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wickedsmille · 18 days ago

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batman, robin, sentient super suits, oh my!

I got this idea stuck in my head and rather than committing it to the 15 page graveyard of other story ideas, I actually wrote it! (I'm so proud of me :'3) The aforementioned is. . . . The suits/costumes are sentient! With limited autonomy!! And their own personalities!!! So, yep. This one might actually make it onto AO3 when part two is done.

Probably rated T because Jason. Did not edit because nope. Sillies at the end because of Jason's Tim!feelings and stellar repression skills.

(Here's Part 2!)

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Imagine Jason’s surprise when Bruce leads him down to the Cave, the Batcave, and he spots the costumes of Batman and Robin innocuous in their cases. The bright lights above them shine down, illuminating the bright colors of Robin and glistening off the dark planes of armor of Batman. All four feet of Jason was vibrating with excitement. Patiently with a small, private smile, Bruce guided him towards the cases.

The closer he gets, Jason notices how they’re not on mannequins. A few more steps and he can’t spot any internal structures keeping them up or wires suspending them. Curiously enough, the costumes seem to be standing of their own accord. He didn’t question it as he came to stand right before the glass. His hand rose to press against the case, mouth open wide in awe and eyes about the size of dinner plates.

Now, just picture how a tiny, baby Jason reacted when the Robin suit recoiled. The fabric gathered together and plastered itself to the other side of the case away from Jason. The neck of the suit shifted back and forth like an invisible body was shaking its head. Pulling his hand away as if he’d been burned, Jason took a staggering step back and looked to Bruce for answers. The man stared at the case, eyes narrowed and mouth pinched into a thin line of disapproval.

It was then Bruce explained the nature of suits and the heroes they choose. Here Jason had thought Bruce created Batman and Robin, not the other way around.

Apparently one night, after getting the hair-brained idea to take to the night to fight crime with nothing but his wits and an arsenal of R&D weaponry, Batman came to him. The suit was in his study hanging off the clock. As he stepped inside the room, the suit slithered off the clock to stand before him. Tall, dark and imposing. Written in quickly disappearing fog on the glass of the clock was the name Batman.

Robin was all Dick until he decided to leave it behind. It came to Dick mid-swing from the chandelier. One second he’s flipping through the air to reach the banister, the next he’s flailing wildly after misjudging the distance. Robin caught him, the sleeve of the suit wrapped tightly around his wrist. Then the suit skittered down the stairs to the main foyer, wild and energetic as it seemed to do a round-off, onodi, bridge, illusion and finished with a needle. Again and again till Dick’s face lit up like the sun itself. Robin became a permanent fixture next to Batman from then on.

Robin was devastated after Dick left it but it still took months for Bruce to coax the suit into engaging with Jason. He did everything he could to help. Sitting and even sleeping in front of the case. Whispering his secrets and wants to the layers of kevlar and nomax. He told Robin things he could barely admit to himself let alone anyone else. It was after Jason confessed how much he loved his mom and dad in equal measure that Robin finally accepted him. That night, when Bruce opened the case and once more tried to take the suit out, it came easily where normally it was immovable.

The tight fabric slipped on like it had been made for Jason and Jason alone. Deep down, he knew it hadn’t been. The suit made his chest hum and his skin tingle but it was like wearing someone else’s skin. The discordant feeling didn’t stop Jason from fully losing himself to the magic of Robin. Even when Dick loudly protested Jason using the suit but what could he do? Robin chose Jason, eventually, even if Dick hadn’t.

Maybe that’s why Robin couldn’t as effectively protect him from the Joker as Batman did for Bruce night after insane night tangling with the rogues.

For a long time, Jason didn’t have a suit aside from the grave clothes he clawed his way back to the land of living in. Time gets fuzzy from there but he doesn’t remember another suit coming to him. Not then and not after Talia took him in, healing his body while his mind stayed locked up till she tosses him into the Pit against her father’s wishes. Jason suffered under the League and its training, shuffled off periodically to one master or expert or another to learn more about demolition and explosives, firearms and sharp shooting, spy craft and more.

When Red Hood comes to him, Jason is just coming back to his clay walled room with its moth bitten wool blanket and wood cot, blood on his knuckles and the beginnings of a nasty shiner. He’s who-the-hell-knows where. Talia never did see fit to keep him in the loop no matter how loudly or persistently he pestered her for details. She dolled out what she wanted when you wanted to achieve whatever twisted goal she’d cooked up in her head. Like siccing him on Bruce and the whole of Gotham like a living nightmare tailor made to make Bruce hurt.

Seeing a suit laid out across his cot has been the most significant deviation from his routine in a long time. Long enough the site of the black tactical gear and heavy armor visibly startles him. His hand tightens around the handle of his door as he stares unabashedly at the suit.

“What the fuck is that?” he asks, pointing to the red helmet facing the doorway at the head of the bed.

The sleeve of the leather jacket raises up a couple inches. The buckle around the wrist rises up straight and Jason doesn’t need to be a genius to know his suit just flipped him the bird. He returns the gesture and the lenses of the helmet flare a bright white before going out again.

“Well, aren’t you cheery.”

The entire upper part of the suit shudders in what he assumes is a shrug. Cheeky. He kind of hates it.

He’s trying very hard to not look a gift horse in the mouth despite his suit’s apparent attitude. It’s not as showy as Robin, thank god. There’s a cliff with his name on it, ripe for pitching himself off of, if he got a gimmicky costume. He’d take his chances rolling back into Gotham in a t-shirt and jeans then toss on another pair of undies and tights. The mercenary look is much preferred and appreciated.

Besides, despite the attitude, this suit is his. Not some hammy down Bruce needed to coax into accepting Jason.

“What am I supposed to call you?”

The lenses of the helmet light up again but this time they stay on. Cautiously, he takes a couple steps closer. The suit doesn’t move again, patiently waiting for him. Nothing happens so he closes the distance and gingerly picks up the helmet. The metal of it is warm beneath his fingers and a hum starts deep in his chest. The helmet slips on easily and fits like a glove. A wash of colors and symbols scroll across the HUD as it springs to life.

The screen blanks out entirely then a burst of red that settles into the words Red Hood. Then Lets fuckin do this bitch it reads.

“Huh,” Jason says. “Huh.”

Red Hood is an asshole apparently though he can’t deny the poetic justice of taking on the old name of his murderer. Terrorizing Bruce is going to be so fun.

Jason leaves for Gotham that night.

Within three months, he has his claws in Crime Alley and a burgeoning drug empire. It takes him six months to properly align the pieces around the board so he can set his plans for Batman into action. He’s a veritable force of nature when he’s wearing the Red Hood. Bullets glance off the armor, knives slip right past and the brass knuckles sewn into the gloves teach as effective a message when he needs to get up close and personal. It allows him the space and strength he needs to wrestle the city under his control so he can start making moves.

He becomes the Red Hood.

Things don’t go as planned though, per say.

He barely hobbles away from the confrontation with Batman and the Joker. At least this time, with the Red Hood, he does walk away.

The world is a whirlwind of sights and sounds, colors and impressions. He works himself down to the bone till the bitterness and anger dissipate enough for him to feel like a person again. Separating Jason Todd from the Red Hood, making the distinction rather than losing himself to the suit, is one of the most difficult things he’s ever done.

Red Hood isn’t happy about it and makes it known with the hard hits he takes. Not enough to threaten his life. Until Jason is facing down at least thirty heavily armed guys and the building is rigged to blow. The suits can do a lot of things like help Batman become one with the shadows and keep the laws of gravity from gripping too tightly to Robin. Red Hood is built for protection through thick armor for Jason and a nasty assortment of weaponry for those who hurt others.

But they do have their limits.

Jason just never thought he would reach it except he does and it leaves him bleeding out in some dingy back alley in Gotham. He presses hard against the wound on his side around the jagged piece of metal sticking out to stem the bleeding. His head is throbbing in time with the beating of his heart. The harder it pounds, the more it slows, the less Jason thinks he’ll make it out of this one. He’s fuckin’ clawed and crawled, sweat and bled and turned himself inside out again and again and this is how he goes? Bullshit. Straight up bullshit.

He blinks the sweat out of his eyes and forces himself to focus as the HUD flickers on and off. The light of it is faint as the air filtration system hums loudly. A tiny icon pops up in the corner that hadn’t been there before. Some simple silhouette of a person’s bust. It clicks open without his say so and the screen darkens before it springs back, determined and stubborn.

Pictures and words flash across the display, too quick for him to properly make any of it out since his brain is as good as scrambled eggs at the moment. It centers on a cartoon version of Batman’s face, complete with comically severe scowl. Jason frowns and shifts, wincing at the white hot flare of pain shooting up his side. And his arm. Shit, guess he’s not just dealing with the shrapnel in his side.

“Don’t you dare,” Jason rasps in warning.

In answer, his suit selects the icon and, to his immense surprise, it immediately connects to the comm network the Bats use. You know, the heavily encrypted one only the masters of top tier hackers have ever been able to get into. The one he isn’t supposed to have access to. At least, he didn’t think so. Things haven’t been bad with Batman and his clown car of other bats and birds. They haven’t been good either.

“Hood,” Batman acknowledges with a hint of confusion and trepidation. Jason groans but it tapers off in a pained grunt as he shifts and the metal lodged in side moves with him. “Hood, report,” Batman demands, confusion abandoned for concern.

It’s touching in that I-wish-this-weren’t-happening-but-since-we’re-here kind of way.

He doesn’t say anything so his voice modulator whirs loudly in protest of his silence. Fucking suit. Civilians truly don’t know how lucky they are to not be dogged and bullied by sentient costumes and, wow, when he thinks about it that way it is incredibly weird. He may not be thinking clearly either since he’s pondering the very existence of the hero communities suits rather than answering. Concussion, maybe? Probably, he decides as a wave of nausea rises up.

Swallowing past the bile, Jason projects as much chipper nonchalance as he can when he replies, “Not much going on here. Might’ve gotten blown up. A little. Tis but a flesh wound.”

“Location,” Batman growls.

“The intersection of Nun-ya-business and Fuck-off,” Jason says because he wouldn’t be him if he didn’t take every chance to be a shit to Bruce. Although, now may not be the time for it since black spots are dancing across his vision and he feels the bad kind of numbness sneak in.

Jason’s locator flips on and a message goes direct to Bruce with his coordinates. Red Hood is a traitor. He’d rage at his suit for being so presumptuous and taking liberties. Most suits back down on playing such an active role after they choose their wearer. Maybe an automatic switch in imaging or restocked first aid supplies in a pocket. Never this. His suit is a busy body. To think, the fearsome Red Hood with all its holsters and extra layers of armoring and plating, a mother hen.

Not the worst thing, he guesses, as he loses consciousness.

Coming out of a three day sedation to the bright overhead lights of the medical bay in the Cave with Batman looming over him, fully suited up and staring, a traumatic enough experience Jason readily steals his alternate-universe’s Red Robin suit. Unlike his own universe, this one doesn’t have to deal with fabric capable of higher thinking. The Red Robin suit is just that. A suit and nothing more, nothing less. It’s simple and perfect when he’s still angry at the Red Hood suit.

Running a few patrols back in his Gotham proves him wrong. Very, very wrong.

He forgets to restock his belt and his hand meets an empty pocket on the belt where there should be smoke pellets. Except he used them the night before when breaking up a gang initiation. The armor plating doesn’t shift the quarter an inch Jason needs to avoid getting nicked with a knife. Plus switching between lenses in the mask manually is annoying. And needing his hand to work the comms? Horrible.

Playing as Red Robin, the incredibly unexceptional and totally normal super-suit, shows him how spoiled he was with the Red Hood.

Thoroughly frustrated, Jason tears into his safe house and tears out of the suit. He kicks it off into the corner then kicks it again because fuck this. He’s over it. So over it. Hopefully Red Hood isn’t salty about being benched and relegated to the cache he has hidden in the ceiling.

Moving aside the ceiling tile and sneezing from the dust and what he hopes isn’t asbestos, Jason grabs the lock box. He pulls it close then lets it drop unceremoniously onto the floor. Sue him, the thing is heavy. A ball of writhing unease makes a home in Jason’s gut as he kneels next to the box and starts methodically disarming the security on. His hands hesitate opening the lid.

What if the Red Hood decided to fuck off to parts unknown wherever these things go when they get retired?

Then he realizes how stupid it is to be mostly naked aside from his undershirt and shorts, scared to face the consequences of his own actions. He built the mythos of the Red Hood on forcing the human shaped garbage of Gotham to pay up on their moral debts. Being brash, antagonistic, caustic and aggressive he’ll own up to but Jason has always prided himself on shying away from hypocrisy. So he holds his breath and flips open the lid -

To the suit, crammed in the small metal box, lifting the sleeve of the leather jacket on top and flipping him off with the wrist buckle. Again.

“You son of a bitch,” Jason laughs, back handing the buckle. Looking over his shoulder at the disarray of the Red Robin suit, he adds, “Look, it’s not me. It’s you.”

The next night, when he gets suited up and pulls the iconic red helmet of the Red Hood on, Jason stands over Gotham and feels whole. Jason and the Red Hood and Jason-as-Red-Hood, co-existing peacefully within and around one another. The pieces click together, making him feel lighter than he has in years. He thinks this must be how Bruce feels when he’s Batman or Dick when he’s Nightwing. When you know who you are. Robin was an ideal he clung to desperately even if it never quite fit right and Red Robin was a bad idea he needed to understand the nature of suits.

They weren’t his, not like the Red Hood is because it’s an autonomous extension of himself.

Because he’s not completely heartless even if the Red Robin suit lacks any sort of intelligence, Jason takes pity and dumps it in the Cave. Let Bruce or Lucius dissect the thing so they can unlock the secrets of suits. Or use it to mop the floors. Whatever, he doesn’t really care. At least it’s not his problem anymore.

Then Tim steals the suit. It’s a theme with Tim, apparently. Jason would take it as a goad and beat his ass if Tim didn’t leave and come back different. As is, when he first sees Tim looking pale and world weary in the Cave with an equally exhausted looking but alive Bruce next to him, Jason is feeling too many things too quickly to focus on Tim’s sticky fingers. In no way does looking like warmed over shit excuse Tim for constantly taking his stuff but he can delay payback. There’s feelings he needs to repress at seeing Bruce whole and right there.

Tim doesn’t abandon Red Robin like Jason did. No, he keeps it. Why, Jason has no clue. It’s punishment enough to wear a plain Jane suit like Red Robin so Jason elects not to confront him. If Tim wants to punish himself, it saves Jason the time he would take to do it. As time goes on, they start to get along so why shake it up for something stupid like the Red Robin suit, he thinks.

Landing softly on the roof Tim’s crouched on, Jason’s heavy boots barely make a whisper of noise as he creeps up on Red Robin. He’s bent over with his arms extended so he can scare the shit out of him.

Jason doesn’t get the chance to. About five feet away, back still turned to Jason, Tim asks him dryly, “Can I help you?”

With a sniff, Jason straightens up. “Yeah, by not being such a fun sucker.”

“Oh, so sorry,” Tim says while not sounding at all sorry, “next time I’ll let you jump scare me so I totally blow my stake out.”

“Thank you,” Jason replies.

He can feel Tim’s eye roll even if he can’t see him. “Did you come here because you’re bored or do you need something?” Tim asks.

With a shrug Tim can’t see, Jason answers, “A little of column A, a little of column B.”

“As you can see, I’m indisposed at the moment either way.”

“Alls I see is you sitting on your ass.”

“Exactly, now shoo.”

“I will not be shoo’ed,” Jason says as he comes around and sits down next to Tim. “I am un-shoo-able.”

To prove his point, Tim twists so he’s facing Jason and makes the actual shoo’ing motion with his hands. It says a lot that Tim will give him a hard time considering their past. Never once has he shied away from Jason since he and the others got chummy again. If it were him, Jason would incessantly badger and pester and be a complete dick. But Tim has never been like that, even when he should. Like he should with Jason.

Quiet reigns over them. Tim goes back to surveying the building across the street and Jason absently watches too for lack of anything better to do. Truly, he was bored. Patrolling Crime Alley was slow, for once. Who would’ve thought? Tim happened to be the first person he came across as he was traipsing the city just because he could. Lucky him.

“How’s the suit treating you?” Jason asks casually, honestly curious. Tim has been wearing it for months now.

A subtle tension stiffens the set of Tim’s shoulders. “Fine,” Tim says cautiously.

“Why even keep it on? I tried since it’s all, ya know, not a semi-conscious being literally handling my tits and bits for hours a night. Didn’t work out so well for me, obviously.”

Tim chews on the inside of his cheek while his hands tighten around the binoculars pressed to mask. It’s a testament to Jason’s growth that he lets Tim think through his answer without disrupting him with a heckle or five. Plus he’s invested. He really wants to know why the hell Tim is keeping Red Robin when the alternate-dimension suit is so sub-par compared to the costumes they have.

“I don’t have any others,” Tim finally replies, voice quiet and tight.

Oh, oops. Looks like he stepped on a landmine without meaning to. The thought that a suit wouldn’t immediately choose analytical, ambitious and surprisingly badass Tim Drake hadn’t even crossed his mind.

“I get that,” Jason says. “Can’t tell you how many times I’d turn a corner when I was with the League and hope there’d be a suit. Some signal like, yeah, you’re ready to leave these shitheads behind.”

Man, he did not mean to share some deep-down, touchy-feely bullshit. But that doesn’t make it any less true. Waiting for the Red Hood was agonizing. Empty days spent learning how to snap a person’s neck and the most painful bones to break, how to engineer car bombs, what kind of scope it takes to blow someone’s brains out from five hundred yards. Never feeling ready because he didn’t have anything but his ratty jeans and tee and standard issue League garb. Wishing he’d be released from the never-ending violence that is the League because nobody else seemed keen on letting him go easy. At least with the Red Hood, he was able to convince Talia it was a sign from a higher power on how truly ready he was to ditch them and enact her not-at-all-subtle machinations.

The silence makes Jason feel awkward and uncomfortable but Tim is thoughtful when he responds, “I’ve never been chosen by a suit before.”

“Really?” Jason can’t help but ask.

He thought Robin would’ve been scrambling to claim Tim. Robin did give Tim pants, after all. He’s always wondered if Robin kept the scaly panties just to troll Jason since it wasn’t happy with his wearing it.

Tim nods. “I, well, Dick and Bruce were in trouble and I was there but Robin didn’t. It didn’t want anything to do with me. Alfred tried getting it to see some sense but I eventually had to wrestle it on. Robin wasn’t happy with me.”

“Huh,” Jason says because he doesn’t actually know what to say but leaving Tim hanging feels like a crime in and of itself.

Like the psycho he is, Tim laughs. “Yeah, pretty much. Robin fought me my whole tenure but I like to think I did alright. Besides, I don’t think Robin is very happy with Damian either after he forced it on. You should hear the arguments he gets in with the suit.” A vicious little smirk curls up the edge of Tim’s mouth. It’s a ruthless thing Jason likes the look of.

Now Jason really can’t cash in Tim’s debt to him for taking yet another suit from him. Tim repurposed what was essentially his garbage because he had nothing better to use. Kind of sad, now that he thinks about it. And Tim fucked off to parts unknown with a regular ass suit to do the impossible. Actually did the impossible. Tim really is the best of them, in Jason’s humble and will-never-be-voiced opinion.

“I can imagine. You got some video footage of one?” Jason questions, steering the conversation back to safer waters.

“No, I would never keep something like. Come on, I’m a good guy,” Tim says sarcastically.

“The only thing good about you is that mouth.”

Even though he’s the one that said it, Jason’s brain overloads and crashes all in the span of a nano second. That was definitely flirty. In no possible universe, dimension or other-world would that line not be considered flirty. He didn’t mean to do it. Right? Right, because flirting with Tim would be weird enough Jason would need to submit himself to a litany of invasive tests just to figure out what in the hell is wrong with him. Slips of the tongue do happen-

Bad analogy to use now that he’s thinking about Tim’s mouth.

“I get that a lot,” Tim says, brushing off Jason’s folly easily.

“Get some,” Jason encourages lamely.

In another feat of extraordinary social ineptitude, Jason reaches up and ruffles Tim’s hair but he does it too hard. It ends up being some weird combination of a noogie and hair pet. He stops that right away and instead uses Tim’s head to lever himself up. Obviously he’s not going to recover from this interaction. Several fatal blows have been dealt. The only sensible thing to do is escape as quickly as he can and go scream out the embarrassment into the void.

Tim squawks in protest and bats away Jason’s hand. His brows are furrowed and sporting a deep set scowl as he no doubt glares at Jason for using him as a hand hold. Whatever, all the better if Tim is pissy. It means he hasn’t noticed Jason being a complete and total moron. Or picked up on the way the shivering, shimmying pool of warmth building in Jason’s belly is making him grimace and sweat.

Hands up in a gesture of surrender, Jason backs away. Satisfied, Tim goes back to watching his building. Jason backs up another step when, weirdly enough, Tim’s cape moves. Like a full on flap to the side. It opens up a brief glimpse to Tim’s backside, boots and belt and skin tight leggings, before the heavy material settles again. There’s no breeze tonight though Tim might have been fiddling with it or something.

Jason can’t be sure. Doesn’t really care. He has a hasty retreat to get to.

He means to retreat but Red Hood, the motherfucking, traitorous dickbag the suit is, must take some measure of joy in Jason looking like an idiot because Jason trips on the laces of his boot on his next step. Now, he’s sure he tied them. Double, triple, quadruple knotted with a complicated pattern Bruce taught them all so this exact thing wouldn’t happen. Yet, flailing and just barely saving himself from belly flopping onto the roof, when Jason looks back his laces are definitely undone and the culprit of his current predicament.

The one in which Tim turns oh so slowly with an eyebrow so high it disappears into his hairline. Judgement is pouring off Tim in palpable waves. He meets Tim’s gaze and wants to melt through the roof.

“That wasn’t me,” he instantly denies.

“Uh huh,” Tim says dubiously which makes Jason glower. “Thanks for reminding me why I like having a regular suit.”

“You sure you don’t want to take Red Hood for a ride?”

Jason decides he’s going to stop talking for the rest of ever. He had wanted to annoy Tim for lack of anything better to do. Not test the limits of how much mortification a person can feel before their will to live force quits. Things have gone so, so wrong.

Tim wrinkles his nose at Jason’s offer. “No thanks,” he says simply.

Nothing in his tone gives him away so Jason isn’t even sure if Tim picked up on the accidental and subtle as a sledgehammer come ons. He’s not about to point them out so he rolls over, ties his goddamn shoes and gets up. Carefully. In case his suit decides to do something else unforgivable. Thankfully, he doesn’t have any issues getting to the edge of the roof or setting himself up to grapple off.

“We can play How Much Gasoline Until the Nomax Melts if you want,” Jason threatens his suit, voice barely above a whisper. Then, louder, to Tim Jason says, “Okay then, see ya, Red.”

While Jason has been preoccupied with the simple task of traversing the roof, Tim has already gone back to his task. Binoculars up, body pitched forward as he intently watches something, he waves lazily over his shoulder. No indication is made that Tim needs him to stay and act as back up. Must be a survey and report only kind of night. All the better because Jason would rather eat concrete and sleep on glass than stay with Tim for a few hours.

He has some more emotional repression to get to in the form of whatever he’s feeling about Tim. Very important stuff.

Stay tuned for a part two! (For real this time.)

#tim drake #jason todd #dc comics #jaytim #dc #timjay #now maybe this idea will stop HAUNTING ME #I don't need any others calling to me in the night #15 PAGES OF IDEAS AND OUTLINES HELP #but I likes this one the mostestest #red hood #red robin #robin #ugh ok bye I'm gonna go hide in embarrassment and idk why #wicked writes

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llumimoon · 2 years ago

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why r all the recommended posts under my rambles angsty stuff I said when I was like 12 😭 why won’t u let it be in the PAST tumblr huh

#cal rambles #everyday I am haunted by my past ts phase #SERIOUSLY THOUGH EUWHAJDJVC EHY R THEY ALL LIKE HALF A DECADE OLD POSTS !!!!!!!#STOP ITTTT AUAUHGGGHH JEHWJAKXC #maybe I need to replace my talking tag lol #12 yr old me was SO dramatic. i still am today just more chill abt it <3 #also why was I vent posting on tumblr dot com who let me think that was a good idea #i see them in the recommended all the time when I’m checking who liked what post yk #so I don’t think. that people NORMALLY see those recommendations bc who would ??#but it is one of my fears that one of my beloved mutuals will see 12 yr old me’s random fuckin vent posts #IM COOL I SWEAR 😭#laughing so hard. i drew vent art bc I was scared of going to highschool #it was a big deal for me at the time it’s SO FUCKING FUNNY NOW

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medicinemane · 8 months ago

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It's just a fact that nothing I do matters or has any impact

I can prove it, and I do mean that

I wouldn't want to because I think it would bother people, but I have... endless proof

#functionally I don't exist #I exist only in the sense of a vague technicality in that I'm physically present and all the think therefore kind of trash #but I have zero impact or interaction with the world #it's not that unlikely that I'm a hallucination haunting a keyboard #a figment of my own imagination #...the only sad part is if that was true at least I could just stop dreaming myself alive #instead of having to take more concrete and failure prone measures #but I genuinely do not and never have existed #and I really can prove it a thousand times over #but... I think it would be upsetting to have it all laid out; so I never will lay out the proof #besides; even if I said every last thing that would just sink into the void too #... I could say a lot more but I won't #there's questions I'd love an answer to but... but there's reasons I can't ask them including I already have and never got a response #...shame I won't even have anything to drink on my birthday I don't think #...if only I could dissect myself and place myself in neat little piles for medical folks to use as parts #if only if only if only #what I wouldn't give for a crumb #mm tag so i can find things later #or less kindly; what I wouldn't give to be able to breath these feelings down the world's throat #see how you like it when lockdowns are enough to make you squeamish #just bitter on that one cause everyone talked big about how sad it made them... but not a shred of anything given my way #when that's just a normal day everyday forever for me #I literally forgot about lockdowns being a thing on a regular basis #my life then and life now are the same except I don't have to drive to the trailer to clean; just have to go to the storage room #so that's nice at least #but I see the exact same amount of people every day as I did then #you could make some money killing me you know; and I'd film a clip making it clear it's all my idea #only problem is I'd have to trust you with people I like despite you being willing to kill... but maybe I would if you get it's a mercy #eh... I can't even say what I really think... I should go to bed #and I can't even talk about the stuff that got me thinking on this

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miupow · 8 months ago

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. . .꒰ PEEKING . ꒱

╰┈➤˗ˏˋ kai peeks in on his friend fucking his girlfriend-- little does he know, they're fully aware he's there.

PAIRING ── choi yeonjun x fem!reader x huening kai

GENRE ── pure smut, NSFW MDNI!

WARNINGS ── exhibitionism, semi-public sex, voyuerism, perv!kai, threesome mentions, vaginal sex, spanking, degradation + name calling, mean dom!yeonjun, hair pulling, breath play if you squint

WORDS ── 0.7k

A/N ── i’ve been in a huge writing slump recently despite all of my ideas and this took EMBARRASSINGLY long to write despite how short it is omg. will try to write a few more short drabbles to get inspo back before working on bigger wips :3 hope you enjoy~~

♡⠀⠀⠀ ⠀︵⠀ [ m. list ] ⭑ [ reblogs and feedback appreciated! ]

guilt and shame weighed heavy in kai’s chest, rotting away at his insides as he pressed his ear to the door, but he just couldn’t stop himself.

he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

the squeaking of a mattress, the dull thud of a headboard against the wall. the slapping of skin on skin, dripping wet and obscene. and moaning— your moaning, rattling around inside of his empty cotton head, so shrill and loud he can almost ignore the other voice moaning too. almost.

“fuck, you’re such a slut!” yeonjun hisses with a cruel laugh, barely audible over your cries of pleasure. “just couldn’t wait for my cock, huh? had to act like a brat ‘n get me to fuck you raw in kai’s bed? nasty girl.”

kai thinks, just for a second, that maybe he should be disgusted at one of his best friends fucking his girlfriend in his bedroom, just a short distance away from where kai and the other boys were watching a movie on the couch… but his cock strained hard against the fly of his jeans, his head swam with the sound, the thought of you. he’s wanted you forever, so close but so unobtainable held possessively in yeonjun’s arms— and there you were, just behind his bedroom door, getting fucked hard and sounding just as debauched and beautiful as he had dreamed you would time and time again.

yeonjun’s words make you whimper, staccato with his thrusts into your dripping pussy. you were so wet that kai could hear your sweet gummy walls squelch around yeonjun’s cock, so slick and loud ringing in his ears— “jjunie!” you gasped, so pretty and pathetic, “slow— slow down!”

both you and kai gasp when a harsh slap echos through the air, no doubt aimed for your pert little ass. the one that’s haunted kai for months now. “shut up, take what i give you,” yeonjun huffs, those wet smacking thrusts growing faster, harder. “be a good girl ‘n just take it, fuck. this is what you wanted, right? wanted me to fuck you where he’d hear?”

you moan, choke and gag around a broken “yes, yes!”, and kai stops cold. his breath grows ragged, and the little gap in the doorway laughs at him, mocks him.

it’s all a little too perfect. staged, even— though that may just be kai’s perfect excuse for why he inches closer, peeks into the bedroom with burning cheeks.

your face is buried in kai’s pillow, hands fisting his blankets as yeonjun plows into you from behind; kai admires the curve of your back, the spanked red globes of your asscheeks ass they jiggle with your boyfriend’s thrusts. yeonjun seems to admire them too, one of veiny hands kneading greedy handfuls as the other presses you into the bed by your neck. “fuck, fuck, you’re so tight, squeezing me so good—!” yeonjun whines, throwing his head back. “you ‘gonna cum for me? gonna cum all over kai’s bed, baby?”

kai’s breath hitches, his hands sweaty as they brace themselves against the doorframe, and the door creaks open just a little bit more. just enough for yeonjun to notice.

when his and kai’s eyes meet, yeonjun just grins, wild in a way that kai had never seen in his friend before. “he’s watching, baby, just like you wanted,” yeonjun coos, sickly sweet, “gonna watch you cum oh my cock.”

despite his hand still holding you down, you lift your head out of the pillows just enough to lock eyes with kai too. pretty tears rolled down your flushed cheeks, so wrecked and ruined, and kai finds himself moaning aloud when you reach out for him with shaking fingers, whimper his name like a prayer.

this is what you wanted, what you planned. Kai’s too shocked to move, to say anything as yeonjun snickers at his dumbfounded, blushing face. he’s still fucking you, bringing you closer and closer to the edge as you cry out for release.

“she wants you,” he laughs, releasing your throat to grab a fistful of your hair, tug you up to his chest. “we both know how bad you want her— won’t you help her? make her cum? her jjunie’s being mean to her, won’t play with her pussy right… look, she’s even begging.”

he whispers into your ear something that sounds an awful lot like “beg, whore.” kai gulps, so hard it’s almost painful… the pain reminds him that this is real, that this isn’t just another one of his embarrassing wet dreams.

“kai, hyuka, please—“ you hiccup so pitifully, perky breasts bouncing as yeonjun continues to buck up into your wet cunt, and kai just can’t help but give in.

he can’t even find it in himself to feel guilty anymore.

#k-labels #txt hard hours #txt hard thoughts #txt smut #txt x reader #yeonjun x reader #hueningkai x reader #yeonjun hard thoughts #yeonjun hard hours #yeonjun smut #hueningkai hard thoughts #hueningkai hard hours #hueningkai smut

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aurumalatus · 2 months ago

Text

BRIGHELLA, THE HELLRAISER

pairing. kinich x fem!reader wc. 1.9k genre/warnings. harbinger!kinich, reader is tied up, generally unsettling lol, yan!kinich vibes summary. after a failed infiltration, you fall into the clutches of the tenth harbinger, brighella, otherwise known as kinich. unluckily for you, he's interested in you. author's note. this was supposed to be smaller but i couldn't stop. maybe i'll write a longer fic ab this in the future bc i'm kind of obsessed with the idea lol. reblogs/interaction highly appreciated!

The watchful moon hanging outside has become a familiar companion.

You can’t remember how many days you’ve sat here, wrists bound to your chair. The Snezhnayan winter does not come gentle, or so you have learned over the past few weeks—a deep chill has already set into your bones, and you fear that the frostbite has already crawled over your extremities. Outside, snow is piled waist-deep, threatening to swallow any passersby whole, never to return.

These winters kill, and so do their inhabitants.

With that in mind, you know better than to let your guard down in this land, especially with this man in front of you.

The Tenth Harbinger, Brighella. The Hellraiser.

There’s a chilling sort of beauty to him. His features are sharp and sculpted, with dark hair and thick lashes. His eyes seem to be the highlight, an exploding star of gold and green—it stands out against the white of his cloak.

You silently admit to yourself that he’s quite handsome.

“Lord Brighella, sir,” one of the agents greets quickly, stumbling through his words. The appearance of the man has a thread of fear running down your spine. He enters without so much as a ‘hello’, but each of his footsteps seems to increase the pressure in the room—you can feel the density gathering in your throat.

The skirmishers form a tight line against the wall, saluting to their superior. He doesn’t even spare them a glance as he passes.

“We found her sneaking around here, we were just about to bring her to your judgment—”

“Leave her to me,” the man interrupts, seemingly bored. The moon slips away from the window, leaving you in darkness—in this gloom, all you can see is the glittering gold of his eyes, cold. He flicks a wrist at his subordinates. “You’re dismissed.”

The skirmishers hesitate at the order, much to your surprise. If it were you in their shoes, the chilling aura of the man would have you fleeing without delay. One of them—the one with the Pyro vision—steps forward, bowing.

“My Lord, I would never doubt your strength, but do take caution. She was able to take down quite a few of our fellow soldiers before being apprehended.”

If he has any lingering irritation about his order being ignored, he doesn’t show it—instead, he circles you slowly, his cloak a whisper against the floor. Each languid step seems to leave a growing shadow in its wake, his presence haunting over your quivering shoulders.

“Don’t worry,” he soothes, though his words are absent of warmth. “If she raises a finger against me, I’ll kill her on the spot.”

It’s a thinly-veiled promise.

You swallow down the lump in your throat. He watches, a dim smile playing on the edges of his lips.

Sensing the unrest, his subordinates slowly filter out of the room, the door clicking shut with a tone of finality. You almost miss their presence—the air seems to flush out of the room with them, and you find yourself struggling to fill your lungs.

For a while, the Harbinger doesn’t speak. He merely circles you with an assessing eye. Each movement is nearly robotic, not betraying a single thought. You don’t dare risk any motion, fearing retaliation—with your hands bound, you wouldn’t stand a chance in a fight.

Something swirls in the darkness, something sinister and encroaching in the space—a predator in the shadows. The Harbinger notices your wandering stare, and, to your surprise, chuckles.

“Ajaw can get a bit antsy,” he explains, unnaturally calm. “Don’t mind him for right now.”

Grimly, you reassess your own strength. Even without your hands bound, you doubt that you would be able to stand against this man at all.

You gather your courage in your hands, holding it steadfast—even if you die here, you should not die quietly.

“Lord Brighella—”

“You can call me Kinich,” he cuts in, shrugging. His cloak brushes the floor, ghostly in its movements. “I have no care for those titles.”

He seems genuine, but you don’t chance at using his name, fearing a bluff.

“Are you going to kill me?” you ask instead, voice tinny and thin.

The question seems to amuse him.

Slowly, the man leans forward, until his eyes are level with yours. There’s something lurking in his irises, something dark and writhing. You note the uniqueness of his pupils, the draconic nature of them. They seem to pierce your very soul.

“Do you want me to kill you?” he asks. It’s not playful, or even mocking—he’s entirely serious, and that is scarier.

His honesty forces your own. You break eye contact, humiliated by your own cowardice.

“...No,” you admit quietly, “please don’t kill me.”

The Hellraiser—no, Kinich—leans away from you, satisfied with your answer. Even the presence behind him seems placated, shrinking further into the dark.

“I like you,” he declares simply. “I like people who say what they mean.”

You don’t know what to make of the Harbinger’s supposed informality. It all feels like a trick, like a means to lower your defenses. But you’re smarter, you reason, so you keep your mouth firmly shut. Kinich tilts his head at your inaction.

“You don’t like me.”

The statement leaves you spluttering, taken aback. Though you don’t exactly hold him in good favor, you know better than to offend the Harbinger with your life in his hands. Luckily, he doesn’t seem upset by that fact—he shrugs, resigned.

“I’m a Harbinger. You don’t know anything about me, so of course you’re being cautious. I suspect you don’t like Fatui very much.”

That much would be an understatement, you think absently. But revealing more of yourself gives the Harbinger more to work with, so you merely nod. He hums in reply.

“I understand that. They keep me on quite a short leash,” he sighs, brushing dust from the thick fur lining his cloak. You wonder how the cloth remains such a pristine white, even when the wearer’s hands are so steeped in blood. “Things can get a bit…messy when Ajaw comes to play.”

He says it as easily as one recounts a grocery list, like it’s no big deal that he’s carrying a murderous beast within him.

You know the rumors. On accident, you’d seen pictures of the last incident that The Hellraiser was involved in. The sight had you running to vomit, unable to stomach the gore and brutality of it all. They whisper that even the Harbinger himself cannot control the draconic beast past a certain point, resulting in his lowered rank.

The thought that the same man is standing in the room with you right now has the hair raising on the back of your neck.

If this monster—Ajaw—decides to kill you after all, you would be powerless against him. The thought has you wrestling with your mortality, facing a terror you’ve never truly felt in your life. You’d known the dangers when you walked into that Fatui stronghold, but you never imagined it would lead you into the jaws of the beast.

A cold sweat freezes over the back of your neck.

Kinich eyes you curiously, then glances out the window. The landscape is blanketed with freezing snow outside, resting in the solitude of night. You know the sight well, having become quite acquainted in your time locked up here. If asked, you could probably recreate the entire view from memory.

“It’s cold,” he states quietly. There’s a far away look in his eyes. “Not anything like Natlan.”

The admission leaves you surprised. You’d be lying if you said you knew that the Harbinger hailed from your own home country. Then again, not many people know anything about the Harbingers at all.

“Yeah,” you reply, tentative. “I hate it.”

Kinich outstretches a hand, fingers brushing over the frosted window. The ice flees at his touch, melting away from the contact, dripping down the glass. The movement pushes a bit of his cloak aside, revealing his clothes underneath—a Dendro vision hangs at his belt, alongside a Pyro delusion. The sight has you gasping quietly, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

“I used to hate it too, at first,” he murmurs, absently tracing shapes in the window. “It’s always cold, and it’s so much worse in the winter. It’s so cold it feels like you could die.”

Each word is laced with nostalgia, memories of a time long past. You wonder what led him here, to the land of ice, what led him to abandon the nation of Pyro and its archon. He’s surprisingly calm, so much so that you ponder what led him to this life of bloodshed, of strife.

He draws more mindless swirls in the frost, his fingertips wet with condensation.

“But there’s purpose here, at least for me. So I endure the ice.”

You’ve heard stories of the Tsaritsa’s enduring love, a powerful force that draws so many formidable characters to her side. For so many of them to join in extending her will, she must have some sort of unshakeable charisma to her.

Kinich’s gaze hardens, touch lifting away from the glass. “And, well, nothing feels worse than being unwanted and…discarded.”

His words drip with spite, with malice.

It feels entirely too personal—you wonder if he meant to be so vulnerable in front of you, or maybe he sees you as so beneath him that he doesn’t care. After all, dead men tell no tales.

You fear that the latter is true when he suddenly turns back to you, striding forward. You flinch back into your seat, nowhere to run, even as he draws close. He doesn’t stop until he’s mere inches away from you, so close that his breath brushes your lips.

“So tell me,” he says, softly bracing one hand on the arm of your chair, “how would you like to join the Fatui?”

No thoughts come to mind initially—the proximity and the shock of the offer has your brain in a frenzy, unable to focus on anything in particular.

“What?”

It’s all that you can manage in reply, a whisper.

Kinich tilts his head, regarding each feature of your face. His gaze seems to tear skin from bone, leaving you vulnerable and raw. Each movement of his eye is sharp, sweeping over you with a brush of heat.

“I find you interesting,” he remarks, honest. “So I’ll make you mine. You can work under me.”

Though you have limited knowledge of the inner workings of the Fatui, you find it hard to believe that the process to be inducted is so simple. After all, it had been your attempt to infiltrate their stronghold that had landed you here—there’s no way they would trust you to be one of their own.

“I…”

You hesitate, reeling, unable to find the words to say. The proposition seems so ridiculous that you can’t manage a genuine response. Kinich watches you through his lashes with a potent fascination, like you’re a caged animal.

“You don’t have to be afraid,” he soothes. You find yourself sinking into the deep velvet of his promise, a haunting spell. “Just be mine, and I’ll take care of it.”

Gently, his fingers brush against your chin, tilting your head up to face him more clearly. You pick out the gleaming jade in his irises, the beauty of it. He thumbs over your bottom lip, tantalizing and slow.

“Okay?”

Absently, you nod, lost in the mystique of him.

“Okay,” you murmur back.

Kinich smiles, and the razor sharpness of his teeth flashes in the dark.

#genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #kinich x reader #kinich #genshin impact #genshin impact imagines #kinich x you #genshin impact x you #adeptus ink #dividers by cafekitsune!

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steddiealltheway · 2 years ago

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It starts out simple. Eddie notices that Steve sometimes spaces out, but no one really pays him much attention. Usually, he’ll try to enter back into the conversation, and he’ll earn a few eye rolls when he has no idea what anyone’s talking about.

But what really haunts Eddie is the way Steve will sometimes be zoned out with his jaw and fists clenched, looking as if he’s reliving the worst of the upside down. He’ll gradually come out of it, and sometimes Robin will nudge him and quietly whisper if he’s okay, but he just shakes it off.

It’s like he has to appear fine in front of everyone, but Eddie gets it. He’s not sure what the group would do if Steve fell apart.

But a few times, he looks like he’s on the verge of it.

One time, he’s far away enough from everyone that Eddie is able to inconspicuously make his way to the former jock and nudge him. “Penny for your thoughts?” Eddie asks.

Steve startles and Eddie watches as the tension in him increases then slowly releases until he appears “normal.”

Eddie grabs his wallet and sifts through it before finally finding what he wants. A single dull penny.

He hands it to Steve who takes it and starts fiddling with it. He glances back at everyone else to make sure they’re out of earshot before he answers, “I’m just scared that maybe this Vecna creep will return, you know? It’s happened four times by now. How do we know it’s over?”

Eddie takes a deep breath. He’s gone through the same thought process of wondering if he’ll be back. If life will return to hell again. But he can’t imagine what it’s been like for Steve whose done it multiple times.

But he’s been able to logic his way out of his anxiety before. “Well, we have Will who has the whole Spidey-sense thing going on, so we’ll know if he’s back but… remember what El said. She felt it. Like it was finished this time. For good.”

Steve just nods and Eddie sees the tiniest shred of anxiety slip away. “Plus,” Eddie continues, “Can’t let our hero boy do all the worrying or his strength might deplete. How about I do all the worrying and standing guard tonight, huh?”

Steve glances over at him for a second, and Eddie almost thinks he’s going to laugh him off or something. Instead, he lets out a shaky sigh, puts his hand on Eddie’s shoulder, and squeezes. “Thanks, man.”

Eddie watches as Steve pockets the penny and actually heads toward the group with a smile on his face. He smiles and looks around. Time to stand guard.

-:-:-:-:-:-

Eddie almost forgets about it, but it’s probably the whole not-getting-any-sleep-because-he-keeps-having-nightmares thing. It’s been a particularly bad week when he finds himself in the Harrington home with all the gremlins and other adults. He wants to be all bigger than life / life of the party, but his energy is gone.

He sits at the kitchen island on a barstool with his head in his hands, staring at the granite slab of the countertop when a hand and something slides into his view.

The hand pulls back and Eddie gets sight of a penny. What the-?

He looks up to see Steve sitting next to him with a small smile on his face. “Penny for your thoughts?” He asks.

Eddie stares at him and feels his heart flutter but he wills that to die down a bit. He shakes his head. “I don’t know, man. Just…” he glances off to see if anyone else is in earshot before continuing, “I keep getting these damn nightmares. Sometimes about… Chrissy… sometimes about random stressful shit, but they just won’t stop. It’s like although Vecna’s gone, he’s always here.”

Steve’s gaze has turned sympathetic as he runs a hand through his hair and looks around before lowering his voice. “I’ve been through the same thing, but I’ve found that it’s easier getting through the night with other people. Don’t tell anyone, but I snuck into Robin’s room for weeks after the whole Russian torture thing. But hey, if you want to crash here with me tonight, I’d be more than happy to have you.” Steve glances away from Eddie and runs a hand through his hair again as a faint blush appears on his cheeks. “Hell, you’d be helping me out too, man.”

Eddie considers it and immediately feels a wave of relief flood through him at the thought. He pockets the penny and squeezes Steve’s shoulder. “That’d be great. Thank you. Really,” Eddie says with a smile and eases himself off the barstool.

He hears Dustin raising his voice in the other room and Eddie says to Steve, “Time to ware out the children.”

Steve just laughs and joins him, but Eddie sees another tiny piece of tension leave his body.

-:-:-:-:-:-

It slowly becomes their thing. Eddie finds himself keeping pennies on himself at all times just in case, but by some strange fate, him and Steve always use that same penny.

Sometimes it pressed into Eddie’s palm, Eddie once throws it at Steve yelling, “catch!”, and sometimes it just appears in one of their vision.

The thoughts range from stupid things like Steve trying to remember if he turned off the oven to Eddie’s Dnd campaign to the overwhelming trauma from the Upside Down seeping into their lives.

Along with the penny becoming a regular thing, Eddie sleeping in Steve’s bed becomes a regular thing too. At first, it’s a bit awkward as they try to find out how much space each of them needs, what side of the bed they prefer, what they’re like in the mornings, and overall just how to be around each other when sharing a bed.

It shifts when one night, Eddie notices Steve staring at the ceiling wide awake. Eddie leans over the side of the bed where his pants are and digs into his pocket to retrieve the penny which he gently lays on Steve’s chest.

Steve glances down and carefully picks it up, twirling it as Eddie watches the coin slightly glint in the moonlight. There’s a deep breath and then Steve is saying, “I was just thinking about what if we… I don’t know. Like… held each other? Or rather, I was thinking that it would be nice to be held.”

Steve sets the penny down on the nightstand which indicates the end of his thoughts but he doesn’t dare turn to face Eddie. But Eddie is already scooting closer to press his body against Steve who instantly curls into Eddie’s embrace holding him as if he’ll escape if he tries to let go. But Eddie would never escape.

And every night they hold each other close with no questions asked and no penny needed.

-:-:-:-:-:-

Eddie’s feelings for Steve grow. He knows they’ve been there since the beginning, but with the whole penny thing, it’s like he has the key to all of Steve’s deepest thoughts and desires. He knows that Steve has access to his as well and is just thankful that Steve’s never given him the penny when Eddie’s been staring at him. He knows he can’t lie to Steve, and it may be dumb, but he especially can’t lie with that penny in sight.

So, he says nothing. He keeps holding Steve through the night, comforting him if he’s awoken from a particularly bad nightmare, but usually just laying there willing himself to stay awake as long as he can so he can bask in the sensation of holding Steve Harrington.

Then, one morning as Steve makes them breakfast, Eddie looks at him for a little too long, wondering how he’s been able to live his life without him when that penny is slid into his sight.

Eddie blinks down at it and swallows as Steve looks at him. “You,” Eddie blurts out, “I was just thinking about you.”

Eddie leaves the penny on the table because he knows that’s not enough of his thoughts. Steve turns back to scrape the eggs out of the pan onto a plate and put some butter on their toast before he turns back to Eddie. He doesn’t pry, but through the breakfast the penny stays in sight.

Eddie’s plate is clear when he finally fully answers, “I was just thinking about how much better my life has been since you’ve come into it, and… thank you.” He feels blood rise to his cheeks and finds Steve with a similar blush.

“I was thinking the same about you,” Steve responds and takes their plates to clean them before Eddie can respond.

He knows he’s falling in love with him.

-:-:-:-:-:-

It’s a few mornings later, and Eddie feels someone watching him. It doesn’t feel creepy or bad because he can feel the way that Steve has shifted to lean over him. Eddie opens his eyes slowly and takes in the view of Steve staring down at him with a small smile on his face. Eddie rolls towards his side of the bed, where his clothes are piled up and grabs the penny before rolling back to Steve.

He gently presses it into Steve’s hand who continues to stare down at him with a look in his eyes that Eddie can only assume is reflected in his own gaze.

Steve takes a deep breath and whispers, “I was just thinking that I might be in love with you.”

Eddie’s heart stutters, and he feels Steve’s hand shift to press the penny into his. Eddie smiles and replies, “I think I might be in love with you too.”

Steve smiles all wide and bright in the way that makes Eddie feel like he’s the luckiest person in the world to be able to see it. Then, Steve’s hand is intertwining with Eddie’s and as the penny presses into their palms, they both lean in and kiss, only breaking away when they both break into wide smiles and begin laughing as all the tension drains from them.

Years later, Eddie gets the penny turned into a ring and when he gets down on one knee, all he asks is, “Penny for your thoughts?”

AO3 Link (for @humanityinahandbag <3)

#steddie #eddie munson #steve harrington #stranger things #steddie ficlet

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misstycloud · 3 months ago

Text

Haunted House

Ghost yan x ghost reader

TW: suicide mention

——————

It was with curiosity you stared out the window. A car had pulled up in the drive way. Through the car windows you sa two adults and three children in the backseat. Well, it was definitely not a maintenance company then. It always bothered you so when they came and meddled with your house; though it technically didn’t belong to you anymore you still considered the building as you home, and prison.

You watched as the kids ran out of the vehicle to inspect the house. You had to admit, they were rather cute. Before you hadn’t really thought about having kids and weren’t sure if you ever would, but now you found yourself wondering if you would have made a good mother. One always ponder about the choices out of one’s reach.

They seemed happy, the family of five. Perhaps you would be fine with them around.

“What are you thinking about, dear?” A voice interrupted your dazed thoughtfulness as your mood instantly soured.

“Nothing so you can leave.”

The man behind you sighed. “Do you always have to act like this whenever I’m around?”

You couldn’t bring yourself to look back at him, fearing that the sight of him would send you into a frenzy. “I do when you’re the one who ruined my life.”

“Ruined your life? We were happy together, in fact, I remember you telling me ‘I promise to love you even in death’ but I guess that doesn’t apply, not with the way you treat me.”

You nearly gasped at his audacity. The nerve some people had!

“What? Are you actually serious right now- you can’t be? The way I treat you? You want to talk about the way I treat you? You killed me!” You shouted.

You had turned around now. Your eyes took in the handsome man you had once called the love of your life. Despite the hatred for true actions and pain he caused you, a small part of you still felt something when you looked at him. Maybe it was affection? Maybe it was the anguished feelings of a happy life that could have been? You weren’t sure.

He stilled for a moment before speaking again. “I know, and I am sorry it had to go that way-“

“Had to? You weren’t forced to do anything. At least take responsibility for your actions!”

“I wouldn’t have had to do it if you had just stopped flirting with those other men.” It seemed like it was his turn to become angry. “Don’t think I didn’t see how you looked at them, how your eyes lit up when you saw someone you very clearly fancied.”

“Oh my- we’ve been over this a hundred times, they were just coworkers nothing more. Besides, they have wives and kids of their own!”

It didn’t matter how much you insisted, your (ex)husband did not relent in his accusations.

“That doesn’t mean they’ll be loyal. You have no idea what a treasure you are, many would do anything to get to have you.” The man twirled a strand of your hair around his finger, entranced by your beauty.

“Oh, like you, you mean?” You fired back.

“Stop that.” He said. “I don’t want to fight with you, we’ve already done enough of that. I did what I had to do and nothing will ever change that. Now we’ll be together for ever, even in death, just like we promised each other at the altar. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I hope that one day you will understand how deep my feelings for you go and see things from my perspective. I love you, I really do.” He turned to leave you to your lonesome. Before he left, he told you one final thing, “No one else will adore you as much as I, especially now considering no man will ever see you besides me. You’re nothing more than a ghost after all.”

The tear threatening to escape earlier finally welled up. You cried and wiped your eyes with you cold, dead hand.

——————

Just as you had imagined, the family did bring you a new sense of happiness. Whilst not exactly ideal, watching over(spyin on) the parents and the children made your days more fulfilled. They brought laughter and fun back into your undead life.

Unfortunately you weren’t able to look out for them unless they stayed in the house. It was a real pain in the ass, not being able to leave the building. If you could, you would have left decades ago- much to your (ex)husband/ dismay. You suspected he was relieved to find that you were both confined to your place of death. It meant you couldn’t leave him, which was his goal the entire time. He got what he wanted in the end.

After stabbing you out of jealousy, you died in his arms, crying and demanding answers to why he would hurt you. When you (surprisingly) woke up again, you were in the same position you had been when your life drained out of you. Your man was clutching you tight to his chest and he was stroking you hair. At first you had believed it was all a dream, then you thought you survived the whole thing. He was still petting your hair and rambling on how he loved you and how he would rather die than be separated from you. You hadn’t expected him to be so literal.

You were shocked when you had pulled away from him, only to discover a second version of him lying unmovingly on the floor next to you. Then you noticed the pool of blood spilling out from his neck, and the knife he stabbed you with in his hand. With disbelief you glanced back at the ‘living’ version of him. He smiled somewhat solemnly at you as you took in his too-pale skin and the large scar he had on his throat.

You tried not to think about it too much. No matter what he did, you would never forgive him for taking your life away from you because of his irrational fear of you cheating on him. Well, it was impossible for you to leave or cheat on him now. You were the only ghosts in the house and didn’t have the ability to take even a small step outside the front door.

Instead of spending your days avoiding him as usual, you now followed the family around the house. Mostly the children of course. They had the habit of getting into trouble whenever their parents weren’t around. You had forgotten how many times you had saved them from tripping or bumping their heads. You were lucky you could touch things in the real world for a short second. You couldn’t before so you assumed it was because you were a young and weak ghost back then.

The whole babysitting act also appeared to bother your husband, which you relished in. You remembered one day when he approached you after the family had left for the grocery store.

“Don’t you think you’re spending an awful lot of time with those children?”

“I like them so I don’t mind.” You answered and continued staring at the drawings they made that afternoon, right before begging called to get dressed and meet by the car.

“Well, I don’t think it’s right for you to do the parents job.” He sneered.

Rolling your eyes, you said, “Like I said, I don’t mind.” Your wanted to leave it at that but your (ex)husband had other plans.

“Sweetie, I will be honest; I believe your getting too attached to this family, it’s not good.”

You sent a glare in his direction. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What I mean is I think you should let them be. They’ll eventually move on whilst you’ll be stuck here. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

You scoffed at the audacity he had again. “A little late for that, don’t you think? This is the only source of happiness I have, don’t take anything more from me, please.”

“I don’t make you happy, then?” He asked, though his tone suggested he already knew the answer.

You could look him in the eye, choosing silence. He grumbled something incoherent. After another long minute of silence, he sighed. He did that a lot these days, you thought.

“Alright, my love. Continue to look after these living people if it brings you joy, but remember, it won’t last forever. I will be here when you’re done.”

Once more he left you alone to look out the window. Despite your will to disagree, you knew he was right. These people- this family- they were all still alive. You were not. Your time was over, your life stolen from you. It was only a question of when they’d leave. Until then, you’d be their guardian in this haunted house.

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magniloquent-raven · 4 months ago

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this post has been haunting me. i'm weak for beefy men in pretty underwear and @theweewooshow left an open invitation in the tags that i could not resist 😭 i was gonna say i can't believe this is the first fic i'm posting about these two, but honestly it kind of tracks.

hope yall enjoy!!

One of the things Tommy's always liked about Evan is how emotional he is. Expressive, is the word, maybe. Vibrant. It was one of the first things he noticed when they met. Poor kid was radiating nerves. The way his hands fidgeted in his pockets, and he wouldn't stop pacing while Tommy was double-checking their gear.

It's kind of fascinating to Tommy, watching Evan light up when he's happy, wilt when he's tired, always seeming to feel every emotion with his entire body.

All that to say...Tommy notices right away that something's up. There's a tiny, reactive part of him that wants to say wrong, something's wrong, but Evan's not pulling away, he just. Froze up for a second. It could've been a twinge in his bad leg when he climbed into Tommy's lap, or any number of other blips that won't completely derail the nice evening they're having.

But on the off chance...

Tommy carefully rearranges his grip, settling his hands comfortably on the small of Evan's back instead. "Everything okay?" He keeps his tone as light as his touch, and watches Evan's expression closely. Their eyes meet only briefly.

"No, uh, yeah." Evan's gaze skitters down, roaming Tommy's face, then darting away. "I, um." He grimaces, and shifts in place. The warm weight of his thighs is distracting. He's still a solid presence in Tommy's lap, and making no move to change that, despite his sudden singular focus on toying with the drawstring of Tommy's sweater.

The corners of his mouth are pursed into a frown that Tommy thinks about kissing away. That thought gets gently pushed to the side. Talking first, he reminds himself. Especially because... "If you're not in the mood anymore, that's okay."

Those—pink, perfect, God—lips part around a huff, half-curved into a grin. "That's kind of the opposite of the problem," he laughs.

Tommy can't help but mirror the smile, even if it's only a tiny one. "So, what is the problem?" He trails his fingertips up the line of Evan's spine, and down again, retracing the path when he feels Evan lean into the touch.

"It's...well, not hard to explain, exactly, but. I kinda wasn't expecting to explain..." He sighs, loud and exaggerated, and falls forward to plant his face in the crook of Tommy's neck, where he continues, slightly muffled, "How do you feel about lace?"

It's not what he was expecting to hear. Though, he's not sure what he was expecting. "Can't say I've thought much about it, to be honest."

He dated a girl back in the day who liked lingerie. She was always asking him what he thought about various scraps of silk and velvet, and it was all...very awkward. He always told her he'd like her just as much in cheap cotton and a borrowed t-shirt, which. In retrospect, was ironically true. When she broke up with him she accused him of being cold. Withholding. He brushed it off as neediness on her part.

He suppresses a wince at the memory.

Evan wraps Tommy's drawstring around his index finger, slowly curling it around his knuckle. "My ex. Taylor. She liked it. She liked...me. In it."

...Oh?

He can't picture it. Not in a bad way, he's not put off by the idea—very much the opposite—but when he tries, the mental image just...blurs. His brain is trying to mesh Evan with his hazy memories of things he never paid much attention to, and it's coming up frustratingly empty.

Tommy is very proud of how calm and steady he sounds when he says, “And…this was something you liked too?”

Warm air tickles the underside of his jaw. “Yeah.”

“Okay. Why are you telling me this now?” He feels like there’s something he’s missing. Something obvious he should have realized, if only he wasn’t so preoccupied with the way Evan’s thighs are flexing, his hand sneaking under the hem of Tommy’s hoodie, skin-to-skin, palm skimming his side, and the hot, tingling press of mouth-on-neck.

“Wanna find out?”

The second he nods he almost wishes he hadn’t, because all at once Evan is gone, and Tommy’s left sitting on his couch in a horny daze, blinking up at his slyly grinning boyfriend. As nice as the view is, his lap is cold now.

Evan thumbs his waistband. There’s excitement sparkling in his eyes, bright and shining, but he hesitates a moment before taking a deep breath and dropping his shorts around his ankles.

Oh.

So…lace. Tommy’s having feelings about lace. Not much in the way of thoughts yet. But feelings, definitely. The sudden rush of heat that burns through him leaves him a little light-headed, all the blood in his veins fizzing like he’s a can of soda someone just popped the tab on. His fingers itch to reach out, he aches with want, desire pooling low in his gut.

Thing is, they’re not even anything too fancy, as far as Tommy can tell. He has vague memories of his ex—and good God does he suddenly feel like he owes her even more of an apology—in complicated woven ribbons and things that probably looked like a crate of bungee cords in whatever bag they came in. Evan is just wearing…panties. Simple, pale blue, lacy panties. There’s a little bow on the front, and it’s unreasonably cute.

Evan hikes up his t-shirt a little, so Tommy can get a better look, presumably. Which he appreciates. He’s losing his mind a little over the trail of light blond hair under his belly button disappearing into soft blue lace. He wants to follow it with his tongue.

The attention is making Evan hard. Tommy’s not sure what his face is doing exactly, but whatever it is, Evan seems to appreciate it. He’s filling out that pouch in the front so fucking well, it’s making Tommy’s mouth water.

“So, uh. Good?” Christ, he sounds breathless and Tommy hasn’t even touched him yet.

It takes all of Tommy’s willpower to drag his gaze up to Evan’s face, but it’s worth the effort. His cheeks are flushed a happy pink, creased by a grin he’s failing to restrain even with his bottom lip trapped by his teeth. The blue in his eyes is a nearly-invisible ring around his dilated pupils, and shadowed by his heavy-lidded expression.

“Evan,” he says, a little hoarse. It’s all he can say without laughing hysterically at the sheer understatement of good. Without telling Evan, in detail, exactly how badly he needs to suck him off through that fabric. How vividly he’s imagining what it would feel like against his own cock, wondering if he could cum just from rutting against Evan’s lace-clad ass while he squirms and begs to be fucked properly.

And more importantly, it’s all he needs to say.

The rest he can just show him.

#bucktommy #bucktommy fic #evan buckley #tommy kinard #911 show #a raven's writing desk #after they're done fuckin tommy turns to buck and all serious-like goes #''dyou think taylor would prefer flowers or a fruit basket''#and buck has to convince him not to send a thank you card

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kasagia · 1 year ago

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The grudge (Losing your memory pt. 2)

Pairing: Young! Coriolanus Snow x fem!Capitol! reader Summary: You promised you would destroy him. Be his ending at all costs. The fight between you begins. Both about his position as President of Panem and about the feelings you still have for him. But the question still haunts you... is your Coryo really gone? The second part of Losing your memory, but can be read as a separate oneshot. Although I recommend reading it. Inspired by: "The grudge" by Olivia Rodrigo and @uhnanix idea/request Taglist: @uhnanix @serving-targaryen-realness @diannana @aoi-targaryen @omgsuperstarg @il0vebeingdelulu @chelseyyouraverageluigi @un06 @tallulah477 @snowspubes @hueanhdang @snowspubes @phsychobanana @blythlover ~•♤♤♤•~ Coriolanus Snow's Masterlist ~•♤♤♤•~ Main Masterlist ~•♤♤♤•~

"Wait... what do you want to do?" Clemensia Dovecote asks in shock when you invite her over a few days after your birthday party.

"You heard me." you reply calmly, playing with the Sejanus bracelet on your wrist.

"This is madness, Y/N. You can't… you…"

"You think so?" you ask, amused by her scandalized reaction. "The Capitol has seen stranger, worser things." you say, getting up from the couch and walking over to the mini bar to pour you both a drink. "Besides, you have to admit, it's an… exciting idea. People are going to love it… well, maybe not the old farts and those idiots from our year, but... I'm very optimisitc about it."

"Yes, but… my God, HE is going to hate you for this." she says with a growing smirk on her face. You laugh heartily and hand her the glass.

"This is the least of my worries. The question is... will you stand by my side?"

"Y/N? You've been quieter lately, has something happened?" your mother snapped you out of your thoughts as the three of you ate dinner together.

You replayed your conversation with Clemansia from a few months ago, wondering how to break the news to your parents… actually, now was as good a time as any. You doubt there would ever be a good time to convey something like this.

"I… actually yes." you say, clearing your throat and getting ready to drop the bomb on them.

"Is that Coriolanus? Did he propose to you?" you choke on the drink you were drinking and look at your mother with a dose of disbelief and disgust.

Apparently, the ridiculous amount of roses, chocolates, dresses, and even fucking jewellery that Coriolanus was sending you didn't go unnoticed by your mother. After the first month, you thought he would take the hint, but since he tirelessly sent you gifts, you stopped returning them to him damaged (e.g., cut roses and burned clothes) and decided to give them to the servants and maids and simply ignore that poisoned snake.

"What?! No, of course not. Besides, I wouldn't say yes like... never." you shudder at the thought, at which your father laughs, joining in on the conversation between the two of you for the first time.

"Then what is it?"

Their expectant glances intimidate you for a moment, and for the first time, you wonder if the decision you've made is right. But there was no turning back. You won't let Coriolanus win so easily (or, rather, at all).

"I… well. I've submitted my candidature for president of Panem."

The silence in the room after your statement is... extremely disturbing. They both freeze; your father holds the fork halfway to his mouth, staring at you in amazement, and your mother looks like they've frozen her. For a moment, you wonder if you've given them a heart attack. But your concern for them quickly fades when their loud collective screams echo throughout the dining room.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!"

"So I guess I won't have your votes then?" you ask jokingly, going back to cutting your steak.

"Are you crazy? A female president?!" your mother asks indignantly, and you roll your eyes. Honestly, you were a little surprised at her shock. As if you would ever play her role as an obedient wife.

"You may not know it, mother, but more and more female politicians appear in the government. Right, dad?" you ask him, using your only-daughter charm on him, mentally thanking everyone above that this man never treats you with disrespect and hostility like other fathers would if their only child was a girl.

Maybe you kind of enjoyed being his precious diamond after all. Even if that made you desired by all of Capitol's young men, who were more than willing to take your hand in marriage and dowry.

"That doesn't mean you have to be one of them! Y/F/N, tell her something!" you look pleadingly at your father, and after his long silence, you already know that you are melting his heart to your will. All it took was a little, gentle pressure.

"What are your real chances of winning?" he asks with a sigh as your mother looks at him with disbelief.

"Y/F/N..."

"I think my only serious opponent is Coriolanus. People are fed up with these fearful politicians who have been arguing with each other for a long time. Me and Snow are a fresh take on Capitol affairs. We are young and ambitious. People may choose us out of curiosity alone. And among the female electorate, I think I have a much better chance than him... if you can convince mother to let me do this, of course. I won't do anything without your blessing and support." you reply, looking at him confidently. His face is unreadable, as are his eyes, and you silently hope that you have inherited his ability to hide your emotions.

"Y/F/N you can't think about that seriosuly. She can't do this!"

"If you want to be in power, wouldn't it be better for you to join forces? Run a joint campaign. You would become Prime Minister, and he would become President if being a First Lady didn't suit you."

"I am Y/L/N. I am taking everything or nothing." this one sentence makes his façade break down. He smiles and clears his throat, trying to hide his proud smirk behind his glass of wine.

"Very good. You know your bank account number. If you need more campaign funds, in a reasonable amount, of course, you know who to ask." you smile at this and get up from your chair, ignoring your mother's words of protest.

"Thank you, father." you say, kissing his cheek and leaving the dining room, leaving him to deal with your mother's anger. You had to call your staff. The game was about to start.

You enter the parliament building quite uncertainly. You are wearing a white suit made by Tigris. The black vest, which is intended to liven up the outfit, fits you a bit too tight, but you blame it on the fact that you've been stress-eating sweets lately. You will ask her to sew you appropriate clothes later.

For now, you wanted as few people as possible to know about your candidacy. You trusted Tigris, but there was no way in hell you could let Coriolanus find out about this beforehand. You will present him with a fait accompli.

Just like he did when he chose Lucy Gray.

You notice him first. He is wearing a blood-red suit and a snow-white shirt. You wonder if subconsciously it's his reminder of the deaths of the people who allowed him to be where he stands now, but you prefer to think that the bastard simply has no conscience.

You could easily escape from him, but you don't want to. Not any longer. He will be the one running away from you. So you walk straight up to him, the click of your high heels echoing off the marble floor of the Parliament building.

"Nice suit." you say to him. He lifts his head and turns to you as he hears your voice. You can't read the look in his cold, blue eyes, but you don't care about that now. You're only here to stick a pin in him before his performance. "You wore your father's clothes and now you wear Sejan's? Maybe you haven't really changed at all." you scoff at him, and he shakes his head with an equally mocking smile as yours.

"This is probably the latest collection from your favorite designer. Not that I remember." he says, putting his hands in his pockets and watching you carefully as he takes a step towards you.

"Impossible. My favourite designer is Tigris. And I heard that lately you're too much of a snobbish, self-assured asshole to wear what she made for you."

"Maybe it's because she's turning you against me, trying to convince you that I'm a monster?" he says this ironically as you both stare at each other.

You notice that the rose is missing from his jacket pocket. His hair is also messier, as if he's running a nervous hand through it—a habit that obviously hasn't died with your Coryo. You frown at this but shake it off to respond to his taunt.

"Maybe you are actually a monster, Coriolanus? Didn't that occur to you? How could anybody do the things you did so easily? Or maybe Dr. Gaul calls this an unconventional, out-of-the-box way of thinking?"

"At least she's not pretending to be someone she's not." he growls at you, furious, a grudge shining in his eyes, at which you seethe in anger. He, of all people, has no right to resent you.

"At least I can honestly say I'm not a murderer. And what about you?"

Before you can react, he takes a step towards you. One of his hands wraps around your throat like a snake. However, he remembers that you are in a public place and quickly moves his hand to your cheek and brushes a strand of hair behind your ear. His icy eyes are locked on yours as he tries to read any reaction from you. You give him nothing. And you're damn proud of it.

"If you didn't come to wish me luck in my first public appearance as a candidate for president, you should go. Before I give you a real reason to call me a monster, little diamond." he whispers quietly, the tone of his voice laced with threat, but you don't give a damn.

"Oh, snowy… I really wish you a lot of luck. You'll need it, my boy." you say, patting his chest dismissively. You walk away, making sure to bump his arm with yours as you move past him to go to the hall where the first recording for the presidential candidatures of Panem is to be held.

And you already know that it will be hard for you not to look at him, as a furious surprise will appear on his face when he sees that you will also be presenting your programme and announcing your candidature.

You've regretted your candidature many times over the past two weeks. Partly because you had to spend more and more time with the devil in a fancy suit. You didn't see this coming; you were too busy thinking about preventing him from winning. Now you had to attend balls with him and other candidates and various events that helped promote your campaigns, smile at cameras and photographers, and try to remain as polite and courteous to others as you needed.

Like now.

You were attending some important business event, and your uncomfortable high heels were digging into your skin, hurting you. But it was worth bleeding a little. You looked drop-dead gorgeous.

"Tomorrow you have an interview with the Capitol Times; the day after tomorrow we are promoting in the children's ward at the hospital; at the end of the week we both have to go to Fulvia Cardew's engagement party. And in the meantime, you have to go to at least three fittings of new clothes that Tigris made." Clemensia says, writing something down in her small notebook.

"Thanks, Clem. I don't know what I'd do without you." you say with a small smile as you sip your glass of champagne.

"You'd have to keep that stupid calendar and schedule yourself. If you want to help in some way, you can finally answer one of the many calls from Coriolanus. He torments both me and the servants in your house at night."

"And make my mother lose hope that someone is courting me? No thanks; this way, I have peace from her, and I don't have to talk to him longer than I should. Besides, I thought you liked it when I gave you the gifts he somehow managed to leave at my door."

"At some point, yes... but you will finally have to clean up the relationship between you two. Even if we win, Coriolanus will remain an important political player, and it would be good to have him on our side. Besides, it's obvious that he… oh shit. Gaul is coming." she says, terrified, and leaves you. You turn around just as the co-creator of The Hunger Games walks up to you.

“Miss Y/L/N. Congratulations. You surprised me.” you swallow the rest of the champagne and set the glass on the table behind you, preparing to face this crazy woman.

"I think half of the Capitol was in a similar condition. But I appreciate the gesture, Dr. Gaul." you say this with a polite smile as the woman looks you up and down. You're glad you're keeping yourself from trembling under her scrutinising, watchful gaze.

"Mr. Snow seemed to be particularly surprised. As soon as he returned to the lab, he came up with wonderful ideas for next year's Hunger Games." she boasts, and you smile fakely. It sickens you to think about what these two could have come up with for these poor children. But you don't show it. Instead, you chose to strike back.

"I heard that after Lucy Gray's disappearance, their... popularity dropped a bit. I hope things are going well with the sponsors? It would be such a shame if the project and ideas had to be... cancelled due to a lack of money."

"We're doing well. When Mr. Snow becomes president, I think the government will be more willing to fund them."

"IF Mr. Snow becomes president, Dr. Gaul." you correct her, slightly irritated. The woman smiles and nods her head mockingly.

"Of course... If." she says it with a wolfish, menacing smile.

You both stare at each other with hatred for a moment, both of you refusing to give up in your little battle. The atmosphere between you is tense.

You flinch when you feel a hand on your back. The delicate scent of roses begins to float in the air.

"Dr. Gaul. I am so happy to see you here. Y/N, you look amazing as always." Coriolanus says as he leans in and places a kiss on your cheek. You would wipe it in disgust if there weren't other people around you.

"Mr. Snow." Dr. Gaul greets him.

The mysterious smile never leaves her face as she watches the two of you. You remember what she just said. How Coriolanus was still so eagerly working with her on the Hunger Games. His hand on your back starts to burn you in an unpleasant way.

"Excuse me. I need to get some fresh air. It started to stink in here." you say, subtly implying that it's the scent of Coriolanus and his rose that bothers you as you walk away from them both.

You go to the roof of the penthouse, which is surprisingly empty, and take out a cigarette. You search for the lighter, thinking about what Gaul told you. Somehow you felt even more distant from Coriolanus... as if she emphatically confirmed what you already knew.

Your Coryo was completely gone. And there was nothing that could bring him back to you.

But why did you still care about him anyway?

"I didn't know you started smoking." you flinch when you hear his voice behind you.

You ignore him, trying to light the lighter, but to no avail. Apparently, today everything must have gone shitty for you. Seeing your struggles, he walks over to you. He takes a lighter from his pants pocket and holds it to your cigarette, lighting it.

"What the hell do you want?" you ask him madly, at which he raises his eyebrows, but he is not moving away from you.

"What? You won't even thank me? You know, I've helped you there. I could just leave you to talk with Gaul, but I walked in and took her attention from you." he says, stuffing the lighter and his hands into his pockets as he leans on the railing next to you, staring at the skyline of the Capitol below you.

"I didn't need a fucking hero. I could have left her at any time. Unlike you, I don't play vaseline, I don't humiliate myself, and I don't do anything I don't want to, just to please other people." you snort and blow a cloud of cigarette smoke at him. He coughs, looking at you offended, to which you just smirk.

"You know, I remember the time when you were doing everything in your power to please ME. In many, many ways, actually." he says, using his hand to wave away your clouds of cigarette smoke.

"Keep these memories close to you because they will never happen again. I'd rather be burned alive than ever sleep with you again." you say it with obvious disgust. Out of the corner of your eye, you see the furrow of anger forming between his eyebrows. "Don't frown. Or make-up artists will have a hard time covering your wrinkles."

"I have no idea why you are so aggressive and act madly when it comes to me. I didn't do anything to you." he responded firmly to your mocks, never taking those ice-blue irises off of you.

"That's the problem, Coriolanus! You think that you don't do anything wrong, when the truth is that you are taking actions that are terrible. I feel like puking just looking at you and thinking about how many children will suffer because of Dr. Gaul's and your crazy ideas." you burst out furiously at him. You are now standing opposite each other, both of you glaring at the other in a furious, defiant way.

"The Hunger Games are necessary."

"Bullshit." you interrupt him before he can make any arguments. You see him sigh, running a hand through his gelled hair.

You catch yourself subconsciously missing his curls and how you used to stroking them when he was lying with you on your couch and reading a set book for one of your classes…

"Have you ever been in the District? 10, 11, 12? No. You didn't. You have no idea what kind of people are leaving there. You live in the safety of the Capitol, and you have no idea how quickly these rats can start a civil war and rebellions. Did you forget what they did to us? How have we suffered? I lost my father, and my family went poor. I had to pretend that I was still a rich snob. Tgiris, my grandmother, and I starved more than once; they wanted to throw us out of the apartment. I had nothing but a meaningless name and family."

"You know, that was the time when you had everything. You had friends, family, and a girlfriend. My love and limitless devotion, respect, and admiration. Now what do you have left? Money? Power? Glory? Besides, people are not the same. They can be good, Coriolanus. The fact that you are too afraid to see or admit it is proof of how huge a coward you actually became." you say it disappointedly, dropping the cigarette to the floor and stomping on it.

"I am not..." he pauses as you look up at him, and your eyes meet. He thought that no one could silence him. But one look from you, full of resentment and sadness, makes him fall silent.

You make him feel weak. As if he was still that poor teenager who had to hide his family's terrible financial situation. Only now he's hiding the fact that your words are actually reaching him. That they actually hurt him.

He couldn't afford to have any weaknesses. He had to be strong, tough, and decisive. However, after one look at you, it was enough for him to begin to question everything he had learned under Dr. Gaul. To question everything he did after the fucking Hunger Games and Lucy Gray.

"Yes, you are. Everything you are doing and every bad decision you've made, you made out of fear. Fear of losing your life. Of losing your position. Of never coming back to the Capitol. You are a coward who desperately tries to play the brave man that matters in this world."

"You have no idea what it was like in the district! Or in the Hunger Games, when I had to get Sejanus out of there. You don't know what you would do in such a situation, so don't you dare stand there and judge me. Not when all I could think about in those days, what kept me away from absolute madness, was you." he says, desperately trying to present his actions to you as right, to make you understand his point of view and the reasons why he did all of these.

"Maybe not. Maybe I don't know what it's like. But I would never become the cause of the death of my best friend. You have his blood on your hands. I will never forgive you that." you notice him flinching at your words, but that's all you can see through the mask of indifference he suddenly decided to wear. But his eyes—his eyes and the emotions hidden in them—remind you so much of your Coryo.

"Do you think I have removed it from my memories? That his screams didn't haunt me in my dreams? That I simply forgot about him?"

"You are certainly on a good way to do it, Coriolanus." your soft whisper gives him goosebumps. You look at each other for a moment. When you realise he has nothing to say, you shake your head, laughing bitterly, mocking yourself for thinking for a moment that he really was more than just the cruel Gamemaker, and turn away.

You walk towards the exit, but suddenly you hear his quick footsteps behind you. He wraps his arms around your waist with one hand and holds your hands with the other, making sure you don't break away. He rests his forehead against the back of your head, inhaling your scent for a moment before whispering into your ear.

"Do you remember that place?" he asks, his nose stroking your cheek. "Our second date. Sejanus, let me take you to one of his parents' penthouses. They were supposed to be on vacation, but they came back earlier. We had to hide on the roof and wait since they would leave so we too could. We had a picnic here. I was holding you close to my chest, a little closer than I am doing now. It started to rain. I was furious because I wanted everything to be perfect for you, and as always, everything went terribly wrong. I wanted to look at the stars with you and run my hands through your hair while you fell asleep on my chest, cuddling up to me as if I were your teddy bear. I loved feeling the weight of you on me. In every circumstance. Anyway, we gathered everything and ran to your house. You let me into your room through the window. We took a hot shower together and..."

"And then happened the worst sex I've ever had." you interrupt him, trying to regain control of the situation. He only laughed at that, which made your heart skip a beat when, for the first time in so many months, you hear him laughing truly, not in a mocking, bitter, or fake way.

"The worst? Your moans and scratches on my back proved otherwise. Besides, considering it was the first time for both of us, I guess I did a good job. Your silky skin has haunted my dreams since that night. It never stopped. And judging by the way you are breathing right now, you also seem to think about that time fondly. We can do it again at my place tonight if you want. I am now in a much better position to truly make your nights unforgettable."

"I'd rather be bitten by one of Dr. Gaul's snakes, but thanks for the offer." you huff, getting out of his arms and pushing him away from you as you go to the exit of the Plinth's penthouse's roof.

"Don't tempt me. You know I can arrange it. Sucking the poison out of your delicate skin with my mouth is a really tempting alternative." he says, following you as you both return to the main hall.

"Disgusting pervert." you whisper over your shoulder so that only he can hear you in the crowd of elites and reporters who have gathered.

"Both of us, my darling. Both of us. But the point is..." he grabs your hand and helps you down the stairs as if he was a true gentleman. You would roll your eyes at this, but people have already noticed, you know, that you have hardened the mask of politeness on your face. "I remember everything. I am not losing my memory. I never will. Not about you. Not about us." he whispers, and you feel his blue eyes burning a hole into your temple with how intensely he stares at you.

"You must be mad to think that I will just go back to you. Besides, I don't have time for you. My voters are waiting for me."

He chuckles and gives you a mysterious, quizzical look that you can't read. But before you can analyse his stance, he pulls your hand to his mouth and places a gentle kiss on it. His full lips tease your skin, setting it alight with the reminder of all the times he's had the opportunity to do this.

He pulled away from you as quickly as he leaned into your hand. He smiles, giving you a view of his pearly teeth. How pleased the devil is...

"We shall see, my little petal." he whispers. Your old nickname he gave you one day is sounding as perfectly sweet as it used to, and you are not sure how much strength you have left in you to not let him melt your heart. Then he walks away from you, leaving you in the crowd of other people.

And you stand there, rooted to the floor, and all you can do is stare at the back of his head as you try to snap out of the feeling of his lips against your skin, trying not to dream of experiencing all of him again.

A week later, you were returning from another party. You managed to sneak out a little earlier than usual without anyone noticing. Relieved, you got into the empty elevator and pressed the button for the ground floor. You leaned against the wall and sighed, rubbing your neck, where you wore a diamond necklace. Your momentary alone relief didn't last long.

As usual, you smelled him first. The faint hint of roses hit you as the man leaned against the wall of the elevator next to yours, giving you some space. You glanced at him casually. This time, he didn't have a rose on his vest. He was also much paler.

"The makeup artists chose the wrong powder for you." you say, not knowing why you even initiated a conversation with him.

"Was Thomas so tired that he couldn't stay with you until the end? Was he too scared to hold on to the precious diamond that had fallen into his hands like a grain to a blind hen until the end of the night?" he responds to your taunt. You frown at the hint of jealousy in his voice.

Coryo has always been possessive and unsure of your relationship and whether you might leave him one day for someone better. Therefore, any man's attention towards you caused... unpleasant feelings for him. He obviously still had this behaviour towards you. Even though you were no longer together.

"He has an exam. Anatomy or some other shit. But don't worry, he will definitely accompany me when the election results are announced."

"Seriously? Are you now going to show off with that little boy-toy?" he asks you furiously. You can feel how his cold blue eyes are piercing right through you.

"Livia Cardew?" you scoff as well, opening your eyes to glare at him with an equally disgusted look. "But you know what? Actually, I'm not surprised. The biggest whore in Capitol. After you, of course."

"You slept with that whore 374 times. Which makes you equally slutty, little petal." he says with a cheeky smirk. You huff, folding your arms as you look at him in disbelief.

"I can't believe you were pathetic enough to actually count this."

"You're lucky I've lost count of the number of orgasms you've had because of me."

"And you are disgusting." you shake your head, impatiently waiting for the elevator to go down to the ground floor so you can get far away from him. You try hard not to think about all the times you had… done this.

But he doesn't let you go that easily. He leans down and brushes your hair back to give him better access to your ear to whisper.

"And you crave me as much as I crave you, my darling."

"Do you think that just because you started donating to charity organisations, I will suddenly fall into your arms or into your bed? You think I don't know you're doing this as part of a campaign? To get more votes? Are you that stupid to think that I will fall for it and believe that you are trying to be a better man for me?" you ask him, angry and defensive, mocking him.

"I'm starting to doubt my ability to do anything you could approve of. But it's nice that you still care about me enough to be interested in what I do."

"You can give up your candidature for president if you want to see me happy." he laughs at your words, looking at you with a mischievous smirk.

"And make it so easy for you? No way, my darling. We both know that only the two of us have a real chance of winning. You should finally surrender and join me. We both know this is where we'll end up. I, with you by my side, just as it has always been."

"Not always. I remember very well the time when it was only you and your songbird." the elevator is on the second floor when he aggressively presses the stop button.

You try very hard to hide from him the fact that you feel insecure in this situation. In a small space, with him practically at your fingertips, you don't know if you can control yourself. So you try to remember all the disgusting crimes he committed.

"It was just a game. A show for the Capitol. You know I had to win. It didn't end the way I wanted, but you know perfectly well that I had to do it." he says, placing his hands gently on your shoulders as he tries his hardest to keep your eyes on him and you standing still in your place for the time he talks.

"I've already told you this. There is always another choice." you growl in his face, furious, refusing to give up.

"You wouldn't even talk to me if I still remained a nobody. You would have dumped me the moment it became known to all Panem that my family was poor and that Snow's name meant nothing. And marrying you would only be a distant dream of a madman."

"As if you had any chance now." you mock him with a laugh. You somehow push him away from you and press the start button. The elevator starts moving down again.

"I have your parents' blessing."

"And my disgust and resentment towards you."

There is silence between you for a moment. He stubbornly stares at your face, trying to read some emotion there, but you give him nothing but a blank stare at the door in front of you as you impatiently wait for it to open.

"What do you do when you win?" his question catches you off guard for a moment. You look at him in shock.

"What?"

"What do you do when you win? Bring an end to the Hunger Games? Try to get me killed? Why are you doing all of this?" he asks, standing directly in front of you. Your chests rub against each other with every breath you take. You lift your head slightly, staring at him defiantly.

"So YOU won't win." you finally reply, shuddering as he takes your hand gently in his and starts tracing patterns on it with his thumb.

He leans towards you so that you could rest your chin on his shoulder if you wanted to. You shiver, feeling the warmth of his body close to yours and feeling his lips gently brush against your earlobe.

"Snow lands on top." he whispers, hot air caressing your ear as he bites the lobe of it.

"Y/L/N takes everything." you whine, digging your nails into his neck. He gasps in surprise, his hands gripping your waist tightly as he presses you against the elevator wall with his body.

"Or nothing. But don't worry. When I win, there will be no one who can stop me from marring you."

"IF you win, then I will be gone. You will never find me. Just like your little songbird." you can see the fury in his eyes at the mere mention of her. His grip on you tightens.

"She is not mine. You are. Accept it and end this. You don't want to be president. I do. There is nothing more powerful than you and me, so and this damn kind of punishment for me and accept your place as my First Lady."

"Maybe I don't want this… but it will be so funny to watch you fail," you say, tilting your head and watching him closely as his nostrils flare with rage at your stubbornness. "Besides, I'd rather shoot myself in the head than be your wife."

"There was a time when you wanted it. When it was all we dreamed of. You and me. Together. Against the whole world."

"That's how it was. When I thought you were worth something more, when you were my top priority. I thought you wanted something more than money and power, but it looks like I never meant for you that much to be as important to you as you were to me. Or maybe I didn't know you at all." you say, no longer hiding the hurt in your voice, and you press the button on the damn elevator to get away from him.

You promised yourself that you wouldn't show him how much he hurt you or how much you missed him. But apparently he wanted to make sure he destroyed not only your Coryo but you as well.

You look away from him, ignoring the fact that he suddenly went quiet next to you. All he did was look at you. And you avoided his gaze, afraid that you would melt in front of him and that you would show him your heart again.

The elevator opens, and you sigh in relief. However, it doesn't last long. You tense up when you see reporters downstairs, waiting at the exit.

"Smile for the picture." you say, and drag him with you towards the exit.

You quickly let go of his arm as he obediently follows you, and you try to ignore the fact that his fingers lightly brush against your hand as if he wants to grab it. You move away from him gently and quickly walk past the reporters and paparazzi.

You quickly get into your car and nod to the driver to go. You lean back in your seat and sigh deeply, placing a hand over your racing heart. You can't help but glance at Coriolanus.

Thanks to your car's tinted windows, he can't see you. Still, he watches your car with his eyes, and for a small moment, you think that maybe, just maybe, he wasn't all rotten to the core. Maybe, in his twisted way, he still cares about you.

The first round of elections was behind you. As you expected, Coriolanus and you achieved the greatest results. The game for the presidency of Panem has begun to be fought solely between you two.

And you were about to play the first dirty card against him. Clemensia nods at you as you head towards the podium and the microphone.

"Good evening, everyone. Thank you very much for all your votes and the trust you have placed in both me and my, well, rival after all." people chuckle gently, you find Coriolanus' curious gaze in the crowd. "I am convinced that, no matter who of us wins the upcoming elections, Panem will be in good hands anyway." You see a glimmer of hope shining in his eyes as he comes closer, moving freely through the crowd. The look in his blue eyes never leaves you for a minute. You would tremble, intimidated by his attention, if you didn't know, what would happen in a few minutes. "Without further ado, I would like to introduce someone who will certainly make this evening more pleasant. You have no idea how much I had to beg our star of the evening to agree to perform today. Ladies and gentlemen. At my ask and to your delight. The one and only Lucy Gray Baird!"

As you leave the stage, you glance at Coriolanus, seeing him staring at the woman with the guitar appearing on stage in shock and mild horror.

You stand further away from the crowd, on the other side of the room—as far away from Coriolanus as you can be—and watch him carefully, leaning against the wall.

You have to admit that Lucy Gray is stunningly beautiful. And the legend she has created around herself, her voice, and her skills only make her more perfect in the eyes of others.

You're not surprised that she charmed Coriolanus months ago and now. In fact, you expect Snow, too overcome with emotion upon meeting her again, to forget his façade and pursue her. With a bit of luck, maybe your people will be able to take compromising photos of him.

But you are surprised when, after watching her for a while, he shifts his gaze to the crowd of people, looking for something. You freeze when his eyes meet yours. You raise an eyebrow, not sure why, instead of staring at the girl, he stubbornly searches for your gaze. Or rather, you don't want to admit that you know the reason why, because that's exactly why you quickly leave the great hall of parliament and run away from the man who is now walking towards you.

And much to your misfortune, Coriolanus Snow learns from his mistakes. That's why you suddenly bump into someone a few metres from the exit at the end of the corridor leading to the elevator. You collide against a wall of toned muscles. His arms quickly wrap around you, keeping you from falling.

"Leaving so soon?" his whisper sent unwanted shivers down your spine, as did how close your face was to his.

"Get your hands off me." you snap at him and get out of his grip. You stare at the elevator, contemplating how to get past him and get in, but he sees your intentions in your eyes and blocks any escape route with his body.

"What game are you playing?" he asks, staring at you. You lift your head, returning his defiant glare. "I don't even care how the hell you found her. Why is she here? What do you need her for?"

"Shouldn't you try to catch your little songbird before she flies away again?" you mock, ignoring all of the questions he asked you.

"I am." he says, staring firmly at you, making you more confused by his actions than before. He should have been after Lucy Gray… why the hell was he keeping you pinned to the wall, blocking your only escape route with his body?

"What?"

"I am not letting you run away. We are solving this here and now." he says this, looking around the hall. You take advantage of his moment of inattention and try to free yourself from his strong grip, but he doesn't move even an inch in your struggle. Fuck his peacekeeper training.

"We have nothing to solve, get it into your stupid head!" you shout at him in frustration, unable to get out of his arms.

"You know what your main problem is? You don't allow yourself the idea that you might be wrong or that you don't know everything about me. I may be a monster, but I've never lied to you. About anything. Lucy Gray and I had nothing when you were with me. Whoever gave you these stupid rumours was lying. Ask her. She'll tell you that the only thing I did was kiss her. When I was drunk in District 12, exactly the day after I got there. And do you know why? Because I was convinced I had fucked up my life and I would never see your damn face again. And fuck, even kissing her couldn't get you out of my mind. All I thought was you. All I think about is you. I can admit it out loud. How about you?"

"I despise you." you growl angrily, struggling in his arms.

"Yes? Then why did you frame Livia for engagement to Festus? You think I don't know it's because of you that they were caught fucking in the garden together?"

"I wanted to discredit you. Show that your girlfriend is sleeping with anyone on the side. Besides, you made Thomas fail at university, and he had to retake his exams today, which is why he couldn't show up. I had to take revenge."

"No. You were jealous of me. You wanted to get rid of her and you did. Why are you playing the gardener dog? Why don't you just admit that you want me?" you roll your eyes at him, trying your hardest to hold on to your internal irritation and fury at him. But it was a very demanding task, considering how his mesmerising icy-blue eyes were now watching you very carefully.

"I don't want you." you say, trying to sound firm but also a little indifferent, enough for him to believe you. But you can see by the way his eyebrow raises that you've screwed up something.

"Yes? Then kiss me." his sudden command leaves you extremely stunned. You almost lose the fight with yourself to keep your jaw from opening from shock.

"What?"

"If you despise me, if you don't care about me, then you will have no problem with kissing me and walking away like nothing had happened." he explains, moving closer to you, your noses brushing against each other, you feel his breath brush against your lips, and the warmth of his mouth is so close that it makes you feel as if you could actually touch him.

"Let me go. I'm not going to make a fool of myself for your own amusement. Those days are gone forever; we are not a couple, and we will never be together again. Get over it!"

"Then kiss me. C'mon. Prove your point. Kiss me as if you hate me. As if you despise every little part of me just as much as you claim. Prove that you have absolutely no feelings towards me despite hatred and grudges."

And God, you want it. You want it so much that it hurts you not to be able to press your lips to his right here and now.

You know that the moment your lips meet his, all your cold demeanour towards him will melt away like snow in spring. You know that you will easily return to his arms, giving yourself to him and proving nothing in your favor. And you've come so far—too far—to let him see past your facade now, to let him make you want him even more than you already do.

You shiver as he leans in so that his nose brushes yours as he gently cups your cheeks in his hands. He doesn't make the first move. Of course not. This cunning snake tempts you to give in to your greatest, darkest desires, which you feel ashamed of for having managed to survive in the recesses of your heart.

"End this torment. For both of us sake."

Just a gentle touch, you think, hearing his whisper and feeling his body softly press against yours, complementing you perfectly as always. One taste of his lips. Just one...

Your heart beats fast, and your breaths are mingling in the small space still left between you two. With a trembling hand, he tucks a strand of hair behind your ear. His fucking eyes are all you can look at, the unspoken request shining so brightly in them that you can't mistake his desire for anything else. And you give in, tilting your head to place your lips so close to him...

A loud bang makes you both pull away from each other. A drunk senator staggers towards the elevator, nodding at the two of you. He mumbles something under his breath, and after a quick glance towards Coriolanus and a nod of his head, you decide that he will walk him away and make sure he doesn't tell (or remember) how outrageously close the two of you were just moments ago.

You walk back to the party, trying to calm down enough to let the blush fade from your cheeks.

You make sure that Clem sends Lucy to her hiding place after her performance, and you continue to politely smile and pose for photos, promoting your allegiance.

And the next day, when you are reading the morning newspaper, you notice in one of the photos that this bastard put a rose behind your ear.

It was raining heavily.

It was late at night as you were preparing for your speech the next day. You walked around your room with a piece of paper in your hand, gesturing and practicing proper intonation and posture.

“Miss Y/L/N?” you stop when you hear the voice of one of your maids. "We have… an unusual situation."

"What? Did something happen?" you ask, confused at her uncertain tone of voice.

"It depends on how you interpret the situation, miss." you raise an eyebrow at her questioningly. She points to the window. You frown in surprise, but walk over to the window anyway.

"What the bloody hell is he doing here?" you whisper, seeing Coriolanus standing in your garden. He was completely soaked. His hair and coat were soaked with water, clinging to him as he stared at your window, standing still as the rain hit him.

"David says he's been there for several hours. He tried to talk to him and get him to leave, but Mr. Snow… just stands there."

Your first instinct would be to close the curtains and pretend he wasn't there, but you didn't want to think about the scandal that would start if anyone found out that your rival was standing outside your window in the full rain like some lovesick puppy. It was obvious he had to be here for a reason. It was probably some dirty play on his part. Something that was intended to negatively impact your candidature.

But then you looked at him. Even when you showed up, his gaze was... disturbingly empty. He couldn't fake it that well. It was not like he could completely hide his reaction to seeing you.

"Does anyone else know about this?" she shakes her head, and you sigh. You have no idea why he's standing outside your window in the heavy rain. You're just thanking fate for him choosing the day your parents left the Capitol to behave so strangely. You just hoped no meddlesome paparazzi saw him. "All right. Make sure it stays that way." you ask her and walk out of your room.

Walking downstairs to get to your coat and umbrella, you wonder why the hell he's standing outside in front of your mansion, staring at your window, risking getting sick with all the rain pouring down on him furiously.

It has happened before that he was standing under your window. Before this whole Hunger Games thing started, Dr. Gaul and Lucy Gray he would often sneak up to you through your window to talk about what was bothering him.

But that was a long time ago. And now you had no idea what he was doing out there and in all this rain.

You wrap your coat around yourself and take an umbrella as you go outside. The rain somehow seeps through your shields, hitting you unpleasantly. Water droplets start to soak into your clothes. You wonder how he stayed there for so many hours.

"What the hell are you doing here? Are you crazy?! Is this another one of your sick tricks against me?!" you shout, walking towards him. But he doesn't answer. His eyes are locked on you as he stands there, motionless. You notice that his eyes are bloodshot from crying, and his hands are shaking slightly, as well as all of his body. You don't know if it's from the cold or from crying. "Coriolanus?" you ask, starting to seriously worry about him.

He trembles even more, not looking at you. He fixes his gaze on your shoes. What worries you is that he is completely oblivious to the rain pouring down on him. As if he didn't feel anything at all anymore.

“Alright, come on.” you say, pulling him by the arm towards your mansion. You hide him a bit under the umbrella, but it doesn't change the fact that he's soaked like a dog. Maybe even worse.

His silence, the lack of any emotion on his face, worries you. You haven't seen him like this before. So… empty.

You enter the house through the back entrance. You put the umbrella down and turn towards him. Seeing that he's still not reacting to any stimuli and acting like he's on some kind of autopilot, you walk up to him and start unbuttoning his coat.

He doesn't comment on your behavior. Neither do you say anything. You just want to get him out of all those wet clothes so he won't get seriously sick... You have no idea why you worry or why you care. Maybe you are on some kind of autopilot too.

As you lead him to your room, you are involuntarily reminded of all the times he snuck there with you. When you were still the closest people to each other in this world. When you came to each other for comfort. When you were each other's only shelter.

"I should still have some of your old clothes here. You should go change and take a warm bath. There's no way you wouldn't get sick after this." you say, walking over to your clothes chest and looking for some of his old shirts and pants.

"Grandma'am is dead." he says it in an empty, emotionless tone of voice. You freeze in shock and slowly turn to face him. He still stands where you left him, his gaze blankly fixed on the space next to you.

You don't say anything. You don't know what to tell him anyway. You just stare at him, waiting for him to say something more. It bothers you how he just… doesn't do anything. Acting as if all that was left of him was an outer shell, a facade that barely held together.

You walk up to him and take his cold hand hesitantly into yours. You stare at them for a moment and look up, meeting his icy, bloodshot eyes.

"I... I am so sorry, Coriolanus." his bitter laugh at your words might be a good sign after his disturbing behaviour earlier, but somehow it worries you even more than his silent attitude and blank stare.

''You will never forgive me, will you? You will always see me only as a monster? As a murder and nothing more?" he asks, hearing that you still call him by his name, even at a time like this. The version he hated, instead of the sweet nickname he hadn't heard in a long time. Which even Tigris stopped using.

"Thta's not..." you start, concerned at the calm tone in which he says it. As if the truth of what was happening between you was starting to dawn on him.

"This is exactly what I am to you! A heartless monster! But you know what?! I AM NOT! And you... you are a hypocrite." he starts getting angry and pushes your hands away from him as he paces around your room.

"Me?!" you scream at him, disbelieving. You step in front of him, blocking his path and forcing him to face you.

"YES! You! You may not be a murderer, but you do something much worse. Your indifference, your hatred, and your aversion towards me—do you think it doesn't do anything to me? You've been killing me and hurting me day after day since I left the fucking Capitol and was sentenced to exile. And since I came back, your face, your voice, and your memories haunt me more than ever before. Missing you is killing me. Watching you from afar is killing me. Not being able to hold you in my arms is killing me. You said you could confidently say you're not a murderer. I do not agree. You kill me every day, and each time in a more cruel way. But all I can do is follow you like some faithful puppy, waiting for you to change your mind and give me a chance to show you that I'm not lost, that I'm not a monster, and that I didn't WANT any of this to happen! I spend every sleepless night, when I can't pass out in bed due to exhaustion and lack of sleep, thinking about you! And even now... when my life is falling apart around me, all I can do is... come to you. Just like I've always done."

He's shaking with emotion, and you think you've never seen him so moved or so shaken before. You wonder if he might have gotten drunk, but those thoughts quickly leave you when he suddenly leans down and wraps you in his arms. He buries his face in your neck, inhaling your scent as he continues to shiver. His wet clothes start to soak yours, but all you feel is his breath on the skin of your neck.

"I miss you so much, petal…" he whispers, and you stroke his wet hair, unable to tell if it's his tears soaking the collar of your shirt or his wet clothes or skin from rain. In fact, it doesn't really matter to you at all right now.

"Why did you come here? Of all places…"

"And where else could I go?" he interrupts you, his eyes looking at you so… pleadingly. As if there really was no other place on earth he could go in such a situation, where he could wallow in his grief and despair.

"I don't know… to Livia or…" he cuts you off before you can finish your sentence. He tangles his hand in your hair and pulls you in for a kiss. His lips are terribly cool against yours, but it only enhances how amazing you feel as he caresses your lips tenderly with his.

He slowly steals the warmth from you, which you're strangely happy about while he's deepening the kiss. You press yourself against him, slowly warming him up, his wet clothes uncomfortably transferring their wetness to yours, which you ignore in favour of kissing him. Just like the drops of cold water dripping from his hair onto your forehead, which doesn't sober you up and doesn't make you move away from him. If anything, you place your hand around his neck and pull him closer.

Eventually, though, you both have to pull away, gasping for air. You both take shaky breaths, his forehead resting against yours, as your senses slowly begin to come back to you. But you're secretly glad that his hands don't leave you as he uses the pad of his thumb to stroke your cheek, your lips, your cheekbone, anywhere he has a chance to touch you, as long as he doesn't take his hand away from your face.

"Only you saw me in my fragile form. Only you saw my shattered heart and the shell of myself. I... only allow myself to be vulnerable with you." he whispers with his eyes closed, keeping his forehead pressed against yours, trying his best to hold on to you as if you were his only anchor.

"Being sad, mad, or vulnerable doesn't mean being weak. Don't be ashamed of having emotions. I... all I ever wanted... was for you to... to be something more than all of these people in the Capitol. To be someone more than what Dr. Gaul tried to mould you into. You are a good man, Coryo. Please show me that you can still be that man. That my friend and lover is still there."

You don't talk to each other anymore after that. You don't know whether he has heard your request or is even considering granting it. All you know is that you lost that night. That the rational part of you had gone to fuck itself, seeing him so vulnerable and hurt, just as you were.

So, when he tries to break away from you and walk away, you grab his wrist tightly, stopping him.

"Stay. Don't go." you whisper. You don't know if it's a request or an order. He doesn't think twice about it either, turning back to you after a moment and pulling you into his chest as he holds you tightly in his arms and buries his face in your hair.

And he stays. You manage to get him to take a hot shower and some medicine in case he catches a cold.

This night, you fell asleep in each other's arms. Every now and then you stop stroking his hair, his back, and drawing patterns on his chest to use the pad of your thumb to gently wipe away the tears that sometimes fall from his gorgeous blue eyes.

And in the morning, when all that remains from him is a scent of him, of his cologne, and a dent on the pillow, you can't help but feel disappointed and silently hope that maybe your Coryo is still alive.

You haven't had a chance to be alone with him since then. You both are too busy running your campaign and the ongoing rivalry between you two.

However, you notice that he has stopped sending gifts, late-night phone calls, or other ways of getting your attention. Whatever relationship you had was purely political. You didn't know whether to be happy or cry.

Tigris stopped talking about him. You don't know if it's a good change, but she doesn't mention her cousin anymore. She was quieter after her grandmother died. The black clung to her wardrobe and skin, highlighting her paler than usual complexion.

It was the evening they were supposed to announce the election results.

You took the elevator to the top floor of the Snow apartment, picking up Tigris and Clem on the way and heading to your house to either celebrate your success or failure.

You sigh tiredly, leaning against the elevator behind you. You close your eyes and listen as it moves up to the next floor.

You open your eyes when you hear a soft, buzzing sound. Things have changed a bit since you were last here. The interior was, of course, renovated and more elegant, but somehow... more emptier.

You try to shake off the feeling as you go further.

"Tigris?! I'm here!" you shout as you enter the living room.

You look around curiously, waiting for the blonde. You walk over to the bookshelf, looking through its contents. You choose one of the books and sit on the couch, but before you open it, you notice a framed photo on the coffee table.

You take the frame in your hands and look at an old photo of you and Coryo at the end of one year at the Academy. You cup your hand around his cheek, pulling him closer to you as you press a kiss on his cheek.

You smile as you remember the circumstances of taking this photo.

Sejanus found an old camera among his father's belongings. He insisted on taking photos to celebrate the end of a difficult year of study for all of you. You didn't know that Sejan developed the photos and gave them to Coriolanus.

And you certainly didn't expect him to keep them.

“I'm afraid Tigris is not here.” you place the photo on the coffee table and slowly turn towards Coriolanus. His hair is not combed with gel; it is slightly messy, and he has those adorable, damn curls on his head again. "She left a few minutes ago. You must have passed each other."

"Oh. She probably went to Clem's." you say, standing there slightly awkwardly and looking at him. He's wearing a black shirt and pants. Slightly wrinkled for your taste and definitely too wrinkled for his. "Are you alone?" you ask, unable to stop yourself.

"I am." he says, putting his hands in his pockets, walking around the couch so that he's now standing next to you, and picking up the book you were planning to read before Tigris came downstairs. "I guess your Thomas is waiting for you at your home."

"We... kind of broke up. Well, we weren't together, but… our paths diverged." you admit, taking the opportunity to have his back turned to you as he walked over to put the book back on the shelf. You can see his shoulders tense slightly. You've never wanted to run your hands down his muscular back more.

"What a pity. Right when I remembered his name…" he murmured. You take a few steps towards him, the click of your high heels echoing throughout the empty apartment.

"You always knew it, you were just too offended and angry to use it." he chuckles at your words and turns to face you, leaning his back gently against the bookshelf.

"Maybe." he hums, nodding his head, his eyes studying you intently.

"Maybe." you repeat after him, warmth rising in your chest as you see a stray strand of his hair fall onto his forehead.

"You should go back. I believe they will announce the results soon." he moves past you to grab the photo from the coffee table and places it on the chest of drawers next to the chair next to the bookcase. In the meantime, he turned on the TV, and he was right—they were going to report the results soon.

"What will you do if… you don't win?" you ask him, and he freezes for a moment. He sets things on the shelf, trying to arrange everything perfectly as he ponders his answer. You are getting a little nervous since you can't see his eyes or facial expression.

"I'll think of something for myself. Don't be happy. You won't be able to dance over my grave for a long time." you snort, shaking your head in amusement at his answer.

"I believe that in this case, it will be you who will be dancing at my funeral. And quite quickly."

"Stop it. You know damn well that I would never hurt you." he snaps at your answer as he turns to face you. You have been taken aback by his sudden reaction, but your defense system quickly kicked in.

"Sejanus..."

"I regret it every fucking day. Every day I wake up in the morning and don't see you on the other side of my bed. Every day I spend time surrounded by people I can't trust. Every day when I see Tigris' betrayed look and your disappointed, hurt gaze, it haunts my dreams as much as his screams. And maybe I'm a monster because I really don't care if he lives or dies, but I REGRET IT. Honestly. By you. Because of you. Because I lost you. I... I had lost you." he whispers the last sentence, as if it's only now dawning on him what really happened. It breaks your heart to see him like this, especially after what happened a few weeks ago.

"Coriolanus..." you say this and reach out to grab his arm, but this time he's the one pulling away from you. And the treatment you've gotten from him, just the same as you've once treated him, is tasting bitter.

"Just leave." he says, his eyes averting from you as he stares at the window overlooking the Capitol.

You walk up to him and place your hand on his shoulder. He turns his gaze away from the city in front of him and looks at you questioningly, not understanding what you are doing right now.

'Coriolanus... I..."

"And the president of Panem becomes… Y/N Y/L/N! Congratulations, Madam President!" the hosts' shouts and fanfare echo from the television, interrupting you. It takes you a while to realise what happened. Your hand falls from his shoulder as you stare dazedly at the TV behind him. You won. You became president.

Realisation hits you. You have no idea what will happen next. And... you're afraid. But not that you can't handle it. Not that you'll have a lot of new responsibilities, or even how many people you'll have to deal with from now on. NO. You are afraid that HE will never be close to you again. And the last few weeks... the last few weeks, maybe even months—had shown you that you couldn't live without him next to you anymore.

You needed Coriolanus Snow… as much as he needed you.

"Congratulations." his words snap you out of your shock and numbness. He sticks out his hand, waiting for you to take it and shake it. But you can only stand there, staring at him as you try to sort out your feelings. "You won't even shake my hand? Am I not worth even that, Madam President?"

You shake your head.

You hear him snort, laughing bitterly at your action, believing this is another example of your stubborn behaviour towards him. He drops his hand, obviously hurt, and is about to respond when you suddenly take a step towards him, cup his cheeks in your hands, and pull him in for a kiss.

He is surprised. Probably the same as you, but he gets over it rather quickly as he automatically responds to your kiss, caressing your lips with his as fervently as ever.

At some point, you end up on his couch, your hands moving from his neck to under his shirt. Your touch breaks him out of the trance you put him in. He takes your hands in his and moves them away from his body.

"I don't want your pity." he huffs, pulling away from you as he stands in front of the couch. You pull him towards you by his shirt so that he's straddling you, and you kiss him again, effectively silencing him as your hands land on the buttons of his shirt.

"You've never had it." you mumble between kisses, trailing your fingers over the bare skin and muscles of his back, and he moans softly into your neck, leaving a few hickeys there along his way to the buttoms of your own blouse. "It was always either my love or grudge."

"And now?" he asks, moving away from you again. His blue eyes stare intently into yours, and you know your answer depends on how this evening goes. And you missed the comforting feeling of his skin against yours too much to worry about his morality, of which you were apparently the sole soul that wanted and was able to take care of.

"Both of them." you reply, licking your lips. Maybe he was right from the beginning? Maybe you were destined to end up together? Maybe you were really the only thing that could keep him on the right path? But were you willing to devote your life to keeping him in check?

"I can work with that." you moan as he kisses you while lifting you off the couch. Your blouse falls somewhere on the floor as he carries you along the familiar path to his bedroom.

His lips caress yours gently like never before. His hands are practically everywhere, gently stroking every bit of your exposed skin. He pins you against his bedroom door and sucks on your neck, leaving a hickey. You moan again, causing the same reaction from him.

"Please, don't ever leave me again." he whispers into your mouth before trying to devour you again.

"Then don't give me a reason to do it." you whisper back, combing his hair as he pulls away from you enough to open the door. He kisses you all the way to his bed, stroking your waist gently.

He lays you down on the bed, his mouth moving to your neck, licking and sucking, leaving a few marks there as his hands moved down to the button of your pants.

"Wait. Wait." he listens to you immediately. He freezes, lifting his head to look at you with concern and a worried expression on his face. "You're not mad that I won?" he gives you such a beautiful smile and laugh that, for a moment, all you can do is watch him.

He was so ethereal... breathtaking in every sense of this word. You have no idea how you managed to stay away from him for that long... even knowing what he did.

"I love you. I have always loved you and always will. I'll get over the fact that you won't be my First Lady."

"Well... you can be my First Lord... or something like that..." he laughs at that and leans in to kiss you. You cup his cheeks in your hands and pull him closer to you. You moan into his mouth as his bare skin touches yours.

You whine in protest as he pulls away from you. He looks deep into your eyes and caresses your cheek tenderly with his hand.

"You sure?" you smile slightly and nod, placing your hands on his shoulders as he pulls you closer to him again. "We shall create a dynasty, my beautiful little petal." he promises you, placing soft kisses on your collarbones. You run your hands through his blond locks, pulling his head and lips to yours. "My most precious diamond." he plants another kiss, this time on the corners of your mouth, undoing your bra. "Mine."

"Coryo..." you moan, and he responds in kind, happy to finally hear his nickname falling lovingly from your lips like it used to.

You don't care what happens next. What will happen the next day? What will happen when you take over as president? Will he try to gain more influence than you? Will he continue working for Gaul? Or maybe you will unite your forces and create a presidential couple that Panem has never seen before. You do not know. All he cares about is his touch, his mouth, and his body against you.

And in the morning, when you wake up wrapped in his arms as he places kisses on your temple and tenderly, lazily draws patterns on your back with his fingers, you realise how good it was to be back where you belonged.

You realise how good it felt to wake up in your Coryo's arms again. Even if neither of you were the same person you once were. And you will certainly have more than one fight, dramatic breakup or silent fight for influence and power.

But after all, love was stronger than any grudge you could feel towards your Coryo... or at least as long as he still was him.

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cherryredstars · 3 months ago

Note

Cherry, I’ve always wanted to say this to you… You. Are. Amazing! I seriously can't get enough of your work!

How about this? Reader is a TV host that bashes on Spider-Man. However it is just a job to her and doesn’t believe in the things she rants about. Anyway, one day reader is caught in the middle of one of Spider’s Man foes and our favorite grumpy spider saves her. Though he is extremely rude to her when she tries to thank him (what else is new?). Reader has to convince him that she doesn’t hate him (the opposite in fact) and decides to show him her appreciation.

Pairing: Miguel O’Hara x fem!reader

Warnings: 18+, NSFW, Thigh Riding, A Little Electricity(??)

A/N: Thank you, lovie!! Enjoy!

Unedited

The world must hate you.

The stiffness in the air is haunting as the burly hero trails behind you, making sure you don’t make more trouble. You weren’t exactly looking for it, it just came to you. How were you supposed to know actively looking for one of the biggest criminals in the past few weeks for a story could be dangerous?

Okay, maybe he had a point.

You sigh, trying to subtly glance over your shoulder. Even through his mask, you can see the grimace he directs at you, pixels slightly distorting. You thin your lips, rubbing your arm. Great, even Spiderman is after you.

“Um,” you start, turning to face him. He crosses his arms over his chest and you try not to let your eyes linger on how it tightens his suit. “My house is just around the block, I’ll be fine from here.”

He doesn’t move, continuing to stare down at you like you’re a child. You gulp, balancing on the balls of your shoes before slowly turning around and walking forward with a dragged out whisper of okay. You lead him down the block until you stop in front of the entrance to your apartment complex.

You face him once again, putting on an awkward smile.

“Thank you for, uh, escorting me home.” The hero says nothing, looking over you for any injuries before starting to turn around.

Your hand rushes out, electricity pulsing under your fingers for just a second as you grab his arm before he shakes you off.

“I don’t mean those things.” You rush out, suddenly desperate to clear the air with your favorite hero. “I-it’s a job. Just a job.”

You can hear the small scoff he lets out from under his mask, something in you deflating slightly. You open your mouth again, but no words come to mind to reassure him. You clamp your mouth shut, a stupid idea coming to you. You reach out, grabbing his arm again and turn him to face you. You’re quick as you lean up and press a hard kiss to his mask, your lips tingling from the buzzing technology. Instinctively, Miguel grabs at your waist to steady you on your toes, a low grunt leaving him.

You pull away, clearing your throat. Embarrassment flushes your skin and you sharply turn away. You really are stupid or something. “Good night.”

You stalk towards the entrance door, body moving like a robot as you avoid the burning gaze at your back. You open the door, turning when you feel hot electricity directly behind you. Your eyes stay on his chest, too embarrassed to look him in the eye.

“I’ll walk you to your door.”

What he really meant was, I’ll follow you through the door and proceed to fuck you against it.

You let out a soft moan as he presses you against the wall, pressing a suited thigh between your legs as he guides you up and down it. Your hands clutch at his shoulders, digging in so strongly that the suit glows white under them. You can feel his lips at your skin, mouthing and sucking on the delicate curve of your neck. Your pencil skirt has folded up to your waist, leaving only your panties to protect your aching clit from the subtle buzz and zaps of his suit as he grinds you on him.

You throw your head back, a whimper leaving you from the harsh hold he has on your hips. You can tell he’s trying to get you off quickly, probably in a rush to get back on the streets and protect the rest of the city. But right now, he’s here, in your apartment with his sharp fangs teasingly dragging against your skin.

You wonder if he can feel the wetness of your parties through his suit, if he is able to smell the pure arousal wafting from you as you buck your hips against his thigh with heavy moans. You try to look down at his face, only to see the bottom half revealed so he can mouth at you. You whine in disappointment, even though the rational part of your brain understands why he won’t reveal his full identity.

He seems to smirk at the nose, flexing his thigh and making you gasp as your clothed cunt runs over the corded muscle. A small curse flutters from your lips as another pleasant flicker of electricity runs over your clit, your orgasm just over the horizon.

Miguel speeds up his movements, making you grind faster against his leg until he’s sure you’re about to glitch out his suit from how hard you grab onto him. You come with a strangled cry, cunt fluttering against his suit as his teeth give a small nip to your neck. The tiniest dose of venom hits your skin, but it’s enough to leave your post-orgasm state limp. You slump against him, twitching from the aftershocks of pleasure and his suit. He ever so gently moves you to the couch, laying you down as his mask fully obscures his face again. You’re left to drowsily stare at him as he approaches your window, opening it before disappearing into the night.

What a way to thank your heroes.

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muletia · 1 month ago

Note

Hi, I want to thank you for your scenarios JAJSJAJ, they are so good, Optimus is so cute I just want to hug him and bite him 😭😭😭😭.

But, imagine if the reader for some reason stays overnight at the base, I'm 100% sure this big guy would just stand there watching the reader sleep, like "I wish she was dreaming about me" or like Pearl in that chapter where Steven finds out she's been watching him sleep all his life KKKKKKKKK.

Pd. Sorry if the writing is bad, English is not my main language.

I send lots of love to the author! Thank you! 🥰

hello and thank you so much, your idea was so cute that i decided to make a very small drabble about it <333 also yes, bite this man on the neck, he would love it. and don't worry, your english is great (fun fact english is not my first language either)

word count: 490

It's quiet in the base when Optimus returns from patrol. No sign of the kids or any of his team members. Even Ratchet is missing from his workstation at the keyboard, surprising the Autobot leader. Could it be that he finally went to take the much-needed rest he deserves? He sincerely hoped that was the case.

Still, sadness overcame him. This meant you weren’t in the base either. What a shame. He had naïvely hoped the two of you would meet again. Maybe he would’ve even driven you home...

He transformed gracefully. He intended to head to his quarters to grab a datapad, but before he could take a single step, something—or rather, someone—caught his attention. He wasn’t alone. He allowed himself a subtle smile when he noticed you on the couch. You had a laptop on your lap, though you weren’t typing, and the device’s screen was off. Were you recharging?

He stepped closer, but not even the sound of his massive footsteps woke you, giving him the perfect opportunity to observe your face. You looked so serene, so peaceful. However, he knew that your sleep likely stemmed from immense exhaustion, which you had eventually stopped fighting. Never before had something like this happened—you’d never spent the night at their base. It was his turn to gently remind you to rest. The last thing he wanted was for you to push your body beyond its limits.

He knows he shouldn’t stare, especially now when you’re vulnerable before him, unable to tell him that he’s making you uncomfortable. He was using your slumber for his own satisfaction, indulging in a wickedness that fed his mania. And he hated himself for it, silently screaming that he needed to stop and that he was shameless. But he couldn’t.

How much he’d give to be able to recharge beside you. To hold your body close and finally rest. If you were so near to him, would you still haunt his dreams? Or would you finally allow him some relief? Would your embrace protect him from himself? He would likely never get answers to these questions. But that didn’t stop him from fantasizing, even though he knew he shouldn’t. He couldn’t count how many times he had scolded himself, berating his delusions. It never helped. He was incorrigible.

He wanted to touch you, so badly, but in this regard, he managed to maintain self-control—he hadn’t yet crossed that boundary. He vented heavily and gently took your laptop, moving it to the other end of the couch. Then, he grabbed the blanket draped over the back of the couch, left there by one of the kids, and covered you with it after spreading it out fully. He allowed himself one more moment to gaze at you, to admire your form undisturbed by the realities of the awake world and then left to fetch his datapad. It was going to be a very long night.

#transformers #transformers x reader #optimus prime x reader #optimus x reader #tfp #be silly

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14thgalerie · 1 year ago

Text

dreamin' of him

• pairing: theodore nott x reader

• now playing: a little death by the neighbourhood / fuck it i love you by lana del rey

• word count: 5.7k

• genre: fluff

— a part of this is inspired by this scenario i saw on tiktok, can't exactly remember it which vid it was. anyways enjoy this little random scenario that i'm pretty sure is horrible because i didn't bother to proofread it again.

You shot right up from your sleep, limbs tangled in the sheets that had been strewn about haphazardly. The room is still as dark as it had been when you fell asleep with only the faint light of the full moon serving as your guiding light.

You drop your head onto your hands that sit on your folded knees, pressing the heels of your palm into your eyes until you can only see white. Ignoring the pain only so that you can be rid of the images that keep flashing in your mind.

It was excruciating, it played like a broken VHS record on your parents’ television back home. Every millisecond, a frame of you in such a vulnerable embrace with–

No. Y/N, stop it.

You were grappling with your sanity, feeling yourself incredulous at how such an idea came to fruition in your mind. Several nights’ on the end of this senseless, out-of-the-world dream that popped out of nowhere. The both of you hardly spoke with one another, for Merlin’s sake.

Throwing your head back, giving up on forcing the images out of your thoughts. Your head was spinning. Slamming your temple against the solid, wooden headboard behind you until you hear a ring resonating through your ears.

How did you let yourself get into this? What happened that you are being haunted— if that’s what you would even call it — by these dreams?

It’s been days of sleepless nights and you are plain tired. He must have cursed you. There was no other reason for this, right? He could be annoying when he wanted to be.

With your back resting on the headboard, you see that your dorm mates haven’t gotten back yet. Still, you remain seated as you wonder where they are, staring at the open window to your right.

“You’re the only one that can do this to me, Y/N…”

You gasp and sit straight, slapping your forehead with your open palm, trying to chase the image away. Throwing a glance at your watch that sits on the bedside table, you see that it’s only an hour and a half before you are supposed to wake up.

Exhaling loudly, you shove the blankets away from your body, feeling a warmth creep up on you. Maybe a good, cold, and long shower will distract you for good.

Grabbing a change of clothes, you head straight for the bathroom in your dorm. Now’s one of the few times you are glad that the dorms at Hogwarts have their own showers.

Looking at the small, worn mirror above the sink, you chuckle humorlessly at how disheveled your appearance is. Anyone who sees you right now might think that your dreams are last night’s reality.

Stepping under the painful cold water, your body unconsciously jolts at the shock.

Thinking about it makes your heart race. It gives you jitters, too. The feeling wasn't much to your liking. It was distracting. Not to mention it made you feel so... vulnerable. A shiver ran up your spine. You paused for a breath to calm your heightened nerves.

This has to end soon. You couldn’t stand another night spent thinking of him, of all people.

“I uh- I need to go.” You cough, clearing your throat, hands shaking slightly as you move to stand up. “I still have this essay for Potions.”

“What- Hey wait, Y/N!” Harry reaches out, nearly missing your arms.

“Why are you suddenly running off? It’s not due until next week?” Giving you a worried look. “Are you alright?”

“Yes, Harry. I feel extraordinarily perfect, I just- I wanna go back to my room right now.” You sigh, looking up at him. Your body remains tense under his tight grip. “So please let me go.”

Harry tries to not look disappointed, giving a quick glance back at your two other friends who watch you in silence. “Alright then, but if you need anything, you know where to find us.”

Giving him a small nod before pivoting in your heel, you walked straight to the Great Hall's large entryway. You ignored the way your skin burned with the intensity of the searing eyes that had locked onto you since its entry.

“Why did you leave in such a hurry?” A cool voice asks from behind you.

You freeze.

“Pardon?” You conjure up a reply, bluntly.

“Ok- what’s got your knickers in a twist?”

“Nothing!” You reply defensively. Wanting nothing more than to be back within the confines of your dorm room.

“Alright, alright. I got it.” The cool, calm voice waves off an erratic rhythm to your heart. You continue to stare forward along the corridor, paying no mind as he circles around until there is a face attached to the voice. “I was just wondering why you skittered out of the Hall faster than when you were caught by Filch with the Weasley twins.”

Tilting your chin towards your chest, “What do you want, Nott?”

“Nothing.” He shrugged, “I was just curious, that is all.”

You scoff at the mockery clear in his tone. “Seriously, what is it? Because if you’re only here to be an annoying twat, I have better places to be.”

You purposely bump into his shoulder as you make your way past him. Not in the mood to play along with him right now. Not when that stupid smirk of his is reeling images that you have been tirelessly trying to be rid of. Images that are the cause of your cranky attitude in the mornings.

From the corner of your eyes, you see him cock his head slightly to the right. Another thing you hate. He becomes more incessantly annoying when you are visibly annoyed by him.

“Nott.” You warn.

“What?“ He asks, amusement clear in his tone. “Am I not allowed to walk the same grounds that you do now?”

“Walk elsewhere. I am quite sure that you know of other paths from here to wherever you are to go. With your many endeavors, it’ll be stupid if you didn’t.” You murmur the latter under your breath.

“What was that?” He catches up to you, walking leisurely with his long legs. “Didn’t quite hear that last part properly.”

Before you could reply, a shout from the courtyard called both of your attention. A redhead girl from Ravenclaw was waving in your direction. You turn to look at Theodore who has now turned his sight back to you.

“I think she’s waiting for you.” You swiftly walk towards your house tower, making haste before he follows you again.

Unbeknownst to you, his stare remains fixated on you until your figure disappears around the corner. Only then does he wave back at the girl and make a quick return to the Hall where he left his friends mid-conversation.

It wasn’t the last that you see of Theodore after, nor was it the last morning when you woke up groggy and irritated at the lack of sleep. It seems that since then, the both of you find yourselves orbiting each other much more often than before.

Not that you found it all disappointing.

There were times that he was a good companion to have around— forget the hooded eyes that left you conscious every time. When he isn’t being an annoying twat, he knew how to hold a conversation with you; your lack of similarities is a good point as you were able to share things that the other didn’t know of.

But in truth, Theodore searched for you. In the boisterous chatters of students in the corridors, between the towering bookshelves of the library, through the window of the dimly lit Potions classroom where he has a clear view of Hagrid’s hut where you and your friends frequent.

He looks for you in all places, unable to help himself from an attempt to have a glimpse of you.

He did give his best efforts to tuck away his inexplainable attraction to you recently, and he wouldn’t dare admit that there is even a chance that he does. His denial was a fortress but cracks appeared within its walls with each time he talks to you.

“She’s at the Hospital Wing.” Blaise hesitatingly brings up.

He almost jerks up from his comfortable position on the couch where he and Blaise are observers of their other friend’s drunken endeavors. But he manages to grab a hold of himself before the other notices.

“Why bother telling me?” His forced indifference is not as apathetic as he wished it to be. “I don’t care.”

“Oh shut up, Theo. I have never seen you so utterly fond of another girl like you do with her.” Blaise retracts back to what he was gonna say, “Anyways, I hear she will be a volunteer ahead of the Quidditch match this Sunday.”

He doesn’t reply, letting the words of his friend slip from one ear to another. You were interesting. He was unsure how, in the many years you’ve known one another, that you caught his eye now.

“She’s nice, not unlike some of her friends at Gryffindor.” Blaise continues with his taunting, eager to see a reaction from Theo. “Even managed to convince me to be her partner for Herbology.”

Theo makes a noise in a mix between a scoff and a chuckle. “From the sound of how you speak of her, it’s like you’re the one that has caught butterflies.”

Blaise simply hums, nodding to himself. “Maybe.”

Not another word slips from him again. The silence of his relinquishment makes Theo’s heart skip a nervous beat. Blaise never gives up that easily.

“Hello there.” A voice makes you look up from your book which you have been drowned in since hours ago. To your surprise, it was Blaise.

“What are you doing here?” You ask. Curious why he had so suddenly appeared beside you while you were studying. You scour your brain, trying to remember if you had a project with him that ultimately passed by you.

“Go to Hogsmeade with me later.” Blaise blurts out while you gather your books that are scattered along the table.

“Huh?” You look up at him with wide eyes. You give out a confused laugh. Maybe you didn’t understand him, right? “Did I hear you right? Hogsmeade? The two of us?”

“Well, don’t make it sound like it’s such an atrocious thing.” He makes a sound of mock offense; even making the choice to put a hand above his chest. To which you vehemently shake your head.

“Gosh no! It’s just-“ You trail off. “Why all of a sudden?”

“Nothing at all…” He shrugs, but that look on his face tells you entirely different. The mischievous expression that is ever so slightly slipping through. “Just wanted to hang out with a good friend of mine.”

You look at him with a confused frown, unsure of what he’s doing. “Since when were we good friends? Last I checked we only talked every now and then and it was really only just for projects.”

“Just come with me, will you?”

“No.” You shake your head to further make your point. “Tell me why first and maybe I’ll consider.”

Blaise sighs, giving up. He had expected that you would not be giving in so easily to his request, after all, you weren’t really that close. But he still thought that it was worth the try, he is tired of Theo acting like he’s better than his emotions. He decides to tell you.

Well… somewhat.

“Alright, lady. I want to make a friend of mine jealous.” You hummed, listening intently. Wondering why he chose you to do it. “Also, because you’re the only person that I genuinely enjoy hanging with from other houses.”

“Will you tell me who’s the friend?” You ask.

“No.” He quickly replies, “But Y/N…I’ll treat you with anything you want at the Three Broomsticks or wherever else. Just please.” He draws out the please, adding hints or really a dump load of sweetness to it to charm you.

You think for a second more before finally giving him a nod. “Ok, but you’ll have to come with me to Honeydukes. Payback for doing whatever it is you’re planning.”

“You can have whatever you want. I’ll wait for you by the Fat Lady.” Blaise tells you before walking off with a huge grin on his face.

“Y/N?”

And when you turned your head, a surprised Blaize looked at you with a smile, apparently he had just been in mid-conversation with a fellow Slytherin as he hung about the entrance.

He whistled as he wasted no time approaching you, waving a curt goodbye to his previous companion.

“Remind me why you never wear clothes other than your uniform?” He asks, his eyes unabashedly trailing over you. Though not in a predatory way that leaves you uncomfortable.

“Because it’s a hassle having to think of an outfit when I could just put a uniform on and call it a day.”

He hums, nodding as he thought about it.

“Well you look good in your non-school clothes, you should wear them more often.” He suggests, although he quickly amends it. “Not that I’m saying you don’t look great normally, it’s just nice to see how you would personally choose the clothes you wear. It kind of reflects a lot of your personality more.”

The two of you make no rush as you travel to Hogsmeade along with the other students, chuckling at the eager third-years who are freely roaming around. Engaging in small talk all the way.

“What’s got you in such a sour mood?” You rolled your eyes at Theo, who has done nothing but glare at Blaise who sits beside you with such harsh blinding venom. “If all you plan to do here is to murder Blaise in a million ways inside your mind, then please do it some other time.”

The man beside you couldn’t help the amused choke that escapes him as he sips his glass of Butterbeer.

Theo finally breaks his lone stare down and shifts his attention to you. “Since when did you two hang about by yourselves?”

“We always have-“ Blaise starts to explain but he is cut off by a kick to his shin that makes his knee jerk up and hit the table.

“I wasn’t talking to you.”

His eyes remained fixated on you still, a medley of emotions behind them that you couldn’t exactly pinpoint.

“Well, Y/N? I’m waiting for you here.” He impatiently asks. “Are you two on a date?”

“Theo, if you think that we are, then why did you even come here?” You roll your eyes at whatever antics that the both of them are trying. Not realising that you called him by his nickname, usually reserved for his close friends.

“Well-“ He stammered, unable to explain why exactly did he approach you all of a sudden. “Blaise doesn’t have that good of a reputation with girls and I wanted to make sure he’s not trying anything with you.”

Blaise clears his throat in an attempt to remind his friend that he is still sitting at the table, clearly within earshot of whatever slander he’s being put to.

“I can hardly think of a reason why you would if he does, but we were just having a conversation as friends, Theo.” You finally answer. “Is it that much of a surprise that I tolerate one of you?”

“He wants it to be him.” The man beside you mutters under his breath which you ignore, thinking it is only a jab.

Theo once again kicks Blaise under the table, making the latter swear under his breath.

While the two of them bicker like they are some man-child, you spot Hermione and the rest of your friends coming in through a tiny door and sitting at a table by the staircase. You scoot over until you are out of the seat, glad that you chose to sit at the open end of the table, without making a noise.

You make quick haste to transfer to your friends' table without garnering attention from the two Slytherin boys.

“Hide me.” You drop your heavy body on the seat beside Harry, trying your best to hunch over his relatively short upper body.

The three instead laugh at your obvious demise, Ron not even trying to hide his amusement with such a burst of boisterous laughter. Unlike you, the three had noticed how Theodore Nott had been seen beside you much more often than necessary. At first, it was nothing that they really paid attention to, but when you told them of your otherwise eventful dreams…they began to have other thoughts.

It was clear that both of you were attracted to one another except for yourselves. And it’s been a hilarious sight to be an audience to but they are beginning to tire of your constant zoning off when the other is in your peripheral.

“What even is with you and Blaise coming to Hogsmeade together?” Ron asks. “I thought you liked Nott.”

You exhaled in exasperation, “How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t like him.” Gritting your teeth and clenching your jaw at the blatant teasing. “I am seriously beginning to regret telling you about my dreams.”

You watch as Harry stands to grab drinks for the rest of you guys, trying to explain why you came here. Not forgetting to mention how Theo had suddenly the conversation you’ve been having with Blaise.

You were shocked to find that the both of you actually shared a lot of the same interests in various aspects; books, music, values, name it all. So despite your previous disinclination to agree with his idea that you would get along well, you thoroughly enjoyed the short time that you spent alone.

His genuine interest in the many muggle creations that you’ve mentioned has made you all giddy. Telling him of all and everything that he must try, making a mental note to give him some things that you have in your dorm.

On the other end, Blaise shared a few of his interests with you— though it was only very few, given that the wizarding world does not really pay much attention to those kinds of things, especially the purebloods.

“So just because he bribed you with anything you want from Honeydukes, you agreed? Y/N!” Hermione exclaims, to which you only answer her with wide eyes.

“What?” You ask, furrowing your eyebrows at the bewildered expression on her face.

“You’ve been to Hogwarts for how many years now and yet you have no idea what going to Hogsmeade with only one person insinuates?”

“Uh- What?”

“That you two are going on a date of course?” She practically scolds you. Maybe you shouldn’t laugh at Ron anymore when she becomes like this. It's no joke that it feels like you could be the stupidest person on the planet.

“We’re only friends, for Merlin’s sake! Well, we became friends today.” You roll your eyes. “It’s not my fault that is what might people think.”

Harry and Ron look at each other with more than amused grins on their faces.

“I think I finally know why Nott was practically making the snow melt under his feet earlier,” Ron remarks. To which you give him a confused look, unsure what he meant.

“What?”

“Well, before we came in here, we saw Nott almost stomp his way to here. I swear that I actually saw steam coming out of his ears.” Ron exaggeratingly shares, taking a sip out of his pint glass. “I thought he was about to burn this place down to ashes with how he looked so mad.”

That explains why he’s being more moody than usual.

“What’s that got to do with Blaise and I?” You finally ask the question that’s been brewing in you since he mentioned it.

But the only response you get is a look of disbelief from all three of them. Each one just about screaming “Are you being serious?” without saying anything.

“Are you truly that dense Y/N?” Harry asks, his hand reaching out to pat you on the shoulder.

You push him off, glaring at him. “No, but seriously what do you mean?”

“Even Harry and Ron, oblivious as they come, recognise that Nott has some kind of interest in you.” Hermione explains, “I don’t even know if he realised it himself but the two of you are oozing love hearts everywhere you go. It’s torture to see how you both ignore it.”

You're left dumbfounded, feeling her cheeks flush with embarrassment at the mere suggestion. Your thoughts racing as you consider Hermione's words. Theodore Nott, the mysterious and enigmatic Slytherin, having an interest in you? It was a revelation that sent your mind reeling, and you couldn't help but wonder if you had been completely oblivious to his feelings all along.

No. That’s just… wrong. This had to be another one of their pranks again. Ever since you confided in them of your dreams, they’ve been ceaselessly teasing you with Theo. Yeah, this must be it.

You chose to respond in a haughty tone, in an attempt to mask her flustered feelings. “Gosh, if this is what spurs in your minds when I tell you about my struggles at night, then I’d rather just keep them to myself from now on. Find something else to speculate about.”

Unbeknownst to you, while you were so flustered trying to deny anything and everything they say of you and Theo, Harry, Ron, and Hermione had mentally orchestrated a plan. Harry subtly made a signal to the other two to play along as he saw Theo stand up from his heated conversation with Blaise to approach you four.

With sly smiles quickly masked, they leaned in closer to you and feigned curiosity.

“Alright then,” Ron begins, “But I heard from Hermione that you had another dream last night. Is it as juicy as last time?”

Harry chimed in, his eyebrows raised suggestively. “Yes, please spill the details. We’re all ears.”

Caught off guard by their sudden and out-of-place interest. “I said that I’m never telling you of anything again. And it's not juicy! Please don't ever use that word ever again.” You never wanted to divulge anything related to your rather steamy dreams again to your friends.

“This is the last time, we promise! And we promise to not annoy you any more with Nott.” Hermione exclaims though you reach out to slap her on her arm at how loudly she said it. Looking around the bustling crowd to see if anyone heard it, confused when you see Blaise sitting with somebody else now, probably some friends from Slytherin, Theo nowhere in sight.

Little did she know that Theo had indeed overheard their conversation and as he was slowly nearing their table, curiosity piqued as he heard his name. He slowed in his steps, waiting to hear more.

Your face turned an even deeper shade of crimson as you think back to last night, a bit different— a whole lot different. The dream had left you truly confused because it was nothing like the otherwise steamy ones you had. It was unsettlingly normal, and it has left you with a sense of unease that left you unable to sleep properly, terrified at what this means.

You cleared your throat, trying to maintain some semblance of composure. "Well, it was just a, you know, like the ones I told you. Nothing too different. I still hate it."

Hermione's eyes sparkled with mischief as she leaned in, feigning innocence. "From the look on your face, it seems to be different. Tell us about it, pretty please."

You hesitated but then began to describe the dream in the most vague and unassuming way possible, but you knew no matter what you said, they would use this to tease you endlessly. "Alright, alright. So, in the dream, I was in the Black Lake, and there was a gentle, warm breeze. I was walking with someone, and it was peaceful. It was like…everything is normal. No war, no problems, no animosity, just us walking like any normal person.”

Harry and Ron exchanged knowing glances, while Hermione continued to prod gently. "And who were you walking with, Y/N?"

Your gaze darted around the table, avoiding eye contact. Not seeing how their eyes slightly shifted behind you. "Well, it was just someone... you know, a dream version of someone I know. Like you don’t know already."

Hermione shook her head, “Yeah but this is different, so it must be somebody else right?”

“Hermione…It’s Theo, who else.”

"Y/N…" You hear a voice behind you call out in a low tone, with a thread of voice.

Your eyes widen, filled to the brim with alertness and humiliation. Your mother was right, one day this mouth will get you in trouble— not that it hasn’t been proven countless times before— but now nothing made you want to become more one with the ground than this moment.

You swallow hard and turn around, instantly the mortification in your features becomes tenfold. There it is— the stupid, bloody smirk that is always present on his stupid, pretty face when he has caught you red-handed.

“Don’t.” You warn.

He leans his entire weight back on the wooden post behind him, staring down at you with a look of satisfaction, unapologetically reveling in your obvious embarrassment.

“Oh, but I must.” He drawls, his eyes gleaming with mischief.

Your frustration surges as you fold your arms, attempting to salvage a shred of dignity in this awkward moment. You give him a glare before turning back front facing to the table.

“You are truly insufferable, you know that?”

Without even being able to see it, you already know that his grin widens at your reply. “Guilty, I’m afraid.”

Theo pushed himself off the wooden post and sauntered closer to where you were sitting, making your heart stutter. The playful glint in his eyes brings forth an image that you would rather not see right now.

"But what's the fun in letting you off the hook so easily? It’s not every day that I find out somebody has been kept awake all night because of me."

You could only continue to cast a withering look at him as you shook your head. "You just love tormenting me, don't you?"

He sits down on the seat next to you, ignoring the other occupants who have reserved to remain quiet. Truly enjoying the show that you, unfortunately, are the star of. He inches closer to you until you can almost feel your eyelashes flutter at his breath.

“Only because I quite enjoy how flustered you can be.” He admits softly, and in that moment the playful teasing in his voice gives way to something else.

A different kind of tension.

Not one that you would like to be a part of.

“Well, that would be the last of it.”

Theo and your friends are left bewildered when you suddenly stand and disappear among the group of rowdy students.

His eyebrows furrow and his gleaming expression turns into one of confusion and a hint of hurt and disappointment. “What just happened?”

When he finally turns to look at your friends, all they do is share uneasy glances with each other. They were unsure of how to respond to Theo’s question when they could hardly comprehend what had only occurred.

Hermione opens her mouth to say something but closes it once more when the words in her mind are a jumble.

“Astronomy Tower.” He hears someone say. His cerulean blue eyes that somehow turned grey shifted to the bespectacled boy sitting a chair away from him. “Go.”

“Why did you run off?” You ignore the voice that shatters the silence. The bristles of the wind brush against your clothes. Your head thrumming as the sound of your shoes clicking against the concrete permeates into the air.

He calls you by your name with a gentleness that sends tingles down your spine. But yet again, you ignore him. Choosing to stare intently at the rust that forms by the railing in front of you, the complex chemical reaction is seemingly more interesting to you now.

“Y/N please…I don't know what’s going on your mind right now but we need to talk.” He moves to stand next to you, placing his arms on the barrier. “I will say it, no matter if you want to listen or not. We clearly have feelings for each other.”

You want to say that you are surprised that he is being so straightforward right now, but it’s evident that someone had to stop whatever dance the both of you had been playing at for the past month already.

“And that’s confirmed by what I heard earlier.” He chuckles in an attempt to lighten up the mood. “Gods, I hate you so much.”

“Your dreams say otherwise.” He continues with his teasing.

“Stop it. As if you’re any better with how you acted with Blaise earlier.” You hit him back. “Blaise is an annoying ass who meddles in my business way more often than necessary. But I guess he did one thing right.”

“What?” You ask, turning your body to lean on the railing, facing him.

“He kept bothering me about you, and I guess he got tired and decided to make a move leading us to this moment.”

“He can be pretty persuasive when he wants to be." You agree. Silence befalling after.

“Gods, I don’t know what happened but it’s you.” He breathes heavily.

A laugh escapes your chest, “If somebody came to us two months ago and told us that we’d be acting like this, I would think they’re mental.”

Theo grins at you, making you giggle to see the little fang on the corner of his mouth. He places his hands on your cheeks and cradles your face, making a move to press his forehead to yours as he nears.

The vivid, flashing images of Theo from your dreams doesn’t hold a candle to the real thing. The skin under his touch tingled and it made you itch to reach out with your fingertips, feeling as if you would crumble beneath his hands.

You pull away to stare up at him. The cold that typically veils over his eyes are gone as they reciprocate your stare with an even warmer touch. Every nerve ends in you lighting up with a golden electricity.

Theo opened his mouth, closed it again, opened it once more, and then shut it, apparently struggling to remember how to talk.

So, he decided that actions seem to be your thing anyways, as the two of you are quite horrible at talking.

Carefully, almost as if he’s never done it before, Theo leans forward and presses his lips against yours so gently. All you can think about is him even as you respond to his kiss, melting against the touch.

He pressed himself into you, attempting to tangle your bodies together. He wants to feel every inch of you against his skin, willing the gods to let you be one. Hell, he wanted to climb into your ribcage and possibly live out the rest of his days inside your heart.

You gasp as his hands creep under your shirt and trail along your lower back, though he doesn’t wander. He takes this as an opportunity to slip his tongue inside your mouth, exploring eagerly.

You tilt forward, answering his devotion with an equal eagerness. In your distraction, your hands slide from their hold on his shirt and travel until your fingertips meet behind his nape.

This goes for a while before a sudden splash from the waters below you makes you jump apart, though still very much physically attached. His arms were still tightly wound around your waist.

“I think that’s a sign we should stop for now.”

“Yeah, definitely.”

Laughter met in the air between you—sweet, short, intertwined. Although you would like to have another one of your dreams to come true, you want to take it slow. The idea that he thought of you as you did to him has still not truly sunk into your mind.

Even now as he leans his face slightly towards yours again and begins to leave soft, tender kisses all over your cheek, making butterflies appear in your stomach.

“Gods, I just realised something.” You laugh all of a sudden, making him stand up straight to look at you curiously. “What is it?”

“I just made Ron win a bet for the first time since we all became friends.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he was the first person to tease me about these stupid dreams–”

“Excuse me, I rather think it’s not.” He interrupts playfully raising an eyebrow. “Shush.”

“Anyways,” You continue, “Harry and Hermione initially thought it was nothing and that it probably would stop after a while— obviously not. So Ron set a bet that I’ll end up having feelings for you or we’ll end up together.”

He chuckles, his eyes glinting with amusement. “I’m still surprised they didn’t hate the idea. With us being in literal houses that hate each other.”

“They’re only annoyed at some of you, honestly. The ones that perpetuate the ‘Slytherin’ motto too much.”

"Plus," he continued, the joking tone in his voice fading a bit, "even if they did have complaints, I would have ignored every single one and still pursued you."

“As if! You stormed to Hogsmeade just to interrupt our ‘date’ and you wouldn’t even admit it. If it weren’t for what our friends did, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.”

“Let me pretend, for goodness’ sake woman!”

His playful exasperation brought a genuine smile to your face, and for a moment, the world around you seemed to fade as you got lost in the playful banter you're used to with him.

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