny had expected. It was tired— sad. Sorrow. The man had shifted slightly where he sat, trying to reach out for him, but had frozen when the elevator shifted. Now he simply sat there, watching Danny with that somber expression.

Danny couldn’t tell if it was just the green light, but he thought he saw the pinprick of tears in his teacher’s eyes.

Dust rained down as something overhead shifted. For the first time since the buttons sparked, light that wasn’t green flooded the elevator as one of the ceiling tiles moved.

Maddie Fenton’s red-lensed goggles swam into view. Danny hated that his first instinct at seeing them was to cower, fear coursing through him at seeing those lenses reflecting the green of the ghost shield.

But if Maddie knew something of Danny’s secret, it didn’t carry into the surprised gasp she gave as her eyes locked onto him.

“Danny! I— what are you doing here? How did—” the words caught in her throat and she gave a minute shake of her head, seeming to come back to where they were.

“Mads?” Danny heard his father’s voice from behind her, echoing in the expanse of the elevator shaft.

Danny hardly heard them as Maddie explained the situation to her husband. He hardly noticed when more of the panels were pulled away and a rope ladder was lowered into the elevator.

When Lancer urged him to climb up it first, he had to tell Danny twice before a fraction of the words made it to his ears. He moved mechanically, his legs shaking as the elevator groaned when he tentatively stood and clutched the ropes.

He paused for a moment when he met the roof of the ectoshield. Even in their rescue, his parents hadn’t deigned to disable the device, though he was sure they could. Danny’s core buzzed uncomfortably as he passed through the wall of green, but it allowed his passage without the sparking jolt that had bit at his hand.

When Jack pulled Danny up with enough force to almost yank his arm from the socket, he allowed himself to be pulled into a tight embrace. He melted into it for a moment before his father had to shift his focus to Lancer, still trapped as he was in the elevator shaft.

Danny could only wait with bated breath as they pulled him up.

He watched as Lancer stumbled out onto the floor of the parking garage, blinking dazedly in the sunlight that filtered through the open windows.

How strange that it was still daylight.

Danny waited, still feeling sure that he had made a mistake— that any moment now Lancer would speak up and spill the truth.

Those thoughts fled his mind when Mr. Lancer’s eyes locked onto him. There really were tears there, welling onto his lashes, brightening the green of his eyes with emotion.

He didn’t speak, just watching quietly.

With both of them secured, Maddie pulled Danny into a hug of her own. She held him tight, asking if he was hurt and smiling proudly at him when he put on a brave face and told her he was fine.

A fraction of that smile even felt real, basking in his mother’s warmth and concern.

It died a little when she said, “We need to scope the area for whichever ghost triggered the shield. If a ghost is willing to tamper with these cables, there’s no telling what other sort of harm they might cause.”

She whipped around to Lancer, the man straightening as her eyes fell on him. For all her short stature, Maddie could be an intimidating, intense ball of fire.

“Did you see anything? Did you hear anything that might help us locate this ghost?” she asked him.

Mr. Lancer blanched, his mouth opening and closing— eyes skirting minutely to Danny as he failed to give her a proper answer.

After a moment, he simply shook his head. Danny felt some of the tension leaving his shoulders, though he still didn’t dare let himself fully relax.

Maddie frowned, disappointment clear in her own slackened shoulders as she sighed. She glanced between her husband and Danny, her expression softening slightly as it landed on him, before fixing her lavender eyes once more on Lancer.

“I hate to ask this of you, William, but would you be willing to take Danny home? I know that you two have been through a lot this evening, but we can’t let this go uninvestigated. If there’s a dangerous ghost lurking in the area, we need to find it before it truly hurts someone.”

Her tone was so sincere, each of her words dripping with resolve.

Lancer just gaped at her, looking between mother and son with utter disbelief.

“I—” he paused, glancing at Danny, looking at him with the same intensity he had before calling his name in that elevator shaft. “Yes.”

Maddie positively beamed, relief and admiration evident in her tone as she said, “Thank you so much; you have no idea how much this means to us.”

Mr. Lancer just nodded stiffly, standing to the side as Maddie pulled Danny into one last hug and kissed his forehead.

His skin burned where her lips touched. His chest felt hollowed out, his core thrumming slightly.

Something colder than the core in his chest ghosted over Danny’s skin when she let him go, turning back towards the elevator shaft to join the investigation with her husband.

Danny stared after them for a long moment, watching as she fell into the task without so much as a glance backwards.

He wiped at his forehead, still feeling the burn of her touch.

Another sigh behind him, longer and deeper than any Danny had heard that evening. He turned to find Lancer standing there awkwardly, wringing his hands with a nervous energy that he rarely saw adults let show.

“Let’s… let’s go then, shall we?” he said quietly.

Danny sighed too. He resisted the urge to glance back at the elevator shaft, already knowing that his parents were too absorbed in their work to notice.

For all the deep fear he’d felt at their arrival, this hollow ache was deeper.

“Y–yeah,” Danny said, swallowing against the tightness of his throat. “Okay.”

Danny didn’t even know why Lancer was in the parking deck that day, and he didn’t necessarily want to ask. The thought of inconveniencing the man from an errand he needed to run would just be one too many awful weights on his shoulders today. Instead, he just followed his teacher to his beat-up silver car, quietly climbing into the passenger seat.

Lancer climbed in on the driver side just as quietly. He didn’t even buckle his seatbelt at first. Didn’t start the car. He simply stared through the windshield, his knuckles whitening on the steering wheel as he sat there and breathed.

Danny picked at the hem of his sweatshirt, lost for words. He couldn’t help but notice the phone lying beside him on the console between the seats.

“Are you alright?” Mr. Lancer asked him. His voice didn’t echo in the car like it had in the elevator, but he still flinched at the sudden sound.

Slowly, nervously, Danny met his eyes again, peering at the man through his bangs. “I guess.”

Lancer’s face crumpled slightly, pinched with sadness, but he nodded. Without saying another word, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys. The car roared into life a moment later, and a moment after they were off.

As they rounded the spiral of the parking garage, Danny found his eyes trailing out the window, locking onto the open doors of the elevator shaft. He could see the bright orange of his father’s hazmat suit, though couldn’t spot his mother before the car rounded the turn, leaving them behind.

Danny’s core squeezed alongside his heart.

Lancer turned the radio up, seemingly needing something to fill the silence, but lowered it just as quickly when the broadcast that filtered through the radio mentioned ghosts within the first breath of the speaker.

They continued on in awkward silence, Danny’s eyes glued to the window but unseeing anything past it.

“They don’t know, I assume.”

Danny had hoped that Mr. Lancer might not acknowledge the ghostly elephant in the room, but he supposed, like with all things, he was never that lucky.

Danny didn't bother to look at the man, choosing instead to just stiffly nod his head.

Another sigh. One too many, enough to grate at Danny’s nerves, but not enough for him to snap at it.

His belly felt too hollowed out for that anger now.

“You… you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to,” Lancer then said, carefully picking around the words like someone navigating a minefield. “You don’t have to tell me anything, really.”

“I know,” Danny said, allowing some bite to enter his words. He needed some measure of control over this situation in which he had practically none to speak of.

In his periphery, Danny could see Lancer nod his own head as he said, “I meant what I said back in the elevator— to Phantom. To you.”

That was enough to make Danny turn his head. He wasn’t sure what street they were on, only that it was a long one with too many stop lights. They’d stopped at each along the way, agonizingly dragging out the drive.

“Meant what?”

As they stopped at another light, Lancer turned his head to look at Danny. His eyes still seemed bright with emotion, though what tears had gathered in his eyes had disappeared.

“That if you ever need someone to talk to, I’m here. You are my student, after all.”

Danny bit his lip. He searched Lancer’s eyes, trying to find any hint of a lie or deceit, but Mr. Lancer truly seemed as sincere now as he had been stuck in that elevator shaft.

“It… doesn’t bother you that I’m a ghost?” he asked him.

There had to be a catch— there had to be a limit to this kindness and Danny would rather find it now than later.

Mr. Lancer’s frown deepened at the word ‘ghost’, but it quirked up into a small smile just as quickly.

“And my student,” he repeated gently. “And a kid, just like any one of my other students.”

Lancer’s smile was wry, hardly there, but it warmed him to see it at all. His voice echoed in Danny’s head as they drove on, the silence feeling much less daunting with those kind words occupying his thoughts.

Lancer seemed to hesitate for a moment before they turned onto Danny’s street. He hesitated another moment before pulling the car up alongside the sidewalk.

His knuckles were bone-white on the steering wheel, every inch of his posture as tense as Danny’s felt, like a cord ready to snap.

Danny didn’t get out of the car at first. He just sat there, staring at the red brick building of FentonWorks and the glaring neon signs over the door. His eyes skirted up to the Ops Center, the shadow looming over him a fiendish thing.

Danny was glad when Lancer did not immediately oust him from the car. He needed that moment to just sit and breathe. To have a space, however fragile, where he felt like he might have someone in his corner who was older than sixteen.

“You would… you really wouldn’t tell my parents?” Danny asked, hardly daring to speak the words allowed. Terrified that he might get confirmation of his worst fears.

Lancer’s eyes widened. He slowly shook his head, mouth slightly slack-jawed.

“No,” he said a little too quickly. “No, not…” He actually did pinch his tear ducts this time, in that familiar gesture he hadn’t been able to back in the elevator. “Pride and Prejudice, Danny, I know when a student is afraid of their parents. I’ve… I’ve seen it before. Not like this, never like this, but still…”

He trailed off, looking ahead, swallowing a lump in his throat as he gathered more of his thoughts.

“Danny…” he began again, the word quavering. “I don’t know how to help you with this. I… I just need you to promise me that you’ll do your best to be safe. That you’ll do the smart thing and ask for help when you need it. That if your parents hurt you…”

He trailed off again, shaking his head. Danny’s parents had already hurt him, they both knew this. It wasn’t an if, it was a when and an again.

“I’ll be careful,” Danny tried to reassure him. “I–I have Jazz, and Sam, and Tucker. They know. They know and they help me, and I trust them.”

He hoped that those words might quell some of Mr. Lancer’s doubts, but Danny’s core thrummed uneasily when his teacher’s eyes just widened with renewed horror.

The man slowly shook his head, a trembling hand rubbing at the bags beneath his eyes.

“You’re all just kids,” he said quietly.

It was true, technically, but Danny hadn’t felt like much of one over the last few months. He had too many responsibilities as Phantom— had seen and faced too many things.

“We can handle it,” he said, trying to reassure himself as much as Mr. Lancer.

He wasn’t sure it worked either way.

Danny glanced back to FentonWorks, his hand tracing the handle of the car door. “Um, thank you for taking me home, Mr. Lancer,” he said, his throat still tight. “And, uh, for everything else.”

Mr. Lancer just nodded. He seemed so tired, the bags beneath his eyes deeper and darker than Danny’s own. His teacher said nothing as he opened the door and climbed out, though seemed to find his voice as Danny went to shut it.

“Wait—” he said suddenly, holding out his hand.

Reluctantly, Danny pulled the door open wider, leaning down to hear what he had to say.

Mr. Lancer studied him for a long moment, eyes flickering over his face as though searching for a hint of Phantom’s glow in his irises.

“My door is always open if you need someone to talk to,” he said evenly. “Whatever happens, that doesn’t change.”

Danny blinked, letting his words sink in. He could feel the sincerity in them and, after everything that had happened today, Danny felt he had very little reason to doubt his teacher.

Nodding, voice still hoarse with emotion, Danny said, “Okay.”

~*~

William did not drive off right away. He allowed his car to idle as he watched Danny Fenton walk up the sidewalk and the steps to his front door. The boy knocked, waiting for a response inside. There was a long pause in which nothing seemed to happen and William was just considering rolling down the window to call out to the boy when he glanced back at him.

William’s heart leapt into his throat as Danny’s eyes met his. Even from a distance, he could see a sharp hint of green in them, the same shade he had grown accustomed to in his time trapped in that elevator. He watched with bated breath as Danny’s gaze lingered on him for a long moment before sweeping up and down the street.

William’s hands tightened on the steering wheel when Danny turned around and stepped through his front door as if it simply wasn’t there.

William let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, a shaky exhale that hardly did the stress of the day any justice.

With one last glance at FentonWorks, finding a simple wooden door where Danny had stood just a moment before, William drove away.

~*~

William stood in the entrance to his apartment for a long moment. Just stood there, hardly acknowledging when his cat came to greet him, brushing up against his ankles with a friendly meow.

He stiffly bent to stroke a hand through his fur, the soft texture feeling stiff and coarse against his numb skin.

Moving mechanically, William shuffled through the kitchen as he set a kettle on the stove to boil. He wasn't even sure how long the kettle whistled before it was enough to shake him from the stupor of staring into open space.

Even once he had his cup of tea, Lancer couldn't stop shaking. He sank down into his favorite armchair by his favorite shelf of books, eyeing the light brown tea in his cup without drinking.

He thought of Danny all the while— of Phantom. Of how long the ghost boy has been in Amity Park and what that must mean for his student.

It had been a year ago, William recalled clearly. A year ago when all of the ghosts appeared— Phantom included.

That must have been when…

A drop fell into William's cup of tea. He watched the ripples as more tears rolled down his cheeks.

His hand shook violently, splashes of the tea spilling into his lap, and William had to set the cup down on the end table beside his chair.

A year. His student had been dead for a year and he hadn't even noticed.

His parents hadn’t, either.

William didn't even want to think what had caused it. Didn't want to imagine what horrors that boy had faced, because he could already picture, far too clearly, plenty of them.

How many times had he watched Phantom fight?

All of the absences, all of the behavioral issues. Everything fell into place, a gruesome puzzle that William had never known needed solved.

He thought, too, of the boy's parents.

How many times had he watched the Fentons shoot at Phantom, aiming their guns without so much as a moment's hesitation?

William hardly noticed when his cat approached, giving a small meow as he butted his head into his hand and slowly picked his way into his lap. When Radio began to purr, the feeling that rumbled through his body was achingly similar to what William had felt from Phantom when he broke down.

When Danny, his student, broke down.

If Radio minded the tears splashing into his fur, he didn't care to move. He simply stuck there, rumbling away in William's lap, heedless of the emotions choking his chest.

William didn't know how long he sat there, mindlessly running his hand through Radio's ginger fur, allowing the cat’s purring to still the last few trembles in his fingers.

William didn't know what he'd do when the summer ended and he had to face that boy every day, knowing just why he raced from his classroom.

All William knew was that he'd keep his cellphone on him this time, always ready to answer just in case that boy needed his help.

If anyone needed that kindness, it was him.

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