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screampied · 8 months ago

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‘ CANDY BOY ! ’

ᡴꪫ sum. who would have thought that the #1 camboy in your city was no one other than your virgin roommate gojo, who’s totally putting on a show for his fangirls. he talks too much, but maybe you can shut his mouth and put his sweetened little fantasies to reality.

wc. 5.8k

warnings. fem! reader, camboy!gojo, college au, gojo's a virgin, switch! gojo, unprotected, dirty talk, he gets pússy drunk quick, overstim, "good boy" usage, cunnilıngus, premature ejaculating, nipple play, lots of spıt, handjōbs.

if someone would have told you that your loser of of a roommate who stuffs his mouth with a bit too many sweets, cries at romcoms, and is just an overall dork was a camboy, you’d call them crazy. batshit crazy even, yet that’s exactly what happened—

gojo was rightfully one of the top camboys in the city, probably in the world too. he was sort of a household name, it was more of a side hustle for him. he did it only for the money—sure, he adored his fans, even the ones that went a little too extreme with the provocative thirsting. but that’s all part of the job, he’s about seven months strong in his little gig. every saturday and sunday, he logs on under the user of: @/GOJOSLUTORU.

the moment that same notification pops up that he’s live, a plethora of his fans join immensely, wondering just what their favorite camboy satoru was up to today. his streams would last for a good two hours—longer sometimes if it was some kind of special event where he’d reach a massive amount of donations, a special treat for his fans. gojo was beloved for his flirty personality, he’d make his fangirls swoon with his words, despite knowing full well he doesn’t know the first thing on how to please a lady.

that’s until you came along—more like catching him right in the act. it couldn’t have been any more embarrassing though. eleven thousand eyes were cheering him on, showering him with lewd "good boy" praises until you drop your bag.

“satoru?” you utter, curling your brow into a surprised furrow once you take in the scene in front of you. tossing the spare set of keys into the bin, you glance at your roommate—he freezes mid stroke with the most flustered expression. his hands were a bit … occupied, and a glimpse of a familiar cloth you once wore catches your eye. “are those my panties?”

“no….?”

with a deadpan, your shoulders drop before you drag your feet towards him to take a quicker look. oh, those were definitely your panties. so that’s where they ran off too. gojo tries to shield his nude exposed lower half with a nearby towel but it’s no use—you saw everything you needed to see.

“anywhooo,” he swallows, taking a brief peer at his chat that was flooding with all types of questions. they wanted to see you, they wanted to see gojo’s pretty roommate who he’s always rambling about on stream. clearing his throat, he runs a hand through his hair before pitching his tone. he tries to sound more attractive but ends up butchering right away, stuttering at his first pathetic sentence. “ i- i didn’t think you’d get here so early. how was the exam?”

“it was … fine,” you mumble, barely acknowledging his words. your mind was racing vigorously, trying to process how you’d just seen your roommate half naked. going up behind him, you lean in towards his neat set up—you grew a bit curious, immediately, your eyes meet the other eyes that stare back at you. near the top right displayed his large following of eight hundred thousand, the top left displays his current view count, a whopping amount of almost twelve thousand. peeking at the chat, you’re met with dozens of freshly new comments saying how pretty you are, asking if you’re his girlfriend he always talks about, and so on. “you’re a camboy?”

“heh, camboy’s kind of an exaggeration but,” and he’s nervous, you can hear the slight tremor in his voice. it’s cute, gojo was prepared for you to judge him for his side hustle but instead you don’t. he relaxes a bit, shifting his attention away from his crude chat and towards you. “i like to label myself as a um, streamer..”

you have a growing simper. “i don’t think streamers usually get naked for their audience,” and you take a quick stare at his attire—he was practically shirtless, his boxers were covered although he was wearing some kind of tank that had ‘submissive and breedable’ printed on the very front. you furrow your eyebrow, though you choose not to question it. his nervously sly smile only grows once he catches your eyes quite literally checking him out. glancing at the comments again, you hum. “why do they keep asking if i’m your girlfriend? you don’t have a girlfr-”

“woah, s-shut up!” he whines, cupping a hand over your mouth. you giggle, feeling the warmth of his palm rub against your lips. gojo lowers his voice, speaking in a faint whisper. “they think you’re my girlfriend,” and he peels his hand away before running a finger down his nape. “i told them that because-”

“satoru,” you roll your eyes, noticing how he was quite stiff with his body language. being this close to you, your mere elegant fragerence was so exhilarating for him. you made him this nervous, truth be told ; you were far too caught up in your academics to even realize your roommate had a little crush on you. however, you do wish you found out in a more … non less of a lewd way, a way where he wasn’t caught red-handed fondling with a pair of your pretty sage-colored panties. with a sigh, you mumble to him. “you wanna fuck, don’t you?”

that’s definitely not what he thought you was gonna say,

with pouty shimmery lips, gojo’s eyes widen before a sheepish grin marinates against his features. “pft. do i wanna fuck, whaaat?” and he doesn’t even last a second before sighing, dropping his head down in defeat. “y-yes..”

the ringing from his monitor — dozens of women sending him gifts, tickets, donations, begging for their favorite camboy to notice him only gets more disruptive.

the ringing grows louder, the repetitive chiming sound of bells, the blaring notification it makes whenever someone sends him a sweet contribution. pretty soon, he was on the verge of meeting yet another goal. ever since you got spotted on the stream, his viewer count doubled.

“well, why didn’t you just ask? besides, there’s other ways than using my panties to get off.” and a wave of embarrassment washes over his face. the towel’s still covering his torso before he shoots you a shy smile. any closer you could’ve got to him and he thought he was gonna explode. the heat radiating from you had his head going in a crazed ditz. stroking his cheek, you speak softly.

“i’m sorry,” he whines, bottom lip poking out. you end up sitting flat on his lap, and instinctively, the curvature of your waist was met with two big hands snaking around it. you’re so pretty like this, he wanted you so so bad. swallowing, he peeks towards his chat before you cup both of his temples to stare right back into your eyes. “i was gonna ask you but- but i’ve never done this, you know,” and the way you slide a finger behind his neck, skimming the texture of your middle finger down his undercut snatches a purr from him. “i- i want you, but i just don’t know what to do with like .. i wanna make sure that i don’t embarrass myself.”

oh, he couldn’t have been any more cuter,

you heard the slight crack in gojo’s voice at the end of his candied sentences before you sling your arms over him. “don’t be embarrassed,” you softly reply, still straddling his lap. “i can always show you how.” and he gulps, your voice was smooth as silk. sweet as honey, the more you strum your thumb down his undercut, the more he can hear the rapid pulse of his heart beat throb through his ears. the simplicity of your touch was enough to have him weak.

“please..” he murmurs in a hushed tone, loving the way how gentle, how tender you were with your touch. gojo mewls out a needy whimper, feeling a sudden tent rise near between his legs. he was hard, you’d giften him a pretty solid boner and whilst you were propped up on his lap, you felt it rub against you all too well.

gojo awaits for you to make the first move, but you’re teasing . . seeing if he was going to initiate, and he does, inching his sheeny lips into yours.

your roommate pulls you into a deep kiss, he tastes like candy, candied. with your arms still occupied, wrapping around him, you glide your tongue against his, parting lips, teeth clashing amongst each other in sync. you could hear the faint sounds of whimpers run from his lips, he doesn’t exactly know what to do with his hands though—so gingerly, a hand of his strums down your back, giving the fabric that stuck against your skin a soft yank. he wanted you, the strain beneath his half on boxers only grows the more he starts to suck on your tongue.

heavy, wheezing breaths collide against each other, hitting each moving muscle like a wave,

he’s so eager,

gojo’s mind clears everything out of his head and he’s just focused on you. the saccharine tang of your signature lip gloss, he tastes it and it’s so delicious.

through cerulean-pristine hazed peripherals, gojo looks towards his chat to read some of the comments . .

chososdoublehomicide: i miss choso

zorosthroatwarmer293: i wanna be gojo >:( she’s so pretty

secksybabeamy: Hey hot stuff ;) Subscribe to my only fans!

throatgoatemily: His whines omg

as the kiss deepens, gojo whines once your hand slithers its way down between his legs. slowly removing the towel that sheaths his exposed body, you feel against his dick. at first touch, he whimpers, then whines, then whimpers again.

he was so pent up—you could feel it, you were gentle with your fingers, brushing it against the length of his dick before gently wrapping a hand around its girth. gojo moans in your mouth, feeling hitched breaths arise from his lungs. he could never get enough of how fucking sweet you were,

and he didn’t even want to.

pulling away for a long gasp of fresh air, he bites his lip as he looks down to feel your hands stroke his cock. gojo had quite the staggering inches on him, he shivers at how precise your hand movements were—

up and down,

with a hand of yours gripping over his fat length, a thumb of yours runs down the vein that coats his shaft. its pulsing, he’s needy for more of your touch so bad that it sends shockwaving static to rigorously coarse through his bouquet of neurons.

“y-your hand feels so much better than mine, heh,” he breathes, swallowing the imaginary balled up lump that resides near the back of his throat. blue irises, dilated and all stares at you—a hand reaches towards your back before his thigh starts to bounce. “not to be weird but i kinda had a dream about this, angel.”

“a dream about me stroking you?” you hum, amused before sneaking a wet kiss near the crook of his twitching lips.

gojo nods wearily, forever deeply captured by your beauty. your hands swiftly resumes to stroke him, feeling the tender skin that lives near his frenulum peel back every few seconds. gojo moans, burying his face into the very depths of your neck. so desperate, he wanted more and more. “aw, is this too much? should i slow down?”

“no.. don’t stop,” and his desperate plea was so sweet, though he wanted to go further. you giggle once he suddenly lifts you up, dragging you towards the bed. “f-fuck, ‘m sorry. can’t wait anymore,” and he hovers over you with that crazed look of total desire. “can i … eat you out?”

with a coy smile, you’re laid on your back as he just stands over you — eyes gawking at your entire physique, the way your thighs were all out with the short hem of your shorts reaching against your ass. you could tell gojo was impatient, that hungry stare in his eye never once faded.

“yeah,” you coo, parting your legs slowly. oh, you were a fucking tease.

not only were you a tease for him, you were a simple force to be reckoned with. no panties on either, gojo felt himself get hard yet again before he kneels down. with your roommate positioning himself between your legs, he lets off a soft sigh.

combing your fingers through his soft tangles, he looks up at you with a craving yet impish expression. you giggle, making him look right into your eyes. peering at his chat that was going ballistic over his girlfriend, you speak in a soft tone. “do you know how to even eat pussy, ‘toru? i can h-”

“girl i know how to eat pussy,” he grumbles, and he sounds almost offended at you asking if he needed any sorts of help.

sure—gojo literally didn’t know the first thing of eating a woman out, maybe visually.

but now that he’s up close, he has to stop himself from folding right then and there. so soaked, he gets a full view of your slick entrance, your pussy was the prettiest thing he’s laid his eyes upon so far.

as he’s a few inches a apart, with sprawled open thighs—the last thing you’d expect was for to gojo to start drooling all on your cunt. a stringy, syrupy concoction of his own saliva pours out of his mouth and onto your folds. just a quick glimpse and he’s pussy drunk. fuck, he’s more embarrassed than he’s ever been but he can’t help it. gojo didn’t even get a taste and he’s already salivating at the sight of your sopping wet arousal. a thumb of yours wipes the spit that dribbles near the corner of his mouth and he whines at your touch again before he finally digs in.

lolling out his tongue, the very tip licks near the inner moistened entrance of your pulled out labia. gojo for probably the umpteenth time lays his tongue flat before he goes all in. a broad left hand of his attach towards the fat of your thigh as he remakes a long striping lick. “s-shiiit, ‘toru.” you gasp, the coldness on his tongue taking you by sheer surprise.

the texture of it .. you’re weak, gnawing on metaphoric bars of your enclose as well as the skin on your lip, you whine.

for someone who’s never had much experience, let alone no experience, you’d easily second guess. your back arches forward while gojo’s tongue rummages through every part of your clit. he sucks on your nub, closing his eyes and fully sinks into bliss. gojo’s pristine white brows cock into a furrow before he slides a thumb down your wet entrance. he just can’t get over how wet you were for him. sopping wet, inept lips of his constantly quivers before he gives your cunt a sweet kiss.

wet for him, he breaks his lips away for a few seconds just to smear his face against your pussy.

“m-mhm,” he whimpers, wanting your scent to linger on his face for as long as it could, your scent .. it was hard to not get obsessed, a few minutes in and he already felt his mouth watering.

as bundles of minuscule taste buds of his tingle with excitement — his tongue swiftly swirls through every orifice, not missing any spot. he searched through the gooey crevices of your walls, lips moving in complete tandem. his dick strains between his thighs that it’s almost painful.

if eating you out tasted this good, he only imagined what it’d feel like to be inside,

shoved deep into your pussy, stuffing you full with his luscious thickset inches . .

that same repeated whine that always sounds raw dies straight out of your esophagus, you yank on the strands of your roommate’s messy hair as his pace quickens by a mile. in the midst of devouring your heat, a broad hand of his caresses near the juncture of your thighs—he kisses the long slope inside of your entrance, lips all glossy and glittering with gloss thanks to you. that same panging throb starts to grow within you again. your toes curl up tightly before your eyes meet the drywall splattered on the ceiling. his tongue, the way it continues to scrabble all through every part of your cunt, he grows addicted almost immediately. gojo can’t help but lather a few sloppy kisses on your folds, sliding his tongue through your slit.

he even starts to tongue fuck you, softly thrusting the swollen tip of his tongue in and out until you’re about to whine out again for him.

that was his favorite part by far, pushing his tongue in and out of your puffy folds — relishing the way your pretty pussy coats the underside of his chin with a lustrous amount of sweet, burnished slick.

“ngh, ‘toru,” you’d wail, and your hips start to jitter against his face. he doesn’t mind . . in fact, gojo brings two hands to grip against the curves of your hips.

once he maintains a secure grasp, he lets you rub your wetness all over him. with his tongue thoroughly exploring in every part, he starts to whine too .. so eager to touch himself but he wants to keep his hands on you. a whiny whimper wrenches from the back of your throat before you start to babble. “satoru, ‘m gonna cum, fuuuck. jus’ like that, keep l-lickin’ there, baby.”

he was such a quick learner, part of you thinks he maybe had more experience than you oughta thought. gojo can’t help but attack your sweet syrupy folds with a multitude of kisses, drooling lips of his making you more sticky than you already were. your legs could barely hold themselves open.

he had to pry them open with clammy hands, slurping in every drop as if he was dehydrated with thirst. a thirst you happily quenched with him being propped between your legs. after a while, he runs a thumb down your slit once more, pretty eyes glancing up at you, wanting to see your sweet face. “a-am i doin’ a good job?” and his voice was a bit hoarse, the way he speaks, drooping eyes and a sheepish grin—visibly pussy drunk, you grab onto his strands before rocking your hips into his mouth. he giggles, muffled noises eliciting from his mouth, taking your eager jittery movements as a yes.

he just couldn’t get enough of his roommate’s taste.

occasionally, he likes to depart his lips to gather a nice concoction of saliva—only to then spit right onto your sopping folds, whining at how it was so shiny. so pretty, he’s mesmerized again at how it looks, and you end up cumming with the cutest shrieking orgasm. it snatches out of you roughly, your speech is slurred for a moment as your legs quaver in utmost pleasure.

you’re shaking, feeling him clean you up with the flatness of his tongue—gojo moans, white lashes fluttering as he takes your beauty in. this was so much better than one of his risqué wet dreams. so much better,

without even a single word leaving from his lips, he gets up to pull you into a kiss. almost immediately, you taste yourself that lingers on his tounge. it tastes sweet, gojo props himself between your thighs as you sit up, a free hand of his sliding between your stretched out legs. the constant rings of his donations continue to scream out that same annoying chime before he leans in to shut his computer. he’d probably have left so many—thousands of his fan girls devastated, but there was only a new fan girl he was fixated on.

you.

gojo was addicted, with tongues colliding against each other, hot breaths wafting against each own, he feel his breath hitch at your touch. a hand of yours snakes down to feel on his erect dick. he whines, gnawing at the bottom of your lip before his tongue gets more curious. he licks the bottom of your chin, the side of your mouth, only to then pull you into another deep kiss. “f-fuck, ‘m so hard,” he rasps between sultry kisses, heaving from each breath. you still couldn’t get over the taste of yourself that loiters all on the flat of his pink tongue. “i wanna feel you from the inside, angel.”

“but your stream,” you tease once he finally pulls away, taking a second to catch your breath yourself. you felt the heat roam across the room before stroking his cheek — flushed lips of his burn with such intensity, you had him feral. “your fans, i wouldn’t wanna interrupt them, ‘toru.”

“fuck them,” he pouts, the cute frown on his face tugging against his lips. “okay that’s mean, they help me pay rent but just- i want you right now,” and he’s so needy. he paws at your t-shirt, glossy eyes widening, god. his bottom lip pokes out, squinting for two seconds before seeing how your nipples invitingly poke out. so perky, he could feel his mouth watering sporadically. he lays you back before swallowing, a loud gulp before he hovers over you. “you knew this was gonna happen, didn’t y-you? such a tease.”

you simper, opening your legs for him and he gets a good glimpse. gojo sucks his teeth, still so soaked. he only dreamt of what you’d feel like inside.

probably so tight and warm,

the more he thinks about it, the more he could feel himself starting to drool. gojo’s panting as if he’d just finished a marathon. a hand of his wraps around his length—giving it a few solid pumps. “i thought you’d wanna do doggy for your first position,” you sweetly say, and oh, he pouts for you again. you sit up, awaiting for him to take the lead first before smiling. “missionary though? you’re not so good with eye contact, baby.”

“i know how to do missonry.” he grumbles.

“missionary,” you correct him with a titter.

he pouts again, preparing to align himself. so wet, your pussy was sopping wet, swollen from just being eaten out so good. a warm breath fans out through his lips before he rubs it against your slippery slit. “and don’t call me baby,” he moans, although the simple pet name for him a lot harder than he thought it would. slowly, gojo’s fat leaky tip continues to ghost against your folds. you hold back a sweet moan, laid all out on display for him on the mattress. he’s waited for this moment, had dreams about it, even fantasized about it. “fuck,” he’d huff out, and his voice cracks. you’d laugh but he’s staring at you the entire time with that cute pouty expression. “can- can we hold hands? for you know, leverage?”

“leverage, sure,” you play along, your fingers locking against his. damp, perspiring palms squeeze against yours before his rounded tip starts to slowly make its way inside. immensely, a breath gets caught in his throat and he whines. the warmth he’s rudely greeted with makes him gnaw his pearly whites together. “you’re kinda b-big, so go a little slow, ‘toru.”

“i’m big?” he repeats—cutely enough, it boosts his ego that you think so, yet his confidence fades the further he dumps a few hefty inches into your entrance. as you expected, you were a bit tight and stiff for a few seconds—unyielding against him for a moment, you moan. saying gojo was big was a mere understatement, he couldn’t help but lean in to lay against your chest. “how’s it feel? s-slower?”

“it’s good. that’s good,” you start to heave, gasping once he inches his head closer to latch his lips against your neglected cold nipples. he doesn’t even lift up your t-shirt, he runs his tongue through the fabric and sucks on your perked tits. “t-toru, fuckk.”

it was a soft twinge sensation at first before he’s close to bottoming out . . so close,

it’s at the moistened tip of his tongue. gojo’s shaft resumes to go in further, you feel him pulse inside before once he’s all the way in, he’s already out of breath. with his mouth occupied—he’s still sucking on your nipples through the shirt, whiney. a free hand of his runs gives your left thigh a nice firm grasp before he starts up a single few thrusts.

you whine, tossing your arms over him and he glances down at you—beads of sweat race down the sides of his brow before he sits up in a proper position. gojo can’t get over how pretty you look for him like this, he’s fully in and he sneaks a kiss onto your lips. “can i m-move?” and the falter in his voice was adorable, gojo’s breath continues to get more heavy before you give him a nod. he peppers various kisses near your mouth, neck, and of course, your precious chest. his personal favorite,

with frail arms wrapped around him, pulling him close—you run your ankle down his back and he moans. “oh, ‘s even better than i imagined,” he whispers against your ear, hot breath sending you antsy judders. the more his breath goes against your skin, the more you smell how minty it was. fresh, you desperately yearned for more so you pull him into another kiss for the nth time. “ugh. the way you clamp down, ‘s gonna kill me,” he babbles in a low puff. he’s speaking between staring up at decent pace for you to get accustomed to. you whimper, trying to get adjusted to his barreling length but he was just so fucking big. it was an ongoing rumor that between gojo—and his best friend suguru geto had the top biggest dicks. of course, you always wondered exactly how whoever started that rumor would even know, but gojo was definitely a packer. he stretched you out in ways you’ve never felt before. with strained breaths, he coats your mouth with many wet kisses. time and time again, the feeling of himself going into you raw has him drooling again. “pussy’s so wet, ‘m gonna die, oh my god.”

“don’t be dramatic, you’re not gonna die.” you try to reassure him. the grip on your hand only grows tighter, crimson lips of his suck against the underside of your chin.

so damn needy,

mussed strands of white tickle against your forehead the closer he presses his body into you. gojo was shivering, just a few minutes in pussy and as if it was a game—he’d be on the last level, game over. albeit, you feel it too. the warmth, it turns into a sweltering hot. as his hips rock, his whines start to become more vocal. he sneaks a hand down to feel the area that’s being stuffed, a thumb skims against your tummy before he moans,

“feel me t-there, yeah?” he whispers, a cute attempt at dirty talk but alas, it’s subtle. gojo easily folds once your eyes meet his gaze.

you moan, intertwining your fingers with his, moaning out a soft, “yeah,” and you sound out of breath yourself.

he’s jerking back and forth — his pace, his tempo . . wasn’t too slow or two fast, perfect.

with a quivering bottom lip, he leans in to lick against the outer shell of your ear. your cunt’s singing in harmony, sloshes of wet that leaves its metaphoric vocal cords and you start to get a bit louder. “f-fuck, ‘toru right there—fuuuck.”

“s-shit, you’re so pretty,” he pants, repeating his ways at coating your entire face with his wet kisses. you had him weak, entirely. you found it a bit silly considering how this could have happened anytime—anytime at all, all he had to do was ask. but gojo being gojo, he was not only a man with barely any experience, but he was nervous. he’s always had a bit of a crush on you but confessing sounded way scary. it was as if this entire thing was mere coincidence though, you happen to find out he’s not only a sloppy eater but,

he’s a camboy.

part of you wonders what he does on his streams. if you saw him rubbing one off while thinking about you—you could only imagine what other lewd antics he participated in.

gojo’s rutting into you at a much more quicker pace, he’s whining into your neck;

forgetting to praise you, and it’s more of the other way around. you’re cupping his face, stroking his cheek before repeating in that same melodic voice, “good boy, ‘s so good, makin’ me feel good, ‘toru baby.”

your voice, oh your voice, he could listen to it all day. you feel the constant twitch of his cock inside you and he whines every time your ankle rubs down his back. with the way your pussy holds him hostage— it’s so provocative, his reaction time was as slow as a sloth, droopy eyes stare at you before he grunts out a pleading, “f-fuck, ‘s gonna come,” and his voice sounds like a soft purr, gojo was like a kitten to you— so cute, his pout always make things more true too. he’s groaning in your ear, fat balls thwacking against you before his ears starts to ring. you’re moaning with him, bodies thrusting in sync that it’s almost like a pornographic choreography. “ugh, i- i feel it, ‘m gonna cum so much. so hot, gonna die.”

“breathe, baby,” you whisper, pulling his face closer to you. his chubby cheeks squish together once he’s within your grasp, the sharp piston of his hips makes you moan. his thrusts gets a bit sloppy and you press a kiss onto his mouth. “mwah,” you hum, watching how flustered he gets at a lick of your affection. “you wanna finish inside, don’t you?”

gojo whimpers. “yeah, yeah. really bad,” and the moment you suggest that, his ears perk cutely. he’s gotta be careful though—with a cunt as addicting as yours, he just might end up falling in love.

speaking of love, it’s as if heart eyes pour into his irises as he glances at you—again, metaphorically of course. gojo gulps at the tender touch of your fingers, leaning in to nip a kiss near your neck. through muffled words, he mewls. “i wanna fill you up. ‘s only fair since you’re milking me s-so much, ‘m so thirsty,” and he’s just babbling, pulling him close—he whines once he feels your finger glide through his sensitive undercut again. “hngh, gonna break me. let me make a mess in you please? i’ll even eat it out of you once ‘m done.”

you’re tempted at his pleads, giggling before dragging him into a deep kiss. “such a blabbermouth,” you tease between kisses, staring to feel the tears of sweat race down the sides of your forehead also— with a sly smile, you lick the drool that was about to run down the side of his lip. “finish in me, ‘toru. it’s okay. be my messy boy.”

his eyes dilated once he hears that,

your messy boy.

he even repeats it, “y-your messy boy, yeah, ‘m so messy for you, roomie,” and as he’s preparing for his inevitable release, he sinks into your warm embrace. “one more kiss, h-hold me.” and as if on command, you yoke his head in close, giving him a deep, passionate kiss. his pulsing heart beats through his ears. gojo—by this point, he was already whipped. the way his hips pick up, growing more sloppy and deranged—he’s feral.

the feverish under parts of his thighs burn, longing for its incoming conclusion climax—yet, as your smoldering heat gnashes against his, it finally comes.

with a primal gasp, it’s here.

the nirvana—euphoria, whatever it could have been called to describe this feeling, it was here.

gojo whimpers, going into a complete spazzing fit once he feels the slow orgasmic waves of himself starting to shoot literal humid blanks inside you.

it’s hot, parching hot— your heat against smelts his, it scratches a fervor itch in your brain. his tongue rummages the inside of your mouth again as he’s painting the insides of your gummy walls with his snowy white color.

satiny ropes of your roommate’s seed trickle into you, it’s so gooey and hot that it starts to stick against the inner parts of your thighs. each rough kiss reflects the same desire the both of you share before he shudders.

slow thrusts, he’s barely moving as fast as he was before but he’s still active. he wants to make sure you feel every inch he’s saved for you,

for weeks, months, maybe even years—

“god,” he whimpers out, pulling away from your glossed lips—a pretty cobweb of spit departs from each and he happily laps it up with his tongue. who knew your roommate was nothing more than a mere freak.

not you, not by a long shot.

it takes a moment for him to catch his breath, with a flustered look— gojo’s now clingy.

he doesn’t wanna move away from you, nor does he wanna exactly pull out. not just yet, he’s plugged you full of sticky cum that was threatening to ooze of your hole before he kisses the bridge of your nose. “that was so awesome.”

and just like that, the mood’s ruined—you pant, he’s hovering over you, his weight barely on you before you sigh.

“you know,” you change the subject, brushing a thumb against his cheek. “your moans, you sound more like a girl than me, ‘s kinda hot.”

“whaaat?” he grumbles, his sweetened pout forever returning. “that’s not nice, ‘n besides if it’s anyone who moans louder it’s you, angel.”

you kiss near the twitching corner of his lip, watching his sudden attitude shift like a light switch and he’s now a puddle. “you finished a bit early though,” and with your arms wrapping around him again, you speak in a soft voice. “wanna go again? you’re a natural, ‘toru.”

“please,” he whines with a nod, feeling how sweltering hot it felt to be still buried into the comforting tightness of your cunt. “this time, i wanna try doggy.”

“okay, pretty boy,” you tease, leaning in for another one of gojo’s sloppy, need kisses. just before he could pull out, the door springs open. the hinges scream once it pulls back and the two of you both look to see what the racket was.

as the door opens, it was geto—gojo’s best friend, and he had the most disgusted look on his face.

with a scrunched up face, he utters. “i’m never running errands for you two again, what the actual fuck.”

and as he turns his heel to leave, gojo snorts. “suguboooo! aw, don’t leave just yet. you can always joinnn.”

6K notes · View notes

every1woo · 2 months ago

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okay wait so bcs im on my laptop and copy paste in tumblr tags on desktop are weird all the tags are weirdly out of order so very sorry for the confusion... hopefully it still makes some sense but here are post thoughts :D

update: fixed it but had to cut some tags on that last post out 😢 and just fixed these ones too 😁

𝒯𝑂: 𝑆𝑂𝑀𝐸𝑂𝑁𝐸 𝐹𝑅𝑂𝑀 𝐴 𝑊𝐴𝑅𝑀 𝐶𝐿𝐼𝑀𝐴𝑇𝐸 ༉

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

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

wc ➳ 20.2k

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

warnings angst, heated kissing, violence, blood, jealousy jealousy jealousy, controlling and obsessive behavior, a bit of a gross nightmare, magic spell places over a human, a bit of traditional values, i think that’s all…

playlists ⑊ yeonjun ˒ taehyun ˒ series

…🪶 ashlynn's note guys. really. that’s all i have to say. i love u and once again if u see a typo or like whack sentence…… no you didn’t. also my back hurts help

← ⑊ →

You’ve come to a thought, in all your aimless idling about the estate. Running your fingers over the surface of all the things you’ve done and the decisions you’d made leading you into this reality, you’ve been caught on one particularly worrisome divot: the geas.

They hadn’t exactly given you a time frame, but you surmise that you’re quickly approaching the limit. You've entertained the fantasy that they’ll just consider the both of you dead, but it’s just that: fantasy. You know it’s a ridiculous thought. There’s a plethora of things that they might first assume before coming to the conclusion that you’ve met your ends. Though the geas’ workings are a bit elusive to you, you can imagine that all it would take is a tug to check whether or not you’re alive. So, if you ever really wanted to call this place home, you’ve got to do away with it. You’ve got to. Otherwise, all your wagering to stay here would be in terrible vain. You imagine how much of a fool you already look to Taehyun, considering your entanglement with the prince, and how he’d warned you repeatedly. It’s not your fault that he decided to stay here along with you, but you feel nauseous imagining your own mistakes getting the both of you killed.

Embroidering whorling designs on the hems of your coverlets or sweating away your energy with practicing blocks and parries, you’d also let your mind wander off to fill the silence. It was then that you’d remembered what Beomgyu had offered you in his attempts at luring you. I could dissolve that geas for you.

You sit, legs spread out ahead of you, in the little spot that you’ve found yourself frequenting these days: pressed against the side of your wardrobe, just enough room for your feet to brush against the wood framing of your bed without having to bend your knees. Taehyun has recently been bringing an influx of faeries to work the estate—all indebted to him or his father. Or, well, that’s what he tells you, anyway. You choose to believe him, but still, you wonder about the circumstances of those debts. The brownie assigned to your care, named Conifer, is long-limbed with bark for skin that crawls up from her spindly fingers and toes, just to end at her shins and fore-arm, and insists on bathing you and preparing your clothes each day. When you refuse her, she loiters around the doorway anxiously watching you prepare yourself with her watery black eyes until you decide to make her life just a bit easier and allow her to do her work. You don’t exactly adore the scrape of her sharp fingers on your scalp while she does your tresses up, though. Their presence reminds you of the servants you’d see running around Yeonjun’s place.

In this corner, you avoid them. It’s a nice spot to betray your own resolution; his letters are only a grab of the handles away. You try not to, but you read them. Often. When your memories really get kicking, when you’re sickened by twinkling, desperate eyes looking up to you from the ground, you read them.

“You look sorry.” Beomgyu settles opposite from you, his back against your bed.

Scoffing at him, you pull yourself out of a slouch. “Oh, wow. Thank you. You have a way with words,” you quip, hiding the letters you’d fished out indulgently away behind you.

He furrows his brows. “I meant it.”

You drag in some air and release it slow. “I know. I’m sure I do.”

He points at you with the hand he has rested on his knee. “Does it have something to do with the letters?”

You hadn’t hidden them fast enough. Shame crawls a warm red path over your cheeks and ears. Nobody has made any comments at you for your longing, but it feels pitiful to be doing so. You shake your head. “No. I was just... thinking. About something you said when we first met.”

Strong brows shoot up over lazed eyes. “I think I said many things,” he says, “you’ll have to tell me.”

“That you could dissolve my geas,” you say, fiddling with your fingers.

His eyes consider you. “It bothers you.”

“It does,” you say. “It was a mistake. I should’ve refused it.” Hope flutters in your chest like a dead weight. You shun it away before reality can rip it out for you.

Deadpanned, and not particularly delicately, he tells you, “I cannot break it.”

Nodding, you wilt. It’s what you were expecting, anyway. That would be too easy. "Why not? You said it yourself that you could.”

“A geas is a type of magic cut from the fabric of a promise. It’ll exist until the faerie that placed it over you chooses to revoke it. I couldn’t reach in and cut the line like I would another sort of enchantment.” He presses his mouth into a line. “I was under the impression that you were brought up here. Hadn’t you known that a promise is binding?”

Wincing, you answer, “Yeah. I did.” And yet, you made it. It was perhaps the biggest mistake you’ve made in your entire life. You now understand Taehyun’s aversion when he first made his appearance at the den. You were too tunnel-visioned to really listened to him, then. You run your hands furiously through your hair. “Still... you said you could. How did you say that, if it was a lie?”

A wicked smile cracks over his lips—one that looks as though he’s sharing a joke that only the both of you might understand, but you’re far from being in on it with him. “A bit late to be learning how our kind play, I believe. I was able to say that because I made myself think it true. It is not plain, and it is not fair, but it’s what it is.”

“That makes no sense,” you say, shaking your head. “You can’t believe something is true over what you already know is the truth. You’d have to acknowledge the other thing’s truth to do that.”

He grimaces. “That you believe that is why you’ve found yourself here. It’s paradoxical, maybe, but we’re good at that. Loopholes exist where you look hard enough for them. If you don’t intend to get caught up, you just never accept a Faerie deal, there’s no other way to it.”

Running fingers over the grooves in the wood of the floor, you say, “I suppose I shouldn’t ask you to work up an enchantment that might counteract it, then.”

“Perhaps I could,” he says.

Perked up and mouth dropped open, you’re ready to ask him a waterfall of questions. He cuts in before you can even start. “It wouldn’t rid you of the original magic, and I can make no promises to you that it’d be watertight.”

“I’ll take anything,” you say. With narrowed eyes, you add, “After that whole speech about finding loopholes to lie, and to never trust faerie magic, though...”

He frowns at you. “I see how it is.”

“What? I mean, you said it a few seconds ago. I think getting tripped up into another Faerie trick, like, literally seconds after you warned me about them would be a bit ironic.”

“We’re no longer friendly,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest.

You laugh. Him considering you friends is news to you. The word is delicious. You want to say it more. “Oh, please. We’re only friends when it benefits you. How can I be so sure you aren’t tricking me?”

“Now, we’re really not friendly.”

A laugh bubbles past your lips once again, and you crawl over to him to try and make amends. “You’re the one who said it.”

He turns his face from you. “Spare me.”

“Seriously though, do you mean it? That you’d help me?” you ask. The proposition is too shiny to not consider.

“It’s not as if I could harm you in any way,” he tells you, dropping the theatrics. “I think I’d like something in return for it, though.”

You frown. Of course, in Faerie, there are no favors. “What would you want?”

The kelpie’s eyes roam over your room for a moment, but it’s mostly for show, because his eyes come back on you with intent. He lifts his head at you in a pointing gesture. “Those letters,” he says.

Frown deepening, you sit back. “The letters?” you say, trying to rein in your face. You don’t want him to see how awfully you want to cling to them. Having them is inconsequential when stood beside dealing with the geas, but still... “The ones from Yeonjun?”

Eyes dancing with interest, he nods. “Those.”

You pull them from behind you. They look a lot less pretty now, envelopes dented with your touches. You can’t see why he’d have any interest in them; they weren’t even for him. “Why?” you ask him. “They’re just letters.”

Beomgyu nod his head in acknowledgment. “They are,” he says. “So why do they bother you as they do?”

Pausing, you consider his words. Why do they? Yeonjun is a liar. You weren’t special—just a mission to him. You should hate him; seeing those letters full of flowery words and proclamations of love should anger you. And they do, they do anger you, but that doesn’t stop you from reading them. You’re not sure what you’re searching for in them. Closure? Proof of his lies? Or, excuses?

Beomgyu has no interest in the letters. It’s his way of telling you that you need to grow a spine. You suppose it’s about time that you do just that.

“Here.” You push them off into his hands. “You’ll do it, then?”

The corners of his lips turn up. “Maybe...”

You hiss and reach for your letters, but he tugs them toward himself and holds them safe out of your reach.

“Give those back, you prick,” you say. “You don’t get them for free. It’s called a deal. You said you’d help me.”

With his eyes dancing with wild mischievous intent, he pretends to think. “Did I?”

You land a smack on his upper arm, groaning when it only sends his face more viciously taunting. That playing glint in his eyes is welcomed, though. At least you know he’s only playing. Otherwise, you might be more worried that he is genuinely screwing you over. “Stop playing tricks,” you say, furled out from gritted teeth. “You know you did. This is what got you here in the first place, idiot. I’m being serious.”

His lip curls, and he relents. “Do not remind me.”

“Didn’t you learn your lesson the first time?” you say, sending eyes with dagger points his way. “C’mon. Magic.”

Looking kicked, he grabs your hand. It sends you back to the day you’d gotten that awful geas and the way Cricket had done the same thing. You’re going to fix that mistake.

“I was just having my fun. I suffer a terrible drought of it here.”

Your skin tickles, and you know he’s working on it. Heart doing nervous laps, you say, “Well, look whose roof we live under. It’s no wonder.”

He likes that, wicked delight crackling over his features in just the same way his magic crackles through your veins. It’s a far cry from the last time you’d felt a sensation like this. It feels as though a beast of the wild is crashing through your bones like they’re hollow. It’s untamed, but you know just by the thrumming of it that his magic is much more refined and ancient than the geas’. Its claws brush up against your very core.

You try and blink away the daze, deciding to distract yourself away from it with speech. “You know, I was thinking.”

He raises his eyebrows, listening. His magic doesn’t falter as he offers you his attention; no need for his concentration. Not when he’s had centuries to become intimately familiar with it.

“That maybe Yeonjun is a gancanagh,” you continue.

A gancanagh—sugar-mouthed faeries with the power to send those around them enamored with them with only as much as their words. They’re better known for their other, and in your opinion more fitting, name: love-talker. You’d been so taken by Yeonjun, so weakened by him. The idea that perhaps it was all to the effect of some magic... You’re not sure whether it consoles you or makes it hurt more. Then again, it could also just be you trying to justify the mistakes you’d made. Your mind bends and twists around the thought, maybe the magic. Or, maybe, frustration.

“A gancanagh,” he says. Beomgyu considers the notion for a moment, but still works his magic through you. “I’m not sure.”

Not sure? You press the issue. “How are you not sure whether or not the prince is a gancanagh? I know you stay in your forest, but I imagine that you’d know that.”

“Hmm.” He turns your arm as if trying for a new angle. “I believe that the prince’s mother is one of the sorrier kinds that the High King takes. He has his Ladies, and he has his courtesans. It seems that he was not so proud of her, since her name never reached my lands.”

A bout of nausea rolls over your skull. His magic is so potent. The tidbit of information is enough to have you perking up despite it. “You think that his mother is a courtesan?”

“Well, I know she is not a favored Lady. I know nothing of her. She could be gancanagh, or she could be any other thing.” He shoots you a pointed look. “I’m curious as to why you ask.”

Skin clammy, you wipe at your cheek. “How long does this take?” you ask.

“As long as I make it take,” he says, tilting his head off to one side. “Why are you worried of the prince’s heritage?”

You know he’s fishing answers out of you. Shrugging, you tell him, “It was a genuine thought.”

Nausea and buzzing subside as he releases your arm. “The King has many children. Only some were really considered for their father’s throne, though. I know that the young prince was never one of them. I suggest thinking on that.”

You blow out a shuddering breath, controlled and small, to compose yourself under the weight of this new magic. “That’s it?” you ask, brushing some hair away from your face. “What did you do?”

“Mostly, blocked.”

“Elaborate,” you say, running fingers over your skin as if you might feel the magic there.

Taken with amusement, he answers, “If the one who placed the geas there tries and play that card, they’ll find the pathways blocked.” He slumps back onto your bed. “It does not mean that the original magic is gone. It is still very much there. Just... hindered.”

Your head swims. It’s not gone, but this... You know that your sleep will come to you easier now. Maybe it’s not foolproof, but this is much better. Much.

“No more deals,” he tells you. “You’ve only got so much of yourself. Each time you fill yourself up with our magic, you lose that space. You will never be whole again, but you ought to savor what you’ve got left. You can only make the best of it.” His mud brown eyes are not joking, now.

Blinking, you fumble out a nod.

You’ll never be whole again. You hope that’s more a clever wording than the truth, but with the chill that grips your belly and brushes over the overfilled parts of you, you fear you can’t help but believe it.

❆

You hate it.

Drowning in it—you hate it. You hate the scarlet red of it, you hate the sticky spray of it on your skin, hate the cries of agony that follow its ceremony, and the feel of its blazing warmth fresh from the body. You’re choking. Swimming up with thrashing arms, it’s so thick that you make no way.

The liquidity turns to sturdy arms. They cage you, grab your heart and twist, point daggers at your chest and they whisper words in your ears that you don’t want to remember. Your place is in the dirt, they say. You are nothing. A boot in your neck chokes you. You want to scream and cry that you are good, that you didn’t want to hurt them, that you’ll just mind your place if they take their boot off from your neck, but you can’t. You have no voice.

The metallic tang of the blood follows you, even as you find yourself standing in Court. It stains the muddy floor a wretched color. A thousand eyes blaze on your skin.

You feel them looking at you. You want them to stop, but they laugh and laugh. Yeonjun joins them, looking up at you with vile mock.

“You think I’d beg for you?” he sneers. His sweet voice is warped and twisted into something ugly and mean that grates at your ears and heart. His laugh echoes, and then you’re looking up at him as he hovers over you. “You don’t deserve my begging. I hate you.”

Metal burns your nose, and when you look between the two of you, he’s bleeding from the stomach—from the dagger you’d plunged there. He looks up at you, livid eyes piercing you. “Look. Look what you did. You killed me.”

You shake your head frantically, going to hold his face. You try to tell him no, no you didn’t—you didn’t kill him, but still—

Shooting up, you grasp for breaths and clutch at the bedding. Heart thudding in your chest, you find Taehyun stood in your doorway, looking dragged from sleep.

You adjust your sleep gown, disheveled with sleep and ridden up your thighs. Still piecing together consciousness, you croak out a, “Huh?”

There, tickling at the back of your mind, you still smell blood.

“I thought something was wrong,” he says, taking in the room with a thorough sweep. “You sounded...” Taehyun starts, but does not finish. “Since you’re doing fine, I’ll leave you to sleep.”

“Stay?” you blurt, before he can turn and leave you here. Your voice comes out thinner and more fragile than you’d meant it to.

Brows shooting up, Taehyun is hesitant to step into the room. “It’s probably hours before sunrise,” he says. “You don’t want to fall back asleep?”

You shake your head. No, you don’t. If you do, then you’ll be back to drowning. You might not even be able to fall asleep at this point. The taste lingers. You’re still panting a little when you say, “I don’t want to bother you, but... Please.”

Taehyun relents apprehensively, stopping just before the end of your bed. Moonlight blooms over his face from the window. It makes a show of his sharp cheek and jaw lines and emphasizes the feathering of his jaw around a hard swallow. “You were having a bad dream,” he says, an observation rather than a question. “About what?”

Him standing over you like that; it doesn’t feel so easy to tell him that you’re haunted by what you’ve done. You wince at him and send a gesture up. “You don’t have to stand there. You can sit here.” You pat at the opposite end of your bed.

He flexes one hand, a rare anxious gesture from him. “I wouldn’t just invite myself into a lady’s bed.”

Well, he didn’t have to put it like that.

You say, “I’m inviting you to sit down next to me, Taehyun...”

It’s a few moments before he does, bed dipping beneath him. Like this, it feels much less like an interrogation. Insects buzz outside, singing their song to the stars and mercifully filling up the moment that you take to pluck up composure. He watches you, but doesn’t say anything. He waits.

Catching a few strands of your scattered thoughts, you say, “Do you get nightmares sometimes? About the people you’ve killed?” It’s blunt and not much, but it’s all you have in you. It’s a thought that has served as a thorn in your side for quite a while now, too. Is it only you who’s had a prison made of their own mind?

Will it ever go away?

Resolutely, he shakes his head. “No. I don’t.”

“Oh.” You hold yourself a little harder, as if the chill that passes over you is a draft from the window and not bitter dread. “How? How can you not be bothered by it? They’re dead, and they’ll never be coming back. They had as many thoughts and wants as we did. They had mothers that might weep to know they’re gone. I can’t... I don’t stop thinking of them.”

“It’s a bit too late for me to start feeling sorry for it,” Taehyun says. “You can’t let it rule you. Not everybody is good, and they were not. If they try to hurt you, you hurt them first. If they lay their hands on you, you cut them off.”

You grow tense as he explains, eyes so heavy that you can practically feel the dark hollows beneath them. “Not even when you hurt someone for the first time? It didn’t bother you then?”

He eyes you. The pine smell of him so close to you is both familiar and a distant memory. “I saw blood too early for it to ever haunt me.”

Turning finally, you find his eyes. “I feel so guilty.” Your body buzzes with the need to curl into him, to have him comfort you for it, but you know that he won’t receive it the way you want him to. The way Yeonjun had.

But you need it. You need it so bad right now.

“That won’t absolve it. Guilt will not raise them from the dead,” he says. It’s forthright, but he doesn’t mean it to disconcert you. “You’re tearing yourself up inside, but there’s justice in protecting yourself.”

Swallowing around tension, you nod. He’s right; you had every right to kill those times. You’ve known that the whole time. So, why does it still visit you in the deep hours of the night? You chant his words in your head, as if to beat them into your skull. If you try hard enough, you will.

“What happens?” he asks, when the both of you have been quiet for too long. It’s strange to see him making attempts to fill silence. “In the dreams, what happens?”

Shifting into a cozier position, you lean into the headboard by your shoulder. Some of the adrenaline has worked itself away, but remembering it is still bitter.

You don’t miss the flickering of his eyes over the expanse of your thigh. You might’ve explained it away as a quick glance if that... look had not passed over his face. Restraint—darting eyes and his throat bobbing. It seems that his concern about being in your bed was about more than just propriety.

“Mostly, blood.” You make a distraction out of the hemming of your blanket, pinching and picking at it. “So much of it. Sometimes the dreams are different, but... it’s always the common theme.”

Acknowledging that, he dips his head in a slow, shallow nod. “We’ll start training you on the bow, then.”

“The bow?” you ask.

“I think that the long range will be better for you,” Taehyun elaborates.

You drink his face in once more. In it, you see him reaching out a hand—it’s shaky and awkward and untrained. But under all that, you see that he’s trying. In the silver moonlight, the bow does not look so bad.

Taehyun doesn’t leave you until dawn cracks through the windows.

❆

You wish that you had your gloves. It’s freezing today—wind whipping your hair and teeth chattering even through your extensive layering. You have, like, two pairs of woolen stockings on. But Taehyun said that you’ll need to be able to grip the bowstring good, and so you abandoned them when you’d dragged all this on.

He’d made good on his word. Now, you’re out in some shallow neck of the woods, and he’s pointing out the trees that you’re supposed to be using for targets. They’re obscured in the onslaught of snowy haze. You want to gripe that he’d picked the worst day to drag you out here, but really, you know it was a fully intentional choice.

“No bullseye for now, just try and hit them wherever you can manage.” Taehyun makes a gesture up at the array of trees. “Don’t forget that the wind is blowing west. You’ll have to adjust for that.”

He watches you take up an arrow, quiet as you clumsily wiggle it around until it sits in a spot that feels relatively correct.

“Higher,” he finally says. “Find the rest for the arrow, and then you’ll find the nocking point on the string.”

You fumble with the placement some more, freezing fingers not as agile as they could be. Just as he said, the arrow falls into a place where it sits comfortably. “This?”

He hums, voice closer. “That’s good. Now, you lift it just like that. Don’t lose that hold, and pinch the back of the arrow, behind the feathers, with your knuckles.”

Raising the bow, you’re so concentrated on keeping the arrow in place that it shocks you how hard it is to pull the bowstring. The further back you pull it, the more force it demands from you. You only manage to bring it halfway before you stop. “Woah.”

Wind stops brushing your cheeks and hair so hard, and Taehyun’s voice comes from right beside you this time. “Harder than you thought it’d be, huh?” he says, smirk in his voice matching the one you find on his mouth when you turn to look at him. “It’s going to be hard for a while. You’ve got to build up the muscle for it. For now, you just have to power through it.”

You try again, finding the spot where your muscles protest and then going beyond it. Your arms tremble, some spot in the middle of your chest aching with it. You sift through the trees, rushing to find one to release the arrow on before you can no longer maintain the hold.

“Stand straighter.” He reaches over to adjust your arm, pulling the string-wielding one even further back and forcing your chest further open. Your arms burn. You’re not sure how much longer you can hold like this.

“Hurry,” you say.

“Go ahead.”

Deciding on the nearest tree, you let the string go from between aching fingertips. It misses and passes the tree to land somewhere in the foliage behind it, but not as awfully as you’d expected. Hissing, you shake out your arms and stretch your shoulders to try and kill the burn, but it lingers. “You made that look a lot easier than it really is,” you tell him.

“My first shot looked a lot like that,” he says, leaned back into a tree. “That was a great first try. I should’ve had you on the bow earlier.” He motions to the bow. “Show me another one.”

Arms still ringing, you sloppily repeat. None of the arrows meet their mark, and you get worse with each. You’d done so well with the first one, though. Frustration sparks in your chest, catching into a flame when this one misses as well. The cramping in your shoulders and the gnawing of frost at your fingers do not help your temper. “Guess that was beginner’s luck,” you say, jaw tense. “I can’t shoot for shit, now.”

Pushing himself off the tree, Taehyun approaches you once more and says, “It helps if you breathe out before letting the arrow go, but it’s mostly that your arms are tired. Today isn’t about aim, it’s about repetition.” Now in front of you, his eyes dart down to your mouth, but it’s a split-second look. You’d have missed it with a blink. You want to ask him why he keeps looking at you like that—like how he had in your bed that one night. You don’t want to make the air awkward, though.

To be more honest with yourself, you’re afraid to ask. You’re afraid what the answer might be; you have don’t even have the foggiest clue. “Maybe we should go back. I’ll just stick with what I know.”

“So, you’ll just give it up when it gets hard?” he says, a little ticked off. A muscle in his jaw feathers.

You wonder what he’s thinking, beyond just what he’s saying. What he feels beyond what he’ll let you see. The reason that Taehyun dropped the spy life the moment you’d told him you’d stay here with Yeonjun is still just as elusive to you. You’re no fool—you’d seen the look that passed over his face when you had. It had brought a chill down your spine, something hollow but also desperate. Taehyun does not seem like the type taken to puppy love. He does not seem like the type to follow whims, either. So, what is this? You’re unsure what to make of it, and what to make of him.

You two had been snapping teeth and blazing arguments, but what lays beneath that? Why does the impenetrable man let you get under his skin the way he does?

“Yes,” you say, just to ruffle some feathers. “I’ll just keep working on swordplay.”

He catches the bait. “Then, what are we out here for? I thought close combat was bothering you.” Flakes of fluffy snow sit on his hair, white petals against black. “And, it doesn’t hurt to diversify your skillset. Not with a war looming.”

Frustration gives way to softness. Taehyun doesn’t have to be out here. He has no obligations to help you with your ridiculous, pitiful dreams. You’re thankful for it, no matter how rugged he comes across while doing it. “I’m just messing with you. You make it too easy,” you say, offering him a smile. Beneath it, you’re left reeling with the reminder about the war. In your choosing to omit it from your thoughts, you’d just about forgotten about it. Anxiety comes crashing back through the crumbling dam. By now, the King has absolutely realized that Yeonjun is not coming back. Does he think that the north has hurt him or holds him hostage? He might start the war himself, then. A thought dawns upon you. That might’ve been the intention all along—to have him start things, to remain faultless. Taehyun had said that the Queen is a scheming sovereign.

“War,” you say, licking over chapped lips. “Do you think it’ll really happen? That it’ll come to battles?” You can’t help worrying. You’ve chosen your side in staying here. What if that was the wrong choice? What if your betrayal comes around to bite you? Or, what if the north’s reputation for brutality ends up doing the job before it ever can? You feel surrounded by death—surrounded by walls of violence, where too far in one direction would be your end. “It’s not as if I’ll be fighting, though.”

Face solemn, he says, “Let’s start heading back.”

That draws no complaints from you, tucking fingers under your arms to try and save them. He hadn’t answered your question, though. “Taehyun?”

Brittle leaves and brush crunch underfoot. “It’s coming.”

Narrowing your eyes at him, tensed in the shoulders, you ask, “Why are you acting like that? Are you hiding something from me?”

The both of you pause to let a dryad scurry off, snow falling off its bark skin in chunks as it crashes through the forest and away from you. These woods are a lot fuller than the ones you’d found Beomgyu in.

“Taehyun,” you repeat. Your stomach is sick. Skin burning, you get flashes of memories—of Yeonjun’s guilty eyes that night. It rushes through your bloodstream like icy water. This feels like an overreaction, but your body does not align with your stuttering heart. You can’t tamp it down. “What is it? I don’t like secrets.” Your voice comes out fragile, like it’ll break in the frigid air like ice and fall down to the ground in a crash.

His face is hard. You don’t like that, either.

“You’re not going to be fighting, but I know what is planned. It’s messy; messy and dirty. And dirty wars are not afraid of collateral damage.”

Frowning, you ask, “How do you know what’s planned?”

“It’s a general’s job to know the war he leads his army into.”

You stop dead. “Are you serious?” you snap, voice on a tight leash. “Seriously, Taehyun?” He keeps walking, forcing you to tear your feet from their spot to follow him. Jogging to match his stride, you say, “So, you’re just going to take up his will? You’re going to lead a war, like him? What about me, Taehyun? What happens to me?”

It seems that he’s fully taken over his role as heir to his father and his estate, but why? Why, if he sheared off his own ears to escape that legacy? Taehyun’s moral code has exceptions for violence, but he said it himself—he doesn’t like senseless killing. Not like what would come with taking on this role.

“Being general secures me a seat while they discuss their plans. It means I have sway in what happens. This is not for my enjoyment, or for power, like how my father saw it,” he says, measured and steady. “You’ve not seen a Faerie war. They’re given to dramatics, and they span... they span long. If something is going to happen, it’s better off that I’m in the room that they discuss it. Otherwise, we’re just sitting here and crossing out fingers that we don’t get caught in the crossfire.” Head held high, he adds, “This is my duty.”

Anxiety warms your frozen bones. “Duty?” you say through a caustic laugh. “You’ll be going to war, Taehyun.”

“Not petty battles. If something more drastic happens, I suppose I would, but being a foot soldier is not my role in this. Maybe my father would’ve, just to see the blood and carnage, but not me,” he says, as if that makes it any better.

“I don’t like this.”

“They know we were here as spies. They could decide at any moment to kill us. As general, my position would protect us.” He levels you a stare, hard. “You decided to stay here for him, so this is what I have to do.”

A terrible sickness settles in your stomach with his words. These are the consequences to your actions, for your overenthusiasm, but you feel more like a burden than sorry for yourself.

You want to tell him to stop paying the prices; that it’s not his job, but a chilly breeze sings in your ears that it’s much too late for that.

❆

Biting back complaints and the prickling of tears, you let Conifer work on your hair. She’s merciless with the tugs and pins, fingers threading through strands to tug them up into the frilly and loose updo.

“Why do I need to be dressed?” you ask her, watching her work dutifully behind you through the mirror.

“My Lady,” she says around a pin she holds in between her lips. “One moment.”

“You don’t have to call me Lady, or anything,” you tell her, wincing at the sound of it. “I’m no more a Lady than you.” She’d come into your room, nervously plucking at the pine needles on her forearms as she informed you that she needed to get you prettied up. It’s random, but you’d perked up immediately. It’s been so long since you’ve done anything—so long since you had a reason to look pretty and drag on glittering dresses. Not doing the work yourself is strange, though. You wonder if this is what your life would’ve been with Yeonjun, with servants waiting at every corner to pamper you and make sure that your hands never again see any type of hard work.

You shake those thoughts away. That’s not your life here in Taehyun’s estate. It does you no use comparing. You’re not so used to this, anyway. It gets under your skin a bit, though you know they’re working off debts in his service.

“Oh, the Lord would prefer that I do,” she says. A sharp pin scrapes up against your scalp as she pushes it in, securing up a willowy tress. All Yeonjun’s gifts—the dress she’d laid out for you, and the jewels she garnishes you in. How strange is it to have Taehyun’s servants dressing you in Yeonjun’s things? You still don’t know why he even bothered with bringing them in. You all were managing before. It's not as if any of you are the type to demand being waited on, anyway. You all have lived in more humble means. Beomgyu literally comes from the forest. And, why would it even matter how she addresses you to Taehyun?

It wouldn’t be fair of you to demand her to call you otherwise, then. You nod. “I’m sorry you have to work for me.”

“Oh, it’s no bother, dear. I’m grateful that the Lord has chosen such a way for me to pay him for my debt.” She tugs a few tendrils loose. It looks now more like the style is worn in by a good night spent dancing and laughing than freshly combed up. “There are worse ways to do so.”

That’s right. For her, servitude is only a result of some extrenuating circumstance. Your servitude was nowhere near your fault. That’s where the difference lies; why she can be so blithe about it.

“What happened?” you ask. It’s an invasive question, sure, but you prefer to ask it straight. No buttering it up or smoothing over words.

“The late General spared my life on a whim. I’d worked this estate for years, even watched the boy grow into his manhood, until the General passed and the young Lord went disappearing. No reason to work an empty estate. And now, by bloodline, my debt is owed to him.”

You frown. Serving under Taehyun’s father, only because he decided out of the kindness of his heart to not murder you, sounds harrowing.

“But, that’s of no importance, dear. The Lord is expecting you; the Queen holds council soon.” Hastily, Conifer slides one last pin in, just for safe measure. “It’s terribly important that you maintain good manners, dear. Stay by the Lord, and do not speak unless they speak to you.”

Council? He’s expecting you to come with him to a war council? You pause, but she ushers you up and away.

Bounding down the stairs in a flurry of feet, you hold your skirts in a death grip, heart clenching with nerves. Once, you’d been a mirror to this—panicking over attending Court for the first time. That was nothing. If you had been oblivious to Court propriety, sitting in on a Faerie council in the presence of the Queen and her entourage... You’re screwed. So, so screwed.

Taehyun waits beside the blackthorn tree. Noticing you, he greets, “Ready?”

“You’re serious about this?” you say. It’s hard to speak around the lump in your throat. “Why do I have to come? It seems more like a risk than anything.”

Brows furrowed, he adjusts his tunic. “You’re smart, aren’t you?” he says, cadence flat and matter-of-fact. “It’s not a risk. I’m bringing you so that they know you’re with me. You won’t have to come to any more after this, unless it’s what you want.”

Frowning, you say, “I feel as though they’ll react not so kindly to a human just... waltzing into a war council. You really think they’ll just let me come and sit in?” The Queen will be there, and all the terrifyingly massive players in the Unseelie Court, and then... You. You’ll just have to make yourself seem important enough to be there. Taehyun is one of those invaluable players now, you suppose. The General. Your mind still struggles to wrap itself around the enormity of that.

Will Yeonjun be there? He’s no doubt got the status. You pick at your fingers viciously. You’re not ready to see him again; not sure if you’ve fortified your walls enough for that yet. You might crumple with just a glance, but to sit in the same room as him?

“They’ll trust my judgement,” he says. The lines of his face do not carry the same confidence that his voice does. “You’re not just stumbling in. You’re walking in with me.”

“But, I’m sure they’re all very aware by now that we were spies. Doesn’t that leave a stain on your word?”

He reaches up to a low-hanging branch, dark and bristling with thorns, and snaps off the very ends of them into thin poles of twig armed with spikes. The thistles remind you of his eyes—in fact, the whole tree does. Barbed and dark and sturdy; the House of Blackthorn could not have better chosen their symbol.

“They made me their general,” he says, circling until he’s come behind you. “They’ve already made up their minds.”

Tugging at your hair tells you that he’s wiggling those sticks, black and sharp, into the updo, as if they’re accessories. It’s like what he’d done with those berries just before you’d gone to Court for the first time, but these twigs do not act like a ward like they had.

You turn to interrogate him and his sudden interest in your hairstyle, but confusion splinters off into nothing when his cold hand brushes at the back of your neck. In a heart-pounding moment, his sword-roughened fingers drag down the length of your jaw from behind. He grabs your chin his hand and turns your face further toward your shoulder. Snowflakes and the breeze and the stars all stand frozen around you. Or, maybe, you haven’t got the will to pretend they exist while he’s leaning down so that he’s right in your ear and whispering with puffed breaths that raise chills on your skin.

Under his breath, low and just for your ears, he says just one word. It’s one that you don’t recognize, curling in a way that you doubt your tongue would be able to even pronounce. As quickly as the moment had come, he releases your face. Snow crunches under his feet as he retreats.

Blinking for a moment, you spin on your heel to follow him. You make a point to not catch his stride fully, though. He absolutely should not see how ruffled you are. “What does that mean?”

He doesn’t answer, only leaving you in a flustered, charged silence. You beg the wintry breeze to carry away your racing thoughts, or at least to lick at your cheeks and cool them. Whatever it was that he’d said, you can only assume it to be in an ancient Faerie tongue.

With a stuttering heart, you follow him. You’ll just have to whistle in the dark. If you don’t do it scared, you won’t do it at all, and you’re always scared.

❆

Inside the council room, a handful of who you assume to be the Queen’s most important advisors sit around a circle table. On that table stand war maps and a collection of letters and objects no doubt important to plans and intel.

In one of those seats sits Yeonjun. Of course, he’s here. You’d anticipated as much, but that doesn’t change the way you jump right out of your skin the split second your eyes meet. It’s a fiery exchange, sending sparks up your spin and rendering your mind a blistering mess. His eyes are hard. He doesn’t shy away from it the way you do, tearing yourself away to sit in the seat next to Taehyun’s.

It’s not just Yeonjun’s eyes that burn on your skin. They’re wondering why you’re here. You itch to dip out and away from their scrutiny.

“Do I have to say anything?” you say, voice barely anything but a whisper as you lean over to Taehyun. “Like, announce myself or anything?”

“Not now,” he says. “Not unless you’re asked to.”

Fidgeting with your dress under the table, you dip your head in a shallow, quick nod. You’ll just mind your own, unless you’re forced to do otherwise. You can’t risk saying something that’ll end up screwing you both over.

Chairs scrape the floor, faeries standing and dipping at the waist. You follow them. Your back is to the door, but you don’t need to see to know who’s arrived. The Queen.

She sits in her seat, at the head of the table, and everybody else follows. You swallow hard. Her eyes, hardened and storm-colored, pin each of the attendees as she sweeps the room. A diadem of twigs and rotted leaf lays on her tangle of hair. The Unseelie Queen; she looks the part. Breath catches in your throat when her eyes come to you.

When she opens her mouth to speak, jagged teeth reveal themselves from behind grey lips. “The human girl. Does the Blackthorn house claim her?” she asks. Her voice commands the air—both slackened and imposing.

Yeonjun’s eyes bare down on you.

Taehyun answers her. “Yes. She is my retinue.”

One of the council members, with a haughty, long face and a sneer to match it, says, “Is this the girl that you sang so profusely to us for, prince? The spy girl?” His ruffled sleeves flourish as he gestures. He’s dressed especially plummy among them, but they all are dressed in glittering robes and tunics. This faerie no doubt thinks highly of himself, though, to be poking at Yeonjun.

Yeonjun had spoken of you here?

You feel a little frozen. Becoming the center of their attention is the very last thing you’d wanted. Rather than sinking back into your seat, you claw at your insides to keep your head held high. You do exchange a quick glance with Taehyun, who’s mouth is pulled taut.

He takes it in stride. “Yes, it is.”

“You beseeched us for her safety, but...” the black-haired faerie continues, “She’s sat beside our General.” A cruel smile plays on his lips. He knows exactly what he’s doing. “And I believe it to be unprecedented that a human joins us here, your highness.” He turns to the Queen, a smile that tells exactly of the game he’s playing.

“Not here,” the Queen snaps. “We haven’t the time for this. Who cares. Let’s not waste what slight time we have, with all of us in attendance.”

The black-haired faerie snaps his mouth shut, but a nasty attitude lingers.

Another speaks up. “Your majesty, is there not something to be said of the exclusivity pertaining to who we meet here with?”

She drums her fingers on the arm of her seat. Bored. “Be gone with it. I did not know you’d become so wary of humans.”

That stings. You’re not even worthy of being a threat. Jaw tightened, you grit your teeth.

“She has ears,” he says. “And a well-working mouth, I’m sure, and we have delicate issues to discuss.”

None of them press any further as she sends them a pointed stare. They begin offering up and discussing their positions and knowledge, much of it lost on you. All you’re thankful for is that most of it is bickering over how to approach the war, and not plans for full-fledged schemes.

Taehyun offers up his approach a few times, his voice carrying strong and his shoulders squared. Yeonjun does not speak much at all.

And when it’s over and everybody disassembles, you know you’ve got to leave. Fast; fast enough that Yeonjun will not be able to corner you into a conversation that you are too flimsy to be having. As you do, though, you war against every instinct in your body—heart and feet and arms ringing pleas in your bones. You can’t. Really, you can’t.

“Pretty.”

That voice, smooth but also so very sullen now, shatters your frenzied bubble. You go solid and frozen to the ground.

“Pretty, look at me,” he grits out, voice cracked down and raw.

When you don’t, he steps around you. His eyes dart up, taking in something on your head, and then his jaw ticks when he finds something he doesn’t like. The blackthorn twigs in your hair.

He’d looked sullen and detached when sitting at the table, but here, up close, he looks awful—far and beyond worse than you’ve ever seen him. It’s as if you’d ripped the heart right out of his chest and asked him to go on living without it. In the hollowness there’s a sadness, but there’s also a blazing anger.

A frozen hand takes your upper arm and tugs hard. “Come on. We’re leaving.” Taehyun’s voice is hard.

You stumble forward with him, summoning the will within you to not look back while you do. You do not want to watch his face as you leave. You absolutely cannot. Your gut twists viciously.

You’re pathetic, missing him the way you do.

❆

When you get the first letter, you accept it from the servant uneasily. You don’t even ask whose letter it is. The wax seal tells you enough, but you’d know even without it. Yeonjun has broken his silence.

It confuses you. Taehyun had intercepted his letters when he sent them before. Why does he not bother, now? It doesn’t feel like a kindness. It feels intentional—like a gambit. Beomgyu had made a point to take those original letters from you. You know he meant well in the cheeky way that he shows his companionship, but you’re spineless after all, and they come at a very weak moment. Just as you’ve built up wavering pillars, he reaches in and crumbles them down as if they were nothing.

ℐ 𝑘𝓃𝑜𝑤 𝑦𝑜𝓊 𝑡𝒽𝒾𝓃𝑘 𝑡𝒽𝒶𝓉 𝒾𝑡’𝓈 𝑙𝒾𝑒𝓈, 𝒷𝓊𝓉 𝓉𝒽𝒶𝑡 𝓌𝒶𝓈 𝓃𝑜𝓉 𝓅𝒶𝑟𝓉 𝑜𝑓 𝑡𝒽𝑒 𝒹𝑒𝒶𝓁. 𝐿𝑜𝑣𝒾𝑛𝑔 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝓌𝒶𝓈 𝓃𝑜𝑡 𝓅𝒶𝑟𝓉 𝑜𝑓 𝑡𝒽𝑒 𝒹𝑒𝒶𝑙. 𝐸𝑣𝑒𝓇𝑦 𝒷𝒾𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝓁𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝓌𝒶𝓈 𝓇𝑒𝒶𝑙. 𝐹𝓇𝑜𝓂 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝑣𝑒𝓇𝑦 𝓂𝑜𝓂𝑒𝑛𝓉 ℐ 𝑙𝒶𝒾𝒹 𝑒𝑦𝑒𝓈 𝑜𝓃 𝓎𝑜𝓊, 𝑡𝒽𝒾𝓃𝑔𝓈 𝒸𝒽𝒶𝓃𝑔𝑒𝒹. 𝒩𝑜 𝑙𝒶𝓉𝑒𝑟 𝓉𝒽𝒶𝓃 𝑡𝒽𝒶𝓉. 𝒲𝑒 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒𝒹; 𝒲𝑒 𝓁𝑜𝑣𝑒𝒹 𝑡𝑟𝓊𝑒.

𝐼’𝓂 𝓈𝑜 𝓈𝑜𝓇𝓇𝑦 𝑡𝒽𝒶𝓉 𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝓂𝑒𝑒𝓉𝒾𝑛𝑔 𝓌𝒶𝓈 𝑜𝓃 𝓈𝑜𝓇𝓇𝑦 𝒸𝒾𝓇𝒸𝓊𝓂𝓈𝓉𝒶𝓃𝒸𝑒𝓈, 𝒷𝓊𝓉 𝒹𝑜𝓃’𝓉 𝑡𝓇𝓎 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝒶𝒸𝓉 𝑙𝒾𝓀𝑒 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒷𝑒𝓁𝒾𝑒𝓋𝑒 ℐ’𝒹 𝒽𝓊𝑟𝓉 𝑦𝑜𝓊. 𝒴𝑜𝓊 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝓌 𝑡𝒽𝒶𝓉’𝓈 𝓃𝑜𝓉 𝓉𝑟𝓊𝑒. 𝒟𝑜 𝑛𝑜𝓉 𝓂𝒶𝑘𝑒 𝓎𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝒽𝑒𝒶𝑟𝓉 𝒷𝑒𝑙𝒾𝑒𝑣𝑒 𝒾𝓉 𝓈𝑜.

𝒴𝑜𝓊𝑟 𝑒𝑦𝑒𝓈 𝒽𝒶𝓊𝑛𝓉 𝓂𝑒. 𝐼 𝒽𝑜𝓅𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑛𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝓈𝑒𝑒 𝑡𝒽𝑒 𝓌𝒶𝑦 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝑙𝑜𝑜𝓀𝑒𝒹 𝒶𝓉 𝓂𝑒 𝑙𝒾𝓀𝑒 𝑡𝒽𝒶𝓉 𝒶𝑔𝒶𝒾𝑛, 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝑦𝑒𝓉 ℐ 𝓈𝑒𝑒 𝒾𝓉 𝑒𝓋𝑒𝑟𝑦 𝓃𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉.

𝒞𝑜𝓂𝑒 𝒶𝑛𝒹 𝑔𝒾𝓋𝑒 𝓂𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝓊𝑟 𝓌𝑜𝓇𝓈𝑡 𝓌𝑜𝓇𝒹 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝒾𝓉. 𝐼 𝒹𝑒𝓈𝑒𝓇𝑣𝑒 𝒾𝓉. 𝐼 𝒹𝑜𝓃’𝑡 𝒹𝑒𝓃𝓎 𝑡𝒽𝒶𝓉; 𝐼 𝒹𝑒𝓈𝑒𝑟𝑣𝑒 𝑒𝓋𝑒𝓇𝓎 𝑙𝒶𝓈𝓉 𝒹𝑟𝑜𝓅 𝑜𝑓 𝒾𝓉. 𝒯𝑒𝓁𝑙 𝓂𝑒 𝓌𝒽𝒶𝓉 𝒾𝓉 𝒾𝓈 𝑡𝒽𝒶𝓉 𝓌𝑜𝓊𝓁𝒹 𝑓𝒾𝓍 𝑡𝒽𝒾𝓈 𝒶𝑛𝒹 ℐ’𝒹 𝒽𝒶𝑣𝑒 𝒾𝓉 𝒹𝑜𝓃𝑒, 𝒷𝓊𝓉 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒸𝒶𝓃𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝒶𝓈𝑘 𝓂𝑒 𝓉𝑜 𝒷𝑒 𝒶𝓌𝒶𝑦 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝓂 𝓎𝑜𝓊. 𝐼 𝒸𝒶𝓃𝑛𝑜𝓉 𝒹𝑜 𝑡𝒽𝒶𝓉.

𝒴𝑒𝑜𝓃𝒿𝓊𝑛

You’re able to let this one roll off your shoulders, but the next few are not so easy.

𝐼 𝑤𝒾𝑠𝒽 𝓎𝑜𝓊 ℎ𝑎𝒹 𝑠𝓉𝒶𝓎𝑒𝒹 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝑙𝒾𝓈𝑡𝑒𝓃𝑒𝒹 𝓉𝑜 𝓂𝑒. 𝐼 𝓊𝓃𝒹𝑒𝑟𝓈𝑡𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝑤𝒽𝓎 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒹𝒾𝒹𝓃’𝑡, 𝑎𝓃𝒹 𝓎𝑒𝑡, 𝐼 𝑠𝓉𝒾𝓁𝑙 𝑤𝒾𝓈𝒽 𝓎𝑜𝓊 ℎ𝒶𝒹. ℐ’𝒹 𝒽𝒶𝑣𝑒 𝑙𝒾𝑠𝑡𝑒𝓃𝑒𝒹 𝓉𝑜 𝓎𝑜𝓊.

𝐼 ℎ𝑜𝑝𝑒 ℐ 𝑝𝓁𝒶𝑔𝓊𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝓊𝑟 𝑚𝒾𝓃𝒹. 𝐼 ℎ𝑜𝑝𝑒 𝓉𝒽𝒶𝓉 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝑠𝑒𝑒 𝓂𝓎 𝑓𝒶𝒸𝑒 𝑤𝒽𝑒𝓃 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒸𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑒 𝓎𝑜𝓊𝑟 𝑒𝑦𝑒𝓈 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝓇𝑒𝓈𝑡, 𝒶𝓃𝒹 ℐ 𝒽𝑜𝓅𝑒 𝓉𝒽𝒶𝓉 𝒾𝑡 𝑏𝓇𝒾𝓃𝑔𝑠 𝑦𝑜𝓊 𝑏𝒶𝒸𝑘 ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒, 𝑡𝑜 𝓎𝑜𝓊𝑟 ℎ𝑜𝓂𝑒: 𝑚𝓎 𝒶𝓇𝓂𝑠. 𝒲𝒾𝑡ℎ 𝑚𝑒, 𝓃𝑜𝓉 ℎ𝒾𝑚. 𝒩𝑜𝓉 ℎ𝒾𝑚.

𝒫𝑒𝓇𝒽𝒶𝓅𝑠 𝑦𝑜𝓊 𝒹𝑜𝓃’𝓉 𝒶𝓃𝓈𝓌𝑒𝑟 𝑏𝑒𝒸𝒶𝓊𝓈𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝓊 𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓃𝓀 𝓉𝒽𝒶𝓉 𝐼 𝓌𝒾𝓁𝑙 𝒶𝒸𝒸𝑒𝓅𝑡 𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓈 𝑒𝓃𝒹𝒾𝓃𝑔, 𝑏𝓊𝑡 𝐼 𝑤𝒾𝓁𝑙 𝓃𝑜𝓉. 𝒯ℎ𝒾𝓈 𝒹𝑜𝑒𝓈𝓃’𝓉 𝑒𝓃𝒹 𝓌𝒾𝑡𝒽 𝓊𝓃𝑓𝒾𝓃𝒾𝑠𝒽𝑒𝒹 𝑤𝑜𝓇𝒹𝓈 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝑔𝑟𝒾𝑒𝑣𝒶𝓃𝒸𝑒𝑠.

𝑁𝑜. 𝒯ℎ𝒾𝓈 𝒹𝑜𝑒𝑠𝓃’𝑡 𝑒𝓃𝒹.

𝒴𝑒𝑜𝓃𝒿𝓊𝓃

The letters change with your prolonged silence, too.

𝒮𝑒𝑒𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒶𝓇𝑟𝒾𝓋𝑒 𝑏𝓎 ℎ𝒾𝓈 𝓈𝒾𝒹𝑒, 𝒶𝓈 𝒾𝑓 𝓎𝑜𝑢’𝑟𝑒 𝒽𝒾𝓈… 𝒟𝑜 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝑤𝒶𝑛𝓉 𝓂𝑒 𝒸𝑟𝒶𝓏𝓎? 𝐼 𝒹𝑜 𝑛𝑜𝓉 𝒷𝑒𝓁𝒾𝑒𝓋𝑒 ℐ’𝓋𝑒 𝑒𝓋𝑒𝑟 𝑓𝑒𝑙𝓉 𝓈𝑜 𝑜𝑢𝓉 𝑜𝑓 𝓂𝓎 𝑜𝓌𝑛 𝒸𝑜𝓃𝑡𝑟𝑜𝑙 𝒶𝓈 𝐼 𝒹𝑜 𝑛𝑜𝑤. 𝐼𝑓 𝓉ℎ𝒶𝓉 𝑤𝒶𝓈 𝓎𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝒾𝑛𝑡𝑒𝓃𝑡𝒾𝑜𝑛, 𝓎𝑜𝓊 ℎ𝒶𝓋𝑒 𝒽𝒾𝓉 𝓎𝑜𝑢𝓇 𝓂𝒶𝑟𝑘 𝑤𝑒𝑙𝑙.

𝒞𝑜𝓃𝓉𝒾𝑛𝑢𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝒾𝓈 𝑏𝒶𝑛𝒾𝓈ℎ𝓂𝑒𝑛𝓉 𝒾𝑓 𝓎𝑜𝑢 𝓂𝓊𝓈𝓉, 𝑏𝓊𝓉 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝓌 𝓉𝒽𝒶𝓉 𝓌𝑒 𝓌𝒾𝓁𝑙 𝑏𝑒 𝓉𝑜𝑔𝑒𝓉ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝒶𝑔𝒶𝒾𝑛. 𝐼𝑡'𝓈 𝑜𝓃𝑙𝓎 𝑓𝒶𝓉𝑒, 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝓌ℎ𝑜 𝒶𝓂 𝐼 𝓉𝑜 𝓂𝑒𝒹𝒹𝓁𝑒 𝑤𝒾𝑡ℎ 𝑓𝒶𝑡𝑒?

𝒴𝑒𝑜𝓃𝒿𝑢𝓃

It’s jarring, it’s more of that desperate pleading that you’ve been trying so hard to escape, and it’s burrowing deep down into the tender parts of your heart like a stake.

There are some letters that are even more frenzied than that. They’re testaments to his promises: this doesn’t end.

You had been sorely mistaken in thinking that Yeonjun would just step away. Terribly mistaken. Deep in your belly brews the feeling that this is not going to go over as smoothly as you hoped it would. In retrospect, how had you ever thought you could cleanly tear him off you? This is not like ripping off a bandage—quick and painful—no, this will be much, much more unpleasant than that. Yeonjun had done a delicate job of veiling just how wretchedly he loves you, but you’d seen peeks of it. Flickers and moments of potent neediness and jealousy, quickly smoothed over with something more groomed and palatable. Now, you see it in full force. As soon as given the need to unveil himself, he was not afraid to. As long as it brings him you.

But he will not get you. You’re not yet so foolish to go falling back into his arms. Not after you’d done just that, and then learned what trusting him just based off his inability to lie meant. It’s not as if you’re not already slowly wanting to forgive him for the fact that his initial job was to kill you. In weak moments, you construct excuses. But if you brush off lie after lie, where is the limit to the lies you’ll accept, if only just for him? There would be none. That is a dangerous beast to toe.

You think you know now, why Taehyun lets you read those letters freely.

❆

Lifting your fist to knock on the door, you bounce on your heels. Taehyun tells you to come in, voice muffled behind the door.

Stepping in, you drink in the sight of his quarters. Not once in the months that you’ve spent here have you been in his room. In the center is the bed, bedding coal black. His desk is cluttered with maps and stray daggers. Taehyun works on the strap to his leather baldric, looking up to you.

“Where are you going?” you ask him.

“They called me for council,” Taehyun answers. He straightens up. “What’s up?”

You purse your lips. “Oh,” you say. “Nothing. I was just seeing what you were up to.”

Honestly, you’re not entirely sure why you’d stumbled in here. It had just felt right in that moment. It couldn’t hurt to try and mend the tensions that lay between you two, anyway. If this is going to be your home, it’s better off that way.

Taehyun nods slowly, as if he’s not entirely sure what to say. His tongue darts out to wet his lips.

A smile tugs at your mouth. Beneath the confident, hardened exterior, Taehyun is stiff in the face of emotional connection. “Didn’t want me to join you for this one?”

He shakes his head, the lines in his shoulders stiffening as if the thought were offensive.

Scoffing around a laugh, you say, “I didn’t do that bad, did I?” It’s more to pester him than offense—you’d had your fill. And you want to know what’s changed; why he’s suddenly averse to you joining.

Jaw shifting, he says, “No, you didn’t.” Taehyun brings his hand up and adjusts his collar. “I’d just prefer it.”

You change tack. His face has fallen a bit, and you’d intended to lighten things up. “It’s fine. That was boring anyway,” you say, “Besides, I’d prefer it here, with the army of servants waiting to see to my needs.” Tilting your head to one side, you give him a grin chock-full of mock pretension.

His brow furrows. “The servants? Do you not like it?”

Shrugging, you answer, “I don’t hate it. It’s nice to have help getting ready, though, I guess. Makes me feel special.” To quell your own gnawing curiosity that’s been festering beginning the moment the first one had arrived, you add, “Why’d you do it, though?”

His face flickers. “The estate needs to be run. They have duty to do so. If it were going to be anybody, it’s them.”

You know that look. Living with Taehyun, you’ve got to become fluent in the face and even the most subtle changes. What he doesn’t speak in words, you’re forced to find there. Try as he might to fortify his mask, water will always find and slip through the cracks as slivers of true emotion crack through his face. He’s not telling you the truth. You narrow your eyes.

“Yeah. I understand that. I just thought we were doing fine before, I guess.”

“I thought...” he says. “Did the prince not keep servants?”

Your frown deepens. Why would it matter whether or not Yeonjun has servants? Of course he’d have attendants; he’s a prince of Faerie. Mind churning for a moment, you stumble upon a thought. Or rather, it stumbles upon you.

Taehyun had brought servants here because he figured that, because of your time with Yeonjun, you’d want that. It bothered him to think that Yeonjun could provide something for you that he couldn’t. He’d gone out and tracked down faeries indebted to him and his father because that got under his skin. You think to that morning he’d woken you up, spitting venom, because Yeonjun had sent you those dresses. And in his arm, he’d held a single crystalline gown.

“Taehyun, why did you tell Yeonjun about our kiss?”

For a split second, he’s taken aback, shifting as though you’d lit a fire under his feet. The air hangs heavy—so, so thick. It’s so stiff that you have to breathe with conscious effort. This silence, tense and on the brink of snapping, stretches for an eternity. Your mind reels; you’re just as caught off guard as him. You haven’t the faintest clue where you’d trudged up the nerve, but you had, and now you’re terribly curious to know his answer. The memory had hovered around, blazing and impossible to brush off, from the very moment the words had tumbled out from Yeonjun’s lips. How had you even lasted this long, pretending it hadn’t happened? All off that electric curiosity comes to a head here—now—and you do not know if you’ve prepared well enough for the truth of it.

As silent as it is, the moment buzzes. It’s deafeningly loud, just as it is deafeningly quiet. His silence answers just as well as words.

His answer slices the air, cutting through the tension like a scalding knife. “The prince told you that?”

You step toward him, looking up at him through your lashes. “He did," you say, quick and dismissive. “Why did you tell him? When?”

A flash—a flash of something untamed and deep like the woods—renders his eyes dark. You remember that look; he’d scarcely let you see it. It had scrawled under your skin the first time he had. Something in it strips you down to your very bones, where you are nothing more than buzzing soul and heat. Taehyun approaches you in dark, languid steps. You’re lightheaded, breaths lodged deep in your chest. Any semblance of clarity you might have had becomes a lost cause as he takes your face in his hands and leaves you no other option than to meet those smoldering eyes. Bitterly cold hands bite into the soft skin of your cheeks. Cold-blooded.

Your head spins. “Taehyun?” you say, short and breathless. Even just a naked whisper of his name, you struggled to manage it. Him, here, in front of you, is both so real that it rattles you down to you core and so intangible that you wouldn’t dare believe it. And yet, blistering eyes pierce through the mist, and you know that it is sickeningly real.

“Fuck,” he says, mouth turned down and at war with the rest of his face. He’s so close that you feel the word on your face. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” His throat bobs. “I don’t know who this is.”

In a stumble of clumsy feet, you clash with the desk in a rattle. There’s hardly any perch for you, but in a scramble, you curl your fingers white-knuckled around the edge. He has you pinned between him and the wood with nowhere to breathe and nowhere to think. A controlled, shaky breath comes tumbling from behind your lips. Electricity crackles in the air between you, and you’re weak to it. You turn your head away, clawing for some semblance of control or respite from the bare intensity.

Despite your shock, somewhere deep, deep down in your belly, you know that this is only the fruit of some howling storm that has been swirling—swirling and churning and gaining power. You’d felt the trembling of it, the promise of something explosive and imminent, as oblivious as you were to its source. Now, the ground cracks open beneath you, and it will accept nothing other than to swallow you whole.

“Do you not think of me as a man?” he grits out. Since you’ve decided to blatantly avoid his gaze, he gets down right into your neck. “Well, I am. And you brought him here. Brought him into my home, and you let him touch you. ”

Taehyun had been there that day.

It’s as if time itself slows down around you. This moment inflates into something infinite. Everything that he’d done, every little thing that you’d struggled to digest, is laid out before you. He’s holding your hips as if you’ll fade around the edges and leave him here. There’s something raw beneath the growled words; something desperate.

Belly flipping ruthlessly, you speak, but they’re not coherent thoughts. “I... didn’t think that...”

He’s quick to cut you off, rearing back to look you in the eyes once more, forcing you to do the same. And he holds you there. “Do you think that he can provide for you better than me? That I can’t provide you your needs?”

Your heart is a ravenous, wild thing in your chest. All that he’d done: the dress, the servants, finding Beomgyu, staying here in the north, demanding that you don’t depend or even associate with Yeonjun, urging you to not attend Court because he knew Yeonjun would be there—was because it was supposed to be him. And it was killing him because finally something had managed to drive right through that suit of ice armor he struggles so hard to keep up, right down to where his real emotions slumber, and he is forced to feel something. In all that banishing emotion away, he’s now faced with this blazing consumption, and he is utterly lost.

Taehyun curses, a relenting of his will, before he’s taking your lips to his. It’s a ravaging, fervent meeting, clashing teeth and roaming hands with no destination. He lifts you up onto the desk, and then his hand finds the hair at the very back of your head. You remember this wild dance of tongue and mouth—the first time he’d put his mouth on you, it’d been just the same. You’re gasping and clawing at his shoulders.

What on earth are you doing?

His hands are all over you. It’s as if he can’t get enough, as if he’s catching up to all that had been bursting at the seams in his mind. His lips taste like finally. When he’s forced to release your lips for air, it’s not as if he gives you any real room to breathe—his lips fall like glowing ashes down the column of your neck. You’re helpless to the whines he takes from your lips. He melds your bodies into one clumsy thing, pushing you down into the desk in a clumsy clatter. He wholly overwhelms you, and you think that it is a conscious effort. He intends to wiggle his way into every little corner, every little space, until you have no room for thought but him. If the drunken haze that’s rendered your thoughts sluggish is anything to speak of his efforts, he’s succeeded.

You catch yourself halfway down, before your back makes it down onto the desk. His mouth is back on yours, spinning with the sting of your scalp as he guides you through his kiss. His hands reach your upper thigh, making slow work of bunching the fabric.

“If you knew,” he says, appreciating the bare skin as if it were as precious as jewel and gold the same way he had that night in your bed: as if every inch were just as intimate as a glimpse of your cunt. “If you knew what I think about doing to you.”

Blood roars beneath your skin. The confession that Taehyun has thought about touching you like this, or the fact that he’s been battling against his own mind in the onslaught of those thoughts, sheds a new light over so much. Beneath that stony face, he’d been needing you.

Through the licking of your bottom lip and the buzzing behind your skull, you see Yeonjun’s face. Your stomach does a flip. You’re not supposed to feel guilty. You shouldn’t, but guilt slices like a molten dagger through the haze. How can you be here, doing this, when he’s out there aching for you? As far as you distance yourself from his sphere, you’re still reminded of who taught you your body now that another man touches you. You imagine how hurt he’d be if he saw you now.

You rage against those thoughts. You owe no guilt to the man that had only ever approached you because you were his target.

Taehyun’s gaze meets yours. You must’ve gone quiet, or maybe still. Perhaps it’s your eyes that gives it away, though, because he does not like what he finds in them. In a blink, he’s retracting back into his shell.

“You’re thinking of him,” he spits. His voice is so caustic and venomous as it falls out that your skin burns. “Even while I’m touching you.”

You want nothing more than to reach in and pull that fire and raw emotion back out. He pulls away. Your skin is painfully empty of his touch. Chest aching, you say, “Taehyun, wait. Please. I wasn’t.” The lie rolls off your tongue too easily, but you can’t stand the chill fallen over your form.

His face is far off and distant, his jaw set tight. He runs a hand through his hair, made a mess with your touch, the action punctuated by a barbed laugh.

He doesn’t even say anything more to you when he leaves the room. He just leaves. You sit for a few minutes, legs dangling and blood roaring.

Taehyun has kept a lot beneath a jaded and aloof front, but it seems that even he has a tipping point.

❆

“That reeks,” Beomgyu says. He’s sat on the basin, legs dangling down.

The water embraces you in a delightful lukewarm that disarms your nerves and has you drowsy. “Soap?” you say with a subsequent rich snort. You scoot, bathwater lapping at the walls of the tub when you bring your knees to your chest. The round tub is big enough for you to sprawl out, but you prefer sitting right up against the wall. Only the suds and perfumed oils sitting in a thin, hazy film on top of the water protect your decency from Beomgyu’s eyes. With the servants insisting on helping you wash, though, you’ve become indifferent to bathing in front of others. It’s not as if you’ve got to worry about him leering, anyway. He doesn’t blink at your nakedness. You appreciate the company. “It smells clean. You know, so you don’t smell like straight mud.”

“Mud is not such an offensive smell as that,” he says, nose crinkling. “You lather yourself in smells that are wholly unbelievable.”

Laughing, you feign sending a spray of water droplets his way. “Well,” you muse, “We are not hewn from the same stone. We have to clean ourselves.” While your worldly body demands that you maintain hygiene with soap and water, the folk wash for leisure. You don’t bemoan it, though. It’s your reality—always will be—and you delight in coming out feeling fresh. “And your earthy... musk... is just as terrible to me as this is to you. So...”

“Agree to disagree.” He sits still. Beomgyu is always eerily still—you’ve come to the realization that it’s because he doesn’t breathe. No rising or falling of his chest meant he could sit in absolute repose. You’re not entirely used to it, even now. How could anything be a living, talking being, without breath? There he sits, though.

Echoes of your washing fill the room. You sigh. With each scrub, you imagine carving away both any dirtiness and any heavy thoughts. It doesn’t work, of course. You feel no less heavy. If only it were that easy.

“Taehyun is general now,” you say, frown tugging at your face. “For the Queen.” Remembering it makes you feel impossibly heavier. It had been a secretive move, but still... He had become the one thing that has haunted him for you. His words yesterday said as much. You buzz at that memory, heart racing at just the memory. It had been a battle pretending your first kiss hadn’t happened, but this was different. Terribly different.

You blink, trying to bring yourself together when Beomgyu says, huffing out a humorless laugh, “He is only his father’s son.”

Sighing, you sink lower into the water. The kelpie wouldn’t be himself without some snide remark in Taehyun or his father’s expense. You know why he’d done it, now, but you’re awful and can’t help but consider what him being general might mean. Taehyun has a strict moral code; you don’t think he’ll go around killing in cold blood. Still, in order to retain his standing, he’ll have to carry out the council’s will. It’s a slippery slope; you fear the he’ll become the thing he’d once hated at your expense. With a sickened stomach, you hold your knees closer. You don’t want that. “He said it was to make sure we’re no longer targets. You know, since we came here as spies and all that,” you say, voice softening as thoughts grow louder.

Agitated, Beomgyu slips off the basin. “Why would he have bothered with finding me, then, if he had already made other plans?”

Spinning water with a finger and watching it swirl, you say, “I know for a fact it’s why he did it. It’s just that I don’t like it. I mean, getting involved in the war is one thing. We were already involved to some degree, anyway. Becoming the general is a whole other thing.”

A wicked delight crackles across Beomgyu’s face, and you brace yourself for whatever has excited him so. “If you would deign it with your word... We could be gone from this estate. Anywhere that pleases us, free from the fool.”

“Of course,” you say, rolling your eyes and watching him pace the floor. “It’s always dramatics with you. We’re not running away. Good try, though.”

He pauses, grimacing down at you. You suppress a laugh. Maybe you could’ve entertained his grand plan. At least, for a moment. Your fingers have pruned up, but you have no will to drag yourself from the warmth. Let you just stay like this, cocooned in its welcoming arms, for a bit longer. Then, you’ll find it within you to face the memory of Taehyun’s hands and the gravity of what he’d let slip.

❆

Dust motes flutter when caught in the light. You, with bare feet padding on the chilly morning floors, plow right through them. A clattering, so lively in the still sleep-ridden estate, floats out from the kitchens. You follow it.

Beomgyu stands, lanky and strange as always, watching a servant work dutifully on a meal. You frown. It’s a bit early for any of your usual meals.

“Hanging around in the kitchen? Thought you didn’t eat,” you say.

He gives you a distracted grumble. “I can eat. I just don’t need to.”

An eye roll slips. “That’s even worse. You asked for a meal to be made for you, just so that you can taste it,” you say, hand on your hip. “Very inconsiderate.”

Disconcertment lines his face at that, looking back over at the servant. “I did not ask for a meal.”

“Yeah... Okay. Anyway, do you know where Taehyun has gone? Out?”

Beomgyu shakes his head. “No, I don’t believe he’s gone anywhere,” he says, eyeing you. “You’re searching for the Lord?”

“I mean, I was just wondering where he is. I didn’t see him around, or anything.”

“Oh, pull your stake from my heart,” he grumbles and scratches at his neck. “I fear you’ve abandoned me in my loathing, with who else am I to escape this place? ” he says.

“There you go again,” you say, relenting to conversation. Conversation with Beomgyu makes you feel lighter. “If we ran away, we’d make it like... a week.”

He cocks his head to the side. “You’d last a week. I’d be just fine.”

“Oh, you think so?” you scoff. “And where would we go?”

Now, he’s really riled up, throwing his arms up, exasperated. “To the forest,” he deadpans. “I... come from the forest. Of course I’d go to the forest.”

Mouth pulled into a grin that you know will irk him, you say, “Sounds like a nice place. For you. You just want to get out of here, you don’t care about what happens to me. I’m hurt. This is supposed to be our escape plan, not Beomgyu’s.”

He likes that, lips curling at the corners. “Well, I pride myself in my cleverness, and it’s not as though I’ll be leaving this rotten place by my own means,” Beomgyu says.

“Oh, you’re just so clever.” You’ve become too familiar with that impish grin—he’s joking. But you don’t doubt for a second that if you were to propose running away, Beomgyu would be elated. He makes the jokes for a reason, anyway. It’s become a sort of game; him suggesting it, and you shutting it down. “And is that why you deign to bless me with your presence? Plotting and scheming?”

“Don’t give me your sarcasm,” he huffs. “I deign you with my presence because I ought to. What else should I do?”

“You love me,” you say, tableware and platters clattering and mingling with the sound of your voice. “I know it.” You drag out the last syllables in a taunting melody.

The servant who had been busy with making the breakfast, a hob you don’t really recognize, pokes in to tell you that it’s finished, so you move your conversation over to the table. Pulling out the chair, you eye the plates. It’s more extravagant than you usually eat here. It reminds you more of Court food or what few meals you’d had with Yeonjun: a honeyed meat and some fire-roasted burdock root. Beside it is a bowlful of salt, but it’s only by yours. You dip your head at the faerie, careful of course not to say thank you. That would mean that the faerie has done you a favor, and then you’d be expected to repay it. A simple gesture works just fine.

Beomgyu doesn’t sit, nor does he take any interest in eating. Instead, he hovers at the far end of the long table, telling you, “I do not love anything.”

Raising your brows at him, you say, “Whatever.” You salt the bitter root before forking it. “What are you so antsy for, anyway? Isn’t your whole thing that you sit around in a swamp for the entirety of your existence? What’s that, to staying in an estate for a bit? I think that you just like to complain to me.”

He laughs, rocking on his heels. “It’s about free will,” he says, “And, maybe I do. Though, isn’t it a wonder that you complain to me just as much?”

You’ve finished your plate. “Fair.”

Taehyun emerges from a room. Your belly does a little surprised flip. You knew he was still here, but you’d hoped to avoid him. When you’d first arrived here, the estate had felt massive. Now, it’s not so much the same.

He doesn’t mention it, though. Instead, he surveys the table, and then his brows knit. “You’ve cooked?”

“Not us. It was being made when I got up. There’s some for you, too, though. If you’re hungry.”

His frown deepens, but he nods and wanders off into the kitchen. You understand. You’d been confused when you’d went into the kitchen to find a meal being made so early. It’s as if the servant is new and unfamiliar with schedules. Turning to Beomgyu, you say, “Anyway. Would sneaking out for one night appease you?” You push around the last bits of your breakfast, too full to eat anymore. “Maybe you just need to get the thrill out of your system. I have a tree by my window, that might up the ante rather than sneaking out the front door.” You give him a tongue-in-cheek raise of a brow.

“Well, I don’t think it’s sneaking if you discuss it a room away from who you’re sneaking around,” he answers, picking at the wood of the table. “And, no.”

At a crash, you both are whipping your heads toward the doorway. The hob servant is sprawled out on its knees. Taehyun’s face has gone cold, and he holds his sword out at the faerie in a point. Your eyes go wide, and you hop up out of your seat. “What are you doing?” you say, taking in the scene. Adrenaline sparkles in your pulse. One second, you’d been enjoying your morning, the next Taehyun has one of his servants at sword point. It’s whiplash.

Despite your initial shock, though, you pull together the pieces—about the strangeness of the routine, and the unusual meal, and the unfamiliar faerie. You go to share a look with Beomgyu. In the narrow twitch of his eyes, you deduct that he’s come to the same conclusion. And, you’d eaten that whole meal.

“Face me.” Taehyun barks out the command, looking down on the hob with a chilling severity.

The faerie does slowly, bowing its head to avoid Taehyun’s face in an attempt to placate him. Taehyun says, “Who have you weaseled yourself into my estate for?” His voice carries, strong and unforgiving. It penetrates down to your marrow. You’re sure the hob feels it worse, though. There’s a long few moments with no answer. Either they won’t say it, or they can’t. They dip their head further. “If you think that your silence will earn you a quick death, it will not. Speak now, or give me your hand. I’ll have your fingers.”

“Taehyun,” you say, shooting him a hard stare. “Are you serious?” Your stomach goes nauseous. You’ve seen Taehyun kill before, but a punishment like that, meant to inflict agony... It shocks you.

Taehyun looks at you strangely, eyes at war with the rest of him. He says to you, keeping his sword on the hob, “Am I serious? You just ate all of that, who knows if it was poisoned.” Now stood behind the hob, he takes it by the scruff and lines the deadly edge of his sword up to its neck.

Your heart does a little trick. You absolutely had eaten that food without question. Why would you question it? It hadn’t come to your mind at all that somebody might infiltrate this estate. With Taehyun’s new role, it only makes sense. You don’t feel bad, though. Not like when you had been poisoned at The Hovel. You’d felt that pretty fast and hard. Right now, you feel fine. As much relief as that brings you, it does beg the question: if they’d come here to do harm, why wouldn’t they utilize such a blaring opportunity? The hob had just... made you food.

“I have every right to protect my home, and those who live in it.” Taehyun grabs harder, picking the hob up and pressing his sword in closer. The hob squeezes its narrow eyes shut. “It’s my duty.”

It’s always duty, with Taehyun. The sight of the faerie bracing, knowing that Taehyun will hurt or kill it, worms under your skin. Your fingers strain in trembling fist. You can’t handle the awful sight, no matter if the faerie had intended to harm you.

You think you know who’d sent the hob to come and be eyes on the inside of Taehyun’s estate, anyway.

Beomgyu scoffs hoarsely from beside you. “I watched the fool make it. She’s not fallen sick, had she?” His bored eyes shine with distaste. "You, general, just miss the taste of blood on your tongue. You miss it dearly, I know. It’s a terrible hunger to have.” He exchanges the word Lord with one that you can acknowledge hits as a much lower blow, considering his past. Beomgyu would never miss the opportunity to remind Taehyun that from which he comes from. To that regard, you are thankful for not knowing who your parents are. No matter where you end up, at least you’ve had the power to mold your own legacy. Taehyun’s follows him, grim and stained red.

“Taehyun, can’t you just make an exception this once? Beomgyu’s right. If they’d have wanted us hurt, they had a pretty good opportunity to. But, they didn’t.” You flex your fingers hoping to expel some nerves and step closer to where he’s stood. Making a point to catch his eyes and hold them hostage, you add, “We’d be hypocrites to kill for spying. You know that. Who are we, to call it justice and kill over this? That’s not fair.”

He holds your eyes, pausing. “Exceptions are dangerous,” he says, but his voice is changed. There’s something other than ice-cold resolution there. You release a breath of tension.

“I get that, but...” You search his face. “Please.”

The estate is quiet aside from the huffing of the hob for a second. The look in Taehyun’s face changes, and then he’s throwing the faerie to the ground. He sheathes his sword with a crisp click that you’ve never been more elated to hear, and he snaps, “Get out. Go. Tell whoever the hell sent you here that I won’t take so kindly to this again.”

The hob does not waste even a second in making good on their second chance. It scrambles up and away in a scramble of furious legs and arms.

Beomgyu shakes his head and goes to retreat off to wherever he spends a majority of his time, now that the show is over.

Taehyun, looking disconcerted with his arms folded and brows lifted, says, “Somebody is sending their people here, and now I’ve set a precedent. I look weak. Those wolves will pounce on any stretch of weakness they can find.”

You sigh. “I know,” you say. “I know, Taehyun. Thank you.” You don’t tell him that the wolf he speaks of is Yeonjun, and that the spy was not here to kill or collect intellect from him.

It seems that the prince has made his move.

❆

“You think that was the end of it?” Beomgyu says. “No. That was nothing beyond a glimpse. A life spent beside his blood-drinking father is undeniable. How the gentry kids learn Court snark, the Lord learned to take butchery as a trophy.”

Shooting him a glare, you slot the arrow in its home and pull the bowstring taut. It comes much easier, now. Your chest doesn’t tremble, and you can properly hold it there comfortably enough to actually aim. Finding the bullseye of woven straw, you narrow your eyes down. You find the center of the spiral, further down the field now that you’ve gotten a better handle on your archery. Like Taehyun had said, you aim a little left to make room for wind direction. You release a slow breath in a smooth, silver stream of breath. Wind whistles around the arrow as it dances down the flat of powdery snow. It pierces the center left with a far-off thud. Not a bullseye, but you’re glad to meet your mark.

You reach for another arrow. “Or,” you say, “Growing up with his father taught him to be a better man for it.”

The kelpie, having watched you practice out here for at least thirty minutes, looks up to you from where he sits squatted on the ground. “You don’t believe that,” he scoffs. He drags a finger in the snow. The ground around him is a work of muddy shapes, where he’s worked the snow so much that the wet ground beneath it has begun turning it to brown slush. “The brute is no different. Ardently as he may detest the former general, he has followed his tracks in the snow. Reluctance makes him no better.”

Cupping your hands over your mouth, you puff out warm breaths that soothe your stinging nose and stiff fingers. It lasts only a small, gratifying moment. You puff out a sigh and take the bow back into your hands. You thought you’d gotten over this conversation, decided to determine for yourself what kind of man Taehyun is, but... When he took up his role as general, you were set back an infuriating mile. Things are even muddier, now. You know he has a reputation to keep up as general, and that he made an exception for you in letting that spy go. If he doesn’t present a strong front, it’ll put you all in danger. That doesn’t stop abrasive thoughts from sticking under your skin, though.

“Don’t even try and act like you care about violence,” you tell him, giving him a high brow. “It’s not as if you don’t trick people and drag them down into your swamp for your own enjoyment. You just dislike Taehyun.” You bring back the string and let another arrow go. It lands somewhere near the first.

He doesn’t deny that, a rotten smile splitting across his face.

Your next shot lands beside the bullseye. Letting out a triumphant sound, you say, “Did you see that?”

Beomgyu hums. “That one was good.” He stands up to full height with creaking bones and adds, “But, aren’t you getting bored of this? I say we find something more interesting to waste precious time with.”

You frown. “More interesting...”

He nods, enthused.

“That sounds like a terrible idea, coming from you. Interesting is subjective, and I don’t think I’d like to learn your interpretation of it,” you say, voice sewn with suspicion. You lean your bow against the tree, though. Hitting so close to the center was enough gratification to appease you for the day. “And how can I be sure that this isn’t part of an escape plan?”

He groans. “Let me play some, won’t you? I have a place that will please the both of us.”

You feign long consideration, but you’ve already decided. As cold as you are, and despite your weary arms, you’re jumping at the opportunity to escape the strong walls of the estate. You’ve got a funny tingling in your veins that pleads with you to go and do something. Wherever Beomgyu may take you, you’ll just appreciate the distraction from muddled thoughts and recycling anxieties. You nod finally. “Fine. Don’t bring me anywhere weird, kelpie.”

Though, you never know what you’re getting into, with Beomgyu.

❆

Well, the dusted walls of a once-great residence around you are not the worst you imagined when thinking where Beomgyu might take you.

“You told I’d me be pleased,” you say, voice bouncing off the walls and coming back to you hollow. It was the residence of some gone gentry folk, you know. Why that would be of any interest to you, you’re not sure. It’s pretty, sure. You’d fought snow and numb fingers to get here, though. You frown at him expectantly.

“You have a sorry amount of trust in me. You would be, if you’d just open your eyes to it,” he cuts back.

You hum. “Sure.” Raking your eyes over the baseboards, brown wood carved into leaves and acorns, and then down the still halls, you make an effort to see anything differently. Of course, it does nothing. Beomgyu speaks strangely, and he hadn’t actually meant to look differently. Despite your conclusion, you still see a stale and forgotten place. You cross your arms over your chest and say, “I get it. This was just an escape plan. And I’m gonna get your ass. Do you know how far of a that walk was?”

“This would be a nice to stay, if we were to forget a certain Lord’s estate...” he muses, tilting his head off to one side. “But no.”

Looking around, your eyes catch on the film of dust on the floor down the hallway that shoots off from the tall dining hall that you stand in. More specifically, you’re concerned with the set of footsteps leading down it. Your feet tell you to dart. “Beomgyu?” you say, eyes wide as you look over to him. “Who’s here?”

“Should we go find out?” he says, thick set of brows jumping in a playful twitch.

He sets off down the hallway. You follow, internalizing the new surroundings with large drinks. You’re not sure why you ever thought this would end with him taking you out to the forest to watch will-o'-the-wisps dance in twinkling balls of light, or going to watch a babbling brook work its way over the earth.

A tall man steps out from a room. You jump, pulling Beomgyu back, as if he weren’t some ancient faerie beast capable of managing himself. He cracks a laugh. The man looks between you two. Your tongue darts out to wet dry lips. He’s no doubt wondering who you are, just the same as you’re wondering who he is. You whisper to your cavorting heart that Beomgyu is magically compelled to not shove you into harm’s way, and it seems that he knows who this is.

You notice the man’s round ears, and his soft and humble features, and the earthliness, and the imperfection-flecked skin. Familiarity bursts in your chest—you’re looking into the face of another human. “Who is this?” you whisper over to Beomgyu.

“This is Soobin,” he announces, answering your whisperings with his full chest. “A friend, and a human, as I think you’ve noticed.” A proud gleam flashes over his eyes. “I believe that you owe me your thanks now.”

The man, Soobin, dips his head at you. Dull, brown eyes study you. “I am,” he says.

Searching for words, you open and close your mouth a few times. A nervous thrill wraps you up. You’ve wanted to get to know and be friends with your kind for your entire life. “Why are you here?” you ask, making a gesture at the residence. “It looks abandoned. Very abandoned.” When you’d first arrived at Taehyun’s estate, it’d been left alone for quite a while in Taehyun’s leaving it behind. This, though, looks much different than that. You wonder who this place belonged to, and why it’s no longer in use.

Sullen eyes answer yours. They remind you of Beomgyu’s, the old tiredness. It’s strange, seeing that look reflected on such a young face. How does Beomgyu known him, anyway? Soobin answers, “I was a glamoured servant here. Until the faerie died.” He continues talking as he returns to the room from which he’d come from. This room, off and away from the massive inner hall that makes up the majority of the residence, is fresher. Where dust balls and had taken over what was once most definitely a place busy with servants and the host of many feasts, this room is alive and no doubt where Soobin lives. “Then, the glamour died, and I came back to myself.” He sits down onto a foot bench in front of a green-sheeted bed. This must’ve been bedroom for the faerie he’d served. Now, it’s his. He brings his hands up. Where the soft skin of an easy life should sit, there’s worn and ruined skin in its place. “I wasn’t conscious when I’d been working it, but when I came back... my body ached. It ached so bad, and at first, I had no idea why or... where I was. All I knew was that I’d been worked into the ground.”

Your heart hangs like stone in your chest, looking at his broken hands. When you’d been taken from the human world, you’d been so young that it made no difference to you. Growing up here, it’s all you’ve ever known. Not every human is brought here how you had been, though. Some are snatched up from their adult lives; fallen to some faerie trick hidden in plain sight. Slip up, and you’re stolen away to come do work in this wretched realm. You don’t know what’s worse: what happened to you, being raised here and molded into a meaningless servant, or that. The faerie had stolen time from his life that he will never get back—and he remembers none of it. Glamoured servants had always stricken a gut-wrenching sick feeling in you, whenever you’d seen them. With gone eyes and hollowed out cheeks, they’d look right through you like mist and continue on with their prescribed duties. Like a husk of a living being.

Even now, Soobin’s body tells the story of the taxation. This faerie must’ve seen humans as cattle. “Why stay here?” you ask, making a seat out of a sofa along the wall. The cushions accept your shape graciously; made affable by time and use. Beomgyu trades the cushioned seat for the floor in front of your crisscrossed legs. He lolls his head back, coarse hair tickling at your skin.

Beomgyu answers. “Because he has no place else to go, and his awful stubbornness keeps him here. There are no rides back to the human world, if you’re not willing to give something away for it.”

Soobin, looking more annoyed than genuinely angry with Beomgyu’s words, says, “I’m not going to give your kind any more of me than I was already forced to. I’ll find a way. Eventually.”

Eventually. The word is heavy coming out from his mouth, falling out like a dud; not even he believes it. “How long have you been here?”

“I... don’t know.” He shifts, watching the flooring rather than looking at the two of you as he speaks. “Since I was taken here? I have no idea. I don’t remember a lick of it. But from what I do remember, long. Centuries, maybe.”

Your fingers, raking paths through the tangles in Beomgyu’s hair, freeze. Looking up at him, you tilt your head. It sounds like it should be a hyperbole, an overdramatization to describe what feels like an eternity spent here in this old place. But he doesn’t deliver it as such. No, his voice doesn’t joke at all—his eyes stare hard and lack the light of life. “What?” you say. Your voice crackles with a confused flare. “What do you mean, centuries?”

“He means that he’s been making this his home for centuries,” Beomgyu says.

“No,” you say, willing your glare to burn holes through the back of his head below you. Of course, he doesn’t stir or notice at all. “I mean, that’s not possible. We don’t live that long.” Nonetheless, he looks no older than you. Anything above twenty years is no less unbelievable than centuries.

“You don’t?” Beomgyu says. You hear the patronizing smile through his words. “I have known him long. And yet, he lives... How strange is that?”

You deliver a punishing shove at the back of his head. “You know what I meant, idiot.”

Simpering, he says back to you from over his shoulder, “You’re not so much the sweet girl I remember meeting. Spend enough of your time here, and even the human’s body slows. The makeup of his human flesh has not aged for quite some time. Neither will yours.”

A lifetime spent dreading how fast your life will dwindle away comes crashing down over you. You blink hard at the impact. You’d been haunted; followed around by the dark and heavy promise of a soon death, of deteriorating joints and a forgettable name. That had all been in vain? The enormity of that realization... it comes overhead like dark and swirling water, sucking you down where no amount of kicking or thrashing will clear a way. It swallows you. A bitter anger kindles down in the depths from which that fear had nestled itself. So, Nut-hatch had made the very conscious decision to lead you to believe otherwise.

“You’ve reached maturity, and you will stay this way for until you leave Faerie. The years will begin coming to you, as long as you remain there; where time flows differently through the veins,” Beomgyu continues. “He only wishes to spend his blessing of time decaying away here.”

The two of them begin talking back and forth about whatever it is that Beomgyu says, but a loud silence like fog in your head has their words more like background noise. You’d lived for so, so long thinking that you were running out of time. The tick of a terrible clock sounded off in the distance in a haunting echo in everything you ever did. It’s why you ever rallied the nerve to up and leave the life you’d been dragged into. You’d been so scared of wasting what little life you had—fear welled up high and told you that time was running out to do it. Would you have ever even left, if you’d not thought yourself so rushed? Your face feels hot.

Soobin saying your name, loud and questioning, draws you out just enough to hear him say, “How did you get tricked?”

You swallow and clear your throat, sitting up straighter. “What do you mean?” you ask, mental inertia coloring your words lost. “Tricked?” Doing a re-survey of the room, you stop on the windows. Day has begun weaning off into the gray of eventide.

“How did you end up as a servant, I mean,” he elaborates.

“Oh,” you say, nodding your understanding. “Sorry, I got distracted. I was taken when I was little, so I didn’t get tricked, or anything.” Nut-hatch didn’t have to trick you to bring you here like most faeries do when taking humans from their world, because you had no will. It’s the loophole in their governing nature; though they might not be able to just take humans without a promise or debt or something of that sort, they can take away the newly born. As long as they leave behind what they believe to be a replacement as payment.

“You’re a changeling,” he says, as if realizing out loud. His eyes meet yours, dead and gone and bitter. “You should’ve killed that faerie. They all deserve it.”

The acidic rancor there has you balking. Kill Nut-hatch? You may still harbor resentment—deep, deep gnarly gashes and crevices that you’d had to fill, and it just so happens that enmity did the job well. You understand his anger, but the thought of killing your stealer for self-gratifying revenge doesn’t make you feel good. Not in the way he suggests it should. In a sick way that only a child with a cavity in their chest where the love for a parent should be could manage, you consumed her role as your owner and digested it down into something you could cling on to. And, with chubby little desperate hands, you had. Perhaps she would spit in your face if you were to return to her now—because you’d failed to fulfill your purpose for her—you could not fathom hurting her. You pull back the sour face twitching at your muscles and say, “How do you feel about that, Beomgyu? I thought you were friends.”

He shakes his head. “If you make senseless bets, you’re already the fool. You can’t act so surprised when you’re then asked to put on the fool’s hat and to dance,” he says, pointed derision like an arrow at Soobin.

Whatever that means. The folk speak with adages and idioms, but Beomgyu’s verbiage is infested with it. You scuffle down your laugh when Soobin does not share your humor.

“How was I supposed to have thought I’d be making a bet with a faerie? Nobody even knows this shit is real, there. It’s all just folklore and scary stories. It’s not fair ground if I didn’t even know that I was doing it. And now, here I am: everybody I ever knew and loved is long, long dead.”

His words are seething with hatred, and yet they’re barren. It’s carved him up inside, dug him out into a shell with only this awfulness left. It shakes you a bit. You’d been so eager to find another human to know or to bond with. This, though... Your brain feels rattled around in your skull. You hope to never become this.

“So, no. We are not friends,” Soobin says. “He only comes here to enjoy my misfortune, and our kind live with the need for interaction. I tolerate it, I guess.”

You husk out a laugh that doesn’t find your eyes. “Well, that’s not very nice, Beomgyu,” you say, stressing his name with false reprimand. “He enjoys my suffering too,” you tell Soobin. You nudge Beomgyu with your dangling leg, trying to drag the nonplussed kelpie back into the conversation to save you.

“Of course, he does. It’s why they take us from our world: our pain is no more than like playing with a beetle to watch it struggle, and then killing it when it’s no longer fun. We’re bugs. Or, dirt. I’m sure you’ve heard that before. They love to tell us that.”

You have. That memory is one that you prefer shoved down and compact where you can’t let it remind you what your designated role really is. You’ve been so good about ignoring it, too. With a quick glance to the windows and the dark that’s fallen outside, you say, “I think we need to go, Beomgyu. We didn’t bring any lights...”

The kelpie drags himself up from the ground and away from the room without any sharing of pleasantries. You offer Soobin a quick goodbye and are next out of the room, feet moving like the wood flooring has gone to hot coals.

Even in the round edges of a human face, you had not found the resonance that you’ve longed so hard for. Humans have the capacity for unshaking violence and vacant souls too, it seems. Perhaps it was never that you were looking for a human to see yourself reflected in—you’d just bloomed cloudy hopes of finding eyes that will see you clearly and deeply. Those hopes had been misplaced.

But, if not in another human, then who?

❆

It’s utterly black outside—a moonless night. Kicking your restless legs out from your blankets, you stumble down the stairs.

You can’t find sleep, even behind closed eyes. Behind your eyelids, you see Yeonjun’s storm-clouded face and you taste Taehyun on your mouth. You’re harassed by guilt cruelly, and feel the weight of your conversation with Soobin deep in your chest.

How you end up at Taehyun’s door once again, you’re not sure. It’s a wholly inappropriate hour of the night, and you ought to have learned your lesson the last time you’d found yourself here. You don’t know why your sleepy legs lead you here. You’re better off plaguing Beomgyu with your restlessness instead. Why you’re stood here before this door... It’s beyond you.

Though, you’ve been desperately unable to shove down the urge to stick your toes in the water and see just how icy they are. He’s pointedly avoided you, and you have no grasp on where you two are going after this. An innate feeling, settled heavy like stone in your chest, tells you that everything has changed.

Once you’ve knocked and cracked the door open, though, a nervous tide creeps up on you. You should pivot and be back to your room. You would, if you were smart, but as Taehyun sits up with a mess of dark hair and sleep-dusted cheeks, you’re compelled by something other than your mind. It’s something strangely human, waking up in a groggy haze. The sight of sleepiness on the ever-composed Taehyun is jarring. It’s gone in only a blink, though, as he shakes it away.

“Is something wrong?” he says. He may have brushed away the fog in his brain, but he’s powerless to the husk still weighing his voice down. It sends a strange thrill through you.

You shake your head, throat dry.

He frowns. “You’re having dreams again?”

The gentle question has you pausing. It’s so out and away—so far beyond what you expect from him. Taehyun has never been one to ask around about how you’re feeling. He’d much rather skirt around such things, and pretend them away. Emotional nuance is a lost cause on him. Or, that’s what you’d thought, anyway. What’s changed? “No,” you tell him, pursing your lips. “I just... wanted to talk to you.”

Taehyun sits more fully upright. “About what?” he says. You don’t miss how his shoulders straighten and stiffen.

On bare feet, you shuffle over to his bed. “Nothing,” you tell him. You hadn’t exactly planned on coming here. Of course, he thinks you’ve come here to address what had happened. But... that’s not why you came here. At least, you think it isn’t. You don’t know. “Can I sit?” You gesture at the foot of his bed. He nods, eyes trained right on you. Pressing one knee into the coverlets, you climb in.

The buzzing and hum of wind dance in the air between you. You’re not sure what to say; it’s so heavy with every single thing. It’s hard to keep things light with him, when even the silence is painted with intensity.

You settle with just saying, “I couldn’t sleep.”

He licks his lips, nodding. “I’d only just fallen asleep,” he says. “Always something to think about.”

You can relate to that. The melody of a serene, content mind seems like a distant memory. “Sorry,” you say. You hadn’t meant to ruin his rest. Rigidity intrudes on the flow of conversation. You don’t remember ever being this awkward.

He dismisses that with a shake of his head. “I’ll manage,” he says. “When I came back yesterday, you and the kelpie weren’t here. Where did you go?”

This is exactly what had been keeping your mind awake. You had wanted to think of anything but that, but maybe talking to somebody about it will be nice. “Beomgyu took me somewhere,” you say. You laugh softly as he makes a face. “Yeah, I know. It was some old, run-down place. And there was this human there.”

You pause, filtering through the memory. Taehyun doesn’t speak, his eyes watching you with an attentive slowness. He’s just listening. Continuing, you say, “It was weird, because... Well, we were talking, and... He was nice. It was nice, talking to another human and seeing my features on him.”

You give a passing glance over at his ears.

“And Beomgyu is a jerk, but I don’t think I learned that yesterday,” you say. You ramble, perhaps filling the space where the uncomfortable memory sits before you can let it bother you. It doesn’t help that the air is so quiet. Your mouth moves quick to make it less so. “But... this guy. He’s centuries old, and just lives inside that place. I’d been so excited to have someone who could understand me like that, but then he started saying stuff that made me feel... just, bad for him, I guess. He was so angry and bitter.”

Taehyun watches you speak, and then nods. Tinged with his sleepy husk, he says, “Not everybody stays good when they live for so long. He let it rot him.”

“Yeah. It was really like he was rotted. Not bad, I guess,” you say. “It made me worry that I’ll end up that way, someday. Even though we came here differently, I still feel that sort of anger sometimes. I don’t like it, though.”

“I don’t think you will,” he says.

His voice feels so strangely soft. You don’t know how to respond to this, coming from him. Long, quiet beats only decorated by the crackling of bushes scraping up and down the windows, fall over you two again. Your gazes intertwine, dancing together in a way that is also different. “Thank you,” you tell him, your voice meek. “I hope that’s true.”

The longer you’re sat there in Taehyun’s bed, the plush warmth of it and his presence serving as some sort of scarecrow for your pestering thoughts, your eyes grow heavier and your words more useless. Here, in his room and in his presence, it’s as if those thoughts and their terrible claws cannot reach you. You prattle on to him about sleepy nothings, but he doesn’t seem to mind that you’re stealing his sleep from him. He only listens, eyes watching you melt down into something softer on the surface of his bed.

❆

When you’d woken up this morning, you’d popped up in a frantic flurry. Instead of on your own bed, your dreary eyes were met with the walls of Taehyun’s room. You had fallen asleep in Taehyun’s bed; talked yourself into a solid sleep. You had been so thankful that he was not there when you’d been drug from your slumber by the feel of foreign bedsheets on your skin.

Even thinking about it now, your ears glow red. Had he been annoyed? You frantically shove those thoughts away.

There’s a thump from outside. You lean over from your spot on the bed and try to get the best look out you can manage, but it’s at an angle. You see nothing but winter’s flurries there.

Your head drops back down to the threadbare fabric in hand. Beomgyu, after a long-winded back and forth, had relented to letting you patch up his clothes. Well, just his shirt. When he’d handed it over to you, it had been a valiant internal battle to not run off and drown the thing in soaped water. For now, you settle for just patching up the mangiest bits. It gives you something to be busy with.

Taehyun has been especially busy lately. You’re not sure why; he doesn’t exactly go around singing about his stresses.

This time, there’s three resounding and deliberate knocks at the pane of your window. Your working fingers come to a stop, head popping up. A nervous rattle thrums up and down your spine. It could have been a straying tree branch knocking a song with the wind’s encouragement, but they’d been so sure and pronounced. You let the shirt down and slip off the bed. Keeping your approach down to whisper, you creep toward the window.

Yeonjun, nose gone pink, sits on a sturdy branch.

For a moment, you stand there taking in the sight of him there; a prince of Faerie, crouched up and in a tangle of branches as he waits for you. It’s absurd. Not only that, it’s dreadful. You’ve done well, tearing yourself away from him. So, so well. Recently, all that hurt has painted its face and made itself anger. At the sight of his face, it sparks in your chest. But it’s a dull, slow flame, oh so reluctant. This anger feels different than other angers. It bothers you so deeply that you can’t place a finger on why.

And you want to let that anger sit there and fester, hoping that it will work at eroding away your still-connected heartstrings like rot. Even through the glass of the window, you feel them—red and reinforced and tugging you toward him.

It’s ridiculous. This is ridiculous and pathetic, letting him send you fragmented just with this. You’ve become the sort of girl that you’d snort over in sappy lover’s ballads and odes, the kind that you’d looked down on for their lack of spine. How different it is, when it comes to your turn. Despite it all, you reach out and push the windows open. Even with the sputtering flame you foster, he’s frozen and does not look like he’s going to give up just at this. If you were to pretend he wasn’t there and flop back down into the bed, you think that he might sit there brazen and let the ice freeze him from the inside out. Or, he’ll find some other way to speak with you. The glint in his eyes, the only light reflected in flatness, tells you as much.

“This isn’t cute, or... romantic, like you think it is, Yeonjun. Not like last time. It’s just hurtful,” you tell him.

Breath like smoke, Yeonjun says, “I don’t mean to hurt you. It kills me that I do.” His voice is sweet and smooth like malt liquor. It grips your mind in dazzling claws.

You shake your head, staying a reasonable distance from him and the window. “You’re not supposed to be here. You have to go,” you tell him, pulling the leash to the collar you’ve put on yourself taut. “It’s icy. Climb down safe, please.”

Of course, that doesn’t budge him. “Not supposed to be here? Why, because you don’t want it, or because he’ll be angry at you?” he says. His pretty face has gone sour. “Look at you. You’ve lost so much weight. He’s not taking care of you, pretty. Come home to me. I know you know where it is; I see the look on your face. I know that you lie to me with your words, but you were never good at hiding your face.”

You stay rooted to your spot; you won’t be so weak to words again. No matter how sweet and soft they feel against your shining, weeping wounds. He put that hurt there. Leaning into it would just be self-destructive.

“Please. It hurts both of us to be away, so why do it? I know that I’ve hurt you, and I’ll spend every last of my waking breath letting you know that it was a mistake. I’ll leave it all behind—none of it matters,” he continues. “Make me your servant. Ask me to swear my life away to you, and I’ll drop to my knees and put it on my beating heart right now.”

Your throat feels dry. He’d swear himself in your service, give you the ability to control him as you will. It’s an unfathomably massive show of trust and dedication. You don’t want that, though. Not one bit. His frantic professions punch you in the gut nonetheless. Had you been losing weight? You haven’t even noticed. Yeonjun did, though—at a glance, he’d known you’ve been hurting.

“Yeonjun, please. You’re not making this easy for me. Just give it time; we’ll get over it. Eventually, we’ll forget each other,” you say, jaw aching with protest at each heavy word. Now faced with the reality of a much, much longer life, your own words bite you. It means, though, that you have so much time to build yourself up into something solid and beautiful. And, somewhere down the road, you’ll think of this and be unaffected. Won’t that day come any sooner, though?

“Forget each other?” he says, laugh like poison. “No, we won’t forget each other. Time doesn’t fix it. I promise you that I know that all too well. Our love is not the kind you can forget. It will just hurt forever.”

“Go on,” you say. “Lie to me again. I want to hear it.”

Eyes shining and unable to lie, he says, “I love you.”

Swallowing thickly, you back away and get ready to close the window.

He climbs in through the window in a quick move. You don’t even have time to protest it before he’s saying, “Ask anything of me. Any last thing that you want of me, but do not ask me to watch you in his arms. I will not.”

There it is again—that dread. You want it to go easy, but of course it never was going to. “Stop it,” you say, mustering up a shaking finger to point at him. “Stop. Just go.”

His face goes hard. “That bastard is off to a war camp. Soon. He becomes more like his father every day, doesn’t he?” His soft hands, warm and cradling, find your face. “You don’t have to punish me by being with him. Come be safe. All he’s done is throw you out in the path of danger. If he cared for you, it would have never happened.”

Darting between his eyes, breaths come quick to you. “What?” you say. It’s the one word you can pull out from the chaos that he’s wrought onto your thoughts. A blizzard erupts, and through the whipping breeze and shards you don’t think to pull away from him or take his hands off of you.

So, that’s why Taehyun had been busy. What does that even entail for you? Are you going to be here? Does he expect you to pack up and go there with him, to travel for a war that you don’t even care for?

“All I ever did was protect you, pretty. I know that, in hindsight, it all seems shady. But I promise you that I did. They were never going to hurt you, and neither was I,” he says, his voice thick and strong with conviction.

Metal rings, the sound of a quick blade being unsheathed.

“Leave,” Taehyun snarls. He holds his sword at point, right on Yeonjun. It’s an emphatic promise of what he’s capable of and what he’ll do.

Flame, wild and melting you around the edges, eats up every last bit of oxygen in the room. It leaves none for you to breathe. It crackles and pops between them, where their gazes meet and feed it. Everything else has gone still. Even the wind, it seems.

Sword held fast and unmoving, Taehyun says, “You send your people into my home, and now you sneak in yourself. I won’t be walked over. Leave now, or you waste my courtesy.”

So, he’d come to that conclusion as well. He’s so still—his face carved of ice into sharp edges.

When Yeonjun sends a look your way, you shake your head at him. You have no clue what he’s thinking, but you want none of it. Your stomach does a violent flip. “Yeonjun, go. I want you to go. Please.”

His features lined with flame; he looks from you to Taehyun. “Your violence will be the fall of you,” he says, jaw tight as he pushes out toward your door. Not without a final glance sent to you, though. The promise you see there is a dreadful one.

You refuse to meet Taehyun’s daggered look. Beomgyu’s shirt lays forgotten on your bed. You’re half tempted to grab it and resume work; to continue on and escape this.

“That didn’t take very fucking long, did it?” he says. “Right back into his arms.”

Your drag your hands down your face. “I didn’t tell him to come here,” you snap. “It’s none of your business who I talk to. How about we talk about you leaving? When did you plan on telling me, huh? I don’t like secrets, Taehyun.”

Taehyun slips his sword back into the sheath. It clicks back in place. “None of my business?” he says. He repeats the words back at you with an asp’s curl. “When he’s in my home, in your room, it’s my business.”

“Would you stop?” you say, exhaustion sputtering out your fight. “With Yeonjun, I always know what’s going on. With you? I don’t know what to expect,” you say. “Tell me. When were you going to tell me that you’re going?”

His face morphs into something different: one of those bone-chilling ones that you don’t know how to explain. He doesn’t answer for a few beats; you can see his mind turning itself over. “This was going to happen. I told you that,” he says. “And I was going to tell you.”

You let out a long sigh, your shoulders loosening with it, when this time his voice isn’t so venomous. He’d been so busy lately. Being general assured that, especially now that things are moving. “When? How long will you be gone?” you say. “What if something happens to you, Taehyun? What are Beomgyu and I supposed to do?” You include Beomgyu in your proposition, but you’re not sure whether he’d stay with you or run off into the tree line the moment he finds he’s free. Then, really, who would you have?

“You’ll be there,” he says. “You can come. I prefer it. If you stay here, you’re vulnerable to attacks. This estate is known to be mine, and now that I’ve become the general... I can’t say that it’s safe.” He’s come so close that now his eyes look down on you. They don’t feel acidic on your skin. “And nothing will happen to me. I promise it, nothing will happen to me or you. Or that kelpie. I’ll win this war.”

Around a thick swallow, you nod.

You don’t doubt that Taehyun has the skill or the wits to do so. You only can hope that he doesn’t destroy himself trying to prove it; to both you and himself.

…🪶 ashlynn's note i know, i know. we made big moves this chapter. AHHHH! taehyun…… taehyun…..

﹙🏷️ ﹚ @lvrs-street2mmorrow , @soohashits , @f4iryfever , @arcturus444 , @linqed , @serenityism00 , @immelissaaa , @luv4cheol , @lickingan0rchid , @20-cms , @hhoneylix , @beestvng , @hyucktapes , @bewitchless , @prince-jjae , @blankliving , @yaoizee , @stormy1408 , @missychief1404 , if your tag isn't working, check the mentions part of your settings!

#okay that whole nightmare scene is incredibly scary and i just feel so bad for her #being thrown into the middle of first the spying and what not but now this war... like girlie pop needs a break!#but taehyun immediately trying to comfort her and stay with her when she asked... i love him still and the fact he stayed for so longgg #the scene from the teaser AHHH i felt like it flowed super well into the piece and i loved the tension from it... hehe #yeonjun and his letters... he really knows how to write like what can i say #OKAY NOW ONTO *THE* SCENE #ALL BUILT UP TENSION LIKE I WAS LAYING BACK BUT IMMEDIATELY SAT UP STRAIGHT ONCE I COULD SEE WHAT THIS WAS BUILDING UP TO #FINALLY SOME CLARITY INTO TAEHYUNS BRAIN AND SOME REAL FREAKIN EMOTION FROM HIM #GOD ALL THE JEALOUSY! ALL THE SHIT THAT WAS COMING FROM HIS MOUTH LIKE IT WAS SENDINNGGGG MEEE AGHHHHHH #and the fact that she had that split second thought about yj and it ruining everything..... oh i was gonna killll her like i was so mad #WHY ARE YOU THINKING ABT HIM WHEN U GOT THAT FINE PIECE OF MAN ON YOU OH MY GOD #also soobins character...#man i love how theres introduction to another human that we could potentially play off of but :(#hes got this horrendous back story and i feel so bad for him. i understand where hes coming from tho like he went through so much and has #all the reason to be bitter and hateful #i just im so scared for this war. i love taehyun and im so scared about taehyun turning into something hes not.#also wait the scene with going into taehyun’s room at night..#like just falling asleep there..#talking abt nothing #him being there and listening ugh i love him #overall super excited abt this part like i’m just absolutely in love with this world and these characters!#also i never want it to end like ever plz im gonna be so distraught #also i love you 🤓😳😋

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wandasfavv · 6 months ago

Text

Keep It Steady

Wanda x Fem!Reader

Summary: Meeting an older woman through a dating app wasn’t exactly what you had in mind, especially one that’s newly divorced and experimenting.

Word Count: 5.3k

Warnings: 18+ Minors DNI. Inexperienced!WandaxFem!Reader, fingering(r receiving), oral(r receiving), fingers in mouth, overstimulation, soft sex that turns rough, Servicetop!Wanda, fluff and angst, matched each others freak tbh

Sunlight shone through the thick glass of the car with the two of you inside, hitting your back as it accompanied the warm sensation within your body. Heat escaped your lips and into the other woman’s mouth, a constant motion for trying to find air between the deep exchange in which led to the sound of a device loudly announcing itself in the front pocket of Wanda’s pants. As you were positioned on top of her, straddling her lap, you felt the buzz beneath you.

She pulled away from you with a huff, evidently flushed whilst she looked down to the direction of her phone, waiting for you to lift yourself up so she could pull it out. Your eyes wandered down as well to the screen, wondering what it was to have disturbed the session. While she checked the notification she received, her fingers lightly and comfortingly traced your skin by the free hand pressed against the side of your thigh.

Another sigh left Wanda before she looked back up at you. The clatter of her phone being gently tossed inside the cup holder disrupted the quiet space. “Sorry, it’s the kids.”

“It’s fine,” you replied almost aloof, a faint frown present. Getting tugged toward the other seat of the car by the disappointed force of your body, she looked over to you with an unreadable expression. “It’s not like we don’t do this all the time.”

There was a certain underlying bitterness to your tone, yet it went unnoticed with Wanda’s oblivious front. She hummed a response, averting her gaze from you as her rosy cheeks eased up after the practical make out. You took the wheel of the vehicle and started the engine before backing out of the secluded area in which became a routine.

The drive was overall peaceful— or so one would think from the point of view of anyone besides you two. The silence besides the noises of the pebbly road and the blasting AC was dreadful as it led you deeper into your thoughts. Thoughts of this relationship if you could even call it that.

For the past month, you and Wanda had been nothing more than what felt like two friends who happen to dabble in kissing. It was ridiculous, but how could you have any say if you weren’t outright protesting against it.

Ever since you met her outside of the app you first saw her from, you knew what you were getting into. The words of her interests and what she looked for in her bio below the picture that caught your attention more than anybody else haunted you throughout. To not have anything serious. It constantly made your stomach churn as the reminder was only forcing you to either leave or stay put in this hooked position. Wanda’s charming yet confusing character brought you to the latter.

From when you saw her through just a blinding square in the darkness of your room, she sparked something in you. The way you trailed and raked over every feature that was shown in millions of pixels, from her prominent smile lines to her perfectly refined clothing. Everything about her made you swipe right, overriding the contrasting wants between the two of you.

Yet there you were, stuck in a repeated process of being nothing more or less than whatever this was. It made your head spin how she’d at times be obviously tempted in doing more with you, but stop herself. You’ve noticed it countless of times. The acts of service in which had bundles of flowers in your hands to sudden cold turns that leave you on read. Or the way she would often fumble around with the hem of your shirt and the waistband of your pants only to pull away and keep up at the same pace of only locking lips. She led you nowhere but a pitiful hole that left you trapped.

As you began to drive past the many houses you became familiar with down the street, your eyes spotted a foreign car parked in the driveway of Wanda’s home. Behind the tinted windows, you saw a man sitting in front while two smaller heads peeked up from behind him in the back. You parked on the side of the sidewalk, turning to Wanda who had a subtle smile on hers.

“So I’ll see you… Saturday?”

“Yeah, sounds good. I’ll see you,” you responded in more a friendly but forced voice, a small smile played as you waited for her to exit the car. But surprisingly, she leaned forward and placed a short yet lasting kiss on your lips, the softness of hers making you flush. It felt sweeter than most, meaningful even. As she pulled away and swiftly turned to open the door and leave, you almost missed the matching flustered expression. Again, you were met with another puzzling action that made you internally groan.

Watching her round the corner of your car and walking to the other, the door opened with two boys the same age jumping out. Smiles on both of them as they ran over to their mom was a warming sight, along with seeing the white between her lips as she grinned brightly looking down to them hugging either side of her body.

Wanda waved a slight bye to the man as you educatedly guessed it was her ex husband dropping off the kids for their few days with her. She had told you about the shared custody, something you knew that partially bothered her as conversations upon that topic resulted in noticeable downturns of her mouth.

A tired exhale came out before you turned away and started to drive again, not wanting to deal with the emotions spinning.

——————

Few days passed by since you last saw Wanda. You two only messaged each other at random times, like now when you were headed to bed. Already lying down and under the blankets, your eyes closed for the night until a disturbance occurred.

You stirred, feeling the buzz beside your head as you laid on the sunken pillow. Lazily reaching a hand up to take hold of your phone, it lit up in your squinted eyes, revealing a message that made your heart stutter with a following swallow of nerves.

“I want to see you.”

Your thumbs twiddled above the keyboard, not knowing how or what to respond with considering how it was still before the day you two planned to meet up. But you soon typed a reply back, wanting to seem casual about it. “Right now?”

Her reply came in an instant, a certain eagerness radiating off a single word. “Please?”

Your legs moved without a thought and dragged yourself out of bed. You were focused on the request, not bothering to care about the doubts about Wanda. But then again, you were also completely unaware of the state that she was in.

On the other end of the phone, she bit her tongue. A message sent out of pure desire and impulse. In honesty, she had no idea of what she was doing with you. These common meet ups and ‘dates’ came out as a way for her to release some sort of pent up tension.

It was her first time being with someone who wasn’t her ex, the man she’d often grimace at the thought of as she began to revel in ones of you instead, and since the day she found you on a simple free app which piqued her interest. She knew most wouldn’t have been fond with the idea of doing what she had in mind, yet she lucked out as an attractive individual like you willingly followed along.

It all started off very slow, subtle gestures and small compliments that could’ve been perceived as platonic. Or atleast until a random night where she ended a simple day with a sudden first move, kissing you with a particular urgency. And then only that continued for the next counting weeks.

She was just so comfortable in where you both were, able to do things at the steady pace she wanted while you stayed compliant. Yet, now she couldn’t have helped but felt that there was maybe more that she wanted in spite of the fear and nerves of doing something she wasn’t familiar with.

The sound of the doorbell disturbed her thinking. Her body moved at a quick pace to the front door revealing the face she grew to yearn seeing everyday.

You walked in hesitantly as you watched her eyes lit up, a small exchange of greetings between you. Her hand came to the small of your back to gesture you in her home which was welcoming with ambiance. Looking around, you saw littered and deserted toys in the living room, a long train along with futuristic and faux weapons you’d see in movies. “They went back with him already?”

“Yeah, I know. So soon,” she replied sighing, closing and locking the door before facing you. “They’ll be back soon enough though.”

Wanda walked towards you, taking your hand gently as she led you upstairs. You followed with no complaint, sensing what it was that she wanted. The usual.

Stepping into her room and trailing behind, a wave of uncertainty washed over you. Everything that you had thought about over the past week stirred up inside your head, and while she closed the door behind you, her eyes roamed your body without a clue. You sat on her bed, hands clinging onto the covers hanging off. The soft click of the door was heard. And then the unexpected blurt of your nervous voice.

“Wanda?” You called out to her without thinking as she turned her head around to look at you curiously with a small hum in return. “Could we talk about us?”

Her face dropped from your question, matching the feeling of her heart as she fully untwisted her body to properly talk to you. She muttered an answer. “Yeah, what about?”

You shifted nervously on the edge of her bed, your eyes flickering between her and floor as you spoke at a low level. “I just feel like this isn’t for me.”

“W-What do you mean? Everything’s been going so well between us,” Wanda responded, her voice laced with worry and disbelief.

“Wanda, it’s been over a month of… I don’t even know what. You’ve been giving me mixed signals. And honestly, I’m not sure why I willingly agreed to do this- thing like I’m some experiment,” you retorted with an undertone of sadness along side the confusion you’ve brought to the top.

“You’re not- trust me,” she tried to keep the wavering in her voice at bay until it lowered to same wavelength of regret. “You know I’m new to this…” Her brows pulled together while she took steps towards you, her feet reaching the bed and side beside you. The mattress sunk under her weight to your right. “I-I was just worried about what you’d think if I didn’t meet your expectations, and I knew you liked doing what we did so I figured I’d get enough out of that while also maybe keeping you interested-”

You heard her rant helplessly, the nonstop shaking of her leg then concerning you. She caught the way your eyes softened, and stopped herself from furthering her disquieting explanation. Her lip quivered as she let only a few more words sum it up. “I’m serious about you, I promise.”

The beating of your heart was loud against your chest, and you kept quiet letting her words sink in. All the doubts and nights you spent overthinking disappeared in your mind at the reassurance. You looked at her, your eyes wide with yearning as she gently trailed her fingertips along your jaw after her hand came up. Your skin heated up under her touch, only prompting her to then let her smoothly tilt your head further up.

Wanda took in the expression on you, how she sensed the feeling of security as you only gazed at her with want but not making any move to make her uncomfortable. So she took the chance to initialize it instead, now knowing that she no longer wanted to keep it steady. Leaning down, she pressed her plump lips against yours and kept her hand at your cheek as her other one crept up to caress the other side.

In response, you let out sigh through your parted mouth before you felt her tongue slowly probe and enter it. A noise of both surprise and desperation left you at her sudden movements, causing her to lightly groan and press against your warm body. She moved her hands to run down your shoulders to your waist, softly but firmly holding you there. And with moments of her kissing you breathlessly, she pushed you down against the mattress as her lips chased after yours in a longing manner.

“I want you,” she whispered after parting for only a second until she came back down a lot more eagerly. You reach up for her with your hands running through her soft untangled hair as another small moan left you. Wanda continued to intertwine her tongue with yours which only let her take control and you followed her lead. Lasting for only a minute or so, she teared herself away from you, staring down at your frazzled state. Heavy breaths huffed out from both of you, hers a lot more erratic.

Soon enough you felt her tugging at your shirt, signaling for you to pull it off of yourself. In a swift motion, you did while she then took the time to take your other article of clothing off from below and leaving you in just your underwear.

“You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting to see you like this…” Wanda’s voice came out muttered and deep, like she was really lost in your presence. She gradually crawled on top of you, her knee between your thighs as it pressed against your clothed center. You gasped at the sudden friction, already feeling as if you soaked through and made evidence of your wetness on her pants. As Wanda kneeled for a second, she took off her shirt and tossed it to the same direction of your clothes. She came and lowered back down to make contact with your lips again, her arms supporting her at the sides of your head.

You ushered a response to her, breathing heavily once you were able to part from the heated interaction. “Longer than me?”

“Probably,” she cracked a smile at your reply, your soft tone sounding sweeter than ever through her ears. “I just didn’t know it yet.”

With her hand coming down between your legs, she pulled her knee away and looked down to see the damp fabric. Her fingers grazed the darker spot of your panties, applying a light pressure to feel you more. You let out a moan in return, the sensation only heightening as she started to kiss and suck at the pulse of your neck.

The teasing lasted shortly before you felt her pull the cotton to the side to access your pussy. Two fingers pushed between your folds, a slight intake of air heard from Wanda due to your arousal leaking on her. You basked in the feeling of her gently rubbing against your sensitive areas before probing your entrance which welcomed her greatly.

She let one finger slip in, your walls already clenching around it. You bit your lip after the long anticipation, muffling another sound of pleasure as she continued to go in and out at a slow pace before stretching you out with another finger. She watched you from above to check for any signs of discomfort. “Does this feel okay?”

Her sweet and soft tone made you pay more attention to her expression, noting the furrow of her eyebrows. You were reminded of her inexperience as she showed concern over what she was doing. The careful movements inside your walls took some time to turn into light curling against that one spongey spot. “Mhm… you’re doing really good.” Your muttered and hushed words caused a sudden spur in Wanda. The praise fueled her to go deeper, hitting another point that drove you further in heat.

More wetness pooled beneath you and on her hand, making the sounds from below anything but innocent. Her lips returned to your neck, peppering lower to your collarbone and nibbling against the soft skin. You jerked up to meet her hand to find more friction which led to her thumb to then go upward to your clit, smoothly bringing you closer to the built up tension within your lower tummy. She didn’t stop her ministrations at all, ignoring the growing soreness of the muscles as the tip of her tongue ran over the dark marks she created.

The rise of volume and the desperate grip you had on Wanda had her in a daze as she found it all so addicting. It made her question why she didn’t give in sooner.

“W-Wanda, I’m gonna…” you trailed off, throwing your head back as she pumped into you harder. Tears welled up at the pressure, climbing up to the feeling of ecstasy. And the hum of her deep voice brought you over the edge.

“Uh huh, cum for me,” her breath fanned your flesh before her teeth dug into it, another mark made that well represented her possession over you.

At her soft demand, you squeezed around her fingers which forced their way to keep curling at your g-spot. Mixed moans left both of you, and filled up the room until she slowly came to stop, letting you ride out your orgasm before her fingers stilled.

As the tense feeling began to wash away, you were met with light kisses pattered around the side of your neck, trailing slowly up your jaw. You smiled faintly as Wanda’s lips separated from your skin to instead look down at your hazed expression. Again, her smile lines deepened as she couldn’t help but show more satisfaction of what she made you do. Carefully, her fingers left your drenched hole, causing you to also inwardly pout in disappointment at the emptiness following.

Wanda’s hand came from between your legs and you stared at it with earnest, noticing how a slick layer covered mainly two of her long thin fingers. Without thinking, your own hand came to gradually capture her wrist, making her caught off guard before your weak hold left her content. She gazed down at you curiously and watched with intent at how you sluggishly dragged it to your face. Eyes widening just enough for you spot it, Wanda clenched her teeth as she swallowed down a breath seeing you open your mouth and envelope her digits.

You continued to look up at her with doe-like eyes, desperation filling them and only making the warm sensation in her stomach on the verge of bursting. The feeling of your tongue moving against her and the tip running through crevices combined with the tear stains shimmering from the soft hue of light beginning to dry up pushed her in a state she didn’t recognize. Like an unknown switch was turned on in the back her mind.

Through your blurry vision, you saw the way her green orbs shifted side to side in a shaky but subtle manner, likely studying every feature on your face which kindled her further. With her still in your mouth, you sucked lightly, taking off and tasting all of your arousal. Once you were done, the grip on her wrist tightened loosely to pull her fingers back out, a line of spit connecting you both as the two of you witness each other’s reactions to everything.

Wanda let out an unstable breath. Her bottom lip shook lightly before being trapped between her teeth. Letting the silence sink in for only a few more moments, her muttering voice broke the building suspense. “God, you’re so pretty… I can’t fucking take it.”

With your lips still parted, she leans back in to eagerly capture them, her tongue immediately darting in to taste your arousal. Her hand came up to firmly yet gently hold your face in place by your jaw. Smalls gasps left the two of you and into each other’s mouths, leaving hardly any room to breathe. You could tell how much more she wanted this by the way she hungrily roamed the open spaces inside.

Laying weak underneath Wanda’s body, you felt her lift herself up steadily as she lightly grazed your bottom lip with her front teeth before separating. While you were still in a daze, she let go of you momentarily to lower herself. Her knee between your legs moved down as she placed and trailed light kisses from your neck to all the way to your tummy. “So perfect, baby.”

You felt your spine shudder from her hushed words, feeling the heat radiating off of her as she continued teasing you down to your inner thighs. Smaller bites led to her canines being sunk into your soft flesh as she marveled at the way you let out quiet but effective sounds and held onto the pillow you laid on. Spit followed from her lazily dragging her tongue dangerously close to your cunt, causing a subtle huff leaving you from the rising frustration of not getting straight to the point. The corners of Wanda’s lips tugged upward smugly at your growing desperation. She pulled just millimeters away for a moment and looked up at you, observing the slight frown on you from the loss of contact.

“Wanda, please,” your tone comes out as whiney, tempted to just grab onto her soft locks to pull her into the source of slickness she caused. “Please, I need you so bad.”

Her eyes noticeably darkened as she glared at the pleading expression, taking in the way your brows were creased together along with the lower lip just slightly sticking out. But your voice just pulled everything together.

Her hands pulled down your panties completely and threw them down to the floor. Opening her mouth again and not wasting anymore time, Wanda’s tongue was quickly coated with the taste of you again. A soft moan escaped her because of it as her arms came up to wrap around your thighs securely. Her tongue ran up and between your folds, each stride becoming more tantalizing. She barely reached your sensitive bud, and you only responded with another needy sound.

“Shh, just let me make you feel good,” Wanda shushed you, keeping her pace slow as she relished the taste. After a few more strokes up your folds, she made contact with your clit and lapped in an unhurried and deliberate manner. You gasped in response as the feeling pushed you further back into a heightening pressure within your lower body. She continued the ministrations, quickly pulling you close into another orgasm as she switched lightly sucking and licking your bundle of nerves to plunging back into your dripping hole.

Wanda feels you tightening around her tongue as she delved deeper into you, reaching spots that made you writhe beneath her. “Mhm, are you close again baby?”

You hear her soft voice alongside feeling the hum against your pussy. Pathetically, you nod with vigor and tug at her hair in your grip, feeling the impending climax the more she continued her movements. Despite her lack of experience and without your guidance, she was unexpectedly able to hit all your favorite spots.

“Beg for it.”

Her words came out more firm, prompting another twitch from your clit in her mouth. “P-Please, Wanda please. I wanna cum on your tongue.”

She smirked inwardly at the desperation reeking from you and worked on helping you to fall off the edge a second time. By the quickened pace and the ability to meet her lips by moving your hips with abandon, it wasn’t long until the pressure was released and left your body shuddering. The sounds that came out of you were loud and pleasant to Wanda’s ears. She lapped at you at a slower pace to drag out your pleasure, feeling the constant push as you kept grinding against her stained mouth.

Brought back to reality as you came down, the feeling of Wanda’s tongue was still relentless. She didn’t pull away at all but rather began to pace herself back to the previous speed. You whimpered noisily, trying to move away from her tongue attacking your extremely sensitive nub again. Yet, you were met with an aggressive tug as she tightened her hold around thighs and had your lower half hit the bed again. “Mm-mm, stay still for me.”

You felt yourself throb again at the sternness of her tone despite the growing and almost overwhelming overstimulation. Yet, it wasn’t like it mattered since her hold on you was anything but easy to get out of. You were only able to cry out as your weak arms pushed at her head to no avail. “Wanda, fuck- I can’t…”

She didn’t once falter under your straining whine to have her stop, triggering another upcoming sensation. Your futile attempt soon turned into a performance of need, your back arching from the heat of the sheets under you while her hands pinned your hips down, and the dull nails clung onto you. Moans spilling got increasingly louder from both of you, and for Wanda mostly from the little pain she received by your continuous pulling at her bunched up strands in your grasp.

She sensed how close you were again by the way you sounded and the way your body reacted. All of it becoming more recognizable under her touch. Your swollen clit was between her lips while her hand crept back between your closing thighs around her head, pushing her fingers into your pussy again. And rather starting off slow inside of you, she kept up a speed and force that matched her suckling, bringing you to a third high that left you shaking and moaning pitiably.

Wanda licked your cunt slowly as she pulled out again, her face willingly trapped because of you squeezing around her without control. She eased up on you, her hold less tight though leaving evidence of her nails that dug into you. It took a moment for you to regulate your breathing, pants filling the now silent room.

You sighed out heavily and your hands loosened their grip to allow Wanda to get up from between your trembling legs. With her face in view, you saw her mouth and chin covered with a mix of your wetness and her own saliva. A small laugh of adoration found its way out you at the sight, even if you felt exhausted. “You’re a mess.”

“Like you look any better,” she playfully countered while grinning at your disheveled appearance laid out underneath. As she crawled up to meet you eye to eye, your hand raised up to her chin, gently wiping it with your thumb. She stayed still for you and looked down lovingly, feeling like it was only you two who were present in the world, staring at each other longingly with no disruption. Though shortly, she softly spoke again, worry etched on her without warning. “That wasn’t actually too much for you, was it?”

“No, don’t worry. It wasn’t,” you quickly hushed her concern, your hand coming down as your arm wrapped around her neck to pull down. “It was perfect.”

You felt Wanda’s body loosen as tension left her shoulders, following with a warm smile. Matching her expression, your arm continued to apply a light pressure for her to lower herself, only stopping once your lips met in another loving peck.

“Stay here. I’m gonna get you cleaned up, okay?” Wanda said as she got up from you, excusing the look of disappointment from pulling away that she saw. Once you muttered the word of approval, she stood up from the bed and towards the bathroom where you heard water running for a short amount before she swiftly came back.

Wanda approached with a wet hand towel. You lifted your head to watch her intently as she settled back on the mattress, kneeling between the small space between your legs.

“Open up for me,” she commanded with a sweet tone, patting your thigh lightly before you spread a bit more, revealing the mess that was left surrounding your core. “Good girl.”

Splayed out before her, you couldn’t have helped but felt a little too exposed. You looked down at how she gazed at your sensitive area, wiping and soothing your skin with the warm cloth. Her eyes were full of admiration and love replacing the previous lust as she only now yearned to take care of every part of you, all while being able to see the vulnerable state your in despite how she thought of how beautiful you were.

You looked away and shyly waited for Wanda to finish, a growing warmth on your cheeks evident. She took a good portion of time slowly getting you all cleaned up. And once you noticed the longer period without the feeling of anything against you, your head turned back to see her toss the towel to the side carelessly as she never once averted her eyes from you.

You expected her to come forward and lay beside you, but instead she leaned down again with her head between your two limbs. It caught you off guard until you felt a gentle but firm pressure from her soft lips against your pussy, causing your stomach to flare up once again with an intense fluttering. The feeling of the kiss lingered after she pulled away, leaving you in a more patterned daze. She came back up soon and slowly made her way to your side as she quickly snaked her arms around your waist to have you pressed up to her chest, and ignored your flustered self.

“My pretty girl,” Wanda murmured, her hand to your head as she patted down the frizzed up hair. Your scent filled her senses, and she wanted nothing else than to bask in the moment with you. “You did so well for me.”

In response, you smiled against her skin and only clung onto her tighter. Until a teasing remark leaves you at the thought of her unexpected skill and care. “Now I’m starting to think you’re lying about this being your first time with a woman.”

“Oh please, I’m not lying,” she chuckled a bit, tracing your bare skin at the curve of your side. It’s true though, being with you made everything come natural to her, similar to how you’ve been a big factor of her life flowing so much easier. Even if it’s been barely a month.

A moment of silence passed through while the two of you soaked in the feeling of being tangled comfortably under the covers. The subtle grazing of her fingertips soothing you into a state of sleepiness. Yet, you only wanted to stay awake and appreciate it longer. Wanda sighed at your constant shuffling and pulled your head away from her body, tilting it up so she could see you. She observed your tired features and lightly rubbed the side of your cheek. “Why don’t you fall asleep? You look tired, sweetheart.”

“I wanna be awake with you.”

“I’ll be right here next to you in the morning. We’ll have all the time tomorrow, okay?” She smiled at your adorable demeanor, slightly wanting to pamper you more in spite of your sleepy self. In response, you nod up and down before leaning up for another quick kiss. Her smile grew into a grin as you pulled away, and she snuggled you into the crook of her neck as you felt your eyelids finally drop. Wanda muttered a few last words in your ear and caressed your upper body, pulling you into unconsciousness without a single worry.

Part 2(Something New)

#wanda maximoff #wanda x reader #elizabeth olsen #lesbian #wanda x fem!reader #mommy!wanda #top!wanda #wlw #IM TWITCHING

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