#every time i go there i feel like i need to change my degree

[heron-knight]

The Wolf at the Door

finally, the moment I assume you've all been waiting for because I know my audience.

Really, that night was supposed to be perfect. All the paperwork sorted, nothing else needing to be done-- you’d been planning it for a few days. Put it off until the moon was full because you’d had work to do every evening before. A lot, actually, now that you think about it. Over the last few months, there had been quite a noticeable increase in the number of people in town with badly injured pets. Never that bad, but enough to make you wonder if nearly half the dogs in a ten-mile radius had been getting into fights suddenly. You’d been suspecting that some animal had probably shown up in the forest. Something big, by the look of the injuries, but probably an obligate carnivore that wouldn’t waste any more energy than necessary fighting a dog. You may still have just been working as a veterinarian in a small town, but that ecology degree sure wasn’t going to waste. It didn’t really matter now, though, you could leave your work out of this. This was your night. Work finished, medications taken, and with no work tomorrow, it was time for a long evening in the woods. Just you, the forest, and the crisp, chill air of a clear night in late fall. Going over your inventory, it seemed like you were fully prepared-- enough layers to keep you warm until you really got moving, a light with plenty of battery that you planned to use as little as physically possible-- and with some deliberation, a small can of bear spray in case your theory of “obligate carnivore that wouldn’t waste energy on fighting a dog and by extension probably wouldn’t attack a human” wasn’t entirely correct. 

Stepping out onto the porch, one breath of the night air was enough to remind you of why you’d gotten interested in your field in the first place. That intoxicating mystery of the dark. What was in it? What was the source of the sound of crunching leaves behind you as you stroll through the moonlit forest? A feeling like another you’d had before, but a bit less personal. Why’d you have to be born a creature that can’t see it? Human night vision is vastly limited even with time to adjust.  You’d always taken every chance to stay out late, to spend long nights standing in a meadow clipping bands onto owls just to know the species composition of the symphony of nocturnal hunters that you’d spent evenings listening to ever since you had been old enough to stay awake that long. Those little discoveries, those moments in class and in your independent studies when you’d see all those points of data and it was almost like what you needed, almost like being able to raise an ear to the woods and have it speak to you in its language of adaptation and trophic webs-- those were almost as wonderful as your evening strolls, lungs filled with moonlight and heart pounding from sheer wonder as your pace quickened almost subconsciously into nearly a sprint, ignoring the trails and leaping over fallen trees, feeling like a part of this trophic pyramid, this hunt, even tinged with frustration at eyes that couldn’t see well enough to find prey in the dark and legs that wouldn’t be able to keep up with it anyway. When the sounds of the night fill your ears and adrenaline surges through your brain, there’s no more worrying. No more thinking about loans or applications or appointment scheduling or how much time they said visible results would take to show up. No more thinking about how best to bring up the subject of the name you had seen your contact saved under on your mother’s phone even though it hadn’t been yours for nearly four years now. A quick run through the night would always tear all your worries from your mind like teeth tearing into a fresh carcass. Besides, that night there had barely been anything to worry about. The weather was perfect, you knew on some level that she’d change it immediately if you asked, and the slight ache in your chest invited the sneaking suspicion that for once, the overall experience varying from person to person might work in your favor, and things might have been moving ahead of the projected schedule. This was going to be a good night. That is, until the next step sent you falling face-first onto the porch as your foot struck something soft but solid that seemed to-- recoil slightly as you tripped over it. 

In the dim light of the porch, you could just barely see the dark shape that had interrupted your planned excursion. Curled in front of your door, breathing heavily through sharp teeth as the small but certainly alarming pool of blood in which it sat slowly increased in size. Your mind raced through all your experience and training as you stood, limped over to where the… creature… lay, and assessed the situation. Okay, we’ve got a… wolf, I think. There are no wolves in this area, haven’t been for centuries. No, I can worry about that later. It’s… hurt. Definitely. Looks like a big laceration along its side, multiple? From antlers, maybe? Okay, don’t panic… you’re trained for this. Okay… you went through your checklist. Okay, veterinary OR… don’t have one in my house. Patient sedated… no, but it probably can’t move anyway. I’d better stay away from those teeth, though. “Screw it!” you said out loud, reaching down and, with not insignificant difficulty, lifting the animal and carrying it into your house. Damn, this thing is huge. Countless papers and dishes hit the floor as you swept everything off the kitchen counter, ignoring the fact that you had definitely heard something shatter as you placed it carefully on top, then rushed into the bathroom and returned with as many towels as you could carry. The next few minutes were frantic-- rushing around the house, turning on as many lights as possible as you grabbed your personal medkit, as well as a few other things. This was far from an ideal setup, but your confidence was undeniable. Veterinary medicine was how you paid the bills. Wildlife rehabilitation was your passion. Besides, the first wolf in the state in around 200 years would be way too interesting to let die. Once everything was assembled, the kitchen was lit, and you’d taken a second to center yourself, you wasted no time in getting to work. Shave the area around the injury, clean the wound, stitch, disinfect, bandage-- all that was practically instinctual. No time to stop and wonder why the wolf was here of all places. It took a while, a not-insignificant number of stitches, and nearly all the bandages you’d had, but after some time your visitor was patched up, moved to the largest dog crate you could find, (though it still barely fit,) and seemed to be asleep but more or less alive. The satisfaction of a job well done, however, quickly faded as a glance around the room revealed the whole first floor of the house to be a mess of bloodsoaked towels, medical supplies, and all the things you’d thrown aside while tearing the place apart looking for said supplies, not to mention the bloodstains all over the carpet, most prominent from the door to the counter but by no means limited to there. Oh, and then there was the hair. As it turned out, when you shave off a large amount of an animal’s hair to have better access to the wounds and prevent infection, that hair has to go somewhere-- which, in this case, was everywhere, including and especially your favorite coat, which you had forgotten to remove once your plans for a moonlit stroll were interrupted, and was now soaked almost entirely through with blood and seemed to be the source of the stains on the carpet from the kitchen to the bathroom and other parts of the house. Exhausted, irritated, and with the adrenaline having mostly worn off, all you could really manage in response to that whole situation was a long sigh. Cleaning up the house could wait. Who cared if the blood started soaking into the carpet? Besides, you really needed a shower then. 

It hadn’t really gotten into your hair at all, so washing off the blood didn’t take much of your attention. The main reason was that a bit of warm water was perfect for calming down and getting a bit more centered. As good a place as any to go over the facts.

There is a very large wolf in my house. I brought it into my house because… scientific interest. Okay, fine. I like wolves and wanted to help it. Sue me. It is in a crate that I really hope it is too tired to try and escape from, because there is no way it would hold.

There is a very large wolf in this state despite them being extinct in this part of the country for quite some time now, and I think if someone had managed to get them reintroduced to this area, I would have heard about it. Besides, that still wouldn’t explain why it’s so huge.

This very large wolf was injured, probably by a deer, and decided to, out of all the places it could have gone, lie down directly in front of my door. If this area actually did have a wolf population that survived the historical extermination attempts, then they would have to be very good at hiding from humans. This one seems to have actively sought human assistance. 

After thinking for a moment, another realization hit. The wolf has seemed… off, somehow. You’re pretty sure it had extra toes, but you’d have to check to make sure. What exactly was up with this thing? This huge, wounded animal that had shown up, completely alone, in front of your door and despite not having lost a ton of blood, had really been a surprisingly cooperative patient. Something was definitely strange, but you did not have the energy to deal with it then, a glance at your phone as you were drying off with one of the last clean towels in the house revealing it to be 12:27. Maybe you had spent just a bit longer than you had realized staring at it as it lay in the crate. The decision to handle that whole situation in the morning was made nearly instantly, congratulating yourself on your decision to handle everything that needed to be done that night before the walk as you pulled on a robe and staggered into your room, collapsing onto the bed and falling asleep much quicker than the average person with a wolf in their house would have. 

Waking up that morning was a slow process as usual, sped up only slightly by the need to go check on the wolf downstairs. Luckily, you still had some spare dog food left over from when you had taken care of the neighbors' dog a few months back, and besides, it probably wouldn’t be particularly feeling like eating in its current state. That gave you a few handy excuses to stay in bed just a bit longer-- that is, until only a few minutes after you went back to sleep, you were woken up by the sound of the coffee maker downstairs. Several possibilities ran through your head, none of them entirely plausible, but when you hear someone or something using one of your kitchen appliances while being the only thing in the house besides a large wounded animal, plausibility tends to be the last thing on your mind. Okay, possibility one: there is someone in my house. I think I would have remembered if somebody had been over while… all that was happening last night, so someone must have broken into my house in the middle of the night, stayed until the sun came up, and… started making coffee. That theory was quickly discarded, as it made even less sense somehow than theory #2. Possibility two: somehow, despite numerous injuries, the wolf that was last night unable to even react when I was putting enough stitches in it to make a scarf has somehow broken out of the crate (without waking me up), and is now wandering around my house and must have bumped into the coffee maker and turned it on by accident. How exactly a wolf, even one nearly four feet tall at the shoulder, could turn on an appliance on the kitchen counter by accident, was not exactly taken into consideration. Even if it had somehow gotten up onto the counter, it required quite a bit of force to press the buttons. Both theories, though unlikely, were better than no theory at all, so both were kept in mind as you rummaged around in the pile of yesterday’s clothes for that can of bear spray you’d been planning to take on the walk. Whether it was the wolf or an intruder, going downstairs unarmed didn’t seem like the best idea. 

The first thing you noticed upon glancing down the stairs was the hair. Yes, there had been quite a lot when you had gone to bed the previous night, but not this much. The kitchen wasn’t visible from the top of the stairs, but the coffee maker was still on. Where did all this hair come from? It practically coated the floor. At this point, you just had to see what was going on, descending the stairs as quietly as possible and pointing the bear spray in the direction of the noise, not sure what to expect… but whatever you might have been expecting, this wasn’t it. The can fell from your hand, landing with a thud on the carpet as she turned to face you. “Oh, hey… thanks.” she said as you stared, her voice sounding tired and weak. The person that stood in your kitchen, wrapped in one of your blankets and, judging from the lack of any footwear, probably nothing underneath it, reached a shaking hand out from under the blanket and picked up a mug of what… wasn’t exactly coffee, but was more just her attempt at it. For a moment, you caught a glimpse of the bandages wrapped around her midsection, seemingly applied quite expertly but tied at one end as if she’d… shrunk after they were applied, leaving them loose-fitting. The crate that you’d put the wolf into was unlatched, the door left open, and every inch of the cushions inside covered with a thick layer of shed fur. “Got any clothes?” your brain had simply ceased to function, all your concepts of causality and rational thought shattered due to the sheer lack of any possible explanation of how she’d ended up in your house… or where the wolf had gone. 

“Who… I mean… why-- how are you here?” was all you could manage as your mind began to short-circuit for a number of reasons.

“You brought me here.” she said, taking a sip of her not-exactly-coffee and immediately regretting it. “Well… not like-- “here” as in the area, but like, into your house. That’s what I was thanking you for. You didn’t like… summon me or anything." She held up the mug. “I… is it supposed to taste like that? I’ve never actually had any before and I think I made it wrong.” slowly, you started to descend the staircase, walking through the piles of shed fur past the empty crate and into the kitchen. “Um… yeah. I-- I think you forgot to put a filter in the machine. That’s why it’s… wait, but you… how did…” she stared at you for a second, waiting for me to figure it out, even through the clear tiredness on her face, it was obviously visible that she was somewhat disappointed you hadn’t already realized. “Wait!” you shouted, all the puzzle pieces snapping together, but without much conscious certainty due to just how outside the box it was. “You… you were the wolf?” she grinned slightly, a sort of “now you’ve got it” expression as she turned back to the coffee machine and tried to get it to work.

“...right. “Werewolf,” “Lycan”, if you want to get scientific.... Whatever you want to call it. Now, I repeat m’ previous question about the clothes. Kind of freezing my knot off--”

“Then why are you walking around right now?” she was completely caught off guard by the fact that out of all the questions you could have asked, that was the one you started with. The worldview-shattering revelations of the nature of biology itself could wait. Your work wasn’t done. She didn’t try to argue as you led her over to the couch, the conversation having paused completely until she was lying down and you had made completely sure that she understood that she wasn’t supposed to get up again, then rushed off momentarily to get what medical supplies you hadn’t used the previous night.

“You’re handling this information surprisingly well.” she mumbled in between sips of the coffee that you had made as you carefully moved aside the blanket, unwrapping the bandages and sighing with relief upon seeing that not only had that bit of movement not damaged the stitches, but also however her transformation worked, it had kept them in the correct places. The medkit was put back on the shelf, and the bandages were cut into a length that fit her current form better. “Most people freak out.”

“Well,” you said, bringing over a second blanket and placing it on top of her, “that’s a disheartening number of people’s reaction to me, so… I kind of get it.” 

“Oh! You’re also…”

“Huh? No, I’m trans. Didn’t know werewolves were real until a few minutes ago.” she chuckled softly for a moment.

“That was what I meant. So am I.” you both laughed for a minute, (her with some difficulty, but with enough volume to reassure you that her lungs weren’t damaged.) “But similarities aside, usually werewolves turning out to be real takes a bit longer than that to process.”

“You’re my patient.” you said firmly. “Top priority was making sure you didn’t get hurt. Second priority, which is what I can focus on now, is figuring out all the werewolf stuff.” she pondered this for a bit, then spoke.

“Okay… so, what’s your first question?”

“How did it happen?” 

“So, Lycanthropy isn’t exactly… well-known. Real lycanthropy, I mean. They don’t teach you about it in school, or anything. However… As it turns out, we’re pretty good for the ecosystem. We fill a niche that’s been empty for a while, keep the deer population under control… so if you know where to look, sometimes you can find an organization that can turn you. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it sucks. The process, I mean, not the lycanthropy. Ten layers of bureaucracy in between you and actually scheduling your appointment, the crazy long wait time once you’ve actually got it scheduled, all the forms of ID you need to bring in case something goes wrong and they need to identify who it was that just ran into the forest never to be seen again… the actual initial turning isn’t as bad as all the warnings they make you read make it look,” she lowered the blanket around her shoulders, revealing a sizable bite scar. “But it’s not exactly a walk in the park, pun intended. It’s definitely worth it though, if turning is what you needed.” she didn’t seem to notice that you had been silent for a while, lost in thought. “Anyway, I’ve been doing pretty well ever since. It feels amazing, going out on a hunt when the weather’s nice. Can’t exactly go into detail on how it feels without getting a little weird, but I think you’d get it.”

“I think I do.” you said, “but… you should probably rest for a bit. We can pick up on this conversation later.” she nodded and shifted her position slightly. “Hey! Don’t scratch that!” 

One implied threat involving a cone later, you made your way back up the stairs. Even if there were plenty of parallels, processing all that information did take some time. “There is a werewolf on my couch” was one thing, but there was something about that whole exchange that made your mind race and your heart pound. Some reason beyond the surprise, beyond the shock to what you had previously believed, beyond the whole excitement of the encounter, hell, beyond even the fact that even though you hadn’t been consciously paying attention at the moment, you were pretty sure that your legs had started shaking when she’d said the word knot, an aspect of the whole encounter expanded on by the fact that it seemed werewolves did not carry their clothes with them when shifted. No, it was more than just that. Some part of it, some sneaking suspicion that prowled in the back of your mind, clawing like an animal in a cage at the walls of your subconscious, a desire you’d had. One you’d abandoned long ago because you’d thought that life didn’t work like that. An offhand daydream that now filled your mind with one suspicion, one question, now to nobody but yourself-- is it really that easy? Does it really work that well? That question you hadn’t let yourself ask for so long, ignored every time because it hurt to think about when your answer had been no. but… maybe. For now, it stayed as it had been. A sneaking suspicion, but now stronger. Maybe your previous answer was wrong.

Your patient, for the most part, did quite well over the next few weeks-- stayed on the couch, had plenty of appetite, and only whined a little bit when you changed the bandages-- you’d even managed to find some spare clothes for her, though you had to search a bit for some shirts that wouldn’t get stretched. Either lycanthropy made HRT more effective, or she’d been on it for way longer than you had. Only real challenge was that she tended to get lonely. You tried to keep things professional at first, of course, talking to her in your “speaking-to-clients” voice, and offering to move her to the couch in your office for a little extra privacy, but with just how frequently she’d asked you to watch movies with her or wait to make a request until you were just about to leave the house, you’d quickly realized that being professional was not at all what she needed. Even though she knew that she was going to be stuck on the couch for a while, even though she was supposed to just be your patient, all she really wanted was to just be seen as a roommate. You could tell in the way she tried to make small talk whenever you walked past-- how excited she always got when you found something to talk about. Screw “keeping things professional.” She needs someone to talk to.

“Wait…” she said one day as you prepared to make a trip to the store. “Can you get me--” 

“You can just say that you want me to stay for a bit longer” the statement caught both of you off guard, a small comment half out of frustration and half out of hope that she’d take you up on the offer. The room was silent for a second.

“Please?” she asked. Slowly, you walked over to the couch, sitting down on one end of it as she moved her legs out of the way. “I… so, you’ve…” she stammered, moving slightly until she was up against the back of the couch and clutching her pillow. “I was wondering--” with a sigh, you removed your coat, tossing it onto the coffee table and interrupting her request by fulfilling it. She exclaimed softly as you flopped down onto the couch next to her. Gingerly, she moved one hand up, out from under the blanket and placed it in yours. You could feel yourself start to blush as the two of you laced your fingers together, her hand slightly colder than yours but warming up quickly. It was nice-- a sort of soft, quiet confirmation, slowly expanded as you wrapped your arms around each other and you were pulled into a tight embrace. 

“Yeah, it’s okay.” you murmured as she held you, starting to… tremble slightly as you moved your hand in slow, gentle circles along her back. She was surprisingly strong for someone so injured, holding on so tight that you were pretty sure you couldn’t leave if you’d tried. “You’re… really touch-starved, aren’t you.” she nodded. One thing was certain, she had definitely needed this. 

After a minute her hands started to wander, tracing along your arms to all over your upper body, an exploration driven by the desire to know you, to memorize your shape, your scent, your warmth. Just thinking about it, that way she explored, immersing herself in a thousand sensations-- mapping out every part of you with a full sensory profile-- just that feeling was on a completely different level from and of the other times you’d spent a quiet afternoon with someone in this way. That she could understand. It honestly left you envious. How could someone be able to know anything like this? To learn of it in every aspect, the full complexity of something all laid out before them, that near-omniscience that you had searched for in every ecology class, every late night spent listening to the sounds of the forest, every time you had sprinted through the woods on a moonlit evening-- to just breathe deeply and find the truth of it, the nature of it. Beyond your limited human senses, looking down from the top of the trophic pyramid freely. 

“...thanks.” she said, letting her hands rest gently on the sides of your face. “Can I… tell you something?” of course. Of course she could. “I’m just-- feeling really alone. I’m… the only one in the state. Had to drive really far to be turned, even. that’s-- that’s not how it’s supposed to be. We’re not solitary creatures.” 

“Lycans?”

“People.”  she curled forward slightly, pressing her forehead into your collarbone. “Lycans, yes, but also just people. Running through the forest, being able to taste the entirety of nature in a single breath-- it’s amazing, but I… I don’t want to have to do it alone, it’s--” slowly, she relaxed her grip, looking up to face you. “It’s still kind of scary, going into the forest at night. It’s huge, wonderful, delicious, but… the first step out the door is still hard to make. I get scared, out there in the woods. I get scared and then-- and then I can’t shift right and I get slowed down and I get hurt." In her voice, you could just barely hear that tiredness that had been there when she had first arrived at your house, the exhaustion of being afraid, permeating through every other aspect of the words-- the sadness, the hope, even the fear itself. She was silent for a second, then leaned in, her face inches, then centimeters from your shoulder until finally she was close enough that you could feel the movement of her lips as she spoke. “May I?” yes. Please. Do it. That feeling, that warmth as you felt that gentle pressure moving across the side of your neck was enough to make your face feel hot, gasping softly as the kiss traveled upwards towards your face, tight and precise as you first felt it on your collarbone but gradually relaxing until you could feel her tongue running along your throat. Could she feel with her lips how fast your heart was pounding? Could she taste it? There was no possible chance of keeping hold of conscious thought as the flood of sensation rushed through your brain, just the desire was left, just the need for this to keep going. No way to contain the sounds that escaped as she bit down gently on your ear. You didn’t need to contain them anyway. 

“Am I doing good?” she asked playfully before sliding a hand around to the back of your head, pulling you closer again and putting your lips to hers. You couldn’t respond, of course, even if anything but moans could come out of your mouth at this point, you couldn’t say anything as the kiss deepened until your saliva was dripping down the side of your face onto the couch. You got your answer across just fine with how much your legs shook, though-- how tightly you squeezed her shoulder as you felt her other hand brush against your thigh. 

Eventually she pulled back, a single tendril of saliva between your blushing faces. You let out a quiet whine. She had stopped just when things were about to speed up.

“We should… probably wait a bit.” she said. “Full disclosure, sometimes I transform accidentally if I get too excited, and… well, I don’t want to tear these clothes you let me borrow, and you said no shifting until I’m fully healed.” 

“Yeah…” you replied disappointedly, slowly starting to cool down slightly. “You’re right. Don’t want to mess up the bandages.” you were both silent for a minute. “But… just wondering… would you have to stop if that happened?” she leaned forward again.

“That’s entirely up to you.” she whispered into your ear. Gradually, you sat up, making sure to keep holding onto her hand as you moved until her head was resting on your lap. You could feel your heartbeat and hers slow down, no longer as frantic as they had just been, leaving only a gentle sort of warmth that you could feel spreading from your fingertips throughout your body as you began to pet her head. You had one question, one request, that you needed to make. You decided to wait until she was in a state to fulfill it to ask. 

You’d suspected that your guest-- no, your roommate, healed a bit faster than average from the fact that she had been able to walk around (probably shouldn’t have, though) immediately after waking up on the first morning, but this suspicion was quickly confirmed as one day while changing the bandages you had noticed that one of the wounds had closed completely. Maybe it was the lycanthropy, maybe the injuries were never as bad as you had thought they were, or maybe some combination of the two plus the fact that she had something to look forward to once she was completely healed. Whatever the reason, the stitches were out barely a month after you’d put them in and almost immediately afterwards, it had gone from her not being allowed to walk to you not being able to for half the day. You’d thought about it for quite some time, of course-- long before you’d even known that werewolves were real-- but fantasizing about it was simply not on the same level as actually feeling the muscles and bones inside the hand that was holding onto your shoulder twist and snap, nails growing into claws as she shifted halfway through, each sensation changing slightly-- hearing the hot breath against the back of your neck turn to canine panting, feeling as newly sprouted fur brushed back and forth against your skin with each movement-- and then that moment after as she changes back, looking at you expectantly with that expression on her face that could not possibly better convey the question of “did I do good?”, waiting eagerly for you to regain your senses enough to answer. Every moment was laced with that question, the one that had gnawed at the edges of your mind since the first morning-- that desire to keep up, to be on her level, that envy for lack of a better word. At the moment, you couldn’t help but feel somewhat like a chew toy at best, not that you particularly minded. Those weeks and eventually months after she had healed were by far some of the best in your life, understanding what she had meant as your long walks at night became better with company. It still felt like just a walk. She couldn’t exactly hunt that effectively with your human footsteps making so much noise, but she had said it was fine. It didn't feel fine, though, not for lack of the excursions’ quality, but because watching her run circles around you in the moonlight, ducking under low branches and weaving through the trees as if she was swimming through the forest reminded you of what you weren’t.

Or rather, what you weren’t yet. 

“Can I ask you for something?” you said one day as you returned from a morning walk. “It’s… I’m not entirely sure if you could, and I’m definitely not sure that it’s entirely legal, but…” She leapt onto the couch, landing in human form and looking at you, confused but intrigued. You took a deep breath, then asked, the question tearing through its cage into your conscious mind as the words formed on your tongue after too long spent waiting to be said. It felt good to finally say them. She smiled when she heard it, as if she had been waiting for you to ask-- hoping that you would finally request that she do this for you. Four words-- that’s all it was. Four words were all you needed. Described all you needed. Compressed that desire, that need to know the nature of the forest, to know her-- all into one question.

“Can you turn me?”

She grinned, standing and walking towards you before suddenly pulling you close and kissing you. Over the time you’d known her, you’d learned that kisses could say things-- so much potential for all sorts of emotions to be woven into the passion. You could read this one clearly in the warm, gentle sigh right before contact, the sense of relief felt in every moment of it, that slight hunger to it-- 

“Of course~” she said, her face still inches from yours. “I could do it tonight, if you want… I’ll need to prepare you a bit for it-- your room as well. It’s quite an… Involved process.” you nodded, almost frantically, your heart pounding in anticipation. “Good!” she reached up and patted you on the head. “Can’t wait.” She turned and walked up the stairs to your room, pulling the blankets from your bed and piling them in the corner. 

“You didn’t seem surprised when I asked.” you stated as you followed close behind, helping set up your room as she directed. 

“Oh, please.” she tossed the towels she had just retrieved onto the now-empty bed and slid over to you, placing a hand on your chin and staring directly into your eyes. That look on her face made you wonder if she was about to sink her teeth into you then and there. “In all that time I’ve been a werewolf-- hell, in all the time I’ve known they existed and probably even before then-- I have never seen anyone who needed this more than you. I could tell from the way you asked how I became like this.” your face had immediately turned bright red. At first, you had thought that part of the excitement of this relationship was in some part due to the novelty, but that notion was quickly disproven as the days turned to weeks and her ability to set your heart pounding with just a few words had not diminished at all. The two of you continued to prepare the room, removing any breakable objects from it as well as “anything you don’t want getting stained.” she wasn’t exactly specific, but while she said that your posters probably wouldn’t be at risk, it was probably best to take them down temporarily, as apparently you could never tell for sure what might be in the “splash zone.” an average person likely would have been somewhat put off by the vagueness or lack thereof of what exactly the experience would entail, but an average person probably wouldn’t have invited a werewolf into their house, and definitely wouldn’t have upgraded the nature of that invitation upon deeming said werewolf healed up enough to accept. The average person didn’t need this like you did, though. Like both of you did. They didn’t feel that frustration, stuck between barely seeing anything and seeing nothing beyond the range of some horrible light as the only means of experiencing the dark. They didn’t feel the need to breathe in the cold night air like you did, to tear into the nature of things, cracking open bones to drink the truth of the forest from inside. They did not care about the question of “what am I?” and even if they did, they did not come to the conclusion of “not this. No, I am more. Should be more. I’ve been working on it, but I’m not done yet.” 

You shivered slightly as you felt the cold air on your skin, your cheapest towels feeling itchy against your legs as you knelt in the center of the bed, arms by your sides. All you’d been able to do was wait once you’d finished setting up the room. You couldn’t focus on anything else with what you knew would happen in just a few hours, and once the sun had gone down you’d practically rushed through the final preparations-- open all the doors from the porch to your room, make sure you were only wearing clothes that you were okay with being shredded, which did not describe any clothes you owned. You regretted your decision to not find any sacrificial clothing  slightly, not expecting how chilly you would get, but apparently once it started, you’d be heating up really fast and would probably just be out of them pretty soon anyway. The room was dark, with the only light coming from the moon through the window. you stared at it absentmindedly.

“So… what are the towels for?” you asked as she paced around, performing a few final checks and making sure said towels covered the mattress completely. You had been so caught up in the excitement of anticipation that you hadn’t quite asked that much about what exactly the process would entail, not that anything anyone would have said could possibly have stopped you from wanting to do this. She reached over, gently lifting your arm and running a single finger from your shoulder down to your hand. 

“This process isn’t any more clean than it is painless.” she said, moving her hand back up and lightly squeezing different parts of your arm and shoulder, as if trying to find the softest part. “When I had it done, I ended up bleeding from my pores. All over. Bones might end up breaking the skin too, but it’ll heal in a few minutes, and next time you shift everything will know exactly where to go.” it felt nice, somehow-- hearing that last part.-- “next time you shift.” you weren’t just hearing her talk about it now. Now you were part of it-- this side, this aspect of the world. You hadn’t even noticed how separate you had felt from it before, how separate even from the concept of yourself you had been. This is who I am. It was almost strange to think about how meaningless to you the word “I” had been until now-- like snapping out of a daydream, only this was you reentering the present-- your sense of self coming back into focus with your consciousness-- for the first time. The air seemed much more crisp already as you leaned back and she began to gently probe your chest and stomach, one of which was already feeling slightly sore from your other journey towards gaining a body that is truly your own, (which you were quite proud of your recent progress in, though the clothes you’d just bought to compliment it were currently lying in the hallway) and the other because on her suggestion, you’d skipped dinner. “We’ll be finding ourselves some dinner out tonight.” she had said earlier. 

You sat up, returning to your kneeling position as she stepped back and leaned forward into a deep stretch before pulling off her shirt and tossing it into the hallway. “Ready?” you asked excitedly. She gave a short nod. Taking a deep breath, you closed your eyes, letting your arms rest limply at your sides again, relaxing every muscle as much as you could as she gently patted your head. 

“It’s going to hurt.” she said. “But also… so does everything else, really. No avoiding it if you want to live any real life. Believe me, it’s not easy to take the first step off the porch, and that gets more true the darker the forest is. Yeah, parts of it will suck. Parts of it will make you feel like you’re getting torn apart and that you can’t be sure of anything. Hell, parts of it might make you regret it for a second-- make you think that it wasn’t worth it.” she let out a brief sigh before continuing. “But just remember…” you felt her hand slide down from the top of your head to the side of your face and opened your eyes just a bit to see her staring intensely. “That you’re alive, and all that it entails. Things hurt. Things change. You lose people and you find others. Sometimes it's so dark that you wouldn’t be able to see anything without changing, and sometimes you might find one night that you’ve changed and now you can see the whole forest clearer than ever. It’s going to hurt, but… every second is going to feel amazing.” in the dim light, you could see that she was crying slightly. “That’s-- that’s what it is to be alive. That’s what it means to be you. To finally become yourself. The sheer exhilaration of change. It’s the best thing I’ve ever felt, and sometimes there’s been pain along the way, but don’t let anyone tell you it’s not worth it.” she took a deep breath before stepping back once more. “Alright, that’s enough hype. Let’s do this.” You could see a soft smile on her face before you closed your eyes again, focusing on your breathing as you heard the familiar sound of flesh and bones twisting and warping in front of the bed before that heavy thud as paws hit the ground. Then, from where she stood came a long howl. The sound of it carried that same excitement as you had felt on every long night, every moonlit walk, the same anticipation as you’d had that night, just about to leave the house right before the encounter that changed your perception of what you were allowed to be. 

Your heart almost skipped a beat as the large shape before you lept from the floor and landed heavily on the bed in front of you, nearly pitching you forward as her weight pressed into the mattress. You could feel each step she took towards you, one foot, then the other, then the other, then the other until finally you could feel the heat of her breath and the pressure of her front leg on your thigh, claws digging into your skin sightly as she leaned in close enough to taste you. The anticipation was far more excruciating. You flinched as you felt a cold, wet nose against your chest, stationary for a moment before beginning to travel, exploring every inch of you with each inhalation. You knew that she’d already decided on where to bite. Same place she’d had it, same place every voluntary lycan probably had it. Maybe she was just teasing a bit, knowing how it made you blush whenever she explored you like this-- how much it set your heart pounding just thinking about how close her teeth and tongue were to your skin. That, or maybe she was just taking in your pre-turning scent one last time as a sort of “before picture” so that she could see afterwards how much you’d evolved. Finally, you felt as she moved up, standing at her full height over you as you trembled with anticipation, adrenaline, and who knows what else, opening her mouth and running that huge tongue across your collarbone, saliva coating your shoulder and dripping down onto your legs. Focus on your breathing. There wasn’t anything else to do, really, as she leaned forward and gently but hungrily slid her jaws over your shoulder, making sure everything was lined up perfectly, shifting slightly to right between your shoulder and your neck. You could feel the slight pressure of each tooth against your skin, just light enough at first to let you know where they were, where they were going to pierce. She was large enough when shifted that the front teeth on her upper jaw were almost below your shoulder blade.

Slowly, the pressure increased, gradually enough to give you time to take a deep breath first, to grip the towels you sat on so tightly that your knuckles turned white as she began to bite down, feeling it start to hurt, barely noticeable at first but but increasing in intensity until you had to grit your teeth. The seconds seemed to last forever as you waited. 

It didn’t hurt as much as you’d expected as you felt each tooth sink into you, waves of pain shooting through your entire body as they pierced through skin and fat until they dug between the fibers of your muscles themselves. They punctured through soft and yielding flesh seemingly one by one, the longer ones first, sinking deeper into you with every other tooth that broke the skin until you felt molars scraping directly against your collarbone, threatening to snap it in two. It was only half a second of that intense pain until you felt it-- that other feeling, seeping into your shoulder gradually at first, almost indistinguishable from the warmth of the blood starting to ooze from around each still-embedded tooth. Not pain, not numbness-- clarity. You could feel the texture of her teeth through the pain, her saliva soaking into your bloodstream, even the wind on your skin you could feel more clearly than ever before. Another half second passed, then it accelerated, that feeling surging through you, setting every nerve on fire with the sheer amount of sensation that ran through them. It felt like you never felt anything before then, like all your senses had been dulled for your entire life up until that moment. Not the first time you’d felt something like this, but definitely the most intense. You threw back your head and let out a sound halfway between a moan and a scream, your brain filling with so much of this feeling that you could barely even think about the pain.

The feeling soon passed, not gone but settled, as if it had simply soaked into you. You could still feel it, but not as intensely as when it had flooded through you just a second earlier. Gently, she relaxed her hold on you, teeth sliding out of your flesh as blood began to flow from the wounds, running down your body in rivulets and onto the towels. She gingerly ran her tongue along the bite mark, licking off the blood as much as she could as she shifted slowly until it was the lips of her human form that you felt.

“You can open your eyes now.” she said. The moonlight seemed so bright even through your eyelids now, you’d almost forgotten they were closed. She smiled warmly at you, mouth still stained red. “You did really good. How did it feel?” you struggled for a second to remember how to speak.

“...amazing.” you stammered. You couldn’t even begin to describe it, that way your mind had filled with so much of your senses that your consciousness had barely been able to keep up. Your hands were shaking slightly as you reached up to wipe the blood from her face, almost recoiling when you felt how intensely you were now able to feel the warmth of her skin. She patted your head.

“I knew you’d enjoy it. Can you still feel it?” you nodded. “Is it starting to heat up yet?” as you concentrated, you could feel the warmth around the bite starting to intensify. It spread through your body more slowly than that feeling had, a simple increase in temperature as your body detected something that it didn’t want there. Each muscle seemed to tighten until you could barely move your shoulder and the knowledge that something was happening began to seep into the back of your mind. You nodded again, and she seemed almost surprised. “It’s starting already?” she said as she reached behind you and straightened the towels on the mattress. “Wow, okay… thought you’d have a bit more time to catch your breath, but… just lie back. The more hands-on part’s done. You can let your body take it from here.”

With her help you managed to lie down, the wounds on your back sticking uncomfortably to the towels as your shoulder started to feel painfully hot. She leaned over you and stared directly into your eyes before she spoke.

“The initial shift’s about to happen.” she whispered, squeezing your hand. “I can’t really say for certain what it’ll be like for you, but… I think you’re going to do great and it’s going to feel great. I’m here if you need me.” you looked up at her and smiled.

“I really wish I’d known you back when I was starting my transition.” you said. “Would have been a lot easier.”

Slowly, a dull ache began to permeate through you, starting in each joint and spreading quickly outward until every part of you felt sore and tender. You wanted to stretch, but somehow you already knew that it wouldn’t help. This part is just going to suck for a bit. The pain didn’t turn sharp immediately-- It didn’t instantly give way to the twisting and snapping you’d seen in each of her transformations-- it just got louder as you curled up as tightly as you could, trying to keep your focus on the sensation of her fingers gently pressing into your back, providing some small relief from the soreness. She knew what this felt like. The pain never seemed to reach your mind, though. It didn’t cloud your thoughts like you’d initially expected it to. When you’d first felt it creeping into your muscles, you’d thought that it would only be a few minutes before you were a quivering mess, unable to concentrate on anything but how much it hurt, but… you didn’t give it the satisfaction. Even as it started to get so bad that you began to toss and turn, whimpering almost involuntarily as your whole body felt like it was filled with needles, it never felt to you like anything more than an annoyance. Yeah, it hurt. Like no cramp or pulled muscle ever had before, but you didn’t care. You didn’t care because this wasn’t just pain. There was a reason for it, one that you agreed with so you didn’t care if there was a bit of soreness in the way. You sat up and hugged her tightly. So what if it hurts. You thought. It’s worth it, because even if I- WAIT, WHAT THE-- you fell backwards as you felt it, that sudden jolt that surged through you, muscles twitching as it hit. You heart was pounding, mind racing, entire body shaking as you felt things begin to move beneath you skin. The warmup was over. It was time for the main event.

As the sounds of the night began to come alive just outside the window, every part of you felt like it was folding in on itself and it felt wonderful, each breath sending a pulse of elation though you as your ribs started to warp. What had you expected? Did it even matter? No. no it did not, because nothing your before-self could have imagined could ever compare. Could not compare to the feeling of muscles severing and reattaching themselves, of the flesh of your fingers fusing together as dead skin fell from your fingertips, new cells coating them with a rough paw pad, of the structure of your jaw snapping under the sheer force of its own growth before being pulled back together as your teeth began to lengthen. Nothing could compare to just how alive it made you feel. Each second felt more right than the last, each bone setting itself into its new position feeling like it was always meant to go there, skin itching right up until the moment that fur began to sprout from it-- and something else. Something that you felt as strongly as any physical change, racing freely through both your body and mind as each second twisted them together until there was barely any distinction between the two. Something that you could hear even as your ears moved from their former positions to the top of your gradually elongating skull. Something you tried to put into words, but all that came out was a howl that expressed it better than any language ever could have.

It’s you. Finally, all of it-- all of yourself. It’s you. 

The moonlight tasted clearer on the tongue of what you were than the human you would have died as otherwise, each breath carrying a symphony of scents. The night itself seemed to be what drifted up from the open door downstairs, everything you’d stayed up late pondering now as tangible to you as the floor beneath your feet as you rose shakily from the bed, fur soaked with your own blood and tail wagging like it was the first time you’d ever actually been able to express happiness. She followed shortly after, leaping from the bed with two legs and landing with four, circling around you excitedly. You laid down for a second, letting her explore you as she’d done dozens of times before, licking the blood off half just to know what you tasted like now. 

You rose to your feet and together, descended the staircase and stepped out onto the porch. You’d never thought of the night as empty. Cold, yes-- painfully out of reach, but not empty. Content with the knowledge that it was alive, even if you couldn’t see it. You had thought you were content with it, at least. Feeling the night like this now, every sense telling you all the information that was now within reach, leaping from the porch and sprinting with her into the forest made you realize retroactively that just knowing what you were missing was not enough.The euphoria that came from that night, running through the dark in which you could now see, being a part of it, was as wonderful as the first time you’d worn clothes that made you realize the meaning of the word. Singing in long, single notes that could be heard for miles, no longer simply pondering the mysteries of the forest at night but being one of them. A sound in the symphony for all to hear. For others to ponder themselves and maybe, just maybe, to follow if they allowed themselves to open the door.

[autisticfaun420]

My life with level 2 (part 1)

I'm making this post to share some things about my life and give an idea about what my support needs are

1. Every morning I wake up sealed in my cubby bed, an enclosed bed that keep me trapped inside so I dont wander and hurt myself or roll out and have a meltdown (common things that happen with me and regular beds). It's also soft so I don't potentially bang my head against something hard. you're probably wondering well how do I go to the bathroom at night. That brings me to my next point.

2. Every morning after opening up my cubby bed either my mom, dad, caregiver, or occasional close friend takes me to my changing station in my room and begins to change my diaper. Thats right I was NEVER able to potty train and due to EXTREME sensory issues I am unable to change myself. This means I need constant super vision as I always need someone to change me, also calm me down if meltdown, etc. I simply have no way to tell I need to go, 1 or 2, till its much too late. So yeah diapers are an all day thing not just at night.

3. I'm older then 20 and my parents are l now my legal guardians for life, and if they can't do it I have friends that will step up. I'm not sure exactly what this means legally but I take it to mean Im basically still a kid to them on like, every level. They respect my intelligence but they still set the rules. One that always kind of gets people mad but then they understand is the fact that I have child safety internet settings on my tablet and phone, I can't access most social media websites and I'm not alliowed YouTube only YouTube Kids. This is because my parents and close friends agree that these teenage boys from a nearby town were trying to make me an "lol cow", basicallly a target for online harassment and bullying and trolling me because I was special needs and active on social media. Tumblr with my parents having the username and password and log ins and they check it every day is all I get. My friends and parents show me things from TikTok and Youtube that they think i'll like so I don't miss out. Oh yeah and I would binge watch horror and terror content on youtube, something that a lot of autistic people do apparently, however I mentally can't handle it. I wake up and freak out and hit myself all night and lose sleep for a week and end up in a mental hospital cause I'm hurting myself and not sleeping. Not fun... at all. I had unrestricted internet access as a teenager and I'm glad that part of my life is over. My parents do however let me eat cannabis edibles every day so its not like they're over protective, just protective in the way I need.

4. My parents are my emotional coregulators and I rely on them heavily, a lot of the time just to know how I'm feeling. I break down emotionally frequently and if my parents or a select few of my friends aren't there to cuddle me and rub my back the right way, I FREAK out and start hitting myself cause my brain is a bit nutty I guess. I'm needy with those I love to a rediculous degree. I'm a lot better, still not great, at self soothing. Self soothing is an oxymoron for me. I kinda need to be with somebody to be told to calm down, encouraged to come out my shell, praised when I do something good, and just having a hand to hold. My mom is rubbing my back encouraging me to write this out like I said I wanted to do.

5. I need to stim, constantly. I'm always rocking, fidget toy and plushie in hand chewing on my chewing laynyard, you get the idea. I also need audio and visual stims which I get in the form of watching bright colorful little kid shows on my tablet like Blues Clues and Daniel Tiger. I think this is why people don't think I'm smart but its just who I am and what my needs are.

I think this is a good starting point, I'll make a part 2 later.

[whentherewerebicycles]

I am not really an avid Purchaser of Objects but periodically I like to take stock of things I’ve bought that turned out to be excellent quality or worth investing in. here are my favorites:

thousandfell’s women’s lace-up sneakers. vegan leather and insanely comfy. took them as my only pair of shoes on a very walking-intensive trip to japan and south korea and ended up exclaiming aloud many times “god I can’t believe how comfy these are!!” they’ve lasted two full years of heavy wear and are still going strong.

the LL bean women’s mountain classic anorak. this is the only jacket I have ever needed in the PNW. it’s insanely lightweight so it’s perfect for brisk but not too cold days (and also amazing for travel as it folds down so small), BUT it’s also roomy enough that you can layer a sweatshirt under it and comfortably wear it outside in temps as low as 35 degrees. it also has SO MANY HUGE POCKETS which means I can carry everything I need for the dogs and the baby in just my jacket lol. I own it in two colors and wear it every single day.

able’s mamuye leather tote. I believe this was a rec from sasha? I had been searching high and low for a bag that looked professional for work but was still casual enough to use as an everyday or travel tote too. I wanted something simple, durable, and high quality enough that I could use it for a really long time. I splurged for the kind with a zipper and it was worth it! the one change is I wish it came with an organizer or had a bit more built-in structure. I got a cheap one off amazon which works fine and gives it a nice shape, but idk I might eventually buy the one they sell specifically for this bag. I love this bag so much that every time I see it I gasp inwardly at how beautiful it is and how fancy yet low-maintenance it looks. I think your favorite objects should be so beautiful to you they make your heart happy when you see them and this bag definitely qualifies.

karina dresses. the prints can be hit or miss and sell out pretty fast so you have to jump on the new collection releases when they email you. but almost every work dress I own is from this company and I love them so much. they’re super well made, flattering, and cut in a way that makes them very forgiving if your body (like mine) tends to fluctuate up and down in weight a lot. they are so forgiving that I didn’t have to buy any new maternity clothes for work—I just wore these through my whole pregnancy. the one thing that might not work for everyone: they’re made from a synthetic fabric, which means they never wrinkle and hang-dry very quickly, but also idk I do prefer the feel of cotton or linen or another more breathable natural fiber.

speaking of natural fibers: I also purchased a few skirts and a dress from pact (organic cotton basics) and I really like them so far but don’t yet know how they’ll hold up over time! so they get an honorary mention for now.

the thomasville tisdale sectional. this is the greatest couch ever made. I evangelize for it every opportunity I get. it’s so comfy and so gigantic. you can rearrange the modular pieces to form a very comfortable queen-sized bed if you don’t have a spare room or if you just want to have a really cozy movie night. I’ve had it for three years and it gets a lot of wear and tear with the dogs but it still looks and feels SO nice. plus it’s costco and their insane return policy means that if it falls apart in five years (it won’t) I could almost certainly still take it back and get a full refund. best! giant! couch! ever!!!!

ok that’s it lol everything else I own apart from art and quirky sentimental objects is kinda junk, or is just Fine but not worth writing home about. do you own high quality objects or clothing that you love recommending to other people? if so I want to hear about it.

[ijustlikereadingcutefics]

Lando really landed in Melbourne, felt the Australian sun hit his skin, and immediately decided to pick back up his hobbies and go all in.

We keep asking what's in the Australian air, but I think it's just the sudden lack of seasonal depression hitting him all at once

[thotsfortherapy]

having mommy issues be like I hate that you know me I hate that we’re related I hate that you birthed me I hate that you don’t know how to love me properly I hate that you can’t see how much you hurt me I hate that I’m expected to love you

[the-casbah-way]

i'm not doing anything !!!!!!!!!!!!!! i'm not fucking doing anything !!!!!!!!!!!!!! i just sit and rot and worry and yearn whilst other people are out there living and feeling and breathing and experiencing and still i just do nothing !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[darkbluekies]

In the hands of a madman 2024 ver

Doctor!yandere oc x reader

Summary: a doctor is very peculiar about his favorite patient, and senses a threat once they disobey him.

Warnings: yandere, poison, murder, cuff restraints

Word count: 2.4k

You gag.

“Yes, yes, I know”, he coos, grimacing and removes the wooden stick out of your mouth. “I’m sorry.”

You're left with a bitter taste in your mouth. Why does he always stick that thing as far down your throat as humanly possible? You thank heavens that it’s not one of the needles extracting blood from your arm, although you’re sure that’s what’s waiting tomorrow.

“Still nothing?” you ask cautiously. 

He meets your eyes and you know immediately. You sigh heavily. Your heart sinks to your stomach. 

Every three months, he’s doing all sorts of tests to see if you’re getting better — or what’s what he’s saying. Every three months, Dr Kry has to check every vital sign on you to make sure that his sickness isn’t getting out of his control. But you don’t like them. They hurt. Badly.

“Will I ever get to go home? I want to.” 

Dr Kry sighs and sits down on his rolling stool, coming over to your bed.

“I know you do, but you that’s not possible”, he says apologetically. “You know that too.”

“Yeah, because you keep reminding me”, you mutter. 

“That’s better than giving you false hope, isn’t it? Wouldn’t that drive you insane?”

It would, but you don’t say it out loud. Doesn’t need to.

“I want to go home!” you say again, louder this time. 

“Saying it louder won’t make you better or me change my mind”, Dr Kry says. 

You sigh and press your palms to your eyes, trying to press the tears back into your eyes before they escape. You’ve been here for too long by now. You’ve been isolated for so incredibly long. ALl you want is to go home. You know no one, talk to no one beside him. The proper, sophisticated man who’s stiffer than a stick. Dr Kry sighs and moves closer. 

“I know that you’re disappointed”, he says and puts his large hand on your shoulder. “But this is for the best. “I don’t want you to get worse.”

“I hate these fucking tests! They hurt.”

“I know.”

He glances towards the white air purifier on the shelf beside the bed. The poisoned air purifier. He’s always making sure it’s not too much, not too little. Just the exact amount to keep you where he wants you — weak and vulnerable, dependent on him. 

“I know it’s hard”, he says encouragingly. “I know that you’re in pain, but you’re doing so good. You can always call for me if you need me, okay? I’m available all day and night for you.”

You press forward a smile, but can’t help but feel a wave of sadness wash over you. Why did this happen to you? Where did you go wrong to end up here? How could a sore throat get you bed bound in a hospital room? If only you knew. 

“Let’s get you tucked in again”, Dr Kry says and helps you lie down in bed. “You shouldn’t be putting to much pressure on your body.”

He pushes up your pillows, having you lie in a 45-degree angle. It helps you breathe at night. He always tucks the blanket close to your body, as if you were a butterfly in a cocoon. He gives you a small smile before standing up. 

“Please don’t go”, you whisper. “I don’t want to be left here.”

The man looks at you, studies you carefully before nodding and sitting back down. He wipes your lonely tear with his finger. He looks at his wet finger, thinking. 

“I feel helpless”, you admit. “I don’t think I’ll ever get well again.”

Little do you know that’s exactly what he wants. 

“It’s okay, Y/N”, he says. “I will take care of you. I will stay with you until you’re well again.”

He has to force back a smile. 

“I don’t want to do these anymore”, you say monotonously. 

“I know you don’t, but you have to”, Dr Kry says apologetically and moves closer to the bed on his rolling stool. “They’re important.”

“They hurt …”

“I know, but you’re doing so good, okay? I’m so proud of you.”

You give him a small, painful smile. 

“I’ll sit here until you fall asleep, don’t worry”, he says. “I’m not going anywhere.”

You close your eyes slowly. He fades out. 

He takes blood tests the following day. Needles, pain.

“Now, you need to take a nap”, he says and tucks you in. 

The daily afternoon nap. You hate it, but he insists. While you sleep, he’s out taking care of other patients that are not you. He hates it, hates wasting his time and skill on people that aren’t you. Those patients are one time patients that are there for surgeries, consultations or checkups. No long term patients that have to stay in the hospital. Everyone gets to leave after he meets them. Everyone but you. You stay. 

You keep your eyes closed until Dr Kry leaves the room. Quickly, you sit up and get out of bed. After all these fucking tests, you’re deserving of something else than the tasteless cardboard Dr Kry gets you. Just one brownie. Something that has sugar. And maybe some coffee for caffeine too. 

Quietly, you sneak out into the corridor. There’s something about these sterile passageways that makes the hair on your back stand on its end. Is it the dehumanized area or the fact that you’re never allowed here? Is it nerves or excitement? Whatever it is, you decide to speed up your steps and hurry towards the elevators before anyone sees you. They’ll tell him. Just as the doors are about to close, someone stops the doors. A boy dressed in a similar hospital gown as yourself forces his way into the elevator. He gives you a rushed, apologetic smile. 

“Sorry”, he says sheepishly. “I am in a hurry.”

“What happened to you?” you ask and smile halfly. 

“I escaped from the therapist. A real pain in my ass.”

You can’t help but giggle. The young man licks his lips and runs a hand through his hair. 

“Have you met her?” he asks. “The therapist?”

“No”, you say. 

You haven’t met anyone but your stiff and proper doctor. 

“Don’t”, the young man advices you and leans his back against the wall. “She’s mental. I honestly think she should be the one getting interrogated — not me.” He looks at you, eyes narrowing. “I haven’t seen you before.”

“Do you meet others?” you ask. 

“In the lounge. Have you been there?”

You shake your head and lower your eyes. 

“Did you just arrive?” the man asks. 

You shake your head again. 

“How long have you been here?”

“A while.”

The elevator stops and the doors open at your floor. 

“Are you going to the cafeteria?” the man asks. 

“Yes”, you reply. 

“I’m coming with you. Maybe you can help me blend in.”

“Okay.”

The boy seems frantic, but happy. Running on adrenaline and excitement. Together, you walk through the hospital to the cafeteria and realize that you don’t have any money. Your shoulders fall. Did you come here for nothing? 

“Aren’t you going to order something?” the young man asks. 

“I don’t know”, you reply quietly. 

Before you have the time to come up with a lie why you can’t order anything, you recognise something in the corner of your eye. A blonde man dressed in a white robe. You feel your blood run cold. 

“What do we have here?” Dr Kry asks and you have a hard time reading his tone or facial expressions. “What do you think you are doing out of bed?”

He walks over to you and grabs your shoulder. You flinch. His grip is … tight. Painful. 

“You’re supposed to rest”, Dr Kry says shortly.

He looks at the young man. His eyes seem to go right through him. 

“Where are you supposed to be?” he asks. 

He doesn’t answer. Dr Kry gives him a cold gaze before grabbing your upper arm in a tight grip. He doesn’t say anything as he starts to pull you with him. His steps are quick, steady. Angry. 

“Doctor …”, you try.

He doesn’t answer. Dr Kry pushes you into the elevator and presses the button. He doesn't let go of your arm.

“Doctor, I’m sorry”, you say. 

He still doesn’t answer. You barely dare to look at him. There’s something about his face that scares you. It's stoic, unreadable. But he oozes anger. Like a dark cloud.

The elevator stops, the doors open. His tight grip remains as he drags you back into your room.

“Lay down”, he instructs shortly.

You do, too scared to disobey. Dr Kry walks past you, to the drawers by your bed. He rips out two leather bands that look like belts for dolls. Before you're aware of what he's doing, he's strapped one of your wrists to the bed railing.

“Wait, doctor-”, you blurt out.

“Be quiet.”

He locks your other wrist to the other railing. You tug at the restraints, and find them secure.

“Are they too tight?” Dr Kry asks, still with that short tone that sends icy needles down your spine.

“Doctor, what are you-?”

“Answer the question. Do they hurt?”

“No.”

“Good.”

He turns to his desk, ignoring you.

“Doctor, I'm sorry”, you say.

“You broke my trust”, he says without giving you any attention. “It's important, for your healing, that you do not deceive me. I need to be able to trust that you do as I say. How many times have you done this?”

“Only this time, I promise.”

He doesn't answer. You feel how your eyes fill with tears. Your body is in such a vulnerable state that your body betrays you. You didn't want to upset him, didn't want to put your own health at risk by doing this. 

“I'm sorry, doctor”, you sniffle. “I didn't mean to break your trust.”

He sighs and turns his head to look at you. His blue eyes soften and he rises from his chair, coming over to your bed. He can't stay mad at you, not when you're clearly dumb. You don't understand, he can't be mad at you for not understanding. He should — and is — mad at himself for not foreseeing these situations and making sure you don't do it.

“You know that I only want what's best for you, don't you?” he asks and wipes your tears with his hand.

“Yes”, you reply.

“In that case, I want you to never repeat this mistake. Mistakes are forgivable, but they should be minimized, do you understand that?”

“Yes. Do you forgive me?”

He has to force back a smile. You're so unbelievably cute.

“Yes, I do forgive you”, he says. 

“Can you take off the restraints?”

“No. I might forgive you, but I need you to know what happens once mistakes occur. This is the consequences that follow. If I can't trust you to be where I want you to be, I need to take precautions to make sure you are.”

You lower your gaze.

“Who was that, by the way?” he asks. “That young … man. Why did you speak to him?”

“I don't know, he took the same elevator as me.”

“I don't want you to speak with him again. If he's the one they're looking for, I don't want you getting influenced by his reckless ideas.”

“I don't get to speak to anyone, anyways.”

“And that's how it should be. We don't know why you're sick, and you shouldn't contaminate someone else.”

“What about you, then? You can get sick too.”

“I'm ready to take that risk.”

He's too nice, you think. All he wants is to take care of you and you put his selfless risks to hell when you decide to disobey him. How horrible of you.

“Now, you need to take that nap for real”, he says. “I will sit by my desk. If you need something you can just let me know.”

He walks back to his desk and sits down, starting to file some paperwork. You tug at the restraints. You're not going anywhere.

When you’ve fallen asleep, Dr Kry makes his way through the hospital. They’ve captured that young man and put him back into his room … and Dr Kry wants a talk with him. He opens the door quietly. The young lays in bed, sleeping. Dr Kry circles around him, taking a good look at him. Did you find him cute? Hot? Did you like talking to him? Did you think that he was better than him? Did you enjoy those ten minutes with him more than these months with Kry? Do you want to meet with him again? He glares at the sleeping man. Dr Kry walks over to the supply closet, an identical to the one in your room, and takes out one of the spare pillows. Silently, he walks over to the bed, lifts the pillow and presses it over the young man’s face. He widen his eyes, pulled out of his slumber. He screams against the pillow, his voice getting muffled in the fabric. 

“Normally, I’d make this easy for you”, Dr Kry grunts as the man starts to fight against him. “Out of pity, but you don’t deserve that mercy.”

He screams in confusion, fear. Dr Kry can make out words. What. No. Help. Stop.

“Just give in and give yourself that mercy”, Dr Kry continues. “If you continue to fight against me, you’ll be in more pain.”

The man cries. Dr Kry breaks out into a smile. 

“You’re going to die either way, you can choose to end it quicker.”

The young man doesn’t seem to get the memo. He continues to fight, cry, plead. He drinks it all in. The horror, the helplessness. The dear in headlight. He has seen the light in people’s eyes disappear multiple times during his job as a doctor. To see the moment someone becomes just a piece of flesh. He has never enjoyed it as much as now. The man stops moving. Dr Kry removes the pillow and takes a step back, looking at the lifeless body. He breathes out. Finally, he can calm down. 

And now, all he needs to do is to make sure he can not be traced back. 

He finds you sleeping soundly as he comes back to your room, wrists still locked to the sides of the bed. You make his heart ache. He sits down beside you, brushing his fingertips over your cheek. 

I control your life, my little one. You’re going to say with me and I’ll take every repercussion to make sure you don’t disappear. 

[andhumanslovedstories]

I am not closely following the election results tonight, but I am occasionally seeing flashes of them out of the corner of my eye. The most obvious sign that things aren’t going well right now is the complete lack of celebrating on my dash. I know what tumblr looks like when it’s happy. Maybe I’ll go to bed tonight and see something different in the morning. I hope to god that is the case. But I’m thinking about the way I’m thinking right now, and I want to get some stuff down before the future kicks in.

In 2016 I was in a period of my life I affectionately refer to as as my fuckup era. I wasn’t even fucking up really. More just chilling out and falling short of the vague expectations I’d had about what I was supposed to be doing after I graduated college. While my friends from college rented apartments in the city and got jobs that didn’t supply you with a uniform shirt, I lived at home and worked as a barista at a fancy movie theater. That’s a real job you can do for almost five years. I didn’t have a clue what the back half of my twenties should look like. The only long term plan I had in my life was moving out west with my best friend, and my plan for finding a job once I was out there was basically to cross my fingers and hope.

Those days weren’t bad on the whole, but it felt like I was not actually living a life so much as I was goofing off in the waiting room. Sometimes that felt embarrassing, sometimes it felt fun, and sometimes it felt like I was completely pointless to the world.

On 2016’s Election Day, I went to bed early. After watching the votes come in, I needed the night to be over. I woke in a world that felt different than it had been the night before—not just in the actuality of who would be president but down to its foundations. I realized for the first time how much hope I’d had in human nature because now I didn’t feel it anymore. It’s almost silly when I think about it—so many horrible things had already happened that year, people had done horrible things as long as there have been people, and I didn’t think I was naive to that—but something clicked into place that morning.

It felt the same way my world had changed a year earlier, in 2015 during my last semester of college. My college victory lap felt like a prolonged downward spiral. Very early in the morning on a Monday, after pulling an all-nighter and overwhelmed by self-loathing that I could not just motivate myself to work on a paper that had been my only thought all weekend, I self-harmed for the first time in a way that was impossible to pretend it was anything else. Earlier that weekend, I’d tried staving off the urges drawing or writing on my arm, something that did (and does) usually work. I’d written this quote in silver sharpie on my forearm: “Good is not a thing you are. It's a thing you do.”

I picked that quote from the Ms. Marvel comics and liked the words so much, I thought that I wouldn’t be willing to purposefully mess it up by hurting myself there. Didn’t work. They just made me feel more ashamed of myself as I did it.

That was the worst I had ever felt. Then, on the Friday of that week, a friend of mine was senselessly, brutally murdered.

It doesn’t feel now like there was ever a time before her death. My memoir class is now where I wrote about her. My favorite professor is now the one who held me as I cried. My final thesis, the culmination of my history degree, never got finished and certainly never got polished. I turned it what I had and got an A minus. Sometimes I think of rereading that paper to see if that’s the grade it actually deserved. We hadn’t been the closest friends, but my name was still on the email admin sent to professors, listing students who might be emotionally affected by this tragic event. Grace’s murder hangs over every memory I have with her and everything she ever touched. It feels like its own type of obliteration to leave her reduced to her death.

Grace wanted to be a lawyer because she believed in justice and also liked arguing. She could be rude when she wasn’t interested in what you were saying. When you caught her attention, you felt like the most fascinating person in the room. She was so proud of being Jewish. I watched her become proud of being gay. She was so universally friendly that it took me a year to realize that she actually liked specifically me. She had a somewhat silly laugh and an astonishingly luminous smile.

I thought less of the world and the people in it because of how she died. Trump’s election in 2016 felt like that.

After he won, I left stasis. From November through December, I thought harder about my future than I ever had before. Who did I want to be? What did I most value? What did I think was worth protecting? What work wouldn’t kill me to do? At one point, in presumably a fit of madness, I thought, “what if I got into politics.” Epiphany eventually hit me. By the time of Trump’s inauguration, I was already enrolled at community college, getting my pre-reqs for nursing school.

Now it’s election night again, eight years later. I live on the west coast with my best friend, in a house that we bought together. I work as a nurse in a hospital in a city where there are homeless encampments off every highway and someone begging for change on every corner. Meanwhile, there’s Palestine. Meanwhile there’s Sudan. Meanwhile refugees drown in the sea and border patrol shoots jugs of water. Even hurricanes have human cruelty now.

I don’t think people are inherently good or the universe inherently kind. But I am very good at tricking myself into thinking it for a little while, and when I do, I can remember the a specific feeling from Friday of my senior year, from that morning in November— how fucking hard the disappointment hit me because I had expected people to be better than this. It makes me want to be better than that.

I believe, and hope that I always will, that we can make a better world. I don’t know what it looks like, but I think I will see it in my lifetime. Those of us who can believe such things owe a bit of that naïveté to the world—not to excuse atrocities or think them impossible but to believe that we can stop them at all. You have to have a couple people sprinkled around who are genuinely shocked when people do bad things. It’s not that the pessimists are wrong, but you need the occasional counterbalance. I want to be a reasonable cynic’s pleasant surprise.

Every shift, I interact with people at their lowest and worst. I see the direct pipeline from pain to anger to violence, and how fragile that pipeline can be. So many situations can be changed by things as small as a warm blanket or a kind word. Violence can be quite easy to avert. Crises can be quite simply to resolve. Even when I know that whatever I do that shift will not change the circumstances of a person’s life, I think that what I do that shift still matters.

I’m lying in bed, writing this post instead of looking at the news. I wonder how tonight will change me. Been thinking about what I’ll do if Trump wins. Been thinking about how whatever I think I need to do under Trump will still need to be done if Harris clutches out a victory. I guess this is a pessimist’s optimism: to a degree the election doesn’t matter. Good is not a thing you are. It is a thing you do. Our better world will always take a lot of work.

But please god please, why can’t it be just a little easier to do it?

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

All these ADHD success stories have me in tears because that could have been me, and sometimes it was me, but I still couldn't make it. Three years of attempting the same two semesters, countless meetings with counselors and support services and professors, med dosage increases, mental breakdowns, love and support from a classmate who unofficially adopted me (who I haven't spoken to since I dropped out)... Nothing to show for it but burnout and trauma.

Can it ever get better from here? I feel hopeless.

I'm so sorry. I'm not sure people realise just how fractured your self-esteem becomes when you fail out of an academic course; it properly haunts you, and for a long time afterwards.

I failed my first degree thanks to my own undiagnosed ADHD. I have a very typical story among our people - female, high-achieving in high school, fell apart in university. It was my second year where everything suddenly went wrong. I did not turn in a single assignment on time. I physically, mechanically, could not get myself to write them until the night before the final two-weeks-late deadline, when I'd have to pull an all-nighter and hate life and myself and eventually hand it in in the morning and then sleep for the rest of the day. My attendance was utterly appalling, particularly for a 9am lecture; trying to get up at 8 was a task roughly equivalent to trying to walk on water. I had to resit the exams I'd failed every summer. A particular low point was missing an exam because I didn't realise I even had it; I'd attended so few lectures that I hadn't heard the lecturer say it existed. I remember lying in bed at night and crying, full on sobbing, because I knew something was wrong with me but I didn't know what had happened. I'd always been so good at this, always had such good grades; it was part of my identity, both for myself and how others saw me.

And like. What else can you blame that on? What other explanation is there, other than 'laziness'?

I did better in my third year; I was determined to attend, and get assignments done. I was better; though still a long way from perfect. But so much damage had been done by then. I had better marks, but there was one single module whose assignment I passed but whose exam I failed; I just needed to resit the exam.

And I simply couldn't bring myself to do it. There was too much shame, too much guilt. I honestly couldn't fathom what the point of even trying was. I was so burnt out and broken by then. And then I had to pick up the pieces afterwards and return to life, surrounded by friends who had made it, with nothing of my own to show.

It was a few years later that I decided to go back to uni and try again. By then, I was doing it for a different reason - I wanted to prove to myself and the world that I could do it, I think. I was a bit older and a bit wiser by then; enough that I chose to be very honest with myself at every step, and could start putting systems in place to succeed. This time, it was a small class, so the lecturers all knew me by name rather than letting me fade into the background; I studied part-time to avoid overwhelm; I altered my own deadlines to be a week early, and I forced myself to write to them.

I think a crucial part was also changing how I viewed the degree, and my attitude to higher ed. Before, I did uni because "That's what you do after school". I saw it as a bigger high school with different teachers, like I HAD to be there and was doing assignments and attending because I HAD to, not because I fundamentally wanted to do the course for its own sake. The second time, I did it properly - I wanted a degree. I wanted a degree in that specific topic. I wanted to improve academically. I read the feedback this time, and applied it to each following assignment.

And, I got into the habit of going into the university computer room every day for a few hours so I could work on my assignments. Other course mates started joining me; one in particular, Chris, who later also got diagnosed with ADHD. I now know we were body doubling, but at the time, we both just saw it as getting into a good habit and working on assignments in a nicer environment.

I finished that degree with a first. Since then, I did a PG Cert with Oxford University, and a post-grad PCET, both of which required the same study-based skillset. Oxford in particular was hard, because the nature of the course was a distance learning one, and that is Very Bad for my ADHD; my brain requires routine and structure and accountability to work. That one gave me mild burnout, actually. But, my point is this:

It absolutely can get better. What that looks like is going to be different for everyone, because you need to be very honest with yourself about what works for you and what doesn't, and then choose a course accordingly; there are also specific types of support that you may need, which may or may not be available.

But you really, really can do it if you can get the right set-up and accommodations.

However, I would be wrong not to add this:

We connect university with intelligence, culturally, and we shouldn't. University is about depth of learning on a particular subject, done within and according to a particular system. Intelligence helps, but other skills are also needed to be able to complete a university degree; and that's not for everyone. You could be more than intelligent enough for it, and it still may be the wrong fit for you. That doesn't mean you're stupid or broken or useless - it just means this isn't the system for you. And there's no shame whatsoever in that.

That may or may not be true of you! We don't know each other, you could be in either bracket. But either way: you are not stupid, or useless, or broken. The system is simply not set up for your personal brain chemistry, any more than a tree-climbing test is set up for a fish. Hopefully any of this ramble is helpful!

[paarksunghoon]

you plus me (teaser)

SUMMARY: it’s been six years since heeseung stopped being your friend and the thought of him tagging along an annual camping tradition makes you feel like the world must be crashing round you. one misunderstanding and one trip later makes heeseung re-evaluate all he knows, and it makes you believe that there might life after love.

PAIRING: heeseung x fem!reader (featuring enhypen)

WORD COUNT: no estimate because who really knows but this baby sits at 28K right now. the teaser stands at 2.7K.

NOTES: usually I don’t post teasers but I’m so proud of this story so why not!!!!!! I don’t think I’m going to open a taglist but that could change. I’ll let you know if I do. :) hoping to publish by October 26! thanks for reading!! xx

GENRE: angst + fluff + smut

edit: it’s out!

***

“Please don’t make me go.”

“Y/N, you already said yes. We’re only gonna be gone for a week.”

“I don’t think this is a good idea, Jungwon. You just said that Heeseung is gonna be there.” 

Your best friend sighs and sits down on your bed, inspecting the duffle bag you have that’s half-packed. Your clothes are haphazardly strewn all over your bedding while you plead with him to no avail. You’re so desperate that you consider getting on your knees to beg.

“I’m sorry for telling you now but he was able to get people to cover his shift last minute and paid for a spot on the kayaking rental.” 

“If he’s going, I’d rather save us all the trouble and stay at home.” Jungwon watches you cross your arms over your chest. “Every time we’re in the same room, it’s just a matter of time before things become awkward.” 

“We’ll be outside in the suuuun,” Jungwon says, tilting his head to the side and giving you those amused eyes that he always gives you when he’s trying to convince you to do something with him. You scoff and look away. It almost works. 

“I bet that it’ll be worse since we have a few things planned with the guys already.”

“So what? You two don’t get along. Big deal. We’ve already made reservations to secure a spot on the campsite and set a deposit for kayak rentals.”

“Won, I think you and I view Heeseung very differently. He doesn’t just not like me. He hates me.” 

“Hate is a wrong word.” 

You huff. “I don’t think you grasp just how weird it is every time we’re together. You could cut the tension with a knife.”

“Seriously, Y/N. It’s one week. I’m sure you can survive that. You’ve never missed a camping trip and it’s the first time all of our friends are coming.” Jungwon deadpans and throws a shirt towards your chest, which you hastily grab after being startled by his sudden movement. You know better than to argue with him when he gets like this. “Just help me pack your clothes, dude. Jay’s gonna be here to pick us up tomorrow morning and you don’t want to be under-packed.” 

You relent and grumble. “Are you still staying over?”

He nods. “My apartment’s in the opposite of where we’re going and I didn’t want to make him drive an extra twenty minutes since he needs to pick Riki up. Just need to drop Maeumi off at my mom’s before coming back here. ” Your eyes fall for a flat second before you squash that feeling down.

“I didn’t invite you over, you know.” 

“No, but don’t pretend like you’re not excited,” Jungwon says with a laugh as he pulls your clothes out of the bag and starts to readjust the clothing you’ve folded poorly. Seeing your best friend smile tugs a bit at your heartstrings and you can’t say that you aren’t happy to have him with you. “We should get you packed now so you don’t stress out later.” 

Begrudgingly, you allow Jungwon to sort out your clothes for you and pull last minute items you’ve yet to pack. It annoys you, watching him be so calm when you’re simmering with worry. But you know he’s right—you’ve invested some money into this getaway and it’ll be the last big outing before you move away from Korea for a year-long job opportunity in Okayama before pursuing your Master’s degree. Jungwon knows you a little too well and sometimes it irks you. 

The end-of-summer camping trip is always one for the books. For as long as you can remember, the two of you have been going camping just before everyone goes back to school to celebrate the beginning of a new academic year with your families. But this time, the trip wasn’t just about continuing an annual tradition. It was also to commemorate a new chapter in your life. 

You’re a year older than Jungwon. He’s known you since you were obsessed with learning how to double dutch and you’ve known him since he first learned how to ride a bike. The two of you started out as neighbors when you moved into the house next to his and his family had adopted your own like old friends, eventually inviting you and your parents into their annual camping tradition. Even when dynamics changed and people had left, the tradition was the only thing that remained a constant for you.

This is the first summer that your loved ones announced they wouldn’t be coming along. They all thought it was time for you to embark on new traditions with new people and nobody seemed to mind the change that much except for you. Jungwon had been ecstatic about it since he invited his friend, Jake, to the camping trip last year. You’d been wary at first since Jake is friends with Heeseung, but he never brought up your confusing arch-nemesis and chose to have a great trip before you all started university again.  

Sure, you had a lot of fun. You might even consider last year’s trip as one for the books. But your mom pulling out of the camping trip and everyone around you agreeing that it was for the best made you feel like your world was crumbling around you.

When you graduated university three months ago (Jungwon swears he didn’t cry but you know better than to believe him) and the weight of leaving your home started to sink in. In the blink of an eye, Jungwon wouldn’t be a twenty minute drive and hanging out with all of your friends wouldn’t be as easy as it once was. You’d be in Japan all alone.

This past summer has been a whirlwind as you tried to do everything under the sun, savoring each moment until you wouldn’t be able to anymore. Jungwon’s been a good sport about it, never once complaining when you drag him to your latest adventure. He deals with your sudden shift in mood from happy to sad, letting you cry on his shoulder and braving the cliche words you say when telling him you’ll miss him a lot. 

Unlike past seasons, this is the first summer you haven’t seen Heeseung very often. Lee Heeseung, who usually keeps his head down and minds his business, always seems to have a bone to pick whenever his eyes settle on you. It confuses you to no end and he keeps his quips to a minimum when your mutual friends are around, but it doesn’t stop you from wondering what you must’ve done to make him act like that towards you. It’s a shame because that small childhood crush you always had on him was squashed the first time he ignored your presence 

None of your friends comment on it much. They’re used to the dynamic between the both of you because it's been years of this. Elementary school saw the two of you become friends for the first time and middle school brought more friends into the group. It was in high school that things changed and Heeseung started ignoring you out of nowhere until one Thursday afternoon when he’d told you to leave him alone after pestering him about his change in behavior. 

The odd tension followed you into university and continued to seep into your life. You don’t think you’ve ever been in a room with Heeseung where he’s been anything but nonchalant towards you, often acting like you aren’t there to begin with. You do your best to put up with it and plaster a smile on your face but six years have gone by and you don’t think you can handle a seventh. All of your friends seemed to have moved past it. You don’t know why you can’t.

“Don’t think about Heeseung,” Jungwon says with a sigh. “In fact, don’t think at all. Let me handle everything and enjoy this trip before you move to Okayama, okay?”

“Okay, fine. But I want to see Maeumi.”

Jungwon snorts. “She’s gonna be real pissed when she doesn’t see you for a year, you know.”

“Don’t remind me.”

Jungwon knows you like the back of your hand and has seen what you bring on these trips enough to know what you like to have in your duffle. He packs things you neglected to pull out because your mind has been elsewhere. As much as he wants to flick your head and tell you to quit overthinking so you can help him, he did tell you to let him handle everything. 

Your best friend makes you triple check that the two of you didn’t miss anything before heading back to his apartment to fetch Maeumi. She jumps into your arms when you squat to pick her up and won’t allow Jungwon to pet her white fur body while she’s nestled against you. This fondness and the familiar jab of Jungwon’s elbow to your ribcage makes your heart ache despite the sweet moment. You’re really going to miss home. 

Ever the concerned mothers your mom and Jungwon’s are, they send you with a tray full of sweets for the road. They make you tell them exactly when you’ll be picked up and by who (“Jongseong, Eomma,” Jungwon says for the umpteenth time) and when you plan to come back. His dad gives you a spare bucket hat for when you’re on the water and an old sweater from his college days when Jungwon complains about how you never pack enough layers. The gesture feels warm since you consider his father to be somewhat of your own.

Leaving them to go back to your house feels a bit bittersweet. A lot of your belongings sit in storage boxes in the garage from when you moved out of your campus apartment upon graduating. Jungwon decided to get an apartment for himself with the money he saved from his part-time job as a busboy at a local chain restaurant. Staying over with you makes it seem silly when you remember he used to live next door. 

It’s nine in the evening when the two of you get ready for bed. Jungwon puts your bags by the front door so neither of you would forget while you finish brushing your teeth. He grabs extra blankets from the linen closet and settles onto your L-shaped couch, pulling the fabric just underneath his chin. Your heart feels like it’s sinking in on itself when you think about how this might be the last time you’re able to be so casual around him. 

“Stop overthinking,” he says in the quiet of the night as if he can hear the thoughts in your head. The living room lights are off and the moonlight is what’s responsible for illuminating the space. 

You refrain from throwing your pillow at him. “I’m not overthinking. You’re overthinking.” 

Jungwon snorts. “We both know that’s not true. I know you’re scared about Okayama and I know that’s why you’ve been on edge about Heeseung. You’re usually never this loud about it.” Like always, your best friend is right. 

“It’s hard not to.” Your meek voice makes Jungwon’s heart lurch. “Everything’s changed so fast. I feel like I didn’t get enough time to properly say goodbye to everyone.”

“You’ll be in Japan, not America. It’s not like we’ll never see you.” 

“Yeah, but I won’t be able to annoy you for boba and you won’t be coming over to have dinner with my mom and I.” Jungwon frowns. Too caught up in making sure you were happy this summer, he hadn’t given it that much thought. “I know I won’t be far but I’m scared that things will change too much.” 

For the first time today, Jungwon doesn’t know what to say to make you feel better. “I’ll miss you a lot.” 

“I know that, dummy. I guess…I feel like I’ve been dealing with a lifetime of shittiness and the universe wanted to throw another curveball at me.” Jungwon’s heart softens at your confession. He’s used to your quick jabs and sarcastic humor. Knowing you’ve more afraid than excited makes him upset. 

“The universe sucks,” he says, happy that it pulled a laugh out of you. “I’ll always be a phone call away and you’ll never have to worry about me ignoring you because we both know I’m gonna blow up your texts anyway.” 

“I can always count on you to annoy the hell out of me.” You can’t see his face, but no you already assume Jungwon’s sporting a shit-eating grin. Even if you both know the main reason why you’re afraid of living in Okayama, neither of you say it. You’re grateful that Jungwon doesn’t bring it up. “Still, though. You know how I am with change. I’m really scared that I’m going to hate it there and not have you to keep me company.”

“Life is crazy and unpredictable but that doesn’t mean you’re going to be miserable. I mean, you did a pretty good job of making sure both of us had happy childhoods even though I know you were hurting when we were younger.” 

“It’s really hard not to have expectations or think badly about the future when I feel like I took everything for granted.” 

“I know, Bug,” Jungwon says, using a nickname from your childhood he reserves for when he thinks you need an extra bit of comfort. “But you’re the best person I know. You didn’t do anything wrong. Life just…gets in the way.” 

“Yeah, I know.”

Jungwon is quiet for a moment. “Just please promise me you’ll try to have fun, okay?”

“I know I’ll have fun, Wonnie. I’m scared that I’ll have too much fun and be a sobbing wreck when we get back.” 

The two of you share a laugh. “Alright, fair. Promise me you won’t let Heeseung get under your skin.”

You groan. “If he doesn’t like me, that’s fine. I don’t need everyone to like me. But why go out of his way to act like I’m scum of the Earth?”

“Just ignore him, okay?” Jungwon pleads. “I know it’s uncomfortable but he paid for a last minute spot. I’ll tell him to be mature about it too.” 

And, well, part of you believes Heeseung will listen to Jungwon. Despite being on the younger side in your shared friend group, everyone seemed to listen to your best friend most of the time. Jungwon has an authoritative aspect to himself when he’s refrained from being the silly, happy-go-lucky guy you all know him to be. 

It’s quiet for a brief moment with the wind gently tapping on the windows behind you. “I don’t know why he doesn’t like me.” 

Truthfully, neither does Jungwon. “I’m sorry he’s putting you in a tough spot.” 

“Won, sometimes I really wonder if he hates my guts. He doesn’t talk to me and he never replies to my messages in the group chat. It’s like I don’t exist to him.”

“I think that might be a little extreme.” 

“It’s not and you know it.” 

Jungwon hums. “Well, at least you’ll get away from him when you move to Okayama.” Just like that, all of your worries come flooding right back.

“Yeah,” you say meekly. “I’ll have Okayama.”

You don’t see him, but you know Jungwon’s smiling since you agreed with him for the first time tonight. “That’s more like it. You have your whole future ahead of yourself, dude. Heeseung is just a blimp. In three weeks, he won’t matter because you’ll be having fun in Japan. Just think about that.” 

You try not to think about the fears and hesitations you have about starting anew. This time, you wouldn’t be going back to university after the camping trip. You’ll have a week and a half back home before you’re boarding your flight and saying goodbye to the place you’ve called home for the past two decades. Thinking about the future keeps you up until you hear Jungwon’s snores from the other side of the couch. 

Unsure of when your mom will be coming home, you snuggle further into the cushions and curl yourself into a ball before falling asleep. 

***

comments and reblogs are appreciated! xx

[boolger]

A lapdog at a farm - chapter 1

AO3 link. next chapter -> Call of duty. Explicit, 18+, minors do not interact. read the tags. wc: 4,147

Maybe support me on kofi?🥺👉👈

Farmer!John Price x Hybrid!Reader, hybrid! Kyle Gaz Garrick x hybrid! Johnny Soap MacTavish x hybrid! Simon Ghost, John Price x Nikolai.

Summary: When Price was young and left his childhood home, a farm in the middle of nowhere in England, he didn’t enter the military. Instead he moved to London, got a degree and a good career, earning good money. He got you, a human dog hybrid as a pet, after feeling lonely - and you lived your best life for years, spoiled and pampered, Price’s lapdog who got praised at every party. Loved and fucked every night. That was until Price decided to return to his roots and go back to farming - dragging you along to the middle of nowhere, away from all the wonders of the big city. Expecting you to accept this sudden change in lifestyle and pretend to be a farm dog. Bad luck however, because you fucking hated it, and became more and more unruly. In hopes of getting you to calm down and to keep his live-stock and farm safe, Price then got three working dog hybrids - and all at once, your life was even worse than before.

tags: Rape/non-con elements, dub-con, dog!hybrid!people being kept as pets, alternative universe - farm, dark, farmer!John Price, working-dogs, punishments, mating cycles/rut/heat (no omegaverse), the dove isn't dead but its dying, reader is a brat, knotting, animal tails and ears, mentions of trauma, violence, angst, hurt/comfort, collars, rough sex, breeding kink, biting, threesome, foursome, everyone is fucking your honor, enemies to lovers, chubby reader, reader has a pussy

author's note: Hi sinners <33 Just a heads up; the reader is gonna be a spoiled brat. If you want a smart and sweet reader who isn’t mean at times, well. Bad news. This ain’t it.🥰The reader is she / her and has a pussy and is chubby. I tried my best to keep the descriptions somewhat vague otherwise. Reader is a cocker spaniel hybrid. I will tell the others along the way. In this universe, hybrids have ears, tail, claws beneath nails and canine fangs. There will be heats and ruts but there is no omegaverse. They will have personality traits of their dog breed and so on. Now. I know there aren’t wild wolves in the UK… but in this fic there is, ok? mwah.

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

The countryside was peaceful compared to the city; the absence of the bustling streets and constant traffic, created a quietness that was indescribable.

Out here, at the new farm, the noises only came from animals that lived in the stables and barn or the occasional rumble as a tractor turned on. The wind caressed the never ending fields of wheat and the long rows of fruit trees, under which the goats and sheep walked most days.

The stress here wasn’t the same kind as in the city. Sure , there were stressful moments and sometimes Price looked like he needed to sleep for more than just the few hours he got everyday.

But he didn’t have to worry about the morning traffic, waiting in a queue for an overpriced, questionable tea or coffee. There was no need for him to wear a suit, no noisy, overfilled train cars in the underground. No crowded dog or hybrid parks, no meetings or rules to follow - except those John Price decided for himself.

He was happy, so much was clear to you. It had been three months since the move - Johnhad gone back to his roots, buying back the farm that his parents had used to own a little while ago, using some of his endless wealth on renovating the place. There was no step on the stairs that was loose, like it used to when he was a kid - sure they still creaked, but you weren’t afraid they would disappear from beneath you.

It was modernized, but most of the old charm left. Price fit right in; the furniture he had inherited and never believed he would use was suddenly in the living room. His knowledge of the business world was abandoned in the city, for the knowledge of farming that he still had left from his youth. John got a couple of farm hands and workers, who helped him with the big place.

It was like he reclaimed his own self that had been buried beneath the suits, ties and paperwork. Now he didn’t smoke his cigars from stress, but from pleasure, clearly much content.

It was like the farm had truly made John Price happy once more; his smiles more genuine, his true self stepping forth. Returning to his childhood home and taking over the farm had been the best decision Price had made. There was no question about it.

… and you hated every bloody day at the farm.

The early morning hours in bed with him, being disturbed by the farm waking up, the rooster crowing and John leaving the bed, giving you a pat in between your ears, taking all the heat with him. The constant bugs, the muddy stables and the big animals, the helpers who always teased you for not fitting in, the lack of friends you had out here. The foxes’ screams in the night, the wolves howling, and the cows occasionally mooing sounded like creatures stepping out of nightmares.

You were not made for farm life. Literally. Simply not made for it.

Some would argue that you, as a hybrid pet, didn’t have a say in it and sure , legally you didn’t. But you were a lapdog, an elegant pet. Not a farm dog. Created to be cared for and cuddled, you were a purebred cocker spaniel hybrid; you weren’t made to run around on a farm, following John on his duties And doing work. 

Sure, you had the instincts to hunt a few things here and there, but it was mostly balls and the occasional bird or squirrel. You weren’t a guard hybrid, not really a working dog.

You had had enough trauma throughout your life - you deserved not to be forced into this! You had grown up being trained to be a lapdog, not a working-dog like you felt like John expected you to act like now.

You wanted John to be happy, you really did - you loved your Master! When he bought you a few years ago, when you were still aggressive and unruly (… more than now at least), you had thought he would tire of you like everybody else had. But with patience, rules, training, praise and punishment and a whole lot of sex later, you were a perfect hybrid pet for the city! People always praised how well you looked, laughing when Price said you were really a little troublemaker. You would follow him throughout the fancy apartment, on your daily walks, sometimes for meetings.

But why the fuck did it have to be a farm? He worked somwwhat the same time that he did before, genuinely seeming to enjoy himself. Forgetting about poor you!

Out here, there were no hybrid daycare that you would go to when he had long days, there were none of your playmates nearby, everything stank of animals and there were no places nearby for you to get your hair and fur styled and pampered! No nail technicians, no fancy cafes, no shops for John to buy you things in! No special made coffee or chef-made meals every other evening, no freshly baked croissants.

You felt like you had tried . You really had. 

But after the first week, you had your first breakdown - and as the weeks passed, they didn’t stop. At first, John was sympathetic, like the perfect owner he was.

Cooing at you, kissing your forehead, as he gently scratched your ears. Kissing away any tears, saying it was okay - that you were just overwhelmed, that it would be okay. That you would come to like it out here.

Big fucking joke.

He had tried every trick in the book, in an attempt to please you and made you less upset, but as days turned into weeks and tantrums began to appear, you knew his patience began to disappear.

He followed professional advice and then the advice of the neighbors down the street, Rodolfo and Alejandro (who had caught you running away at one point), tried some of the workers’ advice. He had given you your own room, and it was mostly designed like your own, perfect to the pale green paint on the wall, all your toys and dog beds, your CDs - everything. He had tried hauling you along every day, trying to give you a routine to follow - but after two weeks, he gave up, not having the energy to deal with a tantrum that got worse and worse each day. He went on walks with you, fucked you silly, tried his best — and you didn’t want it.

No, you wanted to go back to your old life. Not this country life that you hadn’t signed up for, with horses that neighed loudly whenever you passed them; they were definitely going to trample you at the first chance, you knew that. You could hear foxes scream in the night, warning you of the dangers. The goats and sheep were so fucking loud and no you didn’t want to go pick fresh apples off the trees - had he seen the size of the spiders crawling on them?

When you in one of your biggest tantrums took off and bolted from the farm in distress, Rodolfo and Alejandro had almost hit you when you emerged from the corn fields onto the road. 

You had cried the entire drive home, no matter what the two men had tried saying, especially as Rodolfo called Price in advance — your master was livid . The worst thing was, that it was not that kind of anger where he yelled at you before punishing you - no, this one was almost silent, a sharp grip on your collar as he dragged you along after thanking his neighbours.

He had belted you then, ignoring your crying and screaming, only stopping when you broke, sobbing and going quiet. He had explained it to you then, what could have happened, what dangers you could have ended in - and as you sobbingly apologized and tried to explain, that you wanted to go back to the city, John had sighed .

Said that he had pampered you too much since he got you, which had made you greedy and attention seeking. Which only made you cry more, as you hid your face in his neck, fingers digging into his shirt, ass cheeks burning.

“Spoiled rotten, little birdie,” he mused, though you could hear the softness in him, your tail wagging a little, hoping to get him to be less mad.

“‘M sorry,” you had whined in distress, upset with yourself as well, ears tipping down, “wanna be good but I don’t like it.”

Your rather dull escape attempt resulted in several things. An AirTag on your collar, so that he always knew where you were. A remarkable lack of treats, sex and then… the crate .

You fucking hated the dog crate. 

Sure, it hadn’t been nice of you to bite one of his pillows into a simple pulp of fabric, feathers everywhere. Or create chaos in the kitchen… or get drunk on his fancy whiskey (that one had ended worse for you, hangover was a bitch and there wasn’t much sympathy from John). And yes, you might have ripped most of the flowers surrounding the house up, until one of the workers had caught you. Maybe pissing yourself in the middle of the living room while staring him in the eyes and ignoring his warnings had been a little…excessive. 

But the dog crate? You hated that thing with a burning passion. 

Hated it when he locked you up, ignoring your whimpers and whines, your promises to behave, ignoring your little howls as he left. 

Mean. The farm had made him mean. Perhaps you had become a bit unruly too, but it was like he didn’t take your clear suffering seriously.

Mean and happy - unruly and suffering. What a pair you were. One of the workers, KAte Laswell, who was a big helper and often stayed over for dinner, suggested a fucking shock collar. You had growled, only stopped when John sent you a sharp look. 

You had even heard him talking over the phone with somebody, saying that he didn’t want to rehome you, but he didn’t know what to do.

That had made you melt a little and you had cried as you had crawled into his bed a couple of hours later, begging him to not abandon you. Fears of never getting to see John again or being loved again by him made you cling onto him as he kissed away your tears, gently fucking you.

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

It was a random morning a couple of days later, that you found him still in the kitchen, reading the newspaper, humming to himself while smoking a cigar.

He looked nice like this. Despite how he sometimes muttered about being too old, he wasn’t really that old. Late thirties, and perhaps it was the peace on his face or the sun rays that kissed him, which made him look younger. But still. There was a decade between you, but days like this, you were reminded that it didn’t matter.

“Are you going to stare all day or are you going to join me, Darling?” He asked teasingly, pulling you from your thoughts. You let out a little huff and kissed him good morning, receiving a pat on the ass before you sat down on your own seat. It had been a while since the two of you had eaten together - often he was up at the crack of dawn, so his calm behavior and gentle humming was unusual to say the least.

“Why are you not working?” You asked carefully, as you ate some of the bread, trying to ignore how it wasn’t a fancy sourdough one - though you were pretty sure he had picked it up from a local bakery in the village which was a little drive away.

“Because,” he put the paper down, then tapping some ash off the cigar into his ashtray, before looking over at you, a pleased smile on his face, “you and I are going on a trip.”

“A trip?” You didn’t even bother to be embarrassed about how your voice got higher with excitement or how your tail thumped against the backrest of the chair as you wagged it, “where are we going? When? Can we go now?”

Price had laughed, a happy sound that you knew not many got to hear; it made your heart beat a little faster, made you feel butterflies in your stomach. 

“Well, we got to do a few things first to get ready, and you ,” he used the cigar to point at you, your tail wagging a little faster, “need to not freak out when I tell you where we are going.”

Despite the warning, tears streamed down your cheeks when he told you. John didn’t get mad as a part of you had expected; he knew your abandonment issues first hand, knew how you had been left behind before, from one bad owner to another. 

“You’re going to sell me and leave me with a mean owner and I’m gonna die of hunger and thirst - and - and —“

“Not gonna leave you, princess,” John crooned, covering your face in kisses as you hiccuped and sniffled, clinging to his clothes, “you know that. My favorite puppy. Pretty girl.”

Despite your tears and small sobs, your tail wagged at his words, “silly puppy,” he mused with a smile, gently scratching your lower back, “‘m not gonna sell you. Ale and Rodolfo are looking for a hybrid, I figured we could go look at the auction as well.”

“What if - what if - what if you’ll like them more?” You sniffled dramatically, sure that your life was only going to become worse than it already was. One thing was this bloody farm and the crate, another thing was having to share Price. You didn’t like the idea one bit. If that happened, you were going to show him how a proper tantrum was thrown - the crate would probably be the least of your worries.

As if to prove his love, John bent you over the table, fucking you in between the clattering dishes and cutlery, tea and coffee almost spilling over. Despite how many times your owner fucked you, it made you lose control of your mind every single time. His cock reached so deep inside you that it bordered on pain, your mouth open as you panted and moaned at each thrust; your soft stomach being pressed against the edge of the table, one hand holding onto the back of your collar, the other on your tail. The table rattled, John groaned and moaned, your fingers desperately trying to hold onto anything. 

“My princess,” he snarled darkly into your ear, “you’ll always be mine-“ a moan, a grunt, “- no matter what happens, yeah?”

“Yes ye-ah- yes, sir, I’m yours - ah ah - I’m yours!” you managed in between pants and wails of pleasure, fear of abandonment forgotten in the ocean of euphoric satisfaction. 

You came harder than you had for a while; the reminder of your worth, of how you deserved his worship, making you cream around his throbbing length, legs in spasms afterwards. He pushed deeper, filling you up with a loud roar like sound, his hands moving to grab onto the fat of your ass and hips as he came. Pain and pleasure made your toes curl and a content sigh left you, your tail wagging against Price as he chuckled.

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

The auction hall was filled to the brim with humans and hybrids alike. Every owned hybrid followed their respective owners, all wearing mandatory leashes so no pets would be confused with the ones that were being sold. You wore your own pink one with pride, gem stones sparkling. A matching leash connected to the D-ring on it, that also bore your tags. You were convinced yours were the most beautiful in this entire place.

“They’re bonded,” Laswell pointed out, pointing to the papers that hung nearby, showing off general information about them, “gotta get all three.”

You dared to look at the little board with the informations about the three hybrids they were looking at.

“Ah, we don't have space for three, mi amor.”

“eso es una pena,” Rodolfo answered, while you looked over at John - who kept looking at the three hybrids. You dared to peek over at them.

All three of them were enormous .

Two of them wore muzzles, meaning they were biters. At least at the auction. You shouldn’t judge then, not really, but you did... Even though you had worn a muzzle five years ago, when Price had chosen you. You hadn’t tried biting people out of malice; you had been scared and angry at the world. Angry for being abandoned once more, over the fact that you were most likely being passed on to another abusive master. You leaned a little closer to Price, taking in his scent.

Even from the start, despite all the problems and your attitude problems, he had been sweet. Strict at times — probably not enough — but kind.

The biggest one looked like a Great Pyrenees breed, most likely. The fur on his ears and tail looked shorter, badly cut. Probably due to matting or if he refused to get it cut. His hair, a dark blonde almost brown, was in a buzz cut. He had scars, all over - unable to hide because of the lack of clothes most hybrids were given, only underwear. There was a lot in his face, though you suspected a bunch were hidden by the muzzle. He stared into nothing, his ears curled back, though they moved now and again, listening to different sounds.

“Hard to get sold,” Laswell commented and you looked over at her in synchronicity with John, “they’re ex-military.”

Like he had been called to them, a man who wore one of the seller badges appeared.

“They’re obedient once they fall into place,” he happily explained, going full seller-mode, “they’re just not too fond of the auctions - too many people.”

“Makes sense,” Price mused, clearly interested - much to your annoyance. The fact that he asked follow up questions made you frown, fingers tightening in his shirt. He was here to look. To help Alejandro and Rodolfo, who both had continued their walk. You dared to look over at the hybrids again. All three were staring at you and John. 

“How come they were discharged?”

“One of them got a hearing loss -“ he nodded towards them, “the one with the mohawk. And they’re a bonded pack.”

“So only retiring him was out of the question,” John concluded once more looking over at them.

You felt your tail go in between your legs. He couldn’t be seriously considering those three . you couldn’t help but let out a small whine. Price gave your leash a little tug.

“They’re working dogs,” the seller continued, his eyes flickering to you, making you huff, “so they’ll need something to do, not just be pets.”

“Oh I know. I have a farm. Need some work dogs - this one isn’t guarding much.”

They all laughed, your tail going even further between your legs with embarrassment.

“You can’t be serious,” you whined in a whisper to John, not caring that you sounded needy - spoiled would Laswell had said and you ignored her as she rolled her eyes.

“Hush, Princess.” John didn’t even look at you.

“You have animals there?” The seller asked, “one of them is a herding dog - the border collie.”

“I do - several. That’s why there's a need for guarding dogs as well, bloody wolves have been terrorizing us.”

You knew he was telling the truth; he had muttered about dead sheeps and goats several times - even a calf had lost its life to the wolves in the area, despite he and Laswell having shot two already. Even foxes had gotten into the coop, despite the fences.

“They’re good at that too, with their training,” the seller offered, clearly interested in selling them or at least getting John to bid on them. “The one with the mohawk, Soap , will have hearing aids with him, so you don’t need to worry about that.”

You looked over at this “Soap”, scrunching your nose. They were still staring, the biggest one bending down to listen to the third one, a beautiful black man, whisper in his ear. No doubt judging you.

“It says here they don’t do well with others,” you muttered, in a desperate attempt to sway John, pointing to the board with their papers. It did indeed say so, to which you wanted to argue that YOU should be his main focus in this whole thing - how would he even consider adding them to your household if these dogs could get a hold of you?

“It’s in the sense that they’re not really housetrained to be social family pets,” the seller swooped in, pushing your argument away, annoying you even more, “they’ve had missions all their lives. They need to have something to do.”

“I’m sure you’ll get along with them, sweetheart,” Price answered, giving you a small scratch beneath your chin as he finally looked over at you, a glint in his eyes, “some company will do you good.”

You huffed, crossing your arms. Hardly . Price’s smile told you that he thought this was a great idea however. You dared to look at the men again. Still staring, fucking bastards.

The black man seemed like a mix of some breeds, German shepherd and… you looked shortly at the board. Belgian malinois. Fancy. He wasn’t as tall as the big one, but broad and with scars as well. There was a more slender look to him, but his six pack proved he was strong. His curly hair wasn’t too long, probably cut not too long ago. He was looking at you curiously, making you raise your upper lip a little, as if to warn him.

The one with the hearing loss looked like some sort of border collie - covered in scars as well, some of his skin looking like it had been too close to fire. He was broad like the two others, his upper arms the size of your head. He even sent you a cheeky grin, even daring to wink at you. You just looked away, tipping your chin up a little.

“You can look closer if you want, sir?”

You were pulled back into the conversation at once and before you could argue, John had already passed on your leash to Laswell and walked towards the men with the seller. You whined, distressed that he was really, actually considering this.

“You’ll be fine,” Laswell commented calmly, with empathy in her voice for once, though she didn’t look at you, merely at John and the others.

“He is gonna lose interest in me,” you whined, perhaps a little dramatically, bottom lip wobbling a little as you could feel tears welling up in your eyes, “then he’ll leave me in the crate all day and only care about them an—“

“Calm down,” Laswell said, “you’ll work yourself into a fuss.”

“He can’t do this to me,” you argued in a sullen voice, already imagining John forgetting all about you, focusing on these three hybrids for the rest of his life, leaving you cold and lonely inside the dog crate - maybe even rehoming you, “he promised he wouldn’t get rid of me.”

“You’re being dramatic,” Laswell answered just as calmly as before, “John loves you too much, you’re just being spoiled. Hanging out with some working dogs will do you good.”

“They probably have fleas,” you said, your prejudices seeping into your words, knowing you’re being mean, judgmental against your own kind, “they’ll kill me and eat my dead body.”

Laswell laughed. “No they won’t. Worst thing they’ll do, is probably knock you up.”

A high pitched, scandalized sound left you, despite knowing you had an implant. Laswell laughed again, giving your leash a little yank and then scratching you behind your long ears.

“Settle, Princess. That won’t happen without John’s permission.”

You almost cried at the sight of John shaking the seller’s hand.

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

They all met up again for the actual auction part and you sat at John’s feet, sniffling a little. Crying hadn’t helped, in fact John had just petted and kissed you, calling you sensitive. Alejandro had gotten a hybrid earlier that they didn’t need to bid on - she was for sale for a certain price. Something about being too intense without enough space to roam, having attacked others before.

Fucking great. Beasts all around you.

John won the bidding on the three working dog hybrids he had been interested in - because of course he did. He spent way too much money on them too, according to you.

One more - or well, three more fucking things to hate about this “farming life” that had been forced upon you.

Maybe John had gone mad.

next chapter ->

[cryptfile]

Ꮺ˖˚₊ leeches, [ logan howlett x vampire!reader au ]

summary — logan howlett lacks of patience (and he can also be a nice little blood-bag while losing his temper). 8k+

warnings — 18+ mdni, fem!reader implied, blood kink (keep in mind you’re a vampire! not twilight but more of a true blood kind?) downright filth im sorry, dead dove do not eat, smoker!reader, endless tension, manhandling, praise kink, kind of porn without plot (LIES CAUSE IT HAS ONE THO??) my boy's into paaaaaain can't help it it's canon, age-gap at first (reader is her 20's but again, vampire), public sex (it just happened), daily reminder to wrap it before you tap it, p in v, choking, filthy mouth, pet names.

side notes — thought this could take place after days of the future past? au cause why nottttt ,,currently on ovulation season so bare with me,,, been a little mia cause i’m surviving aka going through the worst semester of my life at uni? internships are breaking my ass currently so well, here i am just existing, also, english’s not my first language and everyday i’m grateful for it, so any mistakes i’m not sorry in advance lol i’m also too lazy to correct once published,, feel free to send more logan requests since i've basically been a slut for him for a while now (i'm rotting in hell).

He could swear the mansion got ten degrees hotter when you came in.

It’s inevitable. It’s this thing you carry, the way you move — Graceful, elegant, almost compelling as the air fills the room. It’s not public knowledge that you’re not a mutant itself, yet you’re presented like one, like you have healing factors and age painfully slow, but human after all, a subtle lie, one that can harm no one.

It’s safe to say you catch his attention in the most annoying way: How couldn’t you? All you do is this weird seduction he’s appealed to, whether you’re conscious or not it’s just captivating, an invisible force that even when you ignore it is there, there waiting for the perfect moment to flood every time you happen to be in the same room.

Captivating. That’s the word.

The room becomes smaller after, the air grows thicker, and it’s almost like a ticking bomb, the way you wouldn’t even look at his face while he’s noticeable pinning after Jean Grey, the mystery that surrounds you and he cannot seem to resolve no matter how much time he puts into it.

It’s like he's the plague. You don’t really try to exchange more than just a few words, only when it's needed and you cannot avoid him any longer, and he didn’t say anything at first, keeping his distance too cause he don’t see how you’d become friends, cause after all, what he could have in common with a girl that doesn't surpass the twenty years?

But soon he's upset about it, even when he doesn't really say anything out loud, it's a spike he cannot reach under his skin. You seem to become friends with anyone but him, mutant kids in your history lessons, the rest of the team, even the damn mailman when he delivered a package — You'd say hello like it's a long time lover or so, greeting people like they mean the world to you.

He has students now that are asking for a transfer from his class to yours cause it seems you're fun to be around, more like he is, and he fucking hates it.

It's fair to say it's been getting into his mind lately. That thing you do with your hair, twisting it in your index finger on a lock as you speak, the subtle red glow in your eyes he always catches by mistake, not enough fast to stop looking at you, pretending he didn't even see in your direction at first.

Tension. Logan just happens to hate tension.

In fact. He's almost sure your problem is personal, that you might hate him enough to act like he didn't exist at all, enough to avoid him like he was not there.

That's why it's just so weird.

When he finds himself walking down the hallway to the kitchen and he smells this cherry-scented aroma that settles under his nostrils, he changes the direction he's walking to, to instead, follow the path to the person that was silently smoking outside. Hiding. Maybe, a student he'll have to scold like the old man he was turning into.

No smoking in the mansion!

However, as the night is just settling, he doesn't recognize a little mutant, but instead happens to recognize you in the middle of the gardens of the mansion, close to the maze; escaping the comfort of the inside to enjoy a self-rolled cherry tobacco he has smelled before in the air. He's a victim mostly, cause his legs move on it's own as his mouth go dry, approaching you in silence.

"What do you want?" you ask when he's halfway there. And your tone is just cold as ever, not an ounce of feeling as he contemplates your side profile, the way the tobacco sticks out of your parted lips, seated on a bench hidden between bushes and trees — "Is Scott bitching about the smell going into the mansion already?"

No. He's not. But he doesn't have enough reasons to explain exactly why he's outside if you asked, why, all of sudden, he followed the scent of cherry knowing it was you the only one who carried a colts package in the pocket of every single jacket you wore, constantly asking Storm if she could hold on to the bag of filters for you while you rolled in the worst moments.

It's distracting, to say the least.

"Yeah," he quickly says, lying cause in reality he hasn't seen the guy in the whole day, yet it sounds like something he would say. "Do you happen to have another one of those to share?"

You don't talk much, hand reaching his as you offered him from your tobacco without a single word, the same that was placed between your lips and now was on his in what seemed to be something more intimate than what he'd like to admit, the cherry taste filling his lungs as they weirdly enough, shared a cig.

"Aren't you too young to be smoking?"

You laugh, and the sound sends a shiver down his spine cause he has never heard a sound quite like it, nothing that resembles that throaty, raspy sound that came out of your lips in amusement thanks to his words. He, out of all people, has never seen you like that — "And how old you think I am?"

He seems to think about it for a second, carefully picking his next words. Logan knows that women and their age are a tricky thing, you cannot say a number that's too compromising, nor act stupid and say something that's clearly not correct — "Not a day over twenty-two."

The answer pleases you, and he just knows he's wrong, but you don't seem bothered by it, instead, you nod pretending he's right, like he just got the answer right away.

He can see why everyone's switching classes now. Cheeky bastards.

"Twenty-two is not young at all, but i'm twenty-seven though," you say, and he scoffs at the statement, seeking for any change in your heartbeat, any sign of a lie. The strange thing happens when he cannot pick any heart at all, any sign of pulse.

"You are pretty young still," he says, against his age, you’re just starting out living—. "You don't look like you are twenty-seven at all."

"Cause I age slower than the rest," it's a practiced lie. One you know from repeating the same explanation over and over again, the priced answer of why you haven't changed a single bit in the past few years and made you a mutant — "I never looked my age."

Such a fucking liar. He doesn't need any heartbeats to confirm it cause deep down you are a terrible actress, he can see it so clear, how you're calculating every answer, thinking about the correct thing to say, the normal thing to say.

"Is that your thing?" he asks, playing pretend almost as bad as you do. Tilting his head to the side as he questions you — "Age slowly?"

"I have healing powers," you explain as he tossed you the joint once again. "My saliva kinds of help healing wounds. It's pretty boring."

"Boring" Logan repeats. The word itself sounds so damn fun in your lips it's contradicting. "That doesn’t sound really boring."

There's a moment of silence after that. Where you smoke in silence taking in the taste of the cherry, and he is having a hard time wrapping his head around the fact that your lips also touched the side of the cigar he was smoking before, the plain lies you've been repeating over and over the last ten minutes.

It's almost infuriating. Makes his blood boil without question, he surely endures your treatment of silence, but being lied to? That's a whole different level.

“How old are you, kid?”

Your brows furrow in response, a clueless face. You are pulling out this show once again Logan don’t buy for a damn second. Something about the scrunch in your nose, the way you dismissed your own powers as if they weren’t enough. He knows it’s all a lie. He knows it even when he doesn’t really know you at all, when it’s the first time you’re truly speaking to him after your arrival to the mansion almost a year ago.

“How old you really are?”

You laugh at the question once again, and he just knows it, knows it when he sees you barely illuminated by the dim light of the moon, the act you always keep up, a web of tangled lies you have to be into— “Told you i'm twenty-seven already, didn't you hear?”

“Is it now?” he asks, amused by the sass, exhaling the smoke of the low-quality tobacco he doesn't understand why you're so invested in when passed it to him—. “Cause you don’t seem very convinced, it really sounds like bullshit to me.”

You're almost offended. By the look you give it's like the worst mistake he could ever make, yet you remain silent, not giving the satisfaction of an honest answer yet. Testing his patience like he did have one to begin with.

"Is that why I can’t hear your heartbeats, darlin'? Cause you age so slowly?”

The nickname scratches a part of your brain, and you hate him for it. The word rolls out of his tongue with an accent, smoking your cherry tobacco cause you happen to be nice.

“You can’t?” you’re good at faking it suddenly, at least, that's what he thinks when your brows furrow in alleged curiosity, stiffening your back, uncomfortable. “How weird.”

“Damn right it is” that's when you realize he knows you are lying. Even when you don’t talk much, even when you act all stiff and bothered when he’s close, he knows that you are fully invested in lying. In whatever twisted little lie you've planned, like it was your real life and not something you made up. “Are you going to tell me truth, then or do I have to find out? Does the professor know that you're lying?”

The smoke lingers in the air.

“How old are you?” he asks once again, demanding an honest answer this time — "Thirty? Thirty-five?"

You find his questions annoying, mostly cause he won't stop until he gets an answer, one that pleases him enough to leave you alone, the other part cause you happen to like the playful banter you two keep going, dangerously much. You don't hate attention it's clear, what you do hate it's the way he seemed to see pass the lie, to demand more even when he has no right to.

He enjoys being the one who's right though, Logan cannot help it. He's pleased to catch that look on your face who says everything but nothing at once, to have you where he wanted, almost at the edge of admitting a truth.

Is it payback because you've been stealing all of the little mutants from his class? He's jealous cause kids like being around you? It does not make much sense, but he is fully invested. Questioning all.

Even when you're outside, it seems like the air grows thicker. And Logan finds himself seeking for your breathing, cause he don't know nothing, nothing about you more than the fact you don't seem to have a heartbeat, or pulse and now, breathing.

“If you really are that eager to know, i'm a hundred and twenty-seven” the words float in the air for a while, and he's sure you're just messing with him, cause there's no way a pretty little face like yours had endured a century. “I've been alive for quite a while.”

He doesn't fully believe it first. Of course he doesn't. Logan's sure you're messing with him also, distracting him about your real age.

“And I supposed this do come from you slow aging powers” He tries to give you a point there, but it's difficult to be serious when you're just playing with him—. "How so?"

To be honest, you do have a little temper yourself, you've learned to stand up for yourself most of the time, so when you happen to notice he's teasing you, that he doesn't really believe you, you adopt this attitude of defense he notices as you shift over the wood you're seated in.

"No, it doesn't" you steal the joint from his hands to have a smoke yourself. "You really aren't as smart as I thought you were, huh?"

Do you happen to have a dead wish? His muscles tense beneath his shirt, and in contrast of his problem, you can hear it all. All the sounds his body makes when he's all bothered just by the beat of his heart, that annoying sound his bones make each time he moves.

"What are you?"

"That's it," the praising goes directly into his chest, the tone you use to tell him he's going in the right direction it feels just so right he forgets why he got mad in the first place—. "That's what you should be asking right there."

It's almost a shame having to admit he would also switch classes. That he would also go through all the paperwork himself without a second thought and that right there, is pathetic, but you're smiling at him as if you're encouraging the man to try harder, to find the answer himself, and fuck — He's old, too old, he's tired, he's in a bad mood as fucking usual, and he happens to dig a drink in the quiet of his own room, but he's pulled by something as equal as devastating as the gravity force, shoot towards you in pure need to have some answers even if he has to make you spit them.

"I find it strange, cause when you don't have a heartbeat, you aren't usually alive" Deep down he's fascinated, hazel eyes glues on your face trying to understand. He feels like he has it in the tip of his tongue waiting to leave his mouth as a catastrophic answer, but he doesn't find the right words.

"That's cause i'm not," you state it like it's something obvious. And just as he knows you're lying, this time, he knows you're telling the truth, blowing the smoke in his direction just to bother him — "Why do you think i'm teaching history after all huh?"

He hasn't seen it all, it seems.

Yeah.

He's losing it after that night.

It’s known that Logan has sleeping problems, but that night specifically he thinks about something else rather than what usually torments him, a truth he also has to keep a secret now that he's learned more about it.

See, Logan doesn't expect you to be really dead. Much less to hear what you are and have been hiding this whole time from the rest of the people in the mansion — He also learns that you feed on blood, that vampires are a common thing in the world and that he shouldn't, at least, be that surprised when he's a mutant in a world full of humans himself.

You are a folklore myth on small villages, stories in Rumania and horror character in films, so you don't blame him when as you spoke, he finally understands why you're so damn attractive, so damn seductive as you explained more about your way of living, some memories you've been keeping to yourself since being a vampire was so damn solitary, memories he listens to cause he knows what it's like, to be misunderstood, to be eternal, to be alone as well.

It makes the two of you grow closer by the next weeks. You now talked during broad daylight about random shit at first, about the war sometimes, about your condition as he refers to when people is around, eaves-dropping on what you two are talking so invested in. Friends.

Simple as that.

And it's safe to admit also that in the course of the next days, Logan Howlett is a fucking mess, and he knows it, but he won't do anything about it.

He won't flirt cause he knows you're a hell of a woman, in every good sense of the word, that he's way too damaged for a vampire even, for all kinds of people out there, and as much as he'd like to say anything, he values your attention, how you switched the attitude of acting like he didn't exist to be a friend, one that you came to share secrets with a cherry aroma glued in their skin.

It gets him insane, to the point he's no longer spending much time with Jean and people start to pick up on it as if he didn't have enough headaches already. He doesn't care. Shit you are not bothered by what people say, and to be honest, he cannot seem to care either.

At first, he's reluctant of keep on talking to you as normal as it is. He's not really invested in religious themes, but he sure admits you're a sin by all meanings, a religious experience of some kind if anyone asked him — He agrees with what he has heard also in the hallways. Innocent conversations of teens and their platonic crush on their teachers. You are pretty hot.

He's so interested in knowing more about you, about the nights you spend in Rumania, when you leave to Canada, the different lives you've lived across the years. He finds himself looking forward to share his stories too, weird enough, cause he's over two centuries himself and he just craves to talk about it with someone who also gets him in a deeper level, that weariness that fills your body when you age so long.

You got the best of immortality, and instead of feeling envious, Logan finds himself attracted to you so much like he's never been in his whole existence. Not at the point it happened with you at least.

By the end of the first month he knows your little treats. You use a lot of sunscreen, and avoid activities outside as much as you possibly can with those classic, tiny black sunglasses that hided you from the rays of the sun, always in the shadow so unapproachable; how you'd usually dismiss food offerings from anyone who's kind enough to even offer you something, and when you haven't fed well during the course of the week, you'd become the most maddening woman he'd ever met.

Maddening.

"What wrong with you, Leech?" Leech. You've been in such a bad mood lately that when he's seating next to you in another random smoking session outside, your fingers twitch, clearly pissed at the nickname after saying multiple times you don't like it.

"I'm not in the mood for plays now."

He can tell from before. When you talked to him that very morning and stared at the collar of his flannel for what it seemed a good, nice minute, he realizes the same moment that you were staring at that pulse point in his neck, where the flesh blood was pumping in his blood flow: You're hungry, as any living creature would be and at your own manner, in constant control as you fight the sense of hunger.

So instead, the mutant ask, like he always does when he’s curious about something that involves you:

"When did you last feed?"

"A couple of weeks ago."

That would explain it. You don't talk much about your meal plan, he knows the professor is in charge of all of that. You've told him about blood bags and hospitals, but he's not really aware of how constant you need to eat, how the blood supplies most of your energy, makes you stronger, gives you vitality, so Logan at first, don't really know what its like to not drink any blood in the course of two weeks.

"What happened with the blood bags from the Hospital?"

The mention of blood out loud seems to triggers you. A groan escaping your lips as you can swear you feel the taste in your mouth — "Don't know. Haven't seen a single one this week, Charles said something about next week, problems in the bank I guess."

You're clearly worked up. It's a new look he hasn't registered before, your hair is tangled in a less-composed look, and there's a slight shake in your hands as if you're going through withdrawal, deprived for what you needed the most.

"And animals?" he questions, trying to find a solution. “Can’t you eat a cat or something?”

"Like shit i'm going to feed from a fucking animal," you're almost immediately grossed out, scrunching your nose at the idea. "I can barely handle being so close to a damn human but animals? I'd rather fucking die this time for real, no waking up."

"That bad huh?" the mutant asks, taking a sip from the beer he sneaked outside, chucking lightly afterwards. "So you're a leech with elegant taste, huh? Of course you are."

"Clean blood is rare," you explain, rolling your eyes. It's inevitable. He knows you hate the nickname so much that he insists to keep on calling you that way just to get a reaction—. "Humans nowadays taste like dirt. They consume drugs among other substances, pills, food supplements, even damn vitamins, don’t get me started about blood diseases cause it gets me in a bad temper. Every single thing affects on your taste, even what you eat. It's all registered there. Clean, good blood is rare to find. Call me elegant, call me picky. It's a damn fact."

"And what about mutant blood?" he questions. And it seems like a mere phrase at first, one with no subtle tones, he’s usually curious about your nature so you don’t pay much attention as he spoke—. “You’re picky about mutants too?”

“No, i’ve never had a mutant before.” The truth is, you hate feeding from people, the act being something so intimate, so damn personal, you refrain yourself. Killing humans, picking a next victim to fed on, is considered now a treat you don't appreciate from your kind, making you steal from hospitals and any kind of blood bank before Charles offered you help. You haven't fed from a mutant, cause you avoided everyone equally, but you don't want to be rude about it. “You all smell different, but i’d be lying. Maybe yes, i’d be picky about it too, feeding is something intimate.”

It's an undeniable admission, and now that he's trying to be in your position, he would also be picky about someone's blood. Logan remains stoic cause he’s suddenly filled by the thought of something else, a glimpse of his own weird creativity he forces himself to push aside, to really suppress now that it's not the time or the moment.

“How do I smell?” It's too late to stop the words from coming out of his mouth when he asks her. And at first, is out of pure curiosity. He has never encountered a vampire in his life until you, let alone had someone talking about the subtle tastes of the blood being undead, so he doesn't want to let the opportunity slip — Of course he wants to know if an over two hundred mutant like himself would be as remotely good as a fresh, clean bag from the hospital.

"You stink like wet dog," he surely deserves it after all the times he’s been calling you a leech — "Like those cigars you tend to smoke, alcohol, and musk. It's similar as wood. That smell you got when you're in a forest and it's not raining but straight pouring."

"Is this a way of telling me i'd taste bad, peach?"

You make a mental note to let him know after you like peach way more than leech.

"If i'd found a human smelling like that, you won't be hearing from me anytime soon" you're just messing with him. A playful banter you enjoy more than ever, the distraction you needed to think in something else rather than the blood bags you craved so deeply — "Hell, i've would just walked the other way."

"So i'm taking you won't be feeding from me anytime soon."

It all takes a dark turn there. You're very aware of the tension the last month now that you talk to him in daily basis, but it’s just mere tension, nothing that ever goes beyond the limit. Logan has never said something to flirt with you despite the million chances he got, and he always remained like a friend, one that you enjoy spending time with now. Cannot be blamed when you're taken aback.

“Cat got your tongue, kiddo?” Man. You're about to whine about the name before you remember he is indeed, older than you are. Vampire or mutant.

"You want me to feed from you?"

He seems so willing when you ask. Even when you teased about his smell calling him a wet dog. He just seems so eager to let you just do it, try a mutant for the first time.

"Yeah," he dismisses it like it's not something so deep — "I doubt Charles is going to let you take a bite since you could clearly kill him, and I'm not sure the others would be pleased with the idea of you sinking your teeth in them, so yes. Me, leech."

Logan Howlett doesn't really smell bad. And you don't know why cause he has all the ingredients to fucking stink, yet, you'd call him interesting. That's what you thought when you find his pulse point again, the vein in his neck you looked earlier in the morning, thinking just as the same you were thinking now.

Of course you would feed from him. Is it a good thing to do? No, in any other circumstances you'd decline. He's your friend.

Now? You’re having a hard time.

"So I'm guessing that you're pleased with the idea, then," Real talk?, you just want to hear him say it. He doesn't talk much usually, but now that he's very vocal about what's on his mind, you have to take advantage of it—. "I'm not sure either. But I do think Storm may be interested too."

He seems content with the response, taking a long sip from his beer before adding — "Please, go and ask her so you're less annoying."

You're almost completely sure he doesn't find you annoying. You also don't care about Storm. And maybe he knows you're not going anywhere, that you're not moving.

"You really want me to bite you?"

"I dunno now, princess" he looks at you pleased now cause he got you where he wanted to, cause he managed to awake all the interest now that you're looking at him "Are you going to pull a Dracula on me?"

"No, i'm not going to suck you dry if that's what you're asking."

Logan chuckles. He's a damn masochist. It's been like that as long as he can remember. It may have to be with his healing powers cause he likes it more than usual, but the idea gets to his head soon enough, all falling so damn fast: Your breathing would be against his neck and he'd take the bite like a damn champ.

"Yeah I can handle you," he says, aroused. "You're not gonna hurt me if you take some blood. I'll be fine and you won't be a pain in the ass."

He acts so gruff about it but you hear the sound of his heartbeat already high enough to wake the entire mansion, his labored breathing since he suggested the idea himself. He digs it, strange enough. Thrives on the idea.

He's a grown man already, and he can take a little leech like yourself.

It's clear you're hungry, cause it doesn't take much for you to accept, nodding like you're defeated, like you just lost the war entirely, cause there's no many options here to take and even if it were, you are now interested in have him more than any other blood bag. In fact. To hell with the hospital.

"Okay."

It's a simple answer, and it sure works with him as you get close to him, the bench you always used to sit now seeming so small as you look around confirming you guys really are alone—. "You won't tell anyone?"

It's something stupid to ask, cause after all that time he has never said anything, keeping your secrets as if they were his own, saving you from weird questions people get sometimes as they didn't know much about you. He's clearly not going to say nothing at all.

"Are you going to stop whining for a second and just eat darlin'? Cause I might change my mind here."

He's feeling overload soon after.

You don’t need a formal invitation to lean closer to his neck.

There's no way to describe it also cause he has never seen something like that, never felt a similar sensation more than when he's fucking, the cold touch of your fingers in his chest, taunting the vein in his neck without a previous warning before leaning in even closer than before—. "Stay still" you demand, face close against his bare skin, only one goal in mind. "Don't move for a minute. Just-"

You cannot finish the sentence, and Logan can experience the sporadic pain of the bite first hand when your teeth finally sink in his neck, piercing the flesh so easily as you let the blood fill your mouth. He grunts at the sharp pain, his face contracting momentarily before it's replaced by a nice wave of pleasure, one that hits him right in the guts as he grabs you by the nape of your neck, pushing you against him, almost demanding you to be closer, to keep on taking what you want, what you've been craving for two weeks.

When did he turned into this perverted sick? Getting off by something so primal as the fact you're feasting on him.

The feeling of your lips and the clear suck you gave when feeding are sending him into a spiral, and to be honest, he didn't expect to be so devastated by you, by the way your fingers stay against his chest to prevent him from moving, pinning the mutant between the wood bench and yourself so he won’t move, won’t do anything unless you want him to,pressing on the wound to draw more blood out.

"You heal so damn fast," you complain, looking at the traces of your bite with an unpleased face as they disappeared on his skin as fast as you created them.

"Then bite me again. I don't care."

You chuckle before leaning once again, and you can feel how the air grows hotter than how it was usually, the shift on his breathing as you bite him again, pressing on the wounds once again just to suck.

And you’re hungry, it’s the whole deal. His taste differs from what you believe at first, a huge change from what humans taste like, from what you’re used to deal with in hospitals. There’s a subtle taste of alcohol yes, but it mixes good with the sweet taste of honey, the weird taste you cannot put into words. It must be a mutant thing for sure cause it’s thicker than usual, a mix of flavors that explode in your tongue.

The headache you suffered from the whole week seems to dissapear as you drink in, feeding the monster you responded to in your stomach, demanding you to make him bleed more, to satisfy yourself until you can’t have any more.

Logan, on the other hand, is really fighting against his very own war.

You’re already close enough, but he just wants you damn closer, as much as he possibly can. It’s clear that well, it hurts slightly, but he has endured much worse, means nothing when it’s the pleasure that comes with it who strikes on his body, the light sucking, the idea you’re full of his blood, that you are not on trouble as you were before thanks to him. All because of him.

He's not used to acts on his impulses, but he does it anyway.

"C'mere" he says in a strangled voice, Logan's having no trouble moving you around, grabbing you by the hips to make you straddle him, keeping you glued to his neck as he doesn't want to disturb you—. "You really are a pretty leech, huh?”

You hum against his skin, pleased at the contact, and when he realizes you’re not complaining about his actions, he let his fingers grip your tights, keeping you against him.

You can hear him making this sound, quite like a moan but not exactly when you’re licking the holes you left in his skin, he does heal fast and don’t need any of your help when you’re done, but you coat his skin with your saliva anyway just to speed up the process, cause you want to do it, looking down to him after to check if he’s pale or nearly dead. You never really know.

And Logan himself is just fine cause his fingers gather the blood under your lip when he takes the sight of you sitting in his lap as the pearly white rays of moonlight makes your skin shine, and he pushes them inside your mouth so you don't waste any drop of what it can be considered food.

"So what's the final verdict?" he asks as his hands are now grabbing your tights, there's something so intimate about the moment, so personal, hot as he presses his fingers against the flesh of your muscles, he understand what you said before—. "Do I taste like utter shit?"

"Well, i’d need another taste to have my final decision" he laughs, and he don't really laugh often so the unexpected sound sends a shiver down your spine now that you’ve heard the sound quite a while now—. "Not much, just a little."

“Have you fill then, peach” He encourages you. “I want you full so you don’t whine the rest of the week.”

You don’t have any heartbeat, but if you did, it would be ragging in your ears at his words. At the warmth he’s spreading like a disease on her body that, despite being dead and cold, you can feel more than ever.

“I like peach,” you admit, this time pressing a soft kiss before directly hurt him—. “Leech is annoying.”

He’s going to say something, tease you about it maybe but he’s interrupted by the nice feeling of what he considers are your fangs tearing his skin apart, familiarity hitting him all sudden as he moans, a rough sound that comes from the deep of his throat, hands coming down to squeeze your ass, making you gasp against his neck when you experience the aching need physically forming in his pants.

“Still,” you say, concentrated on not allowing the wounds to close. But at the lack of complaints on what he's doing, Logan’s hands kept wandering around, making you move against his now clearly stiffed cock—. “Fuck’s sake I said still.”

“Stop being a damn brat. You can eat while I move you,” he grunts annoyed, shoving you against him, the friction of his jeans against the thin fabric of your shorts is enough to keep you quiet: Feeding from a stranger and feeding from a person you’re attracted to are two different things, especially in the position you find yourself in. “You don’t have to do anything. Quit whining about it.”

In response, your fingers press against the wound, not caring if it hurts or if it bothers him, but just enough to get him to bleed more and prevent the cut from closing, lapping at the blood that gathered over his collarbone, staining his white tank before you could even avoid it.

Your fingers grab the fabric just to pull it slightly down so it won't bother you, and the deep sound his chest make when he mocks about your desperation is stuck on your brain for the next couple of minutes, indulging in his taste, shutting up the rest of the world.

A moan comes out of your lips, muffling it against his skin. You're too zoomed out to hear it, but he's on a hell of a ride too, moaning as he demands more. It's been a while since the last time you did something like that, combine the pleasure of something as primal as eating with a mundane activity like sex, so you kind of forgot how good it felt, blaming yourself from depriving from something so needed.

"Do you always get this turned on when someone bites you?"

"No" Logan answers as you finish. He's rock hard beneath you, and he lets you know it when he's controlling the movement of your hips, working you against him at a slow pace—. "See, the woman i'm trying to seduce don't usually bite me, nor make me their main dinner plate."

You whine at the friction.

He looks down to the cause of all his damn problems just to notice his pants being damped with nothing but a physical form of need, soothing the uncomfortable fabric of his blue jeans — "So wet for me already, you’re making a damn mess, do you always get this turned on when feeding?"

Cheeky bastard.

He's using your own words against you, and you cannot be less bothered as you laugh softly, licking your lips only cause you know there's dried blood in them, drowned in his smell, the honey taste that lingered in your mouth.

“No, I don’t.”

At the sight, Logan's hand grabs your jaw in a rough movement, making you look at him before making you kiss him, deepening the contact as fast as you give him the chance. His tongue is soon invading your bucal cavity as he takes control of it, slow, intense and needy, as if he was holding on so much time before giving in to his own desires.

It is something like that.

You don't need to breathe in daily basis, but there's a burning sensation in your chest of wanting, of infinite lust you've been also experiencing by yourself.

The old mutant can taste his own blood in your mouth, a metallic taste as he keeps on kissing you until your lips are pink and puffed. He has thought so much about it that now that he has the opportunity, he devours as if he's a starved man having his first meal in what seems are ages.

"You didn't tell me if I tasted bad."

You think about it for a second.

"I'm afraid you're a rare breed cause it doesn't make any sense" You don't need any help now moving, cause you're rolling your hips on top of him at your own pace, allowing him to use his hands for something else—. “You have all the ingredients to taste like shit, but it's nothing but the contrary, even better than the fucking blood bags.”

“Sounds like your going to make me your meal plan, darlin. I’m here offering you a hand and you just take everything,” — “Such a greedy little vampire.”

He doesn't seem to care though, same as before he's nothing but willing to let you take everything as much as he tries to bark about it. He's more worried about his hands now that they're sliding down your oversized shirt, tracing patterns over your stomach, his touch so hot against your usually cold temperature.

"Logan," you whine,— "Someone can see us out here."

"Now you care about that?" his hazel eyes are a shade darker when he speaks. "After you're nice and full of my blood?"

His hands are big enough to take your whole cunt, allowing his digits to roam over the fabric of your underwear, almost thanking you for using those loosened pajama shorts he has seen before that very night as he just takes the fabric and pull it to the side.

"Nobody is going to see us. It's late and everyone's sleeping, leech" he teases you, and you cannot bring yourself to care about the nickname at the feeling of his hand taunting you from over the fabric—. "If you can bite me here outside, you might as well take my cock here too."

You cannot battle against that. You're deep in whatever spell he puts you into, giving in to the attraction and the tension that now needs to be taken care of. Logan's fingers touch you in nothing but experience, cause he knows how to please after so much time alive, how much pressure he needs to apply to leave you plain dumb, pliable for him.

"D'you think I need to stretch you out before fucking you?" he asks against your neck after leaving a reasonable-sized hickey in the zone, he likes the idea of people finding out about what you've been doing with him the next morning. "Or you're a big girl and can take me all by yourself?"

He'd like to take your time with you. Thoroughly enjoy you as much as he wants to, let everyone know you're his now, that you're shuddering thanks to him only, but he's too needy for that, too deprived of you to take his time.

"I want you to use that pretty mouth of yours and talk to me," he demands, coming up to look at your face while torturing you, his index and middle finger rubbing your clit from over the underwear—. "I'm not properly touching you yet and you're losing it already, peach. C'mon, you can talk to me still."

"I can take you," you say in a strangled voice. "Please Logan, please."

It's the plea of your tone that gets him, the soft begging of an ache he can only soothe, your face while you ask for more, not aware of anything else but him.

"Please what?"

"Please just fuck me already," you ask in frustration—. "I just need you to fill me up for a damn while."

You are starting to love the sound of his laugh. The deep sound he makes when he’s really enjoying something, his voice in damn general.

"Be a good little vampire" He says in a gentle tone. Logan’s trying to be kind even when his touch is so rough. "Unbuckle my pants and take my cock out. My hands are busy now, and you can do it yourself."

He is busy indeed. Toying with your underwear being the only thing that’s keeping him from the direct contact, pushing the fabric against your hole as it works as a barrier, preventing his digits to fuck you as he’d like to. He’s busy keeping you in place, preventing you from downright melt as your hands came up to unbuckle his belt first, the sound of the metal as it moves filling the air for a couple of seconds before you put all your attention in the button of his jeans, the zipper coming down with the force you’re using.

“Yeah baby,” he praises—. “You’re doing so good, keep going.”

When you pull the fabric of his briefs down, he’s already leaking for you, pink head, slightly curved to the side, moaning, erratically how much he needs your hands on him, how you're wet and ready for his cock. You close your fist around him, stroking slowly as your hips lift up enough to position yourself on top of him.

He’s big. Damn fucking right he is, you’d expected it from before cause sometimes you swear you can see his full length in his jeans, but taking him in your hand is a struggle but itself.

“Are you going to take me yourself or do you need my help? I know you can.”

Despite his words, he does help. Grabbing the black fabric of your underwear to finally make it to the side, the tip of his dick pushing against your clit before he's the one to place it in your leaky hole, forcing himself slowly, giving you time to take him in, inch by inch.

“Good girl," he says, head rolling backwards for a brief moment as he experiences the warm sensation of your walls surrounding him, clenching against his cock as he keeps one hand on your hip, helping you as you lower yourself over him. "Let me look at you.”

His fingers grab your jaw, squeezing you as he makes you look back at him, pushing you once again as you holded a loud moan. He's stretching you at his need.

"One more time," he begs. "One more time and you got it, peach. You're almost there."

Jesus fuck. You can feel yourself getting dizzy. You've drank a lot of blood and you're now overwhelmed by this intense pleasure that formed in your lower stomach, gathering there and waiting for the perfect moment to explode—. "Fuck I-"

Logan's pampering you with kisses as a mere distraction, his lips travelling through your neck to your collarbone before you're finally seated on top of him, a muffled moan you need to shut filling the calm of the night.

"Fuck you're tight," he exhales, and he's lost in the sensation, the way your velvety walls welcome him inside. He stays still for a moment, giving you time to adjust, to make you the one who starts moving on top of him.

You can see his veins popping up. All over his chest and coming down to his shoulders and his arms, and god gracious — He smells so fucking good you’re tempted to ask if you can have a bite again.

The moment feels longer than usual, the seconds pass slowly as you stay there. Logan’s hands are just touching your skin from under your oversized t-shirt, taking in the low moans you gave him, the almost perceptible whispers as you get used to him, to his size.

He likes the intimacy of it, the bliss. Man you look so pretty in his lap when the light of the moon is stripping you all to his eyes, even if you’re fully dressed an he’s seated in a damn bench, he cannot enjoy it more, pulling you in for a needy kiss, one that is rougher than the first one and leads you to move inevitably.

His cock pushes past that nice spot inside, and the friction is enough to make you move again, rocking your hips at a slow pace for a few seconds. The sound of your moans is silenced by his demanding kisses, and now that he knows you can handle him, his grip on your hips turn more firm now, squeezing the skin there so he can control your speed, the rythm of your movements now faster than before.

“Shh, don’t whine” what he lacks of vocal usually, he pours it all in just fucking, talking you through it when he feels you’re being too loud—. “Do you want to wake the others? We can’t have them seeing you like this, all fed up and cock-drunk.”

“Let me bite you again,” you ask soon enough. And it takes a lot to do it, cause you’re doing it out of pure greed, cause you can’t have enough.

“Take whatever you want, leech, just don’t make me faint” he jokes, his panted breathing betraying him as he moans, incredibly interested in the idea—. “Want to be conscious when you cum all over my dick.”

Logan’s sure your eyes glisten in a red color as you lean over his neck. And this time is less affectionate, much less gentle as you finally bite him again, teeth piercing the flesh so easily his hips jolts against you in response of the sharp pain your fangs create, the warm sensation of his blood in contrast of your cold touch, tongue-licking all you get from him.

And fuck it feels good.

He shrudders beneath you, shaking his head just slightly at reflex of pain before continue working his way with you, placing his hand between your tights as he lets his fingers rub on your sensitive clit, just enough to make you bite on his neck harder, the lewd sounds of your cunt taking him between holded moans as you suck on his neck.

“That’s it taking me so good,” He praises — “You like that, princess? Like how you’re full of me?”

You hum against his skin. The blood coates your chin as it goes down through his chest, staining his white tank for a couple of seconds before the holes your teeth made finally closes on their own.

It’s pure ecstasy. He can feel it when you clenching around his cock, cheeks red from his blood going now through your system, his vitality, his energy.

You can feel him fucking everywhere. So when you kiss him it’s all teeth, bite and his blood.

The pleasure’s taking control of you now, and Logan’s dizzy from the blood loss, his body covered now in sweat as his words slur together, not threading any coherent thought.

“That’s it,” he says, making you bounce of his cock. “Gonna’ have you in my room then, all spread out f’me.”

His hand wrap around your neck tightly, keeping the direct contact as he chokes you. Shit. You don’t need to say a word. Logan already got you.

“James-” he’s too deep to question why you’re using that name with him. How you facade is crushing down now as you let go.

When your body trembles on top of him he’s already cumming too, the squeeze on his cock sufficent to fuck him up personally, his bruising grip on your hips shoving you as deep as he possibly can as his release hits him like a brick falling from the damn sky.

He lets you work for it, ride each second of your high, milk him dry as a white circle of his own cum mixed with your juices coated the base of his cock, his underwear now slick with your orgasm.

He’s struggling to breathe, to properly say something as you’re finally coming down from your peak, looking at him through half lidded eyes.

“Did you called me James?” he questions, and you’re a damn bad liar, cause he knows imediately you’re hidding something cause of the look on your face—. “Do we know each other? From before.”

You don’t know how to respond at first, at least, cause you cannot lie in a position like that now.

“Well uh. It’s quite a long story here.”

Before you can continue he gets up, making you wrap your legs around his hips before stsrting to walk to the mansion.

“Logan-” you say in a strangled moan yourself, still sensitive as he’s balls-deep inside you.

“It will be less than two minutes, leech” he responds gruffily,— “Need to get you into my room so I can enjoy you the rest of the night, and you can tell me all of it.”

He don’t care if he’s bloody or a damn mess as he squeezes your ass climbing up the stairs, much less if anyone see the two of you in that state.

“I want to hear all the details, Cause I have a weird feeling that this has happened before.”

You cannot find a reasonable excuse to say no as the man’s already reaching the second floor.

Logan’s fucked after that night. When he learned about all that you were before, weirdly connected to you through the decades.

It must be the bite isn’t? Shit. He’s more in sync than ever now that you’ve been feeding from him a lot the last few weeks.

Ah. You fucking leech.

my masterlist

[catboyieejeno]

gameboy :: p.js — one

genre: gamer! jisung x gamer! reader, college au cw: female reader, fwb to lovers, explicit smut, pervy jisung, male masturbation, oral (m and f receiving), unprotected sex, inexperienced jisung, cum play/breeding kink, pet names, slight humiliation kink, size kink, creampie, probably more wc: 18.257k

[one] [two]

18+ minors do not interact!

The red letters that flash across your screen read ‘Defeat’, illuminating your dimly lit room with a shy, red hue. The instant the word appears on your monitor, a voice blasts through your headset, erupting in emphatic complaints and protests. You can hear the clatter of a keyboard and mouse being shoved around on the other end of the receiver, and it takes everything in you to stifle your laugh. 

“We definitely could’ve won that!” the boy scoffs, “I swear, sometimes it feels like you and I are the only people with any fucking game sense.” 

“Wow, thanks for the validation,” you joke, instinctively queuing up for another match. Your eyes trail up to the little icon in the corner of the screen that glows green every time he speaks.

“You know what I mean,” he grumbles, and you imagine he must not look all that different from the little crying cat picture he set as his discord icon. The thought makes you snort, but he ignores you, stating, “I think this is my last game,” 

You nod even though you know he can’t see you, “same, I have class tomorrow,”

“First day of the semester for you, too?”  

You nod again. “Unfortunately. My days of gaming until four and sleeping until noon have come to an end.” 

He laughs, leaning forward in his chair as he realizes something, “You know, I never asked what you’re studying,” 

“Oh,” you blink, “Well, the first class I have tomorrow is just a random credit I needed, but I’m actually majoring in-” 

It takes less than a few seconds for your words to drown out into a muffled buzz, and the only thing Jisung can focus on now is the silky, smooth sound of your voice. 

He would never admit it, at least not out loud, but your voice makes his heart beat just a little faster. The way each and every word rolls off your tongue makes his breath hitch, imagination running wild at the thought of what your lips look like when they mold to form each syllable and sound. 

Every night like clockwork, Jisung finds himself rocking side to side in his desk chair, eyes hanging low and round lips curved up into a smile as he listens to you speak.

It’s so easy to talk to him, too. By now, you’ve lost count of how many nights the two of you rambled off in voice chats, watching shows or playing video games or simply oversharing the details of your lives. It’s only been a few months since you met in a game chat, on that night where he practically harassed you for your discord after you carried him up a rank in-game. You’re secretly grateful he did, though you wouldn’t let him know that; the two of you effortlessly became part of each other’s daily routine, and now, calls with you are his favorite way to end the night. Tonight is no exception.

Jisung begins to mindlessly swing in his chair as usual. He’s humming passively between your small pauses to encourage you to keep going as his hands automatically start caressing his torso. It’s a somewhat innocent gesture, or at least it starts out that way: his palms sliding across the ridges of his abdomen as he listens to your voice. It’s better than music to his ears, and it urges his long fingers to dance closer and closer to his waistband.

“–and I thought about changing it, but I think with an degree in Lit, I could probably get a career in–”

Lost in your voice, Jisung slips his hands into his shorts, holding his balls as he fully zones out of the conversation. He knows you’re saying words and forming actual sentences, but his social awareness has dwindled completely and he absolutely can’t seem to get past how sweet you sound, and how much sweeter you would sound under… different circumstances. He moves up to hold his dick gently and furrows his brows. Almost accidentally, his thumb brushes along the underside of his tip, teeth clamping the inside of his cheek and gnawing on it to ground himself. Just as eager as its owner, Jisung’s dick jolts in his palm, progressively swelling up until it’s flushing bright pink. 

“You’re into English?” He manages to stop daydreaming and hone into the conversation for a fleeting moment, just long enough to ask you that simple question and keep your attention off of his rapidly shifting breath.

He’s blatantly playing with himself now, ever so distractedly. It’s an autonomous act: the way the pad of his middle finger trails over his slit to collect a bit of the pre-cum that has begun to dribble out in pearly beads. He hisses, then quickly snaps his mouth shut in hopes that you hadn’t heard him. 

“Yeah,” he can hear your smile in your words, “I think I always have been. I used to read all the time and—I swear, if you say I’m boring, I’ll personally come over and choke you–” 

As he acknowledges reality for a quick moment, his pace falters. His brows pinch, and he feels confused as he realizes he can’t stop or even moderate his actions, despite the shame slowly beginning to wash over him. The more you talk, the harder he grows. His grip is getting tighter, his strokes needier… he must be losing his mind. With a gulp, he thinks to himself, what would you do if you could see him touching himself like this to you? Would you think it’s sick and twisted or would you offer to help him out? His head begins to throb as the room spins around him, but he really can’t seem to slow his motions. By now, he’s bucking his hips up and into his hand while the other covers his mouth, silencing the whines that threaten to leave his throat. He’s breathing heavily, praying to god you don’t somehow notice his perverted actions. Despite knowing that he isn’t thinking straight, Jisung can’t help the thoughts that continue to fog his mind, rampant and obscene. 

Could you hear the squelching of his hand pumping his cock, covered in his pre-release? Or the way he’s practically panting, reduced to nothing at the mere sound of your voice? He’s not sure whether or not his mic would even pick that up, but even so, the corner of his lips curl into a lazy smile as his mind continues down his twisted rabbit hole. 

In spite of not knowing what you look like, there’s no denying that he wants to give you all of him. He wants to feel himself buried deep inside your throat, your pretty voice vibrating around him as you choke on his length. He feels himself twitch in his palm and he subconsciously nods, picturing it's your walls around him instead of his own inadequate hand. Jisung huffs out once, fucking his fist wildly, picturing how much he’d like to feel himself bust inside of your warm, tight pus-

“Sung? Sung!”

“Huh? W-what?” As he yanks his hand from his shorts, the waistband snaps against his skin and he yelps out at the impact, “Sorry! I promise I was listening, it-its just, I got a little caught up with–” words are tumbling out of his mouth, before he can catch up to them.   

“It’s fine, it’s fine! Hurry, just pick your agent before the match gets–” but the timer runs out, and the lobby screen appears once more as you sigh, “–canceled...” 

Jisung glances down at his hand, separating his fingers and watching how the sticky pre-cum leaves webbed strings between each of his parted digits. His stomach is also wet, and the tent in his pants is growing increasingly painful with each passing second. 

“What were you fantasizing about, huh?” Oh, fuck. The teasing edge in your words makes his nerves tingle, and he throws his head back as you hum into your mic, “Hmm. Well, I guess it was more interesting than what I was saying. Can’t blame you though, the topic of school is boring me too, and the semester hasn’t even started yet. Also, that can’t count as your last game. I literally won’t allow it.” 

You queue up for another game and Jisung sighs, watching the timer on the screen tick away. The picture changes, and the two of you are prompted to start a game. A few kleenex wipes collect the mess on his hand and torso, and he settles back in his chair after tossing them, deciding his neediness will have to wait for now.

Bidding you good night is harder than usual tonight, but he knows you need to get to sleep—you mentioned you had an early class and he had his own, so his selfish urge to keep you talking until he came in his hand would, unfortunately, need to take a raincheck.

After logging off of his computer, Jisung drops his head into his hands with a sigh.

What the fuck even was that? 

A mix of shame and arousal take over him as his cheeks begin glowing a deep shade of red. He lets out a small scoff, shaking his head to himself as he gets up from his chair. His dick is still as hard as a rock, and he can’t help but feel flustered at the fact that he has, quite literally, blue-balled himself. 

With a towel swung over his shoulder and a clean pair of sleeping shorts clutched in his fist, Jisung walks up to the dorm’s nearest communal bathroom. He turns on the faucet, freeing himself of his clothes. The moment his boxers come down past his thighs, his length slaps against the skin below his navel, making him hiss out as he steps into the shower. The cold water, running down against his heated body, seems to be doing the trick of clearing his mind, that is, until his hands find their way to his stomach, rubbing the soap over it.

It’s so hard to expel the thoughts of you when they’re so intrusive and tempting, and Jisung lets his mind drift off once more, imagining how it would feel to be touched by you, sucked by you. All the soft noises you would make are weirdly familiar; he can practically hear them. His head falls back, lips caught between his teeth as he twitches and gives himself an experimental stroke, shuddering as his thumb glides across the slit of his sensitive tip. He clenches his eyes shut tighter, letting out a shaky sigh and letting the water continue to trickle down his body. He doesn’t know what you look like, other than your hair color which you mentioned the other day. Despite that, he still tries desperately to piece an image of you together behind his eyelids, picturing what your lips are like. And just like that, thoughts of you flood him, and he shudders at the vision of you on your knees, looking up at him with big, innocent eyes, begging to taste him and take all of him. He longs to feel you swallow around him—to grab either side of your face and thrust into your needy mouth until the tears slip from your eyes and your pussy is dripping from the need to be fucked.  

Getting lost in the moment, he doesn’t even realize how loud he’s becoming and how fast his fist is working his dick. Jisung's highly anticipated release is only seconds away when a loud knock startles him, lunging him right back into his body.

“Yo, man! How long are you gonna take in there?” His friend and next door neighbor, Mark, shouts from the other side of the door, knocking again and ruining Jisung’s fantasy once and for all. 

The boy takes a moment to clear his throat and swallow, not trusting his voice to not crack otherwise, “Uh.. Sorry. I’ll just be a minute.” 

It takes everything in him to slow his hand to a stop and pry it off of his shaft, deciding that perhaps, he shouldn’t entertain his filthy thoughts any longer. He quickly finishes showering with another unnecessary interruption from Mark, then drags himself back to his room and gets into his bed, forcing his eyes shut in an attempt to sleep. The longer he lies there, however, the more restless he grows. 

His dick feels sore to the touch and it’s driving him absolutely crazy. Every time he adjusts his shorts or moves his legs, his balls throb from how full they are. Knowing he has class to get to the following day, he tries to convince himself that maybe he needs a release to get to sleep. It’ll tire him out, and then finally, he’ll be able to get some rest…There’s at least a bit of logic to that theory, or that’s what he tells himself, anyway. 

Against his better judgment that pleads with him to just shut his eyes and count sheep, Jisung huffs out and slips his hands into his shorts to begin touching himself for the nth time tonight. This whole time, he had been unknowingly edging himself and now he’s so, so undeniably and incredibly desperate to cum that it literally hurts. 

His free hand brings his phone up and unlocks it, thumb swiping quickly in search of the discord app where your contact resides, the little green bubble next to it signifying that you’re still online. He hovers over the call button, taunting himself with the idea of making a call to you at this time. One little click, and he’d hear your voice again. Just one click and he-

sung ᨐฅ started a call. Today at 11:54 AM

Shit, shit, shit. 

He rushes to hang up, but you’ve answered no more than a ring later. 

“Hello?” 

Jisung holds his rather unsteady breath, staring wide-eyed at his phone. His dick pulses in his palm that now rests still. 

“Sung?” 

As gently as possible, he lays the phone down on his puffed up chest, letting out his breath slowly so that you don’t hear him.

“I’m gonna assume you called me by accident… ” you sigh out in disappointment, growing quiet in uncertainty. For a second, Jisung is convinced you’re gonna hang up, but when you stay on the line, he peers down at the screen curiously. 

Your icon lights up green and there’s some shuffling on your end, presumably from you getting comfortable in bed. 

He hears you yawn and smiles fondly. 

“I’m tired,” you mumble, “are you asleep? I was actually excited that you called. Maybe it’s my fucked up schedule… or, maybe I’m just dreading tomorrow, but I couldn’t sleep. I don’t know…” 

You’re speaking slower and quieter than usual, but you’re speaking, completely oblivious of the fact that he’s thinking of the dirtiest things that involve you, getting off while you think he’s sound asleep. 

“It’s always easier to sleep once we’ve talked so,” you pause, then sigh out jokingly, “I guess I'll just talk your unconscious ear off until I fall asleep…You don’t mind, right?”

God, no, he thinks.  

Jisung silently celebrates your decision with a pump of his hand, shuffling a bit to get comfortable as you go on about genshin and cats and other things he can barely pay mind to. It takes no more than a few strokes, shallow ones where he caresses the angry head of his dick to the velvety sound of your slurred and drowsy mumbling, for him to bring himself to come so fucking hard. 

His knees lock as his cock springs up in his clutched palm, spewing streams of white cum all over his stomach, chest, and thighs. The muscles on his abdomen ache from the way they contract, eyes and jaw shutting tightly as he challenges himself to remain quiet. The sheets aren’t spared from his thick load either, his nut dripping down the sides of his tummy to make dark, round puddles on his bed. His toes curl as he tries his hardest to not gasp out when the pleasure dissolves into sensitivity, digging his head back into the pillow with a hand clasped over his lips. 

A few minutes later, the blurriness in his vision is relieved, along with the ringing in his ears. You’ve stopped talking; instead, the receiver picks up your short and shallow breaths, as if you’ve fallen asleep with your mouth open. Cute.  

As he assesses the aftermath of his much needed release, he wishes he could snap a picture and send it to you, so that you’d wake up knowing this pathetic mess he made was all for you, because of you.

Alas, he can’t, and he hangs up once he’s completely sure you’re resting. With his eyelids feeling much heavier than before, he manages to toss his phone onto the nightstand before he, too, drifts off to sleep.

•.¸¸☆*･ﾟ

The following morning, Jisung wakes up in a bit of a panic. The first thing that throws him for a loop is the fact that his alarm didn’t go off at all. He quickly realizes he forgot to set it amidst the activities of the night before. The second thing that strikes him is his own hand that rests on his stomach, stuck in some kind of damp, sticky liquid. In his half-conscious state, he lifts his fingers and his puffy eyes widen as he identifies the clear fluid that decorates his tummy as his drying release from the night before. 

“Ugh…” He grimaces, sitting up in his bed. His phone, which is less than half full of battery since he forgot to plug it in, blinks back the numbers 8:38 at him. Jisung’s eyes widen as he remembers that his first class of the day, of the semester, is at 9. 

“Fuck!” In a flash, his blanket is flung off of him and his legs are swinging over the edge of the bed. He moves to grab some tissues from his nightstand, making aggressively desperate attempts at wiping away his cum. When the Kleenex sticks to him instead, he digs around his drawers for a pack of wet wipes, snatching a pair of pants off of the floor at the same time and practically yanking them up his legs. 

Despite almost falling over, he manages to get them on and clean off his torso… for the most part. A random sweatshirt is tugged on over his head and he runs his hand through his hair a few times to tidy it before passively telling his reflection, this will do. 

Moments later, he’s rushing downstairs and outside of the dormitory with his unzipped backpack hung over his shoulder. He rushes to unlock his bike, cursing as he fumbles with the keys. Once he’s on, he starts pedaling to the Science building on the other side of campus, heavily dreading checking the time in fear it’ll read some absurd number and he’ll wind up being much later than he anticipates.

The breath that’s been caught in his throat all morning is only released when he steps through the door of the lecture room to see that the professor hasn’t walked in yet, and that the clock reads that he’s 6 minutes early.

Finally slowing his rushed pace, Jisung does a quick once over the room to scan the faces of his fellow students before taking his seat somewhere near the back. Thanking the heavens that his notebook and textbook didn’t go tumbling out of his bag in the midst of his previous hurry, he tugs them out, flipping them open and writing the date on the first page. His laptop, which is where he had planned to take notes on, sits in his dorm room where he left it on his desk. Everyone else has theirs out, but he’ll just have to bring his own next time. 

There’s a distant click, and the door on the lowest level of the lecture hall opens. Through it walks a relatively tall and slender lady, heels echoing rhythmically as she strides over to set her dark bag down by the podium. Her hair is tied back high and tight, so much so, that all of her features look like they're blending into her hairline. She looks like she’s somewhere in her mid-to-late fifties, and from the instant she walked in, the entire class went silent.

She clearly has a presence that commands attention and undoubtedly, she fits the visual profile of a strict college professor quite well, especially when she picks up the chalk and scribbles her surname onto the green chalkboard beside the larger projector screen.

“I’m Professor Hwang. Welcome to AST1002, also known as Descriptive Astronomy. If you’re here, that means you took AST1001 with Mr. Kwon last year. He has since transferred to a different department.” 

There’s no audible response, although some disappointment does flash across the faces of the students in the room, all of whom did have (and seemingly would miss) Mr. Kwon. Professor Hwang doesn’t seem to notice the lack of responses, and continues speaking as she pulls some papers out.

“Firstly, I’ll take attendance. Then, I’ll pass the syllabus around. I would like for you to note,” she pauses to place a pair of red glasses high on the bridge of her nose, “that attendance is mandatory for my class, and worth 20% of your grade. I’ll go over pop quizzes and weekly quizzes, as well as the initial class project, when each of you have a copy of the syllabus. That being said, I look forward to seeing you all here every class. Please call out when you hear your name.” 

As she starts to take attendance, Jisung takes the time to sigh into his hands, both exhausted and dreading the fact that he’d have to spend three days out of the week rotting in a lecture hall to attend a class he expected to be fun, or at the very least a break from his much more difficult core classes. By the looks of it, that’s no longer the plan. 

It’s easy to zone out quickly while his mind is still foggy, no doubt from the lack of sleep and the subsequent abrupt awakening that followed. He had just begun an attempt to read the syllabus when something made his ears perk. 

Immediately, his head snaps up in pursuit of a soft and airy voice that just responded to Professor Hwang. It’s so quick and in passing that he almost thinks he might have imagined it in his delirious state, but the way the hair on his limbs stands on end is unmistakable. His eyes dart around the room, hitting his classmate’s heads like targets, but there’s absolutely no way to identify the individual who just spoke. 

Could it be… No. No way. 

Jisung is no stranger to daydreaming about you, but he isn’t completely delusional. He knows the chances of being not only in the same city, but the same university and class as you are absolutely slim to none, so he stops that train of thought dead in its tracks. 

It does segway him into thinking of you, though. You’re obviously not here, so he wonders instead what class you are in at the moment. He tries to picture what you’re wearing on your first day of class, trusting you look more put together than him in his old hoodie that is slightly sticking to the dry cum on his stomach. Do you like your classmates? Your professor? He sincerely hopes you have a more tolerable one than he does. 

“Park Jisung?” 

With a slight cough, he spits out a weak “h-here.” and instantly grimaces, raising his shoulders autonomously as if he would get scolded for stammering so pathetically. The professor, to his relief, doesn’t even glance up from the roster. Then, he feels quite silly for even thinking he would get reproached for that to begin with. In his defense, she’s a rather intimidating woman, and his inner monologue is so loud and flooded with thoughts of you that he fears she may have heard it. 

She finishes calling for attendance, resorting to striding up and down the aisles as she begins to dissect the syllabus. In an effort to pretend he’s paying attention, Jisung glances down at the size twelve font on the page, skimming over the words without really taking anything in. During one of the professor’s paces, a pen she had resting on her ear slips and falls towards the ground with a slight clatter, and it seems a student picked it up for her, because there’s a slight mumbling, followed by a sharp “thank you,” and a very, very recognizable,

“You’re welcome, Professor.” 

His eyes widen at once. Alright, call him crazy, but now he thinks that it really might have been your voice. The familiar timbre, warm and delicate; a sound he’s heard for months on end and knows embarrassingly well… The thought of being in the same room as you out of sheer luck and coincidence makes his abdomen twist and his palms sweat so bad, he has to wipe them on his pants.

He hates that he can’t fully tell, in fact, he’s almost ashamed that he can’t; before today, Jisung would have sworn up and down that he knew your voice better than even his own, but you sound so far and so quiet that he can’t completely bet all of his marbles. Then, he quickly realizes calling it ‘your voice’ definitely makes him sound delusional, even in the safety of his own forgiving conscience. He decides to call it ‘the voice’ for now, at least until he’s a hundred-percent sure. 

An irritatingly long hour and half later, the only sound that continues to ring around the lecture hall is Professor Hwang’s monotone one, reciting each and every itemized assignment and rule on the never-ending syllabus. There’s less than fifteen minutes until class is over, and she shows no signs of stopping her dissertation. 

“As for the class project: In pairs of two, you will research a constellation extensively to create a presentation on its formation, who cataloged it, and the Greek myth that may accompany it. Please note that this is the first and last time we will talk about constellations in this class, since they are not cosmic phenomenons but instead, a mere roadmap to the objects and themes we will be focusing on. Consider this strictly as an opportunity to familiarize yourselves with another classmate and show me your interest and effort in the subject. That concludes our syllabus,” Thank God, Jisung thinks. 

 “Any questions?” She glances around at a hand that floats in the air, near the front of the room, “yes?” 

“Will we be able to select our partners?” 

“No. Partners will be assigned at the end of the week. Yes?” She calls on another hand. 

“As for the constellations,” Wait, that’s it! That’s the voice—that’s your voice, he’s completely sure of it!  “Will you assign those as well?” 

Jisung elongates his neck to try and peek over the heads in his way. It is you, he’s positive now, but you’re turned away from him, and he can’t fully make out which ‘back of the head’ is your ‘back of the head.’ The echo in the hall makes it nearly impossible to pinpoint who just spoke which means he can’t pinpoint you. For some reason, he finds himself slightly panicking, desperate to finally see you in person.

He follows Professor Hwang's line of sight as she answers that she’ll assign the constellations on Friday too, and finally finds you, seated between a few other students. A few more questions are thrown around, but his eyes never leave you, anticipating the moment he catches a glimpse of your face. 

Naturally, his first instinct is to approach you as soon as class is out, but when he sees you spin around to pick up your bag that hangs off your chair, he finds himself glued to his own flimsy seat. Feet stuck to the ground, legs not budging, and air hitched in his throat at the sight of you. 

You’re so, so much prettier than he could have imagined with whatever unoriginal features he tried to piece together in his lacking mind, and that fact makes him both exhilarated and completely nauseous. 

He’s barely been looking at you for a few seconds when he feels his insatiable cock growing fast in the confines of his pants, with no regard for its owner and the fact that he has to stand up within the next minute or so to exit the hall. Jisung curses under his breath, awkwardly rising to his feet when most of his classmates leave, his bag clutched tightly in front of his groin. He prays you don’t glance over, not even because he has a semi-hard on he’s failing to hide with dissimulation, but because he’s staring at you like some sort of freak and can’t seem to look away. 

There’s nothing he wants more than to come up to you and say hi and confess he’s the person you’ve been gaming with for months. He’s pictured it countless times before, you’d think he’d have it down by now, but your beauty is intimidating, and he simply cannot and will not make a fool of himself in front of you by greeting you with a raging boner. 

You walk out of the classroom and Jisung’s heart settles in his chest as he sits with his decision to stay anonymous for now. 

•.¸¸☆*･ﾟ

“She was obnoxious, you have no idea!” 

“My teacher wasn’t much different,” he admits, a small, knowing smile toying at his lips, “she seemed like a real bitch,” 

It’s later that same evening, and talking to you doesn’t really feel the same anymore. It’s much harder, because now, Jisung can vividly picture you, sitting in your chair with your hands on your keyboard and mouse. Every word you say, his imagination is right thereafter, picturing your pretty face clear as day in the forefront of his mind. 

The moment he got home, he fucked his fist until he came in his hand. It took about five minutes, and then he pumped another one out in the shower, (a much needed shower, at that) where he finally washed away the remains of the night before. 

After he had lunch with Mark and the other boys from his floor, they had invited him to play basketball. At the same time, however, he received a direct message from you, explaining you didn’t have any other classes for the day and asking if he could get on earlier. 

It’s a little ridiculous, but now that he’s seen you, now that he knows you’re so much closer than he initially thought, he can’t wait to talk to you again. And so he quickly came up with an empty excuse related to his studies, took the berating from his friends like a champ, and rushed upstairs to log into his PC and open up your chat. 

“Not only do we already have a project, but we don’t even get to pick our partners.” 

I know! He thinks. 

“Like,” you start, and he pictures the way your cheeks fill up with air as you let out a huff, “what if I get stuck with some weirdo?” 

Instantly, Jisung stops palming himself, letting his hand climb back up to the mouse slowly.

He probably shouldn’t let that innocent statement affect him as much as it does, but he can’t help it. He has the advantage, right? Or, at least it seems that way. 

When everything is laid out, he has the upperhand of knowing who you are—you haven’t seen him, yet… but what if you did see him, and he wasn’t at all what you were expecting? Or even worse, what if you got paired together for the project and you thought he was weird or the two of you didn’t get along? That option is far less likely, since there are well over fifty students in AST1002. 

“I don’t know,” you start, “I’m considering switching out of the class-” 

“No!” Wow. Good going, Jisung.

He catches his slip-up and quickly blurts out, “I-I mean, it might not be that bad! You should… at least give it a shot before you try to switch out, right?” 

“I guess you’re right… The add and drop period at my school is until next Friday, so I'll try it out until then.” 

Great! Perfect! Good save. The only problem now is: Jisung has a little over a week and a half to somehow convince you to stay in his class and at the same time, not completely butcher his introduction to you. Approaching you now seems practically impossible, but he needs you to stay in the class, even if it means he has to come up to you first. He can’t be bothered to care that his insistence is for his own selfish intentions, if it means getting to see you three times a week. 

“But anyway,” he clears his throat, changing the topic as quickly as possible, “how did your other class go?” 

“Much better than the first, the teacher let us out early once he covered the books we’d be analyzing this semester and attendance isn’t mandatory since most of the material is online or in the library. I think I’ll swing by there one of these days to see if I can get ahead on some of the assignments.” 

“Oh, so you’re a nerd?” You gasp and smack his character in-game a few times. He laughs, calling out, “okay, okay, truce! You’re not a nerd then, just an overachiever.”

“How so?” 

“We’re barely a day into the semester and you’re already trying your homework that I’m sure isn’t due for at least a few weeks,” 

You roll your eyes, knowing he’s right. With a bit of playful flirtation twisted into your tone, you hum out, “What can I say? I like to please.” 

One of his eyebrows perks up, “is that right?” 

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” He can hear your smirk through the screen, and now, he can vividly picture it, too. 

Jisung scoffs, backing away from your character so that he’s out of your sight. He cowers into a corner in game;  this way, you don’t notice how he stops moving when his left hand leaves the w,a,s,d keys to cup and rub his needy bulge. 

•.¸¸☆*･ﾟ

Wednesday’s class is somehow packed and entirely uneventful at the same time. The first of Professor Hwang’s dragging lectures is so loaded that Jisung actually thanks the heavens that he remembered to bring his laptop. Otherwise, his notebook would have been about halfway full already, and his hand? It would have fallen off. 

On another relevant note, he’s struggling to stay focused because today, he is sitting much closer to you. Intentionally, of course. There’s still a few rows between him and you, but in this new seat, he can glance at you as often as he’d like without straining his eyes or stretching out his neck to make his gawking painfully obvious. He can clearly make out your smooth skin, along with other details he wasn’t able to notice before like your beauty marks and your dainty earrings. You’re paying unfaltering attention to the class for the first hour, but after the sixty-minute mark, you appear to have become bored. He catches the way your pencil starts doodling along the corners of your notebook and it takes everything in him not to snort when you scribble down a wonky looking cat. 

He’s so distracted by you, that every couple of slides, he glances back to the projector to see that the class is now on an entirely different topic than the one he last managed to jot down. He doesn’t mind, though. You’re a much more enthralling sight than quasars and supernovas. 

Halfway through the lesson, you decide to peel off your little black cardigan and hang it on the back of your chair, exposing your arms and neck and shoulders to him. Your hair is tied up neatly right after, giving him all the more to gawk at and envision. Jisung has to remind himself that he’s in a classroom just so that he doesn’t start fantasizing about how it would feel to grip your hair up in a similar fashion and fill your throat up with his dick.

With great difficulty, he directs his focus to the board instead, typing quickly into his laptop all the notes he manages to catch before the slide changes again and Professor Hwang’s narrow eyes can scan the room to see who’s paying attention. 

When the class is over, you start talking with the girl next to you, aimlessly reaching back for your bag. The gesture makes your cardigan fall, and Jisung has to fully bite his tongue to keep himself from calling out your name and giving himself away. He waits to see if you’ll notice, or if someone nearby will alert you, but neither one happens. Instead, you stand up, still engrossed in your conversation, and make your way towards the door. Instantly, he jogs down the aisle and between the seats to grab it and wordlessly hand it to you, but by the time he makes a move to head in your direction, you’ve already left. 

He feels disappointed at first, but the feeling quickly shifts into relief. Wordlessly hand it to you? Does he want your first impression of him to be awkward and borderline rude? No and definitely no. This problem has a simple solution—it’s a blessing in disguise; he’ll take your cardigan home and bring it to you on Friday and maybe, if his courage allows, he can introduce himself then. 

“Hey! I noticed you left your sweater here last class. I brought it for you. Oh, and by the way, it’s me! I’m @sung.ie. How did I know it was you? I can recognize your voice across a huge lecture hall.”

Yeah… he’ll think more on that later. 

With your cardigan clutched in his fist, Jisung sighs, making his way outside and towards his bicycle. He tucks the clothing item into his backpack and pedals back home, wondering how he’s going to manage to give it back to you since you always get to and leave class before him.  

He knows some of his friends and dorm-mates have their own class today, they had exchanged schedules during lunch a few days ago, which leaves him to hope and pray you’ve decided to skip your class and get online. As he parks his bicycle downstairs and locks it, he slips his phone from his pocket and opens discord, but your bubble remains gray and cold. You’re offline. 

Maybe you haven’t gotten home yet. He checks his phone again when he gets upstairs, and again when he goes inside his dorm, tossing his bag aside and crashing on his bed. He checks after losing a round of candy crush, and again after replying to a text from his mom. 

By the looks of it, you were in class, or at the very least, not available for the moment. Jisung sighs, pretending he’s not actually as disappointed as he feels. It seems a bit dramatic to feel the need to kill time until he gets to talk to you again so he resorts to doing physics homework—a short baseline his teacher assigned that wouldn’t be graded—and tricking his brain into thinking the former is not what he’s actually doing. 

When he pulls his bag off his desk chair to grab his laptop, your cardigan comes into view, and he pauses to look at it. He sits like this for a moment, wondering if he should fold it nicely on his dresser so he can remember to take it to you, but his hands act before his mind can catch up, reaching in and basically shoving the material toward his face. 

With his nose buried in your scent, Jisung inhales deeply, sinking into his chair as his legs grow weaker. The trace of your floral softener is the first aroma he gets, and then, the smell of your perfume peeks through, soft and sweet and very fitting for you. Once more, his treacherous hands are acting for themselves and he’s suddenly undoing his belt single-handedly. 

Once his dick, growing by the minute, is out and clutched in his palm, he finally retracts your sweater. With little hesitation, he wraps it around his erection and pumps once, throwing his head back in immediate relief.

It’s a fucking miracle that his room is the last one at the end of the hall, and that his next door neighbors, Renjun and Jaemin, are both in their afternoon lectures, because nothing would have been able to muffle the wanton moan that rips from his chest as he strokes himself with your scent. His hips are bucking up into the air, and in only a few minutes, he’s broken a slight sweat. His balls tighten from sheer sensitivity at the act of fucking something directly related to you. 

A cry of your name, followed by a few more pumps and he’s coming inside your mangled cardigan, his white release breaching the thin material. It seeps through it like light through a veil, gathering thickly on top before spreading into a dark, wet patch. There’s a shudder that passes through his bones as he sits back, burying his cock into the fabric and keeping it there until he’s given up every last drop. 

The only thing that snaps him from his post-nut bliss, is the distinct discord ring-tone that blasts through his headset. His computer monitor turns on as your icon appears and simultaneously, his heart and dick both twitch. 

“Hello?” With his output device swung over his head, he presses the green ‘answer’ button and speaks into the mic, hiding his slight shortness of breath with a yawn. 

“I’m so glad you answered,” you beam, and he does too, “I was worried I had called while you were in class or something,” 

As he speaks, he wipes the remnants of his cum off with your cardigan and puts it aside on his desk, tucking his softening (and still very sensitive) dick away into his boxers, “No, you’re good. I had a class earlier today but now I’m free.” 

“What a relief,” you sigh, “Would you want to have a little homework ‘sesh’ with me? I just found out the library doesn’t have any available labs. I doubt I’ll be able to concentrate much with you but at least I'll be in good company.”

“Like an e-date?” 

“We can call it that,” you grin, then he pictures your expression becoming a gloom one to match your slightly sadder tone as you admit, “Sometimes I wish we went to the same school so we could meet up and study at a coffee shop.” 

He snorts, unable to help but crack a joke, “Like a real date?” 

Your laugh makes his heart swell slightly. When you reply, “Maybe,” it starts flipping wildly in his chest. 

God, you can’t even begin to imagine how badly he wants that. 

“That would be nice,” he agrees humbly, a blush creeping on his cheeks. “What class are you gonna study for?” 

There’s a pause before you speak again where you hum in thought, flipping through a few pages and shuffling through your bag. Jisung joins you, grabbing his laptop and school supplies, “I have a project for my astronomy class. It’s related to constellations and I wanna start researching them so that I can make an outline for the assignment,” 

He looks through his math notes with his brows furrowed down, “I thought she was gonna assign them on Friday?” 

Your icon flickers as you reply, “She is, but I want to—wait. How did you know that?” At your words and the realization of his untimely slip up, Jisung’s body goes rigid. He can only imagine the confusion on your features, and he’s quite relieved you can’t see the look on his. If his eyes were to open any wider, he’s sure they might just slip out of his head. 

“Oh, um,” he clears his throat mechanically, then gulps in an effort to lubricate it and keep his voice steady, assertive, certain. “You mentioned it on Monday, remember?” 

“Did I?” You didn’t, but he really hopes you think you did. “Probably,” At that, he lets out the air he’s holding, shaking his head slightly at himself for being so careless. 

“But um, yeah,” he starts before you can give it any further thought, “If she’s assigning them Friday why are you working on it today?” 

“Cause she’s also assigning partners on Friday, and I don’t really know anyone besides the girl who sits next to me and I doubt I’ll get paired with her. I want to make sure my grade is secured, you know? I’ve never liked group projects. I feel like all the work gets dumped on me.” 

He’s still not entirely sure what you mean to do, or how you intend to create a blueprint of sorts without knowing what it was for, and so he stops flicking through his page of notes to look up at his monitor and ask, “But if you don’t know which constellation you’re gonna work on, how are you gonna make an outline?” 

You ponder his question for a moment, then mumble out, “She didn’t mention a rubric or anything, so I figured that as long as I plan out the different sections and give the project a structure, half of the work is cut out, right? I can just assign parts at that point.” 

“You’re that kinda person in a group project? I’m sorry to whoever gets partnered with you,” He’s not sorry, not at all. He’s rather envious, actually, despite his attempts to sound indifferent or amusing. Being granted time to spend with you at your place or his, or at the library or the local campus cafe, would be a no less than perfect ice breaker. Jisung would make sure you never felt like all the research and assembling depended solely on you—in fact, he could see himself now, spending countless hours perfecting the details of his assigned part and inquiring about other suggestions to improve the project, just to impress you or at the very least, satisfy you. The reality that someone else would get to do all of that in his place is disheartening. 

You guys had rarely ever talked about school before now, since neither of you actually were enrolled in any classes when you started chatting, but now that it’s relevant, he feels like he understands a whole different side of you. You’re organized, and obviously very studious. Hell, you’ve been itching to get started on assignments that haven’t even been assigned yet. You’re responsible, dependable, funny, beautiful, and every time he thinks of you lately, he realizes that his innocent crush is slowly becoming an insatiable one.   

“Hey! I’d be very nice if it was you, you know. Show you some favoritism,” the corners of his lips twitch upwards—“But I’m also glad it’s not you,”—and fall down again. 

“What? Why?” He tries to not sound too offended. 

“I’d end up talking your ear off, Sung.” 

“I’m already used to that, don’t mind it. Kinda like it, actually.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah.” He nods curtly, even though there’s a monitor and an entire school campus between you and him and he knows you have no way of seeing his gesture. There's a moment of silence that you spend taking a brief breath as a glow tinges your cheeks. 

With a stifled laugh, you open your mouth again, “I think it’s just because you like me that you tolerate my rambling,” 

“No.” He’s quick to clarify, “I really do like it.” He loves it. 

“And me?” your voice is much quieter, almost giving the impression that you’re shy in asking something so decisive and direct. Jisung, emboldened by your vulnerability, and the distance the screen puts between you two, answers with certainty. 

“I like you, too.” 

•.¸¸☆*･ﾟ

 “The constellation project, as I mentioned during your first class, is a tool for you to acquaint yourself with your classmates. It will be due in 3 weeks, and you can check the syllabus for specifications regarding that. After today, there will be no changing partners or constellations so should you need any changes to be made, you have until class is dismissed. Listen closely as I read out the pairs for the project. I will not repeat myself.” 

The sharp tone he’s growing more and more distaste for by the day drowns out as Jisung glances over at you. Today, you’re sporting a bone-colored long sleeve and corduroy pants with half of your hair held back in a shiny clip. You look ravishing. Truthfully, he can’t really tell if you’re wearing makeup or not—although he concludes it doesn’t matter. Your features are soft and pretty nonetheless, and your cheeks have turned rosy from the dropping autumn temperatures. 

“Yu Karina will be partnered with Lee Heesung. Your constellation is Cassiopeia.”

When you walked into the lecture hall this morning, there was a hot coffee cup with the campus cafe’s logo on it clutched in your hands, which you sipped on while shivering. Taking your usual seat, you greeted the girl next to you, who Jisung now knew was called Yu Karina. 

The dark haired girl perked up when Professor Hwang called her name and waved down the aisle at who he can only assume is Lee Heesung, her partner, then whispered something to you. You looked over at the boy and back at Karina, nodding and giggling with her. 

“Jennifer Huh, partnered with Ning Yizhuo,” Professor Hwang referenced her other list, “Constellation: Cancer.” 

The two girls greet each other with a look and a smile, but Jisung pays little mind. He’s listening intently—for the first time—in anticipation of hearing one of your names be called. He doesn’t exactly know your full name, only a nickname he refers to you as, the one attached to your discord handle. Otherwise, pinpointing you that first day of class would’ve been much easier. 

“Park Jay and Lee Sohee, your constellation is Orion.” 

Sitting there, he realizes that in all the months you’ve talked, he’s never once asked for your full first name. Is that strange? What kind of friend is he if he doesn’t even know your name? In all fairness, you never asked for his, either, so he supposes it’s okay. Would have been useful to know, though, at times like this. 

After his small confession of ‘like’ on Wednesday, the two of you went on studying your respective subjects, with the occasional (and inevitable) distraction here and there. Admittedly, he thought his comment would be forgotten rather quickly. It wasn’t like he outwardly poured his heart out to you, so he figured you’d move on and just crack a joke or two about it later. There was a change, though; a strikingly obvious one to Jisung, who hangs on your every word like it’s a tether that keeps him from floating. And, even if he didn’t pay such close attention to you, there’s no way he could have missed the new flirtatious ambiance that flourished afterwards. Flirting with you is not uncommon by any means—the two of you playfully tease each other with frequency, but it’s nothing he’d allow himself to look into too much, for his own sake. 

That changed in the hours following his comments. All of Wednesday evening, the two of you went back and forth, feeding each other compliments in the form of banter. Again, he thought it would end there, but on Thursday afternoon when you logged on, he asked how your progress was going with the outline, to which you texted back, “I was thinking of you all day. Didn’t get around to doing much else.” 

It wasn’t the only message from you that nurtured his feelings, either. There were enough substantially flirty messages from your conversation that night, that he was able to scroll through them and reread them a few times before bed. 

ynn ᓚᘏᗢ: yesterday at 6:49PM

hi did you smile when you saw my name pop up on your phone just now

ynn ᓚᘏᗢ: yesterday at 8:22 PM

you’re so cute

i can barely think 

ynn ᓚᘏᗢ: yesterday at 9:14 PM

i feel like my day doesn’t make sense if we don’t talk 

ynn ᓚᘏᗢ: yesterday at 10:58 PM

i should get to sleep 

but i don’t wanna stop texting you

ynn ᓚᘏᗢ: yesterday at 12:02 AM

goodnight, sung <3 miss you til’ you’re back

Now, as he eyes you with a boyish, lovesick gaze, watching you doodle your stupid little drawings as you await your assignment, he finds himself praying for the courage to come up to you after class.

Professor Hwang calls your name next, something he only realizes at the fitting similarity of your nickname and the way your pen meets the table in alert to being called on, head lifting up and eyes blinking expectantly. 

“Your partner will be,” 

Jisung holds his breath, chanting in his head ‘please, oh, please let it be me,’

 “Lee Chan.” 

Wishful thinking never got anyone anywhere, then. He ignores the way his heart sinks into the pits of his stomach, unable to help but observe your curious gaze as it looks around the filled seats. For a fleeting moment, you meet his eyes, but he doesn’t react or claim to be Lee Chan who you so evidently are in search of, and so you pass him and keep studying the aisles. After a few seconds, you find no one gazing back, even after you slightly stand to peer above the nearby heads that obscure your view. 

“Your constellation is-” 

With a cautious raise of your hand, you interrupt Professor Hwang gently, “Excuse me, Professor, but I don’t think my partner is here.” 

For a moment, her lazer-like gaze looks like it could light you on fire, a consequence of daring to interrupt her, but it softens only slightly as she realizes the truth in your statement, scanning the room herself and calling out for the missing boy. Upon receiving no call back, she thinks for a moment, then looks back down at her clipboard and crosses something out. 

“I did mention attendance was mandatory, didn’t I?” This she mutters to herself, “No matter. Instead, you’ll work with,” she gives the paper another once over, then clicks her pen and speaks, “Park Jisung.” 

In an awkward burst of both excitement and confusion, Jisung darts out of his chair. His knee hits his desk with a clang, and his laptop would have gone flying if it wasn’t for his quick hands that catch it before it can fall. The loud ruckus turns several heads in his direction, including Professor Hwang’s and more importantly, yours. 

Feeling an awful lot like a deer caught in headlights, Jisung blinks as the two of you make eye-contact, then he takes his seat again, very quickly by the way. “Uh, that’s me,” he announces, heat spreading across his face and eyes darting around, “Sorry.” 

Does he feel more sorry to his teacher and classmates for disrupting the classroom, or to himself and you for the absolute fool he has just made of himself? As much as he’d like to tear his gaze away from yours and cast it to the ground in embarrassment, it remains stuck on you, awaiting your impending reaction. 

You’re rather unsure how to feel, though given, a little surprised at the commotion. You offer him a small smile through pursed lips, and Jisung nods, willing with all his might for a hole to open in the ground beneath him and swallow him.  

“Thank you, Mr. Park, for your remarkably clear confirmation. Your constellation is Gemini.” 

You turn in your chair to face the front again, scribbling down his name in the corner of your notebook, as well as the constellation you’d been assigned.

“He’s cute,” Karina comments to you as you look over at her, and you finally let out a small laugh you had been holding in. 

“He is. Clumsy,” you snort, “but cute.” 

“We both got cute partners. We should meet up at the library later and all get started on the project together,” 

You nod enthusiastically, going back to your outline that sits at the ready on your laptop screen and making quick work of labeling the different sections evenly. If it wasn’t so obvious for you to spin around and steal a glance, you might have done so again. You’re certainly tempted to, thinking back to seconds ago and realizing you hadn’t really noticed him the last two classes. 

Jisung watches your exchange with his dignity at serious risk. He’s entirely unable to hear or make out what you’re saying to each other, and it makes his pulse pick up and his mind race. He considers many things as he watches the two of you talk: firstly, asking to change his partner, but then realizing that would be an awful idea. Once you knew who he was, how would you ever forgive him for immediately ditching you? Absolutely not. Cowering had gotten him nowhere so far. 

Then, he considers switching out of the class himself, and disappearing, never to reveal himself to you—but that wasn’t the right thing to do either. Incapable of checking out of your life so quickly and denying himself the treat that is seeing you three times a week (and now, possibly more), he cans that idea, too. 

As Professor Hwang finishes reading off the list of names, he begins planning what he’ll actually say to you, as that conversation is just minutes away. There’s less than a half-hour left of class, which means he has to think hard and fast. 

As he busies himself with the grueling task of picking an appropriate and redeeming introduction, he doesn’t hear the new instructions from Professor Hwang, which are to find your partner and begin brainstorming, as well as exchanging schedules to set aside time outside of class to work on the presentation. A shadow falls over his desk and consumes his work space in darkness. When his curiously squinted eyes trail up to find the source, only to land on you, hovering above him with your things clutched in your arms, he grips his seat to keep from jumping out of it for the second time today. 

“Is this seat taken?” 

So much for having time to figure out how to approach you. His heart does a leap of surprise in his chest in place of his physical body, and he resists the urge to clutch it.

“No.” He replies shortly. 

With your unfaltering, kind smile still present on your face, you laugh softly and place your things down, introducing yourself. 

“You’re Ji-sun, right?” 

“—Sung.” he politely corrects you. When you don’t immediately react, he wonders if you had even heard him. He doesn’t put it past himself to have imagined that he replied to you, between his sweating palms and nervous jittering, and your pretty self sitting just a foot away, he’s barely keeping it together.  After a moment that feels infinitely longer than it actually is, you raise your eyebrows slightly, round lips parted to ask your question with a palpable hesitance. 

“W-what?” 

“Jisung,” he quickly replies, pronouncing the ‘g’ clearly and masking the way his eyes widen with a heavy blink that honestly, may not serve as any better of a guise. He pleads with himself to get his shit together but luckily, you don’t seem to notice. 

“Oh, sorry… Sorry, It’s just—nevermind. Hi, Jisung.” 

“Hi, Y/N.” He savors the way your name feels on his tongue but keeps his enjoyment brief. 

“I hope you don’t mind,” you start, lifting the screen of your laptop to reveal the very same outline you had started working on during your last call with him, “but I already made an outline. If you wanna scrap it and start all over, we can—” 

“No, It’s fine, we can use this,” when you give him an unsure look, he smiles reassuringly, “It looks brilliant.” 

“Thank you.” There’s a pause that is filled only by you clearing your throat, “Ok, I have a literature class right after this one on Mondays and Wednesdays. The rest of my classes are online, so I’m free at any time, really. I usually like to study at the computer labs in the library, it’s nice and private there and I find it much easier to focus. But if you don’t want to go there, we could always go to the cafe or the square for some fresh air. Oh, and either one of our dorm rooms works fine if you’re okay-” 

To experience your presence on a phone call is one thing, but to experience it in real life, with your clear voice so arresting and your silky, smooth lips within reach, is absolutely mesmerizing. He’s fighting the urge to glance down at your mouth, but it’s becoming increasingly harder to sustain eye contact, as lovely as he decides your eyes are. Another thing that is becoming exponentially harder, and more sensitive all the same, is his cock, springing to life with an eagerness to greet you. 

There’s a bit of panic that flashes across his features as he senses the strain it’s causing in his pants, and only when you look down at your outline does he dare to sneak a glance down at his own groin where as expected, a noticeable imprint was beginning to develop. In a desperate gesture, he slides his notebook over his lap, suppressing a hiss, and leans forward to pretend to use his own laptop. 

“Any of those work for me,” 

“Okay, great,” You notice the time and turn back to him. “You can just message me when you’re free.”

“Sure.” 

“And here’s my number—” you reach over, sliding the protective notebook from his lap and placing it on your desk, scribbling your number in the corner. Jisung immediately readjusts his hoodie, throwing the hem of it over his boner. Professor Hwang dismisses the class as you pass it back. 

“Call me whenever you’re free.” With a spin of your heel, you wave goodbye to him and rejoin Karina, who waits for you  at the door with her partner.

Jisung lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding, and looks down at the number you wrote. Beside the digits, written in very neat handwriting, might he add, sat perched on a wobbly branch a little black cat that he recognized from his hours of staring as one of your doodles. 

•.¸¸☆*･ﾟ

The time is 4:33PM, and Jisung has drafted over a dozen messages on the iMessage app addressed to your number. None of them have exactly made it to you yet, courtesy of his thumb that keeps pressing backspace and wiping out any trace of a remotely embarrassing text. It’s the next day and no introduction or invitation to meet up seems like it’s good enough to send, though he knows that inevitably, he has to text you first. You left your number behind with the doodle that he has since stuck to the corner of his PC monitor, but you never took down his; so now, the ball is in Jisung’s court, and he knows that if he waits too long, you’d think he was avoiding you or the project altogether. 

Realistically, he knows a simple “Hi, it’s Jisung,” will suffice, but he can’t bring himself to send you such an unoriginal and boring message. After pondering for a moment, he then decides the best solution would be to do some research, and then call you with his findings—this way, his interest in the project would be clear, and he knows how important that is to you. 

At once, he peels your cum-stained cardigan off of his lap, though not before stealing a glance at the day’s new additions, and places it aside. He tucks his spent dick into his short and turns on his monitor, typing the name of the constellation into Google and investigating nearly every website he could find with any useful information. 

In the nicest handwriting he can manage, Jisung bullets a list of all the facts and history he could find on ‘Gemini’ within the hour, including the stars that make up the constellation, the myth behind it, and other relevant statistics. It isn’t until he has filled up an entire page front and back—partially—that he picks up his phone again and makes another attempt at contacting you. 

Feeling slightly more confident, he types up his message. 

To: 555-111-0205

hi, it’s jisung from astronomy. i did some research and i wanted to show you what i found. let me

know if you’re free to exchange notes. Sent at 5:52 PM.

Jisung rereads over his message for any flaws, though there’s nothing he can do about it now that it’s sent, anyway. After he deems it an okay first message, he takes a breath and moves to put his phone down, but it buzzes in his hand instead. 

Incoming call at 5:54 PM From: 555-111-0205

“Hi-”

“Hi! Sorry to just call unannounced but I’m walking to the library with all my stuff and I can’t really text. I was able to book us a computer lab for the next two hours so If you want, we—can you hear me?” 

He sits up straighter, “Yeah! Yes, I can hear you,” 

“Oh, good, so—wait, hello?” Your voice shifts in volume and proximity, as if you pulled your phone from your ear to check the call screen, then brought it back, “Oh, sorry. I-I thought I had accidentally called someone else… nevermind.” Instantly, Jisung realizes instantly that you must have recognized his voice. It makes sense, seeing as you’re used to hearing it specifically on calls. You seem to show no further suspicion as you continue speaking, though, but perhaps, he should keep talking on the phone with you to a minimum. 

“Do you think you can make it? Otherwise I can go work on my own. I saw your text and instantly booked the room. Sorry for not checking in with you first,” 

“I’ll meet you there,” He replies quickly, grimacing at the instinctual effort it takes to try and make his voice deeper. 

“Okay! Great. I’ll see you there, then.” You hang up, and then your text message comes through with the lab room information just minutes later. 

Jisung all but lunges out of his chair and rushes to face himself in the mirror, taking in his reflection. Besides his hair that looks slightly disheveled, he looks alright. He doesn’t want to make you wait long for him, so he quickly grabs his laptop and his notes, shoves them all into his bag, and flies out of his dorm room with the laces of his sneakers left untied.  

In the brightly, yellow-lit hallway, Mark and Chenle are popping out of their respective rooms, a basketball clutched under the younger boy’s arm.

“We were just about to come grab you,” Chenle starts, “Let’s play some ball. Jeno’s meeting us at the court,”

“Can’t,” Jisung shakes his head, “I’m going to the library,” he tries to not get offended at the way the two boys snort loudly in disbelief, looking at each other as if they’ve both had the same thought. 

“Yeah, right.” Chenle scoffs. 

With a blink, Jisung replies meekly, “I’m serious.” 

“Since when do you go to the library?” Mark brows pinch and he adds, “It’s the start of term. You’re already studying?”

“Since now, I guess. I have a project for a class so I’m gonna go meet up with my partner at the library, but I’ll catch you guys later.” 

“Alright, alright. Oh—remember there’s a party next week at Jaehyun’s frat for syllabus week.” 

“Yeah, I’ll be there.” His answer doesn’t seem to fully convince Mark, Chenle, or even himself, but they seem satisfied enough, because they let Jisung go without any more pestering. He flies down the flight of stairs and out the front door of the dormitory. 

The cold September air is biting at this time in the evening, feeling particularly cool on the apples of his cheek, which glow from the light layer of sweat that develops during his jog over to the library. It’s a considerable distance away, which is part of the reason why he, in his two years of being a student at the university, has never seriously stepped foot inside of it. Studying in his room is much more convenient, but you seem to like the library, so the twenty-minute-walk there, or in this case, fifteen-minute-jog, will simply have to be adopted as a new way to get in some brief exercise a few times a week. 

More than likely, you have already arrived, and Jisung doesn’t want to make you wait too long for him, especially since there’s a two-hour time limit on the room and he intends to spend as much time with you there as he can. He wipes his cheeks with his gray sleeves and climbs up the stairs of the building quickly, swiping his student card at the door and stepping inside. 

The ceiling is massively tall, seemingly taller than when he once saw it during freshman orientation, and the endless rows of shelves are filled with books, ranging from thin, colorful novels to thick, leather-bound classics. It’s quieter than he expects it to be, even for a library, and he clearly can hear the pitter patter of his feet as he follows the sign labeled ‘Study Rooms and Computer Labs.’ 

The guy at the reception desk in this section seems to be a volunteer, his student ID and name tag shining on his shirt. He glances up from his book when Jisung approaches, nodding once. There’s an awkward silence that feels rather loud as Jisung fumbles with his phone, flipping it between his clammy hands as he searches for your message. 

“Computer Lab 4C?” 

Wordlessly, the boy nods again, then slides over a clip-board with a sign-in sheet clamped to it. 

It’s surprising to see how many lab spots are filled up so early into the term, names scribbled along the lines and time-slots. Your name stands out, partly because of your familiar handwriting, but particularly because of the empty line beside it, where he signs in before handing the clip-board back. 

“Down the hall, second door on your right.” 

It’s Jisung’s turn to bob his head once and the boy looks back down at his book. He makes his way down the hall until he reaches the correctly labeled door. His hand reaches for the handle, but he withdraws it. Should he knock? Or maybe send you a text? Or both? 

To: 555-111-0205

hey again. i’m outside :) Sent at 6:18 PM.

The door creaks open from the taps of his knuckles bumping against it, and he peeks his head in timidly, finding you sitting in one of the desk chairs, nearly hidden behind your laptop and a stack of books. You look up over the screen, eyes squinting in a smile. 

“Oh, I had left the door open for you,” you stand up, holding out a cup for him, “and I got you coffee… didn’t know how you liked it so I just got you the same thing I order,” 

There’s a fluttering in his stomach as he sets his bag down. There’s no chance he can manage to meet your eyes after such a gesture so he casts them to the ground instead, graciously reaching out to receive with both hands the drink you offer him, “You didn’t have to,” he mumbles, “but thank you. I’m sure your order is great,” 

“I wanted to! It’s just—I mean, I did drag you out of your room in the cold and on really short notice—A hot coffee was the least I could do,” you shrug, “One of my friends works at the cafe and I was there doing some work for my literature class before I got your message and I figured I’d grab us both something before I headed over here… Sorry, I’m talking too much. Here, sit down.” 

He’s not exactly sure what to say, so he takes his seat beside you in silence, but not without a small smile decorating his face. The notes he had taken down to show you are retrieved from his bag, as well as his laptop. There’s a low screech of your chair dragging across the floor, and he turns to find you’ve scooted closer and you're leaning forward with your cheek resting on your palm, eyes intently looking at his research. 

“It isn’t much. I’m sure whatever you found is much more substantial, but I couldn’t show up empty handed.” Jisung explains, sliding the paper over to you. As your eyes scan the page, you make a few comments along the lines of ‘Oh, this is a good point,’ or ‘We should mention this.’

You seem to be very carefully reading his work. Meanwhile, he takes advantage of your preoccupation to let his eyes rake over your person. 

The first thing he notices is that you’re wearing a different cardigan, and he suddenly remembers your black one is still on his desk, unwashed and covered in his cum. Your hair looks soft, and when you mindlessly swing it over your shoulder, he catches a whiff of your lavender scented hair wash, and it makes him gnaw the inside of his cheek. You’re not quite close enough for him to catch the perfume you’ve decided to wear tonight, though he can vividly picture the gentle florals that linger still on your cardigan. His eyes trail down, and it’s only then that he notices your skirt—or blatantly, the length of your skirt. Your smooth thighs are exposed, full and fleshy and pressed together, and he suddenly wishes they were wrapped around his head. 

“Jisung? You okay?” 

“I–Yeah, sorry.” It’s clear that you’ve noticed his staring, and he all but rips his eyes away in embarrassment, “I was just wondering if you were cold,” He gestures down at your legs shyly, pretending the content he’d written on the paper was more interesting the sight of your plush thighs. 

For a moment he expects some harsh comment or outburst, but you laugh instead, smoothing the material down a bit, “No, not in here, at least. And the walk over was short, so,” His lips are pursed and his cheeks are burning, but you spare him from any further humiliation when you reach across him to turn the page over and quietly gasp, muttering some surprise under your breath at how extensive his work is. “This is really good. We can use pretty much all of it.” 

Failing to hide his beaming at your praise, he snaps his head over to you, “You think so?” 

“Yeah, I mean—,” The screen of your laptop changes over to a page of notes, “I pretty much wrote down all the same things. I’m actually so relieved, I was worried I might get paired up with someone who wasn’t gonna contribute.” 

“Bet you’re glad you didn’t switch out of the class now, huh?” 

Distracted in the notes and in the taste of his coffee, he misses your quick, confused glance his way. Smoothly recovering before he notices, you slowly nod and present to him the layout where you had already taken the liberty to assign him his designated parts. Not that he expected anything else; it’s endearing to see his name labeled over specific sections, color-coded in a blue, bolded font. He wastes no time in pulling up the screen of his computer, exchanging emails with you so the two of you can get to work on the shared document.

The time passes quicker than he hopes, and he realizes just how much he likes spending time with you. Talking with you online is one thing, but sitting beside you as you sip your drink and hum mindlessly, fingers typing away or flipping pages in a book? Completely different game. He’s sure that if it wasn’t because he relieved himself earlier today, he might have popped a boner from the simple act of being in your presence. 

Every once in a while, you make an occasional comment regarding a point or two you thought was worth mentioning or adding, and he’d oblige, making a note of it and sharing his thoughts here and there. Occasionally, he manages to steal a look at your thighs, which he swears you’re bouncing and squeezing together on purpose, but for the most part he keeps his focus on the task at hand. 

Towards the end of the night, there’s a moment where your hands brush his as you point something out on his screen, and Jisung swears he’s never felt more like a teenage boy in his life. He practically flinches at the contact, failing to mask his awkward reaction and pretending he really meant to fix his hair.

Bidding you farewell is possibly the most difficult of the tasks this evening, even more so than pretending he isn’t completely infatuated with and aroused by you for a whole two hours. When you stand from your seat and walk with him out of the study room, and subsequently, out of the library and into the cold, Jisung faces another of his many dilemmas related to you. He’s not sure if he should offer to walk you back to your dorm, or at the very least halfway there. Perhaps, offering you his jacket would be appropriate, since your skirt wasn’t doing much of a job at keeping you warm. 

“You live close by?” 

“Yeah! Just a 5 minute walk,” you point your index finger, “In that dorm right over there.” 

Jisung nods once, then decides to indulge his impulses. “Here,” he slides his hoodie off with a little less coordination than he would’ve liked, holding it out for you to take, “so you aren’t cold.” 

He can’t tell if your cheeks are red from the temperature again or from his gesture, but he hopes it’s the latter. The moment you take his sweater, pretty eyes wide in thanks, he sucks in a breath. It’s much chillier now that the sun is gone, and he fights the urge to chatter his teeth when he offers you a lopsided smile. 

“T-thank you,” you tie the sleeves around your waist, covering your lap. 

 “I’ll see you in class?” he asks. 

“Yeah,” you nod, flashing him a final grin before you spin on your heel to head home. 

The twenty-minute-walk-fifteen-minute-jog back to his room feels eternal. All of his hair is standing on end, but picking up his pace too much means that the icy wind, which has so graciously decided to blow in his direction, would just become harsher. His palms soak up the little warmth on his stomach, tucked under his t-shirt, as he alternates between speed-walking and jogging. The minutes drag on and on until finally, his building comes into view and he breaks into a run. 

•.¸¸☆*･ﾟ

The following morning when he walks into his astronomy class, he follows his usual routine of checking for you in your seat and is almost distraught when he finds it to be empty. It’s not like you to miss a class, and he contemplates reaching for his phone to check-in on you. It isn't until he pans his vision over to his own chair that he spots you. You’re accompanied by Karina and her partner, Heesung, taking up the empty seats beside his own. 

On your desk sit two coffee cups like the ones from last night, and he pulls his lip between his teeth to hide the grin that fights to break out.

You look up when you spot him, and Karina and Heesung look up, too. 

“Hi…” 

“Hi! Jisung, right?” Karina extends her hand out and he takes it, nodding to confirm, “I’m Karina and this is Heesung.” He mumbles another small hello to the boy, who acknowledges him before looking back at his computer.

“Good morning,” you greet as he sits, placing his cup on his desk. “You never told me whether you liked it or not, but I figured you’d grow to like it eventually.”

“I-thanks but,” 

“I know: Didn’t have to, but I wanted to. So just say thanks, yeah?” 

There’s a familiar burning on his cheeks that always seems to make an appearance when you’re around, but he doesn’t bother masking it this time. 

“I wanted to ask you if you would be free to study tonight?” 

Instantly, he bobs his head up and down, and you book the study room on your computer just moments before Professor Hwang strides inside the classroom, her glasses on the tip of her sharp, pointed nose. 

•.¸¸☆*･ﾟ

The frat house where the seniors stay is practically next door to Jisung’s dormitory, which is why when Mark, Chenle, and Jeno come banging on his door on Saturday night, he realizes he can’t use walking so far in the cold as an excuse to stay home. He also can’t use studying as an excuse anymore, since Mark had already caught him leaving the dorm a few times throughout the week to go study with you. That, and he ran into Jeno as he was entering the library just the night before. 

“You’ve been studying plenty,” they’d say, or “We told you about the party last week, no way you’re not going.” 

Anyway—the point is, he’ll have to endure tonight, despite his wishes to stay close to his PC for the chance that you’d want to hop into a game. He’d prefer to spend the night talking with you, but that’ll just have to wait until tomorrow. With a somber look on his face, he shrugs on a jacket and opens the door for his friends, who practically drag him outside. 

Jeno slings his arm over the taller boy’s shoulders as if to prevent him from fleeing, and the four of them climb down the stairs and onto the path toward the frat. If Jisung strains his ears, he can already pick up on the sounds of the party, even from here. 

“You think Chaewon will be there?” Mark asks no one in particular, but the boys all respond simultaneously with groans of distaste. 

“You dated her three semesters ago, why do you care?” Chenle starts, “isn’t she seeing Jungwoo now, anyway?”  

“That’s exactly why I care,” Mark grumbles, foot kicking a rock along the pavement. “He’s one of the RAs. If he’s there—” 

“He’s always there,” Chenle interjects, earning a glare. 

“—then she’ll be there, too.” 

“So, what happened with… what’s her name,  Minjeong? Why don’t you hang out with her?” 

“Nah,” He turns to Jeno, “She’s sweet and all, but I found out from Giselle that her and Chaewon are friends, so,” 

There’s a chorus of understanding, albeit a bit pitiful, “aah’s” and “oh’s” as the building comes into view. A few people are gathered at and around the entrance while others litter the parking lot with phones and solo cups in their hands as they wait for friends. Among them, and Jisung has to do a double take to make sure, he spots Karina, who waves someone down from the direction of the main courtyard. For a moment, he thinks it might be you who appears from between the treeline, but it’s Heesung who jogs over to meet her and he realizes how silly his thought was in the first place. 

In the months he’s known you, you’ve never once brought up a party. In retrospect, you don’t seem like the type to like partying at all. He can picture you clearly now, tearing through textbooks or novels for your literature class, or maybe even typing away to him on Discord and asking if he was online. 

He isn’t and can’t be tonight, and he’s very sorry about that, for the record. 

Maneuvering through the crowd of tipsy college students isn’t too difficult,and neither is their entry. The door is propped open, and Jaehyun, with his signature snapback that he wears backwards on his dark hair, calls them over from the drink bar. 

“First problem I see here,” he starts, “is that none of you have a cup in your hand.” 

“We’ve barely made it through the door, man,”  Mark laughs, clapping up Jaehyun and moving aside so he can greet the rest of the guys. 

“That’s no excuse, you should be sipping on something by now.” He waves his arm, “Take a look around, boys! This is what life is gonna look like for you guys next year—and the year after for you, Jisung.” 

Jisung gives a curt, disinterested nod amidst being handed some fruity, fizzy, white claw resemblant that probably wouldn’t taste much different from an Alka-Seltzer. He cracks it open upon being prompted to by Jaehyun, who initiates a “cheers” between the friend group. The moment the alcohol touches his tongue, Jisung grimaces, taking a few long chugs in hopes that the effect will kick in quicker and make the long night that awaits him a little less long. 

“Do you know if Chaewon is here?” 

Wordlessly, Jaehyun fixes his cap and points a single finger toward the couch, where Chaewon sits besides Jungwoo, leaning in to hear him over the music and giggling at whatever he says in her ear. The boys look over at the couple, then quickly glance back at Mark, whose face falls despite the fact that he knew to expect this. 

“Tough,” Jeno gives him a pat on the shoulder, “Hope you have better luck the rest of the night. I’ve gotta bounce,” 

“Yo, what do you mean bounce?” 

He gestures toward a girl standing near the beer pong table, who looks slightly familiar to Jisung, though he can’t quite put his finger on it, and smirks, “She smiled at me the moment we walked in. I’ll see you later, but I honestly hope I don’t.” 

The realization that his friends, in search of their hook-ups for the night, would eventually be abandoning him one-by-one kicks in just then, inviting Jisung to down the rest of his bubbly drink in one go. 

Mark rolls his eyes, “You ever notice Jeno is always the first one to get a girl?” His comment earns a few hums of agreement.

“I’m gonna go find Jaemin,” with his phone clutched in his hand, Chenle turns towards the door, “he just texted me he’s outside with Sullyoon and her friend.” 

“Wait, Jaemin is—he’s setting you up and not me?” Chenle only shrugs at Mark’s question, replying with a blunt and concise “yeah.” 

“I’m not a dog like Jeno though, so I’ll definitely see you guys later.” 

As if noticing he was facing the same unfortunate fate as Jisung, Mark turns to the youngest boy with a fearful look in his eyes. Jisung only shakes his head and takes a quick look around, “I’m not planning on hooking up with anyone here, so…” At this, the boy sighs in relief, handing Jisung another drink in solidarity. The two lean against the counter as Jaehyun looks between them, snorting. 

“Mark, there’s so many girls here.” 

“I know, but—” 

“But Chaewon.” 

Mark nods, echoing Jaehyun in a quiet, maybe even embarrassed voice, “But Chaewon…” 

“Don’t worry, I get it,” he adds sympathetically, “I’m caught up on my ex, too.” 

“Uh…” there’s a pause. “Which one?” This comment lands Mark a shove, playful, for the most part. He rubs his shoulder and hisses while Jaehyun, on the other hand, sloshes around the little liquid left in his cup and grabs the closest bottle of alcohol to him, along with whichever random mixer he finds first.

“The only one that really mattered.” He tilts his newly filled red cup back to drink from it, but his eyes peek over the rim and he pulls it from his lips to sigh out,  “Speak of the devil and she doth come,” he raises his brows and announces, “there she is now.” 

Following his line of sight, Jisung trails his vision toward the front entrance and at once, the sight makes each and every one of his limbs seize up. There’s a twisting and turning in his stomach that almost invites the seltzer he chugged to make a reappearance, and he’s pretty sure the color has drained from his face as he watches you walk inside the frat house behind Karina and Heesung. 

So many things go through his mind in such a short amount of time that he fears he may have had some sort of out-of-body experience or hallucination episode; it wasn't really you he was seeing, it couldn’t be. The way your skirt clings to your hips makes him grip his cup tighter within his sweating palm, and the lacy, corset top you’ve decided to wear, which shows off a tasteful bit of cleavage, causes him to swallow down the saliva that had pooled on his tongue. 

It was a more provocative outfit than he’d even seen you wear, and if it wasn’t for the fact that Jaehyun opened his mouth to speak, he’s sure he would’ve instantly become bricked up. 

“And of course she’s wearing that shirt…” Jaehyun fixes his cap for the second time tonight and straightens out his shirt, “Alright, wish me luck.” 

It’s not like Jisung would have interjected anyway, he didn’t really have the grounds to, but he couldn’t even entertain the thought before Jaehyun headed in your direction with decisive confidence. Part of him hopes he was referring to someone else as his ex, perhaps even Karina, since there isn’t another girl in your immediate vicinity besides her, but his bit of hope is crushed as he spots Heesung’s hand intertwined in hers. Surely, Jaehyun wouldn’t be coming up to her if she showed up with someone to his party. It leaves him to reach his regretful conclusion just as his friend and you make eye contact, recognition flashing across your features, along with something else. 

Unable to torture himself further by watching your exchange, Jisung tears his eyes away and grabs another drink to make this very, very long night ahead of him somewhat bearable. He turns to Mark, who he didn’t even realize had been talking this whole time, but the loud music and the cloudiness in his mind muffle out his speech. 

“—I mean this just sucks! I guess we still have each other, maybe we can find some girls who—” 

When did you even date Jaehyun? You hadn’t mentioned him once in the months he had known you. And also, why  did you date Jaehyun? Not that there was anything wrong with him, other than his habit of cycling through girls every semester. Mark’s “Which one?” comment had some truth to it, but he would have never expected you to have been on Jaehyun’s roster. It takes him a second to remember that Jaehyun is still his friend, but even then, he can’t fight the bitterness that settles in his bones. What did he mean when he said that you were the only one that mattered? How significant was your relationship with him? There’s too many questions circling his mind, and it isn’t until he downs the fifth drink that they start to blur. 

Currently, he’s passing the time conversing with Mark and following him around the party, but more importantly, avoiding you in fear he’ll steal a glance and you’ll be locking lips with your ex. He spots Jaehyun by the bathroom a bit into the night, but thankfully, you aren’t near him. It’s in the middle of a beer pong game with Mark when he dares to glance around in search of you. 

First, he spots Karina and Heesung, making out on the couch where Chaewon and Jungwoo once sat. You aren’t near them. Then he spots Jaemin and Chenle dancing with the girls they had met up with, but you aren’t dancing, either. 

He’s relieved to find you aren’t with Jaehyun when he spots him, finding instead that his friend is flirting it up with a different girl who is certainly not you. The sight completely pisses him off, and somehow makes him feel immense relief simultaneously. Right around this time, he decides he’s had more than enough of the party. You aren’t here anymore, and Jaehyun’s face is making him fucking sick. Mark is slurring his speech enough that he wouldn’t notice if Jisung just slipped, so he does just that, though he does make sure to mention to Chenle that he’s leaving on his way out so he can keep an eye on Mark.  

Outside, the cold is unbearable. The previously crowded lot is empty for the most part, except for a few people puffing clouds of smoke into the air by a bench. Not even the alcohol in his system is enough to warm him up, so he can’t even imagine how a joint could be worth sitting outside for.

The only other person sitting outside is squatted down by the curb with their knees curled up to their chest. As the autumn leaves crack under Jisung’s feet, they turn their head around. 

“I told you I don’t wanna—Jisung?” 

Your big eyes widen in his direction, and you shoot up from the ground. Jisung’s brow lowers in concern and he notices the only thing you have to cover up is a flimsy cardigan. You and your damn, flimsy cardigans. 

“What are you doing out here?” 

“Sorry for snapping I—sorry,” you shiver involuntarily as a gust of wind blows through, wrapping your arms around yourself, “I thought you were someone else.” 

There isn't a sliver of hesitation before Jisung shrugs off his leather jacket and begins to wrap it around you, grumbling, “Are you crazy? You must be freezing,” 

“I’m fine—“ 

“This should help,” 

“But- Jisung, how many of your jackets am I gonna take—” 

“As many as you need to.” Your lack of a response makes him look back up to meet your eyes, round and much warmer than the rest of you was right now. He clears his throat, guiding your sleeves into the arms of the jacket as he jokes, “or until you bring your own.” 

You smile, muttering a small ‘thank you’ as the warmth engulfs you, along with the smell of him and some cheap cologne only a college student would buy. He’s tugging the collar closer to cover up your exposed neck and chest, eyes flickering down at your bare skin despite being well aware that you’re looking. Where this newfound boldness came from tonight, he doesn’t know. What he does know is that his boldness is always rather short-lived when it comes to you, and tends to appear and disappear like random spurts of energy—he’ll take advantage of it this once. Especially now that he knows you’re Jaehyun’s ex and the most he might even get to do is gawk at you, he intends to make it worth it. 

“You must be freezing now, though,” you start, “should we go somewhere warm?” 

“How about the library?” 

You laugh, looking at him in disbelief, “The library isn’t open at this time, much less on the weekend,” “Right…” 

“Wanna go to mine?” Your suggestion makes his breath hitch for a second, but he manages to respond with decent clarity. 

“You live by the library, though. That’s like a half-hour walk. I don’t think you’ll make it that far without turning into an icicle,” 

“Well, I don’t really wanna go back inside…” he knows why, so he offers something else. 

“My dorm is five minutes away. We could go there if you want, b-but if you’d rather go somewhere else—”

“Okay,” you nod eagerly, “let’s go.” 

As Jisung leads the way, speed-walking to beat the chill that spreads through his newly uncovered limbs, he turns his face to you, watching as you tuck the lower half of your face into his coat. 

“I don’t know if you want to work on the project or—” 

“God no,” you huff, rolling your eyes, “I’m not that much of a buzzkill, dude.” You jog a little to catch up to his longer strides, “Besides, I have like three shots of Pink Whitney in me,” 

“Foul.” 

“I know. Can’t think about a project right now,” 

“I’ve had a bit to drink, too.” he admits.

“I can tell. You’re stumbling.” 

He snaps his head around, down to his feet, then back to you. “What? Am I?” 

There’s a small, stupid smile on your face as you shake your head. “No.”

He can’t pinpoint why this banter with you is so easy, why it feels so right. Or perhaps, he can, but regardless, his heart leaps in his chest as he scoffs, not fighting the shit-eating grin that spreads on his frosted cheeks. 

"It’s that building right over there,” he points.

“You weren’t kidding when you said it was close,”

The two of you climb the stairs and he opens the main door for you, watching you sigh out in bliss as you step into the warmth of the hall. You bounce around in a cute way that once more tugs at his heart-strings, still looking all puffed up and adorable in his jacket that entirely engulfs your frame. He leads you up another flight of stairs and onto the floor his room is at, and once the two of you stop in front of his door, he pats his jean pockets. 

“Oh my uh- my keys are in the pocket of the jacket.” 

You mimic his recent action, patting around until you find his keys, holding them out for him to take. 

Somewhat awkwardly, he fumbles with them until he manages to fit it into the lock, opening the door with one hand. He gestures for you to enter his room with a small shrug, “Make yourself at home.” 

As you step inside, Jisung makes it a point to quietly thank whatever higher power compelled him to make his bed this afternoon. The rest of his room wasn’t perfectly organized by any means, but at the very least, his bed, which you now sat at the foot of with your legs bouncing, was neatly made. 

“You have your own room?” You mutter in surprise as you look around the small space and notice the lack of a second bed. The tall boy beside you just shrugs again, toeing off his shoes in the corner as he pulls the door closed. 

“Yeah, uh… I’m one of the RAs for the sophomore class.” 

“Wow,” you sigh, “I wish! I mean, I love sharing a room with Karina, but it’s nice to have space for myself sometimes.” 

“That’s why you’re always at the library?” 

You nod, sliding your palms across his duvet, “It’s nice and quiet,” your fingers move to grip and release the material, and he blinks harshly to erase the sight of that from his mind before it causes him to spiral. It didn’t prove to be very useful, though, because your still-exposed thighs move and press together, just as they did at the library, and his dick gives a little twitch in response.

“I’ll get you some clothes to change into, that way you’re more comfortable.” he decides, more for his sake than yours. You don’t answer, continuing to look around, taking in the details of his computer that flashes in a bunch of different colors. 

“You know I gave up extra storage in my bedside table to be able to keep my PC? I let Karina take it to her side of the room so I’d have space for my setup.” 

Rummaging through his drawers, he pipes up, “you game?” as if it wasn’t something he already knew about you. 

“I love it. I stayed here for most of the summer just because I had my computer here.”  

Jisung picks out a pair of sweats for you and one for himself, along with a t-shirt he knows he recently washed, then he turns, handing it over to you. “I’ll change in the bathroom down the hall and then wait outside. You can crack the door open when you’re done,” 

“Thank you, Jisung.” 

There’s a gentle sincerity in your tone that makes him wanna say “anything for you,” but he settles for pursing his lips instead, leaving to let you change before he can embarrass himself with any baseless comment you wouldn’t really get. The effect of the drinks still hadn’t completely faded, and he fears he’s capable of saying just about any of his stupid thoughts out loud right about now. 

You weren’t completely sober either, not by any means. The trashy vodka your ex offered you in an attempt to reconcile was as bitter as the end of your relationship with him, and it was flowing through your veins and giving you that light-headed buzz. You stand up and slip off your boots and Jisung’s jacket, along with your skirt. Your top requires a bit more precision, the lace getting twisted and tangled in your uncoordinated fingers. There’s little huffs and puffs of frustration that leave your lips during your struggle, and you’d almost consider asking for help if it wasn’t completely inappropriate. 

Finally, though, you manage to get it off and slip on the change of clothes Jisung has so graciously provided. They’re warm and they smell good, and they’re much more comfortable than your outfit which is now folded on Jisung’s gaming chair, alongside your purse. 

When you look up in admiration of his impressive keyboard, which looks to be custom made, and your eyes trail up to his monitor, you notice something on the corner of the screen. The mindless doodle you had drawn beside your phone number that day in class had been very carefully cut out and stuck onto his screen with tape. 

“You okay?”

His voice calls from outside, quietly as if not to disturb you even though it’s you who is occupying his room. 

“Yeah, I’m almost done!”

“I thought that she was gonna assign them on Friday?”

Sung had asked you that on call, in regards to the constellation project you mentioned you wanted to start working on. Not Jisung, Sung. Sung, who is not in your astronomy class and would have had no way of knowing when or even what your professor would be assigning. 

“You’re Ji-sun, right?” 

“—Sung.”

The nickname sounded very right coming from his lips, from his voice. You never gave his nickname too much thought, because truly, Sung could just be a display name. And if it is his real name, it could stand for anything: Sungmin, Sungwoo, Daesung, Ilsung, Jaesung… Jisung. 

And then, you recall the time you spoke on the phone—specifically, the time you had to do a double take at your screen to make sure you hadn’t actually called Sung. It was the first time you had spoken to Jisung on the phone, and it’s the only way you had even spoken to Sung… something about it seemed so, so strangely familiar. 

Could it be… 

“Alright, I’m done!” Your announcement comes after the realization that he’s been waiting outside for a few minutes already. 

“Coming in…” He warns, eyes still cast to the ground in case you weren’t decent. They slowly make their way up, and something flashes across his features at the sight of you. You try to ignore it, still preoccupied by your growing suspicions. His computer is on… meaning…

“Let me let Karina know I left… I kinda just walked out on her.” 

Jisung nods and takes a cautious seat on his bed a few feet away from you. 

As you open the discord app on your phone, you scroll to the top to find his contact and type out a simple Hi, clicking send with your heart beating faster than usual. It’s an impulsive act, but you can’t help yourself. If there’s even a chance… 

Instantly, his screen lights up and through his headphones you hear the familiar chime of the notification coming in. 

“I knew it! I fucking knew it!” 

If it’s possible, Jisung’s face grows even paler than it already was naturally, and even more gloom than it appeared earlier in the night when he identified you as Jaehyun’s ex. All of his features are alert and in shock, watching as you spin around to face him. 

“Sung? Right? That’s you?” 

He’s struggling to read your expression, and it’s beyond obvious. The only change in his demeanor is the now tensed up shoulders and the redness that takes over the white on his cheeks. 

“I—” Are you mad? Should he apologize?

“Did you know all this time? That it was me, I mean?” 

He nods slowly, unable to find the appropriate words to say. 

Two things happen just then. First, your hand smacks his arm, hard. “You fucking idiot!” and Second, you topple into his arms, hugging him. Initially, his hands hesitate to wrap around you, hovering above your waist as you squeeze his neck. 

“You’re not mad?” He asks shyly. You shake your head against him, then lift off with your hands on his shoulders to take a real good look at his face. 

“No! I’m so glad, I thought I was going crazy. Why didn’t you tell me?” 

He shrugs again, a gesture he seems to do a lot around you. 

“Since when did you know it was me?” 

“Since I heard you speak on the very first day in class. I recognized your voice.” 

Your eyes soften at this small confession, and you look back towards his desk, “So, this is where you were this whole time while we played? This close? A twenty-minute walk away?” You shoot up from the bed and cross the small distance to the desk, swiping an index finger along the surface, then his mouse, then his keyboard, and all of his other equipment. Your eyes are beaming, looking around and familiarizing yourself with his things. All the things you wondered about him are now laid out in front of you, and it’s exhilarating. 

“I was so excited when I found out,” 

“You should’ve told me,” you repeat, still taking in his pictures and personal items, your profound curiosity surfacing within you. 

“I was worried about making a good first impression, you’re…” 

“I’m…?” you press, turning to him for a moment. 

“You’re really pretty in person.” 

In that moment when you turn away to hide your blush, with the words “you’re really cute in person, too” ready to spill from your tongue in a sweet and shy whisper, a small black pile on the corner of his dresser catches your eye. 

“What’s that—” 

“Oh nothing! It’s just—” 

“Is that my cardigan?” 

Forget distraught, forget embarrassed, forget every possible synonym for the word humiliation. Not a single one would do what he’s feeling in this moment even a sliver of justice. Jisung is convinced his soul has left his body, that he’s passed on or that the ground has swallowed him whole. In fact, he’d prefer it that way. He has never felt more panic in his life as you quickly approach the cum-stained cardigan that he took from you, that he pleasured himself with countless times, that he still hasn’t washed…

“You dropped it in class, and I-I meant to give it back to you, you know, a-after I washed it, but then—” 

As you turn the material over in your hands, taking note of and examining the stains, Jisungs breath completely cuts off. You spin slowly on your heel, facing him. There’s an unreadable expression on your face, and it takes every bit of the little pride he has left to not squeeze his eyes shut. 

“Are these—” His voice is no more than a sputtering squeak, “I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry. Fuck, you must think—” 

“Jisung.” 

“I didn’t mean to keep it for so long, or-or at all, really, it’s just—”

“Jisung.” He’s pretty sure you can hear him gulp. “Were you using my cardigan to get off?” 

“I-” 

“Were you?” You ask sternly. 

He sucks in a breath, unable to look at you any longer as the faintest of yeses leaves his pouty lips. 

There’s a moment of silence. A terribly long, excruciating moment of silence where Jisung can think of no way to make this up to you. He’s beyond ashamed, palms clasped together and sweating, face red with horror, inside of his cheek clamped tightly between his teeth, the whole nine miles. So much for mulling over how he’d reveal who he was to you, and so much for all the overthinking he did, all the times he planned out exactly what to say to you and how. Now, it’s all coming to an end because of this damned cardigan. He should’ve just washed it and given it back to you after the first time—no, he shouldn’t have used it at all. His mind is filled with thoughts of everything and nothing at the same time, and he’s already beginning to mourn the loss of your friendship when you say the unthinkable: 

“Show me.”

*. * ·

taglist: @heartlvrrss @albedoloser @zp00ks @simpforarmihn @toroufriteh @quokkatss @jising-jisang-jisung @camstqr @tangerinehyuck @ma-riiii @minlvrpage @hancafe

there are some users that couldn't be tagged, as tumblr did not recognize their accounts. sorry :((

[cllightning81]

Academic Change

Summary : Everything's changing and the only way you know how to deal with it is by crying. Ollie's there to help though

Pairing/s: Oliver Bearman x Reader

Word Count : 0.8k

Masterlist

Oliver Bearman Masterlist

Want to be included in my tag list? Click HERE

A/N : Oh, how I needed an Ollie last night when this exact situation hit me.

It had reached a new academic year, but this year was different. You've finished high school and are now on your way to university. Ollie was signing with Haas, which meant his life was about to get more difficult. However, the worst part about it all was your best friend was moving away to go to university. 

You’d heard the horror stories about best friends that move away and slowly just lose connection until it was like there was never a friendship there in the first place. With all the change that was happening over the next six months, you could feel the anxiety kicking in. 

Ollie was back home for the break between Monza and Baku and you couldn’t be more grateful because during that break you had to say bye to your best friend and it was worse than Ollie leaving almost every week. 

She understood you in a way that no one else could, there were millions of inside jokes that would be shared between you, inappropriate jokes that would have strangers or other people complaining about but that was your friendship. 

It wasn’t until you were lying in bed blocking out the neighbours party that it really hit you. Noah Kahan’s ‘You���re Gonna Go Far’ playing into your ears as the words suddenly hit more than they ever had before. 

Before you knew it, the tears had started falling down your face as the panic set in that actually she was packing up her car and being wherever she was. You’d tried not to cry for months about her leaving, but suddenly, everything was just far too much. 

Ollie who was lying next to you in bed also blocking out the neighbours party with his own earphones in except this time scrolling on tiktok glanced over at you instantly spotting the tear tracks that had been on your face as you swapped from your normal playlist to your sad playlist needing to just let all your feelings out. 

His arms wrapped around your body, pulling you closer to him as he ran a comforting hand over your back in an attempt to help calm you down however you were too deep into your crying session by now. 

Soon Ollie figured you’d been crying enough and took your phone swapping over to some ‘relaxing sounds’ that in reality just made you want to use the bathroom but you didn’t have the energy to fight him. 

His hand gently pulled your wrist closer to him as he messed about with your smartwatch to start the breathing exercises that were programmed in by whatever company you’d previously bought it from. As you followed the instructions from the watch, you could feel the anxiety of losing your best friend leaving your body and your heart rate dropping back down to normal. 

Ollie sighed, letting you remove your earphones and place your phone on the bedside table before pulling you back into his body 

“I know it’s hard, darling. Trust me, I know, except I was the one leaving everyone behind. I know it from both points of view, and you just need to remember that what you have won’t disappear overnight. You’ll meet new people on your course even if it’s a small course and you’ll never forget about your memories with her. I know your anxiety is through the roof right now, and you don’t deal well with change, but remember I’ll always be here. Even if I’m in Italy or Australia. She’ll always be there whether she’s ten minutes away by bus or half an hour by train” Ollie took a breath, pushing some hair out your face and wiping stray tears from your face 

“Change is hard, and it’ll always be hard for you because that’s just who you are, but I love you for it and remember you’re the first from your family ever to go to university. That’s an achievement. You’re also doing a medical degree technically. I love you” He smiled, and you nodded 

“I love you too. Thank you” Ollie nodded, pressing his lips against yours. 

Everything was changing, and as hard as that was to admit, unfortunately, change was always going to happen in life, and although your facetimes were starting to become irregular, they were still happening. 

No matter what happened in the next few months, at least you always had the memories that you’d created over the past three years at high school. Because you’d left all those friend groups that turned out not to be right, and now you had your best friend. 

It was going to work out, and Ollie knew that after a couple of weeks you’d understand that. 

“Come on time for some ice cream” Ollie hummed, getting out of bed and throwing you over his shoulder, causing you to giggle and cling on for dear life. 

Sitting you down on the counter in the kitchen, Ollie raided the freezer, handing you the carton of ice cream with a spoon as he told Alex to play songs from both your childhoods. After all, much like your best friend, he knew how to make you happy. 

And to quote Lauv “The story never ends”

Coming Soon

Tag List

@molten-m122

@lozzamez3

@barcelonaloverf1life

@hiireadstuff

@mxdi0

@f1kenzzz

@evie-119

@ahgase99

@velocesainz

@scarletwidow3000

@jasons-little-princess

@tellybearryyyy

@zabwlky1999

@callsignwidow

@chocolatepoetryfun

@lwstuff

@f1ln4dr3cl16mv33

@destinyg237

@GlitzyDitsy

@sltwins

[dr-spencer-reids-queen]

Don't Judge A Book By Its Cover

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female!Reader

Word Count: ~1.3k

Warnings: none

Summary: You’re plagued by the kid who lives in your neighborhood, the kid you know has a crush on you. You left town, you lived your life without him, and now you’re staring at him face to face after years. Something about him has changed and now you can’t help but want him back.

Square Filled: art student au for @spencerreidbingo

Author’s Note: any and all comments are appreciated <3

x

Then

As soon as the last bell at school rings, you race off campus to start the walk home. It’s not a far walk but you enjoy the silence you get from it. Your house is filled with little brothers and sisters and it’s hard to get a moment of peace. Your parents do the best they can but you know it’s hard for them. You’re the oldest so you’re expected to help out which is why you also enjoy your time alone.

You walk around the corner and notice the sixth house down from yours with the garage open. You’re not sure how you feel but something washes over you knowing what’s going to come next. Maybe it’s annoyance or irritation or indifference but the same thing happens every single time you walk home from school.

The only kid that lives there, Spencer Reid, loves to come out and walk with you the rest of the way to your house. He’s a nice kid but that’s all he is--a kid. He’s two years older than you are but you’re much taller than he is. If he is going to get a growth spurt, he’s getting it late in life or maybe his family are just short people. He’s not enrolled in your school because he’s mega smart and needs higher education to stimulate his brain.

You slip past his house in hopes you can enjoy the rest of your walk in silence but you hear the garage door slam shut and footsteps padding down the driveway.

“Hey, Y/N! Almost missed you.”

“Hi, Spencer,” you shake your head.

“How was your day?”

“It was fine. It’s just school.”

“Today was my first day of college and it was exhilarating. I have to admit, I wish you were there. Or I wish I was enrolled in your high school like all the other normal kids. At least we’d be together.”

You knew he had a crush on you after the first conversation you ever had with him. He called you pretty and vowed he’d walk with you to protect you against predators. It was cute at first but not you’re interested in someone like him. Like you said, he’s nice and has the potential of being a good boyfriend but he’s short and you don’t go for short boys.

“Sure, Spencer.”

“Listen, my mom gave me some money and I wanted to see this new French film that’s playing across town. Do you think you’d want to maybe go with me?”

Never has he ever had the balls to ask you out. Now that he has, you need to put a stop to this. He’ll get over the crush and you won’t be humiliated every time you go out in public. Does that make you selfish? Maybe. Does that make you a douche? Definitely. You stop outside of your house and look down at Spencer who has a hopeful look in his eyes.

“Spencer, listen, you’re a nice kid but it’s never going to happen between us.” Spencer’s face falls but he doesn’t say anything. “Grow over six feet and then we’ll talk, okay?”

You meant that as a joke but you don’t stick around to see if he laughs. That’s the last time you ever saw Spencer Reid.

Now

Today is the day. You’re given the opportunity to feature your art in one of the most successful art galleries in the country. You studied at Princeton and got a degree in fine arts before interning for known artist Benjamin Hale. He’s so successful that he has hundreds of galleries across America with dozens more across the world. He was impressed with your portfolio and offered to let you study underneath him while creating your artwork in private.

He offered you a chance to showcase your work in one of his new galleries. According to him, he needs new blood in this gallery and you’re the perfect fit for it. Your speciality is portraits, realism, and photorealism. Your favorite things to draw are people but there is something about being in nature and drawing what God put on this Earth. You have an eye for making your paintings look real and raw, and you’re able to capture people’s emotions henceforth the realism part of your art.

You only have about a dozen works put up in your small corner of the gallery but you’re proud of it all. You might not sell anything tonight and that’s okay. When you got the word out that the gallery was going to open, people agreed to come once they saw free food and wine was going to be handed out. Still, you appreciate everyone coming.

The place is packed mostly for Benjamin’s work but you see some people enjoying your work. You’re in the back room getting more wine for the servers when one of them joins you.

“Hey, Y/N.”

“Oh, hey, Lori. I’ve just gotten the box of wine for you guys.”

“I just came back here to tell you that someone just bought all of your things.” You’re so shocked that you spring up but hit your head on the corner of a shelf. You yelp in pain and rub the sore area before backing out of the dusty corner. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. What did you just say?”

“Someone bought all of your work.”

You don’t wait to hear what else she has to say. You’re already out the door and rushing into the main room. You look to your section but don’t see anyone lingering around. You’re not paying attention to where you’re walking when you almost run into someone. The man grabs your shoulders to prevent you from falling and lets out a chuckle.

“Are you okay?”

Wait you know that voice. You look up at the man towering over six feet tall. Damn, he grew up.

“Spencer?”

“So, you do remember me.”

He lets go of your shoulders and allows you to take a step back from him. Damn, not only did he grow but he grew more handsome since the last time you saw him. Well, he was fifteen the last time you saw him but still.

“How could I forget the little boy who followed me for two years?”

“Yeah, I kind of had a crush on you,” he chuckles.

Oh, he even has a beautiful smile. Damn, I really was a dick to him back then. You try to ignore the pang of sadness at his use of “had” and not “have”.

“I know you did. I’m sorry, but I need to go.”

“Looking for someone?” he asks before you have a chance to leave his side.

“Yeah, someone bought everything I have out.”

“It was me.”

You pause and turn to look at him. He has a slight smirk on his face, and something in your head clicks into place. You look at him up and down and notice how he’s trying hard not to be overly confident in his decision.

“So, what, you got older and taller and now you think you’re hot shit?”

Spencer shrugs and shoves his hands into his pockets.

“You’re the one looking up, not me.” Your jaw drops several inches at his remark. “So, can we talk now?”

“Excuse me?”

“You told me to grow over six feet and we’ll talk. Well, I’m over six feet now. Will you let me take you out?”

You have no clue what to say to that because your mind is reeling from the last thing he said. Someone calls his name and you both see a black man, two blondes, and a brunette waving him over. They point to their watches which means he is either late or they have to go. He digs in his pocket and produces a business card. Only it’s not a business card. He’s in the fucking FBI.

“How about this?” He hands the card to you. “Call me when I can pick this stuff up and maybe we’ll talk then.”

He leaves your side and joins his friend group without another look at you. Is it shallow to want him now? Maybe. Are you going to try like hell to make up for lost time? Definitely.

x

Want to be tagged? Follow my library blog @aqueenslibrary​​​​​​ where I reblog all my stories, so you can put notifications on there without the extra stuff :)

[mountainsandmayhem]

BDSMaid - Chapter 8

Series Summary: After recently graduating you take what is supposed to be a job to save money before you go back to university to get your law degree. Your best friend offers you a job cleaning luxury homes for clients you’ll never know. Easy. Simple. Mundane. Until one of your clients is home and everything you felt was missing in your life starts to fall into place. This goes against the NDA you signed and you could get fired. Or worse, you could fall in love.  WC: 5.5k TW: I will put them below the cut for those who want to avoid spoilers. This is more of an original character, there have been some descriptions of reader throughout the series. A/N: How can I make a note when I have words?! I'm just so grateful for how many people have fallen in love with this story this year. It's crazy to me that I posted my first fan pic on December 23rd 2023, expecting about 3 people to see it and waking up to 100's of notifications. 2024 has literally been whirlwind, I've made so many wonderful ladies here and have grown more and more confident in my writing abilities. Thank you @lotusbxtch for being my forever beta for this series (probably an unhealthy crutch, but so be it haha). Thank you @for-a-longlongtime for letting me bounce ideas off of you and giving me a new insight to how sweet girl or Joel would think. @mermaidgirl30, @alltheirdamn and @littlevenicebitch69, what would I do if I couldn't scream about this story with you?! Ok eww, I'm done being sappy. Enjoy! Dividers and headers by @saradika-graphics

My Masterlist || Series Masterlist

TW: use of sex toys (vibrator and butt plug)

You

When you walked into your small apartment on Sunday, Odette was wrapped up in a blanket watching TV. She looked you up and down with a knowing smirk. It was pretty obvious based on the way Joel’s sweats and hoodie hung off your body that you were with a man all weekend. So, after she agreed to keep it between the two of you, you told her absolutely everything. It was freeing to finally be able to discuss Joel with one of your friends. The two of you spent almost six hours going over every detail of the last few weeks, and after ordering pizza and splitting a bottle of rosé, you had all the validation you needed. He loves you. And you love him, too. 

As the weekend rolls into the week, you still have not come down from your happy, little Joel Miller-shaped cloud. There’s not a single doubt in your mind that he is it. You have never let your walls down with someone like you have with him. It was always easier to just do it on your own; you could always count on yourself.  For the first time in your life, you can confidently say that you’re ready to let that go. It’s time for you to let someone take care of you for once. When he texts you on Monday to make plans for the following day, you decide that you’re going to tell him how you feel.

When Tuesday finally comes around, you practically skip up to his house. You have a duffle bag of items in one hand: your outfit for this evening, make up, and a change of clothes in case you spend the night. Wearing his clothing home was fun and all, but you won’t be doing any sort of walks of shame again. Clasped tightly your other hand is your company-provided caddy full of cleaning supplies. Just as you’re about to place the supplies on the front step, the large front door opens.

“Hi, Freckles,” Joel's voice coats every inch of your skin in warm honey. He shines an absolutely knee-weakening smile down at you. As per his usual JMKink attire, he’s in perfectly fitted black dress pants, expensive looking black dress shoes, and a pressed, crisp white dress shirt. The sleeves are rolled to his elbows and your mouth waters at the way his bare forearms look.  

“Hi,” you beam up at him, not holding back your ear-to-ear grin as you glow under his attention. “I wasn’t expecting you to be here!”

“I have to leave soon, but I have something for you.” He steps out onto the front steps and grabs everything from you before you follow him inside. You change into the white keds that Jamie gave you on your first day at Maid Discreetly before heading towards where he’s standing in the kitchen. There are three boxes on the kitchen island; two small black ones and one white one that you recognize immediately. He pushes that one towards you first. 

“This is your new iPhone,” he says with a wink and you feel your cheeks flush.

“Thank you,” you say shyly.

He shakes his head, “No, thank you for not fighting me on this. That cracked screen...”

“I know,” you say, raising a hand to stop him. You deepen your voice, “It’s a hazard, sweet girl.”

He laughs like he did that night at the Shibari class, deep and from his gut; it’s the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard and your heart swells at the possibility of getting to hear that laugh for the rest of your life. “Exactly. These other boxes…well, they’re for you, but also for me.”

You raise your eyebrows curiously as he slides the smaller of the two black boxes across the smooth marble of the island. His bottom lip slips between his teeth as you pull the top off of the first box. Sitting on a bed of white tissue paper is a small metal plug with a pink heart-shaped diamond on the end. 

“Mister Miller! Scandalous!” You gasp, feigning shock and surprise.

He laughs again as he asks, “Is that ok?”

“Very much so,” you respond with a smile before opening the next box, which is slightly bigger than the last. A black, U shaped piece of silicone sits in the box, along with a small plastic rectangle that looks similar to a key fob. “What’s this?”

“That, my sweet girl, is a remote vibrator. I was thinking that maybe you could wear both of those while you clean my house today. I can control that with the remote from a close distance or from my phone anywhere in the world.” 

Every hair on your body stands on end as your clit throbs in excitement. “Yes, I would really, really like to do that!”

“Good girl,” he says with a wink, holding a hand out to you. His fingers link with yours and just the slightest touch from him sends sparks up your wrist and straight to your racing heart. He grabs your new toys and leads you up the stairs. Your giggle is laced with arousal when you come to a stop in his enormous ensuite. After placing the toys on the counter he pulls you in, his free hand cupping the back of your neck before he slams his lips into yours. He kisses you hungrily, and you meet his energy, kissing him back as if you’re drunk with passion. His teeth nip your bottom lip as he pulls away. You’re so insanely, maddeningly in love with this man that you almost forget how to stand as he steps back.

“Take off your pants, sweet girl.”

You do as he says, eagerly unbuttoning your company issued black dress pants before sliding them down your legs. He stops you before you remove your thong, breathing out a heady ‘fuck’ before hooking his thumbs through the bright pink lacy waist band and sliding them down your legs. 

“Put your hands on the vanity and bend over for me,” he instructs with bated breath. He watches your reflection in the mirror, looking right into your soul as always, as you follow his instructions.  

You smile lovingly at him, clocking the way his throat works as he swallows hard at the sight of you bending at the waist, pushing your ass out for him. “Fuck, how did I get so lucky? All of this, just for me?”

“Just you, Joel,” you breathe, slipping your bottom lip between your teeth. 

He slides open a drawer and takes out two small bottles before turning on the water. He pops the top of one bottle, using the contents to wash both toys, then steps back behind you with the second bottle in and the plug in his hands. A warm laugh leaves your lips, “Always so prepared, Mister Miller.”

“With a pretty little thing like you in my life, I better be.” He clicks the top of the lube open as he continues, “Ready? I’ll go slow.”

“Mm-hm, I’ll tell you if it’s too much,” you coo, your body thrumming with the anticipation of his touch. 

“I know you will. No safeword right now, okay? Just say stop, and I will.” He spreads the lube around your tight ring of muscle with his thumb. Every muscle in your body goes slack under his attention and you sigh as your lashes flutter against your cheeks. “Good girl, just relax for me.”

After a few minutes of teasing you with the pad of his thumb he switches to the plug. The cold metal makes you jump. He reassures you by squeezing your hip as he murmurs, “You’re ok, baby.”

He swirls it gently at first, slowly applying more and more pressure before it slips in on its own and you whimper at the feeling. “Does that feel okay, sweet girl?”

“Mmm, yes,” you smile at his reflection in front of you. The amber glow of the LED lighting behind the mirror accentuates the honey flecks in his eyes. Everything about the way he’s looking at you feels overwhelming. It’s like when you first step foot into a hot tub on a cold winter's night. The sting of the swirling water is almost too hot as you sink further in. For a second you consider getting out, but then every single cell in your body adjusts and you can’t imagine not being wrapped in that heat.

“Now this one,” he says, holding up the black u-shaped vibrator. He adds a bit of lube and then guides your hips further back with one hand before kneeling. Your pussy clenches against nothing as you glance over your shoulder seeing him on his knees behind you. He practically whimpers, “God, Freckles, this pussy. She’s so gorgeous.”

A shy smile turns your lips upward. Joel starts to work the toy inside of you and you gasp out a moan. He moves the bulbous head of the toy back and forth until it slips in on its own accord, just like the plug did. Your breathing quickens at the pressure on your g-spot and clit; the toy isn’t even on yet and it already feels so good. Joel’s lips sponge against the globes of your ass, then your hip as he stands. “Are you ok, sweet girl?”

“Yes, Mister Miller,” you respond, your breath catching in your throat as you stand. 

“Good. Now put your clothes back on and get to work.”

Before you can bend to pick up your discarded clothing, he pulls you into his arms and brings his lips to yours. The kiss is so soft that it steals your breath, and you almost blurt your feelings for him right then and there. He keeps one arm wrapped tightly around your waist while the other snakes up your body until his large palm cups the side of your face. This kiss, compared to the one from earlier, is different in every way. Where that one was rough and passionate, this one is gentle and almost lazy; a content moan rumbles from his chest. Before pulling away, his warm tongue swipes sweetly across yours. 

 “See you later, honey,” he whispers, then kisses your forehead and walks away.

Honey, he called me honey. Everything about the last few seconds feels so goddamn domestic, and your potential life five years from now flashes through your mind. 

You're standing in this bathroom, getting ready to head to the law firm you work at. Joel, no longer just your dom but also now your new husband, puts a fresh latte on the counter for you, then helps you with the clasp of your necklace before kissing that sensitive spot behind your ear. ‘See you later, honey’.

The rev of Joel’s Jag pulling out of the garage snaps you out of your daydream. You get dressed and walk back downstairs while opening the Maid Discreetly app. To your surprise, cleaning Joel’s office isn’t the first task. Instead, you’ve been asked to wipe down the kitchen, then vacuum the main floor, stairs and upstairs rooms, and finish off by dusting his bedroom. All of it seems very doable in the next four hours, and just when you think you’ll probably be done early and have time to properly get ready for your night out, Mister Miller reminds you that he has the remote to a very distracting detonator. 

The first few times the vibrator comes on it’s subtle, just a light buzzing against your clit. It’s enjoyable, almost like a tickling massage, but after almost an hour and half of being gently teased at random you can feel your frustrations start to reach a boiling point.

You: Mister Miller, you’re torturing me Joel: Oh, sweet girl. We’ve only just begun. You: *pouts* Joel: That’s not going to get you what you want. Be a good girl and get back to work. I have a meeting. 

You check off the kitchen and main floor tasks and then move to the stairs. You decide to start at the top, sitting on the stair below it and scoot down to save your back. You’re also hoping that the pressure on the toy will make it strong enough that you can finally come. Joel turns the vibrator on again and you whine out in frustration when your plan fails. The slight hum against your clit stops and you mutter something about Joel being a sadistic bastard under your breath and continue your backwards ride down the stairs. As you reach the halfway point the vibrator comes to life at an intensity so strong that you drop the hose of the vacuum and dig your nails into the plush carpet of the stair tread. 

“Oh, fuck,” you breathe, squeezeing your legs together as he brings you right to the edge. Your orgasm builds quickly, and just as it’s about to take you, the vibrations stop. 

Joel: You better not have come You: Please, Mister Miller. I was so close Joel: Not yet, babygirl  

Joel continues this throughout the afternoon. Every ten minutes or so, the black u-shaped torture device inside of you comes to life; always at different intensities and for varying times. 

Torture device might be a bit strong, the discarded box of feelings says from the back of your mind. We both know you’re enjoying it. You don’t know when she decided to come back, but at least she’s keeping you honest. 

It’s been about three hours by the time you get to your last task of the day. The vibrator buzzes gently as you grab a duster and head into Joel's bedroom. You bite back a smile seeing his bed, the white fluffy sheets neatly tucked in. You can’t help but run your fingers across the soft duvet, remembering how it felt against your skin, remembering how he felt above, behind, below and beside your naked body.

Joel: You doing ok? Do you need to use your safeword? You: I’m okay, Mister Miller. I REALLY need to come, but this is the best day I’ve ever had at work.

When 3:30pm hits, you’ve finished everything in the app, and are so wound up from being teased that you’re fighting from taking the vibrator out and making yourself come. Everytime the vibrator comes on, you break out in goosebumps, the hair on your body standing on end, but when he turns it off, your cheeks flush in frustration and a wave of heat rolls through you. You know Joel will take care of you when he gets home and sees how badly you need it. He talks a big game, but you see the way he folds when you beg. 

Joel: I’ll be home in about 40 minutes, Tommy won’t shut up about concrete. You: I need to come so badly, Mister Miller. I’m throbbing, please!  Joel: Soon. Just breathe, sweet girl. You can do this. 

You need to distract yourself, and you know Joel’s office usually gets pretty dusty, so even though it’s not on your list, you grab your cleaning supplies and slowly open the door. It’s as it usually is: small piles of papers on the desk and a few things out of place on the book shelf. You put the books back and dust the shelves, then run the duster over the blinds before cleaning the window.

Joel: Goddamn, he’s still going on about fucking concrete. How’s my baby doin? You: Horny, I’m trying to distract myself

The vibrator comes to life at the lowest setting. Once again, it’s not enough to make you come, just enough to tease and taunt. You could cry at the frustration of it. 

You: That’s not helping, Mister Miller Joel: What’s not? You: Hilarious. Please? Joel: Nope. I love watching you come, hearing the whiny little gasps you make, so not until later

You move towards the desk. Just as you reach to tidy the stack of papers, the vibrations against your clit hit at an intensity you haven’t felt yet today. You fall forward, gasping for breath, as the papers scatter to the floor. You’re about to fall into the pleasure, feel those waves of nirvana that you so desperately need when the vibrator turns off and you’re left with nothing. You bite back an agitated yell. 

Joel: See you in less than half an hour, sweet girl. You better not have come.  You: I didn’t. I promise. 

You’ve never read anything on Joel’s desk before, but you notice a familiar emblem on the first piece of paper you pick up. It’s a short, handwritten note, and as your eyes scan the few sentences, your heart leaps into your throat as your stomach simultaneously falls to the floor. You read through it once and then twice, trying to make sense of the information in front of you. After blinking hard a few times, you read it again. 

You feel like you’re being ripped in two. 

Joel, Thank you for your generous (and anonymous) donation to the law library. I’ll be sure to find her application and review it myself. See you at the club's anniversary party in a few weeks.

You flip the note over and back again, reading it through one last time. It’s not signed by anyone, just black ink on eggshell white, the University of Austin letterhead at the top. The letter and the room start to spin. You stumble towards his desk chair and breathe through the wave of nausea that hits you; your mind reels at what you’ve just learned. Anger, disbelief and sadness all push against your prefrontal cortex, fighting to be the winning emotion. You want it to be anger – anger is so much easier to deal with. Yelling and telling Joel to fuck off would make you feel so much better, but overwhelming sadness and disappointment ultimately become the victors. 

He doesn’t believe in me.

The realization feels like knives along your skin. Everything he said about how you could do it, or that you’d get in…that was all bullshit. He paid for you to get in, and then – and this is the part that hurts the most – he made you believe that you did it all on your own. Your lungs feel like they’re filled with glass as you force yourself to take slow, controlled breaths. 

He doesn’t believe in me.

Tears prickle behind your eyes but you force them back. You will not cry, not when you’ve been through this before and came out stronger. Your parents didn’t believe in you, and you proved them wrong, graduating early and making it on your own in Texas for the last four years.

I can prove Joel wrong, too.

You shut your eyes tight. You don’t need him; you don’t need anyone. But if that’s true, why does his sexy smirk flash behind your eyelids? The glass moves from your lungs to your veins; everything hurts, and you scold yourself for letting him get this intertwined in you. 

Never again, you tell yourself. Stick to your plan. Law school. Get in with a good firm, pass the bar and become partner; then worry about a love life. 

You walk to his bedroom, removing the toys and cleaning them off before changing into the black leggings and beige crew neck sweater you brought. You gather your hair into a claw clip and head downstairs. With your bag by the door and the letter still clutched in your hand you lean back against the kitchen island and wait for Joel. 

He doesn’t believe in me. 

Joel

The drive home feels like it takes forever; granted, Tommy talking about fucking concrete for almost an hour felt longer. At dinner tonight, he’s going to explain from the beginning. He prepares himself for the worst, for your anger or hurt. He won’t be able to live with himself if he’s hurt you, but anger he can deal with. He knows it’s selfish, but you yelling at him over this would make him feel better. 

Finally, he turns into his neighborhood. The sight of your slightly rusty SUV parked on the street spreads a familiar warmth from his heart to his toes. Mine, he thinks to himself as he pulls into his garage. He knows you’re going to be so tightly wound from all the teasing you endured today, and he plans to very slowly unwind you before you go for dinner. The way you fall apart for him is so beautiful, and after almost four hours of being brought to the edge over and over again, he can’t wait to have your writhing and shaking with a simple flick of his tongue against your clit. But first, he’s going to kiss every inch of your skin while occasionally clicking the vibrator on at its lowest setting. He almost trips over your bag as he comes into the house, and when his eyes meet yours, he knows something is wrong.  

“Baby?” His voice cracks in concern at the look on your face. He mentally runs through the rolodex of facial expressions he’s seen from you, and he hates that he can’t place this one; it’s not anger or sadness, and it most definitely is not excitement or curiosity. Your soft lips are turned down in the corners, arms crossed and eyes soft. “What’s wrong?”

Your arms uncross and you hold out the letter he should have shredded weeks ago.

His stomach does a free fall. Disappointment. The look on your face is disappointment, and that is so much worse than anger or sadness. 

Fuck. 

You

Joel walks towards you with slow, measured steps while carding a nervous hand through his curls. You force yourself to continue breathing, fighting against the tears that threaten to appear. He takes the letter from you and rips it in half; you drop your eyes, watching as the two halves of paper flutter to the ground and then slide away from each other along the marble. You shake your head at the symbolism of it, hugging your arms tightly against your body again.

“I thought you believed in me,” you say, trying not to sound as gutted as you feel. 

“I do, sweet girl,” he says, stepping so close that his black leather dress shoes line up with your socked feet. You look up as he continues, “I swear I do. You - you got in on your own. Please, just let me explain.”

His eyes line with tears and moments that you overlooked over the last few weeks playback like a movie. The first day in this kitchen he said he knew the dean of admissions. The flash of anger when you went to the Shibari night and his response of “all of them?” when you said you didn’t get in. The way he insisted you open the letters before the anniversary party. He knew, he fucking knew all along that at least one university would accept you. Dread settles in your stomach, turning the shards of glass under your skin to icicles. Berkeley.

“Did you pay off Berkeley, too?”

“I didn’t pay anyone off.” He’s calm but firm in his response, which just seems to piss you off more. 

You roll your eyes, gesturing to the ripped paper on the floor and scoff. “Did you pay off Berkeley, Joel?”

The two of you stare at each other for a few heartbeats, and you don’t back down as more tears gather along his bottom lash line. He shakes his head in defeat, burying his hands in his pockets and breathing slowly a few times before whispering, “No.”

“Why would you do this to me? This could have ruined my entire career.” You try to keep your voice calm, but how dare he stand in front of you holding back tears. 

“I’m sorry, sweet girl. I wasn’t - I just…I’m sorry,” he flounders.

“Why, Joel?” Your eyes dance along his face. You aren’t sure what justification you're looking for or hoping for. The dream of staying here died the moment you picked up that note, but you can’t go to California without knowing why he did it. 

He opens his mouth, shaking his head slightly and then closes his mouth. He takes a deep breath through his nose, blinking away the tears. “Because I don’t want to lose you, Freckles. I should have told you, I was going to tell you tonight. That donation isn’t the reason you got in…you did that on your own. I just…well, I just sped up the process. And I’m so sorry you found out like this.”

You scoff again. “I thought my consent was the most important thing to you.”

His eyes widened in shock. “It is, sweet girl.”

“I didn’t ask you to meddle in my life, Joel. And I certainly didn’t ask you to speed along the process. What happens if I become a Supreme Court judge and someone finds out that you bribed a university to get me?” He goes to speak, but you raise a hand to stop him and continue. “And don’t tell me that you didn’t bribe anyone, because that’s exactly how this looks and you know it. You wouldn’t be looking at me like a guilty puppy if you thought what you did was right.”

His hands come to cup your face. The warm coffee eyes that usually dance rhythmically around your face are replaced by shifting dark glass beads laced with fear and loss. The warmth you normally feel when he touches you is gone. His eyes flick to your lips and then back to your eyes before he speaks. 

“Freckles, I lov-”

Your still raised hand covers his mouth, clamping tightly to his face to stop him. 

“Please don’t,” you whisper, swallowing the lump in your throat and keeping your palm pressed to his soft lips. Your heart pounds behind your ribs in response to what he was about to confess. If he tells you what you so desperately wanted to hear just hours ago, you know you’ll crumble. You’ll let him take you up to his bedroom and apologize in a way that only he can. You’ll spend the night planning how you can do long distance while you’re in California. You’ll let him interfere with the plan…again.

“Don’t say that to me right now, I can’t hear that.”

He nods into your hand slowly, his eyes soften, and you try to memorize every bit of amber in his otherwise black brown eyes. This will be the last time he looks at you like this, and the realization seems to suck the air out of the room. You wish you could bottle up how it makes you feel when he looks at you like that; the way it comforts you and shuts off the narrated to do list in your mind that’s always growing in your mind. 

“Joel, if…if you feel that way, then you’ll let me go,” you tell him, voice just above a whisper. He lets out a shaky breath through his nose, the heat of it warming your hand. One of his hands leaves your face to wrap around your wrist, but he doesn’t pull your hand away or step back out of your grip. Instead, he runs his thumb in small circles along the soft, smooth skin there, and you swear you can feel the whorls of his thumb tattooing themself on you, trying desperately to stay with you forever. 

“You’ll understand why I have to go to Berkeley now,” you continue. “I have been working so hard for this. And for years, I have been doing it all on my own. I’m so close, Joel…so close to finishing what I started when I was, like, seven years old. So, please, I’m begging you…please do not finish that sentence.”

You drop your hand from his mouth, his grip going weak as he lets you slip out of his grasp. He looks small, almost deflated in front of you as he stumbles back a few steps. The silence between the two of you feels heavy. 

It’s over. Whatever this was, or could be, is over, and you both know it. 

When he finally speaks, it’s a sad whisper. “What about when you’re done?”

“A lot can change in three years, Joel,” you respond, mostly to extinguish the flicker of hope in your chest. It’s better for you to push him away now than to hope that he’ll be there when you graduate. No one has ever been there for you, and this is proving to be no different. You step around him and head to the front door, biting down hard on the inside of your cheek as the tears threaten to reappear while you get your shoes on. 

“Freckles, wait.”

You close your eyes, facing the door with your hand on the matte black knob. His dress shoes click on the shiny marble before his large hand comes to rest on the door beside your head. This is the exact position you were in after accidentally catching him in his office. You keep your eyes glued to the door and after a sniffle, a quiet clearing of his throat and a whispered, heartbreaking ‘fuck’, he continues. 

“I really am sorry,” he says, his voice hoarse. “This is not how I wanted this to go, but you know what you need and I respect your choice. These last few weeks have been so much more than I could have imagined, more than I deserve. You have brought me back, sweet girl. I know you probably don’t believe a word of what I’ve said tonight, and that’s ok, but with you, I felt that pull that I’ve been waiting for. I felt it the minute your cleaning caddy fell to the ground and I locked eyes with you. If you were anyone else, I would have let you run out of here and then had you fired. I chased you and I’ve been chasing you ever since, even though I know you are meant for more and that this could only ever be temporary for you. This was always going to be the end for me and a well-deserved, hard-earned beginning for you.”

He takes a shaky breath in and you open your eyes, but you don’t look back at him. “Regardless of all that, I meant what I said in my office that day. Starting this with you would be it for me. A lot can change for you in three years, and I want you to experience everything in California. But for me, it’s you. It will always be you.”

Your chest feels like it’s going to cave and your knees threaten to buckle. “I have to go, Joel,” you grit out, forcing your voice past the boulder that’s formed in your throat.

“I know, and I’m so proud of you, sweet girl,” he whispers, dropping his hand and stepping back. The heat of his broad body and leather-and-ash scent disappear from behind you, and it feels like you’ve been plunged into freezing, uncharted waters. 

You get in your car and drive, unsure of where your final destination will be. After driving around Austin for a while, you find yourself parking outside of the Maid Discreetly office. You take a minute, deciding what you are and aren’t going to tell your best friend before heading in. Jamie’s office is impeccable as always, not a single smudge on the glass desk as she types on her laptop, looking effortlessly perfect.  

“Hey, babe!” she says with a smile as you cross the threshold.

“How’s your dad doing with the California office?” you say, trying to act casual.

“Oh my god!” she practically shrieks as she jumps up from her chair. “Did you get into Berkeley?”

“That depends,” you say, raising one shoulder. “Does he have a job for me there?”

“Holy shit!” She runs around the desk and wraps you in her arms. How she can move like that in stilettos is beyond you.

“Careful, you’re gonna break an ankle,” you deadpan. The weight of what just happened with Joel almost dissipates. Jamie pulls back to look at you, her eyes scan your face and you feel exposed.

“Why aren’t you more excited? What’s wrong?”

Shit. 

A sob leaves your throat and you collapse into Jamie’s open arms. She pulls you into her office with one arm and closes her door with the other, then leads you to the couch along the far wall. As soon as she gets you seated, you manage to explain everything between sobs and very unattractive nose blowing.

This is supposed to be one of those exciting moments of your life. You did it: you got into the school you always dreamed of and you're moving to California; a place you always felt most at ease in. Yet, it’s all clouded over by having your heart wholly shattered by a man that you actually thought was going to be the love of your life. Someone who showed you he cared, showed you that he’d always be there. 

But it was all a lie.