#oh shit here comes the excessive tagging

[hoshiyoshis]

ive never hated a doctor quicker than i have now.

[starlightkun]

❧ word count: 26.7k ❧ warnings: cursing, VERY suggestive/innuendous, reader teases mark a lot playfully but he’s a shy loserboy so the banter is not usually returned and it might come across as a bit excessive/mean sometimes but it’s their version of flirting i promise, blasphemous usage of the word MILF ❧ genre: fluff, strangers to lovers, modern magical creatures au, basilisk mark, sphinx reader, age gap (older reader), college student mark, career woman reader, ft. various magical neos, human renjun, human johnny (and other very special guest appearances), same universe as strawberry sunday ❧ extra info: this work is set in the same universe as strawberry sunday but can be read as a standalone! there is no continuing plotline between fics in this universe, they simply take place in the same world/magic system and may have overlapping characters (neos may pop up in more than one work!) ❧ author’s note: this one is definitely not going to be for everyone i think. but! i had fun with it. it’s got me exploring a lot of new stuff in it: writing for mark, writing this kind of relationship dynamic, figuring out what sphinxes are like in this universe, and some new characters (gasp!) so i had a ball. which of course means the word count is obscene lol. anyway enjoy the (probably) last installment of the strawbsunday universe. i’m not going to call this the official end bc i had so much fun with these characters that i could totally see myself coming back, but as of now this is all i have planned! thank you all for tagging along and i hope you're looking forward to what’s next!

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ explore the strawberry sunday universe more here!

“You—” Jisung was cut off by Chenle.

“Totally fucked our neighbor! I always knew you were a MILF hunter, Mark Lee—” Chenle’s voice was getting louder and louder, and you were sure that at this point you might not have even needed magical hearing to discern their words.

Friday night. After a long week of work, you finally could relax, order some food, make yourself a drink, kick your feet up, and just have a nice quiet night to yourself. Reclined on your couch in your comfiest silk robe, you brought your glass to your lips as you flicked through some options for what to watch. With delight, you realized that a drama you’d been watching had released a new episode. You’d barely clicked play and settled in when the raucous sounds of hooting, hollering, and electronic shooting and smashing penetrated through your living room wall. Sighing to yourself, you paused your show and stood up to walk over to the wall that your TV hung from, which you shared with your next-door neighbors.

A few months ago—at the beginning of the local university’s fall semester, you figured—two college kids had moved in next door to you. You liked Chenle and Jisung just fine; they were polite whenever you saw them in the hallway or elevator, sometimes if Jisung saw you carrying heavy groceries, the dragon would offer to help you bring them in, and while some people may not be thrilled to have a fairy next door, you knew that a lot of your neighbors felt the same way about you, so you didn’t hold that against Chenle. All in all, they weren’t the worst people to live next to. Except for when their other rambunctious college friends came over for video game nights. They didn’t always seem aware of the noise levels. Thankfully, they were quick to make adjustments as soon as you made them aware. Another reason that you didn’t mind living next door to them, despite the occasional loudness.

You banged your fist against the wall a couple times. It was almost immediately followed by a distant ‘Oh shit!’ and the hasty lowering of their video game volume. A young man’s voice then came through the wall much clearer, as if he were just on the other side from you.

“Sorry!” It sounded like Jisung. You didn’t respond, instead plopping back down onto your couch and playing your show again. No need to have a shouting match through the wall and disturb everybody else in the building. They continued their video games at a constant, but much quieter hum for the rest of the evening, and you puttered around through your streaming services until you deemed your night over.

After putting your leftovers away in your fridge, you were about to head off to your bedroom when you heard the distant shuffle of footsteps over your welcome mat. You paused at the threshold of your kitchen to your living room, waiting to see if whoever it was would actually ring the doorbell, or just keep… well, it sounded like they were pacing anxiously. Finally, there were a couple soft taps on your front door. If you were a human, you weren’t sure if you would have even heard that. Your footsteps were soft across your carpeted floor as you moved to answer the door. First looking out the peephole, your interest was piqued when you saw a young man standing there who was neither Chenle nor Jisung. Though you did have an idea of exactly what this was about.

Undoing your deadbolt, latch, then disarming the alarm, you opened the door just enough for you to cross your arms over your chest and lean against the doorframe. “I accept apologies in the form of cash or groveling.”

“Huh?” The young man stared at you wide-eyed, open-mouthed, and dumb-founded. You took note of his slit pupils, and the two fangs that hadn’t yet fully descended from his top jaw. Huh, basilisk.

“Did the boys not send you over here to be the sacrificial lamb?” You cocked your head and looked him up and down perhaps too obviously, as he shifted nervously under your gaze. A very timid basilisk at that. You eyed the oversized t-shirt he had on that had the same university logo that you’d often seen your neighbors wearing. “You are one of Chenle and Jisung’s friends, right?”

“Oh, y-yeah, I am. I’m Mark. Mark Lee.” He took one of his hands out from where he’d stuffed them into the pockets of his joggers, wiped it on the leg of said joggers, and held it out to you. As he got close enough to shake your hand, you could finally smell him. Sphinx noses weren’t as sensitive as werewolves’ or vampires’—or basilisk tongues for that matter. Not to mention that basilisks just didn’t have as strong of a scent as most other beings. They had a mild, earthen smell that reminded you of peat freshly after rain. Others tended to make less favorable comparisons such as damp caverns or even mildewy caves, but those ideas never occurred to you. Maybe it was because one of your own childhood best friends was a basilisk, so you were just used to the smell and had positive memories associated with it.

You couldn’t conceal the amusement on your face as you delicately shook his hand, now very aware of his clammy palms. “It’s nice to meet you, Mark, I’m Y/N. Now if they didn’t send you over with your big brown eyes and sweet face in an attempt to distract me from the ruckus you all were making earlier, then why are you on my doorstep?”

“Wait, you can look at my eyes?” There was a noticeable drag on his s’es when he spoke, which you noted with a certain fondness. He must be young enough to have missed most, if not all, of the mandatory speech therapy that the basilisks of your cohort and before went through during primary and secondary school. It was removed from the curriculum for being unfair and prejudiced against the creatures, but that was after your time. You could remember your friend Jongin being singled out to leave class three times a week for the “therapy.” Even now he could still recall the name of the instructor who led it, his voice filling with bitter vitriol on the rare occasions he’d choose to talk about it.

“I’m a sphinx, honey. You couldn’t petrify me if you tried,” you informed Mark knowingly. Now you were curious as to why he was out and about without magical eye protection or at least non-magical sunglasses if he was apparently so worried about petrifying people. But, not curious enough to divert you from your original mission. “Now, why are you here?”

“O-Oh, right, uhm, I’m really sorry for bothering you, ma’am, it’s just that I went to go get something from my car but then I realized that I forgot my keys in their apartment and I came back up to get them but I locked myself out. My phone’s in the apartment too, and I tried knocking but they’re not answering and—”

“They fell asleep in the two minutes you were gone?” You cut him off, raising your eyebrows slightly in disbelief.

“No, no, they were already asleep. You see, uhm, I’m crashing on their couch tonight and—”

“Got it, got it.” You nodded. Well, that explains the lack of sunglasses. They were also presumably locked in the apartment. “So, what do you want from me?”

“Can I borrow your phone really quick, just to try to call them and see if they’ll pick up? Again, I’m really, really sorry about this.”

“I will actually do you one better, Mark.” You did a small shooing gesture, and he seemed to get the idea, taking a couple steps back. Once he was off of your welcome mat, you lifted up the corner and grabbed the key that was sitting under there. You held it out to him. “Here.”

“Uh—”

“It’s their spare key, not mine.” You reassured him. “When they moved in, they asked if they could hide it under my mat because it would be too obvious to burglars for their spare key to be under their mat.”

“O-Oh.” Mark gingerly took the key from you. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“Mark, one more thing.”

“Anything!” He blurted out, then his entire face flushed as he scrambled to tone it down. “I mean, y-yeah, of course, ma’am, what do you need?”

You couldn’t help but smirk as you requested, “Stop calling me ma’am.”

“Right, sorry.”

“You can call me Y/N.”

“O-Okay!” The basilisk smiled at you brightly, another flash of his not-yet fully developed baby fangs. He presumably was only a year or so out from his first molting. They were cute. He was... cute.

“Goodnight, Mark.” You stepped back and grabbed the edge of your door, preparing to close it.

“Goodnight, Y/N.”

His eyes didn’t leave you the entire time as you shut the door. Curious, you peered out your peephole. Mark flicked his forked snake tongue out in the air once before he made his way over to your neighbors’ door. The boys had a corner apartment, meaning that despite the two apartments sharing a wall, their door was actually perpendicular to yours, so you could see it from your peephole. You watched Mark unlock the apartment, then dart back over to yours and bend over to lift up your mat. You froze, not expecting him to immediately return the key. You figured he’d just give it back to his friends in the morning. He paused after he’d put the key under the mat again, tongue once more testing the air. You held your breath, waiting for a paralyzing one, two seconds before he finally left again. You didn’t relax fully until the boys’ apartment door had closed behind him, though. You wanted to hit yourself. What were you even nervous about? A grown woman being caught standing by your own apartment door? By some random college kid? Ridiculous. You scoffed, doing up your locks, latches, and alarm again.

“Hi, Ms. Y/N.” “Hi, Ms. Y/N.”

Chenle and Jisung gave you two very polite nods as they passed you in the hallway heading out of the building at the same time that you were coming home from work. It had been a couple weeks since their last video game night when you’d had your unexpected visitor, which was also the last time you’d seen or heard a peep from either of your young neighbors. You figured they’d been keeping an extra-low profile out of guilt.

You smiled back at them genuinely. “Hi, boys.”

The third figure behind them looked at you with wide eyes, and you arched an eyebrow curiously at him, a silent challenge.

“H-Hi, Y/N.” To his credit, Mark’s voice didn’t crack at all, despite the stutter.

“Hi, Mark,” you practically purred his name, not slowing down in the slightest as you continued your path to your front door. You bit your bottom lip to keep from laughing as you heard the fervent whispered back and forth of the college students behind you.

“Dude, what the fuck?” Jisung hissed at Mark.

“Yeah, what the fuck is wrong with you?” Chenle concurred.

“What?” Mark shot back quietly.

You arrived at your apartment door at the end of the hall, still well within earshot for you. Opening up your purse to fetch your keys, you unhurriedly flipped through every key on your keyring.

“You—” Jisung was cut off by Chenle.

“Totally fucked our neighbor! I always knew you were a MILF hunter, Mark Lee—” Chenle’s voice was getting louder and louder, and you were sure that at this point you might not have even needed magical hearing.

“Dude!” Mark snapped, and you heard the sound of what you were pretty sure was the basilisk slapping a hand over the fairy’s mouth. “She can totally hear us!”

You raised a hand above your head and, without turning around, waved it. “Hey, boys. Sphinx, remember?”

“Sorry, Ms. Y/N!” Jisung called out down the hall to you, and you could picture his sheepish face in that moment. You went to actually unlock your apartment now, pushing the door open.

“Sorry!” Mark apologized too, as you had stepped into your home.

You just caught his eye and a glimpse of his pink ears as you turned around to disable your alarm next to the closing door. In the moment before the gap shut all the way, you winked at him.

Humming along to the music playing from your phone, you touched up your work makeup to make it a little more ‘nighttime’ and swapped out your studs for some more flashy going-out dangly earrings. You’d already changed into a much less corporate outfit for your night out with your friends that you had planned and were just putting the finishing touches on before you had to leave in a few minutes. You’d just finished up with your hair and makeup when you swore you heard a knock at your front door. Pausing your music to stick your head out of your bathroom, you listened more carefully. Yeah, there were definitely footsteps at your front door, and it didn’t sound like a delivery person dropping a package off and leaving. In fact, it sounded like someone pacing nervously. A very familiar shuffle, if you weren’t mistaken.

Already bemused, you took long strides through your apartment to get to your front door, deftly unlocking it. And sure enough, when you so confidently swung it open without peeking through the peephole first, your instincts had of course been right. Mark Lee was standing on the other side, shifting his weight nervously from foot to foot. His gaze immediately snapped up to you, and you barely contained your amusement at how his jaw literally dropped when he took in what you were wearing.

“Hello, Mark,” you greeted him, once more leaning against your doorway. It had been a few weeks since you’d last seen him, and you could only guess why he was knocking on your door again.

You could see him blink himself out of a trance, running a hand through his hair, knocking the hood of his forest green hoodie off his head in the process. “Hi, Y/N. How-How are you?”

“I’m well, thank you. How about you?”

“Good! I’m good.”

“So… What brings you to my doorstep again? You know where the boys’ key is.” You pointed to the welcome mat underneath his sneakers.

“Oh, Chenle and Jisung aren’t even home right now,” he said off-handedly. “I didn’t come to see them.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. I uhm, I wanted to ask you something.”

“Mark…” You said his name calmly, but with a hint of warning. Truly, this was your fault. You’d been having too much fun and let this get out of hand, and now you were going to have to let this sweet boy down easy before he started something he couldn’t finish. And you’d had such a good relationship with your neighbors so far, too. Maybe he’d be too embarrassed to tell them. One could only hope.

Mark’s ears were getting redder by the second. “Sorry, I know you’re probably too busy but— Could you maybe help me with my abilities?”

Well, that certainly wasn’t what you were expecting. Shoving away the strange twinge of disappointment in your chest, you reminded him, “I’m not a basilisk. I’m not even reptile adjacent at all. Sphinxes are part-lion, part-eagle.”

“I know, I just thought that, you know, sphinxes develop your powers later, right? You’re not born with them.”

“Right…”

“Basilisks too. I just thought that, I don’t know, maybe you’d be able to at least give me some advice?” He immediately shook his head at himself. “I’m sorry, you don’t even know me, I’ll just—”

“Hold on, Mark.” You went to stop him from leaving entirely. While you weren’t fully convinced, this at least wasn’t a conversation to be having on your doorstep. You had better manners than to leave the poor boy on your doormat. You stepped back from your door, opening it wider. “Here, come in.”

“O-Okay.” He obliged, walking into your apartment. “Thank you.” He stood awkwardly just a couple steps past the front door, looking around your living room hesitantly.

“Do you want something to drink? Water? Tea?” You offered, hoping it would calm him down. He looked so tense that you were a little worried about his blood pressure. “Unfortunately I don’t have any Red Bulls or whatever college boys sustain themselves on.”

“Oh, uh, no thank you. I actually don’t drink energy drinks or any of that stuff.” He shook his head, his nose wrinkling. “Tastes too… too much.”

“Hm…” You filled up a glass of water for yourself, and an extra for Mark anyway. He was your guest, after all. You sat back in your spot in the corner of your couch, putting one of the glasses down on your coffee table for him. You took a sip of the other. When Mark was still rooted to the same spot a couple seconds later, you gestured to the other two-thirds of the piece of furniture. “You can sit, my couch won’t come to life and swallow you whole, you know.”

“Right, sorry.” He laughed, looking down at his feet as he walked over and sat on the opposite end from you. Or, as far to the opposite end as he could get. You had several throw pillows on that side. He still looked nervous, refusing to meet your gaze as his eyes flicked around your living room skittishly.

“I’m also not going to swallow you whole.”

“Of course, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Mark picked up the glass of water that he had told you he didn’t want, this time looking you in the eye as he gave you an anxious smile before bringing the drink up to his lips.

“Not unless you ask nicely.”

He immediately spat the drink of water he’d just taken back out into his cup as he coughed and choked, and you covered your own mouth as you giggled, not wanting to outright laugh in the poor boy’s face.

“I’m sorry, Mark, that was mean of me.” You patted his knee, then quickly took your hand back. You really were just trying to reassure him. “Now, you came in for a real reason, not just for me to tease you. Go ahead.”

Having finally recovered, he set his water back down on the table to talk. “Y-Yeah, right. Uhm… So, basilisks don’t start developing their powers until they’ve gone through their first molting. Mine was a year and a half ago and honestly my life has kind of been one big shit show ever since.”

“Basilisk powers aren’t all they were cracked up to be?”

“I first partially petrified my human roommate last spring and now I have to wear sunglasses around him all the time or God forbid I’m going to actually turn him to stone one of these days. I accidentally compel him, too, like all the time, and he refuses to let our witch friends make any sort of protection charm for him.”

“He wants to get petrified and compelled?”

“No, he doesn’t want me to think he’s afraid of me. But I’m afraid of what I’m going to do to him. I feel like I can barely be in our apartment except to sleep.” Mark rubbed a hand over his face, visibly stressed and upset now. “Dude definitely knows I’m avoiding him but… I don’t know what I’d do with myself if I actually hurt Johnny.”

“Well first you’re not going to punish yourself over something you haven’t even done. That’s not going to do anything for you or your friend,” you told him firmly.

“Hmph,” he chuckled cynically.

“You don’t know any basilisks that could help you? Your parents? Friends?” You suggested gently. He clearly did need help, but you weren’t going to be his best option. “They might be a bit more useful than me.”

“My parents live five hours away. Not exactly a day trip. And I don’t know any other basilisks at school. My friends have all been supportive but useless. They’re either human or have been using their powers since before they could talk.”

You sighed and nodded in understanding. “I know what you mean. It’s like puberty all over again. A magical growth spurt but instead of suddenly losing all body awareness, growing four inches, and having hormones making your brain all fuzzy, you’re trying to gain an awareness on some new part of yourself you didn’t have before, you’re teething like a giant toddler, and have magic making your brain all fuzzy.”

“Yes, the teething! God, I thought I was crazy!” Mark groaned, vindication and relief all over his face at having someone else validate what’s been happening to him. His features then turned confused. “Wait, sphinxes don’t have fangs, do you?”

You grabbed your top lip to pull it up, at the same time letting your second set of teeth descend.

“Wow…” He breathed out, watching you as you tucked them back into your jaw.

“Lion canines. Retractable, thankfully.” You let go of your lip and closed your mouth, habitually running your tongue over your normal teeth. Sphinxes still didn’t have perfectly average human teeth as their first set of teeth, they were much sharper, with a greater number of human canines. But you much preferred your first set anyway, they were the ones you grew up with, and were a lot less cumbersome than a full set of lion canines, incisors, and carnassials. All the second set was really good for was a party trick. Not that you really went to those anymore; you’d been out of college for years now.

“Have you ever met another sphinx before me, Mark?” You asked.

“W-What do you mean?”

“You knew that sphinxes get our powers later in life, but you didn’t know about our second set of teeth. I don’t know, your knowledge is a little... inconsistent.”

He rubbed the back of his neck nervously. “Well... my friend Renjun, he’s a Magical Creatures Studies major. He goes on all these tangents all the time. I kind of zone in and out.”

“So you haven’t met another sphinx, but you were listening when your friend was talking about sphinxes getting their powers later in life, but you completely missed the part about lion teeth.” You ticked every detail off on your fingers to make sure you had it straight.

“Yeah...”

You burst into laughter again, watching as the pink that had persisted on the tips of his ears spread down to his cheeks. “Sorry, sorry, I’m not laughing at you.”

“It sure feels like it,” he mumbled, but you caught sight of a bashful smile on his lips as he stared down at his lap.

“I mean, I am laughing, but it’s just— you’re just— you’re very endearing, Mark,” you tried to explain to him. “I’m being endeared right now— It’s a good thing, just take it as a compliment, okay?”

“Sure, I’ll take it as a compliment.” He nodded. “From now on, when you laugh at something stupid and embarrassing I do or say, I’ll take it as a compliment.”

You chuckled, “You’re funny, you know that?”

“You’re the first person who’s ever told me that,” he admitted, looking up from his hands to you. “You know that?”

“Wait, seriously?” Your smile faded.

“No, but you believed me, didn’t you?” The basilisk snickered.

“Oh, hey!” You retorted indignantly. “Not fair! You had me feeling bad for you this whole time with the sob story about your powers! You can’t just—” But Mark had already devolved into a fit of giggles, and you knew he was too far gone for your argument to hold any water. Instead, you watched him fondly as you realized that this was the most relaxed he’d been around you. As he started collecting himself, you took one more sip of your water, then set it down on the coffee table. “Alright, so what’s your class schedule?”

Mark stared at you wide-eyed. “Huh?”

“I can’t guarantee results of any kind, but I’ll do my best to teach you what I know at least.”

“Really?!” He seemed shocked that his own plan had worked.

“It’s not going to be a one-and-done, I can tell you that much. So, what’s your schedule?” You reiterated your question. “I get off work at five every day and have yoga Tuesdays and Thursdays. So you better be available on a Monday or Wednesday.”

“Wait, what’s wrong with Friday?”

“You may have endeared me, but not enough to give up my Friday nights.”

"Of course, right. Uh, Wednesdays should be the best for me. My last class is over at three and I usually don’t get scheduled then since it’s so late in the day.”

“Where do you work that 3:00 in the afternoon is late?”

“Campus bookstore. Closes at 5:00.”

“Gotcha. So, I will see you here, next Wednesday at 6:00.” You could see panic grow in Mark’s eyes as you started to stand up.

“W-Why not now?”

“Because I have other plans, Mark,” you told him patiently. “I’ll keep Wednesdays for you in the future, but tonight I have somewhere to be. You and Johnny have survived this long, I believe that you’ll be able to survive one more week, okay?”

He got to his feet with a sigh. “You’re right, I’m sorry. Thank you, Y/N. Seriously.”

“Don’t thank me yet.” You started guiding him toward your front door. “Who knows, I might make it worse.”

“I doubt it could get any worse.”

“I am so sorry I’m late,” you breathed out as you sat down at the restaurant booth where your friends were waiting.

“That’s okay, Y/N!” Baekhyun reassured you, pushing a glass over to you. “Here, we got you a water. We didn’t know what you were going to get to eat, so we didn’t want to order a drink-drink.”

“You’re not usually late,” Minseok, another sphinx, pointed out from across the table from you and your siren friend.

“Yeah, is everything alright?” Jongin asked from his seat beside Minseok. You especially noticed now how his s’es weren’t as pronounced as Mark’s, but at least some of his natural sibilance had come back once he got out of that speech “therapy.”

You let out a sigh, dropping your head back against the booth. “I had an unexpected visitor.”

“Ooh, do tell.” Baekhyun’s opalescent scales that sat just under the skin of his cheekbones, bridge of his nose, and forehead shifted with the inquisitive tilt of his head.

“Nothing scandalous, I assure you,” you snorted. “Just some friend of my neighbors, you know, the college kids—”

“A college boy? Y/N, you cougar!” The siren exclaimed, and you rolled your eyes.

“Are you done?”

“Yes, continue.”

“I mean, his friends did indirectly call me a MILF, but I don’t know if I should take that a compliment or an insult really.”

Minseok and Jongin guffawed at that while Baekhyun’s face lit up with delight. He smushed your cheeks in between his hands. “Oh, I’m so proud of you! My baby’s all grown up! No longer a baby but a MILF!”

“At least to a bunch of college boys,” Minseok pointed out, grabbing his glass that looked like it was filled with some dark liquor. Whiskey, maybe. He always liked to mix it up. “Don’t let it get you too down, Y/N, they probably think anybody above human drinking age is middle-aged.”

“Let it get her down?” Baekhyun scoffed indignantly. “You’re clearly missing three-quarters of the acronym here, Minseok!”

“Guys!” You cut into their bickering. “I don’t particularly care one, how old they think I am, or two, how fuckable they think I am.”

“Then why was one of them over at your place and making you late to our dinner?” Jongin arched a brow, taking a drink of what you knew was a glass of witch’s brew and tonic water. Basilisk tongues were extremely sensitive to taste, so regular alcohol was out of the question for him. Witch’s brew on the other hand was the perfect solution, with no burn and a pleasant, light, flowery taste. Almost too perfect of a solution, as you’d carried him home absolutely shitfaced drunk from plenty of parties after he discovered it in high school. Thankfully he’d both built up a tolerance and learned to pace himself and drink responsibly since then, so you hadn’t had to do that in years.

“Because I kind of just agreed to sort of... mentor him?”

“Huh?” Baekhyun tilted his head to the other side.

“Why?” The sphinx snorted and took another swig of his drink.

Jongin just stared at you wordlessly. Shifting forward in your seat, you prepared yourself to try to explain it. “Long story short, he needs help with his powers, and he thinks I can help him.”

“So he’s a sphinx,” Minseok surmised.

“Well, no...”

“Gryphon that was abandoned as a child and never learned how to fly?”

“What? No.”

“Sorry, that’s just literally the only thing that makes sense other than him being another sphinx.”

“No, he’s a... he’s a basilisk.” You crossed your arms over your chest, already prepared for the backlash from your friends over your choice.

“Then give him to Jongin.”

The basilisk scoffed, “I did not come out tonight to be given some kid. No thanks.”

Minseok gestured to him to emphatically. “See? If Jongin’s not worried, the kid’s probably not that big of a danger to society. No need to help. Which you wouldn’t be able to do anyway, because you’re not a basilisk.”

You held your hands up defensively. “Look, I told him I might not be any help, but—”

“But he was just sooo cute with his widdle forked tongue and shedding molting skin all over your couch that you couldn’t say no?” Minseok retorted, making Baekhyun burst into laughter.

“I’m right here, man,” Jongin muttered, taking another sip of his drink.

“No!” You replied indignantly over both Minseok and Baekhyun’s unrestrained laughter at your expense. “He had an actual reason! He pointed out that sphinxes and basilisks develop their powers similarly. We both are born as supernatural creatures, instead of being turned like vampires, but we get our powers later in life, unlike most creatures like sirens, or fairies, or dragons.”

While Jongin actually seemed to be considering the argument, Minseok and Baekhyun still both had disbelieving looks on their faces. The siren composed himself again to ask, “Sure... yeah. But be honest... was he at least a wittle cute?”

You narrowed your eyes at him.

“I mean, there’s a reason we don’t let you near the animal shelter, Y/N,” Minseok reminded you. “You’d adopt everything in there and never get your security deposit back.”

“I told him it might not work. It won’t hurt to just try,” you huffed.

“Just don’t let him tear up your curtains.” Baekhyun patted your shoulder.

The next Wednesday finally rolled around, and you went through your day at work with the thought of your impending guest lingering in your mind. Or, more specifically, what the hell you were going to teach him. It had been on your mind all week. You jotted down what you were first taught when you got your sphinx powers, which was mostly a lot of breathing. Probably not really what he was looking for, but it was the best you got. It sounded like he didn’t even have much of a foundation, which he needed before you could do anything close to actual compelling or petrification—or preventing such.

Locking your front door behind you, you set your purse down and made a beeline for your bedroom to change out of your work clothes into something casual and comfortable. Mark had already seen you in your pajamas once, you weren’t trying to make any impressions here. You tidied up your living room a little, moving a couple dirty pieces of clothes into your bedroom hamper, then took care of your dishes from breakfast this morning that you hadn’t cleaned before leaving for work. All those miscellaneous tasks took up your time nicely, as just as you had finished wiping down your kitchen countertops, you picked up a familiar squeak of sneakers rushing down the hallway. Glancing up at the clock on your microwave, it struck 6:00 p.m. at the exact moment your doorbell rang.

You tossed your used paper towel in the trash before walking over to the front door. Mark was on the other side, the basilisk panting heavily, panic on his face. Before you could even greet him, he blurted out, “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I hope I’m not late! I’m here! Please! I was studying, and lost track of time, please, I’m really sorry, Y/N!��

“Woah, Mark, slow down,” you said calmly. “You’re right on time. It’s okay. Please, come in.”

Holding the door open and stepping back, you beckoned him in with a reassuring smile. He let out a sigh of relief, walking in with his head down, eyes focused on his shoes. You got the two of you settled on the floor of your living room, sitting cross-legged facing each other.

“Okay, so today we’re really just going to be—” You were cut off by the sound of a stomach growling very loudly. And it wasn’t yours.

Mark ducked his head in embarrassment. “I’m sorry! Keep going! Just-Just ignore that.”

“You hungry, Mark?”

“Sorry—”

“Did I ask for an apology?”

“No.”

“Then why are you apologizing?” You asked gently.

“Right. Uhm, I had classes and then a meeting with a professor and then I was studying and I’m pretty sure I haven’t eaten since breakfast. I didn’t want to be late…”

You shook your head. “Well, you can’t do this on an empty stomach.”

“I’m—”

“I’m putting a moratorium on the word ‘sorry’ for tonight. You’re done. You’ve hit your max.” You stood up, heading towards your kitchen. “Come on, let’s get some food in you.”

“Okay…”

You rummaged through your fridge to bring out the ingredients for the dinner that you were planning to make tonight after Mark left. Looks like you were going to be moving dinner up. “I don’t know what kind of gourmet meals you’re used to, but don’t expect anything fancy out of my kitchen,” you forewarned him in jest, turning on the stovetop.

That finally got a smile out of him. “Better than the dining hall, I’m sure. And, you really don’t have to—”

“It’s fine. Think of it like this: Would you go on a run, or go to the gym without eating anything? Magic needs energy too, just like exercise.”

“I never realized that.” Mark’s stomach let out another growl then, making the basilisk rub the back of his very red neck, and you smiled quietly to yourself.

“And, I don’t think either one of us could focus much with your stomach rumbling like that.”

Dinner was pulled together quickly, and you took it to your dining table. Pushing aside your laptop to give you enough room to set your plate down, you headed back to your kitchen. “Mark?” You called for his attention as you opened your glasses cabinet. “Water? Wine? Beer? I think I might have a Coke in the back if you want that.”

“Water’s fine.”

You nodded, filling up his glass of ice water before grabbing a beer for yourself and heading back to where the basilisk was waiting for you.

“Thank you.” Mark accepted the cup from you. “Really, this is great.”

“You’re welcome.” You popped open the tab of your can and held it out towards him. He tapped his glass to it, and you grinned, taking a sip before picking up your utensils to start eating.

As you watched Mark dig in eagerly, you felt a warm fondness in your chest for the basilisk in front of you. You wracked your brain for the last time you’d cooked for someone else. Whoever your last boyfriend was, you figured. It was funny, you couldn’t even remember a specific instance, that was just a guess. You and your friends usually ate out, ordered in, or there was the odd occasion that Jongin would host a dinner party and you all would get dressed up to go over to his penthouse—he’d done the best out of all of you, he owned a luxury clothing brand and definitely lived like it. So as you sat here, watching the college student in front of wolf down the simple meal you’d just made for him like it was the best thing he’d ever tasted, you felt the sides of your lips upquirk just the slightest. You lifted another bite to your mouth and took another swig of your beer.

“So what’s your major?” You asked, and he finally looked up at you. It took everything in you not to immediately giggle and coo at his slightly bulging cheeks.

He quickly swallowed the food in his mouth and drank some water before answering your question. “Bio… pre-med track.”

“Wow. Human medicine or magical creatures?”

“Both. Doctors should want to help everyone.” Mark had a scowl on his face as he stabbed a piece of food with his fork.

“Good point. When do you graduate?”

“Next spring. One more year.” He took a deep breath, then let out a big sigh. “After this semester. Then med school… If I don’t catch an attempted murder charge for petrifying Johnny first.”

You looked down at his empty plate, then your half-full one. “Let’s see what we can do about that, then. You want seconds?”

“Please?”

You couldn’t help but chuckle at his big, pleading eyes. “Of course, go for it.”

Back on your living room floor sat cross-legged after dinner, you started where you left off before getting interrupted by the basilisk’s growling stomach. “Tonight won’t be anything big and showy. From what you’ve told me, you don’t even have a foundation. We need that first.”

“A foundation?” The basilisk questioned.

“The times that you’ve accidentally petrified or compelled Johnny, did you feel anything?”

“Horrible and guilty and like a terrible person and that I was a danger to other people.”

You shook your head. “I meant— Did you feel any different physically? On the inside? Or in your body? Not like, ashamed or embarrassed. Not emotionally.”

His face screwed up as he tried to think. “No?”

“That’s what I mean. You can’t even feel when you’re using your magic. Your powers are a part of you, but right now they’re functioning completely separate from you. We need to work on you being able to feel your magic at all before getting around to doing anything with it.”

“And how do I do that?”

“We’re going to go through some guided breathing techniques that I did when I first got my powers, and see how those work, okay?”

“Okay. Uhm, first, though…”

You looked at him attentively. “Yes, Mark?”

“Do you think you could show me your-your heliokinesis?”

“Asked your friend to finish his lecture on sphinxes, huh?” You snickered, twisting around to crack your back.

“Yeah, I mean—”

“It’s fine. Good move, considering. We just don’t call it that.”

“Oh. What is it called?”

“Heliokinesis is the academic word for the general ability to control solar energy, you weren’t wrong. A few different beings can do it. Witches, with the right tools or spells; some fairies; phoenixes at the zenith of their life right before they’re reborn; dryads to a smaller degree; and sphinxes. Us sphinxes call it sol-channeling.”

“Got it. Could you show me some? Sol-channeling? If that’s okay?”

Looking out the window, you saw that there were still remnants of the sunset glowing outside. “Sure, there’s still enough light out.”

The basilisk sat up straight, eagerly drinking in every move you made and every word you said.

“Now, we can only channel, manipulate, and shape existing solar energy that’s available. We can’t create solar energy. So once the Sun is down, that’s it,” you explained, raising your hand towards a beam of orange sunlight that was illuminating a square of carpet in front of you.

Delicately, you plucked the light right out of the air and into your palm, feeling the warmth against your skin as the square melted into a puddle of gleaming liquid amber in your cupped hand. The boy across from you gasped softly as you raised your hand up slightly to pour the sunlight into your other palm like sand at the beach. Tossing it up into the air, it turned into splatters in the empty space between your faces, like an abstract art painting. The deep terracotta light washed Mark’s delighted features in a heavenly glow as he watched it hover there in awe. Like wiping a chalkboard, you took the light back down into your hands again, then gestured for Mark to hold his out. “Come on.”

“A-Are you sure?” He looked between you and the apricot heavens that you were holding uncertainly.

“Yes. I won’t let anything happen to you, Markie. Promise.” You pushed your hands towards him again, insistent. “Now come on, before the sun sets completely and I have to send it back.”

“Alright, alright.” He put his hands out in the space between you, palms cupped together. You placed yours just above them, parting your own palms so that the sunlight fell down into his waiting hands. It had already been tempered, so you weren’t worried about it burning him. Instead, you just got to watch him breathe out in absolute stunned awe as he gently rolled around his little puddle of sunshine. “Dude…” His eyes were glued to his hands. “This is officially the coolest fucking thing I’ve ever seen. And done.”

You laughed. “I’m honored. A bit skeptical, but honored.”

“My powers aren’t cool. They’re just something else that can go horribly wrong,” he sighed, continuing to watch the light in his hands.

Looking outside at the fading sunbeams, you held a hand back out towards him. “I need to send it back. The Sun’s almost gone.”

Mark gently tipped the golden energy back into your waiting palm. You closed your hand around it, focusing on allowing the light to return to its natural state, before opening your fingers. A soft ball of pure, hazy light drifted up from your hand, before shooting out your living room window to rejoin the setting Sun.

“So that’s sol-channeling...” The basilisk murmured.

“One facet of it, yeah,” you nodded.

“It’s beautiful.”

You tilted your head as you took in the pensive look on Mark’s face. Turning back around to fully face him, you could only guess where his thoughts had spiraled to.

“And destructive. Before I could do that, I would melt things, light things on fire, burn... hurt people. Things I can’t undo.” Your voice was quiet but firm, trying to get the point across to him in the most sympathetic way possible that he wasn’t alone in this. He wasn’t the only person to have ever struggled with powers, to have done things he wishes he could take back. “You have got to stop looking at your powers like a curse, and everybody else’s like a blessing. They’re neither. They’re just... they just are.”

The basilisk was quiet, turning his gaze from the carpet up to you. You held his eye contact, easily looking back into those slit pupils with sincerity. “Got it?” You asked.

“Got it.”

Trying not to make your breath of relief too obvious, you rolled out your neck as you focused back on what you’d really meant to start with tonight. “So, some breathing techniques for grounding. Again, we’re trying to build a foundation before anything else. Throughout all of these, I want you to try to reach out for your magic. I know this whole time you’ve been trying to avoid it, right? Trying not to hurt your friend?”

“Yeah.”

“You can’t hurt me, so don’t worry,” you flashed him a confident smile.

Mark sat up with interest at this. “I’ve always heard that sphinxes can’t be petrified by basilisks, and I always kind of thought it was just one of those things about our magic canceling each other out or whatever. Like how siren venom doesn’t work on other sirens. But then Renjun said that actually nobody’s powers work on you because you’ve got... he called it anti-magic, I don’t know if that’s right or...”

“Well that’s very dramatic,” you commented humorously. “‘Anti-magic.’ No, we call it nixing, or foiling. Like all of our powers, we don’t come into it until we’re adults, so technically magic does work on us for a period of time. It also fluctuates with our magical strength, like all beings’ powers. That’s why ‘anti-magic’ isn’t the best word, because it is magic. We can use it too much and get drained.”

“So there’s still a chance I could accidentally petrify you or something!” He panicked, his voice rising with fear.

“Mark, you’re not going to,” you said calmly. “Nixing is instinctual to me, like it is for any developed sphinx. That’s why your friend Renjun called it ‘anti-magic.’ Because it’ll seem like I’m not even doing anything, like your powers are just fizzling out on their own. I promise it’ll be fine. It would take me nixing a lot of very strong magic for a very long time to be drained anywhere near levels where my nixing could have even a chance of being weaker, much less not working at all. What we’re doing won’t even come close.”

He gulped. “Really?”

“Really. Let me worry about me and my powers.” You placed a hand over your chest. “You just work on finding your powers, wherever you’ve pushed them to in there.”

“You say that like I’ve got some big cavern inside of me or something,” he snorted skeptically. “Or this mind palace thing that Renjun always talks about.”

“If imagining something like that helps you, then sure.”

“I was joking.”

“This is magic, Mark. It’s a lot more abstract and metaphysical than whatever you’re learning in your bio classes.”

He groaned. “Oh great. I almost failed my philosophy class freshman year.”

“Good thing I’m not handing out grades, then. Come on, close your eyes. I’ll start a count.”

Mark had even less of a foundation than you did when you started out. At least your powers had been tied to your emotions at first—such as the case of a rather unfortunate car melting—meanwhile from what you could tell, his seemed to just happen randomly. When you tried to talk him through recalling how he felt in the moments leading up to when he actually used his powers, he couldn’t find any sort of common thread. The first time, he’d been startled by Johnny unexpectedly appearing around the corner in a clay face mask, but other times they’d be watching movies together, eating dinner, or playing basketball. It couldn’t be self-defense, fight or flight, or even just any strong emotion—one time Mark was scrolling on his phone practically catatonic, glanced up for one second and Johnny was on the floor.

Counting back down from the last breathing exercise you had prepared for the night, you stole a glance at the time. Between dinner and this, Mark had been at your place for almost three hours, that was plenty for one night. “Alright, Mark, let’s call it there for today,” you announced quietly, offering him a fleeting half-smile. “How are you feeling?”

“The same as when I got here. Well, less hungry, I guess,” he shrugged, blowing a couple pieces of hair out of his eyes. “Thanks, though. Sorry I ate your food then just wasted your time.”

“I told you it wasn’t going to be a one and done. I think the only one of us who expected you to come in here and immediately nail everything was you.”

“It’s not that I was expecting to nail everything… just sort of hoping I’d at least be able to do something? Other than breathe?”

You chuckled, “Yeah, that’s fair. Once you can feel your powers, it’ll be a lot different, I promise.”

“Different…” he echoed. “Not easier, or better?”

“Different,” you confirmed with a nod. “Unfortunately, it’s looking like we can’t use muscle memory to get there, which is how I was taught. Since there’s apparently nothing in common with how you’ve used your powers before. Other than—” With a thoughtful frown, you cut yourself off, quickly trying to recall all the stories Mark had told you tonight of him accidentally petrifying or compelling his roommate.

“Other than…?” The basilisk prompted you curiously.

“Have you used your powers on anybody other than Johnny?” You questioned. “Other human friends? Classmates? Random cashier at a grocery store?”

“Yeah, one time.”

“Tell me about it!”

“I don’t know if it really counts…”

“It’s an anomaly, it might help. Who was it? What happened?”

“It was Renjun.”

“Your Magical Creatures Studies major friend.”

“Exactly. He’s kind of got like this list of magical stuff that he wants to do? Like, getting his blood drank by a vampire, experiencing siren venom, that kind of stuff.”

“Getting petrified by a basilisk?”

“Yeah.”

“So you petrified him.”

“Not on purpose! Or, not on my purpose,” Mark groaned. “Renjun’s like actually insane when it comes to that kind of thing. Somehow, he figured out when he was most likely to get accidentally petrified by me and… it happened.”

“Mark.”

“I didn’t mean to!”

“You need to get Renjun’s notes,” you instructed him.

“What?”

“On how he got you to petrify him. If he’s that neurotic, he was definitely taking notes and found some sort of pattern, and probably kept his notes. We need those notes. Get them.”

He sighed and rubbed his face. “You don’t know Renjun. When I say he’s insane about this, I’m not kidding. There’s no way he’d—”

“Just a copy, he can keep the originals. He can come make the copies at my office so he doesn’t even have to use his printing credits at the library,” you bargained.

“Fine, fine! I’ll ask him.”

“Perfect! Here, if you give me your phone, I’ll put my number in and you can let me know what day I can expect him.” After inputting your cell and texting yourself, you handed Mark’s phone back to him, not missing his shaky fingers. You patted his hand, softening your voice, “We’ll figure this out, Mark, alright?”

“Why?” He looked up from where your hand was still resting atop his, to your face, gnawing on his bottom lip with his baby fangs. “Why did you agree to help me? Why are you doing it so… enthusiastically?”

“I’m helping you because you asked for help. And when I was your age, and I needed help doing all of this, too, I had somebody there with me. I don’t know, call me crazy, but I don’t think all of us are here just to go about our lives by ourselves. I think people are supposed to rely on each other, criss-cross their lives so much until you can’t tell one line from another.”

“We’re all interconnected?”

“Yeah, or at least I think we should be, that’s how we’re meant to be. To rely on each other.” You nodded. “Not to randomly get all philosophical on you, I know you said you almost failed that class. You asked me for help, and I wanted to try to help you. No ulterior evil sphinx motive here, I promise. You can tell everybody not to worry about their poor little Markie.”

Mark’s face started turning pink. “It wasn’t really the sphinx part that they were focused on.”

“Oh?” You leaned back, propping yourself up with two hands behind you. “What was it then? Stranger danger?”

“No, not exactly…”

“Then I am stumped about what it could be,” you replied facetiously.

Mark started scrambling to his feet, his word speed picking up, “You know, it’s getting late, if we’re done, I should really get going—”

You followed him up with a grin. “Yeah, of course. You know, I’ve got work tomorrow, you’ve got class—Oh, is that it?” You breathed out in feigned realization. “Because I’m an older woman? They thought I was going to devour you in a different way?”

“Oh God—” He said under his breath, staring at the ceiling. His throat bobbed up and down as he swallowed hard. “I’m really sorry, they were just kidding, you know. And I know there’s no way you’d want to—”

“Remember what I said last week, Mark?”

“W-What part?”

Leaning forward just a little, you reminded him, “Not unless you ask nicely.”

His eyes shot open to the size of dinnerplates, and you could only hold it in for a second before you were openly laughing in his face, barely having the decency to attempt to cover your mouth with your hand, which honestly did little to muffle it.

“You’re awful, Y/N,” Mark groaned, squeezing his eyes shut and shaking his head. “Is this what endearing you gets me? Torture?”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” you tried to apologize through your breathless giggles. “Anyway, I’ll let you go, stop torturing you. Let me know when to expect Renjun. In the meantime, I want you to practice that first breathing exercise twice a day on your own until next Wednesday, okay?”

“Right, thanks.”

You didn’t even look up from your computer screen as you picked up your ringing desk phone. It was the ring for an internal call, meaning that it was either the front desk or one of your colleagues calling you, you didn’t need to filter those calls as much as external calls. “This is Y/N,” you answered automatically, still reviewing the timeline that had just been submitted to you.

“Uh, Ms. Y/L/N?” It was the receptionist, the poor guy sounding rather confused. “There’s a… boy here to see you?”

“A boy?” You repeated, bewildered. “What? Like, a child?”

“No, sorry, not like a little boy. College kid, Huang Renjun, says you’re expecting him?”

“Oh, oh, yes!” You lit up in recognition. “Have him wait there, I’ll be down in just a minute to grab him.”

Striding off the elevator, your eyes immediately locked onto a young man standing in the lobby, clutching a notebook to his chest as he peered around at everything suspiciously. He readjusted his backwards baseball cap minutely, checking the watch that was on that wrist as he brought his hand back down from his head.

“Renjun,” you said his name confidently, walking up to him with a bright smile. “Hi, I’m Y/N. Thanks for coming.”

“Damn, you’re real,” he breathed out.

“Let’s go upstairs, hm?”

The two of you were the only ones in the elevator as the doors shut. “So, what part of my existence did you doubt, exactly?” You asked, amusement in your tone. “Mark knowing me? Or my being a sphinx?”

“The first one,” Renjun had recovered from his initial shock, his voice level as he answered. “I’ve met a sphinx before.”

“And what did you have them do to you?”

“What?”

“You’ve tricked Mark into petrifying you, had your blood drank, and you want a siren to dose you up. I’m wondering what about sphinxes could provide that sort of… rush.”

“I’m not an adrenaline junkie.”

“Your words, not mine.” You held up your hands. “And I’m not judging you, Renjun. Just curious.”

“I don’t know them like that, anyway. It’s my friends’ boss.”

“So what’s on your list, then?”

“I want to solve a sphinx’s riddle.”

One of your eyebrows quirked up, and it was then that the elevator dinged and stopped on your floor. In the copy room, you held a hand out towards Renjun expectantly, and he reluctantly gave you a stack of notebook paper from within his binder. You put the first page on the pane of glass of the copier, lowered the lid, and prepared the setting to make the first copy. “I’m not giving you a riddle,” you stated into the heavy silence that had descended over the two of you.

“Why not?” Renjun whined, reminding you of a petulant child.

The copier shot out the first page, and you repeated the process with the backside. “As a Magical Creatures Studies major, I’m sure you know very well why not.”

“I would totally solve it though! You wouldn’t have to worry about me going insane!”

“You either greatly overestimate your intelligence, or greatly underestimate a sphinx’s.” You shook your head.

“Plenty of people have solved sphinx riddles.”

“And even more have gone insane trying,” you retorted. “No way am I going to even risk making you go insane.”

“I’ll sign whatever waiver you want! You won’t be liable at all!”

“But it’ll still be my fault,” you sighed. “Sol-channeling, nixing, flying, I’d show you any of that. But no riddles.”

He let out a long, dramatic sigh, “Fine.”

“How’d you do it, by the way?”

“Do what?”

“Make Mark petrify you.”

“It’s all in there.”

“Yeah, but we’re going to be here for a little while I copy all these.” You put the next page on. “You can tell me how you figured it out, can’t you?”

“Well, I started by taking notes of as many parameters I could get about when, where, and how Mark was petrifying Johnny,” Renjun started, his eyes sparkling with excitement. “At first I was a bit concerned that he wouldn’t be able to petrify anybody but Johnny. But then I found that in addition to him always petrifying Johnny, one of three things was always present.”

“And what were those three things?”

“Being at home, it being nighttime—aka he was tired—or him being stressed. I figured if I could remove Johnny from the equation but hit all the other three, and conveniently hide his sunglasses, I had a pretty good chance of being petrified.”

“And what if he had accidentally turned you to stone for real?” You crossed your arms over your chest. “He’s a developing basilisk with absolutely no control over his powers, he could have seriously hurt you, or worse.”

Renjun shrugged. “That was a risk I was willing to take.”

“Yeah, for the both of you,” you scoffed, throwing the lid of the copier open and accidentally hitting the wall behind it in the process. “Do you know how awful Mark would’ve felt if he had actually turned one of his friends to stone? And then he had to live with that for the rest of his longer-than-human life? Did you even think about that before tricking him into petrifying you for some stupid fucking magic junkie bucket list?”

The human seemed to be at a loss for words, opening and closing his mouth several times before he looked down at his shoes, going silent.

“That wasn’t rhetorical, Renjun.” You closed the lid on the next page, turning to look at him pointedly. He was looking incredibly guilty, but you weren’t going to let him get away with a noncommittal silence. “Look, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt that your heart is in the right place, and you’re just genuinely curious about all this stuff, but your magical friends are not just here for your entertainment. Whatever they do to you, they have to live with too. You know that, right?”

He sighed bitterly, and after another long, contemplative pause, nodded. “You’re right, you’re right.”

“Yeah, I know I am.”

You sent Renjun off with his original notes and hopefully a lot to think about. You yourself didn’t have too much more work left to do, and locked yourself in your office to go over the copies you’d made. He’d been thorough, and you were realizing that Mark really hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d called his friend crazy. About thirty minutes before the end of the workday, there was a timid knock at your door, and you put down the papers to go answer the door. It was one of your team members, who timidly informed you of a horrible error that had happened that would put the entire project back by two days if it wasn’t fixed today. It was really nobody’s fault, so you took a few deep breaths, rolled up your sleeves, and got to work with everybody else. It was Wednesday, though, and you kept an eye on the time as you worked, running mental calculations in the back of your mind as to when you’d have to text Mark to let him know you’d be late getting home. Thankfully, it was all solved right before then, and you were able to run out the door at just the right time where if you speedwalked and made every light perfectly, you’d be home right on time.

And so you burst into your hallway at exactly 5:59 p.m., spotting Mark on your welcome mat, just lifting his fist to your door to knock. “I’m here!” You called out to him, making him whip around, the surprise apparent on his features. “I’m here, sorry, I’m here. Got held up at work.”

“Hey, no worries,” he flashed you a bright smile, stepping out of your way to let you unlock your front door. “Everything alright?”

You threw an exasperated look at him over your shoulder as you disarmed your alarm, then led the way into your apartment. “Heavenly Sol, don’t get me started. Computers are out to get us all, I swear.”

“Yeah, okay,” Mark nodded, closing the door behind you two and flicking the latch. “Add printers to the list, too. I can never figure out the ones in the library when I have an assignment due.”

You threw your purse onto your kitchen table haphazardly, starting to look through your fridge for dinner ingredients. “Oh shit, I was going to pick up stuff for dinner on my way home, but then everything fucking caught on fire right before I was supposed to leave.”

“That’s okay, Y/N,” the basilisk reassured you. “We can just order pizza or something, alright?”

“Yeah, okay, pizza.” You shut your fridge, rubbing your face in frustration.

“I’ll call and order it, you go get out of your work clothes and stuff. Sound like a plan?”

You took a deep breath. “Sure. Thanks, Markie.”

He beamed at you again, letting you get a full view of his baby fangs. “See? I’m not totally useless.”

“Nobody said you were except you,” you finally chuckled, patting his cheek on your way out of the kitchen.

Jongin had invited everyone around to his place for another dinner party, and you were the first one to arrive tonight. You’d already cracked open a bottle of wine—you snooze, you lose, Baekhyun and Minseok—and were tipping back your first glass of the night as Jongin finished up the food preparations.

“Y/N, how’s your basilisk doing?” Your friend asked, plating a serving of pasta.

“He’s doing alright. It’s been a little rough these past few weeks, if I’m going to be honest with you,” you sighed, doing another heavy pour for yourself. “I taught him some breathing exercises, and those helped a bit, but I can only watch him breathe for so long.”

Jongin made a noise of acknowledgment, but didn’t say anything else, fingertips messing with a silver chain around his neck.

“Do you… have any tips for me?” You asked, used to his minimalist way of communicating.

Your friend pulled out from under his shirt the pendant that hung at the end of that silver chain. It was a black gem that could fit neatly into his palm, obsidian, an intricate weaving design of a snake carved out of the face of it. “Does he have an anchor?”

You habitually twisted the ring around your right ring finger. “No, he doesn’t.”

“Find him one.” He tucked the necklace back under his shirt. “Get him out of his head.”

“Right. Thanks, Jongin.”

A flurry of excited knocks came from the front door, and you and Jongin exchanged knowing looks. You threw open the door to see an excited Baekhyun and already beaming Minseok, the former’s eyes lighting up even as he gasped in mock offense.

“You started drinking without us?!” The siren threw a hand over his chest as he locked in on the glass in your hand and open bottle on the kitchen island.

“Yep, you’re a glass and a half behind,” you taunted, guiding him in by the arm he had around your shoulders. “Better catch up, Baekhyunnie.”

“She opened that not even ten minutes ago,” Jongin informed the other two flatly in lieu of a proper greeting.

“Fuckin’ narc.” You stuck your tongue out at him as Baekhyun started pouring for him and Minseok. Minseok, meanwhile, was over by the vinyl record player, flicking through Jongin’s collection until he picked one that he liked, and swapped out the classical music that the basilisk already had playing.

“I was listening to that,” Jongin complained as a funky, upbeat pop melody started coming through the speakers.

“And now you’re listening to this,” Minseok retorted. “Much better party music.”

“And you people wonder why I don’t invite you to events with my colleagues,” the basilisk sighed, taking out his bottle of witch’s brew from the fridge. His slit pupils trailed over the figures of you and Baekhyun, not nearly tipsy enough for the kind of dancing you were doing, but doing it nonetheless. “Heathens, the lot of you.”

“Oh, like we didn’t all go to college together,” Baekhyun fired back, mischievous glint in his eye. “We all know what you used to get up to on that stuff, Jongin. Before you started playing pretend at being respectable and refined.”

“Yeah, come on, NiNi!” You tugged him into the living room by his wrist, playing absolutely dirty by bringing out the nickname you used to call him when you were little, little kids. When you first met, you couldn’t quite say his name, so you somehow landed on NiNi, which you called him until you could finally say it intelligibly. Even now, you only brought the nickname out when you really wanted something. And according to the now nearly two glasses of wine in you, you really wanted him to dance with the other three of you.

“God, fine,” he rolled his eyes, taking a deep swig of the witch’s brew before letting you fully tug him into the mess.

The following Wednesday found you opening up your door a few minutes early, 5:55. Mark was already pink-eared and covering his face with his hands. “God, let me in, please, please,” he groaned, making you cock your head curiously.

Before you could ask what was going on, you heard a couple wolf whistles and taunts from further down the hall, and spotted a gaggle of college boys heading towards you. Or, rather, heading towards your neighbors’ apartment, presumably, as you spotted Chenle and Jisung in the throng of students. You opened your door wider for Mark, who didn’t even wait for you to move as he ducked under your arm to run inside. With a final humorous glance at the group, you turned around to face the anxiously pacing basilisk.

“And what are you so worked up for?” You asked with a chuckle, shutting your door behind him. “You just got here, take a breather.”

He gesticulated at the closed door, a wild look in his eyes. “Well, because they all think we’re—”

“Having sex? I know.” You laughed again and headed back into your kitchen.

“And you don’t care?”

Pivoting on your heel to focus a pointed look on him, you put your hands squarely on your hips as you told him frankly, “Mark. I’m a grown ass woman. Whatever ideas my two college kid neighbors and their little twerp friends have about my sex life are so beyond the realm of things that I care about.”

“Oh.” He blinked, and you could practically see the gears turning in his brain as he processed that. “Of course.”

With that settled in your mind, you turned your back on him again to attend to your cooking, continuing your conversation over your shoulder. “You should really try it, you know.”

“Try what?!” He squeaked as he was halfway through taking his backpack off his shoulder and setting it down beside the couch.

“Not caring so much about what other people think about you. You know they’re only doing all that because you’re reacting like this.”

“I know, I know,” he admitted with a sigh, his voice much closer now. You heard the scrape of one of the stools at your kitchen island as he pulled it out to sit down and watch you cook.

“So, have you been working on—”

“Wait, do you think I’m a twerp?”

You pivoted around, knife in hand. “Three seconds ago I would’ve said no, except you just interrupted me, so yes, I think you’re a rude little twerp with no manners.”

He looked at you with wide eyes. “Sorry, sorry.”

“So have you been working on the breathing techniques I showed you?” You tossed the last bits in the container, sealing it up before putting it in the fridge.

“Yeah.”

Putting everything into the sink to be washed up later, you spun around to look at Mark eagerly, “Good. Now come on, grab your bag.”

“Wait, we’re done already?” 

“No, we’re going shopping.”

“I thought you were cooking dinner?”

“Yeah, that’s my dinner for tomorrow, it’s got to marinate overnight. You and I are eating out tonight. Come on!” You clapped your hands together in a hup-hup gesture, and Mark scrambled to grab his bag before meeting you at the front door.

“For a lot of magical creatures who were born with their powers, they often see it as shameful to use objects to focus or help them harness their abilities,” you explained to Mark as you stopped in front of your first destination. He rushed to hold the door open for you, and you gave him a nod and grateful smile as you continued, “Save for witches, of course, that’s kind of their whole thing. But for beings like us, whose powers come on later, a lot of times having an external object can help ground us a lot better and give us something physical to tie this new part of us to while we’re learning to use it.”

“What kind of object?” He asked, looking around the apothecary hesitantly.

“It’s different for every kind of being, and even for every individual. That’s why I couldn’t just show up with some rock and say ‘here you go!’ You need to pick it out for yourself.”

“What’s yours?”

You held up your right hand, where a toffee brown gem gleamed from a silver setting on one of your fingers. “Tiger’s eye ring. My grandmother gave it to me when she was helping me out with my powers.”

“It’s really pretty.”

“She said she got it from a witch ‘friend’ of hers a while back,” you commented humorously. “Anyway, anything speaking to you?”

He looked over the merchandise around you, and sighed. “I mean, it’s all cool, but... nothing really jumps out.”

“That’s fine, don’t force it. This is just the first aisle of the first store we’re looking in. Deep breath, Mark.”

“Right, okay. It can be anything?”

“Anything. Doesn’t have to be a stone, doesn’t have to be jewelry, those are just sort of the most popular items. I hate to have to say this but... you’ll know it when you see it. You just will.”

“Y/N.” He said your name flatly. “I have never been that sure of anything in my entire life.”

You tried to keep in your giggles at his clearly exasperated expression. Tweaking one of his cheeks, you reassured him, “First time for everything, Markie.”

Three apothecaries and a 24-hour ramen place later, and you could tell Mark was Over It, capital O, capital I. He had really been trying his best, engaging with every miscellaneous item that you showed to him, but you could tell that none of them were it for him. Leaving the last shop for the night, you opted not to take him into another one, instead meandering away from the shopping district downtown that you had been in.

“I’m sorry I’m such a dud, Y/N,” Mark groaned, running a hand through his hair.

“No, you’re not, Mark,” you tried to reassure him. “You’re just… taking it at your own pace.”

“Was that supposed to make me feel better? You might as well have called me a late bloomer.”

“What’s wrong with being a late bloomer?”

“That’s what people tell losers so they don’t feel like losers.”

You rolled your eyes. “And that’s how I can tell you’re still a kid, Markie.”

“What?”

“There’s nothing wrong with being a so-called loser, or a late bloomer, or taking things at your own pace. Part of growing up, and becoming an adult, a real grown-up, is realizing that there’s no one prescribed path and way to do things. Especially when it comes to being a magical being.”

“That’s easy to say when you’re already a grown-up.”

“I suppose.” You shrugged. “Here, I’ll let you in on a secret, hm?”

“Oh yeah?”

“When was your first kiss?”

“What?” He sputtered out. “I thought you were going to tell me a secret?!”

“Humor me.”

He mumbled something under his breath that you couldn’t quite catch.

“What was that?”

“Seventeen, okay?!” He huffed. “Listen, it was my first girlfriend and—”

“Twenty-one,” you cut him off with a shrug.

“What?”

“My first kiss was when I was twenty-one,” you repeated nonchalantly. “You thought I had it a lot earlier, didn’t you?”

“It’s not like I was really hypothesizing about it or anything—”

“But the way you told me about yours, you got defensive, like you had assumed yours was late or something, and that I was going to judge you, because I must have had mine earlier than seventeen,” you pointed out. “But I didn’t.”

“But you’re… you’re so… Why?” His face screwed up in confusion.

“That was my first serious boyfriend,” you explained. “I wanted it to be special. I didn’t expect it to take that long, but it did.”

“And what was the point of this?”

“There’s nothing wrong with whatever pace your life is going at, Mark. I don’t think ‘late bloomers’ even exist, because that implies there’s a benchmark to do something by, and having it happen after that therefore makes you late.”

Mark was quiet for a few moments as you continued walking. “You really think I’m still a kid?”

“Oh yeah,” you ruffled his hair. “Only a kid would be worried about if someone thinks they’re a kid.”

He made a disgruntled sound at you messing up his hair, but did nothing to move out of the way of your hand. “Where are we even going now? Another store?”

“Nah.” You led the way off the sidewalk and into the grass, towards the river that cut through the center of town. Traffic hummed overhead where a bridge crossed the water, and you stopped at a rocky patch to pick up a smooth pebble, tossing it up and down a few times. Looking over your shoulder at a skeptical Mark, you asked, “You know how to skip rocks?”

You tossed your first one, managing to skip it a few times before it plopped under the surface. Grabbing another rock, you pushed it into Mark’s hand insistently. “Oh, gross, it’s cold and wet,” he wrinkled his nose, but readied his arm nevertheless.

“You’re literally a basilisk, dude,” you retorted, watching him line up his shot.

“Rude.”

“Hey, I don’t mind.” You held up your hands defensively. “I’m just saying.”

He got it two-thirds of the way across, and shrugged. “Eh…”

“First one to skip it all the way across wins?” You suggested with a smirk.

“Wins what?”

“Mmm…” You hummed thoughtfully. “I got it! Winner earns a secret.”

“Huh?”

“Winner earns a secret of their choosing from the loser. If I win, I can ask you to tell me a secret about whatever topic I want. If you win, same goes for you.”

“Why would I agree to that?”

You grinned. “Because you want to know more about me, don’t you, Markie?”

He gulped, then started looking around at the rocks down by his feet. “Fine. But don’t ask me anything weird if you win.”

“Aw, where’s the fun in that?” You snickered, searching for your own rock to toss.

Mark went first, and his almost made it, but lost momentum about eighty percent of the way there. You went next, flicking your wrist the complete wrong way, only getting one skip before your rock pathetically plopped under the surface. The basilisk next to you giggled. “Are you even trying?”

You stuck your tongue out at him. “Like you’re doing any better, you little shit.”

“Real mature,” he shook his head, brushing off some dirt from the rock he just picked up. “Real grown-up of you. Who’s the kid here, allegedly?”

“Just throw it.” You were already searching for your next pebble.

“So, did you say anything to Renjun, when you met him?”

“What do you mean? Of course I talked to him.”

“No, I mean like—” Mark flicked his arm a couple times in practice shots, maintaining his hold on his stone. “He apologized to me, for tricking me into petrifying him and bought me lunch. Renjun doesn’t apologize.”

“Oh,” you feigned surprise. “That’s nice of him.”

“Y/N.”

“I didn’t threaten him, if that’s what you’re asking. We chatted. He apparently thought some more afterwards.” You finally spotted a lovely lighter colored one, with dark, perfectly circular spots all along it. You couldn’t quite make out the colors in the negligible light from the moon and lone streetlamp all the way up on the bridge, but you liked the weight of it in your hand.

You looked up just in time to watch Mark skip his rock all the way across the river, skidding up onto the shore on the other side. He jumped up and down victoriously, turning around to look at you, excitement on his features. “Yes! Did you see that?!” He cheered, an ecstatic grin on his face. “Ha! Take that!”

“Good job, Markie,” you snickered, holding a hand up for him to high-five zealously. Your palm stung where he had smacked it enthusiastically, a loud slap of skin hitting skin ringing out. Taking your phone out, you turned on your flashlight to look at the rock that you had found, taking in the mossy green color and dark red spots. “Huh, cool.”

As you were about to toss it back into the water, Mark’s hand darted out to grab your wrist. “Wait a second…”

“What?” You looked at him curiously. “You want to try to make it across twice? You won’t get two secrets from me. Sorry, one-time offer.”

“No,” he shook his head, holding your hand open to stare down at the stone. “It’s… it’s a nice rock.”

“Yeah, I guess,” you agreed, continuing to study his face. “Do you… want to keep it, Mark?”

“Do you mind?”

“No, go for it.” You turned your hand over, depositing it into his palm. “All yours.”

He continued looking at it with fascination, fingertip tracing over the textured edges. “Y/N… I think this is my anchor.”

“I think you’re right.” You patted him on the shoulder. “Congrats, dude.”

“Hey, can I uh, take a raincheck on asking you for that secret? I kind of want to think on it.”

“Sure. Use it wisely.”

“I just got home, Sehun, what could be so pertinent that you need to call me now?” You sighed as you answered your ringing cell phone some weeks later. “And why are you still at work? You said only ten more minutes, thirty minutes ago.”

Your coworker sounded simultaneously guilty, nervous, and as exasperated as you, “I know, but Director Han was asking to see some of the numbers and then, well... I got this email from Mr. Shin. I don’t know how to respond. I forwarded it to you.”

Sitting down at your kitchen table, you opened your laptop, which turned on already to your work email. Right at the top was a forwarded email from Oh Sehun, and you clicked on it. You skimmed it over, your lip curling with distaste. Mr. Shin was a project manager in another department, and was apparently trying to assign “urgent tasks” to your employees that needed to be on his desk first thing tomorrow. Sehun would’ve needed to stay all night and/or come in ridiculously early tomorrow in order to get this done. “I’ll handle Mr. Shin, don’t worry about doing any of this. You go home. Now.” You directed Sehun. “And I’ll remind Director Han in the morning about the company’s overtime policy as well.”

“Right. Thank you, Y/N.”

“Of course. Goodnight, Sehun.”

Setting your phone aside, you quickly drafted an email in reply to Mr. Shin, keeping your snark to appropriate corporate levels, reminding him that he couldn’t assign tasks to your employees, and any requests such as this had to come through you first. As well as outlining the unreasonableness of the time demands.

“So what do you do?” Mark asked, suddenly reminding you of his presence. It was Wednesday, though your usual dinnertime ritual had been interrupted before it could even start, Sehun’s call coming as soon as the college student had stepped foot in your apartment.

“I’m a project manager at a company that does network security for other companies,” you informed him, not taking your eyes off your screen as you went to re-read the email for a quick proofread.

“Project manager?”

“I manage a bunch of other people’s projects instead of actually working on them myself, and get paid more than them for it.” You filled in a missing word, and deeming the email finished, pressed send, shutting your laptop. Looking up at Mark, who had an adorably confused look on his face, you gave him a smirk. “When you grow up, Markie, you’ll understand that most corporate jobs are fake and it’s all about your title and how well you can negotiate your salary and bullshit in front of your boss.”

“So you don’t like your job?”

You shrugged. “I like it just fine. It pays for me to live here by myself, after all. I have reasonable hours, and plenty of free time, vacation days, and disposable income. I keep my subordinates and my superiors happy. But if I got a better offer at another company, and my company couldn’t match it, I would have no qualms about packing it up next week.”

“Seriously?” His eyes widened.

“Seriously.”

“Just-Just leaving?” His voice rose with alarm.

“The company, yeah. Not here. I have a life here. My family, and my friends,” you explained, standing up from your dining table.

You could see him visibly relax at that. “Oh, okay.”

“And my Markie,” you teased, pinching his cheek as you passed him on your way to the kitchen.

He squirmed a little, but didn’t knock your hand away. “Hey...”

You laughed to yourself, stopping at the sink to wash your hands before starting on dinner.

“Am I not your friend?” Mark’s question stopped you as you were grabbing ingredients from the fridge.

“Huh?” It was your turn to be confused. Your hand hovered over a bell pepper.

“You said you have your family, your friends, and me. You didn’t include me in your friends. Am I not your friend?” His voice was closer now, and you shut the door to turn towards it, not expecting him to be right on the other side. You jumped in your skin a bit, but that wasn’t the only reason your heart was racing, and a shiver shot up your spine all the way to the back of your neck. Mark’s dark, slit pupils were focused on you with such an intensity that you would’ve thought he were trying to petrify you if the both of you didn’t already know that that wouldn’t work. There was something so startlingly adult in his gaze, all sense of boyish charm that his features usually held gone as the overhead lights of your kitchen cast them in harsh shadows and angles. For the first time ever when you looked at Mark, you were reminded that basilisks were technically predators.

You laughed, hoping he couldn’t hear how nervous you were in it. Wishing your heart to still, you squeezed his upper arm reassuringly. “Oh, no, of course you’re my friend. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to leave you out like that.”

Were his arms always this toned? Or was this just the first time you noticed it?

Mark held your gaze for another moment before he blinked, shook his head, and smiled, “Yeah, of course. I’m sorry about that. School’s just fried my brain, you know?”

“Don’t worry about it.” You smiled back, patting his shoulder before opening the fridge again.

“You need any help?”

“Sure, sure. You mind chopping some vegetables?” You held the bell pepper out to him.

He nodded dutifully. “On it!”

As he started on that task with the same eagerness to please that he always had, you found that you couldn’t box him back in as just that cute bumbling college kid who had appeared on your doorstep a few weeks ago. Gently pressing your hand to his back to let him know that you were skirting around behind him with your own knife, you took note of how firm it was under your fleeting touch, hidden under another one of his school t-shirts that hung off his shoulders in such a way that it seemed as though every readjustment of his arms caused the motion to catch your gaze. When he asked you to assess the cuts he was making, you had to reach over to adjust how he was holding the bell pepper and knife, listening to his own heartbeat for a twofold reason: to not have to hear to your own spike as your gaze dragged over his forearms and hands where they gripped the handle, and because you were curious. You weren’t a fool, you knew Mark was attracted to you superficially the moment you opened your door the first night. But what about now?

You carefully made a couple minute adjustment to his fingers, letting your own fingertips graze over his skin and linger for just a moment longer than necessary, as if you were making extra certain he had the right position. To your satisfaction, you heard his heart pick up to more of a skitter, and his breaths through his nose quickened. Then, you let go of him as quick as you’d descended.

“Try that now,” you murmured. He pushed the blade down and sliced it through the red pepper easily, at the perfect width. You squeezed right at the bend of his arm approvingly as you praised him, “Good job, Mark.”

“T-Thanks.” The tips of his ears were red, and you could feel his arm tense under your grasp. Taking your hand back to pick your blade up again, you then went back to chopping your own ingredients.

A few weeks later, and Mark had been progressing pretty well now that he had an anchor. You’d taken his stone to a local coven’s shop downtown to get it turned into a pendant so he didn’t have to worry about remembering to put it in his pocket every day. Interestingly when given free rein to match the carving to him without either of your input, the witches had crafted a lion instead of anything serpentine, as was popular for basilisks. On a Wednesday morning, you had just settled into your desk at work when your phone buzzed with a text from Mark.

[markie: i am SO sorry but my prof just announced a study session tonight and i NEED to attend. are you free any other time this week? if not, next week is great as usual!]

[you: saturday. 10:30 a.m. be there or be square]

[markie: be there or be square? i forgot how old you are]

[you: nvm don’t come over you ungrateful twerp]

[you: i was joking, Sol forbid women do anything]

[markie: nooooooo im so sorry 🥺🥺🥺]

[you: nice try but those emojis are doing nothing you googoo gaga ass bitch]

[markie: i'll bring bagels?]

[you: fine. no bagels no entry]

[markie: 🫡]

Saturday at 10:29 a.m. there was a knock at your front door. Mark was in fact on the other side, holding up a brown paper bag with a logo of a nearby bakery on the side.

“Hey, come on in.” You smiled breathlessly, readjusting the toddler on your hip.

“Thanks.” He shut the door behind him, then nodded to the child. “So uh, anything new, Y/N?”

“He’s not mine,” you replied frankly. “This is my nephew. I’m emergency babysitting, hope you don’t mind. We had already rescheduled once, and it was last-minute.”

“No, of course not. Little guy’s cute.” Mark gently poked MinMin’s chubby cheek, making the little boy giggle, and the basilisk giggle back in turn. “So this is what a baby sphinx looks like...”

“Not a sphinx, he’s a wittle witch.” You cooed at the baby in your arms, gently pinching his tummy to elicit another joyous laugh.

“Huh?”

“He’s not actually related to me, he’s my friend’s kid. I’ve just known Jongdae—his dad—for so long that I get to be Aunt Y/N.”

“That’s really nice... So what’s his name?”

“Everyone just calls him MinMin. I don’t think the poor guy will ever be called by his real name unless he’s in trouble.”

“Oof, the full name scolding.”

“Speaking of... Did you remember, Mark Lee?”

“Ouch. You can literally see the bag in my hands.” He shook the bag before putting it on the dining table.

“I meant your homework, not the bagels.”

“Oh.” Mark grabbed a couple dishes from your kitchen cabinets, setting them at your usual places before doing the same with napkins. “Yes, I did that too.”

You sat down, settling MinMin in your lap as you peered into the bag for your usual bagel order, setting it on your plate. “Alright, then show me.”

“Uh... with MinMin here?” Mark asked uncertainly, looking at the child.

“Oh, right. Hold on.” You stood up and walked over to the diaper bag Jongdae had dropped off when he’d shown up and deposited MinMin into your arms in a rushed panic. His wife was an emergency medicine doctor and had gotten called into a shift at the ER in the wee hours of the morning, but your friend was already booked to perform at a wedding that day, and the only babysitter he could find at the last minute was you. You were more than happy to take MinMin for the day, even with your prior arrangements with Mark.

Rooting around through a couple of the pockets, moving aside diapers, snacks, and spare changes of clothes, you finally secured what you were looking for. A teeny, tiny, baby-sized pair of sunglasses. Taking him and the glasses back over to your spot in front of Mark, you sat MinMin down in your lap and gently pulled the green Keroppi-themed sunglasses onto the child’s face. They secured around the back of his head with a strap, which you adjusted as you spoke to Mark, “He would probably be fine, but just in case.”

Mark still seemed hesitant.

“His parents are witches, these are enchanted,” you reassured the basilisk, tapping the frames. “And I’ll be nixing anything you send our way. He’ll be fine. Promise.”

“Aren’t we supposed to eat first?” He sighed, gesturing to his bagel that he hadn’t even been able to take a bite of.

“You’re right, you’re right,” you relented. You were a few bites into your meal when MinMin had finished off his sippy cup. Picking up the empty container, you took it and the toddler with you as you stood up from the chair. “Oh, all done, bub? Let’s get you something else.”

Opening your fridge, you started pointing out the options to the child, “Let’s see… we have water, your dad left you a juice box… or we can open the chocolate milk we grabbed from the corner store before Markie got here?”

“Choco!” MinMin chirped excitedly, and you chuckled as you took out the carton. As you turned to grab the sippy cup, you weren’t expecting to see Mark turned around and peering at you with interest on his features, his eyes locked on the jug in your hand. You raised an eyebrow at him, continuing your task of rinsing out the previous drink before cracking open the carton.

“Mark…” You said knowingly. “Do you want chocolate milk?”

“Please?” He replied sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Sure.” You smiled to yourself as you grabbed another cup from your cabinet, filling that and MinMin’s up before putting the chocolate milk back. Handing MinMin his sippy cup to hold, you carried him on one hip and Mark’s glass with the other hand, setting it down in front of the young man as you went to sit back down.

“Thank you!” He beamed, immediately picking it up and taking a big gulp.

You had the same fond smile on your face as you immediately saw his dark milk mustache, handing him a napkin. “You’re welcome.”

“Thank you!” MinMin echoed, lifting his own sippy cup to his mouth. “Thank you thank you!”

“Aww, you’re welcome, MinMin,” you giggled, patting the top of the boy’s head.

“Alright, you’re doing pretty good,” you declared as you’d reached a stopping point for the day.

He ducked his head bashfully. “You’re a good teacher.”

“Aw, thanks.” You stood up, grabbing the napkin from MinMin’s snack to toss in your kitchen trash. The boy was playing with some toys next to the two of you on the floor of your living room.

“So uh—” Mark cleared his throat over a voice crack. “What are you doing for the rest of the day? Do you have MinMin all day or…?”

“Jongdae said the reception won’t be over until late tonight. But his wife should get off sooner than that.” You tidied up a couple miscellaneous items in your kitchen as you chatted. “And what are you doing today, Mark?”

“Well—Woah!” At his sudden exclamation and the small giggle that followed, you peeked up from the dish you were drying to see Mark cautiously holding his hands up like he was under arrest as MinMin floundered around in his lap—you guessed he had fallen into it at first—for a second before righting himself and plopping down properly. “Uh… hi, buddy?” Mark said, his lack of self-confidence evident in the high pitch of his voice.

“Hi!” MinMin replied cheerily, his attention otherwise on the toy in his hand.

“You two alright in there?” You questioned, not bothering to hide the amusement in your tone.

“He just kind of sat down, I don’t know,” he quickly explained, still not lowering his hands.

“If you’re okay with him being there, that’s fine.”

“Y-Yeah!”

“You sure?” You walked back over, sitting down in front of the two boys so you could reach out and teasingly pinch MinMin’s nose. “You look terrified. He’s a baby witch, but he won’t do anything to you, promise.”

“It’s just… I have an older brother, and I’m the youngest cousin,” he admitted. “Haven’t really been around a lot of babies. Basilisk or otherwise.”

“Me neither, before MinMin,” you replied in understanding. “Only child, and so were my parents.”

“Wow, really?”

“Sphinxes are rare, remember?”

“I mean, I knew that, but I never really thought about what that really meant like, for you. Like, your family, that kind of stuff.”

You shrugged as a sort of ‘it is what it is’ gesture. “So, you never did tell me what you’re doing today.”

“Oh, uhm, well, we’re all having a movie night, at Chenle and Jisung’s later. And I was wondering if you—”

“Would let you stay here until then so you don’t have to go all the way back home then come all the way back here?” You finished knowingly, eyebrow quirking up.

“Yeah! Yeah, exactly,” he smiled sheepishly.

“Sure,” you agreed. “Looks like MinMin isn’t going to let you go anytime soon, anyway.” You indicated towards the toddler who had slowly started slumping over in Mark’s lap, very clearly about to nap.

“Uh, what do I do?” He asked you with wide eyes.

“He can sleep there, or I can take him.”

“Maybe you should…”

You nodded, standing up to go over to MinMin’s bag and pull out a floor mat, stuffed animal, and baby monitors. After setting everything up in a clear area of your floor, you scooped the boy up out of Mark’s lap and deposited him onto the mat on his back. You watched as he rolled around and readjusted until he was comfy, eyes fluttering shut completely and breathing evening out. Satisfied, you walked back over to Mark and offered him a hand up off the ground. He took it, seeming confused as you then led him away from the living room and towards your bedroom. At your room, Mark stopped in the threshold like crossing in would burn him alive, as you flopped onto one side of your bed, set the baby monitor on your nightstand, and grabbed your laptop. You scoffed and patted the other side of the bed, “Do you need to be invited inside like a vampire? Please, come in, Mark.”

“I’ve never been in your bedroom,” he muttered, taking a hesitant step in, his eyes focused on his feet.

“Really?” You scrounged through your memories, and came up empty. Shrugging, you patted the empty space on your bed insistently again. “First time for everything. Come on, we can’t watch TV out there with MinMin napping.”

He tentatively sat down cross-legged, his entire body noticeably tense as you slumped into your pillows and started scrolling through your options.

“You pick,” you declared, pushing the device towards him. “I’m in the middle of a drama and if I put it on, you’ll be confused.”

“I don’t mind, you can put on what you want,” he nudged the laptop back to you.

“Nope, I don’t need a twerp making fun of my drama preferences.” You pushed it back.

“Not a twerp. And I won’t make fun of it.” He pushed it over again.

“On one condition,” you bargained, pointing a finger at him threateningly. “You need to get invested. No scrolling on your phone. I’ll pause and answer any questions, explain everything for you. But I need you to be an active watcher with me. Deal?”

“Deal.” He nodded quickly.

As you queued up the next episode, you explained the basic premise, “It’s set in modern day, but there’s flashbacks from all different time periods. It’s about a phoenix who was cursed hundreds of years ago and can never remember her past once she reincarnates. This is obviously difficult for her vampire lover, who now has to win her over again with each reincarnation, but they’ve made it work so far. Except he wasn’t there when she had her last reincarnation, because she got into an accident while he was away at work or something. So in her amnesiac state after reincarnation, she wandered off, and he ended up losing her for long enough for her to have started a completely new life. And by the time he finds her again, she now has a new partner!”

Mark was nodding along, having listened to everything with rapt attention like you were teaching him about his powers again. “So that’s where this episode starts?”

“No, Markie,” you laughed and patted his leg. “That was just the first half of the pilot. We’re about to start episode eight.”

“Wait, that’s it?!” Mark scrolled down to the bottom of the list of episodes in disbelief. “But they just can’t leave it there!”

“The season is still premiering,” you informed him with a chuckle, readjusting your pillow under your head. “I think there’s maybe five more episodes?”

He had gradually sat back against the pillows at the head of your bed over the course of the two episodes you’d watched, and ran a hand through his hair as he let out a disgruntled sigh. “You’ve got to tell me how it ends.”

“It premieres on Fridays at 8:00.”

His brows knit together with confusion as he tried to follow the conversation. “It’s okay, I won’t make you wait five days to watch it with me.”

It was your turn to be confused for a beat, and then you realized that he thought you were offering to not watch new episodes when they premiered on Fridays and instead watch them with him when he came over on the following Wednesday. “No, Mark, if you want to watch it, you can come here and watch it. On Friday.” You clarified, then at his apparent surprise, tacked on, “With me.”

“But I thought you didn’t want to give up your Friday nights?”

“Yeah, because I’ve been watching this,” you gestured to the laptop screen. “No magic, that stays on Wednesdays. Fridays are for ‘Our Love from the Ashes’ only. Deal?”

You held your pinky finger out to him. He looked down at it nervously, then hooked his with it. “Deal,” he nodded, shaking pinkies in a very business-like manner.

At the same time, you started hearing the babbling sounds of MinMin waking up, and your phone screen lit up with a text. You grabbed both the baby monitor and your phone as you rolled off your bed, checking your messages and heading for your door. Covering your mouth, you couldn’t help the gasp that escaped.

“What?” Mark was following you, and stopped when you did by the threshold.

“Jongdae’s gig got cut short. He’ll be by to get MinMin soon,” you said, reading the message from your friend again.

“‘Got cut short?’”

You looked up at the basilisk as you said plainly, “Groom got cold feet, apparently.”

His eyes widened. “Oh my god…”

There was a knock at your front door less than an hour later. “MinMin, that’s your Dada!” You told the toddler enthusiastically, pulling on his last shoe as he sat in your lap.

He kicked his feet excitedly, making the task more difficult. “Eee!”

“Mark, can you get his diaper bag for me?” You requested of the basilisk, who was standing off to the side uncertainly.

“Yeah, of course.” He quickly went to oblige.

You walked over to the front door holding one of MinMin’s hands, and opened it for your friend. Jongdae was still in the full suit he was meant to perform in, bowtie and all, and stepped inside to give you a hug hello. “Hi, Y/N,” he patted your back. “Thank you again.”

“Hey, Jongdae,” you hugged your friend back. “No problem, he was great for us. I feel so sorry for that poor bride, though.”

“I know, I know.” He shook his head.

“Please tell me you’re still getting paid, right? At least a half-day or a deposit or something?”

“I keep my deposit, yeah. I usually don’t insist on much more if it’s not a mutual cancellation. Feel too bad…” He rubbed the back of his neck before picking up his son, focusing a much brighter smile on him. “Hi, MinMin! Were you good for Aunt Y/N?”

The boy nodded quickly. “Yeah!”

Jongdae then turned back to you, “So who did you say was coming over again? Baek?”

Mark finally approached from where he had been awkwardly hovering by your dining table just behind Jongdae, holding MinMin’s diaper bag. You stepped in to make introductions, grabbing Mark’s arm to bring him closer. “Jongdae, this is Mark, the basilisk I’ve mentioned, remember? Mark, this is Jongdae.”

“Nice to meet you,” Mark said politely, offering out the bag.

“You too.” Jongdae accepted the bag, giving the younger man a quick, mildly intrigued once-over before looking back to you. “We owe you one, Y/N.”

“No you don’t, you know he’s welcome here anytime. He’s a little angel.”

“For now. The terrible twos are around the corner,” your friend scoffed, turning towards the door again.

“You’re going to jinx yourself,” you warned him, grabbing the door handle to hold it open for him.

“I’ll throw some salt over my shoulder when I get home.” He shook his head, then gave you and Mark a nod goodbye. “See you two. Say bye, MinMin.”

“Bye!” The boy waved zealously over his dad’s shoulder, and you grinned and waved back before shutting the door behind them.

Turning back to your one remaining guest, you tilted your head to ask, “When does movie night start?” Before Mark could answer, however, the sounds of explosions and engines revving came through your living room wall, albeit slightly muffled. “Right now?” You guessed, amused.

“Oh, didn’t even realize the time…” Mark’s ears were pink as he looked at his phone as if checking said time.

“It was very sweet of you to stay, Mark, but you could’ve gone to movie night. You saw how good MinMin was, I would’ve been fine with him on my own,” you smiled and squeezed his arm appreciatively, herding him towards the door.

“There’s still dishes—”

“You want to do my dishes?” You laughed. “College boy who wants to do dishes instead of go to a movie night with his friends? What’s gotten into you?”

“Nothing, I just—I don’t know, it’s not fair. You do everything.”

“It’s my home. You’re my guest.” You cocked your head curiously. “It’s okay, Mark.”

“Well, I’m here a lot, you know? You’re already helping me with my powers and stuff. I want to help you too.”

“Okay, you can start doing your own dishes if that’ll make you feel better,” you agreed skeptically. “Next week. Go on, I’m sure they’re going to give you enough shit as is for being late.”

“It’s not just the dishes,” he mumbled under his breath, stuffing his feet in his shoes. You weren’t sure if you were meant to hear that.

As he went to grab the door handle, you put a hand on the door to keep him from opening it. “I want you to bring Johnny next time.”

“What?!” He squeaked.

“Bring Johnny when you come on Wednesday. You need to practice using your powers on someone they’ll actually work on.”

“I don’t think that’s a good—”

“I’ll be right here, Mark,” you reminded him. “It’ll be fine.”

“Alright, fine. I’ll see if he can come.”

At 5:58 p.m. the following Wednesday, there was a knock at your front door. You opened the door to two figures this time, Mark’s familiar face and another young man behind him, a head taller than him. “Mark! And you must be Johnny.” You beamed at the two of them, beckoning them in and then introducing yourself to the human, “I’m Y/N, please, come in.”

“Thank you for inviting me over.” Johnny nodded politely as he followed Mark in.

You furrowed your brows, looking over at the basilisk suspiciously. “Mark, you did tell him why we invited him over, right?”

“I did, I swear!” He promised.

“I know it might sound kind of weird, for me to be thanking you for inviting me to get petrified and compelled or whatever, but I want to help Mark out however I can. So really, thanks,” the human smiled genuinely.

You relaxed at this, guiding them further into your apartment. “Well in that case, you’re welcome.”

“Y/N, bathroom?” Mark pointed down your hall.

“You know where it is.” You waved him off as you headed towards the kitchen to grab three glasses.

Johnny followed you into the kitchen, careful to lower his voice as he told you, “Besides, none of our friends have even met you, and we’re all kind of curious about Mark’s new older lady friend that he keeps talking about, so I just had to come, petrification be damned.”

“I do hate to burst your bubble, Johnny, but Chenle and Jisung have met me before. They live next door,” you informed him.

“Oh, Mark’s other friends?”

“Yeah, I guess. He hasn’t drawn me a diagram, so I don’t have a perfect idea of who knows who, sorry.”

“Well, of our other friend group, I’ll be the first to have met you, then.”

“And? Am I everything you all had dreamed of? The mysterious sphinx in her lair luring poor little Markie in every week?” You opened your fridge, skimming your eyes over your drink options. “Wine? Beer? Water? Chocolate milk?”

Johnny chuckled, “Is that for ‘Markie?’”

“No,” you snickered. “My nephew was over this past weekend, but I figured I’d offer it to you guys since I had extra.”

“What kind of wine?”

“A very lovely red. The grapes are grown in a vineyard in this fairy kingdom whose vale naturally produces magical dew. It’s hard to describe, but the flavor that gets imparted is… exquisite to say the least.”

“Sold.”

You poured two glasses of the red wine, then filled up the third with chocolate milk. “So, if Mark hasn’t explained how this works, we’ll eat dinner first, then get into the magic stuff. It’s kind of like exercising, it’s pointless to do it on an empty stomach.”

“You’re different than I thought you’d be,” Johnny admitted thoughtfully, swirling the wine in his glass around.

“More human looking?” You guessed, expecting that you were the first sphinx he’d probably ever met. Not only were your kind rare in and of themselves, but Mark had mentioned that Johnny didn’t even meet any magical creatures until coming to college just a few years ago.

“That, and… younger?”

You snorted, Chenle’s previous ‘MILF hunter’ comment echoing in the back of your head. You set your wine down to cross your arms and cock your head as you asked him, “What do you know about sphinx and/or basilisk aging?”

“Literally nothing. Mark molted all over our apartment a couple summers ago and it was so gross but apparently that’s something that’s supposed to happen a year or two after basilisks reach adulthood.”

“So I could be a thousand years old for all you know.”

He blinked. “…Are you?”

“No.” You shook your head. “However, Mark and I will both outlive you and your grandkids, I’ll tell you that much.”

“Woah… congrats.”

“But since you brought it up…” You lifted your glass back to your lips, taking a slow sip. You then leaned in conspiratorially. “Between us, does Mark have a thing for older women?”

Johnny smirked and leaned in as well. “Why? You interested?”

“Just heard a little rumor, that’s all.”

“I don’t know about having a type, per se, but he definitely has a thing for this one older woman he knows.”

Before you could respond, you heard the door to the bathroom open, and straightened back up. Johnny furrowed his brows in confusion, and you nodded towards the entrance of the kitchen, where Mark appeared just a moment later.

“Hey guys—oh, chocolate milk! Sweet!” He happily picked up the untouched third glass. Mark then went to explain to his friend, “Y/N only buys chocolate milk when her nephew MinMin comes over. She’s way too much of a real adult to have it around otherwise.”

“Is this your passive-aggressive way of telling me I should buy chocolate milk just for you to drink when you come over?”

“Maybe. Is it working?”

“When you start helping foot my grocery bill, you can dictate what goes on my grocery list, how about that?”

Mark’s eyes widened at that, and he didn’t respond, instead taking another big gulp of his chocolate milk. When he brought his cup down from his face, he had a chocolate milk mustache, and offered you a big thumbs up as he grabbed for a napkin. “Thanks, Y/N! This is perfect!”

“Uh-huh,” you rolled your eyes, but were unable to fight the fond smile on your lips as you turned back to your fridge. “Alright, dinner’s pre-made ravioli, the next person who whines doesn’t eat.”

“Yum!” “My favorite!”

Sat at your dining table across from the two roommates, you took a sip of your drink before engaging your new guest in conversation again, “Are you a student as well, Johnny?”

“Yes, I’m a Comms major, focus in advertising,” he answered.

“And what do you want to do? Advertising?”

The human shrugged and smiled. “Don’t know. Something I don’t hate, I guess.”

You laughed. “That’s fair. I was the same way when I graduated undergrad. Didn’t care where I worked as long as it paid well, didn’t have crazy hours, and wasn’t so boring that I wanted to bang my head against a wall while I was there.”

“Exactly.” Johnny gestured at you triumphantly. “Where’d you end up working?”

“Network security company,” you shrugged one shoulder. “Honestly, I’m not even a big tech person. Can’t fix my own wi-fi if it’s out, past turning it off then back on again. I’m a manager.”

“Need an intern?”

“Dude, you have a job,” Mark interjected, elbowing his friend in the arm.

“I’m networking, dude,” Johnny replied pointedly, elbowing him back. “Not all of us can bank on being doctors in eight years, you know.”

You watched their bickering with amusement before answering the human’s question, “I can make an inquiry. The Advertising AD may or may not owe me a favor…”

“Thanks!” He beamed at you. “So, I’m sorry, if this rude or something, but sphinxes do those riddles, right?”

You arched an eyebrow. “Yes… Don’t tell me Mark has two magical adrenaline junkie friends? I’m not giving you a riddle either.”

Mark’s head shot up from where he had been sullenly eating his ravioli, his eyes going wide with mortification. “Renjun asked you for a riddle?!”

“I didn’t give him one,” you snorted. “I’m not going to be responsible for some kid going mad.”

“I’m going to kill him,” the basilisk groaned, covering his own face in embarrassment. “Why is he like this?”

“I’m not asking you for a riddle, don’t worry,” Johnny assured you. “I was just curious… Would that make sphinxes good poets or writers, then?”

“Sphinxes are good wordsmiths, yes,” you answered with a smile. “But we stick more to oral traditions. One of our favorite pastimes is riddle-weaving. Sphinxes will swap riddles back and forth, solving each other’s riddles to see who can come up with the best one. It’s a good way to pass the time on long car rides.”

“Renjun also said there’s a lot of sphinx lawyers?” Mark added.

“If you compare the percentage of the entire population that are sphinxes and the percentage of lawyers that are sphinxes, yes, sphinxes are overrepresented in that field,” you nodded. “Kind of like how there’s a lot of unicorns in healthcare and education.”

“And dryads in ecology,” Johnny followed your train of logic.

“Exactly.”

After dinner, the three of you moved into your living room. The sun was beginning to set outside, so you retrieved the glowing spheres that had been sitting in your lamps and sent them back outside to rejoin the rest of the rays. You preferred to light your apartment with sunlight when possible, as it was both more beautiful to you, and way more cost-effective than using electricity.

As you went to turn the ceiling light on with the lightswitch, you started explaining what you’d just done to your human guest, “That was sol-channeling. You might hear it be called heliokinesis as well. Sphinxes always call it sol-channeling.”

“Can you sol-channel moonlight? Since it’s technically just reflected sunlight?” Johnny questioned curiously.

“Nope. Magically different properties. Just like how werewolves are only affected by the full moon and moonstone, not by any sort of sunlight or sunstone.”

“…Right. Of course.”

“We can only manipulate existing sunlight, but we can’t make it, and we have to send it back before the Sun sets.”

“What happens if you don’t send it back before the Sun sets?”

“We’re only borrowing the sunlight from Sol. It has to be anchored to us while it’s here,” you said, guiding him by the arm to stand in one spot. “If we don’t end that connection ourselves willingly, it’ll still go back… and rip a piece of our soul out with it. The more sunlight that you’ve sol-channeled, and have anchored to you, the more of your soul that’s taken.”

You then positioned Mark across from Johnny, facing his friend from several steps away. The basilisk’s eyes were locked on your face in horror, but you just kept calmly readjusting him.

“Can you… regrow it? If that happens?” Johnny asked quietly.

“You can heal, physically,” you answered levelly, walking behind Mark. “Hurts like a bitch for a while… but healing a soul, that’s something that takes a lot of power. I can really only think of one thing that would do that…”

“What is it?” Mark blurted out.

“The Sun,” you replied bluntly. “Phoenixes, when they reincarnate. Everything is healed, soul included.” They were quiet for a moment, and you clapped your hands together, changing conversation topics, “Alright, time for some compelling! Ready, guys?”

“Totally!” Johnny gave you two thumbs-up.

“Mark?” You prompted the basilisk right in front of you.

“Shouldn’t you be by Johnny? In case you need to nix it?” He pointed to the human, looking down at his feet.

“I can nix from here,” you assured him. Reaching over his shoulder, you secured between two fingers the silver chain that you knew his lion pendant dangled from. You pulled it out from under his shirt, holding it in his eyeline. “Breathe, Mark. Let’s do a round of those grounding breaths, hm?”

You let his anchor go to rest on his chest again, and watched his eyes flutter shut as you started counting him through the breaths. Once he was done, he opened his eyes back up, the slit pupils slowly dragging up from his feet to your face first. You smiled reassuringly at him from your spot just beside him now. You squeezed his arm. “You’ve got this, Mark. Just like we’ve done before. I’ll be right back here, okay?”

As you went to step back, you saw Mark gulp, and his gaze fell down again. He wouldn’t be able to compel Johnny if he didn’t look him in the eye. While you had read through Renjun’s notes pretty thoroughly early in working with Mark, you were using them as a guide of what not to do. You didn’t want him to constantly be in a state of being stressed, tired, and stuck at home in order to be in tune with his powers. But right now, you could tell that you were hitting at least two out of three of those. Dinner had already taken up a considerable portion of your evening, and Mark was still not as relaxed as you needed him to be.

“Hey, Mark, I finally figured out why Yuta’s barely passing all his classes,” Johnny suddenly interjected.

That caught the basilisk’s attention, his voice confused as he went to respond, “I thought he was on the Dean’s List—”

“Because sirens only know what’s under C-level,” the human finished with a wide grin.

“Dude—” Mark was cut off by his own laughs. “That was bad. Like, barely made sense bad.”

“Well, did I tell you about this fairy philosophy major I met the other day?”

“What? Were they cute or something?”

“Yeah, a real Thinker-bell…”

That one even made you snort as Mark devolved into giggles. Johnny caught your eye as he continued, “You know how Taeil and Doyoung are witches that live together?”

“I mean, Jungwoo’s there—”

“And they were broom-mates…”

“Stop, dude,” Mark’s protests were dampened by his non-stop giggles as he clutched his sides. “We’re trying to— We’re trying—”

“What’s a vampire’s favorite fruit?” You cut in, making both of them turn to you. “A neck-tarine…”

Johnny actually burst out laughing at that, probably more than the awful pun warranted, as he quickly doubled over and had to hold himself up with his hands on his knees. Mark stumbled just the slightest towards you as he was still giggling, finally moving from the place that you had set him up in. “Y/N, not you too!” He complained through laughter. “God, you two are awful. Not funny at all.”

“Then why are you laughing so hard, Markie?” You pointed out with a chuckle, letting him lean his weight on your shoulder as he tried to catch his breath.

“Because I can’t believe you would make terrible dad jokes like that.” He took deep breaths, still holding his side. “Looped back around to being funny.”

“Then why’d you laugh at mine?” Johnny was upright again.

“Pity.”

And as you caught Johnny’s twinkling eyes again from across the room, you figured that you were thinking the same thing. Success. One much more relaxed Mark Lee.

Mark found his footing again, and with one more deep breath, looked up at Johnny. You watched him carefully, feeling the exact moment he made contact with his powers, extending them out towards Johnny. They weren’t overwhelming, out-of-control, hasty, or at risk of boiling over. Johnny stood still, pupils dilating as he looked to Mark for his cue.

“Touch your right index finger to your nose gently,” Mark instructed calmly. That was something you had worked on, specificity without complexity.

Johnny lifted his right hand, tapping his nose with his pointer finger.

“Put your right hand down.” After he had done so, Mark then requested, “Lift your left hand above your head, slowly.”

Johnny raised his hand like he was in a classroom, holding it there.

“Put your left hand down please.”

The human lowered his hand again.

“Thanks, Johnny, you’re done,” Mark released him, and you felt the energy draw back into the basilisk as steadily as it had extended out. He let out a breath as Johnny blinked and came back into himself. “You alright, man?”

“Great!” Johnny beamed and gave him a thumbs up. “Thanks for not making me do anything weird.”

“I told you I wouldn’t, man.” The basilisk rolled his eyes.

“Mark!” You threw your arms around his neck without a second thought, practically vibrating with excitement. “You did it! On purpose!”

“I’m going to pee, before the petrification,” Johnny whispered loudly, excusing himself down the hall.

“I-I mean, I had a good teacher...” Mark muttered, tentatively hugging you back.

“I won’t argue with you there,” you snickered, squeezing him even tighter. “I’m proud of you, Markie.”

Two days later, and it was Friday night. After a long week of work, you finally could relax, order some food, make yourself a drink, kick your feet up, and just have a nice quiet night to yourself. Well, sort of. You had actually ordered food for two, prepared an extra glass of ice water, and were awaiting a familiar knock on your door before you could kick up your feet and start your show.

Mark knocked at 7:50 p.m., just 10 minutes before the newest episode of Our Love from the Ashes would be premiering, and you ushered him in quickly. Squished into the middle two couch cushions next to each other so you could both have access to your coffee table to eat from, you were pleasantly surprised to find that he wasn’t incredibly tense or actively running away. He was doing exactly what you’d asked him to do—getting invested. Reacting to the episode with you, quiet at the tense parts, laughing at the funny parts, pretty much the perfect drama watching partner. You were done with your food halfway into the episode, and dragged over a blanket to cover your lap now that you weren’t at risk of any spillage. It was large enough to cover both you and Mark, so you put it over his lap too, and that was when he suddenly choked on a noodle.

“You alright?” You snorted, giving him a couple solid smacks on the back. “Food go down the wrong pipe?”

He wiped his mouth with a napkin to catch a dribble of sauce. “Yeah, sorry. Don’t—Don’t mind me.”

Right as you focused back on the show, however, loud shooting and explosion sounds started up from the other side of your living room wall, and you sighed. You reached forward to grab the remote, pausing the show before scooting out from under the blanket and walking over to your shared wall with Chenle and Jisung. Banging your fist against the wall a couple times, you then waited. The video game sounds decreased significantly, then you heard a dampened, “Sorry, Ms. Y/N!” from Chenle this time.

“That’s how loud it is?” Mark asked, now looking incredibly guilty.

“Yep,” you replied, plopping back down on the couch next to him and pulling the blanket over you again. With the show still paused, you looked over at him curiously. “Are you missing a video game night right now?”

“It’s not like everyone or anything,” he shrugged, casting his eyes down to his dish as he pushed food around with his utensil. “I mean, I think it’s just Jaemin, Hyuck, Chenle, and Renjun. Jeno and his girlfriend are celebrating their anniversary, and Jisung’s not even there at the game night in his own apartment because he’s out with his girlfriend. It was going to be a single losers night.”

“So what does it mean that you’re here with me instead then?” You mused humorously, hitting play.

Mark apparently wasn’t hungry anymore, as he set his food down and leaned back against the couch cushions. But he didn’t relax very much. Out of the corner of your eye, you could see one of his legs bouncing up and down. With the warm summer air outside, he had worn a t-shirt with some comic book character on it. As his fingers started messing with the texture of the blanket, your eyes followed the movement, up to his hands, then further up to his forearms, where you could see his muscles twitch and flex in the slightest under his skin. You were suddenly more aware of the lounge clothes you were wearing. They were nothing special, a comfortable t-shirt of your own and pair of shorts, but as you became conscious of exactly how much the shorts had ridden up with the way you were sitting under the blanket, your focus was still locked on Mark’s hands, not the show that you had unwittingly tuned out.

“Sorry,” Mark’s voice was sheepish, and you blinked, looking up from his hands to his face. “Didn’t mean to pull at a thread. I just fidget, you know…”

His fingers had stopped messing with the blanket, and you gave him a half-hearted smile and shake of your head. “It’s fine, Mark. Didn’t mean to stare like that, sorry.”

When you turned back to the screen, you were able to focus on the show for a whole two minutes. And then the main couple’s romantic kiss turned into a prolonged make-out session. Mark’s hands pulled at the thread again. You smacked a hand down over his, harder than you intended to. He jumped under your touch, but stopped his accidental unwinding of your textile. You kept your hand there to prevent him from unraveling the thread again, skin buzzing with a new kind of energy where it touched his. You didn’t look at him. Then the kissing turned into a bit more, with some conveniently placed objects in frame, and a tasteful fade-to-black. Mark shifted a bit higher in his seat. You slowly took your hand back. That wasn’t the end of the episode, as there was a very cute morning-after scene as well, but you could barely celebrate the fact that the characters were back together. Finally looking at the basilisk beside you out of the corner of your eye, he was staring straight ahead at the TV, his leg back to bouncing. He ran a hand through his hair, and you could see his throat bob as he swallowed hard.

As soon as the credits started rolling, Mark was on his feet. “Uhm, thank you for having me.”

“Right… thanks for coming over.” You walked him to the door like usual, which he seemed to be racing you to. Holding your hand on the door handle without actually opening it, you watched him shift uncomfortably in place. “Are you okay, Mark?”

“Hm? Fine, fine!” His voice cracked. “It was a-a good episode.”

“Yeah, they finally got back together and—”

“Sorry, I just remembered I actually have an assignment due at 11:59 tonight,” he blurted out, scratching the back of his neck. You peered over his shoulder at your stove clock visible from your kitchen. 8:58 p.m.

“Oh. Well, I’ll let you go then.” You went to give him a one-armed hug goodbye without a second thought, feeling him stiffen in your loose hold. Stepping back, you opened the door for him. “See you Wednesday, Mark.”

His face was bright red as he stammered out, “See-See you. Goodnight, Y/N.”

His sneakers squeaked as he took off down the hall. You closed the door behind him and looked back into your apartment, which felt oddly empty now.

Pushing open the door to Half Moon Bakery some days later, you were immediately enveloped by the cozy and sweet smells of the various breads, sweets, and pastries inside. Two employees were behind the counter, one attending to the register while the other restocked their shelves with loaves of bread from a tray, his back to you.

“Hi! Welcome to Half Moon! How can I help you?” The friendly-looking worker at the register greeted you brightly. As you got closer, you could very clearly smell that he was a werewolf, musky and warm.

You offered the young man a smile back. “Hi, I’m actually—”

“Y/N?” The other employee, who had also been wearing a backwards baseball cap, turned around then, surprise on his features.

It took you a second to place the face so out-of-context, immediately offering a kind greeting as soon as you recognized him. “Oh, Johnny, hey. It’s good to see you. Almost didn’t recognize you in the apron, sorry.”

The human gestured down to the navy-blue apron he had donned as part of the bakery’s uniform. “Yeah, it’s me.”

The first boy’s eyes widened as he turned to Johnny. “Wait, Y/N, as in…?”

“Yes, Jeno, this is Chenle and Jisung’s neighbor,” Johnny confirmed pointedly through gritted teeth. You knew very well what was also implicitly being confirmed, because if he knew Johnny, knew your name, and knew Chenle and Jisung, then Jeno presumably also knew Mark and your apparent reputation among their friend group.

“I-It’s nice to meet you, Ms. Y/N. Uhm, sorry about all the noise all the time,” Jeno stammered out an apology.

The way he addressed you made you chuckle lightly. There were only two people who called you that, and with whom he would’ve had to be apologizing for noise if he’d been with. “Oh, you must be one of Mark’s other friends that’s always playing video games so loudly in the boys’ apartment next door.”

“R-Right. Again, I’m so sorry.”

“I’m teasing, Jeno,” you reassured the poor boy, who looked like a kicked puppy at this point. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“So what can we get you?” Johnny asked, motioning to all of the various baked goods in the shop.

“As delicious as everything looks, I’m actually not here to eat, unfortunately. Another time,” you promised. Refocusing on the real reason you came into the bakery today, you looked around. “Minseok in?”

“Oh, yeah, Mr. Minseok’s in the back. I can go grab him for you,” Jeno offered.

“Would you please, Jeno?”

“So, how do you know Minseok?” Johnny asked as you waited, genuine curiosity in his tone.

“Oh, we’ve known each other for years,” you started. “We’re—”

“Y/N, hey!” Minseok calling your name out snapped your attention to your friend making his way out of the back of the bakery.

“Minseok— ah!” You got cut off by a sputtering laugh as he came around the counter to hug you, patting his back in the embrace. When you pulled back, you didn’t let your friend get very far, brushing at a white smudge on his cheek. “You’ve got flour on your face, you know? I swear you’d have lost your canines a decade ago if it weren’t for me, Kim Minseok.”

“I work in a bakery,” he reminded you with a huff, disentangling from you to cross his arms stubbornly. “Call it an occupational hazard. And you’ve got some on you, too.”

“Oh, and whose fault is that?” You scoffed, wiping at your own face where it had brushed against his in the hug.

“Yours. You’ve got to play better defense, Y/N.” He pretended to punch your upper arm a couple times as if in a boxing match.

“Defense against flour-covered hugs? My bad, I’ll train up on that this weekend.”

Your friend dropped his mock boxer’s stance. “Anyway, you ready to go?”

“Yep, I am if you are.”

“Absolutely.” He nodded, then turned to his employees, who suddenly seemed extremely invested in wiping down the countertop by the register. “I’m about to take my lunch. You two need anything from me?”

Johnny shook his head, giving his boss a reassuring grin. “Nope, nope, all good.”

“Jeno, you think she needs anything back there?” Minseok asked the werewolf.

“Nah, you saw her, she’s totally in the zone,” Jeno replied, a soft smile overtaking his features. “We’re actually taking our lunch break soon, too.”

“Cool. Be back in an hour, hour and a half.”

You lifted a hand to give them your own farewell, “It was good seeing you guys, bye!”

“Since when do you know my employees so well?” Minseok squinted at you as the two of you walked down the sidewalks together.

“They’re both Mark’s friends,” you explained.

The sphinx made an extended ‘ohhh’ sound as you rounded the corner to your destination, a quick, casual café. While you didn’t technically have a timed lunch break since you were in a salary position, your schedule was full up with meetings for the afternoon that you couldn’t be late for. Minseok held the door open for you. “So I guess I have you to thank for Johnny no longer missing shifts because he got petrified, then.”

You covered your mouth with your hand to cover your laugh. “I guess so.”

Saturday night found you hosting all your friends at your place—a rare occurrence. It wasn’t that you didn’t like hanging out with all your friends, it was that you four usually went out somewhere, or to someone else’s place. You weren’t a big hostess in general, and typically Jongin or Baekhyun preferred to do the hosting of the four of you, but somehow, this time, everyone ended up at your place for board game night.

“Something you’d like to tell us, Y/N?” Baekhyun raised his eyebrows as he dug a forest green garment out from between two of your throw pillows on your couch. He set his wine glass down on the coffee table to spread the hoodie wide, allowing you to see the logo on the front, the name of the college that Mark and your neighbors attended.

“Mark left a hoodie here?” You questioned. “The horror…? It’s a hoodie, not a condom. Calm down, Baek.”

“I just don’t get what you’re waiting for.”

“What are you talking about?” You walked over to take the hoodie from him, folding it up and setting it aside on your dining table so you wouldn’t forget to give it back to Mark on Wednesday.

“You haven’t talked about any other man since you started ‘mentoring’ this kid,” the siren said frankly, putting his hands on his hips. “Every time we see you, it’s ‘Mark did this’ and ‘Mark said that’ and ‘Mark’s doing so good’ and—”

“I don’t sound like that,” you scowled.

“You kind of do,” Minseok agreed, reclined on your couch.

You looked to Jongin, hoping that he’d at least back you up. He shrugged.

“I’m just saying, from what you’ve been saying, he’s been wrapped around your finger since he laid eyes on you,” Baekhyun continued. “So, what are you waiting for? He’s got his powers under control; he’s obsessed with you—have some fun. I think you’ve earned it. Go be the MILF you want to see in the world.”

“You mean the MILF that you want to see in the world. Pass.”

“What? Is he not cute or—”

“I said pass, Baek. Leave it.”

“Does he have a partner or something?”

“No, I don’t think so. Can we just play—”

“What is your—”

“Baekhyun.” Jongin cut him off coolly. “Stop.”

The siren held up his hands. “Fine. Sorry.”

As everyone sat around your coffee table to start setting up the board game, you could feel Minseok’s contemplative gaze on you. “You really like him, don’t you?” The other sphinx asked quietly, into the dead silence. “Your basilisk.”

Never had you ever been more relieved to hear loud, raucous video game explosions from the apartment next door. You scrambled to your feet, happy to be out of that conversation. “Oh, that’s the boys. Sorry, hold on.” You walked over to your shared wall, and banged your fist on it a couple times.

The volume was quickly cranked down, then Jisung called out, “Sorry!”

You turned back to your own friends with a pleased smile. “There we go.”

A moment later, your phone buzzed in your hand.

[markie: sorry, i tried to tell them it wasn’t quiet enough]

[you: that’s alright. thanks, markie]

[you: also, you left a hoodie here. you can grab it wednesday]

When you sat back down to set up the boardgame, your friends apparently decided to leave the topic well enough alone, letting you start reading off the direction with no further poking or prodding.

A few hours later, after the games had been abandoned but before your friends were ready to leave, you were washing up a few glasses at your kitchen sink as the others debated some movie options to round out the night. There was a faint knock on your front door, and you looked at the time on the stove clock curiously.

“Oh, can someone get that?” You called out to the living room, hands still wet, soapy, and holding an equally wet and soapy glass. “I’m expecting a package, needs to be signed for.”

“I’ve got it!” Minseok shouted back, the sound of the front door opening following just a moment later.

“W-What?” A familiar stutter reached your ears, and you grabbed a dish towel to start drying your hands off, listening carefully to make sure you’d heard correctly. There was no reason Mark should be at your door right now.

“Oh, Mark, right? Johnny’s roommate.” Nope, apparently he was, according to Minseok’s memory.

“Mark?” You poked your head out of the kitchen, the rest of your body following when you did in fact see the basilisk at your front door. “What are you doing here?”

“What is he doing here?” Mark pointed at the other sphinx accusatorily.

“So this is Mark?!” Baekhyun had joined you three at the door, delight on his features. “Minseok, don’t be rude, let the boy in.”

“What’s uh, what’s going on?” Jongin called from the living room as he, too, stood up to start walking over to the front door.

You shook your head at your friends, turning to chastise them, “Oh my God, all of you, stop it.” Clearly, the younger basilisk was in some kind of panic, and you had no clue why he was even at your door when as far you knew, he and his friends were playing video games thirty seconds ago.  Putting your focus back on Mark, you softened your tone, “Mark, why are you—”

But the college student turned on his heel and took off down the hallway at a sprint.

“Mark! Hey!” You called after him, stepping out of your doorway, but it was useless, as he was already long gone down the stairwell. With a sigh, you dropped your hands to your sides in defeat and moved back into your apartment. Leaning against the inside of your closed door, you looked around at your friends, at a loss for words.

“Do you think we scared him?” Baekhyun asked, his head tilted.

Jongin’s forked tongue flicked out, his eyebrows shooting up before his features relaxed again. “You think?”

The next Wednesday, as the time neared 6:00 p.m., you paced your living room anxiously, eyes on the microwave clock as you strained your ears to listen to every minute sound in the hallway. Listening for footfalls, or maybe even the door of the stairwell opening if it were quiet enough. 6:00 passed, then 6:01, 6:02, 6:03, 6:04, and at 6:05 you checked your phone for any indication from Mark that he was still planning on coming over, maybe just running late. You hadn’t heard a peep from him since Saturday, which included leaving you on read this afternoon when you asked him if he wanted pizza or dumpling soup for dinner. You made pizza, too distracted to trust yourself to do more cooking than putting a frozen pizza in the oven. 6:08 p.m., and you heard someone walking down the hallway, past the boys’ apartment, and finally stopped on your doormat. They knocked, and you let out a sigh of relief, rushing to answer the door before he could have the opportunity to run away again.

You unlocked your locks in record time, a breathless smile coming to your face at the familiar figure of Mark standing there. His hands were stuffed into his hoodie pocket as the side of his mouth pulled up into a sheepish half-smile. “Hey, Y/N. Sorry I’m late.”

“Mark,” you breathed out his name in relief. “Just get in here, would you?”

“I’m really sorry about Saturday,” he apologized immediately as soon as you had locked up, running a hand through his hair.

“Yeah, what even was that?” You asked, a concerned frown on your face as you stepped closer to him. “I mean, why did you come over? And then why did you run away as soon you showed up?”

“It’s… not a good reason. And again, I’m so sorry.” He ran two hands through his hair this time, thoroughly mussing it up.

“Uh, do you want to sit down, Mark?” You offered your couch up.

“Sure, sure, yeah.” He obliged, but was on the edge of his seat, leaning his weight forward on his arms and bouncing a knee. You were getting more nervous just looking at him. “Uhm, so, Jeno had told me about when you came into the café last week, when you got lunch with his boss. And I sort of got freaked. And then I came over here and he was here, I got even more freaked. And then all those other guys were here and I got super freaked and bolted. Like I said, I’m really sorry.”

You opened and closed your mouth a couple times as you tried to figure out what you wanted to address first. Finally, you landed on: “Jeno told you? Not Johnny?”

“Johnny helped me get un-freaked enough to come over tonight.”

“Well, big thanks to Johnny, then. Though I will admit that I’m not sure what to do with the fact that me having friends freaked you out so bad in the first place.”

“I-I know, it was really immature of me, I just…” He sighed, wringing his hands together.

You felt bad, he was clearly at a loss for what to do next. He knew he’d messed up and how, and had apologized multiple times. You figured he’d only gotten so “freaked” because he’d known so little about the situation, so you decided that offering some more information would help put him at ease.

“Baekhyun, Minseok, and Jongin. Those are their names,” you said. “They’re my closest friends. Baekhyun’s a siren, Minseok’s a sphinx like me, and Jongin’s a basilisk like you. You can ask me questions about them, if you want.”

“How did you guys meet?”

“We were all in the same class together in primary school.”

“Oh that’s cool!” He replied brightly.

“What?” You blinked at him, caught off-guard. That usually wasn’t the reaction that piece of information garnered from other magical creatures that were from here.

“That you guys went to school together and you’re all still friends. I don’t know how many people I went to primary school with that I could even still name off the top of my head. Did you guys have like a Cool Magic Kids Only Club type thing or something?”

You looked down at your lap. “Not exactly…”

Mark had picked up on the unease in your tone, all perk falling from his features. “What? Is something wrong, Y/N?”

It took you a moment to figure out how to phrase this for him, pressing your lips together in a line as you thought. When you settled on the words, you told him gently, “We were all in the same class because we were the only kids in our class. It was for magical creatures only.”

“Wait, what?”

“I mean, not just the four of us, there were ten students total. But, yeah, we were kept separate from the human kids in school. For their safety.”

“I’ve heard about that kind of stuff, like, when integration was first happening, but you’re not that much older than me!” He pointed out, his jaw dropped in disbelief.

You decided to do a little test. “Mark, did you go to speech therapy? When you were in school?”

“What? No.”

“Jongin, the basilisk, he used to get pulled from class three times a week to go to speech therapy to ‘fix’ how he spoke.” You made sure to throw sarcastic air quotes around the word fix.

“What the fuck?”

“I mean, I didn’t have any powers, so I just had to keep my first set of teeth in check, you know. But they didn’t believe me when I told them I couldn’t possibly be a danger yet because sphinxes didn’t get their powers until they were adults. After all, sphinxes were riddle-makers, tricksy, and couldn’t be trusted.”

“Oh, oh my god, Y/N. I’m so sorry.”

“So, anyway, that’s how we all know each other. Thirteen years of educational trauma does a lot to make some pretty unbreakable bonds.”

“Y/N… I’m so sorry, I was a dick.”

“Thanks, Mark. But to be fair, you don’t know any of my friends, do you?”

“I’ve met Minseok before.” He tried to reassure you. “And Jongdae!”

“You mean you’ve said hi to Jongdae once, and met Minseok as Johnny and Jeno’s boss.” You shook your head with a small smile. “But I mean, I’ve met a bunch of your friends. Chenle and Jisung, obviously, and I’ve met Renjun, Johnny, and now Jeno. You talk about all of them all the time. It’s not entirely unreasonable that you could’ve… jumped to conclusions.”

“But it wasn’t fair of me to do that.”

“Well, can’t argue with you there.” You agreed. After a pause of the two of you just sort of looking at each other, you offered, “Do you want to hear more about them?”

“You don’t have to… tell me anything you don’t want to, Y/N.”

“Minseok and I weren’t always the closest on the surface, you know. Baekhyun and I liked more of the same stuff, Jongin didn’t really to talk to anybody except me for our first few years of primary school, and Baekhyun and Minseok would team up to pick on me sometimes, but there was always an unspoken bond between us, since we were both sphinxes.” You decided to start with Minseok, since that’s who started this whole freak-out in the first place. “You know, we’re so rare, it was comforting to have another one of us around during all of this. We weren’t allowed to riddle-weave at school, obviously, but whenever we could find the rare opportunity at our magic-only recess, or in a corner of the library, or walking home from school when we were a little older, we’d swap riddles back and forth with each other. One of us would give a riddle, the other would solve it, then give a riddle back. And don’t get me wrong, our whole class was really close. There were only ten of us, and we had pretty much no contact with the rest of the students at our school until high school. But the four of us, Minseok, Baekhyun, Jongin, and I, were truly the best of friends. Still are.”

“What about the rest of you? The other kids from your class?” He asked.

“We keep in touch with all of them. Sort of parted ways in college and as we got older, you know. I actually work with one of them. Remember that phone call I got from my employee, Sehun?”

“Kind of?”

“He’s one of my former classmates, a witch.”

“Oh. Huh.”

“Yeah, I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw him walk in on his first day. Let me think… Jongdae, witch, he’s the only one of us to have a kid so far, MinMin; Chanyeol, werewolf, just got a promotion… then of course Minseok owns the bakery, Baekhyun has his boba shop, Jongin has a whole designer brand... Yeah, we’re all doing just… great. Really makes my heart happy.”

“Ah, Y/N…” Mark got to his feet, throwing his hands down by his sides in fists as he paced.

“Woah, Markie, are you okay?”

“No, just— Doesn’t it make you mad? That they did this to you guys?”

“It used to, yeah, absolutely. We used to be the angriest, angstiest, most vitriolic people you could ever meet. We hated that school, and society, and the world for letting them treat us like that. Hell, Jongin still hates his speech therapist, and I’ll let him die with that grudge.” You shook your head, the momentary bitterness dissolving from your tongue and a melancholy replacing it instead. “But it ate at us. And not only that, but society kept changing. And we were all stuck in that time, in those memories, stuck with that anger. It was killing us from the inside. I am so glad you didn’t meet me in college, Mark, because it was not pretty. The number of nights that none of us can remember—and not for any fun reason—is far too many.”

He still didn’t seem convinced, but had stopped his angry pacing, standing in front of you with his arms crossed over his chest.

“I mean, just look at you. You went through the same schools that I did practically right after us and had a completely different experience. A better one. And that makes me so relieved.” You beamed up at him, and saw a mixture of guilt and bashfulness flicker across his face. “It doesn’t take away what happened to me at all. But anger with no direction is useless. It all really hit us when Jongin, Minseok, and I all developed our powers the same semester of undergrad. And we were all messes. We couldn’t get them under control because we were just so angry. We felt like we were being forgotten, that our suffering was being forgotten. Everybody else was moving on and pretending like it never happened. When I uh, mostly unintentionally melted a portion of a professor’s car, my grandmother pulled me away for spring break—absolutely ruined my plans—and made me spend the entire week learning to control it all.”

“You melted—”

“Thankfully, Dr. Kwon was very understanding, and I wasn’t kicked out or anything.”

“How did Minseok and Jongin…?”

“Those aren’t really my stories to tell. But ultimately, we couldn’t hold onto that anger anymore. So instead, I try to focus on all the good that we have in our lives, and all the things we’ve been able to accomplish despite what was done to us.” You then gestured to him, “And I look at the magical creatures who came after us, how much better things were for them, and are continuing to get, and all I can feel is happiness now.”

Mark sighed and sat down on the cushion next to yours, and you found yourself relieved to see the anger drain from his face. “I’m sorry, Y/N. It’s not my… thing to get angry over.”

“No, Mark, it’s okay.” You reached out to grab his hand, pulling both of them over to rest in your lap. Your other hand was up by your mouth, where you were chewing on a nail in between your thoughts— an anxious habit your grandmother thought she had broken you of in high school. “It tells me you care, and it means a lot, that you do. Makes it still feel real. And it is your thing to get mad about, as far as I’m concerned. What happened to us—and to Jongin—could’ve easily been you and your friends too. I’m just really glad it wasn’t.”

The basilisk squeezed your hand, then scooted closer until you were shoulder-to-shoulder, knee-to-knee. But it wasn’t electricity that jumped between you two this time, or strange butterflies in your stomach. It was an unspoken, understanding kindness that connected you and Mark, and a quiet sense of security that had settled deep in your chest. You shifted to rest your head on his shoulder, letting go of his hand only to wind your arm under his and lace your fingers together.

“Mark?” You said quietly, gaze locked on your intertwined fingers.

“Yeah?” He murmured, and you could feel him turn his head to look down at you.

“When you asked me if you’re my friend… one of the first times you were over. You remember that?”

“Ah, god, Y/N.” He shook his head, letting out an embarrassed chuckle. “I’m sorry about that, I shouldn’t have asked you. I was insecure and fishing for—”

“No, I’m sorry. I didn’t answer you honestly,” you insisted. You held Mark’s hand even tighter. “You’re not my friend, and… I don’t know when it happened. Honestly, I don’t think you ever were.”

He was quiet for a moment, letting your confession settle over the two of you like a blanket. But you didn’t feel suffocated by it, or scared. It sort of felt like something that was always in the room with you and Mark, but now you two were just finally talking about it. And after Mark’s history of impulsive decisions, and talking without thinking, and getting freaked, you were more than happy to give him whatever time he needed to get his thoughts together before responding to you.

“Can I ask you for that secret now?” He asked into the empty air of your living room, his voice wavering.

“Of course. Anything.”

“How... Can you tell me a secret you have about me? About how you feel about me?”

You lifted your head off his shoulder to turn in your seat and face him. His big, brown eyes were looking at you like you were everything, and you just took a second to admire him as you pulled together your own thoughts. Here everyone was worried (to varying degrees of seriousness) that you were luring poor, innocent little Markie into your lair every week and corrupting him. But really, you’d been unknowingly leaving the doors to your heart wide open for this little basilisk to slither right in and make himself at home. And now that he was here, you had no intention of ever asking him to leave.

“I like you, Mark. Something other than friendship. Romantically,” you clarified. “I have feelings for you.”

His grip tightened on your hand as he squeezed his eyes shut.

“Mark? You okay?” You asked softly.

“Great, yep, awesome,” he promised. “Just uh, just losing my mind a little.”

You laughed, stroking your thumb over his comfortingly. “Take all the time you need. Don’t want any more freakouts if we can avoid them.”

“Y/N?” He looked up at you again.

“Yeah, Mark?”

His eyes flicked between yours and your mouth. “Can I kiss you?”

“Yes.” You agreed enthusiastically, but didn’t make another move for fear of scaring off the skittery basilisk.

He still hesitated, though. “D-Do you want me to?”

So polite. It was taking everything in you not to pounce on him.

“Yes.” You said again, a bit firmer. For encouragement, you took his hand that you were holding and moved it up to your face.

Mark took the cue and gently cupped your cheek, leaning in towards you. Your eyes fluttered shut as you let him guide your mouths together. The first touch of his lips to yours was feather-light, barely there.

“I…” He drew back, dropping his hand to hold yours again. “Like… You want to date me?”

“Yes,” you confirmed with another light chuckle.

“You’re laughing at me again.”

“Sorry, sorry.” You tried to compose yourself, but you knew that you still had the same smitten smile on your face. “You’re just… too cute.”

“Do you remember when I came here to ask you for help with my powers in the first place?” Mark asked, poking a couch cushion. “What you said about your couch?”

“My couch…?” You echoed, trying to think that far back. It felt like a lifetime ago at this point that you had first welcomed the incredibly timid basilisk into your home. Then it hit you. “I said neither my couch nor I would eat you whole.”

“Unless I asked nicely,” he added, swallowing thickly. “I’m-I’m asking nicely now, Y/N. Please, if you want—”

“Oh, Markie,” you sighed, standing up and pulling him up with you. You grabbed his jaw between two fingers, looking into his slit pupils as you pulled him closer. “You’re so adorable.”

Before he could say anything else, you crashed your mouths together. His hands immediately flew to your hips to ground himself, as you kept one hand on his jaw and the other rested on his shoulder. You had a reason for standing up, however, beginning to push him back in the direction of your bedroom.

He asked to be eaten whole, after all.

When your work alarm came the next morning, you snoozed it and buried your face back into your pillow. There was a groan from beside you, and you could hear Mark shifting as well.

“Don’t tell me that’s actually how early you get up for work?” He asked incredulously.

“I have to shower, and make breakfast, and brush my teeth, and get dressed in clean clothes, and commute,” you mused. “Can’t just roll out of bed five minutes before I need to leave and show up in the same pajamas I slept in anymore.”

“Ugh.”

You chuckled, rolling over to snuggle up to his side, throwing an arm over his waist. “Do you have class today?”

“Summer break.” His arms hesitantly wrapped around you.

“Right, right. Well, I guess you can snooze until I’ve got breakfast ready, then.”

“Mm, pretty sure I heard something about a shower?”

“You might have,” you replied coyly. “Why?”

“You know, Renjun was telling me about how climate change is shrinking the natural habitats of glacial sirens at the poles, and—”

Your laughter cut him off, and he started giggling at himself as well. When you’d finally caught your breath, you said, “I’ve heard the ‘saving water’ line before, never heard it taken to that extreme. Come on, if we waste any more time, we’ll be having untoasted bread for breakfast.”

“Ooh, my favorite,” Mark grinned, following after you.

⤷ anthology masterlist | blog masterlist

[the-kr8tor]

Someone asked me for some vampire!Hobie so here I come ☝️👀

The potion this time is some garlic gloves with cardamom in a heart-shaped bottle! Pretty please 🥹 I'm thinking about vampire!Hobie who can turn into a bat (ahem.. Astarion..) and by that he can surely do some night walks- flies? And he can't help but bring you, human!Reader, all sorts of trinklets and flowers and fruits he finds! He just loves to rest in your palm while you try out the blueberries he stole from the most expensive blueberry farm he could find 😅

I heard astarion and I folded immediately 🥴 Thank you for the request! I hope you love it 💕

Pairing: Vampire! Hobie Brown x fem! Reader

Word count: 1.6k

Tags: No use of Y/N, no specific physical description of the reader, cw food mention, Bat form! Hobie, Vampire AU, Fluff

Katy's one year celebration 🎉

Your bed practically lulls you to sleep while your comfort show helps fill in the silence of your dark bedroom. Eyes drifting close, head lolling off to the side, you jump when you hear squeaking and tapping at your window. Squinting, you blink away sleep, watching a black blob flying over your window, excessively tapping and scratching.

“Hobie?” You tilt your head, already walking closer to him, socked feet thudding across carpeted floors. You giggle at the sight of his tiny yet fuzzy bat form struggling to keep the plastic bag afloat with his claws. He squeaks frantically, and you swear you heard him curse. “Okay, okay, calm down, I'm opening it right now.” The second you unlock and open the window, he immediately flies into your room. Wings loudly flapping, he lands on your bed, dare you say to his face— cutely landing on your fluffy pink blanket. He looks right at home.

You kneel on the bedside, elbow propped up, chin placed atop your palm while your other hand gently pats his head. Now having a closer non sleepy look at him, you can see his leather vest (a tiny version complete with the patches and spikes) on his small bat body. Even with his long pointed ears, he still sports the similar piercings that shine under the low light of your lamp.

“Here to visit me?” You ask, and he leans his head against your touch, encouraging you to pet him more. “So spoiled, y’know you can just knock on my door in your human form, right?” His small crimson eyes blink at you and his head tilts at your question. Wordlessly telling you— ‘where’s the fun in that?’ You chuckle, “So what do you have for me, Hobat?” If bats can roll their eyes, Hobie would've done it already.

With his miniature foot, he kicks the bag towards you. Before looking, you try to guess what it is. Sometimes it's flowers that he picked up while flying, or small trinkets that fit on the palm of your hand. And currently, he loves giving you jewelry, you don't ask him where he got it though. You love it nonetheless.

Peeking inside, a bunch of blueberries greet you, they're all big and plump, you can practically taste the juice in your mouth. Your stomach rumbles at the thought. “Wow, you went all out.” You look at the logo on the plastic, recognizing that it's from the overpriced grocery store downtown. “Nice, holy shit! How'd you manage that?”

Hobie squeaks, a barrage of high pitched tones that are adorable but annoying as he goes on. You raise a brow at him, “you can just turn back to your human form, Hobie, I don't speak bat.” He shakes his tiny fuzzy head, red eyes staring back at you. “Oh,” you nod in understanding, “it's that kind of day, huh?” Waddling towards your hand, he holds your finger, patting it like you've done a good job of translating his squeaks and shrieks. “Alright, Hobat, go grab some paper towels because I will not have blueberry juice all over my bed.”

With a chirp, Hobie flaps his wings, flying above you and briefly landing on your head, teasing you with his wings atop your eyes. You giggle at his antics, acting like you're trying to swat him away.

While he sets off towards the kitchen, you sit down on the bed with the blankets covering you, hands already rummaging through the blueberries and popping them in your mouth. You let the sweet juice fill your taste buds, you're fully awake from how good they taste. You're sure you've eaten a handful before Hobie comes flapping back inside the bedroom, feet clutching the entire roll of paper towels.

You giggle at the familiar sight. “You look like a carrier pigeon.” He sticks his tiny pink tongue out to you, to which you grin wider.

He lands on your chest, paper towels rolling off to your side. His claws don't hurt as he tries to balance his weight so it doesn't puncture your favourite blanket. You pet his head with your blue stained finger. He suddenly grabs your finger before you could take it away, staring at the blue tint, he narrows his wine red eyes at you, head shaking slowly as if he's reprimanding you.

“What?” You shrug innocently, “I only ate a couple!”

Hobie sniffs at your finger, in his bat form it's hard to look intimidating or scary mostly when you're barely the size of a fist. You tamp down a giggle while his pink nose sniffs. He looks back at your lips where there's evidence of blueberry juice clinging to the corner of your mouth. He could use his telepathy and talk to you that way but this is more fun for him. Especially when it comes to teasing you.

He opens his maw, revealing sharp fangs. For a moment you thought that he'd bite you, your eyes widened at the thought. But he shuts his mouth closed, leaving his tongue out, giving you a little kitten lick across the pad of your finger.

You laugh at how his tiny licks tickle you, he clings to your finger tighter, bat body holding on to your hand for dear life as you try to yank him away. “Hobie!” Giggling, fingers wet, he finally gives you reprieve by flying away and landing on your chest with his body spread eagle, wings fully unfurled and relaxed. “Oh you big baby.” You come down from your fit of giggles, petting him briefly and then grabbing one blueberry to feed to him. He accepts it wholeheartedly, munching and chewing on the fruit like It's ambrosia, and even purring and humming. You can feel his happiness through the blanket as he practically vibrates.

This goes on for awhile, you feed him a piece, you eat the next couple ones until he squeaks impatiently. With your hand fully smelling of fruit, and the packaging empty, you wipe your hands clean while Hobie still lies on your chest, eyes fighting sleep.

After a moment of silence, his slow breaths tell you that your little vampire bat has fallen asleep. So you slide down on the bed from your sitting position to lie down properly, sleep already taking over. But you still don't close your eyes for fear that you might roll over and squish him in your sleep. Wooden stakes and the sun might be the only things able to kill him but you still don't want him to turn into a bat pancake.

Grabbing his body carefully, your hand wraps around his middle perfectly. After getting a hold of him while making sure you won't drop him, you pull him off your chest. You lift him up for only a moment before something stops you, or someone for that matter. Looking down, you see that with his tiny hands and feet that have sharp claws is clinging on the blanket, refusing to be separated from you. He's still asleep, tiny tummy protruding from his abundant midnight snack.

As much as you love the adorable sight, you have to take him off of you and place him on his side of the bed instead. So you start to wake him up, finger rubbing up and down his fuzzy back while you coo softly at him.

“Come on, Hobie, you gotta wake up. You can't sleep on top of me like this or I might squish you again. Remember last time?” With you booping at his pink nose, he stirs awake, red eyes blinking slowly at you. “There you are, sorry but I have to move you—” A poof of smoke appears and suddenly the weight on top of you gets heavier. “Hobie!” You gasp when he wraps all his long limbs around you, warm hand finding penchant on the small of your back, while the other has wiggled its way under your nape where calloused fingers rub along your skin just like you were doing to him a few minutes ago.

The smoke clears and you're greeted by a very smug vampire whose red eyes are aglow with amusement. “Evenin’”

“Hobie! You're heavy!” Your grin betrays you.

“You weren't complaining before,” he snuggles closer on your chest, nose nudging on the blanket. ��‘sides, ‘m already comfortable.”

“Well I'm not and I'm just as sleepy.” Despite your words, your hands have found their way on his back, embracing him fully.

Hobie fakes a loud snore, head falling limp, and even lolling his tongue out for added effect. You chuckle, fingers massaging the knot on the back of his neck. With a groan, he holds on to you tighter as if he's not already impossibly close to you.

“You okay?” You ask, neck stretching down to kiss along his hairline.

“Yeah,” he says against the collar of your shirt. He's completely relaxed, “just want to be close to you.”

You've gotten used to his weight on top of you, smiling against his skin before you lay your head back down. “Okay, go to sleep.”

“Did you like the blueberries?” Hobie lifts his head up, chin placed on your chest.

You meet his eyes, “yes, it was really good. Thank you for bringing them.” He gives you his best smile, already thinking of ways he can get more. “Did you like it?”

“Yeah,” he lifts himself up, now hovering above you, inches away from your face, staring at you like you're the best thing in the world. He feels like you are. “But this is infinitely better.” You beam up at him, and with that he meets you halfway for a saccharin, blueberry juice kiss.

[wannab-urs]

Title: Crawling Back to You

Pairing: Javier Peña x f!reader

Summary: After some particularly awful shit goes down, Javi distances himself from you. But he always comes crawling back. 

Tags: Angst, smut, more angst, reference to s2e3 events w Carillo, Javi sleeps with Gabriela (that’s the one from S2E3 y’all), sad!Javi, self hating!Javi, references to blood, wounds, rot, etc, all metaphorical, drinking/alcohol, as always: excessive cursing, me trying to speak spanish (translations provided), arguing, manhandling, dry humping, fingering, oral f receiving, face riding but while lying down, hair pulling, actual riding, Javi very briefly picks you up, that one position from s1e2, unprotected PiV, creampie, Javi crying, Javi yelling, reader yelling, did I mention angst? WC: 2130

A/N: I'm sorry? And thanks to the HBH for beta reading <3

Series Masterlist | Javier Peña Masterlist | Main Masterlist | AO3 | Kofi

Crawling back to you Ever thought of calling when you've had a few? 'Cause I always do

Javi has avoided you for two weeks now. He got himself involved in some truly fucked up shit with Carillo and couldn’t bear to face you after that. He couldn’t let you see him like that – completely ashamed of himself, broken. He went to Gabriela instead. He knew she wouldn’t ask too many questions, that she would let him take out his anger and helplessness and shame on her. 

When he got home that night he still almost called you, just to hear your voice. You calm something inside him, something dark and violent. But it feels like a sin to expose you to it in the first place. He’s terrified of letting you in. Sure, he’s afraid of getting hurt. Afraid of giving his heart to you and possibly watching you crush it in your hands. But what he’s really scared of is letting you get close enough to see the blood in his teeth, to smell the rot in his chest. Afraid his darkness will infect you, ruin the most beautiful thing he’s ever laid eyes on. He is a bad man and you are so so good. You deserve better than him.

And yet he can’t truly let you go. Just another reason he doesn’t deserve you. He’s selfish enough to keep going back to you, to keep knocking on your apartment door and burying his pain in your body, only to tuck tail and run the second you push him for more. Most selfish of all is how much he wants more with you. Wants to come home to you every day. To cook dinner with you, to share a bed with you, to share his life with you. He wants everything you want and more and he’s terrified and horrified at the prospect. 

You haven’t called him. Maybe you finally listened to him. Finally accepted he’s not what you want or need. Do you think about calling him? Maybe after a bottle of wine, listening to your maudlin records and relaxing on your couch. Do you drink yourself into a stupor before you can make that mistake like he does? 

He dreams about you, about your body wrapped tightly around his, your nails dragging down his back so sharply it snaps him awake. He finds his whiskey glass turned over and spilled on his couch. His back aches from falling asleep sitting up. He eyes the phone. 

Fuck calling. 

Javi stares at the brass numbers on your apartment door. What the fuck is he doing here? He just can’t leave well enough alone. He pounds on the door until you answer. 

“No.” You slam the door closed. 

He bangs on the door again, fist pausing mid-air as the door swings open. 

“You can’t just come crawling back to me when you get tired of your whores, Javi.” You look beautiful. Standing in your doorway in one of his t-shirts and a pair of panties. Righteous anger puts a fire in your eyes, gives a hard set to your jaw.  

“No es así y tú lo sabes.” (It’s not like that and you know it).” Javi steps closer to you, you don’t step back. “Me haces falta. (I miss you). Let me in.” 

“Oh you fucking miss me? It’s been two weeks. Y no llamaste. (and you didn’t call).” You didn’t call him either, but that’s not the point. You didn’t show up at his apartment.

“Sé, lo siento. (I know, I’m sorry).”

“No. No lo eres. Déjame en paz.” (No. You’re not. Leave me alone.).  

“No puedo. You know I can’t.” Javi looks defeated, run down. You know he needs you. Despite the advice of everyone you know and your own better judgment, you step aside and let him in. “Gracias, cariño.” And he sounds so relieved, you almost feel bad for keeping him out, for not calling him. Almost. 

He closes the door behind him and you stalk off to the kitchen, still not quite ready to face him. You pour yourself a glass of whiskey and shoot it, wincing a little at the burn, before grabbing another glass and pouring one for each of you. You set both on the coffee table and sit on the couch, folding your legs beneath you. 

“Why are you here, Javi?” He’d asked himself as much.

He picks his glass up off the table and sits on the couch next to you. You watch his adam’s apple bob as he swallows. “I need you. I don’t know what else you want me to say.” 

“Start with why you disappeared.”

“Classified.”

“Bullshit.”

Javi sets his glass down and manhandles you into his lap. He crashes his mouth into yours and at first you don’t even respond to his touch, but it doesn’t take long to fall into him. You can’t deny that you’ve been miserable without him. Craving his touch, missing him so much it hurts. He’s like an itch you can never scratch enough to satisfy. A festering wound that won’t ever heal. So you may as well pick at the scab. 

Javi pulls your crotch flush with his. He’s already hard against you. You bury your hands in his too-long hair where it curls at the nape and lose yourself in him. You grind down on him and he thrusts up against you, the denim of his jeans and hard line of his cock creating delicious friction even through your panties. 

He breaks the kiss, dragging his lips up your jaw, and whispers in your ear, “Can you come for me like this?” You don’t answer him, simply grind down on him harder, faster, nearly rubbing your thighs raw on his jeans. He peels his t-shirt off your body, throws it behind the couch, and immediately sucks a nipple between his plush lips. He bites down and it sends a jolt straight through your core. 

“Fuck, Javi. More, baby. More,” you whine. He grabs your hips and drags you along his clothed length hard and fast. You feel your core tighten around nothing, and a keening moan falls from your lips as you come. 

You don’t even have time to catch your breath before he’s thrown you onto the couch. He drags your ruined underwear down your legs, tossing them over his shoulder, and buries his face between your thighs. He sucks your clit into his mouth and pushes two fingers inside you, pumping slowly and rolling your clit gently between his teeth. 

You arch up into him, and instead of pinning you down like he often does, he lets you grind your pussy on his face. The hard ridge of his nose, the rough drag of his mustache, the plush softness of his lips, so many different sensations hitting you as his fingers plunge into your cunt, curling into your g-spot over and over. It’s completely and utterly overwhelming. You fist his hair and hold him tight to you as you ride his face, and he moans into your cunt. He fucking loves it when you let go like this, unabashed moans filling the room, probably filling the whole apartment complex. 

You fall apart again, like this, hips stuttering to a stop as you squeeze his fingers so hard it almost hurts. Javi peers up at your blissed out face, the rapid rise and fall of your chest, takes in just how beautiful you are. He drags his tongue through your slick one more time before hovering over you and licking into your mouth. 

You suck your own slick off his tongue, licking into his mouth as you feel him shove his jeans down enough to free his cock. He pulls back, sits on the couch and drags you into his lap. You straddle him and he helps you line up before grabbing your hips and pulling you down on him. 

You collapse forward, the feeling of him inside you is like being split apart and it would probably hurt if you weren’t so wet. He grabs your hair and pulls backward until your back is arched. “Montarme, cariño.” (Ride me, baby). You start moving your hips, slowly picking up in speed until you’re bouncing on his cock so hard and fast you can barely catch your breath.

He hitches your thighs around his waist and wraps his arm around your back, dropping you on the couch. He shoves his jeans down, stepping out of them, and drops one knee to the couch. He pulls you into his lap, wrapping your legs around his hips. You cling to his shoulders with your left arm and drop your other one behind you for leverage, rolling your hips into his. He meets you with his own thrusts, holding your body to his and burying his face in the crook of your neck. 

He’s so close, you’re so tangled up in each other, he’s so fucking deep inside you, barely even pulling out before rolling back up into you. You fall back onto the couch and he follows, still holding you in his arms as he fucks you. Your orgasm hits you like a wave, rolling over your body and giving you chills as your cunt flutters around his cock. 

He comes with you, fully collapsing down onto you. You should feel crushed under his weight, but it’s comforting. He holds you so tightly it’s like he’s afraid to let go of you. Afraid that when this moment is over you’ll kick him out and he’ll be alone again. Afraid this is the last time he’ll ever get to touch you. 

You pet his hair gently, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. It’s late. You’re so fucked out you feel high and maybe the whiskey is loosening your tongue a little.  

“I don’t understand, Javi. If it feels like this, why won’t you love me? What more could you want from me? What am I missing that you need?” This is going to ruin everything.

Javi pushes up on his elbows to look you in the eye. “Cariño. It’s not you–” 

“I swear to God, Javi, if you use that line on me I will burn your apartment down with you in it.” 

“You don’t understand. You won’t understand. I’m not good. I’m only going to get you hurt or killed.” 

“You already are hurting me, Javi,” you wrap your arms around his shoulders and pull him back down to you. 

He’s silent for a long time before he half whispers into your shoulder, “I’m just so afraid.” His voice breaks and you feel a tear land on your skin. You stroke his hair, drag your fingers along his heated skin. 

“I know you, Javi. I know who you are and I don’t care. I think about you all the time. All the fucking time. I can’t stop thinking about you no matter how hard I fucking try. It’s torture.” 

Javi shoves himself away from you, standing and grabbing his jeans off the floor.“That’s my fucking point!” You flinch at his volume. He pulls his jeans on, grabs his boots and crams his feet into them, already heading to the door. He turns around. “I am only ever going to hurt you. I am a bad fucking person. I hurt people on purpose and you are not immune from that just because I care about you or because I love you.”  

You stand and try to take his face in your hands but he grabs your arms and holds you away from him. “I’d let you crack open my chest, rib by rib, while I watched if it meant I could have you. If it meant you’d be mine. Stop running away from me! I’m begging you!” You’re sobbing, yelling, pleading with him to just listen. 

Javi looks at you, brow furrowed, big brown eyes shiny and bloodshot with tears. He lets go of you and steps away slowly, putting distance between the two of you. His mouth opens as if he’s going to say something, but he doesn’t. He drops his head and closes his eyes, takes a shaky breath, and walks out the door.

He knows he will come crawling back to you, tomorrow or a week from now, he can’t ever stay away. But maybe this time the wound will be too raw. He will have hurt you too much, and you will shut him out. He fucking hates it, hates the thought of being without you, hates the way it feels like he’s clawing out his own organs hurting you like this. But this hurt is so much less than what he would do to you given enough time. This wound will scab over, form an angry scar, he will have left his mark on you. But you will heal. 

dividers by @saradika

[just-my-latest-hyperfixation]

Blast to the past

Written for the @steddieholidaydrabbles, day 15

Prompt: Time travel

Rated: T

CW: Mild blood and gore; Mild horror; Monsters

Tags: Steve Harrington whump; Magic; Time travel (duh); Royal Eddie Munson; Steve Harrington needs a break

Notes: Some days, you get up, think of nothing bad, and you check your phone and your artist buddy @house-of-the-moving-image has sent you the most incredible mini comic in the world and the brainworms go crazy and you bash out 990 words in a weird fugue. We mayyy have been screaming about this to each other a bit too excessively. It may have grown a back story. I may wanna write 100k of this. Help.

“Oh, Steven, let's go to Europe, they said,” Steve grouses. “There’s culture and shit, they said. We can visit the castles. It’ll be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, they said.” 

Well, it damn well is turning out to be one hell of an experience! 

His side is on fire, his ankle stings with every step he hobbles, and he’s starting to bleed through his clothes. Just what he needs! Leave a warm, coppery trail to lead these things right to him. 

While he drags himself down the dark corridor, he wonders if he can sue. The guides did warn against leaving the travel group, on the one hand. 

On the other, they should probably have detailed the possible consequences. Like getting lost in the ruins and being chased by monsters with rotting grey skin and maws full of fangs, and fucking claws that slice through clothes and skin like a knife through butter.

This kind of shit never happens in Hawkins. He’s never going on holiday with his parents again.

Something behind him clatters. When he whips around, the shadows at the end of the corridor move. He hears snarls and sniffing, the tick of claws against stone. They’re coming closer. 

“Shit,” Steve swears, forces himself to go faster, using one hand against the wall for support. ���Shit, shit, shit, c’mon!” 

He doesn’t even know where he’s going, just that he needs to get away if he doesn’t want to be monster fodder. 

His fingers catch on something. 

There’s … a narrow doorway in the wall, half hidden by a tangle of thick vines. A sliver of silver light is falling through it. 

“What the-” 

Something behind him shrieks triumphantly. 

Steve doesn’t think for another second, just ducks through the doorway. 

He finds himself in a cavernous room, moonlight trickling in through arched windows. Right in the middle, on a dais, is a throne carved from solid stone. On it is a tall, hooded figure. 

Except that isn’t true. As his eyes adjust to the light, he realizes that the throne is covered in what looks like an old shroud, tattered and torn with age and vaguely human-shaped. It’s overgrown by more vines, like it has been here for a very long time. 

And that is the moment the monsters slam into the doorway behind him. 

He yelps and stumbles further into the room, trips on the first steps of the dais and lands square on his ass. The monsters snarl and snap at him, and for a blissful second, he thinks they won’t fit through the doorway. 

But then the first distorts its body like a snake’s jaw and squeezes through. Steve watches in horror as they trickle inside, surrounding the dais like a pack of feral dogs. One of them swipes at him with its claw, and he instinctively shuffles up the stairs, backwards and on all fours. The monster lunges after him-

-and hesitates at the foot of the dais.

Like it’s afraid, like there’s some invisible barrier. 

It’s only now that he realizes the steps are inlaid with an intricate pattern of symbols, shining in the moonlight like liquid silver. The monsters try to get at him, but every time they touch the symbols, they recoil as if burned. 

“Ha!” Steve’s mouth tugs into a hysterical grin. “Can’t cross, huh? Well, too bad, you ugly-” 

The largest of the monsters steps over the barrier. A sizzle of silver sparks runs over its form as it does and it jowls like an injured cat, but it still advances. Steve swears and skitters further back, until his back hits something solid. The throne. 

The creatures are moving slowly, like something is physically holding them back, but they are gaining on him inch by inch. There’s no escape, except … 

Steve clambers onto the throne with clumsy limbs. The shroud is cold and brittle under his hands and the vines tear into his bleeding skin, but it’s the only place he can still go. If the monsters are afraid of the dais, maybe the throne will be enough to deter them. Maybe he’ll be safe here, maybe he can wait until help arrives, maybe- 

And then it happens. 

A sound booms through the silence, rattles his bones. A sound like the chime of a clock. 

Then another. 

And another. 

Steve yelps and covers his ears, screws his eyes shut. The light of the sigils on the ground seems blinding all of a sudden. 

The creatures howl. 

And then everything goes quiet. 

Steve waits with baited breath for the feeling of claws tearing at his legs, but nothing happens. The snarls and growls are gone. 

Instead, birdsong fills his ears. The faint sound of footsteps and voices, hooves on cobblestone and the clang of metal against metal. Instead of dust and decay, the room suddenly smells like wood and smoke and forest. The light shining through his eyelids isn’t silver anymore, but golden. 

“Fuck,” Steve breathes. “The hell was all that?” 

“Oh, those?” somebody chuckles. Somebody very close by. “Those were wraiths. Scary little fuckers, aren’t they?” 

Steve swears his heart misses a beat. Because upon closer inspection, the roughness of the vines and shroud against his skin is gone. Instead, there’s a body under his, a hand running idly down his side, all the way down to his ass. He’s sitting in someone’s lap. 

Steve snaps his eyes open. There’s a guy looking back at him, a guy with a shit-eating grin set in a handsome, dimpled face, framed by a spill of dark curls. There’s a crown on his head. 

“Now what I’d like to know,” says the guy, and gives Steve’s ass a hearty squeeze. “Is what I did to deserve getting a pretty little thing like you dropped in my lap. Not that I’m complaining.” 

Steve does what any sensible person would do in his situation. 

He faints. 

And that’s his first encounter with King Edward the Banished. 

Part 2

All my holiday drabbles

[miscfandomwrites]

A/N: This was supposed to say "Bad day" but whoops. I'm tired. anywho, this seriesis inspired by some other authors with their own 'Sunshine series' yet my main take was wanting a main character who is a housewife ish and is fed up with their shit. They're all scared of this rabbit shifter because she's put up with them for this long. There's a whole backstory and lore and such if you want me to get into it, but for now here's 'Bay day' lol

Pairing: (Shifterverse) 141 + Keegan + Konig x Rabbit Shifter! Reader

Warnings: Lots of language, mentions of bodily harm.

Words: 1.3k

Tagging: @tyler-t0t

~

Nothing seemed to be going right. 

First, it was a downpour all day, meaning I couldn’t even drive to the farmer’s market since they had announced that they were going to be closed for the weekend since the weather was so severe. 

It also meant that I had to rush outside to the garden in my new, clean, white sundress, getting mud all over it as I hustled the chickens and ducks back into the coop, and ran around gathering all the tomatoes I could find before they split from the excess rain, some of them already splitting as I gathered them into my dress, staining it red and coating it with tomato seeds.

They boys were all on base today, yet weren’t coming home anytime soon both due to the weather and due to the paperwork they were getting held up with from their last couple missions. 

And today was a Sunday, meant to be a relaxing, self-care, pampering day for me, yet here I am, running around like I lost my head. 

I had just started to dry my hair with a kitchen towel before I remembered that there were sheets hanging outside on the line to dry - one of the perks of living with a team I guess, is that even with an industrial washer and dryer, it still didn’t cut the amount of laundry this house went through during the week. 

“Oh for fuck’s sake!” I yelled as I ran back outside, skipping putting on the rainboots and just decided to go barefoot, easily hopping the small gate that kept the animals on the fenced side of the yard. My ears twitched as the rain hit them, and I flattened them against my head as I muttered curses to myself as I tore the sheets off the drying rack and ran back inside, about to toss them into the dryer before I realized my dress had covered them in mud. 

I opened the washer, expecting it to be empty, yet was greeted with the sight and smell of Soap’s mildew-y clothes that have definitely been sitting in the washer for the last two days, unswitched. 

“Motherfucker.”  I hissed as I dropped the sheets on the floor and grabbed a laundry pod and some scent beads, throwing them into the washer and starting his clothes on a hot, heavy washer since half of it was his workout gear. 

I shook my head as I felt some of the water starting to reach my inner ears, causing them to twitch and me to wince and I quickly grabbed a spare cloth and quickly cleaned them out, hating the feeling of water in them. 

I could faintly hear my phone buzzing from upstairs, and I jogged up there only to be greeting with Price’s contact, wanting a voice call.

I answered as I opened the dishwasher, realizing I forgot to start it before I went to bed last night, the pod door still closed tight. 

“Hey love, looks like we might be running even later tonight, there’s a new recruit….” He started as I held the phone between my shoulder and head and tried to start the dishwasher again. 

“What time should I have dinner on the table then?” I interrupted him as he was telling me about how they were going to be training not just one but several new recruits, causing them to be home around eight pm at the earliest. 

“Oh, uh, probably around nine or ten then?” He questioned. 

I just shut my eyes and sighed for a moment, before nodding. 

“I’ll get some stew in the crockpot then, today’s not going too great so I doubt I’ll be up that late.” 

“That’s alright dove, we can just pick up food on the way over.” I heard Ghost’s voice, causing me to pause for a moment. 

“Am I on speaker?” I asked softly. 

“Yeah, we jus’ got out of a meetin’ “ Soap replied. Sounds like everyone was there. 

“I’m implementing a new rule: Set a fucking timer on your phones for your laundry. Next batch that grows mildew in the washer will go into the burnpit.” 

A hushed silence answered me, before I heard a smack! and Soap yelling out. 

That was definitely Gaz. He’s the only one who actually takes care of his laundry on time. 

The washer beeping from downstairs gathered my attention, and I said my round of ‘be safe’ and ‘don’t kill the newbies’ before I hung up and tossed my phone on the couch, only for it to slide off and land on the wooden floor, landing screen-first. 

“Oh that definitely fucking broke.” I sighed, padding over to it and picking it up, wincing as I saw shards of glass left behind on the ground. 

A slew of expletives left me that would’ve left Soap blushing, and I set it face-up on the coffee table and headed downstairs, switching over laundry and starting half of the sheets in the washer before heading back upstairs, and cleaned up the mess my phone made. 

It was around three at this point, so I gathered some thawed meat out of the fridge and some vegetables and went to work putting together and stew for the boys that could be left cooking for the next several hours. Halfway through chopping up the carrots, the dryer buzzed, scaring me enough that I accidentally sliced into my finger instead, causing me to yelp and immediately hold it to myself, using my dress as a pressure dressing as I rushing into the bathroom and yanked out the medkit from under the sink. Only to find it fucking empty. 

I hissed at finding this, heading back into the hallway and pulling open the doors and finding the spare medkit things, disinfecting and wrapping up my fingers. (Turns out I nicked two, not just one.) 

I didn’t bother putting away the items since I knew I needed to refill the medkit anyways, leaving the bloody wrappers and roll of gauze on top of the box.

I headed downstairs, switching laundry again, and set up the drying lines we had in the laundry room for the sheets, carefully setting them up, not noticing spots of blood getting on the edges from my fingers. 

After switching laundry I headed back upstairs, my phone buzzing with an incoming call from Soap, which I didn’t even bother touching as I was not about to get shards of glass into my fingers. 

I finished making dinner, setting it up in the crockpot on medium heat, and didn’t bother cleaning up the kitchen as I collapsed on the couch, about ready to cry my eyes out. 

Instead, I fell asleep, my body exhausted, and about jumped out of my skin when I heard the door open and several voices. 

About thirty minutes had passed, leaving me groggy as shit, blinking sleep out of my eyes as they shuffled inside, dropping off bags of something on the counters as Price made his way to me. 

“I know we’re a little early but-holy fuck, what happened?” He started, causing everyone to immediately stop and head my way, causing me to be crowded by everyone. I could barely keep the tears out of my eyes, explaining that today was just horrible. 

“C’mon, let’s get you out of that dress and into something warm, bun.” Gaz spoke softly to me and Price starting giving instructions to the rest of the boys: Konig and his crew were to take care of the animals and check the perimeter, Ghost was to help with laundry, Soap was on dish duty, Price was going to finish up with putting away the groceries which I later learned were from them going to the farmer’s market ass-early in the morning before the sky opened up to make sure I got what I needed for the week. Keegan took it upon himself to restock the medkit, and helped rebandage my hand as I sat on my bed, Gaz sitting behind me, softly brushing my tangled mess of hair. 

This. This is what a pack was like.

[sentientgolfball]

We've all seen the Swissdew clip yea? Yea. That's all this is

18+ MDNI

Word Count: 1568

Tags: hair pulling...so much hair pulling, semi-public, rough Swiss and pissed off Dew

“What the fuck was that?!”

“Huh?”

Dew had practically run off stage after bows and straight to the dressing room. He threw off his mask glaring at Swiss who just walked in with a smug little smile. 

“Don’t fucking ‘huh’ me you exactly what you did.” 

“Why don’t you be more specific” he throws off his own mask walking closer to Dew “I do a lot of things.”

He growls the best he can through the glamour as Swiss stops right in front of him, staring down at him with that same shit-eating grin and a challenge in his eyes. He knows the multi ghoul just wants to hear him say it. Say how much he bothered him after his stunt. How much he wanted, needed him to finish what he started. But Dew would be damned if he gave in so easily. 

“You ruined my solo asshole.” 

“Ruined? I have no idea what you’re talking about. I think you sounded perfect.” 

“You” he pauses and groans in frustration glaring daggers at Swiss. If looks could kill he’d be a dead man “you’ve been spending too much fucking time with your attention whore of a boyfriend. Fucking coming over to steal my spotlight.” 

The grin falls from Swiss’ face and Dew realizes a moment too late that bringing Phantom up probably wasn’t the smartest decision. He shoots his hand forward grabbing and palming at Dew through his pants. 

“I don’t know, seems to me like you enjoyed it.” 

He was fully hard. Had been since Swiss came over on stage and wrapped his gigantic hands around his hip and just barely touched him in front of the crowd. He played just fine the rest of the show, but he couldn’t stop thinking about this moment right here. Getting him alone and letting him make good on his promise. But Dew would always fight until he had nothing left, it was part of the fun.

Swiss applies more pressure against him and Dew has to faux scoff to hide the groan that threatened to spill. The multi ghoul reaches around to grab the end of Dew’s braided hair and pulls hard forcing him to meet his eyes. 

“Say it.” 

“Fuck you.” 

He removes his hand from Dew’s dick and pulls him away from the vanity by the hair before flipping him around and slamming him into it, forcing him to bend over. His feet just barely touching the ground as Swiss presses his thickening cock against his ass. 

“I think what you mean is ‘fuck me’.” 

He snakes his hand under Dew and fumbles with the button before pulling his pants down letting them pool at his ankles. He pulls hard on the braid forcing Dew to look at him in the mirror. The grin returns to Swiss’ face when he hears him groan, but it’s more predatory than before. 

“You’re a fucking prick.” 

“I know I’m just so evil for making you wait. Next time I’ll just fuck you in front of everyone” he ruts against Dew’s ass making him suck in a shaky breath “but you’d like that wouldn’t you?” 

Swiss removes his hand from Dew’s hip to undo his belt and zipper just enough to pull himself out of his boxers. He’s fully hard now with pre already starting to pool at the tip. He forces Dew’s legs apart with his knee before bringing his fingers to the fire ghouls mouth. When he doesn’t immediately open Swiss yanks his braid hard and shoves them in when his mouth falls open involuntarily. 

Oh Dew wishes he didn’t have his glamour so he could bite those pretty little fingers right off. But he’s helpless as Swiss pets his tongue and shoves them as far as they can go down his throat. Dew accidentally catches his own eye in the mirror and the sight pulls a moan from him, muffled around the thick fingers working in his mouth. Swiss abruptly pulls his fingers from Dew’s mouth causing drool to dribble down his chin. The multi ghoul slides his hand over his dick smearing his pre and Dew’s spit all over himself. He wipes the excess on Dew’s thigh before using his knee to push the fire ghoul’s legs further apart. 

He slowly brings the head of his cock to Dew’s ass. He glares at Swiss through the mirror. 

“You’re not even going to give me a finger or your tongue first?”

“Nah. You couldn’t be nice about it so neither am I.” 

“Nice? You’re not nice you fucking hypocrite you—“ his words are cut off as Swiss shoves himself in and Dew can’t help but scream. He braces on the vanity as Swiss gives him little time to adjust before he starts pounding into him. He throws his head forward, biting down on his lip so hard he can taste blood. 

“Don’t think so.” Swiss huffs before yanking his braid with so much force his head snaps back. He knows what Swiss is trying to do and he knows damn well if he gives in it’ll be over for him. He screws his eyes shut as he drapes himself over his back and licks his ear. 

“Open your eyes firecracker.”

He tries to spit out a ‘no’ or a ‘fuck you’ but all that comes out of his mouth is a gut punched groan when Swiss slams into him. 

“Open your fucking eyes or I’ll leave you like this.” Normally Dew wouldn’t give into his empty threats, but he couldn’t think with the constant burning stretch of Swiss’ cock shoving deeper and harder into his ass. Swiss yanks on the braid once and it’s all Dew needs to snap his eyes open. His eyes roll to the back of his head at the sight of Swiss towering over him, hands bracketed around him clutching the vanity so hard his knuckles are white. Himself covered in his own drool and tears and looking absolutely fucked out. When did he start crying? When did his face get so red? His eyes lock with Swiss’ and the look in eyes makes him moan. 

“Swiss.”

“Ready to behave?” 

“Please I fucking need it.”

“Need what? I wanna hear you say it.” 

He hesitates a moment too long and Swiss responds by giving him a hard thrust. 

“Say it.” 

“Fucking please I need your hand. I need you right fucking now.” 

Swiss grins at him in the mirror before bringing one hand down to wrap around his dick. Dew practically keens at the touch. He presses hard into the head before making a fist and jacking him just a bit too harshly. 

“Wasn’t so hard to ask for what you wanted was it?” 

He begins thrusting into his ass again in time with the hand gliding over Dew’s dick pulling high pitched moans from the fire ghoul. His head slumps forward but Swiss doesn’t pull him up this time, instead he leans in close and whispers. 

“Too hard to look at yourself? Don’t wanna face how much of a whore you are? Letting me fuck you in the dressing room.” 

He nods rapidly with a pathetic whimper feeling his orgasm building deep within him. 

“Bet you’d rather have someone else watching instead.” 

He nods again rutting as best as he can into Swiss’ fist as he fucks him and squeezes his cock. 

He snickers, “It’s a good thing I left the door unlocked.” 

Dew cums hot and heavy into Swiss’ hand with a loud moan that can definitely be heard through the walls of the little room. Swiss bites his shoulder through the fabric of his uniform shirt as the fire ghoul clenches hard around him. It only takes a few more thrust before he’s spilling into Dew’s ass, muffling his moan with a mouthful of shirt. 

He takes a moment to catch his breath before pulling out of Dew. He grins watching his cum drip out of him. 

“You can get off me now.” Dew says with his head still pitched forward and down, chest heaving and breathless. 

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” 

Swiss brings his hand to Dew’s mouth and waits. Dew doesn’t resist this time, he opens immediately, licking and sucking his own cum off of his fingers.

“Good boy.” He says wiping the spit off on his thigh, giving his ass a little smack before moving off of him to tuck himself back into his pants. 

“Don’t fucking treat me like your little pet.” Dew bends down to pull his pants back up. 

Swiss opens his mouth to reply but is stopped by a knock at the door

“Swiss? Dew? Are you two in there, the bus is here, we're ready to go!” Phantom’s voice calls out. 

The multi ghoul looks at Dew cracking a wide smile “Speak of the devil and he shall appear.” 

The fire ghoul shoots him a warning snatching up his helmet and storming out of the door causing Phantom to yelp. The quintessence ghoul pokes his head in looking at Swiss. 

“What’s up with him?” 

“He’s just pissed. You know how he is, everything’s gotta be perfect on show nights.” 

Phantom nods sagely at his words before speaking “You should cum in him that always makes him feel better.” 

Swiss wraps his arm around his shoulders and starts walking with him to the bus. “You know that’s a good idea, maybe I’ll try that later.” 

[qqtxt]

[🎈] that's not my name [🐧]

[!] this is for the 1k followers mini fics. click here to find out more ✿ pairing: huening kai x reader / idol!txt / non.idol!you / fluff / 681 words / potentially excessive pda (without knowing...) ✿ request: [kiss] + huening kai (for one muse to put butterfly kisses all over the others face) [main masterlist 🌸] / [event masterlist] / [tag: #qqtxt: 1k]

some mornings at the dorm allow you to... do whatever you want considering it's empty. and by empty, you mean empty given that the rest of the boys are gone for the day and that just leaves you and–"holy shit, kai! you scared me!" your voice comes out in a half-yell, half-whisper at the feeling of arms snaking around your waist, with a rather heavy head dipping down to rest on your shoulder. you can hear him smiling as he presses his lips to your neck, "g'morning..."

"gee, good morning to you too," you huff–initially sounding a bit sulky but then it fades to–"did you sleep well?"

"not really," his voice scrapes into your ears, like deep gravel that makes you feel warm inside. he clears his throat, managing to sound like he usually does compared to his morning voice that barely has drunk any water, "woke up. didn't find you there. got upset."

you snicker and use a hand to hit his arms around you, the other resuming to–"well, someone has to put the water to boil for us to drink something before we eat. so sorry for the disappointment, mr. huening."

"no," he huffs, shaking his head as he half-wiggles you around, "that's not my name to you."

"oh?" you use an elbow to nudge him back just as your other hand is free to set the kettle onto the electrical slot and you flick it to switch on to boil. turning around in his arms, your hands now smoothen on his chest before you give it a playful tap. "i didn't know that huening wasn't your name."

his lips resist the urge to pout as he watches you grin up to him like that. he knows his puppy eyes are on display but you're still avoiding it, able to dangle him around by a thread and he'd still follow you till the end. shamelessly, his arms untangle themselves around you just to have his hands free; so he can gently grab you by the face and start his attack of feathering kisses onto your face.

he starts off with your forehead, nose, then it has a free reign to anywhere he can land his lips on your face just as your eyes snap shut in the fit of laughter. your hands shift up to squeeze his shoulders, leveraging him down to not overpower you but be honest, be fair... the second kai grabbed you by the face and started kissing you all over it was game over.

"okay, okay!" you manage to yell past your giggles and his, "baby, you win! you win!"

that grants him to stop just as he kisses your cheek, pulling back with a raised brow, "sorry, come again?"

you exhale deeply and look into his eyes this time; a resigned smile that still shines brighter than any pretty thing he's laid his eyes on. so full and radiant of love; all for him.

"you baby. you win."

satisfied, he hums with a nod. his arms glide back down so he's able to wrap around your waist and he tugs you into his embrace; effortlessly. "good," he sighs, resorting that the time it takes for the water to boil, that's exactly how long he'll be able to hold you for–he taps your bum when he doesn't feel your arms on him–"augh, you man baby." you snort into his shoulder but your actions prove otherwise when your arms mirror his; sliding around his figure and sinking into his arms.

(("i can't believe i just sat through all of that." a voice breaks through your little bubble with kai. it's not too surprising when yeonjun nearly blends into the surroundings but he makes himself known as his head pops up from the sofa.

"oh... hyung... we... i didn't–"

"go for lunch with me and i won't tell a single soul."

"who's paying?" you peep over kai's shoulder, to meet with yeonjun's deadpan expression.

"i'm paying you brats. now get ready so i can eat away my feelings from watching how disgusting you two were in public."))

[darklydeliciousdesires]

Little Earthquakes - An Original Story.

So, besties. I thought I'd test the waters with the prologue to my new story. I know so many of you aren't here for originals, but I can but hope I'll find a few readers. Nothing would delight me more! Now, let's get to introducing you to the new world and people within it! I've tagged a few people who I thought might be interested, but if not, no worries.

Tag list - In the comments. Please DM to be added/removed.

Words - 2,831

Warnings - 18+ throughout. Minors DNI!

Prologue.

In every year group of every school the world over, there is always the girl. She’s the one whom other girls covet to be like, and pretty much all of the boys want to get with. In the year eleven group of Fulham Green Academy, west London, back in two thousand and five, that girl had been Holly Madden.  

She was popular, kind, proficient academically, and god, she was beautiful. Holly was also the girl one of her classmates would have asked out in a heartbeat, had Nathan ever been able to sum up the courage to open his mouth and speak to her. Various other factors prevented such, too, namely that they socialised in two vastly different groups at their mixed senior school. She was one of the popular girls, after all, and Nathan one of the alternative kids.  

The two groups seldom mixed.  

That was until one night when Lee Harris, the kid who loved everybody regardless of what social group they slotted into, threw a large end of term party. It was a classic example of ‘my parents are on holiday, I’m not, everybody come over!’ that led to much teenage abandon and hedonistic excess. Especially if your name was Nathan Gill.  

The only difference? He hadn’t actually wanted to end up in the state he had. Not at all. Enter one Chris Lawrence and a tray full of weed-infused brownies. 

“This tastes weird,” Nathan announced, yet for the kid with a massive disposition for demolishing anything chocolatey, it still hadn’t stopped him from consuming it. 

Chris didn’t know how the hell he managed to stop himself from falling apart laughing, standing with their cohort Kelsey, both playing captive audience to the mild deception of their friend. “Does it? Can’t think why, blud.” 

“Yeah.” He then paused in chewing the last mouthful, watching his friends carefully. “Why are you’s staring at me?”  

“No reason,” Kelsey chimed, clapping a hand to his shoulder, almost able to hear his brain ticking away within his skull. 

“Have you put something in this?” The two snorts of laughter were confirmation that yes, they very much had. “Oh, shit off! Nah man, that’s proper messed up.”  

His friends howled, watching a very disgruntled Nathan deal with the confirmation that he had indeed been doped. Chris reached for him, ruffling his hair. “Bruv, it’s only a bit of ganja, yeah?” 

“Yeah, but I don’t pissing smoke weed, do I?” 

“And you still haven’t,” Chris chimed. “You’ve ate it!” 

The pout on his face had his friends furtherly descending. “Don’t like being stoned though, do I? That’s why I don’t have nothing to fucking do with the cheeba!” Getting a rise out of the usually very chilled, very zen Nathan was half the fun of it. Seeing him stoned off his balls was the other, Nathan still furious as he finished the remainer of his can of Carlsberg. “I’m not talking to either of you’s.” 

How right he was, for when it kicked in, speech was beyond him completely. 

“Nath, you alright, mate?” Lee, the party host asked an hour later, finding Nathan sitting at the kitchen nook with a pad of paper and a pen. A note was scrawled. 

“Yeah, just can’t speak. Too mashed. Got spiked via cake.” 

Reading the words, he began to laugh. “Ahhh, the pot brownies? Nice!” More scribbling followed. 

“Not nice! I don’t like weed!” 

To Lee’s credit, he held in the desire to piss himself laughing at his mate’s anguish.  

“Oh, right! You want a coffee or something? My mum has the fancy machine so I’ll make you one if you want?” 

“No thanks. Just wanna throw Chris and Kels into a pissing landfill!” 

He boomed with laughter, shaking his head. “Well, I best be moving along, got to do the mingling thing. Later mate!” 

“Bye.”  

He was left alone then, except for the glances from across the kitchen from Kelsey, who was trying her luck chatting up one of the sixth form girls while keeping a watchful eye on him. That suited him fine, not actually able to speak anyway, sitting there feeling very, very high. It was a different high to smoking it, he had to confess, but he still didn’t like it much.  

He felt very fuzzy around the edges, his vision faltering a little bit, but not so much that he couldn’t make out the face of the girl he fancied when she approached him half an hour later. Oh, god. Why Holly Madden? Why now? 

Sitting down in the nook adjacent to him, her smile glowed. “Hi, Nathan. You okay?” He turned the pad of paper to her and pointed to the first statement he’d written to Lee, wishing the ground would open up and swallow him whole. “Ohhhh, not one for weed then, no?” 

“Bingo.” 

“Do you want me to leave you be, or can I kotch here? I need a time out, too many drunk people.” 

He scribbled, feeling his heart racing. Holly Madden wanted to sit with him. Him! 

“That’s fine, but I’ll be on mute for the foreseeable.”  

Shrugging, she smiled, a smile that made his heart skip. “That’s fine. I’m not really into loud people. Even when you’re talking you seem quiet and chilled. I like that.”  

She’d actually noticed those attributes? Oh, god. It was a good job he couldn’t speak, because if he could he’d have likely ballsed it up spectacularly. Then again, it wasn’t surprising. Holly was very much like the party host in the fact she was open to mingling with everyone, regardless of her status as one of the popular girls. “So, I noticed your display board for the examiners before we broke up. That charcoal you did of the snake was incredible!” 

They’d been in the same art group as well as form class at school, submitting their final presentation to the exam board in the shape of a display of their work, which made up half of their GSCE grade. Nathan nodded, taking the pen and scribbling out a note.  

“Thanks. I was proud of that one. Loved your stuff, too.”  

She was sure he was just being polite since their artistic styles so vastly differed, but thanked him for the compliment anyway. “I’m crapping myself about the results. I really, really want to get in at UAL. Are you thinking uni, too, or something else?” 

Again, he began to write. “Yeah, uni. Loughborough, I wanna get out of London for a few years.” 

It was a good university, showing clearly that he had a lot of ambition. Sitting there, Holly began to feel a little uncomfortable, the manor of communication strange in the fact he couldn’t actually speak. Also, she felt shy. He had no idea how fucking cute he was, which was an odd feeling to experience, being that he was the furthest from her usual taste in guys.  

“Well, I’m going to head back to my friends. If you regain the power of speech, come find me.” 

Come find her? She actually wanted him to come and find her? While his brain flew into a panic, his note was calm and succinct.  

“Alright. Bye, Holly.” Whether or not he could, he knew that he wouldn’t, though, waiting until she’d left the kitchen before groaning and pulling his hood up over his head as he slumped down, wanting to hide. Oh, the shame of it. Too stoned to talk to the girl he liked when the opportunity to do so had landed right in his lap, and he’d blown it.  

Fuck Chris. Fuck Kelsey.  

He had to hand it to the latter, though. At midnight when they’d left, she’d been the one to carry him over her shoulder into the waiting taxi when he’d found he was without the use of his legs as well as his voice. Thank goodness she was a big girl, just a little shorter than him at six feet to his six feet two, and built like an ox.  

She’d also carried him safely up the stairs and into her bed, stripping his skate trainers and jeans before climbing in herself, definitely worse for wear. Being very much out in her status as a lesbian, her parents didn’t give two hoots about her sharing a bed with male friends at all, knowing there was more chance of hell freezing over than any sexual shenanigans occurring between them.  

Not that either of them had ever tiptoed out of virgin territory at that point in their lives. As he fell asleep, Nathan kicked himself that the girl he very much would have liked to change that with had been the one he couldn’t even speak to, and now it was too late. He’d likely never cross paths with the beautiful Holly Madden again now they’d left school. 

He was partly right there, their lives leading them in very different directions for many years after that night. Nineteen, to be exact. While she had never left London, Nathan had been to Loughborough, lived up in Edinburgh for a few years, gone over to spend time in Dublin, living a very carefree existence as a freelance tattoo artist who travelled from shop to shop. 

Life was everything he’d ever wanted it to be, and he all but forgot about Holly completely. 

Arriving back in London at twenty-seven, he’d met a girl, deciding to set up permanent roots in the city again. He and Lisa had married a year later, and a few months after that he, Kelsey and Chris had all gone into business together. The three had coveted to work in the tattoo world since their time at school, Nathan the only one who had gotten an apprenticeship and done it right out of leaving university.  

Kelsey had tired of the monotony of managing bars, and Chris was more than fed up of work in retail, so both had moved into their chosen field finally six and three years before, respectively. In two thousand and seventeen, Carpe Diem had opened its doors on Sailsbury Road, Queen’s Park.  

It was truly wonderful, the three best friends all reunited and running a thriving business together. Until the day where things started to go awry for one of them finally came along.  

“Kels, why you hovering, blud?” Chris asked, glad to be coming to the end of a lot of linework on the full backpiece he was starting on his client that afternoon. Pausing to reload ink, he raised an eyebrow, looking to the back of the shop as Kelsey listened in at the door of the private room used for clients receiving a body piercing.  

Craning her ears, she could hear it just above the sound of music playing, the band Soundgarden’s classic Black Hole Sun muffling the other noise emanating. Well, unless you listened closely, like her. With widened eyes, she moved away rapidly, shaking her head with her hands held out wide. 

“Oh, no, no, no.”  

Chris was perplexed. “What?” 

Jerking her thumb, she mouthed her reply, lest the client on the table before him hear what she’d had to. “He’s shagging in there.”  

His eyes all but fell out onto the hardwood floor beneath his feet. “Fuck off!” he mouthed back. 

“I’m serious!” she hissed in whisper, waving a pointed finger towards the back of the shop rapidly before beginning to clean down her station, ready and fresh for her next client. It wasn’t so much that he was a married man shagging somebody who wasn’t his wife, since he and Lisa were recently separated, it was the lack of professionalism to be doing it at his place of business with the girl whose navel he’d just pierced that shocked his friends more than anything.  

It would be fair to say he hadn’t quite been right since his marriage had come to an end. If either was truly honest, his behaviour had been very decidedly unlike the Nathan they knew and loved for much longer. Shagging around now that he was separated was one thing, but doing such with a client right there in the shop, though, was quite another. People talked, after all.  

Kelsey stewed on it as she continued cleaning her station, not wanting his reputation as one of the most talented tattoo artists in the city to become besmirched by such, or the good name of the shop to suffer either. After all, it wasn’t solely his livelihood this kind of behaviour could affect.  

Five minutes later and the door opened, the girl walking out before Nathan, who moved to the sales desk and took her payment for the piercing. With Chris’s client also now out the door, the two artists turned to their friend, the latter shaking his head. 

“Who’s been a bad lad then, ay?” 

Nathan didn’t have a poker face for the life of him, yet still, he tried. “What?” 

“Oh, no, no, no,” Kelsey stated, pointing at him. “Can’t fool us. I know sex moaning when I hear it, no matter how quiet. Listen, you wanna sow your oats now you and Lisa have split, go ahead. But not in the bloody shop, Nath!”  

He shrugged. “Weren’t like I was being that loud.” He then turned to Chris, mischief broadening his grin. “Had to cup my hand over her mouth. Poor girl ain’t ever had a pierced dick before, bruv.”  

His friend wanted to be supportive to Kelsey’s very real concerns, but the lad in him won out. “Fuckin’ a, blud! Little randy bastard, ay?”  

He held out his fist, Nathan bumping it as he chuckled filthily. “I’m a free man again, and shit, can you blame me? Proper gorgeous, she was.”  

“For the love of the virgin Mary’s knicker elastic!” Kelsey cried, placing her hands on her hips. “Can we take this seriously and set a rule? No shagging in the bloody shop!!”  

Nathan moved to her, grabbing her face in his hands and kissing her head. Immediately, she was aghast. “Don’t you kiss me! I don’t know where your mouth was ten minutes ago. I don’t want any miscellaneous fanny juice on my face!” 

“Never thought those words would ever leave your mouth, ay,” Chris interjected with on a snort. 

Nathan all but broke apart in hysterics completely at them, wrapping Kelsey in a big, tight hug. “You’re safe, didn’t have time for that. But chill out, ‘kay? Nothing to stress about, Kels. Just a one off.”  

Being held close by her friend, there was something else amiss, she noted. Or rather smelled. Nathan usually reeked of nothing but Fahrenheit aftershave, his staple scent since his teen years. Now though, it was tinged with the smell of alcohol. “You been drinking?” 

Letting her go, he shrugged, moving to begin sorting inks over at the storage shelves, knowing they needed to re-order. “Had a few last night. Probably sweating it out.”  

She left it there, but truly, she didn’t believe a word of it. It smelled fresh, not that stale, boozy sweat stink people suffered after a night on the piss. Also, he showered twice a day religiously. Besides, to her knowledge, he hadn’t even gone out the night before. She’d left him there at the shop at ten the previous evening, Nathan locking up before heading upstairs to the tiny flat above, where he was now living after Lisa had kicked him out.  

It was conflicting, because Nathan wasn’t a liar either, Kelsey doubting herself a little as she welcomed her next client, a guy who was having the side of his neck finished off by her that afternoon. All thoughts of her friend and his slightly off behaviour were put aside, concentrating one hundred percent on her task at hand.  

As for Nathan, he moved to his book of line drawings, taking the relevant one out and placing it on the light box to make sure he was one hundred percent happy with it. He prided himself on giving his clients the very best of his work. The young woman whose navel he’d pierced could definitely testify to that after the repeated push of his cock piercing against her g spot had made her come so hard, she’d almost passed out.  

He smirked as he thought about her, noting that she was the first girl he’d ever fucked whose name he neither knew nor cared to know. For a man who didn’t really do sleeping around even before he was married, it made an exciting change now he was free from the bitch who he’d wasted the last seven years with.  

“Hi, I’ve got an appointment with Nathan?” 

Turning around, he couldn’t believe his eyes. There she was. “Erm, yeah. Yeah, that’s me. Hi, Holly.” 

He would have been lying if he’d claimed to have given his old school crush much thought in the nineteen years that had passed, but seeing her standing there, suddenly he felt just as he had at fifteen all over again. 

[hippiegoth97]

Into the Fire: An Eddie Munson x Reader Story Pt. 21

Collage by me :)

Master List

Part 20

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Content Warning 18+ Only, Minors DNI: swearing, smoking, mentions of smut/teasing, mentions of blood, angst, crying, arguing, mentions of a past abusive relationship, mentions of cheating

Word Count: 7k

divider by @strangergraphics

Part 21: Bad Blood

Sunday, June 18th, 1989

"Mom, Dusty, we're home!" You call into the house as you and Eddie walk through the front door on Sunday afternoon. The drive home felt much shorter than the trip to Michigan City, which both of you are very thankful for. You set your bags by the door, having already said goodbye to Wayne for the day. Eddie shuts the door, and you hear movement in the kitchen. You go over to see Mom digging around in the fridge, pulling out various ingredients to start a crockpot dinner.

"Hey, sugarpuff! How was your trip?" She asks, still scavenging the refrigerator. Dustin comes down the hall, holding Arwen in his arms.

"Hey, guys! Somebody missed you!" He says, handing you the kitten. She meows loudly, nuzzling herself against your chest and immediately purring.

"Hello there, little one. And the trip was fine, Mom." You casually reply to your mother's question, giving Arwen some scratches all the while.

"Oh, how did the visit at the prison go?" Mom continues, with no attempt to hide her concerned tone.

"It went as well as you'd expect. Wilfred Munson is one miserable bastard." Eddie answers for you, bringing his fingers up to wiggle in Arwen's face to get her attention. Her big gray eyes find them immediately, and she takes a small lunge to latch onto them with her teeth. "Ouch!" He yelps, pulling away. Blood begins to bead from the small punctures she made, and you tut at Eddie's pained expression.

"Oh, baby. It's okay. She's only playing. Kittens are big biters sometimes. Here, let's get you cleaned up." You hand the cat back to Dustin for a minute, leading Eddie to the bathroom.

"Are you sure she doesn't hate me, Y/N?" Eddie asks, a twinge of sadness in his voice. He's never had a pet before, so he doesn't know how to take his first one biting him like that. He thinks the cat is upset with him, when that couldn't be further from the truth.

"No, Eddie. She loves you, I promise. She’s excited to see us back home, that's all. If anything, it means she’s happy to see you." You insist, opening the medicine cabinet to pull out the bactine and some small bandages. You take a q-tip from the bowl on the counter, soaking it in the disinfectant. You dab the small wounds on his fingertips.

"Ow, shit." Eddie grits his teeth as the liquid stings his bites.

"Just relax. We're almost done." You wipe away the blood and excess cleanser, and wrap the bandages around his digits. You place light kisses on the pads of each of them, letting him out of your grasp. He still looks a bit unsure about the situation, which makes your heart ache a little. You suppose he feels betrayed by Arwen, in a way. "Believe me, Eds. You'll know when she's pissed off." You insist, hoping he'll chill out a little.

"I know. I'll just have to get used to that, I guess." He nods his head, putting away the thought of failing at being a good cat dad.

"You'll get the hang of it in no time." You give him a gentle kiss on the lips, and you both head back to the kitchen.

"Everything okay, Eddie? You sounded a little upset earlier." Mom asks when you return to the room, pressing the issue further.

"Yeah, I'm fine. My dad just...did what he always does. But it's over now, we won't be going back. And thanks to Y/N, I don't need to be afraid of him anymore." Eddie replies, wrapping his arm around your waist as you lean together against the counter. He gives you a warm smile, and you mirror it. It means so much to hear him say that. You finally feel like you're reciprocating the massive amount of support he's always given you in your time of need.

"Well, I'm glad to hear it. I wish you two could've patched things up. Some people just don't take the chance when it's given to them. It's his loss, and you did everything you could, I'm sure." She says, giving him a meaningful, sympathetic look.

"Well said, Ms. Henderson." Eddie replies.

"Oh, stop with the formalities! You've seen me at some of my lowest points, Eddie. Please, call me Claudia." She chuckles, shaking her head at his over-politeness.

"Sure thing, Claudia." He grins, happy to be in your mother's good graces again.

"What was it like at the prison?" Dustin pipes up after being silent for so long. He brings Arwen over a second time, and this time Eddie takes the initiative to hold her.

"Hey there, cutie." Eddie coos to her, and she immediately melts against his chest. "Aw, there we go. That's what I was waiting for." He laughs lightly, confirming what you said earlier. That Arwen does, in fact, love him as much as she loves you. "And to answer your question, Dustin, the prison was about exactly what you'd expect. Huge, gray, full of criminals in orange jumpsuits. Dad was kept in the infirmary. He can't even get out of bed anymore."

"Oh. I'm sorry." Dustin replies, his gaze falling to the floor.

"Don't be. He put himself there, and that's where he's gonna spend whatever miserable sliver of life he's got left. Any day now, he'll kick the proverbial bucket. And then, not even the prison nurse will have to deal with him anymore." Eddie explains, hoping to ease the kid's mind.

"Your father sounds like a real piece of work, Eddie. I'm glad I've never met the man, or I'd be giving him a piece of my mind." Mom says with clear disdain for a man she's never seen before. But she's far from wrong. Wilfred Munson is one of the few people in the world that's more useful dead as opposed to alive.

"I appreciate that, Claudia, really." He clears his throat, wanting to change the subject. "So, what did you two get up to while we were gone?"

"Oh, uh, not much. I read one of my romance novels, and Dusty had a couple friends over. Michael, Maxine, and the Sinclairs." Mom replies matter-of-factly.

"Romance, huh? Sounds pretty spicy, now I really know where Y/N gets her fire from." Eddie quips with a smirk in your direction, making Mom laugh heartily.

"Eddie." You whine in embarrassment, smacking his arm.

"Ewww." Dustin interjects, making fake gagging sounds.

"Oh, Dusty, calm down. You don't need to be so repulsed by adult talk, you technically are one now." Mom says to your brother, finding his aversion to anything romantic a bit odd. Back when he dated Suzie, all he could talk about was what a great kisser she was, among other things. She misses those days, hoping that maybe another girl will come along and steal his heart of gold. Anyone would be lucky to have him, he's such a sweet boy. Dustin doesn't respond, only crossing his arms in a small pout. She shakes her head at his moody attitude, it's nothing that can't be fixed with a bowl of Mom's famous chili.

"Well, anyway,  we’re gonna hang out in my room until dinner." You say, eager to get out of this awkward conversation. Mom really needs to get some friends her own age, but she's never really bonded well with the mothers of any of your friends, or Dustin's. She keeps to herself a lot, devoting almost all her spare time to her children.

"Okay, kiddos. I'll call you down when it's ready." Mom says, opening cans of beans and diced tomatoes to pour into the crockpot. You go to the front to get your bags, and walk with Eddie and Arwen to your bedroom.

"Need me to put anything in the wash, Eds?" You ask, opening your own bag to dig out your dirty clothes to toss in the hamper.

"Oh, yeah, I'll dig 'em out in a sec." He replies, setting the kitten down on the bed. Once he adds his own garments to the pile, you take the basket to the laundry closet and pour them into the washing machine. You can see into your room as you work, finding Eddie laying casually in your bed. His legs are crossed over each other, and his luscious hair messily splays about the pillows. Arwen's laying on his chest, happily accepting ear scratches while Eddie coos cutesy phrases to her. You can't help grinning at the domestic image. They're both so perfect, and they're all yours. You finish putting in the soap and close the lid, starting the wash cycle.

"You two are so adorable." You beam as you join your little family on the bed. You nuzzle your head into the crook of Eddie's neck, and lay sideways to snuggle up to him. You gently stroke Arwen's rump, her gray eyes meeting yours. She rolls over onto her back, waiting for you to stroke her soft tummy.

"Mew." She says, showing off her itty bitty teeth and little pink tongue as she demands attention.

"She sure knows how to ask for what she wants. Just like her mother." Eddie chuckles lightly, turning his head to softly kiss your cheek.

"Damn straight." You giggle at his supple lips tickling your face. "You excited to go back to work tomorrow?" You question unseriously.

Eddie snorts at you asking, you know perfectly well that he doesn't enjoy working at all. "No, I'd rather stay home with you all day."

"I know, love. I'd prefer that, too. But it's not so bad, there's worse jobs out there. Plus, having me there must make it a little bit better, right?"

"You make everything better, princess." He says sweetly, gazing at you with loving eyes.

"I'm glad you think so, Eds. You make everything pretty great, too, ya know." You reach forward to boop his nose, one of the many things you do that Eddie finds utterly adorable.

"Oh, did I tell you someone new is starting at the theater tomorrow?" He asks, bursting the affectionate bubble you've been contentedly floating around in.

"No. But I figured someone would have to take over for Dotty while she's away on her honeymoon, and starting her family. She's been looking forward to being a kept woman." You say with a laugh, remembering how ecstatic Dotty was telling you all about her plans for her house, how many kids she wants, and so on. It reminds you of just how anxious you are to get your own place with Eddie, and eventually marry him. You're just counting down the days at this point, waiting until you can tell him about the surprise you've been hiding for so long. "Do you know who it is?" You ask, leaning into your curiosity. You really hope they'll be as nice and cool as everyone else you've been working with. A newbie throwing off the work dynamic would be a real bummer for you.

"I have no idea. We'll just have to wait and see. I just hope they're not some lame-ass, or a total idiot. Those never last long." Eddie replies, turning his attention back to the kitten on his chest.

Monday, June 19th, 1989

The next morning, you and Eddie are working the concession stand together, waiting for this new employee to arrive. Jamie's out front in the ticket booth, and the others are in their usual spots. It's a slow day, Mondays always are. Summer school, day jobs, the swimming pool, all the things that keep most people away until the evening showings are in full swing. You've had a couple old-timers, and a small family or two for an early matinee. But other than that, it's been pretty dead.

"Ugh, I hate Mondays." You sigh, leaning against the candy counter. You've already rotated and restocked all the boxes of sweets, refilled the stacks of drink cups, and dumped out the stale popcorn for a fresh batch. There's nothing left to do at the present moment, and you're dying of boredom.

"You can say that again." Eddie mumbles from his spot against the wall. He checks his watch, 11:30. You've barely been here an hour and it feels like half a shift has passed already. You turn around to check the soda machine again, looking down below to see if anything is running low. Nope, every last bag is practically brand new, full of sticky syrup just waiting to mix with the carbonation. You stand back up, facing front once again. You lean on your elbows, your head falling forward in exasperation.

"Well, well. Long time no see, Henderson." You hear a familiar, male voice speaking to you from across the counter. A voice you'd hoped to never hear again, someone from your past you'd hoped to forget. You lift your head to find none other than Tommy Hagan, your ex-boyfriend, standing before you. It appears not much has changed as you inspect his smug face. His short brown hair is styled in its typical douchebag fashion, and he still has the smattering of freckles around his nose which extends sparsely to his cheeks. That stupid mouth full of pearly-white teeth beams at you, fixed in a permanent grin of superiority. But then you notice something else, he just so happens to be wearing the signature uniform of an employee of The Hawk. Vest, bow tie, and all. 

Fuck, please tell me this is some kind of sick joke. "Hey, Tommy. I see you're joining our humble crew." You say flatly, narrowing your eyes at him. His smile grows wider at you acknowledging his presence, he's always loved getting under your skin.

"Yeah, my old man was gettin' on me to 'learn the importance of money', so here I am. But I'm only slummin' it for the summer, then it's back to Stanford for me, baby." Tommy says with his usual air of self-importance. "So, how's community college been going for you?" He asks in a condescending tone.

"It's been great, I'm top of my class three years in a row. Going for a fourth in the fall." You reply shortly, and Eddie notices your discomfort. He sure as hell remembers Tommy H. from high school, he graduated with Harrington back in '85. The typical rich-kid asshole, throwing his weight around as he pleases. Eddie's always hated him with a burning passion. And he certainly doesn't like how personal this little fucker is getting with you. He's surprised you're so well-acquainted, Tommy doesn't seem like the kind of guy you'd hang around. Eddie walks over to stand by your side, drawing Tommy's judging eyes to him.

"Ah, Munson. I can't say I'm surprised to see you here. It was either this, or prison, just like your old man." Tommy says with a chuckle, and you both just roll your eyes at him.

"Well, some of us actually have to work for a living. Not everyone has the privilege of coasting through life on their daddy's dime." Eddie snarks, crossing his arms.

"Ooh, better be careful there. My father just so happens to be real tight with Mr. Biggs. Ya know, the guy who owns this place? I'd watch your mouth if you know what's good for you." Tommy replies, vaguely threatening your boyfriend's job for the sake of feeling powerful.

"God, that is so predictable of you, Hagan. Using your dad to get everything you want. What else is new?" You chime in, though you feel a bit immature for doing so. This whole conversation is ridiculously juvenile.

His eyes snap to you at your remarks, and he leans over real close to speak to you. "It was acceptable enough for you when we used to go out, sweetcheeks. The Porsche, the fancy restaurants, the shiny gifts I'd buy for you. All paid for by my old man. And it was more than enough to get you in the sack, wasn't it?" You wince at his words, you were hoping he wasn't going to bring up your past before you could tell Eddie on your own.

"Please tell me he's joking, Y/N. You didn't seriously go out with this asshole, did you?" Eddie asks, his eyes blown wide in disbelief. Tommy has got to be the exact antithesis of everything you stand for. There's no way you'd humor him with a single date, much less sleep with him. Right?

You look at Eddie cautiously, your cheeks burning bright red with shame. That tells him everything he needs to know, and he shakes his head at you. "Eddie, it was a long time ago. If you'd just let me explain一" You say slowly, knowing he's seconds away from blowing his top.

He scoffs, his heart sinking into his stomach. You try to step towards him, but he backs away from you. "I can't hear this right now. I-I need a minute." He gets out from behind the counter, storming off to the side doors. He feels sick to his stomach, the thought of you, and Tommy...it's just too much. Eddie knows deep down that he has no real reason to be upset, you're clearly embarrassed by it. But to think you'd entertain a jerk like that for a single second, he feels like he doesn't know you at all. He just needs to breathe, and get his mind and heart to stop racing. Once he does that, he'll give you a chance to explain yourself. Everything will be fine once you put it all into words. It has to be. He goes outside, leaving you alone with Tommy.

"Fuck! Real nice going, Tommy! Your first day and you're already causing drama! You're such a fucking child!" You shout at him, angry tears building up in your eyes. You're worried that with a single conversation, Tommy has totally derailed your relationship. Your internal organs twist in fear, and you just hope Eddie will give you a chance to tell your side of things. You wish you could erase that past relationship entirely, it was probably the worst summer of your life. Tommy may have been right to point out that he showered you with lavish things, but every single one had tangles of strings attached to them. And you had to cut yourself out, before they eventually wrapped around your neck and strangled you.

"What, is that freak your little boyfriend now?" He asks mockingly.

"Yes, he is. At least, he was. Until you came in here and did what you always do. You see a toy you can't play with anymore, so you do everything you can to break it." You retort, wishing you could leave this situation to go find Eddie. You hope he hasn't run off for the day, leaving you to fend for yourself with this asshole. Just give him time to cool off, I'm sure he'll understand, you think to yourself.

"Jesus, Y/N. Why would you waste your time on a guy like that? He's a total wastoid. What does he have that I don't?" Tommy asks, practically interrogating you.

"Well, first off, he doesn't cheat on me with every girl in town." You spit back, before continuing. "And he's kind, and sweet, he takes care of me. He actually cares about my interests and my feelings. Not to mention, he's way better in bed than you could ever hope to be." You really didn't want to go there, bringing up sexual performance like that is so childish. But honestly, it's one of the few things Tommy's pea-sized brain seems to understand. Funnily enough, his mind isn't the only thing that's much smaller than advertised.

"Don't tell me you actually love Eddie Munson!" He scoffs. Every single word out of his mouth makes you want to punch him. Just as you're about to reply, Eddie slowly approaches the concessions counter again. He realizes he overreacted a little, and he silently watches your heated exchange with Tommy. He just heard the jerk's last statement, and he waits to see your response.

"Of course I love him, Tommy! He means everything to me, and he doesn't treat me like a prize to be won! You could never understand that, and you probably never will. You'll just marry the first bimbo that says yes, and you'll be sorely disappointed when you realize what a heartless leech you are." You realize that with every single word, you're probably bringing yourself one step closer to being fired. But you can't help it. You aren't going to stand here and listen to Tommy badmouth Eddie like this, or to act like he somehow owns you. You notice Eddie standing off to the side, and your coworkers have come out to see what the shouting is all about. Jamie comes in from the ticket booth, Milo slinks his way over from the projection room. And worst of all, Harriet and Mr. Biggs step out of their office to find you screaming at their new employee.

"Just what in the hell is going on here?" Mr. Biggs bellows, expecting a quick and concise explanation for your outburst. He's never seen you act in such a way, but he certainly doesn't take kindly to workplace dramatics.

"Mr. Biggs, Tommy has been completely rude to me and to Y/N from the second he walked in here. He's made Y/N very upset, sir." Eddie explains with his arms crossed, hoping you won't be thrown out on your ass.

"Tommy, is this true?" Mr. Biggs curls an eyebrow at the young man. He knew from the second Jack Hagan asked him to give his son a job, that it was a very bad idea. The kid is a brat, plain and simple. But Jack is pretty affluent in this town, and could very easily suggest to his powerful friends that the Hawk isn't as upstanding of an establishment as they originally thought. Any kind of rumor like that could kill his business, so he has to keep this stupid child happy.

Tommy looks back at the man with an expression that says 'you bet your ass it is, but there's nothing you can do about it'. "No, sir. I wouldn't dream of it. It sounds like Y/N here is having a hard time getting over me. That's all." He shrugs, meeting your gaze again. He's still wearing that stupid shit-eating grin, knowing he'll get away with this.

"You're such a fucking liar!" Eddie shouts, and he almost lunges at Tommy. Luckily, Jamie and Milo hold him back.

"Dude, chill! There's people in the theater! Calm down!" Jamie says to him as he struggles to maintain control. Eddie continues flailing his arms and kicking his legs to break free from their grasp.

"Better get a handle on your little boyfriend, Y/N. I'd hate for Eddie to get himself thrown in the clink like his father." Tommy prods further, feeding the flames of conflict.

"Shut the fuck up, Tommy! He wouldn't be trying to kick your ass if you weren't acting like such a dick!" You shout back. You just want him to stop, you want all of this to stop. But his sickening grin tells you he's enjoying this far too much to give up now.

Mr. Biggs sighs, already regretting who's side he's going to pick in this altercation. Tommy is clearly in the wrong, but his hands are tied. "I won't tolerate this kind of behavior in my theater, you two. Mr. Hagan is going to work here, whether you like it or not. So you'd better calm down, or you can find a new place to work."

You and the others make various noises of shock and disgust. Of course this jerkoff is gonna side with Tommy. "You can't be serious, Biggs! The kid is being a total dickwad. Y/N and Eddie are good workers. They don't act like this for no reason!" Jamie comes to your defense, but it's clearly no use. Even Harriet is giving Biggs a disappointed glare, shaking her head as he gives in to petty peer-pressure.

"I don't care! I will not have fights breaking out in my place of business. Now, I strongly suggest you put your childish squabbling aside, and try to work together as a team. And if any of you don't like it, you're more than welcome to walk right out that door and never come back!" Mr. Biggs puts his foot down, pointing at the front doors to signal as a final warning.

You look at Eddie, who's still trying to break out of your coworkers' hold. Fury flares within his eyes, he's just waiting for the opportunity to lay his hands on Tommy. You wish you could let him. Or that you could just quit and call it a day. But you can't do that, you both really need this job. You need all the money coming in that you can get, especially if you want to move in together in a couple months. You know it's going to be absolute hell to work with your ex, but you can't let petty feelings get in the way of your responsibilities. You walk over to your rabid boyfriend, and you put your hands on his shoulders to get his attention. "Eds?" You ask softly, a few frustrated tears running down your face.

"What?" He replies, still giving you the look of disappointment and disgust he adopted once Tommy let the cat out of the bag.

"Can you please calm down? We don't have to be his friend, but we shouldn't let him win. We're better than that, right?" You speak calmly, trying to diffuse the situation.

"You seriously expect me to work with him, after all those things he said to you?" He asks, his jaw tightening with every word. He doesn't know what to do. On the one hand, he knows you're right. Letting a brat like Tommy get under his skin so easily doesn't look so good on his part. And he really does need the money. But on the other hand, Tommy has been nothing but unkind to the both of you from the get-go. Not only that, but Eddie's concerned that he might try to make moves on you. And he will not stand for that. It's not to say he doesn't trust you, of course he does. Clearly, you don't feel anything but regret when it comes to this jerkoff. But he still worries, as there had to be something about him that was enough to draw you in.

"Eddie, I know he's a jerk. But we both need this job, for our future." He doesn't respond, only rolling his eyes at you. You let out a long sigh, as you don't know how to convince him to stay. "Look, if you really want to, we can walk out of here right now. But I don't think it would be fair to either of us, or to the others." Despite your best judgment, you're still giving him an easy way out if that's what he wants. It's a lot to ask him to put up with your ex, especially one who's so fucking arrogant.

Eddie considers your words carefully, and he appreciates you still giving him the option to throw in the towel. Your consideration for his feelings means a lot to him. He supposes the least he can do is try to be the bigger person. None of you are in high school anymore, you can all let this silly shit go and grow up. Can’t you? He takes a deep breath, ceasing his flailing. He nods at you, before addressing the room. "Alright, I'll play nice. For Y/N's sake." He directs his attention at Tommy again. "But you are gonna keep your shitty little comments to yourself. You leave Y/N alone, and we won't have a problem. Got it?" Eddie says, his tone laced with vicious warning. He's not fucking around, Tommy better watch himself if he doesn't want his ass handed to him.

"Fair enough, Munson. You've staked your claim, and I'm not one to go after another man's lay." Tommy says, getting in that last little jab at you before calling a truce. His eyes flick to you on his final word, his grin growing wider when your face scrunches at his insult.

"Okay, that's settled, then. Everyone, let's get back to work." Mr. Biggs says, clapping his hands together to get your attention. "Jamie, you'll train Tommy. I don't think the others are up to the task today. Eddie, I need you to spruce up Frank's seat in the mezzanine. And Y/N, you stay on concessions until Jamie finishes showing Tommy the ticket booth, and then you'll switch. Sound good?"

"Sure thing, sir. Thank you." You reply, nodding to accept the terms. You're glad he's kind enough to separate you all for a while, as that's probably best to avoid another fight breaking out. You take Eddie's hands in yours for a moment as the boys finally release him to attend to their own tasks. Jamie leads Tommy outside, and Milo trudges up the steps to the projector. Harriet and Mr. Biggs head back to their office, leaving you two alone for a moment. "You gonna be okay, Eds?" You ask, worried that he's still upset with you.

"Yeah, I'll be fine. I just need some time alone. But thank you for talking me down, and I'm sorry for getting so upset with you. Talk later?" Eddie replies, gazing at your eyes apologetically.

"Of course, baby. I'm sure you've got questions, and I'll happily answer them. I'll see you on break, okay?" You give him a quick peck on the lips, and your heart soars when he reciprocates it. Your body relaxes, and you realize you're going to be alright after all.

"'Kay. I'd better get upstairs. I love you, angel." He nudges his head behind him to the staircase, rubbing his thumbs over your fingers as he doesn't want to let go. It's gonna be hard to wait to hear your side of things. There's no doubt in his mind that some jealousy-fueled images of you and Tommy will be swirling inside his head while he works in solitude.

"I love you too." You regretfully let go of his hands, allowing him to attend to his new assignment. He goes up the narrow staircase to the balcony, his slim body disappearing behind the heavy door at the top. You're left all alone in the lobby now, the buzz of the various food-service machines being the only sound to keep you company. You let out a large puff of air through blown-out cheeks, and wipe away the salty tracks from below your eyelids. Today is probably the hardest day you've ever worked, and it's not even because of unruly customers or the Coke nozzle getting clogged again.

About thirty minutes later, Jamie comes inside with Tommy. You take that as your cue to hide out in the ticket booth until break time. Jamie gives you a concerned look as you cross paths, and you nod your head lightly to let him know you're okay. You open the door and step out into the summer heat, finding refuge in the air-conditioned hut where Mr. Biggs assigned you. You plop down onto the little stool inside the booth, waiting for customers to approach you. You look out at the street, watching cars roll by down the road sluggishly, in no rush at all to get to where they're going. The sky above is bright and blue, with a few clouds spread across it like smudges of paint. You glance at your watch, just barely one o'clock. You've still got hours to go, and all you can stand to do is count down the minutes.

Cascading thoughts rush like a waterfall across your mind as you sell tickets to the occasional group of teens, or single mother with her child. You're zoned out, working on autopilot. You can't stop thinking about your relationship with Tommy. Snapshots of the good, bad, and ugly keep popping up left and right. On top of all of this, you're wondering how your talk with Eddie is going to go. What will he ask? Will he get upset with you again? Will he snap and go after Tommy when you tell him what the asshole did to you? Will he leave you if he doesn't like what you have to say? That last question makes your stomach turn, irrational as it may be. Exes are a tricky subject in relationships, and even if he asks to hear every last detail, there's no telling how well he'll actually take it. You suddenly hear a light knocking on the door behind you, startling you out of your uneasy thoughts. 

"Y/N, it's time for our break. I think the shithead is gonna take over for you." You hear Eddie's voice on the other side of the door, and you hop out of your seat to go to him. You open the door, and immediately put your arms around him. You feel like you haven't seen him in days, squeezing his torso tightly. He pulls you in real close, it's obvious he's been struggling just as much as you have. "C'mon, sweetheart. Let's go sit in the van for a bit." He says softly, pulling back from your clinging hug to take your hand. You follow his lead, trailing along silently to the parking lot across the street. You climb into your side, and Eddie gets in the driver's seat. It's pretty warm inside the van, but you need somewhere private to talk.

You both sit awkwardly for a while, neither of you daring to disturb the quiet. You aren't even looking at each other. Every passing second makes it harder and harder to force any words out. At a certain point, you sense Eddie staring at you. You guess he wants you to speak first. "What do you wanna know?" You lift your head to meet his gaze, waiting for his questions to begin.

"When did you date him?" He starts off simple, not wanting you to feel like he's interrogating you.

"The summer after graduation. He had taken a gap year before he went off to Stanford. We ran into each other downtown, and he asked me out. He seemed...different from how he was in high school, so I said yes." You answer, watching his features closely to see any change in them. Thankfully you don't, he's just listening and taking it all in.

"How long did you go out with him?"

"Three months." You cringe as you remember just how much time you wasted on Tommy.

"What was he like?" He continues, getting into the deeper questions.

"Exactly like you'd expect. He would play nice at first, spoil me with flowers and jewelry, and take me on fancy dates. But it was all an act to get what he wanted." Your breath catches at the thought. Tommy really was quite a charmer at first. Calling you sweet names, giving you presents and loving kisses. He made you feel special, and wanted. But as the saying goes, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

"And what did he want?" Eddie asks, though he can take a wild guess at what the answer is.

"I think you know what he wanted, Eddie." You say softly, looking away from him as you start to cry again. Tommy was, to put it lightly, annoyingly selfish in bed. He'd get everything he wanted out of you, barely putting any effort into getting you off in return. Although, you imagine he couldn't do it even if he really tried. Eddie takes hold of your hand, drawing your gaze to him once more. His eyes beg you to continue, as he can tell there's something else to the story. "And whenever I made him angry, or didn't do exactly what he asked, he'd call me mean names, or threaten to leave me and take everything back."

"Y/N, I'm so sorry." He says softly, his heart aching at how distraught this day, and this talk, has made you.

"That's not the worst of it, Eds." You shake your head, pressing on despite your trembling lip. "He cheated on me the entire time we were together. And when I caught him, he blamed me for not keeping him satisfied. It was then that I realized what an idiot I had been, and I broke it off. Of course, he came banging on my door the next day to take back every gift he'd given me. I didn't want them anyway, I gladly threw every single one in his fucking face." You finish speaking, falling into an uncontrollable fit of tears. It's been so long since you'd even thought about Tommy, to see him again has reopened every last wound he's inflicted on you. He's even managed to make a couple more while he's at it.

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart. C'mere." Eddie gently pulls you from your seat, taking you into his lap. You shove your head against his chest, your wails growing louder despite becoming muffled by his shirt. You're shaking like a leaf, and Eddie holds you close with his strong arms. "Baby, it's okay. Tommy's a terrible, terrible person. Nobody should ever treat you that way. You deserve so much better, my love. And I'm gonna show you that every single day, I promise." He coos lovingly to you, rocking you back and forth in his embrace. A couple tears of his own escape his eyes, all he can see now is flashes of Tommy treating you like crap. He wants to storm back into the theater and fucking kill him, make the little twerp feel every ounce of pain he's caused you. "I love you so much, baby." He says through a sniffle, quickly wiping his eyes.

"I love you too, Eddie." You whimper against his chest, the words vibrating through him. Your arms latch around his waist, not wanting to let go. You were really worried that you'd lost him for a minute there. But you're so glad he understands, of course he does. He's Eddie, your perfect man. He always listens, and he trusts you above anyone else. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you before."

"Don't be sorry, angel. I shouldn't have overreacted earlier, I was just in shock. And you don't owe me anything, okay? Exes aren't exactly something you talk about in relationships, except for times like this, I guess." Eddie insists that you've done nothing wrong. He hasn't told you about any of his own exes, so it wouldn't be fair to expect you to confess to yours. He continues to hold you for a while, still swaying you to and fro. You slowly calm down, your breathing steadies, and your tears eventually dry up. You feel very comfortable in his arms, not wanting to leave. But your internal clock is telling you it's almost time to get back to work. "You gonna be okay, babydoll?" He asks, needing to check on you as you've gone quiet again.

"Yeah. I could use a smoke, though." You lift your head to look at him, and he tuts at your red, puffy face. Your eyes are wet and bloodshot, and you look so tired. Oh, Y/N, my sweet girl. I hate to see you so sad.

"You got it, love. Anything you want." He reaches into his pocket for his cigarettes, pulling two out of the slightly squashed pack. You take one from him, putting it between your lips. Eddie does the same, and flicks his lighter to ignite them both. You take a deep inhale, the nicotine quickly melting your troubles away.

"Fuck, I really needed this." You sigh, exhaling the smoke in a large cloud. It flows across Eddie's face, but he doesn't seem to mind.

"I know, princess. Is there...anything else you need?" He asks, unsure of what else he can do to make you feel better. You may have stopped crying, but your sullen mood still reads all over your features. Tommy really did a number on you, and it'll take more than a crying fit and a smoke to ease the pain.

"Maybe...some ice cream after work?" You ask with a small smile. A sugar overload would be fantastic right about now.

"Sounds perfect, sweetheart." Eddie grins, he's totally up for going to town on a hot fudge sundae. "We should finish up and go back inside. We'll be on concessions together again." He says, taking his final drag and stubbing out his spent butt in the ashtray.

"I really don't wanna go back in there." You whine, finishing your own cigarette shortly after him.

"It's just a couple more hours, Y/N. I'll be with you the whole time, and then we can get some ice cream, and go home...and maybe have some amazing sex. If you're a good girl for me, that is." Eddie smirks as he offers you all the motivation you need to go back inside and finish your shift. He bites his lip seductively, squeezing your hips.

"For all that? I'll be the best girl in the whole wide world for you, Eds." You reply with a smile, leaning in to press your lips to his. You slip your tongue inside his mouth with ease, only teasing him for a few seconds. Just enough to rile him up for later. You hum a laugh against him as you feel an erection forming in his pants, pulling away as you've accomplished your small mission. "C'mon, love. We've got a shift to finish." You stir in his lap, making him let out a low groan. A little extra torture never hurt anyone, all it does is make Eddie go absolutely crazy on you when the time is right. His lust-blown eyes meet yours, and the needy look on his face causes a small amount of arousal to spread between your legs.

"These last few hours can't go by fast enough." He says breathlessly. It's taking everything in him to resist the temptation to say 'fuck it', and toss you in the back of the van to have his way with you right now.

"Good things come to those who wait, baby." You giggle innocently, hopping off his lap to exit the van. 

He follows suit, letting you walk ahead of him so he can watch your gorgeous ass sway with every step. Damn, I'm gonna be half-hard all day now. Get ready, sweetheart, you're really in for it when we get home. Eddie thinks to himself while awkwardly gripping his crotch to adjust his pants.

To be continued…

[prince-liest]

oh my god…. prince……. you can’t do this to me. you’re saying next fic has vox getting fucked, focuses on vox’s transness (AH), AND ALSO HES ON THE OFF SEE SAW OF HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH VAL?????? ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL MEE?!!?!!????? I THINK I MIGHT ACTUALLY COMBUST. and bc another anon asked abt how alastor views the violence in voxval’s relationship, i have Another thought on the matter. as much as alastor looks down on vox, they can be Very similar sometimes. they are both egomaniacs and very prideful. i don’t think vox, without outside interference, would ever ADMIT that the violence he faces is 1) something he truly hates AND 2) out of his control. he can’t admit he hates it, because then why isn’t he stopping it? that would be admitting to not being powerful enough or strong enough. and hello, 50’s toxic masculinity coming through, he CANT be a victim of domestic violence. he’s a powerful, rich, and important man. it all comes down to perceived weakness. so, the solution is to pretend he’s mostly fine with it. sure, he can act disgruntled and upset in the moment, but i don’t think he’d ever let himself take it seriously. because then he has to start drawing lines in the sand, and what happens then? will val look down on him? will he lose val? yeah, he is not risking that over a problem he mostly refuses to acknowledge exists. and as you said, this is all happening in the setting of hell, where ultra violence IS the norm, and vox himself is excessively violent. it’s the most delicious 50 layer cake of fucked up-ness.

RANT ASIDE THO. i have a question. 2. do you ever plan on having vox interact with the hotel crew outside of angel? ANDDDD what would charlie’s reaction be to their friendship/situationship/ kinda love affair. i think she could add SOOOOO much hilarity and Intense Emotions to this series. not that the boys haven’t been doing their part in that so far. charlie just intensifies everything she does, god bless her. -🌓

The "getting fucked" bit and the trans conversation bit are directly related to and relevant to each other, and frankly I'm just very happy to be out here writing the specific flavors of deeply queer shenanigans that I'm writing, and to have people actively enjoy that. It genuinely means a lot to me that I've strayed so goddamn far out of the bounds of good old top/bottom yaoi archetypes that introduced me to fandom and yet have a wildly enthusiastic audience nonetheless. So, that was my long way of saying that you bring me a lot of fucking joy, anon, hahaha.

As for everything you're saying about Vox, power, and masculinity: YOU! points dramatically at you YOU GET IT! YOU GET IT!!!!!! Everyone just read this, this is it, this is the thing. I have no notes to add. There is a reason that the main point he raises the moment he actually says something vulnerable about it (before he immediately cuts himself off) is a complaint that he's an overlord, so why—?

And with regards to your questions: I'm not gonna lie, my actual planning for 666 is usually, like, extremely by the seat of my pants. I plan nothing except, "Oh, shit, had an idea for the next one. Lesgoooo—" and that's been the case for literally every single installment. It's all just been evolving naturally and building on top of itself. So! I can't say that I plan to have Vox interact with the hotel crew or Charlie, but I also will never say that I'm actively opposed to it.

That said, I do think a lot of this fic is kinda structured around hitting specific topics that come up in intimate settings between Vox and Alastor specifically, with occasional tag-ins from Angel Dust, so I don't really know if there's anything in particular I'd like to write that I think would work better in this series if more characters got involved. But, hey! Never say never!

[suengmi]

context: seungmin x afab!reader (will make it amab/gn on request!) genre: romance, some smut, humour warnings: heavy mentions of periods, period sex(?), fingering, cussing, mostly proofread word count: 1.8k -- part 1 -- part 3 a/n: this is a part 2 to the fic i originally posted, but i'm working on part 3 now! just a lil humour teaser with some nasty smut... not writing this for my own satisfaction nuh uh. i tagged some of yall who wanted a part two/mentioned it. hope that's okay!! tags: @binnies-minsung-fanclub, @daceydeath, @krishastumblernow, @daddyjoonchuaua, @blankdyean ╌╌╌╌ “so, that happened.”

here you are, just sitting seungmin's car.

just sitting, awkwardly listening to the sound of the car turning off, not wanting to make a sound. no music, nothing.

neither of you dare to look at each other. you immediately feel exposed, remembering your bra flung over the back seat, probably lost in the rubbish pile in the boot he always forgets to throw out.

"so, that happened."

seungmin swallows, eyes wide, "yeah."

it was a mess, a horrible train wreck of a mess of sex. it was awkward the moment you got too heated, everything seeming to be against you.

you're not sure when you realised, it could have been when you felt his long fingers dancing along the plush flesh of your hips or when he was telling you he was going to fuck you until you cried in a gentle but commanding tone, that you realised the front window had been left open. a pool of water soaking into the seat the more heated you got. rain still pouring down, heavy as ever.

"oh shit!" you exclaimed noticing, sitting upright, still straddling seungmin.

"fuck!" his hands had left your hips, pushing you back making you bang the back of your head against the door frame.

"ow." you had groaned, rubbing the back of your head.

seungmin did his best to clean it up, using one of his old jumpers to soak up the excess water while frantically rolling the window up. it was an old car, so no electric windows here.

"you didn't have to push me so hard."

seungmin came back to the you, placing himself slowly back between your legs almost automatically like you had been doing it for years. you admire his slim frame, blotches of red dancing along his taught skin, collarbones red and covered in hickies.

he looks down, as if noticing your stare on his naked body, "sorry, i panicked."

a pause of silence hits the air, neither of you know how to continue.

you bite the bullet, "do you still want to-?"

seungmin nods, almost giddy when he speaks, "yes, fuck, yes."

within seconds he's back on you, open mouthed kisses littering along your whole body. you feel like you're floating, your mind going white, feeling pressure build in your chest, moans slipping out every time he bites down ever so gently on one of your nipples, red and swollen.

"you sound cute when you whine," he chuckles, kissing the flesh of your chest once more. he looks up at you, his tongue running up the centre of your chest, not breaking eye contact for a second. "i didn't expect you to sound like that."

you feel your whole body go red, your hands coming to your mouth to hide any indication the effect he has on you. "stop..."

but you liked it, like it how he teased you because it was what you two were, sugar and spice, give and take, remember?

he presses a gentle kiss to the back of your hand that was covering your mouth, puppy eyes looking up at you. "can i?"

"huh?" you say in a daze, hands lowering themselves to hold the side of seungmins cheeks. he looks so beautiful like this, sweaty hair sticking to his forehead and messy, lips parted and light pink with over use. you never imagined you'd see him like this. not after seven years, it feels too surreal and oddly vulnerable.

there was a few times seungmin had caught you off guard over the years. you remember back to the night when he broke it off with his ex, your hips nestled in his crotch, cold air hitting the tip of your nose as you melded into your best friend. thinking nothing of it at the time, you faintly remember his arms linking around your belly, kneading the soft supple flesh. you had cuddled before, hundreds of times, always ending up sprawled on his bed one night a week at the least. generally seungmin was a still quiet sleeper, almost dracula like in his coffin style slumber. but you being you, your legs would be sprawled across him, mouth open and on your tummy. leg's wrapped over his own. he didn't mind though, he always like the touch and admired how you looked absolutely horrible when you woke up, he loved it. he always did.

but that time was different, the way his hands travelled up and down your body sleepily, gently nuzzling his chin into the back of your neck. telling you you're all he needed, and that with you there everything felt like it was going to be okay.

it takes you a second to snap back to the present, finally realising where he's going with this. oh, oh.

you feel his fingers gently tugging at the sides of your underwear, asking permission to explore.

seungmin looks so desperate, bottom lip between his teeth.

you just nod at him, pulling him in for another kiss. the kiss is softer this time. his mouth is hanging open against yours, lips barely touching, his fingers pushing their way beneath the side seam of your panties. you feel your legs raised around his sides, a mind of their own. you want more, you needed more. his body pushes your hips further open, repositioning himself for a better angle.

"fuck, so wet for me." he grins in satisfaction, lips tracing their way back to your jaw, leaving wet trails behind.

a jolt of pleasure snaps in your lower belly, one of his fingers barely deep in you yet. "seu-ng-" you struggle to get out his name, a high moan hitting the walls of the car.

"finish it," he commands, already slipping two fingers into your cunt easily, admiring the way your face contorts with every motion of his fingers, your legs tightening around his body.

"seun-ng-hng-min." you struggle between his thrusts, trying to get any resemblance of sense to leave your throat.

you feel empty as he suddenly removes his fingers, whining at the loss.

"suck." he says, placing two of his wet fingers in front of your lips.

ready to oblige, you look down at his fingers, stained red and glistening.

"oh."

"oh."

"shit."

"fuck."

-

you bite a the side of your cheek, hands fiddling with the keys to your house. "so, you looking forward to going away this weekend?"

"yeah," seungmin clears his throat. "changbin said he'd drive us."

"cool, yeah, cool."

"yeah."

shit. it was your friends weekend 'birthday bonanza' (as he coined it), he did this ever year on his birthday. the older you all got you always made sure to do this. tradition five years still going strong.

said friend had planned a whole get away to his family's holiday house in the hills. and as always you shared room with seungmin, which was never an issue. until your period blood had stained his fingers the first time seungmin was finger fucking you.

it's not like he was a stranger to it, or your period. the amount of times he had been at your house, mcdonalds burger in hand while he massaged your lower back with the other. he had even helped you get out a diva cup at one point, besties and all that.

but that was then, this is now.

"well, i have extra shifts this week so i'll be busy, since i took the weekend off, hospo things"

seungmin nods, lips curling to the side.

again, silence.

he turns his attention to you, face confused and hands flailing in front of him, he always stimmed in moments like this. "so like, why was that so fucking awkward?"

you let out a breath of relief, half yelling in disbelief at the situation. "oh my god i know right?!"

"i've had my hands in your vagina before, remember that diva cup incident?"

"jeez," you groan, "it was really stuck in there. god. your fingers were in there, up there so high. jesus. spelunking vibes.

he laughs, making a gesture in the air. "i was so in there, like, no light at the end of the tunnel."

you let out a low chuckle shaking your head, sinking back into your seat dramatically.

the car is full of laughter for a bit, until you come to a slow halt. you know you have to bring it up.

"maybe we just... rushed this? i mean i still really wanna-"

seugmin cuts you off, speaking fast, "oh trust me i do too."

"i just think it's been a day, and honestly, my ass is getting soaked from the seat still being wet." you say to him, laughing once more.

"yeah good idea." he nods in agreeance.

"look i know we still need to talk, but i think we just both need to sleep. and rest on it." you say as you notice his gaze is trained on you, "but trust me, i still want this. call me on your way to work, yeah?"

"okay." he smiles gently. "i will."

you get out of the car without a word, completely forgetting about your bra in the back seat. seungmin looks sad for a moment until he realises you're making your way to his window. he rolls it down, looking up at you as you approach. he looks innocent almost, his usual stern concentrated face now soft and puffy, hair still messy from the prior events.

you place your hand on the car door, leaning down to match your face with his. he looks like he's about to kiss you, his eyes darting to your lips as he leans forwards but he pauses. "i didn't realise you'd be so whiney."

you push his face back into the car with the palm of your hand, ignoring the stupid grin slapped across his face. "good night, seungmin."

"se-ung-min!" he mocks your tone out the window, nearly waking the neighbours.

you give him the finger as you walk to your house.

===

a/n: part 3 is currently on the way!!!!!!! and will absolutely be disgustingly smutty and slutty we stan

[period-dramallama]

Things what I have learned

Now that my first novel is done, I'm reflecting on what I learned in the last 2-3 years. Tagging @theladyelizabeth @boleynqueenes @annabolinas because they are the fic writers that spring to mind.

Don’t try and write in one document because you can’t do it.

You just can’t. It’s too long. The document will get unwieldy very quickly. You don’t have to have a new doc for every chapter but please. Chunk. Make it easy to find scenes again without having to wade through pages and pages and dozens of keyword search results.

Highlight placeholder text so your eye doesn’t skip over it upon rereads.

I speak from painful experience here.

Start with a timeline of all the events

You are never going to remember every single little thing that is happening. You cannot memorise the order everything happens because things change on a daily or even hourly basis. Who died first on 17 November? Mary or Pole? Don’t force yourself to remember. WRITE IT DOWN. “Oh I’ll just compile my notes on that event when I come to it” NO. Start with the foundations. Otherwise you’ll be talking about the Pope and be like “SHIT I forgot about the Sack of Rome and him being the emperor’s prisoner because I was busy writing Henry’s intense tennis match”.

Organise your FUCKING notes

“I don’t need to organise my notes because I won’t be citing anything”. FOOL. Fool fool fool fool fool. That’s the Devil talking.

Events can be organised by the aforementioned timeline. It doesn’t matter if the timeline is excessively detailed because you can always remove irrelevant facts as you write the story. Information about people goes in the character profiles: appearance, character traits, favourite food, favourite books, etc. you never know when these little personal details may get mentioned. I also organise by location: information on church interiors, London, Rome, Hampton Court, Greenwich, the Mary Rose. And by theme: War, Trade, Proverbs, Catholicism, Protestantism, Agriculture, Disease.

Also organise your literal notes. I wrote snippets of dialogue on the backs of receipts. Worse. Down the sides of receipts. The FRONT of receipts. Take time to move notes from your phone to your computer.

Bibliography as you go along

It just saves time. And it’s nice to watch the list get longer.

Write a summary as you go along

Having to summarise at the end is just too daunting because either you worry you missed something out or you have to read the whole thing over again. Whereas if you write a detailed summary as you go along, adjusting it as you change things, it helps you to keep track of your plot beats and what’s happened so far AND for your final summary, you boil down your detailed summary to its essentials, which is easier than writing from scratch, if you ask me.

[charbles]

I’m actually pretty curious about more of the glam rock animatronics, we already know sun and moon exist, but I’m more curious about the others (I don’t know if you’ve covered any of them other than the fact Monty can swim because there is so much for the fazbear Funland AU I’m not even joking

OH SHIT!! SORRY ANON! i might go through and add a tag for just Info on the Funland au, ill post a poll on it maybe, just to get general opinion :]]

I have 3 of the Glamrocks! lets delve into that shall we?

Glamrock Chica!

Glamrock Chica is generally very friendly, shes VERY passionate about playing the guitar! She tries to encourage kids to play and be active together! Chica will actively seek out children who are alone and play with them after confirming that they are infact not lost! However If they are lost, Chica will attempt to carefully guide the child to the nearest security station or keep them company until their parents come back!

she is optimistic about everything and treats everything with GREAT enthusiasm, all around, shes a sweetheart! She tries to listen to everyone around her and is all around very polite, however this can be misread as blind trust and naivety which is not at all the case, Chica isnt stupid, she just tries her best to keep everyone happy, no one likes not being listened to.

her ability to eat directly comes from Fazbear entertainment trying to get an easier way of getting rid of trash left over by party goers! however she has a bad habit of not being able to tell whats already IN the trash, whats on the tables for the current guests and what ACTUALLY needs to be picked up! which is why she tears into trash wherever she goes, she has to have a handler with her at all times to prevent her from stealing food from guests, and from eating trash during the parties!

i will say i was SO EXCITED TO SEE THE TRASHBAG FALL OUT OF HER DURING RUIN, THAT WAS SUCH A NEAT CONFIRMATION FOR ME, PERSONAL CHARLIE WIN

Monty Gator..

Monty is a special case of glamrock, he's quite abrasiveness and cocky, but very easy to excite and amp others up, often times picking them up or getting excessively loud with his support! except freddy

Monty has a habit of trying to outshine Freddy, which causes some friction in the band, This is purely because Monty used to be a solo show, therefore is used to being the star and center stage. This doesnt necessarily mean hes mean to his other band members though! just freddy.

Monty notoriously has an attitude problem towards staff as well, not liking to be told what to do and often skipping shows purely because he doesnt want to be bossed around.

Monty has the unique ability to enter water bodies in the the pizzaplex and other areas in the amusement park! but ontop of that, he can spray mist or just straight up water out of his nose, he uses this to mess with people more often than not

And last but not least we have

huh... thats weird, seems like a data error.

theres nobody here :]

[karizard-ao3]

Hi Karizard! Just finished reading Clueless Teens in like … two sittings - it’s legit the best school caste au fic I’ve come across, i love it so much. I know Eremika is the main focus but holy shit ur Aruani is! So sweet! 😭 Would you ever consider writing more Aruani stuff in the future?

Aw, thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it! I tend to include Aruani as a side ship in my longer fics. They feature in Anamnesis but I didn't tag them as a ship because they do not have a happy ending together and it's pretty much just solid angst between them throughout lol.

I'm still working on finishing my single parents au wip, but Aruani are the other couple in it. They, of course, don't show up as much as Eremika, but they are in it and they deal with changes to their relationship due to becoming new parents.

I'm going to share a little snippet, as a treat (also, I'm chomping at the bit to get this finished and posted, so I want very badly to share scenes and whatnot).

Here, Armin and Annie bring their baby on his first outing, meeting up with Eren, Mikasa, and their kids at the playground.

BEGIN SCENE!

Annie made sure Alexander was secure in his sling while Armin grabbed the diaper bag and slung it over his shoulder. 

"Is he okay in there?" he fretted. "You're sure he won't fall out or smother?"

"Maybe the sling wasn't a good idea…" said Annie, looking up at the other families occupying the playground near Eren and Mikasa’s houses. "Maybe bringing him out at all wasn't a good idea…" 

She bit her lip and glanced over towards where Eren and Mikasa were watching their kids play. Mason was running back and forth across the play structure’s bridge, doing spin kicks at each landing, while Adriana squealed and hollered because Eren was wiping her nose when she wanted to play. She had been a snotty, coughing mess all morning, he’d warned them, adding, “But don’t worry. The doctor said she’s not contagious, just gross.”

So maybe Adri wasn't an infection risk, but what about all these other kids? Annie held Alexander protectively against her body. He made a grunting sound, bobbing his fists and looking up at her. She glanced down at him just in time to see his face screw up and relax as he farted. Her heart swelled. "We're going to bring you home so none of these rowdy little shits can get you sick," she cooed. 

Alexander grunted again, not comprehending but pleased to be part of the conversation.

"Armin, we're going," said Annie.

"Sounds good!" said Armin, opening the car door he had just closed and stowing the diaper bag back inside.

Across the park lawn, Mikasa smacked Eren's arm and pointed at them.

"Ope!" he said, setting Adri free and jogging across the grass to the Arlerts. "Don't even think about it!" he said, stopping next to them. "You told us you were going crazy stuck at home. Now that the baby has his shots and it’s warming up, it's time for you two to get out of the house. He’ll be fine. You don’t need to keep him in a bubble."

"Look," said Armin. "I know it probably seems like we're being excessive to you, but you don't know what it's like having a child with medical issues."

Eren gaped at him. “Seriously?”

"What?" said Armin. "You don't."

"My kid literally can't breathe without daily steroids and gets bronchitis multiple times a year," said Eren, his eyebrows dropping into a dangerous line across his face. "What is Alexander's chronic illness?"

Armin averted his eyes. 

"Sorry. I didn't hear you. What was it again?" said Eren. He was in a far worse mood than usual.

"Nothing," grumbled Armin. "The doctor gave him a clean bill of health.”

“Oh!” said Eren. “How interesting!” 

“But his immune system is still immature so we have to be careful with him,” Armin persisted.

Eren held up his hands. "Fine. But if you keep sheltering him from everything like this, Alexander is going to turn out like you," he warned.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Armin demanded. "My parents did a great job!"

Annie reached past him to open the car door and get the diaper bag back out. “I guess a little fresh air and sunshine wouldn’t hurt.”

Armin turned to look at her, the betrayal evident all over his face. 

"I love you so much, baby," she said. "Just the way you are."

"That's not really what it seems like right now!" said Armin.

"No, really!" said Annie. "You're so intelligent and handsome and talented!"

"But?" said Armin, folding his arms.

"No buts," said Annie, heading towards Mikasa. "It's just that my dad didn't coddle me at all and I'm much less…"

"Much less what?" said Armin, scowling and chasing after her.

"Um... Prissy," said Annie. 

“We are talking more about this at home,” said Armin.

“Yes, dear,” said Annie.

“Tan I see the baby?” Adri squealed as soon as she noticed the Arlerts had finally joined them, chugging down the play structure steps as fast as her little legs could carry her and wiping her snot on her pudgy wrist.

Annie closed her eyes, took a deep, stabilizing breath and kneeled down so Adri could see Alexander. 

“Hello little Aleskander!” Adri said, then sneezed in his face, spraying him in spit.

Alexander gasped, his eyes popping open wide and his arms flinging out to his sides. “Oh, god…” groaned Annie.

Armin glared at Eren.

“Sorry little guy! I promise she’s not contagious,” said Eren, snatching his backpack from the ground and pulling out a pack of wipes. Alexander’s fists were bopping a mile a minute. His run-in with Adri had been very exciting. Eren held out the pack of wipes for Annie and she extracted one, using it to clean her son’s face while he aired his grievances in a thin wail. He was no longer enjoying his grand adventure now that it included being subjected to torture. 

“He’s crying,” Mason observed, skipping toward them to see the new baby. “Maybe he’s hungry. Mom, can I have a snack?”

“Tan I have one, too?” said Adri.

“I might have something,” said Mikasa. She hadn’t packed anything besides her and Mason’s lunches because they were going to be eating so soon but she might have a bag of chips or a protein bar in her purse that the kids could split.

“I’ll give Aleskander his bottle,” Adri said, putting her hands on her hips and inspecting the baby with an officious nod. “I’s going to take very good care of him.”

Mason grabbed his hair. “You know what? I can’t take it anymore, Adriana!” he shouted. “It’s I’m! Not I’s! You are saying it wrong! You say everything wrong! How can you be so dumb?”

"Mason!" said Mikasa.

Adriana’s face twisted with rage and she punched him.

“Ow!” Mason yelped. “She hit me!”

“Adriana May Jaeger!” Eren barked.

“I think she gave me internal bleeding,” Mason moaned, doubling over and clutching his stomach.

“He said I’s dumb!” Adriana howled.

“I’m,” Mason screeched. “You’re supposed to say I’m! Did you learn to talk at upside-down school?”

“I’s! Too! Little! For! Stool!” Adriana shrieked, punching him again.

“My organs!” Mason wailed.

“Kids with busted organs don’t get to play at the playground,” said Mikasa, sifting through her giant bag with greater urgency. Maybe if their mouths were occupied with chewing, the kids would stop screaming at each other. “Kids with busted organs have to go to the hospital.”

Mason eyed her, then straightened with theatrical uncertainty, patting his abdomen. “Hey! It doesn’t hurt anymore! ” he said as if he were as shocked by the news as any of them. “I’m okay!”

“A miracle,” said Mikasa.

END SCENE!

[aluminumneedles]

The Great Knitted Christmas Gifts Bonanza of 2024

(Working title)

Besties and beloved mutuals, welcome to the chaos.

This will be wacky. Zany. Incredibly boring at times and possibly excessively dramatic for no reason at all except my (and hopefully your) amusement. We will laugh! I will cry! We will perhaps commiserate over things and also I will aggravate my carpal tunnel! I will ask for advice on things I don't know how to do! I will make polls because audience participation is enrichment for me! Good shit good shit let's get started

At the time of writing it is September 18, 2024, also known as 98 days before Christmas Eve, which will heretofore be known as The Deadline™️. I have, at present, four family members for whom I am making gifts. Now you may be thinking "Kay, that's only four people. That does not warrant a big post." But I'm making one anyway so here we goooo

PERSON #1

Mom. I already decided on my mom's gift, she's getting a shawl. It's my first shawl and I'm kinda geeked about it. It's the Cosmos Textured Knit Wrap from Mama in a Stitch

(photo taken from Mama in a Stitch's website I hope that's ok??)

Yarn is Red Heart worsted weight acrylic in Royal. Now here's the situation: I haven't made a wearable with acrylic yarn in awhile and I wasn't a huge fan of how it felt last time. But I know people do it literally every day, so: when the time comes I will be soliciting advice on how to make it soft and comfy. Plus I hate blocking and I'm gonna have to block this so yay growth!!

PERSON #2

My sister. Adorable, likes a pastel, super long hair, so I was thinking...scrunchies? And then I was thinking scrunchies are not necessarily on the level of gift I was aiming for so I thought...scrunchies + matching leg warmers (babydoll goes to the gym sometimes so i thought it would be cute)? And then. AND THEN. Was scrolling Pinterest instead of sleeping and I found these!!!

Now there are pros and cons

Pros:

I have been wanting to knit lace

I have been wanting to knit socks

Cons:

I have no experience knitting lace or socks

Oh well f*ck it we ball! Will still try to match the scrunchies to the socks. Send thoughts/prayers/advice/yarn recs, because idk what I am doingggg

PERSON #3

My brother. So, at the first of the year I started knitting a blanket kind of just because--I really liked the pattern and I wanted the feeling of starting something new in the new year. In April I decided it would be a gift for my boyfriend at the time, in May it became too hot to knit with wool, and in July the relationship ended. My brother has expressed interest in a blanket from the same pattern and has offered to take this one off my hands. I'm about 3/4 of the way done. Should be an easy gift, right? Maybe I'll throw in a matching pillow?

However, I once promised to make him this sweater:

(image snagged from the MomentsinTwine Etsy shop)

I bought the pattern, I bought the yarn, and I never delivered. (I started it and frogged it twice because my gauge was so so off.)

So uhhh PLEASE do the poll I need help deciding. Yarn would probably be a golden yellow wool blend, because that is the color he wanted 3 years ago and if I ask for an updated color choice he'll know what I'm working on 😭

PERSON #4

My dad.

Y'all.

I have no idea what to do for this man. He is a very classic "I don't want anything" person, and I am a classic "Must. Give. Gift." person. So already, times are tough!! What am I supposed to knit this man???

So I was thinking slippers-- I found a pattern for Woodland Loafers on Ravelry (pattern by Claire Slade) and I thought they were adorable. But then I was thinking why not make a whole, like, cozy care package? So I thought slippers, mug rug + mug cozy, maybe something else? He likes music, he likes to relax and watch his lil shows, he likes M*rvel?? Open to so many suggestions babes.

So...yeah. That's the show. I'll update as I go along, and if you're ever curious about how things are going or want to bully me about not making progress, please nudge me!! Sorry this was so long okay bye