#hes not thinking abt it and he looks so...
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cameronsprincess · 3 days ago
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thinking abt… a snow day with rafe🤍☃️
CW: none, just cute fluff with bf!rafe
note: in honor of the snow day in ga today, i thought this would be something cutesy 🤍 happy friday my babies!
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daydreams
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“rafe wake up!” you say softly, lightly nudging at your boyfriends sleeping figure.
he mumbles something in his sleep, his body shifting slightly in the bed, the covers being pulled up over his head. “what is it baby? gimmie five more minutes.” he rasps, a deep exhale of breath leaving his lips.
you grip his shoulder, lightly pulling him onto his back before you climb on top of him, straddling his waist. his hands find your hips, resting on them softly as his thumb strokes against your hipbone. “it’s snowing outside! c’mon, get up, let’s go out there!”
rafe pops open one eye, staring up at you with the cutest grin on his lips. “yeah? you wanna go play out in the snow baby?”
you nod your head quickly, returning his grin with one of your own. rafe lets out a soft sigh, sitting up in the bed, pulling a squeal from you as he lifts you with him, dropping you onto your back. he smirks down at you, leaning forward and pressing a soft kiss on your lips.
“only because my girl wants to, let me get dressed, i’ll meet you in the living room, yeah?”
he places one more kiss on your lips before pushing off the mattress and rolling off the side to stand. you watch as he disappears into the bathroom, a big smile on your face as you get off the bed to get ready to go outside.
-
a few minutes later you make your way into the living room, plopping onto the couch and waiting on rafe. he appears through your bedroom door moments later, dressed in a black sweatpants, a black hoodie and his carhartt beanie, his work boots on his feet as he gives you a sleepy smile.
“you ready, angel?” he asks, walking toward you and reaching a hand out for you to take.
you place your gloved hand in his, letting him pull you up off the couch and into his arms. he squeezes you tightly, lifting you off your feet and spinning you around. you can’t help the fit of giggles that escape you, squirming out of his hold and pulling him toward the front door.
the second the two of you are outside, your eyes shine with joy, taking in the look of the beautiful white snow that covers the front yard.
“it’s so pretty! i haven’t seen snow since i was a kid,” you whisper, stepping further out into the yard, your head thrown back as cold flakes hit your cheeks. “i missed this.”
rafe pulls the front door shut, stepping out behind you and wrapping his arms round your waist, resting his chin on your shoulder. “well we can stay out as long as you want, angel. whatever my girl wants.”
you turn in his arms, rising on your toes and kissing his lips, “thank you. i know you’re not used to snow days, but it means a lot that you’re willing to endure this for me.”
rafe smiles widely, swaying you in his arms. “i’d do anything for you.”
you smile up at him before pulling out of his arms and scooping up a handful of snow, forming it into a ball before tossing it at his chest. rafe lets out a laugh, eyes wide as he stares back at you, “oh you asked for it, baby.”
you squeal, taking off running through the yard as rafe makes his own snowball, chasing after you and tossing it, the cold snow hitting the back of your head. you throw your head back, laughing before turning to face your boyfriend. “the back of my head?! really?” you tease, bending down to form another snowball.
“not my fault you had your back to me!” rafe shoots back, his arms thrown up in surrender.
you toss another snowball rafe’s way, and he barely dodges it, running toward you and lifting you into his arms, tossing you over his shoulder and making you squeal, “i love you,” he says sweetly, spinning in a small circle with you in his arms.
“i love you too, but it’s still on, i’ll get you back for that snowball to the back of the head!”
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tagging some moots: @starkeysbabygirl @rafesthroatbaby @nemesyaaa @oceandriveab @rafesheaven @rafesbabygirlx @httpsdrewstarkey @drewsephrry @bloodibambiidoll @cameronwillow @sarahsangelicdoll @rafescvntyclubgf
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hitomisuzuya · 3 days ago
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idk abt you but smth abt whiny needy soft!dom morning wood wanderer makes me giggle (,,>﹏<,,)
wanderer (scaramouche) x fem!reader. smut. blow job. soft!dom wanderer. a little bit of consensual somnophilia.
i have been really in the mood to write oral lately😳
wanderer couldn't help it. whenever he fell asleep, he dreamt about you. this particular time, he dreamt that you were taking his cock perfectly from behind, arching your back, and giving him the perfect view of his cock squelching in and out of your tight cunt. moaning like a bitch in heat, dazed words of worship and how good his cock felt fucking into you.
needless to say, when he woke up, he is incredibly hard.
and it didn't help that you are asleep naked next to him, the curves of your body slightly exposed by the blanket, looking way too tempting for your own good.
noticing that you are conveniently turned over your side away from him, he slid closer to you. you are still asleep, and he didn't want to wake you. so he figured he could pump his cock between your thighs, grinding against your pussy and swallowing his moans while he cums. problem solved, no need to disturb you.
"ah fuck your thighs feel good," he hissed softly, maneuvering himself closer to your back and putting a arm around you to anchor himself better. his cock throbbed as it pumped between your thighs, your juices soaking his cock as the tip grazed your clit.
a quiet whine sounded from him as you shifted in your sleep, the tightening of your thigh muscles adding more friction. he increased his pace a little, trying not to lose to control and mindlessly fuck your thighs while your pussy soaked his cock.
he was embarrassed at how consistent his whines were sounding. those are what inevitably woke you up. his arms tightened around you feeling the confusion on your body. "i..i'm sorry," he nuzzled his cheek against your shoulder, "i had this erotic dream about you and i..i..oh fuck," he let out a shaky whine, "i really need this."
you put a hand on wanderer's, your breathing sounding shaky. his leaking cock head rubbing against your clit was making it throb. "it's okay. roll over onto your back," you grinded gently against his cock.
wanderer groans and rolls over, reluctantly taking his aching cock from between your thighs. blushing, he watched you move onto your knees next to him. he didn't think he could get any harder, but watching you angle your ass up as you leaned down made more precum bead onto his cock head.
you took the sheet down off of his cock, your tongue sweeping out to prod into the slit. you snaked your tongue around the tip, delicately kitten licking in a way that made him moan softly.
"that's a good girl," he praised, carding his fingers in your hair as you scoop his cock head into your mouth to suck on, "always so eager to serve me, even in the morning."
wanderer slowly pumped his cock in and out of your mouth. you flatten your tongue, focusing your sucks as a vein buldged to the surface. he let you bob your mouth up and down on his cock at your pace, but the way you ground your warm mouth tightly on his cock while you sucked felt too fucking good.
taking a form hold of your hair, a silent command for you to relax and let him control your head, he thrust his cock deeper into your mouth. you muffled a moan on his cock, drool trickling out the corner of your mouth. you gag as he hit the back of your throat.
"ah fuck, choke on my cock and keep sucking just like that," his husky moan is whimper tinged, increasing his pace once you recovered your breathing. he reached a hand up, groping your ass before parting your now drooling folds. he played with your throbbing clit, enjoying the vibrations of your moans as his cock pulsed on your tongue.
your pussy clenches around nothing, begging to used in the same way he was using your willing mouth to get off. your sucks turn more eager as he held your head in place, his nimble fingers working your clit over as you try and grind down against them.
"swallow it all, understand?" he commanded huskily, pushing his cock into your throat one final time. his hand tightens in your hair, a broken whimper of pleasure sounding from him as salty cum spurts into your mouth. his fingers stroke through your hair as you suck him through his orgasm.
you lick and suck his cock lovingly, submissively letting him control your head until he was satisfied. once he released your hair and took his cock out of your mouth, he put you on your back. spreading your legs, he intends to eat you out until you were whimpering the same way he was.
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captainlordauditor · 2 days ago
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Noah Schnapp, Moroccan Jew
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Jerry Seinfeld, Syrian & Ashkenazi Jew
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David Mazouz, Tunisian Israeli Jew
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Oded Fehr, Ashkenazi Israeli
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Ahed Tamimi, famously blonde Palestinian Arab
I remember that when everything was happening with Noah Schnapp, so many people were saying that ‘he’s a white coloniser!’ ‘he’s clearly European!’ and ‘how are we supposed to think he’s indigenous to the Middle East when he looks like that?!’ They were screaming so much about he couldn’t possibly be from the swana region due to being pale, despite the fact that… wait for it…
Noah Schnapp is a Moroccan Jew.
The exact the same thing happened with Jerry Seinfeld too, despite him being a Syrian Jew.
But what this tells me is that so many American and European leftists fundamentally do not understand what North Africans and Southwest Asians look like. They do not understand that many Middle Eastern groups are pale, many Middle Eastern groups share features with Europeans— I mean, the Middle East literally borders Europe, did you not expect us to have similarities? This stretches back to the ancient world too. We know that in Yehuda there were gingers, as shown by King David*. Iirc, studies on Rameses the second’s remains show that he most likely had an olive tanned complexion and reddish-blondish hair, similar to a European Mediterranean look— which makes total sense seeing as Egypt is literally a Mediterranean country as well
It’s not just Jews. Persians, Kurds, Assyrians, Copts, Amazigh, Arabs from the Arabian Peninsula**, all of these ethnic groups are incredibly diverse in their features, even without any significant genetic influence from other areas. You cannot just project American and European black and white concepts of race onto the Middle East and act as if that is reality. The world is not split into pale people in the north, brown people in the middle, and black people in the south, and if you genuinely believe that then you really need to look at some pictures of the groups that you’re claiming to be the defender of. Please. I’m so tired of this bullshit lol
*I know that the historical evidence for David is shaky at best and we’re not sure if he was real or not (I personally believe it’s a King Arthur sort of situation where there was a real person here that got turned into legend), what I’m trying to say is that if the Ivrim could have a figure like this who was ginger, then the Ivrim clearly had gingers. Nobody come for me please
**not adding other Arabs because there tends to be genetic mixes with other groups, and my point is about how even without distinct genetic markers from each other, middle easterners groups can turn out with a super intense variation in appearance, especially skin tone
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stevenose · 3 days ago
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Yes. Yes we can talk abt high steve. I think it’s like this.
taking an edible w steve always starts so giggly and then at the 30min mark he’s capital h Horny. ur joking abt something so inconsequential w him and suddenly he’s like “haha you know what’s really funny. i wont u…”
and you indulge him, let him paw at you and blab nonstop about how good you feel, and you only laugh a little when he acts like your tits are the most mind-blowing thing he’s ever seen, and just when he gets his mouth on you is when YOUR high hits. and you’re sitting there, feeling like everything around you is melting except for him, feeling both so in love and so carnal while he fucks you, and cums, and then keeps going because he’s Insane. and he doesn’t stop talking the whole goddamn time because he’s INSANE.
this took me a while to reply to bc i had to put my phone down and walk away…
it’s cute to think abt being best friends and you KNOW if you both get high with each other you’re going to fool around. but you never acknowledge it. it’s this unspoken thing.
so you’re both stressed out and decide to take an edible. sitting real close to each other on the couch while a random movie plays. you’re trying to pay attention - honestly. you both are at first, giggling, slowly getting higher and higher.
“think it’s kicking in,” he says, sinking into the cushions. his eyes are hooded. you’re pretty sure his high started a while ago and this is just the only time he’s verbalized it.
“you okay?”
“uh-huh.” his head lulls to the side. “you?”
“mhm.”
“you with me?”
“mhm,” you repeat.
you stare at each other for a long while. steve’s cheeks flush.
he giggles. you giggle. and then both of you burst into a fit of them, laughing beyond the point of being able to breathe, feeling exhausted and restless.
it happens out of nowhere, as usual. steve’s mouth is on yours quickly, hands enveloping your cheeks. he holds you so you don’t move away - as if you would. your hands curl into his hair and you sigh, relaxed, high becoming heady.
a hand moves down to your chest, big and warm as it grips your breast. you groan, leaning into him further. he gasps as he pulls away, looking fucked out, eyes red and hardly open.
“need you,” he moans, his fingers tweaking your nipple. “c’mere.”
you’re sat on his lap now, his hard-on pressing into your core. you wish you weren’t wearing sweatpants. wanna feel his cock, feel it throb against your cunt. and you know it’ll get there, but you’re impatient. steve’s moaning like a whore below you, hands exploring every single inch of you. groping your ass, your thighs, his lips trailing down your neck.
“keep - keep doin’ that,” he begs, fucking his hips up into you. “feels so good, you’re so good to me.”
“steve.” you’re breathless. you can feel your heart beating so hard and heavy it almost scares you. you’re hyper sensitive, needy, grinding harder.
“tits,” he gasps. “need your tits, baby, they’re so fuckin’ pretty.”
you laugh at first, but it’s really not funny when his lips wrap around a nipple. you’re whining like a whore now, so desperate for him, for anything he’ll give you.
you’re really fucked up now, too. finally on his level, and all you can think about is him. everything is purely carnal. you’re hardly even thinking.
“leave hickeys,” you moan. “please, wanna remember.”
he sucks love bites eagerly into the plushness of your breasts.
“oh,” he whispers, “need to feel you, please?”
when you’re both bare and you’re sinking down on him, your favorite steve comes out - chatty, pussy drunk, touchy steve. hands moving everywhere again, five new hickeys on your body. he talks to you in between each.
“pussy - this pussy is made for me, huh? like we’re meant to be. perfect fit.”
you wouldn’t exactly call it that. he’s so big you feel like you’re splitting open. the high soothes the pain, feeling fuzzy rather than sharp.
“uh-huh,” you say anyway.
“i’m gonna cum. gonna cum in this tight — shit — mmmph —“
“yes,” you gasp, hips rocking. you’re both moving slow even though everything feels like it’s moving fast. “yes, steve, feels so good when - i love it when you -“
you shudder. you can’t even get the words out.
“say it,” he grits. “quick, i’m close.”
your stomach flips violently, clit pulsing. his thumb lazily flicks against it.
“love it when you cum in me.”
he plants his feet and fucks into you, rough and sloppy, making you fold into him. you bury your head into his shoulder and wail.
“my best friend,” he grits. “fuckin’ love you.”
you press open mouthed kisses to his skin. “i love you. oh my god, i love you, please cum.”
his grunts and groans are pornographic, unloading into you, so warm. feels so good when you’re high - spreads the bliss through your body. you cum a moment later, just from the feeling of his balls pressed against your ass, his thumb still swiping.
but he doesn’t stop. you squeak, a little sore, a little overstimulated.
“steve -!”
“i know,” he groans, continuing to fuck you. he’s breathless, so goddamn hot with his messy hair and dark eyes. “i’m sorry, i can’t stop, y’feel so goddamn good i just - i can’t - need more, please?”
“okay,” you breathe.
he sighs. “my good girl.”
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rqyup · 5 hours ago
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hii ive been reading your works recently and I'd like to know ur thoughts abt the mls', reaction towards a jealous mc hehe :O
Jealous MC???!!
a/n.. will edit soon 🥹
Sylus
Oh, he’s absolutely smug. Sylus thrives on teasing, so the moment he realizes you’re jealous, he’s all sly smirks and playful comments like, “Didn’t know you cared so much, sweetheart.” But deep down, it strokes his ego in a way that has him softening toward you. He might even push it just a little—just to see if you’ll claim him
Zayne
Zayne would be confused at first, not understanding why you’re upset. Once he pieces it together, he’s quietly flattered but doesn’t want you to feel insecure. He’ll reassure you with practical logic, like, “You’re the one I’m with. They don’t matter.” He’s too rational to get caught up in the drama but will hold your hand a little tighter to make you feel secure.
Xavier
Xavier would find your jealousy both adorable and endearing, though he wouldn’t dare say it outright. Instead, he’d subtly remind you of his loyalty; soft smiles, casual touches, and reassuring words like, “There’s no one else I’d rather deal with.” He’s good at balancing reassurance and humor, so you end up feeling silly for doubting him.
Rafayel
Rafayel hates the idea of you being upset or feeling threatened. He’s all-in on reassuring you, making it crystal clear that no one else could possibly compare. “Do you really think I’d look at anyone else when you’re right here?” His sincerity and intensity leave no room for doubt. He’ll spoil you a little extra after, just to ease your worries.
Caleb
Caleb’s reaction depends on how you express your jealousy. If it’s subtle, he’ll quietly drop hints to ease your mind, a lingering glance or a soft, “You know you’re my favorite, right pipsqueak?” If you’re more obvious about it, he might chuckle and say something teasing but sweet, like, “Guess I’ll have to be careful before a certain someone gets hurt.” Either way, he’s secretly loving the attentoin
masterlist
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gyaruhana · 23 hours ago
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HELLO MY DEAREST!!
May I PLEASE request headcanons for Kang Dae-Ho with preg!reader? Could be an au or not, up to you, whatever you'd prefer
My guy is UNDERRATED and I love him very much he is my husband <3
(Also could there maybe be a small portion abt the birth? If your comfortable with that only though!!)
Kang Dae-ho/Player 388 - Pregnant!reader headcannons
Synopsis: Daeho headcannons for when you're pregnant..
A/N: tried my best with this one !! hopefully it's good
Warnings: none
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NOT IN THE GAMES:
➠ it's no secret that daeho is a total sweetheart
➠ got super excited the moment you found out you were pregnant
➠ secretly wants a girl (it's not a secret)
➠ absolutely talks to your stomach all the time
➠ Like he'll just randomly kneel in front of you and start talking to your stomach even if you're barely pregnant
➠ also kisses your stomach so much
➠ because he's such a sweetheart, he's there for ALL your pregnancy cravings no matter how weird
➠ he will literally run to the supermarket to get whatever you're craving for
➠ Highkey gets emotional with you
➠ like if you start crying out of nowhere he starts crying too
➠ and then you're both just there crying your hearts out on the couch
➠ do expect him to refuse to let you do anything that might be bad for the baby
➠ Not like he wasn't doing this before but he always cooks for you
➠ cooks twice as much because he's convinced you need to eat twice as much for the baby too
➠ he wants to know the gender the moment he's able to but if you don't want to know then he won't ever mention the gender
➠ just to really hide it, he buys both girl and boy baby clothes so you'll never know
➠ he may have brought too many toys for the baby honestly..
➠ He says it's because he "doesn't know what the baby wants" so he should "get everything" so your child can have "a range of options and never be sad"
➠ (He's overthinking about what toys to get)
➠ got an idea to buy one of those pregnancy simulator things so he could get an idea of the pain when you'll give birth and regretted it so bad
➠ Became a million times more doting afterwards because he is so stressed for you
➠ The closer you get to your due date, the more panicked and stressed he gets
➠ He's always watching you because he's scared that the baby will come any second now
➠ When the day finally comes and you're just in the hospital, he's by your side and holding your hand
➠ he's lowkey sweating
➠ he may have watched a few videos on birth and he's not looking forward to seeing it in real life..
➠ he still stays by your side though because he wants to be there for you
➠ he is highkey freaking out when you're giving birth because you're practically crushing his hand in yours and you're obviously in pain and that scares him so bad ..
➠ he just hates seeing you in pain so much
➠ do expect him to cry after you finally give birth
➠ he is just so eager to hold the baby in his arms but he waits for you to do it first
➠ totally fell in love with you all over again even if you look like an absolute mess right now
➠ Overall, best dad ever and i don't think anybody expected anything less
IN THE GAMES:
➠ Moment he sees you he just knows your pregnant
➠ He must have some sixth sense when it comes to you or something
➠ so panicked and nervous because what if something happens to you??
➠ can not stomach the idea of something happening so he's immediately keeping you close to him
➠ very cautious of other people who he hasn't already bonded with
➠ Always taking care of you
➠ shares his food and drink with you because he's convinced you need it more than he does
➠ every single game he's by your side
➠ always making you lean onto him for support if you have to run
➠ Honestly might even pick you up and carry you himself just so you don't hurt yourself
➠ asks you how you feel after every game
➠ when it's lights out, he whispers the cutest things while in front of your stomach
➠ he just finds it to be so comforting to talk to the baby
➠ always promises you that you'll all make it out alive and he'll give you and the baby the best life he can
➠ Overall, still a sweetheart but also very afraid for you and the baby..
"Are you okay? Nothing's wrong, right?" Daeho asks as he sits by you. He had been incredibly worried for you the moment his eyes landed on you during the first game. He could just tell you were pregnant and that scared him so much considering you were trapped here - a place where you could lose your life at any moment. The idea put him on a constant edge and he spent every waking second by your side to keep you safe. He knows he'd never be able to forgive himself if something happened to you so he promised both himself and you that he'll get the two of you out of here and find a nice place to live where you can raise the baby. "If anything feels wrong, tell me, okay?"
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capblacksails · 1 day ago
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@fagflint #i havent written a whole post abt it and this post has a lot i havent researched enough into #but i think VERY SPECIFICALLY. is that he wears a bigass cross around his neck WHEN? #when hes Coming Up in Ranks. when Eyes are On Him when hes becoming more Relevant but his station isnt anchored yet. #he doesnt want anyone looking at him too closely and going hmm whats that? whats that about? religiously/upbringing-ly #so he wears this big ass cross he took off that spaniard and doesnt discard it until s3 in which you never see him w it again #and you Cannot Tell Me. that man is christian and especially not that he believes in the christian god. #i hc that he has such. SUCH. a complicated relationship with God and fate and beliefs etc etc. but i do believe fully that he was #raised (as much as he Was raised) by his mother who was jewish. and that he was very close to her #SPECIFICALLY BECUASEEEE he says 'i never knew my mother'. nobody can use her against him if shes 'nothing' to him. #this man is chronically Jewish #I can’t explain it really #I think it’s possible he’s half but half maternally #but he was raised with a rabbi nearby #I’m now thinking of the stories of baptized Jewish children being taken away from their parents #now that would be so traumatic as to make his youth a complete black hole @kabaks #i have already done this 🧡 #as i always say. what is your relationship to the ottoman empire answer quickly #and imo the biggest thing that supports the notion that he escaped from one empire into another is that he won’t even say WHERE he’s from #there are so many ways to have a fucked up story that wouldn’t leave a person ommitting the location #unless perhaps the location itself was a key piece of information.. #+ why is he so good in a dinghy. he barely seems to know how to sail but he’s good in a dinghy. seems to know how to fish #what is your relationship to the aegean answer quicklyyy @agape-emo-eros #also about the huge cross #it seems to me also a very non protestant way of proclaiming your religion (tho i could be wrong. i am not from a protestant country) #which would suggest to me that his primary exposure to christianity was either catholicism or orthodox @stele3 SOLOMON LITTLE. OP, you forgot about Solomon Little! Helluva Jewish name to pull out of his ass constantly, isn’t it? @dykedatasoong #him not having a name and being given one honestly sells it to me
another black sails fantheory ive seen around a lot is that silver is jewish, usually specifically sephardic, but despite its prevalence i havent been able to find anybodys actual thesis statements about it. so if there are Essays out there (especially by somebody with more historical-slash-judaism knowledge than i with my meager wiki-crawls) i would love Links
however once again ive pondered a bunch of the stuff ive noticed personally, about mr john "if thats even your real name" silver. and honestly at this point id be kind of surprised if it Wasnt the actual context the writers shaped his character around. everything just seems to come together really neatly
hes impressively literate for his circumstances/time period, and really good at quickly memorizing large amounts of text. a solid religious education could very well explain this
specifically– and this is one of the things that feels like a huge bit of intentional subtext to me– the scene where hes hiding with the lepers and memorizing the urca schedule REALLY seems to evoke someone reading scripture under a prayer shawl
not only does he not know how to cook pork, but does not even seem to know what pork looks like when finished cooking
the pretext flint used to get his crew to hunt down the hamiltons' ship was that it was carrying sephardic riches. this is a completely throwaway detail we learn secondhand, in a story where there are very, very few completely throwaway details
silver speaks at least some spanish. this comes up Once and goes totally unquestioned by everyone around him, likely because they think he just picked it up as a sailor. he almost certainly has not been at sea long enough for this to be the case. speaking ladino as a first language on the other hand would give him a huge leg up (so to speak.) in that department
further point. around the time period of the show, the biggest sephardic community in the world lived in thessaloniki in modern-day greece. it was:
a) one of the most major seaports in the ottoman empire
b) a famous center for learning, which boasted 100% literacy of its jewish population
and c) despite its long and prosperous history under ottoman rule, beginning to decline along with the rest of the empire, for many interconnected reasons, including but not limited to: Problems With the Governments Handling of the Textile Industry (where have we heard that before)
lotta unrest. religious schisms and doomsday prophecies. reactionary groups of overempowered soldiers attacking civilians for stress relief (again. where have we heard that before). people, unsurprisingly, started leaving
so if you did want, against john silvers express wishes. to theorize a backstory for a surprisingly educated stowaway of Mystery Origin, who has Mystery Trauma and doesnt want anybody to know who he is or where he comes from, and which would give a new level of relevance to all the greek stuff that permeates the show (down to the actual name of the thing!), along with containing parallels to several other backstories and events in the show proper,
Well this one make sense i think 👍
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rakiah · 2 days ago
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i just want to to let you know that it was your art of vil with kid jack and leona with kid epel for that single parent leovil fic that really pulled me into leovil. i stumbled upon it by chance when scrolling through a vil blog and saw it reblogged and LOST MY DAMN MIND. particularly baby wolf jack. cause why am i now putting together an epic the musical/odyssey/illiad au for leovil?? (your art. your art is why) itll probably never escape my docs but. so far??
helen and penelope. cousins and princesses of sparta--their dads are brothers and co-ruled. penelope's mother was a water nymph (naiad, so freshwater) whereas helen was the daughter of zeus......soooo.....HEAR ME OUT!!!!!!
neige as helen. vil as penelope. now, i was originally gonna go the rkvl route, because that line in the challenge, when penelope tells the suitors she will marry whoever "can string her husbands old bow and shoot through 12 axes cleanly"--smth her husband odysseus was only able to do, well, a rkvl version of that could go SO HARD.
esp cause like, idk i could just give rook a random kingdom, cause yes, leona is a prince, but technically falena would be king. and i thought of making them menelaus (leona) and agamemnon (falena) with VIL as helen, i mean, come ON!!!!!! it would be SO GOOD!! but odysseus and penelope's story was just tugging at my heart, and i couldnt decide. until i realized that actually this is a fic and it doesnt have to be a 1 to 1 substitution, i can play around and do whatever i want.
(and jack as little wolf telemachus is everything. and neige as helen, both "fairest of them alls" and cursed via apple??? i love it)
sooooo. im thinking.
vil and neige are cousins, princes of. pyroxene? or maybe pyroxene would be made up of a few kingdoms....hmmmmm...idk yet. regardless, their parents' co-rule their kingdom. but neige is the actual heir of the throne. this could be because vil is technically illegitimate. eric had no wife, he just really wanted to be a dad. and so vil's mother, for purposes of this, is either a vampire or a water nymph, or some sort of enchantress, idk, but regardless, vil isnt going to inherit. (also read @pinkbeeps sympathy for the villain fic and lost my mind over it so, yeah, crewel is a vil dad, so at some point when vil and neige are 7 and 6 respectively, crewel and eric get together.)
meanwhile, sunset savannah was split by a civil war? or a revolt of some kind. leona and falena stop it, but part of the truce that is made is that falena cannot rule all of it. so the elephant graveyard half, and some surrounding land makes up what becomes leona's kingdom. why? idk.
then, when neige is like, 17, vil 18, and leona 20, its decided that neige should get married, so all the suitors from various kingdoms come. cause, heir to the throne. and fairest of them all. falena, who is now married himself and has cheka, suggests leona go, but leona isnt rlly looking to get married. falena bugs him abt it tho, and leona still isnt for the marriage thing but rationales that princes and infleuntial people from all over will be vying for neige's hand. leona can go, but not for purposes of throwing his hat in the ring, (neige is an heir and leona has a kingdom to take care of--neither of them would leave their respective homes) but rather, to make connections to better help his people.
and then he meets vil. guy is SMITTENNNNNNN from the get go, he's like, whoever was giving out the fairest of them all titles, did they like, not see you???? heLLO??????
vil is warming up to leona, but also, lets be real, vil has an insecurity abt being a backup, second option when it comes to neige. he would have been wary considering leona is here in technicality as a suitor for neige. but it becomes apparent leona was not here for that in acuality. cause leona, in true oddysseus fashion, does not even bring a wedding gift, guy was just here to network and then fell in love.
it goes as the story always does. neige's parents are worried abt the influx of suitors and wondering how to choose without angering one kingdom over the other. and leona is like, hey i got a solution, but if you want it, you gotta put in a good word for me with vil's parents, your brother and BIL, and you gotta convince them that its okay if vil marries. and theyre like DEAL.
leona proposes his solution--the oath made by all suitors to defend neige and whoever he chooses if a rival ever takes neige away. they would march against the offender and destroy their city.
neige's parents are like damn thats brilliant and then talk to eric and crewel. who put forth a test for leona to pass. he does.
they marry, leona's wedding gift to vil, the living olive tree bed he makes himself, and they have jack and epel, idk how, surrogates? adoption? not sure. but then, the apple, neige is taken away, and that oath comes back to bite leona in the ass. he pretends he's crazy to dodge the draft but baby jack gets tossed in front of the plough and leona saves them, and is forced to go to war etc etc. they win, and then it takes him FOREVERRRR to get home, and then--well we know how it goes!
wow. sorry for just. dumping this in your ask box. i was just trying to appreciate your art and i ended up dropping the au inspired by your art in here. oops
Alright, let’s process step by step cause this ask just made me go wild when I read it. /p
[deep breath]
First, thank you very much! 💕 It’s always a delight to know that more people are into leovil because of me 8D I feel like a priest in Age of Empires (big old ref here ha ha)
Second, your Epic/ Odysseus/ Illiad AU.
I was flabbergasted cause, a few days ago I saw a new leovil fic about Epic the Musical (yes, I do have an open tab of Ao3 on my phone with the leovil tag that I refresh almost every night. When I say I have an otp, I have an otp.) and, since the name rings vaguely a bell, I asked my theater kid friend about this Musical. I just wanted to listen to it before reading the fic and then, I understood Epic the Musical.
AND
YOU CAME.
:’D
I take that as a sign.
Thank you for sharing those thoughts, that was great! I wish you the best for your AU and hope you write it and maybe post it! Otherwise, it’s fine! No pressure of course, I’m already glad with your ask! x3
Anyway, here for you. I couldn’t help sketching those. They imposed themself. Literally.
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Pretty sure Vil’d start to poison the suitors too.
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bitchface24-7 · 1 day ago
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dude i love jayce so much it’s a problem like AHHH i wanna request sum fluff but i literally don’t care what it’s abt i js want him bro. like it can be domestic shit or like whatever LMAO i’m so bad at doing requests but i love how u write
T-T
I LIKE THE BEARD… - JAYCE X READER
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synopsis: your lovely boyfriend Jayce has changed his look as he's gotten older. His hair has gotten longer, messier; and he’s grown a wonderful beard. He wants to get rid of it. You say otherwise.
warnings: Jayce is hot, fluff fluffy fluff, appreciating Jayce, Jayce getting flustered, some insecurities mentioned, pre-established relationship, man I don’t know this is fluffy self-indulgence that this anon and myself are craving, Grammarly is my beta
genre: m/f or m/m
p.s. Y'all don't understand how happy I am that people are requesting things and just talking to me in either my asks or my comment sections in my fics. Keep it up, love ya <3
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Dating Jayce is a dream come true. You two have been friends for as long as you can remember. You've had a crush on him since you were both twelve; you're breaching into your thirties now.
He's always been a massive sweetheart, willing to help anyone out, incredibly smart, funny, witty, if a bit naive with a massive tunnel vision when he's inspired.
You love him with all your heart.
This new look has you blushing like a tween again, rather than you being his partner of almost five years.
Jayce isn’t a massive fan of it.
You can see it in the way he runs his fingers through his hair, or scratches his heavily stubbled cheek. You know he's only putting up with it for you. And you greatly appreciate that.
Jayce has always been handsome, but this… this elevated him to a whole new level.
So when you wake up one day, the other side of the bed cold, you know exactly where he is. He's contemplating how he looks in the mirror.
Judging every supposed flaw and imperfection he sees.
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
You trudge your way over to the ensuite connected to your bedroom. Your hair is a mess, you quickly threw on one of Jayce's massive button downs, and you think your underwear is crooked.
With a light sniff, as you rub one of your eyes, you enter the bathroom and see Jayce; nitpicking his reflection in the mirror. His shaving kit is out. You feel a jolt of energy enter your body as your eyes widen.
“Sweetheart… what’s that?”
Jayce looks at you through the mirror and lightly shrugs, “My shaving kit. Gotta look presentable at the next council meeting.”
Your eyebrows furrow at that, “You were so proud of yourself when you first grew out your beard, then like a switch you didn't like it. What's going on in that big brain of yours?”
A sigh escapes the handsome man and his shoulders drop, “Some of the council members made comments about my new look. Something along the lines of me looking more like a ruffian than the Man of Progress.”
You want to throttle those council members.
You walk up behind Jayce, hugging his back and putting your chin on his shoulder, “Well I think you look even more handsome! You're not in your early twenties anymore Jayce. How you look and style yourself is going to change, it does for everyone! Do I still have the exact same look when I was in my early twenties?”
“No, you've changed a bit over the years.”
You run a hand through Jayce's longer hair and bring it down to his beard; the back of your hand caressing his face, “Your opinion matters most. Do you want to keep this new look, or do you want to shave it?”
Jayce looks into the mirror in a contemplative silence, before smiling at you and putting the shaving kit away.
“I like this look. Those council members can kiss my ass, they're just too lazy to make new posters and cups.”
You laugh at that, throwing your head back before kissing his shoulder. Jayce whirls you around and gives you a passionate kiss, he wraps his arms around you and lightly lifts you into the air. You wrap your arms around his neck.
“I love you, you know that?”
“I love you too.”
“You better, you're stuck with me for all eternity.”
You beam a grin at him, “I wouldn't have it any other way. Now, when's this meeting? Let's dress you up so nicely that those members choke on their own spit and hopefully die.”
“Babe! You can't say that!”
“Oh yes I can, they sure as shit can't hear me. We’re at home. What're they gonna do? Send in a swat team of enforcers and put me in Stillwater because I'm offended they made my wonderful, beautiful, sexy boyfriend upset! I don't think so!”
Jayce boisterously laughs as you drag him back to the bedroom, “The meeting is in about an hour and a half.”
You smirk, “Time to doll you up then.”
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
It honestly doesn't take that long to doll up Jayce. He's always been handsome.
You pull out his killer outfit. It’s an all-black ensemble with red accents. He's always looked so scrumptious when he wears it, and he knows it.
He gets dressed, puts a small bit of pomade in his hair so it loses its frizz, and sprays on some delectable cologne. There's almost fourty minutes left until he needs to leave.
He should've gotten ready a bit later. He's so gorgeous, you're itching to get your hands on him and ruin the work you two just did.
And he knows it.
He just keeps smirking at you, his dimples popping out each time. He lightly licks his lips, he even subtly poses for you. That bitch.
You walk up to him as he appreciates himself in the mirror (as he should) and squeeze yourself in between him and the dresser, you wrap your arms around his neck and fiddle with the collar of his shirt.
“Would it be so bad if you were… a little late to the meeting?”
Jayce looks at the clock on the wall, “Nah, we got time.”
Before you know it, he's picked you up and tossed you onto the bed. He quickly follows suit as you unbutton his top as he kisses your cheek and goes down to your neck.
Fuck those councillors who talked shit about your boyfriend. He's the most handsome man in the world, and you'll make sure he knows it everyday.
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JAYCE WITH MESSY HAIR, A BEARD, AND THE ALL BLACK OUTFIT WAS MY DOWNFALL IN S2. WHY DID HE ONLY HAVE IT FOR O N E SCENE ISTG WHY DID THEY DO THAT?!?? PAPA ME WANT MORE MOVIE 🫴🫴
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maedhrus · 3 days ago
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#imo he's nothing like crozier at all tbh. bc crozier starts giving up the moment things start getting worse#he straight up stops caring. or at the very least avoiding his sense of care and responsibility through drink#making the worst calls ever bc he's angry all the time#when he goes fully alcoholic that's him avoiding his responsibility.#for everyone on those two ships. that's the entire point. it takes blanky losing a leg for crozier to think wait actually#i should be giving a fuck. bc that's my job!#and sure then he goes all redemption saviour arc but too bad! damage already been done by that point.#you know who carries on with a million burdens on his shoulders while crozier is off drinking himself into a stupour? edward.#every time i think abt it i get mad on edward's behalf like what do you MEAN you're still this loyal to a man who did all of that.#to you personally and to all the men on the expedition. how is there still any hope in you.#when people r like 'wow edward isn't suited to command he could not be a captain he's so anxious' i don't like that#he is anxious bc he wants to keep EVERYONE alive against all odds. and he never gives up even when he's scared out of his mind#and constantly abused by a direct supervisor whose condition he has to keep a secret from everyone else#idk this is a personal opinion but sometimes i feel like at the end on the shales when crozier is like 'no we need to bring everyone home'#i still feel like a big part of that is him looking for redemption. that he leans into this saviour complex#bc he feels extreme guilt over what he did. and bc he knows what his own rash decisions have led to re: feelings amongst the crew#nd when things go wrong he still takes that out on other people (like edward). which im not saying no one else out there is making mistakes#bc well they are. but personally! personally. i am a little tired of the way crozier is so often#painted as this flawless human being once they're out there on the shales. and im like actually he is still being a person#with conflicting emotions and being unfair sometimes and not always capable of assessing ur own mistakes#he's just as full of trauma as everyone else. (via @abrahamvanhelsings)
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Matthew McNulty on Edward Little
Q:  At what point do you think Little begins to give up hope/worry about survival? A: I think Little's probably one of the most hopeful out of them all, simply because he has clung on to his humanity. I don't think he's compromised his morals up to this point, despite everything that's happened. So, I would say that he's still hopeful. He still thinks that humanity will prevail in this dark, dark world. There's definitely still a chunk of positivity in him.
#oh these tags are very very interesting to me!!!#i would say that there's a degree to which i think edward is like crozier in terms of leadership but i also think it's very complex#i think - in an ideal world - crozier and little are foils to franklin and fitzjames#franklin and fitzjames can reach the men on a personal level and have swathes of charisma and station to stand behind#crozier and little on the other hand are of slightly more humble origin (at least for rn officers)#and are more conscious of the practical decisions that need taken (see how the look at each other at dinner in ep 1)#while also having less presence/popularity#i think i've said before how little seems to be the spiritual as well as the actual successor to crozier wrt caring for their men#'more than god loves them' mainly because i think every leadership decision edward makes (and he does make them because he's a good officer#whether for good or ill is all in the name of saving as many men as he can. which crozier echoes to a degree#little's very competent but i also think he's pretty emotionally intelligent and knows fairly well the thoughts of the men which he utilise#he's also never going to use his power to exploit a man beneath him in station and power which is something crozier himself does#but re the hope that crozier and little enkindle respectively yeah i think it's fair to say that crozier lets his depression win out more#he's become embittered and self-pitying in a situation that requires a good deal of self-sacrifice#i think it's interesting to consider angles where crozier's care for the men on the shale is - to an extent - a performance#he knows he's in command he knows he fucked up he knows to get back in business he needs to have the men behind him#but also because he's spent the last 3 years in a bitter drunken stupor the men have no reason to stand behind him#they also seem to give little a fraction more respect but also i think they know he's a soft touch that will readily support them#and exploit this empathy in cases such as the gun distribution and leaving the sick#little needs crozier's decisiveness but crozier needs little's compassion#a compassion that extends to all the men and not just the ones crozier likes#anyway great tags i loved reading them!#the terror#edward little#francis crozier#sure i'll tag this#crolittle fatherson fail dynamic
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the-crooked-library · 2 days ago
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The intimacy is important to show the contrast between Thomas and Orlok in the movie. Thomas repeatedly fails throughout the movie. He fails communication and understanding test with Ellen, he fails self-imposed masculinity test in general, he fails sex and intimacy test with Ellen. He even fails fully acceptance and full love test with Ellen because till the end he expects that Ellen can be somehow cured from her powers, and killing Orlok should do the trick, meaning he’s incapable of just accept her fully the way she’s without trying to correct it. The part that Ellen was happy for awhile with Thomas because for that time her powers were blocked is a big giveaway, that it’s already in fact wasn’t working between them from the start because if she could only be happy with him while suppressing huge part of herself, then such foundation was bound to crumble. Orlok meanwhile fulfilled the crucial basics for Ellen - understanding and acceptance of her nature and powers in full, intimacy and sexual realisation the way Ellen wished and imagined.
yessss exactly - as much as I do like Thomas as a character, and as much as he might care for Ellen, he's not a good fit for her, and she knows this!.. She wants, desperately, the sort of emotional connection that he will never be able to give without first unpacking the prejudices and insecurities that instruct his entire life and his opinion of her; and while that is not impossible, it is still quite unrealistic, given his background and societal context.
The reason Orlok is able to think outside those bounds, despite also being a man from an even older society, is because he exists in opposition to its restrictions. His attitudes are not reflective of whatever people around him would've thought of women or queerness or neurodivergence when he was alive; they are, however, directly informed by his making "covenant with the devil." Unlike the proper, god-fearing, Rational people that dictate Ellen's daily life, he accepts and desires every aspect of her that is considered "sinful" - her sexuality, her lack of deference, her eccentricities; and it is this fundamental understanding that she craves.
TL;DR -
"you could never satisfy me the way he does" was about emotional connection, not sex - and, of course, Thomas went straight ahead and proved her right
a relationship that is blocking her powers and allows her to be "happy" as long as she acts normal and hides her real self is not a good relationship. regardless of how one may interpret her connection with Orlok, Ellen's marriage to Thomas is an allegory for being in the closet/masking - and I personally think she deserves better
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rechedeer · 1 day ago
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pls plsplspslpsl tell me more abt mean james and sirius
AHHH THIS IS MY FAVOURITE TOPIC. ok. so.
james and sirius were both scarily intelligent and effortlessly brilliant, and i think their intolerance towards incompetence is at the root of their sometimes,,. harsh demeanour.
in the later years corresponding to their active involvement in the war, i think they valued being useful more than anything else, and looked down upon inaction as a practice to be cowardly and weak. (this also makes sirius' house arrest in ootp althemore interesting to me, because he was forced to sit down and stay idle etc, but anyway.)
in the early years, they were obviously outperforming their classmates with minimal to no effort, and were generally very quick and efficient. moreso than at people who didn't do well academically, i think they sort of looked down upon those who had to put in too much effort to as well. and it's not just academic, more about just., general iq and people's conduct relating to such.
i do think they could be cruel at times, but not incessantly so, and i think they were specific with their targets. i don't think they behaved needlessly callous with their friends even if some of them weren't as,. sharp as them, but the occasional comment wasn't unheard of.
they were quick witted and calculating and talented. they could wield their wands well and their words better. sirius especially i think was quite shrewd, and he knew how to hit where it'd hurt.
ineptitude irritated them, and i doubt they had much patience for people who couldn't keep up with them.
i don't think they verbally flaunted their intelligence too often, and they didn't have to because it was already obvious in their actions.
i don't see them as 'mean' in the sense that they were your typical high school bully, constantly mocking people and pushing their heads into toilets, but more in the sense that they were smart, and they lived their lives with a sort of air about them that made most people understand that they weren't, and couldn't be, as exceptional or intellectual as them.
they were anything but passive or spineless, and if they were provoked or instigated, it wouldn't go unreciprocated.
they were definitely quite secure in their abilities (justifiably so), and it showed in the way they carried themselves.
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hyukascampfire · 2 days ago
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PART TWOOO one of my absolute favorite parts!!
maybe the air’s awkward, but taehyun is all about duty. lol.
this is the first part where we get some stuff from taehyun, and honestly it’s the most vulnerable he’s been 😭 in the future, it’s usually like DRAGGGGGED out of him. it’s such a nice, tender moment between them. maybe one of the only ones for a while ^^;
i literally still think abt the first yeonjun meeting. THE MAGIC WAS IN THE AIIRRRR. i’m just as entranced by it as MC. when i think abt iconic TSFAWC moments, that’s one that comes to mind. it totally sets the foundation for their relationship right off the bat—all wispy and glittery. I LOVE ITT
no taehyun was honestly so jealous that he really couldn’t handle it. he was also in a way more mad at himself for letting it bother him than he even was at her for not gathering information. he didn’t look for anything, either. all he could do was keep his eyes on MC, watching her swept away by the king’s son the whole night, seething that it bothered him so bad.
hehe i wouldn’t say that they’ll be distant for a while from here, but i think it’s more that there is a thick tension hanging over them from this point on. like THICKKKK and so charged. it taints every interaction to the point that it’s like, almost stifling. delicious >.<
hehe i always say it, but this part has one of, if not, my absolute favorite smut scenes i’ve written. IT’S SOOOOO GOOD so intimate and even i was surprised by the chemistry. those two have some great bed chemistry 😭
MWAH ON TO THE NEXT
𝒯𝑂: 𝑆𝑂𝑀𝐸𝑂𝑁𝐸 𝐹𝑅𝑂𝑀 𝐴 𝑊𝐴𝑅𝑀 𝐶𝐿𝐼𝑀𝐴𝑇𝐸 ༉
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𝓘N THIS STORY 〃 a life lived as a human among the fae is hard-earned. the folk are built of indescribable beauty, and of debauchery and mischief. for some, a life lived subservient to the folk is just fine; but to those who dream of something more, they would spend their lives clawing and biting to make it happen.
you, looking for a way to escape a life as a faerie’s human servant, put a new foot forward thinking that any life could be better than that. but, when your first assignment as a king’s spy is alongside a brooding, icy faerie man, you begin to wonder what your place in this foreign world really could be.
wc ➳ 17.5k
pairings faerie!taehyun x human!reader
warnings violence (stabbing... twice..), a dead animal appears in a scene, fem reader, mentions of past family trauma, cunnilingus, overstimulation, unprotected sex
playlists ⑊ yeonjun ˒ taehyun ˒ series
…🪶 ashlynn's note y'all. Y'ALL. I have so much in store for you. I was hunched over my desk writing this like a crazed scientist mixing their chemicals.
← ⑊ →
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It’s more difficult than you had anticipated to keep your mouth shut about what had happened, but Taehyun stays quiet, so you do too. You make yourself useful, packing up with him, hoping to ease the palpable tension.  
Insecurities whisper in your ears that the kiss was just… disappointing to him. It was your first kiss, anyway. The feel of his lips on yours is brutally seared into your mind. You hope your mouth harasses his mind as much as his does yours. You can’t let that fester for too long, though. You have a lot to do to become a useful spy. Your inadequacy is why you’re even here, traveling in silence next to Taehyun, heading north. You’re not sure why they decided to throw you to the wolves for your first assignment, but there has to be a reason. You can only throw yourself more fully into improving your skillset. 
You decide on trying to cut the nagging tension with words. You’ve walked for hours with it looming in the air. But, it isn’t easy. You open your mouth to speak, closing it to rethink your words, and repeat a few times, before finally just saying, “What are we going to even be doing, when we reach the north?” You readjust your bag on your shoulders, its thick straps digging into the bone of your shoulder. The bag is heavier than it was yesterday. Everything is heavier today. Maybe it’s the realization that you’re progressing toward your dream, but it’s all hazier than you imagined it would be. Or, maybe, it’s the awful cold shoulder Taehyun is throwing at you.
“Do you know much about the Unseelie queen?” He asks. 
You shake your head. You know that her kingdom is revered as the most fearsome in Faerie, and you know that they hold a special brew of distaste for humans. But, you do not know much more. Your school lessons had, for reasons you could infer, brushed over the ice kingdom only very briefly. The folk prefer that humans don’t see those sides of this world. Not for your peace of mind—but, because it keeps you complacent. It’s not like you don’t see it, anyway. You know the evils of this world well.
“You need to be careful when we get there. Things get rough for humans up there. You need to remember that you can’t trust the words that come from their mouths.” 
How long until snow powders the ground? The scenery around you has already grown wintry—trees are sparse, and foliage is hardier. It all is so much more muted. Probably not too long. 
“We’re going to be infiltrating The Queen’s Court. She’s always pledged allegiance to him, but The King wants eyes and ears in the north.”
The King thinks that she’s going behind his back? There’s more in this world that you are oblivious to than you imagined. You’ve been under the impression that the Northern Queen was starkly allegiant to The High King. It makes sense, though. There isn’t much incentive to keep humans in the know on faerie politics when you’re just here to be working bodies. “Does he have any reason to believe that?” you ask. It would be nice to have some more information. 
Taehyun explains, “The Northern Court and High Court have had a history of tension. It’s why it became a tradition to send their children to intermingle with each other’s courts. However, the Queen hasn’t upheld that tradition for at least the past hundred years.” An extra chilly breeze licks at your cheeks, and you shiver. You are definitely making progress northward. 
“So, he risks the lives of his heirs?” you ask, pursing your lips. If the northern court is supposed to be so vicious, you cannot imagine why The King would even consider it, especially if relations are supposed to be so strained.
“The Queen would not outright harm them. She values the power that his alliance gives her too much, and she would lose the war that would follow. She is the scheming type.” Taehyun tugs up the hood of his cloak to keep the wind from chapping his skin, and you do so with yours as well. “Which is why we’re going up there in the first place.” 
You acknowledge his answer with a nod. The wind whips past you, and you have to fight it to keep your eyes open. You would appreciate the accompanying snowfall if it was not blowing wildly down on you and stinging your cheeks. With a flex of your fingers, you confirm that they’re still mobile, but they’re lethargic and locked up in the cold. A powdery layer of snow builds on the ground, and you curse it for the way it has your toes freezing through even your leather boots. 
“Can,”—Your teeth chatter—“Can we get a fire going, or something?” 
You catch a glimpse of his face under his hood as he turns to you. His nose and cheeks are rosy, but it seems that the cold affects him less than it does you. The snow is high enough now that you have to drag your feet through with each forward step. Is the rest of the way going to be like this? You might freeze to death, then. 
“We’ve got a bit of time. Let’s get as far as we can, before stopping.” 
You roll your eyes. Maybe he wants you to freeze to death, and then he could be freed from any trace of what had happened last night. You bring your hands to your mouth and let out warm puffs of air as if it would thaw out your poor hands and nose. 
Your mouth struggles to even form words.“I would appreciate living to see tomorrow,” you say slowly. You still lace it with plenty of attitude.
Taehyun doesn’t respond. 
Taehyun curses as visibility wanes to only a few feet. All that lays in your path is whipping snow and haze. 
Your boot catches on something beneath the snow, and you tumble. Frigid snow and ice shards greet you on the ground, biting your skin. Looking up, you find Taehyun gone. He has to be at least somewhere in the gray haze around you; it’s only been a few seconds. If you can’t find him, you’ll die here. That isn’t up for debate.
 “Taehyun?” you shout, your voice muffled and carried away by the howling wind. 
You stay where you are, but lift yourself from the ground. You can’t start wandering blindly, you’ll end up separating further from him.
He calls your name, but it’s distant. 
“Here,” you say, “I’m over here!” 
There are many ways that you do not want to die, but you especially do not want to die like this. Your throat tightens the longer he doesn’t respond. 
“Taehyun?” 
He appears through the veil of snow and haze. A cry erupts from your throat, your voice breaking with relief. He takes you by the arm and tugs you behind him wordlessly, searching for something.
“I thought I was dead,” you say to the air, but it mostly drowns you out. 
“I know.” His voice is thick. “I did too.” 
He finds whatever it is that he seems to be searching for, and you might cry as you recognize the rocky opening to be a cavemouth. You won’t be dying today, at least. 
“I’m going to start a fire,” Taehyun announces only moments after you both duck under the low cavemouth and step into the refuge of the cave walls.
“You’ll get lost.” It’s true, but you also just cannot stand the idea of sitting in this cave alone for any extended amount of time. Your hand is barely visible in front of you, and it’s only getting darker as the blizzard grows thicker outside. 
“I’ll be fine. You’re going to freeze to death without it,” he says, before he dips out, leaving you alone and shivering. He could’ve at least given you a second to protest.
You’re not usually too scared of the dark, but you do press your back to the wall, decorated with liverwort, and sit. Getting separated earlier nags at your mind. You have to remember that you aren’t safe. A line of work like this guarantees it. You could easily have become a body losing heat out in that flurry of wind and snow. You would’ve died before ever seeing the fruits of what you could make of yourself; would’ve died living an insignificant life. Some jaded part of you wonders what Taehyun might’ve felt if you had. Would he move on with this assignment without delay?
At least the wind is no longer circulating about the cave and producing the howl that has been haunting you. There are no such wintry winds to freeze up your extremities in here, but it’s still cold enough to have you shuddering and tucking your hands underneath your knees to ration your warmth. 
Will you even be able to make it all the way to the Northern Court? You imagine telling Taehyun that you can’t handle it, or that you’re going back, and you imagine the look that would fall over his face. No. You’d become a statue of ice, frozen forever at a crossroads between a meaningless life and new beginnings, before that. 
The cold beckons you to sleep, and the aching in your tired back and limbs say that sleep is a splendid idea, but you resist. You need to see him return so that you know that a fire will warm your aching bones to sleep. But you are so cold, and sleeping it away sounds so nice… 
Your eyelids are heavy, and it’s harder to keep them open than it is to just let them fall. Your veins are sluggish with the cold.
When your head drops, you’re brought back to consciousness, but it’s so, so cold when you’re awake. It’s so cold that it burns. Even your lungs are slow and weary. 
You are so cold that you can no longer shiver. 
Something is muffled and shuffling beyond your huddle, but you can’t rally the energy to worry about it. You hang suspended between dream and consciousness. You want both so badly.
Taehyun curses. “I need you to stay awake,” He says. You can only muster a nod for him. Your eyes protest as you hold them open, watching Taehyun hastily sparking up a fire. He strikes rocks against each other, growing more frustrated each time a spark doesn’t catch. When one does, the flame starts slowly on the snow-wetted wood. Your skin tingles under the warmth radiating from it. The roiling flame is intense, having been cold for so long. 
You bask in the fire’s flickering light. Movement comes easier to your limbs as you defrost. Taehyun produces a few hardy roots and skins them with a dagger that glints in the low light, then sets them to roast over the flame. 
“How did you find those?” you say. It was hard to even walk out there, and you’re sure it had gotten worse while he was out. How would he even find them under the snowpiles, unless he knew where to look?
He gives you a long look, as if considering something. “Just got lucky digging through the snow while I was looking for the wood.” 
That explanation doesn’t make sense; finding three subsurface roots underneath thick snow is different from finding hunks of wood protruding from it. It might be the truth, but you decide to ask, “Under the snow?” 
Fire crackling is the only sound to fill the silent moment as he doesn’t answer. Well, if you weren't already iffy, you are now. He watches the flames prance around for a charged moment, the reflection of it shimmering in his dark eyes. 
“I’m from the north,” he finally says. You frown. Why hadn’t he just said that in the first place? 
“Is that why your ears aren’t pointed?” you ask, sitting up a bit. He pulls the roots, lightly toasted, off the fire. 
His gaze rips away from the flame, landing on you. His eyes are a little too intense for such a simple question. “No,” he says.  His behavior tickles a curious part of you; if you’re going to be on this assignment together for so many weeks, then it’s best to get to know each other. You also have been intensely curious about his ears from the moment you noticed their curvature. It’s odd to see fundamentally human features on a faerie. 
You don’t mean to be overly invasive, though, and you feel bad for prodding so much as his face hardens. You hadn’t thought too much about why it might be a sensitive subject for him; you just wanted to satisfy your curiosity. You’re seconds from telling him that you like his ears, but he speaks before you can. 
“My mother was human,” he says, his eyes trained on the cave floor in front of him. He’s half human? That’s why he’s so averse to mentioning his ears—he’s embarrassed by his human mother. You stew over that. If he dislikes his mother for her humanity, it explains how he has acted concerning you. You pity him, though. It would be difficult to belong anywhere with that specific mix of blood: humanity fears him, and Faerie does not treat half-blooded faeries as truly its own.
“She hid herself away when she found she was pregnant, and gave birth to me where she thought she would be safest. She knew what my father would do. He found her eventually. He killed her because she was dirt on his name. He couldn’t kill me, though.” Your stomach does a sickened flip. You know that, by faerie honor, he would have to raise Taehyun.
“I’m so sorry, Taehyun,” you say. He just presses his lips thin and hands you a roasted root to eat. 
“I hated him for it more each day, so one day I took a blade to my ears and made sure I never resembled him again. At least, in that way.” Your heart lurches. The thought of him carving off the points of his ears to spite his dad… He had maimed himself, and you’ve been poking and prodding him about it. You wince.
You want to apologize again, but you have a feeling that he doesn’t want any more apologies, and you don’t know him well enough to comfort him in any meaningful way. Instead of saying something that you’re sure will ring hollow, you say, “The faerie that stole me from my parents was a seamstress. She wanted a human girl to work her shop for her, without having to pay wages like she would for a faerie. It was taxing work, even when I was this tall,”—you denote the height of a child six or seven years old with your hand—“Maybe she just didn’t know what it means to raise a human child, but she wasn’t the best replacement for parents. She knew that I needed to be fed at least regularly, and provided everything I needed for hygiene, but she didn’t know that I needed a mother. She gave me an education, and I know that humans here don’t usually get that. I’m grateful for it—I really, really am, but it’s just… The fact that it was more for her own benefit than out of the goodness of her heart…” 
Taehyun listens, his eyes reflecting the oranges and yellows of the fire. You know that you’re rambling. “Sorry. What I’m trying to say is… I guess…” You hope the yellow glow of the flames is enough to disguise your embarrassment, and also that he doesn’t think you’re trying to upstage him. You just feel wretched for putting him in a position where he had to surrender such dark memories to you.
He doesn’t say anything, taking a root from the fire for himself and biting into it. 
You bite into the fat, tuber-like root too, appreciating its nutty flavor, and you embrace the silence that grips the cave. Only the garbling of the fire speaks, but it is a comfortable quiet. 
The snowstorm must’ve died down while you slept, because the snow isn’t too much higher when you and Taehyun set back out the next day. It’s a bit of a drag to fight the mountains of snow it left with each step, but you don’t complain. 
Sunlight shimmers off ice crystals and sends droplets down from snow-dusted branches and to your cheeks. Every breath into your lungs is crisp, but you have bundled yourself in the thermal clothing from the bag Taehyun had packed for you, so you’re mostly comfortable. At least your fingers and toes are mobile now. 
Taehyun says that you have less than a day until you’re there. You repeat that like a mantra in your head as your feet ache with the strain of traveling so far by foot. He hasn’t said much else since, though, and you wonder if it has anything to do with last night’s topics of choice. His shoulders are as tense as his demeanor. 
It’s getting boring walking for hours on end, and Taehyun isn’t the most talkative. The most you get for entertainment is your thoughts and watching the scenery change. So, you decide to put this time to use. You apply the silent walking technique that he had taught you despite how awfully your feet ache. It’s harder in the snow, but you’re better off knowing how to do it even in extraneous circumstances. You don’t know all that you’ll be facing in the north. Sliding your sword off your back, you realize how much it had been dragging your back down. No wonder your spine aches…. You practice swings and jabs, still sloppy with inexperience. 
Taehyun hears you, and says over his shoulder, “Don’t push yourself today. You were close to freezing to death last night, just recharge your energy.” 
Was it so bad? You know you had gotten pretty cold, but you feel fine now. “I was just exhausted, not freezing. We walked forever yesterday.” 
You continue trying to get used to the weight of a sword in your hands. 
Trees start coming fewer and farther between, and though the snow on the ground grows lower, it is crusted over in an icy layer that you have to break through with each step. Everything is sharper and more icy, less fluffy and light. Icicles drip from trees so sharp they could substitute for a weapon. You put away your sword; the ground is slick, and you’ll fall if you don’t think your steps through. You’ve got to be in the Northern Kingdom, now. 
You walk like this for a while longer, only sparse trees and shrubbery, until an estate standing tall on the snowy flat peeks through the midday haze. An ancient and gnarled blackthorn tree sits proud on the estate’s grounds. Its spiny branches, bare of any fruit or leaf, twist among themselves. They remind you of impish claws.
Taehyun is heading straight for the estate. 
“Are we about to meet somebody?” you ask, closing the distance between you with a little jog. 
He shakes his head. “It’s my father’s residence.” 
You stop, and he makes it a few steps ahead of you before he realizes. “We’re meeting your father?” you say. The thought turns your mouth to cotton. He had killed Taehyun’s human mother. Faerie hospitality doesn’t seem to mean much to him, and you don’t think he’ll like you much.
Taehyun’s brow creases. “What? No,” he says, looking back at the estate. “He’s been dead for a while.” 
You reign in the relief that you feel, but that tidbit of information renders you curious again. Faeries don’t die of old age. How had he died? Is Taehyun pleased that he’s gone?
“Oh,” you say, not pushing it. You learned that lesson yesterday. “Good, ‘cause I’m not in any shape to be meeting anybody right now.” You drag your fingers through your knotty and tousled hair to make a statement. It’s wet in some places, where snowflakes found their way to your head and melted there. You’re sure it looks even worse than it feels. “Are we staying here, then?” You could use someplace to make yourself look less like you’ve just traveled three straight days, and it’s relatively optimistic that the sizable estate ahead of you has what you might need. 
Taehyun hums in confirmation. 
You approach the heavy ironwood front doors, and you gape at the wood interior and high ceilings. Nut-hatch’s humble cottage was more than the roaming life the wilder fae prefer, but it pales next to this. Charcoal-black banners hang down from the mezzanine and are embroidered with silver into a family crest that resembles the blackthorn tree that sits on the grounds outside.  
“Who, exactly, was your father?” you ask, running fingers along the top of the dusty dining table that sits center of the estate. The sight of the empty chairs that encircle it is almost mournful.
Taehyun doesn’t answer, and when you look for him to see why, he is planted to the floor. A muscle feathers in his jaw as takes in the estate.
“He was general of The Queen’s guard. And, I guess, also a lord in her court.” There’s icy distance in his voice.
This is absolutely the estate of an esteemed general and lord if you’ve ever seen one. 
“Anywhere for me to clean up?” you ask. You don’t want to intrude on whatever he’s dealing with returning here.
He nods, pointing up to the mezzanine floor where the walls are lined with doors. “There should be some stuff left over. You can use whatever you find.” 
You follow him as he leads to a room. As you draw yourself a bath with water warmed over a fire stove, you cannot help but wonder what awful memories this place might hold for him in its ornate, wooden walls.
Waking up in the warm sheets of a plush bed was a soothing balm for your aching joints and bones. Your hair is fresh and perfumed with the soaps and powdery-scented oils left over in the bathing room. You delighted in brushing out the tangles. The estate is full of pleasures that only the gentry could find mundane; you, on the other hand, are only left scheming how you might make this life your own. 
You don’t see much of Taehyun all day, until he pokes into the bedroom you’re staying in and informs you that you’re attending Court tonight, and though you’ve known for a while now, a thick ball of nerves coils up in your stomach. 
You unstring your travel bag, worrying that you’ll have to wear what you arrived here in, but Taehyun had packed accordingly. You tug out a mute dress, beige in color, and embroidered in the bodice and skirt of it with bronze threads. The short, puffed sleeves are pretty. There isn’t much to decorate yourself with, no pretty pins or silk shoes in the dressing tables or wardrobes, so you just wear your hair as it is and lace up your traveling boots for footwear. You find yourself in the mirror to be prettier than you’ve ever looked. Any dresses you’ve had access to in your life have been largely unspecial, and they marked you as a human servant. Even nakedness, in the land of Faerie, is more ornate than those kinds of dresses.
You hold the skirts of your dress up and above your feet so that it does not tread on wet snow and dirt as you and Taehyun leave the estate for Court. The knots in your stomach don’t let up any. You know you’ll stick out as a human, that’s a given, but you are deeply terrified you’re going to make a fool out of yourself by forgoing some unspoken faerie revel rule. You can’t compromise your assignment. Does Taehyun know you’ve never partied alongside the fae? Humans often attend faerie revels in the High King’s court, but are they even allowed to do so here?
Taehyun is dressed lavishly, clad in black from head to foot, and he wears a sleeved doublet encrusted with shimmering black beads and threads that glitter in the moon’s light. He wears the black fur pelt of some beast around the collar of his neck. He resembles entirely the son of a general. You feel plain, next to him. 
“What do I do when we get there?” you ask, stepping around a puddle encased in a thin layer of cracked ice.
“The King wants to know if anything is going on, so you need to just listen. Look around a little, talk to people you think are interesting, and go from there.” 
Sounds simple enough. 
A thick forest surrounds the snowy flat that Taehyun’s estate sits on, and as you approach it, Taehyun says, “When we’re there, you can’t dance, no matter how badly you’ll want to.” 
“I won’t.” You reassure him, but you’ll just run on the hope that Taehyun sticks near you. Faerie celebration is untamed, and if a human happens to dance among them, they will not be able to regain control over themselves until a faerie takes pity and pulls them out. That isn’t usually the case, though. The folk delight in seeing humans lose themselves to the abundance of faerie delights. 
Taehyun accepts your answer, but he stops at one of the many wax-leaved holly trees and plucks a few jewel-red berries from their branches. Holly berries are faerie wards, and humans often carry a handful of them in their pockets to protect themselves from simple faerie glamours. 
“I don’t have anywhere to keep them,” you say, taking the berries he drops into your hands. You feel around your dress to reaffirm that it doesn’t have any hidden pockets or pouches. None. 
He produces a needle and some twine thread, offering it to you. 
“What?” you say, a little lost. Obviously, he wants you to do something with it, because the berry’s juices would burn him, but you’re not exactly sure what. 
“String the berries on it, and then I’ll show you.” 
You purse your lips and do so as you continue on your way to the revel. Some squish as you do, but you tug them down the thread anyway. The thread seems long enough to wear as a necklace. 
When you’re done stringing the berries, you look up to find that you’ve arrived. You admire how The Queen’s hall of revelries is not even a true hall, and is instead formed with tree trunks for walls and their branches for ceilings. Off-kilter faerie music twists and turns and floats alive in the air; the lilting flutes urge your limbs to move. Maybe it’ll be more difficult to stay off the dancing floor than you had initially anticipated. 
Taking the strung berries from your hands, Taehyun gives you a look that you yet again cannot decipher before walking around you. He takes the top section of your hair into his hands. 
“What are you doing?” you say. 
He sections the hair into two and spins the pieces before pinning them in place. He continues fiddling with it for a bit, tugging something around and in between the hair, and then steps away. You feel your hair. He had pinned the hair into a half-updo with an ornamental hair comb and braided the berry string through it as a ward that doubles as a pretty hairstyle. It’s a fairly intricate hairstyle.
“How’d you learn to do hair?” you ask, spinning to face him. 
He scratches the back of his neck. “It’s intuitive.” 
You laugh a nose-crinkling laugh for the first time in a while and take him by the elbow to drag him toward the reverie ahead of you. 
You stand eating fruity delicacies and glazed meats off banquet tables, to curb your anxieties. There is plenty to enjoy—throngs of faeries dancing like nobody's watching to the rich song of the fiddle, long tables surrounded by chatting folk and rendered full with the plumpest of fruits and blocks of various cheeses. You had worried that you would stick out as a human attending Court in the north, but you have quickly realized that most are more worried about sinking in the debauchery than ogling you. There are so many conversations to listen to, but you don’t have the slightest clue which to even begin with. The Queen does not make an appearance today, but you don’t know if she ever even does. 
You stand here, though, because Taehyun suggested it was best you split off and try to cover the most you can. You’ve been trying your best to strain your ear, but it all blurs into Court jargon to you. You inspect each of your snacks for the poisons Taehyun had taught you. It’s not like anybody cared enough to poison you, but Faerie courts are fickle. 
A tap on your shoulders has you turning around to face the most beautiful faerie man you have ever seen. His brown eyes twinkle under the chandeliers hanging from branches overhead as he regards you, as do the plethora of crystals sewn into his extravagant white get-up. You gulp down the last of the cheese block in your hand.
He smiles, the corners of his lips turned up in a cheeky tilt. “Are the snacks any good?” he says. 
It feels a bit odd that he’d be worrying what a human thinks of the food, but you reply anyway, “The cheese is fantastic.” 
He laughs, having just watched you gulp down the last bit of it. His honeyed laugh compels laughter from you, too. And, so quickly that you don’t notice it, the rest of the revelry fades around you. 
“Do you want to dance?” he says, gesturing over at the whirling sea of faeries. He holds himself with grace, down to his posture.
Your lips tug down into a disappointed frown. There are quite a few things you’re better off not doing here, but that is what you should do the least. “I don’t think I should.”
His eyes flicker with understanding, but his smile doesn’t falter any. “I’ll pull you out if it becomes too much,” he says. “I promise you that.” He presses a pristine hand over his chest, right at his heart, in testament to his sincerity. 
Well, his words are plain enough to know that he isn’t lying. But you’re not here to dance; you’re here to perform your duties. 
He can tell that you’re not convinced as he studies your face. “We can always stay here and enjoy these,”—he pops a cube of cheese in his mouth, so his next words are muffled—“No problem.”
His quickness to compromise is unfamiliar to you.“Let’s have some cheese.” You try to emulate his smile with your mouth, but you’re sure it looks better on him because he throws his head back and laughs. 
The more you study his features, the more you realize how reminiscent of a fox they are. “Can I ask your name, pretty?” he says. The sugary-sweet words taste good in your mouth, and they rot your inhibitions. You shouldn’t be sitting here twirling your hair. Where is Taehyun under this canopy of branches? You wonder if he’s catching any useful stuff. Guilt digs its claws at your skin. 
You flounder and try to catch your name as it seems to slip away from your mind and into the air. You’re not always this ditzy, it’s just that his sharp eyes and mouth confuse you. You tell him your name. 
“Are all human names as pretty as yours?” he says. He thinks your name is beautiful? Human names are unspirited and prone to repetition, not singular like a faerie name. 
You’re not sure how to respond, so you deflect. “What’s your’s?”
His black hair slides over his eyes as he tilts his head, eyes alight. He wears so much on his face. You’re wary, though. Maybe he is cunning like the fox, maybe his face tells you a different story than his mind. You worry again why he is sitting here making conversation with you.
“Yeonjun,” he says, and you try to remember when he had gotten so close.
“Well, Yeonjun,” you say, trying his name in your mouth. “I’m not the most interesting, so if you’re looking for entertainment, I don’t think you’ll find too much here.”
His eyes roam your face for a few heartbeats. “I think you’re plenty interesting. Maybe the most interesting lady this court has had the pleasure of keeping.” His use of the word lady, addressing you, feels good in a bittersweet way. You’re a far cry from a lady, but the sound of it settles deep in your bones and warms you. 
The way he sees your burning cheeks, and seems to delight in it, should alarm you. You know his words are saccharine. But, his attention is delicious. You find yourself hoping he’ll stay here and keep you company until the night is over. 
“Okay, now I know you’ve got to be up to something,” you say. 
He grins and, stepping back, says, “I’m going to go get something for you. Don’t move.” He slips through the gaps of chatting revelers before you can tell him that you won’t move; that you’ll be right here all night because you should be. Taehyun trusts that you’re doing your job. You sigh a breath, trying to force down the guilt that gnaws hungrily at you again. 
You make an effort to tune your ears into the conversations around you. There was so much you could’ve missed in the time you spent talking to Yeonjun. 
As you do, pair of frilly and silk-draped faerie girls, one with skin like white snow and crystalline wings at her back, and the other with hair inlaid with glittering strands of gold, approach the banquet table arm-in-arm. You hate the way their eyes land on you, and then on your awful dress. You hate the look they share, and the way one hoots at something the other says. Your skin burns with how you become something to laugh at. 
You don’t notice Yeonjun’s return until he steps in front of you, his hands full with a bounty of bonbons and indulgences from various tables throughout the hall. 
“I want you to try these,” he says. You shoot him a skeptical eye, raising a brow, to which he scoffs and says, “I just wanna know what you think. They’re my favorites.” 
You take a sweetmeat and place it in your mouth. Your brows shoot up at its full, mallow flavor. 
“You have a sweet tooth?” you ask, chomping on another. 
“You could say that,” he says. The flip of his words and the facetious raise of his brows make you feel that he isn’t just talking about confectionaries. You squirm a bit under his heavy gaze. 
You continue taste-testing the sweets he brought, but your mind keeps cruelly spinning the jeering of those faerie girls. You scorn your inadequacies; your inability to be a worthy spy, and your inability to ever fit in. It would be easier to act as one with the court and to coax out meaningful secrets if you look at least like you belong. However, Yeonjun seems like the only place you have to start. 
“You meant what you said about pulling me out if it becomes too much?” you say. 
Yeonjun doesn’t look at all taken aback by your words. He must’ve seen the way your eyes flickered over to the rambunctious dancefloor. “Of course. I won’t let you lose yourself, and nobody will touch a hair on your head.” 
“Let’s dance,” you say, and giddiness blooms wide in your chest. Is dancing among the faeries as enchanting as it's said to be? 
Here’s to finding out.
Yeonjun brings you to the dance floor, and he smiles down at you as you begin moving. Your limbs are heavy with hesitance. His hands find your waist, and the touch soaks up the stiffness right from you. Suddenly, you are alive in ways that you hadn’t known you could be before. Your boots slide over the packed earth, and he guides you to a rhythm that you can feel thrumming in your bloodstream. Yeonjun’s eyes are on your face. You can feel the other dancers all around you, and you brush up against some here and there, but you don’t mind much. You feel the music in your heartbeat. His fingertips dig divots into your skin, and it’s the only thing you can really feel. 
He leans in over your shoulder. “I heard what they said. Do you want dresses? I can give you dresses more beautiful than those girls could dream of wearing.” 
It takes the words a bit to cut through the fog in your head, but you narrow your eyes at him. “Is this one really so bad?”
He squeezes his eyes shut in a laugh, as if that were ridiculous, and then opens them to look you in your eyes. “Pretty, you’d look delightful even in your bare skin.” He tugs your bodies impossibly closer, melding them together into one spinning thing. “But, if what they said hurt you, I will give you whatever it is you ask for.”
Even in your hazy state, you know that doesn’t sound right. But, you don’t ask why he would bother with that, you only lose yourself further into his eyes. They devour you.
The music grows faster, and faster, and faster, coiling itself up and around your legs, willing them to dance for you. Yeonjun’s hands grab here and smoothe over there, exploring. Mapping. 
“Do you love it?” he asks.
“Yes,” you breathe. Your head is swimming, crashing through the throes of waves, and the undercurrent of panic only thrills you into dancing more. 
His eyes rove over you in a languid pass, before he kisses you like your lips are the sweet delicacies he so loves. You are as lost in his lips as you are the spirit of the dancefloor. His hot tongue explores and licks at your lips. The world swirls behind your eyes even as they are squeezed shut, but you welcome the dizzying nature of it. Your heart jumps from its cage in your chest as he brushes a hand along your collarbone, sliding it up the side of your neck, and then places it at the back of your head, pushing you further into his kiss. A vignette blurs your vision, lungs burning for air, but you can’t find it in you to care. 
You’re abruptly pulled from the messy tangle of galavanting bodies. Like if someone were to just halt the Earth’s spinning on its axis, your body reels. Your mind comes back to you, but it’s scattered, and your heart pounds like drumbeat in your head. 
Someone speaks. It’s Yeonjun’s voice. He situates you in between two of the pillar trees that make the walls of the hall, and you drag in the night air. It’s so fresh it burns your lungs a bit to breathe. 
“I feel like shit,” you say. Your heart is still running amok in your chest. 
He snorts. “Yeah, I bet. I’m sorry I didn’t notice that you were slipping earlier.”
You’re unsure how long you two danced, but the sky is breaking into day, so it had to have been for way longer than you remember. You groan. Taehyun has to be looking for you. Or, perhaps he left without you.
“Something wrong?” he asks, watching you recover.  
“No, no, I’m fine,” you say. “Thank you for that. I’ve never done anything like it.”  
His eyes crinkle. He really, really, is beautiful, down to the points of his ears. “You don’t need to thank me. Seeing you enjoy yourself like that was a sight for sore eyes.” 
You laugh a little, looking out at the way the sun crests over the horizon from your little hiding spot. The breeze does wonders in brushing up on your blazing skin and placating it. The thrill still lingering in you makes you wonder if you could claim such a life for yourself.
The sound of Taehyun’s voice saying your name rips out that seedling of hope, and stomps it down into the ground. It was a useless hope, anyway. As he approaches you, Yeonjun nods his head in greeting. Taehyun’s face is drawn, but he bows low at the waist. It’s quite a formal greeting. 
“It’s time to go,” Taehyun says, addressing you. His eyes are searching yours like he’s trying to find some answer in them. It seems he doesn’t find what he’s looking for. 
A crooked smile tugs at Yeonjun’s lips. “Is she under your care?” he asks. It’s a less direct way of asking: does she belong to you? 
Taehyun’s face morphs into something hard, but his words remain cordial. “Yes, she is.” You know he says it because it’s the best way to explain why a human would be attending Court, but for some reason, you had expected Taehyun to answer that a little differently. 
Taehyun gives you a meaningful look and tilts his head to the side in a silent way to say let’s go. You curtsy a farewell to Yeonjun, letting a soft smile onto your lips before you depart with Taehyun. Yeonjun doesn’t say anything at all, but you feel his eyes following you. 
You walk without words until you clear the hall and reach the forest, where the thicket can muffle your sensitive words and keep them just for you. “Did you find anything?” he says. His attention stays ahead, and his jaw is a bit strained. Here it comes; he saw you wasting time. 
“Nobody around me was talking about anything other than gossip until I ran into him. His name is—”
“I know who he is.” Taehyun snaps. “Please, enlighten me. What did you learn of him?” 
His words feel a bit like he’s spinning you a web. A trap. You don’t even have anything to offer him, because you hadn’t learned anything about Yeonjun.
“You made a promise to me. You promised you wouldn’t dance at all, and I find you dancing with The King’s son.” The world trembles underneath you at his words. You were flirting with a prince all night. You kissed a prince.
The dam of guilt and embarrassment and shame that has been filling you throughout the night crumbles and washes over you. “I didn’t mean to waste time, Taehyun. He just seemed like the most interesting person to talk to. I thought that maybe I could hear something interesting from him.” Your legs protest as you lift them to step over a tall bush. Dancing had exhausted you down to your marrow. “A prince seems like a pretty good place to find information, though.” 
“Does kissing him entail hearing something interesting from him?” His words are spat, and when he looks at you, his eyes hold distaste. So he saw that, too. 
You sigh. “I didn’t mean for that to happen, either.” 
“You didn’t mean for it to happen,” he echoes, scoffing the words. “You are nowhere near serious about this. Why are you even here? Well, let me tell you this; you did not come here to suck the faces of pretty princes. This life is not yours.” 
His words are everything you don’t want to hear, and they antagonize the anger in your chest where shame had previously sat. “It’s a little hard to do what you’re asking of me when you send me in looking like this,” you say, gesturing down at your get-up. 
“This is about a dress?” Taehyun says. “You don’t need all that. They’re just putting on a show.” He doesn’t say them, but he dances delicately around the words: You’re human.
You get up in front of him so that he has no choice but to look at you. “You know that I’m going in there at a disadvantage! You know that I can’t just blend in, and it’s so much harder when I look like this.” You point your finger at him accusatorily. “And, did you even get anything? You’re sitting here, picking me apart, but really, what did you do?” 
He doesn’t respond. 
“Oh, that’s rich,” you say, tone mocking. 
“The difference,”—he says his words slow—“Is that I didn’t use the night to enjoy myself in snacks and courting ladies.” 
“That’s because you spent your night watching me,” you snap. If he was even trying to pick up information, he wouldn’t have had his eyes on you the whole time. “You just wanted to catch something to give me shit about. Can you not see any value in following this thread? If Yeonjun is the king’s son, and he’s taken interest in me, imagine what I can catch hanging around him.” The estate appears on the snow flat as you two clear the forest. The sun hangs well in the sky, now. Ugly hurt twists in your chest. Yeah, you could’ve been more alert, but you can easily turn whatever you’ve got going on into something. 
Taehyun shakes his head at you. “I want you to remember this one thing, if you’re going to remember anything I tell you at all. The folk will never fail to make you into a spectacle. Your duties lie in The King, and only that.”
You walk the rest of the way to the estate, and then split off to your rooms, in an awful silence that sits itchy under your skin. It’s always silence, with Taehyun.
Taehyun’s accusatory voice wakes you up from a hard slumber. You don’t have time to even blink out the sleep from your eyes as he roars, and you listen.
“You had him send you dresses?” There is a scorching flame blazing in his eyes, and they blister you.
“Huh?” 
His face is pulled into a sneer. “You had the prince send you dresses because you decided you wanted pretty things? What are you doing?” He holds a silvery, glittering gown in one arm.
His words remind you of what Yeonjun had said to you last night, and you curse. How would he even know where to send them? 
“I didn’t ask him to do anything,” you say, crossing your arms over your chest. 
“Don’t lie to me.” 
“I’m telling you that I didn’t, and I mean it! I didn’t ask him to send me dresses.” You slink out of the mess of a bed, the wood flooring cold under your feet.
“So a royal errand runner shows up at the door, with a pile of dresses directly addressed to you, and I’m supposed to believe that it’s random?” 
“Why don’t you just believe me?” you ask, and the words sound pathetic even to you as they leave your mouth. “We’re supposed to be partners. You’re supposed to believe me.”
Rage dissolves from his face, but his features don’t soften. No, instead, they harden into stone. You almost wish they would twist back into fury. You can work with anger. But, whatever this thing that he does is, it leaves you unable to crack through his hardened exterior. 
“Take your shit,” he growls, tossing the dress in his arm at you, and then spinning around without care of where it lands. 
“I don’t want this, send it back to him,” you say. You go to throw the dress back at him, but his words stop you. 
“I already sent them back.”
You watch him storm out. That means that the dress in your hands is not from Yeonjun; it is from Taehyun.
You hold up the gown in front of you. Looking at the sheer material of it, embellished with beads and crystals that remind you of snowflakes in the sky, feels bitter. It only reminds you of the nasty terms you and Taehyun are on. 
You haven’t seen him once today, and you assume you’re going to be heading to Court alone, too. All you can feel is resentment. 
You go about getting ready with a ten-pound weight in your mind, and Taehyun is as absent as you had imagined he’d be when you leave the estate for Court. The walk feels a bit longer this time. Though you didn’t talk much last night, the presence of Taehyun just being there was enough to ground your nerves.
All is the same as last night in the hall. The tittering of folk and the lovely aroma of burning incense spices the air, and the music is just as inviting. You find that secluded spot Yeonjun had taken you last night when he pulled you out of the crowd and lean into the tree. Tonight, you’re going to just watch which faeries interact. The more you know about who associates with who, the more you’ll be able to dissect your priorities. 
Your eyes fall over the throngs, and a majority you remember from last night, but some are new. These folk all have to be important in some capacity; they wouldn’t have a place in Court otherwise. If you look hard enough, maybe you can find who is the most important. It doesn’t help, though, that you’re not familiar with important figures in the Northern Court. Taehyun forgets that he was born into this Court, and you are a foreign human girl. You may be better off playing into your ability to lie; maybe you should spin up a good falsity and ask around with it. 
You’re halfway to the crowd with the intent to poke around when Yeonjun steps into your line of vision. His wry smile is inviting, but you can’t do this again. 
“You look beautiful tonight,” he says. “But, I don’t recognize that dress.” He looks you over. 
“You didn’t tell me who you were, last night,” you say, crossing your arms. 
Yeonjun’s suave falters. “Ah. He told you. Did he also not like me sending you those dresses? You sent them back.” 
You pinch the bridge of your nose. “Please, I don’t appreciate being toyed with.” 
His lips tug into the first frown you’ve seen worn on his ethereal face. “You wound me. I don’t just send gifts like that to anybody. I’m not toying with you. Not even a little bit.”
You’re not sure what to make of his words. He seems like the type that, even when his lips can not form the shape of lies, he would hide them in between the gaps of truths. But you do see sincerity shining in his eyes. 
“I didn’t even get to see the dresses,” you say, relenting to the conversation. If he insists on making your company, you’ll entertain him. You wouldn’t dare shoo a prince away, anyway, and his words are a soothing balm to every thought that tugs at your mind. 
“Did he give you this one?” he asks, looking down at the glittering thing. 
You hum, nodding your head. You wonder if Taehyun has made it here tonight, or if he is even here at all. You’re going to put all your eggs in this basket. If it leads you nowhere, you’ll deal with that when you get there. You don’t know where else to start. 
“They’re all yours, whenever you decide you want them. Just come and ask me, sweet thing. I’ll even send you more if you want.” 
His words shoot a thrill through you, for whatever reason. It’s hard for you to imagine a life where those kinds of things can be given away so easily. 
“Do you want to dance tonight?” He says. His fingers are warm against your skin as he takes your upper arm into his hand. Each time he rubs his thumb over the skin there, it makes you shiver more than it soothes you. You don’t remember much of the time you had spent dancing last night, but you do remember his kiss.
You really can’t do that. You need to do something that keeps you present so that you can pick up on stuff. 
You tilt your head to one side and offer, “How about you show me around? I wanna see your hiding places. I know you’ve got some.” You smile a heart-felt smile; running around the hall and discovering the nooks and crannies Yeonjun hides away in actually sounds like fun. It’ll familiarize you with the layout of Court, as well.
Yeonjun agrees, his face lighting up. He brings you around to alcoves and hollows that you wouldn’t imagine even existed unless he was showing you. Leave it to a faerie to find little places to hide.
“How often do you come to the north?” you say. Taehyun had said that The King sends his heirs here for foreign relations. It must be why he’s here. 
Yeonjun pauses his touring. “Most of the year. My father prefers me here, so he sends me out often.” You’re a bit taken aback by how generous he is with the information. You had expected to sly-foot it from him. 
The King sounds like a paranoid, centuries-old man. Maybe you and Taehyun will find something in your time here that proves his fears right, though. It’s just as probable that tensions run deeper than you think.
“Why doesn’t he have The Queen send one of her children to his domain if it’s for diplomacy? It’s a bit strange that she swears fealty to him, but he’s the one sending his heirs out.” Also, why does he have you and Taehyun here, undercover, when his son is here already?
Yeonjun shushes you with a finger over his lips, and it reminds you that you can’t just say all that comes to your mind here. He doesn’t seem to take any offense, though. 
“The Queen doesn’t send her children out as emissaries.” His words take on a rueful, bitter note. The look plastered on his face says what his words don’t: The King does, though.
Yeonjun is good company, and you don’t notice how night bleeds into day. 
“I should probably go now,” you say. Your dress itches and your feet ache in a way that calls for the lush bed waiting for you back at the estate. The revelry is still very much alive and kicking, and the crowds haven’t even begun thinning, but they’re so drunk on pinot wines and faerie spirits that you doubt they even feel the toll the night is taking on their bodies.
He nods. “Let me walk you home?” He offers you an arm, his smile so very sweet. You would like nothing more than to have someone to accompany you on the trek home. The walk here had been dreadful in your loneliness.
You pretend to think about it for a minute, a teasing smile playing at your lips, before you say, “Why not?” 
He swipes a baked good topped with sweet fig from a platter for the journey, and begins heading for an exit between trees.
 “But!” you say, and he halts. Your eyes scan the crowd.
“What is it?” he asks, rejoining you. 
“I need to find Taehyun.” 
He offers you the delicacy in his hand. “Do you?” 
“Yeah. I need to tell him if I’m going to be leaving.” 
Yeonjun scoffs at that. He takes you by the arm and points out Taehyun in the crowd. He appears to be in conversation with a spindly, feather-skinned hob. “He’s right there. But, you’re not going to be doing all that. It’s not right that you have to report your every move to him. C’mon.” You know that he’s only saying it because he thinks that you’re Taehyun’s human servant, or something, but his words are simultaneously gratifying for your current woes.
Your laughs bounce off the darkwood trees as you walk shoulder-to-shoulder. Yeonjun has a way to him that makes you feel like you’re really living. Maybe you can let this hope fester. Maybe Yeonjun is genuinely courting you. And, you foolishly let yourself think, maybe you don’t need to be a spy to make something of yourself. 
When you make it to the door of the estate, Yeonjun is behind you, peppering warm kisses up and down your neck. You pry yourself from him to open the door, and you stumble in. You then stagger up the stairs and to your room. Yeonjun doesn’t make it any easier, roaming his hands everywhere they shouldn’t be. 
Yeonjun clicks the door shut behind himself, and your stomach drops seeing the unabated hunger written into his face as he turns and looks at you. 
You fizzle under his gaze. “Thanks for walking me,” you say. “That walk is scary alone.” 
“Turn around for me, pretty,” he says, his voice glazed with honey and sugary syrup. You do, heart thundering in your chest. Something in the deep pit of your mind feels guilt, but you don’t pay it enough mind to sort it out, you just suck in a breath and hold it as Yeonjun steps so close behind you that you can feel his breaths on your neck, and he starts working at the laces of your dress. He doesn’t lean forward and press any more kisses to your neck like you wish he would; he just undoes the ribbon, until the dress loosens on your body, and you have to hold it onto yourself. Should you drop it? Does he want you to drop it? Is he just toying with you?
A puff of air on your neck makes you shiver as he laughs softly, his face hovering over your shoulder. You wish you could see his face right now.
“You’re so tense,” he says into your ear. He takes the top of the dress into his own hands, sliding them under yours. “Are you uncomfortable?”
“No,” you breathe. Your heart is thrumming in your chest and your neck so hard that you hear it in your ears, and maybe even he can, too. He rubs a thumb over the skin where the dress starts to slip. 
“Tell me you want it.” 
You suck in a breath. “I want it.”
He begins letting the dress down, and you let him. Chills rise on your skin, both at the cold that meets your skin as it is freed to the air, and at the kisses and scrapes of his teeth at your now exposed shoulder. “Yeah? You want me to make you feel good?” he says, and you can hear the tease in it. His words douse you in flame.
“Yes, Yeonjun, please,” you say, and it sounds pathetic to your ears. He makes it so hard to sound like the confident spy that you’ve been trying so hard to convince yourself that you are.
The dress droops lower and lower on you, releasing your skin in tantalizingly slow increments. He’s in no rush. He just continues to pamper your skin with his tongue, nipping your ear here and nibbling at your shoulder blade there. Your mind unravels a bit more with each. 
The fabric finally pools at your ankles, and the both of you sit in an electrically charged moment. 
“Turn around. Let me see you.”
When your eyes meet his, your breath catches at the way he takes you in, but mostly at the way his eyes come back up and fix on yours with such depth that you feel it in the way your heartbeat skips. You resist every urge to cover yourself, ignoring the tensing of your muscles that tell you that you should run and hide yourself away. You can’t believe that such a beautiful creature is devouring you with his eyes like this; like he wants you, like it doesn’t matter one bit to him that you are so much less than him. And maybe it should. He’s a prince. A prince of the king that you are supposed to be serving right now.
He guides you by an arm around your waist to the bed, and then stands at the foot of it, looking down on you with hazy eyes. Your stomach flips, and your knees and thighs are pressed together. He drags his bottom lip into his teeth.
“Open your legs, baby. I want to see how much you need me.” He reaches down, patting at your knee.
You hesitate, but slowly pry your knees apart, letting him see the mess that had been brewing there. The cold air immediately brushes at the wetness, and it makes you feel impossibly more exposed.
“Fuck,” he says, dragging out the word like a hiss. The raw, ravenous look in his eyes reaches deep into an unwanted part of you, that had for so long believed that you’re not worthy of anything like this. You know that you’re still not worthy of it, but you’ll happily bask in its warmth while you have it.  “So wet,” he growls, eyeing your center without ceremony, as if those aren’t the most lewd words you’ve heard spoken aloud. “Pretty, you’re dripping all over your bedspread, and I haven’t even really touched you yet. Makes me wonder if you’ve ever even been touched before.” 
Your cheeks flame the more he stands over the foot of the bed, lazily drinking you in. You haven’t. You had your first kiss in the woods somewhere a few days ago. Flashes of those memories plague you for a second, of bark on your skin and Taehyun’s hand in your hair, and that guilt that you can’t seem to place tugs at you again. You need to forget about it; Taehyun doesn’t seem too caught up on it, so why should you be? Where is Taehyun right now?
“Has he touched you? Did you let him put his hands on your skin,”—he brushes a whisper of a touch on your inner thigh, so close to your center, yet not actually paying any attention to it—“like this?” The rush that shoots up your spine is lethal. He draws such intense feelings from you with the simplest of touches in a way that borders on scary. 
Oh, yeah. Yeonjun still thinks that you’re Taehyun’s human servant, or something. You decide to just lean into it. “Why would he?” you ask. 
“Because I saw the way he looked at me yesterday,” he says, and the plush of the bed dips as he settles his knees into it. He hovers over you, notched between your thighs. You knew the truth behind that look, though. Taehyun was livid at you, at how you had shirked your duties and danced all night. You don’t know how to convey that to Yeonjun, though. Any explanation would just lead to more questions you couldn’t answer. 
He plants a line of kisses up the length of your inner thigh, just where his hand had ghosted, and you wiggle your hips in anticipation as if it would move him any faster to where you need him most. It doesn’t, he only continues to antagonize your skin with his tongue and lips. 
“Please,” you breathe. Yeonjun’s lazy eyes flick up to yours from his place between your legs, and the sight makes the blood in your veins sing. 
“You want my mouth?” he says, sitting back up onto his knees and running a smooth hand from the wet patch of skin on your thigh up and over your hip bone, and then the softness of your stomach, and then he brushes a thumb over your breast. You struggle to breathe a bit as he does, and it’s exponentially harder to as his words ricochet in your ears, cutting through the fog of your mind. 
“Yes,” you say. You can’t muster anything else. A satisfied, lopsided smile plays at his lips, and he lets his thumb over your nipple, rolling it. 
“Do you realize how badly you’ve got me?” he muses. His gaze leaves your chest, opting for your eyes as he says it. “I want to give you everything you’ve ever wanted. I’ll do anything, if you ask it of me.” The alarm bells ringing in your ears sound more like music than warning. It should sound like too much; you’d met him yesterday. He’s a faerie, you’re a human. His words are cloying; he’s lying. He’s lying.
But, he can’t lie.
He settles his head down, a breath’s-width from providing you with relief from the burning that he so cruelly kindled there. “Here? You want my mouth here?” The words puff onto you. You can feel your ears reddening; he seems to enjoy seeing you debased. It’s like he wants to be the source of your ruination.
“Yes, right there,” you say, toes curling in anticipation. He hums, taking the back of your thighs into his hands and pressing them up. It leaves you even more exposed to him. When the first contact of his mouth to your cunt comes, it’s with a barely there roll of your clit with his tongue, but it spreads like alcohol through your system. You mewl as he holds eye contact as if entranced with the way you react to him, and swirls his tongue around it. Your hands find perch in his hair.
He is wholly overwhelming you: his hands dig divots into your thighs to hold you open for him to eat, his eyes make sure you’re watching as he does, the sound he makes into your cunt. You don’t know what else to do, other than squirm on the sheets and chant nonsensical words. The more his mouth consumes you, the more it consumes your thoughts, until you are tunnel-visioned, only able to feel his touches. He runs his tongue down, and you gasp as it prods at your entrance, but he brings it back up, and then suckles at your clit some more. 
“More,” you say. 
He detaches from you for only a moment, just to ask, “More what?”—he pushes your thighs further up, molding them to your body—“More this?” He pushes his tongue into you, and then out. 
“Mhm!” you cry, digging your hands into his hair harder. He makes a low hum of satisfaction, slurping you up, lazed, as if you were a sweet sugarplum liqueur. A tense knot settles in your belly, sending your legs jittery even as he presses them, and your toes curling in the air. Your hips roll up and into the bed wildly, chasing that knot. “Yeonjun—”
Yeonjun knows what your cries mean, pulling from your hole, if only to suction his lips around your clit. It halts every thought and word in your mind, and the knot tightens so intensely with it that it snaps. You seize up in his hands and then explode in shakes and desperate whimpers. Your body rages, but your mind is suspended somewhere in the sky, removed from you. Yeonjun lavishes you through it, despite the way his tongue bumping into your sensitive spots has you jumping. His mouth follows your hips everywhere they go as you writhe to escape it; he isn’t letting you float down, he keeps your body on that high and builds on it. Your breaths come panted and whimpered. 
“Slow—slow down, ‘jun,” you say, pushing at his head. When he pulls off of you, the sight of you all over his mouth draws a moan from you. His tongue swipes at his lips. 
“You’re divine,” he purrs. “Did that feel good, sweet thing? Do you want more?” You lay, catching your breath, trying to let the waves of aftershock dissipate so that you can articulate yourself. You feel it still thrumming in the hollows of your bones. He skirts his thumb oh-so-lightly around your throbbing clit, and it’s no help in your efforts.
You nod. “I want to make you feel good, too.” You can’t fathom letting him please you like this without returning the favor. It would be so nice to see him fall apart, too.
“Yeah?” He drinks in your state. He stops circling his thumb to press it to your bud. You let out a surprised sound, your muscles coming back to life to jolt. He acts as though he’s thinking it over, but you can see the teasing lilt on his face. “Say my name again, pretty. It sounds loveliest on your tongue.”
“Yeonjun,” you indulge him. A content sparkle in his eyes tells you that he’s gonna give you what you want. He lets your thighs down, instead resting his weight on either side of your head, leaning down to capture your lips in a sultry kiss. He tugs your bottom lip into his mouth. The scrape of his teeth is dizzying. He’s freeing himself with one hand when he pulls back, and your spine tickles with anticipation until you see the look on his face.
 Is he suddenly disgusted with you? You can feel the color drain from your skin as you ask, voice thin, “What?” He climbs off of you, and you could throw up. “What is it?” 
“I think your friend is here,” he says, adjusting his clothes. Oh. Your mind wars between relief and terror knowing that, if Yeonjun knows Taehyun is here, Taehyun knows Yeonjun is here. Damn their superior hearing. 
You curse. “Go,” you urge, slipping out of bed with sticky thighs and stumbling to the wardrobe to source a shift dress to slip into. Yeonjun thumbs your chin, tugging your face to him, and presses a parting kiss into your lips. It lingers on your lips as he lets out a soft laugh, shoving open the window and disappearing through it. You roll your eyes, finding the image of him clambering down the tree to escape quite humorous. 
You clean up and settle into the bed. Is whatever you have going with Yeonjun sustainable? Echoes of Taehyun’s voice, vicious and tart, tell you that you should get it together; that you should nip this in the bud, and focus your energies elsewhere. You want so badly to make the little girl, snatched from her home, proud. You want to fulfill her dreams. But, you can’t shake yourself from whatever hold Yeonjun is securing over you. He so casually promises to give you everything you ever ask for; would you be stupid to ignore it? Is it naive to imagine that a man would say his words and mean it? A faerie, no less? 
You sink further as sleep calls you. If Taehyun knows that Yeonjun was here, or what you had done with him, he doesn’t show up to chew you out for it. You wish he would.
The next few days blur into hours of Court spent around Yeonjun and his courtly friends. You try to glean as much information as you can from it, but really, it’s mostly nothing of any importance. You begin to think that Taehyun is right; that you shouldn’t be sticking your nose into the business of a prince. If Yeonjun were to ever find out your reasons for even attending Court… Your stomach does a sickened flip. He might hate you for lying, maybe even begin thinking that you have been using him.
You really do like Yeonjun, though. It’s not just that he’s an interesting thread to follow; he treats you like you’re no different from him. Your bruised and beaten heart clings to him, hoping he’ll soothe over all the years you spent insignificant and unloved. If anything ever comes of all of your stolen nights and kisses, he’d have to know eventually. It can’t be shoved down forever, though you truly wish it could. 
You sit at the ornamental vanity in your room, combing through your hair, when Taehyun makes an appearance at the door. You haven’t had even one conversation with him following the morning Yeonjun had those dresses sent to you.
“We’re not going to Court today,” he says, his arms crossed over his chest. His face is steely. 
“Oh?” You place the boar bristle brush down. “What are we doing, then?”
He studies the room you’ve been staying in. It looks an awful lot like he’s searching for something. His eyes linger on the bed. “I think I got something last night. We’re going check it out. You’re gonna need your weapons.” 
He’s gone from the room with that. The conversation was terse and majorly discourteous, but it’s the most you’ve seen of him in multiple days. You’ll take it. Maybe you’ll even have time to plead your case today, or some way to show him that you’ve been practicing your fighting stances and memorizing poisons on the days sleep doesn’t find you as easy.
You’ve armed yourself to the teeth by the time you meet Taehyun at the bottom of the stairs. He’s armed much lighter than you.
“Did I overdo it?” you say, slicing yourself some cheese to eat on bread.
He adjusts the blade sheathed at his hip, shaking his head. “That’s just fine.” 
You frown and bite into your breakfast. What kind of information could he have gotten yesterday? The need for weapons worries you.
You like to think that you’ve adjusted to the chill of the north by now, but as you break through an untrodden forest with brambles catching your legs in each step, it does nip at your skin. You’re still only human, after all, no matter how hard you pretend yourself to be a faerie lady in the Court. You’re still only a spy, you’re reminded, as the two of you come across a mound of packed dirt sitting atop the snowy ground. It’s marked as an entrance only by a hole that looks hand-dug. You’ve lived long enough in Faerie to know that it’s more than just any old dirt hill or foxhole. The folk dwell in odd places like these.
“When we get in there, I need you to pretend that you’re a human servant. Can you do that for me?” he says. You’re unsettled, but you nod.
 You head for the entrance first. It’s just big enough for you to slip a leg into, duck under, and wiggle in. The entrance opens up, and you’re sent sliding down a chute of twigs and dirt. It takes every bit of your willpower to not make a ruckus of shouts and gasps in your descent. When your feet meet the ground you stumble to steady yourself, you know you look a mess. Taehyun makes a much more graceful descent, and you explain away any mortification with the notion that Taehyun had been anticipating it.
A throaty voice hoots almost immediately, “So, great Lord Taehyun thinks to show his face at this honkey tonk?” 
So, this is that kind of place, then. The reek of ale and wilder spirits tells you enough. What does he think he’ll learn from a place like this? Clearly, he’s known in this place, too. You’re always left with more questions about Taehyun than answers.
Taehyun doesn’t pay the barkeep any mind. “Fetch me a drink,” he says, before leaving you as he cuts through the measly crowd of revelers drowning in their merriments. You narrow your eyes and brew with distaste at his words, but you know he needs you to play the part of demure servant. You don’t know exactly why, but you can do it for him; you’d lived the role your whole life.
You scurry off, shoulders curled in, to the barkeeping hob that stands pouring foamy goblets of honey mead from barrel taps. He eyes you. “Pity you, girl,” he says. “That one’s a real brute.” 
You infer that his words are about Taehyun. Really, you should just grab a drink and go, but curiosity compels you. The faerie laughs at the questions brimming in your eyes. 
“A real, stone-cold killer,” he drawls, twisting open a different barrel. You resist the eye-roll tugging at your eyes. He’s just looking to entertain himself off of your human fright. You feign hesitance in your limbs when you accept the goblet full for Taehyun. He goes to fill another, from a third barrel. “The House of Blackthorn are all such a frightful bunch. The late Lord even more so, but he sowed a good seed of wicked into his son, regardless.” The worry you let your features into is real this time. There’s so little you know about Taehyun; this is the first you’ve ever heard of him that isn’t directly from his mouth. Should you be scared of Taehyun? Ice runs in his veins, sure, but you can scarcely imagine him as a brutal Lord. 
“One mead for the Lord, and one sugar-sweet liqueur for the lady,” the hob says, handing the drinks to you. You offer him a meek, “Thank you.” 
He shoots you an unsavory, toothy grin. “Welcome to The Hovel.” 
You find Taehyun in conversation with a sweet-faced faerie boy who strums at a lute. Their conversation tapers off as you approach. You hand Taehyun’s drink off to him. 
“You’re sure of it?” Taehyun says to the boy. 
“Yup. Just last night,” the boy says. His waved mop of blonde hair moves as he nods. You see the cogs of Taehyun’s mind turning behind his eyes as the exchange comes to a close. So, the information he was following from last night came to fruition, then. You kick yourself for your lack of any real results.
“Who was that?” you ask, voice hushed. You tilt your head at the faerie as he rejoins the other musicians, and the stream of lute song intermingles with the other instruments once again. You pretend to sip from the drink the hob had given you for free, tipping it into the dirt when you think nobody is looking. You know it’s bad manners, especially in Faerie, but you have bigger fish to fry. Taehyun hadn’t paid that boy for that info, nor had he paid the tavernkeep for his drink. You recall the hob’s words of warning. They fear him. 
He shakes his head. “Let’s get out of here, first.” 
When fresh air meets your lungs, you realize how stale and muggy the air inside the little burrow is. You pull yourself out through the exit, following Taehyun. The two of you begin your battle against the wild forest again. 
“So…?” you say. 
It’s getting colder as night arrives. His breath puffs from his mouth, furling like smoke into the air as he says, “Apparently, there were some lackeys there last night asking around about me and a human girl in cahoots with The Prince.” 
Your mind launches into a frenzy. Do they know that you’re spies? How would they even know? It’s not like the two of you have even done anything to garner any suspicion. Whoever has had their eyes on you and Taehyun has also noticed that you’re running around with Yeonjun. Is Yeonjun in danger? You gnaw at your cheeks. This person had to have been hovering around you two for days and days—not once had either of you noticed.
“Did you find out who it could’ve been?”
He shakes his head solemnly. You can tell he’s unseaming and picking apart every moment leading up to this one—you are, too. Nothing sticks out. 
You freeze in your tracks. A pretty magpie sits dead on the forest ground, its blood decorating the snow in patches. No arrow pierces it, nor is it caught in any sort of trap. It lays with its little legs in the air. The imagery is unnerving. 
“Poor thing,” you say, crouching down by it. 
Taehyun pays you and the bird no mind, but you feel that something is off when he turns to you with his limbs and shoulders stiff. “What?” you ask.
His eyes survey the forest around you. He must be hearing something that you can’t. The hair on your skin prickles. Are you being watched? Taehyun narrows his eyes, looking over the surrounding forest for a few long moments, before continuing on his way, and so you decide that you should too, despite the feeling buzzing at the back of your neck.
 Somebody comes crashing out of the foliage, securing your arms to your side before you can process that they’ve got you. They hold the point of a dagger to your chest.
Metal hisses as Taehyun frees the blade from his hip, but he doesn’t make any advancements. Your heart beats under the point of the weapon, chasing breaths as fear paralyzes your chest. 
“A little birdie told me,”—your captor says from behind you—“that I’d find you two here.” 
“Let go of her,” Taehyun says. He stands with so much restraint in his limbs.
A patronizing laugh hurts your eardrum with its proximity. He sounds like a cawing crow. “No, I don’t think I will, Lord.” He spits the title out like it is bitter in his mouth, letting the blade dig the littlest bit into your skin. You don’t even feel it with the way adrenaline buzzes in your gut, leaving your limbs shaky.
Taehyun can’t move, so you begin wiggling your fingers for your dagger. Fear chokes you. 
“You won’t miss this one, right?” the man says. He uses the metal to point up at your face, before replacing it over your heart. You’ve almost made it to your thigh, and still, he hasn’t taken notice. “I’ll just get this over with, and then we can talk about this more comfortably.” You may throw up. 
You bunch up the hem of your dress with the littlest of movements to free your thigh and slide out the dagger hidden there.
“Who told you where to find us?” asks Taehyun. Your palm is sweaty around the metal of the dagger, and you readjust your grip a few times, trying to muster the courage to swing it up.
“I told you already,”—the man readjusts his hold on you—“a little birdie.” There’s a sneer to his words. He points the tip of the dagger up to your chin, ghosting it down the column of your throat. Repressed whimpers of terror bubble to the surface. 
“Shut up,” he spits.
Taehyun challenges him. “Do it, then.” Blood roars in your ears.
“You think I won’t?” your snatcher says. 
“Do it,” Taehyun repeats, and you almost let your life flash before your eyes until you see that Taehyun is not looking at the man as he speaks; he’s looking at you. He’s telling you to do it. You tighten your grip on the dagger, before driving it behind you. It makes contact, and the faerie man bellows. You use his shock to free yourself. 
You had driven the blade deep into the man’s shoulder. He thrashes, ruby-red blood inking his fingers as he holds the wound.  
“Bitch!” he howls. “You’re fucking dead, anyway.” 
What does that mean?
Taehyun plunges his sword through the faerie before you even notice he had approached, or ask the man what, exactly, he means. He drops to the floor, mouth filling with blood. You can see it when he opens his mouth to scream and is only able to burble. His own blood chokes him. Your fingertips feel numb, and so does your face.
Taehyun turns to you. “You did good.” 
You did good? You don’t feel good.
You nod. “Thanks.”
 Now, on the forest floor of white snow, lies both a dead faerie man and a dead magpie. You feel the sensation of his skin breaking under your dagger reverberating in your hands, twisting in your mind. His blood paints the ground a nauseating shade of death-red.
“Are you okay?” Taehyun asks, eyeing you.
“Yeah,” you say. “Yeah, I am.”
You and Taehyun attend court the next day skittish. Taehyun delegates you a new role, now; make as big of a scene with Yeonjun as you possibly can. The goal is to throw attention to that, rather than to Taehyun as he continues snooping around. 
It’s not hard to make a spectacle of you and Yeonjun when everybody is already noticing. He doesn’t hide the way he showers you with luxuries, nor does he want to. You can’t help but wonder why he’s making such a show out of it. At some point, his father will hear of him courting a human. Word flies fast in Faerie. You can’t imagine The King would be pleased.
A hand curls around your hip, and you know it’s Yeonjun’s. 
“You weren’t here yesterday,” he says. 
You frown. “No need to state the obvious.”
 He laughs and thumbs your cheek, and you swear the butterflies that flutter in your stomach are nearly painful. “I missed you,” he says. His eyes glitter with the words. “Did you go somewhere with him?” he asks. You don’t miss the way the word him curls in his mouth, much like how a person of the court would speak of something more unfavorable in a sickly-sweet way, to keep up a mask of indifference. 
“We just ran some errands.” You shrug it off. It isn’t the truth, but it also isn’t so far removed from it that you feel uncomfortable about lying to him. Lately, the guilt lays more heavily over you. With each dress and bejeweled trinket Yeonjun sends your way, the more you want to get this big lie out of the way. You should’ve done it before Taehyun set you out to do this; at least then, you could face him and not feel so deceitful. Is there a way to tell him that still conveys that you aren’t using him?
Yeonjun’s eyes flicker to your mouth, and back up to your eyes so quickly you could’ve missed it with a blink. “I see,” he muses. “I could take you under my care, you know. He wouldn’t have a say in any of it.”
Your expression sours a bit, and you know it’s not the reaction Yeonjun had expected if the look on his face says anything. 
“I don’t want to just become a playtoy,” you say. 
He looks taken aback. “You wouldn’t be a playtoy,” he says. “Ever.” He searches your eyes for something. “Why would you even think that?” 
Because you’re a prince, you think. Because I’m a human. Because that’s all we are to your kind. 
“Then why don’t we just stay as we are?” you say. There would be no real reason to even go through with such a thing—not when nothing would come of it. Princes of Faerie don’t marry humans. You’d become a mistress, and that’s being optimistic.
“Taehyun is not a good man,” Yeonjun says. His voice is stripped of its usual playful inflection. Why does everybody seem to keep telling you that? “I would feel better knowing that you’re safe.”
Safe? He thinks Taehyun would hurt you? “I’m okay, Yeonjun,” you say, if only to placate him. He doesn’t look convinced at all. “He treats me well,” you laugh. You meet his hand on your cheek with your own, curling it around his. While he doesn’t know the truth of everything, or why you stay with Taehyun in the first place, it stitches some old wounds inside you seeing that he cares for you.
His jaw tightens. “My offer will still stand if you ever decide otherwise.” 
He brushes his thumb at the plush of your bottom lip. Your mind goes fuzzy. When he presses it fully to your lips, you suck his thumb into your mouth, tasting the imprint of his fingerprint with rolls of your tongue around it. He looks as though he could moan standing there watching you, so you make a point of not losing contact with his eyes. You feel multiple burning stares on you, but you shove them out. 
He watches your tongue and his gaze comes alive with hunger, tugging your lower lip down before taking your chin into a hold and molding his lips to yours. His kiss conveys every thought plaguing his mind in its raw nature.
Their eyes are on you; so many eyes are. You know they look, but for the first time, you don’t falter under the weight. He tastes like broken shackles and weightless limbs. He tastes like salvation.
He roams his hands dangerously. When your mouths part, despite your shortage of oxygen, you say, “I’m sure you had many courtly ladies to entertain in my absence.” Your head buzzes. 
You’ve never seen Yeonjun so much as interact with another woman, but you still worry that he doesn’t only have eyes for you. 
His face turns sly again. “They’re honestly all quite dull.” 
Maybe, one day, you’ll join those ranks. You remind yourself that you won’t be here forever—that this moment in time is finite. Hopefully, you won’t be here long enough to see that happen. You’re not sure your self-worth could handle that hit.
“Are you really so superficial?” you ask. You stay playful in your tone, peeling from him to waltz toward an entree table. He follows. The way he trails you like a puppy on a leash does a bit to bloat your ego, despite your worries. “What’s so special about me?” It’s cheap, you know, but you crave his praise. You’ve found yourself thriving off of Yeonjun’s sweet words like oxygen. The question had been plaguing your mind since he had first spoken to you, anyway.
He looks as if he can’t articulate what he’s thinking. Or, maybe, he’s just concocting some words that’ll sound nice to your ears. “This life has become tiring. It drains you, and I am surrounded by it. Endlessly.” He pops a treat off a platter into his mouth. “You’re like a breath of spring air to my lungs.” 
You’re his distraction. He saw a human and decided it would be the biggest spectacle he could find to distract from his princely woes. You draw back. What do the faeries in this court think of you? Do they snicker when you turn your back? Do they laugh to see you think that you’re more than just entertainment to him? Does he join them? 
“What’s wrong?” Yeonjun asks, seeing the way you retract into yourself. “What is it?” 
You have to keep this act up; the well-being of your mission relies on it. You should’ve never gotten your feelings so entangled. 
“Because I’m human?”
A frown etches into his porcelain face. “No. Maybe at first, but…”—he releases a measured breath—“No.” Selfishly, you’re thankful that his kind can’t lie. 
You and Yeonjun find the dancefloor, more packed with cavorting faeries each day, and you accept the distraction from your dreary thoughts. The wild nature of it strips you of such things, leaving you bare to just your happier feelings. It leaves you just as breathless as the first time had. You kick and whirl and flail your limbs freely. 
When Yeonjun inevitably tugs you from your trance and out of the throng of folk, you’re dazed. Exhausted. Your hands itch to be all over him. 
“Breathe,” he reminds you, smoothing over the wild tousle that your hair had become. You focus on steadying your erratic breaths. “You’re a wild one,” he says, a pleased grin on his lips. The flush on his cheeks mirrors your own, despite his teasing. 
You lean into him to support your legs of jelly. You must’ve danced for hours. 
Yeonjun looks down at you, and his features are soft. “You wanna rest?” You nod. He laughs and then takes your hands into his. He guides you away from the soiree, out from the canopy of trees, but not toward Taehyun’s estate. You don’t question where he leads you, even as cold air makes you realize how bare this dress leaves your arms, even as the unfamiliar path catches at the hem of your dress. He notices how you don’t care to lift it from the ground, snorting, before lifting you into his arms.
“Woah!” you protest, feet off the ground in seconds. “I can walk.”
“Ah, but, only a fool would let a pretty lady like you soil her dress in the dirt.” 
You scowl at him, but it doesn’t change the way your belly swoops. He treats you so delicately. 
He carries you until you arrive at a mini palace that is no doubt royal—it towers over any surrounding trees. And, you had thought you had seen luxury. This is luxury. This is a life spent fed off of only crystal spoons. You admire the lush interior as he carries you into the palace. 
“This is where you stay?” you say. 
He hums, and you can feel the rumble of it in his chest. “For one half of the year, this is my home.”
You notice how utterly empty it is. You had expected advisors and permanent guards and bustling servants. “It must get lonely here.” 
“I prefer it here,” he says. You can sympathize with that. You had spent the entirety of your life in the land of summer, but you had found more warmth than ever here in the north. This place was supposed to be a death sentence for humans, and though you had briefly met the danger that the north could present yesterday, you almost dread leaving. Maybe you just need more time, and then you’ll be so overtaken by fear that it’ll make it easy.
Yeonjun carries you through a door, and into what you assume is his room. A bed so large it would swallow up a third of the room you’re staying at in Taehyun’s estate sits in the middle of his room. He sets you down onto its velvety, rose-petal coverlet, before he climbs in next to you, propping himself up onto an elbow so he can admire you.
Your skin sighs as he rubs sweet circles over your bare shoulder with the pad of his thumb. The two of you settle into a long, comfortable silence.
“Do you believe that I don’t care for you?” he asks into the quiet. Do you hear hurt in his words? 
You meet his gaze and struggle to find words. Is it wrong to lie, just because you can? 
Your hesitance tells him enough. His fingers on your skin stop. “I am not so shallow, if you actually meant that.” Your words from earlier must’ve been gnawing at him. 
“It’s not that,” you say, avoiding contact with his eyes. It was exactly that. He doesn’t allow you to look away from him, sitting up to cut straight back into your vision. 
“What is it, then?” 
Your heart thrums. You want to tell him that you’re a liar, and that he should spit in your face and tell you to get out. You want to ask him if he’d still care for you the way he does if he knew your truth. You want to ask him if there’s any way that this can play out where the both of you end up together and unscathed. Your mind beckons you to ask him about every little doubt that has harassed your mind concerning him so that he can comfort you and assure you that they are just doubts. 
You ask none of those. 
“How can I show you?” he says. He climbs over you, knees straddling each side of your legs. “What would it take to prove to you that I mean it when I tell you that you make my heart ache? What will it take to make you become mine?” He lines a kiss up on your forehead, and then your cheek, and then onto the corner of your mouth. “This?” he asks, and then he hikes up the length of your dress, bunching all the fabric above your hips. He draws back so that he can plant a kiss on your clit, and he makes sure you’re looking at him while he does it. “Or is it this?” 
You breathe in the sensation, gasping his name like prayer and making room for him between your thighs. 
“Is that what it is, pretty? You need me to make love to you? I can do that,” he says. “I can do that, no problem.” 
He works at his clothes with one hand and brushes touches to your cunt with the other. Eventually, his needlessly extravagant Court shirt is off, and he’s holding your hip down as he prods the tip of a finger at your entrance. Your hole flutters in anticipation, his eyes catch it, and he breaks into a lousy grin. He finally begins pushing the finger into you, watching as you gasp at the way he curls into you. 
Pleasure whorls in your belly, rendering you increasingly dumber. “I need you,” you say. The muscles in his arm strain as he fingers you, and his black hair falls into his face with the movements. Your heart clenches.
“Slow down, baby. I need to do this, you’re not ready for me yet,” he says, pressing a soft kiss into your temple. “I want to make you feel good.” He slides another finger in, and you suppose he’s right, because it stretches you. He pumps and curls the both of them, and you dig your nails into his forearm as it all starts building in your belly. 
Yeonjun tugs his lip into his mouth, biting it, as he watches you grow restless under his fingers. Your peak feels so close, but his pace is so leisurely that you’re worried you’ll never reach it, as if caught in a limbo of torturous delight. “Faster,” you cry. “Faster, please.” It amuses him, and he abandons his casual pace for sloppy curls that have you whimpering into the air of his bedroom.
 “Yes, yes, yes!” A crescendo looms over you, until it crashes and your back is arching off the bed and you’re making embarrassing sounds. You dig crescents into Yeonjun’s arm when he continues to finger you. Your insides protest his stimulation, tugging and clenching tight in a way that borders tastefully on discomfort. 
“Fuck,” you hear Yeonjun say through the haze. “Just like that. Doesn’t it feel good?” he purrs. His fingers plow you through this peak, hurling you toward another one brutally. “I know it does; you’re clenching around my fingers so hard.”
Your hand covers your face. His words are lewd, and he says them like it’s nothing. It makes your insides burn. You can tell that the orgasm he beckons you into with each deliberate thrust is going to be explosive, frantically squeezing your thighs around his arm to staunch the intensity of his movements. Wet sounds punctuate each curl of his fingers. You can hardly believe that those sounds are coming from you.
“You want another one?” he says. You only answer him with pathetic whimpers. “Keep making those pretty noises for me.” 
You do, and he rewards you with his thumb on your clit. It drives you utterly wild. The blend of his fingers inside you and each bump against your nerves is exactly what you need to explode, and so you do, bucking. You’re worried he’s going to try and have you cum again when his fingers don’t stop, but he brings you down gently with small swirls. 
You catch your breath while Yeonjun adjusts you on the bed, tugging you down by your hips and sliding one of his thinner pillows under the bottom of your spine in a way that lifts your bottom half into the air. You laugh through ragged breaths; it feels a tad ridiculous.
“What’s that for?” 
He massages your inner thigh, soft humor twinkling in his eyes, but also so much more. “You’ll see,” he says. He hovers over you, bracing his weight into one arm at the side of your head so he can look right into your face. His free arm lines the tip of him up with you. Before making any moves to slide into you, he kisses you and takes your bottom lip with him as he pulls back. It exhilarates you; everything he’s ever done to you is exhilarating. You’re swept into a ripwave of emotion. Do you deserve all this? Is this life yours?
His hand rests on your hip, brushing over your hipbone with great gentleness, as he pushes into you. It’s slow and full of peppered kisses all over your face and neck, and then he’s in you to the hilt, and then he’s pulling back out of you so that you’re just so empty, but of course, with just a thrust he’s filling you back up. He falls into a swift pace, but each time he ruts up into you, it’s calculated and well-placed. Maybe it’s the pillow, or perhaps it’s just expertise, but he’s plunging into a sickeningly soft spot inside of you that makes your legs that are locked around his waist shake each time. Your eyes flutter close, but your mouth drops open in a soundless moan. 
“No, open your eyes. Look at me. Do you feel it? Do you feel my love for you?” he says, voice raw. “Is this what you needed?” 
Yes, this is exactly what you need. You feel so far removed from yourself that you can’t even feel your hurt or worries. You nod your head frantically. 
“Please, open your eyes,” he repeats, pleading in his tone. His face is right in front of yours when you do. His eyes flicker between both of yours. The intimacy of it is as consuming as the flames licking your insides, winding you up so tight that you might explode into a ball of blazing fire. The rolls of his hips turn into short, needy ruts. His mouth drops open, but he won’t close his eyes. He wants to watch you. 
“Yeonjun—” you breathe. Your muscles are tense all over, especially in your core, where he winds you tighter. The impending orgasm whispers into your ear that it will swallow you whole in its wake, and you believe it; you can’t breathe. 
“I know,” he says. When you squeak, face screwing up, Yeonjun reads you like letters on paper. “I know, it feels so good.” He’s just as much of a mess as you, panting while his free hand grabs at each of your curves to ground himself. You hold back your climax; it’s so hot in your belly that you fear how it’s going to wreck you. The hair on your skin prickles and rises. 
He feels how tightly you clamp down on him. “C’mon, pretty.”
Your nails rake paths down his biceps. “I can’t” you gasp. “Can’t—”
“Yes, you can.” 
Warm tears pool in the corners of your eyes and you shake your head. You do everything you can to urge it back; wriggling under him to escape his thrusts, pushing at his chest, biting into your poor lip until you fear it’ll bleed. Pressure builds all over you, your eyes burn and your muscles burn, like a thousand pounds of ecstasy pressing on each square inch of you and begging to be released.
“Stop running from it,” he says, pushing your hips into the mattress, pinning them so that he can deliver pointed thrusts up into that place that is so sensitive. It works wonders. “Let go, baby. Let it happen; I promise you it’ll feel so good.” 
You crumble, crying out into the air and clenching wildly around Yeonjun. 
“Yes, fuck!” he growls. He’s chasing his own peak now, leaving you no time to breathe through your own. 
You chant his name.
 “Squeezing me so good—you’re driving me up the fucking walls, pretty.” 
The sounds he rips from you are errant the more he pistons into you, and your hair sticks to your neck. For the third time, you cum, circling him in your arms and keeping him close while you try your best to ride this one out.
With the encouragement of you sporadically tightening around him, he stills over you, abdomen tensing up, before cumming into you, producing strangled sighs. He collapses down to his elbows and drops his head into your neck, delivering shallow rolls as he rides it out. Breaths puff onto your skin as he peppers warm kisses over every inch of your exposed skin. He stays like this, intertwined with you, for a while, lazily delivering thrusts until you’re both able to breathe fully again. 
When he pulls out of you, you feel him dripping from you. You should’ve told him to pull out; you must have no fears. It’s hard to worry too much about that, though, with the way he’s looking at your cunt as if the sight of his seed oozing from you was like nothing he’d ever seen before. He takes your ankle into his hand from where it hovers in the air, dusting a smooth and chocolatey kiss there.
“Do you see now?” he asks, bringing his eyes up to yours. 
“Yeah,” you say. “I do.” 
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…🪶 ashlynn's note there she is! I wanna see who y'all are more attached to this far.
﹙🏷️ ﹚ @lvrs-street2mmorrow , @soohashits if your tag isn't working, check the mentions part of your settings!
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tsandoll · 3 days ago
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omg yes im still here!!! i love your leehan nsfw alphabet omg 😭😭 ESPECIALLY LEEHAN'S OBSESSION WITH CUM EATING 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫 I can't stop thinking abt when he's overstimming himself because he needs your attention SO BAD but u can't do anything bcs you're away, to the point where his hands are sore from the jerking off, mouth and hands full of his own cum, he's shaking and crying as if he lost his mind. Looking down at the mess he made, he just couldn't help but to just not feel satisfied, he'll just keep jerking off until he is feeling like he'll pass out right at that moment. Also imagine leehans fingering himself bcs deep down he wanna get pegged but he's embarrassed to say it (brb fainting). I just love it when he goes crazy ♥️♥️
- 💤 anon
omg.. yeah.. i feel like when leehan starts to sub for you he would find that he really likes it. he'd find this new passion within himself and would become such a needy baby for you. when you're away from him it's like torture. you can't take care of him how he'd like so he gets all needy and he needs your attention so badly but he has no choice but to fuck his own fist to try to relieve some feelings that he so badly needs to get rid of. he'd be drooling while he fucks his fist, eyebrows furrowed as he tries so hard to get another orgasm out. it just doesn't feel as good as when u do it :(( he doesn't know what he's doing differently or what he's doing so wrong :(( he makes such a mess of himself, he'd just keep licking his hands clean again and again. his face would get all messy eventually, tears and spit and cum covering him, and his skin would be so so flushed but the blushy color of his face is nothing compared to the color of his cock :(
he's definitely one of the more curious members, one that's very willing to explore his own body. he'd be a little shy about bringing up pegging to you and on one random night he would just decide to mess around. he'd wait until after you'd fallen asleep and he'd wait until he's fully alone to try to play with himself. he'd curiously push a finger in, probably searching up videos on the right way to do this. he might not be able to make himself cum but he sure would try!! his fingers are pretty long though so he'd find spots that feel good but he might get too impatient and would make himself cum other ways 😖 the moment he makes himself cum like this though he'd be addicted, he would need u to peg him so so badly!!
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minswriting · 12 hours ago
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can we get a blurb or one shot of reader coming home from work, she's stressed and sexually frustrated from spencer not being home for so long so he lets reader ride his thigh, and everything is abt her pleasure cause he wants to make it up to her 🙏🏻🙏🏻??
thigh riding ❤️❤️
nsfw | mdni | spencer reid x reader | thigh riding, praise, pouty reader
When Spencer had gotten home from his case late at night, he hadn’t expected you to be still awake. You sat on the couch, looking pretty in a sage green silk nightgown. Spencer dropped his things as soon as he walked through the door, walking over to the couch. “You’re home,” You said, looking up at Spencer as he pressed a kiss to your forehead and sat down next to you.
“I’m home,” He said, pulling you into his lap. He looked at you with a tired smile, his hands on your hips.
You immediately wrapped your arms around his neck, straddling his lap. You gave him a peck on the lips. “I’ve missed you,” You said, sighing. “I’ve been so…frustrated without you here.”
It had been a while since Spencer had been home. He’s been on back-to-back cases recently and hardly had any time to talk to you other than small texts here and there. Spencer hummed in sympathy, tilting his head at you. “Yeah?” He said. “I’m sorry for being gone for so long, baby.”
You let out a small pout, moving yourself slightly so that you were on Spencer’s left leg, his good leg of course. “I’ve been all alone,” Your voice held a small whine to it. “Having to take care of myself.”
“Oh, baby,” Spencer said, licking his lips as he held you close to him. His hands remained on your hips. The pout on your lips, the whine in your voice, it never failed to make Spencer hard. “I’m here now,” he said softly.
You hummed, tentatively grinding your hips against Spencer’s thigh. The action made you whimper as the materials of Spencer’s suit pants collided with your clit. You weren’t wearing underwear because of course, you weren’t. “Been needing you so badly,” You whined softly.
“Show me,” Spencer whispered, guiding your hips to move back and forth on his thigh. He could feel how wet you were already through his pants, causing Spencer’s breathing to get shaky as he got turned on. But his pleasure didn’t matter when it came to you. He’d make you cum ten times before he would even think to get himself off.
And so, you showed Spencer. You moved your hips against his thigh, using him for your pleasure. It was only fair. He left you alone, fending for yourself, not even a phone call to guide you through it. You could only use your fingers and the thoughts of Spencer fucking you into oblivion.
It didn’t take long for you to get into a rhythm, rutting against Spencer’s thigh. Spencer’s pant leg was soaked, to say the least. “You’re so beautiful, baby,” Spencer breathed out, pressing kisses along your jawline. “I wish I hadn’t been gone for so long so that I could make you feel good all of the time.”
You moaned, still grinding your hips. “Taking care of myself is never enough,” you said, grabbing one of Spencer’s hands and intertwining your fingers with his.
“I know, baby,” Spencer said, burying his face into your neck. He pressed kisses along your skin. “I’m sorry, baby girl.”
You could feel the heat building inside of you, feeling yourself getting closer. “So close, Spence,” You moaned.
Spencer pulled away from your neck to look at your face. “Go ahead, baby, be a good girl and cum for me.”
That’s exactly what you needed as you let out a choked moan, cumming on Spencer’s thigh. You leaned forward, pressing your forehead against his as you came, your breath hot on his face.
And afterwards, Spencer took his time showing you just how much he missed you as he ate you out and then fucked you so good. The next day, neither of you even got a chance to leave the bed.
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h3nderyss · 2 days ago
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you as nct dream's 8th member (headcanons)
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pairing: ot7 x fem!reader . . . masterlist . . . 127 ver . . . wayv ver genre: fluff, headcanons a/n: romantic headcanons for each member if you were the 8th member and only girl in dream! u can imagine if ur in a secret relationship or not! ・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
mark
he'll get so flustered after ur compliments, saying something like "yo, stop... seriously!" while literally smiling
writes sooo! many! lyrics about u, he'd ask for ur opinion on them without finding out theyre rlly abt you..
loves walking with u after practice chatting, you guys always end up at his place, or getting food at a local restaurant
a date? a hangout? who knows at this point..
gets shy when the members tease him from how much he pays attention to u, "she's my friend, okay?"
expect to always be cuddled up to him during every movie night
he'd always jokingly ask u to put on spiderman. EVERY TIME.
asks for ur feedback on everything he does, secretly wanting to impress u ...🤫
calls u late at night just to talk abt random things that pop up in his mind
yap sessions galore with this man
never expect the room to be dim with his presence. especially with u around, he loves to talk
i feel like you and mark would talk in english the most too
renjun
starting off, he'd be adorably protective, scolding u if u overwork yourself, but softening with a worried smile
sings softly to u during quiet moments (his voiceee i can't)
teach u mandarin calling u beautiful just to see u blush
king of handmade gifts
omgg, the amount of snacks u guys would sneak each other so the members don't see and steal!
would send u songs that u might like, saying they reminded him of u
his gaze would just linger on u tbh!
jeno
BLUSHING GALOREEE
ok. you guys are just working out but then when he GUIDES u
like hands on hips sorta thing, he pretends it's "for safety"
that was enough to get ur legs weak more than the actual workout
he'd give u piggybacks during practice just to be silly
loves seeing u in his hoodies, pls steal them more often
yea he'd catch you if you stumble saying something like "careful, princess" HELLLOOO???
i think he'd take that as a perfect chance to steal a kiss from u
he's a smiley boy, pls compliment him to earn more smiles!
the members would tease him for how much he looks out for u but doesn't deny it at all
haechan
he'd always notice when ur tired, letting u lean ur head on his shoulder
he'd like steal ur phone to make u chase him around the practice room??
then you'd find a few selfies of himself in ur camera roll
randomly dramatically serenades u during practice breaks
if you'd go thru a haunted house, do NOT expect him to let go of ur hand. he wants u to be safe and comfortable at all times!
if ur bored u would cuddle with him and play with his hand and fingers
he'll get surprisingly jealous if u hang around another member for a while, he'd be pouting or just staring at u until u notice
expect him to be feeding u snacks, and vice versa
he actually visibly lights up after u laugh at his jokes
ohhh don't even get me started on his silliness. you'd be constantly telling him how much u love his goofiness
lowkey brags about how close u two are to the others, he acts like it's such a big achievement
jaemin
sooo sooo sooo effortlessly romantic 🫠
literally telling u "you're beautiful" as if it's the most natural thing ever
u guys would have SO many pics together
he'd always find a way to make u laugh! funny story or just jokes, as long as it means he'll be able to see u smile
he'd brush ur hair out of ur face during practice
his touch lingering just a little longer
lord the way he's just so CHARMING
plans cute outings for the two of u
yall know that vid of him and mark patting the seat in between them??
yea, when he wants u to sit next to him he WILL do that
ur insta would have candid pics of him everywhere
chenle
personal mandarin tutor
makes fun of u for pronounciation mistakes but is rlly considerate in making sure you'll get it perfect
there'd practically never be a silent moment with yall
one of u HAS to be yapping
he'd show u off
make u laugh nonstoppp his goofiness comes out more when he's with u
gets jealous if other members tease u, "only i'm allowed to do that!"
when u catch him singing he'll go "i'm practicing for you" then it ends up in a serenade
for some reason the song that pops up in my head when i wrote that hc is 'when i'm with you'
he wants to watch basketball with u just so he can spend time with the 2 things he loves
even if u hate basketball bc cmon.. u cant resist chenle
you'd jokingly get jealous about his obsession with stephen curry LMAO
when ur yapping, or he's yapping, he'd tuck a piece of ur hair behind ur ear idk
if he has like a solo schedule somewhere that requires u guys to be away for so long, expect 5 minute long videos he sends u of his day
OR just hours long facetime calls
jisung
one day he'd be shy when complimenting u, the other he'd be bold af
he just ends up zoning out looking at u thru the mirror during practice
yall would just have lots of duo dance sessions, he's like ur private teacher
king of back hugs, his arms go around ur waist
he'd always find a way to be around you so subtlety it's like he's lurking
not in a creepy way he just rlly likes u idk 🙁
ok enough of soft jisung
seeing him out of breath with messed up hair after dancing is a DIFFERENT feeling
kisses like everywhere bro
he'd like to kiss u trapping u between him and the wall
anywayssss....
expect cute instead of classy dates.
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