#my fic: permanently lonely | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

cyripticchronicler · 4 months ago

Text

The Bet (18+)

Pairing: Azriel x Fem!Reader

Summary: Hidden away in the woods to celebrate the mating bond, you decide to raise the stakes on a supposedly innocent card game. If you win, he has to do whatever you want. Thank the Gods he lost; you want to make the powerful spymaster squirm.

TW: Smut, drinking wine, needy Az, teasing reader, edging kinda?

A/N: I forget how hard writing smut is lmao but I hope you enjoy it!! I think it's the best smut I've ever written ngl. Thank you to my friend (who doesn't want to be named but is awesome) for giving me feedback/editing this fic - I'll give you gum when I next see you, hun.

Masterlist Azriel Masterlist

Azriel looked like the Godly male he was born to be. His smirk was nothing short of dangerous. His eyes gleamed in the dim room, cheeks flushed a rosy pink from the wine that hazed his mind.

With each sip from the open wine bottle between you two, he was losing his inhibitions, but who could blame him? He’s had the best week of his life; the mating bond had been successfully accepted with Azriel quickly whisking you away to a cabin in the woods to enjoy free, uninterrupted time for the mating frenzy.

The tall, captivating, Illyrian had taken you everywhere in the small cabin in less than a week - including the floor you were sitting on now. After spending the day with no food in your stomach, you had to put your foot down and demand a break.

Azriel suggested a game of cards and you never knew that a pair of hands shuffling a deck of playing cards could be so attractive. You have to fold your legs to stop yourself from pouncing on him - an action Azriel doesn’t fail to notice, considering the way his eyes darken.

“Don’t look at me like that,” you mutter, shoving a grape in your mouth, immediately relishing in the cold burst of flavour across your tongue. Azriel begins to hand you your deck, gaze not straying from your rosy lips for a moment. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” It’s rare to see him so relaxed. So happy. His wings are drooped by his sides, his hair mussed and his clothes wrinkled.

He looks so handsome, yet the sight that has your heart fluttering the most is the permanent smile resting on his lips. A tempting sight.

He’s been so happy this past week and you want nothing more than for him to stay that way. “Now you’re looking at me weirdly,” he mutters, a light blush blooming across his cheeks despite the undeniable cockiness that laced his voice.

“I can’t help it. You’re just so handsome.” His smile turns shy. The red on his cheeks grows ferociously and he has to look away from your gleaming eyes. Despite your attempt to silence your laughter by chewing on your lips, joyous huffs break free and cause Azriel to slump against the front of the couch, hiding his face in his hands.

“You’re evil,” he states, eyes peeking out at you between the gap of his middle and ring finger. You ignore him, picking up your cards and ensuring they’re hidden from his gaze. “C’mon, grab your cards. Let’s make this round more interesting.”

He does as you say, grabbing his cards and propping his elbow on his knee, his other leg straight and stretched out over the plush carpet. “Interesting? And how would we do that?”

A smirk tilts your lips. “Let’s say…” your finger taps against the back of your cards. “If you win, I do whatever you want. But if I win, you do whatever I want.”

“Be prepared to lose, honey,” Azriel utters smugly, flashing you a wink that has your heart pulsing. A lone shadow wraps around your arm and you gasp, holding your cards to your chest. “No cheating! Keep your shadows on your side.”

He playfully mocks you, before placing down a card, effectively signalling the start to the game.

You can’t help but laugh at the boyish action, butterflies fluttering in your stomach. Oh, it’s on, baby. You glare in return and place your own card down, taking a large gulp of wine before wiping your lips. Brown, eager eyes track the movement and you pointedly stare at the cards in the middle of the table.

He places another card, causing you to pick up four from a separate pile. And so the games begin.

****

“You’re cheating,” Azriel said, his suspicion clear and demanding. Your mouth falls open dramatically at the accusation, your hand extending to give him a light, punishing smack. “I'm not!”

You’re not sure when it happened, or how, but the two of you have moved closer. Both of you are still sitting on the floor, but now Azriel sits on the side of the table instead of at the end, his wing resting behind you, comfortable and warm. His long legs are stretched out in front of him under the table with his large hand returning to your thigh each time it’s your turn.

“How are you doing so well, then?” He demands, a light and playful scoff falling from his lips, though you can spy a hint of genuine annoyance in the glint in his eyes.

“Maybe you’re the problem. Maybe, since you can’t use your shadows,” you pointedly eye the shadows that swirl around Azriels arms, “You’re just not that good.”

“I have never used my shadows to cheat.” You wouldn’t be surprised if he has cheated before. Despite his honest personality, he’s just as competitive. Yet, you know he hasn’t cheated tonight; his shadows have stayed at his side, never once trailing up to whisper something in his ear.

“Oh?” You lean in closer, the smell of night-chilled air and cedar invading your senses. His eyes move from your lips and down your neck, landing on the inside of your shirt that hangs. He nods, gulping. You catch it, the way his Adam's apple bops, very telling of the effect you had on him. The notion sends a pleasant chill down your spine, and your lips curl up. “Then maybe you want to lose. Maybe you like the idea of being at my mercy. Of having to do whatever I say.”

“Maybe I do.” His breath fans your lips, so close but too far away for your liking. “I guess there’s only one way to find out.” He places a quick, barely there kiss on your cheek before placing down a card. You pull away and glare when you realise he’s now in the lead.

“I’m going to find out, alright.”

****

“Oh Fuck.” Azriel’s groan has your skin heating, waves of satisfaction sending goosebumps down your spine. You smirk teasingly. “Loser,” You menacingly whisper, voice a low drawl as you creep closer, faces a mere inch apart. “Now,” Your knees shuffle forward, yanked by an invisible force, “You have to do whatever I want.”

His hands move instinctively to rest on your hips. “And what is it that you want me to do?” You hum, tilting your head as your hair falls to one side, legs moving to straddle him. “Let’s say…” You pretend to contemplate, though you’d already known what you’d make him do hours ago. You take his hands and hold them in yours, thumb gently rubbing over the scars you love so much. You shake them gently. “These have to stay by your side.”

His eyebrows raised in interest and you watched his eyes darken, a subtle action only you could cause. “You mean…” He trails off, sucking in a sharp breath as your hands begin to wander over his chest, fingers fiddling with the buttons of his loose, white shirt.

His eyebrows crease, a shaky sigh falling from his plump, kissable lips as you begin to grind against his hard, solid body slowly. His hands raise to touch you before he quickly gathers his wits, squeezing them at his sides instead. Your lips ghost over his before you pull him in for a warm, sloppy kiss that shakes your body. You don’t think you’d ever get sick of kissing him - the way he pours so much love and passion into each movement of his mouth, the way his tongue swipes past your lips in such a gentle yet undeniably needy manner.

Your hands fist in the collar of his shirt as the kiss grows deeper, pulling him closer into your body as you continue to roll your hips deliberately... Your skin feels like it was set on fire, a deep rumble of pleasure evoking in your core. Azriel’s hands raise to cup your cheeks, mind too blurred with your movements to remember your only rule. You force yourself to pull away and stop your movements.

“What did I tell you?” You pant, breathing heavily in his ear as you whisper. His eyes squeeze shut, slowly dragging his hands away from your body as he groans. “I-” He gulps, voice coming out raspy. “Sorry?” You shake your head, heart beating wildly in your chest while you pepper kisses on his flushed skin, over his sharp jaw and down his neck before you find cause at his collarbone, sucking harsh enough to leave a mark.

“You should be.” Your hips continue their movements, pulling away from his neck to admire his face. His cheeks are red, mouth hung open slightly as he sucks in sharp puffs of air. His tongue flit out quickly to wet his lips, eager brown eyes momentarily looking down to watch the way your hips move against his.

His wings flutter behind him, spread wide. Your hand hesitates before you can touch them. “Can I?” His eyes show no sign of nervousness or hesitation as he nods. “I’m all yours.” All it takes is one swipe against the thin and leathery membrane before he’s throwing his head back as a loud, guttural moan breaks out of him and his hands find purchase at your waist, rubbing you against him with brutal force.

You tut, removing yourself from his touch completely, choosing to stand in front of his sitting form instead. “I only have one rule, Azriel. Why aren’t you following it? Do you not want me to touch you?” He spreads his legs, veiny hands lazily resting on his thick thighs, hidden beneath thick sweatpants. His chest rises and falls, betraying his desperate need. You have to clench your thighs to stop the painful ache.

His breath shudders, his body going pliant under your touch, completely defenseless to your ministrations as he shakes his head desperately. “I do. Gods, I do. You just make it so hard.” His voice trails off in an almost whine and you can’t help the pride that sinks into your skin. The most dangerous, hard-headed and serious male is sitting in front of you and practically begging for your touch.

“Then listen to what I say, okay hun?” At his answering nod, a strand of hair falling over his eye, you reward him by pulling your thin shirt off and chucking it to the side. The cool air sends goosebumps over your supple skin, the only source of heat being Azriels greedy eyes as he watches your nipples perk to attention.

Deciding you want to tease him more, you trail a lone finger up your stomach, over your breast and into your mouth, fire kindling in its wake. You swirl your tongue around your finger, eyes never straying from Azriel, saliva dripping down your chin and onto your chest. Slowly, you let your finger trail downwards, a trail of wet saliva being left behind as you bring the finger to your nipple, squeezing and pinching, quiet moans escaping your bitten lip.

Azriel sits in his spot, fingers squeezing his thighs so tightly he’s surely leaving a mark. You hum. “Azzie?” His eyes snap to yours, eager and awaiting instruction. “Take your pants off for me.” He shoots out of his sitting position, taking a deep breath to calm his excitement, some of his control returning as he slowly pulls his pants down his legs, hard, veiny cock now visible, drops of precum budding at the tip.

Your pants come off next, thrown to the side without a care. You take a step towards him, trying to not let it show how your breathing staggers at the way he looks at you. “Do you want to take my panties off?” Your voice is teasing, amused at how quickly he nods and falls to his knees in front of you.

Slow but sure hands graze your hip, fingers hooking between your panties and slowly pulling them down your legs. He makes sure to look up at you through his lashes, mouth wet and slightly open. The sight has you almost losing your composure, a thick fog clouding your mind and you have to grip his long hair to make sure you don’t crumble to pieces in front of him. Not that he would have minded.

He moans when your grip gets tighter, a deep rumble against your skin. Gently pulling his head back, a wave of heat soaks your core. “Do you want to eat me out for a bit?” His eyes widened with hope, followed by a desperate nod. You almost let him. Almost.

He visibly deflates when you pull away, hands resting at your sides, glowing body on display for him to see. “Too bad. Stand up.” His knees shake yet he stands to his full height. “Take your shirt off.” It’s gone in seconds much to your delight, the deep ridges of his abs glistening with sweat that you want nothing more than to lick off. Your walls clenched around nothing, a desperate need swirling in your stomach that you attempted to ignore. You wanted to tease him more.

“Sit on the couch.” He does as you say, legs spread, erect cock pressed against his lower stomach. You stand between him, hands resting against his thighs while your nails press into his skin hard enough to invoke a pain you know he likes. His wings bristled at the feeling, bringing your attention back to them once again. You can’t resist placing a gentle kiss on the rough texture of his wing, sensitive enough to feel the light, barely there kiss.

You watch as his abs flex, body yearning to reach you when you don’t sit on his lap like he hoped. Instead, you sit on the other side of the couch, one leg propped up on the couch, bent at the knee and showing off your glistening pussy. Azriel moans at the sight, eyes squeezing shut as he shakes his head harshly. “You’re evil,” He states roughly. You smile, a hand dipping to your soaked core, middle finger swirling around your pulsing hole and then circling your clit. You moan out an arrogant, “I know.”

Your back arches, body sinking into the sofa, breathless moans turning sinful when you press a finger into your tight, warm cunt. Your fingers aren’t as long or thick as Azriels but they still cause a sickeningly hot flash of pleasure to travel up your sweat-soaked spine.

The sounds of your finger thrusting in and out of your warm heat fill the room, a sound that has Azriel’s breath laboured. His eyes couldn’t leave your flushed form if he tried. Your hips greedily thrust into your hand, eagerly wanting more but not letting Azriel give it to you.

When a particularly loud, breathy moan falls from your parted lips he can’t help but moan back, the shadows wrapping around his body moving to his most sensitive part. The light friction from their tight movements as they swirl around his base is enough to have him whining; he was so hard and sensitive and wanted nothing more than to be touched. But he couldn’t break your rules and with one restrained tug, his shadows returned to the corners of the room.

“Az,” You moan, a whine breaking free as a deep, pleasurable feeling awakens in your core, wounding tighter each time you hit the rough, fleshy spot inside you. “‘M gonna cum.” He’s left to just watch and stare like a pervert, debating whether or not to end this pesky game and fuck you into oblivion. He’s about to do just that but then you’re looking at him, eyes bright with satisfaction and mischief and he knows he wants to see those eyes staring down at him while you take control.

It takes you a second to gather your wits, legs still shaking while you begin to crawl to Azriel on the other side of the couch, enjoying the way his eyes darken and his jaw clenches. You stop when you’re directly beside him, your knees touching his thighs.

You don’t waste a second in pulling him in for a kiss, lips pushing against his swollen ones, a deep rumble sounding in his chest. You pull away, lips still grazing over his as you whisper. “You’ve been very good. You deserve a reward.” His eyes brighten like a kid in a candy shop and he gulps in excitement.

A smile pulls at your lips in response to his eager reaction, looking away from his captivating eyes to look at his hard cock, flushed red due to not being touched. You bite your lip and bring your hand down to squeeze at his base. A quiet curse slips from his lips and you squeeze harder.

You thumb at his tip, using his precum as lube as you slowly stroke his rock-hard dick. He’s so responsive, needy wines falling from his lips while he groans out your name. His hands now squeeze the sofa, his right hand squeezing the armrest so hard you’re sure it’s going to rip.

Your pace is slow. Teasing. Your lips find their way to Azriels neck, sucking and biting, feeling his skin heat at your touch. You squeeze tighter. His breath quivered, hips thrusting into your hand like a man starved. “Are you-” You clear your throat, voice rough with pleasure. “Are you going to let me fuck you?”

His answering nod is desperate and hurried. “Fuck yes. Please fuck me. Please.” Goosebumps trail up your skin at his begging and you know you can’t refuse him. With a kiss to his sweat-soaked hair, your hand pulls away, back arching in protest while he cries out.

“Shhh,” Your breath fans over his ear, legs moving to straddle him, hips perched above his waist. “I’m going to fuck you now, okay?” He grumbles incoherently and you huff a laugh, storing the moment in your mind so you can tease him about it later.

And then you’re slowly sinking down, his large, thick cock spreading your walls in a painful rush of pleasure. He moans in your ear, the feeling of his breath against your neck has you lightly biting his shoulder. With a shuddering breath, you pull away until the tip is barely inside of you before you slam your hips down, his dick far deeper than your fingers could ever reach.

“Touch me.” He’s happy to do so, hips thrusting into yours while his lips travel to your perky nipple, tongue drawing tight circles before he pulls it into his mouth completely, sucking harshly and causing your walls to clench around him.

Your sweaty skin sticks to him, the smell of sex filling the air. Your boobs bounce with each thrust, capturing Azriel’s attention, eyes wide and pouty like he were in a trance. “I’m not going to last long,” He mutters around a moan, hands kneading at your flesh. Your hands raise to the brown strands of his hair, yanking tightly before pulling him in for a kiss. It’s messy, teeth clashing, his nose pressed into your cheek.

“I'm not going to last either.” You feel like you’re on fire, gasping for air as your back arches, legs shaking around his thighs. “You’re so beautiful,” You hear him mutter around a quiet groan, his lips leaving warm, open mouthed kisses on any part of you he could reach. His nails are digging into your skin, his hands shaky.

The familiar sensation of tightness grows in your stomach, coiling tautly as your breath staggers. You rub your finger against your swollen clit, already sensitive from your last orgasm, as you chase the height of your pleasure.

He throws his head back against the back of the sofa, Adams's apple bobbing as the veins in his neck throb. “Can I- Gods, can I come? Please?” Your nails scratch down his chest, his abs clenching in delight. “Cum for me baby, I’m right behind you.”

He shouts your name, his large hands moving to your hips and controlling your thrusts, smashing your hips down on his cock. His cum drips down your thighs and the coil inside your stomach bursts at the sight, a moan leaving your lips as your heartbeat echoes in your ears. Your legs shake and you feel so good it’s almost sickening.

After what felt like one of the longest, most intense rush of sensations, you slump against Azriel’s chest, head resting in the crook of his neck as you both attempt to catch your breaths. His nails lightly scratch down your back, causing you to shiver. His chin rests atop your sweaty hair and he kisses your head before muttering, “I’m going to be losing a lot more often if my reward is that.”

Your body shakes with laughter and you pull away slightly to look at him. “Shut up.” And then you’re kissing him, so filled with love and happiness you could burst.

2K notes · View notes

eoieopda · 3 months ago

Text

in limine | wjh

in limine (latin): at the threshold, in the beginning

synopsis: you think that by remaining single this year, you’ve found a loophole in your string of shitty valentine’s days. the universe thinks you should lose your paralegal on the eve of a major trial and see if you wouldn’t rather have all of those untimely breakups and missed dates instead. pairing: wen junhui x reader au: law firm, coworkers to something genre: fluff, minor angst, smut word count: 12.5k rating: 18+ (minors, do not interact) content/warnings: attorney!reader, attorney!junhui, pov switches, civil litigation (derogatory), forced proximity, discussions of shitty relationships, i haven’t practiced in this field of law in years, recreational drinking, explicit sexual content (v fingering, p in v penetration; use of protection isn’t referenced — the smut is v prose-y —but these two would not fuck without a condom!!). reader notes: afab, no pronouns used, no descriptions of hair/complexion/body/ethnicity/nationality/etc., canonically queer, has at least one (small, nondescript, hidden wrist) tattoo. a/n 1: this fic is part of the lonely hearts club café collab, hosted by @camandemstudios! please check out the rest of this masterlist, as well as their previous collabs! 💕 a/n 2: everything here is based on u.s. law, even though the setting is nondescript. family law attorneys: i’m sorry. this is based on my one (1) month in that practice area. a/n 3: smooches to the (w)hor(e)anghae beta gang — @jihopesjoint, @daechwitatamic, and @sailorsoons svt masterlist. svt permanent taglist. multi permanent taglist.

If you had a dollar for every exasperated sigh you’ve let out during this seemingly never-ending phone call with your mother, you’d be able to pay off your student loans in an instant. Though the frustration is palpable to you, causing your already elevated blood pressure to spike further, it’s invisible to her.

Or worse, inconsequential.

“I’m just saying!” She offers, as if this takes the edge off. As if she’s ever said anything just to say it. “It wouldn’t kill you to give Mika another chance. It’s Valentine’s Day, after all.”

The next time you hear her voice, it doesn’t come from the phone pinched between your ear and shoulder; it materializes in the back of your brain and lingers like a poltergeist.

Don’t roll your eyes like that unless you want them to get stuck that way.

Across the counter, the person subbing in for your usual barista shoots you an impatient glare, then flicks his gaze to the growing line behind you.

“Mom, I have to —”

“— You really should return her calls, dove. Bitterness causes premature wrinkles, and you can’t afford —”

At this, the thread you’re dangling by snaps. Squeezing your eyes shut, you try your best to keep your voice down. “I don’t have time for this. I’ll talk to you later.”

When you hang up on her, the forceful tap against your phone’s screen sounds more like a rock against a window. Already wind-bitten from the walk here, your cheeks burn even more harshly when you note the multiple pairs of eyes watching you with poorly disguised interest.

Not wanting to make an even bigger spectacle out of yourself, you hurriedly shove your phone in your pocket and accept the drink being handed to you, even though you can tell by the blatant lack of ice that it’s wrong.

“Thank you,” you mutter with a curt nod.

The second-string barista doesn’t acknowledge that you’ve spoken. That said, the throbbing vein in his temple disappears the second you back away from his counter.

With the americano you didn’t order burning a hole through your palm, you turn swiftly and head for the door. You barely make it two steps before your phone starts screaming from the inside of your coat pocket.

Leaning hard against the glass door, you force it open with your body alone and use your spare hand to instead grasp the source of all your morning’s problems. The pressure of that godforsaken brick shoves the post of your earring painfully into your neck.

You growl, “When I said later, I didn’t mean by thirty seconds.”

A voice that is distinctly not your mother’s stammers, “Um — hello — This is Tom from Amato, Shapiro, and Santi.”

Never have you ever encountered a firm of assholes so aptly named.

He waits a beat, no doubt expecting you to apologize for your rude non-greeting, but you don’t. In fact, he could wait forever and still not get a mea culpa.

It’s only fair, you think.

Just last month, the serial sex pest he represents escaped liability for harassing your client, due in large part to Tom’s bullshit antics. If that poor woman couldn’t even get an apology for what she went through, Tom certainly won’t now.

“Yes, I know where you work, Tom.”

You roll your eyes again. It’s a reckless decision, given how furiously you’re charging down the sidewalk. A dog-walker scrambles to get both himself and his tiny, white dog out of your way.

“Do you need something? I don’t chat for free.”

The shitty little laugh you get in response makes your skin crawl. He doesn’t drag it out, though, immediately simpering, “But do you make use of the time you bill for?”

“What are you — ?” You begin to ask.

Tom cuts you off, his tone jovial and no less fake than his back alley Gucci loafers. “I’m inquiring about your witness and exhibit lists for the Qian divorce in two weeks. Really waiting until the last minute, huh? Trying to keep me on my toes?”

Though he can’t see you do it, you shake your head with a patronizing smile.

“Nice try, Tom,” you sigh. “Judge Ito continued that to May. She’s the keynote speaker for that cancerous children charity gala, or whatever.”

You weave through two old women with a muttered apology. Both are too busy gossiping about their grandsons to hear you, which is no surprise. They didn’t notice the queue of pissed-off pedestrians stuck behind their roadblock, either.

“No,” Tom corrects you. “She issued an entry a month ago, advising the parties that the conflict was no longer conflicting; and the original trial date would stand.”

The block heel of your boot catches in a divot in the sidewalk. Although you don’t trip, you may as well have. The coffee you didn’t want sloshes violently, goaded by your sudden, harsh squeeze of its cup; and it splatters all over your top, burning your chest through sticky, soaked fabric.

Because why not, you rue, the heel that did you in clatters separately to wet concrete when you lift your foot, having ripped itself from your sole.

Rather than lie down on the concrete and wait for death in the way you crave, you swallow hard and choke out, “I never got that entry.”

“It sounds like you never got competent support staff.” He laughs too loudly, making your blood boil. “Ultimately, it’s up to you which is more pressing: cleaning house or the Rules of Civil Procedure.”

Your mouth opens instinctively to tell him all the million ways he can fuck off and die. He cuts you off again before you can start:

“Just know that I will make it a problem if you can’t get your shit together in time for court. My client is sick of yours dragging this out. Frankly, so am I.”

And without another word, Tom hangs up on you.

Whatever.

Anything else he might’ve said would’ve been drowned out by the hammering pulse in your ears, anyway. What you did hear loops through your brain with every uneven step you take down the warpath, bringing your office building closer and closer into view.

Trial in two weeks.

Competent support staff.

As much as you hate to admit it, Tom has a point. You’ve been making excuses for your paralegal, Dev, for months, but this kind of fuck-up can’t be overlooked. No matter how endearing he is, Dev’s a goddamn disaster. Put simply, you can’t keep sticking your neck out for him only to have it trampled, time and again.

Dread churns in your stomach for the remainder of your commute, although the full-blown nausea doesn’t hit you until you exit the elevator and wobble out into your firm’s waiting area. A deep breath in through your nose is followed by a shaky exhale through your mouth.

Neither helps.

You make a mental note to tell your therapist that she was wrong, then another one to actually schedule an appointment.

Despite your unflinching exterior — and the profession you’ve willingly chosen for reasons still unknown to you — the simple fact remains that you don’t seek out confrontation. Nothing ruins your day quite like having to ruin someone else’s. Unfortunately for Dev, you don’t have a choice not to go nuclear. Likewise, you don’t have much time left to get your shit together prior to trial. All you seem to have is an ultimatum to present him for consideration:

Stay late with me tonight to clean up this mess, or be out of the job by the end of business hours.

“Fuck,” you mutter to yourself as you make a beeline for your personal office.

There, somewhere amidst the out-of-date statutory reference books and evidence boxes, you’ve got at least one pair of spare Chelsea boots hidden for circumstances like these.

Well, that’s not quite true.

You’ve planned ahead for sudden court appearances or shitty weather, not for the abysmally bad luck you’ve experienced so far this morning. Regardless of why you have this contingency plan locked down, you’re grateful that you do. If nothing else, it will allow you to obtain some semblance of balance before potentially kicking Dev to the curb.

Upon hobbling into your office, you close the door behind you and immediately kick off your current shoes so violently that the broken boot flies somewhere out of sight. It takes several minutes’ worth of sock-footed scurrying to find their replacements. Eventually, you locate them in a far more reasonable spot than you expected: tucked neatly underneath the far edge of your L-shaped desk.

You drop yourself into your desk chair, suddenly feeling the crushing weight of your burdens against your shoulders, and begin to unceremoniously shove your feet into your boots.

It all just fucking figures, doesn’t it?

For as far back as you can remember, every Valentine’s Day you’ve experienced has been hellish. Comically cruel, like the showrunners in charge of your narrative are trying to maintain viewership, season after season; and they’re upping the ante as they go.

Last year, Mika couldn’t be bothered to remember your relationship, let alone the holiday. She spent it underneath someone else in your bed. Before that, the “first date” you had to be talked into in the first place ended the same way it started: with you sitting alone at a bar in a crowd of perfect pairs. The pattern started in undergrad, though the memories thankfully get foggier the further back you look.

By staying away from romance entirely for the last few months, you’d made yourself so sure that you’d cracked the code — that, for once, you’d make it through the fourteenth unscathed.

And yet, here you are, suffering immensely before your day even starts.

When your therapist’s bullshit breathing technique does nothing to soothe you, you close your eyes and mutter to yourself, “It cannot get worse. It will not get worse. Bad things have happened, but it is not a bad day.”

Whether the sudden sense of calm you feel is the byproduct of mindfulness or delusion, you can’t say. Whatever the source is, you’ll take it. You cling to that shred of perspective, push yourself to your feet with a grunt, and head back in the direction you just came from.

Outside your door, the hallway gives you two options: the waiting area, which you stomped through to get where you currently are, and the office shared by your firm’s two current paralegals.

Tsia, the more senior of the two, is currently on maternity leave, which means that you’ll be able to dangle Dev off the ledge without an audience. That tiny piece of consolation is enough to get you moving in his direction, although the serenity you just barely managed to scrounge up starts evaporating more and more with every step you take.

“Dev?” You call out as you approach his closed door.

This, you note, is unlike him. He’s never been productive enough to need to shut out distractions; and he’s never been shameful enough to hide the fact that he spends most days scrolling through TikTok — without headphones, no less.

“Dev?” You try again, attempting to sound much more pleasant than you feel. “Are you on the phone?”

Hearing no response, you reach for the knob and turn it slowly, offering him some additional time to at least pretend to be busy. After counting to five, you push the door open. Then, you freeze.

Dev and his blasted cell phone are nowhere to be seen. His work laptop is on, which might have suggested that he simply stepped away, but the backlit sheet of paper taped to it says otherwise. You cross to his desk and snatch the note from his screen, eyes scanning quickly through his shockingly neat script and widening with horror at every word.

Boss,

Please consider this my resignation letter. I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you in advance, but everything came about so suddenly that I haven’t had much time to wrap my brain around it. My partner’s business trip to Malta turned into a relocation offer, and now the two of us are going to –

Without bothering to finish that sentence, you crush the paper within your white-knuckled fist and squeeze your eyes shut tightly enough to sting.

FuckfuckfuckfuckFUCK.

Unable to scream out loud, you slam that same fist down onto his desk with force. The smack of your hand against the wood doesn’t distract from the panic swelling in your chest, but it does bring his laptop back to life. The sudden appearance of his desktop is especially surprising, considering you told him no fewer than ten times to password-protect his shit.

Because the hits simply will not stop coming, you see two things at once that make you want to vomit.

The desktop wallpaper is an adorable photo of Dev and his partner. Both are smiling, holding one another closely on a beach somewhere, as if the world isn’t capable of crashing down around them.

At the bottom of the screen, below sand-covered feet, is a growing list of push notifications on his minimized Outlook application.

It’s the last thing in the world you want to do, but you can’t help it; damage control is impossible if you can’t properly triage the problem. Swallowing down bile, you click on the icon and bring up your firm’s primary email inbox, which Tsia and Dev are jointly responsible for manning. Of the hundreds of untouched messages, more than half are from either local Clerks of Court or Tom fucking Santi.

Just above the notice of your now-upcoming trial, you find the only January emails that Dev did read, confirming one-way plane tickets to Malta and the booking of international movers. That motherfucker not only lied in his quote-unquote resignation letter about the amount of notice he could give you but also about the billable hours he burned, planning his escape.

All at once, you feel your internal systems crashing out. Your eyes swim, your head reels, and your stomach lurches. You don’t know whether you want to scream, sob, or send yourself flying out of the nearby window. All of them — preferably at once.

The only reason you don’t do any of these things, no matter how strong the urges are, is the fact that your professional reputation is at stake. Your abject refusal to appear incompetent kicks you into overdrive. It kicks you so far, in fact, that you find yourself in your co-worker’s office with no real memory of walking there in the first place.

Yuki jolts when she looks up from her monitors and finds you looming over her with your eyes too wide to be normal. She gets up immediately and gestures for you to sit on the plush loveseat underneath her window. You don’t – rather, can’t – move, so she places her hands on your shoulders and ushers you onto a cushion herself.

“Dear god,” she mutters. “Are you okay?”

She should know by now that this is the worst possible question to ask you under circumstances like this. Of course, you weren’t okay when you barged in here to begin with. You’re even worse off now because your weakness is being perceived.

Embarrassment and self-loathing bubbles under the surface of your skin, making you hot. Both threaten to leak out through your eyes.

You don’t want to have to ask for help, period, but you’re out of options; and Yuki is the only person here who’s allowed to see you anywhere near a breakdown. That, and you’re certain she’d be available. Having drafted the shared parenting agreement for her and her ex-boyfriend, you know for a fact that their daughter will be with him tonight.

“If I buy you takeout, would you be willing to stay for a while after work to help with some last minute trial prep?” You can’t even bring yourself to meet her eyes when you explain, “Dev bailed, and I’m so, so, so fucked now.”

Yuki grabs your hand from your lap and squeezes. For a split second, you feel relieved. Then, you hear her sigh, and your hopes are dashed just as quickly as they were raised.

“Kimiko’s kindergarten class is having a daddy-daughter dance for Valentine’s Day tonight,” she starts.

The pained look on her face tells you everything you need to know. Nevertheless, she continues, “Ty flaked, as usual. I had to be the one to decide what would be more humiliating for her — being the only kid there with their mom, or the only kid who doesn’t get to go at all.”

“I’m so sorry, Yuki.”

You mean it, wholeheartedly. The only victim of your shitty love life is you. Yuki, on the other hand, has a six-year-old to protect from becoming collateral damage.

She simply shrugs, too used to this sort of letdown to let it ruin her day. “Kimiko bounced back fairly quickly, which is pretty sad, in and of itself. She asked if we could wear matching outfits.”

You crack a smile for the first time all day. Gesturing to her entirely black, incredibly chic outfit, you tease, “Is she dressing for a funeral, too?”

“I wish!” Yuki throws her head back and whines, “The vibes tonight are tragically bright pink, and I have to leave early to shop before the dance starts.”

“Well…” You give her hand a squeeze, then let it go entirely. “I’m sending you thoughts and prayers, buddy.”

She swats at you, tells you kindly to fuck off, and then wishes you good luck while you head back out her door.

As you trudge back towards your office, you run through your list of contingency plans.

The firm’s owners, Zavier and Jaein, are both out of the question. If they’re not spending the night with their respective spouses, they’ll be continuing their not-so-secret affair with one another. Even if they weren’t, you’d rather stand in front of an oncoming train than give them any reason to doubt your abilities.

Next.

With Yuki out of commission, there are three other associate attorneys left for you to consider.

Dani is engaged and definitely has plans with his smoke-show of a fiancé; there’s no point in asking him for help. You’d never hear the end of it if you did, anyway. He’s so committed to his one-sided rivalry with you that he’d probably make a plaque to commemorate your failings.

Pass.

Sana and her wife are on a cruise somewhere far more pleasant than here, so she’s out. Thank god. Beating your head against a wall would be preferable to spending several hours in a room alone with her. Sana’s only personality trait is married, and she’s entirely incapable of talking about anything else.

Hard pass.

The relatively new hire, Junhui, is still an unknown factor. In the few months he’s worked here, you’ve met him exactly once that you can recall. It was a brief encounter in the break room; and his mouth was so full of whatever he’d brought for lunch that he couldn’t respond beyond simply waving when you’d introduced yourself.

He seemed perfectly nice — and from what you hear, he’s perfectly competent — but yours is far too big a burden to shove onto a virtual stranger.

Besides, there’s simply no way that someone who looks like that doesn’t have better places to be tonight.

Junhui doesn’t realize that he’d nodded off until his bleary eyes travel down from his half-finished report and spot the time in the bottom corner of his screen. Apparently, it’s already a quarter to six. If he hadn’t fallen asleep at some point in the recent past, he’d be stepping off the train home by now.

Of course, he isn’t. Now, with all the other commuters flooding public transit, the trip home will be at least twice as long.

Damn it.

He scrubs his hands over his face in an attempt to get the exhaustion off of it, though he doesn’t manage without yawning into his palms.

Figuring that he’s already behind schedule, he slowly rises to his feet and stretches his arms over his head with a groan, dreaming all the while of the caffeine he can down before heading out. With no one left in the office, he’ll be able to fail his way through this acquisition without anyone knowing how completely inept he is at using the firm’s espresso machine.

As expected, Junhui’s walk to the conference room is lonely. Each of his colleagues’ doors are closed, making it clear that they all bolted the second they could. Even the cleaning staff managed to come and go without him noticing; all the trash and recycling bins have been emptied.

Thankfully, he notes, someone forgot to turn off the conference room light before they dipped. If they hadn’t, all his steps would be taken in total darkness — because, even after three months of working here, he still doesn’t have a clue where the switches are.

As soon as he crosses the threshold into that sole, lit room, Junhui stops. The massive table that normally occupies the center of it has been shoved up against the interior wall, along with all its chairs. In its place, evidence boxes form a haphazard little fairy circle on the rug. You sit cross-legged in the middle, nose all but buried in a case file, wearing leggings and a crewneck instead of the suit you likely came here in.

“You look comfortable,” he muses.

It becomes abundantly clear very quickly that you, too, thought you were here alone. You jolt at the sound of his voice. All the papers you were holding drop and scatter, both across your lap and the floor you’re monopolizing.

Junhui’s hands fly up. “Whoa, sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

The look on your face is far from startled, though. Even from a few meters away, he can see how tightly your jaw is clenched. If he listens closely, he’d likely hear your teeth grinding one another into dust.

He can also sense how stiff your posture is, now that you feel his eyes on you. His gaze shifts to the piles of paper near your knotted limbs; and he tells himself that he’s averting his eyes out of respect, not the tiny tremble of intimidation he feels working its way down his spine.

At this point, Junhui knows you by reputation only. He’s rarely at any of the courthouses you frequent, and his specific line of work keeps him out of the office, more often than not. Whenever he is here, you’re not — too busy with that massive caseload of yours to catch much of a breather.

The two of you may be passing ships in the night, but you have a lot of people in common. He can’t say that he’s made much of an impression on them so far. You, on the other hand, are both widely known and discussed.

So far, anyone that’s ever mentioned you to him speaks about you as if they’re describing a force of nature. It’s the kind of awe people usually save for something fearsome yet worthy of respect, like a tsunami — with the sole exception being that sanctimonious cunt, Tom Santi, who most recently described you as a nightmare bitch from hell.

Of course, Junhui has no firsthand knowledge to back any of these claims up, but he figures it can’t be that far out of character for you to be here now, working too hard. For all he knows, it could also be on-brand for you to snap his neck for distracting you.

“Do you…?”

One of your eyebrows arches quizzically. His question dies on his tongue, halfway finished, because he doesn’t know where it was headed in the first place. Just the same, he can’t tell if that expression on your face is due to stress, annoyance at being interrupted, or some secret, third thing.

…Want me to leave?

Junhui points awkwardly to the espresso machine in the corner, which you’ve unintentionally barricaded behind the conference room table. Like a fucking buffoon, all he says is: “Espresso?”

Your face scrunches a tiny bit. For the second time, he finds himself completely unable to read you. Is it disgust? Suspicion?

No, he realizes, it’s neither. He sees the tiniest flicker of it when the corner of your lips twitch: amusement. While the smile doesn’t overtake your mouth, there’s a glimmer of it in your eyes. It’s reason enough for Junhui to breathe for the first time since he walked in.

“Yes, I do espresso.” You nod with your lips bitten between your teeth, like you’re seconds away from laughing.

Too eagerly, Junhui nods, too. “Right. Got it. Order up.”

Order up?

Running away isn’t an option; and he can’t dig a hole to hide in without a shovel. All he has left to do is shuffle over towards the corner and slink through the obstacle course you’ve built. With what he feels is impressive agility, he makes it all the way to the machine before pausing suddenly.

Under his breath, he curses, “Fuck.”

The jig is up now. Junhui has no idea which buttons to press, or even where the espresso beans are. Unfortunately for both of you, the only way for him to find out is to interrupt you further.

Whoever handles his eulogy better leave out how little time it took him to provoke you into killing him.

Bracing himself for impact, he squeezes his eyes shut and smiles sheepishly. “Do you happen to know how to… use this?”

There’s a groan from the center of the room. Junhui cracks one eye open and searches for the fist coming his way. Instead, he finds you on your feet, twisting at the waist and stretching.

While twisting, you lock eyes — well, eye — with him, then you freeze with your torso still rotated in his direction. Your hinged arms stay where they are, held up at your sides.

“I’ve been sitting here like a goblin for too long,” you explain, tone self-conscious. “If you just heard every joint in my body pop…. no, you didn’t.”

Before Junhui can think of a quip in response — he’s capable of coherent speech, he swears — you step over the shoes you’ve discarded and make your way over to him, patterned socks clashing with the neutral carpet below. He steps back on instinct, although there isn’t really anywhere left for him to go.

You either don’t notice how close you get to him, or you don’t care. Entirely unfazed, you set to work, grinding and tamping like it’s all second nature to you.

Junhui knows he should use this time to observe your processes carefully, but he doesn’t. That’s not to say the learning opportunity is entirely squandered, though.

And he’s a quick study.

In less than a minute, he learns more about you than he has in the last three months. His first discovery is that you’re wearing a watch on your dominant wrist, which is weird as hell — until he spots the small tattoo hiding beneath it. He catches the very faint notes of patchouli at the base of your perfume, too, underneath the cassis and freesia.

It’s nice, he thinks, even better than the overwhelming scent of coffee that swoops in to drown it out.

“This goes here —”

The silver piece in your hand twists into place with a click, drawing his attention back to where it should’ve been all along.

Fuck.

Have you been talking this entire time?

“— and then you press the start button to release the hot water.”

You glance up at him then to confirm that he understood you. Junhui blinks, buffering while he tries to play this out.

“You’re good at this,” he improvises, although he admittedly has no idea if this is true.

“No compliments until you survive drinking it.” You offer him a wry smile to go with the drink you’ve made him. “I’ve quite literally never touched this thing before in my life.”

With your vaguely expectant eyes on him, he takes a small sip, then he murmurs with his lips still hidden behind the glass, “I don’t think I believe that.”

“Why?” You smirk and tilt your head to the side. “Because it’s just that good?”

No, in fact, it’s terrible, but you don’t need to know that.

Junhui nods his head towards the center of the room. His reply is simple, and despite not being the full truth, it’s not a lie: “I’d expect more practice from someone who seems to live here.”

For the first time since he walked in, you offer a full reaction — not just a hint of one. He would’ve preferred a laugh, or even a genuine smile; however, that’s not what he gets. Instead, your face becomes pinched.

“Fucking Dev.”

Whatever thought you might have had about making your own shitty drink disappears. You stalk back over to your shrine of documents and drop once again to the floor, legs knitted. In the split second you’re not looking at him, Junhui spits out the bean shards you missed while grinding and tosses them in the nearby trash can.

Although he’s curious, he hesitates to ask what it is you’re working on. Clearly, whatever it is has got you stressed to the point that caffeine is no longer a priority. Based on personal experience, that’s a bad sign.

Still, Junhui can’t seem to stop talking to you, even though he’s sure it’s a bother. He takes a second look at the sheer amount of paper surrounding you and ventures a guess: “Class-action suit?”

“That would honestly be preferable,” you mutter, looking up from your notes long enough to glance over your shoulder at him.

He takes this as a sign that his presence isn’t entirely unwelcome. At least, it’s a good enough omen to draw him closer. He skirts back around the mess of chairs until he’s standing across from where you sit, and then he leans back against the table.

You look back down again, leaving Junhui to wonder if he made the wrong call. For what it’s worth, he also wonders what it really is about you that’s making him act so awkwardly all of the sudden.

“What are you still here for?”

His heart drops into his stomach, which is about ready to fall right out of his ass. His mouth opens, though nothing comes out.

Sensing the way he’s quietly spiraling, you look up at him. “In the office, I mean,” you amend quickly with a shake of your head. “We don’t really run into each other during business hours, so I didn’t expect to see you here after, you know?”

Ah, fuck.

Junhui swallows.

The truth — that he’s only here because he dozed off on the clock — is offensive, even to him. Here you are, working hard enough for two people; and in stomps the clown whose tasks bored him right to sleep. While he doesn’t want anyone to know about his unprofessional little snooze, the thought of admitting it to you feels…

Nope.

He’s not going to unpack this, not now. It doesn’t matter if it’s a desire to not look dumb in front of a colleague or one to be a little more impressive to you, specifically.

“I was working on an investigatory report,” he eventually says, conveniently leaving out the fact that his impromptu nap kept him from finishing it.

You arch an eyebrow again, which he’s beginning to believe is an unconscious tell of yours. Yet another quiet invitation.

“Investigatory report? Is that… common?”

The two of you look at each other. Now, he’s confused.

“You do immigration law, don’t you?” You gesture over his shoulder, out the door. “You’ve got five different name plates outside your office, written in as many different alphabets —”

Oh.

“— I kind of just assumed —”

Junhui laughs, which causes your other eyebrow to rise up and join the other. “I mean, I dabble. It’s all soul-crushing, though, so I try not to take those cases unless they’re, like, dire.”

Too many of them are.

You hum in acknowledgment. “So, what do you do?”

“Guardian ad Litem work, mostly,” he replies with a shrug. “The name plates are —“

He gestures vaguely, but then all that suppressed, systemic frustration starts to bubble up, unbidden. He’s never been great at withholding his little rants, so he starts talking a little too quickly, a little too loudly.

“There are a lot of immigrant families in the area, right? Whether or not they should, a lot of them wind up court-involved, especially where their kids are concerned.”

As aware as he is that his hands are moving too much with each word, he’s unable to stop.

“I noticed that absolutely nobody on the local courts’ appointment lists was multilingual, which is just fucking negligent —”

When you finally speak, it’s with your head tilted and eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Sounds to me like someone found their calling.”

And against his better judgment, Junhui takes his balled up fist, extends his thumb and pinky finger, and holds it up to his ear. “Might have been a wrong number, but it’s worked out well enough so far.”

And you laugh, sincerely and squeakily in a way that nearly makes him laugh, too.

“You’re weird. You know that, right? Like weird weird.” You grin as you say this, leading him to believe it’s a compliment of the highest order. “I never would’ve guessed.”

Junhui looks at you, looking at him, and he feels the charge your shitty espresso couldn’t muster. He feels bolder. Gesturing to your mountain of documents, he finally brings himself to ask why you’re still here. The second he does, he regrets it; he watches you deflate in real time, smile warping downwards.

“It’s a clusterfuck.”

You take your eyes off of him and plant them back on the file in your hands.

“I found out that a nasty trial of mine is taking place in two weeks, rather than twelve, and I have to get shit together tonight or I’m fucked – genuinely, irrevocably fucked. I can’t file a Witness and Exhibit List until I get through all of this discovery–”

You shift your extended left leg to give one of the boxes a half-hearted kick.

“– and if I don’t submit that for electronic filing by midnight, all my shit will be excluded.”

Junhui nods his understanding, then pushes himself off the table he’s been leaning on. You watch him carefully, waiting for him to excuse himself and walk out the door, but that was never his intention. Instead, he sits cross-legged on the floor across from you and grabs a packet of exhibit stickers off one of the nearby boxes’ lids.

“Letters or numbers?” He asks, holding the packet aloft.

You blink before you splutter, “Oh, wait, no. No, you really don’t have to. I couldn’t ask you to –”

“Letters or numbers?” Junhui repeats himself, softer but no less seriously.

“You seriously don’t have other plans?”

Now, it’s his turn to balk. Unlike you, his shock is entirely manufactured. “On a work night? In this economy?”

“On Valentine’s Day,” you correct him with emphasis.

Rather than feigned horror, it’s earnest embarrassment that floods his face. The tips of his ears start burning, too, in a matter of seconds. Smiling sheepishly, he admits, “Guess I forgot. Don’t really have much to celebrate, you know?”

You raise the manila folder in your hand and reach over to tap it against the packet of stickers in his.

“Cheers to that,” you scoff.

Junhui, it turns out, is even more productive than you are. He falls into lockstep with you the moment he sits down, and other than asking him to hand you things that are closer to him than to you, you don’t need to direct him.

Better still, he anticipates. Every time you finish reviewing one exhibit, he’s holding another one out to you – pre-marked – with a packet of post-it tabs for you to mark especially relevant pages. Though you certainly didn’t ask him to, the tabs he gives you follow a color-scheme, creating a key for easier reference.

Green for financial records, red for social media posts and other electronic communications, blue for your clients’ extensive medical and therapy records.

In only a handful of hours, you comb through everything you need to in order to truly start preparing. The sinkhole that’s been occupying your stomach since this morning disappears. In its place, all that’s left is a void of a different kind.

“I’m starving,” you announce suddenly and dramatically, flopping onto your back with your arm flung over your forehead. “Are you?”

When you don’t get a response, you pull your arm away from your face and crack one eye open in the face of the overhead fluorescents. If your vision wasn’t already blurry from all the time spent reading, this stupid decision likely would’ve blinded you. Thankfully, your eyes still work well enough to look over at Junhui.

Where Junhui was, rather.

You blink, dumbfounded. You didn’t see or hear him leave, which begs the question: were you too locked-in to hear his goodbye, or did he slip past you like Casper the Selflessly Helpful Ghost? You don’t know when it was that he even left, or why it is that you’re frowning now for the first time in six hours.

You reach for your phone to text him and ask. It’s in your hand before you realize that you don’t have his number and back in your pocket before you feel yourself truly start to pout. Although he was putting in unpaid labor on your behalf, you’d gotten the impression that he was enjoying himself. You were, anyway.

Deciding that you can manage lonely better than hungry, you force yourself to sit up, then to your feet. Without bothering to put your shoes back on, you step over the paper fortress you’ve spent all night building and shuffle off with heavy eyelids towards the door.

Someone in this office has to have snacks, whether they’d be okay with you sniping some or not. You cross your fingers while you head for the breakroom and hope for a nice, unexpired yogurt, at the very least. Maybe a leftover packet of oyster crackers if you’re lucky – ones that aren’t stale if you’re especially so.

Before you can step foot into the breakroom, a sudden, muffled shout snaps you out of your famished, fugue state.

“Hot!”

Your gaze snaps from the floor to Junhui, who stands in front of you with both of his hands full. His eyebrows now occupy the space immediately below his hairline; his eyes are wider than you would’ve previously thought humanly possible. Relief splashes over you. If you’re being honest, it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with the two steaming bowls of buldak ramen you just narrowly avoided crashing into.

With two, paper-wrapped pairs of chopsticks held between his teeth, Junhui can’t say much of anything. That doesn’t stop him from trying, though. “Ih ooh mih meh?”

“What?” You snort.

Realizing how truly useless that question is, you reach up and carefully pluck the chopsticks from his mouth. A heart-shaped smile takes their place.

“I asked if you missed me,” he simpers. “I told you I’d be right back.”

You blink twice, quickly.

Did he?

He jerks his head in the direction of the conference room. “C’mon. You’re hungry, and I’m burning through my epidermis.”

As soon as you side-step out of his way, Junhui takes off at a laughable pace, footsteps measured and careful to avoid sloshing hot soup as he goes. You have to bite down on your lips to keep from telling him how much he looks like those sprint-walkers turning laps at the local mall. All he needs is a tracksuit.

When you finally catch up to him, you find that he’s already set both bowls onto the table and pulled up a chair. One chair. You open your mouth to ask him about this, but he senses your question coming and waves it away with his hand.

“There’s only ten minutes left to file your Witness and Exhibit List,” he points out.

You don’t doubt him enough to check your watch, but you’re surprised to learn that he’s kept track of your deadline, even when you haven’t. Both of you move at once, nearly colliding a second time on your respective routes to your laptop.

Oh.

That single chair is for you.

“Seriously, eat,” Junhui urges. “I’ve got this.”

He sits down on the floor and hauls your computer into his lap without another word. You can’t seem to move, though. You simply stand there, watching him, and try to fight the very unexpected urge you suddenly feel to cry.

In fact, you’re still standing there when he calls out to you without looking up. “Case parties and who else?”

“The fertility –” You swallow thickly then clear your throat. “The fertility doctor, Eve Nguyen. She’s testifying to the in vitro hell my client put herself through while her husband was withholding the truth about his vasectomy from her.”

Junhui types furiously as you talk, face scrunching up in disgust without turning away from your screen.

“Her therapist, too: Phoebe Miller. She’ll testify to the impact of the hormone treatments on Ms. Al-Hamin’s mental health, and the sheer amount of time she spent sobbing on Ms. Miller’s couch when she finally found out about her shitbag husband’s useless balls.”

“Eat,” Junhui urges again, more emphatically this time. He gestures with his head to the table, where the ramen he made for you is still waiting. “I mean it. I’ll figure out a more court-appropriate way to phrase shitbag husband’s useless balls.”

You do as he says and sink down into the chair he pulled out for you, pulling the food toward you eagerly. Thankfully, he doesn’t glance over at you to confirm that you are in fact eating. Though you’ve bonded quickly in this little trench of yours, he doesn’t yet have the kind of security clearance a person would need to see you scarf down noodles with reckless abandon.

Maybe eventually the two of you will get to a point where he can perceive you unhinge your jaw like a snake just to devour a meal.

Today is not that day.

Without needing to be asked, Junhui switches his focus to the stack of numbered exhibits to his left. As he thumbs through them, he adds each one to your Exhibit List in order, then quickly shuffles the one he’s identified to the bottom of the stack. He does it all so effortlessly that he finishes that task before you’ve finished your food.

Unfortunately for you, that means he looks up in time to see the massive, final bite you stuff into your gaping maw. It’s not disgust that you’re met with, though. It’s something soft, a smile that’s entirely present in his eyes. You freeze and thaw at the same time, not giving a shit that those things should be mutually exclusive.

“Do you want to look this over before I e-file it?”

You shake your head, mouth too full to tell him that you trust him. Setting the empty cardboard bowl down on the tabletop, you offer him a thumbs up instead, which makes him laugh; then a finger-heart, which makes him laugh harder.

Although he could, Junhui doesn’t stand up right away. He goes right back to typing, throwing you for a loop.

“Hey,” you say. When he doesn’t stop, you do your best to mimic his softly commanding voice. “Eat.”

He shakes his head. When he speaks, he sounds a thousand miles away; too focused to be fully present. “I’m already over here. I might as well file these subpoenas.”

Now, you really want to cry.

“I don’t even know how to thank you.” You laugh to hide how close to tears you are. “Seriously. I don’t think I’m the kind of person who’d stay this late to help someone, let alone someone I hardly know.”

Junhui presses down on the trackpad, definitively hitting submit on the last of your work for the night. He closes your laptop, sets it back down on the box to his left, then turns to you.

“I think you would,” he disagrees with a gentle shake of his head. “Besides, I can’t say that I hardly know you anymore. I got paid for my labor with lore.”

You snort out a laugh. The buldak sauce lingering in your throat burns your sinuses, prompting you to close your eyes tightly and laugh even harder. When you reopen your eyes, it’s impossible to tell whether the tears on your lash line are steeped in mirth, spice, or bone-deep gratitude.

“Don’t say that like it’s just compensation,” you warn.

Junhui tilts his head to the side, his stare innocent and not at all challenging. “Isn’t it?”

Outwardly, you roll your eyes. Inwardly, there’s a war amidst the butterflies in your stomach; the majority love the way he looks at you when he’s perplexed, while the rest scream not to fall into the same old trap for the millionth year in a row.

You force a change in subject lest you start to choke on all the honey dripping from your eyes.

“How about you actually eat this ramen you made while I clean up the mess I made of this room?”

Junhui sighs like he’s truly put-upon. Nevertheless, he holds one hand out to you, silently requesting that you haul him to his feet. Figuring it’s the very least you can do, you oblige. He’s towering over you in no time, shooting you a tiny, thankful smile that sends your brain into a tailspin.

He eats, and you busy yourself with the numerous trip hazards around him: first, shuffling your case files and boxes to the side of the room, then wheeling both Junhui and his chair back where the latter belongs. He protests all the while — not because you scoot him without his consent, but because you wave off every single suggestion he makes about waiting until he’s done so he can help.

“You’ve done enough!” You grunt as you forcibly drag the table back into place. “There’s above and beyond, and then there’s you — way past that.”

His cheeks go pink while he goes quiet. You bravely decline to stare at that dusty rose color and instead hop foot to foot while you tug your boots back on.

“I feel awful that you’re going to get, like, five hours of sleep before you have to come back here. Do you have —”

You lose your balance and the rest of that sentence, but you gain Junhui’s hands on your upper arms, preventing you from falling over entirely.

“— court in the morning?” You supply breathlessly, a little too shocked by his quick reflexes and concerned eyes to function.

Junhui waits for you to let go of the back of your boot and regain your footing before peeling his hands off you and shoving them quickly into the pockets of his coat. His response comes a bit clumsily, though you don’t have much room to talk.

“Nope,” he says, shaking his head and shrugging. “My schedule is pretty light this month, actually.” Then, he smiles sheepishly. “Especially compared to yours.”

Eyes narrowing playfully, you snip, “Don’t brag, Wen Junhui. It’s uncouth.”

He pauses for a second then asks, “Is it couth with you if I walk you out?”

Your jaw damn near drops. His response is so stupid, so hopelessly devoid of rizz despite the beat he took to think of it, and yet you’re powerless in the face of it.

This man is a loser; and even though there are a million Human Resource-related reasons why you shouldn’t, you kind of want him.

No, you do want him.

Badly.

You swallow that burgeoning need like a shot, then you let out a measured, cooling breath.

“I’ll allow it,” you sniff.

The subsequent walk to the elevator, as well as the ride down, aren’t quiet. You’re grateful, but you can’t take credit; Junhui keeps the conversation going easily, notwithstanding your distinct lack of input.

If he notices how quiet you’ve gone, it doesn’t seem to bother him. Just the same, if he notices how intently you watch him while he talks, he gives you the benefit of the doubt.

Before tonight, it never really occurred to you how pretty he is. Of course, you haven’t been blind. Your few passing encounters clued in you in that he was good-looking, at least from a distance, but he’s something else entirely when he stands as close to you as he is now. You can’t even pretend to look anywhere else.

No matter how many sharp angles he has — the high bridge of his nose, the L-shape of his jaw, and the peaks of his cheekbones — there’s softness to balance it out. You see it in the heart-shaped curve of his mouth when he smiles; the faint freckle directly above it; and the cat-like, slow blink when he occasionally glances down at you. It’s present in the almost breathy tone of his voice, the one that makes it sound like he’s reaching you through some dreamlike haze.

But then you realize how fucking stupid it is for you to look at anyone the way you currently are, let alone a co-worker.

You made a pact with yourself after breaking up with Mika to keep to yourself for the foreseeable future — to protect yourself from the series of unfortunate romantic events you can’t otherwise seem to avoid. For eight months, you’ve stuck to it, even though you’re lonely. It’s been working, too. Nobody’s been able to shatter you because you haven’t given anyone the hammer or the opportunity.

And your avoidance isn’t just for your own good, either. Something about you either draws shittiness out of people or grows it where none existed before. Everyone you’ve dated in recent years was fine until they got too close; they all seem to be better off now that they’ve gotten away from you. In fact, if your social media creeping has taught you anything, it’s that Mika is the only one of your exes not happily in a relationship.

The pattern is too significant at this point to be a coincidence, and though you try to pass it all off as shitty luck, you’re the common denominator amidst all these disasters.

Shouldn’t you be held accountable for that?

“Look alive, sunshine.”

You snap back to attention with a jolt.

Junhui stands in the opening of the elevator with his hand on the frame, actively preventing the door from closing on you. You didn’t hear the bell go off when it opened; you have no idea how long you’ve been standing there, zoned-out stare fixated on the floor.

He sees what must be a bewildered expression on your face and laughs. “Did you fall asleep with your eyes open? I apparently do that sometimes, too.”

“No, I —” You shake your head while you start to explain, but then your brain stops buffering. “I’m sorry, you what?”

“I didn’t say anything. Out you come!”

You let Junhui usher you out of the elevator, but as you do, you crane your neck to look up at him with unabashed wonder. “Like a prey animal?”

He holds his left index finger up to his lips to silence you, then goes as far as actually shushing you. The tips of his ears peek out from his wavy hair, bright red against the dark.

“Like a little bunny?” You tease, tugging at the hem of his coat.

He rolls his eyes, though no part of him seems annoyed in the slightest. He doesn’t even move away from you. Instead, he rebuts you while lingering at your side, “No.”

You take your fist and rest it on top of your head with your middle and index fingers extended upward, smiling brattishly while you wait for Junhui to look back over at you.

His gaze is locked on the door ahead, however. He raises his arm and points, drawing your attention. “What is that?”

The second you see it, you drop your head back and groan with everything you’ve got. “Fuuuuuuck.”

That would be the security gate, which the building security staff lowers over the front doors when they leave for the night. It’s electronic and can be easily opened with a passcode — which you don’t have.

“Oh, my god.” You shove your face into your palms. “Oh, my god. I’m so sorry. I completely forgot about the fucking gate. I don’t even know what time they close it.”

“There’s a pin pad over there.”

You can’t see him, but you’re sure he’s pointing.

“You’ve worked here for a while. They gave you the code, right?”

You will yourself to shrink, to turn into a speck of dirt on the floor and be promptly kicked away. If he can’t see you, he can’t hate you for getting him locked in the goddamn building after donating hours of his time to help you.

Oh, you fucking clown.

Swallowing harshly, you whisper, “I’ve never stayed late enough to need it. I’m seriously so sorry. Technically, we can get out through the emergency fire exit, but that will —”

“— Set off all the alarms and sprinklers,” Junhui correctly assumes, prompting you to nod with your head still buried in your hands.

Silence creeps in then and settles over the two of you, suffocatingly thick like a fire blanket. It’s fitting, given how badly embarrassment burns your cheeks. You want nothing more than to curl up and die — right here, where security can find you in the morning and atone on their knees for trapping you like a rat.

But then Junhui laughs — really, truly, deeply laughs — so hard that you feel him momentarily double over at your side.

You part your fingers and peek over at him through the gaps. With his eyes screwed shut, the mirthful tears have nowhere to go except the far corners of his eyes. They streak down his temples, glowing a hazy shade of blue due to the colored security lamps overhead.

“I’m sorry.” His apology comes out squeaky on the tail of a wheezing laugh. “No one should have to spend this many consecutive hours with me. God, you were so close to freedom.”

You buy into the bit, rather than admit to the tiny thrill spinning dizzy circles in your brain. “It is a tremendous burden, yes. Of all today’s trials and tribulations, you will be my undoing.”

Junhui wipes his cheek, then glances over his shoulder at the elevator. He stares at it thoughtfully for a moment, gears turning, before he turns back to you with his head tilted sideways.

“If I can bother you for a little while longer, I think I have a way to pass the time.”

In the far corner of the conference room sits a bar cart, weighted down with more bottles and glasses than is even remotely necessary for a place of business. Artfully curated for trial and settlement victories, it boasts at least six different kinds of liquor. Each one is more expensive than the last.

“You sure this is a good idea?” You ask, gesturing to the bottle of gin in Junhui’s hand.

He can’t make heads or tails of your hesitation. You strike him as the type to apologize later, rather than seek permission first. Even if his assessment of you is wrong, he knows without a doubt that neither Zavier nor Jaein would ever draw a sword on their most objectively successful associate.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” He asks, tone laden with amusement. “You’re the reason we have this cart in the first place.”

You shoot him a warning look that lacks heat. He hopes you don’t intend to rebut him; there’s no need to be humble, especially when what he said is true. Without you, there’d be a hell of a lot less to celebrate around here.

Come to think of it, the only thing more impressive than your trial record is the long list of happy client reviews that come up in internet searches.

Not that Junhui has Googled you.

Okay, not that he’s Googled you more than twice.

He twists the cap off the bottle and pours matching amounts in two glasses, keeping his eyes focused on his ministrations instead of on you.

“Don’t tell me you’re scared of getting in trouble. What would Tom Santi think?”

Two seconds after he adds a splash of tonic, your hand appears from his peripheral vision and grabs the nearest glass from its spot on the edge of the cart. When Junhui’s eyes travel down the length of your arm and up to your face, he spots the innocent, bewildered way you’re blinking back at him.

Cotton-candy sweet, you lilt, “I’m just worried that you can’t keep up.”

You tilt your glass — a silent cheers — before taking a sip, a devilish smile appearing as soon as the cup leaves your lips.

His stomach flips excitedly even though he’s aware that it shouldn’t. There’s a fence of red tape building a perimeter around you, and it’s dotted with hundreds of warning signs: off-limits, trespassers will be prosecuted, etc.

He needs to get a grip — quickly. Entertaining the idea of you finding him attractive, too, is idiotic in more ways than one, and he knows it. Not only are you astronomically out of his league, but you’re also his colleague.

Assuming for the sake of argument that you did stoop to his level, you’d eventually come to your senses and realize that he’s nowhere near your caliber. When that inevitably happens, Junhui will still have to work down the hall from you. He doesn’t have the confidence to bounce back from something like that, not since his ex put his self-image in a blender half a year ago.

“Did you fall asleep with your eyes open again, bunny?”

He blinks rapidly, and you come back into focus. You’ve moved from his side since he zoned out. Now, you sit on the edge of the conference room table with your legs knotted, not unlike the way he found you on the floor several hours ago. Though you tease, there’s a distinct hint of concern in your narrowed eyes while you assess him.

Junhui’s instinct isn’t like a prey animal’s at all, but he knows better than to act on it, so he finishes pouring his own drink and recaps the bottle. Rather than put it down, he keeps it in his hand, grabs his drink with the other, and heads off for the door.

“Come with me,” he tells you.

You follow without question, footfalls sounding off quietly behind him as he leads you through the dark back to his office. Before you can get the wrong impression — or the right one, if the circumstances themselves weren’t wrong — he flicks on the lamp near the door and ushers you inside.

You’ve never been in his workspace, just like he’s never been in yours. Your office, he imagines, is as immaculately organized as you seem to be. That said, he wouldn’t be surprised if you had opposing counsels’ severed heads mounted on the wall.

His office, however, has a wildly different vibe. It seems to surprise you, so much so that you freeze halfway inside with wide eyes and a partially open mouth.

“You have kids?”

Apparently, it’s Junhui’s turn to be surprised. He glances over to where you’re pointing and laughs.

On the wall directly behind his desk is a full collage of drawings and handwritten notes, most of which were done by kids under the age of ten. Though their backgrounds, ages, and abilities vary significantly, they all have one thing in common: they all got really attached to their court-appointed Guardian ad Litem, Wen Junhui.

He shakes his head, although you don’t see him do it. You have your back to him, too focused on reading the various letters to react when he finally speaks.

“In a way, they’re kind of mine, just not… literally.”

You maintain your respectful silence, as if you’re wandering through a museum exhibit. He watches while you lift a hand and let your fingertips run gently overtop an especially artful tribute from a six-year-old named Iseul.

“Big fan of glitter and googly eyes, that one,” he muses, chuckling softly. “You have no idea how long it took me to clean up the visitation room at the community center when our meeting was over.”

You point to three stick figures, who hold hands in front of a large, grey building. Above them, a gigantic sun fills the corner of the page. It wears black sunglasses, the irony of which seemingly didn’t occur to Iseul.

“Who are they?” You ask.

Junhui points to each person as he explains:

“The — uh — wonky-looking one with what seems like a bloody neck is me in a red tie. In the middle is the artist herself, Iseul. She took some liberties; in reality, she has all ten fingers and isn’t known to wear a crown. To her right, that’s her foster mom, who she calls ‘grandma’, even though she’s only 45.”

“Is she still with grandma?”

“Yeah, actually.” He grins, unable to help it. “That stately, grey blob behind us is the probate court. We finalized her adoption last month.”

“Cute. I wish my clients would send me celebratory masterpieces,” you hum.

Junhui snorts. “Are you sure you want that?”

He can’t even imagine what kind of shit newly-divorced adults would send you. Nothing cute, he’s sure.

“No, actually. I take that back.” You shake your head and laugh. “I just want them to pay their legal fees on time.”

“You’re really asking for the world, aren’t you?”

You take another sip of your drink, then shrug, smiling impishly. “A nightmare bitch from hell’s gotta do what a nightmare bitch from hell’s gotta do.”

Before he can start ranting about Tom fucking Santi and his shitty opinions, you change focus again and begin to drift towards the bookshelf on the opposite wall. The top half of it is lined with statutory volumes, while the lower half has books and activities for the kids who occasionally come with their parents and caregivers to meet with him here.

You grab a deck of cards off one of the shelves and turn back to him with a vaguely menacing look.

“You brought me in here so I could beat you, didn’t you?”

“I brought you in here so I could beat you,” he rebuts.

In the time it takes Junhui to cross over to you, you drop your work bag to the floor, move the two child-sized chairs out of the way, and sit directly on the floor without a second thought. He sits on the other side of the small table and reaches for the deck only for you to shake your head vehemently at him.

“Nope,” you state emphatically, popping the second consonant. “I don’t trust you to shuffle these. You have clearly stated ulterior motives.”

He opens his mouth to argue otherwise but is shut down.

“Despicable,” you tut.

Once again, he tries to defend himself. “Excuse me? Your intentions aren’t any better —”

But you block him, grinning wickedly.

“— I’m a guest here and will not have my ambition questioned, thank you! Now, would you prefer to be destroyed by luck or skill?”

He has the feeling you’re going to destroy him in any and every way, so he says, “Dealer’s choice”, and takes a pointed swig of gin.

You think on this while you shuffle, making a big show out of it with your eyebrows furrowed and bottom lip pinched between your teeth. Then your eyes light up to broadcast that an idea has come to you.

Dutifully, you split the deck between you, doling out one card at a time to ensure the numbers even out. You slide your half over to you, face down, and gesture with feigned impatience for Junhui to do the same.

When he obeys, you look him dead in the eye. “I declare War.”

Four games and three drinks later, all your laughter finally catches up with you. With your abdominal muscles aching and eyes swimming, you tip over backwards and land on your back with a muffled thump.

“Okay, that’s bad, but I still think I can top it,” Junhui states with a shake of his head.

Your head lolls to the side so you can squint up at him properly. Once you catch his eye, you petulantly insist, “No way.”

There’s a flash in his eyes that says challenge accepted.

You like it.

In fact, you like this side of him: the version that isn’t intimidated by you, that isn’t afraid to be bold. Neither of you is drunk by any means, but your respective masks are off now, and you have gin to thank for introducing you properly.

“I can’t believe I’m telling you this out loud, on purpose,” he starts, then takes a deep breath. “This is perhaps the stupidest way anyone’s relationship has ever ended.”

He sits cross-legged next to you on the floor, perfectly within range. Without sitting up, you swat his knee. “Stop stalling! I don’t have all night.”

You do, but that’s neither here nor there.

“So, the last girl I dated had this… kink, I guess? Where she wanted to tell me she loved me during sex. We’d only been seeing each other for a few weeks at that point, but I figured, why not? What’s the harm?”

Your eyes widen. “Famous last words.”

“See?” He snaps his finger and points at you, grateful to be understood. “That’s the thing. She dumped me not long after that because things were —” The reveal comes with air quotes. “— moving too fast.”

You set your glass down somewhere above your head. Even though it’s empty of liquor, melted ice spills onto the carpet. You ignore the mess you’ve made and throw out both fists, thumbs down. “Boo!”

“Thank god I didn’t like her much,” he sighs.

“You dog.”

Junhui levels you with a playful glare, so you withhold further jokes and simply ask, “What was wrong with her, other than the attachment issues?”

He doesn’t answer immediately. In fact, he takes his time in finishing the last few sips of his drink, then he sets the empty glass down on the table. Unburdened, he lowers himself onto his back next to you with one bent arm underneath his head. From there, he concentrates on the ceiling above.

“It wasn’t her so much as us.”

“Oh?”

Junhui heaves a sigh. “Maybe I’m wrong, but I feel like there needs to be some sort of announcement during law school about how fucking hard it is to practice law and date.”

He’s not wrong.

Your career has impacted every single one of your relationships, no matter how hard you try to keep them separate. You’ve never figured out how to manage it — to split yourself successfully between two spheres, both of which demand one-hundred percent of you.

None of your other attorney friends have ever brought this up, though, leaving you to feel like the broken one.

Still staring thoughtfully at the ceiling, he fills the silence you’ve left. “I don’t think most people get it, you know? Not that they should have to — nobody should accept something they’re not comfortable with — It’s just hard to make things work with someone who doesn’t understand what this is like. What it costs.”

You’re well acquainted with that massive fucking toll.

The struggle to find community in an inherently adversarial system, the second-hand trauma that comes with managing the worst moments of people’s lives, the burnout, and all the shitty coping mechanisms these things lead to if you’re not careful.

You don’t need to speak on any of this now, though. For the first time in an abysmally long time, you’re sitting with someone who doesn’t need an explanation.

Junhui, however, seems to interpret your silence as discomfort. You don’t blame him. He still hasn’t noticed the heart-eyes you’ve been staring at him with since he started talking, so he has no idea

“Ah, nuts. I’ve made things too serious.” He screws his eyes shut then yells, “Aaaah!”

You crack up, fully and immediately, which only prompts him to do the same. Never has there ever been a loser so endearing.

Turning his head now to look at you, he urges with a grin, “Quick, say something stupid!”

And goddamn, if the first thing that comes to mind isn’t exactly that…

“Kiss me.”

Junhui doesn’t react, save for the grin slowly disappearing off his face. He doesn’t even speak. For a moment, all he does is stare right back at you, straight through the full-body cringe you’re experiencing.

Fuck.

Maybe now’s the time to use that emergency exit, fire alarms and sprinklers be damned.

You open your mouth, armed and ready to explode into awkward apologies; and you suck in the breath needed to do so, but not a fucking word comes out.

His gaze shifts from your eyes, to your lips, then back again. The expression he wears all the while looks something akin to tortured — but you’re clearly batshit insane, so your judgment is questionable at best.

A beat passes again in silence. You’re ready to crawl out of your skin, an urge that only grows when he finally murmurs, “It’s a bad idea, isn’t it?”

Terrible.

Perhaps the worst you’ve ever had, second only to you blurting it out just now.

You have nothing better to say now, but that’s not what keeps your big mouth shut. It’s the fact that his question doesn’t seem to be directed at you at all.

Something about that tone of his comes across as rhetorical, like he’s got to work this shit out separately from you.

But he doesn’t stay separate. The hand not being used to prop up his head reaches out and gently encapsulates your chin between his thumb and index finger. His thoughtful eyes narrow, searching yours.

“Why doesn’t that make me want to any less?”

All at once, your heart skips; your breath hitches. You don’t have an answer to his question, just an inkling that you have as much to gain as you stand to lose. That cost-benefit analysis, coupled with the insatiable need you have to be kissed before you fucking expire, make you reckless.

Leaping past the point of no return, you grab him by the tie and pull him along for the ride.

Any timidness he showed you earlier is forgotten in an instant, replaced entirely by an assertiveness you didn’t know to expect from him. He gets you on your back without resistance, then settles himself above you with his weight balanced on a single hand beside your head and his knees on either side of your thighs.

His other hand slips to the nape of your neck, deepening the kiss and keeping you where he wants you: well beyond the professional boundaries you’ve both crossed to get here.

You could be embarrassed by how quickly you melt, seep, spill, but your better judgment is discarded alongside your sweatshirt without a second thought. Junhui’s jacket, button-up, and tie are tossed into that same void, not long after.

Absolutely fucking none of them are missed.

Lost under the warmth of his bare skin on yours, your brain is far too occupied to worry about which articles of clothing ended up where. All you're capable of caring about is his mouth on your throat; his hand between your thighs, slick fingers dragging you slowly out of your mind.

The orgasm his hand steals from you leaves you half-dead, but that doesn’t stop you from clinging tightly to him, begging for more, please, everything.

And that’s precisely what you get, though you shouldn’t be surprised. If this day has taught you anything, it’s that Junhui is synonymous with acts of service.

“Kiss me,” he commands breathlessly with his tip waiting at your entrance.

You do, eagerly, unaware at first that this is an act of service, too — a distraction, more specifically, to take your mind off of the stretch he brings. Nails pressed into his back, you whimper against his lips and let that pressure melt into something perfect.

“I can’t tell if you’re sleeping or not,” you whisper.

His eyelids may feel like lead, and you look like a dream, but Junhui is wide awake, laying half-dressed at your side.

Of course, you knew this when you asked. You keep opening your eyes to look at him secretly only to find him watching you, amusement growing each time he catches you.

Even though his voice is rough from exhaustion, he musters the strength to tease you, “Why aren’t you sleeping?”

“My co-worker dicked me down to hell and back, and I’m recovering, obviously.”

You roll your eyes but can’t keep up your nonchalance for long. You bury it, along with your face, into his shoulder. When you finally tell the whole truth, it comes out rushed, as well as muffled.

“I spent most of the day wishing it was over. It was nightmarish, right from the jump. All I have to do is fall asleep, and it will be over…” Your shoulders sag under the weight of your sigh, which is delivered warmly against his skin. “But I don’t want that anymore.”

Junhui hums in acknowledgement. He pauses for a moment to consider what to say next, then decides to take a page out of your book. He’s an attorney, after all; he doesn’t ask questions he doesn’t already know the answers to.

“What changed?”

A lot.

“My co-worker dicked me down to hell and back, and I’m recovering,” you repeat.

Your laugh makes his body move, too. Just the same, the smile he feels forming against his bicep mimics the one on his own mouth. “You know, you keep saying that, but it doesn’t seem accurate.”

This prompts you to pull away from him, prop yourself up on your elbow, and stare at him incredulously. “Excuse me? Need I remind you how many times you just made me cum?”

He makes a big show of counting on his fingers until you swat at him. Then, he gets back to the point:

“What I meant was, is it co-worker or Valentine?”

You blink, no doubt stunned that someone was finally able to catch you off guard. Junhui doubts that this happens often. If that’s the case, he’ll keep this image of you, surprised into silence, in his back pocket for later.

“I’ll concede that those things aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive,” you eventually demur with a haughty shake of your head.

Junhui grabs your hand, pulls it to his mouth, and kisses the back of it. “Your concession is noted for the record.”

427 notes · View notes

biteyoubiteme · 3 months ago

Text

rosé

yeonjun x fem!reader warnings:🔞!!! tw:stepcest, don't like don't read!, vibrator use, no penetration, mentions of biting/teeth used, panty-fucking, prob forgot some sorry wc: 2.2k an: uuummm so look away I guess I still wont take requests for this kind fic and im not tagging my usual taglist so :p pls don't read if you don't like it

“You have to be joking,” your hand is still caught on the doorknob, frozen in place as you take in the sight of your childhood bedroom. Half the space was covered in boxes, labeled in the sideways handwriting of your step-mother. But everything else was frozen in time as the day you had left for college, frozen as the last holiday you had been back, ugly Christmas sweater thrown at the edge of your bed. Even the lone mattress on the ground from where a cousin had spent the weekend was waiting to be slept in.

And that is where Yeonjun stood, his chuckle caught between shock and humor. He was holding a half-drunk bottle of rosé, the cap still screwed on the cheap glass. “You're not very good at hiding things,” he shakes the liquid enough to draw your eyes to it.

“Going through people's things is childish,” you mutter, tossing your bag next to the bed, “shouldn't you be in your own room?”

It wasn't new to see him around the times that you visited, he lived only a town over, closer than you had stayed when the two of you had dispersed from home. He wanted to stay close to his mom, loved to rub it in your face when you came back that he was the better child. Your parents hadn't gotten married until the last year of high school, too soon for you to really find a connection with your new step-mom in a way that yeonjun had found with your dad.

“They turned my room into a gym,” he kicked at the boxes littering the space, “they haven't gotten around to clearing out yours but it's going to be the guest room from now on,”

“No-” you groaned, falling back on your bed, “I don't want a roommate for the weekend, I wanted relaxation,” it's not that you care they are changing things around but it was less appealing to have to know every time you came home you would have to spend it in the same room as any cousin, family member, or, like now, stepbrother. Some selfish part of you hadn't liked how changed everything had become since the added members in the house had become permanent, your room had stayed yours, and if you had anything left of before it was this.

“You don't want me around? I'm good company,” you can hear the dip in his voice, the low murmur of it making you shiver. You sit up on your elbows, rolling your eyes at him.

“Don't take that tone with me,” but it's weak, the both of you know it, testing the line drawn in the sand every time you two had the opportunity. Spending time in such close quarters didn’t help it in the slightest. The two of you had agreed, or you had told him, that you wouldn't push it further than the teasing, and yet…

Yeonjun’s lip lifts in a smirk, just high enough to show his teeth, calling your bluff. You remember that hazy period in time when the two of you didn't have to keep apart, fumbling kisses shared at a party, hands finding places neither of you wanted to pull away from. It was only a few weeks later when you were told about the engagement, the shock was a bucket of ice water thrown over the two of you. Suddenly flirty glances in class turned to frozen glares and when you moved in that last year together it had felt suffocating. It had been a mix of teenage annoyance and rebellion to avoid him, and you did in the short few months you spent in his company.

Then you had both gone to college, two separate universities on opposite sides of the city. It had been easy to ignore him but easier still to find it in you to heal the indifference into tolerance. But then you found yourself at a party, the lights low and his smile just like this one now. You couldn't blame drinking, couldn't blame anything except the fact that you wanted to kiss him again, needed to devour him in the way that he had consumed your mind anytime you thought of him.

You had been the one to stop it before it had gone too far, in the backseat of his car, grinding on him, still chasing his lips even as you said ‘We have to stop’ his soft reply of, ‘We should’ without either of you pulling away. It had been on your mind every time you saw him again, especially now.

“Fine, but I want a thank you, I found all your contraband that you wouldn't want them to find when cleaning your room out,” he lifted the bottle again, “how long did you have this stashed in the back of your closet?”

You had forgotten all about the bottle, less so about most things sitting in your closet, drawers, or under the bed. You had moved out your important things, anything left was by mistake or unimportant. “Who cares we are adults, a little rosé is nothing to worry over them finding,”

“And this?” you didn't know what to expect when he lifted his hand, another lone bottle of some other drink you forgot about was nothing to worry about and yet it wasn't that. There in his hand was a slim vibrator, pink and a foreign sight in his grasp.

“Yeonjun-” you whisper shouted, the two of you were alone in the house, the bedroom all the way up in the attic space. But it felt like you couldn't scold him loudly, your face flushing, heat spreading all over you. And he chuckled, shoulder shaking as he flicked his finger over the button to turn it on, the soft buzz making you clench your thighs. “Put it away,”

“Should I? I charged it and it would be a shame not to use it, if even a little bit,” he stalked closer, slow like a prowl, already having his sights set on eating you alive. “And you already look like you want it on you,” you watched the way his eyes flickered down to your thighs, rubbing together as you tried to deny that they were doing so.

“We said we wouldn't,” you whisper, hands twisting in the sheets as he leans down nose so close to bumping yours, breathing in the same air.

“We said we shouldn't, that never stopped us before,” the last syllable is pressed right to your upper lip, the ghosting of his mouth like sweet temptation against yours, “and all I could think about since the last time was that we shouldn't have stopped, because now you're all that's ever on my mind and you're never even around to rectify that,” he leans in closer, on hand bracing beside you on the bed while you try to keep even a hairs distance from falling into his trap because once you slipped up and found yourself caught you knew you wouldn't even try to escape. “Just one kiss, please,”

“Just one-” You couldn't even get the words out before he was on you, pressing his mouth to yours, seeking to consume you. Your hands shot out, pulling on his shirt locking him in place as he fell on top of you hardly even trying to keep his distance but you wouldn't even give him that once his lips were on yours. The two of you worked so well together, every little touch was sending sparks up and down your body. You opened your legs instinctively for him, wanted him to fit against you, slot himself in your personal space even if it was only for the length of one kiss. But that wasn't what it was, this wasn't the simple peck but a feast of pent-up want and need reduced to a single moment as if you hadn't indulged before.

He was hot and hard, grinding against you until you were gasping into his mouth, sloppy kisses now working down your throat as he nipped at your skin, teeth looking to find every sensitive spot you had. He wanted to devour you even if he shouldn't, and you were no better. It didn't matter if you said just one kiss, the two of you knew what it meant, you had said it before and you had him on the verge of finishing untouched in his jeans but he would finish this time, he wanted to reach that spot with you.

And you wanted it too, not caring about your previous intentions as soon as he was pressed so close to you. He reached his hand down between you two, vibrator on as he pressed it right against your clothed clit, the vibration muffled with all the fabric and yet you gasped, hips bucking up to meet the sensation. “Oh,” his open-mouthed kisses warm against the skin on your throat, your hands sliding up to his hair, twisting your fingers in the strands. He pulls away for only a second, hands falling to the waistband of your pants, needing to get them off of you. “We can't-”

“Please- I just wanna see how wet you are for me,” he begs, forehead pressed to yours feeling your nod more than seeing it. He pulls your pants clean off, leaving you in the nearly transparent white panties you have on. Yeonjun groans at the outline of you clear as day as the fabric clings to you. He doesn't hesitate to press the vibrator right back over your clit. You try to snap your thighs closed, the one less layer making it so much harder to not react.

His free hand comes out to trace over your cunt, fingers circling up and down as you throw your head back, your nails digging into his shoulders. “Now look at that,” he runs one finger between the fabric of your panties and your aching center, the digit coming away slick as he lifts it to his mouth to taste, your brows scrunching together as you try to hold back your whine. It's a drawn-out moan that comes from him, “You taste as good as you look,” he presses the vibrator harder on your clit, “let me fuck you- please-”

“We shouldn't-” you try but it's caught in your throat when he clicks up the vibration, free hand back to running up and down the outside of your panties.

“Please,” he whispers like it's ripping him apart, not being able to sink into you when you look this good. He presses his pelvis closer to you, his bulge perfect for your grinding hips to try and find a steady pace on. “Please,” he lets his hips drag along with the word, your lip caught between your teeth as you try not to cry out but it's impossible to deny him, especially when he's promising to not put it in, and you know if you say no he will stop and if you say yes you wouldn't stop him even if he did try to do more. And all you wanted was more.

You nod, needing more of him, needing to feel something more if anything at all. He pushes his hand into his pants, tugging out his cock, veiny and slick with bubbling precum, wrist working to give it a few loose drags. You're whimpering at the sight, wishing to say to hell with not having him just fuck you into the mattress. And you almost do say ‘fuck it’ the second he presses his tip right to your covered entrance, the slick of your panties only causing him to slip, the length of him rubbing over you.

“I won't- I won't,” he's screwing his eyes closed, shaking his head as he convinces himself more than he's telling you. Just brushing against you, feeling the vibration hitting right under his tip as he grinds down on you makes it so much worse. Every sound he's making is desperate and whiny, echoing in the room as he presses his free hand into the mattress, keeping you pressed down and in the circle of his arm. He can't control the way his hips move, just chasing the high of wanting to be in you and the feel of you so close and yet so far.

He tries to press his tip back in, properly fucking into your panties even if there is little give before he's back to slipping and grinding back down on your cunt, clicking up the vibrator until you can feel it sending sparks all over your body, the ache in your belly turning into a blinding light before you tremble, tugging him closer to you as much as you can get. “I'm- I'm cu-” It's only a moment before your orgasm crashes into you, your body trying to pull away from the vibration and yet being stuck in place with the weight of Yeonjun over you.

And he doesn't stop or pull away, whimpering as he jerks, cock twitching right before he's spilling ropes of white all over your stomach, t-shirt a mess of it. It's not until he pulls away the vibrator, clicking it off, that he's stopped the slow dribble of cum from shooting out.

Both of you are breathing hard, Yeonjun's face now pressing into your neck to try and hide, hips still moving, languid as he softens. “Never again,” you try to say, but both of you know the truth, especially when you're running your fingers through the hair at his sweaty temple.

“Of course, never again,” he mutters but he's leaning right back in to kiss you.

taglist for those who asked lol @beomiracles @beombunni and im tagging the wonderful @thetxtdevil bc she is the one who came up with this idea and gifted it to me ily mae thank you so bad-

#yeonjun x reader #yeonjun smut #txt yeonjun #txt x reader #txt smut #tw: stepcest

327 notes · View notes

jacaerysgf · 11 months ago

Note

Hi, could you do an Aemond one shot where he and Reader (Rhaenyra's bastard daughter) are husband and wife and she and Aemond are married, based on the first episode of season 2 where instead of killing Aegon's son, kill the reader's son and aemond

a.n: hi hi ty for the request 🫶 i had a little too much fun writing this, this probably isnt what you wanted this is not a happy fic but i still hope you enjoy regardless 🫶🫶 slightly inspired by the events of ep two

Despite the halls of the keep being pure chaos everyone swiftly moved out of the way for the one eyed prince who rushed through the halls seeking out the one who he knew needed him.

They had been in his room. They wanted him. But they must have left his room when they knew he was not there and stumbled their way into the nursery which was attached to his room where his son had been. His son. his only child. and he was furious.

The door to the council room slams open and otto swiftly turns to look and stand before him, “where have you been-“ otto is shoved out of his way as he goes to kneel next to his sobbing wife on the floor who was clutching a blanket on the floor.

You look at him with red eyes and choke out his name, he grabs your face in his hands and looks upon you for a moment before you throw yourself into his arms. Shoving your head in his neck to breathe in his scent, to feel his pulse, make sure he’s real.

“they killed our son.” your words come out choked in between your sobs and he strokes up and down your back, “i tried to offer them anything, gold, myself, but they only wanted him aemond only him.” he shushes you and pressed a kiss against your temple, speaking into your ear. “Im sorry my love im sorry.”

He will return the pain they have brought to not only himself but worst of all to his wife and he will pay it tenfold. A lone tear streaks down his face as you say nothing more merely continue to sob into him while the other faces in the room can only merely watch with sorrow.

He picks you up, making sure to keep the blanket firmly in your grasp as he turns to leave the room ignoring the voices calling after him. They must want to discuss what they plan to do now but he wants no part in it, only wanting to comfort his wife.

“they were saying they want to blame my mother.” You had calmed down at some point, still delirious with grief but you had stopped crying, merely staring blankly up at the ceiling as aemond kept you firmly next to him. “she would never do a thing like this. my mother loves me, why would she send someone out for my son.”

Aemond is quiet and his hand on your back falters for a moment, “she wishes to punish me.” you say nothing but he notices how you shift ever so slightly.

With the way you two were right now nobody could tell the two of you have not spoken in those fourteen days since his return when he broke the news to the court. When he broke the news to you. Your own brother murdered in cold blood.

You could never forgive him despite his attempts to talk to you after, you swiftly dismissed him and his words would fall on deaf ears. Your baby brother was everything to you, you remember growing up side by aide and he was teary eyed the day you permanently moved to the keep.

despite your hatred for him and your hatred for your mothers usurpation you cannot go home. The people here watch you like a hawk you cannot even send a letter out to her but alicent is free to beg and plead to her like a pathetic dog. you hate them. Yet you allow him to comfort you because you know you will get no comfort from anyone else here.

“they wish to flaunt me around like a prized lamb. ‘gain sympathy from the houses.’ he says.” You ignore his words and continue to speak. “I will not allow it.” you shrug mindlessly and sit up, he stays laying down. His eye patch off and hair down from its usually prime and perfect state, he had thrown his shirt off at some point too.

You can see it, the hurt that laces his eye and his face, his hand finds yours and you want to rip it away but you cant, the warmth on your skin bringing you a small sense of comfort.

“i had thought we would work. That you would finally move on and forgive grievances of the past. But i hate you just as you hate me aemond,” “i do not hate you. i love you.” you shake your head as he says it, sitting up and gripping your arms tightly, trying to hold your gaze as he says it again.

“i will never forgive you. I will hate you for as long as a breathe.”

“i did not mean to i lost my temper that day.”

“you feeling sorry means nothing to me you know that. how would you feel if the men who murdered our son came in here and said they were sorry., that they didn’t mean to.”

He says your name and his grip tightens on your arms but you continue to merely stare off mindlessly.

“i will repent for the rest of my life. our son will be brought justice.”

he will kill every man in the keep if he has to, slay every man in all of westeros if they cannot figure out who had done it. For you. for his son.

“i love you.” the words come out strained as he begs and pleads to anyone who is willing to listen to him for you to say something else anything to him.

you do. you finally look at him. a look devoid of any love you had once had for him. and it kills him.

“you’re pathetic.”

#aemond targaryen fanfic #aemond targaryen fanfiction #aemond x reader #aemond targaryen x reader smut #house of the dragon #aemond smut #hotd fanfic #aemond targaryen x you #aemondtargaryen #aemond targaryen #hotd #prince aemond #aemond targaryen smut #aemond targaryen x reader

854 notes · View notes

sailorsoons · 28 days ago

Text

Break (h.js)

PAIRING: Witch!Joshua x Cursed!Reader

SUMMARY: You’ve suffered your entire life after a single magical accident when you were thirteen. Joshua has been your biggest comfort and anchor, but he also becomes your deepest regret.

WC: 18,176

AU: Magic/Witches, Modern Fantasy

GENRE: Friends to Lovers, Doomed Lovers, Heavy Angst, Smut

RATING: 18+ Minors are strictly prohibited from engaging in and reading this content. It contains explicit content and any minors discovered reading or engaging with this work will be blocked immediately.

WARNINGS: Death and implied accidental murder of a sibling, childhood trauma, creepy vibes, heavy angst, a lot of internal monologue featuring angst, physical and verbal abuse from members of the town toward reader, Joshua and other members sometimes try to solve things on behalf of reader and she finds it frustrating (this is discussed), explicit sexual content including vaginal fingering, nipple play, oral (m. receiving), unprotected sex, not explicit dom/sub dynamics at all but Joshua is definitely in charge, subspace/blacking out post sex, heavy angst ending - reader and Joshua are some vengeful bitches - I would say this is probably an unhappy ending in a sense of the problem isn’t resolved (that we know of) and the ending is a bit ambiguous.

A/N: This was a fic I originally had on my BTS blog (of the same name), but I have edited for Joshua because idk he just fit the vibes. I assure you, I did more than just flip names in this. I sat down and edited this quite a bit - you’ll be able to tell the parts that are like.. My old style of writing vs. where you see new stuff because my tone/cadencs are totally different, but hopefully it works :)

MASTERLIST | ASK | PERMANENT TAG LIST | ▷NOW PLAYING: HAUNTING BY HALSEY

JOSHUA IS GOOD AT HOLDING GRUDGES. Even as a child, his mother always said he had a tough time letting things go. He never knew how right she would be. His mother’s words are all he can think about as he storms through the dark of the forest, shadows whispering about him as he looks for the lone hut in the very dark of the woods.

Little hut, little hut

Hidden in the wood

Little hut, little hut

Up to no good

If his parents could see him now, he knows they would be broken. Tear-streaked and shaking, a lost boy alone in the woods and drowning in anger so hot that the ground scorches beneath his feet. Looking for a salve. Looking for vengeance.

Little hut, little hut

Alone in the gloom

Little hut, little hut

Silent as a tomb

Blood witches are dangerous. Joshua knows this, everyone knows this. A blood witch is the reason why his parents are dead and he is storming through the darkness in the throes of madness. But Joshua is only thirteen and full of pain and desperation, vowing to never let something happen like this again. If he has to use a devil to defeat a devil, he will.

Little hut, little hut

Across the dark stream

Little hut, little hut

Wait for the scream

A dark stream wends its way through the trees. Joshua gets a running start and jumps across the whispering waters. When he lands on the other side, he waits. It took a lot of searching to find someone to tell him how to find the witch in the woods. No one comes here, especially not in the dead of night on Beltane.

They say only evil comes from the little hut in the woods. Joshua knows now that it isn’t true. Evil comes from anywhere and everywhere, even from the people that one least expects. Evil killed his parents. Evil is why he is alone, crying on the edge of the stream, waiting for the sound of a banshee's call.

He hears it then. A one-note wail, thin and high-pitched. His blood goes cold and the fight in him nearly goes out at the sound. His heart begins to pound so loud that it’s all he can hear, the thundering beat of panic and terror as he realizes what he’s about to do.

“Little hut, little hut,” a voice that he cannot see calls to him. There is no hut that Joshua can see. Only omnipresent darkness, cloying the air in front of him. A tingle skitters over his arms and he becomes acutely aware of another presence there with him in the dark. “I call to thee. Little hut, little hut, come to me.”

Joshua blinks rapidly a few times and sees the outline of a hut in front of him. It has a blurry shape like it’s really the idea of a house. It’s so shadowed and opaque that he’s not entirely sure if it’s really there. He walks toward it anyway, one foot in front of the other, looking at the hut.

If a home could be a phantom, he thinks this is what the hut is. There is a vibrational pull here, a dull buzz in his veins as he gets closer and closer to where the blood witch lives. His stomach turns and his instincts beg him to leave. There is evil in this place. He knows it. Can feel its oily presence like a poisonous slick in his veins.

A door - or rather what he imagines is a door shape - stands open in the hut. Inside is eternal darkness like Joshua has never seen before. The buzzing in his veins has become stronger, an itch he can’t scratch. A ringing in his ears.

Sometimes to beat evil, you must use evil. So Joshua steps into the house despite all the reasons he should turn around and run. Because he is alone, he is in pain, and he needs some sort of penance. Justice.

So he asks the blood witch for a favor.

Little hut, little hut

Hear my strife

Little hut, little hut

Ruin this life

When the rock hits you right at the top of your spine, you know it isn’t an accident. All the same, you spin on your heel and look at the edge of the lake where the kids are skipping stones. They squeal and look away from you, huddled together as they giggle and look over their shoulders with frantic and excited faces.

You clench your fists and keep going. What can you do to a group of kids? Tossing children into the lake while you’re an adult seems unfair, though it certainly crosses your mind. It isn’t necessarily their fault that they were taught to have such hate in their hearts at a young age, after all.

So, you keep going, grinding your teeth as you march up the slope toward the main pathway that cuts through the park, gravel crunching beneath your feet as you quicken your strides to put distance between you and the cackling children. You’re not positive they won’t throw another rock at you, and you think that it might send you over the edge.

Early preparation for the Beltane festival is in full swing all over the park. There are trucks unloading carts and piecing together stalls, vendors and contractors with clipboards walking through spray painted grass with city officials, and a giant maypole waiting to be constructed.

Living in a town of witchy folk can be fun, you suppose. The only downside is that most of the witches in your town despise you and think you’re an abhorrent blight to the earth. If killing and sacrifices hadn’t been outdated and frowned upon, you’re sure they would have stuck you to an altar as a child the first time you showed signs of being a leech.

Leech.

It’s an unkind thing to call witches who siphon magic. It isn’t something you can control - it isn’t even something you were born with. Most witches who siphon magic are born that way. A sort of magical defect in the way they interact naturally with the world.

Most think of siphoners as a plague to the witch community. Thieves and monsters who can only feed on magic to make magic, a perversion of the natural balance of things. The way you look at it, witches who siphoned aren’t really any different from the natural order of the world. All living things need an energy source: food for animals, sun for plants, bacteria for amoebas. It isn’t different, really.

Perhaps you would not be so kind to leeches, though, had you not began your existence as a siphoner at thirteen years old.

It isn’t a night that you enjoy remembering, but it is certainly a night you can’t seem to forget. One moment you could command your magic like most other witches. Most, because you were a blood witch with raw talent and a powerful relationship with the earth’s energy.

Blood witches were as revered as they were feared, witches who needed no spells. Who could use the magic within them instead of their connection with the earth to conjure. To blood witches, all other witches were leeches, really. You didn’t tell that to your coven, though you thought about the irony often.

Your blood magic had vanished, though. It happened while you lay asleep in your bed, pressed up against your twin sister. Twins were a special thing in covens, a rarity in the magical order of the world that was seen as a good omen. There was a connection you shared with her deeper than the connection to your own magic, a bond that rooted the two of you together. That made you seek one another out for comfort.

It had been storming that night and you had sought out the warmth of her bed and the vanilla sugar of her hair to soothe your nerves. You didn’t like storms and thunder very much, but she was wide awake in her bed, watching out the window as purple lighting cracked across the sky and thunder shook the house.

You’d slipped into her bed without a word and she stood guardian over you, hand tucked in yours as she watched the sky light up. You remember her laying down next to you after the storm passed. The warmth of her breath on your cheek as she fell asleep. The hum between the two of you, soul recognizing soul.

She’d been dead by morning, magic siphoned and drained dry in the middle of the night.

The memory of it is metallic in your mouth. You head toward your apartment, hands tucked into the pockets of your jeans, head down. Beltane always makes you think of your sister. Makes you think of the morning you woke up on your thirteenth Beltane to find her cold and dead, magical signature gone. Severed. Torn away from you.

Losing your ability to generate magic was only second to losing your sister. You still feel adrift fifteen years later. Moving through the world with a piece of you missing. Two pieces of you, if you count the fact that you can feel the magic around you but not reach for it. You never reach for it, though you suspect that no one believes you.

Except maybe Joshua. But even he doesn’t know the story of how you became what you are. All he knows is that you can’t create your own magic, and yet he’s never shamed you for it. Never turned his back on you, or berated you or bullied you.

That sort of kindness is a rarity in your world.

Your small town is easy to navigate. There’s not much that happens that doesn’t immediately become the knowledge of all citizens, and there’s not really a way to get lost unless you’re a tourist coming to visit the country's spookiest and most magical town. The locals are pretty firm believers in magic, but the out of towners don’t really believe. They just want camp and kitsch.

It’s busy season, the streets filled with people buying decorations to celebrate Beltane, restaurants full of tourists trying out local fare between going shop to shop. The festivals always draw a big crowd to your corner of the world, making it easier for you to blend in with all the rest of them. It almost makes you feel normal when someone doesn’t recognize you and immediately scowls. Sometimes you can even get away with eating at places that wouldn’t normally serve you, the workers too busy to really look at your face and see you.

A few people have taken pity on you outside of Joshua. Seungcheol and Jeonghan would never turn you away, always welcoming you with open arms, a warm cup of tea and free books for as long as you like at their bookstore. You’re not technically allowed in the metaphysical store on Fourth, but as long as Jihoon is working, you can walk through the rows and rows of crystals, grimoires, spices and charms. Joshua is where you’re really home, though, his bakery a place of safety and fresh-smelling sugar cookies.

It’s where you go now, sticking to the shop windows and away from the tourists flowing all over Main Street like ants. There’s a line stretched out the door when you get to Wicked Sweet Bakery, and Chan looks helpless behind the counter as he nods while taking an order, wide-eyed and terrified.

Joshua is at the delivery counter, flour staining his cheeks and brows as he nods politely and hands a box of cupcakes over to his customer. As though he can sense you, he lifts his head and swivels, eyes scanning until they land on you, immediately shining. Your stomach leaps the way it often does around him, especially when he breaks out into a beautiful smile and jerks his thumb at an apron.

You roll your eyes. You’re not technically an employee at the bakery, but you’re the next best thing, grabbing an apron from the rack to attempt to help the stressed out witches behind the counter.

“Can you take over the order counter?” he asks, the blush on his face the only sign that he’s getting a little frazzled. You nod and he winks at you, leaning over to press a quick, chaste kiss on your cheek. “You’re an angel.”

“Mhmm,” is the only response you manage before he’s leaning over Chan’s shoulder to correct something on the register.

There’s a smooth cadence to helping around the store. You fall into a pattern, calling out order numbers and passing over boxes of charmed sweets. The customers don’t know they’re charmed - at least not the people outside the magical community. They come here for the famous rose scones that inspire love and the lemon tarts that generate good luck, but they don’t realize how much of himself Joshua really pours into these sweets, magic and all.

Being here is nice. Chan grins when he sees you behind the counter, happy for the help. He still gets overwhelmed behind the till, and he’s more than happy to step back and chew his lip nervously when he processes a discount wrong. You’re up next to him before he can ask for help, typing on the screen while gently walking him through it again.

Chan is a good kid, an elemental witch who is prone to cause rainstorms when he gets stressed. For now, he is a bottle of sunshine, thanking you shyly and letting you know that he saved you a bag of butterscotch cookies in the back.

“I put in a little extra sunshine,” he promises. By that, you know that he means magic. To give you. You open your mouth to scold him but he shakes his head furiously. “I wanted to do it. You can’t yell at me. I’m your favorite.”

That gets you. It’s hard to be mad at him, especially when anger is likely to set him off into a rainstorm. Chan gives you a wicked smile, his little ego sharp and wicked under his sweet surface. You let him off with an eye roll and a squeeze of his wrist, making him beam.

This is what keeps you going most days. The unfettered kindness that Joshua and his friends show you. None of them are locals to town, but they had formed their own coven a little at a time, a circle under the broad umbrella of the town's overall witch population.

Covens are difficult. You’re both in and not in Joshua’s coven, an unofficial member by friendship. But you don’t practice anymore - won’t let yourself - so you’re on the outside looking in most weekends and during spiritual times of the year.

But by witch standard, you are a part of the covenstead of the town, the larger collective of witches who are loyal and responsible for one another, all answering to the high priestess.

When the rush of customers and shouting orders over the glass dies down, you lean against the counter and reach a hand out just as the door to the back swings open. Joshua has a glass bottle of soda ready for you, and he blinks in surprise when he sees your hand ready for it. You’re a little surprised as well.

“It’s freaky when the two of you do that,” Chan comments, eyes bouncing between you and Joshua as the older hands you the bottle. “You’re always so in-tune.”

“She’s a witch,” Joshua snorts, leaning against the glass case of mostly empty dishes as he takes a swig of his own. “Divination and all that is sort of what we do.”

“Yeah, but it only happens with you.”

You don’t meet Joshua’s eyes as you swig from the bottle, the carbonation fizzing on your tongue. “I know you’re jealous, Chan,” is Joshua’s answer. Always deflecting. You're grateful for the way he rolls with the punches, easily accepting the way others talk about you two as an item so you don’t have to. “Are you hoping those butterscotch cookies win her over?”

Thunder cracks in the sky as Chan goes red in the voice, launching into an argument with Joshua who starts laughing like a maniac.

When it’s time to close down the shop, you help the two of them out. Joshua goes to the back to begin batching things anew: fondant, bread, frosting - anything that he can let sit overnight or prep while the lights are out and he’s gone home. You focus on cleaning with Chan, letting him put on a pop playlist while he sings along, siren voice lulling you into a steady rhythm.

Part of you wants to ask what they’re doing for Beltane. Celebrating the holidays used to be your favorite, threading flowers through your hair, blessing your hearth and home, weaving new spells of prosperity and happiness alongside your sister. Now you don’t participate in any of the rituals with the others.

Most of the time, you celebrate alone in your room. Mark the points of the elements and the compass on your bedroom floor alone. Sit in front of a single candle, watching the flame flicker as you draw your circle of salt, murmuring blessings. It isn’t a powerful place of practice and you have no alter to communicate through, but it's something. It’s yours.

Instead of asking, you follow Joshua and Chan out of the door on the promise of dinner. This is the one thing that does feel like a ritual you’re allowed to participate in, holding chapel at Joshua’s dining room table and elbowing with Soonyoung or Mingyu for scraps of food piled high in the center of the table.

Evening sky stretches overhead as you walk between Joshua and Chan. You cast your eyes upward, watching the gray clouds float by. Joshua throws an arm around you, pulling you in close and squeezing you to his side. He smells like vanilla and sweet orange from making his tangerina vanilla cakes for Seungkwan. You breathe in his scent, letting it wash through you like a balm.

His arm presses a little too hard on the bruise where the rock from earlier nailed you, and you hiss, reaching behind your head automatically to adjust his hold on you.

“What?” he asks, lifting his arm and slowing his gait. Joshua’s face is picture-perfect concern, mouth tilted downward, a crease in his brows. Before you can explain, his hands are pulling at the collar of your shirt. “You’ve got a welt here, what the hell is that?”

You smack at his hands and step away from him, pulling his warm fingers from your shirt. “It’s nothing.”

“Whenever you say ‘it’s nothing’ it's always something. Why do you have a lump on the top of your spine?”

Dancing away from him, you grab Chan who grunts, mouth full of corn chips as you shove him between you and Joshua. More unhappy noises come from the youngest as Joshua grabs for you but you squeak and use Chan’s broad body to block him again.

“Yah!” Joshua yells, reaching both arms around either side of Chan to grab you. He manages to get one of your arms, pulling you toward him - and by default, Chan - and keeps a firm grip while you swat and fight back.

“Aish!” Chan howls between the two of you, adding to the chaos as he shoves both of you away from him. “Stop using me as a battering ram! I’m going to drop my chips! Guys!”

“Tell me why you have a wound!”

“It isn’t a wound!”

“It’s a type of wound!”

“Ugh let my arm go, hulk! What are you doing at the gym? Juicing? Jesus Christ!”

“Stop hissing at me like a rat! Are you trying to bite me?”

Chan drops his bag of chips and lets out a long, forlorn wail. “My chiiiiiiiiips!”

After a struggle, you manage to shake Joshua off of you, taking a few steps back as you huff angrily, fists at your side. Joshua sidesteps Chan who is pouting and looking at the ground, blonde bangs falling in his eyes as he stares at the spilled corn chips. Joshua makes it worse by stepping on them with a crunch, earning a shriek from Chan that goes ignored.

“Did someone hurt you?”

A rumble rolls through the sky from up above. You cast your gaze upward, looking at the clouds that are a little more swollen than they were a few minutes ago. You can sense the static in the air, a promise of lightning if you don’t diffuse Joshua’s anger quickly.

Similar to Chan, Joshua is sensitive to the elements. Where Chan has an affinity for the sky and the rain, Joshua has a lot more skill with fire. Still, Joshua is a powerful witch and his rage on more than one occasion has disturbed the sky and the lake in the middle of town.

It’s partly the reason he works so hard on never getting angry.

“It’s nothing, Joshua,” you answer softly, eyes pleading. You desperately want him to drop it. Part of you is honored that he cares, but the other half of you can’t bear the way he looks at you. “Please drop it.”

“Someone hurt you. Again.”

Thunder echoes across the sky. Chan looks upward. “That isn’t me, even though I am mad about my chips. And about being oggled at by Mrs. Hansen again, she really wants my goodies.”

“Shua, it isn’t a big deal. Please.” You glance upward, thunder rolling again. “You’re going to make it rain.”

“I’ll make it do more than rain when I find out who did it.”

“They were just kids, Shua. You can’t-”

He swears loudly and there’s a flash of lightning above your head. It makes you think of that night with your sister, laying in bed to let the storm pass. You clap your hands over your ears and squeeze your eyes shut, automatically crouching to make yourself small.

Behind your shut eyes, you try not to let the memories come. Try not to imagine the vanilla scent of her hair, warm hands on your skin turned cold the next morning. You block out the screams, the way your mother shoved you away and your father yelled and yelled and yelled and-

Above, the thunder stops. Rain doesn’t fall, and the air pressure returns to normal. Shivering, you crack an eye open to look at Joshua, terrified at what you might find. His anger is so rare, but every time you witness it, it’s like watching a sudden storm bloom on the horizon, all terrible wind and teeth, but beautiful in its power.

Chan is murmuring in Joshua’s ear now, voice hushed and urgent. Joshua’s eyes become unfocused as he nods, Chan’s hands grasping the older’s biceps firmly. When Joshua’s eyes find yours over Chan’s shoulder, they’re fathomless. Endless pools of warm brown, and something else that you can’t decipher as he murmurs something back to Chan, who steps away.

Licking his lips, Joshua offers you a hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I’m sorry.”

You swallow thickly. Reach out a tentative hand. “It’s okay.”

“You know I would never hurt you?”

Of course you know that. You aren’t afraid of Joshua or the power he holds. You aren’t afraid of what he can do. You are afraid of the memories that nip at your heels like a pack of jackals. You are afraid that one day he’ll decide you’re not enough. You are afraid of the way that it makes you feel when he’s this close, his voice pitched low, soft eyes only for you.

“I know that,” you murmur, letting him pull you toward him. “It’s just the thunder, that's all.”

His smile is soft. “I know, I’m sorry.” He squeezes your hand. It’s a perfect fit, your palm in his. His skin buzzes with magic. You pull your hand from his quickly, not trusting yourself to touch him. You’ll never make that mistake again - especially with him. “Let’s go home, yeah?”

Home isn’t the small apartment on the west side of town that you keep by yourself. Home is Joshua’s two-story house in the suburbs made of brick and mortar. It’s the crowded dining room packed tight with chairs pulled close to the wooden table and a chandelier full of burner candles and incense. It’s Joshua’s cat familiar running yowling down the corridor as Jihoon’s maine coon chases it, hissing.

Home is the handful of witches who don’t care that you can’t generate your own magic, all of them laughing and pushing empty plates toward the middle of the table where Seungcheol collects them with a snap of his fingers, the cutlery lifting and stacking neatly with the soft click of ceramic.

Bloated and overly-satiated, you lean back in your chair, sighing heavily. Jihoon is next to you, quiet and staring off into space the way that he often does. Next to him, Jeonghan and Seungcheol have their heads bowed together whispering, a blush flushing across Seungcheol’s wine-glazed expression and tops of his ears.

Seungcheol and Jeonghan strike something in you. A longing that tugs at your heart strings, drawing your gaze to the man sitting on the other side of you. Joshua is leaning back in his chair, arm stretched over the back of your seat as he yawns mid-conversation with Junhui.

Joshua is barely touching you, but just the warmth of his arm is enough to make you dizzy. It’s barely there, just against the top of your back. You lean into him a little, resting your head on top of his arm. He maneuvers his hand to scratch the top of your head lightly. It feels so nice that your eyes flutter shut, letting him play with your hair as the noise in the room drifts to a dull buzz.

In another life, you think that this touch could be something more. Sometimes, you let yourself wonder if it is. Let yourself pretend that maybe Joshua’s lingering gaze and hand is more than the platonic affection he has for you.

It’s a silly dream.

When the dishes are washed and the others have said their goodbyes, it’s just you and Joshua leaning against the counter in the kitchen. He has a glass of wine, sipping it thoughtfully as you put the cork back in the wine bottle. When you meet his gaze, you see something there. Hesitance. Anxiety.

Joshua chews on his lips and swishes the wine in his glass. The red liquid arches elegantly along the sides of the glass, slowly dripping back down to pool in his cup. You remember once at a winery you could measure the legs or something when swishing wine in a glass. Joshua had taken you to that winery because he wanted to research wine making in general, considering creating and packing his own. He eventually tossed the idea out, wanting to focus on expanding his sweets menu instead.

“What’s wrong?” you ask, taking a sip out of your own cup. It’s a strong mulled wine with notes of cherry, you think. “You look nervous.”

“I wanted to talk to you about something.”

Your heart beats hard once. Then twice. Speeds up. Instead of answering right away, you take another sip, mind running through all of the things you think he might say. Maybe this is it, he’s going to tell you that you can’t come around as much. That though you’re his best friend, you have to stay away from his coven.

Instead, Joshua says, “You know I’ve looked into your situation.” You wince when he says it but he pushes forward, leaning off the counter as he grows eager. “You said you weren’t always a siphon, that you could control your own magic as a child. I’ve been researching similar cases, and there is a lot of evidence that supports that it might be a magical block.”

“Joshua.”

“Look, there’s nothing wrong with you. Never has been. There is nothing to fix. But I know you don’t share that same opinion, and I know that if you could change things, you would.” His jaw flexes. “And I care about your happiness. I just… Jihoon and I have been reading up on rituals to release magical blocks, and with Beltane in a few days, we thought…”

Warmth bubbles in your chest. You know how much this means to him, trying to help you. To free you from the burden that you carry with you wherever you go. This is not the first time he has brought up trying to figure out your ailment. Your situation. And though you’re glad he cares about you enough to try, there is something humiliating about it.

“You don’t have to decide tonight,” Joshua murmurs. You look up at him and his gaze is soft. Vulnerable. “But if you want us to try, we discussed it. And our circle is strong enough to try it on Beltane.”

Licking your lips, you nod once. “I’ll think about it. Thanks for thinking of me.”

“I’m always thinking of you.” You give him a look and he smiles, a little sad. “What? I am.”

“Stop trying to be charming. I’ll only say yes if I want to.”

“I have no doubt about that. However, it is impossible for me to stop my charm. It is a natural gift. I am, afterall, a gentleman.”

You roll your eyes. “A gentleman who lacks humility.”

“Ah, but my hubris seems so small whenever Seungcheol is around.”

You don’t push the argument. Joshua grins again before opening a drawer in his kitchen, pulling out a small, cloth bag. There’s a green ribbon tying the top of it shut, and you smell the herbs inside of it immediately: cedar, bay leaves, mugwort.

Joshua holds the bag out to you and you frown, taking it. It’s weighted with crystals. You squeeze the bag a little, feeling the crunch of crystal fragments and herbs. There is a vibration that travels from your fingers up your arms and you feel a sense of solid warmth.

“A protection bag,” you deadpan. “Really?”

“Hmm?”

“I don’t need this.”

“The welt on your neck says otherwise.”

“Please stop!” Your voice is loud in the empty kitchen. He pulls up short, leaning against the counter and watching you with wide eyes, lips parted slightly. You sigh deeply and close your eyes for a moment, calming yourself before you open them and say, “I don’t mean to yell, it’s just - it’s hard when I feel like all of you coddle me. It’s humiliating.”

“It wasn’t my intention. I’d never want to make you feel that way.”

“I know.”

You do know. The intentions are good, but you can’t help the raw, venomous edge of frustration. It makes you feel less than, this constant need to help you. To do things for you.

“I am a fully functioning adult who is capable of taking care of myself, despite being a thorn in the covenstead’s side.”

“You know that isn’t how we think of you.”

You give a frustrated noise. “Then please. Let me ask for help when I need it, and not just when you feel the desire to give it to me.”

Joshua is quick to catch the protection bag when you toss it back to him. He nods silently, eyes fixated on the floor. It feels like a hot stone has been dropped in your stomach, burning and weighing you down. How quickly a good dinner has turned sour, how the light air between the two of you has gone cold.

“Thank you for dinner. And for looking into a way out of this,” you gesture wildly to yourself. He nods, but there’s no mirth in his face. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah of course. Let me know about… you know.”

“Yeah. Yeah.”

That night, you have trouble sleeping, just like that night when you were thirteen years old.

The back door to Shadow Metaphysical opens, creaking as Jihoon sticks his head out of his office. His long hair is styled behind his ears and he’s in a soft-looking black sweater and jeans. He gives a visible sigh of relief when he sees it’s you and not one of his shithead coven mates coming to bother him for free stuff.

“Hey,” he greets, exiting the office. His familiar, Nami, shoots between his legs and toward the front of the store.

Jihoon leads you through the door to the main storefront. It’s closed for the evening and he has receipts and cash laid out on the counter as he balances his drawer for the day. Rows and rows of dark shelving littered with candles and wax light the way here. There’s no traditional lighting, floating candles up in the ceiling and random balls of light appearing every once in a while.

When you asked Jihoon how the non-magical customers didn’t think the magic was real, he simply said, That Harry Potter lady did me a solid. They all think it’s some sort of intricate system.

Shadow Metaphysical is one of your favorite places. It smells different each time you go in, the magic and the herbs and the spells inside of its four walls shifting with the energy of its employees and customers at all times. Today, it smells like night rain and crackling lightning.

Wordlessly, Jihoon gestures at the shelving, signaling to do whatever you need. He busies himself with going back to counting bills, head down and trusting you not to steal anything like everyone else in his coven. Not that he would care, as he’s always emphasized he has no problem not taking your money.

Still, you always pay him, especially since he lets you in after hours where no one can yell at you for being inside. The covenstead has barred magical stores from siphoners, convinced that the moment they cross the threshold, they’ll consume the entire store like gluttonous demons.

It isn’t true. Well. Not really, anyway. You feel the magic in the store throbbing like a wound in your side, begging you to reach out and touch it, to pull it in, to use, to burn it. You ignore it. You’re not here to eat magic like a parasite.

As you pass rows and rows of books on rituals, you think about Joshua’s offer to help you figure out your block. It wouldn’t be the first time you tried and failed to figure out what happened. With magic, the point of origin is always the key to any spell. The how and the where of your condition are important elements to figuring out the solution, but no one really knows the how and the where.

Your friends don’t have full clarity on that night. You’ve never told them in explicit detail of how you woke up, full of your sister’s magic. You’re sure they know, though. Everyone has whispered about the way you killed your sister in her sleep. A little murderer. You’d only escaped persecution for being a child, and because up until that fateful night, you’d never been a siphoner.

It helped that your family had been respected.

You pass a grimoire. The runes on it shine gold when you pause, winking at you, begging you to touch it. You feel the whisper of the spells of dozens of witches inside of it, their phantom fingers brushing down your arms. Your spine. They call to you, sing to you, press kisses that promise power on your brow, their fingers turning to claws and-

“Stop,” you growl out loud. The grimoire stops calling to you immediately, silenced by the violence in your voice.

Shaking off the encounter, you grab what you need from the shelves, ignoring the way other magical objects feel like they're looking at you, wanting to be picked up, to be touched, to be used. You shove away all acknowledgement of them, arms full of materials.

At the register, Jihoon gives you a wary look as you set things down on the counter. He takes his time scanning them, glancing at you occasionally. You can sense he wants to ask a question, dark eyes lingering a few times. That’s the thing about Jihoon, though. He’ll never ask, he’ll just wait until you give up.

Which you do, sighing and saying, “Ask.”

His lips twitch as he bags a few jars of thorns. “How often do the books in here talk to you?” You level a stare at him and he rolls his eyes. “I can hear you. I just pretend not to be nice. Plus, I have a magical tie to this shop, I can feel the energy shift. Everytime you’re here, it’s like suddenly the entire store has it’s eyes on you.”

“Great,” you growl. “Yes, it happens often. I don’t know if it’s a siphoner thing or a me thing. Most magic begs me to use it, but magical objects are worse. They’re borderline sentient.” You chew your lip and rub your sweaty palms on your jeans. “It’s worse around the sabbat holidays.”

“Stronger magic.”

“Yeah.”

“Did Joshua explain what ritual we talked about?” You shake your head. He pushes over a paper bag filled with all your things and you hand over your card. He doesn’t take it until you give him a pointed stare. Plucking it from your fingers, he sighs and says, “Two smaller rituals wrapped into one. Seungcheol found a really old binding ritual that was used to form a bridge between multiple rituals.”

“A chain spell,” you offer. “Impressive. I guess that would be used for improving upon old rituals?”

“Yeah, exactly that. Joshua had been doing some research on magical blocks, and found one that determines whether the point of origin is internal or external.”

“External?” He nods. “Like a curse?”

“Yes. Any reason anyone would want to curse a thirteen-year-old?”

Jihoon phrases it like a joke and chuckles. But you don’t laugh, stilling as you think about his question. Your immediate answer is no, at thirteen there was certainly nothing you could have done to be cursed. But you think about your parents, thinking about the fear revolving around their gifts for blood magic, think about the way they were always regarded with equal parts fear and reverence as coven leaders.

Curses aren’t common. It would take a coven of extremely skilled witches to curse someone, but it could take a single very skilled blood witch to perform one. Hexes aren’t long-term and are far more manageable, but you think about the way your power vanished, the way you bled your sister dry.

The misery you’ve faced since, the loss of your parents shortly after, the hatred from the covenstead.

“Holy shit, you don’t think you’re cursed, do you?” Jihoon’s question brings you out of your daze. All of the amusement has been wiped clean from his expression, eyes deadly serious. “Who would curse a child? And how? A hex is easy enough to manage, but a full on curse?”

“People were really afraid of my parents,” you murmur. “My mom used to lead the covenstead here, you know?” That surprises him and you nod, chewing on the inside of your cheek. “I forget you’re not from here, but yeah. My family led the covenstead until… well. All that happened.”

“I never knew that. No one talks about it.”

There is a question there. Jihoon won’t say it outright, but you sense the curiosity nonetheless. You feel your throat constrict a little as you murmur, “My parents killed themselves when my sister died. No one talks about it because… wel, would you?”

“No.”

“Exactly.”

“Your parents have any enemies prior to that?”

“There was…” You think back to the time when you were thirteen. Those days are painted so painfully when you think about them that it is hard to remember anything else. “My parents were involved in the Trials that were going on at that time. Hunting Dissenters.”

Jihoon’s face darkens. “I see.”

“They had a lot of enemies. So maybe… I don’t know.”

For a few moments, Jihoon doesn’t say anything. He busies himself with packing away the rest of the till and waving his hand, dousing all the lights in the store with ease. There’s a little pang as he does it, such simple magic that costs him nothing. That you have no access to.

“Well,” Jihoon sighs, a little awkwardly. “Think about it. If - and it’s unlikely - that someone cursed you, you’ll know if we go through with the ritual.” He pauses and levels you with a look. “It is dangerous though. So consider the risk before you agree, hmm?”

You nod and thank him. He leads you out of the store and gives you an awkward smile goodbye. Never affectionate, but always polite and warm nonetheless.

Sunset-purple skies stretch above you. It smells like fresh rain and earth outside. Town is quieter now that the evening crowd has finished dinner and gone home or back to their accommodations for the evening. You pass places with patio seating and small diners tucked between stores, wary eyes of the workers following you as you walk down the sidewalk.

No one says good evening. Some don’t look at you at all.

Curse.

The word weighs heavy on you. You’d never considered that your condition could be from a curse before, but now that you think about it, you can’t stop the thoughts racing through your mind.

The Trials had been a scary time for witches, Dissenters leaving covensteads to start their own, dark and forbidden spellwork becoming more and more popular among covens. Your parents - especially your mother - had been a huge part of cleansing the covenstead from witches who practiced dark magic.

Especially the few blood witches.

You had been a blood witch, though. Like your sister, like your mother. People had always been wary of them, which is why your mother worked so hard to get rid of the Dissenters when she was the head priestess.

They give us a bad name, she would say darkly when you and your sister asked why she was getting rid of witches like you. Like her. In times like this, we have to work extra hard to prove we aren’t evil.

Jihoon’s words weigh heavy on you as you sit in your apartment alone. You don’t bother to put the TV on, knowing that you won’t be able to pay attention to anything. Magic always comes at a price, and two rituals wrapped into one is going to take a toll.

And yet, you think about getting to the bottom of this sickness, this curse. This inability to do anything but steal magic, to leech off of others. You think about how your magic used to feel, the way you could command fire with a snap of your fingers or make stars fall from your bedroom ceiling.

An ache settles in your chest as you lay back on the couch and close your eyes, throat tight and eyes burning. You have been without magic for so long. Part of you thinks what's a little longer? But deep down, you crave it. The spark, the life, the touch of magic.

You want to be able to enter stores without the itch underneath your skin, an addiction you can’t cure nor divulge in. You want to be able to be a part of a community again, to do rituals with Jihoon and Chan and Joshua. You want to be able to help him in his bakery, imbuing his scones and cupcakes with love and a little spark of something extra.

Tears flow hot on your face. You know what you want, and you know that it’s going to cost you to get it. You know that to do this, you’ll have to be open and honest, because there are only two possible options for your magic block: you are cursed or you have a mental block.

It’s hard to know if being cursed as a result of your parents’ policing is worse than potentially having an internal block, an innate refusal to do magic because of what you did.

That night sits at the back of your mind like a stone, sinking sinking sinking. Pulling you under as you think about it in explicit detail. Maybe you simply killed your twin. A horrible accident, but perhaps it was just you. Your magic. Your fault.

And your magic had fled because of it, a self-inflicted punishment.

Before you’re aware of what you’re doing, you have the phone in your hand, sniffing and wiping your tears with the back of your hand. Your face feels swollen and sticky with tears and overwarm and it’s hard to get a breath as you press the phone to your ear, listening to the ringing.

Joshua picks up on the fourth ring, his voice cheery. “What, did Jihoon forget to let you in the store?”

“No.”

“I’m coming now,” Joshua says, completely forgoing humor when he hears you sniff, hears the waver in your voice. “Are you home?”

“Yeah.”

“Did anyone hurt you?”

“No,” you hiccup. “I’m just really sad and I don’t want to be alone.”

“I’ll be there in ten. Do you want to stay on the phone?” You shake your head and let out a little sob. Something about knowing he’s coming over to be with you cracks your resolve a little more. You realize he can’t see you when he prompts, “Hey, you there?”

“Sorry, no. Drive safely, please.”

“For you? Anything.”

Despite your tears, your mouth wobbles into a weak smile at that. It makes your heart squeeze just a little, underneath all the hurt.

It doesn’t take him long to let himself in the apartment. You can sense him before he even gets to the stairs leading up to your unit, his crackling energy like a beacon to you. When he opens the door with the key you gave him, he fills the space with static, magic snapping and tinged with worry.

Magic always belies how Joshua feels. Like now, as he rushes across the apartment, he is lightning, all energy and anxiety popping and snapping as he sits on the couch next to you, pulling you into his chest.

Joshua is warm and smells like vanilla and sweet orange from the bakery. It’s soothing. You close your eyes and clutch the hem of his shirt, resolve cracking the rest of the way as he becomes your anchor as you drift out to sea, holding you so that you can be lost in the overwhelming feeling of loss without getting too far.

He doesn’t tell you not to cry. He doesn’t ask what’s wrong. Joshua leans back on the couch, pulling you into his lap, folding your knees so that he can hold you. One hand rubs your back and he rests his chin on the top of your head, letting you use the crook of his neck as a place to hide - and turn into a waterfall for your tears.

This is what you love about Joshua though. He doesn’t pry. He just lets you use him, lets you cry it out and he waits.

When the tears begin to dry and you find it easier to breathe again, you shift away from Joshua and wipe your face. He smiles down at you, eyes glittering and expression so fond that you find yourself staring blankly into his face.

“I’m sorry,” you sniff. “And thank you for coming.”

“Anything for you.” You hate the way it makes your heart flip when he says that. You start to pull away from him to sit on the couch properly but his arms constrict you, keeping you to him. You frown but he asks, “I want to know what happened, if you’re ready to talk about it.”

Joshua is so close his breath fans your face. You look up at him. Silky, long lashes that you could individually count with your proximity, beautiful tan and smooth skin with a glow all witches have, pretty lips that are always the perfect shade of pink, curved upward in a permanent smile at the edges.

Your heart starts to speed up and your mouth dries out with the way he looks at you, intense and searching. Suddenly you’re afraid if he looks too hard, he’ll see down to your core.

“I- yeah. I need some water,” you croak, pulling away. He lets you go this time, unaware that what you really need is space between the two of you, a barrier so he can’t see. So he won’t know. “Turns out sobbing makes you thirsty.”

Before you can get all the way to the kitchen, there’s a soft clink accompanied by a full glass of water on your counter. You glare at Joshua over your shoulder and he winces and shrugs in apology.

As you gulp down mouthfuls of cool water, you wonder how to word exactly what you’re upset about. How you’re tired of existing in the world without your magic but you’re also unsure if you want to know the truth about why your magic left you.

Joshua is iffy on the details about the night your sister died. He’s never asked you explicitly for the story before, but if you want to go through with finding out the root cause of your block, you know you’ll be exposed. To him. To all of them. To his coven.

The desire to be one of them is so strong that it makes your knees weak as you walk toward the couch. You sit abruptly on the couch arm, staring into the distance as you drink the rest of the water. You want to join them so much, to celebrate the sabbat holidays, to feel the rush of a closed circle of magic and yet…

Would they accept you if they knew you killed your sister? You’re not so sure.

You look at Joshua. He waits patiently, watching you with soft eyes. Moonlight seeps in through the blinds behind him, wreathing him in silver light. He looks like a god, then. Of shadows, of night, of mystery. This best friend of yours who you love so much and who has loved you indiscriminately when he didn’t have to.

“I talked to Jihoon about maybe doing the ritual,” you start slowly. Joshua nods, encouraging you. “And I think I came to the conclusion that I want to do it. I’m tired of feeling everyone’s magic pull at me, like a vice that I have to ignore every day. And I’m tired of wanting to do things I used to, to feel the world around me. But most of all, I just want to be a part of something. A part of a coven, a family.”

Understanding paints Joshua’s face. He reaches a hand out and takes yours, giving you a firm squeeze. “You know even with no magic, you’re our family, right?”

“It’s different.” He starts to protest but you shake your head. “I want to be in a coven and to feel the power of a circle. I want to celebrate and do rituals with you, I want to be a part of something magical. I can’t do that like this, not without the fear of draining everyone.”

He nods. “Of course. We’ll have you either way, you know? We’d still welcome you like this.”

“But I’d never be able to close your circle.” Joshua nods. He knows the truth of this. “But this ritual requires truth, and there’s some things about me that I’ve never talked to you about. Things about the night I… I could no longer do magic. I want you to be informed, to know what we might find if we do this.”

“Only if you want to tell me.”

“A coven and a working circle requires trust and honesty. I can never be one of you if you don’t know me completely.”

He nods. “That is true.”

“I’m going to tell you about the night that my sister died.” He squeezes your hand and nods, but says nothing else. “My sister and I were twins, both blood witches. Unusual enough for our parents and the covenstead to be incredibly proud of us, but not unusual enough for people to be afraid, you know?”

“Twins… That’s incredibly powerful.”

“Yeah,” you agree, throat tight. “We were really fond of the connection too, you know? It was nice to always have someone to rely on who was my perfect balance. We were never-” You take a breath. “Neither was more powerful than the other. There was never any jealousy or overpowering the other. We were always evenly matched.”

“Whenever it would storm,” you continue. “I would go lay in her room. I hated storms but she loved them. I did this countless times up until we were thirteen. I don’t know… Shua, I don’t know what was different that night. I think back to it every single day, what did I do differently, was there an object I touched, a spell I used? And I come up with nothing. But on Beltane when we were thirteen, it was storming. We’d already finished the festival and our parents were out doing their duties and I went and I fell asleep in her room and… and I woke up…”

For a moment, you can’t get the words out. They get trapped in your throat and you stare, unseeing. You imagine the lightning against the window. The warmth of your sister's hands. The tree tap tap tapping against the window with the strength of the wind.

“I drained her in the middle of the night,” you whisper. It’s out now and you can’t stop, can’t look at Joshua’s face to see his reaction. “I went to sleep as normal and when I woke up, she was freezing and lifeless and I felt more powerful than I ever had before. Like I was this magical battery charged up and sparking.”

For a moment, you pause and look at Joshua. You expect to see horror or disgust or a variety of negative emotions, but he’s still watching you. Fond. Waiting. No judgment. When he sees you staring, he gives you a tiny smile and a squeeze of your hand.

“I’m still listening.”

“Aren’t you…” You trail off and shake your head. “I killed my sister. Are you not horrified?”

He frowns then. “You didn’t kill your sister.”

“Yes I did.”

“You weren’t born a siphoner, how could you possibly predict that would ever happen? You didn’t get in that bed with her and then leech her magic, no matter how much it must feel that way. It wasn’t your fault, though I know hearing me say that doesn’t make it feel any less true in here.” He reaches forward and taps your heart lightly. “There is nothing I can say to ease the pain and guilt of that, but what you’re describing to me isn’t the tale of a murderer. It’s the story of someone who had a freak accident, which is more common among the magical community than one might think.”

“I don’t know what happened,” you admit, a tear escaping your eye. Before you can wipe it though, Joshua’s thumb is there, swiping across your face and collecting it. You watch with wide eyes as he cups your face, looking at you with so much something that your head spins. “But in the morning, I was alive and she was dead. And my parents and everyone else hated me for it. That’s why they treat me the way they do. Why my parents were driven to grief. Why I’m alone.”

“You’re not alone. Not anymore.”

“How can anyone accept me like this?”

“Because it isn’t what defines you. We are not made up of only the things we do and the things that happen to us, and I promise you, this is something that happened to you.”

“But why? Why me?”

“I don’t know,” Joshua admits. “But we’re going to find out, okay?

“What if the others don’t want me?”

“They would never,” he’s quick to say. He’s still holding your face, wiping tears from your eyes. “And if they did, I don’t care. I’d do the ritual myself, just to prove to you that this burden you carry isn’t your fault.”

You crack a grin, despite the dark topic. “Yeah? You’d try and do a circle all alone?”

“I would walk through fire for you.”

You pull your face out of his hands and shove him a bit. “Fire is your favorite element, Joshua. That’s not impressive.”

His laughter fills the room and he tugs at your hands. You grapple with him as he tries to pull you down, your ache forgotten as you laugh and squeal. “Yah! Let me try and be poetic! It was the first thing that I could think of.”

Joshua overpowers you and pulls you down against his chest. Suddenly you’re very close again, your palms pressed against his chest, the thrum of his heartbeat vibrating through your fingers. You make a surprised sound as he looks up at you, gaze a little darker. A little hazy.

Gently, Joshua reaches up and brushes his fingers across your chin. It’s featherlight and more intimate than you expect, making you blink in surprise. You’re frozen, limbs stuck and heart racing as you watch the corner of his mouth twitch upward. Suddenly the moment feels different - this feels different.

“You have no idea what you mean to me.”

When he says it, you don’t answer at first. You think you imagine him saying it. That suddenly this has blurred into a fantasy of yours. Perhaps you’re actually asleep, soothing your pain with dreams of Joshua. Of being like this with him, pressed closed and intimate with his gaze burning.

“What?” you whisper back, unable to string together a better response.

He doesn’t seem offended though, huffing a laugh. “You really have no idea, huh? You’ve got that massive brain up there and you don’t even use it right.”

“I don’t…”

“You’re right, we should be practicing honesty. If we’re going to lift this block on you and let you join our circle, there can’t be secrets between us. As soon as you cast in a circle with me, you’ll see everything about me, and you deserve to not be caught off guard about what you see there.”

Your heart throbs. “What would I see, Joshua?”

“Someone who would not only walk through fire for you, but who would burn the world down for you. I seem so nice and kind, but beneath the surface, there is a heart capable of terrible things for those I love. And I do love you. Chaotically so. Painfully so. Dangerously so.”

“I-”

“You don’t have to love me back. I’ll never hold you to it. I just need you to know what you’ll see when we link and-”

You interrupt his rambling with a kiss. It’s brief and so quick it’s barely there. You lean away from him, heart pounding, lips parted. You’re surprised at yourself, unsure when you gained the confidence to pull a move on him.

Joshua moves faster than you can finish your sentence. He surges forward, hands skimming up your arms roughly to cup your face and pull you down to him. His mouth is like fire, consuming and warm and sparking with heat. You feel the static shift between the two of you, his magic crackling to life as he makes a noise deep in the back of his throat.

The slide of his plush mouth against yours makes you dizzy. He sucks your bottom lip between his teeth, nipping slightly and you become ravenous. Your tongue brushes against his teeth and he makes a throaty sound again, opening up to let you deepen the kiss, tongue sweeping against his. He’s a slow kisser, dragging his tongue against yours and letting you fall fall fall into him.

Joshua’s hands slide from your face down your shoulders and past them, stopping only at your hips where he squeezes. Your stomach flips at the contact and you twitch a little bit, grinding down into him as his kisses go from languid to a little needier.

“Fuck,” he gasps, head tilting back. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?” you ask, mouth going to his jaw. You press wet kisses there, messy lips followed by your tongue, leaving a spit-slick trail. His skin makes your tongue tingle, magic vibrating. You grind your hips down again, rewarded with a whine.

He slips his hands under the hem of your shirt and he digs his blunt nails into your hips. “You know what.”

Grinning, you bring your mouth up to his. Slowly, you lower your hips so you’re pressed flush to his, rolling them again, this time painfully slow. Your breath catches in your throat at the slow-drag friction, the feeling of him shivering underneath you.

“That?” you ask, breathless against his mouth.

“Enough,” he hisses.

The world spins. Joshua grabs you and in a single, swift movement sits up and stands, carrying you with him. You squeal, hands shooting to grasp at his shoulders as he walks toward your room. He kicks his shin on the coffee table as he stumbles with you, balance off with the added weight.

He curses loudly and you can’t help but laugh, clapping a hand over your mouth when his sharp gaze snaps to yours. His eyes are dark dark, hungry and fathomless now as he raises a brow. “Yeah, you’re laughing?”

“Sorry.”

“No you’re not.”

“No, I’m not,” you admit.

“You’re gonna be.”

A wild thrill shoots through you as he carries you to the bedroom. You forget how strong he is, muscles flexing as he shifts you again, careful not to drop you. It makes you feel giddy, but you squeak in a moment of terror when he drops you unceremoniously on your bed, the brief moment of freefall startling.

You land with a huff and he grins down at you as he stands up against the edge of the bed, knees squeezing your legs together as he reaches behind his neck to yank at his t-shirt. You watch, slack-jawed as he pulls the material up and over his head.

Joshua is all gold and tan planes, body perfect in the low light of your room as he tosses his shirt. You take a second to admire his broad chest, dark nipples pebbling in the cool room. Dark hair trails from his belly button and vanishes in the waist of his jeans.

Seeking warmth, you reach for him. He leans forward, pressing his palms into the mattress to hover over you, knees placed on either side of your thighs. His muscles jump when you brush your hands up the softness of his stomach toward the harder muscle of his pecs.

It feels like the sun is trapped underneath his skin, burning its way out of him as your fingers explore. You’ve never touched him like this, slow and reverant and full of unbridled desire. He watches you, drinking in the way you take him in. The way you take your time.

“You’re beautiful,” you murmur, looking up at him. His ears turn red and he rolls his eyes. You grin, dragging your hand up to rest over his chest where his heart thuds wildly beneath your palm. “I mean here, idiot. Yeah you’re hot too, but you’re beautiful in here.”

Unreadable emotion flits across his face. Something like joy and pain - the pain of wanting to hear that for so long, waiting for the admission. You understand the same pain of desire filled so unexpectedly that it hurts.

Joshua kisses you again and this time with intent. He shifts and slides a knee between your legs, pressing up to the apex of your thighs. You groan and lift your hands, sliding them through his hair. The strands are silky soft and long. You twist your fingers at the nape of his neck, pulling him to you as the kiss turns messy.

Whatever this is between you is more magic than you’ve felt in years. You feel breathless as he kisses across your jaw and toward your neck, sucking harshly on the soft skin underneath your ear. You whine and he chuckles, hot breath hitting your ear.

“Why don’t you do that thing you love so much, hmm?” he asks, nipping your ear lobe. “Are you shy now? Don’t wanna grind on me?”

You do want to, but you hesitate. He encourages you, taking a hand and skimming down your waist to your ass, sliding under and squeezing your cheek as he lifts your hips in a motion to grind against him. The friction is good but not nearly enough and you let out a pitiful sound.

“Come on,” he urges. “Do it right, then.”

Fuck. Fuck.

You grind your cunt on his leg properly, planting your feet on the edge of the bed for leverage as Joshua’s mouth ravages your neck. You’re lost in him, letting your mind go a little empty as you seek friction, needing to relieve the pressure throbbing in your cunt.

Arousal gathers in your stomach and you feel yourself slow-drip into your panties, so turned on by the sudden confidence Joshua has when kissing you, when telling you to move. This is a side of him you’ve never explored and you dive in head first.

One hand leaving his hair, you grab his hand that’s on your ass as he continues to nip your collarbones, tongue laving over the sting of his bite. He lets you lead him by the wrist, and you guide his hand between your legs where you press his fingers to your zipper.

“Please,” you rasp. “I need more.”

He sinks his teeth into the top of your right breast, tongue tasting your skin. “Is that so?”

“Please. You said you’d walk through fire for me.”

His laugh is loud and he buries his face in your chest. “Yeah,” he agrees with a chaste kiss to your kiss-bitten chest. “I did say that, huh?”

“Yes, so gimme.”

“Anything For you.”

Years of friendship have erased any ability to feel awkward with Joshua but for a moment, you’re afraid it’ll be weird, touching one another like this. Joshua has no such qualms, unbuttoning your pants and yanking them down your legs with ease.

When he comes back up to lean over you, he doesn’t slot a knee between your legs. Instead, his fingers press firmly to your clothed cunt, a curse falling from his mouth as he feels how damp you are. You’re hot all over and yet you feel hotter still as he circles his fingers gently over your clit.

“Fuck,” you sigh, lids fluttering closed. “Feels good.”

“You’re fucking drenched, all from a little kissing huh?”

“And grinding,” you add.

“Yeah, l remember, you little vixen.” You moan, lost in his lazy ministrations and pressure on your clit. It’s relieved some of the ache, but not nearly enough. “I can see on your face you already want more.”

This time, Joshua doesn’t make you ask for it. He hooks a finger in your underwear and pulls them to the side. Immediately you feel cold air against you, but he’s quick to slide his fingers up and down your wet folds, slicking them up to trail back up and circle slowly around your clit.

“Damn you’re fucking wet,” he curses. He leans up a little, eyes fucked out. “Take the rest off for me, baby.”

Baby. It shivers through you and you comply, though a little haphazardly. It’s hard to remove your shirt and bra with the way his fingers are slowly pressing your clit, making you thrash and gasp.

As soon as you lay back down, no shirt and no bra, Joshua is leaning forward, tongue darting out to flick against a stiffened nipple. You let out a loud moan and he hums in response, attaching his mouth to you and sucking. Fuck it feels good. You arch off the bed and his fingers leave your swollen clit to slide down your sticky mess to circle your entrance.

Gently, he sinks in a single finger. Your eyes roll back a little, pussy fluttering as he strokes your front wall. You’re tingling all over, buzzing with pleasure as he slowly fucks you with his finger, mouth busy plucking at your nipple with his teeth.

You’re lost in it, melted into the bed as Joshua plays you like a well-tuned instrument. The heel of his palm presses against your clit, providing just enough pressure as he fingers you to send the room spinning on its axis.

He tongue-kisses across your chest, mouth ravenous against your heaving gasps as he finds your other nipple. The tip of his tongue circles, making you keen and squirm underneath him. He watches you with dark eyes, teasing the aching bud before nipping you lightly.

“Sensitive,” he mumbles, dragging spit-slicked lips against your breast. “Can you take another finger?”

You nod eagerly, hungry to be filled. Your orgasm is starting to build slowly, worked up by the way he mouths at you, by the way Joshua’s fingers reach so deep, pressing against your g-spot as he sinks another into your heat.

“Shit,” you pant. “That feels so fucking good, Shua.”

“Mhmm.” He brings his mouth up to yours and your tongues tangle, teeth clinking together as he fucks you harder, the wet smack of your pussy against his palm loud. “Tight fucking pussy,” he pants, pressing hard against your front wall. Your heels dig into the bed as you try to keep up with the pleasure blooming in your stomach. “Gonna need to fuck you open a little if you’re gonna take me.”

If you’re gonna take me.

The promise of more has you rolling your hips up to meet his hand. He lets you fuck yourself on his fingers, dropping his gaze to look between your bodies. Your thighs and his stomach are slick with your juice, leaking around his fingers uncontrollably.

When Joshua introduces another finger, you hiss. The stretch is hard and it burns. He doesn’t keep thrusting right away, letting your cunt stretch around his three digits. But he’s pressed up against your soft spot, making you see stars as he puts unrelenting pressure on your nerves.

It feels like insanity, the way he does this to you. The way Joshua buries his face in your neck, your chests pressed together to provide friction against your teeth-marked nipples as he starts to build up a pace again, thrusting.

“I’m gonna come,” you whisper, hands grabbing frantically at his sweaty shoulder blades. Your thighs are shaking and it’s hard to get a breath in. Your voice quakes as you gasp. “Fuck.”

“So come,” he says, as if it’s that simple. He puts weight behind the hand fucking you, quickens the pace. Presses so fucking hard you think you might blackout. “If you’re gonna come, then do it.”

And you do. Just like that, nails digging into his shoulders, eyes squeezed shut and teeth clenched, you come around his fingers. He fucks you through it, breath hot in your ear. Your knees squeeze around his hips until you’re spent, collapsing against the mattress, boneless.

Joshua retracts his fingers. The sudden feeling of being empty makes you huff in protest and he laughs, lifting his face from your neck. You pout up at him and he kisses you again before leaning upward, straddling your legs.

Your eyes zero in on his hands as they undo the top of his belt. His hand is covered in a wet sheen, cum-slicked and sticky. He doesn’t care, popping up the belt and pulling down the zipper of his pants. You grow eager, leaning up as he pulls the waist down, revealing the dark briefs that do nothing to hide how hard he is.

With no warning, you reach for his clothed cock, squeezing firmly. He hisses and drops his hands, jeans only pulled halfway down his thighs. Joshua tips his head back and moans at the ceiling as you lean forward and mouth at the damp spot on his briefs, tasting him.

“Fuck,” he swears and you grin, pressing and holding the flat of your tongue to the cloth to wet it.

You hum. Fingers dancing up his thighs, you pause at the elastic band, looking up at him through your lashes. “Can I?”

Joshua tucks his bottom lip between his teeth, eyes half-lidded. He nods, watching and dazed as you peel the elastic down his hips slowly. You lean forward as you do, pressing a soft kiss to his hip bone. He twitches and sighs in response.

You look at his cock as it bobs against his stomach, brown tip smearing precum against his navel. You lick your lips and drag your hand up, fingers gripping his velvety shaft. He’s thick and heavy in your hand as you grasp him firmly, stroking upward.

“Oh fuck,” he whispers, hips twitching. You grin up at him, swiping a thumb over the crown of his cock to spread the wetness down his shaft. He hums, entranced. “More.”

You don’t have to ask what he means. You lean upwards, pulling the tip of his cock toward your mouth. You slide just the tip into your mouth, suckling generously and running your tongue along the slit. His hand slips to the side of your neck, resting there but not doing anything. It’s a comforting weight as you take him in your mouth properly.

Joshua is art above you. Chest flushed, mouth open, eyes closed. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think he was on his knees at worship. It is a sort of worship, the way you sink down on his cock, lips stretched wide, drool dripping down the side of your mouth and running down your jaw and neck. Is it not the spirit of loving him moving through you? Is this not heaven, looking up at him and seeing someone that has chosen you over and over again?

No pagan ritual in your life as a witch has felt like this. You swallow around him, eyes watering as you choke on his length, pulling back a little to catch your breath. Your hand squeezes him at the base, slick with your spit and his precum. Your mouth is wet and swollen as you lick the underside of his shaft, never looking away from his face.

“Fuck that mouth,” he sighs, eyes opening and looking down at you. He squeezes the side of your neck a little, fingers right against your throat. “Come on,” he murmurs. “I can’t hold out if you keep going. How do you like it?”

Instead of answering him, you pull off of him with a sloppy, wet noise. You make a show of running your tongue along your lips before turning around and crawling up the bed, wiggling your ass a little. Joshua groans as he sheds his jeans and briefs the rest of the way.

The bed sinks when he crawls behind you. You go down on your elbows, ass up high. He smacks each cheek firmly with both hands, making you yelp as he grips the stinging flesh, squeezing. “You have a good ass.”

“It’s all those charmed cinnabons you feed me.”

He laughs loudly at that. Joshua’s hand skims down to your thighs, grabbing them and pushing them open. You sink a little lower on the bed, face pressed to the sheets and letting your eyes shut. The hair on his thighs sends a shiver up your spine as his legs brush against yours, hands roaming and squeezing your hips, your butt, your thighs.

“You’re fucking perfect,” he mutters. His hands come back over the globes of your ass and sink toward your wet cunt. You moan as his thumbs peel you open, pressing around your clenching hole. “Shit.”

The bed bounces as he moves again and then your eyes are snapping open, fingers twisting in your sheets when you feel the flat of his tongue swipe up your pussy. He hums in delight and you’re reeling, trying to catch your breath as he licks at you.

“Just wanted a taste,” he says, more to himself than you. He sucks your clit into his mouth, flicking his tongue over it a few times and you nearly crumble right there at the unexpected stimulation. He slow-licks up to your hole, tracing it once before retracting his mouth. “I have all the time in the world for you to come in my mouth. Right now I just wanna feel you.”

“Yes, please.”

Your breath gets stuck when you feel the head of Joshua’s cock catch your entrance. He’s thick, and even though you’re dripping down your thighs and stretched from his fingers, the pressure of him sinking into your heat slowly sends you moaning like a wanton whore, unable to stop the sounds escaping your mouth.

Joshua is precise, hands holding your hips firmly until he’s fully seated in your cunt, your walls fluttering around him. You feel so full, his cock reaching deep enough to feel in your gut. When he pulls all the way out, you think something is wrong, but he fucks back into you hard.

“Oh shit,” you gasp, feeling the full weight of him spear you. “Holy shit.”

He doesn’t say anything but he grunts, setting a slow but deep pace. His hips snap into you with force, your knees spreading a little bit wider. He leans into it more, moving his hands to press into the small of your back. The full force of his weight pushing your hips into the bed as he slams into you makes you dizzy.

An orgasm starts to build deep in your stomach. You claw at the bed, breaths coming out in a hiss. Joshua grabs one of your hands, pulling it backward to pin it against your lower back before doing the same to the other. You’re completely pinned under him, pushed so far into the mattress you think you might fade and vanish into foam and sheets.

Nothing here matters but the way he fucks into you, unrelenting, heavy, precise. He says your name and it rolls off his tongue sweeter than any pastry he’s ever made. Your orgasm creeps up on you, shaking and thunderous. It feels stronger than before, a pressure that makes you start to shiver, feet kicking under him.

For a moment, he slows, pulling off you a little. “Okay?”

“Keep going,” you beg him, voice high-pitched and strange to your ears. “Please don’t stop, I’ll tell you if I can’t take it.”

That’s all he needs. He redoubles and this time, changes his direction, hits that spot inside of you head on with his cock and you think you’re going to pass out. You become lifeless under him, unable to do anything but take it. The wave of your orgasm builds and builds and builds until finally, it breaches.

You come for a second time, no noise coming out of you. It’s all white vision and squeezed thighs and ringing ears. You think you feel something like a bolt of lightning, a snap of power so strong as you clench around Joshua that you taste static in the air.

It’s hard to know how long it lasts. One moment you’re shaking and the next, you’re drifting, feeling weightless and exhausted. The weight of Joshua’s touch keeps you tethered and from straying too far, but you’re somewhere in between nonetheless.

Slowly, reality drips back to you. You think you may have dozed a little, your eyes dry as you blink them open. Joshua is lying next to you, arm wrapped around you and eyes closed. He’s not breathing deep enough to be asleep, confirming it when his eyes open, sensing your gaze.

A smile lights up his face and you smile tiredly at him. Your cunt aches and your legs and arms are sore from being pinned, and you’re still a little shaky. Thoughts of your orgasm make you twitch, post-sex tremors that you can’t escape.

“Hi,” you rasp. “Did I fall asleep?”

“I think you blacked out.”

“I- what?”

“I sort of…” he frowns. “There was like this electrical snap when I came. You clenched me so fucking hard I just… let go. I think we sort of had a magical orgasm.”

“A magical orgasm.”

He grins. “Just say thank you for the witch orgasm.”

“Ugh.” You smack his chest and he laughs hoarsely.

It did feel like that though. Like a crackle of energy, like being struck by a storm of electricity and heat. You feel tired and heavy-limbed, but you feel sticky and sweaty too. “I need a shower.”

“Mhmm. I was waiting for you to come to.” He starts to sit up. “Come on, I’ll shower you. Then we need to sleep. We have to prepare you for your big day.”

“My big day?”

Joshua grins as he reaches a hand for you. There’s a spark again when you touch and you hesitate, feeling the well of his magic there. It hums in him, a thunderhead of power and fire. He sees your expressions and softens. “You can’t hurt me.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Baby, I just fucked you until you blacked out, and you know what you didn’t do?” Your brows pull together and he smiles. “You didn’t pull an ounce of my magic from me. I think you’re a lot better at control than you think you are.”

Licking your lips, you nod and let him pull you from bed. You are good at control. You had to be after your sister. It’s something you’ve practiced nonstop, the unconscious control of your desire for magic. Even when you sleep, you wake up often, fearful of losing your grip on yourself while you slumber.

It hasn’t happened yet. And as Joshua leads you to the shower, you think… maybe it never will. Especially if the ritual goes right. Especially if you can get your magic back.

Perhaps for the first time since you were thirteen, you feel a sliver of hope. When you look at Joshua and you feel your heart stutter, you know that even without your magic, you’ve found something.

“Oh for the love of the land,” Jihoon groans when you appear in the basement of Joshua’s home. “Look at the two of you.”

Everyone swivels to look at you and Joshua, who are hand-in-hand. You freeze, pulling up short to take in the candle-lit room and the other men who are all looking at you with equal parts happiness and a little bit of amusement.

You shift from foot to foot and chew your lip. Suddenly you want to turn tail and run back up the stairs and away from the watchful eyes of your friends - of Joshua’s coven members. But Joshua holds your hand tight, tugging you down the rest of the stairs into the gloom of the room.

Perhaps gloom isn’t the right word. The room is much too warm and smells of sage and thyme, a good feeling if not a little overwhelming. Outside this house, there is an entire festival going on at the park. The covenstead witches were furious when Joshua let them know that he and his members would not be participating this year, as they had private matters to attend to.

It’s common for covens to use the holiday for something specific. Perhaps to bless a witch in need, or to strengthen a spell, or to defeat some evil. You remember that night that your parents left you alone for Beltane duties to fight and remove Dissenters, and how that turned out for you.

Magic hums all around you. It’s in the sigils on the ceiling of Joshua’s sanctum and it’s in the ley lines that you can feel now more than ever as the veil between worlds thins. Each member of the coven has magic humming in their veins, a sort of signature taste and feel to it. You sense Jihoon’s deep shadows and Seungcheol’s vibrant green, taste Jeonghan’s clean water and feel Junhui’s pure air. Minghao and Joshua are the flickering flame that fills the room with light and heat, and Chan’s crackling storm greets you in the corner.

It’s hard to imagine where you fit in with them. But they don’t have a blood witch, who is all of these things wrapped into one. You know that they support you. All of you have gone over the ritual what feels like a hundred times at this point, perfecting it and making sure you know it inside and out.

The two rituals are wildly different. One to seek and find the source of your pain, led by Jihoon and Junhui. Jihoon’s shadows and connection to the other side will help seek answers and provide clarity on whatever signs and hints come through the vision you’re supposed to have, and Junhui’s strength with air will help keep you protected and clear of any negative energy.

Then, a small spell to build a bridge between the two rituals that Seungcheol will handle with Jeonghan. Seungcheol has it down to a science and has previously used it to link spells, and his affinity for earth will ground the entire circle. Jeonghan’s skill with water is to help guide you from ritual to ritual with ease and clarity.

It’s the second half of the ritual that’s the most demanding, which is why it’s Minghao and Chan conducting the destructive half, breaking whatever stands between you and your magic. Two warriors meant to sever your block or the target of your curse, whichever it may be.

And it’s possible that you’re cursed. You have briefly spoken about what that means. About what to do. It will most likely mean something damaging and life-threatening for whoever did curse you, if you forcefully try to shatter it instead of finding the cause.

But there’s also potential for you to be harmed if the two of them try to break it and it’s too strong. It’s a risk that you have to assess in the moment, which is terrifying. You want to do it anyway, and you’re happy to find that they support you. That they’re there for you.

Coven members already, really.

All of them are dressed to perform a ritual. Dark robes, anointed element symbols in dark ash on their brows. Jihoon has a small circlet around his head, making you pause and tilt your head as you glance at Joshua. He sees your confusion and smiles. “Jihoon is our high priest tonight,” he murmurs. “He will start and end the circle so I can be here with you.”

Jihoon is blushing and looking up at the ceiling when you turn back to him. For him to step up and hold the circle as the beginning and end is a huge risk on him. He’ll be providing the most magic and taking on the most risk second only to you, all so that Joshua can move freer and have more control.

“Jihoon is a very powerful witch, as you know,” Joshua murmurs, steering you to the center of the room. “He holds circles for a lot of our rituals when we feel he’s better suited.”

“Which is often,” Jihoon mutters at the ceiling where he keeps his gaze.

“Yah, shut up, hag. Everyone get in their places.”

Joshua puts you in the very center of the room. There is a pentagram chalked in powder, but there is no glow to it, no light to signal that it’s being used. He squeezes your shoulders and you look at him, wide eyed and afraid. His smile is warm and a little nervous, but he leans in and kisses you once.

“Trust us,” he says. “This will be hard on you. But we’ve got you.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t break the circle,” he reminds you. “If you have to break, do it when Seungcheol is at the middle part and before we start the second ritual. He will open the circle a little, but it’ll be just for a moment before the second is started and locked.”

“Right. Ten second escape if I need to.”

“You only have that window if we need to stop. Once we start the second, there is no stopping until the full ritual is complete.”

“Got it.”

“Good luck,” Joshua whispers and kisses you on the brow. “I’ll be right here.”

With a deep breath, he steps to the side and grasps your hand. The two of you stand alone in the middle, you and your anchor. Silence settles over the room. You haven’t been in the middle of a circle since you were a little girl receiving her first welcome into the coven. You had done that with your sister by your side and your mother at the head of the circle.

Now, you’re with Joshua, with Jihoon at the head of the circle. Jihoon doesn’t really make eye contact with you, but you sense his calming aura even from where he stands at the first point of the circle. He rolls his shoulders and closes his eyes, lifting his palms upward. “I stand at north, the beginning and end, start this circle, spirit ascend.”

You feel the ripple of magic in the room. Fire crackles at Jihoon’s feet, making you flinch. You watch as the red flames lick toward Junhui, who is quick and light as he murmurs, “I stand northeast, to cleanse and protect, continue the circle, spirit to the next.”

You watch the flame as it sparks to life, moving clockwise around the room. Every time a member joins the circle, you feel the power thrum through the room, the pentagram beneath your feet beginning to glow. The flame comes all the way back around to Jihoon and he closes it, eyes opening and looking right at you.

Jihoon looks different than before, eyes shadowed and full of stars. “Begin,” he commands, voice like a thousand whispers.

A little spike of fear goes through you as Junhui begins to chant. You recognize the Latin immediately but your unpracticed ears lose trace of the meaning. It’s picked up slowly in the room and you feel your palms slick with sweat as the light of the pentagram pulses beneath your feet, the flames flickering around the feet of the coven members.

Jihoon’s voice picks up the chant like you’ve never heard him before. It’s uncanny and you lean into Joshua, who squeezes your hand and looks down at you.

“It’s okay,” he whispers. “This happens when he leads a circle. Veil is thin.”

Nodding your head, you turn to the front again, feeling the itch to pull power from the circle, to draw their magic into you. There’s so much of it filling the room, an open tap of water spilling into the sink. You dig your teeth into your bottom lip, worried that you won’t be able to resist, worried that you’re going to pull from the magic and-

A wave of dizziness hits you. You gasp and bend over, hand circling your middle as though you’ve just been punched. Joshua’s hands are on your back but you can’t hear him, a high-pitched ringing drowning out the sound of his voice. For a second, you’re lost in the sensation of having the air sucked from your lungs and the whine in your ears getting higher and higher.

Just when you think that your ear drums will burst, the ringing stops. There is a hushed whisper filling your ears and you still can’t catch your breath. The room spins a little and when you look up expecting to see Jihoon, all you see is dark trees and a blurry shadowy… building. Something.

The whispers creep up on you. There are so many of them, hundreds - no, thousands - of voices brushing against you, dragging their fingers along your skin, touching you, hissing, singing, screaming. It’s like nothing you’ve ever experienced and their words are jumbled, sliding over one another.

Terror begins to claw at you. You try to remain calm, remembering that these are not the voices of spirits or something evil. Junhui is commanding this ritual, an element of purity and guidance. He won’t let anything bad happen to you.

With faith in your future coven member, you try to focus on the voices. Try to decode them. Seungcheol warned you that the messaging might be confusing. That you might not follow or understand what it’s saying. Symbols, images, key words. You need to reach for anything that seems like something, that can point to the origin of your block and follow it.

Jihoon’s presence presses at the back of your mind. It startles you at first, to feel who you know is innately Jihoon. You follow the press of whatever he’s doing and you catch a few words that fly by you: little hut little hut. Little hut little hut. Little hut little hut.

Unsure what it means, you cling to that. Little hut. It means something… you remember something about it. Jihoon’s presence fades away, satisfied that you’ve picked up on whatever it is he sees or senses.

Flipping through memories, you try to remember why a hut might mean anything to you. There were no huts by your town… nothing that you can remember no one you know of.

Little hut, little hut.

One memory sticks with you. Your sister playing in the background, hopscotching to a little tune that Mila down the street whispered to her about a witch in the woods.

Little hut, little hut

Hidden in the wood

Little hut, little hut

Up to no good

Yes, you think. A rhyme about a witch who lived in the woods. More thing than witch, really. A shadowy being that took the shape of a hut, a creature of magic and curses that could be found in the darkest part of the woods when the veil is thin.

Little hut, little hut

Alone in the gloom

Little hut, little hut

Silent as a tomb

You see it now. The blurry shape of a house that’s not really a house. The witch in the wood was a blood witch once, it was said. A witch who had long since dissented and practiced arcane magic, following a path that led her here. That led her to this. A thing of the woods.

It occurs to you the weight of the appearance of her. This hut in the woods. Jihoon’s flippant remark about you being cursed is suddenly real.

Dread drops down in your stomach like a weight. You can’t hear anything beyond the rhyme, the chant to find the witch of the woods. You’re cursed, you realize. All the fear that your condition was self-inflicted, that it was your fault, that this was something you did.

This is something that happened to you, Joshua had said.

And he was right. Someone cursed you - did this to you. A child.

Out there in the world, there is someone responsible for the death of your sister. Someone who took your magic, who turned you into a leech. The reason for your family's pain, the reason for them throwing you away. For your father and mother being driven mad, for the town turning against you.

You think about the rock that hit you just days ago. Thrown by a child taught to hate you. Taught that it was okay to hurt you because it was you. The town siphoner. A witch who couldn’t make her own magic, a parasite.

Anger wells up inside of you and you latch onto the rhyme swirling around your head, clawing through it. This is the thread you must follow to find your curse giver. This is the clue.

Little hut, little hut

Across the dark stream

Little hut, little hut

Wait for the scream

Dully, you are aware that Joshua is next to you. You see him from the corner of your eye but it’s not Joshua at all. Well - not as you now know him. This Joshua is younger - a teenager by the looks of it. He’s not doing anything except staring out into the darkness. He fades in and out like a bad TV picture, glitching and blurring. But you know it’s him.

His face is different though. Twisted in grief and pain, a frozen picture of angst. You imagine this is what you looked like when your sister died, a tableau of hurt and hate.

Little hut, little hut

I call to thee

Little hut, little hut

Come to me

The Joshua in front of you fades away. You reach out for him but your hands cut through empty air and darkness. He’s not really there and you have a hard time grasping the meaning of this. The voice sounds almost like Joshua but not quite. Not as mature.

Young Joshua doesn’t show up again. You can feel the real Joshua somewhere in the mess of the vision and the darkness, but you can’t hear him. Can’t see him. There is only the omnipresent darkness of the hut and the whispers of voices.

Little hut, little hut

Hear my strife

Little hut, little hut

Ruin this life

There’s a flash of lightning. A storm in the darkness, splashes of purple and blue electricity. You cover your eyes as you hear thunder, low and soft somewhere. Across from you, your sister appears. She’s a fraternal twin who looks nothing like you except in the eyes. Your eyes look right back at you.

She’s the same age she was when she died. When you took her magic away. When you were cursed. She looks the same age as the apparition of Joshua, and you try to understand. To make the connection from what you're seeing as the lightning lances again like it did that fateful night.

The rhyme keeps circling in a hurricane of whispers.

As the ritual comes to a close, the vision begins to fade. You’re no better off than where you started and in a panic, you reach for the vision of your sister. You just want to hold her one last time, to feel the warmth of her skin.

But she isn’t real and she fades as Junhui’s chanting falls to a murmur and then to a whisper, the air returning to normal. You can breathe again, and as you look up from where you’re bent over, you see Joshua kneeling on the ground in front of you, holding you by the shoulders. His face is swimming with fear and concern, gaze searching.

Joshua looks so much like his younger self. He’s matured into his face and is a handsome man, but he was a cute teenager. His face now is full of love and concern, but you think about his face in your vision. Twisted in pain and years.

Little hut, little hut

Hear my strife

Little hut, little hut

Ruin this life

You straighten up suddenly, knocking him over on his ass as you do so. It feels like you’ve been slapped as you stare at him, a sudden buzz in your ears as you stare and stare and stare. The ritual comes to an end and Seungcheol opens the circle - a foot in the door, more like - and begins to start his spell for Minghao and Chan to weave the new ritual into the circle.

Without thinking about it, you dash for the edge of the circle. Joshua yells but you’re fast, surging between Seungcheol and Jeonghan where the door exists. Seungcheol’s head snaps to look at you, eyes wide and mouth open.

“Close it and close the circle,” you pant.

“I-”

“Close the fucking circle!”

All eyes turn to you. They hesitate for a moment, the flames around them wavering. You can feel the power licking at their heels and something like rage shudders through you. You don’t know where to channel it yet and you begin to pace as Seungcheol recloses the circle and turns to Jihoon.

Slowly, Jihoon begins to finish the ritual. They work backward from Jihoon to Chan to Minghao to Jeonghan. You don’t look at them, wringing your hands as you pace back and forth, heart reaching a wild beat.

Images fly by. The hut, the whispers, Joshua’s face, the thunderstorm, your sister.

The narrative isn’t straightforward. You don’t quite understand the rhyme, or its function, but the second half sounds bad, sounds perhaps like a plea. A bargain. A need for a curse. You recall the thunderstorm on the night of Beltane, the way your sister watched with wide eyes while you sought her out. You think of Joshua’s affinity for fire and storms, the way he can command thunder just by being upset. You think of his face, so full of pain and hate.

Finally, they finish the circle. Joshua rushes to you, hands outstretched and a question on his mouth but you jerk away from him.

“Did you curse someone?” you demand, making him pull up short. He opens and closes his mouth. The silence in the room is deafening. You can hear your own heartbeat, pulse throbbing in your ears. “Joshua, did you curse someone?”

“I… what does that have to do with-”

“Little hut, little hut. Hear my strife. Little hut, little hut. Ruin this life.”

Three things happen then. The first is Joshua’s confusion as he shakes his head, lost as to why you’re repeating a rhyme back to him. Then a flicker of memory followed by the drain of color on his face. He straightens up, blanched and shakes his head back and forth as he takes a step away from you.

“No,” he says and takes another step back. “That’s not right, I didn’t curse you.”

“What did you do?”

“I didn’t curse you,” he says again. He seems lost in it though, like he’s saying it to himself. Jihoon takes a step toward Joshua and he holds out a hand, warding Jihoon off. “I cursed the witches responsible for killing my parents. I didn’t curse you.”

“You cursed someone?” Minghao hisses from across the circle. “And you never thought to mention it in preparation for this?”

“Shut up, Minghao,” Joshua snaps. “I didn’t curse her. I did go into the woods that night to find the hut witch and I cursed the people responsible for killing my parents. I didn’t even know you then.”

“Did you give a name? What did you say?”

“I didn’t know their names!” He answers, frantic and looking at you pleadingly. “I didn’t - no. I remember it, I shared my blood with her, to show the memory. I saw their faces, but I didn’t know their names. We were -” his voice cracks and he clutches his hands against his chest, tears in his eyes. “I was so afraid when they came. We’d been going from town to town, trying to get away. My parents wanted to go back home, overseas. We just had to get there and then these witches, they came and blew down the door and they killed them.”

“So you cursed them based on a memory?”

“Yes,” he insists. “Baby, I didn’t curse you. How could I? How would I?”

Little hut, little hut

Hear my strife

Little hut, little hut

Ruin this life

“Joshua.” You say his full name, voice ringing and calmer than you feel. Your stomach is in knots and you feel your mouth water, hinting at the nausea working its way up your throat. “Did you ask the blood witch in the hut to ruin the lives of the witches who killed your parents?”

“Yes.”

“Were your parents Dissenters killed on the night of Beltane?”

A long stretch of silence takes up the space between you. You stare at Joshua and he becomes a stranger. Become another person on the street that looks at you with hate. Another face in the dozens of the town who don’t care if you exist.

When Joshua says nothing, it means everything. The final piece of information slots its way in and you feel like you’re going to crack open like an egg and spill out. Gooey and yolk-yellow.

“That was why there was a storm,” you whisper. “Because you were angry and upset, wherever it was that you were. And you cursed my family. Not my parents. Our entire family. That’s why I lost my magic and siphoned my sister to death. That’s why my parents were driven to madness and their eventual end. It’s why everyone hates me. You cursed me with ruin.”

“I…” Joshua shakes his head but can’t make the words come out.

There is no way out now. You get everything picture perfect for the first time. It’s the perfect curse, really. Driving your family to ruin in different ways. Pushing you, the final member of the family, to the person you would eventually fall in love with, to the person that cursed you.

You turn and run. He tries to run after you but someone stops him. He has his coven to comfort him for what he’s done and you have nothing and no one. Just how you started.

Your runaway is messy. Tripping over thresholds, slipping down stairs. Night stretches over the world and the air is thrumming with energy. You think it would be so easy to tap into, to take and take and take the magic around you that echoes from the Beltane festivals. Would anyone even notice if you took a little?

Still, you don’t. Hot tears blind you as you stumble into the woods behind Joshua’s house. It’s not the best shortcut when you’re distraught and overcome with tears, but you think you can get to your apartment building by memory alone.

Around you, the world grows darker and quieter. Eventually, all you can hear is your ragged breathing and sniffling as the tears freefall. Something prickles on your skin and you slow your tangled escape to look around you.

The woods are unfamiliar. At least, they seem darker and hazier, like you’re somewhere that looks like the woods behind Joshua’s house but isn't quite right. You’re more careful as you move forward, one foot in front of the other.

A breeze cools the back of your neck. It makes you shiver, feeling more like a finger running down your spine than the actual wind. A whisper of noise wisps by you and you stop, frowning. Trying to grasp the words as they float by, indiscernible.

You start walking again, following the sound of a voice that is always just a little too far ahead. A little too soft spoken for you to make out the words. When you do manage to catch up, you hear a soft little rhyme.

Little hut, little hut

Hidden in the wood

Little hut, little hut

Up to no good

Little hut, little hut

Alone in the gloom

Little hut, little hut

Silent as a tomb

Little hut, little hut

Across the dark stream

Little hut, little hut

Wait for the scream

Something like a high-pitched wail rings out behind you. Your limbs lock and goosebumps explode over your arms and legs as you slowly crane your neck to look in the direction that you came. There’s no clear path, just tangled trees and darkness.

A soft buzz tingles along your skin. You sense the magic, static that you can’t hear but you can feel and taste on your tongue. Slowly, you turn back to face the direction you’re walking. There is a tiny little stream in front of you, trickling and black.

Carefully, you step over it. Your hands quake. Sweat gathers on the nape of your neck and your upper lip, your mouth trembling as you see the vague shape of a hut. Or perhaps it's just the idea of a hut, with a hole for a door that looks endless. Void. Dark.

You think about your sister. See her face swimming in front of you, so full of life. Then it drains of color as you bleed her dry and steal everything from her. Every drop, turning her from a beautiful girl full of the sun and the sky into a husk.

You clench your fists.

Vengeance can’t bring her back. Vengeance can’t make them love you. But it can take away this fucking hurt inside of you, the pain that you have carried for so long that it feels like a wound that will never close. So you decide to take a page out of Joshua’s book.

“Little hut, little hut,” you whisper, voice shaking. “Feel my ache. Little hut, little hut, make him break.”

TAG LIST:

@ddaddunugu @ourkivee @tie-nn @thesunsfullmoon @stray-bi-kids @ldysmfrst @thepoopdokyeomtouched @eoieopda @onlywon4u @hopeless-foolery @iamawkwardandshy @gyuguys @codeinebelle @ateez-atiny380 @bultaereume @yoongznme @kaitieskidmore97 @coffee-addict-kitten @gyubakeries @archivistworld @asyre @kaepjjangiya @fancypeacepersonaa @beckyloveshannie @imujings @do-you-remember-summer-127 @jbluen @mingumis @kimsaerom @imlonelydontsendhelp @eunyi @smiileflower @gyuhao365 @thefrozeneternity @heechwe

#joshua smut #joshua hong smut #hong joshua smut #svt smut #joshua angst #joshua x you #joshua x reader #svt x reader #svt x you #joshua fanfic #joshua hong fanfic

366 notes · View notes

love-and-war-on-cybertron · 5 months ago

Text

Teach a bot to Kiss: Metroplex

Shout out to my friend TBean for sending me a Hal900 fic that clearly inspired me. I also made a little reference to a First aid x Metroplex fic that I read awhile ago. If anyone knows of it, Please link me ToT

Metroplex loves when you read aloud to him. It could be a lonely experience as a living city, often forgotten by its residents. It had been no surprise when the news of first contact reached Metroplex, and he requested to meet one of these humans. Being brought into a city, only to be told the city is who wanted to meet you had been an eye opener to just how big Cybertronians could be.

Introducing yourself to a nearly empty room had felt odd and Scamper, an extension of Metroplex, had been offered as a way to adjust. The autonomous troops had made the transition easy once you understood they were simultaneously separate and connected to the Titan. The giant of few words surprised his fellow Autobots with how chatty he was with you. Requests from both of you for visits were frequent, leading to your placement as Ambassador to him and the bots that resided within. Now you lived inside him, and reminded yourself not to word it like that cause it sounded wrong on so many levels.

Friendship blossomed into a crush on what was essentially a faceless living city. Sure, other bots told you he could transform and indeed had a face, but it was very unlikely you would ever see it. The Titan typically remaining dormant. How could you explain to other humans how long conversations about history and reading aloud led to such feelings. Perhaps Cybertronians would better understand. Or not. You keep this crush to yourself, content in being an ambassador. Between you and the Titan, Ambassador was just a fancy way to say friend.

The command center-like space was empty save for you and some observation drones. His brain took up the middle of the room, surrounded by different panels and screens. Some for communication, some for... you weren't going to try and guess. It was a place you were commonly found, performing "ambassador duties". Sitting on one of these empty panels and speaking or like today, reading to him. Metroplex would sometimes interrupt, asking you to explain a concept or word that did not translate well.

"My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand. To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss." You pause to take a breath and Metroplex interrupts.

"What is a kiss?" The voice has no origin, but you can feel it around you. that had taken more time than the rest to get used to. Voices from nowhere.

Explaining things very rarely gave you reason to pause, but this time you hold the open book to your mouth, thinking, feeling cheeks warm as you stall.

"A kiss is a form of affection. Pressing lips together. Like a hug of the mouths." Hugging had been something you explained somewhat recently after he witnessed you and another human hug in greeting. The fact these being, so similar in the value of relationships and connections, had such different ways of expressing it. His auto-troop, Scramble, stood in as a body to demonstrate a hug, and was promptly put to use hugging other autobots. The troops often hugged you when bumping into each other around the Titan's internal routes. You were never sure if it was their own actions or his. Not that you minded. They were always careful with you.

Metroplex often asked for demonstrations, so it was no surprise when the voice, almost timidly, asks for a demonstration of a kiss. Six-gun was nearby, seemingly on standby. Waiting for your answer. Calling out to the bot, he steps closer and kneels to your level. Six-Gun had a permanent battle mask, so you think for a moment.

"Well… Something acceptable between friends is a cheek kiss. In some cultures it is even a common greeting." A small peck to the side of his battle mask. Taking a few steps, you kiss the other side. It felt like kissing a friend.

The visor of Six-Gun lights up, "Well hello to you too!" The extension of Metroplex bumps his battle mask into you gently. A mimicry of your own greeting kiss. You give a smile, and a pat to his face before he moves off again. A quick simple lesson.

"You know Metroplex, I don't feel like I gave you a kiss." You comment as you sit back down, grabbing the book. It was a thought that slipped out.

"Please elaborate."

"It didn't feel like I gave you a kiss. It felt like I kissed Six-gun," Tapping your fingers on the book, rereading the line that made him ask. "I'm not sure where I could even give you a kiss unless you transform." You tried to picture how big he would be. First aid had once told you he was able to stand on the glass over the Titans optics. You would be ant sized!

"The main panel beside you." He speaks after a moment of thought.

You glance over and see a panel that differs from the others. It had never stood out to you before, full of the same buttons and lights everywhere, save for the large one in the center.

"it is a direct interface." He explains, sensing your questioning, "Typically used by my Autonomous troops and drones. Sometimes city speakers."

You slip down from your perch and onto the one indicated. Metroplex speaks again, the lights blinking in time with his words, "I am unsure how to better explain it, but similar to how I see and feel your movements inside of me, but with direct touch with the center."

"I see." Stepping carefully around the smaller lights and buttons, you make way to that center light and kneel in front of it. It pulsates steadily. Placing your hand on it causes the light to ripple. A warmth spreads upwards, the hairs on your arm sticking up.

"I feel you." His voice sounds closer, yet there is still no specific source. "Can you feel me?"

A pulse of light, a pulse of sensation up your arm. Barely there, like a spider crawling up. He was reaching back.

"I think so. Yes, yes I can feel you Metroplex." A sense of giddiness takes over you. You had interreacted with him through various proxies, but this was direct. As face to face as you thought you could be. "I feel you Metroplex."

The pulsing quickens. "I feel you."

The smile can't be helped. Neither can the giggling. "Hello friend."

"Hello friend."

You deduce that it is a sort of feedback loop, or connection. You can feel the edges of his mind. The pleasant curiosity he feels getting to observe you a new way, the glimmer of comfort he feels with you near. Would it be stronger if you were Cybertronian?

Could he feel how you felt about him?

"You are distressed." He states, as if reading your mind, "If it distresses you to kiss me, do not feel obligated."

The way Metroplex says it makes you laugh, "I don't feel obligated. I worry cause-" You run your palm across the glass, watching light follow the motion, "- I shouldn't kiss you. Not without telling you some things." He is silent, waiting for you to continue. "I like you MP."

"I enjoy your presence as well."

"More than friends Metro," You knew that Cybertronians had relationships and love in their own way, "I shouldn't kiss you when I feel this way. Not unless you want to."

"I do want to."

"I mean, feel the same way as me."

"I enjoy your presence greatly, y/n."

The light pulses quickly, and you look up at his brain. It's light, not a solid grasp but you feel it through the connection. A great affection, like a blossom. A reflection of your own heart.

"Oh. Oh!" It's followed by more giddiness as you lean closer. The pulsing quickens, like your own heart beat. Lips against the warm glass. Like the cheek kiss you gave Six-shot. A single chaste peck that leaves a slight smudge. You rub it away with your thumb, watching the light ripple from your touch. His own pulse is slower now.

"May I have another?"

Smiling, hands sliding over the glass, your kiss him again. Slower press of your lips. Followed by a burst of joy, your own and his. Tremors make you pull away, thinking your own excitement was the cause.

It was Metroplex.

His frame shaking, nothing violent, but very notable. Comms started going off, asking the Titan what was going on and if he was okay. You feel his embarrassment, replying to each one and sending out the all clear. You can't resist pressing another kiss to the panel.

#not a lot of actual kissing in this but more plot i suppose #metroplex x reader #metroplex x human #transformers x reader #transformers x human #i love metroplex so much but he's a big boy and you are tiny gotta kiss what you can #teach a bot to kiss

242 notes · View notes

kisseobie · 7 months ago

Text

day 5 of piwontober 24’ ✶ “wine pon you”

prompt: food play/biting/marks/drunk sex with hwang intak

pairings: intak x reader

warnings: nsfw (mdni), sex under the influence, dubious consent

word count: 5.1k

tags: alcohol use (only intak is drunk), clubbing, biting and marking, drunk sex, one night stand, stripper reader, smoking, infatuation, brief mentions of vomit, intak is whipped as hell lmaoo, rizztak 🙈, giggly sex, no attachment, pov switches, blowjob, vaginal penetration

a/n: hi everyone <3 i wasn’t expecting to take this prompt so i’m sorry if this sucks but hehe first kisseobie piwontober 24’ fic 💟 loveeeee me some sleazy intak so i hope u all enjoy! i didn’t use the foodplay prompt btw lol not my thing unfortunately..

sorry for posting so late by the way! :( i hope the unusually long length makes up for it :3

full piwontober 24’ masterlist here ❤︎ ིུ͠*:·.

buzzed bodies and a powdery scent of pungent perfume, it’s nothing out of the ordinary for intak, comforting even. he wouldn’t necessarily call himself addicted, but his feet drag him down a couple of blocks to the same strip joint more often than the man would like to admit. the establishment isn’t stellar in any means, nothing to write home about. the selections of liquor are not to intak’s liking, the rainbow lights flicker in a manner that’s almost nauseating, and the dj can’t bump a track for shit.

intak knows that an intense infatuation with a certain stripper isn’t necessarily something applaudable, and if anything, his roommate jiung would laugh his ass off at the revelation, but he can’t find it in himself to really care. not when you take the stage, chunky heels clacking against the shiny floor, bedazzled top hit with a beam of white light, cascading diamond-like forms across the walls. intak watches your every twist and turn so intensely, like the show was specifically crafted for his eyes only, a personal love letter addressed to hwang intak—signed xoxo, y/n.

intak watches as you slide effortlessly against the metal pole, the cool rod leaving a trail of goosebumps on the surface of your smooth skin. he likes that about you, that despite the fact that you’re just a mere fantasy for him, you’re human—something real. it presents itself in different ways, he’s been coming here long enough to notice the way your muscles sometimes tremble in exertion during a particularly difficult move, or how you subtly tuck away stray pieces of pretty hair that stick to the gloss on your lips. he notices it all. he wonders if you notice him too.

your dance routine ends and intak finds himself plopped on a lonely barstool, downing some bottom shelf bourbon—nothing out of his typical routine here, really. he can feel the blaring music, the thumping of the beat coursing through his entire being, only aided by the incessant hollers of drunk partygoers. it however, does nothing to distract his thoughts from you—pretty skin, pretty hair, pretty teeth, and a nice set of tits too. the man feels like a pervert, coming to the same shit club every weekend to get a glimpse of his sweetheart, the dreamy girl that most likely doesn’t give a damn about him. intak sighs, and then takes another swig.

“pretty boy is here again. sat right up at the front, probably trying to take a sniff at your panties or somethin’.”

“stop that. he seems nice.” you shoot back, but only snickers from the girls in the locker room follow. they think you’ve got some weird situationship going with the guy, you suppose.

you were aware of the mystery boy of course, he watched your every show without fail, drank his bodyweight at the bar, and ended the night by clumsily wobbling out of the club, only to come back the next weekend and follow the same tired routine. he is a pretty boy, you’ll give him that. dark eyes that twinkle ever so slightly, a lopsided grin permanently etched on his face when he watches you dance, lean body that accentuates his height well.

despite the fact that he’s charming, you don’t miss the way he adjusts his pants when you’re on stage, or how he sometimes leaves to the bathroom after you’ve finished, presumably to relieve the obvious tent in his pants when you roll your hips against the pole just right. he’s just another sleaze, a pretty one maybe, but a sleaze nonetheless. you sure aren’t fooled, even if his dedication to your performances is intriguing.

“hey y/n, if you don’t want him, i’ll take him. he looks pent up, the poor guy.” your coworker jokes, but you pay no mind to the teasing. you have a show to put on, whether the pretty boy watches or not.

meaningless conversation ends and you situate yourself on top of the dirty dressing room bench, slipping on your heels, a dazzling crimson red and eight inches tall. opting for no tights today, you examine how the shoe emphasizes the length of your shaved legs—in other words, you know you’re gonna make a few extra tips tonight. your mouth waters at the thought of buying yourself a nice breakfast in the morning, maybe a stack of blueberry pancakes with extra whipped cream?

after some waiting backstage, the club’s owner, a pudgy old man you’ve never quite gotten along with, announces your name with a cheesy slogan. a few men hoot and holler, clearly ready to eye you down like a fresh piece of meat for their tasting. the lights dim as the velvet cheetah-printed drapes part to reveal you in all your glory, dressed to the nines, even if the clothing you adorn is sparse. the music cues, and you walk, letting the crowd drink you in like a tall glass of wine. as you strut to the beat with a shimmery smile, you unconsciously scan the audience, eyes honing in on one man in particular. he’s here, of course he is, staring at you as if you hung the stars for him, and you might as well have, judging from the gobsmacked look on his face. you shoot him a sly wink before turning to the pole, gyrating your hips against the metal before latching your legs onto the very material. it’s exhilarating as it is exhausting.

a few dozen twists and turns on the rod later, your practiced routine finally comes to a close. the cheers are loud, they always are. you collect tips from wrinkly hands, blowing kisses and shooting winks at all sorts of men—married, recently divorced, rich, poor—it doesn’t matter to you, you aren’t one to judge. when you’re done collecting dollar bills and desperate notes with numbers scribbled across, your vision catches pretty boy making his way to the bar, greeting theo, the bartender always on night duty, like an old time friend.

“you come here often?” intak teases at taeyang, who stares back at him with his arms crossed, visibly unamused. the man gives it to intak straight, an admirable quality for sure, though some may call him too blunt for his own good. your show ended a few hours ago, and intak’s been perched on this very stool, drinking glass after glass, hoping it’ll clear his thoughts that seem to only focus on you.

“don’t you think you’ve had enough to drink? you look like shit. if you puke on my countertop you’re cleaning that shit up yourself.” theo scolds, but there’s no malice in his tone, a little bit of disinterest and concern maybe, but no malice. intak lazily raises his hand in the air with his head down, a nonverbal way of saying “i know, i’m gonna get going.” that taeyang can read every time with ease. the man with shoulder-length hair audibly sighs.

“she’s nothing but a fantasy man, let it go. you come here every weekend just to sit and watch a girl out of your reach. it’s getting pathetic.”

intak winces at the harsh words, but smiles nonetheless. he gets up with some effort and pulls a few crinkled twenties out of his pocket, slapping them on the table in between them with a, “always a pleasure talking to you, theo”. taeyang scoffs, grabbing the bills to place them in the register. “yeah yeah, get home safe.”

intak stumbles out of the stuffy club with a headache, already dreading the inevitable hangover he’ll have in the morning. he waves his arm around aimlessly, hoping to signal a taxi, eyes wandering around the street in boredom until they catch onto a familiar figure sat on the hood of a car. you’re wearing a fuzzy long coat, shielding you from the cold of the night as you cup your hand around a lighter. intak watches you take a deep drag from a lit cigarette, blowing the swirly smoke into the autumn air with an indifferent expression on your face. your hair blows in the wind, but you pay no mind to it, seemingly lost in thought. intak rubs at his eyes with closed fists to be sure you aren’t a figment of his imagination—he’s never seen you away from the limited space of the stage.

before he can talk himself out of it, the boy crosses the street, hands in his pockets as he takes slow, hesitant steps towards you. you’re even prettier like this, intak thinks, not faking a smile for some fast cash, wrapped up in a big coat that makes you look so incredibly small, scrolling on your outdated phone with sleepy eyes. he’s never seen someone so beautiful.

“hey.” are his first words directed at you, a little lame but they grab your attention nonetheless. you jump at his voice, clearly not expecting to entertain a conversation this late at night. intak waits awkwardly as you scan him from head to toe, a hint of what looks like recognization in your eyes. you give him a tight lipped smile, obviously nervous because of the sudden encounter. he can’t blame you, he supposes, not when you’re in this line of work. he probably isn’t the first man to approach you, and most definitely not the last either.

“hi?” is how you answer, hesitant but oh so curious. he’s always been a wallflower from what you know, watching from a distance but never one to approach. the change in routine is certainly sparking your interest, and you wait with bated breath for him to come clean, to reveal his true intentions towards you, good or bad.

“i’ve seen you dance a few times. you’re really good.” intak sheepishly admits, scratching the back of his neck all shy, as if he hadn’t watched you dry hump the floor half naked earlier. his timidness is frankly a bit refreshing, usually an attendee of one of your shows would have tried to get in your pants by now.

“thank you. i’ve seen you in the crowd, y’know. you never tip me, so i can’t be all that good, can i?” you tease, but the question does hold some truth in it. he hasn’t tipped you a single dollar since stepping in the club for the first time, another useless observation of yours.

“sorry.” he blurts out, cheeks red with embarrassment, like a kid who got caught stealing out of the family cookie jar. you hold back a snort at his flustered expression, you were merely teasing the boy. no hard feelings. “it’s all good. a bit curious as to why you come to see me every weekend though. or maybe you’re just here for the drinks, who knows.”

intak laughs at that. “when all the club supplies is whiteclaws and cheap bourbon? i could get better drinks at the supermarket.”

“well you’re right about that,” y/n affirms with a giggle. “so then, what is it? what draws you here every weekend, pretty boy?” you know the answer, but you’d like to hear it straight from the source. it’s more fun that way.

intak sighs, and then reaches his arm out to shake hands, to which you raise an eyebrow, but accept the kind embrace anyways. his hands are warm, a bit sweaty too. he sports no rings, and his fingers are a bit calloused, it makes you wonder what the guy does for work—welding, maybe?

“i’m intak.” a beat passes. you smile, all teeth and gums, and shake his hand in return.

“y/n. it’s nice to meet you, intak.”

intak’s room is warm, a welcomed contrast to the depressing weather outside. not the cleanest living space, with socks hanging from drawers and far too many lopsided posters pasted onto his walls, but strangely enough, it’s comforting. before now, hwang intak to you was always a man of great mystery, but his cluttered apartment humanizes him. there are a few framed photos propped up on his messy desk, old ones, showcasing intak as a young boy, smiley as ever with his arms draped over various shoulders of people you don’t quite recognize. he’s got some little notes written on the glass frames as well, one in particular catching your eye, a scribbled “my first drink EVER! it tasted like shit!!”. it makes you smile, similar to how the sight of an excited puppy playing fetch would.

as you snoop around intak’s bedroom, your thoughts start to wander to earlier tonight, when you took the stage and locked eyes with the man whose very space you’re currently occupying. his legs spread, chest puffed, jaw slack as he watched you perform with a needy look on his face, practically eye-fucking you across the dim room. it should have disgusted you, it definitely did with every other man who saw you as a mere object of their perverted desires, a sex symbol that they couldn’t live without. there was something different about the boy though, something that made you crave a single night with him. it’s why you accepted his offer to come over to his place with little to no deliberation, despite you swearing to yourself countless of times in the past that you’d never let a random man take you home.

intak’s currently in his bathroom, hyping himself up in front of his mirror as best as he can, fearful that he’ll screw this up and scare you away forever. he can be a bit clingy when intoxicated, sometimes sappy too—a fact that jiung can attest to. the boy would be absolutely mortified if his drunk tendencies landed him on the club’s hefty blacklist, so he takes a deep breath and gives himself an internal pep talk to loosen up: “intak, you’ve got this man. she wouldn’t have taken your offer to come over if she thought you were a weirdo. get back in there, bro.”

intak places a final kiss onto his flexed bicep as good luck, then cringes at himself before taking a deep inhale, brows furrowed in concentration. he walks out of the bathroom and opens his bedroom door, gasping aloud at the delicious sight he’s met with. you’re not wearing your coat anymore, nor your dancing heels, left very naked besides the crimson panties you wore for your earlier performance. your draped over his bed, leaning across the width of the mattress, supporting your weight with one hand planted firmly on intak’s bed, the other raised up to your line of sight as you examine your coffin nails before you take notice of intak’s presence. intak resists slapping himself across the face, not wanting to seem like even more of an idiot after you teased him just an hour ago for never tipping you during your shows. instead, he just stands and stares, gobsmacked at the view, you sat atop of his bed, perky tits out, nipples hard and waiting for his attention.

“you gonna stand there all night or..” is all you can manage to get out before the man takes fast strides towards you and pulls you into a desperate kiss. you moan into his mouth, tongue swiping against his, tasting nothing but bourbon and musk, the flavor provoking a throbbing heat to your core. his dominance seeped into the hot kiss, presenting itself in the way he grabbed at your cheeks roughly, how his tongue shoved itself in your mouth so sloppily, how his lips travelled to the nape of your neck, leaving bite marks in their wake. he was experienced for sure, and thank god for it, because the makeout sesh alone had your typically level-head clouded with yearning and lust.

without proper warning, intak’s calloused hands travelled to your boobs, the rough contact against your soft skin making you mewl. he groped at the flesh with eagerness, replacing his left hand with his tongue as he circled your bud with the wet muscle, flicking it with a deep groan. his mouth latched onto your left tit, suctioning the area with just the right amount of pressure. you let your hand slip into the tufts of his jet black hair, tugging at the strands every time intak bit at your skin. the boy maneuvered his head to give the same attention to your right boob, but not without replacing the left with his hand, his own spit thinly coating his palm as he squeezed.

a few minutes passed just like that, with intak worshipping your boobs like an artist intensely dedicated to their craft. the man unlatched his lips from your chest with a loud pop, placing a single kiss on each of your nipples before sitting back and admiring his work. your skin was now littered with red and purple marks, all from intak and none unwelcome. “pretty.” he remarks, staring at your tits like a man starved. the attention has you dripping, pussy weeping for contact, to which you subtly make an attempt at rubbing your thighs together to bring temporary relief to your aching cunt. intak takes notice of this, smirking at you, facial features sporting a knowing look.

“intak, wanna see you please.” you beg, craving to see what the man looks like underneath the thin layer of his clothes. “fuck, yeah, okay,” he responds, his voice breathless—all a result of you, only you. “it’s only fair i give you a show too, right?” he jokes, the lightheartedness soothing any nerves you may have had earlier. “right.” you affirm with a focused expression, before giggling back at him. intak steps a few feet away from his bed, eyes locked on yours as he cheekily pulls off his own coat. his black wife beater follows, giving you the liberty to drool at the view of his sculpted abs. your line of sight travels downwards, to where you can spot a prominent v-line, along with the beginning of a trail of pubic hair—not too long, but still present, not that you mind.

intak starts to tug at his belt buckle, but you’re quick to sit at the edge of the bed, feet tucked snug under your thighs as you replace his hands with your own. you free the boy from the tight constraints of his jeans, leaving him in only his boxer briefs. they’re red in color, almost matching the hue of your own underwear. you can spot the thick outline of his cock, already hard and practically slipping out of his briefs. there’s also a wet patch of precum oozing out of the elastic material, and you can’t stop yourself from drooling at the thought of tasting him.

before you free his girth out of its constraints, you leave a few sloppy kisses and kitten licks right on top of the cloth, his subdued scent and taste overtaking your senses. intak may be the only one under the influence, but you could get drunk just off of this, especially with the way the man bites his lip at your gentle contact, a strangled “fuck..” leaving his lips. you quit your teasing after a few more licks, pulling down intak’s underwear in one swift movement, almost immediately grabbing at his length with a closed fist and pumping at a steady pace. intak’s reaction is immediate, head thrown back with a loud groan, eyes momentarily rolled to the back of his skull as his hips buck upwards into your fist. you’ve barely done anything and the man already seems close to cumming—it’s as cute as it is dirty, the way he melts into your touch, so pliant and oh so desperate.

“y/n, let me fuck your face.” intak pleads, eyes as twinkly as ever. you reply by guiding his mushroom tip into your open mouth, slowly sinking your mouth onto his length as far as you can go. you look up at intak, mouth full of cock and tears threatening to spill from your lined waterline, silently giving the man a go at your throat. he wastes no time in thrusting into the heat, whimpering and swearing at the way you suction your lips. he speeds his hips to set a near animalistic pace, resulting in you spluttering on him as the force of his thrusts hit against the back of your throat. just as you’re about to tap out, pinch at intak’s thick thighs and catch your breath, salty seed slips into your mouth, coating your throat white. you pull off of him to cough and swallow, looking absolutely defiled in front of the man. for some reason, the fact doesn’t bother you one bit, instead, you only wish for him to rough you up some more, to give you his all, even if it’s just for a single night. even if come tomorrow morning, you’ll slip out of his blankets, leaving no signs that you were ever there.

intak hunches over your frame to capture your slick lips into a messy kiss for the nth time tonight. he can taste his ecstasy on your tongue, savoring the flavor far more enthusiastically than he would any drink served at your club. you loop your arms around his broad neck, pulling him closer and closer until you both are pressed flush against each other, with your back, a bit sweaty, meeting the soft fabric of his linen sheets. intak ruts his swollen, sensitive cock against your crotch, still shielded by your panties. despite the barrier of cloth, intak can feel how wet you are—he grins at that, knowing that he’s the one who’s making you all hot and bothered. he feels like he’s on top of the world, with the prettiest girl he’s ever seen, occupying his sheets and pleading for his touch.

“jesus babe, you’re soaked. all this for me?” intak muses aloud, obviously proud of himself at affecting you just as much as you’ve affected him. if he wasn’t so worried about first impressions, he’d pump his fist in the air.

“all for you takkie, now help me get rid of these panties already.” you demand, followed by a flirtatious wink that almost makes intak buckle at the knees. the man drops his head to where he has the perfect view of your crimson panties, contrasting beautifully against your shiny skin. red had always been his favorite color, after all. intak mimics your tactic on his cock from earlier, placing feather light kisses on your inner thighs, and eventually on your clothed mound, too. you whine at his teasing, but it’s only fair he returns the favor, isn’t it?

your scent is heaven on earth to him. delicate and strong at the same time, flowery musk coating his nostrils—it’s so irrevocably girl. the boy takes his sweet time inhaling your smell, completely ignoring your protests. you beg a little more, and always one to please, intak latches his teeth onto the waistband of the silk, tugging it off with his canines while looking you right in the eye. he’s so sexy like this, you think, in between your thighs, already pussy drunk, but slow enough in his movements so the pair of you can properly savor the moment. you appreciate his pace; it’s rare when a man doesn’t insist on sticking it in as soon as you’ve been undressed. intak is kinder than that.

his teeth continue to tug your panties down the length of your legs, until they slip off completely, leaving you completely bare are vulnerable. intak sweetly folds your panties and places them at the edge of the bed, knowing that they must have costed you a pretty penny, before shifting his unwavering attention to your sopping cunt. he stares for a bit, making you a bit shy to the point where you start to close up your legs, but intak is faster, prying them open with force. the dominance that he now exudes is salivating, and you wait, curious as to what his next move will be.

“pretty face, pretty hair, pretty tits, pretty pussy. how are you real?” intak questions you, but his deep eyes are still glued to your cunt, throbbing and calling out for his touch. light and gentle or hard and rough, it doesn’t matter anymore. you just want him, willing to take anything he’ll give you with obedience and a smile. it’s been too long since you’ve been worshipped like a goddess, rather than painted as prey for predator.

instead of intak touching you where you need him most, he leaves scattered bites across the skin of your inner thighs, completely neglecting your cunny to mark you instead. in reality, intak knows that no amount of biting will make you his, and he’ll be back at the club next weekend, watching you perform once more with a glass of bourbon in hand. the realization sends a pang of hurt to his heart, but he bandaids the wound by showing you a good time—a great time, even. it’s all he can do, and do it right he will. so he ignores the ticking of his obnoxious alarm clock, redirecting his focus once more to your cunt.

his digits reach out to explore your pussy, swiping and swirling around the surface in a plethora of ways. intak gauges your reactions to each touch, quickly catching on to what sensations make your legs shake and bottom lip wobble. oh how he’d love to get his mouth on you right now, have you fall apart on his tongue, but his cock throbs as he ruts his hips against his sheets, urging him to slam into your heat as soon as he possibly can. if he doesn’t, he might die this very minute, and so he does. removes his skinny fingers from your puffy bud, stands up and plants his feet onto his carpeted floor, grips onto your thighs to pull your weight to the edge of his bed.

“intak. condom.” you gently remind. as nice as he is, sexy too, you’d much rather protect yourself from some sexually transmitted disease, or worse, an unexpected bundle of joy that you cannot afford to bring into this world. not now, at least, and not with pretty boy intak.

“shit, yeah. sorry, let me get one real quick.” intak responds sheepishly, embarrassed that he’d let his lust take over without taking the proper precautionary steps beforehand. intak walks over to his bedside drawer, pulling out a wrapped piece of latex as fast as he can, clearly desperate to bury himself within your walls as soon as humanely possible. he repositions himself in front of you, cock standing tall, the tip red from the previous attention you gave it. he rips at the foil with haste, almost dropping the condom like a fucking idiot. you don’t let him linger in embarrassment, wrapping your manicured hand around his forearm before gently consoling him with a, “intak, relax. ‘s just me.”

that’s the problem, the fact that it’s you, is what intak thinks, but your words do help him calm down, even if it’s just a bit. he takes a deep breath and slips the rubber onto his length, looking into your eyes for any sign of discomfort. there’s none, of course, just pure lust, and your ready expression convinces the boy to sheath himself into your tight walls, pushing in inch by inch with little to no resistance—perks of you being so incredibly wet, he guesses.

you both moan at the stretch, the feeling so intense that intak may as well have crashed on top of you. he has half a mind to grip an arm onto the sheets, right next to your head. the position is awfully intimate for a one night stand, but neither of you have time to dwell on it when intak pulls his hips back slightly, only to piston back forward with a level of force you weren’t quite prepared for. the boy is quite literally the definition of pussy drunk, setting a desperate speed from the get-go and tucking his face into the nape of your neck. his lips are right underneath your ear, making it impossible to miss each and every one of his pathetically beautiful noises.

after awhile, intak adjusts the angle of his thrusts just a bit, and you cry out at the way his cock prods at your g-spot with the perfect amount of precision and pressure. “oh! right there, tak!” you moan out, attempting to meet his thrusts by pushing your own hips downwards. you clench around him in a vice grip, embarrassingly close already. it’s the first time a man has been able to draw out so many sounds from you, you’ve never felt so good before. intak nods at you each and every time you gasp aloud, egging on your, and his, inevitable orgasm.

intak breaks eye contact to look downwards, groaning at how your walls suction him in and leave a frothy white rim against the base of his dick. his length is coated with a sheen, certainly your wetness, and it only makes it that much easier for him to thrust into your gummy walls. the room feels about 20 degrees hotter now, with intak’s sweat dripping onto your chest like a leaking water faucet. he can’t smell the powdery perfume and whiteclaw breath from the club anymore, nose just picking up the scent of you—y/n.

a thumb circles your clit in quick motions, the final tipping point sending you to the edge with a pornographic, “fuck!”. your cunt flutters against intak’s girth, your legs tremble and spasm uncontrollably, eyes tearing up once again, no doubt ruining your carefully applied mascara as intak just fucks you through the most intense orgasm of your life. he’s not far behind, only pistoning into you a few dozen more times before unloading his cum into the rubber of the condom.

the pair of you stay silent to catch your breaths, intak still tucked within your cunt as he collects himself. a few minutes later has him pulling out of you with a hiss, cock sensitive from all the exertion. he flops onto the empty space next to you, turning his head to face you, you doing the same. you both giggle, still a bit breathless and so very satisfied.

you almost say something in the heat of the moment, something you’re sure to regret in the morning, but as you turn to look at intak once more, he’s fast asleep. a definite effect of all the drinks he had earlier. you lean over to place a single delicate peck on his cheek, dreading having to leave his side in the morning time, but you couldn’t get attached, not in this line of work. so you tucked yourself away from the boy—cuddling him would make it that much harder to leave him.

morning comes, as it usually does. intak wakes a bit later than usual, sunshine leaking through his thin curtains to shine directly into his eyes. he groans, sits up and stretches his arms real wide to wake himself up faster. as soon as a yawn exits his mouth, the man is hit with an intense headache that prompts him to grip at his forehead in discomfort. the events of the last night are a blur, but his lips remember sloppy kisses, ears remember giggles and whines, cock remembers a fair amount of attention. and then it all comes back to him. y/n.

he turns to his right, but there’s only emptiness beside him. the sheets, however, are crumpled in a way that suggest someone occupied the space not too many hours ago. but it doesn’t matter anyways. one night is all he asked for, and one night he got.

a knock at his wooden door startles intak, and a sleepy jiung enters the room with uncharacteristically hesitant steps. intak watches curiously as the shorter boy seats himself at the edge of his bed. jiung sighs, and then stares as intak with an expression full of pity that he doesn’t need right now. or ever.

“she was here last night, wasn’t she?” jiung asks, and intak can already hear the unwanted lecture that is sure to follow the question.

intak inhales. “yeah,” he chuckles, “she was.”

taglist: @woozixo @hearts4chanhee @kyokopi @astro-doll-the-star @soobiary @kyaaramello @angelcbf @idontknow-1s-world @dprvivi @elissasimp @imjustayapper @ihatewreckingballmains @sosaverse @seobing @www90kitsch @khfviq @barbiekh86t @bbyjjunie @taeyangi @fullsunstrawberry @jihnyah @intheemptymirror @watamotee33 @dreamer1299 @jixnnsie @wonootnoot @yukx-x047 @sundancearchives @chuuswifereal @seisyiss @fishsquishh @jiungsdaisy @asianpenguin04 @lunepoesie @haku-s0ultrain @tkooooop @taehyux @peterm4arker

✶

241 notes · View notes

bonetrussle · 29 days ago

Text

Permanently Lonely (a wenclair genderbend au)

fanfic coming soon!

#wenclair #my fics #permanently lonely #edwyn sinclair is a rising hollywood star and wednesday addams is in a family of assassins its gonna be fun #partially inspired by killer crush / perfect blue / smile 2

21 notes · View notes

ktownshizzle · 4 months ago

Note

K, for the Phukket Yoongi fic that I def don't want (absolutely need on my desk like yesterday I'm actually in crisis and only phukket Yoongi can save me 🥲) I'll take a lil snippet of that please 🧚🏽‍♀️✨️

Watermelon & Suga (drabble)

✎ ˎˊ˗ Pairing: idol!Min Yoongi x tour guide!reader ✎ ˎˊ˗ Wc: 440 for this drabble ✎ ˎˊ˗ Genre: Fluff, eventual idk—could be anything based on feedback ✎ ˎˊ˗ Notes: Set during the events of D-day tour Phuket Vlog

While they eat, you stay behind on the boat, finishing your own lunch. There’s still some leftover watermelon, so you have it for dessert. It’s sweeter than any you have had all summer, but not sweet enough to distract you from the thought spinning in your head: Did the Min Yoongi really just invite you to join their group for lunch?

Ah, never mind. He was probably just being polite. Right? But then why did he stare at your lips for ten whole seconds when you were exploring the caves?

Fuck. You really need to get Lasik because your eyes cannot be trusted. Maybe a psychiatric evaluation too, while you’re at it.

Who are you kidding? At this point you can only afford the oh-so ahjumma-chic wide-brim hat so your lone brain cell is not fried by the sun.

BUT. Why does it feel like you had a connection?

Him with his kind eyes and that sexy smile.

Shaking your head, you grab a beer from the cooler and chug it, the cold brew doing its damnednest to wash down your delusions. For a moment, the only sound is the faint lapping of waves against the boat’s hull.

But then, footsteps.

You glance over your shoulder.

Speak of the devil.

Yoongi is walking into the shaded area of the boat, pushing damp strands of hair with his beautiful fingers.

“Hey,” you say, clocking that he’s coming in alone. Your pulse races.

“Hi.”

“Craving more watermelon?” you ask, smiling as you gesture to the plate.

He leans against the table, his gaze steady, but there’s something else there. “I was,” he says, his voice softer now, “but I think I’m craving something else.”

Your breath stutters. The plate in your hand feels heavier. The tips of his fingers brushes along the edge of the table as he walks closer, and closer.

“There’s, uh, more delicacies on the island,” you try to use your tour guide voice, but you’re faltering. “Thailand has, umm, over 1,000 species of fruit, you know…”

“Mmm.” A faint smirk touches his lips, but his eyes are fixed on you. He’s literally in front of you now, so close that the air is sucked out of your lungs. You notice every macro detail—the faint streaks of sunscreen on his cheek, the fine grains of sand clinging to his hair, the way his scent is a mix of the sun and the ocean and his own musk. And those lips. Goddamn those lips.

“What is it that you like?” you ask, your voice small and shy as he studies you, too.

“I think I prefer,” he murmurs, his hand brushing yours before leaning in. “This.”

A/N: so……….??? do we continue?

Permanent Taglist:

@wonh0oe @hyukaluve @glossdebut @kiki-zb @kookiewithluv

@agustblog @maryhopemei @perfectiondazesworld @kimsaerom @kam9404

@00-sleepdontweep-00 @tea4sykes @mggv97 @marnz1990

@whydoeyecare @pastelmin @tarahardcore @minjenna @chimmchimmm

@aaclariww @mar-lo-pap @tinytan-gerine @vesperbells @butterymin

@eve1633455 @baechugff @lilkittenjenjen @wobblewobble822 @coffeedepressionsoup

@futuristicenemychaos @jadestonedaeho7 @granataepfelchen @whoa-jo @annyeongbitch7

@chimmisbae @sexytholland @idkjustlovingbts @kpophosblog @tinyelfperson

@yoongicatagenda @codeinebelle @parapiop7 @diame93 @janeelizabeth1216

@withmuchluv-tannie @abadiimm @angellekookie

@dearmyfavoritepeople-bts @hannahisnotblue @this-most-assuredly-counts @no-jiminprotested

@lilmeowzsworld @yoonzmoonlight @diamonddia-mond @jungshaking @vicurious28

@kookoo-kachoo @twixxpie @goldietigers294 @devinkelsey19 @mr-robot-x

148 notes · View notes

kruegerspillow · 6 months ago

Text

A soldier's yearning; Simon Ghost Riley fic.

Creators note: I'm back from the dead (again)...... Whoopsie.... Please take this fic as another apology as I had just finished my dreadful exams :(

Summary: Simon had just departed for a short deployment a few weeks before, though, the feeling of longing surrounded you as you waited for his visit.

Warnings: Swearing, not proofread, a pinch of angst with fluff :3

The atmosphere was tense as you laid restlessly in your bed. You held your phone loosely, the sheets were colder than before; and you swore you could've seen someone strangely familiar walk towards your apartment. You shifted once again, trying your best to find a comfortable position for you to sleep in as you looked out of your third story window.

Simon had left for a short deployment without informing you. And, the worst thing is, you had a brief argument with him right before he departed. It was no serious argument, no shouting or insults; just disagreement. Though, there were no apologies, no words, no kisses or hugs. It left you hanging on a loose thread, the feeling of worry gnawing at you. You were never the type to argue without a valid reason and so was Simon; yet, this departure made you feel some kind of way.

Here you are, weeks after his departure, still worrying for him and longing for his presence. You checked your phone from time to time, hoping that he would reply to at least one of your messages. Delivered, delivered and delivered. Not a single response from him. It felt lonely without him, as if a small void was formed inside the chambers of your heart. Sleeping in his bed wasn't going to be a permanent solution, though, you figured it's better compared to sleeping in your own— without a single hint of him. His room smelled faintly like his cologne, and it provided a sense of comfort. You placed your phone on the nightstand, letting out a small sigh before pulling the blanket over you slightly. Soon, without you knowing, you doze off to his scent lingering around you.

Thud.

You heard the small thud and immediately sat up. You looked around your room, looking disheveled. Your eyes caught on the small box that you had accidentally kicked out of your bed. You shifted, your legs hanging from the edge of his bed before grabbing the box. As you moved your head to the side, you saw a small rose that had been placed since the night before.

From: Simon Riley.

You read the small writings on the cover of the box before softly opening it. There was a small letter of apology along with some sweets that he knew you had always loved. Your heartbeat rised before you placed the box aside. You quickly got up from your bed, walking towards the living room quickly. There he was. Your Simon Riley. He was no longer Ghost, no longer the lieutenant when he was with you.

He slept on the couch, not wanting to wake you up or upset you by sleeping beside you, even though it was his bed you were on. His chest softly rise up and down before hearing your footsteps. He nearly jolted up before meeting your gaze, it was full of love— full of relief and desperation. You pounced on him before his hands went to your waist, steadying you carefully so you won't accidentally fall off of the couch.

"Sweetheart…" He murmured underneath his breath, his voice full of yearning and pure affection. He almost seemed like he regretted leaving you for that silly deployment. "Fuckin' hell, you got me weak on the knees, love."

You didn't say anything, relishing the feeling of his arms that found its way back to your figure. Your breath hitched as you rested your chin on his broad chest, looking up at him with pleading eyes. Your eyes had gone glossy in mere seconds, but Simon did not complain; feeling the way his heart ached as he noticed your eyes swelling up with tears. He embraced you in his arms, taking in your scent that he misses deeply.

"Hey, c'mon, no tears, yeah? 'M back here with you, lovie." His voice was soothing, providing security and love for you. "I missed you sooo much. Y'know tha'? I won't ever, ever, let go of you."

Soon, you would realize how lucky you were to find someone like him— a soft, caring man— hidden behind the act of coldness and hostility.

(Please check your phone :( He replied to every single one of your messages!)

#cod x reader #call of duty #cod fanfic #call of duty warzone #simon riley x you #simon riley x reader #simon ghost riley x reader #simon ghost riley #simon ghost x reader #simon ghost riley fluff #simon riley fluff #fluff #I love him too much lmao #Anyways forgive me for posting once in every blue moon #simon riley imagine #simon riley x female reader #simon riley #kruegerspillow

229 notes · View notes

irisfixation · 5 months ago

Text

it is generally understood within the adventuring community that some sort of contract should be preemptively made in order to protect oneself from an untimely death.

[original hypnosis fic, second-person narration from perspective of the subject. gender-neutral, little to no sexual content. please read accordingly, and enjoy.]

now, the act of seeking out such a contract, let alone the fact of its normalization, would have been taboo a few decades past. "we don't negotiate with pact-entities", the old elders crow; anti-demon and anti-fae rhetoric was accepted as the norm.

it only took looking at the rate of mortality, the expenditures of the local church, and getting over themselves to at last shake up the in-culture of heroics.

of course, that didn't mean they weren't diligent with their new protocols; information on prospective patrons was inscribed down in ledgers half phone book and half grimoire, noting the terms of agreement, the trustworthiness of pact-entity after pact-entity, any bargain a little too faustian struck through in red.

you'd watch your peers peer through the book, discussing the pros and cons of each. was an unlucky fate too much to pay? were compulsions too obstructive, did the bodily changes contrast too much with one's self-identity?

of course, they all ended up choosing sooner or another. better that than dying young and alone.

it was under this sort of necessity that you went to the house.

-------

it was closer to home than you expected, really - you anticipated some kind of ominous manor on the cliffs, or secluded cabin by the forest's edge, so the three minute walk from the town square came as a welcome surprise. its residence looked the same as any other lodging - you'd no doubt walked past it on your regular commutes countless times without batting an eye.

you knocked, and the door fell open, as if it had been awaiting your arrival; afternoon sunlight bouncing off the gossamer-thin threads adorning the hallway.

make yourself at home, she says. i'll be upstairs when you're ready to talk. you nod and ask if there's any consequences for eating any food or drink. i promise you this; all food i've set out here is yours to eat and drink without consequence comes the reply; perhaps a little verbose from anyone else, but necessary caveats for a pact-entity's trust. you oblige.

with throat wet and stomach sated, you ascend the stairs. the bedroom is small, humble even; you've seen more expensive homes by far from some of your more show-off rivals. more fit for a pauper than the-

"than Her Lady of Marionettes?"

yeah.

"i never cared all too much for the trappings of nobility. i'm satisfied simply living in peace here."

then why the contracts?

"it's mutually beneficial, no? i quench my thirst for control for a time, and you don't meet any horrible, lonely fates. it's no different from any other line of work."

more reasonable than any would-be evil queen you've ever met, let alone one considered an enemy to the hero's guild not so long ago.

"please. i never cared all too much for that arrangement."

she rolls in her bed to face you. despite her role, she looks little different from your sister or partner; eyes still closed, hands still set upon her crosses.

-------

you discuss business. she will string you up, she says; and then, if she were to find yourself in an otherwise fatal scenario, she will pull your body back, mend you, even clear your mind from any hostile entities trying to take it over.

what do each of you get out of this?

"i get to observe the world through your eyes. i get the joy of commanding a body beyond my own. you cede a small, negotiated amount of control, and in return you are freed from tragedy's grasp forevermore."

it sounded like a hell of a better deal than half of the faustian bargains you saw other contract-entities propose.

"if you'd like, we can provide a demonstration here and now. no permanent alterations, and you can back out any time you wish. is that amenable?"

it does indeed sound amenable.

-------

you're sitting by her side on the bed. she's set her crosses down in place of a needle she holds deftly between thumb and forefinger, pinched together like a bee ready to sting. "hold your left arm out, please? we'll begin now."

you do so, and she passes the needle through skin. you feel it travel up across the veins in your wrist, her other hand steadying you in place with the tenderness of lily-petals. your elbow twitches as it passes through; the nerves firing once in shock, but no more. up through bicep, then shoulder; and then out, a release in pressure from within as the needle finally leaves your insides, leaving a trail of silken fibres behind it.

she plucks the taut string left in its wake, and your arm twitches with it, pulled from within. "see? no pain at all."

next is the right arm, then the legs. she flutters around you like a sprite alighting upon forest blossoms, soft fingers and steel-precise nails moving you, adjusting your wrist or shoulders or rotation with studious diligence. the intimacy of being studied and guided like this is almost palpable.

"...and, done." she declares, finishing a line of thread across the shoulders and through the nape of the neck. "well, how is it? comfortable, right?"

"yes, miss", you are made to say; and then, immediately, recall the strings through your upper and lower lip alike, a third running through the seam in your tongue. right. you move your eyes to meet hers; she's smiling brightly, but it's more the naive smile of a child than the former evil queen's smirk you expected. the effect is equal amounts unsettling and genuinely cute.

"well, let's begin." she picks up her crosses again, and with one subtle rotation of a hand's balance, she guides you.

it's easy to follow through. your right arm raises with a poise and natural nature that shocks you, outstretched to one side. she returns her hand to neutral, and your arm falls back once again, more sudden and limp than you were expecting.

("excellent", she says.)

with that first test done, she guides you down the stairs. your eyes are still your own, so some reflexive part of you fidgets as your body glides down each flight of steps; you have no control over if you fall or not. she could throw you down the stairs now, and you'd be helpless; passenger in your own tumbling body.

but she doesn't. your hand remains firmly upon the balustrade, and your every footstep is delivered with care. by the time you reach the landing, your heart may be pounding, but you're just glad to have made it through.

("well done," crows her voice.)

the near-invisible threads all throughout your body continue to urge you forward - sometimes single strings tugging suddenly, but other times shifting in a steady unison, almost imperceptible from your body's natural movements save that no thought of your own guides it. you're in the kitchen, before too long - a rack of dried dishes shows that she, too, has been here recently. your fingers and palm grasp onto each bowl and glass, one by one, filing them away in procedure through the unfamiliar house.

with your body outside of your control, you'd think your mind would wander to idle thoughts; to the birdsong from beyond the window, perhaps, or to thoughts of how your companions are faring in their own attempts to find their own contracts. but all thoughts seem to be silenced by each consequent string's plucking, a resonance within yourself that numbs your brain under its force.

before you know it, the rack of dishes is clear, and you are ascending the stairs again. it's less scary going up, and she knows it; she takes each step faster now, with a fluidity of movement that your legs accept graciously. there is no joint pain, no hesitation - each step is placed with pinpoint precision, each movement following the next.

a puppet's dance, you think; then dismiss the idea just as quickly. you're just here to obtain insurance from danger, not to humor thoughts like that.

she's lying back down on the bed when you arrive - exposing her back to you, vulnerable. but her hands are still outstretched, each one holding those crosses linked to the many strings pulled taut across, within, and around you. "welcome back", she tells you. "i trust it wasn't too uncomfortable?"

"no," you say, "it was fine."

"i'm glad to hear it!" she says, turning to smile at you. "and you took to it so well, too! good doll."

there's something about meeting her eyes as she says those last two words that feels different from everything prior. something deeper, like the strings are mycelial network growing their own nerves to entangle around yours, setting them alight in a microcosm dance, your whole body twitching just subtly as you are affixed within her gaze, burning up from the inside out-

"oh, my apologies. old habits die hard it would seem."

she doesn't gesture you to sit next to her, but your body does so, so you can assume it was her will all the same. she turns to you and explains that the demonstration has concluded; that the act of forming a pact with her is something you can now think of on your own, that you can return to her any time you need and in fact she'll completely understand if she never sees you again. she snips off the strings, one by one, with a pair of ornate scissors - the ones within will dissolve organically, she notes, metabolized by your own body. nothing to worry about.

you're not worrying. you're not thinking much at all, in the aftermath of everything that's happened. but she is patient, and you have all the time you need to recover.

-------

she walks you to the door and waves you out with a flourish. you're reminded of how mundane the house is, and now you can see that same mundanity in the Lady's face; no different from any number of passers-by through the town square.

"safe travels~!" she says, and you walk out the door; your steps faltering just a little as you once more acclimate to control over your own body.

well, for a contract patron, that wasn't so bad. and she seems well-meaning enough. maybe you'll go back there sometime again, you think to yourself, and shrug as you make your way home.

#a humble actress speaks #semantic cognitohazards #we're experimenting more with trusting our gut and writing more self-indulgent fiction. we hope you enjoy it all the same #oh just realized this fits to be tagged as #empty spaces

157 notes · View notes

i-drop-level-one-loot · 2 years ago

Note

Not sure if you've closed or open requests but

How do you feel about writing a Yan! Slime? Could be platonic or romantic up to you! Idk slimes are cute :3

(also I'm permanently gonna low key stalk ur blog since again yummy yan fics hope you don't mind me staying- /hj)

CW: Wholesome, romantic, stalker monster love ahead ❤️ proceed with caution❤️

Accidently pushed post whoops done now lol

The five year old boy burst through the bushes, tumbling awkwardly and unskillfully before slowly popping up onto his feet and swinging his stick sword forward. His sibling, (Reader), high stepped carefully over the branches of the bush their brother had just crashed through. (Reader) nervously held their own sword, following their older brother into the woods.

"Jay, can we please go back?" (Reader) whined, trying not to cry nervously as they "explored" deeper into the forest.

"Don't be a baby!" Jay chastised, raising his arms high above his head. "How are you gonna be a monster hunter if you're too chicken?!"

(Reader) grumbled, dragging their shoes in the dirt. "I don't wanna be a monster hunter.. I wanna go home! I'm hungry!"

Jay opened his mouth, and raised his fists, ready to say something when something moved nearby, plopping loudly into a pile of dry leaves. His big, childish eyes went wide with fear, immediately losing all confidence and hiding behind (Reader), holding his thin stick in front of his face defensively. He was too scared to speak, trembling into (Reader's) back.

The younger of the two felt a surge of strength, needing to protect their beloved big brother, so they gripped their weapon with both hands, scrunching up their chubby little face to appear tough. They stomped over to the bush the sound came from, holding their breath, unlike Jay who was hyperventilating. (Reader) removed one pudgy hand from their stick, and swiftly pushed back the little branches, exposing a tiny green blob.

Jay released a high pitched scream and took off running back home, dropping his stick.

The glob was vibrating, and (Reader) was instantly filled with sympathy, assuming the little ball of goo was shaking with fear. "Hey, don't be scared." The four year old cooed, dropping their 'sword' and sitting on their knees to be closer. "I'm sorry, I thought you were a monster." (Reader's) cheesy grin showed off their missing front teeth.

Whatever the green thing was slowly went still, and (Reader) could feel it looking up at them.

"My name is (Reader), and I'm," they looked at their fingers, focusing on holding up the right number, before practically shoving their fingers in the glob's personal space, "four years old!"

The goo reached forward, forming a little nub of a hand, touching (Reader's) fingers. It was surprisingly warm. (Reader) opened their hand so it could roll onto their palm.

"Burrrrble!" The thing happily gurgled, looking quite pleased despite it's lack of a face.

"Burble? Is that your name?"

"Prrrr?" It patted their hand, not understanding the question. (Reader) laughed, feeling ticklish.

"I'm gonna be your best friend!" They decided, cupping the slime with both hands, still giggling over the sticky tingling the little guy caused. "I'll visit you every day, and we can play together everyday after school!"

And (Reader) kept their promise, visiting every single day, for years. The two friends grew up together, Burble learning to speak (Reader's) language over time as (Reader) brought their homework into the woods to have more time with Burble while they studied. Jay kept Burble's existence a secret, but never got over his fear of the creature, so he kept his distance from the two while they played.

Burble had a difficult time not praising (Reader) for their heroics, because if they did it would reveal that Burble had been watching them at school. Living alone in the woods was isolating, especially as a monster, their presence frightening off animals of all species. At first it was just because of how lonely they were, wanting to leave the forest to be with (Reader). They turned Burble down, reminding them how dangerous it would be, now no longer the naive child who didn't understand that slimes were monsters. But, no one would know if Burble attached just a little piece of themselves inside (Reader's) backpack, just to hear their voice while they were away.

Fourteen years later, Burble had been practicing in secret, forming their naturally round body into a humanoid form, trying to perfect their appearance before they revealed themselves to (Reader). It happened so naturally, Burble falling in love with their one and only friend. They wondered if (Reader) could ever feel the same. (Reader) was just so perfect; they were kind and strong, preferring pacifism, but quick to throw themselves in danger's way to protect the ones they love, just like when they first met. Even at school, (Reader) would stand up for those being bullied on a regular basis, gaining a reputation for standing up for those too scared to protect themselves. And they never bragged about it!

The green slime learned so much about (Reader) through the way they interacted with others at school, and fell deeper in love everytime they opened their mouth. (Reader) was an angel on Earth.

(Reader) trudged into the forest behind their home, exhausted after field hockey but refusing to take even a day off from visiting their best friend. It was surprising, learning that Burble was less of a pet and actually a sentient being with thoughts and feelings, but that was even more exciting, being able to communicate with a species not known for their intelligence. Burble rolled onto view, now a very large blob the size of (Reader) if they tucked in their arms and legs.

"(Reader)!" They happily gurgled, jiggling up to the high school senior. "How was your day?"

"Same old, same old." (Reader) lied, still wearing their gym shirt because their original clothes got soaked with milk after they stood up to Cody, the biggest dick they ever met.

Burble knew this, however, and was fine with (Reader) lying, knowing they were just being humble. It made their non-existent heart swell. (Reader) pulled out a bunch of classwork, and a brochure slipped out from a folder. "What's that?"

"Oh, that's a pamphlet for a university. Admissions are coming up, so I've been looking around."

The green color lightened almost to a sick looking yellow. Burble hadn't heard anything about this! What did they mean?!

"Burble, you okay?"

"Does that mean you're leaving?" Burble's voice shook, wobbling their jelly body.

"Yeah, if I make it in, but that's still half a year away, so we have time-"

Burble cut them off. "Don't go."

(Reader) sighed, placing a hand on top of their friend's smooth body. "I can't stay with my parents forever. I want to go explore, meet new people, hopefully get a career a have a passion for."

"Then take me with you!" Burble shouted, heating up under (Reader's) hand, the yellow intensifying.

The now yellow blob lunged at (Reader), morphing into a humanesque shape, creating a beautiful face that looked to be on the verge of tears. Burble held (Reader) to the ground, trapping (Reader's) body with their arms and knees.

"Burble, what the hell?" (Reader) wasn't angry, or nervous, just confused, not understanding what had gotten into their childhood friend.

"You can't leave me alone, (Reader), please!" Burble was incapable of forming tears, but their body ached like they were sobbing, rumbling instead of heaving as they didn't need to breathe. They slammed their face onto (Reader's), knowing what kissing was from a picture book (Reader) had shown them as a child, but not quite understanding how to actually do it. Their newly formed lips moved against (Reader's) timidly, easily holding down the struggling human. Burble broke the kiss so (Reader) could gasp for air. "I love you, (Reader), please don't leave me!"

A hurricane of emotions ripped (Reader's) mind apart, struggling with accepting what was happening. Their first kiss was taken by their best friend, who was still holding them tightly against the dirt ground.

"Let's.. let's talk about this later.. I need to go home." (Reader) stuttered, overwhelmed by the emotions they never felt before rampaging in their skull. Burble sunk lower, melting over (Reader's) body to better prevent their leaving.

"No.. not until you promise not to leave me." Their voice was barely a whisper, begging for (Reader) to love them back.

"I-I won't leave you. We'll figure something out.. You've just gotten too big to hide and-" Burble's weight was heavy on (Reader's) ribcage. "we'll figure something out."

Satisfied, Burble sat up and rolled off of (Reader), slowly changing back to their natural green hue. "You promise?"

"I promise." (Reader) face a sad smile, still incapable of fearing their dear friend.

Burble smiled, barely maintaining their shape as they allowed (Reader) to leave. They trusted (Reader), even if (Reader) didn't accept their confession at that moment, there was no way they would break their promise. And, if for some reason they did, if someone like their nervous brother fear mongered (Reader) into abandoning Burble, they would always be able to find them. The green slime collapsed back into a ball, happily listening to (Reader) through the tiny piece of themselves still hiding in (Reader's) backpack.

"Please come back soon.."

#soft yandere #yandere monster #yandere monster x reader #yandere slime #accidentally posted this early instead of saving it as a draft #whoops #i'm just really stupid lol #so sorry #not proofread #i hope you like it #again i'm so sorry #i'm really dumb

913 notes · View notes

scary-grace · 2 months ago

Text

still life, with hope - a shigaraki x f!reader fic

You're an art student with a crippling fear of birds and an assignment to create art from life, so when you're assigned to study swans, you're pretty much dead in the water. And there's something strange about the swans you find on a secluded lake, something all too human. As your artwork grows increasingly surreal and your suspicions about the swans continue to build, you can't help but ask yourself the question: Are you losing your mind, or have you walked into the middle of a fairytale gone wrong? Whatever it is, you'd better figure it out fast. Seven lives depend on the answer. (cross-posted to Ao3)

This is for @shigarakislaughter, who requested this prompt from my winter prompt list: hear the fallen and lonely cry out / can you fix me up, can you show me hope. I apologize for how long this took, and the fact that it'll be in multiple chapters, but I really hope you like it! Swan Lake AU, modern setting/no quirks, art student!reader. dividers by @cafekitsune.

Chapter 1

You look down at the piece of paper you’ve drawn from the hat with more than a little dismay. “SWAN?”

“Swan,” your Capstone 1 professor says, smiling warmly. “Is there a problem?”

“No,” you say at first. He raises an eyebrow. “Can’t I pick something else?”

“I didn’t get to pick something else,” one of your classmates says from behind you. His piece of paper reads SLUG. “I’ll trade you.”

You don’t want SLUG either. This is the first year of your MFA program, and in order to advance to the second year, you have to create an exhibition that speaks to both your versatility with multiple mediums and your own signature style. This year’s Capstone 1 exhibition is going to be held in the building that’s going to house the campus’s collection of fine art, and if you or any other student does well enough in it, your pieces will earn a permanent place in the gallery. You and your classmates have been drooling over the prize ever since it was announced.

But it wouldn’t be a grad program without a twist of nonsense involved, and in order to set everyone on an equal playing field, the professor in charge of supervising your work for the exhibition set down rules. You’ll each create an exhibition centered around a subject from the natural world. You must spend at least two of each week’s five workshop periods creating art from life – i.e., observing whatever your subject is in its natural habitat. And the subjects will be assigned by drawing from a hat.

Your classmate who drew SLUG got a short straw for sure, but there are plenty of classmates whose subjects looked pretty bad until the second you unfolded yours. Somebody got WASP, which will be a nightmare to observe from life; your roommate got ANEMONE, which means she’ll be spending a lot of time in tidepools for the foreseeable future. The person who got DANDELION has hay fever, and the person who got SQUIRREL is nearsighted. The only people who are happy are the people who wound up with things like TREE and STONE and FIRE. And you were ready to suck it up and create the best exhibition the school’s ever seen for any subject you got, right up until SWAN.

“There will be no trading,” the professor says. He turns to you. “What seems to be the problem?”

“I don’t like birds,” you say. The guy who got SLUG snorts. “I mean it! When I went on vacation to America, a bunch of Canada geese tried to drown me because I wouldn’t give them my sandwich –”

The classroom erupts in laughter. “It’s fortunate, then, that your assignment is SWAN,” your professor says. “And you are more than welcome to observe them from a safe distance.”

There’s no safe distance from a giant bird that wants to kill you. You wander back to your seat, miserable, while the only classmate who hasn’t drawn yet stands up and pulls SPARROW. So there were two birds in there – a big one, and a small one, and you had to draw the big one. Just your luck.

And your luck gets worse, because your professor assigns the rest of the class period to research your subject and where it might be observed, and you learn a certain fact about SWAN that leaves you absolutely dead in the water. You wait until the rest of the class is filing out, then make your way up to your professor. “Sir?”

“Yes?”

“I’m supposed to draw swans from life,” you say, and he nods. “Swans migrate.”

“Indeed they do.”

“They’ve migrated,” you say again. “It’s already getting cold out. They’ve all flown away. And I looked at the zoos around here – none of them have swans –”

“I admire your diligence! You certainly used your research period well,” your professor says. He’s happy. That doesn’t help you. “You’re correct. Swans are migratory, and it’s autumn. The vast majority of the wild swans are gone for the winter, and the local zoo is poorly stocked with swans. But that doesn’t mean there are no swans to be found.”

You were hoping he’d agree that you needed a different subject. You’re desperate enough that you’d even take SLUG. “Do you know where I can find some swans?”

“I’m glad you asked. There happens to be a small population of non-migratory swans at a lake not too far from here,” the professor says. “Most people aren’t aware of the lake, as it sits on the old estate. You know the one?”

You can only think of one. “With the signs on the fence about shooting trespassers?”

“The owner is rather protective,” your professor says. He smiles at you. “He’s allowed the preserve to grow wild, and his predecessor did the same, until it resembles a nature park more than anything else. The signs are to discourage hunters or hikers. You, on the other hand, will be behaving as a naturalist. You are there to observe and document – and given your apparent fear of swans, there’s no risk that you’ll interact with them.”

“No,” you admit. “Still, um – will you let him know that I’ll be there? So he doesn’t shoot me?”

“I already informed him that one of my students would be paying visits to the lake,” the professor says. You can’t decide if that makes you feel better or worse – better about not being shot, worse about getting out of this without spending the next six months on SWAN. “He’s quite enthusiastic about the idea of the birds being documented. And he was kind enough to provide a map.”

You’re doomed. “Thanks.”

When you exit the classroom, you find SLUG guy waiting, face pinched above his surgical mask. “He’s not going to let you out of it,” you say. “He wouldn’t let me out of mine.”

“SLUG is objectively worse than SWAN,” your classmate argues. “Both Western and Eastern traditions feature swans as a symbol of grace and beauty. There’s not a single classical painting that features a slug.”

“We have to draw from life,” you remind him. “Slugs don’t migrate. Swans do.”

Your classmate’s thin eyebrows lift. Does he pluck them? “It seems you’re fucked.”

“Yep,” you say, and sigh. The map folded up in your pocket looks like it was written in the eighteenth century. Even if you can read it, there’s no guarantee it’ll be accurate. “It sure does.”

You’re only mandated to spend two of each week’s workshop periods observing from life, but you figure you might as well bite the bullet. Most of your classmates are doing the same, according to the cohort group chat. Kaoruko, who drew SPARROW, found herself a cute little coffee shop to sit in, with a tree and a bird feeder right outside the window. Your roommate Shoko is headed for the beach in search of tidepools, bundled up for the weather with a determined look on her face. SLUG guy, whose name is apparently Kai, is complaining that he can’t find any, and the group chat is collectively dunking on him.

They were going to find someone to laugh at. You’re glad it’s not you. Still, you feel a little guilty, enough to message him privately. Go up to the arboretum and walk around on the trails. They’re all over the place.

He doesn’t respond. Fine. You tuck your phone into your backpack, hop on your bike, and start the half hour’s ride out to the old estate in search of swans.

You go over your research in your head as you ride along the network of trails through town. Swans are the biggest species of waterfowl in the world, even bigger than geese, which is just your luck. They come in multiple varieties – trumpeter, mute, black-necked, black, tundra, and whooper. Most of Japan is temperate enough that the swans migrate here for the winter, but it’s just your luck – Hokkaido is just far enough to the north and just cold enough to mean that the supposedly non-migratory swans at this lake are the only swans around.

What else did you learn about swans? Classically, they’re symbols of grace and beauty, just like Kai said; colloquially, they’re known for being assholes. They’ll attack people, just like geese will, and unlike geese, they’ve succeeded in murdering an uncomfortable number of people. Sure, those people were usually a little too close to the nest, and you’re not planning to get anywhere near that close, but the possibility is there that your Capstone 1 project could actually kill you. The only fact you learned about swans that wasn’t completely off-putting is the fact that they raise their cygnets together, and they apparently mate for life.

That’s not much for you to go on. By the time you drag your bike through the hole in the fence marked on the map of the old estate, you’re already frustrated with the whole thing, and your mood doesn’t improve as you hike along the world’s faintest trail up into the woods. According to the map, all the trails lead to the lake eventually, but the scenic route doesn’t do much for you except make you wish that you’d gotten TREE or ROCK or FIRE. You’d even have taken MOSS. Or FUNGUS. All of those things are abundant in the woods, and none of them are able to drown you.

The hike up to the lake is supposed to be a mile long, but the trail is so winding that it feels like longer, and you’re beginning to wonder if the professor sent you out here to get lost in the woods when you spot light coming through the trees. You pick up the pace, around the last few curves and over a downed tree covered in moss and mushrooms, and find yourself on the rocky shore of a lake.

It’s not a small lake. You were thinking it would be small, but it’s not. It’s big and crystal clear, so clear that you can see exactly where the lakebed drops away into nothingness, and although the sun’s out and the temperature’s above freezing, you know you’d freeze to death if you fell in the water long before you drowned. When you look across the lake, to the other side, you can see places where the slope to the shore is steep, and low bluffs that would lead to a nasty drop into the icy water. All the trails lead to the lake – sure. Some of them lead right into it. You set down your backpack, dig out an old, crusty highlighter, and mark the trail you took today in bright green.

You don’t see any swans just yet. There’s mist rising off the water and the sun’s still high in the sky, and as you get settled on the shore, you find yourself wishing you could just draw the lake instead. There’s so much to look at here, so many aspects of the landscape you could explore. You could sketch the pebbles on the shore, the broad, flat rocks you’ll probably sit on the next time you come out here. You could get here early, find a good spot, and rip off Monet by painting the water at every hour of the day. If you wanted to get here early, you could paint the sunrise. The mist looks pretty now, but first thing in the morning –

It’s not mist. Sure, there’s mist, but there are shapes drifting through it, and the shapes are creating the shadows that entranced you, leaving faint ripples that travel the length of the lake to brush along your side of the shore. You see long necks, folded wings, narrow beaks. Swans.

Your professor was right. There are swans here – seven of them, all paddling smoothly through the lake, in no hurry to get anywhere, least of all south. You fumble your sketchbook open in a hurry and grab for the first medium you can find. You brought half a dozen in your backpack, unsure of what you’d need, but any of the five others would be better than the chalk pastels you come up with. But you’ll work with what you’ve got. You can’t let this get away.

It’s not the swans that are the focus of your first attempt at observation. It’s the sun and the mist and the water, all bright and bold, washing your page in color. The swans are almost an afterthought – just seven grey-and-white shadows, weaving between the columns of light. Maybe this is how you can get through this project. The landscape is what attracts you, and the swans are part of it. You don’t have to ever deal directly with the swans themselves. They haven’t even noticed you, and as far as you’re concerned, it can stay that way.

When you’ve finished with the rough piece in chalk pastel, your hands and your jeans are smeared with color. You spray fixative over the sketchbook page and set it aside to dry, then take out your phone. You can take a few pictures, maybe get one of the swans in them, and call it good for today.

You discover quickly that you can’t get just one swan in the picture. They travel in a group, and the longer you look at them, the more you observe slight differences in size and plumage. There’s one swan that’s smaller than the other six while still being full-grown. Is that one a female? You’re not going to check. One of them is preening, and two others are helping, while another one pokes along the shoreline. Another one bobs against a stand of rushes, its head tucked beneath its wing.

So they do come up on shore sometimes. You’ll need to keep an eye out, and make sure you know where they are at all times. You do a quick bird count, coming up with six, although you could have sworn you counted seven earlier. There were seven. Where’s the –

You see movement out of the corner of your eye and almost drop your phone in the lake in your haste to get back from the water’s edge. So much for keeping an eye out – the seventh swan was practically on top of you before you realized it was there, and now it’s staring you down with murder in its red eyes. You didn’t think swans had red eyes. This is probably a demon swan, and it’s going to drag you into the lake and kill you. You back away a little further.

The red-eyed swan doesn’t follow you. It just watches. And watches. And keeps watching, until you’ve packed up your things and crept back into the forest. You got one usable sketch, and you’ve also got a demon swan. You need to stop thinking that anything about this project is going to be easy. No matter how good you feel about it, something’s always going to go wrong.

“Can you believe this?” Shoko rolls up her pantleg and pulls down her sock, showing you the mark from the jellyfish tentacle that wrapped around her leg. “I thought it was safe, but apparently they can still sting even if they’re dead.”

“And it was in the tidepool with you?”

“No, it was on the beach while I was walking back. A wave came up and swept it right into me.” Shoko sits down at the studio station next to yours. “Just my luck.”

“Just your luck,” you echo. “Did you get any pieces you’re happy with out of it, at least?”

“I got a few,” Shoko says. She hoists out her sketchbook, followed by a pile of polaroids, then aims a sly look your way. “What about you? How was SWAN?”

“It’s SWANS, actually. Seven of them,” you say, and Shoko nods, looking impressed. You wish she wouldn’t. You barely have anything to show for the week’s check-in. “They’re even scarier than I thought. I –”

“Did you know that some human beings are allergic to slug mucus?” Kai drops his bags at the studio station on Shoko’s other side and slumps down in the chair. “Neither did I. Until yesterday.”

“Oh my God,” you say. Shoko is laughing. “You weren’t supposed to touch them!”

Kai’s broken out in hives, and he’s glaring at you. “You told me where to find them.”

“Where to find them. Not to touch them!”

Shoko wheezes. “What, did you pick it up and give it a kiss? We’re not supposed to interact with the nature unless the nature starts it.”

“Shut up,” Kai says. His face is turning red. “What happened to your leg? I hope you didn’t choose to urinate on it –”

“That’s an urban legend. And you’re a moron,” Shoko says. She leans out around Kai to look at you. “Tell me about the swans.”

“Ooh, there was more than one SWAN?” A classmate drops into the seat on your left, carrying a big cardboard box. You can see a row of canvases sticking out of it, and you grit your teeth. “How did you make it out alive?”

“Hi, Keigo,” you say. Keigo ignores you and walks away, only to come back with another cardboard box full of canvases. You try again. “Did you get inspired?”

“You know it,” Keigo says. He sits down with a satisfied sigh and starts paging through his canvases. “I’ve been painting all week. I moved my easel next to my bed so I can paint when I wake up in the middle of the night. How have you guys been doing?”

He looks from you to Kai to Shoko, mild concern crossing his face. Kai glares at him. Shoko raises an eyebrow. “Really, birdbrain?”

“There’s only one birdbrain here,” Keigo says, and he winks at you.

Before you can protest, the professor strides into the room. “Welcome, students! I hope you’re all prepared to share the results of your first week’s efforts.”

You thought it was going to be a basic show and tell, but the professor’s not letting anybody off easy. Everybody gets quizzed about how much time they spent observing their subject, as well as why they chose the mediums they used, and it doesn’t take long for you to realize that you and Shoko and Kai are about to be in trouble. You have the misfortune of following Keigo, who gets glowing reviews on the thirteen canvases he’s done so far of FIRE. Just your luck. When you stand up, you’re braced for the worst.

“I spent about six hours total observing the swans,” you say. That’s about average for the class, and you had to hike to get to yours. “And I have three pieces –”

“Only three?”

“Yeah. There were, um, complications.” You pick up your first piece – the chalk pastel sketch of the swans from the first day. “This is kind of my first impression of it. Them. And then this one –”

Your second piece is a watercolor. You were planning to do something more detailed from the pictures you took, but something was wrong with the photos. They were blurry, almost psychedelic, and you decided to just go with it when it was time to paint. “So these were done from a photo, not from life,” the professor says. You cringe. “Why not?”

“I don’t think the swans liked me very much,” you say. “There was this one – it snuck up on me –”

Your classmates are snickering. Your face heats up. “Tell us about the last piece,” your professor says. “This one has more detail than the others – but it’s missing something. Why is that?”

The third piece is an ink-on-paper sketch of all seven swans, drifting across the water in a line. You thought you’d soft-focused all the swans, but when you look at the piece, you realize that you didn’t. The swan in the middle – the red-eyed one who jumped you the first day – is a shadow, or a blur. “I don’t really know,” you say. Your classmates titter, Keigo the loudest. “It kind of just happened.”

“Mm.” The professor studies the last sketch. “Your technique is clear, but there’s no life to it. You need to observe in more detail.”

“Get closer to them?” you ask. Your professor shakes his head. “I don’t know –”

“Think about it. You have seven potential subjects to work with,” the professor says, “and unlike some of your classmates, you have subjects with complex social structures and behavior patterns. Get to know their personalities a little more. I want to see that in your next set of preliminary works.”

You collect your three pieces and sit back down, while Kai, his four pieces, and his hives make their way up to the front of the room. Your critique wasn’t actually that bad. The professor complimented your technique, and that’s the foundation for everything else, so you’re not starting from nothing. He just wants a little more observation. A little more detail. A little more time out at the lake with the swans.

It’s not the worst thing. As you listen to the professor trying to figure out just how Kai managed to give himself hives while taking photos of a slug, you remind yourself that it could have gone a lot worse.

Your alarm goes off, startling you out of a dream that’s still clear as you get ready to leave. You were at the shores of the lake, and the light was fading, a cold wind skipping across the water. The swans weren’t there, and you were worried. Not because of your project, although you’ve had dreams like that, too. You were worried because it was cold, and it was getting dark, and you couldn’t see a place for them to shelter. You could hear howling in the woods behind you, but you weren’t scared for you. And then something moved in your peripheral vision, something drew up alongside you – and your alarm went off before you could see what it was.

It’s just before dawn as you move through the small apartment you and Shoko share. Shoko’s asleep at the kitchen table, her miniature easel propped up in front of her with a line of acrylic tubes open and waiting beside her palette. You take the time to close them before you head out the door, and take a look at her canvas as you do. Shoko’s the best acrylic painter you’ve ever seen, and she’s painted an anemone with incredible detail. Shoko’s going to get a good critique this week. You’re sure of it.

In fact, everybody’s critique’s improved, except yours. Your professor still doesn’t think you’re trying hard enough to get to know the swans, and today, you’re taking matters into your own hands. By the time you get to the lake, it’ll be just past dawn, and you won’t leave until you’ve captured something about each of the seven swans on paper. Or until sundown. Whichever’s first. No matter how unworried you were for your own safety in the dream, you don’t want to be caught in the woods after dark.

The ride through town is quiet, and so is the hike through the woods. You’re familiar with this path by now, and you’re getting better at hiking. The air is crisp and cold, and you can see your breath. It’ll be a cold morning until the sun crests the mountains. When you break through the tree line onto the shore, you find the lake completely still and quiet. Only faint shreds of mist. No swans in sight.

Maybe they’re sleeping in. You’d be sleeping in if you had the choice. You lay out your blanket on the flat rocks on the eastern shore of the lake, sit down, and take out your sketchbook to look through what you’ve done already. It might not be coming through in your artwork, but you have gotten to know the swans fairly well. At first you couldn’t tell them apart, except to pick out the one that’s smaller than the rest, but now you know them all by sight and behavior – and sound. The first rays of sunlight brush the lake, and like clockwork, the swans drift out of wherever they spend the night. As they travel across the lake, you look them over. You need one piece for each swan by the end of the day. Which of them should you start with?

You’ve been observing them long enough to have nicknamed them, and to have assigned them genders for no reason other than vibes. The one in the lead this morning is the one you call Silly, because most of the time he’s doing what you can only call clowning around. You know that’s projecting, that you shouldn’t impose human behavior on a bird, but that’s what it looks like he’s doing. Silly might be a good place to start, but then again, Silly’s not great at holding still. Gorgeous might be a better bet.

Swans are pretty. You had to admit that at some point, and while the swan you call Gorgeous is roughly as pretty as the other swans, Gorgeous is the only one who acts like she knows it. Gorgeous isn’t particularly scared of you, but she’s also not aggressive. More than a few times she’s come right up to wherever you’re sitting and frozen in place in the middle of your eyeline. The first time it happened, you thought you were getting into a staring contest. Then it occurred to you that Gorgeous might be posing for you.

It’s a crazy thought. It’s projecting, again, but you will admit that Gorgeous has an uncanny ability to find good light. This morning, Gorgeous is up to her usual tricks, waddling out onto a rocky outcropping in the middle of the lake and freezing in place, her wings folded neatly. In direct sunlight, there’s an undertone to her white feathers – brown, or maybe bronze. That’s going to be hard to capture without metallics, but you’ll give it a shot.

Gorgeous is a whooper swan, you think. Or a trumpeter swan. She has the same strident, sonorous call as the swans in the videos you watched on YouTube as research, and she’s talkative with the others. As you try to capture the metallic sheen of the sunlight on Gorgeous’s feathers, you keep an eye on who’s talking back. Gorgeous reliably gets responses from Silly, who responds to everybody, and from Sooty, whose call sounds like what would happen if a trombone smoked a pack a day for twenty years. It would be nice to get a feather study of Sooty, who earned his nickname thanks to the char-like markings on his plumage, but Sooty doesn’t venture out into full sun very often.

Spinner is almost always in the sun, though. If there’s even a patch of sunlight, Spinner’s in it, even if it means that he’s paddling in place and rotating slowly in a circle. If there’s no sun, like there has been one or two of the days you’ve come to the lake, Spinner huddles up with whichever of the other swans is holding still, feathers puffed out. You’re hoping you can draw Spinner while he’s out of the water. He’s more graceful on land than the others.

You take your time sketching Gorgeous – you’ve got all day – and when Gorgeous gets bored with sunning and sidles off the outcropping into the water, you set down your pencils and pull your watercolors out of your backpack instead. You have a new medium. Now you need a new swan, and as you’re looking around, weighing your options, Needles darts through your peripheral vision and nominates herself. You might as well try to capture her in watercolors. You’re not going to get her to sit still for a serious sketch.

Needles is the smallest, the fastest, the most agile, and the most energetic. She’s also the only swan who’s actually attacked you, when you reached for a feather that had fallen to the rocks and she clamped her beak down on your finger. You almost called her Toothy, but you remembered from your research that swans don’t have teeth, and the sharp points of her beak felt more like needles anyway. You lay out your watercolors, pick up your brush, and wait for her to swim back into view.

But it’s hard to paint Needles just by herself. She’s usually interacting with the others, so you resign yourself to painting Silly, Needles, and Sneaky all at the same time. It’s probably the only time you’re going to get a good look at Sneaky, anyway. Other than Spooky, he’s the swan you lose track of most often.

There was really no name you could give to the red-eyed swan other than Spooky, and although Spooky’s never come close to you again, you haven’t forgotten the look of almost hatred in his eyes. You’re more scared of him than you are of Needles, who actually bit you, or of Sooty, who gets aggressive if he decides you’ve been looking at him for too long. You decide to save drawing him for last. You can half-ass your sketch and use the fading light as an excuse to get back home.

You don’t feel inspired by the swans, necessarily; it’s more that you’re completely absorbed. There’s something captivating about them, and at the same time, something odd. You’ve watched videos of swans on YouTube, and from what you can tell, they travel in mated pairs, with cygnets. You don’t see any cygnets, and none of the swans interact with each other in a way that would make you think they were mates. They act like – friends, maybe. Or like family. Whatever it is, it’s not easy to look away from.

You manage it, though, at least long enough to get something down on paper, and you start to lose track of time. It’s only when you notice how the shadows are lying that you check your phone and find that it’s well into the afternoon. You’ve done a piece for every swan except Spooky, and your stomach is growling. You decide to fortify yourself before you try to deal with Spooky again and go digging in your backpack for snacks.

The first thing you encounter is a package of trail mix, but before you can even open it, a swan’s beak clamps down onto the other end. Sneaky’s lived up to his name; he’s come all the way onto the rocks with you without you noticing, and now he’s doing his level best to yank the trail mix away from you. You’re more affronted than scared. “Hey, give it back –”

It occurs to you vaguely how stupid this must look – you in a tug of war with a swan, which has unfolded its wings and is flapping them to try to gain traction. You know you’re not supposed to feed wildlife, and you don’t think trail mix is good for swans, and you’re worried about them eating plastic by accident. At the same time, Sneaky’s putting in a lot of effort trying to get the package away from you, and he’s attracting a lot of attention. You don’t want to get swarmed by the others. You hesitate for a second, adjust your grip the wrong way, and the package tears open, scattering trail mix across the rocks.

You’re expecting Sneaky to lunge for it and start jamming peanuts and Cheerios into his beak, trying to eat them all before the rest of the swans notice. Instead Sneaky steps back and honks – or hoots – or something. You haven’t heard any of the swans make that sound before, but all across the lake, you see heads pop up and swift shapes moving through the water. They’re all headed your way.

Before you can move, they’re already out of the water – Gorgeous, Spinner, Needles, Sooty, Silly. Silly gets there last and lunges at the trail mix, only for Spinner to hiss at him, at which point Silly turns and hisses at Sooty, who hasn’t moved. You’ve never seen wild birds do anything like this. It looks like they’re waiting for something. You do a bird count out of habit and realize that Spooky’s missing. Sneaky repeats the honk-hoot-thing from before, and this time the others pick it up, so loudly that you clamp your hands over your ears. While you can muffle the noise, you can’t keep out the certainty: They are waiting. They’re waiting for him.

For one insane moment, you think you hear human voices amidst the cacophony, calling for the one friend who’s always dragging their feet. The impatient jostling reminds you of kids at a birthday party, waiting for the birthday kid to take a bite of cake so the rest of them can eat. Spinner half-unfolds a wing in an odd gesture, and your mind summons the image of one person beckoning to another. You’ve been out here too long. You must be losing it. They’re just birds.

Spooky’s arrival should dispel any notion that there’s something human about the swans, but there’s no way to describe Spooky’s demeanor as he waddles up onto the shoreline as anything other than pissed. He keeps rustling his wings and he’s holding his neck at a funny angle, and he hisses at the other swans even though they’re already making room for him in the huddle around the trail mix. Maybe Spooky’s in charge, and the others have to let him eat before they can. That would make sense –

But that’s not what happens. Once Spooky’s in the huddle, all seven swans bow their heads and start eating together.

A chill goes down your spine. You could write off the voices your brain conjured or the gesture your eyes sketched, but this isn’t your imagination. Sneaky stole your trail mix, then called the other swans over to share, and they didn’t touch the food until all of them were there. Swans aren’t supposed to behave like this. Wild animals don’t behave like this. Even domesticated ones – you’re a dog person, and you’ve never had a dog that would wait for another dog to get there before it started eating.

This is – you don’t know what it is, but you know something’s off. And you’ve done enough observing for today. You need to go home and look at actual humans and stop losing your mind. You start packing up your things to leave, hoping to get out before the swans remember you’re there. But with seven swans, your single-serving package of trail mix goes fast. You’re just zipping up your backpack when they raise their heads and turn to you.

“Um, hi,” you say, like an idiot. You should just get up and run. “How’s it going?”

You’ve never tried to get within more than thirty feet of any of the swans before today, working out of a healthy combination of fear and respect, but the swans swarm you with absolutely no shame. You don’t have a prayer of warding them off. Before you can do anything more than haul your backpack and sketchbook out of range, Silly and Needles are right up in your personal space, Silly pulling at the sleeve of your jacket while Needles pokes you with her beak. Gorgeous is bothering you, too – she’s pulling on the hood of your jacket, picking up some of your hair in the bargain.

If you’d even come close to them, they’d have drowned you. “Can I help you?” you ask, exasperated. “I didn’t – hey, get out of there!”

Sneaky’s trying to pull down the zipper on your backpack, probably looking for more snacks. In your quest to not get in trouble for feeding the wildlife, you neglect your sketchbook for a split second, and Sooty snatches it. You let it go out of shock, which probably saves it from tearing, only for Sooty to drop it right away when Spinner bites him and hisses. Sooty hisses in response, flares his wings, and you seize the opportunity provided by their disagreement to rescue your sketchbook. There’s a beak-mark on the cover, but it seems okay.

The sketchbook’s okay, but you aren’t. A shadow falls over you, and when you look up in search of the source, you find Spooky standing directly in front of you, a strange, coughing hiss issuing from his beak.

“Hi,” you say again, even more awkwardly than before. It’s hard to be anything but awkward when you’ve got chills running down your spine. He doesn’t respond, although you don’t know why you thought he would. He’s a swan. You’re not even sure he’s a he. “Sorry to bother you. I’m just going to grab my things and –”

Spooky stretches his neck towards you and pecks your sketchbook, hard. Then he waddles back a few steps and goes back to staring at you. If you activate the part of your imagination that pictured Spinner waving Spooky over, it’s not hard to imagine that Spooky’s giving you a meaningful look. Over what? You move the sketchbook, and Spooky tracks it. His head turns from the sketchbook to you, then back to the sketchbook, and back to you again.

He wants you to draw him. The thought’s absurd, but you don’t know how else to interpret Spooky’s behavior. You’ve been coming here to draw and paint for weeks now, and today you’ve spent time trying to sketch every other swan but him – so now it’s his turn. He’s hissing at you again, rustling his wings in a way you can’t help but read as threatening. He quiets down as soon as you open your sketchbook. “Are you ready for your close-up?” you ask nonsensically, grasping for a drawing implement blindly and coming up with a ballpoint pen. Spooky doesn’t answer. Because he’s a swan. “Okay. Just, um – act natural.”

The other swans have been indifferent to your observations, or if they’ve noticed, like Gorgeous always does, they’ve cooperated for at least a little while. Spooky’s the first one who’s visibly uncomfortable while you draw him. He keeps pacing back and forth and rustling his wings and changing the position of his neck, and when he does hold still, it’s when he’s staring at you straight on, which isn’t a particularly flattering angle on a swan. You can make anything work, but it would be great if he picked something, or at least stuck to the same few behaviors so you can draw one of them. This is a mess.

Someone honks in your ear and you almost have a heart attack. It’s Sooty, who’s been looking over your shoulder at your drawings, which is so what the fuck enough to overpower your fear of swans and push you into frustration. “Hey, no peeking,” you snap. “Go away.”

Sooty backs off, but he’s rustling his wings in a weird way, bobbing his head strangely. If he was a person – which he isn’t – it would almost look like he was laughing. The way Spooky reacts makes you think it’s laughter, too – Spooky starts hissing and flares his wings out, which looks sort of majestic, you guess. You start sketching that, outlining it in quick motions of your stupid ballpoint pen, as Spooky chases Sooty off. It’s a decent sketch. But it’s also not what you want from Spooky. You turn the page and wait to see if he’ll come back.

Spooky wanders back into your field of vision looking sort of downtrodden, and this time, he settles down on the rock a few feet away from you. “That’s perfect,” you say, the same as you’d say to a person whose portrait you were drawing. He glances towards you, then looks away. “No, I mean it. Hold still.”

He doesn’t move, so you swap out your ballpoint pen for charcoal at high speed and get to work. At this range, you can see details you couldn’t capture on the other swans. The texture of his feathers, not just the color. The way the weak late-autumn light reflects dully off his beak, and the smoothness with which it fades into the feathers on his head and neck. When he’s not hissing at you, when he’s calm, you can appreciate how striking Spooky’s red eyes are, and an idea for a much larger piece pops into your head. You can take the sketches you’re doing now and paint from them, a full canvas in shades of black and white and tan and grey – except for the crimson you’d use to paint Spooky’s eyes.

If you do that, you’ll give people nightmares. Spooky’s already been in some of yours. But it’ll be striking. Hard to look away from. And if it’s in people’s nightmares, it means that they’ll have taken some part of it with them, and while you’ve always wanted your art to stick with people in the positive sense, you’ll take haunting them in a pinch. Between you and Spooky, you can get it done.

Spooky slowly unfolds one wing, and you turn the page in a hurry. One wing folded, one partially extended, the elegant curve of his neck and the angle of his head – talk about striking. Gorgeous might be consistently easier to draw, but when Spooky cooperates, he’s compelling on a different level. But still awkward about it. You can tell, and you find yourself talking again. “This looks amazing. I’ll show you when I’m done if you want. Or if you – wow –”

Spooky’s unfolded his wing all the way, and although your research gave you the dimensions of a swan’s wingspan, seeing five feet of flight feathers stretched out in the sun is really something else. You sketch fast, wishing you could linger on the details but worried that you’ll miss something when he lowers his wing again. Spooky keeps it extended as you sketch from the base of his wing to the tip – and then you see what Spooky’s really been trying to show you. The last few feathers at his wingtip aren’t smooth and full like the others; they’re skeletal. Someone’s clipped his wing.

You think of how Sneaky always keeps his wings folded, how Sooty will try to take off from the water only to fall back down after gaining barely a few feet in height. You’ve been wondering on and off why the swans don’t migrate, and now you understand. “You can’t fly,” you say, and Spooky lowers his wing at last.

Only part of the way, though – he turns his head and starts yanking at his remaining flight feathers. “Don’t,” you protest, reaching out – but Needles snaps at your fingers, warning you to pull your hand back, and the other swans close in around you. Unless you feel like punching a swan, you’re not getting out of here until they let you. “I’m not going to hurt him. I just want to help.”

Help with what? You can’t regrow Spooky’s flight feathers, or any of the others’. Maybe you can find out what swans eat and bring them some food, because now that you know they’re stuck here, you can’t imagine them doing anything but spending the winter on the edge of starvation. But they’re birds. They must want to fly. And you can’t fix that. “If I could help, I would,” you say uselessly. “But I don’t know how.”

The swans part from in front of you, suddenly, revealing Spooky. His wings are folded again, and there’s something clenched in his beak. He comes right up close to you and drops whatever it is on your sketchbook, and when he lifts his head, the two of you are face to face. You don’t understand what you’re looking at. A bird, obviously. You’re looking at a bird, but you’re paralyzed all at once by the thought that it’s not just a bird you’re looking at. You’re looking at something else, too.

Before you can think any harder about it, Spooky turns away and heads for the water at high speed. The other swans follow him, Sneaky taking one last shot at your backpack before he plunges into the lake, and vanish around a curve in the shoreline. They’re so fast in the water. It’s hard to believe they can’t fly. Hard to believe that anyone would take that away from them.

Your eyes start to burn, and you look away from the water in a hurry, down at your sketchbook. A jolt of adrenaline runs through you. The swans don’t leave feathers lying around. Needles bit you for even reaching for a dropped feather before. But lying across your page of sketches is one of Spooky’s flight feathers, freshly pulled from his wing.

taglist: @shigarakislaughter @deadhands69 @f3r4lfr0gg3r @minniessskii @cryptidfuckerofficial @lvtuss @issaortiz @evilcookie5 @aslutforfictionalmen @lacrimae-lotos @xeveryxstarfallx @stardustdreamersisi @koohiii @cheeseonatower @shikiblessed @warxhammer @agente707 @handumb @boogiemansbitch @baking-ghoul @atspiss

#shigaraki x reader #shigaraki x you #tomura shigaraki x reader #tomura shigaraki x you #shigaraki tomura x reader #shigaraki tomura x you #x reader #reader insert #man door hand hook car door #a bisquared production #swan lake AU

82 notes · View notes