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roseykat · 1 year ago

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TITLE: Venom Biter

PAIRING: Minho x reader

SUMMARY: The end of a relationship between you and Minho turns as sour as it could ever get. A lovers to enemies trope.

WARNING: minors DNI with this post or my blog. I create NSFW SKZ related content and I know I won't be able to regulate every single interaction with those posts so please do not engage with my work or page whatsoever.

TAGS: breakups, hate sex, post-breakup sex, unprotected sex, swearing, angst, manhandling, push and shove, spitting, choking, oral sex (f!reader receiving), angst, strong hints of degradation, use of degrading names such as 'slut' and 'whore'.

A/N: this was originally meant to be for one of the days I had planned for Kinktober but I was up to my neck in work and I didn't want to post something sort of half-assed so I had to hone down on most of the work for this piece.

MASTERLIST

“Broke up?” Chan’s eyes refuse to blink. “You two broke up!?”

His confused filled stare shoots for the direction of his best friend, Minho, who quietly sits opposite him across the table. He looks slightly withdrawn or…off colour. It can’t have been the gruelling two hour lecture they finished before heading out to lunch. If it were that, Minho would be complaining his head off saying how boring it was or cursing himself for not changing his minor earlier.

He’s just not his usual self. In other social settings, he could talk until the cows came home. But the entire hour that they’ve spent together at lunch, Chan has been doing all the conversing and only receiving vague one-word answers. It wasn’t until he asked what was up with Minho that his friend dished out the news that he and his girlfriend - you, had split up.

“Why?” Chan proceeds, still swimming in shock.

A sigh leaves Minho’s mouth. He truly doesn’t feel like revisiting this subject. When he even thinks about the answer, all he can recall is the firey shouting match you both had the day things crumbled.

“It’s messy,” he replies with a cloudy and ambiguous answer.

“If you talk about it, then it might help you make sense of it all.”

He groans this time, “I really, really don’t want to do that. What’s done is done.”

“Done?” Chan questions, still not letting up on an interrogation. “You were in a relationship with Y/N, for years. You guys talked about a whole future together. That’s not something you just sweep under the rug and forget about.”

If there’s one thing he almost did forget about, it’s that you were friends with him - not just Chan, but the seven others as well. After all, it was Minho who introduced you to those select people whom he calls his brothers. They would’ve found out eventually if Minho refrained from telling them who you were dating all those years ago.

Though naturally, you became very close with them.

“We’ve both chosen to do that so there’s nothing really much left to dispute.”

Chan’s eyebrows furrow, realising he left out a crucial question to the situation, “why did you guys break up in the first place?”

Minho feels like he’s going to run out of sighs, “she doesn’t love me anymore and I don’t love her anymore. That’s literally all there is to it.”

“You’re telling me you both fell out of love - at the same time,” Chan responds, still having a difficult time trying to comprehend his friend's situation.

“Pretty much,” Minho confirms with a nod.

Chan finds that extremely hard to believe from his friend - the very person who would enter a different realm whenever he was in a five centimetre radius of you. His eyes would glaze over as if he were possessed; always fixated on you, he’d smile more than he usually would, and was comfortable in the space around you.

There had to be another reason, surely.

But it had almost been three weeks since Chan dissected the news out of Minho, and it was almost like pulling teeth trying to dive for the details. Each attempt was as fruitless as the next and in the end, Chan just plucked the same answers.

Regardless, it seemed to play out better than expected. Minho saved himself from having to dish out explanations as to why you wouldn’t be around anymore. As a result, telling Chan was the best option and since the others didn’t know, Minho was okay with him telling them so that he didn’t have to.

In saying that, Minho left out very central details of what happened leading up to the breakup. He never mentioned the constant fighting, the lying, the false accusations, the shouting matches, up until the point where you were both swimming in the toxicity the pair of you created.

He also absconded from the fact to Chan that not only did you both separate, but you’ve also both come to view the other differently and not through a good lens. Minho shouted it in your face the other day to which you did the same; “I hate you.” And that was that.

But his friends probably didn’t need to know all of that.

Since that day, you’ve been in the process of trying to find an apartment for yourself which isn’t easy. You want to remain in town and not too far out so that you don’t have a long commute to work, and at the same time, you don't want to break the bank trying to find a nice place to rent in the city. All in all, it was tough, but you were ready to just leave.

Having packed up the majority of your stuff in boxes, all you had to do was wait for landlords to contact you back about possible vacant apartments. Thankfully Minho was lenient in allowing you to stay until you found a place.

You slept in the spare room, mainly keeping to yourself and the boxes of things surrounding the space. Occasionally you would have to lock yourself in there and throw on some noise-cancelling headphones whenever Minho brought around another woman to sleep with.

It was his house, you knew that and now that you have no ties to him and he’s letting you stay, it was never your place to question his actions.

Still, that could never lessen the hurt. It was painful which is why you hated him so much. You don’t know how a person could move on so quickly after so many years of being told how much you’re loved. It was like he never meant it. With that being said, when you eventually managed to find a decent place, you were free from Minho.

All of your items were ready to be moved out, taking a couple of days to actually get them to your new place. In the tiring process, you also had to factor in your work schedule which meant it would take longer to continue moving your stuff. Nonetheless, you had the majority of your boxes out of Minho's house with only a few remaining that you needed to swing by and pick up.

"Something wrong?" he wears a blank look on his face when you arrive on the doorstep to his house.

"Some of my stuff is still here, can I come in to grab it please?" You ask politely. He gives a silent answer in return by opening his door wider for you to walk in before he goes back to whatever it was he was doing.

You make your way into the spare room where the last of your things remain, but there is one odd detail you notice as you approach the items. What was supposed to be taped down lids to the boxes had in fact been opened; not in the state you had originally left it in.

"Minho," you call out, hoping he heard you.

Sure enough, he did. Minho walks into the spare room with a puzzled expression, wondering why he's been summoned, "what?"

“Why are these open?” You ask, lifting one box off of the other to check if the rest were open as well. “Half of my stuff isn’t in here.”

“You were coming back for those?” he replies with a question.

“What the hell else would I be coming back here for?”

“That's what I thought when you got here,” he says. “I thought it was for other things that you left behind, not ones in these boxes."

Your eyes never leave his face, tracking any sudden shifts in his muscles to try to figure out if he’s actually telling the truth or not. Even though you and Minho aren’t together, you're sure he wouldn't do anything malicious out of spite.

“So why is half my stuff missing?”

Minho pinches the bridge of his nose, “I thought you didn’t need any of it and that you left it here on purpose for me to deal with or throw out.”

“So what…” you trail off, expecting his answer. Minho hesitates for a few moments, sitting on the fence about whether he should actually tell you or not. But the least he can do right now is be honest.

“I told the…girl I bought around the other day that if she wanted anything-“

“No you fucking didn’t.”

“-she could have whatever was left in the boxes,” Minho finishes the rest of his sentence which would’ve been better for you not to hear.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“What the fuck is wrong with me? What the fuck is wrong with you for leaving them behind in the first place!” Minho argues back, trying to defend himself here even though he knows he’s in the wrong. “You were gone for a few days Y/N, I thought you just left!”

“I never left them behind! I told you how long it was going to take my things to move!” You shout at him, tears brimming your eyes. “Now my stuff…”

The hurt genuinely sets in. Minho feels a sharp stab of pain in his chest when he sees how visibly upset you are. He knows that he’s been nothing short of a dickhead within the past month and now he’s gone and made things worse. It’s no point in him now to say that it was an honest mistake.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know, truly.”

You shove him backwards into the dresser, knocking down some of the empty photo frames that were once homes for pictures of you and Minho, “you’re not sorry. You’re the fucking worst.”

Taken aback by your actions, Minho turns behind him to see the frames flat on the surface then looks back at you, “seriously Y/N, I would not have done that out of spite.”

“But it’s the fact that you still did it!” You raise your voice at him and shove him back again. “You didn’t bother calling or texting me about it when you should’ve!”

Minho predicts your next move and catches your arms to stop you from pushing him back impossibly further into the dresser. He shoves you back, the back of your knees hitting the edge of the bed which causes you to land on it behind you.

Before the surprise kicks in, Minho is kneeling on top of you, nearly straddling your lower half as he starts pinning your arms to the side of your head. Yet with a split second of momentum to break free, you struggle but manage to flip the tables and pin Minho on his back.

You mount his hips before your mouth comes down to kiss Minho so aggressively that it takes him a moment to react. With any other woman that he’s slept with so far, he would allow them to be on top. But because it’s you, and supposedly hates your guts, not to mention his untapped pride, it’s not going to happen. So Minho fights back, kissing and biting nearly every part of your upper body in the process until you’re under him.

He sucks large, deep, red hickies into the skin of your neck, in places where everyone would be able to see them. Minho would want people to know that you’re just a whore he uses. Especially for the next guy you sleep with who would go down on you and see the myriad of hickies that Minho would eventually put between your thighs when he rips your pants down.

“Wanna play this fucking game with me,” he rasps before yanking down your off.

Despite being a dickhead Minho will still eat you out for prep. But it’s not soft and teasing when he does go down on you. It’s tongue and finger fucking you until you’re dizzy from how hard you’re about to cum. It gives you the opportunity to pull and tug on his hair until his scalp starts burning, forcing you to be as vocal as you’ve ever been.

His fingers curl up into that sensitive spot while his tongue and mouth work simultaneously. He’s always been good at giving head, but unusually better now that he’s relatively angry. In the back of your mind, you supposed it helped having not slept with anyone for a month, making it easier to reach that peak of delicious, eye-rolling ecstasy.

“Fuck!” you scream out, voice projecting throughout the room as Minho sucks on your clit. “Fuck you…you’re gonna make me cum.”

Those words are something Minho could never get tired of hearing you say. Even in the headspace that he’s in now, he wants nothing more than to hear how good he’s making your body feel. However, he doesn’t need verbal confirmation from you to know that you’re about to cum. When your walls seize and clamp around his fingers, when you’re trembling around his head, Minho knows what that means.

The quick drag of his fingers is only light work for him, pumping at a pace that has you panting to try and keep up with it. As a result, it’s not long before Minho brings you to your sweet release; a toe-curling burst of euphoria that has you silently creaming around his fingers.

He has no patience for you to descend from your orgasm, sucking his fingers clean as he pulls away from your pussy. He gets to unbuckling his belt faster than he can even comprehend that this is still happening.

“H-Hurry,” you whine, trying to quell the hunger for Minho’s cock while you wait.

His eyes squeeze shut, hissing as he coats his length with your slick, “shut the fuck up.”

Despite being in a haze post-orgasm, you manage to sit up quickly to turn and push Minho down by his shoulders. You find yourself straddling his hips once more, reaching down and behind for his cock, aligning it with your hole. Minho allows you to work for it yourself, watching his cock vanish by the second as you sink down.

“Mmm…f-fuck,,” you whine, unable to come to grips with how much you miss him filling you out.

Taking a couple of slow strokes up and down allows you to realise that never in your wildest dreams could you ever imagine hate sex with Minho would be this…rough. Both of you pushing, shoving, and manhandling each other around, speaking to each other with such disregard for the other person's feelings – beyond the point of degradation.

“Come on,” Minho grunts, fingernails embedding themselves into your hips so that the indents remaining become as equally as vibrant as the hickies blooming on your neck.

You look down at him with disgust before your hand lowers to his throat, choking him out by the sides of his neck. That familiar feeling of restriction to Minho forces him to repress his sick enjoyment of it, even more so when you start really riding him.

“Fuck you,” you strain out, trying to assert some degree of control even though you’re battling with oversensitivity from your previous orgasm.

You slam your hips down repeatedly, building up a good pace and rhythm that’s enough for small moans to force their way out of your mouth. With a cock like Minho’s, it’s impossible to keep quiet no matter how much you try. However, as you work for your own orgasm, you don’t want to give him any satisfaction by making him think that he’s the one doing it; yet in reality, he is.

Nonetheless, you continue to use him just as much as he’s using you until the luxury of pleasure accelerates in the pit of your stomach. In saying that, it doesn’t take long for Minho to find that information out as you continue to ride him. The observation is clear-cut;

“Nobody’s fucked you since me haven’t they?” He asks you breathlessly, watching you roll your hips deliciously over his cock. “Know how I can tell? Because you keep fucking clenching around my dick.”

Your eyebrows furrow, struggling to find an answer for him because he is right and that’s not your fault, “s-so what? Want me to stop?”

“Didn’t say that, did I?” He argues back, too proud to say ‘no’. “Just…just keep moving.”

A firm hand of yours catches his taut jaw, and while his mouth is open, you lean down and spit right in it.

You curse right at him, “fuck you.”

His eyes lock with yours and for a moment, Minho is shocked, but not in a bad way. In that moment you despised him so much that he made you do something a normal person would find disgusting. Although it’s not long before a sick smirk spreads across his face, failing to pretend as if he didn’t just enjoy that, swallowing it back.

“Course you’d be into that you fucking whore,” he rasps, his body jolting every time your hips slam down.

“I’m not the whore who’s taking it,” you snipe back at him.

Your comment riles Minho, resulting in him nearly bucking you off his body before flipping you onto your stomach. He yanks both of your hands behind your back as something for him to latch onto when he pushes his cock back into you, and starts fucking hard and fast.

“Yes, yes, yes, fuck…” you whimper, eyes fluttering shut.

The new angle makes his dick slip in just that extra bit deeper, achieving a sensation which you miss all too much. With the amount of relentlessness that Minho puts behind his thrusts is nothing but a fast, brutal, and unforgiving type of fucking. He’s not holding back with you, no matter how much you hate him and he hates you, he will fuck you to tears.

“Such a fucking slut,” he drives forward nastily. “Needy, loud, slut.”

Your choked moans and whimpers are typical responses to hearing him call you that name again. In bed, if you weren’t his lover, you were his slut. Minho wouldn’t care less if the bed broke beneath him trying to fuck you like the whore you always wanted him to treat you as. But it was phenomenal.

Now, that’s only a distant memory clawing to come back.

“Make me cum…make me fucking cum,” you demand, acknowledging how close you are to the cliff of ecstasy.

Minho's breathing picks up from hearing the pure desperation in your voice, and so does his pace. His only release is not but a minute away, respecting that and also his motive to continue rearranging your guts.

Yet the possibility of keeping up any longer draws to a short term. Minho’s hold on your wrists behind your back becomes a solid death grip with no chance of escape until the wet heat from your pussy has his hips jumping out of rhythm.

His head tilts to the sky, the pleasure screaming at him from the base of his cock, “y-yes, fuck I'm cumming.”

At that very instant, Minho’s release rocks him over. His hands let go of yours in lieu of grabbing onto your ass instead. The pain and sting of his fingernails scraping deep into your flash forces strained whimpers and mewls from your throat, helping to push you over the verge of your second orgasm.

“Y-Yes, cumming, oh fuck-” you cry out with a shaky voice, stiffening while your hole seizes rhythmically around Minho’s length.

The pleasure is throat-gripping, making you forget the words to express how good you feel. Except, in the vapour of your orgasmic haze, you still don't want to accept the fact that it's Minho who makes you feel that way.

He pauses for a moment then thrusts hard back into you, making you keep the warm load that you were so undeservingly given, regardless if your walls are spasming and contracting it out. Then just as he was fast to try to get inside you, he's just as fast when he pulls out and flops beside you.

The air in the room becomes breathable again now that your heart rate isn't racing to the heavens, but picks back up quickly when you decide to hop off the bed and get dressed. You couldn't care less if you were sore and unbalanced. The thought of staying in the room with Minho any longer was suffocating.

“About your stuff,” he starts, filling the silent void with an exasperated voice. “I’ll try to get it back.”

You zip your jeans up, “don’t bother. I know you did give it away for whatever reason, but for what reason is something I’m betting you’ll take to the grave with you.”

Minho is up and now following suit by putting his clothes on. If now is the time to get one thing off of his chest, it’s now. Since the day you both separated, there has been no proper conversation. Both of you are too stubborn to admit wrongs and fix rights, but in your eyes, it's too far gone. There’s no going back to a good thing that was once more.

"I won't if we can just talk it out," he offers the opportunity to you.

“Minho, the nights that I had to listen to you fuck someone else in the next room right after we just broke up was a clear sign that we did not need to talk it out. All it made me do is realise that you didn't actually love me."

“That’s not true,” he shakes his head as you hear a twinge of desperation in his voice like he's pleading his case. "That's not true at all."

"It is though," you correct him. "You were free to sleep with whoever you wanted to because we had broken up at that point, but not a day after that did you wait."

Minho follows through with his explanation, “I was trying to get you out of my head. Spending too long just thinking about you makes me want to lose it. It didn't mean that I never loved you before."

“So you’re just going to continue being delusional? To fuck your way through trying to forget me?” You question, nearly laughing. "I honestly think you're just being pathetic."

He shrugs, “if it means that I don’t have to feel heartbreak, then yes.”

Part of you gets it. Minho’s found a vice and is using it as a tool to deal with his pain. But you’re in pain too, and you haven’t done anything to upset him ever since you split. Maybe it is as bad for him as he says it is. Maybe he doesn’t truly know how to navigate himself out of this like you’re attempting to.

It’s almost a rebuttal to your statement about whether he truly loved you or not; if he’s using other people to drive the thought of you out of his brain because it’s too painful to deal with, then maybe you were more than just a lover to him.

"I mean this in the nicest way possible, but I cannot stand being around you anymore because of how much it hurts to know that you're not actually with me. I'd rather try to forget your existence in order to not feel that type of heartbreak," Minho explains, his words coming from a place inside him that must've just opened up.

But he continues, "the second we split, I needed every last memory of you out of this house. But I know that this hurts you too and that this past month I’ve hurt you and that’s no justification to say that my reason is because you mean more than my entire life.”

There’s an ache in your chest that you’ve never felt before, a blend of all the emotional pain that could’ve been prevented had the two of you just talked. But that ache is fuelled by the fact that you can hear the waiver in Minho’s voice, and even though his back is still turned to you while he sits on the edge of the bed, you’re sure he’s crying.

A/N: Dare I say that I want to make a part 2 to this where Minho and reader try to rekindle, things are pretty tender but they sort of want to make it work...

#rosiewritesskz #stray kids smut #skz smut #lee know smut #lee know x reader

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kwanisms · 16 days ago

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Kinktober 「10:22」 — p.seonghwa

» ateez menu | seonghwa menu | kinktober masterlist «

➮ naga!Seonghwa × fem!Reader wc: 6.3k summary: Y/N’s naga roommate is still trying to get used to the hustle and bustle of life in the city. He finds it difficult to go out and socialize as monsters aren’t socially accepted yet. So he tends to go a little stir crazy and get bored often. dinner time is no different when he suggests they do something fun. genres/themes/au: angst/fluff/smut; supernatural, horror, thriller; non idol au, monster idol au warnings: adult dialogue, female reader, supernatural and horror themes, mentions of: food & alcohol consumption, snakes, snake behavior (literally. Not metaphorically lol), snake biology and anatomy; sexual content (18+ mdni), see smut warnings under the cut! taglist has been moved to reblogs join my taglists! kinktober taglist is CLOSED! Strikethrough means I cannot tag you. MINORS WILL BE BLACKLISTED & BLOCKED. AGELESS BLOGS WILL ALSO BE BLOCKED.

a/n: this was originally Wooyoung when I started planning but I couldn’t get the idea of naga!Seonghwa out of my head so I swapped him and Woo, giving Wooyoung siren instead. Nagas are one of my favorite creatures/monsters/cryptids. I have a special place in my heart for naga!Idols after writing that Mingi one for the Library of Illusion. It’s just a fun concept. Thank you for reading! If you like this, please consider reblogging and supporting my writing! The next part is another member of Ateez and it’s going to be an interesting one, so stay tuned! As always, this is a work of fiction and all characters are not reflective of their respective irl counterparts. for entertainment purposes only.

smut warnings: teratophilia (aka monsterfucking), table sex, double penetration (f receiving), oral (f receiving), unprotected sex (seonghwa is a snake man with two d!cks, they don’t make condoms for snake men. But they do make them for humans. So use them), multiple orgasms (f receiving), use of pet names (sweetheart, baby, angel, etc.), that should be all but of course, let me know if I missed any. kinks: Table/counter sex + double penetration dialogue prompt: ❛❛ I’m bored. Let’s fuck. ❜❜

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You stared, dumbstruck, at your roommate as he stared at you with his bright, green, reptilian eyes.

“What did you just say?” you asked incredulously as a smirk started to form on his face. “I said,” he started, never taking his eyes off yours. “I’m bored.” Your eyes narrowed as you stared him down. “I meant after that,” you retorted. The smirk on his face grew even more.

“Let’s fuck.”

When he had initially said those words to you, it was after you had returned home from work, excited to have the entire weekend off to relax and unwind. You had been prepared to come home, make dinner, and perhaps curl up on the couch with your favorite bottle of wine.

What you hadn’t expected was for your naga roommate to suggest the two of you have sex to combat his boredom. That was the furthest thing from your mind. The idea of fucking your 4.5 meter long naga roommate had not even crossed the threshold of possibilities in your mind.

When you first met Seonghwa, it was like seeing the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot for the first time. Nothing truly prepares you for seeing a cryptid for the very first time. There are no preparation classes or exams for that kind of thing. You have to rely on your instincts and while every single bone in your body had told you to run, you just couldn’t bring yourself to listen.

Despite his monstrous stature and long, snake-like body, Seonghwa was the exact opposite of a monster to you. He was kind, courteous, polite, and quiet. He sometimes had a bit of a chaotic streak but he was great company and you enjoyed every second you spent in his presence.

When the Monster Relocation Initiative was enacted, making it illegal to discriminate against sentient humanoids, you found yourself wanting to help in some capacity because of your new budding friendship. You went through the proper channels, signing up for a monster roommate. Somehow, Seonghwa got matched with you and you were beyond excited to have him in your apartment.

Your ridiculously cramped apartment.

Not that it was cramped before, oh no. Before Seonghwa moved in, your apartment was just the right size. Perfect for you, living alone in a historic building renovated into apartments after the Monster Relocation Initiative was announced.

To you, your apartment was exactly the right size… for a single occupant. But add a 4.5 meter long snake-man and it started to get cramped real quick.

Not that you were complaining. On the contrary, you wouldn’t have it any other way. Seonghwa may technically be a monster but he was the furthest thing from scary. Was he capable of wrapping you in his strong coils, squeezing the life out of you and eating you whole? Probably, but you knew he would never do that.

The difference between most monsters and the ones protected in the M.R Initiative was that the humanoids were sentient, capable of intelligent thought and able to learn and distinguish the difference between right and wrong. Could Seonghwa kill you in your sleep? Of course, he was fully capable of that. But would he? No.

This integral difference between most monsters and the humanoids allowed most of them to get jobs and integrate into society. It was illegal to discriminate in any way against them, denying them employment, housing, or entry to establishments was punishable by law. They were legally members of society with citizenship cards, IDs and the right to vote.

Socially, however, was another matter entirely. While they couldn’t be denied jobs for being who they were, many places of employment found entirely valid, albeit bogus, reasons not to hire humanoids. This had been the subject of many of your conversations with Seonghwa by this point.

He often complained of boredom, being cooped up in the apartment all day. It was a difficult subject and rather sensitive for him. His lack of employment. Since Seonghwa moved into your place, you’d taken on most, if not all, of the financial responsibility, paying all the bills, buying all the household groceries and supplies. Again, you weren’t complaining entirely. You enjoyed having Seonghwa around.

He did wonders for your mental health, which was why you often sat and listened to his complaints.

The topic of unemployment had come up again while you sat at your dining room table, where you were finishing up your dinner, Seonghwa having finished a long time ago. He had been talking about his day spent inside while you were outside, at work. He complained of the boredom and you listened patiently.

“Come on, Y/N!” he whined for the nth time that day. “I'm so bored!” You swallowed your mouthfuls of noodles before giving him an apologetic look. “Hwa,” you said calmly, setting your fork down as you finished your meal. “Why don't you try again and find another job?”

His lack of employment wasn’t entirely his fault. He’d been extremely diligent in the beginning, applying for a plethora of jobs he was more than qualified for. He managed to secure job interviews left and right but each time after the interview, the result was the same and after almost a year of numerous failures to secure a job, Seonghwa became more and more dejected. More depressed.

While being legally accepted into society, Seonghwa was still not accepted socially due to his monstrous size and form. He’d been passed over again and again for job simply because he looked different. The more human the humanoids looked, the more likely they were to blend in and while the top part of Seonghwa was human enough, the other three meters of him was all too telling of his nature.

It had been well over a year since Seonghwa started living with you and while you were financially capable of handling the household bills until he did manage to land a job, Seonghwa was berating and beating himself up for it. He often snuck into your bed, at least as much of his body that would fit, and the two of you would stay up, talking late into the wee hours of the morning.

Most of his concerns circulated the same train of thought: finding a job and establishing himself as a member of society. He hated the isolation that his previous life forced on him, living all alone in the caves in the mountains with no one to talk to, being confined to the caves and starving until some poor creature wandered into his lair. He hated every second of it.

It was nice, having a warm body near you, and while Seonghwa wasn’t the cuddliest creature, he did tend to wrap you up in his embrace, mainly to keep from pushing you off your bed with the rest of his huge, elongated body. The amount of heat between your bodies on some of the colder nights was nice but it left you wondering what the line between you was and had you crossed it already.

You'd be lying if you said you didn't think about Seonghwa in that way. More than once you had walked in on him showering, water running down his human torso as he tried to wash only his hair and not get his scales wet. Not because he couldn't get wet but because he didn't want trail water everywhere.

You pushed the inappropriate thoughts aside as your friend started to speak.

“What's the point?” he muttered. “All I get is rejected. By jobs, by society, by everyone.”

You felt your heart sink. Your poor best friend. He was such a bright, bubbly person-- monster? He had so much love to give so to see him so down pulled at your heartstrings. You set your chopsticks down and reached across your tiny table to place a gentle hand over his that rested on the wooden surface.

Seonghwa looked from your hand up to meet your gaze as you smiled warmly at him. “I don't reject you,” you said softly. Seonghwa accepted your gesture, taking your hand in both of his hands and bringing it to his face, turning your hand over and pressing your palm against his cheek. “I know,” he whispered. “Thank you.”

As quickly as it started, the tender moment was over when your phone buzzed violently against the table. Using your free hand, you grabbed the device as Seonghwa stared wide-eyed, his slit-like pupils widening to twice their normal width. “Ugh. What part of working hours do my bosses not understand,” you grumbled, reading over your supervisor's text.

“It’s the weekend and nearly nine at night,” you added as you read over more of the message. “Well, at least I can handle this from home,” you continued when Seonghwa didn't reply.

You glanced up, mid-text, to see why he wasn't responding. He was looking at your phone, a far off look in his eyes. “Hwa?” you called gently. He seemed to snap out of it and look up at you. “Are you alright?” you asked softly. Seonghwa nodded, eyes fixating on your phone again. “That sound,” he started, voice barely above a whisper. You looked down at your phone and back up to your friend.

“The vibration? Oh shit! I totally forgot!” you said quickly changing the vibration settings on your phone. In the wild, snakes sense the world by vibration and heat signatures. Seonghwa was no different. He'd told you in the beginning how highly sensitive to vibrations he was. He also can see in the dark using heat.

“It's not that,” Seonghwa said suddenly. “It reminded me of… nevermind,” he said after a brief pause. You could tell something was on his mind. Not wanting him to feel like he couldn't talk to you, you locked your phone screen before setting the device back on the table, face down and giving Seonghwa your undivided attention.

“No,” you started. “It's okay, you can tell me.”

You noticed how Seonghwa's cheeks turned a slightly darker shade of peach. “No,” he said nonchalantly, waving his hand. “It's nothing.”

You stared at him, waiting for him to feel the weight of your stare which took less than three seconds. “You know you can tell me anything,” you replied kindly. “You know I'll never judge you.” Seonghwa gave you a very pointed stare, raising one eyebrow.

“Okay, except for that one time I saw you swallow three whole rotisserie chickens at the store, I won't judge you.”

A familiar smile broke over your roommate's face as he remembered the day in question. “The look on your face was priceless,” he mused, a giggle escaping him. You rolled your eyes.

“Yeah, but the chickens weren’t,” you retorted, causing Seonghwa to burst into laughter. “I know, I'm sorry,” he said between giggles. “I promise I'll pay you back!” You joined him in his laughter a moment later, shaking your head as he laughed loudly.

The laughter eventually subsided and you got up to clear the table, moving to the kitchen to wash the dishes. Seonghwa followed, leaning on his elbows against the kitchen island while he watched you. It was only a few dishes you needed to wash and once you set them aside and removed the gloves, you turned to find Seonghwa staring you down, his green eyes exploring your form.

“Hwa?” you called to him, drawing his attention slowly back up to meet your gaze. You saw the tip of his long tongue, which was remarkably human in color and forked, dart out to lick his lips. “I’m bored,” he said, making you roll your eyes as you moved to the fridge, your fingers wrapping around the handle only for his next words to make you freeze.

“Let’s fuck.”

You had been staring at him for a good five minutes, equal parts shocked and confused by his sudden proposal. “What did you just say?” you asked, your voice cracking as a smirk spread across his face. “I said I’m bored,” he repeated, trying to play coy. You shook your head. “I meant after that.”

Seonghwa’s smirk only grew as he stared at you, his eyes seeming to glow slightly. “Let’s fuck,” he repeated, his words taking all the breath from your lungs. Never had he been so bold. He’d never been so forward with you before. You felt a wave of heat course through your body, spreading from your core to your extremities and settling in the pit of your stomach.

“What… why… how…” you tried three times to ask a question but each time, the words failed you. Seonghwa tilted his head with a mischievous smile. “Snake got your tongue?” he asked, a hint of amusement in his voice. “I – uh…” you trailed off, cheeks burning under his gaze.

“Are you always this eloquent?” Seonghwa asked jokingly. “What prompted this?” you finally managed to choke out. Seonghwa shrugged, leaning back up. You could hear the coils of his snake body slide over the wooden floor, the boards creaking slightly under his weight.

“I’ve thought about it all day actually,” he said simply. “Thought about what?” you asked, your voice cracking again. “Fucking you when you got home.”

Coughing overtook you as you accidentally inhaled your own spit. Seonghwa was by your side in an instant, guiding you to sit down at the table and offering you your glass from the table. You took a couple sips while he rubbed your back soothingly. “Does the idea of fucking me gross you out that much?” he joked. You quickly shook your head.

“That's not it,” you replied quickly, voice raspy from the choking and coughing. “I'm not opposed at all actually.”

You stopped, turning to look at Seonghwa who was now smirking at you, a devilish grin on his face. “Oh really now?” he asked softly, tilting his head. “Thought about me in that way, have you?”

Your face burned again, cheeks growing warm as you nervously pulled at the collar of your shirt. “Is it warm in here?” you murmured, looking down at your bowl full of broth that was now definitely cold.

Seonghwa's smirk grew. “It's a little warm,” he answered, reaching up to brush your cheek before leaning in, lips inches from your ear. “But it's about to get a whole lot hotter.”

You stared at the naga as he continued to smirk at you, a mischievous glint in his eye. “W-what do you mean?”

Seonghwa leaned his upper torso on the table, the bottom snake half of his body resting on the wooden floor, the boards creaking beneath his weight. He cocked his head, still smirking. “It means,” he started, eyes quickly scanning your frame before darting back up to meet your gaze. “That I'm bored.”

His answer was anticlimactic and that must have showed on your face because he quickly held up a finger, making you wait. “Let me elaborate,” he added. You nodded, motioning for him to continue speaking. He lowered his finger, again scanning you quickly.

“I've always found you insanely attractive for a human. Normally your kind grosses me out or maybe they just annoy me,” he said, bringing his hand up to tap his chin thoughtfully. “Regardless,” he continued. “You're the first human to treat me with kindness and aren't bothered by my… unconventional appearance.”

You opened your mouth to protest his word choice but he simply took your chin in his hand, halting your movements. "Don't deny it," he stated, giving you a stern look. “You know that other humans aren't so keen on my kind. I don't look human enough for them. It's why no one will hire me and why you've been covering my ass all this time.”

Again you tried to speak but he gave your head a gentle shake.

“I'm still talking, sweetheart,” he continued, his voice dropping an octave. Heat rushed between your thighs at the sound of his deep husky tone of his voice. You tried to discreetly squeeze your thighs together but Seonghwa had always been so perceptive.

“Back to what I was saying,” he said, a smirk returning to his lips as he rested his free hand on your thigh. “I find you exceptionally attractive. Everything about you is enticing. Your voice, your eyes, your smile…” he trailed off, eyes lowering to your thighs clenching together. “Even your scent,” he rasped.

You let out a tiny gasp as you felt the pointed tips of his nails dig slightly into the exposed flesh of your thigh. “And judging by your reactions and what you said moments ago, you clearly are attracted to me,” he continued, glancing back up.

You pulled your bottom lip gently between your teeth as he eyed you. “Isn't that right?” he asked, tilting his head. You nodded, not trusting your voice to speak. “And so let me rephrase my earlier statement,” Seonghwa said, moving his hand from your chin to grab the back of your neck.

“I'm bored. Let’s fuck.”

You had no chance to respond, only gasp before your voice was muffled, Seonghwa closing the short distance between your lips and taking you in a searing kiss.

The hand on your thigh held steady, fingers squeezing your thigh as Seonghwa parted your lips with his and his tongue slipped into your mouth. One of the more unsettling features was his forked tongue. You'd never felt it before but you were surprised it was soft, almost like a human tongue only forked and much longer.

Seonghwa pulled back much too quickly for your liking, chuckling when you attempted to pull him back in for another kiss. “Easy, sweetheart,” he murmured. “I'm not going anywhere.”

You whined when he dodged another one of your attempts to kiss him. “Hwa!” you whined but he merely chuckled before pushing your centerpiece and other table decorations from the surface. They fell to the floor with a clatter while you stared wide eyed at your roommate.

“Are you ins-”

“Get on the table,” Seonghwa ordered, stopping you in your thoughts. You blinked incredulously at him. “O-on the table?” you stammered. He nodded, standing up straight. Looking at the now clear surface, you looked back at him. “Wh-why?”

“Because,” he said in a growl, the hand on your thigh sliding up under your loose shorts. “This is the dinner table and I'm hungry.”

You quickly scrambled up, ignoring the way the table creaked as you scooted into position. Seonghwa was quick to pull off the shirt he was wearing. He only wore it around you at your insistence. His naked, toned torso was distracting at times.

“Take these off,” he ordered, tugging at the hem of your shorts.

You moved at lightning speed, pursuing the material down and discarding it on the floor. “These too,” Seonghwa continued, running his thumb over the thin material of your panties. You were about to comply when an idea popped into your head.

“You take them off,” you retorted.

Seonghwa eyed you, squinting suspiciously before he leaned over, towering over your form. “If I take them off, I'll ruin them,” he replied. “You really want that?” You shook your head. “Control your strength,” you answered. “Tease me. Seduce me.” Seonghwa laughed out loud. “You're lying on your back all but presenting yourself to me on the table, sweetheart,” he stated. “I think I've already seduced you.”

Wordlessly, you sat up, pushing him back. “Then I guess I'll get dressed again,” you replied, moving to drop to the floor but Seonghwa stopped you, fingers wrapping around your throat lightly. “Like hell you will. You want me?” he asked, eyes burning into yours. You swallowed thickly against his hand, nodding slowly.

“Then you're gonna lie back, spread your legs and let me tease you until you're begging me for my cock,” he continued. Almost as if his words were hypnotizing, you slowly laid back as his hand slid from your neck and down your chest to the hem of your shirt.

He pushed it up as he leaned over. Your eyes fluttered shut as you felt his lips leave light kisses down your stomach. “You want me to tease you?” he asked softly. “I'll tease you, alright?”

You let out a soft moan as his kisses moved further and further, skipping over your core and starting at your knee. You chanced a glance at him, moaning loudly as your gaze met his. His lips parted in a grin before he continued kissing down the inside of your thigh, stopping to nip at the sensitive skin, making you gasp.

“God, I can smell you,” he groaned, burying his nose into your core. “I can't wait anymore,” he growled, pulling back, grabbing the sides of your panties and pulling them down your legs, leaving a trail of arousal smeared down your inner thigh. “I need to taste you.”

Before you could respond, Seonghwa had your legs over his shoulders and face buried in between them, tongue easily slipping between your folds. You gasped out, hands moving to his hair and gripping tightly. “Holy fuck, Seonghwa!” you gasped.

He chuckled, the sound sending vibrations to his tongue. “I'm going to ruin oral for you,” he murmured, pulling back to look at your glistening sex. “From now on, only I will be able to eat you out. No one else will be able to compare.”

You moaned again as his tongue returned to your clit, the appendage wriggling and teasing the sensitive nub. "Hwa," you whined, chest heaving as you panted. His hands pushed your thighs further apart, opening more of you up to him. “Don't worry, sweetheart,” he replied. “You'll cum eventually.”

You felt his tongue prod at your hole and almost as soon as he found it, his tongue was slithering its way in, making you whimper, walls clenching as his tongue explored your pussy. “S-Seonghwa!” you cried out, back arching off the hardwood. He pulled back before your orgasm washed over you, making you whimper in protest. “Be patient,” he said simply as he gave you another devilish smirk.

His tongue was back on you in an instant, flicked your clit as his claws dug further into your skin but not enough to make you bleed. You knew you were going to bruise from his insane grip. Your fingers tightened their hold on his hair as he ran his tongue up and down your clit, the forked, pointed tip a strange contrast to the oddly human feeling of the muscle.

Your hips started to buck, rolling against his face as your orgasm approached once more. Seonghwa groaned, letting you rut against his tongue, keeping his head still for a moment before he grabbed your hips, pinning them down against the wood as he went back in, lapping at your clit in rapid movements until the tension that had been building finally snapped like a rubber band and your climax washed over you.

You let out a moan that bordered on a whine as you tugged at Seonghwa’s hair, trying to pull him away from your sensitive nub as your body jerked in reaction to each drag of his tongue over your swollen clit. “Hwa,” you breathed. “Please. No more.” He obliged instantly, withdrawing from your cunt and kissing a wet path up your body. Stopping at the edge of your black bralette.

This needs to come off,” he murmured, taking the material in his teeth and tugging lightly. “D-don’t rip it,” you whispered, moving to sit up on the edge of the table, making him sit up straight and watch as you pulled your shirt off over your head, letting it fall to the floor with your panties. You held his gaze as you pulled your bralette off, letting it also drop to the floor. His eyes left yours, gaze wandering down to take in the sight of your bare chest.

“You have no idea how many times I’ve thought about this,” he said softly, shifting to lean over you, his lips meeting yours in a much slower, more languid kiss as he laid you back against the table, the wood creaking under your combined weights. “What if it breaks?” you whispered against his lips.

“That would be impressive,” he murmured, lips ghosting over yours as he moved to kiss your neck. You could feel something rubbing against your cunt and glanced between your bodies to see the slit at the base of his torso. It was something you’d noticed plenty of times. The bump surrounding the slit wasn’t massive but it was still a decent size. It didn’t occur to you until then that was where his genitals were located.

Your head fell back against the table as he nipped at and sucked small love bites into the sensitive skin where your neck and shoulder met. “Hwa,” you breathed out, back arching slightly, pressing your chest against his. “Hmm?” he hummed in response, his tongue gliding over your pulse point and up to the base of your ear. “I need you,” you whispered.

“Needy little baby,” Seonghwa said as he let out a chuckle and shifted slightly, pressing that mound at the base of his torso against your wet core. “Does my little angel need me?” he cooed in your ear. “Wants me to fuck her?” You nodded, whining as he rutted against you, your arousal smearing over his skin. “Then who am I to deny her?”

He pulled back slightly and you let out a whine of protest but you quickly felt something hot and warm brush against your cunt and gasped. You tried lifting your head but Seonghwa made that impossible, taking you into a searing kiss. “Hwa,” you grumbled as his lips left yours. “I wanna see.”

Seonghwa snorted but pulled back slightly. “You wanna see what?” he asked, tilting his head slightly. “I wanna see it,” you said, trying to look down between your bodies. Seonghwa let out a dry laugh but obliged you, pushing himself up. Your eyes traveled down his lean body until you were met with a sight you were not expecting.

The slit had been split open and not one but two cocks had emerged. They were a pale pink color, the tips slightly red. Whether that coloration was natural or because he was aroused, you had no idea and you weren’t sure if you wanted to ask. The general shape was relatively human-like except for the head. The tip of each cock was slightly pointed, the base of the head flaring out a small amount.

The shafts were both mostly smooth with a few prominent veins. White beads of precum oozing from the slits on both. You pushed yourself up onto your elbows to get a better view, lips parting in awe. Seonghwa watched your expression, keeping an eye on your body language as you eyed him up. He knew he was quite different from a human in this regard and the look on your face was anything but disgust. There was an excited look in your eyes.

And that, in turn, excited him.

“You done staring?” he asked in an amused tone. Your eyes snapped up to meet his. “Sorry,” you whispered as he leaned over you, lips inches from yours. “It’s just so different.” Seonghwan hummed in response, lips brushing against yours as he leaned in closer. “You like what you see?” he asked softly. You nodded, eyes fluttering shut as his lips ghosted over yours before kissing you softly.

“You want both of them at the same time?” You let out a sound between a moan and a sob. “Yes,” you groaned as his lips kissed slowly along your jaw. “I want both of them in me.” Seonghwa held back the growl that rumbled in his chest. “Let’s start with just one,” he murmured in your ear. “On your stomach for me, baby.”

You quickly got up, turning to face the table. Before you could actually climb onto it, Seonghwa bent you over the edge, pressing your chest against the wooden surface. “I’ll go slow,” he said softly as he leaned over your back, the tip of one of his cocks pressing against your cunt. “I promise.” You nodded in response. “I trust you,” you whispered as you felt the very tip of his cock part your folds.

“Tell me if I hurt you, okay?” he asked softly. You nodded wordlessly, folding your arms in front of you as he grabbed your hips, stilling behind you as he looked down at where one of his cocks was about to disappear into you. He wasn’t lying earlier, he had thought about this moment for a while now.

“Oohh shiiiit,” you groaned, burying your face into your forearm as you felt Seonghwa ease the tip of his cock into your cunt. You heard him hiss from behind you. F-fuuuuuuck,” he grunted as he bottomed out, burying all of his length into your walls.

“You feel so warm,” he muttered, one hand moving to rest against the table, the other keeping a firm grip on your hip. “S’full,” you whimpered, your walls fluttering around and gripping Seonghwa’s cock as your body tried to adjust and accommodate him.

“Yeah?” he asked with a slight chuckle. “You like that? You like feeling full, baby?”

You responded with a whimper as he pulled back and gave you a gentle and shallow thrust, a deep rumble sounding from his chest. Almost like a purr. “Fucking hell, so warm and tight,” he said again, marveling at how strong of a grip you had on him.

“It’s like you’ve never been fucked.”

You groaned as he picked up the pace, his hips hitting your ass with each thrust with a slap. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Seonghwa hissed, slowing his hips. “I’m gonna cum if you keep doing that,” he growled.

That being the constricting of your walls around his cock. “I c-can’t control that,” you gasped as he gave you a deep thrust. “Well try, damnit,” he huffed. “I don’t want this to end before it’s really even started.” You cried out as he gave you another deep thrust. “Ooh, that’s new,” he said cheekily, repeating the same action. “Your neighbors might not enjoy all the sound though.”

You had no chance or urge to respond as he picked up the pace again, pounding into you from behind. “What? No snarky comeback this time?” he asked, chuckled as you shook your head, unable to speak. The wood under you creaked as he leaned over, placing his other hand on the table for leverage.

“You won’t be able to walk when I’m done with you,” he whispered in your ear. As if to drive his point home, he shoved all of his cock into your cunt and held it there, enjoying the way you struggled against him and whimpered. “Feels that good, huh?” he whispered as you started to relax under him.

You felt the tip of his tail curl around your ankle. “I can feel your heart pounding,” he murmured, lips tailing along your shoulder as his chest dressed against your back. “I can hear it. I can smell you,” he continued. “You’re really into this, aren’t you?”

You nodded, shuddering as he started to pull back and resume thrusting. “I never would have pegged you to be a monster fucker,” he chuckled. You let out a groan as you felt the pad of his thumb press against your asshole. “What’re you -ah!” you gasped as he slowly pushed the tip of his thumb into you. “If you want to take both, I should probably prepare you,” he said softly.

Your walls clenched around his cock and he groaned, movements halting momentarily as he tried to regain his composure. “I told you to stop doing that,” he said in a low voice as he pushed his thumb further into you. You moaned against the wood of the table. Seonghwa quickly withdrew his thumb, letting a drop of spit fall onto your asshole before pushing two fingers into you, making you gasp, your hands balling into fists. “You okay?” he asked softly as he stilled.

You nodded. The intrusion, while welcome, still stung slightly. Seonghwa gave you a moment to adjust, slowly working your hole open, stretching slightly as he moved his fingers in and out of you. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to stretch you fully,” he murmured as he felt his cock inside your walls twitch. “It’s fine.” you said in a breathless voice. “Just put them both in.”

Seonghwa grimaced at the thought of roughly shoving his cock into you, knowing it would hurt you greatly. “No,” he murmured, shaking his head. “We’ll just have to be patient.”

Your body had started to relax as he moved his fingers in and out of you slowly. After what felt like hours but was definitely only a few hours, he finally pulled his fingers out of you, resuming his thrusting. His pace was slow but the thrusts were powerful, rocking you into the table with each snap. Your hands tried to find purchase on the table as he continued to fuck you against the wooden surface.

“Oh fuck this,” Seonghwa suddenly growled, pulling out of you completely. You whined in protest but when he easily flipped you over onto your back you stopped whining. He lined both cocks up with your holes, the first sliding into your cunt easy but the second needed some guidance and coaxing. He managed to ease the tip into your ass, making you gasp as you felt the head of his cock slowly start to stretch you further.

“Hey, hey,” he said suddenly, noticing your body tense up. “Relax,” he whispered. “It’s gonna hurt but only for a bit,” he added. You nodded up at him, taking a deep breath and letting out. As you exhaled, he pushed more of the head into you, the flared base of his cockhead stretching you more before it finally slipped snugly inside. Seonghwa paused, letting your body adjust, gently stroking your thighs and whispering words of praise and encouragement in your ear.

When you had relaxed even more, Seonghwa continued to push into you, both cocks filling your holes simultaneously. It was an entirely different experience, looking up into his green eyes as he pushed back into you slowly. You tried to maintain eye contact but your eyes betrayed you, rolling back as both cocks bottomed out.

“Oh I like this more,” he chuckled, stilling as he let you adjust once more. After a few minutes, he started to move, setting a steady pace, pumping into you as he watched your face contort in pleasure. “I like being able to see your face. See the expressions you make as I fuck you,” he said as his pace increased, starting to pound into you.

The feeling was foreign but you enjoyed it. Both holes being filled at the same time provided a new type of pleasure, one you’d never even considered before. You knew after this, there would be no going back to normal men or normal sex. Not when you had Seonghwa in your apartment. As if he read your mind, Seonghwa spoke up, repeating the same sentiments you’d thought to yourself.

“I don’t think I could give this up,” he groaned, hips hitting the back of your thighs and ass with each powerful thrust he gave you, the sound of skin hitting skin and the wet lewd sounds of his cocks slamming into you filling the apartment. “Now that I’ve had a taste,” he added.

“Gonna wanna fill you every night.” You moaned in agreement, knowing that your nightly routines were about to change forever. “Would you let me?” Seonghwa asked breathlessly as his hips stuttered. “You gonna let me fuck you every night now?” You nodded, moans raising in pitch as he continued to snap his hips, driving his cocks into you.

Your lips parted, a moan falling past them which was soon swallowed by Seonghwa as he leaned down, taking your lips in a messy kiss. His hips never faltered, his thrusts growing erratic as he drove both of you to orgasm. His tail was still curled around your ankle as he gave you a couple more thrusts, throwing you over the edge. Your walls tightened around his cock as you came, pushing him to his own climax.

Each moan you let out he swallowed eagerly as he fucked you both through your respective highs, emptying a ridiculous amount of cum into your abused holes until he finally stopped moving, his thick sticky cum dripping out of you and onto the floor. Neither of you spoke, only panting against each other as you tried to catch your breath and process what just happened.

Seonghwa finally pushed himself up, using the table for support as he looked down at you. “I think…” he started, speaking between each labored breath. “We should get cleaned up.” You nodded, your chest rising and falling with each pant. “I think that’s a good idea,” you croaked. Seonghwa smirked down at you as you licked your lips and tried to sit up. “What?” you asked, noticing the hungry look in his eyes.

“Round two in the shower?” he asked eagerly. You scoffed. “You just came! And a lot I might add,” you protested, feeling even more of his cum spill out of you. Seonghwa leaned in, pressing another kiss to your lips. “You forget I’m not human,” he murmured against your lips. “So?” you asked in between kisses.

“I have a lot more stamina than anyone you’ve ever fucked,” he continued, pulling back and giving you another smirk before kissing you once more. You felt heat settle in the pit of your stomach as you remembered the two cocks that had emerged from the slit, both pink with pointed reddened tips. A fresh wave of excitement and arousal coursed through you at the prospect of being filled with both of them, something you had begged for earlier. Seonghwa, sensing your excitement, gave you another couple of kisses.

“And besides,” he added. “I’m not done with you just yet.”

©️ kwanisms 2024 | all works on this blog are protected under copyright. Do not repost, continue, or translate my works. All graphics made by me.

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canon-in-too-deep · 20 days ago

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Free Grimms' Fairy Tales Typeset

I am so very excited to present free typeset #33: Grimms' Fairy Tales, by, of course, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. (Apologies for this being quite a long post, but I really wanted to show pictures of what's available in these typesets!) When I saw this in my ask box, I knew I had to do a typeset for it. But there were so many individual tales, and I wanted to do something a bit unique for each of them. But I also wanted to use a lot of color. And throw in some art. And that might make the typeset not so super printer friendly for some folks, so....

I made two versions of this typeset! Two different designs and color options. Both pdfs are available for FREE here and are sized for half letter (letter folio).

Grimms' Fairy Tales typeset version one is the full color version with a lot of little details and different art/motifs for each story (most of the art I used was by Maurice Pillard Verneuil; his stuff is so pretty).

And for the second version of the typeset (which I dubbed the Black and White, Hold the Art Alt in my google drive archive--I need a shorter name for that. The Deep Drive? Drivechive? Googachive?--I went black and white printer friendly, with prominent featuring ornaments and a more simple design.

You can see the differences clearly above. Both these typesets were a lot of fun to make, and I hope they print out well for people wanting to use them. It's one I hope to be able to print out soon for myself, to have as a personal physical copy. I kept stopping in the middle of typesetting just to read a few tales. (Cat-Skin and Snow White and Rose-Red are my two favorite tales (I just love the changed appearance lover trope), though The Juniper-Tree has a a solid standing with best revenge death.) Anyway, use these typesets as you wish! If there's any issues with the files, feel free to let me know! Just please leave credit and consider tagging me if you use them, or reblog if you can! More details and interior shots of the first version are below the break!

So the black and white version has pretty much the same design across all the different chapters, while the color version has a different swatch of art featured next to each title, to give some flair to each individual story. The whole double border around the drop caps was inspired by another (much more talented than I) member on Renegade Bindery, but I added in the extra picture frame for the motifs and changed some things around to get the sort of clean, classic, elegant vibe I was hoping for (originally, I was going to use good ol' IM FELL English and go with a much more gritty, vintage-y design, but changed it after seeing how well Crimson Text worked for the fairy tales (like I've said before, Crimson Text is a special occasion sort of font). Here's some more screenshots of the chapter beginnings (albeit a bit pixelated. Dang screenshots and their low quality):

The table of contents is pretty fun as well, extending the same borders and motifs design to full three pages:

And the fun also extended to the last page with info on the Brothers Grimm:

All in all, this was one of my favorite books to work on. If you have any suggestions for future typesets, my ask box is always open! Edit: also, the borders/frames going around the dropcaps were inspired by a design I saw done by the talented @teleportbooks!

#Grimms' Fairy Tales by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm #grimms' fairy tales #fairy tales #typesets #typesetting #book design #bookbinding #book #free to use

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amyoffline · 30 days ago

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It's done! The outline for—

—is below the cut. The goal of this project is to explore the following phenomena with as much context and nuance as I can manage, tracing our history over the past 15 years:

What about us, and what about Dan and Phil, drew in and continues to draw in a very specific audience. If they are a ranch metaphor, we are a pizza metaphor 🥗🍕🫶🏻

Why we were Like That™, by which I mean so parasocially invested in them that we became, at times, the most annoying people on the internet. Much of that reputation is undeserved, and the videos on the phandom to date have been strongly negative. So, uh, I guess I'm going to put my face on camera and (mostly) defend us.

Reblog, share in your Discord servers, reply, or send me messages/anon asks with feedback or resources if you have any! Especially if your experience being in this fandom community has been dramatically different from mine. There are TIT spoilers near the end of the outline, but I'm not tagging because certain individuals seem to be lurking over there. Thank you!

Chapters:

Full outline:

introduction

cold open

felt personally attacked by jonathan haidt's last press tour

showed up to the phrenaissance 11 months late

had an unexpectedly strong response to their new content, needed to find out why

what the hell are we doing here?

- phenomenology (academics are professionally insufferable) - research question 1: what drew the audience in? - research question 2: why were we Like That™?

what we're NOT doing here

- a strict content analysis or "wow we sucked" video - providing sources for things best left uncirculated, thank you

reflexivity (personal biases)

- american zillennial in public health - in the youtube audience by spring 2010 - lurking in the phandom on tumblr 2013-2015, back* since 2019 - fan behavior i did and did not engage in

(----): truly necessary background information, i swear

(pop) cultural trends, tech, and their intersection

- nerd/geek identity and the first online weirdos - broadcast tv & the music industry vs the internet - defining "emo" - blogging & vlogging - early internet comedy

broader social/economic trends

- so the U.S. economy collapsed in 2007 - a decade that sucked except for rom-coms and square enix games - the flip/slide phone + digital camera + mp3 player loadout

(05-8): early youtube and early phil

youtube: a great video uploader without a clear purpose

the content on the website

- crossposts, corporations, and creative/social outlets - omg guys it's amazing phil - contemporary youtube-to-legacy success: justin bieber

the audience of "early adopters"

contemporary social media sites and forums

(2009): origin story

a wild dan appears… in the comments

the global constant that is teenagers being messy online

daring my old school district to sue me

- "one town's war on gay teens" (literal rolling stone headline!) - epidemiology 101: rates of… ugh… "unaliving" oneself - ways kids cope when it seems no adults will help them

the earliest days of dan & phil

- hello internet + pinof - a chronically overexamined timeline - file deleted ---* so how big WAS the audience at the time? ---* acceptable funny/edgy language was just different

contemporary youtube-to-legacy success: lucas cruikshank

omg it's meeeeeee

- how amy & friends were using youtube - ways i was just destined to end up here - being in social environments with peers 3-6 years older

(2010): is it "twenty-ten" or "two thousand ten?"

youtube is a platform about to explode in popularity

- the algorithm before it was The Algorithm™, lost site features - let's take a trip through the wayback machine :3c - actual dan & phil content in 2010 - the green brothers found vidcon - contemporary youtube-to-legacy success: darren criss

social media: also about to explode in popularity

- facebook was cool at the time, believe it or not - law of equivalent exchange: 2010 amy cringe compilation - the birth of instagram and pinterest - youtube slash livejournal (the first phanfics… sort of) - shockfic and its place in the overton window

the beginning of "the great rewiring" as haidt calls it

- ways social media is about to dramatically change - third spaces become online spaces - confounding variable: changing expectations of teens

(2011): the end of an era, the start of an age

a very long tangent on fandom and pop culture

cultural exchange

counterculture and teenagers as concepts

the first british invasion: the 1960s

- beatlemania and its descendents - moral panic about the virtue of tween/teen girls - tv/film/fashion trends being imported from the uk - in parallel, star trek births the modern fandom

the second british invasion: the 1980s

- synth/new pop that came out of the punk movement (hi, emo?) - confined mainly to music and fashion - cool britannia

it's harry freakin' potter

- absolute titan of pop culture influence - the rise of online fandom: examining the horrors ---* what is "wank" ---* flaming, sockpuppeting, and general cyberbullying ---* censorship: ffnet purges, boldthrough, & strikethrough ---* other fandom shenanigans of the time (yaoi paddles, anyone?)

harry potter's over. now what?

- for those who needed coming-of-age hero's journeys ---* twilight and YA dystopia waiting in the wings ---* some pretty iconic tv shows start or hit their stride ---* the mcu's phase one ---* takeaway: the rise of "geek culture" generally - for those who just wanted to go to hogwarts ---* doctor who & the wider world of bbc programming ---* british vloggers, you say? where? on youtube? brb--

end tangent, back to your regularly scheduled programming

dan & phil in the first half of 2011

- a continuation of 2010… for now - the videos - british pancakes as a case study of bad fan behavior

streaming and social media

- the birth of snapchat, twitch, and younow - netflix starts developing original programming - multi-channel networks (mcns) - digitour

dan & phil in the second half of 2011

- and they were roommates (omg they were roommates) - fantastic foursome - youtube glitches out - the super amazing project - the first proper baking video + wait, is that the bbc?

~ baking interlude 1: christmas cookies ~

the family sugar cookie (sorry, delia)

amy's 2011

(2012): why is anyone nostalgic for this

the transition from desktop to mobile

- massive growth in smartphone ownership 2011-2015 - things one might do on mobile one might not do on desktop - non-online ways smartphones changed being a youth™

what is tumblr and why is my child using it

- how the site is meant to work - fandom, memes, aesthetics, and SOME public figures - want to be anxious and depressed in peace? come to tumblr - this site seems a little……… gay ---* tumblr's very queer, very neurodiverse userbase ---* legacy media representation in 2012: bad! ---* actual academic research on tumblr users (yes, it exists) - the tumblr experience for non-native english speakers

amy becomes a vibrating mass of panic and paranoia

- in context of the above - additional rant about the american public school system

the growing dan & phil audience

- investigating the origin of the term "phannie" - more collaborations = more viewers - more video uploads = more /invested/ viewers - younow and interacting with fans - watch time replaces clicks in the algorithm

online etiquette, or lack thereof

- mid-transition from the 2000s to the 2010s - "professional internet celebrity" is still basically brand-new - lack of boundaries - various ways to be an asshole online - unsupervised kids simply do not engage in best practices

the end of 2012

- dan and phil move to london - wikipedia vandalism - tiptoeing around a top contender for the phandom's greatest sin - super amazing project DONE, now it's BBC RADIO TIME

(2013): arguably the most important year

- wait. what's that six-second video platform over there--

[amy's curated vine compilation]

- a new wave of internet comedians (read: future youtubers) - the zillennial lexicon - other platforms start emphasizing short-form video content - magcon

emo is BACK - well, sort of

- fob hiatus ends, mcr breaks up. my god. you had to be there - more open ties to nerd/geek culture than in the 2000s - these things once again intersect at dan and phil

dan and phil in the first half of 2013

- siri, what's a "sex symbol?" why are you booing me i'm right-- - d&p are everywhere - radio shows, interviewing, hosting - youtube uploads on their individual channels

rapidly changing cultural attitudes towards queerness

- gay marriage will be legal in places other than canada soon - a lot of assimilationist rhetoric though tbh - parallels to the pop feminism of the decade

hey kids, let's talk about compulsory heterosexuality!!

- what is it and why do people do it - academic, tumblr-level, and anecdotal research - the dannies, the phillies, and the phannies

amy

- the closet™ - mental health stigma - 2013 dnp posts from my main blog

dan and phil in the second half of 2013

- subscriber milestones, vidcon - joint content before the gaming channel - phandom starts having a major presence outside tumblr

(2014): achievement unlocked!

it's time to talk about rpf

- definitions (a chance to be annoyingly pedantic) - academic perspectives and fan discourse on the ethics - when the subjects clearly aren't fine with it - so… we can acknowledge "shipping phan" was different, right? ---* sometimes the subjects are fine* with it, actually ---* how dan and phil started to handle the shipping ---* obvious differences between phan and other rpf ships ---* sharing my favorite passages as a first-time phanfic reader

dan and phil in 2014

- wikipedia vandalism 2: electric boogaloo - bbc request show → internet takeover - the 7 second challenge - youtube content, subscriber milestones, rewind - cons and award shows

tumblr reaches the peak of its influence

- yahoo's attempts to monetize the userbase - buzzfeed and aggregators steal our jokes and bait our clicks - legacy media dangles carrots and uses us for free marketing - the legend of korra breaks TV precedent, almost out of nowhere - the tumblr user experience ---* on mobile, without xkit ---* on desktop, with xkit ---* 2014 dnp posts from my main blog

gamergate and its long shadow

- trolling, renewed and revamped - algorithms push increasingly extreme content - the broad conservative backlash conglomerate - increased normalization of conspiracism in general

my greatest sin [not clickbait] [very funny]

- so, circling back to comphet… - the actual story

anyway, let's talk about danandphilgames

- a star is born: dil howlter - different types of gaming content on youtube at the time - why did 17yo amy not subscribe? well…

~ baking interlude 2: chocolate cupcakes ~

make your own frosting. it freezes well

roasting myself further

(2015): it's not queerbaiting when it's real people

facebook "pivots to video"

- mark zuckerberg lied. water is wet - causes other platforms to REALLY double down on video - the birth of musical.ly - corporate-branded creators (read: future youtubers)

queerbaiting enters mainstream public consciousness

- academic origins - early fannish and acafan writing - johnlock, destiel, and sterek - statistics 101: type i error, type ii error, and queerbait

dan, phil, and the phandom

- bbc, cons, & the brits - danandphilcrafts - phan conspiracies ---* japhan ---* body language experts ---* timeline truthers ---* floor plan investigators ---* no but seriously imagine it - regular youtube uploads ---* solo content ---* joint content ---* subscriber milestones, rewind - tatinof uk and tabinof ---* on "selling out" ---* revisiting the statistics 101 lesson: now with real people! ---* never meet your heroes (unless they're dan and phil)

amy's (temporary) exit from the phandom

- it's legal adulthood with a steel chair!! - growing discomfort with some fans' behavior - 2015 dnp posts from my main blog - the closer: final fantasy vii

(2016): season finale

vine's imminent demise

- content platforms behaving badly - content creators behaving badly

youtube after "the great rewiring" (as haidt calls it)

- version 1.0 of the modern youtube algorithm ---* deep neural networks for dummies ---* what's holding creators accountable, or not - advertising and sponsorships ---* basically every child and youth™ is watching now ---* the battle for our attention ---* regulators start to crack down on undisclosed ads - the rise of drama/tea content (and later, channels) ---* youtubers are now seen as regular celebrities ---* dan and phil as the butt of other youtubers' jokes ---* baiting the phandom for engagement

tatinof us and aus

- a proven new model for live show tours - show & documentary released to youtube red (now premium) - [sigh] the tour bus

sea change in online fandom

- the newer, sometimes queerer media in korra's wake ---* better and more representation in live-action tv shows ---* voltron (i'm sorry!!!) ---* the mystic messenger craze ---* alice oseman & heartstopper - the new dynamics of #discourse ---* proship is to anti as phannie is to phanti ---* the bad behaviors of the 00s get a new coat of paint ---* new, though: fans harassing creators ---* a personal note on ace discourse

dan and phil presence off-tour

- the internet takeover ends - regular content, subscriber milestones

so. uh. current events.

- brexit - sorry the united states is a font of chaos - ripple effects

closing out the year

- amy finally gets an anxiety diagnosis and treatment! hurray! - dapgo, rewind - bbc radio awards & the boncas - gamingmas

(2017): time for a rebrand

tangent - sit down!!! buckle up!!! today's lecture is on PSIs & PSRs!!!

"parasocial" as defined by the current zeitgeist

- summing up youtubers' and laypeople's opinions (not dan's) - an unfairly negative stance overall, imo

older academic literature

- the 1956 paper (yes, 1956) - with traditional celebrities - with fictional characters

current academic literature

- with youtubers and other content creators - positive effects on the audience - negative effects on the audience - broader societal implications

fandom spaces as a parasocial experience

- parasocial and truly social interactions with each other - phandom as a supportive, welcoming space for oddballs - what research i can find about neurospicy folks, + anecdotes - me and everyone else on planet earth move to discord

inherent transactionality

- the nature of celebrity - positive effects on creators - negative effects on creators

reexamining early phandom through a parasocial lens

- the good, the bad, and the ugly - the role audience demographics played in all of this - entering, exiting, and remaining in the phandom

end tangent, back to your regularly scheduled programming

vine is well and truly dead

- some had prepared to become primarily youtubers (smart) - some move to musical.ly, insta, facebook, or snap (less so)

the sun sets on danisnotonfire

- i am very normal about dan's hobbit hair, i swear. - the last dnp content before the rebrand - new apartment, new floor plan investigations

adpocalypse now

- youtube has become the village elder of platforms ---* increased scrutiny, increased responsibility ---* some youtubers had been getting away with !#$!#@% - the scandals ---* pewdiepie + logan paul ---* elsagate and being "family- friendly" (read: ad-friendly) - censorship and monetization ---* adsense revenue goes down as advertisers pull out ---* the glory days of posting whatever and making bank are over

amazingphil and ~daniel howell~

- youtube & younow content - that week in march - vacations and conventions - conjoined baking and the concept of a "soft launch" - daniel & depression → dan as a mental health advocate - truth bombs, ii announcement, rewind

(2018): the phandom vs the hiatus they told us not to worry about

interactive introverts

- "giving the people what they want" - in hindsight… - let's talk about dnp fans from the global south

youtuber burnout

- it wasn't just dan: (more examples than header fits) - the old model was simply not sustainable - newer contributing factors - research on burnout, plus personal anecdotal experience

other dan and phil videos

- phil's solo videos - gay and not proud - hometown showdown - other joint videos - phil's #shorts (sounds normal in american english)

panini updates

- vaccines soon, uwu??? + entrenched misinformation - pros and cons of remote work - pros and cons of remote school - pros and cons of remote socializing

you will get through this night

- younger me really could have used this book too, dan - thoughts as a professional in a related field - reflecting on some of my more unique circumstances

daring my old school district to sue me (again!!)

- updates: racism and transphobia - updates: right-wing freaks take over the school board again - residents vote against improving mental health resources

(2022): dan returns (still not on fire)

hey so politics are um getting worse

- americans lose the right to reproductive freedom ---* the quickest of histories on where these freaks came from ---* this shit kills people. - trans kids become the punching bag of culture war discourse ---* fuck off! (gently) ---* fuck off! (i have a knife) ---* checking in on terf island

we're all doooooooooooooooomed

- dystopia daily my beloved - the style, the substance, the metatextual analysis-- - not everyone loved it, though. why? - the promo - dan on tour + sister daniel

amy's 2022

- i got covid - then i got long covid: brain fog, pots-like symptoms

some more news (i will work on my warmbo impression)

- dan joins tiktok + danisnotinteresting uploads - phil: uploading less, busy doing remote crisis management - twitter is acquired by an idiot jackass - heartstopper on netflix! ---* the show and what it means to people ---* drama (revisiting "real people can't queerbait") ---* why this has anything to do with the phandom

~ baking interlude 4: cinnamon rolls ~

- lovingly, recipe changes and corrections :) - if i have an opinion about anything, it's sweet yeasted breads

(2023): the phrenaissance

phil

- joins tiktok! - youtube uploads through september - what even is phannie tiktok. i've never used this app. help.

dystopia daily b-sides

- dan memes of 2022 - the 2023 dystopia daily episodes

amy: the doctoral candidacy process

- purgatory, privilege, poverty, and free pizza - checking in on what this is like outside the united states

pretending the panini is over

- complaining about post-adpocalypse censorship standards - honest take about "giving up" on covid - who gets the short end of the stick

the youtube algorithm is BAD and UNINTELLIGENT, actually,

- unhinged rant about not hearing about the gaming rephrival - because i was offline from other platforms. like, @amyoffline.

pov: you are a phannie (not me) on october 15th

- what i was doing on october 15th - saying goodbye forever, spooky week, and november - gamingmas - phil uploads through december

(2024): fifteen years of terrible, terrible influence

hey what the fuck is going on

- dan and phil ---* joint and phil videos ---* jokes they never would've made ten years ago ---* a collection of emotional posts about how far they've come ---* people want fun and silly content again. we'll get to why ---* nostalgia, hope, and other warm and fuzzy feelings - the phandom ---* ancient parasocial attachments, reactivated instantly ---* people are way more normal now. let's discuss why ---* tumblr vs twitter vs tiktok phandom

we're all doomed, youtube version

- my thoughts - thoughts on "dan should/shouldn't" do video essays - i can't objectively evaluate anything he makes bc [gunshots]

terrible influence tour

- legally phlonde - the concept: healing one's inner child / taking it back - we gotta talk about phannies in the global south again - no but seriously imagine it? ---*ogres are like onions, they have LAYERS ---* [placeholder for whatever does(n't) happen]

anglosphere current events once again

- the likely us tiktok ban - the tories get fired - [placeholder for whichever hell americans manifest] - witnessing genocide and feeling powerless

ffx full-circle moment to the intro of this video essay

- the night i found out they came back - why i am doing this, now with context - reflections on a nearly 15-year (parasocial) relationship

whatever youtube uploads we get during fall/december

AMY SEES TIT (nov 14)

- the vibes at the phamily reunion - buying merch to apologize for eternal ublock origin use - how much should i document?? (not during the show) - phanspiracies confirmed - atlanta confessions - favorite bits - the alternate universe where i went to tatinof and/or ii

(2025): the horrors persist, but so do we

whatever 2025 content is out while i'm still working on this

our parasocial social club

- let me be philosophytube for a second ---* every interaction has a parasocial element ---* what are we obligated to do as a phandom, actually? ---* as people who parasocially care about these two dorks? ---* what else should we be doing socially to be at our happiest? - "they're my gay uncles" vs "i'm a little in love, even now" ---* riffing about the boundary/overlap between these camps ---* sibling reads me for filth in a single text (sister daniel...) ---* at least we're all in this together

what's going to continue to draw people in

- grown adults drawing our cat whiskers back on - updates on queer/nd kids - updates on anxiety/depression rates - updates on tech and the broader environment of content - world still feels doomed

tangent - the "hard launch" and why people want it

what are people referring to, exactly

- general definition and other examples - when it comes to dan and phil - maybe they hard launched already and we just missed the memo

the ludonarrative of phandom

- if you got here early on - if you got here in the mid-2010s - if you got here after they came out - if you got here post-hiatus - final fantasy comparison: ffvii's chokehold over first-timers

a rom-com for the ages

- the tropes in play - brief tangent on the evolution of the genre - queer romantic comedies - final fantasy comparison: ffviii's plot and squall/rinoa

phriends… or…

- wholesome influence, slice-of-life - projection - final fantasy comparison: ffxv's gameplay loop, the chocobros

humans don't like ambiguity

- from a media perspective (narrative tension) - research from the hard sciences - final fantasy comparison: fanille ---* the first gay final fantasy characters, actually ---* ffxiii's character development process ---* fang and vanille in the text. brb, clawing at the walls ---* so, if anyone is looking for a phyuri au prompt…

tl;dr: reality is not fiction. make peace with not "knowing"

end tangent, back to your regularly scheduled programming

the phuture

- phil's big solo project when??? - dapg is just the joint channel now - youtube has changed since when dan last "regularly" uploaded - nothing lasts forever, and that's okay

~ baking interlude 5: ranch + pizza ~

- ranch propaganda and ranch metaphors - showing off my dough and sauce skills

conclusions

- a lot has happened in 15 years - [placeholders: don't write your conclusions before you do your research]

Proof this project can only be done in consultation with Tumblr: no other platform we're on could accommodate a post of this length and formatting detail lol

#dan and phil #phan #dnp #daniel howell #amazingphil #this took so long to format oh my god please read it and talk to me #except it's 1am in my time zone so i'm going honk mimimimi soon enough #amy writes

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venomous-qwille · 1 year ago

Text

Ghost in the Machine

This is the master post for Ghost in the Machine links, character refs and FAQs.

I will try my best to keep this post as up to date as possible.

What is Ghost in The Machine?

GITM is a DCA AU and a fic set in the retrofuture (2055ish) long after Fazco has shut down. An eccentric collector has been acquiring versions of the Daycare Attendant animatronic from closed locations around the world. The story involves a reader character who has been brought into repair the original post-Ruin DCA from the games, and hijinks ensue. There are also ghosts.

Where can I read the fic?

GITM is currently being posted on Ao3, and is updated every three weeks on Saturdays. The fic is being beta'd by the tremendously talented @bubbiethesaur. You can read GITM here!

There is also a podfic, which you can find here:

Updates to the podfic will be sporadic, so please be patient <3

Where can I see the art?

On this blog I use the #gitm au and #ghost in the machine au tags for GITM related content. If you are looking for art of a specific character, they also have their own tags: #misuta moon #nova #soleil #clip.exe #sunspot mk1 #fool eclipse #ruin eclipse #sombra #sunflower #mr sandman

FAQ~

Why haven't you answered my GITM ask?

One of three reasons: 1) your ask was too spoilery* 2) I'm waiting to answer it with art 3) ADHD

*spoilery includes but is not limited to: any questions about dual-AI or XYZ character's sun/moon variant; questions about character backstories and lore; questions about characters that have not featured in the fic yet (e.g Nova, Sanii, Harvest, Sunflower, Sandman etc); asks speculating about potential future scenarios (don't get me wrong, I love these asks, but I can't answer them!)

Where are all the Moons?

Read and find out. Seriously. There are at least 5 Moons who are core to the plot but I'm not going to talk about them, no matter how nicely you ask!

Does XYZ character have a Sun/Moon counterpart?

Some of them do, some of them don't. The dual-AI stuff is majorly plot related. If I'm not talking about someone's Sun/Moon counterpart, rest assured you will find out eventually. I won't be spoiling any of it on tumblr though :)

Can I create fanart of GITM?

Yes yes yes please do and please tag me when you post it so I can see it/reblog! If you are unsure if something is ok, please ask.

Can I create fanfic of GITM?

Super flattered about this. I have a longform answer to this question which you can read here. But tl;dr yes you can, please tag/credit me, do not spoil/try to write the lore, and please do not write GITM au (e.g mafia, mer, medieval). I have my own plans for this stuff and I would prefer to release the designs/stories in my own time. If you are unsure if something is ok, please ask.

Can I create NSFW GITM content?

Until recently I had blanket perms that allowed NSFW GITM content. I'm updating this to let you guys know I'm no longer comfortable with people making this content. Back when the community was small, I felt differently, but as time has passed a lot has changed and I've found myself becoming increasingly anxious about it. If this boundary changes again in the future, I will update this FAQ.

Do you have character refs I can use?

There is a collection of art 'refs' for each character on the Misutamojis discord. Latest link here.

There are no proper call-out sheets/refs currently, but I have a huge body of art for the characters on this blog which should give you more than enough info for most of them. I will get around to creating proper refs eventually, in which case I will link them here.

Where can I find the playlist?

I update the spotify playlist fairly regularly, if you have any music recs you can send them over in an ask! You can listen to the playlist here!

I've heard there are secret GITM drabbles, where can I find them?

I used to post frequent drabbles from future chapters in the DCA Palooza discord, I have recently deleted the majority of them as people were going back and binging them which hadn't been the intended reading experience. Anywho, this question probably refers more to the spicy drabbles (which people have very kindly made a lot of delicious art for). These are still around! You just need to access the spicy channel and do some digging.

Is there a GITM discord?

Nope! There is a server for GITM emotes and a busy thread in the DCA Palooza, but currently I don't have any plans to make a GITM-centric discord community. If that does happen in the future it's likely I will simply convert the emotes server (Misutamojis).

It finally happened, I converted Misutamojis. You can join the GITM discord here.

Can I smooch the robots?

Yes.

All of them?

All of them.

#master post #ghost in the machine #ghost in the machine au #gitm au #soleil #clip.exe #sanii drop #misuta moon #sunspot mk1 #harvest moon #sunflower and the sandman #fool eclipse #ruin eclipse #nova #gitm yn #sombra #SoundCloud

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hauntedhowlett-writes · 1 year ago

Text

title: stranger than a stranger

pairing: pre-boston raider!joel miller x female reader

rating: explicit (18+ MDNI)

word count: 4964

summary:

When Joel sees you searching for supplies in an old school, he removes your companion from the equation and convinces you that you need to join him for your survival.

author's note: a gift for @dreamingofdaddydin, fellow depraved slut, who sent in an ask that i completely changed. please heed the warnings on this one, as there are dark and potentially triggering elements. if you do decide to read and you enjoy, please consider reblogging or commenting!

content warnings/tags: explicit sexual content (18+ minors do not interact), undefined age gap, no use of y/n, post-outbreak/pre-boston QZ, dark!joel miller, perv!joel miller, survival as coercion/manipulation, dub/non-con somnophilia (the actions are not agreed upon before hand but reader is receptive once waking), sex as a thank you, voyeurism, masturbation, canon typical violence (mentions guns, knives, blood), handjobs, dirty talk, pet names (sweetheart, baby, honey), cum eating, huddling for warmth but manipulative, wet dreams, thigh fucking, fingering, unprotected p in v. please let me know if any are missing!

You never expected to live through an apocalypse. In fact, before the cordyceps outbreak, you and your boyfriend had watched Night of the Living Dead and you joked that if the time ever came, just throw you to the zombies or demons or whatever hell unleashed.

Yet here you are, ten years post-outbreak and the collapse of one QZ that you and your boyfriend had been living in, climbing through a destroyed school building, picking your way through rubble as you follow Liam in his search for more supplies.

“The stores around here are probably picked clean, but a lot of people don’t think about checking schools. They’ve got plenty of non-perishables in the cafeteria. Remember? We ate like shit growing up,” Liam explains. He shines a flashlight down a hall. “Well, I guess we ate better than we do now.”

“I miss chicken nuggets,” you lament. He chuckles.

“I could definitely use a cheeseburger,” Liam replies.

You continue moving quietly through the school, the cement and linoleum cracked by overgrowth and the abandoned classrooms of overturned desks making you feel like you’re in a whole different world and not just in an elementary school in Massachusetts.

“You got your knife and gun, right?” Liam asks quietly. You nod, pulling the gun from the waist of your jeans and showing it to him. “Good, keep it handy. You know those fuckers are always hiding around buildings like this.”

You and Liam had just started dating when the outbreak occurred, and you managed to stick together for the last ten years. He’s taught you a lot about survival - shooting a gun, starting a fire, and finding edible vegetation in the woods, among other skills. Despite your original desire to be spared from an apocalypse, you’ve somehow managed to persevere.

“Remember to aim for the head,” Liam says.

You roll your eyes. “No, I figured I’d aim for a foot. Of course I’m aiming for the head.”

“Alright, smart ass. You go down that hall and see what you can find.” He pulls you closer, pressing a kiss to your temple. “I’m gonna look for the cafeteria. Meet me back here.”

With another nod, you part ways.

You both miss the figure lurking in the shadows.

________

Joel watches you disappear around a corner before his attention returns to your companion. The man walks quickly in the opposite direction, holding only a flashlight in his hands. Joel clocks a holster on his hip that must hold a gun or a knife. The man looks like the type to know how to fight, weapons or not.

Too bad Joel is the predator here.

He leaves the dark shadow he’d hidden himself in, following the man with quick, quiet steps. The other man seems alert, but not alert enough to notice Joel following him.

Good.

Joel watches the man draw a gun from the holster, holding it in front of him as he kicks open a set of double doors, sweeping his flashlight and gun into the darkness beyond. Joel slips through the door before it shuts, darkness surrounding him as he lets his eyes adjust.

It looks like a gymnasium, cracked hardwood basketball flooring with faded court lines illuminated in the small flashlight beam of the man, who continues across the court and out another set of double doors.

He follows him back out to a hallway, brightly lit thanks to a hole in the ceiling, crumbled plaster and cement littering the ground. He takes a few steps closer, stopping when he hears a clicking sound that sends a shiver down his spine.

The man freezes, too, eyes wide, hands tightening on his gun. Joel slowly brings the shotgun slung over his back around to his front, taking it up in his hands.

The clicking grows louder, more insistent. It echoes down the hallway and Joel knows that the creature is aware of their presence. No matter how quiet you are, those fuckers know how to find you.

He aims his gun, finger poised on the trigger. Heavy footsteps approach from the end of the hall, punctuated by the clicking noise that makes his hair stand on end. The creature enters the hall, overgrowth of cordyceps blocking its eyes and features. It pauses, head turning with jerky motions as it seeks out its prey. He watches the other man shift his stance, trying to widen his legs, but his foot catches a rock, sending it sliding across the floor.

The creature’s head snaps at the sound and it ambles closer, faster. Joel takes aim, pulling the trigger and blowing its head across the room. The man turns in surprise.

“Damn, man. Thanks,” he says, taking a deep breath and giving Joel a smile of gratitude. He reaches a hand out as he says, “I’m Li—“

He pulls the trigger and the man collapses to the ground face first, blood rapidly pooling beneath his body.

Joel approaches, crouching beside him. He opens the bag on his back, rifling through the contents for anything that might be of use. There’s a med kit, ammo for the handgun he’d been using, gloves, a jacket, and a hunting knife. He shoves all of it into his own bag before grabbing the gun beside the man’s body as he stands.

Joel slides the gun into his waistband before turning and heading back the way he came. He imagines the gunshots will have you rushing back to investigate.

Just like he wanted.

________

You hear two gunshots go off, freezing in your exploration of a classroom. You listen closely, ears straining for any sign of clicker activity due to the noise as you slowly draw your gun from your waistband. Hearing nothing in the aftermath of the gunshots, you race back towards the area where Liam had agreed to meet you, heart racing as your mind begs you to choose flight and not fight.

In your panic, you don’t notice the man in the hall until you’re colliding against him, his arms gripping your shoulders to steady you.

“Who the fuck are you?” You ask, scrambling out of his hold and pointing your gun at him. He’s tall with broad shoulders, a flannel beneath a faded denim jacket stretching over his frame. He has tan skin and dark hair with brown eyes that look at you with concern. “Back the fuck up,” you shout.

The man takes a step back, holding his hands up. “I ain’t gonna hurt you.”

“I heard gunshots. Where’s Liam?”

“I came up on a guy fightin’ a clicker. He was in bad shape,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

There’s a buzzing in your ears as your brain catches up to his words. You blink, eyes burning with tears that you fight back.

“H-he’s dead?” You whisper.

“‘Fraid so.”

You drop to your hands and knees with the realization, gasping for a breath that won’t reach your lungs. There’s movement from the corner of your eye, the strange man taking a step closer, and you raise your gun once more.

“Don’t,” you snap. “Come any closer and I’ll shoot.”

“Listen. I’m sorry about your friend. But if there’s one clicker, there’s bound to be more. You can come with me.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you. I’ll be fine on my own.” You keep the gun trained on him as you slowly stand on shaky legs. “I’m leaving now. Don’t fucking follow me.”

You only make it a few steps before he’s calling out after you. “There’s worse things out there than the infected. Girl like you won’t last long.”

“The fuck does that mean?”

“It means,” he says, the tone of his voice grating your nerves, “that there are bad fuckin’ people out there, ones that’ll take advantage of a girl headin’ out on her own. Some who won’t give a shit that a gun is bein’ pointed at their heads if it means they die tryin’ to bring you down with ‘em. Is that really somethin’ you wanna go through right now?”

Your resolve waivers. He’s probably right. In the ten years you’ve been struggling to survive, you’ve always had Liam at your back. Even in the QZ, before it collapsed, he kept you going. You could survive out there when it came to skill, but would you make it far on your own when clickers move in packs and raiders run rampant?

“I…I guess I’ll come with you,” you say, lowering your weapon. You flick the safety on and the man smiles.

“The name’s Joel.”

________

It’s been a week since joining Joel. The two of you keep a steady pace in your travels, though there’s no real destination in mind. He’s been on his own for a while, he tells you, having split from his brother who had gone to join the Fireflies in their fight.

“Fuckin’ stupid if you ask me,” he grumbled after telling you that little bit of information. “They ain’t gonna change shit.”

You just nod along, wrapped up in your own thoughts. You can’t pinpoint it, but something about Joel makes you wary of him. He’s been nice enough, sure, but there’s something off about the way he looks at you.

You’ll catch the older man staring at your ass when you’re walking ahead of him, or see the way his eyes go dark when you’re on your knees starting a fire. His hands will linger on your hips a little longer than necessary when he’s helping you jump down from something, or he’ll watch a little too intently as your lips wrap around the mouth of your water bottle.

What’s worse is how it makes you feel hot all over when you shouldn’t feel anything, least of all attraction when you’ve just lost your boyfriend.

It’s starting to get cold at night. The days are still tolerable, since you’re always on the move and the sun is shining, but once the sky goes dark, you struggle to stay warm. You layer your two jackets and even that’s still not enough as you lay shivering in your sleeping bag. You turn over until you’re facing where Joel has his bag set up, curling your legs closer to your chest and squeezing your eyes shut.

Past the sound of your teeth chattering, you hear the shift of fabric, the glide of skin on skin, a low groan. Your eyes snap open and as they adjust to the inky darkness, you can make out the vague shape of Joel on the ground. Another choked off moan rings in your ear, the sound of it making your blood go hot. You listen as his movements and breaths and sounds grow more frantic, the desperation they’re laced with making you rub your thighs together as subtly as you can.

“Fuck, fuck,” Joel pants quietly. The air goes still, the sound of his hand moving over his cock slowing to a stop. You wonder where he’s finished. In his hand? On his belly? Your brain conjures an image of you licking the spend from his skin, salty taste of him on your tongue as you look up into his eyes and he groans.

You have to bite your lip to keep your sounds to yourself. You wiggle a hand between your legs, clamping your thighs around it tightly and rocking slightly. It’s not nearly enough and it’s so frustrating you want to scream.

Eventually, as the adrenaline seeps from your body, sleep takes its place, your eyes fluttering shut as darkness consumes you.

You dream of bitten off groans and curses in a voice that belongs to a stranger with dark hair and brown eyes.

________

Two weeks after joining the two of you encounter your first band of raiders.

You’re in a small town picking through a convenience store. There’s a surprising amount of things left on the shelves, including cans of food that you’re tossing into your backpack when the sound of a gun being cocked makes you freeze.

“Hey, pretty girl. Why don’t you put some of that back for the rest of us, yeah?” An unfamiliar voice says. You glance over your shoulder, a large man with a thick beard smiling at you. You turn slowly, hands raised and mind racing with your options.

He’s blocking the exit. You could try to dart around him, but the gun trained at your head is a bit of a worry. Your own gun is in the waistband of your pants, pressing against your low back. Not much help to you like that. You should have been holding it the whole time.

“Hand over your fucking bag,” he says, the calm in his more alarming than if he were yelling at you. “Got me some food and a pretty little pet to keep, too.”

Your blood turns to ice and your heartbeat pounds in your ears as you swallow hard, bending down to grab your bag.

A shot rings out, glass shattering and you shout, dropping lower to the ground. You open your eyes slowly, you gaze landing on the body of the man lying on the ground in a rapidly expanding pool of blood. You look up, eyes finding Joel’s beyond the shattered window of the convenience store as he lowers his gun.

A shout has Joel whirling, gun drawn as three men appear from an alley. He shoots, one of the men dropping. Grabbing your bag, you rush to the front of the store as another shot rings out, shattering the glass of the door. You drop to the ground, pressing your back to the wall beside the window and peeking out.

Joel slings his gun over his back, landing a kick to a man that rushes him, the stranger landing on his back. A second man points a gun at Joel.

“On your fuckin’ knees!” He barks.

Panic courses through you, but you reach behind you, grabbing your gun. You switch the safety off, leaning from your hiding spot to take aim through the window at the man. Your hands shake as you take a breath in, like Liam taught you, pulling the trigger as you exhale.

The shot lands in the man’s abdomen, making him stumble and drop his weapon. Joel stands, rushing for the man as he pulls a large knife from his hip, plunging the blade into the man’s chest.

The man he kicked is getting to his hands and knees when Joel turns on him, knife held at his hip. A wicked grin spreads across his face before he plants his boot against the man’s ribs, knocking him onto his side. Joel shoves at him with his foot until the man is on his back and he stands over him, a foot on either side of his hips.

Joel raises the knife above his head before swinging it down into the man’s chest, holding it there for a moment before he twists it savagely and pulls it free. You stand there, equal parts horrified and something worse, eyes wide as you watch Joel wipe the blade against the man’s clothes to clean it.

“Get their guns, will ya?” Joel calls out. The sound of his voice makes you jump, your muscles finally spurring into action as you comply with his request.

Later, as you settle in for the night in your respective sleeping bags, you hear the tell-tale sound of shifting fabric and bitten off moans. You stare up at the dark sky, pinpricks of starlight winking back at you, as you gather your courage.

“Joel?” You murmur. The sounds stop abruptly, the only thing you can hear is his heavy breathing.

“Thought you were sleepin’,” he grunts.

You turn over on your side, facing him. You can barely make him out in the dark, only his silhouette, but your heart beats faster all the same as you say, “I could…help.”

He’s quiet for a long moment, so long that you’ve got an apology on the tip of your tongue when you hear the zip of his sleeping bag being opened.

“Come help, then.”

________

Joel tries to contain his enthusiasm. Nights of coming into his own palm while he knows you’re listening, imagining your hand around his cock instead of his, and now his patience has finally paid off.

You’re crawling across the grass to join him in his sleeping bag, your body pressed to his in the tight space. He takes a shuddering breath, the feel of your heat alone almost enough to make him come.

Your hand rests on his belly, tentatively sliding lower until your fingers brush against the hair at the base of his cock. He hisses as your cold hand grips him at the base, slowly sliding up to his leaking tip. Your thumb circles his slit, smearing a bead of precum around the sensitive head as he groans into the night.

“That’s it, baby,” Joel says. Your face is tucked against his neck, and he wishes you’d turn your face up, let him kiss you, but he has to be smart and only take what you’ll give so that one day you’ll offer more. “Tighter, just like that, fuck.”

Joel’s hips flex to chase your fist, the soft feel of your palm driving him wild. He moans, louder than he should be given the vulnerable position this puts you both in, but he doesn’t give a fuck. All he cares about is you.

“This a ‘thank you’, huh? For killin’ those guys?” Joel pants. Your head nods against his neck and the admission makes his head feel light and fuzzy. “Told ya you needed me, sweetheart. Needed someone to take care of you, right?”

You hum, squirming against him. Your lips graze his neck and that’s the final nail in his coffin, his cock pulsing in your hand as he comes harder than he has in years. He can’t help but whine a little when you let go, already missing the warmth and the softness of it.

“Clean it up for me, baby,” Joel says. You bring your hand up, nothing but a dark shape against darker air, and he hears you licking at the cum coating your fingers. “That taste good?”

“Mhm,” you hum. When you’re done, you roll away from him, crawling back over to your sleeping bag and zipping yourself inside.

With a sigh, Joel shimmies his jeans back up his thighs before turning on his side, letting the sounds of the night lull him to sleep.

________

You’ve been with Joel for a month when winter really starts to settle in and you’re forced to keep moving in your travels until you’ve found abandoned buildings to sleep in to stay out of the harsh winter air. While the snow might not reach you inside, the cold certainly does.

It’s one such night that Joel suggests sharing body heat.

“It’s the best thing we can do to keep warm,” he explains. “Can’t keep a fire goin’ inside. Too dangerous.”

You swallow nervously. He’s zipping together your sleeping bags so that you can fit beside each other, laying it on the ground of the old stockroom you’ve barricaded yourselves in for the night, a little camping lamp on a metal shelf providing a little light.

Joel kneels to untie his boots, removing one then the other and setting them aside. He stands, sliding his arms free of his jacket and setting it on the shelf. When he starts to unbutton his flannel, your blood rushes in your ears.

“W-what are you doing?” You ask. He pauses, hands on his buttons.

“Gettin’ undressed. Can’t share body heat with clothes in the way.”

You stand there frozen as he continues to strip, t-shirt and jeans and boxers all joining his growing pile of clothes until he’s naked in front of you and you’re struggling to keep your eyes on his face with so much muscle and skin on display. He slides into the sleeping bag, staring up at you expectantly.

“You gonna stand there all night?” He asks, lips tilted in a little smirk. “Come on. We’ve come a long way today and you gotta be tired.”

You’re exhausted, really, the kind of tired that settles into your bones and makes your limbs heavy. Slowly, you follow the same steps as he did to undress, starting with your shoes. It doesn’t escape your notice that he’s watching you with dark eyes the entire time, until you’re down to your underwear.

“Those, too,” Joel says.

“Why?”

“I don’t make the rules, sweetheart, I just follow ‘em. Skin to skin is the only way this’ll work.”

Reluctantly, you reach behind your back to unclip your bra, letting it fall to the floor. Your nipples are tight in the cold room and you grit your teeth against their chattering as you quickly tug your panties down your legs and add them to your pile of clothing.

You slip into the sleeping bag beside Joel, the heat of his body immediately making you feel warm all over. You zip up the sleeping bag, cocooning your bodies in the insulation. Joel turns on his side, sliding his muscular around your tummy and tugging you closer. The hard length of his cock presses to your thigh and you lie perfectly still, afraid to move.

“Go to sleep,” he grunts. You close your eyes, the tension slowly leaving your muscles as you listen to his deep breathing in the dark room.

Somewhere between the warmth of his body and the feel of his breath against your cheek, sleep finds you.

________

Sometime in the night, you’ve turned on your side, your ass pressed snugly against Joel’s hips with his cock slipped between your cheeks. He wakes to the feel of you grinding against his length and his arm tightens around your middle as he groans.

“Joel,” you murmur. He lifts his head to see if you’re awake, but your eyes are shut, brows pinched together. Your hips move against him again and he bites into his lower lip to keep his sounds contained, not wanting to wake you and ruin this.

You murmur his name again and his head drops back to the arm he’d been using as a pillow. He gives a little experimental thrust of his hips and you moan, the sound making his cock jump against you.

With careful movements, he lifts your top leg, laying it over his hip. He lets his hand drift lower, gliding over your tummy until he’s cupping your pussy gently. His fingers slide through your wetness, catching on your swollen clit and making your hips jerk.

Joel worries that you’re awake, but you’re not scrambling from his grip yet. He circles his fingers slowly, so slowly, your hips moving against him and your breathing coming more quickly. You let out little whimpers and whines that Joel wants to commit to memory, the sound of them sure to plague him any time he closes his eyes.

You’re growing wetter and Joel grows bolder, slipping his middle finger into your tight entrance, not able to hold back his moan of appreciation over how your cunt flutters around the digit as he slowly pumps it inside of you.

Another whimper of his name from your lips has his sanity fraying further, his hand moving faster against you, damn the consequences of you waking up to him playing with your pussy. Your muscles go tight against him with your release before going limp, your breath stuttering. He lifts his head once more to check if you’re asleep, surprised to find your face lax with bliss, eyes still closed as your breathing slows to normal.

Joel withdraws his hand, using it to grip his cock, sliding your juices over his length. He angles himself to where his cock is pressed up against your lips before gently lowering your leg. He’s surrounded by warmth, your pussy and thighs cradling him perfectly.

He thrusts his hips, his cock gliding through your wetness with ease. He loses himself to the slick glide, the tip of his cock catching against your swollen clit with each thrust. His fingers dig into the meat of your hip for leverage, pulling you back towards him as he groans against your shoulder.

Your muscles go stiff against him and he freezes as you whisper, “Joel?”

His name is a question this time and he knows he’s been caught.

“It can be another ‘thank you’, yeah? For keepin’ you warm?” He asks, dragging his nose across your bare shoulder. “Could feel so good for us both,” he whispers, thrusting against your clit and reveling in the shaky moan you give him in return.

“O-okay,” you stutter. Joel presses a kiss to your shoulder in gratitude as he returns to the rhythm he’d set before you woke. He slides an arm over your middle, hand finding your breast and gripping it forcefully as you moan.

“That feel good, baby?” He asks. You nod, whining and squirming against him now. “Know what would feel better?”

“W-what?”

He draws back, positioning the tip of his cock against your hole. Your breath catches as he slides inside the slightest amount. Just the tip.

“Would feel so good, right? Fillin’ you up, stretchin’ you,” he whispers. “You could keep me warm just like I’ve been keepin’ you warm all night.” You clench around him and he moans, hips flexing and sliding him deeper into you as you gasp. “So goddamn wet and tight.”

Joel slides the last bit deeper, until his hips are flush to your ass. You’re panting, cunt fluttering around him as you adjust, and he feels drunk on the feel of it, on the feel of you. He pulls out part way before sliding back in with a harsh thrust, the start of a punishing rhythm that has you chanting his name.

The slick slide of you over his cock feels like heaven, but he wants more, wants you cock drunk and earning your pleasure. You are supposed to be thanking him, after all.

He pulls out, lying on his back. “Get up here, sweetheart. It’s time to do your part.”

You turn until you’re facing him, and Joel gets impatient, grabbing at you until he can haul you into his lap, your slick, swollen pussy gliding over his cock. He groans, reaching between your bodies to hold himself steady, notching the thick head at your entrance.

“Take it, baby, come on,” he groans. You rock back until his cock is buried in your cunt, your knees pressing tight against his hips as you whine.

“S’deep,” you slur, rocking yourself over him.

“Feels good though, doesn’t it? So fuckin’ deep in you,” he growls. Your chest is pressed to his, your lips so close he takes his chance, slotting his mouth against yours.

You kiss him back, messy and desperate, moaning against his lips as you take his cock like you were made for it. And maybe you were. Why else would he have been in the right place at the right time, getting the chance to keep you all for himself?

You sit up further, hands planted on his chest as you ride him with fervor. Your blunt fingernails dig into his skin and make him groan, hips punching up into you as you rock back. When you moan desperately, he does it again, and again, until you’re letting out a choked little sob that makes his cock pulse inside of you.

“Come for me, honey, wanna feel this pretty pussy choke my cock,” Joel demands. He can feel your walls flutter around him, your noises growing desperate. He brings a hand to your clit, thumb circling the sensitive bundle of nerves until you tighten around him, squeezing his cock as you come undone with a shout.

You collapse forward and Joel wraps his arms around your low back, holding you steady as he plants his feet and pounds his cock into you with harsh thrusts, chasing his release. Your teeth dig into the sensitive skin of his neck and the sharp sting sends him over the edge. He pulls out at the last moment, his cum splashing between your bodies in thick spurts.

You lie on top of him, catching your breath. Sweat grows sticky on Joel’s skin as the cool air settles around them, your back erupting in goosebumps as you shiver. He maneuvers your bodies until you’re cradled against him again.

“Go back to sleep, sweetheart,” he murmurs.

When you nestle closer, body lax against his, he smiles in triumph.

_______

You wake before Joel the next morning, body sticky with the mess from the night. You cringe, wiggling away from Joel’s hold. You find your discarded shirt and water bottle, intending to soak the fabric to wipe yourself clean, only to find your bottle is empty.

You locate Joel’s backpack, knowing he keeps his water bottle in there. You dig through the contents, hand bumping against the familiar bulk of a handgun. Your brow furrows. You haven’t seen Joel use a handgun. He uses the shotgun on his back, the other weapons you’d collected from the raiders stored in your bag.

You pull the weapon free and inspect it. You know this gun. It’s the same gun you’d learn to shoot with, the first one Liam found in the aftermath of the outbreak. Your blood turns to ice.

Joel said he’d seen Liam get attacked by a clicker. If that’s the case, when did he get Liam’s gun?

The sound of Joel moving in the sleeping bag has you shoving the gun back into his bag and grabbing the water bottle you’d gone in search of in the first place.

You’ll have to worry about your discovery some other day.

Want more Joel Miller? Check out the masterlist

#joel miller #joel miller x reader #joel miller fic #joel miller x female reader #joel miller smut #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller x you #no use of y/n #joel tlou #joel x reader #dark joel miller #joel miller the last of us #joel miller fic request #joel miller masterlist #the last of us

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fuckyeahfraxus · 3 months ago

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Fraxus Week

is approaching for yet another year!

We haven't forgotten or dropped this event! Due to admins' personal issues, it takes place around a different time this year. Thank you all so much for your patience and your continuous love and support ❣️

Save the dates and please help spreading the word as much as possible. Even if you don't plan on participating, it would be a great help if you share the post 😊. Every reblog helps us to get the information around, so nobody misses the oppourtunity ❣️

As every year we can't wait to see what you guys will come up with for the prompts and thank you for everyone who sent in their suggestions. We made sure to try and mix and match them well!! It's always a highlight of the year and it's so amazing to see that the love and fandom for this incredible ship still very much existent and strong. Newbie or oldie, we welcome you!

The week will being on the 31st of August with the first Bonus day (we call it Fraxus Week Eve) and end on the 8th of September with the second Bonus day, as usual. The rules haven’t changed but please make sure to read them again, especially if this is gonna be your first time participating.

So, the prompts, finally, - here goes!

August 31st/Fraxus Week Eve: (Dancing in the) Rain / Height of Summer

September 1st/Day 1: Learn how to love / Transformation

September 2nd/Day 2: Sports & Competition

September 3rd/Day 3: Hidden moments

September 4th/Day 4: Dusk/Dawn or Moonlight/Shooting Stars

September 5th/Day 5: Solace / Haunted

September 6th/Day 6: Mischief and Debauchery

September 7th/Day 7: Guildmates / Family

September 8th/Bonus day: Mythology AU/Crossover or Videogame/Movie AU/Crossover

RULES:

Everyone is allowed to participate and basically every sort of entry is allowed! Art, a fanfic, edits, headcanons, …everything! Just make sure that it has to do with Fraxus and does not imply something else/negative/other ships/trigger topics like r*pe etc! It also shouldn’t include something n.sfw. Entries bordering on n.sfw or suggestive mentions are alright.

Please put at least one of the tags fraxusweek or fraxus week in the first five tags of your entry! fraxus will suffice, too, if you forget to tag it otherwise but using the first two named tags will just make it easier for us to find the entries for this week! If you have twitter, you can also post your entries there with the tags!

You can also combine prompts, create multiple pieces per prompt or not use the prompts at all. If you’re not inspired by any of them, it’s okay to do your own thing or do something similar to the prompts.

The prompts can take place in the Canon Verse or an Alternate Universe, it's up to you!

Don’t worry about being late/on time! Late entries are always welcome, no matter how late. We know that things can get stressful very easily, so don’t worry about it!

Do not steal other people’s content! That won’t be accepted and that applies not only to this week but in general. Also refrain from reposting somebody's work without permission.

You can also submit your entries to our blog if you want.

If you’ve got any questions, just shoot us a an ask or a private message!

That’s it! We’re super looking forward to the event again. Let’s celebrate our beautiful ship!

The artwork on the banner is drawn by the absolutely lovely @intelligentbiscuit! We used it with their permission and want to give a shoutout for y'all to go and support their artwork! Y'all can find the original artwork post right >here< and they're also currently taking commissions. Thank you again for allowing us to use your artwork for the banner <3 😊

#fraxus #fairy tail #freed justine #laxus dreyar #freed x laxus #fraxus week 2024 #fraxusweek #fraxus week #admin post #intelligentbiscuit #ft100yq #fairy tail 100 years quest

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nerdraging4point0 · 1 month ago

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Said and Done (Noah Sebastian and Reader) Part One

Tropes and Tags: friends to lovers, third multiple POV, angst, 18+ content, voyerism, exhibitionism, public sex, public adjacent sex, oral: female recieving, oral: male recieving, infidelity, PinV.

Fanclub: @lma1986 @friedchildblaze @skulliecadaver-blog @rumoured-whispers @missduffsblog @ladyveronikawrites @tearfallpixie @alwaysfightforwhoyouare @mysticdoodlez @beaker1636 @amelia-acero @flowery-mess @sorrowsofsilence

This work below is fictionalized ideas and stories involving real people but does not directly reflect their thoughts, feelings, or behaviors. Please keep in mind that this is a work of fiction.

Notice(Please read): This story originally had a (y/n) insert. I find them annoying and therefore I adjusted to have it removed. The story is in third person with a female reader who uses she/her pronouns, looks, name, specific body type or ethnicity is not specifically mentioned-or at least I tried to stay as neutral as possible-once again, the story was edited to be more neutral but the original plot and tone is still there. Please enjoy!

She didn’t want to come at first, the night started at a different Halloween party and there had been no plan on hopping to others, but when Nick texted saying she should come by she found it hard to refuse. Music was blasting, drinks were flowing, and the energy in the house was electric as she walked through the open front door. Making it through the throng of people crowded in the living room, somehow Nick had spotted her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder, pulling her towards the couch. Trying desperately to be heard over the music she leaned into him, asking where Noah was.

“I don’t know to be honest. He’s been all over the place.” The smell of the beer and weed on his breath was pretty pungent, it was safe to say he’d lost track of the birthday boy a long time ago.

“Here kitty, kitty.” Folio's beckoning finger and mocking tone only heightened her irritation. With a resigned sigh, she reluctantly approached the intoxicated bassist. The meager cat costume she had hastily thrown together was a last-ditch attempt- a hodgepodge of items scrounged up in a desperate bid for someone’s attention. Fuzzy ears and a matching tail from a novelty store were paired with a mini skirt, black nylons, and a tight-fitting top from her own closet, forming a rather pathetic excuse for a costume.

The rest of the band and crew, ever the observant bunch, had long ago labeled her as "Noah's girl" - a dismissive, possessive term that infuriated her, as the reality was she and Noah were nothing more than close friends, despite their delusions. With an exasperated eye roll, she gave Folio a firm backhand to the chest, eliciting only laughter from the oblivious musician as he returned his attention to his drink, completely oblivious to her growing frustration.

“I better go find him. I’ll catch you later, Nick. Folio, know your limits.” She sauntered off, determined to find the person she was searching for. She made her way through the crowded kitchen towards the back patio, stopping to exchange greetings with various friends and acquaintances of the band along the way. Weaving through the crowded partygoers, she scanned each room. The first place she tried was the guest room that the boys had effortlessly turned into one of their at home studios. Trying the door, she found it was firmly locked, and with a sinking feeling, she realized that Noah, the only one with the key, was nowhere to be seen. Undeterred, she knocked loudly, calling out his name, but the din of the party drowned out any response he may have given.

Deciding her best course of action, she turned and headed for the stairs, carefully picking her way past the giggling, intertwined couples sprawled across the steps. As she ascended, she had to dodge a sudden barrage of food items - chips, pretzels, even a stray slice of pizza - as a group of rowdy young men above her engaged in an impromptu game of catch. Shaking her head in bemusement, she reached the top landing and turned left, making her way down the dimly lit hallway towards Noah's room. Grasping the doorknob, she paused, Noah was a very private person, and she knew he didn't take kindly to others invading his personal space. Her mind bantered for a while about the pros and cons, the pros winning out without much of a fight. To her surprise, the door clicked and swung open.

She stood there in the doorway, eyes wide with a mix of shock and intrigue at the unexpected scene unfolding before her. There was Noah, pressed against the wall with his sweatpants pooled around his ankles, his shirt bunched up in one hand as a girl in a Princess Leia costume knelt in front of him, her head bobbing up and down rhythmically, his free hand holding the back of her head. The sight was simultaneously scandalous and strangely alluring - she had never seen Noah in such a compromising position before, and the forbidden nature of it all sent a thrill of excitement coursing through her.

Yet as she observed the interaction more closely, something seemed off. Noah's face was contorted in discomfort rather than pleasure, his nose wrinkling and his body twisting as if in pain rather than ecstasy. His eyes then landed on her, wide with panic.

"I came to say, Happy Birthday," she said, her voice dripping with feigned innocence as the girl whirled around to face her. “But I see you’re busy,” A mischievous smile played on her lips as Noah struggled to extricate himself from the situation, pushing the girl away with obvious desperation.

Deciding to take advantage of the moment, she slipped off her high heels, letting each one fall to the ground with a deliberate slowness.

"Don't mind me," she purred, turning to close the door behind her and locking it for good measure. "I'll just wait." With that, she sauntered over to the bed, settling herself down with an air of casual confidence. "But..." she added, her gaze burning into Noah's, "I think I will sit on the bed and make myself comfortable."

Noah's heart pounded as he watched her saunter across the room, her hips swaying seductively as she approached his bed. His mouth went dry with anticipation as she climbed onto the mattress, settling herself against the wall with a sultry, confident grace. The other girl, kneeling obediently at Noah's feet, glanced up at him uncertain, her shoulders rising and falling in a small shrug before she refocused her attention on the task at hand.

Noah tried to suppress a groan as the girl's lips parted, slowly enveloping him once more. Her technique was clumsy, lacking the practiced finesse that his girl on the bed possessed. She wasn’t really his, but it was the only way he liked to refer to her. As she sat on the bed with a small, satisfied smile, her eyes glinting with a knowing amusement. She had explored every inch of Noah's body, learned the map of his sensitive spots - where to linger, where to tease, how to draw out the most exquisite sensations. This novice could never hope to match her intimate familiarity.

As the young woman on her knees bobbed her head rhythmically back and forth, her movements in sync with Noah's thrusting hips, a growing tension started building within her own body. Watching his thick shaft disappear between the girl's eager lips, glistening with saliva, sent a jolt of electricity through her. She felt her thighs instinctively squeeze together, the delicious friction fueling her growing arousal. Glancing up, she met Noah's dark, intense gaze, his eyes unabashedly roaming over her curves. A wicked idea took hold, and she slowly brought her thumb up to her mouth, sensually slipping it past her parted lips. Hollowing out her cheeks, she mimicked the motions of the girl below, her gaze locked with Noah's as she suggestively sucked on her digit.

The action seemed to push Noah over the edge, a stuttered moan escaping his lips as he reached down, fisting a hand in the girl's hair. "Noah, don't be rude," she purred, popping her thumb from her mouth. "Let her finish giving you your birthday present." Despite the white-knuckle grip Noah had on the girl's hair, she continued, the lewd sounds of her gagging filling the air.

The scene was utterly captivating, and she couldn't resist raising her legs, bending at the knees as she slowly traced the soft skin of her inner thighs with featherlight touches. Noah's eyes were glued to her, drinking in every rise and fall of her chest, every subtle shift of her body. His hips began to move with more urgency, rutting sharply into the girl's mouth as his brow furrowed in concentration.

She knew he was close, and a satisfied smile spread across her lips as she watched him finally still, his head thrown back against the wall. She relished the sight of his come spilling from the corners of the girl's mouth. Noah's gaze remained locked with hers, his expression one of pure, unadulterated desire, and she knew that the night was far from over.

“You can leave now sweetie. Thank you.”

The poor girl full of shame and dissatisfaction hoisted herself up from her rug-burned knees and slipped out of the bedroom, leaving the pair behind.

still trying to catch his breath, Noah reached down pulling his pants back up, practically snarled the question, "What the fuck was that about?”

She turned to face him, a coy smile playing at the corners of her lips as she gestured to the costume she still wore. "She took the work for me. I wasn't going to get on my knees in this outfit," she explained, the fabric of her skirt rustling as she toyed with the hem, slowly drawing it up her thighs. His eyes roamed her figure hungrily, taking in every tantalizing curve.

Scoffing, he made his way over to the bed, hands braced on the mattress as he stared deep into her eyes. "So, you were coming up here to get on your knees for me?" he questioned, a hint of challenge in his tone.

Sitting up on the bed, she balanced her body on her hands and knees, her nose grazing his as she gazed intently into his eyes. "I was coming up here to wish you a Happy Birthday," she breathed, her warm, fruity breath caressing his skin. The subtle notes of berry and something smooth lingered in the air.

"Did it turn you on?" She couldn't help but smile, nodding her head slowly as she met his gaze, sensing the unspoken implication behind his words. He seemed almost offended by her reaction, dropping his gaze as he blew out a frustrated sigh.

"Gives me an idea of what you might do on tour, when I'm not around." The accusation hung in the air, his discomfort noticeable. "You know I don't do that when I'm on tour," he replied firmly, unwilling to back down. Undeterred, she crawled towards him on her knees, fingers walking purposefully up his arm as she spoke.

"Well, what if you did?" she purred, her breath tickling his skin. "What holds you back?" He didn't respond, just grunted and cleared his throat, helplessly avoiding her probing eyes. The unspoken question lingered - "Did she feel good?"

A wave of uncertainty and insecurity washed over her as she felt an odd, unsettling sensation creep up in her chest. A part of her desperately wanted to know the answer, to understand if there were truly other women out there who could make him feel so much more satisfied and fulfilled than she ever could. The mere thought of that possibility was enough to make her stomach twist in knots. She knew there were likely countless women who would be willing to do anything, to go to any lengths, just for the chance to be intimate with him in a way that she could not. It was a sobering realization that filled her with a mix of jealousy, self-doubt, and a deep longing to somehow be enough for him. Reaching out tentatively, she let her hand slide beneath the soft cotton of his shirt, her fingertips tracing the waistband of his sweatpants. Slipping beneath the band she let out a soft sigh.

To her relief, she could feel that he was already growing aroused, his length hardening under her touch as she began to stroke him slowly, her thumb grazing the tip and collecting the small bead of slick that had formed there. The sensation elicited a satisfied sigh from him, and she could feel him shifting on his feet, his head dropping forward as his brown locks fell in curtains over his face. Pumping him a little faster, she could feel his cock growing even more rigid under her skilled hands. "Noah," she asked, her voice tinged with a hint of insecurity, "did she feel good?"

“Fuck,” he panted “Not as good as you.” her hand pumping him faster, humming to herself, pride swelling in her chest at how good she could make him feel.

“Fuck, baby, please let me,” He stuttered, having trouble finding his words.

“What Noah? What is it, sweet boy? What do you need?”

His lips parted slightly, the tip of his tongue darting out to wet them in a gesture that was both sensual and nervous. “T-t-taste you.” his voice cracked as she stroked down his shaft, letting go slowly so he could catch his breath.

“You want to make me come now?” she teased, uncurling her legs, letting her thighs fall open to reveal the enticing sight of the dark purple lace underneath her skirt. He nodded, his expression hungry and eager, silently communicating his desperate desire. He dropped to his knees, his mouth falling open in a silent gasp at the temptation. Wrapping his long fingers around each ankle he pulled her to the edge of the bed. Leaning back on her hands, watching intently as he stared unabashedly, his eyes roaming hungrily over her exposed skin. With a small, coy smile, she scooted closer to the edge of the mattress, bringing herself within reach of his waiting mouth. Reaching out, she tenderly ran her fingers through his soft hair, eliciting a shiver from him as his eyes fluttered closed in blissful anticipation.

“You can either move them or take them off. I won’t do it for you.” The decision was his, but the outcome was inevitable as his hands disappeared beneath her skirt, his fingers hooking into the delicate fabric and slowly dragging it down, exposing her to his eager gaze.

She was glistening already, it was such a beautiful sight, he had to swallow the moan at the back of his throat. Lowering his head, his tongue dipped into her warm, slick folds, savoring the sweet, intoxicating taste of her. The sensation was electrifying, making him feel like the most powerful man alive as her body undulated beneath him. He worked his tongue tirelessly, drinking in her cries of pleasure and reveling in the way her hands tangled desperately in his hair, pulling him closer. The familiar ache of his own need grew ever more insistent, but for now, all that mattered was drawing out every last shudder from her.

As her thighs clenched around him, he clutched her flesh hungrily, determined to wring every last drop of her release. The thought of missing even a single taste was almost maddening, and he nearly growled in frustration as the evidence trickled down his chin. Still, the sound of his name on her trembling lips, the way she begged him to stop, only stoked the fire within him.

“Noah,” her cracking voice whined his name as she tugged at his hair “Noah, please, no more. I can’t. I can’t take it.”

With a primal hunger, he slowly crawled up her body, his eyes locked onto hers. She reached up and tenderly wiped a stray droplet from his chin, the intimate gesture fueling the growing desire between them. Unable to resist any longer, she leaned up and captured his lips in a searing kiss, her tongue sliding into his mouth. He sighed into her, savoring the taste.

Breaking the kiss briefly, he gazed down at her, his swollen lips barely leaving hers as he uttered the three words that he was sure were the right ones: "I want you." Her response, whispered against his lips, sent a jolt of electricity through him, fueling that base, carnal urge. "Take me, then."

Without hesitation, he lined himself up and pushed into her, a hiss of pleasure escaping her lips as she stretched around him. It had been far too long since they'd been together, but the way her body seemed to mold perfectly around him made it feel as though no time had passed at all. They lay there, motionless, as she adjusted to his size, her inner muscles fluttering around him in a silent plea for more.

Finally, she began to move her hips, urging him to take her. He started to thrust, slowly at first, savoring the delicious sensation of her velvety walls caressing him with each withdrawal and driving him deeper with each push. But his cautious, almost timid pace was beginning to frustrate her. She wanted - no, needed - more. Wrapping her legs firmly around his waist, she pushed against his chest, easily flipping their positions so that she now straddled him. There was a brief, awkward moment as they adjusted, his legs dangling off the edge of the bed, she wasted no time setting a punishing rhythm, determined to chase the release for both of them.

She had always adored his goofy, carefree spirit - the way he would effortlessly make her laugh and feel light-hearted, even in the midst of life's stresses. But as she observed him through the filtered lens of social media and interviews, she noticed a distinct change had come over him. The vibrant, playful young man she had once known now appeared somber and weighted down, his infectious joy seemingly dimmed. She couldn't help but wonder what had happened, what had caused this transformation from the endearingly silly partner she cherished to the sullen, serious individual portrayed in the public eye.

Yet, as their bodies intertwined with a familiar, sensual rhythm, she caught glimpses of the old Noah she'd fallen for - the one who moved with a carefree fluidity, whose touch sent electric sparks through her core. The awkwardness of their reunion quickly melted away as she surrendered to the overwhelming sensations, grinding her hips against his with a primal, unrestrained fervor. She craved the feeling of his hardness filling her, the way he hit that sweet spot inside that made her vision blur and her mind go deliciously hazy.

“Fuck. Does anyone else make you feel like this?” he groaned pushing his hips up to meet her own. Bringing her down on him harder with each thrust.

“N-n-no.” She was bouncing so hard on him the cat ears were slipping, when her head fell forward just enough and in his reach, he grabbed them tossing them away. Her head tipped back again as she leaned bracing herself on her ankles.

“Who makes you feel good?” Her mind was on fire with the absolute pleasure she was getting. He was like a new drug; he’d been good at fucking before but the confidence of his music and touring had made him extra powerful. She was on a high at this very moment and the crash was going to be one of epic proportions.

“You, Noah.”

The intensity of the moment had completely consumed him, causing him to momentarily lose his typical composure and self-control. Years of broken promises and emotional wounds inflicted by others had left him jaded and guarded, wary of letting anyone get too close. The words tumbled out of his mouth before he could even register them, “You’re mine. No one gets to make you feel this good but me.” He gripped her hips tighter, determined to draw out every last shudder, the wet, sticky evidence coating his skin. The sight of her writhing and moaning beneath him, her voice reduced to barely-there whimpers, threatened to shatter his tenuous hold on restraint.

Trembling with exhaustion, she persisted, driven by a desperate need to please him. Slumping forward, she balanced herself precariously on her hands, every muscle straining to maintain control.

“Tell me your good baby. I won’t stop till I know you’re good.” he groaned, eyes tightly shut as he bit down on his bottom lip. The shaking in her body was relentless. She was spent, her reserves depleted. A slight nod of her head and her voice reduced to a mere whisper was all he needed.

He continued to move his hips, pounding into her with unyielding force. The moans that escaped her lips were softer, barely audible, his name chanted like a mantra. Her body, overstimulated and overwhelmed, tightened around him once more, triggering another powerful orgasm. She pleaded with him, her voice barely a whimper, "Fuck Noah, Please." He felt her body clenching around him, the sensation pushing him to the brink of his own release. With a final, forceful thrust, he spilled into her, his back arching and his mouth agape in a silent scream.

Desperately trying to stop the relentless sensations, her body too sensitized to continue. Noah watched as she pulled herself off him, collapsing onto the bed beside him, her energy completely drained. Noah's heart was pounding as he sat on his bed, everything replaying in his mind-sounds, touch, smell, feelings, words-as if he was digitally filling it away like a computer. She curled up on his bed resting on his pillow, her hair now a tousled mess, the headband with her cat ears lost somewhere.

As if it were normal he straightened up to lay next to her, legs stretched out, his feet still tingling. He had been so caught up in the moment, the warmth of her body pressed against his, the soft caress of her skin. But then, just as quickly as it had begun, it had all come crashing down. He had reached down to pull his sweatpants back up, unsure of where things were going, when he felt her suddenly stiffen beside him. Grabbing the edge of the blanket, he had pulled it up to cover them both, enveloping them in a cozy cocoon. But the minute she was covered in the soft fabric, her eyes had snapped open, wide and glassy with terror. Before he could even process what was happening, she had shoved the blanket off and scrambled to put her underwear back on, her movements frantic and panicked.

"What are you doing?" he asked, his voice laced with confusion and concern, his heart racing in his chest. Had he somehow hurt her? Done something to scare her? The look of pure fear on her face had cut him deeply, making him question everything. Without a word, she had hurriedly gathered the rest of her clothes, leaving his room in a rush and closing the door sharply behind her. Noah sat there, dumbfounded, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Had he misread the situation completely? Was she okay? He reached for his phone, sending her a quick text to check on her, but her terse response - "I'm fine. Happy Birthday" - did little to ease his worry. The day that had started with such promise now felt tainted, the happiness he had anticipated quickly giving way to a sense of unease and uncertainty.

The following morning as Noah slowly stirred from his restless sleep, he instantly knew this was going to be one of those mornings where he felt like he had been hit by a truck. However, to his surprise, he didn't have the usual pounding headache or queasy stomach that typically accompanied a night of heavy drinking. Instead, he found himself feeling confused and unsettled, the events of the previous evening weighing heavily on his mind. Pulling himself up from the tangled sheets, he made his way through the disaster zone that was his house, stepping carefully over the scattered remnants of the party - crumpled paper cups, discarded paper plates, and half-empty pizza boxes that littered the floors. In the kitchen, he spotted an untouched slice of pizza sitting in one of the greasy cardboard containers and, despite its slightly stale and unappealing appearance, he couldn't resist the urge to take a bite. As the familiar flavors hit his tongue, he was momentarily transported back to simpler times, when a late-night snack was all he needed to satisfy his hunger and soothe his weary soul.

With pizza in hand, Noah retreated to the solace of his bedroom, plopping down on the edge of his bed and reaching for his phone. Scrolling through his messages, he paused to re-read the brief, cryptic text from her - "I'm fine. Happy Birthday." The words seemed to mock him, taunting him with the memory of her sudden departure and the confusion that had consumed him in the aftermath. His gaze then fell upon the small, cat-eared headband that lay discarded on the floor, a remnant of the Halloween costume she had worn earlier that evening. Picking it up, he couldn't help but smile, a glimmer of hope igniting within him as he snapped a quick photo and sent it to her, accompanied by a simple message: "You left something behind."

Perhaps, he thought, this could be the olive branch he needed to bridge the gap that had so suddenly and unexpectedly formed between them. Maybe, just maybe, it would be enough to lure her back and give him another chance to make things right - to show her the depth of his desire, to have her on her knees before him, yielding to his every whim.

Noah's mind raced as he tried to pinpoint what could have possibly gone wrong the night before.

“Well don’t you look disappointed.” Nick’s raspy voice floated into the room from Noah’s open bedroom door, leaning against the frame, palm on his eyes rubbing the sleep away. He was in his pajamas’ hair pulled into a messy bun; the bun was lopsided suggesting he had just rolled out of bed-or couch. “I can see it from here.” Noah didn’t answer him, just tossed the cat ears over to his desk while his friend made his way into the room to take a seat on his bed.

“How was she last night?”

“Perfect. As always.” He tried not to sound as if the topic itself was bothering him. “She left her cat ears; I texted her seeing if she wanted to come get them.”

“Come being the main point in that sentence, right?” Noah’s eyes snapped up to his friend who had a cheeky grin and a raised eyebrow. It was no secret to the band that Noah had a thing with her on the side, Nick knew for sure-they’d had a couple threesomes a time or two. Folio wanted to get in on it once, but Noah refused. The idea made him cringe.

“What did you do?” Nick asked, sliding onto his side keeping himself propped up on his forearm.

“It’s obvious what we did.” Noah was sure his friend couldn’t be that thick in the head. What else would they have done, discuss the weather?

“Yeah, I know what you did. I also saw her run out of here like her costume was on fire.” Nick flopped onto his back hands placed on his chest. “She didn’t even say goodbye. So, again, I ask, what did you do?”

Noah wasn’t sure, they had sex, he covered her up, she left. Everything had seemed perfect - sex was electrifying and fulfilling as always, and afterward he had tenderly covered her with a soft blanket, fully intending to let her rest peacefully until morning. But when she took off without a word, a knot of worry had formed in the pit of his stomach.

“I don’t know.” He replied weakly.

#bad omens #bad omens cult #noah sebastian #bad omens band #noahsebastian fanfic #noah sebastian smut

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a-court-of-fics-and-errors · 5 months ago

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Keep Moving Forwards, Part 35

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Azriel x Reader Fic

Summary: After finally deciding to leave your abusive and manipulative mate for good, you find unexpected companionship with Azriel, the Shadowsinger of the Night Court. As you navigate the aftermath of your traumatic relationship, you struggle to understand where the mating bond went wrong and contemplate your path forward, vowing never to return to the past.

Find other parts here: Master List

To follow this fic, follow tag "Keep Moving Forwards Fic" or comment to be tagged in future parts.

Content Warning: This story contains depictions of extreme emotional manipulation and abuse, detailed descriptions of direct physical abuse, and scenes of men hunting women with implied sexual assault. Please read at your own risk.

Word Count: 7.2K - This definitely could have been split into multiple parts but I started foaming at the mouth and have no self control.

Author's Note: This is a multi-part series. Unlike my previous works, this fanfiction delves deeper than just fluff, exploring complex emotional landscapes. As I navigate this new writing journey, I kindly ask for gentle feedback. The topics addressed are profoundly impactful, touching many lives with diverse experiences. Please be gentle with yourselves and others. Healing is a journey, and everyone processes it differently. Be kind to yourself. Take what resonates, and leave what doesn’t.

Please continue reading, being aware of the above content warnings, ensuring you are in a healthy headspace. Give yourself time to process and be gentle with yourself.

Additional Note: You may have noticed that I’ve replaced all the images in previous parts with GIFs or photos linked to their original sources. A friend was helping me with the original images and I later found out they were primarily using AI-generated content. To support independent artistry, I’ve decided to remove those images and replace them with original works that include links to the sources. This decision aims to combat the negative impact AI can have on artists and creators. I apologize for the earlier oversight and will ensure to uphold artistic integrity going forward.

Three days. Three days in the House of Wind with just Azriel. The thought was exhilarating and a little terrifying, as you pondered the possibilities of what those days might hold. Azriel did have his personal home in Velaris, the Town House, but since your return, he had essentially relocated his life to the House of Wind to be near you. Now, you had three days of isolation with him, or so you thought.

Nesta paced about your room, her bare feet whispering against the plush blue carpet. You sat cross-legged on the bed, clutching a pillow in your lap as you watched her braided hair slowly unravel and the tension radiating from her every step.

“Why did I do that? That was so stupid,” she muttered, her eyes flicking anxiously around the room.

“Nesta, you have to tell him,” you said softly, your voice steady but gentle.

“I could have waited longer, and now I’ve put myself in this situation,” she groaned, rubbing her temples as she sank into the chair in the corner, her fingers tracing erratic circles on her skin.

“How long did you think you could hold off?” you asked, knowing the answer was not much longer.

“Longer than this! Longer than this weekend.” She huffed, her fingers now digging into her scalp.

“Do you really not want to go?” you asked, watching as she chewed her lower lip, avoiding your gaze.

“I don’t know,” she mumbled, her eyes darting to the floor.

You leaned back against the headboard, drawing your knees up. “You know, it’s probably going to be a little strange, given you asked to stay at the cabin and now you’re the one backing out.”

Nesta sighed. “I can’t back out now,” she said, her voice wavering, as if she were trying to convince herself more than you.

“You could always figure out a reason not to go,” you suggested, half-heartedly.

She peered up, her brows raised slightly as though the idea were preposterous. “Like what?”

You hesitated, knowing you shouldn’t encourage her reluctance, but the desperation in her eyes made you ignore your better judgment. “You could say you don’t feel well.”

Nesta scoffed, a bitter laugh escaping her lips. “Yeah, like that won’t raise more questions.”

“Or you could say you just don’t want to go. That you’re not feeling up to it,” you offered, rolling your eyes slightly.

She leaned forward, burying her face in her hands, rubbing them up and down as a groan escaped her. “I can’t back out,” she finally sighed, leaning back again, “I need to just get it out there. I can’t hide from it if he’s standing right in front of me.”

“To be fair, he’s been standing in front of you for the last week, and you’ve been avoiding it,” you pointed out, your tone light but with a hint of sarcasm.

Nesta’s glare could have melted stone, her eyes sharp and venomous. “That’s different,” she snapped, before her hand unconsciously moved to rest on her womb, a tender touch to the life growing inside her. She turned to gaze out the tall windows overlooking Velaris, her eyes like reflecting pools of fear, guilt, and perhaps hope.

You observed her quietly, noting the new radiance pregnancy seemed to give her. Despite her worries, her skin glowed with a renewed vitality, her eyes, though filled with uncertainty, shone brighter, and her hair had gained a lustrous fullness. It was remarkable how quickly pregnancy transformed her. Your thoughts drifted to your own mother, wondering if she too had experienced that early glow, if she had known about her pregnancy at four months, or if you had been a secret she kept even from herself for as long as she could.

You tried to pull yourself from that daydream, reminding yourself that your mother was more a figment of your imagination than a memory. It felt childish to pretend she was anything more. “Nesta,” you began gently, “I can’t say I know exactly how you’re feeling.” Her eyes flicked to you, her finger tracing her lips absently. “And I won’t say everything’s going to be okay because, well, we both know that’s a promise I can’t keep.” Nesta’s delicate finger paused on her lower lip, her other hand pressing gently on her stomach as you continued, “But carrying all this stress alone,” you gestured to her, “it’s not good for you or the babe.”

Nesta’s eyes hardened, her throat bobbing as she swallowed. “Cassian wouldn’t want you to go through this by yourself,” you added softly.

Her gray eyes, clouded with grief, locked onto yours. You could see the inner struggle, the battle between her fear and the need to share her burden. Silver began to line her eyes, the tears she fought to hold back shimmering like tiny stars.

“It’s okay to be scared,” you whispered, leaning forward from the headboard. “It’s okay to worry about the worst and try to prepare for it.” As a single tear escaped down her flushed cheek, you added, “But it’s also okay to feel joy about this. To celebrate. This is a big deal, Nesta—this is amazing.”

She sniffled, her attempts to brush away the tears only making them fall faster. You offered a reassuring smile. “Enjoy these moments with Cassian. He’d want to share this with you.”

Nesta nodded, her tears now flowing freely despite her efforts to contain them. She sniffed, her smile watery but genuine. “What about you? Plan for this weekend?” she asked, clearly eager to shift the focus. ”

You looked down, rubbing your hands over your thighs, feeling the heat rise in your cheeks. “Not sure what you mean,” you muttered.

A crooked smile tugged at Nesta’s lips. “Three days alone with Azriel,” she reminded you, her voice laced with teasing.

You nodded, still fighting the blush spreading across your face and, perhaps, a few other places.

“No big plans?” she pressed.

You shook your head, “Nope. Nothing formal.”

“How’s everything going with Azriel?” she inquired, her tone growing more earnest.

You glanced up at her. “You mean with me and Azriel?”

She nodded, her gaze intent.

“It’s good. Things are good,” you said, your voice trailing off as you tried to keep your composure.

Nesta let a silence settle between you, her smile turning knowing, almost cheeky.

“What?” you asked, finally meeting her gaze.

Nesta shook her head, crossing one leg over the other casually. “Just seems like you two are enjoying each other's company a lot.”

“Yeah,” you admitted. “We do like spending time together.”

“A lot of time,” she added, her eyes twinkling.

You glanced at her, your cheeks burning. “We get along.”

Nesta’s catlike eyes gleamed with amusement. “You know, I’ve never seen Azriel look at anyone the way he looks at you.”

You didn’t respond, but her words struck a chord, making your heart race.

“It’s like he can sense when you’re about to enter the room and drops everything just to see you first,” she continued.

You shrugged, trying to deflect. “Isn’t that part of his job? To be observant?”

“Sure, but he doesn’t get that goofy smile for just anyone,” she teased.

You knew the smile she meant—the half grin Azriel couldn’t seem to suppress. You wanted to dismiss it as Nesta reading too much into things, but deep down, you couldn’t ignore that Azriel had confessed his feelings to you. Feelings he said he hadn’t even realized he had until you came along.

“So?” Nesta prompted, her voice light yet probing.

“So what?”

“So things are going very well then?” she asked, her question thinly veiled as a statement.

“Yes,” you admitted. “Things are going well.”

“And things…” she raised her eyebrows suggestively, “down south?”

Your eyes widened in shock.

“Oh come on,” she groaned, her hands slapping her thighs in exasperation. “You read as many of those smut books as I do. Give a girl some details.”

You laughed lightly, embarrassed but amused by her persistence.

“You know the boys have a joke about wingspan being related to… other sizes?” she said, wiggling her eyebrows.

You looked down at your hands, “No, I didn’t.”

“Mhm, and Azriel always goes oddly quiet when they bring it up.”

You giggled, making Nesta’s grin widen. “So… it’s good?” she pressed.

You shook your head, still laughing. “I wouldn’t know.”

Nesta’s face fell slightly, confusion clouding her features. “Wait, you mean you haven’t-?”

You shook your head, meeting her gaze. “We haven’t. Not yet.”

“But he’s been in your bed for months!” she exclaimed, a note of desperation in her voice.

You shrugged, feeling a mix of awkwardness and honesty. “We just,” you paused, “We haven’t gotten there yet.” And now pink rose to your cheeks for a different reason.

Nesta broke her gaze, her own face flushing with embarrassment. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have-”

You cut her off gently, “No, it’s okay. I mean, it’s not like I haven’t thought about it.”

Her interest sparked again, though she still looked cautious. “Have you two talked about it at all?”

You pulled the pillow closer to your lap, your fingers nervously tracing nonexistent frays. “Not really.”

You’d shared more of your past with Nesta than with anyone else, down to the painful details you tried to bury. Her voice, gentle and filled with concern, asked, “Are you ready for that?”

You kept your eyes fixed on the pillow. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t have to tell me anything you’re not comfortable with,” she began, her tone careful, “but I guess I just want to know if you’ve been intimate like that with anyone other than… him.”

A shudder ran through you at the thought of the 'him' she referred to, memories of past pain and harsh touches flooding back. “No,” you replied softly. “Not fully.”

Nesta nodded, understanding. “Do you think you’d want to try?”

You considered her question. Your body responded intensely to Azriel, your stomach fluttering at the thought of him, and his touch sent electric shocks through you. Physically, you were more than ready for something beyond mild petting. But those memories were powerful, and they had interfered before. They had with Kai, where attempts at intimacy had often triggered terrible flashbacks, forcing you to stop. Now, knowing that moments of vulnerability could open a line to Caelum, you worried if you could ever enjoy intimacy without the fear of what might slip through the bond. You looked up at Nesta, your voice trembling slightly, “I don’t want to go my entire life without being close to someone like that.”

Nesta gave you a gentle smile. “I think we both know that Azriel would understand.”

You returned a tight-lipped smile. You wanted to believe he would understand, that maybe he would even forgo that aspect if you asked. But then you thought of his skin against yours, the longing you felt for him, and the dream of a life you wanted, one that included closeness and a future you couldn’t have if you couldn’t be that intimate.

Nesta’s voice softened, almost a whisper. “I know it’s a little hypocritical, but,” she met your eyes, “just talk to him.”

She smiled softly, and you found yourself smiling back. You chucked the pillow across the room at her. She laughed, a bright sound that echoed through the room, and you laughed too. It felt good to laugh like that, to share a moment of joy with her, a moment that just felt normal.

—

Nesta made good on her word, and when the morning finally came for her and Cassian to set off, she did so with a determined gleam in her eyes. When she hugged you goodbye, she lingered a bit longer than usual. You couldn’t tell if the prolonged embrace was for her or you, or perhaps for both—a silent recognition of a weekend that might have you both coming back changed.

As for Azriel, he missed the departure, having been called to the River House by Rhysand early that morning. He’d roused you slightly as he pressed a kiss to your temple, urging you to go back to sleep, promising he’d return before Nesta and Cassian left. Apparently, that hadn’t been the case. You didn’t know when he’d come back, but as you wandered through the hall, hands mildly dirty from prepping the rooftop garden for overwintering, you paused by the library, rocking back on your heel as you saw the outline of wings.

Peeking through the entrance, you found Azriel at the writing desk, his hand pressed to his temple, his leg bouncing under the table. His boot squeaked softly on the floor as shadows curled around his feet like restless cats.

“Hey,” you chirped cheerfully, stepping into the room.

Azriel started slightly at your voice, turning to you with a surprised smile. “Oh, hey!” he replied, that goofy grin lighting up his face.

You walked over, wiping your hands on the small towel you'd brought with you before tucking it into your back pocket. “Where have you been?” you asked, leaning your hips against the desk, your body angled towards him.

Azriel’s hazel eyes, sparkling with mischief, met yours. “Got caught up with Rhys,” he said, leaning back in the chair, his hands interlocking behind his head, causing his biceps to flex slightly.

“Everything okay?” you asked, arching a brow, noticing the way his eyes seemed to brighten at the sight of you.

He cleared his throat, his posture relaxed yet commanding. “Yeah, yeah, fine.” But his tone betrayed a hint of uncertainty.

Deciding to trust that, like Nesta with Cassian, Azriel knew what he was doing, you chose not to pry into matters beyond your reach. Instead, you nodded, and his eyes flicked to your hands.

“You’ve been busy,” he noted, gesturing towards your fingers.

You glanced down, seeing dirt still peppered under your nails. You began to dig them out, a sheepish smile crossing your face. “Oh, yeah. Elain had me prepping the soil for overwintering, but I might have gotten a bit carried away.”

Azriel chuckled, his eyes twinkling with amusement. “I don’t know how you manage it, but it seems like every time you walk away from me, you come back covered in grime.”

Feigning offense, you scoffed, “Okay, well, every time you leave, you come back smelling like actual shit and death.”

“I’m talking about leaving you alone for five minutes, and you come back like that,” Azriel countered, his grin widening.

You shrugged, a playful glint in your eyes. “What can I say? I like dirt.”

“Dirty girl,” he purred, his tone taking on a teasing edge.

Heat crept up your cheeks as you looked away, biting your lower lip to suppress a smile. “Gross,” you replied, though a laugh slipped through.

Azriel’s laugh was a low rumble as he stretched back in his chair, his wings flaring slightly. His black shirt rode up, revealing the tantalizing V-lines that disappeared beneath his waistband, along with a glimpse of his defined abs. You tried to keep your gaze on his face, but your eyes betrayed you, flicking down for just a moment.

As he straightened, catching the way you looked at him, Azriel’s smirk deepened. “Enjoying the view?”

You rolled your eyes, fighting the blush threatening to deepen. “Don’t flatter yourself, Shadowsinger.”

His chuckle was warm, and his eyes sparkled with teasing affection as he leaned closer, his voice dropping to a soft, intimate murmur. “I think I already did.”

You rolled your eyes as you pushed off the desk, catching Azriel’s eyes trailing your hips as you walked away. It seemed he might have been entertaining thoughts of potential weekend activities himself. Letting yourself flop backward over the couch, you landed with a thud on your back, legs dangling lazily over the backrest. “Plans for the rest of the day?” you asked, casually picking at the dirt caked under your nails.

“Actually,” he replied, “I was wondering if you might be willing to do something for me.”

Your ears perked up just as you pulled a piece of your nail off completely, hissing slightly as a small bead of blood welled up in the tiny wound. “What is it?” you inquired, pressing your thumb to the spot.

“I have to meet someone from the Summer Court this afternoon.” Your heart sank a little, imagining Azriel’s weekend filling up with more responsibilities. “But I was supposed to pick up something from a shop in the city. If I drop you off, would you mind getting it? I can swing by and pick you up on my way back.”

You flipped your legs over the back of the couch, peering up over the crest of the sofa to meet Azriel’s eye. “Sure,” you agreed, though your voice lacked enthusiasm.

Azriel’s face relaxed, and the tension that had coiled around him when you walked in seemed to dissipate. “That would be fantastic, thank you.”

You smiled lightly, “Just let me clean up first,” you said, scooting off the couch.

“Thank the gods,” Azriel replied with mock relief. “I was worried I’d have to carry you down there smelling like dirt and sweat.”

As you walked out, you stuck your tongue out at him over your shoulder. He laughed, leaning back in his chair again, and you had to stop yourself from turning around to admire the view.

“Careful, you might catch flies,” Azriel called after you, his tone teasing.

You snorted, waving him off as you headed to clean up.

—

When you finally finished getting dressed after your shower, you opened the door to find Azriel standing across the hall. You jumped slightly, hand flying to your racing heart. “Gods, Azriel! We need to get you a bell or something.”

Azriel smirked lightly. “Ready to go?” He seemed anxious, perhaps pressed for time, though he hadn’t exactly given you any.

“Now?” you asked, blinking in surprise.

Azriel glanced around in confusion. “Yes?”

“Oh, okay. That’s fine.” You opened the door wider as Azriel crossed the hallway, tossing you your jacket from the front entry hall.

It seemed he’d been waiting on you—how long, you had no idea. He threw open the balcony doors, letting the cool air rush in, a sharp reminder that winter was on its way. Azriel smiled over his shoulder, extending a scarred hand to you. “You haven’t told me what I’m getting for you yet,” you noted, taking his hand. He scooped you up under your knees, cradling you close as his wings took a few powerful flaps, lifting off the marble floor. Your stomach flipped at the quick descent down the mountainside.

“I wrote the address down for you. Just give them my name,” he said, the wind biting at the tips of your ears.

You furrowed your brow. “You’re not going to tell me what I’m picking up?”

Azriel glanced down at you, his smile widening. “What? You don’t trust me?”

You gave him an incredulous look. “Not even a hint?”

“Okay,” he responded, his eyes twinkling with amusement. “Just trust me on this one. It’s nothing bad.”

“I’m not collecting the head or fingers of your enemies?” you joked.

Azriel chuckled, the sound reverberating through his chest. “That would be an errand I’d want to handle myself.”

“So it’s you who doesn’t trust me?” you countered playfully.

“I wouldn’t want to miss out on the fun,” he replied, smirking.

“Gross.”

“You love that word today, don’t you?”

“When I look at you, it’s the first word that comes to mind,” you shot back, your face breaking into a smile.

Azriel landed gracefully on a deserted sidestreet. “I’ll be back in about an hour,” he said, pulling a piece of parchment from his pocket. “Here.” He handed it to you, leaning in to place a light kiss on your temple.

You opened the paper, squinting at his neat, thin handwriting. No name of the building, but you recognized the street. “So I can’t know what I’m picking up or where I’m going?” you asked, looking up at him.

He rolled his eyes. “I’m going to be late. Consider it a trust exercise. Do you know where it is?”

“Well, I don’t know what ‘it’ is, but I do know where it is,” you replied.

“One hour. I’ll meet you there.”

You watched as he shot back up into the sky, wondering why, if he was meeting you there, he dropped you off a good fifteen-minute walk from your destination. But again, trust. So instead of calling out to question him, you sighed and began your trek through the city, shaking your head with a bemused smile.

Local shops were already setting out items for Winter Solstice gifts, the streets adorned with twinkling lights and festive decorations. Your heart ached a bit, reminded of how different your life had been just a year ago. For a moment, you wondered if you had moved on too quickly from everything that had happened. You shook the thought away; dwelling on others’ perceptions of your healing wouldn’t help. Or at least, that’s what you tried to remind yourself.

You knew the shortest route to this particular street cut through the city near the entry gate, but the memories there were too sharp to face today. So, you opted for a longer, winding path, adding about ten minutes to your walk. The detour gave you a moment to breathe, to let the festive atmosphere seep in without the weight of the past pressing down too hard.

When you finally reached the correct street, you followed the numbers until you stood in front of a small bakery. The sweet scents of fresh breads and pastries swirled out from under the door, mingling with the crisp winter air. You rechecked the address Azriel had given you. This was definitely the place. Stepping up to the front door, your mouth watered at the sight of cranberry tarts with their crystalline sugar gleaming in the window, boxes of dark chocolates overflowing with cream, ganache, and fruit, and cakes delicately frosted with winter themes of ice and snow.

The bell above the door chimed softly as you entered, the warm, cozy interior a sharp contrast to the chill outside. Your eyes adjusted to the dim, inviting light, and you noticed a few other patrons standing in front of the large glass counter, debating their purchases. You approached the rather plump, cheery-eyed male at the register.

“Hi,” you greeted as he smiled down at you. “I’m here to pick up something for Azriel.”

“Oh!” The male’s eyes lit up with recognition. He nodded and disappeared into the back of the bakery. You must have been in the right place. While you waited, you watched a female baker behind the counter delicately package pastel macarons into a cellophane box, her hands flying yet precise as she tied a pastel blue ribbon over the top.

The male reappeared, holding a small white box secured with red twine. He handed it over the counter with a broad smile. You thanked him, looking down at the box with curiosity, slightly disappointed that you couldn’t see its contents like the macarons on display.

Given that the sun was beginning to set, you figured you didn’t have much time left before Azriel would come to retrieve you. With the mystery box in hand, you crossed the street and sat on a bench, pulling your jacket tighter around you as you watched fae bustle by.

A few small children barreled down the street, chasing each other and giggling wildly. They stopped in front of the bakery, pressing their noses to the glass, their eyes wide with longing for the delectable treats inside. You watched as the female baker inside noticed their hungry faces. She smiled warmly at them, exchanged a few words with the male baker, and then disappeared into the backroom.

Moments later, she emerged with a white paper bag and stepped outside, beckoning the children closer. They approached cautiously, eyes alight with excitement. She handed them the bag, her smile radiant as she reminded them to share.

The children eagerly took the bag from the baker, nearly ripping it as they peered inside. Their eyes lit up with delight as they distributed various cookies and candies among themselves. You smiled, remembering how, when you were young, the baker Henri used to give you scones that hadn’t sold the day before. A memory that once included your mother, now replaced by Titania. There was something comforting about these children, nearly a century later, still engaging in the same rituals. Adults continuing to offer sweets from the kindness of their hearts, expecting nothing in return but a smile and the hope that these children might someday pass on the same acts of kindness.

You heard footsteps crunching on the sidewalk next to you and looked up to see two large, winged shadows approaching. Azriel’s face was partially obscured by the late afternoon sun. He took a seat next to you, crossing his legs casually and draping his arms over the backrest of the bench, one foot jostling slightly.

“Hey,” you greeted, moving the box to the other side of you.

“Hi,” he replied, his warm smile melting away the chill in your bones.

“All set?” you asked. He nodded. “How did it go?”

His face conveyed a sort of nonchalance, his mouth twitching slightly downward but not quite frowning. “Fine,” was all he said, shrugging. “How was your little errand?” He cocked an eyebrow, glancing at the white box.

You handed him the box, feeling its light weight in your hands. “Fine, I think.”

Azriel took the box from you, untying the twine and turning slightly away to examine the contents. You strained to see over his shoulder, but one large wing blocked your view.

“If all you wanted were pastries, why be so secretive?” you scoffed, amused, as he replaced the lid and turned back to you with a cheeky grin.

He rolled his eyes. “Can’t a male have a little fun?”

You huffed, your eyes scanning his face. There was something about his presence you couldn’t quite place. The look of hesitation behind his eyes, the continuous bouncing foot, and the odd secrecy made you think Azriel might be nervous about something. But what, you couldn’t quite figure out.

“Ready to go?” he asked quickly, standing and adjusting his jacket. You watched him, taking the hand he extended to you, agreeing quietly while complaining slightly about the cold. He just called you a crybaby in response.

The two of you walked through the streets, searching for a quieter sidestreet where Azriel could fully stretch his wings for takeoff. When you finally found one, he picked you up gracefully, asking you to hold the pastry box, which you obliged. The entire flight home, you debated just opening the lid for a peek inside.

As you landed back on the marble balcony, Azriel gently placed you on your feet. You adjusted your top, smoothing the fabric with a quick tug, while he reached for the double doors and swung them open, reclaiming the white pastry box from you. The warm glow of the fire beckoned from within, its gentle crackling drawing you closer. You shrugged off your jacket, tossing it casually onto the bed as you entered the room.

“Thanks,” Azriel’s voice followed you. “For doing this for me.”

You gave a nonchalant shrug, flopping down onto the plush bed, your arms stretching upwards as you tried to ease the ache in your muscles. “No worries.” You expected Azriel to make a swift exit, eager to tackle the next task on his agenda, but he lingered. Standing near the double doors, his eyes stayed on you, a quiet intensity in his gaze.

Lifting your head off the bed, you noticed his prolonged stare. Feeling a bit self-conscious, you asked hesitantly, “Everything okay?”

Azriel snapped out of his reverie, his scarred finger tracing the twine of the pastry box absentmindedly. “Yeah, it’s fine,” he replied shortly, a touch of awkwardness in his voice. “Dinner?”

At his offer, you sprang up from the bed with eagerness. “Yes! I’m starving,” you exclaimed, your voice edged with a playful whine.

Azriel’s lips twitched into a soft, fleeting smile, the sound of a light laugh escaping him. As he started towards the door, you stumbled over your own feet, trying to kick off your boots in a rush. You fell into him, face-first against his chest, his warm laughter rumbling through you and making your stomach flutter. “Careful,” he chuckled, steadying you with a gentle hand.

“Sorry,” you murmured, pushing back slightly, your hands pressing against the hard muscle of his chest. You glanced up, your chin hovering mere inches from where your fingers rested.

Azriel’s gaze softened, his other hand still clutching the pastry box. With a slight nod, he led you out of the bedroom and down the hallway towards the kitchen. Normally, you and Nesta or Azriel would eat casually around the kitchen island, but tonight was different. Azriel walked past the kitchen doors, his pace quickening with a hint of excitement.

You paused in front of the kitchen, a confused look crossing your face. “Aren’t we eating?” you asked, glancing towards the familiar island.

Without stopping or turning back, Azriel urged, “Come on,” his tone carrying a trace of anticipation.

Puzzled but intrigued, you followed him, your stomach rumbling in sync with your growing curiosity. As you trailed behind him through the sunken living room and past the cozy library, you realized he was leading you towards the grand dining room. A room you had only seen used for formal family dinners hosted by Nesta.

Azriel reached the doorway, his imposing wings nearly filling the large frame. Turning to face you, his smile broadened, a spark of mischief in his eyes.

You couldn’t help but smile back, still trying to decipher his peculiar behavior. Azriel pushed open the door, stepping aside with a radiant, cheeky grin that made your heart skip a beat.

As you stepped through the doorway, Azriel trailing behind, your breath caught in your throat. In the center of the grand dining room, which typically housed a vast, imposing table fit for large gatherings and entertaining, stood a much smaller, more intimate table, set elegantly for two.

The table was adorned with an elegant lace tablecloth, its intricate patterns catching the flicker of candlelight. Candles were placed strategically around the room, their soft, golden glow dancing off the walls. The centerpiece was a lush arrangement of flowers, the key flowers being purple hyacinths—your favorites.

Your eyes were immediately drawn to the exquisite spread laid out on the table, a feast of your favorite dishes, each more mouthwatering than the last. Golden roast chicken, perfectly seasoned with a medley of colorful, caramelized vegetables, parsnips, and baby potatoes crisping in the tray. A bowl next to it held bright, emerald-green steamed asparagus drizzled with a cream sauce, a favorite that Titania used to make for you as a child, you had recently learned. Sautéed mushrooms and wild rice pilaf made your mouth water, and a few freshly baked rolls, still warm from the oven, rested in a basket lined with a blue towel.

You stood there, momentarily stunned by the sheer meticulous effort placed on each part of the room and table. You couldn’t conceive of any other food on the table that wasn’t one of your favorites, as though someone had crawled into your mind, into your childhood, and handpicked out the moments you held with reverie. Azriel came to stand next to a chair, pulling it out slightly as you approached.

“Az, this is—” you stammered. “How did you—?”

Azriel merely chuckled as you took your seat, sliding it in behind you, then crossing around, pouring a sparkling purple wine into a crystal-clear glass and passing it to you.

“This is,” the words couldn’t even come to your mouth as you took the glass, staring down at the food in front of you. “This is insane.”

Azriel poured himself a glass, swirling it lightly as he gazed across at you, his eyes twinkling with amusement as you tried to get your mouth to close from awe. He took a light sip from the cup, the first taste hitting his palate as his face scrunched up, eyebrows drawing together and then widening in surprise before narrowing into discomfort. He peered into the glass, mildly confused, and then slowly processed the unexpected saccharine assault on his taste buds, followed by a sharp exhale through his nose. “This is so sweet,” he said, shoulders and wings rising in an involuntary shudder.

You looked down into your own glass, the sweet aroma of blackberries filling your nostrils as you took a tentative sip. You were greeted with an intense burst of blackberry flavor, as if a handful of the plumpest berries had been freshly crushed, the taste rich and succulent with small hints of dark chocolate and vanilla coating your throat. You almost moaned in sensual delight. Your eyes shut as you melted into your chair. You finally managed to moan out, “This is delicious.”

Your eyes fluttered open to see Azriel swirling the wine in his glass, peering into it with his mouth pulled up in a sneer as though a fly had landed in it. “Oh come on,” you said, taking another sip.

Azriel’s eyes flicked back to you, his sneer growing more exaggerated. “You actually like this stuff?”

“What about it don’t you like?” you asked, your tone slightly accusatory.

“It tastes like pure sugar,” he responded flatly.

“No, it doesn’t! It tastes like blackberries.”

“Blackberries that have been coated in sugar.” He glanced into it again, “There’s probably one blackberry for three cups of sugar.”

You rolled your eyes, leaning back against your chair as you took another delectable sip, eyes shutting again as you felt the warmth of the wine trickle down your throat. You hadn’t had this kind of wine since—

Your eyes shot back open as Azriel tried another sip, the same reaction flying from him. “How did you know I liked blackberry wine?”

Azriel seemed to pause in stillness as he gulped down his drink. “Lucky guess?” he offered.

You shook your head, leaning forward. “You were spying on me,” you said, eyes narrowing.

Azriel’s own eyes went hollow as he considered the best way out of this situation. “I wasn’t intending to.”

You laughed lightly, “So your shadows just followed me around on their own accord?”

At that, you felt the cool breeze around your ankle as one shadow skirted past you. “To be fair,” Azriel offered, “they are fond of you.”

Your gaze turned into a glare as Azriel tried to dig himself out. He placed his glass on the table, leaning his elbows onto it, eyes lined with sincerity. “Look, it was right after you left, and I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“So how long were you watching me?” you asked, slightly more forcefully.

Azriel’s palms faced upward. “Only until it seemed you and Kai were getting more serious.” He paused. You scanned his face for any sign of deception but found none. Only pure sincerity. “Once you seemed like you had someone to rely on, I stopped.”

You leaned back, calming yourself again. In truth, you weren’t too upset that it seemed Azriel had been pining after you much longer than you had thought. Not to mention that knowing there was someone watching over you who wasn’t your mate allowed you to breathe a bit of a sigh of relief. You picked up the glass, swirling it so the sweet wine scent hit your nose again, breathing it in deeply.

“So you’ve seen me drunk?” you asked, taking another sip, eyes heavy as you cocked a brow at Azriel.

Azriel chewed his lower lip, trying to contain a slight smile playing at his lips. “Perhaps,” he offered back.

You quickly tried to sift through your memories, wondering about the things you had said or done that might now cause some embarrassment. “You’re giggly when you’re drunk,” Azriel remarked, a playful glint in his eye.

You set your glass down on the table, leaning forward as he carved a piece of chicken for you, placing it on your plate. The warm juices from the pan flowed onto the dish, tantalizing your senses. “And what are you like?” you inquired, arching a brow.

Azriel let out a breathy laugh as he served himself. You grabbed the tongs, dishing asparagus onto both your plates. “I haven’t gotten drunk in a long time.”

You handed over the tray to him as he passed you the rolls. “How long is a long time?”

Azriel pondered for a moment, setting the pan back down on the table. “Half a century?” he responded, sounding like he was questioning his own memory.

You picked up your fork, eyeing him with a smirk. “Sometimes I forget you’re ancient,” you quipped, taking a bite of the chicken. The savory sauce melted in your mouth, making you moan with delight.

Azriel rolled his eyes. “It stops being important once you turn one hundred.”

You opened your eyes again, taking another greedy bite. “That’s what someone who’s too old and boring to get drunk would say,” you teased.

“I got my days of heavy drinking out of the way before I took on one of the most important roles in the Night Court,” he countered, leaning back. “It’s not exactly a good look to be falling all over yourself in front of those in power.”

You scoffed, “Cassian seems to have no problem with it.” It’s true, Cassian seized every opportunity to get absolutely sloshed at formal events, often challenging other warriors to drinking contests.

“Let’s not use Cassian as our standard for formality,” Azriel replied with a chuckle. “But when I used to get drunk, I’m told I got rather chatty.”

You almost choked on your food. “Chatty?” you questioned, wide-eyed.

Azriel flicked his eyes at you from under his brows as he took a bite. “Is that surprising?”

You shrugged, chewing a bit more carefully this time. “Chatty with everyone? Or just the people you know?”

Azriel leaned back in the chair, his wings casually lounged behind him. “According to Rhys and Mor, everyone.”

The thought of Azriel being the life of the conversation somewhere in a bar in Velaris, chatting it up with strangers, almost made you laugh out loud. “I’m sure you were fun at parties,” you offered, swallowing down your bite with another glass of wine.

“I would say I still am,” he replied, a hint of mischief in his eyes.

“You think fun is brooding in the corner?”

“You’ve only ever seen me at Night Court events,” he countered.

“But you’re a party animal at the tavern?” Azriel rolled his eyes. “Maybe that’s why you don’t like sweet wines,” you teased, leaning over the table. “You’re too old to enjoy something so youthful. You’d rather have a dry glass of white wine or some liquor that burns like firestarter.”

Azriel scoffed at you. “Am I going to regret doing all this for you?” he joked back.

You smiled at him sweetly, looking back down at your plate. “No,” you replied, a touch quieter and sincere. “This is amazing. Thank you.”

Azriel’s face lit up slightly at your response. “I just thought you deserved a nice night,” he said.

You gestured to the table, “You really got all my favorites, even the ones I haven’t told you about or eaten in front of you.”

Azriel glanced toward the ceiling. “I’ll admit, the House did provide me with some insight on things you ask for late at night.”

You followed his gaze up, whispering in a hiss, “Those moments were supposed to be secret.”

Azriel laughed, “That and Titania helped fill me in on the rest.”

You ran your finger around the rim of your glass, heart and belly slowly filling with a feeling of deep adoration and joy. “This is really nice,” you finally whispered.

Azriel reached a scarred hand across the table to you, taking yours. “You deserve to enjoy the things you love,” he offered, his voice filled with quiet sincerity.

Azriel shared with you that, unlike what you might have considered, he actually prepared all the dishes himself. He prepped the meal early in the morning with the help of Nuala and Cerridwen at the River House and then took the hour he had misled you into going to the bakery to set everything up. He really had thought of everything.

As you settled back in your chair, the plate nearly licked clean, you let out a sigh of gratification. Azriel, who had indeed brought out some nasty liquor you refused to try despite his imploring, swirled his glass across from you. His eyes lit up suddenly as he jumped from the table. “I almost forgot!”

You straightened slightly as he brought out the white box from the bakery, setting it in front of you to open. You glanced up at him, smiling. “You made me get my own dessert?” you teased.

“Oh yeah, I’m so sorry,” he replied sarcastically. “How foolish of me to ask you to do one thing so I could do all of this for you.” He gestured around the room with a dramatic flourish.

You smiled back as you undid the twine, peeking in at two delicately crafted tarts. The rhubarb, lemon, and berry compote glistened up at you, the crust perfectly crisped. Your mouth fell open again as Azriel looked down at you, joy in his eyes. You peered back up at him, “These are the tarts that Elain made when I first came here,” you said, breathless.

Azriel shrugged, “Not the exact ones. But they’re as close as I could get to the real thing without cluing Elain in.” In fairness, Elain couldn’t keep a secret, and for something of this nature, which included romance and food, she would have spilled every detail the second Azriel told her.

You found your hand seeking Azriel’s as you marveled at the beautiful little desserts, eyes welling up with emotion. This entire dinner was a three-course journey through your life, from childhood to now, all prepared for you, all a reflection of who you were and the things you had experienced. You felt a tear start to fall, but Azriel caught it, tilting your head up to face him, his own eyes filled with a sincerity and care you don’t know if anyone had ever had for you before. “Thank you,” you whispered lightly.

Azriel leaned down, his lips meeting yours, the oils from the chicken mingling with the sweet wine on your own lips. While you could taste the fiery hint of his drink, you didn’t pull away, lost in the soft caress of his lips as his thumb drew a lazy line down your face, his other hand coming to cup the other side. The kiss held no intensity other than pure adoration, care, and unbridled joy. When he pulled back, Azriel smiled down at you again, and you giggled lightly when he reached into the box, pulling out one of the tarts with his hands and taking a crumbling bite from it.

“Hey!” you protested, laughing as he chewed. “That’s mine!”

Azriel shrugged, a teasing glint in his eyes. “Consider it a toll for the perfect evening.”

To my readers, I'm hot, bothered, and need to be put back into my enclosure. We about to get wild: @thatacotargirl @mcuamerica @lilah-asteria @florabelll @fightmedraco @marvelbros-oneshots @mariahoedt @quinzzelx @romantasyreader28 @minnieoo @mysteriouslydeafeningwerewolf @annabethgranger123 @krowiathemythologynerd @scatteredstardustt @caroline-books @slytherintaco @sevikas-whore @sidthedollface2 @sleepylunarwolf @acourtofbatboydreams @quiettuba @julesofvolterra @skylarkalchemist @darling006 @loglady00 @caninnes

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