#literally finished the season and then immediately started it again

[faorism]

ive been in a pit of d20 and when i say im crying over how ruehob defined romance know i mean what i say

[my-current-obsession]

every time i see bakudeku compared to k/ance (now specifically in terms of them getting shafted in the ending and/or accused of queerbaiting) i take psychic damage

[truelovepolinator]

Nicola and Luke are ABSOLUTELY TOGETHER and have been all along and here’s how I know

(Friends, I’ve just finished this and it is INSANELY LONG. Like, two looong book chapters long. But I PROMISE it’s worth it. I was gonna cut it into multiple parts to make it more readable, but I’m going to be super busy over the next few days, so I wouldn’t have a chance to post subsequent parts until probably Christmas, so I’ve decided to drop it all now so I don’t delay the final victorious conclusion. Sorry, it’s so long, but I don’t really have time to rethink it and try to tell the story in a more concise way. Again, I think you’ll be glad you stuck with it if you want to feel as thoroughly confident as I am that Nic and Luke are absolutely together.)

So I want to start by saying something I’m sure I’ll repeat. This is, of course, just my opinion and supposition based on the evidence available to me. But I also want to say, I am absolutely, positively sure now in a way I have never been. Genuinely not a doubt in my mind, and I think you’ll agree by the end of this.

It’s also worth noting that this may be nothing new to some of you. I’ve only been on this platform for a week and have barely scratched the surface of the great content here. So this is how *I* came to the final, joyful conclusion that everything is right with the world where lukola is concerned. I had long been sure they belonged together, but was afraid to embrace the theories about them actually being together now for fear of heartbreak, plus all the confusing signals about A & J, etc.

But all that changed a couple nights ago when I finally got the last piece of the puzzle I needed to see the big picture. There were just too many things that didn’t make sense, until they did! I literally couldn’t sleep that night (seriously only got about 2 hours) and then spent next day telling my husband the story for hours (in 20-30 minute increments as he could spare them during his slow, Christmas time work day).

My husband has been a patient, long-suffering skeptic through all of this. He’s put up with my rants and constant videos I just had to share, but he’s been completely convinced from day one that they simply leaned into their friendship to turn on faux relationship vibes for PR. He was absolutely sure it was all just make-believe for the fans. No matter what I showed him, he could not be convinced.

Until yesterday. Yes, I convinced the toughest skeptic in town.

I think it’s important to start with my journey into the Lukola fandom for context. I was a casual Bridgerton watcher until this season, and had never read the books. I liked season 1, I loved season 2, and I was looking forward to watching season 3.

I had planned to wait to watch the first 4 until the second half was about to launch (so I wouldn’t have to wait for more), but I realized after about a week that we needed to watch it immediately before everything was completely spoiled by timeline gifs and clips.

Needless to say, I was beyond hooked. Instantly. Season 3 was another level for all the reasons you all know. Finally I could engage safely with the fandom, but the process from occasional Polin/Lukola content to nonstop immersion took some time. So even following the second half, there was a TON of footage I hadn’t seen.

All of this to say, I basically missed all of the World Tour stuff as it was happening, and it took well into the summer to finally see so many amazing clips and edits that I was absolutely fucking sucked into the lukola wormhole. However, I was well behind many of you on the curve, and even to this day, I’m still catching up on things.

But by late summer, I was all in. I was sailing high on USS Lukola (or I suppose that should be the HMS Lukola!) because I saw exactly what you all saw. This was clearly real, their feelings were indisputable, and everything about their behavior and much of what they said was so far beyond PR, even “faking couplehood” PR.

They were real. Even if he had this dumb girlfriend. (I say that only in the good-natured, abstract sense that I wanted him with Nic, not in a personal “actually about her” sense. In fact, I’ve never said anything hateful about either A or J and I hope I never will.)

WHY AREN’T THEY TOGETHER???

I couldn’t resist the mystery.

It drove me absolutely crazy for months trying to understand why they weren’t together. Nothing made sense, but I mentally explored literally every possibility. They’re afraid of ruining their friendship? They’re afraid of disrupting the production if it goes wrong? These possibilities at least made some kind of sense and seemed to be the only explanations I could find. But in my mind, they weren’t good enough reasons to resist what these two so obviously had. Still, I’m not them, so that was easy for me to say. I had nothing to risk in this.

One or both of them is/are secretly gay? Soulmate besties instead of soulmate lovers? I didn’t think this was the case and nothing made me believe this. Yet, I was attempting to allow for every possibility. Still, with Nicola being the super vocal “gay icon” that she is, it was hard to imagine she wouldn’t live out and proud if that was the case. And apparently she lived with an unknown man for two years. Though she does always keep her private (romantic) life super private, so I suppose who knows? And, of course, Luke had two very public past relationships with women, but again, who knows, I suppose? This option doesn’t ring true at all, but it does exist in the universe of possible explanations for this inexplicable situation.

They love each other in a soulmate way, but somehow one of them just isn’t “attracted” to the other? Certainly, if the stories about Antonia were true, that might suggest that Luke might be attracted to an entirely different physical type than Nicola. But that didn’t ring true either because LOOK AT THEM TOGETHER! He can’t take his eyes off of her, let alone his hands. And the same for her. They are magnetized to each other. If that’s not attraction, what is?

One of them has baggage and isn’t ready for a real, serious relationship? This one seemed possible. People can have hang-ups or wounds for all sorts of reasons, and letting someone in – especially someone who might actually be your soulmate – can be terrifying. Self-protection by avoiding relationships and/or distracting yourself with less meaningful relationships is a natural way of coping with baggage. Yes, maybe this one? Neither of them seems obviously wounded, but what would I know? Most people don’t wear their wounds on their sleeves, least of all during a PR tour. Still, the energy flow between them seemed anything but wounded. It seemed like the healthiest, happiest thing in the world.

People kept saying, they’re blind and they don’t see it yet. But I don’t believe anyone can be that blind. Especially after watching all the countless edits and clips of their tour, which we know they did because Nicola is chronically online and sharing with Luke the best of it all (and sneaky Luke is likely lurking also).

So at the end of the day, I had no good explanation. It just kept not making sense.

Then those music festival photos of Nic and Jake (I’ll abbreviate sometimes for ease, but I do say their names) showed up. The fandom erupted into chaos with full reactions across the spectrum including a bizarre, almost immediate burst of (not yet named) jakolas, which felt like a disproportionate response to a few photos.

Admittedly, those photos did look quite friendly, and touchy, and yes, they stood arm-in-arm. But lots of friends stand like that at concerts. And Nic is known to be touchy-feely, so let’s not go overboard, I thought. However, I did acknowledge (in my head, I didn’t weigh in online at all) that it suggested that it COULD be romantic. I opted not to freak out, because either way, Nic’s love life is her own and I want her to be happy.

And it’s worth saying here that both of their private lives are none of my business, none of any of our business, and even writing this is completely at odds with that truth. I acknowledge that. But what I told myself, and actually meant it, was that I was going to stay out of it unless and until NicLuke got together. That was the only place I would invest my energy since they’ve both said they think it’s sweet that fans ship them. If they dated others, good luck to them. Be happy. But when the time comes…

Yes, friends, the time has come!!! But back to my story.

Note that (because again, I was still catching up), I hadn’t yet seen the swimming in Sorrento photos and had missed that piece of the puzzle at that point. Throughout this time, I’d see people refer to things on Twitter like everyone already knew what they were talking about, but hardly anyone ever took the time to explain. So I got lots of glimmers of things that others felt were notable, without actually knowing any details. Those pictures were an example. Another was the Claddagh ring.

I’m very grateful to some amazing deep dive blog entries by @threeacttragedy that explained the ring, “Bless the Telephone,” and other meaty, important history that I’d previously only heard mentioned in passing. In fact, one of her blogs is what first brought me here by referral from Twitter. And if you don’t follow her, you should!

In the past week, as I started reading blogs that broke down past dates and clues, I finally started looking them up one by one and trying to put the pieces together in my head. I’d seen the swimming photos by then, but I revisited them. I dug in to try to understand the references to a “New Year kiss” from the night the friend group (Rory, etc.) posted photos together from a Soho House party. I reviewed Hot Boy Summer, I rewatched the incredibly emotional video of Luke meeting Nicola’s mom, I looked at photos of the Claddagh ring and went to Chupi’s website. I learned about the LA photos from April, both Antonia’s version and the InStyle Polaroids. I reviewed all the photos of Luke and Antonia that I could find. And I reviewed all the photos and videos of Nic and Jake that I could find. Also, I listened to “Bless the Telephone” about one hundred times. Lol.

Regarding Luke and Antonia, I had the same response in this deep dive I’ve had every time. Weird. I mean, if I didn’t feel so strongly that Luke was in love with Nicola, and if I knew nothing about him except he was some hot actor, could I see him dating someone like A? Sure. But the fact that there are almost no pictures of them posing together, alone like a couple, is weird. Even if it’s super casual and she was just his date to some stuff. The fact that Luke looks grumpy in both sets of pap photos (premiere night and swimming in Sorrento), but A is smiling happily in at least one of the premiere night photos is weird. The fact that after the Sorrento pap photos, Luke seems to leave his friend group to come home early, and then stops liking any of his best friend Rory’s photos from there on, weird.

The fact that in the fall, she posts pictures harkening back to a place and time they were apparently together, but without any actual photos together, weird. And the continual drip, drip of Likes from Luke is weird. And then when a photo of Luke in a restaurant in Rome is posted by the restaurant, she immediately follows with a video story of someone making pasta in the same restaurant, weird.

Perhaps weirdest of all, the fact that she pre-posted the LA pictures, and then he gave other versions of the same shots to InStyle. Especially the switching seats thing. If my husband and I were taking pics of each other at a café, I’d take his picture in front of the traffic, and he’d take my picture in front of the restaurant, because that’s where we’d be sitting. Across from each other. So why switch seats to take the photos? It’s not like that street with traffic was such a fantastic backdrop that we’d each need our turn with that shot? And they’re the same, with the same table number, but different. Sure, traffic moves, but weird coincidence that they each had a white truck, but a DIFFERENT white truck. So, like I said, weird. Always implying they were together, but never actually saying/showing it. Weird.

I read all sorts of theories from pragmatic (we just have to accept that they’re dating) to hateful (they’re not together/never were, but she’s obsessed and keeps inserting herself in a pathetic, desperate plea for attention and followers) to seemingly far-fetched (some sort of NDA that means for some reason Luke is obligated to Like her photos). Only the first of these seemed plausible. I maybe didn’t like it (not maybe, I didn’t like it at all), but I thought, “Yes, I guess we just have to accept that they’re probably together until they tell us otherwise.”

(Though I held out a small sliver of “but we don’t know anything for sure until L and/or N tell us themselves” hope, which remains true even as I write this.)

Now, let’s talk about Nic and Jake. First, there were those shots from the concert (discussed above). Then, I believe, were the NYC shots (if I’m not confusing the order). In the NYC shots, they were both there, but they weren’t especially intimate in any interpersonal sense. Then, the pap shots on the street posted on DM, ostensibly catching them walking home together, holding hands and arm-in-arm after a night at the pub. With those photos came an onslaught of fandom fury and gossip site reporting about how “Nicola Coughlan confirms her relationship…” Same story runs across a bunch of trashy sites, all saying the same thing and citing an unnamed source talking about how besotted they were, or whatever the quote was.

Admittedly, I was among the furious fans. Not because of what the pictures showed. Again, I was trying to be serene and Zen about them and their private lives. I believed with all my heart that NicLuke belonged together, but if now wasn’t their time, I’d have to wait. I didn’t love that I’d heard he was only 24, but I was trying to balance my efforts to be a non-judgmental person with my discomfort over that issue and reminding myself that her choices are none of my business (unless she chooses Luke!).

So I did my best to refrain from judgment, even as I saw the fandom erupt into toxic madness about whether it was true, whether he was gay, whether the age gap was wrong, whether DM lied about the date, and if they did (which they did), why? But I figured, unless the photos were very, very old, things weren’t likely to have changed in their relationship over a couple weeks, so I wasn’t overly concerned about the date.

However, I was angry about all these stories (basically the same story across the board) announcing that she’d “CONFIRMED” the relationship. It made me very angry that they said she confirmed something when she’d done nothing of the sort. I wasn’t prepared to argue that she wasn’t dating Jake at that point, but why would they all run this story, with this headline, when what actually happened was a paparazzi photographer snapped shots and sold them, then the media drew conclusions from what they saw?

Nicola never confirmed a damn thing. So why were they running this headline so universally?

I was also angry that the photos existed at all. Photos in her neighborhood could reveal her location and put her safety at risk. Also, how did they happen to be there to take those photos late one specific night? Felt like they must have received a tip. But I moved on and forgot about that part.

Time went on and I saw more and more discussion of Jake’s sexuality. I don’t really want to get into that here because I don’t really feel comfortable speculating about anyone unless they choose to explicitly come out, but I did finally start poking around his page, Douglas’s page, etc. and began to understand why people were saying what they were saying. However, I reminded myself that bi/pan-sexuality exists and I wasn’t willing to partake in bi-erasure, so I held my tongue and kept watching.

Now, at this point, I want to remind us all that Nic has always been extremely private and uttered nary a peep in public about her romantic/sexual life. And fair enough. It’s none of our damn business. Also, she’s talked extensively about how women are not just men’s girlfriends and her feminist take on many things and how it doesn’t feel nice to know that people are more interested in her love life than her work. She’s worked freaking hard to achieve the success she’s now enjoying, and she certainly should not be reduced to a woman in a relationship. No matter who is on the other end of that relationship.

(Again here, I feel the need to acknowledge my hypocrisy in writing this, but I really do genuinely love Nic’s work and spirit and activism, etc. as well.)

So, in light of her position on all of that, we wouldn’t expect her to go public with a new love interest. The fact that she was papped with this guy (if indeed he was a love interest) was just an indication of how much her celebrity and profile have grown. There’s greater interest now and she’s more recognizable now, so it’s to be expected that she’d have a harder time keeping her love life private now than in the past. Not so strange then, that she got caught a couple times in paparazzi photos at this point.

However, would she really then go public with that guy? That would mark a radical change in her behavior just when you’d think she’d want to be the most private because the glare of the spotlight is brighter than ever. Still, she allowed a public photo with him, Camilla, and Evan Ross Katz to go out shortly thereafter. If one believed they were dating, that could certainly be interpreted as a launch. Yet, as I said, would she really do that if she were dating him?

Then he started popping up everywhere. I won’t get the chronology here right because I don’t want to research the dates right now, but there was the Charlie xcx concert, in which she appeared with Jake and Dylan, who is out and proud. The Queer premiere where he was just caught in the background of a fan photo. The simultaneously released photos from the red and gold restaurant (with a mysterious third person taking the photos). There was the apparently brunch-time photo of her with Jake and two others, taken by Dylan. And most recently, Louisa’s photo with Jake and Douglas (who is also openly gay and close friends, if not more, with Jake).

I’m not mentioning all the players in all of these because it’s not critical to the story, and I may be forgetting some photos, but there is a point to all of this. First, there’s potentially a notable shift in what she’s allowing to be shared here. Again, historically, she’s never shared anything about her love life. Suddenly, she’s letting him be photographed everywhere. Also, at most of these events, there were other queer participants and/or queer content (the movie premiere).

And while she’s never allowed her romantic life to be shared, you know what she has often shared? Photos with all of her platonic friends, including her huge friend group of many, many gay men. So this trend in what she’s allowing to be shared suggests that she’s telling a story and clarifying Jake’s role in her life.

But then there’s that one mystery release, the simultaneously timed restaurant photo drops. Clearly coordinated, clearly indicating they were there together. No indication about the third party. Why? Just enough to hint that there might be something going on, and to continue wreaking havoc in the fandom.

Because remember that toxic fandom bickering over all of this? The jakolas swearing they’re in love and soon to be engaged and furious at the lukolas for “being blind and refusing to accept the truth and it’s so disrespectful to Nic ('who you claim to love') by disregarding her feelings and treating the love of her life so badly. They keep showing you they’re in love and you won’t listen!” Etc., etc.

Meanwhile, the lukolas fall into a couple camps. By this point, most have decided Nic and Jake aren’t dating, but some remain circumspect. Some scream back at the jakolas, ostensibly in defense of Jake, saying very similar things about “Jake and his friends are doing everything in their power to show you the truth and you refuse to see it.” And a variety of other responses. Everyone’s mad at everyone.

And all of it, every bit of it, keeps us ALL talking about Nicola Coughlan and Luke Newton. Nonstop, every day.

Now, we are nearing the big mic drop of all of this, and I want to say at this point that we need to remember that Nic and Luke are HUMAN BEINGS who have a right to privacy. And they are celebrities living in a world that has an intense interest in their love lives. And sometimes, we might not feel good about the measures they must take to protect their privacy. We might hate those measures. We might feel manipulated, and we are. But if we love and respect them as much as I hope we all do, we can also understand and forgive them for taking such measures.

A quick review of important factors in all of this:

THINGS THAT TELL US IT’S REAL

The Galway trip and that very emotional introduction to Nic’s mom, which looked for all the world like a woman meeting her future son-in-law

The Claddagh ring and how she’s been wearing it

The things reporters, cast, and crew have said in passing and/or posted, not to mention recent open shipping from Ryan Wheeler and Shondaland’s IG

Everything we saw with our own eyes on the world tour, not to mention everything we’ve seen in the BTS

Little droplets of NicLuke over the recent months like Bless the Telephone and (not yet mentioned above) the S4 selfie and the photo of them in costume that Nic said she thought she’d shared, but now it’s ours (while she hasn’t posted any Jake)

The absolute consistency of all of this as a story that makes sense

THINGS THAT MAKE US DOUBT IT’S REAL AND/OR KEEP US GUESSING AND DISCUSSING

The premiere night pap photos (and though I didn’t mention it earlier, the fact that Nic went home that night so she wasn’t around for A’s attendance)

The friend group photos at Soho House with Luke, A and others

The weird LA InStyle photos

The Sorrento swimming photos

The multiple sets of pap photos of Nic and Jake, including grainy night-time neighborhood photos (with a woman walking a dog in the background)

The way every gossip news outlet ran the same “Nicola confirmed her relationship” story with the same headline and the same anonymous quote

The weirdly devoted, intensely defensive jakolas/Jake stans that seem to care about nothing but Jake/jakola out of nowhere and love screaming at and stirring up shit with lukolas

The chaos and constant discussion of all of this over the past 6+ months

The absolute inconsistency of any of this with anything in the top group

So, this mystery just gets deeper and deeper, and none of it makes sense. Every time I’d try to accept that they were just seeing these other people, something would bump in my head. There were just too many weird things that didn’t quite make sense and the biggest, weirdest one of them all was that NICOLA AND LUKE ARE CLEARLY IN LOVE WITH EACH OTHER.

So while the pieces would always almost fit, the puzzle never quite took shape. Until two nights ago when I stumbled on @lukolafan ’s page after they liked one of my posts. I scrolled down their page and found a link labeled “Lukola PR Strategies and Fake Narratives.” I cannot scream this loudly enough. GO VISIT THAT LINK!!!!! (I’ll add the links myself later if I have time.)

I did and it led to a series of Reddit posts taking an academic approach to teaching us, the general public (and lukola fans) PR Media Literacy. Among the various topics it discussed were things like:

“PR Firms and Entertainment Media: Coordinating “News” Across Gossip, Entertainment, and Official Publications,” which talks about using anonymous sources, more about staged paparazzi, and repeated narratives (“outlets echo identical stories, reinforcing PR-approved messaging, for example, multiple outlets platforms describing a celebrity ‘rising above’ a controversy, quoting the same anonymous insider” – Sound familiar?)

“The Invisible Hand of Celebrity Privacy: How PR Fabricates Narratives and Manipulates Fans,” which includes ways that PR strategies intentionally manipulate fans to fight/debate celebs faking relationships, and more (sound familiar?)

There’s honestly so much meat in all of these (there are a couple others as well) that they are ALL worth reading. There is definitely some repetition, but still, the content is super insightful and revealing and can help us all be more savvy consumers of media.

But I want to focus on two CRITICAL posts, in particular.

“The Role of Staged Paparazzi and Gossip Outlets in Celebrity PR Campaigns”

The first part of this piece talks about the method for staging fake paparazzi photos to create narratives. Two items of particular note (and I’m excerpting directly):

Quality Control of the Image: While professional photographers use high-quality cameras, staged paparazzi photos are intentionally manipulated to appear grainy or blurry. This adds a layer of authenticity to the photo, making it look as though the photographer stumbled upon the celebrity by chance.

Extra Figures in the Background: Another key tactic in staged paparazzi photos involves the use of background extras—people who might be walking with dogs, pushing strollers, or simply in the vicinity.

Think of Nicola’s photos walking home with Jake, a woman walking a dog behind them. Some of them are clear, but some are quite grainy, despite the fact that professional photographers have great equipment and are more than capable of taking a night-time shot.

Another excerpt…

Gossip Outlets: DeuxMoi and the Symbiotic Relationship with PR Firms

With the rise of user-generated content and anonymously submitted tips, gossip websites have become integral to the modern celebrity PR machine. Sites like DeuxMoi thrive on rumors and speculation, providing a platform for fans and anonymous sources to share celebrity gossip. PR teams exploit these platforms to feed their desired narratives without appearing to directly control the flow of information.

How Gossip Sites Like DeuxMoi Work:

Anonymous Tips and Leaks: PR teams often send anonymous tips to gossip outlets, offering details about celebrity activities or sightings. These tips are deliberately vague, leaving room for interpretation and speculation. Once posted on sites like DeuxMoi, the stories tend to snowball as they are shared across social media and republished by larger outlets.

Fueling Speculation: These posts generate buzz and speculation, keeping celebrities in the public eye without any direct confirmation. Gossip sites become a key player in amplifying the narrative, as fans, influencers, and media outlets continue to discuss and spread the information.

Mutual Benefits: While gossip sites operate independently, there is a mutual benefit to the relationship between them and PR teams. Gossip sites thrive on traffic and engagement, while PR teams can ensure their client’s name stays relevant in the public discourse. By subtly feeding stories, PR teams maintain control over how their celebrity’s narrative unfolds.

The piece goes on to give specific examples like Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny, Tomdaya, Gigi Hadad and Zayne Malik, etc. then talks about fake fan interactions and how to spot them.

It offers key questions to ask about the photos you see (like what story is it telling and why and who benefits?) and then it gives this example. If your ears aren’t already fully perked, this will do it:

Example: 37-Year-Old Famous Actress and 24-Year-Old Lesser-Known Celebrity

Narrative of Romance or Distraction: In this case, the 37-year-old actress is likely fueling rumors of a relationship with the 24-year-old to either distract from something else in her personal life (like a real romantic partner) or to refresh her public image. The younger celebrity could be hired to play a temporary love interest or interest figure in the media, leading people to speculate whether they are more than just friends.

Creating a Romance or Mystery: The photo of them walking arm-in-arm, laughing, or holding hands might suggest that a romantic connection exists. This could be used to make the actress seem more relatable, desirable, or single, even if there is no romantic involvement behind the scenes.

Diverting Public Focus: If the actress is privately in a relationship with another celebrity or involved in an ongoing controversy, the staged photo with the younger celebrity helps to deflect attention. By inserting a "mystery romance," the public is more interested in who the new partner is, leaving the actress’s real partner or issues to stay out of the spotlight.

PR Stunt to Revitalize Publicity: The actress might not just be looking for romantic gossip but also fresh exposure. A curated paparazzi shot could serve as a PR tool to keep the actress's name in circulation—be it through romantic rumors, new partnerships, or simply new media content to fuel speculation.

Potential Body Double for Real Partner: If the real partner is shying away from the public eye or trying to avoid the media, the younger celebrity might act as a "body double" or decoy. This helps maintain an image of the actress being in a public relationship, while allowing her to keep the real relationship.

Don’t think I need to explain the relevance of this very specific example. There’s a lot more in the post, but I’ll move on for now to the next key post.

“Breadcrumbing and Coordinated Campaigns”

In this piece, they offer first some key breadcrumbing tactics, many of which sound awfully familiar.

Common Types of Breadcrumbs:

Cryptic Social Media Posts: Celebrities post vague messages or abstract references, sparking fan theories. Example: Harry Styles posts cryptic images or quotes, prompting speculation.

Coordinated Social Media Timing: PR teams synchronize posts to create the illusion of a shared narrative. Example: Taylor Swift and Karlie Kloss posted similar content at the same time, fueling relationship rumors.

Accidental Social Media Interactions: Liking posts or commenting on ambiguous tweets creates intimacy and speculation. Example: Kendall Jenner engages with fans on social media, fueling rumors.

Seemingly Innocent Photos: Casual photos subtly hint at a larger narrative. Example: Zendaya and Tom Holland posted photos together, teasing their relationship.

Cryptic? Like Bless the Telephone? Or a mysterious left-handed guy holding a phone in the background while Nic gets ready?

Synchronized like Nic and Jake at that restaurant? Or as far as that goes, like Nic and Luke with the S4 selfie?

Accidental social media interactions? I didn’t go into that here, but we’ve seen lots of odd likes and things, lots of Nic interactions, oh, and those RW and SL likes of late.

Seemingly innocent photos. Like very happy looking S4 pics and the “now it’s yours” BTS photo?

Perhaps most of this could be interpreted as just genuine fan interaction and fan service, which I think it is to some extent. It’s a natural part of the business. But it’s also very often done with intention.

But here’s the more important part of this piece. It gives some case studies (Ben and JLo, Shawn and Camila), then it gives two “abstract” examples.

YOU’LL LOVE THIS. Note that the second example changes to an actor and a musician, but don’t let that fool you. Keep reading for some unmistakable specifics.

Breadcrumbing with a Fake PR Girlfriend: Case Study of Celebrity 007

For Celebrity 007, breadcrumbing is used to create a false narrative about a relationship with a PR girlfriend. This helps maintain fan interest while deflecting attention from the celebrity’s true personal life.

How It Works:

First Breadcrumbs: The PR strategy begins with posts from both the celebrity and the PR girlfriend, hinting at a connection without confirming it. Example: Celebrity 007 posts a picture from a Paris restaurant or cafe in LA and the PR girlfriend shares a similar post from the same location but from a different day with different white trucks in the background (double check the Instyle Stunt images!!!)

Expanding the Narrative: Shared travel posts and indirect interactions continue the illusion of a relationship. Example: Matching geo-tags in posts from Rome suggest they were there together.

Indirect Engagement: Likes, comments, and ambiguous interactions increase intrigue without confirming the relationship. Example: The PR girlfriend comments, “Great to be here with you! 💖,” on Celebrity 007's post.

Paparazzi Shots: Carefully timed candid shots further reinforce the illusion of a relationship. Example: Paparazzi photos of Celebrity 007 and the PR girlfriend walking hand-in-hand, fueling speculation.

Note:

Café in LA, same location, different trucks?

Matching tags in Rome?

Likes and ambiguous interactions

Carefully timed (say at a premiere party) candid paparazzi shops w gf walking hand-in-hand

And then there’s the next one. In the interest of length since this is already hella long, I’ve removed some less relevant parts, but I encourage you to read it yourself.

Breadcrumbing to Hide a Real Relationship: Case Study of Celebrity 009

Why Hide the True Relationship?

In celebrity culture, the decision to keep a relationship private—or hidden—can be a strategic move, driven by a mix of personal privacy and professional interests. Some celebrities may choose to share their personal lives openly, but for others, particularly those who value their privacy or wish to control their public image, keeping a relationship private is key. This is especially relevant for two celebrities who are romantically involved but prefer to maintain discretion, despite public curiosity about their relationship.

Whether it’s a high-profile couple like Beyoncé and Jay-Z, or a less conspicuous pairing, the decision to hide the true nature of a romantic relationship often involves balancing personal desires with career strategy. In this scenario, let’s explore why two celebrities might choose to keep their relationship under wraps and the complex PR considerations that lead them to do so.

Media Scrutiny/Escaping Constant Surveillance: Navigating the Spotlight Together (I’ve combined two sections here for length)

When two celebrities become romantically involved, the media will inevitably take notice. The relationship can quickly become the focal point of constant headlines, paparazzi photos, and gossip columns. For celebrities who value their privacy, this level of scrutiny can feel overwhelming, as every public appearance or moment shared can quickly turn into speculation, even if the couple doesn’t wish to attract attention.

Romanticized Expectations: The Pressure of Perfection

Media scrutiny often creates an unrealistic, romanticized version of a celebrity relationship. Fans and the public tend to project their fantasies onto famous couples, imagining them as the perfect, unbreakable pairing. The real complexities of a relationship—differences, compromises, and struggles—often don't fit neatly into the idealized narratives created by the public.

For a couple like Actor A and Musician B, the pressure to live up to these idealized expectations can be exhausting. By choosing to keep their relationship private, they can avoid the constant pressure to fit into a preconceived mold. Hiding the relationship from public view allows them to keep things grounded and avoid being turned into a media spectacle.

Brand Control: Managing the Image of "Singleness" or "Availability"

For many celebrities, their public image is closely tied to their brand, and that brand may depend on their perceived "availability" or their status as desirable, unattached individuals. The way the public perceives a celebrity’s romantic life—whether they are single, dating, or in a long-term relationship—can have a significant impact on their professional success and marketability.

Creating Room for Desire: The Allure of the Single Celebrity

Consider Actor A, a leading man known for portraying romantic heroes on screen. The public’s perception of Actor A as a single, unattainable figure is key to their marketability, both in the media and as a brand. If they were to publicly reveal a relationship with Musician B, it could diminish that aura of unattainability. Similarly, Musician B may want to maintain a flirtatious public persona, which could be undermined if they were publicly involved with someone. By keeping the relationship private, both celebrities retain the allure of being desirable and unattached, feeding into the fantasies of their fans.

Avoiding the "Couple" Brand: Risk of Being Reduced to a Package Deal

When a high-profile couple’s relationship is made public, they may become known less for their individual work and more for their collective identity as a couple. In some cases, the couple's public appearances or shared brand messages may overshadow their individual projects. Think of Beyoncé and Jay-Z, who have an incredibly powerful couple brand that often eclipses their solo endeavors in the media. For celebrities like Actor A and Musician B, the fear of being seen as a "package deal" might drive them to hide their relationship. This allows both to maintain their distinct identities, keeping their projects and brands separate and preventing the public from viewing them solely as a pair.

Respecting Boundaries: The Vulnerability of Celebrity Relationships

Even when two celebrities are involved, the vulnerabilities of a relationship can become the focus of media attention if they go public. Romantic relationships—especially those in the high-pressure world of celebrity—are often fraught with ups and downs. The public might demand to know every detail, fueling rumors of breakups, infidelities, or relationship drama. By keeping their romance under wraps, Actor A and Musician B can avoid becoming the subject of constant gossip and can maintain some semblance of normalcy in their private lives.

Avoiding Disruptive Publicity

Celebrity relationships often attract media scrutiny not only about their romantic lives but also about how their relationship affects their careers. The public and the media often delve into the smallest details, speculating about how the relationship might impact their professional trajectories, previous relationships, or future projects.

Career Disruption: The Challenge of Balancing Love and Work

For celebrities like Musician B, a new relationship can take attention away from their upcoming album release or concert tour. The media’s obsession with their personal life might overshadow the launch of a new professional project. Similarly, if Actor A is in the middle of promoting a film or preparing for a big role, the press could focus more on their relationship than their craft, disrupting the flow of their work.

I won’t bother reviewing the relevance of all of the above. I’m sure you can see it plainly for yourself. The examples are absolutely, positively referencing Nicola and Luke, and the reasons for hiding it are super relevant. Especially boundaries, disruption, pressure to be perfect, and being reduced to a package deal.

Now at this point, it’s worth asking the question, do we trust this source? I don’t actually know who posted this content, so I can’t verify their credentials. Perhaps this is yet another PR person’s tricky efforts to continually confuse us and keep us guessing? That seems unlikely since the entire purpose is to help lift the veil on all the other tricks. If you wanted the other tricks to be effective, you’d hardly be revealing them to your target audiences.

But even setting that very logical assumption aside, the reason I know with every fiber of my being that it’s true is that this is literally the only version of events that makes sense of absolutely everything.

All those mysterious and confusing signals, all those weird photos and changes in behavior, all the inconsistencies between what we all saw with our own eyes (they are IN LOVE) and what we saw subsequently with the adjacents, all the tiny Lukola crumbs keeping us hanging on, and all the fandom bickering, especially from bizarrely rabid jakolas.

Every bit of it makes complete sense if we accept that Nic, Luke, and their PR teams have been using a classic PR handbook to distract us from the very real truth that they are together and in love.

Does it hurt to know we’ve been manipulated? You bet it does! But I quickly accepted that because I was so happy to have the truth verified at last. And because I understand why they would do it.

Relationships are hard enough when lived in private. No relationship, no matter how much people love each other, is without challenge. Even soulmates have issues to navigate. Can you imagine the pressure on them if the whole world was watching?

And their lives have added challenges. Travel and separation. Long work schedules that may often be at odds. Possibly romantic scenes with future co-stars that could stir up uncomfortable feelings. Career ups and downs that may not always synch up. Fans and media watching their every move, dissecting them, judging them, rooting for them, and just putting massive pressure on them. What if they fail? They’re letting down the whole world, not just themselves.

And what about Nic’s longstanding demand for privacy? And her emphasis that no woman is just some dude’s girlfriend. She wants to be known for her own work and achievement and passions, not for who she dates or marries. Even if it is wonderful Luke.

Likewise, Luke is just now achieving a newfound level of success. This is a moment for him to seize and make the most of. Being a hot, sexy, ostensibly single guy is good for his brand right now. Even if we know he loves Nicola, his stans need to be able to fantasize about him, which is easier if his relationship is unconfirmed.

And let’s face it, if they come out as a couple, IT WILL BE LUKOLA all the time. That will be the story. Certainly if they’d come out during the World Tour, every question at every stop would be about them and their personal “friends to lovers story.” It would be irresistible to reporters. Too good a story to ignore. And they’d spend way more time talking about their personal lives than about their work. Does that sound like something either of them would want?

And one last thing. Back to their changes in behavior. Does it make more sense that Nicola, who has always been super private about her love life, would suddenly be willing to be photographed constantly with her new bf Jake? Or that Jake is not her bf and she’s keeping her actual bf (or fiancé or husband) secret?

Meanwhile, Luke, who has always been open about his relationships in the past suddenly decides to tighten up and share absolutely nothing about his private life? Well, that makes complete sense if he’s now in a relationship with a woman who is famously private and shares not one word publicly. Suddenly, literally everything makes sense and is entirely consistent.

So there it is, folks. To me, this is the Holy Grail. There’s not a doubt left in my mind about them. They’re together and everything else – literally everything else – is a decoy and a distraction, and every bit of it comes straight from the PR playbook.

I’d like to maintain a sliver of hope that they’re leaving much of it to their teams and they’re not in on the worst of it, but in any case, I don’t blame them one bit for trying to protect their love. It’s too special to let it be destroyed by public consumption. You gotta do what you gotta do.

Given that I don’t actually know them and haven’t confirmed anything directly, I’ll leave 1.5% room for doubt, and adjust my certainty to 98.5%.

And you may dismiss all of this and draw very different conclusions, which is okay, too. But if I’m being really honest, I’m actually 1,000% sure. And I couldn’t be happier for them.

What do we do now? That’s up to each of us. Personally, I’m going to be blissfully happy for them, not sweat any of the distractions, let them live as quietly as they like, and patiently await the day (whether it’s very soon or far in the future) when they finally go public. I hope you’ll do the same.

And until then, I’m going to keep watching Lukola videos on repeat.

[heavyhitterheaux]

No Judgments

See Me Through You Blurb

Synopsis: You and Joe do the 'We listen and don't judge' TikTok challenge 🤭

Pairing: Husband!Joe Burrow x Wife!Reader

Requested by: a few gorgeous anons 💕

Series Masterlist

Please Do Not Repost My Content Anywhere

After wiping your mouth and rinsing it out with mouthwash from your sudden episode of morning sickness, you made your way back into the bedroom where your husband was still peacefully sleeping.

You attempted to climb back into the bed without waking him up, but feeling the weight shift made him flutter his eyes open. Joe had never been a really deep sleeper, but since he found out you were pregnant, usually he wakes up at the smallest noise and it left you surprised this morning when he didn’t feel you get out of bed the first time.

“Baby, you okay?” He asked as he pulled you towards him so he could wrap his arms around you and kissed the top of your head.

“Your children won't let me be great and made me throw up again.” You quietly answered and you had now grown frustrated since it seemed like the morning sickness wasn't only happening in the morning, but throughout the day.

“You want me to make you some tea?”

“Yes, please. I'm miserable.”

Joe then placed his hand on your belly and began to rub small circles on it as he noticed that your bump was actually starting to show.

“Babies, stop making mommy sick so she can sleep. Daddy’s orders.”

“Hopefully they'll listen to you because clearly they pay me no attention.”

“When they hear ‘the voice’ for the first time, they're going to be running for their lives.” Joe said, referring to the first time he heard it and made sure to stay out of your way for the rest of the day.

“I still to this day have no idea what you are talking about when you say that.”

“It's a voice you make when you get really annoyed. Ask Ja'Marr, he'll back me up.”

“I just think you two are being dramatic.”

“Says the most dramatic person in the room….”

“Husband! Take it back!”

“Nope, it's facts and I'm not going to lie to you.”

All you did was roll your eyes in response as Joe raised his eyebrows at you.

“Don't catch an attitude with me because it's something you didn't want to hear. Fix your face.”

“I'll fix mine if you let me ride yours.”

“I��� These pregnancy hormones are giving me a run for my money and got me fighting for my damn life. One thing at a time and let's get your nausea under control first.”

Later on in the day, when Joe was sitting at the island in the kitchen, you went and sat next to him while setting up your phone. He quickly noticed and looked over at you.

“Whatever it is, no.”

“But baby! Pleaseeee?!”

You knew Joe hated being in front of a camera, but you loved doing TikTok challenges with him from time to time.

Sighing and finally giving in, he put his phone down to give you his undivided attention.

“Okay, what are we doing?”

“We listen and we don't judge challenge. I sent you a few so you would have an example to know what to do.”

“Only because it's you. Let's get this over with.”

“Yay! And I want you to go first.” You told him as you pressed record.

“We listen and we don't judge.”

“When I feel like I'm getting sick, I act like I'm so drained so I can't do anything so you'll baby me.” Joe was the first one up and smiled at you when he was finished.

“What the? I baby you anyway! Like 98% of the time.”

“AHT! No judging. You just take it to a different level. Moving on.”

“You are literally MY baby though. My 6’4 baby and I'm 4'11, but who's to say anything about that? I love you bad and I see you're using it to your advantage.”

“To get endless cuddles from my wife? Hell yeah I'm taking advantage of it.”

“Okay, next.”

“We listen and we don't judge.”

“So after you fall asleep since your bedtime is like 6 pm.. like a grandpa…” You started to say, but was immediately interrupted.

“9 during the season!”

“Stop interrupting me, husband! After you fall asleep, I go and buy things on your phone and make sure to delete the notifications so you don't find out.”

“BABY!”

“HEY! I BUY YOU THINGS TOO!”

“And you hide the packages too because I literally never see any of them.”

“Hmm, maybe.”

“Fine. Keep your secrets.”

“We listen and we don't judge.”

“When we were at LSU and we were just friends, I memorized your schedule and knew you had a lot of late classes and I would purposely wait for you if it was dark outside to walk you to your car to make sure you were safe. And it gave me a chance to spend more time with you.”

“So, that's why it seemed like you were always around? Aww, you love me!” You told him as you pinched his cheek.

“And don't you ever forget it.”

“We listen and we don't judge.”

“During last season when I saw you wore THOSE PANTS, yes you know the ones I'm talking about, after I specifically told you not to because they looked crazy and you wore them anyway, you kept asking if I've seen them but I hid them somewhere in our house and they have been hidden for so long that I forgot their location.”

“I LOVE THOSE PANTS, BABE!”

“THEY ARE HIDEOUS, BABY. NO!”

“I'm making it my mission later to find my pants.”

“I know Ja'Marr probably bought you those ugly ass pants.”

“AHT! You're judging!”

“We listen and we don't judge.”

“When you're mad at me, I purposely go into the cabinet and make all of the jar lids tighter so you have to come and talk to me.” Joe confessed and you rolled your eyes and crossed your arms at the same time.

“SERIOUSLY? And here I am thinking I'm a weak bitch! I can lift almost as heavy as you can! And a jar lid is what does me in?!?”

“Works every time.”

“I'm going to have to do it myself next time.”

“Like that will ever happen…” Joe said and you playfully rolled your eyes.

“We listen and we don't judge.”

“Okay, so….” You started to say as you glanced at Joe and he sighed knowing that something crazy and out of pocket was about to come out of your mouth.

“Oh shit, here we go.”

“Sometimes, I purposely piss you off and I don't know that you know you do this but your voice gets deeper and it turns me on so bad. Like your voice by itself turns me on, but when you get mad, whew. Sign me up for EVERY position. It's happening now and I'm just thinking about it. Gets your girl all hot and bothered.” You quietly said as Joe stared at you since you were now squirming in your chair and trying to keep your legs as tight as possible.

“Are you seriously squirming over there? And I’m not surprised by this in the slightest. Just wait until we're finished with this, I'm about to turn you every way but loose. And hold on! I thought we were keeping this PG!?” He asked as he leaned over and kissed you.

“Don't threaten me with a good time and when are the videos we do ever PG? Especially when it's something like this? And don't get me started because I will literally rip off your clothes at this very moment.”

“Good point and see? And that's why you're pregnant now.”

“Because my husband is fine as hell and I'll fu-” Joe's eyes went wide as he promptly covered your mouth with his hand and in protest, you licked it, making him look at you dumbfounded.

“No! Do not finish that sentence. This is really about to turn into something else if you don't stop. And did you just lick my hand!?”

“I wanna lick something else too, but I'll save that for when we turn the camera off.” You tried to whisper, but failed miserably.

“BABY QUIT IT!” Joe pleaded and all you did was shrug.

“I was like this before you married me and you should have known that once this ring was on my finger, I was about to be ten times worse.”

“Hmm, that's putting it lightly.”

“We listen and we don't judge.”

“I hide some of your perfumes so that you'll only use my favorite ones that I've bought for you.”

“Babe! How many have you hidden!? And here I am thinking that I've lost them!”

“Hmm, not telling.”

“You're annoying.”

“I'm cute and you love me.”

“Survey says that both of those responses are correct.”

“We listen and we don't judge.”

“So, when you got hurt during your rookie year, I was watching the game and saw it happen and my heart immediately dropped. Because we literally had an argument hours before that game and we weren't talking and now I think back on it, I had no idea what the argument was about. But, I low-key felt that you getting hurt was somehow my fault. I remember packing my things and getting on a plane and crying the entire way there and I honestly didn't know if you wanted to see me at that point. Because I had sent you a text right before the game and you didn't respond. And to this day, I still feel like that.”

It was quiet for a few seconds before Joe said anything.

“That… baby that wasn't your fault. It was a bad hit. And of course I wanted to see you. You were actually the first person I asked for. I never knew you felt like that.”

“I hate seeing you in pain and I…. I'm about to cry again.”

“I can tell, hormones.” Joe replied as he wiped your eyes for you.

“But I came back from it because of you and how you helped me. You being there was enough. You love me bad, don't you?” He asked as he was trying to get you to smile.

“So much, and you know it.”

“We listen and we don't judge.”

“Ever since you told me you were pregnant, I watch you until you fall asleep to make sure you’re okay. Doesn't matter how long it takes or if I have to get up early. You're my priority.”

“And, I'm about to cry again. Damn these hormones.”

“You are literally MY person and I don't know what I'd do without you.”

“Ladies, get you a husband who treats you like the queen you are every day because….. shoutout to Jimmy and Robin because the two of them gave me one of the best things that ever happened to me.”

“Wait… ONE of the best things? I'm not THE best thing!?”

“Hmm, you're top five.” You replied as you shrugged.

“Uh? You mean number one?”

“If it makes you feel better, the top five things all have to do with you.”

“That sounds suspicious, but I'll let it slide for now.”

“I love you Joseph Lee Burrow!” You exclaimed as you kissed his cheek and wrapped your arms around him.

“Stop trying to change the subject and I know for a damn fact you didn't just call me by my full name. I get anxious when you do that.”

“Wait, huh?”

“We've gone over this a million times. My name is BABY to you. When it comes to you I don't know who Joseph is.”

“And he calls me the dramatic one.”

[p0orbaby]

Pitch Invader

summary: barça’s twelfth (wo)man

warnings: nothing

a/n: thank you for the request !

word count: 1.6k

-

There are certain truths universally acknowledged: gravity exists, toddlers are irrational, and the Putellas genes are a force of nature.

Today’s a big day: Alexia is playing one of the most important games of the season, and you’re in the stands with your two-year-old daughter, who, despite being the tiniest human in the stadium, possesses the energy of a thousand deranged squirrels. You are, in a word, nervous.

Your daughter, however, is anything but nervous. She’s strapped into her tiny jersey with Putellas scrawled across the back in letters that are nearly as big as she is. Her hair’s up in a ponytail, more like a pineapple sprouting out of her head, but you know that’s the only way she likes it. You’ve brought snacks, water, an iPad loaded with Paw Patrol, and a collection of those little rubber animals she’s obsessed with. You are prepared for every disaster except, apparently, the actual one.

The game kicks off. Your daughter’s glued to the action, her eyes tracking the players with a focus you wish she’d bring to bedtime. She’s screaming "Mami!" like she’s the head of the Alexia Putellas fan club. Which, let’s be real, she probably is.

You, meanwhile, are half-watching the game, half-watching her, and half-wondering when you’ll get the time to sleep ever again. The maths doesn’t add up, but then again, neither does the toddler logic you’re about to encounter.

In the 30th minute, the snacks run out. Which, you should have known, is a harbinger of doom. Your daughter, little genius that she is, finishes her juice box and immediately hurls it to the ground. She gives you the wide-eyed innocent look that usually precedes a request for more snacks or a sudden need to use the bathroom. But not this time.

This time, she leans in conspiratorially, whispering, “Mami!” It’s a statement, a question, and a declaration of war all at once.

“Yes, baby,” you say, patting her hand, thinking she’s just expressing her undying adoration for Alexia. You know what’s coming, but you’re oblivious. Blame it on the lack of sleep or the adrenaline of the match.

“Mami!” she repeats, louder, with more urgency. You’re too busy trying to figure out if she’s got another juice box somewhere in the black hole that is your nappy bag to notice that she’s been scoping out her escape route. You’ve taught her well: always look for the exits. You just never expected her to take that lesson so literally.

“Mami!” And before you can register what’s happening, she’s off like a shot, little legs pumping with the determination of someone who’s just discovered that the world is a lot more fun when you’re not stuck behind bars. Literally. Because she’s somehow squeezed through the railing and is now sprinting toward the field like she’s got the ball and is gunning for the goal.

There’s a split second where time stops. The crowd noise fades, the players blur, and you’re left watching your tiny daughter make her bid for freedom. Then, the panic sets in.

“Oh my God, she’s on the pitch!” you scream, leaping to your feet. Your heart's in your throat, and your legs feel like they’re made of concrete, but you move. You have to. Alexia is going to kill you. No, worse, she’s going to tell your mother.

This is it. You’re going to die. Not because your daughter’s about to get trampled by a bunch of world-class athletes, but because Alexia Putellas is going to murder you on the spot for letting this happen.

“Don’t move!” you yell, as if your two-year-old is going to suddenly develop a sense of self-preservation and stop in her tracks. You leap over seats with a grace you didn’t know you possessed, and suddenly, it’s you versus the grass, a race you never wanted to be a part of.

The security guards, bless them, are as stunned as you are. They’re used to dealing with rowdy fans, not rogue toddlers. One of them starts to move, but you’re faster. You vault over the barrier like an Olympian, not caring that you’ve just flashed half the stadium. Your brain is a mess of conflicting priorities: get the child, avoid the cameras, don’t trip, for the love of God, don’t trip.

“Mami!” Your daughter’s scream pierces the air as she beelines for Alexia, who, by now, has spotted her and is having her own heart attack on the pitch. Alexia freezes, eyes wide, mouth open in a soundless yell. You can see her future flash before her eyes: headlines like “Star Player’s Toddler Takes Over Match” or “Tiny Terror Halts Game, Becomes Internet Sensation.”

The ball is at the far end of the pitch, and most of the players haven’t noticed yet. But one of the defenders has. She’s staring, and then she starts laughing. You can’t blame her. You’d be laughing too if you weren’t about to faint from the sheer absurdity of it all.

Finally, you reach your daughter just as she reaches the center circle. You scoop her up, her little legs still kicking as if she’s going to make a break for it again. She’s giggling, thinking this is all the best game ever, and honestly, you’re too relieved to be mad.

Alexia, however, is sprinting toward you like she’s about to dropkick someone, probably you, into the next century. You flash her an apologetic smile, holding up the wriggling toddler as if to say, “I found her! Look, I’m a hero!”

Alexia doesn’t look like she agrees. Her face is a mix of horror, relief, and something that might be love if you’re lucky. She reaches you, breathless, eyes still wide as saucers. “What… the… hell…?”

“I took my eyes off her for two seconds!” you pant, defensively. “You try keeping up with her!”

Your daughter, oblivious to the chaos she’s caused, throws her arms around Alexia’s neck and says, “Mami, I won!”

Alexia softens instantly, her expression shifting to one of pure adoration. She holds your daughter close, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Yes, you did, mi amor. You won”

The crowd, which had been holding its collective breath, erupts into cheers and laughter. You’re pretty sure you see a wave of camera phones aimed in your direction. Great. You’ll never live this down.

But then Alexia grins at you, and it’s that grin—the one that says she’s both exasperated and completely in love with you—that makes all of this worth it.

“I’m going to kill you,” she whispers, but she’s smiling, and you know you’re in the clear.

“Totally fair,” you agree. “But can we do that after the game?”

With a resigned laugh, Alexia turns to walk you both off the field, your daughter still happily babbling about how she’s the best player ever, better than even Mami. And you? You just can’t wait to tell her how this day was 100% her fault when she’s old enough to understand the concept of consequences.

As you reach the sidelines, you catch the eye of the commentator, who’s openly laughing now. “And that, folks, is what you call a family affair!”

You wave awkwardly, knowing you’re going to be a meme by the end of the day. But as you hand your daughter back to her seat, watching Alexia return to the pitch with a look of determination that’s all business now, you can’t help but feel a rush of pride.

Sure, you almost derailed an entire match. But on the plus side, you just might have discovered a new sport: Toddler Sprinting, with a side of Parental Panic. Gold medals all around.

[dinogoofymutated]

Nightcrawler/GN!Reader The first Fic of the season is here!!! I'll go ahead an outright say that the other fic will NOT be this long and this in-depth. This one took me literally the whole month of september when it was only supposed to take me two weeks. I'm going to do my best to make sure that the other fics come out on time, but please have a little patience with me ;-; Also, This fic has not been beta read bc it is an absolute beast at 8k words (at least for me), so if anything seems off, or the ending was too abrupts, don't be mean lol.

You've recently moved into an old, spooky mansion that your great-aunt left you in her will. It's been uninhabited for years but is strangely well-kept. You're sure you live here alone, but every once in a while you can't shake the feeling of being watched…

Tws: Demons, stereotypical witchcraft, Alcohol consumption, Graphic depictions of blood and wounds for a minute, I'll add more if I can think of any.

    When the keys are plopped carelessly into your hands, they’re cold. They’re still cold, two weeks later when you finish moving in. It wasn't a fancy affair, no movers or big trucks, just some friends and the van they borrowed from the school. Truthfully, you didn’t really have a lot anyway. Most of them had honestly only shown up to offer their condolences for your loss.

    Your groceries feel heavier than normal when you set them on the kitchen counter, stepping back with a sigh. Never in your wildest dreams would you have even imagined of living in a place like this. You’d never even visited Aunt Maude’s house- Your, house. Sure, you and the rest of the family all knew she was well-off, but no one had a clue that when the will was read she had left you a Victorian-era mansion along with her estate. Even you hadn’t until you googled her address after the lawyer gave you the keys. 

    As surprising as it was, it was definitely your Great-Aunt Maude’s house. Every bathroom, bedroom, living space, You could see her in all of it. She was kooky and eclectic, with a love for all things strange and unusual. It was comforting, almost. To be wrapped in a house filled with the remnants of your aunt. Your eyes sting as you begin to fill up the long empty fridge, organizing it to your liking. You close the door and see your graduation photos stuck to it, along with a photo strip from the photo booth she dragged you into at your sweet sixteen. You suck in a shakey sob, tears welling in your eyes for what feels like the millionth time that day. You’re sad, and exhausted, and you haven't even unpacked yet, most of your belongings set in boxes in the Sitting room and Hallway.  But you just… couldn’t bring yourself to bother. Everything that was cold was already put in the fridge, so you decided the rest can wait till the morning.

    You trudge up the stairs with as much energy as you can muster, and when you finally make it to the master bedroom, you’re ready to pass out. The room is decorated in a way that feels much more like you than it felt like your Aunt, and you notice that the quilt on the bed was one she had shown you at Christmas one year. One you told her you very much envied. It was like she had made the room your own before she even stepped foot into the nursing home. The thought is enough to choke you up again. You crawl underneath the soft covers in a pretty pitiful manner, falling asleep almost immediately. 

    It’s only when you wake up the next morning that you start to notice something strange about this house. 

    The kitchen is a somewhat long walk from the upstares bedroom, and you’re basically starving by the time you get downstairs. You yawn as you grab the milk out of the fridge, still feeling half asleep as you turn around to grab the cereal off the counter only to find it… gone. In fact, all of the groceries you had left on the counter yesterday were gone.

     The realization is like a shot of ice through your veins. What the fuck?… You must have put them away last night, right? But you knew they were on the counter when you went to bed. You feel like you’re going to throw up, thinking about the chance that a burglar had broken in last night and you hadn’t heard it because you were upstairs. You sprint to the sitting room taking note of all your boxes and things, making sure to double-check that your TV was actually there and not a figment of your imagination, but it was definitely solid. You cautiously walk back to the kitchen, staring at the pantry door for an anxious moment before biting the bullet and swiftly opening it.

    All your groceries were in place. All are organized neatly exactly where you would have preferred them to be. Strange. You must have woken up last night and done it. Right? It wouldn’t be too absurd to assume you had put the groceries away half-asleep and forgotten about it. That had to be it. It’s not like someone broke in last night just to put your groceries away. Now that was just plain ridiculous. 

    From then on out, The strange things only seemed to continue.

    Sure, a house this old wasn’t without a general peculiarity about it, but after being told it hadn’t been inhabited since Aunt Maude put herself into inpatient care, it should be dusty, right? A home of this size, cluttered with the many odds and ends she had collected over the years? You’d never heard of a house that could dust itself. Your hands wander more than ever as you traverse the mansion, they run down the banister, across the pretty wallpaper, even taking a swipe at a shelf or two, and still, they’re clean. Not a smudge or spec of dirt on your fingers. 

    Strange, but not unexplainable. Maybe she had scheduled a cleaning service to take place after her death or something. You didn’t know. But a week goes by. Then two and then three, and everything is still spotless. And that was the least of it. Lights seemed to turn off by themselves at night. Things that you’re sure you heard fall were placed upright. If you forgot to turn the oven off, it would already be cool by the time you ran back into the kitchen- and the house constantly smelled like sulfur and brimstone. At this point, you’ve called the fire department so many times worried about a gas leak that they think you’ve gone crazy. 

    You just felt… Uneasy. Like you were being watched.

    “I feel like I’m losing my mind, Jean.” You watch as the redhead tries to hide a smile on the other side of the Facetime call, and you can’t help but pout a little when she inevitably laughs. Your little image on the top part of the camera must look rather ridiculous, hands tangled in some string lights you had found in the closet. As strangely organized and spotless as everything was, it seems that the Christmas lights in the back of the closet weren’t so lucky. Yay for you. 

    “Look, you’re just overthinking things. Don’t stress out about it.” Jean says, ever the voice of reason. You know she’s probably right. “Besides, you’ve been through a lot lately. It’s not abnormal for stress to do weird things to the mind.”

    “Yeah, I guess so.” You mumble. Detangling these lights is beginning to be a bit trickier than you first expected them to be. Each tangle and loop seems to be interconnected, and no matter how gently or firmly you are with the cords, another knot seems to form with every probable success. You sigh in annoyance, and Jean raises an eyebrow at you. 

    “Do I need to ask about the Christmas lights?” You’re about ready to give up on them when she asks, dramatically dropping them in your lap.

    “Well, remember how I was gonna throw that big Halloween party this year?” Jean hums in response. “Well, turns out that all the decorations I had for the apartment only cover like, an eighth of the house. I’ve been rummaging around in the closets all day to try and find something that might work and all I’ve been able to find is this.” You hold up the old, tangled lights for her to see.

    “That’s weird. With what I know about your Aunt, you’d think that she’d have a ton of decorations.” Jean mentions. You groan loudly, pressing your palms into the round edges of your eyesockets in frustration. 

    “Exactly! She loved Halloween, and with a house like this, there’s no way she’d just leave it bare. I’ve raided practically every closet and storage room in the house and haven’t found anything at all.” You almost shout the words, exasperated at this point. You knew for a fact Aunt Maude had to have something. It didn’t matter if it was even one of those awful animatronic jumping spiders at this point, you’d take anything if it meant you wouldn’t have to tap into your inheritance to decorate this big ass house (because there was no way in hell you weren’t going to decorate, you’d never disgrace your Aunt’s memory like that.). Jean is quiet for a moment, looking sympathetic through the screen. To be honest, as much as you value Jean’s advice, you’re beginning to think she’s got nothing to help you until-

    “Are you sure there’s not an attic or anything?”

    The thought makes you pause.

    “Oh my god, I’m an actual idiot.” You practically shriek the words, quickly standing from the floor and shoving the Christmas lights to the side as you run to get some shoes on. The attic! God, you feel so stupid for not thinking of it before! All you had to do was find the access hatch!

    “Just be careful though! Even though the house is renovated, that doesn’t mean-”

    “I’ll call you later, Okay? I’m gonna go look upstairs!”

    “No no no, don’t-”

    It takes you forever to find that damn attic. You’d think that it would be easy to find, seeing that it’s sort of an important structure in this house, but nooo. It’s been almost a month since you moved in, and yet you still feel like you’re lost while you wander around the third floor. How hard could it be to find a simple hatch? You feel like you’re looking in all the wrong places, and you know you probably are. You’re pacing around one of the third-floor bedrooms looking at the ceiling when a noise from the billiards room across the hall makes you freeze. 

    Were those footsteps?

    No, you were home alone. It couldn’t be. 

    Still, the sound leaves you on edge. You stalk across the hallway, stopping at the door to the other room as you briefly debate on how to open it. A small shuffle from the ceiling makes you jump a little, and you quickly decide, Fuck it. We ball. 

    You swing the door open with a bit more force than necessary and find the room… empty. Right. Of course, it was. You sigh in relief, running a stressed hand through your scalp as you take in the sight of the room for the first time since your original walk-through of the home. 

    In your brief scan of the room, you manage to spot a small string hanging right above the pool table, swinging back and forth. You slowly look up, and there it is. The fucking attic hatch. 

    “Oh god damn it. Was it really that easy to find?” You mumble to yourself, wondering if you really were just that stupid. 

    It doesn’t take a lot of time to move the pool table over so that you can open the latch and pull the rickety old ladder down. It looked more modern than most of the house, but it was easy to tell it was about as old as you were. You take a moment to just stare into the black hole in the ceiling, wondering if all this was really worth it. Well, you already spent all this time looking for the thing, so…

    You’re a little extra careful as you climb the ladder up into the attic, using the flashlight in your phone to light the way the further you go. The attic is a little bit dustier than the rest of the house, but to be honest, it was cleaner than you were expecting. It's dark and cramped, but once you fully enter you find that you can at least stand up to your full height. The excitement of finding the place has begun to wear off, and you start to feel a little flighty as you look around and the light from your flashlight shifts. This is okay. It’s fine. You’re fine. Maybe she had lights installed, right? You look up at the roof and are thankful to see those long, industrial fluorescent lights screwed to the ceiling. Thank god. 

    It takes a minute of stumbling and carefully following the wires to a corner of the attic, doing your best not to trip over anything along the way, and you find a small light switch in the corner of the room. You breathe a sigh of relief as you flick it on, and the lights overhead blink and light up. That’s a bit better!

    You find that Aunt Maude’s attic is cluttered with various random items, some older, others a bit more modern. The exercise bike and the Zumba tapes made you laugh a little as you passed them by, while some older cloth dolls and bunnies just made you uncomfortable. You’re not really sure where to start the search, so you just walk around for a minute. One of the lights overhead is starting to flicker a little, and you’re inwardly hoping that there’s no faulty wiring or anything that might start a fire when your foot catches on something.

    “Oh Shit!”

    There’s not a lot of time for you to catch yourself when you fall, eating absolute shit as you fall face-first into a stack of boxes. You smash your nose into something particularly hard when you land, and there’s a variety of shapes sticking into your sides that have sprouted from the smashed boxes below you. Ow, ow ow! God damnit! This is what you get for not listening to Jean. You feel a little dizzy as you sit up amongst the boxes, holding your nose tightly while you wonder if you just broke it. Your eyes are blurry from the pain, and it takes a second for you to fully come to.

    “What the hell did I just fall into?” You’re blinking away the blurriness as the sight in front of you finally starts to clear, A bunch of broken boxes now greeting you. Boxes that now had a bunch of plastic bones sticking out of the torn sides. You make a fairly embarrassing noise of excitement when you realize you had found exactly what you were looking for in the first place. The Halloween decorations!! Thank god! You were so unbelievably happy to find them that you couldn’t help but reach forward and look through the boxes immediately. 

    After thoroughly inspecting the contents, you realize that there were about eight large boxes of Halloween decorations in total. Motherfucking eight! This was perfect! The only thing was that there was still one little issue: getting them downstairs. You try not to think about those rickety ladders too hard as you move each box to a place a little easier to get to. Your back is already aching when you’re done for the moment, so you decide to sit down on the floor and lean back a little, catching your breath while looking at those eight, somewhat heavy boxes you were gonna have to fool around with in just a moment. Your foot nudges something as you do so. Hm. 

    Sitting up a little bit, you can see that it’s a floorboard, just sticking out a little bit. Oh! Guess that’s what you tripped over earlier. You try and press it back down with your foot, and that definitely doesn't work. Damn. Hopefully, you could find a hammer or something to tack it back down. You scoot over to get a better look when you notice that there’s something underneath, a dark blue color just faintly catching your eye. Curious, you lift the board a little, and after a tug or two, it gives way.

    You find an old, leatherbound book underneath. It’s got no clear name on the cover or the spine, simply a rune or emblem of sorts burned into the upper left corner. Finding it a bit strange, you flip open the cover, thinking that it must be a diary or something left by the original owners as a time capsule of sorts- but it’s not. Every page in the book is blank except for the very last one. This book is not what it has been. When the Veil strains thin will the ink be seen.

    Weird, but okay. You assume it’s a novelty or a trick or something, but it looks spooky enough, so you gently set it in one of the more empty boxes of Halloween decorations. Now it was time for the hard part.

    You drag one box at a time to the ladder, and looking at the size of them vs. the skinny steps below you, you wonder just how the hell Aunt Maude got these up here in the first place. Just thinking about getting these downstairs is intimidating, but you were never a quitter. One by one, you carefully take each box down, making sure to never carry more than you can handle and to keep a good grip on the ladder no matter what. After about 20 minutes, you get about halfway through. Four boxes down, four to go. Your arms are getting a bit tired and you’re a bit sweaty from the lack of AC in the attic, but you think you’ve got it. 

     On the fifth box of decorations, your foot slips. You gasp in shock, your stomach flipping as you fall backward- a split second of absolute terror as you fall. You’re terrified that you’re gonna die, and that Jean will never forgive you and you’d never get to throw that stupid party you were doing all this work for in the first place. 

    The air is knocked from your lungs from something that felt much more like a catch than it did the floor. You don't know what’s going on for a moment, eyes shut tight as the shock begins to wear off and you realize that you’re fine… Wait. Hold on. Someone had definitely caught you, and unless Jean had snuck in…

    To be honest, whatever you were expecting when you opened your eyes was very, very much wrong. Your heart is beating a million times a minute, a chill running through you when you finally register who is above you. Or what, rather. The first thing you see are his eyes. Yellow from pupil to scelera, almost glowing in the low light of the billiards room. He’s more fuzz than skin, blue in color, with devilishly sharp canine teeth he reveals with a sheepish smile.

    “Hallo?”

    He flinches when you shriek, doing his best not to drop you as you squirm out of his arms. Your knees give out the moment your feet hit the floor, and you scramble back, grabbing the first box you can and throwing anything you can find at him. 

    “Sorry- Sorry! I had not mean to scare you!” He holds his arms up to block each decoration you throw at him. A few plastic spiders, a zip lock of polyester faux webbing, and a little floral crow or two. You can hardly even think at the moment.

    “Stop! Please stop! I didn't want to let you fall!” He flinches at each item although none of them are very heavy. You’re running out of things to throw, stalling for a moment as you debate lunging for one of the other boxes.

    “WHAT ARE YOU?!” You shriek again.  He opens his mouth to speak as he takes a step back, and you flinch as you see something move in the corner of your eye- a tail. A spaded fucking demon tail. You had to be losing it. Having hallucinations or a nightmare or something- but as it turns out, you are definitely a fight-over-freeze kind of person, and your body kicks in before your brain has caught up. The box of bones was next to go. A hand, and then two small rib cages and a slightly heavy bundle of newspaper fly through the air.

     “Careful!” He flat-out ignores the other items, going wide-eyed at the ball of newspaper and lunging to catch it in time. He takes an audible sigh of relief when he does, and says something that makes you pause from pelting him with any more Halloween shit.

    “You’re certainly Maude’s kin, but I doubt she’d appreciate you throwing her breakables.” He halfheartedly jokes, an awkward smile on his face. You’re mid-throw with another bone, hand frozen in the air with a range of emotions going on in your head.

    “Excuse me?” You ask, possibly a little overdramatic at the moment. He goes to move, probably to set the wad of newspaper down, but you raise your hand again as if to throw, making a face at him that’s a little more goofy than it was intimidating. He hands the newspaper off to his tail, raising his hands to show that he means no harm.

    “Maude? The woman who lived here before?”

    “Yeah, I got that part!” You cry out, hands shaking a bit from adrenaline. “How do you know my Aunt Maude? And what are you!? Why are you here!?” The rapid-fire questions seem to interrupt him every time he opens his mouth, but he doesn’t seem to lose his patience with you. He very calmly places the wad of newspaper on top of a box that happens to be near, and you eye him suspiciously as he does. He sits down next to it, the tip of his tail swaying just slightly.

    “Maybe we should take a step back, Ja? I can explain everything, I promise.” He says, patting the space next to him. “Herkommen. It might be better to sit for this.” His smile is polite, and if this situation were any different, you might find his kind demeanor charming. But the situation isn’t different. He was a stranger in your house. A blue, possible-demon stranger, with a tail and what you think looks like small, pointed horns sticking out from the thick curls that cover his hairline. You eye him suspiciously, halfway wondering if this was a trick of sorts. He’s looking at you expectantly, waiting for you to sit. Eventually, you do, but not next to him, definitely not. You sit down right where you are, hesitant and fidgety as he begins to speak.

    Of course, it would be your Aunt to summon a demon to aid her with her ridiculous (lovely) house in her failing health, instead of hiring a fucking nurse, or an assistant, or just selling the damn thing. Of course, it would be your Aunt to leave you the house with said demon in it, and not tell you. OF COURSE, It would be your aunt to tell him to take it slow while introducing himself so he wouldn't freak you out, and OF-FREAKING-COURSE, it would be you who almost killed yourself on accident and completely derail that plan. Jesus, what was worse? The fact that your aunt was apparently an actual witch who summoned demons in her elderly years, or that she didn’t explain any of this to you before leaving you the house. You didn't know how to unpack all of this, hell, you weren’t even done unpacking all of your things. 

    Well, It’s not like you could (or would) kick him out really, but in the coming weeks, you notice that Kurt is really more of a butler than a roommate.

    He’s been cleaning even before you knew he existed, but now that the grand reveal was over, you see him around the house much more often. He helps you with groceries, cooks for you when you’re exhausted, he takes the trash out sometimes too, when the sun goes down. He doesn’t go outside in the front yard very much to avoid being seen, but every once in a while, he’ll take a walk with you in the backyard. You were hesitant of him for a good bit, but you’d be a liar if you said he didn’t have a way of worming his way into your good graces. He’s… sweet. And easy to get along with. He effortlessly fits into your life, and you find yourself excited to see him when you wake up every day. You get along so well that it makes you wonder if your aunt had known that you would when she summoned him, or… you know what, probably not. 

    You learn more about him as the weeks go by. His past, his hopes for the future. You learn that his father is a demon lord of some sort, and his mothers are a bit more complicated. All three are dangerous, and all three are trying to find him. 

    “Is that why you took the pact with my Aunt?” You ask, late one night. Both of you have drinks in hand, leaning back on a pile of pillows and cushions you found in the tower room. It’s comfortable, if a bit warm. The two of you are a little flushed, words surprisingly clear as you speak. Despite being a demon, you find that Kurt is a bit of a lightweight. An accident on your part, having poured the drinks a little stronger thinking that he had a bit more tolerance. 

    “Mostly.” Kurt hums. He’s fully leaning against you, head resting snugly against your own with his tail curled around your abdomen. His horns are resting against your temple in a rather uncomfortable manner, but you don’t mention it. He takes another drink.

    “I don’t know how she knew. Or if she knew, really. Magic is specific to each demon, like a fingerprint of sorts, just a bit easier to track. When a demon makes a pact, their magic is filtered through the pact-bearer- which creates a different kind of magic. I needed a place to hide, she was offering me a home. It was easy.” His words slur a little where his accent tends to come out a bit stronger.

    “Was that all she offered you? A place to stay?”

    “That and…” He trails off for a quick moment, clearing his throat to change the subject. “Well, anyway. I was desperate, and she seemed kind, so I agreed.” You nod as you think it over yourself. You can’t tell if he’s just drunk or it's a sensitive subject, but he can’t just have accepted the many tasks of cleaning and caring for an old woman for something less in return. Was it that easy for demons to make pacts like that? Surely, she wouldn’t have offered him her soul or anything.

    You open your mouth to ask him more questions, but when a light snore reaches your ears, you know he’s fallen asleep. You can't help but smile, a warmth in your chest that you don’t really think is from the alcohol.

    A few days later, it’s Saturday, October 31st. After some long weekends and late nights, you finally have the whole house decorated, inside and out! You were so beyond excited. The whole place looked like it had come straight out of a Halloween catalog! You were so proud of how amazing it looked, but you could never have taken all the credit. Kurt was a big help, both with the placement and creativity of the many decorations. Everything that had to be put outside had to be done so at night so that Kurt wouldn’t be seen, and sure, sometimes you would wake up and see a few things were crooked, but at least it was fun! You’ve never felt so invigorated and filled with Halloween spirit, especially now, a few hours before the party. You’re shaking some full-sized candy bars into a big-ass plastic cauldron, and Kurt walks in with his arms full of Party favors for tonight.

    “You know, I’m not sure you could give away all of these if you tried!” Kurt laughs, setting them all down on the coffee table in the sitting room. It's a bunch of plastic spider rings, vampire teeth, squishy skeletons, slap bracelets, and more. All sorted into their own neat ziplock bags. The apartment complex you used to live at never really got any trick-or-treaters, so you had a lot of leftover goodies you were happy to finally use. You let out an excited giggle, taking one of the bags and emptying it into the cauldron. 

    “You’ll be surprised! With the neighborhood that’s just around the corner, I know for a fact that we’ll have plenty of kids come by!” You almost sing. Kurt smiles at you, taking a bag of his own to empty. 

    “Don’t get your hopes up, Schatz. It’s an old building, and rather scary from afar. Maude never really had a lot of visitors on Halloween.” You pout at his words, before tilting your head like you’re considering them as you continue to fill the cauldron. 

    “True, but Aunt Maude never tried posting on neighborhood Facebook groups and hyping up PTA moms before. Besides, the house is scary, but that's what the lights are for!” Kurt shakes his head, laughing as you voice the thought. You mayyy have gone overboard this year. A few extra strands of lights, blow-ups, and animatronics never hurt anybody, right? I mean, with most of your expenses taken care of due to the paid-off mansion you live in, you were able to spend a little bit more of your personal spending money on Halloween. Your new home was a whole-ass Halloween attraction, and a good bit of the neighborhood thought so too! After posting online, you were pleasantly surprised with the positive feedback from the surrounding neighborhoods, and had even personally met a few kind neighbors since!

    Kurt however, couldn’t risk being seen, and had to hide every time. Most people would freak out, just like you did, and the attention isn’t really a good thing for him. The thought sends you on the same spiral that you had been on for the past week, and the smile slowly slips off your face as Kurt takes the pot from you and begins to mix the goodies all together.

    “...You’re sure you don’t want to come tonight?” You ask, vulnerability shining through your voice. Kurt looks up from the task, brow furrowed. He opens his mouth, then closes it, then looks back down again.

    “I don’t want to scare anyone.” He says softly, making your frown deepen.

    “You won’t! I promise you won’t. None of my friends scare easily- and besides! It’s Halloween. Everyone will just think you’re in a costume!” You try to make the last bit of the plea happy and convincing, but it doesn’t seem to work very well. Kurt doesn’t look at you until he’s done with the pot, placing it back on the coffee table. When he does, his smile doesn’t seem to reach his eyes,

    “I’ll be fine, Schatz. I promise. It will be easier for me to just hide. I can easily enjoy the party from a distance.” The words aren’t very convincing, but before you can say anything else, the doorbell rings. Kurt dusts himself off as he stands, tail swaying as he pulls you to your feet. 

    “Looks like your guests are early. Make sure to have fun tonight, Ja? I’ll see you later.” Kurt squeezes your hands, and you try not to look too disappointed. After all, it was his decision, and you don’t want him to feel forced to show himself when so much could go wrong. You give him a moment to head back upstairs, disappearing like he used to do back in the beginning. You can’t help but sigh a little, but there’s a hesitant knock on the door instead of the doorbell this time, and you know you can’t just stand here and ignore it.

    You don’t really know who is going to be on the other side of the door, with it being mid-afternoon and still a hot minute before the party actually starts, but the bloody, red-haired Carrie on the other side of the door brightens your spirits the moment you see her.

    “Jean!” You cheer, rushing to give her a hug that she warmly returns.

    “Happy Halloween!” Jean says before pulling away. “I hope you don’t mind, I thought I’d come by a little early to help you set up.” 

    “Are you kidding? I have a whole ass kitchen of food I still need to plate.” You step aside to let Jean in as she laughs. You were originally to do most of the prep with Kurt, and although Jean is technically interrupting, you try not to let it get you down. This is the first time you’ve seen her in a long while, and you were already rather lucky that Halloween was falling on a Saturday this year- most of your friends/guests all working at the prep school nearby. 

    “Am I the first one here?” Jean asks as you lead her to the kitchen, and you hum in response.

    “Yup, It’s been just me all day.” You’ve never been the best liar, but you think you’re a little convincing at least. 

    “Funny, I could have sworn I heard a man’s voice when I rang the doorbell.” Jean’s smug tone almost makes you stop in place. If you were even a little convinced that some of this house was soundproof, those hopes were dashed instantly. You smile nervously, trying to play it off as you pass the sitting room, the TV giving you an idea.

    “Whaaaattt? No. I mean- I’ve had the TV in the sitting room running all day, so maybe that’s what you heard.” You say, trying to wave her off. Unfortunately, Jean had the ungodly ability to pick up your anxiety like a goddamn bloodhound.

    “Really? There’s not some mystery boyfriend you’re not telling me about?” Jean teases. You get stiff and quiet immediately, biting your lip as you reach the kitchen. She takes the silence as an affirmative answer, and she’s not exactly far off. Jean cocks an eyebrow at your nervous stance, chuckling at the sweat that practically beads at your brow. You try to hide the flush of your cheeks by busying yourself with setting out different snack foods to organize and avoiding her eyes, but it doesn’t work. 

    “Oh come on, I’m not blind. You’re over there blushing like a student. Who’s the lucky guy?” Jean asks, helping you with the task. You begin to open a back of chips, looking away from Jean’s knowing gaze.

    “I- We’re- We’re not really a thing. He’s just a friend.” You say, heart thundering in your chest as you pray Kurt isn’t lurking nearby. You’re struggling with the bag still, and Jean holds her hands out as an offer. You hand it to her without a second thought, and she opens the bag easily.

    “And is this friend coming to the party tonight?” She asks. You stall for a moment. All you can hear are the soft clinks of the chips hitting the inside of one of the bowls you had set out. You’re not quite sure what to say to that, or even if you had anything to say. Your hesitance makes her frown, looking up at you cautiously. When she puts the bag back down, she reaches out to take your hand. 

    “Well, if he does stop by, I’ll be glad to meet him.” Her tone is reassuring, and you muster a small smile for her. Tonight was supposed to be fun, so you’d do your best to enjoy it.

    The night goes by busier than you ever would have expected. Everyone comes dressed to the absolute nines in their costumes, and although a few were lacking in imagination in your opinion- Logan specifically- everyone looked amazing. You quickly realize that It’s harder to be a good hostess in this big ass house than you would think. Between the food, trying to catch up with friends, and the doorbell constantly ringing with practically a line down your driveway of more trick-or-treaters than you’ve ever seen, you were constantly busy. Lucky for you, you had good people around you. Logan and Scott thankfully took over cooking hamburgers and hotdogs- and Jean promised to keep them from butting heads. Ororo and Xavier happily volunteered to hand out the candy when you couldn’t, and you had Jubilee to count on when it came to the music. The house was busy, people were smiling, and overall, everything was going really well. 

    The only downside was that you hadn’t seen Kurt since Jean arrived. Sure, it was busy, but every time you managed to pry yourself away from the crowd and look for him in his usual hidey-spots, you never found him. He’s good at being sneaky, I mean he has to be, right? Being blue and all, but his consistent absence makes you a little nervous. He’s probably just being extra cautious, and you can’t blame him for that.

    After a few drinks have been had, spirits are high, and some different party games you had planned were finished, it was time to vote for best costume. Almost everyone had gone outside, enjoying the yard and the house in all its festive glory, but you stayed inside to count the votes. Kitty and Illiyana had volunteered to help you, and it takes a surprising amount of time to count the various strips of colored construction paper. In the end, it seems like it was really more of a “most ridiculous” costume contest instead. Jubilee, dressed as the one in only Kool-aide-man in the biggest plastic fishbowl you’d ever seen, won best costume by a single point, with Kevin’s fantastic costume of Professor Xavier himself a single point behind. You try your best not to laugh, knowing that they are not going to be too happy about that. You had bought a light up-sash and a plastic crown for the winner, stopping to grab them before stepping outside to try and find the teen. 

    Somehow, you can’t find her. I mean, You think it would be easy to find a huge red bowl with a face on it, but she’s not outside at all. When you ask Hank, he says he’s pretty sure she went back inside, so inside you go. You’re starting to get a little anxious at this point, not finding her on the first, or second floor. The third floor is completely dark, aside from the colorful light coming from the windows. You call out her name with no response, and then thinking that Kurt may have seen her, you call out his name next. Nothing. He’s never done that before. Sure, there was a lot going on, but normally he’d at least try to answer you. You creep from door to door upstairs, without any luck, when a muffled sound from the tower room falls on your ears. It makes you pause for a moment. It might be nothing, but you remember telling Jubilee about the room earlier, so you figure it wouldn’t hurt to check.

    You’re hesitant, but then there's another muffled cry, and this time, you know it’s him. You slowly creep up over to the door, and then up the stairs to the room. Minutes feel like hours, and when you finally get there, you find Kurt, on his knees and doubled over in pain with his hands pressed to his chest.

    “Oh my god, Kurt!” You cry out, running over to him. His face is scrunched up in a wince, his eyes shooting open when you try to help him sit up. 

     “No, no- You can't be here- You need to go,” Kurt’s voice comes out between heaving breaths. Your hands are shaking, panicked as you spot the blood seeping through his shirt. He hisses in pain when you touch the spot, as if he’s been burned, and when his hands quickly tug your wrist away- his neckline shifts. There’s a brand over his heart. Etched into him as if it were carved with a scalpel.

    “What happened? What's happening?” The words come out faster than your brain can catch up. His nails are elongated, razor-sharp points almost digging into the skin of your wrist as hold hold shifts. The brand glows as another wave of pain washes over him. Those small points that normally hide in his curly hair have grown, too. His horns sweep over his head, prominent and black at the very tips. He cries out, slumping forward onto your shoulder as the pain passes.

    “You need to go. Bitte- I need you to leave.” Kurt almost whimpers, practically limp against you as he tries to catch his breath. “It’s Azazel, my Vater. He’s found me. He’s using the brand to track me down. It’s too dangerous for you to be here.” He stiffens as another wave of pain hits him, and you do your best to keep upright. There’s so much running through your head, concern, confusion. You don't know how to help him besides holding up up and it's killing you to see him like this.

    “I don’t understand- I thought he couldn’t find you unless you used magic?” Kurt looks ashamed when you ask the question, tucking his head further into your shoulder. It's only then that you actually take a look at the room around you. There's an open book on the ground, runes and lettering you don't understand scatter the pages, along with a diagram of a devil that seemingly shifts into something more human and back at every shift of your eye. When you see the worn cover, you recognize it as the book beneath the floorboards- and you finally understand that it's a spellbook.

    “I… I wanted to join you.” Kurt whispers, unable to look you in the eye. “My Mutter was skilled in transmutation so I…” He trails off, shaking his head and wincing when another sharp pain shoots through him.

    “It was stupid. I’m sorry. I should never have touched it without a pact.”

    “If you make one now, will the brand disappear?” 

    Kurt visibly pauses. Sitting up as best he can to get a look at your face. You're still panicking, but overall you feel mortified. Ashamed. Did you do this? Were you so instant that he came tonight that he would risk everything just to do so? What was wrong with you- and why on God's green earth would he actually try to go through with it? You're beginning to tear up, swallowing down your thoughts as you offer the only thing you can think of. Kurt doesn't answer you at first, his yellow eyes wide with shock as he stares at you. 

    “If you make a new pact, will you be able to dispel the tracker?” You repeat, trying so hard to seem confident and self-assured through your shaky voice. Kurt’s face shifts into something you can't quite place, and he shakes his head.

    “I can’t ask that of you-”

    “Kurt, just answer me!” You’re too stubborn to let it go. A trait that you and Maude often shared. Kurt takes your hands into his own, squeezing them, and shakes his head. He's insistent in his own right, conveying his worry and fears- not for his own future, but yours.

    “This isn’t the way you want to gain a pact! Maude had made preparations. She had charms and protections and rules in place! There’s no time for us to do the same. If you make a pact with me now with nothing? It would bind your soul to mine for eternity. You would have no rest, no peace- no Heaven. I won’t-”

    “I love you!” Kurt sucks in a sharp breath at your exclamation. Tears have started to roll down your face no matter how hard you were trying to blink them away. 

    “I don’t care about eternity, or rest- or any of that. I love you. Fuck- I know I haven’t even known you three months- I just…” You trail off, looking away from him in embarrassment that all of this had to come out in such bullshit circumstances.

    “Please just make the pact.”

    Kurt’s eyes soften, almost scanning your own as if he’s trying to figure out if you’re telling the truth. He uses the back of his hand to wipe the tears from your face, careful of his claws, and then suddenly, he kisses you. It’s easy for you to melt into his desperate kiss, a hand coming up to cup his face as he pulls you closer with his tail. The strong limb pulls you into a straddle across his lap as he takes your free hand in his own. When he breaks the kiss, he does so with a mumbled apology as he takes your free hand. You feel a sudden stinging pain as a careful claw slices across your palm, and he apologizes again as he presses it over his heart, directly against the bleeding brand. Both of you hiss at the sudden, blinding pain as his hand continues to press your palm tightly to the wound.

    There’s an energy that begins to fill your body, like an electric current that links the two of you together. Your skin is buzzing, your head spinning as you fall against his shoulder in a mirror of his own position earlier. Kurt’s new claws dig into his own skin, and he grits his teeth as the pain from the brand grows more and more- before everything stops.

    You wish you could say there was some spark, or spoken words, or something, but it all ends almost anti-climatically. Everything stops. Everything is quiet- almost too quiet. Whatever vertigo you are feeling begins to wear off, and when you feel like you can finally lift your head, you look at Kurt.

    He’s smiling at you, horns reduced, fingernails shortened, with your hand still pressed over his heart- the brand gone and the skin healed on both of you

    “Is it over?”

    “It’s over.” He confirms, and you sigh in relief, pressing your forehead against his own. Kurt doesn't take long before he’s pressing kisses all over your face, holding you still as you giggle and squirm. You know there’s more to be said between you, but it’s been one hell of a night, and right now you’re enjoying the comfortable silence between Kurt’s fluttering kisses- until someone calls your name from the tower stairs.

    “Hey, You in there?” Jean’s voice echoes through the space, and you sit straight up, heart given a jumpstart as Jean comes into view- you don’t have time to move before she gets there.

    “You’ll never guess where we found Jube….” She trails off when she sees you and Kurt. “Oh?” Your face is as red as it can get, panic shooting through you at the realization that she’s seen the actual demon living in your home. All he does though is smile and wave, although a bit nervously. Jean raises an eyebrow, beginning to smile just as you realize the position the two of you are in.

    “Nice costume,” Jean says, and after a moment of confusion, you realize she’s talking to Kurt. Kurt looks relieved, shoulders relaxing underneath you, and you clear your throat.

    “Jean, this is Kurt.” 

    The air settles in the Tower room once it’s empty, the sound of the party downstairs is muffled through the floorboards, but still present nonetheless. There’s almost a giggle in the air, and the book flips from page to page before it closes shut, and the ink fades as the grandfather clock in the downstairs hallway strikes midnight. A pact is completed, and the energy in the air begins to fade. After all, a soul can’t leave the mortal plane until its final business has been finished, and Maude had not promised her own soul to the friendly blue devil, but no one said she couldn’t offer something else- a soulmate. 

[springgirlshowers]

could you do joost x gn reader, but it’s literally just them cuddling in bed during a thunderstorm??

Monsoon Season

Pairing: Joost x GN!Reader (no pronouns used)

CW: none!

WC: 726

AN: such a cutey cute lil concept!! fun fact: i wrote this as it was storming hard as hell outside lmao

Just as you were about to send Joost a text, asking how far away he was, you heard the front door open behind.

As you sat up from your spot on the couch, you were met with Joost standing with grocery bags in his hands, absolutely drenched from the rain.

It had started storming about ten minutes ago and Joost must’ve got caught in the middle of the rain on the way back from a recording session.

“I got the stuff you said we needed for dinner.” Joost gave you an amused smile as he held up the bag.

You immediately got up and went over to him, as much as you tried not to, you giggled at a bit at his soaked state.

“Thank you.” You smiled, giving him a small kiss, “Now, I’ll put these away, you go change.” You said as you took the bags from his hands, he just nodded and kicked off his shoes, walking down the hallway into your shared bedroom to change into drier clothes.

You put the groceries into the fridge and kitchen cabinets while waiting for Joost to get finished changing.

You were already done putting everything away by the time he returned, wearing a pair of sweatpants and a green hoodie, camouflage patterns on the hood. His hair had dried a bit more, now messier.

Joost walked up behind you, wrapping his arms around your waist, resting his chin on your shoulder.

“Better?” You asked, putting your hands on top of his.

“Mhm, much.” He let out a happy breath. It felt so peaceful in the apartment, the hard rain from outside with the warm light from the lamp in the living room made the perfect cozy atmosphere.

Until a flash of lightning and loud rumble of thunder struck outside, scaring and making both of you jump of you a tiny bit.

“The weather app said it’s gonna be like this for the next few days.” You sighed, turning around in his grasp.

“I guess we’ll be stuck inside for the next few days then.” He moved his hands from your waist to the sides of your face, you nearly shuddered when felt how cold his palms were.

“You’re really cold. You’re sure you feel better?”

“I could use some warming up.” He shrugged, a knowing smirk on his face. You rolled your eyes playfully, letting him take your hands and drag you into the bedroom.

You got into bed first, shuffling under the sheets while Joost followed, laying on top of you.

“I’m so tired. Today was so exhausting.” He mumbled against your chest. Joost enjoyed making music, but this feeling wasn’t uncommon for him after being at the studio for hours on end.

“How’s the album going?” You hummed, pulling the blankets up over the both of you.

“Its frustrating. Nothing is turning out the way I want it to.” He let out an annoyed sigh at the thought of it. “I’m honestly just thinking about scrapping most of the songs because of it.”

“Oh come on, you’ll get them how you want them eventually.” You frowned. “You always do.” You added, hoping it would bring some relief.

“You really think so?”

“I know so.” You ran your hands through his hair, he let out a pleased breath and wrapped his arms a little bit tighter around you in response.

Even though you didn’t have a good look at his face, you could feel his smile against your skin.

The sound of the rain hitting the window and soft thunder in the distance with the warmth of your body against his and you raking your hands through his hair made him feel the most relaxed he’s been in weeks.

It didn’t take long after for his eyelids to become droopy, eventually shutting his eyes in complete bliss.

“I was thinking dinner tomorrow could be pasta. But you might have to go back into the rain again to get the noodles.” You joked, there was no response from Joost.

“Joost?” You said softly, no response again.

Craning your neck a bit to get a better look at his face, you could see he was absolutely knocked out.

His eyes shut, lips slightly parted, face completely relaxed. You smiled to yourself, deciding maybe you could let him sleep for a little bit before you got up.

[applejuicebegood]

Hi gorgeous!! I haven’t gotten a chance to respond to your message about jason x booknerd!reader, but I wanted to quickly message and tell you that I’ve read it and I’m absolutely in love! You literally always come up with such good ideas, idk how you do it!! You’re awesome and ily!!

-(@midnightorchids)

Jason with a Bookworm!S/O

A/N: I know school has started back up for you again babe, so I don't blame you :((( I was originally planning to expand this for you, hopefully you can read this during a study break or some down time (i might repeat some stuff - just look away). It's IB exam season where I am so I share in your pain. Hang in there dude!! Summer is almost here!!

Masterlist

He's a vintage paperback and leather-bound kinda guy. Crime, Sci-Fi, historical-fiction/romance, magical-realism, and non-fiction are his go-to genres. Favourite authors include; Margret Atwood, Kurt Vonnegut, Haruki Murakami, Frank Herbert, and probably M.T Anderson. He's only a little pretentious about it.

He can spend hours in used book stores digging through the big plastic bins and stuffed cardboard boxes. You help him find specific authors or titles, your basket heavy with your combined finds. He'll carry the bags back to your apartment, his other hand tucked into yours as you gush about excited you are to sort and organise your new additions to your shared library.

He still has some books that Bruce and Alfred gave hm before his murder. Leather bond additions of the Liliad and rare printings of Dracula and Frankenstein. They have these little notes left in the front pages from Bruce that he couldn't bring himself to tear out or throw away entirely. And if you thought his home library was huge- wait until you see the book shelves in his old room.

Since he doesn't spend that much money on himself, he now has every chance to spoil you with your own special additions of your favourite stand-alone's, expensive book-marks, and lavish coffee dates where both of you enjoy your books over the smoothest of richest of espresso.

In the early months of your relationship, most of your dates were spent at bookstores, thrift-shops, and libraries. Your love quite literally grew from the yellowed, torn pages your would both get lost in.

Once his home library combined with yours, most of your bedroom and living room wall space became covered with his floor to ceiling bookshelves. Your bedside tables would each have a small stack of books that you were currently reading.

He absolutely loves how you look with your reading glasses. He thinks it's too cute when you push them up with the back of your hand, entirely focused on an intense passage. Your eyes going wide or your breath stopping at a beautiful line. Your adorable focused stare and sweet round cheeks are accentuated fully. He should be reading the book in his own lap but he's entirely distracted by you. You shut the book with a thump and immediately turn to him to gush about the chapter you just finished only to have his hands catch your jaw and bring your smiling lips against his. And suddenly, you forgot what you were going to say to him.

Jason finds lines and prose in his books that remind him of you and highlight them. He would keep them in a note stack on his phone, just to read them back to remind himself of your beauty. It's something that he could never put into words himself, hence one of the reasons why he adores reading so much. He can find the right order of words that properly express his infinite adoration and care for you.

I've explored this before but you guys have a set date once a month where you'll sit in each-others arms and just read all day. You'll curl up in one of his sweaters with one of your thick Sanderson novels and he'll tuck a blanket around his lap with his special addition of 'Little Women' open in his lap. He'll refill your tea mug because it's always hard to pull you out of your book during your reading days.

You'll order in some warm comfort food for supper and talk about your books respectively. He'll gush about how Jo March is such a revolutionary character and how Amy is actually a metaphor for the loss of innocence girls experience when attempting to emulate patriarchal standards of womanhood.

All while you gaze lovingly back into his eyes, your chin resting on your palm - wondering if a marriage proposal would be too sudden for your evening conversation.

[arislary]

Nipping At Your Nose - Han Jisung x f!reader Oneshot

Synopsis: You're spending the holidays at the club with your roommate and things take a turn for the best when you meet the blue-haired bartender who turns out to be more than what you expected.

Or Han Jisung as Jack Frost a.k.a. club owner

Pairing: Jack Frost/Club Owner!Han Jisung x f!reader (1st POV)

Genre: s2l, fluff, smut, mythical characters

Warning: 18+ MDNI, unprotected sex (wrap up!), biting kink, sexual assault (reader is groped and handles her own), weed consumption, alcohol consumption, temperature/ice play (but not what you would think), nipple play, blowjob/handjob, pussy eating, squirting, slight foot fetish (Jisung just likes her socks), I probably most definitely missed some warnings so just let me know!

WC: 16k

A/N: I totally meant for this to have been posted for Christmas, but who am I kidding, it got away from me! EXTREMELY UNEDITED, but Han Jisung's blue hair is wrecking me and I needed to write about him immediately. Again I can't emphasize enough how unedited this is, so I am so sorry, I literally could not stop writing 😭 There's also a small part of me that wants to write all the members as their characters, but that would so much, unless.. IDK you tell me! Also if you want to see more Jack!Jisung, requests are open ☺️

Masterlist

Taglist: @hanji-coffee, @inlovewithstraykids, @xgridx

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I tapped the bar as I threw the shot back, holding in from making a face as I brought the lime to my lips. I turned to my right grinning as Damian glared at me as he sucked on his lime. I had convinced him to come out as a celebration for finishing the week and celebrating the holiday season. With Christmas being tomorrow, this had been the only club we could find that was open. We had both started new jobs at the beginning of the month and had finally found the time to celebrate our accomplishments. Even as roommates, we barely saw each other with how much work we did. 

On top of the fact that this would be my second year spending Christmas after having been no-contact with my family. A distraction was a must. I went out of my way to make the holiday special for myself and refused to allow the lack of family stop me from treating myself and those I loved. Damian had decided to spend the holiday in the states rather than go home to visit his parents in Australia as he normally did.  

“Literally so many different ways we could be celebrating,” Damian groaned, head falling back as he leaned away from me. A laugh bubbled from my lips as I called out to the bartender to request another round of drinks. 

The original bartender, a cute muscular man, who had been serving us was now occupied with patrons on the otherside of the bar and turned to the man squatting next to him that had just come from their backrooms. I watch the two converse before the man squatting stands up to come over to us and suddenly I’m greeted with wide brown eyes, blue hair, and chubby cheeks. 

I felt myself pause as I took in the good-looking man in front of me. His black long-sleeve shirt was loose around his frame, rolled at the sleeves. He had one gold chain hanging from his neck and various rings and earrings decorating his person. My eyes watched as he rubbed his hands on the rag that had been hanging on his shoulder. His very veiny hands at that. My eyes stuck to the way his long fingers clenched around the towel. I felt my mouth start to salivate the longer I stared. His eyebrow raised as I stayed silent longer, glancing over to Damian who looked ready to burst out laughing. 

Damian shoved an elbow into my side, causing me to flinch and sit upright in my chair. I stared wide-eyed at the bartender, my brain coming to a complete stop. 

“I wanna hold your hand-”

Girl. 

“NO! I mean-“ my hand shot out in front of me, shaking at him, other hand covering my mouth in disbelief. Damian shook in chair, practically falling out of it from how hard he was laughing. The bartender’s smirk stretched into an amused smile, his hands now coming to rest on the bar as he let out a huff of laughter. “Can I please get a rum and coke?” 

I mumble out my order, my eyes refusing to leave the bar-top as Damian continued to laugh, attempting to give his own order. As soon as the grinning bartender walks away to make our drinks, I turn to the ‘Brutus’ sitting next to me, taking my turn to shove an elbow into Damian’s ribs now, hissing in his ear. 

“Thanks for the help, ass!”

He yelped and rubbed at his side, eyes narrowing at me, but the smirk on his face gave him away. 

“It didn’t look like you needed my help with how you practically shoved his pants down and started to suck his d-“

“Alright, I have a ‘Manhattan’ for the gentleman and-“ the “too-cute-for-his-own-good” bartender returned with our drinks laying them down in front of us one by one. “A rum and coke for my new favorite customer.”

He shot me a wink as I sputtered reaching to grab my drink, fingers barely grazing his. I jumped a bit, quickly bringing the drink up to my lips, straw bumping my top one before making it into my mouth. Way to go, ________, way to go. 

The bartender leans forward, hand outstretched towards me. His shoulders and arms seeming so big, making a flash of heat go through me. My eyes dart from his hand back to his face, stopping once, several times, at his lips. 

“You said you wanted to hold my hand right?” 

More like put your fingers in my mouth, but sure. 

The heat rose to my face, blooming from my chest upwards. I watched as his eyes flashed down, to look at my barely covered tits, the red halter lace connected by two rhinestone hearts at the center. I had chosen to pair the top with a white layered mini skirt that had a small bow in the middle. His eyes lazily going up my body from what he was able to see. I could feel the heat in me grow further and I turn to Damian, shooting up from my seat. 

“Let’s go dance!” 

“But we -“ I grabbed his arm, dragging him behind me, shooting one last glance towards the bar to see the hot man still gazing at me, the smile on his face growing, crinkling his eyes. I quickly turn back around, chugging at my drink, trying my hardest to ignore the burning in my cheeks. 

I face Damian once we hit the dance floor, the sea of bodies pushing us close together and forcing us to hold our drinks in front of our chests. Damian began to sway, his head bobbing to the music as he took meager sips. I, on the other hand, had finished my drink, glass empty in one hand as I began to move my hips to the music. I could feel Damian shuffling closer, swaying his hips in time with mine. I felt Damian take the empty glass from my hands, moving to an empty cocktail table to set them aside. 

My gaze trails across the club, moving towards the bar where I am met with those brown orbs once more. I paused in my dance, eyes not wavering as we held contact. A body stepped in front of me, a man with a hopeful grin as he grabbed my hand to pull me closer. My eyes flashed to behind his shoulder where the blue-haired bartender continued to stare, his eyes with a challenging glint in them. I glanced to my right to see Damian had been pulled into by what appeared to be a bachelorette group. I turn back to the guy in front of me, stepping to the side, so that I would see the bar in my peripheral. 

I turned my back to him, pressing up against his front, swaying my hips sensually to the music, hands moving up my body as his moved to my waist to pull me back against him. My head turned to see him still watching. A smirk on his face as he conversed with another patron. I felt my breath stutter as he continued to work, appearing unaffected. 

It wasn’t an outright rejection, but the possibility of him being apathetic almost had me feeling embarrassed. I focus back dancing with the man who clearly seemed interested in me, albeit slightly more handsy than I was okay with it, but it was something I was letting slide, fuck it, it’s Christmas. Several times throughout our dancing, I had to move his hands back down to rest on my hips, him sending me a fake apology every time his fingers grazed the outside of my tit through my shirt or trying to slip his fingers under my skirt. However after I felt another rough grab at my ass, I had enough. I prepared to leave his hold when the music abruptly changed to an all to familiar song, freezing me in my spot as I listened. 

Yeah, uh-huh

Yeah, yeah

My eyes flashed towards the bar, my mouth gaping open as I found him already looking. 

Broke up with my girl last night so I went to the club (So I went to the club)

I snorted, hand flying to my mouth as his eyes flashed with amusement. The man behind me remained oblivious to our interaction, hand coming up to rest on my stomach and leaning down to whisper in my ear. I turn my head, looking away from him to focus again back on the handsy guy behind me. 

“You’re so hot,” I restrain myself from gagging, biting my lip to stop the laugh from escaping and lay a hand on top of his arm to prevent it from getting further. The ick had long settled in and I had already regretted letting him dance on me. 

“Thank you,” I say back, ready to disentangle myself from when he held on even tighter. My eyes widened in surprise, head flashing to the side. 

“You have to realize what you’ve been doing?” He suddenly pressed forward, pressing a very obvious erection against my ass. I gasped and tried to turn in his hold again. 

“I’m done dancing, let go of me.” 

“The way you were dancing on me tells me differently,” one of his hands moved up, grazing underneath my tit over my shirt. Oh hell no!  I gaped and slammed my heeled boot down on his shoe finally causing him to release his hold as he yelled out in pain. He crouched down to hold his foot as I whirled around, hands falling to my hips as I glared down at him. 

“I wasn’t dancing for you, fucking pervert,” he straightened up, immediately crowding into me. I stumbled back a few steps, not having been prepared, eyes still blazing in fury. My back was suddenly pressed against someone’s chest, a very cold chest.

I like the bartender (oh, if you’re lookin’ for me)

I’m at the bar with her (Oh oh oh uh-huh, okay)

His hands hold onto my elbows, thumbs rubbing circles into the inside of them. The smell of woods and chestnuts? surrounded me as the chest behind me vibrated with anger.

“He’s banned, take his ID down and kick him out.”

The man spit on the floor near us, leaving me to flinch back against the chest behind. My eyes flashed upwards to meet the brown orbs that had been watching me all night, softening once they made eye contact with mine. 

“That bitch started it, the fucking slut was asking-“

He hadn’t been able to finish his sentence before a fist flew forward and slammed into his cheek. The security guard, dressed in a black ensemble with the only color coming from a Santa hat on his head, that had thrown the punch, cracked his neck to the side and hauled the man back to his feet. I watched with a scowl on my face, crossing my arms, what a fucking asshole and during Christmas! 

“Thanks, Chan,” the security guard or Chan nodded towards us and sent a wink my way as he led the perv out. My eyes flashed to the owner of the deep voice behind me, taking him in up close again. 

“I’m ______,” I interrupt him the second I noticed his mouth open. He stopped, mouth still open as he tilted his head. He laughed his hand grabbing mine to shake it. 

“That’s a pretty name,” I nodded my head, hand still holding onto his hand, his very veiny hand. He pulled me closer by my hand, kissing my knuckles. “I’m Jisung, now come on, Sweetness.”

My hand engulfed by his, pulls me towards the backrooms, up a small staircase. My eyes stay fixated on the man leading me. His blue hair shining under the lights of the club and added festive lights. We reached a dark hallway, him leading me further towards the last room. Each door we passed contained a symbol on it, I was able to make out a top hat, an Easter egg, and a clock before we stopped in front of a door with a silver snowflake. 

As Jisung unlocks the door, I realize I should feel scared or at least cautious by the fact that a stranger was leading me away, but as he looked back towards me, eyes still soft, all other thoughts left, only he remained. Scurrying a few steps to be in stride with him, bringing his hand up to my lips to press a kiss. His lips stretching into a smile as he opens a door to an office space completely decked out in Christmas decorations. 

I gasped and walk into the room, eyes trying to take it all in. The office didn’t look like a typical office, rather more of a game room, with a couch and tv on one side and more of a library space on the other. A tree stood in the middle, multi-colored lights and what looked like personal ornaments. 

“Jisung, this is beautiful,” the door shuts behind him as he walks toward to the small bar behind the couch. He smiles watching me, hands laying on the counter top. I turn towards him, pulling my bottom lip between my teeth. He watched me with dark eyes, the desire evident in them. I suddenly felt naked, yet not in a way that made me want to hide away. 

My eyes flashed towards the coffee table and I gasped, my feet immediately leading me towards it. 

“You were holding out on me!” I pulled off my boots, the grinch ankle socks making themselves known. I heard a strangled sound me behind me as I sank down onto the plush couch. My head whipped around to see Jisung’s head thrown back, eyes closed and jaw clenched. I realized how rude that could have been, I knowing first hand how specific I was with sharing my weed. I turned to face him, sitting on my knees, hands coming to rest on the back of the couch. 

“I’m sorry, I should have asked first or let you offer, that was rude of me.”

His eyes opened, head moving to look at me. He took in my position and groaned once again, leaning now on his forearms, head falling to touch the counter. 

“Sweetness,” I shivered at the nickname and shuffled closer to him. I reached out, hand hesitant in mid-air before coming to rest on the top his hair, fingers running through the blue strands. The moan that left him came from deep within his chest as I lightly dragged my nails through the locks. 

He lifted his head up slowly, my hand slowly falling to rest on the side of his neck. His eyes met mine, swiftly standing up and striding to round the couch to meet me. He sits next to me, hands moving to the rolling tray, papers, and grinder that lay there. He took in a deep breath, as his hands began to empty the grinder to roll a blunt. 

I moved in my seat, tucking my legs to the side as I leaned my hands on my knees.

“Do I make you nervous, Jisung?” 

His eyes glanced towards me before taking another look at how much closer I got. His eyes went wide, dropping the blunt and some of the weed he had already began to sprinkle on top back on the tray. 

“N-no,” I hummed and sat back, eyes glancing away down at his hands. 

“Oh-“ he didn’t turn back to begin rolling yet, eyes remaining on me. “You make me nervous.”

I look towards him, meeting his eyes to find the surprise there. I couldn’t help the smirk that came onto my face as I pushed against his shoulder with my hand. “Okay, not too much now, it was obvious.”

He smiled wide at me, head dropping forward as he chuckled. His hand came up to rub the back of his neck, a deep blush on his face. 

“You- uh- definitely make me nervous, but more about what you could do to me,” he turned back to the tray, his hands resuming their task to finish rolling the blunt. My legs move to place my feet back on the floor. A hand falls on my left foot before it could hit the floor and maneuvered my legs to go over his thigh, my legs falling in between his. My feet rubbing at his calves. 

“Are you gonna ask me what I want for Christmas now, Santa?” I whisper into his ear. The desire growing further inside of me.

His eyes flicker over to me as he brings the blunt to his lips, letting tongue come out to lick at the leaf. My eyes follow the movement of his tongue as his fingers continued to roll it back up. He reached out the hand holding the blunt towards me, eyes expectant. 

“Depends, have you been naughty or nice?”

I leaned forward, my tongue coming out to run right where his had. I maintained eye contact with him, eyes drooling with want for each other. He pulled it back as my legs squeezed the thigh under me. He hissed and tapped a hand against my thigh, smirking as I giggled and fell into his side. 

“Yea, definitely naughty, Sweetness,” his fingers reached down to tickle at my foot. “Might have to give you a new nickname.”

He finished closing the blunt reaching over to grab the lighter. As he lit it, his eyes felt shut and his neck went back as he re-inhaled the smoke through his nose. I gulped watching his throat bob, his fingers holding the blunt nonchalantly. He reopened his eyes and made contact with me as he exhaled the smoke. 

He held the blunt out to me and I stared at him for a second, the temptation inside of me growing. I wrapped my lips around the blunt, taking a long drag. My lips pressing against the pads of fingers. I closed my eyes willing myself to ignore the slick beginning to pool in my underwear. Anxious he’ll begin to feel it through his slacks. I shifted in my seat, pulling away from the blunt as I exhaled the smoke through my nose. 

I opened my eyes to find his boring into mine. I pursed my lips, trying to hold back my pleased smile. I leaned back my seat, pushing the blunt back towards his lips. 

“So you’re not just the bartender then?”

His tongue came out to lick his lips as he took a hit himself, holding it towards me again. He smirked at my question and shrugged his shoulders. 

“You could say that,” I pouted and sniffed, to hold the smoke in for a bit longer. I pursed my lips to the side to exhale and looked off to the side. 

“Then would you say you’re the owner?” 

“That’s right, Sweetness, although it’s not just me,” he took a hit, leaning back against the couch, bringing the ashtray with him and handing it to me. I scooted closer to him, legs curling up more in his lap as he continued to hold the blunt up for us to take hits off of. 

The further down the blunt became the closer the two of us sat, the more the conversation deepened. It was odd to find myself sharing of more about myself, the fears of the new job, what it could mean for me in the future. He shared of his friend group, the group as I’ve come to learn that are all part owners of the club or have a role to serve. My head now leaning on his shoulder, his free hand resting on my thigh, fingers reaching in the inside of my thighs. 

“What made you stay open for Christmas? Did the holly jolly man inspire you?”

He snorted and shrugged his shoulders as he laid the roach in the ashtray, grabbing it from my hands to put it back on the table. He settled back down, his hand coming back to rest on my thigh. His eyes have a glint to them that I can’t quite put my finger on. 

“Please, as if he could make any of the club decisions, he’s too busy with his list all the time,” Jisung grumbled, a pout making it’s way on his lips. 

“You’re right, how could I compare you to that old man?” Jisung nodded as I placed a hand on his cheek, turning his face down to look at me. “Besides, if I’m being completely honest, I’ve always been more into Jack Frost anyways.”

Jisung stills underneath me, the hand he had on my thigh, clenching. My own hand stills on cheek, nervous that I may have said something wrong. 

“I’m actually Jack Frost,” his hand squeezes my thigh and an unreadable emotion enters his eyes as he stares at me. Interesting. A beat passes before he clears his throat. “Hence the hair,” he pointed a finger up towards the blue locks. I reached up to tug one of the strands, biting my lip. 

“I’ve always had a biting kink,” deciding to play along with his joke. 

Jisung and I blinked at each other before bursting into a fit of laughter. My face turned, nose pressing into his chest as we laughed against the other. Jisung’s laugh filled my ears and it became a sound I wanted to hear again and again. I leaned back from him, finally calming down form the laughing fit. He met my eyes and brushed a stray strand of hair behind my ear, fingers gliding down the side of my neck. 

“We’ll have to test that theory some other time then,” he hummed more to himself than to me. His eyes staring hard at the juncture between my neck and shoulder, thumb pressing in. I leaned back into him, his hand falling to rest around my shoulders as I laid my head on his. 

“I don’t know honestly,” Jisung sighed as he started to answer my initial question. “I just realized that some people don’t always have it to spend it with and that… fucking sucks. So why not just be open?” he trailed off, head dipping back to lay on the couch. I shifted my head up to look at him, my breath catching at his response. “Besides, I’m with my best friends anyways, that’s all matters to me.”

My eyes ran down his face, taking in the blue of his hair against his honey skin. The cupid’s bow of his lips with the slight 5 o’clock shadow framing them. I turned my gaze down to the hand that rested on my thigh, not noticing as he turned to face me. 

“And to think if I hadn’t been open for such a holiday, I wouldn’t have met you, Sweetness,” my eyes move up his body to meet his again, taking in the way the smirk plays at his lips, but his eyes. His eyes tell me so much more. I couldn’t help, but become overwhelmed with the urge to hold this man’s hand and never let it go. Already knowing the warmth it would provide me, creating a longing inside, that I never knew existed. 

I looked away from him, towards the clock he had above the television flashing 12:25. 

I gasped sitting up, whirling around to face Jisung. 

“Fuck, it’s Christmas already! Damian! Fuck me, man, I’m the worst!” 

I scrambled up from where I practically sat on his lap, trying to tug on my boots. Jisung was quick to stand with me, hands falling on my hips as I struggled to get my shoes on. 

“Wait, Sweetness,” Jisung guided me to sit back down, kneeling before me as his hands tugged my boots from my hands. I looked at him, mouth opening ready to argue with him. “Would you want to invite him back here?”

I paused in my movements, staring up at him in surprise. 

“I-“ I looked all over his face, trying to something to tell me what he was thinking. I felt slightly dumbfounded that he was ready to invite my friend back into the intimate environment we had created. The pleading in his eyes became apparent as his hands moved to my feet, pressing into the soles. “Jisung.”

I mumbled his name, hands coming to run up his muscular arms up to his shoulders. He moved closer, his noses brushing against mine. 

“You just stay in here and I can go get him,” his hands moved up from my feet to my calves, fingers still digging in to massage the muscles. I felt myself become like putty in his hands, melting further into his touch. “You can roll another joint if you want and I know some of the guys would be willing to come join, we’ll celebrate all together, hmm?” 

I was nodding my head before he finished, squeezing his shoulders with each word that passed through his lips. Something about the way he phrased it, it seemed like he was begging me to stay, not wanting this moment between us to end. 

“Will you come back?”

He snorted, his head dipping forward, his hair brushing the skin left exposed by my shirt. I heaved in a breath as he raised his head again, a wide smile present. 

“Sweetness, I’d be a fool to leave my favorite customer alone-“ I blushed as his hand moved up to grab a hold of mine. “And, who’s gonna hold your hand if I’m not here?”

“Jisung!” I pushed him off, laughing and trying to tug my hand out of his hold. “You’re so-“

“So?” He eggs me on, crowding up in my face, eyes comically wide. “Funny? Amazing? Pretty?”

“Annoying,” I state flatly, finger coming up to flick his forehead. Jisung yelps, hand coming up to rub at the spot. He playfully glowers at me, fingers flying forward to dig into my sides. 

“Yah! You’re not being very nice! And on Christmas!” He mocked gaped at me as I flew into a fit of laughter, tears forming at my eyes. “I might have to tell Santa, you don’t even realize the sway I have, precious!”

“Ji-“ I shrieked further, Jisung moving to a standing position over me, continuing his assault at my waist. His smile wide as he took me in underneath him. “Spare me!”

He finally released me, hands falling on either side of the couch as leaned over me. I gasped for air, smiling wildly up at him, trying to calm the racing of my heart. He pressed his lips quickly against my forehead before standing straight and walking towards the door. 

“I’ll be back, Sweetness, stay put,” he pointed a finger at me and I mock saluted him, winking. 

“You got it, Mr. Frost!” He paused by the door, eyes flashing to me with an intensity that had me freezing. I bit my lip, clenching my thighs as a pit of desire blooms from my core, shivering as it felt like the room’s temperature dropped. 

“Behave.” 

The door closed behind him and I released a breath, falling back against the couch. 

“What the fuck?” I sat back up, eyes trailing along the room, finding what looked like another door. I turned back towards the coffee table when I suddenly remembered my phone. I shrieked, hands flying to my tits to grab at them and then down to my stomach, hips and butt. 

“Ah, fuck me, man!” I stomped my foot, slapping myself on my forehead. “Way to be distracted by some dick, _____, ugh you bitch,” I slip my boots back on, trudging to the door. Just as my hand reached for the handle, it swung open to present Damian. 

“Yah!” I jumped back as he approached, expression angry. My eyes widen and I put my hands up in surrender.

“Listen to me! Listen to me! Let me tell you something first!” I am barely able to register the three other men walking into the room as Damian grabbed my arm and yanked me towards him, pulling me in for a hug, but it’s more of a chokehold.

“I was so worried! One second you’re there and the next you’re gone, and suddenly your Bartender is asking me to come with to a backroom! You can’t leave me alone! And on my first Christmas!”

“It’s not your first Christmas-“

“My first AmericanChristmas, you fucking brat! God, I should have you evicted!”

I snort as he fake cries and push against his chest, eyes flashing to the three amused men that have moved to different areas of the room. Jisung leaning by the door still, smile present watching us. 

“It’s not my fault you were trying to get into an engaged woman’s pants!” After successfully pulling away from him, I pushed him towards the the couch to sit with the other man. I could feel Jisung’s body as he moved to follow us. His hand ghosting my lower back, leaving me feeling tingles all throughout my body, goosebumps raising all over my body. The heat from before rearing its head. Damian fell into the last open seat. Jisung pulled out floor cushions, settling down on one, with his back against the the chaise of the couch. 

He pulled my hand down, moving me to settle in between his legs as he spread them. One leg bent, foot flat on the floor, the other outstretched, making the muscle of his thighs prominent. He reached under the coffee table, pulling a folded up throw to place it over my lap, being more mindful of the fact that I was in a skirt than I was. His hand finally coming to rest on my covered thighs, the other wrapping around my waist to keep me secured to him. I nestled further into the space as Jisung began to introduce his friends to me and vice versa. 

Minho, the short, black-haired stoic-looking friend began rolling another joint, his eyes flashing to mine with a wink as Jisung said his name, causing me to grin back at him. There was something about the way he moved, slowly almost, eyes sleepy. The bleached buzz-cut friend, or Hyunjin, smirked at Jisung, his eyebrow raising in turn. He seemed to glow, the air around him somehow reminding me early spring. 

“You must be who pulled our Jisungie away from us.”

‘Jisungie’ stuttered behind me, his hands clenching in their hold on me. 

“Aww, I didn’t realize Jisungie already mentioned me!”

Minho snorted, licking the last of the blunt as he met my gaze. 

“He messed up three drinks too busy watching you.”

I turned my head to look at Jisung, eyes sparkling with laughter, mouth twitching into a smile. 

“Did you really?”

He furrowed his brows, glare stinging as he stared Minho down. 

“Barely,” he grumbled as I giggled, hand coming up to cover my mouth, Damian and Hyunjin snorting in laughter. Minho smirked, lighting the blunt and taking a hit before passing it to Hyunjin. 

“If it’s any consolation, I got groped while trying to get his attention, so I think we both learned our lesson,” I watched as all the men in room grew tense, their brows furrowing. Jisung tightened his grip on me, the deep breaths he took moved me on his chest. 

“I promise, _______, that shit won’t ever happen again in our club,” Hyunjin shook his head as he continued the blunt rotation to Damian. “I’m sorry it even happened in the first place, but don’t worry he’s banned.” 

Minho hummed, cracking his fist as he stood up to grab a drink from the bar. Even from the short interaction with Minho, the air around him was intimidating, heavy, almost like a blanket. 

“I shouldn’t have left you for even a second, babes!” 

Damian leaned down, passing it to me now. I shook my head not seeing how Damian could blame, taking a hit, breathing it back up my nose. I was about to turn my head to the side, fingers lightly gripped my chin, turning my head towards Jisung, lips opening in surprise and releasing smoke in his awaiting parted ones. My eyes were wide as I stared at his hooded ones, the furrow in his brows still present showing me how much the situation had frustrated him.

He leaned back, eyes still on me as he exhaled from his nose. I played with his chain, shaking my head firmly again. 

“Nah, it’s no ones, but that perverts fault. I allowed him to dance with me and he crossed the line, he should’ve just felt lucky to have danced with me!” 

“Exactly!” Minho slammed the shot glass down after his proclamation, sucking in air through his teeth. “Fucking bitch ass probably an insecure cunt who’s dick’s so-“

“Alright dude,” Hyunjin shakes his head as he grabs the blunt from me. Minho rounds the couch five glasses filled this time that he lays on the table. 

“No let him finish! Asshole deserves it!” I lean forward, hand raised for a high-five which Minho gladly gives. I then reach for a glass, slap the shot on the table and throw it back, lips scrunching up at the taste. Jisung’s thumb wipes the excess that dribbled down my chin and sucks his finger.

“Okay, you two can relax,” Minho groans, stealing the blunt from Damian before he could pass it to me. “Nah, as punishment, we’re skipping you two.”

“Hey!” I pouted and turned to Jisung in shock, crossing my arms. “Keep your hands to yourself!”

Jisung gaped at me as I stood up from the between his legs, bringing the blanket with me to go on the other side of the coffee table. It was Jisung’s turn to pout, sending another seething look towards Minho as he passed the blunt to me now. For a moment, I could have sworn it looked like his eyes had changed colors, but I ignored it, chalking it up to the decorative lights of the room. 

I stuck my tongue out at him and took a long drag. 

“Sweetness, weren’t you just begging to hold my hand?” I began to cough, smoke creating a cloud around me as I covered my face with my arm. I could hear the cackle of Damian and threw up a middle finger. A body settled near me, a large hand patted me on the back as Hyunjin placed a cup of water down in front of me. 

I looked up to see Jisung, who sends me a cheeky wink, bringing the glass to my lips. He continues to rub my back as I chug the water. Hyunjin grabs the remote, turning the television on to put a Christmas movie on. 

“Jack Frost, the 1979 version! Do that one, that one’s my favorite!” I point when he just passes the old cartoon movie. I can see from peripheral Minho and Hyunjin turn to make a face at Jisung who had moved towards the bar to pour a drink. He shook his head slightly, finger tapping his lip. Hyunjin plays it, grabbing the other blankets from under the coffee table to pass them around. 

“Is the club still open?” Damian asked, as he wrapped himself up in his blanket. 

Minho nodded his head, taking another shot glass. 

“We stay open all day on Christmas, but that’s also because we have a select group that comes and spends today with us.”

“A select group?” I look over at him as Jisung comes back around, grabbing the floor cushion to slide back towards me. He sits down, dragging me to sit on his lap, blanket covering our lower halves. I turn to look at Jisung in shock who merely shrugs and turns his attention to the movie. 

“Basically it’s like a private member only club that we happen to host here every Christmas.”

“How do you become a member?” Damian crossed in his legs, sitting up intrigued now. 

“It’s kind of based on their job?” 

“What kind of job? I have a job!” I sit up in Jisung’s lap, hands squeezing at the arm wrapped around me. 

“Not just any job, Sweetness,” Jisung chuckled behind me and rubbed a hand up and down my back. “Think maybe more life long jobs, passed down in a very specific way.”

“So nepotism?” 

Minho busted out laughing as Hyunjin snorted. Jisung shook from laughter underneath me. Damian and I shared a confused look, both of our heads tilting to the side. I look at Jisung once again, eyebrow raising as he sobered up, hands tightening their grip on me as he bit his lip. 

“Yea, Sweetness, something like that.”

I hummed, understanding that it was possibly a touchy subject and decided to drop it. Fanning the blanket to cover us more, I turned my head sideways to focus back on the movie. I felt Jisung’s cold nose rub lightly by my temple before shifting his attention to the TV as well. 

It was about half an hour or more into the movie and all of us, excluding Damian who had fallen asleep, groaned when Sir Rightfellow came on. 

“Ugh, I can’t believe she picked this douche over Jack!” I grumbled, arms crossing as Jisung moved us forward to pass Minho the joint that Hyunjin had rolled a few minutes prior. Minho’s eyes flash to behind me, a smirk present once again on his face.

“You don’t say?” I look behind me to catch Jisung shaking his head before he stops himself, smiling at me. “Are you implying you would have been Jack Frost’s bride?” I turn back to Minho with a ‘duh’ look on my face. 

“Jack Frost is by far better, although, I wouldn’t want him to have to turn human. I’d be chill just being his as he is.” 

I felt Jisung stiffen under me but paid no mind as I sat up further. 

“Also, like I wish Jack would’ve just said something, you know? Like ‘hey, I saved your life’ or I don’t know just say your ‘Old Man Winter’!”

“I am not Old Man Winter!” Jisung shot back and I whipped around to face, mouth open. Minho hissed as Hyunjin chortled. I shook my head surprised by the scowl on his face. 

“I- I know you’re not…” When the scowl on his face didn’t lessen, the pout prominent, I felt an overwhelming need to comfort him. “I’m sorry, Jisung, Jack Frost isn’t Old Man Winter?”

I didn’t mean for it to come out as a question, but I also couldn’t help but feel confused as to why he seemed so offended. His eyes widened once he realized his outburst and he turned his head to cough. 

“I- I mean they’re two different people you know? Old Man Winter is the god of Winter, I’m- Jack Frost is winter you know? They’re completely different…” 

“Smooth,” Minho mutters, causing Hyunjin to laugh even harder.

I nodded my head, as he finished, hands rubbing his chest to calm him. 

“You’re right, Ji, they’re totally different, I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Jisung stared at me for a second before moving to stand to his feet, grabbing my hands to bring me with him. 

“Come with me?” I nodded as he began to lead me towards the door I had seen earlier. He lifted a two-finger salute towards the boys as I turned to wave at them. 

“Merry Christmas!” They smiled at me and called back to me, returning to the still-lit joint. Jisung pulled me through the door, closing it behind me. 

“Wow!” I take in the silvery Christmas decorations, stepping further into the dark, cold bedroom, lit by the white lights. I walked towards the frosted windows, gasping at how real the frost looked like. I look at the bedroom, the fluffy dark blue sheets looking incredibly inviting. My eyes trailed to the bookshelf, littered with different books, games, and photographs. 

One photo caught my eye in particular, it was Jisung, Minho, Hyunjin, that security guard Chan, and a few others that I didn’t know. What really caught my attention was how they were all dressed. Chan was dressed as Santa Claus, Minho in robes and a floppy hat with what looked like a cotton ball. Hyunjin had on a crisp white suit, in his hand a woven basket. I trailed my eyes over the picture, stopping at the darkly dressed Jisung. He looked normal if the frosty blue color of his eyes didn’t give him away. 

I hear his footsteps as he approaches me slowly. I turn to face him, the question clear on my face. 

“Is- hmm how should I ask this?” Jisung moved to sit on the bed, hands moving behind him as he leaned back. I could tell he was trying to appear indifferent, but his shoulders seemed tense, and his mouth tight. “Are you guys like.. a bunch of role-players or something?”

Jisung fell back into the bed laughing heartily, I smacked my teeth at him and moved to climb onto his lap, chuckling at the cute expression on his face, happy to see him relaxing. His eyes were closed, mouth open wide. His laugh gave me rich man vibes, leaving me to shiver in its wake. Fuck, he was too attractive. He sat back up, his blue hair shining under the silvery white Christmas lights. 

His hands came up to grip my thighs, my skirt rucked up dangerously now between. My hands came to rest on his arms. 

“What? I feel like it was a valid question!” Jisung snorted, his eyes full of amusement. 

“It was, it was,” he pats my butt, sliding his hand up my back slowly. “No, we aren’t role-players.” 

“Then they’re the nepo babies you mentioned, right?” He laughed again, nodding his head as I smirked triumphantly. “But why are you in it? You’re a nepotism baby too? And why are you all dressed like that?”

“Relax, Sweetness, I’m gonna answer your questions-“ I stood from his lap suddenly, going back to the picture and picking it up to bring it closer to my face. It was like the thought was not yet done forming, but my mind was going wild. There is just something about them, something in the look and the photo itself looked old almost. My brain racks through our conversations throughout the night. 

There’s… no way…

I slowly bring the picture down, eyes flashing to him and then back to the photo. He hadn’t moved from his seat, yet his eyes changed from the playfulness from before to anxiety? Fear? Hope? I couldn’t tell with the bubbling confusion and denial already making itself known inside of me. 

“You-“ I stop myself looking back at the picture, there’s just no way. I place the picture back down and look at Jisung, schooling my face. “Are you fucking with me or something? Like is this something that you do?”

“Wait, huh?” 

“The whole ‘Jack Frost’ thing, I mean having us watch the movie-“

“Okay well hold on, you wanted to watch-“

“And then your reaction to being called ‘Old Man Winter’,” Jisung’s face immediately turned cloudy, his mouth dropping open to disagree. I held up a finger to his lips, my eyes blazing. 

“I mean look at your room, Jisung, it’s not subtle!” My arms are outstretched to my side at this point, one hand still holding the photograph. “Is this why you guys stay open? Are you like some Christmas sex club? Members can pick their favorite character or something”

Jisung paused, the finger he had in the air to interrupt, bent at the knuckles. The lips twitched up, his eyes filling with laughter. 

“I-“

“And what makes you think I would choose Jack Frost! What if I was more into Cupid, hmm?”

Jisung scoffed, arms crossing over his chest, looking off to the side with a pout on his lips. 

“Changbin wouldn’t even know how to handle you,” I look back at him, eyebrows furrowed. I realized He.. actually thinks he’s Jack Frost. I glance at the picture again and back towards him. 

I can’t possibly believe this.

Can I?

“You-“ I cleared my throat, his head turning towards me, but his eyes remained on the floor, pout still present. “You’re really Jack Frost.”

Jisung’s eyes met mine now, the seriousness on his face taking me by surprise. 

“I am.”

The finality of his voice struck me to the cord. Jisung stood up from his seat moving towards the window, he glanced over at me before closing his eyes and blowing on the glass panes. I watch in amazement as frost leaves his pursed lips, the ice growing further on the panes. The room’s temperature drops further as more ice leaves his mouth. He stops, eyes opening revealing the icy blue color from the photo. 

I gape in shock, slowly sinking to the floor, eyes flashing between him and the window. 

“Y-you.. you’re Jack Frost,” one hand covers my mouth, the other falling flat on the floor next to the picture that continued to glare up at me. “Fuck, you’re really.. you..”

A hand slowly comes in my vision, moving my hand away from my mouth before tilting my face upwards with a finger under my chin. The icy blue in his eyes remained as he hesitantly crept closer. Oddly enough, his touch continued to feel warm to me even in the freezing room. Goosebumps rose on my body as our eyes met.

“I’m Jack Frost.”

“You’re Jack Frost.”

We both continued to stare at each other as our words sank in. I should run, I should leave and never look back. I was just drunk, high, maybe he drugged me! I mentally shook my head at that, knowing that this man had seemed so sincere in the interactions we had. My hand glides up his that’s still holding my chin, clenching the black fabric of his sleeve and pulling him down as I pushed up. 

Our lips met in a bruising force, teeth almost clanking together at how desperately we gripped at each other. The heat in my core multiplied as Jisung’s hands went to both of my cheeks, fingers spreading to reach into my hair as we pushed closer. My arms squeezed his arms, hands moving to wrap around his neck. His teeth nipped and sucked at my lips, hands moving my head the way he wanted. 

He pulled away suddenly, lifting me to my feet and walking us back towards the bed. I raised on to my tip toes, thankful I had taken my shoes off again once we started the movie. I move my hand to the back of his neck, bringing his head down to take a nip at his nose. He groaned, setting me on top of lap, bringing our cores flushed against each other. 

I could feel the tent beginning to form on his pants, growing more as we continued to devour each other. His lips trailed down my neck, teeth biting at the flesh. I moan unabashedly, moving my hips over his to feel any type of friction. By now, my skirt was over my hips, underwear on full display. His hands kneading at the skin of my ass, shaking the extra flesh in his fingers. 

“Fuck me, Sweetness,” Jisung continued to bite at me, going farther down to the tops of breasts, tongue coming out to lick the swell of my left one. Without warning, he bite down roughly, causing me to shriek and grind harder on his growing length, mouth salivating. 

“Yes, Ji!” He hums as he takes another bite from the top of my right tit, tongue soothing the skin in his mouth. I groan, one hand fisting at the back of his shirt, the other gripping his hair, pushing his head closer to my breasts. Jisung pulled away, smirking at the bite marks he had left on me, before pursing his lips and blowing the softest cold air on them. 

I gasped, chest heaving, hips moving erratically over his. One of his hands moved from my ass to trail up the front of my body, fingers grazing the fresh marks. I whimpered as they pressed into the bruised skin, eyes flashing up to meet his. 

Words couldn’t be used to describe the look we exchanged. It was overwhelming and all too consuming. Our breaths mingled in the space between us, noses brushing against each other. I came to a startling reality that I would gladly give him anything, but more importantly, I wanted him. I wanted to see this man again after tonight, and the night after. I wanted to be a part of him. 

“I want you, Jack Frost.”

It was Jisung’s turn to whimper, his eyes looking so absolutely soft. He leaned towards me, lips meeting mine in a slow dance. Our tongues dragged against the other, licking into each others mouths lazily. Jisung moved us to side to lay me under him on the bed. Him coming to rest flush against me, legs caging his waist. His hard length rutted against my core, both us hissing from the contact. 

“I want you, Sweetness,” his eyes holding a question as his fingers fiddled with the ends of my top. I nodded my head, fingers moving to pull the top over my head before he even had the opportunity. Hands not having dropped yet, are suddenly pinned above my head, top tangled in my hands. Jisung wraps his lips around one of my erect nipples, teeth scraping and sucking harshly. 

He switched to the other side, giving it the same abuse until he was satisfied. Lifting his head to gaze at the red, swollen buds, the bites of his teeth indented in the skin. He blew his soft icy air at them, a breathy sigh escaping me from the contrast of temperatures happening on my body. 

The slickness of the my underwear had to be evident as Jisung continued to press and grind his hips into me. His fingers and lips moved down my body, teeth needing to bite and leave a mark as me made his way down my stomach to my bunched up skirt. Jisung begins to tug my skirt down my legs, lifting off the bed so that was standing before me. He held my socked feet, lifting them up to his face to place a kiss on the clothed toes. 

I tried jerking them back, laughing at the tickle of cool air on them, but he held on tighter. 

“Sweetness, the way you were dressed today took my breath away and I already wanted you, but when I saw these socks, I knew I was going to have you. I think I’m wrapped around your finger, is that possible?”

I wiggled my toes at him, arching one of my feet to touch at his chest and push at him. 

“Yes… I’m wrapped around yours,” Jisung placed a final kiss to the arch of my foot, sliding fingers under the fabric to pull it off. He did the same with the other foot, before holding them together to kiss each toes, teeth taking small nips at them. I pouted at the black shirt still on him, dying to have a feel of his skin. 

I trail a foot down, going under his shirt to touch the hard planes of his stomach. He hisses as my toes make contact with his skin before he is shucking his shirt of his body. The honey skin fills my vision, my mouth and cunt watering at the sight. His chest heaved as he stared down at me, eyes still icy blue but dark with desire. 

His hands go to the button of his slacks, pushing them down until he’s left in dark blue boxers. Jisung spreads my legs, pushing them up body as he blows cool air on my covered cunt, the fabric doing nothing to hide the constant flow of arousal dripping out of me. He leaned the last inch forward, biting at my folds, tongue laving the clothed folds. 

I whine, hands moving down to my tits, pulling roughly at my bitten nipples. Jisung continued to suck and bite at my slit, hands moving to tug me closer, as if he’s trying to suffocate himself. I almost wail when his fingers begin to slide the wet fabric down all while he blew soft cool air. 

He dives back in, tongue trailing up from my puckered hole to my cunt, trying to catch as much of my essence as he could. He leans back and spits at my clit, drawing a whine from me at the filthy display. 

“Sweetness was the perfect name, you taste so good, best fucking pussy,” he slurred against me, eyes hooded as he looked at me. I was up, leaning back on my elbows to watch him, bottom lip caught between my teeth. I slide my hand down, fingers touching at my clit as he continues to suck on me, his tongue grazing the tips of my nails. “So fucking wet, precious, you’re dripping.”

“Only for you, Mr. Frost,” he brings my fingers into his mouth, biting down on them. The icy blue intensified and the room grew even colder as he fingers teased at my entrance, his other hand gripping tightly at the inside of my thigh. 

“Ask me for it, ________.”

The roughness of his voice had my pussy clenching, my hole desperate for him to fill it. I moved my hips, a pout painting itself on my face. 

“Please Jisung-“  the words barely left before his finger is inside, curling and beginning a steady rhythm. The squelching noise was obscene as I threw my head back, toes curling from the pleasure. “Yes, baby, don’t stop, more, Ji, more!”

A second finger was soon add, the pumping in side of me increased, leaving me panting and desperate. My hips move on their own accord, meeting his pumping fingers thrust for thrust. 

“More, Sweetness? You can take can’t you? Such a good girl, shitting on Sir Rightfellow huh?” I whimper, hole clenching tightly around his fingers causing him to release a hiss as he went harder. “Fuck Sweets, you were just begging for me, huh? Needed some ice in you?”

Each question is asked with a forceful thrust of his fingers, leaving me weak and seeing snowflakes in my vision. 

“Oh- yes, Sungie, harder,” I gasped as it felt like the temperature of his fingers changed, the coldness against my heated walls almost bringing me to the edge. My head went to the side, the pleasure of it all becoming too much and for a moment my eyes grazed the picture that lay on the floor forgotten. A thought suddenly passing through me as Jisung continued his assault, his mouth having joined his fingers. His tongue slurping messily, teeth continuing to nip any bit of skin he could. 

“W-wait, Ji-“ Jisung immediately pulled his head away, fingers halting as his eyes flashed to mine, concern evident. 

“What’s wrong?”

“If Chan was here tonight, how did he deliver presents?”

Jisung huffed, his head falling back. “There’s no way you’re fucking asking me about that now?” Jisung continued to pump his fingers lazily, mouth reattaching itself to my slick folds. I gasped, his tongue ice cold as he lapped at me. 

“But I’m serious! Australia is like hours- wait… OH!” A strong suck and teeth biting my clit has me pausing, the air from lungs taken all at once. “Timezones duh! But still, ah- fuck- it doesn’t make sense!”

I shrieked as Jisung bit roughly at my inner thigh, fingers curling and beginning a punishing speed inside of me. 

“Sweets, please, stop talking about him.”

“I’m s-sorry, Ji, I have- OH FUCK ME!” I yelp, my thighs clamping around his head as he suddenly shoved his tongue inside my aching hole. My vision goes black as I yelled out his name. Jisung continues his never-ending assault, lapping furiously at me to make sure he didn’t miss a drop. He was whining, hands shoving me closer to him, gripping tightly his knuckles turned white. 

My body continued to shake as Jisung kissed up my body, admiring the littered teeth marks he left on me body. My eyes opened, meeting his, shock running through me at his wet face. My mouth dropped open, hand coming up to cover my mouth. 

“Did I..?”

Jisung swipes a hand over his face, bringing his wet fingers to his mouth to suck on them. His other hand trails down his own body, jerking his covered dick. His gaze is dark as he slips his hand inside, pumping his length as he looked at me. 

“Yes, you did, sweets, squirted all over me, fucking hot as fuck,” Jisung whines, climbing over me after he shoved his boxers down his legs, yanking his own socks off. “I need to have you now, baby, please?” 

Jisung came to hover over me, his hands coming to rest on either sides of my body, blue hair tickling my forehead as he leaned down to ghost his lips over mine. 

I sucked in a breath, hands running up his chest, scratching at his skin, desperate to leave me own mark. I bite his bottom lip, tugging at it roughly, sucking it into my mouth. His hard erection bumped against my folds, leaving us to whine and pant into each others mouths. 

“Please fuck me, Mr. Frost.”

Jisung shivers above, kissing me softly before lifting off of me to reach inside of the nightstand. I lock my ankles around his waist, arms circling around his neck to bring his attention back to me. Eyebrows furrowed, I shook my head at Jisung, my hand reaching down to grab his dick. My fist jerked him up and down, enjoying the way his mouth fell open, bottom lip jutting out completely. 

“I said, fuck me, Jisung,” his hand met mine, circling around my fist, nudging his tip against my clit, the wetness easily allowing him to slide against me. Jisung nudged my hand away, fingers interlocking with mine as he brought them above my head. He pushed his hips forward, grinding against me until the tip of his length caught my sopping area. 

 Jisung quickly sank in, both moaning loudly at the connection. I could feel my eyes begin to water, Jisung’s head dropping in the crook of my neck, teething at the area. Our hips moved in tandem, Jisung taking deep, slow thrusts, making me feel every inch of his dick inside of me. I clenched around him, eyes nearly rolling back at the tight feel and causing Jisung to bite even harder. 

I feel barely coherent as I try to meet his hips, thrust for thrust, hand still clutched in his. I turned my head, lifting up to suck on the skin of the arm holding my hand down. Jisung’s hips stuttered against me, head lifting from my neck as I bite at his arm, tongue coming out to lave at the skin, soothing the redness around the teeth marks. A string of spit connecting me to his arm had him rutting into me harshly, his hands now moving to stretch my legs to the side, pinning my hips down. 

I cry out, hands grabbing onto his biceps for support as he thrusted into me wildly. It was like as someone was gliding an ice cube inside me before the temperature returned to normal, Jisung a groaning, whimpering mess above me, mouth open as the icy blue of his eyes doubled, almost making them white. I gasped as his body seemed to go back and forth from being warm to cold, as if he wasn’t able to control his supernatural abilities. 

“Let go for me, Frost, l-let me see you,” Jisung’s eyes found mine, a vulnerability in them that left me shook to my core. I smiled softly at him, my eyes still watery from the pleasure. Jisung’s mouth opened, most likely to argue, but I placed a finger over them, shaking my head, eyes imploring him. “Please?”

Jisung eyes remained the same, except he continued his deep thrusting, eyes not leaving mine as his body became cold, the length inside of me feeling like an icicle. His skin unable to cool the fire burning in me as I raked my hand through his blue locks, pulling him down so our lips met. Tongues sliding into each others mouth, teeth trying to nip, sucking when we could, spit dripping from our mouths. 

The air around us seemed to fill with snowflakes and yet everywhere he touched me burned. The burn of his hand against my stomach, pushing in to feel the burning of his length inside me. 

“You’re so good to me, sweets, aren’t you?” Jisung cooed at me, lips moving towards down to my chest. He teethes at my nipples again, fingers pinching where he couldn’t bite. “Letting me fuck this pretty pussy, you were begging to be fucked by Jack Frost, weren’t you baby?”

“Ahh, yes- nugh, wanted you from the second I s-saw- ohhh fuck, Ji, I- I’m close,” I whimpered my head digging into the soft mattress under me. Jisung’s eyebrows were pinched together, his lips bruised, but blue? The color matching his hair. 

“You’re close, sweets?” he pouted at me, he pumped harder, his breathing ragged. “Wanna cum with you, baby, hmm? You wanna cum with me, don’t you?” I’m nodding my head, his fingers holding my neck in a light pressure. I would want to do anything with him if it meant we’d come back together like this. That I would see him again.

“Please, Ji, please, please.”

“That’s it, baby, cum with me, do it.” 

The burst of white around us became so intense, I felt myself go limp, eyes rolling back as Jisung continued to pump into me through the orgasm. I couldn’t even say if any noises left me as I felt myself succumbing to the pleasure, the ice inside of me creating a deep fire within me, bursting out of me. Without a second of peace, I could feel the explosion of Jisung’s orgasm, the icy full feeling causing another wave to crash over me, clenching around him tightly to milk everything out of him. 

Jisung groaned deeply above, hips driving it to me as we rode our pleasure together. The wild sounds coming from his lips fall muffled to my ears, still ringing as I struggled to come down from the high. I could vaguely feel Jisung slowly slip from me, hand coming to touch my swollen center, fingers slipping in my drenched hole to push our shared cum back inside of me. He settled next to me, fingers still inside me, but wrapping his free arm around my waist to bring me closer to him. 

“You did so good, sweets, so good for me,” Jisung noses at my ear, whispering praises into my ear to bring me back to him. The hand not in me, caressing my skin, the coolness of his touch grounding me. I hummed, turning my head into his chest, hands tracing his chest and stomach. 

“I’ll be good for you, Jisung,” I murmured into his cold skin, a small smile gracing my face when I felt his lips touch my forehead. A nice blanket of exhaustion washes over me, my body immediately relaxing despite the coldness of the room. I remembered whining when he finally took his fingers from me, body lifting from the bed, taking the comforting cold with him. 

I was on the depths of sleep when I could feel something warm and slightly rough wipe gently at the wetness in between my legs, before was that lotion on my legs? I blinked up lazily, moving to try and sit up as I watched him apply lotion to my legs so carefully, hands kneading at my thighs and calves. 

“Sungie…” 

His eyes flashed to me holding so much affection, so soft that I wanted to cry. He leaned his head down, bringing his lips to the inside of my knee as he finished the last of the lotion, but continuing to rub his hands on my skin. 

“Sweets, I think I’ll have to keep you.” 

It was quiet for a beat, the weight of his words settling. I watched as Jisung almost shrunk into himself, as if his confession would cause me to run away screaming. I furrowed my brows at him, his eyes stuck to my legs, lips barely moving from where they rested on my skin. I sit up, hands grasping at his arms to pull him towards me, pushing him down to lay down on the bed, head nestled against the pillows. He watched me with an unreadable gaze, yet his body pliant to every touch I made. I pulled the blanket from under us, making sure it covered us both completely. 

“Keep me then.”

Falling asleep with Jisung felt familiar and strange. The coldness should’ve bothered me, the coolness of skin should have alarmed me, but I only felt peace as I slipped away, eyes closing. If only I had noticed him watching me, noticed the way he went into himself again, maybe I could’ve prevented it. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I gasped awake, the heat of the room becoming increasingly more uncomfortable as I stumbled from my bed. I rushed towards the kitchen, opening the freezer to grab an ice pack, moaning as it touched my skin. My eyes watering wondering when I wouldn’t feel the desire to do this anymore, but truthfully never wanting the cold to leave, wanting it to stay permanently engrained to my skin. 

It had been days since Christmas, four days actually since I woke up back in my room, alone and hot. I hate it. I missed him, desperate to see him again, but it appeared as though it was a dream. The club seemed to have vanished, no search engine finding the magical winter club. My one and only attempt to ask Damian had me blanching, it was as if his memory was erased, the only thing he could tell me was that he had one of the best night’s sleeps he’s ever had. 

I stood in my bathroom, naked in front of the mirror as I dragged my fingers down my body, tracing over every teeth mark and bruise left over. The largest marks being on my breasts, nipples still raw, begging for the same abuse. I could feel him still on my body, feel him come inside of me, the ice cold sensation something I will never be able to forget.

Each passing day brought me closer to insanity, the overwhelming need to be surrounded and engulfed by coldness becoming too much. Damian had murmured his concerns before he was set to leave to spend a few days at his, let’s refer to him as his special friend, who had returned home the day before from visiting their own family. Damian had said it was too early to spend holidays together which left me rolling my eyes. 

“Are you sure you’re gonna be good?” He eyed my from the door as he finished shrugging his jacket on. I was wearing a large hoodie over my pajamas, feet covered in my new pair of Jack Frost socks, an impulse buy from two days prior that I even spent for same day shipping. I had successfully hid every mark from Damian, thankful I lived on the top floor of our home, free to dress how I wanted and needed to. I had just pulled an ice pack from the freezer, placing it behind my neck as I turned to wave him off. 

“I promise, I’ll be okay, I think I just might be coming down with something,” I shrugged and threw myself on the couch, turning the television on to put the Jack Frost movie on. I heard Damian groan from behind, most likely tired of watching this movie as I’ve replayed it about 15 times in the last 3 days. 

“Uh huh.. well I’ll be back after New Years, call me if you need me okay?” His gaze was worried, but he shot me a soft smile that I returned. 

“I will, have fun! Tell Tris I said hi!” He calls out a last goodbye as he shuts the door to our townhouse, locking it behind him. The smile on my face drops as I turn back to the movie, ice pack falling onto my lap as I stared blankly. I pull the large hoodie off my body, gasping finally once the heat left my body, dying to feel cold. I had opted to wearing a Christmas themed pajamas set, a tank top with a snowflake in the middle and shorts littered with them. Each day my clothing had become more revealing, trying to find the cold again. Damian had refused to let me put the AC on, stating that even if it wasn’t super cold outside, he wouldn’t allow me to turn the house into a freezer. 

It wasn’t until the movie was almost done that I realized I was crying. The bottom lip quivering as I watch Jack blow the cold air over Elisa’s bouquet. A loud sob bursts forth before I can stop it and I am suddenly overwhelmed by the onslaught of emotions. Was I sick? How could I feel so much for a stranger in just a night? Why did it have to be him? 

I longed to regret that night, to forget it the way Damian could. Erase it from my memory just as the club seemed to have vanished into thin air. I could try and hate it, hate every second of that night. Of him. Of how he made me feel, how he touched me. But nothing could take away the way he looked at me. A look full of longing and hope, as if he finally found what he was looking for. 

I sank down off the couch, bringing the ice pack up to my face as I continued to cry. The coldness of the pack numbing the burning of my face. My chest heaves for air as I curled up into a ball, laying on my side. My eyes shut, my body shaking as I let myself finish releasing my emotions. I felt empty and more alone than ever, fingers tightening their grip around the ice pack, holding it against my chest now. 

I close my eyes, no longer caring if I finish the movie. The carpet rough on my cheek as I sniffed and brought a fist to wipe my tears. 

“Fuck you, Jisung, for making me cry,” I pout and toss the ice pack away from me. I sat up, bringing my knees up to my chest, looking off to the side at the window. I laid my head against my knees, arms wrapping around my legs. 

“I miss you, Mr. Frost,” pout becoming more prominent, I shut my eyes, tired of seeing windows without fresh frost on them. The ending song of the movie begins to play when I notice that the temperature of the room seemed to drop. For the first time in days, I shivered, the cold nipping at my nose, causing me to blink my eyes open in confusion. 

Icy blue orbs met mine, full of guilt, sadness, and desperation. My mouth fell open, eyes unable to stay put long enough on just one part of his handsome face. His blue hair framing his honey skin that seemed to have bits of frost decorating him so beautifully, so perfectly. Fuck him. 

“I missed you too, sweets,” I don’t respond, don’t move, just continue to stare. I can feel my chest begin to heave as I become desperate for air, the frostiness around us somehow providing the comfort I had been desperately seeking for days. Jisung slowly brought his hand to my cheek, eyes full of sadness, blue lips parting as he could see the dried tear streaks. “I’m sorry I made you cry.”

“You left me.”

“I know.”

“You said you would keep me.”

“I.. I know, sweets.”

Jisung hung his head, hand still holding my cheek. I furrowed my eyebrows at him, moving my legs out of the circle of my arms, crossing them as I crossed my arms in front of me. 

“Well?”

“I-“ Jisung audibly gulped and shifted from his crouched position, sinking to the floor to mirror me. “I talked to Chan-“

“Santa!” The glower immediately became present, his eyes narrowing at me. I raised an eyebrow at him and he quickly schooled his reaction, sending me a sheepish smile, hand coming up to rub at the back of his neck. 

“Yea.. Santa.. well I talked to him.. well about you and it’s just-“ Jisung cleared his throat, fingers raking through the blue locks holding onto them. “It’s not often that we meet people and the Man on the Moon can be really particular and Mother Nature can’t always sway him sometimes, he can be a bitch sometimes- Wait, no!” His head shot towards the window, eyes wide as if the Man on the Moon was going to storm in the room. “I mean I’m extremely grateful to him because I wouldn’t be me, Jack Frost, if it weren't for him, but, it’s a lot. Being what we are, what I am. I thought it was just the heat of the moment-“ I snorted causing Jisung to pause. 

“I don’t remember there being much heat, but okay,” he chuckles now, the hand he had on my cheek moving down my arm. Jisung turns to me again, eyes full of hope and affection. 

“You know what I mean, I just- got in my head, but truthfully, Sweets, I missed you. So so much and I’m also just Jisung and your just _______ and I really, really just want to be with you.. I’m sorry I had left you for so long, I shouldn’t have.”

I continued to stare at him, trying so hard to not give any emotions away as he finished. The pit of hope blooming inside of me, he came back for me, he does want me. He was a stranger, he doesn’t know me and I only know Jack Frost, not Jisung. It would be ridiculous to begin anything with him. Insane even. 

“Are you going to leave me again?”

Jisung immediately shook his head, hands grasping at mine, bringing them up to his lips. I couldn’t contain the shiver once his cold lips grazed my knuckles, easing the heat that I’ve grown to hate.

“No, I won’t.”

I stared at him for a moment before pulling my hands from his grasp and standing to my feet, walking around him. 

“Can’t believe you stopped holding my hand,” I grumble, stopping towards the kitchen to pour a glass of water. 

“Sweets, I’m sorry, I didn’t want to,” Jisung follows me pouting, the cloud of frost following him, falling into my cup as he crowds into my space. “I would’ve kept my fingers inside of your tight pussy forever if you’d let me.”

I gasp, slapping his chest. “Jisung!”

“What?” He laughed, smile bright as I leaned into him not realizing, taking a sip of my water as I roll my eyes at him. “But I promise you, Sweets, I mean it, I want you.”

His hands rests on my hips as I keep my gaze focused on my water. 

“Are you asking me to be your Suzy Snowflake?” Jisung snorted, forehead coming to rest on mine. He grabbed the glass from my hand, placing it behind me on the counter. His hand returns to my hip, sliding it to my lower back to pull me flush against him. 

“You think Suzy holds a candle to you?” I blush, hands coming to rest on his chest, taking in his outfit for the first time. A black suit, with a black button up and tie. Fuck did he look so good. I was ready to forgive him completely. His feet were in just socks, even if invisible to anyone else, still took his shoes off at the door. I bite my lip, fingers going to his tie as his hand on my lower back went further down, resting on my ass, squeezing. “Sweets, you’ve ruined me completely, don’t you know that?” 

I stretch up on my toes, lips just barely grazing his before I pulled away. A million questions bubbling in my mind. Hold on now.

“Wait, how did you know where I live?” Jisung blushes now, a shy pouty look on his face. I tilt my head to the side, raising an eyebrow as he mumbled so slow I couldn’t hear. “Jisung, how?”

He drops his head on my shoulder, leaning his weight against me, pushing me into the counter. 

“Chan and Felix told me, they thought it would be creepy if I showed up like this, but you don’t think it’s creepy right? I’m not creepy?” His eyes go wide, huge boba looking orbs as he puffs his cheeks. My hands tighten their hold on his tie. 

Fuck me. 

“No, baby you aren’t creepy,” Jisung melted into me, wrapping his arms completely around me now to lift me off my feet. The crisp coldness washes over me and I grip onto his shoulders, savoring it. Jisung’s lips touch my neck dragging a shiver out of me as he starts to nibble. “Who’s Felix?”

Jisung groans, not moving from my neck, but rather taking a rough bite. I yelp, hand trailing up to his hair to scratch his scalp. “Jisung, be nice to me! I know Santa now.”

A hand quickly swats at my ass, pulling a shriek from me as Jisung hauls me up, wrapping my legs around his waist. Jisung snorts as I pout at him, his hand rubbing where he hit. 

“Don’t be a brat.”

“I just wanna know your friends, baby,” I jut my lip further out at him as he leads us back towards the living room. He sits down on the couch, making sure I am settled comfortably on his lap. His hands rubbing at my bare thighs, goosebumps raising all over. Cold surrounding us completely, he stares at me, eyes intense. 

“I like your socks.”

My eyes widen in surprise before giggling as I glance down to where his fingers reach out to graze them.

“I bought them for you.”

He doesn’t respond, but a smile grows on his face, proud and shy. He pinches at my heel, tightening the hand on my thigh when I giggle again, face falling into the crook of his neck. It’s quiet for a moment, frost settling around us before I raise up again, grinning sheepishly.

“So.. who’s Felix?” Jisung barks out a laughter, eyebrows furrowing as he fake glares at me. 

“You should only care about me! Don’t ask about them, why do you need to know? Are you trying to get with them?”

He crosses his arms and I chuckle, wrapping my arms around his neck to press kisses around his face, the last one a gentle touch to his lips. Jisung whimpers under me, wrapping an arm around my waist, the other hand moving down to my ass. We press closer together, mouths opening to for our tongues to meeting.

We moan in sync, the cold touch of his tongue erasing the mountain of loneliness that I had felt for days. It felt so right, every inch of my body covered in frost, as we pulled each other closer, his teeth biting at my mouth. With one last nip on my bottom lip, we separate, a string of spit connecting our lips. His thumb swipes at it, sucking on his appendage for our shared liquid. I shiver in his lap, my hands cradling his cheeks, thumb swiping over them. 

“You’re so silly, Mr. Frost, I thought it was obvious I only want you,” Jisung blushes, hands falling to my hips, rubbing circles in time with the strokes I made on his cheeks. 

“I only want you too,” I giggle, rubbing my noses on his. “And to answer your question, Felix is…” Jisung trails off, looking to the side with a pout. “The Tooth Fairy.”

“The Tooth Fairy!” I jump in his lap, hands falling on his shoulders as I stare at him wonder. Jisung hisses, his hands clenching them on my thighs as I wiggled on top of him. “I can’t believe you know the Tooth Fairy, you’re so cool,” Jisung smirks at me as he shrugs, doing his best to appear nonchalant, but the tips of ears turning red gives him away. His hands knead my ass, pulling me flush against him. 

“I mean, it is pretty cool. We have the club as a way for us to convene-“

“Hey, wait- I’m sorry to interrupt, but speaking of the club! Where the fuck did it go?” 

He winces, nodding his head in understanding. “Okay yea, that’s my bad, I totally spaced on this,” he runs a hand down my arm to grasp at my hand and pull it up to his lips, taking his time to lightly bite the pads of my fingers as he continued to explain. “It’s magic. I wasn’t lying when I said we stay open during the holiday for people that don’t have anyone to share it with. It also serves as our home, you saw my space, we each have our own. And again a place for us to hold meetings. So then when it’s not a holiday, the club turns invisible to the mundane eye. Mother Nature says it’s for our protection.”

There’s a shortness to my breath now as I did my best to concentrate on his words, nodding my head in understanding. The fire inside of me grew, watching as he murmurs against my fingers, content, eyes meeting mine as he stops at my thumb. Our breaths growing heavy, the hand he kept on my ass trailing up my back to rest on the nape of my neck, bringing me closer to him. Every exhale he made sent the soft frosty air into my mouth, leaving me salivating and wanting. My eyes drooped, trying to focus on the conversation at hand, but struggling the longer he continues to look at me. 

“I have a lot of questions, Ji-“ he nodded his head, mouth opening to probably assure me that he’d answer everyone of them. I press my thumb, still grazing his bottom lip, to firmly stop him before he could say anything. “But we’ll have time for that later.”

I ease off his lap, sinking into the space between his legs, resting on my knees, hands rubbing up and down his body. Jisung’s breathing grows ragged, icy blues eyes intensifying as my fingers met the button and zipper of his slacks. 

“I want you, Mr. Frost.”

“You already do, Sweetness,” his voice his rough, as I undo his pants, sliding the zipper down slowly.  He leans forward shrugging his suit jacket off, the black button up straining on his shoulder and chest, bulging around the muscles of his biceps.

“I meant to tell you I love your suit.”

“Yea, baby?” He lifts his hips to help me pull his pants further down, bringing his boxers down with them. His dick springs forth, already hard and leaking from his tip. I mock gasp at him, thumb rubbing the pre-cum leaking out of him. He whines as I take him in my fists, tongue taking a kitten lick from the tip. I moaned as the coldness touched my tongue, the icicle length stinging as I pumped him, flicking my wrist every so often. 

I wrapped my lips around him further, tongue laving at the underside of his hard length. I take him deeper, leaving him a moaning mess above, his head back against the couch cushions, eyes screwed shut and the cutest pout on his lips. The absolute fucked out expression spurs me on as I lift up, popping him out of my mouth to spit on him before taking him again, mouth freezing as my nose brushing against the skin of his pubic bone. 

Every noise he releases goes straight to my pussy, aching hole leaking and clenching around nothing. I knew my shorts and panties were ruined at this point, the wetness dripping, soaking me completely through. The hand I had kept on his thigh for support, trails down to my center, gargling around him as my fingers tickle my covered clit. 

He shouts a curse, a hand pulling my hair from my face to watch me take him in my mouth. I move my hand from around him, placing it on top of the hand on my head, encouraging him. He takes the opportunity, guiding my head up and down on his icicle, holding me down. My mouth hangs open, tongue out as he begins to thrust into my mouth, whimpering each time the tip of his dick touches the back of my throat. 

“Sweets, oh fuck, Sweets, so good, baby, such a good baby,” Jisung’s voice is rough, his breathing puffing clouds of frost. “Sweets, I’m gonna cum,” Jisung’s hips stutter, gagging me as spit drools from my mouth onto his dick. “I don’t wanna cum in your mouth.”

Jisung pulls me from him, lifting me to my feet, hands going to the hem of my tank, mine going to the buttons of his shirt, but I’m unable to even get one of the buttons from his rushed pace. He lifts my shirt over my head to the side, hands moving next to my shorts and underwear, hissing when he sees the mess I made. His eyes trail further down until they see my socks, drawing a laugh from me as he looks at me, begging. 

“You don’t know what you do to me, baby, we’re keeping those on,” Jisung doesn’t wait to get undressed himself, dragging me onto his lap, legs going on either side of him. He rucks his shirt up just enough to see where we will be connected. 

“I need you, Sweets, I shouldn’t have left you, I’m so sorry,” Jisung hands are hurried, one gripping my ass, the other going to his dick, swiping it against my drenched hole. I slowly sink down onto him, the cold dragging a silent moan from me, mouth falling open as I welcomed him back inside.  My arms wrap around his shoulders, nose at his temple as he begins to move my hips up and down his length. “I’m gonna make it up to you, I promise.” He punctuates his words with a rough thrust into me.

“Oh, Ji,” I move down, lips going to the underside of his jaw, sucking at his skin. I circle my hips, swiveling a figure eight, sinking deeper down on his length, satisfied by the fullness of him. His brings a hand forward, cold fingers slipping on my clit. I shriek, squeezing around his dick, drawing more curses from him. 

Each grind of his length taking me higher, mind going numb, the cold all-consuming. Jisung’s head lifted, eyes glazing over as he looked at the marks still on my body, before they darkened, head dipping down to make them fresh. 

I groan as his teeth start their own mission to mark my body. Jisung took away the dark cloud that had developed over me since he left. A rational part of my brain wants to slap myself for becoming so attached to this stranger, but as he pulls away, a small smile on his face, fingers running over the swells of my tits, teeth marks prominent once again, I ignored that thought. 

Each glide caused the frost to grow, breaths mingling once more as we continued our slow and sensual connection. We held each others gazes, mouths open and touching, his fingers returning to my clit as he drew circles once more. Jisung’s suddenly moves his hands to grip under my thighs, keeping us connected and moving me to lay my back on the couch with him hovering above me. He watches in fascination, my tits jiggling with as he starts his pumping into me again. 

“I have so much to make up for, never having you gone from my side again, fuck you were made for me,” Jisung emphasizes his point, fingers pinching my nipples and pulling them, smirking as I wailed from pleasure, eyes watering from the intensity. Grinding his hips roughly after a harsh thrust, as if he was trying to sear us together. My hands grasp onto his clothed biceps, frustrated I couldn’t feel the complete chill of his skin. “Should’ve never let my Sweetness alone for so long, what was I thinking, wasn’t nice of me at all, huh?”

I shake my head at him, tears of pleasure leaking from eyes and cunt, drenching my face, his thighs and lower abdomen. Jisung groans, fingers going to pinch and rub at my clit rapidly, the noticeable fluttering and tightening of my hole egging him on to pull my orgasm out. 

I cry out his name, my vision blurring as the first wave hits me, washing over me, leaving me shaking as he continues to thrust inside of me, his own orgasm rearing its head. Jisung grunts, leaning down to touch our foreheads together, hand slipping up around my neck. The air he releases is freezing now, flurries of frost hitting us as he drills into me, hips jerking sloppily. My mouth falls open, tongue out which Jisung takes the opportunity to lewdly spit inside, whimpering seeing me swallow it. Everything about him was cold to touch and leaving me yearning for more. 

“Fuck, I’m gonna cum, Sweets, you want it?” I nod my head, lifting the hand around my neck to my lips, sucking his fingers into my mouth, teething at them. Jisung’s other hand is holding on the crook of neck, thumb pressing into my collarbone as he pummels into me. I had long already felt the second orgasm rushing ahead, ready to be released. “Of course you do, my dirty Sweetness, gonna take it all,” Jisung releases a wild groan, hunching forward his length releases a fountain inside of me, triggering my second release. 

The ice cold sensation overpowers me once again, eyes falling closed as he caresses me through it, taking me back to early Christmas morning. The care he had taken towards me, his gentle touch that had rubbed lotion into my legs, that had continued the same treatment after the several other rounds we had completed that night. I run my hand through his hair, his head buried in my neck as we both came down. I turned my head to the side, pressing my lips firmly to his temple. 

Jisung slips out of me slowly, wincing at the grimace on my face, fingers taking their place inside, pushing his cum back inside of me. He grabs my shirt from the floor, wiping at his dick first so he can watch his fingers pump out of me. The cold doesn’t dissipate, etching itself inside of me. He pulls away to clean me and then his fingers. 

“My shirt,” I pout, causing him to lean over to press a kiss against mine. He’s lifting me from the couch, wrapping my legs around his waist again, my hands holding onto his shoulders. 

“I’ll you another pajama set, one with my face on it, now where’s your room,” I grumble at him, pointing towards the staircase to the second floor. “I’ve got days to make up for, Sweetness.”

He begins the trek up the stairs, his pants still undone, half hard dick still hanging out. I couldn’t help, but grind my lower half against his stomach, biting my lip as the wetness transferred onto him. He about trips on the last step, hand flying out to catch us. 

“You know how you can make it up to me?” He whines as I nibble on his earlobe. 

“Tell me, Sweets, whatever you want.”

I grin devilishly, tongue laving at the skin below his ears. My bedroom door is open, neon lights glowing blue, the air dropping as soon as he steps us in. 

“You really want to make it up to me, baby?” I whisper to him, pulling away to rub my thumb on his blue lips. He’s nodding his head, mouth opening to suck on my thumb, teeth scraping against it. He’s in front of the bed now, strong arms tightening as I kept my slow grind against his stomach. 

“Anything, Sweets, please.”

I hold the smirk in now that he’s looking at my face, keeping my face open, eyes begging at him now. His icy blues intense, full of desire and affection, mouth still sucking on my finger. 

“I want-“ he nods his head, encouraging me to continue. “I want to meet ALL your friends.” 

Jisung stills, even the frost in the room as he stares at me. Before he drops me on the bed, causing me to bounce and catch myself before I fell off. He scoffs and glares at me, taking off his clothing as the temperature drops even more. 

“You’re annoying,” I burst out laughing, falling to the side as I watched him undress, glaring and grumbling. He turns me on my stomach, swatting at my ass I continued to giggle, gasping in mock offense.

“Hey! What did I say, you have to be nice to me! Or else!”

He slaps my ass even harder this time, body coming over mine, head coming next to mine. 

“You really think you’re on the nice list?” Jisung snorts above, the hand that slapped my ass now gripping it harshly. “Maybe I should tell Chan what a bad girl you actually are,” he ruts his bare dick against my ass, his hard length drawing a moan from, the icicle a rod of searing pleasure. I lifted my hips, grinding up into him, hushed moans passing through my lips. “Maybe, I’ll even tell Jeongin, you know close we are to New Years, you wanna fuck that up for yourself, hmm?”

I gasp as his hand falls roughly on my ass again, his other fisting at the strands of my hair, pulling my head back so he can bite at my neck. 

“You-“ I heaved in frosty air, eyes nearly rolling back as he straddled my hips, keeping my legs together, before sinking into me from behind, groaning at the tightness of it. I cry out as he begins a punching speed, thrusting into me with abandon. “Y-you know Baby New Year!?”

“You’ve got to be fucking-“ Jisung growls in my ear, arm coming to wrap my neck, putting me a chokehold, not enough to hurt me, but to pull me up to my knees, back flushed with his chest. His thrusting never ceasing. “Such a fucking brat.”

“‘M your brat.”

“Yea, Sweetness,” he lips gentle as they touched my cheek, his free hand tweaking my bitten nipples. “You’re my brat forever, you got that?”

“Yes, Mr. Frost.”

The night passed in a blur, the cold filled pleasure knocking me down, leaving me weak to it, desiring for him and frost no matter how many times he filled me. I struggled to sleep, scared of what would happen in the morning. If he would still be there when I woke up or would I be met with heat. With a burning fire that would consume me and I’d be left roaming the Earth, seeking to be cold once again. 

I wasn’t sure when I finally did end up closing my eyes, Jisung having wrapped me in his cold arms, thin blanket resting over us. His fingers trailing over every mark, new and old ones that he made fresh again. He had spent a significant amount of time rubbing oil into my ass, the teeth marks having been so deep, he remarked I could get them tattooed. 

For the past 4 days, I awoke gasping and sweaty, sensual dreams becoming nightmares. The heat of my room forcing me to either take cold showers or an ice pack to rub on my skin. This morning however, it was only one thing, which caused my lips to tilt up as I snuggled in further, the coolness of it lulling me back to sleep, content knowing it would stay with me forever. 

The frosty air of Jack Frost nipping at my nose. 

~~~~~~~~~~

Happy Holidays! I hope everyone had a wonderful time doing whatever it is you do and thank you for taking the time to read. XOXOXOXOOXO

Totally voluntary, but if you enjoy my writing and want to support me further, please consider here, I’d greatly appreciate it and thank you so much <3

I want to make it clear that I do not condone plagiarism in any form. All of the work I create is original. Please do not copy or reproduce my work without proper permission or attribution. 

[sh1-n0bu]

✿ 𝙟𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙮𝙪𝙖𝙣’𝙨 𝙜𝙪𝙞𝙙𝙚 𝙤𝙣 𝙝𝙤𝙬 𝙩𝙤 𝙢𝙖𝙠𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙛𝙚𝙘𝙩 𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙖𝙠! ✿

characters: jing yuan x nb!reader

warnings: tooth rotting fluff, crack, chaos, jing yuan having an obsession with ur cheeks, this was much more funnier in my head. i suck at writing😔😔

notes: i need to learn how to shift so i can make this mans my husband hhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

STEP 1: TENDERIZE THE MEAT

it was no doubt that jing yuan was an incredibly affectionate and clingy lover. and that tragically only amplifies when his lover - aka you - has been away for a few weeks long business trip to another ship of the xianzhou. it only made sense when your fluffy haired lover immediately threw himself into your arms just when you've barely stepped in through the front door, calling out his name.

"yu! i'm ba-" before you could even finish that sentence alone, a large man with fluffy white hair crashes into you, knocking the both of you down onto the floor of your shared home. to say he was heavy would be an understatement. his large body was practically crushing you, almost to the point of crushing your chest cavities in.

"my love!!" a dramatic voice calls out from on top of you before sobbing noises could be heard. burying his face into your chest, the general sobs. shoulders shaking and heaving. but you were too old for his tricks and shenanigans. you've been dealing with jing yuan's shit for a whole of five centuries, after all. this was nothing new.

"where have you been?! why didn't you answer my texts?! or even read my messages?!" the general continues to complain loudly, like a child who's favorite toy had been taken away from him.

well, it was hard to answer him when he was literally crushing you under his weight, snuggling his face into your chest with sobs - he just wanted to feel your chest on his face, that was all - and when you have quite literally been busy with business to start with. not to mention the latest stellaron crisis thing has made signal quite weak too.

however, before you could even let out a sigh at his continued shenanigans, you see him peek up at you with the same old golden eyes. golden eyes looking up at you from where his face was smushed oh so comfortably against your chest. you can just feel the clingy man's lips quirk upwards into a smug grin.

reaching his hands up, the general cups your cheeks in his large and warm hands. calloused from years of battle and hardships yet still gently cradling your face in his hold. he always made sure to be absolutely gentle with you. sometimes.

once his favorite part of you was safely and securely in his hold, your oversized, clingy, cat-like lover wastes no time. poking, squeezing, prodding, turning your face into many different shapes as he giggles to himself as if he was centuries younger again. back when he first met you. back when he was just a simple cloud knight in training, hopelessly pining after you, stuttering and tripping over his words as he tries to make up a sentence to talk to to you.

STEP 2: SEASON THE MEAT

reaching up to a more comfortable pose to give him more better access to your soft cheeks, jing yuan leans over you with his face in his ever so smug look. but to your trained eyes, you could see just how much the man had missed your warmth. your affections. the way your hand would run through his long hair and leave his face peppered in kisses.

"missed you. missed you so much" the general of the luofu mumbles, a cute - adorable almost - lovesick grin on his face as he leans down to pepper your cheeks in kisses. of course, it isn't jing yuan style if he doesn't make any theatrics out of his love and adoration for you.

loud, overdramatic mwah! mwah! mwah! mwah! noises coming from the cat-like man as he leaves not a single spot left without being absolutely smothered in his 'love attacks'.

while of course, you just laid there on the floor, accepting his kisses and dramatic jing yuan style of showing affections. how could anyone ever blame you? jing yuan was a great kisser and he loved to shower you with them. you did missed him as well.

oh, you poor sweet summer child. if only you knew what your mischievous lover was planning...

STEP 3: BON APPETIT!

"yu... lemme mwah get up first mwah, will you? i get it, i mwah missed you as mmf well, my love. but please, let mmgg me eat something first" you hum softly, not exactly making any move or indications that you wanted to get up despite your words.

what can you say? your lover was a great kisser. an absolute A+ kisser. soft, gentle pecks peppering all over your face, taking away your breath everytime he decides to dip just a bit closer and steal a kiss or two - or maybe even three - from your lips. but you really needed a bite to eat. your stomach was literally growling just like how mimi would at times. and that was saying something.

"5 more minutes..." the clingy man hums softly, lips still tightly pressed against the soft fat of your cheeks. you simply let out a hum in response, thinking that he was going to kiss you again before -

chomp!

huh...? wait no what? literally. hold up. seriously, no joke. hold on a fucking moment. a literal fucking second to let [name] catch their thoug-

nom! nom nom nom!

before you could even allow your poor exhausted body and fried brain comprehend just what the fuck was going on, your absolute pain in the cheek of a husband decides to on-nom-nom his way on your cheeks. literally. it felt like he was trying to eat you alive like a steak.

STEP 4: TRY TO SURVIVE YOUR LOVER'S WRATH

"jing yuan, one of the seven arbiter-generals of the xianzhou alliance, one of the six charioteers"

uh-oh. not only was that a full-blown full name call but also with his titles?! rest in pieces, jing yuan. try not to trip over your own feet while your seething lover with a bitemark on their cheek chases you down the entirety of the luofu ship with the infamous flip flop in hand. you will truly be missed.

"uhmm..." how should yanqing even begin with his question as he tries to comprehend what happened to your poor face? more specifically, the bitemark on your cheek which seemed red and still fresh. ouch.

"what happ-"

"a lion bit me"

"mimi?!"

"no. another lion"

just then a very much sulking and pouting general with a fluffy white hair comes into the room. face looking like he was ready to sob at any given second, looking very much like a scolded child. that was all the explanation the young lieutenant needed.

"oh".

[sugarushwriting]

bad idea, right?

frat boy sunghoon #5

part(s): one two three four

gonna start off breaking y’all’s hearts, but then happy ending yay

₍ᐢ. .ᐢ₎ ₊˚⊹♡

you really thought things were going well between sunghoon and you. three months and you both still argue like an old married couple. kiss like it’s the first time. fuck like it’s your last day together. comfort each other like best friends.

maybe you both started this relationship or situationship too soon.

although you both never thoroughly said “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” to one another, he was yours and you were his. you both weren’t seeing other people.

or at least you thought.

you hadn’t seen sunghoon for about 4 days as you had to force yourself to stay away to study for an exam, and finish a 5 page research paper for separate classes.

sunghoon would’ve just distracted you with his good looks. so you made the difficult choice to stay in your own dorm, in your own bed.

currently it was saturday night, and as usual the frat was having a party to end the football season and begin the basketball season.

you had originally told sunghoon you wouldn’t be able to make it.

however, you had the best roommate who helped you study for the exam (which you passed the day prior) and helped you with your paper (you did all the hard work, she proof read and made sure you had all materials). so, you finished your paper a day earlier than you planned.

with a big smile, you hugged minnie and literally skipped to the frat house to surprise sunghoon. sadly it was cold as fuck, so you wouldn’t be wearing a mini skirt that sunghoon claims to hate seeing you in but he secretly loves.

you wore tight flare jeans, and a off the shoulder knit black top, with black boots. you rather be warm and comfy than cold and uncomfortable in clothes that your man (?) would rip off anyway.

but your heart sank when you searched for sunghoon throughout the party, his own roommates and friends not having seen him for the past 30 minutes.

you tried one last door quietly, and immediately cusped your hand over your mouth, holding in a gasp, shutting the door back.

inside, sunghoon pulled away startled, “what was that?”

“nothing baby.” a female voice purred and brought her lips down to the hockey player once again.

he kissed her a few times back, hands resting on her hips until he pulled away, wiping his lips.

meanwhile you, your vision blurred fighting back tears and a sob. running down the steps, you ignore jay and the others calling after you.

“are we done?” sunghoon said, pushing the girl off his lap, she pouting.

“hoonie, i thought we were having fun?” she tried her best to seduce the boy, but he pushed her hand away from touching him.

“don’t call me that.” he spat. “this stays between us, and you lay off my girl.”

“we’ll see about that, sunghoon. hopefully she’s still your girl after this.” the girl twirled her fake red hair in her fingers, biting her lip.

you ran back to the dorm, cursing at yourself for even liking a guy like sunghoon.

he was a fuck boy for sake. a hockey player. a frat boy.

then you cursed at yourself once again for leaving like a baby. why didn’t you go in there and yell at him? yell at her?

because you were vulnerable with someone for once.

walking into your dorm room, minnie was surprised to see you back so early, and her face fell witnessing the tears fall down your cheek.

“oh baby, what happened?”

you sniffled and let out the biggest sob, running into your roommate’s awaiting hug.

︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦��

sunghoon had a raging headache the next morning. after leaving whoever that girl was behind, he drank himself unconscious.

he didn’t like kissing lips that didn’t belong to you. but he felt he had to. to keep you protected.

however that didn’t last when an unknown number had sent photos of him and the girl in close proximity and the girl on his lap, kissing him.

not only to his number but yours as well. the unknown person literally created a group chat to rub it in sunghoon’s face.

after seeing those pictures, you showed minnie, who immediately deleted the text and blocked both the unknown number and sunghoon.

sunghoon drive himself crazy, nearly pulling out all his hair on his head when you didn’t answer his texts or calls.

“she blocked me.” sunghoon swallowed. “no, no, no.” he threw them covers off of himself, slipping on sweats and a random shirt, for once not caring about his appearance.

he quickly brushed his teeth and washed his face, before running down the steps of the shared house, ignoring his roommates calling for him.

he had one thing on his mind and that was getting to you.

his peach.

“peach, baby, please open up!” he nearly cried himself knocking on your dorm door. “i can explain peach, please!”

you laid in your bed, wearing a hoodie of his, crying while hugging a pillow.

minnie walked up surprised to see the boy at the door.

“can i help you?” she crossed her arms. “this is my dorm.”

“you must be minnie,” sunghoon choked out. “please, please let me in to see her. i need to explain.”

“why don’t you explain to me first?” minnie asked standing her ground.

sunghoon sighed. “i—i can’t.” he shook his head. “just know i was doing it to protect her. protect us.”

“how does making out with another girl protect you both, huh?” minnie shot.

sunghoon hung his head in shame. “i didn’t know someone would send her photos.”

“she knew before the photos sunghoon. she went to the party to surprise you after finishing her work and caught you in the act.”

sunghoon snapped his head up, mouth open, eyes blurry. “wh—what?”

minnie nodded. “she came back crying to me, blaming herself.”

“no, no, no, it’s not her fault! it’s mine. i shouldn’t have taken the blackmail seriously.”

that’s when you ripped the door open, stopping the bullshit. “oh please! blackmail? seriously sunghoon? that’s the best you can do! if you wanted to end whatever this is between us you should’ve just said so!” you spat.

sunghoon and minnie were taken back from your outburst. (minnie was secretly proud though).

“peach—,”

“don’t call me that! you lost your privilege when you put your lips on another bitch!”

you pulled minnie in by her arm and slammed the door in sunghoon’s face, heart pounding.

sunghoon raised his fist to knock but decided against it. he’d go to the ice rink.

on the other side of the door, you let more sobs fall.

︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶

the next few days, sunghoon felt like a zombie. a recluse zombie. he went to class and to the rink, that’s it. no extra curricular activities, no parties, no gatherings, nothing.

you became a recluse yourself, which actually was your usual self. back to keeping your nose in the books, in your own world, ignoring men around you.

you hate to admit that you missed sunghoon so much. you missed his touch, smile, laugh, the little beauty moles on his face. the softness of his hair.

you missed the sex too, of course.

you sighed, unable to concentrate on the book in front of you as you sat comfortably in a chair in the student center on campus.

it was pretty quiet besides the few students scattered around on this floor.

trying to get back into your book, a shadow peeped over the book and you were startled to see karina.

“hi.” she waved, biting her lip.

“hi karina.” you looked at the girl confusingly. you hadn’t spoken to the girl in months, so what was up now?

“i heard what happened between you and sunghoon.” karina said and took a seat next to you.

you raised an eyebrow. well, rumors spread fast. “that was fast.”

“well i saw you running out the house party. it seemed you were about to cry. before i could run after you i saw sunghoon with another girl.” karina pouted and reach to hold your hand. “i’m sorry.”

one thing about karina was she was good at acting. you didn’t know if she truly felt sorry or was faking. you had to tread carefully.

“it’s fine, i’m way out of his league anyway.” you sighed, pulling your hand away.

“nah babe, he’s out of your league.”

yeah something was definitely up. the karina who you used to hang out with would have definitely agreed with the first statement and never made the second one.

later that evening, karina found sunghoon after his game and cornered him after he came out the locker room.

with a wicked smile, she looked at the boy who seemed to haven’t slept in days.

“aw, poor sunghoon. missing his peach.” karina mocked, stalking towards him.

“what the fuck do you want karina?” sunghoon spat. karina just stared at sunghoon with a smile. sunghoon wasn’t dumb. it instantly clicked. “you set me up didn’t you?” he narrowed his eyes.

karina slowly clapped. “took you long enough. who else would know your peach’s deepest darkest secret?”

sunghoon still didn’t know himself, but if it was bad enough to be blackmailed about, he would do anything to protect you.

“why me?”

“i couldn’t go after her, in no way would she dare kiss another guy in exchange for blackmail. plus, you’d be too hard to sway away from her. on the other hand, all it took was one kiss with another girl and poof. bye bye peach.” karina chuckled.

if sunghoon wasn’t a gentleman, he would’ve punched karina by now.

sunghoon scoffed. “all it takes is for me to talk to her and she would understand i was set up.”

“tsk, i wouldn’t do that hoonie.”

“don’t call me that.” he spat.

karina laughed. “unless you want me to tell a certain someone your dirty little secret, i would stay away from her.”

sunghoon looked at her confused, scratching his eyebrow. “wh—what dirty little secret?”

karina smiled. “oh, nothing. i just happened to talk to two girls. one named minji the other named, what was it?” karina tapped her chin, in a deep fake thought. she snapped her fingers, “oh, jiheon!”

sunghoon’s own heart dropped hearing two names he hadn’t heard in forever.

“you really were a terrible human being in high school and during your first year in university, sunghoon.”

“i’m not that same person anymore!” sunghoon exclaimed. “and the second one, i didn’t know she was—,”

karina cut off the boy, “do you really think she’d care about that?” karina stalked closer to him. “don’t think i don’t know you also only slept with my best friend in the first place was to get back at me.”

sunghoon’s nostrils flared, “ex-bestfriend.”

“ha, is that the only part you’ll respond to? why? because you know the other part is true.”

“was.”

“doesn’t matter.” karina crossed her arms. “i’ll be seeing you around hoonie.” she smiled and walked off giving him the peace sign with her back turned.

sunghoon leaned against the nearest wall, leaning his head back. did he just lose you forever?

︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶

another month passed, and the first time sunghoon had seen you was just now. looking in your eyes as he found you in the crowd at his hockey game.

he was currently in the penalty box for fighting.

“sunghoon has been getting in trouble too much lately. if he keeps it up, he won’t be able to play in the finals!” sunoo gasped.

“that’s if the team makes it then. they play worse when their co-captain is in trouble.” jay added.

you shook your head, sitting next to the group of boys closest to sunghoon.

you hadn’t wanted to come for obvious reasons, but sunoo and minnie both encouraged you. one, sunoo didn’t want to come without you.

minnie had told you, “if you still find yourself having feelings after seeing him, you need to talk to him. hear him out, and find closure.”

minnie was right. even if you had no plans going back to sunghoon (which honestly broke you), you needed to find closure.

“how long has he been getting in trouble?” you asked sunoo softly.

he looked at you with a soft expression and a sigh. “about a month.”

“he won’t tell us what’s going on in that mind of his.” jay said, resting his chin in his hand. “the boy usually is able to control his anger either by being on the ice or you know,”

“fucking other girls.” jake leaned from beside jay finishing his sentence.

jay shook his head. “i don’t think the boy has been laid in about a month. actually more than that. you were the last girl he was with.” jay turned to you.

the boys knew you and sunghoon were no longer together. they just didn’t know what happened.

you looked at the boys who all were staring at you. sunghoon still looking at you from the penalty box.

“are you gonna ever tell us what happened?” sunoo asked grabbing your hand.

you sighed in defeat. “maybe one day. i need to talk to hoonie first.”

eventually sunghoon was welcomed back in the game, and his team won it, sending them to semi-finals next weekend in the city next over.

the arena slowly emptied out, leaving you sitting on the bleachers. before sunghoon walked to the showers with his team, you told him you would be waiting for him on the bleachers to talk.

about 30 minutes later, sunghoon walked out, dressed nicely with his hair still damp.

you looked up with a smile and patted the spot next to you.

you both sat quietly next to each other, scared to talk first.

in the end, it was sunghoon who talked first. and explained everything. don’t the time he was cornered at the party, up to karina’s threat a month ago.

“i should’ve tried to explain—,”

“you did hoonie, i just ignored you.” you sighed. “i’m sorry.” you apologized with a smile.

“nothing to apologize for peach.” he wrapped his arm around your shoulders. his heart fluttered when you didn’t push him off and tell him not to call you peach.

even more, you called him hoonie.

“i should’ve known karina was behind it. i should’ve had more faith and trust in you.”

“it’s okay. i’m a frat boy with a bad rep.” he kissed your hair line.

what you both knew what needed to be discussed was your secrets that were threatened to be revealed.

you inhaled deeply, needing to get this off your chest to sunghoon. “i’ve only told karina—regrettably, and minnie.”

sunghoon tightened his grip of your hand in his, intertwining your fingers. “it’s okay, i promise you can trust me.”

you explained how you indirectly killed an old friend of yours in high school. “she was so drunk, i should’ve fought harder to take the keys away from her!” you cried into his chest.

“peach it’s not your fault.” sunghoon soothed you by rubbing your back.

“it is! if i would’ve just taken her keys, then she wouldn’t have been able to drive! i just—i tried to fight back, but i was more inebriated than her. turns out someone spiked many drinks girls had when they weren’t looking.” you clutched his shirt in your grip.

sunghoon let you cry for a good 5 minutes until you calmed back down. “i’m a bad person, hoonie.”

sunghoon shook his head. “not worse than me, peach.” he sighed. sunghoon was nervous to tell you.

he swallowed, and you waited patiently to hear what his secrets were.

“the first girl, minji, um,” he scratched the back of his head with his free hand. “minji was a sophomore, i was a senior in high school.” sunghoon sighed closing his eyes. “i was a stupid, stupid teenager, peach. i knew she had a crush on me, and so did my friend group. there was an ongoing bet on how many girls we could mess around with, which bases. bonus if she was a virgin.”

you gasped, “sunghoon,”

“i led her on, knowing she had a crush on me, telling her that i didn’t want anything serious. she let me take her virginity and then i just ignored her.” sunghoon said. “at first i didn’t care, i had told her i didn’t want anything serious. she followed me around and i got so mad, i don’t remember what i said, but it was bad enough minji ran away in tears. few days later she attempted to take her own life.”

you held in a breath. “is, is she—?”

“she’s alive. after that, i sought her out and apologized. apologized to her almost everyday for the rest of my high school years. don’t think she ever really forgave me, just told me okay and to move on.”

you held tighter. definitely disgusted by what he did to the girl, no way excusing his behavior. “what about the other girl?”

sunghoon’s vision threatened to become blurry with tears, but he stated to himself he had no right. if anything, he was angry with himself.

“it was my freshman year in college. one of my first few frat parties i’ve been to. i walked in on two people, quickly apologizing and walked out. turns out she was being assaulted. she was barely conscious, her mouth covered by the guy.” sunghoon spat the last part disgusted.

“sunghoon—,”

“don’t say it’s not my fault because it is.” he said. “i could’ve stopped it! i could’ve beat that guys ass for disrespecting a girl. for hurting a girl. if i just had paid closer attention, i could’ve stopped it.”

“sunghoon, it’s not your fault.” you said.

“it is!”

“did you give her to this guy, knowing she was barely conscious?”

sunghoon stared at you like how could you even imagine something like that? “of course not.”

“then no, it’s not your fault, sunghoon.”

“the girl says the same thing.” he sighed.

“you’ve talked to her after the assault?” you asked and he nodded.

“yeah, i testified as a witness. although i quickly walked out, i was quick to recognize the guy. i had seen him earlier in the night wearing the same jersey and jersey number.” sunghoon explained. “i took her out for coffee to thoroughly apologized, and she told me it wasn’t my fault only the guy who assaulted her fault.” sunghoon closed his eyes. “even though i understand she says it’s not my fault, i am still disappointed in myself.”

“where is she now?”

“she moved away. dropped out of college. haven’t spoken to her since.”

︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶

you both arrived to sunghoon’s place after an intense conversation. you both had demons in your past that you all had to work on. but also agreed you both should’ve just tried harder to communicate.

it felt good to be laying in sunghoon’s arms, wrapped in his scent.

“just so you know, i’m making love to you tonight peach. nice and slow.”

you pouted. “aw not hard and fast? thought i found someone who matched my freak.”

“your freak? what about mine?” sunghoon laughed.

you playfully pushed his shoulder. “i match your freak!”

sunghoon quickly hovered over your body. “matching my freak would be letting me fuck you until you can’t walk in the middle of the ice rink.”

sunghoon leaned down to kiss the soft spot on your neck, immediately causing you to moan.

kisses trailed down to your exposed thighs as you only wore one of sunghoon’s shirts. nothing else.

“i will rent out the entire rink if that means i get to fuck you all over it, peach.”

sunghoon wasted no time to find his favorite place between your legs, your thighs immediately wrapping around his shoulders due to sensitivity.

you’ve missed his tongue.

it seems like sunghoon miss you, or shall you say cunt, because he inhaled your scent from below.

his tongue lapped up all you had to offer, his hands keeping your thighs now pushed apart. back arching off the bed, your fists gripping the sheets, you weren’t going to last much longer.

sunghoon knew your body like a map, and he knew you were close.

he removed his lips hesitantly, kissing back up your stomach, dragging the shirt with him to pull it over your head.

he kissed your lips once, nibbling at your bottom lip. “we’ll come together, peach.”

his nose touched yours, both of you looking into each other eyes, as you felt sunghoon trace his fingers over your skin, leaving goosebumps in its path.

as smooth as always, sunghoon pulled his pants and boxers off with ease, his shirt already being discarded. he eased in slowly to you, your body needing to readjust to the stretch.

“a month too long, peach.” sunghoon groaned once his full length was inside you.

“never again.” you groaned. “fuck sunghoon, please move. i don’t care if it’s fast or slow.”

your nails scratched his back, for sure leaving marks. his right arm wrapped around your stomach, leaving his arm as a barrier between the bed and your back.

sunghoon kept his promise as he fucked you slow. he had to be sure to get his point across. you were his. he was the only one that could make you feel this good.

his left arm kept sunghoon’s body from fully resting on yours, your eyes screwed shut, with your legs resting on each of his side.

this was the first time you and sunghoon ever took it this slow. not even lazy morning sex was this slow.

“hoonie, i—i’m close.” you moaned out, back arching more.

sunghoon bent down best of his ability to attach his lips to your neck. “come with me peach.”

soon you both came together, sunghoon not even worried about pulling out.

─── ᯓᡣ𐭩 ─── ─── ᯓᡣ𐭩 ─── ─── ᯓᡣ𐭩

authors note

≽^•⩊•^≼

the dirty little secrets could’ve been better but oh well

i love frat boy hoonie 🩶

[ourshadowsmeanomens]

THE MEANING OF THE END OF GOOD OMENS SEASON 2 (SPOILERS UNDER CUT)

I binge-watched this entire new season and immediately unleashed every thought I had about the ending of the show alongside MANY others who were experiencing a lot of feelings. After we all calmed down, we started talking and analyzing- and I think we found something way bigger than we saw on screen at the end of this season. And what this might mean for Aziraphale and Crowley going forward into (FINGERS CROSSED) a wonderful 3rd season.

The biggest complaint many of us in our chat had about the choice Aziraphale made at the very end- to ascend to Heaven, leave behind Crowley and the bookshop, to take Gabriel's place. Everyone is saying that it's out of character, there was so much build up all for Aziraphale to throw it away, etc. But the theory- a miracled brainwash. By Metatron, on Aziraphale. Metatron has proven to be a very dismissive and rude character, especially in regards to Aziraphale, since we met him in season 1. During the literal end of the world he still only spoke as God's voice and never appeared in person. Suddenly, Metatron comes down- IN PERSON- to talk with Aziraphale about a promotion. Before we know who he is exactly, we see him buying a coffee and giving it to Aziraphale- KEEP NOTE OF THIS. When Metatron first talks to Aziraphale, Azi says something to the effect that he has "made his position quite clear." The Metatron insists, pointing out the coffee and insists they talk.

HERE'S THE IMPORTANT PART: Metatron says "are you going to take it?" and RIGHT BEFORE Aziraphale says "shall I?" you hear the FAINTEST GLIMMER of the sound effect for miracles. I'll be honest I had to turn my sound up and lean in once someone pointed it out, but it's there and you HAVE to listen for it. They both go for a walk.

Crowley clearly believes Metatron is up to something, and watches them leave and walk but doesn't follow- this isn't addressed again. Then Crowley, Nina, and Maggie have their talk, and this is the part where Crowley is meant to confront his feelings. We switch back to Aziraphale with Metatron. Clearly Metatron and Aziraphale have talked about a deal and Metatron asks him to "think it over." Aziraphale has presumed to finish his coffee at this point, because he heads directly back to the bookshop to talk to Crowley. They fight, they kiss, they give each other up because Aziraphale decides to go to Heaven and leave everything behind. Like I said earlier, this is the part that enraged a lot of people- why would Aziraphale do this? This is so out of character. Why would he leave Crowley behind? Why would he leave his BOOKSHOP behind?

The current persistent theory is this:

Metatron has proven to be dismissive and untrustworthy since we met him. It is odd that he suddenly shows a change of heart for Aziraphale and wants to promote him. We, as the audience and fans, know Aziraphale's desire to live a simple, humanlike life with the person he cares about the most (Crowley) with his most prized possession (the bookshop).

The subtle miracle sound effect when Aziraphale took the coffee was the moment the miracle took place, affecting the coffee to brainwash (or at least to make more easily persuaded) Aziraphale so he'd say yes to the offer Metatron was giving him.

Aside from this, they editors/director/writers purposely wrote in and left the entire part about Metatron getting coffee for Aziraphale (as what? Some sort of peace offering?). The entire ending could have done without bringing so much attention to the coffee that Metatron gave to Aziraphale. It was unnecessary.

Unless it wasn't, and we are meant to find that out in season 3. The coffee is Chekhov's gun. In filmmaking, nothing is ever just a coincidence or an accident. They made a point to give us the miracle sound effect without showing any visible changes, made Aziraphale act wildly out of character, and framed it as though it is not, let's say, an institutional issue that is being covered up 👀👀

And let's not ignore that the episode 6 description specifically says "The Metatron brings an oatmilk latte, along with a final offer." Which would be an odd thing point out if the coffee was a mere prop.

All to say- I personally loved the season. I loved every minute, and I want to see what happens next. I think that people are going to be very angry with the ending, but that there's so much more we have yet to uncover and we shouldn't underestimate the wit of Neil Gaiman.

[meetmypointlessaddiction]

December Fic Day 1 ~ Decorating

Here we go! First day of December and the first fic of my prompts challenge.

Summary: You and Logan decorate the Christmas tree

Warnings: none that I can think of

Pairing: pretty sure this is suitable for everyone (fem!reader/male!reader/gn!reader) but I am still new to writing anything other than fem!reader so any pointers are greatly appreciated.

Enjoy and please like and comment if you do. Something as simple as an emoji literally makes my day better so please don't hesitate to comment and obviously reblog to share my work.

December Masterlist

Christmas was your favourite season, Logan knew this. You didn’t even have to tell him, your incessant begging to decorate the cabin as soon as Halloween was over was enough to let him know. “Logan it is officially Christmas. You can’t tell me no anymore.” You declared as you walked out of your shared bedroom and into the kitchen where Logan was nursing a mug full of coffee, looking over the newspaper. He looked up at you, quirking that stupid eyebrow of his and smirking. 

“Far as I’m aware bub, Christmas is on the 25th, not the first.” You shot him a glare, pouring yourself a drink before sitting across from him at the kitchen table. “Besides, technically, the 12 days of Christmas don’t start until the 25th and run through to the 5th. In fact, in some countries, they don’t start until the 26th and finish on the-.” 

“And of course you’d know that you fucking fossil. Bet you were one of the three Kings visiting baby Jesus huh?” You snarked, huffing and taking a swig of coffee. “I’m just saying, I love Christmas and think that it’s only fair you let me decorate. I’ve waited until December, Lo. I’m already a month later than I usually would be.” 

“Yeah, yeah whatever. You can decorate the place.” He grumbled, sticking his head back in the paper, trying not to let on that he found your little outburst slightly entertaining. “Just nothin’ too over the top alright?” 

“Baby, you think I’m doing it alone? C’mon Lo, this is our first Christmas together, my first Christmas with a serious partner. You gonna let me miss out on all the cheesy traditions like decorating with my boyfriend?” You knew he was going to protest so you shot him your best pouty look, with big sad eyes and he groaned, shutting the newspaper and glaring at you. 

That’s how Logan found himself at a Christmas tree farm, walking hand in hand with you as you mumbled about finding the best Christmas tree and not settling for anything less than the perfect one. “What ‘bout this one, baby?” Logan pointed to a decently sized Christmas tree, plenty of branches to hang decorations on and enough space between the branches that tinsel should fit on nicely. 

“Umm… not quite Lo… keep looking though, yeah?” You gently declined him and he looked at you incredulously as you continued walking him through the rows and rows of Christmas trees. You had just gentle parented him… him! He just shook his head and caught up to you, grabbing your hand again and scowling as he kept his mouth shut, letting you keep pondering over what was the best Christmas tree to pick. 

Twenty minutes later, you found the perfect one, pointing it out to Logan and immediately demanding he stand in front of it and guard it while you went to tell one of the workers. He huffed and stood in front of the Christmas tree, arms crossed and looking as menacing as possible to deter anyone from trying to claim your Christmas tree. 

~~~~~~~~~~

Three hours later, boxes of Christmas lights, baubles and tinsel had been brought in from Logan’s truck and he was now holding a Christmas tree, shuffling from left to right as you directed him on where to put it. “Little more left… no too far, go back a bit…” 

Eventually, he had put the tree in a place suited to your preferences and you grinned, hugging him tightly. “Ooh Lo the tree is gonna look so good! Are you excited to decorate?” Logan smiled at your eagerness and held you against him, kissing your temple. 

“That depends? Are you this much of a neat freak about the placement of baubles and tinsel too?” You just laughed and shook your head, standing in his arms for a little while longer, trying to warm up and just enjoying being with him.

“No, the decorations can be a little all over the place, gives the tree a bit of character, right?” Logan just chuckled and nodded, kissing your lips gently before stepping away. 

“Why don’t you get started on making sure the lights are untangled and working and I’ll go make us a hot drink, alright?” You nodded and he left you to it, heading into the kitchen and boiling some water to make you a hot cocoa and him a coffee.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Logan? I leave the room for five minutes and…” You couldn’t help but burst into laughter as you saw the man scowling and trying to fight off the tinsel. “Baby what happened?” Trying and failing to hold back my laughter as the man looks at me shocked and helpless. Tinsel was wound around his legs and bits were falling off, stuck in his hair and on his clothes. “Wha… how did you get yourself in this situation?” 

He just scowled at you and his eyes pleaded for you to help him. You eventually pulled yourself together and untangled the tinsel from his legs as he grumbled about “evil decorations” and how “even the tinsel was against him”. He let you deal with the tinsel as he opened the box of baubles and began sorting them into piles by colour as you had asked. 

The tree didn’t take too long to put up and then all that was left was the star to put on top. You picked it out of the box and Logan couldn’t help but laugh as you struggled to reach the top of the tree, almost falling into it twice as you stood on your tiptoes. “Lo… wanna do something really cheesy?” Logan grumbled but knew what you wanted him to do, putting his hands on your hips and lifting you so you could reach the top of the tree. “Alright, you can put me down now.” You said to him but instead of doing the normal thing and putting you down on the floor, he dropped you onto the couch, crawling in between your legs and laying himself on top of you, careful not to crush you. 

“No more decorating.” Logan grumbled, resting his head on your collarbone. “Stupid tree had your attention all day. Been neglectin’ me bub.” He teased, looking up at you with a smirk and you just rolled your eyes, flicking his forehead. 

“You had fun though, right? And it looks good?” Logan smiled and shrugged, pressing his lips to yours and laughing as you poked his side. “Logan! You had fun didn’t you?!” 

“I did baby. I had fun.”

Dividers: @coolcatsgraphics

I'm also on A03 :)

[blitzwhore]

I just saw Blitzø get called Stolas stockholm victim I can't with this fandom anymore😭

😂 As outrageously incorrect and stupid as that take is, I'm going to go on a tangent here. I hope you don't mind.

I think every fandom has annoying people with awfully terrible takes in it. People with zero media literacy. People who hatewatch. People who think they're entitled to the exact show they would've wanted, which has nothing to do with the actual, existing show.

This is especially true for queer media, and especially true for queer cartoons. (Hi, yes. I was active in the Adventure Time, Steven Universe, Voltron, and She-Ra fandoms when those shows were airing, respectively. I've seen some stuff). Some people just can't handle queer cartoons, period. If the queer characters/ships are soft and wholesome, they're infantilising and boring, and if they're complex and nuanced and actually have conflict, they're abusive and problematic. You'll hear the same recycled arguments over and over again. Like, the shit some people are saying about Blitz and Stolas after The Full Moon? Is literally almost word-for-word what they said about Catra and Adora post-season 3 of She-Ra (and even at the end of the show).

Here's the thing, though! Those people and their bad takes are not what I want to think about what I think about a fandom. Those aren't the people I want to call the fans. They don't deserve that title. Not when so many other people are out there dedicating their time to making gifs and art and meta posts, and writing fic, and commenting/reblogging to show support, and sliding into people's DMs to scream and squee together about a thing they love.

At the end of the day, "fandom" is just a lot of people each doing their own thing. Which people you engage with and allow to stay within your line of sight will determine your fandom experience. Fandom can be a huge, convoluted, online space full of people who are constantly arguing with one another and whose takes make you unfathomably angry... Or it can be you and your 5 friends and mutuals who scream gleefully at one another in 2-note posts. You can't control what others post online, but you can control your engagement with it.

How? Well, here's what I personally do to avoid getting upset by people's stupid opinions online:

Filter 'critical' and 'anti' tags (eg. #anti stolitz #anti vivziepop #Helluva Boss critical #HB critical #vivziepop critical). Many people actually do tag their critical posts because they know it's the respectful thing to do!

If I come across a post that has one or more of those tags, obviously, I don't click through to see it under any circumstances.

If I stumble across a stranger's untagged post with hate/criticism that upsets me: I stop reading and BLOCK. Immediately. I don't look back. I don't finish reading. I don't engage. I just block block block. I <3 the block button, seriously.

If I feel my mind reeling from a bad take I just came across: I take a step back, close my phone, breathe, remember life is beautiful sometimes. Go back and watch an episode I really like. Clean my living space a little. Vent about it to a friend (but only if I really need to, because if not, I'd rather not dwell on it).

If I'm starting to feel the need to reply to someone's bad take (directly or via my own post), I instead make the decision to channel that energy into making fandom posts out of love. (I don't do this just with fandom. If I see something transphobic online, I usually react by reblogging a bunch of trans art or trans positivity posts on my main, for example). I like to think of it as putting some positivity out into the world to compensate for the negativity I just saw. So, for example, if I see someone shitting on my blorbo, I may make a silly post just saying how much I love blorbo. Or I'll make (or draft) a post about how interesting I find some of blorbo's actions. Or reblog another person's positive/interesting post about blorbo.

And finally, I stay the hell away from Twitter. Or at least, if I go on Twitter, I try my best to avoid any tweet that has text in it instead of just art. Even the people who have good opinions spend too much time arguing with the people who have bad opinions on there. I don't want to see people's bad takes! No, not even while reading founded and perfectly articulated criticism of those bad takes! So I just limit my time on Twitter. And again, if someone is putting bad takes on my TL (even if it is to counter them), I unfollow and block as needed.

All this to say, yes, it really fucking sucks to read the opinions of people who don't understand and who hate the characters and ships and worlds you love. Gosh it's the worst. But you can curate your fandom experience. You can focus on the things you can control. You have the power to decide if your fandom experience is draining or fun!

And because I don't know how to finish this, here, have a Stolitz kiss to heal you:

We will keep winning and there's nothing the haters can do about it. 😌

[marycom15]

Accidental vampire hunter Evbo x Vampire Seawatt & EMF AU

Once again here posting stuff from our discord lmao.. Thank you Crow for doing Yaoi of the day, it inspires me 🙏🙏🙏This one's a bit long

Evbo who doesn't really know what a vampire is - sure, he knows they're another kind of mythical being that's a threat to many, but he grew up in a rather close knit and small community, a place where a vampire would be immediately discovered. Threats such as these are typical for dark alleys of big cities, not his little corner of the world. So when a vampire does show up and try to terrorise his home, he does what he needs to and kills it - he's not quite sure how, but swinging some sharp wood around seemed to work. He's not actually aware it was a vampire, just seemed like a bit of a stronger thug who didn't know any of the local rules, but he's left with a cold body now (wow, it sure got cold fast. Maybe thats just how it always is, Evbo wouldn't know)

It's a bit awkward since he's not sure what to do about it, until a pair of fancy people he's never seen around appear and inform him that the man he's killed was actually a wanted vampire. There's a cash prize apparently, and as much as Evbo loves his home, he would never pass up an opportunity for a social rank up. The two lovely gentlemen offer to escort him to the nearest city, since they know the way and he's never really left the area before. His new companions insist that they need to get there as fast as possible so they shouldn't be waiting for sunrise. Evbo makes his goodbyes quick and offers to come back at some point, way richer, and they set out.

Now no one will look for him.

They do walk towards the city for a while, the vampire's head dangling from his backpack (taken as proof), and he learns his new companion's names - Seawatt and Emf. It's not untill they're rather deep within the forst and far from any civilization that they both smile at him and bare their teeth… So he of course bares his own back. He's a little confused, but they seem to be confused even more so he takes that as a win and continues walking.

The only thing he knows about vampires is the name. Nothing. Else. He doesn't see any of the obvious signs. Seawatt and Emf intended to just lol on him and kill him in the middle of the forest (couples activities !) but now they're just. Kind of baffled and entertained. So they decide to keep him around, but they still do need to feed…

So Seawatt gets the crazy idea to just ask him straight up. Worst case scenario they kill him. He just further confuses them by immediately being like "yeah sure you can drink my blood, i dont really have a knife or anything though!". He's just happy to be there really, and even when they mumble out that they can just bite him literally no red lights go off in his head. And so they do. They stop and they feed on his blood and drain just a bit to see his reaction and he's like wow that's new. Ok how far is the city.

Seawatt and Emf are obsessed.

Im not writing the rest of this out so detailed but. So begins the saga of accidental vampire hunter Evbo and his two vampire boyfriends. They get to the city and Evbo never questions why they refuse to go with him during the day ("i mean their skin is pretty pale, might be a health thing"), so he turns in the vampire's head and everyone freaks the fuck out because that's like some powerful fucking vampire and this random dude just came in casually with his head. So they immediately assume he's a seasoned hunter and they give him all the difficult targets and he's like wow ! i can make so much money ! Of course, they dont need to explain any vampire lore to a hunter like him - so he just keeps not knowing Anything.

Meanwhile Seawatt and Emf are just happy Evbo finished the job they started. They've been hunting that fuckass bitch for weeks and managed to weaken him substantially but explaining a murder of one of their kin is always hard so they're real glad a random human showed up and dealt the finishing blow. They are also very entertained (and possibly in love) by his anticts so they stick around. Evbo never questions them.

This is just the basis of this AU, other discord peeps expanded upon it but this is the basic idea - enjoy :)

[alexalessandro]

British Kristen AKA K2's Timeline

So we start With K2's creation in Mordred Manor

She materializes butt-naked and goes to the garage, not before being dressed in some wranglers by Kristen.

We can assume this is where the binge-watch of Skins seasons 3 and 4 was initiated (presumably by either one of the Bad girls)

She takes a quick stop to follow the bad kids to Eugenia Shadow's grave and pointedly comments "Mazey's safe innit?"

She probably returned to finish the Skins's binge after that since Simulacra don't take rests.

The next day (or at the very least after the Skins's binge) she meets up with the bad kids again and kisses Fabian for the first time (we can presume they kissed more later lol).

She then gets tackled by the original Kristen and this is probably where K2 got the idea that OG Kristen's "You need to respect. My life." is a little rude (planting the seed for her "I don't think you heard me").

After that, she kills Wanda Childa and continues flirting with Fabian (Probably following her Skins programming)

Actually, Adaine repeatedly says that she did not program the flirting in so probably OG Kristen is the one responsible for the Skins binge-watch as study sessions on how to be a teenager (only seasons 3 and 4 of course)

Now I'd speculate that around this time after the murder of Wanda Childa, something went down between K2 and Fabian after they ran away from the scene of the crime.

Now here is where K2 tries to help Kristen with stealing the addresses from Jawbone and I'd speculate that after the talk with Bucky Kristen had a similar, more uncomfortable talk with K2 where the idea of enrolling into Hudol came to be and that's what K2 worked towards and succeeded in up until the party.

Maybe Kristen got K2 to meet with Percival for help through Aelwyn since she moved back to Mordred.

Then K2 Follows them to Ankarna's Temple (I'd like to say this is where K2 started to connect with Cassandra but it's funnier to think that the reason why K2's divine intervention worked is because she had no fucking clue what was going on 100% of the time and as such she was a literal personification of doubt and that pure connection linked them).

After the temple she probably feels a little rattled, going back on her Skins knowledge from her "How to be a Teen 101" with Kristen, she immediately figures out she must be pregnant and goes to the drug store to check.

She probably has a little bit of a hard time finding the strips but suddenly when she walks down an aisle a bunch of beeps go off (the simulacra pregnancy aura) and she finds the test strip and pees on it in a trashcan.

She goes to the party rattled, as confused as ever because did she do it right? Is she actually pregnant? Nevertheless, she goes through the motions up until she gets on the deck of the ship

Her first Blimey is one of awe, after her "What are we doing?" she realizes she is witnessing something grand, She sees Kristen bowing down in defeat, she remembers something about this god being one of doubt, and she reaches deep inside, thinking back to her own doubt and inner turmoil about how she might be pregnant, she makes one last attempt to help Kristen after she helped her so much with Hudol and how to be a person even if she was rude and sometimes put off by her

"I don't think you heard me..."