#i saw that episode like a month or two ago but that made me so so sad

[tungle-scant-sequels]

actually yeah why did nate leverage have to hypnotise hardison. why did it have to be hypnosis why cant we let him have real actual sick violin skills

[bweeeb]

"GIRLFRIEND"

Carmen Berzatto x Reader (you)

( @softmullet : i want me some tender love from carmy 😩 ) Notes: I believe that if things had gone well in the last episode of the second season, it could easily have gone something like this, I hope this story is enough for you, and i hope u like it. Thank's for the request

Summary: When Carmen's "girlfriend" comes up at the opening of The Bear, at the end of the night they both realize something

It was family and friends night at the restaurant, the first service at The Bear, and Carmen couldn't be more anxious about it. He wanted everything to go well, to serve good service, good food, a good place, he wanted it to be perfect. You went with your friends, Melissa and Isis, to the opening of The Bear. Although Carmen was aware that you might be there, since he was the one who invited you, he hadn't thought you would actually go.

— Cousin, your girlfriend is at table 29.

Richie, who was in charge of the dining area, approached Carmen working in his station. — She's your girlfriend already, right cousin?

— She's here? Carmen asked, not stopping his food preparation.

— Damn, man, figure it out and make her your girlfriend quick. That's what Richie said before leaving the kitchen, leaving Carmen thoughtful

You and Carmen started going out frequently four months ago. Your confidence in what you did, your smile, and the unusual comfort you transmitted to Carmen made anxiety spread through his body. But for the first time, it wasn't the bad kind of anxiety—it felt good to be near you.

Sitting at table twenty-one, you smiled towards Richie, who approached the table with a bottle of wine and a smile on his lips.

— Y/n. Richie said your name as he stopped beside you before continuing; — Excuse me, girls, would you like some wine? I know it's what you like.

— Hi, Richie. You greeted him and your friends smiled.

— Yeah, I’d love that. Isis smiled at Richie following Melissa’s confirmation beside her.

— How sweet, thank you.

— Thanks. — you thanked politely as you saw him filling your glass. — Things are really good around here, dude. Carm didn't tell me it was all so fancy.

— What do you mean, cousin didn't show off with those fancy cutlery?

Richie teased Carmen, causing laughter from your lips and two mischievous smiles directed at you by your friends.

— Yeah, I don't know, I guess he didn't want to involve me in this. You said shrugging your shoulders as you took a sip of your wine.

— I think he wants to involve you in everything, Y/n Bear. He’s just not good at it... — the older man nodded and started stepping back — Now I’ll let you enjoy the night, if you need anything, I’ll be at your disposal. He said before disappearing into the dining area.

— Oh no, stay. Isis murmured watching Richie leave while biting her thumb distractedly.

— He's too old for you. You said laughing out loud and snapping Isis out of her daydreams.

— Regardless, sister. Your boyfriend’s friend is hot.

— Carmen is not my boyfriend. You huffed looking at the glass in your hand.

— Oh really, you’re still at this? You sleep at each other's houses, fuck like rabbits, and I feel like the loneliest person in the world when I see you two. What are you? Friends? No way. Melissa said rolling her eyes before laughing and drinking her wine.

— We’ve never talked about it. He didn't grow up with a good image of relationships, I don't want to force anything, sometimes he just wants a fling.

— Right, a fling of a hundred and twenty-one days. Wake up, baby, you heard the hottie, he wants to involve you in everything. Isis said sighing.

— But what if he doesn't want to... he probably didn't even want me here. You said laughing nasally, remembering Carmen’s vague mention a week ago, saying you could come if you wanted to.

— Believe me, Y/n, you have enough personality for him to want you! — Melissa smiled leaning back in the chair — I bet twenty bucks he’ll come here just to bring your dish because he’s totally in love with you.

— As if he had time, this is a restaurant and it’s full, Mel...— You said laughing again.

— I think he’ll come, I mean, would he really not? Isis shrugged drinking her wine again.

— Alright, let’s see...

Not long after, the conversation that you three had started was interrupted by the huge smile on Melissa’s face. The dishes were placed in front of you and Carmen's eyes fell on you like a magnet.

— Hi.

— Hi, everything is really good, Carm. Congrats.

— Thanks. Uhm, yeah...— Carmen said and at that moment he was grateful not to have anything special to present on your plate because you were too beautiful for him to focus on anything other than you at that table. — You look beautiful and I hope you all have a good time. Enjoy! He said stepping away from the table with a glance before disappearing back into the kitchen.

— He’s obviously busy and still came to say hi to you. Melissa smiled and groaned while throwing her head back.

— You look beautiful, that’s the compliment I’ve heard the most on all my dates and this was the first truly sincere one I’ve heard, my god. Isis said smiling while looking at you, smiling at your plate.

— hmm, yeah, he’s sweet.

— I want my money. Melissa said before starting to eat like you and Isis.

°°°

The end of the night had come, the place was less noisy, the last customers were leaving, the kitchen was starting to be cleaned and that meant Carmen was less hectic if everything had gone well.

You had left Isis and Melissa behind in the dining area with Niel and Richie while you looked for Carmen.

Passing by Sydney who was leaning on the counter, you stopped to look at her for a while.

— Hey, Syd. Are you alright? You asked and received a nod from the girl who seemed tired.

— Yeah, I’m fine, it’s just...you know...all of this was crazy and it was my first night working like this for real, so... it’s a lot. She vented and you sighed agreeing.

— I could say I understand but in reality, I don’t understand the pressure you guys have in the kitchen, but I can guarantee you did a great job, everything I ate, the service, everything was great. You said and Sydney smiled at you, understanding why Carmen liked you, it was simple.

— Thanks, Y/n. I think you should tell him that, he’s a bit worried.

— Where is he? You asked, twisting your lips.

— Office. Sydney gestured with her hands, showing you the way and with a grateful smile, you went after Carmen who was found by you sitting in the office, now Natalie’s, with his hands on his head.

— Hey, Chef. You said, standing at the office door waiting for him to let you in.

— Hi. Carmen responded, adjusting his posture and freeing his lap for you to sit on his thighs. There was the confirmation you needed.

— What’s wrong? You asked, sitting on him and wrapping your hands around his neck.

— I think I could have done better. He murmured

— You can always do better, Carmy, but what you guys did here today was great. The girls were delighted even with the damn glasses on the table. You murmured and saw Carmen close his eyes, closing his arms around your waist. — You know I wouldn’t lie to you if I had any complaints about this place, and I can assure you that things, at least out there, were great. How were they here?

Your voice was calming for Carmen who forced himself to open his eyes and look at the beautiful thing in his arms. — We should be more organized.

— Hm, things like that always happen, you guys will get the hang of it, this was the first service, my love.

And there was the nickname that made Carmen feel like a prematurely lovestruck teenager.

— I’m really happy you liked it, beautiful. Carmen murmured, bringing a hand to your left cheek.

— You. Should. Relax. — With each pause, you planted a peck on Berzatto’s lips. Once you felt him still tense.

— Why are you so perfect, fuck. Carmen whispered, sucking on your neck and pulling you in for a longer, more heated kiss. — Did you like the wine you drank? He asked, pulling your body closer to his.

— It was you who chose it. Now it makes sense. You laughed softly, playing with the curls of the man below you. — I loved it, thanks.

— I'm happy that you came, I thought you wouldn’t. Carmen admitted, which made you make a confused face.

— I almost thought you didn’t want me to come. You murmured, embarrassed, and Carmen frowned, pulling your face to look at him.

— I love when you’re near me, please, stay close. He asked with conviction in his words.

— Okay, I will.

— Listen, I-I want you to be my girlfriend, Y/n. But I want to do this right...— Carmen started and before he could finish you stopped him, agreeing.

— I love you, Carmy. You asking me to be your girlfriend or not, it’s okay, we don’t need to do this like it’s a race. You agreed softly, looking into his eyes until the mood was broken by Richie shouting from the other side of the kitchen:

— Allright, cousin, enough of the mushiness. We need to close this restaurant. The older man appeared in the doorway and looked at you two with a bored face. — Didn’t know we could have sex at work.

— Shut up. Carmen said while you got up from his lap and Richie disappeared from your sight.

— Hey, want to sleep over? I’ll finish quickly. Carmen offered and you smiled, nodding your head gently.

— Sure. You said watching him leave the office and come back in a second.

— And hey, I love you too.

---

Requests are open ✨

[galactic-rhea]

WDYM Anakin is Luke and Leia's dad

I dunno if this post will reach the Star Wars fandom but I hope it does because I'm sure you all will get a good laugh at me.

As of recent I have developed a good hiperfixation for Star Wars, the thing is I knew nothing. NOTHING about Star Wars besides the fact it had aliens and...a war...in space? And funny swords. And main character is Luke or something, I spent over 20 years ignoring anything about Star Wars and somehow missing most references out there.

And recently, literally less than a month ago I saw a gif and said to my partner "oh this guy this guy looks cool, this gif looks nice" and he said "Oh well, he's a good character." And it all developed into me watching Clone Wars, the animated series you know and...and I was kinda blown away, on my opinion the show IS GREAT. And I love every character and their interactions, I love how much they focus on side characters, and they all seem very well written. I got hiperfixated really fast and saw Anakin and I was like "Omg, babygirl. He's a blorbo now."

And because of the show, this was super unexpected, but somehow I also got, really got, into the ship with Padmé because omg, cool woman. Literal happy squeaky noises of someone who was in a bad state and needed some good ol' distraction and comfort.

Now, like I said I knew nothing about Star Wars as a whole. And I still haven't watched the movies, besides the ocassional gif?

So imagine my shock, my surprise, my...bewilderment when I realized.

"Wait a minute, LUKE IS ANAKIN'S SON?! HOLY-"

Ladies, gentleman, and others, I think I came very late to this party and I don't even know how it took me so long.

Not only that, but because of this sudden love for the series, I went to my friends circle like "BESTIE, GUESS WHAT, I HAVE A NEW BLROBO AND A NEW FAV SHIP AND EEEP"

And my friends are like "omg that's amazing, what is it?"

I tell them, and of course they all know these characters and they all react like they know this very bad secret fact and I got told several times already "Please, don't watch the episodes 2 and 3 alone, it will hurt."

I feel like blissfully walking among rainbows and blue skies while everyone else know that my future is doomed. Somehow.

(Uncomfortable silence)

Not only that, but then I spent a whole deal of time thinking "Where the heck I have seen these guys" cus there was some fmailiarity I couldn't just point out and then one day I woke up, brushed my teeth and of all sudden I realized and it was such a shock.

Do you know how SURREAL is to get very into a character, and into a ship, and then realize they're the same from that super widespread meme that has been around for who knows how much time?

I swear I thought that meme was from some old medieval fantasy movies or something.

But alas, Star Wars now is EVERYWHERE. People do references to Star Wars ALL THE TIME and it's just now I'm catching them.

I got spoilers. From a meme. In a youtube review that had nothing to do with Star Wars hah. Everything is a spoiler, the world is an apparent spoiler. Now I'm here, trying to avoid spoilers from something everyone seems to know, even my family knows. It's so surreal and I wouldn't have it any other way 😂

Anyways, if you read until here, know that a wild ride still waits me, cuz I'm only starting Season 3 of Clone Wars and I don't plan to watch the movies until I finish the series.

And yes, I made this blog just to ramble freely about SW and draw stuff because it sparked my inspiration after a long art block.

Have this doodle I drew after watching the two first episodes, my offering for you reaching this far.

Note: Wouldn't Anakin and Padmé's ship name be Animé? Cuz that's hilarious.

[r0ttenhearts]

10 New Messages

scaramouche x reader (college au)

synopsis: with you entering your first year of college and scaramouche still working with nahida, you navigate your feelings of your most consistent problem with scaramouche. his absence.

warnings: angst, no comfort, mean scara, toxic relationship

“how long has it been..”

you were laid on your back in your dorm room, scrolling through your social media app when you remembered scaramouche hadn’t responded to your last message. swiping out of your current app, you went back into your messages with scaramouche. 6 hours ago, unread, not replied.

your sigh came out, clicking your phone off, staring at your ceiling. it wasn’t unusual for scaramouche to take hours to respond. but lately it made you feel restless.

you had been with scaramouche for two years now, but the same problem consisted throughout the last two years. the fights about his absence and inability to communicate were frequent. the arguments would almost feel as if you both were reading lines off a script. you could guess every single excuse and apology he would give you before his lips moved.

though he had always been inconsistent in his communication, he had always made it a point to read back and respond to every single text you’d send him in the time that he wouldn’t be responding. but lately, that seemed to stop as well.

scaramouche no longer showed up to your dorm room unless you sought him out and brought him back yourself. anniversaries were now strained and abruptly celebrated, as scaramouche would show up late to every dinner or hangout, and make himself scarce before midnight.

you no longer asked for apologies, he no longer gave them. but he’d wear the same smile every time he saw you. his wide, mischievous grin he’d always give you before planting his affections on you. he always acted as if nothing was amiss. as if the cold you felt from his inability to stay consistent wasn’t real. his lingering touches by 10, 11pm would go unmentioned by his next arrival.

the aching cold you felt in your heart squeezed your chest. scaramouche never told you what he was doing, never changed his ways. but he made you change, didn’t he? so why couldn’t he for you?

“what the fuck do you mean i have no reason to be angry?” scaramouche seethed before his cold fingers gripped your hair.

“you only ever think about yourself (y/n).” scaramouche spat in your ear, making sure he was all you could hear.

“you don’t consider me. you don’t consider how busy i might be, or how tired i get after a day of being nahida’s messenger dog. its fucking ridiculous. you always throw a fit just because i don’t respond to your meaningless messages about your day.” scaramouche scoffed, letting go of your hair as you stood there, quietly taking in his words.

“grow the fuck up (y/n). no one is going to baby you, no one cares about your incessant babbling.”

scaramouche paused, his eyes scanning your face as you stood there quietly. tears were welling up in your eyes, despite your attempt to blink them away. scaramouche noticed this, pulling you into his chest, cradling your face. “oh, baby, i’m sorry. i didn’t mean it.”

“you know i love you, right? i always will.”

three months later, you had finally learned to stop spiraling when scaramouche would leave you alone for too long. that didn’t stop you from utilizing your only way to communicate with him. so there you were, day in and out, texts were sent to scaramouche detailing your every day. annoyances and small victories were retold in your messages to him.

picking your phone back up from it’s laid down position, you scrolled back through your messages with scaramouche. scaramouche’s cold “good morning” to your last text about your shows latest episode. what seemed like 20 messages were sporadically sent, little emoticons in your messages to express your excitement about the drama in your show. you frowned, noting the time jump on your texts as scaramouche hadn’t responded.

you held your breath, your fingers moving across your keyboard on your phone screen.

(y/n): scara?

(y/n): what have you been up to today?

(y/n): i hope nahida didn’t give you too much trouble

(y/n): i felt a little sad today honestly

(y/n): i was thinking about us

(y/n): you feel rlly cold lately, like there’s a brick wall between us

(y/n): i’m sorry, i don’t mean to whine

(y/n): i just miss you, is all

(y/n): i miss the days when you were always around

(y/n): i never had to wait for you back then

you paused, reading over your continued text wall that was your messages to scaramouche. not with. he didn’t talk to you enough for that to be considered messages with him.

“i don’t think he’d read it anyway.” you mumbled, pressing down on your last 10 messages to him. you only meant to do the last 10, really. but with the disappearance of every message came the tight squeeze to your heart, tears streaming until your vision was blurred.

you deleted every single message of your day, the remaining text message for the day being a cold “good morning.”

hours came and went until a notification from scaramouche finally came.

scara: (y/n)?

scara: why did you delete all of your messages

scara: are you starting shit again

tapping on your latest text notification from scaramouche, you muted his notifications and tapped back to your social media feed.

it’s not like he really cared much about you, anyway.

aglist: @samarill @whorerificstuff @somatchajade @sakiimeo @astrolomona @dearsumire @saeisms @shoheartluv @0kauy @lelemnh @aqualesha @msdevilis @linkookie197 @beriiov @xiaonscaraswife @foxlover1144 @reblog-crazily @sparklylanddetective @gh0sts0up @darliingyu @magica-ren @kuronvshi @Maxineslair @kenmabfasf @atanukileaf @jihyuniepark @chiisananingen @just-anotherbookworm @kleeboomed @crepezinhos

[pradabambie]

me instead - rafe x topper'sgf!reader

m'backkkk!!! lmk if you liked this <3

when topper thorton approached you at the country club and asked you out, you though nothing of it.

a couple of random kooks always came up to you, wanting to buy you a drink or take you out on a date, so you were used to it.

but after the dinner went well, you started thinking that maybe it was time to leave behind your current dating habits - which consisted mainly in pogues with a bad boy complex - and settle down with a nice kook boy. at least for a little while.

as soon as you two made your first public appearance the news spread around the island quickly.

obviously, you were one of the hottest girls on the obx and everyone felt the need to be updated on your dating life.

top's friends heard and the teasing started short after.

but he couldn't help to get a little worried about rafe's reaction. he remembered the episode that happened a couple months ago

you were laying on the lounge chair, the sun reflecting on the pool and showering your body in golden light.

the three boys were standing besides the bar at the country club, getting a clear view of your barely clothed body, their minds filled with obscene thoughts at the sight of you.

"bro i think you're drooling a bit" kelce teased and then laughed at rafe, who had been staring at you intensely and not making any effort at hiding it.

"she's really fucking hot, huh?" topper added as he scaned your figure with his eyes, your attention focused on your book, not realizing the intrusive eyes that were laid on you.

"she's mine." rafe said nonchalantly as he took another sip of his beer.

his friends rolled their eyes and laughed at the comment, they were used to rafe trying to call dibs on everything. little did they know he was serious this time.

but you were simply too gorgeous for topper to care about that.

he didn't expect that you would agree so easily when he first asked you out, and ever since then he wouldn't miss a chance to show you off, even if you hadn't been on that many dates, he invited you everywhere and introduced you to everyone, except rafe, of course.

but he couldn't avoid him forever.

a big kook party was happening tonight, and you asked top to go with you, after all of your girlfriends cancelled and you didn't feel like having another night in.

and he couldn't ever say no to you, so there he was picking you up short after, driving you both to the huge house filled with the same old kooks, some random tourists and a couple lost pogues.

as soon as you walked in all eyes landed on you, and the tiny white dress you were wearing, but you were always too oblivious and in your own little bubble to even notice the lingering looks that every guy there gave you as you walked past them, and the irritated ones that came from the girls.

top guided you to the back, where his friends stood, occupied by their drinks and other substances so they took a little while to notice your arrival.

you said hi to a couple boys topper had previously introduced you to, but then you saw one you didn't recognize.

he was wearing a white shirt that was a little tight around his big arms, and some kooky ass beige shorts.

top couldn't hide his nervous expression as he tapped rafe on his shoulder "come say hi to my girl, bro"

rafe turned around and his eyes landed automatically on you, scanning your whole body shamelessly before stopping on your face

"your girl, huh?" he cuestioned as he took a sip of his drink, giving top a look your couldn't quite figure out

topper had already moved on to greet the next person so you introduced yourself

"yes hi, I'm y/n, top's girlfriend" you said flashing a perfect smile at him, trying to ignore his intense stare

he checked to see if topper wasn't looking, and then lowered his lips to your ear, sending a goosebump down your spine as he whispered

"nah, your pretty little head must have gotten it wrong" you swallowed the bump on your throat "you're supposed to be here with me"

he quickly stood straight again, as topper came back and placed a kiss on your -now flushed- cheek.

[starlightkun]

❧ word count: 26.7k ❧ warnings: cursing, VERY suggestive/innuendous, reader teases mark a lot playfully but he’s a shy loserboy so the banter is not usually returned and it might come across as a bit excessive/mean sometimes but it’s their version of flirting i promise, blasphemous usage of the word MILF ❧ genre: fluff, strangers to lovers, modern magical creatures au, basilisk mark, sphinx reader, age gap (older reader), college student mark, career woman reader, ft. various magical neos, human renjun, human johnny (and other very special guest appearances), same universe as strawberry sunday ❧ extra info: this work is set in the same universe as strawberry sunday but can be read as a standalone! there is no continuing plotline between fics in this universe, they simply take place in the same world/magic system and may have overlapping characters (neos may pop up in more than one work!) ❧ author’s note: this one is definitely not going to be for everyone i think. but! i had fun with it. it’s got me exploring a lot of new stuff in it: writing for mark, writing this kind of relationship dynamic, figuring out what sphinxes are like in this universe, and some new characters (gasp!) so i had a ball. which of course means the word count is obscene lol. anyway enjoy the (probably) last installment of the strawbsunday universe. i’m not going to call this the official end bc i had so much fun with these characters that i could totally see myself coming back, but as of now this is all i have planned! thank you all for tagging along and i hope you're looking forward to what’s next!

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ explore the strawberry sunday universe more here!

“You—” Jisung was cut off by Chenle.

“Totally fucked our neighbor! I always knew you were a MILF hunter, Mark Lee—” Chenle’s voice was getting louder and louder, and you were sure that at this point you might not have even needed magical hearing to discern their words.

Friday night. After a long week of work, you finally could relax, order some food, make yourself a drink, kick your feet up, and just have a nice quiet night to yourself. Reclined on your couch in your comfiest silk robe, you brought your glass to your lips as you flicked through some options for what to watch. With delight, you realized that a drama you’d been watching had released a new episode. You’d barely clicked play and settled in when the raucous sounds of hooting, hollering, and electronic shooting and smashing penetrated through your living room wall. Sighing to yourself, you paused your show and stood up to walk over to the wall that your TV hung from, which you shared with your next-door neighbors.

A few months ago—at the beginning of the local university’s fall semester, you figured—two college kids had moved in next door to you. You liked Chenle and Jisung just fine; they were polite whenever you saw them in the hallway or elevator, sometimes if Jisung saw you carrying heavy groceries, the dragon would offer to help you bring them in, and while some people may not be thrilled to have a fairy next door, you knew that a lot of your neighbors felt the same way about you, so you didn’t hold that against Chenle. All in all, they weren’t the worst people to live next to. Except for when their other rambunctious college friends came over for video game nights. They didn’t always seem aware of the noise levels. Thankfully, they were quick to make adjustments as soon as you made them aware. Another reason that you didn’t mind living next door to them, despite the occasional loudness.

You banged your fist against the wall a couple times. It was almost immediately followed by a distant ‘Oh shit!’ and the hasty lowering of their video game volume. A young man’s voice then came through the wall much clearer, as if he were just on the other side from you.

“Sorry!” It sounded like Jisung. You didn’t respond, instead plopping back down onto your couch and playing your show again. No need to have a shouting match through the wall and disturb everybody else in the building. They continued their video games at a constant, but much quieter hum for the rest of the evening, and you puttered around through your streaming services until you deemed your night over.

After putting your leftovers away in your fridge, you were about to head off to your bedroom when you heard the distant shuffle of footsteps over your welcome mat. You paused at the threshold of your kitchen to your living room, waiting to see if whoever it was would actually ring the doorbell, or just keep… well, it sounded like they were pacing anxiously. Finally, there were a couple soft taps on your front door. If you were a human, you weren’t sure if you would have even heard that. Your footsteps were soft across your carpeted floor as you moved to answer the door. First looking out the peephole, your interest was piqued when you saw a young man standing there who was neither Chenle nor Jisung. Though you did have an idea of exactly what this was about.

Undoing your deadbolt, latch, then disarming the alarm, you opened the door just enough for you to cross your arms over your chest and lean against the doorframe. “I accept apologies in the form of cash or groveling.”

“Huh?” The young man stared at you wide-eyed, open-mouthed, and dumb-founded. You took note of his slit pupils, and the two fangs that hadn’t yet fully descended from his top jaw. Huh, basilisk.

“Did the boys not send you over here to be the sacrificial lamb?” You cocked your head and looked him up and down perhaps too obviously, as he shifted nervously under your gaze. A very timid basilisk at that. You eyed the oversized t-shirt he had on that had the same university logo that you’d often seen your neighbors wearing. “You are one of Chenle and Jisung’s friends, right?”

“Oh, y-yeah, I am. I’m Mark. Mark Lee.” He took one of his hands out from where he’d stuffed them into the pockets of his joggers, wiped it on the leg of said joggers, and held it out to you. As he got close enough to shake your hand, you could finally smell him. Sphinx noses weren’t as sensitive as werewolves’ or vampires’—or basilisk tongues for that matter. Not to mention that basilisks just didn’t have as strong of a scent as most other beings. They had a mild, earthen smell that reminded you of peat freshly after rain. Others tended to make less favorable comparisons such as damp caverns or even mildewy caves, but those ideas never occurred to you. Maybe it was because one of your own childhood best friends was a basilisk, so you were just used to the smell and had positive memories associated with it.

You couldn’t conceal the amusement on your face as you delicately shook his hand, now very aware of his clammy palms. “It’s nice to meet you, Mark, I’m Y/N. Now if they didn’t send you over with your big brown eyes and sweet face in an attempt to distract me from the ruckus you all were making earlier, then why are you on my doorstep?”

“Wait, you can look at my eyes?” There was a noticeable drag on his s’es when he spoke, which you noted with a certain fondness. He must be young enough to have missed most, if not all, of the mandatory speech therapy that the basilisks of your cohort and before went through during primary and secondary school. It was removed from the curriculum for being unfair and prejudiced against the creatures, but that was after your time. You could remember your friend Jongin being singled out to leave class three times a week for the “therapy.” Even now he could still recall the name of the instructor who led it, his voice filling with bitter vitriol on the rare occasions he’d choose to talk about it.

“I’m a sphinx, honey. You couldn’t petrify me if you tried,” you informed Mark knowingly. Now you were curious as to why he was out and about without magical eye protection or at least non-magical sunglasses if he was apparently so worried about petrifying people. But, not curious enough to divert you from your original mission. “Now, why are you here?”

“O-Oh, right, uhm, I’m really sorry for bothering you, ma’am, it’s just that I went to go get something from my car but then I realized that I forgot my keys in their apartment and I came back up to get them but I locked myself out. My phone’s in the apartment too, and I tried knocking but they’re not answering and—”

“They fell asleep in the two minutes you were gone?” You cut him off, raising your eyebrows slightly in disbelief.

“No, no, they were already asleep. You see, uhm, I’m crashing on their couch tonight and—”

“Got it, got it.” You nodded. Well, that explains the lack of sunglasses. They were also presumably locked in the apartment. “So, what do you want from me?”

“Can I borrow your phone really quick, just to try to call them and see if they’ll pick up? Again, I’m really, really sorry about this.”

“I will actually do you one better, Mark.” You did a small shooing gesture, and he seemed to get the idea, taking a couple steps back. Once he was off of your welcome mat, you lifted up the corner and grabbed the key that was sitting under there. You held it out to him. “Here.”

“Uh—”

“It’s their spare key, not mine.” You reassured him. “When they moved in, they asked if they could hide it under my mat because it would be too obvious to burglars for their spare key to be under their mat.”

“O-Oh.” Mark gingerly took the key from you. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“Mark, one more thing.”

“Anything!” He blurted out, then his entire face flushed as he scrambled to tone it down. “I mean, y-yeah, of course, ma’am, what do you need?”

You couldn’t help but smirk as you requested, “Stop calling me ma’am.”

“Right, sorry.”

“You can call me Y/N.”

“O-Okay!” The basilisk smiled at you brightly, another flash of his not-yet fully developed baby fangs. He presumably was only a year or so out from his first molting. They were cute. He was... cute.

“Goodnight, Mark.” You stepped back and grabbed the edge of your door, preparing to close it.

“Goodnight, Y/N.”

His eyes didn’t leave you the entire time as you shut the door. Curious, you peered out your peephole. Mark flicked his forked snake tongue out in the air once before he made his way over to your neighbors’ door. The boys had a corner apartment, meaning that despite the two apartments sharing a wall, their door was actually perpendicular to yours, so you could see it from your peephole. You watched Mark unlock the apartment, then dart back over to yours and bend over to lift up your mat. You froze, not expecting him to immediately return the key. You figured he’d just give it back to his friends in the morning. He paused after he’d put the key under the mat again, tongue once more testing the air. You held your breath, waiting for a paralyzing one, two seconds before he finally left again. You didn’t relax fully until the boys’ apartment door had closed behind him, though. You wanted to hit yourself. What were you even nervous about? A grown woman being caught standing by your own apartment door? By some random college kid? Ridiculous. You scoffed, doing up your locks, latches, and alarm again.

“Hi, Ms. Y/N.” “Hi, Ms. Y/N.”

Chenle and Jisung gave you two very polite nods as they passed you in the hallway heading out of the building at the same time that you were coming home from work. It had been a couple weeks since their last video game night when you’d had your unexpected visitor, which was also the last time you’d seen or heard a peep from either of your young neighbors. You figured they’d been keeping an extra-low profile out of guilt.

You smiled back at them genuinely. “Hi, boys.”

The third figure behind them looked at you with wide eyes, and you arched an eyebrow curiously at him, a silent challenge.

“H-Hi, Y/N.” To his credit, Mark’s voice didn’t crack at all, despite the stutter.

“Hi, Mark,” you practically purred his name, not slowing down in the slightest as you continued your path to your front door. You bit your bottom lip to keep from laughing as you heard the fervent whispered back and forth of the college students behind you.

“Dude, what the fuck?” Jisung hissed at Mark.

“Yeah, what the fuck is wrong with you?” Chenle concurred.

“What?” Mark shot back quietly.

You arrived at your apartment door at the end of the hall, still well within earshot for you. Opening up your purse to fetch your keys, you unhurriedly flipped through every key on your keyring.

“You—” Jisung was cut off by Chenle.

“Totally fucked our neighbor! I always knew you were a MILF hunter, Mark Lee—” Chenle’s voice was getting louder and louder, and you were sure that at this point you might not have even needed magical hearing.

“Dude!” Mark snapped, and you heard the sound of what you were pretty sure was the basilisk slapping a hand over the fairy’s mouth. “She can totally hear us!”

You raised a hand above your head and, without turning around, waved it. “Hey, boys. Sphinx, remember?”

“Sorry, Ms. Y/N!” Jisung called out down the hall to you, and you could picture his sheepish face in that moment. You went to actually unlock your apartment now, pushing the door open.

“Sorry!” Mark apologized too, as you had stepped into your home.

You just caught his eye and a glimpse of his pink ears as you turned around to disable your alarm next to the closing door. In the moment before the gap shut all the way, you winked at him.

Humming along to the music playing from your phone, you touched up your work makeup to make it a little more ‘nighttime’ and swapped out your studs for some more flashy going-out dangly earrings. You’d already changed into a much less corporate outfit for your night out with your friends that you had planned and were just putting the finishing touches on before you had to leave in a few minutes. You’d just finished up with your hair and makeup when you swore you heard a knock at your front door. Pausing your music to stick your head out of your bathroom, you listened more carefully. Yeah, there were definitely footsteps at your front door, and it didn’t sound like a delivery person dropping a package off and leaving. In fact, it sounded like someone pacing nervously. A very familiar shuffle, if you weren’t mistaken.

Already bemused, you took long strides through your apartment to get to your front door, deftly unlocking it. And sure enough, when you so confidently swung it open without peeking through the peephole first, your instincts had of course been right. Mark Lee was standing on the other side, shifting his weight nervously from foot to foot. His gaze immediately snapped up to you, and you barely contained your amusement at how his jaw literally dropped when he took in what you were wearing.

“Hello, Mark,” you greeted him, once more leaning against your doorway. It had been a few weeks since you’d last seen him, and you could only guess why he was knocking on your door again.

You could see him blink himself out of a trance, running a hand through his hair, knocking the hood of his forest green hoodie off his head in the process. “Hi, Y/N. How-How are you?”

“I’m well, thank you. How about you?”

“Good! I’m good.”

“So… What brings you to my doorstep again? You know where the boys’ key is.” You pointed to the welcome mat underneath his sneakers.

“Oh, Chenle and Jisung aren’t even home right now,” he said off-handedly. “I didn’t come to see them.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. I uhm, I wanted to ask you something.”

“Mark…” You said his name calmly, but with a hint of warning. Truly, this was your fault. You’d been having too much fun and let this get out of hand, and now you were going to have to let this sweet boy down easy before he started something he couldn’t finish. And you’d had such a good relationship with your neighbors so far, too. Maybe he’d be too embarrassed to tell them. One could only hope.

Mark’s ears were getting redder by the second. “Sorry, I know you’re probably too busy but— Could you maybe help me with my abilities?”

Well, that certainly wasn’t what you were expecting. Shoving away the strange twinge of disappointment in your chest, you reminded him, “I’m not a basilisk. I’m not even reptile adjacent at all. Sphinxes are part-lion, part-eagle.”

“I know, I just thought that, you know, sphinxes develop your powers later, right? You’re not born with them.”

“Right…”

“Basilisks too. I just thought that, I don’t know, maybe you’d be able to at least give me some advice?” He immediately shook his head at himself. “I’m sorry, you don’t even know me, I’ll just—”

“Hold on, Mark.” You went to stop him from leaving entirely. While you weren’t fully convinced, this at least wasn’t a conversation to be having on your doorstep. You had better manners than to leave the poor boy on your doormat. You stepped back from your door, opening it wider. “Here, come in.”

“O-Okay.” He obliged, walking into your apartment. “Thank you.” He stood awkwardly just a couple steps past the front door, looking around your living room hesitantly.

“Do you want something to drink? Water? Tea?” You offered, hoping it would calm him down. He looked so tense that you were a little worried about his blood pressure. “Unfortunately I don’t have any Red Bulls or whatever college boys sustain themselves on.”

“Oh, uh, no thank you. I actually don’t drink energy drinks or any of that stuff.” He shook his head, his nose wrinkling. “Tastes too… too much.”

“Hm…” You filled up a glass of water for yourself, and an extra for Mark anyway. He was your guest, after all. You sat back in your spot in the corner of your couch, putting one of the glasses down on your coffee table for him. You took a sip of the other. When Mark was still rooted to the same spot a couple seconds later, you gestured to the other two-thirds of the piece of furniture. “You can sit, my couch won’t come to life and swallow you whole, you know.”

“Right, sorry.” He laughed, looking down at his feet as he walked over and sat on the opposite end from you. Or, as far to the opposite end as he could get. You had several throw pillows on that side. He still looked nervous, refusing to meet your gaze as his eyes flicked around your living room skittishly.

“I’m also not going to swallow you whole.”

“Of course, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Mark picked up the glass of water that he had told you he didn’t want, this time looking you in the eye as he gave you an anxious smile before bringing the drink up to his lips.

“Not unless you ask nicely.”

He immediately spat the drink of water he’d just taken back out into his cup as he coughed and choked, and you covered your own mouth as you giggled, not wanting to outright laugh in the poor boy’s face.

“I’m sorry, Mark, that was mean of me.” You patted his knee, then quickly took your hand back. You really were just trying to reassure him. “Now, you came in for a real reason, not just for me to tease you. Go ahead.”

Having finally recovered, he set his water back down on the table to talk. “Y-Yeah, right. Uhm… So, basilisks don’t start developing their powers until they’ve gone through their first molting. Mine was a year and a half ago and honestly my life has kind of been one big shit show ever since.”

“Basilisk powers aren’t all they were cracked up to be?”

“I first partially petrified my human roommate last spring and now I have to wear sunglasses around him all the time or God forbid I’m going to actually turn him to stone one of these days. I accidentally compel him, too, like all the time, and he refuses to let our witch friends make any sort of protection charm for him.”

“He wants to get petrified and compelled?”

“No, he doesn’t want me to think he’s afraid of me. But I’m afraid of what I’m going to do to him. I feel like I can barely be in our apartment except to sleep.” Mark rubbed a hand over his face, visibly stressed and upset now. “Dude definitely knows I’m avoiding him but… I don’t know what I’d do with myself if I actually hurt Johnny.”

“Well first you’re not going to punish yourself over something you haven’t even done. That’s not going to do anything for you or your friend,” you told him firmly.

“Hmph,” he chuckled cynically.

“You don’t know any basilisks that could help you? Your parents? Friends?” You suggested gently. He clearly did need help, but you weren’t going to be his best option. “They might be a bit more useful than me.”

“My parents live five hours away. Not exactly a day trip. And I don’t know any other basilisks at school. My friends have all been supportive but useless. They’re either human or have been using their powers since before they could talk.”

You sighed and nodded in understanding. “I know what you mean. It’s like puberty all over again. A magical growth spurt but instead of suddenly losing all body awareness, growing four inches, and having hormones making your brain all fuzzy, you’re trying to gain an awareness on some new part of yourself you didn’t have before, you’re teething like a giant toddler, and have magic making your brain all fuzzy.”

“Yes, the teething! God, I thought I was crazy!” Mark groaned, vindication and relief all over his face at having someone else validate what’s been happening to him. His features then turned confused. “Wait, sphinxes don’t have fangs, do you?”

You grabbed your top lip to pull it up, at the same time letting your second set of teeth descend.

“Wow…” He breathed out, watching you as you tucked them back into your jaw.

“Lion canines. Retractable, thankfully.” You let go of your lip and closed your mouth, habitually running your tongue over your normal teeth. Sphinxes still didn’t have perfectly average human teeth as their first set of teeth, they were much sharper, with a greater number of human canines. But you much preferred your first set anyway, they were the ones you grew up with, and were a lot less cumbersome than a full set of lion canines, incisors, and carnassials. All the second set was really good for was a party trick. Not that you really went to those anymore; you’d been out of college for years now.

“Have you ever met another sphinx before me, Mark?” You asked.

“W-What do you mean?”

“You knew that sphinxes get our powers later in life, but you didn’t know about our second set of teeth. I don’t know, your knowledge is a little... inconsistent.”

He rubbed the back of his neck nervously. “Well... my friend Renjun, he’s a Magical Creatures Studies major. He goes on all these tangents all the time. I kind of zone in and out.”

“So you haven’t met another sphinx, but you were listening when your friend was talking about sphinxes getting their powers later in life, but you completely missed the part about lion teeth.” You ticked every detail off on your fingers to make sure you had it straight.

“Yeah...”

You burst into laughter again, watching as the pink that had persisted on the tips of his ears spread down to his cheeks. “Sorry, sorry, I’m not laughing at you.”

“It sure feels like it,” he mumbled, but you caught sight of a bashful smile on his lips as he stared down at his lap.

“I mean, I am laughing, but it’s just— you’re just— you’re very endearing, Mark,” you tried to explain to him. “I’m being endeared right now— It’s a good thing, just take it as a compliment, okay?”

“Sure, I’ll take it as a compliment.” He nodded. “From now on, when you laugh at something stupid and embarrassing I do or say, I’ll take it as a compliment.”

You chuckled, “You’re funny, you know that?”

“You’re the first person who’s ever told me that,” he admitted, looking up from his hands to you. “You know that?”

“Wait, seriously?” Your smile faded.

“No, but you believed me, didn’t you?” The basilisk snickered.

“Oh, hey!” You retorted indignantly. “Not fair! You had me feeling bad for you this whole time with the sob story about your powers! You can’t just—” But Mark had already devolved into a fit of giggles, and you knew he was too far gone for your argument to hold any water. Instead, you watched him fondly as you realized that this was the most relaxed he’d been around you. As he started collecting himself, you took one more sip of your water, then set it down on the coffee table. “Alright, so what’s your class schedule?”

Mark stared at you wide-eyed. “Huh?”

“I can’t guarantee results of any kind, but I’ll do my best to teach you what I know at least.”

“Really?!” He seemed shocked that his own plan had worked.

“It’s not going to be a one-and-done, I can tell you that much. So, what’s your schedule?” You reiterated your question. “I get off work at five every day and have yoga Tuesdays and Thursdays. So you better be available on a Monday or Wednesday.”

“Wait, what’s wrong with Friday?”

“You may have endeared me, but not enough to give up my Friday nights.”

"Of course, right. Uh, Wednesdays should be the best for me. My last class is over at three and I usually don’t get scheduled then since it’s so late in the day.”

“Where do you work that 3:00 in the afternoon is late?”

“Campus bookstore. Closes at 5:00.”

“Gotcha. So, I will see you here, next Wednesday at 6:00.” You could see panic grow in Mark’s eyes as you started to stand up.

“W-Why not now?”

“Because I have other plans, Mark,” you told him patiently. “I’ll keep Wednesdays for you in the future, but tonight I have somewhere to be. You and Johnny have survived this long, I believe that you’ll be able to survive one more week, okay?”

He got to his feet with a sigh. “You’re right, I’m sorry. Thank you, Y/N. Seriously.”

“Don’t thank me yet.” You started guiding him toward your front door. “Who knows, I might make it worse.”

“I doubt it could get any worse.”

“I am so sorry I’m late,” you breathed out as you sat down at the restaurant booth where your friends were waiting.

“That’s okay, Y/N!” Baekhyun reassured you, pushing a glass over to you. “Here, we got you a water. We didn’t know what you were going to get to eat, so we didn’t want to order a drink-drink.”

“You’re not usually late,” Minseok, another sphinx, pointed out from across the table from you and your siren friend.

“Yeah, is everything alright?” Jongin asked from his seat beside Minseok. You especially noticed now how his s’es weren’t as pronounced as Mark’s, but at least some of his natural sibilance had come back once he got out of that speech “therapy.”

You let out a sigh, dropping your head back against the booth. “I had an unexpected visitor.”

“Ooh, do tell.” Baekhyun’s opalescent scales that sat just under the skin of his cheekbones, bridge of his nose, and forehead shifted with the inquisitive tilt of his head.

“Nothing scandalous, I assure you,” you snorted. “Just some friend of my neighbors, you know, the college kids—”

“A college boy? Y/N, you cougar!” The siren exclaimed, and you rolled your eyes.

“Are you done?”

“Yes, continue.”

“I mean, his friends did indirectly call me a MILF, but I don’t know if I should take that a compliment or an insult really.”

Minseok and Jongin guffawed at that while Baekhyun’s face lit up with delight. He smushed your cheeks in between his hands. “Oh, I’m so proud of you! My baby’s all grown up! No longer a baby but a MILF!”

“At least to a bunch of college boys,” Minseok pointed out, grabbing his glass that looked like it was filled with some dark liquor. Whiskey, maybe. He always liked to mix it up. “Don’t let it get you too down, Y/N, they probably think anybody above human drinking age is middle-aged.”

“Let it get her down?” Baekhyun scoffed indignantly. “You’re clearly missing three-quarters of the acronym here, Minseok!”

“Guys!” You cut into their bickering. “I don’t particularly care one, how old they think I am, or two, how fuckable they think I am.”

“Then why was one of them over at your place and making you late to our dinner?” Jongin arched a brow, taking a drink of what you knew was a glass of witch’s brew and tonic water. Basilisk tongues were extremely sensitive to taste, so regular alcohol was out of the question for him. Witch’s brew on the other hand was the perfect solution, with no burn and a pleasant, light, flowery taste. Almost too perfect of a solution, as you’d carried him home absolutely shitfaced drunk from plenty of parties after he discovered it in high school. Thankfully he’d both built up a tolerance and learned to pace himself and drink responsibly since then, so you hadn’t had to do that in years.

“Because I kind of just agreed to sort of... mentor him?”

“Huh?” Baekhyun tilted his head to the other side.

“Why?” The sphinx snorted and took another swig of his drink.

Jongin just stared at you wordlessly. Shifting forward in your seat, you prepared yourself to try to explain it. “Long story short, he needs help with his powers, and he thinks I can help him.”

“So he’s a sphinx,” Minseok surmised.

“Well, no...”

“Gryphon that was abandoned as a child and never learned how to fly?”

“What? No.”

“Sorry, that’s just literally the only thing that makes sense other than him being another sphinx.”

“No, he’s a... he’s a basilisk.” You crossed your arms over your chest, already prepared for the backlash from your friends over your choice.

“Then give him to Jongin.”

The basilisk scoffed, “I did not come out tonight to be given some kid. No thanks.”

Minseok gestured to him to emphatically. “See? If Jongin’s not worried, the kid’s probably not that big of a danger to society. No need to help. Which you wouldn’t be able to do anyway, because you’re not a basilisk.”

You held your hands up defensively. “Look, I told him I might not be any help, but—”

“But he was just sooo cute with his widdle forked tongue and shedding molting skin all over your couch that you couldn’t say no?” Minseok retorted, making Baekhyun burst into laughter.

“I’m right here, man,” Jongin muttered, taking another sip of his drink.

“No!” You replied indignantly over both Minseok and Baekhyun’s unrestrained laughter at your expense. “He had an actual reason! He pointed out that sphinxes and basilisks develop their powers similarly. We both are born as supernatural creatures, instead of being turned like vampires, but we get our powers later in life, unlike most creatures like sirens, or fairies, or dragons.”

While Jongin actually seemed to be considering the argument, Minseok and Baekhyun still both had disbelieving looks on their faces. The siren composed himself again to ask, “Sure... yeah. But be honest... was he at least a wittle cute?”

You narrowed your eyes at him.

“I mean, there’s a reason we don’t let you near the animal shelter, Y/N,” Minseok reminded you. “You’d adopt everything in there and never get your security deposit back.”

“I told him it might not work. It won’t hurt to just try,” you huffed.

“Just don’t let him tear up your curtains.” Baekhyun patted your shoulder.

The next Wednesday finally rolled around, and you went through your day at work with the thought of your impending guest lingering in your mind. Or, more specifically, what the hell you were going to teach him. It had been on your mind all week. You jotted down what you were first taught when you got your sphinx powers, which was mostly a lot of breathing. Probably not really what he was looking for, but it was the best you got. It sounded like he didn’t even have much of a foundation, which he needed before you could do anything close to actual compelling or petrification—or preventing such.

Locking your front door behind you, you set your purse down and made a beeline for your bedroom to change out of your work clothes into something casual and comfortable. Mark had already seen you in your pajamas once, you weren’t trying to make any impressions here. You tidied up your living room a little, moving a couple dirty pieces of clothes into your bedroom hamper, then took care of your dishes from breakfast this morning that you hadn’t cleaned before leaving for work. All those miscellaneous tasks took up your time nicely, as just as you had finished wiping down your kitchen countertops, you picked up a familiar squeak of sneakers rushing down the hallway. Glancing up at the clock on your microwave, it struck 6:00 p.m. at the exact moment your doorbell rang.

You tossed your used paper towel in the trash before walking over to the front door. Mark was on the other side, the basilisk panting heavily, panic on his face. Before you could even greet him, he blurted out, “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I hope I’m not late! I’m here! Please! I was studying, and lost track of time, please, I’m really sorry, Y/N!”

“Woah, Mark, slow down,” you said calmly. “You’re right on time. It’s okay. Please, come in.”

Holding the door open and stepping back, you beckoned him in with a reassuring smile. He let out a sigh of relief, walking in with his head down, eyes focused on his shoes. You got the two of you settled on the floor of your living room, sitting cross-legged facing each other.

“Okay, so today we’re really just going to be—” You were cut off by the sound of a stomach growling very loudly. And it wasn’t yours.

Mark ducked his head in embarrassment. “I’m sorry! Keep going! Just-Just ignore that.”

“You hungry, Mark?”

“Sorry—”

“Did I ask for an apology?”

“No.”

“Then why are you apologizing?” You asked gently.

“Right. Uhm, I had classes and then a meeting with a professor and then I was studying and I’m pretty sure I haven’t eaten since breakfast. I didn’t want to be late…”

You shook your head. “Well, you can’t do this on an empty stomach.”

“I’m—”

“I’m putting a moratorium on the word ‘sorry’ for tonight. You’re done. You’ve hit your max.” You stood up, heading towards your kitchen. “Come on, let’s get some food in you.”

“Okay…”

You rummaged through your fridge to bring out the ingredients for the dinner that you were planning to make tonight after Mark left. Looks like you were going to be moving dinner up. “I don’t know what kind of gourmet meals you’re used to, but don’t expect anything fancy out of my kitchen,” you forewarned him in jest, turning on the stovetop.

That finally got a smile out of him. “Better than the dining hall, I’m sure. And, you really don’t have to—”

“It’s fine. Think of it like this: Would you go on a run, or go to the gym without eating anything? Magic needs energy too, just like exercise.”

“I never realized that.” Mark’s stomach let out another growl then, making the basilisk rub the back of his very red neck, and you smiled quietly to yourself.

“And, I don’t think either one of us could focus much with your stomach rumbling like that.”

Dinner was pulled together quickly, and you took it to your dining table. Pushing aside your laptop to give you enough room to set your plate down, you headed back to your kitchen. “Mark?” You called for his attention as you opened your glasses cabinet. “Water? Wine? Beer? I think I might have a Coke in the back if you want that.”

“Water’s fine.”

You nodded, filling up his glass of ice water before grabbing a beer for yourself and heading back to where the basilisk was waiting for you.

“Thank you.” Mark accepted the cup from you. “Really, this is great.”

“You’re welcome.” You popped open the tab of your can and held it out towards him. He tapped his glass to it, and you grinned, taking a sip before picking up your utensils to start eating.

As you watched Mark dig in eagerly, you felt a warm fondness in your chest for the basilisk in front of you. You wracked your brain for the last time you’d cooked for someone else. Whoever your last boyfriend was, you figured. It was funny, you couldn’t even remember a specific instance, that was just a guess. You and your friends usually ate out, ordered in, or there was the odd occasion that Jongin would host a dinner party and you all would get dressed up to go over to his penthouse—he’d done the best out of all of you, he owned a luxury clothing brand and definitely lived like it. So as you sat here, watching the college student in front of wolf down the simple meal you’d just made for him like it was the best thing he’d ever tasted, you felt the sides of your lips upquirk just the slightest. You lifted another bite to your mouth and took another swig of your beer.

“So what’s your major?” You asked, and he finally looked up at you. It took everything in you not to immediately giggle and coo at his slightly bulging cheeks.

He quickly swallowed the food in his mouth and drank some water before answering your question. “Bio… pre-med track.”

“Wow. Human medicine or magical creatures?”

“Both. Doctors should want to help everyone.” Mark had a scowl on his face as he stabbed a piece of food with his fork.

“Good point. When do you graduate?”

“Next spring. One more year.” He took a deep breath, then let out a big sigh. “After this semester. Then med school… If I don’t catch an attempted murder charge for petrifying Johnny first.”

You looked down at his empty plate, then your half-full one. “Let’s see what we can do about that, then. You want seconds?”

“Please?”

You couldn’t help but chuckle at his big, pleading eyes. “Of course, go for it.”

Back on your living room floor sat cross-legged after dinner, you started where you left off before getting interrupted by the basilisk’s growling stomach. “Tonight won’t be anything big and showy. From what you’ve told me, you don’t even have a foundation. We need that first.”

“A foundation?” The basilisk questioned.

“The times that you’ve accidentally petrified or compelled Johnny, did you feel anything?”

“Horrible and guilty and like a terrible person and that I was a danger to other people.”

You shook your head. “I meant— Did you feel any different physically? On the inside? Or in your body? Not like, ashamed or embarrassed. Not emotionally.”

His face screwed up as he tried to think. “No?”

“That’s what I mean. You can’t even feel when you’re using your magic. Your powers are a part of you, but right now they’re functioning completely separate from you. We need to work on you being able to feel your magic at all before getting around to doing anything with it.”

“And how do I do that?”

“We’re going to go through some guided breathing techniques that I did when I first got my powers, and see how those work, okay?”

“Okay. Uhm, first, though…”

You looked at him attentively. “Yes, Mark?”

“Do you think you could show me your-your heliokinesis?”

“Asked your friend to finish his lecture on sphinxes, huh?” You snickered, twisting around to crack your back.

“Yeah, I mean—”

“It’s fine. Good move, considering. We just don’t call it that.”

“Oh. What is it called?”

“Heliokinesis is the academic word for the general ability to control solar energy, you weren’t wrong. A few different beings can do it. Witches, with the right tools or spells; some fairies; phoenixes at the zenith of their life right before they’re reborn; dryads to a smaller degree; and sphinxes. Us sphinxes call it sol-channeling.”

“Got it. Could you show me some? Sol-channeling? If that’s okay?”

Looking out the window, you saw that there were still remnants of the sunset glowing outside. “Sure, there’s still enough light out.”

The basilisk sat up straight, eagerly drinking in every move you made and every word you said.

“Now, we can only channel, manipulate, and shape existing solar energy that’s available. We can’t create solar energy. So once the Sun is down, that’s it,” you explained, raising your hand towards a beam of orange sunlight that was illuminating a square of carpet in front of you.

Delicately, you plucked the light right out of the air and into your palm, feeling the warmth against your skin as the square melted into a puddle of gleaming liquid amber in your cupped hand. The boy across from you gasped softly as you raised your hand up slightly to pour the sunlight into your other palm like sand at the beach. Tossing it up into the air, it turned into splatters in the empty space between your faces, like an abstract art painting. The deep terracotta light washed Mark’s delighted features in a heavenly glow as he watched it hover there in awe. Like wiping a chalkboard, you took the light back down into your hands again, then gestured for Mark to hold his out. “Come on.”

“A-Are you sure?” He looked between you and the apricot heavens that you were holding uncertainly.

“Yes. I won’t let anything happen to you, Markie. Promise.” You pushed your hands towards him again, insistent. “Now come on, before the sun sets completely and I have to send it back.”

“Alright, alright.” He put his hands out in the space between you, palms cupped together. You placed yours just above them, parting your own palms so that the sunlight fell down into his waiting hands. It had already been tempered, so you weren’t worried about it burning him. Instead, you just got to watch him breathe out in absolute stunned awe as he gently rolled around his little puddle of sunshine. “Dude…” His eyes were glued to his hands. “This is officially the coolest fucking thing I’ve ever seen. And done.”

You laughed. “I’m honored. A bit skeptical, but honored.”

“My powers aren’t cool. They’re just something else that can go horribly wrong,” he sighed, continuing to watch the light in his hands.

Looking outside at the fading sunbeams, you held a hand back out towards him. “I need to send it back. The Sun’s almost gone.”

Mark gently tipped the golden energy back into your waiting palm. You closed your hand around it, focusing on allowing the light to return to its natural state, before opening your fingers. A soft ball of pure, hazy light drifted up from your hand, before shooting out your living room window to rejoin the setting Sun.

“So that’s sol-channeling...” The basilisk murmured.

“One facet of it, yeah,” you nodded.

“It’s beautiful.”

You tilted your head as you took in the pensive look on Mark’s face. Turning back around to fully face him, you could only guess where his thoughts had spiraled to.

“And destructive. Before I could do that, I would melt things, light things on fire, burn... hurt people. Things I can’t undo.” Your voice was quiet but firm, trying to get the point across to him in the most sympathetic way possible that he wasn’t alone in this. He wasn’t the only person to have ever struggled with powers, to have done things he wishes he could take back. “You have got to stop looking at your powers like a curse, and everybody else’s like a blessing. They’re neither. They’re just... they just are.”

The basilisk was quiet, turning his gaze from the carpet up to you. You held his eye contact, easily looking back into those slit pupils with sincerity. “Got it?” You asked.

“Got it.”

Trying not to make your breath of relief too obvious, you rolled out your neck as you focused back on what you’d really meant to start with tonight. “So, some breathing techniques for grounding. Again, we’re trying to build a foundation before anything else. Throughout all of these, I want you to try to reach out for your magic. I know this whole time you’ve been trying to avoid it, right? Trying not to hurt your friend?”

“Yeah.”

“You can’t hurt me, so don’t worry,” you flashed him a confident smile.

Mark sat up with interest at this. “I’ve always heard that sphinxes can’t be petrified by basilisks, and I always kind of thought it was just one of those things about our magic canceling each other out or whatever. Like how siren venom doesn’t work on other sirens. But then Renjun said that actually nobody’s powers work on you because you’ve got... he called it anti-magic, I don’t know if that’s right or...”

“Well that’s very dramatic,” you commented humorously. “‘Anti-magic.’ No, we call it nixing, or foiling. Like all of our powers, we don’t come into it until we’re adults, so technically magic does work on us for a period of time. It also fluctuates with our magical strength, like all beings’ powers. That’s why ‘anti-magic’ isn’t the best word, because it is magic. We can use it too much and get drained.”

“So there’s still a chance I could accidentally petrify you or something!” He panicked, his voice rising with fear.

“Mark, you’re not going to,” you said calmly. “Nixing is instinctual to me, like it is for any developed sphinx. That’s why your friend Renjun called it ‘anti-magic.’ Because it’ll seem like I’m not even doing anything, like your powers are just fizzling out on their own. I promise it’ll be fine. It would take me nixing a lot of very strong magic for a very long time to be drained anywhere near levels where my nixing could have even a chance of being weaker, much less not working at all. What we’re doing won’t even come close.”

He gulped. “Really?”

“Really. Let me worry about me and my powers.” You placed a hand over your chest. “You just work on finding your powers, wherever you’ve pushed them to in there.”

“You say that like I’ve got some big cavern inside of me or something,” he snorted skeptically. “Or this mind palace thing that Renjun always talks about.”

“If imagining something like that helps you, then sure.”

“I was joking.”

“This is magic, Mark. It’s a lot more abstract and metaphysical than whatever you’re learning in your bio classes.”

He groaned. “Oh great. I almost failed my philosophy class freshman year.”

“Good thing I’m not handing out grades, then. Come on, close your eyes. I’ll start a count.”

Mark had even less of a foundation than you did when you started out. At least your powers had been tied to your emotions at first—such as the case of a rather unfortunate car melting—meanwhile from what you could tell, his seemed to just happen randomly. When you tried to talk him through recalling how he felt in the moments leading up to when he actually used his powers, he couldn’t find any sort of common thread. The first time, he’d been startled by Johnny unexpectedly appearing around the corner in a clay face mask, but other times they’d be watching movies together, eating dinner, or playing basketball. It couldn’t be self-defense, fight or flight, or even just any strong emotion—one time Mark was scrolling on his phone practically catatonic, glanced up for one second and Johnny was on the floor.

Counting back down from the last breathing exercise you had prepared for the night, you stole a glance at the time. Between dinner and this, Mark had been at your place for almost three hours, that was plenty for one night. “Alright, Mark, let’s call it there for today,” you announced quietly, offering him a fleeting half-smile. “How are you feeling?”

“The same as when I got here. Well, less hungry, I guess,” he shrugged, blowing a couple pieces of hair out of his eyes. “Thanks, though. Sorry I ate your food then just wasted your time.”

“I told you it wasn’t going to be a one and done. I think the only one of us who expected you to come in here and immediately nail everything was you.”

“It’s not that I was expecting to nail everything… just sort of hoping I’d at least be able to do something? Other than breathe?”

You chuckled, “Yeah, that’s fair. Once you can feel your powers, it’ll be a lot different, I promise.”

“Different…” he echoed. “Not easier, or better?”

“Different,” you confirmed with a nod. “Unfortunately, it’s looking like we can’t use muscle memory to get there, which is how I was taught. Since there’s apparently nothing in common with how you’ve used your powers before. Other than—” With a thoughtful frown, you cut yourself off, quickly trying to recall all the stories Mark had told you tonight of him accidentally petrifying or compelling his roommate.

“Other than…?” The basilisk prompted you curiously.

“Have you used your powers on anybody other than Johnny?” You questioned. “Other human friends? Classmates? Random cashier at a grocery store?”

“Yeah, one time.”

“Tell me about it!”

“I don’t know if it really counts…”

“It’s an anomaly, it might help. Who was it? What happened?”

“It was Renjun.”

“Your Magical Creatures Studies major friend.”

“Exactly. He’s kind of got like this list of magical stuff that he wants to do? Like, getting his blood drank by a vampire, experiencing siren venom, that kind of stuff.”

“Getting petrified by a basilisk?”

“Yeah.”

“So you petrified him.”

“Not on purpose! Or, not on my purpose,” Mark groaned. “Renjun’s like actually insane when it comes to that kind of thing. Somehow, he figured out when he was most likely to get accidentally petrified by me and… it happened.”

“Mark.”

“I didn’t mean to!”

“You need to get Renjun’s notes,” you instructed him.

“What?”

“On how he got you to petrify him. If he’s that neurotic, he was definitely taking notes and found some sort of pattern, and probably kept his notes. We need those notes. Get them.”

He sighed and rubbed his face. “You don’t know Renjun. When I say he’s insane about this, I’m not kidding. There’s no way he’d—”

“Just a copy, he can keep the originals. He can come make the copies at my office so he doesn’t even have to use his printing credits at the library,” you bargained.

“Fine, fine! I’ll ask him.”

“Perfect! Here, if you give me your phone, I’ll put my number in and you can let me know what day I can expect him.” After inputting your cell and texting yourself, you handed Mark’s phone back to him, not missing his shaky fingers. You patted his hand, softening your voice, “We’ll figure this out, Mark, alright?”

“Why?” He looked up from where your hand was still resting atop his, to your face, gnawing on his bottom lip with his baby fangs. “Why did you agree to help me? Why are you doing it so… enthusiastically?”

“I’m helping you because you asked for help. And when I was your age, and I needed help doing all of this, too, I had somebody there with me. I don’t know, call me crazy, but I don’t think all of us are here just to go about our lives by ourselves. I think people are supposed to rely on each other, criss-cross their lives so much until you can’t tell one line from another.”

“We’re all interconnected?”

“Yeah, or at least I think we should be, that’s how we’re meant to be. To rely on each other.” You nodded. “Not to randomly get all philosophical on you, I know you said you almost failed that class. You asked me for help, and I wanted to try to help you. No ulterior evil sphinx motive here, I promise. You can tell everybody not to worry about their poor little Markie.”

Mark’s face started turning pink. “It wasn’t really the sphinx part that they were focused on.”

“Oh?” You leaned back, propping yourself up with two hands behind you. “What was it then? Stranger danger?”

“No, not exactly…”

“Then I am stumped about what it could be,” you replied facetiously.

Mark started scrambling to his feet, his word speed picking up, “You know, it’s getting late, if we’re done, I should really get going—”

You followed him up with a grin. “Yeah, of course. You know, I’ve got work tomorrow, you’ve got class—Oh, is that it?” You breathed out in feigned realization. “Because I’m an older woman? They thought I was going to devour you in a different way?”

“Oh God—” He said under his breath, staring at the ceiling. His throat bobbed up and down as he swallowed hard. “I’m really sorry, they were just kidding, you know. And I know there’s no way you’d want to—”

“Remember what I said last week, Mark?”

“W-What part?”

Leaning forward just a little, you reminded him, “Not unless you ask nicely.”

His eyes shot open to the size of dinnerplates, and you could only hold it in for a second before you were openly laughing in his face, barely having the decency to attempt to cover your mouth with your hand, which honestly did little to muffle it.

“You’re awful, Y/N,” Mark groaned, squeezing his eyes shut and shaking his head. “Is this what endearing you gets me? Torture?”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” you tried to apologize through your breathless giggles. “Anyway, I’ll let you go, stop torturing you. Let me know when to expect Renjun. In the meantime, I want you to practice that first breathing exercise twice a day on your own until next Wednesday, okay?”

“Right, thanks.”

You didn’t even look up from your computer screen as you picked up your ringing desk phone. It was the ring for an internal call, meaning that it was either the front desk or one of your colleagues calling you, you didn’t need to filter those calls as much as external calls. “This is Y/N,” you answered automatically, still reviewing the timeline that had just been submitted to you.

“Uh, Ms. Y/L/N?” It was the receptionist, the poor guy sounding rather confused. “There’s a… boy here to see you?”

“A boy?” You repeated, bewildered. “What? Like, a child?”

“No, sorry, not like a little boy. College kid, Huang Renjun, says you’re expecting him?”

“Oh, oh, yes!” You lit up in recognition. “Have him wait there, I’ll be down in just a minute to grab him.”

Striding off the elevator, your eyes immediately locked onto a young man standing in the lobby, clutching a notebook to his chest as he peered around at everything suspiciously. He readjusted his backwards baseball cap minutely, checking the watch that was on that wrist as he brought his hand back down from his head.

“Renjun,” you said his name confidently, walking up to him with a bright smile. “Hi, I’m Y/N. Thanks for coming.”

“Damn, you’re real,” he breathed out.

“Let’s go upstairs, hm?”

The two of you were the only ones in the elevator as the doors shut. “So, what part of my existence did you doubt, exactly?” You asked, amusement in your tone. “Mark knowing me? Or my being a sphinx?”

“The first one,” Renjun had recovered from his initial shock, his voice level as he answered. “I’ve met a sphinx before.”

“And what did you have them do to you?”

“What?”

“You’ve tricked Mark into petrifying you, had your blood drank, and you want a siren to dose you up. I’m wondering what about sphinxes could provide that sort of… rush.”

“I’m not an adrenaline junkie.”

“Your words, not mine.” You held up your hands. “And I’m not judging you, Renjun. Just curious.”

“I don’t know them like that, anyway. It’s my friends’ boss.”

“So what’s on your list, then?”

“I want to solve a sphinx’s riddle.”

One of your eyebrows quirked up, and it was then that the elevator dinged and stopped on your floor. In the copy room, you held a hand out towards Renjun expectantly, and he reluctantly gave you a stack of notebook paper from within his binder. You put the first page on the pane of glass of the copier, lowered the lid, and prepared the setting to make the first copy. “I’m not giving you a riddle,” you stated into the heavy silence that had descended over the two of you.

“Why not?” Renjun whined, reminding you of a petulant child.

The copier shot out the first page, and you repeated the process with the backside. “As a Magical Creatures Studies major, I’m sure you know very well why not.”

“I would totally solve it though! You wouldn’t have to worry about me going insane!”

“You either greatly overestimate your intelligence, or greatly underestimate a sphinx’s.” You shook your head.

“Plenty of people have solved sphinx riddles.”

“And even more have gone insane trying,” you retorted. “No way am I going to even risk making you go insane.”

“I’ll sign whatever waiver you want! You won’t be liable at all!”

“But it’ll still be my fault,” you sighed. “Sol-channeling, nixing, flying, I’d show you any of that. But no riddles.”

He let out a long, dramatic sigh, “Fine.”

“How’d you do it, by the way?”

“Do what?”

“Make Mark petrify you.”

“It’s all in there.”

“Yeah, but we’re going to be here for a little while I copy all these.” You put the next page on. “You can tell me how you figured it out, can’t you?”

“Well, I started by taking notes of as many parameters I could get about when, where, and how Mark was petrifying Johnny,” Renjun started, his eyes sparkling with excitement. “At first I was a bit concerned that he wouldn’t be able to petrify anybody but Johnny. But then I found that in addition to him always petrifying Johnny, one of three things was always present.”

“And what were those three things?”

“Being at home, it being nighttime—aka he was tired—or him being stressed. I figured if I could remove Johnny from the equation but hit all the other three, and conveniently hide his sunglasses, I had a pretty good chance of being petrified.”

“And what if he had accidentally turned you to stone for real?” You crossed your arms over your chest. “He’s a developing basilisk with absolutely no control over his powers, he could have seriously hurt you, or worse.”

Renjun shrugged. “That was a risk I was willing to take.”

“Yeah, for the both of you,” you scoffed, throwing the lid of the copier open and accidentally hitting the wall behind it in the process. “Do you know how awful Mark would’ve felt if he had actually turned one of his friends to stone? And then he had to live with that for the rest of his longer-than-human life? Did you even think about that before tricking him into petrifying you for some stupid fucking magic junkie bucket list?”

The human seemed to be at a loss for words, opening and closing his mouth several times before he looked down at his shoes, going silent.

“That wasn’t rhetorical, Renjun.” You closed the lid on the next page, turning to look at him pointedly. He was looking incredibly guilty, but you weren’t going to let him get away with a noncommittal silence. “Look, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt that your heart is in the right place, and you’re just genuinely curious about all this stuff, but your magical friends are not just here for your entertainment. Whatever they do to you, they have to live with too. You know that, right?”

He sighed bitterly, and after another long, contemplative pause, nodded. “You’re right, you’re right.”

“Yeah, I know I am.”

You sent Renjun off with his original notes and hopefully a lot to think about. You yourself didn’t have too much more work left to do, and locked yourself in your office to go over the copies you’d made. He’d been thorough, and you were realizing that Mark really hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d called his friend crazy. About thirty minutes before the end of the workday, there was a timid knock at your door, and you put down the papers to go answer the door. It was one of your team members, who timidly informed you of a horrible error that had happened that would put the entire project back by two days if it wasn’t fixed today. It was really nobody’s fault, so you took a few deep breaths, rolled up your sleeves, and got to work with everybody else. It was Wednesday, though, and you kept an eye on the time as you worked, running mental calculations in the back of your mind as to when you’d have to text Mark to let him know you’d be late getting home. Thankfully, it was all solved right before then, and you were able to run out the door at just the right time where if you speedwalked and made every light perfectly, you’d be home right on time.

And so you burst into your hallway at exactly 5:59 p.m., spotting Mark on your welcome mat, just lifting his fist to your door to knock. “I’m here!” You called out to him, making him whip around, the surprise apparent on his features. “I’m here, sorry, I’m here. Got held up at work.”

“Hey, no worries,” he flashed you a bright smile, stepping out of your way to let you unlock your front door. “Everything alright?”

You threw an exasperated look at him over your shoulder as you disarmed your alarm, then led the way into your apartment. “Heavenly Sol, don’t get me started. Computers are out to get us all, I swear.”

“Yeah, okay,” Mark nodded, closing the door behind you two and flicking the latch. “Add printers to the list, too. I can never figure out the ones in the library when I have an assignment due.”

You threw your purse onto your kitchen table haphazardly, starting to look through your fridge for dinner ingredients. “Oh shit, I was going to pick up stuff for dinner on my way home, but then everything fucking caught on fire right before I was supposed to leave.”

“That’s okay, Y/N,” the basilisk reassured you. “We can just order pizza or something, alright?”

“Yeah, okay, pizza.” You shut your fridge, rubbing your face in frustration.

“I’ll call and order it, you go get out of your work clothes and stuff. Sound like a plan?”

You took a deep breath. “Sure. Thanks, Markie.”

He beamed at you again, letting you get a full view of his baby fangs. “See? I’m not totally useless.”

“Nobody said you were except you,” you finally chuckled, patting his cheek on your way out of the kitchen.

Jongin had invited everyone around to his place for another dinner party, and you were the first one to arrive tonight. You’d already cracked open a bottle of wine—you snooze, you lose, Baekhyun and Minseok—and were tipping back your first glass of the night as Jongin finished up the food preparations.

“Y/N, how’s your basilisk doing?” Your friend asked, plating a serving of pasta.

“He’s doing alright. It’s been a little rough these past few weeks, if I’m going to be honest with you,” you sighed, doing another heavy pour for yourself. “I taught him some breathing exercises, and those helped a bit, but I can only watch him breathe for so long.”

Jongin made a noise of acknowledgment, but didn’t say anything else, fingertips messing with a silver chain around his neck.

“Do you… have any tips for me?” You asked, used to his minimalist way of communicating.

Your friend pulled out from under his shirt the pendant that hung at the end of that silver chain. It was a black gem that could fit neatly into his palm, obsidian, an intricate weaving design of a snake carved out of the face of it. “Does he have an anchor?”

You habitually twisted the ring around your right ring finger. “No, he doesn’t.”

“Find him one.” He tucked the necklace back under his shirt. “Get him out of his head.”

“Right. Thanks, Jongin.”

A flurry of excited knocks came from the front door, and you and Jongin exchanged knowing looks. You threw open the door to see an excited Baekhyun and already beaming Minseok, the former’s eyes lighting up even as he gasped in mock offense.

“You started drinking without us?!” The siren threw a hand over his chest as he locked in on the glass in your hand and open bottle on the kitchen island.

“Yep, you’re a glass and a half behind,” you taunted, guiding him in by the arm he had around your shoulders. “Better catch up, Baekhyunnie.”

“She opened that not even ten minutes ago,” Jongin informed the other two flatly in lieu of a proper greeting.

“Fuckin’ narc.” You stuck your tongue out at him as Baekhyun started pouring for him and Minseok. Minseok, meanwhile, was over by the vinyl record player, flicking through Jongin’s collection until he picked one that he liked, and swapped out the classical music that the basilisk already had playing.

“I was listening to that,” Jongin complained as a funky, upbeat pop melody started coming through the speakers.

“And now you’re listening to this,” Minseok retorted. “Much better party music.”

“And you people wonder why I don’t invite you to events with my colleagues,” the basilisk sighed, taking out his bottle of witch’s brew from the fridge. His slit pupils trailed over the figures of you and Baekhyun, not nearly tipsy enough for the kind of dancing you were doing, but doing it nonetheless. “Heathens, the lot of you.”

“Oh, like we didn’t all go to college together,” Baekhyun fired back, mischievous glint in his eye. “We all know what you used to get up to on that stuff, Jongin. Before you started playing pretend at being respectable and refined.”

“Yeah, come on, NiNi!” You tugged him into the living room by his wrist, playing absolutely dirty by bringing out the nickname you used to call him when you were little, little kids. When you first met, you couldn’t quite say his name, so you somehow landed on NiNi, which you called him until you could finally say it intelligibly. Even now, you only brought the nickname out when you really wanted something. And according to the now nearly two glasses of wine in you, you really wanted him to dance with the other three of you.

“God, fine,” he rolled his eyes, taking a deep swig of the witch’s brew before letting you fully tug him into the mess.

The following Wednesday found you opening up your door a few minutes early, 5:55. Mark was already pink-eared and covering his face with his hands. “God, let me in, please, please,” he groaned, making you cock your head curiously.

Before you could ask what was going on, you heard a couple wolf whistles and taunts from further down the hall, and spotted a gaggle of college boys heading towards you. Or, rather, heading towards your neighbors’ apartment, presumably, as you spotted Chenle and Jisung in the throng of students. You opened your door wider for Mark, who didn’t even wait for you to move as he ducked under your arm to run inside. With a final humorous glance at the group, you turned around to face the anxiously pacing basilisk.

“And what are you so worked up for?” You asked with a chuckle, shutting your door behind him. “You just got here, take a breather.”

He gesticulated at the closed door, a wild look in his eyes. “Well, because they all think we’re—”

“Having sex? I know.” You laughed again and headed back into your kitchen.

“And you don’t care?”

Pivoting on your heel to focus a pointed look on him, you put your hands squarely on your hips as you told him frankly, “Mark. I’m a grown ass woman. Whatever ideas my two college kid neighbors and their little twerp friends have about my sex life are so beyond the realm of things that I care about.”

“Oh.” He blinked, and you could practically see the gears turning in his brain as he processed that. “Of course.”

With that settled in your mind, you turned your back on him again to attend to your cooking, continuing your conversation over your shoulder. “You should really try it, you know.”

“Try what?!” He squeaked as he was halfway through taking his backpack off his shoulder and setting it down beside the couch.

“Not caring so much about what other people think about you. You know they’re only doing all that because you’re reacting like this.”

“I know, I know,” he admitted with a sigh, his voice much closer now. You heard the scrape of one of the stools at your kitchen island as he pulled it out to sit down and watch you cook.

“So, have you been working on—”

“Wait, do you think I’m a twerp?”

You pivoted around, knife in hand. “Three seconds ago I would’ve said no, except you just interrupted me, so yes, I think you’re a rude little twerp with no manners.”

He looked at you with wide eyes. “Sorry, sorry.”

“So have you been working on the breathing techniques I showed you?” You tossed the last bits in the container, sealing it up before putting it in the fridge.

“Yeah.”

Putting everything into the sink to be washed up later, you spun around to look at Mark eagerly, “Good. Now come on, grab your bag.”

“Wait, we’re done already?” 

“No, we’re going shopping.”

“I thought you were cooking dinner?”

“Yeah, that’s my dinner for tomorrow, it’s got to marinate overnight. You and I are eating out tonight. Come on!” You clapped your hands together in a hup-hup gesture, and Mark scrambled to grab his bag before meeting you at the front door.

“For a lot of magical creatures who were born with their powers, they often see it as shameful to use objects to focus or help them harness their abilities,” you explained to Mark as you stopped in front of your first destination. He rushed to hold the door open for you, and you gave him a nod and grateful smile as you continued, “Save for witches, of course, that’s kind of their whole thing. But for beings like us, whose powers come on later, a lot of times having an external object can help ground us a lot better and give us something physical to tie this new part of us to while we’re learning to use it.”

“What kind of object?” He asked, looking around the apothecary hesitantly.

“It’s different for every kind of being, and even for every individual. That’s why I couldn’t just show up with some rock and say ‘here you go!’ You need to pick it out for yourself.”

“What’s yours?”

You held up your right hand, where a toffee brown gem gleamed from a silver setting on one of your fingers. “Tiger’s eye ring. My grandmother gave it to me when she was helping me out with my powers.”

“It’s really pretty.”

“She said she got it from a witch ‘friend’ of hers a while back,” you commented humorously. “Anyway, anything speaking to you?”

He looked over the merchandise around you, and sighed. “I mean, it’s all cool, but... nothing really jumps out.”

“That’s fine, don’t force it. This is just the first aisle of the first store we’re looking in. Deep breath, Mark.”

“Right, okay. It can be anything?”

“Anything. Doesn’t have to be a stone, doesn’t have to be jewelry, those are just sort of the most popular items. I hate to have to say this but... you’ll know it when you see it. You just will.”

“Y/N.” He said your name flatly. “I have never been that sure of anything in my entire life.”

You tried to keep in your giggles at his clearly exasperated expression. Tweaking one of his cheeks, you reassured him, “First time for everything, Markie.”

Three apothecaries and a 24-hour ramen place later, and you could tell Mark was Over It, capital O, capital I. He had really been trying his best, engaging with every miscellaneous item that you showed to him, but you could tell that none of them were it for him. Leaving the last shop for the night, you opted not to take him into another one, instead meandering away from the shopping district downtown that you had been in.

“I’m sorry I’m such a dud, Y/N,” Mark groaned, running a hand through his hair.

“No, you’re not, Mark,” you tried to reassure him. “You’re just… taking it at your own pace.”

“Was that supposed to make me feel better? You might as well have called me a late bloomer.”

“What’s wrong with being a late bloomer?”

“That’s what people tell losers so they don’t feel like losers.”

You rolled your eyes. “And that’s how I can tell you’re still a kid, Markie.”

“What?”

“There’s nothing wrong with being a so-called loser, or a late bloomer, or taking things at your own pace. Part of growing up, and becoming an adult, a real grown-up, is realizing that there’s no one prescribed path and way to do things. Especially when it comes to being a magical being.”

“That’s easy to say when you’re already a grown-up.”

“I suppose.” You shrugged. “Here, I’ll let you in on a secret, hm?”

“Oh yeah?”

“When was your first kiss?”

“What?” He sputtered out. “I thought you were going to tell me a secret?!”

“Humor me.”

He mumbled something under his breath that you couldn’t quite catch.

“What was that?”

“Seventeen, okay?!” He huffed. “Listen, it was my first girlfriend and—”

“Twenty-one,” you cut him off with a shrug.

“What?”

“My first kiss was when I was twenty-one,” you repeated nonchalantly. “You thought I had it a lot earlier, didn’t you?”

“It’s not like I was really hypothesizing about it or anything—”

“But the way you told me about yours, you got defensive, like you had assumed yours was late or something, and that I was going to judge you, because I must have had mine earlier than seventeen,” you pointed out. “But I didn’t.”

“But you’re… you’re so… Why?” His face screwed up in confusion.

“That was my first serious boyfriend,” you explained. “I wanted it to be special. I didn’t expect it to take that long, but it did.”

“And what was the point of this?”

“There’s nothing wrong with whatever pace your life is going at, Mark. I don’t think ‘late bloomers’ even exist, because that implies there’s a benchmark to do something by, and having it happen after that therefore makes you late.”

Mark was quiet for a few moments as you continued walking. “You really think I’m still a kid?”

“Oh yeah,” you ruffled his hair. “Only a kid would be worried about if someone thinks they’re a kid.”

He made a disgruntled sound at you messing up his hair, but did nothing to move out of the way of your hand. “Where are we even going now? Another store?”

“Nah.” You led the way off the sidewalk and into the grass, towards the river that cut through the center of town. Traffic hummed overhead where a bridge crossed the water, and you stopped at a rocky patch to pick up a smooth pebble, tossing it up and down a few times. Looking over your shoulder at a skeptical Mark, you asked, “You know how to skip rocks?”

You tossed your first one, managing to skip it a few times before it plopped under the surface. Grabbing another rock, you pushed it into Mark’s hand insistently. “Oh, gross, it’s cold and wet,” he wrinkled his nose, but readied his arm nevertheless.

“You’re literally a basilisk, dude,” you retorted, watching him line up his shot.

“Rude.”

“Hey, I don’t mind.” You held up your hands defensively. “I’m just saying.”

He got it two-thirds of the way across, and shrugged. “Eh…”

“First one to skip it all the way across wins?” You suggested with a smirk.

“Wins what?”

“Mmm…” You hummed thoughtfully. “I got it! Winner earns a secret.”

“Huh?”

“Winner earns a secret of their choosing from the loser. If I win, I can ask you to tell me a secret about whatever topic I want. If you win, same goes for you.”

“Why would I agree to that?”

You grinned. “Because you want to know more about me, don’t you, Markie?”

He gulped, then started looking around at the rocks down by his feet. “Fine. But don’t ask me anything weird if you win.”

“Aw, where’s the fun in that?” You snickered, searching for your own rock to toss.

Mark went first, and his almost made it, but lost momentum about eighty percent of the way there. You went next, flicking your wrist the complete wrong way, only getting one skip before your rock pathetically plopped under the surface. The basilisk next to you giggled. “Are you even trying?”

You stuck your tongue out at him. “Like you’re doing any better, you little shit.”

“Real mature,” he shook his head, brushing off some dirt from the rock he just picked up. “Real grown-up of you. Who’s the kid here, allegedly?”

“Just throw it.” You were already searching for your next pebble.

“So, did you say anything to Renjun, when you met him?”

“What do you mean? Of course I talked to him.”

“No, I mean like—” Mark flicked his arm a couple times in practice shots, maintaining his hold on his stone. “He apologized to me, for tricking me into petrifying him and bought me lunch. Renjun doesn’t apologize.”

“Oh,” you feigned surprise. “That’s nice of him.”

“Y/N.”

“I didn’t threaten him, if that’s what you’re asking. We chatted. He apparently thought some more afterwards.” You finally spotted a lovely lighter colored one, with dark, perfectly circular spots all along it. You couldn’t quite make out the colors in the negligible light from the moon and lone streetlamp all the way up on the bridge, but you liked the weight of it in your hand.

You looked up just in time to watch Mark skip his rock all the way across the river, skidding up onto the shore on the other side. He jumped up and down victoriously, turning around to look at you, excitement on his features. “Yes! Did you see that?!” He cheered, an ecstatic grin on his face. “Ha! Take that!”

“Good job, Markie,” you snickered, holding a hand up for him to high-five zealously. Your palm stung where he had smacked it enthusiastically, a loud slap of skin hitting skin ringing out. Taking your phone out, you turned on your flashlight to look at the rock that you had found, taking in the mossy green color and dark red spots. “Huh, cool.”

As you were about to toss it back into the water, Mark’s hand darted out to grab your wrist. “Wait a second…”

“What?” You looked at him curiously. “You want to try to make it across twice? You won’t get two secrets from me. Sorry, one-time offer.”

“No,” he shook his head, holding your hand open to stare down at the stone. “It’s… it’s a nice rock.”

“Yeah, I guess,” you agreed, continuing to study his face. “Do you… want to keep it, Mark?”

“Do you mind?”

“No, go for it.” You turned your hand over, depositing it into his palm. “All yours.”

He continued looking at it with fascination, fingertip tracing over the textured edges. “Y/N… I think this is my anchor.”

“I think you’re right.” You patted him on the shoulder. “Congrats, dude.”

“Hey, can I uh, take a raincheck on asking you for that secret? I kind of want to think on it.”

“Sure. Use it wisely.”

“I just got home, Sehun, what could be so pertinent that you need to call me now?” You sighed as you answered your ringing cell phone some weeks later. “And why are you still at work? You said only ten more minutes, thirty minutes ago.”

Your coworker sounded simultaneously guilty, nervous, and as exasperated as you, “I know, but Director Han was asking to see some of the numbers and then, well... I got this email from Mr. Shin. I don’t know how to respond. I forwarded it to you.”

Sitting down at your kitchen table, you opened your laptop, which turned on already to your work email. Right at the top was a forwarded email from Oh Sehun, and you clicked on it. You skimmed it over, your lip curling with distaste. Mr. Shin was a project manager in another department, and was apparently trying to assign “urgent tasks” to your employees that needed to be on his desk first thing tomorrow. Sehun would’ve needed to stay all night and/or come in ridiculously early tomorrow in order to get this done. “I’ll handle Mr. Shin, don’t worry about doing any of this. You go home. Now.” You directed Sehun. “And I’ll remind Director Han in the morning about the company’s overtime policy as well.”

“Right. Thank you, Y/N.”

“Of course. Goodnight, Sehun.”

Setting your phone aside, you quickly drafted an email in reply to Mr. Shin, keeping your snark to appropriate corporate levels, reminding him that he couldn’t assign tasks to your employees, and any requests such as this had to come through you first. As well as outlining the unreasonableness of the time demands.

“So what do you do?” Mark asked, suddenly reminding you of his presence. It was Wednesday, though your usual dinnertime ritual had been interrupted before it could even start, Sehun’s call coming as soon as the college student had stepped foot in your apartment.

“I’m a project manager at a company that does network security for other companies,” you informed him, not taking your eyes off your screen as you went to re-read the email for a quick proofread.

“Project manager?”

“I manage a bunch of other people’s projects instead of actually working on them myself, and get paid more than them for it.” You filled in a missing word, and deeming the email finished, pressed send, shutting your laptop. Looking up at Mark, who had an adorably confused look on his face, you gave him a smirk. “When you grow up, Markie, you’ll understand that most corporate jobs are fake and it’s all about your title and how well you can negotiate your salary and bullshit in front of your boss.”

“So you don’t like your job?”

You shrugged. “I like it just fine. It pays for me to live here by myself, after all. I have reasonable hours, and plenty of free time, vacation days, and disposable income. I keep my subordinates and my superiors happy. But if I got a better offer at another company, and my company couldn’t match it, I would have no qualms about packing it up next week.”

“Seriously?” His eyes widened.

“Seriously.”

“Just-Just leaving?” His voice rose with alarm.

“The company, yeah. Not here. I have a life here. My family, and my friends,” you explained, standing up from your dining table.

You could see him visibly relax at that. “Oh, okay.”

“And my Markie,” you teased, pinching his cheek as you passed him on your way to the kitchen.

He squirmed a little, but didn’t knock your hand away. “Hey...”

You laughed to yourself, stopping at the sink to wash your hands before starting on dinner.

“Am I not your friend?” Mark’s question stopped you as you were grabbing ingredients from the fridge.

“Huh?” It was your turn to be confused. Your hand hovered over a bell pepper.

“You said you have your family, your friends, and me. You didn’t include me in your friends. Am I not your friend?” His voice was closer now, and you shut the door to turn towards it, not expecting him to be right on the other side. You jumped in your skin a bit, but that wasn’t the only reason your heart was racing, and a shiver shot up your spine all the way to the back of your neck. Mark’s dark, slit pupils were focused on you with such an intensity that you would’ve thought he were trying to petrify you if the both of you didn’t already know that that wouldn’t work. There was something so startlingly adult in his gaze, all sense of boyish charm that his features usually held gone as the overhead lights of your kitchen cast them in harsh shadows and angles. For the first time ever when you looked at Mark, you were reminded that basilisks were technically predators.

You laughed, hoping he couldn’t hear how nervous you were in it. Wishing your heart to still, you squeezed his upper arm reassuringly. “Oh, no, of course you’re my friend. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to leave you out like that.”

Were his arms always this toned? Or was this just the first time you noticed it?

Mark held your gaze for another moment before he blinked, shook his head, and smiled, “Yeah, of course. I’m sorry about that. School’s just fried my brain, you know?”

“Don’t worry about it.” You smiled back, patting his shoulder before opening the fridge again.

“You need any help?”

“Sure, sure. You mind chopping some vegetables?” You held the bell pepper out to him.

He nodded dutifully. “On it!”

As he started on that task with the same eagerness to please that he always had, you found that you couldn’t box him back in as just that cute bumbling college kid who had appeared on your doorstep a few weeks ago. Gently pressing your hand to his back to let him know that you were skirting around behind him with your own knife, you took note of how firm it was under your fleeting touch, hidden under another one of his school t-shirts that hung off his shoulders in such a way that it seemed as though every readjustment of his arms caused the motion to catch your gaze. When he asked you to assess the cuts he was making, you had to reach over to adjust how he was holding the bell pepper and knife, listening to his own heartbeat for a twofold reason: to not have to hear to your own spike as your gaze dragged over his forearms and hands where they gripped the handle, and because you were curious. You weren’t a fool, you knew Mark was attracted to you superficially the moment you opened your door the first night. But what about now?

You carefully made a couple minute adjustment to his fingers, letting your own fingertips graze over his skin and linger for just a moment longer than necessary, as if you were making extra certain he had the right position. To your satisfaction, you heard his heart pick up to more of a skitter, and his breaths through his nose quickened. Then, you let go of him as quick as you’d descended.

“Try that now,” you murmured. He pushed the blade down and sliced it through the red pepper easily, at the perfect width. You squeezed right at the bend of his arm approvingly as you praised him, “Good job, Mark.”

“T-Thanks.” The tips of his ears were red, and you could feel his arm tense under your grasp. Taking your hand back to pick your blade up again, you then went back to chopping your own ingredients.

A few weeks later, and Mark had been progressing pretty well now that he had an anchor. You’d taken his stone to a local coven’s shop downtown to get it turned into a pendant so he didn’t have to worry about remembering to put it in his pocket every day. Interestingly when given free rein to match the carving to him without either of your input, the witches had crafted a lion instead of anything serpentine, as was popular for basilisks. On a Wednesday morning, you had just settled into your desk at work when your phone buzzed with a text from Mark.

[markie: i am SO sorry but my prof just announced a study session tonight and i NEED to attend. are you free any other time this week? if not, next week is great as usual!]

[you: saturday. 10:30 a.m. be there or be square]

[markie: be there or be square? i forgot how old you are]

[you: nvm don’t come over you ungrateful twerp]

[you: i was joking, Sol forbid women do anything]

[markie: nooooooo im so sorry 🥺🥺🥺]

[you: nice try but those emojis are doing nothing you googoo gaga ass bitch]

[markie: i'll bring bagels?]

[you: fine. no bagels no entry]

[markie: 🫡]

Saturday at 10:29 a.m. there was a knock at your front door. Mark was in fact on the other side, holding up a brown paper bag with a logo of a nearby bakery on the side.

“Hey, come on in.” You smiled breathlessly, readjusting the toddler on your hip.

“Thanks.” He shut the door behind him, then nodded to the child. “So uh, anything new, Y/N?”

“He’s not mine,” you replied frankly. “This is my nephew. I’m emergency babysitting, hope you don’t mind. We had already rescheduled once, and it was last-minute.”

“No, of course not. Little guy’s cute.” Mark gently poked MinMin’s chubby cheek, making the little boy giggle, and the basilisk giggle back in turn. “So this is what a baby sphinx looks like...”

“Not a sphinx, he’s a wittle witch.” You cooed at the baby in your arms, gently pinching his tummy to elicit another joyous laugh.

“Huh?”

“He’s not actually related to me, he’s my friend’s kid. I’ve just known Jongdae—his dad—for so long that I get to be Aunt Y/N.”

“That’s really nice... So what’s his name?”

“Everyone just calls him MinMin. I don’t think the poor guy will ever be called by his real name unless he’s in trouble.”

“Oof, the full name scolding.”

“Speaking of... Did you remember, Mark Lee?”

“Ouch. You can literally see the bag in my hands.” He shook the bag before putting it on the dining table.

“I meant your homework, not the bagels.”

“Oh.” Mark grabbed a couple dishes from your kitchen cabinets, setting them at your usual places before doing the same with napkins. “Yes, I did that too.”

You sat down, settling MinMin in your lap as you peered into the bag for your usual bagel order, setting it on your plate. “Alright, then show me.”

“Uh... with MinMin here?” Mark asked uncertainly, looking at the child.

“Oh, right. Hold on.” You stood up and walked over to the diaper bag Jongdae had dropped off when he’d shown up and deposited MinMin into your arms in a rushed panic. His wife was an emergency medicine doctor and had gotten called into a shift at the ER in the wee hours of the morning, but your friend was already booked to perform at a wedding that day, and the only babysitter he could find at the last minute was you. You were more than happy to take MinMin for the day, even with your prior arrangements with Mark.

Rooting around through a couple of the pockets, moving aside diapers, snacks, and spare changes of clothes, you finally secured what you were looking for. A teeny, tiny, baby-sized pair of sunglasses. Taking him and the glasses back over to your spot in front of Mark, you sat MinMin down in your lap and gently pulled the green Keroppi-themed sunglasses onto the child’s face. They secured around the back of his head with a strap, which you adjusted as you spoke to Mark, “He would probably be fine, but just in case.”

Mark still seemed hesitant.

“His parents are witches, these are enchanted,” you reassured the basilisk, tapping the frames. “And I’ll be nixing anything you send our way. He’ll be fine. Promise.”

“Aren’t we supposed to eat first?” He sighed, gesturing to his bagel that he hadn’t even been able to take a bite of.

“You’re right, you’re right,” you relented. You were a few bites into your meal when MinMin had finished off his sippy cup. Picking up the empty container, you took it and the toddler with you as you stood up from the chair. “Oh, all done, bub? Let’s get you something else.”

Opening your fridge, you started pointing out the options to the child, “Let’s see… we have water, your dad left you a juice box… or we can open the chocolate milk we grabbed from the corner store before Markie got here?”

“Choco!” MinMin chirped excitedly, and you chuckled as you took out the carton. As you turned to grab the sippy cup, you weren’t expecting to see Mark turned around and peering at you with interest on his features, his eyes locked on the jug in your hand. You raised an eyebrow at him, continuing your task of rinsing out the previous drink before cracking open the carton.

“Mark…” You said knowingly. “Do you want chocolate milk?”

“Please?” He replied sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Sure.” You smiled to yourself as you grabbed another cup from your cabinet, filling that and MinMin’s up before putting the chocolate milk back. Handing MinMin his sippy cup to hold, you carried him on one hip and Mark’s glass with the other hand, setting it down in front of the young man as you went to sit back down.

“Thank you!” He beamed, immediately picking it up and taking a big gulp.

You had the same fond smile on your face as you immediately saw his dark milk mustache, handing him a napkin. “You’re welcome.”

“Thank you!” MinMin echoed, lifting his own sippy cup to his mouth. “Thank you thank you!”

“Aww, you’re welcome, MinMin,” you giggled, patting the top of the boy’s head.

“Alright, you’re doing pretty good,” you declared as you’d reached a stopping point for the day.

He ducked his head bashfully. “You’re a good teacher.”

“Aw, thanks.” You stood up, grabbing the napkin from MinMin’s snack to toss in your kitchen trash. The boy was playing with some toys next to the two of you on the floor of your living room.

“So uh—” Mark cleared his throat over a voice crack. “What are you doing for the rest of the day? Do you have MinMin all day or…?”

“Jongdae said the reception won’t be over until late tonight. But his wife should get off sooner than that.” You tidied up a couple miscellaneous items in your kitchen as you chatted. “And what are you doing today, Mark?”

“Well—Woah!” At his sudden exclamation and the small giggle that followed, you peeked up from the dish you were drying to see Mark cautiously holding his hands up like he was under arrest as MinMin floundered around in his lap—you guessed he had fallen into it at first—for a second before righting himself and plopping down properly. “Uh… hi, buddy?” Mark said, his lack of self-confidence evident in the high pitch of his voice.

“Hi!” MinMin replied cheerily, his attention otherwise on the toy in his hand.

“You two alright in there?” You questioned, not bothering to hide the amusement in your tone.

“He just kind of sat down, I don’t know,” he quickly explained, still not lowering his hands.

“If you’re okay with him being there, that’s fine.”

“Y-Yeah!”

“You sure?” You walked back over, sitting down in front of the two boys so you could reach out and teasingly pinch MinMin’s nose. “You look terrified. He’s a baby witch, but he won’t do anything to you, promise.”

“It’s just… I have an older brother, and I’m the youngest cousin,” he admitted. “Haven’t really been around a lot of babies. Basilisk or otherwise.”

“Me neither, before MinMin,” you replied in understanding. “Only child, and so were my parents.”

“Wow, really?”

“Sphinxes are rare, remember?”

“I mean, I knew that, but I never really thought about what that really meant like, for you. Like, your family, that kind of stuff.”

You shrugged as a sort of ‘it is what it is’ gesture. “So, you never did tell me what you’re doing today.”

“Oh, uhm, well, we’re all having a movie night, at Chenle and Jisung’s later. And I was wondering if you—”

“Would let you stay here until then so you don’t have to go all the way back home then come all the way back here?” You finished knowingly, eyebrow quirking up.

“Yeah! Yeah, exactly,” he smiled sheepishly.

“Sure,” you agreed. “Looks like MinMin isn’t going to let you go anytime soon, anyway.” You indicated towards the toddler who had slowly started slumping over in Mark’s lap, very clearly about to nap.

“Uh, what do I do?” He asked you with wide eyes.

“He can sleep there, or I can take him.”

“Maybe you should…”

You nodded, standing up to go over to MinMin’s bag and pull out a floor mat, stuffed animal, and baby monitors. After setting everything up in a clear area of your floor, you scooped the boy up out of Mark’s lap and deposited him onto the mat on his back. You watched as he rolled around and readjusted until he was comfy, eyes fluttering shut completely and breathing evening out. Satisfied, you walked back over to Mark and offered him a hand up off the ground. He took it, seeming confused as you then led him away from the living room and towards your bedroom. At your room, Mark stopped in the threshold like crossing in would burn him alive, as you flopped onto one side of your bed, set the baby monitor on your nightstand, and grabbed your laptop. You scoffed and patted the other side of the bed, “Do you need to be invited inside like a vampire? Please, come in, Mark.”

“I’ve never been in your bedroom,” he muttered, taking a hesitant step in, his eyes focused on his feet.

“Really?” You scrounged through your memories, and came up empty. Shrugging, you patted the empty space on your bed insistently again. “First time for everything. Come on, we can’t watch TV out there with MinMin napping.”

He tentatively sat down cross-legged, his entire body noticeably tense as you slumped into your pillows and started scrolling through your options.

“You pick,” you declared, pushing the device towards him. “I’m in the middle of a drama and if I put it on, you’ll be confused.”

“I don’t mind, you can put on what you want,” he nudged the laptop back to you.

“Nope, I don’t need a twerp making fun of my drama preferences.” You pushed it back.

“Not a twerp. And I won’t make fun of it.” He pushed it over again.

“On one condition,” you bargained, pointing a finger at him threateningly. “You need to get invested. No scrolling on your phone. I’ll pause and answer any questions, explain everything for you. But I need you to be an active watcher with me. Deal?”

“Deal.” He nodded quickly.

As you queued up the next episode, you explained the basic premise, “It’s set in modern day, but there’s flashbacks from all different time periods. It’s about a phoenix who was cursed hundreds of years ago and can never remember her past once she reincarnates. This is obviously difficult for her vampire lover, who now has to win her over again with each reincarnation, but they’ve made it work so far. Except he wasn’t there when she had her last reincarnation, because she got into an accident while he was away at work or something. So in her amnesiac state after reincarnation, she wandered off, and he ended up losing her for long enough for her to have started a completely new life. And by the time he finds her again, she now has a new partner!”

Mark was nodding along, having listened to everything with rapt attention like you were teaching him about his powers again. “So that’s where this episode starts?”

“No, Markie,” you laughed and patted his leg. “That was just the first half of the pilot. We’re about to start episode eight.”

“Wait, that’s it?!” Mark scrolled down to the bottom of the list of episodes in disbelief. “But they just can’t leave it there!”

“The season is still premiering,” you informed him with a chuckle, readjusting your pillow under your head. “I think there’s maybe five more episodes?”

He had gradually sat back against the pillows at the head of your bed over the course of the two episodes you’d watched, and ran a hand through his hair as he let out a disgruntled sigh. “You’ve got to tell me how it ends.”

“It premieres on Fridays at 8:00.”

His brows knit together with confusion as he tried to follow the conversation. “It’s okay, I won’t make you wait five days to watch it with me.”

It was your turn to be confused for a beat, and then you realized that he thought you were offering to not watch new episodes when they premiered on Fridays and instead watch them with him when he came over on the following Wednesday. “No, Mark, if you want to watch it, you can come here and watch it. On Friday.” You clarified, then at his apparent surprise, tacked on, “With me.”

“But I thought you didn’t want to give up your Friday nights?”

“Yeah, because I’ve been watching this,” you gestured to the laptop screen. “No magic, that stays on Wednesdays. Fridays are for ‘Our Love from the Ashes’ only. Deal?”

You held your pinky finger out to him. He looked down at it nervously, then hooked his with it. “Deal,” he nodded, shaking pinkies in a very business-like manner.

At the same time, you started hearing the babbling sounds of MinMin waking up, and your phone screen lit up with a text. You grabbed both the baby monitor and your phone as you rolled off your bed, checking your messages and heading for your door. Covering your mouth, you couldn’t help the gasp that escaped.

“What?” Mark was following you, and stopped when you did by the threshold.

“Jongdae’s gig got cut short. He’ll be by to get MinMin soon,” you said, reading the message from your friend again.

“‘Got cut short?’”

You looked up at the basilisk as you said plainly, “Groom got cold feet, apparently.”

His eyes widened. “Oh my god…”

There was a knock at your front door less than an hour later. “MinMin, that’s your Dada!” You told the toddler enthusiastically, pulling on his last shoe as he sat in your lap.

He kicked his feet excitedly, making the task more difficult. “Eee!”

“Mark, can you get his diaper bag for me?” You requested of the basilisk, who was standing off to the side uncertainly.

“Yeah, of course.” He quickly went to oblige.

You walked over to the front door holding one of MinMin’s hands, and opened it for your friend. Jongdae was still in the full suit he was meant to perform in, bowtie and all, and stepped inside to give you a hug hello. “Hi, Y/N,” he patted your back. “Thank you again.”

“Hey, Jongdae,” you hugged your friend back. “No problem, he was great for us. I feel so sorry for that poor bride, though.”

“I know, I know.” He shook his head.

“Please tell me you’re still getting paid, right? At least a half-day or a deposit or something?”

“I keep my deposit, yeah. I usually don’t insist on much more if it’s not a mutual cancellation. Feel too bad…” He rubbed the back of his neck before picking up his son, focusing a much brighter smile on him. “Hi, MinMin! Were you good for Aunt Y/N?”

The boy nodded quickly. “Yeah!”

Jongdae then turned back to you, “So who did you say was coming over again? Baek?”

Mark finally approached from where he had been awkwardly hovering by your dining table just behind Jongdae, holding MinMin’s diaper bag. You stepped in to make introductions, grabbing Mark’s arm to bring him closer. “Jongdae, this is Mark, the basilisk I’ve mentioned, remember? Mark, this is Jongdae.”

“Nice to meet you,” Mark said politely, offering out the bag.

“You too.” Jongdae accepted the bag, giving the younger man a quick, mildly intrigued once-over before looking back to you. “We owe you one, Y/N.”

“No you don’t, you know he’s welcome here anytime. He’s a little angel.”

“For now. The terrible twos are around the corner,” your friend scoffed, turning towards the door again.

“You’re going to jinx yourself,” you warned him, grabbing the door handle to hold it open for him.

“I’ll throw some salt over my shoulder when I get home.” He shook his head, then gave you and Mark a nod goodbye. “See you two. Say bye, MinMin.”

“Bye!” The boy waved zealously over his dad’s shoulder, and you grinned and waved back before shutting the door behind them.

Turning back to your one remaining guest, you tilted your head to ask, “When does movie night start?” Before Mark could answer, however, the sounds of explosions and engines revving came through your living room wall, albeit slightly muffled. “Right now?” You guessed, amused.

“Oh, didn’t even realize the time…” Mark’s ears were pink as he looked at his phone as if checking said time.

“It was very sweet of you to stay, Mark, but you could’ve gone to movie night. You saw how good MinMin was, I would’ve been fine with him on my own,” you smiled and squeezed his arm appreciatively, herding him towards the door.

“There’s still dishes—”

“You want to do my dishes?” You laughed. “College boy who wants to do dishes instead of go to a movie night with his friends? What’s gotten into you?”

“Nothing, I just—I don’t know, it’s not fair. You do everything.”

“It’s my home. You’re my guest.” You cocked your head curiously. “It’s okay, Mark.”

“Well, I’m here a lot, you know? You’re already helping me with my powers and stuff. I want to help you too.”

“Okay, you can start doing your own dishes if that’ll make you feel better,” you agreed skeptically. “Next week. Go on, I’m sure they’re going to give you enough shit as is for being late.”

“It’s not just the dishes,” he mumbled under his breath, stuffing his feet in his shoes. You weren’t sure if you were meant to hear that.

As he went to grab the door handle, you put a hand on the door to keep him from opening it. “I want you to bring Johnny next time.”

“What?!” He squeaked.

“Bring Johnny when you come on Wednesday. You need to practice using your powers on someone they’ll actually work on.”

“I don’t think that’s a good—”

“I’ll be right here, Mark,” you reminded him. “It’ll be fine.”

“Alright, fine. I’ll see if he can come.”

At 5:58 p.m. the following Wednesday, there was a knock at your front door. You opened the door to two figures this time, Mark’s familiar face and another young man behind him, a head taller than him. “Mark! And you must be Johnny.” You beamed at the two of them, beckoning them in and then introducing yourself to the human, “I’m Y/N, please, come in.”

“Thank you for inviting me over.” Johnny nodded politely as he followed Mark in.

You furrowed your brows, looking over at the basilisk suspiciously. “Mark, you did tell him why we invited him over, right?”

“I did, I swear!” He promised.

“I know it might sound kind of weird, for me to be thanking you for inviting me to get petrified and compelled or whatever, but I want to help Mark out however I can. So really, thanks,” the human smiled genuinely.

You relaxed at this, guiding them further into your apartment. “Well in that case, you’re welcome.”

“Y/N, bathroom?” Mark pointed down your hall.

“You know where it is.” You waved him off as you headed towards the kitchen to grab three glasses.

Johnny followed you into the kitchen, careful to lower his voice as he told you, “Besides, none of our friends have even met you, and we’re all kind of curious about Mark’s new older lady friend that he keeps talking about, so I just had to come, petrification be damned.”

“I do hate to burst your bubble, Johnny, but Chenle and Jisung have met me before. They live next door,” you informed him.

“Oh, Mark’s other friends?”

“Yeah, I guess. He hasn’t drawn me a diagram, so I don’t have a perfect idea of who knows who, sorry.”

“Well, of our other friend group, I’ll be the first to have met you, then.”

“And? Am I everything you all had dreamed of? The mysterious sphinx in her lair luring poor little Markie in every week?” You opened your fridge, skimming your eyes over your drink options. “Wine? Beer? Water? Chocolate milk?”

Johnny chuckled, “Is that for ‘Markie?’”

“No,” you snickered. “My nephew was over this past weekend, but I figured I’d offer it to you guys since I had extra.”

“What kind of wine?”

“A very lovely red. The grapes are grown in a vineyard in this fairy kingdom whose vale naturally produces magical dew. It’s hard to describe, but the flavor that gets imparted is… exquisite to say the least.”

“Sold.”

You poured two glasses of the red wine, then filled up the third with chocolate milk. “So, if Mark hasn’t explained how this works, we’ll eat dinner first, then get into the magic stuff. It’s kind of like exercising, it’s pointless to do it on an empty stomach.”

“You’re different than I thought you’d be,” Johnny admitted thoughtfully, swirling the wine in his glass around.

“More human looking?” You guessed, expecting that you were the first sphinx he’d probably ever met. Not only were your kind rare in and of themselves, but Mark had mentioned that Johnny didn’t even meet any magical creatures until coming to college just a few years ago.

“That, and… younger?”

You snorted, Chenle’s previous ‘MILF hunter’ comment echoing in the back of your head. You set your wine down to cross your arms and cock your head as you asked him, “What do you know about sphinx and/or basilisk aging?”

“Literally nothing. Mark molted all over our apartment a couple summers ago and it was so gross but apparently that’s something that’s supposed to happen a year or two after basilisks reach adulthood.”

“So I could be a thousand years old for all you know.”

He blinked. “…Are you?”

“No.” You shook your head. “However, Mark and I will both outlive you and your grandkids, I’ll tell you that much.”

“Woah… congrats.”

“But since you brought it up…” You lifted your glass back to your lips, taking a slow sip. You then leaned in conspiratorially. “Between us, does Mark have a thing for older women?”

Johnny smirked and leaned in as well. “Why? You interested?”

“Just heard a little rumor, that’s all.”

“I don’t know about having a type, per se, but he definitely has a thing for this one older woman he knows.”

Before you could respond, you heard the door to the bathroom open, and straightened back up. Johnny furrowed his brows in confusion, and you nodded towards the entrance of the kitchen, where Mark appeared just a moment later.

“Hey guys—oh, chocolate milk! Sweet!” He happily picked up the untouched third glass. Mark then went to explain to his friend, “Y/N only buys chocolate milk when her nephew MinMin comes over. She’s way too much of a real adult to have it around otherwise.”

“Is this your passive-aggressive way of telling me I should buy chocolate milk just for you to drink when you come over?”

“Maybe. Is it working?”

“When you start helping foot my grocery bill, you can dictate what goes on my grocery list, how about that?”

Mark’s eyes widened at that, and he didn’t respond, instead taking another big gulp of his chocolate milk. When he brought his cup down from his face, he had a chocolate milk mustache, and offered you a big thumbs up as he grabbed for a napkin. “Thanks, Y/N! This is perfect!”

“Uh-huh,” you rolled your eyes, but were unable to fight the fond smile on your lips as you turned back to your fridge. “Alright, dinner’s pre-made ravioli, the next person who whines doesn’t eat.”

“Yum!” “My favorite!”

Sat at your dining table across from the two roommates, you took a sip of your drink before engaging your new guest in conversation again, “Are you a student as well, Johnny?”

“Yes, I’m a Comms major, focus in advertising,” he answered.

“And what do you want to do? Advertising?”

The human shrugged and smiled. “Don’t know. Something I don’t hate, I guess.”

You laughed. “That’s fair. I was the same way when I graduated undergrad. Didn’t care where I worked as long as it paid well, didn’t have crazy hours, and wasn’t so boring that I wanted to bang my head against a wall while I was there.”

“Exactly.” Johnny gestured at you triumphantly. “Where’d you end up working?”

“Network security company,” you shrugged one shoulder. “Honestly, I’m not even a big tech person. Can’t fix my own wi-fi if it’s out, past turning it off then back on again. I’m a manager.”

“Need an intern?”

“Dude, you have a job,” Mark interjected, elbowing his friend in the arm.

“I’m networking, dude,” Johnny replied pointedly, elbowing him back. “Not all of us can bank on being doctors in eight years, you know.”

You watched their bickering with amusement before answering the human’s question, “I can make an inquiry. The Advertising AD may or may not owe me a favor…”

“Thanks!” He beamed at you. “So, I’m sorry, if this rude or something, but sphinxes do those riddles, right?”

You arched an eyebrow. “Yes… Don’t tell me Mark has two magical adrenaline junkie friends? I’m not giving you a riddle either.”

Mark’s head shot up from where he had been sullenly eating his ravioli, his eyes going wide with mortification. “Renjun asked you for a riddle?!”

“I didn’t give him one,” you snorted. “I’m not going to be responsible for some kid going mad.”

“I’m going to kill him,” the basilisk groaned, covering his own face in embarrassment. “Why is he like this?”

“I’m not asking you for a riddle, don’t worry,” Johnny assured you. “I was just curious… Would that make sphinxes good poets or writers, then?”

“Sphinxes are good wordsmiths, yes,” you answered with a smile. “But we stick more to oral traditions. One of our favorite pastimes is riddle-weaving. Sphinxes will swap riddles back and forth, solving each other’s riddles to see who can come up with the best one. It’s a good way to pass the time on long car rides.”

“Renjun also said there’s a lot of sphinx lawyers?” Mark added.

“If you compare the percentage of the entire population that are sphinxes and the percentage of lawyers that are sphinxes, yes, sphinxes are overrepresented in that field,” you nodded. “Kind of like how there’s a lot of unicorns in healthcare and education.”

“And dryads in ecology,” Johnny followed your train of logic.

“Exactly.”

After dinner, the three of you moved into your living room. The sun was beginning to set outside, so you retrieved the glowing spheres that had been sitting in your lamps and sent them back outside to rejoin the rest of the rays. You preferred to light your apartment with sunlight when possible, as it was both more beautiful to you, and way more cost-effective than using electricity.

As you went to turn the ceiling light on with the lightswitch, you started explaining what you’d just done to your human guest, “That was sol-channeling. You might hear it be called heliokinesis as well. Sphinxes always call it sol-channeling.”

“Can you sol-channel moonlight? Since it’s technically just reflected sunlight?” Johnny questioned curiously.

“Nope. Magically different properties. Just like how werewolves are only affected by the full moon and moonstone, not by any sort of sunlight or sunstone.”

“…Right. Of course.”

“We can only manipulate existing sunlight, but we can’t make it, and we have to send it back before the Sun sets.”

“What happens if you don’t send it back before the Sun sets?”

“We’re only borrowing the sunlight from Sol. It has to be anchored to us while it’s here,” you said, guiding him by the arm to stand in one spot. “If we don’t end that connection ourselves willingly, it’ll still go back… and rip a piece of our soul out with it. The more sunlight that you’ve sol-channeled, and have anchored to you, the more of your soul that’s taken.”

You then positioned Mark across from Johnny, facing his friend from several steps away. The basilisk’s eyes were locked on your face in horror, but you just kept calmly readjusting him.

“Can you… regrow it? If that happens?” Johnny asked quietly.

“You can heal, physically,” you answered levelly, walking behind Mark. “Hurts like a bitch for a while… but healing a soul, that’s something that takes a lot of power. I can really only think of one thing that would do that…”

“What is it?” Mark blurted out.

“The Sun,” you replied bluntly. “Phoenixes, when they reincarnate. Everything is healed, soul included.” They were quiet for a moment, and you clapped your hands together, changing conversation topics, “Alright, time for some compelling! Ready, guys?”

“Totally!” Johnny gave you two thumbs-up.

“Mark?” You prompted the basilisk right in front of you.

“Shouldn’t you be by Johnny? In case you need to nix it?” He pointed to the human, looking down at his feet.

“I can nix from here,” you assured him. Reaching over his shoulder, you secured between two fingers the silver chain that you knew his lion pendant dangled from. You pulled it out from under his shirt, holding it in his eyeline. “Breathe, Mark. Let’s do a round of those grounding breaths, hm?”

You let his anchor go to rest on his chest again, and watched his eyes flutter shut as you started counting him through the breaths. Once he was done, he opened his eyes back up, the slit pupils slowly dragging up from his feet to your face first. You smiled reassuringly at him from your spot just beside him now. You squeezed his arm. “You’ve got this, Mark. Just like we’ve done before. I’ll be right back here, okay?”

As you went to step back, you saw Mark gulp, and his gaze fell down again. He wouldn’t be able to compel Johnny if he didn’t look him in the eye. While you had read through Renjun’s notes pretty thoroughly early in working with Mark, you were using them as a guide of what not to do. You didn’t want him to constantly be in a state of being stressed, tired, and stuck at home in order to be in tune with his powers. But right now, you could tell that you were hitting at least two out of three of those. Dinner had already taken up a considerable portion of your evening, and Mark was still not as relaxed as you needed him to be.

“Hey, Mark, I finally figured out why Yuta’s barely passing all his classes,” Johnny suddenly interjected.

That caught the basilisk’s attention, his voice confused as he went to respond, “I thought he was on the Dean’s List—”

“Because sirens only know what’s under C-level,” the human finished with a wide grin.

“Dude—” Mark was cut off by his own laughs. “That was bad. Like, barely made sense bad.”

“Well, did I tell you about this fairy philosophy major I met the other day?”

“What? Were they cute or something?”

“Yeah, a real Thinker-bell…”

That one even made you snort as Mark devolved into giggles. Johnny caught your eye as he continued, “You know how Taeil and Doyoung are witches that live together?”

“I mean, Jungwoo’s there—”

“And they were broom-mates…”

“Stop, dude,” Mark’s protests were dampened by his non-stop giggles as he clutched his sides. “We’re trying to— We’re trying—”

“What’s a vampire’s favorite fruit?” You cut in, making both of them turn to you. “A neck-tarine…”

Johnny actually burst out laughing at that, probably more than the awful pun warranted, as he quickly doubled over and had to hold himself up with his hands on his knees. Mark stumbled just the slightest towards you as he was still giggling, finally moving from the place that you had set him up in. “Y/N, not you too!” He complained through laughter. “God, you two are awful. Not funny at all.”

“Then why are you laughing so hard, Markie?” You pointed out with a chuckle, letting him lean his weight on your shoulder as he tried to catch his breath.

“Because I can’t believe you would make terrible dad jokes like that.” He took deep breaths, still holding his side. “Looped back around to being funny.”

“Then why’d you laugh at mine?” Johnny was upright again.

“Pity.”

And as you caught Johnny’s twinkling eyes again from across the room, you figured that you were thinking the same thing. Success. One much more relaxed Mark Lee.

Mark found his footing again, and with one more deep breath, looked up at Johnny. You watched him carefully, feeling the exact moment he made contact with his powers, extending them out towards Johnny. They weren’t overwhelming, out-of-control, hasty, or at risk of boiling over. Johnny stood still, pupils dilating as he looked to Mark for his cue.

“Touch your right index finger to your nose gently,” Mark instructed calmly. That was something you had worked on, specificity without complexity.

Johnny lifted his right hand, tapping his nose with his pointer finger.

“Put your right hand down.” After he had done so, Mark then requested, “Lift your left hand above your head, slowly.”

Johnny raised his hand like he was in a classroom, holding it there.

“Put your left hand down please.”

The human lowered his hand again.

“Thanks, Johnny, you’re done,” Mark released him, and you felt the energy draw back into the basilisk as steadily as it had extended out. He let out a breath as Johnny blinked and came back into himself. “You alright, man?”

“Great!” Johnny beamed and gave him a thumbs up. “Thanks for not making me do anything weird.”

“I told you I wouldn’t, man.” The basilisk rolled his eyes.

“Mark!” You threw your arms around his neck without a second thought, practically vibrating with excitement. “You did it! On purpose!”

“I’m going to pee, before the petrification,” Johnny whispered loudly, excusing himself down the hall.

“I-I mean, I had a good teacher...” Mark muttered, tentatively hugging you back.

“I won’t argue with you there,” you snickered, squeezing him even tighter. “I’m proud of you, Markie.”

Two days later, and it was Friday night. After a long week of work, you finally could relax, order some food, make yourself a drink, kick your feet up, and just have a nice quiet night to yourself. Well, sort of. You had actually ordered food for two, prepared an extra glass of ice water, and were awaiting a familiar knock on your door before you could kick up your feet and start your show.

Mark knocked at 7:50 p.m., just 10 minutes before the newest episode of Our Love from the Ashes would be premiering, and you ushered him in quickly. Squished into the middle two couch cushions next to each other so you could both have access to your coffee table to eat from, you were pleasantly surprised to find that he wasn’t incredibly tense or actively running away. He was doing exactly what you’d asked him to do—getting invested. Reacting to the episode with you, quiet at the tense parts, laughing at the funny parts, pretty much the perfect drama watching partner. You were done with your food halfway into the episode, and dragged over a blanket to cover your lap now that you weren’t at risk of any spillage. It was large enough to cover both you and Mark, so you put it over his lap too, and that was when he suddenly choked on a noodle.

“You alright?” You snorted, giving him a couple solid smacks on the back. “Food go down the wrong pipe?”

He wiped his mouth with a napkin to catch a dribble of sauce. “Yeah, sorry. Don’t—Don’t mind me.”

Right as you focused back on the show, however, loud shooting and explosion sounds started up from the other side of your living room wall, and you sighed. You reached forward to grab the remote, pausing the show before scooting out from under the blanket and walking over to your shared wall with Chenle and Jisung. Banging your fist against the wall a couple times, you then waited. The video game sounds decreased significantly, then you heard a dampened, “Sorry, Ms. Y/N!” from Chenle this time.

“That’s how loud it is?” Mark asked, now looking incredibly guilty.

“Yep,” you replied, plopping back down on the couch next to him and pulling the blanket over you again. With the show still paused, you looked over at him curiously. “Are you missing a video game night right now?”

“It’s not like everyone or anything,” he shrugged, casting his eyes down to his dish as he pushed food around with his utensil. “I mean, I think it’s just Jaemin, Hyuck, Chenle, and Renjun. Jeno and his girlfriend are celebrating their anniversary, and Jisung’s not even there at the game night in his own apartment because he’s out with his girlfriend. It was going to be a single losers night.”

“So what does it mean that you’re here with me instead then?” You mused humorously, hitting play.

Mark apparently wasn’t hungry anymore, as he set his food down and leaned back against the couch cushions. But he didn’t relax very much. Out of the corner of your eye, you could see one of his legs bouncing up and down. With the warm summer air outside, he had worn a t-shirt with some comic book character on it. As his fingers started messing with the texture of the blanket, your eyes followed the movement, up to his hands, then further up to his forearms, where you could see his muscles twitch and flex in the slightest under his skin. You were suddenly more aware of the lounge clothes you were wearing. They were nothing special, a comfortable t-shirt of your own and pair of shorts, but as you became conscious of exactly how much the shorts had ridden up with the way you were sitting under the blanket, your focus was still locked on Mark’s hands, not the show that you had unwittingly tuned out.

“Sorry,” Mark’s voice was sheepish, and you blinked, looking up from his hands to his face. “Didn’t mean to pull at a thread. I just fidget, you know…”

His fingers had stopped messing with the blanket, and you gave him a half-hearted smile and shake of your head. “It’s fine, Mark. Didn’t mean to stare like that, sorry.”

When you turned back to the screen, you were able to focus on the show for a whole two minutes. And then the main couple’s romantic kiss turned into a prolonged make-out session. Mark’s hands pulled at the thread again. You smacked a hand down over his, harder than you intended to. He jumped under your touch, but stopped his accidental unwinding of your textile. You kept your hand there to prevent him from unraveling the thread again, skin buzzing with a new kind of energy where it touched his. You didn’t look at him. Then the kissing turned into a bit more, with some conveniently placed objects in frame, and a tasteful fade-to-black. Mark shifted a bit higher in his seat. You slowly took your hand back. That wasn’t the end of the episode, as there was a very cute morning-after scene as well, but you could barely celebrate the fact that the characters were back together. Finally looking at the basilisk beside you out of the corner of your eye, he was staring straight ahead at the TV, his leg back to bouncing. He ran a hand through his hair, and you could see his throat bob as he swallowed hard.

As soon as the credits started rolling, Mark was on his feet. “Uhm, thank you for having me.”

“Right… thanks for coming over.” You walked him to the door like usual, which he seemed to be racing you to. Holding your hand on the door handle without actually opening it, you watched him shift uncomfortably in place. “Are you okay, Mark?”

“Hm? Fine, fine!” His voice cracked. “It was a-a good episode.”

“Yeah, they finally got back together and—”

“Sorry, I just remembered I actually have an assignment due at 11:59 tonight,” he blurted out, scratching the back of his neck. You peered over his shoulder at your stove clock visible from your kitchen. 8:58 p.m.

“Oh. Well, I’ll let you go then.” You went to give him a one-armed hug goodbye without a second thought, feeling him stiffen in your loose hold. Stepping back, you opened the door for him. “See you Wednesday, Mark.”

His face was bright red as he stammered out, “See-See you. Goodnight, Y/N.”

His sneakers squeaked as he took off down the hall. You closed the door behind him and looked back into your apartment, which felt oddly empty now.

Pushing open the door to Half Moon Bakery some days later, you were immediately enveloped by the cozy and sweet smells of the various breads, sweets, and pastries inside. Two employees were behind the counter, one attending to the register while the other restocked their shelves with loaves of bread from a tray, his back to you.

“Hi! Welcome to Half Moon! How can I help you?” The friendly-looking worker at the register greeted you brightly. As you got closer, you could very clearly smell that he was a werewolf, musky and warm.

You offered the young man a smile back. “Hi, I’m actually—”

“Y/N?” The other employee, who had also been wearing a backwards baseball cap, turned around then, surprise on his features.

It took you a second to place the face so out-of-context, immediately offering a kind greeting as soon as you recognized him. “Oh, Johnny, hey. It’s good to see you. Almost didn’t recognize you in the apron, sorry.”

The human gestured down to the navy-blue apron he had donned as part of the bakery’s uniform. “Yeah, it’s me.”

The first boy’s eyes widened as he turned to Johnny. “Wait, Y/N, as in…?”

“Yes, Jeno, this is Chenle and Jisung’s neighbor,” Johnny confirmed pointedly through gritted teeth. You knew very well what was also implicitly being confirmed, because if he knew Johnny, knew your name, and knew Chenle and Jisung, then Jeno presumably also knew Mark and your apparent reputation among their friend group.

“I-It’s nice to meet you, Ms. Y/N. Uhm, sorry about all the noise all the time,” Jeno stammered out an apology.

The way he addressed you made you chuckle lightly. There were only two people who called you that, and with whom he would’ve had to be apologizing for noise if he’d been with. “Oh, you must be one of Mark’s other friends that’s always playing video games so loudly in the boys’ apartment next door.”

“R-Right. Again, I’m so sorry.”

“I’m teasing, Jeno,” you reassured the poor boy, who looked like a kicked puppy at this point. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“So what can we get you?” Johnny asked, motioning to all of the various baked goods in the shop.

“As delicious as everything looks, I’m actually not here to eat, unfortunately. Another time,” you promised. Refocusing on the real reason you came into the bakery today, you looked around. “Minseok in?”

“Oh, yeah, Mr. Minseok’s in the back. I can go grab him for you,” Jeno offered.

“Would you please, Jeno?”

“So, how do you know Minseok?” Johnny asked as you waited, genuine curiosity in his tone.

“Oh, we’ve known each other for years,” you started. “We’re—”

“Y/N, hey!” Minseok calling your name out snapped your attention to your friend making his way out of the back of the bakery.

“Minseok— ah!” You got cut off by a sputtering laugh as he came around the counter to hug you, patting his back in the embrace. When you pulled back, you didn’t let your friend get very far, brushing at a white smudge on his cheek. “You’ve got flour on your face, you know? I swear you’d have lost your canines a decade ago if it weren’t for me, Kim Minseok.”

“I work in a bakery,” he reminded you with a huff, disentangling from you to cross his arms stubbornly. “Call it an occupational hazard. And you’ve got some on you, too.”

“Oh, and whose fault is that?” You scoffed, wiping at your own face where it had brushed against his in the hug.

“Yours. You’ve got to play better defense, Y/N.” He pretended to punch your upper arm a couple times as if in a boxing match.

“Defense against flour-covered hugs? My bad, I’ll train up on that this weekend.”

Your friend dropped his mock boxer’s stance. “Anyway, you ready to go?”

“Yep, I am if you are.”

“Absolutely.” He nodded, then turned to his employees, who suddenly seemed extremely invested in wiping down the countertop by the register. “I’m about to take my lunch. You two need anything from me?”

Johnny shook his head, giving his boss a reassuring grin. “Nope, nope, all good.”

“Jeno, you think she needs anything back there?” Minseok asked the werewolf.

“Nah, you saw her, she’s totally in the zone,” Jeno replied, a soft smile overtaking his features. “We’re actually taking our lunch break soon, too.”

“Cool. Be back in an hour, hour and a half.”

You lifted a hand to give them your own farewell, “It was good seeing you guys, bye!”

“Since when do you know my employees so well?” Minseok squinted at you as the two of you walked down the sidewalks together.

“They’re both Mark’s friends,” you explained.

The sphinx made an extended ‘ohhh’ sound as you rounded the corner to your destination, a quick, casual café. While you didn’t technically have a timed lunch break since you were in a salary position, your schedule was full up with meetings for the afternoon that you couldn’t be late for. Minseok held the door open for you. “So I guess I have you to thank for Johnny no longer missing shifts because he got petrified, then.”

You covered your mouth with your hand to cover your laugh. “I guess so.”

Saturday night found you hosting all your friends at your place—a rare occurrence. It wasn’t that you didn’t like hanging out with all your friends, it was that you four usually went out somewhere, or to someone else’s place. You weren’t a big hostess in general, and typically Jongin or Baekhyun preferred to do the hosting of the four of you, but somehow, this time, everyone ended up at your place for board game night.

“Something you’d like to tell us, Y/N?” Baekhyun raised his eyebrows as he dug a forest green garment out from between two of your throw pillows on your couch. He set his wine glass down on the coffee table to spread the hoodie wide, allowing you to see the logo on the front, the name of the college that Mark and your neighbors attended.

“Mark left a hoodie here?” You questioned. “The horror…? It’s a hoodie, not a condom. Calm down, Baek.”

“I just don’t get what you’re waiting for.”

“What are you talking about?” You walked over to take the hoodie from him, folding it up and setting it aside on your dining table so you wouldn’t forget to give it back to Mark on Wednesday.

“You haven’t talked about any other man since you started ‘mentoring’ this kid,” the siren said frankly, putting his hands on his hips. “Every time we see you, it’s ‘Mark did this’ and ‘Mark said that’ and ‘Mark’s doing so good’ and—”

“I don’t sound like that,” you scowled.

“You kind of do,” Minseok agreed, reclined on your couch.

You looked to Jongin, hoping that he’d at least back you up. He shrugged.

“I’m just saying, from what you’ve been saying, he’s been wrapped around your finger since he laid eyes on you,” Baekhyun continued. “So, what are you waiting for? He’s got his powers under control; he’s obsessed with you—have some fun. I think you’ve earned it. Go be the MILF you want to see in the world.”

“You mean the MILF that you want to see in the world. Pass.”

“What? Is he not cute or—”

“I said pass, Baek. Leave it.”

“Does he have a partner or something?”

“No, I don’t think so. Can we just play—”

“What is your—”

“Baekhyun.” Jongin cut him off coolly. “Stop.”

The siren held up his hands. “Fine. Sorry.”

As everyone sat around your coffee table to start setting up the board game, you could feel Minseok’s contemplative gaze on you. “You really like him, don’t you?” The other sphinx asked quietly, into the dead silence. “Your basilisk.”

Never had you ever been more relieved to hear loud, raucous video game explosions from the apartment next door. You scrambled to your feet, happy to be out of that conversation. “Oh, that’s the boys. Sorry, hold on.” You walked over to your shared wall, and banged your fist on it a couple times.

The volume was quickly cranked down, then Jisung called out, “Sorry!”

You turned back to your own friends with a pleased smile. “There we go.”

A moment later, your phone buzzed in your hand.

[markie: sorry, i tried to tell them it wasn’t quiet enough]

[you: that’s alright. thanks, markie]

[you: also, you left a hoodie here. you can grab it wednesday]

When you sat back down to set up the boardgame, your friends apparently decided to leave the topic well enough alone, letting you start reading off the direction with no further poking or prodding.

A few hours later, after the games had been abandoned but before your friends were ready to leave, you were washing up a few glasses at your kitchen sink as the others debated some movie options to round out the night. There was a faint knock on your front door, and you looked at the time on the stove clock curiously.

“Oh, can someone get that?” You called out to the living room, hands still wet, soapy, and holding an equally wet and soapy glass. “I’m expecting a package, needs to be signed for.”

“I’ve got it!” Minseok shouted back, the sound of the front door opening following just a moment later.

“W-What?” A familiar stutter reached your ears, and you grabbed a dish towel to start drying your hands off, listening carefully to make sure you’d heard correctly. There was no reason Mark should be at your door right now.

“Oh, Mark, right? Johnny’s roommate.” Nope, apparently he was, according to Minseok’s memory.

“Mark?” You poked your head out of the kitchen, the rest of your body following when you did in fact see the basilisk at your front door. “What are you doing here?”

“What is he doing here?” Mark pointed at the other sphinx accusatorily.

“So this is Mark?!” Baekhyun had joined you three at the door, delight on his features. “Minseok, don’t be rude, let the boy in.”

“What’s uh, what’s going on?” Jongin called from the living room as he, too, stood up to start walking over to the front door.

You shook your head at your friends, turning to chastise them, “Oh my God, all of you, stop it.” Clearly, the younger basilisk was in some kind of panic, and you had no clue why he was even at your door when as far you knew, he and his friends were playing video games thirty seconds ago.  Putting your focus back on Mark, you softened your tone, “Mark, why are you—”

But the college student turned on his heel and took off down the hallway at a sprint.

“Mark! Hey!” You called after him, stepping out of your doorway, but it was useless, as he was already long gone down the stairwell. With a sigh, you dropped your hands to your sides in defeat and moved back into your apartment. Leaning against the inside of your closed door, you looked around at your friends, at a loss for words.

“Do you think we scared him?” Baekhyun asked, his head tilted.

Jongin’s forked tongue flicked out, his eyebrows shooting up before his features relaxed again. “You think?”

The next Wednesday, as the time neared 6:00 p.m., you paced your living room anxiously, eyes on the microwave clock as you strained your ears to listen to every minute sound in the hallway. Listening for footfalls, or maybe even the door of the stairwell opening if it were quiet enough. 6:00 passed, then 6:01, 6:02, 6:03, 6:04, and at 6:05 you checked your phone for any indication from Mark that he was still planning on coming over, maybe just running late. You hadn’t heard a peep from him since Saturday, which included leaving you on read this afternoon when you asked him if he wanted pizza or dumpling soup for dinner. You made pizza, too distracted to trust yourself to do more cooking than putting a frozen pizza in the oven. 6:08 p.m., and you heard someone walking down the hallway, past the boys’ apartment, and finally stopped on your doormat. They knocked, and you let out a sigh of relief, rushing to answer the door before he could have the opportunity to run away again.

You unlocked your locks in record time, a breathless smile coming to your face at the familiar figure of Mark standing there. His hands were stuffed into his hoodie pocket as the side of his mouth pulled up into a sheepish half-smile. “Hey, Y/N. Sorry I’m late.”

“Mark,” you breathed out his name in relief. “Just get in here, would you?”

“I’m really sorry about Saturday,” he apologized immediately as soon as you had locked up, running a hand through his hair.

“Yeah, what even was that?” You asked, a concerned frown on your face as you stepped closer to him. “I mean, why did you come over? And then why did you run away as soon you showed up?”

“It’s… not a good reason. And again, I’m so sorry.” He ran two hands through his hair this time, thoroughly mussing it up.

“Uh, do you want to sit down, Mark?” You offered your couch up.

“Sure, sure, yeah.” He obliged, but was on the edge of his seat, leaning his weight forward on his arms and bouncing a knee. You were getting more nervous just looking at him. “Uhm, so, Jeno had told me about when you came into the café last week, when you got lunch with his boss. And I sort of got freaked. And then I came over here and he was here, I got even more freaked. And then all those other guys were here and I got super freaked and bolted. Like I said, I’m really sorry.”

You opened and closed your mouth a couple times as you tried to figure out what you wanted to address first. Finally, you landed on: “Jeno told you? Not Johnny?”

“Johnny helped me get un-freaked enough to come over tonight.”

“Well, big thanks to Johnny, then. Though I will admit that I’m not sure what to do with the fact that me having friends freaked you out so bad in the first place.”

“I-I know, it was really immature of me, I just…” He sighed, wringing his hands together.

You felt bad, he was clearly at a loss for what to do next. He knew he’d messed up and how, and had apologized multiple times. You figured he’d only gotten so “freaked” because he’d known so little about the situation, so you decided that offering some more information would help put him at ease.

“Baekhyun, Minseok, and Jongin. Those are their names,” you said. “They’re my closest friends. Baekhyun’s a siren, Minseok’s a sphinx like me, and Jongin’s a basilisk like you. You can ask me questions about them, if you want.”

“How did you guys meet?”

“We were all in the same class together in primary school.”

“Oh that’s cool!” He replied brightly.

“What?” You blinked at him, caught off-guard. That usually wasn’t the reaction that piece of information garnered from other magical creatures that were from here.

“That you guys went to school together and you’re all still friends. I don’t know how many people I went to primary school with that I could even still name off the top of my head. Did you guys have like a Cool Magic Kids Only Club type thing or something?”

You looked down at your lap. “Not exactly…”

Mark had picked up on the unease in your tone, all perk falling from his features. “What? Is something wrong, Y/N?”

It took you a moment to figure out how to phrase this for him, pressing your lips together in a line as you thought. When you settled on the words, you told him gently, “We were all in the same class because we were the only kids in our class. It was for magical creatures only.”

“Wait, what?”

“I mean, not just the four of us, there were ten students total. But, yeah, we were kept separate from the human kids in school. For their safety.”

“I’ve heard about that kind of stuff, like, when integration was first happening, but you’re not that much older than me!” He pointed out, his jaw dropped in disbelief.

You decided to do a little test. “Mark, did you go to speech therapy? When you were in school?”

“What? No.”

“Jongin, the basilisk, he used to get pulled from class three times a week to go to speech therapy to ‘fix’ how he spoke.” You made sure to throw sarcastic air quotes around the word fix.

“What the fuck?”

“I mean, I didn’t have any powers, so I just had to keep my first set of teeth in check, you know. But they didn’t believe me when I told them I couldn’t possibly be a danger yet because sphinxes didn’t get their powers until they were adults. After all, sphinxes were riddle-makers, tricksy, and couldn’t be trusted.”

“Oh, oh my god, Y/N. I’m so sorry.”

“So, anyway, that’s how we all know each other. Thirteen years of educational trauma does a lot to make some pretty unbreakable bonds.”

“Y/N… I’m so sorry, I was a dick.”

“Thanks, Mark. But to be fair, you don’t know any of my friends, do you?”

“I’ve met Minseok before.” He tried to reassure you. “And Jongdae!”

“You mean you’ve said hi to Jongdae once, and met Minseok as Johnny and Jeno’s boss.” You shook your head with a small smile. “But I mean, I’ve met a bunch of your friends. Chenle and Jisung, obviously, and I’ve met Renjun, Johnny, and now Jeno. You talk about all of them all the time. It’s not entirely unreasonable that you could’ve… jumped to conclusions.”

“But it wasn’t fair of me to do that.”

“Well, can’t argue with you there.” You agreed. After a pause of the two of you just sort of looking at each other, you offered, “Do you want to hear more about them?”

“You don’t have to… tell me anything you don’t want to, Y/N.”

“Minseok and I weren’t always the closest on the surface, you know. Baekhyun and I liked more of the same stuff, Jongin didn’t really to talk to anybody except me for our first few years of primary school, and Baekhyun and Minseok would team up to pick on me sometimes, but there was always an unspoken bond between us, since we were both sphinxes.” You decided to start with Minseok, since that’s who started this whole freak-out in the first place. “You know, we’re so rare, it was comforting to have another one of us around during all of this. We weren’t allowed to riddle-weave at school, obviously, but whenever we could find the rare opportunity at our magic-only recess, or in a corner of the library, or walking home from school when we were a little older, we’d swap riddles back and forth with each other. One of us would give a riddle, the other would solve it, then give a riddle back. And don’t get me wrong, our whole class was really close. There were only ten of us, and we had pretty much no contact with the rest of the students at our school until high school. But the four of us, Minseok, Baekhyun, Jongin, and I, were truly the best of friends. Still are.”

“What about the rest of you? The other kids from your class?” He asked.

“We keep in touch with all of them. Sort of parted ways in college and as we got older, you know. I actually work with one of them. Remember that phone call I got from my employee, Sehun?”

“Kind of?”

“He’s one of my former classmates, a witch.”

“Oh. Huh.”

“Yeah, I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw him walk in on his first day. Let me think… Jongdae, witch, he’s the only one of us to have a kid so far, MinMin; Chanyeol, werewolf, just got a promotion… then of course Minseok owns the bakery, Baekhyun has his boba shop, Jongin has a whole designer brand... Yeah, we’re all doing just… great. Really makes my heart happy.”

“Ah, Y/N…” Mark got to his feet, throwing his hands down by his sides in fists as he paced.

“Woah, Markie, are you okay?”

“No, just— Doesn’t it make you mad? That they did this to you guys?”

“It used to, yeah, absolutely. We used to be the angriest, angstiest, most vitriolic people you could ever meet. We hated that school, and society, and the world for letting them treat us like that. Hell, Jongin still hates his speech therapist, and I’ll let him die with that grudge.” You shook your head, the momentary bitterness dissolving from your tongue and a melancholy replacing it instead. “But it ate at us. And not only that, but society kept changing. And we were all stuck in that time, in those memories, stuck with that anger. It was killing us from the inside. I am so glad you didn’t meet me in college, Mark, because it was not pretty. The number of nights that none of us can remember—and not for any fun reason—is far too many.”

He still didn’t seem convinced, but had stopped his angry pacing, standing in front of you with his arms crossed over his chest.

“I mean, just look at you. You went through the same schools that I did practically right after us and had a completely different experience. A better one. And that makes me so relieved.” You beamed up at him, and saw a mixture of guilt and bashfulness flicker across his face. “It doesn’t take away what happened to me at all. But anger with no direction is useless. It all really hit us when Jongin, Minseok, and I all developed our powers the same semester of undergrad. And we were all messes. We couldn’t get them under control because we were just so angry. We felt like we were being forgotten, that our suffering was being forgotten. Everybody else was moving on and pretending like it never happened. When I uh, mostly unintentionally melted a portion of a professor’s car, my grandmother pulled me away for spring break—absolutely ruined my plans—and made me spend the entire week learning to control it all.”

“You melted—”

“Thankfully, Dr. Kwon was very understanding, and I wasn’t kicked out or anything.”

“How did Minseok and Jongin…?”

“Those aren’t really my stories to tell. But ultimately, we couldn’t hold onto that anger anymore. So instead, I try to focus on all the good that we have in our lives, and all the things we’ve been able to accomplish despite what was done to us.” You then gestured to him, “And I look at the magical creatures who came after us, how much better things were for them, and are continuing to get, and all I can feel is happiness now.”

Mark sighed and sat down on the cushion next to yours, and you found yourself relieved to see the anger drain from his face. “I’m sorry, Y/N. It’s not my… thing to get angry over.”

“No, Mark, it’s okay.” You reached out to grab his hand, pulling both of them over to rest in your lap. Your other hand was up by your mouth, where you were chewing on a nail in between your thoughts— an anxious habit your grandmother thought she had broken you of in high school. “It tells me you care, and it means a lot, that you do. Makes it still feel real. And it is your thing to get mad about, as far as I’m concerned. What happened to us—and to Jongin—could’ve easily been you and your friends too. I’m just really glad it wasn’t.”

The basilisk squeezed your hand, then scooted closer until you were shoulder-to-shoulder, knee-to-knee. But it wasn’t electricity that jumped between you two this time, or strange butterflies in your stomach. It was an unspoken, understanding kindness that connected you and Mark, and a quiet sense of security that had settled deep in your chest. You shifted to rest your head on his shoulder, letting go of his hand only to wind your arm under his and lace your fingers together.

“Mark?” You said quietly, gaze locked on your intertwined fingers.

“Yeah?” He murmured, and you could feel him turn his head to look down at you.

“When you asked me if you’re my friend… one of the first times you were over. You remember that?”

“Ah, god, Y/N.” He shook his head, letting out an embarrassed chuckle. “I’m sorry about that, I shouldn’t have asked you. I was insecure and fishing for—”

“No, I’m sorry. I didn’t answer you honestly,” you insisted. You held Mark’s hand even tighter. “You’re not my friend, and… I don’t know when it happened. Honestly, I don’t think you ever were.”

He was quiet for a moment, letting your confession settle over the two of you like a blanket. But you didn’t feel suffocated by it, or scared. It sort of felt like something that was always in the room with you and Mark, but now you two were just finally talking about it. And after Mark’s history of impulsive decisions, and talking without thinking, and getting freaked, you were more than happy to give him whatever time he needed to get his thoughts together before responding to you.

“Can I ask you for that secret now?” He asked into the empty air of your living room, his voice wavering.

“Of course. Anything.”

“How... Can you tell me a secret you have about me? About how you feel about me?”

You lifted your head off his shoulder to turn in your seat and face him. His big, brown eyes were looking at you like you were everything, and you just took a second to admire him as you pulled together your own thoughts. Here everyone was worried (to varying degrees of seriousness) that you were luring poor, innocent little Markie into your lair every week and corrupting him. But really, you’d been unknowingly leaving the doors to your heart wide open for this little basilisk to slither right in and make himself at home. And now that he was here, you had no intention of ever asking him to leave.

“I like you, Mark. Something other than friendship. Romantically,” you clarified. “I have feelings for you.”

His grip tightened on your hand as he squeezed his eyes shut.

“Mark? You okay?” You asked softly.

“Great, yep, awesome,” he promised. “Just uh, just losing my mind a little.”

You laughed, stroking your thumb over his comfortingly. “Take all the time you need. Don’t want any more freakouts if we can avoid them.”

“Y/N?” He looked up at you again.

“Yeah, Mark?”

His eyes flicked between yours and your mouth. “Can I kiss you?”

“Yes.” You agreed enthusiastically, but didn’t make another move for fear of scaring off the skittery basilisk.

He still hesitated, though. “D-Do you want me to?”

So polite. It was taking everything in you not to pounce on him.

“Yes.” You said again, a bit firmer. For encouragement, you took his hand that you were holding and moved it up to your face.

Mark took the cue and gently cupped your cheek, leaning in towards you. Your eyes fluttered shut as you let him guide your mouths together. The first touch of his lips to yours was feather-light, barely there.

“I…” He drew back, dropping his hand to hold yours again. “Like… You want to date me?”

“Yes,” you confirmed with another light chuckle.

“You’re laughing at me again.”

“Sorry, sorry.” You tried to compose yourself, but you knew that you still had the same smitten smile on your face. “You’re just… too cute.”

“Do you remember when I came here to ask you for help with my powers in the first place?” Mark asked, poking a couch cushion. “What you said about your couch?”

“My couch…?” You echoed, trying to think that far back. It felt like a lifetime ago at this point that you had first welcomed the incredibly timid basilisk into your home. Then it hit you. “I said neither my couch nor I would eat you whole.”

“Unless I asked nicely,” he added, swallowing thickly. “I’m-I’m asking nicely now, Y/N. Please, if you want—”

“Oh, Markie,” you sighed, standing up and pulling him up with you. You grabbed his jaw between two fingers, looking into his slit pupils as you pulled him closer. “You’re so adorable.”

Before he could say anything else, you crashed your mouths together. His hands immediately flew to your hips to ground himself, as you kept one hand on his jaw and the other rested on his shoulder. You had a reason for standing up, however, beginning to push him back in the direction of your bedroom.

He asked to be eaten whole, after all.

When your work alarm came the next morning, you snoozed it and buried your face back into your pillow. There was a groan from beside you, and you could hear Mark shifting as well.

“Don’t tell me that’s actually how early you get up for work?” He asked incredulously.

“I have to shower, and make breakfast, and brush my teeth, and get dressed in clean clothes, and commute,” you mused. “Can’t just roll out of bed five minutes before I need to leave and show up in the same pajamas I slept in anymore.”

“Ugh.”

You chuckled, rolling over to snuggle up to his side, throwing an arm over his waist. “Do you have class today?”

“Summer break.” His arms hesitantly wrapped around you.

“Right, right. Well, I guess you can snooze until I’ve got breakfast ready, then.”

“Mm, pretty sure I heard something about a shower?”

“You might have,” you replied coyly. “Why?”

“You know, Renjun was telling me about how climate change is shrinking the natural habitats of glacial sirens at the poles, and—”

Your laughter cut him off, and he started giggling at himself as well. When you’d finally caught your breath, you said, “I’ve heard the ‘saving water’ line before, never heard it taken to that extreme. Come on, if we waste any more time, we’ll be having untoasted bread for breakfast.”

“Ooh, my favorite,” Mark grinned, following after you.

⤷ anthology masterlist | blog masterlist

[flowery-mess]

Midnights of October🍁🧡🎃

October 24th

Friends with benefits with cop!Noah

summary: you and cop!Noah are friends with benefits, he sees you in his uniform at a halloween party and takes you back to his place

warnings: friends with benefits, smut; oral (f receiving), unprotected p in v (use protection irl), mention of handcuffs

words: 2.1k

author's note: this is literally copy and paste from my Ryan Tanner fic, which didn't get much love, because the fandom isn't popular on here, so I decided to slightly edit it and post it with Noah, because I like it. There's not really much about the actual job of police officer, but I'm open to write more for it if you want, let me know😊

taglist: @concreteangel92 @sorrowsofsilence @lma1986 @stardustsirenmelody @dream-machine-love @mrsnoahsebastian (let me know if you want to be tagged or deleted!😊)

Midnights of October masterlist

*

"What the fuck is she wearing?" Noah said with wide eyes when he saw you enter the bar.

31st October, Halloween party at your local bar, location you were both currently at.

You and Noah have been seeing each other since you moved to LA, which was 4 months ago. He needed to get over his ex, you over your ex. You introduced him to the phrase the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else. And that's exactly what you two did that night. That's also how you ended up getting under each other regularly and became what someone could call friends with benefits.

Noah is hot decent guy, and good in bed. You always end up at one of your places, have sex, eat food, talk and then one of you leaves. That somehow became an unspoken rule between the two of you, you don't cuddle, and you don’t spend the rest of the night together.

You never said it out loud, but sometimes you imagined what being more serious with Noah would be. He's nice, treats you right, cooks for you, treats other people right, he's a cop who protects people from the bad. He's an ideal guy for a relationship. But Noah never mentioned something like that, so you didn't either. You didn't have feelings for him, but you knew you liked spending time with him.

You knew he would be at this party, so you decided to be a little tease to spice things up tonight, because you knew you two would leave the bar together either way.

Last night Noah was on call and ended up leaving for work when you were at his place, but you left before he came back. You knew for a while that you're costume this year will be a cop, just to see if it does something to Noah. So you took the chance when you saw his spare work belt lying over the kitchen chair. You took things that would get you in trouble out of it. You also took one of Noah’s work shirts in the color blue and left.

Noah took few long steps in your direction and repeated his question, this time directly to you. "What the fuck are you wearing Y/N?"

"Hi there Noah." you smiled teasingly at him and put hands over your his belt.

Noah didn't put much effort in his costume, he was wearing coat with a hat, looking like he fell out of Peaky Blinders episode.

"We're leaving, now." he said through gritted teeth and took you by the elbow, dragging you through the crowd towards the door.

"We're talking about this when we get home, I can't talk right now, because I'm mad at you, you can't even imagine." home, that was all you heard, he said home. He was mad, but he also said home. And it didn't really mean anything because he was going home literally, but it made your heart flutter a bit.

When you two entered his home, he turned around and backed you until your back touched the front door.

"What the hell were you thinking? Stealing from a cop? Part of his uniform?"

You unclipped the belt and handed it to him, then you started unbuttoning his shirt.

"What are you doing?" he asked confused, anger still visible in his eyes.

"It's not stealing if you return it. Here." you put his shirt over the belt in his hands.

"You took my work shirt too?" he looked like he will jump out of his skin any second.

He was so mad that it took him few seconds to see what you were wearing under his shirt, black laced bra. When he connected his gaze with your chest, the anger in his eyes seemed to go away.

"You can write me up, officer Sebastian." you never role played with him and weren't planning on it tonight, you just teased him a bit more.

"Y/N I'm serious, you can't do that. It's dangerous." Noah said, more calm every second. You were too hot for him to be angry, standing in front of him like that.

"Okay, I'm sorry." you placed your hands on his shoulders, took off his coat and then pulled him closer to you.

You couldn't stop staring in each other’s eyes, in silence. He lowered his face to touch your forehead with his, while his nose was stroking yours, gently. He was always gentle with you.

"Kiss me." you whispered. And he did, because you were his soft spot and he'd do anything you asked for.

Slow little kisses turned into passionate kisses in a few seconds, as Noah’s hands were exploring your body as if it was the first time he was touching you.

He lowered his hands under your ass and picked you up, carrying you in the direction of his bedroom. You gently started undoing the buttons on his shirt, taking it off of his shoulders once you managed to open all of them.

Noah put you gently on his bed, his lips never leaving yours, while he hovered over you.

"Noah" you moaned his name as his fingers started moving from your chest to the band of your shorts.

"Mhm." Noah gave you his answer with lips on your neck, sucking at your sensitive skin.

He continued to move his fingers over the band of your shorts, putting them just a bit inside of the band for a few seconds, then pulling them out and moving them over the lace on your bra, teasing your nipples. Teasing. Punishing. For stealing his things.

"Noah, please."

"Please what, huh?" he lifted his face from your neck, with a smirk on his face.

"Stop teasing Noah, I said I'm sorry."

He took advantage of you lifting your hips, which was movement out of pure need for more fraction, and pulled your shorts down. And another second his lips were back on yours and his hand made its way back to your lower tummy, slowly dragging his fingers closer to where you wanted him the most.

He started rubbing your clit over the fabric and put his lips on your left nipple.

"Fuck." you moaned, he always knew how and where to touch you.

When his hand left your core your hips tried to follow his movement. But his hand was already on it's way to remove your bra.

"Hate to say it, but you looked hot as a cop." he threw your lacy bra away and put his fingers in use with your panties.

"You look hot as a cop all the time." you returned the compliment.

He used the hand in your panties to get rid of them and then he placed himself between your legs. He thrives from giving, he’s that good of a guy, so even though he was mad at you earlier, he wanted to pleasure you first. He continued kissing you for few more seconds, then he gently bit at your jaw before he made his way down your body. He hooked your legs over his shoulders while kissing the inside of your thigs. He looked up at you an met caught you watching him.

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing, I just like looking at you." you whispered. And it was true, you liked looking at him a little too much than you should.

He continued kissing your thigh until his mouth met your core and your head fell back on the pillow.

Noah’s tongue kept circling around your clit while his hand held your hips down. You put your hand over his and couldn't stop the sounds that were leaving your mouth.

He did few licks from your hole back to your clit, he knew your weakness. He eased the pressure on your tummy with slightly lifting his hand as he flattened his tongue and let you move your hips the way you needed against his tongue. When he heard your breathing quicken, he held your hips still again and worked his tongue over your folds and swollen clit, collecting your juices while the feeling inside you was growing. When your orgasm took over you, your legs squeezed Noah’s head to make sure he doesn’t pull away too soon. You heard him chuckle against you, sending wave through your overstimulated body.

He kissed his way back to your mouth, where you could taste yourself. It was your turn to flatten your tongue as you held his head still and licked his mouth and chin clean.

"That was hot." he said barely above whisper.

"My turn." you said and tried to push him under you, but he sat on his knees and started unzip his jeans while muttering something that sounded like 'next time'. Before you could find out what Noah said he was already lining his hard dick at your entrance.

He slid his dick through your folds few times to collect your wetness and looked in your eyes, searching for confirmation which you gave him with taking his jaw in your hands and connecting your lips with his.

"Fuck baby." Noah let out in a pleasure after he slowly slid into you, lowering himself to his elbows to be close to you. He grabbed you by your chin and connected your lips for a hundredth time this night. He said baby, he said home. There probably wasn't any deeper meaning behind it, but he rarely used pet names for you.

His deep growl snaped you out of your thoughts. Noah’s head was in the crook of your neck, this position allowed you both moan straight into each other’s ears.

"Noah." you moaned his name once more as you felt the tension in your body to grow again. He set the pace as he continued to move his dick in and out of you. It felt different tonight, but you didn’t know if it was just for you, or if Noah felt it too. Sex with Noah was always intimate, but tonight felt even more.

Noah put his hand between your bodies to play with your clit, which wasn't really needed after he hit the right spot inside you that made your walls pulse around him. "I'm going to cum."

"Yeah baby, let go. Cum for me." and that was the last snap. You did come under Noah, tugging at his hair while being moaning mess.

Noah kept thrusting inside you, riding you through your high as he was still chasing his own.

"Y/N, fuck!" was the last thing you heard before he came too.

He collapsed on your chest, his head still in the crook of your neck.

“If you steal my things again, I’m putting you in handcuffs.” Noah said.

“Well, that sounds really terrifying.” You said with visible irony in your voice and made Noah laugh.

Your chests kept moving up and down, enjoying the moment in silence.

"Be mine." Noah said into your skin.

"What?" you tensed a bit, not sure what he meant.

"I don't want you to leave each time after we have sex, I don't want to pretend we're not close when we're in public. I don't want you to steal my clothes, I want you to wear it whenever you want. Be mine, please." Noah raised his head from your neck after he was finished to look into your eyes. “You don’t have to answer right now, or we don’t have to make it official right this second. But I want everyone to know we’re seeing each other, I want you Y/N.”

You slid your fingers through Noah’s hair, pushing them out of his eyes that were looking at you with so much hope. Then gently slid your hand to caress his cheek.

"Are you asking me all of this while your dick is still inside me?" was the only answer you could get out. You both started laughing, Noah got up to throw away the condom, then he put the covers over both of you and you laid on his chest.

"So, what do you say?" Noah started playing with your hair, you could sense he was nervous.

"I'm saying let's give it a chance then." you tried to hide your smile with putting your head under his neck, but he cupped your cheeks and made you look him in the eye.

"Really?"

"Really." that was all he needed to know, he kissed your forehead, then your cheeks, your chin, then finally your lips.

"We're going on a date tomorrow then. And you're staying tonight." Noah said between kisses.

For the first time ever you two took shower together, Noah gave you his t-shirt to sleep in. You fell asleep cuddled together, but you still heard Noah say "But don't steal my uniform again please." before he planted last kiss in your hair.

[wosoluver]

Can you do a misa x reader where it's readers birthday?

Birthday girl

Misa Rodríguez x reader

Misa Rodriguez Masterlist

──✩₊⁺⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧──

It was your birthday week. You were excited to spend your first birthday with your girlfriend and in Madrid. You had moved there months ago.

But every time Misa brought it up, your smile didn't reach your eyes, and you would somehow shut down the conversation. She knew something was wrong, you never shut up about how much you love to celebrate your birthday, and now that it was almost here, you didn't even bother to plan anything.

You had opened up to her, saying how weird it would be to not have your sisters or friends from back home with you. The step to move to Madrid had been a little tough on you, but you knew the importance of becoming more independent and being closer to great job opportunities. She understood how you felt, but she had set her mind into planning the best birthday possible, you deserved more than anyone to have a special day.

"Sofie, have you ordered the cake yet?" - Misa as usual, was taking matters very seriously, like she always did when it came to basically anything she felt like she had to succeed in.

"Calm down I got it, I'll order today" - saying quickly into the phone.

"You haven't yet!?" - annoyed at her friend for struggling at her only task.

"You know, when you said we were throwing a party I thought we were going clubbing or something."

"Your kidding right? I'm already struggling thinking on how I'm going to get her to Raso's apartment for the dinner. And you know she isn't really into people that are not her friends. She wouldn't stand 10 minutes inside a club."

"Right. It's fine, don't worry, we still got like 2 days."

"Two days go by like the blink of an eye"

and it did.

Misa's pov

Okay. It's 7:30 am. I have to get to practice by 8:00 sharp. Leave at 12:00, stop by to get some flowers and a café con leche from her favorite coffee shop. Should be fine. She should be waking up late anyway.

Stoping by the flower shop, I settled for a classic red rose bouquet. Besides being your favorite, they were the prettiest they had. Got the coffee and made my way home.

As soon as I opened the door I saw her laying on the couch, watching yet another episode of her comfort show.

"Good morning mi amor, these are for you..." - handing the bouquet in front of her - "Feliz Cumpleaños baby"

She seemed on a better mood than expected, taking into consideration the last couple of days.

"Buenos dias, guapa!" - jumping up from the couch and giving me a short kiss, taking the roses from my hands - "Thank you so much amor! And coffee?!? God I love you."

"You seem in a good mood, care to share why? Besides the obvious reason?" - looking down at her big smile.

"I sorry I didn't seem so excited the last couple of days, but it wouldn't be fair to myself or to you, to not let myself celebrate right? It's the first birthday I get to spend with you Misa!"

"Only the first of many."

"Kinda cheesy." - she says walking into the kitchen to set up the flowers in a vase.

"Excuse me? Can I be romantic to my girlfriend without being judged?!" - As I followed.

"Okay since I didn't plan anything before hand, can we do whatever I want today?"

"Yes, what would that be?"

"Shower and then lunch maybe?"

"Shower and lunch it is. I'll get the shower running while you finish it up here" - A weight left my shoulders when I realized it would be no trouble getting her out of the house.

After lunch we headed back home, the car ride was quiet and peaceful, and I decided it would be a good time to bring up we had plans.

"So... Since you were kind of down this week, I decided upon making plans for you. I mean us-" but I was quickly cut off.

"Misa, birthday sex doesn't need to be planned, it's kind of mandatory"

"Well yes but, I actually planned something, for tonight!"

"You did?! And you were able to keep it a secret? Wow, you really need to be praised then." - You said it half joking.

Back to the apartment.

"Alright so we have some free time until we need to start getting ready to go..." - I let her know while unlocking the door.

"I have the perfect idea to keep us busy till then..."

reader's pov

Standing both at someone's door, ready for whatever this was, you were excited to say the least. Misa never disappoints and that's been proved time and time again.

Not even 5 seconds later, there was Raso opening the door.

"Hello Y/N, happy birthday!" - She screams happily. The thick Aussie accent ever so present. "Welcome to my place and your birthday spot for the night!"

Hayley was the sweetest. You two had instantly become friends once you met. Unknown to you, when her friend asked for help to set everything up, she was the first one up for it, offering to take charge of everything. She missed Australia like crazy. And knew exactly how you were feeling.

Walking in and seeing the beautiful set up, made you smile and tear up immediately. Seeing all the girls you had grown close to, since you arrived in Spain made you feel so lucky.

The party initially started out as a calm dinner but by now it was a full on celebration, loud music and good drinks.

I saw Misa going out in the balcony, probably to get some air. And trailed off behind her.

"Thank you, my love. Really. It would've sucked to go through my birthday without a party." - I say looking into her eyes with the most love they could bare.

"I got you. Always. I'm so glad you liked it. Also really glad the cake was here." - Even though I didn't get the joke, I proceeded to thank her.

"This must have been a pain to organize. You know, we could of just gone clubbing." -

"That's what I said!" - Svava said from behind us. "I was looking for you two, the girls want to do karaoke!"

"I'm so gonna sing I want it that way."

"We'll be right there!" - Misa yelled through the loud music as she left us alone once more.

We stood there, just appreciating each other's presence. After sharing a kiss in a warm hug, Misa finally spoke again.

"First one down, forever to go!"

──✩₊⁺⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧──

As always, would love to hear your thoughts! 🩷

[bugrry]

you're the thing that's crystal clear

hbo!joel miller x fem!reader

hello lovebugs!!

a/n: after thirteen months of no new writing, the inspiration bug finally bit me again! please please please let me know what you think! hopefully i'll have more works coming out in the next few months, fingers crossed! :EDIT: at first i'd had it written that it was a gn reader, forgetting that i'd used she/her pronouns for the reader. so sorry!

in this fic there are spoilers for episode six of the last of us AND i have not played the game, so if there are any inaccuracies, sorry!

tags/warnings: angst, hurt/comfort, reader and joel reuniting (let me know if i missed/forgot about anything!)

word count: 3,105

part two

Joel and Ellie had been at the commune for three whole hours before Joel can bring himself to ask about you. 

“Where is she?” Joel finally asks as the four of them sit together and enjoy their meal. Tommy sighs, as though he’d been waiting for Joel to ask the question. He probably had been. 

“I don’t know, Joel,” Tommy grunted, piercing the last morsel on his plate with his fork. 

“You said she came here with you,” Joel grumbles, his voice just above a whisper. 

“I also said she didn’t want to talk to you,” Tommy responds, swallowing and standing. He grabs his and Maria’s plate once she indicates that she’s done eating. Tommy moves to go to the kitchen, and Joel is following close behind him.

“So she’s here.” He tries to hide the desperation in his voice, but he doesn’t think he was all that convincing. He also doesn’t think he really cares. 

Tommy turns to him, almost snatching Joel’s plate out of his hands. “I’ll tell her you’re here. Let her decide what to do about it. Don’t you dare go lookin’ for her.” 

Joel sighs as he watches Tommy walk away from him, and he decides that he’s going to explore the rest of the commune. He eventually finds himself alone, sitting at a bar in an empty restaurant, thinking about the last time he saw you.

Three Years Ago

“Joel please!” You begged from where you stood with your half-packed backpack.

“No. I’m not joinin’ those Firefly fucks.” He stood tall and intimidating in front of you, almost like he was going to physically stop you from leaving. 

“Even if I have to go?” You said sharply, turning to grab another essential from your small cabinet. 

“You don’t have to go.” Joel almost scoffed. 

“I’ll die if I stay here.” 

“I’ll protect you!” Joel’s hands flew out from where they’d been at his sides. You flinched at the movement and the sudden change in his tone. 

“You can’t. Not from this.” You mumbled, just barely loud enough for him to hear. 

“From what?!” He continued to speak harshly, and you had to push through the instinct to just shut down. 

You dropped what you’d been holding, pressing the palms of your hands into the edge of the counter.  

“From myself!” You took a deep breath and finally turned to face him. “I am rotting here, Joel. I need to get out. For good.”

You had tried so hard to find a purpose here, with him, but every passing day only convinced you further that staying in Boston would kill you. One way or another, you knew that staying here would lead to you being just another one of the bodies that Joel had to toss in the pit. You shuddered at the thought. 

“You’ll rot there too! You can’t pick and choose your life anymore, Y/N! It’s like this everywhere!”

You shook your head, feeling heat rush into your face. “It doesn’t have to be! What if there’s something else out there? Something better?”

“You want to risk your life to find out?”

“Yes, Joel! I have to!” You heard your voice crack, and it was evident that the desperation in your body language had finally seeped its way into your words. 

“Fine!” He barked, turning towards his liquor cabinet as you finished shoving your things into your bag.

“Fine!” You pushed the whimper out of your voice as you zipped your bag shut and made your way out of your shared apartment. 

Once you’d slammed the door shut behind you, you pressed your back against the weakened wood. You shut your eyes as tight as you could, trying to will the tears away as you left down the stairs to where Tommy was waiting for you outside. 

Present Day, 2023

“Joel?” A soft voice comes from behind where Joel had parked himself at the bar. Joel’s head snaps up at your near-silent entrance. “Is that you?”

“...Y/N?” He curses himself for letting someone sneak up on him yet again. But once he sees your face, sees that you’re okay and alive he feels himself deflate. He hadn’t heard from you since you left, only getting bits and pieces from his brother, though Tommy had refused to give Joel much more than that. Joel was sure that had been at your request. After a while, Joel had stopped hearing from Tommy altogether, and thus lost access to whatever minuscule amounts of information he’d been getting about you. 

“They said that Tommy’s brother had come through. Guess they weren’t lyin’.”

“Guess they weren’t.” He mumbles, turning back to where he’d been picking at the chipping wood of the bar.

“You’re really gonna leave her?” You say softly, coming around to the other side of the bar. You pull two glasses from under the counter and turn to grab a bottle of whiskey off the shelf behind you. 

“Shit. How fast does word spread around here?” Joel says, watching your every move, trying to memorize the way you fit into this place so naturally, trying to convince himself that you’re happier here. Without him. 

“Fast enough.” You sigh, placing a half-full glass in front of him. “Dammit.” He doesn’t grab the glass right away, staring at the sloshing liquid until it stills. 

“You can’t leave her.” You say, resting your now empty hand against your hip. 

“Like you left me?”

You sigh, moving to pull a stool from under the counter. You can’t bring yourself to sit directly next to him, not yet. You needed the foot of space that the bar provided to keep you from completely drowning yourself in his presence. “I didn’t have a choice, you know that. You meant the world to me. You still do."

“Do I?” “Joel.” You hesitate. “Do I?” He barks, and there’s a harshness to his words that hadn’t been there when he’d first asked the question. You appear to flinch, but he chooses not to comment on your obvious apprehension. You take a minute to compose yourself before beginning to speak.

“Of course you do. There hasn’t been anyone since you. I don’t know if there ever will be.” You look down at the bar in front of you, daring only once to sneak a peek at Joel’s hands that had finally clasped around the glass. “You don’t have to lie for me. I’m a big boy.” He takes a swig of his drink, grimacing at the pleasant burn it left as it traveled down his throat. “I’m not lyin’. You were it for me.” You continue to avoid his eyes as you busied yourself with wiping down the counter.

Joel grumbled, wanting to drop his head onto the old wood in front of him. “You’re too young for me to have been it for you.” “Maybe so, but I loved you.” “Loved?” “What does it matter to you?” You snap, finally looking up at him and meeting his eyes. It was then that you noticed just how tired he was. Sure, he’d been grizzled and tired when you’d last seen him, but it seemed that the last three years had aged him faster than the previous seventeen had. 

“Never mind.” He says, breaking eye contact and looking back down at where his fingers traced the carvings in the glass. 

You soften, realizing just how much you’d truly missed him, how much you still miss him. You miss the way he’d hold you after a supply run went wrong – or right, for that matter. Joel had loved holding you whenever he got the chance. You miss the way he’d laugh at one of your shitty jokes, playfully pushing you away from him as you tried to get him to admit he’d found it funny. You blush when the thought pops into your head, but you also miss the way he’d put his whole body into kissing you, always made you lose yourself in the feel of his lips, his hands, and his thighs pressed against your body. You didn’t want to dig yourself any deeper of a hole, so you decide to bring the topic back to something you could think about without wanting to scream. 

“Please don’t leave her, Joel.”

Joel groans, looking back up at you and frowning, “We’re back on this?”

“It’s important. I can tell how much she means to you.” “It’s none of your business,” he says, taking a final swig of his drink. 

“Isn’t it?”

He shakes his head, looking down at the empty glass in front of him, “Nope.”

“I suppose it’s not,” you relent, moving to pour him another few ounces. He lets you.

“I’m glad we finally agree on something.”

You nod, looking down at the bottle in your hands. You place the bottle back on the shelf, turning back to take a drink out of your own glass. You decide to push it further. 

“Ellie’s not going to let you leave her.”

Joel sighs as if he’s annoyed that the conversation has continued, but he doesn’t leave. For that, you are thankful.

“What do you know about her?” He demands quietly, still refusing to look back up at you.

“I know enough.”

“I’m not gonna leave her,” he concedes, “I’m gonna give her a choice. Let her stay here or come with me.”

“She’s gonna choose you.”

“How do you know? You didn’t.” 

“That was different.” “Was it?” He grunts. 

“Yes. Because I regret it.” At this, his eyes snap up to meet yours. You’re looking at him sadly, as if it was obvious, as if he should have known that you regretted leaving him. Maybe he should have. He doesn’t say anything for a long while, just staring at you and watching the tears pool in your eyes.

“Oh,” is all he comes up with, and you frown. 

“Is that what you wanted to hear? That I regret leaving you? That I’ve been miserable this whole time without you?”

“No, of course not,” he says sincerely. 

You scoff, rolling your eyes and taking another drink from your glass, “Yeah right.”

“You think I wanted you to be miserable?” Joel says, finally standing from his seat at the bar, “I’ve thought about you every day since you left. I didn’t want to let you leave, but I also knew I had no power to stop you. I knew you were miserable in Boston. I knew I couldn’t convince you to stay.” “Even with how miserable leaving you made me feel, I think it was the right choice.” Joel frowns again, and the wrinkles around his eyes become only more prominent. You yearn to press the obvious hurt out of his face. You don’t let him speak, holding up your hand as you continue talking.

“I think I had to leave you. I don’t think I realized how important you were to me until I didn’t have you anymore.” At your words, Joel's frown only hardens. “You don’t mean that.”

“Don’t you tell me what I mean, Joel Miller,” you snap, your back straightening from where you’d been leaning against the shelf. 

“If I was so important to you, why didn’t you come back?”

“I didn’t think you wanted me back.” 

Joel’s face softens. He looks at you like you’ve just told him the most heartbreaking news he’d ever heard. “What?” He says it so quietly you almost miss it, “You thought…” he trails off, not allowing himself to finish the thought. 

“I thought you hated me.” You blurt. You curse yourself, you’d meant to say it softer than that, to maybe sugarcoat it a little bit. 

“You thought I hated you?” You don’t answer him this time, merely shrugging and looking down and tracing the grain pattern of the bar. “I could never hate you.”

He says it so harshly you feel as though you’re being scolded, and it only makes you shrink further in on yourself. He notices your shift and softens. He comes around your side of the bar, needing to be close to you, to feel your warmth again. You allow him to approach you, and when you don’t shy away from him, he feels a part of him that has been asleep for three years reawaken. He is filled with a sort of warmth that he never thought he’d feel again as he reaches up to cup your face, speaking softly, “Sweetheart, I could never hate you. Never in a million years could I hate you.” He brushes his thumb over your cheek, and he may be imagining it, but he thinks he feels you press your face into his hand. You close your eyes, but he has more to say.

“Y/N, listen to me. We’ve been through too much for me to ever hate you. I’ve seen you at your absolute worst and I still wanted you so bad it hurt.”

You pull away from his touch, and he feels cold again.

“That was before I left,” You say, almost as if you’re ashamed of yourself.

“That’s true. Even after that, though. I never hated you. Not for a second.” “Don’t lie to me Joel,” you almost whimper, and you shut your eyes in embarrassment at letting your voice crack.

“I’m not lying to you. Sure, I was pissed. Heartbroken, even. I thought you and Tommy were idiots for leaving, but there’s no way in hell I ever hated you for it.”

You give a non-commital shrug, still avoiding eye contact with him, “sure,” you eventually mumble.

“I’m telling you the truth. I have to reason to lie to you.”

“To spare my feelings, maybe.” You say softly, now fidgeting with your fingers.

“When have I ever done that?”

This makes you chuckle quietly, and he’s filled with a sort of pride that warms him from the inside out. There’s my girl, he finds himself thinking. Your laugh and your smile fades, and with it, that fuzzy feeling in Joel’s chest. 

“You should hate me.” You finally say. 

“I know,” he says, reaching up to touch you again. This time, he reaches for your hair, pushing a lock of it from your face, “But I can’t bring myself to.”

It's quiet for a few moments before you speak again, “I thought I hated you.” Joel’s hand drops from your face.

“What?” He tries to keep the fear out of his voice, and from your lack of reaction, he hopes that he’s succeeded. 

“I thought I hated you because you let me leave so easily. I thought you’d just decided you didn’t need me anymore. That I wasn’t worth fighting for. That was stupid, I realize that now. But I wrote some pretty bitter things about you in my journal.”

Joel’s hand moves back up to your face, this time to brush away the tears that had fallen down your cheeks, “I could never not need you.”

You shake your head, moving out of his grip again. “You did just fine for more than a decade without me.”

“Maybe I just didn’t realize how alone I was.”

This makes you laugh again, but not in a way that fills Joel with warmth. It’s bitter, doubtful, and angry.

“I could show you,” he starts again, moving back into your personal space, “if you’d let me. I could show you how much you meant to me. How much you still mean to me.”

“I don’t…” you start, but he doesn’t let you finish.

“If you’d let me, I’d spend the rest of my life showing you how much you mean to me.”

“Joel…” you start again, but this time you let yourself trail off, not knowing what you were going to say, just knowing that you should probably say something.

“Please sugar,” he starts again, placing his hands softly on your shoulders. You don’t move any closer, but you also don’t move away, so Joel keeps going, “You said it yourself. There’s still a small part of you that loves me, even if you probably shouldn’t.”

You mumble something to yourself, something Joel couldn’t make out. He reaches up to move your face towards him, to force you to look at him. You obey his silent request, looking up and into his eyes that were somehow still so soft, even after all these years. 

“It’s not a small part of me, Joel,” you say again, speaking louder this time, “It was never a small fucking part. My whole being was devoted to you. It tore me apart to leave you. I was useless on the road. Once we were with the Fireflies, I threw myself into my work and my chores so that I didn’t have to think about the huge Joel-shaped piece that was missing from my heart. I hate myself for leaving, and I hate myself even more for not going back to Boston and fighting for you. I was a coward. I still am.”

By the time you’re finished talking, tears are streaming down your face. Joel is looking at you with the softest eyes you’ve ever seen, and it makes you want to curl into a ball and never speak to anyone again. He lets you cry for a moment before he responds.

“If you’re a coward, then I’m a coward too. I could have just as easily come looking for you.” “I never expected you to.” You squeak out, in between your sobs “And I never expected you to come back. That doesn’t mean I got over you leaving. I didn’t think I’d ever get over it. And I hadn’t, not until I saw you here.”

Once he finishes speaking, he finally pulls you into his chest and just lets you sob into him. He doesn’t know how long the two of you stand there, in that empty bar, with his arms wrapped around you, but what he does know is that he never wants to let you go. Eventually, your sobs fade to quiet sniffles and you shift in order to wrap your arms around his body. Even though the two of you are pressed against each other, the way you grab at him makes it seem as though you need him even closer. You mumble something into his chest that he can’t quite make out, so he pulls you away from him. You whine at the loss of his touch, but you quiet once you see how he looks at you.

“What was that, sweetheart?”

“I said I love you.” You sniffle, reaching up and wiping a tear from his face.

“I love you too, Y/N. God, do I love you.”

-

part two

[alexfromjersey]

ℕ𝕒𝕦𝕘𝕙𝕥𝕪 𝔾𝕚𝕣𝕝 - jenna ortega

Stripper!Jenna x Black!G!PReader

summary: to celebrate you being recently released from prison, your siblings take you to a strip club.

warnings: mature language

a/n: blame beyonce for this...might turn this into a series if yall fuck with it enough 👀

“You want to take me where?” You questioned your siblings. One minute, you were focused on doing your job for your first day. The next minute, your siblings were calling you and harassing you about letting them take you out somewhere to celebrate.

Celebrate what you might ask.

You were locked up on drug charges for the last 7 years and you were recently released on parole for good behavior. You were released four months ago and for four months straight, your two brothers and sister kept hounding you to let them throw a party or something. Each time you said no because truthfully, there wasn’t anything to celebrate in your opinion. However, they strongly disagreed.

“To a strip club. One of my homies recommended it to me, it’ll be fun” Your older brother Akeem stated.

“I don’t got no money for no strip club. I just started this job today” You responded and sorted the packages in the truck.

“Don’t worry about that. We got you covered, all you have to do is say yes you’re going” Your younger brother Jeremiah said.

“Nah I’m good, y’all go have fun though” You declined.

You hear your siblings moan and groan out of frustration due to you declining to celebrate again. You just ignored it like usual.

“You irk the shit out of me. You’ve been out for four months and haven’t done a single fun thing yet. I know you’re trying to adjust to the outside world again but a part of adjusting is to have fun. So, come out and let us celebrate being able to hold you again, talk to you face to face and not behind some glass, and be able to experience life again” Your sister Eve ranted.

Even though, you felt the way you felt about being celebrated. Eve was right. Being behind bars for seven years did a number on your mental health, not being able to freely see your loved ones was rough.

You sighed, “If I say yes, will you leave me alone after this?”

“No promises” Akeem smiled.

You rolled your eyes with a smile, “Fine whatever. What time should I be ready?”

Eve, Akeem, and Jeremiah all shouted yes and told you to be ready by 9. You nodded hung up the phone and got back to work.

“What the fuck am I going to wear?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You finished your first day at work by 5 and with praise from your supervisor. You worked at FedEx, sorting packages and loading up trucks for deliveries. You were surprised they even hired you since your record. You were rejected from numerous jobs because of it and you were about to give up when they called you.

“Nana I’m home” You called out to your grandmother Sheryl as you entered the house. You took your shoes off by the door and hung your jacket on the hook.

“Hey sweetie, how was your first day?” Sheryl asked.

“It was alright, easy work, easy day” You shrugged and sat on the couch.

“Hmm, that’s good. Your dinner is in the microwave. I got to leave in a minute, I’m going to bingo” Sheryl said.

“Cool” You replied and watched Family Feud on the TV.

“Got any plans tonight?” Sheryl asked.

“I was planning on just taking a shower, eating, and going to bed. But your other grandchildren are dragging me out tonight against my will” You rolled your eyes.

“Oh lord, now don’t you go out and get yourself in trouble fooling with your brothers and sister. You need to stay focused, you hear me” Sheryl demanded.

“Yes ma’am” You replied.

“Alright now,” Sheryl said and turned her attention toward the TV.

You sat there until the Family Feud episode ended and then went to the kitchen. You opened the microwave and grabbed your plate.

“Yes!” You quietly cheered when you saw she made baked chicken, mac and cheese, cornbread, and string beans. You were definitely going to get the itis after eating this. You heat it up and basically inhale the food and sweet ice tea.

Not long after, Sheryl left to go to bingo as you were in the shower. You got dressed in some shorts and a tank top. You went back on the couch and laid across which was technically your bed. The other spare room your grandmother had was already preoccupied by your Uncle who was a truck driver. He was on the road but due to be back in a couple of days.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You woke up to the sound of your phone constantly ringing and dinging from calls and texts. You rubbed the sleep from your eyes and grabbed it from the coffee table.

AK:

come outside

You groan and take a minute to collect yourself before getting up and getting dressed. You put on some loose fit jeans, a white undershirt, a tan long sleeve shirt, and your Timberlands. You make sure your hair is straight and looking good. You also may have stolen some of your uncle’s cologne.

You exit the house, making sure it’s locked up.

“Damn took you forever bitch” Eve commented without looking up from her phone.

“Shut up cornflakes” You replied and smacked her phone out of her hand. Eve sucked her teeth and mumbled an insult under her breath.

“Come on let’s go I’m ready to get a lap dance” Jeremiah bounced excitedly in the passenger seat.

You roll your eyes at your excited brother and got in the backseat next to Eve. Once you were inside the car, you felt a hard smack to the back of your head.

“That was for smacking my phone out my hand bitch” She grumbled.

You muttered an ‘ow’ and rubbed the spot that hurt. Soon after Akeem starts the journey to the strip club. The two boys in the front were engrossed in a conversation about attempting to take a girl home for the night. While Eve hasn’t taken her eyes off her phone since you left the house. You wanted to question it but also didn’t want to pry into her business.

Instead, you looked out the window. You took in the passing scenery. You savored it actually. You didn’t know how much you’ll miss seeing the night life in your city until you got locked up. People watching and observing how other people how fun at night was a great pass time for you.

You didn’t realize how deep into your thoughts you were until you noticed the car stopped outside a building. Your siblings got out and you followed behind them. You make your way to the back of line, thinking that’s what supposed to do. But you noticed your siblings skipped to the front by the bouncers.

“Yo what you doing? Get up here” Jeremiah ushered you.

You gave a sheepish smile to everyone in the line as you passed them. Jeremiah grabbed your shoulders and lead you in strip club.

“How we get to skip all those people?” You asked.

“Connections baby” Jeremiah smirked before digging into his pocket. He then pulled out a band (1,000 if you didn’t know). The younger boy then placed it into your hand.

“What the fuck you giving me this for?” You questioned confused.

“Uh to disperse among all the talented and beautiful sexy ladies in this building. Or you can wipe your ass with it I don’t know and I don’t care” Jeremiah shrugged and left your side before you can even reject it.

You stood there for a minute looking stupid before you pocketed the money. Honestly, you didn’t know what to do with yourself. It smelt like strong ass marijuana and cheap fruity cologne. The bass from the music that was currently playing was vibrating your whole body. Quickly, you found a seat at the front of the stage.

You looked around and saw Jeremiah getting a lap dance in a private room. Akeem was at the bar waiting on his drink. Eve was seen at a booth with a bunch of girls laughing hard.

They beg you to take you out and then leave you as soon they can. You internally roll your eyes at the thought.

You felt a tap on your shoulder and saw a woman with nothing but a bikini top and a thong next to you.

“Follow me” She smiled and grabbed your hand.

You were confused but did as the lady told. She walked you up some stairs and towards a folding chair. You now realize that you’re on stage.

“Wait I-I don’t-”

“Enjoy the show” The woman cut you off. She gave you a wink before walking off the stage.

Suddenly, the lights in the room changed to a dark sultry red and the music cut off. Everyone’s eyes was now turned to the stage including your siblings.

“Alright, everyone for the first time in almost a year please clap your hands, hide your boners, and welcome back to the building Naughty.” The DJ introduced.

It was silent for a moment before you heard the sound of heels clicking on the floor behind you. You turned your head a little behind you and saw a short woman dressed in all red. From the bright red lacy bra corset top to her red 6-inch stilettos. You turned back around when she stood behind you as the beat of a familiar song played. It was Naughty Girl by Beyoncé, how ironic.

You felt her hands glide down the front of your body. Her scent was intoxicating, it was a mix of something fruity and sexy. You were incited by it.

I love to love you, baby (I love to love you, baby), I love to love you, baby (I love to love you, baby)

She removed her hands but not before grabbing your jaw and moving it to your left to face her. Her dark brown eyes never leaving your light brown ones. She dipped down in front of you while swaying her hips sexily to the beat of the song.

I'm feelin' sexy, I wanna hear you say my name, boy

You watched as she poked her ass out to everyone in the crowd. You heard the cheers and saw the money being thrown onto the stage out your peripheral vision. But you wasn’t focused on that, you were focused on the woman dancing in front of you.

Feelin' kind of n-a-s-t-y, Why I just might take you home with me

She got behind you and grabbed the pole behind you and started climbing up it. You looked up in amazement at her strength.

Start feeling so crazy, babe, lately, I feel the funk coming over me, I don't know what's gotten into me, the rhythm's got me feelin' so crazy, babe

She started spinning on the pole using one hand. You were a little scared that she would fall but you had to remember that she’s a professional and she knew what she was doing. Plus, if she were too fall you’ll catch her without hesitation.

She turned herself upside down and prepared herself to slide down. Your eyes once locked on to each other again and she slid down just as the chorus began.

Tonight, I'll be your naughty girl (Uh), I'm calling all my girls

She stopped just a breath away from your face. She expected you to flinch like everyone person she brought up on stage but to her surprise, you didn’t move an inch.

We gon' turn this party out, I know you want my body

She climbed back up the pole and started doing her routine. You felt your hands getting clammy so you wiped it on your pants leg. You then remembered the money in your pocket and pulled it out. You threw a few hundreds in the air making it rain down onto the floor.

After the chorus, she slid down again and got off the pole. Your eyes now took the time to wander over her body. You bit your lip and a finger lifts your chin to her face again. She straddle your legs and you kept your hands to your side.

You saw the rule about no touching the dancers. It was painted in big bold letter, you couldn’t miss it.

You're so sexy, tonight, I am all yours, boy

She leaned in towards your face and you thought your lips were going to brush against each other for a second. But she pulled back a millisecond before they could.

The way your body moves across the floor, feelin' kind of n-a-s-t-y, why I just might take you home with me

She smirked when she felt you twitch at not being able to touch her. Her arms rested on your shoulders and you felt her start to roll on your crotch. Your eyes widen and you instinctively go to grab her hips but you remembered the rule and kept your hands to the side. You did make clench fists to stop yourself from growing happy in that region.

Meanwhile, the woman on top of you applauded your self control. Most people tap out way before this part.

Tonight, I'll be your naughty girl (Uh), (Oh) I'm calling all my girls (Oh), We gon' turn this party out, I know you want my body

She ticked her hips to the beat of the song which made you let out a low groan.

Tonight, I'll be your naughty girl, I'm calling all my girls (Girls), I see you look me up and down, and I came to party

She turned around and started grinding into you again. Your bottom lip was trapped between your teeth as you focused on the woman and trying not to get a boner.

I love to love you, baby (I love to love you, baby), I love to love you, baby (I love to love you, baby)

She did a slow dive towards the fall making sure her ass was still your main view. While she winked at one of the men in the audience who threw basically all of his money towards her. She turned around on to her back and did a body roll on the ground.

I love to love you, baby (I love to love you, baby), I love to love you, baby (I love to love you, baby)

She pulled herself to a squat in front of you and pushed your legs apart. She wrapped her arms under your thighs and flipped herself up onto your shoulders. She supported herself impressively on your shoulders. Her hand gripped your curly hair without causing any pain to you.

Tonight, I'll be your naughty girl (Uh), I'm calling all my girls, we gon' turn this party out, I know you want my body

She then grabbed onto the pole again and climbed up it. She spin on it without any hands this time just core and leg strength. For the finale, she slid down the pole and into a split.

At the end of the song, the whole place was cheering loudly. You were blinded by the sight of falling money everywhere.

“Give it up for Naughty!” The DJ yelled and made the place cheer even louder than before.

You watched as the woman stood up and waved to everyone. Once she locked eyes with you again, she smirked and gave you a wink. She then walked off the stage.

After you were escorted off the stage and made your way to your siblings. They all stared at your flushed face with a grin.

“Money well spent” Akeem commented.

“You paid for that?” You questioned.

“Sure did. We knew if you agreed all you were going to do is either sit at the bar or watch the dancers and occasionally throw money. We had to let you experience a little something” Eve replied.

“And experience something you did” Jeremiah laughed.

You chuckled because you couldn’t even be upset at them. You had a amazing time and it was one for the books.

For the rest of the night, you hung out with your siblings, drinking and chatting. But your mind was still stuck on the sexy small woman named Naughty.

a/n: I hope I wrote this okay. I’ve been feeling a little anxious about my writing lately. let me know if you guys want this into a series cause if you do I got plans for it 👀.

[wutheringcaterpillar]

Remember That Night? Chapter 1/4

Summary: What happens when your boss whom your head over heels for calls you in the middle of the night to go for a drive and things go further than they should? Will they make it work or will it end in tragic heartache?

warnings: boss/employee relationship, nostalgia, deep descriptions of heartbreak

italicized is past tense.

The case files spread out across your desk were all mixing together in a blur. It felt like there was no end to it and this was the one you thought was gonna stick with you. The rest of the team had left except for Aaron. He was sitting in his own office looking for anything that could stand out exactly like you were.

Glancing up you saw his eyes scanning the papers intently with one hand resting on his forehead. In your heart you missed the bond that you shared with him deeply but the chances of anything happening again were close to zero and it made your heart ache to think that he’d never be yours.

A few months after Haley passed Aaron was having a night just like the one you’re having now and he needed closure. The night still replayed in your mind at moments like this but you’re okay now. It had been five months since the two of you cut whatever connection you had romantically off. You’ve moved on and entered the dating world, it was for the better. Closing the case files you began to put them back in order and erase the case from your mind for the night. Right when you were about ready to get up and head out Aaron approached you at your desk and sat down in a chair across from you. “It’s late. Every one else went home hours ago. Everything okay?” His intent gaze stared deep into your eyes but you didn’t allow yourself to get lost in him. “Yeah, I just don’t understand how some people can be so cruel. I think this is the one that’s gonna stick with me and it worries me but, I know I need to get home and get rest.”

“Y/N, you know I’m always here if you need to talk or vent.” You nodded in response. The two of you sat in silence for a moment, you couldn’t help but see him twiddle his thumbs a bit, it looked as if he was in deep thought, his eyebrows were knitted together like they always were when he was like this. “What about you? Are you okay? Everything going well with Beth?” He stopped all movement and his eyes connected with yours once more. “Can I ask you something?”

“I’m an open book ask away.” He shifted in his chair, leaning forward a bit. “Do you remember that night? The first night?” All of a sudden the memory came flooding back like hurricane.

The night was beautiful out, a clear sky, twinkling stars, streetlights lit up the roads just outside of your apartment. The vacation you were currently on from work was much needed, thoughts of Aaron filled your mind at times. You couldn’t imagine how he was coping, being a single father, going to sleep in a bed without his wife. It had to have been difficult, you knew the crush you had on him was silly and that it would never go anywhere but you couldn’t help the feelings you had for this man. 

Settling down onto your couch you turned on the television to catch up on one of your favorite shows, avoiding the news at all costs you wanted all crime to be out of your head for your entire week off. Cracking open a beer you grabbed a blanket and settled it over your legs. About halfway into the episode your phone rang causing a groan to escape your lips but your heart fluttered when you saw it was Aaron. What could he possibly need it was 2:30 am. “Hello?” 

“Hi. I’m sorry to be calling you this late I hope I didn’t wake you.” When he spoke he sounded like he hadn’t slept yet and that he may have been having a bad night. “No, you’re okay. Is everything alright?” 

“Y/N I just really need someone right now. I hate to bother you on your vacation but would you like to go for a drive? If you’re too tired I understand.” You couldn’t help but respond as quickly as you did, this is the moment you had been waiting for. “I’m all for it. What’d you have in mind?” You couldn’t see it but Aaron was smiling on the other end of the phone. “I know a place.” 

For the fifteen minutes it took him to get there you didn’t want to get too dressed up, it was the middle of the night after all. You left your sweats on but changed into a snug fitted shirt before brushing your hair and throwing on a pair of tennis shoes. Water was splattered on the bathroom sink from you washing your face and brushing your teeth to disintegrate the alcohol smell on your tongue. When you heard the knock on your door your heart skipped a beat. Glancing at yourself one last time in the mirror a big bright excited smile took over your flushed face. Your mind guessing where he would take you as you walked to answer the door. 

On the other side Aaron stood there also dressed in sweats and a t-shirt he looked absolutely breathtaking even out of his suit. His hair was slightly disheveled and when he spoke “Hello” to you the small dimples next to his lips formed from a smile. Aside from that you were completely locked in and lost in his eyes, he was really here. “So are you ready?” You nodded in response and he moved out of your way to excuse you into the hallway. “So where are we going?” 

“It’s a surprise.” 

Once outside he opened your car door for you like a gentleman before getting into his own side. The way his hands curled over the steering wheel and his veins popped out sent so many thoughts swirling in your mind. The car ride was filled with endless conversation, mostly him asking about your vacation and you asking how the team has been doing but neither of you talked about any cases past or present. It was nice. 

He maneuvered his car into a parking lot, there was a hill toward the top of it, looking like it would be overlooking something. 

Once out of the car the wind blew slightly causing leaves to flutter around, he noticed you cross your arms together. “Are you cold? I have an extra jacket in the car if you’d like it. I keep it in there for Jack because he tends to cold with how much I use the air conditioning.” A small chuckle escaped your lips. “No, it’s okay, it feels-“ Before you could finish your sentence he was opening the back car door and pulling out one of his gray zip up hoodies. “I insist.” As if you weren’t trying to hide your blushing cheeks enough they surely came out now. 

Putting on the jacket, Aaron stood by your side as you walked up the small hill. When you reached the top there was a single bench looking over a sea of water. “I know it’s not much but this is where I tend to go when I need to think.” 

“Aaron this is- this is beautiful.” 

“I’m glad you agree.” He patted the bench, motioning for you to sit with him. The both of you sat in silence for a few moments just listening to the waves hitting the shoreline and the breeze causing leaves to fall from the tree and dance in the surrounding area. Small clouds were starting to roll over in the sky. In that moment you felt Aaron’s arm slide behind you, pulling you in a bit closer to him, his hand resting on your upper arm. As close as you were, you wanted to be closer, wanted to be snuggling with him but you didn’t put any pressure on it and just took the moment in to yourself, thankful that this was happening. “So is Jack with Jess tonight?” Aaron nodded in response. 

“He is. Had the house to myself was feeling lonely and even though it’s been a month since Haley has passed it still manages to bother me at times like tonight. I’m really glad you came with me.” He looked over his shoulder at you taking in your beauty and you did the same taking in how handsome he was. “Me too.” The two of you gazed into each others eyes searching for someone to make a move, you both leaned in simultaneously and your lips smashed together in an electrifying kiss. His lips were extremely soft, tasting of mint and had taken your breath away. Neither of your eyes had opened during the kiss. His free hand rested gently against your cheek deepening the kiss. At that moment little sprinkles landed on the top of your head but neither of you had a care in the world. When the kiss finally broke a part of the strong feelings you had for him came out. “Would you maybe want to stay with me tonight at my place?” His eyes glistened in the rain. “I’d love nothing more.” 

The night consisted of gentle spontaneous love making and you fell asleep in the arms of the man you had loved for so long more than anything, it was perfect.

He knew he had hit a nerve with your blank expression, but some part of him was just curious if you ever thought about it? “I um- I do but I try not to. No offense. It’s just I finally have moved past us and the future is looking great for me but Aaron you know I still-“

“I know, you don’t have to say it.” He spoke so gently and his face was of pure care and solidity. “I still do too.” His hand rested on yours for a few seconds as you both just sat in each others company. There was something about him that still had a hold of you, a place in your heart and just when you think you could replace it you have a moment like this with him. Every thing in you wanted to quit on the spot just so you could have him but you knew in your head that things don’t work out like that. He got up from his chair and offered to follow you home to ensure you make it there safely but you politely declined. That was when your phone rang. “Hi- Yeah I’m headed home I’ll be there in a bit- I miss you too- Okay- Bye.” Aaron wanted to ask who it was but he had no right to and he knew that so he let it be. “I will see you in the morning then?” You nodded before bidding each other goodbye once again. It shouldn’t but it felt like the first time, like you lost him again.

Arriving home you threw your keys onto the table and kissed your boyfriend whom was staying for the night he noticed the pained look on your face, the sadness that filled it. “Every thing okay babe? What’s wrong?” He took you into his arms as you cried, letting every thing out. You couldn’t love someone else the way you loved Aaron, this unexplainable connection you shared with him killed you after moments the two of you shared like tonight. If he had never brought up that night you would have been fine, but he did and here you were crying over Aaron Hotchner once again, just as you were getting back to life without him in it. You ended up telling your boyfriend it was the case you were on which wasn’t fair by any means, but as he drifted into sleep next to you, you couldn’t help but look at him and get upset. He wasn’t Aaron. No one was. That was when the night he broke it off entered into your mind.

“Y/N I’m your boss and we’re getting too close. I think it’s better that this is the last night we share together in this way. We need to stop.” It felt like a tidal of waves crashed into your heart and completely shattered it. All happiness in your face disappeared. This was the last thing you expected to happen tonight. 

You sulked in your seat, tracing your thumb around the salted rim of your glass. His eyes searched your facial expression, being a profiler you knew he was reading you like a book. His hand moved a strand of hair from your face, placing it behind your ear. “Please don’t be upset. We’ll still be close, and see each other at work but I think that’s where it should stay.” A scoff escaped your lips, shaking your head you grabbed your glass and finished off the remaining alcohol before aggressively setting it back down. 

“Yeah, well not as close as I’d like.” 

“ Y/N-“ 

“Just don’t.” When you stood up out of your chair you fell back a bit and the grip of Aaron’s hand was on your arm gently right away. “At least let me drive you home you can’t drive like this.” Putting your hand up you dismissed him completely. “I’m fine. I’ll see you in the morning, boss.” Walking out of the restaurant the rain poured as if it knew how you were feeling. As soon as you were out the door away from him the tears flooded out as you walked to your car. How could he do this to you? All the dates, the phone calls, the photos, they were completely meaningless. You read him all wrong, this situation all wrong. You were head over heels in love with Aaron and you thought he felt the same. Reaching into your purse you retrieved the first keychain he had bought you, and threw it into a bush by the entrance. You wanted anything and everything that reminded you of him gone. The car ride home felt like it was never ending. The rain made it difficult to see and the only songs on the radio were depressing love songs about heartache. Walking into your apartment you tossed your keys onto the table before turning on the lights and setting the alarm. 

Making your way into your bedroom you glanced around the room, you thought to yourself how your never going to be graced with Aaron’s face or presence in it ever again. Falling into your bed you clutched your pillow tightly tears flowing out like an ocean while his side of the bed lay empty. A hole in your heart is all that you felt, you couldn’t even imagine having to see him at work tomorrow. You could just see yourself excusing yourself to go cry somewhere. You really thought he could be the one but all hope of that had vanished. The next morning your tear stained face made you look a mess your clothes were disheveled, hair a mess but you couldn’t find a care in the world. You wanted to walk into work and make him see what he did to you. The buzzing of your phone dragged you out of your thoughts. A voicemail notification from Aaron popped up. As much as your head told you not to listen to it your heart spoke differently. “Hi, I wanted to make sure you got home safely and that you’re doing okay. If you could let me know that’d be great but if not I’ll see you at work. I truly hope there’s no hard feelings Y/N. Well I guess that’s all goodbye.” How dare he, no hard feelings? Does he not realize how much he broke you? You wanted to throw your phone and cry again but you decided to keep yourself composed and get ready for work and head in. Of course Aaron ended up calling in because Jack got sick, and he did text you about it but you reluctantly responded with, “I don’t think we should text or call anymore about anything personal. Strictly work.” He hadn’t responded for hours and the day completely dragged out you couldn’t focus and the team took notice especially Emily and Spencer because they were the closest to you but you didn’t tell them anything about your situation just that you were having a bad day. They were understanding and said they would be there whenever you’re ready to talk about it. When you went home for the night digging for clean clothes you found one of Aaron’s work shirts in your hamper, it must have been the only one not washed because it still smelled exactly like him. As much as your head told you not to put it on your heart spoke differently. As soon as you slipped it on the tears began again and you just spent the night in your apartment alone, sulking, listening to sad music, watching sad movies, cooking dinner for one, yourself. Things were different and you hated it, your body hated it, and you barely knew how to function mentally, physically, and emotionally. Was there ever going to be an end to this pain?

Little did you know Aaron did follow you home to make sure you got there safely, you didn’t put any thought into the car following you because all your thoughts were about Aaron. He watched and made sure you got in the door but to his surprise a man opened the door and he was ready to get out of his car to come protect you until he stopped with his door halfway opened as he saw you kiss the man. You had moved on, but you were unaware of the fact that Aaron had gotten the papers for his two weeks and had broken up with Beth a week ago. That’s why he never answered how she was earlier because he hadn’t been talking to her. He couldn’t be upset but he was and it was completely selfish. So against his will he drove home, to an empty apartment like before and went to sleep in an empty bed, holding onto the memory of you being next to him as he cried and held onto a shirt you left at his apartment that he couldn’t bring himself to get rid of.

[cher-rei]

feels like forever [ T.A.A ]

pairing: trent alexander arnold x femreader

summary: you had been away on a trip for a few weeks but decided to come home earlier to surprise your boyfriend

[wc: 1,8k] masterlist

genre(s): established relationship, straight-up fluff

three weeks. that's how long it's been since you had seen your boyfriend. when you first told him about the trip more than two months ago, it wasn't that big of a deal. If anything trent was urging you to go, saying that you deserved the time off and that he'd be fine by himself. you were reluctant at first, considering that you'd be gone for an entire month and that seemed a bit too much but be wouldn't budge.

"I'll come home a bit earlier I promise. there's seriously no reason for me to be gone for more than two weeks," you said, leaning back on the kitchen counter as you watched trent rummage through the fridge.

"just stay the full month baby, I'll be fine." he halted his rummage fest and turned to look at you with his eyebrow quirked and a smile. "or do you think I'm incapable of being left alone?"

there was a moment of silence that passed to which he let out an amused scoff. "you're joking right?" he took a few steps closer, causing you to tighten your grip on the counter with a suppressed smile but avoiding his gaze at all costs.

you didn't think he was incapable of being left alone. he was a grown man and knew how to handle himself, but there were times when you wondered what was going on inside his head.

he was standing in front of you now, his hand snaking around your waist ever so slowly while the other tilted your chin up to look at him. of course, he was smiling, he knew the effect he had on you all too well and made sure to use it to his advantage when needed. "go on the trip, okay?"

"but I'll come bac--"

you were cut off with a quick peck on the lips, and then another on your cheek, and another on your forehead, and another on your nose. by now you were a giggling mess, trying your best to find the strength to put some distance in between the two of you but trent wasn't having it until you finally gave in with a reluctant sigh.

"yes I win!"

oh, he won alright because even at the airport when he sent you off he practically had to drag you out of the car and to the boarding gate. you met up with your friends the second you got there but never left your boyfriend's side until it was time to go.

"remember to separate the laundry- red and white should not be together at all baby. we don't want a repeat of last time," you instructed hastily and trent nodded his head obediently as if he hadn't heard the same lecture over and over on the drive here.

"you know what just take it to the dry cleaner, it's less of a hassle."

"okay now--"

you cut him off once again, "and make sure that you lock the doors properly, and call jude if you need anything."

yep. he was undoubtedly going to miss this.

"what am I saying?" you groaned in complaint and put your palm to your forehead. "do not call jude. he should be the last person you call if you need something important."

trent couldn't help but laugh as he watched you endearingly, and truth be told he could watch you watch paint dry and never get bored. he knew how worried you were to leave him alone, it was the longest you two were going to be apart since you started dating three years ago.

so he never minded your little episodes like this whenever either of you had to leave because it was out of love and your genuine fear of him burning the house down. and it took a bit and the death stares from your group of friends to get you out of his embrace.

"good luck with your matches okay? I'll be watching so don't mess up!" you yelled out to your boyfriend who was a blushing mess when everyone decided to turn their attention on him.

he was just about ready to leave when he saw you enter the gateway, the smile still on his face but the second he turned his back he felt a pair of arms grip around his waist.

"I love you."

"you've been staring at the same picture for the past five minutes."

trent jolted at the sound of virgil's voice coming up from behind him. he didn't even bother to hide the fact that he was in fact staring at the same picture you had sent him yesterday. there was no denying that he was going insane.

sure you called whenever you had the chance and made sure to update each other throughout the day, but obviously it wasn't the same. the first week had been a breeze for trent, but a little harder for you since it took a bit of time to settle in without his presence but it happened gradually as you got too caught up in your trip.

two week. that's how long trent lasted, and he still had two more to go before you got back. it felt strange to come home after practice in the evening and not see you lying on the couch with your arms open for a hug, or to see you in the stands during practice with a loving smile on your face.

"everyone in the tunnel. let's go."

with the announcement and a pat on the shoulder from virgil, he let out one last heavy sigh and shook away any disruptive thoughts to move his focus to the match. they were playing fulham for the premier league cup today, right at Anfield which meant that he was counting on this match as a distraction.

you, on the other hand, couldn't wait for the match to be over. the stadium was booming with noise from the fans the second you entered and quietly made your way to the friends and family booth without any of the team members noticing.

"are you serious? what are you doing here?" virgil's wife, rike gasped when you slid in next to her. she hurriedly pulled you into a hug and laughed in disbelief.

"i got a little homesick," you answered breathily and rike couldn't help but give a knowing hum.

she took your hand into hers with a smile and faced the front, her eyes trailing on her husband as everyone did their warmups. "well, you were missed just as much. Seriously, i don't think I've ever seen trent this down. i wouldn't be surprised if he cried himself to sleep."

you couldn't help but burst into a fit of laughter at her last retort, knowing full well that he slept on your side of the bed just to feel somewhat closer to you. but hey, you couldn't judge him, you did the exact same thing when he was gone.

It wasn't long before the match started that you were once again fully immersed in it. Whenever you went to any of their matches you would wonder how rike put up with your endless screaming and complaining.

"klopp might have to sign you as manager after he retires," the older woman chuckled to herself as she watched you jump from your seat during trent's penalty that was nothing short from perfection even though it was technically an own goal.

by halftime, fulham was in the lead, 3-2 and you could practically feel the boys' stress radiating from the field. rike stayed with you during half-time since you couldn't see trent just yet, no matter how desperate you were but she did a good job at keeping you distracted.

If there was one thing you noticed, however, it was that trent didn't bother looking up at the box once the entire game which he always did when you came to watch them play. which for sure meant that he had no idea you were here but you were glad that his mood was lifted after he took the penalty.

It was the last three minutes of the game and it was tied 3-3, and you were on the edge of your seat. You were so stressed out that you had to take off your jacket even though it was anything but warm in the stadium.

you watched eagerly as the ball was passed back from the goalie, back to darwin, all the way to macca who finally passed it to trent, who successfully gave liverpool their finisher for the evening. you and rike were beyond ecstatic and probably looked like lunatics to everyone else in the booth but that didn't matter.

when you heard the whistle blow after the additional time was over you didn't waste a second and immediately sprinted down, out the tunnel and to the field. your brain was for sure on autopilot mode because you couldn't recall anything besides your feet carrying you to the exit.

you halted in your tracks for a moment when you felt the crisp air hit your arms, but you didn't care and needed nothing more than your boyfriend. for a split second, you made eye contact with dom but you gave him a look and he immediately shut his mouth that was nothing short of a smile.

you took one last deep breath and somehow wove your way through the crowd to end up where trent was talking to a member of the other team. You took your time and patiently waited behind your boyfriend until he was gone to tap his shoulder.

trent turned around, of course, his lips pursed and his face flushed red due to the adrenaline rush. It took a moment for him to register the fact that it was actually you and not someone playing tricks on him but the second you opened up your arms he was at a loss for words.

"are you just going to stare at me or-- ah!"

the latter. definitely the latter.

before you knew it, you were engulfed in one of the tightest hugs you've ever experienced. you couldn't help but melt at the familiar feeling of being in trent's embrace, knowing that you missed it way more than you originally thought.

trent pulled away from the hug to get a better look at you, completely disregarding the screams from the fans as well as the cameras that were going off. he didn't care because all he saw was you. all he wanted was you.

"what are you doing here? I thought you weren't coming home for another two weeks," he said exasperated and put his hands on your bare arms.

you gave him a simple shrug in response. "why would I want to see the eiffel tower for another two weeks when I could come home and be with you instead?"

that was enough to bring a cheeky smile to trent's face, "It was that boring huh?" he took your hand into his and led you into the tunnel where everyone else was.

his eyes wandered adoringly over your features, taking the time to fully let your presence sink in. he didn't admit it but he for sure was not going to let you leave him for more than a week from now on. If you wanted to go on a trip then he'd be more than happy to tag along, but no way was he going to suffer again.

"did you take my jersey with you?" His question made you look down at the red liverpool jersey you were wearing, his number flaunted at the back.

"what? just because I was watching your matches from a hotel room does not mean that I'm not gonna dress accordingly babe."

trent gave your hand a light squeeze. "oh I love a supportive girlfriend."

you lightly scoffed and turned your head to the front, where you saw curtis and Ibou making fun of harvey, probably about his height judging by the way they were pretending not to see him.

"I know you called jude."

trent's eyes widened a fraction, "it wasn't for anything serious!"

[astronomodome]

What’s Up With Those Title Cards, Anyway: An Analysis

Now that Mumbo’s second episode is out I find myself thinking about these title cards again. And as much as I realize that they’re meant to be a fun nod to previous Hermitcraft seasons and Mumbo’s place in them, the items included and the context of their presence raise a whole lot of questions for me.

First of all, these aren’t blocks, they’re real items. Many of them don’t even have equivalents in the world of Minecraft (or even in Hermitcraft). Think about that. Are the blocky forms that we see on screen mere representations of a larger, more high-resolution world? A world with stickers and stamps and keys? A world where a ticket to Hermitcraft is a physical object you can hold in your hand? This certainly seems to imply so.

What is the context for these items? Where are they? Where are we? The stylistic choice was made to have them sort of resting on a solid-colored background. The selection of items makes me feel as though this is a representation of a desk of some kind, items important enough to Mumbo for him to keep around, lots of paperwork and stuff that you might find in a private office drawer. Which just raises even more questions. How does Mumbo keep these items from season to season? Where are they right now? Do they actually exist at all? (Not to mention smaller timeline questions. When did Mumbo receive the Grumbot message? When was it sent? Does the Grumbot left in Season 7 have a different consciousness than the one in Season 9, which last saw its dads only a month or two ago?)

If you follow the Rendog school of Hermitcraft lore, I guess you could say they’re kept on the Hermetheus along with all the other season-to-season holdovers and souvenirs. But that is one interpretation of many, canon to Rendog but never really canonized on a server-wide scale. Plus… if we take that interpretation in its entirety, how do the items from season 8 even exist, given that their entire world was canonically a simulation?

I also notice the relationship between the real world and the Minecraft world, the distinction between Mumbo the youtuber and Mumbo the block man. The ‘Official Rich List’ certificate mentions a ‘screenshot of a Minecraft chest’, implying that whoever wrote this certificate knows what Minecraft is from an outside perspective and finds Minecraft diamonds to be meaningless as a measure of wealth. And yet the certificate is addressed to one Mumbo K. Jumbo. The middle initial, having its origin in a highly in-character storyline during season 8, makes me feel like it could be more of a character Mumbo thing, but there’s no hard evidence.

How does Mumbo even have a picture of real-life Grian? Is this redstone incident report out-of-universe too? Who is he reporting this damage to, anyway?

And yet these are placed alongside items that are definitely from inside the world of Hermitcraft, if only the more fleshed-out version of it. A key to a mechanical car-horse would be functionless unless it was actually used, in-universe, by Mumbo the character. The ODEA manual was an idea considered but rejected by Mumbo during Season 7 in favor of tutorial videos, but perhaps this would make sense as an alternative for a world where the characters live in their Minecraft world as reality and have no capability to access the ODEA website.

Perhaps, in Mumbo’s view, there is little distinction between what we in the fandom call c!Mumbo and cc!Mumbo. We see both in-universe and out-of-universe items side-by-side, contradictory, because they are interchangeable here.

I doubt we’ll ever get any answers to these questions because obviously Mumbo made these title cards as fun little references instead of serious or purposeful lore, but I still think it’s fun to think about. Neat little worldbuilding details like this are few and far between in most mcyt content so I was foaming at the mouth when I first saw these. Well done Mumbo!

[jealousjersey]

₊࿔*:･୧”too sweet”₊˚࿔*:･୧

pairing // mike schmidt x gn!reader fluff

mentions // purely fluff just some nice and sweet content, pet names, reader is overwhelmed and stressed with everything and mike uplifts you, y/n isn’t mentioned, reader in college, reader and mike are in a situationship, mentions of being cheated on by past shitty gender unspecified partner

1.4k wc

tags // mike schmidt x reader fluff, purely fluff fic, pet names, slight angst

authors note // yes this is inspired by too sweet by hozier i’ve played it 18 times today (still listening to it) also per request (ty anon) fluff

school is kicking your ass. the lectures are too long and not informative at all, although you’ve had exams all week, they never seem to contain the information you’re supposedly learning.

you don’t even live on campus so you constantly feel like you’re missing out on important events and information. it’s truly exhausting.

that is until you get home, you’ve been in a situationship with this security guard worker, mike. you’ve talked and had dates, even had sex a few times but it doesn’t suffice you. you were made to be a lover, but right now you’re just a piece of ass. you want mike to love you, well, right now it feels more than a need. you want to finally receive the love that you give.

once your classes are done, you leave campus. taking the subway back to your apartment, luckily you don’t live too far, but not close enough to walk. and instead of wasting gas on driving to and from school, so why not take the safer option and just take the train?

as you arrive at your apartment, you finally get to lay down on your bed. you feel a tear fall from your eyes but you’re not sure why. today wasn’t too bad…but your body’s reaction is telling you different. you check the time and wait-

it’s the 2 year anniversary of your ex cheating on you, well atleast it’s the anniversary of the day you found out. you check the date and you get flashbacks, flashbacks to you coming to surprise them at their house for your 1 year together.

you arrive with tickets to some indie concert in hand. but instead you were practically hit in the face with realization as you saw her. she looked…perfect. you still wonder how they ended up with her. but let’s face it, you knew there was signs. but you chose to ignore them.

as of now, you’re laying face down on your bed, basically crying at this point. your breath hitches as you just lay there, helpless. until suddenly

knock knock

“hey? anyone here?” you hear a familiar voice enter your house. it’s mike schmidt, the man you’ve been talking to for a few months. wait a second-

“how did you get in?” you question. you thought you locked the door but apparently not.

“oh, the door was halfway open. wanted to check to see if you were being robbed” he says as he gets a good look at you “shit are you okay?” he asks worried, staring at your puffy face, your swollen eyes as tears leak from them.

his worry makes you feel better. you’ve waited on somebody to actually care about how you were, not just ask without remorse in their eyes. but mike actually cares, and it feels good. it feels like he gives you a little sliver of comfort.

“yeah, i’m fine…schools kicking my ass and-” you cut yourself off, he’s just a fling, why does he get to know your personal problems? but something inside you just tells you to come clean. “2 years ago today i went through hell with my ex. he cheated and things went…down from there you could say.” you open up, not wanting to share anything that could bring back more deep memories- maybe mentioning the abuse would be too far.

“oh baby, i’m sorry. you need me here with you? i can get take out and we can watch one of your weird cartoons” he says. you chuckle. does he mean anime? you don’t even watch it that much, maybe he’s basing his suspicions on the death slayer poster in your room that you got because it looked cool. i mean, you only watched a episode or two. it might make you a poser but it looks good in your room so what’s the harm?

“yeah, take out sounds great. and we can just watch a movie or something.” you smile at his request, your eyes still puffy. mike notices this and sits next to you on your bed, bringing a hand to your cheek as he gently brushes a thumb over your eye bags, taking in the darkness.

“i’m gonna be right back, you want take out chinese food?” he asks with a smile as he presses a kiss onto your cheek. you slightly nod.

“gotta use your words baby” he teases you. “yes, chinese food is perfect” you smile “amazing, i’ll be back in 30. don’t fall asleep” he says as he points a finger in your direction and smiles softly

30 minutes pass, you just stay in your bed until he arrives, he walks in without knocking. “baby, i’m here” he yells, arms full with bags of chinese food. god, how much did he get?

you silently laugh to yourself at the site: mike with both hands carrying giant take out bags that say “thank you” with a smile face, his keys on his mouth and his pinky closing the door. it’s…really funny to be honest.

you snap out of your daze and run to help him, taking the bags out his hands and placing them on your kitchen island. you see him huff out a short breath, taking the keys out of his mouth and hanging them on the key holder.

you place a short kiss on his lips “thank you love” you say. a blush creeps onto his face. he wonders why he’s feeling so intense at your small gesture, i mean it’s not like you two are official….

you two get cuddled up on the couch together. he always said your couch is weird, two seats with a middle compartment in the center, dividing the chairs. he says it’s not ideal for cuddling but you make it work, the chairs aren’t small per say, but you can both fit on k it with ease, kicking up the leg so you can both lay comfortably.

you put on some movie that was recommended through the roku app. it doesn’t matter what movie it was, it just matters that you had mike with you.

soon enough he’s yawning, the mint aroma coming from his mouth isn’t bad. it’s kinda nice. before he could close his mouth fully you kiss him gently, wanting more of that mint taste. he returns the kiss, using the same pace you started.

as you let go, you ask the dreaded question. “do you want to be with me? romantically?” he stops and freezes before speaking. “honey, you’re too good for me- i..i’m not the best person. you’re full of love, i don’t want you to waste it on me, you’re too sweet for me.” he says. you look confused, you know you want to love him. why isn’t he accepting?

“but i want to be with you. i want to love you, and if im being honest i think i kind of already do.” you say after a moment.

“you…really?” he looks confused, almost baffled by your statement. do you really want to love him? like fully and truly?

“god yes mike, I try not to call but there’s some days that i really, really want to. i want to hear your voice, i want to hear you laugh. hell, i even want to smell your cologne. but i stop myself because i know you want something casual.” you blurt out.

“who said i wanted casual? baby i was waiting for you to say that. i think ive been in love with you since we first started talking. it sounds cheesy i know, but i really do.” he responds, making your heart flutter for a moment as you blink, suddenly feeling his breath against your ear.

“i only want you” he whispers, putting emphasis on only. immediately you blush more than ever in his presence. “really?” you can’t help but whisper back. is this really happening? are you about to have a boyfriend?

“really. you are the only person i ever want to be with. promise” he says as he puts his pinky out, asking for yours. sealing it with a pinky promise. he knows you’re serious about those so him doing this for you means a lot.

“you’re the only person i want to be with mike, has been that way since i think i first spoke to you. were so dumb” you laugh.

“yeah but we’re dumb together” he chuckles back as he holds you closer to him.

“so….are we dating or what?” you ask, popping your lips after “so”.

“let me ask you” he fixes his messy hair and uses a takeout napkin as a tie around his neck. “would you like to date me” he says sincerely, still a hint of laughing under his voice.

“fuck it, sure” you laugh as you bury yourself into his neck.

[darlingshane]

Salt of the Earth ~ Part 1

Pairing: Michael Berzatto x OFC

Summary: She was Carmy's best friend growing up, and Michael never looked at her as anything other than that until years later when she comes back to Chicago to start over. In the process, she turns his sorry excuse of a life upside down.

Content/Warnings: Friends to lovers, Fluff, Angst, Family Drama, Dysfunctional relationships, Implied/referenced drug addiction, Alcohol mention, Divorce, Pets, Pet names, Dialogue heavy. Undisclosed age gap (in my mind Michael is late 30s and OC is late 20s, but it's really up to your interpretation).

Word Count: 6.8k // 4 chapters // AO3 link.

A/N: This is set in the year of the Fishes episode on season 2. It starts in summer and slowly builds up to that Christmas.

— This was an anon request that I got a few months ago, I hope you're still around. I tried to fit all the ideas you sent as best I could. There's a bit of info dump on the first chapter, but I hope it isn't too off-putting.

Chapter 1: Best thing since sliced bread

Seconds stretch into minutes, minutes elongate into long hours on slow days like this at The Beef. Especially in summer when the air conditioner stops working for the second time in the middle of August. Any living soul that crosses that door must have a dying wish or be the devil themselves to adventure themselves to what has become Michael's personal hell.

It's been a testing year, and there's so much he can do to fix this place right now. While he waits for Fak to come check the damn AC unit, Michael tends the front while Ebra takes his lunch break.

Turning the paper's pages on the counter, he comes across an article about the extensive fires eating different parts of the country. A wretched thought crosses his mind as he reads – maybe it'd be better to burn this place to the ground and start over. He entertains the idea for a second until the door swings open, inviting more heat into the boiling pot.

He lifts his eyes from the words to find a familiar face approaching the counter. It's not Fak, but a much better vision of someone he used to know.

“Mayhem Maya.”

“Magic Mikey.”

That former thought of burning down this place disappears somewhere in the midst of that beautiful aura that saunters with her big brown eyes, long raven hair, nervous smile, and firm steps.

“It's been a while, Maybird.” Almost ten years since she set foot in this establishment. “What brings you to this hole in the wall?”

“Came to collect that meatball sub you promised at uncle Teddy's funeral, remember?”

“Oh, right.”

Ever since she moved to a different state, he only had seen her a handful of times when she came back for the holidays. Last time he saw her was at the beginning of spring, when her uncle, Ted Silva, passed away.

“I also had an interview at the new vet clinic on the next block.” She places her cross-body bag on an empty stool while she perches her ass on the one next to it.

“How's that going? Did you get tired of California already?”

“No, I love California. But I needed a change of scenery. It's been rough after… you know…” the divorce. She wasn't married for long, but she still can't bring herself to say the word.

“I’ve heard some of it.” He’s pretty much aware of how everything went down. Well, he’s got grapevine’s juicy version of the story, but he never heard her side directly.

Though Michael and Maya know each other as if they were related, they were never close confidants. She always thought he was the coolest guy in Chicago. And he always thought fondly of her, given their families association, and Maya’s close friendship with his brother.

Michael places an order for her sandwich and grabs a soda for her, while she explains she has two more job interviews later.

“Does your mother know you're back?” He folds the paper and props his elbows on the counter.

“She probably does.”

“Still not talking, huh?”

“It's not my fault she made me the black sheep of the family. She’s like vitriol on steroids.”

“Yeah? What happened at the wake? You left before I could say goodbye.”

Michael recalls the tension at the funeral, particularly at the wake when Angela Silva grabbed Maya by the elbow and took her youngest daughter outside the house as if she was still a child that needed to be scolded.

“Nothing. I barely said a word that day. Guess everything I do feels like a personal attack to her. I can admit that I'm not perfect, and that sometimes I've acted up just to get a reaction out of her, but that day she just went off again…” She pauses without finishing that thought to take a refreshing sip of her coke. “And that wasn't nearly as bad as the day I told her I was getting…”

“Divorced? Why can't you say the word? It's not Voldemort.”

“What the hell do you know about Voldemort?”

“How do I… Who took you and Carmy to buy those damn books? Have you forgotten?” Maya shakes her head. “You even tried many times invoking his name, so I was haunted by eaters or something like that. You two were real potterheads.”

“And you were just a pothead,” she laughs, stirring the ice cubes in her drink with a straw. “I totally blocked that out. We were just a couple of nerds.”

“I’d say!”

“Meatball sub!” Richie calls from the pass-through window and takes a second look when catching Maya in the joint. “Maya Papaya?!”

“Please, don’t call me that.” She scoffs while Richie promptly abandons the kitchen and goes around the counter to give her a welcoming hug.

“Did you know she was coming?” He asks Michael, as he props his ass on the bar.

“Had no idea. She just showed up.”

“Did you tell her about Carmy?”

“What about him?”

“He’s in Copenhagen.”

“Oh, I knew about that.”

“You two talk often?”

“Sometimes, I guess.” Barely more likely. They don't even text anymore. She's tried but there's been nothing but crickets at his end for months.

While Richie grills her about Carmy and what she’s been up to, Michael can’t help but look around the shop to notice, from every corner and wall, memories bouncing all at once in his direction. It takes him back in time to those days when she and Carmy were as thick as thieves.

Their shared history goes back to that same street their families have lived on for over thirty years… It’s still clear in his mind, like it was yesterday, when he was forced to babysit them when they wanted to go to the movies or trick-or-treating or the bookstore. That was a little annoying back then, now he fondly remembers all those times in summer, when they’d go to the convenience store to get ice pops on their bikes. Then they’d ride back and sit in the middle of the swanky rug in their living room and watch TV for hours. More than once they were yelled at by Mama Berzatto when she would come home to find melted colorful stains in the fabric. She would lose her shit. Carmy was used to it. Maya wasn’t, but the girl never flinched once cause Donna and her own mother were cut from the same unstable piece of cloth.

Maya and Carmy were really close up until they went separate ways for college. Their bond was something to admire. They had something so special that inevitably, Carmy fell in love with her. She was his best friend and confident. They kept each other's secrets, and Carmy thought she'd feel the same in return. It wasn't a crazy notion. They spent so much time together, everyone thought it'd lead to something more, but that never happened.

Mikey and Richie used to tease the youngest cub relentlessly. They tried multiple times to encourage him to ask her out, but he never found the guts to do it. Especially if it could potentially end their friendship. Carmy didn't want to lose that. Though he never confessed his feelings, Maya always knew. Even in her teens, call it a woman’s intuition, part of her already knew. Maya wished she'd felt the same toward him, but the heart wants what it wants, and she couldn't change that.

What was really fucked up was that she had the most ridiculous crush on the older Berzatto when she was a teen. While she knew he'd never look at her as anything other than Carmy's annoying little friend, that didn't stop her from daydreaming about it for years. It was a secret that no one ever knew and that was placed in a drawer at the back of her mind after she left Chicago.

After graduating, Maya and Carmy stayed in touch for a long time, until their calls and texts became less frequent. They followed different dreams that required a lot of attention and sadly their friendship got hurt in the process.

While she attended Vet School on the west coast, he became a chef on the east.

Maya thrived at school and work. She really went out on her own, and became the woman she always wanted to be. Unsheltered, confident, outspoken. She outgrew her shell and opened herself to new experiences and people. She loved it all. It wasn’t smooth sailing, but for the most part she was pretty happy with her choices.

And now she's back in Chicago, set on a new path and awaiting to see where it takes her.

She’s living in a house in Oak Park with her dog, Coco; Richie fishes out of her. Apparently, she got some money from uncle Teddy, and she’s invested it in a home for her and her beloved staffy.

“Does Carmy know you’re here?” Richie circles back.

“No, I haven't talked to him in months.”

“Why? Did you two have a fall-out or something?”

“There's no why. We're just busy.”

“Mike, help me out here. Weren’t these two fools supposed to get married?”

“Yeah, everyone thought you'd ended up together.”

“Man, I don't know what to tell you, we just didn't,” her head sinks between her shoulders.

“Just get over yourself and hit him up. The kid has been hung up on you since forever. It looks like things didn’t go so well with your marriage and all. You should take that as a sign, you’d never find anyone better than Carmy. The boy could really use some excitement in his life. And so could you.”

“C’mon, leave her alone. Go back to work, Cousin.”

Michael throws her a lifeline, noticing how miserable she looks every time Richie opens his unfiltered mouth.

“He’s not wrong, you know? You and Carmy… it looked like you two had something special.” Michael offers once Richie is back in the kitchen.

“It’s called friendship. You should look it up.” She points out.

“I have Richie.”

“Exactly. You have Richie. Why don't you two marry the other and leave me alone? If you think about it, you were as close to Richie as I was with Carmy. Even more. Should everyone assume you are in love with him? Cause that's what you're implying.”

“Touché. I'll drop it.”

“Look, as hard as it is to believe, there was nothing else between us. I was aware he felt something for me, but I didn’t feel the same.”

“You should give him a chance sometime. He might surprise you.”

It’s not the first time these two have been trying to play matchmaker between Maya and Carmy, and it’s bizarre to see they still do at any given opportunity.

“Okay, if I give Carmy a chance, you have to give Richie a chance. Those are the rules, Berzatto.”

“Oh, I've tried. He's not into me,” he remarks, amused, and leans closer to confess something in a lower voice. “Do you wanna know a secret?”

“Uh, sure.”

“He and Tiffany are having a baby. He just told me a few days ago.”

“What? You let him reproduce? I'll pray for Tiff.”

Chapter 2: Cool as a cucumber

Everything falls slowly into place as Maya settles back in Chicago. She secures the job at the clinic near The Beef, which is a huge relief after her rushed decision of moving back to her hometown without securing a job first. It was part of the plan all along to practice what she loves but never thought this would be the year. As much as she loved California, once her divorce was finalized she felt like something was trapping her there. And the money she got from her uncle gave her some leeway to improvise, get away from all that, and start over.

Maya is spending her morning going through the stack of unpacked boxes, finding a good place for everything, making it feel more homey. It's not a big house, but spacious enough for the two of them. The big selling point was the backyard for Coco to zoom around and cool down in her wading pool, which she loves. It didn't take long for the five-year-old pup to get used to her new neighborhood. They've even made a couple of friends at the park nearby.

A moment before the doorbell rings, Coco whines from her spot by the window, where she often sits to watch passers in the street.

“Who is it?” Maya playfully asks her dog as she makes her way to the front door.

Through the peephole, she sees Michael's profile as he inspects the porch.

“Hi,” her eyes widen as she opens the door. “Didn't know you were coming.”

“Yeah, I would've called, but I didn't get your number the other day.” But he got her address from Richie's intense questioning when she visited the shop.

“I knocked on two different houses until I got the right one,” he explains as Coco curiously circles around his feet, sniffing his pants, hitting his crotch with her nose in the process.

“No, Coco. Sit. How many times have we talked about no nut-tapping?” Maya glances at her with amusement as the dog sits on her haunches.

“It’s fine,” he snorts. “All dogs do that.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. But she’s not any other dog. I thought I had taught her better. So what brings you here?”

“This.” He offers the paper bag hanging in his hand. “It's just a little house-warming gift.”

“You didn't have to.” As she takes the bag from his hand she ushers him inside before closing the door.

“It's nothing, really.”

He glances around as Maya takes out the box from the bag.

“Wow, a set of knives? That's not nothing.”

“Everyone needs one good set of knives. But you can exchange them for something else if you want.”

“No. I like these. But I gotta warn you that I'm not much of a cook, and I'll probably use the same one for everything.”

“That's fine I can show you sometime though. Is she friendly? ” He points at the dog that keeps staring at him. “Can I pet her?”

“Yeah, she loves everyone. Go ahead.”

Michael cautiously pets the brown coat of her head as her floppy ears lower at the passing of his hand.

“Never pictured you with a pit bull.”

“Me neither. I always thought I'd be a cat lady. But I met her at this adoption drive when she was one, and she stole my heart.”

“I can see why.” Michael crouches down, and pets Coco with both hands. “She's really sweet.”

He lets her lick his chin a couple of times before standing back on his feet. Then they go on a tour around the house.

“It's still a work in progress. I'm thinking of painting a few walls, but we like it so far.”

“Yeah, it has good bones.”

“So you don't have to work today?” Asks Maya.

“No, we've had some trouble with the gas line, and we've been shut down for a couple of days.”

“That sucks. Now where am I going to get my sandwiches and coffee on my way to work?”

“Heard Starbucks is pretty good.”

“Shut up. Don't even joke about that.” She playfully shoves his shoulder as they go back to the living room.

“Are you doing something later?”

She shakes her head. “Why?”

“I don't know, thought you were having a comeback party or something.”

“I don't really have any friends here. And I don't feel like inviting my family yet. As you can see, I still have a lot to unpack.”

“Physically or mentally speaking?”

“Both,” she scoffs.

“Let's do something then? Just you and me. We could grab some pizza, or go out for a drink for old times’ sake?”

“Old times’ sake?” It's amusing, surprising and confusing his sudden interest in her. Maybe he can see how pathetic she thinks she is, and he's taking pity on her. Although, that was never Michael style.

“Yeah, c'mon, Mayhem. You look like you could use some fun.” He picks up a book that's sitting on top from the box opened by the couch that's titled — Dating Again with Courage and Confidence: The Five-Step Plan to Revitalize Your Love Life after Heartbreak, Breakup, or Divorce. “And maybe a rebound or something. You don't need a fucking help book. You only need me to show where to get the best guys, or girls. Whatever you're into.”

“Give me that. I don't need a rebound, a help book, or you for all matter finding me a date.”

“No? Then why do you have that?”

“My friend Paige thought I should give it a try.”

“Maybe she was onto something there.”

“I'm perfectly fine. Just want to finish organizing everything, focus on work and this handful I have right here.” Her hand gestures at Coco. “What are you so interested in my love life anyway? First you try to play matchmaker with Carmy, and now you want me to do what, exactly? Hook up with the first guy I see?”

“No, I'm just asking you to go out and have some fun. I know Carmy was the only friend you had here. And if I was in your shoes, I'd feel pretty lonely.”

“I'm not lonely, Michael. Do I miss my friends in Sacramento? Sure,” she admits. “But I don't wanna force anything. I'm just taking it slow. When the time comes I'll jump right in but for now, this is all I need. Really. Stop pitying me.”

“I'm not pitying you, sweetheart.”

“No? Then what is it? Where is this coming from?”

“I don't know… I've always thought you were the salt of the earth. And though we never really hung out together, I thought you could use… But I can see now that you're different, and that you know what you need right now, so I'll just shut up and back off. Let you do your thing.”

“Thank you. I do know what I'm doing, by the way. You don't have to worry about me. I'll be fine. But I appreciate you coming here anyway.”

“Yeah, of course. And I can help you unpack if you need.”

“Hm, if you don't have anything better to do, be my guest. We could grab a pizza later, if the offer still stands. Or just order some food.”

“Sure.”

Michael helps Maya unpack all the boxes and put everything in place in half the time it'd have taken her alone. They order some food for lunch and spend half the day talking and laughing until late in the afternoon when they decide to go out for some drinks to keep the good vibes going.

At the end of the night, she offers to drive Michael back to his apartment as a thank you for inviting her.

“Did you have fun?” Michael asks from the passenger seat as she pulls up in front of his building.

“Yeah, I did. I'm glad I changed my mind.”

“Me too. I didn't know you were this fun. You're nothing like I remember.”

“Yeah, I was kind of weird growing up. You guys probably thought there was something wrong with me. ”

“Nah, don't be so hard on yourself. We were all weird in our own way.”

“Uh-uh. No Michael Berzatto. You were the coolest guy back in the day, and you still are.”

“I don’t know about that,” he scoffs. “For the record… I never thought there was anything wrong with you.”

“You were probably the only one… Anyway, thank you for today. I know I said I didn't need this, but I guess I did.”

“You're welcome, Maybird. I'm glad you’re back.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“Thanks for bringing me home,” he softly squeezes her arm before reaching for the handle to open the door.

“No problem.”

“You know you can call me if you ever miss your friends, y’know?” he throws casually.

“I uh…sure. I will.”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” she echoes back as he pulls the handle and the door opens.

“Have a good night, Michael,” she says as he gets one foot on the pavement.

“You, too, sweetheart.”

He closes the door and vaguely waves as she sets the car in motion and watches her drive away.

Chapter 3: Don't cry over spilled milk

In the few weeks he's been spending time with Maya, Michael has found himself enjoying her company more than he'd like to admit. Being with her grounds him. She makes him forget for a little while all that's wrong in his life. She's like a beacon in that immerse darkness that his sorry existence has become. Despite having her own set of problems, he's watched her rise above all that with poise. He wonders what it's her secret to her steadfast determination, even when her own family has disavowed her.

After closing shop, he dives into his stash to tame that brewing headache before driving to Oak Park to pay her a visit. She told him earlier via text that she was at Home Depot buying some paint to update the color of her bedroom and asked him to come over to hang out after work.

For some reason, he couldn't say no. Not even the storm in his head is strong enough to deny her request. He has a pull on him, tugging him hard like a dog tied to a leash in her hand, he can’t help but follow her lead.

When he arrives at her house, she's halfway done. Two of the walls shine bright new in a lavender tone as she starts working on the next one.

After having beer and playing a tug of war game with his new friend, Coco, Michael offers his help to finish painting the walls. He uses a brush to paint the corners, while she gracefully uses a roller like a pro with her denim overalls over a tank top, and her raven hair pulled up in a ponytail sprinkled with lavender paint beads. When she lifts one of her arms, he catches a glimpse of a tattoo on the side of her rib cage, leveled to the roundness of her chest that looks like the outline of a dog paw.

“What are you looking at?” She asks after catching him staring.

“You have paint on your chin.”

“Oh.” She wipes it with the back of her hand, but she just spreads the stain along her jaw. “I made it worse, didn't I?”

“Yeah.”

She shrugs it off and continues with the task ahead until the whole wall is covered.

“Is everything okay, Bear?” Maya puts down the paint roller. “You're quieter than usual.”

“Yeah, everything's alright.” It sounds so honest, he almost believes it. “It's just been a long day.”

“I'm sorry that I put you to work.”

“Don't be. This is relaxing.”

“Yeah?” She takes a step back and surveys how much brighter her bedroom looks already after covering most of the former downcast grey. “Is the color right? Do you think it's too girlish?”

Giving the room a once over he says, “it's a good shade. I dig it. It doesn't matter what I think or if it's too girlish, as long as you like it. Do you like it?”

“Yeah. I do.”

She dips the roller on the tray to cover another section of the wall.

“You never told me what happened at the funeral with your mom,” Michael leans on the stepladder, taking a short break.

“Do you really wanna know?” She glances over her shoulder.

“Yeah. Everyone does. I’ve heard some crazy stories about it. Thought I should get it straight from the source.”

“I never pegged you for a gossip girl.”

“I’m not. I’m just making conversation.”

She mockingly narrows her eyes, drawing a lopsided smirk, “liar.”

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t wanna. But yeah, can’t help being a little curious about it.”

“I don’t mind telling you, but it won’t be as entertaining as those crazy stories people have made up.”

“I’m not here for entertainment. I just wanna hear your side of the story, Maybird.”

Maya lets out a heavy sigh and while keeping her focus on the wall she shares with him what really happened. She’s right to say that is not the best story she’s ever told, though when it comes to her mother, all her stories tend to have a surreal element even she can’t fathom sometimes.

That day at the funeral, she was taken outside during the wake by Angela Silva to get scolded about her imminent divorce. It wasn’t finalized by then, and her mom invoked one last Hail Mary to convince her to stay with her husband, who was also currently dating someone else. It was a messy situation that Maya couldn't wait to get out of, and the fact that her mother never offered an ounce of support wasn’t surprising, but still devastating. Somehow, Angela found that the reason for her separation from her husband was that Maya didn’t want to have kids, and that really vexed Angela. All she wanted for her three kids was to follow the same traditional path Angela was forced into, no matter how miserable she was. Her two older sisters followed her mother’s narrowed traditional values. But Maya, ever-the-nonconformist, swore she would never follow anyone’s drum beat but her own. Her husband thought she’d change her mind eventually. He was wrong. She knew that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon, which led her here, to this moment.

“Is your mom ever happy?” Michael has always wondered.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen her happy, except when she’s drunk. That’s why she has to make everyone else miserable.”

“Yeah, but she’s always had a fixation on making you miserable.”

“Like I said, every family needs a black sheep, and I’m it.”

“Is that why you became a vet?”

“Yeah, probably.”

“So, it's true, you don’t wanna have kids? I’m not judging. I’m just curious.”

“I honestly don't know. I just knew that when he told me he wanted to have a baby right away, it didn’t feel right. I said that maybe in six or seven years I’d be okay with it. Told him I wanted to travel and just be us for a while, and he said that was too long to wait. I don’t know… he stopped talking to me, and it was clear that he wasn’t changing his mind, and I wasn’t changing my mind, so. At some point I got tired of trying… He got a girlfriend as soon as I filed for divorce and I got a text from Paige the other day that said he got her already pregnant, like… that was never me. I guess it served me right… I married him on a whim, an impulse without really talking about what we wanted…”

“Hey, don’t feel sorry for yourself. You dodged a bullet there.”

“You really think that?.”

“Yeah, I do. You stood up for yourself and knew when to step back when it didn’t feel right. Not everyone has the balls to do that. Think how miserable you’d be by now if you had tried to please him or your mom. You seem happy now. That's what matters.” He means that with all his heart, and wishes he had the same drive to follow those same steps. As much as he loved the restaurant, he chose to run it to please people within his family. And that love turned into a nightmare he couldn't escape.

“You know… I liked you better when you were quiet,” she quips.

Michael huffs a soft laugh, picking up his brush to resume painting.

When the room is finished, she plugs a couple of fans and closes the door to keep Coco away.

Maya washes her hands and face in the bathroom sink. When she comes out, she catches the motion of Michael's arm as he shoves what looks like a pill into his mouth before taking a gulp of water from one of her glasses.

“What was that? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. It's just a headache,” looking down, he runs a palm over his short growing beard.

“Is it the fumes?”

“No, I had it before coming here.”

“Michael,” she sighs softly at his name. “You should've told me. I wouldn't have let you help if I knew.”

“Would you stop that? I wanted to help.”

“Okay, c'mere. Let's sit down.”

“No, I think I should get going.”

“Nonsense. I'm not going to let you drive until you feel better.”

He yields with a long exhale, and follows Maya into the living room, where her bed is settled askew in the middle of the space.

She takes a seat on the edge of the mattress and waits for him to sit next to her.

“Give me your hand,” she shows her palm up, as his eyes narrow. “C'mon, don't be a baby, give me your hand, Berzatto.”

“When did you become so bossy?” He slowly lifts his hand and as he lays it on top of her palm, his fingers tremble upon contact with her skin. Maya then uses her opposite hand to clip the webbing between his thumb and pointer fingers with her own and begins massaging that spot.

“My friend Sierra is really into acupressure. She says this is a pressure point that helps with headaches.” She explains while slowly increasing the force. “Does it hurt?”

“Not one bit. Is that like acupuncture?” His voice comes as a whisper as he focuses on her diligent fingers.

“Kinda. I think. I’m not really sure.”

“You don't have to fix me, you know?”

“I'm not trying to fix you, Bear. I just wanna make you feel better.”

“Admit it. You just love a good wounded animal.”

She smiles softly, placing his hand down on his knee and picking up the other. “Does it feel any different?”

He’s not really sure, it wasn’t truly a headache that led them to take that pill but the annoying rambling of his thoughts. She shouldn’t have seen that. And he shouldn’t have lied. But having her hands on his like this is straight up lovely. Inside of him, it truly feels like something is broken, wounded, and missing, and this is giving him a sliver of relief as he waits for the pill to kick in. If he was a better man, he’d tell her the truth. But he’s too far gone for saving. All he can do is keep that facade up.

“Does it?” She insists after not getting an answer.

“A little.”

“Do you wanna lay down?”

Swallowing, he responds with a nod, and they both lean back on the mattress at the same time. Looking at the ceiling, she keeps kneading that pressure point, unsure if she’s even doing it right.

They stay in comfortable silence for a good five minutes and when she finally places his hand down, Maya glances to the side and sees that his eyes have closed, and his chest gently rising and falling. She calls his name softly, but she can see that behind the sharp edges of his face and the ever-growing shade of his beard, he’s truly exhausted, so she doesn’t insist. She extends her hand to turn off the lamp, and curls on the other side of the bed without disturbing his sleep.

“Good night,” she says softly and closes her eyes.

From a dusty corner of her mind comes crawling that little forgotten part that used to harbor a lot of feelings for Michael. Though a few weeks ago he seemed practically the same Michael she knew, over the past month she’s keenly noticed little changes here and there. His eyes sometimes cast a dark shade tainted in nothing but sadness, it’s barely noticeable for other people. It comes and goes, but it tells her he’s not truly as happy as he pretends to be.

Michael wakes up disoriented at the crack of dawn.

It takes him a few seconds to remember he’s still in Mayas’ bed in the middle of her living room and that the weight that has his arm pinned is her body pressed against his. She’s warmly snuggled on his side, with her arms tucked between his chest and hers, and a peaceful expression on her beautiful face. She’s so awfully close, he can smell the scent of her hair, and feel the heat of her breath every time she exhales.

It's such an odd moment for him to have her that close. He's unsure of whether it would be better to slip out of bed unnoticed before she wakes up, or just stay there and watch her sleep for a bit longer. Either option would make him look like a creep, he thinks. So he opts to gently wake her up. His free hand reaches to his forehead to move a stand of hair away. Her brow scrunches as his light-feather touch grazes her skin. His lips curve up as he traces the shell of her ear to see her stir awake. She blinks slowly a couple of times until her focus shifts onto him.

“Hey, Maybird.”

“Hey.” Her lips move, it's barely audible.

“Sorry, I fell asleep.” His fingers absentmindedly massage her earlobe.

She's so stunned by waking up to that level of intimacy, she simply nods, as her mouth softly draws a smile.

“It's fine. Does your head feel better?”

“Much better. That pressure thing really worked.”

“I'm glad.”

“Listen, I gotta go open. Maybe we could do something later?”

“Okay,” she swallows nervously, hoping that waking up with him like this isn't just a dream. “Can you do me a favor first?”

“Sure.”

“Can you stay five more minutes?”

“I uh… I think I can,” against his better judgment, he decides he can stay for a few minutes more holding her.

The way her lips pull up timidly at the corners, revealing the dimples framing her mouth, completely disarms him. He’s always felt a certain affinity towards her, but being this close to her awakes a longing within that feels dangerous. He can’t bring someone new into his life. Not while everything around him is falling apart. It’s already hard enough having to pretend around other people.

He couldn’t do that to her. He won’t.

Michael will have to fight harder because when her arm tucks around his waist he can’t help but press his lips against her forehead.

Chapter 4: Hard nut to crack

Four months later…

After that initial moment of weakness when he fell asleep on her bed, he fought hard to elude that odd longing that has only grown into a big mass of love toward Maya. To anyone else in the world, a feeling as big as that would be a blessing, especially when it's reciprocated. To Michael, it's a weakness he can't afford right now.

Spending all that time with Maya has been like discovering a whole new planet Michael never thought existed. She's all vast, uncharted territory that fazes him more than it should. Despite his best efforts, he’s fallen into her alluring orbit and can’t find the way out into his own universe.

Far gone is that moody teenager that would mumble a few words here and there. And now there's this tragically stunning woman that looks you directly in the eye, says anything that crosses her mind, and laughs without a care in the world.

Though falling in love with her wouldn’t be completely wrong, it's not quite right either. It fills him with guilt to think about her in that manner. Moreover, it feels like a betrayal to Carmy, who’s far away in a different continent, prospering in his craft.

Michael tries to fool himself into believing that this is just temporary infatuation. He’s even attempted several times to convince her to get in touch with Carmy but hasn’t succeeded. It’d be easier for him if she were to put her focus on someone else instead of him. He has nothing to offer to her and has deemed himself unworthy of her, or anyone for that matter. If she only knew what’s really going on with him, she wouldn’t want Michael nearly as she believes she does.

Layer by layer, she’s tearing all his walls and defenses down. And after all the back and forth, he's absolutely sure she wants more than he can offer her. She’s been giving him the right signals. She doesn't shy away from it. Maya is direct and impulsive, and everything about her is fascinating and intimidating.

It’s time to either cut her loose, or accept that he’s madly in love with her and do something about it.

Amidst coming to terms with a final decision, he's lured into a surprise party she's organized for his birthday.

Michael is left speechless by her determination. And a little annoyed too for reasons he can't explain. To be honest, he’s never been a fan of surprise parties, but the main problem is that this would make things much harder for him to let her down easily. She’s carved herself into his life and the longer he drags this out, the worse this is going to hurt.

He’s aware that it’s selfish and obtuse of him for being that ungrateful that someone who cares that profoundly about him, that they would go all out to prove that. He feels like an asshole, but the train has already left the station.

Using the same tiring self-defense mechanism, he draws his best smile and brings out the Michael everyone seems to love. Not without help. There's always that crutch tucked in his wallet in the form of a pill. Being high numbs him enough to deal with the situation.

The cherry on top comes at the end of the night, when he walks her up to her car and asks if he's had a good time. He lies through his teeth and for the first time, he can tell Maya is not buying it. Perhaps she never did, but he's well-versed on her tells by now, and he can clearly see she's fed up with all the bullshit that comes out of his mouth.

“Look, it's not that I didn't like the party. It's just that I hate surprises, and I was exhausted today. But it was a nice thought, sweetheart. I just… I wasn't in the right mood.” It's seemingly convincing the second time around, but her face shows nothing but regret. “I love the jacket you bought me, though.”

Michael has never been interested in fashion, but he's always loved vintage jackets, and the one she picked it's a perfect addition to his collection. It's a bomber jacket, aviator style, in brown leather with a couple of patches and fur collar.

As they reach Maya's car, they come to a stop. She turns to him, “I know I can be a little too much sometimes. But I promise no more surprises from now on.”

“You and I both know, you won’t be able to keep that promise even if your life depended on it. That's part of what makes you– you, sweetheart. Don’t let my bad mood ruin that.”

“I’ll try.”

After a beat, without hesitation she leans in to leave a goodnight kiss on his bearded cheek and on a whim, she decides to press a second one on his lips.

It takes him completely aback. He wants to dive so badly into her mouth, but he freezes on the spot. And when Maya attempts to deepen the kiss, he finally reacts by placing a placating hand on her shoulder as he pulls his head back.

“I'm… I'm sorry we can't do this, Maya.”

“Wait, I thought… Did I misread something?”

“No, you didn’t misread anything. I just can’t do this.”

“Why?”

“I can't.”

“You can't or don’t want to?”

“Guess I don’t want to.”

“Can you at least tell me why? Did I do something wrong?”

“You did nothing wrong, sweetheart.” He wants to spill out the old – it's not you, it's me – excuse, but he refrains. Every thought and action go against every good instinct he's ever had. He hates himself for making her feel insecure. And yet, he can't backtrack now.

“Stop calling me sweetheart. You see how misleading that is?”

“Sorry. I think I gave you the wrong impression.”

Her eyes narrow, and he can see the gears turning for a long moment before opening her mouth.

“I don't think you gave me the wrong impression, Michael. I think you're too chickenshit to admit that there's something between us and, for whatever reason, you're just taking the coward's way out. You've been weird the whole night, especially with me. I just threw a party just for you, the least you can do is tell me why.”

“I didn't ask you to do that. And I don't owe telling you shit! I was trying to let you go easy, but nothing is ever easy with you. So I'll just say it. This, you and me, is never going to happen.”

It sounds ridiculous as it comes out of his mouth, but he stands firm on that statement as her heart breaks in front of him.

In the end, it'd be better for her, he believes.

[luvfy0dor]

“Guess I'll Just Stumble on Home to my Cats !! ♡” - Fyodor Dostoevsky x Gn!Reader ੈ✩‧₊˚

Warnings; None! Fluff.

Description; Fyodor taking care of you while dealing with your cats that he had no idea you had!

A/n; This is part two of the ask in this drabble ! Sorry posts have been super slow lately </3

ೃ⁀➷

Fyodor ended up at your house, taking care of you while you were sick with a cold. Though he much would have preferred you make your way to his house, he just sighed and muttered some number of minutes into the phone. You waited in your bed, sprawled out with the blankets only pulled up to the middle of your torso. You had placed a cold towel on your forehead in hopes of cooling you down, but the heat from your forehead transferred to the towel way too quickly for your liking; and quite frankly you didn't feel like getting up.

And that's exactly why you called your boyfriend over. There were other reasons amongst that one though, like making you chicken noodle soup or keeping your cats out of the trashcan while you suffered through your bedridden state. Fyodor was a smart man, you figured that he could tend to your tasks while you were nearly too tired to think. It was a miracle that you even conjured up the conclusion of calling him over, let alone build confidence to ask him. You didn't wanna be a burden, but his cooperation made you feel a whole lot better.

You turned on some stupid reality tv show a while ago, and you were starting to get highkey invested. As one of the episodes ended, you heard the door open. You let Fyodor know that it was unlocked, but you also had given him a key a couple of months ago just in case he needed it. His soft footsteps hit the ground as he made his way to your bedroom, yet suddenly stopping midway. "Hey there." He softly murmurs, his voice followed by a couple meows, letting you know he had found one of your three cats. It was just now dawning upon you that you had never told him about the furry little mammals.

Some more meows followed the first before Fyodors steps continued. Right before he could make his way down the hallway to your room, he stopped again. "How in the world did you get over here so quickly?" He mumbles again before realizing that it was not, in fact, the same cat. He quietly laughs at his mistake before petting the cat and greeting this one as well. "How many of you are there?" He questions the animal, before standing up. The cat rubs against his leg before skittering on off making him smile slightly. He finally opens the door and his eyes immediately land on your pretty e/c ones, peering back at him through your droopy eyelids.

He gives you a pitiful smile, walking into your bedroom and sitting in the side of the bed. "Hello, my dear, how do you feel?" He asks, feeling your forehead with the back of his hand. You sniffle and sigh. "Not good, m'so hot and stuffy." You groan, eyes squinted. He nods, pushing some hair away from your face. "I can see that. Do you need anything right now?" He softly asks you, taking in your sick appearance. "Uhm...I'm kinda hungry...and could you just make sure the cats stay out of trouble?" You murmur, sniffling horribly. You almost felt a twinge of embarrassment, but you felt comfortable enough with your boyfriend to let him see you in such a vulnerable and discombobulated state.

He nods. "Is it just two of them? Or is there more? You never told me you had cats, my dear." He reminds you, just above a whisper. You shake your head and clear your throat. "No, there's another one. Probably hiding behind some sort of furniture." You say. He hums in response. "Alright, I'll get you something to eat." He says, getting up from the side of your bed and heading back out into your kitchen. He didn't know where anything was, but Fyodor saw your microwave and smiled, knowing he wouldn't have to use pans or anything of the sort. He searched through your cabinets for soup or something that could possibly soothe your cold a little bit, and eventually he stumbled upon a can of chicken noodle soup.

He did a bit more rummaging around and found a bowl and fork, quickly opening the can and pouring the soup into the bowl. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed one of the cats prancing on into the kitchen. He payed it no mind at first, but it hopped up onto the counter and sat, staring at him. After putting the soup in the microwave, he walked over to the cat, trying to shoo it off of the counter. "Get off of the counter, you're not allowed up there." He says monotonously. The cat jumps down, meowing again and standing right at Fyodors feet as he waits for the microwave to finish heating the soup up. They stare at eachother for a moment before the other cat joins the first.

"Do you need something? Are you hungry, too?" He asks with the tilt of his head. The second cat meows, nuzzling it's head against Fyodors leg. "Or do you just want attention?" His own attention is redirected to the microwave when the timer goes off. He removes the bowl from the microwave, grabbing the fork again and stirring it around a little bit. Upon turning back around, he's met with yet another cat directly infront of him. "You can not have this. This is for y/n." He says to the trio as if the words would fend them off. Carrying the bowl carefully, he brings it to you and pushes the door open with his foot.

"Thank you, Fedya." You say, sitting up and reaching out for the bowl. He hands it to you with a small nod. "You're welcome." He notices the damp cloth on the night stand and grabs it. "Do you want me to wet this for you?" He asks, his soft gaze on you. You sniffly nod while you bring the spoon to your lips, blowing away the steam. "Yes please." He gives you a small smile and brings the washcloth to the bathroom sink, and your eyes follow him as he goes. You laugh a little bit, seeing as he's unknowingly gained an entourage of three.

"Look at you and your little posse." You say from your bed. He gives a soft hum of confusion before he audibly realizes what you mean. "They will not stop following me." He says, walking back to you in your bed. You laugh a little bit and take the towel, trying to hold it to your forehead while simultaneously eating your soup. One of the cats leap into the bed, and not to your surprise at all, the other two follow suit. They were like a little, furry gang, trying to cause trouble as they attempted sniffing your soup but we're met with the back of your hand gently pushing them away. "Go lay down." You command them to lay at the end of the bed instead of right one top of your thigh or legs, already way to hot from your sickness and the bowl of soup in your lap.

"Fyodor, I think you should sit with me and watch this show, it's crazy! The drama is off the walls." You blabber on about the show you spent your day watching as you weaved in and out of sleep. He can't help but find you a bit unserious in the moment, but he complies and walks around to the other side of your bed, sitting next to you. "They look familiar." He says, leaning back against the headboard and looked in your direction. "Yeah, it's like, Kim Kardashian and her whole family." You explain to him, continuing to eat your soup. He hums in response, seemingly slightly intrigued. He tries to watch the show, but the feeling of three cats finding a spot on his lap to loaf distracted him. He sighed in amusement as one of the cats laid horizontally over his crossed ankles, another directly in his lap and the other in between the two of you.

He didn't mind the cats at all, infact it provided him some extra warmth on top of the blanket while you were too sick to cuddle. You didn't wanna get him sick, after all. The cats LOVED your boyfriend, immediately taking a liking to the lanky man. His hands ran across their heads and backs as he pet them drowsily, the comfort of his sweatshirt, the blanket, and the cats almost put him to sleep, and eventually they did. You couldn't help but laugh at him as his head leaned back against the headboard, three cats surrounding his body while he slept. You weren't going to wake him up, so you quickly brought the bowl to the kitchen, rinsing it out in the sink and bolting back to the bed, trying to conserve your own sleepiness as you crawled back into the bed. You grabbed onto one of Fyodors hand and held it to your chest as you yourself started to fall asleep, following your boyfriend and cats into a pleasant dream land.

A/n; I almost went a fully week w/o posting, I'm sorry y'all, but I got part two of the Chuuya one out! Two more requests to go and I'll be all caught up. I think next Thursday I'll open requests again, but I also have 4 or 5 other ideas to write out 💀