#sorry i just crawled out of my hole and discovered the moving picture | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

jungcity · 4 years ago

Text

𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐥.

Finally, we’ve reached the last chapter folks. Thank you so so much for taking the time and effort to read Bane of the Devil. I hope I’ve entertained you somehow with this story.

Until the next series, lovelies. ♡

Listen to this or this while reading, my loves.

16,257 word count.

“Rhianon, it’s not a good idea to keep her to your grandmother’s cottage! We won’t be able to hold her once the turning starts!” Lucas hissed. His arms were strained by carrying your body— dead body— across the woods and into Rhianon’s former home.

How everything ended up like this? Lucas quite doesn’t know. Hours ago, he woke up in Rhianon’s dorm room with a throbbing headache. He had a hard time remembering what happened before he collapsed, but he recalled Rhianon blowing something to his face.

They had something in their pockets. A secret they didn’t want to tell anyone.

Lucas was hurt, yet he couldn’t blame them for not telling him. He was ‘Juana’s dog’ after all. But he’s done submitting to Juana’s every whims and wish. The time she told them about Y/N being a collateral damage was the moment Lucas lost all his respect for the half-millennium old witch.

Steadfast and loyal, was their dictum. Steadfast for the people, loyal for the association. Never to one’s will. Never to a witch’s command. He’s done licking Juana’s feet. It was time for the path of righteousness: the one thing he stood for ever since he has become a venator.

So Lucas stood up, with his heart elating of nothing but duty and loyalty: for his friends, for Rhianon. He paced back and forth, trying to gather as much information in his mind about the possibilities and reasons of Rhianon and Y/N’s unknown adventure. It was certain they took Jaehyun with them. Perhaps not.

Lucas hissed and jogged the way towards Jaehyun’s chamber, maintaning a silent gait to remain unnoticed by the witch inside the other room. He twisted Jaehyun’s doorknob. It wasn’t locked. He pushed open the door and saw no one inside.

Once again, Lucas turned on his heel. The every stride of his long legs was the same pulsating of his mind to think of the possible places two students and one vampire has gone to.

But first, he needs to know what each of them desires to drive them to escape the Academy in the dead of night. Rhianon, in her jubilant façade but cunning depths, wishes nothing but to be admired by her mother. That, Lucas knew the first time he heard a mother-and-daughter argument between the two. Jaehyun, on the other hand— Lucas cursed— he has no idea what that vampire might desire. Death of everything good in the world mayhap. And Y/N.

For what seems like a hundredth time that night, Lucas released a curse through clenched teeth. You couldn’t possibly had gone to Alena, right? That would be insane, even in Lucas’s perspective. It’s farcical, perilous, and rash.

With furrowed brows and compressed lips, Lucas trudged with a grace of a hunter towards the Armory. He twisted the keys into the hole, then the chains rattled and fell beneath him. Walking towards the shelves where different daggers were sectioned, Lucas grabbed five blades: two he strapped to his waists, two to both of his hips, and the last one he tucked inside his boot.

He would’ve grabbed the crossbows, but it takes a bitch to load. Lucas grabbed the scythe hanging off the far wall: a weapon only him and the other hunter instructors were allowed to wield. In his back, he strapped the weapon of half-moons and departed the armory.

Little did he know, there was a girl watching him in the darkness. Eva stood there, her hair unbound, lips pursed, watching Lucas disappear.

Rhianon’s muffled cries echoed through the stillness of the forest as she trailed behind Lucas. She doesn’t know what causes her stupid tears: her throbbing wound or the fact that you are fucking dead, and was bitten by Jaehyun, himself?

When Sicheng led Rhianon inside Alena’s mansion, he guided her towards his chamber and tended to her wound in an urgent haste. Alena’s warning still rang between them, Rhianon would’ve said fuck everything and sprint towards the backyard to help you. But the look in her brother’s eyes had hindered her from doing such mindless actions.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Sicheng hissed, breaking the awful silence while jabbing the cotton pad to Rhianon’s wound. The split in her neck wasn’t longer than her middle finger, but it still spurted out too much blood and now hurts like a burning wound inside and out.

Rhianon hissed in pain and tried to swat her brother’s hand away, only for him to jab the cotton way harsher than before. “I’m helping a friend!” She cried out. “So please, let me go and let me help her properly.”

“Are you really insane? Haven’t you heard Alena’s warnings? She would kill you if she sees you again. And me, for helping you.” This was the first time Rhianon saw her brother lose his patience and composure. “I’d almost lost my mind when I watched her try to slice your neck.”

She scoffed. “But you didn’t do anything.”

Something like hopelessness and hurt flashed through her brother’s eerily white face. Then he sighed. “She would’ve killed us both if I did so much as to move a finger. I don’t want that to be our end, do you?”

Almost instantaneously, the frightening picture of Sicheng dying had made her skin crawl. She would never want that as her brother’s end. He has an eternity stretching out in front of him. Rhianon would be despicable to steal that away because of her foolishness. But she wanted to help you. Her only friend.

Then an idea struck her mind. She grabbed Sicheng’s hand which was tending to her wound and looked at her brother closely in his eyes.

“We are here to dig something in Alena’s backyard. It’s kept under the ground— a box of some sorts. We need that to finally discover who killed my friend’s parents,” she explained with such urgency as if being chased by a panther, “Help me get the box.”

Sicheng looked at her hard. Comtemplation etched in that pretty face of his. “Why didn’t you ask of me this favor before coming here?”

Rhianon slumped to the bed. The idea has surely come to mind. But how would she tell her brother that a sliver of doubt has sipped into her heart? And that she didn’t want Jaehyun nor Y/N to cling onto that hope, only to be disappointed in the end? After all, Sicheng has been devoted in serving Alena ever since he begged to be turned.

He is her brother. But he is alive because of the vampire Primus. Surely, the giver of life holds the most significant value against the one who only helped you attain that life, right? Nevertheless, Rhianon couldn’t help but feel foolish for her decision.

“I… it didn’t come to mind,” she lied, refusing to look at her brother’s eyes.

“No, it did.” Sicheng sighed. “Doubt only prevailed in your heart.”

“I’m sorry,” she admitted, “I… just didn’t want to give them false hopes.”

Sicheng sat beside his sister. “You know from the start that I’d do anything for you, right? Even if it means I’d steal something from my Primus.”

With that, Rhianon looked at her brother again. Hope twinkled in her pupils. “You’ll help me? Us?”

“Tell me where to dig.”

But the help from Sicheng did little to console the grief inside Rhianon as she sat in her vehicle. Alone. And the sorrow only worsened by the fact that she didn’t know what had happened to you, nor to Jaehyun.

Her mother had been right. She was useless and pathetic. Perhaps she doesn’t deserve to live and be a true witch after all.

No. She needs to come back. She needs to help you. Killing the engine of her vehicle, Rhianon flew out of her car. Only to be greeted by a bloodied Jaehyun, carrying a bloodied Y/N in his arms.

Rhianon had no time to curse Jaehyun for the two bites on your wrist for he shoved her inside the car after laying you down on the backseat.

“Where are you going?” she managed to ask through her choked cries. But Jaehyun didn’t speak. He sprinted towards Alena’s mansion once more.

Rhianon was left in an unfamiliar sinister road, with your dead body inside her backseat, and two bites on your wrist. Truthfully, she was fascinated by vampires. But Rhianon has no idea about their nature other than their being bloodsuckers. Her cries grew louder by both trepidation and mourning. It would seem as if there wasn’t enough space for all her thoughts inside her mind.

She got inside her car and revved the engine. Breathing heavily through her mouth, for her nose had been clogged with snot, Rhianon tried to think of a place where she could keep you. And her grandmother’s cottage dashed to her mind. It doesn’t have any equipment other than the kitchen wares and homely things, but it’s safe and away from everyone’s eyes as it was located in the heart of the forest.

Rhianon almost choked to death when a figure emerged from the shadows, standing in the middle of the empty road with two scythes gripped with its hands. The misty fog had made it hard for Rhianon to perceive the face of the tall frame. But when her car’s light hit the figure, she nearly cried of relief.

Lucas.

She had no time to mull over the reasons for him being here. At once, Rhianon departed the vehicle, while Lucas trudged towards her with a disapproving look. However, his grim expression turned perplexed as Rhianon sobbed in his chest.

Before either of them could utter a word, Lucas led Rhianon to sit on the bullet seat. But when he opened the door to sit and drive, his breath was yanked away from him.

Clusterfuck, everything truly was.

“What happened to her?” Lucas asked after he forced himself to sit and grasp the steering wheel.

Rhianon sobbed. “She’s… dead. But I don’t know until when.”

Lucas gulped and revved far away from the darkness and into the real world. The last words that has spurred out of Rhianon harrowing his chest. It wasn’t what he thought it was, right?

“What do you mean ‘until when’?”

Rhianon’s hands shook, so Lucas grabbed her hand and squeezed tightly. “Jaehyun bit her.”

“Why would he do that?!”

Lucas felt the ire burning inside his chest. That was vile. Not unless Y/N consented to it. Which is far-fetched for your situation right now. You were soaked with blood. There wasn’t any trace of color in your lips and your face was blanched.

“I don’t know why!” Rhianon frustratedly slapped her forehead with her other hand while tears streamed down her face.

“Tell me what happened.”

While driving, Lucas forced himself to listen to Rhianon’s story. How they planned out everything: from the cemetery, Hubert’s binding, and to how they sneaked inside Alena’s backyard. He would’ve called it stupid, but if he was in Y/N’s foot, he was certain he’d done the same.

“Why didn’t you—” Lucas shook his head. Why didn’t you tell me? He was supposed to ask. Heavy in the space between them, the answer to his question hung. He cleared his throat. “What’s your plan?”

“I don’t know. Once she wakes up, she’d be a completely different person.” Rhianon chewed on her bottom lip. “And I don’t know how to handle a newly turned vampire.”

Rhianon’s chosen term proved her unawareness about the catastrophe that would soon be unleashed by Y/N’s turning.

“She would be a fledgling. The primeval stage of being a vampire. It’s the most disastrous stage. Y/N won’t be able to recognize us because of the lust for blood that would curse through her veins,” Lucas explained. Just by describing the transition of Y/N’s turning was enough for the distress to hurl up from Lucas’s stomach to his throat. He swallowed the nausea as he drove through nowhere. “So we must find somewhere else safe— for her and for us.”

With the sense of foreboding, Rhianon remained quiet. Only her sobs could be heard inside the vehicle. How she badly needed this to be a nightmare. But as the hefty baggage of your presence from the backseat swirled the air around her, Rhianon knew that all of this was true.

You are dead. Until the vampire venom finally coats your heart and casts away all the humanity in you. Then you will live, for eternity.

Rhianon wished to scream. To release the force that was suffocating her lungs. “Could we do anything to stop the venom?” she rasped.

“Yes.” Rhianon’s face lit up, but her hope was immediately doused out by Lucas’s next words. “We have to ask Juana to locate the venom for us. If it’s still stuck in her wrist, we would have to cut that body part. Vampire venom takes a while to travel throughout the body.” Lucas pursed his lips. “And she would die if we do that. The vampire venom would be her death and life at the same time.”

Firmly, Rhianon stated, “No. We won’t butcher nor kill her.”

“Then we’ll wait until the turning succeeds.”

Until the turning succeeds. There isn’t any escape to this, is there? You are trapped. So does the people around you. Rhianon couldn’t bear the fact of you, being a vampire. Much as to cut some of your body parts. It is hideous.

“Some vampires...” Lucas began, Rhianon snapped her attention to him once again. “Didn’t turn into one when they had been bitten.”

“Why is that?” Rhianon furrowed her brows in anticipation and inquisitiveness.

Lucas spun the steering wheel. They weren’t going anywhere at all. He needs to think. “They hadn’t been strong enough to finish the process. We need to bury Y/N, and we will have to wait until she crawls out of her grave or not.”

If she won’t make it, that just means she would die all the same. Rhianon chewed on her bottom lip— hard— as if she wanted to draw blood.

Lucas continues, “And… we have to acquire blood to feed her if she makes it out.”

She breathed a curse. Rhianon wished to think a bit better— a bit sane— for your well-being. What would you feel waking up a vampire? It wasn’t just a second-life— it was an unending life. Certainly, it sounds thrilling. That is for Rhianon, since she has been born with the reality of the long life ahead of her. But you? You are a mortal. The heaviness of eternity would weigh in you differently.

Her mind has been clouded. She finds it hard to breathe. Rhianon heaved a deep sigh. “Turn left. We’ll go to my grandmother’s cottage.”

That’s why they are here, trekking the forbidding forest towards her former house: her grandmother’s home. Rhianon grew up here— talking to animals and trees, caring for the flowers and butterflies and bees, swimming in the river. Because her own mother isolated her daughter from the modern world, Rhianon received little education through the lessons of her grandmother.

Every now and then, when she has the time, she would come back and clean the cottage. It was a simple nipa hut, with bamboo trees as its floors and walls. When you open the door, the kitchenette would greet you from the farthest end of the space. On your left, the wooden door towards the living room and bedroom was located.

Upon seeing the frailty of the supposed dwelling place, Lucas couldn’t help but doubt. He has been doubting ever since they departed the vehicle and entered the forest. Sure, it could offer a remote place for a vampire to be buried, but there isn’t anything to help bind Y/N once she completed the Turning.

No. He is a hunter. He could think of a way.

Rhianon inserted her arm in the little hole adjacent to the wooden door. A few clicks and twists, the door opened, revealing a rather small dwelling for Lucas’s height.

He laid Y/N’s body to the bedroom— that was a small space for two persons to lie and twist and turn in their sleep. He could only pray that Y/N won’t be strong enough to turn the hut into piles of wood.

“What do we do now?” Rhianon sniffed, wiping her face outwards. She looked like a wreckage of a ship, if Lucas was to be honest. Her black irises glinted with tears— both shed and unshed. But her beauty never betrayed her.

Lucas ignored the thudding of her heart and forced his mind to think rationally, deliberately pushing off the thoughts of Rhianon’s hair tangled with his fingers. “We have to bury her,” he answered.

“How long do we have to wait?”

“A week.”

“A week?” Rhianon gasped. “Everybody would notice her disappearance!”

Lucas ran a hand through his white hair. “There are consequences to everything, Rhi. We only have to endure the forthcoming interrogations— especially from your mother— and make our way out of her attention.”

Rhianon sat on the wooden chair and covered her face with her hands. “This isn’t supposed to happen.” She wanted to blame Jaehyun. But she’s no better than him. She killed Y/N as much as anyone in that wretched mansion. Out of her frustration, Rhianon snapped her head up to Lucas. “Why are you helping me?”

She should be grateful. But the persistent doubt for his loyalty has never left the back of her mind.

Lucas, who was standing in the doorway, looked at her with something that she could only call as regret in his eyes. “I know you are doubting me. No one sent me. When I woke up in your room, I tried to think of places you might’ve gone to. I ended up travelling towards Alena.”

Rhianon looked away and gulped. There is no time for this. However wretched, she needs to decide for your fate. Would she let the venom blanket your humanity with its poison and promise of a secluded life away from the sunlight? Or she would end it here and now?

Mercy or death?

Wringing the last drop of courage from her heart, Rhianon casted your body one last look before standing up. “Help me bury her body.”

She chose mercy in the end. Or was it?

—

Jaehyun has no name for the feelings that were slowly spreading inside him. For his ten years of being a vampire, he had never felt this weak— this human. And he hated himself for it.

He hated that you had been right about him having no abilities to protect you from Alena. The way the dagger protruded from your front, he couldn’t shake off the image. It’s there— inside his mind— like a writhing worm penetrating all his consciousness, painting his ability to think with only that image: of your mouth gaping open, with frothing blood in your lips, and the way the pain never left your eyes even if life did.

Jaehyun wanted to hoax himself that there wasn’t any fragment of hate in those pretty eyes of yours. He wished to believe that you didn’t hate him before breathing your last. But when he held you in his arms, he knew you would’ve pushed him away if you weren’t in a miserable situation of death.

The enormous gates of Alena towered over him. Oh, how much he desired to burn this mansion to soothe. He didn’t even know why he came back. He should be beside you— awaiting your transformation.

Perhaps he needed retribution. Perhaps he needed answers. Because he would kill himself if ever he truly was the one who killed your parents.

The gates made the squeaking sound as Jaehyun pushed them open. The long pathway towards the front door took him a second to walk through because of his speed. Without knocking, he barged inside and was greeted by Alena herself, sitting on her throne at the farthest part of the hall.

He bared his fangs and wasted nothing as he sprinted towards her. In a matter of seconds, he had her by the throat. Her skull slammed back down to her chair, splitting the wood from the seater.

Vampires do not breathe. Jaehyun’s straggling of Alena’s neck would compare to something as trying to grasp the wind. The effort was merely to bind Alena in her place.

The Primus only looked at him with vacant eyes. As if she didn’t just kill a mortal— as if she didn’t just end the life of Jaehyun’s lover.

“I will fucking kill you,” he hissed.

Alena’s lips twitched upwards. “Go on, then. I’m ready to die with the satisfaction of killing your whore.”

He tightened his grip until he felt her skin hallowing. “I love her. Even in another life, I would choose her over you.”

“She’s dead. I killed her. And there is no other life for a monster such as you—”

Jaehyun fisted his palm and struck her hard. Alena crumpled up to the ground, harshly cupping her cheek.

“You will die for that!” she roared.

He felt nothing but triumph.

Jaehyun once again grabbed the back of her collar and tossed her to the wall. Her bones collided with the hard cement with a crack, then she slumped down to the floor. It didn’t take her a minute to bare her nails to the tiled floor and looked up at Jaehyun with such hatred in her eyes.

In a dashing speed, Alena attacked. But Jaehyun had anticipated it. For he sprinted to dodge her. By her rapidity, she hadn’t been able to stop herself as he collided, once again, to the wall. It cracked by the impact.

Jaehyun was behind her before she could whirl around— then he slammed her forehead to the cracked wall once again. It deteriorated. Alena was transferred to the other side of the wall as debris from the hole fell.

Jaehyun grabbed her hand, but she stood up as he did so, banging her head against Jaehyun’s. He staggered backward with a hiss. Then toppled over the stygian floors as Alena whirled and kicked the side of his face.

She was on top of him, never wasting any drop of the moment to punch his face repeatedly. Blood spattered to the floors as Jaehyun’s mouth exploded. Alena didn’t stop raining him with punches until her knuckles were red from his blood.

Despite his vampiric nature, Jaehyun’s head swam by the force of the punches. He blinked languorously, trying to make sense of everything. With the remaining strength, he grabbed both Alena’s fists. His and her arms trembled as they try to outdo each other.

Blood adorned Jaehyun’s teeth— all of his face. Alena pushed her limits, and finally won when she grabbed Jaehyun’s neck. Something happened then— something Jaehyun shouldn’t be feeling at all.

He found it hard to breathe. He was literally choking.

Alena snickered by his reaction. “My, my, you really didn’t know, do you?” She echoed a hysterical laugh.

Jaehyun thrashed and choked. Dots of red slowly filling his vision. And it wasn’t because of his pupils’ ability to change color.

“Have you ever wondered how you could manage to stay under the sun without scorching yourself wholly?” She hummed. “Even if it’s only a slice of light, a vampire won’t be able to take it. But you.” Jaehyun choked once again as Alena pressed her hands further down his neck. “You could bask in the sun in a fraction of an hour without dying.” She leaned closer to Jaehyun. “Because your humanity didn’t leave you completely. It is there. In you. You are half-alive, half-vampire. Not half-dead, Jaehyun.”

Jaehyun gasped— of stupefaction or the struggle to breathe, he didn’t know. How could she claim something such as that? How did she know that?

Strength slowly left his bones, the oblivion pulling him under to drown. Slowly but certainly, Jaehyun’s eyes closed. Alena’s vicious laugh was the last thing he heard before he was met with utter oblivion.

—

“Where were you last night?”

Lucas halted strapping his weapons when Eva approached. It was the last thing he wanted to hear: Eva asking about his whereabouts yesternight.

“Got some business to attend to,” he simply replied before he began to pace towards the Armory’s exit. Eva’s presence never left him until he reached the training field where students awaited their instructions.

Eva hummed, as if she knew the answer to her question and only taunting Lucas to irate him. “I suppose that business had a lot of hand work.”

Lucas shut his eyes while releasing a breath. There’s really not a thing you could hide from this nosy woman, is there? He refused to hide his hands nevertheless. Eva yearns to intimidate him, and he won’t give her the satisfaction.

“It had.” Lucas whirled with a smile.

Eva crossed her arms together and walked past him. Lucas compressed his lips before following the woman.

All at once, the students put their fist to their chest at the approaching hunters. Rhianon was standing at the end of the line, the exhaustion of last night evident in the moons under her eyes. Her slumped shoulders suddenly perked up and her back straightened as she saw Eva approaching.

The hunter parted the students as she threaded towards Rhianon. Rhianon was smaller than her by inches, but she didn’t let the gap intimidate her.

“Where is Y/N?” Eva asked.

Lucas stopped himself from dragging the woman away. That would be too obvious. Don’t let anyone see through the tension underneath, Lucas’s reminder to Rhianon before they parted ways last night. He knew, by the way she fisted her hands that she was trying her hardest not to tremble.

Mustering up courage, Rhianon answered, “Sick.”

For the next few seconds, the two women stared at each other. Before Eva released a sigh.

“Too bad. I was planning to spar with her.” Then she whirled and clapped her hands, gathering the students’ attention that was already fixed on her.

Lucas gave Rhianon a nod before joining Eva at the front line. When he roamed his eyes around the students, Lucas noticed something. Newly enrolled students weren’t present. Only the students who had already shown exacting skills were.

He turned to Eva. “Where’s the others?”

“If you weren’t doing some business, you’d know why,” Eva stated through her smile.

“It’s eight a.m., Eva.” Quit fucking around, Lucas would’ve added. He was dead beat because of the digging they did last night. Lucas would have slept for the whole day if not for his responsibilities. And Eva’s taunting wasn’t truly helping his moods.

By the tone he echoed, Eva gave him a sharp look. “Why don’t you ask Madame yourself?”

Lucas opened his mouth, but quickly closed his lips when Eva flipped her unbound her and gestured to the students to start. He shook his head with a disbelieving sigh.

However, he needs to know the answer to his own question. So after helping students warm up their bones, Lucas decided to pay the witch a visit.

He could only hope that she hasn’t yet noticed the absence of the vampire across from her room.

Juana was zoning out with a teacup in hand when he pushed open the doors. She didn’t raise her hand to greet him— a thing she doesn’t really practice. But there was something odd about the way she sat in there, watching the fire in her fireplace. As if she was lost in deep thought.

Lucas cleared his throat, successfully gathering the attention of Juana. She laid her cup into the table and stood up gracefully. In her face, Lucas noticed the weariness he hasn’t yet seen in the face of the witch.

For a five-hundred-year-old creature, Juana has flourished to look like a girl in her blooming stage. She could pass as a twenty-year-old girl. By dint of it, Lucas once was flabbergasted when Juana revealed that she had a daughter and that was Rhianon.

The color of their skin was a stark contrast of porcelain and gold. But they have the same raven-hair. That’s where their comparison ended. Rhianon doesn’t look like her mother at all.

Now that Lucas observed the witch’s face, he caught something he hasn’t seen before: the hollows on her cheeks and the tiredness underneath her eyes. In addition to it was her evident detachment from the world around her.

What happened?

“Aren’t you supposed to be in the field? Training Y/N?” Even her voice sounded frail.

Lucas blinked before clearing his throat. “Y/N’s sick.” Flimsy might be the excuse, yet Lucas and Rhianon couldn’t think of a more credible lie other than the most human excuse of all; being sick. They could only pray that Juana won’t venture and try to visit you.

“Y/N’s sick?” she repeated. Lucas nodded. “What a useless bitch,” Juana sneered.

Juana rendered him speechless. This has been the first time he heard the witch use that term towards a student. Dumbfounded as he was, Lucas prevented himself to reiterate. But he didn’t know that the witch’s next words would drain the blood from his body.

“I’ve no use for useless students. When the sun finally peeks at the horizon tomorrow, see to it that Y/N would never breathe again.”

His knees weakened, and Lucas found himself supporting his body by gripping the edge of the chair tightly. Juana didn’t just command him to kill Y/N, right?

“What do you mean?” The hunter’s breathy question.

By that, Juana whirled to face him with a smile plastered on her face. “Kill her.”

—

“She fucking said what?” Rhianon’s eyes bulged at Lucas, her face in utter disbelief as he told her about Juana’s latest order.

Lucas couldn’t believe it himself. How did he become so stupid and so blinded by his devotion and loyalty? For years, he was kept in servitude. Because he believed that Juana was meant for the people— for the hunters. He was wrong. She served no one but herself and her insane goal to get her son back.

“We at least have to protect Y/N even if she’s underground,” Lucas said before shutting the compartment of the car. They have just obtained at least three liters of blood from the blood bank. Yet Lucas knows the amount won’t quench Y/N’s thirst if she ever makes it out.

Rhianon walked towards the driver’s seat with a frown. She was obviously ruminating about Lucas’s news. “I couldn’t believe she could be that heartless,” she breathed as she started the engine. “But as I think about it, it could be an advantage. Y/N’s buried deep underground— well not that deep— but you get the point. We could use her situation to make Juana believe that you did kill her.”

“Yeah, I thought about that too.” Then an idea struck his mind. “Could I use the blood?”

Later that night, Lucas did as he was told. With an unimaginable treason, he deceived his betters. Along with Rhianon.

They used half litter of the blood and coated Y/N’s blankets with it. Rhianon and Lucas had also dug up a made-up grave to make it more convincing.

After that endeavor in the woods, Lucas tucked in Y/N’s blanket into his bag and brought it as evidence for a job well-done.

The moon was a great ball of white in the skies when he departed Rhianon’s chamber to pay Juana a visit.

While walking, Lucas should’ve felt the slightest bit of fear because of his deceit, but no remorse had entered his heart. He would do this all over again if it meant making a fool of Juana.

Lucas let his dagger be coated with blood as he entered Juana’s chamber, finding Eva conversing with the witch. At his sight, Eva smiled. She knew what Juana made Lucas do. And by the length of her smile, she was relishing.

“What a job well-done!” Eva shrieked in excitement. She sauntered up to Lucas and grabbed the dagger from his hand, examining the blood that coats it. He tried his best not to slice open Eva’s throat with the same dagger. The woman then turned to the witch. “Does this mean I’m going to kill Alena, Madame?”

There was honor in killing a vampire— much when it’s a Primus. Yet Lucas couldn’t understand the excitement Eva was manifesting. Killing vampires isn’t duty for her, it was sport.

“Yes,” Juana stated with antagonism.

Lucas quirked an inconspicuous brow. Juana displayed no such attitude towards Eva, ever. She was always putting Eva on a pedestal. Was it also just a show?

“What if this reached VHC?”

Fucking finally, Lucas muttered in his mind. Eva’s asking the right question. If this heinous crime of killing a student reached the VHC, this hundred-year-old academy would be burned to ashes. All the hardships Diego endured would be in vain. Not only that, Lucas would be expelled from his duty and would probably live a life of chagrin.

But this won’t reach the Corporation, of course. Juana would kill everyone if it comes to that. And even if it did reach the ears of their betters, they would find nothing since Lucas killed no one.

“Don’t be stupid,” Juana spat, Eva’s mouth gaped open, “Of course I won’t let that happen. Now go and do your duties.” She waved them off frantically with her hands.

Eva stomped her feet to the ground, and with a frown, left Juana’s chamber with a loud bang of the door. Lucas put his fist to his heart and bowed, but before he could pivot on his heels, Juana said something.

“If I found out that you deceived me, I will kill you without a thought.”

Lucas’s lips turned into a thin line. But he mustered all his strength to look up at the witch to flash her his all-toothed smile. “Have a good night, Madame.”

—

Jaehyun woke up with something heavy pulling him down. Manacles. He knew it without opening his eyes. But it didn’t lessen the irksome feeling it settled in his bones whenever he would find himself bound in the same room— in the same position.

The cold iron bed pressing in on his back was enough to set his blood on fire. Jaehyun tried to wriggle himself free, but he knew it: there would be no point trying. These manacles were silver. And silver could burn a vampire, hence he should be in flames right now. But he wasn’t.

He should’ve known by then that he wasn’t a normal vampire. For he remained unscathed even if Alena bound him with the silver chain too many times to count. Sure, it weakens him. That was it. It would make his bones brittle but it won’t leave any blister on his skin.

There were different types of syringes lined up pristinely on the table just beside him. He supposed they came with sundries of needles. Alena truly likes it clean: her consumption of Jaehyun’s blood.

How naive he was— to think that it was nothing but a simple obsession over his blood. It was more than that, then. She was crawling and trailing like a lapdog for Jaehyun’s omnipotence.

The sound of the manacles grazing the floors reverberated as Jaehyun tugged on it before the door opened to reveal Alena. She was as fresh as a morning dew, and the brawl she had against Jaehyun was only a phantom of her past. Her hair was bound tightly in a coil behind her head, her cheeks seemed as if they had lights underneath the skin for the way they shone.

“Thank Athanar that you’re awake, my love.” Alena faked her relief, doing so much as to touch Jaehyun’s cheek. He glared at her, wishing to possess the power of pyrokinesis to burn her. “Don’t worry,” she spat, “I’ll release you soon.”

Jaehyun snorted. “Why don’t you just kill me?” He wanted nothing more than to be done with this world, to finally face whatever lies beyond this wretched life. But ever since he met you, his principles have crumbled down.

“Kill you?” Alena faked cries. “Eternity won’t be so fun without you, Jaehyun.”

“Me? Or my blood?”

Alena’s red lips thinned. She grabbed the headboard of the bed and leaned closer to Jaehyun. “Your blood, of course.” Then she gave his lips a ravaging kiss before pulling away with a smile.

Jaehyun wanted to wipe his lips off his face, but the manacles won’t allow him. So he glared— stupid and useless at it was— and spat at Alena’s face. His spittle fell at the collar of her dress. Then her hand had collided against Jaehyun’s cheek— again and again until blood spilled from his split lips.

Once again, he spat blood and it landed on the floor. Alena chuckled, then she walked towards the bed beside Jaehyun. She languorously ran a finger to the syringes, her shoes making clicking noise against the cold hard floor.

“It’s been… what? Three months since I last tasted your blood? I assume you have a debt to pay, my love.” She smiled her innocent one, pulling the cap of the syringe off to reveal a thick needle.

Jaehyun knew how it would go. Alena would never cut him open. She would drain his blood by pricking his skin with needles— lots and lots of it until he’s dazed and confused about everything happening around him.

He tried to tug at the manacles as Alena drew the needle close to his arm. But it won’t budge. “Don’t you fucking dare, Alena,” Jaehyun warned through his teeth.

Alena hummed. “Can’t really do anything, can you, darling?”

His pupils dilated as the needle disappeared on his skin. It wasn’t painful, but the sight of his blood flowing into the barrel was as hideous as being skinned alive.

The next thing he knew, Alena was flying and had collided against the wall and his manacles were already broken. Jaehyun felt the tips of his fangs baring into his lips, and his visions turning red. However, Alena was swift to recover from the impact as she was on her feet in a matter of seconds.

“You really dare hurt me again?”

Jaehyun spat. “Burn in hell.” Without a second thought, he barreled towards the only window present in the dark room. It was shut tight, but he could feel his strength humming inside his bones— as if it was an explosive prepared to explode anytime soon.

Alena’s piercing scream echoed throughout the whole vicinity. Along with Jaehyun’s cry of sudden pain. He ignored the thing that was penetrating his skin as he dashed away from Alena’s mansion. The scent of the other vampires trailing behind him.

But he was ten folds faster than any of them. Because they don’t possess the same supremacy in skills and vampiric nature such as Jaehyun.

As the wind lashed on him like a whiplash, with the thorns of bougainvillea pricking his cheeks and skin, Jaehyun remembered the first time he managed to escape his Primus. He was bloodied too, when he ran for his freedom. He had a gash on his stomach because of Alena’s mighty sword.

Now, there is a wound gushing blood down his back. It would only heal once the blade was pulled out. And his practice of drinking animal blood would slow down its healing for sure.

He needs to endure. There is no you to stitch him up again.

For hours, Jaehyun ran until the façade of the Academy loomed from a far. Having no idea how many days he had been locked up and tied down, Jaehyun needs to see Rhianon. Ask her about your whereabouts and your situation. It hasn’t been one week, yet? Right?

There were no more students prowling at night, hence Jaehyun reached your dorm room without having to snap anyone’s necks. Before he knocks on the door, Jaehyun grabbed the hilt of the dagger and wrenched it free from his flesh. A silent hiss resonated through him by the throbbing pain.

It was your snake dagger. The one you hid behind you the first time you have met. Jaehyun gripped the dagger tighter. He would vow to kill Alena with it.

He raised a fist to knock, but the door had finally swung open, revealing Lucas and Rhianon with bags on both their backs. The woman halted with a gasp, but Lucas didn’t take a second to pin Jaehyun against the wall.

“You fucking fool!” he hissed at Jaehyun’s face. “Why did you do that?”

Lucas knows? Despite the pain caused by the friction of his wound against the wall, Jaehyun forced indifference. “I don’t answer to you,” he spat.

Lucas’s fist collided with his cheek. He staggered on his feet.

“Lucas! Please, stop! We need him!” Rhianon tried to placate the hunter’s ire by putting her body between the two men.

Lucas cursed. “We don’t need a monster such as him!”

“No, listen to me! This is the seventh night since he bit Y/N. However I think about it, we won’t be able to hold Y/N off. We need Jaehyun,” she sighed, “He’s stronger than the two of us combined.”

Jaehyun heard the thumping of Rhianon’s heart, as well as Lucas’s. A bitter smile crept up on his lips.

“I’m letting you go for the sake of Y/N,” Lucas seethed as he walked ahead of them.

Rhianon gave Jaehyun a hard look. “Are you okay being topless like that?”

“I’m quite okay,” Jaehyun answered. A grim nod was what Rhianon gave him in return. Before the woman could pivot on her heel, Jaehyun said, “You know he’s madly in love with you, right?”

She opened her mouth to speak, but decided best not to say anything. Rhianon turned her back against the bleeding vampire and followed Lucas into the night.

No matter how hard he tried to ignore the reek of your dead body and your blood lingering in the backseat, it won’t leave his nostrils. He could almost perceive your lifeless body and your wrist hanging limply, your lips ashen and your suit bloodied. It took all his willpower not to plunge your snake dagger to his own chest.

And the silence inside the vehicle was deafening. Jaehyun didn’t bother to ask where they were going. They won’t answer him no matter how many times he asks. But there is one thing that he needs to know, though. What happened to Rhianon when she was led by her brother inside the house?

“What happened to you, Rhianon? Did Sicheng help you?” It’s pathetic to feel embarrassed— Jaehyun had never felt this feeling before. Such weakness, such vulnerability. He supposed it’s because Rhianon was a dear friend to you, and having her inside the car had poisoned the courage from Jaehyun’s heart.

Rhianon didn’t look at him when she answered. “Yes. And he promised to dig Hubert’s tongue,” she explained, “He’ll give it to us at the gathering.”

“You believe him?” He couldn’t help but ask. Yes, they are siblings. Jaehyun wanted to believe that blood is thicker than water, but Alena has been the one who gave Sicheng another shot at life. That’s why it hadn’t occurred to him to ask for his help.

“That’s the only choice left: to believe. And Alena hasn’t yet sent her vampires to kill me, so I believe my brother hasn’t told her anything about the plan.”

“We’re here,” Lucas announced as he killed the engine.

Copse greeted him. And a stretch of darkness lies beyond the forest and into the road. Where did they keep you?

“Where is Y/N?”

—

They say there would be a white light once you close your eyes in perpetuity— but there wasn’t. Death is a void: a gulf of nothingness woven to crawl at the phantom of whoever you are after life. If there is something such as that.

Here, you won’t feel anything. Perhaps you would be afloat in a sea of emptiness— but that’s nothing forbye. Darkness would deprive you of everything; your sight, hearing, taste, smell— all of it? Gone.

Was it frightening? To experience such… void? The answer would be no. It wasn’t blood-curdling because it wasn’t anything, at all. There is no feeling here. Only darkness.

And yet why is there a force? There’s something thrumming inside your dead phantom. Something that was seeping in every crevice of your vein like mad claws of something rotten and… alive.

It wasn’t painful, but it was there. Like a gush of river splashing into every nerve. And there is only that— the unending cycle of something in your body. No, it wasn’t painful until it reached the most barren part of your body: the heart.

Your eyes fluttered open frantically, your irises dilating but there was only darkness inside this— this coffin. Deficient was the air and baffled as you were, you have not felt its absence. Your lungs seem as if they have never been full of air until now. And your body thrums with a strength you, yourself, aren’t familiar with.

Apart from these perplexities, the one thing which confounded you more was the dryness of your throat. No, water won’t quench this thirst.

Blood. You need it. You’d die without it.

You were shaken by the reality of it— like an earthquake the world has yet to experience. It is like a force which rattled all the mountains— your being a vampire. There wasn’t anything more horrendous.

A scream, then you were thrashing inside this cocoon of fabrics and ropes. Never minding how the dirt coated your nails underneath. You were an animal, a wild one. And there’s no one who could hold you back tonight.

As you crawled your way out of your grave, your ears caught the rather soundless wriggling of the worms into the soil around you. Then you reached out your arm beyond— the cold air bit on your hand. There was a gasp, and a thudding of heartbeat.

At long last. Splatters of soil flew everywhere as you crawled out of the grave successfully.

Your sight was blurry. It’s shaking. Whoever or whatever was in front of you, their hearts thrums painstakingly inside their chests. You could almost taste their blood in the air— as well as the fear.

“Y/N,” someone called out.

You threw your attention towards her while baring your new fangs. She’s a girl— with long dark hair and golden skin. She was holding her hands up, as if trying to placate the monster in front of her.

“It’s me, Rhianon.”

Not so far away, the scent of blood reached your nostrils. You let out a snarl, the girl backed up. The tall man with white hair stood protectively in front of her, looking at you grimly.

His blood flows freely inside him. You could hear it like a gush of a river. It made your ears perk up. Without thinking, you lunge forward to the tall man. In a blink of time, you had him by his throat as you slammed his back against a large tree. He groaned in pain, but he didn’t fight.

“Y/N!” The girl from earlier called out to you. You craned your neck to see her. She was waving some kind of plastic— and there was blood on it.

No. No. No. You won’t believe it but it’s true. The need for blood was like hot coals in your throat. Burning and smothering the flesh inside and there was nothing that could wash the torrid feeling but blood.

The grasses parted by how swift you moved and how quick you grabbed the bag from the girl’s hands. With a snap of your teeth, you drank every last drop. It surged down your neck and the tattered suit you were wearing. The girl was holding you another bag the same time you tossed the empty one.

Angry, you are. Angry and disgusted by the way the blood seemed to answer all your woes. It was like a touch of heaven in your wounds, stitching you back up again.

You have lost count of how many bags were given your way. They piled and piled up on the grasses with every snap and every gulp. You emptied every last one while loathing yourself. You won’t live like this. You can’t live like this.

But it’s the only way.

You wiped your mouth with the back of your hand. Blood adorned your skin, intensifying the hatred you have for your own soul. When you stretched out a hand to the girl, she shook her head.

“You’ve drank them all,” she breathily said.

All, and it still isn’t enough.

Without recognizing any of the two, you stood up and walked away. Only to be stopped by the girl’s question: “Where are you going, Y/N?”

Inchmeal, your mind started to weave its way towards clarity. The girl had become familiar; her golden skin, her eyes like pools of blackholes, her long raven hair— Rhianon. You furrowed your brows as you took in the image of the man. White hair, perfect eyes, luscious lips— Lucas.

As if they, too, have seen the confusion in your face, they tried to smile. “It’s me— Rhianon. And he’s Lucas.”

Without another word, you ran and boxed Rhianon in a tight hug, tugging Lucas closer to embrace him, too. The girl sobbed at your dirt-sodden hair, muttering sorry’s and ‘I’m so glad you’re back’.

“Why are you—” You halted on your question and spun around to roam your vampiric eyes around the surroundings. The tall trees would’ve obscured everything, but now it’s clear because of your developed line of sight.

“What— what is it, Y/N?” asked Rhianon while holding your hand.

There was something in the air. A cloying smell penetrating your nostrils. Little by little, it’s fading. Until there was nothing but the dull smell of earth and air around you. Was it only your imagination?

“Nothing,” you said, “I thought I’ve smelled something… unusual.”

Offering you his leather jacket, Lucas spoke, “Come, Y/N. We know it’s been a long night. There’s a cottage not far from here where we could stay.”

The pathway ahead was moonlighted. And by your eyesight, you found it easy to navigate. A stone’s throw away from the small nipa hut, Rhianon’s scent started to attack your sense of smell.

“You used to live here,” you pronounced, “With your grandmother.”

Rhianon turned her attention towards you. Her confusion had transformed to that of understanding. Plucking a wildflower from the ground, she smiled. “Yes.” She offered you the flower. “Here. I know your rebirth isn’t because of something pleasant— but I’m glad that you’re here, nonetheless.”

Taking the small flower from her hand, you did your best to return the smile. “Thank you.”

They say vampire venom works best when the human is on their brink of death. Jaehyun knew that. So he decided to bite you, and turn you into a monster just before life had been extinguished out of you.

Abominable, it is. Being turned against your will. And of the man you believed you have loved the most. Painful the memories were, but you refused to falter now. You have known darkness when Alena drove her dagger to your back. You have known despair the moment Jaehyun bit you— and there was nothing you could do to stop him.

But however miniscule a hole might be, light would penetrate. No matter how rotten, you would use this new life to avenge your parents. You would avenge them without the help of a deceiver. And this time, you would do it right.

“Where is Jaehyun?”

That was the first thing you have asked them when you finally reached the cottage. It wasn’t large, but it was home. Rhianon tended to it very well from the utensils to the pillows.

“We have no idea,” Rhianon stated, “Ever since the night in Alena’s, I’ve never seen him again.”

You hummed. “He killed my parents.”

You expected an uproar from your two companions. But none came. So you whirled towards them from your quiet staring at the moon. They gave each other a knowing look before looking at you again.

Rhianon was the first one to speak. “Are you sure about that?”

If certainty was in the line, you couldn’t say. But he told you himself: he was turned ten years ago. A fledgling would kill and drink anyone’s blood once they finally crawled out of their graves. You have experienced it yourself.

Jaehyun has been a strong vampire. That kind of strength needed an unimaginable amount of blood.

“I’m not. Or perhaps I still force myself not to believe it. But I’ll get the answer one way or another.”

—

Jaehyun let his back rest against the rough texture of the tree, perhaps kilometers away from your grave.

He nearly got caught because of his stupid wound that was healing too slowly. You, too, have smelled it.

How did he become so craven? He completely fluctuated when he saw the earth above your grave moved. Perhaps he couldn’t endure seeing you in your new form.

You would kill him at first sight, that he was sure of. And Jaehyun found that he wasn’t prepared to die in the arms of his lover. After everything, and no matter how strong he might be, he knew he won’t fight back.

First things first, he needs to know the truth about what happened to him ten years ago. Since his stupid mind couldn’t recall any bits of the night he crawled out of his grave other than the sight of Alena in anticipation of him. Hubert was there. But he won’t be able to tell anything until he has his tongue back.

Isn’t it funny? A twist of fate has twiddled you both with its fingers. Jaehyun’s only goal was to help you find Hubert’s tongue. But little did he knew, he would need it too for his own lucidity.

He would have helped Sicheng dig, but coming back to Alena’s mansion would be utterly stupid. So Jaehyun sat there, at the bottom of the tree. He sent a quiet thanks to Rhianon for lending him her jacket that was way too small for him. And a curse for Lucas who didn’t offer his.

Then a silent apology and ‘I love you’ for you.

—

Dressed in intricately designed fabrics, with jewels adorning their pale skins, the vampires took their wine while chattering in luscious tones with the orchestra humming music dainty for the ears.

In the other side of the room, the hunters with their usual laidback gowns and suits mingled together, not daring to take one step closer to their sworn enemy.

The moon was forgiving, as it illuminated the earth below with its usual white and blue light. No stars adorned the heavens, but there wasn’t any sign of rain for the ground to sip.

Jewels reflected each other in the blinding lights, irating the hunters further. This lavish lifestyle of vampires didn’t go unnoticed in their prying eyes. And yet the bloodsuckers remained unbothered. Or perhaps they wished to offend the humans more.

There is a treaty— yes. But the apathy these creatures have for each other won’t vanish by a simple signature in a yellowed paper sealed in a land no one dares to go but the elders of Athanar and Diego Asdalis. And Diego is dead. The elders are comfortably sitting in their thrones, neglecting the creatures outside their palaces.

Jovial, the music grew. And the dance began. The dance of vampires and hunters, they would call it.

Feet clattered, fabrics shuffled as vampires took each other’s hands and led their likes towards the dance floor.

Thin-lipped was the hunters, but they, too, grabbed each other’s arms. These vampires won’t better them.

On and on they spin. Bejeweled skins shone, juxtaposing the simple attires of the virtuous hunters. From above, it was a glorious sight of spinning creatures, heedless of each other’s trap.

The double oak doors swung open, revealing Alena in her dashing red gown. The dance halted as everyone took in the sight of the Primus. Together, the vampires bowed in reverence.

A coy smile adorned the woman’s lips, her red lips was the most curvaceous you would ever see. Beautiful as she was, the beast underneath remains untamed.

Some would say she is unparalleled.

Until someone comes along beside her.

This one— her beauty was not of this world. She stood like a beacon of darkness and life in itself, rivaling the Venus beside her. Truth be told, the Primus was unmatched by this woman’s beauty.

She stepped inside, her heels clanking with her feet only she could own the place. With her silk gown perfectly hugging her body, with the color of her lips matching her eyes— some would say even the vampires drooled at her sight.

She took a glass from the enthralled waiter, and sipped on its crimson liquid languorously. She spun around, like how a tornado does just before it lays ruin in everything it would touch.

The woman raised her glass to the Primus, her smile as dangerous as the tip of a dagger. “For the Primus,” she echoed. Then she poured the remaining contents of the glass to the floor.

—

You heard gasps, from the hunters or the vampires, you couldn’t really care. What was important to you was Alena’s reaction. One push, and she would definitely strangle you— if she won’t die from anger first.

This night has been what everyone has been waiting for: the gathering. At long last, it’s here.

From your peripheral, you saw Eva, gaping at the sight of you. You turned and smiled at her. Lucas told you about Juana’s order to kill you. Too bad that they trusted Lucas that much.

Oh, what victory.

As if your smile wasn’t enough, you sauntered up to her. Your hand holding another glass of wine. You tossed the rim of the glass against her forehead. Her head lolled a bit from the impact.

Running your eyes up and down her visage, you grimaced. “No offense meant but,” you spat, “you look awful.”

She indeed looked as if she needed a stylist. Bland was her dress, bland was her hair, bland was her make-up. All of the hunters aside from Juana looked vapid. Of course, the witch bitch won’t let these lowly creatures match her magnificence.

At the far side of the corner, with the founders of the VHC, Juana stood staring at you. Her bosom was up like two hills on her chests. With that corset, it’s awful to breathe.

You walked towards her. When they saw you approaching, the founders excused themselves to leave you with Juana.

“What an entrance,” she said, staring at the few pairs dancing in the center. If she was baffled to see you alive, she didn’t show it. “Why are you alive?” She smiled at the passing hunter.

You chuckled. “Hurts to know that your trusted hunter betrayed you for me?” Then you grabbed her arm and dug your nails to her skin.

Juana stared at you grimly. “Let go of me.”

“Look at me,” you said, searching her eyes for any trepidation. When it sparked, you smiled. “I am not a collateral damage. I am not an animal you could kill whenever you like it. I am not a toy you could play and display in your collection.” She wriggled free. Her eyes were hard. You smiled at her. “And I promise you, this night won’t end without me chopping off your head.”

You didn’t give her any chance to speak, for you have already walked away while drinking the contents of your glass. Halfway towards Rhianon, someone showed himself from behind the tall pillars of the hall.

Ravishing, he always is. Jaehyun stood there, hands in his pockets. Looking like an angry god in his suit. He had his hair combed and waxed. And he had his eyes fixed at you.

You, too, you whispered in your head. This night won’t end without me killing you.

You ignored the silent pleading in his eyes and walked straight to Rhianon. Students weren’t allowed here. But Rhianon isn’t a normal student. She’s Juana’s daughter. “Have you already seen Sicheng?”

She shook her head. “Not yet.”

“Where is Lucas?”

“He’s searching for my brother.”

“Let’s wait here for a while then,” you sighed.

Rhianon gulped down her own glass. And by the energy she was exuding, you were told that she’s nervous. “Do you think they’ll attack soon?” she asked before biting her lower lip.

You roamed your eyes around the vicinity. Most of the vampires were eyeing the hunters suspiciously, and vice versa. As if both sides were only waiting for something to happen— for one another to slip— so they could attack. By the tension in the air, it is not for long.

“Yes. The hunters’ heartbeats are loud. They are ready.”

“What about you? Are you ready?”

You smiled. “Yes.”

As the Primus, Alena hops to one conversation to another. Her smile was a permanent mark in her face. It betrayed the animal within.

One mistake was what you were waiting for. And it’s going to be hell in this mansion.

Jaehyun was behind her as she greeted the other vampires. Those who have lived for three-hundred years already. Of course, they are engaged. It would be odd to see the fiancée without the fiancé.

Then it was Juana’s turn to greet the Primus. They exchanged jovial smiles, as if they were friends since the beginning of time. At your location, you could hear the murmur of their conversation as if they were inside a bubble. Unintelligible but dangerous, nonetheless. Everyone felt it, too. For the vampires stilled as well as the hunters. All eyes were on the two women speaking at the corner.

Alena leaned closer to Juana. From your peripheral, the hunters reached for their weapons concealed by their gowns and suits.

Juana’s gasp was deafening, then she slapped Alena.

You chuckled slowly.

The game has begun.

The vampires pounced at the hunters. The bloodsuckers were outnumbered. How interesting.

First blood was drawn as one vampire slit a hunter’s throat. His blood soaked the floors, like the red wine everyone sipped earlier. You fought the urge to get on your knees and lick his neck.

“Run for the backdoor.” Lucas was already bloodied when he reached you and Rhianon. “Sicheng’s waiting for you there.”

Before he could run, Rhianon grabbed his arm. “Be careful.” Lucas didn’t answer. He only grabbed Rhianon by the back of her head and planted a kiss to her lips then to her forehead.

She turned to you. “Go. Do what needs to be done.”

“You have your weapons in you?” you asked your friend.

She nodded. “You?”

You pulled up the slit of your gown to reveal your dagger. “Here.”

“Would that be enough?”

“It is.”

Rhianon nodded before sprinting towards the backdoor. When a hunter dashed towards you, you quickly grabbed your dagger and swung fast to stab him in the neck. He fell, eyes still open.

“Now, shall we start?” Eva appeared in front of you. A playful smirk flashing on her face. She’s armed with two scythes. Much larger than your dagger.

But you are a vampire. You are swift, much guileful, and more dangerous than this hunter. When she swung her scythe, you hopped backwards. Your weight was lifted by your ability to jump high.

Eva bared her teeth, then swung again. Staggering backwards, you memorized her every move. When she swung the blade in an attempt to chop off your head, you crouched and sliced her leg with your dagger.

Eva cried out in pain, losing hold of her other weapon. You swiftly picked it up. Now there was a moon of a weapon in your hand.

With a road, she attacked. When you attack with such anger, the wit leaves your mind. Eva swayed her scythe as if to cut you in two. She was angry. Too much. And that’s where she went wrong.

Without another thought, you swayed your scythe and sliced open her stomach. Blood gushed out and splattered your face.

Eva choked. Then her scythe made a clamor when it fell to the floor. She knelt, then her body fell to the cold hard floor. Her blood pooled around her, but she was still breathing.

“Mercy,” she whispered.

A smile, then you walked away. She’s going to die soon. And that would be mercy.

Everywhere, chaos ensues. Some vampires were dead on the ground, bodies burning. Some hunters’ bodies were crippled and broken on the floor. Still, the battle continues.

You watched as Juana and Alena had their own war at the end of the hall. The vampire bared her teeth, while the witch flicked her hand. Alena was… losing. Oddly as it is, you refused to move. As much as you wanted to kill Alena, it’s too beguiling to witness these two rotten beings fight each other.

Then Alena was on the ground, while Juana towers over her. “You took my son!” she roared.

You rolled your eyes.

“You crazy bitch!” Alena cried out.

Juana stabbed her stomach with a sword. Alena cried out in pain. She grabbed the blade and attempted to raise it. Only cutting her palms open.

“Stupid,” you muttered from afar.

Juana twisted the blade while laughing. Alena’s head lolled back in pain. “Die! Bitch! Die!” Juana shouted. “Rot in hell—”

What heartbreaking scene. Sicheng stabbed his own mother in the back. The sword protruded from her back to stomach. You must admit, you didn’t see Sicheng approached.

The sight was to behold. A son, a mother, and a vampire.

Juana fell to the ground with a thud. Sicheng pulled the sword from Alena’s stomach. At the sight of him helping Alena on her feet, you could only hope that Sicheng won’t betray Rhianon like this.

Because heaven help you, you would kill him for it.

Sicheng bowed to Alena. Then the Primus waved her off while clutching her stomach. In the blink of an eye, she straightened her back. No more wounds. No more injuries.

Now, it’s your turn.

“Not so fast,” you spat out as you ran towards the Primus. Alena senses your presence, for she successfully dodged your first attack.

You held tightly to the scythe, teeth bared. Alena smiled an insulting one, taunting you to lunge and lose all your composure.

But you have danced with the devil way too many times. You know how the music goes.

Alena sized you up. Both of you walking in a circle, anticipating for someone to lash out first. Suddenly, she staggered backwards as Jaehyun pounced on her from the back.

Alena was bloodied, ragged even. She glared at Jaehyun, then at you. “You’re a fool to think that you could beat me,” she seethed.

You ignored Jaehyun’s presence. Alena owes him, too. But she’s yours. It’s you who would claim her life— not anyone else’s, not Jaehyun.

Once again, you aggressed. Alena dodge, but she was met by Jaehyun’s fist. You slammed your knees on her face before she could crash against the floor. The crack of bones, then Alena’s mouth was dripping blood.

She dodged Jaehyun’s attack— then kicked the back of his knees so aggressively that you winced. Alena turned her attention towards you. With a snarl, she lashed out.

This time, you let her pounce on you until your back collided with the wall. The battle rages around you, blood adorned the floors and innards were splayed. Lifeless eyes stared at different directions. As if they were watching the battle between you and Alena, too.

You felt a dull pain on the back of your head as Alena slammed her hands to your face. You groaned in pain by the impact. Then she was tossed aside as Jaehyun grabbed the back of her collar.

Before sauntering towards the Primus, Jaehyun gave you a silent nod. Alena lay crumpled to the ground, Jaehyun kicked her stomach then she doubled over again. His height towered over her, then he pressed his soles to her cheek. The force made the floor cracked but Alena grabbed his ankles and pulled.

Back slamming to the floor, Jaehyun struggled to stand up. When you attempted to dash towards him, Alena grabbed his hair and wrapped her arm around his neck. A snap of bones, then his veins were already visible by how forceful Alena’s grip was.

She would kill Jaehyun. Would you watch her end him? Would that be retribution?

You cursed. But before you could think of backing out and letting Jaehyun die, you grabbed a dagger from the strap on your hips and threw it towards the Primus. She was shot at the shoulder. Jaehyun wriggled free as Alena staggered backwards with a hiss.

You buried your soles to the floor, and sprinted without a second thought. Alena met you with bared fangs. But you dodge her attack as you whirled

You had your arm wrapped around her neck instantly. The familiar sound of breaking bones echoed through your ears. Satisfaction spread out as a sneer on your lips. Alena thrashed and tried to grab you— but to no avail.

Everything went silent. The clang of weapons to weapons, the shouts, the cries. The only thing you heard was the skin of Alena’s neck as you pulled her head off her body. With a triumphant smile, you grabbed her hair and kicked her body to fall to the floor. The blood from her severed her dripped and spread like a red ink on an otherwise stygian floor.

Slowly, everyone stopped as they took in the image of the dead Primus. The vampires gaped at you in horror. As well as the hunters.

The vampires had their fangs bared at you instantly. Your mouth turned in a thin line. They weren’t happy to see their Primus dead, of course. Gripping Alena’s hair with your hand, you backed away. But the first vampire attacked, so you strike her with Alena’s head.

Jaehyun was in front of you suddenly, spreading out his arms to meet the vampires. “She’s your new Primus!” he bellowed and hit a vampire who had been too late to halt his attacks.

The vampires stilled, their perfect brows furrowed.

“What do you mean?” one asked.

He fisted his palms before answering, “It is I who turned her. Alena wasn’t her Primus. And you know the rules…” Jaehyun paused for a minute before continuing, “She’s our new Primus.”

“That’s absurd! How could we make sure that you really turned her?”

“Why don’t you crack open my skull with your powers and shit?” Jaehyun spat, “I am not lying. And could you stop pretending that this isn’t of benefit to you? I know all of you fuckers hated Alena.”

What is he trying to say? Did you hear it right? You? The new Primus because you killed Alena? You grabbed Jaehyun’s arm. “Shut up.”

He whirled on you with a grim expression. “Shut up and let them kill you? No.”

“This isn’t your fight!” you hissed.

“It’s mine as much as it’s yours,” was his straightforward reiteration.

You hate this man. You hate the way that after all that he has done— he still has that same stupid effect on you.

Jaehyun turned his attention back to the gaping vampires. “Now, what? Kneel!”

One by one, they knelt on the ground, eyes confused but subservient nonetheless. As they knelt, you have noticed that there are only five hunters left. One of them was Lucas. He was panting hard, scythe on hand.

This is a massacre.

“Stand up,” you commanded. At once, all the vampires stood up. “Kneel.” Then they knelt. “Now,” you began, “Kill each other.”

“Wha—” one vampire tried to open her mouth to speak, but was attacked with the other vampire from behind. Chaos once again dominated the mansion, with the vampires killing each other.

But there is one loophole. Jaehyun remained standing. Hurt was an understatement for the expression that was etched through his face. You stared at him with lifeless eyes.

“Why aren’t you dead?” you asked flatly.

“You—”

You cut him off. “Yes. I did command them to kill each other. Believing that you would die, too. Are you satisfied?”

“Y/N…” he stated with a voice as broken as everything around you. Perhaps it broke you, too. But you were numb. “Why?”

You leaned closer to him. “Because I hate you.”

Without a backward glance, you walked past him, past the dead bodies, past Lucas, and towards Rhianon.

As the last vampire was killed, Lucas caught up to you. “Alena turned Sicheng, Y/N.”

Shit, shit, shit. You pushed the backdoor open and searched for Rhianon around. Then she was there, holding Sicheng in her arms. A dagger to his chest.

“Wake up,” she croaked, “Please. Don’t leave me.”

Eyes frantic, you knelt beside Rhianon. “I… Rhianon—”

With tears rolling down her cheeks, she asked, “What happened? Why did he stab his own self?”

You felt Lucas’s burning gaze. But you couldn’t speak. Arid was your throat. How could you be so foolish? Why haven’t you thought about Sicheng when you barked the order?

“It’s my fault— I— I ordered the vampires to kill each other.”

Rhianon shoved you away, her sorrowful expression turning dark. “How is that possible?”

Lucas was the one to answer, “She’s their new Primus.”

“Rhianon— I’m sorry— I didn’t—”

She grabbed your collar and sneered at your face. Utter loathing evident in her dark irises. “Do. Something.” When you didn’t move, she propelled you away again. This time, she screamed so loud you were afraid she’d break a nerve. “DO SOMETHING!”

Your hand to his pale wrist. You brought Sicheng’s wrist to your mouth and bare your fangs. With a chumble, you let your teeth sink in his skin, producing as much vampire venom as you could muster.

Sicheng’s blood coated your teeth as it ran down his pale arm. Rhianon remained unmoving beside you, her heartbeat extremely loud for your sensitive hearing. In it, you have heard the trepidation as well as the hate. For you.

One minute became two. Two became five. Sicheng remained lifeless, intensifying the wrath and the grief inside your friend’s heart. This has been your doing.

But then his eyes snapped open. Rhianon gasped and pulled him close.

It happened too fast. Fast even for your vampire eyes. Sicheng had his hand wrapped around his sister’s neck. You stared in mortification as he lifted Rhianon to the air. She gagged and clawed at his wrist.

Your first instinct was to pounce on him. And that was what you did. Rhianon fell to the ground as you jumped on Sicheng. Your bodies rolled off the ground. He was clawing at you— trying to break free.

“I am your Primus!” you roared, “And I order you to calm down.” Sicheng stilled, pupils dilating. With a twist of your wrist, you pulled out the dagger from his chest. When you felt his bones relaxed, you slowly got off of him.

He sat up on the ground, searching for any faces. Then he straightened when he saw Rhianon in the arms of Lucas, palming her neck while coughing.

“Rhianon?” he asked. Sicheng was on his feet in a matter of seconds, and closed the distance between him and his sister. “What happened?”

“You’re a piece of shit…” Rhianon coughed, “You know that?” With a sob, she grabbed her brother and embraced him tightly.

—

“Could we change clothes first?” Lucas inquired inside the vehicle as he swerved the steering wheel.

The four of you were on your way towards the cemetery, where Hubert was currently located. By the position of the moon in the heavens, the dawn would soon break. And you would never let this day end without knowing the truth.

In your heart, in the little space inside, you still refused to believe that Jaehyun has been the one behind your parents’ deaths. Perhaps it is the love that hasn’t been extinguished off of you after all.

If your heart could still beat, it would surely fall to your stomach by how fervent the rhythm would be. The road has been long— and it would feel as if the ride has been for naught. At least, almost all the vampires in this town were dead. Along with Alena. If ever one of them killed your parents, you have already exact your vengeance.

But if it is true that Jaehyun killed your parents, you have to gather all your courage to kill the man you love. An eye for an eye— always.

The thought of Johnny, your brother, who had no idea about your whereabouts and what creature you had been turned into, flashed in your mind like lightning. Oh, Johnny, you cried in your mind. If you could still cry, you’d surely be a waterfall of tears sitting on the bullet seat.

But that was the point. You couldn’t. Not anymore. Jaehyun took all your humanity from you.

“We’re here,” Rhianon pronounced.

Bloodied and beat, the four of you entered the cemetery. Unlike from last time, and the one before that, you didn’t need any flashlights to see through the dark. The signage from the entrance didn’t give you any goosebumps or creeps either. There is nothing more dangerous than you tonight.

Hubert was bound in the circle when you arrived. His wails remained uninterrupted. They only grew more desperate when he saw the four of you coming towards him.

Lucas stood protectively behind Rhianon as she knelt and sat the wooden box to the ground. It is the box where something of Hubert’s possession had been kept. With a deep intake of breath, Rhianon opened the lid. Only to be greeted by a smoke.

The three of you except Rhianon drew your foreheads in a crease. What is happening? And why is it only smoke? However, it was not a usual smoke. It would as if it had a life on its own. The smoke remained dancing, refusing to disintegrate and disappear into nothingness.

Rhianon’s mouth opened and spewed enchantments. At once, the smoke compressed to become solid. With a dashing speed, it flew towards Hubert and disappeared to his mouth.

You stood there, knuckles white. What just happened?

As if on instance, Hubert gagged. He was becoming used to his own tongue. He tried to wiggle it, touch his mouth with it, run it through his lips. Hubert cried out in astonishment.

“Now,” you began, stepping closer to him to hand him the picture of your parents, “Tell me who killed them.”

“Give me the image of my wife and child first, vampire,” he spat with contempt.

You greeted your teeth. There is no way you’d play this game with him. You are done with games. It is time for answers.

“Don’t fuck with me, Hubert.” You leaned closer. Mustering enough authority to your voice, “Who killed them?”

“Humans are a fool.” He snorted. “You already killed her.”

It was expected. But it didn’t lessen the horror that you felt. Does revenge truly taste like this? Now, you feel as if beheading Alena hadn’t been enough. You wanted to breathe life to her once again, so you could kill her over and over. For eternity.

It is sickening— this vengeance. There was no happiness. There was no sign of relief. It had only amplified the grief and the revulsion.

Feeling hollow inside and out, you turned your back against Hubert.

“But,” he added, stopping you on your tracks. “Someone else consumed their blood.”

Don’t let it be Jaehyun, you prayed. But you are a devil, so God didn’t hear.

“Alena killed them. Jaehyun drank their blood to the last drop.”

—

Citylights danced below you. The night air was filled with honks of cars. Paired with a brisk wind which failed to make you feel anything. Your skin had died, together with all your ability to feel anything physical.

It’s been a week since everything went downhill. It’s been a week since you have found out the truth about your parents.

In the span of that week, many have changed. As the founders of the VHC were killed in the fight between the vampires, Lucas was hailed as the newest leader of the hunter’s society. Many mourned Juana, despite her wickedness and deceit. Along with the mourners was her own daughter, Rhianon. She knew that Sicheng killed their mother out of his duty to protect Alena, but you have found out that the siblings separated ways for a while.

Rhianon came back to her grandmother’s cottage to master the arms of magic. Ever since Juana died, all her powers had been transferred to her only daughter. That makes Rhianon the reigning Supreme of the witches.

As for Sicheng… he had a role to fulfill. You hailed him new Primus. Since there is no way you would dedicate your life in commanding the other vampires in this town. However powerful it might make you feel.

And Jaehyun…

He landed behind you. His presence alone was a whirlpool of both sorrow and excitement. The last time you saw him, he was bloodied and bruised. That was it.

A meter away from you, Jaehyun leaned and propped his elbows to the railings, staring at the horizon— a juxtaposition of city lights and mountains.

His soft hair swayed back and forth because of the wind. And his pale features never betrayed his beauty. Sometimes, you wonder if he was real. Or just a piece of an artist’s imagination that came to life. He had that beauty in him; a brush stroke of perfection set in his dark-brown eyes. His lips were a piece of heaven in itself. But there is hell underneath those smiles of his.

“I’m glad you came,” you muttered.

“It is you who summoned me. There’s no reason to decline.”

You tried to sniff the air, pretending that you could breathe it in with your dead and pallid lungs. “I’m here to say goodbye.”

“No. You don’t.” He chuckled petulantly.

“Alena killed my parents,” you began. Jaehyun snapped his head towards you, eyes like searing hot coals against your skin. “You drank their blood.”

Your eyes to his eyes. His reflected pain. Yours reflected grief.

Jaehyun ran his tongue through his lips. “I don’t remember.”

Shaking your head, you flashed him a bitter smile. “It doesn’t matter if you don’t.” You held his eyes. “But it is the truth.”

His next movement was unexpected. Jaehyun knelt, knees colliding against the rooftop’s floor. Your eyes grew hard. But he remained kneeling. “I’m sorry. Truly,” he said hoarsely. Right there, you knew that he would cry if he could.

“Sorry won’t make everything right.”

“I don’t want to lose you again.” His lips trembled. “Give us a chance.”

Us. How enthralling that sounds. You and Jaehyun, until the end of time. Heavenly as it might sound, the world doesn’t revolve that way. Grief and love is a mixture of water and oil— it was never meant to be.

“I don’t know how to forgive you,” you said in a frail voice.

Jaehyun’s face lit up in a fraction. He stood up and took your face with his. In a low voice, he whispered, “I’m begging you. Don’t leave me.”

A bitter smile. “How could you wish for that? You turned me, Jaehyun. You turned me into the monster that killed my parents.”

He croaked, “Forgive me.”

“Is there forgiveness for that?” You looked at him coldly. “And I don’t even know you, Jaehyun. Who were you before you had been turned? What are your dreams?”

By that, he let his hands fall. “I am… Jung Jaehyun. A motorcycle racer. I loved the race so much—” That I killed a little girl, he wanted to say but found out that he couldn’t. He has already done enough grievous things. He couldn’t do this.

“It’s okay. You need not force yourself.” You touched his cheek once more, leaving his lips with one last kiss. “Perhaps in another life we could try again.”

Then you disappeared. Leaving him battered and broken and… alone.

—

“Y/N! Damn! I’ve missed you!” Mark gave you a suffocating hug after you opened the door for them. Of course, it didn’t suffocate you at all. You only echoed a ‘hmpf’ sound to fool yourself.

“I’ve missed you, too, Lee.”

Haechan remained standing at the doorway until Mark pulled away from you. You raised a brow at him as he ran his eyes up and down your frame. As you shared a knowing smile, Haechan pulled you closer and gave you the tightest hug ever.

“You little devil,” he muttered on your hair.

“Still your little devil.” You chuckled.

Mark joined the hug. And you could almost feel the vampire venom coating your eyes as fake tears.

“You’ve got so much to tell us!”

So you brought out the liquor and the food. There, in your living room, the three of you sat on the floor. You have been gone for almost four months. Everything about you has changed. However, your friends remained the same.

Haechan threw another banter, making Mark laugh while clutching his stomach. You took a swig from your bottle while chuckling, spilling liquid down your chin and shirt.

You have successfully dodged all their questions about your supposed vacation. Every now and then, you would lie and show them pictures you simply downloaded from the Internet as proof. Mark nodded in amazement, while Haechan nudged and told that you should’ve taken them with you.

How awful that would’ve been. You couldn’t stomach thinking about your friends, experiencing the same horrid situations you had been into.

Drinking in the humanity in the air, you stared and watched them as their cheeks turned pinkish because of inebriation. Haechan’s words became sluggish, while Mark started to hiccup.

These are your friends. Human. One day, they would wither. One day, they would die. And you’d continue to live.

You stood up and walked towards your room, picked up pillows and blankets, and walked back to the living room. Where Haechan and Mark currently snores. A pang left your dead heart as you wrapped the two boys with a blanket.

“Good night,” you whispered. “Sleep well, you devils.”

—

Johnny came back home after a week since you arrived. As usual, he had the widest grin on his face when he saw you. Just like when you were still a kid, he scooped you up and whirled you around while laughing.

You tried your best to share his joy, you really did. Perhaps you have succeeded in pretending, since Johnny was and still ecstatic everytime he sees you on a daily basis.

Night after night, you would sit on the couch. While some Netflix series plays on the screen. Johnny would tell you about the countries he has been to. Finally, after years, he finally revealed his job. Photographer, he said. But you were still quite hesitant to believe him. You could infiltrate his mind, but that would be diabolical.

“What happened to Jaehyun, though?” he asked one morning.

You stilled, unable to form words. Since your last meeting at the rooftop, Jaehyun hasn’t shown himself to you again.

“Before I went home, I saw him in London.”

“London?”

Johnny chewed on his food before answering, “Yeah. I was shocked to see him there since I thought he was living here or somewhere else.”

“I… thought so, too.”

“But London?” Johnny made a sound. “I thought that dick’s an L.A. kid. Anyways, he didn’t accept my payment to the money I owed him.”

That was the last time you have ever talked about Jaehyun with your brother. You simply couldn’t form coherent words whenever someone says his name.

“London, huh?” you mumbled while staring at the horizon from your bedroom window. The gloaming stretches out as a blanket of bluish clouds. The sun would rise soon, and you would lock yourself up in bed until it’s nighttime again.

Everything was muffled. The yawn of the early passersby. The clangor of utensils as mothers prepare for their children’s lunchbox. The toss and turning of Johnny on his bed.

He didn’t sleep a wink last night. And you know why.

Ever since you were turned, the only way to drink blood was to go to the blood bank. You would refrigerate the blood at the mini-fridge you have installed in your bedroom. Safe, you thought they were. Until Johnny came barging in while you were sipping on one of the packs.

He gagged at the sight of you. With horror in his eyes, Johnny shut the door. The blood pack fell from your hands and landed straight to your carpets.

It would seem as if there’s still humanity left in you since you forgot to close the door. What a human mistake.

“Are you fucking with me?” Johnny asked when you sat with him in the kitchen. It was his initial reaction upon seeing you.

“It’s a grape juice,” was your stupid reiteration. Dark and luscious red, the blood was. There’s no way it would be a grape juice.

“Now you’re making a fool of me.” Johnny leaned on the kitchen counter, his arms crossed against his chest. “Why are you drinking blood?”

“It’s not blood—”

“WHY ARE YOU DRINKING BLOOD?” he screamed. You could swear it rattled the utensils hanging as well as the picture frames.

For the first time since the both of you were orphaned, it had been his first time to raise his voice at you.

“Answer me—!”

“I’m a vampire, Johnny.”

A pause. You expected him to howl with laughter. But Johnny remained unmoving. He was checking your face, checking if you weren’t fooling around.

“I know vampires need blood to survive, but that is a fucked up thing to say, Y/N,” Johnny sighed, “Is this because of Mom and Dad?”

You closed your eyes. He thinks you are losing your mind. And you couldn’t blame him. If the roles were reversed, you would’ve thought the same of Johnny. “I’m telling the truth.”

“Truth?” He slammed the table. “Where is the truth to that? Vampires don’t exist!”

“They do! And I am one of them now!” you hissed, afraid that the neighbors might hear your unpleasant conversation.

Johnny ran a hand through his hair. Then he stood up and paced. “Tell me if you want some medical aid. I’ll do everything to help you.”

“You think I’m insane?!”

“Then what are you?!” he shouted back.

You purse your lips together while shaking your head. “I’m telling the truth.” Then you grabbed the knife resting conveniently on the top of the table. “Watch.” You sliced your arm, the blood dripped.

Johnny stared hard at your wound. Then his eyebrows started to furrow when the wound started to close on its own. “What the… what the fuck?” He cupped your cheeks with his hands, eyes panic-stricken while staring at yours. “What happened to you?”

Since you don’t have the heart to tell Johnny everything, you ignored his question. “I told you. They are real. And they killed Mom and Dad.”

He embraced you tightly. Heat emanated from his body, wrapping you in its warmness. Johnny was sniffing on your hair. He was crying. “What is this?”

“I don’t know.” And that was the truth, you really don’t know. From here, everything would finally change. And it won’t be for the best.

That’s how Johnny found out about your real and true nature. It happened last night. None of you had the heart to talk about yet. Your mind has been clouded, as well as Johnny’s.

As the sun painted the skies a red and orange hue, you stood up and stretched. Time to hide. But before you could jump in your bed, there was a knock.

You sauntered up to the door and twisted the knob. Johnny, with dark moons under his eyes, greeted you.

“Hey,” he said, scratching the back of his neck. “It’s sunrise… and I was checking up on you.”

“I’m… fine.”

“Can I come in?”

You opened the door wider.

Johnny stepped in and roamed his eyes around the room. Then he spun towards you. “Perhaps we could change your curtains? Let’s buy something thicker and new.”

A warm smile had spread on your lips. “I’d like that.” You hugged your brother.

Johnny embrace you tightly. “And maybe you could take vitamin D so you won’t have to drink blood?”

Both of you chuckled. “You are a genius.”

—

“In the end, we are alone. And there is nothing but the cold dark wasteland of eternity,” you whispered and shut the book. Lestat de Lioncourt never fails to describe how it feels like to be a vampire.

Alone. With the weight of eternity on your shoulders.

Some people wish to live long. Forever, even. And perhaps you have wished for that too, when your mind hasn’t yet developed around the realities of the world.

Living forever sounds thrilling. Not until it sticks to your chest, like a disease that hadn’t been meant to kill you. This disease was a vice versa of death— it makes you live longer to see the world turn to dust.

Eighty years. Eighty years of you hopping towards a country to the next. Eighty years of you changing your name and identity to fit in the adjusting world. Whenever your neighbor would notice how your face doesn’t seem to change over the course of years, you would disappear without a trail.

It’s tiring. But it is the way of things.

Johnny died twenty years ago because of old age. Five years after that, death claimed Haechan and then Mark. Both of them failed to know your true nature. It was best to keep it from them. So you hid, away from all the people at their wake. But you made sure to visit every year since then.

As for your friends— Lucas and Rhianon— some happy endings happened to them. Rhianon bore a girl, which she named Luna. They now reside in their cottage in the woods. Lucas died recently. The operations of the Academy as well as the VHC went to his right hand, Jeno.

Despite its imminence, Rhianon’s grief at the loss of her husband took a toll on her. Luna has all the ability to take care of her mother. But you still lived with them to help Rhianon recover.

Now, you are here. London. To where Johnny once saw Jaehyun. Why are you here? You couldn’t answer yourself.

Eighty years since you last saw him. You wonder what happened to him. Or how he looks right now. Surely, something had changed, right?

In those years, you have taught yourself how to forgive. How to let go of the grief and the pain and the loathing. In this cold and desolate eternity, you deserve to be happy.

You stared at the River Thames. Calm was its waters now that it’s already midnight. You let the briny air caress your cheeks and soothe your heart.

Then you felt it. That same presence. It hasn’t changed at all. Not far from you, to where the other tower was located, there he stood.

If your heart could beat loudly, it surely would. The distance between you was a physical ache that you wanted to quench. So you moved your feet towards him. And he did the same.

You wanted to sprint to finally hug him. But the bridge is still alive of cars passing and few bystanders walking. You deserve this. This walk of longing.

Dark brown eyes. Smooth and perfect face. Red luscious lips. He was Jaehyun. From head to his toe.

You stared at him, gulping down all the years that you haven’t seen him. He looked exactly the same. The same man who could make your lips spread out in a warmest smile. The man who could make you feel summer even though everything in your body has been cold.

“Hey,” he whispered. “I’m Jung Jaehyun.”

“Jung Jaehyun,” you repeated. “I’m Y/N.”

“Nice to meet you,” you both said in unison.

You once did your love wrong, but you are willing to try. So does he. Jaehyun has been ready to lay out all his cards for you. No turning back. Because losing you had been the bane of his existence.

And for once, he believes that he deserves something beautiful.

He took your hand. His smile never fading. “Will you spend your forever with me? Literally.”

Without hesitation, you answered. “Yes.”

Perhaps Lestat de Lioncourt had been wrong. The bleak eternity seemed to have been fused of blinding lights now. Bright and bright it shines.

Despite the death that reeks in your soul, one thing was for sure: the love you have for each other was alive. It was red as blood. Fierce as the sun and the moon combined.

And there’s an eternity ahead of you to spend with him.

#neowritingsnet #jaehyun au #jaehyun x reader #jaehyun fic #jaehyun angst #jaehyun smut #jaehyun scenario #jaehyun imagines #jung jaehyun au #jung jaehyun x reader #jung jaehyun fic #jung jaehyun angst #jung jaehyun smut #jung jaehyun scenario #jung jaehyun imagines #nct au #nct imagines #nct 127 au #nct 127 imagines

343 notes · View notes

bakubitch-minusultra · 3 years ago

Text

Not Alone: Chapter Ten

-> an apocalyptic series with bnha characters but without quirks because I'm the writer and i can do whatever the fuck i want :3 yo im so sorry for not posting this yesterday i had two softball games and when i got home i just wanted to relax so i hope this makes up for it <3

-> Word Count: 2.1k

-> Warnings: the infected, thas bout it lol

-> Taglist: @5sosfckss @laudthingcat @zphilophobiaz

Y/n woke up to a wolf paw in her face. Hades kicked slightly in his dream and scratched her cheek. She pushed it away and looked around. She was more comfortable than she had ever been, since before.

Jirou was passed out with her arms around Hades. He loved to snuggle when he slept. Y/n smiled, knowing that he was getting more comfortable in the new space.

The light of day was filtering in through the canvas of the tent. It was small and cozy in the tent and the air had grown stale with the three of them breathing in it.

She stretched and realized what she was wearing. It was a loose t-shirt with the word ‘hide’ on it, the shirt was black and too big for her. She was also wearing jeans with tears and holes on the knees. She felt a bit of a breeze in the back felt around her but to discover holes back there as well. She frowned. She needed her pants back.

“You’re finally up.”

Y/n turned around to see Bakugo smiling at her. He was beautiful. She couldn’t stop herself from gawking at him in his black t-shirt with a skull design and his dark gray sweatpants. His eyes met hers and he noticed the way her eyes traveled his body.

“How come you get pants with no holes?”

He laughed, “We only have so many clothes. The last trip to a mall was three years ago. We share everything.”

Y/n glanced at Mary who was snuggled against a guy holding the little brat, “Everything.”

He turned to see what Y/n was watching and he laughed again, “Not not everything. She’s just really friendly Y/n. She’s like that with everyone. But if you’re interest we have a few girls who’re single.”

“What?”

“If you’re interested.”

Y/n shook her head, “I don’t know what you mean.” Bakugo laughed at her. He was in on a joke that she was not.

He sighed, “So want to go over the map with me?”

“I told you last night, I don’t know maps. I know where I’ve been by remembering the woods.”

“What?”

Y/n pointed to the tent, “I need her to stay here and be protected. She’s sixteen. She’s lived a hard life.”

Bakugo made a face that made Y/n laugh, “Yeah I figured she was staying.”

“Her mom and aunt just died, Her other aunt was taken to the breeder farms.”

His red eyes sparkled, “She’s just our kind of girl then.”

She was confused by him, but she didn’t have time to figure him out. She couldn’t get the picture of him playing the guitar in the firelight out of her head. It was almost like there were two of him inside of his body. Sweet Bakugo and Business Bakugo.

Mary came over carrying the monster.

“Andy, what do you have to say to Y/n?”

The boy looked down at the ground and pouted, “Sorry.”

He fidgets with her blouse and looks up to meet Y/n’s frown with a smile.

“Okay thanks.” Bakugo and Mary laughed. “Mary, will you watch Jirou until I get back?”

She leaned up and hugged Y/n, “Be safe Y/n and hurry back.”

Y/n hugged her back. She still hugged like an iron rod. She noticed the waay Mary hugged like a person and she hugged like a robot. She hugged just like Mina and her heart hurt thinking about them.

She turned and opened the tent, “I’m leaving Jirou. You need to stay here and help out okay. They need the extra hands.”

Jirou woke up and instantly gave Y/n a snarl, “No. I’m coming with you.”

Y/n shook her head, “No you need to stay and hang with Mary. I’m taking Bakugo to the farmhouse. I’ll be back in a couple days.”

She layed back down, “Fine.”

Y/n looked at Hades, “You coming or staying?” He stretched out on the sleeping bags and snuggled into Jirou who laughed.

“He likes me better.”

Y/n rolled her eyes, “Traitor. She zipped the tent back up and walked back to Bakugo, whose eyes sparkled in the morning light. “What?”

Bakugo shook his head, amused by Y/n for something, “You’re funny Y/n.”

Xxxx

The walk back down the mountain was less painful and considerably faster than the walk up. Her feet didn’t hurt and Bakugo kept a fast pace. Unlike Jirou, he never spoke.

When they made it back to the meeting tree, they both paused and listened. She led across the open field with a sprint. They made it to the edge of the field and crouched down to look for any signs of life in the driveway. The barn swung open and shut. They’re back. She knew that she sealed the barn door completely when she left. She could hear Bakugo’s breath on the back of her neck as she watched the house silently.

She turned and whispered, “Let me go look first.”

He shook his head and pointed to the barn door. She turned and looked again.

She almost jumped when she saw them. It felt as though they were watching her. As the barn door swung open and shut a pair of eyes watched from inside. Stains of bloody tears streaked the gaunt cheeks below.

Her stomach twists and turns and she backed up but Bakugo put his arm on her to stop her from running away,

“Stay still.” His words made her skin shiver, as his hot breath landed on the back of her neck. Y/n didn’t move. The barn door opened and closed several more times. Then suddenly it opened and the eyes were gone.

She looked up at the loft window to see the thin figure pass by it. The window overlooked the field perfectly. They would be seen. Suddenly she was on the ground, in the hay and wrapped up in Bakugo’s long body. He held her close to him.

The wind played with the hay around them, it whispered to them.

She could feel his heart beating against her chest. They were face to face but her eyes darted around them. She heard footsteps. She heard something else, it was the way an exhale sounded when your throat was a ragged mess.

The infected were near them. She wanted to pull her shirt over her face. She wanted to run. She needed her mask but she had left it behind. Another rule she had broken.

Bakugo stroked his thumb along the back of her neck, where his left hand lay. He was trying to calm her nerves, before she gave away our location. In the gusts of warm wind and the calm silence of the ragged exhales, she heard a sound she didn’t expect. It was the hollering of men and the high moans of the infected.

The footsteps left the hay around us. The moaning and ragged breath became harder to hear, as distance was put between them.

Bakugo whispered into her forehead, “Oh my fucking god.” They laid in silence for a moment. He peeked his up to look around but she pulled him back down.

“One more minute.” He frowned but as she spoke the barn door closed several times hard. A raucous noise filled the air, different types of commotion began after it. “We need to leave now.” She whispered into his throat.

He pulled back a bit and looked at her, almost looking through her with his intensely red eyes. He tilted her chin with his free hand and lightly feathered his lips against mine. His kiss wasn’t intense like Kirishima’s was or soft like Mary’s. It was somewhere in the middle and filled with more of everything. He kissed beside her mouth and whispered into her cheek, “We’re going to crawl from here and then make our way to the forest on the other side from where we came. We don’t want to lead them to the camp.”

He kissed once more just along the side of her lips and let her out of his firm grip. He moved away from her and slithered backwards, away from the farmhouse. She followed him. The hay slicing along her skin gave her small cuts. When they got to the halfway point between the forest and farmhouse, Bakugo stood and hunched over. She did the same, listening intently to every sound.

They made their way into the forest where he broke into a run. She followed him until they reached the bigger trees. He climbed one of them quickly. She looked around and started to feel uncomfortable. She didn’t like to be on the ground without Hades. She climbed the next largest tree and scrambled up the branches until she was as high as he was.

The farmhouse, her farmhouse, was nearly entirely in view. She could see the field she had crossed too many times to count. Pain crept around inside of her as she imagined her bunker and rations and her clean little spaces, all torn apart by the infected.

“So Mina and Kirishima were here with you?” His voice betrayed his lack of hope.

She nodded. She saw a small cluster of men fighting the infected like fools. They would get sick. They would become infected and maybe they would die because not everyone was able to live with running sores and bloody tears.

“God, they should have run.” She recognized one of them. He was the man who shouted the loudest when the man with the evil grin peed on the fire. The man who pulled down her pants.”

“Those men held me captive. They’re the others.”

“Do you know where their camp is?”

“Yup. I’d like to avoid it.”

“What if they have Kirishima and Mina?”

The pain in his eyes hurt Y/n somehow, “I never said I was going to avoid it. I said I’d like to. I’m betting they have Kirishima and Mina.” She took one last look and knew it would be a long time before she ever came back,, if she ever did. She took her last look at the white siding and the small windmill in the front yard waved goodbye to her. As her feet made their way back down the tree, she saw something that made her feel the smallest amount of fear and hope simultaneously. On the ground is a small bandage and above it was a broken branch. She looked deeper into the forest and saw another broken branch. “They got away. They’re this way.” She pointed.

Bakugo looked at the bandage and scoffed, “Y/n that could belong to anyone.”

She shook her head,”No it’s not. It’ll smell like tea tree and the branches,” She pointed to them, “I told Kirishima it was howI always found my way through the woods.”

He bent his face to the ground and sniffed the air around the bandage, “It’s tea tree.” Y/n turned to run, but he grabbed her arm as he stood and pulled her into him. “One thing first.” He put his hands on the small of her back and lifted her into his arms. His lips met hers with desperation and excitement. His tongue slipped into her mouth, caressing hers. He sucked and nibbled on her lower lip as his hand rubbed her back. Suddenly his hands made their way lower and didn’t feel uncomfortable as he cupped her ass and lifted her into him/ He wrapped her legs around him. She was feeling the way she used to when she read the romance novels stored at the cabin. She felt a heat rising low in her belly.

He let her slide down his body, till her feet touched the ground again. Air rushed between them. She opened her eyes, not realizing she had closed them, and looked up into his face.

He grinned, “I’m going to have a hard time staying focused.” Y/n giggled like a schoolgirl. It was the first time that sound had left her lips. He kissed her softly one last time and walked away toward the broken branches and Y/n followed. “I never imagined they were alive. I went back to where they were when I got taken and I couldn’t find them. I knew Kirishima wasn’t very responsible- well neither of us were.” He ran a hand through his blonde shaggy hair.

“Mina told me you guys were pretty bad at paying attention.”

He chuckled and Y/n caught herself staring at his butt. It was round and firm and when he took a step, it moved in a way she enjoyed. She realized when she watched him, that she felt a small amount of guilt. Kirishima kissed her too. Kirishima made her smile and made her laugh.

Bakugo made her scared of him but safe against the world, where as Kirishima made her feel the opposite.

12 notes · View notes

cakers-2000 · 4 years ago

Text

The Konoha Simps Discord Server collab is once again back! This time I’ve participated with two different pieces so please enjoy them!

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

Word count: 2.5k

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

The streets of Liyue were normally filled to the brim with hundreds of patrons. Some were looking for the thrill of adventure, hoping to join the Liyue adventurer’s guild while others were just looking to do a spot of shopping or eating, hoping to get their hands on the local specialties and cuisine that the port town of Liyue Harbor has to offer.

You yourself were far from these normal far off visitors. You were actually a native to the land of the wind, Springvale was your home and the Mondstadt people were your ‘lupical’, as Razor tends to put it.

You had been brought to Liyue on a quest.

You let out a long sigh as you sat yourself down on the railing of the bridge leading into the city. You watched the men of the harbor load up ships and set off into the vast sea stretched before you. What you wouldn’t give to go off exploring with them.

Your hand fell to the small bag resting around your shoulders and you dug through your belongings, attempting to find the item which had brought you to Liyue in the first place.

Your fingers grazed what felt like paper and you gently dragged out the oddly shaped piece of gold paper. You admired the craftsmanship and words written along the paper that read simply ‘Sōru’, you had never seen anything like it before.

Nor had you expected to see anything like it in your small town of Springvale. You turned it in your hands over and over, once again mulling over what you had found out about the item.

Of course when you originally discovered it you had decided to take it to Lisa and get some answers from Mondstadt’s top librarian. If she couldn’t answer, perhaps she had some books that could. And as if your prayers were answered she had just the books.

The item itself was known in Liyue as a sigil of permission… At least that’s what it had seemed to be.

This sigil seemed to be a darker gold then the sigil you had seen in the pictures. And the characters written on the front were vastly different from the ones on a permission sigil. But no matter how much research you did you couldn’t figure out what this specific sigil was used for or why it had flown its way in through your bedroom window.

A small sigh managed to escape through your pursed lips as you stood yourself back up off the railing. No more dilly dallying, you had to figure out the origins behind this sigil and why it had found itself in Springvale.

Without a moment left to spare you set off across the bridge and into the bustling crowd before you, sigil clutched tightly in your hand as your search began.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Your hours of searching and inquiring around Liyue Harbor had led you to the door of a rather large building known as the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor in the hopes of finding a man named Zhongli.

You had spent most of your day strolling around, taking in the sights and asking everyone you came across if they knew about the sigil on your person.

Unfortunately no one could say, but a nice young woman by the name of Xiangling referred a man named Zhongli. He was supposedly an expert on Liyue and its customs. If anyone could help you, it was him.

But as you stared down the doors in front of you, you suddenly froze. What if he couldn’t help you? What if this sigil was actually a bad omen? Just the thought alone was giving you anxiety.

You slowly raised your hand to knock on the hardwood but just as your fingers grazed the wood it was replaced by a soft piece of fabric and your eyes slowly gazed upwards, only to be greeted by the awkward smile of an older man, head slightly tilted to the side as he stared straight back at you.

And suddenly you wanted to crawl in a hole and never reappear.

“I-I’m sorry! I was just trying to knock on the door!”

The much taller man let out a low chuckle before responding to you. “That’s alright.” He extended his hand out towards you and a small, rather warming smile spread across his face. “I go by Zhongli. And you are?”

Your eyes practically lit up just at hearing the man's name and you enthusiastically grabbed onto his hand with your own. “(Y/N) (Y/L/N)! It’s nice to meet you. I actually came looking for your help.”

He once more tilted his head in confusion as he heard you speak. “My help?”

You nodded in affirmation, a sheepish smile now slowly spreading across your cheeks. “Everyone says you’re the go to for learning about Liyue’s customs. I have some questions I was really hoping you could answer for me.”

“Ah, I see.” He gazed up at the sky, seeming to be lost in thought before nodding slightly in affirmation. “I suppose I can offer my service. How about we discuss over some lunch?”

“A-Alright! Where to?”

A small smile appeared on the corner of his lips and he started off down the street, guiding you around the streets of Liyue. You couldn’t be more grateful for his help.

~~~~~~~~~~~

“Thank you for the lunch Miss (Y/L/N).”

You smiled a tad bit in Zhongli’s direction as you woefully handed over your Mora to the waiter presenting your bill. When he suggested lunch you didn’t think you would be the one buying.

“It’s no problem, and please call me (Y/N).”

He nodded in response before clasping his hands together and leaning his elbows on the table, a newfound spark of interest appearing in his eyes as he got down to business. “So what is it you wish to discuss?”

“Ah, right. Well, I am currently a resident of Mondstadt. To be more precise, I live in Springvale. I actually had something fly in my bedroom window a few months ago. I had never seen anything like it before so I did some research and from what I’ve found it’s some kind of sigil that comes from Liyue.”

He seemed to slightly straighten at the word ‘sigil’ and furrowed his brows. “A sigil?”

“Yes. I have it somewhere in my bag if you’d like to look at it.”

He nodded once more and held his hand out, gesturing for you to exactly that. “If you please.”

You turned to reach into the bag resting on your hip, digging through the scrambled contents in an attempt to find the piece of paper. You were so immersed in your digging you had failed to notice the sound of footsteps, nor had you notice those said footsteps sneak past you and towards your lunch partner.

You were only snapped back to focus at the sound of a loud voice. “Mr. Zhongli!”

You practically jumped out of your skin at the sudden shout and turned to see who had forced their way into your conversation. You were met with the sight of an orange haired man. He was stood behind Zhongli, arms draped around the other mans shoulders as he lazily rested his head on the other mans shoulder. Zhongli seemed completely unfazed by the skinship of the other man, only taking a rather long sip of the tea in his hands before letting out an exasperated sigh.

You could hear the orange man laughing a tad bit under his breath at your spooked expression, a small smirk curled on the corner of his lips. “Zhongli you never told me you were seeing someone.”

Zhongli yet again was unfazed by the mans comments and shook his head. “That’s not it. This is (Y/N). They came to me for help.”

The orange haired man stood himself up and stared at you quizzically. “Help huh? What kind of help?”

“Must your rub your nose in everything Childe?”

The orange haired man you now knew as Childe let out a giggle and nodded, his hand resting on his hip as he smiled down at Zhongli. “Of course.”

“She actually came asking about a sigil that was found in Springvale.”

“That’s odd…” Childe’s goofy grin had been replaced with a rather stern look as he rested his chin in his hand, seeming to be lost in thought. “That’s also what I came here for.”

Zhongli stared up at the other man, one eyebrow raised in skepticism. “You as well Childe?”

He nodded and let out a small hum in response. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a rather dark looking sigil. “I found it on the ground in front of the doors to the Northland Bank.”

You instantly recognized the dark color and words scrawled across the paper of the sigil. A small gasp escaped your lips and you dug once more through your bag at a quicker pace. They stared at your rather frantic form before you finally found your own sigil and held it out so they could both see. “Mine’s the sa-”

You stopped mid sentence as the papers you both held emitted a rather bright glow. You stared in confusion before you felt a sudden pull on your hand. You instinctively let go of the sigil as did Childe. They both flew towards each other and a bright light followed shortly after. You squinted against the harsh rays before they finally died down and your eyes met with the same shocked eyes of Childe.

But where had your sigils gone?

You could hear a faint laugh at your side and you both turned to face Zhongli. He daintly reached down on the table and held up yet another sigil, though this one appeared to be a bright pink color.

“I-Is that?”

Childe’s eyes were lit with amazement as he snatched the sigil from Zhongli’s grasp. “Are these our sigils!?”

“Yes. They-”

“What does it say?”

You couldn’t help but giggle at Childe’s rather excited tone and moved to stand beside him and examine the paper yourself.

“It reads ‘Sōrumeito’.”

“Sōru… Wha?”

Childe’s face contorted in confusion as he finally tore his eyes away from the sigil and handed it over to you so you could also see.

“It means soulmate.”

“Soulmate… OH!”

You couldn’t stop the bright red flush that covered your cheeks just at the mention of soulmates. You locked eyes with Childe who only smiled rather sheepishly at you. You had only just met him, how was he your soulmate??

“Wait, wait. I’ve only just met Childe… How can we be soulmates. It’s gotta be a mistake.”

Zhongli shook his head ‘no’ before taking another rather long sip of his tea. “Mistakes do not happen in the land of contracts.”

“What.”

“Those two sigils you two found only come around every hundred years.”

You sat yourself back down in your seat, now interested in what Zhongli had to say about the whole ordeal. Childe followed in suite, sitting in the chair beside you and scooting closer so that he could rest his arm on the backrest of your chair. He was close, very close, you could feel his breath hit your skin and you tried your best to fight off the blush creeping back to your skin.

“Unfortunately we don’t know much about the sigils. They’re so rare to come by we can only call them a sign from the gods. You two have been bound by destiny, fate brought the two of you together. It brought you both to me, did it not?”

“W-Well yeah but-”

“You both had no idea the other existed, but you did both have connections to me. Fate brought you here to Liyue and the gods have spoken.”

Zhongli stood himself up, smoothing out the creases in his clothes before smiling in your direction. “I’m not ordering you to do anything, but I would accept this sign and see what destiny has in store for you.” Before you could respond he started off past the both of you, hands clasped behind his back before he came to a halt right in front of the door to exit. “It was lovely meeting you Miss/Mister (Y/L/N). Childe-” Childe’s head perked up at the mention of his name and Zhongli let out a small sigh. “Treat them well.”

And just like that he was out the door.

“I told him to call me (Y/N)...”

You were muttering to yourself but you could hear Childe chuckle in response. You glanced to your side to see him staring at you, eyes full of wonder and amazement and you couldn’t help but feel a bit nervous. “Wh-Why are you staring at me?”

“You’re just… really pretty!”

“Ah, well, thank you.”

He finally stood back up and turned to face you, holding out a hand and raising an eyebrow. “Is this your first time in Liyue Harbor.”

You accepted his hand and he gently pulled you up out of your chair so that you stood beside him, though his grip on your hand only tightened as you got closer. “N-No, first time.”

“And let me guess, Mr. Zhongli didn’t bother to give you a tour, did he?”

“Well I didn’t ask…”

“Then it’s settled! I Tartaglia, number 11 of the Fatui Harbingers, will escort you around the harbor.” There was a playful smirk on his face as his hand moved from yours to instead grab you around the waist and lead you out the front door. “It’s got lots to offer and I’ll make sure to show you the real interesting stuff, not that lame touristy crap the milleth soldiers show. Only the best of the best for my soulmate.” He winked in your direction as he led you out onto the streets, keeping you close as the crowds started to form.

You were grateful for the help he offered even if it was embarrassing but Zhongli was right. This man was your soulmate, you were meant to be, so what was the harm in giving him a chance and seeing how destiny played out?

But something was still bothering you.

“Childe.”

“Hmm?”

“You said Tartaglia earlier, and Fatui. What exactly is your job? And I thought your name was Childe? What-”

He suddenly came to a halt and held his finger against your lips, a small laugh escaping him as you pouted in response. “Now, now I can only answer one question at a time, but those my dear you’ll find out in due time.”

“But-”

“First stop on our list is the Northland Bank!”

He ignored your protests and placed his hand back on your hip, guiding you towards a set of stairs that wound upwards. You were curious about Childe, he seemed to be an utter mystery but a fun mystery nevertheless. If the gods said this man was your soulmate then so be it.

Instinctively your head fell against his arm as you walked, enjoying the warmth his body let off and you could hear a small laugh escape him as he smiled brightly.

Damnit how could you already be falling so hard for him?

#childe #tartaglia #genshin impact #genshin impact childe #childe x reader #tartaglia x reader #genshin impact x reader #childe scenarios #tartaglia scenarios #genshin impact scenario

24 notes · View notes

xmalereader · 4 years ago

Text

Billy Hargrove X Male Reader

|| THREE ||

|| Masterlist ||

|ONE — TWO — THREE

Summary: Reader is new to Hawkins, his parents had just moved into the new house and are trying to start over from there old lives. But what if reader can’t? He’s still a messed up kid who’s tired of pretending to be happy...and that damn mullet head of a ghost won’t stop following him around!!

Warnings: PTSD, Langauge, OCD TRIGGERING, Reader wants to know why he can touch billy!

—

Tags; @daybreakmistakes @spnfanboy777 @cypherthetransmasc @kingreidx

—

He was bouncing his leg up and down as he sat on his bed facing his door, staring at a few notes that he had taped onto his door.

“Okay!” He throws his hands in the air and shot up from his bed. “So far, we know that ghosts only wonder around when they have unfinished business, so do you have any unfinished business?” He asks, turning around to face billy who sat on his bed, staring at him.

“Not really no.”

Y/ns frown deeps as he spins around and uncaps his red sharpie, crossing out the first option or idea that he had. “Okay, next we have objects.” He says, pointing at one of his notes. “Is there an special object of yours that someone could’ve taken from you?” He holds his sharpie out to the other option was he waits for a response. “No.” He hears again, as he crosses it out he stops mid way, “wait what about your camero? You told me that was your baby or something.” He shurgs as billy rolls his eyes and sits back on the bed. “My dad only gave me that camero to keep my mouth shut whenever I had to deal with Maxine, it wasn’t anything special.” He explains with a shrug as well.

Y/n can only frown as the explanation, Turing back to his door as he crosses out the information. “Well, I have nothing else...Whatever it is that’s keeping you here—“ he’s startled by his bedroom door being slammed open, causing the door to hit him in the face as he grunts. “Hey!” He winces out and rubs his head, looking up to see his own mother looking down at him. “Sorry sweety, but I heard you spreaking to yourself again.” She says as she looks over y/n’s shoulder to see his room floor covered in papers. “What are you doing?”

“Smoking weed.” He blurts out randomly as his mother glares at him.

“Where do you expect me to get that stuff?” He adds with a bit of sarcasm and steps back, stilling wincing at the pain as he rubs his head again. He hears his mother sign in disappointment. “Anyways, I just came up here to remind you to take your meds, you know that your father can’t sleep well with all of your mumbling and talking in the middle of the night.” She sneers out as y/n narrows his eyes, before giving her a wide and fake smile. “Yes, ma’am.” He says through gritted teeth as he watches her slam his door shut and leave back to the living room.

“Your mom may be the hottest women, I’ve ever hated.” He hears billy say behind him as y/n grumbles and bends down to pick up his mess., “shes a real piece of work.” Said y/n, setting his papers on his desk as he looks over to see the orange bottle filled with pills, he stares at it for awhile before reaching over to take it and popping it open. “Are you really going to take them?”

He stares inside the bottles and scoffs. “No.” He walks over to the trash and empties the bottle, watching the pills fall into the bin as he feels the bottle become lighter. Once the bottle was empty he puts the lid back on and tosses the bottle onto his desk. “They don’t even work, they think that ill become less crazy but in reality they only make me sick.” He walks around his room, picking up his mess as billy watches from his bed. “This mental illness of yours—“

“I’m not mentally ill.” Y/n snaps back with a glare.

“Then what are you?” Billy moves over to sit at the edge of the bed, crossing his arms over his chest as he tilts his head to the side. “I’m—i’m different than anyone else, I see things that no one else can and I sometime feel things too and just recently I discovered something that must’ve happened back in that mall that you don’t want to tell me.” He exclaims, gripping the sheets of paper as he spoke. “Mentally ill isnt really a good way to describe me...” he stands up and thinks, smirking a little as he chuckles. “Just call me crazy.”

“I don’t think your crazy you’re just weird.” Billy began to follow him around this time as y/n grabs a shopping bag that contained brand new shoes that he bought a couple of days ago. Billy watches him as he takes out the shoes and hums to hismelf, seeing as the other male began to replace the shoe laces. “What are you doing?” He asks in curiosity as y/n grins evilly as billy and tosses the shoe laces behind him.

“Making myself comfortable.” Said y/n as he opens up a drawer in his desk and takes out—

“Zip ties?” Billy rasies a brow.

“Mhm!” The other hums out as he puts his shoes on and uses the zip ties as shoe laces. “You are officially crazy.” Says Billy as y/n finishes adjusting his own shoes. “Okay so you use zip ties as shoe laces and now what? You pour the milk first before your cereal too?”

Y/n stays seated on the floor, slowly lifting his head up to give billy an innocent look. “Is that really bad?”

Billy’s eyes widen. “What is the matter with you?!”

He can only shrug In response as he walks over to his closet to grab a jacket.

“That is like—a sin to humanity!” Billy continues to blow up as y/n sighs annoyingly.

“Billy, sweetheart, the love of my life,” y/n says in a sweet and sarcastic voice as he turns to face him. “I’m case your haven’t notice but no human really likes people like me.” He reminds him for the millionth time before giving him a quick smile and dropping it. He grabs his Walkman and headphones, “come on.” He gestures towards the window.

“Where are going?” Billy follows him towards the window as y/n slides it open, he puts his headphones on first and then starts to play one of his favorites cassettes’, ignoring bully’s question as he simply allows himself to get lost in the music.

I feel your heart

It's beating time with mine

But love love love is on the line

Y/n steps onto the roof as he sings along to the music.

He holds you down

But I know you want to run

You're hot hot loaded like a gun

He walks towards the nearest tree that he uses to climb down, using it to escape his horrible parents and his dumbass life. As he reaches out to grip one of the branches he sharply turns around to face billy who stops in his track to chuckle at him.

Oh you feel so trapped and confused

Start with nothing and you've got nothing to lose

“—you’ve gotta nothing to lose!!” Billy hears him sing out as he begins to dance to the music, throwing his head around crazily.

You can never never never ever hide your heart

Don't you ever ever ever ever try

If you don't give your heart wings you'll

Never never never ever fly

Y/n continues dance as he jumps down onto the tree and begins to climb down while billy only watches him go crazy to the music under the moonlight.

Break down the walls

You've got to cut the ties

There's pain pain burning in your eyes

Billy can’t help but smile at this strange teenager, he’s seen many weird teens back in high school but this one, this one was different. Y/n was free spirited and he didn’t care about what others thought of him—I mean yes, he is crazy and does so many things incorrectly but somehow Billy enjoys this unique thing about him. He thinks that the most unique thing about y/n is that he can see him and that made him feel whole. He used to be so alone and now he has someone.

It's time for tearing free

Oh come come running straight to me

Oh you know he don't love you like I do

Don't make believe that you don't feel it too

You can never never never ever hide your heart

Don't you ever ever ever ever try oh no

As y/n contiunes to sing out loudly he notices that they are heading towards the woods, following each other around as y/n spins in circles and makes weird hand gestures towards the sky.

If you don't give your heart wings you'll

Never never never ever fly

You never fly, if you want you can fly

At one point he feels y/n graze his fingers against his Billy’s cheek, causing him to gasp in surprise. Still getting used to the feeling of y/n being able to touch him. He sends him a small smile as y/n laughs at him and skips away, hopping to the tune as they mysteriously make there way back to star court.

“Why are we back here?” Asks billy as y/n takes off his headphones and turns off his Walkman. “We came here to look for some answers to our questions, pretty boy.” He winks at Billy before chuckling. Billy shakes his head as he stands in front of him, “you are not going back in there, you can get caught again and this time you’ll be getting it on your criminal record.” Y/n frowns at Billy’s words but the dead man was right. He could get caught again if he were to trespass once more.

But he can’t just give up, not like this.

“Not until I find something that explains everything about this!” He is quick to say as he runs towards the fence and jumps over, quickly he runs towards the opened hole on the door and crawls in.

“Y/n!” Billy hisses out as he reaches out to grab his arm. “You don’t even have a flashlight!”

“Don’t worry I memorized the place, I don’t need a flashlight to see in the dark.” He whispers out as he quietly makes his way around the ruined mall, making small turns as he finds the back door that billy had guided him through. “I saw something here that caught my attention.” He whispers, finding the entrance to a downstairs.

He grins to hismelf as he steps forward but is quickly pulled away by billy. “What the hell?!”

“I’m going first in case anything bad is down there.” Said billy, giving him a stern look as he goes in first. Y/n rolls his eyes and with a pout on his face he follows close behind billy.

The two male there way downstairs and through the tunnels, y/n walks next to billy as he grips Billy’s arm, not wanting to get lost in the dark or trip over something that’ll make him easily fight it or get hurt. “What the hell is this place?” He hears billy whisper out as y/n frowns.

“The mall?” He rasies a brow at his own answer, confused by everything as well as the two walk further, billy is the first to notice a light in the distance. “I think someone is here.” He’s quick to push y/n behind a wall as the two stay hidden, “Wait why are you hiding? You’re dead.” Said y/n as he turns to billy to see him shrug. “Sorry, I guess with you being able to see me and touch me makes me feel alive again.” He responds back, causing y/n to smile softly at the thought of billy feeling alive. “Maybe you are alive, but to me.” He adds quietly as he walks past billy and heads towards the light, ignoring Billy’s shouts as he makes his way towards the open room.

He peaks inside to see a couple of men talking amongst each other.

“Ворота в последнее время действуют, что-то требует, но мы не можем найти источник

Vorota v posledneye vremya deystvuyut, chto-to trebuyet, no my ne mozhem nayti.”

Y/n stays hidden behind the wall as he listens to the strangers speak to each other. “Russian...” he whispers out. “There speaking Russian.” He says to himself as he tries to remember his Russian learning from his grandmother before she died.

“The gate has been acting up lately, something is calling out too it but we don’t know where the source is coming from.”

He’s able to translate back to himself as he hears billy shift next to him. “You can understand them?”

“My grandmother used to speak Russian, as I grew up she taught me the language. One of my most successful moments in life.” He explains to billy, keeping a close eye on the Russians as they mumble to each other before they decided to walk away, heading towards a different room that lead them far away from y/n and billy.

“Lets go.” He’s crouched down as he walks past the room full of Russians, heading up a pair of stairs as he looks over his shoulder to make sure that they weren’t being followed. “You have to be careful y/n, we could’ve been caught and this time you’d be in deep sh—“

Y/n wasn’t listening to billy, he was zoning out his voice as he looks up ahead to see a strange glowing line that kind of looked like a crack of light, it wasn’t a wall and it was moving. Yes, it was defiantly moving. He steps closer, reaching the edge of the the railing as he lifts a hand up to try and reach out for it.

“Hey!” He gasps in shock as billy grabs his wrist, pulling him away. “You’re too close to the edge you dumbass!” He hisses out in anger as y/n shakes his head. “Sorry I just—I feel like...” he was feeling lightheaded and was stumbling backwards, lucky fo him billy was there to catch him in time before he could fall back. “Y/n?!” Billys voice is faint, sounding like he was far away as his vision begins to darken.

“You are the one.”

“They think your special.”

“He was able to open and close it all on his own! He’s too powerful!”

“He’s still a child!”

“Then we keep him locked away, far away from everything!”

“We all hate you.”

“Do you want to know why they call you One? Becuase your their number one prized possession!”

“You’re the one.”

He gasps awake, quickly turning to his side as he throws up his dinner. Coughing and panting as he wipes his mouth clean and slowly begins to sit up, he touches his surroundings to find himself still inside the mall and underground. “What—“

“Your awake.” He’s startled by Billy’s voice, Turing around to see him sitting across for him. “How long—“

“Three hours.”

“What—? Three—“ He was panting heavily again.

Three hours? But, it only felt like a couple of seconds to him. Everything just came rushing towards him, he remembers hearing the voices and the shouting. He remembers seeing white coats and children that were younger then him, younger by a couple of years. He could still hear his own screaming, wait—Wait was he screaming?

Y/n lifts his head up and places a hand on his temples. “Billy...” he murmurs out. “What’s happening to me?” For the first time in his life he was scared and confused. “Why am I seeing this stuff? Why do I keep getting these visions and why do I feel so lost? I feel like something is missing inside of me.” He croaks out in fright, fighting back the tears that were threatening to spill out. “Billy.”

Billy was staring at y/n with a sympathy look in his eyes as the two made eye contact. “What’s wrong with me?”

#male reader #stranger things x male reader #stranger things #darce montgomery #billy hargove x reader #billy hargrove x male reader #billy hargrove

362 notes · View notes

elena-mayfair · 4 years ago

Note

You’re allowed to have your opinions about whatever you want, but at your big age, I know you’re smart enough to know that your opinion was an uneducated one filled with assumptions and grand generalizations about people you don’t know. Many dark fics writers and readers are victims of assault themselves who feel that engaging in these fics gives them back a sense of control unlike in that particular situation(s) where they had none. Women who enjoy being submissive or in situations where they are submissive doesn’t equate to low self esteem. There’s literally no correlation. These fandoms are huge. There’s no shortage of writers who don’t write dark fics. You’re simply not looking for them because the dark fic community or whatever is relatively small. 1 in 3 women actually have rape fantasies. They’re very common. You just happen to come across those who write about it. Your post wasn’t about curiosity or questions and you know it. It was holier than thou and filled with judgement and your giddiness to look down on something you don’t understand nor have any intentions of understanding. It was filled with stuff you literally just pulled out of your head. No research. No actually reading up on why women fantasize about these things. Nothing. Just pure ignorance and vibes and you have the audacity to be shocked when people took offense to it. As an SA victim myself, I would never tell another how they should cope with their trauma. I could never even fix my mouth to do such a thing bc my experience is not everyone’s and anyone with common sense can understand that

I was very hesitant about replying to you and I wanna start by saying that I really really really don’t want to start the fight again. It wasn’t my intention in a first place, believe me or not. But there are few things that need to be clarify and I wanna take this opportunity to do that since the dust seems to settle on my post. So I’m sorry but it’s going to be long reply, partially to you partially to the people who commented under my OP, if they decide to read it.

Starting from a thing that annoys me the most, I never said anything about how people should cope with their trauma. What I said is that if someone gets turned on by reading about this kind of things, they should work on their self esteem, that is what I said (hold your hate, hide the torches, I’ll elaborate). I never said something on the line “if you find this helpful or healing you should work on your self esteem”. So please don’t twist my words. I know how difficult is dealing with trauma, and I’m not talking about rape trauma per say but trauma in general, so it would never even cross my mind.

Before you get angry, I wasn’t referring to the people who are into kink as general group. I wrote specifically that I “I get that people have different fantasies I do get that (...) I enjoy a bit of kink” - so no, I wasn’t condemning all people who are into all kinds of kink. I never expressed any hate towards people who are into it. Hate, pitchforks and torches came from the other side. Anyway, in my eyes there is a difference between kinky and straight disturbing. There is a difference between being submissive and being raped. People chose to read that as an personal attack on them and it is kinda obvious that I wasn’t referring to them, people who are into kink. You, they (I don’t know how to phrase this) you know how it works, what is a part of fantasy etc. something I personally know very little about because I’m not into it. Buuuuut, there are people out there who, like me, come across this type of content and upon discovering it are being shocked and horrified. And I’m sorry, you are aware that it’s coming from someone “outside of circle”, but I read some things which were truly horrifying. And again, I’m not referring to all of the kinky stuff, in my OP I was specifically referring to rape, degradation, breeding kink, non-con, forced pregnancy, very extreme things. I read through some truly horrifying things, rapes so violent that it makes Irreversible a rom-com. And comments under this kind of fiction weren’t about healing and helping but were indications of getting turned on, rounds of applause and appreciation for the author. And I’m sorry but for a life of my I don’t see how this might be helpful for an author or a reader who is a rape victim especially since the outcome of the rape rarely tackled. There is no aftermath, no repercussions for the abuser, no consequences for the abuser, nothing, just a plain violent act of rape. And yes, for someone who is “outside of the circle” it can look like normalization and erotization of a rape. But you know, it is an opinion if an ignorant.

Continuing, I’m sure you are aware that content can be read by people from “outside of circle” (and yes I will keep using that phrase from lack of better one). And believe it or not I wasn’t searching for it. Searching tag Steve Rogers x reader gave my only this type of fics for pages upon pages. Like I said before, perhaps Tumblr should work on their search engine. Going back to people “outside of the circle”, some will shake it off and move on, some will stay and maybe get into it more, and some well might take it on face value, in a very wrong way. Because you won’t convince me that art does not have impact on a real life, it does, it always did. And yes you are right, this is coming from my head, those are feelings and thoughts of a common folk. I’m sure you must be aware of potential danger of this kind of, let’s say themes, for someone who is “outside of the circle”. Let’s stretch our imagination for a sec: young girl come across this. She’s innocent, just discovering her sexuality, curiosity is the thing. And let’s be honest, forbidden fruit always tastes the best so of course she will ignore warnings. Around the same time she starts dating a guy, he’s not a very nice guy. They’re getting together and she’s not ready but we’ll he’s more than needing. So she thinks about all the things she read and maybe starts thinking that guys are into this, she doesn’t have much experience. So instead of running she becomes another rape victim. Or let’s look at this from the other perspective, a guys come across this kind of fiction and starts thinking that, hmm, maybe girls are into it. And next time he won’t take no for an answer, he will take this as an encouragement. Yeah, that is a possibility. And I don’t know how can I stress this enough, but it is only one of possible scenarios. That truly doesn’t mean that I’m hating or, damn this is ridiculous, kink-shaming people who are into kink. I’m simply presenting a scenario. Scenario from the point of view of a common folk, someone “outside of the circle”. And yes, yes, I read in the comments counter argument about violent games etc but we are not talking about this, and in my opinion it is just invalid argument. No one in their right mind will start killing people after playing a violent game. However sexuality is much more delicate subject, especially since power dynamics between man and a woman were always a difficult subject.

You saying that my post was filled with generalization, and yes you are absolutely right. It wasn’t targeted specifically toward people who are into kink, who am I to judge, I really really don’t give a flying fuck about what people do behind closed doors. It was about the sheer ridiculousness of the world we’re living in. That’s why I brought up subject of equal rights etc. Because we, society, as people, we are jumping from one opposite side of the extreme to another. On one hand women are fighting for equal rights, on the other hand we are taking all the power from women in the fiction, on one hand we are talking about toxic masculinity on the other we write about rape, on one hand women in some countries are fight for right to their bodies, on the other we are writing about forced impregnation. And I know, I know, one is a fiction an the other is a real life, it’s not for everyone, and so on. I get that. I’m painting a picture here. Picture of society which is swapping one extreme to another. And like I said before, this kind of fiction is being read not only by people who are into kink, but by common people, who know very little about it. And I’m sure you are aware, that common people can see it that way, and for common people rape fantasy is not normal, as in commonly accepted by society.

Anyways, this is longer than I wanted it to be. Like i said at the beginning, I have no intention in starting another fight. I never had intention like that in a first place believe it or not. For years I was a quiet Tumblr user, enjoying content that enjoy in my little part of the internet. You can check out my blog if you don’t believe me. So I won’t shit into your nest anymore, I’m going to crawl back to my little hole from which I crawled out. Enjoying content as I was before. And yes, I discovered filtering ;)

6 notes · View notes

yeojaa · 5 years ago

Text

TO THE MOON AND BACK - ft. ???

You feel winded and you're not sure why. Like you'd been walking on cloud nine and were now falling through the atmosphere, plummeting toward the ground at incredible speeds. When you speak, it doesn't really sound like you. "Yes." Because he was exactly right - you were a hopeless romantic. Always had been. It was hard not to be when your parents were childhood sweethearts and love was the thing you'd been chasing your whole life.

alt summary. You use your one brain cell for love. It doesn’t always end well.

pairing. who knows, honestly. the obvious ones are kim taehyung and jeon jungkook, though.

tags. blind date, strangers, strangers to friends, strangers to lovers, getting to know each other, alternate universe, alternate universe - modern setting, romantic comedy.

rating. general (for now?)

word count. ~3750

chapter 4.

Time passes as it always does, swirling around you in the form of hungry patrons and waning sunlight.

Occasionally, it crawls and the words don't come, weighed by an anchor you can't quite lift. It feels heavy in your hands, a door that won't open no matter how much you fidget, graphite leaving dots across pristine white paper. It taunts you and tricks you every time you hazard a glance at your phone.

Other times, it's gone in the blink of an eye, the glowing numbers on your screen a reminder of its perpetual movement.

The only consistent is Jeon Jungkook.

You appreciate his presence, the familiarity it brings as he sits quietly, every so often chuckling to himself when he scrolls past something funny on his phone. A snap of his friend's face superimposed over a pig (don't ask); a meme off the front page of Reddit. You're grateful for the fact that he keeps otherwise quiet and doesn't try to share his finds, taking extra care not to disturb whatever creative process you're in. He knows as well as you - you take inspiration where you can get it.

Still, it's hard not to notice him.

There'd always been something about him that drew your attention, like he was a planet and you were caught in his gravitational pull. You couldn't avoid him if you tried.

Looking at him now - sneaking glances when you know he's miles down his Instagram feed and won't catch you - he's everything you remembered and so much that you hadn't. It makes your heart ache a little, just as it had in the first few months of radio silence. You'd honestly thought you'd gotten used to it - draped a cloth over the Jungkook-shaped hole in your life - but sitting there with him, you realize you definitely hadn't. It's like a cold draft that won't go away, curling around his gaping silhouette and rousing memories you don't mean to dwell on.

Maybe it was your fault. Maybe your refusal to explore the how's and why's had festered the wound and kept it from healing. But if you were to blame, then so was he. After all, you'd never meant for it to happen.

Isn't that how it always happened?

Things had been fine, for a while. Better than fine, in fact. You'd found a kindred spirit in the boy that'd taken up root beside you, discovering fragments of your dreams in his film vignettes and buried between the layers of his watercolour.

You'd gone through the motions of getting to know each other before casual conversations in the lecture hall had transitioned to harried 3 a.m. texts about whether you'd completed the assignment or not. (He always had; you, not so much.) The Friday editing sessions had even turned to weekend day trips in search of inspiration, not realizing - or not acknowledging - you'd found it in each other. Of course, you never addressed it, finding too much comfort in each other to dare turn the spotlight on it. You'd thought that maybe, if you acted like it wasn't happening, everything would be okay.

You thought whatever you were would be safe, hidden among the moon and stars.

After all, it was inevitable, like the changing of seasons. Spending so much time with someone else tended to open you up to them in ways you'd never expected.

Still, it had hit you like a freight train colliding with a pipe bomb when you'd drunkenly invited him back to your dorm and he'd agreed, enthusiastic and intoxicated. You'd been celebrating the completion of your thesises (or theses, as Jungkook had so sagely reminded you when you were four bottles of soju in and slurring your words).

Never in your wildest dreams - and oh, how you'd dreamt - had you thought it would happen.

You should've known it was a bad idea when your adoration had nearly swallowed you whole, the familiar desire to stick your tongue out at him replaced by one to use that muscle in a very different way. But everything had happened so quickly that night, intensity engulfing every single one of your sensibilities and igniting it in flames. He'd felt so good - so right - like he'd been created just for you, all of his sinew and bone a testament to a higher power that had deemed you worthy enough.

If you were a recovering addict, he was the 40 year old malt that sent you right back into inebriation.

You hadn't cared then, drunk off something other than liquor. All you'd wanted was him and that beautiful smile for a little while longer.

You'd even told yourself you could get past whatever repercussions arose. That was the strength of your friendship. And yet, you'd been wrong. You'd hardly been able to look at him the next morning, fleeing to the library with a note left on your pillow. You'd been the one to run away, leaving him to wake up to an empty bed.

It was the right thing to do, you'd told yourself. Better to avoid an awkward morning after.

Except that silence had stretched on and by the time you'd realized your mistake, it was too late. You weren't sure who was ignoring who and you were too afraid to ask.

"Do I have something on my face?" Your companion is swiping across his mouth, alarmed by the intensity with which you've been ogling him. God - how long had you been staring at him?

Heat spills over your neck and you can feel it rising into your hairline, sweeping across your ears and drowning them in red-hot embarrassment. "No. Sorry. I zoned out." You're stumbling over your words, a choked half-laugh crossing the threshold of enamel.

Jungkook looks at you like he could unravel your excuses with but a word but says nothing. His capacity for silence always surprised you.

"Should we get going?" He finally offers. Your saving grace.

"Oh, sure." A cursory glance at your phone has you near bolting out of your seat. "It's almost two?!" You're immediately shoving everything back into your tote with manic energy, nearly stabbing your pencil through the fleshy underside of your palm when you miss its rightful pocket. You'd never been good with time management.

"You'll be fine - the studio's close by." He's not wrong but his reassurance has you halting, strap of your bag looped around the hook of your elbow. For a second, you're confused. He can see it in your eyes.

He debates saying something, waiting for the cogs in your head to click into place.

They finally do and you finish your motion, hiking your tote comfortably onto your shoulder. Your over-ear headphones are tucked neatly into the pocket in the front and zipped in for security before a single AirPod replaces the quiet left behind by their departure. Habit. You always need music.

He knows them too, you remind yourself.

(You don't know how it hasn't come up yet. Maybe because it's been eight excruciating months of the Great Depression, as you tended to call it.)

You're about to bid him farewell, the words primed, when you catch his expression. It might just be your own emotions projected across the chiselled curvature, but he looks almost wistful. Like he's not quite ready to say goodbye.

You decide you aren't, either. "Do you want to walk with me?"

You know he doesn't take longer than a moment to consider the offer, though he plays at mulling it over, a decidedly artificial look of deliberation spreading.

"Fine, your loss," you state with an exaggerated roll of your eyes.

When you move toward the door, he's right there with you, and when you head into the early afternoon light, he's at your side. You try not to think about how close he is, how you're not sure whether the heat is from the sun or his body or the emotion that boils beneath your skin. It's hard.

"How long have you been interning?" He's sweetly curious, the picture of friendly attention.

"Since September."

"Do you like it?"

"I love it." He hears the animation that threatens to drag your words into overdrive, throwing ending syllables into one another. A quirk of yours - like your heart couldn't catch up with your mouth. "It's been a really incredible experience and I have so much respect for the people that put their entire lives into it. Namjoon and Yoongi - they've been so great. A little rough around the edges," Jungkook's hum is wrapped in understanding because he intimately knows what you mean, "but so, so good to me." You seem to realize you've taken off like a rocket and slow, allowing yourself to readjust as you plummet back to Earth. "It's like everything I'm feeling finally has a home, you know?"

"I get it." Something tender lingers in his gaze as your eyes meet. Your heart skips a beat. Then he's still, forcing you to do the same. You realize you're at your destination, imposing building rising high above your heads. "I guess this is goodbye."

You hate the sound of that more than you should. You offer a little wave as you begin backwards, shoulder meeting the glass door. You can't look away. "How about see you later instead?"

He looks like he's just won the lottery when you disappear inside.

They're two figures huddled together when you slip into the studio, your Dr. Martens replaced with soft Ryan slippers that stand in stark contrast to your neon green socks. You think they must not hear you by the lack of acknowledgment and take your time in setting your bag down, extracting your items one by one.

Phone, notebook, headphones. Your water bottle. Pencils and pens in every pastel shade you could find. If only you were this organized in school.

"So, you and Taehyung, huh?" Yoongi's low drawl has you whipping around but he hasn't even turned, instead still preoccupied with the melody that filters through his studio headphones, one side trapped against his head by the flat of his palm. You see more than hear the silent laughter that catches his shoulders, rolling over his lithe frame.

"Hello to you too, Min seonsangnim," you chirp, ignoring the question in favour of settling down behind them. It's your usual spot beside the electric piano, comprised of a sleek Herman Miller lounge chair and simple black table that you neatly arrange your belongings onto. You unfold your notebook and drag it into your lap, legs crossed in your seat, as you wait for them to finish whatever they're working on.

Namjoon hums to himself, fingers tracking with practiced precision as he lays a certain beat differently, dragging a note to the forefront. You watch, ever curious, as his deft movements transform the sounds that reach his ears, bringing an appreciative nod from the man beside him.

What you wouldn't give to hear what they were working on.

Instead, you focus on the litany of lyrics scrawled across the pages of your notebook. You drag them over and over in your head, letting them curve across different melodies in hopes one will stick. You know it's backwards - tune first, Namjoon always said - but you're stuck on these goddamn lines. You want them to make sense so badly.

You must look as frustrated as you feel, because you register a soft laugh and your name right as you're about to slash out another two lines.

"You're going to regret it." You know he's right. You huff, all but slamming your pencil down on the table as you meet the expectant stares of your mentors. It feels a little different today, as if you've crossed some invisible line you hadn't known existed. It's not an unwelcome feeling.

"Just another thing to add to the list," you answer, dryly.

"Woah now." There are tendrils of concern wrapping the words, something unspoken in the way Namjoon looks at you rather than the words he speaks. His chin cants, mouth pursed in that distinct way of his, and you can't help but feel a little childish, like a student caught red-handed by their principal. How fitting that that's what he was to you. "Is everything okay?"

The smile you offer is genuine, steeped heavily in appreciation. You're fine - you know you are. The past few days have just gotten weirder and weirder and it's a little hard to wrap your head around it. You're not sure how to explain that.

"Is it because you're pining over Tae?" It doesn't seem like he's going to let it go any time soon so you level Yoongi with a stare that would make him proud, reeking of barely concealed dissatisfaction. It's a complete facade, meant only to act as an apathetic mask. He knows that. You know that. He snickers, arms folding across his chest as he maintains that look of anticipation.

"I'm not pining over him," you retort. And really, you're not. You're just pleasantly intrigued.

"But you do like him." Now it's Namjoon locking you with the implications of his question, the words acting as proverbial blinders. You can't look anywhere but his eyes.

"I mean, I hardly know him." You know your answer isn't enough by the silence that meets it. You blow a steady stream of air through your nose, trying to find patience among the fluttering in your chest. "Fine, I like him. I'm interested." It feels strange talking to them about this. They've never involved themselves in your personal life. Not even when you'd asked them to help you with your songs, begged to pour your heartbreak into something material.

All things considered, you can't blame them.

"Good. Because he's a good guy." You don't doubt it but it's still nice to hear, especially from those whose opinions you hold in such high esteem. It lightens your burden a little, stripping worry away from your heart like daisy petals.

You like him, you like him not, you like him.

With a languid roll of your eyes, you edge closer, sock sliding back into your slippers. Your notebook is set down, forgotten temporarily, as you rock to your feet and cross to join them in front of the various monitors. "Can we focus on something other than my love life now?"

The sun is but a flicker of burnt orange over the horizon when you exit the building, drifting low behind buildings and casting faded warmth over everything it touches. It's colder than you'd anticipated, the soft knit of your cardigan doing little to rebuff the evening air. It's invigorating, if not a little unwelcome.

You slot your earphones into place before you begin walking, enamoured with the strike of ivory keys and unfiltered lyricism. A quick swipe through your messages, nothing immediately catching your eye. Good. You're ready to go home and dive into a bowl of ramyeon.

Or, at least, you were - before you're colliding with a solid mass.

You blink once, twice, trying to make sense of what's happened. You know this area like the back of your hand, have walked it both sober and drunk, in the afternoon and hours past midnight. There's certainly not supposed to be an obstruction in the middle of the street.

"I'm so sorry." The voice registers as desirable, heavy in its timbre, a sound you'd gladly tumble headlong into. It's also familiar, though that recognition comes more slowly, in bits and pieces that form a haphazard picture in your mind. It's fuzzy around the edges because you're not intimately familiar with it but oh, how you could be.

"Kim Taehyung?" You're not sure how many times you've uttered those same few words but it falls again, framed in surprise and perhaps a little hope.

"Hi." He breathes the greeting like it's a secret, his big boxy grin stopped short only by the way he catches his bottom lip between his teeth. There's a flash of pink as his tongue follows suit not long after, laving at the indents he's left behind. A tic of his, you notice. One that stirs butterflies in your chest and tension in your stomach. You mimic the action without realizing and it's his turn to inhale sharply, his attempts at suffocating the excitement with a lungful of air feeble. "Surprise?"

It's an understatement if you've ever heard one.

"What're you doing here?"

The reminder that this isn't normal - that your meeting isn't planned nor somehow caused by some sort of cosmic interference - seems to bring him to his senses. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other, hand rising to scratch at the nape of his neck. He's tonguing his lip again, the tell-tale flash of pink distracting you momentarily. In the open, like this, he's even more handsome than you remembered and you admire him with little hesitation.

"Namjoon-hyung mentioned they'd have a late night."

That certainly doesn't answer your question. "But what does that have to do with me?"

"He said he and Yoongi-hyung would be here all night but... that you were leaving soon." By the way he speaks, it almost as if he's ready for a reprimand or rejection. He won't even look at you fully, his gaze bouncing from your eyes to your mouth to some indeterminate spot behind your left ear. He looks like he's about burst when he finally meets your stare. "I thought you might want to get dinner. "

You can't deny how charming it is, how giddy it makes you feel. You're beaming as bright as the sun. "I'd love to."

The breath he'd been holding escapes as one giant laugh that reverberates his shoulders and crashes out of his mouth in unadulterated mirth. He tries to hide it behind his hands, palm pressed to his lips as his face contorts into a makeshift cage. He's a kid on Christmas morning and his excitement is infectious.

"I guess this is our first date then." There's that aching sweetness again, blanketing his words in promise as he extends his hand. Maybe it's a little too forward, a little too much - you can see the uncertainty buried deep in his irises - but you take it nonetheless, slotting your digits with his as if its the most natural thing in the world. You like the way he feels, the weight of his hand in yours. You're gladdened by the fact that you still feel sparks where your skin connects, a live wire linking the two of you together.

It hadn't just been all in your head.

"Where should we go?"

"Anywhere." You don't mean to sound the way you do, a girl on her first date. It causes a revolt against your cheeks, pretty pink painting the apples. "I'm not picky." A poor attempt at sounding somewhat blasé. Why you try, you're not sure, because Taehyung looks just as enamoured as you. It's both powerful and terrifying. "You choose."

So he does - and you like that, too, allowing him to lead the two of you to a nearby shop that specializes in jokbal. He won't stop talking about it the entire way, regaling you with stories of late night munchies with his hyungs and making you laugh so hard you shake.

He never drops your hand, not even when he's opening the door for you with his other.

You find your seats quickly, settling across from each other at the small table. It's reminiscent of the first time you'd met and you can't help but smile, mouth pursing so as to stave off the expression. It catches his attention, though you're uncertain it'd been anywhere else. "What?"

"I feel like we should be answering questions again."

There's playfulness curling his lips, stretching his cheeks and rounding them into his characteristic smile. "Do you want to?"

You're surprised. Why not? "Sure. It'll be like old times."

Now, he snickers, once again hidden behind the slope of his fingers. "What percentage did you put at the end?" It's like a flipped switch how quickly he goes from cherubic aegyo to serious, effortlessly handsome in his sudden gravity.

"I'm not telling you that!" You gasp as if affronted, voice warbling like an old widow asked about her dearly departed.

"Come on!" He comes back, just as quick. A hand cradles his heart now - lays right over where it lies beneath the soft cotton of his plain black shirt - and tenses. Some sort of very fake sob comes out, hushed in consideration of the other diners, and he levels you with a look that makes you want to kiss him. "You're breaking my heart, Cho Jiyeon."

A part of you wants to drag this on, keep that all-encompassing smile in place for as long as you can, but he's already shifting. He's leaning across the table and you can count each individual eyelash and every mole. You're once again left breathless by the sheer beauty of him.

"I put 100." The admission comes so easily from him that you almost feel bad for holding out. Almost.

You think you might if you weren't completely over the moon and lost to the stars above. "Me too."

He's never looked better than when he hears that and you try to memorize the way his eyes squint, the start of his smile when his mouth pulls subtly to the left, the deep lines that run the length of his chiselled cheeks. Like a painting by the old masters, it speaks volumes.

"You're not just saying that?"

The juxtaposition is laughable when he finally speaks. Here he is, devilishly handsome and brimming with euphoria, and yet his words sound like they've taken everything out of him. It makes your heart squeeze in a downright lovesick way. "One hundred," a pause that's meant to be cute, "percent serious."

Your bad joke has him laughing, sweeping you up in the sound. "You won't regret it."

You tell yourself you believe him because you're hopeless and you don't know better. But when he focuses on you like this, you can't help it. He's like every wish you've ever made, a shooting star across a spotless night sky, illuminating everything in its path. He makes you see in full spectrum colour, setting your vision to ultra HD. You don't want to go back to shades to grey.

notes. just when kook was getting some face time, in comes taehyung. whoops!

55 notes · View notes

animalsatwildlilac · 4 years ago

Text

Power Outage with Bearded Dragon

This beardie has a job. His name is Stripy, and he is a working lizard. His life is full of adventure at Wild Lilac preschool. But he does get weekends off, vacations, and even mental health days, just like me. I think he is lonely when we are not together.

On Thursday, when WL announced an early release because of the winter storm warning, I got the whole day off because I only teach in the afternoons. But I still needed to go in, briefly -- to tend to the animals before the roads got messy.

On the way there, I stopped for supplies at my local pet store, Tropical Hut. I bought 100 crickets and a package of frozen bloodworms.

When I parked in front of the school, rain was falling and the temperature was dropping. Masked parents were picking up their unmasked kids. I left 50 of the crickets in my car with plans to take them home for Stripy, my bearded dragon, and then I went to the animal room.

I fed and tucked our critters in –

Two cubes of bloodworms for the Axolotl;

Cucumber and carrots for the just-hatched baby snails;

Fresh pinecones and toilet paper rolls for the gerbils;

Hay for the new-found guinea pigs (see previous post);

Crickets in with the animals that eat crickets: the tarantula, the geckos, and the cane toad;

And food for the crickets themselves (some apple, some dog food);

The Madagascan Hissing cockroaches still had food;

The walking sticks are all out of bramble – I’m sorry, but they will be okay for a few days without food.

I headed home.

As I brought the deli container of crickets into my house (they had been in my car for about 45 minutes) I realized something was tragically wrong -- all 50 of them were on their backs, heels to heaven. My first though was carbon monoxide. How could they all have DIED in such a short time? Then I realized maybe they weren’t dead – they were cold! Or did they freeze to death? It just hadn’t been that long. Such drama! I set them on a table and watched them, and as they warmed, they started to move. First a leg twitched, then another, then one flipped over. I was thinking how cool is this! Definitely something to explore with the kids – the freezing and warming of crickets.

And then, as I was deep in contemplation watching the flipping crickets, it’s 3 in the afternoon and -- the power goes out! There was no accumulation of ice or snow. The storm had hardly started. PGE said the power would be back on at 5pm. But at 5, they said 6, and at 6, it was 8.

When the temperature in Stripy’s tank dropped to 65 degrees, I had lifted him out and put him on my chest, zipped up a fleece vest over him, and put a fuzzy blanket around my shoulders.

My husband ventured out into the cold night to find a restaurant with power. He arrived home with salted peppered cod and garlic broccoli and kung pao shrimp from Powell Seafood, and the news that there were now 100,000 people without power in the greater Portland area.

At 8:03 our lights came on! Stripy was glad to get into his warm tank and eat some crickets. The humans were glad to catch up on what we had missed electronically in the past five hours.

Stripy poops biweekly, and does so in a predictable way – pretty much every time I put him in the bathtub; warm water brings it on for him like coffee does for me.

His poop in interesting. Part of it is white and rubbery, part of it loose and greenish brown.

At 2 in the morning my partner woke me. The power is off again, he says. PGE says the cause is under investigation and there is no estimated time for the power to return. In my Ambien induced slumber, I mumbled, “Please … bring me Stripy…”.

Stripy settled on my chest and closed his eyes. He clung to my nightie like a bur on a wool sweater, both of us covered with the duvet. Our dogs are not happy about Stripy joining us in the bed, and they move as close to my head as they can.

My partner kept checking on Stripy, to make sure he was staying on me, not straying into the sheets. But he needn’t worried. Why would this lizard leave the best heat source in the house -- a woman going through a menopausal transition?

Flanked by dogs, a lizard, and my partner who at this point in the pandemic has not just a beard, but a full wizard’s beard, we sleep. But not well. Our thermostat now says 54 degrees. I am worried about the crickets -- they are no longer chirping. but I am not going to snuggle them.

It is windy. My neighbor's roof is covered with snow and smoke is coming out of her chimney. Branches come down from the weight of ice. A car explodes and burns when a power line falls on it. All over Portland, people are lighting candles and caressing their reptiles, trying to keep them warm.

Stripy has two tanks – one at school, and one at home. His at-school tank is what I think of as his studio apartment; it’s furnished with a doll’s bed covered with a patchwork quilt, a hammock, a tiny ceramic toilet, and a small, hard copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. At home, he has a “desert” tank where I’ve built him tunnels and hillocks out of excavator sand.

In the summer, at the end of the day, he likes to join my family on the patio. We have cheese and crackers and glasses of chardonnay, and Stripy gets his own glass platter of mealworms. Yes, I know the mealworms are fatty and are supposed to be a treat, not a regular staple, which is why I’ve been trying to transition him to crickets. I want Stripy to chase crickets like how the beardie in the YouTube video chases blueberries, but he doesn’t.

I believe he doesn’t chase his food because he doesn’t have to.

He waits until a cricket crawls up on his hillock and then -- a quick snap nom nom nom -- he chomps on them. A drop of cricket juice spatters from his mouth.

But I know he still has his instincts, because I have watched him shoot across the patio to catch and eat a bee.

At school, the kids touch Stripy with one finger, and they know not to pet his head. Heads are personal spaces, and plus, that third eye! The first time I saw his third eye, I thought a child had drawn on him with marker.

When not roaming about the animal room, or sunning himself under a UV light, Stripy is carried in a woven sea grass basket filled with silks. He has castles built for him out of Magnatiles. The children pick fresh arugula for him from the garden and hand feed it to him. They sketch pictures of him that are pinned to the wall. The kids love him. They tell him this on a daily basis. They don’t imbue him with meaning, they just recognize him as sentient being.

The kids marvel at how his spikes look so sharp but are actually soft. They touch him and talk about his textures and colors, the orange rings encircling his eyes, his soft belly, his pointy tail. We watch his torso expand as he sighs, relaxing into his body.

What are those holes in the sides of his head?

What do you think they are?

Can he hear me? Why aren’t his ears on the outside like mine?

Will he lick me?

He might.

Why did he lick me!

He is tasting you. He’s finding out who you are.

This bearded dragon, does he know how to fly?

Not yet.

Well, his mommy needs to teach him!

I ask him questions in front of the kids … Stripy, do you want some dandelion greens? Oh, you do! Oh, Stripy, I can see you don’t want to be held right now. You want to move across the floor on your own!

I regularly give animacy to inanimate objects, too.

What is he saying now, Teacher Nikki?

What do you think he is saying?

Caring for animals helps us to build compassion. I want the kids to know that the animals are communicating with us, we just have to listen.

Sometimes, on my way home from work when I stop at Trader Joes, Stripy tells me that he doesn’t want to be left alone in the car, so I set him on my shoulder and he lies very still (but is supremely alert and watches everything) as I walk around the frozen foods and the wine aisles. Kids always notice him and want to connect. The crew usually notice him, too, and greet him with a wink. My sister, who likes animals but doesn’t have any, when I tell her about my experiences in Trader Joes with Stripy, says “Oh, Nik-Nac, you’ve become one of those people.”

And yes, I guess I have, it’s true. I have become that lady with the bearded dragon.

No, we are not supposed to have a lizard in a preschool -- because of the salmonella risk. However, I believe that risk is an inherent and natural consequence of childhood. Our preschoolers take turns on a broken seesaw that was homemade to begin with. They build with crates and cardboard boxes we scavenge from the furniture store on the corner. There is sometimes a sprinkling of nails in our sandbox. We have earthquakes here, and floods, and ice-storms. Our children breathe harmful air from wildfires. We have lockdown drills to prepare us for potential active shooters in our schools – a little salmonella isn’t going to shut things down for us!

In my more than 30 years of teaching with animals, I have probably exposed thousands of children to salmonella. It will be okay. For those of you who are still worried, let me tell you a little story.

I hosted a special COVID sleepover for some school-age kids recently (the kids were all from the same pod) and when it was discovered that one child had forgotten to bring a tooth brush, I said, “that’s okay, just borrow someone’s toothpaste and brush with your finger.” I mimed a demonstration and all the kids made faces of disgust. “I would never brush my teeth with my finger,” I heard. “I put my fingers in my butt too much!”

We do wash our hands as often as possible.

2 notes · View notes

pax-2735 · 5 years ago

Text

Got Fanfic: Come Into My Parlor (1/3)

Notes: As per usual, I own nothing except the mistakes. This is Jon/Sansa, in case the picture didn’t give it away.

Summary: When Sansa goes to the Targaryen’s annual Halloween bash, the last thing she expected was to come face to face with her demons.

Come Into My Parlor

This has got to be the Halloween from hell, Sansa thinks, even as the strangeness of that sentence strikes her over the head like a meat cleaver. Mostly like a cheap, plastic one like those she has been seeing adorning the heads of half the people in this stupid party but still. The analogy stands, as it’s the best one she can come up with at present.

Seriously though, what are the odds that not one, not two, but three of the world’s shittiest, most sorry excuses for mankind had ended up here, all holed up together in the middle of nowhere, with nothing better to do than to torment her very existence?

And yes, she´s painfully aware that the fact she has actually dated all three of them at some point in her life – some very deep, very low point in her life – doesn’t exactly paint her in the brightest of colors.

Sansa has always adored Halloween. Not so much the gruesome horror – although she likes a good scary movie and is not about to scream her lungs out if she happens to see a spider or a bat, no, that’s much more Robb’s thing – but mostly the part about dressing up. It had always been her favorite, ever since she was a little girl and her mother would make her the most amazing princess dresses.

Assuredly, her costumes have certainly graduated from ankle length ballroom gowns into decidedly slinkier, sexier outfits, but the feeling of slipping into someone else’s skin and be a completely different person for a little while is still pretty much the same. She’s still convinced the world lost its most astonishing actress the day real life and bills to pay pushed her into a very exciting career as an administrative assistant.

And so, as it stands to reason, the annual Halloween bash hosted by the Targaryens was evidently a no-miss. Even if this year they had decided to host the damn thing at Harrenhal.

As choices go, it was certainly appropriate. The ancient mansion had been abandoned for decades before Rhaegar Targaryen had bought it, determined to bring it back to its previous glory. It’s just that its previous glory included a series of skin prickling stories, ranging from the serial killer who lured his victims inside its cavernous halls to the satanic cults who performed blood sacrifices on its lush gardens.

Of course, no one knew for sure if any of those stories were true. And the fact that it was widely said that the mansion was truly and well haunted by the souls of all those who had perished there, well… that just made it perfect for this whole shindig. Except for the fact it was totally out of the way and it had taken her and Robb ages to get there.

The party had already been in full swing by the time they had gotten there, which in true Targaryen fashion meant that copious amounts of alcohol were being consumed, half the people were already barely coherent, and the music was blaring to the point it would most likely kill the other half soon enough.

Her brother had disappeared almost as soon as they had walked through the door, making a beeline for the drinks or the pretty girl currently pouring them. Sansa didn’t really care which because, exactly twenty seconds later, she had spotted him. Even worse, he had spotted her right back.

Enter asshole number one.

Joffrey Baratheon had been her golden prince during her teenager years. She was fifteen when they had first met and she had been instantly in love. He was the jock to her princess, the Romeo to her Juliet, and a whole bunch of other bullshit she had waxed poetics about at the height of her infatuation.

Unfortunately, as she had rather painfully learned soon after, Joffrey was anything but.

He made his way towards her with a smirk on his lips and stopped right in front of her, blocking any chance of escape. Sansa bristled at his nerve.

“Sansa.” His eyes gave her a once over before settling on her face. It was his trade mark during their relationship, the way he would lock eyes with her, forcing her to cast hers down. “How are you?”

She kept her eyes trained on his face as she heard her mother’s lilting voice in her head. A lady’s armor is her courtesy. She pictured her aunt Lysa, the poised way she had stood when her husband had been arrested for molesting a child, the way she had maintained her composure even when he had gone insane during his trial, screaming about the voices inside his cell telling him all about the horrible ways he was going to die.

(Sansa hadn’t felt pity then – she could still recall the way he liked to kiss her when greeting her, always touching her face or her lower back, his hands wandering over places they had no business wandering over. Petyr Baelish was never inappropriate enough to warrant saying anything to anyone but it was certainly more than enough to make her skin crawl.)

So yes, she comes from a long line of strong women. Strong, polite women, who know how to keep their cool in the face of utter sleaze bags. And Sansa Stark is certainly not one to disappoint so, when her eyes finally moved from Joffrey’s smug face to give him a rather pointed once over before saying, “Who the fuck are you supposed to be?” in a very snickery tone, she felt rather proud of herself.

She felt even better when he spluttered, drops from his drink landing on his black doublet. Yes, she’s not fifteen anymore and it’s high time he learned that.

“I’m Aegon the Conqueror. You would know that if you weren’t so stupid.”

She raised an eyebrow, cocking her head to the side in mock disbelief. “Isn’t that kinda tacky? Usurping the ancestors of the family who’s hosting the party?”

Joffrey narrowed his eyes in a move that used to make him look dark and mysterious back in the day but right now, it just made him look dangerous. Still, she repeated to herself, I’m not fifteen anymore you prick.

Her eyes wandered across the room, not-so-secretly plotting ways to escape, until they suddenly locked with a par of stormy grey, lurking in the back. Jon Snow. No, Jon Targaryen now. Keep up with the times.

Robb’s best friend since the first day of school and good boy extraordinaire, Jon had been a permanent fixture in the Stark household ever since. He had been raised by his single mother, Lyanna Snow having decided she wanted nothing to do with the boy’s father after having discovered he suffered from a permanent and very severe case of marriage-with-children.

Lyanna had died when Jon was in his teens and he had been sent to live with his estranged father. Rhaegar’s wife hadn’t exactly been too thrilled to discover her husband’s indiscretions but Elia Martell was not one to punish the child for his father’s crimes, and had instead turned the brunt of her anger towards her husband. It was a point of constant amusement amongst the highborn ladies of the city how Rhaegar had gone from having an affair with a woman who borne him a bastard to becoming a potential contender in the husband-of-the-year award.

Jon was staring at her with a concerned look on his handsome face and even though the music was too loud and they were too far away, she could almost hear his teeth grinding from how tightly his jaw was clenched. He gave a slight nod towards Joffrey, his body poised like a panther ready to pounce and she knew he was about to come over and put a stop to whatever the fuck this was.

Once again for the people in the back. I’m not fucking fifteen anymore. She gave him a slight shake of her head and saw his face furrow. He looked completely unconvinced by this turn of events but, to his credit, had stayed put.

Sansa took a dainty sip of her drink, her eyes still training about the milling people, before she paused. The drink tasted… funny. It wasn’t unpleasant, no. Just… different from what she’d expected. Her heart raced as she panicked for a second. Had Joffrey slipped something into her glass?

Just as quickly as that thought entered her head, she chased it out. That wasn’t possible, Margaery had given her the drink before she had even stepped through the massive oak doors and she hadn’t let go of it since. Joffrey was a lot of things but smooth wasn’t one of them; there was no way he could have done something while she was still clutching the glass to her chest.

Very carefully Sansa took another sip. It tasted fine. It wasn’t what she had been expecting, the taste far richer and smoother than what she was normally used to drink, but then again she wasn’t expecting the Targaryens to serve cheap liquor at one of their parties. She seriously doubted they even knew where to buy cheap… anything, for that matter.

It was probably just the company that had soured her taste buds.

Joffrey was still talking, about the party and the Targaryens and stupid cunts who got invited just so they could spread their legs to them later on, and Sansa was quite frankly fed up with it. “You know what? Go bother someone else for a change.” She started to turn away, ready to bask in her victory and enjoy the evening.

“Don’t you dare walk away from me bitch.” His voice was low and hissing and Sansa startled, although not at the venom dripping from it. She dropped her eyes to her wrist and then to his hands, furiously clenched at his sides. Fifteen years ago, those hands would have been wrapped around her wrists, gripping them so tightly she would have worn the marks for weeks to follow.

His face was red and clammy and she could see sweat gathering on his forehead as she looked back into his eyes. “Not so though now that you don’t have your friends here to back you up, are you?”

She didn’t wait for his answer. Sidestepping him, she quickly made her way into the throngs of people milling about, putting as much distance between herself and Joffrey as she could.

The music was getting even louder as she approached the dance floor. The lights were almost blinding, flashing in an orgy of red, blues and greens, and she could feel the thumping beat against her ribcage as Loras Tyrell suddenly appeared in front of her. With a joyous smile and a quick peck to her cheek, Sansa was pulled into the midst of dancers, where Renly Baratheon was already doing what she was certain was supposed to pass as dancing.

“Hey there birthday girl.” Renly was swaying, his brown locks plastered to his forehead and he gave her a cheeky grin.

“My birthday isn’t until tomorrow.”

“It’s almost midnight isn’t it?”

Sansa smiled and leaned closer to yell in his ear. “Renly it’s only nine.”

He winked at her before chugging down on more of his whiskey. “Never too early to celebrate.”

She laughed as all three clinked their glasses in a toast, and soon she was losing herself in the beat of the music. Sansa closed her eyes, smiling, as she let the sounds of the party carry her away.

Three songs later, someone came barreling in on their little piece of heaven, frantically calling for Renly. She watched in concern as his face lost his normally joyous expression and was gradually replaced with worry.

“What’s going on?” she yelled at Loras, who was already moving in on Renly, an arm carefully draped around his shoulders.

“Joffrey’s having some sort of allergic reaction or some shit. We need to take him to a hospital.”

Sansa moved forward, squeezing Renly into a tight hug. She didn’t say anything and Renly smiled sadly at her in understanding. The only thing she was sorry about was that she couldn’t really say she was sorry.

#jonsa #jonsa fanfiction #jon snow x sansa stark #works-by-pax #game of thrones #fanfic #spooktober #halloween

41 notes · View notes

raendown · 5 years ago

Link

Pairing: MadaraTobirama Word count: 1957 Soulmate au: The one where you have a black stain where your soulmate will first touch you and when they do it bursts in to color

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

KO-FI and commission info in the header!

Chapter 199: Madara/Tobirama

Madara wore gloves. The habit was a common one among both shinobi and civilians not willing to risk find their soulmate in unwanted places, a habit that Tobirama himself followed religiously everywhere but inside his own home, so it wasn’t something that should had stuck out as much as it did. Yet on the days his eyes lingered he couldn’t help but notice that Madara wore gloves no matter where he went. More than that, he clothed himself in the traditional Uchiha garb even when many of his clansmen began following other fashion trends which meant that he was covered from head to toe. If one were hoping to discover Madara as one’s soulmate there were no visible marks to give hope.

It was lucky, then, that Tobirama was clearly not hoping for anything of the sort. Obviously.

No matter the hopes and distractions that so often filled his mind to never be given voice, Tobirama’s thoughts today were tainted with a somber, maudlin sort of flavor as he lounged on the sill of his office window, fingers picking at the leather gloves that covered them. The day was hot and his palms had been sweating uncomfortably since noon. If he were bolder he might have taken after the new trend of leaving the gloves at home while inside the confines of the village, if he were more trusting he would have recognized that anyone who lived here in Konoha would at least be a safe match. If he weren’t clinging to dreams with all the stubborn tenacity of a child he might have been able to move on from the fantasy of an impossible match.

Turning away from the window and leaning back against the pane of glass, Tobirama lifted his hands to stare at the gloves covering them. He’d been holed up in his own office since midmorning with no one to disturb him, busy as they were with the festival raging through the streets below, so it couldn’t possibly hurt anything to let his palms breathe a little while he was alone. Anyone who might bother him here was occupied with festival activities. Most likely none of them had even noticed the lack of his presence – except for Izuna, maybe, but only in the sense that his old rival had promised to chuck sweets at his head and was probably disappointed that he hadn’t had the chance to yet.

Peeling the gloves away from his skin outside the safety of his own home felt akin to the thrill of breaking a rule. Feeling much like a naughty child doing something he knew he wasn’t supposed to, Tobirama smiled bitterly and with affected carelessness tossed the gloves away from himself towards the desk. He didn’t need company. It might have been nice for someone to notice his absence, might have even been nice for someone to want his presence enough to drag him down in to the festivities despite how he would surely protest, but it wasn’t necessary. There was plenty to keep him occupied here and all of it was necessary to the survival of the village. Perhaps Tobirama did not have a large social network quite the same way his brother did but he had more contacts in more places than any spy could dream of. He performed so many functions without which the infrastructure of the village would collapse and he didn’t need anyone’s acknowledgement to know that he was vital.

That was enough for a man like him.

On a whim Tobirama retrieved the papers he was meant to be working on and settled back in to the window seat rather than read through them at his desk. The seat here was more comfortable and without anyone here to see him so casual he could be productive without risking a back ache for once. That was nice. As it always did, time passed him by almost unnoticed once he sank himself in to reports of orphancy in each of the clans and budget proposals for how many orphanages would be needed. Could he request foster homes in the interim? He wondered if some of the families might be encouraged to adopt if offered a tax benefit for doing so.

With his back to the window Tobirama had only the shadows in the room to judge how much time had passed when the door to his office opened and startled him out of his work coma. His guess would be somewhat more than two hours, just long enough for him to sink so deep he hadn’t felt Madara's chakra approaching. It was hard to tell who was more surprised between the two of them when their eyes met.

“The hell are you doing here?” Madara demanded.

“I would posit that such questions apply more to you. This is my office.”

“Quit being wordy and keep quiet, I need to hide! He’ll never look for me in here!” With no more explanation than that Madara slipped in to the room uninvited, closing the door behind him with exaggerated care.

Tobirama canted his head to one side curiously. “Do you know that you have flowers in your hair?”

“Yes,” the other man hissed. “Your brother is high on spring or whatever and he’s determined that everyone else should share in the joy. He’s been growing flowers in my hair all evening. I can’t get them out!”

“Ah. He does that. It’s the main reason I learned to keep my hair short.”

Well, that and he’d looked terrible every time he tried to grow it out.

“Hilarious as it is trying to picture you with long hair”-Tobirama really hoped he couldn’t-“I’m more concerned with my own at the moment. Izuna absolutely cannot see this or he’ll start those ridiculous rumors again about me and your stupid tree of a sibling. Can you just…”

“Get them out for you?”

“Please,” Madara whimpered, the sound of a broken and desperate man. He must have been trying to escape Hashirama for some time to have reached the level of asking someone else for help.

Tobirama sighed and waved him over, setting his paperwork aside without looking to make sure it all landed together. Normally the tidiness of his work was the highest priority in his day but right now Uchiha Madara was begging for help with flowers in his hair and that was definitely something he wanted burned in to his memory as deeply as possible.

Without waiting for any words to rub it in Madara was moving across the room as quickly as he registered that he was allowed to, eyes lowered grumpily to the floor. It was a terribly adorable look on him to see the way he stomped in a little circle and crossed his arms with a huff to await the offered help. Tobirama held back until the man couldn’t see him before allowing his lips to twitch. He would definitely be revisiting this memory more times than Madara needed to know about – and for reasons that would surely upset him.

After surveying the damage Tobirama shook his own head with a small amount of pity welling up in his chest. It was no wonder the man couldn’t get the flowers out on his own, Hashirama had twisted them all together with vines woven in between the locks. They were probably all snarled up and hurt to pull on. He would need to be gentle.

“Other than my brother’s idiocies, how is the festival? Are the people having fun?” Perhaps some conversation would relax the atmosphere around them.

“You’d know for yourself if you would deign to crawl out of your office for even one evening,” Madara snapped back. Apparently he was not in the mood to relax. With a sigh Tobirama lifted his hands and reached for the bottom of the thick hair before him. It would be better to start from underneath.

“I have no one with which to attend,” he murmured simply as he lifted the mass of dark locks.

Then he froze and whatever Madara had been about to say what cut off with a panicky, “What? What!? The hell kind of noise did you just make? It didn’t sound good! What is it!?”

“Your hair–!”

That was all he could choke out, wildly unhelpful for the now frantic Madara. He watched with shock numbing his limbs as the man cast about for some kind of reflective surface and practically dove for the decorative little mirror hanging on one wall. It was lucky, Tobirama mused in an effort to focus on anything but the reaction about to roll over him, that Hashirama had decorated the office in a fit of despair after realizing his little brother had no knack for such things. Without Hashirama's décor there would have been no mirror to show Madara the brilliant rainbow sheen cascading out from the top of his head.

“My hair!” he squeaked, both hands snapping up and patting at the locks like he expected them to be poisonous.

“I didn’t mean to…”

Tobirama looked down at the hands that he only now realized were still not wearing gloves. He had touched Madara's hair without wearing gloves. Deep black hair that he may or may not have spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about it non-work capacities. Hair that now shone with every color of the rainbow, catching the light as he turned side to shift and shifting like a kaleidoscope.

“Oh sweet mother of chakra…my hair…”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“Well no damn wonder I never had a stain!” Madara spun around with a light in his eyes Tobirama couldn’t quite interpret and he wasn’t given much time to. “My whole hair is a stain. And you’re- you’re my soulmate!”

Instinctively hiding his hands behind his back, Tobirama licked his lips nervously. “Sorry about that too,” he whispered. Madara gave him an incredulous look.

“Why the hell would you be sorry!?”

He didn’t wait for whatever stupid answer Tobirama might have come up with, lunging back across the room to twist still gloved hands in the front of his shirt and drag him upright. For a frantic moment Tobirama thought they were about to kiss – not something he would have exactly protested – but he found the obi of his shirt being untied and honestly did not possess the faculties to stop it at the moment. Without the ability to protest he simply sat there and allowed his chest to be exposed for Madara to see the bright splotch of black curling over one shoulder.

And after that he definitely didn’t have it in him protest as he watched the other man peel off his leather gloves for the first time to reveal pale and surprisingly thick fingers, fingers that reached out to curl themselves over his shoulder to line up with his stain. He didn’t need to look to see the results. They were obvious enough in the wonder that played across Madara's face.

“You don’t look particularly upset,” Tobirama noted with his own measure of wonder.

“Upset? Why would I-? I’ll show you upset!”

Fingers clutched at the back of his neck and then he really was being pulled in to a kiss, the world around him erased by sensation and the fruition of more hidden fantasies than he cared to admit. Madara was kissing him, Madara was his soulmate, and as he tried to convince his body to unfreeze from shock Tobirama couldn’t help but think that he was so glad no one had dragged him out to that stupid festival. He was much happier here waiting for the moment it occurred to Madara that he would spend the rest of his life with hair the color of shifting rainbows.

#rae writes #soulmate collection #madatobi #madara #tobirama #fanfiction

22 notes · View notes

kats-magic-bag · 5 years ago

Text

The Myths

Thursday yay.

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

5 months later, late November. Sage was 5 months old and the town had grown more violent in their protests. Edge and Rus were sitting in their living room watching the fire place before their entire carpet caught on fire. Edge and Rus rushed out of the house with Sage. They looked back at the house to see it erupt in flames. When they looked out the entire town was shouting at them and yelling. Just then two men came out of the crowd on horseback.

“Grab my hand!” one of them yelled. Rus and Edge looked at one of the men. “Hurry!” it was Hickory and Red. They grabbed their hands and they rode off on their horses.

“Are you two alright?” Hickory asked looking back to Rus and Edge on the horses.

“What the hell was that about?” Edge yelled back looking behind him to the rubble of their house.

“My question first.” Hickory yelled ignoring Edge.

“I think so.” Rus worried looking over to Edge.

“What happened!?” Edge yelled again causing their horse to jostle.

“Remember when the villagers threatened to burn your house down unless you left?” Red asked looking back to Edge.

“No.” Edge replied looking back at Red.

“Well they weren’t bluffing.” Hickory responded turning to look forward on his horse.

“That’s insane!” Edge yelled jostling the hose again.

“Stop yelling they’ll find us.” Red warned looking back to Edge.

“Where are we going?” Rus asked looking forward.

“Archer is meeting us at the mountain of gold.” Hickory responded pointing north east.

“Archer? Wait how do you know him?” Edge asked looking over to Hickory's horse.

“He’s an old friend. Said he knew this would happen.” Red responded looking back at Edge. They rode for 2 days before reaching the mountain.

“Thank god you two are ok.” Archer smiled worryingly approaching the five.

“Yeah, thanks to you.” Edge thanked hugging Archer.

“How did you know this would happen?” Rus asked looking back to the village.

“A prophet warned us. But were not safe, look to the dragon’s mountain.” Archer said pointing to the king’s lair. When they looked they saw that the whole place was covered in black clouds and shadows and overrun with, something.

“What are those?” Rus asked looking at the things moving around the mountain.

“Changelings.” Archer replied sternly looking back to them.

“What!” Edge yelled looking to Archer.

“Keep it down they could hear us.” Archer warned sushing Edge. “The start of the dark lord is upon us.”

“What?” Hickory and Red responded looking at each other.

“The dark lord. It’s and old prophet that two people will unite the races to help save the world. So far we thought it was just an old children’s tale to keep kids from sticking their noses into places they shouldn’t. But now we might all be in danger.” Archer replied looking back to the mountain.

“How do we stop it.” Hickory asked looking to the mountain then to everyone.

“We can’t but they can.” Archer replied pointing to Rus and Edge. “They’ll need our help though.”

“Us. how are we supposed to stop this.” Rus exclaimed looking to the mountain.

“Because, you two are the dragon of life and fire.” Archer urged looking at the two of them. “Remember the old tale of ‘The Myths, The Legends, and The Prophets’ you two are those dragons. Somewhat.”

“That’s just an old wives tale that was made so children would grow up complete jerks.” Edge yelled looking to Rus.

“Edge he might be right.” Rus worried looking to Edge.

“Exactly we- wait what! Rus this is insane, we can’t put Sage in danger.” Edge yelled looking to Sage then the mountain.

“Over there get them.” A group of villages shouted.

“Get inside the cave. I’ll- gah.” Archer yelled as he was hit with an arrow.

“Archer!” Edge yelled reaching out for him.

“Go! I’ll fight them off.” Archer yelled back leaning against the cave wall.

“Edge c’mon.” Hickory urged tugging his arm. They ran as far in the cave as they could until they reached a dead end.

“A dead end.” Red yelled looking at the wall.

“I think we discovered that Red.” Hickory mocked looking to the mouth of the cave.

“Down here I hear them.” They yelled pushing forward.

“What do we do?” Rus worried holding Sage close. Just then the floor opened up beneath them and they were swallowed down leaving the villagers at the dead end. It looked like they were all going to fall to their deaths until they were caught by a magic barrier and set down.

“Where are we?” Edge asked looking around. Just then they saw the shadows move and shift.

“Changeling?” Rus asked cowering closer to Edge.

“I don’t know.” Edge replied reaching out to hold Rus. Out of the shadows something walked out with masks of bone and cloaks of dried animal skin. The leader pointed spears at them and circled them until they got to Edge. the leader moved their hand out to their side and the others lowered their weapons. The leader moved closer to Edge and reached out a cloaked hand and gently cupped his face. Edge tried to lean away from them but they kept leaning closer.

When Edge met the skulls eyes the leaders hand quivered back and reached for their skull and took it off. It was another skeleton monster like all of them. But it was a woman.

“hogyan találtál meg.” She said looking to Edge.

“What?” Edge asked looking over to Rus.

“Már olyan régóta. olyan fiatalnak és szépnek látszol.” She said moving her hand accusingly.

“I’m sorry I don’t know what you said.” Edge jerked looking at her bewildered.

“Edge. It’s me. Mommy.” She replied smiling looking at him.

“What?” Edge gaped watching her in amazement.

“Come.” She said before running off. They all followed after her into a hole in the wall. When they went in there it was an entire room with a bed and more holes.

“Hey what do you mean mommy?” Hickory asked looking at the woman. She was standing by the bed.

“I’m Edge’s mother.” She smiled looking back at them. Everyone was quiet. Her smile fell.

“I know this is not a good time but I know someone that can help you all.” She encouraged crawling into one of the holes.

“Where are they?” Red asked into one of the holes.

“Follow me.” She said and walked back out of the hole and to a bigger hole. Inside that hole was an older lady that was sitting in a chair.

“Magasságod ezek az emberek, akikkel beszélt.” She told her standing in front of someone.

“Hozd be őket. Látni akarom őket.” The elderly lady replied looking at them.

“Come in.” she told them turning to them.

“I knew you would be here soon enough.” the elderly lady smiled looking at them all.

“How.” Red asked looking to the old woman.

“I’m a prophet from the olden times.” The lady responded looking at her wall, it was filled with pictures. “We don’t have much time here you need to find the heir to the sea, the heir to the next of prophet, the human, the betrayed, the believed, the redeemed-”

“I’m sorry, is there a way we can speed this up. You said we were running on short time.” Hickory urged looking around.

“Yes. Leona make them a list.” The elder commanded pointing to her.

“Yes, Delphia.” Leona replied taking out a paper and writing everything down giving it to Edge.

“Wait, we can’t leave yet we just got here.” Edge protested grabbing her arm.

“Cyrus listen to me. You are not safe here they’re listening. I’ll help you out but you need to leave. You’re our only hope.” Leona smiled cupping his face. Three warriors surrounded them. “Go now!” Leona yelled pointing to a hole in the wall.

“Aim for the sky. Bury them like the rats they are.” Their leader yelled. They shot into the air and the cave walls started to crumble.

“RUN!” Leona yelled pushing them out of the hole. They ran for the hole, Edge rushed everyone through but Red got trapped on the other side as the walls crumbled.

“RED!” Hickory yelled looking back at the wall. He ran to the wall and tried to knock the rocks down, but there were too many and too big.

“Hickory-” Edge tried to comfort him.

“Shut up. Just. SHUT UP!” Hickory yelled. “None of this would have happened if we had never met you!” Hickory yelled turning to Edge.

“Hickory you can’t be upset. Red’s not dead he’s just on the other side. He’ll find a way out.” Rus reassured him moving to stand in front of Edge.

“It’s getting dark. We should catch some food and set up shelter.” Hickory sighed walking to the mouth of the exit. In the commotion of earlier Rus had forgot that he still had Sage.

“I’m sure your hungry too.” Rus sighed looking down at the startled child.

#spicyhoney #thursday #middle earth #dragon bois

3 notes · View notes

underoossss · 6 years ago

Text

More Than A Mission H.O [2/4]

pairing: spy!Harrison Osterfield x spy!reader

SPY!AU | masterlist

A/N: I hope all of you like this second chapter! I love writing this story so much you can’t even imagine 😩❤️ Enjoy some cute tropes and two oblivious fools! Feedback or comments are always nice! (idk if I saw all of my mistakes but I hope I did! If I didn't sorry!)

Some people say they can’t pinpoint the exact moment they fell in love. You had heard it multiple times, the old “I don’t know when it started” and the “It started long before I even realized” family and friends always seemed to say that about the people they loved. But for you? For you it wasn’t like that.

When it came to Harrison Osterfield, your feelings were like walking down a long hallway with old and new memories you made together hanging from the walls until you reached a dark room. Its too dark to see anything at first and you’re too unsure and afraid to move until something happens and switches the lights on to reveal your best friend in front of you. You see him there smiling and the ground underneath you crumbles because that smile had never made you feel like that before and you love it. In that moment you let yourself fall and you love him.

In reality, it didn’t happen in a dark room and there was no hallway, there was only a hostage extraction simulation and guns with paint balls in them.

------

“Lopez, Richards, I need report on the first floor.” You spoke through your earpiece as you ascended the stairs for the third floor of the building. The paint was chipping from the wall on your right which made tiny pieces of paint fall on your shoulder and the wood under your foot creaked loudly with your next step making you wince. “Johnson, Davis, second floor report. Guys, skip this step.” You spoke to your team behind you as you continued to move.

Four pairs of footsteps followed you upstairs, guns ready and ears sharp for any sounds. After clearing the first two floors and coming to the conclusion that the hostages must be on the third, you had left parties of two behind to give you any updates and took the rest of the team with you to finish the mission. Harrison was right behind you and behind him in a neat line was Nadia Rodriguez, Tyler O’Connor and Stephanie McDougall. The five of you had been together since you started the academy so you trusted each other to complete this mission and pass the simulation.

“All clear in first floor, exists covered.”

“Second floor secure, Davis is guarding the stairs.”

“Good, now Lee, I need eyes on the third floor. What are going up against?” You held your hand up for your team to stop as you heard movement down the hallway. The dark blue walls had concrete spots where the paint was falling from and there were lighter rectangles on them from the paintings that must have been hung there before. Sunlight streamed from a hole in the ceiling and small particles of dust could be seen floating in the air as everyone held their breath and stood still. You lowered your hand once the movement subsided and continued to walk down the hall only to stop when it split into two separate ones.

“The two paths lead towards the same room according to the blueprints.” Lee spoke on your earpieces, “There’s a door to the right and one to the left. There’s a heat signal coming from inside so that’s where the hostages should be.”

“Thanks Lee. Keep me posted.” You lowered your gun and turned to your team, “Alright guys, we’re almost done so here’s what we’ll do. Osterfield, you and Rodriguez come with me to the right and O’Connor takes the left with McDougall. We’ll go in through the right first and the left team enters on my signal. All of you copy?”

Your eyes met Harrison’s and you knew right away that he could read how nervous you actually were, if this went south it was mainly on your head but everyone else could fail because of you. He gave you a nod, his gaze reassuring and his lips moving upwards to form a barely perceptible smile. No one else would’ve seen it but you were best friends, so you noticed small things like that. “Copied.” They all replied in unison and took their place on each side of the wall before stepping into the next hallway.

“Stay alert for any movement.” You turned your head for a second to address everyone before you were shoved to the side at the sound of a gunshot. A perp had been guarding one of the doors and had aimed his shot at you but there was no paint on your vest, Harrison’s however was decorated with a blue stain in the middle of his chest.

The human mind works in odd ways, your brain knew it was only a fake bullet but your heart took a blow nevertheless. Your mouth fell open in shock and anger boiled up in the pit of your stomach while you raised your gun to shoot the perp between the eyes, staining his protective goggles along with part of his nose and mouth. “Rodriguez go to the door, I’ll be right there. You two, be ready.”

You motioned Nadia to move towards the door behind you before instructing the other two 15 feet across from you to do the same with their door. Your right hand was closed in a tight first as you leaned down to Harrison’s eye level as he sat against the chipping wall. “Why would you do that, Osterfield. You knew I needed you to be in there with me.”

“Because the team needs you. You keep all of us going, YN, you’re our secret weapon.” Harrison’s smile was blinding and you felt your stomach do twenty jumping jacks in a row while the ground crumbled underneath you. “Now go and save those hostages.”

You nodded your head, unable to form coherent words as your feelings twisted your throat into a knot the size of your fist. You stood up and walked towards the door where Nadia waited for you, sparing a last glance at Harrison who sent a wink your way. Well shit, I think I just fell in love.You shook yourself out of your thoughts and gave Nadia a signal before you kicked the door open, you had some hostages to rescue.

-----

The cool October air bites at your cheeks as you step out of the taxi and walk towards the hotel in front of you. Your black ankle boots scratch the pavement underneath you and the scarf around your neck hits you in the face as you wheel your suitcase behind you, sunglasses perched on top of your nose and coffee balanced on your left arm. A pattern had been found between the appearances of certain members of Marioli’s cartel that linked them to 28th street and 3rd avenue. According to special intel, their rendezvous point seemed to be in an apartment building conveniently placed diagonally to the Hotel Beatrice. Director Diaz had organized for the hotel to free the room closest to the apartment building so that Harrison and you could stakeout the location and hopefully find a way to discover the where Folini and Marioli’s deal will take place.

You push your sunglasses back over your head as you reach the front desk. A tall man in his mid-forties greets you with a kind smile when you approach him, his hazel eyes hide behind big black rimmed glasses and his hair is covered in a thick layer of gel. “Good afternoon miss, how can I help you.”

“Hello, I have a booking under the last name Roberts.” You smile as you set your suitcase next to you, place the coffee down and lean your elbows on the counter.

“Oh yes, your husband is already upstairs. He arrived about thirty minutes ago, room 408.” He types something in the computer in front of him and clicks the mouse a couple of times before he hands you a key card with a smile. “I hope the two of you enjoy your stay, your room service is already paid for.”

“I’m sure we’ll have a lovely time.” You offer him a smile back, glancing down at his name tag to address him by his name and remember it out of a habit. “Thank you very much Lionel, see you around.”

With a small wave you head towards the elevator and wait for the doors to open while looking at you surroundings. The building has an old ambiance to it, a big staircase with elegant but old golden banisters sits to your left, leading towards the mezzanine and various paintings decorate the dark green walls. You get to notice a beautiful lamp hovering over the lobby’s waiting area before the elevator’s ding takes your gaze away from it as you step inside the cart. Your hands sweat all the way to the fourth floor, and your grip on your suitcase’s handle is so tight your knuckles turn white and your palm hurts. The thought of staying in a hotel room with Harrison for a couple of days wants to send you into a frenzy but you manage to tone down your panic while you find room 408 and open the door. Toning down your panic, however, goes out of the window when you spot the bed in the middle of the room. Only one bed. A queen bed. One.

You take a deep breath to calm down, hearing the shower running inside the bathroom and willing your heart to stop beating so loudly before Harrison saw you. “I’m so screwed.”

Harrison didn’t make you nervous, he was your best friend for heaven’s sake, youmade yourself nervous. After not seeing him for so long, all your practiced behavior around him was long forgotten and you were lost when it came to not letting him know how you felt. You forgot how to hide it and the thought of him finding out and it interfering with the mission and your friendship was enough to make you crawl into a hole and die. With another deep breath you kick off your boots, set the coffee on the desk and your suitcase next to Harrison’s opened one before you walk towards the table with all of the case’s information. You notice a folder full of pictures and flip it open to check the contents inside. Several men are in the photographs, walking, standing while waiting for the traffic light to change, talking on the phone.

You turn one photograph around, Marioli’s men: subject #16 [12:00am]is scribbled behind it along with the date and place of the photograph. The one you were currently holding was right in front of the hotel as the man in the odd baseball jersey walked into the apartment building. You sit down on the middle of the bed, crossing your legs under you and start organizing the pictures by location in front of you. Your feelings were pushed to the back of your mind as you tried to find a connection between everyone photographed other than them going into the same apartment building or the excessive jewelry hanging from their necks.

“Oh you arrived!” You hear a smile in Harrison’s voice as he opens the bathroom door and walks out towards his suitcase. “Early as usual.” His teasing tone makes you tear your gaze away from the photographs, ready to retort that it was the first time you were late to any meeting when your words get caught in your throat. The sight that greets you is definitely a sight, but not one you were expecting.

He wore only grey sweatpants that hung low on his hips as his back faced your way. His skin still had droplets of water scattered over his back and his muscles, those damn muscles, moved as he looked for something in his suitcase. Your eyes followed every moment, finally having a close look at how toned he had gotten in two years specially when his biceps flexed as he put a t-shirt on. Thank god. You realize your cheeks are burning and your jaw is about to reach the floor when Harrison starts turning around to face you. With another deep breath you take your thoughts away from his almost perfect body and pretend to concentrate on the pictures in front of you.

“This is the first time I’m late Harrison.” You speak up as you continue to distribute pictures by location and lining them up from closets to furthest distance from the apartment building. “Besides, I brought coffee.” Your shoulders move up and down and you don’t even dare to look into his eyes in fear of getting flustered and having Harrison ask what was wrong. Oh nothing, just the usual, I’m in love with you and you looked really fucking hot without a shirt one so I think I might blush if we make eye contact.

Harrison looks at the two coffee cups that you had set on the desk before chuckling and looking your way fondly, not that you saw it anyways, since your focus on was on the pictures. “Do you always bring coffee to make up for being late?” There’s amusement in his voice and something else, which makes you look up.

His eyes are soft, like they always seem to be whenever he looks at you nowadays which makes a shy smile appear on your face. “No… I bring it in hopes you’ll forgetthat I was late…” Your eyebrows furrow as you finish speaking while your eyes scan over the pictures and find a connection.

“What’s wrong, what did you find?” Harrison speaks up as he moves to sit next to you but you hold your hand up so he would let you concentrate.

“All of these men… their t-shirt match their original location. Look,” You say scooting closer to your partner, “This guy walked from 23rd street to the 30th and he’s wearing a 23 in his t-shirt. I thought it was a coincidence because they’re not all wearing the same shirt but this guy walked down from 42nd and his baseball jersey has a 42, this one’s t-shirt has a 19 and many of them are wearing the same t-shirt again.

“So they have a sort of uniform to keep track of the people in each location where they have a hideout.” Harrison picks up two pictures of two different guys that were wearing the same t-shirt with a 30 on it.

“And they all report back to the main headquarters that are right in front of us! Those are only Marioli’s men though and half of the pictures in this file, we still need something on Folini to tie everything together-”

“And find out where the deal will take place.” Harrison nods his head, turning to look at you before his face breaks out into a smile. Yours does the same at the way the two of you still manage to finish each other sentences and put all the pieces of the puzzle together after two years of being apart. “Nice find, Y/N.”

“Thanks, Haz.” You look away from the beautiful blue of this eyes and back at the pictures, your hand pushing a strand behind your ear while you tried to keep your emotions at bay. “Come on, we can use this wall to put all of these and the rest of the pictures up. And grab a coffee I was late getting your favorite.” Your shoulder bumps into his making him chuckle and shake his head before the two of you got up from the bed and got to work.

-----

It took the two of you almost three hours but all of the pictures were finally sorted and taped to the wall. You had found a weekly pattern between all of the men that were photographed, and identified Folini’s men by a tattoo all of them sported on the side of their neck. The tattoo design matched Folini’s cartel’s crest that he always wears on his pinky finger that had been pictured on a different occasion. You and Harrison worked in sync, making notes and connecting pictures and clues with a red string once you saw a pattern. Your heart fluttered every time your hands would touch and your cheeks burned every time Harrison smiled at you when you made a new discovery. It was as if nothing had changed but things had actually changed, you realize now how in love you had been and still are with him. Even after two years, your feelings hadn’t lessened at all, if anything they felt stronger than before and now your heart ached because he was so close but so far at the same time.

“Today was great, I’ve missed this. So much.” Harrison speaks up as the two of you lied in bed. The room was dark except from the light coming from the lampposts outside of the hotel that illuminated the floor next to your side of the bed. Your eyes were tired and your body craved sleep, the clock on the nightstand read 12:35 but you couldn’t go to bed. Not until you got something off your chest, something you worried about every day since Harrison left.

“I’ve missed you.” You say softly, your hands gripping the comforter tightly to keep yourself from tearing up. “I truly have, Harrison, and I need you to know that.”

“Y/N-”

“No. I-I didn’t write as often when you were gone and I know that but please don’t think it’s because I didn’t want to or because I didn’t miss you. They, um, they told me not to bother you, that this was important to you and to cut all ties with your life here was better… so I followed those orders.” You squeeze your eyes shut and calm your breathing as you talked so that Harrison wouldn’t know you were crying, especially not about something that happened so long ago.

“I know.” Harrison whispers back after a few minutes and shift in his place to face your back. “They said the same thing to me so I guessed you had received similar orders. There wasn’t one second that I thought you had forgotten about me, Y/N. Just like there wasn’t one where I didn’t miss you.” His voice is quiet, also inaudible but you heard it

You felt your shoulders relax at his words, you felt your stomach do backflips and you felt his eyes on you. Without another word you turned around, facing Harrison in the dark but staying at an arm’s length. This doesn’t mean that he’s in love with you, remember that. His hand reaches out until it touches your face, his thumb wiping away the tears that fell down your cheek.

“Don’t cry, we’re back together again. Y/N and Harrison, the FBI’s finest… Bad guys’ worst nightmare.” Although you couldn’t see Harrison’s smile, you knew it was there, unwavering, comforting and never failing to bring one on your face as well.

You let out a soft laugh, both in relief and in response to his dorky self. “Remember that time with the hostage extraction test? We were top of the class… You, um, you took that fake bullet for me.”

“And I’d do it again if I had to, because you’re the one who got our team to the top. I couldn’t let that guy fake-kill you.” Harrison’s thumb caresses your cheek softly once more before he brings his arm back to his side. His eyes are scanning your face, you can feel them on you and you hold your breath at the feeling growing inside of your chest. Why does he make me feel this way, one sentence and I’m a lovesick mess.

“We should- We should probably go to sleep. Big day tomorrow.” You clear your throat and turn back to face the hotel’s door. Your feelings were making their way to the surface and you needed to sleep before you confessed them all to him, well, more than what you already said. “And Haz? I’d take one for you too.”

“I know.” He whispers, waiting a couple of seconds before turning to face the other side as well. “Goodnight, Y/N.”

“Night, Haz.”

----

You wake up the next day feeling warm and well rested under the covers, you feel safe and comfortable and you never want to leave the bed again. You want to ignore the alarm going off on the night stand and keep on sleeping. Your pillow is too soft to abandon it, it’s as if it was keeping you close to it, never wanting to let go and you sure as hell don’t want to either. The pillow starts moving underneath you though, it shifts a little to the right and suddenly the alarm stops and silence fills the room once again. You open your eyes slowly, and furrow your eyebrows when you see Harrison’s navy blue t-shirt underneath you. The warm feeling that surrounded you minutes ago were his arms that were holding you close to him. His heartbeat is steady under your ear and he chest rises and falls with every breath he takes. Alarms go off in your head as you realize what was going on, you were cuddling Harrison Osterfield. Your face was buried in his chest, your legs were tangled with each other and your hand was holding his next to your head. What?

“Good morning,” Harrison’s voice is raspy with sleep which makes your chest flutter at the same time your brain tries to find a way to make the situation less awkward. You dare to look up at him, dazzling blue eyes heavy with sleep and a soft smile grazed his features. It was as if the universe was looking for the most cruel ways to make you fall even more for him when you knew it wasn’t the same for him. It’s giving you a glimpse at how it would be like to wake up in the arms of the man you loved, and doing it so while you were awake so that you knew that it was never going to happen. Your heart aches for him while simultaneously breaking because of him.

“Umm… hi.” You offer him a sleepy smile back before letting go of his hand and pulling away from his embrace. This is so embarrassing. “Big day today, I... I gotta pee.” With that you get off the bed and move towards the bathroom to collect yourself and give your heart a break from the torture it was going through. How am I going to survive 5 more days like this?

While you panicked, paced and panicked some more in the bathroom, you were unaware of Harrison’s own racing heart. Unaware of the frown that had come to his face when you had hurried away from the bed. Totally and completely unaware that all your fears and wishes matched his and that whatever hopelessness you felt, he felt it too.

One wall separates the two of you, three words are fighting to be uttered by your lips and the same thought goes through both of your minds:

I’m so fucking screwed.

tagging: @notimeforthemessenger @stephie-senpai @peeterparkr @katherine-liz @starksparker @upsidedownparker @spiderboytotherescue @girl-in-the-chair @hazhasmycoffee @bisexualupin @valar--m0rghulis @madmadmilk @tom-hollands-eyelash @randomfandom3599 @marvelousxtsh @unmbrellaspidey

#harrison osterfield #pauwrites #haz osterfield x reader #haz osterfield #harrison osterfield imagine #harrison osterfield x reader #harrison osterfield au #harrison osterfield series #spy!harrison #spy!au

150 notes · View notes