#i also was busy at work and quit trying to catch up after a couple of weeks

[purpledanser]

last year I tried to get into dracula daily a month late and read a ton of the archive all at once and HOLYYYYYY it is SO much creepier reading it from the start in real time. I felt so legitimately stressed when I woke up this morning and didn’t have a note from our good friend Jonathan Harker. it’s been two DAYS Jonny boy! are you good???

punctuated very nicely by Mina’s letters saying everything is okay and Jonathan will be home in a week :)))))

[alexiapp]

Next Step With You

Alexia Putellas x Reader

Summary: You and Alexia finally have the talk about Kids…

Note: I’ve been gone for so fucking long because of how insanely busy i’ve been but, i’m totally hoping on posting constantly and not keeping empty promises 😭..i’ve had an insane amount of writers block also so keep that in mind!! This isn’t my best work but it’ll have to do !

You never thought that you would be in love. You thought you were unlovable or maybe incapable of finding your ‘true one’. You presumed that maybe it was your strong personality or your high standards that caused these problems. You always had trouble with relationships, and had a couple horror stories when it came to your past love life. You always that you were the problem, until you met Alexia. She made you feel something that you never thought you would be able to experience. You felt giddy inside, and content. There wasn’t a dull moment between her and I.

Alexia was charming, and very charismatic and she also has a strong personality which drew you into her. Recently you guys have been entering a new chapter of your relationship. This year would be marking the 4th year you have been together. You couldn’t see your life without Alexia, it just wouldn’t feel right. You wanted to bring new milestones to you guys relationship. Everything you envision had Alexia in it.

You wanted to add an addition to you guys relationship badly..You wanted to build a family between the two of you. You only started feeling this way until you saw how attentive Alexia was towards kids, it always made you wonder how she’d be if you guys had kids. You knew deep down in your heart that Alexia would be an amazing mother, but you didn’t know if Alexia wanted to take that next step with you or if she was even ready. It’s something you’ve been hesitant to bring up, these loud thoughts always stayed in the back of your mind. You don’t wanna scare her away..imagine how crazy you’d looked if she didn’t feel the same way..i mean what if she thought you were a total nut case. This steered you away from Alexia, making you kind of cold and distance.

This situation made you second guess a lot of things. You took an immature approach, usually the average person would talk it out with there significant other in an healthy manner, but you being you, were quite stubborn and decided to isolate yourself. You started declining her offers to go out when she put the idea out there. You guys once long text messages turned into short and brief on your end no matter how hard the poor woman tried to carry the conversation.

You assumed Alexia didn’t notice how cold you’ve been ..Oh boy were you wrong. She was was in deep stress her mind was constantly racing wondering what she could’ve possibly done wrong. Trying to remember moments where she could’ve possibly said the wrong thing that might’ve hurt or offended you in any way. She was determined to get to the bottom of this and handle it quickly, she genuinely couldn’t take not having you around any longer.

After settling down and drowning in her thoughts she decided the only way to get your attention is by catching you at in unexpected moment. She decided she’d venture to your apartment without giving you any head’s up. She didn’t want you to find another excuse to brush her off and ignore her, she wanted to talk to you and get you back. She was determined and ready to do whatever it takes.

The determined blonde quickly grabbed her phone and car keys headed straight for your flat ready to corner you.

You were brought out of a day dream when you heard a knock on your apartment door. You got up and walked over to your door with confusion written all over your face. You weren’t expecting a visitor or any packages. Shock washed over you when you were met with a very agitated and worried blonde. The last person you wanted to see.

Your once confused face was replaced with a very shocked expression.

“Um..hi?” you muttered out in surprise at what you were faced with.

“Why have you been ignoring me” Said the hazel eyed woman as she pushed through into your apartment door.

“i..i haven’t been, i’ve just been very busy i-“ you said as you staggered your words.

“Don’t like to me, you know how much i hate when people lie” the blonde woman said cutting you off in your lousy excuse as to why you haven’t been very present in you guys relationship.

“You’ve been brushing me off, you’ve been texting me less and less. I want to know what i did wrong so i could fix it”. She said with fury in her voice.

“There’s nothing you can do, to stop me from me feeling how i feel right now Alexia” You said nervously.

“Then what is it! I need to know what it is so we can fix it. I want us to fix this” she said waving her hand between you and her.

“I feel like if i tell you what it is, our relationship would be over” you said with a meek expression.

“amor whatever it is we can try and get past it, i just have to know” she said gently as she walked towards you grabbing your hands as a form of comfort. She could tell you were nervous about what you wanted to say next.

“There’s things that i want to do in our relationship that you might not be ready for Alexia, and i don’t want that to jeopardize what we have.” You said conflicted on weather you should open up to her or not

“Hey, no matter what is bothering you, we can fix it and hopefully move past it..i promise” she said as she rubbed her thumb across my hand.

“I want us to have kids..i want to have kids with you, and i didn’t know how to tell you. I didn’t want to scare you off i didn’t want you to think i’m so crazy person. I see myself starting a family with you..” You said with fear in your voice. You were almost quivering with fear on how she would react. You were shut down when you heard the woman in front of you hysterically laugh.

Oh no…she thought you were a joke, she must think you’re a loser..you told yourself, emotions bathing in a pool insecurity. You broke your hand away from her turning away in rejection. “ I knew this would happen, i just knew you wouldn’t take me seriously” you said with hurt and regret in your voice.

You turned your body away from her not wanting her to see how hurt you truly were.

“I’m sorry, come here” she said trying to make you turn towards her.

“i’m not laughing at you about what you said, i’m laughing because why wouldn’t you think i want that also?” she said chuckling lightly. She placed her fairly large hands on her face cupping your cheeks softly and said “why would i want to do that. There isn’t anyone i wouldn’t rather start a family with” she said shaking her head at your ridiculousness.

“I just thought that maybe you’d think that we’re moving to fast, i was just scared” you said looking into her hazel eyes.

“vale, firstly their isn’t anyway i could see life without you..let alone my future with you not being in it, if you told me how you felt ahead of time this wouldn’t be our outcome” she said has she brushed her thumb against your cheekbone

“Amor, you have to communicate with me when you’re feeling this vale ?” she said shaking her head to try to get me to understand. Which i nodded in response.

I leaned in and pecked the blonde’s lips, you were suddenly thrown over her shoulder, making you giggle in surprise “Let’s practice making that baby sí!” as she carried you to your apartment bedroom.

I’ll grammar check later !!

[generalsmemories]

Unwanted reunion

✧ jing yuan x gn!reader

✧ prompts: “catching the other one crying shortly after an argument and immediately feeling an overwhelming wave of guilt crash onto you.” + "it's okay, we can fix this..." + “playing with their hair until they fall asleep”|| 1k event

✧ contents: hurt/comfort, angst, established relationship, implied character death

✧ a/n: if u wonder how in the world i came up with the scenario below. i genuinely don't know either it's a mystery to even me. CREATIVE LIBERTY WINS AGAIN THE PROMPTS WERE LITERALLY INSPO AND NOT WRITTEN DIRECTLY INTO THE SCENARIO. also implied that this took place after the battle with phantylia so keep that in mind.

NOT BETA-READ AS USUAL FELLAS I WANTED TO HAND THIS OVER TO YA'LL ASAP AS AN APOLOGY FOR STARVING YOU ALL FOR SO LONG!! it's mild angst though, so sorry.

Jing Yuan's can feel a familiar heaviness weigh on his body as well as the feeling of someone wrapping a roll of gauze on his arm. However opening his eyes proved to be a challenge in itself and it's only with great struggle that he can manage to force them slightly open to the bright light.

The first thing he notices is the familiar ceiling of your shared home. A bit weird since whenever he did get injured he would immediately be rushed towards a private room by the Seat of Divine Foresight - which was the safest place for him to stay. Perhaps you had gotten your will again to take care of him - seeing as you're a high ranking healer yourself and quite a stubborn soul.

But his eyes still widen a tiny bit when he sees you sitting by the edge of the bed, one hand gripping his gauzed wound while your other hand is busy trying to find something to keep your hard work in place. You're humming a soft tune again, he never knows what sort of melody you're humming, only that it had become a habit for you after the amount of years you had spent by his side bandaging his battle wounds. Something about helping your mood and staying positive.

"Your recklessness knows no bounds, Jing Yuan." the sternness of your voice snaps him out of the daze he's in, immediately rising up from the bed only to groan in pain when the wounds that you had just wrapped up react to his body folding, "... And still don't know when to rest - even when I'm in the middle of treating you."

"...How much time has passed?" he asks, voice hoarse after having slept for who knows how long. You only hum, setting the bandages aside - the gesture causing Jing Yuan to follow your hand movements which makes him notice the bloodied bandages inside the trash by your legs.

"A couple of days, I was just finishing changing your bandages when you finally woke up. Here, some water." you inform, raising a glass towards his lips, patiently waiting for him to move closer.

You only start to speak again after he's taken several gulps, placing the cup of water back on the nightstand beside his bed. "Why are you so willing to throw your life away?" you ask after a moment of silence, helping Jing Yuan rest against the headboard, eyes never leaving his own that don't dare to even look into your own.

"It's my duty-"

"Your duty is to make sure as many of the Cloud Knights survive a battle. Not gamble your life on a piece that you weren't sure had the capabilities to help."

Jing Yuan bites his tongue at your immediate rebuttal, you were right after all. "The Master Diviner was right there by you. A troop was enough to guard the entrance, you didn't need to leave the master diviner with them to go on this-"

"... Can't you be happy for once whenever we meet like this?" he asks quietly, effectively stopped you from saying anything more. His gaze is cast downwards whenever he mutters the same question to you whilst shrinking a bit after asking. There's no sign of the proud general in your presence - in front of you is just Jing Yuan asking a supposedly harmless question.

Perhaps that's the reason why you can never shove him away immediately.

"... You know what my answer is."

Jing Yuan was no crier. In fact, you think he stopped crying or showing any visible sign of discomfort or uneasiness the day he got the title as General. You're pretty sure you can count the amount of times you've seen Jing Yuan cry on one hand.

Perhaps his ability to hide his own needs and wants so often day by day for the past centuries makes your dismissal of his simple wishes that more gut-wrenching for you. You try to ignore the overwhelming guilt that washes over you every time you have to say the same thing to him.

"... You have a lot of things that you want to get done on the Luofu, Jing Yuan." you murmur softly, extending a hand to run your fingers through his locks, breaking apart any knots that may have formed in his sleep.

"You know we can meet again, but now is not the time - especially now," you gently remind with a sombre smile, your hand moving from his hair to rest against his chin to make him face you.

"It's gonna be alright, okay?" he scoffs at your reassurance, finally coming to terms with your conditions once again like always, wrapping his arms around your waist to fall down back on the bed with you on top.

"Remember the last time you said those words to me?" he says, almost sounding offended at your choice of words to which you only smile against his skin in guilt.

"It was the first time I saw you cry so hard," you try to joke, pressing your hands against the mattress to push yourself off of Jing Yuan, choosing to hover above him instead.

"... I'm sorry," you decide to say in the end after a moment of silence, once again threading your fingers through his hair - an act you knew used to calm him before. At this moment though, you're not so sure.

"Why? Shouldn't I be sorry?" he asks in return, a small yawn leaving his lips as his eyes struggle to stay open. You smile bitterly as you shake your head, still threading your fingers through his hair.

"No, none of it was your fault - what happened back then was out of your control. But this time it isn't. I can wait for a long time, Jing Yuan. I know you're aware of that so don't try to rush anything to meet me again." you tell him, leaning down to press your lips against his forehead.

"So it's time to wake up, dear. Luofu is waiting for you."

[imliterallyellie]

hiiii, love! how about a lil kitchen-domestic moment between ellie and reader where they’re trying out a new recipe. the catch is that they’re failing miserably at actually making the dish because they keep getting distracted by each other (dancing, laughing, making jokes, teasing each other, anything). mkay bye thank you sm MWAH 😙♥️

is this thing on? 🎤

ellie is a pest in the kitchen

a/n changed this up a little bc i feel like ellie being annoying in the kitchen while u cook or bake is canon

“no els, it was 1 cup of sugar!” you quickly swatted your girlfriend’s hand away, making sure she didn’t ruin all the hard work from the afternoon.

when maria told you about her plans to throw tommy a little surprise party for his birthday, you immediately took it upon yourself to take care of some baked goods. thursdays meant free afternoons for you, free of any chores, which gave you some time to get to work on one of your favorite desserts of all time; red velvet cake.

either there was a catch; thursdays didn’t only mean free afternoons for you, but also for your girlfriend, and the two of you rarely spent any of that precious, free time not together. so when you told ellie that you were gonna spend your afternoon in the kitchen, baking a cheesecake for tommy’s birthday, there was no way she wasn’t going to be right on your tail.

you thought it could be fun, baking with her. although you had tried many times to get her to help you in the kitchen with anything, it wasn’t really her cup of tea. but the idea of you working away on a delicious, sweet red velvet cake, and her missing the chance to steal some every now and then, must’ve convinced her to be your right hand that day.

“hmm- ‘m sorry, baby. i thought it was 2 cups.” she gave you a sheepish smile, before putting down the cup and cleaning up the sugar that spilled on the counter when you swatted her hand away earlier. you got back to work on the cake, looking back at the recipe every now and then to make sure you got the right ingredients and measurements, you really didn’t want to mess this one up.

you thought, after her little moment with the sugar, she would retreat herself back in the living room, but none of that. a couple moments went by before you felt a pair of slender arms circling your waist, swaying the both of you to the background music that was playing in the kitchen. “can’t you take a break, baby? you’ve been working so hard this afternoon. need’ya to get some rest too, hmm?” you leaned your head back against her chest, rethinking her words. it had been a couple hours, and ellie was probably right, but you couldn’t really take a break right now. not when tommy’s birthday party was in less than 24 hours, and you wouldn’t have much time to finish it tomorrow.

“i can’t, baby. just give me another hour or so, okay? i promise i’ll be all yours then.” ellie didn’t reply, but she nuzzled her face in the crook of your neck, definitely not planning on leaving anytime soon. her current position meant that whenever you tried to move around the kitchen, you’d have her body to carry around with you. it was normal for ellie to get this clingy on your day off. throughout the other days of the week you both got quite busy, whether it was patrol or any other tasks in jackson, you were both very often first in line, always eager to help out the community. that meant you often went a whole day without seeing each other, ellie out the door before you got up and your girlfriend already sleeping after a long day from patrol, before you come back from cleaning the stables.

before you could swat her hand away, she dipped her index finger in the sugary batter that was slowly but surely coming together, and swiped it off on the tip of your nose. “ellieee, c’mon baby. gosh you’re so annoying.” you wiped the batter of your nose, before she repeated her action, over and over again all over your face.

“williams, you better stop, before there’s not any batter left for the cake.”

“oh, are we on last name level now?”

“if you keep being such a pain in the ass we will be, yes!”

she tried her luck one more time, flicking some of the sugary delicacy onto your neck. before you could scold her for wasting more of it, she shut you up by lowering her head to your neck and licking it off. you whimpered lowly, slightly taken aback by your girlfriend’s actions.

“not so annoyed anymore now, are we?” ellie pulled her head out of your neck and looked at you with a smug smile, clearly proud of what she just did. you tried to turn around in her embrace but failed, her strong arms picking you up and putting you on the counter, hungrily kissing you.

“it’s only 4pm, we’ve got some time to finish this cake tonight. i bet you taste more sweet anyway.”

[vikkirosko]

hello, I would like a scenario where stolas, fizz and striker with a s/o who covers him with lipstick kisses and then gives him a shy smile

Headcanons Lipstick marks

🦉 Stolas x Reader 🎩

For a long time, you and Stolas haven't had many opportunities to spend time together. However, after he divorced Stella, you had a lot more time that you could spend together and you both tried to make up for the lost time that you could spend together

Quite often, when you were alone, you kissed. He gently hugged you around the waist, and you stroked his cheeks with your palms while you kissed. And on a quiet day that you planned to spend together, you came to his office, but before he could say anything, you kissed him. You kissed his face, and when you pulled away, he saw a shy smile on your lips

You ran away from his office, and Stolas didn't quite realize what it was until he saw his reflection in the window. There were lipstick marks on his face that you left. Now the reason for your innocent smile and the fact that you left so quickly was obvious. This caused him to laugh softly and a warmth in his chest

Stolas came to you quickly, not hiding his own smile and pulling you in for another kiss. The marks of your kisses excited him and he would like to give you as many kisses as you gave him

🐍 Striker x Reader 👢

Striker was often in various places of Hell because of his work, but every time he had no "orders" he returned to you, to your small apartment where you were always glad to see him, where you helped treat his wounds. You have been in a relationship for a long time and Striker knew that he could always come to you, even if he was stained with someone else's blood

Due to the fact that he was often absent, you tried to catch up. You spent a lot of time together, trying to stay in the house, because Striker had a lot of enemies. And he especially liked kissing you. He often kissed you when you were spending time together or when you were going about your business

In the morning, you periodically left to, for example, go to the store or do something for work, although you usually worked from home. And this morning Striker woke up to the feeling of a kiss on the cheek. He opened his eyes a little and saw you and your shy smile. You kissed him on the tip of his nose again and said you'd be back in a couple of hours and left. It was only when he got up and saw his reflection in the bathroom mirror that he understood the reason for your shy smile. There were a lot of lipstick marks on his face that you left before you left

Striker couldn't help but grin at the lipstick marks. When you returned, he managed to wash the lipstick off his face, but that didn't mean he was going to ignore your kisses. He intended to return them to you with interest, especially now that you've returned home

🎪 Fizzarolli x Reader 💟

Fizzarolli loved spending time with you and loved kissing you. His feelings for you were strong and he wasn't shy about showing them to you, to which you responded in kind. You showed your feelings for each other regardless of whether you were alone or in a public place

It's enough when Fizz applied his makeup, he could smear your face with his makeup, laughing and smiling. You also laughed, joking that now you can go on stage together, but one day you decided to respond to him in the same way that he usually did, but for Fizzarolli it was still a surprise

When he washed off his makeup, you hugged him from behind and started kissing his cheeks. Fizzarolli laughed, turning to you and pulling you in for a kiss. You were kissing, and when you pulled away, he saw a shy smile on your face. It was a little unusual, so Fizz looked at his reflection and laughed when he saw the lipstick marks of your lips on his face

Fizzarolli liked to see the marks you left on his skin and he took advantage of the opportunities to leave similar marks on your skin. It seemed to bring you closer together, and although you didn't leave similar marks on each other's faces when you had to go somewhere, it didn't mean that you erased them on other parts of your bodies

[cevansbrat0007]

Bad Days

Summary: Ari helps you get through a particularly bad day...

Warnings: Mature Themes, Insecure Reader, Ari Being A Menace, Discussions of Poor Body Image, Body Insecurities, Name Calling, Mentions of Disordered Eating, Clothed Male Nude Female (CMNF), Oral Sex (Fem Rec Implied), Ass Slapping, Spanking (mentioned), Pet Names, Cursing, Minors DNI

A/N: Part of my Sweet Renegades Series. Semi-proofread, not beta'd. All mistakes are my own. Likes, comments, and reblogs are always appreciated. Thanks for reading!

“I don’t think I wanna do this.” You grumble as you walk into the living room. You lean down to hand your companion a glass of scotch, offering him a half smile when he gently takes it and places it on a nearby coffee table. “Seriously.”

Instead of responding, he simply pats his lap and waits. 

“Okay. How about we don’t need to do this?” You try again, hating how relaxed his big body seems while taking up way too much space on your couch. 

Ari shrugs then, catching his plump bottom lip between his perfect teeth and waits. He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t demand. Doesn’t boss. He just waits.

For you.

“It’s stupid.” Your voice comes out softer now, more delicate. “And it’s not like it's gonna change anything.” 

Your Bounty Hunter cocks his head to the side, one tawny brow raised as he patiently waits for you to continue cycling through your list of objections. 

“I just have bad days sometimes.” Hot tears prick the backs of your eyes. But even though you’re quick to blink them away, you’re not quite fast enough. 

Ari studies you for a moment, his piercing blue eyes making your nipples pebble beneath the thin material of your silk robe. It made it hard to remember that you were technically in trouble. Which meant that was was about to happen could technically be construed as a punishment. 

“Then why don’t you be my good little Bird and have a seat, hm?” Your man’s deep voice comes out thick and rough. And while you have a feeling that he wants to make you obey, you know he also wants you to come to him on your own.

“Can the robe stay on, maybe?” You ask, your freshly polished toes digging into the short, plush carpet. “What if I get cold? Or–”

“You won’t.” He softly interjects, widening his jean-covered thighs just a little. Because although you didn’t know this, he’d already made a couple quick adjustments to the thermostat just in case. The last thing your man wanted to do was make you uncomfortable – at least not like that.

And then he holds out his hand for your robe. You stand there glaring at him, the two of you engaged in a silent battle of wills. He wins, of course. But only because you have nothing to throw at him. 

Except for your goddamned robe, which the smug bastard manages to catch midair. 

Ari tosses it to the other side of the couch before returning his attention to you. He’s pleased when you take a tentative step toward him, followed by another. And then another. The next thing you know, you’re slowly easing your nude body onto his lap…

And into his waiting arms. 

Immediately he wraps them around you, drawing you closer to his hard, muscled body. It never fails to make you feel soft and feminine – even when your mind was busy screaming at you that you were anything but. 

Today you felt dumpy, fat, and unattractive. 

But then here was this handsome man, holding onto you as if you were the most precious thing in the world to him. It was enough to make you start crying all over again. Just like you had this earlier morning.

“I’m sorry.” You whisper, swallowing the lump in your throat as you work to speak.

“I gotta be honest with you, baby.” Ari murmurs after a few minutes, his warm lips skimming over your brow. “I didn’t like what I heard come outta that pretty mouth this morning. Especially didn’t like it when you called yourself a pig.”

“Why?” You choke out a wet laugh. “Would you rather I have compared myself to some other barnyard animal?”

You’re rewarded for your snark with a sharp slap to your left flank, which suddenly has you burying your face in the crook of his neck. 

Oops. Guess that wasn’t the response he was looking for.

“No.” He grunts as you feel his fingers dig into the tender flesh of your thighs. You had no doubt that you’d be sporting a delicious set of fresh bruises on your skin by tomorrow morning. 

“Oh.” Whimpering softly, you wrap your arms around his neck as you try to ignore the way his possessive, proprietary touch makes your body flare to life.    

“I wanna know why you felt the need to make the comment at all. Regardless of whether you knew I was listening or not.”

And there was the rub. You hadn’t expected him to come during your meltdown, let alone actually hear you berating yourself to the degree that you had been. Had you known you’d had an audience you would’ve at least had the sense to lock yourself in the bathroom or something, but instead you’d just had to cry your heart out in the middle of your bedroom floor. 

You must’ve looked so pathetic to him in that moment.

“Stop.” Ari commands, the single word spoken like a heated caress against your ear. “Whatever mean thought you’re thinkin’, I’m tellin’ you to knock it off right now.”

“H–how?” Your question comes out muffled thanks to the fact that your face is still hidden in his neck. 

“You have a tendency to tense up whenever you’re being unkind to yourself, sweet girl.” He replies with a shrug before forcing you to pull away from him so that he can look into your eyes. 

“I–I do?” No one had ever thought to share that with you before.

“Yep. Sure do.” He pinches your nipple as his gaze briefly drops to your bare cunt. “As your man, it’s my job to notice these things. Even when all I wanna do is bury my fingers knuckle-deep inside that tight little pussy until you’re drippin' and speaking in tongues, this shit comes first.”

Your hips jerk of their own volition when Ari reaches down to tenderly cup your sensitive core, massaging your damp flesh. Instantly you feel your slick honey coating his palm, making your cheeks heat. 

It didn’t help that you always seemed to end up naked around this man while he stayed fully clothed. In the past you’d only read about that kind of power dynamic. But these days you were beginning to enjoy it. 

“So tell me what has my woman being so hard on herself today? Be honest, now.” He presses as his fingers go trail their way along your belly, an action that has you immediately sucking in your stomach.

“Can we please turn off the lights?” You ask, feeling somehow both shy and stubborn at the same time. “At least some of them?”

“No.” He hisses back, not to be outdone. “You’re too beautiful not to look at, Bird. I might as well be a moth drawn to your flame, that’s how much hope there is for me these days.” 

“But I hate my belly. It’s so…soft.” You tell him, finally willing to admit defeat. “And I pulled all these sweaters out of storage today – from my thinspiration pile – and they fit even worse than they did then when I first bought them.”   

Your Bounty Hunter stares down at you for a moment, his brow furrowed in confusion.

“Thinspiration?” 

“Yeah.” You hiccup, appreciating when he offers you a sip of his scotch, even when it makes you cough. “It’s like when you buy a shirt or a dress – or in my case a bunch of sweaters – that are too small for you so you can use them as inspiration to…you know…finally drop the weight.”

“Oh, Jesus H. Fucking Christ.” He snarls under his breath before taking a deep pull of his drink. “That’s what all this was about?”

Sheepishly you nod, as if finally realizing just how ridiculous you sounded. But at the time all of it had made perfect sense. “I figured it might help keep me from eating…too much.”

“Sweetheart…” His deep voice rumbles low in his chest as he polishes off what’s left of his scotch. “Fuck those sweaters, fuck the jeans, and whatever the fuck else is in that stupid fucking thinspiration box, or bag, or whatever. I mean it.”

One of Ari’s big hands reaches out to take hold of your chin, making it damn near impossible to look away from him. 

“You and me are gonna get rid of that box.”

“But, Beast –” 

“No.” His grip tightens ever so slightly. “That’s not good for you, baby. It never was. And I don’t ever want to hear you disrespecting yourself like that again. I really don’t. Broke my fucking heart.” Ari leans in to brush his mouth over yours, his free hand taking every advantage to stroke and caress its way along your body. “And it really pissed me the fuck off.”

“I’m sorry.” You mumble as fresh tears spill over onto your cheeks. “I–I’ll try to work on it.”

“These curves of yours are a gift from God, you hear me?” He muses as kisses away a tear. “Or the Devil himself. Depends on who you’re asking I suppose. There’s nothing I love more than watching those hips sway in one of your pretty sundresses, or seeing that luscious ass bounce every time I spank it.”

“You do seem to have a hard time keeping your hands to yourself, Sir.” You respond playfully through a watery grin. 

“Mmhm. The only thing better is when you’re busy holdin’ me hostage.” Ari flips your positions so that he’s on top of you know, effectively pinning you against the couch so that he can grind his denim-covered erection against your damp folds. “Keepin’ me trapped as your love slave while I work my ass off to satisfy that greedy pussy long until we both pass out”

“Hey…” You pout, shivering when he nips at your bottom lip. He tugs it into his mouth, sucking hard before releasing it with a soft pop. “I thought you liked the job.” You press your hands against either side of his bearded face, pulling him down for a proper kiss. 

“Oh, I love the job. Gorgeous girl. Great pay, benefits.” He nuzzles a path of hot, wet kisses along the column of your throat, loving how it makes you giggle. “All the pussy I can eat.”

“Wow.” You breathe, torn somewhere between lust and humor. 

“But in all seriousness, Bird, the only thing I ever want is to see you happy. Keeping that box, holding on to whatever the fuck that was supposed be…” You press a finger to his lips, pausing him mid-sentence.   

“I don’t want to just throw them away. I mean, they’ve still got the tags on them and everything. But there is a women’s shelter in the next county. Do you think maybe we could..?”

Ari nods once, giving you a warm smile as he does. Knowing that you’d managed to please him has a fresh wave of slickness coating your already slippery thighs.

“As long as you agree to let me keep you naked and stuffed full of my cock for the rest of the weekend, we can do whatever the fuck you want.” He hitches one of your legs over his shoulder, dragging his tongue along the soft skin of your calf. “And since you seemed to listen so well, I suggest you lay back and relax, because, baby…”

“We both just earned ourselves a treat.”

END

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[thefangirlfever]

"Let me keep you warm"(a Miguel O'hara NSFW story, 18+)

Summary: What would happen if the two of you spend the night in a cabin during a snow storm?

Tags: NSFW, MDNI, F/M, dad bod Miguel, oral sex (F. receiving), married couple, breast play (slightly), masturbation, face sitting, curvy y/n

==========================

The two of you were cuddling in front of the fireplace while the storm kept raging outside. You’ve been taken by surprise by the weather and since the beginning of the storm, the power has run out in the cabin. There were some candles in the cellar that you used to light up the room and you could also rely on the fireplace’s light and warmth.

Even so, your body was slightly shivering under the covers. Miguel was hugging you from behind, his strong arms circling your much smaller silhouette, holding you close enough to keep you warm and still being gentle with you as if you were made of glass. He knew that the storm was worrying you and he was trying his best to reassure you. One of his hands kept stroking your hair while whispering sweet nothings, trying to keep your attention away from what was going on inside. Still, your eyes would often linger on the window. There was something mesmerizing in this eerie landscape, as white and pure as a pearl. You were both fascinated and frightened by this sight. Feeling your body shivering, Miguel’s arms held you tighter and he planted a quick kiss on the top of your head. His eyes also looked at the window but he didn’t seem as impressed as you. He just sighed.

“I’ll have to shovel all the snow tomorrow I guess…”

You scoffed at his so-practical mind, which made him smile softly. As long as you were not scared, he didn’t mind shoveling as much snow as possible the next day. His mouth didn’t leave your head and instead he gave one quick kiss to your ear and then to your nape, making a few hair standing up.

“Miguel...do you think it’s the right moment for that?”

Even if you couldn’t see his face, you knew that he was smiling. His lips kept giving some quick pecks to your skin, carefully moving your hair to the side.

“Of course. It’s just the two of us, trapped in the middle of the woods… It’s like we’re all alone in the world.”

“I didn’t know that you were such a romantic.”, you teased him. Even if you rolled your eyes at his words, you were clearly amused. When his hands slipped under the blanket and began to run up and down your back, you didn’t move away. His hands were surprisingly warm, while you’ve been feeling like an ice cube all the time you spend in this place. Even if you already knew it, it still surprised you every time, just how warm his body constantly was. You were not shy to say the word. Miguel just felt comfortable and he knew it, whether it was good or bad for you was still up to decide. It could be quite delightful to come back home after a long day of work and just lay your head on his tummy, let him cradle you in his arms and make the little spoon out of you. But sometimes he knew you were unable to resist him in these conditions and he didn’t shy away from using these advantages.

“Romantic? If you could read my thoughts right now, I don’t think you would call me this way.”, he teased you back while his fingertips ran over your spine. His hand tugged at the hem of your shirt and you felt his fingertips on the small of your back. Your ears perked up at his words and took a pink hue, which you couldn’t hide from him in this position. Miguel was ruthless in these moments; he just knew it wouldn’t take a lot of time for you to indulge in this moment.

“Maybe this storm is even a good thing? It’s been such a long time since I had you all for myself…”

You couldn’t tell him he was wrong. It’s been so long since the two of you have had a moment for yourselves and these holidays were supposed to be the occasion to catch up on this time. Yes, life has kept you busy these last months, work has been hectic and you were often too tired to do anything. Miguel never pressured you into doing anything against your well-being or that could deprive you of some well-deserve rest. But that didn’t mean you didn’t want something to happen. In fact, you had some ideas on how to spend these holidays… Everything was supposed to be perfect, romantic in every way… and this stupid storm ruined everything. This simple thought frustrated you even more. Feeling your body tense, Miguel kept massaging your back, rubbing his hands over you in slow, circular motions. He knew it was frustrating for you since you had planned everything so well, and he appreciated your efforts. But he didn’t need all that and he was determined to prove it to you.

Miguel’s lips kept kissing your neck, even gently nibbling on it. You were slowly feeling your body getting warmer, especially one area.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t think about it…”

Well, you did think about it. Honestly, at some point you were only thinking about this, especially after weeks of inactivity.

“Maybe, I did…”, you answered quietly. Miguel smiled against your skin as he pulled you closer to him. The blanket fell from your shoulders and his hands snaked up higher on your back. Your shirt slowly lifted up, revealing more of your skin and Miguel smirked, noticing that you didn’t have a bra on.

“You’re really making this almost too easy for me.” His fingertips brushed against your spine, making you shiver. He took his time admiring your body squirm under his touch, the way the freckles and moles on your back seemed to dance against your skin, looking like a constellation. Under your skin, your ribs were heaving up and down at a slow pace, just like your breathing had slowed down. Miguel couldn’t fight back the urge to wrap his hands around them, feeling how thin your skin was, how you were shaking so slightly… His hands kept moving higher, soon resting under your chest, feeling your heartbeat under his fingers. After weeks spend without touching you, or at least not how he was dreaming of, he felt like he could get drunk from your skin.

“I need to see you. Please…”, he whispered in the crook of your neck.

In the silence of the room, only the noise of the fire cracking could be heard. You slowly lifted your arms, not making any other move, letting him take control of the situation. Despite his craving for your body, he managed to slowly take your shirt off. He tossed the fabric on the side without a lot of care, his eyes too focused on you. The fire was creating shadows on your body, highlighting every curve there was to see. You were sweating a little and he could feel it, smell it, just like he could feel the warmth of your body. None of that bothered him, quite the opposite. It was the proof that you were there, real and more beautiful than ever. Wherever his fingers were caressing you, its shadow was clearly visible on your skin and you couldn’t help but follow him with your eyes.

“I’ve missed this so much. I’ve missed you…” He didn’t need to tell you. His hands were speaking for him as he gently cupped your breasts, feeling their weight and the texture of your skin. He took his time feeling them as if it was his first time discovering them. In fact he knew them by heart at this point, just like the rest of your body. But that didn’t stop him from following the blue veins under your skin with his fingertips. Finally his calloused fingertips reached the center of your breasts and brushed against your nipples. You felt your body stiffen at his touch. You’ve never felt this sensitive in such a long time. It felt like waking up from a very long nap.

“I’ve missed that too…”, you answered quietly. Miguel nibbled your ear, watching with a growing excitement your body responding to his teasing.

“How bad did you miss it?”

Bad. You missed it so bad and it’s easy to read this hunger in your eyes. You turn your head and watch Miguel’s expression. He looks as hungry as you, if not more. Both your faces are close enough for you to kiss but he refuses you his lips and instead keeps nibbling on your earlobe, teasing you between each bite:

“Show me. Show me how you’ve missed it. I want to see what you were doing when I couldn’t take care of you.”

You were more than happy to know that you could ease the aching burn in your lower body. Since Miguel has started touching you, you felt yourself getting wet. You were so responsive, so needy that you obediently lowered you pajama pants, exposing a wet patch in the middle of your underwear. Miguel groaned at the sight before kissing your skin end encouraging you to keep going. With your eyes closed, you slide your finger up and down, feeling your swollen lips and the wetness spreading down there. You were taking your time and Miguel didn’t rush you, enjoying the show you were giving him. When you finally slipped one finger inside your underwear, he finally said something:

“Take it off please… I want to see it.” One of his hands held your left thigh and moved it to the side, spreading your legs further as you kept undressing. You may have been naked in this moment, but you’ve never felt hotter. Your sweat kept dribbling in small droplets over the curves of your body, down to the patch of brown pubic hair between your thighs. Your arousal was glistening on the brown little bush and when you parted your lips, a sharp contrast appeared between your slick, pink and puffy lips and the tuft of hair.

“So pretty…”, Miguel whispered in awe. His hands were dying to touch you but the sight of your fingers moving between your little forest, diving into this little river made his breath heavier.

At first, you were hesitant, almost shy but the more you were remembering these long nights of solitude and this frustration, the deeper you delved into your throbbing cunt. You were knuckles deep inside your hole, your thumb brushing against your clit, and you were soon panting. No matter how hard you tried, how fast you were fingering yourself, you would never achieve the same sensation as when he was inside you. And he knew it. He knew what you were craving, what you wanted and he would make you say it, ask for it.

You were so close and yet you didn’t reach your peak. You could almost feel your orgasm slipping between your fingers. The more you chase it, the further it ran away, leaving you a mess, your fingers covered in your juice and still this craving sensation inside of you, like an itch that needed to be scratched but you couldn’t reach it. Miguel sensed your desperation; he saw your face crunched up in a grimace of agony, your lips slightly parted in an annoyed grunt. He kissed your neck one last time and whispered:

“Let me take care of that.”

He was more than eager to help you. These weeks had also left him needy and frustrated. No matter how much he tried to relieve himself of that pressure, this was never enough. What he needed was not to just empty himself, to give into this release, but you. He wanted you. With one gentle move of his hands, he helped you lie down on the fuzzy carpet. You were facing him and the fire kept projecting his soft shadows on your body. He didn’t even know where to begin with you. Everything he saw, every single part of you seemed to call him, to ask for his attention. He quickly removed his flannel shirt and a soft sound escape your lips. You stretched your arms, as if you were asking for him to embrace you, to let you lie down his powerful chest. His eyes kept roaming your body and he undid his pants with such an urgency that his fingers were almost shaking and he had to try twice to unbuckle them. Once his body was finally free of his clothes, he finally leaned over you. You’ve missed the way his body was crushing you, engulfing you, wrapping around perfectly as if he tried to cut you from the rest of the world. You were calling his name, pleading for him to suffocate you even.

“I’m here mi Vida. I’m coming...I’m coming…” His lips met yours in a heated kiss while you kept on stroking his hair. Once he had broken the kiss, Miguel gave your lower lip one playful bite and he began to trace his way down your body. His lips didn’t neglect any part of you and all this time, he never stopped looking at you. When his lips reached your navel, he could smell your arousal oozing from between your legs. It was intoxicating, bittersweet and just like some rich honey. He couldn’t stop himself from taking a bite…

Miguel’s hands slipped under your butt and he grabbed it, lifting you slightly from the ground until your lips were connected. He took his time kissing your womanhood, his lips grazing your mound, your inner thighs… His thick tongue made its way between your folds, exploring every inch of you, tasting you like you were some ripe and juicy fruit. He was eating you like a starved man with no consideration from the mess he was doing on himself as your cyprine leaked down his chin and made his lips glisten. As if this wasn’t already too much for you, he never stopped looking at you all this time. His face buried between your thighs with his eyes only poking out, looking at you in awe. The sounds he was making while eating you out only added to your pleasure and you squeezed your thighs around his face. Only muffled sounds reached your ears as he kept moving his tongue, deeper and deeper. Frustrated to not reach your spot, he lifted your hips higher, your legs hanging around his neck as he kept lapping at your juice like an animal. You were moving your hips in rhythm with his lips and the more you kept moving, the more you felt hot, almost burning. But it was worth it. Still, Miguel couldn’t stand the sight of you working so hard when he just wanted to pleasure you like you deserved it after all this time.

“This won’t do it. I want to feel you deeper…” He gave your lips one teasing lick before dragging you closer to him. Sometimes you forgot how strong he was, but not in these moments. Without any struggle, he lifted you and pressed your body against his.

“Miguel, what are you doing?” You were still a little dizzy from your last game and you didn’t understand why he made you move, especially since you were quite enjoying what the two of you were doing.

“I think there’s something we could try… and that would be more enjoyable for you.”

Nothing good ever comes out from his wicked smile, and that’s why you liked seeing it on his face so much.

“Is it really going to be enjoyable for me or just for you?”, you asked with a teasing smile. Miguel chuckled at your insinuation and kissed your neck once again, while holding the other side of your face with his hand. You could feel the sweat dripping down your back, strands of hair clinging to your forehead and the skin of your neck turning moist from your sweat. This didn’t stop Miguel to kiss you hungrily. His own body seemed to glisten in this light, revealing golden undertones to his tan skin. Your skins rubbed against one another, your scents mixing into one heady aroma that you would take to you sheets for the rest of the night.

Miguel’s teeth dragged along your skin, tasting your essence until he reached your pulse. Purple and red marks had bloomed on your neck from his caress and he delighted himself, knowing that the next day you would wear the proof of his love. His lips kissed the part of your neck where he could feel your pulse. His lips trapped your heart and he whispered:

“I think it could be very enjoyable for the two of us.”

You smiled against his temple and replies: “What do you have in mind?”

“I want you to sit on my face. I need to feel you deeper.”

This seemed really tempting but you’ve never tried this before. In fact, you were a little afraid that your weight could be a problem. You looked at your body and Miguel’s eyes followed yours. With a gentle motion of his hand, he tilted your head up. His eyes looked for yours, trying to reassure you. He patiently listened to your explanations, to yours fears and as much as he didn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable, he also craved this contact. You thought you would be too heavy for him? That you would crush him? Hell, he’d die a happy man if he met his death between your legs.

And that’s how you ended up sitting on his face. You were very careful to not crush him but that wasn’t enough for Miguel. He grabbed your hips and made you sit on him, really sit on him. Just when you were wondering if it wasn’t too much, you heard a muffled moan coming from between your legs. As much as you were embarrassed, you had to recognize that it was indeed as enjoyable as Miguel said it would be. His hungry lips were sucking on your cunt, drinking down from your hole as if he had stayed thirsty for too long. Your mound was rubbing perfectly with his strong nose every time your grind your hips, something you quickly took the rhythm for. Your hands grabbed his hair in a tight fist as you rode the wave, feeling yourself getting higher with each stroke of his tongue. Your moans joined in unison and Miguel’s tongue was danging against your clit, making the little nub stiffen more and more...until you couldn’t take it anymore. You erupted on his face and if you weren’t already dizzy with all this heat, you would have swear you heard him laughing.

On his side, it seemed that he had enjoyed this as much as you. It was impossible to not spot his hard-on as you slowly left his face. Miguel just gave you one look and you knew that this night was far from over.

==============================

I hope you enjoyed this new episode of "Dad bod Miguel O'hara does naughty things to you"™ I have other ideas for him.

Edit: thanks for the 200 likes ~~

[escherbug]

YEAR OF THE GRUB: JANUARY

Project: Needle Felting with Wire Armature

CRAFT STORE RUNS: 2

(The sleepy but patient Lt. for scale)

This year I started a Master's Degree program in Entomology. I wanted to make sure I was still making fun things while I'm so busy (mostly reading papers and books), so I arranged a set of media-based projects centered around my favorite insect (scarab grubs), trying to complete the project by the end of the month.

I didn't quite make it this time because I ran out of supplies a couple times and made the project a good deal harder for myself than I thought, but I think that's okay. This is just for me, after all.

STEP BY STEP:

First, I used sculpting wire and a pair of pliers to twist the skeleton of the grub. I wanted to be able to move all the legs and the main line of the body. I thought I'd be able to get an easier anchor in on the felt if I covered the hard wires with pipe cleaners, but I was pretty much wrong about that.

Next, I felted a bunch of spare roving into the general shape I wanted, and felted the head and the back end of the grub on in brown. I also hand-sewed six little socks to cover the wires on the legs and secured them as well as I could to the rest of the body so they won't fall off at random. This came out messier than I'd have liked, but I think also that I should cut myself some slack for having designed and patterned most of this on the fly.

Next came felting on the bulk of the fatty, cream colored body of the grub. Part of the reason I didn't end up making my deadline was that I ran out of white/off-white wool roving, and was unable to find it in stock at any stores, so I had to order it online and wait for it to arrive in the mail (it absolutely did and honestly, the new stuff from Shepswool.com is way softer than the wool I was using and a softer color, so it was well worth the wait).

From here, mainly all that was left was detail work. I didn't get a ton of photos of this because all these steps ended up being my Sunday (day of posting), but I used a finer wire, the same pliers, and super sculpey to make gently posable antennae, mandibles, a clypeus and labrum (as well as a pair of maxillae that absolutely did not show up in the end, just much too small), baked the clay on the wires and then affixed them to the existing framework I'd set up on the head for most of the face. The mandibles are attached to the antennae, so they move together, and the clypeus/labrum and maxillae are held on by the wires supporting the mandibles. I also glued on some cute little eyes that came standard with my felting gear.

All that was left at this point was final detail work-- I didn't feel like embroidering on a ton of hairs in the end, but I embroidered on some spiracles and felted those little sclerotized buts near the head.

And voila! A needle-felted beetle grub about the size of a small ferret. Wouldn't it be nice if we had more grubs around this size?

Further notes:

1) it's nice to be making something big enough for once while felting that I didn't stab my fingers constantly! I only stabbed myself like twice.

2) I bought a multi-needle felting tool for this, but I didn't really find it helped much beyond having a safety cover. It was also super noisy to work with, so I ended up going back to using a single felting needle halfway through.

Catch you at the end of this month, hopefully having completed my February project: WATERCOLOR ILLUSTRATION!

[max-levchin]

Shamir Secret Sharing

It’s 3am. Paul, the head of PayPal database administration carefully enters his elaborate passphrase at a keyboard in a darkened cubicle of 1840 Embarcadero Road in East Palo Alto, for the fifth time. He hits Return. The green-on-black console window instantly displays one line of text: “Sorry, one or more wrong passphrases. Can’t reconstruct the key. Goodbye.” 

There is nerd pandemonium all around us. James, our recently promoted VP of Engineering, just climbed the desk at a nearby cubicle, screaming: “Guys, if we can’t get this key the right way, we gotta start brute-forcing it ASAP!” It’s gallows humor – he knows very well that brute-forcing such a key will take millions of years, and it’s already 6am on the East Coast – the first of many “Why is PayPal down today?” articles is undoubtedly going to hit CNET shortly. Our single-story cubicle-maze office is buzzing with nervous activity of PayPalians who know they can’t help but want to do something anyway. I poke my head up above the cubicle wall to catch a glimpse of someone trying to stay inside a giant otherwise empty recycling bin on wheels while a couple of Senior Software Engineers are attempting to accelerate the bin up to dangerous speeds in the front lobby. I lower my head and try to stay focused. “Let’s try it again, this time with three different people” is the best idea I can come up with, even though I am quite sure it will not work. 

It doesn’t. 

The key in question decrypts PayPal’s master payment credential table – also known as the giant store of credit card and bank account numbers. Without access to payment credentials, PayPal doesn’t really have a business per se, seeing how we are supposed to facilitate payments, and that’s really hard to do if we no longer have access to the 100+ million credit card numbers our users added over the last year of insane growth. 

This is the story of a catastrophic software bug I briefly introduced into the PayPal codebase that almost cost us the company (or so it seemed, in the moment.) I’ve told this story a handful of times, always swearing the listeners to secrecy, and surprisingly it does not appear to have ever been written down before. 20+ years since the incident, it now appears instructive and a little funny, rather than merely extremely embarrassing. 

Before we get back to that fateful night, we have to go back another decade. In the summer of 1991, my family and I moved to Chicago from Kyiv, Ukraine. While we had just a few hundred dollars between the five of us, we did have one secret advantage: science fiction fans. 

My dad was a highly active member of Zoryaniy Shlyah – Kyiv’s possibly first (and possibly only, at the time) sci-fi fan club – the name means “Star Trek” in Ukrainian, unsurprisingly. He translated some Stansilaw Lem (of Solaris and Futurological Congress fame) from Polish to Russian in the early 80s and was generally considered a coryphaeus at ZSh. 

While USSR was more or less informationally isolated behind the digital Iron Curtain until the late ‘80s, by 1990 or so, things like FidoNet wriggled their way into the Soviet computing world, and some members of ZSh were now exchanging electronic mail with sci-fi fans of the free world.

The vaguely exotic news of two Soviet refugee sci-fi fans arriving in Chicago was transmitted to the local fandom before we had even boarded the PanAm flight that took us across the Atlantic [1]. My dad (and I, by extension) was soon adopted by some kind Chicago science fiction geeks, a few of whom became close friends over the years, though that’s a story for another time. 

A year or so after the move to Chicago, our new sci-fi friends invited my dad to a birthday party for a rising star of the local fandom, one Bruce Schneier. We certainly did not know Bruce or really anyone at the party, but it promised good food, friendly people, and probably filk. My role was to translate, as my dad spoke limited English at the time. 

I had fallen desperately in love with secret codes and cryptography about a year before we left Ukraine. Walking into Bruce’s library during the house tour (this was a couple years before Applied Cryptography was published and he must have been deep in research) felt like walking into Narnia. 

I promptly abandoned my dad to fend for himself as far as small talk and canapés were concerned, and proceeded to make a complete ass out of myself by brazenly asking the host for a few sheets of paper and a pencil. Having been obliged, I pulled a half dozen cryptography books from the shelves and went to work trying to copy down some answers to a few long-held questions on the library floor. After about two hours of scribbling alone like a man possessed, I ran out of paper and decided to temporarily rejoin the party. 

On the living room table, Bruce had stacks of copies of his fanzine Ramblings. Thinking I could use the blank sides of the pages to take more notes, I grabbed a printout and was about to quietly return to copying the original S-box values for DES when my dad spotted me from across the room and demanded I help him socialize. The party wrapped soon, and our friends drove us home. 

The printout I grabbed was not a Ramblings issue. It was a short essay by Bruce titled Sharing Secrets Among Friends, essentially a humorous explanation of Shamir Secret Sharing. 

Say you want to make sure that something really really important and secret (a nuclear weapon launch code, a database encryption key, etc) cannot be known or used by a single (friendly) actor, but becomes available, if at least n people from a group of m choose to do it. Think two on-duty officers (from a cadre of say 5) turning keys together to get ready for a nuke launch. 

The idea (proposed by Adi Shamir – the S of RSA! – in 1979) is as simple as it is beautiful. 

Let’s call the secret we are trying to split among m people K. 

First, create a totally random polynomial that looks like: y(x) = C0 * x^(n-1) + C1 * x^(n-2) + C2 * x^(n-3) ….+ K. “Create” here just means generate random coefficients C. Now, for every person in your trusted group of m, evaluate the polynomial for some randomly chosen Xm and hand them their corresponding (Xm,Ym) each. 

If we have n of these points together, we can use Lagrange interpolating polynomial to reconstruct the coefficients – and evaluate the original polynomial at x=0, which conveniently gives us y(0) = K, the secret. Beautiful. I still had the printout with me, years later, in Palo Alto. 

It should come as no surprise that during my time as CTO PayPal engineering had an absolute obsession with security. No firewall was one too many, no multi-factor authentication scheme too onerous, etc. Anything that was worth anything at all was encrypted at rest. 

To decrypt, a service would get the needed data from its database table, transmit it to a special service named cryptoserv (an original SUN hardware running Solaris sitting on its own, especially tightly locked-down network) and a special service running only there would perform the decryption and send back the result. 

Decryption request rate was monitored externally and on cryptoserv, and if there were too many requests, the whole thing was to shut down and purge any sensitive data and keys from its memory until manually restarted. 

It was this manual restart that gnawed at me. At launch, a bunch of configuration files containing various critical decryption keys were read (decrypted by another key derived from one manually-entered passphrase) and loaded into the memory to perform future cryptographic services.

Four or five of us on the engineering team knew the passphrase and could restart cryptoserv if it crashed or simply had to have an upgrade. What if someone performed a little old-fashioned rubber-hose cryptanalysis and literally beat the passphrase out of one of us? The attacker could theoretically get access to these all-important master keys. Then stealing the encrypted-at-rest database of all our users’ secrets could prove useful – they could decrypt them in the comfort of their underground supervillain lair. 

I needed to eliminate this threat.

Shamir Secret Sharing was the obvious choice – beautiful, simple, perfect (you can in fact prove that if done right, it offers perfect secrecy.) I decided on a 3-of-8 scheme and implemented it in pure POSIX C for portability over a few days, and tested it for several weeks on my Linux desktop with other engineers. 

Step 1: generate the polynomial coefficients for 8 shard-holders.

Step 2: compute the key shards (x0, y0)  through (x7, y7)

Step 3: get each shard-holder to enter a long, secure passphrase to encrypt the shard

Step 4: write out the 8 shard files, encrypted with their respective passphrases.

And to reconstruct: 

Step 1: pick any 3 shard files. 

Step 2: ask each of the respective owners to enter their passphrases. 

Step 3: decrypt the shard files.

Step 4: reconstruct the polynomial, evaluate it for x=0 to get the key.

Step 5: launch cryptoserv with the key. 

One design detail here is that each shard file also stored a message authentication code (a keyed hash) of its passphrase to make sure we could identify when someone mistyped their passphrase. These tests ran hundreds and hundreds of times, on both Linux and Solaris, to make sure I did not screw up some big/little-endianness issue, etc. It all worked perfectly. 

A month or so later, the night of the key splitting party was upon us. We were finally going to close out the last vulnerability and be secure. Feeling as if I was about to turn my fellow shard-holders into cymeks, I gathered them around my desktop as PayPal’s front page began sporting the “We are down for maintenance and will be back soon” message around midnight.

The night before, I solemnly generated the new master key and securely copied it to cryptoserv. Now, while “Push It” by Salt-n-Pepa blared from someone’s desktop speakers, the automated deployment script copied shard files to their destination. 

While each of us took turns carefully entering our elaborate passphrases at a specially selected keyboard, Paul shut down the main database and decrypted the payment credentials table, then ran the script to re-encrypt with the new key. Some minutes later, the database was running smoothly again, with the newly encrypted table, without incident. 

All that was left was to restore the master key from its shards and launch the new, even more secure cryptographic service. 

The three of us entered our passphrases… to be met with the error message I haven’t seen in weeks: “Sorry, one or more wrong passphrases. Can’t reconstruct the key. Goodbye.” Surely one of us screwed up typing, no big deal, we’ll do it again. No dice. No dice – again and again, even after we tried numerous combinations of the three people necessary to decrypt. 

Minutes passed, confusion grew, tension rose rapidly. 

There was nothing to do, except to hit rewind – to grab the master key from the file still sitting on cryptoserv, split it again, generate new shards, choose passphrases, and get it done. Not a great feeling to have your first launch go wrong, but not a huge deal either. It will all be OK in a minute or two.

A cursory look at the master key file date told me that no, it wouldn’t be OK at all. The file sitting on cryptoserv wasn’t from last night, it was created just a few minutes ago. During the Salt-n-Pepa-themed push from stage, we overwrote the master key file with the stage version. Whatever key that was, it wasn’t the one I generated the day before: only one copy existed, the one I copied to cryptoserv from my computer the night before. Zero copies existed now. Not only that, the push script appears to have also wiped out the backup of the old key, so the database backups we have encrypted with the old key are likely useless. 

Sitrep: we have 8 shard files that we apparently cannot use to restore the master key and zero master key backups. The database is running but its secret data cannot be accessed. 

I will leave it to your imagination to conjure up what was going through my head that night as I stared into the black screen willing the shards to work. After half a decade of trying to make something of myself (instead of just going to work for Microsoft or IBM after graduation) I had just destroyed my first successful startup in the most spectacular fashion. 

Still, the idea of “what if we all just continuously screwed up our passphrases” swirled around my brain. It was an easy check to perform, thanks to the included MACs. I added a single printf() debug statement into the shard reconstruction code and instead of printing out a summary error of “one or more…” the code now showed if the passphrase entered matched the authentication code stored in the shard file. 

I compiled the new code directly on cryptoserv in direct contravention of all reasonable security practices – what did I have to lose? Entering my own passphrase, I promptly got “bad passphrase” error I just added to the code. Well, that’s just great – I knew my passphrase was correct, I had it written down on a post-it note I had planned to rip up hours ago. 

Another person, same error. Finally, the last person, JK, entered his passphrase. No error. The key still did not reconstruct correctly, I got the “Goodbye”, but something worked. I turned to the engineer and said, “what did you just type in that worked?”

After a second of embarrassed mumbling, he admitted to choosing “a$$word” as his passphrase. The gall! I asked everyone entrusted with the grave task of relaunching crytposerv to pick really hard to guess passphrases, and this guy…?! Still, this was something -- it worked. But why?!

I sprinted around the half-lit office grabbing the rest of the shard-holders demanding they tell me their passphrases. Everyone else had picked much lengthier passages of text and numbers. I manually tested each and none decrypted correctly. Except for the a$$word. What was it…

A lightning bolt hit me and I sprinted back to my own cubicle in the far corner, unlocked the screen and typed in “man getpass” on the command line, while logging into cryptoserv in another window and doing exactly the same thing there. I saw exactly what I needed to see. 

Today, should you try to read up the programmer’s manual (AKA the man page) on getpass, you will find it has been long declared obsolete and replaced with a more intelligent alternative in nearly all flavors of modern Unix.  

But back then, if you wanted to collect some information from the keyboard without printing what is being typed in onto the screen and remain POSIX-compliant, getpass did the trick. Other than a few standard file manipulation system calls, getpass was the only operating system service call I used, to ensure clean portability between Linux and Solaris. 

Except it wasn’t completely clean. 

Plain as day, there it was: the manual pages were identical, except Solaris had a “special feature”: any passphrase entered that was longer than 8 characters long was automatically reduced to that length anyway. (Who needs long passwords, amiright?!)

I screamed like a wounded animal. We generated the key on my Linux desktop and entered our novel-length passphrases right here. Attempting to restore them on a Solaris machine where they were being clipped down to 8 characters long would never work. Except, of course, for a$$word. That one was fine.

The rest was an exercise in high-speed coding and some entirely off-protocol file moving. We reconstructed the master key on my machine (all of our passphrases worked fine), copied the file to the Solaris-running cryptoserv, re-split it there (with very short passphrases), reconstructed it successfully, and PayPal was up and running again like nothing ever happened. 

By the time our unsuspecting colleagues rolled back into the office I was starting to doze on the floor of my cubicle and that was that. When someone asked me later that day why we took so long to bring the site back up, I’d simply respond with “eh, shoulda RTFM.” 

RTFM indeed. 

P.S. A few hours later, John, our General Counsel, stopped by my cubicle to ask me something. The day before I apparently gave him a sealed envelope and asked him to store it in his safe for 24 hours without explaining myself. He wanted to know what to do with it now that 24 hours have passed. 

Ha. I forgot all about it, but in a bout of “what if it doesn’t work” paranoia, I printed out the base64-encoded master key when we had generated it the night before, stuffed it into an envelope, and gave it to John for safekeeping. We shredded it together without opening and laughed about what would have never actually been a company-ending event. 

P.P.S. If you are thinking of all the ways this whole SSS design is horribly insecure (it had some real flaws for sure) and plan to poke around PayPal to see if it might still be there, don’t. While it served us well for a few years, this was the very first thing eBay required us to turn off after the acquisition. Pretty sure it’s back to a single passphrase now. 

Notes:

1: a member of Chicagoland sci-fi fan community let me know that the original news of our move to the US was delivered to them via a posted letter, snail mail, not FidoNet email! 

[venture4treasure]

“And if you leave me. Rest assured, it would kill me.”

Words: 1881

Premise: Yandere!Venture kills someone and you catch them. You respond in an atypical way. 

Warnings: Minor character death, Blood, Unhealthy relationship, Irresponsible use of prescription medication, Mental breakdown, Obsession 

“Venture~”, your voice sing-songs from outside your shared home. 

Venture freezes at the sound of your voice, you weren’t supposed to be back home tonight. They glance at the blood drying on the floor, mind racing on how to keep you from seeing it. 

You’re too quick to open the door, ecstatic about getting out of work early despite your scheduled overnight shift. The sight in front of you makes you freeze. Your kitchen floor has splatters of blood and streaks from where you can only assume a corpse was dragged. Your mind immediately jumps to the worst and you tighten your grip around the handle of the door.

“Venture?” You call out hesitantly, “if this is a joke, it’s sick and I mean that in a bad way”, you add when there’s no answer. 

After several beats of silence, you pull out your phone, prepare to leave and call the police. Your attempt is interrupted when the door is forcefully torn from your grip and slammed shut behind you. You feel yourself shoved against the door. You shut your eyes and duck your head from the impact. Your hands are pinned above you and your phone is pulled away. 

You anticipate something, anything to happen to you, but when nothing happens. You hesitantly open your eyes and look up. And you don’t know what feels worse, opening your door to a crime scene or seeing who the perpetrator is. 

“Sloan…” you manage to choke out. 

So many questions race in your mind – why did you, who did you… But the desperation and fright in their eyes sobers you. In your forced rationality, you observe that their hand is warm on your wrists, their grip means no harm. 

“I-”

You cut them off by pushing them away, they stumble a couple of steps back, looking at you with wide eyes. 

“Don’t say anything. We’re cleaning this up. Right now. Go get some hydrogen peroxide and gloves. And change into something you can throw away,” you force the words out, “do not say anything that makes me any more complicit”. 

Venture is stunned at your reaction. They’re slow to follow your instructions, prompting you to ask more, “no bleach, that’ll only make things messier. We’ll refloor all of this tomorrow anyway. Do you have animal blood?”  

They shake their head, and you shoo them off to get what you told them to as you step around the kitchen to assess what needs to be done. You’re careful to avoid making the mess worse by tracking any more blood around. The mess is bad, it is a lot of blood, and it makes you think someone must've bled out. Part of you wonders if any of it is Venture’s, you hope not. You shake yourself, you don’t want to dwell on the thoughts of why it’s so bad. Your only task at hand is to clean it up, you remind yourself. 

After double-checking you won’t trail any mess around the house, you take your own advice and go to get changed into some clothes you won’t miss. You also force yourself to take two extra pills for your anxiety – double your prescription – to keep yourself grounded. 

You meet Venture in the kitchen again and help set up several trash bags. You instruct them to help you soak up the bulk of the blood in towels and throw it away. When it’s done, you show them how to clean up the rest of the blood and explain to them how hydrogen peroxide will destroy the traceable genetic material. You try to explain everything you can if only to fill the silence and to keep your mind busy. When the reality sets in a little more, you feel sick talking – you were quite literally talking about how to get away with murder. You put on a playlist to help with the silence instead.

Venture doesn’t say anything when you talk. And definitely doesn’t say anything when you stop. They’ve never seen you act like this, they never would have thought this would be a possible outcome. They’re scared anything they say will make you react poorly, so they choose to maintain the current equilibrium you’ve set. 

Eventually, when everything looks clean and normal you finally give the okay to take a break. 

“You should shower and sleep,” you say, going through the motions of brewing some instant coffee. You wanted the caffeine and you probably weren’t going to sleep anyway. 

“I promise I’m not planning to do anything while you sleep. But you’re going to help me with moving flooring tomorrow and you’re going to need the rest,” you insist, tapping your hand on their shoulder. 

Your contact makes them startle. They want to hold you and tell you how much they love you. They want to explain how this was for you. They were only doing what was best for you. They wanted to tell you how they knew you’d never see it that way and that’s why you were never meant to see them do this. But instead, they swallow the bitter reality and do as you say. If you were willing to help them this much, then they should keep their complaints to themselves. 

You note that Venture is resting on the couch in the living room, and for a moment it does cross your mind that if you wanted to call for help, now would be the time. Any other time, Venture easily overpowers you. But it’s also the first time calling the authorities has crossed your mind since you came home. The idea makes you nervous and you turn your phone face down on the counter as if to reject the possibility of doing that. You finish your coffee and start another pot of water before heading up to shower and change. 

You spend the rest of the night until morning, re-scrubbing the floor and cleaning anything you can. You know that you don’t have to at this point, you’re fairly confident you got everything done the first time around, but you needed to do something to stave off the looming anxiety. Your body aches from being on the floor and cleaning so much, but you just take an ibuprofen and ignore it. 

Venture, thankfully, wakes by themselves and saves you the mental distress of figuring out how to approach them. They follow you around for a bit like a lost puppy and it makes it really hard for you to not embrace them – but you know if you do, you’ll break and you can’t afford that. 

The drive to and back from the store is relatively uneventful. You explained the plan, and Venture did as told. The whole time you could feel them look at you for some reaction, but you ignored it. 

The two of you spent the rest of the day tearing up the floor and replacing it. It was mostly Venture and you helped where you could, you didn’t have the strength to match theirs on a good day, much less when you’ve pulled an all-nighter and barely eaten anything. 

The project is done by late afternoon. You were hoping to finish by noon, but at least it’s over now – and you probably didn’t contribute too much anyway. 

You take a long shower and pick something comfortable to wear. When you are done, you call out for Venture to do the same. Who, like everything else you’ve said these past two days, follows.

You collapse on the couch, and the give of the cushions is a relief your aching body needs. The thought of taking some more ibuprofen crosses your mind, but the idea that you’d have to get up deters you greatly. 

Venture eventually finishes their shower and slowly creeps into the living room as if to not scare you. They settle on the carpeted floor some distance in front of you. They’re looking at you the whole time, there’s a desperate desire in their eyes. Both of you can feel how fragile the atmosphere is. If you had any energy left to spare, you’d notice how uncomfortable it was that your constantly chattering partner had been silent for almost a whole day, not a single joke shared. Instead, you take note of how their usually fluffy hair is soaking wet, and barely dry. 

To your body’s protest, you force yourself off the couch to close the distance. You pull your towel off your shoulders and drape it over Venture’s head. You use it to dry their hair, gently patting their hair and running your hand through clumps you’re afraid will tangle. Venture lets you do this, all but melting into your touch. Their breaths are slow and relaxed for the first time since you got home. You take more time and care than needed to dry their hair, but the action just felt so domestic and right. And you couldn’t let the feeling go.

When you’re done, you take your time folding the towel neatly, taking care to not maintain eye contact with Venture. They stare at you with a sadness that you know would break your heart if you acknowledged it. 

“Let me explain-”

“Sloan,” they flinch at their real name being used and the sternness of your voice, “I have done so much for you, please do not repay me by saddling me with information that makes me any more guilty than I already am”. 

Your head is still dipped in a way where you won’t meet their eyes, you wring your hands together anxiously, unsure what to say. 

Venture saves you from the silence, “okay,” they pause, “do you want anything? Tea or food… dessert?” And darkly, they consider their options of drugging you and getting you away from here. Maybe to some place where they could do everything best for you. 

You shake your head. 

“Do you hate me?” Venture’s voice cracks at the end, they’re not ready for the possibility of being rejected.

“No- never,” you exclaim in shock, looking up at them for the first time, “I trust your judgment. I trust you. Because I love you”. You confess, stomping down the part of your brain that tries to add ‘a little too much’.

Venture lets out a breath they were holding and almost collapses in relief. Thank god. You still love them. It’s okay, everything is fine as long as you are theirs. 

“Do you need some space,” Venture tentatively offers, they don’t really want to leave, but they want to do something right by you. 

“No,” you choke out, “no, please don’t leave”.

You reach out to wrap your arms around their neck and pull yourself against them, they hesitantly return the embrace, holding you tighter when you don't react negatively to their touch. 

“I think my meds are wearing off,” you’re breathing hard, “it’s all too much to think about. And everything hurts”.

Venture comfortingly traces shapes on your back, letting you cry into their neck as sobs wrack your form and you dig your nails into their back to anchor yourself.

“Don’t go, don’t go, please don’t leave me alone,” you beg.

Venture leans their head against you and pulls you into their lap to hold you closer. 

“I’ll never leave you, mi vida”. 

Author’s Note: I saw some yandere Venture art and fics here. It inspired me to write about Venture killing someone because of their significant other – be it out of jealousy, possessiveness, or defense. 

This probably doesn’t fall under the typical yandere type stories, but I still consider it yandere because I think in the end, Venture doesn’t regret killing for you, they regret getting caught by you. 

For it’s worth, Venture probably orders you your favourite takeout and drink when you start to wake up so you can have something nice to eat since you haven’t eaten in over a day. 

I don’t think I’ll mention this always, but it should be obvious that both the reader and Venture here are not sound of mind. 

Quote is from Oleander by Mother Mother. Oleander is a toxic plant, it is sometimes used to symbolize desire, destiny, everlasting love, and caution.

[unkat]

chilaios medical au idea i have been bouncing in my head (will not be written until after my current one is done)

i am thinking of a like firefighter/paramedic story for these guys. where laios is a new shift commander/chief at a small middle of nowhere station and chilchuck is a medic from a big city who keeps getting reassigned because he is trying to recruit for a union and the company is trying to make his job unworkable/find a reason to let him go.

laios was promoted because of his work ethic and ability to teach other people about the ins and outs of emergency medicine, not because he wanted to be in charge. he is too new and disinterested in the company politics to throw him under the bus for other people, and by the time someone explicitly says he needs to fire him, he has gotten attached.

"he's reliable, does good work, and catches things nobody else here would have. i know he cussed out the family trying to get into the rig, but he had already told them no and they should be grateful he saved their daughter instead of filing a complaint! even if i were to discipline, he deserves a verbal warning and not dismissal. You were not there, and i am his direct superior."

(wins the argument and walks away trying not to hyperventilate)

also falin is a surgeon and marcille is a research fellow who abandoned her big-city super-focused projects to come out into the country and work with subpar equipment and an incompetent assistant. im not thinking like full rural hospital here, but closeish to it. could be an academic satellite hospital and she switched from like gene therapy trials to studying exposures/population/histology stuff.

shifting the touden hyperfixation from monsters->medical fascination i think would still get across the same vibes. falin is very nice and pleasant but she treats everyone nicely and pleasantly without actually empathizing with them. shes one of those surgeons who went to shadow a heart transplant in college and cried because it was so beautiful and then got a bunch of scholarships plus student loans for med school.

laios hunts and has a big appreciation for the lives of things he kills and butchering/using everything he can. then it translates to him being fascinated by the human body as an object more than as a being that is different and special from other animals that he is a part of. he is a fantastic emergency responder because of this- people are a pile of flesh that is broken somewhere, and he wants to figure out why. (this is something that I'm like. not sure if it is okay for me to include because it can be squicky/triggering. but i feel like when I'm unsure if I'm going too far that is when i am reaching the line i want to?)

the touden siblings still go hiking and mudding and spend their time off in the woods (marcille wears white shorts and sandels on a hike leaving laios to be very explicit and offering clothes to chilchuck when he offers him to join. chilchuck borrows his shirt and it is way too big, but he keeps it for a while.)

chilchuck is extra divorced. he facetimes with the girls a couple of times a week and gets them on rotating holidays. sometimes ex-mrs. tims invites him over for dinner because she feels sorry for him and her new boyfriend is also there. it's awkward but they both know he's harmless, just annoying and closed off. he smokes but has tried to quit 7-8 times. started when he was an emt and couldn't shake it because it helped him destress. he only knows how to drive well enough to pass his vehicle license renewals and still doesn't know what the buttons in his car do. the ac has been "broken" for a week before a station mechanic pushes the button to turn it back on (they should put a subway around here, stupid cars).

laios respects his experience and history of being at a constantly busy station that saw a variety of crazy shit. chilchuck initially resents him for being so out of touch, but grows to respect his leadership abilities. laios also always follows up on cases at the hospital to figure out the outcome and reflect on best practices.

he is the first person to get chilchuck to actually debrief after a shitty call and chil cries and never wants to talk about it again. but its like a seal in a dam has been breached, and opens up when they are cuddling on the couch. they spend more time off shift with each other. chilchuck crashes on laios' couch and initially feels like he needs excuses to do it until laios says he really likes talking with him and having him there. he tells him about the company's EAP coverage and that he encourages everyone to take advantage of it.

in the end, they hit that threshold of basically living together, and one of them would need to change their station (superior/employee romance) after they go from making out off shift in secret to seriously considering having laios meet his daughters in person. (they already think they're married because laios is always there when they call now)

[sandboxscenes]

Unguarded

A/N: I did want to do at least one more fluff piece for him. This was done in conjunction with @xianyoon for their Extreme Bias Game.

Genre: Fluff

Summary: You know better than anyone that your boyfriend is incredibly busy. When you find him asleep on the couch, you want to make sure he's comfortable.

Word Count: 864

Lyney always had a hat on.

While Lyney's top hat was an essential part of his physical image as a magician, metaphorically, he held the hat of leader, fatui member, and big brother. Furthermore, while "Father" was in charge of the House of Hearth, Lyney does take care of it from time to time as well. Sometimes he'll provide something nice for the kids, and other times, he'll do some free magic for them when he has the time. Even for you, Lyney has the hat of boyfriend.

So it is rare to see Lyney without a hat.

But for you, who knows him well, you know that the only time you see it is when he's asleep. Asleep, Lyney has no obligations, stresses, or roles he must play. You see it in the peaceful expression on his face. You also see it in the way his body relaxes in your private space.

But this time, you caught Lyney asleep on the couch, his face covered by his magician's hat, and surrounded by papers. The papers were on the floor, in his hands, and partly underneath him. You picked up the papers and neatly left them on a pile on the coffee table.

While you couldn't quite decipher everything from the papers lying around, you could see Lyney's written remarks on the margins of a paper that depicted a complicated looking machine. You could also make out some songs on one of the corners of the paper along with a small little heart drawn by one of them. You smiled. That was a newer song you and Lyney both liked.

Gently, you took the hat away from his face. You set it on top of the papers you picked up. Under the lamplight, you observed Lyney. You watched his chest rise and fall, and listened to how even his breathing was. A warm feeling settled into your chest.

You knew that Lyney was hard at work the past couple of days trying to finish the preparations for his magic show. For the past two weeks, he was out of the house for almost the whole day, and continued to look over work later than usual at night. While you both did your best to talk to each other about your days, there were days at a time neither of you could talk to each other due to how your schedules lined up.

You didn't tell Lyney about it, but you were worried that due to his busy schedule, he wasn't taking care of himself. When you woke up for work and saw him already gone, you were worried he wasn't getting enough sleep. On the rare occasions you talked, you saw the circles under his eyes getting darker and darker. When you would come home and see him, he would greet you and you noticed that he left his beverages alone for longer - long enough that they were cold.

But now that Lyney was sleeping on the couch, you could see for yourself whether he took care of himself. The dark circles under his eyes were there, but you hoped that would be temporary. He was still in his magician's attire, which meant that he went immediately back to work when he came home. Instinctively, you gently brushed the hair out of his eyes.

You looked at the clock: 7pm. He had fallen asleep early.

You looked at the edge of the couch and saw some blankets. Without disturbing Lyney, you lightly laid the blanket on him as best as you can. You didn't want him to catch a cold. He moved slightly when the blanket was placed on him, which made you worried that he got up, but you didn't need to worry. He fell back asleep soon enough. While you were tempted to leave a light kiss on his cheek, you were worried that he would get up.

After you took Lyney's cold teacup on the coffee table away and washed it, your eyes wandered back to take in Lyney's quiet and peaceful sleeping form for a little bit longer. You noticed there was an childlike innocence to him like this. He was taking on so much, but even with how much was on his plate, he still made time to treat you well. Of course, you knew he could handle the pressure, but still, your heart couldn't help but ache for him.

The only sound that could be heard was Lyney's breathing. As the only one awake at the moment, you made two wishes in your heart. The first wish you made, was that you hoped Lyney's magic show went well. The second wish you made in your heart was that you hoped Lyney would have a restful sleep tonight.

You clicked off the lamp, then quietly shut the door behind you as you left. You knew that you would go and join him in dreamland soon after he did. You covered your mouth as you yawned. After your yawn, there was a small smile on your lips and warmth in your heart that seemed to spread to the rest of your body.

"Good night, Lyney," you whispered, "Sweet dreams."

[astrophileous]

Love Bugs (Pt. 01)

Pairing: Derek Morgan x Female Reader

Synopsis: You and Derek Morgan have an arrangement. At work, your relationship is strictly business. Under the sheets, it's all about pleasure. Nothing more, nothing less. Until, of course, your feelings start to get involved. Your situation is complicated enough without the unexpexted predicament that suddenly befalls upon you. But with a maniac serial killer on the loose, will you ever get the chance to make everything right?

Warning(s): 18+ NSFW SMUT, oral (m receiving), fingering, unprotected penetrative sex, dirty talk, slight mdom/fsub dynamic, praise kink (?), dubious consent (only because both of them are kinda drunk), alcohol consumption, cursing (a lot of it)

Word Count: 3700-ish

Author's Note: sooo I used to write for law and order svu a long time ago on my old account, but I haven't really picked up fanfiction writing for a long time now, but this is definitely a first time for me writing smut so pls keep that in mind lol. that being said, I was absolutely APPALLED by the lack of derek fanfics on this platform, hence why I decided to take matters into my own hand and wrote this little piece right here :) this fic is gonna be divided into several parts and I'll try to post an update asap. the tw will be adjusted accordingly on each part of the fic. I'll also be making a masterlist for the whole series hopefully sooner rather than later. in the meantime, I hope you enjoy the story below and don't forget to drop a like/comment/reblog xoxo

Love Bugs Masterlist / Criminal Minds Masterlist

Since the first time you met him, Derek Morgan was never less than 200 pounds of danger and charm, and he wore that fact with immense pride.

"I'm Derek," he offered smoothly, palm extended to shake yours the moment Hotch introduced you to the team.

"Nice to meet you," was your reply. His hand felt sturdy against your clammy one. "You can call me (Y/N). Or Beetle. Whichever works."

"Beetle?" Someone in the room interjected. You were pretty sure her name was Emily. "How'd you get Beetle from (Y/N) (Y/L/N)?"

"It's a childhood nickname. Kinda stuck." You shrugged. "It's a long story."

That was how everything started.

Flirtatious was Derek's second nature. You convinced yourself not to be swayed by the sweet nothings he kept on dropping wherever he went, especially when you began to understand more about his dynamics with Penelope Garcia. You were just another side quest in his little game, and Derek was merely eager to be the number one top player in the leaderboard.

But your heart, unfortunately, had always been much more vulnerable than your head.

And Derek Morgan, as you came to find out, was its biggest kryptonite.

"Hey, Bug." Derek had approached you after one particularly grisly case. The nickname he had chosen to adopt for you after a couple of weeks being on the team dripped easily from his tongue. "Drinks afterwards?"

"Sure. Who else is coming?"

"Just us two tonight, sweetheart." He winked.

You should have seen it coming.

You should have known that getting drinks late at night with Derek Morgan--alone--was going to be the start of your rapid downfall.

Derek Morgan was the kryptonite to your heart.

Yet then again, you always knew you were secretly a masochist.

"Okay, okay, back up a minute," Derek choked out in between laughter. "That's how you got the nickname Beetle?"

You were quite enjoying the sight in front of you. Twinkled eyes, carefree Derek, who was finally able to let himself loose thanks to the alcohol in his system. The smile lines on his face miraculously made him appear younger, and you could almost catch a glimpse of the young, ambitous football star he once had been before he began pursuing the life of law and justice.

"Yep." You nodded sheepishly, stirring the remaining liquor in the glass in front of you. "I didn't know, okay? How was I supposed to know that beetles can reproduce and multiply that much in the span of a couple of weeks? And frankly, I blame my teachers for failing to satisfy the curiosity of an eight-year old me."

"Alright. Blame the underappreciated heroes of this country, then. How were they supppsed to know you'd actually manage to cause a beetle infestation, Bug?" He pointed an accusatory finger at you. "Please tell me you got punished."

"I did. Mandatory volunteer work." Derek stared in disbelief at your answer. "Well, they wanted to suspend me, but my mother could be very persuasive."

"Meaning, she threatened to sue the school?" Derek raised an eyebrow, remembering the one time you told him that your mom was a lawyer before she passed away.

The rest of the night unraveled similarly. With more anecdotes shared and less sobriety kept, conversation with Derek flowed effortlessly. It felt like a swimmer being back in the water after a year-long sabbatical. Before the two of you realized it, hours had passed since you and Derek first stumbled into that bar, and the finale of an exhausting day had at last morphed into the premiere of a better one.

At Derek's insistence, he accompanied you on the taxi ride back to your apartment, ignoring the constant protest that you kept voicing out loud during the entire journey.

"This is absolutely unnecessary. I told you I'm fine," you grumbled as you staggered from the taxi towards your apartment bulding.

Derek caught up with you easily despite having to linger back to pay for the taxi fare. You stopped on the steps leading towards the front door, too busy fishing for your apartment key to notice that your balance had started slipping from your state of inebriation.

You laughed drunkenly when you felt yourself fall into a pair of strong arms. "Whoopsies. Sorry."

"Careful, Bug. Don't hurt yourself," Derek muttered softly.

Your whole body shuddered at the sensation of his breath on your ear. Derek had never felt this close before. Not even when you hugged each other goodbye or when you embraced one another after a close call in one of your cases. This time, his arms around you felt intimate. That fact alone managed to sober you up even if only for a fraction.

"Okay. I'm okay."

You scrambled out of Derek's firm but gentle hold, finally producing the offensive key from your purse before inserting it into the key hole.

"Thanks for taking me home. You didn't have to."

"I know." Derek raised his fingers, pushing away the strands of hair that had fallen over your eyes as a consequence of the passing wind. "I wanted to."

You stood there under the darkness, body nailed in place by a force far greater than anything you ever knew. Derek was looking at you with an unidentifiable gaze. One that seemed to burn brightly beneath his eyes, but warm and tender once they fell upon your skin.

The intensity was new. Overwhelming. It struck your core, stripping you bare of any defense left in both your body and soul.

Perhaps, that was exactly why the next words even managed to leave your mouth.

"You're pretty."

And God, he really was.

Derek Morgan was beautiful. All six feet and two inches of him. He looked pretty in the mornings when he slid a warm cup of hazelnut latte across your desk, and he looked just as pretty in the evening under the delicate strokes of moonlight.

At the sight of his amused beam in response to your sudden remark, you began to contemplate why anyone hadn't tried to claim him as the eighth wonder of the world.

"I'm pretty?"

"Very."

"I think you're prettier."

"Hm?"

Derek took another step forward, closing the distance between the two of you until the air you exhaled became the very one he breathed in.

"Good night, (Y/N)." The rare sound of your name out of his mouth made you shiver.

Derek exterminated the remaining gap between the two of you. For a second, your entire nerve endings stood in anticipation, waiting for the moment that his plush lips would touch yours.

They never did.

Instead, his kiss had landed on your cheek, viciously close to where the line of your lips started that you could almost picture how he would taste when you closed your eyes.

Derek started to pull away, but he never got further than a mere centimeter before you decided to take matters into your own hand and pressed your own lips to his inviting ones.

He tasted of alcohol and mint. But most importantly, he tasted of Derek. A distinctive sweetness that erupted the dormant butterfiles in the pit of your stomach. They began to soar freely inside of you under the influence of Derek's touch.

Your entire being was on fire. What started as sweet and alleviating soon turned into a contest of desperation. Before you knew it, you somehow had managed to unlock the front door and moved inside, all the way to the door of your own apartment.

When he nipped your bottom lip, you couldn't help but moan into the kiss.

"Fuck," Derek murmured against your lips after hearing the needy sound you just made. "Fuck me."

"I'm trying to," you said impatiently, scrambling to get ahold of his collar and brought his lips back to where they belonged.

Your ministrations screeched to a halt with Derek's hands around your wrists. "Hey. No, Bug. Stop."

Derek took a step back then, letting your hands fall back to your side. He never strayed far from where you stood against the wooden door, but even that tiny bit of distance was enough to make you crave more of him.

You needed to feel his body pressed up against yours, to have him incredibly close that you had no idea where he ended and you began.

"Derek, please..."

You should have been ashamed by how wretched your voice sounded, but you didn't care. You wanted him past the point of caring.

His smile was gentle and forlorn at the same time. "No, sweetheart. Not tonight."

Just like that, your heart plummeted straight out of your chest. "What?"

"Go inside, (Y/N). Get some sleep."

"No!"

Had it been any other day or any other person, you would have chastised yourself for your lack of propriety. But it wasn't any other person standing in front of you. It was Derek. Beautiful, kind, and courageous Derek. Your friend. Your kryptonite.

The oblivious owner of your heart.

"Don't go," you whispered. "Come inside. Stay with me tonight."

"I don't think that's such a good idea."

Your gut churned with dread. "Y-you don't?"

"Christ. I didn't mean it like that. Hey, look at me." He tugged a finger under your chin, forcing your eyes to stare into his dark ones. "You have no idea how much I want to. But you're drunk."

"So are you."

"Exactly my point."

"Derek--"

"I'm not gonna have you forget our first time in the morning just because you were too drunk to remember it, Bug."

The urge to chortle was almost unbearable.

Derek seemed to notice the comical mischief shining in your eyes. "What?"

"It's funny that you think I would ever forget the first time we fuck."

A breathy laugh rumbled out of his chest. "You're a menace, woman."

"A menace who wants you. Please, Derek," you started to whine. "I'm sober enough to give my consent. Hell, I could even recite the entire FBI oath to prove it if you want. You wanna see? I, (Y/N) (Y/L/N), do solemnly swear that I will support and defend--"

"Bug--"

"--the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic--"

"(Y/N)--"

"--that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same--"

You never did finish reciting the remainder of that oath.

The taste of Derek's lips on yours was an interruption you'd gladly welcome at any time of day. Through some sort of miracle, you managed to drag the two of you inside the safety of your apartment without ever breaking the kiss.

When it was time to come up for air, Derek's voice was raspy in your ear, "Sweetheart, I think--"

You didn't give him a chance to protest.

The kisses you peppered started on his neck. When your teeth gritted over his pulse point, Derek let out a low moan that vibrated through your entire being.

"Oh God..."

You continued showering kisses down his body, enjoying the way Derek had been bespelled by the magic of your touch. The buttons of his shirt came undone, and when you finally fell to your knees in front of him, you sucked hard on the skin where his abs met his pelvis.

"Shit. (Y/N), you don't... we don't have to--"

"For God sake, will you shut up?" You chuckled. "Did you not hear anything I said? Or should I just demonstrate how badly I want you right now?"

You took Derek's lack of further objections as permission to go ahead.

His buckle and pants came off pretty quickly. The next to go was his boxer, and the sight that greeted you afterward had your most intimate part gushing in excitement.

You wrapped your fingers around his hardening length. Tentatively at first, but the blissed out look on Derek's face only spurred you on even further.

"Is this okay?"

Derek gulped down before answering, "Yes."

You began to move your hand up and down, feeling Derek going stiffer and stiffer in your hand.

"Holy fuck," Derek cursed when you took his tip in your mouth.

He tasted divine on your tongue. It took a little while for your muscles to fully relax around his impressive size, but when they did, you began to bob your head back and forth, moving in tandem with the hand still wrapped around the rest of him that you couldn't fit entirely in your mouth.

"Yeah, just like that, pretty bug. You're doing so good," he panted.

Derek continued giving his praises, his words--along with his fingers in your hair--doing things to your body that had your thighs clamping down tightly. You began rocking in rhythm with the pace of your head and hand, trying to put pressure against the pulsing need inside your warmth.

"Fuck. Trying to relieve yourself, sweetheart? Sucking me off gets you all hot and needy, huh?" Derek moaned at the sight of you on your knees, teary eyed and full of him, writhing from the budding heat in the pit of your stomach.

You gave him one last suck before he pulled you up to your feet.

"Come here," Derek ordered before kissing you fervently.

He maneuvered the two of you from the doorway, following the direction to the bedroom that you had vaguely gestured at him. Once inside, Derek pushed you towards the bed while he threw his shirt onto the floor.

"You're naked," you mused in between giggles.

"And you're overdressed," he retorted. Your hands began to undo the buttons of your shirt before Derek's hand stopped them. "Let me."

He discarded your shirt in no time, your bra following not far behind.

"You're so beautiful," he whispered before leaving feathery kisses across your collarbone.

He started sucking on your nipple while fiddling the other one, enjoying the way your body reacted to every stroke of his tongue and every pinch of his fingers.

"Derek, please. I want to... I want--"

"Hm?" Derek paused his ministrations, keeping his hand busy by running it up and down your side. "What do you want, pretty bug? Tell me."

"I want you to touch me."

"I am touching you."

You whined. "You know what I meant."

With a chuckle, Derek left one last kiss on your breastbone before continuing his erotic journey southward. After sucking a mark underneath your belly button, he started fumbling with the button of your slacks.

"Fucking hell, sweetheart. You're soaked," he mulled out loud once you were free of the confine of your pants.

Even with your panties still standing as a barrier between Derek and your mound, you could feel every breath that Derek blew against your most sensitive part. There was no doubt surrounding the truth behind Derek's words. You could feel your wetness dripping down your thighs. It didn't exactly help that Derek had begun littering tiny kisses around your hip and pelvic bones.

When his lips made contact with your clothed core, the strangled moan you let out almost sounded animalistic.

"You taste so good," Derek said before diving in once again. "I could spend an eternity between your legs and die a very happy man."

"That's nice, but I don't want you to die just yet."

You tugged at his neck to bring his face back to yours, pressing both of your lips together in another heated kiss that had your toes curling inward.

"No more playing, please. I need you inside me right now," you rasped desperately.

"I still need to get you ready for me, sweetheart." Derek pecked your lips once more. "Why don't you lie back and relax, hm?"

Gingerly, you followed Derek's instruction. He made a quick work of removing your panties before his deft fingers began exploring your folds.

"So wet for me."

He inserted one finger at first, two, and then three inside your pulsing channel. It was a bit of a stretch, tight but not uncomfortable. Derek slid them in and out of you until you turned into a panting mess underneath him.

"Derek--"

He shushed you gently. "I know, Bug. I know."

He worked as if he was a musician and you were his favorite piece of instrument. The heel of his palm found solace on top of your bundle of nerves, drawing circles over and over again to the rhythm of his fingers inside of you.

Before long, you could feel the coil inside of your body snapping, sending your whole entire being shaking as you fell to the edge of a newfound ecstasy.

Throughout all of it, Derek kept his fingers sliding in and out of you, helping you ride your orgasm until your body had finally stopped spasming.

When you opened your eyes, you were welcomed with Derek's awed smile and warm eyes.

"Hi, gorgeous," you murmured breathlessly, still floating along the aftermath of your earlier pinnacle.

"Hey," he whispered back, kissing your temple with the most delicate of touches. "How are you feeling?"

"Blisfully sated."

Derek laughed at your overtly honest answer.

"Are you tired?" he then asked. "Because we don't have to do anything else if you feel--"

"Derek Morgan, I swear to God. If you try to talk me out of this one more time..."

His responding grin was mischievous. "Yes, ma'am."

After one last kiss to your lips, Derek started lining himself up with your entrance. The sensation of his tip pressing against you awakened the momentarily satiated hunger inside your lower belly. And when he finally entered you--slowly but surely--you could physically feel the air being punched right out of your lungs.

"Oh my God," you breathed out once he had filled you to the brim. "You're huge."

"And you're so fucking tight."

He pulled out his length until only his tip was left inside before driving back in with enough force to shatter your entire world. In no time at all, Derek had finally found a steady rhythm. Moving in and out of you while his lips and hands paid attention to the other parts of your body.

"Derek, Derek, Derek," you moaned his name endlessly, relishing every drag of his member against the pulsating muscles of your inner wall.

You could feel every ridge of him inside of you, along with every brush of kisses that he scattered all over your skin, every lazy drag of fingers on the curvatures of your body. All of your senses had been heightened around the presence of him.

"So fucking beautiful. Fuck. Such a good bug for me, hm? So desperate for my cock that you couldn't even wait to sober up."

The heat of Derek's words fueled your fire even further. You began to writhe underneath him, scrambling to make sure that every inch of you was touching every part of him.

"Tell me how good I'm making you feel," Derek ordered between his thrusts.

"So good, Derek. Oh God, you feel so good inside of me. Please, please, please."

Your desperation was the motivation he needed. Derek shifted you both until he was on his knees and your body lying halfway across his lap. When he continued to move again, the vigor of his pace nearly had you seeing stars.

"You feel like heaven, pretty bug. So tight and warm. Bet no one can fuck you as good as I do."

"No one, Derek. No one."

"Are you close, sweetheart? Hm? Tell me how close you are."

"I'm close. So close," you cried out. "I'm gonna... Derek, I'm gonna--"

As if he was reading your mind, Derek brought down his fingers and started drawing tight circles on your clit. All the while, he never relented the pace he had set inside your pussy.

"You wanna cum?" Derek groaned as he continued to nudge you further towards the edge.

You blinked back the tears that threatened to spill over, nodding your head frantically.

"Use your words, Bug."

"Yes, yes. I wanna cum. Please, Derek, make me cum."

And just like that, Derek sent a powerful thrust that had your toes curling, ears buzzing, and body shuddering.

Your second orgasm washed over you in big, tidal waves. A silent scream broken into desperate pleas and moans as you rode the high with Derek still inside of you. It didn't take long for him to follow behind. The sensation of you cumming around him became the very thread of his own undoing.

He spilled everything he had inside of you before his spent body fell into your arms. The air was heavy with the smell of sex and the panting of both of your breaths. You reveled in the aftermath of what just transpired, running your hands up and down the muscular back of the person responsible for your satisfied smile.

When Derek finally lifted his head up, he was adorning a smile identical to the one you had.

"That was--" you started, but struggled to find the right word to say.

Fortunately, Derek knew exactly what you meant. "Yes. Yes, it was."

He left a single kiss, then two, and three under your breast, before resting his chin back on the soft cushion of your abdomen.

"Derek?"

"Hm?"

You smiled at his tired hum. "You're sleepy, aren't you?"

"No," he replied, betraying the slight droop in his voice.

"That's okay. Go to sleep, baby."

You weren't even sure that Derek had heard your last statement, because not even two seconds later, he had started snoring softly against your skin.

Slowly as to not disturb the sleeping giant on top of your body, you pulled the comforter and tugged the edge across Derek's shoulders. Before long, you, too, were slipping into the deep slumber with Derek's steady intakes of breath as your lullaby.

Derek's weight on top of you was an anchor, one that you could have never dreamed of physically having outside of your hopeless fantasies. But Derek was real, and he was there with you in the comfort of your bedroom.

For a moment, everything was alright with the world. But then again, this was only the beginning of an unforeseen end. And as much as you wanted to convince yourself otherwise, you knew that inevitably, something was bound to go wrong.

You just hoped that when it did, you would have the strength to make it all right again.

[hypewinter]

Previous Post

Can I offer you another Danny POV in these trying times?

It had started after his encounter with the costumed people. After that his dad had taken him to the store and bought a lot of strange items. From there, he put the strange items together and put them up all around the house. Ever since then, Danny couldn't go through the walls.

Danny pushed against the wall now but he couldn't go through just like all his other past attempts. But if he couldn't go through, how would he play tag with his dad!? Fat tears bubbled up in his eyes as he tried to desperately push through the wall. He liked playing with his dad! It was the best part of the day.

Tears began to fall freely down his cheeks and he let out a whimper as he tried phasing through the floor this time to no avail. Suddenly big hands scooped him up.

Jack tried to soothe his son but Danny was not listening to his assurances that "this was to protect him" and "it was for the best". He was too busy crying while glaring at the strange items covering it. If only they weren't there.

--------

Danny woke up to voices outside his room. One was his dad's but the other was female. He tensed up in fear, remembering the last female voice he encountered, but this one was different. It was younger and for some reason, hearing it filled him with warmth.

"Now's not the time for that Dad." The female voice said.

"No, I won't have my princess sacrificing her education." Replied his dad.

Danny wondered what they were talking about. He was also curious about who the owner of this new voice was. She had called his dad , her dad. Did that mean they were related. That would make them siblings right? He had a sister?

Suddenly a thought came from deep within his mind. Of course I have a sister, her name is Jazz. But his moment of clarity was gone just as soon as it had overtaken him. Danny was left wondering who is Jazz? as he drifted back to sleep.

--------

Jazz as it turned out was his red-headed sister. And although she always wore a smile around him, it was always tinted with sadness. Danny couldn't help but wonder why.

Everything was going great so there was no reason to be sad. Jazz had now moved in, all the neighbors were constantly cooing at him and giving him treats, and Jack had gotten a job with some red person. Wait, did he get hired by Little Red Riding Hood? Maybe she needed a new hunter to help her fight the wolf.

At that thought, Danny couldn't help but look at his father in awe. Every evening when he left, Danny silently hoped he'd catch a lot of bad wolves.

--------

It took a couple of weeks for Danny to find out that while his dad worked for a Red Hood, it was very disappointingly not Red Riding Hood. Instead it was some guy with a white streak in his hair with some very disgusting ectoplasm circulating his body.

Danny made a face and turned into his sister's hold as he came face to face with the guy at the doorway.

"I'm sorry about that." she said to the guy, "He's not usually like this."

"It's ok, babies usually cry in front of me so this is an improvement." he replied.

"Come on Matt, Jason's really nice if you give him a chance!" His father proclaimed. His trademark loudness making the doorframe shudder.

That was the other thing Danny didn't like about this red guy. He had already seen him twice before, when his Dad had taken him in to grab a few forgotten tools.

The first time the guy wore a red helmet. Everyone acted like he was dangerous and shouldn't be messed with. Even his dad was very respectful in his interactions with him.

The second time Danny had seen not Red Riding Hood, he didn't have his helmet on nor did he go by his previous name. Everyone at the garage treated him as if he was one of their own instead of the dominating presence he had been before. In fact, they acted as if "Jason" was a completely different person all together. It was quite strange to say the least. Though Danny wasn't sure he had a leg to stand on considering every time they were in public, his dad would call him "Matt".

Danny had fussed about it a few times but that didn't seem to have any effect. He had finally decided it was fine since he was at least still called "Danny" and "Danno" when they were home. Now though, thanks to this Jason guy, he was even being called that stupid name within his own house! Danny was quickly deciding he didn't like this weird bad ectoplasm guy at all.

@idontgetpaidenoughforthisshit @overtherose @seraphinedemort

[fanficimagery]

La Reina del Inframundo

When your neighbor goes missing, you call upon your seven deadly sins to help get him back.

Words: 8.6K Author's Note: SURPRISE! Finally have something to post, so here it is a day earlier than normal. This imagine is probably ridiculous, but you know what? Blame the Kingdom of the Wicked series. I wanted my own seven deadly sins lol even if they don't make much of an appearance in here. Sons of Anarchy AU. Title translation: The Queen of the Underworld.

When you were little, you were probably the most spoiled girl you'd ever known. Anything you needed or wanted was yours and you ended up quite ignorant of everything going on around you. You didn't know anything about the family business, only that your daddy was an important man and you had numerous uncles who looked after you. And then you became a teenager, and you understood that not only was your daddy important but he was also dangerous too. Your parents did everything to shield you from the life, but when you and your mother were kidnapped and she was killed, you wanted to know the ins and outs of everything.

Your uncles, only a couple by blood, made sure you knew how to take care of yourself. You learned to fight and how to handle weapons, and learned about other families that were nearly as important as yours. You learned who your allies were and who your enemies were, and far sooner than you had anticipated, you were upgraded from Princess to Queen.

Losing your father made you bitter and you held no remorse for sending your men after those who had a hand in his death. It was your turn to lead the family business as your father's only child, and your father's brothers happily let everyone think they were in charge while you watched everyone and everything from the shadows.

Everyone learned to fear your family name since you were quite bloodthirsty, but as the years slowly passed you learned to take it down a notch. Eventually, you grew tired of having no privacy and decided to move out on your own since no one outside of the men you grew up with knew you were the head of the family business.

You chose Charming since it was quite the picturesque little town, but those who served under you didn't like you being so far away. So, to keep them from dropping by or watching you from afar, you anonymously purchased a large plot of land and let them build another compound and warehouse nearby.

The construction of the compound and warehouse gave you more than enough time to find a suitable house for yourself, and have it remodeled and furnished before you moved in. There was lots of talk around Charming about who was disrupting their usual routine, but no one ever found out anything of importance.

When you finally move into your house, it takes some getting used to. There's no noise, and no men lurking around corners or men coming up to you every half hour to see if you need anything. It feels good to make your own food and have a peaceful meal, and to just laze around to watch some television, but you're still the woman behind the curtain, taking phone calls and attending meetings and making sure everything is on the up and up.

You've been in your new house for a couple of weeks now and there's not been a single problem. At least not until you're in the middle of your shower and your scalding hot water turns unbearably cold. With a shout, you hop on out to try and catch your breath. You give it a few seconds before testing the water with your hand and quickly yank back when it's still cold.

You test the hot water in the bathroom sink, but that too is cold. Pulling on a robe, you head to your kitchen and test the hot water there. Cold. All cold.

With a sigh, you head towards the laundry room where the water heater resides. There's a little blinking light at the bottom that should signify the water heater is working properly, but unfortunately it isn't blinking.

"Son of a-"

You've learned a lot of things, but lighting the pilot light was not one of them. So uncaring for the fact that you're merely in a robe with shampoo still in your hair, you slip your feet into a pair of house slippers and head outside. You look around your neighbors' driveways and find a motorcycle parked at the house next to yours.

Scurrying next door, you knock on the front door. It doesn't take long at all for the door to be opened and you give yourself a moment to take in the tall specimen standing in front of you. Wet hair hangs down past the man's shoulders, water droplets clinging to a full beard, and a towel is wrapped tightly around his waist. Water droplets glisten down a tattooed torso and you have to quickly shake your head clear when you realize you're ogling. "Uh, sorry." You glance up to meet his amused gaze. "I, uh, I live next door. I really hope it's not a bad time, besides the obvious nakedness going on, but I could really use your help if you're not in a time crunch."

He arches an eyebrow at you. "What seems to be the problem?"

"I was in the middle of my own shower when my water heater went out. I checked it and there are no leaks which leads me to believe the pilot light went out. I have no clue how to light it and I'm hoping you do."

"Sure. Let me just…" He trails off as he glances down his body. "Let me get dressed and I'll help you out."

You sag in relief. "Thank you so much."

"You can use my kitchen sink if you wanna rinse your hair. You know, just in case the problem is something else."

"Oh. Yeah, thanks. I would rather rinse with hot water than cold."

The man opens his door further and you step in. "I'm Opie."

"YN. Nice to finally meet one of my neighbors."

He chuckles. "Yeah? Everyone 'round here steers clear."

"Motorcycle that off putting?"

"That and the MC." Walking into the kitchen, he points to a kutte hanging off the back of a chair. Sons of Anarchy. And huh. You've heard of them- heard all about the power struggle within the club, but they stayed off your radar and you theirs.

"What a bunch of pussies," you mumble. But Opie still hears you and he grins some more.

"Sink is clean. There's even a hose you can use. I'll be right back."

"Mhm. Thanks again."

Opie turns to walk away, and you tilt your head to admire his back muscles and tattoos. You bite your bottom lip at what you see, but quickly turn to the kitchen sink less you're busted ogling him again.

Turning on the sink's hot water, you grab the little hose and test it out. When the water is hot, you bend over the sink and flip your hair into it.

It takes you longer than anticipated to rinse out the shampoo in your hair and when you do, you're quick to turn off the water and then wring out as much water from your hair as you can. Letting your hair hang in front of your shoulder and over your chest so the front of the robe soaks up any other water, you find paper towels close by and take one to clean up the sides of the sink and counter where water splashed.

"All good to go?" You startle at the words and whirl around, finding Opie leaning against the doorway as he grins at you. His hair has been pulled back into a knot and a black shirt hugs his torso sinfully tight.

You gulp. "Y-Yeah."

"After you then."

You stumble and mutter a quick, shut up, when he laughs at you. He follows you all the way to your house, shutting the front door behind him and then stepping into your laundry room. "This is it. There's a light that's supposed to be blinking-"

"Yeah. I know. I actually have this same water heater."

"Oh, thank god."

Opie squats down and you watch him hold a knob down while clicking another button. It clicks about fifteen times before the light blinks, and you exhale in relief. "That should do it. If it goes out again on its own, just go ahead and come get me. It'll probably need to be cleaned and I can help with that also."

"Thank you! I really didn't want to have to call my uncles. They didn't want me living on my own and they would have teased me mercilessly if I had to call them so soon."

"I bet." Opie looks you up and down in your robe and your shift nervously. "Well, I'll go ahead and get out of your hair so you can finish your shower or whatever. If you ever need help, you know where to find me now. As long as my bike is out front, I'm home."

You smile as you walk him towards the door. "Thank you so much, Opie. I definitely owe you one."

You watch him until he's halfway between your houses and then shut the door before hurrying back to your bathroom.

And hallelujah! You have hot water once again.

After your first meeting with Opie, you seem to see him all the time when you're out and about. You have a smile and wave for him every time you make eye contact, laughing when his club brothers eye you up and down or whistle appreciatively until Opie shoves them hard enough to shut them up.

The next time you have face to face time with him, however, is when you're on the side of the road trying to replace a flat tire.

"Come. On. You. Sonnuvabitch," you grunt as you try to twist the lug wrench to loosen a lug nut. You've managed to get one off, but the others are proving to be a bitch.

The sound of motorcycle engines approaching has you looking up and down the side of the stretch of road you're on, and you spot two individuals riding closer and closer. Only needing their muscle to loosen the lug nuts since you know how to do the rest, you stand up and wave them down. And when you see them slowing down, angling their bikes to you, you sigh in relief.

One of the men has a very familiar beard and you can't help but smile as they stop right behind your car. "Hey neighbor," you muse when they cut their engines.

Opie pulls off his riding glasses and helmet, settling everything on his handlebars. His friend does the same before they both stand, and Opie offers you a small smile. "What trouble are you in now?"

"I just need your muscles, I swear." You chuckle, nodding at his friend and his too charming grin he throws your way. "The last place I got my car a tune-up at, they tightened the lug nuts too tight. I just need someone to loosen them up really quick and then I can take care of the rest."

"No need to worry that pretty little head of yours, darlin'," Opie's friend says. "I'm sure my boy Ope can take care of it for you." He claps Opie on the shoulders, squeezing and nudging him forward.

Opie's eyes roll. "YN, this is Jax. Jax, this is my neighbor YN."

You and Jax exchange greetings as Opie gets to work on changing your tire for you.

"So, how's that water heater treating you?" Opie asks. "No more naked knocks on other people's doors?"

"Naked knocks?" Jax arches an eyebrow at you.

"First of all, shut up," you tell Jax. And then looking at Opie, you say, "It's working fine. Haven't had a problem since you helped me."

"Good. That's good."

"So where did you come from?" Jax asks.

"From Salinas."

"Yeah? Why Charming?"

You shrug. "When my mom passed, my dad and his brothers raised me. And then my dad passed, and my uncles took my wellbeing a little too seriously. I needed some space from them."

"Pretty sure they're expecting her to throw in the towel any moment now and go crawling back to them," Opie says.

"Exactly." You grin at the biker that's nearly finished with changing your tire for you. "They know I know how to take care of myself, but they're still hoping I fail and call them up. Can you imagine how put out they're going to be when they realize I have a perfectly friendly biker living next door who doesn't mind lending me a hand every once in a while?"

Opie laughs as he lowers your car from the small car jack. He then grabs up the flat tire and carries it to the trunk of your car while Jax grabs up the jack and the lug wrench. Once everything is put away, the men face you as Opie says, "You're all set. If you stop by Teller Automotive, we can get the tire fixed for you and put the spare back in the trunk."

You arch an eyebrow at him. "You work at an auto garage?"

"Try own it," Jax muses. "It's mine. The club runs it," he says while pointing to the President patch on his own kutte.

"Huh. Nice." Then glancing back at Opie, you say, "Well I guess I owe you. Again."

"I'm just racking up those favors, aren't I?"

"Yeah, yeah." You smile as you pull open the driver's side door. "Thank you. I'll, uh, I'll see you around."

The men make their way back to their bikes, but they wait until you drive off before taking their leave as well.

As music blares throughout your room, you mouth along to the lyrics as you ready yourself for a party with the Sons of Anarchy. You had taken your tire to Teller Automotive when you found the time and Opie fixed it up for you like he said he would. Then after putting it back on your car, he made sure your spare was okay before putting it away back in the trunk. Jax tried to refuse payment by saying you get a freebie for being new to Charming, but you weren't having it and bullied the man in his office to take your money.

Needless to say, the Sons were impressed with how you didn't back down.

Jax then extended an invite to their party, and you agreed since you didn't have any plans. Opie tried to tell you that you didn't have to attend because their type of parties usually got out of hand, but you assured him you could handle your own with an all-knowing grin. Jax whooped and Opie looked a little apprehensive but still told you what time to be there.

So here you are, in a backless black bandana tank top and a pair of faded skinny jeans with rips along your thighs and knees. Your makeup has already been applied and your hair straightened, and you readily slip your feet into a pair of chunky heeled Doc Martens. And instead of taking a purse or wallet, you decide to slip your ID and Driver's License into the back of your phone case before slipping it into one pocket while shoving several twenties in the other.

Then after making sure everything is turned off, with the exception of two small lamps in the living room, you lock up your house and head out for the night.

The drive to Teller Automotive isn't that far and you get there fairly quickly. The entire lot is enclosed with a tall chain link fence that has some form of material draped on the inside so you can't see through, so you're not sure where to park, but one of the Sons who's speaking with a woman outside the fence spots you and tells you where to go. After following his directions, you park and get out of your car. Then pocketing your keys, you turn around and take in your surroundings.

There are barrels of fire scattered around the lot, as well as numerous picnic tables and a single boxing ring that has two men going toe to toe inside of it as many spectators cheer on the violence. The auto garage portion of the building is shut down, but the club portion has its bay doors rolled up. As you make your way towards it, you can see a bar and numerous tables scattered about the room. There are a couple of couches and even a pool table, and many scantily clad women working the room.

Chuckling, you enter the club with all the confidence in the world. Immediately you can feel the stares on you- both lecherous and envious- and you make your way towards the bar.

Sitting on the stool across from the bartender, you smile at him. "Can I have a beer? Whatever you have is fine." As the bartender grabs you a beer, you pull a twenty from your pocket and hand it over.

"It's only six bucks."

"Then I'll grab another two throughout the night. Don't worry about any change."

The bartender nods and puts the money away under the counter, and you turn around on your stool. Crossing one knee over the other, you lean back against the bar while taking your first sip of your drink.

"Hey. When'd you get in?" Jax takes the stool next to you and you grin at him.

"Just now. Was taking in the scene before I went looking for familiar faces."

"Ope would have greeted 'ya, but he's currently trying to fend off a couple of sweetbutts."

"Sweetbutts?"

"Women who want to fuck a Son in hopes of him giving her his crow."

You frown. "How does one give someone a crow?"

Jax chuckles. "You know, it's kind of refreshing that you don't know anything about the MC life."

"Yeah, well…" You shrug, trailing off as you take another sip of your beer.

"It can be a good thing or a bad thing," he continues. "Good because we know you ain't looking at Ope just because of his kutte and bad because this life is tough. Especially for the women."

You flash him a grin. "Who said I was lookin' at Opie?"

"Please." Jax huffs. "I put on my best smile for you when he was changing your tire and you only had eyes for him."

"It's the height. And the muscle definition in his back." You sigh wistfully, sipping your beer. "God, his back."

Jax laughs as he grabs himself another beer and you gesture the bartender to give you another. "Well, Ope can use a saving grace whenever you're ready. Don't let anyone push you around."

"Trust me. I won't."

As Jax takes his leave, you meet every woman's glare that had been directed at you because he had chosen to spend a few minutes of his time on you. You give them the most deadpan stare ever until they look away and then smirk as you start in on your second beer. A couple men try their luck with you, but you're quick to reject them before they can get too comfortable. Your gaze occasionally falls back on Opie, and you make your move when you see him drain his beer and the so-called sweetbutts on either side of him lean further into his personal space.

Rolling your eyes, you grab a fresh beer from the bartender and start towards your neighbor. The gathered Sons seem to perk up, making the women on their laps pout, but you only have eyes for Opie.

Coming to a stop in front of him, you smirk as he looks up and the women vying for his attention glare at you. Holding out the new beer to him, you say, "Come on. Let's go get some fresh air."

His lips twitch as he accepts the beer and the woman on his left scoffs. "Excuse me!"

"You're excused."

Opie and his brothers all laugh and then the woman on his right gets bold. "Back off, bitch. Seniority rules here. If you're gonna be a regular, you start at the bottom of the totem pole. Now go clean the toilets or something."

Opie looks offended on your behalf, but you merely laugh as you step so you're directly standing in front of her. "Oh honey, I'm way too pretty to do the toilets. You, on the other hand…" She gasps and leans forward to stand, but you're quick to lift a foot and plant your boot in the middle of her chest. Her eyes widen as you shove her back into her seat and you lean forward as much as you can with your foot pressing against her. "Trust me, you don't wanna go down this road. You think I'm easy prey because this is my first time here but let me assure you that they will not find your body if you decide to piss me off."

"And that's our cue to go." Opie is quick to stand, gently grabbing you by the wrist to tug you away. His brothers all whoop and laugh as the one woman tries to console her friend who had balked at your words. You follow after him as he leads you outside, walking up to a picnic table that he ends up stepping up onto the bench to sit atop the table. You do the same and as you settle side by side, he asks, "So we wouldn't find her body, huh?"

You snort, covering your mouth where beer had dribbled out since he asked the question when you were mid-sip. "What can I say? I'm full of surprises."

"I'll say." Opie takes a pull from his own beer bottle. "So how are you liking the party?"

You shrug. "It's decent." Then you point towards the boxing ring with the neck of your bottle. "You ever get in there?"

"If I ever have any aggression to work out, yeah."

"Most people fuck their aggression out; you fight it out." This time it's Opie's turn to snort his beer and you smirk. "So how are you liking tonight's party? Are the women always so…"

"Slutty?"

"I was gonna say bold."

Opie shakes his head as he chuckles. "Yeah. It's their life's mission to either get knocked up by someone in a kutte or get a crow or a ring."

"That's the second time I heard something about a crow. What is that?" You ask.

Opie looks at you, seeing that you're honestly curious. "In our MC, a crow is a big deal. Bigger than a ring."

"No shit?"

"It's basically the men branding their women as their property."

"Wow," you drawl, completely unimpressed. "The women around here really need to rethink their priorities."

Opie chuckles some more. "So, you're saying you wouldn't get a tattoo for your man?"

"I mean…" You trail off, shrugging. "It all depends on the situation."

"How?"

"Take me and you for example," you say and roll your eyes when Opie smirks. "If we started hooking up and a month or two from now you asked me to get a tattoo personalized for you, I'd say you were out of your damn mind. I'd have to be with someone for years before getting a tattoo dedicated to my partner."

"That's fair." He takes a moment to watch you, watching you take in your surroundings and be at ease in this new environment. "So how was your day?"

"So-so," you say, watching the men duke it out in the ring. "It was a bit of a bore if I'm being honest."

"No work?"

"I work from home." You turn to face him, grinning softly. "I, uh, I have a family-owned private security schtick going on. My uncles work from the office, but I take calls and answer emails at home."

"Does working from home turn a decent profit?"

"I'm living pretty comfortably, so I'd say it does."

Opie doesn't question your answer and then turns back to the fight himself.

For the rest of the night, the two of you keep one another company outside by the fire. You switch to water so you're able to drive home and you learn a little bit more about how the MC handles themselves and the people milling about their territory.

Over the next couple of weeks, you find Opie hanging out at your place more and more. After the faucet at your kitchen sink had deteriorated and leaked beneath the cabinets, Opie installed the new one for you after you bought everything you needed. You repaid him with dinner and a beer, and he just kept showing up after that. Sometimes with Jax or Juice or even Happy who reminded you of some of your uncles.

You've gotten to know each other really well that you have a date-slash-not date planned with him, so you're a little surprised when he doesn't show.

Or answer your call.

Or your text.

You keep listening for a motorcycle, but two days go by and nothing.

On the third day there's a pounding on your front door that immediately has you agitated. You march over to it, yank it open to give whoever it is a piece of your mind, only to gape as Jax marches in.

"Have you heard from Ope?"

"Well hello to you too," you deadpan as you swing the door shut. Sighing, you follow him to the living room where he's pacing.

"I'm being serious here, YN. Have you heard from Ope?"

His worry and tone give you pause, and then immediately sets you on edge. "No. We had plans two days ago, but he never showed up." You frown when you realize how exhausted Jax seems. "What's going on?"

Jax sighs and runs a hand through his hair. "Nothing. Don't-"

"Don't tell me not to worry about it," you say. You step in front of him, arms crossed. "I was ready to bitch out Opie the next time I saw him, but then you marched in here all worried and now I'm worried. If he left town on his own, then fine. But if he was taken because of the club-"

"What the hell would you know about club life?" He scoffs.

"Don't get pissy with me, presidente." You snap back at him. "You'd be surprised at what I know."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yes." You lightly glare at him, but then the glare softens as you smirk at him. "Weren't you a little bit skeptical at how easily I made myself comfortable at your parties? How I didn't cower to your women or how I stood up to the men who tried their luck?"

Jax tenses. "Who are you?"

"A friend, I hope." Jax frowns and you sigh. "Look. I didn't come to Charming looking for trouble. I didn't plan on Opie being my neighbor or getting to know you guys. In fact, I just wanted to fly under the radar, but you guys… you guys threw a wrench into everything."

"Who do you work for?"

You scoff. "I don't work for anyone."

"What the hell is going on here, YN?" Jax wonders, getting annoyed. "I'm confused as shit right now and my brother is missing and-"

"Hey." You step right into his space, reaching up to lightly pat the side of his face as you stare up at him. "I can help you look for him, but you're gonna need to trust me. I know this is MC business, but if you want Opie found then you're gonna have to spill."

"This isn't going to bite me on the ass?"

"Nope. In fact, I'm pretty sure you'll benefit from it. Now what do you say?" You hold a hand out to him. "If you say you trust me, you have to tell me exactly what's going on. The nitty gritty details won't ever be repeated from my lips."

Jax takes a moment to think about it before throwing caution to the wind and grasping your hand. "Fine. We have a deal."

"Good." Pulling out your phone with your other hand, you press on the name that's saved in your first favorite slot. It rings twice before the call is answered. "Gather my favorite sins and send them to my house. Discreetly. Someone important to me was taken and I am not happy."

You disconnect the call and Jax just stares at you. "Your favorite sins? What the fuck was that about?"

But you merely smile at him. "Congratulations, Mr. Teller. Sons of Anarchy are now under my protection so long as you don't do stupid shit."

"Your protection?"

"You'll see. Now talk. I need to figure out an abbreviated version to tell my sins when they get here."

Jax arches an eyebrow. "Your sins?"

"Yes. Now speak."

Jax huffs but takes a seat on the edge of your couch, spilling everything. You're familiar with turf wars and kidnappings and torture, and the more Jax speaks the more unsettled you are for Opie. The issue, however, is an old grievance another MC has with the Sons. They'd been spotted around town for the past week, keeping the Sons on their toes and making the Sons chase them out of town. But the Sons were split in all sorts of directions and Opie never came back.

Jax is in the middle of telling you possible locations of where Opie might be when the back door to your house opens. He pauses and immediately reaches for his gun, but you put a hand on his wrist and put a finger to your mouth to tell him to be quiet. "Let me do the talking. It'll be fine."

Jax hesitantly relaxes, but then he tenses right back up when man after man files into your living room. Each one is wearing dark jeans and a dark jacket with its hood pulled up, but when the hoods fall, he's treated to every man's face tattooed to look skeletal. "What the…"

Each man takes a stand around the room, only having eyes for you as they completely ignore Jax. "Listen up. Opie Winston is the man that was taken." You pull out your phone, pulling up a picture you snapped of him before holding your phone up- screen out- so your men can see. "He's my neighbor and has been nothing but kind to me. I've grown very fond of him."

One of your men (Pride) quietly huffs but you still hear him as he mutters, "Seems like our queen has found herself a king."

"¡Cállate!" You snap at him. "His club president has kindly offered up who took him and possible locations of where they might be keeping him, but they can't get close. I need you to find Opie and bring him back safely. Anyone involved in his kidnapping is to be brought in as well. I want them to see what happens when you take something or someone I deem important from me." After telling them what they need to know, your men all nod and you smirk before letting them go. "Now that you're caught up, you're dismissed. Happy hunting."

The men take their leave from the same door they walked in through and then you turn to Jax who has an eyebrow arched at you in amusement. "Queen, huh? And let me guess, those were the seven deadly sins?"

"Yes. Pride, Greed, Lust, Envy, Gluttony, Wrath, and Sloth are my best crew. Now call off your boys and have them go back to the club. The last thing we need is them shooting at my sins."

"Fuck. You're right." Jax pulls out his own phone to call his boys off. You watch him as he sends out the text and then he stands as if ready to leave.

"Sorry if I overstepped by calling dibs on the men who took Opie."

"Don't be." He smirks at you now. "I'm kind of curious to see what you're capable of. And I totally called it. You have the hots for Opie. Happy's gonna be so disappointed."

You roll your eyes a little and you hand Jax your phone. "Put your number in. I'll call you when we have your boy back."

"Don't you mean our boy?"

"Shut up." You laugh and then reclaim your phone after he's done what you asked. "And just so you know, if there's more than one man they bring in, only one of them gets to walk so he's able to warn his club that Sons of Anarchy are now under my protection."

"You're that confident, huh?"

"You have no idea. Now get outta here, but don't tell your other boys about me."

"Why not?"

"Because I enjoy making an entrance."

Jax laughs as he walks out of your house. "If you manage to find Ope, you'll be my new favorite person."

"Yeah, yeah."

For the past day and a half, you've reclaimed your throne at the compound and established with your tios that you were coming out of the shadows. They didn't fight you on the decision and, in fact, they might have even encouraged you to see where things went with the missing Son since you needed someone by your side.

You've been in contact with Jax, keeping him updated, but you've yet to update him of the latest development.

Opie was found along with four bikers who'd been guarding him.

You're anxious to tell Jax, but you want to get Opie settled and cleaned up before calling in his brothers. So, to kill time, you go ahead and get dressed.

You strip down to your panties right there in your room, pulling on a blazer and buttoning it closed beneath your bust so your cleavage is on display. You even have to place some double-sided sticky tape so there are no nip slips while you put on a show. Then you find yourself a pair of leather pants that you manage to wiggle into and a pair of stilettos that make you feel powerful as you walk around in a room full of men.

You're adding a couple pieces of jewelry here and there when you get the text that Opie is there. You finish getting ready and then walk out to where you know they're holding him, and grin when you hear him cursing up a storm.

"Who the fuck even are you guys? If you really are my rescuers, why can't I leave?"

"That… would be because of me," you muse as you step into the room.

Opie's head whips in your direction and your smile drops when you see the black eye, the gash above his eyebrow and on the bridge of his nose, and the busted lip. Even his hands look like they have some damage, and his clothes are bloodied.

"YN?"

"In the flesh." You walk closer to him, hesitantly reaching out to him in case he balks from your touch, but he doesn't. You touch his hair, frowning to find crusted blood clumping the strands together. "And to think I thought you stood me up."

"Nope. I was just being held hostage. Still am."

You offer him a grin. "You're not a hostage here, Opie. I swear. Now come on." You offer him a hand. "Come with me so you can get cleaned up and changed. I'll call Jax and the others, and then I'll deal with those assholes who had you."

"You? You're gonna deal with them?"

"Yep. Got Jax's blessing and everything. Now let's go. I had to sneak into your house to grab you some clothes, so you might as well put them to use."

Opie laughs and then groans, clutching at his ribs. You rub his shoulder until the pain passes and when he stands you grab his hand. Mentally cheering when he doesn't pull away, you lead him back to your bedroom so he can use your private shower.

Opie looks around your room while you grab his bag from the closet and then show him to the bathroom. You try not to grin when you see him taking it all in and then leave him be. You pull out your phone to text Jax the directions to the compound and that they'd be let in upon arrival, and then settle in front of your vanity.

Whenever you've done business with those who opposed what you and your family have done or tried to claim your notoriety for themselves, you've always presented yourself a certain way. Your makeup was half and half, half normal and half skeletal, which is why your favorite sins have tattooed themselves that way. So as Opie showers, you get started on wiping off half your makeup before blending white and black face paint along your features.

It surprisingly doesn't take you long to get your makeup done, so you take a seat on the edge of your bed to wait for Opie to be done. A handful of minutes later, the bathroom door opens and Opie steps out. He freezes when he sees you and you smirk at him. "Come take a seat. We need to talk."

Rubbing the towel over his hair one last time, Opie tosses it back into your bathroom before padding barefoot towards you. As he sits, he asks, "Who are you?"

"I'm YN. You know that."

"You're clearly a very important person to have so many men working under you."

Grinning at him, you shrug. "I was my father's only heir. His business became my business."

"You said you worked in private security."

"Yeah. We do that too, but in the underground- in the underworld- we do so much more. They call me La Reina de Inframundo."

"Which means?"

"Queen of the Underworld."

Opie huffs and you hesitantly reach for his hand, clasping it between two of your own. "Why'd you go through so much trouble for me?"

"Because you were kind to me." He scoffs this time, and you angle your body towards him. "I'm serious. You had no idea about my reputation and treated me like any other woman that wasn't actively trying to get into your pants. You were kind and you became my friend, and I- I might have grown overly fond of you."

"Only might?" You roll your eyes with a slight huff and stand, but Opie is quick to catch you by the wrist and pull you in so you're standing between his parted knees. "Oh, I think you're pretty fond of me if you went through all this trouble."

"Fine. I like you, but I'm also aware about how the men of MC's work. And I just want to assure you right now, no matter what happens between you and me, I will have the Sons' back. I've never had a sibling, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want one if they're anything like Jax or Juice."

Opie grins at your joke. "Been keeping in contact with them?"

"Jax, yes. Juice just thought I needed to be checked up on for some reason. I guess he assumed I'd be a sobbing mess without you around or something."

"...thank you."

"You don't need to thank me, Ope." You reach for his face, gently cradling it in the palms of your hands before smoothing his hair back as his arms wrap around the small of your back. "You'd have done the same for me if I'd gone missing."

His smile immediately vanishes as his gaze darkens and his arms squeeze you tighter which brings you closer to him. And honestly, you quite like the feeling of being in his arms. "They'd be dead if they'd taken you."

"Likewise." His brow furrows and you wrinkle your nose at him. "Look at you all adorable and clueless," you coo. You lean down and press a kiss to his forehead. "Those men outside signed their own death certificates the moment they kidnapped you. They just don't know it yet."

"You're gonna kill them?"

"You'll see. Now put your shoes on. Your boys should be here by now and they're probably itching to pull a gun. Go keep them calm."

As Opie looks for socks and shoes, you walk over to your bedside table and pull open the drawer. Pulling out your gun, you make sure it's loaded before sliding into your waistband at the small of your back and then situating the back of your blazer over it. When you turn back around, Opie's staring at you with an arched eyebrow. You merely grin and shoo him out the door, telling him you'd be out there soon.

You give him a minute to find his way and then head out yourself, keeping to the shadows. Then when you get to the main room, you move to the darkest corner and watch everyone. The Sons of Anarchy stand off to one side as they look over Opie with your sins and tios on the other, and in the middle are the four bikers the sins had taken and bound to chairs.

"What the fuck is this?" One of the bound bikers scoffs. "Have the Sons turned into pussies that let a new crew handle their business?"

All the Sons, with the exception of Jax and Opie, bristle at the insult. Happy and Tig look like they're on a very short leash and would like nothing more than to tear apart the men limb by limb, but Jax keeps them in line.

"That's what I thought. Pussies."

Happy and Tig lunge, but Jax and Juice keep their brothers back. Opie mutters about it not being worth it and once it quiet, you take that as your cue.

Walking forward, you keep your head held high and let the click!, click!, click!, of your heels put the room on edge. The men part and it takes a moment for a majority of the Sons to recognize you. Jax gapes and then smirks, nudging Opie who shakes his head at his brother.

"What the fuck is this?" Tig asks.

"Our new ally," Jax muses.

Walking up to the bound four men, you arch an eyebrow at them. The mouthy one scoffs yet again as he takes you in. "You idiots made a mistake," you say. "You took someone I care about and I don't take that lightly." Reaching for the small of your back, you pull free your gun and grip it tight.

"Ha. I'm sure under that stupid makeup you're nothing but a pretty face, so why don't you strut that perky ass of yours back out of the room and let the grown men talk."

His companions all chuckle and you allow yourself to sarcastically laugh with them before aiming your gun and pulling the trigger. The laughing immediately ceases, and their expressions all morph into shock as their mouthy companion's head slumps backwards. You smirk. "Only one of you will walk out of here, so the more you mouth off the faster you will die."

The remaining three men struggle against their binds, and you giggle at their fear.

"Holy shit," Happy utters. Your gaze darts to him and you smirk as you watch him take in your tios and your sins. When his gaze darts back to you, he says, "La Reina del Inframundo."

You bend at the waist, arms sweeping out to the side as you mockingly bow. "At your service."

"What the fuck is that?" Tig asks, glancing between his brother and you. "Not all of us speak spanish, Hap."

"Queen of the Underworld," Jax answers. He saunters up to your side, nudging your elbow with his own. "Isn't that right?"

"Sí." Then losing your smile, you walk closer to the bound men, pacing back and forth in front of them. "So, this is what's going to happen. One of you is going back to your president and letting him know that the Sons are under La Reina's protection."

"Who is going back?" Another bound individual asks. He looks between his other bound brothers, throwing them under the bus. "I'll tell you whatever it is you want to know."

You slowly grin at him and then raise your gun, putting a bullet between his eyes. "No me gustan las ratas (I don't like rats)." One of the remaining two flinches and whimpers, and you put a bullet in his head too. The last remaining individual keeps his gaze straight ahead and though you see his bottom lip tremble, you let him live. "And it looks like we have a winner."

Your men and the Sons all chuckle.

"Untie him, Envy. Greed and Wrath, I need you two to drive him out to the middle of nowhere. Let him find his own way back home."

As the man is untied, he hesitantly stands while rubbing his wrist. "So, I'm free to go? Just like that?"

"Just a little like that." Before he can question you, you put a bullet in his right knee. He shouts in both pain and surprise, and you grin. "Now you're free to go."

Greed and Wrath stalk forward, grabbing the guy's arms and dragging him out of the room. You don't need to utter a word as other men under your rule step forward, untying the dead bodies and getting them out of there as well.

Looking towards the Sons, you gesture for them to follow. "I have a bar upstairs. It's about to smell like bleach down here, so unless you're into that…"

As you start walking, you grab Opie's hand and tug him after you. You hear Jax chuckle, but soon enough they all start to follow.

Upstairs sits one of your favorite rooms. A sleek mahogany bar runs the length of the side wall, the wall behind it lit up and showcasing every bottle of liquor in stock. There's a clear refrigerator that's stocked with several brands of beer and you even have a few on tap. There are a cluster of couches for those decompressing talks, as well as round tables and chairs for the rowdier gatherings. And for entertainment, there are two dart boards and a pool table.

"Pick your poison, boys. Pride will get you whatever you want so long as we have it."

As the Sons gladly make their way to the bar, Opie stays by your side. He tugs you closer, tucking you into his side and he presses his lips to your temple as your arm wraps around the small of his back. "What is it with naming your men after the seven deadly sins?"

"When I took over, I needed a crew of my very own who would be loyal to me and me only. All my men are obviously loyal, but some have a family of their own who will always be number one to them," you say as you glance up at him. "I get it, I do, but I wanted those who would put me first. My seven deadly sins do that."

As Opie stares down at you, you feel the tension between the two of you amping up. It's always been there, ever since the two of you started hanging out, but neither of you ever acted on it. But as his eyes dart to your lips and your hand finds its way under his shirt so you can stroke the skin of his hip, you know it's inevitable that this friendship is destined to be something more.

"I hate to be a cockblock," you hear Jax muse, "but how exactly is all this going to work out?" You and Opie both exhale in annoyance, glancing at his club president who's smirking between the two of you. "Not that I'm not grateful for the Queen's protection, but we can't be seen as pussies."

"And you won't be," you say. "The Sons of Anarchy will still operate as you have been. I don't care about your club business. But seeing as I've unfortunately grown fond of a few members, I will be on the sidelines waiting to put a bitch in a ditch should they cross a line."

"And what do you consider crossing a line?" Jax asks.

"Any unprovoked kidnappings and/or torture. If you're doing business and you piss someone off, that's on you. But if anyone comes around sniffing around Charming, pushing buttons to see what the response will be, I will set my sins loose."

Jax looks around at his men, gauging their reactions. No one seems to have a word to argue against you and he comes to a conclusion pretty fast. "I can work with that."

"That's what I like to hear." You slowly smile and then smother a laugh when Juice raises a hand. "Yes?"

"What exactly does the queen of the underworld do?"

"Now that's a secret, Mr. Ortiz." You wink at him. "All the prominent families of the underworld are interconnected in a way that I can't explain to you. As of right now, I keep the peace. Or force it if need be." As you smirk, you see Juice shrink down onto a bar stool. "I also make sure the most prominent families aren't murdering anyone without cause."

"When you first came into power, you were the most feared," Happy says. "Why?"

As you look at the man, your smirk slowly vanishes. "Some of the low-class families were looking to make a name for themselves. They waited until my father was at his most vulnerable and killed him in cold blood. They ripped my heart out that day. So, when I took my father's place, I hunted each and every one of them down, and did to them what they did to me."

"Which was?" Juice asks, hanging off your every word.

"I carved their hearts and delivered them to their head of house."

"Holy shit."

No one knows what to say to that, so Jax makes use of the pool table. They crowd around the pool table and dart boards, laughing and enjoying the beer you've offered them. Some of your men even come on up, grabbing themselves a beer and mingling with the Sons.

You feel yourself being led to one of the couches by Opie and then tugged down on his lap. Sitting sideways, you cross one knee over the other and wrap your arms loosely around his neck. "Well, aren't you being a little bold tonight."

Arms around your waist, Opie tugs you closer and lightly drags his nose along your jawline to your ear. "I just watched a beautiful woman avenge my kidnapping and beating." As he moves lower, you tilt your head to give him more access to your neck, shivering when his beard tickles the area. "I think it's time we stop tiptoeing around each other and just take what we want."

"Hmm. And what do you want, Ope?"

"You."

His teeth nip at your neck, and you quietly groan, moving to capture his lips with your own. Opie gives you a moment- a moment!- to control the kiss and then he's manhandling you on his lap so you're straddling him. As your hands delve into his hair to get a good grip on, his hands slide down your ass until he grasps the back of your thighs to hitch you right where he wants you.

The wolf whistles hardly faze you and you take your time enjoying what Opie's offering you.

It isn't until you hear the chanting of, "El rey, el rey, el rey (king, king, king)," that you pull yourself back from Opie's mouth and glance at your men who stop chanting and immediately explode into cheers and whistles.

"Uhh.. what's going on?"

You glance back at Opie, taking a moment to laugh at your skeleton makeup that's smeared onto half his face, before wiping it off and explaining, "They've been patiently waiting for their reina to find her rey. Outside this compound you might be a Son, but within this compound you're about to become King." Opie slightly gapes and you wiggle your eyebrows at him. "Congratulations, Mr. Winston. Life is about to become a lot more interesting."

[amelee23]

Cleaning supplies... Under the moonlight | Hwang Hyunjin

Pairing: Hyunjin x reader (no pronouns used but they are wearing a swim suit)

Characters: best friend!Hyunjin, reader, David (reader’s boyfriend), Jihyo and Luna (reader’s friends) and Sharon (identity is a spoiler). None of the original characters resemble real people.

Genre: Romance, best friends to lovers, ANGST, hurt/comfort, being saved from a messy break-up, slow burn, star-crossed lovers

Word Count: 8k

Warnings: CHEATING (reader gets cheated on by her boyfriend), toxic relationship, messy break-up, crying, reader becomes very insecure, Hyunjin is there to save the day, and he’s pining hard, reader is wearing a swim suit, I have no idea how heated pools work so don’t quote me on anything, Hyunjin is a poet so; I present to you confessing feelings through love poems, Hyunjin is shirtless, swearwords, reader gets called ‘angel’, kissing, cuddles, a bit of revenge, humor, the tense change is intentional (kinda), hopelessly romantic stuff, poetic prose, metaphors galore and lots of word plays (if you catch them all I’ll give you a gold star.)

A/n: I know the first part of the story focused on the reader’s relationship with her toxic boyfriend, but Hyunjin will become the main focus after the break-up so please don’t let the beginning intimidate you. Also I worked on this an entire week lord send help

Synopsis: Your vacation was supposed to go like this: scented candles, a warm pool and the light of the moon, in hopes of fixing your relationship with your boyfriend. But the universe had other plans. After you found out he has been cheating, you bathed under the moonlight, surrounded by broken roses, being confessed in poems by your best friend Hyunjin, and you’ve never felt so whole.

You've put everything into this vacation.

And that didn't only mean money, albeit it was quite costly. You, your boyfriend and some close friends decided to rent out a vacation house with a gigantic heated pool, to at least create a fun, leisure memory before summertime slipped between your fingers and the sun would grow sad and dim once again. With the price shared by so many people, it was still quite a lot - but you didn't care, because there was more emotion put behind this vacation than mere money.

Perhaps it wasn't the healthiest of solutions, just how when a couple decided to get married to fix their relationship (which to you always seemed like such a horrid idea), you were trying something similar. You wanted this vacation with your boyfriend, David. Things between you haven't been good, that would be the simplest way to put it. His behavior changed, he became more distant, less passionate about your relationship, and one thing led to another and you were fighting because of your growing suspicions. Truth be told, you were terrified. Afraid he didn't love you anymore, afraid he found someone else to spend his nights with.

He had been everything to you, the fiber woven from your cells, the beginning and end of every breath you took - because when you loved, you didn't hold back. And it came to you so naturally, too; to love him. You've never had something so simple, so stable until you met him. But they do say every good thing must come to an end, and there's this little cricket in the back of your mind, at low volume but at an unbearable high pitch, following you every moment, whether awake or asleep. It's telling you your gut is right. Vivi (so you've nicknamed him, many months ago, when his friends were making fun of how basic the name David is) has told you a million times you had nothing to worry about. That he's just busy, or stressed, or that your love is just settling into something more calm, rather than an intense teenage-like love, like it used to be in the beginning. He's made you feel insane so many times over. Like you're just imagining things, like your insecurities are getting out of hand and you're just projecting on him, lashing out at him. You thought you deserved the pain that came with the accusations of being untrusting, immature, unconfident, inconsiderate or selfish. But you didn't, of course you didn't. You didn't deserve any of that.

You were afraid Vivi wouldn't agree to the vacation, or even if he did, he wouldn't pull through on the money part and you'd have to pay his share. You were ready to annihilate your savings account just for this one chance at a happy memory. This one chance at making things right. But surprisingly, he agreed in a heartbeat and even suggested a specific vacation house he's heard of from his friends. Not even two days later, he had all the details down, made the math of the expenses and put together the whole group chat. You thought this was it, he was actually trying again. Showing you he still does have the passion to make you happy.

You couldn't have picked out a better date for the vacation, either. The first night, it would be a full moon, with a clear sky. You were imagining it already, how magical it was going to be, soaking in a heated pool under the moonlight with David, reciting your love vows once more, like you used to do in the start of your relationship. You couldn't help how hopelessly romantic you were, you needed to let it out, confess disgustingly sappy and cheesy words of admiration. But more than that, you needed him to tell you he loves you. You needed it.

When you arrived, you were met with a stranger who had been waiting for you and your friends at the vacation house. She introduced herself as Sharon, the daughter of the owner. Since her father was busy, she was left in charge of giving you the orientation.

"I'm not going to bother you much." She assured you, her voice was low in volume and yet high in pitch. "I'm just going to give you a quick tour of the rooms and then explain to you how the pool works, and what cleaning supplies you can use just in case you need them." She was a beautiful girl, so beautiful in fact, that the cricket in the back of your mind was telling you to be envious. You couldn't quite understand it, but you brushed it off.

There were three rooms in the house, each of them with their own bathroom. It was so much more luxurious than you imagined, and suddenly it seemed odd that you paid so little for something so grand. You remembered Vivi saying something about a discount, but the memory was vague. Nevertheless, the room count was perfect. One room would belong to you and Vivi, one to Jihyo and Luna, and one to Hyunjin.

You met Jihyo through Vivi, they were coworkers at some point. But the two of you instantly clicked and became girl friends, and the more, the merrier - Luna was her adopted sister, picked up from an orphanage in Spain. She was one of the most incredible and strongest women you've ever met, and you simply adored her. It was so magical to see how the two sisters came in a package, how they looked after each other with unconditional love. You thought something like that only existed in TV shows.

And lastly, there was Hyunjin. A man, a poet, a romantic with beauty deemed worthy of a Greek tragedy. But most importantly, your best friend; your lifeline. He understood you, in ways no one ever could. Your souls were made from the same material, the same thirst of emotions of celestial scales, he saw beauty in the small things just like you did. And he has been there, day in, day out, through your ugliest moments. When you were single at prom, he turned down at least 15 girls to take you instead. When you were too broke to afford Taylor Swift tickets, he pretended to 'roam the city' with you so that you'd listen to the concert from outside the stadium. When a boy broke your heart, he'd turn your pain into the most beautiful poems, and gift them to you in journals filled with drawings of your favorite flowers. He was more than anyone could ever ask for, and you were forever grateful to have such a human in your life. The perfect best friend.

With the tour out of the way, you volunteered to go with Sharon and receive the tutorial about the pool and supplies you must use for it. She explained to you the heating mechanism (although all you needed to do was turn it on, she reassured you.) and that water might need to be replenished if you use the pool a long time since the heat makes it evaporate faster. You jutted down all you could in your notes app, and then followed her to the supply closet. She explained to you about chlorine (although half of what she said went over your head) and showed you the cleaning supplies you can use in the instance that the water becomes extremely dirty (which she knew wouldn't be the case, but she was required to let you know). By the end of it, you were starting to think your senses maybe are going insane. Sharon seemed like a very nice and gentle person, and her attitude was very bright and easygoing. You told her you were gonna take some pictures of the bottles and note down in your phone what they are, so she gave you a warm smile and left you alone in the supply closet.

After writing your own one-thousand-words heated pool manual (pictures included), you were ready to have the vacation of a lifetime. You picked out a swimsuit in Vivi's favorite color, prepared his favorite scented candles to place around the pool, and alerted your friends beforehand that you wanted the pool just for you and Vivi on the first night. It was all coming together perfectly, so you grabbed the door handle with confidence.

"I'm sure my friends wouldn't mind if I leave a little bit later. We could grab some food and then hit up that bar you like? Don't I owe you a mojito?" That was Vivi's voice. Even with the door cracked just a little, you could hear it. It was so clear. It was his voice.

"I would love to." The cricket. Low in volume, high in pitch. It was speaking - it was agreeing to go out with your boyfriend.

"And maybe, afterwards I could take you home? Would you like that?" Your eyes are closed shut. But you couldn't close your ears, unfortunately. The conversation continued, and you could imagine him whispering in her ear, looking into her eyes and tipping her chin just how he used to do with you. Tears were about to escape, so you closed them even tighter. Your lungs were burning, because you were denying them air. Holding your breath, you bit your lip, hands shaking as they gripped the wall.

"Speaking of taking something home, I have something for you-"

You finally took a breath. And you stormed towards the voices.

Your vision was blurry, but after blinking away your tears, an image formed before your eyes: David, holding out a gigantic rose bouquet towards Sharon.

The ugliest flowers you've ever seen in your life, held by the ugliest man you've ever met. He was never beautiful to begin with, right? He couldn't have. A man with such an ugly soul, how could you have been attracted to him? How could you have loved him?

He calls out your name.

"This isn't what it looks like, okay? My dad is friends with Sharon's dad, okay? We became friends by association, okay?"

Okay?  Is he asking you that, or is he asking himself if the lie is plausible?

"And these are for you, yeah?" He's walking towards you, putting the bouquet in your limp hand. "There's nothing going on between me and Sharon." The cricket, it suddenly stopped. Instead, you heard Sharon gasp and look at David in horror. She must have not known. She was also just a victim.

"Just stop it already! Enough with the lies!" You found yourself yelling, a never seen before anger bubbling underneath your skin. Your fingertips urged you towards violence, and so you slammed the roses into the floor. The petals scattered and the stems broke. Your yell must have startled the others, because soon you heard a lot of footsteps behind you - and then Sharon turned around and walked away, a hurt look in her eyes, head hanging low in shame. She was avoiding the eyes of all your friends, who were now staring at you and David.

"Okay, fine. You've gotten boring and I was no longer happy. I was going to leave you anyway." He was so nonchalant, there was no waver in his voice. That made you feel as if every time he whispered sweet nothings in your ear, and his voice wavered, he wasn't honest. Only now, has he finally been honest.

And the most honest, he was when he took off in a run to chase after Sharon. To make sure she's okay. To comfort her and tell her she's the one he loves.

You fell to the floor.

And to your side, rushed no other than Hyunjin. Like always, to make sure you're okay. To comfort you and tell you you are loved.

The sobs broke out of your body and shook you violently. You were a mess of tears in just a few seconds, and you weren't going to hold back. You wailed, grabbed the roses and slammed them into the floor repeatedly.

But it was useless. They couldn't feel pain. They couldn't feel your pain. They couldn't realize what they have done to you.

Hyunjin wrapped his arms around your frame and gently lifted you to your feet.

"C'mon, let's get you in bed, yeah?" Your knees were buckling and you had no strength to stand. You were shaking your head no, like a toddler who didn't want to go back home. "We can continue crying in bed, mmm? Don't worry, I'll let you cry. I'll cry with you, angel." Your arms circled his torso, clutching his shirt between your fingers. You called out his name, and he reassured you he knows, he knows it hurts.

He carefully took your hand and dragged you away. He exchanged glances and nodded at your friends, but you didn't notice. You whispered to him, groggy in voice, that you can't go to your own room, because David's things are there. So Hyunjin took you to his room, which was the best choice for many reasons, not only so you can avoid seeing his things, but also so that he could avoid the urge of throwing David's suitcase out the window.

Hyunjin was true to his words. He sat you down in bed, and let you cry. And before he knew it, he was crying with you. He was holding you so tight, and it was so warm, and yet the shards of ice in your heart weren't melting. At first, you were angry - how could a human do something like this? Something so despicable, so vile? How could you not have realized you were in love with a monster? But then, his voice began to ring in your head. You're boring. He was going to leave you anyways. Perhaps it's you who's the problem. Perhaps you really are boring, and old-fashioned, and demanding, and idealistic, and untrusting, and immature, and too much to handle, and perhaps you should just give up because you're just un-

"Hyune, am I unlovable?" Your voice was barely there, but he heard you. He always heard you.

"Nonsense." He looked so hurt to hear you say that. "That's such nonsense." He repeated with a laugh, wiping his tears on his sleeve. "That's the most stupid thing you've ever said in your life. And you've said many stupid things, I would know." You slapped his arm in protest, but he was happy to see you chuckle.

"I mean, even if I'm not completely unlovable, Sharon is still prettier than me..." The flick of Hyunjin's fingers resonated on your forehead. You held your head in pain.

"What the hell, dude!"

"It's revenge! Every single time you say something like that, it hurts me. So I must hurt you back." You sighed. You knew he was joking, but at the same time, there was some truth behind it.

"I'm sorry, Hyune. I should have listened to you. You didn't like him since the very beginning, and you were the only one telling me my gut was right. It must have been so painful to just watch."

"It's painful to watch you now, as well." He confessed, and you felt a pang of guilt wash over you. But he pulled you back in his arms, to pet you hair lovingly. "That bastard, how dare he hurt my angel. I swear I'm gonna turn into Rapunzel's mom and lock you up in a tower so no one can ever hurt you again."

"Hmm, but doesn't pain help us grow or whatever?"

You were pretty sure Hyunjin just rolled his eyes all the way back to China.

"First of all, we all know pain just gives you more trauma. But I mean, your trauma collection is getting quite... exquisite nowadays." You smacked him again, playfully. But this time, you actually laughed. "No but seriously... there is a lesson in there somewhere. And not just to listen to me more often... to learn that you deserve more, angel." He was so close to you while he was speaking, his eyes aimed directly into yours. Your gaze wondered over him, over Hyunjin, your best friend. His chocolate eyes, sweeter than any cake you could ever eat, his vibrant lips, plumper than any wild cherry growing in the trees, his skin - like a canvas painted over the years with the brush of years and aging. His hair was long and dark, rebellious yet elegant, and the light was cascading in the room in lines, through the blinds that were semi-shut over the windows. Suddenly, there was a new sound in your mind. There was no more cricket, there was the sound of the ocean. Waves, crashing upon the shore. You were barely at the seams, the water was gently lapping at your feet; because you knew, you cannot underestimate the ocean. If you go any further, one wave is enough to push you off balance and take you into the water, like an irresistible magnet pulling you towards demise. One step, one wave, is enough. One more inch between your lips and his.

He pushed your shoulder lightly and you fell face first into the pillows.

"And if you say more mean things about yourself, I swear I'm throwing you in the pool." You reached out for the napkins on the nightstand. It was finally time to stop crying and... think about the future?

"The pool... tonight was supposed to be all romantic and perfect, with candles and the full moon on clear skies..."

"I like full moons and clear skies!" Hyunjin announced, and for some reason it made you burst into laugher. "What! It's true! The idiot would have probably not enjoyed it anyways. He has no eye for beauty. He thinks having one green wall in his grey apartment is enough for him to live 'in vibrant color'. Okay Picasso, but like why the fuck must that wall be in the kitchen?!" You look happy when you laugh. He loves seeing you happy. "You dodged a bullet, trust me. First it's the green kitchen wall, next he ignores the perfect date that his perfect girl set up for him-" His perfect girl. You heart was racing. "-and next he-"

"Tries to double tap her with the daughter of a vacation house owner. He couldn't even find the daughter of a rich CEO."

"- I was gonna say next he's the only single grandpa in a retirement home, because he's too sad of an excuse of a man, but that too." Hyunjin always did this for you, as well. He made sure to roast all of your exes until all you could think of them is burnt chicken. Until the memory of them becomes something funny, that could never hurt you again. "Plus, I'm not letting your efforts go to waste - I'm not letting you miss this chance. Let's watch the moon, together."

You nodded. What else could you do?

You decided it would be best to try to take a nap until night hit. So much crying has left you dizzy and with a headache crawling at fast speeds through your forehead and sinuses.

"Do you have any painkillers? Should I try to find a pharmacy around here?" Hyunjin offered, but you reassured him you have some in your suitcase. "Okay, wait here, I'll go get it for you- but uh, which one is yours?"

"The one that has color on it, duh." He disappeared with a giggle, around the corner.

"I will never underestimate you ever again, ma'am." He joked, placing your colorful suitcase next to the bed. He made sure none of your items were left over in the room you used to shared with David, and insisted you stay put while he brings you a glass of water.

Pills in your system, blinds closed, blanket over your shoulders, Hyunjin curled on the other side of the bed, as small as he could make himself be, so that he doesn't make you feel suffocated. But he was holding two of your fingers in his hand, from across the bed. The skin of two fingers was enough pathway for you to feel a million bodies worth of love, though.

When you woke up, he wasn't there. Nor David who was haunting you in your dreams, nor Hyunjin who was whispering poems to you to chase the nightmares away. You thought you'd be alright after crying it out, but it wasn't that easy. You woke up feeling miserable, with a heavy weight on your chest, and yet feeling so empty and hollow.

You checked your phone, and he hasn't called. You didn't know if you should feel sad or relieved about it. At least he won't chase after you again, right? It won't be another hurtful on and off. It's over. He doesn't love you anymore.

"Oh hey, you're awake- Nah ah, no more crying! You've had your fill of tears, now it's time for a fill of pizza! Get your ass to the living room, missy!" You didn't have the time to cry when Hyunjin was chasing you out of the room with a pillow.

It was a little bit awkward at first, because Jihyo and Luna didn't know if they should bring it up or just try to distract you. Eventually you bit the bullet and began to tell them about your relationship yourself. All the behavior changes, the suspicions, the hurtful words (that you now realize were manipulation) and all the lies.

"Not even his guy friends knew." Jihyo told you. She apparently told the whole group chat she was in with David's friends about what he has been doing. "He didn't just lose his girlfriend, I think he lost most of his friends by doing this."

"Thank you, Ji. For having my back." Perhaps your relationships were monster trucks, but your friends were really golden. They really looked after you.

"So!" Hyunjin announced. "Change of plans. She's having a romantic moonlit date with me, instead. So the pool is still off limits." After Luna threw what looked like a piece of olive at Hyunjin's shirt, and he screamed in your ear, eventually the sisters said they were planning on working on their DnD character sheets anyway. They were your favorite nerds.

According to your phone, the moon would begin to rise at around nine in the evening. It was just enough time for the food in your bellies to settle, while you caught up with the new videos of your favorite comedy channel. Laughter filled the room, and Jihyo and Luna made sure to cuddle the heck out of you, to distract you from that emptiness that was threatening to form into a pit in your stomach.

"So, what scented candles do you have? Something sexy and seductive?" Hyunjin asked you, wriggling his eyebrows. It made the other girls giggle.

"Apple." You answered, and the whole room deadpanned.

"In what world is apple sexy?!"

"It's his favorite!" You tried to defend yourself, but Hyunjin just scoffed.

"Jesus fucking Christ, you really needed a new boyfriend." This roast didn't make you grin. It didn't make you laugh. Instead, you looked down at the floor, a sigh shaking your body. As the seconds passed, you began to feel more and more stupid for ending up in this situation. For being so dumb as to let yourself be led on by some pretty words, and pretty eyes, that you could ever be truly loved- "Sorry." Hyunjin apologized in a panic. It just slipped, he had so much resentment bottled up for that man. "It's a good thing I brought some of mine with me. They're not exactly sexy, but they should be more fitting."

"Oh, what scent is it?"

"Ocean." Ocean, the waves that are lapping at your feet. They're calling you over.

Hyunjin was calling you over, to see if you like the smell of the candles. You had gone through too many emotions today: the anger, the sadness, the insecurities, and now this anxiety. Or was it thrill? If you put your ear on Hyunjin's chest, would you be able to hear the waves?

"I'm going to go set these up." He announced, and you nodded.

"I'll get changed." With a skip to his step, Hyunjin walked out and closed the door to give you privacy. You're not even in the water yet, and you already feel like you're drowning.

You fished out your swim suit from your luggage and laid it out on the bed before you. You actually bought this - spent so much money on it - got it in his favorite color - for a man who was cheating on you. You were really regretting not having brought an alternative with you. You couldn't just walk out in underwear and a shirt, right? Better not. You grit your teeth and put it on, but made a mental note to 'accidentally' start a dumpster fire, and 'accidentally' drop the swim suit in it after tonight.

When you were done changing, you found Hyunjin out by the pool. Somehow, he managed to turn it on by himself since you could already see steam coming off of it. He arranged two candles around one corner of the pool (since he only had two) and was probably waiting for you to arrive.

"Oh, angel. That color does not suit you." Hyunjin had always been quite picky when it came to fashion. He had his 'disgusted fashion designer' face on.

"I know, it's-"

"Let me guess, his favorite color? I've seem vomit more vibrant than that." You snorted at the comment. The color was, in fact, quite horrible. "If I wouldn't know how much money you probably spent on that, I'd tell you to set it on fire." You laughed. Great minds think alike.

"I was thinking the same thing." After exchanging grins, Hyunjin seemed to fall into thought. He had that look in his eyes that told you there was a complicated process going on in his mind.

"I'll buy you a new one." Surprised, you cocked an eyebrow at him as you approached the side of the pool he was at. You scooted next to the scented candle he lit, and sat down on the edge. "Careful you don't burn you butt." He joked, and you rolled your eyes at him. The candle wasn't even close to touching you. The water was very warm and calming, you noticed, when you dipped your feet in. It made you want to move even closer to the edge so that your tired ankles would be soothed.

"You don't need to buy me a new one. What would I use it for? I don't think I'll be at any pool again any time soon." A rosy petal tickled your toes and you realized the bouquet had somehow ended up in the water. There were petals and tiny white flowers scattered all around the corner of the pool. It would have been a beautiful sight, if it wasn't so tragic.

"Well, maybe I have been secretly planning a weekend trip to Jeju island for you and I." That surely caught you off guard. You barely had any money left after this vacation, you wouldn't be able to afford a trip to Jeju. He wasn't planning on paying for it all by himself, right?

"I mean, that sounds lovely, Hyune." You replied, even if you had some financial disagreements to talk about later. "But it's september! I don't think I'll be walking around in a swimsuit at the beach in this weather. It's getting chilly." The air was quite cold, you've noticed it ever since the morning. The sun didn't have the same strength as a few days ago - but thankfully the heat coming off of the pool was making it bearable to be out just in a swim suit.

"First of all, summer is a feeling, not a season. And second, I'll just get you one for next summer." Next summer - you almost forgot. To Hyunjin, highschool with you was barely yesterday, and next summer should be in two days. A year was nothing to him when he promised you forever.

"Okay." You replied quietly, swooshing the water around with your feet. You were scared to look him in the eyes, because suddenly you felt so vulnerable. You could trust his idea of forever, right?

"Okay!" He replied with a much brighter note. "With that settled, I'll go get changed for our pool adventure." He walked away, leaving you alone with your thoughts, and the subtle smell of the ocean. It was still calling you, but now you could hear it clearer. You could smell it clearer. One more step, one more inch of your skin under the water, and perhaps you could feel it clearer, too.

The wait would have been agonizing if you hadn't made a friend in the moon as soon as you found it in the sky. She - the moon has always been a she to you - was looking absolutely astonishing . For a second, a very silly second, you thought the moon had done a better job at dressing up for a romantic date than you did. You searched around for the evening star as well, the brightest, most beautiful star in the sky. You hoped if the moon was going on a date tonight, it would be with the evening star. For he was a strong man to always keep his light so bright, to always manage to guide the sailors lost in the night-

Hyunjin came back with a few tiny packages in his hand. He was shirtless; and from waist down he wore swim trunks, an ombre from blue, to light blue, to white. With the way the sky was reflected in the pool, you would think he was trying to blend in with the water.

"Choco?" He nudged you, offering you a golden foil. You took one from him happily, and watched him as he took off an elastic band from his wrist to put his hair up in a messy ponytail. The chocolate he offered you was very delicious, and you guessed also probably very fancy. Hyunjin never held back when it came to pleasing the senses. But you wondered, how come he's offering you something sweet? Wasn't the ocean supposed to be salty?

He also ate a chocolate quietly next to you. The silence was getting heavy, which was very odd. Silence was always comforting next to him, but now, the less he spoke the more you felt confused and lost at sea.

"The bouquet ended up in the water." You told him, trying to make any sort of small talk. He hummed, put away the foil of the sweet treat he consumed, and eased himself fully into the pool. As soon as he was in, he let out a soulful sigh. He adored warm water, and you could tell from his body language, from the way his shoulders slumped and his neck craned to stare at the night sky, jaw wide open in admiration - that Hyunjin was in a happy place. Was it just you who was nervous, then?

To your surprise, Hyunjin pushed through the water all the way to the corner where the bouquet was floating about. He picked it up, and began to crush the flowers in his hand so that the petals would fall. He left the stems empty, and then threw them out of the pool. With powerful motions, he made the water roll in waves, so that the petals would scatter throughout the entire pool.

"Now it's just part of the decorum." He said with a giggle. He approached you, and his hand was warm and welcoming when it gently touched your knee. "Forget who they're from." As he beckoned you to join him in the water, you wanted to let those words hypnotize you. Allow the pain to fade to the background.

You join him in the water, and it embraces you like you were meant to be held in someone's arms your entire life. Even though you are surrounded by those petals - those empty promises, those broken parts of your heart - something inside of you is healing. You are no longer putting meaning or significance onto them. They no longer hold you captive. For that tiny moment, everything is as it should be: there is no other place you should have been. No other person you should have been. And no other person - besides your best friend with a dizzying smile - should have accompanied you that night. It was the universe's plan, and no one could be blamed for that.

The universe is vast. As you look up, through the thousands of celestial bodies before you, you can't pin point any to curse in grief and woe. Furthermore, you can't even name this strange feeling of acceptance. It had just appeared in your heart. 

"The sky is so beautiful." You mumble, and Hyunjin almost surprises you when he hums. He looks just as awestruck as you do, and you know for a fact he was the one meant to join you. You watch the rise and fall of his chest, the deep breaths he takes as he says absolutely nothing. He is in a trance, and you are entranced by him.

"The moon and stars are shining for you, my love" You hear him say, but it was quiet, like he wasn't sure of his own words.

"For all that is up there, up above,

In the gentle skies of angels and sinners:

The moon rays and the cheeky glimmers," He takes a pause, as if to rest for a heartbeat and let himself smile.

"They're all but lights to make your eyes shine -

And help you see yourself in mine."

"That's beautiful, Hyune." You complimented. You wondered just how many poems he had stored in his mind and heart. Would you need a library pass to find out? "Who's it from?"

"Oh, he's not a published author." He replied cheekily. "Although he wishes he could be." From the shy yet smug look on his face, it was easy to piece it together.

"Did you write it?"

"Mhm."

"Like, on the spot? Just now?"

"Mhm."

You're absolutely insane!" You tell him with a gentle slap to the arm. He giggles and your heart melts. "I swear there's no human being more talented than you." He looks down at the water and something peculiar sparkles in his eyes. Something naughty, like a child being caught doing something he wasn't supposed to and yet he's unaware, he's proud of the mistake he's done.

"Well, it wouldn't be possible without you." You stare at him in confusion. Is he trying to thank you for supporting him and his passion for poetry? For the validation and reassurance you offer him when he works? It goes without question that you would be supporting your best friend- "Do you want me to recite the poem to you again?" You're confused and caught off guard. Frankly you have no idea what is going on, so you just shrug your shoulders awkwardly.

"Sure, I guess."

While Hyunjin has been standing to your side this entire time, leaning back on the edge of the pool, the scented candle between you two, now he moved to stand before you. He was blocking the moon, invading your senses, a dim light hugging his silhouette.

"The moon and stars are shining for you, my love" He's looking in your eyes, and his hands move to grip the edge of the pool on either side of you head. Your lungs are burning.

"For all that is up there, up above" He looks towards the sky for a split second, and then he looks back at you, his eyes clouding with mist.

"In the gentle skies of angels and sinners:" He searches for you hand in the water, and with the most gentle pull, he brings it to his lips to kiss your fingers. A rose petal slips off of you arm and back into the water.

"The moon rays and the cheeky glimmers," He's smiling. He's in his happy place, and yet, you don't know how to accept that the weight of the ocean isn't trying to harm you.

"They're all but lights to make your eyes shine -"  Was he seeing the moon in your eyes?

"And help you see yourself in mine." You were in his eyes. You were. It just took you so many years to see it.

"The moon and stars are shining for me?" You ask; you had to make sure. Your hands were shaking, and a chill ran down your spine.

"My love." He completed the lyric, and you were trying so so hard, to find oxygen in your lungs.

This was exactly were you were afraid of - that one step closer, the ocean waves would take you away, and you'd fall into the dark depths - and ultimately drown. "I'm in love with you." You hear him say. "I know you've been through so many emotions already, and this is just not the right time, because I don't wanna seem like I'm taking advantage of the situation and trying to be some sort of savior to you, but I really am in love with you and I can't stand watching you suffer-"

One of your favorite quotes you've ever read, by a person named Irtiqa Nabi, was 'The sea speaks more honestly to those willing to drown'.

You just had to be willing.

You just had to understand.

You don't need the oxygen.

You take one more, final breath and reach out to kiss Hyunjin before he rambled away all night. His hands fly to embrace you, to cradle your face, to shield you with his body. 

It was the most terrifying leap of faith you've ever made, but you finally realized the ocean wasn't evil. It wasn't trying to take your life away or rob you of your heart. No, the ocean was this being full of life, full of warmth; he wanted you to dive beyond the surface. He wanted you to uncover his mysteries. And he loved you so much. 

"Wait." Hyunjin pulls away, dazed and with unfocused eyes. He bites his lip. "Are you sure about this? Once you allow me to love you, I won't stop. I don't let go." You look up at him and smile. No matter how many times you tell him, it'll never be enough: he's so beautiful. But tonight, something is different. He's exactly how the universe wanted him to be. Exactly where the universe wanted him to be. So naturally, only poetry could describe the beauty of a man who had found his destiny.

"Make me you last love, Hyunjin." You plead, and his eyes fill with both admiration and tears.

"Oh, I will." He cradles you so gently, and yet so tightly. His long fingers are enveloping your face, his body is swallowing yours like the tide, and he kisses you, again and again. And with each one, you gain life, you gather courage, a new constellation is born inside of you. Astrologers could only dream of uncovering all those new-born stars.

He drags you into the middle of the pool, and guides your legs around his waist. He holds you with ease, and from this angle, when you look down at him all you see is joy. But he hides in your neck, and finds another happy place in there.

You rest your head on his shoulder and look up the sky. The moon rose to a higher position, and she looks so calm, so all-knowing as she beams on you. She knew what was going to happen already, and now she was grinning at you slyly.

"Can you see the moon from there?" Hyunjin asks you, and you hum.

"Mhm. But you can't, can you?" It's not like he's trying, his eyes are closed as he cradles you.

"No, just tell her I said hi." You laugh. You wonder just for how long, has the moon known Hyunjin's secret? "I've got my own night sky right here." He says, as he hugs you even tighter, squeezing you to his chest like you're his childhood teddy bear.

"Cheesy." You mutter, but you place a kiss just underneath his ear. That ear begins to burn, and then his whole face is red (that's why he's hiding it away) and Hyunjin thinks he'll never grow used to it. In fact, he promises himself he won't. He promises to always allow himself to be surprised by just how much you mean to him. Over and over again.

Minutes turn to hours, just like days always turned to years around Hyunjin. Eventually you climb out of the pool to not turn into raisins - but you still continue to be tangled with each other, making up for all the kisses you've missed for all those years you've kept each other at arm's length. It feels like a pipe dream to call him yours, to kiss his lips that felt like clouds, look into his eyes that filled with lightning, listen to the words filled with thunder. And yet, his heartbeat still spoke to you in calm waves-

You and Hyunjin jump from your seats at the sound of something loudly popping. You frantically look around for the sound, and you see Jihyo and Luna, holding a confetti tube towards you. The sparkly paper falls to the floor, while some are carried by the wind towards you.

"Congratulations!" The two cheer, and you can't help but snort. Where did they even get confetti from?

"Now that the cat's outta the bag, the asshole is out of the picture and you're finally dating the right guy-" Luna almost sounds like she's rapping while she rambles, and everyone carries amusement on their faces. "And this guy can stop whining in my ear about how much he wants you-" You turn towards Hyunjin in shock, and he tries to make himself small and hide. He fails. "We can finally have some nice, family fun!"

"I thought we agreed you'd let us have the pool tonight!" Hyunjin argues, but Luna tuts in response.

"So I can just watch you two make out from afar? Nah, I wanna see it in person." With the look of an almost psycho, Luna grabs your leg and pulls you into the pool with her. She splashes you wildly in the face, and soon Jihyo and Hyunjin join you in a water fight even a toddler would easily win.

After a while a whole lot of fun, you approach Jihyo for a light conversation while the other two are struggling to inflate a beach ball.

"Have you known for a long time?"

"About Hyunjin's feelings? No, it was Luna who knew. I didn't know until tonight, honestly."

Hyunjin has been confiding in Luna, it seems. She was the only one who knew his secret - or well, maybe she wasn't. You look up at the moon, and then back at Luna, and something seems to make you laugh.

It is very late into the night, and yet you are all still awake. It came to the point where you had to leave the water, but Luna stops in the middle of the hallway and blocks the path.

"Hey, didn't that girl teach you stuff about cleaning the pool and all?"

You didn't even remember her name by this point.

"Yeah, why?"

"So what cleaning supplies should one use, let's say, if the pool becomes dirty with... An entire luggage worth of clothes and stuff?"

"What?" Hyunjin asks, breaking into a wild laugh, but he feels as if he already knows what Luna is about to say.

"Let's throw David's stuff into the pool." You display a look of horror, but when you look at Hyunjin, you see him comically dash into the house.

You're too dazed to even register when the suitcase showed up in front of your face. All three of your peers attacked the zippers like wild hyenas, and soon your ex's clothes are sent flying into the pool.

"Even his underwear is ugly." Hyunjin says, crumpling it into a ball and throwing it as far as he could into the pool. "I'm gonna need hand sanitizer after this."

You start to enjoy it after a while. Sure, you still tell them to not throw anything electric or expensive in there, like his earphones or watch, but you are the one to chuck his toothbrush in the pool and watch it sink to the bottom.

"Revenge is best served wet, baby." Luna pretends to dust off her hands and leaves the scene of the crime with a deadly hair flip.

Giggling like a bunch of school girls, you part ways to go quickly shower the chlorine away from your bodies. Then you reunite, clad in your comfiest pj's, and cuddle to Hyunjin's chest to listen to the sound of the ocean waves.

"Angel?" He calls out to you, and you look at him with hazy eyes. "Would it be weird or overwhelming if I told you I love you?"

"No." You shake your head and giggle. It's not that it was new information to you, but it did hold a new meaning now. A meaning - you found - you were always craving to reciprocate. Why have you been searching for Hyunjin in all of those people, when he was right there with you, petting your hair and making you feel alive?

"And would it be weird or overwhelming if I said that to you every night?"

"No, I would like that actually." You reach up to kiss him. He welcomes it and chases after your lips, and it's such a new high, that you wish it to turn into a habit.

"Okay." He whispers. "I love you."

"I love you." You reply. You don't say 'me too', you don't say 'i love you too'. Because this is not an action that he does and you copy. No, you love him all on your own. It's so crazy, that you love him independently, and he loves you independently, and yet when you're put together, you form the same constellation.

It's a good thing Hyunjin locked the door, because somewhere around five in the morning you got woken up by loud banging on your door, your handle being shaken erratically and an array of swear words. Hyunjin woke up as well, and you both tried to stifle your giggles, because that night you heard swearwords and insults you didn't even know existed.

By afternoon, when you got out of your room, he was completely gone. Turns out he collected his clothes from the pool and left with them soaking in a garbage bag. Luna had snuck out in the morning to record a video of David, trying and failing repeatedly to fish out his clothes with the stick end of a broom. You laughed so hard it brought you to tears, and when you went outside to check, you saw the only thing left, was a chlorine infused toothbrush sitting sad and depressed at the bottom of the pool.

You blocked him and threw away the memory of him into the sea. You knew the sea would be mean to him, drown him out and silence him. Because the universe wanted someone else to love you.

The moon, the stars, and all the eight seas;

They whispered to you that you had found your destiny.

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