#i have so much to say for this fic this is so hauntingly good and have me feeling like submerge into this story & felt like i was part of it

[haerni]

+ yn killing jay just because he killed sunghoon??? THE SAME MAN WHO WROTE ABOUT HER DEATH SO MANY TIMES???? Insane twisted and just so SMART??!?? still holding the same affection for him even after all the things he revealed the twisted love she had for sunghoon onfgwhydg IM SCREAMING it felt like her emotions were my emotions it was so scarily good??!?!!

against the world

PAIRING ▸ park sunghoon x fem!reader x sim jaeyun (ft. park jongseong)

GENRES ▸ fluff, angst, psychological, horror, thriller

WARNINGS ▸ profanity, murder, descriptions of gore, unrequited love, found family, friends to lovers, enemies to lovers, mc is an unreliable narrator

SUMMARY ▸ if you could change anything about your life, it would be meeting park sunghoon.

WORD COUNT ▸ 14,064 words

PLAYLIST ▸ back to black by amy winehouse • the french library by franz gordon • perfectly splendid by the newton brothers

AUTHOR’S NOTE ▸ hello !! this fic is a rewrite of one of my first horror fics that i’ve written :') it badly needed reworking and i completely changed the ending. i hope you guys enjoy my spooky szn contribution ♡

THE TRUTH WAS, YOUR LIFE BEGAN TO FALL APART EVEN BEFORE YOU MET SIM JAEYUN. 

You realized this as you woke up, face pressed against the ice-cold, concrete floor of a holding cell; when the guards dragged your uncooperative, limp body into an interrogation room; when you were face-to-face with Detective Lee Heeseung and handcuffed to a cold, metal table as he read your Miranda Rights. The handcuffs dug into the flesh of your wrists, but you only fought against them once and gave up as soon as you realized they wouldn’t give in. You just wanted to thumb away the crusted blood staining your hands and pick out the flakes under your nails.

The room was foreign to you. It was something you’d seen in movies and read in books, but you never fathomed the idea of being in an interrogation room yourself. There was a two-way glass that you aimlessly stared at, wondering who was listening in on the other end. 

You couldn’t figure out just how you ended up in this situation. Everything was smooth in your memory up until your supposed arrest—a tear in the fabric of your recollection. You hardly remembered what happened on the way to the police station or when you were getting booked in. You dug your palms into your temples and then pressed against the soft flesh under your eyes, frustrated by the stunted gears in your head. As much as you begged than to click and start spinning, they remained stuck and rusted in place. 

But you couldn’t ask the brooding man standing over you. You couldn’t look up into his cold, unforgiving eyes. After all, he knew you were a murderer. 

“There’s no use in lying to me, Y/N,” Detective Lee said gruffly with a gaze like steel, “the prints match.”

You drummed your fingers against the table—a habit that was rooted in your anxiety. Your fingers were stained and pruned like roses, and as hard as you tried to paint the table red, it only flaked off. You were sure your heartbeat was faster than the tapping of your fingers, your mind perhaps speeding off twice as fast.

Your stomach twisted. If Jaeyun was going to prison, too, then you could no longer protect him.

There was a limit to how much he could take; you knew that being thrown in the slammer would be intolerable for him. You knew you needed to get to him immediately because Jaeyun was the guy who felt too little and too much at the same time—the guy who looked for the part of him that ran away, who self-destructed when he felt the world closing in on him.

After all, Jaeyun was a stick of trinitrotoluene lit at both ends. 

You worked up the courage to look Detective Lee in the eye, which made him stiffen up, biceps flexing under his white button-up. 

“Where’s Jaeyun?” you asked. 

Detective Lee’s lips pressed into a thin, grim line. Cutting into his pale cheeks. You decided that couldn’t be a good reaction. 

You continued, “He didn’t do anything, I swear. He was just there. He didn’t do anything.”

“If you cooperate with us, then you can see Jaeyun again,” the detective answered in a clipped tone. “I can sit here all day and wait.”

Cooperate. You hated that word.

You knew Detective Lee was just trying to sugarcoat your betrayal. You knew he was looking down on you, ready to push you to your limit. 

But there was nothing you could do in this room. There was no way for you to escape or talk your way out of it to see Jaeyun. You knew quite well that staying silent would only prevent you from making sure your boyfriend was okay. 

You had no other choice but to work with Detective Lee. 

“Will you at least make sure he’s not hurt?” you inquired, to which Detective Lee agreed with a nod.

“I’ll ask again: Will you cooperate?”

You stayed silent. You despised your old habit of shutting down like this, but you couldn’t help it.

Detective Lee sighed and sat in the chair across from you so that you both were eye-level with each other. “Listen, Y/N, you’re young. This murder investigation—this is serious stuff, okay? We just need to know the full story before we jump to any conclusions and make a false arrest. Can we start from last night?”

Deep down, you understood. But it’s all too fresh—too soon. The grief had yet to settle. The recollections of blood and lifeless eyes poisoned your head; it was all you could see when you closed your eyes.

You sounded hollow when you said, “It didn’t… start from last night.”

Detective Lee acknowledged this and leaned forward, hands clasped in front of him. “Then let’s hear it from the beginning.”

If you could change anything about your life, it would be meeting Park Sunghoon.

Your first meeting was at the age of fourteen. Moving schools was an unexpected shift in your life, and you didn't expect to find many friends at your new school. Starting new in the beginning of the year was one thing, but entering unknown territory with people already acclimated in their respective groups was another. 

People flocked to comfort, and you were sure that no one would want to step out of their comfort zone to bring a stranger into their friend group.

And then Sunghoon swooped in, like an angel sent from the heavens.

Initially, he was awkward. You were both fourteen-years-old and going through the initial stages of puberty—all voice cracks and awkward intervals of growth stunts. Sunghoon was soft-spoken and didn’t have many friends when he approached and befriended you. 

It started when you both found out you shared a love for novels. You spent hours talking about your favorite books, and Sunghoon shared his dream of wanting to craft the perfect story. Oftentimes, Sunghoon would share some of his writing with you, and then his eyes would sparkle upon hearing your feedback. 

You two were classmates, sitting right next to each other in the back of the classroom, conveniently right next to the door. You got to know Sunghoon slowly—the same gradual feeling of starting to care for someone. You knew his boundaries, though, because you were aware that you could never be the closest to Sunghoon. He and Park Jongseong were attached at the hip, and you couldn’t lie to yourself; you felt like a third wheel in the beginning.

But there was some comfort in the security of your friendship.

“It’s you and me,” Sunghoon would tell you, “the two of us against the world.”

You knew you should have been grateful to have made friends in the first place, but you didn’t exactly know if you belonged with them. As comfortable as you felt, there was always a whisper in the back of your head, telling you that you would never be their number one.

You would never be anyone’s number one.

“I don’t understand girls,” Jongseong said one day, hands tucked behind his head as the three of you were hanging out in Sunghoon’s room. You were flipping through some comic book that Sunghoon had laying around, and you shifted uncomfortably upon hearing the question. 

“You don’t have to.” Sunghoon’s eyes flitted from you, and then back to his phone. He swiped through some apps, but you could tell he wasn’t really paying attention judging by the glazed-over look in his eyes. “Girls make no sense at this age.”

Jongseong nudged you. “You have anything to say about that, Y/N?”

To be honest, you didn’t understand yourself much either. You were just starting to go through puberty, and it wasn’t ideal for a teenager as young as you to only have guy friends. You couldn’t relate to any of the girls your age, nor could you ask them if they were going through the same changes you were. 

You were acquainted with several girls, of course, but you never got close enough to ask what feelings and experiences they had. You wanted to know if they were becoming as conscious of themselves and others like you were, but you kept those questions bottled up since you only had Sunghoon and Jongseong.

“Nope,” you replied. “I couldn’t tell you.”

You supposed Jongseong was having girl problems again, and it all clicked because lately, he had been hanging around a pretty girl in their class. They were cute together and clearly into each other, but you could pick up on the issue: Jongseong was on the down-low about their relationship. More importantly, he had been on the down-low about it around Sunghoon, which had to have been breaking some sort of best friend code.

Jongseong asked, “You like anyone, Hoon?”

Hoon, your brain echoed, and you imagined yourself using the name as casually as Jongseong did. It sounded awkward coming from you, though. Friends gave each other nicknames, right? What if you gave Sunghoon a nickname? How would he react?

Sunghoon flushed behind his phone screen. You could tell he wanted it to go undetected, but you caught a glimpse of his flustered expression before he was able to compose himself.

“Oh, not really,” he replied with an air of indifference. “I dunno. I guess I haven’t really been looking.”

“How about you, Y/N?”

You faltered for a moment before you realized you had been addressed. It was a normal question; you should have expected it, but it hit you like a tornado and your mind was swirling. Dating had crossed your mind a few times, sure, you had never prepared an answer because you thought it was going to be straightforward—a simple “yeah, there’s a few cute guys in class.” But that wasn’t the case this time, and you were wondering why there wasn’t any clarity in your head.

Come on, Y/N, you urged yourself, as if you were complaining to multiple, uncooperating attendants working in your brain. Just say something—anything. 

Your mind was blanking, though, and you were scared. You couldn’t quite grasp why your stomach felt like a never-ending pit, but it only worsened when you couldn’t spit some guy’s name out. You wanted to open up your skull, thoroughly examine your head, poke at the areas refusing to work, and figure out who you couldn’t just list some attractive guy in class; on top of that, you wondered why you couldn’t just flat-out refuse the statement and claim that there was no one you were interested in.

You were struck with a painful realization that there was only one person you could think of.

Sunghoon.

No, no, no, your brain and your heart screamed at each other. Get ahold of yourself.

You quickly decided that it was just a passing feeling that you needed to suppress until it went away. It was just stupid teenage hormones and puberty making you feel this way and starving you of affection that you didn’t actually need in the first place. If you didn’t get a hold over yourself, you were going to crumble and ruin the good things you had going.

You internally convinced yourself that everything was fine. There were plenty of teenagers your age who had moments of weakness like this with their guy friends. You just needed to branch out more, that was all. 

Sheepishly, you replied before the boys could chew you out, “There’s no one I’m interested in right now.” 

You weren’t a very good liar, but as long as Sunghoon and Jongseong were sold, you were content with how things were. 

Your group expanded when you turned fifteen, and you and Sunghoon grew closer—maybe even closer than Sunghoon and Jongseong were. 

You were laying down in your bed one night, breaking into sobs when you realized that you needed more than one hand to count the number of friends you had now. Your shell was broken and your world was bigger. You normally lived like your uphills were mountains and your downhills were cliffs, but, lately, the mountains were getting easier to climb and the downhills weren’t that big of a drop. You didn’t need to stop and catch your breath or worry about hurting yourself on the way down.

You never felt lonely anymore. If Sunghoon or Jongseong weren’t free, you would call Nishimura Riki to catch grasshoppers in the creek with you, or you’d go play video games with Yang Jungwon. Kim Sunoo called you nearly every night to bother you, but you didn’t mind. You liked them; they made you feel important, like you were wanted.

“Come on,” Sunghoon teased Jungwon one day as he was blushing over some girl. “What are you being so shy about?”

“It’s embarrassing!” Jungwon complained, and you giggled over how a flush of red started creeping from his ears to his cheeks. “I’m not a smooth-talker like you are, Hoon.” 

Sunghoon snorted. “I’m not a smooth-talker.”

“He’s practically, like, bulletproof,” Jongseong chimed in. “We can’t tease him about anyone. He just brushes it off.”

“I’m not bulletproof,” Sunghoon argued, but anyone could see the pride behind his expression. “I’m just not interested in anyone right now.”

You thought you had finally squashed the weird, gooey feeling that arose in your chest every now and then whenever Sunghoon came close. It was primarily due to the fact that Sunghoon was a respectful individual who didn’t try to weasel his way into your personal bubble as he pleased. That was probably for the best because you were sure your brain would go haywire if Sunghoon was too close for comfort.

And then there was Sim Jaeyun. 

Jaeyun entered your circle pretty easily. With his radiant personality and warm presence, it was no shocker that he was accepted by the group instantly. He possessed some odd charm that drew people to him, and you couldn’t seem to figure just how that worked. You were almost jealous of him, honestly, with how much of a social butterfly he was.

Out of all of them, Jaeyun seemed to take a particular interest in you. It drove you crazy, though, and you couldn’t figure out how to get the guy to stop teasing and messing around with you. The others couldn’t figure it out either; you just weren’t as bright and bubbly as Jaeyun was, so it was odd that he kept nagging the one person whose wavelength wasn’t on par with his. 

Sometimes it was cute—endearing even—but sometimes it was just flat-out irritating.

“Hey, Y/N.” Jake grinned, and his voice was all light and airy as he approached you. “What’re you doing for the summer break?”

“Probably sleeping in, hanging out with the others, and some more sleeping,” you replied, hardly sparing him a single glance. 

You were too focused on clearing out your locker of all the books and papers you had tossed in during the year. Gotta keep this, gotta throw this away, gotta return this one, you rattled off in your head, mentally preserving a reminder of your various items. But Jaeyun knew how to push your buttons and grab your attention. He never took your deflection without retaliating back. That was one of the many reasons why you found it so difficult to be around him.

“And hanging out with Sunghoon, huh? Have you realized it yet, or are you still pretending it’s not there?”

You closed your locker with a swift swipe of your hand, revealing Jaeyun’s smug expression. Your eyes were practically bugging out of your sockets as you stared him down. Somehow, you knew exactly what he was hinting at, but you refused to spell it out for him.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” you questioned, but Jaeyun was already walking away from you. He was turned away, but you could visualize that stupid smirk of his like it was carved into your memory.

Jaeyun was smart. Too smart.

Your summer was filled with laughter, beach trips, and shy glances at Sunghoon. He drove you around places and you sat in the passenger’s seat next to him, toes curled in your shoes because you were so overjoyed. The car was always loud with music and laughter, and whenever it was silent, it was because everyone else was sleeping on each other after a long day of being outside.

You still masqueraded around, playing the role of Sunghoon’s best friend who definitely had zero romantic feelings toward him. It was quite hard when you had to pretend like your heart didn’t flutter whenever Sunghoon’s fingers brushed against yours.

“Sunghoon,” Jaeyun would complain, rousing laughter from everyone at how impatient he was, “are we there yet?”

“You’re so annoying,” Sunghoon retorted, clearly as a joke. You couldn’t help but laugh at his outburst, but it quickly died on your lips once you caught a glimpse of Jaeyun winking at you in the side mirror.

Jaeyun had a mischievous glint in his eyes when he said, “But you still love me, Hoon.”

Oh. 

He was trying to make you jealous. 

You fought down the urge to laugh at him. You might have been harboring a small crush, but you were never the jealous type, especially not over petty things like this. There was one little thing, however, that you couldn’t seem to shake.

For some reason, the anticipation to call Sunghoon by a nickname made you anxious. You never tested it on your tongue; it just floated around in your head. However, when you addressed him as Hoon one day, your heart skipped a beat when Sunghoon responded with a smile that rivaled the brightness of the sun.

You grew closer to Jongseong, too. You didn’t feel like the third wheel with him and Sunghoon anymore; you felt like you were all at the same level of closeness. You and Jongseong hung out sometimes without Sunghoon, and despite a few awkward pauses in your interactions, you two warmed up quickly and you learned how to joke around with him easily. 

Jongseong wasn’t all stiff and dry like you were initially afraid of; rather, he was surprisingly fun, and every time you learned something new about him, like how he adored cats but was allergic to them, you were even more amazed. 

It wasn’t just Jongseong, though. You and Sunghoon grew far closer than ever before, whether that was for the better or worse. 

Sunghoon only lived a street away, so it was convenient to hang out, and when you didn’t hang out with him, you two called each other. You could see him unravel in front of your eyes; he became visibly more comfortable when it was just the two of you—smiling, laughing, and bursting into laughter with tears of unrestrained happiness. 

It wasn’t just the jubilant memories that tugged you two closer, though. It was also the despair.

In the first place, it was an accident that you even happened to break down in front of Sunghoon.

You two were in his room when it happened, and things were as they always had been before you sensed the calm before the storm. You joked around as usual and passed the time by playing video games. Sunghoon was perched on his usual spot in the corner of the bed. You looked over at him and realized how close you two had become as friends.

Friends. Just friends.

It was right at that moment when you realized that this wasn’t what you wanted. You didn’t want to just be Sunghoon’s best friend. You wanted to be the reason why he smiled, the one to make him blush, and the one he could share his pain and happiness with. 

But your feelings were the scariest thing you’ve ever had to face, and you felt ashamed for even wanting to cross the line drawn between you and Sunghoon.

You couldn’t dare bring yourself to confess. You were almost positive that Sunghoon didn’t feel the same way, and you would be risking a fall-out in your current relationship if you admitted anything. What if Sunghoon ended up hating you? What if you lost him and all of your other friends? What if you weren’t the closest person to him anymore?

That was why you felt like Sunghoon was in another dimension, always a layer away. Always.

This was your own fault. You were the one who fell for your best friend. You were the one who did this to yourself. You broke your own heart.

You couldn’t help it when you started falling apart in front of him. It started with a broken cough that was supposed to cover up a sniffle. You were thankful for the loud battle sounds in the game that drowned out your quiet sobbing. But the video game didn’t stop Sunghoon from noticing your shaking hands gripping the controller.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” 

“Don’t worry about it. I’m okay.”

Your voice is so shaky, so broken. Sunghoon knew you were crying before he could see or hear it.

He paused the game and put the controller down, but your eyes were still trained on the screen, hands shaking as you clutched the controller until you were white-knuckled. Sunghoon was on edge—panicked. Although, it was a different kind of panic from all the times you would be stressing over an assignment and Sunghoon would offer some lame piece of advice in return.

“What happened? What’s wrong?” His tone was frantic now as he searched your face for an answer.

You smiled, although faint melancholy was tucked away in the curl of your lip. “Nothing. I’m fine.”

“Now, I know that’s not true.”

Your smile broke. It was so unfortunate that Park Sunghoon had to have a heart so big.

You could almost hear Jaeyun in the back of your head: Have you realized it yet, or are you still pretending it isn’t there? 

You started crying, and it wasn’t something soft with a gradual crescendo. It was loud and all at once, like a wounded animal. Your hands shook more, and you finally dropped your controller, burying your fingers into your roots, as if tugging your hair hard enough would make it all stop, as if it would hurt more than the ache in your chest.

Sunghoon was quick to get off his bed and slide to the ground, right next to you. He wrapped an arm around your shoulder and it only made you feel ashamed. You stiffened up and shrunk back, hoping he wouldn’t notice how you tensed up at his touch. You could hear your own heartbeat, but you were pretty sure you were hyperventilating at a faster pace than the pounding in your chest. The world under you moved, bounced, so you decided to lean into Sunghoon.

The logical half of your brain informed you in a calm, clipped manner that you were having a panic attack. The other half meanwhile was screaming and shutting itself down. 

Five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste, you tried telling yourself, but your senses overwhelmed you completely. Your tears were blurring your vision, you couldn’t hear anything but your sobs, and your lungs felt as if they were on fire. 

“Y/N, talk to me,” came the softest voice that eased the painful ringing in your ears. 

“I can’t,” you stuttered out. “Not right now.”

You wish you hadn’t let it get to this point. You were completely humiliating yourself in front of Sunghoon right now. This was the one thing you couldn’t let him find out about. 

Your heavy gasps grew more labored. You then curled into yourself, sweaty hands tugging and knotting at your hair. And, shit, you couldn’t breathe. 

“I can’t, I can’t,” you repeated again and again, like a broken record. The desperation in your voice was so ugly.

There was something fierce in Sunghoon’s eyes, like he was ready to protect you from anything or anyone that tried to hurt you, but there was also softness in his voice. “You know, you can tell me anything. Whatever it is, I’ll hear you out. I don’t want you to suffer alone, Y/N.”

With a small smile, he added, “It’s just you and me, right? The two of us against the world.”

That only made you cry even more. You just replayed Sunghoon’s words in your head, like it was your favorite song.

“Alright.” You breathed in real deep, through the aching chest and everything. “It’s really stupid.”

“If it makes you cry this hard, it can’t be stupid.”

You bit your lip, embarrassed. “I think I like someone—someone I can’t have.”

Sunghoon didn’t respond for a moment, and it rattled your brain. He probably was wondering this underwhelming confession warranted a breakdown from you, and you couldn’t blame him. However, it was the only way you could avoid lying to your best friend without giving him the whole truth. 

For a split second, you wondered if Sunghoon simply just didn’t hear you. But you didn’t want to repeat yourself; you didn’t like repeating yourself. 

To your surprise, Sunghoon just smiled. “Do I know them?”

You opened your mouth to speak, but no words were stringing together in your head to form a coherent sentence.

“Uh, well, you don’t have to tell me if you’re not ready,” Sunghoon continued. He flushed and flicked his thumb under his nose—an awkward mannerism of his that you grew to love over the years. “Actually, I think we’re in the same boat. There’s someone I like, too. Someone I can’t have.” 

His words bounced in your skull. Settled. Bounced again.

“Really?” you spluttered out, and it took you a moment to recuperate from the heavy sadness that was filling your chest. You brought yourself to ask, “I mean, you’re so popular, so why don’t you just ask them out?”

“Can’t.”

“Why not? Are they dating someone else?”

There was a sad smile on Sunghoon’s lips when he answered, “No, Jongseong likes her, too.”

At the age of sixteen, you realized that you couldn’t get over Sunghoon, but you could suppress your heartbreak and lingering feelings. 

It physically hurt to think about how deeply ingrained your concept of friendship was with him, and the possibility that Park Sunghoon would never think of you as more than a friend. You two had shared too many experiences—worn each other’s shoes and walked miles—to ever become more than what you were.

Nothing would ever change.

You were hanging out by a creek near Jongseong’s house. It was just the two of you—no Jaeyun to poke fun at you, and no Sunghoon to distract you. It was just the two of you, and it was somehow so easy to be with Jongseong like this. You could laugh with your stomach and smile with your eyes without feeling the need to close up or shut down. 

“It’s getting annoying, isn’t it?” Jongseong asked under his breath at one point. When you shot him a puzzled look, he clarified, “Sunghoon.”

You picked up on Jongseong’s annoyance toward Sunghoon over the past few weeks, but his words confirmed your suspicions now. You wondered if it was geared toward the girl they both liked—whoever she was. 

You never thought to ask, mainly because you didn’t want to know. Either way, if Sunghoon wanted to share, he would’ve done so already. 

You swallowed down the lump in your throat, trying to grab at words and shove them together, but you genuinely didn’t know what to say. 

It had always been you, Sunghoon, and Jongseong. You never thought about them turning on each other. The very idea made you feel sick to your stomach. 

Over the past week, you had seen Sunghoon’s indifference toward Jongseong, but you were too afraid to ask about it. Your friend group was slow to pick up on it, but you noticed the way Sunghoon would purposely avoid conversing with Jongseong, or the way Jongseong would walk quickly past him if they crossed paths. It was odd, though, because everyone knew that Sunghoon and Jongseong were the best of friends—inseparable. How could you hold onto someone for so long and just let go of them like that?

You recalled that Jongseong and Jungwon went over to talk to Sunghoon about his moody behavior, but Jongseong never told you whether the talk went well or not. You figured it just never happened because Jungwon called in sick the very next day. 

You prayed that he would hurry up and get over his cold. He had been out sick all week, which checked out since everyone was getting sick around this time of the year. Jungwon would know how to get Sunghoon and Jongseong to reconcile. He was always the friend that helped everyone patch things up. 

“You guys are best friends,” was all you could say. “You’ll make up in a few days, right?”

Jongseong clicked his tongue loud enough to make your skin crawl. 

But you didn’t want to drop it this time, you asked, “Seriously, what happened between you guys?” 

For a moment, you wondered if you should’ve brought up what Sunghoon confessed to you—about him and Jongseong liking the same girl. But this couldn’t have been about that; Sunghoon would never let a girl get between his friendships. 

“Sunghoon’s hiding something dark,” Jongseong blurted out. “I don’t think I can get him out of this one.”

“Something dark? What is it?”

“I don’t really know—”

“Jongseong,” you cut in. “If you know something, then just say it. He’s my best friend, too.”

Jongseong shifted uncomfortably, restless. He was silent for a long period of time, so you just waited for him to collect his thoughts. Uneasiness bursted from the tips of your fingers and crawled under your skin. You felt the heat of the sun against your face, so you looked up and covered your eyes with a hand, blinking back red. 

“If Sunghoon did something unforgivable,” he started in a murmur, “would you forgive him?”

“I don’t know,” was all you could say.

“Yeah,” Jongseong replied, his terse words nearly making you flinch. “I don’t know, either.”

The sun grew hotter against your face, and all you could see was blood red behind your eyes. 

You didn’t know how exactly it started, but you slowly started to find solace in Jaeyun.

You didn’t want to admit it, but you were starting to care for him a little more than the people around you. You were starting to get swayed by him—the things he said, the way he looked at you—and it scared you a little.

But Jaeyun felt safe. He felt like home.

You two called at night, sometimes. You weren’t normally one to be vulnerable in front of others, but you shed some tears in front of Jaeyun a couple of times.

The only other person you had cried in front of was Sunghoon.

“It’s kinda sad,” Jaeyun told you one day. You two were spending the afternoon studying together at his place, and you were feeling self-conscious because you were starting to regret not dressing a little cuter. “I’ve known you for a year, but we’ve only gotten close now.”

“I don’t think either of us cared about deepening our friendship back then.”

He narrowed his eyes at you. “You think I didn’t want to be closer? How do you think I picked up on you liking Sunghoon?”

“Because I was obvious about it?”

“No, idiot, because I like you.”

You blinked a few times until you fully processed his words. I like you, your brain repeated, and then you reprocessed the information. 

No, there was an ‘idiot’ before that. Not only were you liked, but he thought you were stupid, as well. 

You became painfully aware of your knees touching Jaeyun’s, but you still couldn’t wrap your head around the idea of him liking you romantically. You had never been in this position. Since your crush on Sunghoon had been one-sided for the past few years, you never expected to be on the receiving end. 

“You…” you trailed off, floundering to find something to say—something that wouldn’t make you sound stupid or mean. You settled with, “You, too?”

His eyes beamed with hope. “For a year now.”

Your world was so small before. It was just you, Sunghoon, and Jongseong. 

Before you could even wonder if there was space in your heart for Jaeyun, you realized that you had already let him burrow his way in there.

“Can I kiss you?” Jaeyun asked. 

You couldn’t help but breathe out a laugh, and every once of nervousness slipped away. You always thought you could attain this level of closeness with Sunghoon, but maybe your relationship with him was just that fragile—where you could just grab the string binding you two together and snip it completely. 

But it was different with Jaeyun. 

“Yeah,” you answered, smiling, “you can.”

And then, with Jaeyun’s breath fanning your lips, you felt Sunghoon completely dissolve from the impounding thoughts racking your brain. Right now, it was Jaeyun and only Jaeyun. 

You leaned in first, cupping his cheek and pressing your lips against Jaeyun’s soft ones. It was weird, kissing for the first time, but he leaned into it instantly so that your movements were less awkward and more guided. 

A fire blazed inside of you, burning hotter than imaginable. You didn’t expect Jaeyun to drive you this crazy—to crave more, to want more. You drew back before you slid your hand into his hair, although you were tempted to go further when his pillowy lips peppered soft kisses along your jawline. 

But you didn’t want to go overboard or ruin anything by going too fast. You settled for leaving another chaste kiss against his lips before pulling back, and you were delighted when you saw how pleased Jaeyun was. He was practically glowing. 

From then on, you and Jaeyun had a relationship that extended past something platonic, but it wasn’t like you two were official. Naturally, you ended up confiding in him over everything. 

While Sunghoon still held a place in your heart as your first love, you grew to care for Jaeyun, who kindled a gentler fire in you. Sunghoon, on the other hand, left you burned and scarred. 

You didn’t want to rush into a relationship, mainly because you didn’t want Jaeyun to think he was a rebound, and he respected that. So he waited for you to figure out your feelings and let your heart choose who was right for you. 

You weren’t stupid, though; you knew that chasing after Sunghoon was a hopeless cause.

You and Jaeyun drifted about in a limbo-state of your relationship. You two went on a couple of dates, got to know each other at a deeper level, and spent a lot of time together. He became the person you thought about when you were falling asleep and when you woke up in the morning. 

You two got along surprisingly well, and you wondered why you ever had doubts about him in the beginning. Sure, Jaeyun still got on your nerves at times, but you just found it funny after the wave of annoyance passed. 

Your friends started to talk about how close you two were and frequently brought up the idea of you two dating. Of course, you always denied it, enjoying the privacy you and Jaeyun had. 

But as your relationship blossomed into something more serious, you decided that you didn’t want things to stay casual any longer. So, you asked him out, and Jaeyun, being the lovesick puppy he was, accepted without a second thought. 

You thought about how much had changed in your life. Sunghoon stopped hanging out with you completely, resorting to being alone most of the time. Everyone was concerned about his behavior, but after several attempts of failed confrontation, they all collectively gave up. You and Jongseong still kept an eye on him, using roundabout ways to find out how he was doing; it was the most you two could do given how little opportunity you had to talk to him. 

You didn’t share many classes with Jongseong anymore, but you two were still close, even after your “two of us against the world” friendship with Sunghoon had gone to shit. 

Jongseong was kind, though, and despite how he was rough around the edges, he was gentle enough. 

But he knew that Sunghoon was hiding something dark, and that alone made you somewhat nervous around him. 

You felt unsettled the entire day, but when your group chat started flooding with texts about Jungwon in the middle of the night, you felt an icy chill travel down your spine. 

It was all over the news. The whole story about him being down with the flu was just a cover-up while authorities were looking for him.

You felt nauseous. 

HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT FOUND DEAD NEAR WOODS. FOUL PLAY SUSPECTED.

The 16-year-old boy was found dead at the scene. The parents of the deceased student have identified him as Yang Jungwon. As of now, there are no leads, but authorities have ruled the case as a homicide. 

Police have asked anyone with information to contact their local police department.

You read the headline again. Over and over again until your vision was blurry and the words were convoluted. Your fingers were raw and bitten down to the nail bed by the time you were able to put your phone down so that you could just cry into your hands. 

By the time you got around to reading the details, grimacing at the descriptions of mutilation done to Jungwon’s body and how his body had been decomposing for weeks now, you had to run to your toilet and dry heave everything out. 

You weren’t the closest to Jungwon or anything, but imagining such a bright person meet such a horrific end wasn’t easy to process. For hours, you ignored all of the calls and texts and attempts to comfort from your parents. You stared straight at your wall—so terrified that your chest hurt and your breathing was ragged. 

Later that night, when the world was quiet and dreaming, you received a text from Sunghoon. 

sunghoon: Hey sunghoon: I’ve been thinking about you. Are you doing okay? sunghoon: I haven’t been a good friend lately, I’m sorry sunghoon: It’s still the two of us against the world

There was a time when those words made you feel like you were on top of the world, soaring high over the clouds. 

Now, though, all you could feel was a horrible sensation of dread.

It had been months since Sunghoon and Jongseong’s falling out. 

You were seventeen now, but you felt hollower as you aged. Sunghoon showed up to school and lingered within your group silently, only contributing when spoken to directly. He didn’t approach you anymore or ask to hang out after school. Actually, no one knew what he did after school. He would head straight home and then go completely off the radar. 

Gone off the rails, as Sunoo called it. 

You cried several nights over it. You felt like not only was your best friend slipping away from you, but Sunghoon’s disconnect from the group would soon make you pull away, too. You had Jaeyun, of course, but nothing felt the same anymore. With Jungwon dead, the group felt tense and gloomy. You all started hanging out with other people and slowly stopped responding in the group chat. 

Part of you realized that Sunghoon’s detachment was because you didn’t reply to him the night Jungwon’s murder was publicized. Back then, you suspected that Sunghoon could have been behind it, judging by your conversation with Jongseong earlier. It all added up in your head, but the only thing that was stopping you from believing it fully was that you couldn’t fathom Sunghoon ever doing something so evil. 

“I don’t know what’s going on with him,” you whispered into the phone, even though there wasn’t anyone around that you were worried about listening in. “He’s shutting me out now. Something must’ve happened to him.” 

You heard Jaeyun hum and contemplate for a moment before he replied, “Maybe he just needs space.” 

“I think something happened between him and Jongseong,” you admitted, “but I can’t imagine Jongseong saying anything that would make Sunghoon ignore him for this long.”

“It must’ve been serious, then.” 

“But… but it’s Sunghoon; he’s”—you paused as you recalled what Jongseong once called him—“bulletproof.”

There was a pause.

“I guess that’s the problem with being bulletproof,” Jaeyun spoke gravely. “People think they can just keep shooting.”

What Jaeyun told you that night kept replaying in your head over the next week—over and over again. It hit you a little too hard, and you waited to confront Sunghoon about it. You wanted him to know that he could be vulnerable, too. But you couldn’t even speak to your best friend these days. He had been avoiding everyone like the plague.

You assumed it had something to do with Jongseong, but when you talked to him about it, he was hesitant to get into it.

“You’re the closest person to him,” you told him. Today was colder, and you rubbed your hands together for warmth as you and Jongseong stood by the gates after school. “I think if you guys sit down and talk things out, then he’ll start being himself again.”

“I was the closest person to him,” Jongseong corrected with a scoff. “Plus, there’s nothing to talk about.”

“Nothing to talk about? What about your friendship?”

You couldn’t stop the words from leaving your mouth. Anger roiled deep in your chest, and you were too furious to realize that Jongseong only looked dejected in response. If he wasn’t going to explain what happened, then you couldn’t understand what was eating away at their relationship. 

“There is no friendship, Y/N,” he said slowly, in a voice so low that it sounded like the calm before the storm. His words made everything come to a halt, and you felt like time itself had frozen. “I suggest you let go of Sunghoon, too. You’re hanging onto someone who’s beyond help.”

“But I don’t know what you know!” you exclaimed. “I can’t let go of someone just like that, Jongseong. I need answers.”

He was quiet before he asked, “Do you remember when Sunghoon stayed over at your house once when we were fourteen?”

“When his house caught on fire?” you recalled, but the memory was sort of hazy for you. All you remembered was how you were in complete awe that Sunghoon was unscathed and unbothered by the incident. 

“Yeah,” Jongseong’s voice was grim as he said, “and I bet he never told you that he was the one who started that fire on purpose.”

It was like a punch to the gut. You could only shake your head blankly, lips parted in disbelief. 

He continued, “When we were fifteen, he thought it would be fun to plan out a murder without getting caught—”

No.

“—and, at sixteen, he actually did it.”

No. No. 

“Jongseong,” you whispered, your voice smaller than you intended, “was it…” 

“Jungwon?” He said the name so carefully, as if the world would explode into nothingness if he did. You had been gnawing at your lip so hard that you drew blood, yet that couldn’t distract you from the haunted look in Jongseong’s eyes. “Yeah, he killed Jungwon.”

You felt like you had just been doused with ice-cold water. 

“I shouldn’t have brought Jungwon with me. I knew Sunghoon was gonna do it to someone, but I didn’t know…” He sucked in a deep, shuddering breath that racked his entire body. “I didn’t think it would be him. I brought Jungwon to talk him out of whatever was going on, not to…” Jongseong stopped himself again, covering his face with his hands to wipe away the tears that had started to fall. 

It’s you and me, Sunghoon’s voice chimed in your head. The two of us against the world.

You thought your world had been shattered, but then you realized that it had actually been broken for a long time.

That night, you asked Jaeyun to come over, and he arrived at your door in record speed.

You two were sitting on your bed, controllers in hand, but the screen was off and neither of you were even in the mood to play. You must have trusted him more than anyone by now because the words started spilling with no preamble. You ended up explaining most of your conversation with Jongseong after you had Jaeyun swear on his life that he wouldn’t tell a soul.

Of course, you didn’t expect any normal person to compliantly come to terms with the fact that their friend murdered their other friend, but Jaeyun was a bit different when it came to you. Instead of accusing you of lying or denying the truth, he believed you wholeheartedly. You couldn’t tell if he was patient with you, or if he was just horrified by everything you had told him. 

It had been an entire year since Jungwon had been found dead and the case closed as an unsolved murder, but your words sucker punched Jaeyun like it had just happened yesterday. 

Jaeyun’s tone was urgent when he said, “We have to tell someone.” When he noticed your hesitation, he shook his head at you with a disapproving frown. “Y/N, this is serious. This is Jungwon, my best friend.” 

Your mouth went dry. “I-I know, it’s just—”

Jaeyun didn’t have to cut you off. You froze right when you saw tears welling up in his eyes.

“Y/N.” He said your name gently, but you still flinched. You had never heard your name being called with so much despair. “If Sunghoon really murdered Jungwon, then I can’t keep this a secret.”

“Give me a few days,” you pleaded. “I just want to hear Sunghoon out. No matter what he says, I’ll come with you to testify.” 

He shook his head immediately, eyes fierce. “You are not going anywhere near Sunghoon—not after what he did to Jungwon.”

“Then let me ask Jong—”

“Y/N,” Jaeyun interrupted, letting his hand slide over yours. His eyes were full of concern when he asked, “How do you know you can trust Jongseong?” 

Your hands started to shake.

“Y/N,” he said again, “if Jongseong took Jungwon to see Sunghoon, what do you think he did after Sunghoon killed him?”

Your pulse raced.

“If Jongseong knew about Sunghoon’s behavior for this long, why hasn’t he ever done anything?” 

All this time, you thought your world had grown a little bigger ever since you met Sunghoon and Jongseong. 

But you were living in a fantasy by yourself. 

Not so long after your talk with Jaeyun, your phone rang. You were in the middle of finishing up your history paper when you saw the caller ID flash across your screen.

It was Sunghoon.

You didn’t even give yourself time to think about it first. You just picked up the phone immediately. It was an old habit; you saw Sunghoon and accepted the call without a second thought. You never expected Sunghoon to ever call you again, so you didn’t exactly have any practice in rejecting his calls.

“Y/N?” came the familiar voice of Park Sunghoon—gentle, but almost like he was a caged animal.

“Sunghoon?” You swallowed hard. “Uh, how are you? It’s been a while since we’ve talked.”

“I’m so sorry,” he apologized, but you weren’t sure what he was apologizing for. “It was supposed to be the two of us against the world.”

You frowned. “Sunghoon, what’s going on?”

Instead of answering your question, Sunghoon hesitated before saying, “We should catch up sometime. You can read part of the story I’m writing.”

You paused, and before he could ask if you were still there, you replied, “Yeah, sure.”

“Right.” Sunghoon sounded like he had more to say. You almost didn’t catch it because he was so quiet, and the last thing you heard before he hung up was a quiet, “Bye, then.”

Your deepest regret was answering your phone later that night.

It was hours after Sunghoon called you. Jongseong was more of a texter, so you were surprised when his caller ID flashed across your screen. It was definitely not a reasonable hour for a high school student to be out and about, but nothing could have prepared you for what you heard on the other side of the line.

Jongseong was sobbing. 

The sound chilled you to the bone. You never heard Jongseong cry, but this didn’t feel normal; this cry was frantic and mangled, like he was spiraling out of control. 

“Y/N, you have to come over quickly,” Jongseong begged through broken sobs and heavy breaths. “Please, Y/N, I don’t want him to hurt anyone else.”

“Jongseong, calm down. Tell me what’s happening.”

“You have my location, right? Just hurry. Please.” And he hung up. 

In a daze, you called Jaeyun and asked him to pick you up. 

“I really think we should just call the cops,” Jaeyun offered, almost pleading. “I don’t know what’s going on with Jongseong, but this sounds sketchy, Y/N.”

Pitted fear festered in your throat. You knew something was off, but you weren’t sure if you could handle losing Jongseong, too. You had gotten so used to not being alone that you were paranoid of returning to having no one. 

“Call them as soon as we get there,” you said. “I just need to make sure Jongseong’s okay.” 

Jaeyun pressed his lips into a thin, grim line, but he kept driving. 

It was a port that Jongseong’s location directed you to, and discomfort crept into your limbs as soon as Jaeyun pulled into the area. Maybe you should’ve stayed back where it was safer and let the police handle everything, but you must have been a fool. It was just that Jongseong’s cries echoed in your head whenever you started having second thoughts.

You could hear him before you saw him.

Jongseong’s soft sobs could be heard from behind a metal storage unit, and you and Jaeyun inched closer carefully after getting out of the car. Your heart dropped to your stomach; you were dreading the worst, and when you turned the corner into the closed area Jongseong was in, you realized that the sight before you was the worst it could get. 

Sunghoon’s body.

You waited for his chest to rise, but not even a shallow breath escaped his blue-tinged lips.

It took you a moment to reorient yourself and realize that Sunghoon wasn’t just passed out, he was dead. 

You saw the blood pooling around him and the wounds piercing his torso, staining his white shirt, but you wanted to believe your mind was playing tricks on you. You convinced yourself that Sunghoon was going to get up any second now and start laughing, and then Jongseong would join in and tell you it was all a joke. 

But that wasn’t the case.

It wasn’t fear that overtook you—not an overwhelm of emotion—it was numbness. You stared at Sunghoon’s body as he bled out onto the concrete, blood pooling into the cracks in the ground. You felt an odd sort of disconnect. 

You tilted your head to see Sunghoon’s face turned to the side against the concrete. His blank eyes just stared into nothingness, and you realized that you would never get to see Sunghoon’s warm, sincere gaze ever again. You were never going to see his bright smile. You were never going to hear his contagious laugh. You were never going to read the wonderful stories he wrote. 

You supposed your life was always meant to be a tragedy. 

“H-Hoon?” Jaeyun choked up behind you. He was staring down at Sunghoon’s lifeless body in horror before his expression was slowly replaced with anger. “Jongseong, what the hell did you do?!”

“It was self-defense, man,” Jongseong whimpered out before his body was racked with sobs again. “He pulled a knife on me out of nowhere. I tried to stop him, but he was trying to kill me. I couldn’t do anything else. I couldn’t run, I couldn’t—” He exhaled shakily. “I couldn’t do anything else.”

You didn’t say anything. You just stared at Sunghoon.

“Come on, guys,” Jongseong pleaded. “I can’t go to fucking prison. I’m eighteen now; it’s not juvie, it’s a life sentence.” You didn’t know what he was getting at until he requested the unthinkable, “Help me get rid of the body.”

You wanted to puke. You eyed the shiny metal soaked in blood that Jongseong was clutching. You were never going to see Sunghoon again. You were never going to hang out with him over the weekend. You were never going to hear his voice again. 

“Get rid of the body?” Jaeyun raised his voice, exasperated. “What the fuck are you gonna do when they realize he’s gone missing? You just killed someone! This is on you, Jongseong, not us!”

“Are you going to help me get rid of it or not?!” Jongseong tugged at his hair. “Just help me throw him off the dock, and we can all walk away from this.”

You watched helplessly, horror-stricken. “I… I can’t.”

“The body’s gonna float and show up somewhere,” Jaeyun countered with stony eyes. “They’re gonna catch you.”

Jongseong looked terrifyingly pale. You wondered if it was just the glow of the moon, or if he was also holding in his urge to puke. “I’ll just cut his stomach so he sinks.”

Disgusted, Jaeyun scowled. “You’re a monster.”

You watched as Jongseong tried hauling Sunghoon’s body before giving up and dragging him by the legs. You shot Jaeyun a warning look, mouthing for him to call the police before Jongseong noticed. He lingered back to do so while you followed Jongseong to plead him to stop. His arms gave out as soon as he stepped onto the planks, and he let Sunghoon’s lower half collapse onto the solid wood. 

“Y/N, help me cut open his stomach,” he ordered, hardly sparing you a glance. If he did, he would have seen how horrified you were.

“Oh,” you said, voice wavering, “that’s… that—that’s his…” 

“Y/N, help me.”

“Jongseong,” you begged, “please… please stop.”

He paid you no attention, though. You felt ghastly as Jongseong used a paring knife to make an incision on Sunghoon’s stomach. The smell was putrid. You screwed your eyes shut as the metallic smell of blood invaded your nostrils. Your nausea plunged into your gut, and you had to fight the pervasive urge to hurl.

A stream of Sunghoon’s blood made its way to your shoes, staining the soles. 

Jongseong was cutting your old best friend open. 

The dread had kept you numb for this long, but it was when reality settled in that you finally lost it. You couldn’t handle it anymore and pitched forward over the edge of the dock, throwing up until you were heaving up bile. You sobbed through it all, mournful and low, and your friend paid you no attention while he was cutting through flesh. 

When Jongseong was done, he wiped at his cheek, leaving behind a smear of blood. Sunghoon’s blood. You stared at him, and you had never been more terrified of him in your life. 

And then you really noticed Jongseong. You noticed how Sunghoon’s blood was coated all over his hands, how he hardly had any scratches or bruises on his body, how merciless his eyes were as he stared down at his old best friend. 

The realization that washed over you was frightening. 

“Sunghoon didn’t actually try to kill you, did he?” you managed to warble out. “You killed him yourself.”

A deep silence from him followed—heavy and wretched. Sunghoon’s blood was so dark that it nearly looked black under the dim light, and you could only stare helplessly until Jaeyun made his way to the dock, placing his hands firmly on your shoulders. 

Jongseong turned to you and Jaeyun, clutching his knife tightly. You could hardly recognize the boy in front of you. You never truly understood the term “paralyzed by fear” until you saw the crazed look in Jongseong’s eyes—cold and haunting. 

Jaeyun’s eyes glistened with tears and his throat was thick with emotion when he said, “Jongseong, please—just hang on and… and we can talk this out.” 

The hand gripping his knife started shaking. “You won’t tell anyone, right? You guys won’t snitch on me, right?” When there was no response from you or Jaeyun, Jongseong’s desperation grew stronger. He turned to you with his eyes big and terrified. “Y/N, come on, we’ve known each other for years. You know I—”

“Shut up!” Jaeyun yelled. His protective grip on you tightened. “Cut the bullshit, Jongseong. The police are gonna be here soon, and they’re gonna take you straight to prison once they see what you did to Hoon.”

It was like a switch flipped in him. A distant part of your mind wondered if you could get everyone out of this—somehow bring Sunghoon back and go back to your normal life—but you immediately shut down that fantasy as soon as Jongseong’s eyes darkened. 

In the darkness, you could make out an amused expression on his face. His smile took on a cold edge. 

“Fine,” he bit out. “I’ll just have to get rid of you two before the police get here, then.”

You felt like your world slowed. Your eyes burned with the threat of tears. You could tell Jongseong was walking closer to you while Jaeyun was desperately trying to tug you and get you to run, but you were frozen in place. You wanted to believe that your old friend wouldn’t actually hurt you, but then you didn’t know what to think when he raised his knife. 

It had all happened so fast. Too fast. 

In your brief struggle as Jongseong tried to stab you, you heard a sharp gasp that tore you from your haze, like you had just been drenched in cold water. Brutally sober. You tried to push Jongseong off of you, but he was too heavy, too limp. Jaeyun shouldered his way between you two and shoved Jongseong back, grimacing when his skull hit the wood with a thud. 

You heard one last, strangled gasp from Jongseong before he stopped breathing. The last star in his eyes twinkled until it dimmed for good. 

Jongseong laid flat on the dock with his knife piercing his chest.

As you heard police sirens go off in the distance, Jaeyun wrapped his arms around you before you finally broke down into his chest. 

Your best friends were dead and your world was broken beyond repair. 

“So, it was self-defense?” Detective Lee asked, his piercing eyes boring right into yours. “Purely accidental? You had no intention of harming Park Jongseong?”

You shook your head. “I still couldn’t process the fact that he killed Sunghoon, so I didn’t think he’d actually try to hurt me.”

You wanted to cry. You bit your chapped lip, but all you could taste was blood that you doubted was even there. You couldn’t even say Sunghoon’s name without seeing that radiant smile of his stained with deep red. 

You sucked in a shaky breath. “I’ve told you everything I know. Can I see Jaeyun now?”

Detective Lee eyed you for a moment. Finally, you saw some sort of sympathy in his gaze, although you felt sort of repulsed that you were being pitied in this state. The detective muttered something about him being back later, and he left the interrogation room, leaving you handcuffed to the table. 

A minute passed by. Another. Several more. 

You were pretty sure it had been at least an hour or two of staring at the wall, but the passage of time felt meaningless now. You could wait hours, even days, but you didn’t think you would ever be ready to confront what cruel reality awaited you. 

You were so tired of everything, so exhausted that you didn’t even think about your parents until now. Were they here? Were they informed about your arrest? They must have been worried sick all night. 

When the door opened, your head shot up. 

“You’re free to go, Y/N,” Detective Lee said, pulling out a key to uncuff you from the table. 

You were frozen. You just stared up at Detective Lee with your jaw hung open. 

“I know this took awhile, but there was no security footage at the scene to confirm your story,” he elaborated. “But your stories matched up, and we found more evidence in the trunk of Jongseong’s car that he had been planning this murder.” 

He helped you to your feet and escorted you out of the room. You were able to pick up everything they took from you before you were locked up in the holding cell—your keys, wallet, and your phone. Then, you were taken to the waiting room where your parents were seated at the far end. 

At the sight of you, they all but leapt from their seats to rush over, hands cupping your face and arms embracing your weak, battered figure. There was so much love in their eyes, and their fear over possibly losing their daughter replaced any anger they had toward the situation. However, you wouldn’t have been surprised if you ended up getting an earful the next day. 

“Mom, Dad,” you whimpered out, suddenly overcome with emotion. You were immediately aware of how weak and pathetic you felt. “I’m sorry, I—”

“Shh, it’s okay,” your father silenced you by rubbing your back in soothing circles. “Jaeyun’s family wanted us to let you know that he’s okay, too. They just took him home about ten minutes ago.”

You were slightly disappointed. Part of you was hoping that he would wait for you, but you figured Jaeyun’s family would have wanted to go home right away. You definitely would have felt better if you got to see your boyfriend in the flesh to make sure he was alive and well, but you weren’t going to complain now. 

There was still a ghost of a smile on your lips as your parents walked you to their car. They gushed and gushed about how glad they were about you being safe and sound, and about how they never would’ve expected Jongseong of all people to end up being a murderer.

You were happy to be alive, of course, but you felt so empty. 

You pulled out your phone to try and text Jaeyun, but, as you thought, it was dead. 

“Mom, can I use your phone?” you asked, and you dialed Jaeyun’s number immediately as soon as she handed it to you. You had it memorized because it was a combination of numbers that was fairly easy to remember. 

It rang four times, and by the fifth ring, you were scared that he wouldn’t pick up. But then, it beeped.

“Hello?” Jaeyun answered. “Who is this?”

It was like a huge weight was lifted off of your shoulders once you heard his voice. Despite Detective Lee informing you that Jaeyun was, indeed, alive, you felt more reassured hearing it from your boyfriend himself. You wanted to cry then and there, but you didn’t want to make your parents worry unnecessarily. 

You forgot you were even supposed to respond when Jaeyun spoke again, “Is anyone there?”

“Jaeyun, it’s me,” you mumbled softly. “Y/N.”

You heard him suck in a sharp breath. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“I’m perfectly fine.”

Jaeyun gave you the breakdown of how his experience went, which took a completely different turn than yours. After receiving medical attention, they brought him back to his holding cell to sleep for hardly a few hours. The detective interrogating Jaeyun tried to build trust with him, telling him they wanted to help and just needed his confession. They lied about already having evidence that he killed Jongseong, but Jaeyun denied it and told them the whole story. He was only free to leave after they cross-examined his story with yours. 

“Jesus,” you whispered into the phone, breathing out a small laugh. By now, you were already parked at your house and walking to your front door. “This is so fucked up.”

“Yeah,” he mumbled, “but we’ll get through it.”

“Yeah, Jae. Us against the world.”

Sim Jaeyun spent nine hours being questioned by authorities. 

He knew the nature of the crime that occurred was complex, and he was still reeling from the loss and betrayal that left a deep wound in his chest, but there was something that terrified him still. 

It wasn’t the murderous look in Park Jongseong’s eyes, or the blood completely drained from Park Sunghoon’s face. 

Rather, what scared Jaeyun the most was that he spent so long pining after you and getting to know you at a deeper level. He genuinely fell hard for you, even though you had monsters in the closet. He thought he knew almost everything about you, like how you were a terrible liar. 

Yet, you had just lied about everything that went down last night for nine hours straight. 

What scared Jaeyun the most was how clueless he had been about who you really were.

Truthfully, he was also in the wrong for going along with your lie. It was definitely going to bite him back one day. In the moment, though, he was far too much of a coward to go against you. Although he was able to get Jungwon the justice he deserved and allowed his family to finally be at peace with answers, Jaeyun still felt horrible. He just remembered the desperate look in your eyes as your face and hands were stained with blood, begging him to protect you. 

Jaeyun’s downfall must have been that he liked you too much to say no.

It was true that Jongseong called you in a panic, begging you to show up at the port as quickly as possible, and it was true that you wanted Jaeyun to drive you there instead of calling the cops first. 

Jaeyun knew deep down that you were making the wrong choice, but he had hope that you knew what you were doing. Truthfully, although he liked you a lot, he was still wary about how you felt toward Sunghoon. He just couldn’t understand how you were still unconsciously protecting him after hearing what happened to Jungwon. He knew that you wanted answers, but Jaeyun was worried about how you’d react once you got them. 

The real story—the one neither of you told the detectives—never started with Park Jongseong killing Park Sunghoon.

It really started when you and Jaeyun arrived at the port to see that no one was around. It was eerily quiet, and Jaeyun was starting to regret not turning around and heading straight for the police station. When you two got out of the car, you walked several feet down the line of shipping containers before returning to Jaeyun with a confused look on your face.

“I don’t see either of them,” you said, but then your eyes grew unfocused as you stared at something—or, rather, someone—behind Jaeyun. 

He turned around to see Jongseong walking over to the two of you in a calm fashion, as if he had no other care in the world. The port was relatively an open space, so he had no idea where Jongseong could have emerged from. Jaeyun rolled his neck, more frustrated than anything. 

“Jongseong!” you called out. 

When he neared you two, Jongseong shoved his hands into his pockets. “Oh, you brought your boyfriend.”

“What’s going on?” you urged. “Is it Sunghoon? Did something happen to him?”

“Wow, that hurts, Y/N.” Jongseong barked out a laugh, but nothing about his tone sounded sincere. “I call you in the middle of the night and all you can think about is Hoon? Wow. How do you feel about that, Jaeyun?”

Jaeyun didn’t respond. He just glowered. 

Nothing about this felt right. 

You stammered, “I-I just assumed—”

“Put yourself in my shoes,” Jongseong cut you off with little regard for your excuses. “Sorry to say this in front of your boyfriend, but imagine how I feel when the girl I’ve liked for years only cares about my best friend.” 

The air went still.

Your voice was barely a whisper when you asked, “Excuse me?” 

Jaeyun pursed his lips together, and, for a moment, he thought his tongue would start bleeding if he bit it any harder. Sunghoon liked the girl that Jongseong liked, and if that girl was you, then Jaeyun was worried that he already lost you. He knew for months that he would never truly have you the way he wanted. Your feelings for Sunghoon were stronger, and although Jaeyun was able to pack his insecurities into a tiny ball and shove it down his throat, it was all coming out now. 

His uneasy heart shattered into a million pieces once he caught a glimpse of your expression—hopeful and longing. And it wasn’t for Jongseong; it was for Sunghoon. 

“Now that’s a great expression,” came an overly-enthusiastic voice from Jaeyun’s right.

Park Sunghoon was leaning against one of the shipping containers, arms folded across his chest before he uncrossed them and made his way toward the three of you. He must have been hiding behind the containers this whole time because Jaeyun hadn’t seen him at all before. 

The situation was getting increasingly uncomfortable. Jaeyun wanted to shrink back when Sunghoon suddenly took great interest in him, keeping his eyes fixed on him instead of you or Jongseong. He used to have such bright and happy smiles, but, this time, Jaeyun almost thought his grin had been sliced into his face with a blade.

Sunghoon slung an arm over Jongseong’s shoulder. “Wow, Jae, now I really wanna see the look on your face when you’re in total despair,” he crooned, almost mocking. Jaeyun’s blood rushed in his ears when Sunghoon’s tongue swiped across one of his fangs. “You should’ve seen the look on Jungwon’s face.”

Jaeyun lunged before he could even think, but he stopped himself as soon as you held onto him, stopping him from hitting Sunghoon. 

And that was when he knew he already lost you. 

“Don’t,” you insisted.

“Are you serious?” he breathed out, brows knitting into a frown as he looked down at you. 

Shame clung to your throat, keeping your mouth shut, but Jaeyun was more concerned now about the sharp blade pointed at his throat.

His Adam’s apple bobbed.

Jongseong had a paring knife pointed straight at him, and Sunghoon’s smile never faltered. They were clearly on the same side. There was a reason why Jeongseong never did anything about Sunghoon after killing Jungwon. 

Jaeyun felt stupid for not putting it together earlier.

“I’d listen to your girlfriend,” Jongseong warned. His voice crawled all over him, freezing Jaeyun cold to the bone. “You might as well hear us out before you die here tonight.”

“Can’t exactly let you two run off now that you know what happened to Jungwon,” Sunghoon added.

“Jungwon was our friend,” Jaeyun hissed. “He was my best friend, you sick freak! What did you do to him? Why? He’s never… he never did anything wrong!”

“You’re right. He didn’t do anything wrong,” Sunghoon confirmed, surprisingly calm and collected. “In fact, he exceeded my expectations. It was a great performance, actually.” Jaeyun clenched his fist tight—so tight that his nails dug into his palms and drew blood—and Sunghoon took notice of this with a delighted hum. “You should’ve heard him scream, Jae. I had my doubts about him at first, but when he was begging me for his life, I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.”

You were distraught. “Sunghoon, you—”

It all happened in seconds, like a rubber band finally snapping after being stretched too thin. Jaeyun used his elbow to knock Jongseong’s arm out of the way, and he shoved Sunghoon as soon as he found an opening, driving his hands into his ribs. He heard you cry out, but Jaeyun could only see red until he was dragged back up by Jongseong, the sharp blade of the knife being pressed to his throat. 

“Stop!” you cried. “Leave Jaeyun out of this! You wanted me, right? Just let him go. Please.” 

“I don’t think so.” Sunghoon wrapped an arm around you. “You two already know too much, and Jongseong and I have been waiting for this finale for years.”

Your eyes had a faraway look in them for a moment before you turned your attention back to Jongseong. “You told me…”

“I told you that when we were fifteen, Sunghoon thought it would be fun to plan out a murder without getting caught,” Jongseong filled in the blanks for you, a haunting smile playing on his lips, “and I was in on it.”

Sunghoon tutted. “But you got it all wrong, Y/N. It wasn’t Jungwon’s murder that we were planning; it was yours.”

You looked up at him in horror.

Jaeyun struggled against Jongseong for a moment, face taut with unbridled anger. He just wanted to get to you. Get Sunghoon’s filthy hands off of you. 

“I’m a writer. I write stories,” Sunghoon continued. “Isn’t it a great twist? Convincing my childhood best friend that I loved her all this time, only to reveal that she’s gonna die at my hands.” He scoffed. “Jungwon was just at the wrong place at the wrong time, but he was good practice. I was too careless back then. I shouldn’t have left all those drawings and papers out like that when he came over, but now I’m gonna finish the job properly.” 

Your breathing was shallow. Jaeyun could see the flood of despair racking your body with soft sobs and quick pants. Your gaze fell to the ground, and Sunghoon peered to catch a better look at you. 

“Good,” he praised. “That’s what I wanna see. Wow, that’s great, Y/N. I can’t wait to see more when—”

“Get the fuck away from her!” Jaeyun yelled, grunting when Jongseong pressed the knife harder against his supple skin. 

With an exaggerated flourish of his hands, Sunghoon raised both arms and backed up as if he was a deer caught in headlights. He wore an easygoing smile, yet something sinister was tucked behind the curve of his lips. Your inconsolable self stayed fixed in place, staring helplessly at your shoes.

“For the past two years, I’ve been isolating myself from the friend group for the sake of this story and its ending,” Sunghoon said. “I think I deserve a little fun right now, Jae.”

“Fuck you,” Jaeyun spat. “You deserve to go to Hell.”

Sunghoon took a step closer to Jaeyun, ducking his head so that they were at eye-level with each other. Jaeyun tried to struggle against Jongseong once more, but he froze when the knife pierced his skin. He felt something trickle down the column of his neck, and he soon realized it was his own blood. 

“It’s hard, isn’t it?” Sunghoon mocked a pout. He lowered his voice by an octave, only for Jaeyun to hear. “Competing with a childhood friend is brave, I’ll tell you that.” 

Jaeyun’s blood boiled. To his surprise, Sunghoon gestured for Jongseong to let go of him. He took the paring knife from his friend and handed it to Jaeyun. 

“Take it,” Sunghoon said. “Why don’t you try killing me? You wanna get back at me, right? I killed your best friend, after all.”

Owlish, he blinked back at Sunghoon, almost absently. Jaeyun really considered it for a moment—like, really considered it. Some part of him wanted to senselessly beat Sunghoon up until he was unrecognizable, but the morally righteous side of him knew that he could never stoop to Jongseong or Sunghoon’s level. 

Jaeyun took the knife by the handle, weighing it in his palm experimentally before chucking it away—far from both Sunghoon and Jongseong. Jaeyun was pretty sure he could overtake Jongseong if Sunghoon turned his back, but he wasn’t sure if Jongseong had another weapon up his sleeve. He heard the blade skid and scrape against the concrete, and he could only hope that Sunghoon and Jongseong being distracted by him would give you time to escape. 

But Jeongseong immediately stopped you as soon as he saw you picking up the knife, and he let go of Jaeyun to grab ahold of you. Jaeyun tried to yank Jongseong back by the back of his shirt, but Sunghoon grabbed a fistful of his hair and slammed his head against the metal of one of the shipping containers.

Jaeyun’s world was thrown off-balance. The ground bounced, tilted, swayed. He was so dizzy and disoriented that he couldn’t tell if his head was spinning or if he was collapsing. 

The corners of his vision grew hazy with white splotches dancing around. Jaeyun tried hard to focus, making out some of the yelling that was going back and forth, but he couldn’t think at all when a newly-formed cut on his forehead was getting blood all over his face and hands. 

He doubled forward, falling onto his knees. Jaeyun had to stay there for a while and ride out the intense waves of vertigo until he was stable again. When the world finally returned to its normal axis and stopped bouncing under him, Jaeyun lifted his head to see you and Jongseong screaming at each other.

And Sunghoon was on the ground.

He stumbled over, and it was as if the white noise in Jaeyun’s ears had drowned out everything in the background. He couldn’t see or focus on anything except the pained look on Sunghoon’s face as the color drained from his neck. Blood was gushing from his jugular vein, and he was digging his palm into his neck to put pressure on the wound. 

“—you stabbed him!” you screamed at Jongseong. Your voice was hysterical; Jaeyun had never heard you sound so desperate, not even when he was being held at knifepoint. 

“Fuck, Y/N, I wouldn’t have hurt him if you didn’t pull on my arm!” Jongseong yelled back. He sank to the ground, simultaneously dropping the knife and dropping his head between his knees. 

The sight was miserable to watch. Jongseong wailed loud and mournful until he couldn’t take it anymore, doubling over so that he could throw up until nothing but bile was coming out. When it seemed as though he had nothing else to heave out of his stomach, Jongseong sat up for a brief moment. You and Jaeyun watched as his eyes rolled back almost instantly, falling onto his back and hitting his skull against the concrete. The exhaustion must have finally caught up to him, and you two didn’t have long until he was conscious again.

Jaeyun turned his attention back to Sunghoon, watching his life bleed out of his body slowly. For some reason, an odd disconnect came over Jaeyun, and he bent down to help apply pressure over Sunghoon’s wound. At first, Sunghoon gritted his teeth, but even he knew when to accept help when it was needed. 

Sim Jaeyun was pretty sure he was broken beyond belief by now, but it was impossible for him to ignore someone who was dying right before him. 

Even if he murdered Jungwon. 

“Y/N, we need to get him to a—” 

Jaeyun cut himself off when he looked up at you to see that your expression had changed. Something was different. You looked like numbness had seeped into your body, coiling around your heart until you couldn’t feel anything. The way you looked down at Jongseong, clutching his knife tightly, made Jaeyun worry.

“Y/N,” Jaeyun said again—slower, “whatever you’re thinking… please put it down.”

It didn’t seem like you were listening, though. Almost as if your body and brain were at two different places. 

“Y/N—” Jaeyun shuddered when you brought the knife down, driving it straight into Jongseong’s chest. 

Jaeyun’s stomach lurched. He watched as Jongseong struggled for his life, hardly conscious as you repeatedly stabbed him over and over again until Jaeyun was yelling at you to stop. He was sure he would never be able to close his eyes again without hearing Jongesong’s blood-curdling screams and seeing Sunghoon’s face drained of color. 

“Wow,” Sunghoon choked out. One last amused look crossed his face before it fell apart painfully. “I told you, Jae, there’s no competing with a childhood best friend.” Jaeyun flushed with anger, but it dissolved quickly when he realized Sunghoon’s breathing got slower, shallower. The look on his face was one of someone accepting their untimely death. “Thanks for the show, though.”

In his arms, Sunghoon took his last breath and went still.

It wasn’t grief that Jaeyun felt. It was something far greater.

“Jaeyun, I—I didn’t mean to,” you sobbed out, shakily holding up your bloodstained hands. “It was self-defense! I tried to stop him, but he was trying to kill me, and then he… he killed Sunghoon. I couldn’t do anything else. I couldn’t run, I couldn’t—” You exhaled shakily. “I couldn’t do anything else.”

Jaeyun didn’t respond. He just stared at you in disbelief. 

“Come on, Jae,” you pleaded. Oh, so it was Jae now. “You have to help me get rid of their bodies. I can’t go to prison!”

“Get rid of the body?” Jaeyun raised his voice, exasperated. “Y/N, they’re dead! We have to tell the police everything. I mean, what are you gonna do when your prints match?”

Your lips pressed together in a grim line. “Your prints are on the knife, too.”

Were you blackmailing him? Jaeyun couldn’t believe what he was hearing from you. He never expected you, of all people, to be the one to throw him under the bus like this. He had trusted you with his life before, and you threw it all away in seconds. 

“Are you going to help me or not?” You looked toward the dock over the water. It was a good enough distance for you to drag Sunghoon and Jongseong’s bodies over to, but Jaeyun sure as hell didn’t want to get involved. “Just help me throw them in the water, and we can both walk away from this, Jae. We can go back to our lives, okay?”

He shook his head sadly. You just sounded like a stranger to him. 

“Please, Y/N,” he pleaded, tears stinging his eyes, “please stop this. You have to turn yourself in.”

But his resolve was shaky. Jaeyun knew that he would still be booked once they found his prints at the scene, and there was no telling what you would do to protect yourself. By now, Jaeyun wouldn’t have been surprised if you somehow pushed the crime onto him. 

“Jae, listen to me,” you insisted. Your eyes were wide and brimming with tears, and Jaeyun couldn’t help but think you looked a little crazed. “We can both get out of this, but you have to help me out here. We’re gonna tell them that Jongseong killed Sunghoon before we got here, and then he chased us until we ended up stabbing him out of self-defense. I mean, that’s all this was, anyway! It was self-defense!”

A distant part of Jaeyun’s mind wondered what happened to you. He wondered if you had always been this way, perhaps keeping it tucked away. In the end, you were still trying to protect Sunghoon in your own way. You were still trying to protect some fragment of his golden image.

“It’s you and me,” you whispered, kneeling down by your boyfriend’s side until you were cupping his face with your hands, staining his cheeks with Jongseong’s blood, “the two of us against the world.”

Just hours ago, Sim Jaeyun looked at you like you were his entire world.

And now, with your bloodstained hands holding his face, there was unmistakable fear behind his eyes as he looked up at you.

AUTHOR’S NOTE ▸ thank you so so much for reading if you made it all the way to the end !! i would lovee for you to guys to share what you thought, but just to point a few things out, jake's pov was the unfiltered version of what went down that night. the dialogue from mc is similar to jongseong's because while she painted him out to be the villain in the end to protect sunghoon, it was really her who said those things. originally this had a happier ending but i'm a lot more satisifed with this one actually. i hope you guys liked it !! <3 also i am deciding against using my permanent tag list this time because i haven't used it in a year and don't know if anyone exactly signed up to read horror 🧎‍♀️

[totalswag]

Hello lovely I love ur writing abt Drew & Reader actresse sweetheart it's so good <3 I have a little request to make to you if you don't mind, Drew react to the Reader acting in the horror film masterpiece (like the movies Suspiria and Climax vibes) of which she's a part of the main cast

I'm just curious if he would be terrified or blown away by this kind of role that she plays like this one or not ;) thank u !!!

unbelievable performance — DREW STARKEY

authors note aw thank you lovie! that means so much to me. by the time you are reading this, my second fic with drew x actress!reader is out (the first date). i have never seen either movies that you listed in your request but i did look them up to get a gist.

summary drew was impressed by your performance in your latest horror film.

warnings mentions of kissing, horror films

masterlist

Tonight marks the premiere of your new horror film, in which you star with some amazing actors. After many hours of continuous filming, sequences are officially wrapped. You're extremely proud of yourself and your casemates. 

You were the staring lead in the movie. Getting the part after auditioning was a blessing in disguise. This being your very first staring lead role in any movie you’ve been in, you were so proud of yourself.

Everyone is seated in the theater. Drew, your boyfriend, also came with you. The entire cast stood in front of the stage as your director discussed the film a bit.

You shifted your focus to Drew, who was already looking at you in admiration, which made you smile and making you blush.

When you stepped up to your seat, he leaned down to your ear and whispered, "I want you to know that I'm so proud of you, and I know you did an amazing job on this movie," before kissing the top of your head.

“I love you baby, so much” you answer with your voice already starting to crack before tears wanted to burst out.

“Me more.”

Drew was so excited to watch his beautiful girlfriend on the big screen. Non-stop talking about the movie with you and his predictions on what will happen.

Everyone in the theater began to applaud as soon as the lights went out. Drew's hand moved easily down your thigh and gave it a little squeeze. Your skin began to tingle from his touch.

The movie begins with a hauntingly beautiful dance routine in which the camera swirls around the dancers in a way that is both captivating and unnerving. Drew is instantly captivated. As the story progresses, he observes your character navigating a world fraught with psychological pain and supernatural fear.

Half way through the movie, it’s been jaw dropping and incredible.

He is always on the edge of his seat in every situation you are in. You capture the dread and lunacy of the film's twisted narrative with an unvarnished and honest performance.

He's afraid and enthralled with the story at the same time, amazed at your ability to portray such raw emotion. Never once did he take his eyes off the screen.

The way the movie came out was unbelievable. The editors did wonders on this movie and made it into something viewers will want to keep watching.

Once you two arrived home after eating dinner at the after party, Drew and you took a shower together in your shared bathroom, changed into pajamas, then went into bed with the tv playing.

Later that night, back at home, Drew can't stop talking about the movie.

"You know, watching you in that role allowed me to see a completely other side of you. You were fierce, vulnerable, and incredibly compelling. "It was like watching an acting masterclass."

You laugh quietly and rest your head on his shoulder. "It means a lot hearing you say that. I was concerned about how you would react."

"Are you kidding?" I loved it. "I'm just glad I wasn't watching it alone in the dark," he jokes.

my taglist!

✰ if you would like to be added to my taglist and be notified whenever i post please let me know in the comments or in my ask box. if there's a line across your name that means i couldn't find your account.

@winterrrnight @chenslucy @rosezza @diqldrunks @runningfrom2am @ethanthequeefqueen @rafeyslamb

[frownyalfred]

hi! I hope this doesn't come off as aggressive or too much (sorry if it does🥹), but I have so many feelings about Bruce as a parent and I really dislike those "Bruce Wayne is a terrible father" blanket statements, because no?? First of all, just to get it out of the way, it's (some of) those shitty writers who make horrible character and plot choices so they can sell more comics for the fans to rage-read. Now, I'm not saying Bruce is perfect, no one is, and he is traumatized, but he is absolutely not an abusive parent I will fight anyone on this.

Second of all, even if he was pretty goth pre-Robin, you're telling me having a tiny 8-year-old Dick Grayson as his ward didn't soften him up? Didn't bring light into his life? Didn't rearrange his priorities? The boy is a literal symbol of hope. I genuinely believe those early Robin days were a time of huge character development for Bruce.

All Bruce's kids have made a big impact on him as both Bruce and Batman (just like he made an impact on them), but I feel like people kinda forget the magnitude of the difference a flippy little acrobat kid can make on a man whose house has been hauntingly empty, cold, and silent for years.

Bruce Wayne is a Dad and I will die on that hill.

(Idk if you can tell but I can talk about Bruce and Dick for days)

I understand. I get why folks want to read/write Bad Dad Bruce Wayne, just as I understand folks who want to write Good Dad Bruce Wayne. Usually I read and write fics somewhere in the middle, since it feels the most realistic to me (as realistic as a Batman fic can be, at least).

Bruce isn't a perfect person. But overall, the point is that he tries. He messes up and causes harm, but he usually tries to fix or address it. That's why I love using the tags "Bruce Wayne's B-/C+ Parenting" lol.

[theharrowing]

Fledgling

Jungkook is tired of his dreary existence. So when a mysterious stranger offers him a way out of life as he knows it, he takes it without hesitation.

🩸 Human (to Vampire) Jungkook x Vampire Namjoon

🩸 word count: 12.3k

🩸 dead dove, strangers to lovers, vampire au, horror, blood & gore, major character death (kind of; to become a vampire), smut, light angst, possessive fluff, 21+

🩸 warnings: dead dove 🕊 do not eat! top Namjoon bottom Jungkook; a vampiric game of cat and mouse; this is a bloody fucking mess; Jungkook has a death wish and makes unwise choices; talk of sex work and using men for a place to sleep; Calvin Klein babygirl Jungkook; lavender Namjoon; talk of robbing men jk sleeps with; talk of a car crash and the sight of the aftermath of a crash; use of the word whore; vampire compulsion/charming; lots of pet names and terms of threatening endearment; possessiveness; classist language jk says toward himself (which does not reflect my real opinions at all); fear kink; nj drinking JK’s blood; jk literally bleeds to death (hi hello this is a vampire fic lol); smut (temperature play kind of; does this count as blood play???; blow job; anal fingering; anal sex; dying while being fucked and having a lovely time; semi-public sex beside corpses); a lot of blood drinking; having a captive person whose blood is drained; jk loses his autonomy completely.

🩸 note: in this fic, we observe a world where Jungkook has heard of zombies but not vampires, okay. suspend your disbelief just once, my loves!!! this one is quite dark but not terribly graphic, all things considered. there is plenty of blood & gore tho!!! i did not get a chance to proofread as much as i usually do, so if you notice any errors, feel free to let me know!

🩸 happy halloween to my lovely @sweetestofchaos! 🧛🏻 👻 🎃 🍂 i hope you enjoy this!!! i only meant for this to be a short, sweet oneshot and it completely took on a life of its own.

🩸 written for the bts fantasy & fangs trick or treat event! check out more hauntingly good works!

🩸 beta read by @neoneunnajimin

🩸 posted oct. 2023 | read on ao3

The moment the older man walks into the bar, Jeongguk takes in a deep, fortifying breath and instinctively holds it. Something about the way this man carries himself – tall, broad, and strong, with an aura of danger surrounding him – makes Jeongguk weak in the knees, and he grips onto the poles of the tiny caged-in stage and swishes his hip as he gets low into a squatting position. 

Being a go-go dancer at a bar this seedy tends to attract the attention of the wrong type of men – men with families waiting for them; men with enough power and influence to make them greedy and mean; men who know damn well that a pretty little thing like Jeongguk disappearing from a shithole like this would not raise many alarms. 

Jeongguk gets a thrill from being spoiled by rich married men; he dares one of them to swoop in and make him disappear – even if it means death. Anything would be better than this life, he thinks. 

Unfortunately for him, the wealthy men who gravitate toward him are all talk – anything for an easy fuck. They promise Jeongguk the world, telling him how badly they want to get him out of his current rundown apartment and wax poetic about a better life – modeling contracts or sugar baby arrangements. 

Oh, how they moan and groan and lament over how stunning Jeongguk is – talented, and thoughtful, and pretty. And then they fuck him and leave him, never calling back, moving along to the next sad little poor thing to utter empty platitudes to while balls deep inside them. 

Jeongguk can already tell that this man is different. This man is dangerous beyond just money and an appetite for young meat. This man could make Jeongguk disappear in the blink of an eye. 

The man who approaches the bar is gorgeous, dressed head to toe in black – a fitted jacket over a button-up, tucked into fitted slacks. His slightly grown-out hair is lightened to a soft lavender-blond and pushed off his forehead, his eyes are razor-sharp, and his pillow-plush lips are pulled into a smirk. As he walks, men straighten out and step to the side, quick to get out of his way.

Jeongguk watches as the man approaches the bar and leans with one elbow against the wood, ordering a drink and letting his gaze drift around the smoke-filled space. And when the man's eyes land on Jeongguk, he feels his pulse quicken. 

Something dark and indiscernible flashes in the man's gaze and Jeongguk feels a pull, leaning forward, bare chest touching the cold metal bars that his hands loosely hold onto. His blood shimmers and soars through his veins, and he swoons to the cold touch of steel. 

All sound around him – music and voices – seem to slow and morph, as if he is sinking deep underwater. The man's smirk grows to a salacious grin, and then he turns his gaze away from Jeongguk, who crashes back to reality as he heavy-blinks his surroundings into place.

Slowly, Jeongguk swishes his hips up to a standing position, finding he has to grip a little harder onto the poles, which are slick from sweat that has pooled beneath his palms. The man does not look back at Jeongguk, talking instead to another patron with his back facing this way, leaving him feeling empty and disappointed. 

In an attempt to save face, Jeongguk dances for two more songs, eyes never straying from the back of the man, and then picks his black denim jacket up off the floor and exits the cage, hours too soon. 

"Need a bathroom break," he mutters to his manager Sunmi, who stands with her arms folded over her chest, scowling at him. 

"Make it quick," she snaps, to which he simply grunts, in return.

Jeongguk has half a mind to walk out the back door and go home. He cannot explain why, but he experiences such a pull to the lavender-haired man that having him turn away and not regard him leaves him feeling so disappointed and frustrated that he would rather call it a night than continue to work.

Of the dancers, Jeongguk is easily the most attractive, and he garners the most attention, meaning the managers are on his ass the most, and would definitely berate him for leaving. Luckily, he has no working cell phone at the moment, which could make leaving a lot less annoying.

The bathroom is a dimly lit shithole with yellowed walls and chipped tiles that may have once been white, years and years ago. It reeks of piss and urinal detergent blocks, and every surface is inexplicably wet. Jeongguk scrunches his nose uncomfortably, never able to get used to the stench, as he approaches the sink and stands before it, not quite sure what to do with himself. 

Staring at his reflection, Jeongguk begins to give himself a silent pep talk. The way he looks now – bangs hanging in his eyes, which are smudged black like coal – he is far too fucking hot to let some asshole ruin his night. 

Tonight, his hair is down – falling nearly to his shoulders in pretty dark brown waves. He wears a thin black tie under his black denim jacket, and black loose-fitting denim pants – no shirt. Dressed like this, men never turn their attention away from him once he has it, so what was that guy's fucking problem?

Jeongguk runs the sink and splashes some cold water on his face, letting it drip down his chest. He uses a paper towel to blot at his forehead and cheeks but allows the droplets on his pecs and abs to linger and glisten. 

Maybe, he thinks, maybe he can score the hot lavender-haired man. At the very least, he anticipates someone will take him home tonight. Someone always does. 

As he exits the bathroom, the first thing Jeongguk notices is that the man is no longer at the bar. Briefly, he scans the space, looking for him, then he clears his throat, lifts his head high, and walks back to the cage. The moment he steps in, some older man in a suit walks up and grips onto the bars in front of him, like clockwork. 

"Hey, pretty thing," the man snarls, reeking of cigars and gin. What he lacks in looks, he makes up for in confidence, and hopefully money. 

"Hey there, handsome," Jeongguk responds sweetly, squatting low enough to be just under eye-level with the man, which only seems to excite him more. 

"What time you off work?"

It's always the same with these men, and Jeongguk heavy-blinks once, schooling his plastered smile so as to not grimace. 

"I finish when the bar shuts down."

The man is antsy, shifting left to right, gripping onto the bars. Jeongguk can tell that he is considering all the ways in which his money has allowed him to skirt past rules and authority; he can tell the man is going to try to insist that Jeongguk, too, is above his own responsibilities if the man can flash enough notes. 

"What do you say we get out of here now, instead?" the man tries, causing Jeongguk's right eye to twitch. "I'm sure your boss can be bought, eh? There's two more dancers here; what's the harm in letting one go?"

With a sweet smile and a shrug, Jeongguk looks over his shoulder demurely. "Boss is back there. The woman standing by the wall – the one who's frowning. If you can convince her to let me go, I'm all yours, big boy."

Fat chance in hell Sunmi noona would allow Jeongguk to leave even a minute before close, but he likes letting these men try their best shot. If anything, being told no only makes them more desperate to have him and they wind up spending a pretty penny on getting him drunk enough to fuck them later. 

The man hobbles away, and a curious tingle travels up Jeongguk's neck, filling him with the sudden urge to glance around, certain that someone must be watching him. But as he makes a little spin in his cage, eyes tracing over every patron at the bar, peering over every shadow, he doesn't notice anyone paying him special attention. In fact, the only person he makes eye contact with is Sunmi noona, who is glaring at him while the man before her attempts to barter for his freedom. 

Things go just as Jeongguk anticipates, to such an exact formula that he would find it amusing if it were not so fucking tedious. The man is ultimately turned down, then he proceeds to sulk at the bar, only ever leaving his post to bring Jeongguk a new drink or go take a piss. This goes on for an hour and a half, and then the man announces that he is going to use the restroom once more, and for Jeongguk to stay put and don't go too far.

Jeongguk leaves the cage and approaches the bar, feeling tipsy and tired as he leans against the far end and waits for the man to return from the restroom. He oscillates between feeling impatient and wishing the man would not return, saving him from having to suck his drunk, flaccid cock in a desperate attempt to get him hard. He just knows this man is going to have to contend with all the alcohol he has been drinking, and that Jeongguk will be the one paying the price. 

Although the man is not Jeongguk's type at all – nothing like the Adonis of a man who walked in hours earlier – Jeongguk supposes he is just happy to have somewhere warm to stay for the night. Never mind how undoubtedly bad the sex is going to be. If he is lucky, Jeongguk may even find an opportunity to rob him. Nothing too wild, just a few notes from the man's wallet and some cufflinks or a watch that he likely wouldn't even miss. 

Once more, a tingle works its way from Jeongguk's spine to the nape of his neck, and he shivers, glancing over his right shoulder and then his left, puzzled by the strange sensation. 

"Ready to go?" the man asks from Jeongguk's right, taking him by surprise and making him flinch. 

Jeongguk sighs out an embarrassed exhale and scoffs to himself. "Sure. Let's go."

"I have a room nearby," the man says. "Five star."

Of course, he has a room nearby, Jeongguk thinks. Men like him always have wives; they never take Jeongguk home with them.

Jeongguk still only wears a black denim jacket, a black tie, and no shirt underneath, and the moment he gets outside, he shivers, tensing his shoulders up to his ears and exhaling visible puffs of air in the cool autumn breeze. Being that it is bar time, the sidewalks are crowded with drunk people stumbling to and fro, and Jeongguk digs his hands deep into his jacket pockets as his shoulders and elbows are slammed into. 

The man leads Jeongguk to the end of the block and to the left, around the corner, where the street is somewhat quieter. Just up ahead, a black sports car beeps, flashing its lights. With a crooked smile, the man gestures, keys in hand, to the car and says, "This is me."

Jeongguk halts, kicking the cement with the toe of his boot in an attempt to assess the situation. Ordinarily, men who bring him back to hotels do so in a taxi or with a personal driver.

"Yeah, I'm not getting into that car with you," Jeongguk says slowly, taking a tentative step back. "You've had a lot to drink."

Despite having a bit of a death wish, being smashed in a head-on collision is not his ideal way to go. 

The man laughs, or maybe he hiccups – it's hard to say. "Come on, don't be a prude," he slurs. "Get in the car."

With a sigh, Jeongguk takes another step back, pulling his hands from his pockets. He hates it when drunk men get pushy, and he begins to crack his knuckles with his thumbs – a nervous tic. 

"Sorry, man," Jeongguk insists, continuing to slowly back away. "I'm not getting into your car."

The man looks incensed, and he turns around in a quick swaying stumble, barreling five or so steps to reach Jeongguk, who holds his hands out in front of him, palms up, as if in surrender. 

"Hey, man," Jeongguk begins, "Look, I'm not trying t—"

The man lunges, grabbing one of Jeongguk's wrists, yanking hard enough to make Jeongguk stumble. "I'm not trying to fucking argue. You and I both know I can pay you more money to keep me company than you're worth at that shithole. So why don't you be a good little whore and get in the fucking car!"

Jeongguk attempts to rip his arm away, but the man is surprisingly strong, and he yanks him enough to make Jeongguk stumble once more, causing anger and fear to spike in him. And then the tingle works its way through Jeongguk once more, much stronger than before, and he sways forward and back, blinking heavily as if trapped in a mental fog. 

Slow footsteps click-clack against concrete behind Jeongguk, and without looking he knows the handsome man from the bar is standing behind him – he has no idea how or why, but he can sense him.

"Gentlemen," the man says, voice deep and rich, raising Jeongguk's goosebumps even higher. "I trust that this is not a physical altercation that I am walking in on."

The drunk man stands tall, yanking on Jeongguk's wrist again. Feeling intoxicated by the man's presence behind him has Jeongguk's arm relaxed, and he stumbles into the drunk man, causing him to huff angrily and continue to yank Jeongguk toward the car.

"He told you he isn't interested in going with you," the man behind him says, and Jeongguk gasps, curious how much of the conversation he could have overheard. 

The drunk man squeezes Jeongguk's wrist before throwing it down and pointing at the man, shouting, "And just who the fuck do you think you are?"

In a blink, the new man is standing right beside Jeongguk, cloying his senses with a rich, heady scent of wildflowers and musk. The drunk man gasps and stumbles a step backward, mouth moving frantically as he quakes with fear, and the man by Jeongguk's side slowly lifts his hand, gripping the drunk man's throat. 

"I," the man says slowly, "am your worst…fucking…nightmare."

Silence hangs and then the drunk man begins to laugh, snot and drool flying from his lips. He grips onto the hand around his throat and shoves it down, then he shakes his head, face turning a gruesome shade of red under the golden streetlights. 

"You almost had me," the drunk man says, slapping his hand against his thigh. "That was a good one."

Jeongguk finally turns his head to face the lavender-haired man. The man only stands slightly taller than him, but his presence feels enormous. The man smiles, which creates a pretty little dimple in his cheek, and he dryly chuckles along. 

"That was pretty funny, wasn't it?" the man beside Jeongguk asks. 

The drunk man nods and continues to laugh, looking between Jeongguk and the lavender-haired man. 

"Get in your car," the man beside Jeongguk commands firmly. 

Suddenly, the man stops laughing, and his eyes lose their shine. As if being piloted by some invisible force, he turns and begins walking toward his car. 

"Wait," Jeongguk mutters, looking between the men as the drunk man rounds the hood of his car and opens the driver's side door. "What is he—"

"Drive out to the countryside at top speed and crash into the first semi truck you see," the man beside Jeongguk commands, and Jeongguk watches with confused horror as the drunk man utters something to himself and closes his door. 

Instinctively, Jeongguk jolts forward, eager to stop the drunk man from driving in the state he is in. But the man beside him very quietly, almost seductively says, "Oh, baby, you aren't going anywhere," and Jeongguk's entire body freezes. 

It is almost as if Jeongguk's skin, down to the marrow in his bones, shimmers and heats up, heavy and dreamy as if every nerve – every blood vessel – is listening to the man beside him and wants to do exactly as he says.

"What are you doing, leaving with a man like him, anyway, hmm?" the man asks. 

Jeongguk, finding he is incapable of speaking anything but the absolute truth mutters, "I need the money, and you weren't there."

"You were hoping for me?" The man asks, lifting a dark eyebrow. "Why is that?"

"You're handsome…and you appear dangerous. I wanted to know what it was like to get lost in a man like you."

"Awe," the man groans as he leans close, right beside Jeongguk's ear, voice deep and dangerous, "little ol' me?"

"Yes," Jeongguk mutters, feeling any miniscule sense of control quickly leaving him as the man says, "Then come with me." 

The man turns and begins to walk the way he came, and Jeongguk feels his limbs twist and buckle as if led by invisible strings. He stumbles as he attempts to keep up, unable to move his lips to speak or to pull his gaze away from the back of the man. 

Lavender hair, broad shoulders, and an expensive suit – nothing else in the world exists. That is, until the man turns onto the still crowded street, and Jeongguk follows along so obediently that he causes pedestrians to trip over him. 

Drunk people stumble and swear, telling him to watch his step, muttering under their breath about what a fucking degenerate he is. Jeongguk pays no mind – hardly hears them. All he can focus on is the strong man with the floral and musk scent, leading him along. 

For the second time tonight, Jeongguk and a strange man approach an expensive car. Only this time, when the man motions for Jeongguk to get into the passenger seat, he doesn't think twice – couldn't think twice if he wanted to. 

A voice in the back of his head wonders where they are going, what the man could want from him, how he is leading Jeongguk to act against his will. But he cannot form these thoughts into words; he cannot speak. 

The car this man drives is nice – nicer than the generic sports car the other man drove. Far too nice to be flashing it around in a neighborhood like this. If the wrong person catches someone driving around this side of town in something this expensive, it is likely the owner will end up floating face down in the river by dawn. 

Not that a man like this one has any reason to fear others. 

"Close the door" the man commands as soon as Jeongguk slides into the passenger seat, and he does as he is told. Jeongguk can sense the man turning toward him as he asks, "Wanna see where our friend ended up?"

"Yes," Jeongguk mutters against any better judgment he could have. Ordinarily, he would never admit it, but he is curious. 

The man chuckles, presses the ignition button, and speeds off down the road. Jeongguk sits stiff as a board, eyes wide and staring at the cars and buildings passing at speeds that he is terrified to comprehend in the middle of the city. And without a seatbelt, because the mysterious stranger never instructed him to put one on. 

"What is your name, pretty?" the man asks, voice magnanimous but still containing an edge to it.

"Jeongguk," he mutters in response. "Jeon Jeongguk."

"Jeongguk," the man repeats nice and slow. His name sounds like honey dripping from the man's tongue, and Jeongguk wishes he could turn and properly see him. "My name is Namjoon. But you can call me sir."

"Yes, sir," Jeongguk responds without thinking. 

Namjoon chuckles deeply, leaving the slums for the wealthy outskirts before veering off into the countryside. At the speed which Namjoon is driving, the outside may as well be a black abyss, shrouded in shadow. Headlights and taillights streak by as Namjoon weaves through lanes. And then, up ahead, Jeongguk sees it. 

The bright glow of a large headlight shines up ahead, and as they approach, Jeongguk realizes the other headlight is obstructed by what hardly looks like a black car. The front of it is smashed almost like an accordion, surrounded in exploded glass. 

“It’s safe to say he won’t be bothering you anymore,” Namjoon announces with a smile in his voice. 

“Why did you do this?” Jeongguk mutters, unable to tear his eyes away from the crash. 

“Look at me,” Namjoon commands, and Jeongguk’s head snaps to the left before he is able to think. 

Namjoon is devilishly handsome – eyes sharp, dark almonds and heavy-lidded, with pillow lips pulled into a smirk. "I didn't like the way he touched you," he explains, lifting a hand to delicately caress Jeongguk's cheek. The touch is ice cold and electric, making Jeongguk suck in air quickly through his teeth. 

Sirens and lights blare from in front of them and behind, and Namjoon lifts his eyebrow, then says, "Well, this is our cue to go!" while flashing a smile so bright, it gives Jeongguk chills.

Namjoon reverses and then whips around, tires screeching as the car does a 180 and speeds off back toward town. Jeongguk continues to watch Namjoon, eyes stuck on his side profile, in part because he is so beautiful, but also because he has not been given instruction to look elsewhere. 

How Namjoon is able to weave through cop cars, fire trucks, and an ambulance without anyone turning their attention to him is beyond Jeongguk, but he is unable to think too deeply about it, mind too full of fog. Jeongguk expected Namjoon to continue driving deeper into the countryside and take him somewhere terrifyingly secluded, and he is surprised when the city lights return. 

"What is a pretty thing like you doing in a place like that, anyway?" Namjoon asks, breaking a tense silence. 

Jeongguk continues to stare at the side of Namjoon's face, feeling his pulse quicken when the man turns his gaze to him briefly with a hint of a smile. 

"Places like that are where all pretty things like me end up," Jeongguk mutters somewhat methodically. He has more thoughts on the matter, but he finds that all his brain and mouth will offer are exact responses. 

"And why is that?" Namjoon asks as he pulls to a red light and turns his full attention to Jeongguk.

Tears build in the edges of Jeongguk's eyes. He cannot tell whether it is because he has not blinked since he was told to look at Namjoon, or if the man has struck a nerve. He thinks perhaps it is somewhere in the middle. 

"I'm a dropout with no direction," Jeongguk responds quietly, voice cracking around his words. "No rich parents…I don't have anything to offer but my body."

Ordinarily, when Jeongguk bothers to open up to men, they put on a pitying act. They promise Jeongguk this and that while assuring him that he does have purpose – he does have something to offer to the world. Namjoon, on the other hand, perks up. He practically snarls. And when the light turns green, he continues watching Jeongguk for a few more tense seconds. 

"Ah, yes," the man finally says as he returns his gaze to the street and continues driving. "Another pretty face who could disappear and nobody would miss them."

Although Jeongguk feels like Namjoon is mocking him, there is no mockery in his tone. He is so perfectly matter of fact, that Jeongguk is unable to feel angry if he wanted to, because he is a classic case of a nobody, as far as anyone is concerned; Namjoon could murder him tonight and the only person who would notice him missing would be his boss, and even she wouldn't go looking for him. 

"Do you like that job?" Namjoon asks as they begin to wind through darker streets that Jeongguk assumes is a more residential area. 

Jeongguk quietly mutters, "No."

"Are there aspects about it you like at all?"

"I like dancing," Jeongguk responds as tears break and streak down his cheeks. His eyes feel dry and heavy, and he forces himself to partially blink, finding that his eyes will not close entirely. "And I like the attention. Getting spoiled by rich men is fun, but I wish most of them weren't so gross."

Namjoon laughs, turning his attention briefly to Jeongguk. His eyes appear to be dark black pools of nothing, and Jeongguk does not have a mind to question it. 

"Do you think I'm gross?" he asks in a playful tone.

"No," Jeongguk responds instantly. "You're the most beautiful man I've ever seen."

"And if I want to spoil you?" Namjoon continues as he seems to pull to the side of the road but keeps his ignition on. He turns to fully face Jeongguk, cocking his head to the side.

"Please," Jeongguk all but whispers, then he clears his throat. "It will hurt like hell when you abandon me, but I'm used to it."

If Jeongguk were not spellbound, he would surely feel embarrassed over his admission. Being this honest with strange men is not his wheelhouse; he has never fully admitted to his feelings with anyone in the past. 

"And if I choose not to abandon you?" Namjoon asks as he scrapes his pearly teeth over his plush bottom lip. Jeongguk's eyes follow the movement; he desperately wants to know how that lip feels between his own teeth. 

"Don't tease me," Jeongguk responds, voice slow and distracted as he continues to stare at Namjoon's mouth. 

Namjoon smiles wide and Jeongguk could swear his incisors were sharper than before. As he runs his tongue along the bottom edge of one pointed tooth, Jeongguk's heart gallops behind his ribs. 

"Not a tease," Namjoon says with a snarl, sharp smile remaining on display. "But it would come with a price."

Jeongguk swallows thickly, gaze stuck on Namjoon's devilishly inviting mouth. "And wh-what is the price?"

Rather than respond, Namjoon shuts off the ignition. "Follow me," he commands as he gets out of the car, and for a split moment, Jeongguk's body pulls toward the driver's seat before correcting and opening the passenger side door. 

Namjoon rounds the hood of the car and approaches a large, angular house set back in tall, spiky trees that appear massive in the pitch dark. Although there are other houses around, there is a feeling of seclusion as Jeongguk follows Namjoon down a short path and up a set of cement steps that lead to the side of the home rather than the front of it. 

"Are you scared?" Namjoon asks over his shoulder.

Shadow closes in the further they walk. Jeongguk wants to say no, and he is disappointed when his mouth utters, "A little."

Namjoon punches a long passcode into a keypad, then pulls the massive wooden door open, holding out his hand as if to invite Jeongguk to enter. Only Jeongguk cannot enter, because his instruction was to follow. 

"If I break the spell will you run?" Namjoon asks with a playful lift of an eyebrow.

"No," Jeongguk answers plainly. Where would he even go?

With a snap of Namjoon's fingers, Jeongguk's shoulders quickly droop and his body adjusts to the natural force of gravity that holds him. He takes in a deep breath, feeling his lungs fill painfully as his dry eyes blink away the last of the tears that had formed. Jeongguk is able to weigh whether or not he wants to enter this man's home, and even though he is certain that Namjoon is not entirely human, he finds he does not care. 

So, with another deep breath, Jeongguk steps forward, into the dark space. He can hardly see what is in front of him, but he takes a few more steps and begins to toe out of his loosely laced boots, shaking his ankles until they hit the floor with a hollow thunk, one after the other, then bending to remove his socks, as well, worried they might stink. 

Namjoon's home seems to come alive as the man walks deeper through the foyer and into a large living room. Sconces light on their own – faint golden glows that illuminate just enough but keep the space somewhat dark. The walls have deep red wallpaper with dark wood wainscoting, and there are large portraits hung throughout the space, all of which look like Namjoon painted during various artistic periods throughout history. 

"This is…" Jeongguk mutters, eyes trailing from a faded image of Namjoon painted somewhat crudely over yellowed parchment to a clearer painting of Namjoon dressed as a nobleman in a style that would be centuries more recent than the last, but centuries older than the one they live in, now.

"Impressive?" Namjoon asks.

Jeongguk shakes his head, stopping in his tracks to look at his host fully. "Weird. This is fucking weird."

Namjoon smiles widely, standing tall before Jeongguk – as beautiful as he is terrifying. Jeongguk wants to lean close and run his hands over the man's chest and push away the lapels of his expensive jacket.

"I suppose it is quite weird," Namjoon responds, gaze becoming somewhat sad. "Seeing all and surpassing everyone I have ever come to know…hiding away as a monster…all of it is, indeed, quite weird."

Although Jeongguk is certain that he has full control of himself, the tingle persists, settling at the base of his spine and spreading a curious, eager warmth throughout. "Make me into a monster like you," he utters without really considering what he asks for. 

Namjoon squints, gaze curious, almost mocking. “Do you know for what you ask, little one?”

And, sure, Jeongguk could wager a guess, but all he responds with in the moment is a petulant utterance of, “I’m basically the same height and build as you.”

With a hum, Namjoon takes a step forward, causing Jeongguk's entire body to react. He feels like cornered prey as his hips twist and he backs into the wall, heel hitting polished wood as a brass sconce scrapes the side of his head. Namjoon truly is only a bit taller but he looms over a cowering Jeongguk as he stands his full height, elongating his spine to look down at him. 

"Yes, you are a sizable match in many ways," Namjoon says softly, raising a hand to gently detangle Jeongguk's hair from the elaborate sconce. "But I have lived lifetimes before finding you. Dynasties have risen, fallen, and faded into obscurity, and I have seen all. I could snuff your life out in the blink of an eye, like a tiny little rodent."

The absurdity in Namjoon's statement makes Jeongguk want to laugh, only he finds all he can do is snicker before something in Namjoon's presence makes his mouth rest. He has already experienced the man's magic…could he be telling the truth?

"Do it," Jeongguk urges, eager to reach out and touch Namjoon but incapable of lifting his arms. 

"You don't know what you're asking for," Namjoon responds lowly, eyes appearing sad despite the edges of his lips rising. 

"Aren't you lonely?" Jeongguk urges. He has no idea whether he and Namjoon would even get along, or whether they could be sexually compatible, but he is desperate for a life outside the one he has known for so long. 

Namjoon smirks and drags his ice cold hands along the curve of Jeongguk's neck, making him shiver. His jacket hangs open, and Namjoon gently pushes the material back, running the backs of his hands down Jeongguk's chest, ribs, abdominals. 

"You're so cold," Jeongguk mutters under his breath, watching as Namjoon's gaze follows his own hands. "Cold as death."

"That is correct, little one," Namjoon says, eyes flicking to his. "My own blood has not flowed through my veins for centuries."

Although Jeongguk struggles to wrap his mind around everything Namjoon says, it feels real…sort of. "Are you a zombie?" he mutters half to himself, not fully intending to say the words aloud. 

Namjoon's eyes crinkle, his cheeks dimple, and he laughs. He laughs loud and boisterous, sounds echoing throughout dark space, and Jeongguk is certain that he has never seen or heard something more beautiful in his life. With a shake of his head, Namjoon continues to laugh, and Jeongguk stands and waits while the smallest smile creeps over his own lips.

"Not a zombie," Namjoon replies, still shaking his head. "But I am technically undead."

In a flash, Namjoon's expression darkens. His eyes go almost pitch black, and his incisors sharpen before Jeongguk's eyes, confirming that what he saw earlier was not a mistake. The familiar tingle works its way up Jeongguk's spine, only this time, it triggers his fight or flight response. All he can do is freeze.

"Namjoon," Jeongguk mutters as he presses further into the wall, hands shakily grazing over the ridges of wooden panels.

"You seem so eager to know what kind of monster I am," Namjoon responds, leaning close and wafting cold breath that reeks of decaying flowers over Jeongguk's face. "Shall I show you?"

"I—" Jeongguk croaks, voice becoming lost in his throat. 

The tips of Namjoon's frigid fingers begin to dig into the skin of Jeongguk's tummy, just above his waistline, by his left hip. He doesn't remember Namjoon having long or sharp nails, but he swears he can feel his skin begin to puncture – he finds he is too afraid to look. 

"You…what?" Namjoon prompts, dark eyes pooling with black abyss. "Too frightened to speak?"

Jeongguk's lips tremble, creaking broken sounds that find no resolve. He is absolutely horrified, and more curious than he has ever felt about anything before. 

Namjoon lifts a hand, proving that what Jeongguk felt was real – the index and middle fingers have sharp claw-like nails that drip with blood. Jeongguk can feel wet warmth on his left hip, but he does not look; he can only stare as Namjoon lifts his hand to his lips and sucks the blood from his fingers. 

The sounds Namjoon makes are borderline pornographic – hums and groans of pleasure. Jeongguk watches intently as Namjoon pulls his fingers from between his inviting lip – as Namjoon's pink tongue pokes out and laps up a drop of blood that has run between his fingers. 

He knows he should glance down and assess what Namjoon has done to him, and he practically begs his brain to allow his gaze to move. He almost feels caught in the same trance as earlier, only Namjoon has not commanded anything; how is he trapped in place, unable to look away?

"God, I love that look of fear, confusion, intrigue," Namjoon purrs, voice somehow deeper than Jeongguk remembers. "We should really tend to that wound. Wouldn't want it to kill you."

"Would it?" Jeongguk murmurs, feeling somewhat dissociated from his skin. He does not feel pain, but he can feel the trickle of blood. 

Namjoon begins to sink down to his knees, gaze never leaving Jeongguk's. Only when Namjoon settles and sits high, leaning toward where his nails dug deep enough to puncture skin, does Jeongguk see the wound. It does not bleed too badly, but it is leaving a wet black spot on his black pants. 

Without a word, Namjoon opens Jeongguk's black denim jacket and pins the fabric to the wall with both palms. Then he leans in and licks a slow, firm path from the waistline of Jeongguk's jeans and over the wound. 

Namjoon groans, eyelids fluttering as he licks and sucks. All Jeongguk can do is stare, watching Namjoon's tongue streak deep red before disappearing. Jeongguk cannot deny that it feels good. In fact, the visual of Namjoon on his knees before him, lapping at his skin with such hunger while his dark eyes stay on Jeongguk's face has arousal coursing through his veins just as quickly as oxygen does. 

Jeongguk's cock begins to harden, and he decides it is best not to allow the myriad questions and concerns muddy the spell that Namjoon must have him under. One particularly firm flick of Namjoon's tongue makes Jeongguk shiver, and before he knows it, the pleasure he feels is enough to make him sigh out a hint of a moan. This catches Namjoon's attention and makes him grin, lips stained with blood and yet so inviting. 

"Please," Jeongguk whispers, fingertips tingling to reach forward but planted to the wall. 

"Please…what, little one?"

Without a clue as to what he is asking for, Jeongguk simply watches as Namjoon's hands lift from the wall and begin to rub over Jeongguk's skin, along the hem of his pants, to the fly, where he works the button open. Blood and saliva cover Namjoon's chin, and his ice cold fingers send another shiver down his spine.

Namjoon's eyes fall to Jeongguk's jeans – undoubtedly to the bulge that lifts the fabric – then he glances back up, grin widening with his sharp white teeth on display. He scrapes his tongue along his teeth before asking, "That turned you on?"

Jeongguk could swear Namjoon's pupils were brighter than before. No longer are they deep black pools, shining a rich umber that appear outlined in red – a trick of the light, Jeongguk surmises – and making him more alluring than ever.

All Jeongguk can do is nod, mouth too heavy and dry to make coherent sound. That did turn him on, and he is terrified of what it could mean for him. 

In a blink, Namjoon is standing before him. Jeongguk startles, bumping his head into the sconce and wincing from the pain. Namjoon's chin is still smeared pinkish-red, and his breath smells like decaying flowers and iron. 

"Do I scare you, little one?"

Jeongguk's exhale trembles from his lips, and his voice is barely audible as he says, "You know you scare me."

"Do you like it?"

Jeongguk doesn't give himself a chance to mull it over. "Sort of."

"I can scare you more if you would prefer."

Although he is certain that he should not be asking leading questions to someone who has proven himself to be a literal monster, Jeongguk swallows thickly then asks, "Why would you want to do that?"

Namjoon licks his lips and hums, putting on a show of thinking over his response. Then he leans in close to Jeongguk's ear, groaning through his words. "There is something about the way your blood courses through your veins when you are afraid that makes it taste…so…sweet."

Jeongguk's fight or flight impulse returns, and he tenses. Suddenly he wants to run far, far away from Namjoon. Worse, he thinks that he would like Namjoon to give chase. 

"God, I can smell the fear on you, little one," Namjoon whines, rubbing his nose over Jeongguk's throat. "I'll give you a ten second head start if you want to run."

"Shit," Jeongguk mutters, suddenly unglued from the wall, limbs relaxing only to tense back up again. He was definitely just under Namjoon's spell, and he had no clear confirmation of it while it happened.

"Ten…" Namjoon says with a grin, taking a large step backward. 

Jeongguk looks around the darkened space, unsure where he could even go.

Then Namjoon lifts a brow and cocks his head to the side as if silently asking Jeongguk what he is waiting for as he says, "Nine…"

Jeongguk runs to the right, deeper into the large house, blinking in the darkness while he attempts to get his bearings. There is no way he could hope to fight Namjoon off, so he does not attempt to go to the kitchen to search for anything sharp or heavy to use as a weapon. Not that he wants to fight Namjoon off, but a voice in the back of his head is telling him that he should.

Namjoon's voice echoes from behind him, calling, "Eight!"

Stairs come into view and Jeongguk storms upward, taking two at a time in the darkness, tripping over himself at the top landing and stumbling before pummeling shoulder first into a wall. 

"Seven!"

There is a faint golden glow that comes from the far end of a long hall and Jeongguk runs toward it, bare feet sliding along hardwood and stomping onto carpeting. He can vaguely make out more portraits and photographs lining the walls, as well as closed and open doors.

"Six!"

Jeongguk slams his open palms into the door, which is cracked a few inches, and he stumbles into a bedroom. He is surprised by the furnishings, eyes finding velvet upholstery, intricately carved wood on a large four-poster bed, and matching wooden dressers and vanity. 

"Five!"

Briefly, he considers hiding, but if Namjoon is truly able to smell his fear, he does not think he would be able to stay concealed for very long. He turns somewhat uselessly, noting a door that he assumes leads to a closet, lounge chairs deeper in the room, and a large glass door at the far end. 

Running toward the door, he considers whether he may be able to jump off the balcony and chastises himself for not just running outside while he was still downstairs. This is how characters are caught in horror films, he reminds himself – by running upstairs instead of outside.

"Four!"

There is absolutely no way Namjoon wouldn't find him, if what he has said is true. But what if it is not? Jeongguk considers that some of what he has said could have been simply to scare him.

With a heavy sigh, Jeongguk pushes back thick, blood red curtains in search of which side of the glass panel is a door. On the far right, there is a black metal handle, with a small metal latch that Jeongguk works open. 

"Three!" 

Jeongguk feels a surge of excitement as he throws the door open, then instantly regrets his choice as he steps out into the cool night air. The balcony is large and rectangular, made of wrought iron and concrete, and it overlooks a steep hill that leads down to a large pond. Even if he could jump down safely, where the fuck would he go? 

Without a proper shirt, he could catch  any number of ailments from submerging himself in that water. But all thought of wanting to play Namjoon's game seeps away as Jeongguk's mind screams at him to get the fuck away from this house. 

"Two!" 

And there is no way in hell he would be able to outrun the man. Namjoon has already proven that he has the ability to move too fast for Jeongguk to even fathom. Fear spikes, and his teeth begin to rattle in the cold night air. All of this seems futile, and yet…he has to try. 

Namjoon's voice calling, "One!" is all Jeongguk needs to close the glass door behind him and then run to the edge of the balcony. He hardly thinks of the repercussions as he throws his legs over the railing, one after the other. With a glance over his shoulder, he tells himself that if he can manage to land on his feet and roll down the hill, he has a pretty good chance at survival. 

Jeongguk releases his hold on the railing, but rather than falling down, two strong, ice cold hands grip onto his wrists and yank him upward. 

"Going somewhere, little one?" Namjoon teases as he effortlessly returns Jeongguk to the balcony. 

Jeongguk cries out and trembles in the cold air, taking a step backward as soon as Namjoon lets go of his hands. His lower back hits the railing and he gasps, feeling like cornered prey once more.

"I thought you liked being afraid of me," Namjoon pouts, closing the space between them. "Were we not just playing a game?"

"I do…we are…I just—" Jeongguk cannot get his thoughts straight. Truth be told, as much as he considered flinging himself over the balcony, all he really wanted was for Namjoon to catch him. And catch him, he has. But what does this mean for Jeongguk? 

"Are you afraid of death?" Namjoon asks, cocking his head to the side. His reddish-brown eyes seem to glow in the pale light of the moon.

Without hesitation, Jeongguk shakes his head, muttering, "No."

"But you are afraid of me?"

As Jeongguk licks his lips, he watches Namjoon's eyes follow the movement. He wants Namjoon's tongue back on his body, and maybe…just maybe…he wants to become whatever Namjoon is.

"Sort of," he admits.

Namjoon steps so close, Jeongguk can feel the cold radiate from him. But he likes the way Namjoon's thigh slots between his legs. He likes how Namjoon's lips feel as they graze his throat as he says, "Elaborate, my sweet."

"I want to know you," Jeongguk says, eyes fluttering closed. "I want to become like you. But I don't…I don't know what that means."

"Life as you know it will be over," Namjoon breathes against his neck, forcing each of Jeongguk's exhales to shake from his lungs. 

Jeongguk is certain that there is nothing more inviting than leaving his life behind. "I know. That's what I want."

Namjoon takes a step back, just far enough that he can look Jeongguk in the eye. For the first time, he appears uncertain, and perhaps even a little sad. His hands gently cup Jeongguk's face, thumb leaving a chilled path over his cheek. "The first few months of this new existence will be full of pain and confusion."

With a scoff, Jeongguk mutters, "My entire life has been full of pain and confusion."

There is understanding in Namjoon's eyes, and Jeongguk questions everything he knows about the man. Could someone so delicate and handsome really be a monster? 

But then Jeongguk remembers the wound on his hip, and the superhuman speed, and the way Namjoon can command Jeongguk to think and do exactly what he wants. And he thinks he wants to have that kind of power all to himself. 

Without another word, Namjoon takes Jeongguk's hand and pulls him back inside the warmth of his bedroom. He releases Jeongguk's hand to close and lock the sliding glass door, and then he pulls the deep red curtains closed, leaving the two of them in the golden glow of a lamp that sits on the other side of the room, beside the massive bed. 

Namjoon turns and begins to make his way toward the bed, arms lifted and moving in a way that suggests he may be unbuttoning his jacket. It takes Jeongguk a moment to follow him, stepping softly onto an intricate rug that covers most of the floor. 

"I don't turn people often," Namjoon says as he looks over his shoulder and then begins to shrug out of his jacket. "In fact, I only planned to drain you tonight. If you were interested, I would have wanted to fuck you first, but ultimately, the plan was to leave you to die."

Something about Namjoon's candor is not only oddly comforting, but alluring. Perhaps Jeongguk should be most concerned with the bit about draining him and leaving him to die, but all he finds he can circle back to is the thought of Namjoon wanting to fuck him. 

Of course, he saw the way Namjoon licked at his skin, and his jeans are still unbuttoned from Namjoon opening them before deciding he would rather play a sordid game of cat and mouse. So it should really come as no surprise.

"Guess that makes me special," Jeongguk responds somewhat cheekily, feeling there is still a bit of a heaviness that hangs in the air, making him nervous. 

Namjoon spins on socked feet with his black button-up shirt halfway undone, nimble fingers working a button just below his pecs. The expanse of bare skin is inviting, and paired with the hungry look in Namjoon's eyes, it sends a thrill through Jeongguk.

"I have been wanting a companion for some time," Namjoon says, "and you do seem like a worthy man. You are very pretty, and I like your attitude."

"A companion?" Jeongguk responds, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He is not exactly a relationship type of guy, and suddenly, he feels a bit apprehensive. "Don't you think that's moving a little fast?"

In a blink, Namjoon is standing before Jeongguk, pushing at the collar of his jacket. Jeongguk actually chuckles at the thought that Namjoon's response to his remark was to quite literally move too fast. 

"Once I turn you," Namjoon mutters as Jeongguk's denim is pushed past his shoulders and begins to slide down his arms, "you will depend wholly on me for quite some time. Your hunger and other urges will be so strong that it will physically pain you to exist, and I will be the only tether you will have to any sense of sanity."

With a roll of his eyes, Jeongguk says, "You make it sound so dramatic," all the while his jacket crumples on the rug around his feet. 

Namjoon grabs the black tie that hangs around Jeongguk's neck and gently yanks on it, forcing Jeongguk to stumble into Namjoon and place his palms against his cold, muscular chest.

"Not to mention," Namjoon adds with a lift of his brow, "after I fuck you, you won't want to leave my side."

At this, Jeongguk scoffs, rubbing his hands over Namjoon's clothed nipples, which harden to the touch. His shirt hangs open around the waistline, still tucked in and forgotten. 

"I've been with a lot of men," Jeongguk challenges, tilting his head to the side. "A lot of men who have made a lot of empty promises. What makes you think you're so special?"

Namjoon's grip on the tie tightens, then releases, and he reaches for Jeongguk's left wrist, gently lifting it to his lips. 

"Oh, my darling boy," he mutters, lips dragging over Jeongguk's skin. "I have experienced centuries of pleasure. Those so-called men could not possibly fathom what I have to offer. And, not to mention…" Namjoon lifts his mouth and smiles widely, showing off his sharp teeth in a way that is both too menacing and intriguing for Jeongguk to comprehend. "...I can show you pleasurable pain the likes of which so few living men have ever experienced."

Without warning, Namjoon sinks his teeth into Jeongguk's wrist. The pain is so white-hot intense that Jeongguk's entire body tenses and he attempts to yank himself free. Namjoon's eyes open widely before rolling back, and he moans with pleasure as he retracts the teeth that have left two puncture marks in Jeongguk's skin, and he begins to suck. 

Blood play is something that Jeongguk has always done his best to steer clear of, and now this monstrous man has already made him bleed twice. What is more, Namjoon seems to really enjoy the taste of his blood – is this what he meant by draining Jeongguk and leaving him to die? Does Namjoon actually drink blood?

Jeongguk almost misses the tingle that works over his skin, leaving goosebumps and warmth in its wake. "You son of a bitch," he mumbles, knees turning loose like gelatin. "You're charming me again, aren't you?"

With a deep groan, Namjoon releases Jeongguk's wrist. Blood pools in two tooth-sized holes, and he is certain that he would be panicking over the blood loss if it were not for the mind control, or whatever the fuck Namjoon is done to him. 

"I prefer the term compulsion, but charm works, too," Namjoon says. He drags his tongue over Jeongguk's wrist, streaking it with red. 

"Will you be able to do this to me even after you have made me whatever you are?"

Namjoon smirks, responding, "Sadly, no. My charm only works on humans. Living humans." He drops Jeongguk's wrist, and even Jeongguk is surprised by how heavy his arm feels; he wonders if he is only standing because Namjoon has somehow commanded his limbs to do so. 

"I like the charm," Jeongguk mutters, feeling somewhat dizzy and light. "I like how shimmery and floaty it makes me. But I want to experience the fear and the pain. Please."

Jeongguk knows, somewhere in his mind, that what he is asking for might be something he comes to regret. But if what Namjoon says is true – if he really is going to transform Jeongguk into something not human – then Jeongguk wants to feel those intense human emotions one last time.

With a wide grin, Namjoon reaches down and begins to unzip Jeongguk's jeans. "As you wish, my pretty little human," he says, dropping to his knees. "But don't be surprised if it becomes unbearable. Now…let us finish what we started downstairs, shall we?"

He is silent and still as his senses return, watching as Namjoon reaches with sharp nails into the waistband of Jeongguk's briefs and begins to yank his garments down. Slowly, Jeongguk lifts his arm, feeling somewhat distressed that his wrist continues to bleed enough that blood runs down his palm and drips from his fingers. 

He even considers whether he should bandage the wound and apply pressure and all of that first aid stuff, but the feeling of Namjoon's ice cold palms gripping onto his half-hard cock has all thought leaving Jeongguk's mind. 

"Whoa," Jeongguk mutters, feeling the forces of gravity momentarily disagree with his body as he shifts on his feet in an attempt not to fall. Even from just a single touch, Jeongguk is buzzing and needy for more. 

"Ever do temperature play?" Namjoon asks as his hands stroke Jeongguk to fully erect. 

Jeongguk is not sure he even knows what that is, and he shakes his head, saying, "No."

"Some find the chill of my mouth to be rather exquisite," Namjoon responds without missing a beat, sitting high on his knees. 

The cold, wet drag of Namjoon's tongue along the length of Jeongguk's shaft makes him groan and shiver. It is striking how different it feels, and he struggles somewhat to get his bearings. And then Namjoon opens wide and engulfs Jeongguk's cock, causing him to sob out from how cold but simultaneously wet and inviting his mouth is. 

"Fuck," Jeongguk groans, lifting his hands to grip onto Namjoon's lavender hair. "Holy fuck."

Namjoon sucks Jeongguk's dick with a fervor he has never experienced. With seemingly no gag reflex, Namjoon swallows deep and hard, groaning when Jeongguk's hips buck and tremble uncontrollably. Pleasure builds and crashes inside him, and he worries he may cum in an instant. 

And then he feels the sharp drag of teeth against his cock, and fear spikes so intensely that he roughly tugs on Namjoon's hair, to no avail. Namjoon stares up at Jeongguk as he presses the tip of his cock far into his throat, causing tears to form in his pretty, dangerous eyes. 

He is certain that Namjoon is fucking with him – making him feel the fear that he asked for only moment ago – and he does his best to relax. With his pants and briefs hugging around his ankles, it is not as if Jeongguk would be able to go anywhere, anyway; Namjoon more or less has him trapped, as always. 

Namjoon hums deep as his eyes flutter closed and he slurps and sucks, picking up speed. He wraps his hands around Jeongguk's hips and manually rocks Jeongguk against him, forcing him to fuck his mouth. Jeongguk finds the rhythm with his hips, though the pleasure is so overwhelming, he is certain that he will bust very soon. 

"Oh, god," Jeongguk moans, head lolling back while he continues to hold Namjoon by the hair. "I'm gonna cum."

As he chases his high, his hips rock faster, and Namjoon accommodates without any trouble, slurping and sucking and humming to the rhythm of Jeongguk's body. Even as flashes of Namjoon's terrible superhuman speed and affinity to lick his bleeding wounds play through his mind, Jeongguk only becomes more aroused rather than disgusted, pushing him over the edge. 

Namjoon swallows deeply the moment Jeongguk opens his mouth to croak out a warning that only falls from his lips as a moan. He cums hard, whimpering and sobbing as his body bends at the hips and threatens to topple over. Somehow, Jeongguk remains on his feet, hands sliding down to Namjoon's shoulders to anchor himself up. 

When Namjoon finally releases his cock, Jeongguk is relieved to find there is no blood. His relief is quickly dashed, however, when he notices red streaks in Namjoon's hair and realizes his wrist is still bleeding. Not only that, but he feels incredibly dizzy, and he is certain that it cannot be entirely from how talented Namjoon is at sucking dick. 

As Jeongguk lightly lifts his left arm and watches blood trickle past his fingers, he sighs. He should really be more concerned about bleeding to death, and he wonders if Namjoon has compelled him not to care. 

"On the bed," Namjoon instructs as he stands and finishes untucking and unbuttoning his black dress shirt. "I want to enjoy you while you're still warm."

Jeongguk grumbles something under his breath that even he is uncertain of, then stumbles forward, forgetting that his pants are still snug around his ankles. He reaches for Namjoon, who takes hold of his non-bleeding arm, and uses him as leverage to step out of his right pant leg and then his left. 

Wearing only the black tie around his neck, Jeongguk shuffles over to the bed, placing his palms against cold black satin and hoisting himself up. He is definitely woozy, and he practically falls face-first onto the blanket before crawling to where he surmises is the center. 

The mattress dips and Jeongguk is shoved down against the bed, gasping as he uselessly tries to find purchase against the sheet. Cold hands press his ass and spread him wide before an even colder tongue laps over his hole, making Jeongguk tremble and sob. 

Namjoon is rough with the way he prods Jeongguk open, barely giving him time to adjust before stretching him further. Jeongguk would beg for him to slow down if he weren't so enthralled with the way Namjoon handles him, and he wonders once again if he is charmed by the monster, as well. 

"So pliant and tight," Namjoon groans. "And so warm."

Jeongguk loses track of which ice cold appendage or muscle prises him open, occasionally feeling one wetter than the others. It isn't until Namjoon shoves him roughly onto his back that Jeongguk watches a beautifully nude monster in the form of a human man spread his thighs nice and wide and begin to spear him on his thick, frigid cock.

When barely a sound louder than a croak comes from between Jeongguk's lips, Namjoon pouts mockingly, whining, "Awe, don't die just yet, little one; give me one more orgasm first."

All Jeongguk can do is lay and take what Namjoon gives him, barely capable of moving his own limbs. The bed is soaked with blood that he knows has come from his wrist, and although Namjoon's cock feels incredible inside him, he is unsure whether his own cock is hard at all. 

"Fuck," Namjoon groans as he leans forward with one hand anchored against the bed. He looks impatient as he lifts his other wrist to his mouth and pierces his teeth into the flesh. 

Jeongguk gasps at the sight, certain that now they are both doomed; surely they cannot both survive puncture wounds to their arteries. Never mind everything Namjoon said earlier about surviving centuries, and all that. 

Namjoon, on the other hand, only seems mildly inconvenienced as he holds his wrist above Jeongguk's face and allows his blood to drip down onto his mouth. 

At first, Jeongguk flinches, disgusted by the ice cold, thick and brassy blood that drops onto his lips and chin. He closes his lips tight in the hope of keeping any of the liquid from seeping in. But then he gets a taste of the blood, and everything changes. 

Instantly, Jeongguk feels a pull to Namjoon that seems to take him by storm. He needs the blood, and he needs it now – of that, he is certain. 

Jeongguk reaches up with weak hands and grips onto Namjoon's hand and arm, tugging the bleeding wrist down to his lips. With an amused chuckle, Namjoon complies, giving Jeongguk what he needs while continuing to fuck into him. 

The combination of drinking blood from Namjoon's wrist while getting fucked by him feels like there is glitter shimmering in his bloodstream, alighting every blood vessel. Arousal crashes more intensely than it had before, and Jeongguk not only feels healed from his earlier wound, but he feels strong. 

The blood also tastes better than anything Jeongguk has ever sampled before, and he is desperate to get his fill, eyes rolling back as he moans and sucks and moans some more. He feels fucking drunk. 

Namjoon is a mess of groans and whimpers, and he begins to yank his wrist away from Jeongguk, who grips tightly with both hands as if his life depends on it. He is certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that without this blood, he may die. 

"Enough, little one," Namjoon grits, clearly struggling as his hips continue their assault, smacking sounds echoing loudly in the otherwise quiet room. Before, Jeongguk could swear he heard and felt the pounding of his own heart, but now there is nothing.

Jeongguk finally releases his hold, moaning and sobbing through the quick, dizzying build and crash of an orgasm. Without warning, he sprays cum on his tummy, only to feel the pleasure build and build once again. 

"Yes, that's it," Namjoon moans, reaching to cradle Jeongguk's head, which lolls uselessly against the satin sheet, "I want you to cum again."

Namjoon grips onto Jeongguk's thighs, spreading him impossibly wider, and fucks him at a pace so punishing, he worries Namjoon's cock might burrow too deep inside him. Briefly, he considers begging for a break, but the feeling is so euphoric, he only teeters on the edge of overstimulation without fully plunging over. 

But then he begins to black out. Little blips of time and space at first, before he wonders if he is imagining things, entirely. Jeongguk blinks his heavy eyelids open to find Namjoon appearing like some kind of beast from hell with long, sharp teeth and glowing red eyes, fucking him with a fervor that almost feels like hatred. 

And then he imagines his chest being clawed open. The pain is dreadful, but he is also being fucked so good, he is incapable of reconciling the two feelings. He even thinks that perhaps all the blood in his body erupts from his chest cavity in one final, harrowing tug of strong cold hands ripping him at his ribs like an animal carcass. 

And then he wakes up.

He feels no pain or fatigue as his eyes blink open. In fact, he feels more invigorated and alert than he has in all of his life. There is nobody in the bed beside him, and as he glances around, he realizes that it must be dark outside, which begs the question of whether it is the same night, or whether he has fucked and slept well into the following night. 

The events of his night with Namjoon are so eerie, that as they seep in and he begins to remember what happened, he almost feels confused. Certainly none of that could have been real, but he clearly remembers the man existing, and he has woken up in a bed that must belong to Namjoon. 

Jeongguk sits up and stretches his limbs, pleased with how incredible he feels. He thinks that he could run a marathon and hardly break a sweat with the energy that courses through him, and he surprises himself with how it takes hardly any exertion at all to toss the comforter aside. 

Discarded on the floor are his jeans, briefs, and jacket, and folded on the nightstand appears to be his tie. However, Jeongguk decides that he is feeling brazen, and he stands from the bed and heads for the door in the nude. He feels so invigorated that he wants to find Namjoon and entice him into bending him over whichever surface they encounter first and fucking him until he is dizzy. 

As Jeongguk makes his way out of the master suite and down along the second floor hallway, he becomes aware of two things simultaneously. The first is the smell, and the second is the sound.

Just before the top landing of the stairs, to the right, there is a door cracked open and a light on inside, and without giving it any thought whatsoever, Jeongguk knows that what he senses is coming from that room, so he picks up his pace and walks a little quicker, feet padding over a soft rug that lines the center of the hallway. 

Nothing can prepare Jeongguk for what he walks in on when he opens the door, nor can it ready him for the way the scene makes him feel. 

In the dead center of a rather small, dimly lit room, is a nude person restrained by the wrists and ankles to a large wooden X. Blood pours from the person's left wrist and arm, and Namjoon stands off to the side, to the right of the person, also nude with blood covering his chin. 

Before Jeongguk can make his presence known, Namjoon's eyes are on him, and his grin is wide. "Hello, my little fledgling," Namjoon calls somewhat menacingly as he turns his body fully to Jeongguk and opens his arms wide and invitingly.

Jeongguk should be horrified, but instead he is filled with an overwhelming need to taste. He shuffles forward, almost robotically, and approaches Namjoon, slotting himself against his side, beneath one of his open arms. And then he begins to lick the blood from Namjoon's chin. 

The person restrained to the X groans – the sound that Jeongguk is certain he heard earlier – and rather than filling him with the urge to save or protect the person, Jeongguk finds he almost wants to mock the person and make them produce even more desperate sounds. In fact, Jeongguk finds that more than anything, he wants to rip the person's skin open and drink all of their blood. 

"I trust you slept well?" Namjoon asks sweetly as Jeongguk finishes lapping the blood from his chin and turns his attention to their captor. 

"I did," Jeongguk mutters, surprised by the quality of his own voice. He sounds dreamy, almost as if he is put under yet another one of Namjoon's spells, only this time, all he can focus on is the blood that trickles down the stranger's arm. 

Namjoon's fingertips on Jeongguk's chin and throat no longer feel cold, yet Jeongguk shivers to the touch as Namjoon asks, "And how do you feel?"

Moments ago, Jeongguk felt more alive than ever before, but now—

"Hungry."

To simply say he feels hungry is an understatement, but Jeongguk is so wholly enthralled by the wriggling person captive before him, it is all he can express. 

Fingertips push back at the hair around Jeongguk's forehead and neck in a delicate motion that makes him swoon for blood even more. Is this his life now? To crave and to drink and be loved? Is Namjoon really the monster he says he is?

"Feed, my darling. Drink until you feel their pulse still."

A strange pain overtakes Jeongguk's mouth, and he quickly reaches to his gums to feel the impossible – his incisors are sharp, just as Namjoon's had been. With a gasp, he turns to Namjoon, startled. What strange ritual has taken place? Has he already begun to change? Is he already dead?

Namjoon cups the end of Jeongguk's chin and smiles softly, asking, "What are you waiting for?"

Jeongguk has so many questions that swirl and dizzy him, but the only thing he can bring himself to care about is that tangy, inviting scent of blood. He stands high on his tippy toes and reaches for the person's wrist, but Namjoon presses a hand over Jeongguk's chest, keeping him from reaching with his lips. 

"The neck is so much better, my little darling." Namjoon reaches to tap his sharp fingers on the side of the throat. "Sink your teeth in right here, where you can see their heart beating."

Without hesitation, Jeongguk steps forward, grips the captor by the hair and roughly moves their head to the side. He can see the pulse beating against their skin – can hear the sound of their heart as if its squeeze and relax were being amplified straight into Jeongguk's mind. When he leans in close, dragging his lips over the skin, there is an alluring scent that seems so indescribably human that pulls him closer. 

Jeongguk sinks his teeth into the skin of the person's neck just as he had watched Namjoon sink his teeth into his own wrist, feeling a spark of arousal as the person whimpers and sobs. It takes him by surprise how much he has to really dig his sharp teeth into the flesh, but once it breaks, the blood pours into his mouth. So much, in fact, that he gasps and feels it run down his chin. 

It takes Jeongguk a moment to realize he needs to pull his teeth from the puncture wounds to properly drink from the skin, but once he does, he feels every inch of himself burst and bloom with life. How could Namjoon call himself undead when this is the most energized he has ever felt?

Jeongguk can feel the heartbeat against his lips – can feel as it slows. The captive continues to wiggle and cry out, but it is impossible for them to match Jeongguk's strength as he languidly sucks and licks at the pouring blood. He even decides he has had his fill before their heart has a chance to stop. 

"All done, my darling?" Namjoon asks, taking Jeongguk by the chin and licking over his neck and his lips and anywhere the blood may have been spilt. 

Jeongguk smiles and shrugs, saying, "You can finish them," and steps aside to watch Namjoon take his place at their neck. Blood pours from the wound down the dip of their clavicle and chest, and Namjoon licks a streak leading to their wounds, groaning as his lips close over the holes. 

Something about this visual makes Jeongguk desperate to feel Namjoon on and inside him – makes him want Namjoon to rip him apart and piece him back together again. Despite feeling sated, he also yearns so desperately to be fucked and adored and touched and tasted. 

Namjoon must sense it – or, perhaps, knows the way he must feel – and he steps away from the body that hangs lifelessly and smiles with blood-stained lips as he closes the space between their bodies to bring Jeongguk in for a kiss. 

Every cell of Jeongguk's body yearns for Namjoon. In an act of desperation, Jeongguk spins out of Namjoon’s hold and places his palms against the wall near the open door leading to the hallway. He pushes his ass out and glances over his shoulder, batting his lashes and asking, "Please?"

Namjoon drops to his knees and wastes no time tongue-fucking Jeongguk until he is whimpering and begging for more. Jeongguk must still be stretched from before, because Namjoon presses his cock in nice and deep without much preparation and grips Jeongguk by the neck as he carves him open, bowing Jeongguk's back so their faces touch. 

"All mine," Namjoon growls as he fucks Jeongguk so hard he fears his spine might just snap. "My pretty little fledgling, I will never let you go. All you need in this world is me. All you are in this world is mine."

"Yours," Jeongguk babbles between sobs and broken consonants, speeding toward orgasm as his body struggles to keep up with the myriad sensations that overwhelm.

In between moments of blissful pleasure come fierce, sharp moments of confusion, pain, and a thirst so unlike anything Jeongguk has ever experienced. It is as if he blacks out occasionally and returns a fiendish monster whose only drive is to kill, kill, kill! 

Namjoon placates him at times, pushing his buttons to make him more devilish – more angry. He fills Jeongguk's mind with a distrust for humans and teaches him how to lurk in the shadows and hunt. 

"When you learn to control your urges better," Namjoon assures, balls-deep in him beside two corpses in a dark alleyway with Jeongguk's leg slung over his hip, "I will teach you how to blend into society better."

Jeongguk has no idea how much time passes, but he lives only in darkness, only to feed on the blood of living humans, only to serve and please Namjoon. He feels frustrated, confused, and angry with Namjoon, who seems to lavish Jeongguk's unfettered need to be by his side. 

Despite the overwhelming pleasure and insatiable appetite Namjoon has for fucking him, Jeongguk feels trapped both in his need, and in his desire, to stay by Namjoon's side. 

"The urges will pass, my darling fledgling," Namjoon promises against his lips, hand tugging Jeongguk's cock until he screams out Namjoon's name. "Until then, I will take such good care of you. All you need in this world is me. All you are in this world is mine.”

THANK YOU FOR READING!!!! 🦇🩸🧛‍♂️🍂🎃👻😈💀 HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!

i hope you had fun with this. please do not ask for a part two lmao my brain is mush and i refuse to perceive these two further. i have too many eggs in too many baskets!!!

COMMENTS AND REBLOGS MAKE ALL THE DIFFERENCE, AND LIKES ARE SUPER APPRECIATED, TOO!!! 💜💜💜

no tag list for dead dove contents! thanks for understanding!!!

Fledgling is copyright theharrowing 2023. no translations or reposting allowed!

[ananxiousgenz]

COME GET Y'ALLS JUICE I POSTED ANOTHER FIC TODAY

@izel-scribbles for you <3

There was no doubt about it: John was horribly, irrevocably in love with Arthur.

He had been for years. He knew that much now. People tend not to bargain with unknowable beings or repeatedly relive someone’s traumatic death to protect and help someone they couldn’t give a shit about. But he hadn’t reached the conclusion that he really, truly loved Arthur until a few months after their separation, on a lazy Tuesday in their shared apartment.

John had been lying on the couch, listening to some jazz music over the radio while scribbling out ideas for a poem he’d been working on. It was late afternoon, and the light shining through the windows covered everything in echoes of molten gold and fox fur and fire, staining the wallpaper all warm and bright. Specks of dust floated through the streams of it pouring into the room and lit up like stars. It was wonderfully cool outside, in contrast to the fiery sunset, and the breeze that drifted in from the window felt positively delicious in the overheated apartment. Arthur was standing over in the kitchen, starting to cook dinner, and had raised his focus from the pan in front of him to ask John a funny question that he couldn’t recall now. All he could remember was the way Arthur looked when he asked it. 

The light from the kitchen window caught in Arthur’s hair, melting into a glowing halo at the edges, and turned his eyes to a bright, gleaming amber as it gently kissed its way across his scarred face. There was a half-smile on his lips and his eyes were clear and happy as the breeze ruffled his hair. He was radiant and beautiful in a way John had never noticed before, hauntingly perfect and terrifying in the golden hour light. A saint. A memory he wished could be frozen in syrupy, amber light for the rest of his life.

John just stared, mouth slightly ajar as his stomach twisted in something akin to fear. The only thought in his head was I love you, and it was the most confident, most certain, most intense thought he had ever had in his life. And that scared him.

He hadn’t meant for it to happen. No one means to fall in love, he’d learned. But if he truly understood anything about being human, it was that understanding and handling emotions was, to put it lightly, a bitch. Emotions tended to do as they pleased with little regard to logic or plans or circumstances, or the poor, wretched souls which they plagued. 

And he hated it. 

He hated it so much.  

It meant despite his best intentions, John was irrevocably in love with the man whom he had hurt, betrayed, manipulated, and fought with a dozen times over. A man who certainly cared for him, but probably, no, definitely, did not love him. Not like this. John was little more than a monster, a parasite who had sucked the life from Arthur’s eyes and soul and ruined it. 

So, now he would have to tiptoe around his feelings and act like they didn’t exist, because saying them outloud would be a death sentence for their relationship. It couldn’t be that difficult, right? John had been fairly good at keeping his thoughts to himself when he had been inside Arthur’s head. Keeping his thoughts to himself when he was outside Arthur’s head could only be easier.

Looking back, he severely underestimated how difficult it would be.

Every time John thought he’d reached some kind of maximum, that he couldn’t love Arthur any more, something new would come along and he’d go falling all over again. A mannerism he’d never really noticed before, or a new poem Arthur had taken fancy to. He often wondered if humans could die from not talking about what they were feeling, from holding it in and bottling it up and shoving it away. He knew, in one way or another, repressed grief had almost killed Arthur after he lost Faroe. Hopefully, unexpressed love didn’t do the same.

He had to bite back an I love you when Arthur took Faroe to the park again and she, in her high-pitched, small voice, leaned down to the floor of the bridge overlooking the creek and said, “Are you there, troll?” When Arthur cried and assured Faroe that he was fine, just happy, dear. When he listened to her describing the ducks in the pond with the biggest smile John had ever seen grace his face.

He had to swallow I love yous every time Arthur went out for a walk and came back with a surprise of new poetry books for John to read and study.

He almost actually said the dreaded words when Arthur laughed long and hard at a stupid joke he’d made, but just managed to catch himself before the I love you slipped past his lips.

It was to this campaign of suppressed emotions that John was dedicated when he and Arthur found themselves on a walk to the park on a dull, overcast afternoon. Faroe was at school, and Arthur needed a break from his cases before he drove his mind into the damn ground with them, so John decided some exercise would do them both good. Arthur, ever dedicated to his work, had groaned and complained about leaving loose ends unsolved, but nevertheless pulled on his shoes and coat.

They headed out of the apartment, arm in arm, Arthur chuckling good-naturedly at a wry comment John made about his case-solving habits.

“Now, John,” Arthur sighed, a lovely half-smile playing across his lips as they strode down the sidewalk together, “you can’t honestly expect me to not work? Investigative work isn’t exactly regular, but it certainly makes a good deal more money than bartending does.”

“I never said I didn’t want you to work, Arthur. I only said that maybe you were working too much,” John argued. 

“Working too much? I don’t think that’s true. Working too little, well, that seems a bit more likely,” Arthur replied, tilting his head to accentuate his point.

John sighed, and was glad, not for the first time, that Arthur couldn’t see the small, fond smile blossoming across his face. “Arthur, how many hours in the past week have you slept?”

“Well-”

“And how many times have you eaten or drank water without me reminding you?”

“John, I-”

“And exactly how much time have you spent with me or Faroe? Sitting on the couch reading case files while we are nearby does not count.”

“I’m spending time with you right now, you know. Does that count, my dear?” Arthur asked, voice dripping with affectionate sarcasm.

John rolled his eyes, trying to ignore the flutter deep in his stomach at Arthur’s oh-so casual use of a pet name. “Absolutely not. You only came with me because I dragged you out of the house. If I hadn’t forced you, you would have sat at that table until doomsday.”

“I would not!”

“Arthur, you would have!”

“That is simply untrue, John. I very much enjoy taking walks with you. They’re the highlight of my day!”

“You complained from the second you began putting your shoes on about ‘leaving loose ends untied’ and ‘time is money’.”

Arthur sighed dramatically. “Must we fight again?”

“Only if you’re going to continue being such a stubborn ass.”

“Oh come now, you know how a fight will upset the children.”

Arthur sounded like a character from one of those radio dramas Faroe was so fond of listening to, the ones where someone was always getting betrayed or making a shocking new discovery, all loud voices and exaggerated emotions and cheesy acting. John couldn’t help it. Arthur sounded so silly and ridiculous that he snorted.

Arthur paused for a second, and then grinned brighter than the summer sun at noon, clearly egged on by John’s response. “They can’t grow up in an environment like this! Do you have any idea what a divided household will do to their psyches?”

Despite his best efforts to keep it bottled up, a laugh was bubbling up John’s throat, silently shaking his chest with the force of an earthquake.

“John, we’ll simply ruin them if we keep arguing! We must keep the peace! Think of the children, darling! Will no one protect the children?!”

John had given up on trying to hold the laugh back. It exploded out of his chest in a joyous firework burst of sound, rattling through his ribcage and stomach like it was shaking him down for money. Arthur’s bright, sunny laugh joined in shortly after, and John could swear he saw it glittering like a lit sparkler as it weaved itself into the air around them. And then the two of them were laughing, almost hysterically, as they walked, arm in arm down the sidewalk, stumbling and leaning on each other as though they were drunk on happiness. And maybe they were. Could one get drunk on elation? John wasn’t sure, but he couldn’t remember a time when he had felt better in his life. They laughed, and laughed, and laughed, until tears were streaming from both of their faces and John had to pause walking to wipe them away. 

He reached over to Arthur’s face with a gentle hand and wiped the tears away from his face as well. God, he was beautiful. Still shaky with the last few gasps of laughter, with a smile like Faroe’s on Christmas morning, sunny and beaming with joy. John smiled softly as he swiped his thumb over Arthur’s cheekbones. He wanted to hold Arthur’s face for just a moment longer. Just a second. Maybe if he wished hard enough, the moment would never pass, would be encased in amber memory forever, bright and crystalized and unbreakable and beautiful.

But the moment did pass, as all moments do. 

A sudden chorus of soft laughter drew John’s attention away from Arthur and towards a group of young ladies and gentlemen clustered farther up on the sidewalk. They were whispering and giggling to each other as they walked, which wasn’t out of the ordinary for folks of their age. But something about them made the hairs on the back of John’s neck prickle with discomfort. Their laughter and murmurings seemed too… secretive. Too accusatory. They weren’t just chattering among themselves, John realized. They were pointing, too, stealing not-so subtle glances at something they clearly found incredibly amusing. Were they laughing at him? Or Arthur?

John shook his head to clear the thoughts away as he took his hand off Arthur’s face. Maybe they had just seen an amusing film, or someone had told a funny joke about one of the nearby shops. John was just overreacting. It was fine. It had to be fine, even though every instinct he possessed was telling him otherwise. He took Arthur’s arm again and continued walking in the direction of the park. The sooner they made it away from this group, the better he would feel.

A distant roll of thunder shivered through the air as John locked eyes with one young lady whispering into the ear of a friend, who pointed at John and Arthur while snickering in response to her silent comment. John’s stomach twisted in humiliation and fury. 

They were laughing at him and Arthur.

John took a shaky breath in and grit his teeth as he glared at the group passing by. One of the boys stuck out his tongue. Whispers of “fucking queers” and “homosexuals” in venomous tones floated over the breeze and into John’s ears. Another child picked up a small pebble from the sidewalk and threw it in their direction as he passed, hitting John squarely between the shoulders. John froze in his tracks.

The fragment of a god that still lived in his heart wanted to rip them all to shreds, watch them bleed out and suffer on the sidewalk for the crime of daring to laugh at a being so powerful their mortal minds could barely comprehend its edges. He felt so sharp and angry that he wondered if he could spear them all through just by spitting at them. Maybe he could get away with tearing them limb from limb with his bare hands. But part of him didn’t want to start a fight and just wanted to leave as quickly as possible. If he fought, Arthur could get hurt again, and it would be just another way John had ruined his life. That damned bit of humanity that was lodged in his soul wouldn’t let him cause Arthur any more pain (and John was finding that the human part tended to win out these days). He was still for a moment longer, listening to the battle of god and mortal raging in his mind.

And then John, former piece of the King in Yellow, put his head down and walked away, dragging a very confused Arthur with him.

He was crying a bit as they turned the corner he realized, furious tears carving hot, woodburned lines down his face and turning the world into a wobbly, grey mess. He felt so fucking small. So humiliated. And raw. And angry. Over something as stupid as a kid laughing at him. A kid laughing at him had enough power to make him cry? How perfectly fucking ridiculous. It only made him feel worse.

“John? John, what’s wrong?”

Arthur sounded so concerned, so gentle and careful with his words. He always did when John got upset like this. But John stayed silent, jaw locked in place with the force of his fury, like toffee sticking sickly sweet between his teeth. Some part of him was afraid that if he spoke, the words would burst on his tongue like a series of grenades, and the shrapnel would kill him and Arthur both. 

“John. John, please. Please slow down for a minute.”

John just kept walking, making a sharp right into the gates of the park and crunching his way along the gravelly walkway. Before him, trees covered in their late summer leaves dotted across the meadow and near the edge of the pond, which was coated with a thin layer of ducks and frogs and lily pads. The last of the summer wildflowers wobbled in the breeze as thunder grumbled its way overhead, a warning bell for the storm to come, and John wished for a moment he had the foresight to grab an umbrella on his way out of the apartment. It was some small distraction from the clamoring mess of angry emotions all vying for attention in his head. 

“John! For fuck’s sake, will you stop walking and talk to me?!”

John stopped in his tracks. “What do you want, Arthur?” He cringed as the words left his mouth far sharper and more vicious than he had meant them to be.

Arthur’s face was pinched with concern that had mutated into frustration as he took a step forward and glared up in John’s general direction. “What the fuck happened? Why were you rushing off like that?”

“It’s nothing,” John huffed. “I’m fine.”

“No, you are not, and don’t you even fucking think of trying to lie to me.”

John sighed deeply. Damn Arthur’s fucking detective instincts. Damn them all to hell. “I don’t want to talk about it, Arthur. Have you ever considered that?”

“At least give me an idea!”

“Why should I?”

“I’m assuming you saw something I didn’t, and it’s a bit difficult to figure out what is visually wrong when you’re fucking blind, John. So what happened?”

John sat in that stony silence for a moment, staring at Arthur’s determined and frustrated expression. Overhead, the thunder loudly voiced it’s complaints about their conversation, and a few drops of cool rain began to fall.

“Those kids were laughing at us,” John muttered, feeling his face begin to grow hot with embarrassment.

“What?” Arthur asked, brows furrowed in confusion.

“There was a group of kids on the sidewalk that passed us. They were… pointing at us. Laughing to each other.”

“I heard them laughing, yes. That’s what upset you so badly?���

“We needed to leave,” John huffed. “We were at risk.”

“They were kids, John. I don’t think we were in any real danger-”

“They were calling us names! They threw a fucking rock at me!” 

“And that’s what children do! How many times has Faroe thrown a toy at you? Or shredded papers because she was playing pretend?” Arthur shouted, spreading his arms open wide.

“This was different,” John growled, the thunder rumbling in answer to his tone as the rain began to pick up.

“How, John? How was this different?”

“We were in danger! You could have gotten hurt, Arthur!”

“John, for the last fucking time, they were kids. I think I can handle myself around children.”

“I was trying to keep you safe.”

“You don’t need to keep me safe!”

“Yes, I do!”

“WHY?”

“BECAUSE I LOVE YOU!”

John immediately regretted ever having vocal chords of his own. Arthur was silent. The only sound was the heavy rainfall, thick drops mirroring the sudden, fearful tears sliding down John’s face as he stared in horror at Arthur’s reaction. He seemed frozen, his eyes were blown wide with surprise and mouth open in a small, tight oh. Even as the rain began to soak through his hair and coat, he still looked so fucking beautiful. 

“I love you, Arthur, alright? I can’t- I haven’t been able to say it because I know it would mess everything up. I love you. I’ve loved you for a long time.”

And John couldn’t bear to look at him. At what he had done. He’d just fucked up everything so beautifully, hadn’t he? First he couldn’t stand up for himself (against a group of kids no less), then he admits to being in love with his best friend in the pouring rain, which would give them both a nasty cold if they didn’t get out of it soon, and he would never be able to talk to Arthur normally again without this moment appearing and making everything awkward-

And then Arthur’s hand was on his cheek.

John froze and could have sworn his heart skipped a beat as Arthur’s fingers brushed gently over his features, outlining his eyebrows, his nose, his cheekbones, his lips. This was… unexpected. The look on Arthur’s face was so soft, so tender. Nothing at all like the frustrated explosion it had been only moments before. His amber eyes flicked back and forth across John’s face with no clear point of focus. There was some emotion lurking in them that John couldn’t quite catch. Pain? Longing? He couldn’t tell. Thunder crackled across the sky, accompanied by a flash of purple-white lightning. The rain kept falling. Arthur leaned in like he was going to whisper something in John’s ear, and then hesitated.

And then Arthur’s lips were on his, and it was like the world exploded.

The cold drops of rain were gone, and the thunder nothing more than background noise for the fireworks show happening in John’s head. Everything in the whole wide world was replaced by the warm press of Arthur’s lips on his. Every nerve in his body was alive and sparkling like sunlight dancing across water and Jesus Christ, if this wasn’t what John had wanted for so long, had dreamed about for months on end. It was exactly as perfect as he had imagined it would be, and God, it felt so good to kiss Arthur. So right. So warm and close and beautiful, fucking hell, was this why people kissed each other? To feel like this? John had been missing out, hadn’t he? 

Arthur pulled away first and pressed his forehead to John’s. “Always so dramatic,” he murmured with a smile.

John’s brain was short-circuiting. There were thoughts scrambling around his head so rapidly it was difficult to simply pick one to voice aloud. “I- wait. You- you don’t hate me?”

Arthur chuckled. “No, you absolute idiot. Or else I wouldn’t have kissed you.”

“I- you kissed me…” John said through a daze. He half wondered if his legs would be able to keep him upright for the time it would take them to walk back to the apartment. Currently, they seemed to be about the consistency of jelly, and the rain making the path under their feet slippery wasn’t exactly helping matters.

“In case the kiss didn’t make it clear, I… I love you too, John. I have for a long time,” Arthur said softly, running his fingers along John’s jaw. “Thank you for looking out for me, darling. I’m sorry I yelled at you. I was just trying to understand.”

John was glad yet again that Arthur couldn’t see the giddy grin and blush that had taken over his face when Arthur said the word “darling”. He probably looked fairly stupid, but he could care less. Arthur loved him, too. Arthur felt the same way. Jesus Christ Almighty, Arthur had just kissed him.

“Uh huh,” John breathed, trying not to completely fall over. “Yeah. Okay.”

Arthur chuckled a bit. “Did you think I didn’t feel the same way?”

“I- Well, how was I supposed to know?! I’m not a mindreader!”

“Christ, John, you can be dense sometimes, can’t you? I think it has been fairly obvious that I am in love with you.”

“Obvious to you! I’m sorry your uptight English nature isn’t exactly the easiest thing in the world to read,” John said, rolling his eyes affectionately.

“Hey now, my ‘uptight English nature’ has gotten us both out of plenty of scrapes and you know it,” Arthur replied, a sunny grin gracing his face. 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, keep talking about how your pretty face has saved us all,” John said with a sigh.

“You think my face is pretty?”

John froze for a moment before he grabbed Arthur’s arm and turned sharply on his heel in the direction of the park gates. “Let’s go before we both catch pneumonia!”

“John, you didn’t answer my question,” Arthur said in a sing-song voice, falling into step beside John as they began to make their way home.

John sighed heavily. “Yes, Arthur, I think your face is pretty. Oh, wipe that smug grin off. Have a little mercy on me.”

“Who’s grinning?” Arthur asked, smiling from ear to ear like the damn Chesire cat from Faroe’s books.

John rolled his eyes again. It was going to be a long, lovely walk back to the apartment.

[akystaracer22]

Let’s Make a Deal

Synopsis: Let's go back a moment, how exactly did Adam end up joining the hotel? And how was the graveyard created? Lucifer makes a deal with Adam, but not for what Lucifer thought it would be.

Notes:

I’m feeding you Papa Adam fans. This one’s for you.

So… remember how I mentioned Lucifer catching Adam back in Distrust Fall?

As Adams getting dressed, he’s resolutely not processing the fact that he fell and more thinking over the events before he died. Which leads to him remembering the dead exorcists.

Here’s how Adam fell: He broke the first commandment! “You shall have no other gods before Me” and in doing so landed earned Gods ire. Combining that with Sir Pentious’ redemption, Adam was pulled from death and fell to hell.

It’s so fucking funny to write this being used to Lucifer and Adam being on good terms because I have to step back and say, “Okay but now they fucking hate each other with an undertone of romantic tension and desperation and what ifs.”

I’ve had this idea FOR FUCKING AGES.

Word Count: 1640

Fic under cut!

Lucifer was falling.

Unsurprisingly, it hurt a lot less than last time, especially since he wasn’t the one burning.

When Nifty mentioned a shooting star, his blood had frozen as he threw the window open to see the falling angel.

Hell never had stars to fall.

He’d taken off from the hotel, shooting through the sky to try and catch the fallen, partially to keep Pentagram city from being destroyed by the force of the fall, but mostly to try and lessen the pain of the impact.

He didn’t want another to fall like he had.

The burning agony magnified by the brimstone’s crushing hug.

If nothing else, he could stop that.

The fallen morning star threw out his magic, forcing it against gravity as he twisted the two of them, so he was on top, spreading his wings to catch the air. He couldn’t make out the details of the fallen angel under the blaze of hellfire, but it was definitely a man.

Disappointing, in another life it could have been Adam.

The king shut the thought down immediately, Adam was dead and for good reason, that wasn’t something to even begin to address when there were bigger issues.

He was able to change their trajectory, bringing them closer to the land surrounding the hotel. It was still ruined after the battle, which made it a perfect crash-land site.

The landing, while not graceful, was definitely softer than it would have been otherwise. Lucifer shoved the man to the ground immediately, stepping back and using his magic to mend his own mostly wrecked clothing as the brimstone and volcanic rock devoured the unholy flames and completed the fall.

The first thing Lucifer could see was the wings, great broad things that should carry the angel well, yet the king only wanted to throw up staring at the left wing. It was in ruin, most of his secondaries and half his primaries were gone. The smell of burning feathers left Lucifer wanting to gag. What the fuck. What the fuck did this man do to deserve that.

His eyes drifted down towards the angels face, and suddenly Lucifer could guess what the angel did to deserve his fate.

His horns curled over his head in a hauntingly familiar way, the tips streaked with gold. Shards of horn dotted his cheeks and decorated the base of his horns. Ash grey hair that used to be brown so long ago. His skin colour reduced to monochrome grey that would have never hinted to once being tan. The angels hands were dipped in that same golden colour of his horns, Lucifer could laugh at the irony.

Of course, Adam’s hands would be coloured the same gold of the angels who died under his command. And of fucking course he’d somehow manage to find a way to cheat death.

Lucifer stepped back and narrowed his eyes into a sharp glare as Adam groaned and came to, watching his wings twitch in pain as he struggled into a kneeling position, he didn’t see Lucifer yet, that much he was sure of.

The king just watched Adam catch his breath for a few moments before clearing his throat, grinning at the way Adam froze before scrambling to his feet. His wings moving despite the pain in an attempt to obscure Adam’s bare body.

“What the fuck.”

“Wow, is that how you greet the person who just saved you?”

“Fuck you!”

“Careful,” Lucifer bit out, his tail lashing behind him, “Remember who’s realm your in.”

Surprisingly, Adam seemed to have enough braincells to realise that picking a fight with the literal king of hell after just having fallen wasn’t the best idea and held his tongue for once.

Lucifer’s eyes raked over Adam’s form, noting the way Adam’s feathers bristled as the king’s eyes roamed. Huh…

Oh.

“Get dressed, Being naked isn’t exactly a good thing nowadays,” Lucifer summoned some clothes that should fit the first man and threw them at the fallen angel. Keeping him in his peripheral as the man quickly got dressed.

“Alright now get the fuck out of here, I can’t have you around here when Charlie gets down here.”

“Wait-”

“I’ll even be kind and I won’t tell deer boy you’re traipsing around hell now! He’s still angry about losing to you, good job by the way-”

“Lucifer!” The seraphim turned back to Adam who was standing with his wings spread, chest heaving at using energy he didn’t have for the outburst, “I’m not fucking leaving.”

“Oh no you don’t have a choice on the matter after what you did!” Lucifer snarled, wings flaring out in his own display to match Adams, “Get the fuck out of here before I make you.”

Adam froze up, his wings folding slightly under his hesitation which gave the king confidence. The first man was going to turn tail like the cowardly sack of shit he was. He turned around, satisfied that Adam wouldn’t be a bother for at least a little while.

“How about a deal.”

Lucifer paused before whipping around to stare at Adam, who stood his ground and held his head high despite the weight of his words.

“What.”

“You fucking heard me; I know you fuckers like making deals. So, let’s make a deal.”

“Oh, I heard you, but what could you possibly give me that I-”

“Whatever you want. Even my soul I don’t give a fucking shit,” Adam spat, “Whatever it takes to get you to take this deal.”

Lucifer paused, shocked by the audacity but intrigued nonetheless, “And what exactly do you want? Protection? Supplies?”

It wouldn’t matter anyway; not like he was actually considering the deal.

“I want you to help me bury my girls.”

…

What?

“My girls, the exorcists. I can’t-”

Adams voice cracked.

Immediately the first man locked up, his jaw snapped shut with an audible sound and he looked every part horrified.

Surprisingly, it didn’t stir any sense of satisfaction like he thought it would. Instead, Lucifer only felt a deep pit of dread.

Adam seemed to recover quickly, swallowing past whatever lump he had in his throat to continue, “I can’t recover their bodies fast enough. Not like this. I can dig as many graves as I can, but I need you to gather their bodies. I need to lay them to rest… please.”

Lucifer was flabbergasted, after everything he had the audacity to ask Lucifer to help him with this. To help bury the same damn angels who hunted hells denizens, who hunted his daughter?! Framed as a deal or not why the fuck would he ever think-

What if it was Charlie.

Lucifer froze at the thought, that tiny part of him as old as Eden piping up to tear down the devils rage with ease.

Shit.

Lucifer closed his eyes and clenched his jaw, shit. He couldn’t get the image out of his head. Charlies body broken and beaten like the corpses of the exorcists, Charlie-

Fuck. The angel of the Morningstar suppressed a flinch at the images.

But…

It wasn’t just his nightmare scenario he was dealing with now. It was Adam’s reality.

…

Damnit.

“You’re going to go to the hotel and give redemption a good shot.”

“What?”

“That’s my terms of the deal, if I do this, you’re going to walk into the hotel and work towards redemption. I’m not going to own your soul; this is a one-time deal. Take it or leave it.”

Lucifer’s hand glowed gold with his magic as he held it out, binding magic twisting through his fingertips.

Gold met gold, and the deal was done.

[----------------]

It took several hours to recover all the bodies.

Some of which was spent with Lucifer convincing the denizens of the hotel to stay inside, claiming that the fallen angel was a special brand of dangerous that only Lucifer could handle. He wasn’t exactly wrong.

Including Adam, 48 exorcists died in the extermination. And almost none of them were intact when Lucifer found them.

Broken, half eaten, or worse, hell wasn’t kind to the dead.

The corpses that were dragged back to Cannibal Town were the trickiest to acquire, the cannibals were never known to abandon their food and with them now be armed with angelic weapons… He needed to remind them who exactly was in charge to get them to surrender their meals.

He really needed to deal with the outbreak of the angelic weapons information. That was going to get a lot of attempts on his life.

With every corpse Lucifer teleported back to Adam, there was a sharp crackle of opposing magic, broken in it’s divinity but still potent.

That was going to be troublesome.

He should probably find a way to suppress Adams magic, untamed as it was now without heaven to temper it, it was going to be dangerous until his soul calmed down. However long that would be.

Lucifer sighed when he dropped the final body off at the hotel. Several of them were already gone and buried under blank gravestones, a last-minute addition of Lucifer’s to the summary, it’d be up to Adam whether or not he wanted to add any information on who was buried.

Lucifer watched silently as Adam carefully removed the helmet of the final exorcist, resolutely not looking down even as his feathers shook with rage. The first man and third fallen gently lowered the body into the grave before going to grab the shovel. Once the burial was done, he placed the helmet gingerly on the soil, marking the graves identity in a way Lucifer would never be able to know.

Then the moment was over, and Adam stood up, turning to look at Lucifer with a stare that would scorch bone if it could.

“Alright let’s get this fucking over with.”

[ooihcnoiwlerh]

Hello, Darlings! I am back with another chapter of my Feyd-Rautha/Reader arranged marriage fic. (18+ only) Strong content warning and tags below the cut.

@richardslady121 @blazeflays @wo-ming-bai . Please let me know if you would also like to be tagged in future updates!

Trigger warning for this chapter: There are mentions of and references to child abuse, sexual abuse, and incest--none of it graphic, all of it occurring in the past. There is also dubcon/the Reader finding hard limits and triggers without realizing she had them. I feel like the last couple of chapters I've written were mostly smutty fun and this chapter...is not that. I wouldn't recommend going into this blind if you haven't read any of this already. The link to the full fanfic so far is posted above, and I'll cross post the newest chapter down below.

CHAPTER SIX: HIS LOVELY NEPHEW

You don’t have to wonder for too long if Feyd-Rautha wants to train you this morning.  You prepare for it with nearly as much sinking dread as you felt before your wedding, pulling on your training pants and shirt that must’ve been laundered since yesterday morning and plaiting your hair.  You’re about to put on your boots when Idrisa comes in with her tray and says, “Good morning, Na-Baroness.  The Na-Baron will not be needing you in the Training Halls today.”

Just dressing for breakfast, then.  There’s a part of you that’s reasonably certain that Feyd-Rautha likes your old clothes from your home planet, just as he likes your hair, but since your first day as a married woman the Baron has insisted that you dress only in the Harkonnen style.  You can hardly imagine what he thinks of you keeping your hair.  Eventually it won’t matter what he thinks about you; he’s an old man whose body has been kept intact only due to the best of Harkonnen technology and healing, but not even that can make him immortal.  At least, you hope not.

So off comes the training gear, on goes another Harkonnen dress that’s snug enough that you won’t be able to wear it for long as you wonder if you’ll be able to tell when you’re pregnant.  How early will your body recognize it?  Will you have a moment soon in which you’ll just know , or will it take a visit from the Bene Gesserit?  You certainly couldn’t begin to guess right now.

Idrisa escorts you to the Dining Halls, probably noting your silence and the nervous set in your shoulders but, of course, saying nothing.  You don’t want to go in when you reach those double doors, but would normally accept your fate were it not for a split second before Idrisa’s about to open them.

You hold up a hand.  Wait.   There's murmuring on the other side.  You lean in, walking closer to the sound until you can press your ear against the wall a couple meters to the left of the doors.

“I trust you’ve been fulfilling your marital duties, my lovely boy?” the Baron says.  He’s close enough that he must not have sat down for breakfast yet.  It sounds like he’s hovering with the aid of his suspensor technology.

“I have.”  Feyd-Rautha’s voice, curt and hauntingly similar to his uncle’s, makes you want to turn and walk away.

“I had no doubts, of course.  I’ve heard what a virile man you’ve become.”

You furrow your brow.  As much as it turns your stomach to think about it, you know that your father wouldn’t talk to your brother this way.  

“Those Bene Gesserit whores want you to sire an heir immediately,” the Baron continues.  “So of course you’ll have to do your due diligence and make sure your little pet is carrying your son as soon as possible.”

You flush at the insult.  I’m hardly his pet, you filthy old man .  And not that you expect your groom to defend you, not when he sees you as hardly more of a person than his uncle, but you almost hope that he calls you his wife.  After all, he likes it when you call him your husband.

There’s a moment of silence, and even through the door you can sense the tension.

“That won’t be an issue, uncle,” Feyd-Rautha says finally.

You've finally had enough; you glance over at Idrisa, who immediately looks down and opens the doors for you.

You realize that they were looking at an old portrait of the Baron lining the nearest wall that’s either far too flattering or suggests that around the time of his coronation decades ago he must’ve been over a hundred kilos lighter than he is now.  You don’t know when it will be replaced with a portrait of Feyd-Rautha, who spares you only a brief glance.

So he hasn’t forgiven you .  For what, you’re still not certain.  You’re still trying to figure out his anger.

I didn’t cause those scars , you want to tell him, and I wasn’t mocking you for having them .

When you curtsy towards him and the Baron, you’re certain that they know you could hear at least part of their conversation, but you’re not entirely sure if the Baron either doesn’t care that you heard or how you’d react or if he feels smug knowing that he’s reminded you of your place within this Fortress, as if he’d ever let you forget.  Feyd-Rautha doesn’t seem to react at all, his face a mask of cold indifference even as you can sense the tension he keeps coiled in his lean but powerful frame.

You’re almost surprised that he continues his habit of pulling your chair out for you before he takes his seat beside you, but you realize that it’s because the Baron must have picked up on this practice from your wedding reception and will immediately sniff out something to use against either of you if he senses anything amiss.

Of course, if the Baron were familiar with how marriage typically works, he’d know that spouses tend to talk to each other, especially over a meal.  They don’t sit in awkward silence barely looking at one another for an entire half hour.  

It’s more of the same; the Baron oscillates between being condescending to Feyd-Rautha and complimentary, offering vague comments on Rabban’s disappointing return to governing Arrakis and mentioning a possible sighting for another planet that could provide spice without a hostile population fighting them over it.  The Baron doesn’t acknowledge you in part because you’re fairly certain he forgets you’re even there; Feyd-Rautha because, well, because. Because of whatever he has buried beneath the surface that you may have awakened.  In the early morning, still half-asleep, you didn’t fully realize it, but two memories jump out at you as you sit silently at the table with your husband and his uncle and sneak stolen glances at them both.

“ Guess I just wasn’t pretty enough to be our uncle’s favorite .”  Hardly more than a week ago; the way the very air seemed sucked out of the room when Rabban said it, Feyd’s reaction.  The seed, though, had been planted years before you understood it, before you were arranged to marry into this twisted family.

“ I can’t prove it, I can’t explain it, but Vladimir Harkonnen has something going on that he doesn’t even want other Harkonnens to know.  Something fucked up ,” Father had said once to one of his generals as you’d trailed in just outside of sight.  “ Worse than any of his other vices .”

When you were a little younger, but old enough to consider the realistic implications of an arranged marriage, you'd feared marrying into a family in which your father-in-law liked to sample his son's bride.  The Baron is as close to a father-in-law that you're getting, and you're confident that he would never do such a thing to you.  Not out of honor or respect, you’ve known that he has none for you since the moment you met, but because his inclinations lie elsewhere.

You were prepared for a lot, but you didn’t expect to spend an agonizing meal wondering how horrific the Baron’s treatment of your husband has been over the years.

You'd wondered in the past what tastes the Baron must have that the mere concept of which had disgusted your father years ago.  Animals? The dead? Children?  All concepts that turn your stomach and when you think about the way he talks to his nephew even now, the scars on his back, the very fact that Feyd tried to kill him during his adolescence, you’re pretty sure you have your answer.  Still, it just seems impossible; the two of them sit next to each other as if everything’s normal.

If it’s true, then how? Feyd-Rautha is still so subservient to him, so deferential even if he’s about as friendly towards his uncle as he is everyone else, which is to say, not at all.  The closest anyone’s gotten to bringing it up was Rabban, and that was to imply that his little brother…you can’t bring yourself to think about it… slept his way to the top of his family lineage?

The very real possibility seems too awful to be real, but it’s also the most obvious explanation.

You head back to the library immediately after breakfast, returning a couple of documents and heading back to your quarters with an armful more.  You could sense the librarian’s nervousness when you specified which documents you wanted, but he complied with a quiet “Yes, Na-Baroness.”  It’s a little disconcerting that he’d be anxious over what information you’ll find, but you disregard the part of you that suggests that maybe it’s easier to remain ignorant.  You need to know.

The door’s been fitted connecting your bathroom to his, so you’ll be able to slip into one another’s quarters with greater ease.  You would’ve been far more grateful for it yesterday, back when your new husband seemed to actually want to be with you.  You don’t give it another thought as you spread everything out and start reading.

You’re pretty sure that you now have all the documents that chronicle Feyd-Rautha’s assassination attempt.  Fourteen, punished severely, yes, you already have that.  You try to find a cause listed, and come up empty.  You do, however, find details of what his punishment was.

Three days, apparently.  Three days of severe beatings only to be healed with a potent elixir before being subjected to another round, but with the Baron merciful enough to his young heir to heal all of his scars except lash marks on his back.  He left them to serve as a reminder never to betray his uncle again.  There are a couple of renderings of him from that time; a skinny boy with a narrow face and an angry set in his jaw.  It’s the eyes, though, that make you wince.  It’s the bags around them that seem entirely wrong for a boy that age, the haunted look in them.  Since the moment you met him there was something calculating yet almost inhuman in them.  Here there’s just pain and anger.

He was just a kid.  This wasn’t some underhanded tactic to seize power; it was the desperate act of an angry boy in pain.

After being spared his life, he went missing, only to be found on Lankiveil days later.  He’d managed to find passage under a fake name.  You look at the date, furrow your brow, and then check on the other records you’ve held onto–the date of his mother’s death.

They match up; the day the Harkonnens found and captured Feyd-Rautha was the same day his mother was found murdered.

You inhale sharply, getting up and pacing around the room, running your hands through your hair.  

Are you surprised?  Why?  To say that the Baron’s corrupt would be to look into the ocean and say, ‘Ah, yes.  There’s water in that.’  

You flinch when you hear a knock at the door, feeling silly for thinking for a brief moment, It’s Harkonnen guards coming to execute me for reading about their scandals .

“Who is it?” you ask, voice breaking, and exhaling in relief when Idrisa calls to tell you she has refreshments for you.  Water, fruit, a sort of lemon-ginger sparkling water as well that she claims is excellent for digestion.  She sets the tray on your end-table and you wonder–-she knows something.  Even if she wasn’t present, she must know details that will never see the light of day.  Word of mouth endures.

“Idrisa,” you call for her, and she turns.  You can’t contain it.  You’re buzzing, ready to crawl out of your skin, needing to say it.  “I know about the time Feyd-Rautha tried to kill his uncle.  And now I know about how he was whipped as part of his punishment and that’s why he has scars all over his back.  I know how he tried to return to Lankiveil afterwards, and I know how he was immediately apprehended and brought back here around the same time his mother had been murdered with no suspects, let alone a culprit.”  Idrisa glances away, fidgeting her fingers in front of her, and still you press on, the words spilling out of you.  “At the wedding, Rabban said the only reason their uncle favors Feyd is for his looks.  I know you said that the assassination was before your time but if all the other details are spelled out except Feyd-Rautha’s motive for wanting to kill his uncle, then it paints a certain picture, doesn’t it?” you say, wanting to recoil from your own words and the implications of them.

Idrisa looks down, fidgeting with her hands that she has primly clasped in front of her.  “I cannot speak ill of my masters.”

“I won’t tell,” you say.  She still can’t look at you.  “I’m sorry but I need to know.  I once overheard my father insisting that the Baron…” you almost laugh, because it’s so uncomfortable to say.  You’d almost rather not know and never have to think about it, but it’s unavoidable.  “That the Baron had certain tastes.  Certain appetites, not just for food.”

The way Idrisa’s face seems to turn even paler might serve as enough of a confirmation that you’re right.

“And last night, early this morning, I,” you hesitate, stammering for a moment, “I touched one of the scars on my husband’s back.  I didn’t think it would bother him but it did.  As awful as it is, if,” you take a breath, clear your throat.  The idea of the Baron putting hands on his nephew now makes you nauseous, let alone over a decade ago, or, oh, Great Mother, eighteen years ago.  “As awful as it is, if what I’m guessing is true, then I need to know.”

Idrisa’s gaze flutters as she tries to find the words.  “Na-Baroness, what is in the past…”

“Still affects the present and the future,” you tell her.  “Especially if it involves something like this.”  There’s more silence, Idrisa biting her lip as she can’t quite look at you.  “Please,” you add.

From the way her posture almost snaps ramrod straight, eyes widening, you wonder if anyone’s ever pleaded with her before.  You wait, realizing that you’ve found a small crack in her armor.

She hesitates.  “I began my service here when I was fourteen.  The Na-Baron was seventeen at the time.  I was instructed to keep my head down and not say anything.  We all were.  We were told that if we saw or heard anything, that no, we didn’t.”

“So you met my husband when he was seventeen?” you ask.  That was nearly a decade ago.  What was he like back then?  Was he cruel and efficient, or was he more emotional?  Had he already been turned into a killer, or would that come a little later?  How much did he change in those three years?  Do you know?

Idrisa nods, not quite looking at you. “And he was starting to age out of the Baron’s…preferences, but I don’t think it ended entirely for another year or two.”  

It.  One word to capture the enormity of what happened.  Your mind goes blank.  You already knew, already steeled yourself for this, but it feels as though the floor has given way under you.  You sit on the edge of your bed, needing to think.  

“The Na-Baron has earned the respect of his men since he’s come of age, my lady,” she adds.  “They don’t think any less of him, especially not anymore.”

Why would they think less of him?  He’s not the one who’s a pedophile .

“How many?” you ask instead.  You can’t say the rest, How many victims? but you don’t need to.  She knows.  Maybe there’s a part of her that’s been bottling this up for years, desperate to say it out loud.

She shakes her head, shrugging, as if to say, No one really keeps count .  “Over a dozen that I’m aware of and he’s been slowing down as he’s gotten older, so there’ve likely been hundreds over the years.  All boys, mostly between the ages of ten and fifteen or sixteen.  I’ve heard that the Na-Baron was his favorite for about a decade.”

Heard that .  So people just…talked about it, albeit in secret, instead of doing anything.

“And everyone knows?” you ask, your voice going into a higher register out of pure incredulity.

Idrisa shakes her head again.  “Not outside of the Fortress.  The general populace of Geidi Prime isn’t aware of it.  The Harkonnen government has made sure that they never will be.”

“But everyone else, everyone here…” you trail off.

“We see nothing,” she says again.  “We hear nothing.  We keep our heads down and keep the Fortress running.”

It is what you’d feared, what he won’t discuss.  An open secret that festers much like an open, untreated wound.  You think you’re going to be sick.

“The Baron brings in good commerce.  He’s held up and improved on everything that’s made Geidi Prime such a wealthy planet.  If Geidi Prime thrives as much as it possibly can under his rule, then that is what matters.”

You don’t know how to take this all in.

“Na-Baroness?” she asks.

“Thank you, Idrisa,” you tell her.  “You’ve been very helpful.”

She understands this as the dismissal that it is, the need to process everything.  She leaves with a curtsy.

You don’t keep track of the time between then and when evening comes; the black sun hasn’t fully set yet; you hadn’t noticed it getting darker.

You look at the renderings of your husband as he was over a decade ago.  When did the pain leave?  When was it replaced by something that seems far less human, or did it just retreat so far inwards that no one will ever see it again?

Idrisa comes in.  Timidly, she stands, eyes downcast and hands clasped in front of her.  “Dinner is ready, Na-Baroness,” she says. 

You look over at her, and down at all the documents that you’re going to need to put back together and return.

How am I supposed to eat with this person and converse over dinner like everything’s normal?  How does Feyd-Rautha stand it? 

“And I suppose my presence is mandatory again?” you ask, voice measured, and get up, resigned.

At dinner you’ve never been less hungry in your life.  You feel a humming at the back of your skull grow louder and louder as the Baron and Feyd-Rautha make casual conversation about focusing on growing the industry on Geidi Prime to make up for the spice losses on Arrakis.  

How can you sit next to this man, listen to the sound of his voice, follow his orders?  How do you not want to kill him all the time? you want to ask Feyd.  You poke and prod at the little food you bothered to take for yourself and stare at your plate, still trying to wrap your head around the dynamic unfolding around you.  How can your husband live like this? 

The Baron notices that you haven’t eaten anything.  “It’s a little early for nausea, young Y/N,” he says.  “Or is the food just not to your liking?”

You can’t look at him.  “My apologies, Baron,” you say in as measured of a tone as you can.  You’re the one making me sick, you monster .  “There is no issue with the food.  I just don’t have much of an appetite this evening.”  You think about taking your knife and jamming it into his eye.  You wonder how often Feyd-Rautha has thought the same thing while sitting poised and calm at this very table.

They usually serve wine with dinner.  The Baron usually indulges, and due to his size and age can drink a lot without it seeming to affect him.  Feyd-Rautha usually declines, not to your surprise.  Now that your monthly courses are pretty much over your plan has been to decline as well, given what will soon be the nature of your condition.  Tonight, though, you accept, hoping that the alcohol on an empty stomach will numb you to what’s happening at this table and keep you numb when Feyd-Rautha comes to “fulfill his marital duties” tonight.  Neither of them comment, but both look at you as you tip your glass back.

You’re not sure if the Baron can sense it, but Feyd-Rautha can.  He’s a smart man; he knows you’ve been reading about his life, about recent Harkonnen memory, so he can reasonably assume that once you set him off early this morning that you did whatever research you could as to why.

He says nothing about it; he barely even looks at you throughout dinner and the quiet tension is excruciating; he knows that you know and it makes him even angrier.  He also can’t take

I’m not like the people who let it happen, you want to say.  I’m not your brother who called you weak or suggested you were asking for it.  I don’t think you’re less of a man for this.  Maybe no one else had the compassion for you that you needed but I do.  

But a man like him, one raised on brutality–you’re not sure he’d ever accept your compassion if you offered.  Maybe he’d be offended by it. 

The hours tick by after dinner, and then after you get cleaned up for the evening and changed into only your robe.  He doesn’t come by, doesn’t demand you come to his quarters.  You try reading but give up after you realize you’ve been reading the same page for the past several minutes.  You’ve come to regret drinking your dinner tonight instead of eating it; the faint buzz you got from two glasses of wine on an empty stomach has faded and instead left you feeling both empty and slightly nauseous, with the beginnings of a headache.

“Maybe he won’t come tonight,” you say to Idrisa as she’s getting ready to leave for the night, and the sentiment makes her hesitate.

“My apologies, Na-Baroness, but he will,” she says.  “At least until you have proof of conception.

“Would you like me to stay until he arrives?” she adds, looking as awkward as you feel at the idea.

You shake your head.  “It’s fine.  You’re relieved.  I don’t want you to have to see this, if and when it happens.”

She lowers her head in a bow and departs without another word.

You continue reading in bed, staring at the same page as you listen for any sounds, dreading each passing second.

When you hear it, a door opening and closing to your bathroom, your breath hitches, fear creeping up your spine.

You look up, watching the bathroom door, waiting, heart pounding and your breath now caught in your throat as he silently enters your bedroom.

He’s naked.  For the first time he’s not erect.

You stare, frozen, your book folded open on your lap.

He looks at you and your obvious fear in your wide eyes and it doesn’t seem to amuse him this time.  It doesn’t change anything, though.  He’ll get what he came for.

After a moment he says, “Strip and get on all fours.”

You stare, almost incredulous at his coldness.  It had been fading so rapidly over the past week you hadn’t even realized it was gone.  His cruelty before came with a level of interest.  His gaze is impassive, but then there’s that glint not of lust, but anger.  At you, at the Baron, at his circumstances, whatever it is, you don’t want to bear the brunt of it.

“We don’t have to do this tonight,” you tell him.  “We’ve done it enough that there can’t be any doubt and even if there is, we can try again later when…”

“I won’t repeat myself,” he says before you can say anything that reminds him of his past, his uncle.

You can’t really mean this.  You’re not any more in the mood for this than I am, you want to tell him, as you set your book beside you and slowly unfasten your robe.  You keep your eyes on him, anticipating the attack.  Maybe he’ll lunge for you, you think as your heart pounds and your robe falls open.  He’ll let out some inhuman noise and pounce.  Your nipples pebble against the bedroom air and you notice his gaze fall there, to the exposed skin bared, but he doesn’t move.

You don’t give his cock a second look; you don’t want to know if and how aroused he is by this.  You just keep your gaze on his face, impassive as ever, as you remove the robe completely, hesitating and wanting to stop, wanting to suggest that maybe the two of you talk about this.

You open your mouth, not sure what you can even say before slowly turning over on the bed, taking a deep breath, and sinking, humiliated, down on your knees and forearms.  

He doesn’t move for a moment, just stands where he is, and you resist the urge to turn your head to look at him and yet you’d give anything to know what he’s thinking right now.  Soon, though, you feel the weight of knees sinking into the mattress behind you.  You shut your eyes, waiting for him to say something, to do something.  For a moment, nothing, but then you hear him begin to stroke himself, breath hitching.  His other hand moves along your hip, briefly squeezing the cheek of your ass before sliding his cock along your slit.

You’re not wet enough for this to be comfortable, and he doesn’t appear to care in the slightest.  You wince at the first push of him inside of you, a hiss escaping your clenched teeth.  It doesn’t hurt as much as it has before, and yet you hate it more and you whimper as he bottoms out inside of you.  He doesn’t pause, doesn’t seem to respond to your noises, just thrusts again into you, deep and hard. 

He can hear you finally sob, head bowed, tears pricking up, wriggling away from him before he yanks you back onto him.  His breath is harsh and his hands bruise your tender skin.

I hate this, you want to tell him.  You don’t know how to explain it; it’s not even the position he’s taken nor the roughness, because you can handle both.  It’s the contempt and the coldness; he doesn’t want this, would probably prefer to be alone while he’s inside of you and that bruises your ego as much as it does your sensitive insides.

If you were more experienced and more confident and not completely blind-sided by the wealth of horrific information you’ve gotten today, maybe you’d try to moan, buck your hips against it, seem like you can enjoy this to try and raise his enthusiasm but you can’t.  If you knew how to play seductress to make this easier for both of you, you would.

This is what you expected on your wedding night; the cruelty in his lack of real desire, but until tonight he’d been utterly transparent about his attraction to you and it’s taken until now to understand just what a difference that makes.  You’d take having your wrists tied and your ass struck and his cock cutting off your airflow any night over feeling like this.

He comes with a grunt of completion inside of you like he might as well be coming into his own fist.

The tears roll down your cheeks and as you bow your head, onto the sheets below you.

I am Lady Y/N of Y/H and the Na-Baroness of Harkonnen.  I am your wife .  I’m not just some hole for you to penetrate and I’m not someone you can punish for existing because you can’t punish the person who really hurt you.  The words die in your throat before you can even think about saying them, and you gasp as he brusquely pulls out.  Some of his seed trickles out of you and starts to dribble down the inside of one of your thighs.  You don’t want to look at him.  You want to slap him.  You don’t understand the depths of your own anger as it builds.

He pulls away, and for a moment you think he’s going to just head back to his room as you right yourself and turn onto your side, but instead he turns back to you, sitting down on the edge of the bed and cupping your chin and cheek in one hand.  He forces you to look up at him with your red-rimmed eyes, your tear-stained cheeks flush with hurt and humiliation and he sees it with that same lack of emotion that makes you want to scream.  White-hot rage flares up within you, and he seems to realize what you’re about to do before you do it, before you realize you’re doing it.

You’re still crying as you spit a wad of saliva directly into his face.

He doesn’t even blink.

Instead he grabs your hair roughly, jaw tightening, and you can’t help the fear lancing up your spine, but it doesn’t completely replace your anger.  He has you in his grasp and your mind draws a blank on how to apologize, maybe beg for mercy, when you’d almost rather remain in furious silence.

It’s not quite anger in his eyes, not quite lust, but it’s not that same furious look he had early this morning or the coldness he exuded before he pushed his way inside of you.  He brings your face closer to his as he leans further in.  He presents his cheek now coated in your spit.  

There’s so much you don’t understand.  No one taught you this language and this man is hard to decipher, but you’re pretty sure you know what he wants without him having to say it.

You hesitate for a moment, your lips against his cheek, before darting your tongue out and licking your own saliva off of him.  They’re tentative, almost kittenish licks against his skin; you sense his breath even out and feel the fluttering of his lashes as he briefly closes his eyes, feel his jaw relax as his lips part.

I don’t get it.  How does a gentle touch infuriate you but being spat on calms you down? you want to ask, as his hand relaxes in your hair and he lets you withdraw.   How do you forgive a decade of being violated but not me finding out about it?  How do you forgive the scars on your back but not me touching them?

He looks at you another moment.

“Your training resumes tomorrow,” he says.  

“Fine,” you tell him, your voice shakier than you’d like, your anger extinguished.  He seems wearier than you’d first thought.

He gets up, starts to walk away, when you remember that neither of you exchanged a word about what he’s been through, and that won’t do.  Not with everything left unsaid, the horrors you’ve discovered that you know, in the quiet moments in your bed, that still haunt him. 

You reach for his wrist.  He looks back at you.  The coldness is replaced by resignation.  “There’s nothing to discuss,” he says.  He’s not talking about your training.  It leaks through the cold edge in his voice, the finality of it.  “It’s done.”

How, though?  You reopened an old wound that never properly healed, and he just wants you to quietly let it fester?  

You release his wrist and he leaves, disappearing back into the bathroom and beyond to sleep in his own bed tonight.

You’re not sure what understanding you just reached.  It’s not something you could have prepared for, and there’s a part of you that persistently assumes that even though he won’t talk about it, this will come up again.

You’re sinking back into bed, hoping that you’ll be able to sleep tonight after everything that’s happened, when it occurs to you: once you have a son, you can’t allow the Baron anywhere near him.  Even if Feyd-Rautha has learned to live with what happened to him, and maybe even loves his uncle in a twisted sort of way you can’t really comprehend, you can’t allow the same thing to happen again.  So that leaves you with several options, each seemingly more impossible than the last but no matter: you’ll have at least nine months to figure out a plan.

[obsidianpen]

I love your mind!!! That Triwizard AU is SOOO good! I love the interactions between Harry and Tom already!! Obviously we don't know enough context to say who would win but I do think it would be funny if it was Harry. Can you imagine everyone's reactions if the younger, wild little Gryffindor won against the three top proteges?? I know Draco and Tom would be SEETHING at Harry's name getting randomly picked though😂 I really wanna see how your version of Grindelwald would interact with Tom and Harry... Also, ik Lightning isn't your priority right now but I was wondering if you could spoil a little, how old would Tom be? I would be really interested to know how you would write a Hogwarts aged Tom, but ik you might be more interested in writing him about the same age as in B&G possibly? There's just SO much you can work with either way, both post-horcrux and pre-horcrux. But do you know what's funny, I don't ship Tomione but I still think you should write that dark Volmoine fic with the floating heads hahah, your ideas are just too brilliant! Though I know you already have too many WIP on your plate, hopefully finishing Hauntingly will de-stress you a little (if you even get stressed about fics??)

yeah riddle is def seething when he finds out Harry’s the other Hogwarts champion (Albus is genuinely concerned because he’s only 14; Gellert thinks Harry got his name in there himself and is therefore very clever and is delighted at the additional challenge). Gellert is basically chaotic neutral everywhere he goes. Also becomes buddies with the Weasley twins. It’s not a great combination to the ire of champion/head boy Tom because it’s not like he can do anything to Gellert :)

re lightning: I was going to write a 20 something old Tom… but I guess u could do Hogwarts thing? Harry is 19 tho…. Hmmmmmm…. Maybe that could be a professor potter fic haha but my original idea AT ALL

I do love that volmione plot bunny. Maybe someday!!

[kaysters247]

Deadly Inferno {A Patrick Hockstetter Fic}

Part 8 - You and I

Word Count: 1310

Warning: Smut. Not saying it’s good because I don’t usually write it. But I did my best. Lol.

I practically flew home on my my bike in anticipation for the nights ventures with Patrick, a massive smile on my lips from the mere thought of it all. He had promised a night of lust, pain, excitement. And I wasn't about to miss it. Night time was quickly approaching in Derry and that's when the curfew kicked in, one my dad highly enforced. If we weren't in by the time curfew came around, it would be our asses for sure. And I wasn't about to take that risk.

"Where you been all day girl?" I stopped dead in my tracks from dads slurred words in his usual chair, the light from the tv illuminating the room. He'd already gotten five bottles in and wasn't about to be a real problem. At least not right now anyhow.

"Out with Beverly dad. Just spent time swimming and stuff." I practically ran up the stairs from his usual scoff of knowing, knowing I was bullshitting, but too drunk to care. And so drunk that he'll forget ever asking me. I was running so fast that I ran right smack dab into Vic coming out of the bathroom and heading to the stairs himself, my eyes averting to his flustered face. He seemed nervous to even be standing in front of me right now.

"Come on Vic. We can't keep doing this. You're my best friend. Patrick will have to understand that." He looked at me for a brief moment, before suddenly bolting down the stairs like his life depended on it, leaving me in utter annoyance. Great. Vic won't even talk to me anymore. Honestly, I was still miffed about what they did to Ben. I knew it was mostly Henry. But Vic of course wasn't objecting all that much to it out of fear.

"Lost a boy toy sis?" I practically punched Henry in the arm once he came walking by with a humored laugh leaving his lips.

"Can it Hen. I'm still pissed at you anyway." He stopped dead in his tracks, turning to look me dead in the eyes with such a scowl on his lips. He was always sick of me messing with his fun times.

"You're nothing but a damn buzzkill Leslie. Fuck, I don't get how you have such a whore reputation when you act like fun is nothing but girly shit. All I know is that you need to stop screwing my friends." I wanted so badly to haul off and hit him, but I simply went to my room and placed a chair under the doorknob so no one could suddenly enter unannounced. Locks weren't aloud in this house, except for the bathroom of course.

"Guess Bub got under your skin huh?" I jumped a little in surprise from Patrick sitting in his usual spot on my bed, his shirt already off and his shoes discarded across the room. And his usual unnerving smirk on his hauntingly handsome face. He rose from the bed in such a stride I had no time to react before he was on me, dragging me to the bed and practically throwing me down on it, looming over me in such a menacing way.

"You know, he's got a point Princess. I mean you really don't listen do you? I told you what would happen if you interfered with anything we do...." He started to rip my clothes from my body, not caring if any questions were asked about my shredded clothes, not letting me speak what so ever. He was so lustful his eyes were practically black at this point. Patrick was lost in the darkness and he wasn't coming back anytime soon.

"And I swear if you even attempt to scream during anything I do, it'll be worse for you. So don't." His zippo was suddenly out of his pocket against my now exposed stomach, the flame trailing from my bra line all the way down my stomach to my underwear. I bit down onto my lip so harshly with my toes curled that I could taste the blood trickling down my throat. He grabbed his shirt long discarded and tied my hands together with it to the best of his ability, his hard on so obvious that it was making me completely drenched. And he knew it.

"I always knew you were it for me Les. You can handle pain. And that turns me the fuck on to the extreme. You feel pain without flinching...." He had my bra ripped off and underwear pulled down my legs so quickly that I barely registered it, watching as he took his pants and boxers off. his dick springing up so fast. I was so turned on that I could barely breathe at this point from my thoughts.

"Patrick please.... Just fuck me already!" He suddenly slapped me across the face, igniting a moan from my lips that honestly shouldn't have happened. But shit if I wasn't a mess right now. He was simply smirking, enjoying causing me pain. But I could see the want in his eyes. He was losing it himself. With one swift motion, he entered me and just went for it, pounding in and out with his hand coming to rest around my neck, knowing I wouldn't scream like that. His movements became so sloppy, but so powerful all at the same time. I always felt like I was being torn apart from how fast he went, how deep he got. With his movements never wavering, he leaned down and started biting my neck so harshly, my mind whirling with so many emotions. Our bodies rubbed together like they were meant to be there the entire time.

"Just because you saved my life, it doesn't mean I owe you anything. So don't act like it! But you're mine Leslie.... So you better start acting like it..." He suddenly leaned back up and went faster and faster, moans escaping my lips. We finally came together, our labored breathing the only thing I could hear in the moment. The slight breeze from my open window a nice soothing touch on my sensitive skin, I could still feel Patrick in me, even when he pulled out.

"I do Pat... I don't fuck anyone else." He simply looked at me, before lighting a candle on my nightstand that he must have brought, letting it melt a little before leaving little drops of melted wax on my tits, my stomach, anywhere he felt like, he left trails of it. I closed my eyes in utter bliss from the mere sensations coursing through my body.

"Not even those losers? Because you sure like to stand up for them." He suddenly put the flame from the wick to my stomach, leaving it in one spot to slowly start to burn, a yelp leaving my lips before he slapped a hand down over my mouth, his demented eyes searching mine in absolute pleasure.

"You're absolutely beautiful Leslie. A beautiful little fuck toy that no one else can touch. You drive me insane. And I don't plan on letting you go... so don't think about it." He finally untied my hands, putting his shirt back on along with his pants, blowing out the candle and placing back on my nightstand for next time. He could have honestly killed me for what I did, helping Ben and all. But he enjoyed the cat and mouse game, just as he said. He doesn't want me dead. He wants me to play with. To hurt. Do anything he pleases. This summer was only getting started.

[some-pers0n]

The Sound Between Notes

Fandom: TF2

Characters: Medic, Engineer

CW: Needles, injection (I swear to god it's not bad but still there's a warning for it--)

Summary: Engie, sleep deprived and exhausted as can be, hears the gentle sound of a violin playing through the base. Curiosity gets the better of him and he investigates.

Word Count: 2.6K

A/N: The idea of this oneshot has been haunting me for months and I finally had the motivation to write it. Fingers crossed that I'll still have the motivation to write the next chapter of my fic soon. I really wanna get back to that... Oh, I also crossposted this onto Ao3 last night. If you'd like to read it there instead (or ya know swing by and read my other stuff), that'd be really nice of you. Anywho, enough rambling, here's the silly oneshot.

The Engineer would say he was pretty used to the madness of his teammates. I mean, he'd already been here a couple of months now, so surely he must have adjusted to it. Anywhere from Sniper and his collection of piss jars to Pyro just...being himself, it was obvious that none of them were exactly 'normal'.

But, what he didn't expect to hear was the sound of music echoing through the halls.

He had been tinkering around with his designs for the dispenser, trying to finalize it and get a good grip on building it, when he heard it. At first, he thought it was just his mind playing tricks. It was quite late and the effects of getting little-to-no sleep over the course of several days was getting to him. Who would've thunk that was not the smartest idea?

But, as time passed, it became clear that it wasn't just in his head. He could hear it. It was traveling through the vents. While it was just barely audible, he could still vividly hear the notes. Someone was playing music. Not just any old music either. It wasn't Demo playing a little tune on the piano or Scout playing his Tom Jones record.

Rather, Engie could make out the very distinct sound of it. The shrill, yet elegant melody it produced. There was no doubt in his mind: that was a violin.

Naturally, he was curious. What could compel somebody to get up at whatever time it is right now and play such...admittedly beautiful music. Even if Engie was more of a countryman, preferring his guitars, banjos, and fiddles, it'd be a lie to say he didn't appreciate the grandeur of other instruments. So, he caved in. He placed down his wrench and walked out of the door.

Now in the halls, he just wandered around. There was no way that this went unnoticed by the others. Perhaps they were asleep or were simply not bothered enough to investigate. Either way, it was somewhat eerie. The empty labyrinth of the base before him, with only the sounds of his footsteps and breathing to duet the violin. He followed the sound, guided towards it like a moth to a flame. He had to see who was making it now. As he did however, it became more and more appropriate just who exactly this mystery musician was.

The music was getting louder as he went further in. He turned the corner, peeping down another hallway. This time he was met with a pair of doors, with a dull neon red sign displaying the words 'INFIRMARY' positioned above. The frosted glass made it impossible to see through clearly, but he could see a dim light from the inside.

There was no doubt in Engie's mind that this is where the source of it was. He chuckled lightly, smiling to himself. Of course. It should've been his first thought to assume it was Medic.

Yet, he didn't want to go back to the shop. He came out all this way just to see what this was about. He couldn't just not go in. He carefully walked towards the door, hesitating for a moment. He listened to the notes, now being able to hear them much clearer. The somber, yet hauntingly peaceful melody that came forth from it. But, despite this, he knocked, interrupting the piece.

Instantly, the violin stopped. Engie felt his stomach drop a fair bit. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to intrude on the Medic of all people, even if they are partners.

Moments later, he heard rushed footsteps approach the door. It unlocked and opened up, revealing the man himself.

"Mein Gott, can't you people see that I'm–" Medic cut himself off upon seeing Engie. He wasn't wearing his work uniform, but rather his light brown waistcoat and white dress shirt. A bright red tie that was ever so slightly wrinkled was tied around his neck. His eyes, bright and blue as they may be, held a tiredness to them. The oddest thing about him however was how his hands were uncovered. His precious scarlet red gloves were removed, showing his delicate hands.

"Hey, doc." Engie tipped his hard hat. "What are you doing up so late?"

Medic glanced back into his room. "I'll assume that you came because you heard that, no?"

"Nah, just wanted to drop by in the middle of the night and watch you sleep. What else?"

He paused. "...that was a joke, ja?" he asked, genuine confusion in his voice.

"Yeah, just messing with you. I was working when I heard your...violin? It's a violin, correct? So many of these darn stringed instruments."

Medic smiled back. "I was playing my violin, that's correct. I couldn't exactly sleep and neither could the birds. So, I figured why not play a few songs to tire both of us out? They love the music and I get some peace of mind."

"They ain't the only ones who're fans of your violin either," Engie said. "Honestly, I thought I was in some orchestra with you playing. Even through the vents, it sounds just amazing." He looked up at his partner. "You don't mind if I stay and listen for a minute, do ya?"

Medic's eyes perked up. "No, not at all!" He grabbed Engineer by the hand, practically pulling him inside. The nice thing about Medic is that you can always tell when he's happy about something. It was cute and endearing, making him almost forget how he was staring at a deranged lunatic.

"Thanks, doc." Engie grabbed a chair and sat down. "I didn't know you played music."

"I haven't quite found an excuse to break out my violin yet," he answered, fidgeting with the tuning pegs. "Neither with my piano or accordion."

"Accordion?" He echoed. "How the hell you managed to learn that?"

"Tradition. My mother insisted I learn these instruments as soon as I could. I was a prodigy that outclassed several adults by the age of six."

"Gee, aren't you special?"

Medic gave a playful smirk in return. "I've been on and off since then. I prefer the classics as opposed to ragtime and blues, as many would prefer. I know you'll like those better as well. I simply don't care."

"Pff, no?" Engie snickered. "I've just never quite got a chance with classical music. Sounds...different. Should be obvious though, considerin' how it's...ya know."

"You don't have to explain yourself, mein Partner," he said. "It's already flattering to have you sit and enjoy my music, despite me being rusty."

"You call that rusty? That was great, doc! Of course I'd have to swing by after hearing that."

Medic's smile shifted into a smug grin. "Well then..." he muttered, clearly enjoying the admiration and praise.

"What song were you just playing then?" Engineer asked, trying to steer things back on the right track.

"Oh, this?" He brushed his bow across the strings, hastily playing a couple of notes. "Just some Paganini."

"...who?" he asked. "Never heard of him."

Medic scoffed. "I'm not surprised." He slowed down, readjusting himself. He rested the violin on his shoulder and arm, going back to playing a slow tune. "Niccolò Paganini was an Italian musician. He's written quite a number of works, most of which are impossible."

"How can a piece be 'impossible' though?"

"He had exceptionally large fingers that allowed him to–rather absurdly in my opinion–play three octaves over four strings in a single draw of the bow."

The Engineer's expression must have been confused as Medic quickly chuckled. "It means that he wrote music that only he could play." He rocked on his feet. "Quite an impressive artist as well. Though, he's known mostly for his deal with the devil."

Engie leaned back in the chair. "So, he made some deal with the devil? What for? Already had big hands, what more could a guy want?"

Medic's expression shifted. "What do you mean by that?" he asked, genuine confusion in his voice. He shook his head and continued before the Engineer could answer. "I wouldn't know the validity of the claim. I recall once asking a demon about it when I was sacrificing some poor sod. They just brushed it off. Quite rude, don't you think?"

"Weren't you talking to an actual demon?" Engie inquired. "Be surprisin' if they were actually...well, concerned about your question."

"Mh, good point. Still, if a man has a question, it should be answered. Nutzloser Dämon..." he cursed. "But, that is his tale. A man who played with such skill and talent that others believed him to have dealt with the devil."

"Can see why you like him then," he said.

"Hm? Oh, well, yes. I do suppose there's an aspect of that to him I can relate to. Although, I'm unsure if he was a mercenary." He laughed. "But, I still do find his pieces to be quite beautiful. This was one of his more energetic pieces: a revision of Liszt's 'La Campanella'."

Medic took a small inhale and drew his bow. In an instant, his fingers darted across the instrument. Engie looked in awe as he graciously played the instrument. In his left hand, the bow glided on the strings, quickly making sharp, yet dainty notes. In his right, it supported the violin, with his fingers pressing down on the right strings to form the correct chords.

It was beyond words, most because Engie's sleep-deprived brain couldn't quite fathom making any up to describe it. The melody was just about hypnotic, despite the intense speed. He could listen to it forever. Just a heavenly melody, a blessing upon his ears that've heard nothing but gunfire and screaming for weeks. He closed his eyes for what was only supposed to be a moment, but found the darkness comforting. He kicked his legs up on the table and folded his arms in. He let out a deep exhale before finally allowing sleep to take him away.

----------------------------------

At last, he was finished with the piece. Five or however many minutes of just nonstop playing a very challenging song. But, he survived.

He bowed. "Thank you, my hard hatted friend. Deine Anwesenheit war sehr notwendig."

To his surprise, no response. A disappointing considering how much effort he put into that. Did the Engineer just not find it that entertaining?

He looked at his partner, awaiting some sort of feedback. Anything from him clapping or even a simple remark. Yet, nothing. It wasn't until Medic looked a little closer that he saw what was happening. Engie's breathing was deeper and more relaxed. He was...snoring.

"Ah, you've fallen asleep," he said, walking over to inspect him. "Well, at least my music did something, even if it was to lull you to sleep."

He quietly watched him, contemplating things a bit. For one, even if he looked comfortable, a chair is certainly not a place to sleep. Maybe it was how he came to his 'concert' of sorts, but Medic didn't want to leave him asleep on a chair. How he was set up, with his legs kicked up on the table, didn't exactly look the most comfortable.

...fine. Maybe Medic could do something.

His first instinct was to sedate him. Then again, his immediate thought upon seeing anybody asleep is to sedate them so that they're–for lack of a better term–easier to work with. For one, he could pick up Engie and not have to worry about waking him up. It would also ensure that he'd have a nap longer than half an hour. If anything, shooting him with god-knows-what would be a favor.

He walked over to one of his trays, picking up a bottle. It was hard to see in the dark, but he was sure that it was one of his anmestics. Well, it could also be lethal poison, but let's not think about that. It probably is the correct vial. He took a possibly clean syringe and plunged it in, taking a healthy dose of the toxin.

"Now then..." he muttered turning back to the Engineer. "This will help you, mein Partner," he said, giving Engie a little pat on his hard hat before sticking the needle straight into his neck.

No reaction from the Engineer as he did so. Not even a slight change in breathing. Still breathing. That's a good sign. Means he's not dead. Being dead is bad, correct?

Medic hovered around the Engineer in silence, waiting a minute or two just to see if he was fine. After deeming that, yes, he didn't seem to be dying, he smiled. "Alright, now what?"

Truth be told, he didn't think this far. Usually when he sedates a person who's asleep, it's to then experiment and steal their organs. He couldn't quite do that with Engie, mostly because he was out of organs and...quite frankly didn't feel like rearranging his small intestine for the hell of it.

But, he couldn't just leave Engie on a chair. That's uncomfortable. Medic had slept in quite a number of them in his life. He was familiar with the back pain that would come in the morning.

Then, he realized something. The most obvious solution: carry him to a bed.

Medic smacked himself in the head. "Of course! Why had I not thought of that already?" he laughed to himself. He wedged his hands under the Engineer. One to support his back, the other to carry his legs.

"Eins, zwei, drei!" On three, he scooped him up. An easier feat than he thought, seeing as Engie was only around two hundred pounds. His body was warm and almost...comfortable to hold.

"Alright, now..." He was about to head to the door, ready to carry him across the entire base and back to the workshop before stopping himself. He had a bed right in this infirmary. A week ago, he cleared out an old storage room and remade it into a bedroom.

It was close and Medic knew it was cozy in there. A king-size bed with heavy blankets and a heavenly soft mattress. However, it was his bed. He didn't want to give it up, at least not without seriously considering it. Medic valued comfort. He liked his bed.

But...maybe just this once, Engie could sleep in it.

He swallowed his pride and walked towards the room. He bumped into the door, opening it up. He approached the bed and plopped the Engineer right down on it. He then pulled the blankets over him, tucking him in.

"I swear to god if you even so much as tell a single soul about this..." he whispered. "Just this one time, ja? And only because you fell asleep to my violin."

No response. Engie was peacefully snoring away without a care in the world. Medic couldn't help but feel a smile stretch across his face. He knelt to Engie's level and caressed his face. He then patted him lightly. "Gute Nacht, Herr Engineer."

He stood back up and walked to the door. Taking one last looked before closing the door. He was still somewhat confused, mostly by his own feelings and emotions. He was partners with this man, yes, but he never...cared about another human being this much.

It was definitely odd. But, that was a thought for another night. He's tired, and now he'll have to sleep on one of the operating tables. A small price to pay for Engie to get a decent sleep. Just this once though.

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

bro i’d illegally download you af but im far too shy to be non-anon for now. thank you for responding to my previous Ask. I interpreted that theres a lack of reciprocity about how tsumiki views gojo. Almost like a “legal kidnapping”. Cuz sure megumi may have consented (as much as a 6 year old can consent) but she definitely had zero say in her adoption. It just sort of happened to her, much like how it just happened to yuuta waking up from a concussion to learn he’s got a “new dad”.

Im happy to learn that your fans will be indulged in the future regarding this!

Q: is yaga turning a blind eye or completely unaware that his school is now essentially harbouring an anti-zenin crime faction? Only asking because of your response to your previous Ask. i imagine he is bound to find out that a special grade teacher, the ONLY doctor, and a grade 1 sorcerer are currently out of commission.

You illegally download me but I’m very glitchy and probably infected with malware and I accidentally repeat the same story nine times and don’t reach the end during any of those times

Tsumiki sooo often becomes the Good Girl TM in fics and I just love her as messy and conflicted and hurting. I won’t make any binding statements as to what will be discussed/revealed but my girl needs to be allowed to be angry and upset and conflicted about her childhood. She had a pretty fucked time of it.

Also I’m pretty sure gojo straight up didn’t even legally kidnap him he fully kidnapped those children and then said “who’s gonna stop me lol” and no one was powerful enough to. Does he even have paperwork for them. There is no way it’s legitimate if so. A seventeen year old can’t even legally adopt children. What did he tell their school.

As to yaga, it’s more that there’s been such little time passed and he was too swamped to do anything immediate about it.

Like, Yaga knows that gojo and Shoko fucked off. A decent percentage of the jujutsu world knows it. It’s just that he hasn’t really had the time to do anything about it.

It’s only been like, maybe five hours since Gojo and Shoko finally made it to jujutsu high.

A general timeline of the events of sea flags gardens:

December 21st: Geto declares war.

December 22nd: Megumi is taken.

December 22nd-24th: megumi is in the disciplinary pit, only tsumiki knows he’s missing.

December 24th-25th: Yuuta defeats Geto, passes out after Rika moves on, and wakes up to discover the higher ups are already making a move on him

The night of December 25th: The Zenin force Megumi to summon the great serpent, he takes the bite.

December 26th: Yuuta meets Nanami, his new not-dad.

December 27th: Yuuta’s meeting with the higher ups. Nanami is suspended.

Very late on the 27th: Tsumiki discovers Megumi unconscious and delirious on the kitchen floor, steals a car, and brings him to the school. Yuuta unlocks reversed curse technique and maintains it throughout the night.

6amish on the 28th: Gojo and Shoko arrive at jujutsu high

(this won’t be in the fic, but basically it took Maki ages to get into touch with gojo because of how busy he was, and when he rushed to get Shoko, she was in the middle of surgery and had literally no one to replace her. By then, Yuuta had unlocked RCT, so they had a very tense night with Nanami monitoring Yuuta to make sure that he was able to keep Megumi stable while Shoko tried to not kill the guy on the table in front of her, biting their nails about whether Megumi would last until they got there. Straight up, Gojo had teleported back and forth multiple times in the night to check on Megumi, but Yuuta was so focused in maintaining RCT that he didn’t notice him. Gojo went out of his way to make sure Yuuta wouldn’t notice him, because he didn’t want to distract him and risk him losing his grip on the RCT before Shoko could take over. He was waiting just outside of the infirmary more than once in the night to make sure Megumi was still breathing. All of the adults are sort of hauntingly aware that if Yuuta hadn’t figured out RCT, Megumi would have died before Maki could even get in touch with gojo and they’d all be burying him right now. None of them have come off the panic of that yet.)

1pmish: Megumi wakes up.

It’s been less than 12 hours since gojo and Shoko fucked off, and yagas too busy trying to find replacements for their workloads to have to decide whether he’d turn a blind eye.

Gojo was legitimately covering more than the rest of the workforce combined, and that load dropping down on you when you’re busier than ever really shows. Shoko’s less obvious, because she can’t work as long as gojo can, so there’s a decent few people that still think she’s probably just sleeping or something. But when you have a society that just got off a war and literally one healer, then people notice when she leaves and doesn’t answer her phone. Yaga knows that gojo and Shoko are gone, but he doesn’t know why. Gojo hasn’t read him in on anything to do with Megumi since they had to go no contact with the Zenin. He thinks Nanami’s not around because he’s suspended, but he doesn’t know what the hell happened to make gojo and Shoko go awol, and he just hasn’t had the time to find that out.

Ijichi’s the only other one who gojo told about what happened. He’s also gone awol, but he’s been in and out of campus trying to get information on what happened and running necessary errands while everyone else has been tied up with megumi. He did get to visit Megumi while Yuuta was asleep, but Megumi was too out of it for anything to be said.

[archersxartxblog]

Ok so recently I read the entirety of Warden Twins in the span of 4 hours (with a break in between cause it was 2:30 AM) and I just had a funny shower thought I'm gonna put here.

Basically, Arceus feels bad about the whole situation, so he gives Drayden and F!Emmet Arc Tablets or something that show the both of them Ingo, Lil' Ingo and Emmet and their misadventures. They essentially react to everything that happens in the fic as it happens.

Drayden is initially very sceptical of the whole situation, rightfully so. His nephews were kidnapped like 3 days ago (he basically got like a prologue vid showing what happened before showing him everything else), and then some stranger gives him an iPad that shows him his missing nephews being adopted by some guy who looks hauntingly similar to Lil' Ingo, with amnesia and who knows where. But he eventually warms up to F!Ingo cause hes actually not that bad at being a dad, is increasingly growing more protective over his now sons everyday (as he should be), and is looking out for them when he cant.

He invites Clay over cause his boys just became friends with Liam who ALSO looks hauntingly similar to Clay. And then the both of them bust out conspiracy boards when Akari reveals that all 4 of them are from the future. Lil Ingo and Emmet make sense, but Ingo??? If hes from the future as well, then is he some cousin they never heard about? What is this???

But they dont really care about that. Drayden swears that Ingo is now gonna be (officially) part of the family if- no WHEN they all return back to the future. Oh and so will Akari, she's a cool cousin to the boys.

This eventually just devolves into Drayden watching all of this like it's a soccer game or something : very passionately. Like "oh my dragons I'm gonna kill the Miss Fortune sisters for kidnapping my nephews", and then cheering like his team won the world cup or something when Gyarados shows up. Oh and Drayden will be so angry he might rip a tear in spacetime in order to kill Volo when all THAT happens with him and Lil' Ingo.

With F!Emmet its gonna be a bit more complicated, since he either remembers the past or not. But if he doesnt remember, then he will be panicking. His brother went missing like 5 years ago, and when he finally sees him he's with baby versions of them??? Why is Ingo a father to two kids who are named after them and look EXACTLY like him when he was also 10?!? 'AM I AN UNCLE??? DO I NEED TO BUY A BIGGER APARTMENT NOW?!??' Elesa is surprisingly taking this much better.

And then when Akari is revealed, F!Emmet is both verrrrrry happy to be an uncle and that his brother is not alone and happy, but at the same time mourning his bank account, cause hes gonna need to buy a bigger apartment if he is to house 3 new kids and like 24 new pokemon.

And then its revealed that both Ingos are one of the same. Emmet is internally having a blue screen of death moment, cause that means that Ingo literally raised him. Elesa is just treating thos like it's a certified Watchmojo top 10 anime plot twists.

But if he does remember, then he is basically just refreshing his childhood memories.

I wanted to add that maybe Emmets and Draydens tablets are connected to one another, but I've already typed WAYY too much. Can you tell that I love the Warden Twins AU?

Anyways enough from me, thank u for listening to my Ted talk. What are your thoughts about this? Really hope the fic gets updated soon and have a good whatever-your-timezone-is

Oh wow

Not gonna lie this was really fun to read. I love reading stuff like this. This is a really fun idea, i just imagine Arceus making like a YouTube channel like Gamingharry or Ladyoflore or something and just sending it to Drayden and future Emmet with a message that says "this explains everything"

I do need to get back to writing Warden’s Twins, I'm a little stuck with Lil Ingo's face off with Kamado, so I've taken a small step back for a bit to try and figure out how to go about it.

But I'm so glad you're enjoying Warden’s Twins :)

[khaleesiofalicante]

hi dont mind me , i am writing this just after reading the chapter and with swollen eyes with how much i cried for other max, fuck this is worse than the last two chapters, i havent cried this much ever. you have such a brilliant mind i love it.

also i loved magnus in this chapter as well. as well as rafe it seems so much easier to understand them once you see the consequence of lucifer. also

also wtf was wrong with alec, like pointing an arrow is one thing but shooting a version of your kid, wow wasnt max supposed to be his fav technically like a bit biased not saying fav fav. i mean i get it, rafe is his kid of that timeline who is being threatened but shooting max was a bit too much for me from alec. i get it they dont completely understand max but atleast try to see from his side. i knew since arthur died and other max didnt tell it was all part of the plan and lance was aiming to be dead as per him. but it was a bit weird that magnus was more worried about the general health of his kids than alec (which idk just makes him colder to his kids, like almost superficial in a sense, u know what i am not making sense, its 1:36 am ist rn and i have just cried since 12 am bc of this chapter) but i know i am feeling a general sense of disappointment for alec generally in this chapter and like the whole fic in gen and not bc of other things just his take on well being(which used to be my fav thing abt him) which rafe often seems to be more in tune with than alec and yes i know he isnt the main character but idk why this got stuck i have just finished reading it literally so i will come back and write more about other max)

but anyways this was such a good hauntingly beautiful chapter. i loved it really so much. I think it was our max that went thro to the portal so when max came to he was in the changed timeline of whatever max did ? i think. my heart just went out for other max and what he had to deal with, like david suicide was something i saw coming but baby max doesnt deserve all the bad things happening to him in any universe, i knew there was a reason he has always been my fav even when he is annoying. like even in canon like cassie universe, since i started the books from 4th tmi book and then finished the whole series, max was literally the first character i knew of after the tmi novel like outside of his characters and i loved the little blueberry character since the start, always, (maybe also why alec's behaviour stuck odd to me, bc i love his and max relationship so much) bten has always been my fav story( again the alec-max relationship my fav). i literally bought my first tsc novel to be ttosa for him, just for his story ( and bane chronicles bc magnus being a fav is a canon event) i love him so much. bless just let him be alive and happy to some extent dani, that is all i ask

If it is any consolation, I cried a lot writing that chapter too. LIKE A LOT.

About Alec - I think it was a very Alec think to do. If you notice, he was the only one who was sceptical of Other Max - WHICH IS GOOD. This man could be Lucifer for all they know and one of them needed to be rational (i feel the shooting was very much reactional than intentional). But yes, among the LB fam, alec is the rational one and i think his reaction to Other Max, including the "how do we know you are saying the truth" is very practical of him. (i am a lbaf alec defender byeeee)

We don't actually know if Max changed the canon event. All we know is that Other Max didn't. If he did, he'd remmeber it.

Love all the love for Max. He is truly the bestest ;)

[ebonysficcollection]

The Spotlight Fics For Less Popular MHA Characters:

spit to the left, carry on (smile & say you're good) by jublis

An examination of Jirou's life and relationships and her thoughts on life and death during the lead up to the Kamino Ward fight. Almost hauntingly beautiful and existential in its descriptions of a person's life and how it all, in one way or another, is just a lead up to their death. But it's beautiful. Jirou is an amazing character, and I thank God that this fic exists if for nothing else, to give her development and depth that the show can't. I'd even go so far as to say this is essential MHA fic reading.

bff (brother friend forever) by carolinaa

A collection of snapshots showing Iida and Uraraka's friendship, where they're really just bratty siblings that love each other just so much. As always with this author, great writing style, fantastic characterization, and hit me in the fucking feels.

Imperceptible by lunarecrypt

A Hagakure-centric fic was something I did not know I needed, but now I'm glad I have it. Hagakure needs stealth advice from Todoroki, and she finds out the barest bones of his backstory and why he is the way he is. I always love fics about less popular characters, and I especially love them when they're told from the perspective of an underappreciated character. I really like Hagakure, and I wish there was more available content about her.

Pastels by Authoress and valiantarmor

An adorably sweet Tsuchako one-shot, because we need more Tsuchako fics in this fandom. And just more content in general with Tsu and Ochako.

make this feel like home by carolinaa

The Todoroki siblings all come together for Christmas for the first time in years when they hear that Endeavor will be out of town during the break. Very painful, but also the most realistic depiction of estranged siblings that clearly love each other, but don't know how to act around each other. Fantastically written, and it's told from Natsuo's perspective, which is a refreshing take on this genre of Todoroki family recovery fics.

what you know by phosphenical

A series of snapshots featuring the Big 3 (Mirio, Nejire, and Tamaki) as a throuple. How they got together, how they feel about each other, and what their relationship means to each other. I love the Big ot3 and this is just happiness and adorableness incarnate.

i hope i get there (try with me) by carolinaa

Fuyumi finally gets a place of her own and leaves Endeavor. Short but sweet, it perfectly encapsulates what it feels like to finally get away from an abusive parent. I have always loved the Todoroki siblings, but I feel like Fuyumi is always woefully under-looked in favor of her brothers, so it's always nice to see fics that are about her specifically.

[glitterslag]

hey i just wanted to say that i think about your spooky Appalachian folk fic every single day. it was genuinely one of the most hauntingly (in every sense) beautiful pieces of writing i have ever read. your command of the characters and landscape is just so divine. anyway. please write more for the bear if you feel like it, i will be first in line. or even just share the wildest headcanons you have, i want to pick your brain about the whole show. hope u had a good day today!

OH YOU ARE A SWEETHEART thank you so so much!!!! 🥺💕💕 kissing you big..

I do actually have a couple WIPs rn!

It's funny bc I'm really struggling to leave my spooky universe alone... I have way too much fun writing about it and now I'm done with the main plot I wanna have fun writing random deleted scenes, hopefully to post soon! 🫣 And I have another sydcarmy wip that's completely new too :)

[bunnimew]

What was your first time watching rotg like? Did you watch it in theatres? Where do you re-watch it, if you ever want to? What environments in the film did you like aesthetically? What character design(s) did you like the best? Which scenes were memorable to you? What were your favorite pieces of dialogue?

Hi, Anon!! Thank you so much for asking 😭❤ Since we're two people, some of these will have two answers. We'll try to make it as easy to read as we can!

What was your first time watching rotg like? Did you watch it in theatres?

K: We came to the fandom years late so my first time watching it was Fuuma suggesting we watch it together at their house just as something to do. 😂It was casual af. I was NOT expecting to become obsessed but my eyes were opened seeing Jack and Pitch interact together. 👀 I’m weak for a good villain, and after the movie was over we both started looking into fanart and as soon as we stumbled onto some blackice, we were hooked. New ship acquired, proceed to hyperfixate.

F: I watched it almost immediately after it came to cable. I wasn't impressed with the ad campaign, so I didn't go see it in theaters. I did expect to fall in love with Tooth based on her design, but then I didn't. And I was so disappointed with the ending (Pitch and Jack have way too much in common to sell me on Jack banishing Pitch and feeling good about it) that I just kind of... set it aside for four years. And then I was re-introduced through a Drarry fic and the next time I saw it on cable I thought, hey, maybe I should give it a second shot. So I suggested to Kam that we put it on. The rest is history.

Where do you re-watch it, if you ever want to?

We own a physical copy so we can watch it any time, but those times usually end up being for the rotg discord server we mod. (Which is open to anyone, hit us up for an invite! :D) We’ll usually stream it around Easter and for the anniversary or if enough people ask for it. 😂

What environments in the film did you like aesthetically?

K: Tooth’s palace is gorgeous. Pitch’s lair is hauntingly beautiful and especially appeals to me being a huge horror fan. And the spikey totem in Antarctica is lovely both visually and for sentimental reasons. ;)

F: Everything Kam said, but also Jack's lake. I really love that opening scene with the frost on the trees. Ask anybody; I'm big on trees.

What character design(s) did you like the best?

Tooth hands down is the most well designed character. So much detail with all her colors and feathers and her wings, it’s hard not to find something new to admire in each re-watching. As much as we love Jack and Pitch, their designs are quite simple. I really wish they would have done more with Pitch in particular than a plain black robe. BUT the Nightmare designs are excellent. Imposing and elegant and almost skeletal, but also so expressive.

If the artbook counts, we're big fans of the Eldritch Pitch designs that didn't make it into the movie. Some of those ideas were really, really cool.

Which scenes were memorable to you?

K: Any scene with Pitch. 🤣Jude Law’s voice is so perfect, even when Pitch is just fumbling around. I love how much personality they animated him with, I love that they made him dance, I love the range of emotion in Antarctica~ Basically every scene besides the ending is gold. Honorable mention to the scene where Jamie finally sees Jack too—that scene almost made me cry the first time I saw it hearing the tears in Jack’s voice. 😭

F: Antarctica. The opening scene. Pitch's lair with the wicked shadows. And the ending credits 🤣 I love Phil signing the book.

What were your favorite pieces of dialogue?

K: Pitch’s ‘Boo’, Pitch’s ‘You can have em back’, but my FAVORITE is probably the ongoing ‘Paint it red’ ‘Paint it blue’ joke. THE YETIS NEED A VACATION. 🤣

F: I can't get over "Suck an egg." Or "No offense" for that matter. Those itty bitty bits that say so much about who they are in three words or less.

If Phil pointing at Jack threateningly and saying nothing counts, then that too. I love that wordless communication so much 🤣🤣🤣

Thank you again, Anon ❤ This was a lot of fun to think about~