#there is no fucking door to try propping open with my foot so I can reach the whole

[actually-eldritch]

It's all me it's aaaaalll me it's all people all the way down you know my best influence my strongest influence comes when I don't mind not receiving credit and my second strongest influence comes when I'm not afraid but the problem is that I'm always terrified and most of all, I'm starving.

[jesusatemysnatch]

“anything? that right?”

old!logan howlett x f!reader

summary: you end up in logan’s shop with an oil leak and can’t afford to pay him

wc: 2.3k (i’m in hell the brain rot is BAAAAD)

authors note: plot is very cliche like ik eat me. while writing this i took a break and got an edit of logan to tulsa jesus freak. yes i’ve lost my sanity. also i don’t know shit about shit with cars so yea

warnings/tags: MDNI. dubcon. unspecified age gap. logan is a little mean?? reader has no description besides hair long enough for logan to grab, wearing short skirt. logan grabs readers face. hair pulling. big dick logan (canon). pussy pronouns. spanking. throat fucking. degrading. tears. dirty talk. pet names. daddy kink. fingering. aggressive sex. unprotected sex (wrap it up). cream pie. orgasm denial.

your type doesn’t frequent this place, the auto shop on the edge of a town that’s seen better days. most of logan’s customers he’s had for years, he’d grown used to the faces that come through the shop, greeting people on a first name basis at this point in his career. like hell did he ever expect you. you, who stood behind him when he’s hunched down, working beneath the hood of a truck. he didn’t hear you coming, the radio on his workbench drowning out the sound of your footsteps. “shit,” he hissed, peeling back from the piece of shit he’d spent his afternoon working away at, white beater stained with oil and god knows what else. he paused abruptly when he finally noticed you, drawing in a slow breath. if he didn’t have enough on his plate, here you are. a pretty, young thing. in the thick of the summer you’re hardly dressed in much at all, a little top and a short skirt. “ain’t hear you come in,” the clear of his throat echoes off the walls as he walked towards his bench, wiping his hands with a greased up towel. “can i do for you?” his teeth clamp down on the toothpick stuck out his mouth, an oral fixation to try and keep his mind off smoking while on the job. it hardly worked for shit, nicotine always in the back of his mind. the radio gradually softens, pair of glasses pulled onto the bridge of his nose. “think i have an oil leak?” you sound unsure of it, logan nods, scribbling it down onto a forum he kept for his records. “bring ‘er in. take a look,” his boots thud quietly across the floor, walking past you to pull open the garage door. the wiring had gone out a couple months ago and he’s yet to get around to fixing it, muscles straining as he pulled the door up an over his head. he watched you pull your car in, sighing as you stepped back out. “well.. ain’t even have to look. engine sounds like shit, definitely a leak. i’ll pop underneath anyway, see f’somethin’s loose or if it’s a crack.” he nodded, wheeling his creeper out from beneath the bench with his foot. he tries not to groan as he sunk to the floor, his body too old for this shit. he pushes himself up underneath the car, brow knit in a tight furrow as he took a look around to access the problem. “oil pan has a crack, s’pretty fuckin’ bad. i can change it out for you, take me an hour.. hour an a half at most.” he nods, sat upright, an elbow propped against his bent knee. your expression flashes with annoyance and he thought to himself that you looked like a fucking brat, but god damn did you wear it so well. he fights back with the corner of his lips that threatens to tug up.

logan gathered up what he needed, not paying you any mind as you’re left with not much other choice but to sit and wait for him to finish on your car. dressed like this he figured you had better places to be, but he didn’t give a fuck. you came to him, and the way he saw it was your choices were limited to accepting the help and learning some patience or ruining your car. he’s good at the work he does, it’s why he has so many loyal customers, why he’s been in business so long. he could’ve given you some grief for the look you gave him when he told you about the wait- and he still might. “she’s good as new.” he nodded, sliding out from beneath the car with your cracked oil pan. his chest is slick with sweat, glistening under the dull lighting. he brushed his dirty hands against the thighs of his jeans as he stood, tossing your old cracked pan into the trash as he approached his work bench again, quickly jotting down the work that he’d done. “s’goin’ to be.. nine hundred fifty three. s’for the replacement, fresh oil and that god damn look you gave me earlier.” he nods, dropping the clipboard onto the desk. “take cash or card.” his arms cross over his broad torso, forehead creasing as his brow sunk in. “this is a joke, right?” you ask, scoffing out a laugh as you look up at him though his expression doesn’t let up, unamused. “do i look like m’makin’ a fuckin’ joke, sweetheart?” his jaw is clamped tight, his tone flat, serious. “you can’t charge me for a look?” “i can charge you whatever the hell i feel like. i had other shit goin’ on.. could’ve made you wait a hell of a lot longer.” you scoff out in disbelief at him, shaking your head. “i don’t have nine hundred dollars.” you finally admit and logan’s head dropped forward, a low chuckle coming from his lips. when you didn’t pull out a card he knew this shit was going happen. he saw right through you. “alright so.. let me get this straight, sweetheart. you came here for me to look at your car knowin’ you didn’t have the god damn money to pay for it? is that right?” he lacks sympathy for you, pretty as you were you had another thing coming if you thought you were going to pull a fast one on him. “i might be old, girl, but i ain’t no fuckin’ fool. i tell you what.. no money, no fuckin’ keys.” his voice is low, your keys dangled around his finger and he shoves them down into his pocket. he walks away from you, too god damn angry to be stood in front of you, having wasted enough time on you already. “please, you don’t understand.. i need my car. i can pay you what i have right now and bring you the rest next week, please.” you beg, coming up behind him where he’s hunched over again beneath the hood of someone else’s vehicle, the same one he’d been working on when you arrived. “ain’t my god damn problem.” he muttered, biceps flexing beneath his tanned skin as he tightened a bolt in place. “i’ll do anything.” you plea again and logan slowly stops what he’s doing, looking down at the truck battery he was working at. he sighed loudly, recomposing himself as he peeled back from the truck, walking towards the garage door. he reached up, muscles flexing across his back as he pulled the door shut, closing off the inside of his shop from the street view.

“anything? that right?” he’s standing before you now, looking down at your shorter frame. “anything.”* you repeat in a whisper. he drew in a slow, deep breath as your palm slid over the front of his dirty jeans, stepping closer into you until you’re tucked between him and the truck. he groans when your squeeze your palm around him through the denim, your lips curling up to a sinisterly sweet smile when you tug at his belt. he grabs your face hard, lips puffed out slightly when he pulled you in for a kiss. it’s sloppy, his tongue lapping across your lips before dipping into your mouth, an anger filled hunger. he’s pissed off, but you’re pretty enough that he’d be willing to accept your throat as some sort of payment. he looks down at you as you pull back from his kiss, sinking to your knees. he appreciates that you had no issue getting to the point. “i reckon you must’ve been thinkin’ about this the entire time, sweetheart.” logan mused as you grabbed his cock out from inside his jeans, moaning at the sight of him. “bet you ain’t ever seen a cock that big huh, girl?” the palm of his hand pets against the back of your head as you stroke him slowly, his shaft filling out your small palm. “hands behind your back.” he nods slowly, gathering your hair into his fist, holding the back of your head with a tight grasp. he taps the weight of his cock against your tongue before he lays his base flat against you, slowly pulling his hips back as your warm tongue licked over the veins that protrude from tightened foreskin. “nice an wide.” he mutters, feeding the head of his cock into your mouth, a grunt parting his lips when he brushed the back of your throat. god damn. “you’re goin’ to sit here and take it like a champ. reckon you ought’a think about havin’ my god damn money next time. stupid girl.” he warned you before his hips draw back and roll forward, pushing the length of his cock down the curve of your throat. it’s lewd, the repeated squelch of your throat as he pushes himself inside again and again. “should’a known you’d be this big of a slut when i saw you. cute little fuckin’ outfit, barely wearin’ anythin’ at all. just knew how to get an old man goin’.” he grunts, unbothered by the tears that have begun to roll over your cheeks. he’s selfish, using your throat to his advantage, balls slapping the underside of your chin. the cute outfit you’d turned up in ruined by your own slop of saliva as it dribbled out the corners of your mouth. “good fuckin’ girl. payin’ off every fuckin’ dollar.” his skin is slick with sweat, head lulling back against his shoulders, blinded by the dull white light above him. your throat is exactly what he needed at the end of a shitty week, and he had no shame in taking out his stress on you, sure you wouldn’t be forgetting him anytime soon.

when he finally lets up you choke out a cough, spit strung between his soaked cock and your mouth, breathing hard as you look up at him with watery eyes. still, you come chasing for more, hands sat on his denim clad thighs as you licked your tongue along his cock, gasping in a breath of air before you took him back into your throat, craving the feeling once more. “fuck’n hell.. look at you. must really need that god damn car, huh?” his fingers move into your hair again, yanking your mouth back off his cock so he could pull you up from the floor. “ain’t that right, princess? you’d do anythin’ for those keys back, huh?” “yes, daddy.” you choke out and what patience logan had left snaps, swiftly turning you around by the hold he has on your hair. he lifts the skirt up over the swell of your ass, palm of his hand roughly swatting against. you. once, twice, three times. your cheeks are stained red as your legs tremble, impatiently waiting for him to give you more. “let me see ‘er.” logan nods, bent over you and he pulled your panties to the side, spreading your cheeks so he had a perfect view of both holes, your pussy slick with your own arousal.

“you like gettin’ treated like a slut.” he acknowledged, spitting against his fingers before he brings them to your pussy, fingertips swirling your clit before he pressed two long fingers into your core, free hand wrapped around your throat. he stroked his fingers slowly at first but gained speed as your arousal coated him, making it easier for him to plunge his fingers into your tight hole, biceps flexing with each stroke of his fingers, feeling out the warmth of your walls, infatuated with the way your pussy sucks his fingers back in. he grins at the gasp you take in when he replaces his fingers with the head of his cock, pushing yourself up straighter as he sunk himself deep into your pussy. “daddy,” you softly grab at the hand he has around the middle of your throat, moaning as his chest presses up against your back. “you ever been stretched out this good before?” he asks beside your ear, breathing out a quiet laugh when you shake your head no. he grabs your face again, pulling your lips back to his when he fucks into you, hard strokes that press your hips against the grill of the truck, sure to leave you with bruises in days following. he swallows the moans you cry out, roughly driving his hips into yours. he’s unrelenting, giving himself to you hard the way you deserve it, the way you so evidently love it. it’s been a long god damn time since he had pussy this good, and fuck was he obsessed with yours, cursing himself for fixing the troubles your car had given you instead of giving you the run around to keep you coming back for more. hell, with the way you’re fucking yourself back onto his cock you just might anyway. “you’re going to make me cum, daddy,” you choke out, and he grabs at your hips, pulling him deeper into your sopping cunt. “that right? this ain’t even about you, princess. this was for me, remember? who says you’re allowed to cum?” he is brow furrows, getting a rise out of the way you while beneath him, small hands grabbing at the truck. “please, i know it’s not about me but please let me cum, daddy.” you whine, legs trembling beneath you, threatening to cave under your weight. he doesn’t respond, just fucking into your stretched core while you beg him to cum again and again. he ignored you until he spilled first, filling you with thick ropes of his cum, hips flush against yours so you take every drop deep inside. “you want to cum now, sweetheart?” he asked and you nod, rocking your hips back against him as your chase your own high.

needless to say, logan was more than willing to return your keys. and you.. well you might purposefully pop a tire soon.

[lees-chaotic-brain]

The first years become one year old babies due to a curse and Gojo and his wife have to take care of them

WC: 1.5k

CW: female reader (reader referred to as wife), slight jjk spoilers (dad gojo), swearing, not beta read

Note: here you go @sitarawrites!! hope you enjoy! sorry this took so long...

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When your husband walked through the door holding a takeout bag filled with your favorite spicy food you knew he had fucked up. That man wouldn’t touch anything even remotely spicy with a ten foot pole, so it always made you a little nervous when he bought it and brought it home for dinner.

“Toru.” You plant your  hands on your hips and level him with a firm look. “You’re not fooling me. Just get it over with.”

He batted his eyes innocently. “Why, whatever are you talking about? I haven’t even done  anything. I just got home.”

“Uh huh. Then what’s that about?” You point an accusatory finger at the takeout. “You only buy dinner from that restaurant if you’re trying to bribe me into not being mad. Seriously. I’ve been married to you for over two years now. Your cheap tricks don’t work on me anymore. Just tell me what you did.”

“Aw, can’t a dutiful husband just buy his lovely wife her favorite food every now and again?”  He finishes removing his shoes and steps fully inside, leaving the front door open behind him.

“Gojo Satoru.” 

You’re clearly not amused, and definitely not buying it. At the sound of his full name he gulps and shoots you a nervous glance, his blue eyes wide.

“I’m telling you I-”

“Spit. It. Out. Now.”

Your lethal tone cuts off his pathetic last ditch attempt at denial, and he visibly shrinks into himself.

“Fine. You got me.” He lets out a high-pitched giggle. “I just want to preface this by saying I took them straight to Shoko and she said they would be completely fine and back to normal by tomorrow.”

“Okay…?”  You already didn’t like where this was going, nervous anticipation settling deep in your gut. Nothing had better happened to the three first years. You loved those kids like they were your own. “Continue.”

He takes a deep breath.

“BasicallyIkindofaccidentallygotthefirstyearsturnedintobabiesandYagawillhavemyassifhefindsoutsoIbroughtthemhere.”

His outburst winds him, and he wheezes, leaning against the door with a hand on his chest.

“What? Satoru I…” You trail off, staring at the small head that poked into your house through the open front door. A very familiar head of orangish-brown hair. Not moving a muscle, you blink at the toddler that toddles into your house. The toddler that looked eerily familiar.

“Gojo Satoru.” You speak, not taking your eyes off the small child. “That better not be my Nobara.”

“Well, erm, the thing is…one moment.” He steps back into his shoes and darts out of the house. As he fled, the tiny human approached you, clearly recognizing who you were. Deciding to let him be for the time being, you crouch down so you’re eye level with Maybe-Baby Nobara.

“Hey sweetie.” You boop her nose, eliciting a loud squeal. “Are you Nobara?”

The baby babbles excitedly and claps her meaty hands when you say her name, confirming your suspicions. Before you can process your realization, a shrill scream that you recognize as your husband pierces the air. Scooping the lively child up and into your arms, you hurry out the front door to investigate.

Upon stepping outside, the first thing you notice is a baby sitting in your front yard shoveling handfuls of grass and dirt into his face. The second thing you notice is that the baby is unmistakably Yuuji. Putting your husband's screams on the back burner for the time being, you dart forward to deal with him.

“No! Don’t eat that!” You gently pry the dirt from his chubby fists, unable to stop yourself from giggling when he gurgles at you happily with a muddy grin. Unfortunately, the renewed sound of your husband’s scream ruined the cute moment as you were forced to deal with your overgrown man child.

You grabbed Yuuji, propping him on your other him before standing and renewing your search for Satoru. It didn’t take long to find him, as he came hurtling around a corner, one of Megumi’s divine dogs hot on his trail. Confused, and enjoying his panic a little bit too much, you peered around the corner and spotted the last first year on the back of his other shikigami. Ah. That’s where the divine dog chasing you not-so-beloved husband came from. 

Trusting Megumi to make his own inside (plus he had grown up in this house and you knew his divine dogs wouldn’t let anything happen to him), you turn head in the direction you saw your husband sprint.

You wanted answers.

The five of you sat in your living room after you had convinced Megumi to call his shikigami back and wrangled your husband out of the tree he had taken refuge in. Now Satoru sat in an armchair while you sat on the sofa in front of him, Megumi snuggled in your right arm, Nobara in your left, and Yuji on your lap.

“So. Here’s how this is going to go. You are going to start from the beginning, and tell me EVERYTHING. You’re not going to leave out any little details that might get you in trouble. You’re going to give me the whole story.”

Nodding sheepishly, your husband explained that he had taken them to a curse site and waited outside while the three first years completed the mission that was supposed to be his. When fifteen minutes had passed, and they still hadn’t returned he went to check on them and found them in their current state. Panicking, he had taken care of the curse and rushed them to Shoko who examined them and told him they would be fine by tomorrow.

“-So I brought them here for the night.” He finished his story, and shot you a pleading glance. “I’m begging you. Yaga will get me in so much trouble if he finds out. It’s just one night. We can take care of them.”

You scoff. “Please. I was there all throughout high school. The worst you’ll get is a scolding, which frankly, you deserve. So bring the poor kids to Yaga who is more qualified to look after them than the both of us combined.”

“Please? For me, the love of your life?” Desperation glimmered in the depths of his vibrant blue eyes.

You shook your head firmly. “There’s no way. We’re not equipped to take care of three tiny humans, even if it is just for one night.”

“Please babe?” He gave you his best attempt at puppy dog eyes. “We raised Megumi and Tsumiki just fine! We got this.”

You opened your mouth to respond, fully prepared to continue ignoring your husbands please when you were distracted by Megumi shifting in your arms.

“Mama…” He nuzzled sleepily into your neck with a soft mutter. Feeling your heart melt, you planted a kiss in his messy black hair and readjusted your grip so you could cuddle him better.

“I’m here baby. I got you.”

Stirring at the sound of your voice, Nobara gazed up at you from your other arm, clearly jealous of the attention Megumi was receiving. Wrapping her chubby arms around your neck and clinging tight, she made a face at Megumi. Thankfully he ignored it and peace was maintained.

Catching the way your eyes softened, your husband saw his chance and swooped in to take it. “Aw, see how much they like you? Imagine how sad and confused they would be if you left them with someone they don’t know that well? Plus I know you think  they’re cute. Come on. It’s not like it’s forever. Don’t you want one night to cuddle with them to your heart's content?”

Glancing down at the two babies snuggled in your arms and the third slobbering around his own fist as he sat on your lap, you couldn’t help  but admit that they were rather cute, and spending a night with them wouldn’t be the worst thing ever.

“Fine.” You concede, ignoring your husband's cheers. “One night. I’ll take care of them one night. If they’re not back to normal by tomorrow, you have to take them to Yaga. Deal?”

Your husband quickly agreed, too relieved to argue. “Yes yes yes, of course. Thank you. Thank you so much. You’re literally the best. I love you more than anything. My wife. The light of my-”

“Shut it.”  You cut him off with a sharp look. “Sweet talking isn’t going to get you out of this. You’re still on thin ice, and don’t think we won’t be talking about this later.”

With a pout your husband acknowledged what you said before leaving you to play with the babies while he went to go buy some baby food.

And despite your griping and idle threats, later when you were snuggled up in bed with the three babies while Satoru slept on the floor, you couldn’t help but be a tad bit grateful for the incident.

[dilatorywriting]

Monster Mayhem: Donkeys & Dragons

Gender Neutral Reader x Malleus Draconia Word Count: 3.0k

Summary: In which your friends are idiots who think gallivanting around a haunted castle surrounded by lava is a great idea. And then there's a dragon.

ie. Or, I watched Shrek this afternoon and could not stop thinking about the memes of the Prefect being Donkey and Malleus as the Dragon.

[PART 1] [PART 2] [PART 3] [PART 4] [EPILOGUE]

‘Treasure beyond your wildest dreams!’ Ace said.

‘Knowledge long since lost to time!’ Deuce corrected.

‘Yeah, okay, but what is it,’ you asked.

And neither of them had an answer.

Abandoned castles suspended over a sea of bubbling lava were not your preferred holiday destination. You’d told Ace this several times. You’d begged, pleaded, to please just be normal for once. But noooo. Both the snarky, ginger, bastard and the other half of his singular brain cell had apparently decided that suicide ala boiling rocks sounded like a perfectly lovely plan for your Saturday evening.

“I’m just saying,” you huffed as the rope bridge swung worryingly beneath your feet, “taverns are a thing. Faires. Market runs. Casual side quests that won’t wind up with us being flambeed alive.”

“But there’s treasure!” Ace complained, the muddled light off the lava below illuminating his pout in a way that made it look especially punchable. “I heard there’s this really awesome magical sword! Or maybe it was a shield or something—”

“Or something,” you grit out. “What if it’s a book, huh? You can’t even read.”

“We can try!” Deuce returned, a spark of that familiar determination zipping through his blue eyes.

“Or we can sell it,” Ace said, which was certainly the more likely option of the two.

One of the rickety, wooden, slats cracked beneath the low heel of your boot and tumbled down into the lava below. Maybe it hit the gurgling pool of death with a hiss, or a whump, or some other cool sound. But all you could hear was the ringing in your ears.

“Oh my god. I’m going to die.”

“I mean, maybe,” Ace shrugged. “But at least you’ll have a cool new sword propped up at your grave or something.”

You managed to make it all the way to the other side of the horrible death bridge without plummeting to your doom. Except now you were standing at the foot an equally horrifying castle. It was massive—grand on a scale that seemed entirely impossible for something constructed in the heart of a volcano. Its dozens of ebony spires clawed at the sky. The walls crawled with grey ivy and thickets of thorns so dense that you couldn’t see even the barest hint of brick beneath. It looked evil in the way that cursed tombs felt evil—eternal, and still, and oppressive. Like a creature in its own right rather than just an agglomeration of black stone.

Ace drew his sword and Deuce readied his axe. You sighed and plucked at the strings of your stupid fucking lute, and wished once more that you’d had the foresight all those moons ago to take the cushy internship position Lord Crewel had tried to offer you. But, no. You’d wanted to be an adventurer.

The massive double doors of the entrance swung open with an eerie groan. A pair of stern looking gargoyles stood guard as the three of you cautiously made your way into the castle. You swore you could feel their eyes following you—that you’d seen them flex jagged claws into their stone perches in an aborted attempt to dive after you.

The inside of the looming fortress was no more welcoming than out. Dark, emerald, stained glass windows lined the walls—smothering any of the warmer light from the volcano and tinting the entire hall a sickly green-grey. The stone floors and walls were elaborately carved with the faded stories of dynasties long since passed, but what had once surely been immaculate craftsmanship had shifted and cracked with age—crushing floors into tight slopes and littering already narrow walkways with heavy debris.

“We just have to find the tallest tower,” Ace hummed, swiping at a few dangling trails of thorns with the blunted edge of his blade. “And then the highest room in that.”

“The treasure is never in the highest room in the tallest tower,” you complained. “You just heard that in a drinking song once.”

“Is that true?” Deuce frowned, looking terribly betrayed.

“No way!” Ace snipped. “I told you! An old crone read my fortune in her bone dice, and she said to always check the highest room in the tallest tower! Because that’s where I’d find my greatest treasure!”

“Maybe the greatest treasure is the friends we’ve made along the way?” Deuce suggested helpfully.

“No.”

So you split off from a grouchy Ace and dejected Deuce to try and find some stairs. Every room in this stupid castle was swimming in so many shadows that you could hardly tell right from left, let alone if there were any kinds of secret doors or passageways that may lead to an equally secret tower. The chamber you’d found yourself in now was gigantic, and each tentative step you took echoed discordantly through the ashy gloom. You kicked miserably at a loose rock and it skittered off into the darkness with a dull thunk. And then something… odd, began to happen. That darkness began to move—to rise and unfurl like a great set of wings on a beast. And—oh. Oh no.

“Would you look at that,” Ace whistled under his breath, neck craned all the way back as he squinted at what was most definitely the tallest of all the towers this creepy castle had to offer. “Guess what, nonbelievers. I found the—”

“DRAGON!”

Whoosh went the great swathe of emerald fire as it exploded down the barren hallway and nipped at your heels. You dove out into the open courtyard just in time to avoid being roasted alive, and the gargantuan monster behind you let out a roar fit to shake the earth. A quick tuck-and-roll left you crouched behind a fallen pillar, and the dragon’s bright, green, glower turned on you and your garbage hiding spot with a rumbling snarl. Its rows of sharp, white, teeth closing just above your head—missing its mark by barely a hair’s width.

“Gotcha!” Deuce snarled, his armored fists dragging the dragon away by its tail. Or, well, tried to. Because the dragon was a hundred feet long at least, and your blue haired friend probably looked like nothing more than a pesky rat darting between its feet. It turned and snapped at him irritably, taking a great, big, step forward in a bid to get a firmer stance to attack. You threw yourself in the other direction to avoid being trampled.

“Go!” Ace called, charging in from the other side. “Quick!”

Because at the end of the day, they were still both your brave, tanky, warrior, friends. And you were just a very, very, squishy bard who really would not fare well against a particularly motivated goose, let alone a dragon. So you skidded through the rubble and onto your feet, and started to sprint back into the castle’s halls—hoping maybe you’d be able to find a bit more cover.

There was a great clatter, and both Ace and Deuce yelped. You looked back hurriedly to see the pair of them clutching onto the dragon’s tail for dear life as it whipped them back and forth through the ash and debris cluttering the ground. With one, final, great, sweep, the dragon pitched them into the air and sent them careening through the roof of that ‘tallest tower.’ You muttered a hasty incantation and the sparkling outlines of soft feathers danced along your fingers. You hoped you weren’t too far. You were probably too goddamn far. But you hummed frantically under your breath nonetheless and entreated your middling magic to give them a soft landing.

And then there was another wave of green hellfire raining down over your head and you turned and ran.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck—

Even if you’d been a champion sprinter, there was little good it would have done you against a beast whose stride was longer than you were tall. You made it back into some hall or other, and into another cavernous room, and then you were pinned into a corner—the dragon looming over you like a vengeful wraith come to take its due.

It was gigantic. Probably the biggest creature you’d ever seen. And it was sleek—all lithe muscle and glossy rows of black scales that glittered oddly in the dull, grey, light. Its wings spread wide behind it, spanning the entirety of the vast chamber. They looked like the sort of wings that could stir up a hurricane. The curling horns atop its head seemed sharp enough to gore a man or twenty, and the purple crests lining its skull were tapered down flat in a way that reminded you a bit deliriously of a pissy cat pinning its ears back before it swatted at you.

Its lips curled back over pointed canines as it snarled at you, and you were showered in a swathe of hot sparks.

“Oh, what large teeth you have,” you squeaked, and when the dragon dipped closer to bellow into your face, your reeled back with a splutter. “I—I mean white, sparkling, teeth!” you rattled, nearly incoherent. The dragon’s snout twitched away, almost like you’d startled it. “I mean, I’m sure you hear this all the time from your food, but—wow! Just! Very lovely! Definitely the prettiest smile I’ll ever be eaten by!”

Slowly it lowered its great head, and you could see the neon glare from its narrowed eyes.

“Not that you have to eat me,” you added hurriedly, hoping to whatever Gods could hear you that your smart mouth could finally be useful for more than just talking circles around assholes in bars or weaseling your friends out of shitty contracts. “I’d very much like not to be eaten. But all the same, we did intrude in your home—and it’s definitely a very nice home—so I’d totally get it. And I guess if I did have to die today, knowing that my life would be in the hands of something so magnificent is certainly reassuring.”

The dragon seemed to preen a bit at that. You could see the sharp crests beneath its horns soften as tension bled from the beast’s posture. It ducked in close again, and this time you felt a sharp pull of air rush past your cheeks as it sniffed you. Its nostrils were the size your head—bigger even, maybe. You didn’t want to think about it, but the dry heat of its breath puffing into your face made the entire thing a bit hard to ignore.  

“Did I mention what a charming home you have?” you rambled on. “Very aesthetic. The gargoyles at the gate were a lovely touch.”

The dragon made a low, warbling, noise in its throat that wasn’t quite a growl, but wasn’t particularly… reassuring, either. It made the hair on the back of your neck stand on end.

It ducked away—not far, just enough to reach one of the large, carved, walls at the outskirts of the room. Its long neck slithered out before pausing pointedly over an archway. It took you a long moment to realize it was gesturing to something. Another gargoyle from the looks of things—this one almost entirely crumbled away under the strains of time. You could just barely make out the shape of its square jaw and taloned fingers.

You nodded so hard you nearly gave yourself whiplash.

“Yes! I see! Very beautiful! Such fine craftsmanship!”

The dragon cooed at you. Swear on your life and all the money in your back packet. An actual, honest to God, coo. Fuck, maybe you’d managed to charm your way out of imminent dismemberment and death after all.

It ambled closer once again, a curiosity lighting its eyes and warming those neon irises into something that was less poisonous-hell-fire and more mellow-evening-in-the-forest.

Amidst all the rippling waves of ebony scales, your eyes caught on the smallest smear of crimson. Just a touch of red—right along the spikes of its tail. Carefully, cautiously, slower than molasses, you stepped forward with your hands raised. You whispered a handful of familiar words under your breath and your palms glowed fuzzy and blue. Dragons were supposed to be inherently magical, right? So this one would certainly understand that the string of syllables you’d babbled out were good, and helpful, and not at all a provocation. The dragon was looking down at you with lidded eyes, its gaze a bit unfocused. You gulped.

“I’m sorry my friends messed with your tail,” you apologized, gingerly holding your fingers out to hover over the abrasions without actually touching. “They were just trying to protect me. If—if that makes it any better.” The minuscule wound began to knit itself back together neatly beneath the pulses of your magic. “I do tend to need a lot of protecting—I’m not much a warrior, if that wasn’t completely obvious by the everything about me—so I can’t really blame them for being a bit gung-ho about it.”

After a moment or two, the scratches had faded back into solid, matte, black and you drew back with a content hum.

“There! All fixed!” You gave your most winning smile. Please don’t eat me, your brain chanted on endless repeat. Please don’t eat me please don’t eat me please don’t eat me—

The dragon reared back and settled on its haunches with another heavy puff of sweltering breath. You could feel the heat of it prickling all the way up your arms. After a long, long, moment of silent consideration, the dragon leaned forward again and rumbled deep in its chest. When you only stood there, properly petrified, it huffed again and bumped its nose against your sternum, nearly toppling you over.

“I don’t—” you started, nervous. “I’m sorry. I don’t really get what you’re trying to say.”

With another sigh that sounded entirely too put upon, the dragon lowered its great head. The air itself seemed to grow heavy against your shoulders, and you could taste the cloying bitterness of strong magics on the back of your tongue. Black miasma oozed from beneath the dragon’s talons and melted along its scales. The caustic scent of ash and petrichor burned along your nostrils, and you had to pinch your eyes shut and cover your nose to keep from coughing. You managed to sneak a peek past your fingers just in time to watch the shadowed outline of the beast collapse. And out of that puddle of black goo emerged a man­. He was tall and lithe, just as the dragon had been, with glowing green eyes that were terribly familiar. They were framed with thick, dark, lashes and sat perfectly on a face that was nearly too handsome to be human (well, it really wasn’t human you supposed, so that little tidbit probably accounted for said inhuman beauty well enough). Recognizable eyes and stature or no, the curling horns atop his head would have sealed the deal plenty well enough on their own.

He shook off the shadows twining around his ankles with a lazy twist of the hand and then turned to you with a curious little hum.

And holy fuck Mister Dragon apparently had no sense of shame, or maybe just no qualms about social niceties and practicalities, because his human self was wearing about just as many clothes as his lizard form had been.

You squeezed your eyes shut with a squeak, and then double covered them with your hands for good measure.

A chuckle rolled through the air—as dark and pleasantly rich as the finest of chocolates. And then there was a clawed finger beneath your chin, tilting your head back, and back, and back until you were at least half-way sure it would probably be safe to open your eyes again without infringing on his decency.

“You are fascinating, Child of Man,” it—he—hummed, low in his throat. His thumb dragged down to hook beneath the curve of your jaw and support the finger tucked up under your chin. “And it’s been so, very, long since I’ve been fascinated by anything.”

“Uh,” you replied, like a perfectly functional human being.

The dragon’s lips curled up over his pointed teeth—still just as sharp and white as they had been when he’d been so much bigger and scalier.

“I think I’d like to keep you,” he said with a nod to himself, as casually as one may talk about picking up extra groceries from the market.

“Uh,” you said again.

“You did mention that you needed protecting,” he continued, tapping a clawed finger against his own chin. The small smile quirking his lips twisted into something smug. “And that is certainly something at which I would excel.”

Your head was swimming.

“I—I mean. I’m honored that you—that… you—” You couldn’t even think the words, let alone get them past your brain and out of your mouth. You cleared your throat and fought to keep your eyes level with his clavicle and nowhere else. “D-Don’t you think you’re moving a bit fast?” you laughed nervously. “I mean, I’m sure my friends will probably be on their way back down soon—and—I mean, we haven’t even introduced ourselves yet. I don’t even know your name.”

He blinked, slow and serpentine.

“Oh. I suppose you wouldn’t.” He canted his head to the side, long strands of that inky black hair of his spilling across his shoulder. An amused sort of grin worked its way along his mouth. “Dragons are not keen to give out our true names so readily, but you seem like a clever one. Tell me—what do you think I’m called then, hmm?”

You glanced up quickly at the horns atop his head and couldn’t help yourself.

“Tsunotarou?”

He let out a bark of laughter that seemed to shake the walls.

“Oh,” he trilled, looking positively delighted. The hand not curled beneath your chin reached down to snag your own, and he brought your wrist up to his lips. You could feel the imprints of his canines against the soft skin there. “I’ll definitely be keeping you.”

[allur1ngs]

imagine team bebe walking into bada being scolded by reader and how bada turns into a puppy whenever reader takes charge 😭

bada when reader is mad at her: 🥺🐶 she's so, "my wife is mad at me i hope i die" coded

"bada lee." you say firmly, arms crossed over your chest.

sitting in her office chair, bada freezes, her eyes growing wide and her mouth closing as she mentally curses herself. she knows that tone. that stern way you say her full name, indicating she's done something wrong.

mentally, she runs through everything she's done today, wondering what she did to offend you so much

"did i wake up without giving her a good morning and i love you kiss?" bada thinks. but no, she explicitly remembers that although she'd woken up earlier than you, she'd stayed in bed for hours until you woke up so she could place a kiss on your cheek and say, "i love you" before she went to her office to work.

she touches the side of her face, checking to see if she wore her glasses--her fingers meet the cold, sleek black frames--because if she didn't that would be another mistake. but she's wearing her glasses--

"fuck what day is it?" bada thinks, scrambling to check the calendar she has propped up on her desk to make sure today isn't your anniversary or another important date--

but it isn't.

and she'd taken a break about an hour ago, meaning you weren't mad at her for that...so what could it be?

"yes, baby?" bada says, trying to give you a smile but her lips slightly twitch with anxiety.

"do you know what time it is?" you ask, tapping your foot against the marble floor.

bada rolls up her suit jacket, checking her cartier watch for the time. "five in the afternoon?" she gulps.

"and tell me, how many times have you eaten?" you quirk up an eyebrow accusingly.

oh...

bada closes her eyes and takes in a sharp breath. so that's what it was. she hadn't eaten breakfast, much too wrapped up in her work to eat, and too excited to speak to you during her break to ask for breakfast.

"i haven't eaten..." bada says quietly, opening her eyes to glance at you and see your disapproving expression.

while you and bada speak, the bebe girls are turning around the corner, talking about their latest mission passionately.

"and when i shot him--" lusher's sentence gets cut off.

"that's what i thought." your stern tone grabs the girl's attention, making them huddle around the half-opened door to bada's office instantly--their nosey nature shining through.

"honey, i'm sorry--" bada tries to apologize, looking like a kicked puppy.

behind the door, the girls snicker with each other, large smiles on their lips.

"did you hear that?" tatter whispers, nudging lusher.

lusher nods, trying to hold back her laughter. "honey, i'm sorry~" she mimics your wife's ashamed tone. "bada is so whipped--"

"and unnie is very scary when she's mad." minah points out, staring at your confident and strong posture.

back in the office, you hold your hand up to stop bada from speaking any further. "don't apologize to me."

"sorry--" bada says instinctively before stopping herself.

"no more work." you state. "you're done for today, and i want you to eat. now."

bada looks down at the pile of paperwork on her desk, then back at your expectant expression. "okay." she stands up without another second of hesitation, and instantly makes her way to your side like a magnet. she wraps her arms around your waist and buries her head into the crook of your neck, hoping to soothe your anger. "i really am sorry." she mumbles into your skin. "i didn't notice how late it was."

you sigh, your firm composure breaking at your wife's sincere apology. "it's okay, you just worry me sometimes."

"sorry baby." bada places sweet kisses to the column of your neck. "since i'm not going to be working for the rest of the day...can we cuddle?" she asks, tone hopeful.

"we can cuddle all you want after you eat." you promise.

from outside the office, the girls give each other faux disgusted looks.

"when did bada become such a softie?" cheche murmurs.

"the minute she met unnie it was game over." lusher snickers. "we should be glad, unnie is the only one that can speak to bada like that without receiving a death glare and being threatened."

"the miracles of love." soweon sighs wistfully.

"more like the miracles of unnie." tatter jokes.

[villain-enthusiast]

heyy i don’t have something specific in mind but can you please right something about a morally grey villain and a civilian. make it romantic and flirty and stuffff

Civilian was going to die.

The explosion from the bomb had obliterated half the bank within fractions of a second. The blast was far enough from their office that they weren't directly affected, but evacuating the actively crumbling building could easily kill them.

Rubble rained down as they desperately ran down the dusty hallway to the stairwell. Why did they have to be three stories up? Would they even get all the way down before the place collapsed?

Boom!

Civilian barely had time to react before they were thrown off their feet from the force of the blast that had detonated from the room beside them. Their back smacked into the opposite wall, pain and shock rippling through them as they hit the ground, rendering them helpless.

They couldn't move. This was it. They were going to—

"Oh, sweetheart."

Civilian jerked their head up to see someone standing over them, not a single speck of dust visible on their impeccable black clothes. Not the uniform of a co-worker or a rescue team member, Civilian realized with dismay.

The person crouched down in front of them, head tilted. "I could've sworn I got everyone out in time. I guess you're just a little elusive, huh?" They smirked and ruffled Civilian's hair, wildly playful considering the life-or-death situation they were in right now.

Wait.

The realization struck them like a brick to the head. “You set the bomb off,” they wheezed. “You’re Villain.”

Villain gave them a mock salute. “Nice to meet you too."

The floor wobbled dangerously and Civilian squeaked in fear, trying and failing to prop themselves up. "Please...please don't kill me," they blurted.

"Wow, who do you think I am?" Villain placed a hand on their chest in mock disbelief. "Eh, besides, you're too cute to murder. Or leave for dead,” Villain added as the building groaned, swaying on its foundations.

Civilian flushed, not sure if they should be flattered or absolutely terrified that their whole fucking workplace was about to collapse and that this bastard was trying to flirt with them—

Villain scooped Civilian up without warning, hoisting them into a bridal carry. They yelped in surprise as a block of cement crashed down onto the exact spot where they were laying just seconds ago.

“See?” Villain grinned at Civilian, bearing in close. “Too cute to leave behind.” Their face was near enough for Civilian’s eyes to flick down to their lips. Their grin widened in acknowledgment.

Villain turned abruptly and ran down the hallway towards the stairs, throwing the door open. Three flights down stared back, seeming infinitely long, too long.

But Villain was still smiling like they were gonna make it out of the bank on time. They looked down at Civilian, who had unconsciously fisted their hands into the lapels of Villain’s jacket.

“Yeah, just like that,” Villain said, winking at Civilian.

Civilian blinked, their mind flailing for footing. Just like what—

“Hold tight!” Villain whooped, and instead of booking it down the steps, they jumped onto the railing and slid down, handless.

Holy fucking shit. Civilian squeezed their eyes shut and held on so tight onto Villain’s jacket, stomach lurching. If the bombs didn’t take them out, then this would definitely—

They felt the Villain jump onto solid ground before they could even finish their thought. Oh.

“Aren’t you a scaredy-cat,” Villain teased, that shit-eating, infuriatingly charming grin back on their face. “Ever been on a roller coaster before?”

“No, I’ve never had fun in my life before, actually,” Civilian snapped back sarcastically.

“Hm,” Villain made their way out of the stairwell, casually walking towards the entrance as if the bank wasn’t crumbling around them. “Well, they’ve been saying amusement park dates are all the rage. Maybe this is my sign to take you out.”

Civilian fumbled for a response. Why was this criminal so good at rendering them speechless?

“You’re not saying no…” Villain murmured, exiting the building seconds before it promptly collapsed, throwing onlookers into chaos and allowing them to blend in with the crowd. The timing was almost comedic.

They slipped into an empty alley, Civilian still in their arms.

“I’m not putting you down until you say yes,” Villain urged, eyes glinting with playful mischief.

Civilian, despite themselves, rolled their eyes. “Aren’t you supposed to be a bad guy? What happened to ‘Now I take you back to my spooky dark lair and lock you up and torture you until Hero comes and I fight them to the death’?”

Villain smiled, but it was warmer, more genuine this time. “I guess I prefer it when people look at my lips and clearly want to kiss me instead of looking at me like I’m a monster.”

Civilian paused, dissecting the layers of that statement before—damn them—glancing again at Villain’s perfectly kissable mouth.

Villain ran their tongue over their bottom lip, clearly toying with Civilian, but fuck, it was working.

It was the nearing wail of police sirens that shook them out of their trance. They groaned, stupefied at how they almost fell for the person who just blew up their workplace. “Please put me down.”

“And here I thought I almost had you.” Villain sighed and set Civilian down on the ground. “Unfortunately, the authorities tend to annoy me a bit, so this is where I take my leave. It was nice meeting you, sweetheart.” They bowed to Civilian and began to make their way down the alleyway.

Fuck, the way the nickname made Civilian’s stomach flutter. Fuck fuck fuck— “Disneyland, this Friday, 10 AM,” they blurted.

Villain stopped in their tracks, and although they didn’t turn around. Civilian could feel that stupid little smirk on their face.

“See you then.” Then they disappeared around the corner.

As it turns out, roller coasters really weren’t so bad when you have someone doing it with you.

[mattsobvimyfav]

roommates (matthew sturniolo)

pt 26 -

a/n - im so sorry for whats about to happen.

Back at school, everything had that familiar mix of chaos and routine. After settling in, Charlie, Chris, Matt, and I decided to hang out in Charlie’s dorm to unwind after the first week back. Charlie’s room was small but cozy, with twinkly fairy lights draped across the walls and throw pillows scattered over the bed and futon.

Chris was sprawled on the futon, scrolling through his phone. “Your dorm is better than mine,” he said, squinting at the lights. “I can’t believe you actually put effort into it”

Charlie rolled her eyes from where she sat cross-legged on the bed. “That’s because I’m a teenage girl and you’re a straight man. We are not the same.”

Matt sat on the floor with his back propped against the bed, his legs stretched out in front of him. I was next to him, leaning against the bed frame. “You’re both insane,” he said, tossing a small pillow in Chris’s direction. “A dorm is a dorm. Who cares?”

“You say that because you’re boring,” Chris shot back, dodging the pillow and smirking.

“Boring?” Matt raised an eyebrow, leaning forward like he was about to argue.

“Boys, stop,” I cut in, laughing. “We get it. Interior design is a heated topic. I cant imagine how it would be if you guys ever got a house together.”

Chris glances over at Matt momentarily, quick enough that I almost missed it. But then Charlie laughed and nudged me with her foot, distracting me. “Right? Now, does anyone want snacks? I have popcorn and some chocolate.”

“I’ll take chocolate,” I said quickly, and Chris immediately followed with, “Me too, but only if it’s milk chocolate.”

“You’re such a kid,” Charlie teased, getting up to grab the stash from her desk. She tossed a chocolate bar at Chris, who almost missed it.

As everyone started snacking, the conversation turned to plans for the semester. Chris was trying to convince Charlie to come to one of their hockey practices, and she kept pretending to weigh the pros and cons.

“Just come,” Chris said, leaning forward. “We’ll even let you and Y/N sit on the bench.”

“Do I look like a coach to you?” Charlie quipped.

“More like a really bad mascot,” Matt muttered, smirking as Charlie threw a pillow at him.

The room filled with laughter, and it hit me how much I’d missed this—us all being together, no stress, no big plans, just hanging out and enjoying each other’s company. 

Matt and I were curled up in bed, mindlessly watching some show we’d both seen a million times before. His arm was draped around me, his fingers lazily tracing patterns on my shoulder. It was quiet, comfortable—the kind of moment I lived for.

Then, suddenly, the door burst open. Charlie stood there, tears streaming down her face, her chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath.

“Charlie?” I bolted upright, sliding out from under Matt’s arm. “What’s wrong?”

She didn’t answer immediately, her eyes wild and red. “Did you know?” she screamed, her voice cracking.

I blinked, panic rising in my chest. “Did I know what?”

Before she could answer, Chris came rushing in behind her, his face a mix of frustration and guilt. “Charlie, stop. Let’s go. We can talk about this later,” he said, reaching out to grab her hand.

“No!” she yelled, jerking away from him. “She deserves to know! Did you know, Y/N?”

“Charlie, what the fuck are you talking about?” My voice was sharp, but I couldn’t help it. My mind was racing, trying to piece together what could possibly have her so upset.

“Get the fuck out,” Matt barked from the bed, sitting up straight now. His jaw was tight, and his eyes were blazing as he glared at Chris and Charlie.

“Matt, stop!” I snapped, turning back to Charlie. “Charlie, tell me what the fuck is going on!”

For a moment, the room was frozen in chaos. Charlie’s sobs filled the silence as Chris stood there, his hand half-reaching for her, while Matt looked ready to jump out of bed and physically remove them both.

“Y/N,” Charlie choked out, her voice barely above a whisper. “I—”

“Charlie, don’t,” Chris interrupted, his tone desperate now.

“I deserve to know!” I yelled again, my voice breaking this time. “Someone tell me what the fuck is going on right now!”

Charlie’s sobs filled the room as I stared at her, trying to make sense of her words. She wiped her face with shaky hands, her breath catching. Then, with a voice full of anger and heartbreak, she screamed:

“They’re moving to LA next week! They’ve been planning this since they hit a million. When they went to LA, that was to buy their house! Not meet with their stupid fucking manager! They lied to us!”

My heart stopped. The words hung in the air like a slap to the face. I froze, not even noticing that my breathing had quickened.

“CHARLIE!” Chris’s voice erupted, louder and angrier than I’d ever heard before. His face was red, his hands clenched into fists. “Stop it! Just fucking stop!”

But I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Matt. He wasn’t saying anything—just staring at me. His face was unreadable, a mask of guilt and frustration.

I turned to Chris, who looked just as guilty, his shoulders slumping as he avoided my gaze. Then, back to Matt.

Matt opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but no words came out. He just stared at me, his jaw clenching as he swallowed hard.

I didn’t yell. I didn’t cry. I just sat there, silent, the weight of Charlie’s words pressing down on my chest. The room felt suffocating, and the two people I trusted most had nothing to say.

I didn’t say a word. My chest felt tight, and my hands shook as I stood up. Without even looking back, I grabbed Charlie’s arm and my keys off the desk. She followed me, still sobbing, and together we bolted for the door.

“Y/N!” Matt’s voice rang out, desperate and panicked as I heard him jump off the bed and chase after us.

I didn’t stop. I didn’t even look over my shoulder. I couldn’t.

“Y/N, wait!” Matt yelled again, his footsteps growing closer.

But then, another voice cut through the chaos.

“Matt, stop!” Chris shouted, grabbing his brother by the arm just as we hit the end of the hall.

“What the hell are you doing, Chris? Let me go!” Matt barked, his voice frantic.

“No. You need to give her a second,” Chris said firmly, his tone unusually calm. “Just give her some space.”

I didn’t turn back to see if Matt listened. I couldn’t. All I could hear was Charlie’s sniffles as we ran out of the building into the freezing night air, my mind spinning so fast I thought I might collapse.

I drove in silence, gripping the steering wheel so tightly my knuckles turned white. Charlie sat beside me, her sobs the only sound in the car. The headlights cut through the darkness as I drove aimlessly for twenty minutes until we reached an empty parking lot. The coldness of the night seeped through the car windows as I put the car in park and stared ahead, the weight of the situation suffocating.

Finally, I broke the silence. “What did Chris say to you?” My voice was barely above a whisper, trembling with restrained emotion.

Charlie sniffled, wiping her face with her sleeve as she tried to calm herself enough to speak. Her voice cracked as she started. “He—he was ending it with me,” she choked out, her tone filled with anger and hurt. “He said they’re leaving next Thursday… to pursue their YouTube career full-time. They already bought a house when they went to LA.”

My heart sank as she continued, her words spilling out in a wave of pain.

“They’ve been planning this for weeks, Y/N. Weeks. And they didn’t say a goddamn thing. Chris told me they’re starting to pack on Monday and that they’re withdrawing from school before they leave. He… he just stood there and told me like it was nothing, like we were nothing!” Her voice broke, and she buried her face in her hands, sobbing uncontrollably.

I sat there in silence, the weight of her words pressing down on me like a crushing force. My mind raced, but I couldn’t find the words to respond. What was I supposed to say?

My phone buzzed incessantly on the console, Matt and Chris’ name lighting up the screen over and over again. I reached over and silenced it, my chest tightening with every missed call.

Charlie glanced at me through her tear-streaked face. “Did you know? Did you know about any of this?”

I shook my head slowly, my voice barely audible. “No… I didn’t know.”

The tears I had been holding back finally spilled over, and I wiped at my face furiously. The silence between us grew heavier, broken only by our quiet sobs as we sat in the car, two broken hearts lost in the cold, empty night.

After what felt like an eternity of sitting in that dark parking lot, the silence between me and Charlie was deafening, only broken by the occasional sniffle. My phone buzzed again, Matt’s name lighting up the screen like it had been doing nonstop for the past hour. I stared at it, my finger hovering over the screen, hesitating.

Finally, I let out a shaky breath and answered.

“Y/N,” Matt’s voice came through immediately, tense and urgent. “Come back. We need to talk.”

I swallowed hard, my voice quiet but steady. “Okay.” Without waiting for anything else, I ended the call.

I turned to Charlie, her face still red and tear-streaked, but her expression now tinged with exhaustion. “We should go back,” I said softly.

She nodded wordlessly, wiping her eyes and taking a deep breath. I started the car, the engine humming to life as we pulled out of the parking lot and headed back to the school. The drive was quiet again, both of us too drained to speak.

The weight of what waited for us hung heavy in the air.

When we pulled back into the school parking lot, I turned off the car and looked over at Charlie. Her face was pale, her jaw clenched.

“Before we go in,” I said, my voice low but firm, “grab a bag. Pack it. We’re going to my house for the next week… until they’re gone.”

Charlie blinked at me, her lips trembling before she gave a small nod. “Okay,” she whispered, her voice cracking.

We walked inside together, but when we reached the hallway, we split off—Charlie heading to her dorm and me walking straight to mine and Matt’s room. My stomach twisted with every step, dread building in my chest.

When I walked into the room, Matt’s head shot up from where he was sitting on the edge of the bed. His eyes were bloodshot, and he looked wrecked—like he hadn’t slept in days.

“Y/N,” he said, standing up immediately, his voice desperate. “Please, let me explain.”

I didn’t say a word, walking straight to the closet and grabbing my duffel bag. I tossed it onto the bed and started pulling my clothes out of the drawers, my movements quick and precise.

“Y/N, stop!” he exclaimed, stepping toward me. “Can you just give me five minutes? Please?”

I ignored him, grabbing my toiletries from the bathroom and shoving them into the bag.

“Y/N, don’t do this,” he pleaded, his voice breaking. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t know how. I was trying to figure out the right time—”

I whipped around to face him, my chest heaving. “The right time? You were going to leave in a week, Matt. A week. When were you planning to tell me? The night before you got on the plane? Or were you just going to ghost me when you got to LA?”

He flinched like I’d slapped him. “I wasn’t going to ghost you. I swear. I—I just didn’t want to hurt you.”

“Well, you failed,” I snapped, my voice trembling with anger. “You didn’t want to hurt me, but you let me sit here for weeks, clueless, while you planned your whole future without me.”

“I wasn’t planning it without you!” he shouted, his own frustration boiling over. “I was trying to figure out how to make it work—how to make us work.”

“Bullshit, Matt!” I yelled back, dropping the bag onto the floor. “If you wanted to make it work, you would’ve talked to me. You would’ve let me in on what was happening. But instead, you made the decision for me.”

He ran his hands through his hair, pacing the room like a caged animal. “I thought I was doing the right thing, okay? I thought—I thought maybe it would be easier for you if we just ended it.”

“Easier for me?” I repeated, my voice filled with disbelief. “You think this is easy for me? Watching the person I thought I knew plan a whole new life without me? You didn’t even give me a choice, Matt. You decided I wasn’t worth it.”

“That’s not true!” he shouted, stopping in his tracks to look at me. “You are worth it. You’re worth everything. That’s why I didn’t want to drag you into this. I didn’t want to hold you back.”

“Hold me back?” I said, my voice cracking. “You’re not holding me back. You’re leaving me behind.”

Silence hung between us, thick and suffocating. I picked up my bag, slinging it over my shoulder.

“I hope LA is everything you want it to be, Matt,” I said quietly, my voice filled with pain. “But don’t pretend this was for me. This was your choice, and now I’m making mine.”

“Y/N, please,” he said, his voice desperate as he stepped in front of the door, blocking my exit. “Don’t go. Don’t leave like this.”

I shook my head, tears streaming down my face. “You already left, Matt. I’m just catching up.”

He reached out like he wanted to touch me, but I took a step back, glaring at him through my tears. “Move,” I said firmly.

For a moment, he looked like he might argue, but then his shoulders slumped, and he stepped aside.

As I walked out of the room, I heard him whisper, “I’m sorry.”

I didn’t look back.

I stormed down the hall, my bag still slung over my shoulder, my blood boiling. I didn’t bother knocking when I got to Chris’s door—I just shoved it open. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, scrolling through his phone, but when he saw me, his eyes widened.

“Y/N?” he started, standing up.

I didn’t give him a chance to say anything else. “How could you?” I shouted, slamming the door behind me. “How could you do this to Charlie? To me?”

Chris blinked, caught off guard. “Y/N, I—”

“No,” I cut him off, my voice trembling with anger. “You don’t get to explain. Do you even understand what you’ve done? You lied to me. You broke her heart. And for what? To chase some dream in LA? Was it worth it, Chris? Was it worth hurting everyone who actually gave a fuck about you?”

“Y/N, calm down,” he said, holding up his hands like he was trying to defuse a bomb.

“Don’t you dare tell me to calm down,” I snapped, stepping closer to him. “You knew what this would do to her. To us. And you still did it. You didn’t even have the decency to tell me yourself. You let Charlie find out and blow up her entire world because you’re too much of a coward to be honest.”

Chris’s jaw tightened, and he looked away. “I didn’t want to hurt you,” he muttered.

“Spare me the excuses,” I spat. “You didn’t want to hurt us? Well, guess what? You did. You and Matt both. You’ve been lying to our faces for God knows how long. Pretending everything was fine when you knew you were leaving. And then you just decide to break her heart and expect what? That we’d all just be okay with it?”

“Y/N, it’s not that simple,” he said, his voice rising. “We didn’t want to hurt you guys, but this is our chance. Do you get that? This is everything we’ve worked for.”

“And what about Charlie?” I demanded. “What about me? Do we not matter? Were we just placeholders for when something better came along?”

Chris’s face twisted with guilt. “It’s not like that,” he said quietly.

“Then what is it like, Chris?” I shouted. “Explain it to me, because all I see are two selfish assholes who didn’t care enough about the people who loved them to be honest.”

He looked at me, his eyes filled with frustration and pain. “I care, Y/N. We care. But we can’t stay here forever. This is bigger than us. Bigger than you or Charlie.”

I shook my head, laughing bitterly. “You don’t get it, do you? It’s not about you leaving. It’s about how you did it. The lies. The secrets. The way you’ve treated the people who have been there for you every step of the way. You burned every bridge on your way out, Chris. And for what?”

Chris didn’t have an answer. He just stood there, his shoulders slumped, looking like he didn’t know what to say.

I turned toward the door, my chest heaving with emotion. “I hope LA is worth it,” I said coldly. “Because you’ve destroyed everything else.”

As I walked out, I heard him call my name, but I didn’t stop. I didn’t look back. I was done.

Charlie and I sat silently in the car for most of the two-hour drive home. The weight of everything that had just happened hung heavy between us, but neither of us had the energy to unpack it yet. Every now and then, I’d glance over at her. She was staring out the window, tears still streaming silently down her face. I wanted to say something—anything—but I knew she just needed space right now.

When we finally pulled into my driveway, I felt a small wave of relief. At least we wouldn’t have to deal with anyone else for a while. My dad was on a business trip, so the house was completely empty. No questions, no interruptions, just us.

We carried our bags upstairs to my room without a word. Once inside, I dropped my stuff near the closet and turned to Charlie. She sat down on the edge of my bed, her hands gripping the edge of the mattress like it was the only thing holding her together.

“Do you want water or anything?” I asked softly, breaking the silence.

She shook her head. “No, I’m fine.” Her voice was hoarse, barely audible.

I nodded and sat down beside her. For a few minutes, we just sat there in silence, the only sound was the faint hum of the heater.

Then, I reached for my phone, my hands trembling slightly as I opened Nick’s contact. My thumb hovered over the keyboard for a moment before I typed out two words.

“Fuck you.”

I stared at the message for a second before pressing send. There was no hesitation, no regret. I didn’t care if he responded or not. I just needed to let it out.

I showed the text to Charlie, and she let out a bitter laugh. “Good,” she muttered.

“Block them,” I said firmly, locking eyes with her.

She didn’t argue. She pulled out her phone, and together, we scrolled through our contacts, blocking Matt, Chris, and Nick. It felt final, like shutting a door we’d never open again.

When we were done, I tossed my phone onto the nightstand and leaned back against the headboard. “They don’t deserve us,” I said, my voice hard.

Charlie nodded, tears welling in her eyes again. “No, they don’t.”

We both knew it would take time to heal, but for now, all we had was each other—and that was enough.

The week passed in a blur of emptiness. Charlie and I leaned on each other, both trying to ignore the ache in our chests. But as the days ticked by, the reality of what had happened settled in. Now, it was time to go back to school, and the thought of returning to that room without Matt made me feel like I couldn’t breathe.

The drive was quiet, the car filled only with the sound of the playlist Charlie had put on. When we pulled into the school parking lot, I forced myself to grab my bag, plastering on a brave face for Charlie’s sake.

“Text me if you need anything,” she said, hugging me tightly before heading toward her own dorm.

I nodded, swallowing the lump in my throat. “You too.”

As I walked into my dorm room, the silence was deafening. Everything felt wrong. His side of the room was stripped bare—no posters, no clothes, nothing. It was like he had never been there. My chest tightened as I stepped further inside, scanning the space. That’s when I saw it.

A folded piece of paper lay on Matt’s bed, my name written on the front in his handwriting. My hands shook as I reached for it, and for a moment, I couldn’t bring myself to open it. But I had to know.

I unfolded the note, and his words stared back at me, hitting me like a tidal wave:

Y/N,

I don’t even know where to start. How do I put everything I feel into words when none of this feels real?

Leaving you is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. You are my home, my comfort, my safe place. But I’m not good for you—not the way I wish I could be. You deserve someone who can give you their whole heart, their whole life, and I can’t do that while I’m chasing this dream.

I know you’re angry. I know you’re hurt. And I hate myself for being the one who caused it. But please believe me when I say I never wanted to hurt you. I thought maybe I could figure out a way for us to make it work, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized how selfish that would be. You deserve someone who is all in, not someone who’s split between you and everything else.

I hope you know how much you mean to me. You’re not just the girl I love—you’re my best friend, my anchor. I don’t know how I’m going to do this without you, but I know you’ll be okay. You’re strong, stronger than I’ve ever been, and you’ll keep moving forward even when it feels impossible.

Please don’t think I didn’t love you enough. I loved you too much to stay and hold you back.

You're my best friend, I’ll love you forever.

-Matt

Tears blurred my vision, and I clutched the letter to my chest as I sank onto my bed. It felt like my heart was breaking all over again.

I wanted to scream, to rip the note apart, to yell at him for leaving me like this. But at the same time, I understood. It didn’t make it hurt any less, but I understood.

“You're my best friend, I’ll love you forever.”

The words echoed in my head, over and over, as I curled up on my bed, clutching the letter like it was the only piece of him I had left. And in reality, it was.

Tag -

@namelesssav @christmastreecake @mattsturnii @sturnrc @larnieboox88 @izzylovesmatt @tbfaptbfae @2muchofaslvt @sturnioloshottiekay @rockstarchr1s @simply-a-simper @realuvrrr @sophia-77n @christophersstar @mattscore @whoisthisdiva1

editor- @ch0llies

[1-helluva-hazbin]

Never Willingly

Lucifer x Reader

Content warning: fluff, trauma, trust building, slow burn, fast proofread (please excuse the errors) Summary: Lucifer's comes to you for comfort after having a recurrent nightmare.

Word Count: 1515

A knock at your door quietly echoed across your room. Your heavy eyes, burning as your head lulled toward the door. “Come in.” you called softly, slowly forcing yourself to sit up. 

The door creaked open and even in the darkness you know who it is. Lucifer’s pale skin is almost luminescent even in the almost total darkness of your quarters. “I didn’t wake you, right?” he whispered as the door clicked shut.

“You never do.” you let out a breathy laugh. As if your insomnia would really let you. He lingered near the door, his eyes still adjusting to the new level of darkness he had plunged himself into. “Another nightmare?”

He looked towards the direction of your voice and slowly started making his way over. “Yeah.” he mumbled, holding a hand out. The moment he was close enough you reach out, gently taking his hand in yours. He sighs softly, the tiniest amount of tension easing from his shoulders. He laughs pitifully at himself, “I’m sorry I pop in so often. I really should have gotten used to this by now.” He slides his foot forward finding the edge of the bed as you pull the covers back.

“I offered my company whenever you need it because nightmares aren’t something you can control. I can’t control my insomnia either so I’m up. It works out for both of us. Stop saying sorry.” you click your tongue as he climbs in next to you. This conversation almost a routine now. He nestled in as you dropped the covers over him. “How do you want to lay tonight?”

He hesitated a moment. “I… liked how we did it last time.” he mumbled. 

“Okay.” You shuffled, propping up a few pillows behind you so you’re laying at almost a 30 degree angle. The spare blanket you have at the end of your bed suddenly yanked up and pulled over your shoulders before you grab another pillow and place it on your stomach and spread your legs. “Ready.”

He had patiently waited as you prepared and quickly scuttled between your legs the moment you gave the okay. He scooted down and laid on his stomach, his face finding the pillow as his arms wrapped around your waist. As soon as it seemed like he had settled, you gently pressed your legs into his body. You fixed the sheets before your own hands found their positions. One hand lightly resting on one of his arms and the other stroking his hair. 

As you both laid there, you felt more of the tension ease from his body. “Did you want to talk about it?” you pry gently, curious but giving him an out.

“It’s… mostly the same stuff.” his arms around you tightened. “Lillith leaving. Charlie following after her. Me being left alone. Being hunted by angels and demons.”

Your fingers splayed out as you started to massage his scalp. He hummed, leaning up towards your hand. “This time you were hunting me too.” 

Your hand stopped a moment before you started the motion back up. “Oh Lucifer… is that what you think of me?” you asked, attempting a bit of dry humor already knowing he didn’t.

“No!” he gasped, pulling away to sit up. The panic evident in his voice. “No. I wouldn’t be here right now if I did.”

“Fuck. Sorry,” you whispered, attempting damage control, “I shouldn’t have done that. I was just trying to play a bit to lighten the mood. Not the right time for that.”

You reach out to cup his face, thumb lightly caressing his cheek. “Awful time for that.” he scoffed leaning into your hand. Slowly easing back into the pillow. Your hands finding his shoulders, lightly beginning to message them over his pjs.

“I’m sorry.” you say again, digging into his muscles a little harder. “If you still want to talk about it I do want to hear it. I won’t make anymore jokes.”

You could tell he was pouting even through the silence. You smiled into the darkness, letting your fingers work their magic. You close your heavy eyes. “If you want me to do something different with my hands by the way just let me know.”

“That’s…what she said?” he asked slowly, trying his hand at the aged joke he heard from who knows where, causing you to roll your closed eyes.

“Stick to dad jokes.” you laugh out at his attempt.

“Hey, it still got a laugh.”

You hum in response, shaking your head at the fact that he wasn’t wrong but it wasn’t a laugh for the right reason. Your hands continue working, moving out towards his biceps before slowly sliding down towards his shoulder blades. You feel his hands lightly slid up under your shirt, his thumbs caressing the skin of your sides.

“Can you… run your fingers through my hair? Like you were before…?” 

You do as he asked. Your hands slowly easing out of the message before both hands trailed up his back and into his hair. Lightly raking their way from the base of his skull upwards and slowly back down. Shifting them occasionally to ensure you were covering his entire scalp. You continued doing that for awhile. You could hear his breathing slow. His thumbs had stopped tracing their arched pathway coming to a stop resting against your skin.

“I didn’t realize it at first.” he muttered, slightly surprising you. You had started to think he had drifted off. “That you were one of the ones hunting me.”

You opened your eyes to look down at the silhouette of him, your hands unfaltering.

“You had a smile on your face. I was running towards you, knowing there were angels chasing me, thinking you would help me when you suddenly threw an angelic spear at me.” his fingers twitched. “It caught one of my wings. Then you…poof.” he pressed his fingertips against your sides and did a popping motion. You heard him swallow hard pausing. As he continued, he started choking out words. “Dis-disappeared. Just… just like Lilith. Just like-e… Charlie.”

He forced his hands between you and then bed, pulling you tightly into an embrace. Your fingers religiously continuing their mission. His breathing jagged. You continue to caress him attempting to ground him physically. 

He started pitifully laughing, his grip remaining tight. “Sorry…”

“Don’t.” you say quickly. Sternly. One hand moving to lightly caress his face with feather light fingertips as the other continued running through his hair. “You’ve been through a fuck ton of wild shit. I’m here to help support you through these dreams. To remind you I’m here…that Charlie’s here. You aren’t a burden for wanting or needing this and I don’t think of you as one. You don’t need to say sorry.”

Lucifer snuggling into the pillow, his grip on you unrelenting. “Thank you.”

“Anything for you.” you reply as a smile tugged at your lips.  You held back adding on a playful ‘my king’ to the end. You didn’t need to be the ass of another moment.

The hand that had been caressing his face moved back to his hair, sliding into the rhythm with ease. Your eyes slowly closing again, your focus going to the motion and sensation of his hair in your hands. As time lulled on, you half expected him to start talking again. Surprise you by being awake one more time. His breathing was slow and consistent. His body had started to twitch here and there as it relaxed into deeper unconsciousness. All you needed to confirm he had actually fallen asleep.

Your mind ran through how he described his dream. Thinking about how he had dreamed of you turning against him and disappearing. You wondered if he worried about you being redeemed -if it was even possible- and that was why you turned against him before disappearing. Slung an angelic spear at him. You had never directly talked with him about you being redeemed but, you had voiced your skepticism on if it was even possible which he had echoed.

What if it was actually possible?

Sure, you were at the hotel to be redeemed. You hadn’t ever believed it was possible but figured, what the hell. It couldn’t hurt to be better. What did you have to lose? In the process  though you had found a community unlike any other. A community that was supportive in their own sometimes twisted ways. All still trying to be a little better in the ways they could. Some inadvertently being better for someone else or even second hand from Charlie. You enjoyed being with them. Celebrating their successes and milestones. Motivating them to do better and challenging them when they could have been and chose not to. Having them challenge you in return.

Being redeemed would mean leaving it all behind though. The community. The purpose. The friends. Charlie and Lucifer.

“The grass isn’t always greener, Luc.” you whisper, knowing you were risking him being awake or waking him up. You were willing to gamble it though. “I’m not going anywhere willingly.”

[rafedaddy01]

Step Bro, What Are You Doing?

series masterlist

Summary: Rafe teaches his sister a lesson after she disobeys him.. pt1

Indeed it was the beginning of your relationship with Rafe.

Your parents finally came home and you could not have been more relieved to not be alone with Rafe, his wandering eyes were soaking up every ounce of your body and you would be lying if you said you didn’t enjoy it but what happened couldn’t happen again, ever!

Right after you let Rafe take your virginity you rushed to your room with tears streaming down your cheeks.

“Oh my god. Oh my god, oh my god!” You muttered as you paced in front of your bed.

A knock broke your thoughts and Rafes voice softly spoke.

You opened the door to his outstretched hand, “you forgot this”

There’s a devious glint to his eye and you snatch your phone before shutting the door, but his foot stops it.

“Rafe, please-“ you interrupted as his hand grips your throat and brings you forward to him.

“Your mine now, understand?” He cocks an eyebrow at you and watched you nod before claiming your mouth with a possessive kiss.

You don’t know what came over you but as you watched him leave you tried not to show how much that turned you on.

With panting breath you fell to the floor with your back against the door.

Your phone dinged and you looked down, quickly losing any feelings of lust you had.

“What the fuck?”

**

It’s been a week since your parents have been home but they are still so busy with work their never really around.

“You’ve been avoiding me” Rafes voice makes you jump slightly as you try to relax on a pool chair.

“Leave me alone Rafe, what we had was a mistake” you huff and try to shake him off as the sun hits your glistening skin.

His shadows hovers over you and you glare daggers at him as his jaw clenches. “I thought I told you your mine” he run his finger tips down the middle of your chest between your breasts until he reached the waistband of your bikini bottom.

You suck in a breath and try not to show how much he turns you on, this is wrong. “That was before you ruined my relationship” you snap and cause him to pull his hand away.

He scoots a chair up to yours and lays down, propping his head on his palm and watching you.

“It was already ruined babygirl. He didn’t appreciate what he had”

You scoff. “I’m your step sister Rafe” you remind him.

“So? Your still mine” he replies.

Before you can snap back at him the slide door opens and two guys walk in.

“Sup Cameron” a tall, muscular guy with blinding hair walks in. Next to him is a dark skinned guy, less muscular but still fit.

They stride over and rafe gives you a look before walking off towards the pool.

The blonde smiles at you and follows his friends.

You stand up and start walking inside since the relaxing day has been ruined.

“Hey! Wanna join us for a swim, topper, whose name you learned asks.

An idea pops into your head.

“Sure!” You exclaim as you eye Rafe with a devious smirk.

You push past them and make sure to brush your boobs against Rafes bare chest before sitting next to topper.

“I’m topper, that’s kelce”

“Y/n” you reply, giving him your best flirty tone.

Rafes face is red as he watches your interaction

“Cameron you good?” Kelce asks.

“Yeah” he says as he stares into your eyes.

You ignore him and ran a hand down toppers arm “so.. topper, how long have you known rafe?”

This little interaction goes on for a few minutes before Rafe jumps out of the pool and heads inside, not bothering saying anything.

You smile, feeling victorious.

**

Your stirring and bed and suddenly feel pleasure building between your legs, your breath pants as your nails claw at the mattress. A low moans sounds out of your throat and your eyes shoot open.

Your hands fly to your core where they come in contact with hair.

“Oh fuck!” You arch your back as Rafe tongues at your clit.

“RAF-“ you barely get out before your screaming your release and his hand flys over your mouth.

“Quiet sis, mom and dad are home” he crawls up until he’s face to face with you.

“What the fuck are you doing in my room” you whisper as he nips at your neck and you try to push him off

“Teaching you a lesson” he whispers in your ear and your skin fills with goosebumps.

“I told you, you belong to me” he grips your throat and claims your mouth with his.

You don’t even register his fingers making their way to your cunt until one thrusts in and a second follows.

You moan against his lips and it feels so good as he curves them that your already falling apart but he pulls back.

“What the hell?” You question but then your face feels heated and your head whips to the side.

“You wanna act like a whore in front of me? You get treated like one!” Rage spits out and you hate yourself for getting turned on from him slapping you.

“Fuck” you groan.

“You’ll cum when I say so” he kissed you again and you don’t fight it.

His fingers come in contact with your entrance again, this time adding a third and curving them to rib against your g-spot.

Your squirming and begging him but he pulls away and stands up.

“Next time don’t test me”

And with that he walks out, leaving you high and dry.

Taglist

@f4ll-for-you @v21sstuff @rafeysworldim19 @baby19sthings @eventualoptimism @drewstarkeysbae @sevenwivesofrafecameron @rxfecameronsslut @findapenny @r1vrsefx @spencerreidsrealgf

[starry-bi-sky]

Part six of "Clone Danny"

When the Waynes leave, Danny can finally relax. Even if he's once again hit with a lingering regret that worms itself into his core like a little parasite. The final night that they're there, Bruce Wayne is not downstairs waiting for him, much to Danny's faint, lingering disappointment. He kinda liked talking to him, even if he kept it brief. Probably for the best.

Damian was still there when he returned with a sprained ankle and more ectoplasm burns. Danny tries not to make his limp obvious when he enters, and his clothing smells faintly of sulfur and burnt fabric.

Damian tells him he stinks, and Danny tells him he ran into a ghost. "The Phantom took care of it." He says, gripping his mask in his pocket tightly and avoiding putting weight on his injured foot. His thermos is pressed next to it. His fingers are freezing.

"Ah yes, your vigilante." Damian replies, "The one with the bat." And Danny can see the outline of his eyes narrowing at him.

"Can we really call him a vigilante when the people he's fighting are ghosts?" Danny asks, avoiding the 'bat' comment and leaning against the back of the kitchen chair.

"Did you actually lose your bat, Fenton?" Damian's fingers tap against his arm, refusing to move on. "Despite your ridiculous behavior and attempts to avoid my father and I, I find it hard to believe that the son of two ghost hunters would be as foolish as to forget his only weapon of defense against ghosts."

Ah, so he noticed that. Danny was half tempted to mutter that the bat wasn't his only weapon of defense. He still had his beloved jawbreakers. He's quiet, wondering how to respond to implication that he might be Phantom -- he can't believe Damian picked that up in only a few short days when nobody has caught on in little over a year -- before shrugging.

"I may have given it to the Phantom instead." He says, propping his arm up to put his chin in his hand, trying to look innocent while his heart skipped an anxious beat.

It's probably not the answer Damian wants, but when his word is the only proof he has, Danny doesn't think he should be too worried about it. Even if it meant that a second person outside his friend and enemy circle knew his identity.

He excuses himself shortly after, leaning heavily against the railing to try and hop up the stairs.

(Much to his surprise, Damian follows and lets Danny put his weight on him. He complains that its because Danny will wake his father if he allows him to bumble up the stairs on one foot.)

(Danny ruffles his hair again when they reach the top, and limps towards his bedroom.)

===

Its three months and a handful of new injuries before Danny thinks about the Waynes again. A new ghost appeared in town who called itself Riftgate and he was capable of creating teleport portals to anywhere in the world.

He was a fucking pain in the ass to fight, costing Danny three hours of his night where he could have been sleeping and nearly his hand. Danny gets dragged through the other side before finally shoving Rift inside the thermos.

But he also ends up nearly 900 miles away in fucking Gotham of all places on the top of an empty roof. Great, juuuust great. Danny is tired, he is grumpy, and he is in a city so laden with ectoplasm that he can all but taste it on his tongue. Or maybe that was just the air quality.

He can't even see the stars here, and his mood worsens.

Well, he's too fucking tired to bother handling this right now. There's no way Sam or Tucker are able to help him considering their distance, and right now Danny just wants to sleep. Maybe after that he can figure out a way home.

So he does, sort of. He walks over to the door and doesn't bother trying to open it, even if there was a 50/50 chance of it being unlocked. (This was Gotham after all.) Instead he sweeps the ground with his foot and curls up at door and he's out like a light.

....Only to be woken up by hissed muttering close to his ear and a gloved hand pressing into the pulse of his neck. "No I don't know if they're dead but I don't think so." Says the unfamiliar voice, and Danny opens a bleary eye.

"He's breathing, but his pulse is too slow to be normal. I think he needs help." The voice, a boy, -- no, Red Robin, great -- continues, and Danny looks beside him to see who he was talking to. No one. "He's probably part of some kind of gang, his mask kind of reminds me of Hood's."

Danny just barely remembers that he's still dressed up as Phantom before he tiredly signs, "I'm not part of a fucking gang." and pushes the boy's hand off.

=====

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 4.5 (Dani interlude) Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 7.5 (Dan Interlude) Part 8

will make a masterpost soon

Taglist: @the-navistar-carol @thought-u-said-dragon-queen @gin2212 @youracearocroatneighbour @luckybyrdrobyn @deeplyconfusedbear @epilepticnerd @beautifulmomenttodrawblank

[starlightkun]

❧ word count: 18.3k ❧ warnings: cursing, renjun gets CONSENSUALLY dosed with a magical aphrodisiac For Science ❧ genre: fluff, humor, one (1) heavy makeout scene but no actual smut, 0.1 seconds of angst if you can even call it that, academic rivals to lovers, modern magical creatures au, college au, siren reader, human renjun ft. siren ten, same universe as strawberry sunday ❧ extra info: in my lore, siren scales are visible when they’re in more human-like forms because of magic, and it’s not an indication of their skin tone at all. so when the reader’s scales are mentioned, please don’t take this as any sort of allusion to them being pale/light-skinned! i tried to take care and make sure i wasn’t implying that in how i wrote it, but please tell me if it reads like that this work is set in the same universe as strawberry sunday but can be read as a standalone! there is no continuing plotline between fics in this universe, they simply take place in the same world/magic system and may have overlapping characters (neos may pop up in more than one work!) ❧ author’s note: y’all. get ready for this one. no spoilers but renjun and reader r both crazy and nobody should be subjected to them except each other. like they both look at the other and think “i could fix them but whatever the fuck is wrong with them is infinitely funnier to me” but they’re both Wrong. they could not fix the other. i don't want what they have but good for them. anyway as always i had way too much fun writing this that it went over my projected word count and i hope y’all have a lot of fun reading it too

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

“Would you shut up?” You sat back up, grabbing him by the hair.

“Why?”

“I’m trying to kiss you again, idiot.”

2608, 2610, 2612…

The numbers of the study rooms you passed by went up, up, up, as you continued your hunt. You knew he’d be here. It was the day before the first test in your Linguistics in Magical Creatures Studies class, meaning he was going to be holed up in the library until closing time. Now it was just a matter of finding him. Somewhere quiet, obviously, which was why you’d completely skipped the first floor with its wide-open “collaboration areas.” The second floor was all bookshelves and private study rooms that would hold four or five students at most. You peered into the narrow window on each painted metal door as you walked down the hall. While the first floor was recently renovated with new technology and upgrades such as the “collaboration areas” and bright pops of your university’s school colors that made for great promotional photos to put on the website and pamphlets to hand out to new students, this floor hadn’t had seen anything more than a janitor in a good couple decades. The musty, stale smell of old, unused books was all around you, the air conditioning hummed and clicked irregularly, all the furniture had ugly, outdated patterns, and the exactly three desktop computers they did have in a far back corner were practically as old as you. Which, in the digital age, meant that they were artifacts belonging in a museum.

And of course, sitting at very last one, as if he had been hiding behind all of these bookshelves from you personally, was Huang Renjun.

Renjun was sat in the wooden chair facing the computer, clearly deep in thought. He had one foot propped up on the wide chair seat as both of his hands were on the archaic-looking keyboard, speedily typing something out. He wore a pair of jeans, yellow hoodie, and a red backwards baseball cap kept his hair out of his face. An open energy drink can and empty bag of chips on the desk next to him belied that he had already been there for some time.

Now that you had found your target, you put on a burst of speed, stalking up to him from the side and smacking your hand down on the tabletop beside him. “Renjun.”

The human jumped in his seat, looking up from his screen to you. Taking his hands from the keyboard, he made a couple quick clicks on the mouse as he used the other to take his headphones out of his ears. “Y/N. Fucking hell… is your new strategy this semester to give me a heart attack and kill me?”

“If murder was on the table as part of our little academic rivalry, don’t you think I would’ve just drowned you after our Intro course freshman year?” You asked, tilting your head innocently. After all, you were a siren, that would be much easier than scaring him into an early cardiac episode.

Huang Renjun was not your friend. Not necessarily an acquaintance either, you’d known him for going on four years now, since your first class on your first day of college. The two of you were in the same Introduction to Magical Creatures Studies class. He had sat in the very front row, you just behind him in the second row. When your professor had asked an open question to the class, both you and Renjun eagerly blurted out the answer, Renjun just a millisecond before you. Dr. Li gave him the credit, and also requested that you two raise your hands in the future. And from then on you hated Huang Renjun.

Well, hate may be a strong word. You overlapped in at least two classes every semester being in the same major, and were both chronic overachievers. The first to raise your hands when a question was asked, studying in the library until closing (separately), and visiting professors’ office hours just to discuss topics from class further. Your professors noticed this. Some would pit the two of you against each other, and others would try to pair you up, whether on projects, research, or just in general, as a meeting of the minds or whatever. And you two would get your project done, pocket your As, and part ways again. Academic rival slash frenemy was the best way you could describe who Huang Renjun was to you.

“Who knows, you might still, if they ask me to carry the banner,” he muttered, picking his pen up and spinning it between his fingers.

This was your last semester, both you and Renjun were graduating in just a few months. At commencement, each department picked one “outstanding student” to lead the progression, carrying a flag with the department’s name and seal on it. This semester it was Magical Creatures Studies’ turn to select a student for the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, and your program head had already heavily implied that they could choose either you or Renjun, but they hadn’t made their final decision yet.

This was actually a pretty good segue into what you were really here to talk to him about. Pulling your lips into an alluring smirk, you nodded, “You’re right. It doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to figure out that—”

“A fucking what?” He cut you off, his face scrunching up as he blinked at you in confusion.

“Obviously it’s going to be one of us two, since we’re the two best students in the program.”

“Well, yes.” He nodded, seeming to let go of what had presumably been another one of your jumbled human malaphors. You admittedly hadn’t been living among humans for terribly long, and for some reason their idioms just didn’t stick in your brain very well.

“I mean, we not only are dedicated to the field itself and the content we study in class, but the program too. We probably know everybody in it, professors and students, right? Between the two of us?”

Renjun considered this for a moment. “Yeah, probably. We’ve both taken on a lot of SI and tutor opportunities for lower-level classes.”

“Right. So, you know those forums the school has on the online class platform? The general message boards?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I’m going to need you to sit tight with me on this until I finish talking, okay?” You pointed at him sternly. He nodded slowly. “Good. Back in the fall, about the end of September, I was on the message boards, just browsing around killing time. I was in the Tips & Advice section and saw this post. It was a gryphon who was losing feathers on one specific spot on her wing, and she didn’t know why. The witch she went to didn’t know why, nobody could figure it out. I was about to reply asking if it was her left or right, when I saw that somebody else already had. It was her left, and she’s a lefty. The same person replied again, asking if she sleeps with her wings out or not. She sleeps with them out. It turns out she was stress-preening in her sleep. Username: dr_magic2303. A couple weeks later, same message board, Tips & Advice, a human is suddenly producing dark purple goop from his feet but it’s so slippery he can’t even leave to go see a doctor or a witch and he was typing the post from his bathroom. Within an hour, this Dr. Magic is back telling him someone’s put an aether ooze hex on him, and to sit down and scoot on his butt to the kitchen and gather up all these ingredients for a cleansing foot bath. And if he doesn’t have them, then he’ll have to butt-scoot his way to an apothecary or call one who does home deliveries. Now people are posting on there specifically asking Dr. Magic to come heal all their magical aches and pains.”

Renjun stared at you, unblinking. The pen had gone still in his hand.

You breathed in, continuing, “I tracked this Dr. Magic all the way back to their first post in the first week of fall semester of this year. Now, I’ve been trying to figure out who they are on my own, and I’ve made a lot of progress on who they aren’t. But I’m going to lose access to those message boards once we graduate at the end of the semester. I know Dr. Magic has to be an MCS major, there’s no way they would be able to have to breadth, depth, and flexibility of knowledge by just Googling this stuff. And you and me, Renjun, I know we can do this. Not only do we know MCS, but we know the department, the people in it. It has to be us.”

He was still staring at you, mouth slightly agape. Then, his whole demeanor shifted. He dropped his leg so that both his feet were on the ground, and he resumed spinning the pen.

“Okay. I’ll help you.” He nodded thoughtfully. “If you’ll do something for me.”

“Do what?” You straightened up.

“I’ll tell you after we find Dr. Magic.”

You crossed your arms. “No, tell me now or no deal.”

“I tell you after, but you can still say no then if you don’t want to do it.” He bargained.

“That just sounds even more concerning, Renjun. Tell me now or I’ll do it myself.”

“I’m hurt. What happened to ‘it has to be us?’”

“I’m a siren, I know how to sweet talk. Don’t take it personally.” You snorted. “Now, what do you want from me?”

“You’re a siren,” he echoed plainly, as if that were all the explanation you needed.

“And you’re a genius.” You retorted. “Tell me now or I walk out.”

“I... want to experience siren venom. For science.”

Oh, you could kiss him right now, no deal necessary. He was meeting your gaze head-on, a slightly unhinged glint in his eye. Not a hint of fear, just a craving for new experiences, unbridled curiosity. Yeah, he was a bit crazy, you were realizing four years on, and you wanted him.

“You’re insane.”

He leaned back in his seat, putting his hands up in front of him in an ‘I-don’t-care’ gesture, “If you don’t want to find Dr. Magic—”

“I didn’t say no, I said you’re insane,” you corrected him with a grin, dragging your eyes up and down his form as he sat so confidently, negotiating with a siren like it was any average Tuesday for him.

“So do we have a deal?” He set his pen down and held a hand out to you.

“You help me find Dr. Magic, then I’ll spit in your mouth.” You momentarily thought about the disparity in division of labor on that, but decided not to point it out aloud. Easiest handshake of your life. “Deal.”

You wanted to eat him alive.

“You’ve tried IP tracking?” Renjun asked, scrolling through your word document of notes that you’d accumulated on Dr. Magic.

“‘You’ve tried IP tracking?’” You mimicked him under your breath, making your voice so high-pitched to the point of mocking.

He rolled his eyes.

This was your first meet-up to try to hunt down Dr. Magic together. It was a couple weeks after he had agreed to help you in the first place. There was a test and some assignments in a few of your classes to get through first before either of you had enough spare time to dedicate to this. But now the two of you were back in the library, having taken a study room on the second floor and set up with your own laptops. You’d sent him your notes to look through on it while you perused the message board for any new posts from Dr. Magic.

“You do know that any geographical location an IP address can give you will just be the city, right? It’s not like the movies,” you snorted, dropping your voice back down to your normal intonation as you shook your head. “Anyway, I did do some extra legwork with the IPs, and matched most of them to desktop computers here in the library. I think the others are a personal device, their laptop or something.”

“They’re all different.”

You tutted at him, “Oh, you sweet Thursday’s child…”

“That’s not the say—”

“They’re all somehow on other continents. Now, I don’t think Dr. Magic teleporting abroad and cross-dimensionally to make forum posts.”

“VPN?”

“Definitely. They’re covering their tracks, they almost never use their own device, and when they have to, they use a VPN to cover up the IP address of it.”

He made a noise of acknowledgement, eyes still focused on his screen.

Then, something on the forum caught your eye. “Oh! Right here. Thirty-six minutes ago, a dryad posted that she can’t sprout daffodils from her body anymore. Every other plant and flower are fine, except daffodils. She posted it specifically asking Dr. Magic if they know what’s wrong with her.”

“Huh.” Renjun’s brow furrowed. “Just daffodils?”

“That’s what it says,” you confirmed, making a few clicks on your computer. “And… ‘notify me.’”

“You can turn on notifications for forum posts?”

“You can’t,” you informed him smugly. “But one of the sirens in my pod, he’s got a bunch of CompSci friends who I paid to write a browser extension for me that bookmarks forum posts and sends me email notifications when anybody replies to them. So I’ll know exactly when Dr. Magic responds.”

“You…”

“Have definitely spent too much time, energy, and money on this, I know. Sunken cost fallacy, look it up.”

“I was going to say ‘are insane,’” he breathed out, his voice a mixture of awe and disbelief.

When you looked up from your computer at him, you saw that he had a curious gaze fixated on you, eyes narrowed slightly, mouth parted, and head tilted ever so slightly to the side.

You leaned forward minutely, holding his eye contact. “Takes one to know one, Junnie.”

He looked down at his keyboard, shifting in his seat before he looked back up at you. “Why are you calling me that?”

“Do you not like it?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“So you do like it.” You smirked.

He frowned. “I didn’t say that either.”

“Well do you?”

“Answer my question.”

“Answer mine.”

“I asked first.”

“Ooh, how very primary school,” you teased, setting your chin in your hand.

“It’s only fair.” He pointed out.

“We could flip a coin.”

“Y/N.”

“Junnie.”

The human sighed, holding your eye contact wordlessly, looking entirely unamused.

You finally gave in with a casual shrug. “I just am.”

“Seriously? We’ve known each other for four years and you’ve never called me that—you’ve called me plenty of other things—but now suddenly you’ve got a nickname for me?”

“I’m not trying to be derogatory with it, if you’re worried about that,” you clarified. “Just sort of happened. I’m a siren, I flirt with cute people, sorry. Do you want me to stop calling you that?”

He ran his fingers through his hair, pushing some off his face as he turned his focus back down to his screen. “It’s fine.”

“Anyway, I bookmarked the new forum post, so it’ll go on the board.”

“The board?”

“I, uh, I may be using a spare wall in my apartment to host a conspiracy theory board with you know, the red string and thumbtacks and stuff…” You admitted quietly.

“Can I see it?”

“Ho-ly shit,” Renjun breathed out, staring up at the multiple time-stamped printouts of forum posts, pictures of classmates and faculty, sticky notes, and yards of red string that you had pinned to a blank wall in your apartment.

You stood next to him, gazing up at your creation with a strange mixture of pride and embarrassment. This was the first time you’d let someone see this, and you were kind of glad it was Renjun. He actually seemed impressed. You were sure that any of your friends and family would be weirded out at best, and very concerned at worst.

“Yeah, I’m adding color copies off the school printers to the invoice I’m sending Dr. Magic at the end of all this.”

“You’re sending them an invoice for your self-assigned mission to hunt them down?” He snorted.

“Yup. It’s their fault for not using their school-issued login.” You crossed your arms. “Makes them enigmatic.”

Your classmate pointed to one of the headshots. “Is that Dr. Li?”

“Did you think our scope was narrowed to just students? Faculty have access to the message boards, too. And we’ve learned everything we know from our professors, so they obviously have the knowledge and skill to be Dr. Magic.”

“And their names also start with Doctor.” He added dryly, which you took to be a joke.

You decided that it wasn’t at your expense, though, and after giving a short chuckle, continued on with your explanation of why you specifically had your program head up on the board. “When I was grilling Dr. Li for information in the fall, he was giving me very duplicitous answers. Pointed me towards a freshman who I swear didn’t even know the difference between Arctic sirens and glacial sirens.”

“You think it was a diversion.”

“Obviously.”

Renjun tapped his chin thoughtfully. “What sort of questions were you asking him?”

“I couldn’t straight up ask him if he was Dr. Magic. So I was asking him things like... other than you and me, who did he think was the best student in the program, that kind of stuff. Said that kid reminded him of you and me on that first day of Intro to MCS.” You couldn’t help but let out an indignant scoff at the idea. “Can you believe? Didn’t know the difference between Arctic and glacial sirens…”

“Who was it?”

“Some basilisk in one of his Intro classes last semester. Uh…” You snapped your fingers as you tried to remember his name. “Seunghan! Hong Seunghan!”

“Seriously?” The human turned to look at you incredulously, clearly offended at the comparison as well.

“Seriously!”

He clutched at his chest like he was about to have a heart attack. “That’s who he thinks is the next us? I was an SI for that class…”

“I know! He’s not the brightest tool in the shed, huh?”

“So close, Y/N. So close…” He sighed.

“It almost completely threw me off my search for Dr. Magic. I figured I needed to seriously step up my game in his undergrad research or something.” You shook your head at the horrible memory. “Then I realized he might have been trying to get me to do exactly that.”

“Huh.” Renjun folded his arms over his chest as he looked away, pretending not to seem interested. “You did research with Dr. Li last semester?”

“Don’t give me those kicked puppy dog eyes, you’re doing research with Dr. Kwon this semester and she’s like, my academic idol!” You pointed at him accusatorily.

“And Dr. Li is mine!”

You waved your arms in front of you, shaking yourself out of the academic envy-induced frenzy you’d gotten worked up into. “We’re getting off-topic. We’re here to catch Dr. Magic, remember?”

“Right…” He took a deep breath, turning back to the conspiracy wall.

As Renjun studied your work, you studied him. You had a strand of fairy lights clipped up above the conspiracy wall for light and ambiance (mostly ambiance), and they now lit his features from the front. He didn’t have a baseball cap on today, leaving his brown hair to fall over his forehead, down past his eyebrows and just into his eyes. He blinked and shook his head slightly. A piece had presumably been bothering him. The curving slope of the bridge of his nose, his lips, his chin that he still had one hand propped up to hold, a finger tapping against his cupid’s bow like a metronome. You listened closer, curious if it would be mimicking the beat of his heart. The tapping was just slightly slower than his heart, and would stop if he found something that he took particular interest in, then start back up when he moved on again.

Not that you were going to tell him, but you were double motivated to find Dr. Magic now. Seeing Renjun under your venom was going to be a reward all on its own. You understood full well why he felt like he needed to ask you as part of an exchange like this, but he seemed to greatly underestimate his own selling value. Which was good for you. This was a win-win-win in your eyes.

Thinking of the deal made you curious, though. He had that request ready to go almost like…

“So, do you want to be petrified by a basilisk, too?”

Renjun didn’t take his eyes off the wall. “Already have been.”

“Really?”

“My friend Mark is a basilisk. When he had just gotten his powers a couple years ago and couldn’t control them, he kept accidentally petrifying his human roommate. So I figured out when it was most likely to happen, invited myself over and hid his sunglasses. It was strange, being able to think but not speak, see but not blink, and telling my muscles to move and not having them obey.” He casually detailed what sounded like one of the most horrifying experiences ever to you, leaning in towards a specific post from November. “But it only lasted one minute and twenty-nine seconds.”

You stared at him with both admiration and alarm. “You manufactured an opportunity to get petrified.”

“I knew he wouldn’t do it if I asked. He’s a wimp. That, and he couldn’t do it on command at the time, even if he did agree.”

“Have you had your blood drank?”

“Yup.”

“Been flying?”

“How so?” His eyes flicked over to you for a second, and you were glad that you had relaxed again with the more casual conversation.

“With a gryphon, phoenix, take your pick.” You shrugged.

“Uh-huh.”

“Do you have a list for this stuff or something?”

“Written down, no. But I suppose I have a mental list.”

“Poisoned by a wyvern?”

“Would have to find one first.”

You felt your eyes bug out of your head. “You want to be poisoned by a wyvern? You know there’s no cure for that, right?”

“Yes, I took the same class that you did on them last spring.” He reminded you tersely. Your head jerked back minutely, surprised for a second that he had noticed, remembered, and brought it up. The two of you didn’t have a spat in that class, taking an ‘ignore and pretend the other doesn’t exist’ approach that semester when you could, and hadn’t mentioned it since. Seeming to realize what he’d done, Renjun rushed to move on, “So I also know that there’s no cure because they went extinct hundreds of years ago.”

“Supposedly.”

“You think they’re still out there?”

“Maybe.”

“Hm.” He stepped to the side to read over the next post from the first week of December.

You scoffed. “Okay, coming from the guy who believes in aliens.”

“We haven’t explored all of space. But we know what habitats wyverns lived in, and they’re not there anymore.”

“They could’ve adapted, gone somewhere else,” you tried to argue. “I’m not exactly splashing around the ocean right now, am I?”

“Where did they go, then?”

“I... I don’t know,” you admitted, holding yourself by your arms protectively.

“Hmph.”

You tightened your grip, swallowing hard against the lump threatening to grow in your throat. “I just don’t want to believe they’re gone, okay?”

“So this isn’t a scientific hypothesis, but some rosy daydream?” Renjun’s disapproval of the lack of academic rigor in your argument was clear in his tone as his eyes never left your wall, following a red string up to your next connection for Dr. Magic.

“I don’t want to believe that wyverns went extinct because that means that sirens could too! Alright?” You finally snapped, hands squeezing tightly around your biceps as your claws came out with the raw burst of emotion. “I know that Magical Conservation was just some class to you, but I had to sit there and take notes on how exactly the native habitats of sirens—me, my friends, my family—are shrinking, and could theoretically lead to our extinction, and then write a discussion post on it after like it was some intellectually stimulating bit of information. So yeah, maybe I like to imagine that there’s still wyverns out there somewhere, because it gives me a modicum of hope that after everything, there could still be sirens, too. Sorry that that’s not academic enough.”

The image of Renjun that you had been yelling at in front of you was wavering as tears swam in your vision. He’d turned around to listen, mouth parting as he seemed to immediately realize his mistake. The human nodded regretfully, running a hand through his hair before finally picking his words.

“I’m sorry, Y/N. I didn’t mean to be so dismissive. I-I misread the tone of the discussion. Sirens aren’t wyverns, and you won’t meet the same fate they might have. Siren advocacy and conservation groups are making huge progress. The world now is a lot different than it was hundreds of years ago,” Renjun said, and you could hear both the remorse and firm belief in his tone. “And who knows, maybe there are still some wyverns out there. I could be wrong... it’s been known to happen before.”

You took a deep breath, your claws receding back into your fingers and just leaving your normal fingernails. As you looked down at your arms, though, you let out a sigh.

“Damn, I got myself.” You clicked your tongue in your throat regretfully, spotting a few drops of what looked like molten silver metal welling to the surface where you’d punctured your skin.

“Ooh,” Renjun winced sympathetically. “Do you have some… bandages?”

“Even better, I’ve got running water.” You started towards the door, then noted that there were no footsteps behind you. Turning back around, you looked at the human knowingly. “Do you want to watch, Renjun?”

He perked up. “Please?”

“Come on,” you jerked your head, holding your arms level as you shuffled towards your kitchen.

Thankfully, you hadn’t been nearly deep enough to get your scales, just the skin overtop. Turning the kitchen faucet on, you grabbed one of your sleeves, then looked at your classmate imploringly.

“A little help, Junnie?” You nodded towards your other arm, where the end of your sleeve was getting close to your blood.

“Oh, sure.” He surged forward to help you roll up the other one.

“I know you know this but be careful not to touch my blood,” you reminded him, finally pulling up the sleeve you’d started on well enough. Siren blood was a neurotoxin to humans—and not the fun kind like your venom, but a proper ‘kill you in an excruciatingly painful way’ kind.

“Uh-huh, got it.”

A couple drops on your left and a drop on your right had run down to your elbows, and you just managed to catch yourself so that they dripped into the sink and not onto your counter (or gods forbid, Renjun). Looking over to make sure he was watching, you stuck your left bicep under the stream of water first. The ocean blue scales that peeked through your skin shimmered in the kitchen lights directly above your head. Thankfully you hadn’t come anywhere close to nicking one of those. That would’ve actually hurt. Within a second of touching the water your skin had meshed itself back together. You turned your arm to rinse off the blood, then brought it back out to show that there was no scar left. Doing the same with the other, it healed just as quick, no mark left behind to indicate that anything had ever happened.

“Yep…” Renjun breathed out as you grabbed a hand towel and went to dry off your arms. “I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of that.”

“How many does that make?” You giggled.

“What?”

“How many creatures have you seen magically heal themselves? What number am I?”

“You make me sound so…”

“Like a common MCS whore?”

“I was going to say clinical, but damn, tell me how you really feel, Y/N.”

Both of you laughed, and you put the hand towel back.

“You’re the first siren,” Renjun answered your question genuinely anyway.

You hummed as you mulled this over. “I’ll take it.”

He made a dramatic motion of wiping sweat off his forehead, and you reached forward to smack his forearm. You two laughed again.

After a bout of comfortable silence, your eyes settled on him again, still thinking about exactly how you’d accidentally stabbed yourself in the first place.

“I forgive you, by the way,” you said. “I don’t think I said that.”

“You didn’t.” He nodded. “Thank you.”

“You really mean all that? You think I’ll—we’ll be okay? Sirens?”

“Of course I mean it. Or I wouldn’t have said it. It’s the most scientifically plausible. I did take that Magical Conservation class seriously, you know. I know it couldn’t have meant the same thing for me as it means to you, but I did my final paper on siren conservation projects in the Arctic. The progress that’s being made there is incredible. I-I don’t want to tell you about your own species’ problems, obviously, but—”

“I did mine on siren conservation in the tropics.” You let out a dry chuckle at the flawless symbiosis. “You can tell me about your paper sometime, Renjun.”

“And I’d love to hear about siren conservation in the tropics.”

“Ah, ‘a meeting of the minds.’” You did your best impression of Dr. Li, thinning your voice out to sound like an elderly man, which garnered a smile from Renjun. “Isn’t this what our professors always wanted?”

“Uh-oh. We’re giving them exactly what they want.” He shook his head ruefully. “Quick, you need to start yelling at me about something.”

“Well you need to say something obnoxious first.”

Another gentle lull in the conversation, and you watched as Renjun looked around your apartment a lot more carefully than when you two had first entered. Your destination then had been solely the conspiracy wall, but now he seemed to be really taking it in.

“So why don’t you have like… a fish tank or something?” He asked.

“Because that would be cruel! Imagine if someone kept you in a 2-foot by 2-foot box!” You jabbed a finger into his chest accusatorily.

He held his hands up in surrender. “You’re right. That was a stupid question.”

“I’m glad you said it, because I was about to.”

“So why don’t you reply? To the posts.” Renjun asked curiously, back to trolling the message boards for new Dr. Magic posts. You two were holed up in your second floor study room again. “You’ve been tracking Dr. Magic so closely, you’re getting to these posts before they do, and you can help all these students, too. So why don’t you just reply instead?”

Yours and Renjun’s search for Dr. Magic had been going on for a month now, and he’d been proving himself useful. He’d finally convinced you to rule out Dr. Li as a suspect when he found a message board post made from a school computer while Dr. Li was away at a conference giving a presentation. Confirmed to be done at the exact same time. So you’d found another wrong person, but you still didn’t feel any closer to the right person. The remaining people felt like they were going to turn out to be dead ends, and there was nobody good to rule in either.

Spring break was coming up in a few weeks, which meant that commencement preparations would be starting, which meant that the colleges would be announcing who would be chosen to carry their banners, which meant the actual students who were going to be chosen would be told at least a week or two ahead of time. Every time you thought about that you wanted to bite something. Maybe there was some ancestral link between sirens and werewolves. Another paper waiting to be written.

“They don’t want me. They want Dr. Magic.” You told Renjun, hating the irritable edge in your voice when you addressed him. You weren’t upset with him, you were just anxious in general. He didn’t deserve to have you take it out on him.

“Right. Sorry…”

“No, Renjun, I’m sorry,” you sighed, taking the wood pencil out of your mouth that you had been gnawing on. “I just want to get this Dr. Magic stuff over with before midterms because you and I are both going to get super busy studying for midterms, and then no matter which one of us gets picked to carry the banner, that’s going to suck up a lot of time preparing for commencement too. I shouldn’t have snapped at you though, sorry.”

He offered you a small smile. “It’s okay, I get it. It’s another deadline. But it’s a group project, remember? We’ve got this, Y/N.”

You nodded. “Yeah, I know. Just feeling the pressure. I’m going to get something from the vending machine. You coming?”

“No, I’ll keep chugging along.”

“Okay. You want anything?”

“Nah. Thanks, though.”

“Alright,” you nodded, standing up and rolling your neck out. “I’m going to stretch my legs while I’m up, so I’ll be a few.”

“I won’t sound the alarm then.” He gave you a two-fingered salute as you headed to the door.

You meandered around the second floor, taking your sweet time to get to the stairs. There was a vending machine on the second floor, but it had a limited selection. The good snacks were all in the vending machines on the first floor, by the collaboration zones. Your back cracked all on its own as you plodded down the steps, and you let quiet groans with each one, until you finally landed on the first floor. There was a noticeable hum to the first floor, which only increased as you neared the two-thirds of the floor that was taken up by the collaboration zones. The vending machines were on the boundary of the bookshelves and the open spaces filled with tables and TV monitors and so many students.

Stopping in front of the drinks machine first, you mused over the options for a moment. Picking out your preferred seaweed-infused iced tea—an option you only saw sirens and the really hardcore human health-nuts drink—you then sidestepped to the snacks. It took you just a second to select a pack of mini peanut butter sandwich cookies. Neither peanut butter nor peanuts themselves were in the regular diet of a siren, but Renjun sometimes had the cookies on him for one of his werewolf friends and you’d picked up a taste for them. You would’ve never considered even trying them before hanging out with Renjun. Being an MCS major, you didn’t like to admit it, but your social circle wasn’t very diverse species-wise. You had your siren pod, and you were very happy sticking with them, thank you. Renjun, meanwhile, seemed to be best friends or friendly acquaintances with everything except a wyvern. You knew plenty about other species, after all, you excelled in class. But practical experience, you were finding you seemed to be lacking in. Maybe you should start your own Renjun-esque bucket list. Something to consider after finding Dr. Magic.

Taking a step back over to the drinks machine, you made the split-second decision to get Renjun’s favorite non-caffeinated, non-alcoholic drink. Honeydew melon soda. He had already said that you didn’t need to get him anything, but you wanted to.

“Hey, Y/N!” A cheerful voice greeted you, and you spun around, your two drinks and bag of sandwich cookies in hand.

You already knew who it was going to be, smiling at the familiar face of Ten. He was not only another siren, but specifically a siren from your pod, ocean blue scales and golden eyes matching your own. You threw your arms around his neck to give him a hug. “Ten! Ah, hey!”

“Are those… peanut butter?” He looked at the snack in your hand suspiciously.

“Uh, human study buddy,” you brushed off his concerns nonchalantly.

“Right, gotcha.”

The two of you usually hung out a lot—about as much as you and Renjun were together now, you figured—but since your spare time had been taken up with putting the search for Dr. Magic on full throttle, you were blanking on the last time you’d seen him. The beginning of the semester. Oh shit, you felt so guilty now.

The apology immediately started spilling out of your mouth, “Gods, I am so sorry we haven’t hung out, I wish I could say it was classes, or even research or something, but I’ve got this project. I can’t even really explain it without sounding crazy but—”

“Woah, Y/N, it’s okay,” Ten reassured you with a laugh, the same bright smile on his face as always. “I know how you get when you get really into one of your projects. Just let me know when you’ve finished it, and we can hang. Or if you ever need a break from it, too. It’s fine. If you weren’t a little crazy and obsessive, I wouldn’t be able to recognize you.”

He ruffled your hair with a snicker for good measure, and with your hands full of food, you couldn’t fight back, just huff and try to duck out of the way. But he was genuine about his sentiments, which really did make you feel better.

“Thanks, Ten. I’ll get in touch soon, I promise. I think I’m almost done!” You told him proudly.

“Soon in normal person time or soon in Y/N time?”

“Me time…”

“That’s what I thought. I’ll see you in six months then.”

“I’m not that bad!”

“Remember when I wondered aloud if sirens at the North and South poles were related, and you ended up spending our entire winter break researching that?”

“It only took four weeks!”

“You said it would be a quick search.”

“Exactly! People will dedicate their entire lives to that kind of research! I vastly condensed it!”

He shook his head fondly at the memory, elbowing you gently. “Get back to your project so you can finish early again and we can hang out soon, okay? And scoot, I’m trying to use the vending machine. You’re always in my way, I swear.”

You playfully pretended to block him, laughing as he nudged you out of the way with his shoulder. Starting back off towards the stairs, you turned around to give a cheery, “See you, Ten!”

“Bye, Y/N!” He waved to you with one hand, punching in the vending machine code with the other.

In better spirits having seen your friend, you traipsed up the stairs with extra pep in your step. Except Renjun wasn’t in your study room. Huh. Well, nothing in the rules saying a guy can’t take a bathroom break.

Setting his melon soda down next to his laptop, you plopped back down in your chair and kicked your feet up on the table. You ripped open your peanut butter sandwich cookies and cracked open your tea. The cookies were sweet, and while you didn’t have any oceanic reference for what peanut butter tasted like (you were told that “nutty” was a flavor profile unto itself, which wasn’t very helpful), you had decided that you liked it.

Waking your laptop back up, you saw that you had a new email, and shot up in your seat when you saw the subject.

dr_magic2303 replied to a post.

8 minutes ago.

Holy fucking shit, 8 minutes ago. While you were in the library? They could still be there. You looked around frantically. Where the fuck was Renjun when you needed him? Shooting to your feet, you snatched your phone from the table and rushed to throw the door open. Into Renjun’s face.

He stumbled back, holding his face as he let out a string of curses.

“Shit! Sorry, Junnie!” You didn’t sound all too sorry as you bounced on your feet, antsy to get a move on with your search. “No time for an ice pack though. Dr. Magic just replied to that dragon post we had bookmarked eight minutes ago. Which means that they’re probably still in the library! We need to go look for them right now!”

You took off in the direction of the desktop computers on this floor, keeping your voice at a fervent whisper-yell. The second floor computers were their favorite, according to the IPs.

“I know!” Renjun hurried after you, still clutching his nose. “I saw the email, and I tried to call you, but you left your phone in the study room.”

Checking your phone, you did in fact have a missed call from Renjun from 6 minutes ago. Well shit.

“So I went to go get you, but you weren’t at the vending machines, so I came back up to the study room and then nearly got my nose broken.”

You looked over your shoulder at him with wide eyes. “You went to get me? Not look for Dr. Magic on the freshest lead we’ve ever had? When they were quite possibly around the corner?”

The two of you had arrived at the desktops, and there was nobody in sight. One was awake, on the account login screen, the other two asleep on the ancient screensavers. You let out a heavy sigh, looking over at Renjun.

“I went to get you because this is your thing, not mine. I don’t know, I’d figured you’d want the satisfaction of taking the mask off them.”

You nodded. “Thanks, Junnie. Next time, though, just get them.”

“And how about you keep your phone on you?”

“So we both fucked it up.”

He gave you a one-shouldered shrug. “There’s still three more floors, Y/N.”

“Right, come on. You take the first, I’ll go up to the fourth since I smacked you with the door.”

The other floors were busts, and when you finally met back up with Renjun in your study room, you were glad to have your cold bottle of tea waiting for you. Knocking back a third of it in one go, you let out a noise of relief. Renjun had already opened the soda you’d gotten him.

“Thanks, by the way.” He held it up gratefully before taking a sip.

“You’re welcome.”

“And, I’m sorry. That I let Dr. Magic get away.”

“We don’t even know what floor they were posting from yet. They’ve could’ve been on the fourth floor and would’ve been gone by the time you got there anyway.” You brushed away his apologies. “Or they could’ve been on the second and been a psycho and you would’ve been a poor defenseless human all by yourself.”

“Oh, right, without my big strong siren to protect me.” He scoffed. “Woe is me.”

“Exactly,” you laughed, shutting your laptop. “Anyway, I’ll take a look at the IP later. Who knows, they might not have even been in the library. Might’ve been one of those rogue VPN posts.”

“Yeah, maybe.” He looked over you packing up your things. “You heading out?”

You nodded, zipping up your bag and tossing it onto your shoulder. “Prior arrangements. Sorry to cut this short, completely forgot about it when we agreed to meet up.”

“You’re so popular.”

“I know!” You mimicked his sarcastic tone, holding the door open with your foot as you stopped in the threshold. “Oh, hey— the midterm in MCS Linguistics. It’s my only one this semester, I’ve just got papers in all my other classes. Do you want to study together for that?”

“Yeah, sure, sure.”

“First session Saturday? My place for lunch?”

Renjun grimaced, presumably remembering your typical stock of pantry items tailored to a siren’s food preference. “I’ll pack a lunch.”

“Cool. See you in class, Junnie!” You waved to him cheerily as you took off for the faculty advisor meeting with Dr. Kwon that you were going to need to run across campus to be on time for.

“What is it?” Renjun set his book down where he was sat across your coffee table from you, an inquisitive eyebrow quirked up at you.

“What? Nothing.” You bit down on your lip, eyes boring holes into your computer screen.

“No, it’s not ‘nothing.’ You’ve been staring at me ever since I got here, while also refusing to make eye contact with me. What? Something in my teeth? My hair look bad?”

Normally that would’ve made you chuckle—he was wearing a backwards baseball cap again today—but you just bit down harder on your lip and shook your head.

“Now you’re refusing to talk?” He scoffed. “Did you get hexed or something? I can’t believe you’re refusing to talk.”

“No, I can talk,” you insisted. “What uh, what’d you get for number four? On the review packet?”

“Don’t tell me you’re still stuck on number four. Y/N, I’m almost done, and there’s twenty-five questions on this.”

“I’m not, I finished and went back, it was just one that I didn’t—”

But Renjun had grabbed your computer and turned the screen around, and you knew he could see that you had only done the first one. You buried your face in your hands, your skin prickling uncomfortably with shame. Your friend’s sigh was audible, but surprisingly, the next thing said wasn’t a string of derision. Instead, you heard the shuffle of clothes against your rug, and then he was sitting shoulder-to-shoulder and knee-to-knee with you.

“Y/N, what’s going on with you today? Or, not today, the past couple days? You weren’t all there in class yesterday either. I left it alone then because it was Dr. Hyun, and nobody is ever all there for her classes but— what’s wrong?”

You slowly shook your head.

“You can’t tell me?”

You nodded.

“Okay. Is it bad? Like, dangerous?”

You shook your head.

“Alright, that’s good.” The relief was audible in his voice. “Is it family? Or, pod?”

You shook your head.

“School?”

You nodded.

“Alright, yeah. A lot going on. Is it like burn out?”

You shook your head.

“So, new stuff?”

You nodded.

He put an arm around your shoulders. “I’m sorry, Y/N. I know you already had a lot. Getting this midterm over with will be one more thing off your checklist, right? That’ll open a spot for this new thing.”

With a sniffle, you nodded.

“Ah, but you’re not going to be any good studying like this.” He sighed again, dropping his arm from around your shoulders and his presence shifted away from your side. “Come on, quick field trip. Then we’ll come right back to the MCS Linguistics grind. Sound good?”

You finally took your hands from your face to look up. Renjun was standing right next to you, offering you a hand. You tentatively put yours in his, and he tightened his grip to pull you up to your feet.

The two of you ended up in a froyo shop down the street from your apartment. You gleefully picked a gummy shark off the top of your swirl, biting the head off first before tossing the rest in your mouth. Renjun lifted a meticulously curated spoonful of froyo and toppings to his mouth, satisfaction on his face as he tasted his perfect bite. You watched in amusement as he went to start creating his next scoop that had the precise ratio of yogurt and every single topping he had chosen—each partitioned to their own area atop the froyo. You decided to save your second big gummy shark for last, and took a big spoonful from the melting edge of your froyo.

“Why not me?” Renjun asked abruptly, his gaze still on the dessert in front of him.

“Huh?” Your jaw dropped. How could he have known what—

“You haven’t asked me if I’m Dr. Magic. Why not?”

Ah, Dr. Magic. Of course.

“You were my first guess, and the first person I ruled out back in like September,” you admitted with a shrug.

His head snapped up at that. “What? Why?”

“Because you’re such an arrogant, neurotic overachiever that you’d want credit if you did all this. You wouldn’t use an alias.”

“Oh. Huh.” Renjun looked between you and his froyo, a sheepish smile coming to his face. “Strangely, that makes me feel better.”

You watched a dollop of froyo fall off your spoon and plop back into your cup. “And I nabbed your IP address off your laptop the first time we hung out in January and double-checked it with every Dr. Magic post. Just in case.”

“When I was in the bathroom?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Of course you did.”

“Were you taking it as an insult to your intelligence that I had apparently not considered you as an option?”

“Maybe…”

You laughed, and laughed, and laughed. You laughed so hard your sides hurt, there were tears in your eyes, and you genuinely started wheezing. Renjun pretended to roll his eyes, but you saw the smile on his face and knew what he was thinking: success, no more mopey siren.

Once you had enough air back in your lungs to talk, you pointed your spoon at him firmly. “See? Just proving my point. You want people to know you’re smart.”

He crossed his arms. “As if you don’t.”

“Oh, I definitely do. But I know I’m like that.” You put a hand over your chest, looking him dead in the eye. “Do you?”

With your head screwed back on the normal amount, you and Renjun were able to dive back into your study session at your apartment. Several hours into it, though, you noticed Renjun blinking like way too much and constantly rubbing at his eyes. It was to the point where it was distracting for you.

“What’s wrong with your eyes?” You asked bluntly.

That immediately burst the Renjun griping dam (which was really held together with tape and prayers anyway). “The screens hurt my eyes and human blue light glasses don’t do shit and no fairy has let me try theirs out. I know I should probably just take the plunge and buy them but I really can’t justify the price and—”

“Try mine.” You stood up, walking over to a display shelf on the other side of the living room.

“You have a pair? Why? Sirens don’t—”

“You collect magical experiences. I collect magical things.” You said nonchalantly, grabbing the pair of silver frames from where they sat between a phoenix feather (a gift) and a small wristwatch that would tell the correct time until it was put on, then it would be set on the time and date most significant to the wearer in that moment until it was removed. Walking back over to him, you held them out to him insistently, “Here, try them.”

“Oh. Thanks.” Renjun gingerly took them, sliding the arms over his ears and the frames onto the bridge of his nose. The pair you had was a little older, admittedly. You’d picked them up at a novelty shop, so they had some retro charm to them. An older style of frame, thicker lenses. But you thought it added a quaintness to their look. Especially on Renjun, he just looked downright adorable in them.

You sat back down to watch with your head in your hand as his brown eyes blinked from behind the thick lenses, and he looked around your living room like a newborn woodland animal. His face had already relaxed, and he turned his focus down to his laptop screen next, messing with the brightness up, then down. After that, he took out his phone, doing the same with that device.

“Well?” You prompted him, though you truly would’ve been content with watching him look around as if he’d been born colorblind and it were his first time seeing in color. Which, you had an enchanted pair for that too, but he wasn’t colorblind to your knowledge.

The human looked at you, a giddy smile stretching across his face. “They’re perfect! Thanks, Y/N!”

His hand reached up to take them off, but you stopped him.

“Keep them—”

“No, these had to be so expensive!” He protested immediately.

“Just for a week or so,” you finished your sentence pointedly. He was cute, but not that cute. “Make sure you really like them before you buy, okay? If you end up hating them, give them back. If you like them and buy your own pair, you can give them back whenever yours arrive in the mail.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, it’s not like I’m using them. Superior siren eyesight.” You tapped next to one of your eyes for emphasis.

“Thanks for not rubbing it in or anything.”

Scrambling to dial Renjun’s number, you put your phone on speaker as you fervently flicked through all of your Dr. Magic notes. You’d been laying in bed binging some mindless baking competition to numb your brain from all the studying you’d been doing when an email notification had popped up alerting you to a new Dr. Magic post.

“Y/N?” Renjun answered the phone, sounding utterly confused. “What’s—”

“New Dr. Magic post. I ran the IP and they’re in our city!” You blurted out.

“Okay… Well we already knew that, right?”

“Yeah, but this is an IP in our city that they posted from at midnight on a Saturday. Not any of the school computers.” You hit CTRL + F, typing in the string of numbers to quickly cross reference it with your extensive list. “This could be their IP. Like, their actual one, from a personal computer.”

“Oh, yeah. Could be.”

“Can you give me a little more enthusiasm here, Junnie? Did I wake you up or something? It’s only—” You stopped like you’d just walked face-first into a brick wall, eyes locked on the search result.

“Yeah, only quarter after midnight,” he scoffed.

You clicked the next arrow on the search bar, but that was the only match. 1/1 results.

“Y/N?” Renjun called for your attention. “You there?”

You hung up.

Not wanting to lose your nerve, you pressed the doorbell over and over insistently. You could hear the complaining tone of the occupant before his words were even audible.

“Christ, I have neighbors, you know?” Renjun swung open the door with a scowl. The human was in a big, slouching hoodie and pajama pants. His hair was stuck up in a couple different directions, making you think he might’ve just woken up. Except behind him, you could see that his kitchen light was on, and a couple books and his laptop were open on his kitchen table. Late night studying. And the fact that you’d just talked to him on the phone fifteen minutes ago.

“Can I come in?” You requested, fidgeting with the sleeve of your cardigan.

His face immediately softened. “Yeah, of course.”

“Sorry to just show up like this,” you said as you took off your shoes by the front door before following him further into his apartment.

“It’s okay.” He stopped you two in the kitchen, picking up a colorful, patterned cardboard box. “Uh, I was just about to make a midnight snack. Pizza bites, you want some?”

“I… don’t think I’ve ever had them.”

“Perfect, you can try one now then.”

“Mm,” you made a non-committal noise, leaning against his kitchen counter to watch him pour out the frozen food onto a baking sheet.

The oven beeped, and he put the tray in before pressing a couple more buttons.

“So, I was thinking about the Dr. Magic stuff. Not the IP stuff but like… What even is your plan for when you do find Dr. Magic?” Renjun asked as he put the remaining pizza bites in his freezer.

“What do you mean?”

He leaned against the countertop across from you, though in the narrow space of his kitchen, you were practically knee-to-knee. “Like, say we finally find out who they are, we run up to them in the library or on campus or something. Then what? What are you going to do? What are you going to say? You’ve done all this, and I know why you had to. I get it. But, do you know what you’re going to say to them?”

“Probably something along the lines of…” You trailed off, giving an exasperated sigh. Dropping your chin to your chest, you groaned, “Gods, I don’t know.”

“Hey, that’s why you got me. So you can bounce ideas off someone, do a dry run.”

“I thought the words would just come to me, and now that I’m trying, I can’t—”

“It’s fine, Y/N. Let’s think about why you did this. I know it’s really hard to put into words. I mean, I know why you did. I get it. It’s that need to know. Not because you can, but because you have to, right? It’s curiosity in its rawest form. So obviously it’s not going to be some schmaltzy ‘haha I caught you’ spiel or anything.”

Looking up from the kitchen tile to Renjun’s eager features, you shook your head in disbelief. “You’re still helping me… when I know it’s you, Junnie.”

He tilted his head to the side, a comical noise of confusion coming from his mouth, “Uh?”

“I know it’s you, and you know that I know that it’s you.”

“You already ruled me out, because I’m an arrogant—”

“Junnie, you made a post on the forums from your laptop. No VPN. When you knew I was still tracking Dr. Magic’s IP on every post they made, and that I had your IP. That’s not a whoopsie that you make unless you want to be caught.”

The human crossed his arms over his chest, but otherwise seemed entirely calm about being caught. “And you didn’t come in here guns blazing now that you’d caught me, either. Why?”

“I didn’t know how to say it. I mean, you’re right, I only did all this because I needed to know.”

“And now you know.”

“Why now? Why just give up now?” You asked with a shake of your head. “You started posting as Dr. Magic back in August, and I came to you in January. You knew everything I was doing; you could have cruised through the rest of the semester and I’d have never caught you.”

“You wanted to find out who it was by midterms. One less thing on your plate.”

“And now I know…”

“So how does it feel? Finally catching Dr. Magic?”

You wrinkled your nose and sighed, “Bit disappointing. I was right on my first guess.”

“And you immediately dismissed me out of hand for being an arrogant, neurotic overachiever on your first guess,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, but I didn’t really know you then. If I’d known you then like I know you now, I would’ve known as soon as I saw the first post.”

Renjun batted his eyes teasingly. “Aww, Y/N…”

“Doctor underscore magic two, three, zero, three? Twenty-three, oh-three? That’s your birthday, Junnie,” you deadpanned.

“Right.”

Pushing off the counter to stand up straight again, you said, “Anyway, you did help me find Dr. Magic. So, my turn.”

“Oh, no, you seriously don’t have to do that. I rigged the deal—”

“Yeah, about that.” You took a step forward. “How did you think that was going to end up for you, anyway? Were you going to sell somebody else out as Dr. Magic and hope I wasn’t going to talk to them? Spit in your mouth first and ask questions later?”

“I was thinking on my feet.”

“Maybe think laying down next time, Junnie.”

“Ouch.”

“Anyway, come on, you’ll want to sit down for this.” You grabbed his wrist, pulling him towards the living room.

“You don’t need to feel like you have to do this,” he reassured you.

Stopping the two of you in front of the couch, you turned to face him with a smirk. “Believe me when I say that it is going to be a treat unto itself for me to see you under the effects of siren venom. M’kay?”

Renjun’s surprise was evident on his face. “Oh.”

You stepped closer to him, delicately placing a hand on his chest. “Now unless you want me to literally spit in your mouth, I’m going to have to kiss you, to administer the venom.”

His eyes flicked between the hand you had on his chest and your face as he replied. “I’m okay with that—the kissing—if you are.”

“Renjun, I’ve been ready to eat you alive since you said the words ‘I want to experience siren venom for science’ to me.”

“Really?”

“Mhm. So why don’t you sit?” You guided him with the hand against his chest to sit back against his couch. Swinging one leg over his hips, then the other, you lowered yourself onto his lap. “Is this okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he nodded, tentatively settling his hands on your thighs. “Is this okay?”

“More than.” You smiled, looping your arms around his neck. “Now, a couple things, before we get started.”

“We haven’t started?”

“You’ll know it when we do.”

“Right.”

“I know you think you know what siren venom is like, but whatever scientific articles you’ve read, or documentaries you’ve watched, or slides you’ve studied under microscopes in lab, cannot actually prepare you for what it’s like. Which, I imagine is why you want to experience it for yourself.” You smirked down at him as you watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down with a gulp. “So before I actually dose you up with it, I need you to tell me what you’re actually okay with doing and what you’re not. Because once you get my venom in you, you’re going to want to let me do anything and everything to you, up to and including kill you, remember?”

“Well that’s off the table.”

“Good to know,” you snorted, running a fingernail down the nape of his neck. You felt a shudder go through him. “Is this okay?”

“Y-Yeah.” He seemed to be fighting to keep his eyes open. You halted your motions to let him think, and watched in amusement as he blinked his mind clear.

Once enough time had passed, you prompted him, “So?”

“I think just kissing,” Renjun answered. “Like, making out, or whatever. If you want…”

You snickered. “What part of ‘eat you alive’ was I unclear about?”

“The ‘eat’ part, actually. How literal is that?”

“Guess you’ll find out,” you teased. Then, you focused again as you sat back a little. “Okay, making out. Making out means different things to different people. So… we know kissing’s on the table. Tongue?”

“Yeah.”

“Teeth?”

“Where?”

“Waist up. You got somewhere you don’t want them?”

He took a moment to think about this. Then shook his head. “No. You can use them. Anywhere.”

“Same goes for you. Hickies?”

“Giving or receiving?”

“Both. You first.”

“Both are okay. You?”

You were already zeroing in on his neck and a small part of his collarbone peeking out from under his hoodie. “Same. Touching over clothes?”

“Okay, as long as you don’t think it’ll be too much with the venom…”

“Oh, Junnie, everything is going to be too much.” You grinned down at him.

His breathing had picked up pace as the two of you were talking. “You? The touching?”

“Good. Great. Touching under clothes?”

Renjun squirmed underneath you, but maintained your eye contact. “Just under my shirt.”

“Smart boy,” you said approvingly. “Me too.”

“Is that it?” He asked quietly, eyes now flicking down to your lips.

“I think so…” You looked around the room to buy a couple extra seconds of thinking time. When you hadn’t come up with anything else, you looked down at the human below you once more. “Ready, Renjun?”

“Yes.”

You took one final look over him like this, how much he already wanted you before he’d even gotten any of your venom in him, and dragged the tip of your tongue over your bottom lip instinctually. His heartrate jumped, and you wondered if it was fear—if the motion had reminded him perhaps of a hungry predator—or need. Or maybe a bit of both.

But you couldn’t tease him nor yourself any longer, swooping down to connect your mouths. You started off with just a couple light, closed-mouth kisses, to ease him into it. You heard him inhale quickly through his nose, his grip on your thighs tightening minutely. Swiping your tongue across the seal of his lips, you were delighted when he immediately parted his mouth in response, his tongue seeking yours out. You hummed contentedly into his mouth as you started stroking a fingernail down the back of his neck again. At the same time, your venom was beginning to mix in with your saliva, being passed onto Renjun.

Once his jaw started going slack in the kiss, and his hands slowly slid off your legs entirely to rest lamely at his side, you deemed him plenty dosed up. Consciously, you blocked off your venom glands once more. When one particularly drawn-out scratch down the back of his neck finally elicited a noise from him, an involuntary whine, you felt something in you snap. You needed more of that.

“So this is what siren venom feels like…” He mumbled breathily, letting his head loll back against the couch cushion as you kissed a path down his jawline and neck. When you felt his breath hitch in his throat over one particular spot, you decided to take your time there, sucking and nipping a mark into his skin.

When humans were… locked in a lover’s embrace, they let off a certain perfume distinguishable only to sirens—which was what made them the favored prey of sirens for so long. A human under the influence of siren venom? Delectable. And every human’s was unique too, so Renjun under the influence of your venom? Absolutely addictive.

With each kiss you stole from his lips, every nip you left on his neck that you then soothed over with your tongue, you got another taste of it. A sweetness that came with a bite, like ginger candy.

Renjun was still talking, though, his vocal cords vibrating under your lips. “My-My heart’s beating so fast, and I’m so warm—that’s so the ocean water doesn’t feel cold, of course—”

“Would you shut up?” You sat back up, grabbing him by the hair.

“Why?”

“I’m trying to kiss you again, idiot.”

“Oh. Right.” He closed his mouth, looking up at you with glassy eyes, waiting. Gods, he was so pretty like this.

You crashed your lips back on his, a mess of teeth and lips and tongue as he tried to keep up with you. But you knew that your venom was in full effect now, every single one of his nerve endings was approximately three and half times more sensitive. So you were sure it was all a little overwhelming. But he was definitely trying his best, kissing sloppily into your mouth with hungry, desperate whines.

Pulling him back off with your grip in his hair, you traced a thumb over his kiss-swollen bottom lip, cooing over how fucked-out he looked like this. “Oh, baby. Oh, poor Junnie. What’s wrong? Can’t even kiss me properly because it feels too good? Baby’s overwhelmed with just a little bit of kissing?”

He opened his mouth wider, darting the tip of his tongue out to brush against the pad of your thumb. You pushed the finger in his mouth, groaning as he immediately closed his lips around it. “Gods, you’re perfect, Junnie.”

Taking your thumb back out of his mouth just to grab his chin with the same wet digit, you attacked his lips with yours again. Ginger candy. His hands that had been lamely resting at his sides the entire time now fumbled at something in the area where your hips met.

“What? What are you trying to do, baby?” You asked, leaning back to look down. He was grabbing at the hem of his hoodie, unsuccessfully yanking it up towards his head as part of it was stuck under one of your thighs.

“‘m too hot. Please…” He panted, dropping it as he looked up at you pleadingly.

You nodded slowly in understanding, knowing that one of the effects of the siren venom was an increase in body temperature, not to mention what you two were just doing. The collar of another shirt was visible underneath the sweatshirt. “Okay, Junnie, we can take your hoodie off. But only the hoodie. Your other clothes are staying on, understood?”

He nodded quickly, hips bucking up against you. Sweat was beading up on his forehead, his hair getting stuck to the damp skin. You shifted back on his lap so that none of the sweatshirt was under you anymore, grabbing the hem and reaching behind him to yank up from underneath him as well.

“Sit forward for me, baby?” You requested in his ear sweetly.

Renjun obliged as best he could, leaning forward to get his back and shoulders off the couch. You pulled the hoodie up over his head, tossing it off to the side, leaving him in a black t-shirt that certainly couldn’t be helping much either. But having that heavy layer off seemed to provide some relief for him, as he let out a sigh, falling back against the furniture again.

You giggled as you settled back into the crux of his lap again, lacing your fingers together behind his neck. “Is that better now, Junnie?”

He shook his head, and you arched an eyebrow curiously.

“Oh? What’s wrong, then?”

Renjun tugged gently at your cardigan where it had shrugged down to show one of your shoulders. “Please?”

Pulling your bottom lip in between your teeth, you thought this over. You had a tank top on under the cardigan, and both of you were still wearing everything else. Not to mention that you were starting to get a bit warm too. Sirens ran naturally cooler than humans, so you were sure that to him, you felt practically refreshing right now, but you honestly were a bit hot for a siren’s tastes.

Giving a contemplative hum first, you finally relented, “Alright, Junnie. But just my sweater. Everything else stays on, because we didn’t talk about that before the venom, do you understand?”

He rushed to strip you of the knit cardigan, his mouth following his hands’ path down your skin. First on your shoulder, then down your arm. You let the garment drop on the floor behind you as he kissed back up along your shoulder, then over the fabric of your tank top until he got to your collarbone, and finally the hollow of your throat. Fondly stroking the back of his head, the pleased purr that had started in your chest turned into a surprised moan when he licked a long stripe up your throat.

Holding his face in your hands so that your noses brushed, and your lips barely ghosted over each other, you let your breaths mingle in the meager space afforded. Renjun ended your little anticipation game quickly, kissing you tongue-first, and you kissed him back just as eagerly, sucking on his tongue with lewd, wet noises. He moaned into your mouth, his hands grabbing at your waist for purchase first, then slipping and curling into the material of your shirt, bunching it in his fists.

Slowing the pace of your kisses, you eventually sat back, appraising the state he was in. You affectionately ran a hand through his hair as you took in his blown pupils, kiss-swollen lips, and pink cheeks. “Junnie? How are you feeling? Need a break?”

You hadn’t given him another dose of venom since the initial one, which wasn’t very large to begin with. But this was his first time experiencing it, so you wanted to check in. He should be just past the peak of it by now, starting to come down but for all intents and purposes still very much intoxicated. Siren venom wasn’t meant to last very long, after all, it took an adult human less than a minute to drown.

“Need you…” He insisted, arching up towards you.

Indulging him in one, two more feverish kisses, you pulled away once again. “I know, baby. And you’ve been doing so good for me. So I need you to tell me if you need a break. Okay?”

“’kay.” He agreed before you sealed your mouth over his again.

Kissing down from his mouth to just under his jaw, at the same time you trailed a finger down the center of his front until it got to the hem of his t-shirt.

He nodded fervently before you could say or do anything more. “Please… please…”

“Shh, shh, shh,” you quieted him down gently. “Doing so good for me, Junnie. The best.”

You slipped your hands under his shirt, just to stroke his waist. His muscles tensed under your touch, and he let out a sound of satisfaction. He grabbed at your thighs again, but you couldn’t tell if it was an attempt at reciprocity or to have something sturdier to ground himself to than your flimsy tank top. The corner of your lips quirked up as you pressed a couple more kisses down his neck to hover your lips over his pulse point, content to start a new mark there as your hands continued to explore under his shirt. It was when you gently raked your nails down over his pecs that you got the loudest moan out of him yet, and you groaned in response.

“Gods, you’re perfect,” you nuzzled your nose into Renjun’s neck, then pressed a couple relatively chaste pecks to his cheek. “Just perfect…”

Taking your hands back out from his shirt, you silenced his whine at the loss of contact by slotting your lips together once more. You cupped his face with one hand, using the other to take one of his hands off your leg and lace them together, palm to palm. This seemed to make him content once more, especially when you brought your connected hands up to the back of the couch, pinning his behind his head. He squirmed under you, letting out a familiar noise of pleasure into your mouth and squeezing your hand tightly.

You knew the venom was well and truly starting to wear off when Renjun began keeping pace with your slow, lazy kisses, his mouth not as sloppy but no less delightful as it moved in tandem with yours. The thumb of the remaining hand on your thigh started to stroke over your skin, and the hand that you were holding gave yours a gentle squeeze. You gave him one, two last lingering kisses, drinking in the dwindling taste of ginger candy while you could, Renjun matching you beat for beat.

Unlacing your fingers and dropping your hand from his face, you drew back from him. Before you could say anything, though, Renjun grabbed you by the back of the neck and pulled you in for one more kiss, sinking his teeth into your already tender, over-kissed bottom lip. You gasped into his mouth, which gave him the perfect opportunity to intertwine his tongue with yours again on his apparent mission to try to kiss the breath from you. A nigh impossible task for a human to do to a siren, but it definitely felt like he was succeeding. He was crushing his lips against yours so hard you were worried about him drawing blood—not because you would mind the pain, but for fear of his safety if he got a direct hit of your blood in his mouth.

In the back of your mind, you were desperately trying to remember if you had maybe accidentally opened your venom glands a second time later on, but just drew a blank. That wasn’t something you did unaware, it wasn’t automatic, it had to be done on purpose. Then, for a brief moment, you were worried about secondary wave syndrome—some humans break down siren venom in two phases instead of one, and the second one almost always kills them if they’re not brought to a human medical doctor for treatment—and you started running through the symptoms as well as the nearest human emergency rooms in your mind. Burst capillaries in the eyes, refusal of food and water, the hospital three blocks over should have an ER, right? But the kiss didn’t feel like when he’d been intoxicated on your venom before, this one felt deliberate, in control. He was in control. You let out a small moan at the thought, and Renjun’s lone hand on your thigh tightened in response.

Once he finally let you go, you both sat there in silence for a good few seconds, you still on his lap. You stared extra hard at the whites of his eyes. They looked normal. He seemed… normal.

It was rare for either of you to be speechless, much less the both of you.

“Well…” you broke the silence. “That was siren venom. You should drink some water. Stay right here, I’ll get it.”

You climbed off of him, heading into his kitchen. Looking at the oven, you were wondering how the timer hadn’t gone off in that entire time when you saw that it wasn’t on. The words ‘TIMER SET?�� were flashing on the screen at you, and the preheat hadn’t been started either. The pizza rolls had just been slowly defrosting on a pan in the cold oven. You couldn’t help but laugh, reaching into his fridge for his Brita filter then securing a couple cups from the cabinets.

Walking back into the living room, you handed the human his cup of water and remained standing as you took a sip of yours.

“You didn’t start the oven, for your pizza rolls,” you informed him quietly.

“Wh— oh, shit,” Renjun groaned, tipping his head back. “I guess I don’t get to give you your first pizza roll tonight.”

“That’s okay.” You dropped onto the couch next to him, shoulder to shoulder.

“So… that was siren venom,” he breathed out, then took a long gulp of his water. Definitely not second wave syndrome.

“That was siren venom,” you confirmed with a laugh, fondly brushing a piece of sweaty hair off his forehead.

“You were right… I was not prepared,” he admitted with a laugh, taking another drink.

“So do you think you would’ve let me kill you?”

“Yeah. I would’ve given you my credit card info, bank password, spilled all of my friends’ worst secrets, let you kill me, killed someone else if you asked me. God, that was…” He said with wide eyes, shaking his head. But there was a familiar glint in his eye as a smile cracked across his face, “Incredible.”

“Glad you think so,” you giggled, patting his chest. “Now don’t become a venom junkie, okay? I couldn’t live with myself if you did and it was my fault.”

“I won’t. Not really what I meant anyway.”

You grinned slyly at what he seemed to be implying, that it might not have just been the siren venom, but that it was you and your venom that made it so incredible. Like how every human had a slightly different essence, every siren had a unique chemical signature in their venom. It’s why using it non-consensually nowadays would be extremely stupid (as well as just an immoral thing to do and also a crime)—it can be matched to the siren in a lab like DNA. In addition, anecdotally, every siren’s venom was said to produce a slightly different high, but no mass studies had backed that up. You were inclined to believe the stories, though.

Renjun was still a bit hazy, though, still riding the high of the venom, so you decided to tuck a conversation like that away for another time.

“So why did you pick Magical Creatures Studies? Other than you’re insane?” You redirected the topic to a more neutral one.

Renjun didn’t seem put off at all about this jump. “When I was a kid, my family traveled around a bunch, for my dad’s job. I got to meet a lot of different kinds of beings, some of them became my best friends, and I never wanted to stop learning about it all.”

“What does your dad do?”

“Government job,” he answered, suddenly interested in picking at his nails.

You furrowed your brow thoughtfully. “Wait a minute… Huang Renjun. As in, your father is Ambassador Huang? That we’ve had to write papers on in class?”

Ambassador Huang was the first human ambassador sent on diplomacy trips to outside nations of magical creatures post-integration. His trips had largely been considered a monumental success, and credited as a big driver behind the huge uptick of immigration that your city has been seeing from outlying areas in the past couple decades. You’d hardly gotten through a single contemporary MCS class without directly learning about him or at least hearing his name. And you’d apparently been going to school with his son for four years and just pumped said son full of your venom and made out with him while he was high on your venom.

“Yeah…”

“Dude! What the hell? You didn’t think to mention that at some point?” You asked incredulously.

“And sound like some uppity nepo kid bragging about my dad? No thanks,” Renjun snorted.

“Yeah, maybe not like day one but like… I don’t know, before I used my venom on you!” You nudged his arm teasingly.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“I just venom-ed Ambassador Huang’s son!”

“Oh my God, could you not call me that?” He snapped at you. “This is why I don’t tell people! Because now I don’t have a name anymore, I’m just Ambassador Huang’s son.”

You immediately realized your mistake, your stomach dropping as you heard the hurt in his words. “Renjun, I’m—”

“Just go.” He demanded, standing up from the couch and putting distance between you two again. “We both got what we wanted, right? You found out who Dr. Magic was, and I experienced siren venom. That’s all this was, so you can go. You don’t owe me anything else.”

You clenched your jaw, setting your cup on the end table beside the couch. Picking up your cardigan from the floor with as much dignity as you could, you pulled it back on. Neither of you said another word as he watched you stalk over to the front door, shove your shoes back on, throw the door open, and slam it closed behind you.

Drumming your fingertips along your keyboard, you squinted at the flashcards on your screen. You were in a sour mood, which had persisted ever since you’d left Renjun’s last night feeling used.

Ten was next to you at your picnic table outside the student union, finishing up a pencil portrait sketch of one of his other friends—one of the CompSci majors you’d paid to write your browser extension, actually. Dejun, a dragon, whose slit pupils, many bejeweled earrings, and a singular fang poking out from under his top lip featured prominently in the portrait. The sketch was part of Ten’s midterm portfolio check-in for one of his classes. Midterms were literally this week. Like, right now. You forced your sharp teeth further into the wooden pencil in your mouth.

“You’re going to ruin your cuspids like that, Y/N,” Ten chastised you calmly, rubbing at a line with the pad of his ring finger to smudge it before flipping his own non-mangled pencil around and continuing to sketch with the graphite.

“I’ll grow another set,” you grumbled, but took the writing utensil out of your mouth nevertheless.

“And have no teeth in the meantime. Real sexy siren stuff. Sure to lure all the hotties to their deaths looking like GamGam missing her dentures.”

“Shut up!” You shoved his head away, earning a loud peal of laughter from your friend. “As if you’ve been pulling anybody yourself. You’re literally a siren art major covered in tattoos that he designed himself, more piercings than a dragon, including nipple rings, and you haven’t been on a date in… what, almost a year?”

“So we’re both disappointments to the good siren name, huh?” He held up his hands in surrender, still grinning. “Just a couple of poor, celibate sirens doomed to be disgraces to their species forever…”

“Can you not yell that to the entire courtyard, dude?”

“What? Not announce very loudly that you haven’t been with anybody in exactly four—”

You lunged to cover his mouth before he could publicize precisely how long it’s been since you’d hooked up with someone. Ten immediately broke down into laughs behind your hand that was covering his mouth, his shoulders shaking even as you smacked him on the back of the head with your other hand.

“Gods, what is wrong with you?” You hissed at him. “You’re a menace to society. And me.”

When you’d finally let go of his face, he said through a couple more chuckles, “Hey, you could easily do it back to me.”

“Why would I want to do that? And the fact that you’re suggesting it makes me think that you want me to do that, which makes me want to do it even less. You freak.”

Before your podmate could respond, you caught sight of a figure approaching your table head-on. Setting your jaw, your body immediately tensed. There was no mistake, Huang Renjun was walking straight towards you. Ten seemed to have noticed the shift in your body language and mood, as he didn’t say anything further, quietly going back to his sketchbook as you watched Renjun get nearer and nearer.

“Y/N,” he said your name quietly, stopping not quite at the end of the table beside you, but next to the end of the bench across from you.

“What do you want from me now, Renjun?” You replied bitterly, pretending to return your hands to your keyboard as if you were going to refocus on your studies.

“Uhm, to talk, I guess?”

Ten interjected, “Do you guys need a second? I can go—”

You held him in place with a hand around his wrist, your voice curt, “No, Ten. Stay. This will be short.”

Your friend lowered himself back down into his seat.

You then set your hard gaze on Renjun. The marks you had left on his neck were still visible above the collar of his t-shirt. Moving your eyes from that to his face, you cocked your head to the side. “What’s in it for me? You established that our relationship is purely transactional, remember? We apparently just use each other. You scratch my back, I spit in your mouth, quid pro quo.”

“Okay, I’m going now,” Ten declared, wrenching his arm from your grasp to grab his sketchbook, pencils, and backpack before taking off.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. I don’t see you like that at all, I just... I got defensive and snapped. It’s not an excuse, but still, I want you to know that I don’t mean anything I said. I’m sorry.” Renjun shifted uncomfortably on his feet, but you could see the genuine remorse on his features.

You breathed in, then out.

“I’m sorry too,” you sighed, letting your voice relax back to the natural softness that it held around Renjun. “You’re your own person, aside from just ‘Ambassador Huang’s son.’ I’m sorry for treating you like anything other than Renjun.”

“It’s not that I’m not super proud to be his son or anything, I think he’s really awesome. He was my hero growing up; still is. I mean, I’m going into the same field as him. Kind of. You know? It’s just because we’re going to be doing the same kind of thing, I want to be able to be looked at for what I do. Good or bad.”

“Bad? You plan on using your degree for evil, Renjun?” You teased, scooting over on the bench seat to take Ten’s previous spot and freeing up a place for Renjun to scoot in beside you.

“I could,” he played along, gladly taking the seat offered.

The two of you made eye contact, then burst into laughter at the same time.

“What?” He questioned in mock offense. “I think I’d make a great evil dictator, personally. You don’t think so?”

“Not at all, you’d be great at it.”

“Thank you. My friends don’t take my threats so seriously.”

“Which will ultimately be their downfall.”

Renjun looked back out at the campus in front of you two, his voice turning serious again, “But, seriously, I mean, I don’t want people having all these lofty expectations for me and then be disappointed when I don’t change the whole world, nor do I want them making things easy for me because they know my dad.”

“That’s fair. Unattainable, but fair to wish for,” you nodded in understanding.

“Ugh...” He slumped forward, dropping his head into his arms atop the table.

“Look, Renjun…” You rested one hand on his arm as the other rubbed up and down his back supportively. “You can’t change who your dad is, and you said it yourself, it’s not like you’re ashamed of him either. So don’t brag, and don’t be a dick when somebody brings him up either. Just do your best to show people who Huang Renjun is. And if they still don’t get it, that’s their loss. Because I already know him, and I think he’s pretty cool.”

Renjun sat back up to look you in the face with a skeptical eyebrow raised. “You’re such a cheeseball. Aren’t sirens supposed to be alluring and enchanting?”

“Shut up! I will drown you! See how alluring I am when you’re under a siren call,” you huffed, crossing your arms over your chest.

“I’m kidding.” He grinned at you, nudging your shoulder with his. “That really did make me feel better, thank you, Y/N.”

You smiled back. “You’re welcome, Renjun.”

The two of you kept smiling at each other for a moment before he broke the eye contact, looking down at his hands then shifting his gaze back to the courtyard.

“Uhm, while we’re airing stuff out about last night...” He cleared his throat awkwardly.

“Yeah, Junnie?” You tilted your head to the side, watching as his cheeks started flushing.

“I don’t think I ever said thank you. I kind of popped off on you right after... everything. But thank you, for taking care of me before, during, and after. It didn’t even occur to me to talk about what we could and couldn’t do beforehand. Thank you for that, and for getting me the water. And... all of it in between...” His ears were bright red too at this point, but he managed to look you in the eye as he gave you his genuine gratitude.

You nodded in understanding. “You’re welcome. I’m glad that you felt cared for during all of it. In addition to, you know, everything else you felt.”

“Mm, yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck.

Studying his face curiously, you said, “You look like you want to ask me something else.”

“Well, I feel like you still weren’t very clear on the ‘eat me alive’ thing.”

You rolled your eyes. “Gods, Junnie, I’m not going to actually eat you—”

“I mean...” Renjun took a deep breath. “I kind of always feel like I’ve got a little bit of siren venom in me when I’m around you, Y/N. My heart races, and my skin is warm, and everything is just better when I’m with you. I want to see you when you’re not around, and when things are hard for you, I want to make everything better. I like you, and between the Dr. Magic deal, and our stupid academic rivalry, and what we did last night, I don’t know what I am to you, but that’s how I feel.”

If someone had told freshman you that Huang Renjun would ever say words like that to you, you’d have laughed in their face to the point of tears— or slapped them. And yet, in that moment, you weren’t surprised in the slightest. It was the most natural, beautiful, delightful, perfect thing that could’ve happened. Just like you leaning over to give him a modest, near-demure kiss on the cheek, absolutely beaming at him as you pulled back.

“I like you too, Renjun,” you admitted.

His eyes went wide before a broad, tender smile spread across his features and he wrapped an arm around your shoulders. He let out a drawn-out sigh of relief, “Ohh, that’s one weight off my chest for this week.”

You laughed in agreement. “Me too. Actually makes everything feel lighter.”

“Yeah, it does,” he said, squeezing your shoulder. “So how much do I owe you?”

“What?”

“You said you were going to invoice Dr. Magic. For the browser extension, and the color copies, and whatever else. How much do I owe you?”

You tapped a finger against your chin, pretending to think before a smirk pulled across your lips. “Mm, should be exactly the price of one nice dinner and a movie.”

“Dinner and a movie? Just how many copies were you making?” He asked with a chuckle and a shake of his head.

“A nice dinner,” you reiterated. “I paid those CompSci majors fairly for their time.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Friday night after your last midterm, you were knocking on Huang Renjun’s door. The two of you had seen each other this week for your Linguistics in MCS class, but had been utterly locked into academic mode and hadn’t met up aside from that. So, per his invite, you were here in your “midterms best”— i.e., the pajamas you had been wearing at your own apartment since submitting your last mid-semester draft earlier today. You’d been told this wasn’t going to be a fancy affair.

Judging by the pajamas that Renjun had also answered the door wearing—giving you vivid déjà vu to the last time you were here—you were dressed appropriately for the occasion. He led you in by the hand, informing you there was something he wanted to show you in the kitchen.

You came to a stop in front of a plate piled high with small, pillow-shaped pieces of dough, some with bursts of red sauce leaking out of them. You couldn’t help but let out a sputtering laugh. “Pizza rolls? Did midterms scramble the egg on your face so bad that you missed the part where I said nice dinner?”

You might not have ever eaten pizza rolls, but you knew what section of the grocery store they came from.

“I can’t even tell what that was supposed to be… You’re so beautiful…” He was staring at you with a look of pure adoration, and surprised you by giving you a fleeting peck on the cheek, gone as soon as you’d realized what he was doing. Your hand instinctually came up to brush at your skin, almost in disbelief, as he went back to explaining his plans for tonight. “Anyway, I didn’t get to give you your first pizza roll the other night, and I figured that the last thing you actually wanted right after midterms week was to go out to some hoity toity place and be out at the movie theater really late, right? So, I’ve got pizza rolls, peanut butter cookies, your seaweed tea, and like way more snacks and candy and stuff. So we can chill and watch whatever movies you want tonight, unwind from midterms. And then next weekend, we’ll do your nice dinner and go to the movie theater. Think of it as an IOU.”

A fond smile tugged at the corner of your mouth as you nodded your approval. “Mmm… you’re right. This is great, Junnie. Thank you.”

Set up on Renjun’s couch with the assortment of snacks—pizza rolls included—and your first movie chosen, you settled in next to him, knee to knee, under the same blanket as the two of you ate. You decided that pizza rolls weren’t that bad (you still liked peanut butter sandwich cookies better), convinced Renjun to try some of your ocean flakes again—a favorite snack of sirens, which he’d already tasted on one occasion at a Dr. Magic hunting session and hated—to similar results, and finished off a bottle of seaweed-infused tea by the time the first movie was about a third of the way done. At this point, you were pretty satiated food-wise, and set your empty drink bottle on the coffee table to sit back on the couch.

Linking your arm with Renjun’s, you rested your head on his shoulder as he was still finishing up his plate of pizza rolls. “That was good, Renjun. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I call dibs on little spoon first, by the way.”

“Damn.”

Once he was done eating as well, you laid down to eagerly take your promised place as little spoon. Renjun stayed partially propped up against the arm of the couch so he could see the TV as you were nestled back against his chest, one of his arms slung over your waist. Your fingers played with his under the blanket absentmindedly as you got used to your new place, with him, in his arms.

“Renjun?” You said into the quiet. The only noises were coming from the TV. The movie was nearly done, just a couple little resolving scenes after the climax left. You’d seen it plenty of times before—both of you had, it was a favorite that you’d discovered you two shared earlier in the semester—which was why you’d picked it, an easy watch that you both liked. But nothing that required your full attention, so you could talk or miss scenes if you wanted.

“Yeah?” He responded just as softly.

“This is really nice. Hanging out, just us. No school, no Dr. Magic.”

“I know. Almost doesn’t feel real.”

“What? That we’re hanging out without trying to kill each other?”

He let out a couple laughs, catching your hand that had been playing with his under the blanket and lacing your fingers together. “I think there’s definitely some people that would be shocked to see us right now. But I meant more-so that we don’t have any schoolwork to do right now, and that the whole Dr. Magic thing is finally over. Other than the dinner that I owe you.”

“Oh… I owe you… I-O-U…” you sounded the words and letters out slowly. “I get it now.”

“God, you’re perfect,” he sighed dreamily, brushing your hair away from your face to press two kisses to your temple in quick succession.

You turned over to face him to properly protest, “Hey, I didn’t grow up around humans, you know that, right? I just came here to go to school! I moved here like, two weeks before our first day of freshman year—”

“I’m not making fun of you, Y/N!” He promised, sandwiching your hand between both of his and squeezing it tightly. “I respect how difficult it must have been for you to acclimate to the new culture and city when you moved, and so suddenly, on top of starting school. I just love y- love when you do that. Genuinely, I’m so charmed by it. Endeared. Bewitched. Whatever word you want to use. It’s something I never noticed until this semester, when we started doing the Dr. Magic stuff together. Despite knowing you for so long, in the department, in classes.”

“You know what I never knew about you before this semester, Junnie?”

“What?”

“That you were such a softie,” you snickered fondly. “I thought you were all textbooks and GPA and flashcards and whatever.”

The human ducked his head bashfully. “It’s something I’ve been working on this year.”

“Between this and Dr. Magic, I think you’ve been doing pretty well.”

“Thanks.”

“So, why did you do it, Junnie?” You asked curiously. “Not be a softie, I mean, but…”

“What? Be Dr. Magic?” He clarified, to which you nodded. “I didn’t mean to make a persona like that, really. I had to pick a screenname, and the guys had jokingly called me that a couple times when I helped them out with some problems. That’s all.”

“I know why you started the account. Knowledge. That’s also why you didn’t get the credit. You just needed to know. Though, the story behind the name is cute,” you pinched his cheek, and he tried to deter your hand with his shoulder half-heartedly. “I mean more like, why were you hiding your IP and using VPNs and stuff before you even knew that I was trying to track you down? In the fall.”

“I made the first couple posts from the school computers just because I like to do my work there, I wasn’t trying to cover anything up. Then I pictured what I’d do if I found someone posting like I was on the forums. And I would’ve tried to find out who they were. So I started covering my tracks a bit more intentionally after that. Didn’t want any groupies rolling up on me.” He pinched your side teasingly with the last sentence, and you slapped his hand away with an eye roll.

“Oh shut up!” You scoffed, ignoring his hands as he tried to pull you back towards him again.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding, I’m sorry,” he apologized through his chuckles. “If anything I’m your groupie, I swear. Your number one fan from the moment you showed me your conspiracy board.”

“Mm, fine.” You scooted closer to him, letting him wrap his arms around you once more. “Glad we got that cleared up.”

Renjun shifted to lay on his back, and you easily followed the move to snuggle in mostly on top of him, resting your head in the crook of his neck and your hand on his waist, fingers innocently smoothing over a patch of skin above his hipbone where his shirt had ridden up. It sounded like the credits were on by now, but you didn’t really care about picking another movie as Renjun hummed along to the familiar song that played over the scrolling names. You’d sing along too, if you were alone at your own place. But now you didn’t dare even hum like the human with you for fear of what it could do to him. Renjun’s voice was plenty lovely enough though, even just this casual little bit humming. You’d see if you could get him to sing for you properly one of these days. If an opportunity came before graduation. Who knew what your days would even look like before then.

Gods, graduation. You felt like you could shrivel up and die just thinking about it. Not to mention that you hadn’t even told Renjun that you’d—

“Hey. What are you thinking about?” He suddenly asked, his disapproving tone clear.

You gulped. “How could you tell I was thinking about something?”

“For one, you’ve got your bad thinking face on.” He pinched your bottom lip. “You pout. It’s very dramatic. You look very concerned.”

“I have different thinking faces?”

“Yeah, you look different when you’re studying. I’ve seen you do plenty of that to know the difference. And you’ve got a third face when you’re contemplating. Usually you do that one when you’re looking at menus.”

“I didn’t know I was apparently an open book.” You covered your face with your hands in embarrassment.

“It’s cute, Y/N. You’ve got a cute face, and you make cute facial expressions with it, don’t cover it up.” He gingerly grabbed your hands to encourage you to take them off. “Except I am worried about what’s making you make your bad thinking face right now. What’s wrong?”

With a sigh, you pushed up into a sitting position. Renjun followed your lead curiously, a thoughtful frown on his own features as he watched you pull your knees to your chest.

“Renjun, I need to tell you something.”

He regarded you with a skeptical eyebrow raised. “Okay… go for it.”

Nervously, you smoothed out some wrinkles in your pajama pants as you confessed, “Uhm, Dr. Kwon asked me to carry the banner at commencement. I said yes.”

“I knew that.”

“What?” You looked up at him in disbelief.

“Well, since it was midterms already, I figured that if they’d picked me, they would have asked me by now and since they hadn’t, then they must have picked you. I was just waiting for you to tell me so I could tell you… Congrats.” Renjun grinned brightly at you, reaching out to rest his hand on your arm.

“You’re not upset?” You asked trepidly.

“We’re not petty little freshmen anymore, Y/N. No, I’m not upset. I’m proud of you, you deserve it.”

“So did you.”

“Not any more than you did.” He shook his head firmly. “So would you just accept my congrats already?”

You gave a small, shaky smile. “Thank you…”

“There we go.”

“This is what I was so freaked about… when we went to get froyo.”

“You were afraid of me being mad at you for being picked to carry the banner?” Renjun asked incredulously.

“I didn’t know how to tell you!” You defended yourself. “And now I have to do the commencement practices, on top of senior capstone and my extracurriculars…”

He wrinkled his nose. “Ew, commencement practices. So glad I didn’t get picked now, actually.”

“And that was so convincing, Junnie.”

“You remember what you said to me when we got froyo?”

Scrunching your face up, you struggled to think back to the exact conversation you had that day—you’d been really stressed. “Uh, ‘exactly two gummy sharks on mine please?’”

“Well, yeah, your hyper-specific froyo order—”

“Throwing stones at black kettles much?” You teased.

“Excuse me?” Renjun’s eyes went wide.

“Is that not—? I really thought I got it that time.”

“Did you mean to say ‘throwing stones in glass houses’ and/or ‘the pot calling the kettle black?’”

“…Yes.”

He turned very serious as he went to tenderly cradle your face in his hands. “I’m going to kiss you in like two seconds after I finish what I was saying, okay?”

“Oh, okay,” you agreed weakly, wishing very much that he’d just do it now instead of making you wait. He then let your face go.

“When we were talking about wanting people to know that we’re smart,” Renjun clarified. “You said that we’re both like that, and you knew that you were like that. And then you asked me if I knew that I was like that. I had tried to swear up and down this entire time that I was doing all of this—the needing to be the best—for myself. But it wasn’t. I’m like that too. That’s kind of what Dr. Magic was, me taking a step back from needing everyone to know I was the smartest person in the room. A quasi-experiment, to see if I could do it.”

“I think that after graduation, maybe we both chill on being the smartest person in the room, and try to just spend a summer working on that magical bucket list of yours?” You suggested.

“Oh?” He perked up at this. “Really?”

“You ever seen a werewolf shift?”

“No…”

“That sounds like a ‘not yet’ to me.”

“Sounds like a plan.” He confirmed with a conspiratorial grin that mirrored the one that you could feel across your own face. “You know how sirens can’t get dosed up on their own venom?”

“Yeah…” You nodded, wondering where he could be going with this.

“Well, I know a witch with a proprietary love potion blend that I think we might be able to modify to produce similar effects.”

“Fascinating.” You thought on this for a second, very quickly running through your knowledge of potion properties to imagine what it could be. “Two-factor blood potion?”

“Yes. But we’d put your venom in it instead of your blood so it wouldn’t kill me.”

“That could work…” You mused. “Speaking of, I should really give you a full dose one of these days.”

He breathed in sharply. “That wasn’t a full dose?”

“Nope.”

“Holy shit…”

“Have you ever watched a phoenix reincarnation?” You added another suggestion to your joint summer bucket list.

“Have you? Wouldn’t that literally blind us?” Renjun questioned, something akin to genuine concern on his face now.

You shrugged. “Allegedly. It’s never been recorded in a lab setting, so who really knows.”

“I think we’re going to get each other killed before we can get our PhDs,” he declared with a fond smile and shake of his head.

“Hey, the betting pools said we’d kill each other by junior year, so I think we’re doing well for ourselves.”

“Do you think we can collect on those bets when we graduate and we’re both still alive and have all of our limbs?”

“We’ll burn that bridge when we get there.”

“Oh my god, come here,” Renjun groaned deliriously, kneeling to grab your face with two hands and crash his lips to yours. You curled your fingers in the front of his shirt, pulling him down with you as you fell back against the arm of his couch, still connected.

Yeah, you’d drive off that burning bridge when you got there.

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[covetyou]

honey, you're familiar

ao3 ⋆ main masterlist ⋆ series masterlist

pairing: Tess Servopoulos x f!reader rating: Explicit (18+ only!) warnings: dub-con, oral (f receiving), fingering, readers first time with another woman, one use of good girl, drug reference. word count: 3.3k summary: The first time your father struggles to afford his pills you figure you'll do what you can to help. All you need to do is find his dealer and talk to him, right? How difficult could a man like that be to find.

A/N: we needed more time with Anna Torv Tess. Like, a whole series more time.

prequel to something wretched about this. can be read as a stand-alone.

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divider by @saradika

Now's your chance. Probably fucking stupid really, pulling a stunt like this on a woman like her, but you don't know how else to reach her, where else to go. This is the best option you have. So you grab her arm.

Your fingers have barely clasped around her jacket when she's twisting, hand raised ready to back-hand whoever dared to grab her. You flinch back, waiting for the sting of pain across your cheek, but instead she hesitates, stopping herself from striking you.

Her face pinches into a confused frown, and she wrenches your hand from her arm, throwing it away from her like you're some dirty, filthy thing, and stalks off before you can say anything.

"Please..." you start, chasing after her, not even trying to be discreet. She rounds an alleyway, and suddenly she's grabbing you, dragging and pulling you down the street, away from prying eyes, up some stairs into what you thought was an abandoned apartment block and pushing you against a wall.

"The fuck do you want."

"I'm sorry for grabbing you, I am, I just need information and your name is the only one I have and I-"

"Who the fuck is giving you my name and what for," her hand raises again, and this time you think she might really do it.

"My dad! My dad, he's sick, he has a dealer who helps him, I just need his name, I need to go see him, dad's got bad again and I-"

She backs away from you to lean on the wall opposite as you speak, shaking her head at your rambling. You're clearly already giving her a fucking headache, and she pinches her nose and raises a palm to stop you. "Slow the fuck down."

"My dad is sick."

"I know who your daddy is, you don't need to tell me he's sick, I know. What I'm wondering is why his daughter is snooping around, grabbing people, asking for names she apparently doesn't know."

"I just need to know who his dealer is. We can't pay for the pills this month and I thought maybe if I spoke to him I could..." You trail off. You both knew just speaking to whoever your dads dealer was wouldn't be the end of it, it never was. The dream was you'd asked nicely and be given what you asked for, but the reality was you probably wouldn't get it without giving something first.

"And you got my name how?"

"My dad mentioned... you?"

"Right," she says, biting back a laugh, before pushing herself away from the wall she'd been leaning on and clapping her hands. "Well, you're in luck. I'm feeling generous, and I think I can point you in the right direction. Come with me."

You follow, like a dog on a bitch in heat, practically running after her as she strides down the hallway, yanking open a door and pushing you inside. She doesn't bother to look around, knowing full well the building is cold and abandoned for a reason.

You walk further into the room as she enters behind you. There's an old desk and chair on one side, and scraps of wood, old broken furniture and stacks of chairs littered around the edges, pushed against the walls. Once upon a time it would have been a make shift office space, but now it was nothing better than a grimy, long forgotten storage room.

You turn just in time to see her propping a chair under the door handle. You stare at it as she walks past you, taking a seat at the desk. Raising a heavy booted foot up on the worn wooden edge and clasping her hands together, she looks at you with a gleam in her eyes, resting her elbows on the arms of the chair.

"So," she begins with a smirk, as a thread of realization starts to crawl up your spine. "How can I help you?"

Shit. Shit. Your dad didn't give her name because she was a friend, she was his fucking dealer. If he'd been honest with you, told you when you asked who was helping him instead of being so cagey about it, this never would have happened. You wouldn't be stuck in this room with Tess, skirting around the fact you definitely were not willing to offer your body in exchange for your fathers medication.

You quickly realize there is no way to recover from this, no way to back track or back out now. She's going to give you shit for this, you just know it, and you're going to be sent out of here humiliated and with nothing to show for it. You might have even ruined it all for your dad. The thought makes your head swim and bile rise in your throat.

You gape at her for a while and she stares back, challenging you to say something, anything, to her.

"Look," you start, trying to laugh it off, lighten the mood. "I think I've got things mixed up, so I'll just -"

"So you'll what?" she laughs cruelly. "You thought you could come find his dealer, drop to your knees, suck a dick, and get your daddies pills for free."

"I didn't - I never -"

"Do it then," she says from her seat. "Get on your knees."

You stop and start a few times, but no words come to mind. There is no way out of this. So, you slowly sink to your knees in the middle of the dusty room. You're going to get those pills.

As your knees bite into the grit on the floor you watch as her head tips to rest on the back of the chair and her shoulders softly shake, her laughter filling the room.

"Cute," she says, looking back at you, leaning forward and beckoning you toward her with two fingers. "Come here, pretty girl," she croons. "And I don't remember saying you could stand up."

You shuffle over to her on your knees, trying to keep your balance so your hands don't touch the gritty floor.

"You're going to do something for me, and then I'm going to do something for you, okay?"

"Okay," you nod in agreement, unable to make eye contact with her. That is what you came out today for after all, though you can't say the change in anatomy was expected.

"And then when you leave here, you keep your mouth shut, are we clear?"

You bite down on your lips and nod at her from the floor, looking every bit as pathetic as you feel. None of this is going how you'd planned, and you're not sure if that's for better or for worse.

"Ever eaten pussy," she asks, pulling her jacket from around her. You look up at her and shake your head, feeling impossibly small as you sink even further down on your knees. You hadn't, but had thought about it, wanted it, just never found a person to do it with, and certainly never expected to be doing it now.

"Well then, sweetie, you better be a quick learner."

She unzips her pants and pulls them under her ass, yanking them to her knees. It's all so quick you don't have time to register what's going on until her hand is on you.

"Come here," she grabs at your arm, pulling you closer as she kicks her pants to her ankles and slides back in the chair. She yanks you forward, lifts her legs over your head and pulls you in toward her with the fabric caught around her ankles. You're caged in now, trapped between her pants and her cunt, and you are totally, utterly, stunned.

"Don't, wouldn't... wouldn't a... man be better?" you stutter, trying to keep your eyes on hers and not between her legs. It's a stupid question, you know it, but you're nervous and stalling for more time doesn't seem like such a bad idea.

"If I wanted a man, I would get a man. More trouble than they're worth most of the time. You gonna try to stick your dick in me, pretty girl?"

She grabs your chin, and when you don't answer she clicks her tongue at you, pulling your face down between her legs.

"Didn't think so."

You finally look down between her soft thighs. You hadn't seen if she was wearing panties, for all you knew she was going commando under her jeans, but now here she was completely bare before you. Seeing another woman like this was strange, but not unwelcome. If you'd had more time, and the circumstances had been a bit different, you would have liked to have spent more time just looking at her. You'd never seen one up close before, only glimpsing your own as you looked down your body. Given the chance you know you would spend hours here between her legs just looking, exploring.

But that wasn't what this was, and as beautiful as Tess was, this was business.

You cast one last tentative look up as you slowly lower your face to her cunt, catching her eyes as she looks down expectantly at you.

You press your lips to her inner thigh as she watches, kissing as close to her center as you can be without touching, and let out a shaky breath. That's the first hurdle dealt with, but nerves still bubble in your belly. You kiss her soft skin once more, nosing at the sensitive flesh and breathing in her heady scent.

"Mm. Well, shit, that feels nice," she sighs, letting her head fall back and closing her eyes. You do it again, spurred on by her approval and the growing wetness between your own legs, feathering kisses all around the outside of her cunt, chaining them together so eventually you're mouthing around her delicate skin. You let your tongue peak out as your lips meander across her flesh, leaving wet trails in your wake as you move.

You psych yourself up, just go for it, taste her, do it, she wants it, what could go wrong, before you finally take the dive and lick a delicate strip through her folds. She tastes similar to you, but not quite. You give her another gentle lick, your wet tongue curiously lapping at her entrance before you move up, up, up, and press a soft kiss to her clit. Her entire body relaxes and shifts down in the chair, her legs spreading further over the arms, giving you more access and her tangled feet pushing into your back to pull you in closer.

You kiss it again, and again, before you let your tongue slip out to lap softly at the sensitive nub, licking upwards in slow strokes and dragging your bottom lip across it. You suckle on her clit for a little before releasing, wishing desperately now that you had something between your own legs too.

Feeling bolder, you lick a broader stripe across her cunt, your breath getting caught in your throat, and coming out as a small moan. Tess's sigh in response is all you need to start devouring her, dipping your tongue into her slick hole. You let your hand come up to pull her apart, making it easier for you to lap at her folds. You know your actions are unrefined, messy, but as she starts to moan above you you don't care. You feel as lost in it as she is, imagining how this would feel. A soft face and delicate fingers between your thighs. Gentle, feminine moans dancing softly across your pussy. You groan into her wet heat at the thought, rocking your hips into the empty air in an effort to chase some kind of relief.

"Keep moaning all pretty like that and anyone would think you like eating pussy."

Your eyes catch hers, dark and fiery, staring down at you. You want to tell her you do like it, you'd dreamed of it, wanted to do it so many times before but never had the chance. The most you'd ever done with a woman involved gentle kisses and light touches - thrilling at the time, but nothing compared to being between another woman's thighs. You don't dare take your mouth off of her to tell her any of it, so you moan again mumble a mhm into her, bringing your other hand to her thigh to grip as you do.

You let your grip anchor you down, slow your movements. The few times a man had bothered doing this to you, their rapid sloppy movements felt good, but not enough. Of all the times you'd gotten yourself off, you needed precision and repetition to get there, and now that you'd had a taste and indulged your own desires, you wanted to give Tess what she wanted, what you'd agreed to. You wanted to make her come.

Your fingers stroke at her pussy, and you bring your mouth back to her clit, licking and sucking once again. Your circle it gently, all around and then gently spiralling in to the center. You stay there, keeping your tongue circling in small, soft, circles feeling as her thigh begins to quiver beneath your hand.

"That's it," she sighs, and you preen at the praise, moaning into her clit to let her know you'll keep going, won't stop until she says otherwise.

It's not long before her hand comes to your face, stroking your cheekbone. She pulls you back, unlatching you from her clit. Swallowing and licking your lips for remnants of her, you look up in confusion.

"Give me your fingers now, pretty girl. Put them in."

Oh. Right. Of course. You let go of her thigh and trace your fingers around her entrance, watching in amazement as you circle them in her wetness. Your body looked like this too, got wet just like she did. You tease at her opening for a moment, knowing how good it felt for yourself when you tickled yourself like this, before you slip one in just a fraction, wiggling it slightly as you tease her. A second finger joins the first, and you're soon pushing two small fingers into her cunt.

She feels different to you inside. You'd never even considered it, that any would feel anything other than like yours, but when you push your fingers into her, the ridges and smooth surfaces you were expecting aren't where you thought they'd be. The familiarity was there, but you didn't know hers like you knew yours.

Her eyes are closed again when you next look up, pumping your fingers slowly into her. You bring your face back down to her clit, keeping your eyes locked on her face as you latch back over the sensitive spot and suck. She gasps, her feet clamping down on your back even firmer pushing your face straight into her cunt. You start to lick at her, going back to soft circles around her clit as your fingers pump shallowly in her wet pussy.

You don't relent this time, and she doesn't drag you back. Instead, her hand finds its way to the back of your head, holding you in place as you suckle on her clit and finger her cunt in tandem, bringing her closer and closer to climax. The muscles inside her soon start to clench, her clit start to twitch in your mouth.

You're eager now, as if you weren't before, letting your circles on her clit become firmer as you moan wantonly into her folds. You're breathing deep through your nose, mouth engulfing her cunt, devouring her with each stroke of your tongue.

Her own moans are softer, less desperate, than your own. But then her hips start to rock into your mouth, and you know she's close. You don't change a thing, keeping the movement of your fingers and your tongue the same as she rocks against your mouth, using you to get herself off.

"Yes, yes, yes," she whispers through soft moans. "That's it, pretty girl. Good girl. Fuck, yes. Yes."

The pumping of your fingers gets impossible as her whole body stiffens, pussy gripping your fingers in tight spasms as she comes, hips gyrating into your face faster until her legs are clamping around your ears. You keep going, suckling at her clit with your fingers buried in her cunt until her hips are trying to move away from you, to get away from the oversensitivity brought on by your mouth.

"Ohh."

You pull back from her pussy, gasping for air, and looking up at her once again as your fingers still inside her. The furrow between her brows has relaxed, and even in the dull light of the room she looks beautiful, peaceful.

"Good job," she murmurs, patting the side of your cheek. She pulls your cream covered fingers out from inside her, pushing them toward your mouth. You slide them between your lips, cleaning off her cum as she watches. Just like the ones before it, you can't help the moan that falls from your lips as you taste her.

A moment later, she's lifting her legs up onto the table and motioning for you to move. You shuffle out from between them, wiping your mouth with the back of your hand as you try to ignore the throbbing of your own pussy. That was it then. You'd done it. Why were you disappointed it was over?

You stand and brush the dust off your knees with your dry hand as she pulls her pants back up and zips them up. You don't look at her, you don't want to be caught watching, so you trace the path of a dust mote dancing in a sunbeam that has broken through an old board on the window.

"Definitely a quick learner," she says, walking toward you. If she knows how wet eating her pussy had made you, she doesn't let on.

Her cheeks are flushed a deeper shade of pink than when she'd first dragged you in here. You briefly wonder if you walked out of here together, maybe people would know what you'd been up to. But, her soft face and relaxed features don't last long, and she slips the mask back on, brows furrowing at you as she moves the chair from under the door handle.

"Not that I think you'll tell anyone you had your face buried in someone's cunt, but if you do, your daddy will be going cold turkey. I don't do this, we clear? Even for pretty girls like you," she says, depositing a small bag of pills into your hand. "Now, get going."

You grip the bag in your damp fingers as you walk home, hoping it'll all be enough to get your father through another few weeks in the QZ.

It took a few days for your dad to get back on his feet again, but once he started there was no stopping him. He never asked you about the pills, and you never told him. It seemed both of you could be cagey when you wanted to be. You also knew that if he needed it, you'd go do it again in a heartbeat.

Collection day comes and goes, and he's strolling in the door, depositing a small container of pills onto your dining table as you pull together a meager dinner.

"Shame to see her go," he says with a soft smile, patting your shoulder in his usual greeting.

You stop in your tracks. "Who?" You'd lost a lot of people over the years, and it was never good news when it happened.

"Tess. She's stopping dealing with that side of the business," he says, pointing to the pills on the table. "Said she'd pass me over to her 'business associate'. I'm meeting with him next Thursday. Nothing should change, but we'll see how it goes."

"'Business associate'?"

He's already grabbed some food, stuffing it into his mouth in a big bite before he answers. "Joel Miller."

Fuck.

Tag List: given it's not the usual p-boy content I haven't tagged any of you this week.

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[anexcellentshot]

Merry Hexmas to all, and to all a good night

Summary: The gang celebrates Christmas together. AU where no one dies and everyone lives.

WC: 1,634

Rating: G

Characters/Pairings: Caitlyn x Vi, Jayce x Viktor, Jinx x Ekko, Heimerdinger, Isha

Tags: wholesome, fluff, Christmas fluff, Christmas AU, established pairings, found family

“It’s fucking freezing!” Vi screeched.

“Well, winter is my favorite season, so you better cheer up,” Caitlyn chirped.

“Why would I cheer up if I feel like my nose is about to fall off? Winter is only a favorite season if you knew you’d be warm. Why are we in a forest, Cait?” Vi grunted, terribly underdressed. Caitlyn was wearing a thick red knit scarf, beanie, and mittens. Vi settled for a jacket. Just a jacket.

“No, babe, it’s not a forest. It’s a farm. A Christmas tree farm! My family and I would pick out a fresh tree every year, so, since they aren’t around, I wanted you to be in on the tradition this year.” As Caitlyn’s eye lit up, Vi felt herself warm up. Any hint of annoyance dissipated.

Suddenly, Vi’s eyes refocused on the trees. Families of all sizes were poking and prodding at pine trees, mimicking putting ornaments on, trying to imagine what each tree might look like in their homes. Vi had never seen people so carefree. Their problems were seeing if the tree was going to fit through their mansion’s door.

But the Christmas cheer was infectious to Vi, especially when her girlfriend looked just as innocent and childlike as the very first time she’d bought a tree.

Vi and Caitlyn made their way through the trees, rolling pine needles between their fingers, inhaling the woodsy smell. Vi had never been around so much… green before, farm or not.

Eventually, they settled on a tree a few feet taller than Caitlyn. She couldn’t reach the top, even on her tiptoes. An ideal height.

* * *

“We can help you, you know,” Caitlyn said.

“No, it’s cool, I got it,” Jayce huffed, his shoulders shaking under the weight of the tree. He thought it was a great idea to carry it himself into the Kiramman house. Vi rolled her eyes and hoisted the trunk up, lightening the weight for him.

“...Thanks.”

“Mhm.”

The fireplace was crackling, the plush carpet filled with toys and plushies. Isha held up a wooden airplane, which Jinx immediately crashed with her own wooden airplane. “BOOM.” Jinx mimicked an explosion with her hand, making Isha giggle and clap with delight. Together, Jayce and Vi put the tree down, its branches flopping from the effort. Taking a deep breath, Jayce braced himself to pick it off the ground, until Caitlyn pulled it up one-handed, winking at Vi. The jukebox played some soft Christmas jazz. Viktor tapped his foot from his seat, humming along, comfortably watching everyone scurry around. As best as they could, the group sat in a circle, warmed by the fire. Caitlyn and Vi held hands, with Caitlyn propped up on a chair and Vi cross-legged on the floor. Across from Vi, Jinx and Isha were rolling around the carpet. Jayce and Viktor were on the same couch, nestled in blankets.

Once Jinx saw the tree, she squealed, “Let’s light it up, baby!”

“You are not blowing up our brand new Christmas tree, Powder.” Vi scoffed.

“It’s Jinx,” Caitlyn and Jinx said at the same time.

“I changed your diapers,” Vi deadpanned. “You’re still my Powder.”

“Huh, okay, Vi-o-let,” Jinx scrunched up her nose and stuck her tongue out as Vi turned away. “And I’m not blowing it up! I’m just… using pyrotechnics.”

The doorbell rang, echoing throughout the Kiramman house. “It’s open!” Caitlyn yelled. Ekko rolled in on his hoverboard, weighed down by a satchel.

“Babe!” Jinx hopped up from her spot and kissed him on the cheek. Blushing, Ekko plopped down on the floor beside Isha, who wrapped her arms around his neck in a hug. Vi would never get tired of seeing her sisters happy.

“Do we… all have our Secret Santa gifts?” Caitlyn said, pulling a bag out from underneath her chair. Ekko dumped the satchel out on the ground, which was filled with gifts of various sizes.

“I was assigned as pack mule from her, and her, and her, and him.” Ekko pointed to the entire group except Jayce and Caitlyn.

Jayce raised an eyebrow at Viktor, who shrugged. “Why carry it myself if I have a kind soul to bring joy for me?”

Caitlyn opened her mouth to begin instructing everyone to give their gifts in a chain, one by one, announcing each —

“I’ll start!” Jinx yelped. She tossed a small square box at Caitlyn, wrapped with a single piece of newspaper.

“Oh, thank you, Jinx,” Cait muttered, bristling over the interruption. When she opened the package, it was a black shred of fabric with white lace trim. Her face paled.

“Did you get me… a thong?”

“No! Ew! No, silly,” Jinx snatched it from Caitlyn’s hand and put it over the left side of her face. “It’s a new eyepatch for you! To match the lingerie my sister got you.”

Caitlyn and Vi’s faces both flushed pink, stunned in silence. Viktor coughed into his laughter, while Jayce cringed at the thought.

“Alright, er, thanks, Jinx.” Desperate to change the subject, she pulled a bag from behind her. “Mine is for Ekko.” Caitlyn nudged the bag towards him, seven pieces of tissue paper in perfect wisps from the bag.

His face lit up. Ekko pushed the tissue paper aside to pull out a cassette player, tapes, and headphones.

“For when you ride,” Cait said, nodding towards his hoverboard propped up against the wall.

Ekko turned over the cassette player in his hand with a grin. “Ah, thanks Cait!”

He had a gift propped up in his lap already and tossed it at Vi, whose face lit up. Until she dated Caitlyn, she never expected gifts on holidays, let alone wrapped ones. Vi unwrapped it and threw her head back, laughing as she pulled out a mouth guard.

“Because you block with your face,” Ekko smirked.

Vi put it in her pocket. “Appreciated.” She tossed a haphazardly wrapped box to Jayce, which Viktor caught instead. Jayce, just as excited, tore open the paper and pulled out a shirt that said “BABYGIRL” across the chest. His eyes darted between the shirt and Vi’s facial expression.

“So you can wear a shirt when you work, for once,” she snickered.

Jayce scoffed, “Thanks, I think?” He turned to Viktor. “I have your gift. Close your eyes.”

“Should we leave?” Jinx groaned.

Viktor covered his eyes. “Ugh, I knew it,” he overheard Vi.

“Okay, you can open your eyes now,” Jayce said. When Viktor lifted his hands, Jayce was shirtless with a massive bow across his chest, complete with jazz hands. “It’s me!”

“I can see that, Jayce, thank you,” Viktor said, his lips curling into a smile.

“And these,” Jayce pulled a small wrapped box from his pocket. As Viktor pulled the paper off of the box, he fully grinned, pulling a pair of gold-plated safety goggles. “Thank you, for both… gifts,” Viktor said, kissing Jayce on the forehead.

Vi took Jayce’s gift and pulled it over his head, scoffing. “Put this on, Babygirl, and save us the sight.”

“Last gift. For both you and Isha,” Viktor said, nudging a massive present to the two girls on the carpet.

“Open at the same time?” Jinx asked. With eyes just as bright, Isha nodded and pulled at one end of the wrapping paper.

It was a chemistry set, complete with glassware, beakers, and brightly colored chemicals. Caitlyn’s eye flashed with panic. Without even looking at her, Viktor said, “Don’t worry, Caitlyn, they aren’t explosives, just reagents.” Her shoulders did not relax at all until she looked over at Vi, whose eyes were glittering as well.

“I love it! Isha, what do you think?!” Jinx yelped as Isha clung to the chemistry set, then ran over to Viktor and wrapped her arms around his legs in gratitude.

As they all thanked each other, the doorbell rang, and a giant cardboard box jingled and waddled towards the tree. Behind the box, a fluffy figure emerged with a banjo strapped to his back.

“Heimerdinger! You made it!” Jayce stuck out his hand for Heimerdinger to shake. The Yordle offered a cheerful nod, panting from the effort of carrying the box.

“I brought several decorations,” Heimerdinger said. Isha peered into the box, seeing ornaments glow in different colors.

“Are these Hex…?” Jayce’s eyes widened.

“Goodness, no. These are just replicas. Merry Hexmas, everyone!” Heimerdinger said.

“Merry Hexmas,” Vi echoed, pouring out drinks into glasses.

The group circled around the tree, sticking on ornaments of different shapes and sizes: frosted glass, working clocks, glowing blue stones, tiny hammers, grenades hung by the pin (much to Caitlyn’s disdain), and clay cupcakes, just to name a few.

Once the tree was almost at its brightest, there was one last piece missing. Jayce got on all fours, Jinx hopped on top of him, and Isha climbed all the way up to Jinx’s palms. Isha tried to place the star on top of the tree. It slipped from her fingers, almost shattering, until Ekko caught it and tossed it back to Isha, the group breathing a collective sigh of relief. As Isha placed the star on the top of the tree, small fireworks lit up all around it.

“Couldn’t do Christmas without some pyrotechnics,” Heimerdinger chirped. Caitlyn shut off all of the lights, so the tree was the only source illuminating the rest of their house, their faces glowering with joy.

When the stars began to dance across the sky, Heimerdinger pulled out his banjo and the group of misfits sang:

It’s the best time of year

For the family

It’s a wonderful feeling,

Feel the love in the room from the floor to the ceiling

It’s that time of year

Christmastime is here

until the fires flickered out and they all fell asleep in a cozy bundle on the carpet.

* * *

A/N: Thank you so much for reading! If you liked this, please support with Kudos on AO3 here! Currently working on a slow burn CaitVi musician AU and some one shots, so stay tuned!

Disclaimer: I don’t own *NSYNC or “Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays.” I wish I did.

[ceilingfan5]

go around

@taznovembercelebration "super au" and "silly"

“Man,” Taako sighs, as quietly as possible. “This is the second time I’ve been a hostage this month.” He’s not tied up this time, at least, but he’s sitting in the back hallway of the bank and regretting his choice of errands today. The guy next to him nods. 

“You too, huh?” He’s pretty, and goth, very serious-with-a-side-of-secretly-goofy, and Taako wants to crack him like a nut. Shame they’re busy waiting for the supervillain of the week to either get got or get his private island and fourteen pounds of gummy worms, or fucking whatever. “It’s ridiculous. They need to spend less money on making flashy superheroes and more on just–security, infrastructure, safety, you know, mental health initiatives-”

“Or maybe we need to break down and be supervillains ourselves.” Taako shrugs, with an I’m JOKING I PROMISE…unless? Air about him. He’s sick of it. 

“Really?” Handsome asks, laughing a little. 

“Really,” Taako says, still kind of joking, but also kind of not joking. “Taako can barely get his errands done when there’s no Captain Backwards Lightning Man in the way, you know? It’s enough to make a guy wanna destroy some well-placed props.”

Handsome laughs. 

“You’re Taako, I take it?”

“In the flesh, skele-fellow. You?”

“Kravitz,” Kravitz says, and then, “Probably. If I’m going to be a villain, you don’t know that, and I’ll have to erase your memories, or something.”

“Or we could be a team,” Taako teases. “We could be the only ones who knew each other’s secret identities. You could come over for chicken alfredo, I could go to yours for game night, little bit of blackmail to keep things spicy-”

Kravitz laughs, and covers his mouth, but it must not be too loud, or maybe the gummy worm accords are going sour, because nothing comes of it except an embarrassing amount of affection from Taako. 

“I wish I had a power worth doing anything drastic about,” he admits, looking at Taako for comiseration or approval or something else that might lead to romance. 

“Yeah? Cha boi’s in the same boat, so keep paddling. Dumber supers have done worse.”

“Really? I mean- about your power, I remember, uh, Pickle Monster.”

“Who could forget.” Taako shakes his head solemnly. “Yeah, no, I can read minds, but only if it’s food related.”

“Seriously?” Kravitz grins. “I love specific powers, but that sort of thing drives me nuts in practice. Like- surely the universe could have been kinder?”

“Would it ever stoop so low?” Taako snorts. “No, seriously, try me.”

“Okay,” Kravitz says, screwing up his nose in the cutest stinking way Taako has ever seen. “What was my dinner last night?”

Taako looks him directly in the eye, feels that weird connection he gets with people sometimes, the sort of way that makes him sweaty and lonely. He steps right into Kravitz’s doorway, looks around his home, wonders if there’s more than meets the eye. Surely. It’s welcoming enough, maybe just because Kravitz is inviting him in, in this moment. Much less of a trespass than it usually is. 

He watches the memory unfold, and feels fond over this dork, who looks so business goth put together on the outside. 

“You air-fryered tater tot nachos,” Taako says, and Kravitz blinks, surprised, and Taako’s shunted right back out. 

“Really? You really got that much?”

“Oh, honey-nugget, I got more than that, I’m just trying to-”

“How much do you get?”

Taako grimaces. 

“Pretty much everything, especially if emotions are, uh, involved? You- uh. You poured frozen tater tots in the air fryer, dropped one on your bare foot and started bleeding, went to put a pokemon bandaid on it, and when it beeped for you to turn the food, and you tried to test one, because your timing was off because the package didn’t have air fryer instructions, you dropped it on your other bare foot and burnt it.” 

Kravitz’s mouth drops open. 

“Sorry?” Taako says, even sweatier. “You opened the door, kemosabe.” 

“Right,” Kravitz says, with a conspicuous glance at his shiny boy shoes. 

“I wasn’t trying to intrude,”

“No, I, get it, I, could have picked something else.” Kravitz clears his throat and loosens his black-on-black rose patterned tie. “Mine isn’t nearly as interesting.”

“Seriously?” Taako snorts. “Maybe you have an eight foot vertical leap, or your snot is acid.” 

“Is acid snot better than mind reading?”

“Dog, everything’s better than mind reading, do you know how fucking loud the world is all the goddamn time?”

“Touché.” Kravitz glances at the noise from the bank lobby, but nothing seems to come of it. He shifts his feet, looking at them again. “I mean, they were good tater tots.”

“Sometimes food that hurts fucks harder.” 

“So true?” Kravitz laughs. “I wish I had super healing, or super-not-being-a-dumbass, but, you know,”

“Man, if I was super-not-a-dumbass, I really could take over the world. Watch out, Townsville! Pew pew!” 

Kravitz looks at him with some kind of goopy eye disease that could be confused for fondness, if you were stupid, like Taako. 

“I just- so, see, I have this knife?”

“Yeah?” Taako looks him over for said knife, which he does not manage to produce. “Taken, was it?”

“Mhm,” Kravitz sighs, glancing at the lobby again. Some loud discussion is going on, between the somebody of police and TToday’s Evil Baddoer. “I can cut these little rifts with it, nothing huge, because it’s just a big fancy pocket knife, but I can store stuff in there, which is kind of neat. One time I climbed through and found myself somewhere else, but it was really difficult, on account of the small blade and all.”

“Yeah?” Taako’s heart pounds. “Seriously? Does it have to be the one knife?”

Kravitz pauses, and then turns to him directly. 

“I’ve only done it with the one knife, I guess. And a grapefruit spoon.” 

“What if-”

“Oh my god.”

“Hear me out-”

“Oh my god.”

Taako casts about for literally any kind of blade, fucking at all. There’s a letter opener that looks like a sword on the Mortgage Guy’s desk, and Taako checks out Super Badguy in the lobby, and then slowly, painfully, starts sneaking his way toward it. Kravitz chews his fingernails behind him, and truly fourteen thousand ice ages later, Taako returns, and hams up presenting the letter opener to Kravitz.

Kravitz stares at it, and hestiates. 

“What’s the worst that could happen?”

“It doesn’t work and you’re mad at me,” Kravitz admits, painfully honest. 

“What if it does work?”

“I’d take you out for dinner,” Kravitz admits, fully focused on the silver blade. 

“What kind?”

“Any sort of food you’d like?” And Taako steps into his mind one more time, slips in through the door, and finds himself in a nice restaurant across from Kravitz in a cute dark purple button up, slut that he is, one button open, just a hint, just a peek, and they kiss over the dessert, which costs way too much for crème brûlée, but Taako won’t tell him that, no sir.

And he zhoops right back out. 

“You have to do it,” he says, a little breathless. Kravitz looks at him, alarmed, and back at the letter opener, whcih he finally takes. He moves it around in the air, getting a feel for it, and then SWIPES–

And a flickering, dark tear in reality appears. Kravitz covers a gasp, Taako doesn’t, and certainly they’ll be spotted soon, but Kravitz tears and rips and hacks into the rip in the universe, and once he gets it big enough, tears at it with his hands, and then gets a knee in there, and there’s a sickening non-sound as it widens ever so slowly, achingly, and Taako watches with deep, embarrassing affection as Kravitz manages to clamber through, looking like an absolute idiot, and turns and reaches an arm out for Taako.

Fucking ROMANCE. 

“I’ve, gotta-”

“We’ll go around and help from the other side, Taako,” Kravitz promises. “It’ll just be way easier if I get literally anything sharper.” 

“Oh,” Taako says, relieved. And he jumps into Kravitz’s arms, because he has the chance, and it’d be more embarrassing if he didn’t take it. 

Any kisses between the jumping and the rescuing are off the record, and also private. So there. 

[id: gameboard with 15 spaces, 1-6 taken up with stickers of a cat, fish, "good worker", door, dragon, and "kapow"]

[yourtouchismidas]

Blurb idea Matty is sick in bed and Gigi is helping him and bringing him food/supplies. Maybe it’s unlike her because she’s usually playfully bullying him and she does by saying he looks bad and his hair looks shit but the sentiment is there and she’s being really sweet by helping him get better <3

maybe its a saturday and you and the other girls are out, at various classes and birthday parties, and gigi was supposed to come but she didnt want to. she begged you to stay home.

"daddy isn't very well," you say to her.

"he's literally tweeting," gigi says, holding up her phone to show you the notification.

"okay so he is on the mend," you laugh, "but you've got to be extra well behaved if i leave you here with him okay?"

"i'm always well behaved," she grins.

"not when it comes to your father you're not," you say, "but okay. ring me if he gets worse okay or if you need anything. and dont be a menace to him. i know he is tweeting but he still had a temperature this morning. promise?"

"promise," she says.

"matty," you yell through, while shoving a coat round valley's shoulders, "matt? i'm leaving gigi with you."

"great!" matty says, "gi get in here."

you look at gigi, who isnt moving.

"you promised," you say and she slopes off to his room.

matty is lying in bed propped up by pillows, his phone in his hand and tissues all around him.

"gigi baby can you get me some water," he says.

"you sound fine," she says.

"i'm not though. i'm poorly. help me dear sweet daughter. help your father"

"for fucks sake," gigi says, and leaves.

"language," he tries to yell after her, but his voice cracks and he groans and sticks his head under the pillow. to his surprise, gigi returns with a too full glass of water, in a babies sippy cup with no lid.

"this was all we had clean," she says, balancing it carefully as she walks across the carpet.

"i told your mum that im the one who does all the pots and this just proves it. i'm out for two days and it all goes to shit."

"i mean she is out ferrying around your horrendous amount of children," gigi says, sitting down on the bed. he kicks out at her and then slurps his water while gigi says "ewww" and tries to grab his bare foot under the covers.

"how do i look gi?" matty says.

"you look like shit, matthew," she says.

"should've seen that coming."

"i'm gonna go play drums," she says.

"gigi, honey, it's a bit too loud. can you pick a quieter activity? i'm going to try and take a nap."

"i'll play the electric ones," she says. "by the way, tweeting isn't the way to feel better."

she leaves the room again and he throws a pillow at her.

he wakes up an hour or so later. when he opens his eyes, they're blurry, but his daughter comes in to focus, watching him. she sees him open his eyes and jumps up.

"i came to ask if i can have a pack of crisps," she says.

"whatever," he says, and rolls over and falls back asleep.

another hour or so later, he feels something. something cool and refreshing on his head. something damp. he opens his eyes a tiny bit, not noticeably, and there is gigi, sitting on the edge of the bed again, dabbing his forehead with a wet flannel. he closes his eyes. tries not to smile. so she doesnt notice he's woken up. so she doesnt leave again. he drifts back off to sleep. next time he wakes up, it's her, footsteps on the carpet, and the door closing behind her, bringing him a cup of tea.

"it's lemon and honey," she says, placing it down on the side.

"were you..."

"i was careful with the kettle," she sighs. he smiles.

"thanks baby," he says.

"your hair looks shit," she says, and disappears again.

"thanks baby," he says. he gets out his phone. poorly and my daughter just said my hair looks shit. what a little gobshite

"stop tweeting!" gigi yells from the other room. matty laughs. he feels much better.

[erii-ya]

The Huntress’s Prey pt1

Killer x FemReader

One Piece FanFic

A/N: I can't seem to finish my first story 'If it's you...' because I have so many ideas in my head and I need to write 'em down while they're fresh. But I'll be finishing it soon... when I get the vibe. For now, I'll share the beginning of Y/N and Killer's story.

*Triggering words/scenarios ahead* *spoilers*

**Remember that One Piece is the beautiful original story of Eiichiro Oda-sensei. Scenarios, places, and events are all fictional.**

WC: 3.3k

🏹🏹🏹🏹🏹🏹🏹🏹🏹🏹🏹🏹🏹🏹🏹🏹🏹🏹🏹🏹🏹🏹🏹🏹🏹🏹🏹🏹🏹🏹🏹

Two weeks have passed since you got separated from your crew and ended up at the hands of the Kid pirates. As to how you ended up here, you had yet to learn. The only thing you know is waking up in a dark room with a throbbing pain on the top of your head, blood gushing out of it, probably hitting your head somewhere. You rummage through the room, looking for something to cover the wound to stop the bleeding, but don’t find any, so you have no choice but to rip a part of your clothes and use it as a temporary cover.

Still dizzy, perhaps from blood loss, since you’re unsure how long you’d been out, you struggled to walk past the door. After you open it, the sun’s rays illuminate the room, and you conclude that you are in a stock room. ‘And no one sees me here?’ a thought.

You’re surprised to see that you’re on a ship and it is currently sailing in the middle of the ocean. That Goddamn panda! You were so sure Kuma’d eradicate you right then, and the only thing you regret was not being able to help Luffy achieve his dream of becoming the Pirate King. But as you can see, you’re pretty much alive and just losing a lot of blood. However, if you don’t get your head treated, you’ll probably end up decomposing in no time.

You heard obnoxious waves of laughter under the deck, so you tried to find your way to where it was coming from, but being a cautious person, you looked for signs first to give you a clue of your current situation. That’s the time you saw the Jolly Roger dancing freely into the air at the top of the crow’s nest.

“Holy mother of cows…” you uttered. Redhair with goggles and a Punk-ish decorated ship. There is no mistaking it. “Is this where Kuma sent me? The Victoria Punk?!”

You can’t believe it. Is Kuma trying to get you tortured to death by this idiotic group of psychos? Since when have they been working for the World Government? You have so many questions but don’t have time to waste.

Even in a weakened state, you muster all your strength to prop yourself up on the ship’s railings, determined to jump overboard. You feel you have a better chance of surviving this way than getting caught by the Kid pirates.

Counting to three, you’re prepared to jump ship when strong, big arms grab your waist and yank you back onboard. You slammed on the floor deck, butt first.

“What do you think you’re doing?” a sexy baritone voice said. You glared at whoever it was, ready to bite, only to stop when your head started spinning and nausea kicked in—covering your mouth in an attempt to avoid puking. “I’m asking you, what were you doing? Are you thieving us?” the man asked again.

You can’t hold back the annoyance at the accusation. Here you are, separated from your crew, bleeding to death, trapped on another pirate’s ship, and don’t even know how or why you ended up here, and are getting charged with thieving on board a vessel that is sailing in the middle of the ocean. “And what kind of a dumb motherfucker would board a ship just to steal and escape in the middle of the fucking ocean, huh?!”

The man shrugged and simply pointed at you, “You, obviously. Isn’t that what you’ve been trying to do a while ago?” he’s calm, but you know better than to trust that calmness. For all you know, he’s already analyzing you behind his mask. He’s a buff 6” foot guy, tanned, wearing a plain, white, and light-blue striped full-head helmet with many rows of holes and what looks like modern headphones on both sides.

“Killer,” another man came up. He probably heard the commotion you were having. Some of their men were behind him, and all were staring at you. “Who’s the mouse?” ‘Killer, huh,’ you mentally note to yourself. Killer told him what happened. The man who called you a ‘mouse’ was the ship's captain, Eustass ‘Captain’ Kid. Of course, you know him, with that signature goggles and invisible eyebrows.

Kid looked back at you and grinned. The type of grin that means trouble. He walked closer to you, reaching down using his left arm to grab your hair and lifting you to his eye level. “Such a bold move for a little runt like you, aye?” he mocks at you.

You hiss in pain since Kid was grabbing the side of your head that has a wound on it, and it wasn’t that long until you felt warm liquid flowing down your face.

But you’re not one to back down so quickly, “Do you idiots even use that brain of yours?!” you returned. “What do I even want from your ship, assholes?!” you continued.

Kid answers with a slap on your face so hard that you taste blood. Because of the impact, you seem to have gotten a split on the lip. He didn’t stop at one slap but followed it with a more forceful second. Not only are you sporting a cut lip but a cut inside your other cheek as well. “Oi, you’re on my fuckin’ ship, bitch, and I can do whatever I want with you,” he said with a threatening voice.

“Oh, wow. Fuck, I’m scared.” you retorted sarcastically, feigning worry with a bored look. Veins popped at Kid’s head; feeling insulted and mad, he tightened his grip on your hair, making you swallow back a moan. “Can’t you try harder? The pain is subsiding, and it's starting to bore me,” said you, provoking Kid.

Kid is now fuming red, and you swear you can visibly see him spewing out steam like a volcano. You didn’t wait, though, for the next strike. Of course, you’re not an idiot like them. Doing the flying armbar at Kid, you lock his arm and head between your legs, resulting in him kneeling. Tightening your lock on his head, he starts thrashing, unable to breathe. You would’ve stayed in that position for much longer if only there wasn’t a blade pointed at your neck. “Oh? Now, you want to join in, too? Sorry, but I have no penchant for threesomes.” you nonchalantly said to Killer.

“Continue, or your head rolls on the floor,” he warned you. You burst out laughing, amused by what he said. His hand clenched tighter on the hilt of his scythe-like blades, veins showing in his arms. ‘Uh-huh, delicious,’ eyeing his arms.

You let out an exasperated sigh before letting go of Kid, and to make it quits, you grab onto Killer’s blades, point it back to your neck, slashing yourself with a swift motion, causing you to have a big scar lining it, now flowing with blood. Everyone looked at you dumbfounded, not expecting you to do something...insane?

“What? That’s what you call a trophy,” you said matter-of-factly. “See?” lifting your shirt to show them all the scars you collected over time, they sweatdrop.

“Anyway,” walking over to the side to sit down, resting your back on a wall, “since you fought with Luffy in Sabaody, I’ll call it quits. Not to mention this…” pointing at the slit you created on your neck making your point. “Or would you rather I stab myself instead?” you asked. The crew shakes their heads vigorously, aside from Kid and Killer.

“Fuckin’ retard!!” Kid, who seems fine now but still holding his neck.

“Talkin’ to yourself?” Kid’s crew was stunned as to how you could still talk back to their captain.

Kid ignores what you said. He’s more curious when you mention Luffy, “Maybe because he’s my captain?” You sound like it’s common sense.

He lifts one of his invisible eyebrows at you. “How come we never saw you at the auction house? From what I know, all of that monkey’s crew were there.” Kid doubted.

You glared at him when he called Luffy a monkey but suddenly got embarrassed remembering what you ended up doing in Sabaody.

Of course, you’re not there because you were elsewhere. “‘Cause I wasn’t there in the first place.” closing your eyes as you started having blurry vision, “I was out looking for…someone…and ended up…in a gambling house.”

You heard Killer saying something, but everything was turning fuzzy. Before you lose consciousness, you finish, “Just one thing. I don’t give a fuck whether you throw me offboard, feed me to the sharks, or sacrifice me for voodoo, but I’m so tired I’m going to fucking sleep! Wake me up, or you’ll see hell.” and with that, you fainted.

************************************************************************

Fast forward to today. You just finished cleaning one of the upper decks, and is now in the kitchen for Lunch. It was decided that you'll be cleaning the whole Victoria Punk as punishment for ‘sneaking’ in their ship. Surprisingly, they didn’t do anything to you that day you fainted, and you woke up in their infirmary, fully bandaged. As per Kid, he’s willing to do you some ‘charity’ since you’re connected with Luffy, who he sees as interesting and a competitive rival. So you’ll stay with the Kid pirates until you leave for the next island. 

Well, that is the original plan. However, Kid being an ass, doesn’t want to let you go because you haven’t 'finished cleaning the whole ship.' To which, ladies and gentlemen, is so goddamn huge! It was 5 or 10 times or more bigger than the Sunny! How the hell can you finish cleaning all of it by yourself?!

Footsteps approach you, and you don’t need to take a second guess on who it is, “You sure take your time, huh? How the hell will you finish cleaning my ship if you’re moving like a turtle?!” Like, what does he want you to do? Use some kind of trick to clean his colossal ship magically?

You rolled your eyes, and without looking at the person speaking, you sassed, “...and why the hell are you bugging me every chance you get, huh, Kid?!”. Kid forcibly turned you around to face him cupping your cheeks tightly, “Call me Captain, you bitching runt. Don’t forget that you’re on my ship and…”. 

“...you can do whatever you want with me.” You finish his lines for him. “Yeah, yeah. How many times have you reminded me about it? It starts to age in my head. Don’t you have anything else to say?”

The crew was watching both of you, too entertained with your bickering. It has become a regular occurrence since you came on board. “It's starting again.” said one of the crew. 

“I’m unsure if Captain is fond of her or just plainly irritated since she’s from a rival crew.” said another.

“Maybe because they are both the same age?” and another.

Both of you heard it, and you’re sure you saw Kid blush a bit, so to hide his embarrassment, he removed his hands tightly cupping your cheeks, and turned to yell at his crew about being slow pokes as well.

Focusing back on eating, you tried ignoring your surroundings when a familiar aura closed in. You feel your heart beating faster and faster by the minute. This person has been making your heart go insane whenever he's around, and you thought it was only because of anxiousness, considering that you don’t exactly get what he’s thinking most of the time due to him wearing a mask.

In your peripheral vision, you saw Killer handing Kid what seemed to be a newspaper. Kid snorts after reading an article in the paper, then turns to you and slams the paper in front of you. “I may have something new to say. Look what I found,” he said. You gave the paper a side-eyed glance, not actually interested in what was written on it, but you saw a familiar face. 

It was Ace, and even though you hadn’t personally met him since you weren’t part of the crew yet, when they saw him in Alabasta, Nami and Usopp shared their experience with him and showed you some newspaper clippings. You know that he’s one of Luffy’s big brothers and an extremely polite person far from your Captain, at least that was what they told you.

The caption caught your attention. It was about Ace’s death at war in Marineford. You snatched away the paper from Kid and read the whole article with wide eyes. It says Luffy stormed at Marineford to save Ace from being executed and that he died protecting Luffy from Akainu; there was even a photo of what happened, and you saw Luffy.

You turned pale and felt shivers down your spine. The news was stomach-churning, and you suddenly feel nauseous. You drop the paper and run to the nearest sink to throw up. Kid is pretty amused at your reaction.

Too many questions are running in your head. ‘What happened to Luffy?... Where is he?... How is he holding up?’ You’re too shocked to think straight. The only thing you want to do right now is to look for your captain and be by his side.

You inhale and exhale a couple of times to relax, and once you’re sure you have calmed down, you start walking towards the door. You go past Kid without a second look, but he grabs you by the arm. “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked with a menacing tone.

“Where do you think? Of course, to my captain,” you answered, still not looking. You felt his grip tightened. This man has been abusing your arm since, and you got a lot of bruises from his grabbing every time. “I didn't give you any permission to leave, did I?” he said smugly.

You turned to face him, irritation and anger visible in your face. “I didn’t ask for permission, did I?” you scowled at him, but Kid didn’t seem fazed. He was rather more amused by your expression and even grinned wider. You try to release yourself from his steel grip but can’t. Face flushed with anger, you swiftly grab a fork from a nearby table and are about to stab Kid in the eyes, but Killer stops you by the wrist. 

“Calm down, Y/N. That’s our captain,” Killer said. Kid didn’t even flinch on what you did and just stared intently at you. “If you do that, we won’t hesitate, you know,” Killer said, motioning to everyone around you, who’s now standing up, ready to strike. 

He has a point. You’re a complete stranger to them, and they won’t hesitate to kill you if you so much as hurt their captain. You pull your wrist from his grasp while Kid releases your arm.

“Calm down?!” you shouted. “Luffy’s brother died, and now he’s missing too! Our crewmates are nowhere to be found, and I don’t even know if they’re dead or alive! Then you’re asking me to fucking calm down?! How should I do that, huh?! Tell me what I should do?!” you’re practically screaming.

Tears were now beginning to form in your eyes, and you couldn't help but look vulnerable in front of them. You have kept it for a good two weeks, but honestly, you’re at a loss. What happened at Sabaody during Kuma’s attack was so sudden you couldn’t even process it properly in your head.

You pointed your fingers at Kid, “And this motherfucker has been a pain in my ass ever since I ended up here. For all I know, you’re probably working with the World Government and were assigned to dispose of me!” you said, gritting your teeth.

Kid wasn’t happy and got mad when you associated them with the WG. “Don’t you dare relate us with those trash! WE! Don’t work for anyone!” he points at you too. “You are the one who sneaked in on MY ship!”

“How many times should I tell you that I DID NOT SNEAK IN TO YOUR SHIP!!! I got sent here!!!” you wailed. Your chest is heaving in anger, and your face is all red. “This conversation is over. You’re NOT my captain, and this is NOT my crew. I will leave this goddamn ship, and you can’t stop, won’t stop me.” you firmly said. Retreating to the exit, you heard Kid say, “You think I can’t, huh?” but you didn’t answer. 

The next thing you know, you were thrown on the other side of the kitchen. Tables falling and plates breaking. You didn’t expect what Kid did, so you couldn’t brace yourself from impact, your head hitting the wall. Head throbbing with sharp pain from the same area where you had your wound, and it looks like the wound got reopened. Before you can even stand, Kid is already in front of you and kicks you hard twice in the stomach, causing you to cough blood. He then grabs you by the hair to lift you before punching you in the face and throwing you again.

“Kid, that’s enough.” Killer tried to stop him, but Kid was so invested in lashing out at you that he ignored him. He’s determined to show you he’s the authority on this ship, and no one can tell him otherwise. 

Kid only stop when you’re half-dead. You’re lying on the floor in a fetal position, sporting bruises and cuts while still coughing up blood. But even in that state, you taunt him, “Is that it? *coughing* I was expecting something more, really.”

Kid just cockily smiled at you. Crouching down, he grabbed you by the neck. “You’re really amusing. I like your spunk.” 

You countered back, “And I fucking hate you, you Oni (demon).” Kid burst into laughter, surprising everyone.

“Shouldn’t you be thankful? This ‘Oni’ spared your life.” he jeered at you. 

“I'd rather you didn’t.” Kid just chuckled.

“Only weak people succumb to death, and you’re not weak like how you pretend to be, and we both know that.” Kid said, meeting your gaze. “You have the skills and the guts. I’m not stupid enough to waste you and let you rot. Though, I extremely enjoyed what I did to you.” he grinned.

“Now, listen and listen well.” he inches his face closer to you, and you can practically feel his breath. “You can’t change the fact that you’re at MY mercy, and you OWE ME your life. You said it yourself: you don’t even know where your crew is, so I’m not letting you go. I’ll make use of you and that guts of yours.”

You felt a lump in your throat, fighting back the tears. As much as you’d like to fight back, you’re already too exhausted just even to sit. Dropping your guard because of the mixed emotions you felt earlier was a mistake. It gave Kid the time to pound on you continuously, not allowing you time to breathe.

“Join my crew.” You got speechless, mouth agape, and Kid was so dead serious.

It took you a full minute to process what he just said. ‘Me? Join his crew?’ “That was the most fucked up thing I ever heard.” you can’t help but blurt out your thoughts.

“I’m not asking you.” he lets go. “I’m telling you. You’re joining my crew.” then he smirked. Disharmony echoed throughout the room. Some crewmates were in opposition, and some were rather overjoyed. Kid looked back at Killer, “No complaints, right?”

Killer shrugged, “You're the captain.”

But since you’re a brat, you still tried to get out of the situation Kid put you in. “Why ask Killer and not me when I’m the one being forced into this?!” trying your best to prop yourself up but to no avail. “‘cause your opinion doesn't matter here,” says Kid, continuing out the door with Killer, Heat, and Wire following.

Some of the crew approached you to help you up, but before Kid disappeared outside, he told everyone to leave you alone and let you tend to yourself because ‘you’re not that weak.’

Part Two...