#its been months but the pain………… it lingers………. | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

stllmnstr · 5 months ago

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sacred monsters: part one

pairing: lee heeseung x f reader

genre: academic rivals to lovers, vampire au, slow burn

part one word count: 19.3k

part one warnings: swearing, blood and all sorts of other vampire-y things, semi graphic descriptions/depictions of violence, I don't know anything about publishing and wrote about it anyway, not quite as much in this part, but I want to forewarn you that while there is still nothing explicit, we do get a little ~sexier~ than most stllmnstr fics

note/disclaimer: I have been itching to write an enha vampire fic for ages because hello? the material is RIGHT THERE!! this is a story I'm super excited about, and it's definitely gotten me out of my comfort zone. in order to help build this world, I did draw from some outside sources. primarily, a lot of the vampire lore and some plot elements are inspired by the dark moon webtoon series. I did also pull some things from twilight and other well-known vampire myths. lastly, there is a section with "poetry" in it. these "poems" are translated lyrics from still monster, chaconne, and lucifer by enhypen. some are in their original form and some I altered slightly. everything else is straight from yours truly! as always, happy reading ♡

soundtrack: still monster / moonstruck / lucifer - enhypen / everybody wants to rule the world - tears for fears / immortal - marina / supermassive black hole - muse / saturn - sleeping at last / everybody’s watching me (uh oh) - the neighbourhood

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A literature student in your third year of university, you’ve been dreaming of having your writing published for as long as you can remember. With a perfect opportunity dangling at your fingertips, the only obstacle that stands in your way comes in the form of a ridiculously tall, stupidly handsome, and unfortunately, very talented writer by the name of Lee Heeseung. Unwilling to let your dream slip out of reach, you commit to being better than the aforementioned pain in your ass at absolutely everything.

But when a string of vampire attacks strikes close to your city for the first time in nearly two hundred years, publishing is suddenly the last thing on your mind. And, as you soon begin to discover, Heeseung may not quite be the person you thought he was.

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The last sip of your coffee tastes bitter on your tongue. Acidic, like it was left to brew too long. Or maybe not long enough. Your limited knowledge of coffee extends to its effects on your alertness and little else.

Taste has always been an afterthought, something of little consequence. Besides, some bitterness is to be expected when you take your coffee black.

Suppressing the small wince that always follows your final sip, you set the reusable thermos down on your desk. Next to your open notebook and favorite ballpoint pen, it settles in nicely with your other class essentials.

Call it poetic or romantic or unbearably pretentious, but you actually do prefer to take your notes by hand. Partly because it feels more fitting for a literature major and mostly because your laptop is on its last leg and between tuition and rent, you don’t exactly have the funds to shell out for a new one.

Frowning at the bitter taste that still lingers on your tongue, you feel another pang of regret for forgetting to pack your water bottle this morning. But no matter. Today is a day for optimism. The bitterness now only means that your imminent victory will taste that much sweeter in comparison.

Because today is the last day of the fall semester of your third year. Which means that this is the last morning you’ll be sitting here in this lecture hall in the minutes preceding 9 am.

Which means that today is the day of your professor’s long awaited announcement. You still remember the day, nearly four months ago, when he first told the entire room of undermotivated, overcaffeinated students about it.

A publishing opportunity. A real, actual publishing opportunity. Something most literature students would sell their soul for.

Because Professor Kim, while a rather mediocre professor who prefers to dish out criticism and bite back praise, has an excellent eye for great writing. So much so that nearly twenty years ago, he founded his very own publishing house.

Known by the name New Haven Publishing, it’s a small operation that deals mostly in short pieces that are marketed more for niche literary circles than mass public appeal. Being published by New Haven may not be a straight shot to the New York Times’ Best Sellers List, but it’s still professional publishing.

And a week into classes, he announced that for the first time ever, he would be choosing one of you to not only intern at New Haven the following semester, but also to publish an original piece of short fiction with them.

You’ve been fantasizing about it for months now. You can already imagine it. A piece of your very own, marketed and edited by professionals. Published and complete with Professor Kim’s stamp of approval.

It’s what you’ve been craving ever since you decided to switch paths and pursue literature studies at the end of your first semester. It’s everything you’re sure you need. Validation that your writing is good, that your words are worth reading.

Hell, maybe it will even earn you the approval of your parents.

And, perhaps most satisfying of all, you will have officially beaten Lee Heeseng once and for all. You don’t want to speak poorly of the rest of your classmates and their writing abilities, but this has always been a competition between you and him.

Or, at least, it has been for you.

It’s the last day of the semester, and honestly, you wouldn’t be surprised if Heeseung still had a hard time remembering that the internship was even happening. Then again, you wouldn’t exactly be shocked if he couldn't remember your name, either.

And if you were hard pressed to choose only one thing, that would probably be what annoys you the most about him. Not the way his hair is alway somehow perfectly mussed. Not the way his writing is painfully beautiful and poetic that you swell green with envy just thinking about it.

No, the root cause of your infinite ire when it comes to Lee Heeseung is how damn aloof he is. Like his classmates and professors and even his greatest rival aren’t worth the effort of remembering.

And it’s not like it’s because he’s got some kind of crazy social life outside of academics. Other than mandatory discussion groups, you’re not sure you’ve ever seen him so much as talk to anyone.

But that’s just the way he is, you suppose.

Perfect Heeseung with his perfect hair and his perfect writing and perfect attendance record doesn’t need anyone but himself—

Wait.

Perfect attendance record.

Glancing at the clock mounted high above the front door of the lecture hall, you can hardly believe what you’re seeing.

8:59.

There’s no way. There’s no fucking way that the universe is rooting for you this hard, that the stars are aligning this perfectly.

Despite your doubts, the second hand continues its onward march. You suppress the sudden urge to bounce your leg in a matching rhythm.

He has five seconds.

Four. Three. Two. One.

And it’s official. A ridiculous amount of pent up tension drains from your shoulders as your spine straightens. You can’t believe it was that easy.

A semester of agonizing over every word, every sentence, every assignment you handed in for this class. A semester of panicking over missed buses and waking up way too early just to make sure you always beat the clock.

But today is the day where everything comes to a head.

And Lee Heeseung is officially late.

Professor Kim, at the beginning of the semester, had only two pieces of advice to offer his students that were suddenly all gunning for a shot at being published:

One: “Don’t make me read awful writing.”

And two: “Don’t be late to class. I have zero tolerance for tardiness.”

Heeseung has just broken a cardinal rule. One row down, nine seats to the left from where you sit. It’s the place that would usually be filled with an annoyingly broad set of shoulders and distractingly sharp jawline. In fact, Heeseung usually beats you here most days. Not that you’re keeping track, of course. And not that it matters.

Because this morning, this fateful morning, that particular seat, his seat, is glaringly, gloriously empty.

Your eyes flicker over to it again without your permission. But you can’t help it. You’re so antsy now, teeming with self-satisfied excitement. It’s almost unbelievable actually. A golden stroke of luck that he chose today, of all days, to be late.

In fact, you think the more you stare at the empty seat, Lee Heeseung is such a reliable presence that the entire lecture hall suddenly seems a bit off kilter. Tilted too far in some precarious state of imbalance.

Your smugness is still there, yes, but now there’s also a heavy feeling beginning to settle at the bottom of your gut. Why on earth is Lee Heeseung late?

You’re so distracted by his absence, the endless loop of possibilities and explanations running through your mind, that you almost miss the second abnormality of the morning.

Because now the clock reads 9:04, and Heeseung isn’t the only one missing.

All at once, your attention is on the podium at the front of the lecture hall. It’s empty, too. And Professor Kim may be a hardass, but he’s no hypocrite. Never once throughout this entire semester has he ever begun a class even a millisecond late.

Frowning, you pull out your phone to confirm that the clock on the wall is not playing tricks on you. Maybe there was a power outage or something, and maintenance hasn’t had time to correct it yet.

But your phone screen lights up, and 9:05 is the time that stares back at you.

Glancing around, no one else seems too particularly bothered by this. There are a few titters, a few annoyed grumbles that sound like hypocrite and double standard where they reach your ears.

But still, the clock ticks forward.

The minute hand has fallen another two notches when the front door finally opens, Professor Kim striding in unhurried. Despite his lateness, his steps are steady, even. There’s nothing frantic or apologetic about the way he sets his briefcase down next to the podium, pulling out his laptop and a small stack of notes before clearing his throat.

As the students around you fall silent, class begins as it always does. Other than the time, nothing is out of the ordinary.

But your spirits are still high, and you figure you can cut your professor some slack. Maybe he ran into a bad bit of traffic or spilled coffee all over his shirt. Maybe he’s too embarrassed to draw more attention to his error and has decided that not acknowledging it at all is the best course of action.

Oh, well. It’s no use ruminating on it now. Settling back into your seat, you do your best to focus your attention on the front of the room and not that damn empty chair. But the distraction isn’t necessary for long.

The clock is just striking 9:12 when a second late arrival draws the eyes of the class to the front door of the lecture hall. Like your professor, Heeseung maintains a certain air of composedness as he makes his way towards his seat wordlessly.

There’s a moment, a fraction of a second, where Professor Kim pauses, letting a sentence drift into silence.

Twelve minutes late. It’s a rookie mistake. For a fleeting moment, you almost feel bad for him. Because surely Professor Kim is about to make an example of him. No one walks into his lectures late and leaves unscathed.

Wincing, you remember a handful of weeks ago when a poor girl that sits a few rows behind you arrived late. Not only had Professor Kim stopped the entire flow of his lecture to draw attention to her tardiness, he had also assigned her an extra short story for homework. One on the merits of punctuality.

But the ebb in the lecture begins to flow again, the moment passing as soon as it comes. Heeseung settles into his chair. Your professor resumes his sentence.

For the remainder of the class, you do your best to pay attention, but you’re having trouble finding a point. It’s not like he can assign homework or an exam or a discussion on the last day of the semester.

Like you, most of your peers are fully zoned out, just waiting for him to get to what everyone has been dying to know for months.

Who’s interning at New Haven? Who’s getting published?

But distractions in this class have never been hard to come by. More than once, you find your wandering gaze drifting to the back of Heeseung’s head. Usually, you’d be bitterly admiring how soft his hair looks. But today, there’s only one question that plays in your mind as you stare.

What on earth happened that made perfect Lee Heeseung late?

Your thoughts are only interrupted by the sudden shuffle of small movement around you as everyone sits up a bit straighter in their seats.

“Ah,” Professor Kim glances at the time. “That wraps up our semester, then. As promised, I would like to announce the student who will be interning with New Haven Publishing this upcoming semester. And, of course, the student that will have the opportunity to publish an original piece with us.”

He pauses for a moment, looking down at his notes. You wonder if the people sitting close to you can hear the way your heart pounds in your chest.

Please be me. Please be me. Please be me.

The rushing in your ears is so loud that you almost miss it. But not quite. Because the sound of your own name is something you’d recognize anywhere.

Because it was your name that he said. Not anyone else’s. Not Heeseung’s.

You. You did it.

You’re officially going to be interning with New Haven. You’re going to be published.

When he asks you to stay a minute after class to discuss the details, it’s all you can do to nod. Butterflies are still scattered in your stomach.

As the rest of the students begin to file out, you pack up your materials with hands that shake slightly. It doesn’t feel real. It feels too good to be true. You poured your everything into this all semester long, and now it’s actually happening.

Your mind is a mess, and an erratic movement almost sends your empty thermos flying. Luckily, you snap out of it long enough to catch it before it hits the ground. With everything packed back into your bag, you make your way down to the podium on slightly unsteady feet.

A handful of passing classmates congratulate you on their way out, and you smile in return.

You’ve almost made it to the front of the lecture hall when a body blocks your path. It takes a moment for your brain to register the identity of the offender. And once it does, it spits his name with venom. Heeseung.

Oblivious and self-centered as always, he nearly knocks you over. Rolling your eyes, you move to step around him. Apparently whatever gift he was given for writing doesn’t extend to his spatial awareness or consideration for others.

But as you lean to the left, he follows the movement, still in your path. Your gaze snaps up, eyebrows raised when you find him already looking at you.

Oh. So it’s not a spatial awareness problem, then. He’s in your way on purpose.

As always, his expression is infuriatingly blank. You can’t get any sort of read on him, and it unnerves you. Irritates you. Here he is, blocking your path, and the only thing he has to offer you is an empty, silent stare.

You could just say excuse me, force your way around him, and be done with it. You should. The semester is over, your professor’s decision is made, and you have no stake left in this game.

But you’ve been biting back snarky comments and masking irritated expressions with mild indifference for months. The nerve he has to block you. The utter gall of it all. To physically stand in your way when he’s been your metaphorical obstacle to success all semester.

When every time you look at him, you still remember that one sunny afternoon, early in the semester. The time you tried, actually tried to be his friend. When he waved you off like a buzzing fly that was nothing more than a nuisance.

You inhale, weighing your options. His head tilts slightly at the movement, and it’s your last straw.

There’s poison in your voice when you bite, “Oh, what? Now that I’ve proved myself, you can spare some time out of your day to talk to me?”

Heeseung’s eyes widen, lips parting slightly. It’s the most emotion you’ve ever seen from him, and he’s wasting it on shock. As if he can’t quite comprehend why the girl he’s been giving headaches for months might not want to stop and have a friendly chat with him. Not that you imagine he’d even be capable of that if you tried.

Already, you regret your comment. In a perfect world, you wouldn’t have said anything. You’d be just as detached and cold and aloof as he was on that day you hate to think about. You still remember it like it was yesterday. Without your permission, the memory floats front and center to your mind.

It was warmer, then. The last clutches of summer were still holding on tight. Sunlight was bright in the sky, and it felt like a good time to breach the barrier of your comfort zone.

Class had just ended. Usually, Heeseung was one of the first to leave. You had to pack up abnormally quickly just to catch him in the quad right outside the lecture hall.

But you did catch up to him.

And in a voice braver than you felt, you asked, “Hey, it’s Heeseung, right?”

You’d been brighter, then. Still full of an energy you haven’t been able to muster since midterms. Not yet burdened by the weight of assignments and rejection, your disposition was as sunny as the sky above.

Heeseung hadn’t bothered to dignify your question with an actual answer, but he had at least stopped walking, and that seemed like an invitation at the time. Now, with the power of hindsight, you wince. You should have spared yourself the regret.

You remember watching as he pulled out his earbuds, tucking them back into his pocket before turning his attention to you. Or at least half of it. Even then, you never felt like he was truly looking at you, hearing you. His mind always seemed off in the distance, preoccupied somewhere you could never quite reach.

You recall being nervous, heat in your cheeks as you tucked a loose strand of hair behind your ear. His eyes tracked the movement like a cat tracks a ray of sunlight. Lazily, intently. With an energy you weren’t quite sure what to do with.

Instead, you had stuttered, “I, uh, I wanted to tell you that I thought your analysis today was brilliant.” The worst part is that it really was a brilliant analysis. Although you’d never admit that today, and much less to his face.

Instead, you cringe just thinking about it. You should have taken his blank stare as a sign. You should have just let the one-sided conversation die there. With at least a little dignity and some of your pride left to spare.

But you hadn’t.

“I never thought about the use of sunlight as a metaphor for life. I mean, now that you’ve pointed it out, it seems kind of obvious.” The memory of your nervous giggles settle like rocks in your stomach. “Anyway, I feel like I’m rambling, but if you ever want to get together and look through assignments or review each other’s analyses, I’d love to—”

You’d heard his voice before, of course. In class discussions and presentations. But never this close. And never directed at you.

He kept it short, his interruption, his response to your shaky offer.

“I’m busy.”

And that was it. Two words. Two fucking words. And not even an explanation or an I’m sorry or a sheepish expression to go along with them.

With that, you’d watched, a bit helplessly, as he pulled his earbuds out of his pocket, put them back into his ears and turned away from you before you could realize just how thoroughly you’d been rejected.

With a sudden haze in the air and hope dying in your heart, your friendly smile slipped into confused dismay as you watched him track a steady path across the quad.

If your cheekbones felt warm before, you were sure they must have been aflame by then. After all, it was your body’s natural response to the crushing weight of the embarrassment and thoroughly bruised ego he’d left you there standing with.

Fine then, you’d resolved after walking as quickly as you could in the opposite direction, sending a prayer to the heavens that no one from your class had just witnessed the most mortifying interaction you’ve ever had. If Lee Heeseung wanted nothing to do with you, the feeling could be mutual.

In fact, it was probably for the best. You were vying for that internship and if the past class discussions were anything to go by, Heeseung would be your only real competition. If he was too busy for you, then you would just have to be too busy for him.

Too busy perfecting every assignment and acing every exam. Too busy drowning in dictionaries and thesauruses and reference materials to make sure everything you submitted was perfect — no, scratch that — better than perfect.

Too busy to attempt another conversation or interaction or do anything but nod along politely whenever he did make an unfortunately great point in class.

So, no. Heeseung doesn’t get to dictate your time or attention or conversation now that you’ve actually been awarded with a publishing opportunity, now that all of your efforts and dedication and late nights have paid off.

If Lee Heeseung wants a bit of your attention on today of all days, at this moment of all moments, then you’re just going to have to be too busy to entertain him.

Standing in front of you, still blocking your path to the podium, Heeseung has the nerve to look confused. As if you have no reason to give him the cold shoulder. As if you’re the one being unreasonable here.

His brow furrows further. “What?” It’s the third word he’s ever spoken directly to you. It makes your blood boil. “No, I…” he trails off. You can practically see the gears running in his mind, like this wasn’t the conversation he expected to be having. Like he has no idea how to navigate it now. “I was just going to say that you should maybe reconsider.”

Your voice is ice when you ask, “Reconsider what?”

“Well…” He’s treading in dangerous territory, and he seems to realize it too. “The internship,” he clarifies, and it’s the second most insulting thing he’s ever said to your face.

You screw your eyes shut. Cold and detached. Blank and aloof. All the things you should be. But you’ve always run a little hot. And end of the semester exhaustion finds you more willing to throw caution to the wind.

“You have got to be fucking with me.” Eyes reopening, you’re met with that same expression of mild shock. Brows raised, lips parted. And god, he even looks good like that. “Yeah, right. Let me guess, so you can do the internship and publish a piece of your own? If all you came over to do is insult me, then save your breath.”

“What?” He still looks so damn confused. “No, I—”

You don’t want to hear it. “I have nothing to say to you.” If he won’t get out of your way, you’ll just have to go through him. The shoulder check is maybe slightly more intense than it needs to be as you shove your way past him. He barely stumbles back an inch. It makes you want to rip your hair out. “Besides,” you add, not bothering to turn back to look at him. “I’m busy.”

It’s a dig at him, yes, but it’s also true. You are. This is the opportunity of a lifetime, and Lee Heeseung is not about to ruin it for you.

To your unending gratitude, he doesn’t try to intercept you again. Your path to the front of the lecture hall is clear, and Professor Kim is just tucking his laptop back into his briefcase when you reach the podium.

Ultimately, it’s a watered down version of the million times you’ve imagined this moment in your head. Even coming on the tail end of the most annoying interaction you’ve had in months. Professor Kim congratulates you again, and hands you a printed schedule of when you’ll be expected at the publishing office for the first time.

There are also submission dates. Deadlines for you to submit drafts of the piece that you’ll be publishing. You take it all in with a beam and enthusiastic nods, mishap with Heeseung from minutes ago all but forgotten.

That is, until Professor Kim’s gaze lands somewhere over your shoulder after he tells you he’ll also send you a follow-up email with all the information you need.

You watch as his expression shifts, something uneasy, distrustful entering his gaze as he looks beyond you. “Something I can help you with, Mr. Lee?”

Following his gaze, you turn to look behind you. The lecture hall is empty, students cleared out from the class that dismissed nearly five minutes ago. All except for one, that is.

Gone is the shock from Heeseung’s delicately sharp features. Instead, he wears his mask of indifference again, betraying no emotion. You must be imagining the way it looks almost strained this time, as if he’s forcing his expression into neutrality instead of it there of its own accord.

Wordlessly, his gaze shifts to you.

And now it’s your turn to be confused, but you won’t let it last long. At least not outwardly. You’re quick to match his gaze with nothing but pure ire, venom dripping seeping from every inch of your glare.

Is he seriously still trying to ruin this for you? So much for being busy.

“No, sir.” Heeseung shakes his head. He’s addressing your professor, but he’s still looking at you. A muscle ticks in his jaw, betrays a hint of tension. “I was just on my way out.”

True to his word, he begins a steady descent towards the front door.

Your professor clears his throat, turns his attention back to you, resuming the wrap-up of your conversation.

You’re extra grateful for that follow-up email now, given the way movement in your periphery distracts you from Professor Kim’s last few statements. Instead, your focus hones in on the even footsteps that carry Heeseung to the door, allow him to slip through it silently.

It must be a trick of the light, must be a figment of your overworked, over irritated imagination. But you swear you see him linger there, just on the other side of the small glass window carved into the door.

Professor Kim says his parting words, and you thank him one final time. If there’s an unnatural quickness in your footsteps as you turn to leave, you tell yourself that it’s because you’re excited to get started on your draft, not because you have the sneaking suspicion Heeseung is still standing just on the other side of the door.

But you swear that’s his silhouette you see as you draw closer, shrouded in shadows but distinct all the same. You’re debating the merits of shouting at him or maybe accidentally shoulder checking him again as you pull open the door handle, a little more roughly than you intend.

But the only thing that greets you on the other side of the door is a nearly empty hallway, save for the pair of students bent over a laptop a few paces away. You ignore their twin expressions of shock as you let the door fall closed behind you, much more calmly than you opened it.

…..

The blank expanse of your notebook stares at you accusingly.

You’d stare back, if that would somehow make words appear on the page. Sighing, you reach for your long forgotten cup of tea sitting on your desk. Taking a slow sip, you realize it’s gone cold.

That just makes you double down on your frustration. How long have you been sitting here, waiting for inspiration to strike?

People always talk about the merits of a change in scenery, but ever since you started your first semester of university three years ago, your favorite place to write has always been here, at the small, simple desk that sits in the corner of your bedroom.

Back then, writing was a hobby. Something to do when the last of your biochemistry homework was finished. A way to release pent-up stress and tension from long days in the university lab and long hours feeling like you were drowning between all of the extra study sessions, TA workshops, and office hours.

At first, it had been worth it. You maintained high grades and high spirits. Mostly because of the small sprinkles of support your parents showered you with.

Every little You got this! that lit up your phone screen on dreary afternoons and We believe in you! that made your evening lectures a little more bearable felt like tokens of your parents’ affection. Something tangible to show for the care they held for you.

Most of all, you cherished the We’re proud of you messages. You can’t remember the last time you received one.

And it’s not like they were mad, exactly, when you told them you wanted to change majors. They did their best to be supportive in the ways that they knew how.

For your father, that was concern. “Are you sure? Literature? What do the job prospects after graduation look like?”

And for your mother, that was letting you know that she thought you were capable of more. Of better. “It’s not that literature is bad, sweetie. It’s just… Well, you’ve always been such a smart girl…”

You get it; you really do. All the questions and prodding comments that felt like criticism were wrapped in nothing but love. But that didn’t do much to soften the sting.

In the end, it was this desk that made you follow through with your change in major. Slumped in your hand-me-down chair late one Friday night, half finished lab report sitting untouched in your bag, the threat of tears burning at the corners of your eyes, all you wanted to do was write.

To put into words the feelings and emotions and fantasies and frustrations that you could never seem to express otherwise. To commit a piece of your soul to paper and wonder if maybe, just maybe, there was someone else out there who would read it and find a sense of solidarity, of common ground.

You submitted your official change request the next morning. You never regretted it once.

But your parents still make comments, still share their concerns. And for the last three years, you haven’t had anything to show for it except for empty promises. But now, you have something. A real something.

Publishing a story of your own is the exact validation that you need that your choice was the right one. And it’s the proof you need to assuage your parents’ fears, to show them that pursuing literature was the right call. That you can carve out a life for yourself with it.

You’ve fantasized about this for years. For the chance to have your voice heard, your words read. There are a million half-baked thoughts and partially written drafts scattered in your notebooks and digital documents and on the corners of takeout napkins that have been lying in wait for a moment just like this.

But no matter how hard you stare at the page in front of you, the words just won’t come. The more old drafts you scour, the more amateur your writing feels. The more you feel like maybe Heeseung should have won the internship over you.

It’s a miserable cycle your brain works itself into. The less you write, the more you criticize, the more you wonder.

What if he hadn’t been late that morning? What if Professor Kim was hoping to choose him instead? What if the reason he didn’t say anything when Heeseung finally arrived in class was because he was so disappointed that his first choice wasn’t an option anymore?

Groaning out loud to an empty room, your head falls on your desk with a muted thud.

It’s there, facedown on your desk, where an idea strikes you. If you can’t manifest a draft out of thin air, maybe you just need some parameters. A general guide to get the creative juices flowing.

Lifting your head back up, you push your notebook to the side and reach for your laptop. Opening a web browser, you navigate to New Haven Publishing House’s homepage.

It’s a simple website, reflective of its simple namesake. Chin in one hand, you click the link that reads Recently Published.

The list that pops up is modest. Unlike a larger, more corporate publishing house, your professor’s self-made enterprise is churning out new releases at a slower rate and smaller volume.

Perusing the titles and descriptions, you note that the vast majority of the works are short form fiction. There are very few full length novels. The majority is made up of essay and poetry collections, short stories, and memoirs.

Scanning the list again, a title close to the top catches your eye.

The Thirst for Revenge: An Analysis of Contemporary Vampire Activity. It was published less than a month ago.

Your cursor hovers over the link, brow furrowing. It strikes you as odd that something so… archaic would be published so recently.

Professor Kim has always come across as a discerning man. Someone that prides himself on his well curated taste.

But vampires… that’s hardly a headline worthy topic these days.

While most people still practice caution walking down dark alleyways at night and some even go so far as to carry charms infused with garlic cloves, monsters of the night are by and large a thing of the past.

The entire species of bloodthirsty, ravaging immortals were hunted to near extinction almost two hundred years ago. Those that survived relocated to remote areas. Some adapted to life in the countryside by learning to enjoy the taste of animal blood. Others found humans willing to donate small portions of their own blood intermittently. You won’t pretend to understand, but you suppose it’s preferable to the alternative.

Some still hunted in the traditional way, of course, but vampire attacks on humans are few are far between these days. After all, vampires, as a means of survival, have all but forsaken major urban areas. Population density spells demise for their species.

You’d have to confirm through research, but if you remember correctly, the last recorded vampire-related death in your city was nearly two hundred years ago.

Without bothering to click on the link, you continue scrolling down. Honestly, it was probably just a fluke. After all, who knows? Maybe there’s some niche circle out there that enjoys analyzing vampire literature, regardless of how outdated it is.

The next title seems a bit more promising. Shadowless Nights. The brief description marks it as a short story published half a year ago.

You click on it, take a sip of room temperature tea while the page loads.

Night was my favorite time of day, the first line reads.

I loved the stillness of it all, the all encompassing serenity. With the moon in the sky and stars in my eyes, every moment felt like a secret between me and the universe. Something we alone shared.

I whispered secrets to the earth and held hers in return. My days felt like dreams. Distant, blurry, faded. It was only then, in the distinct stillness of midnight, that I truly came alive.

Interesting, you think. It’s a bit more melodramatic than you expected, but maybe your professor prefers a poetic touch.

In the night, I earned peace. And in the night, I learned fear.

It came slowly at first, that sinking feeling of dread. The horrible suspicion that made the hair on the back of my neck feel sharp, the air in my throat feel shallow.

But if I have learned anything of monsters, it is that they revel in that fear. That sickeningly overt reminder of mortality, of humanity. The way I couldn’t help the racing of my pulse, the darting of my eyes.

He enjoyed it, toying with me from the shadows. Watching me become desperate, watching me become weak.

But it paled in comparison, I’m sure, with what came next. Every story has its climax, and every beginning has its end. For him, it was the sweet, clean taste of my blood.

Wait. Another vampire story? One was strange enough, but for the last two published works at New Haven to be vampire related doesn’t feel like a coincidence. Especially since the more you read, the more you realize it’s not as much of a story as it is thinly veiled anti-vampire rhetoric.

The dramatized descriptions of a weak, innocent female lead being victimized by a faceless, bloodthirsty monster. It just feels… strange. Outdated. Irrelevant, even.

Clicking back to the list, you scan over the next five entries. All of them are more or less the same. Some are more metaphorical than others, abstract in their rhetoric, but the topic is always the same. And the conclusion always affirms the immense, inevitable, irredeemable blight that vampirism is to the world.

It’s just bizarre. Especially considering that Professor Kim never once had you analyze any anti-vampire propaganda throughout the entire semester. In fact, you were never assigned to read anything vampire related at all.

If this type of literature is so central to his professional career, it doesn't make sense to you that he wouldn’t incorporate it into his class. Especially considering the fact that he was awarding an internship at New Haven to one of the students.

You take another long sip of cold tea. Well… you could try to come up with something that aligns with the current profile of New Haven’s recently published works. It’s not like you’ve ever written anything related to vampires. Maybe you just need to think of it as a writing exercise, a challenge of sorts. Producing a piece that feels relevant and fresh even if the central topic is a bit out of style.

According to the revision schedule Professor Kim gave you, your first draft issue in a week and a half. The same day that you’re set to go to New Haven for the first time and tour the office you’ll be interning at once winter break is over. It’s an ambitious timeline, but he did specify that he’s looking more for a solid concept than a well polished draft. But something in you wants to have more than just a concept. You want his approval, to impress him.

So you have a week and a half to come up with a draft that will catch his attention, that will convince him that you were the right choice for this opportunity. Not anyone else in your class. Not Heeseung. You.

A concept that will excite New Haven Publishing House’s usual reader base, that will maybe actually earn you some commercial success.

A story that will prove to your parents that literature was the right choice for you. That your words do matter, that you can make a name for yourself with your writing.

Well, you think, suppressing an internal groan, it looks like you have your work cut out for you.

…..

Despite your admitted lack of vampiric knowledge, once you have your topic, the words start to flow. You’re not sure if it’s your best work. You’re not even sure if it’s good. But it feels a hell of a lot better than staring at a blank page for hours.

This afternoon finds you in the corner of your favorite coffee shop. Mostly because they offer half priced lattes on Wednesdays. As you make a dent in yours, the pen in your other hand continues to fly over the pages of your notebook, occasionally stopping to scratch out a word or rewrite a sentence.

The bare bones are there. Just like in the handful of stories you perused on New Haven’s website, your plot features a young woman. It’s a historic setting, mostly because you still can’t quite bring yourself to write vampires into the modern day when the reality is so starkly different.

And it’s not a vampire story. At least not at first glance. Instead, you weave an enduring metaphor to symbolize a parasitic relationship between two lovers.

The woman in your draft is young, full of life and energy and optimism. And she dreams. Vivid, brilliant dreams that she clings to in order to escape the harshness of her reality as a lower class woman in the countryside.

Her husband, however, is a brute. Older than her and with a decidedly less sunny disposition. When he learns that his health is failing, he discovers that he can heal himself temporarily by stealing these dreams from her.

So, no. It’s not overtly about vampires. But it does fall into step with some of the more abstract anti-vampire tropes you came across in your preliminary research.

Crossing a dark line through the word you just penned, you sigh.

This is the fastest you’ve put a story together in ages. It’s cohesive, and the writing is solid. Your use of metaphor is strong and concise, and the prose feels true to your identity as a writer.

But something in you withers a bit with every new word you commit to paper. It’s not that you hate your topic. If anything, it’s just that you have no stake in it at all. It doesn't feel innovative or exciting or representative of your creativity.

No matter how easily the words flow out of you, something about it just feels… flat. One dimensional.

You need something new. A different angle or an alternative perspective or… Or a fresh set of eyes.

Struck with a sudden idea, you pull out your phone, plan taking form in your mind. The literature club at your university hosts bimonthly peer review sessions, and you haven’t taken advantage of them nearly as much as you should. They’re a chance for any writer, literature major or otherwise, to come together and workshop any piece of writing of their choice.

Tapping your finger impatiently on the table, you wait for the page to load. The fall semester did end almost a week ago, so it may be a long shot. You’re not sure if the club typically holds sessions over winter break. But as you pull up the club’s calendar of events, a small smile tugs at your lips.

Luck seems to be on your side this time. It’s written there in plain, bold font that there will be a session this upcoming Friday evening. That means that if you attend the session and get some solid ideas for revision, you’ll have exactly five days to refine your draft before you present it to Professor Kim.

The idea of having not only a topic, as the schedule outlined, but an actual complete, well-written draft to show him next Wednesday, turns your small smile into one that overtakes your features.

Energized with a new vigor, you reach for your pen again. It doesn’t have to be perfect, you remind yourself, even as a turn of phrase makes you cringe. Even as a piece of punctuation feels out of place. It just needs to be written. You just need to have as much content as you can to share on Friday.

Besides, you’re sure that a second opinion will help you fine tune this story into something you’re proud to share, something you’re excited to attach your name to.

The afternoon is quick to blur into early evening, and you’re still bent over your favorite corner table. Coffee long drained, you’re full of a new confidence. The thought of proving yourself suddenly doesn’t seem like such an unachievable, out of reach task.

And when you do finally gather up all of your belongings and make your way back to your apartment for the night, you’re sure that this is the exact boost you needed.

That same stroke of self-assuredness carries you all the way through a finished first draft. It’s rough and messy and littered with loose ends, but it’s tucked away in the bottom of your tote bag with a smile as you haul it to classroom number 105 in the university liberal arts building Friday evening.

You pause at the door to the classroom, only for a moment. The inhale you breathe in is deep, full. Nodding to yourself once, you push open the door.

You haven’t been to one of these workshop sessions since the second semester of your first year, back when you had just switched to a literature major. You remember being wide-eyed and incredibly protective over your work. It was hard to part with it, to let anyone else read over the sentences you were so unsure of. The writing you had little confidence in.

But your partner had been kind. Another girl in her first year, she had nothing but gentle feedback to give and reassurance that your writing was worth reading. Honestly, it was such an overwhelmingly positive experience that you would have come back for more sessions if you weren’t constantly struggling to find minutes to spare in the day.

You’re hoping that tonight will be just as rewarding as you enter the classroom, tote bag in tow. But as you survey the space around you, your face falls flat, easy going smile dropping from your lips.

You weren’t expecting a big crowd, considering that it is winter break and most students are deliberately avoiding campus right now, but you were hoping there’d be more than one other person in attendance.

Well, you think, deciding to look on the bright side of things. At least you’re not the only person.

The other attendee is sitting in the far corner of the room, occupying a desk near the front of the classroom. At the sound of your entrance, they turn to face you.

With that, your small disappointment is quick to snowball into an intense wave of exasperation. Because why is the universe so hellbent on playing games with you?

Your mouth drops open without your permission. “Heeseung?”

Your sudden outburst fills the room and lingers long into the awkward silence that follows. You hadn’t meant to say anything, but really, what are the god forsaken odds?

If he’s bothered by your reaction to seeing him, Heeseung doesn’t show it. Instead he looks strangely… relieved. It makes absolutely no sense for him to feel any sort of relief at the sight of you, but it’s hard to put a more apt descriptor to the way tension drains from his shoulders, crease between his brows softening as he looks at you, scans you from head to toe.

A moment of stilted silence passes between the two of you. Another. Your heartbeat feels too loud in your chest.

You exhale, a cross between a scoff and a laugh so humorless it could freeze a flame. Weighing your options, the most tempting by far is to just turn on your heel and exit the way you came.

Heeseung seems to read your intention before you can commit to it.

Breaking the heaviness in the atmosphere, he acts as if you’ve greeted him like an old friend, not as the source of all your recent headaches.

“Hi,” he nods, so tentatively you almost want to let your jaw drop open in shock. Almost.

Because what the fuck does he mean by ‘Hi?’ This has to be some kind of mind game, some way to get in your head and ruin this for you.

“Right.” Your lips pull into a tight line. You don’t bother to return his greeting. “I’m just gonna go, then.” Hiking up your bag on your shoulder, you turn to do just that. Your first draft will just have to be unpolished. Oh, well. You’re sure Professor Kim will have better feedback for you than Lee Heeseung ever would anyway.

Once again, Heeseung’s voice cuts across the classroom. “Wait.” There’s a command in his voice. Gentle, but firm. Insistent. So pervasive that you find yourself following without really meaning to.

Mind made up and dead set on leaving, now you’re just annoyed. What a waste of a Friday evening.

“What?” You turn back to him. You’re not sure if there’s more venom in your voice or your eyes.

And Heeseung, who commands a classroom with quiet grace, with his steady, unwavering presence, suddenly looks so damn unsure. As if tormenting you is uncharted territory. As if he’s never once left you in the cold with flaming cheeks and a thoroughly shattered ego.

“I…” he trails off, not quite meeting your furious gaze. “Didn’t you come here to get feedback?”

“Right.” You scoff again. “Because I’m sure you’d love nothing more than to tear my writing to shreds. Forgive me, but I’m not interested in being the butt end of your joke tonight.”

“What?” If you didn’t know any better, the ignorance he feigns would be rather convincing. “That’s not why I’m here.” He shakes his head. “I brought something I want reviewed too.”

Your brow arches. He can’t be serious. “Even if I did stay,” you counter, “you’re actually the last person I would want to read my work. Feel free to be offended by that, by the way.”

For a solid minute, Heeseung just looks at you. He wears that same damn deer-in-the-headlights expression he had after you brushed him off when he intercepted you in class the other day. He pauses, weighing words on his tongue. “Look, ____.” The sound of your name on his lips strikes a strange chord in you. Until now, you were certain he didn’t even know it. “Did I do something to offend—”

And no. Absolutely not. No way are you rehashing that day in the quad with him now.

“You know what,” you interrupt. You need to go. Now. You need an out. “I’m actually, like, super tired. I think I’m just gonna head back, and—”

But then it’s his turn to cut off your train of thought. “It’s your piece for Professor Kim, isn’t it?” Heeseung takes your silence as confirmation. “Publishing is a big deal. A second set of eyes will only make your work stronger. And if you hate my feedback, it’s not like you have to use any of it.”

You hate it. You despise the way his reasoning matches your internal monologue nearly word for word. The way your thoughts align exactly.

You pause, a decision weighing heavy on your mind. He is an excellent writer… There would probably be substance to his feedback. Real, actual, good substance that you could use to make your writing bloom into something truly amazing. He could be the exact spark you need to make your story come to life.

You purse your lips. “What’s in it for you?”

Heeseung smiles, a nearly imperceptible quirk of his lips. He knows he’s won. “Like I said, I brought something I’ve been working on.” There’s an intention you can’t quite read behind his gaze when he adds, “I want to know what you think of it.”

Hook, line, and sinker.

With a grumble, you take reluctant steps towards where he sits on the opposite side of the classroom. And if you slide down into the seat next to him with a little more force than necessary, well, it’s just because you’ve had a long week. No other reason. None at all.

“Fine,” you relent, reaching to pull your notebook out of your bag. “You get twenty minutes.”

“That’s not nearly long eno—”

“Thirty,” you concede. “And don’t push it.”

Sensing your disdain, Heeseung doesn’t respond. Instead, he accepts the notebook you reluctantly hand him with an outstretched hand and an open palm. The transfer between the two of you is gentle. You have the distinct sense that he’ll treat your work with care, in more than one way.

Still, something in your heart seizes at the thought of letting your work be read. Of letting him be the one to read it.

In return, he offers you a notebook of his own. Bound in brown, aged leather, it’s certainly much more refined than yours. Of course.

He hands it to you still closed. Staring down at the cover, you ask, “What page?” It feels intrusive to start flipping through his writing uninvited.

“There’s a bookmark.” Heeseung nods his chin towards the small piece of paper sticking out of the top edge that you missed at first glance.

And then the transfer is complete. A piece of your heart is spread open on his desk, and a piece of his soul is in your hands.

Ignoring the way your fingers tremble with a slight shake, you delicately open his notebook to the bookmarked page, letting it fall open on the desk in front of you.

At first glance, the writing strikes you as odd. The paragraphs are strange lengths, ending at random junctures instead of extending all the way to the margins. And then it hits you. They’re not paragraphs. They’re stanzas.

Poetry. Lee Heeseung writes poetry.

You sneak a sidelong glance at him out of your periphery. He’s already engrossed in the pages of your notebook, pausing occasionally to jot a note down on a scrap piece of paper. His brow is furrowed, and there’s a tension in his jawline that only makes it sharper.

Still, the image of his profile is shrouded in a distinct sort of softness. The kind of effortless beauty that feels like it should be reserved for intimate moments in the dead of night, secrets passed between lovers. It’s wasted under the fluorescent lights and patchy, beige walls of an underfunded classroom, but you waste another minute staring at him all the same.

For a fleeting moment, it’s not hard to imagine those hands, those long, delicate fingers maintaining an even grip on a ballpoint pen to write something as romantic as poetry.

Shaking your head, you clear the errant thoughts. Instead, you turn your focus back to the page in front of you and begin with the first poem. Forcing your eyes to focus, you read.

As if nothing happened,

She looks at me

With shadowless eyes.

But it is me who has been

Forgiven and reborn countless times.

You inhale. Exhale. Short and succinct with a distinct twinge of tragedy. That was… not what you were expecting. Pushing forward, you move onto the next entry.

Even the stars in the universe

Will close their eyes one day.

Underneath their watchful gaze,

All of these moments are precious.

For memory, for regret,

I will carve them

Into the repetition of the moment.

Again, you pause, taking a moment to breathe. It’s so… melancholy, so poignant in its evocation of pain, of regret. While you’ve been familiar with Heeseung’s ability to analyze the hell out of a novella, this was not something you thought you’d find in his repertoire. And the more you read on, the more you realize these aren’t flukes. This is his identity as a writer, or at least a significant part of it.

The world that abandoned us

Slowly turns to ash.

But I don’t feel the pain.

I only feel the cold.

My god. You nearly close the notebook on instinct. Without your permission, your eyes flick ove to the desk next to you. The broad set of shoulders that fill the seat. What has this boy been through? Why is he letting you read this?

Heeseung looks up. Not at you, but the movement is enough to startle you out of your staring. Returning your eyes to his notebook, you read the last entry on the page.

A shaded castle with no sun

The thick scent of dying roses never fades.

In a broken mirror, I see myself.

And my reflection whispers, “Monster.”

The breath you release is long. Audible. You’re overcome with the urge to run your fingers over his words, to feel the indents his pen made as he carved pain into the page. His writing is gorgeous. It’s beautifully, tragically haunting. Of that much, you’re certain. But you have no idea what to do with that information.

His words feel too raw, too terribly intimate. Like something that was never meant for your eyes. You can’t understand what on earth possibly possessed him to let — no — to encourage you to read these.

You can’t fathom any kind of feedback you could offer him. These feel like pieces of his soul, not something to be commodified or commented on in a writing workshop. Discussed in the cold, unfeeling walls of an old classroom.

Despite the discomfort that lingers with each passing stanza, his writing has an almost addictive quality. Over and over, you find yourself rereading each brief poem. You’re searching for meaning, for clarity, for something hidden between the lines that you missed on your first handful of reads.

Thirty minutes pass in a trance, and Heeseung, true to his word, is the one to break the silence when your half hour is up.

Mind still reeling, you realize with a sinking feeling that you have absolutely no feedback to give him at all.

Instead, you turn to face him. Throwing a meaningful glance at where your notebook still lies open on the desk in front of him. Doing your best to not look too hopeful, you ask, “Well?”

For a moment, Heeseung just looks at you, an unreadable expression on his face. Tension pulls at his temple, his jaw. Frustration seeps from beneath his skin, and you can’t tell where it’s directed.

“Oh, come on,” you prod when his silence extends even longer. “I know you’re dying to spill the gory details of how grossly incompetent I am and how horrifically amateur my writing is, so don’t—”

Heeseung wastes no fanfare. “This is awful.”

Your lips flatten. “Or just cut right to the chase.”

He’s quick to clarify. “But not for any of the reasons you just listed. I mean, sure, there are some craft issues here, but even those seem like a result of your concept.”

“What’s wrong with my concept?” The edge of defensiveness in your voice escapes without your permission.

Heeseung just levels you with a look. Returning his gaze to your notebook, he reads from your draft verbatim, “...Stashing away the light from her life. Tucking it into his back pocket like extra change just for the satisfaction of temporary happiness. It was never love that bound him to her, but the promise of a never ending fountain of life. Of wishes and thoughts and hopes and dreams that he could use to sustain himself as long as he subjected himself to the numbing pleasure of existing at her side.”

He raises an eyebrow, turns back to you. “I mean, really, ____? I’ve read some nauseatingly vitriolic vampire pieces in my life, and this just about has all of them beat. Besides, the whole vampire thing just feels so… irrelevant. Do people still read this stuff anymore?”

Your first instinct is to defend yourself, your work, even if his thoughts mirror your own. Before you can, Heeseung is pressing on. You don’t have the space to get a word in sideways. “I mean, what happened to the writing from that piece you presented back in September? I don’t remember all the details, but there was something about watching birds land on water and connecting it to the feeling of belonging but never truly fitting in.” He looks at you again. There’s more emotion, more glittering life in his eyes than you’ve ever seen from him before. “That was a fresh take and a well done metaphor.”

Your mind is reeling. It’s far too much information to take in all at once. But something stands out amongst the rest. Because that almost sounded like—

“Was that a compliment?” It seems unlikely, but you can’t find another way to take his words. “You paid attention to my presentation?”

You liked it? You don’t ask that question out loud, but the needier parts of you crave his answer anyway.

“Yeah, of course I did. Peer review was a mandatory component of the course.” Heeseung’s cheekbones remain the same, even, honey-tinted tone, but you swear you see a flash of embarrassment in the way he averts his gaze.

“Well, yeah.” It’s not a justification that holds much weight in your mind. “But you don’t exactly seem like the type to really pay attention to other people’s stuff. Especially if you think it’s not worth your time.”

“I just told you your presentation was good, didn’t I?”

You arch a brow. “Yeah, right after you finished calling my draft horrific.”

Heeseung shakes his head. “I didn’t say it was horrific…”

“Oh, please. Spare us both the semantics. That’s what you meant.” You’re not sure why your mind always goes back to that day in the quad, but you find yourself still sore from his rejection, his new assertion of your work poking at old wounds. Picking at poorly healed scabs. “And it’s not like you were jumping for joy at the chance to review my work back then, either.”

Heeseung’s brow furrows. You can practically see the gears turning in his mind. You’re not sure if it makes you feel better or worse, the fact that he doesn’t seem to remember that day at all.

In the end, you decide to spare him the effort of empty recollection. With a sigh, you spill your shame. At least this time around, you’re the only two that will bear witness. “That one day in class. Back at the beginning of the semester. We had to present our analysis of that one short story. You remember, the one about planting seeds in bad soil.” Heeseung nods, but there’s no spark of realization. Not yet.

Continuing, it only pains you slightly to admit, “Your analysis was brilliant, and I gushed about it in front of the whole class. Laid it on thick with the compliments. And then after class, I stopped you in the quad.” Something flickers over Heeseung’s features. A memory tugging at the back of his mind. “When I asked if you wanted to review each other’s pieces for the next assignment, you completely brushed me off.”

Brow still pulled downwards, Heeseung is thinking back to that day, too. But it doesn't seem to hold the same awful, leaden weight in his mind. “I didn’t brush you off,” he argues. “I think I said I was busy.”

It takes a lot of willpower not to let your jaw drop open. “That’s brushing someone off!” Your voice is too loud for the near empty classroom, for your close proximity. “Like literally the textbook definition. Everyone knows that ‘I’m busy’ is code for ‘leave me the hell alone.’”

Almost imperceptibly, Heeseung’s features soften as he watches yours strain. The fluorescent light bulbs that fill the room suddenly don’t seem quite as harsh when he says, “Well, that's not what I meant. I was busy.”

It’s hardly a satisfying answer. But you suppose it makes little difference. If he wants to stick to his story, you’ll continue to feign indifference. “Whatever. It’s not like it matters now anyway.”

And then your mind is back on his poems. His beautiful, tragic, gorgeously phrased stanzas scribbled in his handwriting. Fragments of vulnerability that he handed to you without hesitation.

It’s like comparing apples to oranges in a way, but there is no doubt in your mind that between the two of you, the writing he brought tonight is better. Better than your story, better than most things you’ve ever written, probably. The imagery is evocative, striking in a way you’ve never quite been able to achieve no matter how many seminars and workshops and lectures you attend.

Not for the first time, your brain dangles a dangerous thought in a place where you can’t avoid it. What if Professor Kim chose wrong? What if Heeseung hadn’t been late to class that day? Would you be sitting here with a mediocre draft and a raging inferiority complex?

You’ll never know, not really, but you find yourself asking anyway, “Why were you late to class that day?”

As soon as the words leave your mouth, you wish you could take them back. It’s not like his answer will change anything. And it’s invasive. Far too personal to ask someone you barely know. That up until thirty minutes ago, you actively avoided.

But maybe the universe is on your side for once. Maybe you got ridiculously lucky and he didn’t hear you, despite the fact that it’s dead silent in this classroom. Maybe—

“What?”

Or not.

Well, you’re committed now. “The last day of class. When the winner for the publishing opportunity was announced,” you clarify. “You were late. Honestly,” you add with a wry smile, “you’d probably be the one writing overdramatic vampire slander right now if you hadn’t been.”

It’s a self-deprecating joke. It might land poorly, but you’re hoping it will lighten the atmosphere.

A dark shadow crosses Heeseung’s features. “Trust me, ___. You winning had nothing to do with me being late that day.”

If he thinks flattery will get him anywhere, he’s wrong. You can feel your frustrations bubbling in your throat, clawing at your mind. You won. You beat him. So why doesn’t it feel like it? Why doesn’t it feel like anything you do is ever good enough?

“C’mon, Heeseung.” He doesn’t deserve your anger. At least, not now. But he gets it anyway. Insecurities and inferiority and frustration all wrapped in rage. “You were practically a shoe-in, and everyone knows it.”

He’s just as insistent. Leaning towards you slightly, he looks anything but aloof now. “No I wasn’t. Professor Kim chose you to intern with him. He read both of our submissions all semester and chose you to publish with his firm. I told you, your writing is good. Really good.” Glancing down at your notebook, he adds, “Even if this one is a bit… uninspired.”

A compliment and a slight. His version of the truth, wrapped up in a bow and delivered right to your waiting ears. You don’t know whether to be furious or overjoyed. Maybe it would be best to feel absolutely nothing at all. It scares you, just how much weight his opinion holds.

But approval from him has its way of feeling like a long sought victory, and now the air feels fraught with something delicate, fragile. Precarious, even.

It’s early evening in a threadbare classroom. The most neutral territory imaginable. But it’s the two of you, alone, secluded. And suddenly, that frightens you.

“Right.” You won’t tell him ‘thank you’ for the compliment or ‘go fuck yourself’ for the criticism. Both options feel like you would be revealing too much.

Instead, you take a glance at the clock. It’s not late, but it’s an excuse. “I should probably get going.”

Heeseung exhales. Leans back in his seat. “Of course,” he concedes easily, reaching to hand you your notebook.

You do the same with his, almost sad to watch his poetry pass from your hands to his. It’s odd, the way his words already feel like something you’ll miss.

You realize then that he hasn’t asked you for your opinion on his work. For your advice on how to make it better. In all honesty, you’re relieved. You haven’t the slightest idea what you would say.

So instead, you busy yourself with repacking your tote bag. In your haste, you knock your pen off of your desk. The sound it makes as it strikes the thinning carpet can’t be loud, but it feels thunderous in your ears.

As you reach to pick it up, Heeseung does the same. There’s a moment, fleeting but unmistakable, when the skin of his hand brushes against yours.

Instantly, Heeseung recoils as if you’ve burned him. His hand is back in his own space at a speed so fast you nearly miss it.

It was an accident, a tiny blip with no real consequences, but the way he’s looking at you with those damn eyes makes you feel like you should be apologizing.

“Sorry.” The severity of his reaction stings like rejection. It’s not like he’s exactly your favorite person either, but at least you have the common decency to not look repulsed at the thought of touching him. At the accidental brushing of your hands.

Heeseung frowns. Shakes his head slightly as if to clear his thoughts. “No, I…” he trails off, letting his words hang in the air for a moment. “I’m sorry,” he concludes, but it feels disingenuous. And he doesn’t bother to elaborate. Looking over your shoulder, he reads the clock on the wall. “It’s getting kind of late. Where are you parked? I can walk you to your car.”

His hands are busy putting his notebook back in his back. It’s a considerate offer, but coming on the tail end of everything else, it doesn’t hold much weight with you. His words don’t match his actions, and you decide you’d be a fool to take them at face value.

“Don’t bother. I’m walking home, not driving.”

Heeseung freezes, hand still inside his bag. He’s not looking at you, but you feel the weight of his attention all the same. “Do you need someone to walk with you?”

The way he phrases the question makes you feel like a burden. He’s asking if you need someone to walk with you, not offering because he wants to. A subtle difference maybe, but the last thing you want is to feel like you owe him any favors.

“No, I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?” He does look at you now, concern painted across his features. “It’s getting dark earlier these days, and—”

His words are wasted on you. You’re already halfway to the door. “I’m sure.” But before you leave, you decide one more hit to your pride can’t worsen the damage that’s already been done. At least this time, it will be by your doing. Standing under the doorframe, you turn back to him. “Thank you for your feedback. It was good to hear an honest opinion.”

Your words sink into the air. Linger for a moment.

Heeseung nods. Something in his jaw tightens. “You know, if you do decide to change topics, I’d be happy to read whatever you write.”

It almost sounds like another compliment. Or maybe another insult. Either way, you’re sure that even if you figure it out, you’ll still have no idea what to do with it. You nod, only once, and then your back is turned again before you can linger too long on any of it.

But his words, the sweet ones this time, replay in your mind the entire walk home.

Maybe if you weren’t so distracted by the ghosts of compliments, you’d have noticed the pair of quiet, even footsteps that trailed after you in the distance. That only retreated once the front door to your apartment was pulled shut and locked tight behind you.

Then again, maybe not. Heeseung has always had a knack for going undetected.

…..

You wake up the next morning with Heeseung’s words replaying in your mind.

Awful. Irrelevant. And of course your favorite, ‘nauseatingly vitriolic vampire piece.’

In the faded glow of morning light, you groan out loud to your empty bedroom. The worst part of it all is that he’s not even wrong. But it’s Saturday morning, and your first draft is due on Wednesday. The thought of starting a new story from scratch and writing it to completion within that time frame is enough to make you want to curl into a ball and screw your eyes shut until you can pretend the world outside your bedroom is nothing but a figment of your imagination.

So no, you don’t think you can start over entirely. But maybe, just maybe, you can rework things. Tweak the narrative to feel less cliche, less outdated. More true to you.

Part of you wants to abandon the vampire concept entirely, convinced it’s what’s holding you down. The other part is hesitant to do so based on New Haven’s list of recently published works.

And while Heeseung’s criticism was the confirmation you needed that your story needs reworking, it’s not like he gave you any ideas as to what you should change. What direction you should take.

Nauseatingly vitriolic vampire piece. That seemed to be Heeseung’s biggest problem with your draft. Not that it alluded to vampirism. No, you think he disliked that it was a tired and rehashed propaganda piece on the inherent evilness of vampires.

Everyone knows that vampires were monsters. Writing about it, no matter how many metaphors and symbolic phrases you wrap it up in, just isn’t interesting.

That’s the route you’ll take, then, you decide. You don’t have to invent a new concept out of thin air. You just need to find a way to bring something new to the table. Something worth reading. Climbing out of bed, you switch your pajamas for clothes more acceptable in public.

And then you make your way to the university library.

Just as you suspected, it’s essentially empty. Between long rows of meticulously shelved books, vacant study rooms, and community computers, the only other person you see is the librarian that greets you as you arrive. Even her eyebrows raise in mild shock to see someone else during the break, and on a weekend at that.

Heading to the second floor, the first section you peruse through is historical records. But between old newspapers, reports, and journals, the content itself is quite cut and dry. Detached descriptions of vampire attacks that only contain details of the date, time, and death toll aren’t exactly riveting. And you don’t think they’ll do much for your feeble draft.

Before long, you move away from the nonfiction section. Navigating to supernatural fiction on the third floor, you start browsing titles. Vampire stories make up a rather small portion of the texts, and from what you can tell, the vast majority align with what you found on New Haven’s website.

From Demons of the Dark to Left in Cold Blood, you doubt that most of what you find will offer any kind of new perspective. But on your third, slightly desperate scouring of the shelf, you make a discovery.

It’s a small, nondescript book. The muted tones and faded lettering on the spine go easily undetected amongst the much flashier copies of anti-vampire propaganda it’s nestled between.

Pulling the book out from the shelf with a delicate touch, you flip the cover face-up in your hand.

Sacred Monsters: A Collection of Essays on the Origins of Immortality

It piques your interest. At the very least, it seems different from all the other novels.

Book in hand, you make your way to a nearby desk. Once you’re settled in, you pull out your notebook, opening to a new page with the intention of taking notes.

The book you lay on the desk next to your notebook seems like it’s lived a long life, the old scent of dust and aged paper and time all contained within its pages. Flipping open the front cover, you look for an author or publication date. But there’s nothing there, not even a title page or a table of contents.

Glossing over the slight oddity, you decide the beginning is as good a place as any to start.

The Taste of Blood, is the title at the top of the page.

And the first sentence begins:

It is neither sweet nor particularly savory. There is no distinct aroma, no compelling flavor profile, nothing that appeals to the eye or excites the taste buds. The only merit is the fact that it is necessary. For even those blessed with immortality know what it means to survive. And even those cursed to live forever know what it means to die.

Frowning, you flip back to the cover, as if that will provide any clarity for the strange passage you just read. But nothing is different. Nothing new stands out. Just the same, faded title. No author or indication of any kind of publication date.

Intrigued, you turn back and resume where you left off.

Some are said to enjoy the act. The purity of release, of giving in to the instincts that can be convinced into domesticity but never fully silenced. I have never found such relief. The ghost of my humanity has always been stronger than the voice of the monster, even as he screams with unbounded ferocity.

Without it, I feel incomplete. With it, I feel irredeemable. Even now, I dodge the truth, omit the profane. I have seen many moons, enjoyed their silver glow. I have stolen the very same pleasure from countless others. And yet, I struggle to call it by name. I cannot reconcile the battles waged in my bones, the war fought in my mind.

There is no winner in either. All that remains in the taste of it. Lingering on my breath. Haunting my waking dreams. That which I cannot name.

The taste of blood.

In my fervor, it soothes like honey. In my regret, it turns to ash.

And still, nothing changes. And still, nothing remains the same.

-- Anonymous

Well, if you were looking for something different, you found it. Because what the absolute fuck are you reading? If you didn’t know any better, you’d think it were written from the perspective of a vampire.

Then again, shelved in the fiction section, you suppose it’s plausible. Actual vampires may have housed little room in their consciousness for anything outside of bloodlust, but it is an interesting idea to think of vampires as conflicted. Haunted by the brutality of their innate instincts.

You’re not exactly sure how or if this will be able to influence your own story for the better, but something about it makes you want to keep reading.

Alone, tucked amongst the dusty shelves of a neglected section of the library, you lose yourself between the pages of the mysterious book.

As the title indicated, it’s a collection of essays. Most are quite short, around the same length as the first one you read. And none are claimed by an author. All are signed off with the same boldface type that spells Anonymous. There are subtle differences in the writing though, stylistic choices that make you think that more than one person wrote these essays.

Despite that, they’re all woven together by a common thread. The first essay, as you discover, was not a fluke. Every single one is written in first person from the perspective of a vampire.

The writing is compelling, humorous in places and deeply upsetting in others. It seems odd to you, just how much humanity is captured within the pages, within each turn of phrase.

You feel inclined to root for the narrator in some stories and abjectly horrified by them in others. But never once does the writing make you think that vampires are incapable of self-actualization, of reflection, of morality.

In all honesty, aside from Heeseung’s poems, it’s the most interesting thing you’ve read in ages. So much so that by the time you realize you’ve finished the last essay, the winter sun is teeming dangerously close to the horizon, and the library is nearing its closing hours.

The notebook page you intended to use for notes, to jot down points of inspiration, is still woefully blank. But as you make your way back to the front of the library, the small, strange book comes along with you.

Stopping at the front desk to formally check it out, the librarian frowns when she enters the number from the spine into the system. She clicks around on her computer for a moment longer before handing the book back to you.

“I’m sorry, but the book isn’t coming up in our system for some reason. Would you mind writing down your student ID number for me? I’ll have to enter the information manually.”

You oblige her request, tucking the book into your bag before you leave.

It’s chilly outside, the cold clutches of winter gaining a full grasp on the crisp, frigid air. After a long day in a stuffy library, the freezing air is almost soothing. Tucking your hands into your pockets, you turn towards the direction that will take you home.

You’ve barely taken five steps when a voice calls your name from behind. Pausing, you turn to find the source of the sound.

“Heeseung?” But there’s no mistaking it. That is most definitely Lee Heeseung, currently jogging towards you on the otherwise empty sidewalk in front of the university library.

He catches up to you easily, no sign of perspiration or even a hint of breathlessness when he asks, “What are you doing walking alone at night?” As if you’re the strange one in this situation.

You give him a once over. The loose jeans and dark winter coat he wears are nothing special, but he wears them well regardless. You suppress the urge to sigh. “I could ask you the same.”

“Fair enough.” His tone is too light, too casual. Like he’s forcing it. Like he’s hiding something. “Are you headed home? I’ll walk you there.”

And if you weren’t suspicious before, you sure as hell are now. Why on earth would he want to walk you home? “I’m fine, thanks.” You turn away from him, heading in the direction of your apartment and hoping he’ll take the hint.

Your wish goes ungranted. He matches your pace easily, even as you try to quicken it. “It’s after dark, ___. And there are a lot of…” He trails off, searching for the right word. “strange people out at night these days. I’m not letting you walk home alone.”

Lips tight, you don’t bother looking at him. The idea of Heeseung letting you do anything makes you want to throw things. “I’ll be fine.”

But he’s persistent. He’s all smiles and a strange amount of desperate when he says, “Either you let me walk you back or I’ll just follow you at a weird distance, which will be far more uncomfortable for both of us.”

That makes you stop in your tracks. And now you do turn to look at him. “Well, when you put it that way…”

Heeseung nods, “Exactly. So—”

You arch an unimpressed brow, crossing your arms over your chest. “It sounds like you’re the strange person at night I need to stay away from.”

Heeseung sighs, matches your eye. A strand of hair falls into his eyes, and he pushes it away with long fingers. “Are you gonna start walking or are we gonna stand here and argue a little longer?”

“You don’t even know where I live.”

“What a great night to find out.”

You stare at him a moment longer, lips tight. You don’t want to be the one to give in, to hand him any kind of victory, no matter how small.

But it is getting late. The walk from campus to your apartment is never one that’s made you uneasy, but it never hurts to have someone at your side. Besides, you think he was serious about following you. He’s made it clear that he’ll be tagging along one way or another.

“Fine,” you huff, arms still crossed over your chest. “But only because the streetlight a few blocks away is out.”

Heeseung inclines his head, a minute acknowledgement. There’s a hint of movement at the corner of his lips. “Naturally.”

You resume walking, and he falls into your pace with a practiced ease, hands in his pocket, eyes on the stars. It’s a cloudless evening. The sky above you feels vast, immense as the last rays of daylight lie to rest on the distant horizon.

With a slight shiver, you pull your jacket tighter around your body. Heeseung notices the movement. Parts his lips as if he wants to say something. Changes his mind. Closes them.

You’ve just reached the far edge of campus when he breaks the steady silence.

“How’s your draft coming?”

“It’s…” You trail off, not sure how well honesty will serve you here. It feels vulnerable, like a blatant weakness to admit that you’ve got nothing. But something about cold air and the vast expanse of night has you wanting to tell the truth. “Not great.”

Heeseung lets your response settle. Turns it over in his mind a few times. You’ve noticed that about him. He’s careful with his responses. Weighs his words before breathing them to life. “Still looking for inspiration?”

“I don’t know if it’s inspiration I need.” It’s easier to talk to him like this, when your eyes have something to focus on, when your body has the constant repetition of steps to occupy part of your mind. Without little distractions like these, Heeseung has a way of becoming all consuming. “I feel like I backed myself into a corner with the vampire concept. I’m not sure if there's really anything there to explore that won’t feel outdated and irrelevant.”

“Mm,” Heeseung muses. It’s noncommittal, neither an agreement nor an argument. “Maybe. You said it yourself; vampires are nothing but bloodlust. Riled completely by instinct. Nothing left of their humanity.”

Frowning, your footsteps almost falter. “I didn’t say that.”

“Forgive me.” If there’s a tinge of bitterness in his tone, you suppose it must be because of the cold. The fact that he’s wasting his Saturday night walking you home. “Heavily implied it.”

“Honestly, the only reason I even wrote that story was because there were a lot of similar ones on New Haven’s list of recently published works.” Your reasoning feels almost stupid when you admit it aloud like this. You’ve always prided yourself on your originality, your commitment to staying true to yourself as a writer. But when push comes to shove, you let your desire to impress your professor get in the way of that. “I wanted something that would align with their usual publications.”

You’ve admitted a weakness, a poorly made choice. You’re expecting ire, more of that haughty contempt. But Heeseung’s mind is going in an entirely different direction.

He’s not questioning your abilities, not even alluding to them at all when he asks, “What do you think of vampires, then?”

His question catches you off guard. Why on earth would he care about that? “What’s it to you?”

“My bad. We can just walk in awkward silence if you prefer.”

It takes a ridiculous amount of your energy to swallow the laugh that bubbles in your throat. Since when did Heeseung crack jokes? Since when did you have to fight the urge to giggle at them like a schoolgirl with a crush? You suddenly find yourself grateful for the cover of night, the way shadows make the heat on your cheeks undetectable.

But his question still lingers. Ruminating on it, your mind flickers to the small, odd book currently sitting at the bottom of your bag.

Sacred Monsters.

It feels like a strange combination of words, two concepts that shouldn’t fit together.

“I think it’s more complicated than that,” you breathe. You don’t know if it could possibly be true, the idea that creatures of the night have a high level of consciousness, the ability to moralize, to feel conflicted. But it certainly makes for a more interesting story.

“I mean, vampires had to have some level of base cognition, right?” You’ll never know for sure, but the more you think about it, the more it makes sense. “They were hunted to near extinction, but they put up a good fight. They hid. They fled. They tried blending in as humans. Some resorted to drinking animal blood. I guess there’s no way of knowing, but that doesn’t feel like pure biology or an evolutionary response alone. It feels like… something a human would do.”

“Wouldn’t that be worse?” Heeseung’s voice is low. If the faint hum of faraway traffic were any louder, you might not hear him at all. “For them to know what it means to be alive and still make the choice to take that away from someone else? To exist as a parasite.”

“It would certainly be tragic.” The words of the first essay come back to you.

For even those blessed with immortality know what it means to survive. And even those cursed to live forever know what it means to die.

“It’s a fatal flaw, a cruel design. They need blood to survive. The very thing that their bodies used to create on their own. It’s parasitic, yes, but that doesn’t make it animal instinct. I can’t imagine the horror of having to experience that with the burden of human consciousness.”

You feel the weight of Heeseung’s gaze on the side of your face. “It’s still evil, is it not?”

His words feel heavy, weighted under moonlight. Though you can’t imagine why, you have the distinct sense that your answer is important to him.

“Like I said, I think it’s more complicated than that. Taking someone’s life is evil, yes, but that was never unique to vampires. Is a vampire that chooses animal blood still evil just because they’re a vampire? Is a human that chooses to kill another absolved of their crime just by virtue of being human?”

Your words settle into the space between you.

“That,” Heeseung finally breathes, “would make a much better story than the one I read last night.”

This time, you do laugh, a light airy thing. It feels easy, lighthearted as some of the tension drains from the atmosphere.

“Unfortunately, I’m not so sure Professor Kim would agree. Based on everything New Haven publishes, he seems to have some weird anti-vampire vendetta.”

As you round the corner, your apartment comes into view. Nodding toward the staircase that leads to your front door, you tell him, “This is me, by the way.”

Heeseung glances at the stairs, then back at you. He shoves his hands into his coat pockets. “When is your draft due?”

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” you groan. “Wednesday.”

“Mm,” he winces, an offer of understanding. “What time?”

“I’m supposed to be at New Haven by three, so—”

“What?” Heeseung cuts you off, expression suddenly tense, voice suddenly sharp. “You’re going to the publishing office?”

“Yeah.” You nod slowly, unsure why that would possibly warrant such a strong reaction. “I’m dropping off my first draft and getting a tour. The internship starts right when spring semester does, so he told me I could come in person to familiarize myself with the space first.”

“Right.” Heeseung nods. The tension in his jaw doesn’t relax.

It’s all so strange. He always seems to be speaking in riddles, dealing with invisible problems you can’t detect.

You’re tired and confused, and the moon that hangs above you doesn’t feel like a remedy for either of those things. In fact, it might be making things worse.

Because despite the way you feel like you’ll never quite understand him, bathed in the shimmering glow of moonlight, Heeseung looks…

He looks like all the things you’ve been trying to avoid calling him for the duration of the semester. Ethereal. Beautiful. Maybe even kind, at least when he wants to be.

After all, you’re standing at the base of your staircase with company, and it wasn’t due to any insistence on your end.

The silence lingers. A string somewhere is pulled taught.

You’re standing still, and you’re still a little breathless when you tell him, “I should go.” You don’t want to. You’re not sure why.

Again, Heeseung only nods.

The movement sends shadows dancing over his features. The bridge of his nose. The plane of his cheek. The line of his jaw. Things you’ve never let yourself linger on. Things you’re having a hard time looking away from now.

But he’s seen you home safe and sound, and even nights under the stars have their inevitable end.

It occurs to you then that you have no idea how he plans to get home, or even how far away he lives.

After he walked you home,it’s the least you could do to offer, “Do you live far? I could help you pay for a cab or something if—”

Heeseung shakes his head. He smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “It won’t take me long. Besides, I like to walk at night.”

“Okay.” It feels strange, trading these bits of kindness. You’re craving some normalcy, something unwavering. So with a final wave and a small goodnight, you climb the stairs to your door.

You couldn’t say for sure if his eyes follow you on the way up. You feel the heat of them, the weight of a steady gaze on your spine. But it’s a fickle sensation and you’ve been wrong before. And you can’t quite bring yourself to turn around and look.

The door closes behind you. Surrounded by the stillness of an empty apartment, you release a long held exhale. It drains out of you audibly. You hadn’t even realized you were holding your breath.

…..

Dawn breaks Wednesday morning and carries with it a certain kind of dread.

Despite your efforts, and there have been many, your draft remains far too close to its original state for your satisfaction. No matter how many times you pour over Sacred Monsters, you can never quite seem to find a way to make your submission more interesting while also staying true to New Haven’s general themes.

If anything, the book has been a distraction. Long hours that you could have spent editing or revising or rewriting were instead dedicated to detailed web searches with a variety of keywords and spellings that never seemed to bear any fruit.

It doesn’t matter which search engine you use. It doesn’t matter which database you browse. Other than the copy sitting on your desk, Sacred Monsters doesn’t seem to exist.

But the annoying, wonderful, awful thing about time is that it passes. Time doesn’t care that you haven’t found it in yourself to produce a draft you’re proud of. Time doesn’t relent just because you always feel like it’s slipping through your fingers.

And Wednesday morning turns to Wednesday afternoon with the same steady predictability as always.

You’d like to think that you know the area around your university quite well, but New Haven’s main office is in an entirely different part of the city. You’ll have to leave now if you want to catch the bus with a little cushion of time to spare. The last thing you want to do is be late to your first day. Especially since the draft tucked neatly into your bag isn’t one you can hand over with confidence.

To your relief, the bus is relatively empty. You tuck yourself into a seat and thank your lucky stars that you missed the afternoon rush.

Popping your headphones in, you’re searching for something to fill the time. There’s the draft sitting in your bag, of course, but the last thing you want to do is spend the next thirty minutes agonizing over it. For now, it will just have to be the mess of mediocrity that it is.

Instead, you reach for your phone. Maybe some mindless scrolling will be what you need to put your nerves at ease.

But when the app loads, the first post you see doesn’t have you giggling or rolling your eyes or scrolling on without a thought at all. Instead, your spine straightens, shoulders suddenly tense.

Because the words you’re reading are not something you ever expected to see in your lifetime.

Three dead in suspected vampire attack, the latest headline from your local news reporting channel reads.

Clicking on the article, the details are hazy, but that does little to lessen the grip of fear that makes a sudden grab at your throat. Fragments of sentences capture your attention as you scan the page.

Three bodies found near the river…

Bite marks on their necks…

No trace of recent animal activity in the area…

Eyes widening with every new piece of information, fear claws at your throat.

Bodies completely drained of blood.

Two hundred years. Two hundred years of the belief that vampires have all but been eradicated. Shattered in one fell swoop.

And in your city, of all places. At the river. Somewhere you’ve been. Somewhere you wouldn’t think twice about going. It’s not particularly close to your apartment or university, but it’s not exactly far enough away for comfort.

You shudder, suddenly grateful that Heeseung was there to walk you home last night. Not that he would be able to do much if you did stumble across the path of a vampire, but—”

Oh god. Oh god.

Heeseung.

You have no idea if he made it home safe after parting ways with you and you have no way of checking. He hadn’t made any indication as to where he lived before saying goodnight. For all you know, he could have been heading in the direction of the river. He could have been at the river. Right when the attacks occurred.

Doubling down on your phone, you scour the article for any information you can find on the victims. Objectively, it’s probably a good thing that they’re described only vaguely. Probably an intentional choice to protect the privacy of grieving friends and families.

But ‘three victims, two men and one woman, all in their early twenties’ does very, very little to assuage your terror. In fact, it only heightens it.

Blood pounding in your ears and dread pooling in your stomach, thirty minutes passes in the blink of an eye, you nearly miss your stop. But as you get off of the bus, you’re spiraling. Should you even be here? It feels wrong, leaving such a terrifying loose end untied.

But then you think it through a little further. Even if you got back on the bus, rode it all the way to the stop by your apartment, you have no idea where you’d go from there. You may have shared insults and confidence and a moment under the moonlight with Heeseung, but you don’t know anything about him. Where he lives, where to reach him, where he could possibly be right now.

But Professor Kim might. You’re sure that student information is strictly confidential, but if you explain the situation to him, he might be understanding, might just be willing to bend the rules a bit for you.

So with a heaviness in your heart and fire in your footsteps, you double check the address of New Haven’s office and start walking away from the bus stop. Your surroundings are not a primary area of your focus, but it does strike you as odd how deserted the whole area seems.

Other than a few residential looking buildings, the street you walk is mostly empty lots. Abandoned houses. Not the kind of place you would consider ideal for any business.

Despite the cold morning sunshine, the afternoon has brought a cover of clouds. Squinting towards the distance, you wonder if you should have brought your umbrella, just in case. It almost looks as if it’s going to rain.

When you do finally find the building, you have to stop to double check the address. Not only is there no signage, but New Haven’s supposed headquarters looks just as run down as all of the other buildings in the area.

Frowning, you reread your email. The address does match the faded numbers next to the front door, and Professor Kim seems too meticulous to make a mistake like an incorrect address. Then again, he also seems too well off to run his publishing company out of a decrepit building far away from any of the city’s major business centers.

But you won’t bother worrying about it now. Even your dreary first draft feels like an afterthought at this point. Who cares if the building’s not what you expected, if the location isn’t ideal? Right now, you need to focus on finding Heeseung, on making sure he’s okay.

Because the alternative…

No, you refuse to let yourself spiral there either. But the pressure of grief borrowed from the future is already pressing firmly against the backs of your eyelids, blurring your surroundings.

As you approach the front door, you notice a small, faded placard.

New Haven. Well, at least that confirms that you’re in the right spot. Even if it is a bit odd that they left off Publishing.

Standing at the door, you hesitate. Should you knock? Just walk in? You take a sidelong glance at the window, scanning for any sign of movement. But there’s nothing there. In fact, it looks as if the lights are off.

Dark, quiet, desolate. Strange, yes, but not something you’ll waste time ruminating on now.

You knock once. Twice. The sound echoes; the only response is the whistling of the wind.

Deep in the pit of your stomach, a sense of unease begins to build. It feels off, like something is wrong. Senses on high alert, you force the feeling aside. You need a way to find Heeseung, to make sure he’s okay. Besides, the lingering unease is probably just the anxiety of not knowing if he’s safe.

Steeling your resolve, you reach for the door handle, twisting it tentatively. It opens slowly, the hinges groaning in protest. As if the building itself doesn’t want you there. Stepping inside does little to shake the feeling. Dark and devoid of any decoration, the interior is nearly as gloomy as the sunless sky outside.

And even the layout of the building is strange. The front door opens to a long, dark hallway with no lights on. It’s eerily quiet. Too quiet. Too empty. You weren’t expecting a welcoming party by any means, but it’s hard to imagine anyone, much less Professor Kim, even being here.

“Hello?” You call, clutching your bag a little closer to your body, suppressing the shudder that licks at the base of your spine. “Professor Kim?” You wait a moment, but sustained silence is the only response.

Forcing your footsteps forward, you tread tentatively down the hallway. After all, you didn’t come this far just to turn around. Especially now that Professor Kim might be your only way of finding Heeseung.

Taking slow steps down the dark hallway, you pass two doors, both of them pulled shut. The end of the hall opens into a larger room, still empty of any furnishings. It certainly doesn’t look like a publishing house. It doesn't look like much at all. At the very least, there’s a bit more visibility here, faint traces of faded daylight streaming in through the half drawn blinds on the other side of the room.

Turning to your left, you see another door. This one is also pulled shut, but there’s a name placard on the front. Drawing closer, you read your professor’s name. It still doesn't feel right. Ducking down slightly, you check the gap between the bottom of the door and the hardwood floor for any sign of light, of movement. But it’s just as dark, just as quiet as the rest of the strange building.

As you stand back up to your full height, you raise a hand to knock. Just before your knuckles make contact with the door, you see it. An odd array of crimson stains near the handle. Peering closer, your brow furrows in a combination of disgust and confusion.

If you didn’t know any better, you’d almost think it looked like blood.

But that doesn’t make any sense. None of this does. You won’t pretend to know Professor Kim, but he’s never shown up to a lecture with so much as a hair out of place. Why on earth would he run his publishing company out of a building that’s nearly falling apart? Why would there be strange, suspicious looking stains on the door to his office? Why would it be empty at the time he asked you to come present your draft and tour your future internship location?

You have no idea what to do. Opening the door to his office and letting yourself in would feel like an inappropriate invasion of privacy, but you’re at a loss. This entire thing is so strange.

Before you can decide how to proceed, you hear something. A faint noise, barely there, but distinct from the wind that still whistles outside. It’s disjointed, arrhythmic like the sound of hushed voices. Overlapping. Arguing, maybe.

Inclining your head, your brow creases further. It sounds like it’s coming from your professor’s office, but how could it be? The noises are too muffled, too distant to be coming from right in front of you.

You lean closer. Deciding you’re past the point of maintaining decorum, you press your ear to the door, careful to avoid any of the suspicious looking stains.

For a moment, you hear nothing. Half convinced the voices were nothing but a figment of your overactive imagination, you almost pull away.

But then you hear them again. Still muffled, still indecipherable, but undoubtedly louder than before. Which means they must be coming from behind the door. The voices pause, suspend you in silence once again.

And then you hear another noise, different this time. Less like a voice and more like movement. Scuffling, maybe. Feet dragging against the floor. It’s punctuated by a strange gurgling noise. Something wet and thick and throaty. The kind of sound that makes you wince in a subconscious reaction.

And then a sudden thump has your bones jolting beneath your skin, everything muscle in your body tensing as you suppress an uninvited gasp. Because that didn’t sound far away. It was loud, too loud to be anywhere but right on the other side of the door.

Mild unease is quick to transform into sheer panic as you stagger backwards on shaky footsteps. You need to leave. You need to leave now.

You’ll find another way to get ahold of Heeseung, to make sure he’s okay. And maybe there’s a rational explanation for all of this. Maybe this is an old New Haven office and Professor Kim forgot to send you the new address. Maybe there’s an email in your inbox now, and he’s apologizing for the oversight and rescheduling your draft meeting. Maybe he’s—

The sound of the front door you walked in through minutes ago slamming shut kills the train of thought. This time, you can’t bite down the noise that crawls up your throat.

It’s stupid, from a logical perspective. A fatal flaw of human nature that your first instinct is to scream. To alert whatever danger surely lurks nearby of your exact location, the precise depth of your fear.

But the terror that leaves your lips is muffled. It comes from behind, the palm that covers your mouth. The outline of a body that presses into your back, forces you into submission with a hand around your wrist.

You thrash against the ironclad grip to no avail. Dig your heels into the ground but find little purchase in the hardwood floor as you’re dragged backwards, every nerve in your body singing with terror as you’re forced into a dark room. Even with your elbows flailing and head jerking, the grip on you remains steady, firm.

In the end, it’s a bite that frees you. The hand that covers your mouth drops away as soon as you sink your teeth into the flesh of your captor’s fingers. There’s a muffled grunt of pain in your ear as you spin on your heel.

Again, it’s stupid. You should be running, sprinting in the opposite direction, but everything in you is begging to know. To gain some sense of control over the situation. Eyes still adjusting to the dark and blinded by fear, you turn to find—

“Heeseung?” Your mind is spinning a million miles a minute. There are too many thoughts, too many emotions to keep up with. Relief. Fear. Confusion.

Relief, because he’s okay and he’s here, but—

“What are you doing?” You have a million questions that demand answers. “Why are you here? Why did you grab me like th—”

“Are you okay?” Heeseung takes a step closer to you, reaches his hands out as if to grab you again. Thinking better of it, he lets them fall back to his side with a slight shake of his head. There’s terror in his eyes too when he clarifies, “You’re not hurt?”

“No, I…” What the hell is going on? “I’m fine, but—”

A flash of relief makes itself apparent on Heeseung’s features before they’re morphing again, regaining all the urgency, the fear that was there before. He’s serious, gravely so when he tells you, “We have to get out of here.”

“Okay,” you stumble forward as he reaches for your wrist again, intent on tugging you behind him. “But I don’t understand. What’s—”

“I’ll explain everything later.” He’s frantic, you realize. Desperate. And so terribly afraid. Emotions you’ve never seen him wear. Not in the cool, calm mask of indifference he had in class. Not in the faint flickers of vulnerability from stolen moments under moonlight. This is different. This is so much worse. “But we have to go. Now.”

With that much command in his voice, that much fear in his eyes, you’re putty in his hands. But in the end, it makes little difference. The door to the room he’s dragged you into opens with a resounding bang before the two of you can make your escape. The sound is so loud, so frightening that you feel reverberations in your marrow as the door collides with the room’s interior wall, no doubt leaving a sizable dent.

And standing there, shrouded by the gray tones of sunless winter daylight, your professor blocks the room’s only exit.

Instinctively, you take a step closer to Heeseung. He does the same, pulling you towards him, behind him, until half of your body is covered by his. Peering over his shoulder, the sight that greets you is one that will haunt waking nightmares for a long time to come.

Professor Kim, who always prided himself on maintaining a neat, clean appearance couldn’t be further from that now. His clothes are ripped, hanging from his body at odd angles, adding an element of disfigured monstrosity to his silhouette.

And his eyes. His eyes. Bloodshot and so wide they must hurt, they dart around the room, narrow in on you and Heeseung like he doesn’t see humans. Only targets. Enemies. Prey. Mouth open and snarling, you swear you see a glint in his mouth, the shape of a tooth far too long and pointed to belong to any normal person.

But even those things you could force yourself to forget.

What horrifies you the most is the blood. Even in the shadows, the unnaturally potent shade of crimson is unmistakable. It stains him, covers him, drips from him. Seeps from his clothes and his skin and his mouth.

Panic clawing at your throat, you suppress the urge to vomit.

“Get behind me,” Heeseung whispers, low. “Now.”

But a split second of averted attention is all your professor needs. Professor Kim, lover of literature, beacon of taste, a role model you’ve looked up to since the first time you stepped foot in his class a handful of months ago, pinches a tiny object between his long, bony, blood-covered fingers. And then he throws it.

With startling precision, it whistles through the air, races through a hazy cloud of confusion and panic before it strikes its target true.

It doesn’t hurt, not really. The hand that flies to the side of your neck is instinct, more than anything. But the fingers that linger on your pulse point don’t find the smooth expanse of your unblemished throat that they usually would.

Because there’s something there now. An object lodged just beneath your jaw. Delicately, you draw your hand back in front of your face. There’s no blood on your fingers, but that doesn’t stop them from shaking.

As you look over Heeseung’s shoulder, the world starts to blur around the edges. Darken, as if your eyes are closing of their own volition, against your will. You see him retreat, the terrible ghost of your professor. In the dark, he looks almost forlorn. Regretful.

“Fuck,” Heeseung whispers. He doesn’t see the way your professor spins on his heel, runs in the opposite direction. His attention is trained fully on the space beneath your jaw. “Fuck.”

“Heeseung?” Your voice sounds strange to your own ears. Distant, muffled as if you’re submerged beneath water. You have so many questions.

But it’s suddenly so cold. And you’re so tired. Wouldn’t it be nice to just lay down? Rest for a moment? Surely that couldn’t hurt anything.

Your legs are wobbly beneath you, and you would collapse to the floor in an ungraceful heap if it weren’t for the two hands on your waist, supporting your weight.

“I’m here,” he tells you. Cold. When did it get so cold? Your eyes try to focus on Heeseung, but your vision is swimming. You wonder if he would be warm. “I’m right here. Just… fuck.”

Gently, he eases you both to the ground. The floor is hard beneath you, but it feels like a reprieve. You’re tired of holding the weight of your body upright. Your blinking is becoming slow, lethargic. Your head is suddenly far too heavy for your neck.

Slowly, Heeseung removes his hands from your waist, relocates them to either side of your jaw. With the care of someone well versed in patience, he delicately maneuvers your head to the side, exposing the length of your neck.

Whatever he finds there must be displeasing. You can’t imagine why. You can’t think much of anything. The world has taken on a sort of dreamlike quality in which everything feels loose, fluid and unburdened by the laws of any physics.

“Fuck,” he whispers for the fourth time. The curse scatters over your cheekbone like a kiss.

Pulling back slightly, he meets your half-closed eyes. “I’m sorry.” It sounds like a prayer. “This might…” he swallows, something in his resolve wavering. “This might hurt.”

Pain. You can barely conceptualize the sensation. It feels like a distant memory.

And then he’s tilting your head to the side again. His face draws closer, overcomes the last of your remaining senses, demands the full attention of what’s left of your consciousness.

You think he might kiss you. Whatever desire remains in you almost wishes he would.

Your eyes flutter shut, lips parting slightly as your eyelashes fan against the tops of your cheeks.

But his mouth never finds yours. Instead, you feel the soft caress of his lips against the side of your neck, a fleeting touch against the sensitive skin just beneath your jaw. Inhibitions whittled to nothing, you shudder against the sensation, release the airy ghost of a sigh.

He was wrong, you think. With his mouth on your neck, pain is the last thing you feel.

You feel his lips part against your skin, chasing away some of the cold that has only seeped deeper into bones, into the very essence of your being.

And then you feel it. Whatever capacity for sensation that remains all focuses on the sudden flash of agony as his teeth pierce the skin of your throat.

The tiny moan that escapes your lips is pitiful. Your ability to think, to rationalize, feels like something that’s dangling in front of you, just out of reach. Your body is too heavy, too weak to respond to the flash of searing pain as your skin is pierced deeper.

He can’t speak, but you feel the shallow vibration of a hum against your neck. Soothing, calming. His hand that doesn’t bear the weight of your head moves to push a stray strand of hair from your forehead. It’s gentle, reverent. In complete opposition to the war he wages against your neck.

Mouth still full of you, a groan escapes him. It’s heady, throaty, and you feel it travel the length of your spine, settle in the pit of your stomach. Sensation is the only thing tethering you to this world, and you can’t quite tell if this is pleasure or pain.

He pulls back, the absence of his steady heat leaving your jaw vulnerable to the chill in the air.

“Hold on,” you hear. You can’t pinpoint where the noise comes from. Sound surrounds you, washes over you in a strange uniformity. You feel the ground fall away, something warm and solid behind your shoulders and under your knees.“We’ll be there soon.”

Floating, you think. You must be floating. It’s hard to tell. Moments are bleeding into one another too quickly for you to keep up.

Eyes closed, body molten, you relax into the steady grip that carries you.

And the last thing you hear before reality loses its hold is the fervent, whispered sound of your name.

⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖

CONTINUED IN PART 2 (which can be found on my masterlist!)

⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖

note: THANK YOUUUUU for reading!!! this is pretty different from what I usually write plot wise, so I hope it made for a good read. vampire heeseung and this oc are near and dear to me, and I'm excited to continue their story. the rest of this fic is fully plotted and partially written. I'm actively continuing to work on it, and hearing your thoughts/theories/screaming/feedback/etc. is great motivation! as always, I love know what you're thinking. ♡

#heeseung fanfiction #heeseung x reader #heeseung fanfic #enhypen fanfic #enhypen x reader #heeseung x you #enhypen x you #enhypen imagines #enhypen scenarios #heeseung scenarios #heeseung imagines

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suguae · 8 months ago

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Haunted

part one - part two

જ synopsis. After months of longing and uncertainty, you reunite with your ex-boyfriend Toji and his son Megumi at a nearby diner, where the warmth of their presence fills you with hope for a fresh start and a renewed sense of family.

જ pairings. T. Fushiguro x Fem! Reader

જ a/n. You thought I'd give you guys the silent treatment for month again, probably. But I'm back and I'm going to try my best to upload normal again, keyword TRY.

Six months had passed since the last echo of Toji's voice had graced your ears, each day stretching into an eternity of longing and uncertainty. The memory of his deep, resonant tone lingered like a gentle caress against your skin, stirring a tempest of emotions within you. As you navigated the labyrinth of your thoughts, one question loomed larger than all the rest: was Toji doing okay?

Was he still grieving over his dead wife, or had he begun to heal? And if so, was he ready to love you anew, to embark on a journey of rediscovery and redemption together?

The piercing ring of the phone shattered the fragile sanctuary of your thoughts, jolting you back to the stark reality of the present moment. Your heart quickened its pace as you glanced towards the source of the sound, the glow of the screen casting an eerie illumination in the dimness of your tiny apartment.

Toji's name flashed boldly on the display, a beacon of light cutting through the darkness of the night. A surge of emotions welled up within you—surprise, anticipation, and a tinge of apprehension—all swirling together in a tumultuous whirlwind.

It felt like a sign, as if he had heard the silent echoes of your thoughts reverberating through the ether. Could it be mere coincidence, or something more? The very idea sent shivers down your spine, igniting a flicker of hope within the depths of your soul.

With trembling fingers, you reached out to answer the call, the weight of uncertainty heavy upon you. Was this the moment you had been waiting for, the chance to bridge the chasm that had separated you two for so long?

You brought the phone to your ear, the anticipation hung thick in the air, each heartbeat echoing the rhythm of your longing. You couldn't help but wonder if perhaps, just perhaps, fate had finally decided to intervene.

Thoughts of Megumi danced on the periphery of your consciousness. Were you guys finally ready to confront the demons of your past and embrace the promise of a brighter future?

The word slipped from your lips like a fragile prayer, carrying with it the weight of all the unspoken hopes and fears that had lingered between you two for so long. "Hello?" you repeated, the sound hanging heavy in the air, waiting for Toji's response to break the silence.

For a moment, there was nothing but the steady thrum of your heartbeat echoing in your ears. And then, finally, a soft exhale on the other end of the line, the faint rustle of movement as Toji gathered his thoughts.

"Hey," his voice came, soft and tentative, yet infused with a warmth that washed over you like a gentle wave. The sound of it sent a shiver down your spine.

you held your breath, waiting for him to continue, the anticipation mounting with each passing second. And then, with a quiet resolve, you spoke again.

"It's been a while," you said, the understatement hanging heavy between the two, a testament to the distance that had grown between you both in the wake of your shared pain. "How have you been?"

The question lingered in the air, pregnant with meaning, a silent plea for honesty and vulnerability in the face of the uncertain future. And as you waited for Toji's response, you couldn't help but wonder if perhaps, just perhaps, this conversation was the first step towards healing the wounds that had long divided you both.

Toji's words hung in the air like a delicate melody, each syllable carrying with it the weight of a thousand unspoken truths. "I miss everything about you," he confessed, his voice soft yet filled with a longing that echoed in the depths of your soul. The vulnerability in his words was palpable, a raw honesty that stirred something deep within you.

As his plea washed over you, you felt a flood of emotions surge to the surface—love, longing, and a flicker of hope amidst the shadows of your past. The ache of separation had carved a chasm between you, but in that moment, his words bridged the gap with an unspoken promise of reconciliation and renewal.

"I need to see you," he implored, the urgency in his tone resonating with the echoes of your own heart's desires. The longing in his voice tugged at the strings of your soul, igniting a spark of courage within you.

With a steady resolve, you met his plea with a whisper of your own, "I need to see you too." The words hung in the air, heavy with the weight of all that had been left unsaid, yet brimming with the potential of what could be.

Toji's insistence reverberated through the phone, his words a fervent plea for connection and reunion. "We can meet up, somewhere… anywhere, baby, just tell me," he urged, the desperation in his voice pulling at the strings of your heart. The prospect of seeing him again, of bridging the chasm that had separated you for so long, filled you with a heady mix of anticipation and apprehension.

And then, as if a beacon had been lit in the darkness, he spoke his name—Megumi. Your heart skipped a beat at the mention of him, a rush of emotions flooding your senses. He wasn't your child, not biologically at least, but the bond you shared transcended bloodlines. From the moment you had met him, he had nestled his way into the deepest recesses of your heart, filling a void you never knew existed.

The thought of seeing Megumi again, of wrapping him in your arms and showering him with the love he deserved, sent a surge of warmth coursing through your veins. He was a constant presence in your thoughts, a beacon of light in the darkness that had enveloped your life.

"Yes," you breathed, your voice barely above a whisper, "Yes, let's meet." The words hung in the air, heavy with anticipation and the promise of a reunion long overdue. And as you made plans to come together once more, you couldn't help but feel a sense of peace settle over you—a quiet reassurance that, no matter what the future held, you would face it together, as a family.

During the aftermath of the breakup, you found yourself spiraling into a dark abyss of self-destructive behavior. Drinking became a crutch, a futile attempt to numb the ache that gnawed at your soul. Overworking became a distraction, a way to bury yourself in tasks and responsibilities to avoid facing the gaping void left by Toji's absence. And as the days stretched into weeks and months, the toll of neglecting your own well-being became painfully apparent.

It was all too easy to place blame on Toji, to cast him as the villain in the narrative of your shared pain. But deep down, you knew the truth—it wasn't his fault, not entirely. You had chosen to entangle yourself with a widower, knowing full well the complexities and challenges that came with loving someone who was still grieving.

Yet despite the turmoil raging within you, a glimmer of clarity began to emerge amidst the chaos. The realization that no amount of self-destructive behavior could mend the shattered pieces of your heart, nor could it bridge the chasm that had grown between you and Toji.

Slowly but surely, the bad habits began to wane, replaced by a newfound determination to confront the unresolved issues head-on. You stopped reaching for the bottle as a temporary salve for your pain, recognizing that true healing could only come from within. You eased up on the relentless pursuit of productivity, learning to prioritize self-care and introspection over the relentless pursuit of perfection.

It wasn't an easy journey, fraught with setbacks and moments of doubt. But with each passing day, you grew stronger, more resilient in the face of adversity. And as you looked back on the tumultuous path that had led you to this moment, you realized that the key to finding peace lay not in blaming others, but in taking ownership of your own happiness and well-being.

As the agreed-upon time approached, a sense of anticipation and nervous energy coursed through your veins. The prospect of seeing Toji again after months apart filled you with a heady mix of emotions—hope, uncertainty, and a tinge of excitement. The void that had loomed large in your heart in his absence now seemed poised to be filled, if only for a fleeting moment.

You arrived at the nearby diner with a fluttering heart and a whirlwind of thoughts swirling in your mind. The familiar sights and sounds of the cozy establishment offered a sense of comfort amidst the uncertainty that lay ahead. The soft glow of the lights, the gentle hum of conversation, and the aroma of freshly brewed coffee enveloped you like a warm embrace.

As you stepped inside, you scanned the room anxiously, searching for Toji's familiar figure amidst the sea of faces. And then, there he was, sitting at a corner table, his gaze locked on yours as if he had been waiting for you all along.

Sitting next to Toji was the little toddler, his bright eyes sparkling with excitement at your appearance. You couldn't help but smile as you caught his gaze, feeling a warmth spread through you at the sight of him. Megumi reached out eagerly towards you, his tiny hand outstretched in silent invitation.

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nouearth · 8 months ago

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hear me out.

dick grayson x male reader.

summary: dick pushes you to your limits in the gym, and your animosity towards him slowly transforms into unexpected admiration (and unlocks months of concealed pining).

wc: 7.2k. genre: smut. warnings: top!dick, dom!dick, bottom!reader, bottom!reader, sub!reader, one sided rivalry (reader's end), enemies to lovers(?), brief fighting, reader and dick are working out, physical fighting (with boxing gloves), envious!reader, insecure!reader, hotheaded!reader, uncut!reader, public!sex, gym!sex, dirty talk, praising, guidance, handjob, fingering, kissing, spitting, lots of sweat, body worshipping, reader will be walking funny for the next week.

Your shoes squeaked after every thump from landing on your feet. One foot chased after the other in a pursuit, and your knees raised past your navel as the cable rope cut through the air with a turn before hitting the ground. You huffed after every snap of the rope, a burn scalding the muscles in your thighs and wrists with every rotation, tensing as if you’d been hit, as if your coarse throat would feel the remnants of the whip afterward.

“Five…Four…Three…”

Sweat dripped off your forehead, off the locks of your bouncing hair, in anticipation of a merited water break. The water bottle sat on the seated stationary bench, pooled by its own condensation. You could taste it with your eyes, a ravishing sight that pushed you harder. You sped up, raised your knees higher, and endured the pain for ten seconds more. Your gut was sucked in, engaging with your core, and your breathed out in methodical puffs, your chest rising along with it. Everything was burning, muscles tightening into flaming knots that would render you frail by tomorrow morning. If the floor was lava, your body was the volcano erupting it.

Holy bells rang once you finally counted down to zero, and you immediately came to a halt, the weight of your gratification breaking your movement with an echoing thud as you instantly marched forward to quench your thirst.

“Fuck.”

Your nostrils stung more than usual. Flared with every inhale as you were catching up to your breath, and more so when you cooled down with several sips of water. Breathing had never felt so good, an absolute fiend you turned out to be after every workout.

You’re getting weaker. Breathing harder. Quicker. You’re losing control on your breath. How are you going to keep up with the team? If you feel this fatigued after a warm up? You let them down last time. Got knocked out and Dick—

He was getting to your head. Again.

Dick.

The name rolled off your tongue bitterly. A foul taste of metal and battery acid lingered in your parched mouth before it was drowned out by another gulp of water. Another.

And another.

And another, as the aforementioned man across from you halted his ropes, stopping in his tracks.

He’d been doing this since you’d arrived. Mirroring you like a reflection, copying your every move as if you were an instructor. If you were doing strength training, he stopped his cardio to take the machine next to you. Pushed when you pushed, groaned—louder—when you did.

Needed to stretch your hips? He made some lame excuse about how his legs were too tight, and felt the need to join you on the floor, stretching himself beyond the limits of what you could achieve. It colored you impressed, but you would never say that out loud. Though, you did silently admire the view of his ass, and that especially, would be kept a secret between you and the floor.

Now, it was with jump-roping. The two ropes swung from either corners of the gym like the gears working silently in your head. There was a need to compete with you for some reason.

A satisfied smirk rolled a drop of sweat off his face, and seized his naked torso with glitter as he took a step under a light that lit his body like a podium, or—and you hated to admit it—like one of the sculptures you remembered fawning over in Art History. From his broad build, you could tell that Dick was sturdy, toned, and undoubtedly beautiful.

His fringe clung onto his forehead, but you could see the gratification he got from outlasting you, smiling while he squeezed a stream of water into his mouth. You noticed how much more capable he was with the calmness of his breath, and felt his adrenaline pumping through the room. In turn, it possessed you—his energy–maneuvering you to the center of the room where a foam mat was placed, and to which Dick expectedly trailed after you.

“Wanna have a go, partner?” Dick said while rolling his shoulders back before picking up a pair of boxing gloves, then another without your confirmation.

“Seriously—“ He tossed the other pair towards you, an accurate shot that landed into your arms. “Are you going to be doing this all day? Copying me?” You silently thanked him because you began kneading one glove like a stress ball, the rubber foam absolutely gratifying with every scrunch of your hand, as well as consoling as it kept you sane for a little longer.

“I don’t see the problem—“ You began approaching him with the gloves fitted snug over your fists. “Well, actually. I do see the problem. You’re not training hard enough.” Marching with heavy stomps, your nose flaring with every breath that he casually spat out.

“You give up as soon as you feel tired. I mean, no amount of water breaks are going to help you. You think we have the time to sip water when we’re rescuing a town? A city? The world?”

His voice, soft and smooth yet it was grating to your ears. The constant talking. Rambling. It gave you a headache. It made you see red. Hearing him berate you. Mock you.

“You’re breathing too hard too, which is taking up all of your energy. And your emotions? You need to control them better. Not only does it affect your combat, but your relationship with your team. You shut yourself off when you don’t do well on a mission.”

“What are you, my therapist now?”

“Listen, it does no one any good if you’re—“

And it stopped with a strong swing towards his left cheek. His head snapped to the side when the rubber foam smacked him like a whip.

If red hadn’t blurred your vision, you would’ve noticed the tiniest smile he mustered up from the corner of his lips. A crooked, slanted one that was followed up with a chuckle.

“Not exactly fair play, but…” He raised a hand to rub at his cheek before adjusting the gloves onto his wrists, cracking his neck and stretching the muscles in his back with one more shoulder roll before positioning himself like you were: knees bent and fists raised with the gloves fencing off your face.

“I’ll give it to you. You can throw a good punch. Beginner’s luck?”

The comment made you swing at his left, and he snapped his head to the right. You missed. There was a precision to his move, something that you lacked in as he snuck a punch to your right cheek. A grunt was stifled, and then let loose in a cough when you felt another beat to the left of your abdomen. Sputtering breath, when Dick scored another hit to your jaw.

“Fuck—“ Your eyes locked on him while he held your gaze. Your perception seemingly widened, heightened as you’d noticed the smallest movements from Dick, twitching upon instinct as if he was about to strike, but there was nothing. Just the taunt of his arms, and Dick’s teasing smile to garnish, to taunt.

He was circling you. You were circling him. It was the same movement, following each other like two predators unwilling to share the last morsel of food. You felt as much as a leader as Dick was, but from the outsider’s perspective, it was telling who was following the other’s lead.

Who was the experienced leader of the two sparring men.

Dick feigned a punch with a raise of his arm, and you immediately buckled, jerking back to nothing but a bluff of a hit. You were then greeted by an obnoxious chuckle before he landed a successful sneak to your head, a hit impactful enough to rattle your knees and knock a scoff out of you.

“Be observant. I punch better with my—”

Another swing to his left cheek. Successful, and harder this time, as it managed to stumble him from his stance. You could feel the impact of your fist on Dick, even if it was cushioned by foam.

It was exhilarating.

“Fight better with your mouth closed too.” You spat, raising your arm to strike the same cheek again. Dick detected it before you could attack, and ducked lower to the right, where he met a sudden fist to his jaw, a calculative undercut that sent him falling onto his back.

“Shit—“

Something unleashed in you. The red in your vision had scorched, burned blue as it reached its highest temperature. You immediately seized the opportunity to straddle him, to face the source of your belittlement, to look at the leader that everyone on your team had silently wish you were, that everyone had admired, to somehow stare and pierce him long enough with your eyes that you were able to tear into his body and take his incredible abilities and mold them into your own, becoming that someone that you had undoubtedly admired as well.

You threw another blow to his face, enough to knock a groan out of him. It was pleasing to your ears, the low trembles of his voice because of your touch, they twitched with gratitude. But you needed more, a beg from Dick, a plea for you to stop. You threw another punch, and then another as you became blinded by rage. It was out of your control, your arms had a mind of their own as they continued wailing on Dick, even if he had shielded himself with his arms for the last minute now.

You breathed hard, tossing your gloves off as you held him down for a stronger grip and prying his arms from his face. A need to touch him, to feel the impact that your gloves had been restraining you from. You pinned him by his bare and sweaty shoulders that made the grasp all the more slippery, but you nonetheless held him anywhere you could, by his biceps now, and stared into him. You peered into those brown eyes that mysteriously settled your fury until you’d succumb to the beautiful tranquility of his orbs, quietly pacific compared to his mouth.

Dick’s chest was rising. Up and down like your own, recovering from the pummeling you had given him. His eyes were widened as he watched you—studied you. No marks on his face, thankfully due to the cushions you were begging to be replaced with stone a tantrum prior.

It was humiliating to prove him right, about your emotions, and you sat still, on his lap, breathing. Your fists had stripped you of the little energy you had left, and turned it into mush, but you found support in the warmth of Dick’s body, still breathing. Your grasp had loosened, but remained on his biceps. Warm skin, and ever slightly kneading because of your own envy of Dick’s strength.

You felt your eyes closed, shutting yourself off of the supply of Dick’s silent consolation as the adrenaline pumping through your veins had slowed. “I can never be you, can I?”

“Who says you have to?” Finally, Dick’s voice hadn’t grated your ears like it had in the past. It was gentle as ever, but this time, there was a warmth to it that you wished you could be bundled up in if it had a physical body. A spirit that could temper you with just its warmth, rather than the toxic heat that had just boiled your rage.

“Because—they’ve seen you, Grayson. They know how you operate with the Titans. I can see it, you know? The way they look at you, then the way they look at me. It’s just…”

“You know, my team looked at me like that when they saw how Bats ran the Justice League.”

“With disgust? Contempt? Disdain? All of the above?”

“No,” He laughed, gathering himself half-way up with the support his elbows. “with... relief?”

“That’s… not helping?” You rolled your eyes, and then felt yourself flush upon coming to realization upon your current position on his lap when he sat halfway up. “Sorry—“ Without making eye contact, you brought yourself off Dick’s hips, but found yourself suddenly pulled back by the waist.

“No, no. What I meant was…” He cleared his throat, sitting up as he positioned you back on his lap again. His hands interlocked against the small of your back, a devise to keep you from abandoning him on the lone mat, but to also pull you closer, hip to hip.

“Batman… is impressive. You’ve seen him, right? How he has this presence that automatically appoints him as leader. Commander, really. I don’t know anyone that can plan better than him, but that’s not to say that he doesn’t have his faults. He’s all business, little relations. So are the others. You’ve seen them too. Supes, the Lanterns. I respect it. They respect him because of that, and vice versa. But… that’s not how my team works. Not the Titans.”

“I see…” You shifted, nodding every now and then as you listened.

“It’s just… My members are more than co-workers, you know? This isn’t some nine-to-five job that you’ll probably quit after five years. It’s… our lives now. And with them, they’re with me every step of the way. So, they’re more than co-workers. You don’t protect co-workers. Not saying the Justice League don’t care about each other… But what you do protect are friends, families. Yeah, they’re my family, so I treat them as such. And maybe… that’s why they seemed relieved they were part of my team. And…”

“I just have to find what works with my team?”

“Yeah. I mean, you guys are just starting out. Everyone’s still adapting, still getting to know each other, still figuring out each other’s powers, right? Things are bound to be a little more destructive in terms of chemistry.”

“I don’t know… I just… I don’t know if I can lead them like you guys can. I’m not like you guys. In terms of skills, in terms of leadership, in terms of—“

“Then work on that with your team. That’s what a good leader does, they seek out help from their teammates and let them know that their opinions and help are valued.”

It sounded absolutely simple. Something that shouldn’t have taken you this long to figure out, but Dick was right. Rather than seeking for your team’s help, you thought you had to endure whatever situation had arisen on your own. It weighted heavily on your shoulders, until you couldn’t muster up the strength to push your own weight. And in turn, that affected your team. You needed them, just as much as they needed you.

“And here you are…” Dick continued, suddenly bursting with a smile. “Instead of spending time with your team, you’re with me. I know I’m quite charming, but geez, (M/N), can a guy get some alone time?”

You scoffed and lightly punched at his chest. “Did we forget that you were the one joining me in the gym when you have your own in the tower? Copying my every move? What’s up with that?”

He shrugged, kneading nonchalantly at your sides. “Knew you’d be alone. Knew you were probably blaming yourself, moping around. Thought I would give you a little push.”

You shifted again, your hands keeping close to yourself as you couldn’t muster up the strength to complain about his wandering hands.

Or rather, find anything about his hands to complain about.

“Push as in to annoy me?”

“Well, I was supposed to be teaching you some things, but, uh… you were playing whack-a-mole with my head earlier.”

“That’s because—“ You sighed, dropping your head low in embarrassment. “Sorry. I don’t know. Everything started happening so fast and—“

“No, it’s fine. It gives me the perfect opportunity to introduce you my first lesson of the week.” He was sincere, smiling up at you, almost as if he had mistaken your brief fit of rage as a game of tag.

“What’s that?” You asked, meeting his eyes once again.

He pondered for a moment,, pursing his lips as he was lost within his thoughts before speaking again. “How To Communicate To Your Team 101.”

“How is that even going to—“

You felt a sudden press to your lips. A softness that awakened your five senses by tenfold, and a desire that you had kept vaulted in the back of your mind; now beginning to unlock to its freedom the longer Dick had his lips on you. It wasn’t right. No, it wasn’t like it was morally wrong, it was just…

You hesitated, conjuring up all the reasons in your head on why kissing Dick wasn’t a good idea. But it was futile. Everything had been resolved within this moment; the way he let you use him like a punching bag, the way he didn’t spare a single second to share his empathy for your concerns, the way he tended to your wounds days prior despite your brazen disregard to his kindness.

You were being selfish again, guarding yourself off with ice like you had done with the others. When in reality, you wanted him.

No, you desperately needed him.

You felt him open up his mouth, assuming he was about to speak, but you seized his breath with a slot of your lips, and kissed him. One hand came up to rest on his cheek, to finally feel the slight scruffs you had delivered on his skin, and you caressed tenderly across textured skin, to the slow rhythm of your lips, whispering, “Sorry… again.”

“Don’t be. Without it, you wouldn’t have been on my lap. And… I wouldn’t be kissing you right now.” Dick muttered, a satisfaction to his voice like he had gotten his wish fulfilled. He ran a lone hand up your back, then back down your spine, bone tingling once he repeated again under your hoodie, and gazed across your bare skin.

“What are you doing to me…” It was a genuine question, something you wished could be answered because you didn’t know yourself. And yet, you were scared of the answer if Dick was to ever give you one. It’d been a while since you felt like this, with someone else.

For the past few months, you hated him. Couldn’t stand the sight of him. And now, you feel like you couldn’t tear yourself apart from him. From the softness of his lips and to the warmth of his body; the longer you endured him, the more you realized you had been captivated by Dick all along.

“I don’t know, but… I like figuring you out.” Dick’s speech was slurred from dragging his lips down to your jaw, nipping at your sweaty skin. “Like how you push me away, but you can’t help but tolerate me whenever I’m in the room.” He breathed you in, sucking at the corner of the sharp bone. You pressed your head into his neck, silently letting him take you. “How you’d sneak glances at me and roll your eyes, only to keep on staring… and staring… until you hadn’t realized that I was looking back at you. Because you were too busy looking at me.”

Nothing but the truth came out Dick’s mouth. Remarkably candid, because you thought you were more covert about your conflicting feelings for him. It brought a bloom of heat to your cheeks, and you hid your face inside his neck, groaning because Dick began licking at your neck, and because you felt stripped, absolutely vulnerable.

“Dick…” Something was rising in your shorts, tightened around the center. Warm and pulsing, even when Dick had unzipped your hoodie and thrown them to the side. A chill was felt across your bare back, most likely a draft from the vent, and Dick held you closer, sandwiching the heat, and suddenly your erection, between his body and yours.

“I knew you never hated me.” There was something about your chest that he loved. How smooth it felt. A few hairs had grown at the center, raised from the feelings Dick was supplying to your body. They tickled his cheek whenever he rubbed himself against it until they were then flattened with a long, fluttering lick as he maintained eye contact with you. “Always right.”

The taste of your sweat was salty yet delicate on his tongue.

“Hate is a strong word...” Your fingers threaded through Dick’s locks, scrunching them into your fist when he started toying one nipple at a time with his tongue. The wet muscle flicked deftly, then he suckled, and then tugged, like he had known your body, like he had explored your body before. It was strange, how he knew the right thing to say, and the right thing to do.

Maybe he was ‘always right.’

“Whatever it is, it’s not stopping you right now.” His hands dropped to the waistband of your shorts and he pulled away from your swollen nubs. It was unwilling. You could see it in his eyes, the thirst to ruin, and it compelled him to bring another suck to your nipples, a few seconds more that almost pulled a dangerous whimper out of you before he ultimately paused. “Nor is it stopping me.”

With a gentle push on your chest, he leaned you back onto the mat while lifting your hips up, smoothly sliding your shorts off. They joined the pile containing your hoodie soon after, and then your briefs to top.

“R-right here? Aren’t there cameras or something…?” Your hands instinctively came down to cover yourself, cupping that embarrassing erection that Dick was thirsting for. The head of your cock peeked out from your clumsy gasp, and his hands instantly came up to pry your hands off.

Dick had that same look in his eyes when he was circling around you earlier. A rapacity blaring the pupil of his eyes. His piercing gaze alone kept your hands from coming up to cover yourself again. You knew you wouldn’t stand a chance against his strength.

“I doubt anyone is watching the gym… Private for a reason.” Your legs were then wrapped around his waist after pulling you by the ankles. His presence was commanding. You knew to keep your arms to your side, hands forbidden from obstructing the view of your hard, throbbing cock.

“No wonder you’re so stressed. Look how hard you are.” Dick muttered, seemingly speaking his inner thoughts because he was too distracted by the veins of your erection. Thick and pulsing as he wrapped a hand around you, and stroked, fascinated by the stretch of foreskin unfolding from the head of your cock when he pulled back, then rolling back up when he pulled forward. “This okay?”

“Fuck—Yeah… Feels good.” One arm was raised to wipe the cold sweat off your forehead, but it then rested against your forehead, shielding yourself from Dick’s gaze as he slowly pumped you back into breaking another round of sweat.

“No,” He paused, suddenly squeezing your foreskin over the tip of your swollen glans. You whimpered. Not only did he squeeze you tight, stripping you of a friction that you desperately had been needing more of. But Dick was teasing, threatening with the dull movement of his thumb as he pressed and rubbed into the fold of skin, polishing the head of your cock in a thick sheen of pre-cum as his grip would draw out a generous amount from beneath. “I want to see you properly. Look at me.”

You reluctantly met his demands, only after you felt the tip of his thumb prying into your slit. Was this supposed to be a punishment? Because you could’ve allowed it to go on for longer, knowing how much Dick marveled at how much pre-cum you were leaking out.

Your body felt hot, and your hands—they needed something to hold, something to grip. When Dick began resorting to quicker strokes to your cock, you were clawing at the mat at first, etching your presence with indentations of your nails as your warning came in vain. “I’m going to cum if you keep doing that, Dick—“

“Use your words I’m telling you.” He spat in his palm after a millisecond of a break before lubing your cock in his own spit and churning you into the tight, yet slippery friction of his fist. Dick’s gaze had been fixated on you, never once had it torn away to look at something else. Not even a peek at your cock deliciously fucking into his fist. Because in case you forgot, he liked figuring you out. “Gotta communicate with me.”

The stoicism you had worn with pride, only ever fragmenting from anger upon defeat; Dick had discovered another facet to its escalating submission, and it was delightful watching you unravel in real-time. The slick of his hands; one beating off your cock while the other massaging your balls; your expressions had given yourself away on how to break you down. Maybe it was because you had given up keeping up the facade. Or maybe it was because it was Dick, who has done more than enough to earn your trust, that you found yourself nearly crumbling.

He had studied you, his hands continuing to wander, explore every part of you while silently cataloging the right spots to make you crack. You were close, hanging off the edge with one hand, nails dulling over a cliff as you desperately prevented gravity from pulling you down under. When his hand had left your balls in favor of suddenly pushing a finger inside of your tight hole, Dick knew you had completely submitted.

Your body was writhing, hips desperately thrusting in the air despite Dick pinning them down to properly stretch your hole and fill you up with another finger, and another. Your expressions were ravishing, conflicted with pleasure and tension, and your mouth opened to politely tell Dick to stop, yet you couldn’t bring yourself to utter the demand. Instead, all that came out of your mouth was a whimper of his name, a stutter that rang delectably in Dick’s ears when he interrupted you with a deep push of his fingers, curling and then pumping in and out of you, and another whimper would secure the deft removal of the rest of his shorts and briefs. All because he couldn’t contain himself anymore.

He had absolutely no right to teach you about control, for the reason that he was on the brink of losing it himself. You looked absolutely wrecked, all from the stubborn grip around your cock, the tight fit of his fingers, and Dick couldn’t imagine what you’d look like if he was in you, his thick cock fucking you, making love to you.

“Seriously, Dick—I’m about to—“

You couldn’t help it. Dick’s demand to control yourself was absolutely absurd with his reign on your body. The wet, sticky sound his spit made as Dick’s fist was being screwed by your pulsing cock drove you nuts. And then came the view of Dick’s thick cock, throbbing, pre-cum dripping heavily off of his swollen head as he watched you untouched, begging to be touched. You swore you almost surrendered had it not been for his wrist slowing down, a delicacy you begged prior, but now desperately wanted to vanish.

“God, you know I always loved it whenever you accidentally let a smile slip. But this? You’re so beautiful like this, (M/N).” He paused despite your silent pleas for him to otherwise. Though, all was forgiven when he leaned forward to kiss you on the lips. Sweet and bountiful like his words had made you feel, and you kissed him right back, an eagerness compared to his own movements, but then gratefully countered with an impatient swipe at your crack. His cock, plump and heavy, then wet and sticky as he smeared his pre-cum over your hole. Your legs remained wrapped around his hips, but Dick pushed his body weight forward until they folded with your knees touching your chest, his cock dangerously pressing at your entrance.

Dick spat in his palm again, reaching down to coat himself in the sticky layer of spit, and you felt him press. Your arms were wrapped around his neck, anticipating with an accelerating drum of your heart as he teased, slicking your pucker with the gentle, smooth circling of his tip.

“Please… I need it.” You had a gentle grasp around his nape, pulling him down until his forehead rested against yours. You’ve never seen him like this, so up-close and intimate. A mole, a freckle on his face that you’d never noticed, and you instantly yearned for what could’ve been all this time, had it not been for your stubbornness.

“What do you need? You need me inside of you?” Dick clarified against your lips, a whisper into your mouth as you parted them open to welcome his tongue. Hot and heavy, you let your tongue wrap around his for a tingling moment before pulling away, a string of spit webbing a path between your lips and his. “Use your words.”

“Need your cock, need you… Need everything. As long as it’s you.” You marveled at Dick, drunk off of the mutual endearment you have for each other. He regarded you with a warm smile, followed by a dazzling glint within his gaze, then relayed the turn of his mouth to yours with another kiss, a gentle warning, before Dick pushed his hips forward and slipped his cock inside of you.

“Good boy.”

“O-oh, fuck.”

Your body tensed as soon as you took the first inhale of breath since he’d breached you, sharp and abrupt, just like the pain that had jolted the muscles in your body to squeeze around him. You were playing defense, impeding the foreign introduction inside of your body with a clamp, yet Dick resisted. Rather, he thrived on your strain, adoring the suctioning feeling of his cock as if you were conflicted about inviting him in or pushing him out. It didn’t take much to figure out that it was the former. During the meantime you were adjusting to his cock, Dick was thrusting the few inches that had slid inside of you. Small and short movements to aid in your stretch, and then eventual pleasure as he gradually pushed himself deeper until you’d blossom completely open for him, like a bud in the Spring.

“Fuck, you’re so tight… So good, your ass is so good.” He was satisfied with half of his cock inside of you, rocking into you slowly until you felt comfortable enough to have him harder, faster. Till then, it was perfect like this. Breathing in your whimpers, holding your face like it was the last vestige of your sanity, before kissing you again, sweet on the mouth, tender with your tongue, to hold a fragment of your sanity within him and sealing it where no one could ever take it from him.

“T-too big, Dick—Fuck…” You whimpered again, closing your eyes from the uncomfortable detection of already feeling completely full, yet you and Dick both knew it wasn’t a complaint. Rather, it was a simple observation that had rendered you speechless, an inkling you’d disappoint Dick for not being able to take him properly, to not let him in like you had done for all these months.

“You’re doing great, baby. Doing so good… You can take it, I know you can.” His words were so warm, so kind, so gentle in your ear, low and sinking in your neck as he marked you as his with constant licks and kisses, and immediately, he dialed up your confidence by tenfold. You felt yourself relaxing, the tension in your body melting the longer he rocked half of his cock into you.

Just breathe. Breathe. You found it helpful following Dick’s breathing pattern, exhaling when he pulled out, inhaling when he pushed in, and gradually, you felt yourself opening up for him, taking him in longer strides, with little breaks, faster, harder, until you felt thoroughly plugged when he pushed once more to cork his cock inside of you, balls-deep.

“S-shit, Dick—Fuck—So good—“

Dick trembled with a moan sinking into the underside of your jaw. His cock had never felt so wanted, so warm in another’s body. You took him in without a single complaint, and it was a spectacle, an absolute wonder when Dick leaned back to watch himself completely unsheathe out of you like a dagger out of its scabbard.

“Look at that… Fucking beautiful.” Your hole was gaped open with the diameter matching the girth of Dick’s cock. Blinking, puckering desperately as it painfully endured the loss of heat, the loss of his desire. You’d never felt so exposed, completely powerless as Dick had you bending your legs further back with one hand, and the other spreading your cheeks apart to further see how much more you could stretch.

The color of your flesh was enthralling, and if the marks on your neck had not been telling that you were Dick’s; he pressed a kiss to your pucker, gentle nibbling and licking at the puffy rim before abruptly spitting inside of you, and another for good measure, the glorious designation would remind you now.

“Dick—No more, I need you, please—“ You reached down to spread your pucker with the spit dribbling out of you using two fingers, then pulled back to taste him, sucking on them before your craving for Dick would return with a vengeance, body-writhing and mind-numbingly so.

“Tell me. What do you need, hm?” Dick tapped his cock against your hole. The plump head slid smooth over the spit-covered flesh, mixing with his pre-cum, while he watched you with a grin, each swipe of his cock taunting to pull completely away unless you spoke.

“Need you. Inside of me. Fucking me. Holding me. Kissing me. Touching. I don’t know—Please, please. Just need you.” Your wishes were long-winded, but sincere. The gaze you had given him, an imploring look that Dick would take a moment to hold for a little longer despite your begging. Cherishing it, not knowing if this would be a fluke you’d later regret down the line, but in the end, all that mattered was that you let your guards down at the mercy of Dick’s guidance. Then utterly defenseless, when he gave into your wishes, a chaste kiss to your lips while doing so, and pushed himself deep inside of you with one smooth thrust.

You stiffened in Dick’s arms when they slipped around you, digging your nails into his skin. Squeezing his waist with your legs, you held onto him when he pushed the rest of his body weight over you, bending you further while keeping his lips connected to yours. He was stabilized on the tip of his toes, thrusting into, past, and against your inner muscles all at once. You clenched around his cockhead, the pleasure unbearable to resist as each dip of his hip successfully knocked a gasp from your mouth.

“So good, so tight like this…” Dick’s cock was in heaven, burying you deep until his heavy balls pressed flushed to your taint. He would stay motionless whenever he did; to catch up on his breath, to draw out his nearing high for a little longer, and to feel you, luxuriate in the warmth of your walls squeezing him tight, pulsing with dilemma, and ultimately refusing to let go. “Think I can come just like this, you squeezing my cock…”

He looked down at your face, a brief check-up. Your lips moved as if you were about to say something, but no sound came out. Only a stutter of a gasp, little sounds that Dick found incredibly magnetic, to which he found increasingly difficult to keep his lips off of you. He failed with little effort on his end, in hopes to steal those tiny sounds and keep it for himself.

Your pupils were blown when they weren’t rolling back from the smallest movement of Dick’s hips. In addition, with your lips swollen and lids heavy, you gazed up at Dick like he had saved your life, as if he had guided you towards a better place. Your life seemingly were in his hands as he held your cheeks and kissed you once more. Sweet again, rocking into you steadily, sweat sticking his skin to yours.

And maybe he did.

“Say something. I want to hear you.” A merciful demand upon your lips. You were trembling, barely swallowing down moans while Dick continuously impaled you with his cock—up into you now, when Dick leaned back until he was sitting up, and brought you back onto his lap like before, pushing your hips towards the rate of his thrusts.

Mesmerized by Dick, your mouth parted open and your throat immediately began emptying itself of all the harbored moans and groans that you had been holding hostage. “F-fuck me, keep fucking me. L-like that. No—Harder, harder—“ They rattled in volume, bouncing in sync with the way your ass had been doing against Dick’s cock, and then louder, because your marvelous sounds emerged an addiction out of Dick.

Sweet Jesus. He couldn’t stop. Watching the desire in your beautiful features, hearing your pleas reflect your want, stroking your cock awaiting for its release, marking every flesh of your skin his mouth had come in contact with. At the level of intimacy; from the pull of Dick’s hair, the sloppy, open-mouthed kisses you two shared, and the mutual passion you had for each other; you no longer felt like his disciple, but rather, an equal to Dick’s being—a derivative blessing, that would course correct each other’s life.

Your hands could barely hold onto his shoulders, but you worked with your strength, the slip of his skin, and locked your hands around his nape. Forehead to forehead, you and Dick breathed moans into each other, heavy and thick with yearning as you two pressed close, stuck to each other like glue. He cataloged the tiniest details on how your face contorted with pleasure; the scrunch of your nose, the roll of your eyes, the part of your lips. Your fist tightened around your cock, pumping it rapidly to the pace of Dick’s thrusts, churning it until your biceps had distractingly flared with veins.

You did the same. You watched Dick’s mouth agape with rapture. The scrunch of his brows when he fucked into you faster and to the root. The clench of his jaw when you squeezed tight around him, suctioning his cock until he sounded delirious with pleasure. It was beautiful. He was beautiful, and you knew he found you beautiful as well, the beautiful loss of reality from the mutual pleasure, and that was all it took to make you spill your load without a single warning.

You smashed a guttural groan to his lips and unraveled your fingers, leaning your body back to let your cock release where it pleased to afterward. “Oh, fuck—“

“Holy shit.”

Thick shots rained on Dick’s sweaty body. Three spurts to the center of his chiseled chest, and then another four splashing high in the air when Dick powered up on the sight of your cum alone, and drilled you harder, your cock dribbling in cum as he did so. His nails dug into your ass cheeks, spreading them apart, then cushioning them back around his cock to somehow press your walls against every vein pulsing through the thick of his erection.

Dick fucked you like you’d begged him to. Long, strong thrusts, to the brim on each stroke, undoubtedly hitting your prostate at every turn from the way you would jolt forward with widened, rattling, yet blissful eyes. A sight Dick would have forever ingrained into his memory, because you were officially, utterly, and completely wrecked.

It was heaven. The crown of Dick’s cock sliding over the spot, the depth of his cock rendering you immobile and dazed. Again, he’d repeat. A new addiction, surging powerfully through his veins. You let out a sob.

Again. You squeezed your eyes shut.

Again. You dug your nails into his shoulders.

And again. Dick smacked your ass at the delirious state he was in. He had completely breached inside of you, explored every inch of your hole with the circle of his hips. A thrust. A slam. A rut. He had traversed through every option to dismantle you, and like clockwork, your snug hole all but sucked on his cock, begging for him to come inside.

He couldn’t hold it anymore.

“Baby, baby…” Dick’s large hand smothered his warmth around your throat. You could feel the callous in his palm, a gentle abrasion to your smooth skin, and he rubbed your seed all over your body, then his. He fucked harder to the sight of the sticky sheen layering your body. The smell of musk. The stick to his hands. Filthy. Your body and his were filthy together. Filthier, when pleasure burst from the base of his shaft, and in turn, flooded your insides with a large load. He moaned, and you arched into him, into the stick of his body, anticipating for the rupture of your doing.

Your cock throbbed once, straining forward with its swollen head aiming towards the ceiling, and you spat thick shots of white seed into the air, eventually course-correcting to land on your body and Dick’s.

It was wonderful. You could feel Dick’s cock pulse as his seed rushed up the shaft and buried you deep into your guts with thick and heavy shots. Upon impulse, you squeezed as well, clamping around the peak of DIck’s orgasm until it must have crested with the stillness of his breath. “Don’t pull out.”

“Wasn’t planning on it…”

If he hadn’t thought it enough, you were beautiful, he was keen on calling it a mantra because it meant that he was still here, on this very earth, breathing and witnessing your very existence. Your body was weakened, barely mustering the strength to hold your chest up without the aid of Dick’s arms around you. Limp, after your second orgasm. All of you, you were so beautiful. From your rim hugging the base of your cock, your softening cock dripping, your swollen nipples, the smooth planes of your cum-stained chest, and parted lips. You were a banquet to Dick’s eyes, a feast that could muster up another around to have at you, to have you completely devoured if he had really wanted to.

But no, this was perfect. Watching you in silence, surveying up at you while you peered down at him, panting, breathing slow, in a case of wonder of how one could have such an effect on him without a morsel of effort.

“So… lessons? You always do this to new recruits?”

“Only if they absolutely suck at their role.” An exhaustion in his smile, you wanted to capture it in between your lips, and replenish him with gratitude.

“Hey— Asshole…” You muttered, a gentle knock to his chest, to which he laughed off, and then held on, to pull you in for a blissful kiss.

With the way you fit into his arms as if you’d always been meant to be there, warm where he was cold, and cold where you were warm, he knew he didn’t need his question answered.

“Kidding. Let’s just say… it was curated for a special someone. And hopefully, they liked it as much as I liked teaching it.”

“I have a good feeling that they did.”

nouearth. please do not repost, plagiarize, or translate my works. andif you like this story, please reblog and leave a like!

#dick grayson x male reader #dick grayson x reader #dick grayson x you #dick grayson smut #nou.fics

2K notes · View notes

leascorner · 5 months ago

Text

j.b.b. | Been dreaming about you

Summary: "I had a dream about her..." Steve only frowned even more - how was that a bad thing? "y'know," Bucky added with a tilt of his head, trying to accentuate what he meant. He didn’t want to say it out loud; it was already as embarrassing as it was.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x f!reader

Warnings: Angst with a happy ending, miscommunication (or no communication at all), Bucky depreciating himself, mention of war injuries, mention of physical attraction, mention of nudity and sexual act

Word Count: 2.7k

Masterlist

Bucky stopped at the doorstep as Y/N’s laugh made its way to his ears.

His eyes immediately found her, sat down at the kitchen’s bar, a box of cereal in her hand. She was heartily speaking with Sam, and like any time she was talking about something she was passionate about she was speaking with her hands. Bucky couldn’t make out what they were discussing, something about milk and cereals that seemed to leave Steve, sat with them, totally unbothered.

While he really needed a cup of coffee before Tony’s briefing, he hesitated to go in. He wasn’t really in the mood for small talk - truth was, these days, he wasn’t in the mood to talk at all, especially to Y/N. Eyeing the coffee machine Y/N’s had her back turned to, he decided she was way too into her conversation to even notice him. He could just go in, take his coffee and leave.

Yeah, it was a solid plan.

Though it was without counting on Sam calling after him, as soon as he put a foot in the kitchen. Y/N turned to him right away, her face lighting up.

“Hi!” She greeted him, a big smile on her lips that Bucky tried very hard not to look at all.

Bucky only responded by a sharp nod and nearly run to the coffee machine. Her smile faltered slightly at his cold attitude. She watched him get himself a cup of coffee for a second more before she looked back to her own cereal bowl.

Steve frowned to the exchange; he was used to Bucky and Y/N being quite friendly towards each over. Ever since Bucky had been back in the country, Y/N had been part of his rehabilitation protocol. While Tony and Bruce were working on reversing his trigger words, Y/N was working with Bucky as a physical therapist, to try and fix his chronic right shoulder pain. She had been an army physical therapist, serving one tour in Afghanistan, and was specialized on injuries that led to limb amputation.

While the beginning had been complicated - especially due to how unstable Bucky was at the beginning, Y/N had succeeded on getting Bucky to open up to her. The last months, Steve had even found out Bucky was more eager than before going to his PT session. Whenever Y/N was around, Bucky - who normally wouldn’t stay in the common room and much preferred to stay in the quiet of his own room - would linger a little bit longer with them. Despite whatever Bucky would say, Steve just knew his friend had a crush on Y/N (by judging how red his face turned that one time Steve asked him, it was a pretty good crush).

The blond watched as Bucky left rapidly after he got his coffee. Y/N too had watched him, Steve realized when he turned to her. Her face was wearing a small frown, and her eyes were fixed on the last place Bucky could have been seen.

“You alright?” he asked.

As always, Y/N looked back to him and smiled. She didn’t fool him though. Steve didn’t know what was wrong and clearly, she didn’t know either.

Over the next week or so, Steve found himself with a lot of déjà-vu.

Y/N would enter in a room Bucky was in and he would magically disappear. Bucky would find whatever good excuses not to do his physical therapy session - volunteering for missions he didn’t even have anything to do with in the first place. He even wouldn’t put a foot on the twenty-six floor - where Y/N had her office - if he knew she was most likely to be there - that was to say, basically every hour of every week day (Yes, Y/N had a slight work addiction).

It was clear for Steve now, Bucky was avoiding Y/N for whatever reason. Even Tony had asked if everything was alright between the two and he wasn’t the one to notice a lot of things about his own relationship - let alone other people’s relationship.

That morning, Steve had finally decided he would clear the air and talk to Bucky. He had asked him to join him in the kitchen for a coffee and this was of course at this exact same moment, Y/N had decided to get out of her office for some well-deserved break.

When she entered the room, Bucky looked like a deer caught in the headlights and stayed frozen in his seat, he didn’t have time to flee this time. Though he had been avoiding her, Y/N still seemed to be happy to see him.

“Hi!” she greeted them with a smile on her face. She picked her favorite cup from the cupboard and put the kettle on. She turned to Bucky naturally while she waited for the water to be ready. “How is your arm?”

“Well, actually.” Steve had barely heard Bucky as he mumbled.

“No pain whatsoever?”

“Nope.”

“Cool then!”

Y/N smiled as Bucky turned his attention back to his cup of coffee. She rolled on her feet, probably searching for a topic to continue the discussion - this was the most words they had exchanged in the last two weeks. She seemed to search and search again, but nothing came to her mind.

The sharp sound of the electric kettle stopping seemed to bring her back on earth. She looked at Steve and then back to Bucky, who was looking at everything but her. Again, Steve saw the way her smile faltered from his friend’s attitude and as her heart seemed to drop further in her chest. She was hurt he was pushing her away.

“Let me know if you need anything.” And without yet another glance at Bucky, she left. Totally forgetting about the cup of tea she was making.

Steve watched her go and then turned to Bucky, eyebrows furrowed. "What's going on between you two?"

Bucky looked up, eyebrows raised as if he was surprised Steve even asked about it. He didn’t even try to explain everything was fine and the blond didn’t know if it was because to him, everything was actually right, or because he was even surprised anyone had noticed his attitude.

“Don’t look at me like that. I know you were lying. It still hurts you.”

“’M fine,” Bucky muttered, eyes going back to his cup of coffee.

"Every time she is around lately, you just... disappear."

Bucky swallowed, hard. So it was that obvious. He really thought he was being subtle. He was such a nobody at the compound that making himself even smaller that usually, nobody noticed. Of course not.

"I had a dream about her..." Steve only frowned even more - how was that a bad thing? "y'know," Bucky added with a tilt of his head, trying to accentuate what he meant. He didn’t want to say it out loud; it was already as embarrassing as it was.

Oh! Steve seemed to understand.

"What's wrong about that?"

His friend gave him a knowing look. What was wrong with that? What was wrong with THAT? He had imagined kissing her, touching her, caressing her. He had seen what he imagined she looked like without her clothes on. It had felt real, so -so- real.

It had been a little bit more than two weeks now and he still remembered every little details. No matter how busy he was keeping his self, he still had flashes of it at the most random times of the day. At night, he couldn’t close his eyes without reliving the scene, feeling her hands on his body and so he lived of no sleep and a lot of black coffee. He couldn’t concentrate on anything, it was driving him crazy.

Now, he couldn’t look at her without thinking about this. He tried his best not to be in the same room as her or not speak to her. The simple thought of being near her was overwhelming, let alone to have her touching him during one of his physical therapy sessions.

"Bucky, that's fine. She is one of the nicest person I know. She will tell you if that makes her uncomfortable, you'll talk about it and that will be fine."

Bucky groaned. There was no way he would admit this to her; this was already as embarrassing as it was to discuss this with Steve. He had been used to the other way around. In his past life, he had been the one giving Steve advices on how to act with the ladies, even setting him up on blind dates. Somehow, he felt like he was this thirteen-year-old looking at pinup posters in New York streets again.

"And you never know, she might be interested after all."

"How could she?” Bucky huffed, disgusted with himself. “Have you looked at me recently?"

When Bucky finished his cup and turned to Steve, his body language was indicating he was done with this discussion. Steve looked at him with one of his signature sympathetic glances. To Bucky, it felt more like pity than anything else. Steve was pitying him, old poor brainwashed Bucky, who had been kidnapped and forced to do horrible things. Hydra had made him a living time bomb and he felt it more than ever now.

"Come on Bucky, you know that's not true!"

Too late, Bucky was long gone.

Bucky felt like he was cursed.

He had been trying to avoid Y/N. Just for a little bit longer, just for as long as he couldn’t forget about their dreamed intimate moment. Yet, he continuously found himself in situations where she was too. Like when Tony invited her to their weekly catch-up on how they were planning to remove his trigger words from his head. Like when Sam invited her to the team dinner.

Or like today, when he found himself in the elevator... Alone with Y/N.

They stayed silent for most of the ride. After the last few weeks of she couldn’t get Bucky to talk to her despite her best effort, Y/N seemed to be out of subjects to discuss and preferred looking at her hands. A minute before they arrived on the first floor though, she couldn’t help turn to him and ask the question that was burning her lips for a few days now:

"Did I do something wrong?"

Bucky looked up from his own feet to frown at Y/N, a couple of steps from him. He had purposely left a lot of space between them when she boarded the elevator, but even from where he was, he could still smell her perfume and somehow feel her skin touching his.

He frowned at her, as if he didn’t know what she was talking about. Y/N looked frustrated, even angry at little bit, and she had every right to be. They went from seeing each other twice a week for physical therapy session and sharing a few moments on every occasion they got to nothing at all.

She had replayed the events in her head, trying to find what she could have done wrong, and she just couldn’t make out what had happened.

"Your arm, it's bothering you, I can see," she pointed out. Even if he didn’t want to talk to - and even look at - her, she continued to watch out for him. "Why don’t you just come to me?"

"It's fine," Bucky sharply answered. A little too harshly.

The look of hurt on Y/N’s face made Bucky’s heart break. He knew he was unfair to her, yet he couldn’t admit what was going on. She was a too good person to be around him, a poor fuck-up man and a world known assassin.

Despite everything he was putting her through, Y/N didn't want to admit defeat and after the initial shock of the ton he had used to talk to her, she was ready to speak again.

“Please, just don't,” Bucky spoke more softly this time just at the same time as the elevator doors opened.

“Bucky, I-”

But he was gone before she could say anything more.

Y/N was now avoiding him like the plague.

At first, Bucky had been relieved. Now, his heart only sunk when they shared a look and Y/N was quick to look away. He was longing to see her yet whenever he would go up to her office, she wasn’t there. She didn’t venture to the compound’s kitchen any longer; and he knew it because a small coat of dust had started to cover her favourite cup. He had even tried to ask Steve how she was doing, but the only answer he got was always a “why don’t you ask her yourself?” - after the way he had talked to her, Bucky couldn’t bring himself to do it.

As usual, Bucky would be having his last coffee of the day during his afternoon break, just before he would go meet the team for a strength training session at the compound gym. Steve and his reusable water bottle stomped into the room and huffed finding Bucky here. He continued his way to the water dispenser to fill it. Bucky watched, frowning, as he pushed the button so hard it nearly felt off. His annoyance was irradiating all around him and Bucky didn’t remember to have seen him so… sulking before.

“What’s going on?” Bucky asked his friend’s back.

Steve’s shoulder dropped as he seemed to take a breath in. He turned slowly, a shadow on his face. His water bottle was very close to being overfilled and his hand also very close to crush it.

“Y/N has resigned,” his voice was a bit deeper than usual, “effective immediately.”

“I don’t understand-”

“She is leaving, Bucky.”

The information seemed to get to Bucky’s brain in an instant. He immediately got up, literally throwing the stool he was sat on away. He run to the elevator and when it didn’t come quick enough, he decided he would run up the stairs to the level Y/N’s office was on. He ran up the corridor and nearly took the door of his office off the hinges while opening it.

Y/N was there, putting the last books she had on her shelves in a box. She stopped in her tracks from the surprise of the brutal intrusion and gave him a dirty look.

“I really don’t have time for this.”

Her voice was cold and sharp, and Bucky wondered if that was how he had talked to her. It hurt him so much to see only anger in her eyes and to know that everything they had shared was lost. All because of him.

And that was probably why he spoke without thinking:

“I’m attracted to you.”

Y/N dropped the book she had in her hand. She looked at him - he looked at her – and Bucky didn’t let any time for her to open her mouth to speak. He didn’t want to lose the courage he had gather to open up his shell.

“I’ve been attracted to you for… well, since being back, but I only realized this wasn’t just a crush – Peter told me that word – until very recently.” He breathed shakily. “I didn’t know how to handle. This (he gestured between the two of them) is much more than just physical attraction. I have feelings for you and I shouldn’t be feeling that.”

“Bucky…” Y/N sighed, getting around her desk to approach him.

“You and I know, I can’t be feeling like that,” Bucky repeated while Y/N shook her head. “And I am so sorry. I know this doesn’t change how badly I have acted towards you, but I hope with time that I can earn your trust again.”

“I am pretty sure we had this conversation before,” Y/N told him, putting away a string of his hair. She was now in front of him, so close to what they had never been in the last few months. “You can’t decide what other people can think or feel. I know it’s easier to push people away when things get tough, but we need you to tell us what is going on in this brain of yours. Okay?”

Tears in his eyes, Bucky nodded. Y/N smiled at him sweetly and all of his problem suddenly seemed to have disappeared.

“I understand this can be a very difficult thing to hear, but you are a good person, Bucky. Whatever happened to you doesn’t define you.” She hugged him, so hard, as if they were reunited after a long time away. “And for the record, I also have a crush on you.”

#jbb #lea's writing #bucky x f!reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes imagine #bucky fanfic #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes x female reader #mcu imagine #mcu oneshot #bucky barnes one shot #marvel one shot #marvel imagine

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moamidzyism · 7 months ago

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too much (k.th)

ʚ♡⃛ɞ when your ex-boyfriend shows up at your door, the last thing you want to do is let him in. but his phone is dead, and the storm outside isn't letting up anytime soon, and he really needs some dry clothes (and a warm body)

☆。.:*·ﾟwc 3087 angst + smut ౨ৎ minors DNI ˚⁺。˚ ୨୧ taehyun x fem!reader, exes to lovers, unprotected sex [masterlist • reblogs + feedback appreciated]

he’s standing outside your door, his hair and clothes drenched by the relentless downpour, an awkward smile clinging to his face like a mask. his soaked clothes also cling onto his frame and your mind swarms with confusion and frustration.

“what are you doing here?” you demand.

ignoring your question, he looks past you. his eyes fixated on the warmth emanating from your cozy, dry apartment. without waiting for an invitation, he asks, “can i come in?” reluctantly, you step aside. not because you really wanted him there, but because you wanted to shield your wooden floors from the relentless storm outside.

the wetness that clung to him mirrored the unresolved tension between you – heavy, uncomfortable, cold.

“thank you,” he mumbles, shedding himself of his sodden jacket and hanging it on your coat rack. the wetness drips onto your floors but he doesn’t acknowledge it. instead he pushes his usually meticulously styled hair, out of his face, where it clung in disarray.

your irritation grows as you press him again. “taehyun, again, what are you doing here?”

“i was in the area, and the storm started. this was the only place i knew that was nearby,” he casually explains.

“you live half an hour away from here.” he shrugs again, as if everything had lost its significance in the face of the storm outside, even space, time, and the months of silence between the two of you. “let me get you some dry clothes,” you relent. you disappear into your room. a brief flashback to your painful breakup flickers in your mind.

you looked at your phone again. it had been five minutes since you last called him and forty five minutes since he was supposed to meet you at the restaurant. he was the one who had originally planned to come here, but fifteen missed calls and twenty five unread text messages later, he was nowhere to be seen. and once again, you looked like the idiot who actually believed that your boyfriend was capable of changing.

you looked up at your waiter, who shot you an apologetic glance. gathering your things, you walked out the restaurant, but not before leaving a fifty dollar tip to your waiter for the second hand embarrassment he probably faced that evening on your behalf.

you fished around the back of your closet for old clothes and grabbed a towel from your dresser. you return to the living room and hand him the towel without a word. he takes it, you fingers brushing briefly. he dries his face and his hair, his eyes never leaving you. you try your hardest to avoid eye contact with him. another crash of thunder rumbles through the house, and for a moment, you both look towards the sound.

when your gazes return to each other, you shove the dry clothes towards him. taehyun’s eyes linger on the clothes, an extra large pair of sweatpants and an old t-shirt. he quirks an eyebrow and scoffs. “moved on already?”

“they are my brother’s,” you respond bluntly, a subtle defiance in your tone. “and you can leave when the storm clears up.” you leave him to change in solitude. the storm outside rages and you can’t shake the feeling that this unexpected reunion might dredge up more than just old memories.

you got home that night and stripped yourself of the new dress that you had just gotten earlier that day. you ought to burn it. any reminder of the humiliation you just faced had to disappear off the face of the earth. you checked your phone, seeing if taehyun had finally remembered that you existed or finally decided that you were worthy of a response. but the only notification you had received in the time since you left the restaurant was an email with a free shipping coupon from an online store that you swore to never shop at again.

you turned off your phone and went to bed. there was no point in staying up, checking your phone every five minutes to see if he would actually text you back. tomorrow, you decided, you will be done with taehyun, for good this time.

you are pulled out of your thoughts when you hear a knock on your bedroom door. you look up to see your ex-boyfriend standing in his newly dried clothes. “hey,” he says softly, his hands finding a home on the back of his neck. his gaze is uncertain, as if he’s not entirely sure how you will receive him.

“yes?” he slowly opens the door further.

“i just wanted to apologize for what i said earlier.” he cautiously inches towards you.

“it’s fine, tae.” you take a deep breath, your voice softening ever so slightly. he stops himself from smiling at the use of the nickname.

“no, it’s not fine,” he begins. “you let me into your house and i insult you after ten minutes of being here.” he shifts uncomfortably, his eyes darting away from yours as if unable to bear the weight of your gaze.

“taehyun, what are you doing here?” a note of frustration creeps into your voice.

“i wanted to see you.” he replies simply.

you run your hands through your hair. “god, i can’t do this right now.” you say, mostly to yourself – a reminder, almost, that you cannot let yourself fall for him again.

“i’m sorry, i just…” his voice trails off, as if he is struggling to find the right words to say.

“you can’t just show up like this, taehyun. it’s not fair.” you sigh again. “it’s not fair to either of us.”

as each second of this conversation passes, he sees the stress lines deepen on your face. he slumps his shoulders. “i know, and i’m sorry. i shouldn’t have come here unannounced, especially with everything that happened between us.” he cannot meet your piercing gaze. “but the rain just reminded me of that night after my parents, and i couldn’t get you out of my head. i just had to see you.”

when you got to the hotel that night, he went straight to the front desk and asked the receptionist for a cot to be delivered to your room. in the room, he went straight to the bathroom, not saying a word to you.

you couldn’t figure him out – was he mad at you? did he not want to talk to you because he thought you didn’t want to talk to him? regardless, you slip out of your wet clothes and sit on the desk chair waiting for him to get out of the bathroom. when he does, you shower, trying so hard to scrub off the entire evening from your body.

stepping out of the shower, you took a look at yourself in a wiped out section of the obscured mirror. your face was exhausted and your eyes were red and puffy. you slipped into your pajamas and returned to the bedroom to find all the lights and taehyun fast asleep on the cot.

“i fucked up; i know i did,” he looks at you now, trying to find some glimmer of hope that you could forgive him. “but i just needed to see you – talk to you. i’ve been thinking a lot about us and about what went wrong.”

you swallowed hard, the memories of your break up still fresh in your mind. you know it doesn’t matter. you know that you can’t change what happened. you even know that getting an actual answer would ruin all the work you had done to get over him. but against everything in you, you ask him, “why didn’t you show up?”

“what?”

“at the restaurant, why didn’t you come?” you feel a pang in your chest, the familiar ache of unresolved feelings bubbling up to the surface. “taehyun, you just let me wait there. you didn’t call me or text me, not even the next morning.”

“i don’t know. i’m sorry.”

you’re not sure why you asked or what you even wanted from him. you just wanted the pain to end and part of you hoped that he could end it. but you had come to learn not to expect much from taehyun. “you can’t keep saying that every time you hurt me.”

“i know, but i mean it.” he inches closer to you, hoping that by seeing him and the regret that marks his face, you would let him in again.

and it almost works.

you almost forgive him but your better mind fights with all its might to keep your hand, that is itching to reach out for him, down. “i should get you a blanket.” you stand up from the bed and move over to your closet to fish for a spare blanket. you give it to him and you go your separate ways for the night – him on the couch and you in the quiet of your bedroom.

you lay in bed, trying hard to fall asleep but your mind drifts to the man in your living room, wondering if he is still awake, thinking about you. you stare at the space underneath your door. after what feels like thirty minutes, the hallway light suddenly turns off.

you get out of bed to see what caused the power outage. when you open the door, you see taehyun outside your room with his phone flashlight glaring right at you. you jump back in surprise. “what are you doing?”

“sorry,” he quickly apologizes, stepping back. “sorry, the power went out and i came to see if you had a candle or something. i didn’t want to keep using my phone because it’s about to die.”

you go to your bathroom and bring out a cheap scented candle to the living room. “this is the only thing i have.”

the two of you sit on the couch together, the worn fabric feels familiar beneath you. the candle sits on the coffee table between you, casting an uneven glow onto your faces. the wind howls outside, rattling the window panes of your small living room.

this scene, with the uncomfortable silence as you both shift in your seats, is almost laughable. you pull your knees to your chest, hugging them tightly as you stare at the flickering flame. occasionally your eyes flick to him, tentative, as if gauging the right moment to speak.

“did i wake you up?” taehyun finally fills the silence.

“no,” you begin, scratching the back of your neck. “i couldn’t sleep.”

lightning flashes, followed by a loud crash of thunder. you wince, your hands gripping around your legs tighter. he moves closer to you, his hand finding yours, intertwining his fingers with yours. you close your eyes for a moment, focusing on the feeling of his hands – the warmth and familiarity of his touch.

when you opened your eyes, you loosened your grip on his hands. “sorry, about that.”

he shrugs it off, “i forgot you were scared of thunder.”

“yeah,” you sit up straight. taehyun doesn’t move from his position next to you.

“maybe it was a good thing that i showed up after all.”

you couldn’t even try to stifle your laughter. “yeah, you’re my knight in shining armor.” you joke.

“i’m just saying, what would you have done if i wasn’t here with you and the power went out?”

“if you weren’t here i’d probably be asleep, i wouldn’t have noticed it.”

“you wouldn’t have noticed the power went out?” taehyun teases you. “you’re the lightest sleeper i know.”

you don’t know why you allowed yourself fall back into comfortable conversation with him but everything goes by in a blur and suddenly you’re laying on the couch with taehyun hovering over your body. he slowly closes the distance between your bodies. he puts his hands on either side of you, giving you no option but to stare deeply into his big brown eyes. “tell me to stop and i will,” he whispers. “hell, i’ll even leave right now. i’ll go home and never bother you again. just tell me to stop.”

his eyes scan your face and you gulp at the feeling of his eyes gravitating towards your lips. “i don’t want you to stop.” you move slowly towards him, part of you hesitant to close the gap between the two of you, because closing the gap means willingly opening yourself up for him to hurt you again.

but when you see how the candlelight twinkles in his eyes, it’s easy for the other part of you to ignore your fears. it’s this part of you that pulls him into a passionate kiss, your hands delicately cupping his face.

your hands slide underneath his shirt but he stops you. your brows furrow in confusion. “what are you doing?” you ask him.

“i just need you to know that i’m sorry.”

“i know,” you run your hands through his now slightly damp hair. “i know you are, baby.”

he brings you upwards to gently peck your lips before leaning you back against the arm of the couch again. you pull him to kiss you again and as the kiss depeens, he takes the opportunity to suck on your lower lip, using his hand to slowly graze your covered breasts. you arch your back, bringing your chest closer to his body.

“i missed you,” taehyun confesses in between the kiss. “i missed you so fucking much.”

“me too,” you mirror him pathetically. all of your sense and self restraint flew out the window. taehyun stands, lifting you effortlessly, wrapping your legs around his waist. he leans in to kiss you again. you respond eagerly, parting your lips to make way for his. he holds you tightly as he leads you away from the dimly lit living room towards the darkness of your bedroom. your hands tangle in his hair, pulling him even closer as if afraid that he might vanish.

the two of you stumble through the hallway, bumping into walls, laughing breathlessly between kisses. taehyun pins you against the wall. your back hits the wall with a gentle thud, and you gasp, giving him a moment for his lips trailing along your jawline and down your neck. you tilt your head back, closing your eyes, a soft moan escaping your lips. he tugs at your sweatshirt, pulling it over your head in one swift motion, throwing it somewhere on the floor behind him.

you arch into him, and your bodies mold together as you inch closer to your bedroom. taehyun pushes the door open with his food, stepping inside and laying you gently on the bed. you pull him down with you. “i need you.” you breathe out. you feel his hard dick through the fabric of his sweatpants. you squeeze him tightly, the way you know he likes it and you’re reassured when he gasps.

you don’t remember the last time you felt like this, like a horny teenager, sneaking a boy who should not be there into your bedroom, doing everything you can to get off. but regardless, taehyun feeds off your excitement, hoping that by you releasing your inhibitions with him, there still remains even a one percent chance that he can slide back into your life as you always let him.

you let taehyun guide his cock inside of you, anticipation and excitement fills your entire body when he pushes in. he takes all of you in, pressing his lips against yours as he slides in. you’re both moaning pitifully into each other’s mouths. you hate to admit how much you wish you could go back to when you guys were together. there’s just something about him being here in your bed with you that feels so normal, so natural, so good. for a second, you allow yourself to forget all the bad parts about your relationship – all the arguments and the fights, all the late nights waiting for him to come home, all the longing and all the pain. for a second, you only focus on how good he’s making you feel right now.

he wastes no time in picking up the speed, knowing how desperate for him you must be. your nails dig into the skin on his back, holding him closer to you. “you’re so big,” you moaned.

“i know baby,” he cooed. he’s so big inside of you. your walls haven’t felt this stretch in so long and you can’t stop yourself from clenching around him with every thrust. the way he grunts into your ear from the exertion has you clamping around him even more. “you’re so perfect to me,” he says between each thrust. “so so perfect for me.”

blood rushes up to your face and you try to hide it in the pillow by your side but taehyun turns your head. “i wanna see your face,” he says with a smirk on his face. he knows you fold every time he looks at you and of course you quickly nod your head, bringing his body closer to you with your legs.

his pace is unrelenting; you can’t last another second. you can’t stop yourself from crying out his name as a wave of ecstasy washes over you. he lets your walls spasm around his dick erratically as his hands press into your hips to hold you in place. taehyun realizes that he’s still weak for you when he sees your orgasm take over.

taehyun quickly cums too. “i love you,” he says as he does, finishing inside of you, his hips stilling as you milk him dry.

taehyun comes back down to earth first, slipping out of you, but still holding you close to his sweaty body as he lays back on the bed beside you, wrapping his arm around you. it takes a while for you to join him, but when the hallway light flickers as he whispers i love you, you quickly come back down in a panic. your body freezes up as you try to wrap your head around what just happened.

beside you, taehyun notices your change. he starts caressing your arm, kissing your forehead, your cheeks, your nose, your chin, every part of your face he can reach, anything he can do to make you go back to how you were just a few moments ago. you allowed yourself to fall into his trap, do as he wanted. you snuggled closer to him and allowed yourself to be lulled to sleep by the sound of his breathing slowing down.

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fill out this form to join my taglist! author's note :: the long awaited honeymoon avenue part two!!

#fay's works #tomorrow x together #txt angst #txt x reader #taehyun #txt smut #taehyun x reader #taehyun smut #txt #kang taehyun #taehyun angst #kang taehyun angst #kang taehyun smut #tomorrow x together angst #tomorrow x together smut #taehyun hard hours

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iimplicitt · 2 months ago

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GOOD LOOKING | OP81

pairings: oscar piastri x singer girlfriend! unnamed fem character (faceclaim suki waterhouse)

summary: oscar and his girlfriend had been dating for a while now, and what better way to hard launch their relationship than on her debut concert of her tour?

warnings: intense public make out, kind of an inappropriate time to have a boner but oscar isn’t exactly thinking straight, social media posts at the end

song inspo: good looking by suki waterhouse

wc: 2.8k

requests open!!

The roar of the crowd could be heard as the lights dimmed in the venue. Thousands of people cheered, all for her and the moment felt so surreal she thought about pinching herself. This was her biggest show yet, the debut of her tour after her album had blown up in the charts. Something she was beyond grateful for but she was terrified she wouldn’t be able to handle it.

So many stars burned out.

“Hey,” a hand ran comforting circles into her lower back.

Turning, her anxiety melted away easily as her boyfriend smiled down at her. His presence was always comforting with no words even needing to be spoken. He had helped keep her head grounded as fame started to pile itself quickly on top of her, given he had plenty of experience.

Formula One drivers don’t exactly have the luxury of flying under the radar. But his experience was helpful in easing her worries, teaching her how to tune everything out and still experience all the great parts it offered.

If she thought an arena of a few thousand was big, Oscar probably considered this a small scale meet and greet given his race weekends got up to around 300,000 people. She wasn’t sure how he adjusted so well, but maybe his stardom was more gradual as he moved up the leagues as he got older.

For her, it felt like she went to bed one day unknown and woke up the next with her face plastered on the side of buildings.

Still, Oscar was private. He went to as many of her shows as he was able to given his schedule was full for a good chunk of the year. It was difficult, but worth all the tears and stress.

Usually he was hidden away, sticking to the shadows to give his support. Although they’ve been dating for well over a three years now, they were very good at hiding it. Their work schedules being almost completely incompatible helped and there weren’t even the faintest of whispers on any gossip sites or accounts.

Tonight though, he made it adamant he wanted to be there for her first big night, headlining her own tour and the way he looked at her with such pride in his eyes made her feel like she was melting through the floor.

He was heaven sent, she was sure of it.

She had been going through hell, one of the worst break ups. The kind that made it feel like her heart was rotting out of her chest and she couldn’t breathe, even after months the pain and second guessing was there. Even if she no longer cared about her ex anymore, the thought of not feeling like enough for someone was brutal. The feeling of not being wanted by someone she considered to be her whole world shattering reality at its edges.

Being cheated on felt like hell. It was hell. Burning her up and killing her slowly.

All the sleepless nights blaming herself, wondering what she had done wrong to make him lose interest. Wondering what was the first day his eyes wandered and why hadn’t she noticed?

The pain was numbing, making it feel as if she was constantly flat lining as insecurities pummeled her into the ground. She lost her job and had been singing at bars and clubs across London, living out of her car and wondering when life would pick up again.

Then one night he walked in, watching her as if her voice was breaking him down as it poured out from the speakers. She couldn’t help but blush, something about him just felt different. Men stared at her all the time, but with him… when their eyes locked that weight in her chest lifted and it felt like she could breathe again.

After her show was done she lingered, keeping him in her peripheral vision as she drank and waited for him to come and talk to her. A few times she’d catch him looking, but then he’d quickly turn away and start talking to his group of friends again.

Eventually it got too late, her eyes dry with exhaustion and the streets a little uneasy.

Part of her couldn’t let it go though, maybe he was just shy. But that feeling in her chest said to at least try.

So she walked up to him, watching as his eyes perked up and a blush redding his cheeks. She didn’t spare his friends a glance as she crossed her arms, “you’re an idiot.”

He blinked at her, also ignoring his friends as they laughed at him behind their hands. “Sorry?”

The stranger sounded Australian and her knees went a little weak. “I’ve been waiting for an hour for you to come up and talk to me but now I have to leave.”

He stammered over his words and she couldn’t help but smile as she dug into her jacket pocket and pulled out the bar napkin she had scribbled her number on. “Here, if courage finds you.” Dropping it in his lap, she sent him a wink before turning on his heels. Feeling a false sense of confidence but hoping something would bloom into fruition.

She had barely made it down the street when she heard him call out for her. Turning, she watched as he jogged up, napkin in hand. “Let me walk you home.”

Biting her lip, she looked away, slightly embarrassed. “That’s a little complicated.”

His brows furrowed, but before he could ask what she meant she clicked the key fob of her car and the lights of the beaten down four door parked on the side of the street lit up. He still looked a little confused so she shrugged, “makes for a short commute.”

Understating washed over him and he shook his head. “You are not sleeping in your car.”

“Then where do you suggest I sleep?” The question hung in the air as they stared at each other, the city traffic fading into white noise. His cologne wafted in the air, smelling like sea salt and sandalwood and she thought she could fall into an haze reminiscent of being doped up on opium.

He licked at his bottom lip as he considered her for a moment before holding out his hand, “I’m Oscar.”

Shaking it, his skin was rough and warm. Making a comforting shiver run a commotion on each of her nerve endings. “It’s very nice to meet you, but you haven’t answered my question.”

Maybe three martinis was too much because she was being much more bold than she was used to.

He didn’t hesitate. “Come back to my place.”

Maybe she hadn’t been in her right mind. Any normal person would have approached the offer with suspicion but from that night on the rest had been history.

He made her dinner and let her take his bed, a complete gentleman and when she woke up to the smell of coffee and burnt pancakes she knew she was done for.

Now there they were, both their careers taking off in ways that seemed like outlandish dreams.

However, she noticed as he shifted a bit on his feet and tugged at his sleeves. He was nervous, that much was obvious and she frowned. Oscar was used to being in the spotlight but perhaps what the stage director had suggested was a bit too much of a hard launch.

“You don’t have to do this, you know? It’s completely fine—“

“What? No, it’s not that.” He pulled her closer, wrapping his arms around her and she slotted into his hold easily. Nestling her head under his chin and wrapping her arms around him, letting the beat of his heart calm her. “Well, it’s a little bit of that but it’s just because I’ve never done anything like this before.”

She laughed lightly. “What? Never made out with someone in front of thousands of people?”

He hummed, “have to say it’s a first for me.”

Tilting her head back to look at him, she took in the way his eyes seemed to glow as he gazed down at her. She never felt any doubt with him. Complete and utter security in the form of another person felt like life had renewed itself.

“If you’re not comfortable doing it, then we won’t. I don’t want to push you.”

Oscar shook his head, brushing the hair out of her face before cupping the side of her head gently. “I want to.”

Lexi approached them then, clipboard in hand and a headpiece perched on her head. “They’re ready for you two on the platform. I’ll signal you when it’s time.”

The couple nodded and Oscar took her hand, giving it a comforting squeeze as they maneuvered their way under the stage to get onto the rising platform.

They stood on their marks facing each other, with each breath their chests brushed and as their eyes met they couldn’t help but laugh. This was probably one of the most ridiculous things they had never done.

Lexi came back up to them. “Okay so, rundown. You two are going at it, make it raunchy but y'know, PG-13. Wait a few seconds after the platform has locked into place and then act surprised by the crowd, like they caught you. And you, Mr. Piastri just… keep looking at her like you are now, that’s perfect.”

She turned, looking up at her boyfriend and taking note of the stars in his eyes.

“Positions!” Someone shouted, but neither paid much mind to the people around them anymore as she hiked up her leg around his waist, his hand falling down to cup her thigh while the other wrapped around her waist and tugged her flush against him.

His voice was low as they slowly started to rise, the crowd deafening as they realised the concert was about to start, not at all anticipating the surprise they were about to receive. “It’s just you and me.”

She nodded, her hands coming up to twine her fingers in his hair and pulling his face down to hers. “It’s just you and me.”

Their lips crashed against each other with urgency that never got old. The sensation of his mouth against her was mind numbing and addictive. His tongue slipped past her lips and explored her mouth like it was their first kiss all over again. Teeth clinked and fabric was tugged, trying desperately to get closer if possible. The feeling of the platform rising had faded into nothingness as she was consumed by him.

His hand hooked under knee to tug her hips right against him, his erection evident and a near moan left her at the feeling of it. His fingers digging into the flesh of her thigh through her trousers and her thin shirt doing little to tame the heat between them.

Oscar’s mouth trailed down from her mouth to her neck, tugging on her hair to give him more space. His tongue was hot and his teeth sharp and he licked and bit at her skin lightly. Both in so much delirium that they forgot for a moment they were being watched by an arena.

She snapped out of it, only barely and looked out into the crowd in a daze as a very real blush reddened her cheeks. She tugged on Oscar’s hair to pull his face away from her throat, but it only resulted in him groaning.

A laugh left her, completely breathless and only a tad embarrassed when he finally leaned back to look at her. He looked unkempt, his hair a mess and her lipstick smeared across his mouth.

To play up the act, she gasped as she caught sight of them on the jumbo screen and stepped back from him, though he kept one arm wrapped around her waist, he dropped her leg.

The screams and shouts were enough to bust someone’s ear drums as people looked on in shock at the sight of the world famous Formula One driver making out with their favorite singer on stage.

She wiggled out of his hold and walked briskly to the microphone a few feet away from them, looking bashful as she laughed awkwardly, the sound echoing around the arena. “I am so sorry. They sent me up earlier than I thought.”

The crowd went wild for it and she looked over her shoulder, winking at Oscar and the way he was looking at her like she was the only one there made her want to pounce back on him again.

She smiled warmly as he leaned against the piano that was on stage, then waved to the rest of her band, before turning back to the crowd. “I guess introductions are in order?” She asked, screams and roars following.

“I’m sure most of you know him, but this is my boyfriend. He decided to pop me a visit in between race weekends.”

The night was a daydream as it went by, Oscar watching her with heaven in his eyes as she sang her heart out.

Finally, the song that had kick started everything was next and she looked down at Oscar who had taken a seat on the bench of the piano. “This next one is called Good Looking, and although Oscar is stunning, no this isn’t about him.”

Laughs followed and Oscar smiled at her warmly, watching in adoration as the song started. The song she had sang all those years ago in the bar about her ex who had turned her life into a nightmare and he had known then and there he wanted to be in her life. He wanted to erase the heartbreak that painted itself on her features as the words poured out of her.

“The skyline falls as I try to make sense of it all.”

He watched as her body moved with music, entranced with the fluidity of her movements.

“I thought I’d uncovered your secrets, but turns out there’s more.”

He hadn’t looked at the audience once, not able to pull his eyes away from his girlfriend throughout the night. Oscar was sure his phone was blowing up with notifications and missed calls with the news, given absolutely no one knew.

“You adored me before. Oh, my good looking boy.”

The song ended and she bowed, her grin was a sight pulled straight from the bible and he knew he’d fall to his knees whenever she asked, ready to lay down complete surrender to get just a taste of the salvation she offered.

Oscar had been a little worried the night would be awkward with him just sitting there, but not a flicker of regret passed through him as he watched thousands of people shout their love for her and her work.

Not quite believing the stars had aligned so well for him. Not quite believing she was real and had chosen him, out of all people. Forever grateful she put trust in him not to break her heart and vice versa.

He hadn’t even realized he’d been smiling the whole night and watched as if an angel was approaching when she walked up to him, leaning down to kiss him.

Oscar knew he picked the right night, she was on top of the world and he wanted to keep that high going later when they got back to the hotel.

He had a ring box in his pocket he needed to take care of.

auroratheband

liked by landonorris, logansargeant, oscarpiastri and 829,039 others

auroratheband said yes to heaven last night, london you were beautiful

*tap to load more comments*

userone: WHAT

usertwo: WHO TF?? HOW TF?? AND THEY’RE ENGAGED HELLO????

landonorris: i’m sorry, what? osc answer your fucking phone

userthree: lando didn’t even know?? that is wild lmao

oscarpiastri: for the foul language your wedding invite has been revoked

userfour: apparently they’ve been dating for a few years, that hard launch had me losing my MIND

userfive: did you guys see how he was looking at her? MY HEART, he didn’t take his eyes off her once

usersix: I KNOW IM IN TEARS i cant wait for wedding pics

userseven: i need to see her in the paddock with the other wags immediately

tag list: @theonottsbxtch @fortunapre @ashbone @c8lap1nto @taasgirl @stopeatread @dying-inside-but-its-classy

#mclaren #formula one #f1 #formula 1 #op81 #f1 fanfic #fanfic #op81 x reader #oscar piastri fanfic #oscar piastri #oscar piastri x reader #oscar piastri x singer! girlfriend #romantic #suki waterhouse #social media au #smau #oscar piastri x oc

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slytherinslut0 · 1 year ago

Text

MATHEO RIDDLE- Beg For Me

Chapter Thirty--info:-You and Mattheo have been butting heads for months, since you were assigned as his tutor, and one day during a session full of tense bickering, he has enough.

Tags: 18+, SMUT, PIV, Oral Sex (f rec), Dirty Talk, Unprotected Sex, Praise Kink, Degradation, Morning Sex, Love-Making, ANGST! FLUFF FLUFF FLUFF.

Find the rest of the chapters HERE.

In the depths of the night, your dreams unfurled a complex tapestry of fears and uncertainties. The lucid scenes played out like a haunting ballet, shadows weaving intricate patterns on the canvas of your subconscious.

In the dream, Dumbledore's venerable voice resonated with a gravity that bespoke both wisdom and disappointment.

"You must confront your challenges…your fears, young witch," he intoned, his eyes reflecting not just understanding but a palpable disappointment, a profound sorrow in his gaze as the conversation switched, growing more grave. "I regret to inform you that there are no positions available for you. Not after your unprofessional behaviour.”

Flashes of disappointment intensified, drowning your lungs in its depth, Dumbledore's scrutiny cutting through the facades you had worked so hard to carefully construct for all those bloody months. Before you could process it, the dream seamlessly transitioned to a poignant future, your long-anticipated graduation day, where joy was now eclipsed by an unspoken sorrow.

Mattheo, a figure of proud accomplishment tainted by the weight of disappointment, stood before you. In this dream, your fingers intertwined for a final embrace, the unspoken acknowledgment of paths diverging echoing with heartbreak. The whispered goodbye carried the burden of reality, the truth of life pulling you apart, and a palpable pain radiated from Mattheo, his eyes mirroring the depth of his hurt.

And despite all of these emotions, in the dream, you struggled to admit the true extent of your pain. The reluctance to acknowledge the wounds, the fear that this love might crumble under the weight of your mistakes, lingered in the subtext. The dream became a harrowing journey through the corridors of vulnerability, where the echoes of disappointment and heartbreak were met with an internal struggle to confront and heal.

You found yourself standing at a crossroads, torn between the desire to fully embrace your love for this man, and the paralyzing fear of the inevitable heartbreak that loomed on the horizon, a shadow you knew was yet to follow.

As you jolted awake, the tendrils of the dream still lingering, you found yourself face to face with a peacefully sleeping Mattheo. The room unfolded around you with hushed tranquility--the black lake just beyond the window mirrored the early morning light, its rippling reflections casting intricate soft shadows across Mattheo's peaceful face. The dim lighting in the room whispered of the approaching dawn, a delicate glow that hinted at the promise of a new day.

His arms were securely wrapped around you, one hugging your waist, the other under your head--creating a cocoon of protective solace. His long lashes rested gently against his cheeks, and a cascade of messy curls adorned his forehead, adding a touch of vulnerability to his slumbering form.

Feeling the sting of your dream still lingering, you wiggled in his embrace, snuggling in closer to him.

The air held a serene stillness, interrupted only by the rhythmic cadence of Mattheo's breathing. The juxtaposition of the dream's emotional turbulence and the peaceful reality of the waking world blurred briefly as you took in the details--the soft hues of the room, the play of shadows on Mattheo's features, and the subtle acknowledgment of the early morning hour--all of them calming your anxiety within seconds.

Mattheo's lids fluttered open softly at your movements, his eyes dazed as he blinked away the remnants of sleep. His chocolate pools, catching the morning light, held a timeless warmth as they met yours. A gentle hum escaped his lips, and he inhaled a sharp breath as he instinctively pulled you closer.

"What's the matter, Raven?" Mattheo murmured, his lids fluttering back closed in a languid motion.

The deep rasp of his voice, raw with the remnants of sleep, sparked a warmth within you, like a comforting ember glowing softly. His words, spoken with a blend of curiosity and a touch of husky vulnerability, lingered in the quiet morning air, igniting tingles on your skin.

One of his hands, calloused and tender, glided lower to rest on your hip, the connection between you deepening as your legs became entangled in the quiet intimacy of the morning.

"Sorry for waking you," you whispered, nuzzling your face into the crook of his neck. His hand, seemingly on a mindless journey, slithered around to rest gently on your lower back now. "It was just a bad dream."

"Who hurt you?" Mattheo mumbled in a groggy, raspy tone, his lids still resting closed. A completely serious expression adorned his face as he added, "give me a name and I'll strip the skin from their bones."

"Someone's definitely not a morning person," you quipped, a groggy chuckle seeping into his neck. A comforting warmth enveloped you as you teased, "Waking up ready for a battle, huh?"

He shifted, molding himself against you, and it was in that moment that you became aware of him, entirely--the firm press of his desire throbbing against your torso.

"Mm...I've certainly woken up with a fight in mind," Mattheo groggily purred, a trace of arrogance lingering in his tone. "But maybe not the one you're thinking about."

"Shit..." your thighs quivered, seeking friction, and with a sleepy smirk, you added, "no fight necessary, Matty...I was disarmed the second I heard that sexy morning voice of yours."

Mattheo's hand slipped lower, finding your ass and giving it a playful squeeze, his grip growing firmer with each passing moment. A husky groan escaped him as he throbbed against you, plush lips pressing a tender kiss to the top of your head.

"Not like you to surrender so easily," he teased, a shiver of anticipation dancing along your spine as he demanded, "tell me about the dream first."

You shifted, your hand tracing a deliberate path along the strong contours of his arm. With a tender yet purposeful motion, your fingers wove into his hair, entangling themselves in his tousled curls. His lashes responded like delicate butterflies, fluttering in rhythm with the shallow bursts of his chest as you tugged gently.

"It was nothing," your voice, a soft murmur, attempted to dismiss the weight of the dream. Coaxingly, your lips pressed kisses against his neck, their warmth acting as a soothing balm against his skin. "Just a stupid thing."

Your gentle murmur aimed to dissolve the tension, encouraging him to release the probing question that lingered in the tranquil, dawn-lit room, but of course, your efforts would prove futile.

"Clearly, it wasn't nothing." Mattheo's nails dug into the skin of your backside, his grip tightening with a fervor that bespoke an intense need. His body turned relentless, an urgency in his touch as if he needed you more than the very air he breathed. "If you don't tell me in five seconds, I'll deny you orgasms until you're in fucking tears, understand?"

Torn between a desire not to sound vulnerable and a plea for mercy, you instinctively tightened your grip on his hair. Your body flooded with warmth as you burrowed your head further against his neck, hiding your face from his view.

"It was about the future...about us," your voice was low, nearly inaudible. There was a long, silent pause before you spoke again. "I just...what do you want out of life after grad, Matty?"

In a sudden, swift movement, he flipped you onto your back. His strong fingers wrapped around both your wrists, holding them captive as he climbed over you. The weight of his body pressed against yours overwhelmed you with a clamouring lust, an undeniable force that spoke of desire and possession.

"What do I want?" he whispered, his dark eyes boring into yours with an intensity that left little room for evasion. "Hm..."

Seemingly lost in thought, Mattheo leaned in, pressing slow, deliberate kisses against your cheek, a trail of warmth that heightened the tension between your bodies. His grip on your wrists tightened, a subtle yet commanding restraint as the proof of his desire pressed against your pelvis, fuelling flames that danced between your naked bodies.

"You know what I want, Raven?" As Mattheo mumbled against your neck, his curls gently tickling your cheek, your heart leapt with each syllable, your lids fluttering shut as you drowned beneath his warmth. "I want you to stop worrying so fucking much..."

Mattheo released your wrists, one hand finding purchase next to your head as the other threaded through your hair, softly soothing your scalp. Heat blossomed, blazing between your bodies as skin skimmed skin, and you writhed, wrapping your arms around him.

"I want you to stop doubting us....doubting me..." he mouthed wet, warm kisses at your throat. "But what I want...most of all...is just to be with you."

"But," you blushed, thighs buzzing with need. "What if we can't?"

Nipping your ear, he moved lower, hand leaving your hair to skate over your side, painting pleasure with his calloused palm as he went. He suckled at your clavicle, tracing a line to your sternum with his tongue--you whimpered.

"Then we'll find a way." He murmured, his breath washing warm over your skin. "Because I'm not going anywhere."

Gripping your backside, he burned kisses between your breasts, briefly acknowledging them with a nuzzle before continuing--his mouth was tender and deliberate, as if you were parchment, as if you would tear under his touch. Amidst the caresses, a realization echoed within you--this man, once seemingly distant, had transformed before your eyes. The disbelief lingered, weaving through your internal thoughts as you grappled with the profound shift. His unwavering commitment, the assurance that he wasn't going anywhere, left you in uncharted emotional territory.

The conflicting currents of vulnerability and safety created a storm within. You still found yourself marvelling at how this man who was hardly a mere acquaintance at the beginning of the year, had now become a source of comfort, a haven within the unpredictable sea of emotions. It was a sensation wholly unfamiliar, yet undeniably welcomed--a delicate dance between disbelief and the profound realization that, in Mattheo's embrace, you had found a sanctuary, a place to be unapologetically yourself.

Tears brimmed, bliss buzzing. "Mattheo..."

Abruptly, he pulled back, his hand shifting from your backside and darting up to grip your jaw, his touch commanding yet tender. He met your eyes with an intensity that held a hint of vulnerability, his thumb brushing softly over your cheek.

"Do you understand me?" he asked, his voice a low, raspy murmur. His grip sought assurance, and he implored, "tell me you understand."

Your heart thundered. "It's just...we've said goodbye so many times before-"

Mattheo cut you off with a fervent shake of his head, his thumb continuing its gentle caress on your cheek.

"No more goodbyes, Raven," he declared, his voice resolute yet carrying a touch of tenderness. "We're not playing that game anymore--you think I could ever do this again? You think I could ever find another as maddeningly perfect as you are?..."

he paused, searching your eyes for a moment, before he finally whispered; "You have me...you're safe."

Your heart melted, and with that, he dipped low, his lips capturing yours in an instant. Out of pure joy, you sighed, surrendering to the warmth of the kiss, your eyelids fluttering closed, fingers delving deep into his hair.

A soft grunt escaped him, the kiss deepening, and he shifted his hand to cradle your head, pulling you closer. A contented whine escaped you, ecstasy radiating in your chest. In his embrace, you let go of tension, allowing the remnants of fear to disintegrate. You found solace in the trust that he would keep you safe, that you two would undoubtedly find a way to make things work.

"Nothing can change that," he mumbled against your lips, his lashes fluttering against his cheeks before he broke away again, kissing a steady path back down your neck. "I need you to get that through this beautiful, stubborn little head of yours."

A soft, breathy chuckle escaped you, your fingers slipping from his hair to gently trace mindless patterns on his back.

"Alright, alright," you teased, a playful glint in your eyes. "I'll work on getting that through my 'beautiful, stubborn little head’...but only if you promise to keep reminding me."

Mattheo's lips continued their journey, a purposeful exploration down your chest. Each kiss marked a steady descent, and as he ventured lower, the subtle tensing of his muscles hinted at the strength restrained beneath his touch. His messy curls framed his face like an untamed halo, and he pressed further with a playful smirk, an amused huff escaping him against your skin.

"Reminding you is the minimum," he replied, his voice carrying a promise wrapped in a husky tone. "I'll fucking drill it into your bones, princess--you're mine, I'm yours. Say it."

Your breath caught at the intensity in his words, and a shiver ran down your spine. Meeting his eyes, a mix of desire and vulnerability, you whispered, "I'm yours, Mattheo. And you're mine."

With a gentle hum, he trailed kisses over the curve of your belly, descending to the intimate swell between your thighs. Settling between your legs, his lips tenderly caressed your thighs, eliciting delightful squirms as waves of pleasure surged through your nerves.

"That's right, baby..." he cooed, kissing inward toward the crease of your thigh. "You will always be my first, last, and only love."

With a deliberate touch, he pressed his lips to your pussy, tentative at first, grazing once, twice, before lavishing it with a deep, voracious kiss. Your cry echoed in the room as his strong tongue slid through your slit, exploring your tender folds, a soft groan resonating in his chest. Mattheo maintained eye contact, locking his gaze with yours while he lavished your sex with his mouth. Blinking, you struggled to clear the foggy haze of nearly-untamed emotions that threatened to spill out, his words echoing in your mind like a tempest.

Your fingers curled in his hair. "Oh, fuck..."

You gasped for air, feeling the oxygen drain from the room. Tightening your grip on his head, your hips involuntarily twitched beneath him, the intensity of the moment leaving you breathless. Dizziness washed over you--the heady blend of infatuation and the surging pleasure left you gasping, bucking in the throes of desire. Cravings surged within, a hunger for more, a yearning for him that still caught you by surprise, even after all of this time.

"What else worries you," he murmured into your cunt, his warm breath turning the blood in your veins to pure magma. "What else are you afraid of."

A muted cry escaped your lips, and you swallowed against a tightening throat--Mattheo's kisses delicately navigated your slit, as though tending to the intangible wounds forged in the ebb and flow of your complex, on-and-off sexual intimacy over the past few months. Surprisingly, words flowed with ease, a spontaneous revelation of your soul, unshackled by the torrent of bliss coursing through your senses.

"I...I'm afraid..." you gasped, your eyes squeezing shut, your breath hitching as his murmurs sent shudders through your limbs. "Afraid of losing myself in this, in you," another gasp escaped, "and of not being able to find my way back."

Mattheo purred in praise, urging you to keep going, delving his tongue in between your folds, his tongue wet and strong as it slipped through your slit. There was a deliberate avoidance of your clit--which twitched and stiffened in ways it would only do for him--his mouth marking you in memory as he kissed you not only in desire, but in apology. In servitude.

"And the fear of...of needing you more than I should," you admitted through gasps, your vulnerability laid bare. "Of loving you so much that...that I might lose sight of my own path."

Licking lines through you, Mattheo purred again when he reached the top of your cunt, circling your clit with lavish, lingering kisses. You groaned, fingers coiling around his curls, your hips bucking, begging for him, for his release. But he was torturous--drawing his tongue between your slit until his nose grazed your clit, sparking pleasure, a moan catching deep in your throat. Humming with satisfaction, he rolled around it, and air fled you in wanton breaths while you tried in vain to grind onto his face, fighting his hold on you.

"And...ah," you stammered through gasps, your admission laden with a heavy truth, tears brimming in your eyes, promoting you to squeeze them shut. "Most of all...I'm...I'm afraid of losing you."

Finally, finally--he rewarded your patience and flicked your clit with his tongue, swirling it in saliva before taking it between his plush lips. You sobbed, tears spilling free, body thrashed with waves of ecstasy, and Mattheo moaned into you, his mouth hot and soft and working your clit as it throbbed and ached against him.

Laving at you, he sucked, hands stroking up your sides until he reached your breasts, palming at them, thumbs brushing your nipples. Your back arched in bliss, and you jerked his head into you--in response, he battered your nub with his tongue, suckling you faster, chasing your wriggling frame as you gyrated in rhythm, your chin dropping to your chest, body plunged in pleasure.

"Let go for me," Mattheo murmured, his hold on your hips tightening, his shoulders tensing. "I promise I'll catch you."

He drove his face into your cunt, sucking your clit past his teeth, beating it faster, groaning, bathing in your slick. You whined, twitched, moaned, and euphoria exploded over your skin--within seconds, you were erupting, cumming hard onto his tongue, clit pulsing in his lips, walls spasming at his chin. Mattheo sucked in a breath through his nose, swallowing your orgasm, laving you into oversensitivity as he sucked until you twitched in discomfort. When he finally released you; you collapsed, spent, sweat sticking to the sheets, still shivering with tears.

"Such a good girl for me..." Mattheo massaged your thighs, strong, warm grip kneading your buzzing skin--the tenderness in his gaze flushed you with heat, and you began to tremble. "Shh..."

You swallowed, lungs still finding their rhythm. Mattheo's hands moved with a gentle reassurance, caressing up your thighs and over your hips in a rhythmic dance. Simultaneously, his mouth began a wet trail of soft kisses, ascending with each delicate touch up your stomach.

"Your vulnerability is a fucking honour, my pretty girl," his warm breath interweaving with the intimate cadence of his movements. "Don't keep any of that inside, anymore...you can trust me with your fears...your worries..." the comforting strokes continued, a tactile promise as he whispered, "I'm more than willing to take the weight off your shoulders."

His lips found your skin in a tender embrace, and he hummed against your tingling flesh as he added, "I'm with you...I'll help you find your way, just as you helped me find mine..."

Your chest heaved with a mixture of pleasure and vulnerability. As Mattheo's words echoed in the air, you managed to rasp out, "I trust you," each syllable tinged with the raw honesty of your emotions. "I fucking love you."

His touch, both commanding and comforting, sent shivers through your trembling form, and the weight of your fears began to lift, replaced by the reassuring warmth of his presence. Mattheo's gaze held a depth of emotion as he absorbed your words. His hands, still moving with a gentle reassurance, tightened ever so slightly on your skin.

And then, he shifted, collapsing down on the sheets and slipping up beside you, guiding you to turn onto your side, facing away from him, his arms wrapping around your waist, his mouth teasingly ghosting against your ear.

In a husky whisper, he murmured, "I love you too, Raven, but you already knew that...didn't you?"

He was all-encompassing, warm and solid and strong, enfolding you in something you almost believed was invincibility.

You hummed, lids fluttering softly. "Of course I did, Matty.."

"That's right, baby," Mattheo tucked his knees behind yours, shifting your ass so it rested against his hips--like this, you felt his cock flatted between you, throbbing as you tweaked your position. "My beautiful little angel...all I want from life is to wake up like this every fucking morning...with you...wet and needy for me..."

As you whined, squirming against him, Mattheo leaned in, brushing his lips against the skin behind your ear. He trailed kisses and nibbles down your neck, making you dizzy with pleasure, his hands moving to cup your breasts, rubbing his thumbs against your already hard nipples. You let out a soft moan, eyes rolling as you arched your back into his touch.

"You're fucking perfect." The low thunder of his voice melted in your ears, and he murmured your name. "You want me to fuck that pretty pussy, hm?"

Your throat was tight, and instantly, you nodded. "Yes, Matty...please..."

"Mm." He hummed. "That's my good girl."

You shifted your head to the side until Mattheo's lips met yours in a soft, gentle kiss, one of his hands moving to guide his throbbing length toward your core, groaning into your mouth as he entered you with an unhurried, deliberate thrust of his hips. The sensation of him filling you slowly, inch by tantalizing inch, elicited a chorus of whimpering and moaning, each one bringing forth a new wave of exquisite pleasure. As the kiss deepened and he skillfully rolled his hips, your body responded instinctively, arching into him, welcoming his intimate touch.

One arm held you securely against his chest, and the other shifted to your hair, the grip of his hand against your head both comforting and soothing, tracing calming strokes along your scalp. A fusion of bodies unfolded, your essence intertwining with his. The synchronized rhythm of your racing hearts echoed the now-openly spoken connection coursing through your veins.

Mattheo broke the kiss, pressing his forehead into yours. "You are the only one for me." He was seated inside of you, offering soft, gentle thrusts. "I knew it the second you saw the darkest parts of me...the fucking hell in my eyes and didn't even blink...when you told me it mirrored your own."

You whimpered, head spinning in a whirlwind of emotion, and he kissed your nose. "You've always been the woman whose words hang in my mind..." another kiss to your jaw. " ...the woman whose face I see before I sleep..." he confessed, snuffing a moan in his throat. " ...the woman who plagues me every moment I'm awake..."

Every single syllable from Mattheo's lips left you in utter disbelief, grappling with the unfathomable reality that had transpired within your life. Once entirely convinced that love was an unattainable concept, a realm you adamantly avoided, you now stood fully-drenched in the depth of a connection with a partner who defied every single living expectation. Mattheo Riddle, a man who should have been everything you steered clear of, turned out to be precisely what your heart craved--a revelation that shook the foundations of your entire understanding.

In the whirlwind of emotions, you found yourself astounded by the depth of this unexpected bond. He saw facets of your being that had remained veiled to others, unraveling layers of your soul with an understanding that transcended imagination. It was then that you realized, some hearts just understood each other, even in silence.

"You're relentless," his lips hovered mere millimetres from your ear as he intensified his pace, his fingers finding your clit. "You're maddeningly fucking beautiful." A forceful jolt from his hips, and you shattered, the pleasure overwhelming. "And you're the most insatiable, fierce little creature I've ever come across. You stirred me up without effort.”

Your voice was a whimper. "Mattheo..."

His embrace tightened around you, anchoring you as he thrust deeply, filling you completely. "Fuck-you're my good fucking slut...all fucking mine..." he groaned your name, sucking at your shoulder, tongue leaving hot lines on your neck. "This tight little cunt only stretches for me...those pretty lips only moan my fucking name..." his fingers whirled your clit. "I'll be dead before I allow that to change."

"Gods-" you choked, eyes squeezed shut, wetness damping your cheeks as you clutched onto his arm, revelling in every single inch that he was giving you, the pleasure from his fingers intoxicating your conscious. "Matt-fuck-oh...."

"Fuck--" a feral kiss bruised your lips, his cock splitting you with deep thrusts. "Such a good fucking slut...my good little cockslut, hm?"

"Yes-" you gasped, his fingers moving quicker. "Yes-yes!"

"That's it..." He muttered your name against your mouth. "Cum for me...let me feel how much you love this cock..." "

"Fuck-" one more breath, one more gasp, blink, moan, and you were there. "Fuck! Mattheo! Oh, Gods..."

Euphoria swept through you like a tempest, unraveling the seams of your sanity, and you shattered, convulsing with the overwhelming intensity of your climax. Your walls spasmed around his dick, milking him hard, and Mattheo held you, groaning and grunting into your mouth as he held off his peak for as long as he could, until it was too much and he surrendered--his lips working over yours as he came deep inside your heat, hips hitting your ass with every rush of rapture.

After what felt like minutes, he stalled, the aftershocks of bliss rippling through your bodies at once while you remained there catching breath, still connected.

Languid and sated, the two of you paused in a state of post-ecstasy bliss, your senses heightened in a way that defied fatigue. Mattheo, positioned behind you, had seemingly recuperated--his withdrawal from your cunt accompanied by a slow, deep guttural groan that reverberated through the aftermath. A sigh of relief escaped him, and you grinned, nestling against the contours of his body, not ready to leave the solace of his warmth.

The press of his lips against your temple held a silent reassurance, a whispered promise of care and comfort in the aftermath of shared passion.

Finally finding your voice, you could hardly articulate your thoughts, but one question lingered on the forefront, slipping past your teeth. "Where the fuck have you been, all this time..."

Mattheo hummed, placing a gentle kiss to your shoulder, nestling his face into your neck. "On my way here, Raven."

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