#perhaps too ooc for him to not be hateful

[tenthmusing]

just thinking about this lgbtq suicide prevention video by the house cast

[ofyorkshire]

GOSH. goooooooosh. watching an ep of ozark and i take it back. bj would trust ruth. and he would love her oh.

oh is it weird i see a lot of them in each other. she's much more ready to use her teeth but bj admires it. doesn't really... agree with what she does, a lot of the time, but he gets it.

the leniency he gives for people just trying to survive, man. bj would get it, and he would not hold it against her or think any less of her for it. even if he's at a point where he's trying to keep his nose clean, he'd look the other way for her. might even help her, a little, as long as it was something he believed would be a one-off and wouldn't keep him in trouble.

[sonolynn]

Forbidden Fruit

summary | Jace didn't want her, but Aemond did.

pairing | Aemond Targaryen x Fem!Reader

tags | 18+ MDNI, Jealously, Aemond yearning, explicit sexual content, mentions of bastards, loss of virginity, unprotected sex, size kink (?), oral f!receiving, Angst if you squint. "Technical" infidelity but is it really if Jace started it? (yes). ooc!Aemond (probably). NOT PROOF READ (its one am, leave me alone).

w.c | 3.8k

note(s) | My first smut fic!! Ah I'm scared...I also think I have a problem with making Aemond want fem!reader when he rightfully can't have her. Also I swear I'm not a Jace hater!! I love Jace, but in this fic specifically I made him long and wish for Baela.

____________________________________________

“Why don’t you marry her then?” 

Aegon’s voice was taunting, as if pushing Aemond to say something. Aemond stared down at the cup in front of him; even with a stoic expression, his mannerisms betrayed him. He tapped his finger against the edge of the cup, he picked at the skin around his nails on the opposite hand-all the tell tale signs of thinking, a mind that cannot be stopped. 

“Because she is betrothed to Rhaenyra’s bastard.” His voice dripped with malice as he spoke. Aemond hated that Jacerys would inherit the throne enough; What his bastard nephew didn’t need was the girl Aemond had wished for his entire life. Ever since the two of them were children Aemond had a…weird infatuation with her. When he was a boy, he would pick flowers from the garden and he would purposely do good deeds for her, just to have her hug him or smile graciously at him. 

But now, everything was different. She was a woman grown, and him a man grown. She was to be engaged to his bastard nephew, and he would have to sit and watch as they shared a kiss, held hands, smiled and danced as newlyweds. He’d have to hold a straight face as the two of them left to Jacerys’ bed chamber, only knowing the connotations that came with what would happen on their wedding night. 

Ignoring his brother's tedious rants about hells knows what, Aemond stood from his chair, opting for a walk in the gardens.

____________________________________________

Aemond walked, hands clasped behind his back, and his gaze drifted into nothingness as he walked with just his thoughts, and the cool breeze that accompanied the summer evenings. He tried to distract himself from the thoughts of her, for they were all almost too painful to ever truly think about. 

But he couldn’t help himself. He thought of her as a sickness, one that lingered and grew stronger by the day until it fully consumed your every waking moment. He thought of her laugh just as contagious as the plague, her eyes as intoxicating as the finest of wines. He thought her to be a type of sickness, and he so desperately wanted to be affected. 

Aemond was never one to smile-one to truly-smile, his half smirks or half smiles were only ever in a sarcastic sense, but for some reason his smiles were real with her. With her he laughed a little more, with her he walked a little faster. He knew it was stupid, perhaps perpetually idiotic-to ever think, let alone long for such a pure and innocent creature. 

As Aemond walked, he noticed her sitting by one of the fountains in the garden. She looked breathtaking, he thought to himself. Her hair was down and cascaded down her shoulders, her face was just the perfect amount of shaded with the moon's light. And above all, she held that intoxicating smile that she always held. He never knew why she was always smiling, nor did he wish to find out. 

She turned her head, her smile widening at the sight of Aemond. 

“Aemond!” Her voice was cheerful, slowly standing as he walked towards her. 

“Princess,” Aemond smiled-a half smile-at her as he looked around, then slowly back at her. “It’s quite late. Should you not be in your chambers?” 

She always thought the way he cared for her, even if he didn’t show it outright, was extremely enticing. She knew how he was with others, but she knew the differences he had with almost everyone in court-so what made her so different? Why her, the object of the second son's affection. 

“Perhaps I do not wish to sleep. Perhaps…I quite like the quietness of the garden.” She smiled innocently, looking back towards the fountain as she started to walk. Aemond knew her well enough to see that this was a quiet plea for him to join her; Because no matter how much she enjoyed the quietness of the garden, she enjoyed it much more when he was with her. 

Aemond stared at her, as he often did, but this time, it was different. The stare he held was nothing short of primal. He watched the light in her eyes as she smiled up at him and for some reason, now, he wished to watch as the innocent light in her eyes slowly dwindled as he claimed her. 

“Aemond? Is something wrong?” Her voice snapped his thoughts back, if only for a moment. She stopped walking to look up at him and she crossed her arms underneath her chest. His eye trailed down slowly, fixating on the way that her cleavage just slightly out of her dress. He was like a man starved; Clinging to the littlest of details that would make his imagination run wild. 

She seemed to notice the way that his eye raked over her chest like a starving man, and her face flushed with embarrassment. She-though subconsciously-reached up to place her arm over her chest, but to her surprise, Aemond gently took her hand, and when she looked up, his one sapphire eye was locked with hers. 

“You needn’t cover up. Not around me.” He spoke calmly, though his heart was racing and his head spinning. He let out a shaky breath as he lowered her hand and looked into her eyes. 

She watched him carefully, searching his gaze for anything that would betray him. In truth she didn’t know what she was searching for, but she felt as if she should be searching for something. 

Aemond lifted a hand, placing the back of his knuckles against her hot cheek. The gesture was gentle, and slow, something he was not known for. His eye slowly trailed down her face, and his eye caught on her lips, his breath heavy as he reached his hand up and gently placed his thumb over her plush bottom lip. 

Her eyes followed his, big, and full of longing. She stared at him as his thumb pushed against her lip. She didn’t know exactly what to do; She knew that this moment was intimate, far too intimate to be happening between a betrothed woman and a bachelor. But, the way he gazed at her made her feel hot, and the way he trailed his hand over her face and body made her want to see where this could lead. 

His free hand shakily went up to her waist, cupping it firmly as he brought her closer. He leaned forward, just slightly, till his nose was pressed against hers. Her breath hitched, and her eyes instinctively closed. She waited for him to press his lips against hers, to feel his mouth on hers like she had (shamefully) always wished for. But, it never came. 

When she opened her eyes again, she saw Aemond breathing heavily, desperately trying to restrain himself. He pulled away slightly, and he shook his head,

“I shouldn’t take advantage of you…not like this.” Though his words held conviction, it seemed his body betrayed him. His hand stayed on her waist, slowly trailing up and cupping her breast in his hand. She gasped softly at the feeling, and his thumb went to her lip again before he connected his lips to hers. She responded immediately, putting her hands on his arms. 

He kissed her like he was dying, his body subconsciously reacting more to the kiss then he’d wish it to. He pulled her flush against him, his strong hands coming to cup her face, his shoulders shrugging in a futile attempt to have her closer. He opened his mouth, causing her to gasp at the feeling of his tongue against hers. Her mouth moved with his as if it was known to her; As if this was a dance she had practiced for years to perfect, as if the dance of her lips was a song that Aemond had mastered just for her. 

She practically melted in his arms. She had been kissed before; Jace was a good kisser but he was soft, and the kisses were never not chaste. But, kissing Aemond was like walking through fire. Her entire body reacted to the way he clung to her body, how he pulled her impossibly closer. It was like a fire had escaped through his lips and was now coursing through her veins and settling in her abdomen. 

Even though she didn’t know exactly what to do, it seemed her body did. Her hands slid down his arms and slowly made their way to his chest as she moaned softly. 

The moan grounded him, like he had been falling from the heavens and down to earth. He suddenly pulled away, breathless as he stared down at her. Her eyes opened steadily, and she looked up at him with confusion while a frown graced her kiss swollen lips. 

“We shouldn’t have done that.” He spoke breathlessly, his hand still gently stroking her side. 

“Maybe not..but it felt good.” Gods, the way she spoke held him in a chokehold. He wished desperately to dive back into her; To drown in her lips and never come up for air, but.. 

“Not again. You are to be married.” He suddenly pulled away and at the feeling of his hands leaving her body, she frowned deeper. 

“Aemond-” “Goodnight, Princess.” 

And with that, the prince turned and rushed back into the keep. 

____________________________________________

Aemond couldn’t sleep. He tossed and turned in bed, picking at his nails, biting his lip-genuinely anything to help stop the incessant thoughts of her lips. 

The thoughts started off sweet and innocent. The way she looked up at him as he trailed his thumb over her lip, the way her lips pursed just slightly when he leaned forward. 

But then the thoughts got venereal fast. He thought about how he felt to finally kiss her. The way his lips practically burned when they pulled away. He knew that as he gazed at her kiss swollen lips his night would be harbored with thoughts of what they’d look like doing gods knows what else. 

His hand slid down underneath the sheets, firmly grasping at his length as he let out a shuddering breath. He hated doing this; Feeling so pent up and so desperate that he had to resort to using himself. But as of right now he couldn’t care less. 

He imagined her lips around his cock, her innocent eyes gazing up into his. He’d imagine the way she’d gag around him, how her lips would look kissing the head of his cock. 

He groaned at the thought, his head tipping back as he closed his eye and let his thoughts wander more. He’d think about how she’d look with his seed covering her lips and her chin, how she’d moan his name as he devoured her between her legs-

He peaked with a gasp, and a low moan of her name. The minute his orgasm washed over him, and he started to slowly come down, he felt an intense feeling of guilt, shame, but most of all pain. 

Guilt and shame because he hated himself for touching himself to someone who couldn’t be his. 

Pain because she’d never be his. Pain because he knew that no matter what he did, she’d still be betrothed to Jacerys. 

____________________________________________

The next morning, she sat alone at breakfast, supposedly liking it more that way. With her fiance practically ignoring her, and her father too entranced with kissing the king's ass, she learned to enjoy the solitude of just…nothing. 

Plus, she always had her thoughts. Even if they were only occupied with Aemond. 

She played around with the food on her plate as her mind trailed. She remembered the way he kissed her, how he held her. She felt happy, something she so rarely felt with Jacerys. 

She knew how he felt, how he longed for and wished for Baela. She did not blame him, she was beautiful, but she also didn’t feel sad, which, at a point did bother her but, not so much. 

At least, not after last night. 

She smiled to herself as she thought about the kiss, wishing that he would do it again, longing for the way the heat escalated through her body. 

She didn’t register the voice next to her until it spoke her name. 

She looked up, surprised. But, when her eyes met with Aemond’s, her heartbeat quickened, and she smiled. 

“Aemond.”

“You’re not hungry?”

“What?” “You’re not eating.” “Oh,” Her cheeks flushed red for a reason unbeknownst to her, and with a soft huff, she pushed the plate away, “It seems as though I have lost my appetite.” 

Aemond looked concerned at that, and he looked down at her. Despite himself, he found himself worrying yet again for her comfort, her needs. 

“Is something the matter?” She shakes her head, but for some reason, Aemond was persistent. “If this is about what happened last night, then I should apologize-” 

“Apologize?” She interrupted, sitting up straighter at the mention of the word. “Why?” 

“Yes…apologize. Because we should not have done that-”

“But I wanted it to happen.” 

Aemomd stopped and he slowly looked towards her. His eye pierced into hers as if to read every thought and emotion that crossed her brain. He just simply couldn’t believe her. 

“You shouldn’t say things you do not mean, Princess.”

“You don’t know that I don’t mean it.”

“Princess-”

“Aemond.” She said his name as if to challenge him, and he knew that he truly could never challenge her. He saw it in her eyes, he saw by the way she looked at him and smiled that she wished for him just as he wished for her. But these feelings-these blockages-would only cause unnecessary trouble. 

“Please, do not give me a hope that cannot be upheld.” Her heart broke a little at that, and, as he stood to leave, she instinctively stood with him, taking his wrist in her hand as she pulled on his arm. As if the small gesture would stop him from walking, (it did). 

“Aemond please..You do not know what I wish for.” 

His lip curled down into a small frown as he looked at her. He knew what she felt-at least he thought he did-but even if his suspicions were right, even if she did wish for him like how he longed for her, he couldn’t. He may dislike, perhaps even hate his nephew, but he was better than stealing his fiance. 

Right?

“We cannot. To be with you would disgrace your family and the alliance-” 

“Fuck the alliance!” She swore, her eyes boring into his as she studied his face. “Fuck the alliances Aemond, I wish for you. Desperately, I wish for you. Jace does not see me like how you do. Jace does not make me feel the way that you do-”

“It does not matter if Jace makes you happy or if he makes you feel desired-” “He does not wish for me as you do!”

“Princess-” “You do not understand! We are speaking of breaking it off. Neither of us wish for this.” Aemond went quiet at this and he sighed heavily, turning his full body towards her. He pried his arm away from her, staring at her incredulously, his body language giving no open window to how he was truly feeling. With no words coming from him, she continued. 

“I love you.” At those words Aemond showed his shock. He took a step back from her and he raised an eyebrow. 

“You do not mean-”

“Oh for the love of-Yes! I mean it! I love you, Aemond! I love you as if it is breathing! Instinctively, not thinking about it….I love you.” 

Aemond couldn’t hold it anymore, he walked to her and gripped her face tightly, her cheeks squishing slightly in his grasp as he smashed his lips against hers. She initially was shocked at the sudden kiss, but she kissed him back fiercely, holding his wrists as she leaned up to kiss him deeper. 

He led her back until he pressed her back against the table, holding her thighs as he pushed her onto the table. His body fit perfectly in between her thighs, just like he imagined it would. His hands gripped her thighs, one of his hands traveling up, feeling and savoring the soft skin as he groaned. 

She pulled away from the kiss to leave small kisses along his jaw. He bit his lip at the feeling, the action presumably so innocent and so sweet it almost made him chuckle. 

He pulled back slightly, his gaze intense and lust filled as his hand trailed underneath her breasts. 

“Tell me to stop.” He demanded. His head was spinning with the lust that clouded it. He waited for her to push him away, or to whimper a soft “I do not think myself ready”- But she shook her head, bringing his head back to hers swiftly to connect their lips in another passionate kiss. 

He pulled away from the kiss, groaning to himself as he left hot, open mouthed kisses against her jaw and neck. He looked down, his breath heavy as he stared down into her cleavage. He wished for nothing more than to rip her dress open and kiss every inch of her body, but being in the dining room came with its disadvantages. So, he settled for kissing her cleavage, before trailing his lips down the fabric of her dress till he came to her thighs.

Aemond pushed her dress up as far as he could, staring at her the whole time. He slowly pushed her thighs about, giving her time to stop him but she never did. Gently kissing the inner side of her thigh, he tried to reassure her. He could see the uncertainty in her eyes; The way she looked at him with both anxiety and lust. He stared up at her searching for any sign or signal that would make him stop. 

“Is this okay?” Once he saw the light nod of her head, he disappeared underneath her dress. 

She had never been intimate with a man-courtesy of her father, enforcing the “Women should be pure” melodramatic speech into her head ever since she could stand. She always thought it to be a chore, only having heard stories from unhappy married women who hated their husbands, and much less disliked their children a little less, but this? This was exciting, this felt good. 

She placed a hand on his head, moaning his name under her breath as he ate her like a beast. His hands gripped her thighs as if to ground himself-He had tasted women before but for some reason she was so much sweeter, so much more divine. His eyes practically rolled back just from pushing his tongue into her heat, sucking gently on her flit before he pulled away slightly, focusing his attention on her clit as he dipped a finger inside of her. 

The sudden stretch made her jump, and gasp loudly. She may have pleasured herself before but it really never felt like what Aemond was doing to her. He eased his finger in slowly, dragging it back out, and then slowly pushing it back in. Hearing the moans that graced her lips, he continued the slow thrust of his finger for a moment before he added another one. 

She let out a loud moan, a hand on the back of his head as she pushed his head closer to her heat. She felt him chuckle against her, the vibrations only adding to the pleasure. She moaned loudly, perhaps too loudly for comfort, but Aemond only seemed to want more of those noises to come from her. 

He slowly curled his fingers, his mouth praising her clit. The added pressure with the curl of his fingers, and the sucking of her clit made her eyes squeeze shut. 

“Oh gods Aemond, I’m going to-” Just as her orgasm was going to consume her, it stopped. With her heavy breathing, and slightly shaky legs, she slowly sat up. Aemond smirked up at her, holding her gaze as he nipped at her inner thighs. “You stopped..” 

“Yes. Because if you are going to peak it should be on my cock.” 

Her face flushed at the words, and she stared at him with wide eyes as he pulled his trousers down slightly to free his throbbing cock. As their eyes met, he seemed to notice the slight anxiety in her eyes, because he pressed his forehead against hers and lined himself up with her entrance. 

“Tell me to stop if it hurts too much.” She nodded in response, and she wrapped her arms tightly around his shoulders as he pushed into her. She let out a gasp; The feeling was new, discomfiting but..new. Her face scrunched up at the stretch, and Aemond shushed her quietly as he started to move. After a few thrusts, her body relaxed, and she started to moan his name. 

Hearing his name fall from her lips was like a prayer answered, like a lifelong dream he had been waiting for. He grunted as he started to rock his hips back and forth into her slowly. It took everything inside of him to not pound into her, to fuck her like he had fantized about. He wished that her father could see her now, her maidenhood gone and her body fully submitting to the pleasure he so gracefully gave her. 

“Aemond..Aemond oh gods-” Her voice broke as he went faster, her moans only getting louder. She tried to wrap her mind around the pleasure he was giving her, the way his hips moved slowly yet deeply, the way the tip of his thick cock rubbed against the spot so deliciously. Her eyebrows furrowed, and she held him close to her. 

One of his hands was on her thigh, the other on the table as he thrusted into her, as if holding the edge of the table would stop the creaking sounds, or the way she moaned his name, or how his groans got louder as his climax approached. 

White splattered her vision as her orgasm washed over. She cried out his name in pleasure, holding him close as his legs trapped him inside of her. The feeling of her core pulsating and tightening made Aemond’s head spin, and he grunted out a moan of her name as he came himself, spilling his seed inside of her. 

As the two sat there, basking in the afterglow of being intimate, neither of them would move for what felt like hours. Even though the position that they were in was compromising, they smiled, and laughed softly at the situation itself. 

Once they both got cleaned up-the best they could get cleaned up for just having sex on the dining room table-Aemond took her hand. She smiled softly at Aemond, her heart racing in a new, and exciting way. The two stared at each other for a while, trying to wrap their minds around the fact that now, they could truly be together, or at least, now, they had a hope that they could be together.

____________________________________________

[valwrote]

PICK YOUR DOMESTIC HUSBAND 🛒

WHICH HUSBAND IS ON THE DOMESTICITY MENU TODAY?

featuring: diluc, alhaitham, zhongli, wriothesley, neuvillette.

synopsis: glimpses into married life with the genshin men.

warnings: implied fem!reader, occasional pet names, ooc (I have a sparse idea how diluc works, mention of "activities" (just mention I can't write smut pls), silly goofy ah loser coded men, mild swearing (damn, heck)

a/n: *stretching my back and crunching my neck.* I'm back from the dead. apologies for the choppy writing. thanks for the support on the other posts, if only I could write 50-page essays thanking everyone. <33 :')) not proofread.

DILUC 🍷

PRODUCT NAME: BREAKFAST AND KISSES IN BED. Diluc always hated the Knights of Favonius… 

He hated how most of them just stand around like buffoons and do not partake in any actual work that involves saving Mondstadt. He wouldn’t admit that he enjoys playing Batman. He hated them all except for one.

One he was willing to forgive all flaws of. "Knight of Favonius…always so inefficient,”  He scoffed at the pathetic sight of the hilichurls trying to dry roast a few knights roped to a wooden stick for their dinner. “Seriously, You’re so right Master Diluc.” Diluc’s head turned so fast at the sound of a new voice. When did you get here? Were you always there and how did he not sense you around?

That’s simply how you always were. A hard worker amidst slackers – he always termed despite Jean trying to explain that others work hard too. Perhaps that’s what caught his attention, honestly, he would never know what did. “G’morning…” He murmured against your skin, head buried in the crook of your neck, your flushed bare back pressed against him. “5 more minutes…” he heard your soft and groggy voice evoking a chuckle from the usually passive man. “Have I ever told you…how beautiful you are?” Diluc muttered against your skin. You smiled and turned around, “You always do. I remember my Dark-Knight Hero crying at the altar.” You pressed a finger against his chest, while he scoffed at the memory. “Don’t remind me about that, Kaeya doesn’t let me live that down…” He sighed, his brother consistently brought up the matter of him crying whenever he was losing an argument. Foul play if you ask anyone. “So…breakfast downstairs or in the bed?” He planted a kiss on your cheek while you hummed out a response, “Bed, you didn’t exactly go easy on me the previous night.” You recalled the events of the passionate night the day before. The honeymoon phase never seemed to end. “I am so sorry–” He panicked,” You're not in pain are you? I promise I’ll be gentle– I knew I should’ve been more considerat–” You stopped him by pressing a kiss against his lips. He groaned at the feeling of your soft lips touching his hands tangling themselves in your hair.

“I’m kidding silly… you should stop taking things so seriously unless you want me to start searching for grey hairs amidst those red locks of yours.” You snickered out seeing him release a breath of relief.

If the Darknight Hero really does exist, he's probably just someone in disguise. When he gets up in the morning to brush his teeth, it's the real him. He was his real him in front of you. People may call him a loser for such vulnerability…he was a loser for you.

ALHAITHAM 🌱

PRODUCT NAME: READING BOOKS OUT LOUD. One would say married to someone like Alhaitham was nothing short of a nightmare. They weren't 100% right. Shrouded beneath the aloof and meticulous personality resided someone who was in complete denial towards being loved. He loves it.

Who was he kidding? Nobody in a million years thought someone could put up with his insufferable personality — said Kaveh, his unpaying tenant. That was until he ran into you during his time as the newly appointed Scribe. You were like a painter, splashing heaps of paint in his 90s black-and-white life. Was eating ice cream always this enjoyable or was it because it was with you? Was the gossip between co-workers always this interesting or was it because it included you?

Why was his heart having an entire Queen’s rock and roll concert talking to you? Was it cardiac arrest or– He almost shuddered at the thought of it being what they called love.

“You’ve got flour on your face, sweetheart.” His teal eyes blinked amusingly into yours, a faint smile curling up his lips. You must have saved a nation in your previous life to land this man as your husband. Beige shirt perfectly sculpting around his abs – contrary to him calling himself “feeble,” hair slightly tousled and slight sleepiness in his eyes. He might not act like it but he was a little child whose needs had to be tended to like the coffee mug in his hands which you made, like usual. You wouldn’t want a cranky Alhaitham now, would you? “Hmpf, not my fault, this cooking book is completely bogus!” You rubbed your cheeks with the back of your hand, wiping away any remaining flour. “This is so boring…if only someone could provide their poor wife with some entertainment.” You always resorted to theatrics to get him to do things for you, albeit begrudgingly. “No, the same tactic is not going to work again.” “Please…” “No…” He groaned, tone almost pleading not to put him through the torture again. “During better or worse!” You resorted to the ace up to your sleeve. WEDDING VOWS! “Stop quoting the wedding vows.” He sighed in defeat. The most intellectually gifted man in the nation couldn't win against his own wife. Ironical. He got up and grabbed a book out of the bookshelf; a small fraction of his much larger library.

“Miss Elizabeth,” Alhaitham lazily flipped through the pages earning a rebuke. “More emotion! You are ruining the scene.” Alhaitham sighed and cleared his throat, “I love you most ardently…” His tone was feathery soft, emotion surging in it. A smile crept up as he stared at you endearingly.

“That’s much better. Though I seriously think Mr Darcy should’ve said– Miss Elizabeth, allow me to kiseth thy lovely lips.” You mimicked the deep voice of the character with the failing British accent. “Please have mercy on Jane Austen’s ghost and let her enjoy the afterlife.” Alhaitham chuckled and continued reading as you continued baking.  It was a shame that a man of such talent only paid attention to the truth itself and not to the people around him. If only the searching eyes of the ordinary say the exception to his indifference, you.

This was your biosphere, just you, him, novels and food encapsulated inside your small home.

ZHONGLI 🪨

PRODUCT NAME: ALWAYS ON HIS MIND. What is the best but the most useless flex you have? Being married to the Geo Archon. The inability to just tell the whole world that you are married to the frigging god was painful. You yourself were surprised by your ability to control yourself. Zhongli was a man of carefully curated words. Instead of words, straight-up poetry flew out of his mouth. Everyone knew how much he adored his wife, every vendor, every acquaintance, heck even Venti. Wangsheng Funeral Parlor's mysterious consultant. Handsome, elegant, and surpassingly learned. Excellent memory. A master of courtesy and rules. The amount of poor women who have tried to grab his attention. "Mr.Zhongli, how does this look?" the woman, who he remembered meeting over a history discussion 17 days ago. "Hm?" his amber eyes shifted to gaze at the hairpiece the lady was holding. "Most exquisite.." He remarked, seemingly going into deep thought. Instead of a compliment, he said something that made the woman back away, "Such beautiful craftsmanship...may I ask you to tell me where you found this? I wish to buy one for my wife–" he paused, seeing the lady vanished after pointing at the shop where she got it from. "Zhongli, you should be able to tell why people approach you..." Hutao sighed, standing beside the rather oblivious gentleman. "Let's just continue...we've got customers to find!" Hutao started walking alongside the railing, hoping to find people in need of funeral services. "Maybe we should go and ask peopl– Zhongli??" Hutao looked around for the Consultant, who was caught up chatting with a shopkeeper over some earrings. "Zhongli!" Hutao called out to him, causing his head to turn towards the director. "Oh, apologies...It seems I got too carried away. These earrings caught my eye...I'm sure [Name} would love them.." he mumbled, staring at the jewellery. "I'll take them." "Mister Zhongli? What about the payment..." The shopkeeper meekly asked, causing Zhongli to turn his head fully at Hutao; gazing expectantly. Hutao should've expected this... "Zhongli, we are out here to find customers! Not buying gifts for [Name], her birthday is months away!" "They say the best things should be done first. After all, why must I wait for one specific day to express my love for my beloved?" Zhongli asked curiously and Hutao shaked her head; love was clearly out of her expertise. Zhongli, he is particular about everything. He only attended the best operas and focused on the perfect ratio for the creation of an authentic dish.  On a typical day, all you will glean from him is a few pieces of useless trivia, because he particularly enjoys sharing these fun tidbits with you. He was particular about you and your likings. A smile on your face was what he wanted by the end of the day. For being someone alive for 6000 years, he could proudly say that he loved and cherished something– someone.

"Wait here, Director Hu...Perhaps I should get those flowers over there to accompany the hairpin and earrings..."

WRIOTHESLEY 🐺

PRODUCT NAME: BATTLE TO BUY A DOG OR NOT.

"Wriothesley, I want a dog!" You crossed your arms, staring down at the Duke who was glued to the chair in his office. “But why? That’s just unnecessary responsibility…” Wriothesley sighed, rubbing his temples. This was the 3rd time this month you’ve brought up this topic. Was he that incompetent in terms of filling his role as your significant other? Perhaps not with the never-ending paperwork. Oh, how he wished people would just stop committing crimes. “I get lonely in the Fortress…I want a child.” You put forth your point by using the term ’ child’. Child, dog same thing. You hoped to finally convince him this time.

“We have Sigewinne.” Wriothesley pointed at the head nurse prepping tea in the room with the back of his pen. “I am sorry, Your Grace but playing the role of the child is out of my job description.” The Melusine replied indifferently, pouring freshly seeped tea into the three cups. “Fine, we will go get one…I’ll schedule a meeting with the owner of the pet shelter. Happy?” He asked you, chin resting on his palm. Perhaps getting a dog was a good idea as he was guilty of being unable to spend quality time with you… “No way…” “Isn’t that..?” “The Duke of the Meropide–” “He rarely appears in public..” Wriothesley held out the door to the shelter for you, hoping you would go in and it would finally save him from the gaze of curious onlookers. The two of you walked in, only to be pounced upon by a big dog. “Kal! You sly dog! I knew I shouldn’t have let you out!” The caretaker yelled at the big ball of black fur who had tackled Wriothesley to the floor and was aggressively licking his face, tail wagging in delight. “Are you okay?” You asked your fallen husband, who just chuckled in response. “I am good just– Okay stop! I understand your gesture of love.” Wriothesley got up as the dog encircled him. “This one is so adorable…” you gasped at the cuteness radiating from the dog and its big brown eyes. “You’ve got a keen eye! This is Kal, Shiloh Shepard, one of the finest dogs out there.” The caretaker combed her fingers through the thick and groomed black coat of the canine. “He seems to have taken a liking to the Duke.” The caretaker continued as the dog ran back to Wriothesley, peppering his face with licks. “He even looks like you.” You teased as Wriothesley stared at you in disbelief. You did not just compare him to a dog…he even did a double take at the dog to confirm. “We will take this one then…” He chuckled in amusement. Never had he imagined marrying you and on top of that getting a four-legged beast. Needless to say, Wriothesley proudly walked out of the shelter, holding the big dog in his hands like a child. It felt complete ever since getting Kal; like your own little family. Wriothesley wouldn’t admit it but he loved the dog, despite it hogging all of your love and attention. He didn’t expect to be fighting over cuddling rights with a dog!? 

He watched you and Kal sleep peacefully on the couch, keeping him company while he finished up his work. He felt a sense of gratitude…people of the Fortress knew little of the crime he once committed. The only one who still remembers it like yesterday is Wriothesley himself. And no matter how much glory or repute he has earned, he still considers himself to be the same old Wriothesley he's always known.Neither a good person nor a complete villain. He's just another soul, still living on in this world. However, your eyes always reassured him in ways he couldn’t describe. Everything was perfect…

[Name]!! YOURDAMN DOG PISSED ON MY COAT!! Maybe not that perfect…whoops.

NEUVILLETTE 🌊

PRODUCT NAME: HELPING THE OTHER DRESS.

Monsieur Neuvillette, The Iudex of Fontaine, always wondered how his life had come to this. 500 years of serving his position as the Beacon of Justice, a lovely, beaming baker somehow broke the monotony. Well, calling you just a baker was now an insult. With your ring finger bejewelled, with one of the rarest gems– an ode to his undying loyalty and representation of his eternal love. “It’s astounding how a covert mission conducted by melusines could’ve landed someone such as myself a lady like her…” He muttered to himself, seeing his full form in the mirror. “Talking to yourself, again?” You leaned against the door frame, lopsidedly smiling at the peculiar antics of Fontaine’s most distinguished man. “Ah, apologies…I didn’t think you would notice me conversing with myself. Now I find myself in a rather awkward predicament.” He chuckled. Dear god, this man was so beautiful that his beauty was almost blinding with the morning sun perfectly hitting his face.

“Say ah,” You requested and he complied. Who better to take constructive criticism from other than your husband? “New filling?” He covered his mouth while chewing on the croissant. “Yup, how is it? I was experimenting with some Rainbow Roses and these Inazuman berries I bought.” You blinked curiously, waiting for some input. “Hmm it is very pleasant, it is fascinating how you manage to maintain the freshness of the fruit…” You smiled at his compliment, before noticing him struggling with the jabot around his neck. “Need help?” You offered and he nodded his head. “This is absurd..it usually isn’t this difficult.” He frustrated replied, it was amusing to see the cool and collected man all worked up about clothing. “I suggest simplifying your outfit.” You attached the jabot and secured it in with the teardrop brooch, fixing the ruffles. 

“Thank you. I do prefer my outfit as it conveys the message I wish for it to convey.” He explained before staring at you. You knew that look, he looked at you with his eyebrows slightly creased when he was hesitating from saying something. “What is it?” “Do I get a goodbye kiss before I leave?” “Pfft! I didn’t think you would take that seriously!” Conclusion: this man was wayyy to cute.

Neuvillette is a solitary person. Neuvillette is not known for his personal desires.

He was deemed as someone with unassailable impartiality. If only they knew that perhaps the Iudex was just a wee bit biased.

a/n 2.0: the crust will come off...hopefully. i wonder if it's possible to guess which one of them is my favourite??

don't steal, copy, plagiarise, or translate.

©definitelysel

[kiss-me-muchoo]

𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐮𝐦𝐯𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞 || 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐱 𝐟𝐞𝐦!𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐱 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐦𝐚𝐧

summary_ A triumvirate is a group of three people who share power, you hated the island your father brought you to. Your summer vacations turned you witness of some bloody games, what surprised you was how you ended up being the rag doll of the salesman and frontman of the organization that held the games.

warnings_age gap (reader is in her early 20s), reader is implied to be American (not specified again), sexual tension, very mild sex, oral (f!receiving), PLOT HOLES AND NO PROOFREADING YET, ooc salesman and frontman, violence, manipulation, marriage, questionable morals, do not romanticize this irl pls

notes_ i wanted to do something more interesting but I’m busy and about to start spring semester YET, MORE FICS COMING!!!!!!!!

♫ ♪ the worst playlist 4 gong yoo

✰ Index (+ fics here)

ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈

The would’ve could’ve should’ve constantly popped up in your head. Wonder how different your life could have been if you had grown up with a normal family.

As a child you experienced fear whenever your parents held parties, usually there was the dead body of a man drowning in blood. Enemies of your father were brought to said parties and faced a violent ending.

With the odds against your favor, it was your mother who suffered the same destiny because of your progenitor’s bullshit.

He gave you too much independence, but what he had done to you over the years, made you a lonely, selfish, disobedient woman.

You could’ve stolen some money and lived a life away from everything you knew. But the least he could do was to pay for everything your heart desired. One day you would be better off without him but for now, you endured.

The mysterious island he brought you to seemed nice. A luxurious private complex was all for you. The weird thing was that it had no windows, no balconies, and no way to communicate with the exterior.

Midday, you were supposed to watch some entertainment the island offered; a game they said.

“Why do we have to wear this crap?” You ask as your father hands you a golden mask. “We’ve talked about this. Don’t be a bitch and comply”

It seemed like a bird, maybe a hummingbird. But it was disturbing for some reason. He wore a robe and you thought it was just a normal game. Hence why your dress seemed like a little bit too much for the occasion.

You peeked your head through the door and you saw how many people sat and watched a big screen while a crowd of people in green tracksuits ran in opposite directions, soon many died and it was a bloodbath.

You nearly vomited.

“I won’t go in there”

“You’re expected to, now put that mask on be a good daughter,” he said grabbing your forearm you tried to move away but he placed more pressure.

“Disturbs among VIPs are not allowed” a pink guard came into vision.

He had to be a man, tall and imposing.

“My apologies, I was just telling my father I won’t watch the games tonight” you firmly say.

“Don’t be stupid, y/n. Not when I’ve spent millions on this” You shrug and he was about to slap you when the pink guard pulled you backward to avoid the slap and another figure stepped in.

“What is going on in here?” A much deeper voice spoke, the man wore a dark suit and black mask. He must’ve been the frontman.

“This stupid child won’t go inside and watch the games” You can feel both the guard and frontman eyeing you. Suddenly you felt naked in the strapless black dress.

The frontman pats your father’s back and calls him by his name, making you realize he knows him, perhaps they’re friends.

“Let your child be. If she doesn’t want to watch, she doesn’t have to. 004, escort her back to her complex” The guard nods and indicates you to follow him.

With one last look, you see and hear your father cursing, entering the room. And that imposing frontman, standing there, watching you behind his mask.

…

For the rest of the day, you are left alone. At night, you decide to make good use of the pool your complex included. Overall the place was dark, it had a lot of yellow and orange bulbs that illuminated enough, giving a futuristic but slightly contemporary dark space.

The pool was perfectly warm and it was the only place with blue lights.

The memory of your asshole father hadn’t come into the picture ever since the morning. On the other hand, the masks of that pink guard and the frontman haunted you.

And then you heard something. Someone opening the principal door.

You stayed there, trying to remain completely quiet, hoping that the sound of the water would disguise the way you nervously breathed.

You closed your eyes for a second, and when you opened them again. You had him there; the frontman.

“You didn’t want to watch my games. Why is that?” He asks through the dark mask as if he hadn’t intruded. You remain silent, unsure of what to do. “Answer me”

“I didn’t sign up for that kind of entertainment when my fucking asshole father brought me here” you reveal, trying to sound cool. But the truth was that you wanted to run.

“He truly hates you,” he says, making you smir, nodding. “Yes, and I hate him as well”

“I can tell it had to do with the death of your mother…” his words make you react fast.

“Take that ridiculous mask off if you are going to put the name of my mother in your mouth”

In the mere silence, the only sound disturbing it, was his mask dropping to the floor, revealing an intimidating man.

Slick hair, deep eyes, sharp jawline. Handsome overall…

Still, you remain.

“I would like to describe what makes you so intriguing…”

“You’re just an old man with an old dick and set your naughty eyes on a young ass like me” you swear you see a tiny smirk on his face, which quickly evaporates.

“Smart girl…” you roll your eyes, your hands floating around the warm pool. And you shouldn’t be turned on by that nasty old man staring there, intruding and invading your privacy like nothing. But there was something dark and twisted that was making you feel naughty.

So you pushed yourself up by your shoulders and offered a full view of your naked body to the frontman.

What was happening? Certainly unsure…

He watched deliberately, almost as if he was testing the waters and proving you were unhinged like him.

“I won’t be the one pleasing you tonight” Your confusion only grows after the door opens up again and you see a pink guard entering. By the height and greeting he offered to his boss, you knew it was the one who saved you from your father’s slap.

“What the actual fuck?…” the frontman only gives him a nod and you lay there, waiting until the guard is beside you.

You look up, confused, still holding yourself back with your elbows. His black boots push your feet to the side, inviting you to move around, aside from the pool.

“What? You’re gonna eat me up?” The guard remains silent.

“He will teach you manners” the frontman speaks, making you turn to look at him once again.

“I like being a brat, darling. It has always been this way…” Your cocky smile soon disappears after the guard takes his mask off and you encounter a younger handsome man.

He kneels and your eyes almost pop open because at that moment you realize what was actually happening.

The gloved hands of the guard lay on your open legs, making sure you lifted them, the heels of your feet almost touching your ass.

The guard eyes you and you almost shiver. He was almost asking permission to touch you. His touch was nice, even his gaze seemed welcoming.

You watch his head disappear between your legs and it’s over.

“F-fuck” you moan, arching your back while the man between your legs works his tongue in and out of your weeping hole.

“Ah- ah, I’ve never been this wet before” you admit shamelessly, groping your breasts while you end up making eye contact with the guard.

He is slightly older than you, but he’s disturbingly handsome.

“Make her cum, 004” the frontman speaks, seated straight in one of the couches across the pool, where he watches with ease.

You want to know the name of the source of your pleasure so bad.

His tongue flicked around your clit and it made you roll your eyes, throwing your head back and losing yourself in the pleasure and the water reflection on the black ceiling.

The moment his nose nudged your clit and his tongue lapped at your cunt harder than before, you came so hard your legs opened impossibly wider than ever.

You wanted to stay there forever.

…

Your heels clacked with each step through the city. A lot of people turned to look at you. In a tight tube skirt, a top with a squared neck and the most classy coat the city could see. At the subway station, you eyed a man looking at you. He was hot and you smiled at him, turning to leave the station.

He was following you. You could feel his steps behind you. You should’ve been afraid, but it only fueled your stomach with anticipation.

Making a turn in a filthy alley, you felt his big hand on your nape and pushed you against the wall.

You didn’t even object, you only pulled him closer to make a wet mess on his lips.

“You look too damn hot tonight,” he said in your lips.

“Take me to dinner and I might believe you” both of you chuckled.

You didn’t leave the island, neither did your father.

The first time you returned to Seoul was to get married. That pink guard who ate your cunt three years ago was now the recruiter of those deadly games, or how you preferred to call him; your salesman. And he was your husband.

“That time of the year is coming…” you say as he grabs your hand guiding you to a sandwich place. “I don’t want to go…”

“You don’t have to, I’ll go and say you are sick” Your husband ever the loyal, tried to soothe your worries, but it was in vain.

“I don’t want him to take it out on you, baby” Your salesman nods at your words, the uncomfortable tilt of his face making you aware of how uneasy the subject made him.

Whenever the Squid Game was about to begin, it was your task and your husband’s to recruit people.

Both in classy attires and with attractive features made it harder for the victims to deny the offer. Young people constantly whispered how much of a hot couple you two were while riding the subway or walking random streets.

“There’s three weeks left, darling. Let’s not let it get in our way yet” he says, opening the door of the sandwich place.

The smell of vinegar, freshly baked bread, and spices make your stomach growl and your husband notices it.

“As it seems you are very hungry…The usual?” You nod at him, urging him to lean and make it easy for you to leave a kiss on his cheek.

His cute smile makes you get hearty eyes.

You eye your husband as he orders the food and you wait by an empty table.

He’s loyal, devoted, hot as fuck, insane, sadistic and a sociopath. But in your eyes he’s perfect.

Nothing compared to him.

In the beginning, it was all pure carnal lust. He liked to watch how your husband, at that time 004 ravished you. Then he opted to make said guard look while he took you.

In-ho was cold and rough but gentle and a good listener.

He understood you, got rid of your father so that you could acquire all of his money and leave.

But you didn’t want to because you had him and 004. For months it all fell into a toxic routine. Your delusions of having two men infatuated by you grew to the point you felt love towards both.

But at the same time, it wasn’t the same love.

In-ho ascended 004 as a recruiter and you weren’t ready to see him go away. He would only visit the island whenever the games were about to begin.

Call it a fluke or bad news, but during those days you learned you actually meant nothing for the frontman. And before you could’ve experienced heartbreak, 004 asked you to leave with him as a recruiter.

It was at that exact moment when you comprehended nobody would care for you like him.

You were his since he pulled you away from your father’s slap.

Heavens smiled at you as the old man who was the remaining superior of In-ho at the time approved your petition of becoming a recruiter as well.

You felt no remorse as you left the island, without saying goodbye to In-ho. But over the years you would learn you would never escape completely from him.

It would always go back to being your salesman, your frontman, and you.

…

You stare at the album in your hands. A picture of you and your salesman on your wedding day. Nobody attended, Who would’ve? None of you had friends, family, or people who mattered.

A stranger took the picture. A stranger was witness to two insane humans celebrating their marriage.

And ever since, you believe it was the best decision of your life.

Your husband and you were… intense. From 52 weeks of the year, three were for recruiting people and one to notify the island. The rest, it was you and your man playing cat and mouse games with dauntless people who dared to try to uncover the roots of the Squid Game and everything behind.

48 weeks to cherish your husband, let him fuck you with his favorite gun, and then shove it in your mouth until you were sobbing from pleasure and committing crimes under the excuse of protecting your people.

Any morals you carried were washed away as soon as you married.

But you wouldn’t change it. With your father gone and in the arms of the man you loved, nothing could possibly hurt you.

Not even that man leading the island you hated so much.

…

At some point, you thought your daily life was actually the bubble you lived in, while the short annual visit to that island was actually your reality. Walking on the same grounds where your father’s corpse was rotting wasn’t a pleasant reminder. Even less when you were forced to separate from your husband.

Both of you exchanged looks when a familiar pink guard stepped between you and him.

“Our frontman has requested to only receive you” the modulated voice was directed towards you.

“It’s gonna be okay, dear,” you say to your salesman, whose discontent was more than evident.

Normally, he had the right to feel superior because he was able to taste power over ordinary people. But when it came to being just a messenger for his boss, having to allow his wife to go where of course he didn’t want, was torture.

“You’re smart, don’t let him get under your skin,” your husband said in your ear, before standing straight, hands behind his back while he offered one of his signature feigned smiles towards the guard.

Under that confident stance, you could see a worried man.

But he was right, you were smart.

The smell of the whole place was indescribable, but intoxicating, in the best possible way. You remember that as the only good thing, as stupid as it sounded.

The dark halls are long, slightly illuminated by the warm yellow lights you remember very well. Time seems to pass slower than it appeared because the walk towards an office you knew so well felt eternal.

But finally, the guard stopped and opened the door for you.

Let the games begin…

It was just the same as the last time you were in there.

In-ho was seated, drinking of course.

“How’s marriage life?” His voice seemed to sound even deeper, he sounded more evil.

“Long time no see, darling. My marriage life has been perfect as usual”

“Good, it would be a shame if you had told me our recruiter can’t make you happy or fuck you properly” You roll your eyes, pacing towards him with ease. You offered a brief massage on his tense shoulders, feeling how he relaxed after your touch. It was then that you decided to lean and whisper in his ear.

“Relax, In-ho. You were the one who wanted me gone. You set the spark between my husband and me, remember?” He closed his eyes, sipping the remaining of his drink.

“Stop talking and use that pretty mouth for something useful instead” he grabbed one of your hands and pushed you to the floor, making you sink into your knees.

His big hand trailed your jawline and harshly made you look at him in the eye.

He looked tired, but he still got something.

“I won’t complain, In-ho. You can use me…” of course you would not say no, the first time he pointed a gun to your forehead and promised to torture your husband, so you wouldn’t commit the same error twice.

“Atta girl…”

And with that, you tried to focus on the sounds instead of the view, because you wished it was your husband seating on that chair with his leaking cock fucking your mouth. But it was the frontman and you weren’t totally displeased by him.

…

The salesman opened the door, encountering his boss standing up and you on the floor with glossy eyes and a mess on your face.

“Ah, good you’re here. Hand me the statics…” he walks away, leaving you on your knees and tits out, feeling completely used. Your husband only eyes you briefly and you can tell he’s not pleased with the sight. Your cheeks burn in embarrassment and you rush to grab a cloth and clean any trace of cum. “Oh, and clean your wife, we got a little messy…”

The frontman puts his mask on and leaves the room after grabbing the folder your salesman handed him, making the room feel heavy.

You stand up, pulling up the straps of your dress.

“Are you alright?” Your salesman asks quickly. You sigh, nodding. “Yes, it’s the same every year”

“I fucking hate this. Next time, I’ll be witnessing…”

“What?” you question him shocked, dropping the cloth with cum stains.

“If I can’t do anything to stop this from happening, then I’ll be present” he thought it was a low blow, but he couldn’t bear leaving his wife and letting his boss manhandle her like a little rag doll.

Although that was what you’ve always been.

“He knows you hate this. He’ll try to take advantage and I don’t want you to get in trouble” You could handle In-ho and his little whim, but if you lost your husband, it all be over.

All because that old man didn’t want you anymore but couldn’t let you go.

“Believe me, I’ll control myself just because I want to prove to him that I’m your husband” You hated to see the facade of confidence fall from your salesman. He was always so cocky, arrogant and in control.

“He can fuck you once a year, but I am the one who has carved into your skin and will always claim you as mine”

And there he was. That was your man. You literally jump into his arms and he greets you with a desperate kiss.

“Once we collect all the money we need, we’re leaving, baby. Wherever you want, and you will always have the chance to show me off as your wife” you say placing his tie in place and after that, you kiss him dearly.

…

Hand in hand, you and your husband walk through the cloudy streets of Seoul. You have a brown skirt with wine-red flowers, a black top, and a coat along with some elegant heels. Your man wearing a dark grey suit and a strong hand holding yours.

“Do you like burgers?” You ask him as you wait for a cab. He only shrugs and smiles at you.

“I like anything that has meat and vegetables”

“True. It’s just that I really liked having burgers back at home. That’s what I want to have as my first meal with you” you admit shyly, feeling like a little girl giving immature declarations.

“Anything will be fine, sweetheart” you pout, accommodating his tie.

“I’m gonna miss watching you in suits every day” your husband smirks.

“Your loss is my luck. I’ll get to see you in sundresses and leggings whenever” you laugh.

“You’re so naughty, dear” For some seconds, you forget you are in the middle of the street, with two hours left in Seoul and billions of money traveling in a clandestine plane.

“One more task keeping up appearances, doll. Just one more…” he says returning to his serious self, opening the door of the cab for you.

“Just one more…” you mumble.

Soon you two are waiting a couple of blocks away from the airport. Where an ex-cop parks his car and hops off.

“Nice to meet you in person…” you say taking his hand and then your husband doing the same.

His name is Hwang Jun-ho and he is the brother of the frontman.

One thing led to another and after one call, you and your salesman offered to give details of where the island you so much hated was.

“We’re gonna need a little favor, though…” the young man eyes you and your husband. He finds the two of you odd, deserving of each other but there was something behind the aura you two held that made him thoughtful. “What kind of favor?…”

“We need you to erase any documents that could identify me and my husband.” your salesman speaks as you softly take his hand and caress his long fingers.

“I can erase any license, passport, identification card, and bank cards. However… your birth certificate will always be available in the system” Jun-ho says, meaning the last part to be meant for your husband. He only tilts his head.

“That won’t be an issue”

“Then we have a deal,” the ex-cop says, extending his hand.

You gladly shake it, feeling an immense wave of serenity flowing through your entire being.

“You’ll have our call as soon as we get out of Korea” With that, destiny is sealed.

You and your husband burn your business attires and enter the airport under the names of a diseased couple who lived in the 1960s in Seoul. You catch his smile as you two wait to board the plane that will lead you to a new life.

Away from the games, the island, and that man. You never much of him, In-ho was the cause of your aches every year. But as you leave with your husband you realize that frontman was also your savior. Who handed you your freedom, the love of your life, good sex and was whom you had just sentenced to death.

_______________________________________________

Taglist: @stargirl-mayaa @hannawigdahl @angela075905 @dynaloy @crispybaguettes @dorayakissu @greensunflowerjuna @mackythoughts @nightdark-dreamdark @ilovethe141 @rafecamsgirlll @space-girl-16 @laurenbenoit70

[backgroundcharactera]

His unique magic

cw: ooc characters, angst no comfort, reader is human, reader dies

Riddle Rosehearts

For the first time in his life, he hates it. He loathes his unique magic with all his heart. Why did they, his first, and supposedly last love, commit a crime? Why did they have to be sentenced to death? Why did the executioner have to say, “Off with your head!” as the blade sliced down?

Leona Kingscholar

Why did he forget? They were just standing there. So near, his rage made the area of effect too large. He watched, in wide-eyed horror as that person disintegrated to dust.

Jade Leech

The rest of the nurse’s empty condolences went in one ear and out the other. It was too late. No amount of electricity, shocking their heart would save them now. Perhaps 5 minutes ago, if his unique magic had matched its name then the monitor would not have a straight line on it.

Lilia Vanrouge

The house he shared with them looks exactly the same as the day they passed. He refused. Refused to move even a single thing. It was his comfort. Using his magic on their clothes would show him them once again. Their controller would show the time when they sat side by side racing in that game. The couch would show them napping with a tablet placed on their face. And he’d watch. Watch and cry in the silent house, frozen in time.

[honeyed-nothings]

To Have a Crush: Savanaclaw

Warning(s): Gender-neutral reader, not proof-read, OOC

Notes: Procrastination hit me hard…also I did not expect to spend an hour finding decent enough emoticons for them. May just switch to regular bullet point style someday since I’m still trying to figure out what format I like(╥_╥). Never realized how hard it was to make a pretty format on tumblr until now. Also I’ve gotten pretty rusty too but my schedule has finally cleared up a bit so I’ll be able to be a little more active now!

Heartslabyul | Savanaclaw | Octavinelle | Scarabia | Pomefiore | Ignihyde | Diasomnia | Special

Leona Kingscholar

𓄂 A crown of love that the king wears. A herbivore was all you were to him. Another nameless face in the faceless crowd of people who he couldn’t care less about in the grand scheme of things. That’s how it was supposed to stay…until it didn’t. The proud lion will never admit this (or at least not anytime soon) but that day where you, a weak and stupidly stubborn human, stood your ground among all the dust and debris was both one of the most frustrating experiences in his life and also the first time he ever thought of you as ‘strong’. Every so often he thinks back to that moment and sighs before pulling you towards him to lay on the grass.

𓄂 A king should always be accompanied by his retainers. However, he’s not king and you’re definitely not his retainer. Just a stubborn herbivore who happened to catch his eye, that’s all. You’re not that great as an errand runner either but it’s better than just one. A help that Ruggie greatly appreciates but occasionally complains about how you always take the lighter load. Don’t think much about it, he just doesn’t want you messin’ up or anythin’. Strangely, whenever you do run errands for him, there’s conviently always an extra that he gives to you. Reasoning to you that the King of Beasts would’ve done the same thing to those under his care. The proud lion knows this is a lie he can’t keep using to play off what he feels inside. Not when his own ears and tail betray him.

𓄂 Tch, well this is embarrassing.

𓄂 Maybe it was a good thing that Leona already knew. From the moment his tail unconsciously wrapped around you, he knew what his heart was telling him as it beat in his chest. There, with you and him napping underneath the shade of a tree, he realized he had fallen in love. He didn’t know whether he should’ve laughed or cursed the world so he chose to do neither instead. Gently brushing a stray leaf off that had fallen on your face, he chuckled. Guess something like love ain’t all that bad.

𓄂 A crownless lion who’s more hated than loved and a visitor from a place far from here. An interesting duo you two make as he pulls you yet again away from class to nap in the shade with him. His attempts at catching your heart aren’t too noticeable, only noticed by the keenest of eyes. He’ll never be the ideal partner, that he acknowledges despite his pride. But being sappy and overly romantic isn’t his style. That’s why, he’ll win your heart in his own way. A path perhaps not that of a king, but of a man in-love. The prideful lion may not bow his head to no one, but for you he’ll take a knee.

“Huh, well aren’t you gettin’ bolder? I didn’t think you’d beat me to it.”

Ruggie Bucchi

シ Hidden amidst the dirt and grime was love. It’s ingrained into Ruggie to look after people but he’s learnt to not let it be given without a price. Outside of his family and Leona, the latter of whom was more so to help his own skin, he didn’t exactly feel any desire or need to look after you. Sure he felt pity, after all you’re in a tighter spot than him in the world, but aside from that you were just an after thought. Nobody of note that could be beneficial to him in any way. That was until Leona overbloted and well…he’s somewhat grateful that you don’t have much of a survival instinct. You’re a real goody two-shoes aren’t you? Still, he’s thankful that you’re the way that you are. Hyenas never forget a debt and this one he owes to you alone.

シ It really just started off with it being to repay his debt to you. Sure it’s not much but he can’t really do anything fancy like paying you millions of madols or giving you land. That’s why, the hyena has chosen to pay it back his own way. Simple as it may be, it’s all he really has to offer. It’s not like watching your back is gonna cause him anymore work than he’s already got. Soon enough, he found himself doing more than what he intended to. Giving parts of his lunch to you, claiming he didn’t feel like it or there was extra. Stopping during his errands whenever he spotted you to have a quick chat before going off again with slightly more enthusiasm than before. Or heck, sparing you a few madols so you can get what you need. It’s kinda a loss but he just can’t seem to make himself stop. Not when you smile at him so brightly.

シ Wait a minute.

シ Nah…nahh he can’t seriously be in love with you or somethin’, right? Being close to you is just to pay off his debt, not cause he actually likes your company or anything, right?? But as his eyes catch his reflection on the window panes of the college, he can no longer deny the blush on his face or the rapid beating of his heart as the thought of you runs rampant in his mind once again. Well, guess there’s no point in fidgeting around anymore.

シ He’s not much, really he ain’t. Ruggie knows he won’t hold a candle to anyone else in the school in terms of magic or madol but what he does have is his smarts. In his own way, he’ll try and appeal to you. Sometimes he’s confident, other times he feels like he wants to die from how embarrassing it must’ve looked. Still, he tries and tries and tries. Hoping that maybe, just maybe, you’ll choose him buried underneath piles of trash.

“You-…you’re really choosing me?”

Jack Howl

ᴥ︎ Love that resounds throughout the night. A team up was all Jack figured it’d be. An agreement to right the wrongs and set things straight so that one day, once more, Savanaclaw would be able to say from the bottom of their hearts that they won. Nothing big enough to lead into the friendship that came to be between you and him. Well then things took a turn for the worse and then the better and well…he’s sure you get it. An accident, a friendship, a bond, whatever it is, the stubborn wolf has decided that he’ll have your back. No matter what and no matter where, he’ll help you out.

ᴥ︎ Respect was all it was. A respect towards a magicless human who proved their own strength by courageously standing in the face of death. Not everyone has a spirit like that and the wolf beastman couldn’t help but look at that and think ‘Ah, now that’s strength’. In doing so, he wanted to be respected by you too. That’s why, when he could, he’d wait outside Ramshackle and walk with you to your classes, carrying your books and providing an umbrella if it’s a rainy day. Need help on the homework? He won’t tell you the answers but he’ll help you figure it out at least. Like working out? Great! He’s more than willing to provide some tips and tricks to achieving the goal you want. Well it wasn’t until Ruggie teased him about how much more happy he seemed doing all that stuff for you that it finally clicked for him. This…isn’t good.

ᴥ︎ D-don’t misunderstand him!

ᴥ︎ Actually no, maybe you should— wait no you shouldn’t! Jack doesn’t know how to feel about…this now that he fully recognizes it. Well- he does, in a way, it’s just…complicated. To be honest, he did have a suspicion that his feelings of respect towards you had turned into something deeper. How fast his tail wagged whenever you were nearby, how he wanted to put even more effort into whatever he was doing when you were watching, how red his face turned whenever he took a ‘secret’ glance in your direction, it really was way too obvious looking back on it.

ᴥ︎ Wolf-type beastmen only have one partner for the rest of their lives. Dedicating themselves entirely to whoever their partner may be. Jack always dreamed of finding his one true partner, he just never expected it to happen so soon. Yes, a crush to him counts as his one true love as childish as it may be. With exactly zero romantic experience under his belt and only equipped with the knowledge of the multiple times his parents told him their love story, he attempts to appeal to you. Surprisingly, for a first timer in love, they’re all thought out and not embarrassing. Jack isn’t good at hiding how feels about you in front of you or anyone else, but it has a certain charm to it. The charm of an adolescent boy in love who cares for you quietly, unable to hide how he feels, as his heart and tail follow the same beat.

“..Phew, you’re here. Prefect, I—uh need to tell you something.”

[cr4yolaas]

for lovers who hesitate — tsukishima kei

synopsis: you find your old academic rival at your new job. every bone in your body says it’s fate, but everything else seems to be stopping you.

notes: puking cuz idk how i feel abt this one. i worked on this all thru out my trip and there was a lot of scrapping and rewriting and deleting the entire thing and rewriting it again, but i think this version is the best i could get it to. i <3 tsukishima kei

tags: fluff → angst → fluff, self-indulgent long fic, reader smokes, reader has trauma w/ their parents, mainly fem reader oriented but gn pronouns used, reader has self-destructive habits, themes of self-doubt from both, tsukishima is probably ooc, slow burn but not really, the most awkward love confession ever, mitski rdr x radiohead tsukishima (sorry), proofread but not really

tsukishima kei, for once, was at a loss for words.

there you stood beneath the bright green foliage, your face marred by the heatwaves of the sun and still all too familiar. he thought, for a moment, that he had the wrong person — you had taken on a rougher appearance, but his body, heart, and soul still recognized you. and yet, he couldn’t bring himself to speak to you.

where had the last decade gone?

he coughed into his fist and walked past you, feigning ignorance to your arrival. when you followed after him with a keycard of your own, he found himself flustered.

no words were exchanged. he was playing the silent game with you, although he quietly hoped you would say something first.

and thus, he continued his shift as usual, with the added oddity of you shadowing him alongside his boss. he just couldn’t find the proper words to place on his tongue, nor the right gestures to show that he did want to talk, he just didn’t know how to.

but truthfully, what was one supposed to say in such a situation?

𝜗𝜚 ｡ ˚.

you believed that tsukishima hated you. and you wouldn’t blame him.

when you applied for this job, you had no expectations going into it, save for the hope of a higher salary and a lighter load than your previous job. what you had not anticipated was to stand face to face with the man you swore to hate in your youth.

a sliver of hope embedded itself within you; an overwhelming desire to perhaps refurbish a long lost relationship had taken root. but when he looked away so persistently and spoke not a word to you, that sliver dissipated into meaningless sand.

you continued your work as best as possible. it was a routine job — set up the displays for the day, guide whatever visitors came around, and leave in the afternoon. but when a certain blonde was sneaking glances at you and somehow always in your vicinity, it proved to be easier said than done.

you were too afraid to admit that his presence was refreshing. that, in the midst of the mundane and borderline unhealthy cycle you had formulated within the past handful of years following graduation, he had proven to be an odd factor; he stood as a disruptor to the routine. it was unwelcome. and even still, you craved it and more.

tsukishima kei had always been a constant in your life. you just didn’t expect him to reappear so soon, so suddenly.

𝜗𝜚 ｡ ˚.

it was a wednesday. an uneventful shift had come to an end. and just as you rid yourself of your work attire, a verbal invitation to a work party was sent your way.

the prospect of it was almost laughable. you were under the impression that the body of employees in a museum would be too reserved to host parties such as this, and you were quickly proven otherwise. thus, you accepted instantly.

as soon as you sat down, you regretted it just as quickly.

the moon had just barely begun to hang bright in the sky, and yet the table was already full of drunken coworkers that you hadn’t seen before. loud chatter filled the room, as if this table was the only one in the establishment. it was overbearing.

before you could take even a sip of your drink, you excused yourself under the pretense of needing to use the restroom. instead, you escaped outside, the gentle breeze reestablishing your senses and reeling you back in.

he was also there.

“oh,” he exclaimed softly. his eyes drifted away from yours, the warmth of his cheeks illuminated by the dim lamp above. oh was the first word he had ever spoken to you since graduation. you nearly laughed.

“hello,” you offered quietly, still testing the waters of conversation. your gaze fell to his fingers, slim and cherry-kissed and blemished, fiddling with the hem of his shirt. “um… i didn’t expect to see you here…?”

tsukishima laughed lightly at your tone, as if to conceal his own anxieties. “likewise.” he watched as you pulled out a cigarette, the stick meeting your lips like it were more than natural. “did you come all this way to stalk me? or to follow me? after all those years of silence?” he teased, although a tinge of bitterness dripped from his words.

you shook your head aggressively. “no, no, i just…” you bit at your lip for a moment before continuing. “i’m taking a break from my actual job. i needed to wind down before i return.”

tsukishima hummed at your response, evidently oblivious to your lie. he looked at you for a moment too long, his eyes grazing over each alteration and unfamiliar feature. he could not help but admire you in this light — the soft strings of moonlight in contrast with the neon signs glaring against your complexion painted an image he hadn’t seen in ages.

for the first time in a long time, tsukishima kei thought you were unbearably pretty.

what he didn’t catch wind of was your nervous shuffles and your incessant skin-picking as you stood beside him. he didn’t realize that the cigarette was a distractor, a tool to pull you back in. and he failed to acknowledge the stutter in your voice as you spoke to him, for it hadn’t crossed his mind once that you thought he disliked you. not that it would matter to him, anyways.

it’s too soon, he thought to himself. this is stupid, he argued. i’d mess it up if i did anything reckless, he reasoned. all of which were excuses to fight against the overwhelming reality of his vulnerability.

you turned your head away, the extended silence whittling away at whatever confidence you once bore. tsukishima watched with framed eyes and a calculative stare, as if scrutinizing each and every action you took. unbeknownst to you, it was the exact opposite of that.

the soft call of your name from inside the bar pulled your attention away, much to his dismay. he witnessed your frame disappear through the doors, your eyes flitting towards his so quickly he might’ve imagined it.

this was foolish. tsukishima decided that much. but despite his claims of how stupid it was, he was getting reeled in faster than he could pull out.

𝜗𝜚 ｡ ˚.

despite how hard he tried to display his ignorance, tsukishima was caring at his core.

silent glances exchanged between shifts morphed into small conversations shared whenever possible, as if the tension that previously barred you from interaction had dissipated into nothingness.

at some point, he dropped off a neatly wrapped bento box to your desk, the fabric littered with small dinosaur doodles.

“what is this?” you questioned, an amused lilt to your voice. you failed to notice the way pink rose to his ears, too enamored by the intricate arrangement of veggies and rice.

“don’t think anything of it. i just had leftover food and didn’t want to waste it.” the excuse slipped through his lips as if it were truth, earning him a soft smile from you.

there were butterflies whipping their wings against his ribcage so aggressively they might have bulged out from his skin.

eventually, you invited him out for a walk to the convenience store nearby during your break. and after that, it became routine. with an umbrella in one hand and his wallet in another, tsukishima walked with you down the street to buy onigiri and sandwiches and sometimes a sweet treat nearly every day, and that shared hour became his favorite part of work.

it was silly.

you sat beside him in the booth, your blistered hands carefully unwrapping the plastic from your meal. to your left sat a can of soda. and to your right, he was there.

“i need to stop living off of these,” you complained while motioning towards the onigiri in your grasp.

tsukishima shook his head. “what else would you eat?”

“your bento boxes,” you commented absentmindedly, your bites becoming larger as you neared the center of the rice. “i liked it, when you gave it to me that one time. you should make it again.”

he looked away, his chin resting atop the sweat of his palm. slowly, he turned towards you. “it’s just a bento box. surely you can handle making one.”

“oh, shut up!” you laughed while shoving him lightly. “the fact that you can even make one is shocking. all you have in that head is volleyball and shit.”

“our old test scores say otherwise,” he quipped. the shift in your eyes left a bitter taste on his tongue.

“whatever,” you muttered before leaving to throw out your trash. a pit grew in tsukishima’s stomach.

the blonde mustered the last of his resolve and made an offer. “i’ll teach you how to make one.”

𝜗𝜚 ｡ ˚.

of all the things tsukishima was bracing himself to see, a thinly-walled apartment that was less than well-maintained was the last thing he was prepared for.

you came out from your bedroom in clothes that were far more casual than his, your hair disheveled and your steps uneven. “sorry for the mess,” you uttered while bending down to pick up a hoodie sprawled across the floor, alongside a plastic bag that looked empty. he could only watch in awe.

he placed his bag down on your counter before arranging the ingredients, each brought from his own home. the clatter of your rushed cleaning echoed behind him. and when you finally stood beside the man, he could not contain his grin.

tsukishima decided to hold his tongue. instead, he opted to gently guide your hands through each step, the perspiration collecting on his skin a stark contrast from the rough texture of yours. he realized how little you knew, despite your insistence that you were more than knowledgeable in what you were doing — it showed in your unstable cutting and your hesitance when preparing the pot for boiling — but he refrained from commenting, in fear of disrupting the peace he’d constructed.

on the other hand, you were horrified.

to admit that you were inferior to him in yet another aspect uprooted the envy you had burrowed deep within yourself, and you were terrified of letting it overspill. he was so calm — at least, that was what it looked like — and you’d be damned to ruin it.

mitski’s soft hums reverberated in the background, your shaky chopping filling in the rest of the noise. it was almost satirical — the solemn melodies coated your bare bones and rendered you silent, a strong juxtaposition to the warmth exuded from the closeness of your skin to his. neither of you did anything to interfere, save for an earlier comment from the man questioning your music taste.

(“then what do you listen to?”

“… radiohead.”

“wow. as if that’s any better than mitski.”)

tsukishima found himself smiling at your pride in your creation. messy, yes. but within each ingredient lay a remnant of him, and that was enough.

a stream of small talk emerged into you sitting on the couch together. the music dimmed down to white noise and an old romcom that had only two star ratings played on your TV, the poor quality adding to the humor. your legs leaned against his beneath the blanket. and there was peace.

tsukishima knew what it was. he knew what this would blossom into, and he could only hope and pray he didn’t mess it up in some way. your quiet yet crude commentary disappeared into the tender air, and he remained silent, as if absorbing each syllable that fell from your lips.

it was so quiet, and so vulnerable, and so delicate that he felt like he was going to explode.

he didn’t question it when your head fell onto his shoulder. he didn’t make fun of you when your colorful reviews on each scene turned into sleepy ramblings. and he didn’t say a word when you dozed off against him, your whole body against his.

instead, he looked around. he took note of the dust collecting on the cabinets, the water marks on the windows, the clothes and food and plastic scattered all over your living room, the dead plant on the shelf, and the half-empty pack of cigarettes sitting on the arm of the couch. it was all a far, far cry from the cleanliness and stability of his own home, and yet, he thought to himself, this is so like them. and he thought, i could live in here, if it were with them. and again, he thought, this could be a home.

tsukishima kei was of the belief that he did not have a type. but as he observed your house and reflected on its singular (?) inhabitant, he figured that this was his type. his type was your quiet laughs and your sharp remarks and your wrinkled clothes and the scent of cigarettes that always seemed to cling to you. his type was you.

he exchanged one last glance to your sleeping figure before getting up and leaving you to rest. not without wrapping up your lunch for tomorrow, and not without a small smile on his lips.

𝜗𝜚 ｡ ˚.

hell came to you on a thursday morning — the day following whatever had happened between you and tsukishima. you hadn’t put on your uniform just yet, and your belongings sat outside of your locker.

your boss scrambled into the office, his brows furrowed and his larger hands closing the door as quickly as he could without slamming it. the sweat that collected between his wrinkles shined beneath the dim lights. his breaths were haggard and rushed and shallow.

for the first time in a long time, you felt fear.

“there’s people who want to talk to you outside,” he whispered. “they want to talk to you now.”

there was no one else in the building. no one other than you, your boss, and the people who were so adamant on speaking to you.

so why was it so loud as soon as you stepped out?

the eyes of your mother came into your vision first. then, the stare of your father. and finally, their faces blended into one large picture that made sense.

“what the fuck are you doing here?”

withered hands slammed against the table. you watched the papers and the dinosaur trinkets rattle. “that’s no way to speak to your parents.” you could feel it — the air seeping out of your lungs, depriving you of breath; the trembling in your palms; the cloudiness in your peripherals. you could hear them, but you couldn’t hear them. at some point, their vocabulary was solely financial, and at another point, it grew cruel and violent, akin to wild dogs gnawing away at your skin. you didn’t know where it was going. the hastened footsteps of an unidentifiable coworker neared, and the shaky breaths of your boss behind the door grew louder and louder.

you needed to leave.

your feet led you away before your mind could. the yelling softened, until finally, the only sound was the chirp of birds and the whirring of cars.

𝜗𝜚 ｡ ˚.

tsukishima didn’t see you for a week. he didn’t hear any mention of your name, didn’t find your face in a crowd, didn’t feel the vibrations of your voice against his chest. you had disappeared, and no one told him why. it wasn’t until your name didn’t show up on the schedule that something clicked.

it was cruel. you were cruel, he decided.

tadashi sat on the couch while his roommate leaned against the counter. the hum of the air conditioning blinded the blonde’s senses.

“i don’t fucking know what i did,” tsukishima groaned into his palms for the twentieth time that night. “they just left. they quit and i can’t even contact them because i was stupid enough to not ask for their number or email or anything. i don’t- i don’t fucking know, ‘dashi, i don’t.”

“i’m sure they had some good reason,” his friend attempted. “i don’t think they’d do that if it weren’t within some sensible limit. it was fucked, yeah, but… i don’t know. i think they’ll come back when the time is right.”

it was tiring. it was tiring to be left alone not just once, but twice. and it was tiring to have it hurt so much more the second time.

tsukishima ran a hand through his hair. “it’s so stupid.” another groan spilled from his tongue. “i’m so fucking tired of this.”

𝜗𝜚 ｡ ˚.

this was just about the fourth job you had applied for.

the museum could no longer be a part of your routine — instead, it morphed into loud nights and bustling men and the clinking of glass; it emerged from quiet and gentle tours around dinosaur exhibits to noisy cheers and yelling and the more-than-occasional bottle thrown at your head; it turned into pure, devastating loneliness.

it was compact. it was suffocating. it was overwhelming. it was everything the museum was not. but you could not return there, no matter how much you ached for it.

you were avoiding him. avoiding everyone.

a gentle nudge from a blurred face reminded you that your shift was over for the night, coupled with an apology for the gash that formed on your head from another drunken man who had no outlet for his anger other than you. with heavy steps, you trudged back home, thankful for the week’s pay and the free food and drinks.

it was quiet.

the lights were off, and the LED numbers on the microwave read way past midnight. a dull pounding resided in your chest.

just the other day, it was so vibrant. you were alive, and so was he, and it was going well. but it was wrong. you realized that much when your parents came to remind you, and you realized it again as you quit the same day.

the thumping in your chest spread to your head, and your back met the wall with a force that was sure to upset your neighbors. carefully, daintily, you slid down, your body reaching the floor gently.

you missed him. but it was wrong.

that night, for the first time in a long while, you cried.

𝜗𝜚 ｡ ˚.

tucked away in a small alley in sendai resided an establishment with only three tables and a bar that was worn down from years of use. and behind it, tsukishima found you.

he was only out for a walk. at least, that was what it was until his feet brought him elsewhere and he stood face-to-face with the most suspicious of buildings. and when he saw you, it felt as if all the anger and guilt and distress that riddled his bones and flesh and blood withered away, as if it hadn’t coalesced within his veins over the past month.

before you could hide, his hand snaked around your wrist, his touch light yet desperate. “can we talk?”

talking entailed bringing him back to your apartment. and by extension, it included him witnessing your house somehow being worse than before.

tsukishima found himself sitting on the floor with his back to the couch, and you found yourself sprawled across said couch. he picked at the blisters on his fingers before quietly asking, “why did you do that?”

he could hear your nervous habits — the shifting, the fidgeting, the harsh lip biting. “i don’t know.”

“bullshit,” he muttered under his breath.

you turned over onto your side to face his back. “my parents found me,” you explained meekly. improper guidance leads to destructive tendencies. tsukishima kei, in his high school years, was deemed your only obstacle to complete succession — always a few points ahead, a few questions ahead, a few steps ahead — and your poor influence from youth only fueled such a fire. and so, you felt that it was reasonable to loathe him. your judgement was clouded beyond repair.

tsukishima listened. he listened to every detail, every portion of your retelling of each segment of your childhood, and your teen years, and your silly hatred for him. he listened to you talk about what you did after graduation — how you got into a good university but dropped out and hopped between a multitude of jobs (thus proving your claim at the work party to be a lie), and how you were constantly escaping from both the stress and your parents.

he listened so intently that it was overbearing. you didn’t tell him that. instead, you talked and talked and talked until you sculpted him into someone who knew your entire life, as if he were there from the beginning.

“i’m sorry,” you whispered through stubborn tears. you hated it — how exposing it was, how you had practically dumped everything onto him in one go, how you couldn’t help but beg for forgiveness in the end. most of all, you hated how easily he gave you his forgiveness.

𝜗𝜚 ｡ ˚.

tsukishima didn’t leave your house at all that week. you found no energy to complain.

in the morning, you’d find him cleaning whatever disaster you left behind, whether it was the pile of laundry on your bed or the collection of full trash bags next to the front door or the food (or rather, the lack thereof) in your fridge. he was silent all the while, and that hurt more than any berating he could have done.

“why are you still here?” you asked him one night. you had finally moved from the couch to the bed, and tsukishima couldn’t be any prouder. (any movement at all was enough to be proud of, he felt). “you shouldn’t want to be here.”

you watched him heave a heavy breath as his shoulders drooped. “because i want you,” he admitted, his voice unmistakably tender and soft and ridden with a youthfulness that he unearthed from deep within himself. “i want to be with you and i want you to be happy and i just want us to be happy together, for once.”

he spoke of his affections so fluently, as if he were born to share them with you. and still, every bone in your body was whispering otherwise.

even so, tsukishima promised that he would be willing to wait. even if it meant watching you down an unreasonable amount of beer at an unreasonable hour.

he promised to sit through it all with you, even if it meant listening to you call his name out in long, drawn-out tones. even if it meant hearing you confess your long-harbored affection for him. even if it meant hearing you say that you never told him, not even in high school, because you felt like you didn’t deserve to tell him.

tsukishima didn’t understand.

he failed to comprehend how you didn’t feel deserving, when his whole body, mind, and soul was bound to you; when, in the depths of the night, he’d burn pink in the night at the mere thought of you; when he was so uncharacteristically smitten for you. he didn’t get it. he didn’t think he ever would.

not that he said anything about it — at least, not in that moment. not when you were inexplicably drunk, to the point where you couldn’t move a limb without tumbling over.

but, without a doubt, he went to bed with a stupid grin and a berry-kissed face.

𝜗𝜚 ｡ ˚.

it took another couple of weeks before tsukishima would see you at work again. you entered through the doors as if you never left, and he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to be excited or neutral or anything else, because his guts only knew tenderness with you at that point — all the fake ignorance and stubbornness and denial had been cast aside.

you basked in a shared silence in the locker room, until you finally admitted that you were, in fact, healing. to some degree, at least. you asked him to come over again under the pretense of seeing how clean your house was. you detailed every segment of your life, from when he last saw you to your entrance into the museum, including how you made yourself breakfast for the first time in forever and how you drank a cup of water almost every day. and he was so overwhelmingly proud, so much so that it spilled over and he couldn’t contain himself.

“i love you,” he blurted out, his rushed admission cutting off your rambling. you whipped your head towards him, but he was looking everywhere except for you.

“what?” you exclaimed.

“i said i love you. i’m in love with you. what don’t you get?”

your jaw hung open, just like that of a fish. “wait- what the fuck?” much to his amusement, you jumped up and began pacing around the room. “i like- well, i guess, love,” you paused, the vocabulary uncomfortable on your teeth. “you too, but like- what the fuck? who told you that?”

“you did.”

“what?”

tsukishima kei was laughing. he was laughing at you, and yet, you weren’t as angry as you expected to be. he was laughing, and all you could do was relish in the noise.

“so,” he hummed delightfully, an amused smirk on his lips. “am i still coming over?”

you (begrudgingly) agreed. again, he laughed — this time, at the heat rising to your face.

𝜗𝜚 ｡ ˚.

through the cracks between your blinds, silk strands of sunlight crawled through, a soft reminder of the morning. beside you, a mountain of warmth lay, with his glasses still on his face and his hoodie misshapen on his body.

tsukishima was always the first to rise. he would wait for your eyes to flit open gently before getting up and making breakfast, despite your protests that your food was probably better than his. he never listened.

the splatter of coffee into your cup served as the only noise in the room, save for the dull noise of the morning news on the TV and the cars passing by outside the window. you watched intently as the blonde set up the table, his lip drawn in a tight line but his eyes shimmering with contentment. “eat up,” he spoke quietly as he took a seat in front of you.

tsukishima kei was, by no means, a cruel person. he was just a little rough on the edges and occasionally didn’t quite know how to say things without being mean. but as he sat with you, eating breakfast made by him in your shared apartment; as he pressed a fleeting kiss to your forehead before leaving to change, ignoring your groans about the remnants of syrup on his lips; as he drove you to work as the sun settled in the sky; you realized he was simply a man in love.

[comatosebunny09]

fever dream | astarion a.

genre(s): fluff, angst

warning(s): language, self-indulgent, sick!reader, astarion’s a little ooc

now playing: the night does not belong to god - sleep token

notes: very self-indulgent because i’m sick and needed some comfort and @nanaoise08squad inspired me to finish this. thank you for reading, lovelies! ❤️❤️❤️

Somehow, the sun shines brighter today. Glaringly so.

You hold a hand to your temple to shield your eyes from its brilliance. Your armor feels heavier, too. Like boulders stacked on your shoulders and chest, making it harder to breathe. You force out a groan that’s gritty like ash. Trudge down the steps leading outside the inn to join your companions, your limbs weighted and achy.   

“I hate to point out the obvious, darling.” Astarion grimaces with his hands curled to his chest in revulsion. He ducks away from the sight of you. Winces as you take a labored step forward, your balance thrown to the hells.

“But you look like utter shit.”

You scoff, phlegm making itself known in your throat.

What a way to be greeted by the love of your life.

“You sure are a flatterer, aren’t you, Astarion?”

You’re sure to drag out the vowels of his name—or perhaps your words are a little slurred due to whatever ailment took hold of you today. Nevertheless, you jab a finger between his ribs, your face twisting into something haughty.

You wonder if it was worth the exertion as your vision and body sway along with the trees, and your head pounds something menacing whilst a wave of vertigo hurtles into you.

“Shit!”

Astarion catches you when you pitch forward, your legs unable to grasp the rhythm of walking. And there are suddenly two of him. Two little ‘starions calling your name, fretting over you, shaking you to keep you amongst the conscious.

You feel like lead. Feel yourself sinking below the surface, unable to return.  

Your lids shutter as if weighed down by sandbags. The muddled shouts of your friends trickle in, each tinged with varying degrees of concern. You register hands all over you, patting and pulling. Register a strained voice yelling stop, and the frantic touching ceases.  

Before you fully succumb to the darkness, there is the sensation of you being lifted up, followed by the earthy scent of bergamot flooding your senses, and it furls around your heart.

Then, there is nothing.

Something savory draws you from the inkiness of your sleep. It curls around your mind, luring you into consciousness.

You caution a sound, your throat rubbed raw from disuse. You slowly open your eyes, and the bleariness gradually morphs into discernible shapes and colors. Somehow, this place feels familiar.

You’re back in your rented room. Nestled in the plushness of a mattress with too many pillows and sheets soft as linen. You will yourself onto your elbows, wincing at the stiffness of your neck. The pain is manageable. Better than it was before, you note, leisurely ingesting your surroundings.

A lone candle flickers on the nightstand, swathing the room in its bronze glow. Moonlight seeps through the curtains lining the window across. The faint symphony of crickets accompanies the murmur of the inn’s other patrons and the groans of the floorboards beyond your doorway.

Bloody hell.

How long have you been out?

On cue, the doorknob rattles, and a slither of light leaks in. The swell of noise outside commands your attention. You stiffen, fingers instinctively twitching for a weapon. But your bones settle as a thatch of white creeps into your vision from the threshold.

“Well, hello there, Sleeping Beauty,” Astarion breathes. He toes the door shut, a steaming bowl of deliciousness cupped in his palms. Takes a few steps forward, rounded eyes flashing amber beneath the candlelight.

You recognize that aroma. The hearty scent which roused you from your sleep. Your stomach gnarls with life as Astarion nears the bed, donning that smug little mask.

“Hungry, are we?”

You nod enthusiastically, garnering a chuckle from the room’s other occupant. Suddenly self-conscious of how eager you are whilst he hands you the bowl, his fingers slinking away from yours as if he’s touched simmering coals.

“Courtesy of Gale,” Astarion supplies. “I can’t guarantee how good it tastes considering—well, you know. Undead and all that.”

His smile is tight-lipped. Guarded as he settles himself on a stool beside you, his spine straight and his ankles crossed. He helps you sit up against the headboard despite the unease permeating the air. Quickly retracts his hands to press them against the wood of his seat between his thighs, surveying your room.

You take some time to study him. Note that his eyebags seem more prominent than usual. Darker. Hair’s a little tussled, skin a bit paler. His shirt sits rumpled around his shoulders, the fastenings of it done all wrong. Worst of all, he has not looked at you for longer than a few beats. Like you’re made of glass and will shatter if he stares for too long.   

A pang shoots through you, searing hot like lightning.

He was worried.

Worst of all, he was worried about you.

You’re no longer hungry, your stomach twisting as you gaze down at the stew bleeding warmth into your palms. You set it on the nightstand with a decisive clunk, quietly receding into yourself. Silently relenting to the smog of self-loathing draping itself across your shoulders.   

“You scared me half to death, you know,” says Astarion, parting the tangled sea of your thoughts. As if he senses you berating yourself. It’s a soft drawl. An attempt at scolding you, but there’s weariness nestled in the undercurrents of it. “That’s saying a lot, considering I’ve already one foot in the grave.”

You peer up at him like a meager child. He watches you from his peripheral with crossed arms, his nose turned up, feigning disappointment. You see through the cracks of his façade, and your lips twitch with the threat of a smile.

He can be incredibly adorable when trying to shroud his feelings.

“I’m sorry,” you offer, your tone barely above a whisper.

Astarion releases a resigned sigh. And the weight of the world seems to pour from his shoulders as he angles himself towards you, reaching for one of your hands.

His expression softens, and he squeezes, his palm frigid yet reassuring. For the first time since he entered, he truly looks at you. Gaze swims through your features as if to commit every detail, every imperfection, to memory. As if he could lose you at any second.  

“No need to apologize, my love. I was just…concerned, is all. I suppose we all were when you went down.”

The recollection makes your face blossom with heat. Poor little darling, taken out by a nasty cold. Causing hysteria among your friends, deterring your journey.

Astarion thumbs your cheek, smiling something genuine at the pout on your lips.

Your tongue burns with the ache of a question, and you shrink, not wholly prepared for the answer.

“How long was I out for?”

“Nearly two days.”

You blanch, evoking another guttural laugh from Astarion.     

“Shadowheart did her best to heal you. There was only so much her magic could mend. So, we’ve been playing the waiting game while you caught up on your beauty sleep. Not like you need much more of it.”

You snort at Astarion’s cheekiness.

Leave it to your little star to find every opportunity to flatter you.

He examines your joined hands thoughtfully, thumb smoothing over your knuckles.

“It’s been centuries since I’ve dealt with mortal illnesses. Honestly, I couldn’t begin to fathom how to comfort you. Other than gracing you with my presence, of course.”  

It’s refreshing to see his humor is still intact despite his beloved pulling a Snow White.

For a while, you sit like this. Basking in the moment’s serenity, holding hands. Grinning and laughing like two enamored fools when your gazes interlock. You can tell that Astarion’s lightyears away, however. At war with himself, lost in the maelstrom of his thoughts, reprimanding himself for not being your proverbial knight in shining armor.

Absently, you scoot over. Relinquish your love’s hand—much to his chagrin—to pat the space beside you. You affix him with a look that’s all too serious as you say, “For starters, you could try holding me.”

Astarion stares at you with rounded eyes. Mouth opens and closes like a gaping fish, forming around words that he can’t quite conjure.   

“Oh. A-Alright,” he finally musters. Dumbfounded, Astarion stands, maneuvering to sit beside you on the bed. He doesn’t quite know what to do with his hands. Never does, unused to being so vulgar, so unabashed with his feelings.

Though, for you, you know he would rearrange the stars in the sky if he could.

So you help him, tugging him closer and falling into the circle of his arms. You nestle against his chest with a pleased hum vibrating your throat. Tangle your legs together, ignoring the surprised sound that leaves him.

He’s a lovely contrast to your still-enflamed skin. Fits like a puzzle piece against you, soft and lithe. He relaxes gradually, tucking you ever closer against him as if you’ll disappear in a plume of smoke if he lets go. He pets through your hair before anchoring his chin to the crown of your head, surrendering a satisfied sigh.

“Well, I supposed this isn’t so bad, now is it?” Astarion husks, stroking soothing circles into the notches of your spine.

You nod offhandedly, your lids lowering, and your body feeling at ease.

Suddenly, your ailment seems more bearable as you sink below the depths of slumber, an unguarded smile cresting over your lips.

The shadows of your conjoined bodies dance along the walls as the candlelight dwindles, and you both surrender to the tranquility of the night.    

masterlist

[kazumist]

THROUGH THICK AND THIN .ᐟ

✩ — in which soshiro had forgotten the lengths of your love for him.

✩ — request: hi, can i pls request an argument with hoshina and how u resolve everything 🥹🥹🥹

✩ — includes: hoshina soshiro x gn!reader. hurt/comfort, angst if u squint. cw: arguments, implications of soshiro being injured but thats just it, soshiro is kinda mean Uhm, ooc!hoshina this is another experimental fic help me. wc: 1440. reblogs and feedback are much appreciated !!

if there was one thing sharper than the blades hoshina soshiro wielded, it would be the words that escaped his lips.

hoshina knows how to sugarcoat his words. he considers himself a good talker—negiotiator, if you would. however, when it comes to more sensitive topics, that’s when it all starts to crumble down. 

he never expected for him to catch feelings, especially with the line of work he takes. it’s too risky. dangerous. worrying. but he fell as deep as the ocean could get for you. you accepted it. him and his line of work. him as a whole.

yet soshiro seems to forget that sometimes.

getting out of a mission unscathed was impossible. he would always have at least one injury planted on him. it was a repetitive game of russian roulette where either his injuries would be severe or light. and unfortunately for him, today was sadly the former. 

a knock was heard at the door of the hospital room he’s staying in. a mission had recently just finished—about three days had passed, and soshiro was unconscious for the first two due to how he overexerted himself. “come in,” he says. and to his surprise, he saw you opening the door.

soshiro hasn’t told you about him being hospitalized yet—so how?

“captain ashiro told me.” oh. so that’s how. well, he was aware that you had also built a friendship with his commander. and that was completely fine with him. it was awkward when you walked over to the bed, pulling out the chair for you to sit on. you refused to make eye contact with him while soshiro just stared at you.

neither of you has an idea of what to say.

“i wish you told me as soon as you woke up. i was worried sick when i heard the news about the kaiju attack and all.” you said, keeping your gaze focused on your fingers as they played with each other. he flinches slightly as guilt starts to bubble up inside of him. it was already five in the afternoon and he’s been awake since ten in the morning. he wishes that he told you as soon as he woke up as well.

however, there’s one thing that has started to creep onto soshiro lately—fear. insecurity, perhaps. he gets haunted by the thought that you would definitely be happier in someone else’s arms and that you would be more happy being bathed in someone else’s affection. being with a man like hoshina soshiro was dangerous, as if it were a gamble to play.

because you never know if you’ll still wake up to him being alive the next day. and believe it or not: hoshina was scared—terrified of that possibility. he doesn’t want you to be sad, he crumbles at the thought of you crying in the first place. so he made it a task for him to push you away. to be distant.

to be someone you would hate.

that’s the only way he could keep you safe.

“sorry. i didn’t want to disturb you.” bullshit.

“why…” you trailed off. soshiro noticed that you werent playing with your fingers anymore and that you were now clenching your fists. “why would you think that? soshiro, your health matters to me.” his heart also clenched when he heard the slight crack in your voice. “why would it matter to you? i could die any day.”

“are you being serious right now?” he hates it. he hates the way that the first time he saw your eyes today, they were filled with such negative emotions. anger. hurt. confusion. “do i look like i’m kidding?”

“soshiro, why are you acting like this? did i do something wrong? i know we haven’t seen each other a lot because we’ve been both busy.” no, you didn’t. this is my fault, but this is also for the best. is what he wanted to say—but he just swallows up his words. “it’s nothing.”

“no, it’s not just ‘nothing.’ tell me what’s wrong, please? so we can fix it. it pains me when we’re like this.” it pains him too—it pains him so fucking bad. but hoshina soshiro is stubborn. so he will find himself accomplishing his task, whether it pains him or not.

because all he wants is the best for you, even if he wouldn’t be able to provide that.

— — — — — — — — 

he doesn’t know how things got so heated between the two of you. and he’s sure that you both might disturb the other patients who are confined in the room next to his.

“why won’t you just tell me what’s wrong? i feel like an idiot, soshiro! what am i?! some fucking mind reader on what goes on inside your head?!”

“like i told you, it’s nothing for you to worry about! what can’t you understand with that?!”

“what can’t you understand with me saying it’s not just nothing?!”

“and what can’t you understand with me implying that you shouldn’t care anymore?! dp i have to spell it out for you?”

you weren’t sitting down anymore, and hoshina doesn’t dare to speak anymore. fighting with you was the worst. and this time, he fucked up real bad. “i… it’s getting late. i should get going.” you say, and soshiro could feel a part of him shattering when he heard you hold back a sob.

the next time soshiro saw you, he was on his day off (a day off he didn’t really want to take but captain ashiro forced him otherwise since the doctors told him he shouldn’t be making his body engage in strenuous activities just yet). and the first thing he did? he visited you. he knew you get off work early on fridays, making you free for the rest of the weekend earlier.

he knocks on your door, although hesitantly. he’s nervous as he waits for you to open the door.

and he’s grateful that you still opened the door for him in spite of your last conversation with each other. you didn’t say anything as you opened the door further, inviting him in. the awkwardness gave hoshina a rush of deja vu about the awkwardness in the hospital room.

“i’m sorry.” although these two words don’t just cut it so easily, he thinks.

“do you really mean it? what you said in the hospital?”

his breath hitched as he found the right words to say. if hoshina was going to be honest, he hasn’t thought much about what to do at this point. surely, he had achieved his goal that night, right? “yeah.”

“liar.”

he turns to you immediately, and you were already looking at him to begin with. “you’re lying, and i could tell that because you’re nibbling on your lip. you always do that when you lie. just tell me the truth, soshiro, please.”

why should he? would you accept his reason? would you accept the insecurities that haunt his every waking thought? would you accept him even though he said such mean things to you the last time you saw each other?

would you still love him despite it all?

you would. you always would. 

and so he explains from the very start—when and where these thoughts started in the first place. and you listen to him intently, absorbing every single detail he says. once he was done, you took a deep breath. 

“god, you’re so stupid. did you know that?” soshiro lets out a weak chuckle at that, avoiding your gaze. you cup his face with your hands, making him face you. “look at me,” he refuses. “soshiro, look at me.” he then complies, slowly trailing his eyes across your features before resting them on your gaze.

“you don’t get to decide what’s best for me when it comes to this type of thing, okay? i love who i want to love. you don’t get to decide that i’d be happier with someone else. because i love you. i love you more than you could ever imagine, more than you could ever feel. remember that. engrave that inside your mind so you can never forget. you are the one i am helplessly in love with, soshiro.”

i love you. i love you. i love you. it repeats inside his mind. you are the one i am helplessly in love with. it echoes. soshiro feels stupid for attempting to become someone you hated in the first place. there was no way he could ever bear the possibility of you actually hating him.

how could he forget? you had already accepted him as a whole. through thick and thin, you will stand by his side.

[earthtooz]

second chance romance with sae. write it.

x : WITH(OUT) :*+ﾟ

in which: after a messy breakup with sae, you find yourself waking up next to him two weeks later, this time just more in love.

warnings: 1.8k words, exes to lovers, hurt/comfort, SFW, gn!reader, tooth-rotting fluff with quite a bit of angst, a lot of metaphors here and there i apologise if they don't make sense get on my brainwave (nicely), ooc!sae perhaps uhh lol, bad writing, reblogs appreciated!!

a/n: lets see if tumblr community labels this post... sigh. rip first version u were a champ. this is my official claim to become tumblr's sfw itoshi brothers (separate) writer. i've made progress with rin, it's time to show some (reluctant) love to sae!! i literally only wrote this bc @limitlesshq and i had an agreement.

you wake up due to the rustling beside you, the movement rousing you from your slumber as the world becomes ever so clearer with each millisecond, the drowsy haze wearing off you as you take in your surroundings.

there’s a white ceiling overhead, the mattress beneath you feels like a cloud, and you can’t remember when your sheets turned a shade of gray. no- scratch that, you can’t remember when your mattress became this soft. 

hold on.

this wasn’t your room and the mop of magenta hair lying atop your chest is an indicator of such.

you’re in bed with a soccer star who just so happens to be the ex you messily broke up with two weeks ago. he’s wrapped around you like nothing had ever happened; as if you two were still in love and devoted to one another and hadn’t shouted at each other to the point that your throats were sore for a days afterwards. 

you needed to get out of here which was something easier said than done. especially when you had itoshi sae lying on top of you, wrapping you in a vice grip as he sunk further and further into your warmth, chest methodically rising up and down. you want to slap him for being so peaceful in this very moment. that should be you but instead, you’re panicking and trying to avoid another messy scene with your ex. 

the fact that said-ex was itoshi sae too… goodness what have you gotten yourself into. you should get out of here before it’s too late.

slowly, you begin to shuffle away, trying to pull yourself away from sae’s grasp. 

you’re halfway out when you hear the magenta-haired whine quietly, the sound causing you to turn your head and look at him. it’s to your horror that you’re greeted by a pair of hazy, turquoise eyes, still groggily waking up as sae tries to adjust to his bearings. he blinks a few times, waking up a little more with each flutter.

“where are you going?” he asks, voice hoarse from unuse. his arm tightens ever so slightly around you, pulling you back towards him and completely ruining your efforts.

you’re stunned, unsure of how to respond as sae tucks himself into your chest, breathing you in.

you hate the way you feel your heart lurch in your chest, rapidly beating with the urge to be as close as possible to him. this feels like a life you once knew, especially when his fingers start running up and down your spine, nimbly finding their way under your shirt. 

“sae,” you breathe out and his ministrations stop, diverting all of his attention upon you. “i have to go.”

he groans his protest, shaking his head. “why?”

“i just have to.”

“no.”

“what?”

“stay.”

“what?”

“did you not hear me? i said stay.”

just to prove his point a little more, he puts even more of his weight on you, tangling his legs with yours as if rooting you to his mattress. ever so demanding, he is.

the breakup was disastrous and entirely hurtful, wrecking you from the inside out when you woke up the next morning registering the previous night. you couldn’t remember the last time you felt so heartbroken and it hurt even more with every trace of sae that remained in your apartment. looking back, perhaps it was a little naive to believe that he was the one for you, that he was your endgame and not simply another lesson to heal from. all that time spent in a relationship, crumbled thanks to an argument that lasted for three hours and ended with a decisive slam of his door. 

yet just when you thought you were making process on the journey away from him, sae finds a way to pull you back in.

“i can’t stay,” you whisper, voice already a little shaky.

the magenta-haired looks up at you, apathetic eyes boring into yours. “but why?”

“i just- i just can’t. thank you for letting me stay over but i’m going to go home now-”

fingers thread through yours and sae’s hand pulls yours closer towards him. a pair of warm lips press themself to your skin and linger there as if burning and branding you- all of you, as his. 

he then kisses each of your fingers delicately and softly. “don’t go,” he mutters between pecks.

you feel a little breathless. like he’s punched your gut with every piece of gentle affection he plants, twisting the knife he had stabbed in your chest two weeks ago deeper and deeper, reopening the raw wound of hurt and pain with unmatched love.

you need to leave before anything else can happen, before you begin breaking down in front of him. 

quickly shuffling away from the athlete, you abruptly pull your hand out of his, throwing the covers off of you. however quick you may have been though, sae is undeniably faster, his hands crossing the distance to pull you back. his strength forces you to sit down once more and you bounce a little from the soft impact. he drapes himself around you again, chin resting on your shoulder. 

“let me go,” you plead, putting your hands over his wrists as if trying to pry them off but you feel too much for sae to truly try and resist him. his spell, no matter how hard you try to fight back, is just as potent. 

you fear that you may never be immune to his poison. 

he begins trailing kisses along your skin, uncharacteristically affectionate. “i can’t,” he begins, voice wavering uncharacteristically, traces of heartbreak evident in his tone. this display of emotion shocks you endlessly and you stop fighting against him, freezing when you feel his breath shudder against your skin.

your heart is thumping heavily, causing your chest to clench.

"stop messing around, we-"

"i'm not messing around just stay," he hushes gently, "please."

you feel the world stop for a second. sae? pleading? he knew how to do that? the prospect of sae beseeching for anything was incredibly unfamiliar and the fact that his voice cracked merely proves how entirely unfamiliar the word was in his vocabulary. 

the love you feel for him will choke you before heartache does. unbeknownst to you, a tear begins sliding down your cheek and you don’t feel it until it’s halfway down.

“hey, hey, hey,” the magenta-haired mumbles, catching the tear with his thumb. “don’t cry.” 

he sounds so tender and doting it hurts. there’s so much love in the way he’s holding you, pressing himself closer to you with each minute as if he hates the idea of being too far away from you, as if he was trying to make sure that you were still the same love of his life from before he hurt you tremendously, as if he was committing you to memory before he does lose you forever.

but he doesn’t want that. he wants to stay with you. sae doesn’t think he can handle another day without you, that’s why he’s so stubborn to keep you here; to put you under his spell again so that you could feel an ounce of the love he has stored for you. so that this love has somewhere to go before it inevitably ruins him, punishing him for being so stupid. 

“i’m sorry,” whispers sae hurriedly. “i’m sorry, i’m so sorry pretty, don’t cry.”

glancing away from him, you wipe away any remaining tears, inhaling deeply as to try and collect yourself with whatever willpower you had left.

"i need to leave," you murmur, not entirely meaning it.

"no you don't," he answers, entirely meaning it. "just stay until breakfast or something."

wordlessly, you fall back in his grasp, leaning into the athlete when you feel rapid beating against your arm. that’s when you realise that it wasn’t your racing heart… it was his. 

giving in to his desires, you tuck your legs back up on the bed and he manoeuvres you, practically cradling you whilst you find solace in his neck with your arms wrapped around his torso. here, you feel whole again. 

you’ve lived life with sae and without sae and you now know well enough to prefer the former. something tells you he feels the same too. 

“are you going to stay for breakfast?” he asks after a few minutes of simply soaking up the other’s presence. glancing up at him, his expression remains beautifully neutral, illuminated perfectly by the bright morning light that seeps through his windows. he’s radiant, gorgeous as ever. 

you hum against his skin. “i’m not too sure. i was going to leave before breakfast.”

“let’s go back to sleep then. i’m not hungry anymore.”

amused by his request, you agree nonetheless and sae is able to move the both of you around to the same positions you had woken up in with you on your back and him on top of you. the soccer player then pulls you closer and throws his leg over your hips- something he does to keep you in your spot so you won’t slip away from him again.

you won’t. you don’t want to leave and live a life without him. 

“are we back together?” you hesitantly ask. the question floats into the tranquil air, afraid to break whatever quiet, ecstatic haze you were both in but you need to know.

“will you take me back?” the soccer player counters, surprisingly shy and unsure, so unlike the arrogant sae you’re used to. he’s putting all the cards on your table despite knowing what he wants because although he wants to be with you for eternity and a little longer after that, it’s up to you to decide whether or not he deserves such a paradise.

sae can only hope you’re merciful. 

“i want to. i miss ‘us’, i miss you.” 

he immediately feels a heavy weight lift itself off and the exhale the magenta-haired lets out communicates his magnitude of relief. fate has saved him today. 

“good.” is all he says as your hands rise to the nape of his neck, playing with the hair there. “be here when i wake up.”

“so demanding,” you joke with a smile, “but okay.” 

as sae dozes off once more, you take the time to scan around his room once more whilst trying to lull yourself into dreamland as well. 

his decor had always been rather plain and it didn’t change until you started dating. remnants of you have been lingering around his place and you’re surprised he didn’t get rid of them the night you left out of rage. a little nanodroid that you gave him of a character from an anime you both like sits on his shelf, there’s that little fake plant on his desk, and there are still photos of you two on his dresser. 

he used to only have one pillow and the only reason he bought more was so you could sleep over comfortably. you don’t think too hard about the lingering smell of sae’s shampoo on the pillows that you had previously claimed as ‘yours’.

shifting a little so that you were comfortable, you gaze up at sae’s ceilings once more. a gentle smile makes its way to your face before you doze off peacefully knowing that two hearts have found their way back home. 

[iid-smile]

content — michael kaiser x coach!gn!reader, enemies to lovers, probably ooc, some references to his past (choking), i got a wee bit carried away and then got lazy on the lover part, ok rereading i fear this might be really ooc idk i dont read the manga

enemy!kaiser who knows at first glance that he just doesn't like you. he could say that about a lot of people, but you're a different case.

enemy!kaiser who hasn't quite got the smarts, nor do you have the physical abilities, other than being a coach, to become actual rivals over something. but you know what's better? arguing over nothing.

enemy!kaiser that would do anything to piss you off and get his way. yes, he was there for the lengthy meeting for a new and reliable strategy for the next match, but he's going to completely disregard it simply because he's michael kaiser. who's gonna stop him?

enemy!kaiser who loves to get in your face, using his stature to his advantage. if you try to avoid eye contact, he only gets closer, opening his eyes much wider than needed and tilting his head so that he's the only thing that you see.

enemy!kaiser who makes you do everything for him just to spite you. from now on, it's your job to dry his hair — and don't do it too hard, otherwise you'll just mess it up. he's awfully picky about what you do and if you don't do it right, expect to hear an absolute mouthful.

kaiser who starts to talk to you normally. it's scary. every time you try to rile him up, he does respond with his usual array of insults, but they don't seem to be as sincere.

kaiser who starts to listen to you more. whenever you talk, he stares, and it's unsettling having him be so neutral. try to shy away, and as usual, he moves closer, placing his hands on his knees with his eyes boring into yours. is it just you, or are your noses touching?

kaiser who accidentally let you see how truly vulnerable he could become. it was all a big mistake, a misunderstanding, so he wished. he wanted to yell at you, to curse you out, but you didn't say a word, simply turning and closing the door and giving him the privacy that he needs.

kaiser who lets you touch his tattoos for the first time. he felt oddly comfortable that night, being surrounded only by your presence. he wasn't happy, nor sad, yet his heart was more audible than usual. he was an empty vessel, thinking and thinking about what his emotions doing to him.

kaiser who suddenly switches back to his old self. it's a defense mechanism of sorts — if he could at least act like he hates you, then he doesn't have to come to terms with his feelings.

but yet, he knows he could trust you. you've kept all of his secrets, protected him from harm, whether that be physically or verbally. never have you used his weaknesses to your advantage, or stooped too low to the point that it reminds him of his past. he wasn't looking for love, he didn't believe in love. but maybe, just maybe...

kaiser who doesn't know what he's doing. when was the last time he's ever experienced such a thing? what can he do? how can he show you how he feels? what if you reject him? no, of course not... but you've spent all of this time hating each other... how low could the changes possibly be?

in the end, you were feeling the exact same way.

lover!kaiser doesn't want to make things public immediately. it's partially his pride, but he's scared. he's scared of this entirely new part of him that was once broken before.

lover!kaiser seems to be more of a tease. his formerly rude comments come off as playful, with a smirk on his lips that is less forced, less hateful.

lover!kaiser is intimidated by the world of romance. gifts? touch? he doesn't think he could bear with it. you remained patient, teaching him slowly at his pace, and speaking your own language of love to each other.

lover!kaiser who has heart eyes that are only noticeable to you. you don't get how nobody else sees it, but perhaps they're mistaking it for his intense gaze.

lover!kaiser who finds it satisfying when you touch his neck. you only graze your fingers tentatively over his throat, yet his hand wraps around yours, urging you to make it rougher, to grip it tighter. despite his request, you don't, and he's almost relieved from that. it's not enough to completely erase the habit, but it's nice to have a better memory attached to it.

[pomefioredove]

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ kudos and enemies to lovers

type of post: fic characters: rook additional info: romantic, reader is gender neutral, reader is yuu, this is ooc I just thought it was funny, rook writing rpf is morally questionable I KNOW. he's a freak author's note: the fanfiction site is made up

"completely ooc. vil would never say this"

Rook Hunt has been staring at the anonymous comment for hours.

He's come back to it five times, taking breaks only to rest his eyes when the harsh glare of the computer screen becomes too much.

It's not so uncommon for him to fall for so little; in just seven words, this anonymous hate had captured his full attention like a rabbit in a snare.

His gloved finger brushes over the enter key.

What to say? How could he possibly express himself in only a few hundred characters, in the comment section under a fanfiction of fifty thousand?

How he wishes they commented from an account... not only could he DM them, he may also have some idea of who they are. What sort of person would know Vil Schoenheit better than him?

No one. That's who.

"Dear Reader: I am sorry to hear you did not like my writing. However, I am inclined to believe I know Vil Schoenheit a modest amount better than you. Merci. -R"

Rook smiles. Eloquent, graceful, but firm. A gentleman like him would never start a fight.

Only finish it.

His curiosity finally put to rest, he responds to the other comments, thanking his usual commenters in detail.

When he scrolls back up to the top, there's something new:

"I sincerely doubt that. and fyi, you couldn't beg vil to be friends with neige"

Ohoho. Those are fighting words, he thinks. A smile creeps across Rook. Well, if it's a fight they want...

"Dear Reader: You doubt it? And how so? -R"

He refreshes the page again and again, hoping for an answer each time. This is the most stimulation he's had all week.

Now, who could this mysterious commentor be? A jealous fan, perhaps? A bitter critic?

Then:

"I was sitting next to him not two hours ago and he'd never say that"

Rook's smile widens. Of course. He should have guessed. The typing quirks, the misspelled words, even the voice in which each comment is written...

Now, he has you right where he wants you.

"Naughty naughty, Prefect. Does our Roi du Poison know you frequent the Vil Schoenheit x reader tag? or have you been keeping secrets again~?"

This time, he doesn't refresh. He knows you won't respond. Rook gets up from his desk and leaves his dorm, knowing just where to find you at this hour, and...

"Bonsoir, Trickster," he lets himself in your room.

As expected, there you are, looking beautifully flustered and vulnerable with your Crowley-approved phone in hand.

His smile sharpens. "Beautiful night, non?"

"I can explain,"

"Ah-ah," he tuts, sitting at the edge of your bed. "Do not be ashamed. I'm not a tattletale... not when I don't have to be."

His voice has a dangerous edge to it, and you give him a suspicious look. "What do you want?"

Rook lets the silence drag on, making you more and more impatient, more nervous, as if he were about to ask for something dangerous.

"Rescind your comments and leave a kudos on my work,"

You blink.

"...That's it?"

"Oui," he says. "...Unless you had something else in mind?"

You sigh. Now it's your turn to drag out the silence.

"...Let me edit your next fic,"

And, subsequently, it's Rook's turn to be surprised. He hadn't been expecting that. How... bold.

He smiles.

"...Ah... a tempting offer, I admit. I am working on something new. Perhaps we should discuss it over dinner?"

You think... and then: "I'm free Friday,"

"Then Friday it will be," Rook says, standing from your bed.

"Until then, mon petit critique~"

[lamentationsofalonelypotato]

Chapter 16: I Thought I Was In Love Before

Pairing: Soldier Boy x f!reader, Reader POV, Soldier Boy POV

Summary:  When you decided to work with Butcher and his merry band of supe hunters to take down Homelander, you neve expected to be saddled with a sullen, grumpy, jerk like Soldier Boy when the job was done. The more you're around him the more you hate him, but you can't help but wonder, is he really as big a jerk as you think? Reader is a supe with plant powers. This takes place in an AU about a month after the end of The Boys Season 3, in which Butcher has let Soldier Boy continue to work with him on his team.  (I'm real bad at summaries, please forgive me!)

Tropes: Enemies to Lovers, Slow Burn, Age Difference (Reader is in her 20s), Soft Ben/ Soldier Boy, Protective Ben/Soldier Boy

Word Count: 10.3K

Warnings: I'm going to label this 18+ because Soldier Boy (he's a warning and everyone knows it), IMPLIED SEX, Swearing, Mentions of Sex, Sexual Innuendo, Heavy Petting? Making Out, Nudity, Illusions to Sex, A little bit of self-deprecating thought. Ben/Soldier Boy might be a little bit OOC.

Note: This is told from Reader's perspective. Any references to the reader is made using you or your. There is minimal use of y/n. I tried my best to proofread, but nobody's perfect. If you don’t like, don’t read, but if you do like, you’re my favorite!

Internal monologue is in italics and is in first person.

Listen While You Read🪴: "I've Been Waiting For You" by ABBA

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A/N: This chapter is really just a whole lot of fluff and a bit of cheeky spice, that I couldn't help but write. I figured the two of them really needed just a chapter where someone wasn't being tortured, someone almost died, someone was hurt, or them fighting lol. ENJOY!

There were more flowers in your entire apartment than in New York City on Valentine's Day, and you were sure that come morning there would be more flowers in here than what grew on the East Coast in the middle of spring.

Roses exploded from the bush in the corner splashing pinks and coral petals onto the floor, Lily of the valley dipped from outstretched stalks, honeysuckle, lavender, and lilac smiled from the pots on top of your dresser, and the gardenia on your bedside table filled the room with the sweet-smelling aroma. Even the pothos vines that trailed along your walls were brighter and greener, creeping along to secure your curtains while the Jasmine vines that crept up the wall behind your bed shed the white blooms over where Ben and you were laying.

You were sure that you had Jasmine smashed against your skin and threaded in your hair, but you weren't complaining. There was nothing to complain about, not if every time Ben took you to bed was anything like what had happened over the past four hours.

The number of men you'd slept with was in no way extensive, you could count it on one hand, which meant you weren't drawing from a wide range of experiences, not to mention that it had been probably over a year since you'd slept with someone, but Ben easily blew them out of the water.

Usually after you were with someone, you'd compare them to Newton, only because it was the longest relationship that you'd had and really the only guy you'd ever loved. When you'd finally slept with Newton, you'd thought that because you loved each other the sex was supposed to be good… but each time you were disappointed.

You could remember every awkward fumble of Newton's hands on your chest, every slobbery kiss, every time he said that he was "too tired" to return the favor, and every single time you felt unsatisfied while he turned over happy and drifted off while you tried to think of a way to muster up the courage to tell him that you wanted to try something new or at least tell him that you weren't happy.

Not being happy with Newton seemed to be a recurring theme and you didn’t know why you’d stayed with him as long as you did. Perhaps it was because you thought that it was true love, just as Ben stayed with Countess because he thought that was what love was like.

Turns out the two of you had just been waiting to find each other, and you couldn’t have been happier.

Nothing about the way Ben touched you was awkward or hesitant, it was confident, practiced, and just rough enough to give you a glimpse of how strong he really was. The way he kissed you was all consuming, as if he wanted to drink you in, swallow you whole until there was nothing left of you, as if he couldn't help himself but crash into you.

And Ben refused to let you touch him, until after he'd made you fall apart more times than you could count, whimpering, gasping, and screaming his name into the warm air of your bedroom with your hands tangled in his dark hair.

Not to mention you'd never get tired of the moans and breathy groans of your name on his lips. It made you feel powerful seeing Ben that way and hearing him say your name like that. Knowing that you were able to do that to him, to make him feel good the same way that he made you feel like you'd transcended to another plane of human existence. And you didn't think that you'd be able to stop anytime soon.

It was enough to make you regret making him wait for as long as you did. Maybe a part of you thought Ben was all talk, that there was no way that he was as good as he said he was, but you didn't expect Ben to know exactly what you needed as if he could see inside your head. And even though Ben said he wasn't gentle and didn't think that he could "make love" to you, what he just did for four hours came close.

Because he had unmade you, destroyed you, and then the shattered remains that pieced back together after he took you apart cell by cell was filled with so much love and ecstasy that you didn’t know where it all came from.

You'd never felt this way about anyone else in your entire life. Just as Ben thought he'd loved Countess, you thought that you loved Newton, but the way you felt about Ben was nothing compared to how you felt about your ex.

You weren't sure if you'd ever feel this way about anyone else ever. At the back of your mind the realization that you could potentially live as long as Ben did was hovering there and the truth was that you could see yourself spending all that time with Ben. You could see yourself spending the rest of your life with him. He was the only one you wanted and you hated how long it took you to admit it to yourself.

But there was a little twinge of something deep down that worried you Ben couldn't commit 100%, and then Ben would do something uncharacteristically soft and it would make you believe whole heartedly that he could.

And even if Ben couldn’t say that he loved you the traditional way, you knew he did. You saw it in the way he held you, saw it in the way he brought you coffee, saw it in the way he walked with you to and from work, and you saw it in the way he cared for you.

There weren't any casualties tonight, except the shower curtain and the rod. The shower had been a good idea in theory to cool off and clean up, until you grabbed the shower curtain and ripped the rod from the wall when Ben twisted his hips in a way that made you see stars.

You suppose that you had instigated it, after you laughed at Ben's inability to fit in your shower, and Ben took it as a challenge, but your plants had been spared.

And you were happy that your headboard had survived, it was antique, and you loved it, but there were a set of divots in the drywall behind the bed that made you hope that Mike wasn’t home and had witnessed what had caused them.

Though you had a sneaking suspicion that Ben had done that on purpose. It wasn't a secret to you how possessive and jealous Ben was, especially not after the way you'd seen him act around Jake. It was a trait that you'd never found attractive until you met him.

But there was something about the Ben’s jealousy and his almost primal need to claim you in every way he knew how that made you want him even more.

You hear Ben mutter your name faintly, breaking through your internal monologue.

You weren't up for moving now, your heart was thunderous against your rib cage, your limbs felt like jelly, and there was a layer of sweat coating your skin. You were laying on your back in your bed where the two of you had ended up, staring up at the ceiling in your bedroom trying to catch your breath, with the sheets and blankets tangled and thrown haphazardly off the sides at your feet.

And despite everything you thought about Ben, you never expected him to want to be close after sex, but he was laying on his side beside you, looking at you with a worried expression. His hand probes along your right wrist to catch your attention.

“Hmm?” You breathe because you can't seem to form words at the moment.

"You doing okay there Petals?" Ben looks smug, but you can hear worry slip into his voice.

It made you smile to yourself, because as rough and prickly as Ben's outer exterior was, you knew how much he cared about you even if he was unwilling to admit it aloud.

You take in a deep breath to find your voice and calm your heart. “Are you asking if you broke me with your dick? Or if you killed me with the almost Olympic level sex?”

Ben chuckles, propping himself up so he could stare down at you, his dark hair is falling forward over his forehead, and he's studying you with his green eyes.

He looks handsome. Ben always did, but here in bed with you, he looked normal, happy, and content. After the shower, his hair no longer had all the product that had been in it for the event at Vought, and after how many times you'd run your fingers through it, it was more tousled and scrunched than usual, but you loved it. He looked more like him again, not like the man that Vought had dressed up for the event. He looked like the man you'd fallen in love with.

You wondered if Ben noticed and liked that you looked more like you now, well, you as if you'd run ten miles. You were sure that your hair was a mess tangled and matted against the pillows, your cheeks flushed, and covered in sweat.

How the fuck can he look so good after doing that for four hours? Its unfair. I probably look like I've spent the past four hours trapped in a tornado while Ben looks like he's ready for a photoshoot for Vanity Fair.

"Because I never wanted to go to the Olympics, but I wouldn't mind going with you every once and a while." You cough out a laugh, still trying to catch your breath.

"Only once in a while?" Ben smirks. "Because you sounded like you'd be okay going every night not to mention it sure looks like you wouldn't mind going." He gestures to the blooms strewn around the room, before pulling one of the small, white fragrant flowers from your hair.

"Shut up."

Ben only laughs at you, flicking the flower away . "We can go whenever you want." He trails his fingertips against your cheek, brushing back some of the hair that was stuck to the flushed skin. “But you're okay? Sometimes I lose control-.”

“Some women like that.”

“No, that’s not what I meant.” He rolls his eyes at you and the hand that pushed your hair away cups your cheek. “I don’t want to hurt you.” Ben's voice is soft and serious, his brilliant green eyes searching your face and then trailing down your naked body to look for injuries that you don't have.

Sure, you were a little bit sore, but it was a good sore, something that you wouldn't mind feeling all the time. The kind of sore that was satisfying to wake up to.

“Well when we first met-“ You begin to say, remembering when Ben had you by the throat and was preparing to rip you in half when he changed his mind and threw you across the room the day Homelander went on ice.

It was an odd first meeting and given how much Ben and you argued it seemed fitting that the two of you met how all great loves should, mid-fight.

You’d always wondered why Ben didn’t just kill you when he had the chance. It would have been one less headache for him to face that day. You remember looking into his eyes and seeing the anger and rage within, feeling just a feeling a shiver of fear skate down your spine when you realized it might be the last thing you ever do. It was honestly the only time that you'd ever been afraid of him. Pushing Annie out of the way had been worth it, knowing that you saved your best friend's life made your sacrifice worth it, but Ben hadn't killed you.

Ben swallows your next words, his lips moving fervently against your mouth, rough, with just a tickle of his beard against your cheeks. Honestly, your lips were already swollen and a little bruised, not to mention you had beard burn in a few places, but you weren't complaining and like hell you were going to stop doing something that felt so good.

 “Don’t fucking bring that up again. I hate that I hurt you.” Ben winces when he admits it, but his hand gently traces the gentle curve of your throat, a frown gracing his perfect lips as if he can imagine the bruised handprint you had for weeks later.

You'd caught him looking at the mark sometimes whenever you were on mission in those weeks together, but despite how the two of you had met, you weren't afraid of Ben. Sure, he had tried to kill you, but you'd done the same thing, so you'd figured the two of you were even. Plus, Ben annoyed you more than he scared you, and you didn't believe for one second that Ben would hurt you on purpose.

Ben might have been rough, but you didn't believe that he would ever find pleasure in hurting you or that he would beat you into submission if you pissed him off.

“It’s our history Ben.” You smile raising your hand to push his hair back, brushing your thumb over his cheek in a gesture that makes his lean subconsciously into your touch. “You can’t change it."

He frowns with a sigh, the green of his eyes lightening in the light from your bedside table lamp.

"Why didn't you kill me that day?" You whisper. "You didn't know me-"

Ben's expression turns to something that almost looks like shame for a moment, before it hardens. "You didn't belong there."

"Where?"

"In all that shit. I could see it in your eyes. I-" His jaw tightens. "I'd never seen someone like you before."

"Like me? Is this when you go back to insulting me again?" You snort.

"No. I-" He bites back his next words. "I've met other supes before, the ones that you said act like gods, the ones like my bastard son but you were-.” Ben huffs out a frustrated breath. “I don't fucking know you were just different, and I didn't want to-" Ben looks conflicted as if he can't find what to say.

Although you usually found Ben’s awkwardness in conversations when they got too personal cute, a part of you broke for him. You wondered if he’d been like that his whole life. If Ben had lived in a world, where he couldn’t open to anyone without an internal monologue from an unseen entity telling him that he was being a “pussy.” You remembered what your grandmother said about Ben’s father, and it only made your heart break more for him.

You made a promise to yourself right then and there that even if it took decades you were going to make Ben comfortable telling you what he was really feeling and thinking. You wanted Ben to know that it didn't make him weak to express emotion that way, that you thought it didn't make him less of a man to talk to you.

Your hand slips from his cheek trailing to curve around the back of his head, bringing his face to yours so you can kiss him, pouring as much emotion as you can into it. "It's okay." You murmur against his lips with a small smile. "I understand."

"You do?" He looks surprised.

"Yes.” You nod, trailing your fingertips in his hair. “No one else has ever said that to me or cared to notice. I think I wanted to be a part of that world because of Annie, to be closer to her, but I don’t belong in it. Even after everything that happened with Elijah and Darren-”

“No, you don’t.” Ben doesn’t say it cruelly or with disdain or in a way to belittle you, instead he says it with a sigh, his hand finding your hip, trailing his thumb over the curve of your pelvis. "I want better for you than this."

"This?"

"You working for Butcher, working fifty jobs, coming back to this shitty apartment-"

You lock your arms around the back of his neck with a laugh. "We talked about this, I like our apartment."

Ben's entire body freezes where he's laying next to you, the thumb that was circling your pelvis coming to a halt. "You said our."

"Yes I did." You smile up at him, seeing the way his green eyes have brightened with the word. "The shitty apartment is half yours now."

"What a dream come true." Ben rolls his eyes. "At least at Vought it would have been quieter-"

"I think that Mike's screeching adds to the ambiance." You joke, loving the way his hair falls between your fingers and how Ben seems to lean into your touch before he can stop himself, that he reacts that way to you touching him just as you react to him touching him. But your smile turns sympathetic. "Poor Mike. I'm going to have to get him some noise canceling headphones-"

Ben's eyes darken to an emerald. "Let him listen, maybe he'll learn something. Plus, I did warn him my girl was kinda loud."

"Is that what I am?"

"Yes." Ben smirks. "Fucking finally."

You roll your eyes. "The way we started might have been rocky, but I like where we ended up."

“I do too, but I wish we had ended up here sooner.” His smile turns more into a smirk. Ben's hand grips your waist possessively, sliding you further across the bed towards him so he's leaning over you. “Told you it would be good. We could’ve been doing this since the day we met sweetheart.”

“Patience is a virtue.”  

“That I’ve never had.” Ben hesitates, something flashing through his eyes so quickly that you can't place it. “But you’re okay?” It comes out quiet, and you watch his gaze drop again to your body to check for injuries.

“No.” Ben’s eyes widen at your answer, before you smile and bring his face back down to yours, the words a breath upon your lips. “I’m better than okay, I’m with you.”

The look on his face breaks you, it's so honest, so unlike the usual hardened façade he wore that it made it difficult to breathe. It reminds you of the way your father looked at your mother whenever he'd get home from work, or when the two of them would sway back and forth in the kitchen to an ABBA song, and when he looked at her like she was his entire world and nothing else mattered.

You never thought that you'd want to see Ben look at you like that or that he would ever look at you that way, but now his green eyes are bright and happy, meeting yours and it made you feel so warm that you were sure you would just melt off the bed and into a puddle.

It was what you had imagined when you thought about falling in love with someone else, the past four hours had been exactly that too. It was the romance that you wanted, the one that you tried to use to block off Ben’s countless attempts to try and sleep with you.

And you couldn't have been happier.

"Are you okay?" Your smile turns more into a smirk. "No broken hip or anything? Because at your age I'd think that it's a hazard. Didn't think an old man could do any of that without serious injury."

Ben's gaze turns murderous, something dark shining in his eyes that makes your throat tighten. "You're gonna regret that Petals."

"Oh, am I?" You tangle your fingers in his dark locks, your smirk growing. It brought you joy to make him so angry, to annoy him as much as he annoys you.

"Yes." He growls into your mouth pinning you to the bed, his body caging you in against the tangled sheets and blankets. Ben's eyes are glinting darkly in the light and makes you lose all feeling in your legs. "You are."

A little while later, Ben traces your lips softly with his thumb as you try to catch your breath. You were honestly beginning to fade in an out of sleep, and there was a pleasant ache along your limbs that made you smile with every drag of his fingertips against your skin.

“Petals?”

“Yes Gramps?”

"Don't call me that."

"I think it's cute." You sigh. "I like how out of touch you are with everything. It's adorable."

"I'm not adorable." He huffs.

"Yes, you are Gramps."

Ben rolls his eyes, but then laughs under his breath as if he thinks it's ridiculous to try and stop you.

Good, he's learning.

“Will you say it again?” He whispers.

“Gramps?” You joke.

“No.” Ben sighs heavily and jostles your exhausted body to make you stop, but it only makes you laugh at him.

“Say what?”

“What you said before.”

“Ben, I can’t really remember where I am right now so I’m gonna need you to be a little more specific.”

“When we were at Vought.”

You press your lips together in concentration trying to understand what he means. You'd said quite a few things to him tonight, things that you'd moaned while gripping his shoulders so tight that you would have left bruises on anyone else, and you try to think of what specifically he could be talking about.

What does he mean- Oh.

“I love you.”  You say it without hesitation, without looking away from his gaze, and without regret. You didn’t hate yourself for falling in love with him and you didn’t want to deny yourself of him anymore. Not when he was holding you close with a softness that Ben had said he was anything but, not when Ben took the time to care about what you liked, and not when Ben seemed truly happy for the first time since he’d been out of Russia.

Ben leans down to kiss you, but this time it’s not rough, it’s not him in a frenzy taking what he wants, it’s gentle and turns hungry the longer his lips are against yours, his hands roaming places along your body that make you sigh and reach up grip his shoulders as an uncontrollable moan slips from your mouth.

If it was always going to be like this you were sure that you’d become insatiable, but you were never going to admit that to Ben. As if you needed to stroke his monumental ego.

Plus, you had a feeling that Ben already knew that.

“Do you believe me?” You murmur against his lips, shuffling your fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck, looking up at him with a gentle smile.

“Yes.” Ben whispers. “Because I know you wouldn’t lie about something like that.”

“I wouldn’t ever do that to you Ben. I want you to know that. And I wouldn't manipulate you into being something you're not-"

“I know.” He traces the soft angles of your face with his rough fingertips, sending goosebumps over your skin. “You’re nothing like her.”

He didn’t have to say Countess’s name for you to know who he’s talking about. The last thing you wanted was for Ben to believe that you were telling him you loved him to manipulate him to do something or become something he wasn’t.

“I hope not.”

“It’s what I like about you.” Ben continues. “You’re soft."

"Soft?" You raise an eyebrow trying to figure out if it was an insult.

He nods. "All the other supes I meet act like they have something to prove, but you-" Ben sighs. "You're different. You're kinder, even when you shouldn’t be.”

“Shouldn’t be?” You ask mildly confused.

“I-“ Ben hesitates as if what he’s about to say is difficult for him. “What you said that night at the fundraiser is true, I’m not this man. I’m not-“ His expression turns dark for a moment and you realize that Ben was about to say Jake’s name. Ben's jaw tightens and you can see how difficult it is for him to say what comes next. "But fuck Petals you make me want to be that man. I don't think anyone else ever has."

You could feel your eyes beginning to water with the emotion that swelled in your chest. You'd never heard Ben admit something like that, never heard him say that he wanted to be better for you.

“Ben, look at me.” You whisper cupping his cheeks to raise his gaze from your chin. “I don’t want Jake. I want you. I know what kind of man you are. I trust you-“

“But you shouldn't-“ Ben presses and it reminds you of the same thing he said to you before he took you to your bedroom.

“Why do you think that?”

“Because I’ve done terrible things. I’ve killed people, tortured others,-“

"I've killed people too-"

"Not for the same reasons. You killed them because they were going to hurt you."

You gently push his hair back from his face. “Ben?”

“Yeah?” He's frowning, eyebrows furrowed together, and you kiss away the frown on his perfect lips.

“I know you. I know about the things you’ve done. I’ve seen the darkest parts and I love you anyway. All the little pieces of who you are make you… you. You wouldn’t be the man I love if you didn’t have them."

“But-“

“No buts.” You squish his cheek and Ben gives you an annoyed look that only makes you snort. He was going to need to get used to your antics if he was going to survive living with you. “Everything you’ve done, the choices you made, the things that have happened to you, shaped the man I fell in love with and brought you to me. No one is perfect Ben. Everyone is flawed, it’s what makes us human. But sometimes the flaws are the best part. So please don’t hide who you are from me, because you think you have to. You’re not going to scare me away.”

“How can you say that when I’m so different than you?”

“Because you’re forgetting all the important parts I love about you.”

“Which are?”

“Well now it kinda feels like you’re fishing for compliments Gramps.” You joke and this time the ends of Ben’s mouth quirk up in a half smile. “You protect me, you take care of me, you always listen when I’m talking and you actually remember some of the things I say, you pay attention to what I like, you try to make me laugh with your disgusting sense of humor-“

“You know you like it Petals.” Ben smirks.

“And you annoy me.”

He shakes his head with a chuckle. “Doesn’t seem to be a good thing. Annoying you.”

“It is.” You giggle. “Because no one else annoys me quite like you do.”

“You’re so fucking weird.” Ben says, but it's not hostile, he says it with love, almost as if he can't believe how lucky he is.

“I love you too Ben.” You pull his face down to yours, cupping his cheeks with your hands and feeling the beard scratch and scrape against your palms.

“You’re unlike anyone I’ve ever met.” He murmurs, trailing his kisses down to your jaw.

“Pretty much everyone you’ve met is from another century so-“

Ben raises his head to glare at you. “You annoy me too.”

“And you see it as a good thing right?” You tap him on the nose.

“Fuck no.”

The bed shakes with your laughter, Ben is still leaning over you, his right hand pushed into the sheets next to your head, his body resting comfortably beside you. You could feel how warm he was, the weight of his body like a warm blanket, and you knew that you could get used to this. You wanted this life with Ben so badly it burned through your body like wildfire. It made your heart ache, just as it used to when you thought about having a romance like your parents, your grandparents, and Annie and Hughie. When you’d think about finding the person who seemed perfect for you in every way.

Funny, given that Ben seemed to be the opposite of you, but that was why the two of you fit so well together.  

“You never listen to me, you always argue, you always find something I’ve done to complain about-“ Ben continues.

“Are you going back to insulting me? Because it wasn't exactly fun for me earlier when you yelled at me."

“Give me a fucking minute.”

You wait.

His voice shifts to something a little gruffer almost confused. “You don’t ask me for anything.”

It was probably the last thing you thought he was going to say. If anything, you thought he was going to say that you’re always covered in dirt.

"What?"

“Countess she always-“ Ben frowns. “She was always asking me for shit. Jewelry, clothes, a new car. I always got what she asked because I thought that’s what you do for someone you care about, but you always fight me whenever I try to buy something for you. I don't understand you."

"You've said that before-"

"I know, but it's true. I've never fucking understood you." He smiles when he says it.

"That's okay, you have time to figure it out."

Ben hesitates, his hand tracing your arm. "I guess you do too."

The comment is paired with another rare soft smile, the kind of smile that you wanted to make him have every day for the rest of your life, and you understood why he was smiling like that. Because Ben was allowing himself to be comforted by the idea that he wouldn’t have to worry about losing you, that he wouldn't have to be alone and that you would be with him for as long as he was alive.

Something inside ripped open and you felt your eyes begin to water with the weight of his words, because Ben was saying that he wanted to be with you as long as you wanted to be with him.

"Yeah." You breathe. "I guess I do."

You contemplate for a minute what he said about Countess asking him for things. "Honestly, I do like gifts, but I like gifts that mean something." You sit up, gently pushing him off you, so you can gesture to the bookshelf standing proudly on the other side of your bedroom, the one that Ben bought you at IKEA. "Like the bookshelf."

"I bought you a diamond necklace and you liked the bookshelf more?" Ben sighs incredulous.

"Yeah." You laugh. "I've needed a bookshelf for ages, but I never was able to afford one. Do you have any idea how long I've had piles of books? Years. And-" You shrug your shoulders, gently taking Ben's hand in yours, rubbing your thumb over the hardened ridges and rough patches. You couldn't go long without touching him, you were realizing that about yourself and now that you were finally allowing yourself to touch him you weren’t sure when you would be able to stop. "I've also always thought that spending time with someone else is more special than big extravagant gifts."

"Really?"

You nod.

"Why?"

"Because I think there's something wonderful about just existing with someone, of inhabiting the same space and doing nothing at all. Of sinking into someone and just being there." You could feel your cheeks flushing. "When we watch a movie or when we sit and read together or when you walk with me to the plant shop, I like things like that. Spending time together without expectations or a sense of urgency. Taking the time out of your day to be with someone else. And it doesn't have to be sex either-"

"Are you saying that you didn't like the sex?" Ben raises an eyebrow. "Because you certainly sounded like you-"

"No! I-" Your cheeks flush. "I liked the sex."

"Thought so." Ben smirks.

"You're insufferable." You roll your eyes at him, considering what to say next. "I know that it's a little different than the girls you've met in the past, and I know that it might seem a little strange, but you didn't have to take me to Vought to impress me or win my love or something."

Ben looks confused.

"I mean, if you'd shown up on my grandmother's doorstep with a giant box of greasy Chinese food, a cheap bottle of wine, and a small bouquet of flowers I would have been equally happy."

"Really?"

"Mhmm." You continue to trace your fingers over the palm of Ben's hand, loving the way it feels in yours.  "You've got some big hands there mister."

"There isn't anything small about me Sweetheart, you know that. Got to see firsthand" Ben teases sitting up and leaning towards you with a smirk that makes you roll your eyes. He takes your free hand in his left brushing his thumb over the palm. "Yours are kinda small."

"Sorry sasquatch, we can't all have meat hooks."

"I like it." He murmurs.

"That you've got meat hooks for hands?"

"No, I like how small your hands are." He smiles crookedly at you in a way that makes your breath catch.

"Why?"

"Just take the compliment Petals."

"Well, no one has ever complimented my hands before so…"

"I'm sure that I can give a compliment to every part of your sexy body.”

"If you're about to start talking about my ass again, Ben I swear I'm going to lock you in a tree."

“Songs should be written about it. I’m just stating the obvious.”

You shake your head at him and continue to stroke your thumb over his palm while Ben does the same thing. He was being surprisingly gentle, holding your hand as if it was a fragile bird that could fly away at any moment.

“Why do you like my hands?”

Ben is quiet for a moment. “I don't know I kind of like how delicate they are, and I like how you always seem to have some dirt on them-“ Ben smooths his thumb over your palm. “I like how small they look in mine.” He mutters more to himself than to you.

“Ben?” You whisper.

He glances up, an ashamed look on his face. “Yeah?”

“I like how they look in yours too.”

“Really?”

You nod before you look back down at his hands with red cheeks. “I like how big yours are because they feel solid, strong, but also just a little bit gentle.” You could feel yourself blushing all over again. “When we first met, I didn’t think you could be, but you are.”

Ben scoffs.

“Stop.” You look up at him. “You don’t have to pretend right now, it’s just you and me.” You whisper, squeezing his hand encouragingly. "I know that you think that you have to be this tough, no feelings, jerk or playboy or toxic masculinity poster boy, but you don’t. Not around me. I love you and you opening up to me more is not going to make me stop or think less of you. You can tell me how you feel without me judging you."

The look in Ben’s eyes softens for a moment.

“I like the way you are when you’re around me.” You continue in a whisper. “You always seem softer and a bit happier.”

Ben doesn’t answer immediately, instead he continues to let you stroke along his hands. “I-um-I” He clears his throat. “I like who I am around you too.”

Your cheeks warm with his confession.

Ben clears his throat still looking down at your hand watching the gentle movement of your thumb against his skin. "Look, I-" He pauses. "I wasn't just trying to impress you."

"When?"

"At Vought."

"Then why-"

"I don't want you to worry about any of this shit anymore."

"What shit?"

"Paying rent, buying groceries that aren't name brand, walking because you can't afford a car-" Ben sighs. "Fuck, the day we went to IKEA, and you looked at the price of that couch, I hated how you looked and-"

"Ben it's okay. I budget things and it works out. I'm used to it-"

"But I'm not. It's not okay." His hand tightens in yours. "And I don't want you to worry about any of it."

"But-"

"No 'buts' Petals. "

"I don't want you to pay for everything all the time!" You shout.

"Why not?"

"Because it's your money-"

"Not anymore. You're my girl and that means you're not going to worry about any of it as long as I'm here."

"Do you think you're going to stay a long time?" You say it hesitantly, the part of you deep down that worried Ben couldn't be in an exclusive relationship rearing its ugly head all over again.

"As long as you want me here." The determination in Ben's eyes makes your heart stutter a beat, but there was just a little bit of something behind his gaze, something that looked like vulnerability, but it vanishes in the heat of his gaze.

"I'm pretty sure that I'm always going to want you here. It's too quiet without you."

“Then I’ll stay.”

Ben pushes you back against the bed, fitting his body over yours like a warm weighted blanket designed especially for you, kissing you with so much enthusiasm you're not sure that you remember how to breathe. You didn't understand how it could be like this, how you could feel this way about him especially after he annoyed you so much.

But just as he reaches down to grab your thighs to pull them up around his hips, your stomach growls loud enough to wake the dead.

Oh, holy fuck that is so embarrassing.

Ben hesitates and looks at you, your cheeks burning a bright red. "When was the last time you ate?"

"Um-" You clear your throat. "I mean I drank some of my latte earlier but-"

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

"What?"

"I should have known." Ben sighs and extracts himself from the embrace of your thighs, getting up from the bed, and muttering something under his breath that you can't understand. “You always do this.”

"Wait, where are you going?" You ask him as you sit up.

"I'm going to find my fucking phone and order a pizza." He says, running his hand through his hair almost a little angry.

“It’s okay you don’t have to do that-“

“Yes, I do. I mean, fuck Petals, why don’t you ever remember to eat?” Ben grouses.

“Because I have a lot on my mind! A few things happened today, and I was upset because you weren't in the apartment when I got home and-"

Ben leans across the bed to kiss you, securing his large hand at the back of your head. "I'm sorry that you were upset. I swear that I'm going to make it up to you."

"Ben I’m pretty sure that you’ve spent the last four hours making it up to me-“

"Not long enough." He winks in a way that makes your throat tighten. "But let me find my phone.”

"Okay." You reach for his shirt on the floor prepared to help him find it, but Ben's hand comes down to your wrist to stop you. “Let me help.”

"Don't bother getting dressed Petals. This’ll only take a minute." He says with a wide smirk. "And I'm not done with you yet."

You're not sure how you ended up on the couch naked and eating pizza, but somehow that's exactly what happens. When the pizza guy had been buzzed up, Ben had answered the door only wearing a pair of his boxers, his chest still sweaty and his hair tugged in two different directions, but Ben couldn't have cared less.

Honestly, you'd had to stop him from answering the door naked. The guy had no sense of shame, but you figured that someone who had founded Herogasm and spent at least seventy five percent of his week bed-hopping, had probably lost his sense of shame years ago.

Bean and Rex were now sharing the dog bed in the corner, a surprising turn of events, but you hoped that it meant the two of them had sorted out whatever sibling problems they were having.

Ben's arm was thrown over your shoulders, pulling you further into him while you ate a slice of pizza with your head leaning against his arm.

I could get used to this.

You exhale a happy sigh and cuddle further into him. Ben wasn't a cuddler, but he was allowing you to cuddle against his arm. But he seemed to be enjoying himself, eating his own slice while taking sips of a glass of whiskey that he was sharing with you.

Sharing was a relative turn because the one time he gave you a sip, you'd sputtered it all out and almost coughed up a lung while Ben patted you on the back as hard as he dared, laughing all the while at you.

And predictably when Ben and you were done, he pulled you onto his lap, and the only thing you could think of was how wonderful you felt. Being with Ben made you feel vibrant and alive in the best way. He made you feel beautiful and made you feel as if Ben understood you more than anyone else ever had. That he saw through what everyone else called weird or unusual and loved you anyway. It was all you wanted for so long, a man who saw every part of you that others sneered at and fell head over heels.

Ben deepens the kiss, groaning into your mouth as his hands tighten on your hips hard enough to leave bruises, but you don't care. Everything about him felt right, the scruff of his beard scratching against your flushed cheeks, the smell of his shampoo (really yours) floating through the air with every breath you took of him, the soft pillow of his lips urgent as if he wanted to drink you in breath by breath and never come up for air, the rough trail of his calloused hands over your soft skin, and the hardness of his body molding around yours in the best way as you sat on top of him. You didn't feel self-conscious or uncomfortable, you couldn't, not when each time Ben touched you with a reverence as if wanted to savor you, to run his hands over every inch and discover new places that no one had ever been, and make you feel things that no one ever has or ever will.

You're so absorbed in Ben that you don't hear the jingle of keys in the lock of your front door, but you do hear the startled scream.

"What the fuck!" Annie screams as she enters the living room.

"Holy shit! Annie what the fuck are you doing here!?" You screech, diving off Ben and ripping the crocheted blanket off the back of the couch to cover yourself.

Annie had seen you naked before, what she hadn't seen was Ben naked or Ben and you having sex.

Oh, will the nightmare never end?

"I was just coming to find you! I was worried!" She shouts, her hand covering her eyes, but it was too late. You knew that she'd seen everything. And you mean EVERYTHING.

Well, it can't get any worse.

"Hey Annie did you find her and- OH HOLY FUCK!" Hughie exclaims as he enters the apartment behind Annie and immediately slaps his hand over his eyes so loud you can hear the sharp slap of his hand against his face. "I didn’t see anything!"

"Can someone shut the door before Mike comes in here and 'doesn't see anything either!'" You snap, clutching the crocheted blanket tighter against your chest. It was doing little to cover you, due to the wide spaces in between the granny squares, but it was the only thing big enough to cover all of you.

Because that's exactly what this situation needed, my neighbor coming in and getting everything on his Christmas list when he sees me naked on my couch.

"Why try to hide it baby?" Ben shrugs, leaning back against the couch not bothering to cover himself. "I want everyone to see what they can't have." He winks.

You smack him in the face with one of the couch pillows before shoving it into his lap. "You're not helping Ben." You wave a hand and a vine hanging on the back of your door shuts it with a slam.

"What?" Ben leans towards you with a salacious grin. "My girl is fucking gorgeous, should be the star of every wet dream-"

"Ben, I swear I will tie you up and-"

"But we already did that Petals." He grins. "I wouldn't mind doing it again-"

The wave of heat that travels through your body has nothing to do with embarrassment.

"Please do not finish that sentence." Annie interrupts, her hand still covering her eyes. "I'm already scarred for life."

"Join the club." Hughie mutters.

"You wouldn't have been scarred for life if you had just fucking knocked!" You shout at your friend. "Why are you here?"

"I was worried when you ran to the elevators and Ashley finally let me leave that ridiculous party! I tried to call you and you didn't answer, I went up to Ben's apartment and you weren't there, I called your grandmother and she said that she hadn't heard from you, so I figured you were here!"

"You called Di?" Ben asks.

"I was desperate!" Annie sighs. "I wanted to make sure she was okay-"

"Uh-huh well, you can see that she's fine and we were in the middle of something. Unless the two of you want to get another eyeful of my girl's perfect ass, you should clear out-"

"Ben!" You smack him on the shoulder.

"Absolutely, Annie let's go-" Hughie begins to say stepping backward with his hand over his eyes. He gropes through the air blindly trying to find her, but he comes up empty.

"Wait!" Annie removes her hand from her face, giving Ben a once over and not bothering to hide what she was doing.

"What do you have to wait for?" Hughie asks still reaching out for Annie with his eyes closed.

"Annie for fucks sake-" You groan, but Ben seemed to like all the attention.

She gives you a thumbs up. "I want details tomorrow."

It was more of a high five moment and you both knew it, but you weren't going to give her the satisfaction.

"ANNIE!" You huff face blushing an even brighter red. By now you were sure that you were as red as the strawberries that were hanging on the plant on your kitchen table.

"Bye babe!" Annie says cheerfully, pulling Hughie out the door behind her and slamming it.

"I'm going to kill her." You mutter under your breath, but Ben laughs.

"You're going to talk me up right baby?" Ben purrs wrapping his arm around your waist to pull you into him again. His lips fall to your ear, biting your earlobe before he murmurs. "Tell her all about how good I was?"

"Keep talking and I'm going to tell her that I had to fake it for four hours." You threaten.

It was an empty threat, like hell you were ever going to forget what Ben had done to you. And of course, you were going to tell Annie everything tomorrow over coffee or maybe over wine.

Definitely wine. I’m going to need to get a little bit drunk to cope with the thought that Hughie just saw me naked.

"Aww don't be like that Petals. We both know that you didn't fake anything."

“That you know.”

Ben’s gaze turns dark. “Oh really?” His grip on your waist tightens and he starts to pull the crocheted blanket away from your chest.

“Wait.” You say before you get distracted.

“What?” Ben pulls back. "What's wrong?"

"Annie called my grandmother, which means that she may have tried to call me." You look around the room for where your phone could be. It's between the couch cushions behind you and when you look at the screen you see that your grandmother had tried to call you twice, just as you suspected.

"So?"

"She called me. She must be so worried." You push the call button.

Your grandmother answers on the first ring. "Hello?"

"Hey Gran, I'm sorry I didn't pick up. I was-"

"You don't have to explain. I know that you must have been preoccupied." The way she says preoccupied makes your entire body flush bright red.

Oh, sweet baby peony, please tell me that my grandmother didn't watch Ben and me having sex.

"Please tell me that you didn't-" You begin to croak.

"I didn't mean to." She breezes, and she doesn't sound ashamed. "But then Annie called, and I was worried about where you were so I looked ahead a bit and-“

"Oh, for the love of lemon cream pie." You groan, curling up into a ball because that seems the right thing to do after you've found out that your grandmother had a front row seat to see what Ben and you over the past four hours.

The couch shakes beneath you, and you realize that Ben is laughing. You raise your head to glare at him.

"Looks like the cats out of the bag Petals." He croons.

"I will kill you." You narrow your eyes at him.

"Sweet Pea, I was alive when Ben went to yearly herogasms, there really isn't anything I haven't seen." You hear your grandmother say.

"That doesn't matter." You groan, pulling the crochet blanket over your head in shame. "This is mortifying."

"Petals it's okay." Ben rubs your back, but it's not helping. "I did some of my best work, and you really did some-“

"Please do not finish that sentence."

"Honey, I didn't see too much." Your grandmother soothes. "But I am happy you called, because I want to speak to Ben for a moment."

You hold up the phone from underneath the crocheted blanket, remaining inside your cocoon of shame.

I'm never going to be able to look her in the eyes every again. Holy fuck why me? Why me!? I’d rather Mike walk in here while Ben and I were fooling around on the couch.

"Di, what's wrong?" You hear Ben say into the phone, but you don’t come out of your cave.

"What's wrong?" Your grandmother asks calmly. "Oh, let me think for a second… You're a complete MOTHER FUCKING IDIOT!" Your grandmother shouts it so loudly that you could hear it vibrating through the room.

You peel back the crocheted blanket on your head to look up at Ben who seems just as surprised at your grandmother's insult.

"Wait a minute, what did I-"

"No! No talking!" She shouts. "I couldn't have been any clearer, could I? Maybe if I'd hit you over the head with a frying pan it would have cleaned out your ears! Or given your brain a good shake."

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"What am I talking about?! I told you what you needed to do. I told you that you needed to come here and what did you fucking do? You broke my granddaughter's heart and went right back to Stan Fucking Edgar!"

Ben's eyes shift to yours and you swear you can see a flicker of regret spark behind his gaze. It makes you reach out and take his free hand, squeezing it to ground him here with you. You knew that Ben felt bad about leaving you like that, you heard it in his voice when he talked to you back at Vought, had seen the regret in his eyes when he told you that he ‘should have been there.’

"That's not-" Ben says half-heartedly, his gaze still on you.

"No! It's exactly what happened."

"Stop anticipating what I'm going to fucking say!" Ben snaps.

"And you stop interrupting me!" Your grandmother shouts back.

"But-"

"Benjamin, you better not fuck this up, because if you do, I will fuck you up." The threat hangs heavy in the air. "Now put my granddaughter back on the phone."

Ben huffs something under his breath and hands you back the phone, fuming. You give his hand another apologetic squeeze.

It was embarrassing enough that your grandmother had seen Ben and you having sex, but now you were mortified that she had yelled at him. You understood that they were friends, but Ben was still your boyfriend.

"Gran you shouldn't talk to him like that." You say into the phone, leaning into Ben's bare shoulder to show him that you weren’t angry with him. "He's apologized and it's okay-"

"It most certainly is not okay." Your grandmother says. "And somebody's got to talk to him like that, so it might as well be me."

"But Gran-"

"No buts sweet pea." She interrupts. "Now I know the two of you are busy today, but I would like you to come out here next week."

"Next week?"

"Yes. It's the annual town fall festival and I've got about a million things to bake, and I could really use the help." Your grandmother states. "Plus, Annie's mother is driving me up the wall about it and it would be nice to have someone here to make sure that I don't kill her."

"Oh okay." You frown and the thought of leaving Ben. The two of you had just finally worked it all out and now you were going to have to go back to Illinois. But you couldn't leave your grandmother high and dry. She needed you there and you loved your grandmother. "Well, I guess Ben can take care of Bean and Rex-

"I want to go." Ben interrupts you.

"Really?" You look at him surprised. "It's not something that you'd-"

"I want to go." He says firmly and this time it's Ben that squeezes your hand.

It made you smile, because you could see that Ben wanted to spend time with you even at something that he'd probably hate every second of.

Fuck, I love him so much.

"Okay. We'll be there." You reply to your grandmother, but you don't look away from Ben.

He's got that soft smile on his face, the one that you want to make him have every second for the rest of your life. You were sure that the same smile was mirrored on your own.

"Perfect. Now get back to doing whatever it was that you were doing, and don't forget to call me when you figure out what day you're going to start driving over."

"Drive? Wouldn't we fly?"

"Nope. For some reason you convince Ben that a road trip will be fun." She says knowingly and you realize that she's seen the future again. “Something about experiencing America in the 21st century.” You can imagine her waving her hand around as if she can’t quite understand.

"That's going to take some getting used to." You groan and wonder how much she had seen of your life. "Gran?"

"Yes, sweet pea?"

"Thank you. For everything."

"You're welcome." You could hear the smile in your grandmother's voice.

She didn’t need you to explain what you meant, she knew that you were talking about last week when she comforted you and tried her darndest to tell you that Ben and you were meant to be together. She had always been so patient with you, and you knew that she loved you just as you loved her. Going home was never a chore or something you dreaded. It was something that filled you with warmth, something that made you feel like you belonged, and the home was filled with the love your grandmother infused through the air with her thoughtful actions and kind words.

"I love you." You smile.

"I love you too sweetie. I'll see you next week."

You sit there in the silence for a moment, lowering the phone from your ear, before you look up at Ben.

"You okay Petals?" Ben drags the crocheted blanket away from your body, before he pulls you onto his lap.

"Yeah. I am." You smile, wrapping your arms around the back of his neck to secure him against you. "Can you promise me something?"

 "Anything." His hands settle comfortably on your hips, but Ben doesn’t look away from your face.

"That you won’t leave like that again." This time you reach down and pull his right hand up to your chest, directly over your heart so he can feel the gentle beat through his skin.

'Like-"

"Go all radio silent and take all your stuff and just vanish into thin air." You clarify. "I didn't like that. It scared me and I-"

Ben's other hand cups your cheek, pulling your face to his before you can finish your sentence. You can feel how sorry he is, how much he wants to make it up to you. You know deep down that Ben didn’t mean to do that to you, that he only did it because he was trying to push you away, but that didn't make it any less okay.

"I promise." He says into your mouth before nipping at your sore bottom lip and easing the pain with a sweep of his tongue against the soft flesh. "I won't leave like that again."

"Good." But instead of kissing him again, this time you press your forehead into his shoulder with a soft sigh, cuddling into him.

"Tired?" Ben's hand begins to circle at the base of your spine.

"Mhmm. You wore me out old man."

"I thought you were faking it."

"I wasn't faking all of it." You press a kiss into the shadow of his jaw, holding on to him. You wondered if Ben was okay with how clingy you were but given his hand placement you didn't think that it bothered him.

"Thought so." Ben chuckles. "Petals?"

"Hmm?" You hum into his skin, tightening your arms around his neck. He was wonderful and warm in the best way, like the perfect heating pad. Not to mention the way his muscles tensed around your body made goosebumps flicker over your arms. You could feel a wave of happiness and contentment crashing over your head, the longer you cuddled into him.

"Will you promise me something?" He mutters into the top of your head.

"Of course."

He’s quiet for a few moments. "That you won't leave either." Ben whispers it so quietly that you're not sure that you heard him correctly.

You pull back just a few inches to look him in the eye. He looks a little ashamed, and you can practically see the internal self-deprecating monologue inside his head, his face scrunching up in disgust. He opens his mouth, probably to take it back-

Your lips meet his, gentle, unyielding, pouring every emotion you have into it, your hands finding the strands of hair at the nape of his neck to hold him closer to you. You wanted Ben to understand that you would never judge him for that, that he could be vulnerable around you without consequence. And you wanted him to believe how much you loved him and how much he meant to you.

Ben moans into your mouth, pulling you tighter against his chest, your body molding against his in the best way, in the way that Ben only could. His hands were everywhere, trailing warmth in their wake, making the tiredness that you had felt minutes ago fade as you began to burn beneath his calloused palms.

He tasted good, he smelled good, and he felt so damn good that it made you feel like you were catching fire one cell at a time, burning until there was nothing left but stardust.

"I promise Ben." You whisper against his mouth before he swallows the words whole. "I promise that I'll never leave as long as you want me here."

He hesitates, hands stilling on your hips. An odd look crosses his face.

"Ben? What's wrong?" You cup his cheeks, worried about him.

"I-" He swallows, but looks frustrated with himself.

"It's okay." You whisper, brushing your lips against his, understanding exactly what it is that he's trying to say. "You don’t have to say it. I know. I love you too.”

And you did know. You knew that it was difficult for him to admit something like that, but you didn’t care. You knew that Ben loved you as much as you loved him, and that was enough for you.

You settle back down against his chest, holding him close to you.

“Come on Petals, let’s go to bed.” He murmurs into the top of your head.

“Can we just sit here for a few minutes?” You whisper into his throat, nuzzling into his warmth.

Ben’s hand gently trails along your back, holding you steadily on top of him. “Yeah. We can do that.”

And you wondered if Ben liked this as much as you did, if there was a piece of Ben that longed for the quiet moments you loved so much, and the quiet moments when it was just the two of you and no one else.

You feel him press a kiss to your hairline, and it’s enough to send you off into the sweet relief of sleep, swallowed and enveloped in Ben’s warm embrace.

A/N: Just a lovely bit of fluff and a little spice 😉. I really needed to just write a soft Ben and a reader enjoying their time together. 😊 There will be one more chapter that is a little bit of a time jump, but I think it will wrap up the series wonderfully! But don't worry, it won't be the last time I write for this reader and Ben. I have a mini-series planned and a few one-shots planned!

As always thank you so much for reading! Reblogs, Likes, and Comments are not required but are always appreciated. I love hearing what y'all think! If you'd like to be added to the taglist for this series let me know!

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[sylussys]

KINGS GAMBIT.

AVENTURINE x fem reader. nsfw, mdni. porn with plot(?). putting a slight ooc warning in case those aventurine fans come at me. wc: 3.3k

SUMMARY. perhaps life is a gamble in itself—choices must be made in order to survive this world rife with opportunity and its pitfalls. but how far will you go? what will you put on the line? in his words, it’s all or nothing.

You find him at the casino. 

Your casino, if you could still call it that. Or what it had been, with its endless rewards to sow from patrons that poured their wealth into machines that lined your own pockets day by day. You were the one who had built this establishment from the ground up, pulled together an existence amongst this bleak world. 

So how had it all fallen into his hands? 

Your fingers twitch, threatening to crumple the document in your hands. A debt settlement—you had wanted to scoff at the incredulity of it all, as you scan the brightly lit room for the man who had penned such a statement. 

It’s not hard to locate him, sitting in the middle of it all, engrossed within a game of poker, chips piled high by his side. He sticks out like a peacock, extravagant and bold even amongst the finest luxury this world offers. 

“Aventurine.” You utter, quietly at first, trying to hide the slight tremor in your voice—you’re still unsure of this whole affair, as you approach him. Your pride didn’t want to allow it. 

Even his name feels embellished. But rolling off your tongue it’s heavy, leaving a bitter taste in your mouth. 

“Aventurine.” You repeat again, louder. 

The game pauses.

Aventurine lifts his head, glancing up at you. His lips pull up into a smile a moment later, eyes gleaming behind those rose tinted glasses. In this light, he looks smug almost. 

“Ah Miss Y/N, we meet again.” He starts, as if greeting an old friend. 

Your first meeting had not been so amicable, if you could call it that. His appearance had brought enough trouble to this world—you are not so blind to not notice the market shrinking, businesses run to the ground. Soon enough, it too had arrived upon your doorstep, to run up on old debts long forgotten by time. 

For that was the price for existing, to flourish. You had only shone bright enough to draw their hungry gaze. These visitors from beyond the sky, they’ll soon drain this world dry and move on to things with greater promise. Everything would disappear, just as how quickly golden coins are exchanged between hands and cash is pocketed.

Thirteen days, he had given you. To either sign off your entire fortune and its shares to the IPC—or to convince him otherwise.

“I‘ve made my choice.” You say stiffly. 

“Leave us.” You snap at the rest of the patrons around the table, who scatter immediately, scooping up their chips and disappearing out the door. 

He watches as the last of them disappears from view, fingers drumming on the tabletop, before he turns to you, amusement written across his features. “And what will that be?” 

“I will have you know, I do consider myself rather merciful, compared to my other colleagues.” He drawls, leaning back in his chair.  

“I don’t need your pity.” You hiss. 

You had spent twelve of the days grappling between what was your pride and bare necessity. To throw it all away, could you even do that? Or would you be so pathetic enough to plead for mercy? If such a concept existed to those who looked down from the head of their high tables. 

Even from here, the gold of his watch glistens brighter than any gold you’ve ever seen, the rhinestones on his jacket cut from a gem whose properties are beyond you. Your luxuries are lost on him, your world but a speck of dust in the vast universe the IPC encompassed.

It’s easy to hate him. You can think of a hundred different names to call him—an asshole, a loan shark, just to name a few. You wonder if he has ever known struggle, or has life always just been a game to him? One where he holds all the winning cards. 

You weren’t going to give him the satisfaction. “I’ll get the money. All of it.” 

It falls silent. 

He stares at you, perhaps almost incredulously. 

Then he tips his head back and laughs.

“You’re aware that is half a billion credits right?” 

You both know it would be easier to sign off your business, get the IPC off your back—him included. But you refuse to give up so easily, not after all you had done to bring this from the ground up. You weren’t going to become a pawn in their game. 

“I’ll find a way. Just give me some more time.” 

“How bold of you.” He muses. “You know Y/N, I must admire your tenacity.” 

You’re not like the other women who have sought him out in desperation, ones with no true grasp on any business, this the first time in their lives where they’ve struggled, despaired even, at the uncertainties of the future which had once been promised to them. They plead for mercy, for themselves and their families. 

You on the other hand have known struggle. Nothing in this world had been handed to you upon a silver platter. You’ve fought tooth and nail, clawing your way up to the top by any means possible—to survive. This business of yours had been nothing, but you had made it something. And you would not let go of something so precious in a world of beggars and thieves. 

Aventurine clicks his tongue. “But time is money. None of which you have right now at your disposal, and the IPC does not take empty promises for one.” 

“You’re setting yourself an impossible task. Why not take the easy way out?” He waves your discarded document in front of your face almost tauntingly, watching as your eyes narrow. 

He knows you won’t. An animal caught in a trap will gnaw off its own leg to escape. Others unlike you would balk at the idea, accepting their fate. 

“You and I both know that is not the case.” You hiss through gritted teeth, turning away, eyes flickering over to the unfinished game of poker on the table. Your fingers rest atop a particularly high pile of chips, watching as it topples beneath your touch. All this wealth, you think, brought crashing down so easily. 

“Everything has a price. It won’t end here.” 

A drowning person will grab onto anything, forgoing the consequences for a shot at survival. 

You are no stranger to that nature of desperation, it forever having existed in the underbellies of this city and its helpless souls. Risking arm and limb for a bag of gold to feed their hunger, or to tarnish their own hands at a price—you’ve seen it all. You too had been amongst them once, staking your survival to dig yourself out from the dirt. 

But you’ve learnt to be better, being the only way you have risen to the top. You would not subject yourself to the IPC’s whims so easily, to be forever indebted to them, with your last bargaining chip gone. 

Behind you, you hear the scrape of a chair against the floor, footsteps stopping behind you. A gloved hand reaches out, restacking the chips you had knocked over. “I suppose I underestimated you, Y/N.” 

You scoff. 

“Perhaps we are kindred spirits, in that we will do anything to survive on our own terms in this world.” He huffs a laugh, warm breath tickling the back of your neck. “Let me make you an offer, one from myself and not the IPC. One you can’t possibly refuse.” 

You pause, hesitating. “And what is your price?” 

You don’t trust him. No one in their right mind should. But oddly enough, he sounds sincere. It could be a chance to escape the IPC’s grasp. Yet could you allow yourself to be indebted to him instead? The devil takes on many forms, with its most beautiful ones the most treacherous. 

Aventurine hums appreciably. “Humour me, how much are you willing to put on the line? Could you wager your life—”

“—or something else perhaps?” His voice drops to a whisper. 

Too late, you think. He’s already gotten you backed into a corner. 

He has everything to gain. You have everything to lose, and already you’ve been left with nothing but your wits and the meagre sum left to your name. There’s nothing but a false plea for more time that you cling to now, hoping he would take your bluff. And perhaps he could see through that act of yours too. 

Your breath hitches as you feel his hand grasp your chin. The leather of his gloves are bitingly cold, like pinpricks of ice against your skin, digging into you. 

He turns your head to meet his eyes, hues of cyan and pink gleaming in the light—maddened almost. He’s suddenly way too close you realise, hot breath fanning against your face as he chuckles. 

“Beg me.” He whispers. “Beg for my help.” 

Your nails dig further into the table at his words. You don’t even notice the angry tears that have begun to prick at the corner of your eyes until he wipes them away. He’s practically pressed against you now—you have nowhere to run, wedged between him and the table. 

You swallow back the lump in your throat, chest heaving. It’s suddenly stiflingly hot—between his closeness and the part of you that is seething internally, heart thumping loudly in the silence. 

“You are infuriating.” You get out a moment later, scooting back on the table to swipe your foot at him. 

He catches your leg halfway, amused. “So I’ve been told.” 

“It must be difficult.” He steps in between your legs, leaning down as he continues. “Alone with the world crashing down around you… I suppose I could understand how you feel. That the mighty should be humbled.” 

“Truly it would be a shame for it to end like this.” He murmurs, fingers moving to curl around the back of your neck, pulling you ever so slightly closer to him so that his breath fans across your cheeks as his eyes fall to your lips. “Take my offer. Let me help you.” 

You could almost believe him, the way he grazes your cheekbone with his fingertips before tracing the outline of your jaw with an uncanny gentleness. That he pities you—your desperation. It is a desperation that burns like no other, hollowing and empty, yet ravaging to consume, lying beneath the last extant shreds of what remains a tether to this world that has not yet blurred beyond reason. 

“I only wonder…” The hunger in his eyes is unmistakable as the corner of his mouth twitches up into a half smirk. “How much more can you take until you crack?” 

The shallow breath you draw into your lungs is like music to his ears, and you feel his hand stiffen against the nape of your neck as he awaits your response. 

Your skin is as smooth as porcelain and just as devastatingly fragile, beneath his digits encrusted with the weight of gold—as if made to crumble by his touch, the gravity of it all, that delicate figure that has teetered precariously on the lines of control. 

And he cracks that shell, leaves all there is to break, to consume. Your response is airy, hardly more than a whisper, but a bite to the last of your challenge, rekindled fire burning to meet his hungry gaze. “How much will you give to find out?” 

“Everything.” 

Those few words come out roughly, but you hardly get the chance to dwell on it. His lips are on your neck in the next second, stealing your breath and igniting a fire in your veins that threatens to burn you from the inside out.

His fingers trail down the length of your figure, bunching the fabric of your dress in his hands as he pushes you further over the table. A stack of chips topple over at the force, scattering all over the tabletop, splayed around your frame. 

You shiver as his free hand pulls down the zipper of your dress—revealing the full flush of your figure, his mouth trailing past your collarbone, down to your exposed breasts, his tongue flicking out as if to savour the feeling of your bare skin, a low moan of satisfaction escaping him. You smell sweet, like the scent of freshly blossoming flowers. 

Perhaps you could grant his starving soul satiation, two sides of the same coin, halves to a whole. 

It’s no secret he has been captivated by you. He’s heard acclaim of your name in the first moments of stepping onto this world, a woman who had come from no background having risen so high, forged your own path. And perhaps he had gotten more than what he had gambled for. 

Truly he does think you’re pretty, from your first meeting where you had stood as an elegant figure of ethereal grace—an unattainable treasure, cutting a flawless figure in the sweep of your dress. But you’ve shed some of that light, revealing all that lay beneath. And now, he sees you laid out before him, face flushed, lipstick stained in a hot mess. 

Slowly, his kisses move further down. Before you could even make out his motions, he’s licking a hot stripe down your cunt, pulling a choked gasp from your throat, eyes fluttering shut as you try not to lose all control. His tongue prods at the entrance of your hole, and you can feel his groan reverberate against you, drinking up your arousal. 

Good gods. You think you’re beginning to see stars already. 

A shudder escapes you when Aventurine cuts you off with another hot moan against your dripping cunt, pressing his lips against your clit. You have to clap your hand over your mouth to muffle the sounds that push past your own lips. 

“Embarrassed?” He purrs, lifting his head, fingers pulling away your hand. 

You forget how infuriating he can be when his mouth isn’t occupied. You grit your teeth, shoving him back, rolling your hips against his tongue just to shut him up. You earn a quiet huff from him before he’s dipping back into your cunt with renewed vigour, lapping up the arousal. 

He doesn’t let up, enraptured with the taste of you, the sounds of him sloppily sucking on your clit and your soft moans filling the room. You’re momentarily glad that you had emptied the room and the rest of the casino earlier. 

Soon you can’t take it anymore, chest heaving as he coaxes another moan from you. Tears begin to prick at your eyes again as his tongue drags another languid lick up against your folds, eating you out like a man starved. It’s awfully vulgar and lewd, so perfectly mind numbing—you’re practically keening, fingers entangling themselves in his blonde locks as your back arches against the table. 

Your orgasm builds quickly, much to your further embarrassment, his name coming out in broken gasps. It crashes through your veins in a wave of white-hot pleasure that has your eyes rolling back, your body trembling as you cum on his lips. 

“Oh my god.” You choke out, chest heaving loudly, your heart thrumming in your ears. 

You’re spread out the table with an utterly fucked out expression across your face, cunt dripping as Aventurine slowly pulls away, eyes roving over you. His finger flicks out to wipe away a stray tear that falls down your cheek. 

He’s then climbing on top of you, shedding the outer layers of his coat—and it’s not long until he’s pulling you into a heated kiss, chasing your lips. You can taste the remnants of your sweet release on his tongue, forcing its way between your teeth and licking at your mouth. 

It’s hot, too hot. 

“… fuck, don’t look at me like that.” He mutters between breaths as he takes a moment to truly take you in. “Please, gods, let me fuck you.” 

It’s inviting. He thinks maybe you look prettier when you cry, his name pushing past your lips. You wanted more—you were too far gone to act as though you weren't eager to experience everything he had to offer, your own desires having overcome you. 

He unbuckles his belt, letting it slip to the floor with a clink. He would’ve made you beg for it, but how could he deny himself when you were right here in front of him like that? 

His hands move over your body, smoothing up the skin of your thighs, pulling them farther apart. Your eyes flutter shut as you swallow back a gulp, your breaths shaky and haggard as he pushes himself into you. You bury your face in the crook of your neck as if to stifle your cry, a groan rumbling in his own chest. 

“Look at me baby.” He gasps, pulling you from his chest, fingers tangling themselves in your hair, violet irises dancing, as he rolls his hips against yours and you moan. He didn’t think you could make such a beautiful noise, lips crashing against yours as if poised to devour the essence of your being completely. 

He could think himself truly enamoured by you in the height of his pleasures. You’re dancing in the palm of his hands, tits bouncing up and down as he thrusts into you, letting that sweet, sweet melody of your pleasure fill his ears, pushing any coherent thoughts from Aventurine’s mind. 

Your own mind is equally blank, you’re numb, shaking all over as he continues to slam his cock into you, gasping as his fingers dig into your thighs. A cry escapes you, your legs trembling, as the knot in your stomach seems to tighten with each movement of his. He’s grown rougher, faster. 

“Mm you’re beautiful.” He kisses along your neck, as you wrap your arms around him, nails digging into his back amid a muffled sob as he continues, settling into a steady pace. 

At this point you’ve begun to lose count of the times he’s abused your cunt, your vision blurring as a sudden orgasm crashes through you, the knot in your stomach growing taut—then snapping, without so much of a warning, as his cock hits that sweet spot of yours, one that has you seeing stars. 

It’s so much all at once. Pleasure rips through you like a tidal wave, painting your mind in a foggy haze. It’s shamefully fulfilling as you ride out your high.

He fucks you through your release, your first, and then every other one that follows, in chase of his own, your walls growing tighter and more desperate. Your cries become higher and higher in pitch—you’re practically keening with your head thrown back, eyes rolling to the back into your head. 

His pace grows sloppy, his words coming out between gasps against your ear. His eyes are equally unfocused, strands of blonde hair sticking to the thin sheen of sweat on his forehead, as he loses himself in the pleasure of your soft cunt. His breathing is ragged, chest heaving as his hips stutter. 

With one final thrust, he spills into you with a sigh. You feel him twitch inside, warm liquid painting your walls and dripping down the inside of your thighs. His head drops down, slumping over. 

You have little to no idea how long you two lie there for, catching your breath as the rush of the moment dissipates, both of you equally spent. Your mind is in no better state, a good deal of time passing before you can even think clearly enough to be stirred to action. 

Eventually, he lifts a hand to guide your legs off him, settling your trembling limbs back down on the table, almost like dead weights. 

He gets up quickly, pulling up his pants, the clink of a belt being refastened as he fixes up his clothes. He pats his pockets, looking for something, as you watch bleary eyed from your position. 

“Here.” Aventurine slides a black card across the tabletop a moment later. 

You blink dazedly, confused. 

He smirks. 

“I don’t make deals that don’t pay off.” 

[love-letters-for-wise]

Warm Smiles With Few Words (Wise x gn!reader)

[ Wise x Shy!gn!reader | Reader may be dubbed too polite (self-opinion) | No beta read, we die like ethereals | Possible ooc]

Wise couldn't pinpoint exactly when he fell for you.

You, one of the regulars that visited Random Play. You, that came to see something alone most of the time. You, that exchanged almost nothing with anyone here. Not Belle, and not him. Heck, he had never even shared anything personal with you. And you, vice versa.

The most he had talked with you was whenever you purchased a video to watch. When you handed him a video you picked, you would hand it like it was something valuable--which it was to him and Belle. But not many held the same sentiment. They were just videos, after all.

But perhaps, that wasn't the only reason.

Whenever he or Belle assisted you, you would smile so unabashedly. It's not the formality type of smile--the one that's faint and rigid; he thought. No. Your smile was always warm, vivid--lasting.

Whenever he thought of you, it would always be with your smile. Even he and Belle nicknamed you "Smiley" whenever it's just the two of them. Which was funny, because you weren't the talkative type. Apart from brief descriptions of a video you're looking for the day, the only word that had ever escaped from you consistently was "thank you" and "please".

Such small actions, and there you were in his head rent-free; his heart palpitated whenever you appeared--either in his conscience or in front of him. He'd been wanting to talk more things with you; to know you more.

But it was hard for him. No, he just lacked the courage--and maybe had a bit too many things overthought.

"If you don't take action anytime soon, you won't get the chance--ever."

While he appreciated Belle knocking some sense into him, he hated it now that he seemed to be competing against time. He just hoped he wouldn't chicken out again.

The sound of a door opening got him out of his mind. It was you.

As if waiting for your attention, even if just a fragment before you went further to the store, his eyes remained on you as you helped the door close properly. When your head turned at him, your smile made its way to your face--a more toned-down version, but still warm and as charming nonetheless.

He smiled back with a small wave, watching as you disappeared between the shelves. He could ask Belle to see the store while he watched the video you would pick for the day, together. He just hoped you wouldn't mind. And that he wouldn't chicken out. Again.