#it feels too oddly timed to be mere coincidence

[allieglasswingvt]

So my husbun fell out of bed this morning (scared the crap out of me). He’s okay, but the funniest thing happened later on. He’s playing Pokémon Legends: Arceus to get hyped for when his copy of Pokémon Scarlet gets here, and he’s talking to someone, and the dialogue box has the AUDACITY to go “Good thing you can’t fall out of the futons we sleep in around here, I think our friend has had enough falling for one day.” Is this game self-aware!?

[gojoest]

𝐌𝐀𝐊𝐄 𝐀 𝐖𝐈𝐒𝐇 𝐁𝐄𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐁𝐋𝐎𝐖 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐋𝐄 — gojo satoru

MDNI, f! reader, she/her pronouns used, wc: 3.3k, flashback of how you met (1st part of the fic, past tense used, then we jump back to present, divider used to separate the two timelines. both take place on his birthday btw), suguru makes an appearance (as satoru’s wingman :3), established relationship (you’re married & have a daughter), reader wears a dress, first time face sitting + riding (oral, f! receiving), pet names (baby, my love), he cums in his pants, breeding implied at the end (sort of, to avoid spoilers)

a/n: happy birthday to my biggest mental illness ♡

side note: if the story of how you met sounds familiar to you, please note that it was from one of my talk posts from a while ago & i decided to make use of it : )

what gojo satoru wants — he always gets.

after all, it’s how he made you his as well.

“satoru, you’re staring way too hard at her”, suguru nudged him on the arm.

“think she noticed, too?”, satoru chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck, ears turning slightly red from embarrassment, unsure if it was because he got caught or that it was too obvious he was checking you out.

“very likely. i mean, it’s hard not to notice an annoying pair of blue laser beams persistently invading your space”, suguru mocked. “are you going to talk to her?”

“yes”, satoru firmly replied, without peeling his eyes from you, “i’ll ask her out, i think”

“hey, hey. slow down there”

“nope”, satoru shrugged, almost like a stubborn child disobeying his parent, “i’ve made up my mind — i really want to make her mine”

it was a pure coincidence, or some might say fate, that you ended up in the same restaurant — he was there celebrating his birthday with a small circle of friends while you were present to honor your colleague that had just gotten a promotion at work.

satoru’s eyes relentlessly followed your every move, every gesture, from the moment you walked in and settled on the table next to his. it was rather unusual for him to be this interested in someone simply upon sight, in fact, even desiring to pursue something with someone so immediately. it was always the other way around — women would flock to him because of his looks and peculiar behavior, and of course — his money — but he would turn them down without batting an eye. love and seeking romance were never a priority for him, he did not have time nor any interest in them. but here he was, contradicting himself, being blatantly distracted by your presence while somehow trying to simulate an active conversation with his friends, more than frequently averting his gaze to look at you, his brain busy coming up with a plan to get your number by the end of the night.

it didn’t take him too long to finally make his move. he stood up from his chair and walked over to your table, stopping right behind your seat.

“excuse me”, he leaned in, placing one hand at the edge of the table and the other — at the back of your chair, “hello”, his face mere inches away from yours. taken aback by the way he, a complete stranger, had the guts to get this close to you, you turned to face him with a questioning look.

“i felt like i would regret it for the rest of my life if i didn’t come say hi to you”, he spoke.

truth be told, despite being astounded and a bit put off by his approach, you were slightly intrigued. he was handsome, pretty even — like that one oddly eye-catching cloud in a sky full of thousands that you notice as soon as you look up. the white henley shirt he was wearing made the blue in his eyes pop even more, the v-neck revealing a little bit of his well-crafted chest, just enough to leave you tiny bit wondering about the ridges of his abs beneath.

as much as the scenery up close made your cheeks feel hot, his boldness rubbed you up the wrong way, too much to let it just slide, and you snapped. “is that so? well, now that you’ve said your hi, you can go back to your table and live with no regrets for the rest of your life”, you rolled your eyes skeptically, pushing his hand off the table.

“oh, i am sorry”, he chuckled, brushing his hair back with a hand, “but there are three more things i need to do before leaving, i’m afraid”

you raised an eyebrow, questioning.

“first, let me introduce myself — i am gojo satoru, also known as the man to be your boyfriend, then your husband, and then the father of your children”, he smugly said. your eyes widening at the audacity of his declaration that left you at a loss for words. “second, i hope you don’t mind introducing yourself as well — as you are to be my girlfriend, then my wife, and then the mother of my children — it’s only natural that i know your name”, he continued, “and last but not least — i am not leaving until you give me your number so we can make this all work”

wow. this man was really fucked in the head, you were sure of it — who in the right mind would speak such nonsense to someone they just met? “you have to be joking, right?”, you laughed in genuine disbelief.

“no. i am dead serious”, he replied in a heartbeat.

“is this your move? you pull this on everyone you find remotely attractive?”, you narrowed your eyes.

“actually—”, suguru interrupted, placing a hand on satoru’s shoulder as he approached from behind, “no”, he spoke. “believe me when i tell you this — he’s never been this smooth in his entire life. i know he probably came off a bit creepy, considering the boldness of his actions — hell, even i am creeped out because it’s pretty unusual for him to act like this”, he laughed, glancing at satoru to let him know that he got his back on this. “but, what i’m trying to say is — my friend here seems to really like you as i’ve never seen him be so intense and interested in anyone before. he’s also a birthday boy today — so could you at least give him a chance before turning him down so quickly? you can come sit with us before you make up your mind on whether you want to give him your number or not?”

you thought for a second, weighing the options in your mind — he was pretty, although he annoyed you a little bit by being all bossy and arrogant as if you were compelled to belong to him just because he said so. but there was just something about him you couldn’t quite put your finger on that made you question yourself. were you actually drawn to him? you could say “no” and never hear from him again, occasionally pondering over the what-if’s and should-have’s from this night; or you could say “fuck it” and see where this strange encounter goes, and live your life without regrets — as he would say. there — he was already getting under your skin…

“well”, you sighed, “guess i’m down for that”

by the end of the night not only did you give him your number, but also a promise for a date the next day — the first of many to follow after.

“careful, you’ll wake her up”, you whisper, leaning against the doorframe of your 3-year old’s room and watching your husband place a soft peck on your daughter’s forehead.

“can’t help it”, he speaks quietly, “she looks like an angel”, before fixing the blankets around her, making sure she’s tucked in all cozily. “the nanny said she cried for papa while we were gone”, he puts a hand over his mouth to stop his lips from trembling, his eyes filled with nothing but love and tenderness, welling up and flowing from the corners.

“she’s such a daddy’s girl”, you sigh, a soft smile present on your face, “next year we can stay home and invite everyone else over — that way we won’t have to worry about missing her bedtime”.

“yea”, he hums, “let’s do that next year”, giving her one last kiss before turning off the night lamp and tiptoeing to you. “come on”, he puts a hand at the small of your back as you both walk out of the room.

“do you remember”, satoru speaks softly into your ear while walking behind you on your way to your shared bedroom, his front flat against your back, the hand at the small of it now circling around to rest over your navel, while the other — reaches for the handle of your bedroom door to push it open, “the night we first met on my birthday?”, he continues after carefully guiding you inside.

you stop in the middle of the room, his arms still wrapped around you from behind, your hands resting over his and playing with his knuckles.

“how can i not?” you chuckle, tilting your head back to let him rest his chin on your forehead, “that was one hell of a fortune telling you pulled on me back then”

“but i was right, no?”, he brushes his lips on your forehead before leaving a soft peck, “see — you’re all mine now, just like i said”, and then another, ”i made you my girlfriend first”, and another, “then i gave you my last name”, and a fourth one, “and then you gave me a beautiful daughter, made me a father”, before turning you around to face him.

“you partly owe it to suguru though — he eased me into the situation, unlike you”, you reply, humbling him like you always do. your head is nestled on his broad chest as one of his hands caress the back of it. still in his embrace, he slowly walks you towards the bed. sits at the edge of it and straddles you on his lap. his palms finding their way to the plush of your thighs draped over his, caressing them tenderly but needily as his fingertips press and then release against your flesh in quick repetitive motions.

“this is because i asked him to give me a hand in case you cut me off”, he admits, tilting his head to meet your lips, not to kiss but just to keep them brushing against each other as you speak. he loved doing this a lot.

“oh?”, you gasp into his mouth, pretending to be shocked to your core, “you wanted me so much that you of all people, the gojo satoru, had to ask someone else for help?”

“you have no idea. if that hadn’t worked, i would’ve fallen on my hands and knees and begged you to take me”, one of his hands reaching the side of your face, playing his fingers on the strands of your hair covering your cheek before tucking them behind your ear.

“hmm”, you doubt, “is that so?”, nuzzling your nose against his.

“mhmm”, he nods, “there’s nothing i wouldn’t do for you, i thought you knew that by now. it kind of hurts my feelings that you doubt me actually”, he acts offended, pursing his lips and turning his head to the side to face away from you.

“oh my, what have i done now”, you knit your brows and press your cheek against his, pretending to be very, very sorry about what you just said.

“you made the birthday boy sad”, he huffs a silly, somehow obviously forced, pout, “you’ve got to make it up to me somehow”

“i’d do anything to make the birthday boy smile again — just say the word”, you sweetly pamper, patting the top of his head.

“really?”

“really.”

“anything?”

“anything.”

“you promise not to go back on your word?”

“i promise.”

he pulls his cheek away from yours and looks you in the eyes, the blue in his shining with a darker shade of mischief now. and considering the smug smile on his face, you sigh — perhaps you just got yourself played, falling face down into his little trap.

“then”, he points at his own face, “sit on it”

to say you were surprised by his request would be a lie. he’s many times tried coaxing you into doing this in the past but somehow you managed to avoid it, part of you still shying away from it. it’s not like his tongue has never been inside you before. but riding it as if it were his cock seemed way more obscene in your head than anything you two have ever done previously — and you’ve done pretty much a lot.

“well”, you sigh in defeat, seems like the time has finally come, “today’s your lucky day”, you say as you get up from his lap and turn your back — a signal for him to unzip your dress — to which, of course, he immediately complies.

“as it should be”, his crafty fingers work the slider down, slowly peeling the dress off your body and letting it fall on the floor, followed by your lace thong and bra, “it’s my birthday after all”

“the way you always find a way to make things go your way gets on my nerves so much”, you turn around again and push him on the bed and slowly climb on top of him to straddle his chest.

“make a wish before you blow the candle”, you look down at him, your pussy close to his face, the scent of you tickling his nostrils, and he, instinctively almost, takes a deeper breath, rolling his eyes back and hissing with delight.

“freak”, you quickly look away, embarrassed, but he cups your cheeks, forcing you to look at him again, “i want you to look at me as you ride my face”, his voice comes out breathy, “will you do that for the birthday boy?”

you nod into his palms, “you’re insufferable” — “suffocate me then”, he coos through a grin, grabbing your knees to pull you forward until you’re above his face.

“jerk”, you say, but softly, as you lower your cunt on his willing mouth, landing your softness on his face in slow motion, immediately earning a throaty groan from him that shudders through your pussy lips.

satoru breathes deeply in and out with your heat on his mouth, the scent of you hitting his lungs and even below, reaching all the way down to his groin to further nurture his cock already throbbing in his slacks. his hand reaching down to unbuckle them slightly, to give more space for his hard-on to grow freely.

“mowe”, he muffles incoherently into your pussy, grabbing a handful of your ass cheeks to push you against his face, tilting his head up and down, jutting his jaw up and out to meet you.

you whimper at the friction, your clit bumping and rubbing against his nose as his lips are kissing your folds, his tongue slowly poking at your entrance with the tip before darting in — twirling around your walls — and out.

“nghh…s-sa-t-to—”, you barely cry out his name, tugging at his hair, mercilessly pulling him into your heat. as much as you hated to admit it, you loved this position. your embarrassment long gone and forgotten, you ride his face in a haze, your pussy getting wetter against his mouth and your movements — faster and harder each moment.

“heawen on my fongwue”, he groans. if he could speak properly right now, he would probably make the nastiest, dirtiest remarks, shamelessly walk you through every single thing he was feeling as you rocked your hips back and forth, grinding on his face. he would probably say something about your boobs, too. how they looked so pretty jiggling ever so slightly from the movement. he can’t speak right now, yes, but he can still get his thoughts reach you through actions — his hands run along your belly, gripping your breasts from below, squeezing and squishing them inside of his palms.

you clutch his hands with yours, “i can’t hold this position for too long”, and force them down on your hips for support. you hear him say something through a loud groan but it’s barely recognizable — most likely just him cursing “fuck” and “baby” from pleasure under your pussy, but also from the ego boost you just gave him — that he can make you weak but at the same time desperate enough to want to continue — despite your hips giving up — not only with his cock but his mouth alone, too.

you let him take over as you chase your high, weighing on his face as his hands grip on your hips, dictating your every move, composing the tune of your hips. his tongue is no more sliding in and out as he makes you grind harder on his face — it stays in, continuously licking your sweet spot clean.

“f-fuck, fuck, fuck…”, you curse loudly, reaching your hands to grab the head of the bed and hammer your pussy harder into his face, squeezing every last drop of strength left in your already cramping muscles until you cum, shuddering on his mouth.

“mfff”, he groans throatily into your hole, sucking and slurping your juices. his hips buck in the air, helplessly searching for friction to soothe his aching cock. his half-unbuckled pants are drenched with precum, leaking out from his tip through his boxers and out through the cloth of his pants, visibly staining them.

you can’t see but it’s easy to figure out from the way the bed bounces up and down as his ass meets the mattress after every time his hips fall down. “how cute”, you utter as you try to calm down your breathing, cunt still resting over his face.

his eyes are half closed, rolling back and hiding their blue away. all he needs is a little push, a little rub, you know it. you know it by the way his tongue has stopped moving inside you, by the way his hands have loosened the grip on your flesh, by the way his shortened moans have grown into one long and steady groan coming from the bottom of his throat — his entire brain solely focused on the muscles of his lower body that is searching, almost beggingly, for relief.

you lean your upper body back a little, just enough to make it easier to reach his shaft while still sitting on his face. “since you’re the birthday boy”, you drag your words out as you place your hand on his clothed cock, feeling the wetness that’s emerged from beneath against your palm, “i’ll give you a hand.”

his ass cheeks tense and squeeze as he presses his hips against your touch, ferociously rubbing his clothed cock on the flesh of your open palm. his groans get louder as he bucks his hips under your hand, pushing them up to meet your hand harder and faster each time — just the way he forces his cock into your tight cunt as he nears — until the last three thrusts that he always prolongs in order to properly and completely pump his seed out.

the inside of your hand feels hot against his clothed cock as he seeps himself out, the stickiness of his cum absorbing itself into the material of his pants and emerging through it to reach the skin of your palm.

you lift yourself up a little only to plop your body down next to his. his mouth, cheeks, chin, even his nose, are covered in his spit and your cum, all mixed in.

“shit, baby”, he laughs, breathing deeply in and out of his mouth, overwhelmed by the whole experience, “what the hell did you just do to me”

“do you really need me to verbalize what just happened”

“yes”

“no”, you slap his cheek with the back of your hand, softly, before rolling on your side to rest your head on the left side of his chest, kissing it tenderly. “happy birthday”

“it really is”, he whispers, tracing a heart shape over the skin of your exposed cheek with his fingertip, “with you, it always is”

“did your wish come true by any chance?”, you tilt your head to look at him.

“not yet. but i’ll work on it later tonight. for now, i’ll let you catch your breath”

“wait, wait.”, you raise a brow, “what’s that supposed to mean?”

“my love”, he clears his throat, “do you remember how i said, when we first met, that you’d be the mother of my children?”

“yea? am i not?”

“children”, he stresses.

“oh.”, it finally hits you.

“one more to go”

[lovegasmic]

regarding bff gojo, (sorry if this is insane) but can i request a bff gojo x fem!reader x random girl where they have a 3sum but gojo eventually just ends up paying attention to reader bcs he’s IN LOVE W HER ??!

⋆ mdni. bff gojo satoru. basically all things that happen in a threesome: Satoru, you and the girl make out w eachother, fingering, creampie ( to reader ). AAA NOT INSANE AT ALL I GOT BUTTERFLIES READING YOUR ASK 🫶.

 ⋆ tried this w a different writing style aaa idk how to feel. anyways... let me know what u think.

sometimes you wondered what Satoru’s hidden skill was, to make you fall so easily into his schemes. was the puppy eyes he gave you, adding how he wanted to spend more time with his adorable best friend? following the logic that Satoru even texted you from the toilet, separation anxiety perhaps. he was blunt and direct, that’s a fact, but you did not expect for your him to suggest a threesome all of a sudden, sure, you had sex once but you couldn’t quite wrap your head around the fact that Satoru was already planning a second time.

the girl sitting in his bed is quite pretty, and oddly similar to you, with the same hair, skin tone and body shape, it was kind of scary at first, but you brushed it off considering it was a mere coincidence. yet Satoru looks utterly excited, almost bouncing off the walls as his eyes trail from you to her, and again until someone speaks.

“come here” he gruffs, your best friend’s voice is already husky and deep with desire, tapping his thighs in a silent invitation for you to join as where his hands caress the other girl’s sides, he’s cupping her breasts but his eyes remain on you, “you’re gorgeous” it’s a whispered word that Satoru speaks with his gaze still locked in yours, swiftly shifting to her eyes as to make her feel as if the compliment was for the both of you, Satoru knows it wasn’t.

and he tries, of course he tries to give you the same eagerness, but you look so fucking sexy perched on his lap, helping him get the other girl’s shirt off and he wishes it was your hands on him instead.

“Satoru” you breathe out his name, —a slight warning for him not to let the girl out after he spent the last minutes making out with you—, and he looks at you like you’re water in a desert, lips red and puffy from the intense kissing. with a brief nod he turns to her, pressing kisses on her chest and up her throat, licking on the skin before hesitantly kissing her lips, from your position on your sides, you could see Satoru’s eyes open, slightly turning sideways to look at you again.

you chuckle softly, finding his behavior slightly adorable, like a puppy looking for approval. carefully you approach him, deciding to press kisses on his neck at the same time Satoru groans and the girl whines, his eyes fluttering close at the intoxicating sensation of your lips, making him messily stain the front of his boxers with precum.

a couple of minutes pass until you’re all naked, Satoru having placed you next to her as you gently kiss, and in any other situation, he could have found the sight incredibly hot, but he can’t ignore the pang of jealousy in his chest. why aren’t you kissing him?

“you taste so good” the girl smirks looking at you, and Satoru’s brow twitches, she licks her lips seductively, almost fully ignoring the man’s presence currently kneeling between your bodies.

“you too” you speak with your face burning, and your best friend can’t take it anymore, leaning down to kiss you himself, almost fucking your mouth with his tongue; from behind the messy sound of your lips clashing you hear a whimper, looking from the corner of your eyes how she touched herself at the sight, biting her lip for a fleeting second before Satoru is tilting your jaw roughly, forcing you to focus in him.

Satoru’s hand is quick to find her dripping cunt, plunging a finger that quickly turns into two to keep her busy, moaning as if it’s the best thing that has ever happened to her, all to make you spread your pretty thighs and allow the dripping head of his cock to press against your pussy, if he kept on just kissing you, he would have cum all over your belly.

“so good, baby” he groans, eyes darkened and dilated pupils looking down at you as his cock stretches you out, you could see the way his breath hitched in his throat with each inch engulfed in your warm cunt; it’s a mess of lewd noises, from the girl’s moaning to your whines and Satoru’s grunts as he fucked you both, occasionally she raises up, attempting to caress his naked body towering over yours, but your best friend only slides his fingers deeper and harder inside her pussy, making her whine and lean down on the bed again, giving him enough space to suck on your tongue and swallow your moans that are only meant for him.

you can’t help and feel dizzy at the way Satoru looks and fucks at you, grinding his hips down so perfectly you’re sobbing in pleasure, and, for a moment, you’re left speechless when he forces your knees up his shoulders, fucking you so deep you couldn’t help and cry out, digging your nails on his back. that’s all Satoru needs.

a whimper of protest is heard, you are trying to raise your head but he’s quicker, cleaning his hand off her slick in the sheets before using both thumbs to press down your forehead, keeping you pinned as his body engulfed you fully, forcing you in a mating press with his mouth tasting your screams and your pussy swallowing the whole girth of him down the base, messily creating a sound where his hips roughly smacked against your ass.

you wondered if he always fucked like that, but the stimulation on your clit rubbing on his pelvis, g-spot tortured by the fat tip of his cock and nipples continuously rubbing against his hard chest made you forget about the rest.

“fuck, sweetheart” Satoru lets out a broken moan, half surprised half as if he was in pain at the sight of your almost rolled back eyes, mouth hanging open in desperate cries at the same time your pussy fluttered wildly. “you’ll make me cum so hard, this pussy was made just for me” he groans, not stopping his thrusts even if you gasp and cream his cock, he’s almost drunk, his own eyes threatening to roll back at the flutter of your cunt, begging for his cum.

a few more thrusts and he’s cumming deep into your pussy, with a sharp groan that makes you shudder. “’Toru... where is...?” you attempt to ask, but Satoru couldn’t care less, leaning down to kiss you without replying, but instead humping your pussy slightly, testing the waters if you’re ready for another orgasm.

“dunno” he swallows, uninterested, licking down the path of your throat and jaw until his nibbling on your collarbone, “can I fuck you again?” he begs, and there are the puppy eyes Satoru always gives you when he wants something, and how can you refuse when your best friend is so cute.

[dontbesoweirdkira]

If you don't mind can I request any yandere you want and see reader in a wedding dress they thought reader was planning a marriage turn out she just like the dress

A/N: BAHAHAHAA this is so funny. Yes of course, im *assuming* you are referring to the MK guys? Just send in another request if not😭😭

Characters: MK1 Johnny Cage, MK11 Kung Lao and MK11 Erron Black as a wild card lol.

Warnings: buffoonery and Johnny Carlton 😖

Requests: always open 24/7

Masterlist

Johnny ca(needs to be arrested asap)ge

Oh boy…why did you have to get this man started?? I'm going to assume you just thrifted a pretty white dress, not realizing it was a wedding dress in the impulsivity of the buy.

When you got back home to try it on, it unexpectedly fit like a glove. Accentuating every nice thing about your body. The lace and embroidered rhinestones made everything just 100 times better. A gorgeous glam dress that you’re sure Johnny would love just as much as you do.

Excited, you waited by the front door for his arrival to show off your new purchase.

Immediately he froze at the doorstep, the sight of you in this little git up took him aback.

You stuck a cute pose and did a full body spin to show him every detail, egarly asking him what he thought.

“Ta-Daaaaa! So, what do ya think? I picked it out at the charity shop down the street. I figured it’d be perfect for a special occasion..”

Girl you are so damn foolish😩 that man is going feral now

Johnny had been playing his obsession very cool this entire time. Only maybe slipping up once but now…???

That “special occasion” is obviously the day you’ll become his wife. What day is more special than that?! He’s so happy that you initiated this first. He’s been wanting to make you his forever since he’s met you and obviously you feel the same way too.

See, you’re perfect for each other! He knew you were the one. Only a bit sad he didn’t realize your feelings sooner or else he would’ve taken you to Vegas months ago.

“When I gave you my credit card to get something nice I didn’t expect for you to buy a wedding dress. I’m not complaining tho~ it was only a matter of time until it happened.”

….what?

You had looked back down at your dress and realized that it did look oddly similar to one…but that was just a coincidence.

You explained to him that no, it wasn’t supposed to be a wedding dress. You had picked it up because of the detailing, you figured it’d be perfect for the next red carpet.

Ohhhhh he sees what you’re doing here. You’re playing dumb, this was only a hint that you wanted him to claim you. He’ll promptly propose. It’s the traditional way of doing things. ;)

You reiterated again, more seriously this time that this was only a dress for his red carpet. Honestly more of an impulse buy if anything. You hadn’t realized what the dress actually was. It was far too soon to get married and you wasn’t even certain if Johnny was who you wanted to be with in the long run.

His vision of you walking down the isle in that snatched, sexy little dress was shattered… for a mere moment he became overwhelmed with sadness. Wha— what do you mean that you’re not sure you want to marry him? Who else would you marry in place of him? You’ve been planning to leave him, haven’t you?..

Quickly that sorrow turned to anger and a side of Johnny you’ve never seen came out to bite.

His eyes were narrow and sinister as he peered down at you, over his expensive sunglasses. His voice was low yet venomously brash.

“Sweetheart—“

“You don’t get to play silly little games like this and get my hopes up for nothing. We’re getting married, there’s no other option better than me. And if you think for a second that you’re going to leave me—heh—-I’ll make your life agonizing.”

Oh..

It wasn’t long after, that he held you down and shoved a ring on your finger…ahem romantically proposed and you were eloped with an insane contractual agreement.

Poor thing…use critical judgment next time you’re out shopping.

Kung lao

You were out at the markets getting some groceries and household items. Normally Kung Lao would accompany you, but after much negotiation, he decided to let you go out alone. He was well familiar with the shopkeepers and locals so there wasn’t much to worry about. And he didn’t fear you being hit on there as everyone in the town knew who you belonged to. Any man who was stupid enough to talk to you was a man who was certainly going to die.

Of course like any woman, after your necessities were brought, you decided to do a bit of window shopping of vendors that were in the area.

Nothing new or interesting caught your attention until an older woman pulled you into her store to show you her selection of dresses. They were all so gorgeously designed and hand crafted, they must’ve taken ages to make.

“I have something very special for you. I think this will make that man of yours very pleased.”

After searching through a few boxes, she found the one she was looking for and displayed it for you. The dress was a striking red with gold embellishments and pleats that were colorfully embroidered.

It was so well done that it almost appeared painted on. It’d kill you to have that dress, even trying it on would be a dream in itself. But sadly, you knew that anything at this level had to be exorbitant in price. There’s no way that you could afford, let alone justify paying for it.

Thanking the shop keeper and complimenting the dress, you shook your head and declined. Explaining to her that this purchase would make you struggle for a couple of months.

The old lady wouldn’t take no for an answer and pushed the box towards you.

“My dear, this one was made for you. I must let you have it, don’t worry about payment. Just make sure I get to see you in it.”

Shocked, you asked a couple of times if she was serious and she was very adamant about you taking it home with you. She winked at you and sent you on your way.

Excited, you rushed home and into your room. Entirely running past your boyfriend in the process to hurried try the dress on.

It was exactly your size. It was almost as if if was made exactly to your measurements. You spun around in the mirror a million times so happy to be able to own something so luxurious.

“Y/N? What’s going on in there?? Are you okay? You didn’t even greet me when you came in.”

Opening the bedroom door you surprised him with the dress.

“Can you believe it, Kung Lao? Some lady at the market gifted this to me. She said it was made for me and insisted that I take it home.”

Yeah…ummm

That “random” lady wasn’t so random. He’d been planning this moment for over a year. He took out half of his savings to purchase it and have it custom built for you. All of your favorite colors and style preferences were put into this. He told the lady that whenever she was finished with it, to give it to you the next time that she sees you.

It was a surprise seeing you in the dress though. He knew you’d look beautiful but not this damn good. All of the details brought out the best in yourself. It wasn’t form fitting as it was a traditional xiuhuefu but it still such a perfect fit on you. He was proud that did exceptionally well in designing this for you.

Acting dumb, he asked many questions like who the lady was and was you sure it was truly for free. So manipulative…

“I guess this is a sign of fate…that we are destined to be married soon.”

Ummmm….what?

You laughed and explained how it was just a traditional dress that you plan to wear at a festival or something. What was he talking about marriage? It’s just a pretty dress right??….right?

Girl—-

He explained that no, it was actually a traditional dress only worn by brides. —And that since you was not only “gifted” it, but that it fit you well must mean that you’re ready to be his bride.

“Oh…no…I had no idea, Lao. I just like the dress, I don’t wanna be married to you.”

Let me take a sip of my drink😪

Immediately his face scrunched up in anger and he backed you into the wall.

“You don’t wanna be married to me?! Don’t you know how much money I spent on this dress? Do you know how many hours that poor old lady spent on this, customizing everything for you? I even tried to make the experience receiving the dress special. And you don’t want to marry me?”

He harshly grabbed your chin and pulled your face closer to his

“You don’t get a choice in this, my precious flower. Any other girl would kill to even be noticed by the great Kung Lao..don’t be such a fool and make this difficult.”

Yeah..we’ll at least your wedding was absolutely massive and filled with tons of yummy foods.

Erron Black

(Yes I know Erron’s mom was crappy but for plot purposes please let’s pretend he lovvveeeed her okay.)

Erron had left you back at home while he took care of some business and agreed to let you go through the attic. It was very very old and cluttered and he couldn’t care less about what you did with most of the stuff. He hasn’t seen most of it since he was a much younger fella anyways.

He told you there might be a few old clothes that were his mothers and sisters and you were free to take anything you’d like. You're about their size anyhow and he’d rather them on you than to be rotting in a box any longer.

You made your way through tons of old nicnacks and relics, it took a few hours of searching to find any of his old childhood things since they were in the faaaar back.

Eventually you found a hefty box that read women’s name on it and brought it back downstairs.

Hats, blouses, skirts and accessories were all in there. Not much that you’d wear since they were all a little dated and too mature for you—but there was one thing that caught your eyes. Something wrapped in dainty floral wrapping paper and tied with a pretty bow.

……Erron did give you permission to open whatever you’d like so I’m sure this wouldn’t hurt him.

Upon carefully unwrapping the delicately wrapped piece, the most gorgeous vintage wedding dress was revealed. Yes it was rather dated like most of the clothes with big puffy sleeves and a high neckline for modesty. Kind of gaudy as well but still an eye catching design nonetheless.

You held it up to your body and it looked like it'd be a perfect fit. This isn’t too surprising, but it fit you rather well. You looked straight out of the 19th century but it was cute, you put your hair up really nice and added some of the accessories from the box to complete the look.

You strutted around the house and pretended to be some snobby rich woman on her wedding day.

“Why yes. The orderves were made by Frederic, the renowned chef and the silk table cloths were imported from across the seas….hohoho.”

In the middle of your play time, Erron walked in and saw you in the dress. He paused and observed you up and down. It seemed as though he was a bit upset by the sight of you.

Maybe it was the wrong choice to put on this dress of all things. This was probably the one thing that was unspokenly off limits.

You quickly try to deescalate the situation and explain yourself. That you just thought the dress was pretty and you wanted to fool around in it. That you didn’t think much of it or that he’d be home so soon.

“I’m not mad, y/n. For a second I got a glimpse of my ma again. This dress is perfect on you.”

You twirled around in place and asked him if he truly thought so.

“I’m as honest as I’d ever be right now. What do you say we go down to the chapel right now?”

Thinking he wasn’t being serious, you laughed and began to take the dress off

“You’re not the marrying type, Erron.”

His demeanor turned from a sentimental bliss to a pissed off cowboy in seconds.

What did you mean he’s not the marrying type? He ain’t no saint but he’s been good to you and planned on being so for a long while.

“What did you mean by that, darlin?”

He stared straight and menacingly at you with his drawing hand on his holster. Your next words better be catious.

“N-nothing. Just figured you weren’t into the marriage thing because neither am I. That’s all.”

That’s all? You think you can just wear his deceased mothers wedding gown without any plans of commitment.

He suddenly pulled out his pistol out of his holster causing you to flinch. He didn’t point it at you but he inspected it before putting in a cartridge that was stored on his other hip.

“Dear, I know I ain’t no romantic but if you think for a second I’d let you walk out of this relationship alive…you must be one dumb broad.”

A chilling smile plastered his face as he pointed it towards you

“So what do ya say? You going to come down to the chapel with me or go have tea with the queen in purgatory? …your choice.”

Of course you had to say yes. That proposal was so…romantic? Hey, at least the priest down at the old chapel prayed over your soul and gave you a cross if you so ever shall need it dealing with a devil like him.

[stellamancer]

pairing: fem!reader x merman!satoru gojo

summary: you were excited to return home for the summer, but all that excitement is quickly thrown out the window and you nearly resign yourself to a quiet and lonely summer.

the insufferable merman you rescued, however, has other plans.

contents: degrees of social anxiety from the reader, fem!reader (no pronouns used, reader is referred to as physically smaller than gojo) 

notes: uh. this was written for the teahouse mermay collab! but, uh, gonna probably spend the summer writing this because somehow plot happened. will happen. this work will end up being a roommates to friends to maybe lovers fic so please look forward to it. uh. not sure what else to say. i usually don’t post multi-part fics to tumblr, but since i don’t expect this fic to get too long i figured it would be okay this time around lmao. i expect to eat my words. anyway this fic can also be found on ao3!  

word count: 4.3k

masterlist 

It’s the first time you’ve been home in a while, and honestly speaking, you don’t know how you feel about it.

At first, you were excited. As much as you enjoyed city life in Tokyo, you still missed your little seaside hometown. It was your parents’ idea to come home to visit, not so much because they missed you too, but because they wanted you to watch the house while they went on a summer long trek across Europe. As luck would have it, the time of their departure coincided with the expiration of your apartment’s lease. With no intent on renewing it, you figured you might as well return home for the summer and save a little bit on rent before moving into your new place.

Once your plans were settled, you’d texted your best friend, Minori, to let her know you were coming back, but… there was something a little off about her response. It’s not like you were expecting her to drop everything at the news of your homecoming, but you thought she’d at least be a little more excited. It did bother you a bit, but you merely chalked it up to being absolutely horrendous about keeping in touch while you were away. You’re almost positive that once you see each other it’ll be like you never even left.

Besides, if she really felt that awkward about seeing you, then she wouldn’t have agreed to hang out tomorrow.

Nor would she have forgotten to mention that there was a big hangout thing that was happening at the beach tonight.

Probably anyway.

It’d been one of your old high school classmates Kyohei Shinomiya who had mentioned the beach thing. You’d run into him working at the grocery store and while you really wouldn’t have considered Shinomiya a close friend, you were acquainted enough to chat amicably as he rang up your things. Most people you’d run into upon your return had asked about your life in Tokyo, but Shinomiya was oddly excited to hear about it. You’d gotten the feeling that not much had changed in your absence— but was the city really all that interesting? Shinomiya looked almost disappointed when all your things were bagged up, his face twisted almost as if he was debating something serious. Just as you were about to walk out the door he spoke up, and you realized that was what he’d been contemplating on all along.

“Are you gonna be at the hangout tonight?”

You’d tilted your head in confusion. “Hangout?”

“Yeah! On the beach at sunset!” He’d answered, his enthusiasm renewed. “If… if you’re not doing anything, then you should totally come by! Everyone from high school will be there!”

You’d immediately thought of Minori. She hadn’t mentioned anything of the sort. Had it slipped her mind? Or maybe she forgot? Either way, with no one waiting for you at home, and no other plans to speak of, your night was woefully free.

So, of course you showed up.

Shinomiya hadn’t been kidding when he said that everyone from high school would be here. You recognize basically every person on some level— not just people in your own year, but upperclassmen and underclassmen as well. Some of them recognize you too, a few of them even stop to chat a little, politely asking where you’ve been and what you’ve been up to, just like everyone else. Once you’ve made a lap around the group, you awkwardly park yourself near the barbeque where one of the upperclassmen is grilling skewers for everyone, unsure of where else to go.

Of all the people you’ve seen, Minori is not among them. Is it possible that maybe she wasn’t invited? You’ve seen some of her other friends here, though, so it wouldn’t make sense to leave her out. You start to reach for your phone to message her to ask if she knows, if she’s coming. Given how Shinomiya invited you, in the odd case she didn’t know, it probably wouldn’t be a problem if she showed up.

Probably.

Just as you start typing, you hear someone nearby yell. “About time you showed up! You’re late!”

You happen to look up to see who this latecomer is and it’s… Minori. But she’s not alone; at her side is someone else you recognize instantly: Hayato Tsuji. It’s been a while since you last saw him, but your heart stutters at the sight, your body remembering the feelings you harbored for him in your high school years. He’s grown even more handsome now; his features sharper and more mature now than when you were teenagers. Something about the two of them together nags at your mind, but you push the thought to the side, more relieved to see your friend here than anything.

Minori’s gaze moves from the person who called out to her, scanning the area before finally landing on you. There’s no missing the way her eyes widen in clear and obvious surprise, making it apparent that not telling you about this whole thing was a conscious choice on her part.

Still, she makes her way over to you, smiling sheepishly. her eyes now avoiding yours. “Hey! Didn’t expect to see you here."

"Shinomiya invited me," you explain almost flatly.

Minori hums as if you've said something very interesting. "Is that so…?"

"Yeah?"

"I thought you'd be doing something with your parents tonight," she offers, the reason of why she didn't tell you about this hangout threaded between her words.

"No, they left this morning."

"Oh."

You could have sworn you told her that, but maybe she got the day wrong or something. It’s no big deal; Minori was probably just trying to be considerate since it’s been a while since you’ve seen your parents, but still something feels… off. It’s fine. A little awkwardness is to be expected, you tell yourself.

“Minori!” Someone else calls and she whips her head around toward the voice to see who it is. You recognize it as one of her other friends, waving wildly to get her attention. Minori glances back at you, looking a little unsure.

“It’s fine,” you say, smiling, though it feels hollow. “We can catch up later. We’re hanging out tomorrow, aren’t we?”

She stares at you, the hesitation still flickering in her eyes before nodding. “Yeah.”

You wave her off as she heads toward the person calling her and you don’t miss how her expression looks considerably lighter as she walks off. Sighing, you turn back to the barbeque, thinking to busy yourself with some food. Will it be like that tomorrow? Awkward? Weird?

You shake your head. It’ll be fine.

“Skewer?” the upperclassman manning the grill offers you one, and though you thought to occupy your anxious hands by eating you find that you actually don’t feel all that hungry.

“No thanks,” you tell him, smiling apologetically. He doesn’t seem to take any offense, though, and nods. You move away from the barbeque so that you’re not in the way of anyone who might actually want to eat, but once again you’re not sure where to go. You feel like finding Minori again is out of the question, the earlier weirdness repelling you. Maybe Shinomiya then?

You make your way around and spot Shinomiya joking with some underclassmen, laughing jovially. Should you approach? You don’t want to interrupt anything though, so you lurk off to the side, teetering back and forth on your feet. Maybe you can come back later when there’s a lull in the conversation or something.

The only other person you can think of seeking out is… Hayato. Your heart skips a beat at the thought. You can’t say you’re friends but you’d talked a few times in high school, even worked on a few group projects together. It wouldn’t be all that weird to say hi, would it?

You look around again, your eyes straining to pick him out in the crowd. While you look, your thoughts get ahead of you. He was just a high school crush, but wouldn’t it just be something, if you guys ended up talking and it just… picked up from there? Reconnecting with something akin to an old flame and things developing into something more over the course of one fateful summer… You’re sure you’ve read a story like that somewhere before and the sheer possibility of fiction becoming reality makes your heartbeat accelerate in your chest.

When you find Hayato, your entire body goes still, nerves seizing control of your motor functions. It's fine, it's cool, you try to tell yourself. You are just saying hi. You can do that. You can say hi.

And if it goes beyond that… you’ll figure it out later.

You take a deep breath and take a step forward toward Hayato, then another, then… You stop short— breath catching in your chest when you notice, when you see.  

There's someone standing next to Hayato, leaning intimately into him while his arm slung snuggly over their shoulder. You know them— recognize them, because there's no way you wouldn't. There's no way you wouldn't recognize your best friend.

It shouldn't surprise you, it really shouldn't . After all, they showed up here together, you saw them show up together and yet…

You feel absolutely gutted. Questions race through your mind. How long has Minori liked Hayato? Why didn’t she tell you? Are they dating already? For how long? Why didn’t she tell you?

Why didn’t she tell you?

Minori says something to whoever she’s talking to and laughs. Hayato leans his head down to whisper something in her ear and she blushes and swats at him, embarrassed, but still with a fond smile plastered to her face. You feel like you’re a whole world away— an outsider peering in. The contents of your stomach are flipping like they’re competing in the Olympics and you realize that you’re very, very glad you didn’t accept that skewer.

Eventually, you turn away, even though you really just want to walk over there and find out for yourself what exactly is going on. The last thing you want is to start a scene though. You can just ask Minori what’s going on tomorrow; find out if this is why she’s been acting weird. She knew you had a crush on Hayato, and even though he’s still really handsome now, that was in high school. If they're dating now, it’s not like you’d hold it against her.

You start to walk off, but you bump into someone instead.

“Oh hey!”

It’s Shinomiya.

You look at him and catch his expression shift, from a smile to something of a concerned frown.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Oh, uh.” Your shock must show on your face. You try to smile, but it feels far too strained to be convincing. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

He doesn’t believe you.

“I’m, uh… gonna… go over there.” You feel so awkward that you want to disintegrate.

Shinomiya’s mouth opens slightly, brows furrowed, looking like he’s struggling to say something. “...do you want me to come with?”

You laugh in an attempt to alleviate his concern, but the sound is mechanical, fake. “Nah, I’m fine.”

Shinomiya doesn’t seem convinced, his mouth set in a frown. His expression is contemplative again, like it was when you were at the store. You take a step back, away from him and wave him off a little.

“Really,” you say, before whatever he’s thinking about just spews out of his mouth. “Just… gonna take a little walk. The... smoke from the barbeque is getting to me.”

It sounds like an excuse, but it seems reasonable enough you think. Shinomiya still seems doubtful, but he doesn’t press the issue as you take another step away from him. You give him one more smile, this one feeling  a little more natural, to reassure him that you’re fine.

Because you are.

No one else seems to notice as you slip away from the group, heading toward the shoreline. The tide ebbs back and forth, the water coming up to gently lap at the soles of your shoes. You stare out at the sea, the sun nearly set over the horizon, dyeing the sky in oranges and purples. Some of the people at the hangout are probably setting up a bonfire or two so that the get together can continue into the night. You could probably go help out to keep your hands busy, but you don’t particularly feel like it.

Instead, you continue walking down the beach, further away from the chatter of all the people you grew up with, their conversations sounding more and more like a foreign language with each step. Even when you were younger, when you still lived here, you could never slot yourself perfectly among your peers. Minori was the only one who really felt like a friend to you, so her silence weighs heavy on your heart. If you had done a better job at keeping in touch with her, then would she have been more forthcoming about what was going on in her life? At the same time, it’s not like she was any better at keeping in contact with you, but…

You sigh. You’ll talk to her tomorrow. There’s no need to keep mulling over it now.

The sun has completely set now and you realize you’ve actually walked quite a distance from the hangout spot on the beach; you can’t even see anyone anymore. In fact, you’re actually probably only a few minutes from your parent’s house now, their home almost practically on the beach itself. You’re just better off going home, rather than going back. It does feel a little bit bad to have left without saying anything though, so you pull out your phone and send off a quick message to Shinomiya apologizing for leaving without saying anything and thanking him for inviting you in the first place.

You turn, with the intent of heading home, but something on the beach catches your eye.

Something unnaturally shiny.

People are generally pretty good about picking up their trash when they’re on the beach; it's a rule, after all. Sometimes, though, there are some people who forget, or just don’t care. As you approach, you figure whoever left this mound of garbage on the shore is part of the latter group, simply not caring enough to pick up after themselves.

But someone cared enough to cover it up in sand and seaweed.

You lean over, prepared to dig out whatever can and other trash has been buried when you notice, when you see.

It’s not a beer can that’s half buried here.

It’s some kind of fish and it’s huge.

You’ve heard of the very, very rare instances of beached whales, but this thing has scales, shiny, pretty iridescent scales that remind you of opals and you wonder distantly if there’s a fish this big, this pretty, really out there. More than that, though, you wonder how in the world it ended up on the beach like this. When you’ve finally cleared everything away, you realize that this thing isn’t a fish.

It’s a person.  

Or half of one at least.

You gawk at the sight, your eyes traveling down the length of their body. From the waist down, they’re all fish, tail and fins and all, but from the waist up they look like a man, with arms, and a torso and a human head.

Merman.

The word echoes in your mind over and over. You shake your head. This has to be a dream. There’s no way. Merpeople aren’t real. If they were, surely there’d be some kind of record or something of them.

You raise a trembling hand, to confirm what you see with your own two eyes. Very, very quietly, you murmur an apology as your fingers reach out, brushing against this being’s waist, where their human skin meets their fish-like scales. Maybe it’s some kind of… swimsuit or something. You’ve seen stuff like that on TV. If that’s the case there should be some kind of waistband or something, but you find none. The junction between their human half and fish half is completely seamless.

The merman is real.

You gasp softly and look around. It’s only the two of you on the beach right now. What do you do? Should you just leave him here? In a few hours the tide will be high enough to pull the merman back into the water, but… what if someone comes between now and then? If they realize it’s a merman, there’s no guarantee that they’ll let him return to the sea. He could be sold off as a research subject or some kind of exotic pet. The thought disgusts you. Shouldn’t you put him back then? Make sure that he returns to where he belongs? He seems to be unconscious though, but surely he can breathe underwater while sleeping, right? You have absolutely no idea how it works.

The merman groans beneath you and you look back at him. His face is scrunched up like he’s in some kind of pain. Is he hurt, maybe? Is that how he ended up on the beach? Using your phone’s flashlight, you check his body, trying to find some kind of injury, but you don’t find anything. Could he be sick or something then?

You reach up toward his head, brushing some of the snow white hair sticking to his forehead out of the way before you press the back of your hand to his skin. It’s slightly warm to the touch, so he probably doesn’t have a fever.

Wait. Can merfolk even get fevers?

Is he maybe having a bad dream then? Or is he uncomfortable? You don’t know. You could try to wake him up, but if he’s in pain wouldn’t that make it worse?

The panic is starting to settle in your nerves. What do you do? You've never encountered anything like this before. Do you attend to him as if he were an animal? Or as if he were human? You start to reach for your phone to call someone for help, for advice but—

Who could you possibly call?

Your parents are on an airplane right now, hundreds of kilometers in the air and out of reach. You couldn’t possibly bother Shinomiya with this and Minori— The image of her laughing amongst her other friends, Hayato snuggling up next to her flashes in your mind, sudden and almost disorienting. Something ugly and frustrating wells up in your stomach at the thought but you do your best to dismiss it.

You can’t bother her with this either.

You’re all you’ve got right now.

With that thought in mind, you force yourself to take a deep, deep breath. Before you can do anything else, you need to calm down. Once the anxiety has dislodged itself from your chest, you go over the options once more. You can’t leave him here because someone else with far worse intentions than you might find him. You can’t toss him back in the ocean because there’s no guarantee that he’ll be okay if you do that. Then what else can you do?

Take him somewhere else? You glance down at the merman; his body is longer than you are tall and you’re sure that he probably weighs a ton. You wouldn’t be able to take him very far on your own, so if you take him somewhere it has to be close.

A lightbulb goes off in your head. It seems kind of crazy, but you could take him home; a year or two ago your parents renovated the bathroom so now the tub is disgustingly huge. You think it’s big enough to house this monster of a merman until you can ensure that you can return him to the sea without the fear that he might get eaten by a shark or something.

Now the question is… how do you transport him? If you had a wheelbarrow or some kind of cart then you could put him in it and just wheel him to your parents house, but…

A particularly large wave crashes against the beach and another lightbulb goes off. Your father has a really big longboard he used to use when he was a teen. Maybe you could roll the merman onto it and pull it kind of like a sled?

The idea sounds absolutely insane, but you can’t think of anything else. If it doesn’t work… Well, you’ll figure it out later.

“I’ll be right back,” you tell the sleeping merman before bolting off toward your parents’ house. You get there in almost no time flat and easily locate the longboard, tucked away in a storage room. The board’s leg rope probably won’t be able to support the merman’s weight so you grab some regular rope your father has in the storage and wedge it in with the leg rope, using it to secure the rope to the board. When you’re satisfied with it, you dash back to the beach.

The merman is luckily where you left him, unconscious and undisturbed. You toss the longboard onto the sand next to him, shoving it as close to him as you can before bending over and rolling him face up onto the board, taking great care to make sure his entire tail is on.

Like this you’re able to get a better look at his face and— he’s handsome, breathtakingly so. The sharpness of his jaw, the angle of his nose, the width of his shoulders, his collarbone, the sight of them all assembled together like this ups your pulse a bit.

You’re getting distracted.

With the merman in place, you grab the rope and start to tug your makeshift sled toward your parents’ house but, god, he’s heavy. You don’t get very far before you stop to take a break, your arms and shoulders screaming. A different tactic would probably be better. You move to the other end of the board and bend down, gripping both sides of the long board as you push.

This method works much, much better until you get to the house itself. You knew the board would only get you so far, but from here on out you’ll have to carry him. There’s no way a bridal carry will work, so you brace yourself, and after a fair bit of struggling you manage to sling this massive merman over your back.

Each step toward the bathroom is absolute agony and you’re so damn grateful that the house is only a single story. It feels like hours have passed when you finally get to the tub. You rip off the cover and toss it haphazardly to the side, but now you have a new problem: how do you get him in there like this?

You could attempt to shrug him in, but his weight combined with the fact you can’t see might result in him accidentally hitting his head on the wall or something. That wouldn’t be good. Instead, you step into the tub, nearly slipping as you step over the wall of it, but luckily you manage to keep yourself from falling. Then, slowly, you free one of your hands gripping the merman’s body to reach down and tuck his tail into the tub.

He weighs too much for your one hand to handle and this time you lose your balance.

Both you and the merman tumble backwards into the tub. You manage to angle your legs out of the way of the faucet and land against the merman’s body with a thud, the hand that was holding onto him twisted into an uncomfortable angle. Quickly, you roll around to make sure he didn’t didn’t get hurt or hit his head against anything.

Miraculously, he seems perfectly fine— as if you had gently lowered him into the bathtub.

You breathe out a heavy sigh; it feels like you just ran a marathon, but you’re not quite done yet. As much as you’d like to leave it where it is, you pull yourself up to retrieve your father’s longboard from outside. Leaving it could possibly lead to questions from the neighbors and the last thing you want to deal with is gossiping aunties.

Especially with a merman under your roof.

You drag yourself back to the bathroom after you’ve put the longboard away and he’s still asleep, grimacing a little, but still asleep. It’s absolutely wild to you that he hasn’t woken up at all. You wonder if you should fill the tub with some water. Would that make him more comfortable?

You reach over and start the faucet, making sure to lower the temperature. As the tub fills itself, you feel a wave of exhaustion wash over you, and you slump down next to the tub. Carrying the merman home really, really took a toll on you. Your eyelids feel heavy and you think it should be fine to close them.

Just for a minute or two.

It feels like the second your eyes flutter shut, they pop open again, your whole body awakening with a start. Your thoughts are all jumbled up. Why are you in the bathroom? Did you actually fall asleep here? Wasn’t the water running? Thank god your parents bought one of those super fancy bathtubs that regulates the amount of water in the tub. Surely the merman wouldn’t mind if the water overflowed but—

Right. The merman!

You sit up straight and turn your head toward the merman and sure enough he is still there. He wasn’t just some crazy dream you concocted; he’s real and, more than that, he’s awake.

He watches you, his lips curved up into an amused smile that reaches his eyes— bluer than the sunshine on the sea. Your heart hammers wildly in the cage of your chest as you rediscover, all over again, how supernaturally stunning this being you’ve brought into your house is. He tilts his head, his grin widening almost impossibly as he speaks, his voice a melodic timbre that you would almost swear resonates with your very soul.

“Well, good morning.”

next chapter  →

[star-rie]

snippet of arthur snapping to banished!merlin in s4 of my fix it au

Arthur has really been an idiot hasn’t he?

He’s not one to overthink things. Arthur has always rely on efficiency. Running a kingdom needs to be orderly. He doesn’t have time to think unnecessary things. Mundane tasks such as ironing his clothes and preparing his food are left to the servants. Kings does not have time to think of such things, let alone dispensable things.

Now he’s cursing himself for being so negligent. It should be obvious from the very beginning. Branches does not fall from the sky at proper timings, nor do fire blows up indoors, dancing up the ceilings. Arthur thought it was merely coincidence, but after running a kingdom for a year he sees now that coincidences usually happens for a reason.

Arthur felt the blowing of the wind too often on his expeditions. He knows how unidentifiable creatures shows up in the morning, in the forests of Camelot. Or how assassins made a fool of themselves, dying before they even had the chance to take Arthur’s life. And each time it happens, he always saw a blur of a figure, so quick Arthur thought he is hallucinating.

He knows Merlin is there. Hiding in the shadows, watching Arthur from every corner. He was enraged at first. How dare he? Did he really think that Arthur was that stupid not to notice his little stunts? But every time he tries to catch him, it always ended up in concerns

Guard: (in a flashback) Is everything alright my lord? Arthur: …fine

The castle staff never question his disappearance, oddly quiet of Merlin’s banishment. Guinevere didn’t talk to him for a month. He didn’t miss the glare that came from his army. Lancelot and Gwaine have always been fond of the manservant. They stopped after a few months.

Arthur thinks that the camelot notice him. And they pretend not to. But he can’t really do anything can he? Not without sounding like a lunatic. So he never addresses it. Even when it’s so blatantly obvious.

Arthur is sick of it truthfully. It reminds him of him in a way. Is it too much for them to trust him? Morgana and his father too…and now Camelot. Is it because he’s such a fool for a king?

So one night when they were on an expedition, when Arthur is sick of all the lies, and the hypocrisy and everything. Arthur sneaks out of the camp, to where the banshee is last spotted.

Arthur waits for it to come. He waited and waited, until he heard a scream, when it almost got him, it dissolves into dust, hit by a spell so powerful Arthur still feels the intensity.

Voice: It is not safe out here, go back to your camp Arthur Pendragon

Arthur: Stop taking me for a fool Merlin, I know it’s you

When there’s no reaction, he groans, drawing his sword

Arthur: COME OUT MERLIN STOP BEING SUCH A COWARD!

It was quiet for a while and Arthur screams. He thrust his sword into the ground.

Arthur: I’LL LET YOU KNOW MERLIN- THAT’S RIGHT I KNOW IT’S YOU -THAT I HATE YOU! YOU LIAR! I TOLD YOU TO NEVER APPEAR IN FRONT OF MY SIGHT EVER AGAIN! AND WHAT DID YOU DO? YOU STALK ME LIKE A CREEP! HAVE IT EVER CONCURRED TO YOU THAT THE THINGS YOU DID AREN’T NORMAL? WELL YOU ARE! DO YOU REALLY THINK I WON’T NOTICE THAT YOU’RE IN CAMELOT THIS WHOLE TIME?? YOU’RE AN IDIOT AND A INEPT INCOMPETENT RUDE BUMBLING OF A FOOL!! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU SO MUCH!!

Arthur wipes the tears that starts to fall out of his eyelashes

Arthur: I hate that you won’t go away, I hate everything about you, I hate that stupid grin of yours, I hate your attitude, I hate your stupid face, I hate that stupid haircut, I hate your tears, I hate that I think of you each night

Arthur grips the hilt of his sword, struggling to speak

Arthur: I won’t forgive you Merlin of Ealdor. For as long as I breathe I will make sure you can never go back to Camelot nor will I ever allow magic to roam free in the land. I will follow my legacy as Uther Pendragon’s son

Arthur went back to the camp. He feels warm despite the cool winter air and his heart feeling like lead.

When morning came, there are no more banshees. Arthur saw a cloaked figure behind the trees, watching.

[celestiaras]

‧₊˚✧ ❛[ his sick darling]❜

ft. hex haywire x gn! reader — xsoleil, nijisanji en

╰₊✧ after losing some parts of your memory for unknown reasons, you seek treatment but your therapist knows a lot more than he lets on┊1.1k words

contains: yandere, malpractice/abuse of power, toxic relationships, manipulation, mentions of reader having family problems & mental illness, talks of violence & murder

➤ author's note: there was a time when my girlfriend and i had the same therapist

therapist! hex haywire whom you click with immediately like a best friend. you were nervous about going to therapy for the first time ever, but his office was so cozy with a comforting ambiance— soothing music playing in the background to drown out any possibly distracting outside noises, a cup of warm sweetened hibiscus tea (which happened to be your favorite brand and flavor), and a fluffy knitted blanket just in case you got cold since he didn’t have control over the building’s air conditioning. his calming deep voice and friendly smile made you feel welcome, calming any anxious feelings you had beforehand within mere minutes of meeting him. there wasn’t any way to explain it, but you felt like you could trust him with your life.

therapist! hex haywire who has so much in common with you! he didn’t want to jump into the serious things in the first session so he asked about your interests to ease any tensions, and surprisingly, he was knowledgeable about everything you brought up. he knew the characters of your favorite series, the theories about your favorite movies, the hidden symbolism of your favorite books, and even the details of media that you weren’t a fan of as if you shared the same recommendations on your streaming services and the same paperback novels on your bookshelves. it was the first time that you could remember where you freely spoke about the things you liked without the worry of being annoying or boring because he genuinely seemed invested in the conversation with you and even seemed disappointed when the timer went off, promising to continue next time.

therapist! hex haywire who feels oddly familiar to you. you can’t quite place your finger on it, you feel like you’ve met him before— maybe in high school or at a party since it would be difficult to forget a face like his, but when you brought it up, he insisted that you could find someone who looks like him at any college campus or library if you paid attention. him knowing so much about your interests was just a coincidence— you know how algorithms work these days with feeding content that fits your tastes perfectly, it isn’t too far-fetched for it to match up! besides, aren’t you happy to have a therapist whom you could bond with so quickly without needing to hop around to find the perfect one?

therapist! hex haywire who always knows exactly what to say when you are feeling down, jotting down notes on his clipboard while comforting you with that silver tongue of his. you’re so frustrated since it feels like it’s been forever since you started, but no noticeable progress has been made. you still have no idea why your memory is so patchy, desperate to know about your past so that you can soothe your curiosity and move on with your life no matter how scary or disturbing it may have been. he’ll reach out to hold your hand under his large one, rubbing circles into the skin and reminding you that everyone heals in different ways and different paces but he promises that he’ll be there with you every step.

therapist! hex haywire who makes your heart flutter even though it’s incredibly improper for a patient to think this way towards a caretaker. he’s handsome, around your age, extremely kind, and knows you better than you know yourself so isn’t it natural as humans to feel attraction in such a situation? it would have been a smart choice to just look for someone else since it’s a clear violation of unspoken rules, but you were already crushing hard and you also didn’t want to restart all of the progress you already made with him over the past few months. surely, it’s just a little puppy crush that will die down on its own, right?

yandere therapist! hex haywire who knows you better than anyone else, even better than your own family whom you ran away from before seeking solace in your relationship with him. you don’t remember, but he certainly does— spending every waking moment thinking about you, every second spent with you, and every word that leaves your lips from the present to the first moment he laid eyes on you.

yandere therapist! hex haywire who’s surprised that you don’t remember him at all after the incident, but is more than pleased to start his new story in your book while leaving the previous pages to remain lost due to your memory loss. although he doesn’t want them to be just lost, he wants them scorched and far past restoration— gone is the psycho ex-boyfriend with flags redder than the blood he spilled for you, and now is the kind therapist who will accompany you in your time of need before eventually blurring the lines of professionalism.

yandere therapist! hex haywire who already knows about your growing attraction to him from your body language: how you’re subconsciously drawn to him, how you mirror his body language, how you inch closer to him when seated— it makes him smile to himself knowing that his charms are working on you just as well as it did when you first got together back then.

yandere therapist! hex haywire who takes advantage of how gullible you are to alienate yourself from the disgusting vermin that you naively call friends so that you’ll depend on him even more, preying on your insecurities and habits of overthinking to make you doubt the ones around you. it’s surprising how much a passing comment from a weekly session could negatively impact your viewpoint about your friends, but it’s only to be expected with someone who has been studying human psychology as extensively as he has.

yandere therapist! hex haywire who faked being shocked when you entered his office one day after fighting with your best friend, all teary-eyed and sniffing while hiding your face from him out of embarrassment. of course, he knew that this would happen, already having a box of tissues out and already predicting how the conversation would go. it took nothing to get you to dance into the palm of his hand, but it was one of the infinite reasons why he loved you so much.

yandere therapist! hex haywire who thinks that maybe getting caught by you while sticking a kitchen knife through the heart of your (then) current lover was perhaps a blessing in disguise. there will never be any words in any language to describe the panic he went through when you fainted and hit your head, but everything worked out perfectly fine. patience is a virtue and he would wait thousands of years if that was what it took to hold you in his arms again, but luckily for him, it was much closer than he thought.

[pennyserenade]

God Sejanus is so damn special to me. He’s such a unique character and I love him with my whole heart. He carries this belief that he’s somehow abandoned his people, abandoned himself, when he’s doing all he can to put an end to the games but he’s just a teenage boy with the weight of the world on his shoulders and he still feels like he isn’t doing enough despite doing more than anyone ever has before him and all he wants is a better life not for himself but for everyone suffering and oppressed by the capital and he’s just so important to me, like such a pure good hearted person in a world full of hatred and violence and he still thinks he’s not doing enough when staying as kind as he is and keeping his connection to his home was an act of resistance in and of itself

I could talk about him for hours tbh

i'm very happy to be receiving this ask because he's truly been on my mind for WEEKS. i feel oddly protective of sejanus because i think a lot of people have come to view him as weak and annoying---which, i think, is mostly a reflection of the way coriolanus views him. i do think there are conversations to be had about the fact that the decisions sejanus made weren't always sound, but he was meant to serve a foil to coriolanus. every move coriolanus made was calculated, thought out to even the most minute detail at times, and sejanus' were quick, instinctual, done not to impress because they he they had to be done. when arcahne crane was murdered by her tribute, coriolanus hesitated, had to be told by lucy gray to help, and did so because of the cameras. sejanus knelt down and spread bread crumbs over her body, without a single thought about the cameras. he did not care that no one understood this gesture, or that arachne was someone who never treated him with an inkling of respect. coriolanus thought about that-- he thought how she was evil and deserved to get her throat slit, and he thought about how he wasn't her friend, not really, and he even thought it was ironic that he was painted that way later. sejanus was angry at these people but forgiving, good, and he spoke out vehemently against their games and as often as he did because he hoped against hope; he wanted to reach them because he felt that he could. in all of his anger, sejanus never robbed these people of their humanity the way that they did the district people, because he knew how erroneous it was. the fight would not be worth fighting if he felt, even for a second, that there was no one to listen.

i also love that his identity is shaky; that, even though he has fierce, unapologetic ties to district two, he knows that they don't view him as one of their own. this is one of the parts that i find myself relating to the most when it comes to sejanus. i think many first gen latines can and do feel the same way. it is an odd experienced to be othered by your own and simultaneously hated by what you're 'meant' to be. sejanus could not readily fit in to the capital no matter how hard he might've tried, and he couldn't fit in to the districts because he was too 'capital' in their mind, just for the mere fact that he'd been sent there and taught there. and you do feel endlessly guilt about it -- at least in my experience -- and it is hard to contend with. you can carry on their traditions and love what you are and defend it until you are blue in the face, but what happens when they are in the cage and you stand on the other side, privileged? and like -- this is a real life thing that happened! they put children in cages. i wish with EVERYTHING in me that people would start talking about the parallels between the events in the ballad of songbirds and snakes and trump presidency because that's what it's talking abt!!! it is no coincidence they casted who they casted

[firewalkzwit]

runt // jonathan crane x reader. (10)

Chapter 10

cross-posted on AO3

masterlist

Bloodshot eyes tried to stay open at the expense of aching tear ducts. Bruce Wayne had documented his night on his journal before his sleepless memory erased important details. Though he knew he wouldn't forget her, he still wrote down his close encounter with the unfortunate victim of Scarecrow. He felt greatly irresponsible to leave her to her fortune where he did, in his irrational impulsivity forgetting to even make sure she could drive her way out. From his screen stared back at him the same captivating face that he'd seen before, remembering why he was stunned stupid beyond the standard ID procedure. Bruce was hardly the type to be unethical during his rather unorthodox nightly activities, yet he was overwhelmed by guilt. It soon clicked as he scanned through her connections that she was the younger sister of a low category goon that used to work for Carmine Falcone, who had recently died. The same guilt washed over him, she was alone and surrounded by misfortune. Dates coincided with the ambush on Falcone's men at the dock, it was like two plus two for him to deduce the cause of death, which he chose not to bother to check. Guilt.

His record failed to provide any information on where she worked, which only made his prying more difficult to serve his ultimate goal; locating her. The last time she had worked officially was as a janitor in Gotham University four months ago. Although one is innocent until proven otherwise, the Batman often needs to resort to expecting the worst out of everyone, but Bruce Wayne wasn't allowing the mere idea to cross his mind. Guilt kept washing over him followed by a wave of empathy, feeling oddly connected to her. She was just a kid, alone in the world. Her brother had been her caretaker legally for as long as he'd been an adult, and it was all the family she had, or used to. Both Bruce and her were lone runts, losing the people most important to him to matters of fate, yet he felt the familiar feeling from his childhood of having blood on his hands lingered. Batman on the other hand, held the belief that compromising oneself for money had its consequences, and her brother got the worst end of the lottery of unfortunate outcomes. It felt unfair to think she had to pay the consequences of God's gamble on her life. Guilt. Guilt. Guilt.

Bureaucracy is not exempted to the multimillionaire Bruce Wayne, especially because all the privileges he could potentially favor from were revoked when he moonlighted as the protector of Gotham. He wasn't a fan of making calls and use of his contacts anyway, as Bruce was considerably detached from Wayne Enterprises and all its stakeholders. When Batman had to explain to Gordon why he needed the help of the police influence to contact Gotham University about Y/N, it bothered Bruce to lie to Gordon about her being a suspect on the fresh case they had on Crane. In a way, he had the necessary arguments to back it up, but the innocence of his lie was cleared by the motive of his sin.

Two nights passed since he last saw her before he met with Gordon again to receive the information he needed. The last record of her home pointed to a small condominium in the outskirts of Park Row. Ouch, dark memories for Bruce which he'd rather not approach unless necessary, but everything was too close to home for Bruce to let himself turn the blind eye on the young runt. Besides, he insisted to himself on it having nothing to do with Batman, believing firmly that he responded to his duties.

The place was dreadful, one of the most unapproachable places in all of Gotham, and for a city like it, awarding it the 'most unapproachable' title was a big deal. The Batman prowled looking down at the dismal building where she had her home. The condo was small and cramped, three buildings stuck together with the architectonic style of a working class London flat, only smaller, and hers in the left corner. The three buildings had for pillars convenience stores and under hers a humble Chinese laundry shop. As he approached, it was more Bruce than Batman hoping that he'd find her safe, and clear his conscience.

Y/N hadn't heard of Dr. Crane for the past two days since he'd been in her apartment, and while at some hours of her days she'd feel her disdain for him dissipate, it would occasionally come back to strongly strike in her a desire to drown him in the water she boiled to serve him tea. It was unpredictable, and she knew she needed to pull herself together before her feelings took over her decisions. Engaging with Dr. Crane shouldn't be any different from her job as a waitress in the 44 Below. It all served a greater purpose, she'd tell herself. She simply had to smile and take it easy and repeat the phrase in her head. Her eyes were immerse in the television as she watched from afar, seated on the small kitchen table as she chopped tomatoes for an insipid salad she'd eat with the chicken breasts she had recently grilled, a frugal meal it was. The last time she had delighted her taste buds with good food felt longer than it was, but in reality it had been roughly about four months ago, dates she'd rather not think about unless it was to remember how much she hated Batman.

The kitchen knife in her hands suddenly trembled in her grip, stabbing the cutting board as a noise outside her balcony startled her. The window was open, letting out the nauseating and invasive smell of the chicken on the griddle pan. The silence of expectation, waiting for another sound to invite her curiosity to look outside, was composed of long seconds, and it took no more than a minute before the lack of discretion of whatever lurked in her debatable portion of property practically begged her to look. She placed the knife on an approachable distance as her slow walk, similar to that of a hunter, approached the window with growing terror as the suspense prolonged itself. She sprinted and rested her weight on the wall beside the window, her arms glued to the wall as her neck and head peeped to the side to look outside the open window.

It was easier to expect a unicorn to fly into her apartment than what (or who) did. He was discrete, unlike when he was outside her apartment. Shocking to see someone with the stealth of a feline move, as usually those with such a talent for discretion were not seen, as they would hide under the shadows. The shock was too much for Y/N to bare, she couldn't dare to breathe, paused on a sharp inhale and frozen against her wall with her eyes wide open. Her nostrils flared as she debated on whether to jump and reach for the knife on the edge of her table, or stay where she was, but before she could gather the courage to do anything at all, the vigilante turned as he perceived the presence he suspected, confirming her fear once their eyes met; it was the Batman.

"I'm not here to hurt you." The familiar soft yet raspy voice scratched her eardrums unpleasantly. She hated that voice, clandestine and almost inhuman. Although her body battered on her chest to yell at him to get out, she was petrified. What could she do? It was too much to process, and she was glued to the wall still without a limb moving, shocking he was able to see her in the shadows despite her immense secrecy product of her fear. Seeing she was still immobile, he slowly began to approach trying to not scare her, but then again one can approach slowly trying to calm the opposite party, or approach slowly like a hunter prowls furtively on its prey before pounding. Her senses suspecting the latter, she slowly began to walk as well, semi-crouching as her head tilted trying to discern if it really was him. As she finally reached a safe proximity to the table, her impulses got the best of her, and she got a rapid but clumsy grip of the kitchen knife which she held onto the tightest she could. Her tense muscles and flexed arm pointed the weapon at him, and her agitated breathing hesitated.

He remained still, displaying no signs of being startled at the threat.

"Move and I'll cut you... Real ugly." She threatened, yet her voice lacked conviction. Her tone trembled and sounded insecure, but both knew that fear was bound to impulsivity, and impulsivity was bound to disaster. The vital parts of his body were protected, and she was no fool to omit this. Yet the gesture her fingers did drawing a circle around her chin seemed to indicate the obvious; if she were to feel threatened by any movement on his behalf she'd cut his face. Or that's what she thought, since it took only a second before his unmatched speed caught a grip of her wrist and spun her around, pressing her back against his chest and her own wrist under his control, the knife was close enough to her own face to cause her to gasp. She winced at his manoeuvre, the tightening on the muscle under her scapula caused by the sudden stretching of her arm that moved her entire body still felt sore after being released from the tension. His forearm was significatively stronger than hers, and she couldn't battle against him even if she tried, she felt foolish to have even attempted to point a knife at Batman himself, known to take down men with guns unarmed many times.

"Let go of me!" She squirmed under his grip, which only tightened her body against his cold, shielded chest. Her head against his neck, she could feel the sharp bone of his jawline against the top of her head.

"I needed to make sure you were alright."

"I don't want you checking on me, pervert." Batman needed only the grip on her wrist to move her around like a puppet, as he spun her around again using his other arm to tighten her chest around his, her arm flexed so tightly against itself her forearm ached at the tension. Her hand held the knife still, the bottom of the weapon grazing Batman's hand wrapped around her wrist. The keen edge of the knife had a dangerous proximity to the Bat's cheek, and in his physical power he rested an immense trust in that she wouldn't do anything, she was too afraid to. In a way, the knife was also terrifyingly close to her as well, as her face was close enough to his to feel his hot breath on her nose and mouth. Her derisive response was followed by a long silence which was staled by the sound of the television, and their fast-paced breathing, almost synchronised.

"It's dangerous, you here on your own." His voice finally spoke with its usual severity, it felt like he was scolding her rather than looking out for her. Frankly, she wanted neither from him, she only wanted to cry, feeling overpowered and surrendered to the man she wanted to unmask and force to face public condemnation, although at that very moment she just wanted to choke him to death. Realistically, she only got her way on one of her many irrational desires; and it was to cry. She broke down, impotent, her grip on her knife weakening as the weapon dropped down on the floor. Her whole body softened, and she only remained standing thanks to Batman's hold on her. She weeped like an infant, and she felt like one, a runt.

He hesitated. He hardly ever hesitated, but display of emotion was not his usual pick from the deck of options he had when he chose to react. His hand travelled from her back to her face, his gloved thumb caressing her humid cheek in an attempt to comfort her. She flinched at his touch, a soft caress from the Batman, to her, felt like whiplash. She recoiled and struggled, trying to free herself from his grip.

"I said let go of me you murderer!" Y/N screamed as her head shook uncontrollably, she was displaying an authentic tantrum and was out of control. Having Batman so close and under complete sobriety, unlike their first encounter, didn't get from her the heroic response she expected from her own emotions. She had hoped that if she ever encountered the Batman, she could trick him into surrendering his identity, and that under his own dread he'd beg for her to kill him, and she'd comply. The scene in her apartment was nothing like she pictured, seeing the man she blamed for her brother's death only triggered in her erratic responses and an utter display of surrender to her terror and trauma. Despite her state, he complied to her urges, her body collapsing on the floor as she sobbed on the verge of hyperventilating.

"You're not safe here." He repeated like she was slow, which only irked her further.

"I don't need you telling me to know that. Why do you care?" Her voice trembled, exacerbated. "Why do you care!?"

He didn't answer, he couldn't. She knew, and she knew he knew she knew. She could tell he felt guilt, and wanted to wallow on how his emotions leaked from him, she wanted to hear him say it to give her pride satisfaction, and her ache a partial fulfillment. He had killed her brother, and as if he was trying to torture her, invaded her space. Laid on the ground like she did when the police gave her the news, her tears dropping on the cold wooden floor.

He longed to hold her and comfort her, and in a way, comfort himself. It was Bruce who longed to hold her, he wanted to find solace in feeling understood by her, even if she hated him for it. He felt selfish, guilty. Yet he wanted to hold her in his arms like he hadn't wanted something in so long, hold himself. To see her sobbing as her arms wrapped around her knees, trying to find the contact of something warm in her own body felt like seeing himself, and it anguished him.

He failed to tell she didn't just hate him, he was fuelling her dread even more.

[bugzbun]

Slenderman x rader [4]

The school day began like any other, with the usual bustling in the hallways,  filled with the chatter and laughter of students heading to their classes. 

Reluctantly, Alfie and I had left behind the search for Slender Man's pages, at least for the time being, to fulfill my responsibilities as a high school student.

English class was the first period of the day, and my mind kept on wandering during the lecture. 

My thoughts kept drifting back to the unsettling dream I had the night before, the dark forest, Slender Man, and the mysterious boy with the red, scar-like smile who had stabbed me. It all felt too real to be just a dream, and with what Alfie told me, it wasn't just that.

As the teacher droned on about the importance of symbolism in literature, my gaze wandered around the classroom. That's when I noticed him.—

Sitting a few rows away from me, I saw him, his  black hair partially covering his face. Only where was his red, scar-like smile that sent shivers down my spine?

I couldn't tear my eyes away from him, and as if sensing my gaze, he turned to look at me. Our eyes locked for a moment, his dark ones bore into my own [e/c] eyes and a chill ran down my spine, I could just see it covered up by,  what I'm guessing was, foundation.

Faded scars on the sides of his mouth, a carved smile, It was him, the same evil presence I had encountered.

Alfie, who had snuck herself into the pocket of my jacket, seemed to sense the danger, too. She peaked out just enough to take a glance and to whisper to me urgently,

"That's him, [y/n]. The one from your dream."

With Alfie confirming it, the realization hit me like a ton of bricks. It couldn't be a mere coincidence that the boy from my nightmare was sitting in my English class. It was as if the dream had spilled over into reality, and now here I was,  face to face with the very entity that had haunted my sleep.

Is this who Alfie was saying? He followed me out?

The boy's almost unblinking eyes bore into me, and I knew that we had to find a way to confront him. But for now, we had to endure the rest of the class, and the tension in the room felt so thick you could cut it with a knife.

I turned my attention back to my teacher, hoping he didn't have a realization like I did.

Finally as the bell rang, signaling the end of the period, I got up as fast as I could, to be the one to leave class before he did. But still, I couldn't shake the feeling that my encounter with the raven haired boy was far from over.

The days at school since had become increasingly challenging. The presence of the boy from both the dream and my English class felt like it it had cast a shadow over my daily life. Concentrating in class was a even an harder task with my mind constantly drifting back to that nightmare forest and those haunting, unblinking cold and dark eyes.

Alfie, who sat quietly in my jacket pocket, had become my silent partner in this nerve wreaking rather confusing mystery. Each day, as we sat through endless lectures and endured the curious glances of our classmates, we brainstormed ways to approach the boy and the forest to find the pages we needed.

Between classes, during lunch breaks, and even after school hours, we gathered as much clues as we could. I even discreetly asked classmates about him, but the information was nothing more then just vague whispers about "the new guy" with the raven-black hair or chatter from the girls that oddly found him attractive.

"Patience is key," Alfie reminded me one afternoon as we sat in the school library, scanning through the computer for anything at this point.

"We need to gather enough information to confront him safely." I could hear Alfie whisper.

I could practically feel the tension in the air, it seemed to grow with each passing day, and I couldn't help but feel as if I were in some kind of twisted game.

Strange occurrences had started to happen in my everyday life, echoes of voices from that dream and objects moved when they shouldn't, whispers of chilling laughter could be heard in empty hallways, and shadows danced in the corner of my vision.

I felt like I was losing my mind. 

But, then I felt hope as I was scrolling through an online forum dedicated to mysterious occurrences in small towns, when a post caught my attention.

It contained a photograph, grainy and ominous, of a familiar boy with long dark hair. His face was twisted in a manic grin, and the caption read: "Who is Jeff the Killer?"

I felt my heart start to pound in my chest as I showed it to Alfie, who gasped.

"That's him, [y/n], that's the boy from your dream!"

I felt my hand shake as I moved the mouse and clicked on the post and began to read. The thread was filled with tales of Jeff's acts of terror, of his obsession with violence. He was no ordinary teenager; he was, he is, the evil in the night. 

"That's him," I whispered, my heart pounding with both the feeling of dread and determination. The boy had a name, Jeff The Killer and his true identity was a chilling realization that sent shivers down my spine.

Our quest for answers had just begun and already had taken a chilling turn. Jeff's true identity felt like it had sent shockwaves through me.

This was no longer just a nightmare; it was a chilling reality that had invaded my life and as I sat with Alfie in the library, the weight of our discovery loomed heavy in the air.

"Jeff the Killer," I whispered the name, as if saying it any louder would summon him behind me.

Alfie cleared her throat her tiny wings fluttered nervously behind her. "we must be cautious. Jeff is not an ordinary person. He's a dangerous  We need a plan."

I knew she was right, so with that I went back to the computer once again. I began scouring the internet for any information on Jeff, his history and his encounters with others.

Each click of the mouse revealed more disturbing stories of his madness. Alfie was now watched over my shoulder, well on my shoulder. 

"We can't confront him directly until we know how to defend ourselves." I could hear worry in Alfie's voice.

I nodded in agreement, my eyes fixed on the screen. "We also need to understand Slender Man's motives better. Why does he want me?"

I delved deeper into my research but I couldn't help the feeling of being watched. Just as I was about to give up, I stumbled upon a peculiar thread on some obscure forum.

The title read, "The Key to the Dream Realm."

I felt drawn to it and clicked on the thread, my heart racing. The post was filled with cryptic messages and weird symbols, and one sentence caught my eye:

"The gatekeeper holds the power to travel between the awake world and the realm of the mind. "

Alfie's voice trembled as she read it aloud.

"You're the gatekeeper, [y/n]. That's why Slenderman is after you, he needs you."

The room seemed to grow colder as our discovery sank in. And with newfound determination, Alfie and I knew we had to find a way to protect ourselves and uncover the truth behind the nightmarish entities that had invaded our lives. 

As my eyes blinked open, I found myself surrounded by darkness, and an unsettling sense of déjà vu washed over me. I extended my hand, half-expecting to feel the soft touch of my bedsheets beneath my fingertips, but my fingers felt rough grass.

I felt panic and I rubbed my eyes before blinking a few times. I was back in the little clearing from so long ago where I first saw the Slender Man, only everything seemed different.  The sky looked like a blank white canvas and the trees were dark grey and misty looking. 

"This can't be happening again," I whispered to myself, my voice trembling.

My gaze swept around the clearing, taking in the eerie familiarity of it all. It was as though I had been transported into a replay of our first encounter but this time it was a nightmare.

But then, something shifted behind me, I slowly turned my head around.

Floating above me was a window—Not attached to anything, just a window. I slowly looked around me before standing up.

I realized it was my window from my room and in the middle of it, was an old, crumpled paper marked with a circle and had an X through it.

My heart raced as I looked at the note. However, this time, there was a notable difference. The note was on; what I considered the inside of the window, instead of being on the outside like before. 

I gently took the note in my hand. My unease deepened as my [e/c] eyes scanned my surroundings and then, I saw it.

I walked up to the tree it was on, the uneasy feeling I had got worse as got close to the line of trees, the closer I got the more trees that seemed to appear, I quickly gripped the note tight in my other hand. 

The note was like the other one but read something different,

"HELP ME" 

My body felt cold and yet I could feel beads of sweat on my forehead, I turned around and felt a scream escape me. 

Slender man loomed in front of me. 

I awoke in cold sweat with a loud gasp, my heart was pounding in my chest. Sitting up, my [e/c] eyes scanned my surroundings and I felt a bit of relief realizing I was in my room, in my bed and not in that freaky forest.  My ears picked up the sound of a crinkle, and I looked down to my left. In my hand, next to me, were the two notes I had grabbed before Slender Man showed up and I awoke.

The moonlight filtered through my window, casting an eerie glow on the crumpled pieces of paper. I brought them closer to my face to examine them better, and as my finger brushed against the aged surface, a shiver ran down my spine.

"What are you trying to tell me?" I whispered to the notes, my voice trembling. As if they knew the answer to the secret they held, As if they could even give me a clue, something, about the world of Slender Man.

As I examined the notes, I knew that I couldn't  put this off any longer. These notes, the encounters with Slender Man, the eerie dreams, hell even Jeff, I knew this much, they were all connected, and I needed to uncover the truth.

I knew what I had to do. I had to find the rest of the pages, the missing pieces. The pages, I hoped, held answers, and they were the key to understanding the enigma that had invaded my life.

I carefully folded the notes and placed them in a small box on my nightstand, a reminder of the mysteries I needed to solve. Then, I reached for my phone, the soft glow illuminating my face, determination filled me.

It was time to delve deeper into the search for the missing pages, to confront the darkness that lurked on the edge of my reality. I couldn't do it alone, though. I needed Alfie's guidance, and together, we would uncover the rest of the pages. 

It was almost light out, I knew I only had a few hours to find as much as I could. Alfie, who was not a morning person, grumbled from her spot on my shoulder as I finished packing a bag for our little trip back into the forest. It didn't have much, just an extra flashlight, a first aid kit and all the knives that were in the kitchen, leaving one out to hold onto.

"You know," she chimed in, her tone dripping with sarcasm, "I'm sure that kitchen knife will be just the thing to help us!"

I shot her a glare, but her tiny wings fluttered with amusement. "Seriously, [y/n], You think that's gonna work."

"It's better then nothing." I replied swinging the bag over my other shoulder that Alfie wasn't on. 

The forest was eerily silent as we ventured deeper into it. The tangled undergrowth seemed to close in around mw and every rustling leaf set my nerves on edge.

Alfie, still perched on my shoulder, couldn't resist making a comment. "Well, this kitchen knife is working wonders so far, isn't it?"

I shot her a wary look, half-amused and half-annoyed. "Just watch, Alfie. It might come in handy."

As we pressed on, my flashlight pierced the remaining darkness, the light cast eerie shadows as I combed through the thickets, leaves crunching beneath my shoes, and the tension in the air thickening with every step.

The thought of encountering Slender Man kept my heart racing.

Suddenly, Alfie's tiny wings fluttered nervously as she whispered to me. "Did you hear that?"

I froze, my senses on high alert. In the distance, there was a faint sound, like the whisper of the wind through the trees. It was a low voice, just barely audible, but I still heard it and it sent chills down my spine.

"Stay close, Alfie," I whispered, gripping the kitchen knife tighter.

As I cautiously tiptoed ahead, basically followed the eerie voice, inching closer to its source. As we moved deeper into the forest, it grew louder, until I could make out the words. It was in a language I didn't recognize and it almost sounded like I could hear drums. 

And then, bathed in the glow of my flashlight, I saw it. Another page, stuck to a tree, it seemed to glow faintly in the darkness.  It had a sketch this time, of trees and the familiar shape of Slenderman.

Alfie couldn't help herself but say, "Well, look at that. Maybe your kitchen knife did bring us luck after all."

I couldn't help but smile, the relief washing over me. We had found 3 pages and if I remembered, there were 8 altogether. 

Alfie suddenly feeling uneasy, glanced around. "Uh..[y/n].." 

Before I could respond, I heard a voice. 

"Look who's awake." I felt my heart almost stop, the hair on the back of my neck stood up as I turned around slowly and there, bathed in the glow of my flashlight, I saw him.

Jeff, with his twisted grin and manic eyes, emerged from the shadows, standing there like a nightmare come to life.

"I've been watching you, [y/n]," he hissed, his voice dripping with malice. "I've been watching, wondering what Slender wanted from you..." 

I could feel the blood drain from my face. Alfie's wings fluttered anxiously, and I knew we were in more danger than ever before.

"I saw him waiting for you to embrace your 'dreams'" Jeff hissed, his grin widening as he took a step closer, his figure illuminated even more by the glow of the flashlight.

"So what you can hurt someone in their sleep." Jeff's grin seemed to faulter as he let out a low growl.

"I CAN MAKE THEM SLEEP" He shouted, something reflected the light of my flashlight, my [e/c] eyes darted down to his hand by his side, where he held a knife. 

"GO TO SLEEP!" He yelled and in that terrifying moment, Jeff lunged forward with his knife, his intentions clear.

Next part

[goffard]

so, you come here often @idyllicserendipity?

Fingers deftly tucked around his tie, he works to loosen it just enough to offer himself some much needed relief — just enough to still maintain a proper appearance even as he's gone and tucked himself away in the corner, away from the rest of the crowd.

He plays the part of ' heir to the throne ' well enough, and still, these events never get easier for him. He's expect to act so formal, so stiff, and meeting all the demands of those around him is always so damn suffocating... He needs a break, time to breathe.

It's tempting to roll his eyes when he inevitably hears the approach of heels against the tiled floor, growing closer and closer after what seemed like mere seconds after he'd sat down in his own little spot here. He's prepared to meet his unexpected company with a charming smile, with the typical scripted bullshit he spews at their most esteemed guests — but, a second glance tells Derek he can save the act for later.

In the grand scheme of things, she's no one important.

Not important enough for him to remember much about during their first greeting, save for her name, her husband's name, the company they run... Oh, and her very nice ass.

Hearing her speak that first time sparked an odd feeling within in him, if only briefly. In the end, he can blame it on a little thing called déjà vu. More importantly, he must admit that he'd been far more distracted by how her dress hugged her curves... The same could easily be said for him even now, as he continues to watch her approach.

"Celia, right?" He doesn't bother to keep his eyes from wandering curiously so. Derek pauses as he gives her a slow, up and down look, focusing perhaps a bit too obviously on all the right places, before settling his attention there on her face. His lips quirk up in a smug little smirk. At least she's hot — for a married old hag, that is. Elbow casually propped up on the table he's at, he rests his chin against his palm, and he continues. "So we meet again ~ Must be fate! You know, like we're soulmates or something."

Not that he actually believes in hippy - dippy bullshit like that, but, it can't be mere coincidence that her voice, even her presence as a whole, is one so... oddly familiar...

[1kook]

BORN SINNER III

→ MASTERLIST

summary; Regardless of whether you are a liar or not, that didn’t make it okay for Jungkook to lie to you. warnings; virgin jungkook, timid jungkook, church boy jk, a LOT of religious themes/discussion, catholic guilt, fear of sinning, mentions of masturbation, heavy doubts, a little paranoia/fear of being outcasted, jk has a crush, confessions, making out, boob lover jk has his boobs touched, groping/petting, light praise, very brief/light choking, jk is horny like 75% of the time, positive character development <3 rating; m (18+) wc; 9.5k

banner; as always, by @jamaisjoons​ !! ty ty ty!! <3333

notes; i have to apologize for delaying this update for so long. truth is, it was difficult to write the next part bc i felt like i had trapped myself in pt2-- jk wasn't showing ANY progress & i started to really hate his character. LUCKILY, with the help of my amazing editor n wife @kigurumu​ *audience cheers* i was able to put him back on the right track towards redemption! (& even more painful angst in the future!) sadly, that means that this part doesn't include any explicit smut, you'll see why. still, I'm very proud of how much i was able to build his character in this part and i hope you enjoy it!!! lemme know what u think <3

in the future, i will try my best to make sure the chapters aren’t so spaced out. again, i am so so sorry about taking so long to update this series

He gets your text the following Tuesday morning. 

Now, Jungkook has never been one to be overly invested in his cell phone; he uses it as much as he needs to, just checks his emails, takes some photos, and sends texts when necessary. But you had set up a particularly unique ringtone for yourself the other day, had sweetly asked for his phone as he laid against your chest. His skin had felt warm and the slightest bit sweaty, his body pressed so closely against you that he couldn’t tell where he ended and you began. “Did you have fun?” you asked, fingers combing back his hair. He had hummed, eyes fluttering shut to the faint tapping of your fingers across the keyboard. If he closes his eyes, he can still remember the soft beating of your heart beneath his ear, the leg you had hooked around his waist to pull him closer. The memory makes him shiver. 

It’s a high-pitched bell sound that alerts him of your messages now, completely unlike the classic default tone he had set for everyone else. 

From the other side of his room, Jungkook immediately pauses to look at it, the lit up screen glaring back at him from its idle place on his bedside table. He always leaves it there in the mornings, beside his rosary and the picture of his family, as he gets ready for work. 

He knows exactly who it’s from— after all, that’s what you wanted when you stylized your ringtone —which is why his hand trembles in excitement as he unlocks his phone. 

[❤️]: picnic tomorrow? 🥰

[❤️]: after my last class of course

Jungkook’s first thought is that this was a date, his first one with you since he had met you. His heartbeat hammers at the thought, at the mere suggestion that the two of you would be able to spend more time together this week outside of your usual weekend… acts. Additionally, if you’re asking him on a date, then surely it means you view Jungkook as a potential suitor, just as he does you? Do you want to maybe date Jungkook? Jungkook certainly wants to date you— in fact, if he starts gathering his courage now, he might be able to properly ask you out tomorrow. 

Jungkook’s second thought is of that guilty, gross feeling that’s been gnawing at his insides for three days now, and how it was inevitably going to get worse when he saw you again. 

He had lied to you, Jungkook recalls, sinking down against his mattress, shirt half buttoned, as he stares at the screen. He had lied to your face during a critical moment, had felt that seed of doubt in his chest blossom more than ever. And not only had Jungkook lied to you, but he had lied to you about his feelings toward you. How could he ever hope to hold you close, to date you, when he couldn’t even be honest with you?

The memory of your curious gaze presents itself at the forefront of his mind, the soft sound of your laughter ringing in his ears. 

You had been so sweet to him despite his blunder, had cupped his face and kissed him on the lips when he dropped you off outside your apartment. “Not today,” you crooned, unbuckling yourself as Jungkook’s eyes trailed over your throat— ignoring your cross —and down your chest. “I have schoolwork to catch up on. But soon, okay?” Another sweet peck had left him trailing after your touch, your finger bopping the tip of his nose playfully. “Call me when you get home.”

And because he was so terribly, irrevocably smitten with you, Jungkook had done as you said and called you. He’d called you and then had whimpered against his sheets as you generously talked him through another sinful deed. You had softly sighed his name over the line, told him he was handsome and that you missed him. That you wanted him in your mouth—

And of course, he had felt… something afterwards. 

This is where his dilemma begins: Jungkook had felt something afterwards, and he’s not sure if it had been entirely good or bad. The longer Jungkook stays around you, hangs out with you, does things with you— the more he can feel parts inside of himself change. Because after the phone call, Jungkook had felt two distinct emotions within himself, both of which were up for questioning. 

First, there was that one feeling he was becoming all too familiar with, the crushing guilt that would consume him following any sexual interaction with you or himself for that matter. Why was he like this? Why did he indulge himself in such heinous pleasures when he knew, knew better than anyone, what committing such acts meant for the future of his soul? He was practically dooming himself the way he was now, but Jungkook just didn’t understand— why did something so bad feel so good?

But alongside that gnawing guilt was this tiny, weirdly pleasant satisfaction, a gratification that superseded the relief felt by an orgasm. It was this oddly serene feeling that settled over Jungkook in the moments following a climax, the soft brush of your hands through his hair, the low lilt of your voice. They made him feel like he was floating on the softest of clouds, kissed and pampered by its wispy tendrils. It made something inside of Jungkook feel different, new. Good. 

(In the back of his mind, Jungkook realizes he’s always felt that way. At the height of his pleasure, at the faintest brush of your hands against his. It was a staple of your presence, one that made Jungkook feel like he was walking on air.)

From whatever angle he looked at it, it just didn’t make sense. They were contrasting emotions; while one made him feel godawful, the other one practically made him transcend. The fact they could coincide, exist all at once, had Jungkook’s brain folding in on itself as he tried to figure out why. They kept him up the last few nights, eyes blankly staring up at his ceiling following his evening prayers. Mulling over everything he’s ever learned and been told, always circling it back to your beautiful presence in his life. 

He knows sex in itself is not bad— after all, that was how the beautiful process of life came to be —but years upon years of studying his religion, cultivating his faith, had all led him to the same conclusion: premarital sex was wrong. And for the past few weeks, well. That’s all Jungkook had been doing with you. 

It seems like every time you meet, you’re dead set on pleasuring him, turning Jungkook into a shivering, teary-eyed mess while you grinned from above. That confused him too— as far as Jungkook knew, the whole point of sex was to chase after your own pleasure, something you admittedly did not do. It was always Jungkook’s pleasure, Jungkook’s enjoyment that you wanted, covering him in languid kisses and long caresses until he was inevitably shooting his hot cum all over your lap and into your hands. 

You had told him it was okay, that he should never feel bad for enjoying himself. But, to return back to his original dilemma, he doesn’t quite know if he can trust your word. 

You’re a liar, that much Jungkook can look past his rose-tinted glasses to admit. While you may not have lied to him (or at least, Jungkook wants to believe you haven’t), the fact still stands that you are quite willing to deceive others in order to get what you want. He already knows you aren’t the biggest believer of the Church yourself, that you frequently brush off your religious duties in order to fulfill your own desires— the aforementioned sexual cravings probably the biggest one —so, quite frankly, Jungkook is untrusting of the rest of your practices. Were you lying to him, telling him all was well, just for your own benefit? Just because you wanted to drag him along on your lustful adventures? He wasn’t sure, and as much as he wanted to trust you wouldn’t, there’s a shred of doubt that plagues him. 

But still. 

Regardless of whether you are a liar or not, that didn’t make it okay for Jungkook to lie to you.

He taps his phone against his chin, brain a frenzied mess. 

If Jungkook really wanted to pursue this relationship with you, he needed to be honest with himself and with you. Did it bother him that you were so flippant with the Church, the one he himself feels so devoted to? Yes and no. Jungkook has never been one to impress his beliefs on others, and truthfully, he would not be the slightest bit bothered if you don’t believe in the same things he does. Would there be some awkwardness in your relationship? Certainly, but at least Jungkook would know the real you from the very beginning. 

But to him, posing as an avid follower when you really aren’t rubs part of him the wrong way. He’s slightly put off by that aspect of you, and justifiably felt that anyone would feel such a way if someone were to use something they love as mere leverage for their own personal gain. And to make matters worse, now that he’s been made aware, it weighs down heavily on his conscience. 

Part of Jungkook, as selfish as it may be, wishes you had never revealed your secrets to him. He may have been left in the dark a total fool, but at the very least he would have been a happy fool. Would he still feel guilt about all the sexual deeds he’s partaken in with you? Sure, but at least he would only have himself to blame. The way things are now, he’s unsure who really needs to be condemned. 

Realistically, it is Jungkook’s fault. He knows how you are and even more, he knows you would never proposition him for any such sexual deed if he told you no, if he simply denied you. But he doesn’t tell you no, and that’s the problem: Jungkook really likes you as you are now, questionable behavior be damned. He likes you when you make him cry and when you pinch his cheeks and when you snake your hand down his pants. 

He still thinks you’re amazing, gets this fluttery feeling when you look at him with that sparkling gaze of yours. Your laughter makes him smile, even if you’re not laughing at something he said, because the sound is just so comforting, warm and soothing, makes his entire body relax when you chuckle. You have this gentle touch, these delicate hands that carefully comb his hair back for him in the car sometimes, tracing the side of his face softly. Your smile makes him dizzy, makes him want to cup your face in his hands and kiss you breathless. And, of course, he can’t complain about your… other talents when he’s only been on the beneficial receiving end of said talents. That aforementioned satisfaction, as small as it may be and as difficult as it was to admit to, was something Jungkook has begun to look forward to on the occasions that you meet. 

But his inability to overlook his own beliefs and your confusing nature brings about a great strife within Jungkook. It’s the reason he hesitates outside the church after dropping you off, his car running as he glares at his steering wheel. Everything in him says to go inside and confess to his sins, relieve himself of this overwhelming sense of guilt and shame to the closest person to his Lord. 

But he’s scared. 

Scared that, despite the oath of confidentiality, word will get out. His fellow brothers in faith will hear about what he’s done and call him out for his lecherousness. But even worse, he’s scared of what will happen to you. Would Jungkook’s life be over if he were thrown out of his beloved church? As dramatic as he may be, no. But he recognized that there were different standards to which men were held in this society, that an act of desire by him would not ruin his name the same way it would you. 

And Jungkook didn’t want that. He wanted to keep you safe. Wanted you to be happy and smiling, regardless of how conflicted it made him, because he likes you. He likes you so much, despite the fact he has yet to uncover the true extent of your character. 

But the cloud of mystery is partially what intrigues him, has him pondering over your very existence instead of getting ready for work as he is now. He’s terribly enamored, thinks about you and prays for you every night. So maybe Jungkook is still the fool, because he still daydreams about you when he knows he shouldn’t. 

His phone buzzes in his hand—

[❤️]: i miss you bunny ☹️

—and his decision is made. 

Tuesday passes by in a blur and before he knows it, it’s Wednesday afternoon and you’re texting him the location of one of the parks in the city. You had told him not to worry about the food because you would bring it. Jungkook’s only job was bringing the picnic blanket, a huge checkered thing he had spent all morning rifling through three stores for. He wants to impress you, desperately so, that he’s even wearing a nicer outfit today, darker tones unlike his normal warm palette because he had heard a woman at his job say men look cooler in dark colors. 

Suffice to say, he sticks out like a sore thumb at the park, the stark black of his jeans contrasting with the vibrant green of the neatly cut grass. Jungkook has half the mind to feel self-conscious about it, but then you’re calling his name from a couple meters away and his breath leaves his lungs. 

“Hi,” you greet, the handle of your wicker basket held tightly between two hands; Jungkook rushes to relieve you of the weight. “Did you wait long?” you ask, rewarding his gentlemanly behavior with a chaste kiss against the corner of his mouth that kick-starts his heart back into action and has his face burning up. 

In all honesty, you have never dressed very modestly— not that you had to, nor that there was anything remotely wrong with that. Jungkook has spent many a mass service fighting the urge to glance down the front of your dresses and tops, ignoring the cleavage you liked to show off now and then. But apparently, what Jungkook had seen up until now was your version of dressing modestly. The dress you show up with today, an off day where there are no church ladies to impress and no unspoken dress codes to follow, makes his brain short circuit. The thin, thin, straps that hold it up giving him an all access view to the broad expanse of your shoulders and chest and collarbones and boobs—

“No!” Jungkook rushes to reassure you, fighting down the blush that threatens to travel further down his neck when you carefully straighten out the collar of his shirt for him. “I- I, um, just got here.” 

You beam at the news. “I bought cheesecake,” you tell him, looping your arm through his as you tug him along. “I hope it hasn’t melted yet!”

By the time the two of you settle at a suitable spot near the lake, the cheesecake hasn’t melted. It’s still cold and solid, tastes like heaven on Jungkook’s tongue, and you laugh when his eyes light up. You look gorgeous like this, nestled against the checkered picnic blanket with a glass bottle of sparkling water in your hand, sandals just beside the edge of the blanket. There’s the faint chime of a bicycle bell somewhere to his left and the chatter of birds as they flock over the pond. Wonderful sights that would normally take his breath away and make him marvel at their beauty, but when you smile at him so gingerly like that, all Jungkook can think about is you. 

He watches you slip a strawberry past your lips. “Tell me about yourself,” you hum, seemingly out of the blue, wiping the corner of your mouth with one careful finger. “Other than, like, church stuff,” you tease. 

As you lean forward for another one, Jungkook’s brain stutters for a moment, eyes focused on the curves of your boobs as they naturally follow the movements of your upper body until he’s dizzy. “Huh?” he says, and you snort. “Oh— me, right, yes um—“

“Your favorite color?” you suggest, tugging the skirt of your dress tighter around your legs. It’s not cold, but there’s a slight breeze that keeps rolling over the two of you, pushing your floral scent over Jungkook and fluttering through his hair. “Right now, all I know is that you like cheesecake because you ate three slices at the bazaar the other week,” you chuckle.

It’s such a basic question, the bare minimum of knowing a person. But when you look at Jungkook like that, blinking those long lashes at him, it makes him forget his answer. “Um… Red,” he murmurs, watching you tug off the stem of the strawberry in your hands. “And white.”

You nod, and then you’re stretching a hand outward to offer him the aforementioned strawberry. When he doesn’t open his mouth right away, you silently demonstrate first, until Jungkook is slowly parting his lips and accepting your strawberry. The flavor bursts on his tongue, sweet and sticky, coating the very tips of your fingers when you don’t pull away fast enough. Jungkook averts his gaze when you pop them between your own lips and suck them clean. 

“Red and white,” you repeat, unaware of the lustful images that flicker through Jungkook’s mind, the way his eyes unconsciously drop to the front of your dress, at the crevice between your breasts that he remembers oh so well, the tight suction around his cock as you— “They make pink, which is my favorite color.” He desperately clears his mind of the memories that flash before his eyes. 

It’s a pretty color, fit for a pretty girl. Jungkook keeps the thought to himself as he watches you sift through the contents of your basket. It’s the perfect compliment to give you, he knows it’d make you happy, but his valor disappears when you throw him a soft grin and he’s transported back to a more recent memory, the memory in the car instead. 

A bad influence, he had called you, had watched your eyes well up with an emotion he had never seen on you before. Sadness? Disappointment? Disgust? He wasn’t sure, all Jungkook could really remember was the acidity on your tongue when you had repeated the words back to him, the ghost of your touch when you had abruptly pulled away from him, shut him out. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen you so closed off before, not even when he had first met you and you were parading around with that staged shyness. 

And even when Jungkook had corrected himself afterwards (read: lied to you to cover his tracks), the emotion had lingered. Even when you had playfully brushed him off, he had caught your reflection in the window beside you as he drove to your place. The sullen look on your normally happy face, lips down-turned, eyes lowered. A look he had put there. 

And now he’s watching you carefully rip apart bread to throw at the birds with a tender smile. A cloud moves and suddenly the sun is beating down on your little picnic again, casting a beautiful glow across your skin that renders him breathless for the shortest moment, trapped by the sheer beauty you exude. You’re absolutely ethereal, and yet he had questioned you. Your morals, your character, everything. 

“__?” he says before he can stop himself. 

You hum, “yes, bunny?” before pausing your little feeding task to glance back over at him. When you look at Jungkook like this, meet his gaze straight on, he doesn’t see an ounce of ingenuity in your eyes. It might be Jungkook’s lovesick heart speaking, but he can’t imagine you ever lying to him. He looks away first, frowning at the various fruits sprawled between the two of you. 

You care about him, that much Jungkook wants to believe. And his beliefs are confirmed, when your voice drops an octave lower, becomes softer, as you murmur, “is everything alright?” The fruits are carefully set aside, breaking the wall between the two of you until you can shuffle forward, your knees bumping against his. Hands reach for his, thumbs rubbing soothing circles against his skin. 

Before you can repeat your inquiry a second time, Jungkook finds himself asking, “do you like me?” 

Jungkook’s sudden inquiry makes your cheeks heat up just the slightest, your startled inhale barely contained. 

It’s like a scene straight out of a teenage romcom— a confession in a park, your hearts bared for each other. But it’s a little awkward, you have to admit, unintentionally giving Jungkook’s soft hand a nervous squeeze as his question rolls over in your mind. 

Duh, you want to say. But there’s something about the look in Jungkook’s eye— the eyes he very purposefully turns towards your hands, the hair he had let loose today providing him ample protection from your gaze —that has you pausing, carefully considering your next words. 

You had hoped by now that it was obvious, that Jungkook understood how much he meant to you, and didn’t require some dorky confession in the park. Partially because, well. This wasn’t your usual role. Usually, it was the guy confessing to you, raving about all your redeeming qualities in an effort to win you over. But with Jungkook, all you know about relationships is flipped upside down, forcing you to play a position you’ve never played before. 

Jungkook wasn’t like you; he was soft and sentimental, practically wore his heart on his sleeve for the whole world to see. And it was a massive heart, filled with so much love and adoration for the world around him, that you felt bad when he wore such sullen expressions on his face.

Expressions like the one he has now, lips pressed together tightly as he misreads your silence. He has honest eyes, a dark toffee color that sends tingles down your spine when he looks your way. They glimmer with a sort of innocence for the world, a thin sparkle that makes him look like a prince sometimes. He was devastatingly handsome, and now he was upset. “Um— it’s okay,” he stammers, trying to move the conversation along. But his eyes flicker around nervously, anxiously. Like your silence has left a burn mark on him, painful and delicate to the touch. 

His comment isn’t completely unexpected. How very on-brand for big-hearted Jungkook to try to save you from an uncomfortable interaction, even if it was caused by him. “Um…” he murmurs, “it’s okay. If you don’t, uh. Like me?”

It sounds flimsy, even to you. 

“No, no,” you rush to correct, your ability to speak slowly coming back to you only after the fact. “I do,” you admit, nerves on edge at this rather foreign situation. “I… like you a lot, Jungkook.”

You shouldn’t be surprised by his reaction. Jungkook blinks slowly, like his brain is still processing the information, and then, ever so artfully, goes up in metaphorical flames. “O- Oh,” he stutters, reaching a free hand up to press his knuckles against his face. The rosy hue that had first blossomed over his cheeks has now started crawling down his neck now, up his ears. It’s terribly endearing. “I— um. I didn’t know,” Jungkook rambles, and it’s so cute, so sweet, how a simple confession from you renders him this flustered.

His face emanates a warmth tangible even on your own skin, lips cutely quirking to the side as he fights off a bashful smile and the raging blush your words bring about. It certainly is a sight to see. His hair tickles his eyebrow, swept out of its usually neat style, but it makes him look all the more gorgeous. “Cute,” you chuckle, feeling the slightest bit shy at such a warm response from Jungkook. You sit back, giving him the space he needs, and turn your attention up at the big blue sky instead. “Really? I thought it was obvious,” you hum.

Part of you actually feels really awkward; as you said before, everything is so brand new with him.  With Jungkook, he flips everything around for you, makes you actually admit to your emotions as opposed to simply going along with his. It’s a nice change of pace, as difficult as it may be, and the results are rather… cute as well. (He bites down a smile, but the action makes his normally soft cheeks look more pronounced than usual.) 

“Because, I, um. Me too,” he says, voice wavering. He clears his throat and tries to meet your gaze under his fringe, but doesn’t last more than a second before he’s pointedly glancing at the picnic blanket beneath the two of you. “I’m— I like you too,” he admits, ears tinted a bright red. You figured as much but it was always nice to hear, especially from someone like Jungkook. “A lot.”

“Thanks,” you smile, placing a hand on his thigh. 

His lips pull into a shy smile, aimed at your knees because he can never look you in the eye when you shower him in praise and other gooey, mushy feelings. It’s the same in the car or against your front door— he always manages to give your hand a tight squeeze, maybe even a kiss if he’s feeling brave. But the second you try to tell him you’ve had fun or that you’ll miss him, it’s like all his courage fades away, leaving him a blushing, smiley mess.

He was cute like that. Despite being so kind and caring, it was like Jungkook’s entire being stopped functioning when those types of gestures were aimed at him. So you relished those moments, looked forward to them with a fluttery feeling in your heart that couldn’t be tamed. 

Today, he throws you for a loop. Just as that proud, giddy smile appears, cheeks and ears a pretty pink, it fades away. The excitement from your mutual confessions seems to remind Jungkook of something else, something less warm, that has him quietly mumbling, “I’m sorry.” 

It’s confusing, to say the least. Just a moment prior, he had been pursing his lips in a silly attempt to hold back a smile. Now he’s staring at the ground with a rather pensive look, his apology sitting heavy in his throat. “What for?” you tentatively ask after one long beat. It had been so sudden. In your mind, there isn’t a single reason for Jungkook to be apologizing to you, especially so out of the blue. There is, however, an inkling of fear brought upon by what can only be classified as insecurity; you had just confessed your feelings for each other, why was he sorry about that? 

Jungkook exhales, a quiet sound that is nearly lost among the bustling noises of the park. If you hadn’t been sitting so close, maybe you wouldn’t have heard it at all. “I just,” he huffs, pointedly glaring at some random spot of grass beside you. His features look sharper than ever now, jawline defined, brows narrowed together. It’s a rather misplaced realization, but Jungkook looks absolutely gorgeous with distress painting his face. “I was… being selfish before.”

In the few weeks you’ve known him, you’ve come to realize Jungkook was many things. First and foremost, he’s an absolute gentleman. Raised on manners and compassion, looking after others everywhere he went. He was caring and sweet, loved this world and the people in it so much. Soft-spoken but straightforward. He was dreamy, disgustingly so. 

But selfish? It definitely sounds like something Jeon Jungkook is not. 

Before you can interrogate him even further, it seems like Jungkook is dead set on getting through this alone. “I- I’m sorry,” he repeats, eyes downcast. Noticing his wavering confidence, you resign yourself to listening, hand giving him a reassuring squeeze. Finally, after a short moment, Jungkook murmurs, “...in the car.” You tilt your head to the side curiously, waiting for him to go on. “I said, um. Something rude.” 

It takes a moment for the memory to load, and when it finally clicks into place and begins rolling, you find yourself muttering a faint, “ah.” 

If it’s what you think it is, he’s talking about last weekend outside of the church. That terribly awkward encounter that had left a sour taste in your mouth afterwards. A bad influence, you recall him saying, the memory of his voice looped in your mind the entire drive to your place. 

In all honesty, it had stung a little. While you were aware that Jungkook had an ongoing mental battle, you hadn’t realized your role was that big in it. It’s the reason you had sent him home that day, made up a lie about schoolwork just to give him some space. It’s nothing new, everyone’s had someone think badly of them before; gossipy classmates, rivals, maybe even random strangers on the street. But it felt different when it was coming from someone as sweet as Jungkook, so polite and righteous, who wouldn’t even hurt a fly. Like he was stating a fact, not an opinion. 

It was a slip-up on Jungkook’s end, that much you could tell. Because he had been frantic to correct himself afterwards, had looked at you with these fearful eyes, like one wrong move and you’d slip from between his hands. Luckily, you weren’t that sensitive— definitely not as sensitive as him, at least —and such a comment had been practically meaningless moments later. 

Still, in those few moments where it was meaningful (read: the short period it took for Jungkook to get home and call you, the words looping around your brain until the harsh ring of your cell phone finally interrupted), it had left you wondering. Have you been pushing him too far, asking for too much? The way you saw it, you always gave Jungkook room to object to any of your advances. You know he’s trapped in his thoughts more often than not, but you pay attention to him, you really do. You make sure to take his reactions into account, try to offer solutions where possible. But, for the briefest moment, all of those efforts had felt fruitless that day in the car. 

What you say next is not a complete lie; sure, Jungkook’s comment had hurt for a bit, but here he was now apologizing for it. That was a good sign… right? “It’s okay,” you brush off, patting his cheek softly, hoping with every fiber in your being that it really was okay.

Your voice is gentle, soothing his doubts. Just moments prior, Jungkook had felt like he was asking for too much, especially when your feelings toward him were up in the air. But your earnest confession soothed the ache in his heart. It’s all he’s wanted these past few months, to belong in your heart like you do his. 

But the guilt from before, the tumultuous feelings he’s been harboring towards you since the weekend, dampens his excitement. From your confession alone, it doesn’t seem like you questioned Jungkook. You weren’t put off by who he was, what he loved. So why couldn’t Jungkook be like you, think like you?

“I’m still sorry,” he says again, feeling like a broken record when he catches this sympathetic smile on your face. The scraps of eloquence he had gathered while originally apologizing seem to fade away, leave him a stuttering mess when he tries again. “That was— I shouldn’t have said—“

“Hey,” you cut off, placing a hand against his cheek. It stops his fidgeting, forces him to meet your gaze head on. There’s a smile on your face but something inside of Jungkook says it doesn’t feel real. “I like you, Jungkook.” 

And it’s true and genuine, your words so honest it pains him to think he had ever thought otherwise. And you’re still smiling, even after being hit with the implication that Jungkook questioned your character and maybe that’s what hurts the most. That you still try to put on an easygoing expression for him after he’s said something hurtful. It’s the car all over again, that blank look in your eyes when he had spoken carelessly. 

Before he can apologize for the umpteenth time, you’re shaking your head softly, smiling anew. But this time, he can’t tell if it’s real or not. “I brought orange juice,” you say, expertly moving the conversation along. And just as Jungkook has been thinking for weeks now, it’s like you know him so well. You know when things make him anxious or uncomfortable, know just how to help him out. 

There’s a feeling of guilt that blossoms in his chest, but this time it’s different. 

It’s not the usual sticky gross feeling of before, the one that has him staying up at night repenting for all his wrongdoings. It’s a personal kind of guilt that comes along with the frank realization that, while you have been learning and adapting to being around Jungkook, he has not been doing the same for you. 

Though you may be a little playful at times, you don’t tease him for who he is, don’t stomp all over his beliefs as much as he deluded himself into thinking you do. (That whole, faux-believer thing was a different circumstance.) Like with the cross in his house the other day. As much as Jungkook wanted to believe what you had done was evil, he had, quite honestly, enjoyed himself afterwards. There wasn’t that heavy discomfort sitting on his chest anymore, that sense of shame lingering as you’d kissed his body and let him caress yours too, in the safety of your eyes only. It was enjoyable and fun, had felt exhilarating to be so intimate with you. 

And instead of being thankful for your mindful efforts, he had questioned your sincerity. 

The picnic goes by in a flash. Jungkook is sad he can’t enjoy it to the fullest, his brain filled with clamorous thoughts that circled around to torture him every few minutes. Still, the entire date feels like a dream, vibrant and beautiful, leaving him in a daze. He doesn’t want to wake up. 

By the time you suggest wrapping up, the sun is setting over the horizon, the windows and lights of the buildings around you slowly flickering to life like a sea of tiny stars. He feels weak in the knees as he helps you pack everything back in your basket. “All set,” you smile, walking beside him, knuckles brushing against his until you fulfill Jungkook’s wordless wish and slip your hand into his. 

Jungkook agrees, hoping his hand isn’t sweaty and that you mean what you say. “I- I liked the food,” he remembers to mention, the fact that you had so carefully and lovingly prepared all this not entirely lost on him. His compliment, as simple as it may be, has you beaming at him as you exit through the park’s front gates. His car is parked along the street, the sleek vehicle coming into view as you round the street corner, hands still fastened. “Um,” he mumbles, pausing beside it. You turn to face him, eyes clear and content. 

All good things come to an end, he supposes, reluctantly letting go of your hand when you tug. “I’ll see you soon, okay?” you say, stepping up close, chest pressed against his. His breath hitched in his throat, eyes going wide when you nuzzle against his neck. Your hands slip around his waist. They wrap around him perfectly, make Jungkook feel like he was made for you. 

By the time he’s springing into action, jerkily raising his free hand up to your back, you’re stepping away. “Call me when you get home,” you wink, sending shivers down his spine when he remembers what happened the last time you said that. 

But Jungkook doesn’t think he can wait that long. 

You’re slipping further and further away, fingertips just barely brushing against his forearm, when Jungkook jolts into action. “How are you, um—“ he stammers, feels too big for his shoes when you tilt your head curiously. And then, “d- do you need a ride?” he mumbles, cheeks warm. 

It’s a feeble attempt at asking what he really wants. Offering you a ride home, while not a bad idea considering it was late and you had taken the bus here, is nowhere near what Jungkook really wants. What he wants is standing before him, thin spaghetti strap slipping down their shoulder, eyes sensually half-lidded and you know this too— because, again, you know Jungkook so well, know what he wants even if he can’t say it —as you step into his bubble again, peer up at him with your arms held behind your back. 

“A ride home?” you ask, blinking your long lashes in a way that robs him of his breath. And he can see that switch flick on inside of you, watches that pure and innocent gleam in your eyes slowly become replaced with something mischievous. Jungkook nods dumbly. “I’d love that.”

Jungkook blinks. “Great,” he chokes out, neatly dropping the wicker basket in his hands. In a way, it brings him back down to reality, lets him snap away from your hypnotizing gaze as he reaches for the keys in his pocket. “Let me— I just have to— yeah,” he stammers, clicking the button on his car keys one too many times, has it perkily beeping. Your lips press together into an amused smile, the last thing Jungkook sees before ripping himself away from you and yanking the back door open. 

He nearly throws the basket in like a madman, glassware be damned. It’s his last shred of rationality that tells him not to, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on edge as he steps up to the edge of the sidewalk and carefully places it on the floor behind the passenger’s seat. 

When Jungkook rises back up, there is a hand that brushes against his forearm, a gentle touch that has him throwing a curious glance your way. He’s not expecting to be so entranced by the dreamy look in your eyes, feet glued to the ground as you trail your hand down, catching his wrist between your fingers. You’re standing so close, making Jungkook feel like he’s trapped between you and his own car. His entire body is on edge when you lean in, placing a soft kiss against the very corner of his mouth. It leaves a tingling sensation, and accompanied with the growing warmth beneath his skin, feels like he’s been burned. “I had fun,” you murmur, voice low. It sends a shock of electricity down his spine, a wave of exhilaration that has him fully turning to face you as you eventually step away, that same playful grin on your features again. 

A surge of confidence and greed overcomes him, has him stepping forward into your space despite the nervousness that builds within him. There’s a hint of surprise in your eyes that you quickly mask, placating his bumbling nerves with a delicate hand placed over his heart. He can’t breathe when you lean in, softly humming, “kiss me?” 

Jungkook’s lower lip wobbles. “O- Okay,” he concedes, voice but an airy whisper that is soon swallowed up. You taste like fruit and orange juice, remnants of your picnic clinging to your lips as you slowly consume Jungkook’s entire attention with this soft brush alone. It’s a rather short affair, one that ends all too soon when you pull away with a soft sigh against his lips. 

Your smile is so pretty when you angle it at him, has him taking one jerky step backwards. His back hits the car, feels trapped. But he isn’t scared, doesn’t find himself anxiously awaiting your next move. “Good boy,” you purr, reaching one graceful hand forward, playfully tugging at his tie, wrapping it around your knuckles as you use it as leverage to pull him close again. 

You’re just so pretty, Jungkook has always thought so. From the moment he first met you until now, there is something about you—a glint in your eyes, a quirk to your lips—that has had him under your spell for weeks now. 

Had Jungkook seriously despised you and your ethics, perhaps this feeling would have gone away. But the fact of the matter is that you make Jungkook’s heart hammer dangerously in his chest, a shot of adrenaline through his veins when you look at him with those low-lidded eyes, touch him with those experienced hands. He wants you so bad, even after all he’s learned, all he’s seen. He wants you over him and under him, pressed against him from head to toe. He wants and he wants, and he knows it’s bad to want so much, to be so greedy. But with you around, Jungkook finds himself giving into that greed, clutching at it like a lifeline. “We can, um—,” he stammers, placing one uncertain hand against the top of the door frame beside him. You raise your brows, egging him on yet patiently waiting all at once. 

Your gaze is so strong, and it’s in moments like these that Jungkook feels that feeling crawl up his throat. A serpentine gaze, a sticky sweet tongue. Everything he’s ever known says it’s wrong, but his heart and your confession says otherwise. He looks away, throws a bashful glance at the plush leather seats behind him. “In… inside?”  

And the offer has you positively beaming before him, that same flirtatious shimmer in your irises doubling at the words that roll off his tongue. “Oh my,” you swoon playfully, stepping back to, Jungkook assumes, allow him to get in. 

He plops down, feels like he would break out in a sweat if the evening temperature wasn’t so cool. The car’s interior blends into the shadows, his clothing practically indiscernible against the dark shade of the seats. A stark contrast to the pretty floral dress that suddenly spills itself over his lap when you climb in, the door tugged shut beside the two of you. All is silent, your thighs over his, hands on his shoulders. “Hi, bunny,” you murmur, lips pulled into a smirk, provocative yet playful, like you know something that Jungkook doesn’t. 

Jungkook’s throat feels dry but he still manages to gulp. He’s drowning in your perfume and your body lotion, in the faint smell of the outdoors clinging to your clothes and your hair, the absolutely heavenly scent of just you in your entirety. “Hi,” he whispers back, voice lost beneath the thundering of his heartbeat in his ears. And his quiet greeting is rewarded with two soft hands that crawl up his neck, cupping his face in their palms. 

“You were so sweet today,” you purr, nose nudging against his when you finally lean in, pressing your breasts against Jungkook. A tiny gasp catches in his throat, his hands instinctively going to your waist. “Can I kiss you again?” 

Jungkook has never wanted anything more. “Please,” he exhales, feeling like he’ll explode if you don’t kiss him soon. You take his request in stride, jut your face forward just the slightest bit until your mouth is pressed firmly against his, the movement of your lips a practiced rhythm that he just can’t seem to master. He still tries his best, puckers his lips when he feels it’s right, tilts his head when you urge him with a soft nudge. He tries his best and hopes it’s enough. 

By now, Jungkook has come to understand that there is a pattern to your kisses. You always start off slow and relaxed, mouth languidly moving against his as you lure him across a tightrope of anticipation. They gradually become more intense, pulling out whimpers and sighs from Jungkook that he had never known were possible. It’s a carefully crafted art form, the tongue that slides out from between your pillowy lips, dips into his own mouth with a giggly pant. “Good boy,” you hum in between, hands burying themselves in the hair at the nape of his neck. “Always so good.”

Jungkook shudders when you eventually part, can’t catch his breath fast enough before you’re reaching for the buttons on the front of his shirt, easily undoing the casual tie too. “Relax,” you tell him, bypassing his lips for the warm expanse of skin just below. You kiss over his chin, down his neck, as your hands crawl beneath his shirt and around his naked waist. 

He’s ticklish, and when you brush against his ribs, he unwillingly releases a sharp huff of laughter. It’s followed by a wide-eyed look of embarrassment, cheeks a warm hue when you lean back in surprise at this new bit of information. “I— sorry,” he blurts out, because he doesn’t know proper make-out etiquette, doesn’t know anything really, except what you’ve shown him. 

But the sound makes you snort, looking at him with this gaze that drips with honey. “So cute,” you tell him, placing a chaste kiss against his lips, before disappearing back down to lavish his throat with filthier kisses. And with you laving your tongue across his skin, biting at every inch available, Jungkook is left to fuzzily stare over the crystal clear windshield. He’s struck with the faint realization that if someone were to look hard enough, they would see him through the tinted glass as he fell apart into the hands of a pretty girl. 

The soft smack of your lips against his skin is sensual, makes every hair on his body stand stiff. Your lips trail down the column of his neck, placing a bruising kiss at the juncture where it meets the rest of his body. “Oh,” he sighs, eyelids fluttering when a hand squeezes at his chest, thumb against his nipple. 

Another muffled giggle pressed against the base of his neck, and when Jungkook focuses his eyes again, he catches his own gaze in the rearview mirror. 

The sight of him is… weird to say the least. 

Even in the dark, his lips look thoroughly debauched, puffier and redder than usual, slick with saliva that isn’t entirely his. He doesn’t tell himself to, but his mirrored counterpart peeks his tongue out, runs it along his top lip sinfully. Startled by his own appearance, Jungkook jolts in place, feeling you shift in his lap with a soft little whine. “Bunny,” you frown, and Jungkook watches your side profile in the tiny mirror as you sit back up, press your lips against his ear. “Sit still for me,” you tell him, hand slithering up his chest, around his throat. Over his Adam’s apple, squeezing just the slightest. It’s not tight, but it knocks the air out of his lungs when he sees the action mirrored back at him on the reflective surface. 

That familiar guilt sticks in his throat, evident when your hand slips away and he swallows harshly, the protrusion just beneath his skin bobbing up and down. 

In the back of Jungkook’s mind, he can recall the religious story that surrounded this bodily feature; a sin and the consequence. A garden and a fruit, a beautiful woman by his side. 

Your hand creeps down between your bodies, palming over his quickly fattening cock, and Jungkook swears he sees stars, a strained whimper escaping from his lips that you giggle at. “Oh my,” he huffs, clutching at the skirt of your dress. You nuzzle close again, pressing a tender kiss against the side of his neck. 

Your hands are so soft and sweet, brushing over his cock like you’re simply caressing him out of adoration and not because you want him to cum, staining his seats and your dress. Either way, Jungkook can’t even begin to imagine what you must be thinking; before the date and his confession, he had been afraid that you would discard him. Maybe Jungkook wasn’t what you wanted, maybe he wasn’t what you needed. You were so confident in yourself and your actions, a stark contrast to Jungkook and his constant uncertainty, his fear of doing the wrong thing plaguing him at all hours of the day. 

Even now, with your hands expertly tugging his zipper down, he finds himself going back to that story. That apple in the garden, the consequences it had hailed. Never mind the fact you’re on top of him, claiming to like him, with your hands touching every inch of his skin. He keeps looping back to that Biblical verse instead, thinks about it when your fingers meanly let the elastic band of his briefs snap against his skin. “Ouch,” he flinches, voice a soft whine. He turns too quickly and too suddenly, nose bumping against yours because you’re still so close. 

You smile, puckering your lips for the lightest of kisses. It’s the little things like that that make Jungkook’s entire thought process stall, distantly aware of the fact that it’s, like always, you leading the majority of your encounters once again. Even during your picnic, it had been you who had practically held his hand as you navigated through basic information, asked for his favorite color and his favorite drink. Had it not been for your own proactive tendencies, Jungkook fears he would have never known your favorite color was pink or your favorite day of the week was Thursday. 

It’s a fact that makes him pause, jaw tightening as he once again realizes how little effort he was putting into knowing you. For someone who claimed to like you a lot, he rarely did the work to prove it. Even now, he’s too unsure of who he is and who you are to indulge you properly, instead watching you lead the scene as usual. Before he can stop himself, a sigh is escaping his lips. 

It must convey his emotions perfectly, because it’s enough to make your wandering hands pause by his waist. “Everything okay?” you ask, always knowing what he’s feeling. And it sucks that he couldn’t say the same for himself. 

“N— Yes,” he rushes to say, looking up at you with round eyes, the moonlight painting half of your face a paler color than usual, the other side shrouded in darkness. It makes your eyes look darker, makes Jungkook gulp loudly when you turn those inquisitive eyes on him. 

His answer doesn’t seem to convince you, and it’s with little to no hesitation that you sit back. It puts a distance between the two of you that Jungkook can’t say he’s a fan of. “Jungkook,” you say, voice stern yet warm, one hand reaching up to brush your knuckles against his cheek. “Tell me what’s bothering you?” 

It makes Jungkook nervous. He knows he thinks too much. Part of him fears that oversharing with you will drive you away, put you even farther than you are now. Maybe next time it’ll be a room’s length away, a football field’s length away. And he doesn’t want that; he wants to hold you close, he really does. But there are traditions he carries and beliefs he holds dearly that make it hard for him to do so, as much as it pains him. 

The only reason he knows he’s frowning is because you press your pointer finger against the corner of his mouth. You lean in close, nose bumping against his. It sends your scent billowing over him, makes him dizzy when he becomes aware of the hand he’s got on your bare thigh, the rumpled skirt of your dress pushed away. “Talk to me, bunny,” you murmur. You don’t make a move to kiss him, a fact that Jungkook feels both grateful and disheartened by. “Please?”

And he can’t deny you, not when you ask so nicely. You have this metaphorical grip on Jungkook, a tight hold around his throat that has made him act impulsively these past few weeks, desperate to be with you, to please you. Even now, despite how much he wants to withhold his thoughts, he finds himself quietly admitting them instead. “I want to know you,” he mumbles, unable to meet your eye. You don’t push him to. “I really, um. I like you, __. A lot.” It’s a repetition of his earlier confession. And still, it makes him nervous. A thumb brushes against his cheekbone, encouraging him to meet your solemn gaze even if it means being a blushing mess afterwards. “Before we, uh, do… things.” 

His words may be choppy and incoherent, but you understand him all the same. “You want to go out some more,” you clarify, removing your hand from his cheek. The phantom trail of your fingertips on his skin remains, feels colder when you lean away to allow him some more space. 

Jungkook nods quickly, hoping this rush of adrenaline might help him through this. He bites down on his lower lip, carefully analyzing your expression for any signs of disbelief or disgust. But all he sees is understanding, a cool expression that makes Jungkook’s heart thunder. “I…,” he says, glancing down at where he’s still got his hand on your naked skin. Something inside of him tells him to rub his thumb across it, an action he doesn’t think through until he hears a sharp inhale, watches goosebumps rise over the skin. “I’m sorry,” he rushes out, snatching his hand away before he can do something else of a similar sort. “I- I just—“ said hand now waves around wildly beside him “—I really like you, as a, um— uh. A person. And I—“ and this is where he becomes aware of his unbuttoned shirt and the way you’ve got your pretty pussy pressed against his thigh now “—I, um. I want to know me— I mean, you —better? More? Like—“

His embarrassing babbling is cut off with a gentle kiss to his lips. No tongue, no saliva. Just soft lips against his, a delicate hand against his shoulders. When you pull away, Jungkook unconsciously trails after the touch, eyes half-lidded and in a daze when you place a palm on his chest. “I got it,” you say, lips quirking into a tiny smile. “I want to know more about you too, bunny,” you admit, reaching for the front of his shirt. He watches on with flushed cheeks as you slowly button it up for him, finishing it off with a playful tap against the underside of his chin. 

You glance out of the window thoughtfully. Jungkook is suddenly reminded of how pretty you are, your skin practically glimmering under the pale moonlight. It catches on your necklace, a thin chain with a cross on the end. If he focuses his eyes behind you, his own reflection stares back once more. Jungkook’s entire body threatens to lock up tightly, but a single kiss on the cheek from you interrupts the process. “Do you wanna date?” you ask, like it’s the easiest thing in the world. 

Jungkook can’t agree fast enough. “I— yes,” he gasps, leaning forward too suddenly. It makes you flinch back in surprise, back pressing up against the driver’s seat behind you in surprise. You wouldn’t have fallen or anything, but Jungkook reacts like it was a serious possibility anyway, grasping at your waist and pulling you snug against him, soft thighs sandwiching his tiny waist. “Oh, God,” he frets, immediately moving to release you. 

But you catch him with two arms thrown around his neck, pulling Jungkook close to you for another kiss. Deeper and… meaningful, your satiny lips carefully slotted against his. While it surprises him at first, Jungkook finds himself melting into it soon enough. This was okay, he tells himself, and for the first time in a few weeks, he finds himself believing it. 

It was just kissing— intimate yet appropriate kissing —between two people who were seeing each other. Him, properly seeing you. His heart threatens to burst out of its cage for a second. It’s the first time since he’s met you that he can fully say he hadn’t felt nervous about his actions, hadn’t felt like he was committing some grave sin for chasing after your touch. It was just a kiss, simple and sweet, making both of you smile bashfully when you eventually pull away. There was no lying and no guilt, no tears and no stress. 

It felt good.

Copyright © 2020, 1kook on tumblr. absolutely NO reposts allowed.

[cahmilo]

Amidst the Divergence ㅡ camilo m.

pairing: camilo x gn reader

genre: angst no comfort songfic (시간을 달려서 - gfriend)

tags: modern au, schoolmates, implied character death

word count: 1.3K

summary: what if, there comes a time where everything finally turns out the way you wanted it to? a phase where all your dreams will come true? a world where it all fell into place? but what if..... it will come at a cost of a divergence? where your destined life leads to a parallel path, never to cross with another? what if... it never happens?

Wandering through the hallways early in the morning was not something I’d normally do but oddly enough, I wanted it to. Unlike the rest of the school days, this seemed peaceful and calm. Only a few students were here, the school garden was extra quiet, and the chirping birds made it feel more like a dream.

Maybe I should arrive at school earlier. I’m not even a morning person, but I’m starting to see why people are. 

Opening my locker, I stumbled upon a yellow envelope tucked in the gaps. It seemed like a letter sealed by a chameleon sticker. 

What? 

It looked like it belonged to someone else, but I was proven wrong by my name, written in messy cursive at the back of the envelope. Hastily opening it, I figured it was from an admirer.

“I’m wandering around your world, still unable to approach you. Although I have feelings for you, I try my best to look elsewhere but it always leads me back to you. The more I try to reach for you, the more my body leans farther from nervousness. 

Are we like parallel lines? Both reaching the same destination but never meeting? Or are we like an infinite loop, only finding the beginning to an endless future filled with nothing but happiness and joy? 

It takes a long time, but I will try to find out. So, here I am, sending you messages in hopes that my heart can reach yours.”

Whoever wrote this has a way with words. Even if I’m in disbelief to have a potential admirer, I still looked forward to knowing who this person is.

For the rest of the day, you were all I thought about. Will you write back again tomorrow? Maybe there could finally be another reason to look forward to early mornings. 

—

“Another letter arrived today.” Holding up the note, I showed it to my seatmate Mirabel. Out of all my friends, she seemed like she knew how to keep a secret, therefore I trusted her. “It seemed like they came early to leave it by my locker.”

Mirabel skimmed through the letter, her cheeks turning pink. “They’re a keeper, for sure. It seems like they like you a lot.” Sighing, I nodded at her. 

You really were a keeper, but who exactly are you? 

This gave me an idea, I should write back to you. 

“Like the sunrise that welcomes you after a dark night, don’t be afraid. Our futures are uncertain so getting closer would lead to a small progress. If you want to know my answer, reach out more to me, I’ll be waiting.”

Enclosing the letter in a bunny sticker from a pack that Mirabel gave to me, I sneaked it between the gaps of my lockers, the same area where they put their letters.

I hope I can figure you out soon.

—

Numerous days have passed and every single one of them brought me joy, because you always manage to cheer me up all the time. Every morning I look forward to your letters and every after class, I look forward to leaving mine for you to receive on the next day. I love how this felt like, but I wanted us to already meet. Is it too soon?

Today, however, was not the usual way you wrote to me. Instead of a long poem of words, you gave me a QR code which was weird. Using my phone to scan, it led me to a link. 

Dandelions by Ruth B. 

I loved that song, and finding out that you shared it to me today was blissful. A song about wishes to be with the one they want in a lifetime is exactly what I felt to you as well. I may not know who you are, but I already see through your heart. 

However, was it just a mere coincidence, 

That it was the same song Camilo Madrigal sang for the talent showcase today?

—

I cannot stop thinking about your letter this morning.

“My love, you are my sunshine. I’m sorry it is taking too long but I promise you, we will meet soon. I’ll tell you what I want to say. I’ll tell you our story, and how it began when I caught a beautiful glimpse of you. Your smile alone shines more than the sun. My sunshine, I love your sincerity when you read my notes. From afar, I hope you know how much you made me smile, like how you do when I pour my feelings for you.” 

Can we meet soon? Day by day I grow impatient, because I long to finally see you. To be able to find you, and to finally to hold your hand that has been patiently reaching me from far away. 

—

Honestly, it would be distasteful to look into your plans and arrive earlier than you would. 

Despite all the complaints I got from my friends about me and you taking too long, I prefer to keep it that way. I gave you space, purposefully going away from the hallway an hour before class, because I knew that was your only time to pour your heart to me. Likewise, I hope you know I mean sincerity in every letter I wrote back. 

But sadly, real life doesn’t work that way. 

As much as I am mad about Mirabel for snooping into your business, I forgave her. The damage is done. However, I cannot stay mad because as much as I wanted to, my feelings rushing through my veins are nothing but extreme joy and happiness.

I’m glad it's you, Camilo Madrigal. 

—

The day has finally come. You finally wrote the words I wanted to hear. 

“This has gone long enough. I want to reach you, to hold you, to see you. Seeing you in my dreams tormented me. The anticipation and build up I get when I hold you worsens every time I wake up and realize it was not real. I’m not quite certain if you figured out who I am but regardless, I hope you feel the same. 

If you do, meet me by the river outside the school after class. I look forward to finally arriving in the same place we both dreamed of. I look forward to the fate I’ve been longing for. With all my love, I keep my promise: to wait for you there.”

—

Even when we’re trapped in time and get lost in it, we will eventually meet. Please know that I am sincere, and hurry now. 

Drifting through the wind, my hair flows with grace as I paddle the long smooth road. Cherry blossoms were falling elegantly, the pink hue covering the vibrant colors of the grass. With only love and hope in my mind, I cannot wait that longer as I rode through my bicycle reaching the river where we plan to meet.

But there was something else on the back of my head. Why does this moment feel different? Like it was not what I expected it to feel like. A foreign feeling I never once felt ever. 

Why is this happening?

—

There you were, sitting by the bench with a bouquet of yellow flowers in your hand. Your hazel green eyes shining brightly against the sunset. Your curly hair flowing beautifully with the wind. Your freckles, looking like constellations of stars I could get lost in.

Camilo, you were stunning as ever. In your other hand held a bunch of my letters that were scattered. While waiting, you read every single one of them. Gosh, your smile is beautiful. How lucky was I to be able to catch your attention? Maybe a lot. But how lucky were you? 

Promise me this, Camilo. Promise me that you won't change. Smile at me then like you do now. If time goes by and you become older, I will still hold your hand amidst the divergence.

I’m sorry you were waiting long.

Your phone buzzed, snapping you from your thoughts. You opened our class group chat and your smile faltered. Your eyes turned from bright, to glassy and watery. Dropping the flowers and the notes, you immediately broke down in tears. I hated to see this.

I’m sorry, Camilo.

I’m sure you recognize the bunny keychain in the image dangling from my bag. I’m sure you recognize the yellow letters, scattered along the pavement. I’m sure you recognize the person in the image, once warm but now cold and lifeless. 

I’m sorry you had to see me like this.

I’m sorry I wasn’t able to tell you that I loved you, that I loved you like you were my miracle.

Maybe, Camilo.

Maybe we are exactly like parallel lines. Going forward for the same path, never being able to meet. 

But I promise you, Camilo.

When time goes by when you’re older, When your future won’t make sense, I will still hold your hand,

Amidst the divergence.

edited 070322 | gif source

[mc-lukanette]

Now that Wishmaker is out, how would you rewrite that chaos? The Lukanette need is strong.

"Did anyone else see me?" Marinette asked, her hands shaking as she put on the mask she'd made with her newly-given knitting powers. They were sitting down in a shadowed alley, free from anyone's curious eyes.

"No," Viperion replied, his voice breathless from the revelations he was having rather than the fly to their hiding spot. "Just...just me." He glanced down at his wrist, noting the unticked snake bangle. "...I'm sorry."

"Huh?" Marinette's gaze darted over to him, then to his miraculous. A flicker of understanding passed over her expression as she whispered a small, "Oh."

Guilt tore up his stomach, even knowing deep down that it wasn't his fault - the akuma had surprised them, giving no time for him to use his power - but he'd been brought in to use Second Chance in the first place, and yet...

Marinette's hand fell upon his wrist, making him look up. She smiled at him, her eyes reassuring.

"It's okay," she said, though her voice wavered. "It was only you who saw my face, and even if you'd used Second Chance, you'd still know anyway."

He could tell that she was still processing, but let the subject go for now and smiled back. There were more important matters to attend to.

They must've been on the same wavelength too, as Marinette pulled away and sighed, thinking aloud, "I have to figure a way to be Ladybug again. The akuma could just be destroyed, but I need Miraculous Ladybug to turn everyone back to normal."

Viperion nodded, briefly giving her a once-over. Her power and wings were useful, but unfortunately didn't help them with the current situation.

It was also distractingly cute, and he couldn't fight that way.

"Wishmaker said that he wanted people to live out their childhood dream," he murmured in thought.

Marinette brought a hand to her face, pinching her cheek in contemplation. "Maybe...maybe if I live it out then, I'll change back?" She considered it a moment longer, then groaned and stood up, starting to pace around the small area they were in. "But we don't have that kind of time! Yeah, my earrings aren't here so Shadow Moth can't make a wish, and I could definitely make enough of a living with my new knitting powers, but that would take years, and—"

Suddenly, she stopped and looked over at him, catching Viperion briefly off-guard since he hadn't said anything. Her eyes scanned him up and down, mental gears turning in her head even if he couldn't tell what she was thinking.

"...That's it!" she gasped, hurrying over to him. She knelt down, clasping his hand in both of hers as she rambled, "Maybe I just need to live out my dream to the fullest!"

He blinked in confusion, unsure of where she was going with this.

"Part of my dream was to eventually make a wedding dress and tuxedo for me and my future husband!" she exclaimed. "If I do that, I might turn back into Ladybug!"

"Ah—" He shut his mouth before anything else could come out. He couldn't deny that it was a solid plan, but he wanted to tread carefully given his feelings, not wanting to make her feel awkward. "That's a great idea." He tried to grin reassuringly, though it came off a little crooked. "Should I go find Adrien?"

"What?" She shook her head. "No, it has to be you!"

He gaped, his heart doing confused flips in his chest. "Why?"

"The guy I always dreamed of marrying when I was little," she began, eyes practically sparkling, "he was exactly like you!"

— — — — —

Marinette hadn't exactly caught onto what she'd said until it already left her mouth, but the way Viperion's face turned red had definitely given it away. Things had gone quiet after the fact, with him sitting a couple meters away while she knitted away at the tuxedo; the tuxedo for him.

She found herself blushing faintly at the thought and immediately forced it down, reminding herself that she didn't love Luka, but Adrien. They were made for each other, like everyone said, and she—

She closed her eyes and took in a steady breath, knowing that she was getting off track. Things were complicated enough with all her thoughts and fears about the future, especially now that Viperion knew her identity.

Though, strangely enough, she didn't feel as nervous about it as she thought she would've.

Her gaze darted over to Viperion, who was keeping lookout and patiently waiting for her to finish with her knitting. He thankfully didn't seem closed off from her at all, and it just served as a reminder as to how mature he was.

Without thinking, she found herself speaking up. "M...my parents..."

He looked over at her, his senses still apparently tuned for her despite his keeping watch. She averted her gaze to the knitting needles working their literal magic into the tuxedo.

"We saw a lot of movies where the girl gets the prince in the end, so they made sure to teach me that love wasn't about money or power or fame or anything like that." She bit her bottom lip, Adrien briefly flashing to mind. "So, I imagined me as the knitting fairy, and I'd make clothes for the whole world until I found him." She peeked up at him. "Someone who wouldn't laugh when I fell on my face. Someone who'd be there for me and think of me first. Someone who wouldn't scold me for everything I did or make me feel bad for it. Someone who'd see more than just clumsy, nervous Marinette."

As much as it hurt to admit, the description didn't fit Adrien. Unless they found each other by coincidence - something that actually happened today, oddly enough - he didn't go out of his way to spend time with her; it was her putting in the effort.

"And..." She trailed off momentarily, lost in her thoughts. "after we fell in love, I'd give up my powers and live happily ever after with him, because we didn't need powers to be happy and it wasn't my powers he fell in love with in the first place."

She'd finished the tuxedo at that point, courtesy of her knitting powers, but her hands dropped to her lap afterward, not making any further movements as her thoughts took over.

Out of the corner of her vision, she saw Viperion take a quick look outside the alley, then get up to move over to her. He sat next to her, picking up one of her hands and letting it rest in his palm.

"I think your dream is really beautiful," he told her gently.

She scoffed, blushing in embarrassment at what must've been fake praise. "Chat made fun of me wanting to be the knitting fairy."

"He was wrong," he retorted immediately. "Your dream might not be realistic, but that doesn't make it any less nice, and there's nothing wrong with dreaming of the perfect guy."

She met his gaze, the softness in them having not lessened even since their break-up, and found the strength to start working on the dress. Being with Luka - dating or otherwise - had always been so easy, excluding all the factors outside of just them being them. She could vaguely imagine her younger self clinging to Luka, claiming him as hers and insisting that he marry her when they grew up.

But things weren't that easy. Nothing was. Marinette had spent her whole life fighting for what she wanted, needing to prove herself to people in order to be accepted.

Fighting for years to smile against Chloe's bullying, because no one would do anything about it. Fighting to be acknowledged by her parents as someone who could do things and didn't need their protection. Fighting against herself to be the one who didn't make all the mistakes or have to be the one to apologize in the end.

After becoming Ladybug, her future became even cloudier and the fighting continued. Waking up in the morning was even harder thanks to late-night patrols, getting through tests seemed impossible due to having less time for studying, and even maintaining a romantic relationship carried the struggle of not being able to tell them her identity.

Marinette stared at the shimmering pink and white fabric beneath her fingertips, it shaping and forming to her will. The occasional sparkle or flash from a beam of sunlight that happened to shine through reminded her of the day at the TV station, where Luka had confessed and she could see only him for just a moment.

"I'm sorry."

Viperion hummed in confusion, raising a brow at her.

"I made everything complicated for you—us," she explained. "All the time, ever since we met. I even got you akumatized, twice."

"Twi—" He blinked rapidly, then leaned closer. His hand came in contact with her cheek as he directed her gaze back to him. "You mean Silencer? How was that your fault?"

"I challenged Bob Roth, and when he grabbed me, you got upset. It pushed you over to the edge."

"You were defending me and my music," he argued, a sternness in his tone that wasn't there before as he put his hand to his chest, "and my emotions are my own. I'm the one who gave into Hawk Moth, not you."

"But..." She sighed, conflicted. "Even later, I kept my identity from you when we were dating. I made us both miserable because of it. I was so upset that I ended up yelling at my friends and they all got akumatized, and then I went and gave my identity to Alya anyway."

His eyes widened for a fraction of a second, though he quickly schooled his expression for reasons she didn't know. His gaze strayed momentarily before he looked back at her, asking, "Would you be upset at me for feeling happy for a moment, knowing that you were just as miserable as I was?"

"W-what?" She shook her head; if anything, knowing that he'd also been miserable made her happy as well, probably in the same way as it was for him. It meant that they both cared about it. "No! Not at all!"

"Then I don't blame you for your emotions either."

She pouted at him, but he merely smiled in response. She knew this wasn't a matter he was going to budge on, but it was difficult for her to understand when she was so commonly blamed for things. That was Luka though, she supposed, always forgiving and able to see through her faults.

She remembered her dream husband again and tried to act like her full focus was on the dress so as to not give her thoughts away. She'd only drawn the unnamed man once or twice, and it was just occurring to her that he had black hair and blue eyes as well. Having not understood the concept of kids looking like their parents in their own way at the time, the child version of her had thought it'd be "fair," because then their children would look like both of them no matter what. It was strange, just how much the "simple" version of her love ideals lined up with the boy sitting in front of her now, even with his temporarily green eyes.

Friendship had become something very precious to her ever since the day she'd gotten her miraculous, maybe even more than love itself. Despite the complications and their brief time dating, she was friends with Luka above all else. No matter what happened in regards to the romantic aspects of their relationship, their friendship remained unchanged, like they really would be friends even if they had the worst break-up in the history of Paris. It was comfortable, to the point where she felt embarrassed for ever avoiding him in the first place.

She was reminded yet again of another stark contrast with Adrien. She hadn't been scared of starting anything with Luka, yet Adrien was a constant cloud of dread above her head, the fear of being rejected or being made fun of holding her back from doing what she wanted.

If her child self could see her now, she'd be confused. Marinette could hear her now, asking why her love - or at least, what she believed to be love - caused her so much stress. That was never what she'd wanted; in fact, it had been the exact opposite. Crushing on Adrien had done nothing but humiliate her, the little girl inside her covering her eyes from the sight. Her time with Luka, on the other hand...

"It looks beautiful."

Marinette jerked her head up to see Viperion's approving gaze, then looked down to the wedding dress in her lap. It was finished, pink with flashes of white and blacks; exactly the kind of dress she would've wanted when she was younger, though obviously with an older touch.

"Thank you," she hurried to say when she realized that she hadn't responded to him. He chuckled in reply, though it was good-natured.

He reached for the tuxedo she'd set aside, but stopped halfway as if realizing something. He looked to her, then the dress, then back to her, asking carefully, "Do you want me to keep watch while we put these on?"

It took her a moment to realize what he meant; that he - wearing a bodysuit - could easily slip on the clothes over it, but she didn't have that sort of luxury due to her dress. She managed to summon enough of her inner Ladybug to focus on the importance of the task over the potential embarrassment, giving him an appreciative nod.

She trusted him not to look.

As she went to the darkest parts of the alley to change, Viperion heading in the opposite direction, her mind drifted back to the past again. The little journey there, even if it'd been unwilling on her part courtesy of the akuma, had been a nice change from constantly worrying over her future. As important as it was to focus on what she wanted to do and plan accordingly, the past was equally as important. It shaped her into who she was now and offered insight on herself that she couldn't have gotten otherwise.

"...Lu—I mean, Viperion?" she called just as she finished putting on the wedding dress.

"Yeah?"

She turned to face him, then giggled when noticing that he still had his back turned to her. "You can look now."

He hesitated, then slowly shifted to face her. He was mostly dressed, but was in the process of buttoning up the tuxedo, his hands fumbling with one of the buttons as he took her in.

She approached, gently brushing his hands aside as she started taking care of the few remaining buttons. Not wanting to delay talking to him like before, she figured now was the best time as any to say what was on her mind.

"I still don't know what I want for my future. I feel like a lot of doors are opening and closing every day, and whenever I want to try one, there just ends up being more doors, or it's already closed when I get there. There are too many possibilities and I keep being afraid that I'll trip on the one I really want to go to." Her gaze left the button she was holding so she could meet his eyes. "I just know that I really want you to be there for all of it... i-if that's what you want." Wanting to make sure instead of presuming like she tended to do, she asked cautiously, "Do you?"

His face didn't show a visible reaction, but she heard the slight sound of him swallowing, synced up with a single blink. Afterward, he absolutely beamed at her, the smile more blinding than the light being cast against his back.

"I do," he replied,

In time with his words, the final button was slipped into place. Marinette felt a warm sensation run through her body, starting from her feet and then making her shudder as it moved its way up to her head. Her body was turning white, just as before when Wishmaker first shot her, though Viperion's tuxedo had joined as well.

There was a flash between them, and she found herself back as normal, wingless Marinette when it faded.

Viperion, now lacking what she'd made for him, still looked just as happy to see her.

"I-I did it!" she gasped, genuinely surprised that it worked. "We did it!"

She threw her hands up in the air in celebration, but snapped back to reality as she remembered that she still needed to turn back into Ladybug and take care of Wishmaker. She opened her purse, easing as she saw Tikki already munching away on a macaron.

"Marinette?"

She looked back up at Viperion, noticing that he still had something to say. "Yes?"

"I might not be able to make enough sense of your inner music to tell you what you'll want, but I don't think you have anything to worry about. I know that whatever you decide to do is going to be as extraordinary as you are."

She stifled a squeak, blushing at the sudden compliment and thankful that Tikki was still chewing the last bits of the macaron. "A-ah, thank you. You too—with the extraordinary thing, not your inner music, because I can't hear that even though I'm sure it's really amazing!"

Had it been anyone else, she might've prayed for a hole to swallow her, but it was impossible to feel weird when he smiled at her the way he did.

Once Tikki had gotten her fill, Marinette transformed and they began to leave the alley together, though Ladybug stopped partway as she remembered something; something she'd done many times before and felt it time to get back to doing.

Viperion raised a brow at her sudden stopping, then stiffened when she leaned towards him and kissed his cheek. She flashed him a smile, noting silently that she missed these little exchanges between them, then leaped away to head back to where Wishmaker was likely to be. Viperion followed suit, but a split second behind his usual speed.

She was sure he'd be smiling back if she looked, but she didn't have to; they were connected, maybe not by some sort of magic thread or cosmic force, but by them and the relationship she hoped that they would continue to build in the future.

And whenever they got back to the fight, just in time to see Chat Noir allow himself to be hit by Wishmaker's attack, a few more doors would close and her future would start to look a little different than what she'd considered that morning.

Not necessarily in a bad way either.

[pinkczennie]

Incubus | Ten (m)

Summary: According to urban myth, if you had sex in your dreams and it actually felt real, it means that negative entities are having sex with you while you sleep. You’re sex deprived, so a sex demon helps you with your little problem.

Pairings: incubus!Ten x female reader

Genre: smut

Word Count: 4.1K

Disclaimer: This is just purely fiction and does not accurately represent how incubus’ work. Anyways, brb I think I need to go to church to purify my soul because this is just absolute smut.

Italics= inside the dreams

Quarantine has been rough for you. 

At first, you didn’t think this would be a problem, but now it’s starting to take a toll on you because you’re slowly starting to lose it. 

Because you are trying to follow quarantine guidelines and maintain as little physical interaction with others as much as possible in fear of contracting a deadly virus, you’ve become a little pent up. In other words, you haven’t been able to have sex in a while.

The last time you got intimate with another male was about almost a year ago. Who would have known this global pandemic situation would have happened because you took physical touch for granted. Had you known this was going to happen, you would have tried to fulfil your sexual needs when it was still socially acceptable to be around other people because you are just suffering at home right now. 

Sleeping around with other men right now would probably not be a safe idea, especially since you live with your parents and would not want to risk their health over your needs. Besides, your parents temporarily forbid you to see any friends or bring anyone over until the situation is over anyways. You don’t blame them, after all, who knows where other people have been and who they have interacted with, so it’s only safe for everyone in the house to restrict human interaction for a moment except with people living under the same roof.

You try to convince yourself that you can wait until the pandemic is over, but as the days go by and days turn into many months, you’re absolutely touch starved. To be more precise, you’re sexually frustrated. 

Masturbating has helped to a certain extent but it just wasn’t enough to satisfy you fully. You wanted to feel another man’s touch again.  

In fact, you were so sexually frustrated that you began to experience having sex dreams. 

The room was dark and it was empty except for your bed. You laid in bed on your back completely naked and your pussy was soaking wet as an attractive looking male hovers over you. You don’t recognize the man in front of you because it’s not a face you have seen in person before. 

He had raven-black hair that covered his forehead, cat-like eyes, and flawless skin. The first few buttons of his black dress shirt were unbuttoned, practically exposing his chest, and you spot the number 10 tattooed by his heart. His shirt sleeves are rolled up to his wrists and his ears are covered in piercings. His pants were partially removed to only expose his dick and he rubs it against your slit, causing more wetness to secrete. 

“Ahhhh-” you let out a long moan as he suddenly enters you in one fluid thrust thanks to your slick.

The initial pain of his girth stretching around your tight walls soon turned into pleasure after you were able to adjust to his size. 

His hands were holding each side of your hips in place while his length begins to thrust into your heat. Your body feels hot and you became a whimpering mess as you allowed yourself to continue getting fucked in your dream, not from fear but from pleasure. 

You don’t even know who the male is that is currently fucking you but your mind is so clouded with lust that you don’t even care as long as you get to reach your climax. It feels so good, even if it is just in a dream, that you didn’t even last long because after a few seconds you could already feel that tight knot in your stomach ready to snap. 

After a few more thrusts, you both come undone and your body trembles at the feeling. It’s been way too long since you’ve been fucked and it feels amazing.

Soon, your mind slowly starts to wake up and your dream starts to slowly fade away. 

Once your mind slowly becomes conscious, you could feel your heart currently thumping wildly in your chest and you are panting lightly, so you keep your eyes closed for a moment as you try to come down from your high.

Your eyes flutter open as you lay there in your bed and stare at the ceiling as your vision becomes less blurry, feeling slightly disheveled and there is this weird sensation between your legs. You rub your fingers against your clothed core and you jolt because you could feel it throbbing with oversensitivity. 

Looks like you are going to have to change into a new pair of underwear because your current pair was completely damp from your little wet dream. 

It was so strange because the dream felt so real considering the state you woke up in. 

But lord, did it feel good. You felt somehow refreshed from getting some sort of action after many months, but also a little frustrated because it wasn’t enough and you wanted more. 

If only you could go back to your dream on command. Curse dreams for feeling like it only lasts for a few seconds even though hours have actually passed by. 

At first, you didn’t think much of it nor the male in your dream because it’s normal to have wet dreams occasionally...until it became a frequent occurrence.

The second time you had a sex dream was about a week later. 

Just like last time, it was dark and you couldn’t see anything, but you were on your bed again with your ass up and face down. 

You look behind your shoulder and you see him again, the same male from your previous sex dream in the exact same attire as well. This time, you can hear his sultry voice speaking. His voice was faint so you barely remember what his voice sounded like exactly, but you recall what he said:

“Are you ready?” he asks with a soothing tone.

“Yes,” you reply. 

You suck in a breath when you feel a wet tongue swipe across your folds. Your toes curl and you spread your legs further apart as the man continues to eat you out. His tongue felt amazing against your dripping hole as he shoves the wet muscle deeper inside of you. He sure knows how to work his tongue on you as he plunges it into the deepest part of your slick walls. 

You felt so filthy like this, completely exposed as an unknown male laps up your juices, but you could care less because you’re about to lose it when you feel two fingers rub against your clit. After all, this was just a dream. 

Again, as you cum, your mind begins to slowly awaken and your dream fades to nothing once again. 

This was your second wet dream in less than a month but having another sex dream should be nothing but a mere coincidence, you think to yourself. Right? 

That is until you had another one. The third time you had a sex dream happens a couple days later. 

Again, you see the same man but this time in a new position. He lays back comfortably on your bed while you hover over him, practically sitting naked on top of his dick sticking out of his pants.

“Ride me,” he commands as he strokes his hands on your thighs. 

You place both hands on his chest and lift yourself up so your slit is directly above his cock before slowly sinking down on his length. You both throw your heads back as a moan escapes both your lips. He is buried deep inside you and you feel stuffed to the brim from his inches. Your warm cavern is tightly snug around his length and you could feel his dick twitching inside of you. 

You begin to ride him at a slow pace before you pick up the pace and you’re in utter bliss when you find a steady rhythm to bounce on his cock. Your tits bounce as your body moves up and down.

The pattern repeats itself as you release around him. 

It happens again a fourth time and you swear you keep seeing the same man as before from your previous dreams. This is starting to become a strange recurring dream.

Another thing that all of those dreams had in common is that they all felt oddly real. You do wake up with your clothes from the night before still on and your body seems untouched when you look in the mirror but why do you feel so spent?

You think you’re just sex deprived, that’s all. Besides, dreams are just your inner desires so maybe that explains why you are having all these sex dreams. 

You don’t think it is necessary to see a doctor or a professional about your strange dreams considering it isn’t causing any harm to you, like sleep deprivation. 

That night, you are on a video call with your close group of friends, catching up on what all of them have been doing during quarantine because your electronics are the only forms of communication you have with other people. 

Eventually, you complain to them about the outrageous amounts of sex dreams you have been having lately and how the same man keeps appearing in those dreams. Sure, it’s normal to have dreams but when you have multiple sex dreams with the same male, it’s quite concerning. 

“That is weird,” your male friend ponders.

“Is he hot?” your female friend giggles.

“Gorgeous,” you dreamily sigh in content. Honestly, it’s what makes the dream that much more enjoyable. 

“I saw on Tik Tok, that if you have sex in your dreams and actually felt it, it means that a very negative entity called an incubus or succubus is stealing your sexual energy,” another friend informs the group. 

You start to wonder if that was the explanation behind all your sex dreams lately.

“If they want my sexual energy, then they can come and have it because they sure are making me feel good in my dreams.” you joke and your friends all laugh. 

Afterwards, the conversation drifts onto a different topic. 

Little did you know that a negative entity was listening to you this whole time and his lips curled up into a sinister smile at your invitation. Looks like he will be seeing you again real soon once you have drifted off to slumber. 

After your video call with your friends ended, you decide it was time to head to bed since it’s getting pretty late. 

You didn’t have any dreams at all that day, until the day after.

Your dream was unusual today because you’re not in the middle of sex for once. You’re just standing in a dark room still fully clothed in your pajamas. It was still dark and there wasn’t anyone else in there with you, until suddenly, you see a figure emerge from the darkness approaching towards you. 

It’s him again.

This was the man, or more like being, that has been the source of your pleasure, the exact same man that you’ve been seeing in your sex dreams, so now that he stands before you, you can’t help but stare. 

The male’s sharp gaze sent chills down your spine but butterflies in your stomach as well because he is intimidatingly attractive. There was a dark aura surrounding him, yet you couldn’t help but get lost in his eyes. His hands rest in his pants pockets and one side of his lips curl up into a sinister grin. He stops walking forward when he’s about a foot away from you. 

“Hello, little one, it’s so nice to formally meet you,” the man greets.

You think you’re lucid dreaming because, for some reason, you feel yourself being able to control yourself in the dream as if you were conscious, so you decide to ask him a question that has been on your mind lately. 

“Who are you?” you ask him.

“You can call me Ten,” he responds. 

Your brows furrow as you try to rack your brain for any recollection of a man named Ten but nothing comes to mind. Maybe it’s a nickname he goes by?

“Do I know you?” you wonder.

“Not really, but we will be seeing each other much more often from now on.”

A chill runs down your spine at his seemingly threatening statement. What does he mean by seeing each other more often from now on?

“Am I still dreaming?” you ask yourself in a hushed tone.

“You are, technically,” he states with a slight tilt of his head. “Let’s just say we are both in your mind right now.”

“And why do I keep seeing you in my dreams?” You cross your arms over your chest. 

Ten smirks, “That’s because I have the ability to enter your dreams.”

What? How is that even humanly possible to enter someone else’s dreams? Unless...he’s not human. 

“Who-what are you?” you nervously question as you take one step back. You feel your heel come into contact with something behind you when you took a step back but you did not turn around to look in fear of Ten doing something to you once you have your guard down. 

“I’m an incubus.” he announces. 

Your eyes widen like saucers at him. He’s an incubus? 

You have a vague knowledge about incubus’, but you know one thing for sure is that they are sex demons. That would explain how he has the ability to enter your dreams and the eerie atmosphere around him. 

Despite the daunting feeling surrounding him, his appearance does not seem like what you would picture an incubus to look like. You were expecting some horns on his head and maybe some wings, but that’s just what you assumed based on nonfiction novels and interpretations from movies depicting demons.

“You don’t look like an incubus to me,” you raise an eyebrow at him as you eye his human body up and down. You’re not sure if he is just playing around or being truthful.

“Oh, you do not want to see my demon form. Trust me,” he warns. “We have the ability to alter our appearance to take on different forms that our partners would be attracted to.” 

You raise your eyebrow at him but take his word for it. After all, who knows what he would look like in his true form. 

Besides, he does look absolutely captivating in his current form that you would ogle over him if you could. You’re not sure how Ten knew what attributes you were attracted to, but you assume it’s probably his demon powers, you conclude since he can shape shift, that gives him the ability to access this knowledge of yours. 

Now the bigger question is what does he want with you? Did you accidentally summon a supernatural entity without your knowledge? You don’t remember doing anything out of the ordinary so you don’t know why he is here and what his purpose is with you. 

“Are you going to kill me?” you ask. 

“Oh, no no no, I have no desire to kill you. You see, as a sex demon, I thrive by consuming sexual energy from human beings in their sleep,” he elaborates. “And you, little one, you’re so sex-deprived that any sex demon could smell you from a mile radius,” he jokes with a chuckle, “You might as well have ‘fuck me’ labeled on your forehead.” 

Because you are not that knowledgeable about incubus’ and succubus’, you didn’t know being sex-deprived could release a smell that could attract sex demons. 

“There are more sex demons?” you curiously ask.

“Of course. There are practically hundreds of them on Earth. I’m the tenth one in existence.” Ten gestures to the mark on his chest, the number 10. And here you were thinking it was a tattoo.

“Why are you telling me all this?” you wonder.

Ten casually shrugs. “I know you’re probably curious as to why you keep seeing me in your dreams. Besides, people might just think you’re crazy if you go around saying an incubus is haunting your dreams, so I’m not worried about you exposing me. But if you do try to do anything against me, just know I have the ability to erase your memories of your dreams.” He brings his hand up to present him in a ready position to snap his fingers. “Understood?”

You hesitantly nod in understanding.

“So, how are you going to take my ‘sexual energy’?” you ask, putting quotation marks around sexual energy since you can’t see it but apparently he wants it from you.

The demon’s eyes glow a crimson red before he opens his mouth and says, “By fucking you.” 

Your eyes widen from the sudden change of colors in his irises, but then you feel pink tint your cheeks at his bold statement. 

“W-what?” you squeak out.

“You want to have sex and I want your sexual energy. I can satisfy that desire for you but I get to take your sexual energy. Sounds like a win-win situation to me. Besides, didn’t you say to your friends that one night that I can take your sexual energy since I make you feel good?”

You did. 

Ten was staring deeply into your eyes with such intensity that you feel like a defenseless rabbit about to be eaten by a starving wolf. You gulp and sink under his devouring gaze as you feel wetness slowly pooling in your panties. Why were you actually getting turned on from this?

“There is sooo much desire and arousal radiating off of you. It’s so intoxicating. So delicious,” the demon says, stretching out the word ‘so’. His tone is dripping with want and he licks his lips to emphasize his hunger for you as he stares into your eyes.

“What do you say?” he asks with a raised brow.

You don’t know what possessed your body at that moment but you actually nod, accepting his proposal and he smiles wickedly. 

It’s almost embarrassing how fast you are willing to obey to his commands even though a logical person would probably run or scream at the presence of an evil entity. But your brain does not even register anything other than your lustful desire for Ten.  

You gasp when he backs you up and you trip backwards into the bed where the demon’s body hovers over you as you lay under him.

Ten brings one hand to a breast where your nipples are erect and protruding against your thin pajama shirt. You whimper when you feel his fingers brush against your nub. 

With a snap of his fingers, your clothes suddenly disappeared. He licks a stripe up your neck, next your collarbone, and then the valley between your breasts, causing goosebumps to form all over your body as his wet tongue swipes against your skin as if he’s trying to taste you. 

You bite your bottom lip when he rubs two fingers against your folds. 

“Holy shit, I barely touched you and you’re already this wet for me? How dirty” he smirks and he’s not wrong. 

Maybe he was using some sort of spell or had the ability to hypnotize you, because you want him so badly right now. 

He latches his mouth onto your nipple to suck on it and shoves two fingers past your folds, causing you to elicit a string of moans at the sudden intrusion. You grip onto the blanket when he inserts his digits in and out of you, hearing the squelching noises your pussy was making. Then, he begins to release his cock using his free hand from the confines of his pants and he pumps it a few times in his hand before positioning it at your entrance.

“W-wait, shouldn’t you put on a condom or something?” you panic.

“Relax, you won’t get pregnant if I cum inside of you.” he states. “I’m a sex demon, I can’t reproduce. Besides, I’ve already come inside you multiple times before.”

“I thought it was just a dream,” you mutter, embarrassed.

“We’ll then, let’s pretend like it is a dream and not worry about the consequences of your actions in your dreams,” he suggests.

Ten removes his fingers from inside of you and replaces it with his length.

“Don’t hold back. I want to hear you,” he growls. 

He pushes through your folds and you practically mewl at the penetration. Your nails practically dig into the blankets as he completely bottoms out inside of you. Once you were adjusted to his size, he starts his thrusts off slow but hard. As soon as you tell Ten to go faster, he practically pounds into you without any mercy and you gasp. He throws your legs over his shoulder to reach a deeper angle and it sends you over the edge.

“Yes, feels so good-ah,” you chant as he continues to pound into your throbbing pussy with his harsh pace.

Ten is hitting the deepest parts of you and you’re a moaning mess when the pace becomes faster and faster. The unknown male hits your g spot and a rush of pleasure courses through your body as you make sure he continues to abuse that particular spot.

“There! Oh fuck-” you practically scream.

This is wrong on so many levels because you are literally having sexual intercourse with a demon, yet why does it feel so incredibly good? You feel like you’re committing some kind of sin being so intimate with what is supposed to be a negative entity, but your mind is too preoccupied with lust to even comprehend that rational thought.  

You chant Ten’s name like a mantra as you near your orgasm which only fuels said man’s ego because he knows no one will ever fuck you as good as he does.

“That’s right, baby. That’s right,” he grunts as he feeds off your pleasure. The more intense the sex is and the closer you get to your orgasm, the more sexual energy you release.

You feel his thrusts becoming harsher and his grip is leaving crescent-shaped marks and bruises on your thighs but you are too focused on chasing your own high to notice he is slowly becoming stronger and stronger from taking in your overwhelming amount of sexual energy. 

In fact, you think his cock is actually getting bigger inside of you too but that thought is cut short when he suddenly slaps your ass cheek, causing you to yelp at the pain as the sound echoes the room.  

Ten laughs at your reaction as he continues to ram inside of you at an inhumane pace and all you two can hear are the sounds of moans, bed creaking, and skin slapping against skin. 

Your walls start to clench erratically around his length because you’re close. So fucking close. 

Ten is close too because his breathing becomes harsher and his thrusts are becoming more uneven.

“Cumming. Ten. I’m cumming.” You announce. 

Soon, you release a silent scream as you come undone and climax around his cock. Ten groans and soon comes afterwards, spilling his cum deep inside of you and painting your walls white. 

Both of you just stay in your positions trying to catch your breaths while Ten is still inside of you. You are both covered in a light layer of sweat from your little activity and the place reeks of sex.

Soon, Ten pulls out of your abused hole and his seeds slowly leak out of your abused cunt.

Ten snaps his fingers and next thing you know you’re fully clothed and the mess he released inside you was gone, like nothing ever happened. Ten was fully dressed again, minus the two undone buttons, and the sweat from his body was gone.  

“I’ll come back for you, little one,” he whispers and winks at you.

Suddenly, your alarm rings and you jolt awake. You look around your room, but nobody was in there except you. Then you look down to see you were still in your pajamas. 

You sit up from your bed and rush over to examine your appearance in the closet mirror but nothing looks out of the ordinary, just some bed hair but that’s about it. After examining your entire body but finding nothing, you crawl back to bed and begin to think of Ten and his words.

I’ll come back for you, little one.

“Wow,” you whisper in a daze. 

Was that all real or just an intense dream? Honestly, you couldn’t believe it because it felt like a straight up fantasy. 

Having sex with an incubus was on a whole new level of euphoria. But then again, they are sex demons for a reason. So many dirty thoughts are running through your head as you fantasize over Ten. 

Regardless of whether Ten really was an incubus having sex with you to steal your energy or just a dream, you couldn’t wait to see him in your dreams again to satisfy your fantasies.

[undercoveravenger]

Under Your Skin

Creature Week 2020: Day Four

Pairing: Gil x Selkie!Male!Reader

Request: “Gil from Descendants with a selkie male reader who keeps visiting the Isle?”

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The first time that Gil had seen the seal he had been pretty young, only eight or nine years old. He’d been hiding on the beach under the old docks, since he knew that his brothers and father would give him hell if they caught him crying again. His mother told him it was because he had a kind heart, but Harry had always just said it was because he was a crybaby. He’d tried to not let it ever get to him because even a grumpy friend was better than none at all in his childish mind, but some days the brunet’s words really weighed on him.

Which was why he was curled up under the docks on his own, wiping away tears with chubby hands and sniffling away sobs as he tried to figure out why he was just so different from his older brothers.

He was startled from his reverie by the sound of a splash and a quiet barking sound. His eyebrows furrowed and he scrubbed a hand across his face as he looked down at the small seal pup staring up at him. “What do you want?” he muttered petulantly, crossing his arms over his chest. “Go away. I don’t have any fish for you.”

The seal had merely barked up at him, splashing its way out of the shallow waves and up the small stretch of rocky beach until it was sitting in front of him, placing one little flipper against his leg.

“What?” He had asked, feeling kind of dumb as he looked down into the seal’s wide (e/c) eyes. It was an animal; he knew it couldn’t understand him.

Nevertheless, the seal had let out a quiet groaning noise and shifted onto one side so it could put a flipper over its face. It only rested it there for a moment before straightening up again and staring pointedly up at Gil.

The blond had rolled his eyes, but swiped at his eyes anyway, surprised to find that he must have stopped crying without realizing it.

The seal let out a pleased bark, nudged its head against Gil’s leg and then turned and flopped its way back into the sea.

---------------

Gil could recall a few other times that he had encountered the strange seal through the years, but it mostly appeared when he was hiding out under the dock. Once it had appeared when he was on Uma’s ship after she won it from Harry’s father. Harry had given him a strange look when he had waved down at the small spotted creature, muttering under his breath about selkies invading their waters.

The blond had been understandably confused, tearing his gaze away from his little seal friend to look at the brunet. “What’s a selkie?”

Harry pulled a face, crossing his arms over his chest as he stared down at the seal playing in the waves. “There was a group of ‘em that lived near Neverland accordin’ to my dad. Beautiful ladies and gents tha’ could turn into seals when they wore their sealskins. My dad used to tell me about men he knew that’d take their skins and hide ‘em in order to keep the selkies as their wives. As soon as the creatures found their skins though, they’d be back at sea and the men who loved them would never see them again.”

“Why would they do that though? If the men loved them, why wouldn’t they let it be the selkie’s choice?” He found his gaze trailing back to the pinniped, watching in awe as it danced gracefully through the waves. 

Harry had shrugged, “They were still wild animals.” He placed a hand on Gil’s shoulder, “Look, mate, don’t go chasin’ after any selkies, yeah? I don’t want to see your heart get broken by some stupid seal.”

“Yeah,” Gil had mumbled quietly, knowing it was easier to agree with Harry than to disagree. “Stupid.”

He’d been haunted by the betrayed look in the seal’s eyes in the years following, in which the seal seemed to have chosen to remain unseen, even when he visited his old hiding spot under the pier.

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Years passed and the seal had all but vanished from his thoughts; the strange encounters slipping away as he grew up, the crew and his classes at Dragon Hall taking up his spare time. He was working a spare shift at Ursula’s Fish and Chips as a favor to Uma when it all came crashing back.

The blond wandered over to a table with a stranger sitting at it, his legs kicked up on the chair across from him and an oddly patterned leather jacket slung over the back of the chair next to him. “What can I get started for you tonight?” Gil asked, grinning brightly as he got ready to write down the (h/c)’s order on the notepad he’d brought over.

The stranger looked up from his menu when he heard Gil speak, a faint grin causing the corners of his mouth to quirk upward. “The special, please.”

The blond didn’t even realize that he had spoken, too surprised by the familiarity of the stranger’s warm (e/c) eyes. Gil was certain that he had never seen the stranger before, but his eyes were practically identical to those of the baby seal from all those years ago.

“Hey, are you alright?” The stranger asked, standing and putting a steadying hand on Gil’s shoulder. “You seem a little out of it.”

He nodded slowly, shaking off his previous stupor. He was sure it was nothing more than a coincidence. “Yeah, um, the special, right? I’ll get right on that.” Without even waiting for him to confirm his order, Gil took off, weaving his way back toward the kitchen so at least he could get a brief respite.

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“The hell’s wrong with you?” Harry snapped as he strode through the swinging door into the kitchen after his friend, “Table six has been waitin’ on their food for-” he cut himself off as he took in Gil’s frazzled state. “Gil, mate, are you okay?”

The blond looked startled at his friend’s sudden appearance, seeming to almost physically force himself out of his thoughts. “I- yeah, totally great.” He forced a smile but Harry didn’t seem convinced.

“What's got you even more out of it than normal?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

Gil shook his head, hurrying to load the food he’d been meant to take to a table onto a tray. “Nothing, just- I saw the guy at Table Ten and he looked really familiar, is all.”

Harry’s brows furrowed in confusion, “Table Ten?” He rolled his eyes as Gil nodded distractedly, turning to peer through the narrow window that looked out into the dining room. “There’s no one there, just some manky old jacket.”

“What?” Gil asked, visibly baffled as he moved to verify what his friend had told him, “But he was just-?”

The brunet rolled his eyes, snatching the tray from Gil, “Go.”

Gil looked up at him with wide eyes and Harry nodded toward the abandoned jacket, “You said you might know ‘im, right? Go take that jacket and use it as an excuse to find out. I can handle things here, just be careful, yeah?”

While he was stunned that Harry was so encouraging for him to go looking for someone he might not even know, Gil took advantage of it, throwing his apron on the back counter and hurrying out to grab the jacket that the (h/c) had left behind before running out of the restaurant.

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Gil wasn’t sure how exactly he knew where to find you, but as he came to a stop under the old pier where he used to hide as a kid he wasn’t surprised to see you sitting at the water’s edge, staring out over the breaking waves.

“You, um, you left this at the restaurant,” he called, slowly picking his way across the rocky shore toward you.

You didn’t even startle at the sound of his voice, which made Gil wonder if you had left the jacket behind on purpose. There was an odd look in your eye as he sat down beside you. “You actually brought it back to me?”

“Yeah?” Gil asked, confused by the incredulous look in your eyes. He turned his gaze down to the coat in his lap. From far away, the jacket had seemed almost black in color, but from this close he could tell that it was actually a dark grey, dappled with even darker spots in a seemingly random pattern. It was incredibly soft and Gil almost didn’t want to let go of it. “Why wouldn’t I?”

You let out a disbelieving snort, turning back to look over the water. “A lot of people wouldn’t, if they knew what it was.”

“They wouldn’t give it back if they knew it was a jacket?” Gil was definitely confused.

The sound of your laughter made Gil grin, even if he wasn’t exactly sure what was so funny. “Something like that.” You chuckled, eyes twinkling mischievously. You bit your lip, turning to look at Gil suddenly, “Y’know, I used to come here a lot when I was younger.”

“Really?” The blond gasped, “Me too! This was where I’d come to be alone.” He grinned sheepishly, pushing his hair back out of his eyes.

“I know,” you said, smile fading a little at the obvious confusion on the blond’s face. “I was there.”

Gil shook his head, brows furrowing close over his azure eyes, “No, I was always alone. Except for when this little seal-” he cut himself off, voice trailing off as his gaze dropped to the jacket in his lap. Now that he looked closer, he could tell that the jacket wasn’t leather at all and the spots almost looked like the ones that had been on that little seal all those years ago. He shook his head, eyes finding yours quickly, “No, it’s not possible-”

“Isn’t it?” You cocked your head, nodding in the direction of the Chip Shop, “Your friend certainly seemed to believe in selkies. Or he used to, at least. I had hoped he’d convince you to believe the same before I came back.”

Gil’s eyes darted between you and what must’ve been your sealskin. “If you’re telling the truth, then why did you leave this behind? Anyone could’ve taken it and then you would’ve been trapped on land forever.”

You laughed, grinning fondly at the pirate, “I knew you wouldn’t let someone else take it. Not after the way you reacted to seeing me again, even if you didn’t know it was me yet.”

“Why did you…?” Gil started, though his voice failed him before he could ask what had been weighing on him.

“What, leave?” When Gil nodded, you sighed, but chose to answer him anyway. “I had to. I had just about gotten old enough to learn how to change forms, so my family and I had to go away until they were sure I could control it. And what you said on that ship had hurt. I had thought you’d realized that I wasn’t going to hurt you; that I wanted to be friends.” You shrugged, casting your gaze back out to the horizon, “I still do.”

Gil swallowed, trailing his fingers lightly over the dappled spots on your jacket as he thought about what you had told him. “I want that too.” He bit his lip nervously, “And I’m sorry about what I said back then; I didn’t know.”

You waved off his apologies, grinning wryly, “I couldn’t have expected you to. It’s not like I could tell you. But let’s start over, yeah?” You turned to face him, holding out your hand, “I’m (M/N), and I can turn into a seal.”

The blond laughed but shook your hand anyway, “I’m Gil.” He grinned nervously, “And I happen to really like a guy that can turn into a seal.”

You couldn’t help but chuckle, twisting your hand in his so you could interlock your fingers. “Well, that’s sure convenient, isn’t it?”

Gil ducked his head to try and hide the blush dusting his cheeks but jolted a little when his gaze fell back to the jacket in his lap. He was quick to offer it to you, though he couldn’t bring himself to let go of it immediately, “How do I know you won’t leave again?”

You grinned at him, leaning in to press a quick kiss to his lips as you took your sealskin back, “Don’t worry, even if I do have to go, I’ll always come back for you.”