#if u were like trying to make this a Story you’d think he’d be like an angsty lab baby and a foil to Pitaya

[clannfearrunt]

I’d meant to keep RioluHq dot com the Scizor kind of as a Side Member just as mainly my False Swiper but he’s slowly spending more and more time in my main team lineup... he’s just so... *kisses sweetly* my dubious lab grown guy...

[saetoru]

✩ ‧₊˚ ✩。yours, always yours

synopsis. satoru has always been yours—and he needs you to know you’ll also always be his

— word count. 2.4k (read the breakup fic first for better understanding, but can be read as a stand-alone)

— contents. fem! reader, college! au, rich boy! gojo, post-getting back together angst that gets a little heated <3, minors do not interact, fingering, unprotected sex, edging, satoru cumming too quick <3, creampie, tbh the smut is short and a lil rushed my b, it ends in fluff tho !! trust !! there is fluff !!

— notes. tbh this will probably get flagged rly fast but oh well u win some u lose some. anywayyyyy here is the make up sex bc yall nasties deserve it <3 jk love u guys

satoru falls first. and he falls hard. everyone knows it, it’s never been a secret.

“you want me to wash your hair?” you ask gently, kissing his shoulder as the water falls over his head. he hums, nodding absentmindedly as he stares blankly at the tiles of your shower wall.

“sure,” he mumbles, “don’t tug.”

“i never tug,” you roll your eyes, snorting. he huffs a small chuckle, but it’s not the usual laugh satoru gives you. it’s mechanic, almost—just there to fill the space. “baby?” you ask softly.

“yeah?” he asks, “oh, should i bend a little? sorry, i—”

“what’re you thinking about?” your hands cup his cheeks, gentle and warm from the hot water as it soaks his skin.

he shakes his head, trying to smile as he clears throat. “just how nice it is to be pampered. maybe i’ll let you break my heart every once in a while so i get my back scrubbed and hair washed like this.”

“satoru,” you insist. you know—and he knows it too. “tell me?”

“why’d you do it?” he mumbles, “why’d you listen to him?”

“toru, you know why,” you sigh, “you know i didn’t think there were any other options.”

“you could’ve talked to me,” he furrows his brows, “just because my stupid old man threatens you with my stupid inheritance doesn’t mean we have to break up.”

“i was afraid you’d choose me.” it comes out as a whisper, like a confession you can’t bear to admit.

“i would have chosen you,” he agrees, “why’s that bad? how’s that wrong—”

“you’re not thinking about the bigger picture,” you shake your head, “that company is yours. you’ve spent your whole life—”

“so what? was i supposed to give up the rest of my life for it too?” he asks tiredly—satoru’s defeated. he’s never been defeated, it’s the most magnetizing thing about him.

even before you date him. he asks and asks and asks no matter how many times you say no. because there’s always a chance you’ll say yes, and he’ll never stop as long as there’s a chance.

“i’m sorry,” you sniffle, lips wobbling, “i could have….i should have said something. i didn’t want you to make a choice young and then….and then regret it.”

“you think i’d regret you?” he’s wounded—absolutely wounded at the words.

satoru has always been careful, diligent and so, so meticulous to love you right, to love you how you need to be loved. hadn’t that proven enough? that he was in it for the long run—for forever? he’d been so sure you’d be his future, that the break up feels like waking up from a peaceful dream to a house fire—devastating, with smoke in his nose and lungs that he can’t breathe right, and everything gone within a moment before he can even register it.

he stares at the ashes in despair. nothing prepared him for the hollowness of not being yours—because satoru has never cared to make you his. all he’s ever wanted was to be yours.

you’re quick to remove him from everything, deleting pictures from your socials, untagging him from posts, removing him from your private stories and close friends list. he doesn’t understand how you could change your mind so quickly—and then he realizes you probably don’t. because he knows you—better than anyone ever has, satoru knows you.

so he’s comes to you, drenched from the rain, from standing outside your door even as the water pelts against his skin because he’s determined. he’s going to get an answer out of you, going to make you explain why you pulled him in so close, let him reside in your heart and fall asleep to the comforting rhythm of its beating—and then push him out like he’s nothing. what made you push him out?

and finally, when he does, when you let him be yours again and admit it’s never what you wanted, that it’s because it’s what his father wanted—well, satoru can’t keep his composure. don’t you know? hadn’t he always told you? hadn’t he poured his heart out and let you know every moment he’s always been stuck dangling from his father’s fingers? stuck somewhere between the sky and ground, too high to feel the floor under his feet but never high enough to feel the wind in his face.

you’ve always known, always listened—and fuck, you held him some nights too, let your fingers dip into his hair and soothe his sorrows of always being stuck.

satoru’s always been stuck, always had every choice made for him and every instruction carefully laid out on the table. and then you decided to make his choice for him too, walking away and choosing his future for him like he’s never had a say.

he’s always been stuck, but never with you—but now, he wonders if that’s changed.

“no,” you squeeze his cheeks, “no i don’t think you’d regret me….but satoru losing what you have is a big thing,” you mumble, “people work their whole lives not having a fraction of what you do. that’s a lot to let you lose.”

“i’ve never seen my dad kiss my mom,” he stares at you, hard and unwavering, his eyes stare into yours, “he’s never held her hand or made her laugh. and you know what she told me? that she would sell her share of everything to have what we do. why do you always look at me for what i have first?” he asks angrily, the water pouring over his shoulders as they shake, “why can’t you just look at me first for once?”

“i do look at you,” you insist, “toru, all i ever see is you—”

“then stop caring what he says,” he says louder, his voice echoing through the small bathroom of your small apartment.

everything about your home is small—smaller than satoru’s especially. but he loves it, thinks he’d rather be here than anywhere else.

because it’s yours. and as long as you’re here, the world fits into this tiny apartment, the galaxy too.

“okay,” you say shakily. and then you nod, looking him in the eye, “you’ll handle it?”

he nods, kissing between your brows, “yeah, i’ll handle it. who else is gonna take over that company anyway?”

“but what if he finds someone else? and then he—”

“he won’t. my grandpa will shred him.”

“but he’s old, and he stepped down, so what really can he do if your dad decides—”

“god, baby,” he groans, pushing your body against the wall gently, “i love your voice, but you talk so much. i’m wanna listen to something else.”

his lips find your neck, sucking gently at the skin, hand trailing to your tits before his thumb circles your nipple. it’s slow, deliberate, teasing as it rolls over the bud.

you whimper, clutching onto him as a breathy, “t-toru,” leaves your lips.

“yeah,” he nods, “that’s what i wanna listen to instead.” his lips are in a grin against your neck, kissing and biting until he reaches your collarbone. “anyone dm you after you took me out of your socials?” he asks bitterly.

“j-just one,” you admit through a stutter, “b-but i didn’t even open it! i wasn’t really—oh, toru,” you gasp as his finger finds your clit, spreading your legs as he lets out a soft growl at your words.

“what? just cause my face isn’t on your instagram suddenly you’re not mine?” he asks, thumb rubbing harsh circles against the sensitive bundle of nerves—you close your eyes, moaning as your arms wrap tightly around his neck. “you’re always mine,” he murmurs against your ear, low and careful so you hear him well, “yeah? got that?”

“got it,” you nod furiously.

“got what?”

“‘m al-always—oh, fuck,” you mewl as one finger prods at your entrance, gathering your slick before slowly sliding through your walls.

“c’mon, sweetheart,” he says firmly, “finish your sentences.”

“always yours, toru! always yours—please, please j-just…”

“just what?” he raises a brow.

“more,” you sob—it’s a broken plea as your hips thrust against his finger.

he’s quick to slide in a second, thrusting his digits mercilessly into your soaked cunt, his palm gliding over your clit as the slick sound of his fingers fucking you is almost drowned by the water in the back.

your water bill will be high this month. you decide it’s a sacrifice satoru deserves.

“you think someone could ever learn this body better than me? make you cum like i can? you think anyone will ever love you enough to learn you like i do?”

“n-no,” you pant, his fingers hitting that spot inside of you so perfectly, you feel that dull ache build up quickly. it’s good—everything with satoru is good. his other hand finds your chest to pinch a nipple, twisting and squeezing until your nails leave indents on his shoulders as you moan loudly. “no one—no one but you.”

“exactly,” he growls, “how could you leave me? how could you leave us?”

“‘m sorry,” you sniffle, whimpering when the tips of his fingers slam against that spongey spot of your walls, fluttering around him and squeezing him in. you’re close—so close that you almost don’t know what he’s saying anymore, too focused on the way your impending orgasm is approaching. fast. “i’m sorry, i’ll never—ever leave again.”

“say you love me,” he demands.

it sounds like he’s pleading, though, if you listen closely. there’s a small crack in his voice, a slight shakiness that makes you force your eyes open and stare at him and whisper, “i love you, satoru. i love you.”

and then he rips his fingers out—right before you’re about to cum. you gasp, pleading nonsense as you cling to him and buck your hips and search for something, anything to take you over the edge.

and then you hear a sniffle. is he crying? is that wet droplet on your shoulder a tear or the water? you’re too busy calming down from your orgasm dying before it ever came to focus.

satoru’s hard against your thigh, throbbing and painful to sink into you. he strokes himself a few times, whimpers as his thumb gathers the pre cum from the sensitive tip, smearing it along his length as he shakily lets out a quiet moan.

“f-fuck, i gotta feel you. please, can i? please—”

“yes,” you pull him closer, grinding your heat over his hard-on, “yes please, toru. more, need more.”

he’s sliding along your folds, dragging the tip of his cock along your entrance and smearing a mix of your arousal with his. and then slowly, ever so gently, he’s pushing into your after that, pushing past your walls and bullying into your soaked cunt, curving into you perfectly.

it’s only been a week—you feel like you haven’t felt him in years. but it’s familiar. you remember every part of him, including every vein that drags along your walls and makes your head spin. he remembers every part of you, including where that spot is that he needs to angle his hips to find.

he slams into you, hard and rough and fast—doesn’t even let you adjust your position to hold onto him tighter before he’s thrusting his hips and fucking into you desperately. you can feel him, every inch of his skin against you, every part of him that’s touching you. and you can feel the way his cock nudges past your folds, the friction burning pleasure through ever nerve.

satoru knows how to fuck you, just like he knows how to love you, he knows your body—every dip and ever curve, every place to touch and every part that has you gushing around him. it’s just the way he is, too good at giving you what you want, what you need.

when he moans, it’s breathy and he’s panting as he lets out those soft whimpers that make your head spin. “feel that? feel me?” he asks, grunting as you squeeze around his length.

“yeah,” you breathe, “‘m so full.”

“i need you. please, please,” he murmurs, “can’t lose you, baby. never you,” he chants, the quiver in his voice tearing you apart.

“i’m right here,” you gasp, lacing your fingers with his and squeezing his hand. he squeezes back, just to let you know he’s there too, “right here, baby. you got me.”

and then he cums, just as soon as you whisper that—he spills right into you with a broken cry, his hips rolling, needy and desperate and so, so lost on the pleasure. he’s too busy working himself through his high, trembling over your body to care he’s cum too quick—and you don’t have it in you to tease him. you can feel the hot ropes of cum filling you, painting your walls white, fucking deep into you as the blunt head of his cock slams into you without a second of hesitation.

but he doesn’t stop, doesn’t falter that brutal pace as his hips slam into you, perfectly kissing your sweet spot every time. and before long, you break—your head pushes back against the wall behind you, mouth parted as you wail his name and cum—hard. you’re quivering and spasming around his swollen cock, enough that he whimpers at the way you’re so tight.

it’s good, it’s always good. satoru makes you feel good. he’s the best you’ve ever had—the best you’ll ever find.

and then you hear it again, the sniffle into your neck as he clutches you tightly. you know for sure that wet droplet is a tear this time, and your fingers tangle into his hair as you stroke the wet strands.

“i love you, toru,” you murmur, “my sweet boy. i’m sorry, okay? i’m so sorry.”

“don’t do that again,” he huffs in between tears, “that was so mean. so mean.”

“i said i won’t,” you chuckle, fighting back your own tears, “how long are you gonna hold this against me?”

“how long do you plan on being mine?”

“well,” you pull him from your neck, cupping his cheeks as you wipe away tears and peck his lips softly, “i think….forever.”

“well, get ready, then,” he glares softly, “i’m gonna hold this against you forever too.”

“okay,” you nod, “that’s fair.”

“and i love you too,” he adds, “but block whoever dm’d you. it better not be that zenin boy.”

“block those girls who’s pictures you liked,” you shoot back, glaring at him with a pout of your own.

“don’t yell at me,” he mumbles, leaning into your touch as your thumb strokes his cheek, “i’ve had a rough week. you have to be nice.”

dabitee anon. are u seeing this. did u see the satoru who cums too fast. did u see it. report back if u saw this. i repeat, dabitee anon report back if you see this

[jinhyun]

—catalyst.

pairing: hwang hyunjin x reader

genre: fluff, pining, non-idol au, best friend’s little brother au

word count: 5.4k

summary: when your best friend points out how there seems to be something more than just a platonic friendship going on between you and hyunjin, you couldn’t help but start questioning everything you’ve been doing together so far.

a/n: and we finally get y/n’s pov!! (and a little bit of hyunie’s as always lol can’t help myself). there is a lotttttt of overthinking on her end so please go easy on her, she just got hit by facts she hadn’t thought twice about before (thank u chan).

if anyone comes across this in the tags, this is part 15.2 of a social media series called heart out! you can read it as a stand-alone but i wouldn’t recommend it since there are a lot of references to the previous parts of the story.

as always i hope you all enjoy! if you do, please let me know your thoughts on it<3

When you woke up that day, you never would’ve expected to end up with so many unanswered questions by the end of it.

It was supposed to be a normal day — a great one, actually. You were having lunch at the Hwang’s household, and that itself was enough to make you happy as ever.

It had been a while since you’d last seen Hyunjin and Yeji’s parents, let alone shared a meal with them, so you took it upon yourself to get up extra early that morning in order to make some dessert for them —a lemon pie and a chocolate one, as they were Mr. and Mrs. Hwang’s favourites— and still have enough time left to get ready.

Yeji called you out as soon as she and Chan arrived to pick you up, ranting about how it wasn’t necessary for you to bring anything, while you and Chan could only laugh, knowing well enough she was already eyeing the lemon pie and thinking of how many pieces she would have.

What only made it funnier to you was that you knew you’d get a similar reaction from Hyunjin once you met him at his parents’, only he’d be eyeing the chocolate pie instead.

Said and done, as soon as you entered their house and Hyunjin came up to greet you —not without first letting you know just how hurt he was over you sharing a ride with your friends instead of him—, he began to go on about how he told you that you didn’t need to bring their parents any presents, like you said you would after his mother had so generously made you some soup when you were in bed with a fever a week ago. Nevertheless, you could see the way he stole a few glances at the chocolate pie, before offering to take it to the kitchen, while Yeji did the same with the lemon one. You could never get bored with these two.

Their parents, you knew very well by now, were just the same as them. It was clear where Yeji and Hyunjin got their humor and antics from.

You always had a very nice time with them, as they’d always find the right topic to keep the conversation going. But then for some reason your dating life made it to the conversation at one point and Mingyu was brought up by their mother asking you about the ‘handsome young man’ they met a couple of times; and somehow that alone would be the catalyst that set off a series of events that ultimately left you questioning your entire relationship with Hyunjin later that night.

“So you are definitely not getting back together with him?” Their mother asked at last, once the whole ‘Mingyu lore’, as Yeji called it, had been covered.

“Um…” you hesitated, eyes unconsciously locking with Hyunjin next to you, before you looked for Yeji, who was in front of him. “No, we’re not”.

“Oh, dear” she lamented. “What he did was such a shame, the two of you certainly made a very nice couple”.

“You heard how he turned out to be an asshole, though” Yeji pointed out, taking the words from Hyunjin’s mouth and inevitably having him and Chan nod in silent agreement.

“It’s a good thing you’re moving past him” their father chimed in this time.

You nodded, giving him a gentle smile. You were trying your best, for sure.

“His parents must be devastated” Mrs. Hwang lamented again, bringing your attention back to her.

This time, you couldn’t help but let out a breathy laugh. “I mean, I got along really well with them, but I wouldn’t go as far as to think they’re devastated”.

“Losing a daughter-in-law as beautiful and attentive as you…” she explained, bringing some heat to your cheeks that you tried to play off by taking a sip of water. “The two of you would’ve made such beautiful children”.

The water you were drinking didn’t follow the path down your throat it should’ve at the sound of her statement, and you inevitably ended up choking on it.

“Yah, mum” Hyunjin called her out, gently patting your back as you tried to catch your breath. “Can we not mention children and her ex in the same sentence?”

“Right, sorry” she apologised, handing you a napkin and giving you a soft smile before her eyes focused on her husband; ignoring the way Hyunjin’s hand remained unconsciously drawing small circles on your back until you were able to breathe normally again. “But just imagine if we had that kind of genes in the family”.

“Did she just call us ugly?” Yeji frowned, locking eyes with Hyunjin, who couldn’t help but chuckle instead of acting offended like his sister — in his eyes you were on a whole other level of beauty after all.

“Honestly though, even I feel offended now” Chan butted in. “I don’t recall you wanting my genes this bad”.

“They met you when we were already a couple, she probably would’ve tried to bribe you too otherwise” Yeji let him know with a cynical laugh, having you all follow right after.

“Trust me, she’s already pictured how cute your children will be” Mr. Hwang let the couple know.

“Can we not?” Yeji pleaded with red cheeks this time. Chan, on the other hand, could not let the opportunity to tease her pass, poking her cheek and repeating in a squeaky voice just how cute their kids would be. “Back to the topic of Y/N’s genes, please” she begged.

“Jeez! Thanks, best friend” you ironically said amidst an incredulous laugh, earning a finger heart and an obnoxious smile from her in response.

“My point was,” their mother resumed her previous train of thought. “Now that Y/N’s single, I’m kind of wishing we had an older son. Imagine how beautiful their children would be if she became a Hwang”.

Well, that certainly felt like a bucket of ice cold water being thrown right at Hyunjin.

“Hyunjin’s right here, though?” Chan pointed out before the youngest could begin to get lost in his —quite angsty— thoughts. “They’re both in their twenties, I’d say there’s hope for Y/N to become a Hwang”.

And maybe, if you weren’t too busy kicking Chan under the table, you would’ve noticed the shy smile curving up Hyunjin’s mouth, as well as his slightly rosy cheeks as he looked down to his still nearly untouched food.

Maybe if Yeji wasn’t too busy laughing at her boyfriend after getting hit and ever so poorly trying to comfort him, she would’ve noticed her brother being all flustered, too.

But, thankfully for him, his parents did. And that was enough for them to nod their heads in silent understanding.

That was the last comment they made about your dating life that afternoon, having no trouble directing the topic once again towards Chan and Yeji’s relationship instead.

You, on the other hand, although had managed to do a pretty good job at following whatever topic was brought up for the rest of the meal, could not seem to let Chan’s comment go.

It was out of place. Way out of it. What did Hyunjin have to do with it anyway? Like, yes, they were talking about you becoming a Hwang and, yes, he was the only son they had, but that didn’t immediately make him an option?

He was three years younger than you. He was only seventeen and still in high school when you met, whereas you were in your second year of university. It felt wrong to even think about it. And it was even worse considering that there was a reason his mum had explicitly mentioned her wish to have an older son instead of pushing you towards Hyunjin right away. It didn’t seem right for them either, as far as you could tell from what had just gone down.

Which is why you couldn’t let it go. Not even after you and Hyunjin got back to your place, like you had agreed to earlier that day when you decided to share a car with Chan and Yeji instead of him, and he wasted no time to secure his much needed alone time with you once you were done at his parents’.

You’d excused yourself to the kitchen to make some popcorn while Hyunjin was comfortably resting on your couch as he looked for any romcom movie to watch while he sipped on the hot chocolate you made as soon as you got home, and you took those few minutes away from him to text Chan and ask for an explanation.

And, God, did you get one.

You re-read the conversation over and over after he went offline, unable to understand where the hell had it all come from.

“He’s 23 now”.

“You may have met when he was 17 but he’s an adult now”.

“Considering what’s currently going on between the two of you”.

“I’m just trying to make you see and actually consider all your choices”.

“Hyunjin is not a little boy anymore”.

Every single text, hitting harder than the other.

Of course he was no longer a little boy. He stopped being one a long time ago, you weren’t stupid. But he was still Hyunjin, Yeji’s little brother. Nothing would ever change that.

You were supposed to care for him just like she did, to be there for him and protect him when the time came. He wasn’t supposed to be ‘a choice’ for you like any other guy could.

He was Hyunjin, the teenage boy who hardly talked to you the weekend you first met and would stutter almost every time he did, and who would so shyly let you and Yeji know dinner was ready whenever you stayed at theirs after that.

Hyunjin, the high school student you’d give some advice regarding the university admission test and applications throughout his last year of it, and whose graduation you attended later on.

Hyunjin, who made it to your university and would constantly ask for your help in his assignments, regardless of him having chosen a completely different major; and who you’d constantly check up on to make sure he was doing okay in his first year of it.

Hyunjin, who held you tight as ever the night Mingyu left you, and refused to go home like Yeji told him it was okay for him to until he was sure you were sound asleep and no longer crying, which didn’t happen until way past four in the morning.

Hyunjin, who would text to check up on you every single day after your breakup, even if it meant getting very short, cold answers from the heartbroken and detached persona that had taken over your body the following weeks.

Hyunjin, who included you in his New Year’s Eve plans and kept you company the entire weekend Yeji and Chan were away.

Hyunjin, who made it known he missed being as close as you once got to be years ago and took the lead to propose picking up where you left off.

Hyunjin, the man who had spent the entire past month making your days better by simply texting or showing up at your place — being there for you even when you didn’t need him to.

Had you really missed how much he was there for you? When was it that the roles reversed and he started to look after you instead?

You jumped when the microwave started beeping, letting you know the popcorn was ready. Shoving your phone into your pocket, you rushed to pour the popcorn into a bowl before making your way back into the living room.

Hyunjin’s head snapped in your direction, unable to hide his smile as soon as he saw you.

You gulped, trying your best to calm your heartbeats down before you took a seat next to him right as he placed the now empty mug on the coffee table. Maybe you should’ve texted Chan later that night, when Hyunjin was back at his place and you wouldn’t have to face him right away after being hit with so many questions.

“I was like one minute away from going over there to see what was taking you so long” he confessed.

“Just making us a small snack” you smiled cutely, shaking the bowl in your hands to make your point.

“I’m pretty sure popcorn takes like three minutes to make in the microwave,” he pointed out, shoving a single one into his mouth. “You took like seven”.

You scoffed in amusement. “Did you set a timer or something?”

“No, but I watched three whole movie trailers,” he admitted, earning a breathy laugh from you. “And that without counting the minutes I spent scrolling through movies to watch. I’d say you took at least ten minutes, actually”.

“Did you miss me that much to actually count the minutes?” You couldn’t help but joke.

“Well, yes” he answered with no hesitation, and no signs of joking either; very unfortunately for your already shaken up heart. “I told you earlier that I hadn’t seen you all week and wanted to spend time with you”.

“We’ve been together nearly all day” you reminded him sweetly.

“Not alone, though” his words made you feel warm inside, like they seemed to be doing a lot lately. “It’s not the same”.

“Sorry,” you pouted, and that was enough for him to melt. “I got kinda caught up texting and… here, I’ll just leave my phone on the table so we’ll just focus on the movie”.

Placing your phone next to his on the coffee table in front, you leaned back against the sofa, tilting your head up towards the TV, so he’d hit ‘play’ and you could get started on your movie night.

When five seconds went by and he didn’t move an inch, you focused your eyes on him instead.

“Hyunie?” You called him, moving your hand in front of him to pull him out of his thoughts and smiling once you did. “Everything alright?”

“Yeah, um, I just…” he struggled, having his eyes going back to your phone. “Was it work related? Like, was it… was he…”

“I was talking to Channie” you clarified when you got what was going through his mind. “Don’t be silly now, you really think I’d spend ten minutes of my life texting my ex boyfriend?”

“I mean, you guys have a project together now, so…”

“Still, we can just get it over with by email” you stood your ground. “I only spend that long texting people I actually enjoy talking to”.

He smiled, happy to know you would usually spend that amount of time texting —if not more— and, therefore, he was one of those lucky ones you enjoyed talking to.

Beaming after that realisation, and with the possibility of you talking to your ex out of the way, he grabbed the remote and pointed it to the TV.

“Is this one okay?” He asked, motioning towards the title ‘10 Things I Hate About You’ displayed on it.

You nodded quite effusively. “What are you waiting for, it’s one of my favourites”.

He bit his lip, but not even that was enough to hide the wide smile taking over his face as he leaned back against the couch as well and finally hit ‘play’. Of course he knew you loved that movie. He wasn’t choosing one only he enjoyed after all, and maybe knowing you’d get happy about it was the reason he ended up going with this particular one.

To be fair, he knew he’d spend half of the movie looking at you instead anyway. It was quite cute how you wouldn’t notice, being way too immersed in the plot you must’ve watched a hundred times by now.

Every now and then, he would reach for the popcorn at the same time as you, with the mere intention of his fingers faintly touching yours, but by the third time they touched and he got no reaction from you, he decided he wanted more — having your fingers touch without you noticing was not enough.

So, he slid slightly down the sofa, just enough for his face to be on the same level as yours, and then he rested his head on your shoulder.

That, you noticed. Hyunjin realised by the way your body tensed up under his touch.

And, for a moment there, he considered sitting up and going back to his previous position, hating the thought of his proximity making you feel uncomfortable; but you greatly surprised him by leaning your head on his before he could do so, silently letting him know right then that you did in fact enjoy being this close to him.

In the end, he had nothing to worry about when it came to touching you, for you had made it clear a while ago that it didn’t bother you. But, then again, he wasn’t sure whether you were only enduring it or actually enjoyed it. He didn’t know which touches were okay and which ones were crossing the line. And the thing was, so far, you enjoyed every single kind of physical contact he had tried with you. They were all brief, innocent even, sweet.

Him leaning his head on your shoulder hadn’t made you tense up because he crossed some kind of line, but because, unknown to him, your head was a complete mess right then. Unable to let your previous conversation with Chan go, you were now questioning the meaning behind this small action of his.

“Considering what’s currently going on between the two of you”.

Was this what he meant by that? You and Hyunjin being this kind of close?

This was the first time he rested his head on your shoulder out of all the times you’d been sitting down on your couch just like this, and now you couldn’t tell whether you were overthinking too much because of your friend’s words, or whether you would’ve started overthinking just the same regardless of it.

Yes, he had held your hand before, but it was an act for the hotteok lady not to feel ashamed after thinking the two of you were a couple.

Yes, you had cuddled through the night on this very couch, but it was only because you passed out without either of you noticing.

Every other ‘major’ touch you shared had an excuse behind it. Hyunjin lying his head on your shoulder, however? It didn’t have one. He just felt like it, wanted to be close to you. And ultimately you ended up giving in and resting your head on his simply because you felt like it, too. It felt nice. Regardless of the mess going on in your head, you wanted to be close to him, too.

Was it even an overthinking matter anyway? Friends did this all the time, right? Both you and Chan used to do it a lot before you and Mingyu started dating. You and Yeji still did it a lot, too, up to this day. Why did it suddenly feel different with Hyunjin?

Damn you, Bang Chan. You certainly didn’t need this right now.

Once again, your thoughts were interrupted by a sound. This one was softer than your microwave’s beep, though, more like a buzz coming from one of the phones on the coffee table. Considering your phone wasn’t on silent mode right then, you knew it was Hyunjin’s.

“Your phone just buzzed” you let him know when he wouldn’t budge.

“Leave it” he replied simply, shoving another handful of popcorn into his mouth.

“What if it’s important?” You wondered.

He sighed, already giving in — as easily as he always did when it came to you. “I’m too comfy, can you pass it to me?”

You nodded in a second, unable to hold back the chuckle that escaped your mouth when you leaned over to grab his phone and he followed your movement, as he refused to lift his head from its comfortable spot on your shoulder.

Just as you were back in your place and about to hand him his phone, though, its screen lit up, letting you see a single message from Dahye.

As soon as you saw it, you panicked, practically shoving the phone into Hyunjin’s hands.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have read that” you apologised, shamefully looking away.

Hyunjin frowned, sitting up in clear alert before he could check what you were talking about. His eyes opened wide once he read Dahye’s text and he immediately realised what it must’ve looked like to you.

It was a simple question: “Are you coming over tonight?”

No hello, no ‘Hyunjinie~’; just straight to the point, which couldn’t help but lead you to wonder whether texts like this and him going over to her place at night were an usual occurrence by now.

Hyunjin had told you all about her at New Year’s Eve. From how they kissed when he was drunk to how she wouldn’t leave him alone even years after it happened. He told you it was one sided, that he was tired of her constant insistence. But then why did that one text from her make it seem like that wasn’t precisely the case?

Unlike him, you hadn’t read Han’s message following Dahye’s, for it had just been delivered when he checked his phone right then. You hadn’t read the one message that gave the whole context to Dahye’s obscure text.

“She means to the pregame,” he was fast to clear up. “Han just texted me and apparently we’re going to a noraebang tonight and pregaming at Haeun’s. Dahye’s staying with her, so…”

You nodded, feeling like you weren’t in the place to say anything. It was his life, after all. He could be with whoever he wanted. He didn’t owe you any explanations. Fuck, did you want any explanations?

You didn’t know if you were feeling embarrassed for reading a text message that was supposed to be private, or if you were upset over the idea that Chan had just planted in your head being tainted not even an hour later.

Maybe you’d been thinking too much over something that wasn’t even there, being influenced by your best friend and what he thought was going on between you and Hyunjin. Maybe it was nothing after all.

But you couldn’t deny that you did feel quite uneasy over her text.

Were you upset that she was talking to him? Were you upset they were possibly hooking up? Was it being about Hyunjin you were upset about? Or were you just upset over how much the scene playing right in front of you resembled the times you’d just started questioning Mingyu’s relationship with Hayun while you were still together?

The times you’d catch the suspicious text messages popping up on his notifications, how nervous he would get and how he would start to throw excuse after excuse for you to believe he had nothing to do with her… You knew this feeling all too well, and you hated that you were feeling it again, with Hyunjin of all people, when you were not even together, you had no feelings for him as far as you knew, and, most importantly, you knew he was nothing like Mingyu at all.

And yet, here you were, feeling the goddamn lump in your throat you had felt one too many times by now because of a guy.

“Y/N?” He brought you back to reality. He looked worried. “I promise it doesn’t mean what it looked like”.

You had to hold back the hopeless laugh that threatened to escape your mouth at the sound of his words.

Words you had heard and decided to let pass way more times than you were proud of, and which brought you right back to the downfall of your last relationship.

You didn’t know which one of your concerns had to do with the trauma of your past relationship and which ones were actually related to the current situation you had just found yourself in.

When did it all stop being about Mingyu and it started being about Hyunjin?

“It’s okay” you gave him the most genuine smile you could give him, to let him know you were alright. Still, he didn’t look convinced. “You should get going, though”.

“I mean it, though” he pushed it when he could tell you weren’t convinced. “You can go through the t—”

“Hyunie,” you cut him off, this time with a soft chuckle. “It’s okay. I believe you”.

Did you?

“But apparently there is a pregame taking place in a bit, so you should get going”.

“You don’t even know at what time it is” he pouted.

“It’s a little past seven right now,” you pointed out, checking the time in your phone. “I’m guessing at seven thirty? Eight at most?”

Looking down to the group chat with his friends and realising you were right, he only made his pout more prominent.

“Am I right?” You wondered with a teasing smirk.

“Yes…” he let out a defeated sigh.

When you laughed triumphantly, he leaned in to rest his forehead on your shoulder.

“I don’t wanna go yet” he mumbled.

“You have to if you wanna make it in time with your friends”.

“I can always just skip pregame” he suggested, then sitting up again and looking at you with a mischievous smile. “Or skip night out as a whole”.

“Yah, Hwang Hyunjin” you scolded him. “You are not pulling a New Year’s Eve stunt on me again”.

“A New Year’s Eve stunt?” He wondered rather amusedly.

“You know, when you said you’d only stay with me until midnight and then ended up not going back to your friends that night” you explained.

“This is different, though. We had plans before”.

“Staying on the couch watching movies with me can’t even compete with going out with your friends”.

“No, you’re right” he nodded. “It can’t compete because staying in with you would win every time”.

“Hyunjin…” you tried your best to sound stern and not melt over his words. “Go”.

“But…”

“I’m not letting you skip yet another night out with your friends because of me”.

“Come with me then?” He asked with puppy eyes.

You were quick to look away, knowing well enough you would fall for his charms otherwise. “I’ll have to pass this time”.

“Is it because of Dahye?” He carefully wondered, taking your following silence as a yes. “We can skip pregame and then I’ll tell my friends to make up some excuse for her not to join us at noraebang”.

“Hyunjin,” you couldn’t help but chuckle. “You don’t have to do that, just go have fun with them”.

“But I wanna be with you” he pouted once more.

“Hyunie…” it sounded like you were begging by now. “The movie’s about to end anyway”.

“And we were supposed to watch another once once it did” he reminded you, later allowing a taunting smirk to curve up his lips when a certain idea made it to his head. “Are you so set on making me leave right now because you’re afraid you might not want me to leave at all if I stay any longer?”

You snorted, playfully yet gently poking his forehead. “Someone’s gotten a little too cocky, don’t you think?”

“Am I wrong, though?” He pushed it. “Do you really want me to go?”

“Hm?”

“Do you want me to go?” He repeated.

“Your friends—”

“That’s not what I’m asking you” he cut you off. “You have this really bad habit of always avoiding my questions, you know?”

You found yourself lowering your head, feeling oh-so-little under his piercing stare.

Although Hyunjin loved seeing you nervous because of him and it was a very rare occurrence coming from you, right then, he wanted your eyes on him. So, placing two fingers under your chin, he tilted your head back to his eye level — both of you only realising how close you actually were when your eyes met.

“It’s a simple yes or no question” he specified, gently removing a strand of hair from your face. “Do you want me to go?”

“No” you answered truthfully this time.

He smiled brightly.

“But—BUT,” you emphasized before he could celebrate, leaning slightly back and lifting your index finger for him to pay attention. “Like I said, I’m not letting you bail on your friends again, there will come a time they’ll get tired of it. You deserve to let loose and have some fun only with them”.

“But we were supposed to hang out today…”

“And we did?”

He frowned, clearly not happy with your answer.

“Come onnn,” you tried your best to convince him. “We’ll hang out again tomorrow anyway”.

“We will?” He perked up instantly, enough to make you feel shy all over again.

“I mean, if you want to, of course…” you corrected yourself. You had really become that used to seeing him both days every weekend now for it to be more of a given, huh?

“I believe it’s pretty clear by now that I always want to hang out with you”.

You tried to hold back a smile — needless to say, your efforts were miserable. “Okay then, we’ll see each other tomorrow”.

“Okay,” he smiled, satisfied with your new plans. “Let’s go out this time, since staying in is too boring for you now”.

“When did I ever say that?!”

“When you said that this,” he motioned around your place. “Wasn’t competition for a night out”.

“That is so not what I meant?” You argued.

“Still,” he laughed, eyes softening when they locked with yours. “I’m taking you out for lunch, okay?”

You smiled timidly, nodding your head. “Let’s see if you’re not too hungover first. Might have to end up taking care of you instead”.

“Now I might get blackout drunk just to have you taking care of me tomorrow”.

You shook your head in disbelief, unable to hide your amusement as you looked away. “Never mind, I will be sending either Yeji or your mum instead”.

“I’m joking, I’m joking” he laughed, looking for your eyes to lock with his again and gently grabbing your hands that were resting on your lap. “I’ll behave. Just let me take you out for lunch tomorrow, hm? Just us two”.

Staring down at your hands in his warm, soft ones, you couldn’t help but get invaded with more questions than answers.

It felt nice… being touched by him felt nice. Being close to him as a whole made you feel all warm inside. And he was right when he joked about you being scared you wouldn’t want him to leave at all if he stayed any longer, because truth was you already didn’t. You wanted him to stay, as close as you were minutes before.

Was it okay for you to be this close? Both physically and also emotionally? To the point of talking every single day and finding a way to see each other more than you saw your own best friends?

Did you enjoy his touch so much because it came from him? Or was it because you missed being touched?

Was he like this with everyone else? With Dahye? Anyone else at all? Did he treat you differently from them? Or was he just a flirty person and what you were now considering to be some kind of special treatment was just him acting the same as he did with every other girl?

Were you beginning to fall for him? Had you really been that oblivious to your own feelings? Or were you just looking too much into it now because of Chan’s influence, and mistaking a platonic —and rather strong— connection for something more?

Would Yeji be okay with it?

Too many questions were invading your mind, one right after the other, and you couldn’t find a single answer to any of them just yet.

However, although you didn’t know what you were feeling and were unsure about what demons were from your past and which ones were new, you did know one thing for sure: You were never as happy as when you were with him.

So, with a soft smile and a nod of your head, pushing any other thought for later tonight when you went to bed, you said the only thing you could answer to his request right then. “Okay”.

tag list: @jehhskz @iknowyouknowminho @doohnut @saintcosette @lailac13 @kayleefriedchicken @rikibun @yongbokkiesworld @seungzsmin @beautifulcolorgarden @hyunetopia @velvetmoonlght @automaticpersonabatpaper @httpdwaekki @brinnalaine @wondering-out-loud @feelikecinderella @nujeskz @amarecerasus @liknws @nhyunn @midsoulz @tirena1 @tinyelfperson @thatonexcgirl @iovecb97 @hynier @phenomenalgirl9 @your-favorite-pirate @jin-from-the-block @yearofthetiger25 @quokkacidal @stayconnecteed @kwanisms @yoonguurt @143hyunes @iiriam @cookielixie @hyunlvrs @allyrarara @machaandlofi @mehli-00 @justiceforvillains @minhosprettywife @whats-my-question @armystay89 @jaiuneamesolitaiire @hyeon-yi @skzstannie @onlyhyunjin @shyshyshytwice @nicoleparadas @​broken-glowsticks

[heavenbarnes]

Thinking of being Ghost's fiance and making invite the 141 over for dinner to finally meet them and he begrudgingly accepts because anything to make u happy and they're still trying to wrap their heads around the fact that he's engaged

mmm omg your mind 🫶🏼

finally getting older bf!simon to have the 141 around your dinner was the equivalent of pulling teeth.

come to think, pulling teeth would’ve been easier.

“well fuck me for wanting to meet the people the man i’m marrying spends 90% of his time with”

“sweet’art y’know i don’t like bringing work ‘ome”

then you’d gone and put your hands on your hips with just one (1) eyebrow raised-

and the lads were knocking at his fucking door.

“gidday- don’t fuckin’ start w’me”

“some bloody way to greet y’guests, big man”

as he corralled all their snide little remarks about “didnae know ye’ owned a nice shirt” everyone managed to find their best behaviour upon your appearance.

it might’ve had something to do with the stunned silence.

when he’d begrudgingly invited them, they’d all been in a little bit of shock- first of all, ghost had a fiancé? second of all, ghost is letting us into his home?

then it all round off with, third of all-

ghost’s fiancé was a fucking looker, that’s for sure.

sweet, nice, bloody easy on the eyes- how the hell had he managed that?

you were just happy to meet the closest things to friends that simon had.

price took lead by drawing you into a hug, thanking you for your hospitality. followed closely by a sweet talking gaz who was already making your cheeks warm with his manners.

naturally, johnny had to chime in with some stupid little-

“nae wonder L.t disnae want us knowing about ye’, i’d keep ye’ all t’maself too”

he’s too slow to avoid simon’s flat palm coming up the side of his head, but it doesn’t dissuade him much.

he’s peachy fucking keen to meet you.

simon eats his tea with a tense jaw, rolling his eyes every time someone makes you laugh a little too long, tells another ‘embarrassing’ story about him.

he also keeps his palm firmly on your knee, nervous twitch of a thumb running circles over your skin.

when you pop out to the kitchen to fix dessert, they’re on him like starved dogs.

“all this time and not so much as a bloody photo?”

“kinda’ photos i’m gettin’ aren’t f’you lots eyes”

johnny nearly falls out of his seat.

you can hear them whispering all the way from the kitchen, for a bunch of SAS guys- they’re not very subtle.

simon’s got one ear on the shit chatter coming from his team and the other on the kitchen, waiting for the slightest sign that he might be able to join you.

it comes- in the form of a gasp from you followed by “ow fuck”

simon’s out of his seat like a bullet.

“what’s wrong- what ‘ave y’done?”

you know the 141 are watching, doesn’t take a genius to see the way they’re all craning their necks around the kitchen doorframe.

“i’m fine, si- just a little burn from the pan”

“lemme’ see, gimme’ y’hand”

so the 141 see their ghost, unshakeable mountain of a man- a face they never see-

and they see his face, and they see genuine fear on it.

they see simon.

your simon.

“i’m telling you it’s fine, si”

“i’ll make that call, alright”

and they’re all looking at each other across the table, trying to decide whether to be impressed or even a little jealous- they’re leaning towards jealous.

so instead they settle on taking the absolute piss out of him.

not that he minds-

before you could even reach your chair he was pulling you into his lap- having you eat dessert perched on his thigh.

as you settle back into his chest, you could swear you feel him laugh.

that hand settles back on your knee again but there aren’t nervous circles anymore.

more like gentle squeezes.

your simon.

right at home.

[papaya-twinks]

ok so what abt a lando one where there’s an age gap and he’s always been obsessed with her and like stalkers her, does research on the guys she brings home and goes out with basically totally dark stalker vibes. But the thing is she knows she has a stalker but no idea who it is bc whenever he confronts her he is wearing his racing helmet, and they always do even more each time they meet, liek first time they met he just caressed her but then like the 3rd time fingers her and 4th fucks her. THEN SOMEWEAR IN IT PLSSS. Lando has a sex tape of them and jerks off to it and thinks ‘fuck I can’t do this anymore’ kidnaps her and now she’s kinda like his toy but sugar daddy vibes bc he treats her well. And this is all consensual bc the reader wants an adventure as her ex bf was so vanilla ( which lando knows allll abt and explains in detail to her what she used to do with him) THATS ALOT IM SRRY U DONT HAVE TO DO IT

Warnings: Five year age gap (sorry, large age gaps make me squeamish), stalker, dark fic, 18+ kidnapping, sex, smut, 18+, consensual, sex tape, fingering, abusive partner (not Lando), sugar daddy, swearing

Pairing: Lando Norris x fem!reader

A/N - I’m adding some biker!lando into this coz his F1 helmet is just cutsies but a black biker one? dark dark shit right there.

Lando had met you at an F1 race, where you’d been in the garage. Something about how darn innocent you looked with your pretty little dress, all young and…wow. And with the help of Oscar (who simply thought his teammate just had an interest in some girl), he found out about you.

Y/N Y/L/N. You were 19 years old, your favourite colour was pink, you were cute and innocent and sweet, and you loved bows and ribbons. How adorable. And so it began, Lando followed you on a burner account, and watched all your stories, pinpointing your exact location to be in Monaco.

Oh how perfect, you were in the same country as him and, conveniently, he had the whole summer break to play around with the information.

y/n

caption: spending this day alone but with a great cafe to make up for it :)

friend3: oooo, have fun 💗💗💗

-> y/n: will do, thank you x

friend2: looking chic, y/n!

friend1: enjoy yourself and try the chocolate cake 👀

user1: café can’t be as gorgeous as you are 😉

-> y/n: oh, thank you?

You had just brushed off whoever ‘user1’ was, not really paying much mind to unusual flirty message, and continued with your day at the cafe. However, you couldn’t shake the slightly unsettling feeling that you were being watched.

You’d seen this happen in movies, and you couldn’t deny that the slight tingle of adrenaline coursing through your body wasn’t enjoyable. And so you looked behind you, from your cake and your phone, your eyes locking with someone else’s.

Well, more you found yourself staring back at a helmet. A plain, slick black helmet, the person wearing it adorned in a leather black jacket and light blue jeans. You couldn’t see any features to help show you who it was, but it was kind of…interesting.

Did you confront the person? No, you’d seem desperate or stupid. So you went back to your food, and never once did it cross your mind that perhaps, user1 was your stalker. But you didn’t see the stalker anymore. And you were a little disappointed they’d moved on so quickly, but you too moved on, going on your dates, looking for love, as girls your age did.

“Jason? What the fuck?” Lando said, eyeing the new name at the bottom of your followers. He’d skimmed through them, making a note of each and every person on your Instagram list, but seeing a guy? He couldn’t deny the feeling of annoyance in his stomach.

And thankfully, he’d made note of the guy’s instagram enough to see where the date would take place. Foolish, foolish move. And once again, you were sitting at a chair opposite this man, Jason, when your eyes fell on the same, sleek black helmet once more. Holy shit. And quicker than it had come, it was gone. For fucks’ sake.

*1 month later*

You and Jason were dating now, and to say he was toxic was an understatement. “Jason, I’m just gonna go out with my friends,” you said, picking up your purse as he scowled from the sofa, still in his sleeping clothes. “Why? So you can see some guy under the guise of friends? Likely,” Jason scoffed.

He was frustrating. “I’m not seeing another guy, I’m going with my friends,” you said, repeating your words as he groaned. “For fucks’ sake, Y/N, no means no!” he yelled, his words making you flinch as you sighed and dropped your purse back down.

“Fine, if you’re gonna be a brat, fucking go!” Jason seethed, pushing you to the door. Well, at least you’d get to go. The meet up with your friends ended a few minutes later, and just as you were leaving..,the helmet. This time, you would confront him. Or her.

“Uh, hi,” you said, walking slowly towards the helmet-man. He was definitely muscular. You were standing in the middle of an alleyway, the darkness flooding round you as the helmet stared down at you from his spot. “Uh, I’m Y/N,” you said, holding your hand out for him to shake.

He didn’t shake it.

You watched as he placed a hand in your shoulder, still not having said anything, and interlocked your other hand in his. He pushed a bit of paper into your hand, your eyes on the words. A phone number. Interesting. As soon as you looked back up, he was gone.

unknown user

y/n: hello

user: Hello.

y/n: who is this?

user: you don’t need to know.

user: come to the boulevard tomorrow at 9pm. leave jason behind. tell him your seeing a friend.

Holy shit x2. The air of mystique around whoever this was…was somewhat unsettling but at the same time, it was kinda a turn on. And wait, how did he know who Jason was? Oh, he’d done his research. Nice one.

And so you did what he said, managing to wriggle out of Jason’s possessive gaze, and you found yourself, waiting where this stalker had said. And there he was, in the same jacket and the same helmet, looking back at you. And perfectly on time, as well. Either he was desperate or…well, you didn’t know.

It was dark all round you, no one around and the streets unlit in this area. You watched as he reached out a gloved hand, taking your hand in his and pulling you between the trees, the mask of the night shielding you. He had strong hands.

You didn’t truly care what he’d do next, as he sat you down, the dry earth coating the back of your dress as he pushed it up, your thighs visibly shaking. A soft gasp left your lips as he trailed his hand over your core. You hadn’t worn panties. Good.

It was almost like he was complimenting you as he gave you a small smack on your thigh, before he removed his glove, dipping his finger between your folds as you moaned, eyes wide. “Shit…” you trailed off, your eyes wide as he added another, your knot building up. Fucking weeks of faked orgasms, and this one felt real.

He didn’t say anything, simply moving his hand faster, the tan skin of his fingers curling as he rubbed at your clit with his thumb. Who was this fucking angel? A loud moan left your lips as your orgasm flooded over you, his hand moving from between your legs, the remnants of your pleasure on his hand as he wiped it down his jacket, watching you for a second, before he left.

Part 1 of his plan: complete.

And the next day, you received yet another message from the same user, your eyes lighting up. It was an address.

user: [address], 10pm. no panties either.

And you arrived at the surprisingly grand hotel, showing the receptionist the room number and she gestured the way. You paused outside the door, thoughts of everything flashing through your head. Who was this man? Was he safe? Was he dangerous? Fuck it, you just needed another orgasm.

As you walked in, you failed to notice the little camera set up on the desk behind a bottle of lotion, your eyes on the man standing in the doorway of the en-suite bathroom. You didn’t say anything, neither did he, as he walked to you, lifting your dress once more and laying you down on the bed.

With one hand, he dipped his fingers into your core, the other hand undoing his belt as he dropped his trousers, taking your hand and wrapping it round the base of his (surprisingly large) cock. You heard the small sound of a groan, not enough to identify who it was, but you pumped his slowly, his own hand toying with your core.

Still, he’d didn’t remove his helmet. You gasped as he pressed his cock against you, one hand pressing down on your throat gently, the restriction of your airways adding to the pleasure, as his other hand pressed your stomach down to stop you from arching. You whined as he tugged your jaw forwards, forcing you to look at the small bump in your stomach.

Holy shit x3.

You gasped as he started moved, your lips parting as he moved his head down, lifting the visor and pressing immediately to your neck, so you couldn’t see anything but his lips as he licked at the supple, sweet skin of your collarbone. His hips picked up pace as you moaned, his fangs nipping at your skin as he peppered kisses to your neck.

You could feel the pleasure build up in both of you as he held you down, his hand moving from your neck to massage you clit in soft, slow circles, his other hand kneading the skin of your breasts. “Shit,” you muttered as he sped up, the knot in your stomach building faster and faster as you suppressed your moans, your eyes rolling.

He pulled out before he came, spilling the liquid onto your thighs as he bit down once onto your neck, sucking the hickey under your coat and out of sight, before fixing you up. And then he pushed you out the room. Oh god.

“What the fuck?!” Jason snapped, stepping into the shower with you. “Where did you get a hickey from?” he asked, your eyes wide. You’d totally forgotten about it. “You gave it to me last time we fucked,” you said coolly, trying to play it off. “Oh…right,” Jason muttered. Wow, he was stupid.

“Fuck,” Lando gasped, his eyes rolling as he tried to keep his attention on the video of the night before, his hand desperately trying to recreate the sensation of your tight cunt, how good it had felt having your warmth clenching round him. “For fucks’ sake,” Lando muttered staring down at the menial drops of cum coating his hand.

And there was only one way he could have you all of himself. Kidnapping. But, how? You were walking down the boulevard once more, trying not to stare at the spot where you’d been fingered by the mystery man, clutching your bag as you walked down to a bakery, where you wanted to pick up your cakes.

And then, a hand on your mouth, followed by a cloth, and out you went.

……….…………………………

Your lashes fluttered open as a piercing yellow light hung over you, your eyes returning to usual as you looked round the room. You had an itch under your nose, and you reached your hand up, only to find your wrists tied together and to a radiator. What the fuck?!

And then you saw it, the pieces falling into place. A laptop placed perfectly so you could see it, with the video of the mystery man fucking you playing on. The helmet placed onto the side cabinet. A phone with ‘user1’ and the list of all your images he’d saved. What was this?

“Hello sweetheart,” a voice said, the second word dripping with almost condescending sarcasm as you looked up, your eyes locking on a pair of greenish-blue ones. He was the stalker? He was hot, though. “What are you doing, who are you?” you writhed against the ties as he scoffed.

“Fight all you want, then,” he shrugged, “I know you want this,”. You shook your head at his words, making him roll his eyes, before he bent down, untying the tie on your wrists and kneeling to your height. ���Don’t wanna be here, is that what you want me to believe?” he smirked. “Then go on,” he gestured to the bedroom door.

“Run, then,”.

But you didn’t. You didn’t run. Though you knew you should, that this wasn’t right, but you didn’t move. “Exactly,” he leaned down to whisper into your ear, running his tongue over the mark he’d left, a shiver rushing up your spine. “Get on the bed, then,” he said with a little sinister smile, but you obeyed.

“On your back, lift your dress,” the man said, directing you with a firm voice as you did what he said, your back against the mattress, your hands tugging the material of your dress upwards. “Good,” he eyed your body, “think a little introduction is in need,”.

“I’m Lando,” he said, his lips brushing your ear as he removed his jeans, “you’re Y/N. I know that,” he said, pumping himself a few times before aligning with your entrance as you gasped. “I know how Jason was a dick,” he continued, “I watched you fake those orgasms,” Lando mused, “and how that cunt of a ‘boyfriend’ never once gifted his perfect little girl anything,”.

You whimpered as he took your chin in his fingers, pressing his lips to your jaw, before sliding into you, his other hand taking a little box from behind you, sliding the ring onto your index finger as he rocked his hips. “Oh, god,” you gasped as he sped up, your hands digging into his shoulders.

“I watched how that cunt couldn’t even make you cum, Y/N,” Lando smirked, “such a pretty girl and he couldn’t even make you cum,”. You whined at his words, your body bouncing a little as the lewd sounds of your skin hitting his as he slammed into you, your eyes rolling in pleasure.

“Cum for me,” he said, his teeth bared against your neck as you gasped, your whimpers filling his ears as he carried on. Oh what he fun he’d have with you.

A/N - I love this.

[princessbrunette]

can u maybe write a fic where hyper fem shy reader has had like - the biggest crush on rafe since forever? Like it’s sooo painfully obvious in the way she blushes when he simply looks at her or does what he says, or takes his advice on how she should dress or who she should and should not be friends with. She literally hangs on his every word and when the kooks are like “hey what do you think about [enter subject]” she legit just looks to rafe because she always agrees with him. He lowkey knows about her crush and rafe is evil enough, at least in my opinion, to extort that and enjoy it.

(՞ ܸ. .ܸ՞) 𝜗𝜚 ݁ ˖ ◜ ♩ 🐰

you had a crush on rafe and everyone knew it.

from the way you’d hold onto his every word, staring through your lashes with wide eyes at the simplest of stories, or giggle a little too loudly at every boyish joke he’d come up with — it was clear you were head over heels. too shy to make a move, sure — but almost just as happy to pine in peace. rafe knew this, it was abundantly clear — but he’d enjoyed having a sweet girl following him around like a lost puppy. in a sick and selfish way, it made him look good so he let it happen.

you hung onto the little moments, small victories in which rafe would give you the time of day. you still remember the time you walked up to the usual group you hung out with at the country club, rafe included and he’d turned to you, taking a sip of his beer and letting his eyes roam your form.

“hi.” you’d smiled simply as the rest of the group greet you, one of the other girls handing you a chute of expensive champagne — someone clearly celebrating something that day. rafes eyes lingered on your outfit. a small white lacy tube top with a matching white skirt and shoes. he places his bottle on the table and reaches towards you, fixing the small ribbon at the bust of your top. you freeze, eyes sliding up to his face in awe, watching the way the corner of his mouth tugs into the tiniest of smirks.

“i like this.” the compliment is simple, but you feel your body heat up regardless.

“yeah?” you smile sweetly and he nods, a small faux serious pout turned friendly grin before he was turning back to his friends and contributing to the conversation once more. you continued to watch him until one of your girlfriends nudged you, giving you a knowing smile.

another moment worth noting might be later on in the week, topper discussing an invite they’d received to a party thrown by someone they didn’t like too much. he turns to you, mid debate with his friends — involving you.

“look, what do you think? is it worth going to this party? i say a parties a party and if anyone starts their shit we beat their ass— but hey maybe that’s just me!” he lifts his hands up, the group erupting into debate. you stand quietly, before turning your head to look up at rafe sweetly, waiting for his input. he notes this, before stepping up closer beside you and wrapping an arm around your shoulder.

“she knows we don’t fuck with them like that alright — don’t try n’loop her into your desperate tactics. you want a party? i’ll throw a fuckin’ party.” he shrugs, making the group swiftly agree, bursting into conversation as rafe looks down at you, taking off his sunglasses and tucking them into his shirt collar. “don’t let this guy talk you into shit. you’re not goin’ to that party, trust me. come to mine instead.” and just like that — as usual, the moment is over as quickly as it starts but you still hold onto it, smiling uncontrollably at the fact he had his arm around you for even a moment.

(՞ ܸ. .ܸ՞) 𝜗𝜚 ݁ ˖ ◜ ♩ 🐰

[amirasainz]

What about amira was watching a show and it had steamy scenes and Carlos walk in as had a fit, quickly turning it off saying your just a baby, how dare someone make u watch this

Hi my loves. Enjoy reading and send some requests.

-xoxo, Babygirl 💋

P.S.: Shoutout to the person complaining anonymously about how I tag my stories in my requests 😘😘

Just a Baby

Carlos was home for a rare break between races, enjoying some time with his family in Madrid. His sister, Amira, had returned home from university for a few days, and they were both relaxing in the living room. Carlos was in the kitchen, grabbing a snack when he heard the unmistakable sound of a dramatic TV show playing in the background. Amira was deeply immersed in the latest binge-worthy series, curled up on the couch.

The show, however, had taken a rather unexpected turn. A spicy scene appeared on the screen, one that was definitely more "mature" in nature. Just as Amira’s eyes widened, both from surprise and perhaps slight embarrassment, Carlos walked into the room, munching on an apple.

“Amira! What are you watching?!” he exclaimed, nearly choking on his bite.

Amira fumbled with the remote, trying to skip ahead or find the mute button, her face flushing a bit. “It’s just a show, Carlitos. Relax! It’s nothing,” she said, desperately trying to act nonchalant as she struggled to fast forward through the scene.

Carlos marched over and snatched the remote out of her hand. "Nada?! Amira, I saw what was on the screen. You shouldn't be watching things like this! You’re still just a baby!"

Amira rolled her eyes, already anticipating what was about to come. “Carlos, I’m 21. I’m not a baby anymore,” she said, crossing her arms defiantly.

Carlos shook his head, pacing in front of the TV like a concerned father. "21? Oh, please. You still have a teddy bear in your room!" he pointed out, hoping to strengthen his case. "This... this stuff is for adults."

“News flash, genius,” Amira shot back, “I am an adult.”

Carlos’ eyes widened dramatically, as though she’d said something preposterous. “You? An adult?” He let out a chuckle. "Amira, come on. Last week you were asking me to help you change the light bulb in your room because you were scared you’d break it. That doesn’t scream ‘adult’ to me!”

Amira glared at him. “That was because it was really high up and I didn’t have a step stool!” she defended herself, her cheeks turning even pinker. “Besides, what’s the big deal? You’re acting like I haven’t seen—”

“Don’t. Even. Say it,” Carlos interrupted, waving his hands in the air like he was trying to ward off evil spirits. “I don’t want to hear that you’ve seen anything like that. It’s disgusting. Unbelievable. You're practically a baby. You should be watching cartoons or... or... I don't know, baking shows!”

Amira couldn’t help but laugh now, the absurdity of the situation catching up to her. “Baking shows? Are you serious, Carlitos?”

“Or documentaries!” Carlos added, as if he’d had a sudden epiphany. “Something educational, you know. Not… this.”

Amira threw her hands up. “Fine. Next time, I’ll be sure to watch ‘The History of Bread’ just to satisfy you.”

Carlos squinted at her, pointing the remote at the TV and clicking the power button. “You know what, I think I need to start reviewing your shows before you watch them. Like, as a precaution,” he said, sounding very serious.

Amira was now completely exasperated. "What, are you gonna start putting parental controls on the TV?"

"Don't tempt me," he said, raising an eyebrow.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The following weekend, Carlos was back in the paddock for the next Grand Prix, catching up with his fellow drivers. During a quiet moment in the hospitality area, he found himself relaying the entire incident to his teammate and good friend, Lando.

“So I walk in, and she’s watching this... this show,” Carlos explained animatedly, “and there’s this completely inappropriate scene playing. I mean, come on, Amira’s too young for that stuff.”

Lando listened with a grin spreading across his face, clearly enjoying Carlos’ overprotective older brother antics. “Wait,” he interrupted, holding up a hand to stop Carlos mid-rant. “Isn’t Amira 21 now?”

Carlos nodded vehemently. “Sí, but that doesn’t mean anything. She’s still practically a child, Lando.”

“Practically?” Lando’s grin grew wider. “Mate, she’s an adult. You know that, right?”

Carlos folded his arms and huffed. “She’s not mature enough to be watching that kind of content. I need to protect her.”

Lando chuckled mischievously, his eyes twinkling with a hint of mischief. “So… you think she’d do that with me?” he said casually, raising his eyebrows with a cheeky smirk.

Carlos’ reaction was instantaneous. “¿Qué? What did you just say?” His eyes narrowed, and his jaw clenched.

Lando, who knew exactly what he was doing, leaned back in his chair and stretched nonchalantly. “I mean, if she’s watching stuff like that, maybe she’s… you know… open to trying things. I could—”

Before Lando could finish, Carlos had already lunged across the table, his hands outstretched toward Lando’s neck. “¡Eres un idiota!” Carlos shouted as Lando sprang to his feet, barely avoiding Carlos' grip.

Lando’s laugh echoed down the paddock as he sprinted away, Carlos hot on his heels. “It was just a joke, mate!” Lando called back over his shoulder, dodging past a stack of tires.

“I’m going to kill you, Norris!” Carlos yelled, weaving through a group of engineers who quickly parted, sensing the chaos approaching.

Drivers and team members looked on in bewilderment as the scene unfolded. Lando dashed past Max, who raised an eyebrow. “What did you do this time?” Max asked dryly.

“Nothing!” Lando managed to get out between breaths. “Just complimented Carlos’ sister!”

Max’s face broke into a rare grin. “Good luck with that,” he said, stepping aside to let Carlos barrel past.

The chase continued all the way to the garage area, where Lando finally ducked behind a stack of equipment cases, hoping Carlos would lose sight of him. But Carlos was relentless, storming up and down the aisle.

“Come out and face me, coward!” Carlos called, his voice filled with mock fury. “Or are you afraid of what I’m going to do to you?”

Lando peeked out from behind a tire rack, his face still lit up with that boyish grin. “Okay, okay, I surrender! You win!” he said, throwing his hands up in mock defeat. “Amira’s off-limits, I swear!”

Carlos, still catching his breath, pointed a finger at Lando. “If you so much as look at her, I will personally make sure you have to drive the car with three wheels, understood?”

Lando nodded, unable to keep a straight face. “Got it, boss,” he said, giving Carlos a mock salute. “You’re such a protective big brother, though. It’s actually kind of cute.”

Carlos groaned, rubbing a hand across his face. “Cute? I’ll show you cute,” he muttered, giving Lando one last glare before finally walking off.

As Carlos walked away, Lando whispered under his breath, “Bet Amira would say I’m cute, though…”

Carlos spun around one last time, but Lando had already disappeared, leaving Carlos shaking his head and muttering something about British troublemakers.

[furuu]

this is def gonna sound strange as a halloween related req and its not usually what u write but i was thinking of a dentist reader who specializes in monster care and nuna who sadly only gets too see you every six months starts to get cavities on purpose so you can come earlier ( unknown you to, he can grow new teeth at any given moment, he just likes to taunt you when you have to inspect his rather large mouth ) - 🦴

𐔌 . ⋮ You’d grown used to seeing some odd cases in your line of work. Specializing in monster dental care wasn’t exactly common, but you loved the challenge—and the clients, though Sukuna was another story entirely.

Every six months, you’d set up in his dimly lit chambers, preparing your tools and trying to steel yourself for the visit. Sukuna always loomed over you with that smirk, a hint of mischief in his eyes, with deadly fangs that somehow always managed to surprise you, no matter how many times you saw them.

But this time, your professional calm broke when you leaned in to inspect his teeth and found… cavities.

You let out an exasperated sigh. “Sukuna,” you scolded, brandishing a dental pick as you tried to assess the damage, “how did this happen? Just six months ago, your teeth were pristine.”

His lips curved into a slow grin, all four eyes gleaming with something too smug for your liking. “I guess I just have a sweet tooth,” he drawled, letting his tongue swipe leisurely over his sharp teeth. “Perhaps I’ve developed some bad habits.”

You raised an eyebrow, doubtful but determined to maintain professionalism. “Uh-huh,” you murmured, delicately probing one of the blackened spots near a back molar. It seemed unlikely someone as powerful as Sukuna could be plagued by cavities, but then again, he was an ancient being. Some monsters just had quirks you couldn’t predict.

But the way he was grinning now, far too entertained, made you suspicious. Every time you leaned closer, his mouth widened slightly, forcing you to peer into what seemed like an endless cavern, lined with rows of teeth that glistened in various states of repair. And each time you’d find another cavity, he’d chuckle, making the walls of his mouth reverberate as though he found your frustration delightful.

“Look at that,” he mused, feigning surprise as you inspected yet another “cavity.” “You’re going to have to start coming more often. Seems I just can’t keep my teeth in line without your expert care.”

“Sukuna,” you said firmly, realizing something was definitely off about his tone and these conveniently spaced cavities, “are you telling me you got these on purpose?”

He just tilted his head, the barest hint of laughter in his eyes as he shrugged. “Well, if it means I get to see that adorable, determined look on your face more than twice a year, then maybe.”

A sigh escaped you as you put down your tools, arms crossed in mock frustration. “You do realize I could report this as misuse of monster dental care resources?”

But Sukuna just leaned in, bringing his tattooed face close enough that you could feel his warm breath on your cheeks, all four of his eyes blinking in unison. “Report it if you want, but you’ll be back,” he teased, his voice softening ever so slightly. “Because no one else can handle these teeth like you do.”

Trying not to smile, you sighed, picking up your tools once more. “Well then,” you said, leaning back in, “I guess I’ll see you in three months, your majesty.”

[dejabooooo]

The Anti-Pines family is utterly fascinating. We have the blueprint for an entire pseudo canon AU, and remarkably I have seen little input from the fandom in regards to it. I can’t imagine why because there is SO MUCH TO WORK WITH HERE.

Anti-Waddles being as nefarious as Anti-Mabel. “The first pig to ever go to jail for armed robbery.” Like 😭😭 imagine waddles standing upright and holding a tommy gun. Imagine no one in the bank their holding up taking them seriously because they’re an adorable little girl and a chubby pig, and mabel threatening to put a bullet between someone’s eyes like “u better cough up the bacon before this bacon smokes u.” I wanna see what other heinous atrocities the cutest crime duo in the multiverse get up to.

ANTI-SOOS BEING A FORBES BILLIONAIRE HOW AND WHY DID THIS HAPPEN

You’d think if Anti-Ford represents the opposite of Ford that you’d wind up with someone who is exceptionally normal and uninteresting but NOPE. Anti-Ford is easily the weirdest here. FUCKING??? YOUTUBER??? DJ?? A sixty-something year old man with 200 subscribers who posts about his dubstep set lists daily. Utterly baffling.

Anti-Stan and Anti-Dipper are the most understandable in terms of being complete opposites of their counterparts, but all of this makes me wonder how differently their stories would play out because of this. Anti-Mabel was “chased out of her dimension” for being so evil. How does her family feel about this? Are they trying to get her back? Does this bizarre cast embark on a comical and heartfelt journey to try and bring her home? A journey that ends in an emotional reunion? Perhaps one that Mabel fights as she clings to her indifferent, cold ideology while her family begs her to come home. All of them recollecting her horrible crimes with proportionately little exasperation and an abundance of fondness. Stan recounting when she stole all the money from a fundraiser he’d held so she could instead invest the funds into remodeling their entire house to have a monochrome minimalist decor. Ford reminiscing about the time she tried to use his channel to funnel money into a crypto/nft scheme. Dipper having countless stories. like how happy she’d make him when he’d get to skip school thanks to her (because she burned down the school, multiple times). About how she’d sabotaged pretty much all of his relationships, but it was a good thing in the end because it allowed him to realize that who he always really loved was that dorky socially awkward corduroy girl he hadn’t noticed at first. All of this retrospection from her family chipping away at her hardened heart and- phew, I'm getting carried away, but the possibilities, man! These characters could be so much more than a one time joke.

There is also the matter of Anti-Bill. “He is very boring.” Shut up??? Speak for urself, schmebulock, he sounds delightful. This is another character I believe you could expand in many interesting ways. I mean think about it, a being possessing the same caliber of bill’s omniscience and using it for good sounds amazing. Knowing all the beauty in all the universes and going out of his way to share it with weary minds through their dreams. Nullifying nightmares. What if he were a healing antidote to the mind, a medicine to bill’s mind unraveling madness? What if they knew each other?

Do you see my (delusional) vision here guys?

[hyukascampfire]

𝒯𝑂: 𝑆𝑂𝑀𝐸𝑂𝑁𝐸 𝐹𝑅𝑂𝑀 𝐴 𝑊𝐴𝑅𝑀 𝐶𝐿𝐼𝑀𝐴𝑇𝐸 ༉

𝓘N THIS STORY 〃 a life lived as a human among the fae is hard-earned. the folk are built of indescribable beauty, and of debauchery and mischief. for some, a life lived subservient to the folk is just fine; but to those who dream of something more, they would spend their lives clawing and biting to make it happen.

you, looking for a way to escape a life as a faerie’s human servant, put a new foot forward thinking that any life could be better than that. but, when your first assignment as a king’s spy is alongside a brooding, icy faerie man, you begin to wonder what your place in this foreign world really could be.

wc ➳ 24.5k

pairings faerie!taehyun x human!reader, faerie!yeonjun x human!reader

warnings violence, death, descriptions of past trauma, oral (m receiving), PIV sex, poisoning, mean taehyun... tell me if I missed anything

playlists ⑊ yeonjun ˒ taehyun ˒ series

…🪶 ashlynn's note this one is hhheeefttty and packed with a bunch of angst, so buckle up pls. also... if you see any typos or weird sentences, no u didn't... 24k is a lot of words guys... but also lmk so i can fix it LMAOO. enjoy!!

← ⑊ →

You wipe at your forehead, dragging in breaths as you realign your stance. Each swipe and jab you run through wells up inside you, amassing frustration. They all feel infuriatingly sloppy. You had cracked open a window in the room. Though it lets a nasty winter breeze in, the cold works wonders against your clammy skin.  

You had initially been practicing in the sparring room, but the heavy, blood-stained and battle-worn swords displayed on the walls, hung right next to the taxidermy heads of fallen faeries, began making you uneasy so you opted for another room in the estate. Taehyun’s father must’ve been a vicious general.  

The words of both Yeonjun and the barkeeping hob at The Hovel are snug under your skin like burrs. He sowed a good seed of wicked into his son, the barkeep had said. Staring into the lifeless, beady eyes of the felled creatures had made you wonder exactly how wicked that seed had been. As far as you know, Taehyun harbors no love for his father, though. It doesn’t make any sense that he’d want to resemble him, especially in his behaviors. You can’t help but feel that you’re missing some intrinsic piece that would clear it all up for you. 

There’s also the matter of what that man in the forest had said after you had stabbed him. You’re fucking dead, anyway. The words have echoed and ricocheted in your head endlessly, and you’ve tried ardently to dissect them. You’re only left with a queasy pit in your gut each time you do. You’ve decided that it’s best to pretend that they’re just the angry words of a man stabbed. You’d probably try to instill fear in the person who’d stabbed you if it was the last thing you could do, too. 

Despite that, it still is concerning that he had known where to find you and had claimed that someone had told him where to do so. There’s also the fact that there had been people in The Hovel looking for you two. You’re not exactly sure what would happen if you and Taehyun were discovered; your suspicions range from a slap on the wrist to the breaking out of war between The North and The High Court. You’ve never so much as seen The Queen, but you can’t imagine she’d take too kindly to discover that The King has spies actively infiltrating her court. Your chest becomes tight with the reminder that the mission that you and Taehyun are on is endlessly delicate. 

“You’re leaving too many openings between swings.”  

Taehyun’s voice tugs you from your own mind. You drop your arms, making great effort to breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. Your limbs wobble with exertion. You had wanted to practice alone; having Taehyun observe and pick at your shortcomings would only irk you and make you so consciously aware of them that you could think nowhere beyond them. You had pointedly avoided seeking out his help for a reason. 

 “And,” he adds, “you’re so focused on what you do with your arms that you forget to move your feet.”

You toss your head back, willing down the tightness in your throat and the warm, frustrated tears pooling at your eyes. He’s right; you can feel it yourself, but no matter your efforts, your own limbs work against you. Your frustration manifests itself in the form of your heart thumping in your ears. It’s all you can hear. You snap at him. “I know.”  

Taehyun doesn’t look taken aback by the bite in your tone, but he does release his sword from its scabbard, approaching you and leveling his arms into an offensive, swinging stance. Your arms are dead weight as you do the same, but with a defensive one. You anticipate his first swing, meeting it with a sturdy block. Metal sings as he sends you another one.  

“Frustration throws your technique and strength out the window,” he says, going for a jab with the hilt. You narrowly miss it, throwing yourself back. 

 That would’ve been a black eye.  

You furrow your brows at him, and then step forward, slashing your blade with hostile shock. He knocks it away. You throw your free hand up in an exasperated gesture. “What the hell? That would’ve knocked my eye out,” you say. It’s an overdramatization, but it definitely would’ve left a mark. 

He slides a swift foot right at your feet, sending you crumpling the floor of wood. Your body quakes, soft and jelly against the ungiving ground. You stay down for a few moments, trying to brave the bout of roaring pain that sears your body in its entirety. Your knees weep red as you lift yourself to your arms, looking up from your spot on the ground right to the point of his blade in your face. You look past it, into his eyes. He’s studying you, picking apart where you lack and internalizing it. 

“You let yourself get too frustrated. You need a level mind to make clever moves,” he says, sheathing the weapon and offering you a hand up. You accept it, not before sending him an accusatory glare first, your weary muscles pleading with you as you stand. You shake off the radiant pain in your wrists; you shouldn’t have broken your fall with your arms. Taehyun circles you, and you listen to his footsteps creaking until he’s standing behind you.  

“Get in position.”  

You collect your sword from the ground and bring it up by your face, staggering your feet. You shift and readjust your arms and legs here and there, trying to find a sweet spot where it all feels right. None of it does.  

Taehyun’s arms find your shoulders, squaring them. You hold your breath as one of his arms then adjusts the height at which you’re holding the sword, reaching his arm around you. His skin is as cold to the touch as you remember it being, and the way it slides against the skin of your arm is tauntingly familiar.  

You scramble to shove those memories far, far back. When his hands finally drop off you, you stifle a sigh of relief. 

When Taehyun reappears in front of you, he’s holding the hilt of the sword at his hip in a white-knuckled grip, and his jaw is clenched tight. You hold your new stance, trying to settle into it, afraid you’re frustrating him. 

“Swing,” he says. You hesitate. He doesn’t even have his sword out, but he’s watching you so expectantly, and so you do it, cutting the air. You don’t even get to finish the swing before the world whirls around you, Taehyun’s arms twisting you and encasing you so that your sword-wielding arm is stuck behind you. He smells of frosty pinewood musk as he holds you there. Your mouth drops open, and you try to register how he even approached you, caught your swinging arm, and pinned you in that minimal time frame.  

He takes the sword from out of your compromised hand and tosses it. The heavy thing clatters to the ground a few feet away. “What would you do if I was an attacker?” he asks. “You’ve got no weapons. Show me what you’d do.” His muscle-corded forearms hold you pinned in a similar fashion to how that faerie man had in the forest, except now your arm is twisted behind you in an unnatural way that pinches your shoulder blade. 

You wonder if he’s getting flashes of that moment in the forest, too. 

Wiggling proves useless, so you try hooking your own leg into one of his to knock him down. He’s planted too well to the ground. You huff out in frustration, letting your head drop. He’s got you in his arms so tight that your lungs can’t even fully expand.  

“Okay, I can’t,” you say. “Let me go.”  

A few heartbeats pass before he does.  

Taehyun crosses his arms over his chest. “You’d die, if that was real. We don’t know if we’re going to run into more things like what happened at The Hovel. There are ways to defend yourself from bigger attackers.” 

You wince. The press of that dagger into your chest haunts you along with the sensations of hot blood coating your hands, and the pained grunts of the man. “We might at least know a little more, if you hadn’t stabbed him through the stomach before I could ask him any questions.” You rest your sword up against a wall, along with yourself.  

“He was just trying to scare you,” Taehyun says, leaning back onto the edge of an old war strategy desk. You can tell he doesn’t even believe the words himself, his eyes narrowing as cogs turn in his head. 

You shake your head. “No, I don’t think he was.” It takes every ounce of resilience you’ve got to not crumple down to the floor. You’ve been practicing for hours. “He said that he had found us, not that he just stumbled across us. And he knew who you are.” You remember the distaste with which he had regarded Taehyun. It may allude to his motivations. 

Taehyun listens to you, his eyes narrowed in thought, and you take it as an invitation to continue. “I think he knew, Taehyun. He’s got to be the one who was asking about us at The Hovel. Unless he’s not even the only one who knows.” You kick yourself off the wall, despite the ache, and pace. “But he knew you. And I don’t think he liked you, either.”  

Taehyun doesn’t say anything for a few moments as he thinks, tossing metal pieces from the strategy table he leans on as he does. His brow creases. “The Queen must have her own people laying low in Court. Summer’s solstice is only a few weeks away,” he says.  

“What about the Summer Solstice?” you say. You know that the constant holding of Court in your time here has all been in service of the Solstice, but you can’t imagine why that would entail needing ears in your court. 

“I’m not sure,” Taehyun says, thumbing over that figure of metal, feeling its grooves and features. “But The Queen would not have people out there looking for our kind unless she had something she wants quiet.”  

You lick your dry lips. The Queen knows you’re here. “What do we do about the fact that they know there’s infiltrators?” At the very least, that faerie who saw your faces is dead. How much more death will you see in these coming weeks? Telling yourself that it’s for your own safety is doing a flimsy job of soothing you already; you’re unsure how well it’ll work when you have more blood on your hands.  

Taehyun breathes out through his nose, standing up from the desk and taking another metal figure from it. He pushes the ones left, most of them fallen and in disarray, off to the side, before standing the two in his hands. They’re stood generally where the estate would stand on the map. He erects a few of the discarded figures, lining them up around where Court might be, and then lays one felled off in the woods that The Hovel boasts as its home. The faerie he had killed. 

Something about seeing Taehyun, shady eyes and clad in the clothes of a warlord, interacting with the same strategy table that his father would’ve used to lay out his plans of carnage reminds you of repeated warnings and wary eyes bowing before Taehyun. Had the downfalls of those lifeless heads in the sparring room been planned on that same table, with those same figures? 

“All we can do is keep doing what we’ve been doing. Can you promise me that you’ll be as discreet as possible from this point onward?” Taehyun finally pries his eyes from the table up to yours. “You need to watch your words no matter who you’re around. That includes the prince.” 

Attitude flares in your chest at his last words, but you wrangle it back. You don’t think you have to worry about Yeonjun, but you know it’s better to err on the side of caution. You nod. “And if something happens?” you ask. The question is grim and grey on your tongue. Now that you’ve gotten a taste of what this life really means, you can’t help but ask.  

“You do what it takes to survive, and then we return home with all the information we’ve got, and that’s that.”  

The smell of hot iron melts over you, red and suffocating. You remember the thickness of it, and how it had crusted over a deep brown color and stayed plastered to your skin until you took water to it and scrubbed.  

“Taehyun, I barely made it out of that forest. I’m...” You steady your breathing as it seems to get ahead of you. “I’m not going to win a fight one on one, Taehyun. I’m trying to get better, but that’s just not realistic, and you know it. That was luck.”  

Some emotion passes over his face, his eyebrows pinching and eyes wincing, but it’s gone before you can even name it. “This is how you learn to survive. You don’t learn in sparring rooms,” he says. His sword clicks from the scabbard and its metal trills as he draws it again. "But for now, you need to make sure your odds are as good as they can be.” 

You squeeze your eyes shut, releasing your breath.  

“I’ve been in here for hours, Taehyun. I’m tired.”  

He shakes his head. “You need to know how to fight tired.” 

You’re not sure you’ll even be able to swing properly. You don’t barely have it in you to talk, nonetheless fight in any way worthwhile. But he’s right. You swipe your sword off the wall, the dingy metal no longer warmed by your hands. It bites your skin as you settle into the best stance you can muster. To use every bit of your energy in a wild offensive attack, or to slip into the defensive and try to last as long as you can? You’re not sure.  

Taehyun seems to be making the decision for you, though, rooted in his spot, his eyes steady on you. He doesn't urge you to attack him; he just watches to see what you’ll do. Willing your poor, poor legs into motion, you gain on him. You know your legs and pace are lethargic as you move, but you just need to be closer so that you can begin to make moves. He doesn’t comment on the height of your arms or your pace this time. 

You dart your eyes about his torso as if planning a hit there, before swinging down at his sword-bearing arm. Taehyun’s eyes flicker with something akin to surprise, but he dodges well before you can connect. You try not to groan as he darts away and sets back into that unmoving, certain stance. He’s trying to gauge the attacks you opt for. You throw a few unexceptional swings, and he meets all of them. You dart and swing. You need to catch him unaware or unprepared.  

Every time you bring down your sword, it’s doing nothing for you except for draining your energy. He’s full of energy; he hadn’t been practicing like you. You drag full breaths in through your nose, each one not feeling like enough to feed your starved lungs. If you keep fighting like this, you’ll run your well dry.  

You narrow your eyes. Everyone has openings, you just need to find Taehyun’s, however hidden and subtle they are. You take in the sure stance of him, the glimmering dark metal of his heavy blade, the slight way he has his face drawn so that it betrays none of his thoughts, and even the broad musculature of his chest. None are particularly helpful in finding you a clever attack, so you swing at his left. Taehyun is left-handed, you’ve observed that much in the time you’ve known him. Swinging closer to his sword will leave him with less airtime to deflect your hit. Hopefully. 

Taehyun manages to parry your slashing, but it’s just with the edge of his blade, and he has to stumble back. He’s quick to reset, regarding you with twinkling interest in his licorice black eyes. That doesn’t matter—you have your angle, now. You suck in as much air as you can. Your limbs plead with you, whispering that your bed is waiting for you. You answer them by feinting a blow to the right, before pulling back and raising your arms and bringing the entirety of your blade to his left. Metal screeches. Taehyun narrowly meets your sword with his own, supporting the flat side of it with his palm, looking down at you with a smile twitching at his lips. 

 Is that a dimple? 

A sturdy arm curls around your waist, spinning you up and tangling you into a knot. Taehyun pins you against him in exactly the fashion the faerie man had, arms pressed to your sides without seam.  

“Damn it!” you hiss. You dig your fingers into the expanse of his forearm, tensed across your chest like a metal bar. Your sword lies discarded somewhere on the floor. Taehyun is quite a bit taller than that other faerie; he has you held so crushingly that only your toes connect with the ground. 

“You need to stop wearing your thoughts on your face,” he says. His words puff out onto the breadth of your neck, so warm on your skin tingling with the winter air. “But good job trying to find an advantage.”  

You tap out at his arm. “Okay, okay,” you say, trying to find good purchase on your tiptoes. 

“No,” he says, voice thick and stern. He holds you fast to him with his one arm. “You can get out of this. I’ve seen you do it, so do it.”  

You’re sent back to caging arms and words snarled into your ears for the nth time today. “I can’t,” you say, voice wobbly and untrustworthy. “I had to stab him, Taehyun.” You feel nauseous and claustrophobic.   

“He was going to kill you. You don’t need mercy for those who have none for you; It doesn’t serve you.” He wraps his free arm around your waist, tight and oppressive in the same way his other arm is. “C’mon.”  

You grit your teeth kick and buck wildly, digging your heels into his shins and prying at the bar of his arm. Your veins are empty of any fire. You let your head fall back, huffing, and it makes contact with the hardness of his shoulder.  

He pulls you in so that your hips are flush to him. His head drops down near the crook of your neck. “Come on,” he repeats, more punctuated and demanding this time. The contours of his body are solid and hard against you. Your brain feels a little fuzzy. Is it from your shallow breathing, or the way you can feel the heaviness of his eyes boring into you? You’re unsure.  

You pry and pry at his arms, wriggling yourself in hopes that, at one point, you’ll bend your body in a way that will let you slip out. You even reach behind you and shove at the hard planes of his stomach. All of it is infuriatingly futile.  

“You can do more than that,” Taehyun says. “Hit me. Do something. A real captor would’ve done whatever they please with you by now. Come on!”  

“I don’t want to hit you!” you say. When you begin twisting again, he opts for holding you to him by one hip, rather than his whole arm. His fingers dig into you. 

Taehyun’s voice is low in your ears. “I told you to hit me, so do it.”  

All that can be heard in the room for a few long, long moments are your panting breaths, until you bring your foot up and stomp down on his foot, driving your heel down. The thick leather and laces of his boots may pillow some of the force, but not all of it. He grunts, cursing thick and meaningful. He falls back from you, stumbling back until he’s propped up on that strategy table.  

“I’m sorry,” you say, rushing over to him. You had brought your foot down on his harder than you had wanted.  

Taehyun raises a dismissive hand, the wood of the table creaking under his weight as he leans on it, but his face has dropped and smoothed over. You wonder how one could ever be so good at veiling their emotions so completely. He nods at you, his eyes rounded and soft, despite how his foot might be groaning. “Good job,” he says. 

You shake your head and cross your arms over your chest. “You’re insane,” you say. 

He smiles at you. “Maybe.” 

There’s that dimple, again. It’s a soft, kind thing, so at odds with the hard lines and angles of his face. Finally, you let your shoulders soften and relax. You may fall asleep standing upright, if you don’t find the plush of a mattress soon. 

❆

You bite down your hisses and sounds. Yeonjun runs his thumb over the deep purple and yellow bruises that litter your legs and arms, and some are too fresh to be touching. His face is pinched and troubled as his eyes linger over your scabbed knees. 

“Where are you getting these?” he asks. His eyes flicker up to yours, sparkling under the dim firelight that he keeps in his room. Your mouth goes dry. The concern you see brimming there has you wanting to explode in a frenzy of apologies and truths. He deserves to know what you are.  

Sighing, you prop yourself up and onto your elbows. “I do a lot of work at the estate,” you say. It’s a weak excuse for the severity of your bruising, but it’s all you have. His eyebrows lift, and he tilts his head to one side as he looks down at you, something unnamed playing in the lines of his eyes. 

“He lets you get all beaten up like this?” he scoffs. “What kind of work does he even have you doing, anyway? What a piece of shit.” 

 You can tell he wants to extend his offer again. His eyes plead silently with you. You feel guilt the most of any emotion, these days. You shake your head, shrugging him off. “It’s not his fault, Yeonjun. Seriously. I’m just not the best at what I do.”  

“It is his fault, if you come back to me looking like this under his care. I’m sick of it.  Look at your arms,” he says, picking up the battered thing pointedly. “It kills me every moment you’re there with him, and I don’t know what’s happening to you. But then, you show up... like this. It’s hard for me to believe what you say, pretty.” 

You sit up fully. You’re trying to find a way to explain it all away for him. You really are. 

Your silence has him recanting. "I believe you. I do. It’s just...” Yeonjun takes his hand and soothes it over a deep bruise, his eyes trained on it and a bit distant. “I don’t trust him.”  

There it is again. It’s beginning to feel more like cryptic omens the more you hear it. You gnaw at your cheek. “Why?” you blurt. “Why not? I don’t understand.”  

“That family is a line of blood-drinking generals, and I can assure you that he is no different. His father pillaged and devastated as he pleased. Taehyun had no qualms with taking on his father’s legacy. He’s no stranger to killing, pretty. I don’t want you staying in that home.” 

You shake your head, stomach feeling sick. You’ve known about Taehyun’s lineage. But you also know that Taehyun hates his father. Why would he maim himself the way he did if he’s just like his father?  

An image of Taehyun, stone-faced and dark-eyed, standing over the body of that faerie man comes alive in your memories. He had sliced through that man like he was some sort of practice dummy, not a living, breathing thing.  

“Please. I just want you to at least consider why I am asking you to stay with me.”  

You nod, letting him bring you into soft, warm arms. His skin is flush and full of life against yours. It only makes you think of the crystalline and cold that Taehyun’s is. Where Yeonjun is a lush, living thing, Taehyun is more like if frost was stricken with the curse of sentience. 

“Some of my friends are out having a bonfire,” he says, his voice soft. “Do you want to go?” 

You nod. A night under the stars may not be enough to free you of your worries, but it’s enough to let you pretend that they don’t exist.  

❆

The company Yeonjun keeps is admittedly less stuffy and pompous than you had in mind, but still, they are unfamiliar to you. You sit leaned into Yeonjun on some chopped up log, its dry bark digging into your palms and dirtying your skirts. The rumble of Yeonjun’s chest as he laughs and talks with the other faeries circling the towering fire is smooth on your ears. All that lights the gathering is the orange of the flame and the stars above. It’s a moonless night.  

Some of his friends dance free and unabashed to the strumming of a lyre. The faerie plucking at its strings had stricken you a bit frozen when your eyes had first laid on him. You’re familiar with that flop of blonde hair, and that delicately built face. It was the same faerie Taehyun had spoken with in The Hovel. Your eyes linger on him the most—you’re not entirely sure why, but it just feels like an odd coincidence to you. The Hovel, or even its patrons and performers, is not the kind of place you imagined Yeonjun would find his friends. 

He sings to some ridiculous and bawdy faerie ode that you pay no mind. His voice is clear, and it harmonizes wonderfully with the crackle of the bonfire. A jaunty pixie girl cracks up between her dancing at an especially outrageous line.  

“Who is that?” you say, looking up at Yeonjun.  

He looks down at you with starlight in his eyes, alive with the fragrant bliss floating through the air. “Who?” he asks, lips sweet with a smile. You want to kiss them. Is it okay to kiss him here? 

“The guy playing the instrument,” you say, pointing him out. Yeonjun looks in the direction you point. 

“Oh,” he says. “That’s Kai. Why, pretty?” he says, looking back down at you. His black tunic is silken and shimmers under firelight. He brushes strands of your hair from your face so that he can look into your eyes better.  

You shrug. “No reason. Is he a bard?”  

He nods, eyes searching yours. “He is. What are you so curious for?” he asks, the corners of his lips upturned and playful. His skin is fire-warmed, smelling of his familiar sandalwood and clove. You breathe him in. 

“I’m just trying to get to know your friends,” you say. You maintain an air of cheekiness, but you can’t help running over the moment you had first seen the instrument-strumming faerie. 

Yeonjun’s heart seems to tug at that. “I know. Thank you,” he says. His smile is radiant and smooth, and his eyes form crescents.  

“They’re a bit less...” you say. You sit up from him, studying your company to find your words. They’re all more familiar to you—wilder fae, like the kind you might’ve interacted with back home. Not the preening gentry that you’ve mingled with in Court. As a prince, you had imagined Yeonjun might find his home in children of the gentry. 

“Less what? Less frumpy than you thought?” he asks, laughing. His cheeks are flushed with some thick, nectary faerie spirit that the lot have been sipping on, and his breath is sweet with it. “I can’t stand that crowd. Reminds me of home.”  

Your brows pinch with curiosity. “What is your court like?” you say. Someone hoots off in the background, but neither you nor Yeonjun are phased by it. You’ve been surrounded by similar sounds from the moment you arrived here. 

His gaze turns skyward. “Court is court, no matter where it is,” he says, breathing out softly through his nose. “But... at home, things are different. At least, for me they are. I can’t...” He shakes his head as if he’s sorting through old memories that you’re asking him to bare. “I can’t live up to what they expect me to be. There was a time in my life where I tried, but It’s not who I am. You grow tired when it’s your own blood smiling in your face before sticking their blades in your back. All this,”—he takes his silken shirt in his hands— “It becomes tired.”  

His eyes become duller as he speaks. You wince.  

“Maybe it’s a cage of gold, but it is still a cage,” he says into the buzzing night air. Or, rather, he says it to the stars. “So, you get real good at pretending. When everybody is wearing a mask around you, you learn to wear one too.”  

Yeonjun’s head finally drops back down, and he scans around, eyes drinking in the sight of cavorting faeries and the living fire. His eyes then land on you, soft and brimming and full. “It’s nice to have some place to take that mask off.” 

You feel your heart surging in a bittersweet way. You don’t deserve to be that for him. All you do is lie to him, and yet, you can’t help the way your heart aches for him. 

His gaze flickers down at your lips, and he’s leaning in tentative and unsure. You bridge the gap between your lips. He cups your face delicately with a hand, running it back into your hair. His lips have become something familiar; some sort of tonic that washes over you and seeps into your wounds. When you inevitably pull from him, he’s looking right into you. He tastes like that nectar liqueur, as well.  

“I’m gonna go talk. You coming?” he says.  

You shake your head. “I’ll stay right by this fire, thank you very much. It’s cold.”  

He snorts, a corner of his lips turning up. “Yeah, it is. Who let you outside with nothing more than that dress, anyway? It’s freezing out here.” 

“You did.”  

He rubs at the back of his neck, sucking his lips in sheepishly before shuffling away. You roll your eyes and settle into your earthy seat, watching him go. You observe the gathering around you some more while you sit alone, enjoying the sound of true laughs and the music that Kai fills the rest of the air with. Some are sappy, and some are tellings of ancient faerie epics, but there’s one that, for a reason that you’re unsure of, catches your ear and beckons you to listen to it. 

Walls have ears,

 Doors have eyes,

Trees have voices,  

Beasts tell lies,

Beware the rain,

Beware the snow,

Beware the man You think you know. 

You listen as he repeats the ode like a mantra, your bones unsettled. It’s just an ode; you know that. It’s no different from any old, dauntingly ominous faerie folk song. But you think of Taehyun as the bard repeats the words, and you think of how many times you’ve been told to do just that. You try to shrug off that zinging feeling in the back of your neck telling you that you don’t really know Taehyun. In Faerie, there are no coincidences. You don’t know how long you can let words of concern and warning bounce off of you before you start to let them soak right in. 

The metal tang of blood on your tongue tells you that it’s time to get up and distract yourself from your thoughts. You’d gnawed your cheek up. You stretch your limbs and find Yeonjun. He stands talking to a small crowd of faeries, and you join, sliding in next to him. A few of them gawk, and you feel it burning your skin, but you keep your eyes on Yeonjun and do your best to shimmy the feeling off. He wraps an arm around your waist and tugs you in closer to him. 

Their conversation is quite honestly hilarious. Their snorts and hollering draw laughs out of you. They loosen your limbs and leave your cheeks pink. You feel as drunk on your laughter as they are on their drinks. Kai soon decides that, since nobody is even listening to his word-spinning anymore, he should join the circle.You don’t notice it, but at some point, the circle cracks off into many different conversations. You stick with Yeonjun, clinging to him for a sense of belonging among the unfamiliar faces. He talks with Kai and a lanky, bark-skinned faerie. The unfamiliar faerie’s eyes are beady and wet, and you feel uneasy under them. You have to strain your ear to clearly hear what they talk about as the other conversations around you mingle and turn into a big blur of jumbled words and sounds. 

“Wouldn’t you?” the tall faerie says, his voice gravelly and heavy with bass. “The Queen knows it. She has until the Solstice to deal away with it.” Yeonjun and Kai share a look that is quick, but it is charged with meaning. You don’t miss how they shift with his words. 

You shove down the urge to snap your head up and frown. The Solstice? What does The Queen know? And what is it? 

The faerie adds, “I heard from a bird that they’ve got something set up at The Hovel for it, anyway. No worries.”  

His word choice sends a chill over you. You can almost feel the blood draining from your face. It’s an echo of what you had heard in the forest after leaving The Hovel. It feels intentional, like some sort of code or meaning that you’re not privy to. Your mind begins patching together thoughts and memories and gathered information in a messy, hodge-podged way, but none of it forms a coherent line of reasoning. You commit the features of this unfamiliar faerie to your memory. You buzz with the consuming need to begin tearing through the woods and find Taehyun, wherever he might be tonight. 

“Are you okay, pretty?” Yeonjun asks, leaning down. His voice is low and delicate. “You’re pale. Are you cold?” 

You failed to contain your jolt of surprise, and a frown etches deep between his brows. “Is something wrong?” he says. 

You can hardly feel your face. “I’m fine,” you say, dismissing him with a shake of your head. “Just tired. Really tired.” You need to be back at the estate. You need to tell Taehyun what you just heard. 

Yeonjun’s face softens, and he pulls back. “Okay. Let’s get you to bed, then,” he says. 

You can’t help but gnaw at your already chewed cheeks and lips as he walks you home through the ice-capped forest. Your feet break through shrubbery and, though some snap back up and claw at your legs, you can barely register their sting through the fogging of your brain. You’re not sure exactly what or when, but something is going to happen at The Hovel.  

❆

You suck in breaths through your nose, holding your pounding chest as you come flying through the front door of the estate. You visit each of the rooms Taehyun frequents—his room, the sparring quarters, the war room—you find him in none of them.  

You groan. Is he still at Court? Yeonjun had only just dropped you off here; seeking out Taehyun at Court would be a risky move. If he decides that he’s not done with the day and you run into him... You don’t even have a time, nor any idea what is actually going to be happening at The Hovel, to offer Taehyun anyway. But there’s this electricity flowing through your veins. It urges you to move; to do something.  

You pace the floor of the estate furiously until you fear you may look down and find the wood weathered and worn down by your boots. Once you’re sure that enough time has passed and Yeonjun would have cleared the flat and the wooded area, you set for Court with your mind racing in the very same way your heart does. 

Your feet carry you with the lightness of determination and will until you find yourself looking onto the warm, dancing lights of Court. You let yourself fear the consequences of what Yeonjun spotting you might bring for only a moment before you stamp it out and slip through the old pillar trees and join the merriments of Court with every morsel of bravery you have in you. 

Your eyes rake over the scene. You filter out the noise of dancing bodies and opt for tunneling in on the faeries standing still and making conversation—that’s where you’ll find Taehyun. There are multiple groups and bundles littering the floor, and yet, you find that tall head of hair and cold face in none of them. You soothe over your dress with anxious hands as you narrow your eyes and look over the hall again. If not conversation, where is he? 

Your eyes brush past a tall, brooding figure posted at the end of a table, his arms crossed and a heavy sword at his hip. Your eyes sweep back for a double take. Taehyun. 

 You restrain the initial urge to pick the hem of your dress off the floor and take off for him. It would only bring curious eyes your way, and you absolutely do not need that. You need to keep a low profile, like how a spy would. You forget yourself more with each moment you spend at Yeonjun’s side. Fearing attention is what you should be doing, not just as a spy, but as a human intermingling with cruel faerie courts, anyway. You make your way through the thick bunches of court-goers and tables. 

Taehyun’s brows furrow when he spots you, full of questioning. You don’t usually seek each other out during court; it’s easier to float below everybody’s attention when separate. 

Your veins buzz, thrilled to spill every word that has been sitting on your tongue with urgency. “Taehyun,” you say, closing the last steps of distance between you. “I have something to tell you, but... I can’t say it here.” He scans your surroundings, and you can see curiosity brimming all over him. He doesn’t ask the questions he has on his mind, though, simply departing from his post at the table and sifting through the crowds. You follow.  

Only once you’ve left the hall that holds court and are into the trees does he ask, “You found something?”  

You nod, but hasten your pace. Not only is the outside air biting into your skin without any tall bonfires to ward it away, but you’ve felt watched for a while now. The woods that you use as a segway between Court and Taehyun’s estate no longer feels like a haven—instead of just ancient holly and pine trees decorating the snowy grounds, you feel eyes on trees and ears in bushes. Taehyun doesn’t push any when you don’t explain, his face only grows increasingly grim. 

When you’re surrounded by the sturdy, familiar walls of the estate you finally stop and lean into the dining table, running your hands over your face. Taehyun’s shoulders have become tensed and rigid. Your silence must be getting under his skin. 

“I was out with Yeonjun, and I heard something. It was like—” 

Taehyun cuts you off, his face souring. “Why weren’t you at Court? Where were you?”  

“A bonfire,” you say, avoiding his other question. “Just with some of his friends. But that’s not the point. The point is that there was somebody there that was talking about The Queen knowing something, and that something is supposed to happen at The Hovel for it. He said something about how she has to deal with it before the solstice.” Your words run over each other and twist with the way you hurry to get their weight off your tongue.  

Taehyun seems to process your jumbles of information for a moment before he says, “What did he look like?”  

“He had bark skin, and was pretty tall,” you say. “I didn’t hear his name, or anything. Do you think you know him?”  

He shakes his head. “I don’t. Did Yeonjun?” he asks, and something in his tone feels accusatory.  

You shake your head. You’re not sure why you do it. “No, but that wasn’t all. There was something he said,”—your stomach flips at the memory— “it just felt off.” 

“What?” 

“He said that he had heard about whatever is happening at The Hovel from a bird,” you say, fiddling with frayed nerves at a heavy jewel hanging in your ear that Yeonjun had gifted you.  

You recognize the look that etches itself into his features as you say it—it mirrors exactly the way your insides twisted when you had heard it. “We have to go see what’s going to happen, Taehyun. I mean, The Queen is involved! Doesn’t it all feel like it’s something bigger? What if that guy who attacked us was in on it?” You toe the wood flooring. “I feel weird about it.” 

His face pulls into a grimace, but he nods. “We can check it out,” he says. “But I’m still wondering why you were out in the middle of the forest with a group of strangers, instead of at court where you should be.”  

You cross your arms over your chest. “I’m doing what you told me to do,” you say, tired of this conversation. “You asked me to make a show out of it, so I am. It was a little hangout with his friends, and Yeonjun was there with me anyway.”   

“There’s no purpose in showing yourself off to his friends,” he says, his voice taking on a biting, sword edge. “Listen to yourself,” he says, throwing his hands up in an exasperated gesture. “I don’t care if Yeonjun was there. You were in the woods, surrounded by only him and his friends, alone. You found out for yourself what kind of company he keeps, didn’t you? What makes you so sure that he would choose you over your friends?” he sneers, and then his jaw sets. “I don’t care how much you’re practicing, or how many weapons you wear, you should be smarter than to put yourself into situations like that.” 

You spin on your heel, venom spinning itself up potent and mean in your mouth. You choose to keep it there despite the way it sours and begs for you to spit it all out.  

Taehyun’s fingers dig into your wrist as he catches it, as firm and unforgiving as his temper. “Don’t walk away from me,” he grits out. You throw your head back in an effort to keep yourself together, but all the effort it had taken you to not explode suddenly slips through your fingers like water.  

You rip your arm from out of his hand, scathing him with your eyes. “It’s not up to you. If you want me to do something, then tell me. Otherwise, leave me alone. I’m tired of you acting like I don’t have my own brain. I can decide for myself what’s safe and what’s not.” 

He shakes his head, tugging at the collar of his tunic as if it’s stifling around his neck. “I know you can,” he says, his words trained. “I expect more than whatever this is from you. This behavior is unbecoming of a spy.”  

Your shoulders slump heavy with his words. “What? What is?” you say. “We’ve found nothing of value in court. The only thing you ever brought us fell flat on its face, and you brought me closer to death than I ever have. So, tell me how what I did is so awful? I found us something to follow. Can’t you just acknowledge that and move on, without reaching to find something to criticize me for?” 

When you study his face, you expect to find only his torturous mask of ice, but you find his eyes at war with his face. While he seems to be trying to pull that mask over his face, he’s unsuccessful in smoothing over the layered, flickering emotion that his eyes are brimming with. You’re unsure of which emotions you see there. They’re knotty and thorny, and so viscous that you can’t see through or discern them. He doesn’t reply, only pressing his mouth into a thin, cruel line. You wish you could read his eyes and see there what he can’t seem to say with his words. When Taehyun feels his mask slipping away from him, he frantically grasps at straws of rage and mean words to distract from it. 

“Yeah, I’m going to bed,” you say. You know it’s not what this conversation needs; you know that what you need to do is stay here and talk, but that would just be a waste of your time. Taehyun will never offer you the amount of bare emotion that something like that would require, and so you just save yourself the frustration. 

 You chew over more angry words as you storm off for your quarters. Taehyun does not make any attempts to stop you. 

❆

Your eyes flutter open, and you blink them a few times to adjust to the morning rays of light. Birds trill outside your window.  

Your bedding is a warming embrace around you, and it has your eyes drooping and mind fuzzy with sleep just as quickly as you had awoken. You fight it for only a few moments before letting sleep settle itself into your bones once more. 

Your eyes pop back open as the sharp sound of something small and hard colliding with glass rings through your room. You sit up, removing yourself regretfully from the nurturing arms of your bedsheets, and listen. You jump when it happens again. It’s coming from your window. You slide regretfully from the bed and rub at your eyes before padding over to your window. 

You frown at Yeonjun’s silhouette staring up to you from the ground, his hands in his pockets. The grin that he plastered over his mouth when he spots you in the window tells you that he is aware of the fact he had just dragged you out of your slumber. You push open the window, grimacing down at him. 

“Why don’t you just go through the front door?” you gripe, running fingers through your tangle of hair. “Like a normal person would.” 

He tilts his head, swiping his tongue over his lips. “I’m not normal,” he snarks. “You should know that by now, pretty. Do you need me to show you how special I am again?” 

You flush at his innuendo. 

“Tell me why you’re throwing rocks at my window at this hour,” you say, skirting around his words. 

He scoffs. “This hour? What time do you think it is? It’s midday, darling.”  

It’s midday? You’d slept like a rock. 

“Anyway,” he says, “can’t a man just visit a pretty lady? You look lovely fresh from bed, might I add.” He waggles his brows in a gaudy, overdone way.  

You grab at the open window. “Tell me why you’re here, or else I swear I’m closing this window and going back to bed.” 

Yeonjun snorts, leaning his shoulder into the tree at his side. “I have somewhere to take you.” 

You can’t help but remember how Taehyun had scorned you last night for something just like this.  

You shoot a suspicious look down at him. “Where?” 

“Somewhere,” he says. “You’ll love it. I promise.” 

You close the window, saving your room from the bite of the morning air. You have such little time here with Yeonjun. It wouldn’t hurt to use your time together to its fullest extent. A knot forms in your throat as you think of the day you leave this place for home. Would Yeonjun follow you? 

You meet him outside. Your breath furls from your mouth in white plumes, and his nose is tinted pinkish. You quirk an eyebrow, hunched and rallying your own warmth with your arms wrapped around yourself. “What’s inspired you to drag me from my sleep today?” you say. 

Yeonjun shakes his head, eyes creasing into a sweet, sweet smile that wraps your cold bones and rids you of chills. “You’ve seemed worried recently. Is it so wrong for me to take you away for only a day? Would your lord object to even that?” 

You hadn’t realized how much your double life has been weighing down on you. Is it that obvious? He must’ve been worrying. 

“I’m sorry,” you say, kicking at a snow-tufted tree root jutting from the ground. "I haven’t meant to be uptight, or anything.” Your skin prickles as straying snowflakes twirl down and pepper your skin. 

Yeonjun takes your chin in a firm hand, turning your face up from the ground to meet his own. He shakes his head at you, his eyes firm. “Don’t apologize,” he says. “You don’t have to apologize for being tired, or worried, or whatever it is. Not to me, at least. Let me take care of you; let me make it better.”  

If your heart was fluttering before, it has grown legs and escaped you by now. You blink once, twice, or even three full times before you suck your lips in and give him a wordless nod. He smiles a content smile, running his thumb just under the plumpness of your bottom lip. “Good,” he says, voice thick. He presses a chaste kiss to your lips that leaves the cold skin of your cheeks warring against the blush that rises there. He slides a warming arm around you and leads you around the estate.  

You pause as you round the corner and catch sight of a powerful, pearly-coated creature standing on the front grounds. It paws the ground, muscles rippling under its shining pelt.  

“I am not getting on that thing,” you say, looking between Yeonjun and the frilly horse with your eyes blown wide. Horses are something only the gentry use as means of transportation—the rest of faerie ride by other means or simply by foot. This one is perhaps the second you’ve seen in the entirety of your life. You gawk at its long, powerful legs. 

Yeonjun digs into a pouch that sits on the white flank of the creature, a taunting twist to his face. “You’re afraid of horses?” 

His words rile you. “No,” you say, voice tilting up in affront. You reach out to run your fingers over the smooth surface of its neck and retract your hand when the muscles there flinch. Yeonjun, or perhaps his attendants, must care for it well. Its tail is laced with flowers of faerie, only unwilted for the fact that they have some form of faerie enchantment placed over them, and its mane is a white, dripping silk that does not even look windblown, though you assume Yeonjun had ridden it here. It seems that all things flourish under Yeonjun’s touch. “I’ve just never been on one before.” 

He finishes rummaging through the pouch and produces something from it. A thick, fur-lined coverup made of white deerskin, inlaid with whorls of silvery thread. He offers it to you, and you gladly drown yourself in it. You sigh as it thaws out your skin. "I won’t let anything happen to you,” he says, reassuring you before kicking himself up over the top of the horse with practiced ease the speaks to his upbringing. He looks exceedingly princely as he extends his hand down to you, his hair falling into his eyes and his lips lined with charm. When you hesitate, eyeing up the climb onto the horse, he adds, “Trust me.” 

And you do. Perhaps it’s foolish in a world built with elaborately hidden non-truths into its seams, but you do. You’re unsure of whether it emphasizes your foolishness or Yeonjun’s innate charm. You take his hand and slide your foot into the stirrup. You teeter on one leg before you feel the firmness of his hand in yours, and you throw the other one up and over, and then you’re seated on the solid back of the impressive creature. You laugh in disbelief, looking around at the world from this height. When you look down at the floor beneath you, you gasp and circle your arms around Yeonjun’s middle. 

He runs and hand over yours, interlocking your fingers over his abdomen. “Hold on well, okay?” he says over his shoulder. He pats your hands before taking the reins into his own. You dig your fingers into the front of his doublet and press your cheek into his back, squeezing your eyes closed. When he feels your hold tighten, he snaps the reins. The way that the horse whinnies and then takes off, moving faster than you’ve ever moved within only a few blinks, has you reeling. The pull of the speed that you bolt with makes it feel as though you’ll tip back or fly off the rear of the being. You scoot yourself closer to Yeonjun; so close that your front melds into the hardness of his back, the muscles there tensed as he works on guiding the horse.  

Wind whips your hair behind you, and you’re thankful for the way trees begin to litter the scenery. You slow to a trot, winding through ancient, towering trees gray of bark and crawling with lichen. The ambience of the silvery light rays that filter through the branch overhang and the singing of little songbirds has you breathing in until you feel as though you are bursting with air and then releasing it all in a deep, deep sigh. Hoofbeats form a deep, resounding song that you find yourself lost in. 

“You’re quiet back there,” Yeonjun says. You can feel the reverberations of his voice through your cheek.  

You hum, letting your eyes droop closed. “Mhm.” 

A laugh rumbles deep in his chest. “Are you going to fall asleep?” he says, and you can hear his smile in his voice. “We’re not too far from where we’re going, pretty. Why are you so sleepy? You didn’t go to bed too late last night.” 

His question drains every bit of exhaustion from you. You manage the tensing of your limbs carefully. To him, you had gone to bed early last night, but you were too busy sneaking around him and tossing in your bed to get a full night’s sleep last night. “I don’t know,” you say. Your lie is wretched in your mouth and mind. You’re sat on the back of his royal steed and he’s taking you somewhere because he’s worried about you, and you have the gall to lie to him straight through your teeth. For the first time, you envy the faerie composition for their inability to lie. Words claw long, raking welts down your throat as you tamper them down and pretend that they are not there. If you ever tell him your truth, it shouldn’t be now. 

The trotting of the horse turns into leisurely walk. You sit up. Your surroundings look no more special than the last thirty minutes had.  

“We’re here?” you say. 

He slides off the back of the horse, his feet meeting the forest floor the only sound bar the typical buzzing of the forest. He offers you his arm. “We are.” 

Despite his help, your descent is marginally less graceful than his. “Here, where?” you do a full spin before leveling him a curious stare. “This forest is nice, I suppose, but...” 

“I’ve spoiled you rotten,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest. “This isn’t enough for you? I mean, these trees are just something else.” 

You know the sparkle in his eyes is all taunt. You narrow your eyes at him. “It’s beautiful, yeah... But I could’ve gone tree gazing literally anywhere else.” You inspect the hollows between trees and the forest floor for some sort of faerie trick or veiling.  

He smirks off your complaining, producing a small, silken cloth from the horse’s satchel. He unfolds it to unveil a glistening, plump chunk of Lachrymose. Faerie fruit.  

“What is that for?” you say, giving him an incredulous stare.  

He raises it to you. The dusty blue skin of it is coated in a fuzz. You’re not mistaken at all—that is faerie fruit. “I need you to eat it,” Yeonjun says. 

“But that’s Lachrymose,” you say. “It’s faerie fruit. I can’t eat that. Why do you want me to eat it?” Shame tickles at your skull as you replay Taehyun’s words from last night. Yeonjun has showered you with nothing but his affection, you have no reason to doubt his intentions now.  

“I know,” he says. “I know it is. Do you trust me?” 

Do you? He had led you here to the forest and now is holding the fruit known to drunken your kind. Taehyun’s words double, and they meld with all that you know about the folk. They don’t care about you. What makes this faerie prince any different? Who’s to say that he didn’t bring you out here with ill intent? It’s not like anybody would come searching for you, anyway.  

But, despite it all, you do. You trust Yeonjun with the blazing intensity of a girl who has not known what it is to be treated delicately. You trust Yeonjun even if it is to a fault. You nod.  

He brings the chunk of yellow-pulp fruit to his lips, and his bite is punctuated by the crisp puncturing of the skin. He chews the fruit and swallows it, and then swipes his tongue over the pink of his lips to collect the thick nectar there. He drops the fruit to the ground. 

Any words or questions die in your throat as he crashes his lips into yours. He rolls his tongue around yours and brings his hands up to hold your face in place. You mewl surprise into his mouth, but the cloying flavor of the nectar lingering on his tongue has each inch of your skin buzzing with the twinkle of faerie enchantment. The taste of Yeonjun mingles with the fruit in a way that seizes your senses. He licks at your bottom lip before pulling off of your mouth. The black of his pupil threatens to drink his eye whole, his eyes dilated and heavy with rolling lust.  

You reclaim your stolen breaths as you watch him and his wet lips, but something behind him catches your attention. You peer around him.  

Behind Yeonjun are multiple merchant stalls so full of odd ornaments and draping fabrics that you fear they’ll spill over onto the forest ground, seemingly appearing where nothing had stood before. Behind the stalls stand a myriad of different fairfolk, some haggling with customers and some fussing over their goods. Your feet grow roots into the ground and you gawk at the scene in front of you. 

“How?—” 

Yeonjun pats the flank of the horse, looping a lead around its gear and making a tree the anchor for the other end. “Faerie fruit is intoxicating to humans, yes,” he says, “but at lower doses it gives you true sight.” He looks over the little marketplace. “There’s so much of Faerie that you miss. Hidden places like this... I want to show you all of them. This is your home, too, isn’t it?” 

Your eyes burn and your throat burns as you strain to bottle your tears up. Your home.  

He takes one of your hands and gestures toward the stalls in a pointing gesture. “Come on, let’s see what they’ve put out for sale.”  

You peruse the stalls with only your eyes for a few moments before walking up to one. This one, you find as you approach the stall, has art for sale. Canvases slathered with paint and telling stories of betrayals and greatness are propped up on display easels, so plentiful that the shopkeeper began littering them about the ground as well. Earthenware and pottery glazed in sparkling silvers and bronzes stand tall and beautiful alongside them. You can’t help but notice that the subjects of the art pieces are all human. 

You drift to the next stall, but Yeonjun stays admiring the art pieces. This one boasts an odd collection of all sorts of seemingly stolen things. Piles of worn buttons and door handles and all other sorts of trinkets. You look over all the hanging baubles and dangling metal pieces that chime when a breeze worms through them. Much of it you can’t even recognize what sort of purpose it may serve, or at least what purpose it may have served at some point. 

It’s all human. 

A gnarled voice startles you. “Do you not see something you like, girl?” says the goblin shopkeeper as he peeks up and over the piles of his selection. The cap on his head is pointed and red, and his ears membranous and bat-like. You immediately know upon seeing him that all of this was gathered by the shopkeeper himself, and not bought off of suppliers. Goblins are infamous for their sticky fingers and fondness toward inconsequential human things like these. He zeroes in on a heavy, unfamiliar coin in your hands, his nose snuffling on his pointed snout. “That’ll run you a fair chunk of your hair.” 

“Oh, I’m just looking,” you say, letting the coin drop back into the piles of unsorted knick-knacks. “Is this all human goods?” 

The shopkeeper chortles. “This is a market for human things, girl. You’ll be harder pressed to find something of faerie make here.” 

Your heart skips a couple beats. Yeonjun had brought you here because he thought being among human things might comfort you.  

You move on to the next stall. This one offers delicate works of silver—earrings, necklaces, bangles, and even cold silver weaponry. You pick up a resplendent dagger, embellished with a myriad of swirling carvings running up the handle. You test its weight. It is heavy and the blade of it is in great shape. The ones you have been using from the arsenal at Taehyun’s estate pale in comparison. 

“Anything catching your eye?” Yeonjun says, his voice sneaking up to your left. He must’ve caught up to you while you were busy browsing. 

You nod, holding up the dagger of silver. "This is gorgeous.” 

He gives you an odd look, tilting his head as he looks down at the weapon and then up at you. “What would you need a weapon for?” he says. “Not that it isn’t lovely.” 

You laugh, and you hope it doesn’t sound as nervous as you feel. “I was just saying that it’s nice,” you say, shrugging. It’s hard to part from the beautiful, silver thing as you place it back down. 

“This is all human stuff, isn’t it?” You turn to look at him. 

He smiles, and his nose crinkles with it. “So, you noticed,” he says. “I thought you might like it.” 

“I do,” you say. “I... I didn’t know there was anything like this here.” You gesture at the market around you, seemingly risen from plain snow and tree. It doesn’t make any bit of sense that there would be a market for human things when faerie craft is unfathomably superior. “I’m not sure why, though. It’s all so...” You mull over a way to put your thoughts into word for a moment. You look over the selection of the stalls, their goods dented and rusting and frayed around the edges. “Lackluster.” 

He shakes his head, looking back at the paintings of the first stall that he had hovered at. “What makes you say that?” he says.

You pick up a necklace on a white gold chain, heavy with a weeping pearl at its apex, from a pile of other odds and ends. “A lot of it is pretty,” you acknowledge, bringing the pearl into your palm and feeling the imperfect shape of it. The color of it is a pale, oil spill mauve shade that you’ve never seen on a pearl, and it is not lovely and round like other pearls, either. “But none of it really matters, like handcraft here does. Like, those paintings don’t strike love in the viewer’s heart...” You look around, and your eyes are pulled like gravity to the blade that you had laid down. “And that dagger doesn’t gift its wielder the blessing of guaranteed victory in any fight they bring to it. They’re just... stuff.” 

Yeonjun takes the necklace from your hands. He reaches around you, clasping the ends of it at the back of your neck. He picks up the drooping pearl from where it dangles about your cleavage, observing it and spinning it in his fingers. “Maybe this necklace isn’t inlaid with magic. Maybe it doesn’t gift its wearer boundless beauty, or act as a ward against evil enchantments. But how I look at it, somebody worked hard days of their lives learning the skillset and working their fingers raw to finally be able to make a piece like this. They had no faerie magic to help them do it, and they did not have the long lifespan of a faerie, either. Their lives were short and valuable, and yet, they spent their scarce time mastering their craft until they made this. Don’t you think that is more lovely than any faerie thing?” 

You take the necklace into your own hand. Suddenly, the weight of it on your chest is more right than anything ever before. The junk around you begins to sparkle with the light of someone’s passions.  

“It looks lovely around your neck, darling,” he says. The husky timbre that is spun into the words makes your skin burn. “It’s yours. Whatever you want from here is yours.” 

You shake your head, still holding the pearl between your fingers and feeling its shape and temperature. “This is all I want.”

He smiles at you before pulling out a heavy bagful of coins, handing it to the shopkeeper who finally looks up from his ministrations behind the counter. “The necklace for the lady,” Yeonjun says. The shopkeeper’s eyes almost bug out of his head as he accepts the jingling pouch of coins that is visibly too much for just the necklace, but he does not protest or point it out. 

Your heart tugs. That shopkeeper knows Yeonjun is prince—there is not a sentient being in these lands that does not know his title. Yeonjun could’ve asked for the necklace and the shopkeeper would’ve given it to him. Maybe a bit begrudgingly, but he would. And yet, Yeonjun handed him the payment for the necklace and more. The amount of money that Yeonjun just handed him is no dent to him, but to the shopkeeper... 

“C’mon,” Yeonjun says, looping his arm around you. “We don’t have long before your true sight fades off. Let’s look at everything before then, yeah?” 

You nod, leaning into his touch. You’re not sure you ever want that fruit to fade; not sure you ever want to leave the forest and face what you’re really here for. But, at least for the time you have here, you’ll pretend that this is it. 

❆

You bound down the stairs, greeting Taehyun with a nod of your head when you spot him leaned against the wall by the door. He returns your nod. It’s the first you’ve seen of him in a few days. 

You frown at him. He looks as if he’s been waiting on you. What other reason would he be hovering around the front door? 

“What’s up?” you say. 

He lets out a sigh, laced with frustration. “Whatever they’re doing at The Hovel, they’ve got it under wraps. It doesn’t matter if I sit there for half the day; nothing but usual customers pass through.”  

You appreciate that he doesn’t mention how your information might be null, despite the fact that you know he’s thinking it. You are. Hopefully, it’s not because you whined so much about being taken seriously that he just accommodates you like a moody toddler. That can’t be the truth, though. If he’s taken multiple of his own days from your finite time here in the north to check it out, he has to believe that it holds some water.  

Shrugging, you say, “We could just leave it, if it doesn’t seem like it’s actually anything.” 

He shakes his head. “No. We’re going to follow this through,” he says. “Get some shoes on. I want to bring you with me, this time.” 

He wants you to come this time. He wants your help. Maybe he’s just saying it to mend the tension that seems to be a permanent aspect of your relationship, but that doesn’t feel like Taehyun’s style. It feels dizzyingly validating for each of the nights you’ve spent running through your sword fighting skills until you wore your muscles down, even when you felt you might collapse.  

You bend down to lace up your boots. Your necklace dangles from your chest, swinging and bumping your chin as you do. When you stand to ask him why he believes you being there might help, you pause as you catch his eyes trained intensely at your chest. You furrow your brows, thrown off by the smolder in his narrowed eyes.  

He steps toward you, reaching up and taking Yeonjun’s necklace from where it rests. His fingers brush right where your breasts begin, if only for a brief, heart-stopping moment. “Where did you get this?” he asks, his tone flat and untelling, but his eyes blaze and do not flicker away from the pearl around your neck for even a moment.  

You can’t muster an answer for a few beats, blundering with his sudden and uncalled for intensity. But, when you finally can, your voice wavers. You have no reason to have guilt roiling in your belly for wearing Yeonjun’s necklace, but you do. “Some market that sells human stuff,” you say. 

His face tightens. “How did you get there?” he says. He must know exactly which market. He won’t look at you. “It’s from Yeonjun,” he says, more a statement than a question. He sounds scorned, as if you wearing some necklace has any reason to encourage this sort of reaction.   

You wince, ready for him to berate you for drowning yourself in Yeonjun’s luxuries, but he doesn’t. Instead, he drops the necklace as if it’s cold iron searing into his skin, stepping back from you. “Let’s go,” he says, cold and sharp and short. 

There it goes; a smooth, flawless mask slides over his face and clicks into place without falter. You’ve become so sick of staring into an emotionless face. 

“No,” you say, crossing your arms. 

His eyebrows shoot up. “No?” he echoes. 

“You’re angry about something. What’s your problem?” You narrow your eyes at him.  

“My problem?” he asks, his lip curling. “I have no problem. We need to go.” 

You bark out a barbed laugh, shaking your head in disbelief. “Sure, let’s do this again. You lead the way.” You gesture at the door in an overblown, dramatic wave of your arm, utterly sardonic. 

He gives you a long look before he does. When the heavy wood door swings open, a cold front of air blasts in, smacking you in the face. You snatch a woolen cloak up from near the door, wrapping yourself up in it and following Taehyun out into whipping wind. 

You drag your feet through snow without any complaint or word exchanged with Taehyun—it’s not the first time you’ve braved a snow storm alongside a sickeningly quiet Taehyun, anyway. 

❆

As you hook your boot into a low-hanging branch, tugging yourself up on unsure arms, you look up to see Taehyun already squatted and settled onto a thick branch a few levels up. He reaches a hand down to you, and you take it, amazed by how much easier it makes the rest of your climb up feel. You remember the buff of his forearms and the feel of them wrapped around you like solid metal through flickering memories, and it adds up. Taehyun does not just wield weapons well; his whole body is honed and molded to be used just as well as any weapon from what you’re sure are from years of spy work and being a general’s son.  

You wobble on this higher branch, wrapping an arm around the trunk of the tree when you look down and see how high you are from the ground. Though it is powdered generously with a white layer of snow, you’re sure that fall would hurt. You focus on breathing. You’re not sure you would, if you don’t. 

Taehyun and you had made the trek to this forest in a familiar, tense silence, only broken when he told you that you’d be climbing into a tree and keeping a bird's eye view of the path to The Hovel. Even now, he won’t address you. It irks you down to your soul; you had done nothing to deserve a cold shoulder from him.  

Taehyun readjusts his footing on the branch and it wobbles under your feet, creaking. Your heart jumps up into your throat, and your arms encircle the tree until it aches. Bark bites your skin, but you couldn’t care less.  

“You need to relax,” Taehyun says. “The more tense you are up here, the more likely it is that you’ll actually fall.” 

You breathe out through your nose shakily, gritting your teeth. “It’s not that easy.” 

“I know it isn’t,” he says, placing a steadying hand on your back. “But you have to.” 

 You attempt to let go of the trunk, but the second you let go, you find that your footing is insufficient, and you teeter. Your arms are back around the tree faster than you can even think. 

“I didn’t say let go of the tree.” 

You bite back a snark, opting to focus your energy on not slipping and cracking your neck. You would not be this uptight if the branches weren’t coated here and there in sheets of snow that has hardened into ice, making good foot placement imperative. 

“How long are we going to be sitting up here?” you ask. You’re thankful for the way the branches and pine needles shelter you from the wind, but you’re unsure of how long you can handle the feeling of your lungs frozen in fear. 

“A while.” he says. 

You shudder out a breath at that. Well, if the tense atmosphere between you two wasn’t already enough on your plate, the threat of falling from this height is a lovely addition. 

The two of you sit perched and hidden in the trees without so much as a passerby for awful stretches of hours. The more you throw yourself into listening and watching, despite the absence of anything to listen or watch, the less taut your muscles grow. At some point, you’re able to let go of the tree, holding to the branch underneath you. You grow intensely bored by the monotonous sight of falling snow and the occasional forest creature. Of course, nobody is visiting The Hovel today. Who would be? 

“Okay, I think it’s safe to call it quits, Taehyun,” you say. Your knees ache furiously from the constant crouch you’re sat in, and you’re reaching your measly human threshold for cold temperatures despite your bundling. “Nobody’s coming. I’m sorry, I guess I interpreted things wrong. Let’s just cut our losses and go back.” 

Taehyun looks at you with a strange look in his eyes. “I’ve been doing this for days. For days, I’ve been sat up in these trees and poking around the place. Do you think I’d waste that time on something that sounds like it could’ve been interpreted wrong?” he snaps. “None of that sounded like coincidence. You found something good, and we’re not going to leave it now.” 

He says the words a bit harsher than you had hoped, but in some odd way that only Taehyun could pull off, it feels like an apology for treating you like dead weight before. 

You huff. “If it’s nothing, you can’t say it’s my fault that we’ve wasted time on this.” 

He doesn’t answer, and the forest slips back into just the quiet howl of wind and rustling branches. You rest your cheek into the tree, submitting to another bout of painfully fruitless watching. 

Taehyun rustles on the branch next to you, sitting up and suddenly very alert. You shoot him a confused glance. There’s nothing and nobody in sight. You mouth the word “What?” at him.  

He presses a finger over his mouth in a shushing gesture, holding it there as he seems to listen to something that you can’t hear. He pulls his bow off his back, notching an arrow. Your heart thumps in your neck wildly as you watch him do it. What, exactly, does he hear? 

It’s a few long, long minutes before you start hearing anything. Indistinct chatter bounces off of trees and reaches you as a pair of faeries, one of them a long-limbed pixie and the other more humanoid aside from the pointed ears peeking out from his hair. You watch them trudge through the piling snow, unable to pick up their conversation from even this distance. 

Taehyun pulls the bowstring taut, aiming at the pixie one with deadly precision. Your eyes bulge, and you turn your gaze to him with a wide-eyed stare. You want to ask him what he thinks he’s doing, but you keep your mouth sealed water-tight. You can’t let them know you’re hidden away up here. 

The utterly remote look on Taehyun’s face, even while having his bow pulled tight and ready to shoot a killing arrow at them, makes you nauseous. He doesn’t look to you, he only narrows his eyes in on the pair, studying them. They look inconspicuous to your eyes—he won’t let that arrow fly, you tell yourself. You tell it to yourself again as he readjusts his squat to better angle at them as they travel further down the path. That consolation does not work, though, when he releases the arrow out onto the pixie. It whistles before piercing the faerie right in the neck. 

You cover your mouth so as to not cry out in shock, but the wail of the other faerie does the job for you. He drops to the floor, his eyes wide and his hands clasping around the entry point of the arrow as if to staunch the bleeding—as if it would save a man with an arrow through the neck. He looks up and around, searching for where the stray arrow had flown from, but Taehyun has you two hidden too perfectly among the branches.  

You look up to Taehyun. He’s loosing another arrow, locking it into place and lining it up with the living faerie, his hands steady in a killing calm. The poor faerie is only just able to realize how vulnerable they are to an arrow before one spears through his chest. Taehyun had aimed for his heart, and he had not missed. His eyes go wide, his skin draining of its color, before he crumples over himself and joins his companion on the ground. 

You watch the sight of their blood slowly embellishing the white snow unable to look away but so sick at the sight that you might bend over and hurl up your guts.  

‘Why the fuck did you just kill them?” you say, and it’s all you can manage to get past your paralyzed lips.  

When he turns away from his carnage and looks at you, all you can see is that detached face as he had made the conscious decision to let those arrows fly and rob those faeries of their lives without warning or even speaking to them. “They’re errand runners for The Queen,” he says before he slinks down the branches, landing on the forest ground. You follow him, suddenly lithe and unafraid of falling with the liquid adrenaline simmering in your bloodstream. 

“So, you shoot and kill them on sight?” you say. “They didn’t deserve that. The most they do is run messages for her, they have no part in any of this.” Your lips tremble as you avoid looking at their still bodies, already losing heat in the snow. You can’t look; not this close. Down here, at their height, you can almost imagine the fear of looking up and knowing that someone sits somewhere in the shadows and knowing that you will be the next on the ground. 

“That’s exactly it,” he says. “They run messages. We need those messages, and we wouldn’t have gotten them by just asking them and saying please.” The rustling sound tells you that he’s searching their bodies.  

You squeeze your eyes shut, the noxious tang of blood finally hitting your nose. Your knees feel like they’ll buckle under you as you remember a time where you had been the cause of that smell. Only a few long steps away from here, you had dug your dagger into the flesh of another living being. How many more times will you see death, now that you’ve found yourself as a spy? Will you one day be as desensitized to its presence as Taehyun is? 

No, you won’t. You can’t see yourself ever valuing the life of any living thing so little that you view it as some means to an end. 

“They had lives, Taehyun. You have no right taking the liberty of that into your own hands. What are you going to do if you find nothing on them? What are you going to do?” 

There’s some more rustling before Taehyun answers. “They would laugh to see you die.” 

It’s true. You know it’s true. Yet, you still can’t find justice in their deaths.   

“You don’t know that; you didn’t know them,” you say. 

He laughs, but it’s empty of what a laugh should be. It feels cold and mocking. “They all would. Every last one of them.” 

You spin on him, hearing his unspoken words. Yeonjun, too. “And you wouldn’t?” you hiss. As you finally look at him, you notice the folded-up paper he holds in his hands.  

His eyes flash. “I am not one of them.” 

Your eyes run over the roundness of his ears. No matter how round he may have sheared them, they can never soften the sharp faerie angles of his face. Not when you’ve seen him kill as wildly and beastly as they do. He has human running in his blood, and yet, the most terrible things you’ve seen have been at his hands. “Aren’t you?” you say. “I think it’s time you come to terms with the fact that you are, and learn how to live with it.” 

He looks at you with eyes of such intensity that you have to make sure you’re still breathing. “You know nothing about me,” he snarls.  

“Maybe I don’t,” you say, rubbing your hands together to fight the cold. “But... killing them, that wasn’t human.” 

“I’m not human, either,” he says, shaking his head. 

“Then, what are you, Taehyun?” you ask.  

He looks at you for a long time, his face unmoving as if he tries but cannot conjure up an answer. “I don’t know,” he says, his tongue lashing. The raw emotion consuming his features, cracking his mask of ice, softens you.  

“Why not?” you say, stepping toward him despite the turning of your stomach when the two fallen faeries come into view. The snow is already dusting them over and covering them; the earth reclaiming what is hers. “You don’t have to live your life in the shadow of that man. You don’t have to deny yourself your own identity because he was a monster. You are not him.”  

As quickly as he let it fall, Taehyun plasters his face in ice and stone. “You have no clue who I am, or what I’ve done.”  

With that last menacing line, Taehyun unfurls the piece of paper he pulled off the errand runners. You’re not sure if the chill resting at the base of your spine is you surpassing your threshold for freezing temperatures, or if the thought of Taehyun committing the same unimaginable atrocities as his father scares you that bad. With what you had just seen... Maybe Taehyun is the same monster that you’ve been continuously warned he could be.  

His brows pinch as he takes in what’s scrawled on the paper, slowly becoming translucent is some places as snow flurries down and falls on it.  

“What?” you say. You hope that whatever is on that paper is worth their lives. 

“It’s just a nursery rhyme,” he says, flipping the paper over to check if there’s anything more. There isn’t. 

You frown. “Let me see.” You take the paper from his hands. At the top sits a crude scribbling of a bird, and beneath it is a nursery rhyme you are vaguely familiar with.  

One for sorrow,  

Two for mirth, 

Three for a wedding,  

Four for a birth,  

Five for silver, 

Six for gold,  

Seven for a secret never to be told,  

Eight for a kiss, 

Nine for a wish, 

Nine for a bird you must not miss

It’s a rhyme about magpies and the meaning behind the numbers you might see them in. On the paper, the last line is written over many times, the writing jagged and almost violent. At the bottom, there are the words tomorrow day written, small and less likely to draw the eye than the bold lines of the rhyme. Your mind freezes up. 

“Taehyun,” you say, swallowing hard. “Do you remember what kind of bird we found dead before I got attacked?” 

He nods, as if catching on to what you’re saying. “It was a magpie.” 

“And everybody is talking in these... codes about birds, right. There is some kind of organized thing happening here, Taehyun, and it involves The Queen. And, down there,” you say, pointing at the bottom of the paper. “Do you think it means that tomorrow is when it’s happening?” 

He thinks for a long moment, probably running through any other possibilities. He nods. “Sounds like it,” he says, inspecting the paper for another few beats before folding it back up and stashing it away. “Let’s get back before it gets too dark.” 

You look up at the overcast and dimming sky, nodding. You’re not sure what you’re going to run into tomorrow at that hidden little tavern, but you feel that you’ll need a better night’s sleep to face it than you’ve been getting. “Okay,” you say. 

❆

You didn’t sleep well last night. Not at all. You tossed and turned, torn between trying to figure out what all the stuff you’re finding could mean and spinning your conversation with Taehyun over and over in your head until you’re sick of it, and then you spin it some more. You thought of the dead indifference on his face as he killed them, and you thought of what he had told you. You have no idea who I am, or what I’ve done. You had hoped for some showcase of the monster that everybody paints him out to be, and you had gotten it.  

You know that the life of a spy is not a cake walk—you know it comes with violence and the constant threat of death. Killing those errand runners was clearly vital to discovering whatever The Queen has going on, and that note was a great help, yeah. Sure. But you can’t convince yourself that the loss of their lives was justifiable. You just can’t. Not even when the inhabitants of this world would do the same unto you without any such remorse. 

When you tug yourself out of bed and meet Taehyun out by the blackthorn tree, he looks at you strangely. You must look as sleep deprived as you feel. He doesn’t mention it, though, and only runs his eyes over you to check if you’ve armed yourself adequately. Nodding in approval, he sets out. 

Once you’ve cleared the trek to The Hovel and are looking upon the little hidey-hole entrance, you suck in a shuddering breath. This moment had plagued you last night, too. You run your hands down each place where you store away your hidden daggers—just for reassurance. 

“Same as last time,” Taehyun says, breaking the silence of the woods to preface your entering the tavern. “If we look like anything other than lord and human servant, we’re going to get attention that we don’t want. Especially when we don’t know who could be in here. If they were able to find out who we were last time, we need to be a thousand times more careful this time. Unless I tell you otherwise, you need to stick by me, understood?” 

You have to breathe manually, wiping your palms on your plain dress. You don’t have the luxury of wearing pants this time, no matter how much better it is in the case that you have to fight your way out of here. Female servants do not wear pants. “Understood,” you say, nodding your head and stepping into the mound entrance. 

Your entrance into the tavern is almost as wild and slippery as last time, but at least you know what to expect this time around. You scan the room as soon as you catch ground, smoothing down your dress. Instantly, you catch sight of Kai’s blonde mop of hair, leaned up against a dirt wall, strumming a fast-paced song on an instrument. The crowd is no busier than the first time you had been here, either.  

Maybe you had interpreted the paper wrong. Nothing looks amiss or curious. You let a little bit of your bottled-up stress out in a slow puff of air.  

When Taehyun appears next to you, you whisper to him, “What do we do?” 

He scans the room in a similar fashion that you had, before he cocks his head to the side in a follow me gesture. He pushes into the measly crowds. You follow him, weaving around drunken bodies and cackling, snaggle-tooth hobs until he comes to a stop. 

You suck in a breath. Of course, he had to head straight for Kai. Just your luck. Taehyun may think that Kai is a good source for information, but you really wish he would’ve picked quite literally anybody else to try and pull information from. Kai is Yeonjun’s friend, and you have no idea what might happen tonight. 

Kai looks up from his bored playing, and his brows shoot up as he spots you next to Taehyun. He doesn’t stop playing his music, though. You’re sure he could be asleep and his fingers would still be plucking strings. “Odd seeing you here,” he says, smiling at you before nodding his head in greetings to Taehyun. “Especially odd that you’re not with Yeonjun. What brings you here?” 

Taehyun looks between you and Kai. You know he’s wondering how you two might know each other.  

“Just out for some fun,” Taehyun says, cutting in and answering before you can. “She’s my ward, I’m unsure why she would make an appearance here with the prince.” There’s a distinct sour undertone to his words, but you can hardly determine why.  

Kai is undeterred by Taehyun’s brooding, a lilting smile tugging his lips up. He tilts his head to one side, and the action reveals a pair of short goat’s horns that peek from his hair. The brown of them compliments well his forest green doublet. “I’m sure you’re well aware of the prince’s fondness for her, then, if she’s your ward.”  

You had, when you first met him, thought that Kai fears Taehyun. Now, you’re more under the impression that he is not the type to really fear anyone.  

Taehyun’s lips pull into a muted frown, but you can tell that he’s ruffled by the stiffness of his shoulders. “I’ve been made aware of it, yes,” he says. His jaw feathers, and he turns his gaze on you. “Would you bring us some drinks?” he says. 

Kai gasps dramatically, furrowing his brows and placing a hand over his chest to feint offense. “That’s no way to treat a lady, Lord,” he says. “It’s no wonder she runs around with Yeonjun the way she does.” 

You resist the urge to snort when Taehyun grits his teeth. He’s only acting like that because it’s how most faeries treat their human servants, but Kai knows how to taunt in a way that meets its mark. 

“She is far from a lady,” Taehyun says, crossing his arms. “Grabbing a drink is a reasonable task for a servant, is it not?”  

You decide to just scurry off and grab drink to save yourself the effort of not laughing at him. When you find the tap barrels from which you had gotten drinks from last time, it’s the same barkeeper. He greets you, but his demeanor is totally different now. He doesn’t speak to you again as he flips up the taps and fills you some goblets. It unsettles you, but you had only interacted with him that one time. You don’t know him well enough to justify saying that he’s acting weird. 

You observe the patrons around you more closely while you wait for the drinks. If there is anything at all supposed to happen today like you had heard, they did a fine job of concealing it. You narrow your eyes, passing everybody over once more and then twice more. You had only been given a date, not a time. You may have to be here all day. 

“Your drinks,” the barkeeper says, jousting out the goblets. Some of the drinks spill over the top and seep into the dirt below. You accept them and try not to let any more go to waste as you slither through the crowds.  

Slipping back into Kai and Taehyun’s conversation, you hand Taehyun his drink. He doesn’t look at it or drink it; it’s more a prop than for his enjoyment.  

“Oh yeah?” Kai says, challenging something Taehyun must’ve said while you were away. He looks to you. “How would you like to dance to some of my music, Lady?” he asks.  

Dance? You look to Taehyun. You doubt he’d want you dancing right now.

He doesn’t object or shake his head like you think he might. 

“Right now?” you ask, looking around you to the faeries cavorting and spinning. “I’m not sure I should. Dancing is dangerous, you know?” 

Kai laughs, easing one song into another, more wild and twisting one. “You won’t lose yourself here. My music is different from other faerie music.” 

You step back so that you hover near where most of the dancing folk are, looking to Taehyun. You’re not sure if this is what you should be doing right now. What if something happens, and you’re here dancing carelessly while he needs you? Maybe it’ll work wonders to keep your cover if you look like a simple human girl losing herself to dancing. You look around once more, gnawing at your cheek, before asking Taehyun with your eyes again for any objections.

He smiles, leaning into the dirt wall behind him and crossing his arms. “Dance,” he says, his tone softer and more playful than you've heard from his lips before.

Well, if he wants you to dance, then you’ll dance. You pick up the ends of your dress and begin twirling and letting yourself fall into the intoxicating ups and downs of Kai’s music. Kai is right—the edges of your vision don’t blur, and you don’t feel your mind slipping away from you, but your cheeks do begin to flush as you tap your boots to the floor and let your hands swirl about to Kai’s singing voice. You feel the burning of Taehyun’s eyes on you. It sends an electric feeling up from the root of your feet to the center of your spine. You can’t explain why the weight of his eyes is so exhilarating, but perhaps it has something to do with the fact that, for once, you are being free in front of him and he isn’t pretending that it’s the worst thing ever. Or, maybe, it’s because you remember the way he tastes.  

You look out from your spot of spinning and enjoying yourself to Taehyun. He rips his attention off of you when your eyes find him, sipping at his drink and looking over the tavern as if he had not been watching you at all.

Once your skin grows slick with effort and your thighs begin to burn, you crawl off the dancefloor and sidle up next to Taehyun.

Well, if he’s drinking, then you can drink too, right? You seek out yours, taking it into your hands. You swirl it and inspect it as you stand beside Taehyun. The bubbly liquid tornadoes beneath an unmoving, frothy layer on the top.  

You pause. You suppose you couldn’t have expected a place like this to have the highest quality wine. You sip it anyway—you intend to relish the sour taste of the plum wine. It’s a bit powdery upon the first drink; little grits of something wash down with the sweet fruitiness. Your nose crinkles. It’s nasty. 

Taehyun doesn’t speak with Kai any more. It seems that he did not have any of the information he had hoped he could find from him. Still, he stays nestled in the little corner where Kai prefers to perform in; you’re sure it’s because it keeps his back protected against the wall, not to mention it lets him observe the entirety of the tavern. Kai doesn’t seem to mind; he’s far more interested in his music, anyway.  

You try and look over the place as well, but there isn’t much to note. Faeries stumble around drunkenly when they aren’t tittering and dancing. Kai’s music begins to swirl and blur in your ears. You blink away the same blurring around the edges of your vision. That must be an awfully strong cup of wine. 

You affirm that none of it is indicative of some covert, shady thing that you’re anticipating. Your stomach feels heavy. Taehyun had sat out here for multiple days because he relied on you; he had killed those two errand runners because of your information. And here is the fruit of your efforts to contribute to this mission: you’re wasting your time in a shabby, dug out little tavern alongside drunken faeries, joining in on their debauchery with a drink in your own hand. You frown down at your cup of wine. The image of it bends and wobbles. 

“Did I do a bad job?” you ask. Your words slur, as if your lips can’t keep up.  

Taehyun stops his monitoring to look at you. His face is fuzzy in your eyes, but you can see the confusion written all over it. “What?” he says. 

You stumble a bit. Your feet don’t seem to be falling where you will them to. “I’m sorry,” you slur. “It’s my fault.” 

He rushes over to you. You don’t even notice you’re falling until he’s catching your weight, keeping you held upright. “Shit,” he says, snatching your drink from you. He inspects it for a moment, swirling it how you had earlier. Whatever he sees makes his face drop, his eyes hardening—as if preparing for something. For what? You lift your head with much effort. It feels dragged down to the earth. You blink and look around.  

Taehyun throws your drink to the ground, the goblet thudding against the dirt. You watch a few heads pop up from the crowd. They watch as Taehyun tries to carry you out. Your clumsy limbs make his efforts more difficult. You can feel him growing more desperate beside you until he curses under his breath, and then hoists you over his shoulder. The world spins around you until you’re staring down at the ground, and Taehyun is heading for the exit. Your fingers and toes buzz. 

Taehyun crawls up the entrance, all while you’re laying over his shoulder like dead weight. Fresh air burns your skin as he clears it. You watch the ground turn from trodden dirt and twigs to snow path. He secures an arm around your waist to steady you, and then he’s taking crashing through the forest. 

You can feel your mind slipping more, as something liquid and hot replaces your blood. You watch the ground pass you by, trying to count the bushes and study the shrubs in hopes that it’ll help you stay present. You can’t tell if it’s working. 

Taehyun stumbles to the ground. You, being on his shoulder, follow. The white blanket on the forest floor does not do anything to cushion the fall. Sharp foliage greets you, slicing up your skin. You bite down a warbled yelp as you struggle up onto your arms.  

Taehyun is hunched over into the snow, grunting into the ground. A bird-feather arrow pierces his shoulder, making the cloth around it dark and sticky with his blood. He writhes there for a moment that seems to stretch. You crawl toward him; you’re sure that if you stand, you’ll just fall anyway.  

“Taehyun.” You shake him. Your heart is up in your throat, choking you. “Taehyun, get up,” you beg. The ground thunders beneath you. There are people coming. Too many of them to fight off by yourself, if the roar of their approach is anything to go by. Adrenaline pumps through you, pushing out some of that substance and making room for itself. It sobers you up, just enough to grasp the dire situation you’re in. You can’t fight them in this state, and you’re not sure if Taehyun can now, either. “Please!” 

He trembles as pushes himself off the ground. The growled sounds of pure, undiluted pain he makes twists your stomach sick. “Do I pull it out?” you ask, your voice thin. Your words are still a bit slow and they still blend into one another, but at least you’re making sense now. 

He pants, shaking his head. “Break it off,” he grits out through his teeth. You crawl behind him on your knees to inspect the arrow. A short breath of relief slips past your lips. It’s shallow enough that you’re certain it didn’t puncture his lung. You bring your hands up and take the whittled shaft of the arrow into your hands. His shuddered breath as you do makes you pause. 

You can’t. You really, really can’t get your hands to move. You’re stricken down by fear, frozen by it. Your breaths come shallow and inadequate—as if your fear constricts your lungs and takes up the space where air should be. Approaching voices and the rumbling forest floor devastates every last ounce of rationality you’ve got in you. 

“Now,” he snaps. “Do it now. Break the end off, and get back. Don’t worry about me.” 

You blow out air, gripping the stem of the arrow harder. You betray your mind and wrench the thing down, trying to snap it in half. It doesn’t work, only digging the tip end of it around in his shoulder. You cover your mouth with your quivering hand as he roars, digging his fingers into his pant legs. His whole body is wracked with tremors at your clumsy hand. Acid crawls up your throat. You grab the portion that is nearest to his skin, holding it in place as you try and snap it again. It works this time. Taehyun’s chest rumbles with a deep, tortured groan under your hands, but it worked. 

He rises from the ground, his pupils blown wide and his skin clammy. He turns to face your pursuers, sliding his sword out. He takes on a defensive stance. There’s a grim set to his face. You wonder if he’s making peace with the impossibility of you making it out of this alive. He’s wounded, you’re not of the right state of mind, and you’d be outnumbered in even a perfect state. 

A flock of faeries you recognize from The Hovel surround you. A red cap with a gnarly scar scrawled across his face, a man with spindly black hair and jagged tusks that curl up from his mouth, and a lanky horned imp with beady eyes. All of them had been separate and inconspicuous when you had seen them, hidden between the crowds. Despite your imposition, you drag yourself off the ground. They don’t even spare you a passing glance. 

“I thought we’d just be snuffing out some forgettable flame today,” the red cap says, laughing. “Oh, could you have imagined it’d be the general’s son?” 

The one with the tusks barks a laugh from your left. He’s holding a bow—he’s the one who shot Taehyun down. “To think you gave your loyalties to The King, considering your own father’s loyalties to our queen,” he says, sneering at Taehyun. This is a hunt—they’ve chased you down like a wild animal, and now that the arrow has hit its mark, they intend to laugh and yip at you like prey. “You’re the spy,” he says, and then gestures at you, “and this is the human companion, then?” 

Taehyun doesn’t answer. 

“Fine. We don’t need your conversation to enjoy this, Lord.” He spits out Taehyun’s title in the very same way the man had during your first run-in that had taken place in this forest. They’re connected—it’s all connected in some grand scheme. And, The Queen is involved. Even if you and Taehyun make it out of this forest alive, leaving a single one of these lackeys alive would expose your identities. Not to mention, it would confirm the fact that The King has spies here. Even if you don’t die here, you and Taehyun are done. Where had you gone wrong? You’re not sure where any of this had slipped off. You hope that it’s just been to the effect of some grand plan much, much out of your own control. You hope it isn’t Taehyun’s blood on your hands, next. 

“I’d heard that you returned to Court recently,” the man continues. “I couldn’t have imagined that it would be because you’d return to your own Court as a spy. Is that why you ran off to those lands? To work at the hand of that worthless king? What would your father think?” 

Taehyun tenses up, the grip on his sword white-knuckled. You pray he doesn’t slip right into their taunting. If you’re to die here today, let it not be as their entertainment. The one thing you promised you would no longer be is their entertainment.  

The horned one cuts in, speaking for the first time. He sounds young. “Speak up, you piece of shit. You at least owe us your fear, for all you and your father did to these lands.” 

They’re growing more antsy and aggressive, their jaws snapping like hungry, circling wolves. You’re not sure how much longer they plan on just taunting.  

“And where is your allegiance?” Taehyun says, breaking his tense silence. “What is this?” He gestures at them with his sword. 

The three of them share a laugh, short and sardonic. The black-haired one speaks. “This is what happens when a worthless man sits on the throne for a millennium, expecting fealty for only his name. This is revolt.” 

You frown. As far as you know, the land of Faerie has never known a time where its denizens, specifically the ones that swore fealty to him, would outright denounce The King. A revolt is unheard of—the throne is an ancient, primordial thing. 

“The Queen is committing treason,” Taehyun says, low and menacing. “And so are you. What name do you call your insurgency?” 

The redcap answers. “We call ourselves The Magpies,” he says. There it is—it all makes sense. All the weird, cryptic words and the wobbly scent trail you and Taehyun have been following. That poem you found on those errand runners, that dead magpie you had found before getting attacked. One for sorrow. It was a message. All of this was a set up; they had intended for those errand runners to die, and they had anticipated you would catch wind and wind up here. You’ve walked yourselves into a wolf den, fully believing that you were the ones a step ahead. You walked yourselves to your deaths.  

No. You walked the two of you to your deaths.  

They don’t plan on you surviving. Them laying this all out for you attests to that. You don’t want to die; not now, not when you’ve found something to live for. Not when Yeonjun will have to deal with the loss of you.  

“C’mon. Where’s all your fight now? Where’s the man that tore down villages by his father’s side? Do something.” The redcap says. They all inch a little closer.  

Your heart stutters in your chest. You hope that he lies; that he’s embellishing Taehyun’s past. You look at Taehyun, and that dead, killing face is there. You know it’s true. He’s exactly the monster you’re supposed to be wary of. But you’re here clawing for your life right beside him. He’s here making a stand to protect you; he could run and leave you here in order to save his own life. You’d be stuck here on poisoned legs and be swiftly dealt with before they take off for him. But he doesn’t leave you. He won’t let you die alone. Is that the heart of a beast? 

“I am loyal to no king or queen,” Taehyun spits out. “Not to my father, either.” 

The red cap groans a patronizing groan. “You’re loyal to nothing, not even yourself. It’s why you fled your homeland the moment you could, isn’t it? You thought distance would change what you’d done?” 

You have to do something. They won’t expect you to, and to sit here would be to just lay down and accept it. You refuse to. If Taehyun can stick his neck out for you, you can try. Maybe your limbs are clumsy and drunken, but if you die, it won’t be for not trying. And, if you make it, you can sort all of this stuff out with Taehyun. 

You inspect the three men. They don’t have their eyes on you; you’ve got that to your advantage. Plus, your blade is made of cold iron. A normal stab would hurt, but a stab with iron would poison them. If you can eliminate at least one of them, you’ll even the playing field just enough for a real fighting chance. You narrow your eyes. You’ll have to use the fact that they aren’t paying attention to you the most efficiently you can—you have to get the biggest threat down. The horned imp is reedy and he doesn’t scare you as bad as the other two do. The black-haired one is wide set and imposing, but you know you’ve got to go for the redcap. Their kind are violent and savage by nature; they breathe the tang of blood in the same way you breathe air. Once they satisfy their bottomless thirst for killing, they dip their red cap into the blood of their victim, and wear it as a trophy. This one’s cap is a testament to his danger, so crusted over and made stiff with old, brown blood that it does not move. You’re unsure why he believes he has the right to accuse Taehyun of violence while he wears his own violence upon his head. 

You bring your hand down to your hip and find a dagger under your dress and at your thigh as fast as you can. You know that if you don’t move fast enough, they’ll see you reaching for something and put an arrow or sword through you. You stumble for the redcap, willing your legs to keep you upright as you do. Please. Please, let this work. Let you be good for something. 

You drive your blade into his abdomen, and then reclaim it from his body. The spray of warm, molten blood comes as less of a shock this time, but it makes you no less nauseous. He makes a sound of howling pain, and then he falls to the ground, spitting out blood. His abdomen hisses and steams, as if burning. You’re sure he’ll stay down there. 

Stabbing him had them finally tearing their attention away from Taehyun. The one with black hair grabs you up quick, spinning you into a hold. He grabs you by the throat, cutting off your air supply. You sputter, clawing at his hand.  

“You’re a sneaky little bitch, aren’t you?” he growls, pulling you tighter. You make a strangled noise. You can’t breathe. You can’t breathe. “I was going to deal with you after him, but look what you’ve done now. Should’ve stayed in your place, huh? Have you forgotten what it is? Let me remind you.”  

You’re shoved down to cold earth, and then his foot comes down onto your neck, twisting and digging into it. “In the dirt. You are nothing. You had no right poking yourself into the business of your superiors, so what made you think you could come here as a spy—”  

You can tell he intends to continue, but he’s cut short by the sword that pierces his chest. He stumbles off you, and you suck in air once his foot is off your neck.  

Your body hurts. It hurts as if your muscles and bones are punishing you for depriving them of their oxygen, as if the poison still loitering around in your veins is making a final, excruciating hurrah. You don’t have time to sink into it, though. You push yourself up on your arms just in time to see Taehyun, wide-eyed and looking part beast, cutting down that imp as well. It’s quick and brutal. Once he’s down and unmoving, Taehyun looks to you. You almost flinch at the sight of him, blood-sprayed and lip-curled. He clears the distance between you in a few, long-legged strides and tugs you up. 

On your feet, you look down at the carnage below you. Blood sits on the snow in puddles and sprinkles it like terrible little blooming flowers. The redcap writhes on the floor, slow and meaningless, as the iron works itself through him. It’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen in your life. 

Taehyun tugs at your arm. “We need to go. We need to go now.” 

You find yourself unable to move. 

“Now,” he growls. “I don’t know if there’s more of them. We need to get out of this forest before we die.” 

You try, but your legs are as solid as water as you do. You were clear headed enough for that last-ditch effort, but it was just that: a last-ditch effort. You barely have control of your limbs enough to go running through the forest. 

“Damn it,” he says, sheathing his sword and taking you back over his good shoulder. It’s just as disorienting this time, but you don’t have it in you to complain. And then, he’s cutting through the forest again, the forest floor of ice and snow whirling by and rendering you sick. 

Please, let there be nobody following you. 

❆

At some point, the poison had worn off you enough for you to travel the rest of the way yourself. It’s an awful journey, with both you and Taehyun watching over your shoulders and each sound of rustling forest creatures makes you jump. Taehyun doesn’t make any commotion about the arrowhead still nestled into his shoulder, but you can see in the stiffness of his movements that it’s bothering him.  

The last stretch of white, snow flats until you’re finally back at the estate is long and arduous. You sigh in relief as you stumble through the front door.  

You can’t fully relax yet, though. Taehyun collapses into the table almost immediately, sliding down into a seat. His skin has a sickly pallor to it.  

“You need to take this thing out of my shoulder,” he says, straining to look up to you. His eyes are so, so wary.  

Your stomach does a cruel twist with just the words, but you know it’s true. You nod. “I’ll go get some thread.”  

You clamber up the stairs and throw open drawers in a frantic search for your sewing kit. If working for Nut-hatch had taught you one thing, it was the importance of keeping a sewing kit around. Oh, and how to sew a solid stitch. You’re not so sure how well your stitching skills will cross over into suturing skin closed, but it has to be better than nothing. It has to be. 

You find the little wooden box in a dressing drawer, and then you bolt back down the stairs. He had spent so much time free bleeding that you worry he’s lost too much; you’ve got to get that closed up. 

Taehyun is peeling off his layers as you’re bounding down the last steps. You help him peel the last bit of his doublet off, and then his tunic, until his bare back faces you, a plane of toned muscle and marred skin. Your heart thunders in your chest. 

His back is littered with an outrageous number of scars, some superficial and some so deep that they leave jagged valleys in their paths. None of them are as gruesome or gnarly a sight as the festering wound at his shoulder, shimmering with his blood. The tip of the arrow is lodged well into it. You run a hand up the skin of his back until it’s resting right before the puncture wound begins. The thought of digging your fingers in there and tugging that arrow out from his flesh is a terrible, terrible one.  

You just have to do it. 

You curl your fingers around the ragged, splintered butt of the arrow where you had snapped it off, and you begin trying to wiggle it loose. Taehyun’s head drops, and he suppresses strangled grunts.  

“I’m sorry,” you apologize. You know it doesn’t make it feel any better, but you want him at least to know that doing this to him is making you ill. You tug on it some more, trying to find the path of least resistance. He shakes under your hand. “I’m sorry, Taehyun.”  

The arrow dislodges finally, leaving an awful open wound now dripping with fresh blood. You take a deep breath before reaching for your sewing kit, grabbing a curved needle. It doesn’t steady your trembling hands.  

He doesn’t make so much noise as you stitch the wound closed, just dangling his head, facing it head-strong. Each time you dig the needle through his skin on one side and then again on the other to form a stitch, you grow increasingly ill. You rub circles into his other shoulder. You’re not sure if they even register for him. Maybe they’re more for you than they are for him. 

“What do we do now, Taehyun?” you ask. You know it’s not the best time to be interrogating him, but you’re lost. You’re not sure if you’re going to be fleeing here tonight, or if you’re going to be able to carry on under the radar. “Do we leave?” 

Taehyun speaks through gritted teeth. “We don’t know all who was at The Hovel. We have no idea who saw what happened. We can’t be certain that every loose end is tied up.” 

Your stomach drops, swift and heavy. You can’t leave; you can’t leave Yeonjun here. You know he returns to his court for the rest of the season, but things will be different there from here. Can’t you just stay here, in this time and frame where you are cherished, forever? At some point, you had forgotten that this was your fate from the very start.  

You wince as a particular stitch has Taehyun trying to hold back his shaking. “When do we leave?” you ask. Let there at least be enough time for you to see Yeonjun.  

He steadies himself. “I don’t know—” he sucks in a withering breath as you stitch him mid-sentence, “let me think about it.” 

You sigh out a selfish, self-serving puff of air. At least you aren’t packing up and scrambling tonight.  

You continue sewing his wound closed for a few tense, silent moments more. 

“Taehyun,” you say. You have to ask; have to talk about it. You have so many questions. Do you leave with Taehyun to continue being a spy when you now know that Taehyun has skeletons in his closet? Is that the new life you dreamed of when you ran away from your old one? 

Taehyun lifts his head to let you know he’s listening. You’re sure he can hear the tension in your tone. 

“In the forest,” you begin. “They said you did those awful things with your father. And, they’re not the only ones I’ve heard say stuff like that.” 

His head snaps up. “From the prince?” he says, his eyes dark and dense with pain.  

“What does it matter?” you say, stepping back from your stitching. “What does it matter where I heard it from? Explain it to me, Taehyun.” Your tone is rigid and accusatory, but there’s also an undercurrent of pleading that slips from you before you can catch it.  

His jaw feathers, and he swallows hard. 

“So, it’s true, huh?” You finish up your last stitch with imprecise hands, tying it then and cutting it off so that you make some distance between you and him. You had known that, but you had hoped it’d all be by your misunderstanding. “What was that story in the cave about your father, then? Buttering me up so that I wouldn’t be afraid of you? And I believed it all, too. Are you even half human? What are you, Taehyun?” you say, your words a bitter echo of a question you had already asked him. 

Hurt fizzles over his eyes and lines his face. “It seems you’ve already decided what I am for me, haven’t you?” He stumbles up from his seat, towering over you with a curled lip. “Say it,” he challenges. “Say what I am.” 

“You’re just like all of the rest of them,” you say. You back up some more; he’s standing over you with more venom and unadulterated emotion than you’ve ever seen him allow. It terrifies you. How deep had you driven your pick, that you had shattered that ice mask and revealed his true face? “You’re a monster.”  

“Like the rest of them?” he says, his eyes blazing. “What about the prince, then? Is he a monster, too?” 

Your back touches the wall. He’s standing right over you. It’s a mirror image of the time he had you backed against a tree, but this time he doesn’t reach out and touch you. “Yeonjun is different. Different from you, at least. He isn’t a murderer. He loves me.” 

Taehyun reaches up for your chest. You flinch, bracing, but he only grabs Yeonjun’s necklace there. Disbelief and hurt flashes over his eyes as you do. You’re not sure why he’s surprised; you had just dubbed him a monster. Maybe the distinction lies somewhere on the borderline where you would believe that he would hurt you. 

“You can’t trust a word from his mouth. Not one.” He rips the necklace from your neck, snapping the delicate chain. You reach up, feeling the empty space there. And then, you see red. 

A few moments of thick, charged disbelief fill the air before you’re finally able to pull together your scattered, frayed and vicious thoughts. “And I’m supposed to believe yours?” you snap, blood roaring in your ears. “You are a filthy, filthy liar, and a murderer too.” You’re not sure whether or not Taehyun can lie. You’re not sure whether or not he is any part human. You’re not sure of anything about him at all. 

“The prince is a liar, too,” Taehyun says. "You really think that he is going to wed you? To make you his wife? Maybe he loves you today, but he will forget you tomorrow. You’re nothing more than a thing to dress up to him, until he finds the next thing to do the same to.” He holds up your ruined necklace and dangles it in the air. “He thinks he can buy you with this. Is that your worth? Pretty necklaces?” 

When you don’t answer, he continues, his face pulled taut into a sneer. “It is now, isn’t it? You’d be content with a life as his mistress, hidden away because he is ashamed of you, for the entirety of your life, just as long as you’re draped in his silks and bows. He will never marry you. He is a prince.” 

That one drives deep into your chest, the wound as visceral and aching as the one in Taehyun’s shoulder. You will back scalding, angry tears. “He said he loves me,” you say. You try and not let your voice wobble, and to not let it sound pathetic and self-convincing. You try to make it sound true. 

He laughs in your face. “He’s had a lifetime perfecting how to lie in his own way.” 

You shake your head. You know sincere eyes when you see them, don’t you? His words weasel down into your mind, anyway. Perhaps you had let your disgusting, decayed heart cling to the smallest morsel of what you had thought was love just a little too tightly. You hope it would not destroy you to try and pry it off; that you are not so sickeningly dependent on the thought of being wanted that it would ruin you to lose it. 

You have nothing. No longer a home, no longer a companion, and no longer a lover. Though, maybe you never had Yeonjun in the first place.  

“Maybe he’s just playing me,” you say. “Maybe that’s true, but you are a murderer, Taehyun.” 

“I never had a choice,” Taehyun says.  

It’s your turn to laugh in his face. “It wasn’t your choice to kill?” 

He shakes his head. His face is still pale with blood loss. “My father brought me when he’d tear down those villages. He’d make me sit and watch because he knew it tortured me. I never once killed any of those people. He was embarrassed to have an heir that didn’t carry out his will, and so he let them think I did it by his side.” 

You reel, trying to imagine a young Taehyun made to witness the gory deaths of innocents. Your words from earlier rise like bile in your throat. You want to ask why he never did anything, why he wouldn’t save them, but you know looking over the jagged, nasty scars that litter his arms and torso that he had. He had, and he took his father’s wrath each time he did. 

“Why didn’t you try to tell them that you didn’t?” you ask. “Why did you let them believe that about you?” 

“I don’t care how they see me. I don’t care for any of it.” 

The estate is silent again as you grapple with your own mind. You know why he left the north, but none of this explains why he’d found himself as a spy to The King.  

Taehyun retracts. You can tell that bearing this out is not a comfortable thing for him; his face is grave and almost sullen.  

Your stomach feels full of rocks. His mean words fill your mind to the brink, and then your own top it off until your mind is spilling over. You grit your teeth. You want to stomp off and explode in your room, to scream into a pillow and pace the floor until daylight. But you can do none of that without disinfecting his wound. 

So, you take a rag and alcohol from the kitchens, and you dab it at the stitching in dense, dense silence. And once you’re done, you disappear upstairs to toss and turn in your bed with awful thoughts and fitful sleep. 

❆

You slip out of the estate as soon as the sun settles into the sky. You don’t know if Taehyun intends on leaving today, or any day soon, but you can’t go without seeing Yeonjun. You have so much you want to leech from your mind. You can’t leave with your mind full like this. When you make it to Yeonjun’s place, no servants even send you a second glance. They know your face, now.  

Your body buzzes as you reach his tall, white doors, and you walk in without any hesitating. You had been tortured with the inability to see or speak or touch him not just since last night, but also for the past few days.  

Yeonjun’s head swivels to you once you’re in his room, eyebrows pulling together. He’s buttoning up a silken shirt, no doubt getting dressed and ready for the day.  

“Is something wrong?” he says, looking over you with worried eyes. 

You crash right into him, circling your arms around him and holding him in your arms. 

He rubs one hand over your back, the other cupping the back of your head. You stay that way for a bit, before he pulls you off him and inspects your face. His eyes then dart to the empty space at your neck. “Where is your necklace?” he asks, his voice dipping. 

You hate the concern on his face. You can’t tell if it’s an act, or if he really worries for you.  

“Hey,” he says, taking your face in one hand with a grounding hold. “Say something. Please.” 

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, it got broken,” you say, grimacing. “Just hold me, please.” You want to feel his arms around you, to have him envelope you so entirely that you can’t help but believe there is anything but love in his hold. 

He does without question, delicately guiding you back into the wall. “It can be fixed, darling. We can fix it,” he says, soft and lovely into your ear. 

It feels as though he reached his hand right into your core and brushes his fingers over your tainted thoughts. You almost begin fearing that he has been keen to your thoughts this whole time, the way his words patch over your open wounds. It’s as if he knows something beyond just the necklace has been broken here. 

He presses your hip into the wall with a hand. He brings his head back to inspect your face before bringing your lips together in a warm, savory kiss. You flatten your palm against his stomach, and then drag it down until you cup his rapidly hardening length through his pants. He makes a sharp sound into your mouth and then pulls his mouth off of you to shoot you a look.  

“What are you doing, you little vixen?” he says. You palm him harder, reveling in the way he sucks his lip into his teeth to repress a groan. Please, just let you have this one night in his arms before you have to go. You need his warmth to thaw you out, and then maybe you can leave this frozen place and return to the place where there is no frost or snow. Maybe it’ll make it harder in the end, but you can’t find it within yourself to care right now. You need to breathe him in like oxygen. 

You slide down the wall and let your knees rest on the cold wood of the floor, looking up to his hair obscuring his eyes as he watches you get on the floor for him. You work on his pants, unbuttoning them with nimble, eager hands and then freeing him. The way his length stands tall in front of your face exhilarates you—you did this to him. 

“You don’t have to do this, baby,” he says, but the haze over his eyes says differently.  

You take his cock into your hands. It’s warm and heavy, and leaking from the tip. You do. You need to see how much he needs you; how he craves your touch. You want to make him so ravenous for your touch that he’ll declare his love for you, and it’ll be real, and then you can stay here like this forever. You want his arms to be home, where you don’t have any other place to call home. “You don’t want my mouth?” you say, drunken with the potent need in his eyes. 

“I didn’t say that,” he says, groaning as you kitten lick his slit and then down the side. “On your knees is such a filthy place for a pretty lady to be,” he says, eating up the image of you.  

You take him into your mouth, making sure to run your tongue along the bottom of him as you let him in. He shudders and lets his head fall back, and then snaps his head back down as if thriving off the sight. You bob your head, taking him down until he tickles the back of your throat. You have to force down the gags that prick tears at the corners of your eyes. He cradles the back of your head. 

Yeonjun laughs. “How did you learn to use your mouth like this?” he says between his panted breaths. “You haven’t let him have this, have you?” 

Your eyes flutter open as he says it, your brows furrowed.  

He grabs the hair at the back of your head and uses it to pull you off of him. You suck in full breaths while you have the chance. “What?” he says, letting his saliva-slick length rest on your cheek. It feels more lewd and dirty than having him in your mouth. “I know you kissed him. He told me himself.” 

Your mouth drops open, but he’s guiding himself back into your mouth before you can say anything. Taehyun had told Yeonjun you’d kissed? You couldn’t defend yourself if you tried; he’s rutting into your mouth, hand fisted at the back of your head as he looks down at you with something blazing in his eyes. You can feel the restraint in his hands and in his face. His stomach grows taut. 

“I should’ve known he’d get his hands on you the second he could, pretty. That dog doesn’t know how to keep hands off of what’s not his. I’m going to have to keep you on a tighter leash, huh? I don’t like other men knowing what you taste like, baby.” His words are measured and taunting, but he’s twitching in your mouth and his thrusts are growing more frantic, and his hand is twisted into your hair as if you’ll run away and leave him needy if he doesn’t hold you there. 

You’ve never heard Yeonjun speak like this. He’s expressed distaste for Taehyun before, but never like this. Never like he’s sinking his teeth into you and staking his claim. Yeonjun doesn’t need to cling to his possessions—not when everything he’s ever wanted has been at his fingertips. So, why does he sound like a frantic dog showing its teeth so that another won’t reach for its toy? 

His thrusts become more feverish and shallow, whimpers escaping the back of his throat. Saliva pools out from your lips and sullies your chin, but you’re too focused letting him use your throat that you can’t be bothered with it. 

“Fuck,” he grunts, his abdomen going rigid. He slips out of your mouth quick, before he can melt into your mouth and cum. His cock is red and angry, frustrated with denied release. “Your mouth is so good, baby, but when I cum, I want it to be in you,” he says, reaching down to wipe the mess off your chin with his thumb.  

You whine, the sound a bit hoarse with use. He uses his words in a way that leaves you so weak. The two of you stumble over to the bed, where he lays out and you climb up over him. He pushes your dress up and over your thighs, the skimming of his fingers electric and shooting up straight into your cunt. You hover just above him, lining the weeping tip of him up with you, but not yet sinking down onto him. 

“I waited for this,” he says, taking your hips into his hands. “For multiple days, I yearned to touch you like this again. And, where were you these past few days, darling? In his bed?” 

You brace your hands on his chest, the shirt there disheveled and unbuttoned now, despite him having only freshly put it on. You sink down just a little bit, watching his face contort despite his fiery words. 

“No,” you insist, sinking lower. He stretches you just as deliciously as the first time. “No, ‘Jun. I promise, baby. This is just for you.” 

His head falls back, and he’s looking at you down his nose, his fingers digging divots into your hips. You take him down to the hilt, and then pick yourself up and drop back down, falling into a delicious rhythm. The roll of your hips and the perfect angle of his cock has him brushing up against a sweet, soft spot inside of you, sending your thighs trembling each time it does.  

“Make me believe that, pretty,” he says. His lips are bitten red as you pick up speed, leaning forward onto your hands to fuck yourself down on him harder and faster. You relish in the way he reacts for you. “Make me believe you never gave him what is mine.” 

You try. Oh, you try. Your thighs begin aching, burning with exertion, and sweat sheens your neck. Once your thighs are unable to fully lift you off of him, you opt for rolling your hips into him frantically, chasing that knot deep in your belly the same way you chase to watch him grow restless under you, his hands alternating between holding your hips and the bedsheets and your chin. 

His hands come to your hips again, taking them with a more solid, reinforcing grip. His cheeks are tinted pink. “Need help, baby? Getting tired?” he purrs, picking you up and bringing you back down on his cock with renewed vigor that has you falling forward and whimpering into his neck. He opts for fucking up into feverishly you now that you’re bent over him. 

“I love you— I love you, Yeonjun,” you pant, clinging to his chest. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” 

You’re sorry for so much. You’re so sorry that you can’t help but let it slip out into his skin while you’re in his arms. You’re sorry that you’ve lied to him, you’re sorry that you’ve doubted him, and you’re so awfully sorry that you have to leave him.  

“It’s okay, darling. It’s okay,” he manages through his labored breaths. He holds you to his chest like he can meld you into him there. You know he’s not comforting you for what you wish he would be, but it swells emotion up in your chest regardless.  

He’s so, so close. You can feel him twitching inside you, so riled up that he’s going to cum before you.  

You lift off of him, taking in his heavy eyes and rapidly rising and falling chest, before you crawl off of his cock.  

He whines, reaching out for you. “What are you—” he says, cut off by the strangled hum of relief as you wrap your hand around his length, slick and ruined with your essence. A look of recognition passes over his eyes, and something akin to hurt as well. You hadn’t worried about letting him cum in you last time, but last time you had been reckless and forgotten that you’re living on borrowed time. Your mind was not jaded with the knowledge that you don’t have forever like it is now.

You slide your wrist up and down him, devouring the bucking of his hips and the way he chants your name. Your name. Finally, he stills, cursing and cumming white, hot spurts up onto his belly, soiling part of his shirt that had not yet ridden up. The sight of it has you fluttering around nothing.  

He pants, but picks his head up off the bed with effort before frowning. “You didn’t get off. Let me help you, pretty. Let me take care of you.” He pushes up off the bed, taking your face in one hand. 

You shake your head, falling down into the side of his bed that has become yours. “I’m okay,” you say. Though you’re a sticky, awful mess between your thighs, that’s not what you need. You usher him to lay down with you with a hand. “I just want to be here with you.” 

He gives you an odd look, but lays down on his side, facing you, albeit tentatively. The two of you are quiet for a minute, eyes flickering over each other's faces as if you both have something you want to say, but both can’t form the words or speak them. 

You breathe in a shaky breath, trying to steady yourself. You have to tell him; it’s what you came here for. Can’t your last day just be left untainted? You worry you’ll be forever forced to remember these moments by the sick flipping of your stomach, instead of the angles of his face and the rhythm of his heart beating as it floats down from euphoria. 

“I have to leave this place, Yeonjun,” you say, eyes flickering up to his finally. “I’m leaving tomorrow. Something happened, and I have...” You swallow hard. “I have to tell you something.” 

You expect his face to twist up in confusion or worry, but it doesn’t. Instead, it falls. He doesn’t speak for a moment too long, and your heart plays cruel tricks on you.  

“I know,” he says, and all the air is whooshed from your lungs. 

“What?” you say, flying up onto your arms. “What do you mean?” 

“I know why you’re here. I know that the both of you are spies for my father.” 

Your mouth is paralyzed with all the moments you’ve spent petrified of this exact moment so that you can barely speak. “How?” you say. “Since when?” 

He sighs, sitting up as well. “Since today.” 

He doesn’t answer how, but you already know. It all clicks into place in at this very moment. The only way that he might have found out just today was that Kai had told him. You remember the looks on their faces when that bark-skinned faerie had said something about the solstice and some kind of set-up at The Hovel. Not only had that been a set-up, but Yeonjun had known about it. Him and Kai both had. Whether or not they knew it would be you and Taehyun who would show up until you did, you don’t know. Kai knew there would be a poisoned drink for the spies if they fell into that trap that day, and the moment he saw you go down he knew it was you and Taehyun. 

You jump off the bed, backing up and away from him. “You’re one of them?” you say, your voice fragile.  

“What?” he says, looking at you weird. “One of them? You mean part of the rebellion?” 

You scoff. “Yes.” 

“Is there something wrong with that?” 

Is there something wrong with that? They had tried to kill you twice. Would he be complacent with your death, so long as it’s in the name of his loyalty to The Queen? 

“Your people poisoned me, and have made attempts on my life twice,” you say, stepping away from him again. “And I’m leaving because they might make even more.” 

He shakes his head, his eyes wary watching you back away from him. “They won’t,” he says. “Not now that I know it’s you. They will never lay another finger on you again, nobody will. You don’t have to leave here.” 

“Oh, but if it were any other human girl, that’d be fine? You’d live with the knowledge that the people you cozy yourself up with killed her? And, what about Taehyun? Does your courtesy extend to him, prince? You expect me to just accept your protection and let them hunt for his head? I know your distaste for your father and that crown, Yeonjun. But, is this really the way you intend to do this? Inciting war is not going to mend that.” 

He shakes his head, closing in on you and taking your face into his hands. “War is going to happen regardless of my meddling. It has been charging up for years. I don’t want you working as a spy for my father when it happens; I want you here.” His eyes dart between yours. “If Taehyun decides on staying here, if it will allow me to keep you here, then I will extend every bit of my power to protect the both of you. Forget your duties to my father. You have no need to work as a spy when I will support your life endlessly, pretty. Please.” 

Your stomach roils with flame and acid. Yeonjun hadn’t lied to you, but somehow this is worse. You suppose you can’t feel too left in the dark—he had just found out your deceit, and yet... Here he is, pleading with you to stay. You had imagined he’d cast you out and renounce you upon finding out your truth. In some ways, that almost seems better. You don’t know how to work with this, and you had not prepared for this.  

 Would Taehyun even agree to stay here? You honestly don’t know. You don’t know what Taehyun’s intentions are with being a spy, but you can’t imagine him wanting to stay here. Not when you know his past here in the north.  

Do you want to be a spy? If war is genuinely coming, would it just be returning home with a target on your back?  

Taehyun’s spitted words crawl up to the forefront of your mind. You’ll never be sure if Yeonjun will stay true to his promises of protection and love. Would he wed a human, even when estranged from the throne and his father? 

You search Yeonjun’s desperate, pleading eyes. You hope that what you see there is more than just sparkling need to dig his claws into his play toys. 

…🪶 ashlynn's note yeaaah. i said it was angsty!! i know u taehyun girlies are waiting on a taehyun scene but guys i promise the longer you wait the better it'll be I PROMISEEE. also, lmk in the comments if you think she should leave the north or stay there with Yeonjun.

﹙🏷️ ﹚ @lvrs-street2mmorrow , @soohashits , @f4iryfever , @arcturus444 if your tag isn't working, check the mentions part of your settings!

[g1rld1ary]

hope your requests r open! lockwood x reader where lockwood think reader likes george (but she doesnt) and reader thinks lockwood likes lucy (he doesnt). basically just a whole bunch of misunderstandings with angst and a happy ending please <3

miscommunications - anthony lockwood x fem!reader

wc: 6316

cw: swearing, angstish, series typical injuries

i am SO sorry this took so long lovie i had the biggest writers block but i loved loved loved this request so thank u for sending it in i hope i did it justice!!!! love u xoxo

Lockwood and Co was absolutely the weirdest psychical detective agency you’d ever been a part of. Not only were the actual case methods… unusual, but you were a bunch of kids. You didn’t know anything about running a company; the logistics of managing four teenagers and trying to be responsible whilst also experiencing hormones and teen dramas, all while living in the same house with no adult supervision. But it was great, most of the time at least.

However, even teen psychical detectives weren’t immune to the trap of cliques and you often ended up spending much more time with some members than others. For example, it often ended up being Lockwood and Lucy, and you and George.

It wasn’t necessarily a conscious decision or something that happened because you didn’t like the other two members of the agency, it just tended to be the easiest decision. Lockwood and Lucy were undeniably in perfect sync on the field, and you and George worked better in the research department, so it only made sense that those pairs spent more time together.

The only problem? You were totally in love with Lockwood. And you were pretty sure he was basically fucking married to Lucy Carlyle. They were the dream team on and off the field, you were half convinced they could actually read each other's minds. Plus, they were both genuinely amazing people. Lucy was your best friend and roommate at Portland Row, and you loved her with all your heart. And Lockwood? Well, there were a million and one good things to say about Anthony Lockwood. So who could blame you if you spent more time with George? It hurt less than watching the love story unfolding in front of you, and George was good company anyhow.

You couldn’t avoid them though, nor did you really want to, so life was testing your limits as to how much Locklyle you could handle at once.

You and George had been cooped up in the library most of the day looking through archives and research for the agency’s next case, so you’d been glad to get home and have a long warm shower in the evening. Lockwood and Lucy were off on a smaller case together so you’d had the bathroom all to yourself while George was cooking; a small luxury when living with three other teenagers.

Your hair was still wet as you sat down at the dining table in the kitchen, droplets sinking into the paper of the thinking cloth. It was a lovely dinner with George, he’d made your favourite meal upon request, the most glorious dish of butter chicken you thought might’ve ever been made. Everything should have been perfect, except that it was just the two of you. Again. It seemed like you never had family dinners as a four anymore, you and George stuck eating across from each other amongst empty chairs and untouched plates.

“So, anything new?” You made conversation in decent humour, picking at the chicken you weren’t quite as pleased to be eating anymore.

“Anything new in the twenty minutes we’ve been apart all day?” George replied in his characteristic dry tone. You rolled your eyes, trying to stay playful.

“Just checking.”

You took the cleanup after George did all the cooking, switching on the radio as you stood in front of the sink and washing the dishes in peaceful quiet. It was past midnight when the door jingled and creaked open and you could hear Lockwood and Lucy’s tired chatter floating through the old house. Even their damn voices belonged together, making the perfect cadence. You calculated whether you could get away with running up the stairs and pretending to be asleep before they really made it inside, however, agents are known for their speed, and you could hear boots hitting the floor before you could move.

“You’re still up?” Lucy asked as a greeting, stretching out her arms with a sigh. You smiled, shrugging as you began pouring hot water into the mugs you’d prepared earlier, making you all tea how you liked it. Lucy took hers gratefully, adding in the sugar as she pleased, but you were still yet to see Lockwood, taking the initiative to prepare it for him.

He came in a few minutes later, smiling softly as he looked at you.

“You’re a godsend.” He took the mug gratefully, visibly relaxing as the heat penetrated his body. You just smiled, turning back to the dishes.

“Thanks for the tea, I’ll head up to the shower,” Lucy said, patting you gratefully on the arm as she passed. That left you and Lockwood in the kitchen in careful silence.

You talked about nothing for a while, Lockwood filling you in on the tabloids he’d read the night before, and you told him all about the music and news you’d been listening to on the radio.

“How was the research, how’s George?” Lockwood was beside you now, taking a few of the plates you’d finished drying. His tone sounded almost bitter, but you figured it was his exhaustion taking hold.

“It was fine, I think we’re pretty much good to go for this weekend. Oh, you should have seen it! George absolutely stacked it on the steps of the library earlier. He’s fine, of course, but I nearly pissed my pants laughing, it was so funny.” Lockwood managed an unenthused chuckle, turning away to put the cutlery away in the drawer. “How was the case?” Lockwood made a noise of affirmation, coming back next to you, your shoulders brushing lightly.

“As well as cases can go,” He said, smile back on his face. You listened to him tell the bloody details of the case, illustrating his own heroic moves with a full production of actions and impressions, drawing giggles from you as he fought around the room. “And of course, Luce was brilliant as always, saved my arse for the millionth time.”

Fuck. Of course Lockwood was singing Lucy’s praises again, right in front of you! You couldn’t catch a break. You finally got a moment alone with the boy you had a massive embarrassing crush on and he was talking about your best friend! You could feel your smile fading fast, jealousy bubbling in your chest as you imagined them out on a case together, all quick banter and soft touches while you were at home. With George.

You tried to stay obliging, giving him a small smile and finishing up the drying quickly.

“Well, I should be off to bed. Goodnight, Lockwood.”

“You’re not gonna read with me?” You could have sworn that Lockwood had disappeared and been replaced with a kicked puppy the way his eyes were making your insides twist with guilt. You often sat up in the library with Lockwood; he could never sleep and you often made up for the late nights in the mornings, starting your days hours after everyone else. You held eye contact for a moment, willing yourself to be strong.

It didn’t work, and you found yourself back in your familiar spot in front of the fire, digging into your novel as he flipped through a magazine. When your eyes began to strain in the low lamplight you closed it softly, chancing a glance over at Lockwood. He looked almost perfect in the moment, yellow light illuminating the highlights in his face, his eyes glinting as he found humour in the dramatised tabloids.

He looked up suddenly, his senses evidently alerting him to your staring. His head tilted almost imperceptibly, curiosity seeping from his features. You smiled softly, unable to give him any explanation, so you were glad when he returned it in a way that made his whole face light up. You looked away first, studying your hands intently as you heard Lockwood breathe a subtle laugh.

Another case later, you were going crazy. You’d hit an obstacle (of course) and the case had started going awry. A few relicmen interfering with the site threw you all off your game, the original case put aside in favour of your lives. You and Lucy had been together when the ambush happened, both fighting as a team to protect yourselves. Admittedly you weren’t as fluid as her and Lockwood, but you blamed that on the lack of opportunity. You were doing pretty well for yourselves, all things considered. Still, you were grateful for the two boys to come bursting in like heroes, rapiers at the ready. What you didn’t appreciate was the way Lockwood immediately leapt to Lucy’s side, falling into their familiar rhythm. That left George to help you, the both of you sharing the quickest of looks, your eye roll lost to the fight.

You’d all made it out alive but were severely battered and disheartened. You’d all sustained a few cuts and bruises, you knew you were bleeding from somewhere in your midsection, but the adrenaline hadn’t worn off yet so you pushed through.

You also weren’t particularly glad to see Lockwood looking at Lucy like she’d hung all the stars in the sky in the cab on the way back. He hadn’t spared you a glance.

“I know this wasn’t exactly what we planned,” He said, still not making eye contact with you, “But we’re all okay so I think that’s a win. Luce, good job on the defence and keeping the relicmen at bay. George, brilliant catch with the source, mate, you saved us all. And, uh, good work.” He looked over briefly, but you thought he was looking slightly above you still. He didn’t even care enough to look at you on the case! It was absolutely maddening.

Sometimes, like now, you wondered why you even liked him. He was obsessed with another girl, barely paid you attention and had you begging for crumbs of affection. And yet, sometimes you were sure he liked you back. The soft smiles, the time together in the dead of night, the moments he showed you such gentle care. Lockwood was a puzzle you just couldn’t solve, but you were really, really trying.

You weren’t in the best mood when you all arrived home. Your case had been compromised, you were injured, and Lockwood was basically ignoring you. The night was not looking good. And, on top of all that, George called the first shower so it was unlikely there’d be any hot water left by the time you got in. Silently, you peeled off your overcoat, hanging it on your designated hook before discarding your rapier in the umbrella bin. The cut on your side was beginning to sting, the adrenaline having worn off in the cab, but you powered through, figuring you’d take care of it when you had privacy in the bathroom. Instead, you followed Lucy into the kitchen, chatting away as she made some toast.

She’d already left when you got up from the dining table, motivating yourself to make some tea and something to eat. Your body was starting to ache though, and you really didn’t want to be moving much longer. It was all mostly fine, though uncomfortable, until you were reaching up for the sugar for the tea. It was a little out of your reach up on one of the higher cupboards which usually wasn’t so much of an issue — you were a high jumper — but raising your arm above your head was making it feel like your cut was splitting open, pulling a strangled hiss from you.

“What is that?” Lockwood’s voice made you jump, the harshness unfamiliar. You turned slowly, folding your arms across your stomach in vain.

“It’s nothing, I was gonna look after it in a bit.” It was the first time you’d made proper eye contact with Lockwood all night, and he looked pissed.

“Bullshit,” He argued, gaining proximity, “Sit down.” You weren’t typically in the habit of being bossed around by a man, but you could tell Lockwood was serious so took a seat. He stomped around the kitchen rather dramatically, tossing you an ice pack from the freezer. You placed it tentatively over the cut, groaning and throwing your head back when it stung. Your breathing was shallow, erratic as you waited for the icepack to do its job and start numbing the pain.

When you unscrewed your eyes Lockwood was standing at the kitchen bench, aggressively buttering your toast. You watched him put together the meal you’d started, all with deep furrowed eyebrows, ending with him placing it in front of you, looking at you expectantly. You smiled at him despite the pain in your side, pulling the mug of tea closer. He’d made it just as you liked it, too much sugar and a bit of honey. You sipped it pathetically, tension bubbling between you and the boy in front of you.

“What’s new?” You asked in what you hoped was a lighthearted tone. Lockwood wasn’t impressed.

“Eat,” He urged, “You’ll already be weak from blood loss, don’t let yourself get dizzy from hunger too.” You took an exaggerated bite of the toast to appease him, melting into a moan when the food hit your mouth. Somehow, it tasted better than all the millions of times you’d made your own. Lockwood had found the perfect balance of butter and bread, soft in the middle but the crusts were still crunchy and satisfying. The corner of his mouth flicked into the smallest smile seeing you enjoy the food he’d made you, but it was clear he still wasn’t happy with you.

You continued to eat as he got up from his seat, disappearing out into the hallway for a moment. He returned with the first aid kit and you groaned. This was going to suck. Lockwood, ever the gentleman, asked for your permission to start helping you, lifting your already cherry red case shirt up to tuck under your bra, out of his way as he examined the cut. It wasn’t too deep, you didn’t think you’d need stitches or anything, but it was long, wrapping halfway across your stomach.

“This is going to hurt,” He said simply, but you could have sworn there was some gentleness there. Lightly, Lockwood began to clean your wound. Initially, it wasn’t so bad as he cleaned what had already spread and dried away from the cut which lulled you into a false sense of security. You cried out as he touched the wound itself for the first time, grabbing onto Lockwood’s shoulder for stability, though you were already seated.

“It’s okay, I’ll be quick. Promise,” He hushed you, offering his hand for you to grab instead. You clutched onto it for dear life, squeezing until both your fingers were turning white. Lockwood never uttered a complaint, working away at cleaning and treating the wound one-handed until it was done, stopping every so often for breaks when he thought you needed them.

When he was done he looked up at you from his position on his knees and it suddenly felt like the world around you was quiet. Lockwood’s eyes were so pretty. You’d always thought so, but it was particularly relevant when he was only inches away from you, sparkling in the amber light of the kitchen. Neither of you spoke, staring into each other’s eyes. You weren’t sure what to do, you didn’t want to end this moment between you but you didn’t know how to make it last. Well, you did, but that was highly inappropriate given Lockwood was in love with another girl.

“Thanks,” You settled on awkwardly, cringing as Lockwood seemed to realise where he was and what was happening.

“Any time,” He jumped up, backing up towards the sink and busying himself with pouring his own cup of tea.

You left the kitchen shortly after, unwilling to sit in the awkwardness any longer. The first step was to get out of the soiled clothes and clean yourself up a bit, the second was to flop back onto your bed, staring up at the ceiling of the attic.

“I’m going to die alone,” You said to the roof, catching the attention of your roommate.

“Don’t be stupid,” Lucy said simply, “You’re hot, anyone would be lucky to have you.” That pulled a smile from you, tilting your head back to look over at Lucy on her bed.

“Thanks, Luce. You know what I mean though.” Lucy rolled her eyes with a soft smile.

“If Lockwood can’t see all your brilliant, attractive qualities then he’s a prat.”

“I’m sure he sees many of my great qualities — he hired me. The issue is that he’s blinded by your brilliance.” It was a conversation you’d had countless times before; you decreeing Lockwood’s love for Lucy and Lucy being disgusted by it.

“You know that I have zero interest in Lockwood. Like, zero. Honestly, I’d sooner get with you than him.”

“Alright, alright, I get it. I have terrible taste in men,” You laughed, mostly cheered up.

Lucy flicked off the lamp, putting you to sleep with a story from before you’d joined the agency.

Lockwood had a similar conversation with George a few weeks later. It was after another case, all had gone well and the four of you were strewn about the house, tending to various chores that needed to get done. Lucy was mopping the floors, you were organising and putting away the mountain of books that had been used over the case, and Lockwood and George were both in the basement, tidying the store room and going over paperwork.

Lockwood looked at George, hunched over the form he was filling in, and wondered how to broach the subject. He thought you might’ve been avoiding him lately, which wasn’t exactly wrong, and thought it might be because you were trying to make your feelings for George known. In fact, it had nothing to do with George and everything to do with Lockwood. You figured if Lockwood hadn’t noticed by now that you liked him he never would, so you’d started the mountainous task of getting over him. It was unsurprisingly extremely difficult, given you lived and worked with the man. Still, you were doing the best you could.

“So, gone on any, uh, dates recently?” The sentence was awkward and Lockwood cringed. It was so unlike him and George to talk about anything emotional, especially romance.

“What are you on about?” George didn’t even bother looking up, figuring it was just one of Lockwood’s moments that he’d move on from soon enough.

“It’s just, you’ve never really dated anyone, at least while living here, so I was just asking. Um, maybe there’s someone in the house you’d like to take out?” George looked up, turning his wheelie chair to face Lockwood, resigning himself to the conversation he knew would follow.

“Yes, Lockwood. Can’t you hear Lucy and I having loud, passionate sex every night?” Both boys rolled their eyes.

“That’s not what I meant,” Lockwood grumbled.

“Then say what you mean. You’re trying to figure out if I like her because you do and you’re too scared to say anything about it.” Lockwood was silenced, caught out with his true intentions. “Let’s face it, you’re about as subtle as a car horn; you moon over her. She’s the only one who hasn’t noticed.”

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” Lockwood mumbled, “She likes you.” George burst out into uncharacteristic laughter, wheezing and gripping his stomach.

“God, you’re daft!” He laughed, “The two of you are perfect for each other, you’re hopeless.”

Lockwood made an excuse to leave, something about folding his laundry. George watched him go, rolling his eyes before turning back to his paperwork. If the two of you weren’t going to get his exceedingly obvious hints, you were going to have to work it out between yourselves.

Your angst was bleeding into the company. You were trying (and failing) to get over Lockwood which was not only making you generally miserable, but it was impeding your ability to be a good agent.

You were on a relatively easy case, and for some reason you’d been paired with Lockwood, a rarity. Lucy and George were on the second floor of the house scoping out where the source may be whilst you and Lockwood were on the ground floor, preparing your defences and putting on the tea kettle. It was extremely awkward. Lockwood was trying to make conversation and you were trying to keep it as short as possible. If you fell into conversation you’d be reminded of Lockwood’s many wonderful qualities, and it would just get harder to get over him.

“Did you end up finishing that book?” He asked as you pulled the chains out of their duffel bags. You perked up for a moment before forcing yourself to relax. You had finished the novel and absolutely loved it, you wanted nothing more than to talk about it. Still, you controlled yourself, shrugging off the question with a “Yeah, it was pretty good.” Lockwood hesitated, caught off guard by your answer. Usually you were keen to discuss what you’d been reading, especially if you liked it.

“Are you alright?” He asked, softness in his voice and eyes. Your heart clenched for a moment, you didn’t want to worry him.

“I’m fine, Lockwood, promise.” You busied yourself with arranging the salt bombs but you could still feel his eyes on you.

The case progressed, all four of you ending up on the second level of the house to confront the visitor, each splitting up to cover the different rooms. You were in the master bedroom when the en suite bathroom caught your eye. You could have sworn you saw movement near the shower and crept towards it, trying to stay focused and address the urgency on hand.

You were immediately distracted by the similarities between the en suite and the bathroom in Portland Row. Set out almost identically, it was almost scary how similar they were; George’s soap (fancy and way more expensive than the one the rest of you bought) was on the ledge of the shower, and Lucy’s blue hairbrush sat by the basin.

It wasn’t necessarily surprising that either of those items were there, they were both bought for cheap at a grocery store so ought to have been common, but it surprised you nonetheless. You’d been so distracted by the weird similarities that you didn’t notice the figure floating through the shower curtain until its translucent hand was beside your face. You panicked, the only thing you shouldn’t have been doing, and flailed about in the tiny room, rapier knocking bottles off shelves and creating a general racket that was not pleasing the ghost.

You stumbled on the tiles trying to get your footing and get the fuck out but slid on a slippery substance — probably conditioner from the bottle you’d sent flying to the ground. It was a comedy of errors you would have quoted as impossible in an old slapstick comedy, but there you were, and the consequences were infinitely more dire than those faced by Charlie Chaplin.

The proceeding moments vanished from your memory; a violent fall, a sickening crack and an overwhelming darkness. Three more moments of light where you caught visions of the ghost, Lockwood, and aggressive flashing lights.

You woke up in hospital. You wished it was the hazy, unsure innocence that you saw in movies, but the incessant beeping and sanitised smell had you groaning as you gained consciousness. Lockwood was slumped over in the chair next to your bed, breathing uncharacteristically calm as he slept.

You watched him sleep in the least creepy way you could manage, admiring his features when they weren’t scrunched up in worry or stress. He must’ve felt you watching him as his eyes fluttered open, doe eyes overflowing with relief as he saw you awake.

“You’re up, thank god,” He said, pulling his chair up even closer to you.

“Why am I here?” You asked, examining the various wires and machines you were plugged into.

“What aren’t you here for?” Lockwood joked and you tried for a smile. He straightened himself out and continued, “Linear skull fracture, concussion, scary-looking cut on your forehead. We think you slipped and bashed your head on the countertop.” You grimaced, the pain of the fall manifesting in your head.

“That would be right,” You agreed sheepishly, shifting uncomfortably in your hospital gown, “And the hand?” Your left hand was bandaged up so thick it looked more like an oven mitt than a hand.

“Ghost touch.” Lockwood didn’t sound so happy and casual now.

“Oh.”

“What happened? It’s not like you to put yourself in danger like that; it was stupid and reckless.” You didn’t understand why Lockwood was getting so angry. Clearly, you didn’t intend to get injured, it was an unfortunate accident that you would have avoided if you could.

“As opposed to you, who never gets injured and always sticks to the plan?” You couldn’t help the venom seeping into your voice but you detested being criticised by Lockwood when he was just as bad, usually worse.

“This isn’t about me,” He said through gritted teeth, clearly trying to keep his cool while you were vulnerable. You were angry though and didn’t want to back down.

“Of course this is about you, Lockwood! You wouldn’t blink an eye if it was you who’d ended up here, or George or Lucy. It was an honest mistake, why are you being such a dick about it?” You were raising your voice but you couldn’t bring yourself to care, the tension that had been bubbling for weeks coming to the surface.

“Because you could have died —”

“So could any of us, that’s the job! I still see you jumping head-first into danger.”

Lockwood groaned your name, hands in his hair and pulling in frustration. “You’re misunderstanding me, I just don’t want to watch you get hurt—”

“Then close your fucking eyes, Lockwood. I fell and I got injured. It happens and I resent having you treat me differently than the others. Fuck this, I want Lucy here instead, or George.”

“Of course you want George here, why wouldn’t you?”

“And what is that supposed to mean?” If you could stand you would be shoving past him and out the door, but you were at a significant disadvantage being hooked up to so many machines, stuck in your place.

“You know what I mean, you and George are such a close pair, aren’t you? Always working together and laughing about your own inside jokes,” He spat and the burning anger only got hotter.

“Are you fucking crazy right now? Or are you forgetting that you’re the head of this company and therefore you’re the one pairing us together in every case? Or are you so fucking busy making heart eyes at Lucy that you don’t even notice that we’re actually getting work done? Forgive us for trying to make ten hours of research bearable!”

“Heart eyes at Luce? You’re the crazy one, she and I are just friends, I swear. But you and George will make a great couple, I’m sure.”

“George and I couldn’t be less interested in each other! And if you could see past your own nose for once maybe you’d see why!” You all but yelled, surely alerting the whole floor of your argument, “Leave me alone, Lockwood, I don’t want you here anymore.”

Lockwood looked as if he was going to dispute that statement as well but a nurse came to your rescue, clearly hearing the disagreement from outside. She ushered him out, claiming it wasn’t good for your vitals to be getting angry and that you could continue the fight when you were discharged in a few day's time.

Alone in the sterile hospital room, you felt yourself beginning to cry, fat tears rolling down your cheeks and landing on your embarrassing patterned hospital gown. In a perfect world, that conversation would have gone completely differently. In a perfect world, Lockwood’s eyes would have softened when he saw you were awake. He would have confessed how worried he was about you and how much he truly cared for you. He would have brushed his lips across your hand that he was holding, then pressed them again against your own as he admitted how he’d always been in love with you. You didn’t know that it was your own defensive nature that had stopped that from happening.

But it wasn’t a perfect world and you were alone, overwhelmed by the various noises and movements going on around you. You did eventually fall back asleep, a fitful, unsatisfying nap that had you groaning and exhausted when you woke up. You weren’t alone though, which did make you feel better. George and Lucy were sitting next to your bed, deep in a whispered conversation.

“Hey,” You said, shimmying up to a sitting position. They both stopped talking immediately, turning to face you with small smiles on both their faces.

“How are you feeling?” Lucy asked, pulling her chair up to be right next to your bed.

“I’m alright now, just tired and worn down.”

“You scared us,” George added, characteristically stiff but clearly trying to be sensitive.

“I’m sorry,” You admitted, “I really didn’t mean to. And believe me, Lockwood’s already yelled at me enough for it, please just forgive me.” They looked at each other, communicating non-verbally.

“We heard,” George said, “He basically punched a hole in the wall trying to recount it.” He let out a clipped laugh before Lucy shoved him, signature glare working its magic.

“You should really apologise, he’s cut up about it.” Your mouth dropped open as you stared at Lucy. How was this your fault?

“I’m not apologising, he was the one who got angry. Right, George?” You pleaded with him, praying he wouldn’t let you down now.

“I… I don’t think it has to be right now, but you two should get over it after you’ve cooled down a bit.” Ok, it wasn’t exactly what you’d hoped he’d say, but it was better than nothing. And better than the moral lesson you knew Lucy would try and impose — what a hypocrite.

“But he was so mean!” You whined, “I seriously just had an unfortunate fall, I didn’t die.”

“But you could have,” George quipped and you rolled your eyes.

“You know it’s because he really cares about you, right? He’d never forgive himself if something happened to you and he couldn’t save you.” You couldn’t tell if Lucy’s statement was making you feel better or worse.

“Yeah, really felt like it when he was yelling at me,” You grumbled, fidgeting with the hem of the scratchy blanket.

“Well, you know Lockwood is emotionally constipated,” George added and you couldn’t help but burst into laughter — what a statement to come from George.

“OK,” You agreed finally, “I’ll apologise when we get home. As long as he stops being a massive prick.”

You were discharged a few days later, healing nicely. It would have been sooner, but the head injury worried your nurses and kept you there, not trusting you would stay on bed rest. Lucy came to your rescue, posing as a very concerned caretaker who would ensure your safety.

In fact, it wasn’t Lucy who was enforcing your bedrest. It was George who was cooking every meal and Lockwood doing all the other motherly fussing. You hadn’t discussed your fight yet, both too exhausted and too awkward to broach the subject. You hoped your six-to-eight-week recovery time wouldn’t consist of the same heavy tiredness, but you figured it would improve once the concussion had faded.

The rest of the company had started doing two-man cases so that someone was always home to supervise you. It was a little stifling but you appreciated the effort. It also shook up the status quo of the company, Lockwood and Lucy’s perfect partnership being disrupted by no one wanting to be left at home each time, which was both a blessing and a curse.

In your first few days of being back home at Portland Row, Lockwood was home with you, helping wash your hair. You’d whined so much about how gross it felt, still blood-stained where you cracked your skull open that Lockwood gave up and told you he’d wash it for you. Of course, you’d protested, saying it went way beyond what you could expect of a friend or coworker, but Lockwood would not take no for an answer, justifying that it would be more dangerous to let you do it yourself since you could mess with the stitches since you couldn’t see the back of your own head.

You sat awkwardly in the bath, dressed in an old t-shirt and bikini bottoms to preserve what dignity you could. Lockwood stood outside the bath behind you, preparing the bottles of shampoo and conditioner to his side. The anticipation was destroying you, becoming fidgety and uncomfortable even in the perfectly warm water. The second Lockwood’s slender fingers threaded through your greasy hair you felt your body soften, relaxing into the feeling with no opposition. The feeling was heavenly, the careful but thorough massaging of your scalp could have sent you to sleep in three seconds if you weren’t simultaneously on edge at the proximity.

You sat in peaceful silence for a few minutes, your head lolling back subconsciously against Lockwood’s forearms, drawing a small chuckle from him.

“I’m sorry for arguing with you the other day,” You said out of the blue, your voice cutting through the radio that was sitting next to the basin.

“It’s no worries, just forget about it,” Lockwood replied instantly, continuing his labours.

“No, I want to take this seriously. I said some terrible things I didn’t mean and I want you to know that I’m sorry for it. And, as I understand it you think I have some big crush on George which I would just like to disprove. I don’t. Like him like that, I mean.” Lockwood paused for a moment, hands going still in your hair.

“Oh,” He said after some time, “Well thank you for the apology but it is completely unnecessary. I started the argument and I was way out of line, I didn’t mean a word of it. What I meant to convey was that I was worried about you getting hurt because I… care about you. A lot.” You knew that was hard for Lockwood to say, vulnerability never coming easy to him. You turned to face him in the tub, knees pulled up to your chest as your just-rinsed hair dripped down onto your t-shirt.

“I care about you a lot too, Lockwood,” You smiled sweetly, glad you were finally getting over the weird tension that had been between you. Lockwood didn’t look as satisfied.

“No, it’s, fuck. I care about you in a different way than the others. I really like you, like, romantically.”

“Shut up,” You said quickly, not wanting to wake up from a sick dream. There was no way that Anthony Lockwood, after all these years, was telling you that he liked you. Lockwood looked lost for words. Obviously it wasn’t the impassioned reciprocation he hoped for, but it also wasn’t exactly a rejection. What was he supposed to do?

“I, uh, understand if you don’t—”

“Shut up,” You affirmed again. “I have been madly, foolishly in love with you since I started here, and you’re telling me this now? After we’ve screamed at each other and been moping around?” After a moment of him processing your statement, he began to laugh, mouth breaking into one of his light-up-the-room smiles.

“I guess so.” You joined in his laughter, admiring the way his eyes crinkled and his nose scrunched as he did it.

“So what now?” You asked once your giggles had died down, leaving you two looking at each other across the edge of the bath.

“Well,” Lockwood inched closer, “We could try this?” He leant in for a soft kiss, pressing his mouth against yours lightly. You subconsciously followed his mouth as he pulled away, unwilling to open your eyes just yet.

“Mmh, maybe we could try that one again?” Lockwood laughed at your daze and happily obliged, swooping back in for a longer, deeper kiss that set your nerves on fire.

And if Lucy and George returned from their case to find the two of you still in the bath fully clothed, that was none of your business — and neither was the ten pounds that George reluctantly handed Lucy.

[slytherinboysappreciation]

SMUT REQ LESGOOOOO

Male reader and Tom are from the Wool's orphanage and they grow together, so ofc it would be natural for Tom to think that they would end up together, right? To have reader standing beside him as he becomes the Dark Lord? Wrong. Reader never considered him more than a best friend or a brother that should be protected. So when there's a rumor abt reader dating someone Tom was furious, he went to search reader to confirm the rumor (which is not true) but alas, he's too furious to listen so he fuck him dumb, and Tom started speaking parseltongue while getting it on

Bruh idk how to explain this lmao, English is hard 😔 But hey u can make the setting for this one when Tom was alr a Dark Lord (daddy) or when he's in the 7th year.

Rumor - T. R. x male!Reader

A/N: I’m so sorry for taking so long to get to this 😅 My writing motivation has been a little skewed lately. However, I did it! And I hope you like it!

I changed the parseltongue part to him speaking it when he gets angry enough because it just helped the story along more. I hope that’s okay.

It’s unedited with no use of Y/N. I think I tagged everything, but let me know if I missed something please! 💛

And of course, this fic contains explicit sexual content so ABSOLUTELY NO MINORS!!!!

CW: Possessiveness; mentioned failed love confessions; angst; a mention of horcruxes; anger, lots of anger; murder mention; Tom gets a bit physical with reader; dubcon touching; dubcon sexual content, (consent is there, but not referenced); handjob; doggy style, I think?; Tom ties reader’s hands with a belt; anal sex; anal penetration; no lube mentioned; dirty talk; aftercare; slightly fluffy ending; also, this takes place after Hogwarts so Tom and Reader are both of age!!!!

1676 words

You were Tom Riddle’s best friend.

Everyone knew it. He’d made sure of it as soon as your friendship had been born. You were his friend. First and foremost, above anything else.

You were his. His friend. His follower. Almost his lover even.

Not anymore.

From as far back as he could remember until his seventh year of school, you’d been by Tom’s side. The two of you grew up together. Shared classes together. Practiced dark magic spells together.

And then graduation came and ruined everything.

He hadn’t meant it to. When he’d confessed to you, he’d thought you’d felt the same. Thought you’d felt the spark between you. The feverish heat that came with late night talks and too long glances.

But no.

You hadn’t seen Tom as anything more than a friend. Even worse, you’d called him your little brother. It had made him sick, to think that all that time he’d been pining after you, you’d never even looked his way.

So he’d cut you out of his life. Carved you out of his heart and left a bleeding hole there instead.

It hurt every day you weren’t there.

But he’s stronger now. He has Abraxas and Bellatrix to take your place.

He never finds himself clutching his chest, gripping so hard his knuckles turn white from how strong the pain is of missing you. Never. Not even once.

Not even making a horcrux hurt as badly as missing you.

But Tom was content. He was fine. He had other followers who were just as loyal as you’d been. He didn’t need you anymore.

At least, that’s what he told himself.

It all changed the moment your name fell from Abraxas’ lips.

Tom’s head snaps up immediately, eyes cold and intense. “What did you say?”

Abraxas blanches, as if realizing his mistake. “My Lord. I just— I didn’t mean—“

“What did you say?” Tom’s voice is low, almost a hiss of warning.

“I— I said that Lestrange saw him out with someone. A— A woman, it looked like.”

The fury is slow building, but its intensity could’ve fueled countless more murders. Tom rises slowly. He stands, his aura sucking the life out of the room.

“I will return.”

With that, he sweeps out of the room, a cold blaze of fury and betrayal following in his wake.

Neither Abraxas or Bellatrix try to follow.

He finds you in your house. Whether he knocked or not, you’re surprised to see him all the same.

“Tom?” You stare in bafflement, maybe even awe.

He’s not surprised. Tom’s been told many times of his physical beauty, something that only heightened over the years. And it’s been many years since he’s seen you.

You look… very much the same as ever. New hairstyle, perhaps. Your face has matured a bit, making you look a little older. But you’re still you.

“Hello.” He spits out, barely able to hold back the rage and flood of feelings that fill his mind. Anger, betrayal, hurt; as if the rejection had been mere moments ago.

“What are you—“

“Who was she?” Tom demands, interrupting you. You blink.

“Huh? Who was who?”

Tom grabs your shoulder, his fingers digging into your shirt. “The woman you were with.” His voice is venom, pure anger in his tone. His voice shakes with it as he speaks. “Lestrange saw you with someone. Who. Was. She?”

You blink, visibly confused. Then your expression clears. “Oh. Her? She’s just a friend.”

“I don’t believe you. Who. Is. She?” Tom grabs your other shoulder, barely holding back from shaking you.

“A-Aurora Greengrass,” you stammer out, looking even more startled by his anger. “I swear, we’re just friends—“

‘Just friends.’

That’s exactly what you’d called Tom’s relationship with you. A ‘just friends’ thing.

He doesn’t even listen to the rest of your words. Blind to everything but the fury in his veins, he starts rummaging through your shirt pocket. Looking for something. Anything to prove you wrong.

He only finds a pack of cigs and an old lighter.

He tosses them to the side and hauls you over to the nearest wall. Slamming you against it and holding you firmly in place with one hand. “Who is she to you?”

You stammer, unable to form words. Tom grips your shoulder tighter, pressing closer to you. “Answer me!”

“I— I can’t understand what you’re saying!” You cower in the face of his anger. “I can’t understand— Ahhh!”

You yelp and shudder as Tom’s hand grazes your groin. He ignores your reaction and digs into your pants’ pockets, looking for anything at all. There’s nothing but fabric and a single money bill.

Still, his hand continues to search, roaming from pocket to pocket like something will appear. Nothing does.

It only heightens his anger, makes his jaw clench with fury. His words coming out in a hiss. “Is she your lover? Your wife? Or is she just another useless little toy for you?”

You let out a pathetic little moan, hips jolting a bit. Tom’s vaguely aware that his hand has stopped wandering where it’s supposed to be. But he can’t be bothered to look.

“Answer me!” He spits out. “Who is she to you, really?”

“I can’t—“ Your voice comes out as a pathetic whine. “Tom, please! I— I can’t understand you!”

Your hips jolt again and Tom finally looks down. He’s groping you, hand wandering across your half-formed hard on. Unconsciously feeling you up.

And you’re not pushing him away.

In fact, you’re stifling a moan, resting your head back against the wall. Eyes half closed. As if you’re… enjoying this.

A plan forms in his mind. A wicked, wicked plan. If you’re not willing to answer him… he’ll just have to fuck the answer out of you.

“Couch,” he hisses, “Now!”

He yanks you after him, relishing the way you stumble. You don’t deserve his kindness right now; what you need is to be fucked dumb.

Tom pushes you down against the couch and reaches for your belt. You don’t even protest. You just whimper softly and let him do what he wants.

He pulls your cock out, sliding his thumb along the tip. You moan and arch up, precum coating his thumb.

“T-Tom!” You gasp as he fists your cock, gripping tight enough to make you see stars. Your hips thrust up automatically, fucking into the sweet pressure of his hand.

“Shut up!” Tom hisses, eyes narrowing. He starts to move his hand and you choke with pleasure.

“I can’t— fuck!” Your head is thrown back against the couch, hands gripping the cushions tight enough to make your knuckles white.

You moan and writhe under Tom as he guides his hand along your cock, shifting and changing the pressure until he finds what makes you gasp.

And then, he pulls back.

Making you almost sob from the loss.

You reach for him, voice cracking pathetically. “Tom, please…!”

He bats your hands away, manhandling you until you’re kneeling on the couch. Pants around your ankles.

You grip the back of the couch tightly, practically clinging to it as Tom undoes his own belt. He grabs your hands, looping the thick leather around them. Pinning your hands together. You’re tied up now, unable to free your hands.

Tom frees his own cock, lining himself up with your asshole. You shudder and whimper, face flushed red. “Please!”

“Needy little bastard,” Tom hisses. “Can barely even wait for me.”

You just moan and press back against him. “Fuck, that’s so hot…”

Slowly, Tom sinks into you. Inch by glorious inch, he slides his cock into your greedy little hole. You clench hotly around him, making his breathing stutter.

You feel divine.

Hot and tight and perfect.

He bottoms out, cock buried deep inside you. He grips your shoulders, resting his forehead against your back in an effort to keep from cumming on the spot.

You’re a moaning mess, soft pleading babbles mixed with whimpers and gasps. Tom can barely understand you, you’re so incoherent.

It’s exactly what he wants. You fucked out enough that you forget how to speak.

Finally, he starts to move. In and out, each thrust getting faster and more aggressive. Slowly building up until you’re sobbing underneath him, mindlessly whining with pleasure.

You look glorious. Perfect.

It’s like a dream come true, you underneath him finally, just like it was always meant to be.

The thought makes his hips stutter and he grips your cock. He won’t last long like this; you’re clenching around him too tightly.

With a couple good firm strokes, you’re spilling onto the couch, cumming with a loud cry.

Not even moments later, Tom thrusts into your ass, filling you up with a gasp of his own. He shudders and leans against you again, struggling to catch his breath.

Slowly, he pulls out of you, absently rubbing along your back. The rage is gone from him, leaving him feeling tired and drained.

“Are you…” Alright doesn’t seem like the right word for the situation.

But you just moan softly. Roll over onto your back and gaze up at him with dreamy eyes. “Fuck yeah…”

Tom chuckles softly, almost tenderly. He can’t help it. It’s you.

Gently, he undoes his belt around your hands. They flop uselessly to your sides, as boneless as the rest of you. You just melt into a puddle of dreamy gazes and soft smiles.

He literally fucked you dumb.

As you continue to bask in the afterglow of your fucking, clarity starts to return to Tom. This is his opportunity. His chance to look around and see what you’ve been doing with your life since he cut you out of his.

But…

Gazing down at you…

Tom settles himself on the couch next to you and pulls you into his arms. You happily snuggle into him, burying your face in his neck.

Snooping can wait.

It’s been forever since he had you all to himself like this.

And he’s planning on taking advantage of every moment he can get.

[lvrgirlrey]

requests....open yippie !!

my request is, the reader (im enby but, mind using she/her prns for the reader? :3) is crying, because she feels like her feelings dont matter, and the bsd men (jouno, tetchou, dazai and ranpo) try to comfort them, wanna try this prompt? :D

no pressure <<333

-K.

𝕒𝕦𝕥𝕙𝕠𝕣’𝕤 𝕟𝕠𝕥𝕖: hi!! idk why but i love the way u typed this out, it just sounds so energetic, its so cute! you didnt specify if you wanted little stories or hcs so i just did the former >_< hope you enjoy!

𝕔𝕠𝕟𝕥𝕖𝕟𝕥 𝕨𝕒𝕣𝕟𝕚𝕟𝕘𝕤: none this is just some angst and fluff

𝕛𝕠𝕦𝕟𝕠

you sat in the corner of your room, knees pulled up to your chest, trying your best to hold back the tears, but they slipped out anyway. it was like no matter how hard you tried, nothing you said ever got through to people. it felt like your words, your feelings, just floated away, unnoticed and unimportant. you wiped at your eyes, frustrated with yourself for crying, but the tears kept coming.

you didn’t even hear jouno come in. he was quiet as ever, his footsteps barely making a sound. he stood at the doorway for a moment, listening. he could hear the way your breath was unsteady, the way your heart raced. it wasn’t hard for him to figure out that something was wrong.

“why are you crying?” his voice was calm, though there was a slight edge of curiosity in it. he wasn’t the type to get emotional, but that didn’t mean he was completely heartless.

you quickly wiped at your face again, trying to hide the fact that you’d been crying. “it’s nothing,” you mumbled, not wanting to drag him into it. “just ignore me.”

jouno frowned slightly, his sharp senses picking up on the sadness in your voice. he stepped further into the room, his presence suddenly more noticeable to you. “if it was nothing, you wouldn’t be crying,” he said plainly, but not unkindly.

you shook your head, feeling embarrassed and small under his gaze. “i don’t want to talk about it. it’s stupid.”

he knelt down beside you, though he didn’t reach out to touch you just yet. “you say that, but it’s clearly bothering you,” he pointed out. “i might not be the best with these things, but i can tell something’s weighing on you.”

you hesitated, biting your lip. jouno wasn’t exactly the warmest person, and you weren’t sure how he’d react if you opened up. but something about the way he was sitting there, not pushing you but still staying close, made you feel like it was okay to talk.

“i just feel like… no one cares,” you admitted in a small voice. “like my feelings don’t matter. i try to explain things, but it’s like people don’t really listen. it’s like i don’t even exist sometimes.”

jouno was quiet for a moment, thinking over your words. then, slowly, he reached out and placed a hand on your shoulder, his touch surprisingly gentle. “your feelings do matter,” he said, his tone serious. “just because some people don’t listen doesn’t mean what you feel is meaningless. i might not be able to see your face, but i can hear your voice. and i’m listening.”

his words were simple, but they eased some of the tightness in your chest. you looked up at him, your tears slowing down. “really?” you asked, your voice still a little shaky. he nodded. “really. you’re not invisible to me.”

the reassurance in his voice brought you some comfort, and for the first time that night, you felt like maybe your feelings did matter to someone. jouno wasn’t always easy to read, but you could tell he meant what he said. it wasn’t much, but it was enough to make you feel a little less alone.

𝕥𝕖𝕥𝕔𝕙𝕠𝕦

you sat on the floor, your back against the wall, trying your best to keep quiet, but the tears wouldn’t stop. your chest felt heavy, weighed down by the growing feeling that your thoughts and emotions didn’t seem to matter to anyone. no matter how many times you tried to speak up, it felt like your words just went unheard, like they disappeared into thin air. you wiped at your face, hoping to pull yourself together, but it was hard.

the door creaked open, and tetchou stepped inside. he noticed you right away, his sharp eyes taking in the scene. you didn’t bother to look up; you didn’t want him to see you like this. but tetchou wasn’t the type to walk away when something was wrong.

he crossed the room, kneeling down beside you, his movements careful and deliberate. he didn’t say anything at first, but you could feel his presence next to you, solid and steady. “are you crying?” his voice was low, not pressing, but full of concern.

you shook your head, even though it was clear you were. “i’m fine,” you mumbled, trying to wipe away the tears with the sleeve of your shirt. “just… don’t worry about it.”

tetchou frowned slightly. he wasn’t the most expressive person, but he could tell when something was wrong, and he could feel that you weren’t okay. “you’re clearly not fine,” he said softly. “something’s bothering you.”

you swallowed hard, still avoiding his gaze. “it’s just… i don’t know. i feel like no one cares about what i’m feeling. like i’m just talking to myself sometimes. it doesn’t matter what i say, it’s like no one really listens.”

tetchou stayed silent for a moment, processing your words. he wasn’t great with emotions—he’d be the first to admit that. but he wasn’t going to leave you alone in this.

slowly, he reached out, his hand resting gently on your shoulder. his touch was warm, grounding. “i’m listening,” he said simply, but there was a seriousness to his voice that told you he meant it. “your feelings do matter. i care.”

his words made your chest tighten again, but this time, it was for a different reason. you weren’t used to someone being so direct, but also so kind in their honesty. you glanced up at him through your tears, surprised by the sincerity in his face.

“you care?” you asked, your voice soft, almost afraid to believe it.

tetchou nodded firmly. “of course i do. you’re important to me.” his grip on your shoulder tightened slightly, like he was making sure you understood. “your feelings are important. if something’s hurting you, i want to know.”

his words, while simple, brought a strange sense of calm over you. the tears slowed, and you felt a little lighter, as if the weight pressing down on you had lessened just a bit. you wiped your eyes again, this time feeling a little more in control of yourself.

“thank you,” you whispered, your voice shaky but sincere. “i guess i just needed to hear that.”

tetchou didn’t say anything else, but he stayed close, his hand never leaving your shoulder. and even though the silence filled the room, it wasn’t uncomfortable. it was a silence that told you that you weren’t alone, that even when you felt invisible, someone was there, ready to listen.

𝕣𝕒𝕟𝕡𝕠

you sat curled up on the couch, trying your best to hold back the tears, but they kept falling anyway. it was hard to explain exactly why you felt this way, but deep down, it came from the fact that no matter what you said or how hard you tried, your feelings seemed to go unnoticed by everyone around you. it was like no one really listened. you felt invisible, like you didn’t matter, and that thought weighed heavy on your chest.

as you sat there, lost in your sadness, you didn’t notice ranpo until he was standing right in front of you. he wasn’t one to miss details, and he could tell something was wrong right away. he might have been a bit careless with emotions sometimes, but this was different. he frowned, tilting his head slightly as he watched you wipe your tears away. “hey,” ranpo said softly, sitting down next to you. “why are you crying?”

you didn’t want to answer him. after all, it wasn’t like he could change anything. you just shrugged, trying to brush it off, but your voice cracked as you said, “it’s nothing.”

ranpo didn’t buy that for a second. he leaned back a little, crossing his arms as he watched you, his eyes sharp and observant, as usual. “it’s not nothing if you’re crying. so, what’s going on?”

you sighed, not really sure how to explain it. “i just feel like… no one listens. like, i try to talk about how i feel, but it’s like it doesn’t matter. i keep talking, but no one really hears me.”

ranpo was quiet for a moment, processing your words. then, with a small sigh of his own, he shifted closer to you. “i hear you,” he said softly, his tone much gentler than usual. “your feelings do matter, you know.”

you looked at him, surprised. ranpo wasn’t exactly the most emotional person, and hearing him speak so seriously was unexpected. you blinked away a few more tears, sniffling slightly. “you do?”

ranpo nodded, his usual confident smile returning a little. “of course i do. you’re important to me, and if something’s bothering you, then i want to know. you’re not invisible, even if it feels like that sometimes.”

his words made your chest feel a little lighter. it was strange, but comforting in its own way. you hadn’t expected ranpo to be the one to say something like that, but it meant more than you realized.

“thank you,” you whispered, wiping at your face again. he shrugged, giving you a small grin. “don’t mention it. just remember, if you need someone to listen, i’m here. even if i’m a genius, i still care.”

you smiled at his words, feeling a little better knowing that someone, especially ranpo, had noticed. even in his own way, he made sure you knew you weren’t alone.

𝕕𝕒𝕫𝕒𝕚

you sat on the edge of your bed, staring out the window as the rain fell softly against the glass. the world outside seemed so distant, and the tears rolling down your cheeks made it even harder to focus. it felt like everything was closing in on you. no matter how much you tried to talk about your feelings, it felt like no one truly listened. it was as if your thoughts and emotions just floated away, leaving you feeling empty and alone.

the door creaked open, and you turned to see dazai leaning against the frame, his usual playful grin fading when he saw your tear-streaked face. he stepped into the room, his eyes narrowing slightly with concern. “what’s wrong?” he asked, his voice soft and gentle, a tone you didn’t often hear from him.

you quickly wiped your face with your sleeve, not wanting to show him how upset you were. “it’s nothing, really,” you lied, trying to muster a smile. “i’m fine.”

dazai raised an eyebrow, clearly not believing you. he walked over and sat down next to you on the bed, the playful demeanor replaced by a more serious look. “you don’t look fine. come on, you can tell me.”

you hesitated, feeling a lump in your throat. “it’s just… i feel like my feelings don’t matter. like, no matter how hard i try to talk, it’s like no one hears me. it’s frustrating.”

he listened quietly, letting you pour out your thoughts. with each word, you felt a little lighter, but the tears kept coming. “i just want to be heard,” you said, your voice shaking. “i want to know that what i feel matters.”

dazai leaned closer, his expression softening. “you matter to me,” he said firmly. “your feelings are important. i may joke around a lot, but that doesn’t mean i don’t take you seriously.”

you looked at him, surprised by the sincerity in his eyes. “you really think so?”

“of course,” he replied, a gentle smile breaking through. “everyone has feelings. even if it seems like no one cares, that doesn’t mean they aren’t real. you are real. your feelings matter to me.”

he reached out, brushing a tear away from your cheek with his thumb. the touch was surprisingly comforting, and you felt your heart swell a little. “it’s okay to cry. it’s okay to feel sad. just know you don’t have to go through this alone.”

you nodded, the warmth of his words wrapping around you like a blanket. “thank you, dazai,” you whispered, your voice still shaky but a little stronger now. “it really helps to hear you say that.”

dazai grinned again, his usual charm returning. “anytime. just remember, if you ever feel down, you can always count on me. besides, someone has to keep you from getting too serious all the time.”

with that, you couldn’t help but chuckle through your tears. you realized that even in your darkest moments, dazai had a way of shining a little light, reminding you that you weren’t alone.

[formulaforza]

hbd my lil' lemonade connoisseur!

I'm saying blurb for Charles; him coming to surprise you at University or something?

—the nearness of you

summ. title from this. i'm only twenty-two days late on this req. that's got to be a new record for me. 800+ words.

It was like any other day as of late. Full of brutal seven-am alarms and even more brutal eight o’clock classes across campus. Half a dozen assignments due before the end of the week, a baker’s dozen by the following. 

Campus was surprisingly dead and the weather was wonderfully crisp and you had no idea the turn your evening was about to take when you’d decided to take a walk at sunset, to clear your mind with the cool autumn air. 

It greets you with a shudder and the sound of browned leaves crunching under your feet. It was like a scene from a movie—something utterly fall-ish and romantic. When Harry met Sally, maybe. All cable knit sweaters and falling leaves and careful scenery. 

Unbeknownst to you, he—Charles, your Charles—is walking around the same campus, enjoying his walk a hell of a lot less than you are. He doesn’t notice the smell of burnt orange or the falling leaves on the green grass. He’s too occupied trying to find his way to your friend’s hall—to your friend’s dorm—to you. His mind is full of mumbled directions and the pursed lips they leave. Of how perfect yours are, of how badly he wants to kiss them. 

He’d been planning the surprise for weeks. For months, almost, since before you’d even left home for the year. He’s prouder of his ability to keep it secret from you than he is of his directional skills. Carefully, he’d coordinated the whole thing with your friends to ensure the perfect surprise, and it was finally here. It was finally here, as long as he could find his fucking way around. 

Your phone vibrated in your back pocket, a text from your best friend. She was asking you to swing by her dorm ASAP, swore she had a shirt of yours that you could swear you’d folded and put away two nights earlier. You complied, though, and gave her your ETA before making a U-Turn on the path you were walking down. 

When you finally make it there, you’re surprised to find her always-open door is shut. You’re even more surprised when you move to turn the door handle only to find it locked. You look around the hall like a trick is being played on you because her door is always open. Always. And you don’t think she even knew there was a lock. 

You knock, thrice, and call her name on the other side of the door, reminding her that this isn’t as funny as she surely thinks it is. Nothing, however, could prepare you for who answered your knock. 

Charles. Charles with a bouquet of flowers. Charles with a bouquet of flowers and a big goofy smile on his face. Your stomach drops three separate times in a single second—from annoyed your friend isn’t answering, to horrified by someone else answering her door, to recognizing that it’s him. That he’s in front of you. 

You squish the flowers horribly, completely disregard their presence in your joy of slamming yourself into him with the force of every hour apart. “Putain, c'est quoi!” What the fuck! you say, and your voice comes out far more cracked than you’d intended on it being. 

With Charles, you’ve found that you don’t realize just how much you miss him until you’re with him again, ambushed by the reality of it all, of everything that is to love about him. There’s so much, so much more than you realize each and every time you’re apart. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, but you’re always fond of him. The fondest. 

The evening unfolds into a flurry of laughter and stories and love. So much love. It’s like his presence had cast a spell over campus, made it all magical and energized like it was your first time there. The buildings fall into the background, nothing more than the scenic backdrop for your love story, for your catching up and calming down. 

Your dorm becomes a cozy haven for endless conversation. Spontaneous chest games and first-hand accounts of last week’s race keep you smiling, and his never ending genuine interest in your life here makes you fall head over heels over and over again, every word that leaves his mouth making you feel particularly cherished, like the luckiest person around. 

Dusk turns to dark and the two of you sit together at the dorm window, watching the same stars you’re always looking at. The same moon that serves as a reminder the world is never too big, the distance is never too much. It doesn’t matter where the two of you are, it’s always the same moon and stars in the sky. It’s a silent kind of love, careful like an early morning, beloved like a matching cup of coffee. 

It’s a short visit. Too short, always too short, but it ends with promises of more, of this weekend and that. 

You should be sad when he leaves, maybe, but you aren’t. You aren’t. You’re just full of love, and so, so happy to spend even a few hours with him. 

[giveafike]

thigh riding with ben….. pleaseeeee 😂

TLDR: You miss Ben so much and you're needy. So when he comes back, you're straddling.

Word count + info: 2.1k! Dialogue, fem reader x B.T.S

Warnings + Content Ahead: NSFW - MINORS DNI! Thighriding, hickeys, kissing...that's it I think.

Azzie Notes ✚: Mhmmm you got it! Based off of the poll I did, here's the NSFW blurb u NASTY PEOPLE wanted (kidding, I am just as bad)

Thigh riding blurb is here! I have another draft ready to post, but I'll slow release 'em so I can finish off one story while a new one goes up. I take so long to write im srry : ( but! a few long stories are comin' along. By the time this goes up, I should have 1.5-2 more prompts ready to go?

Do we like longer stories as in like 3k+ word count? Or shorter ones? send me a DM or anon feedback pls I wanna know how I'm doing or if you wish I added things (like more description, more dialogue, more focus on story plot, less extra content) and stuff! Lmk!

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Come Here - B.T.S

It was early when Ben left for training, his morning routine blending quiet focus and unshakable determination. He’d stirred you awake by wrapping his strong arms around you, planting soft kisses on the back of your head, like he always does. Even half-asleep, you watched him from under the covers as he got dressed, catching glimpses of those defined muscles moving while the morning light danced across his skin, with shadows making him look like a model as he pulled on his tennis gear. He flashed you that heart-stopping grin, whispering a soft “Good mornin', see you later,” before leaning down to press a lingering kiss to your forehead.

Now, hours later, you sat slouched at your kitchen table, dumbfounded pretending to work at home but failing miserably. Ben has been your boyfriend for so long but here you were, squirmish like you just met him. You’d tried everything to distract you; trying to type up emails, playing soft music, making coffee, but nothing could pull your mind from the simmering heat that had taken hold of you since the morning. Your coffee had gone cold, your laptop had entered sleep mode, and all you could think about was Ben. Work wasn’t hard today; your focus was just... elsewhere.

Maybe it was the morning show or maybe it was shortly after that when he left out the door, when you were in bed, squinting at your phone while mindlessly scrolling Twitter. Someone had posted a picture of Ben fresh from a training session, his shirt clinging to his chest, damp curls swept back, legs muscular and defined. Then there was that TikTok edit, showcasing highlights of your man on the court. His veins popped with each power shot, his thick thighs moved like a stallion’s as he manoeuvred with ease, and the intense focus in his eyes, it all did something to you.

The heat rose to your cheeks again just thinking about it as you groaned, throwing your hands over your face. Normally, you’d smirk, knowing all that was yours, but now you were losing it like a fangirl. It was as if you’d been thrown back into the honeymoon phase, when every glance, every accidental brush of his skin would send electricity through your veins. You couldn’t stop imagining the way his thighs flexed beneath those stupid short shorts, the strength in his legs when he held you, and how his hands clenched whenever he secured a set.

You leaned back in your chair, now fanning your face. Nothing was helping the ache building inside of you as you clenched your thighs together. Your phone buzzed with another work notification, but the words blurred. All you could think about was Ben, how bad you wanted him here, how feral you'd be if you could have his solid chest under your hands, the way he whispered obscene things in your ear, and how he’d press you close, body warm and firm against yours.

God, you missed him.

It wasn’t even like he’d been gone for days, but the thought of him out there, sweating and training, only made the hours stretch longer. You were arguing with yourself, trying to get a grip. You resisted the urge to text or call him, knowing he needed to stay focused. If you asked him to come home for a “lunch break,” he would, and he wouldn’t be able to leave you afterwards. And you didn’t want to break his concentration with needy messages about how hot he looked or how badly you wanted him.

By the time 4:00 PM rolled around, all you could think about was him. You’d tried a cold shower to cool yourself down, but it only made your thoughts swirl more. In every room you entered, you could imagine Ben beside or behind you, his presence filling the space; "God if he was here...". Restless, you ended up on the sofa in one of his T-shirts and some shorts, bouncing your leg as you waited. Everything about him that you’d craved all day swirled in your mind. You put on some show on Netflix, and the noise keeps you company as you wait.

Finally, you heard the front door unlock, and before you knew it, you were perked up, staring at the door.

Ben stepped in, fresh from a shower, his face flushed from coming back, his hair still damp and tousled. His clean shirt clung to his broad chest, and his thick thighs filled out his joggers in a way that made your heart race.

“Hey, babe,” he greeted, his voice smooth and relaxed, his drawl slipping through as he set down his bag. That accent of his made your knees like jelly, especially today. His easy smile made you melt on the spot as his gaze landed on you, sitting on the couch but clearly eager. You tried to play it cool, but the way your body practically buzzed with anticipation sold you out.

“What’s goin’ on with you?” Ben laughed softly, resting his hands on his hips.

You bit your lip, fighting the giddy smile threatening to break free. “Nothing...” you muttered trying to be coy, glancing at him through your lashes. “Just missed you.”

Ben’s laugh was warm, amused. “Oh, I can tell,” he teased, moving toward you and sitting beside you on the sofa. His arm stretched across the back of the couch, casually but with enough presence to make your heart skip. “You’re lookin’ at me like I’ve been gone for weeks.”

Your face flushed. It had only been hours, but it felt like weeks with how desperate you were for him. “I couldn’t focus all day, Ben” you confessed, voice barely above a whisper. You leaned into him, inhaling the fresh scent of his shower, biting your lip “Kept thinking about you.”

His smirk widened as his eyes danced with amusement. “Yeah? What exactly were you thinkin’ ‘bout?”

Your gaze dropped to his body, tracing the outline of his strong thighs, his solid chest, his muscular arms resting lazily around you. You swallowed, heat rising in your cheeks as you met his eyes again, and the teasing glint in them made your stomach twist in anticipation.

“You’re somethin’ else,” he said, shaking his head with a grin. He knew exactly what you were getting at. “Come here, baby”.

The second the words left his mouth, you moved. Eagerly, you climbed onto his lap, straddling him without hesitation. His hands gripped your hips, firm but gentle, guiding you closer as you settled on top of him, your heart pounding against your chest.

“There we go, feel better, babe?” Ben murmured, his voice low and teasing, eyes gleaming with tenderness. He leaned back, relaxing into the cushions as his hands slid up your sides, pulling you flush against him.

Your pulse raced, all the tension you’d carried throughout the day melting away in the warmth of his embrace. His thigh was solid beneath you, grounding you, and when his lips brushed yours in a soft, teasing kiss, you felt like you could finally breathe again.

“You missed me this bad, huh?” he teased, voice rough with amusement as his lips hovered just over yours.

“More than you know,” you breathed, kissing him again, deeper this time, your fingers threading through his damp hair as his grip on your hips tightened and you let out a moan.

Ben chuckled against your lips, the sound vibrating through your body. “Damn, maybe I should go to practice more often if this is how I’m welcomed home,” he teased, kissing you slowly, savouring the moment.

You laughed softly against his mouth, pulling back just enough to look at him. “God, please don’t,” you whispered, pressing your forehead to his. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you. You have been driving me crazy.”

He smiled, his hands squeezing your hips as his eyes darkened with affection and desire. “How ‘bout you show me how much you missed me, then?”. He was tugging on his sweatpants with that voice where it dropped to that low, intimate tone that always made your stomach flutter. You pulled his sweatpants down which he kicked off before he slipped his hands through the waistband of your pj shorts, yanking those down, leaving you in your panties. You set yourself back down on him, your hips bucked, your needy motions getting Ben aroused. He smirked as he watched you roll against him.

Your fingers trailed over his chest before gripping the hem of his shirt. With a swift motion, you pulled it over his head, revealing his built torso. Your hands explored his skin, tracing every curve and contour with your nails. He shuddered under your touch, his breathing growing heavier. The sight of him aroused as you worked yourself to an orgasm was heavenly. His boxers grew tighter, his breathing more laboured and all you were doing was grinding on his lap.

Leaning forward, you pressed your lips to his neck, leaving a trail of hot kisses and hickeys along his jawline. You suckled and gnawed, trailing your teeth over him, making Ben throw his head back in a groan. His hands found your hips, gripping tightly as he guided your movements down hard against him. The friction was intoxicating, sending waves of pleasure through your body. You both found a rhythm as Ben moved up into you, bucking his leg up and moving it in a delicious, teasing way.

You felt his fingers slip under the fabric of your shirt, caressing the small of your back. The heat of his touch ignited your skin, leaving you craving more. With a soft moan, you captured his lips in a passionate kiss, tongues dancing as the intensity between you built to a fever pitch. Ben's hands glided up your back as he ran a tongue on your bottom lip, pushing forward into your mouth. He breaks the kiss to pull his t-shirt off of you, and the cool air hits your skin, causing goosebumps to rise. His eyes raked over your exposed flesh, a low growl escaping his throat.

"God, you're so beautiful," he murmured, voice husky with desire.

You felt a blush creep across your cheeks at his words. Even after all this time, he still had the power to make you feel like the only woman in the world. His lips found yours again, more urgent, more hungry this time. You melted into the kiss, letting yourself get lost in the sensation. Your hands roamed his body, fingernails lightly scraping down the back of his shoulders. Ben shivered in response, breaking the kiss to trail his mouth down your neck. You could feel your climax coming, the feeling of him roaming you all over sending you into overdrive.

“That’s it, keep goin’ baby, cum on me” he murmured against your skin, planting wet kisses. Ben lavished attention on your collarbone, alternating between gentle kisses and playful nips as his hands played with your breasts. As your hips moved with a mind of their own, Ben held you tightly, his hands steadying you as you rode out the waves of pleasure, watching you throw your head back and let waves of moans leave your mouth.

His eyes never left your face as he smiled watching you come down from your high. You rest your head in the crook of his neck, your heart pounding and your breathing laboured. You could feel your core twitch and thrum against him, ready for more as you left a pool on his leg. You hear Ben chuckle and rub your back softly.

“What a pretty mess you've made,” he said, his voice soft and warm, “guess it’s a good thing we’ve got the whole evenin’ together”.

You couldn’t help but smile, your heart racing as you looked up at him, pressing his lips to yours once more. The kiss deepened, slow but intense, the kind that made you feel like everything outside this moment had disappeared. His hands slid up to cup your face, his thumb brushing gently against your cheek as the tension you’d felt all day finally unravelled. You melted into him, letting yourself get lost in the warmth of his embrace.

The TV in the background played a forgotten Netflix show, but neither of you cared. All you wanted was right here, him, his arms around you, and the undeniable pull between you that made it feel like nothing else mattered.

[buckysgrace]

okay hear me out pls, or u can ignore me forever…but what about gator comforting the reader (she’s 21 tho and in secret relationship with gator for months now) about her spring allergies causing her insomnia and her stuffy nose driving her insane all day but he takes care of her? maybe he makes her feel good even down there with his mouth bc he knows it helps her sleep hehe and she literally falls asleep but he’s gentle (bc she’s still sore from last night) while he eats her out and is holding his hand? <3 love ur writing sm, keep up ur work ^^

CW: Oral sex <3

Hope you enjoy!

“What’s wrong with you?” He questioned, watching the way you dramatically threw yourself back on the bed. You grumbled, your head pounding and nose stuffed full of tissues. You’d done nothing but suffer the past few days, unable to sleep and forced to live with the constant ringing behind your eyes.

“Allergies,” You whined as you held you hands out, watching the way he crossed your room slowly, “I feel terrible.” You grumbled as you blew your nose again, then tossed the tissues into the trash can. Your body was aching, sore from how your cold was affecting you. 

“You look pretty funny too.” He commented teasingly, grinning as he looked down at you. You were surprised that he’d come by at all, knowing that there wasn��t much that you’d actually be able to do. You didn’t want him to deal with you coughing and sneezing anywhere either. 

“Thanks,” You said dryly, but felt a smile forming against the corner of your lips, “I thought you couldn’t come by?” You watched as he shrugged his jacket off and sat it on one of your dressers. Spring had rolled around, but there was still a light dusting of snow still leftover from the last storm. 

“I can always sneak away for you,” He grinned as he sat at the edge of your bed, brushing his fingers across your cheek, “You still can’t sleep?” He questioned you softer this time, sounding concerned as you rested your cheek against his palm. 

“No,” You moaned pitifully before you sighed deeply, desperately feeling the need to fill your lungs with air, “I start to fall asleep but then I wake up to sneeze or cough or just because I can’t breathe.” You were truly in misery. 

“Poor baby,” He mocked as he pouted his eyes out, his tongue condescending yet his eyes told a different story. They were soft, gentle and full of worry. It made you a little nervous as you crept deeper into your sheets, “What are we going to do to fix that?”

“Don’t know,” You said softly, smiling at the way he rubbed his thumb across your hip, “I’ve tried everything.” You drew out playfully, sighing deeply as you looked at him again. You really enjoyed the look that grew in his eyes, how sometimes you swore you could see just how much he cared for you. Even if he didn’t admit it yet. 

“Everything?” He questioned as he tilted his head, raising his eyebrows like he knew more than you. You grinned in response, enjoying his little banter. He really did make you feel better, even without really trying.

“Mhm,” You nodded along, “Just about. I think I’m just forced to suffer.” You rested your hand on your head playfully, feigning dramatics as he chuckled softly. He shifted a little closer to you, beginning to move his legs underneath your own. 

“Maybe I can help?” He suggested as he pulled the blankets off of you, making you shiver in response. You watched him curiously as he pulled your legs apart, settling between them. 

“What have you got in mind?” You asked him curiously as you sat up on your elbows, doing your best to keep from sneezing everywhere. He pressed down on your hips slowly, making you settle back against the mattress. 

“Just relax,” He mumbled as he looped his fingers through the band of your pajama pants. He slowly tugged them down your thighs, his eyes hazy as he drank in the image of your skin. You still felt nervous sometimes with how intensely he watched you, like he was memorizing every inch of you, “I’ll take good care of you, mama.” He promised sweetly, his lips curling into a smirk.

He dipped between your thighs dragging his lips against your smooth skin as he inhaled the scent of you. It made you quiver, goosebumps forming on your skin as he slowly pressed his mouth against your panties. 

You breathed out slowly, your lungs filling with much needed air as he flicked his tongue out against your clothed cunt. You whimpered in response, your clit tingling with desire as he messily licked across your panties.

“Gator,” You whispered softly, moaning as your hips jerked in anticipation, “Please. Don’t tease me.” You begged softly as you brushed your fingers across the top of his head, knowing that he liked to have his hair played with despite his protests. 

“Alright,” He mumbled as he placed a few more kisses against your panties, “Only because you don’t feel good.” He added, giving you a knowing look as he began to tug the material down your thighs. He kissed at one knee, bringing it up as he slowly slid one ankle out of them.

He dragged his lips teasingly across your cunt, flicking his tongue against your sensitive clit to make your hips jerk forward again. You sighed blissfully, your headache and stuffy nose forgotten as he dragged his tongue across your clit.

His mouth was warm and wet, sloppy as he curled his tongue through your folds. He licked away your slick, inhaling the taste of you as he gripped the back of your thighs. He squeezed softly, like he was trying to keep from digging his fingertips into your flesh.

He wrapped his lips around your clit, sucking softly as you felt a wave of pleasure crash over you. You rolled your hips slowly, whimpering and whining as he began to languidly flick his tongue across your sensitive bud. Your toes curled in awe as moans rolled off of your tongue, filling the room in a loud melody. 

He groaned against your cunt, his desperation evident by the way he continued to drag his mouth against your wet folds. He played with your clit, continuing to flick his tongue against it in the manner that you licked.

He spread your legs further, exposing you further to him as he moved his mouth downwards. He dragged his tongue across your hole, teasing you as he slowly slid his tongue inside of your spongy walls. You gasped as you stretched around him, inviting him inside as he licked at your cunt.

“Jesus, Gator,” You moaned as your fingers tangled into the back of his hair, tugging him closer as you began to rock your hips forward more frantically. His nose began to brush against your clit, digging into you as he curled his tongue deeper inside of you, “Oh my God!” You squealed, your lungs straining as the pleasure crashed over you.

Your clit was throbbing as he continued to flick his tongue inside of your walls, licking away your slick as his nose dug into your clit. Everything felt too good as you rocked yourself against his face, not caring how messy you made him. 

The pleasure crashed over you, cracking inside of you as you came with a loud cry. Your fingers tightened in his hair, pulling him closer as you felt the waves rocking through your body. He whined from underneath you, his hips pressing into the mattress as he held onto your thighs tightly. It burnt a little bit, but in a good way. In a way you craved.

“Fuck,” He groaned as he slowly came up for air, but continued to kiss along your sensitive pussy. His eyes were glazed over as he met your gaze, his face coated in your slick, “Your little tang tastes so good for me. You’re such a good girl.” He praised, making your chest warm at the way he softly dragged his fingers up your thighs.

You settled back against the pillows, heart hammering roughly as he slowly took the courtesy of cleaning you up. You giggled softly, legs pulling together before he slid your panties and pants back over your legs. You watched as he leant over you, crowding you into the mattress as he brushed his thumb against your nose.

“I’ll warm you up some soup,” He suggested at last as he pulled his lips into the softest grin, “Then maybe you can repay me later.” He mumbled as he bent over to kiss the corners of your lips. You smiled at the idea, lucky that you had someone like him.