#i mean it was 90 earlier so could be worse

[yourknightinshiningplastic]

can it please cool down in here I'm wearing a sports bra that used to be too stretched to fit and it fits and I'm getting a little dysphoric rn

[froggibus]

hiiiiiii i just wanna say i love ur work so much. i was wondering if i could request a jason todd hurt/comfort fic. i recently had a really scary experience outside of a bar, and it has been taking a toll on me. maybe something like reader and jason fight over something silly, and then something like that happens to reader and he comforts them after and feels bad about the fight before? with a lot of fluff and reassurance. maybe he gives them a bath or something:) THANK YOUUUU

Never Let Me Go - Jason Todd

Pairing: Jason Todd x gn! reader

Genre: hurt/comfort, angst -> fluff

Word Count: 2.3k

Summary: after an argument with Jason, you're left to fend for yourself outside of a bar

CW: attempted assault, attempted SA, chasing, slight violence, dissociation/shock (reader), arguing, alcohol, hurt/comfort, pet names (Jason calls reader baby/hun), bathing together, jason is snarky at first

sorry this took so long! really hope you're feeling better, but if you (or anyone else reading this) ever need to talk, my inbox is always open <3 i talk about my own struggles with ptsd on this blog, and i want everyone to be able to feel safe enough to talk about theirs, too

i tried to keep the assault scene short and brief, but i've also added cuts before and after in case anyone would like to skip it.

(title slightly based on this song)

“You know that stuff is pure sugar and no alcohol, right?” 

You roll your eyes when Jason gestures to your drink with a look of distaste, hiding his snark behind the rim of his glass. You’re tempted to remind him that the foamy beer he’s pounding back has even less alcohol than your Cosmo, but think the better of it. He’s in a bitchy mood, and there’s no point making it worse.

He’d gotten into a fight with Bruce the night before, and had practically gone on a rampage through Gotham’s underground. The anger radiated off of him still when he’d showed up at your apartment an hour earlier, even after he’d flashed you a tense smile and planted a tentative kiss to your lips.

You’d told him at least three times since then that he didn’t have to come with you—given the bar was around the corner from your home, and you could stumble home from it drunk, backwards and in your sleep—but Jason had insisted. As if you ever thought Jason would be able to relax knowing you’re out at a bar in the heart of Gotham, despite your assertions that you would only be having a couple drinks and maybe some chili fries.

You swish your glass around, watching the raspberry coloured booze slosh on the sides. “We can go home if you’re not feeling up to this,” you say gently. “I don’t mind.”

He gives his broad shoulders an irritating shrug. “You wanted to get out of the house, we’re out of the house.” 

Though he doesn’t say it, you can hear the unspoken words crackling through the air. What more do you want from me?

“But do you want to leave?”

Jason’s eyes narrow, black pupils forcing out imperial blue. “I go where you go.”

It takes more effort than you’d like to admit to resist tugging at your hair. Though it’s been years since he lived in Wayne Manor, and even longer since he studied under Bruce, the lessons he learned have never left him. Including this form of aggravating, diplomatic speech where his answers gave no answers at all.

“Whatever,” you sigh under your breath, crossing your legs and tilting your body back to your drink.

Jason scoffs, “whatever? Really?”

“Yes, really!” You’re grateful that the mix of conversations and the drone of 90s rock are loud enough to cover up your rising voice. “I just wanted to get out of the house for once and you’re being mean.”

“I’m being mean?” There’s a cruel smirk on his lips. “The only reason I’m here is because of you, so that you wouldn’t have to be alone.”

“I never asked for that.”

Your heart races painfully in your chest. You’ve never liked arguing, especially not in public when the both of you have been drinking and especially not when Jason is already chafing under the expectations of others. It’s a nightmarish combination that leaves electricity sizzling in the air and everyone in the room on edge.

He chugs the rest of his beer, not even bothering to wipe away the tiny bit of white foam that catches on the shadow above his upper lip. “Fine then,” he grumbles, and tosses a fifty onto the counter. “I’ll see you.”

He leaves no room for protest, already barreling his way through the tables. By the time you’ve even processed what just happened, he’s already at the door, back muscles tensing beneath brown leather as he yanks it open hard enough to shake the hinges.

You wait until you hear the familiar rev of his motorcycle before ordering another round.

It’s late by the time you decide to pay your tab and head home. Your phone has long since been dead weight in your pocket, but even if it weren’t, you wouldn’t have bothered to check it. There was a part of you that hoped Jason would come back, that he would apologize, but that part is about as dead as your phone is.

It’s brisk outside now, and cold rain sprinkles from above. The dark rain clouds block out the moon, dim flickering street lights the only light you can see. You take a long, deep breath that clouds the air as you release it, rubbing your freezing forearms. Home is just around the corner, but that’s still an eight minute walk. Minimum.

A groan slips past your lips as you lean against the outside of the building, peering into the dark streets for any sign of a cab. A rock skids across the ground to your left and you snap your head in the direction it came from.

A man saunters towards you, his body encased in shadows. “Need a ride?”

A shiver rises up your spine. You shuffle further to your right, trying to put more distance between you and the stranger. 

He doesn’t take the hint. He moves closer, purposefully slamming his boots harder into the ground to get your attention. “I said,” he repeats, “do you need a ride?”

“No,” you swallow hard, adding a quick, “thank you.”

You don’t know this man, but you despise him. You despise his imposition, the southern twang of his voice, the fact you’re instinctually polite to him so that you don’t risk pissing him off.

Despite your plea, he keeps coming towards you. “I reckon you do.”

The alarm bells in your head start to shriek. You shove off of the wall, stumbling only slightly before you regain your balance and take off down the sidewalk. It’s dark and though you can no longer see him when you glance over your shoulder, you can hear the pounding of his boots on the pavement behind you.

And then his cold, clammy hands lock around your wrist and tug you hard. You strain against his grasp, using your entire body weight to get away, to go anywhere but here.

He’s so close you can smell the alcohol on his breath, feel the warmth of his body. Not warm the way Jason is, but warm the way a fire you shouldn’t go near is. You cry out desperately. The bar is still within sight, someone has to come out, someone has to see.

“Why not just let me show you a good time?” He says, “I’m a really nice guy if you give me a chance.”

You drive your elbow into his arm and his grip loosens enough for you to tug away. You rip your wrist from his grasp, but as you do, you lose your balance and crash onto the dirty, wet Gotham pavement. With how cold you are and the adrenaline your heart is furiously pumping through your body, you barely feel the impact.

You can’t see the expression on his face as you drag yourself across the pavement, but you hear a low chuckle. You imagine it’s similar to that of a wolf zeroing in on its prey.

And then, a booming voice cuts through the darkness. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Jason sounds pissed, but it's maybe the most beautiful thing you’ve ever heard. The most beautiful string of words in the English language.

The man spins on his heels away from you just in time to catch a harsh uppercut to the face. A loud crack reverberates through the buildings, and he goes down like a sack of potatoes on the concrete next to you.

You let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding, looking up at Jason through your lashes. “You’re—how?”

“Oh, baby. Baby, baby,” he sighs, dropping to his knees on the pavement next to you. His new jeans are probably ruined from touching the ground—as are yours—but that seems to be the least of his concerns right now.

He cradles your head in his lap, his hands trailing up your damp, aching skin for any sign of injury. You shiver, closing your eyes and letting Jason hold you. The adrenaline flooding your veins has not yet diluted, and the calloused warmth from Jason’s hands is the only thing keeping you from floating away.

“I didn’t leave, baby, would never leave you. I was waiting around back when I heard you and,” he sighs, “I’m so sorry.”

His words are faint, so faint, and more gentle than you’ve ever heard him speak. Though he clutches you tightly to him, the feeling registers as barely a whisper. And then you’re on your feet, propped up against his side as he helps you back to where he propped his bike.

Your mind is somewhere else now. You’d have completely forgotten about your own body if it weren’t for the frantic, rhythmic shove of Jason’s heart against his ribcage with every step you take.

You’re not sure how you got back to your apartment, but you’re sure it was through no small effort on Jason’s part. Your waist is warm from where his hand rests—he’s refused to let you go for even a moment since he saw you on that pavement. 

You shiver violently even after you return to the warmth of your home. Jason had wrapped you in his jacket but even that did little to stop the shaking. 

He cups your face, a soft intensity in his eyes. “Let’s get you warmed up, hm?”

You barely react to his touch, or to his words. It doesn’t take a genius to know you’re in shock—Jason’s seen it more than enough times in his lifetime to recognize it at a glance. 

The shivering, that faraway and glassy look in your eyes, the way your lips move as if they’ll form words but no sound comes out. Your pupils themselves have almost doubled in size from the adrenaline coursing through your system. 

He’d take the crowbar a thousand damn times if it meant he would never have to see you like this. He would give away all that he has, and all that he is, to never subject you to this kind of pain.

“I’ll be right back,” he says, and starts towards the dark hallway leading to your bedroom and bathroom.

You let out a choked gasp—the most sound you’ve managed since earlier—and Jason whips around. Blue eyes snap to yours, looking more like broken glass through the tears catching on your own lashes. 

Don’t leave, you want to say. Not even for a minute, not even for a second. But your words fail you, and all you have to fall back on is a gasp of air and the tears in your eyes.

Jason understands, though. “Let’s go together, then.”

He grabs one of your hands in his, and holds your waist with the other. You walk like that down the hall, Jason holding you tight and guiding you to your bathroom. He helps you settle down on the toilet seat while he runs a hot bath.

Jason has you sit on the side of the bathtub, only your bare feet resting in the warm water. He sits with you, his legs on either side of your own and his arms around your waist. Already, the shaking has subsided and your eyes have started to clear. Relief floods his system, wiping away the guilt that’s been bubbling in his stomach.

He waits a few minutes, before saying, “let’s get you out of those clothes and into the bath.”

It’s posed more like a question, his fingers tracing inquisitive circles on your hip. He’s asking, you realize, if it would be okay for him to help you undress. If you’re comfortable being naked in front of him right now. The kindness of the gesture has your shoulders dropping from your ears.

“Y-yeah,” you manage.

Jason keeps his touch firm, steady, while he peels your dirty shirt over your head. He has you raise your feet above the water so he can help you with your pants and underwear, discarding your clothes in a pile on the tiled floor. 

He squeezes your shoulders reassuringly when he sees you hesitate at the side of the bathtub before finally stepping in and letting your aching body settle in the warm water. 

It’s an immediate relief. The chill your skin has taken on, the ice running through your blood, starts to defrost. 

Jason watches you relax into the warm porcelain, your impossibly tense muscles finally loosening. “Feeling any better?” He asks quietly.

“I’m sorry,” you mumble quietly.

He grabs a washcloth from the drawer beneath the counter. “Hey, none of that.”

“I just,” you take a deep, shaking breath, “if we had never gone out tonight, none of this would have happened and you wouldn’t have had to help me and—”

Jason splashes warm water over your head. “None of that,” he repeats. “I don’t want to hear any of that.”

“But—”

“Nothing that happened tonight was any fault of yours.” He brushes the wet washcloth across your face, wiping away stray tears. “You did nothing wrong. I should never have left you, plain and simple.”

“It’s not your fault either, Jay.”

He strokes the washcloth over your forehead. “I’m supposed to protect you, hun. I didn’t do a very good job of it tonight.”

“Get in here with me?” You clutch his forearm.

He chuckles. It’s been a very, very long time since Jason Todd could comfortably fit in a normal sized bathtub, but for you, he’d do anything. He’s  gentle climbing in the bath behind you, propping his legs around the outside of yours so you can comfortably lay back on him.

It’s a cramped fit, it couldn’t possibly be comfortable for anyone—but Jason sucks it up for your sake. Despite the ways his knees ache from the angle he keeps his legs, it all feels worth it when you lay your head on his chest.

“Thank you for being here,” you say quietly.

He plants a gentle kiss on the top of your head. “For you? Anything.”

And you know he means it.

(if you enjoy content like this, interactions go a long way! comments, likes & rbs are always greatly appreciated ^-^ !!)

Masterlist | DC Masterlist

[shuaflix]

my guardian demon sucks at his job (not clickbait)

❝ look, i accidentally summoned jeonghan from my statistics textbook the day before you met him at the olive garden. ❞

PAIRING ▸ demon!yoon jeonghan x fem!reader

GENRES ▸ smut, fluff, humor, angst, supernatural, demon au

WARNINGS ▸ not so biblically accurate, profanity, slowburn, found family, inspirations from mythology and h. p. lovecraft, lots of banter, alcohol consumption, sexual tension, teasing, dirty talk, oral (fem. receiving), fingering, palming, unprotected sex (wrap before you tap), mc is painfully horny, ft. demon!shua and demon!wonwoo 

SUMMARY ▸ just when you thought your luck couldn't get any worse, you accidentally manage to summon an ancient demon prince named jeonghan out of a scrap of paper from your statistics textbook. now, you're tasked with figuring out how to return your so-called "guardian demon" back to where he came from before he can stir up more trouble.

PLAYLIST ▸ our dawn is hotter than day by seventeen • cruel summer by taylor swift

WORD COUNT ▸ 23,610 words

TAG LIST ▸ @byunfirstlady​ @90s-belladonna​ @knucklesdeepmingi​ @xlovette​ @variety-is-the-joy-of-life​ @hatesbutlovespeople7734​ @goquokka​

AUTHOR’S NOTE ▸ i had so much fun writing this so i hope you guys enjoy this one!! thank you so much for supporting my works ♡ lmk what u think!

TO BE FAIR, YOU REALLY DIDN’T EXPECT THE SPELL TO WORK.

You initially thought the scrap of paper you found in your statistics textbook was someone’s torn-up Latin homework. You borrowed the copy from the library earlier in the day, realizing that the only way you would pass your midterm would be if you actually studied. Wedged between the pages of Chapter Three - Linear Regression was the dubious piece of paper.  

You thought nothing of it at first. You turned a blind eye to how it was yellowed due to age, thinking it was just left behind by accident. It didn’t even cross your mind about how strange it was that someone left their Latin homework in a statistics textbook.

There was no real reason why you read the words aloud. You thought it could act as some sort of good luck charm—something that could manifest good grades on your exams—but you ended up with the exact opposite.

The paper started glowing, but it wasn’t bright light; a void of pitch darkness emitted from the scrap instead. Mind you, it was nearly the middle of the night. It was already dark, but your room was starting to look like you had opened up a schism in space.

You dropped the paper in the middle of the room instinctively, hissing lightly at how it nearly froze your fingers off. Your room’s temperature dropped by several degrees, and if you weren’t internally freaking out about the random black hole in the middle of your room, you would have curled up in your blankets.

This was one hell of a karmic retribution for slacking on your work for half the semester.

You could hardly see the paper, but you could see faint smoke coming from the middle of the source. It seeped along your bedroom floor, and you contemplated calling your roommate for help before realizing that you, in fact, had no roommate and lived alone.

From there, the paper seemed to crumple up and dissipate into thin air. Instead, a shadowy figure emerged from the smoke. You were not religious by any means, but you felt like this was probably the best time to start praying to whatever higher power was out there.

Light returned to the room once the darkness and smoke faded away. You could now make out the entity’s figure more clearly, noting how it towered over you with sharp horns sticking out from its tuft of hair. Once you could see well enough to make out its face, you were met with what you thought was a human, though the horns and red eyes were throwing you in for a loop.

Humans often had four different psychological responses to traumatic or stressful experiences:

Fight: facing any perceived threat head-on.

Flight: running away from the perceived threat.

Fawn: resorting to appealing to the perceived threat to avoid potential conflict.

Freeze: being unable to move or act against the perceived threat.

Being the absolute weapon of survival you were, your body chose to freeze.

The thing just stared at you until its mouth stretched into a lazy smirk. “Hey, I’m—”

In seconds, your body moved on its own. As soon as you heard the smallest sound come from the being, you grabbed your backpack that was leaning against your bed frame, and you started swinging at the entity with it.

You chose to fight.

You were no longer useless.

“Ow!” the thing winced, shrinking back with each blow. You were slightly worried about breaking your laptop inside, but you were currently prioritizing your life more. “Cut it out!”

You got a better look at this thing. He was clearly attractive with his strong jawline and dark, sleepy eyes—assuming he was even a dude in the first place. You still kept your guard up around Pretty Boy, though, considering he had just Harry Potter’d his way into your bedroom.

“Who—what are you?” you spluttered, holding your backpack up in a (hopefully) threatening way.

“Me?” Pretty Boy grinned. “I’m your demon.”

What in the Wizards of Waverly Place was this man talking about? You stared blankly at the guy before taking a careful step backward. Of course, there were far too many supernatural elements packed into the last minute for you to completely shut down the idea, but it sounded downright crazy. This was something that only happened in books and movies, and they weren’t supposed to be hot!

“A… a demon? From Hell?”

“Yes, that’s usually where demons tend to be from.”

Great, this “demon” was a smart-ass, too.

“What’s a demon?” you asked. It took you a few moments to realize that you had, in fact, asked an extremely stupid question. Of course you knew what a demon was; you didn’t have to be a religious studies major to know about all the Jesus and Satan lore.

“I’m glad you asked,” said demon started, although he didn’t seem to be glad at all. “There are demons that should be summoned, and there are demons that should not be summoned. Can you guess which one I am?”

“Uh…” You deliberated carefully. “You’re a demon that can be summoned.”

“Wrong!” Pretty Boy answered. “I’m a demon that shouldn’t be summoned, so I need you to explain how on Earth you summoned me.”

“I—I thought you said you were my demon.”

“I am,” he said, “because most demons can only be summoned by their designated human, which you did, but I, of all demons, am not meant to be summoned and trapped in this realm! How in Lucifer’s name did you summon me, human?”

You held up a hand to keep him from charging forward at you. “First of all, my name is Y/N. Shouldn’t you be familiar with your own human’s name? Second of all, what do you mean by ‘designated human’?”

Pretty Boy sighed. “I’m supposed to be your assigned demon.”

You frowned. “Supposed to be?”

“Yeah, sorry, I’ve kind of been neglecting you. Totally forgot your name and everything.” He hummed inquisitively. “Remind me of it again?”

“Y/N,” you repeated carefully, slightly offended. “What the hell is an assigned demon?”

“If I tell you,” he started in a somber tone, and you hung onto every word, worrying at your lip and fearing something dreadful would happen, “then it’s no fun.”

He had to be fucking with you.

“No fun?” you questioned. “Are you kidding?”

“I happen to be very serious,” he answered, “and I’m getting the feeling that you’re a bit of a kill-joy, human.”

“Listen,” you spat, “I have a stats midterm tomorrow, so you better start talking before I get back to studying and ignore you.”

“Fine,” he complied. “Think of it, like… a guardian demon.”

“Damn.” You looked up at him with wide eyes. “If I give you my soul, can you help me pass my midterm?”

“That’s not quite how it works, and I may be a demon, but that’s a pretty stupid request in exchange for your soul,” he deadpanned. “Okay, now tell me how you summoned me.”

Your gaze dropped to the spot on the floor where the black void opened up. You recalled the slip of paper disintegrating into thin air once the demon appeared. You were certain that was the key to this bizarre merging of two realms.

“Uh,” you said, “there was a piece of paper with some Latin written on it. You appeared after I read the words out loud.”

And after turning your room into an arctic tundra.

Pretty Boy’s face fell upon your words. You were shocked that the demon looked so crest-fallen all of a sudden, and it was making you feel a bit guilty for dragging him out of Hell.

You decided to ask, “Are you okay?”

“I am not okay, I am Yoon Jeonghan, one of the seven princes of Hell,” he started angrily, causing you to take a cautious step backward. “I am Greed, the creator of alchemy, forger of the Twin Blade, constructor of the—” The demon cut himself off when you held up a fist to your mouth to keep yourself from laughing. “W-what? What’s so funny, human?”

“I’m sorry,” you apologized quickly, accidentally letting a giggle slip from your lips, “but there’s no way some pretty face like you is a demon prince.”

“I emerged from an opening in the ground, and you still refuse to believe I’m a demon?”

“Well—”

“Human, do you know why a ‘pretty face’ like me is a demon prince?” Pretty Demon Boy a.k.a Jeonghan inquired, stepping closer until you were backed up against your desk. “The King of all demons himself was once considered the most beautiful of all angels. Why?” With three fingers, he tilted your chin up enough for you to take a good look at him—at the swirling dark red in his eyes. “Because demons represent temptation.”

“Temptation,” you echoed, embarrassed that your voice came out more strangled than intended. “Yeah, well, I’m really tempted to kick your ass back to Hell right now.”

You supposed he was onto something, in a sense. Maybe Jeonghan was telling the truth because you couldn’t focus on anything else but how his lips were nearing yours. It was as if your senses had completely clouded over.

Upon your words, however, he dropped his gaze and pulled away from you. Jeonghan looked saddened, which was a sight you had not expected from the smug-faced demon. You weren’t educated on demon lore or anything, but you were quite surprised that they were capable of feeling such human emotions.

“There are ways demons can be summoned,” he said in a somber voice. “If we are summoned by our names, then we can appear and promptly return to Hell. Incantations, though, are tricky; with negligence, there is a possibility that I’m stuck here.”

“Stuck here?” you asked, raising your voice. “What do you mean? You can’t go back?”

“Well, do you remember the words on that piece of paper?”

“No.”

“Then I don’t have a way of going back, dumbass.”

You huffed. “I didn’t know a demon prince could have the vocabulary of a middle school boy.”

“We can speak any language on this planet and adapt to modern slang,” he explained. “I can also speak dolphin. Wanna hear?”

“No, let’s circle back to getting you back to Hell,” you shut him down before he started using echolocation. “There has to be some other way, right?”

“We have a few options, actually,” he said, sitting on the edge of your bed. You cringed at the thought of the intruder making himself at home, but you supposed you were the one who got him in this mess, anyway. It wouldn’t be smart for you to boss him around, especially since he could overtake you easily. “Either you remember the incantation, or… actually, I haven’t thought that far ahead yet.”

“So, we only have one option?” you clarified. “I have the memory of a goldfish, so I think you’re fucked.” You scratched your neck in thought. “Can’t you call one of your demon buddies to bring you back?”

“Demon buddies?” He laughed coldly. “We aren’t exactly buddy-buddy down there.”

“Then why do you wanna go back so bad?”

“This materialized human form of mine will not last me very long,” he replied gravely, though you weren’t quite convinced the horns and red eyes were doing him any favors. “Normally, I could be up here for as long as I want, but my powers are weak right now. I will eventually perish like this, unless…”

“Unless?”

“Unless I kill an angel.”

After your morbid conversation with Jeonghan, you decided you would deal with the issue after your midterm. The demon insisted that he would not be able to leave your side since you summoned him, so that led to him sleeping on your floor. To your horror, he was pleasantly satisfied with this sleeping arrangement, claiming it was “better than being boiled alive in oil.”

His bedroom in Hell didn’t sound very cozy.

The next morning, you woke to an email notification that your midterm had been canceled. Something about your professor falling sick out of nowhere.

You wanted to rejoice, but you couldn’t help but feel that this was because of Jeonghan. This was probably the whole “guardian demon” thing, but he was causing chaos and disorder to get you what you wanted. It left an uneasy feeling, but, regardless, you were satisfied with not taking an exam.

Anyway, why was Jeonghan, self-proclaimed prince of demons, assigned to be your guardian? When you turned in your bed to see him sitting at your desk and staring at your textbook, you asked him the question that was bugging you.

He scoffed and replied, “I don’t know. Luck?”

You narrowed your eyes. “Is it really lucky that a demon prince was assigned to me? Sounds a little unnerving.”

“That just means you have a powerful demon on your side.” He smirked and leaned in to ask, “Were you happy to see your midterm canceled this morning?”

“So it was you!” you exclaimed. “Look, I appreciate it and everything, but you can’t just make people sick to help me out.”

“I can’t?” He looked surprisingly innocent when you reprimanded him, like a seven-year-old being told not to color on the walls. “I didn’t even murder him or anything.”

“That—that’s also pretty bad,” you stammered. “Let’s not do any of that, okay?”

“But that’s no fun.”

“This isn’t about having fun! These are people’s lives. How would you feel if I harmed one of the other demon princes for fun?”

“That’s hot. I’d probably cum in my pants.”

“Okay, maybe that was a bad example,” you grumbled. “Is there anyone you care about down there?”

“Not down there, not up here,” he replied. “I’m a demon, remember? There’s no one who cares for me, so I don’t care for anyone either.”

“Wow,” you said. “You could be the poster boy for 2012 Tumblr angst.”

“I’ll pretend I understood that, human.”

There was something bothering you, though. Jeonghan’s words last night about killing an angel were parroting in your head. You couldn’t shake off the guilt that he could potentially die on Earth because of you, but it felt immoral to kill an angel to return to his prison in Hell. On the other hand, you couldn’t bear to see him perish because of you.

“How long do you have?” you asked. “You know… to live.”

“Hm… I’d say about 718 years?”

“Oh, what the fuck? You’re chilling.”

“In Hell time.”

You frowned. “How long is that in Earth years?”

Jeonghan’s gaze flew to the ceiling as he tried to calculate the math in his head, using his fingers to count off. “That’s about half an Earth year, so, like, six months.”

“Oh no,” you replied in absolute dread, “and you’re still planning on killing an angel?”

“If that’s the only way to save me—yes.”

“Well, how do you even find one?”

“I can sense their presence,” he said before standing up. “Come on, human. You’ll have to show me around your world so that I can remember the mortal way of life.”

“I guess, but first”—you stopped him by raising your hand—“you’ll have to get rid of those horns.”

Once Jeonghan concealed his horns and changed his eyes to a more socially acceptable color, you gave him the green light to go outside. He looked good like this, but he was attracting too much attention. The demon simply had too big of an ego to tone down the attractiveness, so you were stuck walking around with a chick magnet.

“You’re a demon,” you whispered harshly. “You’re telling me you don’t have any ugly forms?”

Jeonghan sighed. “That is the unfortunate curse of a demon. We can’t help that our beauty is so blinding.”

You wanted to punch him. The boiling oil prison bed wasn’t a curse, but this was?

“Well, people are staring, and it’s making me uncomfortable. I’ve never been the center of attention—or, well, around the center of attention.”

“Then would you like me to gouge out their eyeballs with a dagger?”

“No!” you yelled. “No, there will be no gouging of eyeballs!”

You started going off on your Murder Is Normally Socially Unacceptable And Wrong tangent up until you realized that Jeonghan was no longer next to you. Fear shot up your spine right before you spotted him standing in front of an Olive Garden that you two had walked past earlier.

“Jeonghan, what are you doing?” you asked, frowning. “Let’s keep walking.”

“Human,” he said, clearly ignoring your words, “take me into this restaurant.”

“You’re hungry?” When he nodded, you sighed and complied, saying, “Alright, then, I’ll pay.”

You were worried that the demon wouldn’t behave properly, but, to your surprise, he stood to the side and let you do the talking. You found his shy smile strangely endearing, especially when he tilted his head after the waitress asked if you two were a couple.

“Yes,” he answered before you could shut it down. “We’ve come in a pair.”

You forced a laugh, glancing at the waitress to make sure she didn’t think you two were absolute nutjobs. Well, you supposed it had no effect on you if your psychotic demon was perceived as one, but you were 100% normal across the board. Thankfully, the waitress laughed it off and asked if either of you wanted anything to drink.

You smiled. “Just water, please.”

“Do you have any blood?” Jeonghan asked at the same time.

Your head shot up to see his furrowed brows as he tried to decipher the Italian dishes on the menu. At this point, you were mortified and could positively say that you were not taking Jeonghan outside after this. You’d rather be stuck in his boiling oil prison than be put through this torment.

“B-Bloody Mary?” the waitress asked.

“Oh, is this Mary providing the blood? I don’t really care to know who exactly she is, but I appreciate the—”

“Yeah, he meant a Bloody Mary,” you cut in loudly, putting on a sugary sweet smile for her. You turned to the demon with a warning look in your eyes, but you kept up the playful act as you chided, “Jeonghan! I told you to quit with the pranks here!”

“Oh, you two are so funny,” the waitress gushed. “I’ll be right back with your drinks.”

“Thank you!” you chirped. When she was out of sight, you dropped your fake smile so you could kick the living crap out of the demon’s shin. He winced and raised a brow at you. “What made you think you could ask for blood at a restaurant?”

Jeonghan scoffed. “I’m a demon.”

“Oh, really? I wouldn’t have guessed from the hundred times you’ve mentioned it.”

“I can’t eat this food.” Jeonghan put the menu down and ran his fingers down the list of options. “Well, I suppose I could stomach it for sustenance, but it won’t satisfy my hunger.”

“Then what do you need to eat?” you asked, expecting to hear something morbid.

“Well, human blood or flesh would help,” he said. Just as you thought—morbid. Then, after a moment of thought, he added, “or… I’d need to have sex.”

“S-sex?!” you exclaimed. You tried not to choke on air, which failed about five seconds later. Never in your life did you expect hellbound demons to be so lecherous. Well, it made perfect sense, but it was still odd to think about. “You’re telling me the only way you can be fed is by cannibalism or sex?”

“Cannibalism is a strong word.”

“Cannibalism is the only word for people who eat other people!”

“I’m not a person,” he defended. “I’m a demon. I believe you humans call this ‘the food cycle,’ am I right?”

You leaned back in your seat to groan into your hands. “I guess we’re just gonna have to find a way to get you back before you get too hungry. How long can you go without food?”

“Probably forever if I was in Hell,” Jeonghan said, “but I feel really hungry.”

“Is this some ulterior motive to get into my pants?”

Jeonghan barked out a laugh. “Human, do you know who the Seven Deadly Sins are?”

“Sort of? I’ve seen the anime.”

“They’re the seven human vices, and I’m Greed,” he explained. “Other than me, there’s Lust, Wrath, Envy, Sloth, Gluttony, and Pride. Many say that Pride is the worst of them all, but I am destructive at every level. Greed is what breaks a person down and then brings them to destroy the world around them.”

His voice was pitched deeper when he continued, “Greed is the sin that can never be satisifed.”

“O-okay,” you said carefully, “so why are you telling me this?”

“I’m telling you this because you’re pretty naive for someone who summoned a demon as powerful as I am,” he replied calmly. “I’m Greed, so of course that was an ulterior motive to get into your pants.”

Oh.

Awkward.

You weren’t sure if you were blushing because Jeonghan was hot or because no man had ever been so direct with you. For what it was worth, you were positive that the warm feeling in your chest wasn’t because you were flattered or anything. Being asked for sex in the middle of a restaurant wasn’t hot in the slightest bit, and especially after he proceeded to mansplain how he was a manipulative, conniving bastard.

“Don’t feel pressured,” he said.

Although those were the words that came out of his mouth, you could feel the impatience seeping from him. However, it had you thinking that this could become some sort of transaction. You would surely feel used if you let him get what he wanted so easily, but you would definitely be swayed if there was something in it for you. Plus, Jeonghan was unmistakably attractive, which was probably simply the devil’s temptation getting to you.

“If I let you satisfy your hunger… um, sexually,” you started, “then I want something in return.”

A mischievous glint flashed in his dark eyes. “Oh? You’re making things fun, human.”

You felt something hot roiling deep inside your core, making you nearly lose your breath for a moment. The effect he had on you was otherworldly. (You supposed this checked out considering he himself was otherworldly.)

Before you could lay down your guidelines, a voice called from behind, “Sorry, your previous waitress had something come up, so I’ll be taking your orders for your meal. My name’s—whoa, Y/N?”

Your eyes widened. “Seokmin! Oh my god, you work here?”

“Yeah, I do,” he said, laughing lightly at your surprise. “Is this your, uh, boyfriend?”

You met Jeonghan’s stare with an awkward smile. “N-no, we’re just friends.”

Seokmin beamed at the demon, who, to your dismay, made no effort to reciprocate. “Nice to meet you. I was in one of Y/N’s classes last semester. Where are you from?”

Jeonghan reached out to shake the hand that Seokmin held out. You knew he was blunt, but you really didn’t expect him to respond by saying, “Hell.”

You were stabbing metaphysical pitchforks into Jeonghan’s side, fighting the urge to groan into your hands. Seokmin let out a stilted laugh, pausing for a moment to give Jeonghan time to clarify. When the demon didn't, however, Seokmin probably determined that Jeonghan was messing with him.

“You’re funny,” he praised with a grin. “Anyway, can I get you two started on anything?”

Seokmin had the brightest smile you had ever seen. In fact, he seemed to glow brighter just by showing his teeth. You were almost blown away for a moment, just looking up at him and trying not to stumble over your words as he set your drinks down.

“Um,” you started after regaining your composure, “I’ll take the stuffed ziti fritta, please.”

Seokmin turned to Jeonghan, who nodded in your direction with a distracted look on his face. “Yeah, I’ll get the same.”

“Great! I’ll bring those over soon.” With that, Seokmin took both of your menus and walked off.

You smiled to yourself. “What a small world.”

“I have to kill him,” Jeonghan muttered at the same time.

“Excuse me?” you nearly cried. “Jeonghan, are you crazy? You can’t just say things like that in public!”

“Why not?”

“People are gonna think you’re a homicidal maniac! Which you are, but… at least pretend to be normal.”

“Whatever, we’re alone now.” He rolled his eyes. “Your little friend has angel blood in him.”

“What? You’re crazy.”

But then, when you took a moment to consider his words, the lines were starting to draw themselves. It was starting to make sense in your head, with Jeonghan randomly stopping in the middle of the street, as if he was drawn to the restaurant. There was also Seokmin, who almost had an aura of light radiating from him.

Of course, there was the possibility that the demon was speaking nonsense and trying to get in your head. It wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for him to deceive you, but there was no reason for him to lie. Jeonghan needed an angel to live longer, so he wouldn’t waste his time dealing with those who weren’t of use.

You asked, “How can you tell if he’s an angel or not?”

“I’m a demon. I can sense these things,” he answered, “but I’m sure you can see some of it, too. You saw how he glowed a bit? Maybe even made you feel a little happy out of nowhere?”

It was true that Seokmin’s smile made you forget all of your worries for a second. You thought his radiance was just contagious, but this sort of made sense now that you were semi-familiar with the supernatural. If angels were able to make people feel contented, though, did that mean demons had the opposite effect?

That could probably explain why Jeonghan got on your nerves so easily.

You leaned over the table a little, whispering, “Wouldn’t he know what you are, then?”

“Doubt he knows it himself. He’s a Quartarion—quarter angel. I bet he doesn’t even know he has wings.”

“So… you can’t use him, right? You need an angel, and he’s mostly human.”

“No, I could kill him, actually,” he replied. “I just need to kill an angel-blood. In fact, killing a Quartarion instead of a pure-blood would make my job a lot easier.”

You felt trapped. It wasn’t like you were in any position to argue about Jeonghan’s decisions, considering it was your fault he was in this state. However, you felt sick to your stomach over getting blood on your hands because of him. Even if you weren’t the one killing Seokmin, it was indirectly your fault.

“You are not killing him,” you said firmly.

“What?” Jeonghan almost sounded like a child. “Not even a little?”

“You can’t kill someone a little.”

“Well, maybe if I sliced his—”

“Okay! Be normal, be normal, be normal,” you chanted, trying to get him to hone in some morals. “No murder, no cannibalism, no—”

“Two stuffed ziti frittas!” Seokmin chirped, shutting you up effectively. You swallowed thickly as he set the plates down in front of you and Jeonghan. “Can I get you two anything else?”

“Yeah, actually,” Jeonghan spoke up, a sly grin spreading across his face, “are you free this week?”

Poor, poor Seokmin, you thought miserably.

Jeonghan managed to sweet-talk Seokmin into hanging out with you two later in the week. The very idea was absurd, considering you and Seokmin have only spoken about five times. You thought the demon used some sort of demon power to get Seokmin to comply, but Jeonghan later told you that he was just naturally charismatic.

You decided to deal with the Seokmin issue later, though. Now, you had another problem at hand: the proposal you initiated earlier.

Currently, Jeonghan had you pinned up against your door, his head dipping low so that he could look into your eyes despite your efforts to avert your gaze. Jesus, you knew this was a terrible idea, but every nerve in your body was telling you to just go with it.

He hummed. “What was your offer?”

“This isn’t very guardian demon of you,” you squeaked out.

“I just can’t kill you,” he said. “Sex is still on the table.”

This piqued your interest. “Wait… you’re not allowed to kill me?”

That just made you feel like he would’ve murdered you already if he had the chance.

“I could try, but I physically can’t harm you. I can harm others for you, though,” he said. “Now let’s go back to that offer you were going to make.”

“Let me clarify,” he continued, “it’s not the act of intercourse that feeds me, it’s your taste.”

He was basically saying that he needed to eat you out. You would be lying if you said you were opposed to the idea. You weren’t sure if it was the whole devil’s temptation thing or whatever, but you found yourself wanting to just let Jeonghan have his way with you.

You sucked in a sharp breath. Back at the restaurant, you weren’t ready to lay down any guidelines for the exchange. However, it was clear to you now.

“I’ll agree as long as you don’t kill Seokmin.”

The demon pulled away from you, frowning. “Why can’t I kill him?”

“He’s my… friend,” you tried.

“He appears to share a deeper connection with me, a complete stranger, than he does with you, an established acquaintance.”

Okay, ouch. That stung.

“Okay, he’s not really my friend,” you admitted, “but it’ll make me feel really guilty if you kill him. I know you need to kill an angel-blood to get back, but there has to be another way, right?”

Jeonghan’s voice was pitched lower when he said, “I don’t know about that.” Silence hung heavy in the air for a few moments before he spoke up again, “Fine. I’ll accept your offer. I won’t kill Seokmin for now, but I can’t promise that in the future if I’m left with no other choice.”

That was probably the best you were going to get out of him, so you nodded in agreement. “Deal.”

Before the demon could reply, you shimmied down your shorts, kicking them off your ankles, and then you sat back on your bed. You pressed your thighs together, waiting for him to come forward and take the lead.

Jeonghan just stared at you, jaw gone slack.

“What?” you asked with a frown. Slowly, embarrassment started to heat up your cheeks. “You don’t wanna do it anymore?”

“Human, I feel a bit strange doing this with the stuffed animals lined up on your bed.”

“I just had to convince you not to murder my classmate a minute ago, and you draw the line at this?” You sighed in exasperation. “You’re unbelievable, you know that?”

Jeonghan just moved closer until he was right in front of you. He pushed your legs apart, surprisingly gentle, and he reached his hand between your legs so that he could prod at the thin material of your underwear at the apex of your legs. You shivered instantly at his touch, grabbing his sleeve when you felt your core ache for more.

“I don’t know,” he murmured, observing how wet you were getting with his gentle touches. “You seem to enjoy bickering with me a little too much, human.”

“T-that’s ridiculous.”

“Is it?” The question sounded genuine, but the smirk on Jeonghan’s face was unmistakable. You swallowed hard as his free hand traveled up your thigh slowly, inching further and further until he tugged your underwear down past your thighs. You kicked it off your ankles while he started to position you properly on your bed. “What’s ridiculous is having these adorable playthings watching us.”

You turned your head to see your Sanrio MyMelody Squishmallow staring at you with its big, empty eyes and mocking smile. It almost felt like you were being judged by your own plushie.

Okay, you were starting to get why it was capable of freaking a demon out.

You propped yourself up on your forearm and rose up enough to grab your Squishmallow by its bow and turn it around. Now that it was facing the wall, you strangely felt more at ease.

“Okay, now you can go,” you said with a grin.

Jeonghan scoffed, amused. “Thanks.”

“You’re wel—oh,” you moaned, pressing a fist to your mouth when you felt Jeonghan’s tongue work its way between your folds. “Give me a warning next time, damn.”

He paused for a moment to look up at you, mischief twinkling in his dark eyes. “You’re already thinking about the next time, huh?”

“Just shut up and keep doing your thing.” When he raised a brow at you, you added a frantic, “Please?”

This moment may have been the first time Jeonghan had complied so quickly. He got to work right away, gripping your hips and licking a stripe along your cunt. You arched your back once you heard him groan at the taste of your arousal, and the demon had to push you back down to make sure you weren’t fidgeting too much.

You turned your head to the side, digging your chin into the mattress as Jeonghan’s tongue rolled around your clit in torturous motions. You were fighting the urge to cry out in pleasure because you knew you would never hear the end of it from him. Eventually, though, the feeling overtook your pride, and you let yourself moan for more.

Jeonghan was insatiable. That probably came with being a demon, especially when he represented the sin of greed.

But, the thing was, you didn’t expect him to be so mind-blowingly good.

Your sounds must have spurred him because Jeonghan gripped your thighs harder and ate you out with more fervor. It was a back-arching level of pleasure, but he forced you down every time you tried to squirm. When his tongue snaked past your folds, flicking against the walls of your cunt, you truly understood the sheer power of temptation.

Jeonghan didn’t neglect one inch of your core, flattening his tongue so he could cover the surface completely. He switched from plunging his tongue into your cunt to licking long stripes along your slit so quickly that your vision was starting to curl at the edges. You felt like you were going crazy when you grinded your hips against his tongue and felt his smirk.

No man had ever made you feel this good—no, you were positive that no man could ever make you feel this good. Even Jeonghan’s nose brushing against your clit made you feel like you were combusting.

He brought you to the edge so quickly, and you wondered if you had even made yourself orgasm so fast before. The sensation left your legs shaking around his neck and your head turned to the side in a desperate attempt to hold back your moans. You managed to let out strangled whimpers that left Jeonghan chuckling once he pulled away.

You didn’t know what you were expecting, but you felt a touch disappointed when you looked up at him. There was absolutely no hint of a boner tenting his pants.

“I’d ask,” Jeonghan started with a smirk, “but I can already tell you liked it by the way you were moaning for me.”

You raised yourself onto your elbows, huffing a little. “What about you? Are your powers back now?”

“It doesn’t exactly work like that.” Jeonghan patted his stomach, satisfied. “I’m full, though.”

“Interesting.” You left it there, not wanting to divulge further into his demon diet. “So, you don’t ever have sex for pleasure? Just when you’re hungry?”

“I don’t care for pleasure all that much.”

“Figured,” you mumbled. “Anyway, I’m going to sleep.”

“Already?”

“Yeah, I’m tired. Wake me up in a few hours if I’m not already up.”

“Sure. I’ll go do human things and not kill people.”

“Keep up the good work.”

When Jeonghan left your room, you pulled the covers up to your chin and let out a long sigh. The feeling was fleeting, but long enough for you to take notice. A gentle quickening of your heartbeat and a warm feeling in your chest.

You pushed it down as a brief moment of confusion.

Living with Jeonghan felt like having a guard dog that you kept off its leash.

Not only did you have to stop him from attempting murder on several occasions, but, on the flip side, you also had to warn him about being too nice to make up for his twisted imagination. Jeonghan was far too attractive to be human, and from the numerous times you went outside with him, you realized that he drew too much attention. You were left standing to the side idly while he was chatted up by the umpteenth random girl that wanted his number.

Over the past week, you ended up explaining a lot of things to the demon. Going into depth about the criminal justice system was your favorite because Jeonghan looked flabbergasted by the levels of punishment they had.

(“A six month sentence for theft?” he asked with a frown. “That’s absurd. I got eternity in Hell while being boiled alive in oil!”

“Well, what was your crime?” you asked.

“Uh…”)

Once, you even found him staring at the TV screen with a somber expression on his face. You had never seen Jeonghan so visibly upset, so you asked him what was going on, only to be even more confused when he explained that his pet died. You suspected the demon’s pet to be a hellhound or something. Never did you expect him to pull up a picture of Mount Fuji.

(“His name was Doljjong,” he explained sadly. “He was only 1,359 years old when he erupted for the last time.”

Apparently, Mount Fuji was now extinct. In Jeonghan’s crazy demon lingo, that meant it died.

“You basically had a pet rock, dude.”

“He was more than a rock in my heart.”)

You also had to adjust to living with another man in the house. Thankfully, Jeonghan wasn’t messy or as disgusting as you had expected, but you still had to adjust to some of his living habits that took you by surprise.

For one, Jeonghan preferred showering in scorching hot water. This would not bother you if you hadn’t been dragged into the shower with him on one occasion, which he didn’t seem to think was improper at all. While you were trying not to look at his (beautifully-chiseled) naked body, he was urging you to help him turn down the cold water. As soon as your skin made contact with the water, though, you couldn’t stand the scalding heat.

Strangely enough, although the thought of having a demon in your house terrified you, it was kind of fun to live with him. You liked having someone around that could keep up with your antics, someone who challenged your thirst for argument. Jeonghan was the perfect match for you, and maybe that was why he was your assigned demon.

You finally decided to give him your old phone. It was supposed to be a hand-me-down for your younger brother, but your parents ended up getting him a new one. Since Jeonghan was pretty much ancient, you figured he wouldn’t mind an old phone.

“I want an iPhone 14 Pro Max.”

“What?!” you exclaimed as he took the used iPhone 8 from you, inspecting the home button with a frown. “How do you even know what that is?”

“I wasn’t born yesterday, human.” He scoffed. “I don’t care for outdated possessions.”

Oh, right. Greed.

“Well, if you’re gonna live in my house, then you’re gonna learn to be grateful for what you’ve got.”

“Wait.” Jeonghan paused, looking between you and the phone about three times before he asked, “Can I contact Seokmin with this?”

“Uh, yeah, but—”

“Give me his number,” the demon insisted.

“Jeonghan! You said you weren’t going to kill him!”

“I never said I was going to kill him,” he said, “but I did invite him to hang out, so I should follow up on the offer. Didn’t you tell me that keeping promises is important?”

Ah, right. He was using one of the rules from Y/N’s Guide To Being Human against you. You saw this coming, though; you were no stranger to Jeonghan’s manipulation tactics by now.

“Keeping promises are important, but leading someone on is also wrong,” you chided. “Do not text him if you plan on hurting him in any way.”

He let out a petulant whine before agreeing, “Okay, okay, I won’t.” He thrusted the phone in your direction. “Give me his number, though.”

You bit your lip before you complied. “Fine.”

A few days later, when you had just gotten back from getting lunch with your best friend, Park Sooyoung, you entered your apartment to see Seokmin sitting on the couch.

“Oh!” you exclaimed. You were so startled that you couldn’t even process how furious you were with Jeonghan for inviting him without informing you. “Hey, Seokmin. What’re you doing here?”

The older boy flashed a kind smile. “Sorry to intrude. Jeonghan invited me. I think he’s in the bathroom right now.” He pointed in the direction of where Jeonghan went, and then he said, “I had no idea you two were roommates!”

You recalled last week when you asked Jeonghan if demons had to use the bathroom like humans did. For some reason, you couldn’t imagine it at all. The demon answered that he didn’t have to do such things in his own dimension, but his body was subjected to the same biological system as humans on Earth.

“Ah, yes. Roommates.” You forced a laugh, trying to not sound bitter. So that was the narrative Jeonghan cooked up. Honestly, you were just glad he said something normal. “He didn’t tell me you were coming over.”

“Ah, speak of the devil,” Seokmin said.

Meanwhile, it was just Jeonghan. Well, on second thought, he was kind of right.

“What’re you doing at home?” the demon asked, sounding more accusatory than welcoming. “I thought you were getting lunch with your friend.”

“And we finished lunch,” you answered. “What’re you and Seokmin doing?”

“We were gonna watch a movie,” he said. “The Notebook, I think?”

Your anger fizzled. Now, you felt like you were interrupting something.

“Do you wanna watch it with us, Y/N?” Seokmin asked, voice all sugary and light.

You found it way too hard to refuse him, so you sat down on the couch next to Jeonghan. Every time Seokmin spoke, you felt your nerves ease up. However, coupled with Jeonghan’s presence, you were undergoing a never-ending state of easing and tensing up again.

“By the way, why’d you guys pick The Notebook?” you inquired.

“Oh, ‘cause Jeonghan hasn’t seen it yet,” Seokmin replied, looking distracted as the film started playing.

Jeonghan hadn’t seen a lot of movies. It wasn’t like there were limited options to choose from.

Thankfully, the lights were off while the movie played, masking how bored you looked for its duration. You were convinced Jeonghan wasn’t enjoying it either considering he started up about ten different conversations unrelated to the movie. Seokmin, being the sweetheart he was, responded to him enthusiastically as he watched. You, on the other hand, were sulking on the other side of the couch and praying for this to be over because you felt like a third wheel.

You almost didn’t notice the mood shift when the kissing scene came up. Seokmin seemed to feel a bit awkward, so he laughed and made lighthearted remarks throughout the scene. You had stiffened up and lowered your gaze, remembering once again why this was an odd choice for a movie night.

Jeonghan, though, turned his gaze to you for the duration of the scene. You could feel his eyes drift to your lips, and it made you hyperconscious of every little movement of his. Your heart was pounding so loudly that you were praying no one else could hear it, and the blood rushing in your ears drowned out the audio from the movie.

The demon dipped his head to whisper in your ear, “Frankly, human, I’m enjoying your reactions more than this movie.”

You had no idea why, but you felt something unsettling in your chest. Your heart felt like it was going a hundred miles a minute, but not in a good way; the organ twisted painfully in your chest.

You had no idea why.

Seokmin came around a few more times over the next four weeks. You found yourself feeling less like a third wheel over time, and you were finally comfortable hanging around the both of them. Movie nights became more common, although The Notebook seemed to be so traumatizing that Seokmin and Jeonghan only watched horror and sci-fi movies now.

You were honestly surprised that Jeonghan hadn’t made any moves to kill Seokmin, but you were happy that he honored your agreement. The two of you had gotten closer—or, well, as close as a demon and a human could get. He still called you “human,” but you were banking on him calling you by your name at least once. Moreover, Jeonghan wasn’t completely convincing just yet, but he was starting to learn how to act like a proper human. (There were the occasional murder threats that you had to fend off, though.)

Jeonghan found himself between your legs nearly every other day. You feared that you would get too comfortable, but he still made you orgasm every single time. It was strange, to say the least. You knew demons weren’t capable of feeling anything remotely romantic, but your heart was still acting like a fool, twisting painfully whenever he pulled away.

Today, Jeonghan had followed you to the library. He met your friend, Sooyoung, who kept gushing earlier about how she was dying to meet your new “friend.” The rest of the day went smoothly, save for Sooyoung asking you and Jeonghan if you’ve ever made out. (You shut her up with a smack upside her head.)

Back at home, Jeonghan, who was sitting on the floor with his back against the couch, leaned his head back to look up at you. You found it strangely endearing, resisting the urge to run your hands through his soft hair.

“Did I do good today?” he asked.

“Yeah,” you said, “you were like a proper human—no weird demonic antics or anything.”

Jeonghan lifted his head up again, and then asked in a quiet voice, “Human, could I perhaps try something?”

The demon was asking you for permission? Strange, but you went along with it.

“Hm? What is it?”

“Let me try kissing you,” he said. His words were so clear that you couldn’t even pass them off as something you misheard. You only managed to let out a few incoherent stammers before he added, “Move your laptop. I’m getting on top of you.”

“Y-you didn’t even ask me!” you stuttered, although you were putting your stuff to the side as you spoke. “Is this about what Sooyoung asked? About if we’ve made out?”

“I’m asking you right now: yes or no?”

You frowned. It was as if all your nerves were cut wire, electrifying every limb in your body. Even though you couldn’t comprehend what came over Jeonghan and what possessed him to ask, your brain was screaming at you to just accept his offer.

“Fine, go ahead,” you murmured, feeling your face go hot when he smirked right after.

“Good,” he said. “Thank you for being my experiment.”

You couldn’t ask any further questions because Jeonghan already started moving on top of you, straddling your lap and placing his hands firmly on either side of your face. You stared up at him, wide-eyed, until he leaned down and brushed his nose against yours experimentally.

He was so close. So close that you could feel his hot breath fanning your lips. So close that you could see the gold flecks in his dark eyes.

You shuddered. There was that twist of your heart once again.

You swore you could hear his breath hitch, and you almost called it out before a crevice started opening up in the center of your living room.

“What the fuck?” you shrieked, scrambling back against the arm of the couch and holding up one of the throw pillows to defend yourself. Jeonghan had gotten off of you and stood up, eyebrows knitted into a frown. It looked like he knew what was going on, so you asked, “What is it, Jeonghan?”

It was the same void of darkness from before—the same one that Jeonghan came from. The room was freezing this time, too, and the windows had iced over. You swallowed hard, wondering if this was one of your mistakes again. You hadn’t said or done anything this time, though, so it must have been someone here for Jeonghan.

From the wisps of smoke emerged the most beautiful man you had ever seen. Or, well, second after Jeonghan.

“Mammon, you bastard.” Second-Most Beautiful Man scowled. “If this is one of your conniving plots to escape Hell, then you will face punishment worse than being boiled alive for damnation.”

You looked to your right to see Jeonghan with his arms folded across his chest. Smiling.

“Asmodeus,” your demon greeted with coldness in his tone, “you planted that scrap of paper in my human’s book, didn’t you?”

Asmodeus’ glower slowly morphed into a wicked grin. “You don’t leave any room for entertainment, do you? I came here to drag you back, anyway, so don’t be so bitter.” His red, beady eyes shifted to you. “This must be your precious human.”

Jeonghan’s voice was deeper when he warned, “Don’t you dare lay a finger on her, Asmodeus.”

“Or what?” he mocked. “What could you possibly do to me in that pathetic human body of yours? Have you gone soft already? Your powers have weakened, Mammon. Face it. You’ll die out here—no, you’re already dying.”

“What do you want?” Jeonghan snapped. “If you want me dead, then you have no need to be here.”

“I need you alive,” Asmodeus muttered, “in your true form.”

He scoffed. “I’ll just die and be reborn.”

Reborn? You straightened up at Jeonghan’s words. Why didn’t he tell you he would be reborn? Here you were, like an idiot, worrying over his possible death.

“The other five princes are requesting to see you, so—”

“Oh, why should I give a damn about the other princes?” Jeognhan fussed. “They only care about using me for their trivial schemes!”

“Jeonghan,” you spoke up loudly, and both of the demon princes turned to you with shocked looks on their faces. “If I’m interpreting this correctly… then aren’t you being offered an easy way to get back? You should take it, right?”

“Human—”

“Oh, I forgot you go by your human name here,” Asmodeus said with a chuckle. He walked toward you and reached his hand out, smiling so wide that his eyes crinkled at the corners. “Nice to meet you, Y/N. You can call me Joshua, if that’s easier. I’m the demon prince of lust.”

“How do you know my name?” you asked, cautiously shaking his hand. You looked toward Jeonghan with a scowl. “Wait, how does he know my name and you didn’t?”

“My bad.”

“You’ve truly gone soft, Mammon,” Asmodeus observed. “You’re on Earth entertaining a human girl instead of doing your job back in Hell. Aren’t you the one who told the rest of us to be happy with what we’ve got in Hell?”

“My job,” Jeonghan corrected, “is rotting in Hell. My other job is taking care of my human.”

“Your allegiance is with the princes, Mammon,” Joshua hissed. “This human is insignificant—”

“Do not speak about my human with that filthy mouth of yours, Asmodeus,” Jeonghan interrupted sharply, his eyes darkening. “Tell me what you want from me and leave this place at once.”

“Pythius wants a seat with the Seven Princes.”

Jeonghan raised a brow. “He wants to rebrand to the Eight Princes? Doesn’t have as nice of a ring to it.”

“No, you idiot.” Joshua groaned. “He wants to overthrow one of the Seven Princes, which is why you need to come back. Greed must have a seat at the throne room of sins.”

“Tell him to go ahead. He can be boiled alive in my place.”

“You’re still on that? That was eons ago.” Joshua sighed. “Don’t be a fool, Mammon. If you die on Earth—sure, you’ll be reborn in Hell again, but you will still waste your time by dying on this planet.” He continued, “Think about how disastrous the situation would be if Pythius actually takes your place. You will be stripped of your title, your powers will weaken, and greed will no longer be one of the Seven Deadly Sins.”

“Doesn’t sound too bad, honestly.”

“Mammon,” Joshua growled. “Take this seriously. You’re acting like Belphegor with that flippant attitude of yours.”

“Ah, Belphegor.” Jeonghan turned to you with a light laugh. “I think you’d like him. He goes by Wonwoo here. Seriously, such a—”

“I will slice up each limb of that mortal body of yours, Mammon,” Joshua warned. “You’re not understanding the severity of this situation.”

“I understand it well enough now,” he replied. “So, you can leave. I’ll figure out what to do on my own. Either way, Mammon will be reborn as usual. Happy? Good, now get lost.”

Joshua sighed, frustrated. “Do you even have a way to get back, you fool?”

“I’ll figure it out.”

“Then I’ll be on my way,” Joshua said before his body started to tessellate out of existence, vanishing piece-by-piece into thin air. “I really hope you know what you’re doing, Mammon.”

You were the first to break the silence once the demon of lust disappeared, asking, “You’ll be reborn? So you never even had to worry about dying?”

“Demons can be killed, but they can’t die.”

“Oh, yeah, thanks. Really cleared things up for me with that.”

“Let’s just drop it.”

You couldn’t just drop it, though. “You weren’t actually imprisoned in Hell, were you?”

“I was. Sort of.” He paused. “Haven’t been for a while, to be honest.”

“Then why didn’t you go with Joshua? It doesn’t sound like he wants you back to throw you back in the lake.”

“I don’t want to be a pawn in their silly games anymore,” Jeonghan muttered darkly. “It’s infuriating.”

“Then what are you gonna do? That was the easiest way for you to get back!”

“I have time, human.” Jeonghan didn’t seem to want to be pressed further, so you backed off. “Don’t worry about me.”

He walked into your room and slammed the door shut, so you settled back into the couch and hugged the throw pillow to your chest. How could you not worry? You couldn’t understand Jeonghan at all, and although you wanted to respect his decision not to go back with Joshua, you were at a crossroads; staying here was killing him. He had far too much pride to think rationally.

Plus, the longer he stayed with you, the more it stung when you realized time was running out. Fast.

The next day, Jeonghan appeared as if he was back to normal. It was odd, though, given how he was brooding yesterday. You made a conscious effort not to mention Joshua, but you knew the topic was still weighing heavy on his shoulders.

(He was insatiable once you were awake and sitting up in bed, prying your legs open and begging you for a taste. Although you had several questions for the demon, your carnal desire overtook whatever curiosity you had.

“Feeling better?” you asked cautiously.

“I’ll feel better soon. Anyway, good morning,” he purred. “You’re dripping already, human. I haven’t even touched you yet.”

Your chest felt hot. “Yeah, yeah, just get to it.”

“My pleasure.”)

“Hey,” you called out later during breakfast. “I’m going out with Sooyoung tonight. Are you gonna be okay being alone at home?”

“Where are you going?” he asked instead.

You paused between your spoonfuls of cereal. “Uh, just a party.”

“I love parties,” Jeonghan said. “Will there be human sacrifices?”

You grimaced. Although your guardian demon was making impressive improvements on his transition to human life, there were still some flaws in his way of thinking. On the bright side, though, he made sure to pass his morbid comments by you before he tried them out in front of others.

“No, it’s a college party,” you replied. “The most deadly thing there will be alcohol and Old Spice.”

“Boring,” he mused before getting up from his seat and heading to the living room. “Well, be safe.”

You nearly choked on your cereal, completely forgetting to respond to his words. Did Jeonghan—Mammon, manifestation of greed, one of the Seven Princes of Hell—just tell you to be safe? You had to be hearing things.

Or, your heart offered, maybe some part of him cares about you—deep, deep down.

You pushed down the thought entirely, forcing yourself to think of other alternatives. After all, there was no possible way for a demon to feel those sorts of emotions.

It was almost midnight and Sooyoung was passed out on the couch.

“You’re fucking kidding me,” you said in dismay. “We literally just got here.”

“That’s tough,” Kim Mingyu, president of Sigma Omega Nu, replied sympathetically. “At least her boyfriend’s here to take care of her. That means you need to drink more and get on her level.”

“That sounds like a terrible idea.”

“Hey, that’s what college is for.”

You whined when Mingyu handed you a new cup of jungle juice. Normally, you didn’t accept drinks from strangers; Mingyu was harmless, though, and you two were well-established friends for a few years now. However, you were on your third cup of juice by now, and, if you kept it up, you were probably going to end up like Sooyoung. Since she was the one who drove you two here, though, you had to stay sober enough to find a ride home. No matter what happened, you were determined to not fall asleep on the musty frat house couch.

(It already happened once last year. You woke up the next morning to Kwon Soonyoung yelling, “Someone take a picture of Y/N sleeping on the couch I got laid on!”)

“I can’t get drunk,” you insisted. “I have to get home.” To make sure my pet demon is behaving, you wanted to add.

Mingyu let out a snicker. “Call someone to pick you up or I can ask one of the sober monitors to drop you off.”

You pondered for a moment. Technically, you could call Jeonghan. Now that he had gotten the hang of using his phone, you saw him texting Seokmin every once in a while. You were sure he would be able to pick up a call, as well.

“Fine, whatever. Hand it over.” You took the red solo cup from him and downed its contents—just under ten seconds, counted by Mingyu himself. “I’m gonna go call my friend before this starts hitting me.”

You walked out into the backyard where the music wasn’t as loud. The cool air hitting your flushed skin made you feel like you could breathe properly again, but you still weren’t walking nearly straight enough. With careful hands, you searched up Jeonghan’s number in your contacts.

Your phone rang three times before he picked up.

“Human? Are you dead?”

You frowned. “If I was dead, how would I be calling you?”

“I was hoping I could keep your soul around as my pet in Hell,” he said.

You must have had some sort of degradation kink by this point because that comment was not supposed to make you feel butterflies in your stomach. It was time for you to consider therapy.

You cut straight to the point. “Can you come to the party?”

“What? No.”

His refusal normally would’ve stung, but you were too tipsy to back down now. “Please? Sooyoung already passed out and her boyfriend’s taking care of her. I’m getting drunk all by myself now.”

Sort of an exaggeration. You were going to use every card up your sleeve.

“Then walk home.”

“I can’t. Home’s too far to walk.”

“Then sleep over at whoever’s house you’re at.”

“It’s a house full of frat boys. Their living conditions are probably worse than yours down in Hell.”

“Then sober up.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be my guardian demon?!”

“If you want an angel to come rescue you, I would try Seokmin’s number.”

You let out a groan and crouched down, letting your head hang between your knees. This was fruitless; Jeonghan was stubborn as a mule, and you were getting nowhere with this conversation.

But this wasn’t just about getting someone to take you home. You certainly had other options, so you could hang up on Jeonghan right now and find someone else to drive you back. However, you just didn’t want to admit out loud that you wanted to see Jeonghan. You wanted him to come over and take care of you, even though that was impossible for the demon.

You were just foolish.

“Fine, Jeonghan,” you snapped. Your head started to feel fuzzy, and you were quickly losing control over your own tongue. “I’ll get home all by myself. I’ll walk home in the cold, dark night, and hell, I’ll even walk on the road if I feel like it. Maybe I’ll lay down and take a nap if I get really tired, and if I can’t even make it to the door, I’ll just sleep in Mingyu’s bed—” You didn’t realize you were pacing until you hit a solid surface. “Ow—wait, what the hell?”

Jeonghan, in the flesh, sighed heavily and hung up the call in front of you. “Human, you’re really such a pain in the ass sometimes.”

“H-how’d you get here?” you asked, your cheeks starting to feel hot. “Did you teleport or whatever again? Didn’t you say that eats up your power? Are you—”

The demon clamped a hand over your mouth. “I materialized here, and yes, it eats up the little power I have left,” he whispered harshly, “but you wouldn’t stop running your mouth, so here I am. How could you get intoxicated so easily?”

“Well… I’ve been here for about an hour,” you defended. “It doesn’t take that much for me to get drunk. I’m pretty lightweight.”

“How much did you have?”

“Like, three cups of jungle juice.”

“Jungle… juice?”

You snorted. “This one’s got vodka, rum, and fruit punch. It’s pretty good.”

“Three cups?” Jeonghan asked with a scoff. “I forget that humans have such weak tolerances for alcohol. I can drink eight bottles of wine without getting drunk.”

“Oh yeah?” you challenged. You dragged the demon inside the frat house, not giving him the chance to take in and process his surroundings. You poured him a cup of jungle juice in the kitchen and handed it to him. “Drink up, then.”

Jeonghan raised a brow at you before chugging down the liquid like water. He handed it back to you with a light smirk playing on his lips.

“Are you sure there’s even alcohol in this concoction?” he asked, barking out a laugh. “Human, you’re too cute. This is nothing for a powerful demon like…” he trailed off, looking down at his feet and letting out a soft exhale. “My chest feels hot.”

Your hand flew up to cover your mouth, stopping yourself from bursting out into laughter. This sight was absolutely priceless. You didn’t think you would ever be able to see Jeonghan so vulnerable.

“Are you drunk off one cup of jungle juice?” you asked, and, at this point, you weren’t able to stifle your laughter. “Oh my god!”

“Shut up, human,” he grumbled. He blinked a few times and held onto the edge of the counter. “I’ve never felt this way before. My body isn’t used to having a human’s biological system.”

“Whoa, this guy is fucked,” Lee Chan retorted, showing up out of nowhere. “He’s talking like something out of I, Robot.”

You rolled your eyes at his pop culture reference, but Jeonghan didn’t seem to follow at all. For all the movies he and Seokmin had been watching, you were surprised that they didn’t get around to this one.

“Robot,” Jeonghan mumbled, moving to lean against you. You grabbed his arm and tried to hold him steady, but he just wrapped his arms around you and let his head rest on your shoulder. “I feel like I’ve just been expelled into the Outerverse with Yog-Sothoth. Ah, fuck, those guys owe me…”

You had to get Jeonghan out of here fast. Before he started speaking crazy demon lingo again.

“Are you sober monitoring tonight?” you asked Chan. “You think you could drive us home?”

“Yeah, sure,” Chan agreed with a smile. Gauging that Jeonghan wasn’t responsive enough to answer any questions, the frat boy decided to ask you, “Did you bring a friend from another school, Y/N?”

“Yeah, I guess you could say that,” you mumbled. “This is Jeonghan.”

Chan ducked his head to get a good look at Jeonghan’s face. “Nice to meet you, Jeonghan.”

“Hi, Robot.”

“No, my name’s not Robot.”

Jeonghan’s biggest weakness wound up being seatbelts.

You and Chan had to fight him down to get him to sit down properly in the back seat. Since he was fussing too much, you decided to sit with Chan up front, letting Jeonghan moan and grumble incoherently in the back.

(“Unchain me, human,” the demon kept whining. “I refuse to be imprisoned in the mortal realm.”

When he was stopped at a red light, Chan threw a glance over his shoulder before telling you, “I think your friend watches too much anime.”

“He’s going through a phase,” you lied.)

While you made light conversation with the frat brother, you felt like your guardian demon was glaring daggers at the poor boy. You wanted to smack him upside the head for his rudeness despite Chan’s generous act.

You craned your neck to look back at Jeonghan, shooting him a warning look. He simply scoffed and looked the other way, although he ended up resting his head against the window once he realized his world was still spinning.

“Come on, Jeonghan,” you murmured once Chan parked the car in front of your place. “Get up.”

“Don’t wanna.”

You tugged the sleeve of his shirt impatiently. “What? Why?”

“Not going back with someone who ignores me.”

Your jaw nearly went slack. Was he jealous? Yoon Jeonghan, Prince of Greed, was jealous over frat boy Lee Chan? Over something so miniscule as you sitting in the passenger’s seat? This was definitely something you were going to hold over the demon’s head for as long as you could.

“I’m not ignoring you, okay?” you tried. “Come back home with me, and you’ll have my full attention.”

Jeonghan hesitated before he let out a begrudged grumble. “Fine.”

You and Chan hauled the drunken demon to his feet, taking one of his arms and throwing it over your shoulders so that you could help him walk. Chan assisted you by slinging Jeonghan’s other arm over his shoulder, but you still found it hard to walk properly with Jeonghan’s head lolling to the side. His face was so close that you could feel his hot breath against your neck, sending shivers down your spine.

“You smell so good, human,” he murmured. Jesus, he was saying all this while Chan was still here? You were glad that Jeonghan couldn’t tell how flustered you were, but it was probably evident to Chan. “What perfume is that?”

“This guy sure does call you ‘human’ a lot,” Chan observed with a light laugh.

“Uh, yeah, inside joke,” you explained quickly. “Let’s just get him to the couch.”

Once you and Chan let Jeonghan’s heavy body drop onto the couch, you walked the frat boy to the door. He stuffed his hands deep in his pockets, a shy smile playing on his lips. He looked at you expectantly, like he was waiting for a tip or something. You were considering handing him the crumpled-up five dollars you left in your back pocket.

“We should hang out sometime, Y/N,” he started. “I feel like I barely see you around the house anymore.”

“Oh, yeah, I haven’t been in a partying mood lately,” you explained, “but I’ll try to drop by more.”

“Alright. I’ll see you around.”

Before you could respond, a voice from behind you loudly interjected, “Bye.” With that, Jeonghan slammed the door shut with one hand.

“That was rude,” you said.

“Can I gut him like a fish?”

“That’s even more rude. Please don’t.”

“Whatever.”

You looked back at Jeonghan, who had one hand against the door that was right beside your head. “What’s your deal? He was nice enough to drive you back and help you to the couch.”

“Why do you keep ignoring me?” he asked, proceeding to ignore you at the same time.

“I-I’m not ignoring you!” you stammered. “I’m the one who helped you get back to the apartment!”

He had you backed up against the door, looking up at him with worry knitting your brows together. Jeonghan let his head drop to lay on your shoulder, leaving you frozen in place. You figured it was the alcohol rushing to his head, but you couldn’t help the fact that your heart was pounding in your chest.

“Human,” he mumbled against your collarbone, “why can’t you just stay by my side?”

“Huh? But—”

“I wanna be human, too.”

The words sounded strange coming from him. Almost like he was at his tipping point. Tender. Raw. Vulnerable. You were absolutely dumbfounded by what you had just heard. With no coherent response coming to mind, all you could do was raise your hand to gently thread through his soft strands of hair.

“Let’s get you to bed,” you replied softly, letting the demon stay in your embrace as you walked him back to your bedroom. He looked up at you quizzically when you sat him down on the edge of your bed. “It’s about time you stopped sleeping on the floor. I’ll take the couch, so—”

You cut yourself off when Jeonghan wrapped his arms around your legs and pressed his lips to your thighs. “Stay here with me.”

You stared ahead, straight at the wall, a dull ache throbbing in your chest. “What are you doing, Jeonghan?”

“What?”

“Why are you doing this to me?” you asked. “You only have months left to live. You should’ve just gone back with Joshua.”

He stiffened. “I didn’t want to.”

“Yeah, I guess you’ll just be reborn, anyway,” you muttered. “You never had anything to worry about to begin with.”

Jeonghan suddenly pulled away from you, his eyes cold as ice. Since he was always docile around you, there was never any reason for you to feel scared around the demon. However, the look he was giving you left you backing up slowly from him.

“I’d rather stay dead than be reborn,” Jeonghan said, “and I wouldn’t feel so agonized about it if I didn’t have to meet you.”

Tears pricked your eyes. You felt a lump rising in your throat, and you felt the hot, salty tears hitting your feet before you even realized you had started to cry. It took all of your willpower to keep the waterworks at bay. The demon’s cruel words were never supposed to get under your skin this bad. You held him at arm’s length for that very reason.

Maybe, all this time, you had been pulling him closer unintentionally.

“You think nothing hurts for me just because I’m a demon,” he continued, “but it stings every time you try to chase me away.”

“I’m not trying to chase you away.”

“Then why do you keep pushing me to go back to Hell?” he asked. You couldn’t exactly read his expression, but it was clear that Jeonghan felt tormented. The pain in his eyes was telling of that. “Why did you want me to go back with Asmodeus?”

You huffed. “I really don’t understand you. You don’t want to die and be reborn, but you don’t want to go to Hell either? Aren’t you going to die if you stay here?”

“You don’t get it.” He shook his head. “I don’t want to be reborn because I lose all my memories of the mortal world. I lose all my memories of you.”

“And you don’t want to go to Hell because…”

“The only reason you summoned me was because of Asmo—I mean, Joshua’s—need for pointless entertainment. Surely, with what’s been going down in Hell ever since I left, they won’t let me leave again until Pythius is quelled. That could take hundreds or thousands of years.” Jeonghan scoffed, shaking his head. “Pythius… one of the most fearsome and hideous demons. There’s no telling what he’d do for a seat with the Seven Princes.”

“I’m sure if I go back, he would try to kill me over and over again,” he continued, “because he detests me the most. That group of them—the Malebranche—they might be more sadistic than Lucifer himself.”

You frowned. “What’d you do to him?”

“Why do you assume I did something to him?” Jeonghan scowled.

“Because you’re the demon prince of greed,” you replied. “I’m sure you pissed him off somehow.”

He snorted. “Pythius rules the eighth circle where frauds are punished. He hates nothing more than the greed that consumes those humans. Of course he’d loathe the demon that represents the very sin.”

“I don’t think I’ve seen you act that greedy here, though. Are you different when you’re down there?”

The dark glint in Jeonghan’s eyes nearly went undetected. You only managed to catch it because of the way his smile dropped in tune. His normally easygoing expression was replaced with the same serious look he wore when Joshua was around.

“I haven’t been this greedy in eons, human.”

You tried to think back to when Jeonghan had acted in such a way. Sure, there were the multiple times he gave you (mind-blowing) head and the time he asked you for the newest iPhone, but those didn’t seem as drastic to you. You expected the very demon of greed to be more selfish.

“Really?” You forced out a stilted laugh. “I think you’re about as greedy as a toddler, like, in a bratty way, but that’s it.”

Jeonghan stood up.

You took notice of his broad shoulders before, but now you felt swamped under his gaze. He towered over you with ease, looking down at you with a storm brewing in his eyes. There were no words exchanged at first, but one look at the demon told you that whatever he was experiencing was far too human for him to understand fully.

“I’m so greedy that I would let the hierarchy in Hell fall to shambles because of you,” he started. “I would abandon my seat and let Pythius take control just so I can stay here with you. I would rather wither away on Earth instead of going back to Hell where I can’t see you again. I would let Alastor, the chief executioner, torture me over and over again until the ache in my heart finally goes away—the ache you caused.”

His next words were no louder than a weak whisper when he grabbed your forearms and said, “I’m so greedy that I wanna just give up everything for you, Y/N.”

With that, Jeonghan muttered something about sleeping on the couch before he walked out of your room and shut the door. That was the first time he had ever called you by your name; yet, it didn’t even make you feel happy. The first salty tear hit the floorboards, then the next, then more. You could only watch the demon leave in silence, finally letting yourself cry once he was out of sight.

Crying because you didn’t want him to leave. Crying because your feelings were already running too deep.

Crying because you knew a botched confession when you heard one.

Just as you were about to settle in bed, burrow yourself in the sheets and sob until you fell asleep, you heard Jeonghan’s footsteps coming back from the living room. You had no time to regain your composure when he flung open the door, his eyes stony and his lips pulled down in a frown.

“I can’t sleep if you’re crying like this,” he murmured, walking over to cup your face with his large hands. “That’s foul play.”

He kissed you.

The motion was swift—a gentle grab of your jaw and tilt of your chin, and Jeonghan was kissing away your disquiet with surprising tenderness.

Temptation.

Temptation was the utmost desire that demons could draw from mortals, but you weren’t quite sure this was it. Jeonghan’s kiss felt different—more intimate. His lips moved against yours with hesitance at first, and he only deepened it once you reciprocated. It felt like he wasn’t trying to pull you closer; rather, he was waiting for you to find him.

Once you two were lost in desperate kisses and heavy breaths, Jeonghan jerked away with a light gasp. You stared at him, dazed, before he grabbed your wrist and pressed your hand firmly against his chest. At first, you weren’t quite sure what he was having you do, but the realization was a slap in the face.

A heartbeat.

Ba-bump. Ba-bump. Ba-bump.

It was fast, like he had just run a marathon. You looked up at the demon quizzically, but he was already pulling away. Your hand hung in the air before dropping to your side, registering too late that he had already let go.

“You think nothing hurts me,” he mumbled. This time, he had his own hand flat against his chest. “I torture myself every day like this because I know, deep down, there’s no happy ending for us.” The demon’s eyes, normally masked with golden brown irises, glowed a dim red.

It started drizzling outside. Soft pattering of rain that drowned out the silence.

Everything would fall apart—slowly, gently, inevitably. Jeonghan, too, would eventually become nothing but a ghost of a raindrop that once streaked your window.

Post-party hangovers always called for breakfast at The Veranda. It became a tradition between you and Sooyoung to go there after a night of partying. That, or you two would skip straight to lunch and get pho. There was no telling when either of you would wake up the next morning.

Today, however, Sooyoung texted you early enough.

“We should get cocktails,” she suggested while looking down the menu.

“You already blacked out last night, you crazy bitch.”

To be frank, you had ulterior motives for this outing. For one, you wanted to get out of the house because the tension between you and Jeonghan was making you suffocate. The other reason was because you wanted to consult Sooyoung with your problems.

You started with, “So, there’s this guy,” and your best friend was already at the edge of her seat. Once you finished giving her the rundown (which only concluded after you ordered your food and were halfway done with your herb roasted chicken sandwich), Sooyoung paused to think, which stretched into about five minutes. More than enough time for you to finish your sandwich.

“I don’t get what the problem is,” Sooyoung finally said, tilting her head curiously. “If you two like each other, then just ask him out.”

If only it were that easy, you thought to yourself, but you couldn’t spare her the details of how impossible the situation was. You weren’t in the mood to hear “if he wanted to, he would” when you were dealing with a guardian demon who was literally dying in the mortal world.

You hesitated. “Let’s just say that he’s not exactly available right now.”

“He has a girlfriend?” Sooyoung asked, raising an eyebrow in suspicion. She looked ready to start telling you off for being a homewrecker, so you had to clarify immediately.

“No, no, he’s single,” you said. “He’s just not… emotionally available to date.”

“So, he’s been getting all close to you without wanting to date you.”

“Uh, not really? He’s just—”

“Cut him off, Y/N.”

“What?” you asked, eyes widening. You figured the situation sounded bad from an outsider’s perspective, but there was no way for you to break it down without explaining that Jeonghan’s your guardian demon from Hell that ended up being trapped on Earth because of your statistics midterm and demonic intervention from Joshua, the other oddball from Hell. “I can’t do that.”

“Sure you can,” Sooyoung replied. “It’ll hurt at first, but you’ll get over it eventually.”

“But he’s…” you trailed off, wondering how the fuck you were going to defend a demon prince of greed. You settled with saying, “He’s funny.”

“So are clowns, Y/N. You don’t see me asking out Ronald McDonald.”

“Okay, it’s not that simple, Sooyoung!” you cried out. “It’s more like… he doesn’t have that much time left here.”

“Oh.” She sounded lost at first, but the confused look on her face was slowly replaced with somber understanding. “I’m sorry, Y/N.”

“No, you’re good. I didn’t know how to say it.”

“Well, if that’s the case,” she said, “why don’t you just make the most of the time you have left with him?”

Sooyoung’s words hadn’t left your mind ever since breakfast. Even after she dropped you off at your apartment, you were still replaying the conversation in your head.

You thought about it in the shower.

You thought about it while doing your homework.

And you continued to think about it when Jeonghan was spreading your legs apart later that day.

“Didn’t we just fight?” you asked, your voice unnaturally high. Despite your words, you came to realize that you were sort of feral when it came to your sex life. A little fight was just a chip on your shoulder.

“That was a fight?” Jeonghan asked. “I’ve been in fights before. They’re pretty gruesome. Usually some heads roll or someone gets disemboweled.”

“A verbal fight,” you clarified.

“I’ve been in verbal fights before, too. They usually end with someone getting stabbed.”

“Okay, well, that’s not a verbal fight.” You sighed. “I mean, aren’t you upset with me? You were acting like being around me was hurting you.”

Jeonghan looked down and went completely silent.

“Hello?” you called. Did you break him?

Jeonghan looked back up. This time, his cheeks were tinged scarlet red. Your eyes went wide at the sight of the demon fully blushing over your words. You were definitely adding this bullet point to the Blackmail on Jeonghan folder you kept in your Notes app.

“I let my emotions get the best of me, okay?” he mumbled. “Let's just drop it.”

You, however, were brimming with questions. “Hey, but you let me feel your heartbeat last night,” you started. “Did you always have a heart?”

Jeonghan pulled away to look at you with distaste dawning on his face. “Did I always have a heart? Of course I’ve always had a heart, human. How would I be giving you the head of your life if I was a corpse?”

Your demon was gradually evolving to develop a filthy mouth. You weren’t sure if this was improvement or regression.

“You have a human heart and you can feel human emotions,” you said. “What makes you and I so different, then?”

Jeonghan opened his mouth, but before he could speak, there was a knock at the door. You glanced at Jeonghan suspiciously, wondering if he invited Seokmin without your knowledge, but even he looked clueless. There was no one you were expecting, so you wondered if it was just the UPS guy dropping off a package.

When you opened your door though, it was indeed Seokmin, and he was pissed.

You had never seen him like this, with his nostrils flaring and his skin flushed red. It was almost as if steam was coming out of his own ears. But there was something very glaring about Seokmin that had you gawking at him.

His wings were on full display.

Snowy white wings fanned out behind him. You could hear a low, angelic hum faintly resounding from the feathers. You were in shock for a moment, unsettled and overwhelmed by the heavenly light that Seokmin was bathing in.

It seemed to have an even worse effect on Jeonghan. You noticed how he flinched at the sight, backing up slowly.

“Get back, Y/N,” Seokmin ordered. “I know this is gonna sound crazy, but your roommate’s dangerous.”

You wondered if he had some unexplainable power over you because your actions were going against your words as you found yourself stumbling away from the two. “Seokmin, don’t do this,” you begged.

He frowned. “What?”

But Jeonghan got his words in before you could. “Looks like the both of us figured it out before you did. You just found out you’re a Quartarion, huh?”

He was jeering, like he was taunting the angel to attack him. You couldn’t understand what the demon was thinking when he was clearly overpowered right now. Even if Seokmin wasn’t a pureblood angel, Jeonghan’s powers had considerably weakened ever since he entered the mortal realm.

“How…” Seokmin was shocked for a moment, straightening up and glowering down at you. “How did you know?”

“You found out recently, didn’t you? Mommy or daddy told you they were half, which meant you’re quarter—weaker than them,” Jeonghan pressed. “They kept it from you all this time, huh? Because your angelic presence wasn’t strong enough to be a threat, but then you started glowing brighter.”

“Jeonghan, enough!” you yelled, trying to mediate whatever was happening. You had no idea what Seokmin was going to do, but it definitely didn’t seem like he was here for another movie night.

“Mammon,” Seokmin said through gritted teeth. “That’s your real name, right?” Suddenly, the angel turned on you with an accusatory stare. “And you—how did you know about all of this? Did he tell you?”

You gulped before starting slowly, “Look, I accidentally summoned Jeonghan from my statistics textbook the day before you met him at the Olive Garden.”

Seokmin tilted his head, looking utterly puzzled. None of those words were in the Bible.

“I knew he was a demon,” you continued, “and he told me you were an angel. He could sense it, or something like that.”

“Oh,” Seokmin replied rather sadly, as if he had just discovered he had been the brunt of a joke all along. “Well, I’m sorry you were caught up in this Y/N, but I have to kill your roommate before he hurts anyone else.”

“Whoa, hold on—he hasn’t hurt anyone!” you cried, holding onto Seokmin’s shoulder to keep him from charging at Jeonghan. “You’re an angel; you can’t kill him!”

“Technically, he can,” Jeonghan noted as he just barely avoided the angel grabbing him. “Some angels are specifically assigned to keep demons away from humans. I think Seokmin’s just mad, though.”

“I’m not just mad,” Seokmin spat, although he was visibly seething. “I just feel stupid that I befriended someone who was trying to kill me this whole time!”

You turned your gaze to Jeonghan, who held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay, I’ll admit I might have had murderous intentions at first, but come on! You would be dead by now if I really wanted to kill you.”

“You can’t kill him, Seokmin,” you repeated in a desperate attempt. “You owe him!”

Now the angel was lost. “And how exactly do I owe him?”

“Remember when your card declined, and I bought you that croissant on campus last week?” you tried. As soon as the words came out, you heard a loud groan from Jeonghan, and you were sure he was pinching the bridge of his nose and shaking his head. “You owe me, who owes Jeonghan, so you owe Jeonghan!”

Seokmin was even more lost. “What?”

“Transitive property of equality: A equals B equals C, so A equals C.”

“There’s no way you’re actually applying the transitive property of equality to this situation.”

“And what exactly do you owe me for?” Jeonghan chimed in, equally as confused.

“Yeah, I can’t believe I’m agreeing with him on this one, but he’s a demon, Y/N,” Seokmin said. “If you feel like you owe him anything, it’s likely you were manipulated by him.”

“No, I wasn’t!” you protested before the demon could object himself. “I owe him because…”

You trailed off, wondering how you were going to string your feelings into comprehensible words. They were all a mess of jumbled vowels and consonants in your head, holding no significant weight until you thought long and hard, feeling it get heavier and heavier on your tongue.

The angel raised a brow. “Because what?”

Letters unfurling in your head. Piecing themselves together. You felt like your head was going to explode until you blurted out, “Because he showed me what love feels like.”

You looked over at Jeonghan to see him staring at you like a deer caught in headlights. He looked helpless at the moment, wild with pain, like he had let down all lines of defense at your declaration. A scarlet red blush stained his cheeks, and it was perhaps the single most human expression you had ever seen from him.

Seokmin moved forward, and an agonized scream tore itself from your throat before you could even think. His sudden movement chilled your blood, and all you could think about was how you needed to protect your guardian demon before he was struck by the angel.

And so you did.

Confession time: you kicked an angel in the balls.

You were pretty sure that was a one-way ticket to Hell.

“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” you kept repeating to a defeated Seokmin, who was now laying on the couch with pain drawn all over his face. “My fight response has been kicking in a lot more lately.”

“I wasn’t gonna hurt him,” he explained weakly. “My foot was just cramping up.”

“So you won’t kill Jeonghan?” you asked, brimming with hope.

“I… I don’t know,” he answered. “Jeonghan’s a demon, Y/N. Just because you have feelings for him doesn’t mean he isn’t capable of manipulating those emotions out of you.”

“He’s as good as human, Seokmin.”

“Y/N,” Jeonghan started, but you shook your head.

“I’m right!” you insisted. “Jeonghan has a heart, and it beats; I’ve felt it myself.” The two men were silent, so you continued, “He can’t handle alcohol at all; he’s more lightweight than I am. He likes building lego sets. He likes the rain, and he said it’s because that means an angel’s crying, but it’s really because he loves the way the Earth smells after rainfall. He likes coffee, but he always pours me some first before he takes any. You think he’d have the vocabulary of a Victorian man, but he knows more slang than I do. He… Jeonghan wants to be human. Isn’t that enough for you?”

Silence hung in the air. You wondered if you overstepped for a moment, aired out too much of his business, but then you could visibly see Seokmin at war with himself. You could see the internal battle in his eyes, fighting to believe in whatever the angels had instructed him to do.

He narrowed his eyes at the demon and asked in a calmer voice, “You swear you won’t kill me?”

“I swear on God.”

“You’re a demon. Swear on something else.”

“Um, okay… I swear on, uh, Y/N.”

“Please don’t swear on me,” you muttered, looking at your feet nervously as if the ground was going to swallow you whole.

Seokmin closed his eyes, exhaling loudly. “So, when did you stop wanting to kill me?”

“Y/N and I had a deal that I wouldn’t kill you in exchange for—”

You slapped a hand over the demon’s mouth immediately, successfully muffling the next words that decided to slip from his lips. It felt like your face was burning from how embarrassed you were. While Jeonghan shot you a confused look and tried to lick your palm to get it to budge, you exclaimed, “That detail isn’t important!”

“Anyway,” Jeonghan continued once you finally removed your hand, “I guess… part of me started enjoying those movie nights. Kinda hard to discuss the endings after you kill your friend, right?”

You could see Seokmin visibly soften, the fondness returning to his eyes. “You’re telling the truth.”

“Yeah, I am.”

“You can tell?” you inquired, wondering if it was some sort of angelic ability he had recently acquired.

“Yeah, I’ve always had some sort of sixth sense about these things,” Seokmin said, although you weren’t quite sure about this because you and Jeonghan had lied to him on numerous occasions. “I was only able to tap into it after I saw my wings for the first time.”

You then wondered if the longing etched bone-deep in Jeonghan’s face was also real.

It took a couple of hours for you and Jeonghan to explain everything to Seokmin, from beginning to end. You had to start from how you accidentally summoned him, which seemed to entertain the both of them, and you had to scold them both to take the situation seriously. Then, Jeonghan explained his side of the story, detailing how he didn’t have much time left because his mortal body was weak. 

“What do we do now, then?” Seokmin asked, sitting up straight now. “You’re gonna die if you stay here, right?”

“That’s why he wanted to kill an angel,” you said, “but now we don’t have a game plan.”

The three of you sat in silence for several minutes, letting the situation sink in. Your nerves were still buzzing from your earlier confession, still unanswered by Jeonghan, but you knew it wasn’t the time to dwell on that. There were more important matters at hand, but no one knew what to do.

Jeonghan sighed. “It’s fine. I’ve already accepted that I’m going to die here and be reborn in Hell.”

“You think that’s fair to Y/N? Or me?” Seokmin burst out. “You’re basically telling us to watch you die, dude.”

“You think I wanted this outcome?” he snapped. “No, I didn’t think I was going to actually enjoy living in this realm! I didn’t think I was gonna fall in love with my human! I didn’t think mortals had such excellent marketing strategies!”

Seokmin’s eyes went wide. “You…”

“Jeonghan,” was all you could say, and his name came out no louder than a whisper.

“What?!”

“You said you love me.” 

You looked toward Seokmin for confirmation, who answered with a quiet nod—an indication that not only had you heard it correctly, but Jeonghan was telling the truth.

To be honest, you were quite embarrassed that this was all coming to light in front of Lee Seokmin. He seemed very out of place in this otherwise tender moment. Yet, you were filled with inexplicable happiness and absolute dread simultaneously.

Once the grief settled, you were born again. Newfound confidence rising up your throat. You were determined to do whatever it took to mortalize Jeonghan.

“Oh, right.” The demon sounded nervous—enough to make you nervous. He simply stared at you for a moment before brushing the proclamation off with a wave. “Anyway…”

“Jeonghan!”

He shot you a withering look, glaring you down with every fiber of his being. “Seokmin is right there. Do you really wanna do this right now?” he whispered in an exasperated tone, turning his back to his friend so that he could converse with you. Although Jeonghan was lecturing, you were enjoying the way his blush rose to his cheeks. “We can talk about this after he leaves.”

“Okay, fine,” you agreed. “Why’d you have to blurt out a confession while he was here?”

“You did the same thing!”

“I can still hear you guys,” Seokmin reminded unhelpfully.

Somehow, Jeonghan took this as an opportunity to continue to chastise you. “See? This is all because you can’t keep quiet.”

“I can’t keep quiet?” You knew this was not the time nor place to bicker with your guardian demon, but he was an expert at getting on your nerves. “You’re the one who speaks in crazy demon lingo wherever we go!”

He scoffed. “I don’t speak in crazy demon lingo, human.”

“Yeah? Tell that to Chan. Poor guy had to witness your drunk ass going on about the Yog Sloth owing you or whatever.”

Jeonghan stammered and did a double take, looking at you like you had just kicked him square in the chest. “Wait… what did you just say?”

“Uh, Chan—”

“No, the other thing.”

“The Yog Sloth?”

“Yog Sloth,” he echoed, and then something clicked. “Yog-Sothoth? Wait, the Outer Gods—oh my god! They do owe me!” he all but yelled, grabbing you by the waist and pulling you into a bone-crushing hug. “Y/N, you’re a genius!”

Seokmin’s eyebrows knitted together in confusion. “What’d she even do?” he asked, and you were glad you were on the same page as him.

“Yeah, what’d I do? Who the hell are the Outer Gods?”

For the next thirty minutes, Jeonghan went on to explain how billions of years ago, the most powerful beings of all creation, that rivaled even God Himself, were ruling over the universe. Before space and time was Azathoth—chaos. Azathoth even tried to disrupt the beginning of God’s Creation by starting a war. Each blow delivered from both God and Azathoth caused a rippling effect, creating infinite multiverses that were birthed from the clashing between darkness and light.

There was a period in time when the angels and demons had to side together for once to seal away the Outer Gods. Although they were no match for these cosmic beings, God was able to lock them in the Outerverse, where they have been slumbering ever since.

The key that locked away the Outer Gods had been missing for several millennia, but it happened to end up in the hands of Mammon and Belphegor. Mammon had the clever idea of reshaping the artifact into a human hand and hiding it in a fiery lake in Hell. It was called the Right Hand of Doom, but it hadn’t been touched ever since its reform.

“You reshaped a key of cosmic importance into a hand,” you summarized in disbelief. “That key has the power to doom all of our existences, and you turned it into a human hand.”

“You know, Belphegor had the same reaction after I created it,” Jeonghan said. “Actually, let me give him a call to fetch it for me.”

“Wait!” Seokmin exclaimed. “That key could wake the Outer Gods from their slumber. What are you planning on doing with it? Are you seriously considering using the Outerverse?”

“No, Seokmin, I’m gonna use it as a back scratcher.”

“Don’t get me wrong; I do want you to stay here, but this is extremely dangerous. It’s a really selfish decision, Jeonghan.”

“I’m literally the Prince of Greed.”

“Jeonghan, no matter how much I want you to become human and stay with me, this is just… it’s just crazy,” you said. “What if it goes completely wrong? What if you’re trapped in the Outerverse and killed by the Outer Gods?”

“Listen,” Jeonghan started. “When I first created the Right Hand of Doom, I was contacted by Yog-Sothoth himself—Azathoth’s grandson.”

“How did he contact you if he’s imprisoned?” you asked.

“These gods have their ways the same way demons do,” Jeonghan explained. “It’s kept on the down-low, but there are numerous worshippers of theirs that seek out ways to release them. None of them are ever successful, though.”

He continued, “Anyway, Yog-Sothoth isn’t as cruel as the others. He’s actually quite generous when he deems someone worthy, and I guess he thought I was that person when I refashioned the Right Hand of Doom. Millions of years ago, I helped the Outer Gods out by bringing them sacrifices to empower them, so they’re in my debt.”

Seokmin's face soured. “Why’d you bring them sacrifices?”

“Dunno. I was bored.”

“Let me get this straight,” you spoke up. “So, you’re gonna risk your life over the slight chance that you could be turned human?”

Jeonghan’s dark eyes pierced yours, as if he was saying, Look at me. Look at how far I’d go for you.

“Relax.” He cracked a smile. “It’s not like I’m going to the Outerverse myself. I just need the Right Hand of Doom to communicate with Yog-Sothoth across our realms. Even if he rejects my bargain, I doubt he’d try to crush me to a pulp from his prison.”

“If that’s all there is to it,” Seokmin started, a smile creeping to his face, “then I don’t see why we shouldn’t try.”

Jeonghan left the room momentarily to contact Belphegor, Prince of Sloth. He hadn’t exactly disclosed how he was going to summon the demon, but he returned with a scowl on his face, shaking his head as he explained that Belphegor was too lazy to retrieve the Right Hand of Doom at the moment. You and Seokmin asked when he would return, but even Jeonghan didn’t have an exact answer.

“Give me a call whenever he decides to show up,” Seokmin said before he went back to his apartment. You could tell that he was still shaken up from finding out that his friend had been a demon all this time, but you were glad that they were both being civil for now.

However, there were now other issues at hand. As soon as Seokmin left your apartment, you realized that the tension between you and Jeonghan couldn’t even be cut by a blade. To your surprise, your guardian demon was the first to mention it.

“You love me,” he murmured, more to himself than to you. It was like he was trying to wrap his head around the concept, trying to make sure it was real.

“I do,” you said bravely, “and you love me, I think. Seokmin seemed to believe it was true, and he’s an angel, so…”

“I think I do.” He looked pained. “These feelings are really confusing. I feel like I can’t breathe sometimes. You have a way of making me feel like I’m at the top of the world sometimes, but sometimes I feel like I’ve hit rock bottom.”

You understood that completely. When you and Jeonghan had your good moments together, you felt like you were soaring. However, when you were reminded about how little time he had left on Earth, you wanted to shut out the rest of the world and hide.

“We can figure it out together,” you told him, reaching forward to grab his hand and squeeze it.

Jeonghan’s eyes always looked different to you, like melted amber. They held many millennia of age and experience, so it felt like Jeonghan was unfazed by most aspects of life he encountered. Nothing could make the man falter.

But now, with evident panic in his eyes, newfound confidence surged through your blood that compelled you to get on your tip-toes and press a chaste kiss to his lips. It was a seemingly tame sign of affection, so you were thrown off when Jeonghan quietly slid a finger past the hem of your jeans. With his head dipped, the demon looked at you through his long, feathery lashes.

“Are you… are you hungry?” you stammered out.

“No,” he mumbled, raising his head to meet your eyes with his expectant ones. “Two people who like each other… Normally, this would lead to dating, wouldn’t it?” When you nodded, he continued, “How about it, then?”

“How about what?”

“Let’s go out.”

Your mind went blank for a moment. With how straightforwardly he said it, you would have thought Jeonghan was messing with your head, trying to push your buttons by teasing you. But his face looked determined this time, like he actually meant it. You could see the red glow of his eyes as he waited for an answer.

You blinked. “Like, as boyfriend and girlfriend?”

“Yes, as boyfriend and girlfriend,” Jeonghan confirmed, exasperated. He gripped your hand tighter, as if he was getting his feelings across with a gentle squeeze. “Like Hallie and Noah.”

“It’s Allie.”

“Yeah, whatever.” He scoffed, surprisingly tender in the way he cupped your cheeks and pulled you closer. You were still a bundle of nerves, but something about Jeonghan made you feel secure. Quite the opposite of how you theoretically should feel around a demon. “Hey,” he tried again, his voice no louder than murmur, “I wanna kiss you.”

You smiled. “Then do it already.”

And so he did.

Jeonghan had kissed you before, but it was nothing like this. It seemed so urgent before, like you both knew you were running out of time. This time, though, he was slow, taking his time to memorize the shape of your lips as he moved his mouth against yours. You felt his long lashes tickle your cheeks, and it almost made you giggle, so you had to pull back to regain your composure. Jeonghan looked down at you, chest heaving even though the kiss was nothing but gentle.

“Again,” you pleaded.

Immediately, his current expression turned cocky. The corner of Jeonghan’s mouth lifted in amusement, and he kissed you not-so-gently this time. He pulled your body flush against his, and you reciprocated by wrapping your arms around his neck. The moment he slid his tongue past your lips, you heard a soft groan from Jeonghan that made your knees buckle under you.

Jeonghan held your waist with one hand and the back of your head with the other. Even though you were still standing on two feet, you were sure that he could hold you up, anyway. He gripped you like he never wanted to let you go.

“You taste good,” he mumbled against your lips.

“You taste like… coffee.” You made a face and let a giggle slip.  

“Well, it’s a good thing you like coffee.”

“Not when I’m tasting it secondhand.”

“You know, a minute ago, I wanted to fuck you properly,” he said. “Now, I’m just miffed. Slightly turned on, but still miffed.”

“Fuck me properly?” you asked, sort of embarrassed by how high your voice got. You inched closer, allowing Jeonghan’s finger to toy with the waistband of your underwear. In return, you placed your hand flat against his abdomen, moving it down slowly until you reached his crotch. Jeonghan hissed when you pressed against his growing bulge. “You mean…”

“With my cock, yeah,” he finished bluntly.

It was silent for a moment. You removed your hand, swallowing carefully after realizing that your guardian demon was hard.

Jeonghan wordlessly slid his hand down your pants, maintaining direct eye contact with you. His hand cupped your clothed cunt, and although you tried to resist, you couldn’t help but throb for more contact. You wondered if he just wanted to see your reactions, and you confirmed this by watching his smirk form when you whimpered.

“Oh,” you breathed out.

“Yeah, you like that?”

His voice was heavy, ragged. You felt like you could get drunk off it, so, naturally, you backed up with him until the back of your legs hit the bed. You made a sound of agreement when he hummed, prompting you to answer his question. You couldn’t even form words when all you could think about was being under him. Jeonghan’s palming grew more intense, and you were having a harder time staying upright.

Then, he was occupied with your neck. Jeonghan dragged his soft lips along the flesh, nipping and biting where he pleased. You let out a soft whine when he sucked on that one spot that turned your brain into mush.

“I’m gonna lay you down,” he said, although it felt like a question with the way he was looking at you. His eyes were careful, like he was holding onto your every word before following through. “Am I doing this right?”

You laughed, delighted as he set you down on your bed and got over you. You looped your arms around his shoulders and asked, “What do you mean?”

He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “Am I going about this the right way? I don’t really do this sort of thing.”

You were surprised at his sudden meekness. Judging from Jeonghan’s overwhelming confidence from your past hookups with him, you expected him to carry on with the same arrogance. You never thought he would be so hesitant all of a sudden.

“You’re doing perfect,” you reassured with a chaste peck to his lips.

“Right.” He did one of his breathless laughs, easing your nerves with his grin. “Just tell me if I’m screwing up, then.”

Jeonghan dipped his head again to pepper kisses across your collarbone, working his way back up to the column of your neck. He worked on your sweet spot, biting and sucking until he had successfully left a bruise. You squirmed underneath him the entire time, tugging your hands through his hair and begging for him to fix the ache between your legs.

The demon only chuckled darkly in response. As he bit the shell of your ear, he removed your jeans and underwear swiftly, which you aided by kicking the garments off your ankles. He prodded your cunt with nimble fingers, grinning wider when he saw the desperation in your eyes.

“You’re so wet,” he commented in a silky voice. “All for me, huh?”

“Shut up,” you grumbled, “and take your clothes off already.”

Jeonghan rose up to sit back on your thighs, staring at you the entire time he pulled his shirt off and discarded it to the side. You couldn’t help but ogle at his figure; he was absolutely gorgeous—sculpted by God Himself.

“Don’t do that,” he said gruffly when you reached out to poke his stomach. You deduced that Jeonghan was most definitely ticklish and trying to hide that weakness from you.

“But your reaction was cute.”

He rolled his eyes but smiled, his hands moving to tug at the hem of your shirt. “C’mon, your turn.”

“H-huh?”

Even when Jeonghan gave you head in the past, you always kept your shirt on. He, too, had never stripped down in front of you like this. Surely, you were expecting this to happen, but the thought of being fully naked in front of Jeonghan was intimidating. It felt like you two were reaching a level of intimacy and closeness that you thought was unattainable months prior.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I already know you’re not wearing a bra. You've gone braless for, like, almost a week now.”

You raised a suspicious brow at him. “You were staring at my tits?”

“No comment.”

Jeonghan placed his slender hands on your waist, squeezing your sides comfortingly as you pulled your shirt off over your head. He watched you with marvel in his eyes, eyes trained on the swell of your breasts. He leaned close to press soft kisses against the skin, whispering praise as he did so. You didn’t peg the demon to be so romantic, but you weren’t complaining.

You heard gentle pattering outside your window while Jeonghan kissed down your chest.

“It’s raining,” you whispered. The two of you broke apart for a brief moment while Jeonghan hastily got rid of his pants and boxers. “An angel’s crying.”

You looked to the side, and you nearly had to look away before Jeonghan could notice how flustered you looked. The demon stood in all his glory. You had seen naked men before, but Jeonghan was, of course, a creature beyond human comprehension. He was the most gorgeous being you had ever come across.

And, strangely enough, for the first time, you didn’t feel that uncontrollable tug of desire when you looked at him. You weren’t compelled to drop to your knees and submit to the demon. Your attraction felt innate, much like how the rain falls so naturally from the sky. Not that Jeonghan ever had you under a spell or anything, but it almost felt like he was becoming more human.

Whether that meant he was losing his powers or was growing accustomed to living as a human, you had no idea.

“You’re beautiful,” he admitted, looking down at you like you were the stars in the night sky.

“Thanks,” you replied shyly.

“That’s your reaction?” He beamed, amused. “Well, whatever. I’d rather you save your voice for when I make you scream, human.”

You thought it would be impossible at this point, but your cheeks grew even hotter. Yet, you couldn’t even chide the demon because he was already getting over you, promptly attacking your neck with more kisses.

You were a soaking mess already, so Jeonghan’s fingers slid into your cunt with ease. You were taken aback yourself by how effortless it was, but you figured two fingers couldn’t hold a candle to the girth of his cock.

You propped yourself up on your elbows to watch how Jeonghan fingered you. Both of you stared at the spot where his fingers disappeared in you, and the sight only turned you on even more. For once, Jeonghan was pleasuring someone else without the favor being returned, yet you had never seen him so satiated. He was thriving off of your moans and cries, like the sounds itself were feeding him.

A moan escaped your lips, fragmenting off into broken whimpers as Jeonghan’s fingers sped up. You felt your thighs start to shake—the preamble of your orgasm building up. Heat bloomed under your skin, and you dug your nails into the demon’s shoulders to warn him.

The warning only spurred him to move his fingers faster—in scissoring motions this time. His thumb found purchase on your clit, circling the ball of nerves slowly. Finally, you fell off the edge, crying out in ecstasy as boundless pleasure tore through your body. Your mind went blank, thinking about nothing but how good you felt. It was like you were bathed in heavenly light.

“I got you,” Jeonghan murmured, kissing the spot under your ear.

If you had half the mind to kick him in the shin, you would. Pretending to comfort you while torturing your swollen clit throughout your orgasm was pure evil. You expected no less from a demon.

“Will you do me a favor and fuck me already?” you asked, exasperated. For good measure, you flattened your palm against his stomach and slid your hand down his abs.

“Alright. Beg for it.”

You balked. “W-what?”

“You want me to fuck you that bad? Then beg for it,” he said with an air of haughtiness. You couldn’t tell if he was joking or not, but the man didn’t budge. “I’m waiting.”

“I am not begging you, that’s so—” You paused. Jeonghan raised a brow, prompting you to continue, so you admitted, “It’s embarrassing!”

He shrugged. “I think we’re both past the point of being embarrassed in front of each other, human.”

You sucked in a sharp breath. “Okay, fine. You want me to beg? I’ll beg.” You laid back down, looping your arms around Jeonghan’s neck once more and pulling him close. “I’ve been waiting months for you to fuck me, so please make me feel good and I’ll…”

“You’ll what?” The mischievous glint in his eyes was unmistakable.

“I’ll be good.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes!” you whined, the agitation growing in your chest. “I’ll be a good girl, okay? I’ll be really, really good.”

“Alright, I’m sold.”

Jeonghan pressed a kiss to your forehead, letting out a light laugh before his demeanor completely shifted. His easygoing smile turned into a proud smirk when he practically folded you in half, throwing one of your legs over his shoulders so that he could line himself up to your entrance. He hummed, teasing your folds with the head of his cock.

You wanted to cry out, to push at his chest and beg him to just fuck you already. All of the teasing had you at your tipping point, and you were about to complain until you felt the tip of Jeonghan’s cock enter you slowly.

Your breath hitched. He hadn’t even completely entered you, and you were already throbbing at the thought of his cock inside you. Jeonghan used one hand to hold your hips down, pushing into you slowly but surely. You could tell he didn’t want to rush or hurt you, so he kept his eyes trained on your face the entire time, gauging whether to proceed based off your reactions.

“Sorry,” he apologized, placing a kiss against your stomach as he continued pushing his way inside you until he bottomed out. Your eyes nearly rolled back once he was fully inside, and all you could do was clench around him until he growled. “Hold still.”

“Keep going,” you begged, holding onto him like he was your anchor. If you let go of him, you were sure you would fall apart.

Jeonghan simpered, looking quite delighted as he started rocking his hips slowly. It seemed as though he was waiting for you to get adjusted to his size. Despite all, you were still clenching around his cock occasionally, leaving him holding onto you tighter and groaning into the crook of your neck. Jeonghan sped up his thrusts and left a bruising grip on your hips.

“You like that?” he asked, and, lord, you nearly came for the second time just by his words.

“Jeonghan!” you cried out, nearly gasping the words. “I… I want—”

“Want what?” he cut you off smoothly, smirking down at your disheveled appearance. He punctuated his words with a sharp thrust. “What do you want, princess?”

You whimpered. “I do wanna be your girlfriend.”

He froze for a moment, stunned. Apparently, that wasn’t the route he was expecting you to take.

Then, the demon’s shock wore off and was replaced with a warm smile. “Yeah?” he asked, leaning down to meet your lips in a sweet kiss. He pulled away to look into your eyes. “I’d be honored to be your boyfriend, Y/N.”

It was like clockwork—the way your orgasm hit you at that very moment. You tightened around him uncontrollably, the sporadic motions causing Jeonghan to cum as well. He pulled out right before his climax, ropes of cum spilling onto your stomach. You watched it pool together with hazy, unfocused eyes, still dazed from your orgasm and sudden confession.

Jeonghan was your boyfriend now.

“I see why mortal men are such fools for women,” Jeonghan said once he collapsed next to you. “If sex is always this good, I would start wars, too.”

“You’re a demon prince. You’ve started wars, anyway.”

“Oh, right.”

Afterward, you taught Jeonghan a thing or two about aftercare. The concept was completely foreign to him, so you informed him that good boyfriends took care of their girlfriends after sex. When Jeonghan told you to just grab a tissue and call it a day, you had to scold him to get him to clean you up.

To your surprise, Jeonghan did a satisfactory job. You half-expected him to do the absolute bare minimum, but you could definitely see that he was trying his best.

So, you bestowed upon him the highest honor: allowing him to sleep with you in your bed.

Jeonghan got under the sheets beside you, wrapping an arm around you once you cozied up to him. It was strange how comfortable you felt with him, especially considering he was your assigned demon. In some parallel universe, you and Jeonghan might have been normal people with normal lives, and you two probably felt the same level of closeness as you did right now.

Neither of you could sleep right away. Jeonghan traced patterns along your arm and you told him countless stories about your childhood. He smiled fondly, intently listening to the life you lived before him.

Later, he kissed you, and, between bated breaths, whispered promises of forever. And eventually, the soft trickling of rain lulled you both to sleep.

You woke up freezing.

At first, you thought Jeonghan had stolen the blanket. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for the Prince of Greed to be, well, greedy. However, considering your limbs were entangled with his, that didn’t seem to be the case.

The feeling was awfully familiar. It was the same sub-zero temperature you experienced when Jeonghan appeared in your room the first time. However, it was brief this time, dissipating as soon as it started.

Although you couldn’t identify the strange man who materialized in the center of your room, you had a good idea of who it was.

“Oh, Belphegor,” Jeonghan greeted without a care in the world, confirming your suspicions immediately. You were amazed that the half-naked demon was completely unfazed by his demon friend coming out of nowhere. Maybe this was just a regular morning for their kind. “About time you showed up.”

Belphegor made a noncommittal sound. “Yeah, well…”

“I can’t believe it took you centuries to fetch the Hand.”

“I was going to do it,” he said, “but then I didn’t want to.”

Jeonghan groaned. “You idiot.”

You gathered up the bedsheets, making sure to cover yourself fully before turning your attention back to the two demons. Maybe if you acted like everything about this situation was normal, it would distract from the fact that you only had a blanket to cover your naked body. The stranger seemed to have no interest in you whatsoever, so you figured he wouldn’t think anything of you and Jeonghan sleeping together.

“Jeonghan!” you hissed, glowering at your startled boyfriend. “It wouldn’t kill you to wake me up?”

“Oh, Y/N,” he started, seeming pleased with himself. He gestured toward the demon next to him, who looked like he had just rolled out of bed himself. “This is Belphegor, but you can call him by his human name: Wonwoo.”

“Nice to meet you,” you said cautiously.

“Hi.”

There was clearly no room for conversation between you two.

“Anyway,” Wonwoo continued, shooting Jeonghan a curious look, “what’re you gonna do with the key? You’re not opening the Outerverse, are you?”

Jeonghan shook his head. “I’m not gonna release the Outer Gods, I’m—”

“Well, that’s good to know,” Wonwoo cut him off, clearly uninterested in the conversation. “Now that I know you’re not trying to kill us all, I’ll get going.”

“Yeah, okay, good talk.”

Later in the day, you sat on the floor of your living room with Jeonghan and Seokmin. Jeonghan was giving him a rundown of Belphegor’s visit, which didn’t take very long considering he was there for a grand total of nine moments. You almost made an offhand comment about how Jeonghan didn’t give you any time to get dressed, but that would have exposed what went down between you two last night.

Neither of you had even mentioned to Seokmin about sealing the deal.

“Alright, so,” the Quartarion started, “how does this work?”

Jeonghan pulled out a ten dollar bill, a deformed-looking Twinkie, and a tiny bottle of bath salts from the pocket of his sweater. He laid them out carefully around the Right Hand of Doom before looking up at you and Seokmin. A smug grin spread across his face, but you and the angel were flabbergasted.

“A Twinkie?” you asked.

“He likes sweets,” was the extent of Jeonghan’s explanation.

“Primordial Outer God of space-time likes Twinkies. Good to know.”

“And the ten dollars?” Seokmin asked.

“He likes money, too,” Jeonghan said. Before either of you could question the bath salts, he pointed to the bottle and added, “These are just for the vibes.”

Nice.

“Anyway,” Jeonghan continued, “these types of invocations usually require human sacrifices or something along those lines.” Seokmin and him glanced in your direction at the same time, and you shot them each an icy glare. Jeonghan coughed into his fist. “We’re obviously not sacrificing you. I’m just saying he’s more likely to answer me because I’m a demon prince.”

Seokmin looked on edge. “So… are we starting?”

“I don’t want Y/N in the room,” Jeonghan answered.

“What?” you asked, shocked at the sudden dismissal. “Why?”

“He’s so powerful—even knowing of his existence can drive some mortals insane,” Jeonghan muttered darkly. “Seokmin should be fine since he’s an angel, but there’s a chance you’d go mad if you heard his voice, so stay back until I say so.”

He didn’t have to tell you twice. You were already starting to get to your feet the second he mentioned mortals going insane.

“I’ll stand in the hallway, then,” you decided, far too curious to lock yourself in one of the rooms.

You watched as Jeonghan and Seokmin took each other’s hands quietly and exchanged a silent nod of understanding before closing their eyes. Jeonghan then started reciting some strange incantation that was far more complicated than the one you used to summon him. It seemed to drag on for close to a minute before the air around them went still. It was as if they were trapped in a time vortex, suspended in space while all you could do was wait for them to be released.

You took careful steps backward until you were against the wall, and then you sank down to the floor. As much as you tried to calm your nerves, you were riddled with anxiety. You had to physically hold your thigh down to keep it from bouncing.

Jeonghan didn’t tell you how exactly this would go. Hell, he probably didn’t know himself. Because you were so unaware, though, you weren’t sure if what was happening right now was normal or not. The two men weren’t even twitching or breathing; they were like still images.

Minutes stretched on. You weren’t sure how long it had been, but each passing second felt longer than it should have been. There was nothing you could do but wait. Stare at the motionless air around the two boys and wait.

It had probably been around half an hour when Seokmin’s eyes shot open with a loud gasp. You scrambled to your feet immediately, badgering the poor boy with questions to find out what happened while he was just trying to catch his breath. Jeonghan, on the other hand, looked the very image of tranquility when he opened his eyes.

“What is it?” you kept asking. “What happened?”

Seokmin had a strange, distant look in his eyes. He tried to speak several times, but no words came out.

“Could you get him something warm to drink, Y/N?” Jeonghan asked. “I think he’s in shock.”

“I’ll—I’ll make some tea,” you stammered, stumbling over your feet before you could start walking properly. “How about you? Are you—” You stopped yourself once you saw the hint of fear in Jeonghan’s eyes, and it chilled your blood. You couldn’t even fathom what they had just gone through. “I’ll get you a cup, too.”

It took two hours for the two men to recover—slowly but surely. You brought them tea and gave them time to process what they had just been through. It mainly consisted of you sitting to the side and keeping yourself from asking any questions. You figured they’d tell you if they wanted, but you weren’t in any position to press them.

Jeonghan seemed to feel bad for letting Seokmin tag along. He kept glancing at the angel with sad eyes, seeming remorseful. Then, he turned his attention to you. To your surprise, he walked over to where you sat on the couch to sit next to you and lay his head on your shoulder.

“Hey,” you called softly. “Are you feeling better?”

He nodded, although he didn’t look you in the eyes. “You should probably go to your room. Yog-Sothoth told us he’s thinking about my request, so he could be making up his mind any minute now.”

“You’re going back?”

“I guess. It was more like my consciousness was transported there instead of my physical body.”

He said it like it should have been no big deal, but the two were clearly unsettled by their visit. You weren’t sure how to feel about them going back. It could break Seokmin for good. Even though he was an angel-blood, he didn’t have the power that Jeonghan had.

“The fact that he listened to Jeonghan’s request means that he’s considering it,” Seokmin spoke up after a period of silence between you three. “It’s a good thing you didn’t go, Y/N. The Outerverse is the most terrifying realm I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been to Alabama.”

You smiled a little. At least he seemed to be feeling more at ease now.

“They say Yog-Sothoth exists beyond our reality, so he can possibly see other streams of reality that aren’t connected to the branches of Creation,” Jeonghan explained. “That sounds insane, right? When you’re in the Outerverse seeing those pockets of different realities… it can make you go a little crazy. I mean, I’d give Hell a five star Yelp review over the Outerverse.”

Seokmin tucked his head in his folded arms. “I never wanna go to that place again.”

“Well, I’m not exactly planning to have my next birthday party there.”

“Mammon,” a voice boomed in your ears, and the sound itself was weird.​​ There were undertones of echoes in its words, and you couldn’t even tell if the voice was in your head or not.

You didn’t have to ask who it was because the fear in Seokmin’s eyes was unmistakable. Jeonghan straightened up, panicked, but you assumed it was because you were still in the room because he swiftly placed his hands over your ears in an attempt to muffle the sound. You weren’t sure it would help, but you did feel safer that way.

“God of Time, I appreciate your presence.”

“I’ve decided to accept your offer,” Yog-Sothoth said. His voice sounded louder, even with Jeonghan’s hands over your ears. “I’ll help you.”

There was a way.

He removed his hands from the sides of your head, and you sat up straight again. You never thought those four words would light up so much hope inside you, but here you were, beaming like an idiot next to your demon boyfriend. There was a hope for a future between you and Jeonghan—hope that you two could live out the rest of your lives as humans. More importantly, there was hope that you two could live out the rest of your lives together.

For a moment, you were filled with doubt. There was so much at stake for this decision, and you couldn’t fathom someone loving you so much that they would give their world up for you.

“Jeonghan,” you murmured, “are you sure about giving up immortality?”

“I’d rather live a short life with you than spend the rest of eternity longing for what we could have had,” he declared with a fire blazing in his eyes. “I don’t want forever if it’s not with you, Y/N.”

His soft words coupled with his fierce gaze only sent butterflies to the pit of your stomach. You were hopeless when it came to Jeonghan; whatever he said left you like putty in his hands.

“Jeonghan,” Seokmin whispered, looking fearful. He was pointing at the makeshift summoning circle. “The Twinkie’s gone.”

So, the primordial Outer God of space-time was helping Jeonghan out because of a Twinkie. You decided against questioning why the all-powerful being was about to manipulate the fabric of reality over an over-glorified sponge cake.

“But,” Yog-Sothoth’s voice echoed in your ears as he spoke, “for this exchange, I require a sacrifice.”

“A sacrifice?” Jeonghan asked, frowning. “The Twinkie—”

“No, Mammon, not the Twinkie. I want you to bring me a loved one; an eye for an eye.”

You frowned. Jeonghan could split his soul into two—one residing in his demon form in Hell, and the other residing in his human body here—but he had to sacrifice someone he loved? You couldn’t understand how this was a fair exchange; he was already giving up a part of him for this ordeal.

“Sacrifice a loved one in exchange for what I want,” Jeonghan echoed, a faraway look in his eyes. “I’ve seen this before.”

“You have?” Your eyebrows narrowed. “When?”

“Avengers: Endgame.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Dude,” Seokmin chimed in, and you were starting to think you were the only one who understood the gravity of the situation. “This is literally Thanos sacrificing Gamora for the Soul Stone.”

“Stop embarrassing us in front of the Outer God!” you whispered harshly.

“Well,” Jeonghan started, his tone growing serious again, “I’m sure you know my choice.”

“Yes, I do.” Yog-Sothoth hummed, and something about it seemed calculative. You wanted to interject and ask Jeonghan what the hell he was talking about, but you felt like you were immobilized. “Very well, then.”

You looked at Seokmin to see if he understood what was going on, but he seemed just as confused as you were. Jeonghan just stared ahead, refusing to look either of you in the eye, and panic rose in your throat. You wanted to trust him, to confidently know that he wasn’t choosing you or Seokmin, but you really didn’t know who else it could have been.

Like Jeonghan told you before, demons didn’t care about anyone or anything. Only you and Seokmin were able to crack him open.

That was why horrifying realization was drawn across both of your faces. Jeonghan was choosing either you or Seokmin, and considering you were the reason he wanted to be mortal in the first place, you were terrified he was going to sacrifice Seokmin. And it seemed like Seokmin was terrified of that possibility, too.

You stood up and grabbed his shoulder. “Jeonghan, you—”

But before you could get any words out, you were sinking and the ground was swallowing you whole.

Everything went dark, and then silence followed.

You had gone under anesthesia once in your life. It was back when you were thirteen and the doctors had to perform an appendectomy on you. Being sedated didn’t feel like sleeping at all; it felt like closing your eyes and then waking up to a weird jumpcut in your memory. You remembered being extremely disoriented at first, not even realizing what had just happened to you.

Now, as your eyes fluttered open, you felt the same way.

You were tucked in your bed, which had to have been impossible because you were in the living room when everything turned black. You sat up to gather your bearings. Your head was a mess for a second, unable to focus on one thing at a time.

Jeonghan. Seokmin. Yog-Sothoth. Twinkies. Sacrifice.

The words etched themselves in your bones until you felt dread seep in. If you were still in your bed, completely unharmed, that meant Jeonghan had gotten rid of Seokmin. You looked down at your hands, and you realized they were shaking before you could stop yourself.

“Jeonghan!” you yelled, furious. Before he could hurry to your room, you stormed out, fighting back tears. Just as you thought, he was rushing down the hallway to see you, but you weren’t in the mood for a happy reunion. “How could you?!”

He looked confused. “Didn’t… didn’t you want this? I’m human now, Y/N.” A bright smile broke across his face. “Yog-Sothoth split my soul, so Mammon’s back in Hell where he belongs, but I’m here to stay as a human.”

You punched his shoulder. Hard.

“Okay, ow,” he complained. “Y/N, I—”

“Don’t,” you warned. Your voice was wavering and you could feel your throat closing up. “I don’t wanna hear it after what you did to Seokmin. You promised me you wouldn’t kill him!”

As if on cue, the angel-blood, who was supposed to be dead, peaked into the hallway from where he was in the living room. He had a bowl of ice cream in his hands, shaking his head at you repeatedly.

“I’m not dead,” he clarified, even though you could very clearly see that. “I’m alive.”

“Oh.” You had to take a step back because now, you were more confused than ever. “You’re alive.”

“You sound disappointed. Don’t worry, I’m not gonna steal your boyfriend.”

“I’m not! I’m… really fucking confused—wait, you found out we’re dating, too?” You turned to look up at Jeonghan. “Wait, so who’d you sacrifice, then? What happened after I blacked out? I feel like I’m so in the dark right now.”

Jeonghan looked down at his feet, suddenly glum. “I sacrificed my pet.”

“Mount Fu—I mean, Doljjong? I thought it was dead already?”

“No, my other pet.” He showed you his phone screen, which was on an article about Mount Vesuvius going extinct. “Jjongddol.”

“Oh, another rock.” You tried to sound sympathetic, but it was hard to feel bad for a volcano. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“He’s not even sad about it!” Seokmin argued, pointing his spoon at Jeonghan in an accusatory manner. “He gaslit the Time God!”

Jeonghan huffed. “I am sad, okay! Just because it took me a while to remember his name doesn’t mean I don’t have fond memories with Doljjong!”

“Jjongddol,” you corrected.

“Oh, right—Jjongddol!”

You smiled, taking his face into your hands. “You know what this means, though?”

Jeonghan looked at you, eyebrows lifting in pleasant surprise. “What?”

(“Oh, Christ, they’re gonna start making out,” Seokmin muttered and hurried back to the couch. “I’m gonna look for movies on the TV, Jeonghan!”)

“It means we finally have all the time in the world to ourselves, Yoon Jeonghan.” You got on your toes to press a chaste kiss to his lips, which he reciprocated almost immediately. “I’m a little sad I don’t have a guardian demon anymore, though, even if he sucked at his job.”

“Hey, I didn’t suck!” He pouted a little, which you laughed at. “Now, though, you get to show me how to be a proper human.”

“Oh, shoot. We need to find you a place to live since my lease only allows one person, and then we need to figure out getting your documents in order, and then—”

Jeonghan cut you off with a laugh. “I’m on board for all that, but I’d really like to celebrate my new life right now by watching a movie with my best friend and girlfriend.” He slung an arm around your shoulder, pulling you closer, and you couldn’t help but giggle. “And then tonight I’d like to—”

“Alright, alright!” you interjected, feeling your face go hot. “You know, the demon part of you might be gone power-wise, but I don’t know about personality-wise.”

“You love it, though.”

“Jeonghan, let’s watch Superbad!” Seokmin called from the living room.

“Okay!” Jeonghan turned to you and held out his hand. “Come on. I heated up popcorn and even put in some jalapeños for you.”

“Hey.” You stopped him, and you weren’t exactly sure why, but you felt so overwhelmed by your emotions at the moment. There were so many forces against you two, yet you still managed to fight the odds. A constant storm you both battled to stay together, and only now you felt like you could finally breathe. So, when Jeonghan looked at you, the words came out naturally. “I love you.”

He looked at you for a moment, before his face broke into one of those heartbreakingly beautiful smiles again. “I love you, too, Y/N.”

Now it was your time to smile and grab his hand. “Let’s go watch that movie.”

“Oh, is Y/N watching with us?” Seokmin asked.

“This may come as a shock, but this happens to be my apartment, Seokmin.”

And, as you three watched the movie, you and Jeonghan kept your hands interlocked, unwilling to let go. You thought it was beautiful how two hands could touch and forge a bond like no other. It must have been why you and Jeonghan had made it past every obstacle that came hurtling your way.

In some parallel universe out there, some stream of reality that didn’t branch from Creation, you and Jeonghan were probably normal people who found each other naturally. In that world, neither of you had to go through all the pain and suffering to find each other, to finally end up in each other’s arms. 

But you would choose this reality over that one every single time. You would go through all the trails and tribulations for Jeonghan however many times you needed to because, at the end of the day, the love you two had for each other couldn’t compare to any other reality out there. 

And you would never admit it out loud, but he was right; your guardian demon didn’t totally suck at his job.

[reiderwriter]

♦️There Are No Words Left to Speak ♦️

Chapter 5 of That's What You Get

Prev Chap || Next Chap

Pairing: Spencer Reid X Fem Reader

Summary: In a panic, you spill your guts to Penelope and receive some much needed advice before your "date" with Reid.

Warnings: None!!

A/N: This one is 4k words long because I absolutely could not help myself 😭 I've has a lot of messages and asks about this series lately, and it's been really encouraging to see! If you like this chapter, please comment or reblog and let me know or come chat with me in my inbox! Happy Reading!!

You can find my masterlist here and the series masterlist here.

"Penelope, I fucked up and I need your advice," you screamed into the room as soon as the door slammed open, startling the other woman as she threw her phone up in surprise. 

"Jesus, Y/N, you're lucky I didn't reach for the all too full can of pepper spray I store in here, oh my god."

"I'm sorry, Pen, I'm just, I'm kinda freaking out, and I need your help."

"Are we going to need wine, or are we going to need ice cream and a chick flick? What kind of problem are we talking here?" she asked from her place at the desk. 

"I married Spencer in Vegas." You said and then clamped your hand over your mouth as you finally let the pressure of the weekends mess seep out of you now that you'd shared your secret. 

"Oh my god, both, we'll do both. We need both, let's go, let's go now."

–X– 

Penelope drove the two of you home, immediately moving into a mothering role as soon as the words left your mouth, and she could see your impending implosion. You were grateful that she didn’t ask you any further questions as you made your way back to her apartment, just turning on the radio to a channel playing 90s pop hits and simply letting you calm down through the fun music. 

When you finally got through her door, she let you get comfortable and then immediately came back with all the things she promised. 

“Okay, I know you’re more a rose girl, but all I have is this really nice white that Derek got me for my last birthday and half a bottle of tequila, and I think it’s better for the both of us if we don’t open the tequila. Also, I have chocolate, cookie dough ice cream, and tissues, and When Harry Met Sally on DVD, I'm ready to be plugged in and played as soon as you say the word.” 

“Penelope, we do not tell you how brilliant you are as often as we should.” 

“While that is true, I’m trying my best not to immediately cave and ask you to spill, so can we please sing my praises after you explain what you mean by saying you married Spencer.” 

“God, Penelope, I don’t know what happened,” you let your head hang in your hands and she immediately moved to sit closer to you, rubbing a hand over your back and getting the tissues ready. 

“We went out drinking, and my mom got in my head earlier in that call I took, and I don’t remember anything and then I woke up and we were in bed together and-” you rambled out, lifting your head up as you tried to explain, but she cut you off quickly there.

“You were in bed together? Did you… you know, bump uglies with Spencer? Do the old in n’ out? Sorry, I’m making this worse, I’ll shut up now,” she said, but you laughed at her enthusiasm, and you felt more of the weekend’s tension leave your body. You knew that you had made the right decision coming to Penelope with this. She always knew how to make you feel better. 

“I don’t know, but it looks like it. TMI but-”

“Hold on, I don’t think I want to know what the Good Doctor is like in bed.” She visibly shuddered, and you let out another shaky laugh. 

“Well considering I remember none of it, you’d be hard pressed to get those details from me. I did wake up handcuffed to the bed, though.” 

“Shut the front door, no you did not!” Penelope’s jaw dropped. “Oh god, I’m almost morbidly curious, but I don’t want to open that can of worms. Sorry, please continue.” 

You took a swig of the wine she poured you and relaxed a bit further into her couch, pulling your legs up under you to find a more comfortable position as you told the rest of your story to Penelope, gaining more confidence with each of her reactions to what you told her. 

“So, now we just need to track down our two witnesses and get the marriage quietly annulled, and we can forget it ever happened.” You could hear the frown in your voice before you realised you were making that kind of expression, and from Penelope’s reaction, you could see that she’d noticed too. 

“Oh.. oh, I know that look. You don’t want the annulment, do you?” 

“Yes! I mean, no! Look, I really don’t know how to answer that right now, it’s just…” you trailed off, and Penelope silently filled your wine glass again, not saying anything and letting you come around at your own pace. 

“Earlier today, after we told Rossi, and before I came running to you, he… he kissed my forehead, and he called me Mrs. Reid, and I really liked it. And I didn’t think about it before, but Reid is nice, and he is good, and he is obviously really smart, and, god  he’d be a great dad, and he took care of me yesterday and today… Penelope, I think I have a crush on my husband.” You gasped out, feeling the weight of your revelation as it hit you straight in the gut. 

“But we talked about it and we’re getting an annulment and now it’s like I fucked up before I really got the chance to let it go anywhere, and what if it’s a mistake? What if I made the world’s greatest fuck up and married a great man in Vegas and then threw it all away a week later?” you raked your hand through your hair quickly, trying to ignore the tears forming quickly in your eyes. 

“Oh my god, sweetie, it’s going to be okay… You’re going to have to trust me when I tell you that it’s going to be okay…” she patted you on the back and you let the tears fall down a bit, quickly dabbing them away with the now balled up tissue in your hand. 

“I don’t know if I can, Pen…” you tried to smile up at her, but you could feel your lips wobbling and you let your head hang again before you could let out a choked sob. 

“No, nonononoonono, listen to me… Okay, promise you won’t hate me after I say this?” She said, squishing your cheeks between her hands as she made you look up into her eyes. 

“I pwomise,” you sniffed out, voice muffled by her strong grip. She let you go then, content that she had your attention. 

“I know for a fact that the boy is as infatuated with you as you are with him because… because I saw you two.” She stopped there to watch your reaction, but you froze, so she continued.

“You… you called me from wherever you guys were out in Vegas, mumbled some words over the phone and then sent me a picture of a brochure with an address on it, and then when I turned up it was a wedding chapel and you were getting married.” She winced out those last words, and you gasped at the confession. 

“You were one of the witnesses! Penelope!” You pointed an accusatory finger at her, but it was half-hearted. You knew that you were stubborn enough while sober. You certainly wouldn’t have been persuaded out of something you obviously wanted while blackout drunk. 

“I know, I know, I’m sorry, but you guys were just too cute! He was giving you all these small kisses on your forehead and on your cheeks, and you looked like innocent kids giddy and high on love, and I didn’t want to bring you back down to earth. You looked so happy, and I do not make it a habit to get in the way of my friends’ happiness.” 

“Penelope, why didn’t you say anything?” You groan out, sounding a bit like a petulant teenager who has just discovered her mom threw out a shirt she hadn’t worn in years. 

“I wanted to, but I was told not to…” she winced away. “And before you ask, I won’t tell you who else was there! Just know it was someone else who also loves both of you and would’ve pulled you two out of there. No questions asked if they thought you were making a stupid decision!” 

You let the revelations sink in, one by one. Penelope was there. Reid couldn’t keep his lips off of you. The other witness thought you two were good together. It almost didn’t surprise you when you started giggling, finding humour in the situation at least. 

“Oh my god, Penelope, I got married in Vegas to my coworker. And I think I’m in love with him now.” You were in a fit of giggles now, and Penelope hesitantly joined in at first. 

“Yeah, I suppose it is funny when you put it that way.” 

“God, what am I going to do? How am I going to face him from now on?” You pulled yourself together again and faced Penelope again, hoping that she would have actual answers for your very rhetorical question. 

“Well, at least we have a couple of days off now. You don’t have to see him again until we go to work.” 

“No, we have a date tomorrow,” you said matter-of-factly. “Appointment, really, he’s reading some books on alcohol induced memory loss tonight, and then I’m going over to his place to see if any of it can help us fill in the blanks.” 

“Oh god, you’re going to talk books with Reid. That’s practically as romantic as it gets for him. No wonder he wifed you up.” You playfully kicked her leg, and she laughed again. “Okay, so no avoidance, okay. Maybe you could put the moves on him? Try to recreate that scene with the handcuffs. Who knows what might happen.” She wiggled her eyebrows at you then, and you did your best not to once again be overcome by a fit of giggles.

“Okay, enough of my romantic problems. I was promised When Harry Met Sally and that ice cream has probably melted, so let’s get to it.” 

–X–

You braced yourself at the apartment door as you psyched yourself up to knock. As promised, you’d been greeted in the morning by a text from Spencer with his address and a proposed time to meet. He’d suggested 5pm, and you’d agreed, but here you were 20 minutes early, probably looking overdressed and over eager to spend time with your coworker/ husband/ soon to be former husband, maybe. 

You’d left Penelope’s apartment that morning, having had an impromptu sleepover, happy that you’d at least confirmed your own feelings. You’d taken a taxi to collect your car, then spent the rest of your time at home overthinking and overpreparing. 

You’d put on a dress and some make-up, and you were almost regretting the decision now you were on his doorstep, wondering what he’d think. You worked one of the toughest jobs in the world together, and you knew that he’d seen you completely black and blue after going blow for blow with unsubs in the past. Would he think this sudden effort was weird? You tried not to pace, knowing that your footsteps in the hall would alert him to your presence, but you couldn’t bring yourself to knock just yet. 

You checked your phone again. 4:45. You couldn’t spend another fifteen minutes out here overthinking, so you finally just pushed ahead and knocked. Almost as if he had been waiting on the other side of the door this entire time, Reid answered immediately, not even letting you get a third rap in before he was there standing in front of you. 

“Hi,” you said, standing there awkwardly with your hand still up, ready to knock again. 

“Hey,” he replied, smiling at you. 

You felt his eyes trail down your body, taking in your appearance. The dress you’d chosen wasn’t particularly special, just a mid-length tiered dress with bow straps. The weather was getting chillier so you’d layered it over a plain turtleneck, enjoying the added bonus of not having to conceal down your neck to mask the love bites he’d lavished upon you only a few nights prior. 

You looked at him as well, and you were pleasantly surprised by his casual wear. He was more dressed down than he was in the office, but not by much. He was still wearing slacks, and a button down shirt as well, but he’d thrown a beaten up CalTech sweater over the top of them, and he looked so cosy you wanted to bury your head in his chest. He was wearing his glasses, and you were so thankful for that, as you forgot how well they suited him, fitting him perfectly. 

“You’re early.” He said, finally breaking the silence between the two of you, drawing you out of the trance he’d kept you in while you took in the sight of him. 

“Yeah, I guess I just overestimated how long it was going to take to get here. Is that okay?” 

“Yeah, yeah, it’s great, totally fine. Come in.” He moved his body to the side slightly so you could enter the door, but kept his outer arm pressed against the door so you had to duck under it, brushing past him as you went. The small contact made your entire body buzz, your heartrate picking up as you willed yourself to act natural. 

“The food should be here any minute.” He smiled as he followed you back into his apartment. “I wanted it to arrive before you got here so I could surprise you.” You turned around to face him, and you could hear the bashfulness in his voice as he made the admission. 

“Sorry for ruining the surprise,” you smiled up at him. “What did you order?” 

“I remembered you mentioned that Korean streetfood place a while back that does those spicy rice cakes and kimbap rolls, so I got us some of that. Is that okay?” 

“Sounds perfect.” You were touched that he even remembered the conversation when you yourself couldn’t even think of when it might have happened. He turned and walked further into the apartment, and you followed him this time, finally looking around and taking it all in. 

The walls were obviously lined with bookshelves, and there were books laying around in piles everywhere. The walls were painted a dark colour, which made the space feel calming, almost more intimate, and sunlight was streaming in from the open window on the back wall. 

“Sorry, it’s not much. Take a seat wherever, and I’ll grab those books I was talking about.” 

You took a seat on the couch and watched him trail around the room, picking up books from several shelves and stacks. 

“Okay, this is all of them. So the main takeaway is that it usually takes two weeks to fully recover memories from alcohol induced blackouts.” He explained, bringing you a stack at least eight books high. 

“Spencer, did you read all of these last night?” You asked. 

“Yeah, I said I would, I thought it would help.” 

“Spencer,” you took his hand into yours as he set the books on the floor and flopped down to the couch beside you. “I really appreciate you putting in all this effort to help us, but you could’ve just come home and relaxed, you know. Our case was long and tough, and now all of this, you deserve a break.” You stroked your thumb over the back of his hand, trying to make the gesture calm and reassuring. 

“I know, I wanted to do this. I want to remember what happened between us,” he whispered the words softly, not needing to fill the space with much sound as you’d crept closer and closer together since he’d returned. 

“So, uh, two weeks then, is that it, we just have to wait for the memories to return?” you asked quietly, letting go of the small moment you’d shared to get back to the task at hand. 

“It seemed so, but there are some other more general tips we could implement that could help us piece together what happened. We might at least be able to figure out who our witnesses were.” 

You felt almost guilty then, but you kept your mouth shut. You’d decided the night before that you wouldn’t tell Reid about Penelope. At least not yet. You wanted the time first to see if he could possibly feel the same way about you before you worked up the courage to let him in on what you had learnt. 

“Yeah, I’m open to try anything. Within reason, that is.” 

“Great! I was thinking at first that maybe we could do a cognitive interview, but as we only have each other to work with, I thought that might make some of our answers more biased and not garner effective results. But we could still try to jog our memories by working out some of the same emotions, doing some things we could have done that night, and seeing if any of it rings a bell?” 

“Some of the things we did that night?” 

“Yeah,” he repled. 

“Like… like make out or get handcuffed to a bed?” You enjoyed watching the flush creep up his neck, and his eyes go wide as he struggled to backtrack on that one. 

“No, no! I mean, unless you want to, or you think it would help?” It was your turn to be left speechless, your mouth suddenly not complying with your brain as you begged yourself to respond somehow. All you could muster was a glance down at his lips that lingered a bit too long, your body slowly creeping forward. 

He noticed and moved closer towards you as well, letting his hand grasp your waist as you got caught in his atmosphere. 

“It’s worth a try, right? To regain our memories.” He supplied you with the words, letting you stay silent as your lips grew closer and closer together, seconds away from taking your breath away forever. 

A loud rap at the door and a shout of “delivery” had the two of you suddenly bouncing away from each other, Reid scrambling to the door to collect the food, while you stood up awkwardly and tried to pretend there was something really interesting on his bookshelf that had caught your attention all of a sudden. 

For the Nth time in so many days, you found yourself trying to convince your heart to beat a little quieter, and you managed to get yourself under control as he returned with the food.

“I’m sorry, I lost track of time…” he trailed off as you nodded, joining him back at the couch as he began unpacking the food. 

“It’s totally fine, we should eat anyways, trust me when I say this stuff doesn’t taste even half as good cold.” You smiled at him, but it didn’t go quite to your eyes. You really wanted to kiss him, and you were really doing your best to control your disappointment, not wanting to show off how desperate for him you were. 

“Well, you’re in luck, because you now get to witness one of my only flaws,” he said, fishing out two sets of chopsticks from the delivery bag. “I am absolutely terrible with chopsticks.” 

You giggled at him and grabbed the pair he offered you, letting out a dramatic fake gasp. “And you only tell me after we get married? That’s it, I want a divorce,” you laugh, and the two of you settle down into a comfortable silence as you begin your meal. 

–X– 

Two hours later, and you’re still no closer to locking lips with the man than you were earlier. You’d had a nice time talking with him over the food, both of you sitting like kids on the floor as you ate over his coffee table. He’d told you about a Korean film festival he’d attended a few years back, one of many international film festivals he’d been to, and you sat and listened, in awe of the way his eyes lit up when he talked about something that excited him. You hoped that one day, he’d talk about you in that same way. 

You helped him clean up and settled back onto the couch, where he’d mentioned having a copy of one of the films that had since been subtitled, and you ended up in another movie marathon.

The movie was good, but his presence next to you was even better. He’d stretched out his arms on the couch behind you, letting you snuggle up into his side as you pulled your legs up and under you, screwing yourself up in a comfortable little ball, burrowing into him for warmth. He was a fire beside you, and you wished you were bold enough to push further into him, to drag your hands across his skin and feel even more of him, continuing the exploration from earlier. But you weren’t, and, honestly, you were tired, so you let yourself sit peacefully beside him, touching but not much, as you were lulled to sleep by the sounds of the TV. 

It was pitch black outside when you finally cracked your eyes open again, but he was still there next to you on the couch. The movie had been turned off, and so had the TV, and there was a blanket now wrapped around your legs, so he had obviously moved, but he had also come back to you. You shifted your head up to look at him and smiled. He’d picked up another book from who knows what shelf and was reading slowly so as not to wake you with the movements of his hand as he traced down the page. Your head had moved from his chest to his lap, and he held the book off to the side in one hand, his other resting protectively over your waist. He was so engrossed by his book that he hadn’t even realised you’d moved and that you were awake until you spoke to him. 

“Spencer? What time is it?” you asked, your voice thick with sleep. 

“It’s 11:30. You fell asleep during the movie and you looked like you could use the sleep.” 

“Wow, what a way to tell a girl she doesn’t look so good,” you laughed at him as he pouted down at you. 

“I didn’t mean that. Y/N, you look beautiful today. You look beautiful everyday.” 

You lifted yourself up from his lap, one hand braced on either side of his legs on the couch as you bought yourself eye-to-eye with him, your chests close enough to touch if you took a big breath in. Instead, yours were shallow as you looked up at him through heavy eyes. 

“Thank you, Spencer.” You whispered, silently begging him to close the space between the two of you. But he didn’t, instead, clearing his throat and putting his book down, breaking your eye contact. 

“I should be getting home now. It’s pretty late.” You said, standing up from the couch. He followed you up and around as you started collecting your things and organising the space you’d occupied. 

“Y/N it’s late, and you’re tired. I can’t let you drive home like that. An estimated 30% of road accidents occur due to sleep deficiency, you know.” 

“It’s fine, I don’t want to get a taxi and just leave my car here and then have to come back in the morning. I’ll be fine driving,” you said, but he softly took the keys out of your hands as you grabbed them from your bag. 

“Stay here tonight.” He said, less of a suggestion than an already established fact. You looked up at him and knew there was no changing his mind, but he continued anyway. 

“I have a spare toothbrush and some old clothes you can probably use as pajamas, and it’s not like we haven’t shared a bed before. Maybe…maybe waking up next to each other again will help jog our memories, too. We only have until the end of the week, right?” 

He looked at you expectantly, and you let out a little sigh and nodded your head, letting him guide you away to the bedroom and back into sleeping in his arms. 

--×--

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[mixtape-racha]

if you don't know | yang jeongin

☆ part 8/8 of the 5 seconds of stray kids series ☆

words: 1.03k // warnings: friends to nothing, unrequited love, angst

“go ahead, y/n, rip my fucking heart out - show me you think love's all about!”

as jeongin’s eyes brimmed with tears, could you ever be sure of your feelings for him?

you and jeongin had always had a strange relationship. being best friends practically since birth, you both knew each other better than anyone. but god, if you knew that would be your downfall, would you have changed anything.

it started as harmless flirting, playing into everyone’s idea that you were dating. from there, it progressed into being each other’s first kiss - because you were both young and inexperienced, and who better to trust than your best friend? then making out almost every time you’d been drinking. then hooking up on the down low. but, honestly - why wouldn’t you? jeongin was hot, you weren’t blind. and you were both available, but not wanting relationships. just two best friends helping each other scratch an itch, when has that ever gone wrong?

but things changed, so slowly that you barely noticed. jeongin had been clingier - and he was always clingy with you, so getting worse was an accomplishment in itself. he never even looked at other girls, let alone spoke to them. and his reaction to you telling him about a recent hookup was the finishing touch.

“jeongin… you know we’re just friends, right? we could never be anything more?” you asked softly, scanning his face for a response as he turned away and put all of his attention to the tv in front of him.

“yeah, i know. that's why we’re only hooking up, not dating, obviously.” he replied nonchalantly.

you let out a silent sigh of relief, but little did you know that jeongin’s heart was breaking on the other end of the couch. he’d been in love with you for as long as he could remember, and as a disciple of 90’s tv shows and movies, he had put all hope into the idea of you becoming best friends with benefits and you’d inevitably fall in love with him. he realized now the idea was futile, but he was selfish when it came to you. so selfish, in fact, that even if it was just no-strings-attached hookups - on your end, at least - he’d hold onto that. keep you as his for as long as he could.

however, slowly he began distancing himself. he knew that eventually your agreement would come to an end, and he wanted to avoid the hurt as much as he could. yeah, he was selfish, but even keeping you around as a friend when you eventually crumbled his heart up into a thousand pieces would be too much to bare.

it took you over a week to notice his distance, he realized. over a week of barely answering his messages, not hanging out, and no sex. he began to doubt himself over it. was he that replaceable? did you not miss his presence in your life? but, in reality, it was the opposite. you noticed him distancing himself from you, and it wasn’t hard for you to guess why. given the severity of the situation, you wanted to allow him his space, to not push him. you just didn’t realize he’d misjudge your intentions.

when jeongin knocked on your door at 2 in the morning, obviously having had alcohol earlier in the evening, you were surprised. you were even more surprised when he let himself in, the lights in your hallway showing his puffy cheeks and red eyes, indicating that he had been crying.

“oh, innie,” you cooed, sleep still plaguing your voice. “what’s wrong?”

“do you love me?” his voice, stern and resounding, cut you off and made you stop in your tracks. what was this about?

“of course, i love you, innie. you’re my best friend.”

he sighed harshly, running his hands through is hair as he paced through your living room.

“you know thats not what i mean. do you love me, (y/n)? i need to know.”

your heart broke at the state he was in. really, you wanting nothing more than to love him the way he loved you. you’d tried - tried to learn to love him, to see him as more than a friend, but all your efforts were in vain. jeongin was your dearest friend, and nothing more.

“jeongin… i–i don’t know what you want me to say. i can’t tell you something just because its what you want to hear…” your voice cracking, giving away your heartbreak at what you knew the outcome of this would be.

you didn’t want to lose jeongin, never. but you knew that this would be too hard for him. you just hoped that maybe, somewhere in the future, you could settle the differences that drove you apart and become what you used to be. best friends.

he scoffed, and the look on his face was similar to pure disgust.

“so all i am to you is an easy fuck, right? someone you can shag, and then drop for the next guy who wants you in his bed?”

you gasped at his words, even though you understood he was only speaking out of pain. his words were cutting, and even the way he looked at you had you on the verge of tears.

“you know that’s not true. if at any point you said you wanted more, you know i would’ve stopped sleeping with you. it was never supposed to be more than that.”

you were shaking, praying to any and every god that jeongin would see sense. that he would sit and talk it out calmly with you. but it never worked that way, did it? not when jeongin was looking at you like you held the key to his heart and had just thrown it away.

“right. of course not.”

clearly not having any more to say, he stormed back across the living room and towards the front door, with you hot on his tail and begging him to stop - to not leave like this.

“see you around, i guess. i really hope that one day you realize you’ve just lost the one person that everyone knew you wanted, except you.”

as he slammed the door behind him, making you jump, you mulled his words over in your head. was he right? were you lying to yourself, and everyone else? but it didn’t matter, anyway. you were too late.

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[dr-futbol-blog]

The Siege II, Pt. 5

Next, there is an honest time-skip. Where we left off with Sheppard staring at the Colonel in the gate control platform, we now find Sheppard walking into the hologram room where the Colonel is already waiting for him. Sheppard tells him "You wanted to see me, Colonel?" which means that some time must have passed between the two scenes. This is also indicated by a shot of the outside view of Atlantis, letting us know that night has fallen. Sheppard is still wearing his full gear, P-90 and all, the same as he was wearing in the earlier scene where he was fresh off the jumper. What ever he might have done in the meantime, he seems to have been fully clothed.

The Colonel tells him that he wants to learn about the Ancients and how they lost the war which is what Sheppard then proceeds to show him via the holographic projection of the galaxy. The doors of the room start closing before Sheppard has even moved to the controls which seems to be indication of the city responding to his thoughts. The way Sheppard tells the story, he knows it by heart. And we know that many of the things he mentions are things he has explicitly heard or learned from McKay over the course of the season:

For several more years, the Atlanteans were able to hold off their attackers, relying on the city's shield and superior weaponry, including the weapons satellite system. No matter how many wraith ships they destroyed, more kept coming here. They could win almost every battle but they saw no way to win the war, so they submerged the city and left. That's it. That's the story.

It is similar to the holographic presentation they heard in Rising (S01E01), being one of the very first things they ever did together, and when we compare the two, his retelling of the tale is much more similar to what we heard McKay recap at the beginning of the previous episode, especially since the satellite systems he mentions had only been discovered by Brandan Gaul later in The Defiant One (S01E12). The original message said:

Then one day our people stepped foot upon a dark world where a terrible enemy slept. Never before had we encountered beings with powers that rivalled our own. In our over-confidence, we were unprepared and outnumbered. The enemy fed upon defenseless human worlds like a great scourge until finally only Atlantis remained. This city's great shield was powerful enough to withstand their terrible weapons but here we were besieged for many years. In an effort to save the last of our kind, we submerged our great city into the ocean. The Atlantis Stargate was the one and only link back to Earth from this galaxy, and those who remained used it to return to that world that was once home. There, the last survivors of Atlantis lived out the remainder of their lives. This city was left to slumber, in the hope that our kind would one day return.

The Colonel seems to observe Sheppard as much as he listens to his presentation. He is trying to get a read on both their tactical situation and the character of this man that has been in charge of the expedition. The view he gets from Sheppard does not seem to be very optimistic:

Sheppard: The picture is pretty clear. Everett: So you think this is a no-win situation? Sheppard: No, sir, What I mean is, even if we beat them this time, they're gonna come back.

He files off Sheppard's assessment of the situation to think about for later. The real reason he had asked Sheppard to meet him in private was because he wanted to talk about his friend, Colonell Sumner.

Everett: Major, I think I should tell you that Colonel Marshall Sumner was a very good friend of mine. We served together a lot of years. You know, I cannot for the life of me figure how it is that you could go as far as you did and not save him, how you could get that close... Sheppard: By the time I reached Colonel Sumner-- Everett: Worse, you admit to firing the shot that killed him. Sheppard: Because I believe that's what he wanted me to do.

Having to justify what he had to do to his superior officer to someone that had not only known him but had obviously cared about him is a living nightmare for Sheppard because the things that Col. Everett tells him are thoughts that he has had himself, repeatedly, ever since it happened. He wants to look anywhere else but at the Colonel but he thinks that he owes the man at least to look him in the eye, so he forces himself to do just that. He did what he felt he needed to do but he had no excuse for it. Even though he wishes he were anywhere else, he is trapped in this situation. The Colonel digs even deeper and Sheppard seems to feel as though he does at the very least owe this man an explanation.

Everett: You knew him that well, did you? Sheppard: You weren't there, sir. Everett: No, but I wish for his sake I was. Sheppard: There isn't a night that doesn't go by where that moment doesn't play in my head. And every time it does--

They are interrupted by an alarm and Sheppard automatically starts to contact the control room when he realizes that he's not the one in charge any more, and he allows the Colonel to take command of the situation.

It seems as though there is a wave of darts coming toward the city, their attack imminent. The Colonel orders Sheppard to get to the control chair while he joins the others in the control room. They do get to finish their conversation later but they never return to what Sheppard was about to say here. We are never told what he means.

Sheppard doesn't say that he dreams about the moment, only that it plays out in his head. If we assume that Sheppard and McKay have been sleeping together, sleeping in the sense of actually sleeping, and that he has had trouble sleeping lately (as by his own confession in The Gift S01E18) but he hasn't been having nightmares himself, these thoughts may well be the result of that. Of having grown close to McKay, of trying to fall asleep with that man in his arms, which would trigger all of his fears of losing him, of being unable to protect him, of failing to save him.

When he was forced to take the Colonel out he didn't just end his life, he unleashed the wraith, all of them, to wreak havoc on the entire galaxy. He did that. He failed so spectacularly in his mind that no one in the history of the human kind has failed as hard. And now, for the past weeks, the wraith had been inching ever closer to them and there seemed to be nothing he could do but to hold McKay tighter in his arms at night. So yes, he probably did play out that moment in his mind all the time, in the dead of night, generally needing much less sleep than McKay but still wanting to be there with him and for him when he went to bed because McKay had a hard enough time getting any sleep anyway.

And there, he would while away the time, watching his uneasy sleep, listening to his breathing, feeling his heart beating under his palm. Going over whether he could have done anything differently, and the ways in which the world, his world, might be different if he had. Would he still have McKay in his arms if he had succeeded in saving the Colonel? What would he do if he was ever forced to make the same choice over his own 'very good friend,' if the wraith ever got their hands on McKay? He hopes never to find out.

As Sheppard runs to the control chair platform where McKay is already waiting for him, trying to get the chair started, these are the thoughts running through his mind. It hadn't yet been 24 hours that he thought that he had lost McKay for good, that his own decision not to accompany him to the satellite had cost him his life. That he had lost the one thing he now knew beyond the shadow of a doubt he couldn't live without, did not want to live without. It is much more this inner turmoil of his than the urgency of their defensive situation that makes him come across as testy as he takes his seat:

Sheppard: McKay, fire it up! McKay: It'll take a minute! Sheppard: We don't have a minute!

He calls him McKay, and it is the first thing he says to him. They are alone in the chair platform, and even if technicians from McKay's team had been present, they surely would have heard Sheppard refer to him as Rodney before. Alone together, he would usually have called him Rodney. The fact that he doesn't now might be because of the arrival of the Colonel and the company of marines, forcing them to act even more carefully around one another, and just having decided to call him McKay across the board might be a result of this. But in this situation, given where Sheppard was coming from, it might also be a way of creating some distance between them.

It is not something he usually even tolerates between them but right now, having to focus most of all in keeping this man alive, he needs that distance. He needs to focus. In order to be able to protect the man he loves, he can't be distracted by his presence. The last time we saw him acting like this was at the beginning of Sanctuary (S01E14) when he was expecting McKay to come up with an immediate fix to the problem facing them, and he was calling him McKay then too. This was following and directly caused by the events of Hot Zone (S01E13), at the end of which Weir had accused him of allowing his feelings to compromise his decisions, having received a talking to from a superior just as he had now.

Even in in spite of all this, Sheppard turns to look back at McKay as he takes a seat on the command chair, clearly wanting to look at the man while addressing him, to see him. He is never too busy not to look at McKay. If he can't look at him when they are facing a life or death situation, what even is the point?

McKay, of course, has no idea where Sheppard is coming from or what is going on inside him, not even having had time to see the man's face to read his emotional state from his expression, from his eyes, the set of his jaw, the slant of his mouth. While Sheppard was able to look at him, he has to keep his eyes fixed on the generator to get it working for Sheppard, to make operating the chair safe for Sheppard, focusing on the most important thing he can think of doing.

McKay: Look, this generator can only power the chair because it operates in a state of barely-controlled overload. Sheppard: Just get the damned thing working. McKay: That's what I'm trying to do!

McKay tries to explain to Sheppard what he is doing because he knows that usually that is something Sheppard wants from him. With anyone else, he wouldn't bother and would just tell them to shut up while he's trying to work. But in spite of the both of them clearly again picking up a conversation that was on-going and had only ever been on pause, Sheppard isn't being his usual self, and it's not the urgency of the situation that is making him snap, it is his emotional state. McKay does not understand what is going on with him but his response indicates that he is affected by it, that he might expect this kind of behaviour from other people but not from Sheppard. He is doing his best, he is working as fast as he can, he is trying to make this as safe as possible for Sheppard, and surely he should understand that. Yes, they are under a time element but he had told Sheppard previously (The Defiant One) that snapping doesn't help. As soon as he can, he has the generator up and working, and he steps aside to let Sheppard do what only he can:

McKay: You've got power--go!

Sheppard is able to quiet his mind enough to be able to ejaculate release and control the drones, and it's likely the chair connects him to the city in more ways than just giving him control of the weapons. He seems to let out a breath as the chair leans him back. When he had done this previously, on the Antarctic base, when he had first met McKay, it hadn't just been one of the strangest experiences of his life, it was something that had entirely changed the course of his life. Because he had seated himself in the chair, he was here now, connected to the city of the Ancients. And it was McKay that had given him this gift both now and back then. Instead of telling him to get away from the chair, McKay had asked him to think about where they were in the solar system, which had been as easy as breathing. And so was controlling the drones now. Even if he hadn't come to love McKay with every fiber of his being, he owed him everything for this gift alone.

They manage to fight off the wraith for the time being, parts of the city still on fire as a new day dawns. They have all gathered in the control platform to discuss the events of the previous night. McKay seems to be nearing his breaking point:

McKay: Power's out in sections of the city. The long range scanners and the internal sensors are down but we're working on it. Everett: I wanna know the status of those hive ships ASAP. McKay: They're coming, that's their status! Tomorrow, the day after, the day after that. Eventually they'll get here. Whether we're here to greet them or not is another matter. Weir: Rodney...

McKay is wearing a belt, something that he was not wearing previously, presumably holding a hand weapon. They were arming all of the scientists earlier but whether Sheppard had something to do with him now wearing it, we do not know.

What we can see is that Sheppard seems to be there mainly to watch McKay work. He tracks him with his eyes when he's at another desk and has positioned him so that he has the best view of McKay's work station. Make note that Sheppard could well be standing on the other side of the table like everybody else, he has no need to be this close to McKay. Out of everyone standing in the control room, he is the closest to him.

McKay seems to be in a notably irascible mood. He is more like "always like this" McKay, as Zelenka had described him when he was chewing out his team during The Storm (S01E10), than he has been in a long time. Yes, he seems to be exhausted, as is explicitly pointed out by Col. Everett later. Yes, they had all just experienced a very tense situation. Yes, they have been living under the shadow of the impending attack for weeks now, and yes, his desperation over being unable to come up with anything at all that might save them or even be of any help at all is getting to him. But he also seems to be still feeling raw from what happened between himself and Sheppard earlier.

This is all but confirmed by the fact that he quickly glances over at Sheppard when he says "Whether we're here to greet them or not," Sheppard not having greeted him when he ran into the chair platform. They have had precious little time to reconnect since he got back, and the death of Peter Grodin is still very much on his conscience. He takes all of this out on the Colonel because he seems like the easiest target, he's the stranger whose opinion matters the least to him. Usually he wouldn't want Sheppard to see him this way, he tried to conceal his irritability from him during The Storm to little effect, but he is feeling so overwhelmed by everything that it is simply spilling over and he's unable to stop it coming out.

It is notable that Weir is the one that has to try to reign him in. Sheppard merely looks on without saying anything, probably feeling guilty about what had happened before. The fact that it is still playing out in McKay's mind as well is confirmed by his reference to the drones having been depleted:

McKay: Look, the chair is out of drones. How do you expect to handle the next wave? Everett: I'm open to suggestions. McKay: Really?

The Colonel is basically doing the same thing Weir did at the beginning of the episode, making McKay feel like the weight of all of their lives are on his shoulders and his alone. And like he did back then, McKay folds his arms in protest because he is so overwhelmed that he can't even begin to think. He feels so much weight on his shoulders that he can't focus on the problem. And for the second time in this episode, Sheppard tries to ease his burden, now by coming up with an idea. He can definitely see that McKay is spiraling. The fact that Sheppard is doing this for him is just emphasized by reaction shots of Zelenka and Weir not being able to contribute anything to help McKay.

Sheppard: We target the hive ships. Everett: With what? Sheppard: We fly the Puddle Jumper in stealth mode right down their throats. Everett: Are you volunteering for a suicide mission? Sheppard: It won't be a suicide mission if McKay and Zelenka can figure out a way to remote control the Jumpers.

Flying a suicide mission was never Sheppard's plan even though it later becomes "sort of a Sheppard thing" to do. He does not want to die, not now that he's found something to live for. What he wants is to ease McKay's load and at the same time, come up with a task for him to do that is achievable as he knows that occupying McKay's mind with something is the best way to keep his anxiety at bay. He gives McKay an achievable goal while taking a lot of the pressure of having to come up with an idea to save everyone. Note also that he is not pawning the task of trying to find a way to remote control the jumpers just on McKay but makes sure to include Zelenka in it.

While he probably has more faith in McKay's abilities than the rest of them combined he is trying very hard to make McKay feel like he's not alone in this, that it's not all on his shoulders. He is doing the opposite of what everyone else seems to be doing, all looking at him for a solution. He is not thinking about what's best for Atlantis or what is best for all of them, he is thinking about what's best for McKay. That is the difference. However, McKay doesn't seem to understand what Sheppard is doing, drawing his lips in a tight line as he listens to Sheppard's idea. To him, it just sounds like more tasks and more work is being piled on him.

Col. Everett is at least intrigued by this possibility, turning back to McKay to get confirmation on the feasibility of the plan. He asks McKay a question Sheppard would never even need to ask him:

Everett: Can you do it? McKay: I knew this was gonna happen. Everett: Is that a fact? McKay: Yes, it's a fact!

When the Colonel had said the same thing to Sheppard earlier, the man had been forced to stay quiet. He did not want to antagonize his superior officer any more than he had to. McKay does not have the same compulsion. He is free to give the Colonel a piece of his mind and he seems determined to do it for the both of them:

McKay: Look, you show up here with your guns and your brush cuts, but when it comes to actually saving the city, you turn to the scientists! And every time what you ask is impossible.

McKay's voice almost breaks at the end. He does not mean to let his anguish show so openly, he just means to air his frustration by taking it out on the people around him, but this is clearly affecting him much more than he lets on. While he makes sure to mention the brush cuts, something very characteristically not Sheppard in a 'present company not included' kind of way, Sheppard still very much feels included in this especially because back on the platform he had done something he had every intention of avoiding, of not ever doing. This is emphasized by the fact that we get a shot of McKay and Sheppard together as he says "And every time what you ask is the impossible".

Sheppard had shifted his position while McKay was going off on the Colonel. Earlier, he was leaning back against the table with one hand resting on his thigh and the other pressed against his lower abdomen. Now he's standing up with his hands on his hips, his whole body erect and his attention entirely on McKay, kind of looking like he's ready to step forward at a moment's notice. However, it's very unlikely his intention was ever to restrain McKay because he knows perfectly well McKay isn't prone to physical altercations never mind the situation. Much more likely is that Sheppard feels an overwhelming need to comfort McKay who is clearly distressed, and while he had already stood up, he's using his own hands to restrain himself from taking that step closer that he very much wants to take here. He knows that he's the cause of why McKay's voice was breaking just then.

And it is entirely possible that the way Sheppard had approached him on the chair platform was still playing in McKay's head as all of this spills out of him. He didn't know that Sheppard had come there directly from one of the most difficult conversations he's had in his life, still trying to shove down and bury all of the painful emotions that it had brought up for him, many of them related to his fear of losing McKay. In his agitation, Sheppard had taken it out on McKay when he had done nothing to deserve it, had done nothing but try to save all of their lives for as long as he had known the man, and even if he hadn't had a hundred other good reasons for it, that alone made McKay the last person he wanted to hurt. And that's precisely what he had done. What McKay feels Sheppard is doing is actually the opposite of what he is actually doing. He feels Sheppard putting pressure on him when he is trying to take it off him.

Even the Colonel, not knowing McKay particularly well, as able to see that the man is exhausted. McKay had been sleeping poorly for at least two weeks, and seems to have been entirely without sleep probably since before they left for the satellite platform over two days ago. While he is acting like Zelenka's "always like this" McKay, it's actually very uncharacteristic of him, which even a stranger can tell. But then, all of a sudden, Sheppard's attempt to engage his mind over his emotions bears fruit, because, even though we see McKay and Zelenka finishing each others' sentences here, Sheppard knows him best of all:

Everett: When was the last time you slept, Doctor? McKay: Shut up, I have an idea. Zelenka: The chair. McKay: Of course the chair! The problem is tying it into the Jumper systems... Zelenka: ...without overloading the generators... McKay: ...possibly using the drones in the Jumpers themselves as a means of propulsion... Zelenka: ...while increasing the inertial dampening to maximum. McKay: It wouldn't be very manoeuvrable but possibly. Zelenka: Possibly!

There seems to be a new fire in McKay, and he happily ignores all of them as he and Zelenka start working out the details. This is precisely what Sheppard was going for with his idea. This is what he wanted to see. McKay forgetting about the impeding doom as his mind is working on a problem that is possible to resolve. The rest of it was details, he had managed to take some of the load off of his shoulders. And again, while Sheppard knew exactly what had just happened, the Colonel needed verbal confirmation for it:

Everett: Is that a yes? McKay: No, it's a possibly. Everett: I'll take it!

As soon as McKay starts moving, Sheppard turns to watch him go once more looking like a child missing its toy already. While the other two turn away from the scientists as they take off, Sheppard watches him go all the way, neck craning to see the last of him. The Colonel turns to Sheppard, wanting to hear what his actual plan was:

Everett: How much damage can one Puddle Jumper do? Sheppard: I've got an idea about that too. I think I know where we can get another nuke.

Where McKay's mind was again working on how to save them all, Sheppard's mind was working on how to keep McKay safe, and he was willing to cross all kinds of lines to see that through.

Continued in Pt. 6

[unforgivablego]

I don't like how people after Comic Con continue to be unhappy. I mean, Neil gave us literally everything. That is, this is the best that he could provide nine months before the release of the S2. The content could've come out much later, I think around May when the official trailer comes out. But we were just given so much interesting cool information literally a year before the release and people just say that they don't like it.

I a little understand why people felt bad abot Neil because of the S1. Like there was no official confirmation of the relationship of the main characters. It meant that the cherished "I love you" didn't sound. Like, the second Sherlock, queerbaiting, Neil wants to get more audience using homo relationships that are so popular right now. But hey, Neil always said that AziCrow were in love. This was long before gay relationships in movies were the norm.

The book was published over 30 years ago. In the fucking book were so many hints of something between the main characters that I don’t understand why people even get pissed off. You don’t need to run far for an example, let’s take everyone’s favorite: “Just remember I’ll have known that, deep down inside, you were just enough of a bastard to be worth liking,” — which literally sounds like “you are a fool, but I love you / you gave your flaming sword to people and impressed me to the depths of the soul,” or when they hold hands, saying their last words to each other before they die, or “Come up with something or… or I’ll never talk to you again,” after which Crowley just stops damn time, because, of course not talking to an angel is much worse than death. Guys, the rest of the characters in the book think that they are together, people and angels, Shadwell generally calls them a couple of Southern pansies (thanks for correct me). “Many people, meeting Aziraphale for the first time, formed three impressions: that he was English, that he was intelligent, and that he was gayer than a treeful of monkeys on nitrous oxide.” — many also liked this moment. And that's not all there is. And the book was published in the 90s!

In the S1 were many new scenes built mainly on the development of their relationship. There were events that were not in the book at all, which were invented specifically for the series to diversify the concept of their "from enemies to lovers" canon. In the third series Neil gave us excerpts from different time periods, in which AziCrow gradually converge.

The most popular scene in 1941, when Crowley runs into the church to pull the angel out of the hands of the enemies, knowing full well that Aziraphale can do it himself at any moment. BUT NO, he like a real knight, runs to save his princess on the consecrated ground, which burns his legs and, most importantly, saves fucking angelic favorite books. “You are important to me, take the books that I saved at the cost of my own life,” — he doesn't say this, but hey, how obvious is it, especially after the words: “I don’t need you, I have lots of people to fraternize with, Angel,” he said in a fit of anger at the last meeting. He apologizes for 1862 and tries to say that he has no one but an angel. When they, a minute earlier, after so many years of quarreling, start such a stupid conversation about a name change:

“- Anthony?

- You don't like it?

- No, no. I don't say that. I'll get used to it”

Because there's nothing that Aziraphale couldn't get used to in Crowley. Despite the differences, they will always be together, they still have a whole life ahead to discuss it. This short, ridiculous conversation is actually very important. Here Crowley understands that Aziraphale in his: “I’ll get used to it,” — informs (yes, that’s the word) that they will see each other again and more than once, that this quarrel is not an obstacle to their relationship. And then Crowley says, very gently, “Lift home,” as if he knows for sure that the angel is okay with it. The only question is, whose home are you going to, Crowley? Since when do you have one concept of home for two?

The whole mess is completed by a freaking shot in which angel looks at Crowley in such a way that here only a stupid person will not understand what the heck he is thinking about. As the background color changes from gray to pinkish, the music, Crowley heroically leaves the frame and this damned love look after him, that the viewer just sits there thinking: "Oh, look at this blushing bastard — he is so in love." All that's missing is some romantic 40s song that starts off with something along the lines of "And I realized..." Because Aziraphale really realizes in this scene that his feelings are mutual. Somewhere someone wrote that in this scene Aziraphale doesn't fall in love with Crowley and I so much agree with this. In this scene, the angel is already in love, but before that he didn't know if Crowley could feel something in return, and the freaking “I don’t need you,” — in 1862 finished him off. He thought Crowley had someone to hang out with besides him, that Crowley doesn't need him. It hurt him. But Crowley had just walked into the church for only him and saved his books at the cost of his life. This is not a moment of awareness of his love, this is not "the princess fell in love with the prince who saved her from the dragon and they lived happily ever after." This is the moment when Aziraphale realizes that YES — he is loved in return.

And Crowley's “I'll give you a lift, anywhere you want to go”, in gratitude for holy water, in 1967. Crowley, you're sitting in a car right across from Aziraphale's shop. Where are you gonna take him? You planned to rob a church a stone's throw from the angel's house. “I'll give you a lift, anywhere you want to go”. To where?

Aziraphale also excelled just great: “No thanks. Perhaps one day we could go for a picnic. Dine at the Ritz,” which definitely means, “One day we'll have a date and I'll let you do whatever you want, but not now”.

“You go too fast for me, Crowley,” — that he said in the end, leaves the viewer in a knockout. Because this phrase makes us understand that they have not been talking about friendship all this time. Here it is, the official confirmation of their love. Aziraphale gives him holy water, which means: “Despite everything, you are very important to me, I don't want to lose you, but I trust you”. He's trying to make sure Crowley knows he's loved. And Crowley understands, Crowley is used to speed and he takes the next step, but Aziraphale stops him: “Can you give me some time?”. Aziraphale is not ready, he just got here and hasn't yet got used to it. The phrase: “You go too fast for me,” sounds in most direct meaning — everything is developing too quickly, I can’t keep up with you, could you wait a little more? It finally hits me.

Fucking flirting in a scene in the Bastille during the French Revolution. Yes, then they still didn't have any definite understanding of what was happening, but I think in those years the atmosphere of the 18th century had a special influence. Debauchery, accessibility, openness and lack of shame in people. It seems to me that this was precisely what caused Aziraphale to flirt so openly and intricately. And of course the clothes. It was so seductive.

This is the best scene ever and I won't stop thinking that. What Michael as Aziraphale is doing here — OMG, his game should be banned from showing to kids because it's freaking so obscene it's embarrassing. The way he just lights up when he hears a familiar voice behind him, the way he pronounces his name, so joyfully, as if it weren't Crowley, but the She Goddes herself, who condescended to talking with a mere mortal. Angel, hello, Crowley just said about the cruelty of people, where did you swim, stop your vulgar thoughts and focus. The way Aziraphale scans him from head to toe, the way he sighs languidly, and then the phrase: “Oh... Good Lord,” said with such an expression as if Crowley had suddenly undressed in front of him. The short appraising looks that the angel gives him, as if Crowley is more sweeter than any pancake for which he swam the channel during the revolution (yes, we definitely believe you, Aziraphale) — these are the looks that are called undressing, here it is, in full physical incarnation. And the situation in which the angel allegedly fell. It's just not possible to describe how obvious it is on purpose. He's handcuffed in a local prison that definitely looks like a dragon's castle, waiting to be killed by the guillotine (isn't that romantic already?), dressed in his chicest outfit, even fucking changed his hair — for the first time in 5,000+ years! — and pretends to be very helpless, playing his standard: “I'm an angel”. He can literally snap his fingers and be home. But what does he do? He lets Crowley take care of him, creating a situation similar to rescuing a poor helpless princess from the tower, while portraying such affected and understandable innocence, as if he is not an angel, but a whore maiden who argues before losing her virginity. And why is he doing all this? Why do you think? Because at the end he just invites Crowley to bloody dinner. I fucking love this scene.

"You're my best friend" playing in the background as Crowley tries to find Aziraphale in the burned down bookshop. And the words: “You make me live, whenever this world is cruel to me,” — just aches in the heart. Even though the angel was wrong a thousand times (only because he tried to protect the two of them, sometimes out of stupidity, angelic naivety and a desire to do everything right — yes, they sometimes behave as stupidly, just like people), Crowley still considers him his closest person (?) (creature rather).

A small heart on Aziraphale's contact screensaver on his phone when Crowley can't get through (maybe an accident).

And then when he walks into a burning bookshop and breaks down for the first time in 6 episodes. He's really emotional in this scene. It's so unexpected that it's unnatural to see him like that. His voice is different, he no longer controls the tone and words, for the first time his walk tense, in this scene he cries, which has never happened before. Aziraphale is dead and Crowley feels and expresses as many emotions as he has never felt and expressed in all the 6,000 years that we have been shown. When Fredy goes into post-chorus in the background, I love that part so much. Did anyone even notice that in this scene he literally confesses his love? At the end, Crowley yells “Somebody killed my best friend!” — I can't, it's just heartbreaking.

“It's a big universe. Even if this all ends in a puddle of goo, we can go off together,” — I won't stop crying from now on, my heart shrinks every time (this is one of my favorite scenes, every word really hurts).

“I don't even like you!” — thrown by the angel for no clear purpose: to convince himself of this or to hurt Crowley. And Crowley's “You do!” in response, because, Aziraphale, who are you trying to fool. 6000 years together and you never once thought about to stop communicating. Potential enemies communicate with each other only in two cases: if they are ordered from Above, or if they themselves want it. Remind me when you received a request from the Heavenly Chancellery: "You must get close to the enemy in order to find out his insidious plans." Don't remember? No one remembers, because there was no such thing.

And when Crowley again offers to run away together in a couple of hours — YES! — Alpha Centauri — the best place to wait out the apocalypse, the main thing is not to forget my husband, otherwise he's not at all a person dear to me and in general we had a fight today, I strongly offended, but without him I won’t move a finger in the direction of escape. I'd rather die right here than start saving my carcass without this stupid feathered asshole.

Also don't forget about «holding hands» scene in a bus.

I’m not sure I have much time to end this digging.

And even this is not enough for people? The series not only improves the book and confirms their romantic line, but with the help of the actors and their wonderful performance, creates a masterpiece using gestures, facial expressions and removing innuendo, taking away the opportunity to imagine something left, allowing you to focus on what your eyes see.

Neil said three hundred times that this is a fucking love story. And people just shit in his canon and say: they didn’t say “I love you”, they don’t fuck, what kind of love is that, you're doing everything for popularity. Shut your fucking mouths! Neil is just tired of repeating endlessly that they are an angel and a demon, they are supernatural entities that do not fall within the framework of human relations. Their love is on another level. They are not gay because angels and demons are genderless, which means they have no gender (which also means they can choose their gender at will and change at will, as Crowley did). They are not asexual, because these concepts are invented also for people.

And you know what? Neil just spat in the faces of the fans with a fucking poster of the AziCrow standing in front of a fucking heart made of wings. “Here it is, just choke with this your's canon, here are both main characters against the background of the wrong organ which means love to you, and just try to say that this is not an official confirmation of their relationship.” He crumpled up a piece of shit that prevented him from living and smeared it all over our faces. “Eat,” he says, “I am a local Goddess here and have descended to give you food (for fanfiction). Don’t thank.”

Neil talked about how after the events of the proposed third season, they would move into a fucking cottage in the St. Downs and live together like fucking old husbands. He gave a nod to Crowley's already-acting move to Aziraphale's bookshop at Comic-Con, showing exactly that moment from S2 and no other. In a bloody interview after the panel, he revealed that this season is gonna be "quiet and gentle and romantic" compared to the first and hypothetically third season, and given that the show will have 2 kisses - just choke on fucking tears of happiness. He bombarded Tumblr with answers to leading questions, gave information about when the S2 would be released approximately, leaked new characters, a teaser, part of the plot, a concept photo and people like: we don’t like it. So what is wrong with you, guys? Because I believe that what we have is the best that could be, the best that we could have. And we got it for absolutely nothing.

Yes, golden potato jokes are funny, I wrote a couple myself. And kindly mocking Neil can be fun too, especially when we get the same thing in return. It's a relationship between the author and the fandom, and I really like it. But let's at least sometimes be understanding and patient. I don't like to watch other people's dissatisfaction knowing how much Neil has done for us. So I want you to don't forget about it too. No need to buzz about the teaser and video that we didn't get for Christmas. We all want to please Beelzebub with a tick in front of the task “Annoy Neil every day”, but can we show angelic patience? Neil knows what he's doing. Let's trust him.

[fishing-lesbian-catgirl]

You’re enabling me 😘

I rambled about it in the tags of the Vespiquen post I reblogged earlier but I really wish Vespiquen was better. I know it’s foolish to want each Pokémon to have a unique niche and function and everything, but Vespiquen has such a cool design I think she deserves better. They apparently cared enough to give Vespiquen 3 unique signature moves that literally only Vespiquen can learn which thematically play off of her gimmick of being the queen bee with a swarm of Combes. In actuality her signature moves don’t really get to have their potential realized and frankly don’t do anything particularly interesting with her concept, but they still make Vespiquen one of the pokemon with the most unique signature moves. (Also they cared enough to create a unique item that is generated by Vespiquen when she Dynamaxes in Sword and Shield, not super relevant but worth pointing out that Vespiquen has some unique things going for her).

Anyway, her signature attack, Attack Order, is an extremely solid 90 power 100% accuracy physical bug move with high crit chance, it’s not particularly exciting as it’s just a slightly better version of X-Scissor but it is quite good and frankly if other bug pokemon could learn it there are quite a few who would enjoy it (it would still have to compete with Leech Life but it’d be an option). Vespiquen is a Pokémon with respectable stats, 70 base HP, 102 base Def and Sp. Def, base 80 Atk and Sp. Atk, and an underwhelming 40 speed. With tied Atk and Sp. Atk, Vespiquen could go for a physical or special attack moveset, and despite Vespiquen’s signature attack being physical, I’d argue her move pool has better special attack options, although her inability to use Quiver Dance despite seemingly like exactly the type of Pokémon that learns Quiver Dance is unfortunate as it would really boost the potential of a special Vespiquen set. On paper her stats are quite solid and should give a Pokémon respectable bulk and alright attack stats, but because Vespiquen is a Bug/Flying type with 2x weaknesses to Fire, Ice, Electric, Flying, and a miserable 4x weakness to Rock that causes her to get set to half health from stealth rocks alone, Vespiquen’s solid-on-paper bulk doesn’t really hold up in practice, and her slow speed and mediocre attack stats prevent her from playing a sweeper role. I’m saying all this to get across that Vespiquen is very likely to take hits that she can’t survive because of just how many weaknesses she has, this unfortunately makes her other two unique moves significantly less useable. Defend Order increases both defensive stats by one stage, it’s not bad by any means and would probably be very powerful on the right pokemon, but on Vespiquen it’s unlikely to make a difference when a 4x damage rock slide is coming your way. Vespiquen’s final unique move is Heal Order, which restores 50% of her hp, a really good move if it was on a Pokémon that could take multiple hits, but as I’ve tried to explain, Vespiquen realistically is not one of those Pokémon. What’s even worse about Heal Order is that, in Vespiquen’s debut generation Gen 4, there is a TM for Roost that Vespiquen can learn. So while a lot of flying types dislike losing their ground immunity when using roost, Vespiquen would gladly trade it for temporarily removing several weaknesses, meaning that Vespiquen’s signature healing move is, in most cases, worse for her than the other recovery move she can learn. If by some miracle you are able to get Vespiquen in against Pokémon that don’t have coverage for any of the common types she’s weak to, and you’re actually able to set up a turn or two of defense order followed by heal order healing, Vespiquen could probably be useful, but even then you probably wouldn’t want to use one of her remaining move slots on Attack Order since it’s not going to do much because with a mediocre attack stat on a slow Pokémon you probably had to invest in defensively just to get to survive up until this point. What’s most disappointing to me is Vespiquen’s abilities. I would think a Pokémon whose entire gimmick is about having combee swarming around her and doing her bidding with her literally being the beehive would maybe have something interesting as an ability, but unfortunately she only gets Pressure and Unnerve, both of which are useless in most battles.

Whenever I think about Pokémon like Vespiquen that have lots of problems preventing them from reaching their full potential, I try and thinking what ways you could fix them. The immediate obvious answer would be to change her type, even something as uninteresting and common as bug/poison would be a significant improvement in terms of weaknesses (at the cost of STAB Acrobatics and Air Slash I guess). Another approach could be improving her move pool, I don’t think letting Vespiquen learn Quiver Dance would necessarily do much for her, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt. The methods I think would be the most interesting of making Vespiquen and her unique signature moves more usable would be to change/buff the moves significantly or give her a real ability. Given Vespiquen’s unique design I personally think she deserves a unique ability themed around her design gimmick gmaybe something like “in double/triple battles, moves targeting Vespiquen are redirected to her Bug-type allies”), but even just something thematically appropriate like Tsareena’s Queenly Majesty would be a massive improvement over “your opponent uses more PP per move” and “your opponent can’t eat berries”. As for the moves, maybe they could do the kind of combining two existing moves thing that they’ve been doing lately and add the Infestation effect to Attack Order, or change Defend Order to reduce damage dealt by super effective attacks to her team sort of like a light screen. Really I just want a Pokémon as cool as Vespiquen that has 3 entire unique moves to be a functional Pokémon that actually has some sort of reason to pick and use said unique moves

And don’t get me wrong, I’m well aware that Vespiquen’s signature moves are actually quite good compared to other Pokémon whose signature moves are lacking. It’s hard to complain about a really solid attack, a boost to both defenses, and a basic 50% heal when some Pokémon get slaps in the face like Octozooka, but knowing that doesn’t make Vespiquen’s moves actually any good

[blurglesmurfklaine]

Copying the one you sent Finn: tell me about someone you went to school with that you did not like!

OKAY WILL DO.

This is so hard to do bc I hated so many people I went to college with not trying to be a negative Nancy or anything but I stg Kingsville was a CESSPOOL for the shittiest people I’ve ever met (and honestly some of the best!)

This is gonna be long and I might put it under the read more. But I went to middle school, high school and college with this person. She was a year above me and with me in choir and was actually an incredibly mean person in middle school?? Like actively bullied me??? Tried to make plans in front of me with my friends and pointedly didn’t invite me, called me annoying, etc. But then in high school she seemed to chill out a bit and we became incredibly close. Because I’m an idiot.

Flash forward and we’re in college together. We’re both music education majors with a voice concentration. Both in the same fraternity and I have faith in her as a human being at this point because I’m young and again pretty stupid.

Strike One

Amidst Fraternity Drama, she is our VMP and in charge of recruitment events (I want to add, I had this job the next year and admittedly was not very good at it but I think she was worse). We’d gotten nominations for exec board earlier that day. @jlmjlmjlm (who is currently my irl bestie) and I had both been nominated for president, but Cassie (the person in question) was not because she was… so bad at her job as VPM.

I arrive to this event and Cassie is lying on the couch, not helping set up, not communicating and not delegating anything and basically having a tantrum over not being nominated when this thing starts in like??? 90 mins??? So I try to rally her ass but that’s a no go, so I start trying to help out and get things running and it’s not perfect but like I did my best with what I got yk? the event runs fine but I’m so overwhelmed with taking on this extra load that I say “I don’t feel well” to J (bestie) and then proceed to go out into the hallway and have my first ever panic attack which was half my fault for biting off more than I could chew but the fraternity was really important to me at the time so

Strike Two

Flash forward a year. I am now VMP of the frat. Which means I’m in charge of giving membership classes once a week for our members in training. I’m going to be in Oklahoma City during one of our scheduled classes to sing with the SWACDA Collegiate Honor Choir and I think “Hey, Cassie’s given this class before I can trust her to teach one class while I’m gone” WRONG

I’m off gallivanting in OKC and text her to remind her and check in and Cassie says she was a little late but she every thing was fine!

I get back to Kingsville and find out FROM MY LITTLE that she and another sister were at the class at the time Cassie was supposed to be teaching it. And Cassie didn’t show up until the last like five minutes so they had to run the class.

Strike Three

As stated above, I’m kind of an idiot. Sometimes bad things happen to me and they’re truthfully my fault because I have zero self preservation skills.

Anyway. Long story short a mutual friend of Cassie and I (who was also @jlmjlmjlm ‘s roommate at the time. I was staying over at their place pretty much all the time bc I was having issues with my roommates) named Kat snuck into my purse in the middle of the night and stole my card, put it in her Apple Pay, and used it to buy Christmas gifts for our squad, send her sister money, and pay rent. twice.

When my best friend and i found out, we told her apartment complex that this roommate had paid rent with stolen money so that we could get her evicted bc truthfully all I wanted was for that bitch to LEAVE the school. I couldn’t enjoy choir bc she was there and felt so sick because before this Kat was a very good friend of mine id known for years (also went to the same high school as Cassie and I)

Then to find out that when Kat WAS evicted, Cassie told her “That’s okay you can just stay with me.” Knowing full well what Kat had done. So that was kind of the last straw for our friendship. But generally she was also the kind of person to blame every single thing on her “mental health” when in reality… she was just sort of a shitty person. I don’t know what Cassie is up to now, but I do know that Kat failed out of college and went back to our home town so

Anyway that’s probably the person I hate the most from school thanks for coming to my ted talk

Honesty Hour!

[mdhwrites]

Eda Vs. Lilith Part 2: Doomed By TOH's Core Flaws

So this is kind of a follow up to what I talked about earlier today about TOH fights lacking personality. This fight always nags at my brain amongst TOH fights because it's weirdly unmemorable while a part of my brain knows that everytime I go back to it, it is impressive. And it is! It actually is one of the most standout fights in the entire series. It doesn't slow down its animation so it still packs the punch it should, Lilith might be outclassed HARD here but there is a little bit of talking to allow an ideological side to it, the use of Luz as leverage is a good gimmick and a good way to level the field and even if it's obvious who is more powerful, the cost of victory keeps the tension high instead of the fight feeling pointless or without real stakes. It genuinely avoids a LOT of TOH's normal pitfalls.

But it doesn't escape TOH's inherent lack of creativity/personality and that's nearly unforgivable from a narrative perspective for this specific fight, let alone in context with the rest of the season. To start: here are ALL the spells used in the fight: Levitation Energy Blasts Shields Hooty Summoning

And that's literally it. This fight could be done by at least half, if not 90%, of all Shounen anime out there and you would have to change almost nothing with the normal movesets of Shounen protagonists. It's animated like a Dragonball Z fight and both Eda and Lilith are genuinely duking it out, using their staffs for blows half as much as their MAGIC. These are WITCHES, not warriors.

Worse yet, structurally... This is the last big hurrah for both characters. There are no more big fights of S1. There's Luz tackling Lilith and Belos lightly playing with Luz but nothing more and after this finale, both of these characters will never have magic like this again. This should be when the show goes balls to the wall with the fact that ONLY these two characters could ever have a fight with all nine coven magics being used as they show different strengths in each and use each one to counter the other.

Instead, the magic here is presented as stronger and bigger and prettier than the Covention fight... But it's not as interesting and none of it's new. I NEVER forget Eda making circles with a smirk along her own Hooty to create more that Lilith has to duck and weave through. I never forget Lilith being devoured or how Lilith's practicality means that she can immediately get behind Eda when given an opening for the final blow. Sure, it's still oddly physical at the start and end but it feels more in line with who they are and an exhibition of the excess of Eda versus the practicality of Lilith. It also feels more unique because it's the first time we're seeing these spells... And literally their second fight includes all of the same spells. No more, no less, unless you include Owlbert's inclusion in the first fight as a spell. Then there is one less.

The show was given literally unlimited freedom within its setting... And the best it could do was copy itself and better anime. So why bother remembering this fight instead of Covention? The twist? The fight is pretty much over by then since there's just one more literal charge from Eda to close it.

Because even TOH at its best cannot escape the weaknesses that lie at the heart of the show. A lack of personality and creativity.

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

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[bookishfeylin]

What do you think about the whole “Tamlin was in love with the idea of Feyre” ?

I don’t really understand it tbh and I’d like to hear your thoughts.

Also here’s a kiss 😽 I hope you’re having a fantastic day.

Thank you love!

So I feel like I have to explain what that means first before fully debunking it. In short, THAT SIDE of the fandom feels that Tamlin loves a version of Feyre that wants to be coddled and taken care of and protected and provided for--aka a version of Feyre who no longer exists in ACOMAF--hence why he cannot stand and adjust to her change post-UTM when she suddenly wants a more adventurous life. Feyre herself thinks this in ACOMAF, mentioning that Tamlin being a provider+protector suited "who she was before" but not who she is now, which according to her is (one of the many reasons) why they were incompatible:

“I’m thinking that I was a lonely, hopeless person, and I might have fallen in love with the first thing that showed me a hint of kindness and safety. And I’m thinking maybe he knew that—maybe not actively, but maybe he wanted to be that person for someone. And maybe that worked for who I was before. Maybe it doesn’t work for who—what I am now.” (ACOMAF Chapter 15)

This idea, that Feyre just wants a soft life essentially where she can relax and not be burdened with being the caregiver and even be taken care of herself, where she can be given kindness and safety, is also alluded to in book one:

Sometimes I would even indulge in envisioning a day when my sisters were married and it was only me and Father, with enough food to go around, enough money to buy some paint, and enough time to put those colors and shapes down on paper or canvas or the cottage walls. (ACOTAR Chapter 1)

[Tamlin] came a step closer, as if forcibly leaving behind the dark, sad stain of what had happened to Lucien, and the starlight danced in his eyes as he said, “What would be enough to make you happy?” I blushed from my neck to the top of my head. “I—I don’t know.” It was true—I’d never given that sort of thing any thought beyond getting my sisters safely married off and having enough food for me and my father, and time to learn to paint. (ACOTAR Chapter 18)

[Tamlin] was quiet as we turned down another sun-drenched marble hallway, and I dared to look at him. I found him carefully studying me, his lips in a thin line. “Has anyone ever taken care of you?” he asked quietly. “No.” I’d long since stopped feeling sorry for myself about it. (ACOTAR Chapter 12)

So Feyre does want a quieter life where she can focus on herself rather than being busy caring for other people, and Tamlin feels pity for her that she can't get that life, indicating there is some basis for the fandom's idea. But there are several problems with this per canon itself, the first being that no, Feyre did not fall in love for the "first creature" who was kind to her. If that were true, then she would've fallen in love with Isaac Hale first, not Tamlin. The second reason is that this is not why Tamlin fell in love with Feyre? Like he explicitly did not fall for her because he saw a dainty feminine object he could protect and provide for. Aside from Feyre spending 90% of their romance wearing pants and plotting, scheming, and running around planting snares, stealing knives and shit... That's not why Tamlin falls for Feyre.

“I wonder if your family realizes it,” he murmured. “That everything you’ve done wasn’t about that promise to your mother, or for your sake, but for theirs.” I said nothing, not trusting my voice to keep my shame hidden. “I know—I know that when I said it earlier, it didn’t come out well, but I could help you write—” “Leave me alone,” I said. I was almost through the door when I ran into someone—into him. I stumbled back a step. I’d forgotten how fast he was. “I’m not insulting you.” His quiet voice made it all the worse. “I don’t need your help.” “Clearly not,” he said with a half smile. But the smile faded. “A human who can take down a faerie in a wolf’s skin, who ensnared the Suriel and killed two naga on her own…” He choked on a laugh, and shook his head. The firelight danced along his mask. “They’re fools. Fools for not seeing it." (ACOTAR Chapter 16)

“I never knew,” Tamlin said from behind me, “that humans were capable of …” He trailed off as I turned, the hand I’d put on my throat sliding down to my chest, where my heart roared with a fierce sort of joy and grief and overwhelming humility—humility before that magnificent art. (ACOTAR Chapter 19)

Tamlin is impressed by her overall badassery and her willingness to self-sacrifice per quote 1 and per quote 2 he loved her artistic soul. And most importantly:

He picked up the small painting of the frozen forest and examined it again. “I’ve had many lovers,” he admitted. “Females of noble birth, warriors, princesses …” Rage hit me, low and deep in the gut at the thought of them—rage at their titles, their undoubtedly good looks, at their closeness to him. “But they never understood. What it was like, what it is like, for me to care for my people, my lands. What scars are still there, what the bad days feel like.” That wrathful jealousy faded away like morning dew as he smiled at my painting. “This reminds me of it.” "Of what?" I breathed. He lowered the painting, looking right at me, right into me. "That I'm not alone." (ACOTAR Chapter 22)

He loves her because she also understands the burden of responsibility in a way few others do, that he's not alone in that feeling.

And we get this quote:

Faintly, echoing into my world of slumber, he spoke again, his breath caressing my ear. “You’re exactly as I dreamed you’d be, too.” Darkness swallowed everything. (ACOTAR Chapter 23)

I also have a lot of feelings about what that quote means because WE NEVER GET AN EXPLANATION FOR TAMLIN DREAMING ABOUT FEYRE. So apparently Feyre's aforementioned snare planting and knife stealing and scheming to escape and constantly disobeying things he asks her to do to stay safe and whatnot does not manage to dissuade Tamlin from finding her attractive! Not at all, actually, in fact she's ~the girl of his dreams~ And:

“I love you,” he whispered, and kissed my brow. “Thorns and all.” (ACOTAR Chapter 27)

Idk y'all I don't think "I love you thorns and all" means "I only love you if you fulfill my fantasies of being a perfect obedient housewife despite there being 0 evidence of you displaying any remotely housewife-like tendencies, least of all being obedient" but that's just me. That quote is... incredibly significant but I've seen the larger fandom mostly ignore it like they ignore the rest of book one.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: book 1 Feyre is cool and does some wild shit and Tamlin sees her doing wild shit and is like "yep. That's the one for me. My dream gal <3" and ignoring this to push forward a "Tamlin never loved the real Feyre" narrative ignores what Feyre was actually like when Tamlin fell in love with her in the first place and what they actually bonded over.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Opinion  At 33, I knew everything. At 69, I know something much more important.

By Anne Lamott :: Contributing columnist

Anne Lamott is an American novelist and nonfiction writer. Her latest book, “Somehow: Thoughts on Love,” will be published in April 2024.

Today I woke up old and awful in every way. I simultaneously cannot bear the news and cannot turn it off: It’s cobra hypnosis — Gaza, Israel, the shootings in Maine. The world is as dark as a scarab. I have two memorial services on my calendar this week. A dear friend is in the hospital waiting for a liver, dying. She keeps assuring me, “I ain’t in no ways tired,” and I say, “Oh, stop with that or I’m not going to visit again.” I’m exhausted just driving 90 minutes to and from San Francisco to see her.

My body hurt quite a lot when I got out of bed this morning, and I limped around like Granny Clampett for the first hour, until it unseized. Worse, my mind hurt, my heart hurt and I hated almost everyone, except my husband, my grandson and one of the dogs.

I don’t think I could have borne up under all this 20 years ago when I thought I knew so much about life. That was not nearly as much as I knew at 33, which is when we know more than we ever will again. But age has given me the ability to hang out without predicting how things will sort out this time (mostly — depending on how I’ve slept).

In many of Albert Bierstadt’s Western paintings, there is a darkness on one side, maybe a mountain or its shadow. Then toward the middle, animals graze or drink from a lake or stream. And then at the far right or in the sky, splashes of light lie like shawls across the shoulders of the mountains. The great darkness says to me what I often say to heartbroken friends — “I don’t know.”

Is there meaning in the Maine shootings?

I don’t know. Not yet.

My white-haired husband said on our first date seven years ago that “I don’t know” is the portal to the richness inside us. This insight was one reason I agreed to a second date (along with his beautiful hands). It was a game-changer. Twenty years earlier, when my brothers and I were trying to take care of our mother in her apartment when she first had Alzheimer’s, we cried out to her gerontology nurse, “We don’t know if she can stay here, how to help her take her meds, how to get her to eat better since she forgets.” And the nurse said gently, “How could you know?”

This literally had not crossed our minds. We just thought we were incompetent. In the shadow of the mountain of our mother’s decline, we hardly knew where to begin. So we started where we were, in the not knowing.

In the center of many Bierstadt paintings, you sometimes see animals grazing or drinking. They’re fine, they’re animals; they are just doing animals. But they are not the point — the point is the light. No matter how low you are, the light can reach you. It falls on animals, including us. This is positively biblical. Some of Bierstadt’s animals are lined up at the water as if they’re going to march onto Noah’s Ark. Or they’re huddled together as on a park bench, just hanging out. You have to wonder if the older deer are slightly surprised upon waking every morning, as I am, fumbling around for their glasses.

The animals never seem to have anywhere to go. I used to have lots of places I had to get to. I had to go out for this or that, and it was an emergency — graph paper! I suddenly, urgently, needed to drive to town for graph paper. Also, in the old days when there was something to celebrate, I’d go out to a nice restaurant with friends. To celebrate now, I might exuberantly skip flossing for a night, and maybe if the news is good enough, the hip exercises. Wild times.

In my younger days when the news was too awful, I sought meaning in it. Now, not so much. The meaning is that we have come through so much, and we take care of each other and, against all odds, heal, imperfectly. We still dance, but in certain weather, it hurts. (Okay, always.)

The portals of age also lead to the profound (indeed earthshaking) understanding that people are going to do what people are going to do: They do not want my always-good ideas on how to have easier lives and possibly become slightly less annoying.

Now there is some acceptance (partly born of tiredness) that I can’t rescue or fix anyone, not even me. Sometimes this affords me a kind of plonky peace, fascination and even wonder at people and life as they tromp on by.

The price of aging is high: constant aches, real pain and barely survivable losses. But each time my hip unseizes, it reminds me that this life is not going to go on forever, and that is what makes it so frigging precious.

Another gift of aging is the precipitous decline in melodrama. Enjoying how unremarkable life is takes practice and time, and then the little things start to shine and delight. Life gets smaller and in its smallness it starts winking at you. On my first day back in New Mexico recently, the high desert looked barren and brown. Pretty, yes, but a little dead. Then the tiny desert flowers, yellow, lavender, magenta and baby blue, made their way into my consciousness, and the earth’s shades of ochre and red started to warm me, and before long the formerly dead desert was alive and awash in dynamic, undulating streams of color.

[Albert Bierstadt :: Yosemite]

Sometimes at the right or the top center of Bierstadt paintings is a trippy splash of light, often a mystical, jagged slash that breaks through dirty-looking or white-fire clouds. There might be bright reflections, or long, slanted fingers of sun shining down with religious airs, organ music playing softly in the background. Puffy rainclouds glow. All say, “Yes, there is the deep dark, but we have some light as well.”

Will my brothers or I inherit our mother’s Alzheimer’s? I don’t know. I do know that I recently parked in front of my house and sort of forgot to turn off the engine. Three hours later, a formerly standoffish young neighbor knocked on my door to tell me this, and I pretended to have known. I said the battery had been low and so I was letting it recharge.

“Ah,” she said.

Now she is sweet when she sees me. We wave to each other when we pass in our cars, reflecting a new affection. Reflections say, “In the dark, there’s still some light around. So don’t ever think things are too dark. We’re not going to give you the entire reserve, but we just want you to know it is there. And more may be on its way.”

[Anne Lamott]

[yuseirra]

Thank you so much for the reply I am in fact very happy in reading your analysis it has been a while since I have read such a good take and well thought argument plus looking more into your blog I am fascinated by your posts you are a new fav of mine looking foward your posts about OnK next chapters, I am once again super happy about your reply I love aquakana ;; you do a very good work I really admire your talent it is refreshing and necessary

Thanks anon :) oh, you're so welcome! I went straight to bed after replying to your message earlier, it was nice seeing your ask first thing as I hop on tumblr!/// Aaa thanks for the compliment! ;v;) I could be biased, but I totally mean what I say.

I'm not worried about Aqukana at all because in terms of the ships in onk, I'm looking at a even more complex one right now with a lot of mess being thrown out.

No worries anon, that ship is just too obvious. Things did get a bit messy and confusing in the middle, but I knew it was going to happen and I was excited to learn I was on the right track when stuff like ch 146 and 150-151 happened. That's how I started reading more intently again~ I was following the series, but I wasn't this invested. The one Aqua has romantic feelings for is Kana. It's just.. stated there at this point.

Speaking of which, I "ship" hikaai right? more like I support what's just there... If we compare them to math problems, Aqukana would be like a linear equation, while Hikaai'd be calculus. I believe.. that Hikaai is sorta the advanced question-version compared to Aqukana. When I'm trying to crack that nut, Aqukana is just.. a much much easier question to solve. That's why I don't worry about the former at all. The former is just too clear as day.

Oh, goodness, and I already stepped in with 90% conviction regarding them(hikaai I mean), I don't play a game I end up losing. But this manga is making it so hard for me, I swear. It's super stressful although I realize they're probably doing it for entertainment value and Hikaru was a character we know literally nothing about through the entirety of the story with him being pinpointed as the "evil mastermind", to make it even worse. They gotta fulfill people's expectations about him by portraying him as menacing at least once or twice when he encounters the protags, I get that, but it's such a rough road I signed myself into. I know I have a high chance of winning though.

Fatal and Mephisto is EXACTLY how Hikaru feels about Ai. I'm serious, I just knew it the moment I heard Fatal like the first few seconds in. It was incredible how it felt, it can't be any other way and I have conviction that the author has them on their mind. but GOD, they make me so nervous. This manga makes me so tense. I was worried that I got anything wrong ever since I picked up this series AGAIN for like the past two-three months? was it? because their situation, if I get it wrong, could be deemed as unhealthy and toxic(NONE OF THE "MESSED UP" THINGS TURNED OUT TO BE TRUE, I WOULDN'T HAVE HAD IT ANY OTHER WAY. I KNEW. I JUST KNEW IT WOULD PLAY OUT TO BE LIKE THIS. HIKARU CAN'T DO SH- I look at the guy and he's just... too mild to the point he is naive. Ai chose her man well!!! I swear this has to be where the story will go!!! this is how it will go!! I JUST KNEW!! Just wait okay?? I'm sure I'll be right in the end),

Oh, I'm so sorry;; I really get carried away when I talk about them lately, this is Aqukana we're talking about. The point is, there's nothing you have to worry about the ship or those two who are involved.

I tell you though, I'm serious about psychology and picking up people's emotions. Let me bring up the fact that I major in Psychology AGAIN!!! I REALLY look at these things intently. If I'm wrong, then okay, I guess, but the author should not depict those characters this way if what I predict are to be false. I haven't had an instance where what I predicted came to be too off. I don't think onk will be an exception.

I like aqukana too~/// I'm looking forward to their date in the anime! ;v;) They're the ones who get entire chapters dedicated to their dates, seriously. why would you do that to a ship that would flop if you're the writer, don't worry about them AT ALL. Really, don't worry. I don't feel my take is particularly unique or special. They're going to happen sooner or later.

Thank you!// You're looking forward to my analysis? It's an honor! I wish I DIDN'T need to put out analyses though ;v;... I love putting my ideas out here but I usually do it in the form of fanworks, not words. I didn't know I could talk on and on about something, but I just could not stay still and I guess that's what's been pushing me! Onk makes me so tense and I get relieved when they go on breaks (This applies even after 160. nervous laughs I can draw in "peace", just.. lately, every chapter they have makes me wrap my head so much and I need time to process, I can't do this anymore, HELP ME, it's pain, would have I liked it better if I didn't like this series and its characters as much and cared less? loving something is PAIN) but I will hold out and do my best! 'v')9 Let's have fun together. If the series makes me want to write out how I feel, then I will do just that. I'm sincerely grateful for those of you who tolerate me and/or even enjoy what I could offer!

If something about Aqukana pops up in the story, I'd love to draw them again too!~//They've been missing for some time and they really do need their moment, the author must know too and it will come and happen. This is something I'm sure of regarding this manga. I don't know HOW it will, but I know that it WILL. Believe me on this! :)

[circlejourney]

When I was 24, I decided to get assessed for autism. At that point, I was in the midst of moving my life to a different country, and while it was not easy, and still isn't, it was also the first time I ever got to live "as a full adult."

Up till that point, my parents had made most of my life decisions on my behalf, including controlling my bank account until I became an adult, taking the prize money I won at competitions, deciding I wasn't allowed to apply to universities overseas for my bachelor's, and generally systematically convincing me I could not survive living on my own.

Anyway, for the first time in my life, I could make my own life decisions. And so I came home one summer, and told them about my wish to get assessed. And they told me something to the effect of:

When you were 13, your secondary school teacher asked us if you were autistic and thought you should get assessed. But we decided we didn't want you to have that label.

[cw self injury and physical abuse, also generally very personal outpouring here]

And you know...after hearing about my friends' horrible experiences with mental health diagnoses and suicide attempts "staining" their record for the rest of their lives...I kind of get it.

They were doing it for my safety. In Singapore, unlike in Australia, having mental illness on your record genuinely affects your chances at employment and access to other freedoms. Disability rights are awful there. And worse than the rights is the stigma.

My parents made the judgment call not to get me checked, because it was seemingly not affecting my functioning. I was studying at "top schools" all my life because my grades and extracurriculars qualified me to be there. I was doing well even in a school where exams were tuned and benchmarked so that only a certain fraction of the students scored an A (because 90% of the students would score an A otherwise). In my parents' eyes, there was not a problem big enough to warrant something so life-changing as a diagnosis.

Still, I don't think I needed a label to receive the stigma, but that's beside the point here. The point is that the diagnosis could have been dangerous in Singapore, and we were in a double bind, where they could not let me seek help, or I risked losing full personhood in the eyes of the State.

After moving to Australia, a lot of other things became clear. Beginning from the fact that my Master's degree course load in Australia was half that of my bachelor's in Singapore. Relatively speaking, I sailed by on my Master's, partly because the hours were so relaxed, and I had the time to live my life in the midst of it. And my bachelor's was easier, again, than high school.

I found out that learning someone was regularly beating their kid was grounds to call Child Protection Services. Haha, what? You mean that thing my parents did so much that I started to avoid coming home from school, is a crime in some countries?

Earlier this year, I heard from my sister that she's working 30-hour shifts on-site as a doctor. She doesn't get any sort of break for sleep in the middle of it, and she does this weekly. 70-hour work weeks, and this isn't even abnormal in Singapore - it's expected of doctors in their first years. And my parents went through that too, and have been telling my sister to suck it up.

What I think is that the Singapore government likes to keep us all in a bubble. It feeds us the lie that this is how all humans live, under the guise of knowing what's best for us. And you really don't know how different life could be - the constant pressure, and the lack of regard for our personhood, is like water to a fish.

And it gets replicated within the household - to align with the State, the Family then must re-enact its authoritarianism. I can't get diagnosed and seek help, I will stop being seen as human if I do. Why do you keep yelling at teachers and throwing things at your classmates? Why do you keep having meltdowns? You need to learn anger management. And I do my exams and I get my A's, and all is well, because see, the grades prove that you're more than functional.

Anyway I started self-harming when I was 10 years old. I thought about committing suicide all the time. As a child. I couldn't understand why the world felt like it was on the other side of a glass wall, through which no one could hear me. Why I never felt like a part of the picture. Why no one seemed to trust me to do anything right.

It makes infinitely more sense now, but I still feel like I'm on the other side of a glass wall, and sometimes I wonder if it's simply too late for me to develop a fundamental sense of security in myself. I have seen my therapist for 5 years and we've made a small amount of headway. But it probably takes more than 5 years to undo, uh, all that.

[katsushika-division]

It was only a few hours after receiving the gift from Max that another gift would come knocking on the door...is what Rintaro would wish had happened but instead it was something much worse. It was surprising how the house was still standing with how much it was shaking as the entirety of Death Row Block plus Akari immediately ran outside only to see a...punked out aircraft slowly descending on their backyard.

Akihisa and Rintaro were the first to immediately act, pulling out firearms and aiming at the pilot section of the aircraft which slowly opened to reveal...a guy in punk rock clothing wearing a LED chemion mask, his "eyes" cutting through the cloud of smoke the aircraft made upon landing. When seeing that he was about seconds away from being swiss cheese, the mystery man put his hands up in a sign of peace. "Whoa whoa whoa! Hey! I come in peace! I brought gifts!" (O.O)

Before either of the older men can react, thankfully, someone came to his rescue. "Trickster?!" Akari yelled out, face lighting up as it was indeed her fellow pyromaniac friend. The mystery guy, now apparently called "Trickster", perked up at the sound of Akari's voice, waving wildly at the younger girl. "HEEEEEY CINDER! LONG TIME NO SEE, BUDDY!" (>.<)

Rintaro snapped his head towards his little sister, confused and a little pissed off. "You know this guy, Akari." It came out more as a statement than a question but Akari answered nonetheless, looking back at her brother with a serious look. "This is the guy I told you about, y'know, about that." Rintaro's eyes widen as he looked back at Trickster still sitting in the pilot's seat, swaying side to side, like he was dancing to some hidden tune the rest couldn't here.

Once more, Akihisa took action, still not lowering his gun and sternly demanded. "Who are you and why have you come here, answer quickly or I can't say it will end well for you."

Trickster shivered but there was no real fear behind it, only plain amusement as he slouched in the seat, comfortable and unfazed. "Well, you've already heard it from Akari but the name's Trickster, Tricky for short, I'm from a neat little terrorist cell called Scorpion Den, you might have heard of it, we're actually hella famous." (^.^) Trickster "beamed" with pride at the fact that he just mentioned that he is a wanted terrorist before continuing.

"I meant what I said earlier, I'm here for peaceful purposes, Akari mentioned that it was his" he pointed at Rintaro. "birthday today, I wanted to do something nice so I got him gifts." (o.o) He reached back into the backseat despite Akihisa's warnings and pulled out a black duffle bag. Keeping his left hand up in surrender, he held the bag out in his other hand. "Here, you can check yourself if ya don't believe me." (-.-)

Having enough of the situation already, Rintaro walked passed Akihisa and snatched the bag himself, sending a suspicious glare at Trickster who only 'blinked' owlishly at him with his LED eyes. Shrugging as Rintaro headed back to his team and little sister, Trickster waved once more and got more situated in his pilot seat. "It was nice meeting ya, Rintaro! Maybe you can hang out with Akari and me sometime! Happy Birthday, dude!" With that, Trickster started up the aircraft again and the Katsushika team could only watch as he flew away to god knows where.

- Later -

Rintaro sat in his room, looking over the gifts that "Trickster" guy had given him, the first gift he opened revealed to be...

...A full arm gauntlet with a flamethrower device built into it.

The second gift revealed to be...

...A dragon-oni fusion mask.

And the last and final gift revealed to be...

...An assortment of unidentified chemicals.

Happy Birthday Rintaro! 🧡

“So that was him?” Rintaro questioned staring directly into his younger sister’s eyes. A rare air of seriousness around him. 

“Yep. That was Trickster.” Akari nodded. “See what I mean what I said about him?” 

“....How positive would you say you are Akari?” 

“Around 90% but….”

“Hm?” 

“Rin-nii…I once accidentally saw Trickster without his mask and he looked a lot like…him.”

Rintaro clenched his jaw his thoughts running a mile a minute at that statement. If that was true along with the other things he had heard he now knew why Akari had expressed her opinion about Trickster to him. 

“Rin-nii?”

I want to meet him.” Rintaro declared. “...I just wanna see myself, ya know?”

“I can ask him next time I see him,” Akari promised. “He seems to think highly of your work as the “High Rise Bomber” so I think he’d agree. If…if it is true then what?” 

“We’ll burn that bridge when we get there,” Rintaro sighed. “Even dead we still have to deal with one more surprise from him. I’m just itching to burn something right now.” 

“Well Trick give you that,” Akari pointed to the gauntlet. “Why not take it for a spin?”

“Where? The Old Man isnt going to let me use it in the backyard?” 

“Wait here,” Akari smiled before running to grab something from her room. Rintaro could hear her door slam open and just as quickly as she left Akari came running back into his room a large silver suitcase in her hands.

“I was saving this for later but no better time than now!”  Akari cackled glee evident on her face as she handed her older brother the suitcase. “Open it!” 

Rintaro now extremely curious as to what had Akari so excited opened the case. Much to his shock inside was a copy of Akari’s suit she used as Cinder but made to fit a male taller than her minus the mask she usually wore but Trickster’s gift already had that covered. Turning to his sister Rintaro saw that a deranged smile was spread across her face.

“You can join me now!”

“And the bomb? They track me using that shit.”

“The suits got a jammer that’ll make it look like you’re inside the house. It’s not a full removal yet but it’s something! So come on the night is still young!”

Rintaro was stunned for a moment before he began to laugh. Louder and insaner he laughed until he was full-on psycho laughing. The thought of running around with his younger sister had set his pyromania off badly and nothing was going to stop him from doing just that.

“Now what are we waiting for then?”

[mephestopheles]

People who don't regularly take public transit, do not understand the inherent difficulty of even a robust system. And the system I deal with daily is far from robust. While technically I live in the same overall municipality, I live in one hub, work in another and am now required to go to a doctor's appointment in yet another.

I rely on the transit system and use buses daily. I actually enjoy my commute to and from work because it gives me an opportunity to unwind on the bus before getting home. I get to settle out from the day.

It is also frustrating at times. Like Thursday. I had to request time off for the appointment, and if I wasn't reliant on transit, I probably could have gotten away with using maybe 4 hours ish, or blocking out 4 hours and then adjusting the time I actually used.

However, because of the transit system here is abysmal at the best of times, it's been getting steadily worse for a while.

I had to leave twenty minutes earlier than I usually do for work, so I could grab the 8am going the opposite direction from work. That bus will take an hour. I'd arrive a half hour early for my appointment, still have to walk to get there and I was hoping to have time to get a coffee or tea prior to my appointment. If all goes well the appt is 2 hours long, I would get the next available bus back to town, and then a transfer and get to work. So if you're keeping track that's leave an hour and 40 minutes before the appointment, to arrive a half hour early. Appt time between 90 minutes and 2 hours. Wait for the next bus (at least 1/2 hours wait) get to town an hour later. Transfer to another bus and get to work an hour after that. Which means at the earliest I'm getting back to work at 2 pm to go home at 4pm. Rather than spend the extra hour in transit, I might as well take the day off instead.

That's the good result, the expected result.

Instead I arrived at the bus hub, to an overcrowded stop for that bus line, they couldn't take everyone and there were way too many waiting around for the next bus as well. Usually there are anywhere between three and four buses heading at least partially in that direction. The express college bus, two buses going to one town and one going to another nearby. Problem is, they're having a driver shortage as a result of sick calls, increased covid, the rise for RSV and how that is knocking the shit out of everyone (I recently got over my own chest infection just in the last week), they're also dealing with maintenance, buses breaking and several of them that need inspection or can't pass inspection without several fixes.

So there I am, faced with a dilemma, I can reschedule my appointment and go to work (not really an option because I've waited months for this appointment and I promised mom some help after the fact), I could try to get the next bus coming but that looked so full I don't think they were taking anymore, or get a cab. I called for a cab at 8:08 and it finally arrived at 8:58. It was freezing outside and it really sucked.

I wasn't the only one waiting, it's a shit time to get cabs, because there are a bunch that do school runs, and even more than do the mail run. And one guy who usually gets the bus with me going my usual route was waiting for a cab to go to work because he missed our usual bus.

What's really bothering me about this is that I'm still luckier than most. I have a monthly bus pass that is relatively easy for me to afford, I have time I was able to take off work. I don't pay for my healthcare out of pocket. And still this was frustrating and time consuming and it puts me steps behind my coworkers and peers because I am reliant on either transit or generosity for transportation.

It's really shitty being unable to get a bus with the pass I've already paid for, because the city cannot or will not run the transit system properly. I'm out both time and money. If I was going to take the taxi, I could have waited at home and just called one at a somewhat reasonable time and been warm, not frigid because I didn't switch to better mitts.

The trip home was better, the bus is not nearly as full dropping off, and I managed to get to the appropriate stop in enough time. I grabbed a transfer and stopped off at mom's and gave her a hand with garbage because she's been sick as well last week.

Overall it wasn't terrible for the rest of the day, but a slightly shitty start. So yeah if you're not used to public transit, or have friends that rely on it, cut them some slack.