#this is my fourth chapter posted today

[kristinamae093]

A Game of Love

Chapter Two — Sisters

Series Summary — A fated encounter turns into a series of secret rendezvous, despite knowing their tyrsts are forbidden. Walls stay intact and hearts remain hard, but then emotions get raw, the tangled web of royal expectations comes into play, and everything goes astray. They must confront their feelings and learn to trust again, or walk away from the second chance at everything they’d ever wanted that neither saw coming.

Pairing — Liam x F!OC (main)

A/N 1 — Set after the end of book 2 (with some minor changes). Please excuse any errors.

A/N 2 — This chapter is longer but there's a lot of backstory here. 😬 Sorry. And there's no spice but the next chapter makes up for it. Sorry again.

Most characters belong to Pixelberry.

Tags — @choicesficwriterscreations

Nicole Cordelia Brooks entered the world on August 23 to John and Crystal Brooks. Weighing only four pounds three ounces, she was the premature bundle of joy that brought their family to completion. Her parents and older siblings welcomed her with open arms; Jared was the oldest at twelve, followed closely behind by Riley at eight. John and Crystal longed for their last baby and after years of conception problems and miscarriages, the heavens finally granted their wish. 

Nicole was always a happy child. She ranked in the highest percentiles as a toddler and spoke full sentences well before other children her age. She was ahead of her peers in school and never acted out. Even in her earliest days, she was a social butterfly, always respectful, and her presence brightened any room with her lively spirit. 

Nicole held strong a relationship with both of her siblings, but she and Riley had an unbreakable bond. They were best friends and did everything together, despite Riley being significantly older. She and Jared were close, but nothing compared to the sisterhood she and Riley formed. Riley spent most of her teenage years playing with dolls and dressing up with Nicole; she didn’t feel the need to go out and party but was perfectly content with watching her baby sister grow up. When their mother announced her pregnancy, she prayed her little eight-year-old heart out for it to be a girl, and somebody, somewhere, listened. 

However, everything drastically changed for their family in the blink of an eye. 

Life treated Nicole and her siblings well — until it didn’t. A drunk driver wrongfully took their parents from the world on an early, rainy August morning — to be exact, on August 23rd. They were returning home from a class reunion and the driver of the opposing vehicle crossed the median. The collision was head-on, causing Crystal and John to be pronounced dead on the scene from the force of impact; the other driver walked away with only minor cuts and scrapes. 

Nicole was only ten. She woke up that morning and rushed downstairs, but didn’t find her parents with her usual birthday breakfast; waffles with strawberries and powdered sugar on top, scrambled eggs, sausage links, and orange juice with no pulp — just how she liked it. 

Instead, she found Riley at the table, but no mom and dad. 

“Riley!” Nicole exclaimed, running to jump into her sister’s lap. “You came for my birthday!” 

Riley stared into her sister’s bright olive eyes, willing her overwhelming emotions to stay at bay. “Happy birthday, Nikki…” she trailed off, dreading the impending conversion. 

Nicole might’ve been young, but she sensed her sister’s sadness. “Sissy… What’s wrong?” She touched Riley’s cheek with her tiny palms and noticed the fresh tears that slipped out. “Should I get mommy? She always makes me feel better when I’m sad.” 

The dagger sheathing itself into Riley’s chest suddenly twisted. “Nikki… We need to talk, okay? Sit down with me, and—” She started, but the sound of the patio door closing drew their attention there. 

Jared appeared, and Nicole lunged at him with a delighted gasp. Her excitement overpowered anything else, making her unaware of his tear-stained face. “Jerry!” 

Jared laughed and scooped Nicole into his arms. “Hey, squirt.” 

“Where’s M–Mary?”

Jared snorted at her pronunciation of his wife’s name. “It’s Mau-ri, and she’s at home with the baby.” Nicole opened her mouth, a wail right there on the tip of her tongue, but he halted it promptly. “They wanted to come, but we have some important things to take care of today.” He exchanged a somber glance with Riley, the tension of the unaddressed weight hanging heavily between them. “Next time I’ll bring him to play — promise.”

Nicole eagerly nodded, then squeezed her arms as tightly as she could around his neck before pulling away. “Guess what today is?!” 

Jared feigned confusion. “Hmmm… Is it — Christmas?” 

“No!” 

He tapped his finger against his chin, deep in thought. “Let me think…” He only got away with it for two seconds before Nicole tickled his armpits. “Wait! I know what it is! I surrender — I surrender!” 

Jared made a show of letting Nicole take him to the floor, the sound of her infectious giggles filling the air. He rolled around and hollered, but when he stopped, he pulled his smallest sister into his lap and hugged her close. “Happy birthday, Nic.” 

“Thank you!” She squealed. 

“Double digits, eh?” Jared smirked. 

“She’s getting old, Jer,” Riley interjected. 

“Nuh-uh!” Nicole stuck out her tongue and scrunched her face. 

“Whatever you say…” 

Nicole bolted up from Jared’s lap and out of the room before anyone could stop her. “Mommy! Daddy!” She called. The pace of her small footsteps echoed through the house until she reappeared and came to a halt, helpless confusion painted on her innocent features. 

“Where are they?” She gasped, her face morphing into the definition of excitement. “Did they leave to get cake?! I hope it’s chocolate! And ice cream! We need ice cream, too!” She shrieked. “Today is going to be the best birthday ever!”

Jared and Riley exchanged another somber look, each dreading what lay ahead. They’d spoken of how to tell Nicole, but now that they were in the moment, neither could determine how to deliver this detrimental news. Given how excited she was to celebrate her birthday, they didn’t want to shatter her world, but they couldn’t hide this from her. It would affect her the most, so she needed to know how her life was about to change. 

Finally, it was Riley who broke the tense silence. She opened her arms to Nicole with misty eyes and when she ran to her, Riley cradled her close. “We need to tell you something, Nikki…” She closed her eyes and took a deep, shuddered breath, wishing she would wake from this nightmare. “There’s been an accident…”

Nicole understood what happened in vague terms, but it took years for her to comprehend the entirety of the situation. All she knew was Mommy and Daddy were not coming home, and she would live with her big sister from here on out. 

Riley was great to Nicole. She worked multiple jobs to make ends meet and often ignored her dreams to provide a sustainable life. Fresh out of high school, she accepted the great responsibility that was Nicole without hesitation and never complained, nor grumbled about it. Even though losing their parents devastated her, she knew she had to push forward for Nicole’s sake. Jared assisted with whatever she needed, but he had a family of his own to care for and was knuckle-deep in law school. Nicole would go for visits, but her home base was always with Riley. 

She and Jared tried to make Nicole’s birthday a day of celebration, but their attempts were futile. The damage was done, specifically within Nicole, who saw no reason to smile or laugh on that day. Riley tried to recreate her special breakfast, but it wasn’t Mom’s waffles, and Dad wasn’t there to sing; the reminder would always be there of the missing pieces taken too soon. All three children felt the loss heavily, but with time, Nicole’s sorrow only grew larger and stronger. 

Riley was incredibly protective of Nicole even before their parents passed, but her paranoia increased tenfold after their deaths. She had strict rules and stuck to them, even more than their parents. Riley expected her to keep her grades up and set a curfew that she adhered to. She had chores and was held responsible for ensuring their completion, and was punished when they weren’t. Nicole couldn’t go to a friend’s house unless Riley met them first and even then, she still went with her; she wanted to ensure her sister arrived and returned in one piece. 

As Nicole got older, she tested Riley’s authority. She snuck out, skipped school a handful of times, and was even picked up by the police for vandalizing an abandoned warehouse. Riley was called to the principal’s office a few times because Nicole copped an attitude with her teachers and when they asked her to stop, she took that as an invitation to make an ass out of herself. Thankfully, nothing was detrimental enough to sour her college opportunities, but Nicole undoubtedly taught Riley the definition of patience during those rebellious years. 

They had multiple screaming matches over Riley’s protectiveness. Nicole ran away a handful of times but was never gone for more than a few hours. Riley never got angry enough to throw her out, despite her sister’s defiance; she realized it was a cry for help without words. She heard her out and tried to relax, but found it difficult to let her grow up outside her safe grasp.

When she became a legal adult, Nicole tried to stay with Riley but found even then — she was still overbearing. She loved her sister more than anything but needed to breathe and live a little. Nicole enrolled in college and moved into the dorms on campus, much to Riley’s displeasure, but she bit her tongue and showed nothing but support. 

Nicole, on the other hand, couldn’t have been happier. College was the time of her life. The parties were unreal, and she finally got to let loose without a parental figure around. She was free to do as she pleased without a voice of reason to nag her, speak for her, or tell her what was best. Her studies always came first and her grades never suffered, but she strolled into class drunk from the night before more than she showed up sober. 

During her college days, she met plenty of guys, but in her senior year, a man named Colton joined her business finance class. He was tall, dark, incredibly handsome, and showed interest in Nicole immediately. They started dating and things grew serious rather quickly. Their chemistry was off the charts and Nicole fell head first. He was her first proper relationship and the first where she didn’t have Riley breathing down her neck, and she threw herself into him. 

They spent every spare moment together, including holiday breaks. She met his family and even brought him along with her to Riley’s, and she sang only praises. He was respectful, kind, and courteous to her sister; she undoubtedly approved of their relationship and had no complaints, even though Nicole was sure she would find something wrong with him, but to her surprise, her sister welcomed him with open arms. She hoped Colton could provide Nicole with the stability she needed, and perhaps finally tie her down. 

They graduated together, Nicole at the top of the class. She used her degree to secure a job with one of the leading financial institutions in the country, and Colton joined a small architectural business, crafting homes and other structures statewide. Things were going great — the next year they spent together, strengthening themselves and their relationship alike. Nicole believed their future was secure, but the rug of happiness she had cozied up on was yanked out from underneath her without warning.

Nicole and Colton moved in together after graduation in an apartment overlooking the busy New York streets. It was a regular Friday — except — she got off work early and stopped by their favorite cafe to grab dinner on her way home as a surprise. But when she walked inside the door to their apartment, she realized she hadn’t beaten him home as she’d hoped. She registered voices not far away and the sound drew her closer, but an anvil dropped into the pit of her stomach when she heard two people. 

Colton spoke to someone she instantly realized was a woman. 

“I love you, baby.” Colton crooned. 

“I want to believe you, but you still have that — attachment.”

Colton sighed. “I know, but I promise I’m dumping her — tonight.” 

“And then?”

“It’s just us. Once her shit is gone, that closet you’ve been eyeballing is all yours. And we’ll get that second room set up ASAP.” 

The woman laughed, and Nicole heard what she assumed was their lips smacking together. As she slowly crossed the threshold, she realized she was correct. Her heart shattered right there on the spot, but fury as she’d never felt ignited and coursed through her body. 

Nicole cleared her throat, drawing their attention to the doorway. The woman straddled Colton’s lap stark naked, right there on the couch they selected for their home together. The harlot’s eyes widened, and she sprung away from him while covering herself, but all she did was show Nicole how incredibly foolish she was, as she zeroed in on the bump protruding from the woman’s abdomen. 

She was fucking pregnant. 

Colton stood with one hand raised in surrender, the other covering his exposed genitals. “Nic, I — I can explain.” 

Nicole chortled, stalking toward him with a scowl. “Is it yours?” 

Colton swallowed thickly, the gulp echoing in the silence. “Yes…”

What little remnants of her resolve burst into flames and she blinked back tears of equal parts fury and devastation. Even though he essentially just reached into her body, yanked her heart out, and tore it to shreds, she would not give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry.  

“How long?” 

“What?”

“HOW LONG have you been fucking this WHORE?!” 

Colton winced at her volume. “I know you’re upset, but—” 

Nicole suddenly grabbed a vase perched on the mantle and launched it toward the woman, narrowly missing her. “HOW FUCKING LONG, COLTON?!” 

“Since last year…” He quietly answered. 

“Last year?” Nicole mimicked in disbelief. “So you’re what — getting your dick wet while planning a future with me?! Or is it the other way around? Am I the other woman in this situation?!” 

“No, that’s not it.” He reasoned. “I promise I can explain—” 

“FUCK. YOU!”

And that was all Nicole remembered. She woke up later in a jail cell to see Jared and Riley, both waiting with disappointed faces. Jared was a lawyer — a damn good one — and got her off the charges Colton tried to press after she destroyed everything. She never went back for her belongings but saw pictures of the damages. She left nothing in one piece — she even launched his grandmother’s urn out the window. Her rage and hurt took over and caused her to black out — she had no recollection of it happening. 

Nicole went back to Riley’s after that, begrudgingly. She didn’t particularly want to but decided perhaps her sister’s company would be better than wallowing alone in her pity. Her presence helped, but in the stillness of her solitude, her self-loathing took over. 

Alcohol became her friend, her closest confidant. She spiraled into a deep pit of depression because she felt completely blindsided. She and Colton were great together, and she couldn’t understand why she wasn’t enough or where it went wrong. Nicole treated him well and always tried to be the best girlfriend she could be. Their apartment was spotless; she cooked him dinner every night, let him have his time with his friends, sucked him off regularly and their sex life wasn’t lacking whatsoever — she did everything right, and yet, she was left broken in the end. 

She drowned her sorrows in the brown bottle, some days from sun up to sun down. Riley tried to intervene, but Nicole refused to talk about it. Multiple fights broke out from her persistent pushing until Riley finally got the message and stopped. She realized although her sister was hurting, she couldn’t force her to express her pain. It was hard to witness, but she couldn’t control her anymore, especially when, by all technicalities, Nicole was following her new stipulations. 

The rules were simple — keep the bullshit outside. Nicole couldn’t bring people over without proper notice, and it had to be someone Riley knew beforehand. She had the freedom to drink, but Riley forbade her from getting belligerent, and she had to have a job to contribute towards food and bills. They had a strict one a.m. lock time; if Nicole wasn’t home, she found somewhere else to stay for the night. Riley often worked doubles at the bar and was not a happy camper when her sleep got disrupted. 

Nicole adhered to every request and never tested her authority. 

Nicole would bounce around from bar to bar but avoided the one Riley worked at. Most of her friends were mutual with Colton because she threw herself into him and lost all contact with her friends, which meant most of her ventures were lone ones. If Daniel wasn’t working he went with her, but Nicole always had a guard up around him. He was incredibly close to Riley and worked alongside her; she considered him her friend, but her trust in his discretion was minimal and she never fully let him in.  

She mostly drank during her outings but picked up a fun game she started playing with herself. Men flocked to her and her assets — they wanted her. On rare occasions, she went home with them, but her enjoyment came from the cat-and-mouse game — the chase. She’d sashay around in her tight, low-cut dresses all night with a line of suitors behind, begging and pleading to take her home. They paid for her drinks and in return, she gave them an hour or two of her undivided attention. Nicole wouldn’t even let them kiss her; she’d let them get handsy for a bit during dances — sometimes under the table — but only a select few were gifted a night with her. 

It was nothing but a tease — watching the spirit leave their eyes when she let them down filled a gaping hole inside her chest, even if only for the moment. 

It was not always a safe game to play — sometimes Nicole ended up in dangerous situations because of her antics. Rowdy, drunken men twice her size pushed her luck a few times, but thankfully, bystanders always intervened before anything serious could happen.

With time, she slowed down a bit, but never fully stopped. Riley knew these things happened at night but during the day, she was Nikki again; smiling, laughing, and joking like she used to. But once the sun sat, the gloves came off and Nicole left to play. 

When Riley’s life changed, Nicole was undoubtedly happy for her. The day Maxwell extended his offer, Riley burst through the door, more excited than Nicole had ever seen her, but her elation faded as she realized what she would leave behind. 

“Nikki… I don’t have to go…” Riley softly spoke.  

Despite her words, Nicole knew how eager she was. “What? Why wouldn’t you?!”

“I don’t wanna leave you here all alone…”

“Riley — I’m not alone. Jared is around and Daniel lives right down the hall.” 

“You could come with me…” Riley hopefully suggested. 

Nicole gave her a sad smile. “I love you, but — no. This isn’t a journey meant for me and I have a career here — I’m up for a promotion soon and I’ve worked too hard to give that up.”

“I — I know…” Riley dejectedly sighed. “But—”

“No,” Nicole stopped her. “You’ve spent all this time worrying about me and ensuring I had everything I needed. You deserve this, Riley. I want you to be happy — if this is what you want to do, then do it.” She picked up her cell phone and held it up. “Plus, these things exist now.”

Riley tearfully chuckled. She tried to contain her growing excitement, but it was to no avail. “Are you sure? I’ll stay. This is probably crazy, anyway… To run off with some guy I don’t even know…”

Nicole laughed. “You gotta live a little at some point, Riley. Otherwise, your tombstone is going to say, ‘Here lies Riley, the woman whose crotch sewed itself back up’.”

“Hey!” Riley swatted at her sister but soon fiddled with the zipper of her hoodie. “... You really think I should go?”

“Yes! And I swear — if I go over twelve hours without hearing from you, I will be on the next flight to Cornucopia with the fucking FBI and CIA and whoever else I can wrangle.”

Riley howled with laughter. “It’s Cordonia.”

“Tomato, tomato.” Nicole snickered. “Enough logistics! Let's get you packed!” 

During the social season, they spoke all the time on the phone; daily, unless their schedules conflicted. However, Nicole knew from the conversing topics early on, that her sister seemed to have her eyes set on a different prize, but Riley wouldn’t admit it. The scandal reached the States and circulated for a bit, but Nicole’s preoccupation with her own games prevented her from paying much attention. She saw a few articles regarding the matter, but it drifted to the back of her mind. Riley cried to her on the phone for days on end, practically begging to come home, but Nicole convinced her to stay on more than one occasion. 

The engagement tour was when Nicole really noticed Riley’s attention shift. She mentioned the king rarely; instead, her focus was on a woman named Hana. How beautiful and smart she was, her vibrant smile, even down to the way her dress flowed in her wake when she walked. Her sister was falling in love, and it elated Nicole that Riley was finding her slice of happiness. She didn’t admit her feelings until Nicole bluntly asked about it; they talked it out, and she helped Riley slowly embrace her true identity. 

The court came to New York and as much as it killed them, Nicole was out of town for that visit. She was in Fort Lauderdale at a mandatory seminar and, because of the court’s tight schedule, they did not get to see each other. Riley called her the night the king proposed and Nicole talked her through her guilt over breaking his heart. Nicole reminded her that although she initially went for him, she was very much single this entire time; she encouraged her to do what felt right. 

Riley became a duchess and Nicole got promoted within her company. Their schedules were busier than ever and they rarely had the chance to connect in person. Riley made a few more trips home, where Nicole got to see her and meet Hana, but she had yet to make the trip to Cordonia to witness her sister in her new element. 

That changed when Riley called to tell her she was engaged. The sisters screeched into the phone together for a long while, Hana even joining in as well. Nicole patiently counted down the days, took leave, and set out on her international adventure. Jared would come right before the wedding, but Nicole wanted to be there for all the events that would happen beforehand. 

Riley described the perfect playground, only with a whole new set of players. 

After the excitement faded, Riley was quick to set some ground rules. Nicole had to behave while she was there, to not cause some kind of scandal. The joining of two noble women was unprecedented in itself, and Riley didn’t want anything going wrong; Nicole had to watch her step. Riley knew she could achieve the task, but it was up to Nicole to decide she wanted to. 

Nicole didn’t intend on immediately messing up, but then a tall, intoxicating man walked up and said all the right words. Her body lit like a Christmas tree, an immediate reaction to his advances. The game was still afoot, but this was one occurrence where she gave in to temptation. 

How was she supposed to know the king, her sister’s close, personal friend, hit the streets? When he told her he was the monarch, she almost died laughing, but at that point, he could’ve been Barney — either way, the results would’ve been the same. It wasn’t until she Googled his name that she recalled his face in those articles, and Riley mentioning his name.  

She knew — she fucked up. 

Riley still spoke of Liam, but mostly just a few words here and there. She didn’t mention the king was a certified freak, or that he dressed in the opposite of his social position. Nicole didn’t know how Riley would react if she found out, but she wasn’t willing to take that chance. She knew how her big sister used to be, but hoped perhaps her new home and love would calm her a bit. 

Deep down, she realized that would never happen. 

It was inevitable that she would come face-to-face with Liam at some point, and Nicole wasn’t sure what would happen at that moment, either. Would he play it off as if nothing happened? Pretend he’d never seen her? She didn’t know him, so she couldn’t determine how he would handle the situation. 

Regardless, it would be their secret — Riley could never know. 

That morning, Nicole was to set off for Valtoria. Riley and Hana were called to a last-minute meeting and were out of the country for a few days. They offered Nicole the duchy until they returned, but she turned them down, as she wanted to explore the country her sister hyped up independently. She got herself a hotel in the capital for the time they would be gone, but now wished she would’ve just gone straight to Valtoria instead. 

None of this would’ve happened, and she wouldn’t be nearly bursting with anxiety; not knowing when she would have to face her extraordinarily talented lover and the secret that would then dangle over both of their heads. 

Riley, Hana and their small group of peers anxiously awaited the honored guest’s arrival. As soon as they decided to get married, Riley knew there was no way she would even entertain the idea without her sister. She looked forward to the next couple of weeks and secretly hoped Nicole would fall in love with the country and want to stay. 

Riley enjoyed her life in Cordonia but longed to have Nicole near. Perhaps it was her protective nature, but she felt incomplete without her and often lay awake at night worrying about her. Of course, she missed Jared as well, but she and Nicole had a much stronger bond. She wanted nothing more than to have her sister around all the time, to bring her life in Cordonia to completion. 

However, that also brought great anxiety. Nicole was a sweet, genuine person, but Riley knew she made some poor decisions after Colton decimated her heart. It wasn’t so much her image she stressed about — although it was a contributing factor — but she worried about all these men being around her baby sister. She could take care of herself, but the nobility was a different ballpark; she didn’t want Nicole to get into a bad situation that could get plastered for the world to see, just as she had.  

Riley gave warnings to the men in her immediate circle — Nikki was off limits. It wasn’t Maxwell she was worried about, nor Drake, but Liam specifically. He bedded anything with a pulse; Nicole would not appear on that lengthy list. She wouldn’t allow him to use her in that way, monarch or not. Drake or Maxwell could receive the chance at some point, but Liam would not. She loved him like a brother, but Nicole was blood; she would not be another notch on his bedpost. 

Riley felt guilty about what happened between her and Liam for a long time, and sometimes still does. Eventually, she realized she really hadn’t led him on, but that only eased her aching conscience so much. They were never intimate, only kissed one or two times toward the beginning of the social season, and Riley never reciprocated when he said I love you; she would tell him she wasn’t ready for that. 

Yet, he still proposed. 

She was stunned and genuinely didn’t understand why he asked. Yes, he needed a wife to make his queen, but Riley made it clear to him early on — that wasn’t what she was interested in. The crown meant nothing, and she wasn’t willing to compromise her happiness for a job she didn’t want. She tried — time and time again — to make herself love him but at the end of the day, he wasn’t her. 

She and Hana hid their relationship for quite a while; not from everyone, just Liam. In the aftermath of his heartbreak, they didn’t want to throw salt into the still-open wound. When they announced their engagement, Liam told them he supported their union and would happily be the one to marry them, but they knew he still held some kind of resentment. Everyone got along and was good friends, but sometimes the tension thickened — a constant reminder that the past would always be there. 

“Is she here yet?!” Maxwell exclaimed, dragging Riley out of her daze. 

Riley chuckled. “Not yet.” Maxwell bounced in place, thrumming from his enormous amount of energy. “Calm down, Max. I think you’re more excited than I am.” 

“Of course! Why wouldn’t I be?! It’s another freakin’ blossom!” 

Drake sighed and ran a hand down his face. “Why did you want him here for this?” He addressed Riley. 

“Because I want to give her a warm welcome with all of my favorite people.” 

Drake snickered. “Guess that explains why Liam isn’t here.” 

“That’s not it. I invited him, but he had a meeting…” Drake stared at Riley with a knowing expression for only a moment before she pleaded, “It’s not!” 

Drake snickered. “Calm down, Brooks. I get it…” 

“You do?” 

“Yeah.” Drake nodded. “Trust me, if Savannah wasn’t with good ol’ Bertie, I would’da put a chastity belt on her long ago — no fucking way would I let him anywhere near her.” 

Riley laughed. “I’m glad someone understands, but that doesn’t mean you have permission, either — just so we’re clear.” 

Drake raised his hands in surrender. “It’s not me you gotta worry about… Or twinkle toes over there.” 

“Hey!” Maxwell yelled. 

“I’m just sayin’. She’s safe around us, but King Condom is a different story.” 

Riley sighed. Her face fell and guilt took over as she thought about Liam’s changes. She knew she was the one who did that and regardless of what everyone tried to reassure her with, she still felt responsible. 

Hana approached and lightly stroked her shoulders. “Don’t do that… We’ve been down this road a million times… You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Yeah, Brooks… You didn’t do that.” Drake agreed. 

“He’s just so — different now… Like, the Liam who wanted me to love him left when he found out I didn’t love him…” Riley trailed off, staring down at her shoes. 

“No, he chose to react how he did. That’s a grown-ass man who made his own decisions.” 

“I know… I just—” 

Maxwell cut Riley off. “My beautiful, beautiful blossom…” He grasped her shoulders as Hana’s hands fell away. “You’re such a genuine person, but I promise you, whatever is going on with Liam is not your fault. You have to stop blaming yourself!” 

Riley let out a heavy breath. “I’m just hoping I can keep him and Nikki apart while she’s here. That would be toxic in every way… Two players trying to play each other.” 

“I’m sure he’ll behave. He’s got plenty of — entertainment elsewhere, so I think she’s safe.” Hana agreed with a warm smile. 

“A female version of this toxic masculine Liam, huh?” Drake asked, amusement written on his features. “Maybe it wouldn’t be the worst idea to let them—” 

Maxwell suddenly rushed to the window, his eyes glued to the vehicle approaching. “She’s here! She’s here!” 

“Goddamnit, Beaumont,” Drake grumbled. “Do you gotta be so loud?” 

“Yes, I do. Otherwise, you might think something was wrong with me!” 

“Wouldn’t want that, of course.” Drake rolled his eyes. “Just try to be fucking normal for two seconds, would ya?”

Maxwell put his hands on his hips and faced Drake with utter seriousness. “What’s the baseline for normal, Drake? Who are you to tell me what’s ‘not normal’?” He air quoted. “Just because I don’t walk around flipping my hair, talking about bar-b-que—” 

“GUYS,” Hana interjected. She cleared her throat and smoothed out her dress with a polite smile. “Please refrain from — that.” 

Before Maxwell or Drake could respond, the sounds of loud, ear-piercing screeches filled the air. At the door, Riley jumped and hugged a redhead, spinning her around in circles. They could tell she was smaller than Riley and had a lighter, more intense shade of copper hair, but couldn’t get a good look at her face. 

“I’m so glad you’re here!” Riley exclaimed with tears of joy. 

“Are you kidding?! Like I would miss this!” Nicole responded with glistening eyes to match. 

“I can’t wait to show you everything. All my favorite places — oh!” Riley suddenly stepped away. “I found this food truck that makes the best nachos around… Very close to Ernesto’s.” 

“Nobody does it like he can, but you had me at nacho.” The sisters giggled before embracing each other once again.

“Seriously, Nikki… I’m so glad you’re here.” 

“I’m so happy to see you that for just this once, I’ll allow you to call me Nikki.” Nicole stepped away with a shudder. 

“Oh, I’m calling you Nikki the entire time.” 

Nicole rolled her eyes. “Riley, I’m not seven anymore — stop.” She glanced around at the massive estate. “You failed to mention that your house is actually a fucking castle. Does your mote have alligators in it?”

Riley snorted. “Not yet, but it’s fairly high on my to-do list.”

“A-hem.” A throat exaggeratedly cleared behind them, as Maxwell could no longer wait for his presence to be known. “Are you going to introduce us to the infamous Nikki?”

Nicole centered a death glare on her elder sister. “I’m just going to assume that everyone thinks my name is Nikki, thanks to you.” 

“How about those introductions?” Riley deflected with an innocent smile, as she led Nicole to the foyer where everyone waited. “You remember Hana?” 

“Of course!” Nicole exclaimed as she pulled Hana into a tight hug. “It’s good to see you again soon-to-be sister!” 

“You as well! We’re elated that you’re able to be here with us. We wouldn’t dream of having it any other way.” 

Nicole stepped away with an excited grin, and Riley continued down the line. “This is Maxwell. He’s—” 

“The absolute best.” He finished for her. “Master dancer, Lord DJ, the Squid King, tour guide extraordinaire—” 

“Dear God, if you’re listening, please take me from this madness…” Drake huffed, his head turned to the ceiling. 

Before Maxwell could retort, Riley quickly finished. “And that’s Drake.” 

Nicole snorted. “Makes sense.” 

“Whaddya mean?” Drake inquired with an arched brow. 

“Just seems like something you’d say, judging from what Riley told me.” 

“Oh, yeah?” When Nicole nodded, Drake continued. “What’d she tell you?” 

“Snarky, loyal to a fault.” 

Drake smirked. “Damn straight.” 

“She mentioned something about a marshmallow, though…” 

Drake sighed. “Seriously, Brooks? People I don’t even know think I’m some — soft glob of—” 

“I consider you to be a s’more.” Maxwell interrupted. 

“And what does that mean?” 

“What everyone else thinks, but with an added stick up your butt,” He stated, very matter-of-factly.

Nicole busted out with belly giggles. “That’s great. Do they do this all the time?” She asked Riley and Hana, as Drake and Maxwell went off into a fit of bickers. 

“Yep,” Hana answered. 

“Brotherly love,” Riley added with a smile. 

“I can see why you keep them around… They’re certainly — entertaining…” Nicole trailed off. 

Nicole took the distraction as an opportunity to check the men out with a hungry gaze. Drake immediately caught her eye, as he was more her typical ‘type’; tall, dark, and broad, with an air of mystery. She could tell underneath all that denim, he was packing. Not just in the nether regions, but she didn’t need to see him shirtless to know he was in immaculate shape — although, she wouldn’t complain about the view if the situation arose. 

She zeroed in on Maxwell and, although he was a tad shorter, he was just as chiseled. He spoke with his entire body, leaving very little to the imagination. Easy on the eyes and obviously a dork; she wondered if that facade would slip away when things got heated, or if he was that much of a goof in the bedroom as well. She imagined putting that question to the test and her little five-second fantasy nearly made her thighs quiver.

Riley noticed Nicole’s lustrous gaze fixated on her friends and swiftly threaded her arm through hers. “Let’s go have a drink, shall we?” 

Nicole nodded and the trio of women left Drake and Maxwell, arguing amongst themselves. Neither was aware they were now alone until Drake’s phone vibrated, momentarily halting their altercation.

Drake pulled out his device, but Maxwell immediately grew worried as he took in his surroundings. “Where is everyone? Did they leave?” He gasped and held a hand over his heart. “Was there a welcome party, and they didn’t tell me?!” 

“Max, SHUSH,” Drake grumbled as he typed out a text. 

“What’s wrong?” 

“Nothing’s wrong, but…” 

“Drake, you know how I am with suspense. Tell me now, or — well, there is no or, just — tell me now.”

“Calm the fuck down… It’s Liam…” 

“What about him?” 

“He said he’s going to make it after all… He’s almost here.” 

In one of the sitting rooms not far away, Riley, Hana, and Nicole enjoyed their drinks. The conversation easily flowed between them as they caught up on the time they’d spent apart. Nicole spoke of her job, Jared, Daniel, and anything else she could think of. Riley and Hana excitedly told her about their life in Valtoria, the wedding arrangements, and the governance changes they intended to make. However, Riley knew she needed to address the gigantic elephant in the room. 

“Nikki…”

Nicole sighed. “That name, again.” 

Riley smiled at her sister’s annoyance. “Listen, I don’t want to be overbearing, but we need to revisit the rules.” 

Nicole visibly tensed, her anxiety skyrocketing. “What do you mean? I just got here. I haven’t even had the chance to do anything bad yet…” She nervously chuckled, uncomfortably shifting in her seat. 

Riley gave her an unsure glance. “I know that… But seriously, Nicole, please behave. No trysts, no games, none of that. You don’t know these people like I do — this is not New York anymore.” 

“I’m aware, Riley. I’m not an animal — I can control myself.” Nicole quickly retorted while ignoring her conscience, knowing what she’d already done. 

“I know you aren’t, Nikki, that’s not what I’m saying, but some people here are — undeniably charming, okay? Don’t fall for it.” 

Nicole swore she could feel every drop of sweat as it profusely poured down her forehead. “Is there someone in particular you’re speaking of?” She nonchalantly asked, but something told her she already knew the answer. 

“No.” Riley swiftly returned. “It’s a general rule that applies to anyone you meet here — understood?” 

“Yes, mother.” Nicole playfully retorted, hoping to ease some of Riley’s obvious worries. “I promise I will behave — cross my heart.” 

“Good…” Riley’s eyes softened. “How are you doing?” 

“I told you — I just got another promotion, Daniel is fine, Jared is—” 

“No, that’s not what I’m asking. How are you, Nikki?” 

“I’m fine, Riley. Things are… Okay, I guess.” She shrugged. “I just go to work and go home…” 

“And…” 

Nicole rolled her eyes and let out a small huff. “Don’t do this. I’m an adult and I can spend my time how I wish. I’m safe, nothing has happened—” 

“Yet.”

“Do you want to have this argument now? Right when I walk in the door?” 

Riley sighed. “No, I don’t… I’m sorry, I just — I worry about you.” 

“I know, but don’t. I am fine.” 

“Whatever you say…” 

“How are you two lovebirds doing?” Nicole deflected, hoping to shift the attention off of herself. 

Riley and Hana shared a flushed grin as they reached for the other’s hand. Nicole smiled to herself, undeniably happy her sister found her soulmate. 

“Great,” Riley answered. “I’m so excited to get married already. Planning this wedding has been a task in itself, but it’ll be worth it in the end…” she trailed off, gazing deeply into Hana’s eyes as if she saw the entire world mirrored back. 

“Awww… I would gag, but I’m just so fucking happy for you.” Nicole interrupted their moment with a laugh. 

“Thank you, Nicole. Again, we’re so happy you could be here with us.” Hana spoke with a warm grin. “I consider myself blessed every day that I'll get to call your sister my wife, but my heart is overjoyed from the family I'll gain too.”

“There is something I wanted to ask you…” Riley trailed off with radiating excitement, as she practically bounced in place. 

“Okay…” Nicole unsurely answered. 

“I wanted to know if you would be my maid of honor… I know it’s last minute but it’s the only role left to be filled and there is no one else I want in that spot, but I wanted to ask in person—” 

“Yes, yes, YES!” Nicole screeched. 

Riley rose from her seat with a squeal and engulfed Nicole in a tight hug. She briefly lifted her feet off the floor as she spun her around, but dropped her and extended a hand to Hana. “Get in here!” 

Hana did as told and their revelry turned into a circle, as they held hands and joyfully jumped around. After a long moment and a lot of hugs, they stepped away and sat back down, each taking a breath to calm their excitement. 

Nicole finally spoke after a few minutes of content silence. “So, tell me more about the wedding. Who is coming from back home? When will Jared be here? Is Daniel—” 

Maxwell suddenly burst through the door and somersaulted, landing with his hands on his hips. 

“Wow.” Nicole clapped with wide eyes. “Impressive.” 

“Don’t encourage it,” Drake pleaded as he entered behind Maxwell. “Uh, Brooks… Can I talk to you for a sec?” He asked while rubbing the back of his neck. 

Riley shot up from her seat as she took in his nervous demeanor. They made it out of the room, and Drake closed the doors before turning around to face her. “... Have you checked your phone lately?” 

“No…” Riley unsurely returned as she retrieved her device from her pocket. She unlocked the screen and saw multiple missed calls from Liam and a few texts, and her face drained of color. “Oh, no…” 

“Yeah…” 

“I thought he had a meeting! I extended the invitation after he told me he was busy!” 

“He said it got canceled…” Riley instantly started to pace in front of Drake, her anxiety clear as day. “Brooks, calm down… I’m sure everything is going to be fine. Ya can’t keep ‘em apart forever, you know…” 

“I know that,” Riley bit out. “But I don’t want them to end up hurting each other, Drake. I can barely live with myself because of what I did to Liam. If he ends up hurting Nicole because of what I did to him, then—” 

“Woah woah woah — back that shit up. You already know my opinion on the Liam ordeal, but you're making a lot of conclusions here…” He trailed off with a knowing look. “Listen… Has he made some questionable decisions? Sure. But — he’s still Liam.”

“I know… I know… I’m just… Being overprotective, I guess…” She responded as she bit her nails. 

“Stop doing that.” Drake gently pulled her hand away from her mouth. “Everything is going to be fine. You’re going to get married and it’ll be peaceful and beautiful and all that other frilly bullshit.” 

Despite her unease, Riley chuckled. “Thank you, Drake. You’re a great friend.” 

“Yeah, well, I shouldn’t be, considering even your sister thinks I’m a fucking marshmallow already. You know this means I’ll have to step up my asshole game, right? Thatta’ way she doesn’t think I’m warm and inviting.” He shuddered. 

“Just don’t take it too far otherwise I’ll have to intervene, and trust me — you won’t like me when I have to go into momma-bear mode.” She innocently smiled and batted her lashes, but her expression sent a shiver down Drake’s spine. She looked sweet but those eyes told a completely different story, causing him to swallow thickly and reassess the usually gentle being before him.

Before Drake could respond, Gladys appeared in the hallway with a bow. “Your Grace, His Majesty just arrived and is being settled.” 

“Thank you, Gladys…” Riley quietly answered with an audible gulp. 

Drake patted her on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Brooks. I’m sure he’s going to be on his best behavior.” 

[cryptidghostgirl]

Make You Wish Chapter Four -- Vox

Pairing: Alastor x Reader

Warnings: I don't think there are any for this chapter? Correct me if I am wrong.

Word Count: 1,225

Previous Part: Chapter Three -- A Reunion

Master Lists 

Hazbin Hotel Master List 

Make You Wish Master List

A/N I wasn't planning on posting this until tomorrow, but it seems to have some rather excited fans so here is chapter four (and the fourth thing I'm publishing today. We're very done for the day. I am tried and have actual work to do.) Also guys, I'm screaming. I accidentally deleted the whole things right before I was gonna post it. Thankfully I had a draft from when it was almost done save but like, god that sucked.

On the screen was Vox, seated behind a desk.

"Top of the hour and we're discussing a certain has-been how has been spotted cavorting around town after a seven year absence." Vox was saying, a poorly drawn image of Alastor displayed on the screen to his left.

Y/n saw Alastor's ear twitch with irritation.

"Yeah." she sighed, folding her arms across her chest, "Vox has gone kinda crazy since you left. I told you, things got tough."

"Did anybody miss him? Did anybody notice? More on tonight's program." Vox said through the TV, shuffling a stack of papers.

Alastor changed the channel with another flick of his finger.

"Hun, don't worry yourself with it." Y/n advised, "He's still gonna be there tomorrow."

The new channel showed a talk-show set up, Vox-2-Nite, where Vox was both host and guest.

"So, the old Radio Demon is back in town." host Vox was saying to himself as guest.

"Why is he hanging around?" guest Vox asked, taking a sip from a mug that had 'fuck Alastor' written on the side.

"Al." Y/n warned, sensing her friends irritation growing.

"What does that mean for your family?" Host Vox asked before Alastor changed the channel again.

Vox was on the screen again, before a bright red curtain.

"Well, handily, I've got good news." he was saying theatrically, "He's a loser, a fossil, and I don't mean to sound hostel-"

Alastor changed the channel again. This time to one of Vox's mega church broadcasts. Vox stood in the center of the screen wearing a pope's hat with an inverted cross on it.

"But the demon is a coward!" he announced, his words matching the previous channels sentiments perfectly.

"Jesus, V." Y/n asked, eyes wide, "How many channels are you running this on?"

"You can take that as gospel. Pulling my viewers? Impossible. I'm visual, he's barely audible."

"Y/n." Alastor hummed, his eyes still fixed on the screen.

"Yeah?"

"You wont mind if I handle this quickly. We can have our little chat after, I promise. It wont take more than a moment."

"I don't know, Al..." Y/n sighed, crossing her arms and tapping her foot slightly, "This isn't good for you, letting him get under your skin like this."

Alastor changed the channel again. A cooking show appeared and Vox was standing before the oven, singing along to the music playing in the background.

"But he should've stayed away! While he hid in radio, we pivoted to video!"

Vox on screen turned to the oven as he sang, opening it and pulling out a deer's head on a plate. Y/n bristled at the site, her horns growing just the tiniest bit longer, her teeth just the smallest bit sharper.

"And now his medium is getting bloody rare!"

"Al?" Y/n asked sharply.

"Yes, darling?"

"I lied." Y/n turned to face him, "He took this shit musical. Rip him a new one."

"Oh!" Millie exclaimed, excitedly grabbing onto Moxxie's arm, "We're gonna get a show!"

Alastor's grin widened at Y/n's words, if that was even possible. He stuck his hand out to the side, his microphone materializing in his grasp.

"Lucky for me, I've got the best voice this side of the divide on my side." he noted, shooting Y/n a look.

Her eyes flashed red.

"You flatter me."

Alastor brought his microphone to his mouth, suddenly exceedingly calm. The imps present in the room watched in shock as his ears flattened along his head.

"Salutations, good to be back on the air!" he announced into the device, "Yes I know it's been a while since someone with style treated hell to a broadcast. Sinners rejoice!"

Vox's brow furrowed on the TV screen as he inched up close to the camera.

"What a dated voice." Vox shot back, clearly listening to Alastor's broadcast on the set of his cooking show.

"Instead of a clout chasing, mediocre, video podcast." Alastor continued, not showing any sign he had noticed the TV demon's insult, "Is Vox insecure, pursuing allure? Flitting between this fad and that, is nothing working?"

"Ignore his chirping!" Vox commanded from the TV.

Y/n laughed and, turning to face Alastor, realized the man held a hand out to her. With a smile, she took it and he spun her into his arms as he spoke. The music echoed through the office as Alastor raised the volume on the TV once again.

"Every day he's got a new format."

Alastor spun Y/n back out again as the pair began dancing.

"You're looking at the future!" Vox yelled back, "He's the shit that comes before that!"

As Alastor spun Y/n back into his arms, she laid one of her hands on top of his holding the microphone and pulled it closer to her face.

"Is Vox as strong as he purports, or is it based on his support?" she sang in a clear voice, Blitzo, Millie, and Moxxie's eyes widening with recognition at the sound, "He'd be powerless without the other Vees."

"That's true!" Alastor noted, pulling the microphone back to himself as Y/n let go of his hand and he spun her back out again.

"It can't be..." Moxxie muttered under his breath.

"Holy shit!" Millie cut him off, excitement creeping into her voice, "There's no way, Y/n is the guest star?"

"The fuck are you two talking about?" Blitzo asked, turning to Millie and Moxxie as they watched the couple continue to dance.

"Well, Sir," Moxxie began, fiddling with the cuffs of his jacket, "back before the Radio Demon went missing, he used to bring guests onto the show on occasion. There was one guest he never named during his broadcasts however. She mostly just sang songs and chatted with him but, she sounded an awful lot like Y/n did just now."

"You don't say." Blitzo hummed, his arms crossed as he turned back to Y/n and Alastor, "So much for little miss 'oh, my life has been so boring. You'd probably just fall asleep if I started talking about it!' She is so gonna get it later."

Alastor let go of Y/n's hand and leaned into the microphone, beginning to sing as well, using the music emanating from the TV as a base.

"And here's the sugar on the cream: he asked me to join his team!"

"Hold on!" Vox yelled.

"I said no and now he's pissy, that's the tea!" Alastor finished, ignoring the demon once again.

"You old timey prick!" Vox exclaimed, his face glitching slightly as Y/n wandered back over to Alastor.

She leaned an elbow on his shoulder, tilting her head to the side in amusement as they watched Vox struggle.

"I'll show you suffering!"

"Aww, the TV is buffering." Y/n said, leaning into the microphone, her voice dripping with sickly sweet pity.

"I'll destroy yoo-o-u-u" Vox exclaimed as his technical difficulties seemed to grow worse.

Alastor and Y/n exchanged a wicked pair of smiles as the TV flickered out. Shadows crept from the edges of the room, encircling their feet. Alastor held an arm out to Y/n once again which she took with a smile. In a flash of darkness, they were gone.

"What the fuck was that?" Loona asked, stalking into the room.

----

Next Part -> Chapter Five -- The Conversation

[mama2bears]

Starting Over Again - Chapter 3

Warnings: Bed Sharing, nightmares, talk of abuse

Parings: Tyler/Female Reader

Chapter One Chapter Two

Chapter 3

The sun was just beginning to set when Tyler pulled into the hotel parking lot. You were dozing off when he excitedly announced, “We're here!” he was grinning over at you as he parked next to an older model RV, “here's the team.”

You yawn and stretch before stepping out of the truck and giving the group a small smile.

“Everyone, meet our newest member, Y/N!” Tyler announced.

Everyone cheered and was saying hi, when all of a sudden Boone came around the RV with his phone in his hand.

“BOONE! NO!” Tyler yelled sternly at him, stepping in front of you.

“What did I do?” Boone lowered the phone in his hand.

“Y/N doesn't wish to be on video. There will be no introducing her to our followers and no posting any content with her in it, understood?” Tyler said.

“Um, yeah. Sorry.” Boone apologized and offered you his hand to shake. You shake his hand and give him a smile, “It's okay. I just wish to remain anonymous out here.”

“Anonymous it is then,” Boone smiled at you and instantly deleted the video he had taken.

“Hi! I am Lily. I operate the drone.” she smiles shaking your hand.

“I am Dani, the hustler, or, merchandise seller.” she smiles, “Dexter here is my partner in crime.”

“Hey!” Dexter gives a wave from the laptop he was studying.

“Well, that's about it.” Tyler stated, taking a key from Lily, “Let's get you settled in the room.” he grabbed your Walmart bags and headed towards the room.

“Hey, Tyler, you wanna use my shower later?” Boone asked.

“Yeah, that would be great. Thanks.”

“Why do you need to use Boone's shower? Something wrong with the one in your room?” You question.

“Nah, I am just going to sleep in the truck tonight.” Tyler shrugged.

“What? Why?”

Stopping at the door before opening it, he answered, “Because we couldn't get a fourth room. The hotel is booked.”

“So you going to sleep in the truck?” you asked.

He nodded, “After what you've been though, I don't want to make you feel uneasy or anything. I would never want to make you uncomfortable or fearful.” he said softly.

“Tyler, it's okay. There's two beds, right?” you sigh. You weren't sure you really wanted to share a room with anyone, let alone a man you just met, but you also didn't want him sleeping in the truck because of you.

Tyler opened the door, “Well, so much for two beds.” he quipped.

“Oh.” You stare at the one king sized bed in the room.

“Well, you will have plenty of room to stretch out tonight.” he said, putting the bags on the bed for you and giving you a smile. “You have your phone. Make yourself comfortable and call me if you need anything.”

“Tyler..maybe. I don't know, maybe I can just sleep on the floor or something. It doesn't feel right, you having to sleep in the truck because of me.”

He offers you a big smile, “I've slept in the truck before. I have a sleeping bag and pillow. It's okay, just get some rest tonight and we'll see if we can get another room or something tomorrow.”

You nod as he steps out the door and makes sure it closes, “make sure you put the dead bolt on.” he called, waiting at the door to hear the click.

He waves at you and heads back towards the truck as you close the curtain.

You pull out the cozy pajamas, bubble bath, and other things you needed for the night. Stepping into the bathroom you close -and lock- the door behind you.

Starting the hot water, you stepped into the shower first, letting the water run over your body, hoping it would help clear your head.

You still felt guilty about Tyler sleeping in the truck, all because of you. He was willing to give up his room for your comfort. He was doing all he could to make you feel safe and comfortable.

Washing your hair you sigh to yourself. You didn't know if you could trust these people you only met today. They seemed friendly, Tyler made you feel safe, but...at one time you thought the same thing about Lee.

Turning off the water you dried your hair and started to fill the tub up. Your sore muscles needed a good soak. As you slide down into the hot bubbly water you came to one conclusion...the Tornado Wranglers couldn't do anything worse to you then what you experienced the last few years.

* * * * *

Lily and the rest of the team were still hanging out at the RV when Tyler got to his truck. “Lily!” he called...”Are you sure you asked for all double rooms?”

“Yeah, of course. We always do. What's up?” she asked.

“There's only one bed in my room.” he stated, “It's not a big deal. I was going to sleep in the truck anyway.”

“I am sorry, Ty.” she said, “I'll go talk to the office and see what went wrong.”

“Don't worry about it. Y/N is comfortable and hopefully getting settled. There's no need to worry about it tonight. Tomorrow maybe some of the storm chasers will check out and we can get an extra room for tomorrow night.”

* * * * *

You finish your bath and peek out the window of your hotel room. You see the Wranglers splitting up and heading to their rooms for the night. Tyler was pulling what you guessed was a sleeping bag from the back of his truck and getting it fixed in the backseat.

You watched for a moment, your mind racing. Your heart wanted to invite him to share the room with you tonight. Your mind was screaming that this was a very dangerous situation.

You watched as Tyler crawled into the backseat of the truck and closed the door, a few seconds later the light in the truck went dark.

Walking over to the nightstand you picked up the phone he had brought for you and scrolled though the contacts, taping his name.

“Hey Tyler? This is Y/N. Did you get your shower?” you sent the message.

A few moments later came a replay,

“Yeah, I know who you are. I brought the phone, remember?” he sent a laughing emoji, “Yeah, I showered in Boone's room. We're settling down for the night. You need anything?”

You smile, staring at the phone for a moment and then you begin typing.

“Come up to the room. I don't like the idea of you sleeping in the truck. If nothing else, you can sleep on the chair or the floor. We will make it work. It'll be okay tonight.”

You wait before sending it, taking a deep breath. Your mind was screaming not to invite a stranger into your room. Your heart was screaming not to let him sleep in the truck. He had been nothing but kind to you. He had went the extra mile to make you feel safe and comfortable. He was worth the risk. You hit the send button and wait.

“You sure? I don't mind sleeping in the truck.” came the replay.

“I am sure.” you replied. “I won't be able to sleep tonight thinking about you in the truck.”

A moment of silence.

“Alright, I'll be there in a minute.”

You smile as your heart skips a beat. Maybe this was a dangerous mistake or maybe, it was the best decision you ever made.

Rain starting pouring down about the moment Tyler exited the truck. “Well, I guess I didn't need that shower after all.” he muttered. Grabbing his duffle bag, sleeping bag, and pillow and making a run for the hotel room.

A moment later, Tyler was knocking at you door, which you quickly open. Rain had soaked though his white T-shirt, the black sweat pants were clinging to his waist and his hair was hanging down in his face dripping wet. “Hi,” he grinned at you, “you sure you still want me sharing a room?”

You laugh softly, “Yes, get in here before you let the flood in.”

Tyler quickly entered the room and you closed the door behind him. “I'll go get dried off and will set up the sleeping bag on floor” he offered.

“Nonsense. Your sleeping bag is dripping wet. You can't very well sleep in that. You can share the bed. It's plenty big enough we can have our space.”

“Y/N, are you sure?” he asked softly.

You give him a smile, “You said we are a family, right? Well, family doesn't let family sleep in trucks or wet sleeping bags.”

Tyler gives you a big smile, “I promise to keep to my own side of the bed.”

“You better,” you smirked at him, crawling under the covers and settling down.

Tyler stepped into the bathroom, unaware that you could see him in the mirror out of the corner of your eye. Your breath catches as you watch him slip off the wet T shirt, the water dripping down his tanned muscular body, almost appearing to shimmer.. You watched with bated breath as he stripped down to a pair of black boxer shorts before drying off and changing into a pair of shorts.

You close your eyes, pretending to be asleep as he exits the bathroom, turns off the lights and slides under the covers next to you.

You were fearful of what the outcome of tonight would be. Was Tyler an abuser like Lee? Would he wake up tomorrow and see this as an employee trying to sleep her way in with the boss? Or, would you give in to your heart and start to fall in love again, possibly with a man who didn't return your feelings.

* * * * *

Tyler laid as still as he could in the bed, turned slightly to watch you sleeping in the darken room. You were so beautiful and he could tell you had a tender heart. He wanted nothing more then to wrap you in his arms and promise to protect you for the rest of his life.

It was only a few years ago he swore he wasn't going to fall in love again, at least, not until his days of storm chasing were over. He would have a few good friends and maybe a few hook ups here and there, but nothing serious. Not strings attached. No falling in love. Here he was though, laying in bed only inches from you, and falling in love.

“I'll protect you with my life, darling.” he whispered into the dark, “I'll always be here for you.”

Within moments, Tyler allowed his eyes to drift closed into a peaceful sleep with thoughts of you still running though his mind.

* * * * *

“I told you, Bitch! I would kill you!” Lee was yelling as he beat you non stop.

“Tyler!” you screamed.

“Tyler's not here to protect you!” Lee snarled picking you up and throwing you against the wall, “I killed him, just like I am gonna kill you now.”

“NO!!!” You scream, tears streaming down your face.

From somewhere, you feel arms wrapping around you, “It's okay. You're safe. You're safe. It's okay. Y/N, wake up, it's okay.” Tyler's voice whispered in your ear.

Your eyes fly open and you look around the dark room in a panic, you're eyes landing on Tyler's concerned face, his strong arms wrapped around you, holding you close to his side, “It's okay.” he whispered again.

“I'm...I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you up.” you whisper, a little embarrassed.

“It's okay.” he whispered, still holding you close to him. You relax a bit, resting your head on his shoulder, your heart pounding in your chest.

“Nightmare?” he asked softly, his figures carefully stroking your hair.

You nod, tears still running down your face.

“It's okay. He won't hurt you as long as I am here.” Tyler whispers into your ear and you snuggle into his chest. “Want to talk about it?” he asks softly.

You're silent for a moment, listening to the thunder outside and the rain pouring down. It was so similar to the night you made a run for it.

“My mother had just passed away from cancer,” you whisper, fresh tears falling down your face. “I was alone for the first time in my life. There was no other family I had or anything. I had just finished up my collage degree and was looking to start work, in the main time, I worked as a server to pay the bills. On the way home one night I had a flat tire. Lee stopped to help. Instead of payment, he asked for a date.”

You are silent and Tyler moves his hand to your back and gentle rubs it. He feels you tense and suck in a breath and quickly he removes his hand, “I am sorry.” he whispered.

“No, it's okay. I am just still a little tender from the last beating.”

Anger boiled within him and his muscles tensed, “The LAST beating?” he said between clenched teeth, “How long did this go on?”

“Years.” you whispered with a shudder.

“Did you marry him?”

You nodded, “Yes, a few months after we met. Lee said that it was love and I agreed. He said why wait to be married if we already know we loved each other. Truth be told, I was lonely and I didn't want to be alone anymore. It was never love for me. It was loneliness.”

Tyler was silent, his arm still holding you close to him and stroking your hair. He waited to see if you wanted to continue.

“Before we got married, Lee was sweet. He never hit me or yelled or anything. I had no idea. If I did, I never would have married him.”

“I know, sweetie.” Tyler whispered, leaning his head against yours.

After a moment of silence, you continued. “The first time he hit me, it was because I looked the wrong way at another man. He was jealous. The first few years I got slapped around, but nothing really bad. I wanted to leave, but I was afraid. I didn't have anyone to turn to and I thought it would get better. We were young and new to this marriage thing. We all make mistakes. I thought he would stop, but it only got worse. He had my car towed, forced me to quite my job, and when I tried to leave the first time, he beat me bad enough that I spent a few days in the hospital.”

You feel Tyler tense next to you. “I am sorry, Y/N. I am really sorry.” he whispered. “I promise, I won't allow anyone to hurt you again. I will give all I got to keep you safe. You're beautiful, smart, and kind. I can tell all of this just by knowing you for a day.”

You snuggle closer to him and he shifts, pulling you up to his chest and wrapping both arms around you. And it was there, resting your head on his chest, safely wrapped in his arms, that you fall into a peaceful sleep to the steady sound of his heartbeat.

* * * * *

Chapter 4

******

Tag List

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[arcadia-of-pluto]

Twist of Fate; Chapter One

Pairings; Rafayel x reader, Xavier x reader, Zayne x reader, Sylus x reader (Love and Deepspace)

Word count; 4,495 (sorry it's so short, I'll try to post three chapters today)

Themes; isekai, eventual smut

Rated; 18+ for swearing and some mature themes

Notes; To make things easier to read, I'm going to use emojis for who is texting.

Y/n 🩷

Rafayel 💜

Zayne 💙

Xavier 💛

Sylus ❤️

Hi everyone! This is my first time posting to tumblr so please be gentle with me! If you like this, then let me know! It would be greatly appreciated. My upload schedule will be every weekend (so either fri, sat, or sun!) Also, if the story seems similar, it's going to be verbatim with the story, just with my own embellishments to it. Without further adieu, I hope you enjoy this first chapter.

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Masterlist

A bright light shines within the dark room. There you lay in bed, playing a game on your phone late at night before bed. The soft background music coming from your speaker as the game loads up. You press ‘enter game’ as images of three men make their way across your screen, each one holding a special place in your heart.

Who says you need a real man? Fictional men are where it's at. They can't cheat on you, can't leave you, can't lie to you. It's a lot better than having to stress over a real person and worry if they'll leave you the next day or not. You know from experience, having two boyfriends in the past and neither lasting longer than six months- both breaking off the relationship before an anniversary. Screw men– well, besides the three on your screen right now. They were fine. Oh, and the fourth one being added a month from now.

The game loads in and you get a greeting from one of the men on screen. They take turns showing up in the Destiny Café, each able to say hello every time you log in. It was always sweet to see what they'd say, how they'd react, or any new text messages you'd get from them. You could even change their phone nicknames! You had Xavier, the sweet tired and aloof silvery blonde haired man, saved as Princess since you thought it would be cute. He'd definitely be embarrassed if you called him that. Zayne, the seemingly cold childhood friend and doctor, was saved under Snow Angel; you honestly didn't know what to have his name as that but it would just be amusing to see his reaction to it. Then there's Rafayel, the purple haired sassy and charming painter, who was saved as Nemo- again, very original. But Nemo works nonetheless. As you smile and send your daily stickers to each man to see their reaction, you get a new notification at the top of your screen.

“A new message?” You murmur, noticing that it's contact is unknown. The message was coming from the game. “It must be some new event. Weird…I wonder why there wasn't an update for it?” You back out of your message with Rafayel and click on the new message from the unknown sender.

:’Will you enter the game?’

“That's it?” Your brows furrow and you sit up in your bed, your phone lying in your lap as you scratch your head. “Wait..” You click on the message to reply and your keyboard pops up. “That's…” Usually, to reply in game, you get a choice between a few predetermined answers but for this…You just get to answer how you want to?

’What do you mean?’ You text back before reaching over to put your glasses on. Maybe you should've gone to bed earlier, it kind of feels like you're hallucinating.

You hear the chime of another message rolling in, and you look back down at your phone.

:’Yes or no? Hurry and pick one.’

This time the keyboard doesn't pop up, you only get three options.

ロ Yes

ロ No

And…

ロ Why?

You don't even think twice before pressing why, and the answer comes back quicker than you expect.

:’Please take care of them for me.’

You let out a scoff before running a hand through your hair. This must be some sort of elaborate prank. There's no way this is a part of the game, and even if it were there'd be no explanation for it. Is this the dev's way of getting back at you for sending so many support requests? Before you can think much about it, suddenly you feel more sleepy than before. Your eyes tiredly blink as you try to grab your phone to at least plug it up and get off of the game before you fall asleep, but instead you're lulled to sleep by the soft, melodic tune of Love and Deepspace.

Then a light so bright that it burns your eyes even though they're closed appears. It's hard to even force your eyes open, but when you do, you notice it's a big, deep crimson eye. Similar to the one you'd see in game. Your blood runs cold as you try to look around this unfamiliar area, but all you see is darkness. A dream? Yeah..this must be a dream. Although you've never been able to actively move in a dream before, there's a first for everything!

Right when you finally calm yourself down, you hear it. A loud explosion, the feeling of embers licking at your skin. Your ears are ringing, and you feel a sharp pain on the right side of your face. The darkness fades, and you're left with the blinding light of the sun against your back and your body lying on a pavement. Just lifting your head up to look at your surroundings feels like an extreme workout, everything about your body feels heavy. Sluggish. Though your left eye widens as you realize you're laying in front of a burning building. Something shining in the sunlight catches your eye, and once you grab the object, you find it harder to breathe. It was a dog tag with a charm on it. An apple charm with a star design in the center, and in the center of that was a ruby gemstone. The words ‘When U come back’ were written in cursive on the dog tag.

“No way..” you manage to croak out, the necklace clutched in your hand as you try to push yourself up, but the pounding in your head and the pain coming from your eye are no match, and you end up laying face down on the pavement in front of the burning home until you pass out from the pain.

Being passed out had its perks. You finally had a chance to think and put together a few puzzle pieces before you woke up. So if memory serves, what just happened was your- no, the main character's childhood home just blew up right after her best friend and basically brother Caleb stepped inside and her grandma, who adopted them both, was inside as well. They both died, and supposedly a mafia-like group called Onychinus was behind it because they were tying up loose ends as Grandma was a former researcher and scientist, experimenting on children and modifying them with aether cores. But the main character wasn't badly injured after the explosion, which never made sense honestly. You're that close to a building exploding, and you only get off with trauma and minor scrapes? That doesn't seem right…and honestly, the pain made it feel all the more real. If you were in a dream, that pain most likely would've woken you up.

So coming to terms that you're inside of the game was a bit easier that way. Though the bigger problem lies with your evol. You wouldn't even know the first step to using it, let alone resonating with another person. And firearm training. You've never shot a gun before, but you did take self defense and fighting lessons a few years back, but you can't exactly punch a wanderer. They're durable monsters that can shoot ice or anything at you and, some even have blades for arms…

“Great, it seems like she's waking up now.” You hear the deep, yet cold voice of a man. Then, you hear the higher pitched voice of a woman, “Finally! It's been three days, I just hope she doesn't insist on going back to work..” “She won't, doctor's orders.” The male voice says before you hear a door close.

Your eye slowly opens before you have to squint to adjust it to the bright white lights. A hospital? You try to sit up and the woman next to you rushes to help you. You have to turn your head to look at her since she's on your right side. Your right eye was also bandaged since all you can see is darkness out of it. The first thing you notice is her short bob cut. “Tara?” You say, your voice sounding a bit raspy and you tilt your head to the side. “Thank goodness, Y/n! We thought you'd never wake up.” She seems excited, bubbly and sweet…just like her character in game.

“That's..” Before you can finish your sentence, you start coughing. “Here, let me get you some water!” She hands you a plastic cup and you take a sip before continuing, “I…can't remember much.” You squeeze your hand in a fist, the sound of metal clinking together has you looking down at your hand. “You never let go of that. You've been holding it since..” Tara trails off and you're caught off guard by a sudden surge of emotions. You take a shaky breath as to not start crying, since that would definitely hurt your right eye before you look up at the ceiling. “I don't recall how to use my evol, how to shoot a gun…Can I still even call myself a hunter?”

“Y/n…” Tara sighs before taking your free hand, “Things can always be retaught, we're all just glad you survived. You should be glad to still have both eyes being that close to the explosion!” She smiled at you before handing you your phone. “I can't stay here long, but your phone has been blowing up for the past three days so make sure you check it out.” She pats your hand and stands up. “I'll visit later with a coffee or something for you.”

“The patient is advised to not have anything caffeinated until after being discharged.” A voice comes from the door before he steps inside.

Black hair, glasses, hazel green eyes, tall…

“Doctor Zayne,” I greet him with a small smile, suddenly more nervous and I turn to look at Tara. “I'll see you tomorrow, Tara?”

“Sure! That is, if I don't get a call about a wanderer..Metaflux readings have been crazy as of late, so we've all been pretty busy- but that's not to push you into coming in or anything! Your health matters more to us at UNICORNS so only come back when you're ready.” She says before leaving the room.

“How are you feeling?” Zayne asks as he comes closer, taking a seat where Tara once was. His eyes scan your whole body to make sure you're okay before landing on your face. He leans forward to take the bandage off of your right eye and you wince at how bright the light is for your non-adjusted eye. “It'll probably scar..” he murmurs, presumably to himself.

“I'm..” You trail off, sighing before you decide it's best to tell the doctor the truth. “I'm fine, but I can't remember-”

“Can't remember what?” He cuts you off, almost seeming more worried about just what you can't remember, which makes you laugh a bit. “Calm down, I was getting to that. I can't remember how to use my evol, use my gun, or anything to do with wanderers.” “Hmm..are you sure it won't come back with time?” Zayne seems to have calmed back down as he's now writing everything down on a clipboard. “I'm sure of that.” You clear your throat, looking back down at the necklace in your hand before running your thumb across it.

“I don't mind relearning everything but I won't be as good as I was before, that's for sure.” You lean your head back and Zayne quickly corrects you, gently tilting your chin back down. “If your wound reopens, we'll have to use stitches so be careful.”

“You'll get better at it in no time. Don't forget that I'll help you out.” Zayne says before standing up. You take a glance at the clipboard and it seems like he added ‘post traumatic stress disorder?’ as a note. You guess he assumes your forgetfulness might be caused by that, but you knew otherwise. “I'll leave you so you can check up on your phone.”

With that, the doctor leaves the room and you can finally let out a sigh of relief. It seems he didn't notice anything was off with you. He was honestly the hardest hurdle since he's known the main character for a long time, but you've noticed you tend to act like her to begin with so maybe it wouldn't be as hard as you thought.

You finally decide to put the necklace down on the table next to you, your hand aching from having held it so tightly and grab your phone. There was no code on it so you easy got into it, might as well put a code on it now..and now you go to check your messages. 45 missed calls from Nemo…Nemo? Your brows furrow and you flinch because, of course, that hurts the wound on your face so you quickly straighten your face out. The nicknames are the same as they were in your game. 11 missed calls from Princess, 55 missed messages from Nemo, and 5 missed messages from Princess. Zayne didn't leave any since he works at the hospital… though on the day of the incident, he did leave two missed calls and a reminder of a doctor's appointment.

You decide to check up with Rafayel first since he's a certified drama queen. You don't scroll too far up but the most recent text messages are just him being pouty that his ‘miss bodyguard’ is ignoring him.

🩷 :’Been in the hospital for three days, sorry!’

You decide that's sufficient of an answer before nearly jumping out of your skin as he immediately calls. You laugh before answering the call, being bombarded with questions the moment you press the green button.

“Which hospital, Miss bodyguard? What happened? Are you okay?”

“One question at a time.” You laugh before you start coughing and have to take another sip of water from the plastic cup. Your throat was a bit achy from not being used for three days.

“Which hospital?” Rafayel sticks with his first question, his voice void of his usual playful banter. “Uhm..” you look around for a moment, not exactly remembering the name of the hospital in game before spotting its name on the whiteboard in front of you. “Akso Hospital, room 205.”

“Got it.” Then silence. “Uh…Rafayel?” You say, taking the phone away from your face to notice he had already hung up. You shrug it off before going to your messages with Xavier. Most of the messages were just asking if you wanted to go hunting with him, sending locations, and the most recent one was from a few hours ago with him asking if you were okay.

🩷 :’At the hospital right now, been out for three days! Sorry about that. I might need some help soon though.’

Xavier doesn't immediately call like Rafayel did, instead just exchanges a few texts with you.

💛 :’what happened? are U alright? is it’

🩷 :’Is it what? I'm fine, a bit sore though. I got caught up in an explosion three days ago and have been out since then.’

💛 :’..nevermind that how can U be okay if u were passed out for 3 days? what's the extent of your injuries?’

🩷 :’Just a few bruises, scrapes, a sprained ankle, and…’

💛 :’and what?’

🩷 :’I might have a cool new scar over my eye!’

💛 :’thats not funny..what hospital, i'm coming now.’

You pause your messages, knowing he definitely can't come now if Rafayel is. None of the love interests have ever interacted in the game before, so you're not sure of the consequences just yet.

🩷 :’I'm probably about to sleep again! You can visit tomorrow, the doc gave me some pain medicine that's making me a bit tired and I wanted to talk to you.’

💛 :’alright as long as ur okay. i can wait as long as you need.’

You pout, trying your best not to gush over how sweet Xavier is, and drop your phone as your room door suddenly opens to reveal an exhausted looking, purple haired man. His shirt was haphazardly buttoned, his hair tousled as if he just got out of bed, and panic written all over his face.

“You didn't think to describe the details of your injuries to me?” Are the first words out of his mouth before he shuts the door behind him, walking deeper in the room to grab your plastic cup to drink some water. “You've been out for three days, you shouldn't even be sitting up right now!” He sits down on the chair next to the bed and you reach toward him to try and fix his shirt buttons. The tips of his ears turn red and he pushes backward on the rolling chair. “What're you doing- you're a patient.”

“Your shirt..” You drop your hands into your lap with a small smile.

“Oh-” Rafayel clears his throat, turning the chair to fix his shirt before he rolls the chair back up next to you. With his hand gently cupping the right side of your face, he murmurs, “How did this happen?”

You assume he's probably in shock since you were never scarred like this in any of the past lives you shared with him.

“An explosion from my..” You trail off, lips pressing together in a thin line as you find it hard to say what happened, even though you know they're not your actual family. “..my childhood home. Two casualties.” You finally finish your sentence, not meeting Rafayel's bluish pink eyes as he still cups your cheek.

The silence is almost deafening before Rafayel sighs and drops his hand. “I'm sorry for your loss.” He finally says. “Do you need a hug?”

You quickly shake your head. “If I hug you, I'll cry and I really don't need to..irritate my…” You can't seem to get your words out as your eyes water and no matter how hard you try to stop it, your cheek stings as salty tears run down your still healing wound. Rafayel moves to sit on the side of the bed, guiding your forehead to rest against his shoulder as his arms wrap around you. “We can always get your doctor to fix it, huh? It won't do you any good if you keep your feelings all bottled up now, will it?”

You can't seem to stop crying, even as your breath stutters in your chest and you find it harder to breathe. Sure, you cried when they died while playing but for it to affect you like this? Maybe it's because someone offered to be a shoulder you could lean on.

“Focus on my breathing. Don't hyperventilate on me now, miss bodyguard.” Rafayel murmurs, hand still patting your back as your tears eventually fade and you fall asleep.

Rafayel pulls you back from his shoulder, moving you so you're laid flat on the bed before he grabs a soft tissue to wipe your face, wiping the trail of blood coming from your wound since the salt from your tears irritated it. He then leans forward to kiss your forehead. “I'll see you soon.”

The next time you wake up, your eyes are puffy and your nose is stopped up.

“I see you cried yourself to sleep.” Zayne comments, tilting your head by your chin so he can examine your wound. “You irritated it.” He sighs. “If you don't cry anymore, it'll probably be healed up in two weeks..then you can cry all you want.”

“Well, I'm sorry, I had to cry.” You say with a pout, knowing it's not his fault. “When can I be discharged?”

“After today, your ankle should be better to walk on so tomorrow? But if you want to start work again, I'd say another few weeks.” Zayne finishes writing something down before standing up. “I also did a routine checkup on your heart in case that was the reason you can't use your evol and I don't think that's the case. I believe your evol revolves around your emotions so if you're not confident in it, it won't work.”

“Thank you, Zayne.” You say before taking a sip of the iced coffee that Tara left for you thirty minutes ago. Then you finally shoot Xavier a text to say he's free to come to the hospital whenever he wants, that you'll be discharged tomorrow.

Not even a minute after you sent your message, there was a knock on your door. You look toward the noise before smiling behind your hand. “Come in.”

A silvery blond head pops in from the now opened door before he comes in and shuts the door behind him. “How are you feeling today?” He asks, his soft tired voice sounding a bit more emotional than usual. “Mmh, pretty good. I'd probably feel better if you came a bit closer.” You say, leaning over to pat the chair next to your bed. He quickly comes to sit down, almost as if waiting for the invitation.

“Your eyes are swollen. Did you have a rough sleep last night?”

“No, I..” it's probably best to keep telling the truth for now. “I just cried myself to sleep.” You shrug, trying to play it off as nothing but Xavier isn't falling for it. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“If I cry myself to sleep again, will you hold me?” You ask, raising your left brow before laughing to yourself. “Just thinking about what happened, not being able to save anyone, getting hurt like this…” You feel a hand on top of your own and turn to look at Xavier. “It's not your fault.” He finally says after a moment of silence. A small smile tugging at his lips before he changes the subject, “What is it you wanted to ask me?”

“Oh right!” You sit up before turning your body to face him. “I need you to teach me how to use my gun…and how to fight….aannnd how to use my evol.” You name off each one and tap on your fingers to count them off.

“You..forgot all of that?” His head tilts to the side before he nods his head. “Alright, I can do that. Is there anything else you need?”

“Uh…can you pick me up tomorrow? I don't know where our apartments are…or how to drive my bike either.” You rub the back of your neck and smile sheepishly.

“What else did you forget?” He lets out a small laugh.

“All of Linkon?” You say before adding, “I mean, I remember names but I don't remember where anything is..like Azure Square, UNICORNS HQ, Twinkle Toys, Meow's Café..”

“Don't worry, I'll help with anything I can.” Xavier smiles, his thumb rubbing across the back of your hand.

“Thank you, that means a lot to me.” You smile before looking down at your phone as it buzzes. Rafayel. He's- on his way?

“Actually, could you get me a friend for tomorrow?” You ask, a smile tugging at your lips. “A..friend?” His head tilts to the side until you say, “Can you get me a fox plushie and bring it to me when I'm discharged tomorrow?”

“I-” Xavier laughs before nodding, “Of course I will.” He stands up, looking toward the door. “I'll leave now though, since you seem a bit restless, but I'll make sure you get all the plushies you want.”

Not even five minutes after Xavier leaves, Rafayel is in the room. Almost as if he felt a disturbance in the force that someone was with his lady right now. “Was someone just here?” He asks, trying to act nonchalant as he sits down in the chair.

“No?” You phrase it as a question before you nod your head. “Yeah, the doctor just left. He was upset that I irritated my wound but, at least, I'll be discharged tomorrow! I can't go back to work for another two weeks though.”

“So does that mean my bodyguard is still out of commission?” Rafayel pouts, a hand on his hip. “Well, that's a shame. I had an art expo to go to in a few days and I was wondering if you'd join me.” “Ah…about that,” you clear your throat before telling him all about the troubles with your evol and even not recalling how to use a gun. “Why don't you try resonating now?” He asks, placing his hand on top of yours. “But what do I even do?” You murmur, closing your eyes.

“Do you feel all of that energy coursing through your chest? Try to direct that through your body to your fingers.” Rafayel whispers. “Think of it like paint. If you pour paint on a flat canvas, it spreads all out like crazy. You have to take a paintbrush and direct the paint to where you want it to go. So your evol is the paint and you are the paintbrush.”

That…helps but doesn't help at the same time.

You take a deep breath, trying to silence your mind to be able to focus but it's difficult to have dead silent thoughts. Instead you try to imagine the energy moving from your chest all the way to your hands, which were clasped between Rafayel's much bigger ones. Then, you finally felt it. You were resonati-

You flinch as you’re bombarded with a few blurry memories of your past life with Rafayel; Well, if you didn't know, you would've just been confused but since you played the game, you knew they were of your past lives with him. Though they were blurry, so you didn't catch anything besides a soft ‘my bride’ at the end.

My eyes blink open and you take one hand away from Rafayel to rub your temples. “I think it worked but..” you look at Rafayel, who was uncharacteristically silent. Maybe he saw the same images too?

“Hey, did you see it too?” You ask, which finally gets his attention. “Huh, see what?” He tries to brush it off but you don't let him. “It was kind of blurry but I remember seeing you…in a purple outfit? Oh and you said something at the end.” You tap your bottom lip with your index finger, pretending to try and recall what you saw when, in reality, you only saw a blurry Rafayel. You never saw specific details like that. “You said my bri-”

Rafayel covers your mouth with a hand. “That's enough of that.” His ears were red and he wasn't looking you in the eyes. Then he clears his throat. “Anyway, I'll contact you soon about the expo since you seem to resonate just fine and then maybe I can show you around Linkon City to try and jog your memory.”

He leaves as quickly as he showed up, clearly embarrassed by what you were going to say.

“Cute..” you say to yourself, laughing into your hand before wincing and touching the right side of your face.

---------------------------------------------------

That's it for the first chapter! Since I wrote this on goggle docs, I wasn't sure just how short the chapters were but they'll get longer as we go on! I have a few chapters piled up so even if I don't write for a few weeks, I'll still be able to post. I'd love any feedback or even any explanations of the features on here to make the reading experience a bit better. I've never posted to Tumblr before so I've been just copying what I see from the tags and word count so I think I've done pretty well for my first time. I would love to learn how to do a masterlist though and also a next button, I guess I just have to link the next chapter on it? I'll have to test it out so please bear with me and I hope you enjoyed- and stick around for the chapters to come! 🩷

[centrally-unplanned]

(Extreme on-brand post incoming) Some translation discourse about Chainsaw Man's latest chapter right now - in English this scene is translated as "slut":

But in the original it is 痴女/Chijo:

Literally "dumb woman" but almost always today used to mean "female molester". So people are complaining that, particularly given that Asa was the initiator of the current sexual encounter in question, that this is an incorrect translation - her anger is more over being a violator than shame over her sex drive or whatever.

I don't think they are right about that - "slut" is the best translation of 痴女. It doesn't not mean 'molester', it is used for someone who actually does that, but that is comparatively rare - its primarily used more metaphorically for a "sexually aggressive woman". Here is a typical dictionary entry for the word, which includes this line:

色情におぼれ迷う女

"to lose oneself in lust". Because the idea of this molester is that it isn't some calculating predator or anything, it is that she is overcome by her emotions, unable to reign herself in, and thus crosses boundaries. Hence the word origin - "dumb woman", right? Sounds like a slut to me, pretty similar to how we use that term - even if it has no connotations of sexual assault in English.

Also this is just the culturally accepted translation of the word, I think that counts for something.

But I want to go deeper - after all, there are other words in Japanese that mean "slut", like パンコ/Panko - yes like-but-not-exactly the breadcrumbs let's not get distracted okay? So why use 痴女? Here, I am going to note that this is a manga, it's part of a specific culture. Maybe you've noticed that in eroge male media - even tame ones like harem shows - compared to western porn the men are pretty passive? They don't make a lot of stories of chads pulling chicks, it is nerds having alien space hotties throw themselves at him.

This definitely comes from wider Japanese culture, don't get me wrong (and I lack expertise there, lets not oversell myself), but it is definitely the case than in animanga a male passivity streak is just sort of embedded as the default. And you can see that in the use of 痴女 in the medium.

So let's run an experiment! Let's go to e-hentai, and find the first relevant result with that word in the title. Here we go:

 カースト上位のあの子は実は淫乱ドスケベ痴女

"The girl in the top caste is actually a lewd, perverted chijo"

And yeah, its about a hot, popular teen girl being paid to fuck some guys who propositioned her. The fourth page literally includes a guy saying "I am so excited, this rules". He isn't being consent violated in the slightest, the fantasy that makes her a chijo is how eager and lustful she is.

Audiences read all this stuff and cross reference each other, like language does. Its a pretty common term in the space. None of the cultural focus is on the violation aspect, all of the cultural focus is on the desire, and it has added punch as a sort of shameful secret ("Popular girl is actually..."). It's just slightly confusing because there are undercurrents of default norms in the sexual language that we in English don't have. The default Japanese slut is 20% more aggressive, as it were.

Slut, therefore, is the correct term for a manga translation. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

[heuffopla]

God yeah, Pim's socials feeds are just cute animals, those heartwarming stories that may or may not have happened, and people's problems he tries to solve everytime

AAA that new chapter was so cute!!! I had a big dumb smile on my face the entire time I was reading it jfjfj AMAZING JOBBB and lmao that ending hfh

WAREEGGHHHH THANK YOU SM i’m glad i could make you smile :))) i was so worried that people were gonna find it corny but i just want my little guys to be in love

pim definitely is subbed to like. r/chonkers and definitely gives people advice on r/advice. i also think he’s definitely made a post on r/relationshipadvice about charlie. he just seems like that kind of guy to me

[messedupfan]

Chapter 23

Summary: In order to have a dating life without the pressure of friends and family knowing, Wanda and Reader plan dates to meet at each other's places for romantic dinners. They tend to dance a lot.

A/n: Sorry y'all meant to post earlier today but had to walk Brady then had to make my food. I apologize for any and all errors, I haven't really been editing the chapters since I've gotten so busy but I LOVE this story sooooo much! I hope y'all enjoy!

Masterlist | All Stories Taglist  | All Chapters

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

The alarm on your phone wakes you. It’s early on a Monday morning. The sun isn’t up yet but you have to be in order to make it to the job site at your scheduled time. You wish you could sleep in, but unfortunately you won’t get to do that for the next four mornings. As you yawn and stretch, you feel a hand pull you down. “No,” she groans, making you laugh as you continue to stretch. 

“I have work,” you remind her as you fall against her. Feeling your normally tense body relax into her warm embrace. Your muscles feel like jelly and you want to close your eyes for just five more minutes. But you don’t. You just know that those five minutes could be ten, twenty, an hour, or worse.  

“No,” she repeats as she snuggles closer, her eyes remaining closed as she does. 

“And what do I tell your brother when he calls asking me why I’m not at work?” You ask as you adjust to look at her. Wanda’s hair is a mess, her face is a little puffier than usual, she looks serene. You cup her cheek with your hand and lightly rub your thumb back and forth. 

Wanda leans into your touch and a content sigh escapes her lips. “Easy, you don’t answer,” she smirks as she presses her lips to the palm of your jaw. You shake your head with a soft laugh.

“So I shouldn’t tell him that his twin is refusing to let me leave her bed?” you tease and Wanda scrunches her face. She pushes you back and you grin.

“Gross, he’ll think we’re doing a lot more than snuggling and sleeping,” she covers her face as she shakes her head. Then she finally opens her eyes. “Besides, I think that goes against that whole keeping this between us thing.” 

You lean in and kiss her cheek, “Exactly, I’m going. Have a good day,” you swiftly move out of the warmth of the cozy bed and her arms and Wanda pouts as you do but she doesn’t put up more of a resistance. She sighs with a slight disappointment this time as the bed grows cool in your absence. She climbs out and stretches as she wakes her body up. 

“Are you going to come back tonight?” She asks as she shamelessly watches you undress. The two of you are still waiting to be physically intimate as the two of you continue to develop the emotional intimacy of the relationship in order to build a strong foundation. But as her eyes roam your body, she is beginning to forget why the two of you need to wait in the first place. 

You are lost in thought as you change and consider your answer. Uncertain if today is the day you had to pick up Rachel and Jean from the airport. It has been two weeks since the disastrous first date. You and Wanda had your second date on Wednesday of that week then your third and fourth that weekend. The week she had her boys, you needed to work on finishing orders for your side business and Wanda would sneak in from time to time to chat and maybe the two of you even made out a couple of times. 

Last night wasn’t a date outside of the house. It wasn’t even meant to be a date. It was a last minute invite and you weren’t up for much because you were working all Saturday and most of yesterday working for a delivery service to help catch up on the bills. “Um, let me check my,” you pick up your phone and look up the flight itinerary for Rachel and Jean. “Yeah, I can come back tonight. I don’t pick up the girls until Thursday… morning? Ugh, that’s going to be brutal. I need to warn your brother.” 

Wanda shakes her head with a disgusted expression. “Please, just say boss. It’s hurting my brain how much you have to run by my brother.” 

You smile and nod as you pull your work polo over your head and arms and straighten yourself out. “Alright, that’s not a problem,” you walk across the room towards her and wrap your arms around her and give her a soft kiss on the lips. “I love you,” you say. 

Wanda scrunches her nose as she catches a whiff of your sour morning breath, but she kisses you again anyway. “I love you and your stinky breath.” 

You wink at her with a wide grin before walking to her bathroom to use the toothbrush that you left here the last time.  You start brushing your teeth and she follows to brush her teeth at the sink next to the one you’re standing in front of. When the two of you exchange a glance, you wink at her and she shakes her head. 

~~~~

Wanda looks at her phone as she receives the last message you’ll be sending her for the rest of the week. Even though it’s the middle of the summer, you are finally taking Rachel on the annual camping trip. “Why do you look upset?” Pietro asks as he tries to look over her shoulder to get a glance at her screen just in case it’s a message from Vision. 

Wanda is quick to hide her phone. “Dude! Mind your business!” She says with the screen of her phone pressed against her chest. 

“Dude? Really? What are we, twelve?” He shakes his head and grabs a handful of chips from the bowl on the coffee table. 

“Yeah, when you’re trying to look at my phone and you’re eating like that!” Wanda doubles down and Pietro slows down his chewing but his mouth is still full of chips, giving him chipmunk cheeks. 

“What?” He asks dumbly. Wanda shakes her head and looks back at her phone as she tries to think of a response to your message before it’s too late. “This is my house, you know?” Pietro states as he adds the rest of the fist full of chips into his mouth. 

Wanda is visiting to finally meet her new niece. She has spent a couple hours doting over the baby while she anxiously checked her phone for messages from you. Now her boys are with their aunt, she is watching them as they each take turns holding the baby in the rocking chair in the nursery. Pietro told her that you had gifted it and Wanda recalls watching you make pieces of the chair but she doesn’t remember seeing you take it out. But it was a sturdy and comfortable chair. She had to hide how proud it made her feel to see the chair you made actually being used and shown off. 

“It still amazes me that you ever found someone to love all of this,” Wanda gestures with her hand waving it in a circle of her brother's face and body. 

“Whatever, you’re just jealous that I found someone I can be myself with,” he says as he puts his boots on top of the coffee table while crossing his legs. 

“Pietro! Get your shoes off of my coffee table!” Crystalia shouts from the other room. “And wipe it down!” She orders. 

Pietro quickly drops his feet to the ground and sits up. “Yes dear!” He shouts back as he gets up from the couch. Wanda watches with amusement and Pietro looks at his twin once he’s standing. “Not a word,” he warns. Wanda, unable to help herself, makes a whip sound as she flicks her wrist with a smirk. “I’m going to remember that,” he says as he walks away.

~~~~

The day you come back from the camping trip with Rachel, you're happy to find that Jean has moved out of your apartment. You find your room clean and without a bunch of overflowing luggages scattered on the floors. The bed is made with clean sheets. Your bathroom is clean with no evidence of makeup or used feminine products. The apartment no longer smells like Jean’s perfume. That was the best part. It almost felt like she was spraying it around as a substitute for an air freshener. So to have the apartment smelling like anything but her is a real relief. Rachel is happy to have a clean room to return to as well. The apartment doesn't feel as cramped with the bed in the living room finally folded away. 

You call Jean to find out if you should drop Rachel off at her house. But she doesn't pick up the first couple of times. When she finally does, she is irritated and breathless. “Hey, we're back. Do you want me to bring Rach over to you?” You ask, keeping your voice low in case Jean doesn't want Rachel at her house yet. 

“Oh shit what day is it?” Jean says and you can hear Anna giggle in the back stating that she doesn't know and doesn't care. You pinch the bridge of your nose as you let her know that it's Sunday. “Right, right, it's my week now. Okay. Yeah, give me…” she mutes herself for a couple of minutes. “Okay, okay, give us a couple of hours. I'll, we'll, the house will be ready. We need to clean up.” She is panting between words and you have to refrain from groaning out of disgust. But it's better off that she's jumping into bed with her wife instead of trying to seduce you. 

The night she kissed you wasn't the only time she made a pass at you. She tried a few nights later, while you were asleep. She crawled into the uncomfortable sofa bed with you and snuggled up against you. Her touch woke you up almost instantly and not in the way she preferred. You were repulsed by the idea of ever being with her ever again. You had to explain that to her in detail a couple of times before she finally understood to leave you alone. 

You shudder at the memory once you hang up the phone. You tell Rachel to take a nap but you don't tell her that you'll be taking her to her mom's house. You don't want to excite her, she needs to be resting. You step out to your balcony to call Wanda. 

“Hello?” Wanda sounds a little out of breath herself. 

“Hey,” you say as you try to figure out what she could be doing. 

“Y/n! Oh my goodness! You're back earlier than I thought you'd be!” She says excitedly. “Sorry, I'm on my treadmill. I didn't check to see who was calling.” You can hear her press a couple of buttons and the soft hum of the machine in the background slowly comes to an end. “Hey you, how are you doing?” She asks as she is catching her breath. You wish that you could be the reason she is breathless. You wish you were the one entangled with Wanda warning Jean that you need some time before she can drop off Rachel. 

“I'm doing good, it was a long drive. I can't wait to see you,” you say as you lean against the railing of the balcony. You look out to the busy view that the location of your apartment building provides you. 

“That's sweet,” Wanda sighs and you can hear the smile in her voice. “Do you think you'll get to?” 

“Jean moved out when I was gone so I was thinking,” you check over your shoulder to be certain that Rachel isn't within ear shot. “After I drop Rachel off with her mom, maybe I can stop by and see you?” 

Wanda takes a moment to answer, you can hear her swallowing her water for a moment. You wait kind of nervously before but maintaining patience. “Just stop by or do you think you can spend the night too?” 

Your smile widens. “I could be convinced but I don't know.” 

“I missed you,” she says softly. “Come on,” her volume lifts slightly as she pleads with you. “Spend the night with me. Hell, spend the week with me.” 

“That's a little fast, don't you think?” The words fall out of you before you could stop them. You're a little surprised that you're thinking about slowing things down between the two of you. All week, the only thing you could think about was being in her bed with her. Laughing with her. Crying with her. Playfully arguing with her. You laugh a little to try and play it off as a joke but you aren't certain if you meant the statement or not. 

“Well, considering that we're still waiting,” Wanda speaks slowly, dragging out her words. “I mean, I suppose it's a little fast to have you move in for a week,” she goes quiet for a moment. You are biting your nail on your thumb as you wait for her to continue. “But you know what? I don't care,” her voice sounds more certain, more confident. “I want you here. I want you to go to work and come back here. I want to make dinners with you. I want you here as much as possible.” 

You chuckle softly as you think about it. But then decide not to overthink it. You've spent too much time thinking. You want to take this small leap with Wanda. “Alright, I'll pack my bags then,” you state calmly and confidently. 

“Wait, are you serious?” She sounds slightly surprised but mostly excited. 

“Yeah, I'm serious,” you confirm. “I need to go if I'm going to sneak my bags inside the truck before Rachel can ask me about anything. I'll see you soon. I love you,” you say as you hold the handle of the door so you can enter the bedroom. 

“Okay, yeah, I'll see you soon. I love you,” her excitement is contagious as you feel a rush of energy and joy. You can't rid yourself of your wide grin as you hang up and start to get ready for your week with Wanda. 

~~~~

“...’Cause you feel like home. You’re like a dream come true,”  you hold Wanda close with your eyes closed as the two of you dance to the song. The two of you were enjoying dinner together at her home. She hasn’t let you take her out since you talked to her about your financial situation in depth. Wanda refused to let you do anything to spoil her, especially after how much you spent on her for the first date. You tried to assure her that you budgeted for it but she was adamant that the dates be affordable and that they didn’t need to be of any extravagance. 

“Expensive dates aren’t what makes a relationship great anyway. I think we both know that by now. I just want to be able to spend time with you,” she assured you when you were trying to assure her that you don't mind spending money on her. 

As the two of you continue to dance around the living room you can't help but think of the first time you and Wanda danced together. In the backyard with the sun setting and a bottle and a half of wine in your systems. Or was it two bottles? You don't remember, but it was a minor detail. What you do remember in detail was how much you wanted to kiss her. How much you wanted to feel connected to her. How much you wanted to be her partner. Now here you are, dancing with her once again. You still feel that way except now, you can kiss her when you want. And you do. Now you feel more connected to her than ever. Now you consider yourself her partner. 

“Can you believe it? Our kids are starting middle school soon?” Wanda whispers as her eyes fall on a framed baby photo of her boys as she looks over your shoulder. 

You shake your head as you continue to sway with her. “No, I can't believe it. I still keep thinking that Rachel is too young to be moving on to middle school. But she won't stop reminding me with how excited she is about it.” 

Wanda takes a deep breath. “Yeah, I keep eavesdropping on the boys because Tommy is constantly talking to Billy about all of the hot girls that are going to be at their middle school.” 

You scrunch your face, “Please, he hangs out with my daughter. I need to be able to sleep at night. I beg you, tell me you're lying.” 

“Oh come on. They made an entire plan to become siblings. I doubt Tommy or Billy will be looking at Rachel in that way,” Wanda says in a reassuring tone. But there's a hint of doubt in her words because she can't be certain of something like that until you and her reveal the relationship to the kids.

“Oh I'm not worried about Billy. But now I'm going to keep a close eye on Tommy,” you say jokingly and Wanda stops moving with you. 

“What?” She steps back slightly. “What do you mean you're not worried about Billy?” 

You shrug and shake your head. “No particular reason.” 

“Come on,” she presses. 

“No, it's nothing. It's just, I don't think Rachel would be his type,” you say as you try to steer away from the conversation. “It's getting late, we should get ready for bed.” You say as you step away and check your watch then find the remote to shut off the music. 

“Why wouldn't Rachel be his type?” She doesn’t want to let this go because lately she’s been feeling a little disconnected from her sons. A comment like that gives her the impression that you know something she doesn’t. “What do you know?” Wanda says as she follows closely behind. 

“Nothing, I don't know anything,” you say as you shut off lights on the way towards the stairs. 

“The way you're saying that makes me feel like you know something,” Wanda continues to pester you for information all the way to the bedroom. You sigh and sit on the edge of the bed. Wanda stands in front of you as she waits to hear the answers she's looking for, not allowing you to dismiss the topic of conversation. 

“Remember when we sat the kids down and explained my pronouns and what being non-binary means to me?” You ask as you take Wanda’s hands into each of yours. She nods as her eyebrows start to crease. “Well, Billy has had some…” you trail off as you try to search through your vocabulary that will best describe your recent conversations with Billy. “Curiosities lately. I don't know anything for certain. I'm not saying that he is anything. I'm not outting him because he hasn't confirmed anything. The questions could mean absolutely nothing. Just, prepare yourself. Billy might not be… I don't know how to put it. He might not be like Tommy.” 

Wanda pulls your interlocked hands up to cover her face. You're a little confused by her exasperated reaction. She’s dating you. She’s been with women in the past. Why would something like her son potentially being queer be upsetting to her. “He is going to have such a hard time at his father's house soon,” she mutters and that's when it clicks for you. She's not upset about her son's sexuality because she wants him to be heterosexual. She's concerned for his well-being in his father's home. 

“Did he know that you were queer?” You ask, curious of how they got married if Vision wasn’t as open minded as Wanda. 

“Yeah,” she sighs as she drops your laced hands down to her sides. “Don't judge me,” she starts as she keeps her head down, “in my defense I was in my early twenties.” She takes a deep breath and bites her lips. “But he's… he liked that about me because he thinks it's okay for women to be a little more sexually open because he finds it hot. And I didn’t realize how misogynistic and homophobic he was until we found out that we were having two boys.” 

You nod slowly as you start to grow worried for Billy as well. You remember how unaccepting your father was of the way you acted while you were growing up. You even remember the advice he'd given you when you told him about getting Jean pregnant. That he wanted you to quit being so “frilly” and to start acting like the child he wanted. That life is already confusing enough for a child, they don’t need to have a parent that lives a confusing lifestyle. 

He's only now starting to come around to the idea of you not being the gender conforming person he always wanted you to be. But you could handle his criticisms and his comments about you. Billy is a sweet and sensitive boy and Vision is a lot tougher on his boys than your father ever was. 

“What do you think we should do?” You ask Wanda as you let go of her hands and stand up to wrap your arms around her and pull her body close. Wanda melts in your arms and with her eyes closed she leans her forehead against your shoulder. She breathes you in as your words hit her. Just the simple way you asked the question made her feel more supported than years in her marriage did. 

You rub her back as you wait for her answer. Your mind races with solutions but none of them being helpful or worth suggesting. “I don't know,” Wanda finally says. “I guess it's just…” she shakes her head and leans back to look at you. “It's just one of those things that's out of my hands. I can't keep Billy away from his father. And I hardly know what's going on at that house. He's finally convinced them to stop telling me what goes on over there. So, I'm just going to have to be sure that he knows he can be free to be himself here.” 

You nod and press your lips to her forehead before leaning your forehead against hers. “He's going to be okay,” you assure her. Wanda’s hands move to your shoulders and gives them a light squeeze.

“I hope you're right,” she says with a lump forming in her throat.

~~~~

You are sitting with Steve and Bucky in Steve's apartment. You have finally forgiven Steve for not talking to you about his relationship with Peggy and Bucky and Natasha. After starting your private relationship with Wanda, you could understand why he was private with the development in his life. 

Steve was going through a lot that he wasn't sure he ever wanted to be public. First, he and Peggy had given up on the relationship. But they were sticking together for appearances but they were miserable around each other. You weren't the best at giving relationship advice and completely missed that Steve wanted out of the relationship whenever he tried to talk to you about it. 

Then he met Bucky and felt an attraction that he'd never felt before towards a man. It confused him and while he dealt with those feelings, Peggy could feel him pulling away and eventually she got tired of fooling herself. They were private people as it was so there wasn't a big announcement of their split of any kind. That's where you thought that your friend had been cheating on his partner of several years. 

You felt like a shit when you realized that you weren't there for your friends as they navigated new feelings towards one another. But Steve and Bucky assured you that they didn't bring it up to you because of the problems you were facing at the time. And that they preferred to talk about it with each other. Then Darcy caught on and it was easier to come out to her since she didn't make a big deal out of it. 

Then you asked about Bucky’s girlfriend because he was also in a relationship with a woman by the time he met Steve. That's when he revealed that they were still figuring that out because Steve also had feelings towards Natasha. But they all felt weird about the “throuple” label. Steve especially wasn't prepared to deal with the backlash of coming out as possibly bi-sexual and then add being possibly polyamorous to that. He was already disowned from the majority of his family for dropping out of the military. He couldn't risk losing the family he had left. So, officially, he is single. But unofficially, he is seeing both Bucky and Natasha. Sometimes separately and sometimes together. 

“No way, Nat and Wanda?” You ask as you pop another beer open. You are shocked to hear about the relationship from someone other than Wanda. But you knew she felt some shame over the amount of people she was hooking up with. You try to tell her that it doesn't bother you but she still feels a type of way about the behavior. You hope that when you're finally able to be physically intimate with her that you'll be able to help her see that it wasn't wrong for her to explore her sexuality the way she had. 

Bucky nods, “Oh yeah, she told me everything. I couldn't believe it either. I mean, I've only met Wanda less than a handful of times but I never thought she was the type. She broke poor Nat’s heart.” 

Your eyes widen, “Really? Wow, I had no idea. I thought they seemed a little weird towards each other at the New Year's Eve party. But honestly, knowing her ex-husband, I thought maybe Nat had been with him and Wanda knew.” You tip the bottle against your lips as you make a mental note to talk to Wanda about Natasha. “It's crazy how much we can miss about each other’s lives if we're not on each other twenty four seven.”

Steve and Bucky share a laugh as they agree and drink their beers. “Yeah, I think Darcy mentioned that Jean was living with you for some time. How was that?” Steve asks, he's never gotten along with Jean and he never bothered to get to know Anna. Although she would try to approach him in conversation at gatherings that you'd host. That's where Peggy would come in and either take over the conversation or come up with an excuse to get him away from her. 

You groan at the memory as you nod to confirm. “It was starting to feel like she was never going to leave. It wasn't a fair situation and I was not about to let Anna get the house. If they went through with a divorce. But they seemed to have patched things up and Anna is treating Rachel like she's her daughter again. I don't know. The whole thing has put a bad taste in my mouth but I can't do anything about what they do. I can only do my best to protect Rachel.” 

Steve shakes his head and mutters insults about the women to himself. You don't catch half of it and you don't ask him to repeat himself. Bucky shakes his head and scoffs. “I couldn't do it. You're a tough one for putting up with all of that, Y/n,” Bucky commends you as he puts his hand on your shoulder. 

You shrug, “It's not easy but that's what you agree to when you have kids. When there was a choice, that is.” All three of you shake your heads and take a sip of beer before you continue. “I don't know that I'd recommend it but Rachel is great. She's far from being the problem. Every family has their issues and I guess that's what makes them family.” You sigh deeply as you look at the screen. The three of you were watching some show on a streaming network that had just released its most recent season. Well, more like it's releasing its most recent season weekly. You don't like that they started to do that but it did help bring you and Steve back together because it's a show that the two of you have watched together since it came out. Now you're here every week on the night the latest episode is uploaded. The three of you pay attention to the rest of the episode as you push away the image of Natasha and Wanda out of your mind. 

~~~~

“I just want to know why you didn't tell me it was Nat that you were seeing last summer,” you ask as you follow Wanda to your bedroom. She wanted to see what it would be like to live with you for the week in your space. It's been a few weeks since that night at Steve's apartment. You haven't brought it up to Wanda until now because you were keeping it out of your mind. Then, somehow, you don't really remember how… it got brought up. 

“Because, it's embarrassing! Besides, you don't see me asking about everyone you ever slept with!” Wanda says as she waves her hands around. 

“That's because you've already met them all,” you remind her with the same energy she was throwing at you.

“So what, are you calling me a whore now?” She asks with a pointed look. 

“What?! How the hell did you get that idea?” You are thrown off by the accusation. 

“You're not denying it,” Wanda states defensively. 

You shake your head. “No, I'm not calling you a whore because I don't think you're a whore. I just…” you take a moment to think before you speak and make things worse. “You don't have to talk about every hook up. I would just like a heads up whenever I meet them. Or at least if I meet them around you. Like what happened with that one waitress. Did I get upset with you and call you a whore then?” You use your first date as an example because you felt like you handled that pretty well. 

Wanda looks away and bites her lips in thought. “No, but how do I know that you weren't thinking it?” She asks as crosses her arms over her chest. 

“Because, Wanda, you are supposed to trust me when I tell you that I love you and that I don't judge you. Especially for things you did before we started dating.” You step closer in an attempt to disarm her. You gently place both of your hands on her shoulders and gaze into her big green eyes full of insecurities. “I don't judge you, Wanda. I don't think you're a whore, Wanda. I love you, Wanda.” You move your hands up to cup her cheeks and hold her head in your hands. 

Wanda melts to your touch and untangles her arms. She puts her hands on your waist and clutches the fabric of your shirt. Tears spring to her eyes as you maintain your eye contact. Your tone not wavering once. She has no choice but to listen and believe you. 

“You better mean that,” she says as her tears start to uncontrollably fall. You pull her close in a tight embrace to hold her while she breaks down. Free to cry in front of you and process her emotions in your arms. You love her and show her as much as you continue to listen and try to understand where she was coming from when she got upset. 

~~~~

Pietro sits back in his lounge chair as he observes you and Wanda at the grill. It's the end of summer and Wanda thought it would be a good idea to host an end of summer party for the kids. She invited everyone in her inner circle. Agatha and her son Nicholas, Carol and Val, him and his family, and you and your daughter. You and Wanda were chatting quietly to one another while Wanda grilled the meat options. There was something different about the two of you. He couldn't put his finger on it. 

Crystalia bounces Emma in her arms as she returns to Pietro's side. “What are you staring at?” She asks her husband as she sits on the chair beside his. 

“Do they seem… closer?” He asks his wife. Pietro wasn't typically one to gossip or speculate but he knows he can trust his wife with his thoughts. 

Crystalia shakes her head. “Oh no, don't go there again. Come on, it was bad enough you lost money over a stupid bet. Just, leave your sister alone. You know how she can be. Even if there is something to talk about, she's not going to do it if you go badgering her about her personal life.” Then she looks over at you and Wanda and notices the way you're standing close to her in-law. She catches onto the way the two of you smile at each other. How Wanda's eyes flit to your lips and how yours do the same. “Huh, at best they're hooking up,” she says to confirm her husband's suspicions. 

Pietro sits up and takes off his sunglasses. “So you see it too?” He looks like he's about to get up and say something to the couple they're spying on. So Crystalia places Emma in Pietro's hands. “Crys, I can't just let this go. Y/n is my friend, yes, but they're also my employee. This… I have to put a stop to this or do something.” He looks down at the little girl in his hands as she giggles and slobbers on herself. He grins at her then gives his wife a pointed look.

“Pietro, Y/n is your employee but Wanda isn't. They're not breaking any rules. Besides, we don't know anything for certain. Just,” she sighs and gets settled into her seat. “Just relax and leave them alone. They're both adults. And it's not like you haven't said before that you would be thrilled if they got together because you like Y/n and think they'd be perfect together. Honestly, if they did get together, it'd probably be your fault to begin with.” 

Pietro makes a face at the accusation and Emma giggles as she reaches out to touch her father's face. “What are you talking about?” 

Crystalia shrugs, “When Rachel was having problems in school, you suggested that Y/n put her in the same school our nephews attend. And you know how involved that school requires parents to be.” 

Pietro shrugs, “It's a really good school. That doesn't mean anything.” 

Crystalia doesn't buy it. “Oh yeah? Was it really a coincidence that you started to put together company events right after Wanda and Vision split up? No one invited their siblings to those things unless they work for the company but you were constantly inviting Wanda.” 

“She was having a hard time. I thought she could’ve used a reason to get out of the house. She only went to one of those things anyway. And Y/n couldn't even show up to that event,” Pietro defends and his wife scowls. 

“You can't remember our anniversary but you can remember that?” Crystalia asks, only to prove her point. Pietro shakes his head and rolls his eyes. “When Wanda needed work to be done on the house, you asked Y/n to help you. I know you keep saying that it's because they're the best worker or whatever, but you literally could've patched up the wall by yourself. And you would've never acted on extending the house without the appropriate permits the way you did.” 

Pietro shakes his head as he continues to deny this theory his wife has about him essentially being a puppet master for you and his sister. “Okay, I don't think they're together, you just made me realize how crazy I sounded. Because you sound completely mental.” 

“Don't call me mental in front of our daughter,” Crystalia warns. 

“I'm sorry, you're right. Mommy isn't mental Emma,” he whispers to his daughter. She pats his face and starts to tug on his facial hair. He chuckles as he looks up at his wife. “But you've got to admit, you're giving me a lot more credit than I'm worth. You really think I'm that thoughtful?” Crystalia can't help but agree with that statement and decides to drop the subject altogether. 

~~~~

You and Wanda are lounging on her sofa. You are lying vertically on the part of the couch that extends forward. Wanda is lying horizontally along the length of the sofa with her head in your lap. You have your fingers in her hair as you periodically massage her scalp. As the movie begins to lose her attention, she looks up at you and starts to watch you watch the movie. You're zeroed in and completely focused on the plot. She doesn't know how you could find such a movie interesting but she doesn't mind watching you this way instead. 

You don't realize that Wanda's focus is on you until you feel something lightly tickling your stomach. You look down and notice that Wanda is trying to lift your shirt up. “What are you doing?” You ask, startling her slightly. She looks up at you with wide eyes from being caught.

“Nothing,” she shrugs as she removes her hand from your shirt and looks up at you. 

“You wanted to watch this movie, remember?” You remind her with a teasing tone.

“Yeah, well, I lost interest,” she says as she sits up. She moves so that she's sitting on her knees. Wanda bites her bottom lip as she looks at you. “Besides, we've watched plenty of movies together. I think I'm in the mood for something else.” She says as she inches closer to you. She puts her hand on your chest and you raise your eyebrows at her. 

“Do you want to put on some music and dance?” You ask, not wanting to read too much into her touch and actions. But she shakes her head as she maintains eye contact and moves to lock her arms around your neck. “Do you think we're ready for that?” You ask as you catch onto what she's getting at. 

“I'm ready,” she says as she kisses your cheek. “Are you?” She says as she crawls onto your lap. You don't have to give her much of a verbal answer because you can feel that burning desire growing in your body. A desire you haven't felt for anyone before. Even the desire you had for Jean when you were a teenager pales in comparison. You kiss Wanda’s lips and place your hands on her hips. 

“I'm ready,” you say in a harsh whisper. Wanda giggles as she had already gathered that much. She has her hands on your cheeks to keep you close and pull you in to continue kissing you. As her hands hold you steady, your hands begin to explore her body. Your touch is almost as greedy as a teenager experiencing something like this for the first time. Yes, you've touched her body many times since the two of you have started dating. But not like this. Not without restrictions. You are free to explore her however you want and that notion has you aimless with excitement. You don't know where to start first or where to keep your hands. You have to remind yourself that there is plenty of time to explore every inch of her. If not tonight then another night. 

Wanda breaks the kiss and crawls off of your lap and stands up. She looks down at you with a grin. She tips her head towards the stairs. “Come on,” she invites you with her hand out to you. 

You shuffle off of the sofa and rise. You take her hand and all her to guide her towards her room to finally cross the line both of you have been painstakingly avoiding until now.

Chapter 24

Taglist: @princessprudy @sayah13 @awkwardmandalorian @bentleywolf29 @thatshyboy1998 @artisannat @thisischaismagic @wqndanat @madamevirgo @likefirenrain @tearsofglitter @feltlikethat @the-writer-arcane @natashasilverfox @karsonromanoff @aloneodi @lovelyy-moonlight @red1culous @jovialsublimecomputer @natasha-maximoff @iliketozoneout @doudouneverte @druggedduck @diealittlesometime @when-wolves-howl @lifespectator @justyourwritter69 @wandaromamoff69 @awesomelygayasf @nekoannie-chan @diaryoflife @wuwu96 @wandanats-goodgirl @sincerely-indi @blueredg52 @sisiofthemultifandom @fuzzyuniversityeclipsefriend @arcturusseer @scarlettwidow34 @chasethemoon @raven-ss @canyonyodeler @sokovianbaby @alexawynters @bittysworld @hopeless-romantic17177 @spongebobtentacles @the-ox-fan20 @shaniiwm @casualreadersstuff @neopolitan-torchwick

[aliceintheworld]

PURE ATTRACTION | JJK | TATTOO ARTIST

Pairing: TattooArtistJungkook X NaiveReader

Summary: "I shouldn’t be watching a man undressing, specially not from the house next door."

Warning: Angst 🥺 conversation about suicide, depression, uncertainty about oneself, Misuk being the best character of all 🫶 Namjoon finally makes an appearance (he appears a little, but then a little more, I promise) Jungkook being an idiot – forgive him, for he doesn't know what he's doing.

A/N: I'm back!! First, I wanted to thank you all for the affection I've been receiving. Thank you so much for the messages and interactions! If you want to send non-anonymous messages, I even prefer it, because I can follow you 🥰 Pure Attraction is a not very elaborate story, I know, but it has become an important part of my life, so I thank you for reading all these chapters, you don't know how much this means. Without further ado, here is the chapter.

P.S.: Later, still today, I will post the next chapter 🤌

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Chapter 10

The journey back home has never felt so long. Minutes pass, yet it feels as if the clock's hands are stuck. I try to take a deep breath, but I can't. My head is filled with memories, occasions when I could have done something different. I was so foolish, so stupid. Filled with regret, I can't even look at myself in the reflection of the window. I remember my father, my mother, and I wonder what they would say if they knew I made a mistake with no way to turn back. My eyes fill with tears, almost instantly, for the fourth time today alone. Mrs. Jeon remains silent, looking through the coffee table of her house.

She sighs and gaze at her own hands before locking eyes with me, as if she understands me in some way. But I don’t know if anyone could comprehend what I’m going through at this moment. I feel... used. As if, even with my consent, Jungkook took advantage of me, of my innocence and of my inexperience. At the same time, I can't place all the blame on him. I made a mistake, I should have been more cautious and I let him inside of my life.

"Are you okay?" Misuk asks, almost in a whisper. I try to shake my head and force a smile, but I can't. She sways her hair and clicks her tongue nervously. "I can't believe Jungkook did this to you, dear. He’s my son, but I don’t agree with any of this."

"He’s not the only one to blame," I deny; I barely recognize my own voice, weak and trembling.

The last time I saw myself this way was when, during a difficult year, I didn't want to visit my father's grave, and my mother opposed it. The anguish is different, but equally overwhelming.

"Can you explain how you two got so… close?" she questions. "I mean, it hasn’t been long since he came to Busan. Did you have many opportunities to talk?"

"A few." I shrug. That doesn’t matter now. I’m angry and don’t want to talk to anyone. I want to lock myself in my room and pretend everything was a terrible nightmare. "Sorry, I don't even know where to begin. I feel awful."

"You can talk to me."

"You’re his mother."

"I am." She smiles, placing a hand on mine, gently caressing my skin. I immediately feel a maternal love and care I haven’t experince in years. My crying intensifies as I realize that the person I need right now isn’t with me—my mother. Even if she were here, she wouldn’t help. She would judge me, make me feel bad about my mistakes, just as she has done in the past, and I don't need this right now. "Y/N, I’m Jungkook’s mother, but I understand what you’re going through. You have no idea."

"What do you mean?" I frown, confused. Her dark eyes fill with tears, just like mine.

"When I was around your age, I fell in love with a man. He was two years older, and so handsome. He seemed like a dream, someone so different from me, yet so similar—almost like he was a part of me." She tells me looking ahead, as if she could see the memories playing out before her. "He is Jungkook’s father. He was my first love."

"What do you mean?" I whisper. "Mr. Jeon isn’t Jungkook’s father?"

"He isn’t." She shakes her head. "That’s why I say I understand you. It was the first time I fell in love with someone. It was also the first time my trust was broken. When he found out I was pregnant, he left. I was alone, working a part-time job I didn’t even like, that paid poorly and had no support. Those were the worst years of my life."

"Misuk, I don’t know what to say," I respond, with a knot in my throat. She had never shared this while we talked about the past. But I understand her, in a way. It must be hard to relive those memories, and even harder to confide them to someone.

"You don’t have to say anything. I, after all this time, have moved on. The fear of being abandoned, however, still hasn’t healed, even with twenty-six years gone by." She smiles again, but I know she’s more hurt than she wants to show. "Dear, I care about you. I love you like a daughter, even. You’ve been with me during these days, and we’ve grown so close. I see parts of myself in you. The way my mother treated me, the absence of my father. It’s all so similar. That’s why I say I understand you."

"It all happened so… suddenly." I comment to myself, looking down. The shame of crying, and the shame of what I did, prevent me from looking her in the eyes. "I know I should have been more careful, but I was so happy... I don't get it."

"Jungkook, being more experienced than you, should have talked to you, asked what your expectations were, and told you what his intentions were. If he didn’t want something serious, a commitment, he should have warned you." She argues, not letting me continue. It’s as if she wants to lift the guilt I’m feeling, and I'm really thankful for that.

"Yes, but I was so naive. I was a fool to think he could like me the same way I like him." I groan, covering my face as more tears come. My chest hurts just remembering him. His kisses, his touches. He was so gentle with me, treating me like no one else ever had. He listened to me, and that was enough for me.

"Did you... did you have sex?" Misuk asks, running her hand along my back in a comforting gesture that soothes my pain, at least a little.

"I-I... Misuk..."

"It’s okay. You can trust me. You can open up and tell me." She smiles, without judgment. I just shake my head embarrassed, exposed, somewhat humiliated.

"We did it last night. It was very sudden." I try to explain, even if I don’t have many words to do it.

"Was it your first time? Is that why Eunji thinks you slept at my house? She said that yesterday, and I didn’t understand."

"Yes, but that night was the first time I slept at his apartament and we hadn’t done... you know."

"You hadn’t had sex, just other things." She concludes with a smile, tucking my hair behind my ear.

My cheeks burn, even when I try not to. It’s very difficult to talk about this kind of subject, even with Misuk, because I never had anyone to talk to when I was a teenager. My view of sex always came from books, whether educational or romantic.

"That’s it." I confirm, shaking my head.

"Are you in love?" Mrs. Jeon asks me when a silence falls between us.

I take a moment, reflecting about the question as if it were the most difficult one of my life. What does it mean to be in love? Is it feeling a flutter in your chest every time you see the person? Is it having a wild rush of energy that courses through your body uncontrollably? Is it standing still and feeling your heart race a thousand miles an hour? Is it missing that person and wanting to hear from them every day? If that’s the case, then yes, I’m in love. The realization of this fact hurts me even more. It makes me feel weaker. How could I be so foolish? How could I think someone would be interested in me when no one else had?

A flood of memories overwhelms me. If I had known I’d feel this pain, I would have never gotten close to Jungkook. I would have shut my window the first time I saw him, and never opened up again.

"It’s okay." She reassures me, hugging me. I hug her back, trying to purge the feeling of rejection that’s almost lodged in my chest.

"He just turned his back on me. He didn’t even see me when I left. It’s as if he got what he wanted and then I wasn’t worth the effort anymore." I vent, hurt, too wounded to stop the words pouring out.

"Jungkook is a fool." She shakes her head, pressing her lips together. "At the same time, he’s stuck in this messed-up relationship. I’ve told him millions of times that they’re not good for each other. I told him that true love doesn’t hurt, doesn’t deceive, but he’s stubborn like no one else."

"Does he really talk to his ex?" I ask, hoping it’s not as I imagine. That maybe they talk, but not as much as I’ve put in my head.

"The last time we talked about this was two days ago. He told me Namjoon called him, and they had a conversation for twenty minutes. He’s very deluded." She shakes her head, angry. Two days ago we were texting. I know we had no commitment and hadn’t established anything, but to me it’s worse to know he didn’t respect this moment. That it didn’t mean anything to him. While I melted over our messages and smiled like a fool for his attention, he was with his ex, doing the same with someone else.

"Did Namjoon really cheat on Jungkook? Why does he still try? Why does he still talk to him?"

"Namjoon was his first boyfriend. They were together for almost five years, and at one point, they practically lived together. When Jungkook was alone in Seoul, working in a tattoo studio, he met Namjoon and fell in love almost at first sight. He was very shy, introverted, with few friends in the new city. I think that helped them form a strong connection." Misuk explains. She seems to know a lot about the situation, as if she followed everything in detail, even from a distance.

"Have you ever met him... I mean, have you met Namjoon?" I ask, hesitant. My heart races for some reason. My hands feel cold with anxiety.

"Yes." She nods, sighing. "He’s a great guy, I can’t deny that. He works at a book publishing company, very intelligent and kind. I think that’s why Jungkook fell for him. At the same time, Namjoon is someone who wants more. He wants to achieve other things, and when the relationship got in the way of his goals, he didn’t think twice before stepping on everything they built together. Jungkook was devastated."

"How long ago was that?"

"About three months." She says; her body suddenly tenses. "That’s when I tried to take my own life."

"Mrs. Jeon... Jungkook told me what happened." I say, not really knowing if it’s right to tell her the truth. But it’s the first time she’s opened up about the subject, and I don’t think it’s fair, especially now that she told me so much about her past, to hide this from her. Her eyes widen, and then she smiles awkwardly.

"He really is an idiot. He must have told you to keep an eye on me." She says, shaking her head as if recalling her son’s actions, however she doesn't seen to hold any resentment towards him, regarding this. "He’s always been very careful. Always very protective. Jungkook has his flaws, but I think I understand why you fell for him. He’s stubborn but takes care of those he loves. I feel guilty for, even unknowingly, adding this weight to his shoulders. I’ve been feeling better now."

"Are you really okay?" I ask, somewhat uncertain.

"I am. I’m taking my medication, going to therapy, and visiting support groups once a week. Sometimes when I feel bad, I seek comfort. I know that ending my life isn’t an option. I don’t want to leave my son alone." She states. I search her eyes for any hint of untruth, anything that tells me she’s not okay, but I find nothing. I’m glad to know that, at least she, is evolving and improving. "But you know what’s making me feel better, Y/N?"

"What?" I ask, eager to know the answer. Whatever it is, I need an urgent dose of what is making her feel better.

"You." She smiles; more tears appear in her eyes, this time from happiness. "You’ve made my days better. I want you to know you can count on me. For everything." She confesses. Her voice deepens as I break down again.

"Thank you so much." I say sincerely. I have a friend. I have someone I can count on, and that brings me such a great relief that it feels like I could die.

"It’s okay. No more crying Y/N." She gets up from the couch, smiling. She raises her arms and wipes her face with her shirt. "Dear, tell me. Did you use protection? Did you take precautions?"

"No." I flush at the confession, feeling like a child who has no idea of the consequences of her actions. "He went out to buy a morning-after pill, but you arrived and..."

"It’s fine. Don’t worry." She holds her hands up, as if all of this doesn’t matter. "You don’t need to explain. I know that in the heat of the moment, you don’t think about anything. That’s why I had Jungkook when I was twenty." She laughs, making me feel even more embarrassed. "I’ll buy you a pill. Don’t worry; everything will be fine."

"Mrs. Jeon, you don’t have to. I'm going to do it."

"I don’t want to be a grandma so young, Y/N." She jokes, making me laugh too. "And it’s not a problem at all. I want to see you well, and that’s what matters."

"Thank you." I express my gratitude. Not just for the pill, but for everything. Even though it hurts, being here with her alleviates, at least a little, the torment I’m feeling.

"You don’t need to thank me. Everything will be okay." She assures me, and I accept it. I pray to God that all of this I’m feeling will soon come to an end.

"Y/N, what are you doing here?" I hear a voice behind me. I don’t look right away, afraid to fall.

Since the library shelves are very high, I usually use a mobile ladder to organize the books, so before I make sure who it is, I carefully step down the rungs. When I finally reach the ground, I regret coming down. It’s Hayun, Jungkook’s friend. Not because of her, of course, as I enjoyed meeting her, but because of him, who has kept me awake for the past three days.

"Are you okay? It’s been a while since we last saw each other." She smiles. She approaches and kisses my cheek suddenly. She seems to genuinely like me, and I’m grateful for that. Her outgoing personality couldn’t be better right now. My energy, ever since that argument happened, has been dwindling.

"I’m okay." I say, putting on my best smile. "And you? How have you been?"

"Busier every day. With the move and everything."

"You’re moving?" I ask, curious.

"Yes, didn’t Jungkook tell you?" She asks, and just the mention of his name makes my chest ache. The crying and tears have passed, but I’m far from normal with everything that happened. He hasn’t sent me any messages, and I can’t stop thinking that somehow, I was just a conquest for him. A night of sex that is already forgotten.

"No, he didn’t tell me. We haven’t... talked."

"Seriously? He’s been talking a lot about you." I raise an eyebrow, startled.

"What do you mean? What has he said?" The words fly out of my mouth before I can control myself. Hayun laughs, as if she notices my sudden interest.

"He says random things. That you like to read, or that you’re in college and you cook well. Random stuff like that." She comments, approaching one of the shelves to take a look at a book. "Anyway, I’m moving soon. Me and the guys, we’re all going to Seoul."

"With Jungkook?" I bite my lower lip, intrigued.

"Yeah, I’m from Seoul and wanted to go anyway, but we’ve been talking about everyone moving there for years. We were just waiting for Bora and Taehyung to finish college." She closes the book and puts it back, shrugging. I nod in agreement. Good for them. It feels like I’ll be the only one stuck here, stagnant for the rest of my life. I feel bad. I should make a list of topics I can’t discuss without feeling like a fraud. Damn it.

"That’s great... Hayun, I have to go now. I’m working. But it was nice to see you again." I say sincerely. It’s like seeing her again makes me a little closer to Jungkook. I don’t want to think about him, yet simultaneously, I can’t get enough of him. I’m going to go crazy.

"It was nice to see you too, really." She says, smiling. "I don’t want to bother you or anything, but before you go... I wanted to ask, are you going to the party tonight?"

"What party?" I frown, confused.

"The celebration. The studio opened, and we’re having a party at Yoongi’s house. It’ll be the last one before we move to Seoul. What do you think?" She grabs my arm, full of excitement. I shake my head immediately, flustered. Jungkook probably hasn’t told his friends what happened between us, and I don’t know if I should be sad or happy about that.

"I can’t, really." I respond, trying my best expression.

"Come on! Let’s go, Y/N, it’ll be fun. It’s for Jungkook. It’s important to him."

"It’s precisely because of him I’m not going." I whisper to her, softly. Hayun stops smiling and glares at me intently.

"Did something happen? You can tell me. Did the idiot do something to you?"

"He didn’t do anything." I half-lie, half-try to hide. Him sleeping with me while still talking to his ex isn’t exactly a huge thing. We hadn’t established anything serious yet. Though, in my head, he is wrong in any case.

"If he didn’t do anything, you should go. He’s really happy about the studio. He worked for about four years to save the money he needed."

"Hayun..." I sigh, embarrassed. "Actually, something did happen. I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to go. It’s to avoid ruining his night that I’m saying no." I finish, somewhat nervously. My body trembles with sadness and bitterness.

"Hey, you can count on me. I won’t tell the idiot anything you say. I’m a jerk, but not a bad friend." She rolls her eyes, clapping her hands together. I chuckle helplessly. She’s funny. I had forgotten this little detail.

"Alright, but I’ll be brief. I really need to get to work." I say. Hayun nods silently in agreement. "Jungkook and I did have a thing."

"I knew it!" She exclaims, in the middle of the hallway. Since it’s a library, her loud voice echoes throughout the place, drawing the attention of the few customers to us. I laugh in despair, covering my mouth with my hand. "Sorry, I spoke too loud. But I knew it! the way he talks about you... he likes you."

"I don’t think he likes me that much." I whisper, losing my smile. "He doesn’t want commitment, and that’s why we drifted apart. He still seems to care a lot about his ex."

"Namjoon." Hayun grunts his name without enthusiasm, rolling her eyes. Her once cheerful face, suddenly tightens. "I know. I liked him until I found out what he did to Jungkook. No one has spoken to him since."

"Yeah. Well. That’s why I think it’s better not to go. I want this to be a good moment for him, anyway. I don’t want to cause any discomfort." I vent, gathering my hands that get sweaty, every time I think about this topic. I have to swallow hard to avoid more tears and appearing like a fool in front of his friend.

"I still think you should go. You won’t ruin anyone’s night; I’m sure of that. And it's Yoongi’s house, it’s not like you can’t go." The brunette argues.

"Even so, the party is for him."

"Y/N, Jungkook won’t be in Busan for long. Don’t you think it’s better for you to talk, whether to end whatever it is you have, so you can both move on without resentment?" She suggests, making me think.

I shake my head for the tenth time in this conversation. I don’t know if it would be a good idea. It’s the first time I’ve ever had feelings for someone, and I don’t know if to end what I feel, I should talk to him. My romantic experiences are based on books, and in books, the heroines are never rejected. Just imagining even for a second, if I go to this party Jungkook will show discomfort or indifference, makes me panic. A strong shiver runs through my whole body with the thought.

"I don’t know if it’s a good idea." I reply, shrugging. Hayun sighs, tapping her boot on the wooden floor.

"Okay. Let’s do this: you’ll go. Stay for five minutes. If you see it’s better not to force things and forget all of this, I’ll take you home myself." She says, putting her hands together as if in prayer.

"You’re quite persistent, huh." I murmur, laughing. I roll my eyes, reflecting. Should I talk to him? Should I give myself a chance to hear him out and maybe understand his side? Even if we don’t end up together, and I end up sad, wouldn’t it be better to finish whatever it is we had, so I can move on?

For the past three days, all I could think about was him. There hasn’t been a single hour where I could relax, read, or watch something like I always did. I sigh, groaning. Then I nod my head, still unsure. My mother is still out of town, and that gives me a little more freedom than usual. Hayun lets out a high-pitched scream and bounces around, hugging me. It’s as if with my decision alone, I’ve made her day happier.

"You’re going to love it! Yoongi’s parties are always so much fun." She assures me with a confidence I don’t have. I went to a party once, and I remember hating everything. Both the music and the people.

"I hope so." I laugh, not very sure about what I’m doing. I want to give up on this idea because it makes no sense, and at the same time, I want to show that I’m brave. That I can face my fears. I don’t want to run away of everything forever.

I can do this!

I can’t do this. I can’t do this!

I look at my outfit and feel like going back outside, running after the taxi I took to get here. My long dress, made of thick fabric, has nothing to do with what these people wear. It’s as if I live on another planet, literally. The music is upbeat, playing from two speakers in the middle of the room. It’s good, considering the bizarre things I’ve heard out there. The lights are all purple, giving the place a sensual and enigmatic look. There are many people, and none of them I know. On one hand, I thank God for not running into Jungkook. On the other, I wish he’d appear before me out of nowhere, just so I could put an end to all of this, once and for all.

But what would I say? You’re a bastard, Jungkook. You didn’t promise me anything, but actions speak louder than words. Your actions didn’t show me you still loved your ex. I could say all of that, but how would it help me? Being honest with myself, I came because I felt afraid that, that morning, three days ago, would be the last time I would see him. The last time I could look into his eyes and feel his presence. I am truly in love, and I don’t want to hold onto another regret in my life.

I look side to side, trying to find Hayun, but in the middle of so many people, it’s hard to recognize anyone. I walk through the room, bumping into a few women. They don’t mind, though. I don’t know the environment very well, but the further I get from the crowd, the more I can enter the open backyard, which has a huge pool. Hayun sent me the address an hour ago; maybe if I called her, I could find her more easily. When I take my phone out of my small bag, determined to complete the call, I spot a red-haired figure that catches my attention. Yoongi. It must be him. I walk slowly towards his group of friends, feeling apprehensive, afraid of accidentally colliding into Jungkook.

"Y/N! Over here!" I confirm my suspicions when Hayun waves her arms in the air, as she recognizes me despite the low light. I smile faintly, walking closer to everyone. They all seem unbelievably beautiful, well-dressed, with an air of excitement that I don’t possess. "You made it! I thought you got lost."

"I took a taxi. It’s just far from where I live." I apologize, shrugging.

"Don’t worry. I haven’t had anything to drink. If you need anything, I’ll take you home, okay?" She smiles, placing her sunglasses on the top of her head. Hayun looks prettier when she does that. "Guys, look who’s here. Y/N!"

I shake my head, greeting them. They seem happy to see me, which relieves 50% of my worries. My stiff and tense shoulders, from imagining scenarios where none of them wanted to see me. I’m relieved to realize that this isn’t happening in reality.

"Y/N, how are you?" Bora kisses my cheek, just like the other girls. Yoongi, Jimin and Taehyung nod, sipping something from their cups.

"I’m good." I smile, feeling awkward. I look around for Jungkook, but he’s nowhere in sight. At least not as far as I can see. "It’s been a while since we’ve seen each other."

"Right? What have you been up to, Y/N?" Yoori, Taehyung’s girlfriend, asks. I open my mouth to respond, but I don’t have much to say.

"I’ve been working a lot." I say, honestly. Partly because it’s true, and partly because I don’t know how far I can tell. Do Yoongi, Jimin or Taehyung know that I was with Jungkook? I’m so paranoid about this I can hardly look them in their eyes.

"She works at the Dongseo University bookstore. When I went to pick up some books, I found her there." Hayun circles her arm around my shoulder, smiling. I nod in agreement. "Y/N, Jungkook is around here; he went to get something to drink." She whispers the last part in my ear, trying to keep everyone else from hearing, and with all this noise, it’s not too hard.

My breath catches when I think I might run into him at any moment. My heart beats like it’s going to burst out of my chest, and my legs feel like jelly from so much nervousness. When I think of a mantra to calm me down and finally face things like a normal person, head held high, I see him coming toward his friends, not really seeing them. It’s as if he’s so lost in thought that he can’t see anyone a foot in front of him. Hayun beside me suddenly gasps. She mutters something near me, and I only feel her tense body, because she is pressed against mine. Everyone looks at Jungkook with expressions of discomfort that I can't quite understand.

"Y/N, I’m sorry. I didn’t... I didn’t know." She says, shaking her head. I frown, confused. What’s happening?

"What’s wrong? Is everything okay?" I ask, anxious, feeling all kinds of emotions at once.

"That guy next to Jungkook." She says, discreetly pointing to a very handsome man, just a few inches taller than him. "That guy is..."

"Namjoon? What’s he doing here?" Jimin questions, crossing his arms over his chest, interrupting his friend. My eyes widen as they approach. My whole body pulls back, and I want to disappear. To be swallowed by the earth and never inhabit this world again. But it’s too late. Jungkook is already here. And his dark, big eyes grow wider when they see me.

"Y/N?" He asks, confused.

Fuck.

"J-Jungkook. Hi." I nod my head. The fear of making any move and embarrassing myself in front of everyone, is overwhelming. The fear that he might just ignore me and pretend I don’t exist, is even greater. I swallow hard, frozen in place. I can’t even greet him properly.

Jungkook doesn’t move either. He stares at me in a static way, and everyone in the group seems to notice. Even Namjoon, his ex-boyfriend. He’s handsome. With his black hair, lean strong body, and a masculine perfume that exudes confidence. My insecurities about myself intensifies. If I had known he would be here, I would have never come. I was a fool to think this would be a good closure. Jungkook hasn’t wanted to talk to me for the past three days. Why would he want to talk to me now? The urge to cry returns, and I’m tired of this situation.

"I didn’t know you’d come, Namjoon." Hayun says beside me, still with her arms around my shoulders. I lower my head, embarrassed.

"I decided at the last minute. I had to come to support Jungkook." He smiles, and he’s even more attractive when he does, forming charming dimples on his cheeks.

"Wonderful." Yoongi grins, but I have the feeling it’s not very sincere. His dark eyes show feelings far from happiness. "I hope you came to stay for a short time. I don’t want certain people in my house."

"Yoongi!" Jungkook scolds his friend, and my throat tightens. Is he defending his ex-boyfriend? Doesn’t he realize the gravity of what Namjoon did? He cheated on him!

"Don’t worry." He places a hand on Jungkook’s shoulder and squeezes it with an intimacy that makes me extremely uncomfortable. "I came just to see you; I won’t stay long, anyway."

"He was kidding." Jungkook clarifies to him, his voice somewhat hoarse. Then he lowers his head and looks at me again. His eyes are so intense that I have to take a deep breath, struggling to breathe normally. "Actually, I need to talk to Y/N."

"What?" I ask, surprised. My body tenses up again, stiff. Hayun lets out a small smile that everyone notices, and shakes her hair, almost as if the whole situation were a movie, and she’s the spectator.

"I told you it would be a good idea for you to come." She says, and her voice is so loud that it’s as if she wants everyone to hear, especially Namjoon, who bites his lips and watches me. His gaze is enigmatic. I can’t tell if he feels anger or discomfort. Or neither.

"Hayun, please..." I whisper. "And Jungkook, I was actually leaving."

"You weren’t." Hayun argues, furrowing her brow. "You just got here, and you’re staying. You’re welcome here."

"I don’t know..."

"Please, Y/N, I wanted to talk to you. Stay a little longer." Jungkook whispers, biting his rosy lips. His face looks sad, but I can’t believe it’s because of me. If he liked me, even a little, he wouldn’t be standing next to his ex with almost an intimate proximity. I can’t understand him. Not at all.

"Okay." I agree, uncomfortable with everyone watching us, as if we’re animals in a zoo. I don’t want to imagine what they’re thinking.

"Namjoon, I’ll talk to Y/N. I’ll be back soon." He smiles faintly, looking at the dark-haired man. Namjoon just nods and gaze at me one more time.

"Okay. No problem. I’ll stay here with your friends." He says, and I catch a glimpse of Jimin sighing as he takes a large gulp of his drink.

We move away from the group in silence. His hand approaches the end of my back, but he doesn’t touch me. My brain feels like it’s going to fry. There’s so much I want to say, and at the same time, so much that isn’t worth saying. I feel so bad. The way he said he would return to his ex is one of those reasons. Why does he stay in this relationship? Doesn’t he realize he would be happier if he just distanced himself from Namjoon? But that’s my opinion, and he clearly doesn’t think that way. We approach a tree, further away from the party, in the backyard. I lean my back against it, fearing I won’t have strength in my legs. I can’t even look him in the eyes. I don’t have the courage for that. We stand in silence for a few seconds, but it feels like an eternity.

"Are you okay?" He asks me quietly. If he weren’t so close and we weren’t so far from the music, I wouldn’t be able to hear him.

"I am." I respond, trying to form a smile that isn’t real. "And you?"

"Yeah." He smiles too; he tosses his hair back, closes his eyes and sighs, watching me. "You look very beautiful."

"Thank you." I say, feeling awkward. I don’t feel beautiful; I feel terrible.

"Y/N, I don’t know what to say." He says, placing his hand on the trunk of the tree, behind me. His scent invades my nose whether I like it or not. I have to use all my self-control not to respond to any of his movements. "I haven’t been well since that morning. I don’t feel good."

"You don’t feel good." I repeat his words, finding it amusing. He doesn’t feel good? Seriously?

"You may not believe it, but I had to hold myself back from calling you."

"You could have called." I shrug, speaking. My voice sounds ironic, but I can’t be any different. I’m angry. So angry and sad. It’s as if all the bad feelings are inside my chest right now.

"I could, but I shouldn’t. I wanted to take some time to think, and you needed that too." He argues, furrowing his brow. "I want you to know that Namjoon is here, but I didn’t know he would come. It was a surprise to me too."

"You must have been thrilled." I respond with a not-so-happy smile. Jungkook runs his tongue along the inside of his cheek, and tightens his jaw, irritated.

"I wasn’t thrilled. I’m not happy, if that’s what you're saying."

"Jungkook... I get it. You want to be with him. I may be inexperienced, but I can read the situation. You don’t need to explain yourself to me. There’s nothing to explain. I just came because I wanted to say I’m happy for you. To congratulate you. Just that."

"You didn’t come just for that." He says in denial. "I can see it in your eyes."

"You know me so well, don’t you?" I respond ironically, trying to hide the extent to which I’m affected. I want to leave. I shouldn’t have come to this party. I shouldn’t be here with him.

"Y/N, please..."

"Jungkook, what are you doing here with me?" I lose my patience, finally reaching my limit. I push away from the tree, my stomach churning. "Why aren’t you with him? With Namjoon? I’m not important to you, so why are you pretending like I am?!"

"I already told you to stop acting like you know me better than I know myself." He grunts, his face reddening with anger.

"It doesn’t matter what you say. I’ve already told you: actions speak louder than words, and you’ve proven that to me since that morning. You didn’t call me for three days simply because you didn’t want to!"

"Y/N..."

"You don’t want to be with me, and that’s fine. You don’t have to be. I already understand where your limits are; just... just don’t pretend to like me if you don’t care about me!" I finish, trembling. My eyes fill with tears, and I feel so vulnerable, anxious. Jungkook has always brought out the best in me, and now I don’t even recognize myself.

"I care about you." He moves closer, furrowing his brows. His dark eyes grow bright. If it weren’t for the lack of light, I could swear he’s about to cry too. He gets even closer and touches my cheek with his hand, gently caressing my skin, sending chills down my spine. I want to pull away from him, but I can’t. "Y/N, I really like you. I didn’t call because I needed some time."

"Stop..." I plead, in a whisper. Both for his words and for his touches. I wrap my hand around his wrist, but I don’t halt him from continuing. I don’t move, half weak, half uncertain, afraid he’ll stop and nervous he’ll keep going.

"I missed you." Jungkook says softly in my ear. His body almost fully pressed against mine. His breath hits my neck; his strong chest touching my breasts. And I don’t know if it’s his heart or mine, racing a thousand miles an hour, so fast and strong.

"Jungkook, stop." I beg, but I can’t pull away myself. He takes his face away from my neck and looks at me once more. His pupils dilate, and they go straight to my mouth. A shiver runs through my entire body as he moistens his lips with his tongue, with a desire so exposed that I can’t mistake it for anything else. And I let him come closer, so damn slowly, as if we’re in slow motion. When I finally close my eyes, surrendered, hypnotized, I hear someone calling him.

"Jungkook?"

Ask for a TAGLIST in the comments

@joonwater @ane102 @ttipa @kookienooki

[littlemisspascal]

Today marks the 3rd anniversary of my fic The Infinity Cube. I can still remember posting the first chapter, hoping at least one person out there liked it, and I can still remember how it felt to reach the end, a feat that wouldn't have been possible without the support of so many kind souls 💗 I wanted to make something for the occasion and having seen so many amazing web weavings out there, I thought I'd give it my best shot 😊

THE INFINITY CUBE: a journey home

Shades of Earth by Beth Revis // I Choose You by Adam Melchor // When Did It Happen? by Mary Oliver // First Love by Jennifer Franklin // The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde // The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons // The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman // 10 a.m Is When You Come To Me by Louise Bourgeois // Maybe In Another Universe, I Deserve You by Gaby Dunn // Maybe When the Time is Right You Will Find Me Again - K. Tolnoe // We Were Missing the Present by Mahmoud Darwish // Persona (1966) // Matched by Ally Condie // In the Pines by Alice Notley // It Wasn't Love // La Pointe Courte (1955) // "My better half" by Pablo J. Davis // The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller // Bioshock Infinite // Calling a Wolf a Wolf by Kaveh Akbar // Oh It Was Meant to Be - Kate McGahan // Pillow Thoughts by Courtney Peppernell // If My Body Could Speak by Blythe Baird // Fourth of July by Sufjan Stevens // Unending Love by Rabindranath Tagore // The Blinding Star by Blanca Varela // Wild Spirit, Soft Heart by Butterflies Rising // Finding You by Kesha // Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want by The Smiths // Web weaving about the untold story in you // "Feel like making a deal with the devil?" // A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara // Reborn: Journals ad Notebooks by Susan Sontag // I love you like a rotten dog // Sax Rohmer #1 by The Mountain Goats // The Bubble (2022) // Rabbit Hole (2010) // Beginning with O by Olga Broumas // How many times can the same thing break your heart? // War of the Foxes by Richard Siken // On Death in Heartbreak // Lonely Day by System of A Down // This Road (The Mirror is a Trap) by Poe // Memory for Forgetfulness by Mahmoud Darwish // "Do you think we're soulmates in another universe?" // Radio Silence by Alice Oseman // "In one timeline we kiss" - Elizabeth Hewer // Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed // Almond Blossoms and Beyond by Mahmoud Darwish // X // The Collected Poems of Alvaro de Campos by Fernando Pessoa // Excerpt from Moony Moonless Sky's 'I am an observer, but not by choice' // @/lookoflove // Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg // "Do you know what it's like to live somewhere that loves you back?" - Danez Smith // Home by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros // The Chaos of Stars by Kiersten White // Home // You and Me

All Pedro Photos - Pinterest // Reader in my story is physically a blank slate, I just really like the photo of Javi + Gabriela touching foreheads

[veronicaphoenix]

zutto — chapter thirteen | wc: 6k | series masterpost | prev. chapter

Chapter summary: Noah and Lia spend the day in Tokyo and visit a certain exhibition that leads to steamy things once they're back in their room.

Reading time: 25mins. aprox.

Tags and trigger warnings:  talks/depictions of rope play and mentions of war and torture (related to historical events), wet dreams, explicit sexual content including teasing, dirty talk, Lia wearing a choker, Lia on her knees, oral sex (Noah receiving), p in v (protected and unprotected), praise kink, “good girl”, Noah restraining Lia’s wrists, slight dom/sub dynamics if you squint, fluff. Let me know if I missed sth. 

Say thank you @bluestdai because the wet dream scene was inspired by her fanart of Lia and Noah. 💞

I wanted to post this before I leave on a roadtrip, so I didn't have much time to really revise it. Sorry for any typos or mistakes you might find.

General trigger warnings: this work addresses and depicts issues related to addiction, abuse, & violence, contains explicit sexual content, and explores themes of childhood trauma. Reader discretion is advised. +18

“Will you stop looking at me like that?” Lia demanded, her cheeks tinged with a rosy hue as she struggled to speak around a mouthful of her fourth tamagoyaki of that morning. Her hand hovered in front of her mouth.

Noah’s grin widened.  “No.”

A crease formed between Lia’s brows as she swallowed. She licked her lips before retorting, “It’s making me uncomfortable.”

“Is it?” Noah asked, his tone playful as he arched an eyebrow. “I love watching you eat. You look adorable. I can’t help it.”

Her face grew even warmer. 

“It makes me self-conscious,” she mumbled, glancing at the empty plate in front of her. “That was my fourth tamagoyaki...” 

Noah, who had finished his breakfast minutes earlier, continued to watch her, his elbows resting on the countertop of the kitchen isle. Grandma, ever busy, had flitted off to another part of the house barely five minutes ago. 

“Want another one?” Noah asked.

Lia’s eyes widened in alarm. Before she could reply, he raised both hands in a gesture of surrender. 

“I’m not teasing! I’m serious! I love the way you enjoy food. That’s all.”

Lia hesitated, her eyes darting to the tray where the remaining tamagoyakis were arranged in two perfect rows. Temptation gnawed at her, but her stomach was already satisfyingly full.

“I’m good,” she said, brushing her fingers on a napkin. She made a mental note to ask Grandma for the recipe before returning to the States. No Japanese restaurant back home could replicate the unique taste of Grandma’s cooking, and she was sure neither could she—nor Noah, for that matter. But she was willing to try. 

Just then, Hana bustled back into the kitchen, her white hair neatly gathered into a bun. She carried a pile of freshly washed kitchen rags that she quickly stored in a drawer. 

“Why don’t you take the rest with you?” she suggested, gestuing toward the food tray and already pulling a plastic container from the cupboard. “You’re spending the day out, right?” she asked, glancing between them.

“Yep,” Noah confirmed.

“Better to have something on hand,” Grandma insisted. “Just in case.”

“We’re planning to eat out,” Lia pointed out, standing from the stool.

“For later,” Grandma said with a knowing smile. Without waiting for further protests, she began packing the tamagoyaki along with a couple of small juice bottles.

Lia shrugged, catching Noah’s amused expression. Despite herself, she couldn’t hold back a grin.

As Grandma finished packing their food, Noah and Lia headed upstairs to change out of their pajamas. Today, they were planning to explore Tokyo on their own after spending most of their stay so far indulging in Grandma’s company and taking her to places. 

They made the bed together and Lia opened the balcony doors to let some fresh air in. While Noah was checking his hair in the bathroom, Lia stepped out and leaned against the railing of the bedroom balcony, dressed in black leggings, a white shirt, and a soft denim jacket that would later pair with her boots. She took a few deep breaths and admired the beauty of the scenery before her before plucking her phone out of a pocket and moving her fingers deftly over the display, the cold morning air tinging her nose pink as her eyes scanned the information. 

“Lia, you ready?” Noah’s voice called from behind.

“Yeah.” Lia turned to face him, hesitating for a moment before adding, “Noah?”

“Hm?”

“I found this exhibition...” She waved her phone slightly, her expression both eager and uncertain. “I thought we could go.”

“What kind of exhibition?” Noah asked, crossing the room to get a closer look at her phone screen.

“It’s a... Shibari exhibition,” Lia explained with a casual tone. But her gaze was watchful, eyeing Noah and unsure of what his reply would be. 

Noah’s eyebrows lifted.

Before he could say anything, she quickly added, “I’d like to see it.”

For a moment, Noah simply studied her. Then, with a shrug and an easy smile, he spread his arms. “If you want to go, I’m in. Where is it?”

“Not far from Tokyo’s center,” Lia added, relief evident in her voice.

“Then let’s do it,” Noah said. He extended his hand toward her. “Shall we?”

No matter how full they still felt after the hearty breakfast at Grandma’s, the bustling energy of Tokyo’s center and the amount of cafés was enough to draw them in for another warm drink—and Lia’s fifth tamagoyaki of the day—. After stepping out of the cab and strolling through narrow streets lined with shops and neon signs, they stopped at a cozy café. They talked idly as the indulged in steaming sencha tea and they watched the city’s rhythm outside the window. Lia connected her phone to the café’s free Wi-Fi and googled their way to the exhibition venue. The map showed it was only a fifteen-minute walk, so they set off and managed to make it there without stopping in too many stores. 

The venue was tucked away on a quieter street north of the city center, its sleek modern exterior standing out against the older buildings nearby. The gallery’s enormous windows offered glimpses of the artwork inside, making Lia and Noah pause by the first window, leaning close to peer in.

The gallery was expansive. The walls they could see were adorned by vintage, A4-sized photographs. Beneath each image, a foam block appeared to hold neat inscriptions in Japanese and English, perhaps with details about the photos. Deeper inside the venue, Noah and Lia caught flashes of different lights, red ropes and abstract installations.

Lia turned to Noah, biting her lip briefly but eyes sparking. She grabbed his hand and tugged.

“Let’s go.”

Noah smirked, charmed by her enthusiasm, and let her take the lead.

At the entrance, they were surprised to learn there was no fee. The receptionist, a woman in her forties with kind eyes and a nice smile, welcomed them. She handed each of them a brochure and explained the exhibition’s layout: the first section showcased historical photographs from the Edo period. The following ones contained suspended rope installations, live demonstrations, and at the end they would find a workshop space for learning basic knotting techniques, and even a literary and philosophical corner for quiet reflection. Souvenirs, books, and rope could be purchased at the store located at the very end of the exhibition. 

“Feel free to explore at your own pace,” the woman added. “There’s a live demonstration that will start in about thirty minutes, near the back.”

Lia clutched her brochure, her eyes already scanning the gallery, while Noah gave the receptionist a polite nod before following Lia inside.

Initially, the vastness of the gallery and the weight of the artwork’s themes made Lia hesitate. She lingered near the first exhibit, a collection of photographs depicting the use of rope in Edo-period hojojutsu, a martial art once used for restraining prisoners. The photographs were stark and evocative, showing the artistry that elevated the utilitarian knots into something symbolic.

Lia felt Noah stiffen slightly beside her, adjusting his black cap, his posture reserved. She glanced up to see his brows furrowed in concentration, perhaps grappling with the unfamiliar context and maybe wondering the repercussions of someone spotting him there. Wanting to reassure him, she reached for his hand, intertwining her fingers with his.

Their eyes roamed over the photographs, analyzing the intricate interplay of shadow and light that emphasized the delicacy of the knots. One picture captured a prisoner kneeling with a calm expression, their arms bound behind them in an arrangement so precise it resembled a lattice of branches. Another photograph showed a ceremonial display of knots, the prisoner’s posture one of poised dignity despite their restrained state. Each knot seemed to convey a story of its own, involving control, power, but also elegance and care. It was strange and yet, fascinating.

“Look at this one,” Lia murmured, pointing to an image of a woman dressed in a kimono, her hands tied with a flourish that mirrored the folds of her garment. “It’s beautiful.”

Noah nodded, his brow still furrowed. “It is,” he admitted, his voice low, almost reluctant. “But looks complicated.”

They moved into the next section, where the gallery shifted from history to abstract art. Ropes hung suspended from the ceiling, looping and twisting in gravity-defying arcs. Some installations were simple, resembling waves or vines, while others were chaotic tangles that seemed to pulse with energy.

Lia stopped in front of one particularly piece—a massive web of crimson rope that seemed to expand and contract with the airflow in the room. At its center was a suspended a gold ornament, bound so intricately that it seemed to hover like a captured treasure.

“How the hell did they do this,” Noah muttered to himself, his curiosity breaking through his earlier reserve. He stepped closer, crouching slightly to observe the knots securing the installation to the floor and ceiling. “It’s flawless. If you pull at one knot, the whole thing would collapse.”

“Kind of like trust,” Lia said thoughtfully.

He glanced up at her, caught off guard by her comment.

“Yeah,” he said after a pause. “Like trust.”

They lingered for a few moments before following the signs toward the live demonstration. The corridor opened into a large space with seating arranged in a semicircle around a low platform. A few people were already gathered, chatting quietly or flipping through their brochures.

On the platform, a man and a woman prepared for the demonstration. The woman was standing in the center, barefoot and wearing a beige tight bodysuit. The man was dressed in simple black clothes. He was arranging coils of rope on a low table beside him.

Noah and Lia found a spot where to stand on the side, close enough to see the details but not so close as to feel conspicuous. Lia noticed Noah’s posture relax slightly as he leaned forward, his cap shielding his face from view momentarily as his arm rubbed at Lia’s shoulder.

Moments later, the room quieted and the demonstrator stepped forward, bowing slightly before addressing the audience. 

“Thank you for joining us today. What you are about to see is a traditional art form that blends discipline and creativity. It requires trust, communication, and respect between the participants.”

A mix of curiosity and reverence settled over the room.

As the demonstration began, the audience watched. The demonstrator moved with a calm, rhythmic precision, guiding the rope around his partner’s arms and torso in fluid motions. Each knot was a statement, each loop a deliberate choice.

The demonstrator began with a length of smooth, red rope, holding it as though it were a living thing. He stepped behind his partner and guided her hands together at the small of her back. With a single motion, he looped the rope around her wrists, his fingers dancing as he secured the first knot. 

The room had grown so quiet that the soft rustle of the rope against the woman’s skin was audible, every sound amplified in the stillness. The demonstrator wrapped the rope twice more, forming clean, parallel lines that looked as though they had been measured with a ruler. He paused briefly to check her posture, a silent exchange passing between them before he resumed his work, the ends of the rope weaving into a decorative knot that held the arrangement in place.

Lia felt her breath catch as she watched. The movements were hypnotic. She could feel Noah’s steady breathing behind her, as well as the way his chest rose and fell a little more deeply than before. 

As the man finished securing the final knot, the woman flexed her fingers, the subtle movement testing the hold. The demonstrator stepped back, bowing slightly to acknowledge the completion of the first step. The woman returned the bow, her restrained hands adding an unexpected grace to the gesture.

The audience remained silent. The room felt charged, as though everyone was holding their breath in unison.

Lia shifted slightly, and that was when she noticed how close Noah had leaned in. She could feel the faint warmth of his breath near her ear, each exhale brushing softly against her skin. His heartbeat was steady but insistent, a subtle rhythm she could sense through the proximity of his body.

For a moment, the gallery and the audience faded away. All she could focus on was the quiet intensity of the scene before them, mirrored by Noah’s quiet intensity beside her. The blend of concentration and restraint in his posture made her wonder what he was thinking—if he was thinking the same things she was. 

Lia felt her own pulse quicken, her fingers tightening on the edges of her brochure. She didn’t say a word, afraid that even the softest whisper might shatter the spellbinding stillness of the room. Instead, she turned her attention back to the platform, where the demonstrator was already preparing for the next sequence. But the sensation of Noah’s presence intensified.

“Do you find that interesting?” he murmured, his voice low and velvety so that only she would catch his words.

Lia, so absorbed in the intricate process before her, missed the subtle suggestion in his tone. She nodded earnestly, her eyes never leaving the scene. Behind her, Noah smiled, a sly curl of amusement tugging at his lips.

The rigger moved smoothly, his hands working with practiced ease to loop the red rope over the woman’s shoulders and around her chest, framing her torso in a symmetrical pattern. The interplay of rope against skin, the way it both restricted and enhanced her form, was mesmerizing to watch.

Noah, however, had shifted his focus to Lia.

His fingers slid down her arm, brushing her wrist lightly before curling around it. With deliberate slowness, he brought her hand behind her back. Lia hardly noticed, her attention still on the stage, until she felt him take her other wrist and guide it to meet the first.

Her breath caught in her throat.

The brochure dropped to the floor silently. 

Noah’s chest pressed closer, his body shielding hers from the view of the other spectators. His hand, large and strong, held both of her wrists in a resistant grip. The grip wasn’t painful—just firm enough to keep her still, to make her heart skip a beat.

She tried to look back at him, but her cheek met his.

“Imagine we’re in the bedroom,” he whispered, his voice dipping into a husky timbre that sent heat pooling low in her belly. “And your hands are tied at your back. Like this.”

To emphasize his point, he tightened his grip just enough to make her gasp softly. The edge of sweet discomfort prickled through her awareness, and she was acutely conscious of how exposed they were.

“Can you picture it?” he asked.

“Yes,” she whispered, her voice barely audible.

Noah’s grin deepened, his teeth grazing the shell of her ear. 

“Good. Would you be willing to do anything I say? While you’re tied up? Like her?”

“Yes.” Her answer was quick and breathless, her heart hammering in her chest as his words wove a spell around her.

His lips brushed the corner of her jaw, his breath hot against her skin. 

“Can I be honest? I can picture it, too” his tone was so seductive that Lia had to press her thighs together. “I’ve pictured it so many times already. I’d make you get on your knees...” With his thumb he traced circles on the inside of her wrist. “And after that, I’d do whatever I want to you, with the only intention of pleasuring you. How does that sound?”

Lia’s pulse quickened, her lips parting.

Before she could speak, the rigger on stage gave a gentle tug to the ropes, shifting the model’s position. The sudden movement pulled Lia’s attention back to the demonstration, her cheeks flushed with both excitement and awareness of the people around her—and at the hard thing pressing against her back. 

Back to her senses, she muttered, “you’re getting a boner, Noah.”

She was not facing him, but she could tell he had looked down at his own pants. 

“Yes, I am. Shit.” He released her fast and adjusted his trousers, taking a single step away from her and looking around coyly.

Lia looked at him over her shoulder and nearly snorted. Noah send her a playful glare. 

“Don’t worry,” he told her. “We’ll have time to finish this.”

As he stepped back slightly, giving her space, Lia felt the loss of his warmth but couldn’t quite shake the lingering heat of his words. She tried to get her attention back to the stage, trying to refocus, but her mind was already far away, spinning with possibilities Noah had just whispered into existence.

The demonstration ended and everyone clapped. A couple of minutes later, Noah and Lia walked hand in hand to the workshop section, where they tried to learn the basic of knots and ended up cracking up at clumsiness they both showed at it. Lia had stayed frozen for a full ten minutes trying to understand where the teacher had instructed to pull the rope through, and Noah had at least tried, only to get his own hands tangled in the mess of rope. Lia teased him about not having learnt anything from the book he had at home. He was quick to retaliate, stepping closer to nibble playfully at her ear, whispering that he hadn’t had anyone to practice with before. 

“Now I have you,” he said, “and I plan on getting really good at it.”

At the souvenir shop afterward, they made a donation to support the various artists who had contributed to the exhibition. Lia bought a history book, paying for it along with a set of black-and-red cotton ropes that Noah dropped onto the counter. 

“They might not let us take a katana home, but I’m sure there’s no problem with a few ropes,” he stated.

The day in Tokyo was eventful. They walked a lot, saw a lot, laughed a lot and shared plenty of kisses in hidden corners of the big city. They returned home with their hands full of bags and their feet aching, though the discomfort was soon forgotten when they sat down in Hana’s tea room. They enjoyed a quiet conversation with Grandma, recounting the things they’d done and seen—leaving out a few details, of course—as they sipped lukewarm tea before heading to bed.  

Upstairs, with most of the lights in the house off and their shopping bags piled on the desk, Noah changed into his sleep shirt and sweats and waited for Lia to finish brushing her teeth in the bathroom. 

He was about to flop on the bed when she called out to him. 

“Noah, could you grab my sleeping shirt?” Lia’s voice came from the bathroom.

“You mean my shirt,” he replied with a hint of amusement, moving to her suitcase and rummaging around to retrieve it.

“It’s been mine for years now. You lost your chance to reclaim it long ago—” Her words trailed off as she entered the bedroom, only to freeze in place. She stood there in her bra and panties, and Noah, instead of holding her shirt, had something else entirely in his hands: the pair of kitty ears and the choker she’d impulsively bought in Osaka. 

One in each hand, he lifted them slowly, inspecting them with raised brows.

“What... is this?” he asked, looking up at her, intrigued.

Lia’s shoulders slumped, her cheeks flushing. 

“You weren’t supposed to see that.”

“Oh? And why not? What exactly are you planning to do with it?” He cocked an eyebrow, studying her reaction with growing interest.

She stepped forward, reaching to snatch them from his hands, but he quickly tucked them behind his back, a mischievous grin spreading across his face. “Did you buy these for me?”

She huffed, barely hiding a reluctant smile. “Can you just forget you ever saw them and put them back, please?”

“No chance.”

“Noah!” she exclaimed, her tone halfway between a scold and a plea.

“I think I need to see you wearing these,” he murmured, lifting the kitty ears in one hand, his eyes then drifting to the choker in the other, as though savoring the thought.

Lia gave him a pointed look, her lips pressed together to hide her amusement. “You will. One day. But not here. Now, please—put it back?”

“Put it on.”

“Noah…”

He paused, then added with a gentler tone, “Alright. Then, let me put it on you.” His voice softened, but his eyes held a playful gleam that made it impossible to deny him.

She took a slow breath, biting her lower lip as she debated. Part of her wanted to let him have his way, but they were at Grandma’s house, of all places. However, she couldn’t deny how his expression—the mix of pleading and challenge—made her pulse quicken.

“You’re trouble,” she finally said, her tone half-resigned, half-amused.

Noah smirked, tempted to raise his fist.

“Turn around,” he commanded, his voice dipping into a more serious tone that sent a shiver down her spine.

Obediently, Lia turned. She started to lift her hair, but he was quicker, his fingers brushing along her nape in a deliberate, lingering caress. Her breath hitched as he fastened the choker, slipping it around her neck. His arms grazed her shoulders as he clasped it, and he gently tugged her hair free to let it cascade down her back.

When she turned to face him, her heartbeat thudding, she saw him struggling to maintain his composure. He handed her the kitty ears with a quiet intensity in his eyes. She took them, placing them on her head, pushing her long hair back with a shy smile.

As she stood there, arms falling to her sides, he took a step back to take her in fully. His gaze fell on the choker, and she saw the way his playful smirk vanished, replaced by something deeper, something raw.

“Fuck.” 

There was a beat of silence. Lia blinked as she read his expression, then her eyes dropped to the bulge that had appeared down his front, and she felt a surge of power curse through her. 

Yes, she thought. Fuck it.

Her hands went to the laces of his joggers, and the sudden motion snapped Noah out of his trance. 

He caught her wrists. “No.” 

She froze. She waited, her breath catching. Then he continued, his tone dropping lower, dripping with command. 

“Get on your knees.”

Her stomach flipped. Oh, God.

Slowly, she sank to her knees, the soft carpet on the wooder floor brushing her legs as she looked up at him with brown doe eyes. Maybe it was a risk, but she took her hands back to his laces, and this time, he didn’t stop her. He let her undo them and pull his sweats down as he peeled his t-shirt off quickly, discarding it onto the floor. Lia pushed his underwear down, his cock springing free, thick and hard. 

“You’re gonna suck me, right?” he asked with strain. “I need you to s—”

Lia cut him off by wrapping her fingers around the base of his length and lifting it slightly to drag her tongue along the underside. She started at the base, tracing the thick vein that pulsed beneath her touch, all the way to the head. 

“Lia… Fuck.” 

She took her time, savoring the weight of him in her hand, her tongue exploring every inch. When she finally began to bob her head, his sharp inhale was all the encouragement she needed. Everything that came out from his mouth after were moans and praise.

“That’s it. God,” he murmured, “the mouth you have…”

The pride that filled her was electric, and it must have shown in her eyes because Noah’s lips quirked into a grin even as he struggled to maintain his composure. 

“You like that, Lia? You like sucking my cock?”

She couldn’t say yes—not with her mouth full—, so she doubled her efforts, hollowing her cheeks and taking him deeper. His features contorted as though caught between pleasure and pain, and she felt his fingers move to her head, his hands tangling in her hair as he helped guide her movements. 

“Keep going, baby.” His words were choked, punctuated by grunts. “Just like that. Yes.”

He looked down at her again, thinking he must have done something extraordinary in his life to deserve this—to have such a beautiful girl on her knees with her mouth full of him. On top of that, her desire and enjoyment were palpable in every moment. Knowing he was making her happy by having her at his mercy ignited a possessive thrill that rushed through him.  

His hands caressed her scalp, guiding her motions. Lia closed her eyes, her tongue working with deliberate twists and touches. She tried to take him deeper, twisting her tongue to draw more sounds from him, her confidence soaring with each groan that escaped his lips.  

Then, with that voice of his, that low, deep tone that never failed to leave her weak, his hands tightened in her hair as she murmured, “You’re such a good girl.” The praise was so raw it almost undid her. Heat flooded her body as she thought she might come just from his words alone. “You look so pretty on your knees, baby.” 

One hand slid from her hair to her chin, his touch gentle despite the fire in his eyes. He tilted her face upward, and as her lips released him, his cock slipped out of her mouth, a string of saliva connecting them. Her tongue darted out to lick it away before she bit her lip, wanting more. 

“You’re driving me crazy,” he admitted, his voice rough as his dark gaze trailed to her neck and the baby pink collar still snug there. “I’m never letting you take that choker off.”

Lia thought he would let her finish him, that she’s have him falling apart in her hands—and mouths—but Noah had other plans. Taking himself in his hand, he helped her rise to her feet. His hands cupped her cheeks, pulling her into a kiss that stole her breath. He didn’t give a fuck about tasting himself on her lips. 

The kiss was all-consuming, leaving her dizzy as he walked her backward toward the low bed. 

Once her knees hit the mattress, he guided her down, his hands slipping to the waistband of her panties. 

“Take off your bra.”

She obeyed without hesitation—she was Noah’s good girl—, unhooking the clasp and discarding the thin bra next to her. Noah tugged her panties down, tossing them aside before covering her body with his.  He trailed a path of kisses from her lower belly to her chest, kissing and licking her nipples and then sucking at her neck at the same time his cock made its way inside of her, making her gasp and grab onto his shoulders.  

With the friction of the bodies moving, the movements sent the kitty headband on her head slipping back. With a quick hand, Noah removed it, letting it rest on the pillow next to Lia’s head. 

“The choker stays,” his voice declared against her ear. His voice was low, possessive, and his words were followed by another murmuring that sounded very much like a “you’re mine”. He buried his face in her neck and thrust into her again and again. 

“Open your legs wider, Lia,” he urged. “That’s it. Good girl.”

She moaned in response. 

“Say my name.” Noah instructed. It was a command, a desperate one. There was something raw in the way he said it—a need he couldn’t suppress. He needed to hear his name on her lips. Over and over and over. 

“Noah, please.”

“Yes, Lia,” he groaned, his pace quickening. “Say it again. I’ll give you anything you want. Anything you need.”

“More, Noah. Please.”

He would give her more. He would give her everything. 

“Lia.” His voice was a mantra as his lips found hers again. 

“Noah,” she moaned, her eyes fluttering shut as her body surrendered.  

“Lia,” he repeated.

“Yes,” she breathed. She was barely present, her words more a reflex than conscious thought. 

“Lia, open your eyes,” he said, his voice softer now. 

Her eyes fluttered open, and the world shifted. 

Darkness enveloped the room, and her breath caught in her throat. Noah wasn’t on top of her anymore. He wasn’t naked—and neither was she.

He was lying on his side of the bed, propped on one elbow, his expression etched with concern as he patted her cheek. 

“Lia,” he said softly. “Are you okay?”

Oh, Jesus…

“Were you having a nightmare?” He asked. 

Lia’s hands shot to her neck, only to find there was no choker clasped around it. Her movement didn’t escape Noah’s notice, and his gaze narrowed suspiciously. 

“Was someone hurting you?”

“N—no, nothing like that,” she stammered, shaking her head. 

“That’s what I thought,” he added, his voice turning into something more of a tease, “because you were moaning my name.”

Lia froze. Uh, oh.

So… She had been having a wet dream.

And Noah knew. 

“Wanna tell me what you were dreaming about?”

Before she could respond, his hand slipped under the covers and under the waistband of her pajama pants and panties. His fingers grazed her, and he cursed in surprise as they came away with slick. 

“What the hell was I doing to you that got you this wet?” he asked, his voice rough now, desire flooding his tone. 

Lia could only close her eyes, her lips curling into a satisfied smile as his fingers began to circle her clit.

“You’re not going to tell me?” He pressed. 

She shook her head, biting her lip to suppress a moan. 

“Maybe I won’t let you come, then,” he threatened, his tone playful but edged with real intent. 

Her eyes flew open, shocked, and her hands moved instinctively to his wrist to keep his hand in place. 

“It’s a surprise,” she said, her voice breathy as his fingers circled her clit again. She moved her hand to his crotch, then, where she was met with his obvious erection, cock straining against the fabric of his sweats.

“A surprise?”

“Yes,” she confirmed. “I promise to tell you once we’re back home.” 

“And why can’t you tell me now?” His voice dropped, his curiosity turning almost predatory. 

“Because if I tell you, I don’t think you’ll be able to keep it together. And Grandma is a few doors down.”

That obviously only heightened his interest, his eyes darkening with frustration and amusement in equal measure. But he trusted her.  She was smart, and her reasoning—even if infuriating—was probably sound. He could still have her anyway, and he’d be content by just being inside of her and barely moving. 

“Fine,” he relented, but a low escaped him as he added. “You’re lucky I’m a patient man and you’re adorable when you’re having wet dreams.”

That only made Lia blush harder as she playfully pushed at him. 

His hands moved quickly from then, tugging at her waistband as she helped him out of his clothes. Pajamas and underwear were discarded with a shared urgency, their hands brushings and lips touching as they worked together. 

When the last clothing barrier was gone, Noah retrieved a condom from nearby and rolled it on with ease. He settled himself between her thighs and under the quilt. His weight against her was always comforting, grounding.

The way he looked at her, like she was his entire world, made her pulse race. 

“I’ll take this,” he murmured, “but you’re telling me everything as soon as we’re back in the States.”

And with that, he surged forward, capturing her lips in a kiss that silenced any response she might have given, the night stretching out before them in whispered sighs and muffled moans.

At the first stretch, Lia gasped. The first thrust never failed to make her brace herself against Noah’s shoulders, her fingers clutching for stability as she adjusted to the feeling of fullness. She had learned in their short time together as a couple that Noah always watched her intently in this moment. His expression conveyed so many emotions. His jaw was tight. There was a small wrinkle between his brows, and a dark unrelenting hunger in his eyes that contrasted with the careful gentleness of his love for her. 

As he began to move, her body relaxed. It was a dance, a symphony of shared breaths and whispered sighs, their connection running deeper than just physical pleasure. 

One of Noah’s hands slid to cradle the side of her head, his thumb brushing her forehead tenderly. With the other, he gripped her wrist and pinned her arm above her head. Lia let out a soft exhale and moved her free hand to rest beside the one he held captive, silently asking him to hold her completely.

Understanding, a cheeky smile curved Noah’s mouth. He pressed closer to her, meeting her yearning expression with one of his own before he dived to kiss her, teeth and tongue and all. 

It was slow, but it spoke louder than words. The eye contact making both weak in each other’s arms. Not even five minutes into it, Lia wriggled her wrist and Noah released her hands. Her finger found Noah’s face, and she dragged a finger along his lips, wet from her kisses. He caught it between his teeth with a teasing bite before letting it go, his features contorting with rising pleasure. 

“I’m not far,” he whispered, his voice tight. 

“Me neither,” she managed. “Can you…?”

“Yeah.”

He knew exactly what she needed. 

His fingers found her clit, rubbing as he increased his pace. He was tempted to cover Lia’s mouth with his other hand, but instead, he let it be, allowing the tension between them to coil tighter and tighter, their breathing growing ragged.

When Lia’s orgasm took hold of her, Noah thrust one last time, making her back arch even more. A loud sob escaped her lips, and that’s when Noah did cover her mouth, muffling the sound as his face buried itself in the curve of her neck. His body trembled with his release, spasms overtaking him as he spilled into the condom. 

Lia’s body shuddered beneath him, her legs locking around his waist as she bucked against him, riding out the last ripples of her pleasure. 

In the stillness that followed, Noah’s weight pressed her into the mattress, and she kept hugging him tightly, not ever letting go. For a long while, neither of them spoke. 

Noah’s mind wandered, and in the quiet of the night, with Lia’s heart beating against his own, he reflected on their past and every step, every scratch and heartbreak that had led them inevitably to this moment. 

Feeling more settled and thankful than ever, he whispered against her skin, “All my life, I was waiting for you without knowing it.”

Lia blinked, adjusting to the darkness in the room to find his eyes. Her fingers traced his face, her touch reverent as she admired the man he had become. “All those years,” she replied softly, “you deserved a better version of me.”

“It doesn’t matter what version I deserved,” he replied, his voice filled with conviction as he touched her pink cheek with the bend of his index finger. “I had you. I have you now, and I’ve loved every version of you.” 

Her eyes welled with emotion as she leaned up, brushing her lips against his as she promised, “You’re mine, Noah.”

— prev. chapter | chapter fourteen

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[mik0is0bored]

"Don't say you don't have enough time."

Chapter i: Sick from Exauhstion

Megumi Fushiguro x Reader

Contents page !!

Offical playlist🎧

Note: I didn't like my original megumi x reader fic, and I've wanted to do a jjk college au for like a few weeks, so here's this <33

Note: i plan on making a playlist for this fic, so when I get around to that, I'll have it linked in the contents page!!

Description: You've begun your life as a college student this October. And boy, it is not as fun as it seemed in those corny, romance movies you always watched when the leaves changed color. College is stressful. Buying the correct textbooks, then trying to figure out where your dorm is, and the most stressful it seemed, was trying to figure out where the hell your first lecture is. The weeks roll by, and you feel more and more burnt out as the days crawled by, your mental health wasn't doing so good either. But when you met the spikey black haired guy with green eyes (who occasionally helps you study) you begin to hope that the stress will lighten up soon, that it won't last forever.

Tags: Megumi Fushiguro x fem!reader, burnt out reader, mentions of depression, suicide (one chapter!), swearing, no curses au, college au, peers to lovers au, SFW

Note: Taglist is open! Comment on this post or any post related to this fix or use inbox to request being added to the taglist!

Warnings for this chapter: mentions of self-harm, depression, low mental health, and suicidal ideation.

God, it's about time.

You sigh to yourself as you put the final box containing your belongings into your car. Today was the day you were leaving to move into the dorms at the university you had been accepted to.

High school had sucked. The burnout was affecting you. Three months wasn't enough of a break, but there wasn't anything you could do.

You waved goodbye to your parents, then slide your headphones over your head, and press play on your phones music app, before getting into your car, then tossing your phone in the passengers seat.

You began to drive down the street, past the places you grew up knowing. You never moved around as a kid, you moved once, because your parents' apartment was too small for a family of three to live in, plus there was a pest problem anyway.

You had only moved across town anyway.

You also didn't have many friends. You weren't as social as the other kids in your class. You were close with probably four people in elementary, maybe three, you don't really remember.

Grade school, it felt like all your friends left. They either abandoned you, or they moved away, with or without notice, it still hurt.

You were close with two people at the start of third grade until you met your best friend, whom you've known since then.

One of the three you had befriended in second grade more or less became an asshole. But it was fourth grade. Kids are emotional and annoying.

So, to put it nicely, he had become quite the jerk. But near the end of fourth grade, he was a little nicer.

Until he moved without notice. You still had your other two friends, though.

Then fifth grade passed, your best friend moved to another school for a year, and your other friend wasn't responding to messages.

That felt like the worst year and a half of your life, and it was also when your mental health started getting bad.

By the time it became seventh grade, your best friend had returned, and your other friend would talk to you occasionally.

Until she moved.

You'd known her the longest, and somehow, you felt nothing when she left. You've experienced loss time to time. You've had depression, even at the young age of 13.

So all you had left was your best friend, whom was now your only friend.

You and her navigated through highschool together, you talked about everything together.

You never had any arguments, just minor disagreements here and there.

But nothing that would affect the relationship you had with her.

Before you knew it, you had left your town you grew up in.

You were now on the highway.

You thought about your highschool years. Chemistry wasn't your strongsuit in your second year, and your English teacher wasn't the best.

You really liked health, it was easy, you felt like you got a break from education there.

You exhaled a shaky breath, feeling tears start burning your eyes.

You shook your head, hoping to get the urge to cry out of your system.

It didn't leave.

You began to fall towards rock bottom at the start of your second year. The burnout, the depression.

The urge to just die.

It all became to strong then. And it seemed like it didn't to away then.

That one week you had eight tests, you wanted to shut down and die.

That week, you added another cut to the collection of scars that seemed to accumulate on your wrist.

You hid the scars, and you hid the cuts.

The only time you opened up about them was when you typed a whole paragraph to your best friend.

How you promised you were getting better, but you'd relapse your actions by the end of the month. Pathetic of you, really.

Eventually, without knowing it, you began breaking down in your car, sobbing your eyes out.

But for your luck, you had finally made it to the university, so you let yourself sob like your life depended on it.

This year, you promised yourself if things didn't get better, if things got harder, and you felt like you couldn't cling onto someone to help keep you afloat, you'd end yourself.

Yeah sure, your parents said you were overdramatic when you told them you felt burnt out.

"Get over yourself"

"It'll get easier"

Yeah, like hell it did.

But you did promise yourself. This was a promise you'd keep. If you didn't find someone, you were done.

At this point, you had nothing to live for.

Megumi was sitting in the university dining hall, conversing with his best friend, Yuji, whom of course, was always exuberant as ever.

Megumi was partially paying attention, he had spent the whole night reading a twenty page syllabus, which if he remembered correctly, highschool didn't have this many pages to a damn syllabus.

He let out a tired yawn, humming and nodding to what Yuji was saying.

Yuji looked down at his friend, noticing Megumi had slumped in his seat, the side of his face pressed against the cold surface of the table before flicking his forehead.

Megumi grumbled, sitting up.

"What the hell was that for?"

Yuji chuckled sheepishly, as he rubbed the back of his neck and spoke.

"You seemed to be falling asleep there, I just wanted to see if you were still awake. I think you need to-"

Yuji hesitated when he felt his phone vibrate before checking his phone, before sighing and speaking.

"Todo wants to head to the gym with me. But what I was gonna say is you need to give yourself a break, maybe find someone."

Megumi raised an eyebrow, his usual phlegmatic tone apparent in his voice, with a twinge of exhaustion in there.

"'Find someone'? Like a romantic partner?"

Yuji nodded and pointed at him, as he began scooping up his things and shoving them in his bag before stepping backwards, calling to him.

"Exactly! Go find a girl or something! Or a guy! I'd support you either way!"

Yuji exclaimed as he ran into a cement pillar before turning around and running off to go meet up with Todo at the gym.

Megumi rolled his eyes and sighed. "Go find someone"? How the hell did he expect him to do that?

Megumi had been pretty antisocial his entire life. He didn't really have friends until he met Yuji and Nobara in high school. He felt like he didn't need anyone, frankly.

He huffed in annoyance as he pulled out his phone, casually scrolling for a little while. He eventually decided he would get up and head to his dorm, he really didn't have anything to do anyways.

He knew he had to read another 20 page syllabus when he got back to his dorm, but he honestly decided against it for now, just wanting to sleep before he did anything else.

He made his way back to his dorm, falling into his bed. And almost as if on cue, he began hearing... an electric guitar?

"Damn it all..."

Megumi muttered to himself before kicking the wall and calling

"Hey asshole. Play your guitar quietly, I'm trying to sleep"

The guitar stopped before the person on the other end spoke.

"Yeah, sure. Sorry."

Megumi let out a sigh of relief at that, knowing the guitar would stop for now. He eventually fell asleep, but in an hour or two's time, he woke up again, it now being 3:48 in the afternoon.

He looked for his phone before looking over the edge of his bed and sighed. Apparently, he was too tired to put his phone on his desk, so it ended up staying on his bed, and now resulting to laying face up on the floor.

Thankfully, the screen of his phone wasn't cracked.

He opened his phone, before checking the weather app. It was cold, but fhe weather was nice. 52 degrees, but no rain.

He looked out his window and saw how beautiful it looked outside, so he decided to take a walk around campus. It'd accomplish two things;

One, he'd get exercise, and that's never a bad thing. Two, it'd help him get used to the large campus, which compared to his high school, it made his high school look like a daycare.

He didn't bother changing out of his grey sweatpants and black t shirt, and he also didn't bother to fix his messy hair.

Megumi handled cold weather well, so he kept his jacket draped over his desk chair, only putting on a pair of black sneakers and his dorm keys, and his phone before walking out, and closing the door.

After your breakdown, you had quickly made your way to your room, which was across the hall from this guy. How'd you know? He was walking out of his room as you were walking into yours.

The guy had messy black hair and had been wearing grey sweatpants and a baggy black t shirt. You guys didn't converse, but you both nodded a greeting to one another. That's a start, you suppose.

You put the four boxes from your car in your dorm, throwing your blankets and pillows on the bed, filling the small closet and dresser with your clothes (which was mainly jeans, sweatpants, a few pairs of shorts, a TON of oversized band tees and several sweatshirts and hoodies).

You exhaled after you did that, then went onto the next thing. You had already bought the textbooks needed, and for now, you just kept them in the box you had packed them in back home.

You felt too exauhsted to even do more.

The burnout you felt shouldn't be like this, since your lectures would start tomorrow, but you couldn't help it. Your job over the summer as well as the lingering stress and exauhstion from graduation was still there.

You threw yourself on your bed before sighing. Damn, was all of your time at university gonna be like this? Hopefully not.

As you let your mind wander, it fell back to the promise you made to yourself.

One more year. If it's just as bad or worse, you're ending it.

You exhaled quietly, before pulling up the sleeve to your sweatshirt, looking at the several markings made on your wrist. Scars were either a faint pink, symbolizing being older than others, or the redder ones, signifying they're newer.

And even the cuts that scabbed over, you felt the urge to pick st them until they bled again. The urge was strong. You felt like you needed to.

Like it wad a necessity.

You shoved it to the back of your mind. No, don't cut or pick at scabs today, you did yesterday and the day before.

But it was so. Damn. Tempting.

You clutched your wrist with your other hand, squeezing it tightly before sighing. You for up from your bed to grab a cup of instant noodles and headed for the dorm buildings kitchen, to boil the noodles.

Shit, you almost forgot.

You picked up your jacket you had taken off before pulling it back over your head and put on slip-on sandals and headed out your door.

Ooh first chapter<33

This might also be the longest chapter of anything I've ever written so round of applause👏

For the most part, everything abt the friend abandonment and the burnout and all that lovely stuff is stuff from my life so I wanted add a part of myself to this fic and I think so far it's coming out really nicely

This chapter might seem a little dark, the intention for this fic is mostly angst and a bit of sweet stuff here and there (that'll happen when reader and Megumi meet, which is more than likely the next chapter

Idk how ppl will react to this but I hope ppl like it >//<

Taglist is still open! Comment on this post/main contents post/inbox to request being added!

Taglist: @theremainsof @missunrise @1l-ynn @cloudserenity

[swagammemnon]

Caught in Honey

Chp 1 | Next

Am I feral over these men? Yes. Feral enough to write a fic in the most disgusting PoV? Also yes. Here are the warnings; more to come as I add chapters. Basically, the premise is you and John are together, you used to be with Simon, but you don't know Simon is one of John's subordinates. Filth and fun ensue.

The keys jangle deafeningly in your lock, hurting the ears that had been subject to the endless pitiful howls of a golden retriever who’d been spayed today.  That on top of the grimy sensation on your hands from your last three appointments of the day being crusty, old, white dogs with crocodile tear stains.  Despite your exhaustion as you tumble through your doorway, you notice your elderly cat is not in his typical post on the keys table by the front door.  Notice that something in your renovated penthouse apartment is… off.

Slipping off your shoes, you quietly pull out the flashlight taser your boyfriend had gifted you a mere month after you started dating.  When you protested, you live in the suburbs for goodness’ sake, he’d replied in that deliciously gravely accent of his, It’s this or I assign a military escort when I’m away, love.  So, you’d taken it, rolling your eyes because you knew you’d never be able to win against him on this particular subject.  This was the first time you’ve ever reached for it.

Tiptoeing down the entry hall to your open floor plan kitchen and living space, you frown as you spot steaming pots on your stove, your cat happily sat at his filled food dish, munching away.  Unbothered furball.

You nearly scream as huge arms ensnare your waist, bag falling to the floor as you’re lifted from the ground.

But then a rough beard, familiar and ticklish, scratches along the shell of your ear.  Your stomach flipping over itself.

“Got you,” comes the familiar growl.

“John!” you nearly squeal, wiggling until he sets you on your feet so you can turn.  The moment you do, his lips are on yours, consuming your entire reality.  Molten heat pouring from this bear of a man into mouth, invading your veins, melting you into his arms.  Your heart immediately skips a beat, galloping faster as you feel the heady crush of his arms around you.  Snaking your arms around his neck, you let yourself dissolve, a welcome end to a long, grating day.  Between breaths, on swollen lips, you whisper, “You didn’t tell me you were back.  I would’ve made you something–”

“None o’ that, love.  ‘S my job to take care o’ ya,” he grumbles, chasing your lips for more.  More heat, more fire.

Still, the guilt twists in your tummy.  Yes, you’ve just finished your fourth of four ten hour shifts this week, but John… he’s in far more danger than you could ever imagine, risking his life on adrenal squeezing, back breaking missions.  Only to come home and cook you dinner… feed you cat .

“But–” you murmur, setting the flashlight on your counter so you can fist the soft cotton of his dark t-shirt.  He’s freshly showered too, smelling of moss, tonka and sandalwood.  The scent slides shackles around your wrists, drawing your arms tightly against his shoulders.

“Hush,” John commands, greedy bear paws sliding beneath your scrub bottoms, slipping them down the round curve of your ass.  “Just lemme feel ya.”  

You shiver as those huge palms close over the globes of your asscheeks, forcing you to your tiptoes.  Grinding your pelvis into his.  Where a delicious heat is already building.  In the end, there is no winning against John in a contest of chivalry.  Dogmatic devotion that had nearly frightened you away in the beginning. He’d shocked you early with that, staunchly refusing to let you open a single door, showering you with affection both verbal and physical, keeping you tucked beneath his shoulder on the inside of the sidewalk.  Small things.  Innocuous things.  Things you’ve never even thought of before as you made your own way in life.  Not until John.  Not until your ex…

But you shut that thought out immediately.  You weren’t together for a reason.  And John, sneaky little shit, had made himself a fixture of your life.  In the betweens of his deployments.  Even during–with bouquets of flowers delivered to your door or your hospital.  Your favorite meals delivered much the same.  Little texts when he could, pictures and videos that always had your hand sliding between your legs.

“Fuck, swee’art,” he groans against your mouth, walking you against the edge of your counter.  “Missed you so much.”  

He shoves your scrub bottoms down your legs, nipping at the corner of your mouth as he leans his weight into you.  Arching your spine with a large palm splayed along your lower back.  John is an extremely tactile man–and you discovered you were too.  John always shoved hands beneath clothing, not to initiate anything (sometimes) but just to soak in the skin to skin warmth.  You voice absolutely no complaints as his palms eat up your skin, coursing from the joint of your thighs and ass, up under your scrub top to scratch along your ribs, thumbs bullying beneath the wiring of your bra to graze the underside of your breasts.

You release a heavy breath, fingernails digging into his shoulders, bones already trembling as your body begins to remember the outline of him.  The weight of his muscles against you.  His intoxicating scent writhing in your nose.  The scrape of his calloused fingers along your skin.

“Missed you,” you mumble into his hairline as he mouths along your chin, his teeth drawn to your throat like a magnet.  Eagerly replacing the marks he’d left on you before this deployment.  Staining you anew as his own masterpiece.  His groan is rapacious, blasted heat scorching your tender skin.  “Let me clean up, first, baby.  I’m–”

“Don’t care.”  Fuck, his thick as molasses accent might as well be glomming onto your body, trapping in honey as the achiness in your muscles bubbles to the surface.  Your silly brain, now hardwired– trained , smarmy bastard–into relaxing, turning off.  His teeth are sharp and thrilling as razor blades against your throat, eagerly waiting for you to cut yourself on them.  “It’s your Friday, yeah?”

God, how you’ve missed his voice, how his hands cup your waist, your generous hips and drag you where he pleases.  Those torturous hands bully under your scrub top, clearing a path for hungry palms and bruising fingers.  You’ve missed those handprints too, painted along your body, a reminder of his strength, his passion, his protection.  Mindlessly, you nod, your gut knotting as he hoists your ass onto the cool counter without even a shred of effort.  If you really tried, if you truly wanted to, you’d never be able to escape him.  His job is his body, and he does it so fucking well.

“My sweet girl’s tired, then.  Working that pretty brain all week.  You deserve a li’l break, don’t you?” he cajoles, luring a wounded, beaten animal into his trap with the sweetest honey.  You go all too willingly.  Even as your cheeks heat in embarrassment, the admittance to your exhaustion, the weakness.   But there’s a reason John is the captain of his unit—perspicacious eyes stripping anyone and everyone to the bone within minutes of meeting.  You’d been no different.  And his idolatrous words cut straight through any walls your ex had forced you to raise, like the months you’d spent building them, fortifying them, were naught but air between you.

Your blurred thoughts shake away as John’s thick fingers suddenly close around your chin, fingertips pressing into your cheeks.  Puckering your pretty lips.  His enthralling jewel blue eyes are lidded and smug, a dangerously sharp edge glinting beneath.

“ Don’t you.”

John has made it his mission to carve self-compassion into your muscle and sinew.  Just as you had made it yours to him.  But it was hard .  After years of driving and driving and driving yourself into the ground.  Just one more semester, just one more class, just one more test, just one more year and you did it .  But at what cost to yourself?  Years of putting yourself aside in pursuit of your dream, it left crippled habits and cruel voices in your head.  Your ex—he’d started to heal the long-callused burns, help you lay your own foundation beneath the heavy weight of your life’s work.

But then it ended…

“Get ou’a your head,” John all but growls, tearing your focus violently back to him.  “You know the deal, love.  When I’m here, I get your attention, mm?”  Releasing your trembling breath, you nod, chin dipping into his warm palm.  Broken down all too easy after your exhausting week, clearing the path for your usually managed anxiety.  John knew that.  He knows everything .  “Now answer my question.”

You nod, a jittery hollowness bleeding through your limbs, leaving achy exhaustion in its wake.

John dips his mouth against yours, plush lips just touching as he teases you with a kiss.  “Words.”

“I do,” you plead, eyes stinging as he gazes sternly (fondly) down at you.

“Mmm, good girl.”

Those two words kick a moan from your chest, has your fingers clenching on the lip of the counter as John releases your chin.  Only to brutally rip your scrub top off, revealing your ugly, old-reliable bra.  You flush, staring down at the ratty thing.

“I would’ve worn something else if–”

“Swee’art,” John soothes, swiping greedy hands up your ribs, eclipsing your breasts in his eager grip.  You hum, both an acknowledgement and a barrier to the whimper threatening to spill over your lips.  Your breasts have been terribly sore this week.  And John begins kneading them with a force that has your knees shaking around his waist.  “Be quiet.  Let me enjoy my girl.”

Your jaw goes slack, already shivering as John hikes your knees over his shoulder, scrub pants tossed away, using one hand to flatten you against the counter before the other tugs the gusset of your panties away.  You jump as his breath fans your wet pussy, true slick only beginning to drip from your entrance.  You can’t help but cry out as his chapped lips seal against your clit, and you need to sink your fingers into his thick hair, grown out and shaggy after months away but your hands are dirty.  Never truly feeling clean from a day in your hospital until you shower. 

But when John wants something, there's no waiting, no denying. And fuck, doesn’t it make your eyes roll?  The long drag of his tongue up your slit sure does, hands curling around the counter’s edge as an anchor.

“Fuck, John,” you moan, lids closing as he settles his broad shoulder between your thighs.

“Looks like my pussy missed me too, eh?” He snarls smugly against you, laying a sloppy, wet kiss against your clit.  “Poor thing, already weepin’ f’me.” 

You gasp as he slides one finger into you, burying to the first knuckle. Not enough.   Not nearly enough after all you’ve had has been your fingers and the little bullet vibrator you managed to save when John pillaged your toy stash.  You don’t need toys when you have me.   Honestly?  You’d laughed in his face, but had been curious if he could live up to the statement.  Well, toys don’t live up to the thorough fuckings John carves into your body.

You whimper, eyes caught on the ravenous glint in John’s gaze as he watches his finger sink deeper. Groaning as you clamp down on the invasion. “Relax f’me, darlin’.”

Your soft, dripping walls tighten despite his command as his finger bottoms out. Curling into the spot you can never quite tease as well as him. Into the spot that has your thighs quivering, your elbows giving out fully and your back hits cool countertop.  One finger, one damned finger he rubs in maddening circles over that gummy, delicious spot inside you.  One finger is all it takes to have you shuddering with the bleeding of your tension.  Giving in.

You sigh, a knot in your spine uncoiling as you fully set the weight of your legs on his shoulders.  It is bizarre, what little things your brain filters out, like tension, until you feel it blissfully drain away.

“There she is,” John coos against your scorching heat, wetly sucking on your swollen bud like it’s his own personal sweet.  You moan through your nose, hips shifting as he begins to pump that single digit in and out.  You can feel the drag of every single callus on that finger. Too skilled and dexterous for his own good.  The slick trickling out of you soaks your panties, dampens your thighs. “Just lay back, swee'art. Lemme take care o’ ya.”

And so he does. In a sloppy, salacious mess. He stretches you on a second finger too soon, hips bucking into his mouth as he swirls his tongue around your clit before sucking the throbbing pearl into his mouth. The sting of stretching on him too soon merely sharpens the pleasure pooling behind your navel.  You scream when he nibbles down, nose buried in the soft flesh of your mons.  His other hand digs into the fat of your thigh, bruising and stalwart, ceasing any retreat.  You can feel his beard scraping at the sensitive skin of your inner thighs, the friction burning as it shoots straight into your core.  His puffs of breath in between rude slurping and squelching fan like fire over your skin, draggin you further from coherent thought.

Your abdominals flex, his fingers petting your walls in a ploy to soothe the throbbing of your pretty little pussy.  But he merely makes you gasp, flinching as a sharp pulse of pleasure rips through you.

“John,” you moan quietly, breasts aching inside your bra, demanding he just rip the confining thing from your body.

 Sliding in a third finger, the silver-tongued bastard presses his other palm flat over your mons and lower belly, heavy and insistent as though he can make the fingers inside you touch his palm outside.  It makes you groan, arching off the counter though his stony hand keeps you pinned.  You feel so stuffed full, you can almost swear his fingers toy with the gummy tip of your cervix.  Your pretty lips part around the choked out moan John rips from you with a sudden, harsh thrust straight into your cute little womb.

Every time.  Every time your body forgets what it feels like to be fucked by this man.  Every time John carves himself a niche anew deep inside your body.  Fuck, this is only his fingers?

John laves your sopping cunt with his tongue, filthy wet sounds echoing in your ears as he sucks your clit back into his mouth.  Sucking with obscene fervor.  The scrape of teeth has you bucking into his mouth again, and he lets out a rock deep groan, vibrating straight into your core.

“Tha’s it, swee’art,” he purrs against the pulsing skin between your legs, the praise vining through your limbs, scraping delicious quivers against your bones.  “Get ya nice and loose before I split you on my cock.”

“ John ,” you whine, fingernails bending as you press them into the stone countertop.  Heat caresses your cheeks, those depthless eyes snapping up to meet yours.

“Tha’ what you want, sweet girl?” He seats his fingers deep, massaging gyres into your heat.  His smirk is almost mean, mocking sympathy at you as your thighs tremor around his head.  He seats his lips against your clit—a threat as he starts finger fucking you without mercy.  Fast, squelching, your arousal coating the inside of your thighs, dripping down the sensitive skin between your arse cheeks.  

“Gonna give daddy an orgasm?” he croons before dragging the broad length of his tongue over your clit.  Your thighs twitch inward, your stomach pulling tighter and tighter.  John doesn’t stop watching you, your face for the slightest twitch for him to exploit.  You grit your teeth, tears gathering on your lashes as a half-scream leaks past your lips—the pressure, the heat, the intensity of John on you after so long almost fucking painful.  Brows knit together, all that pours from your mouth are beseeching moans, whines as his tongue moves from stroking to circling.  Depressing the bundle of nerves as he swipes it around your slick core.

“Oh fuck,” you whimper, finally breaking as you viciously curl a hand in the collar of his shirt.  Wanting to pull him closer, push him away but you’re stuck.  Frozen and at his mercy.  “Fuck, please.”

John listens, mouth sealing against your clit as his fingers brutally stretch you, pounding into you as your  arousal pools embarrassingly in his palm, drips to the floor.  But his eyes merely darken, lids falling to half mast as he moans against you, feeling how your thighs close, tense and shaking.  Your mouth falls open in a silent scream, face pinched as that coil snakes tighter and tighter.  Painful and pressurized and you’re afraid you’ll crack apart once it releases.  Fuck, you’re already twitching, shuddering as the thunder gathers.  Claps with a deafening bang, lightning striking your blood as one last thrust you feel through your entire body ignites the storm.

Your voice chokes in your throat, body curling off the counter, nails digging bloody strips into John’s shoulder as you break apart.  The lightning grips you, John only making it worse as he works you through it, enraptured by the devastated visage you paint above him.  He could die a happy man right here, your voice finally breaking free with a wretched scream, tears tracking down your cheeks as shocks ripple your body.

You can feel your release gush against John’s beard, filthy and wet, the knowledge of how pathetic you became in mere minutes adding a sweet burn to the pleasure.  Clawing air into your lungs, you whine—sob—his name, your body belonging entirely to another being as it shudders, shatters with your stupefying release.  Your abdominals clench, muscles contracted and shaking to the point of ache , stealing more and more of your air.

Finally, finally , your orgasm releases you and you collapse back onto the counter, heaving miserable little whines on every breath.  John keeps his fingers stuffed inside you, his tongue turned supplicant and languid as he licks the last of your pleasure from you.  Licks until you're keening, pawing at his cheek, asking the man to take pity on you.  He does, eventually.  Rising from his knees and gently lowering your useless legs away from his shoulders.  

John presses down over you, letting you feel his sturdy weight as his mouth captures yours in a sloppy, heated, open-mouthed kiss.  You’re too weak to do much more than breath in his scent as he steals two, three, ten more kisses from you.  As though he is starved of your touch, needing to take in as much as he can as though you’ll disappear.

When he pulls back, you’re sluggish, eyes barely open as you pant like a dog in heat.  The man might as well have sucked the last of your energy out.  He sees this, and your belly warms in a calm, safe sort of way as he smiles down at you.  Entirely besotted, entranced, enchanted with the sleepy, fucked out look on your face.

“Let’s get you cleaned up, mm?”

Drop a comment or follow the Ao3 link and tell me what you think! I'm really interested in getting feedback on my first 2nd person PoV piece ever.

[loversatthegreatdivide]

Heavily Lies the Heart - Chapter 4

Masterlist // Continue Reading

Pairing: Benedict Bridgerton x F!OC Word Count: 1.8k Tropes: mutual pining, fluff, angst with a happy ending, royalty Warnings: death Summary: When two second-borns looking for direction meet by chance, can they find purpose in each other? Or will circumstance keep them apart? A/N: Hello darlings. Sorry this wasn't posted as fast as the others; I'm seeing Hozier today and the pending excitement has had my ADHD going bananas. I also just want to say I love love....that's all.

Beatrice flung herself onto the bed, smiling as she stared up at the ornate ceiling above. Her mind was abound with memories of the past few nights, and as she remembered she could hardly believing it had all been real.

She clutched the smudged handkerchief tightly to her chest, feeling her heartbeat thumping quickly below. For perhaps the hundredth time that week, she thought back to his face in that moment. A slight flush to his cheeks as he so deliberately avoided her gaze. Benedict was undoubtedly a handsome man, but in that moment she found him utterly adorable. He always seemed so effortlessly charming; she presumed embarrassment was a feeling he was rather unfamiliar with. It was gratifying then, seeing him be the one flustered when he could make her heart race with just a look.

And he did make her heart race.

After that first visit, she had gone out to see him twice more--each night more wonderful than the last. She would come to his window and he, now knowing to expect a possible visit, would be waiting. On her second visit, Benedict joked that he felt very much like the Juliet to Beatrice's Romeo. She had laughed, but silently wished for their story to end up much happier than Shakespeare's had.

Each visit fell into the same pattern: He would come down, they would say their hellos, and then the pair would set off down the street arm in arm. They spent the time getting to know each other more and more, and if Beatrice had been taken with Benedict on their first meeting, she was all but consumed with him by the end of their fourth. She hung on his every word, lived for every laugh. He would smile at her, and the whole world disappeared.

Throughout the day Beatrice felt like a caged animal, waiting for nightfall when she could escape and be with him once again.

She rolled over, taking a pillow from the head of the bed to rest herself on. She looked at the handkerchief in her hands, her fingers running across the lace border as she lost herself fully to her deepest thoughts.

She was aware that she knew less than most about love. It was not only romantic love Beatrice had little experience with--the love one might experience with a dear friend, or even close family was overall foreign to her.

She knew her father loved her, but he was rarely around to show it. He spent most of his time out with his friends--or more often, with his mistress. The only way he seemed to be able to show love for his daughters was by restricting their freedoms in a misguided attempt to protect them.

Then of course, there was Charlotte. Beatrice loved her elder sister, but it was undeniable they had little in common. Charlotte had always been a tomboy with a rebellious streak, in contrast to Beatrice's more artistic, quiet demeanor. Charlotte did whatever she pleased regardless of the expectations place upon her, and considered her younger sister quite the bore. This led the sisters to care for one another, but to spend little time together.

Then, there was her mother.

Caroline had spent little time with her daughters, having lived separately from Beatrice her entire life. Then of course the time Beatrice did have with her mother was shared with Charlotte, whom Caroline clearly favored. She had taken no pains to see her daughters as they grew, before one day deciding to quit the country and move abroad. Beatrice had not heard from her since.

She had little in the way of friends, and of course no cousins to spend her time with. She tried making friends with the staff she sae frequently, but whenever they became too friendly her father would promptly fire and replace them.

Her only genuinely close relationships were her grandparents. Even then it was hard to say that she had a typical relationship with either of them, her grandmother having a rather hard time with sentimentality and her grandfather's illness making it difficult to have a consistent relationship.

Considering everything, she rationally understood her feelings of affection could be completely misdiagnosed.

Even so, Beatrice had no choice but to believe her feelings for Benedict were nothing less than love. Surely friendship could not fill one with such longing? Such a desire to be near another person so deeply one may perish from the sheer torture of anticipation? Surely one would not feel their heart skip at the mere sight of a person they did not truly love?

Beatrice knew she was naive. She knew that she was inexperienced and prone to daydreaming. Despite it all, she was certain the constant ache in her chest was the symptom of being truly and completely lovesick. And as much as she knew it could only end in heartbreak, she couldn't help foolishly hoping for something more.

If they could even survive the night.

---

Benedict looked himself over in the mirror for the dozenth time in as many minutes. He pulled on his waistcoat, wondering if perhaps he should change it again, before making a disgusted noise as he turned away.

He felt utterly ridiculous.

How many ladies had he courted in his life? How many more had been declined in disinterest? And yet here he stood, completely enthralled by a woman he could hardly wrap his head around. He felt he had begun to know her quite well, yet still so much remained a mystery to him.

He ran both hands through his thick, dark hair as his eyes fell to one of the many portraits he had attempted to paint since they had met. Despite multiple attempts, he found he simply could not do her beauty justice. Benedict looked into the eyes of the painting staring back at him, and sighed.

He thought about the last few nights. The talks they had, the jokes they made, the looks they shared; all of it seared into his heart like a brand. Upon each parting, he yearned so fiercely to see her again that he thought certain he would never feel another emotion in his life.

They had spoken only a handful of times, but when he had watched her walk away that previous night he was overwhelmed with the urge to chase after her, to hold her tightly and never be parted again. More than any other night before she had seemed apprehensive--perhaps even worried--and it made his heart ache.

It was in that moment he knew he had grossly misjudged his feelings. He had never been simply curious; from their very first meeting he had already begun to fall for her.

Benedict turned back to the mirror, the hesitation clear on his face.

And what was he to do about it? Was he now supposed to court her? Marry her? He had always thought the whole business of the marriage mart hardly worth the trouble; was he now to change his whole point of view for a woman with whom he would very likely have no chance with?

After all, as much as they had shared, Beatrice had held fast to the secret of her lineage. Given her effect on the men of the ton, and her absolute belief that he would put distance between them should he learn the truth, Benedict could only assume she must be from some truly great house. If that were the case, could he even measure up? Beatrice had already told him any future marriage would likely be arranged by her father; as a second son with no title of his own, how could Benedict possibly compete?

He sighed, smoothing his ruffled hair. He stood up a bit taller, giving himself a reassuring nod before moving away to grab his coat and head downstairs.

He had no idea what obstacles he may face if he choice to pursue Beatrice formally, but he wanted to try. How could he do anything less than everything possible when it was Beatrice he was fighting for?

---

Benedict stood with his brother by the drink table, nervously sipping his lemonade as he searched the crowd. He had insisted that his family not arrive fashionably late as they seemed want to do. It had looked suspicious to his family, but he did not care. If things went well tonight, perhaps he may finally have something to tell them.

"Are you well brother?" Colin asked, eyeing his elder brother as Benedict's eyes moved across the crowd, "Are you looking for someone?"

"What? Of course not," Benedict replied, his face still turned from Colin.

"No of course not; you're simply admiring all the eager young ladies looking for a dance."

"Yes exactly, I--" Benedict stopped, finally looking at his brother as he scowled, "Oh yes, ha ha," he said sarcastically.

"It is obvious you are searching for someone; do you honestly not wish to tell me?" Colin questioned, looking somewhat surprised.

Benedict sighed, "It is...complicated. But you are correct brother, I am looking for someone."

"And this someone--it is a woman, yes?" Colin asked.

"Isn't is always?" Benedict mumbled, "When we last spoke, she had seemed rather...well, she was not herself. I am beginning to wonder if she will show up at all."

Colin clapped a hand to his brother's shoulder, "Worry not Benedict, I am sure she will be here."

Benedict opened his mouth to give some snarky reply, but was cut off as the sound of trumpets heralded the arrival of royalty. Benedict thought Beatrice truly must be late, to be arriving after the queen.

"Her Royal Majesty, Queen Charlotte," the steward called out.

The queen entered in all her splendor, with every head in the room turned to take her in. She made her way towards the dias at the far end of the room, which had already been set up with chairs. Benedict turned his attention back to the crowd, hoping the stillness of the room might make it easier to spot the woman he searched for.

His head snapped back almost immediately, not expecting a second announcement.

"Her Royal Highness, Princess Beatrice Amelia Sophia of Wales."

Benedict felt his heart stop, barely comprehending what he saw.

There she was, looking just as she had the night of the ball; the same nervous smile on her face, the same style of hair and dress. She moved towards the far side of the room as her eyes subtly looked through the crowd. Her dress sparkled in the light as she took her seat neside the queen--beside her grandmother.

As she sat on the small stage, she continued to search through the crowd. He was certain she was looking for him, and from her face it was clear she worried what she would see.

Finally, her eyes found his, and the world went silent.

----------

Tags: @empressnatsume @sarahskywalker-amidala @may-and-lay @lovelyxjanett @asterizee @g4ns3y @bubblegumcat229

[ladykailitha]

Batshit Soulmates Part 6

The second one today. I'm trying to get through my backlog because I have almost twenty chapters that are finished and ready to be posted. And that isn't counting the fact that with my daily goal of 400 words a day, I'm definitely going to have more than that the longer it takes for me to post.

This here is my schedule for the next two weeks, but as I said, since I'm always writing, that "return to one chapter a day" on the 11th? That's probably a pipe dream. So I might end up adding a fourth day to my posting schedule so that I can at least put out a chapter a week for each of my WIPs.

We'll see.

For this chapter we have fun times at the Wheelers (heavy sarcasm), that talk and a cliffhanger? Yeah, a cliffhanger.

In Medias Res| Prologue|Pt 1| Pt 2|Pt 3|Pt 4|Pt 5|

****

They had been traveling awhile when Eddie decided to get the lay of the land by getting higher.

Which was great in theory until he saw the vast expanse of...shit he didn’t even know how to describe it other than evil. And it stretched as far as he could see.

He turned around to get back down when Nancy called out.

“Don’t step on the vines!”

Eddie froze. “Uh what now?”

“They’re connected to the Upside Down,” she said with a huff.

Eddie looked to Steve to translate.

“They’re part of a hive mind,” Steve explained. “You step on a vine and basically you’re stepping on Vecna and basically everything else in this hell hole.”

“Shit!” Eddie hissed as he tried to come up with a way to get down without waking up the whole Upside Down to their presence.

“I was thinking that now would probably be a good time to get my guns,” Nancy murmured.

Eddie finally decided that fuck it, he was just going to by pass all the vines jump down.

He landed deftly on his feet and as he pulled up his jeans a little he said, “You, Nancy Wheeler, have guns at your house? Guns as in plural?”

Robin pointed excitedly at her. “I know, isn’t she bad ass?”

“I have a Russian pistol,” Nancy said with a cock of her head, “and a revolver.”

Steve huffed out a laugh. “You almost shot me with that one.”

Nancy smiled back and with a teasing lilt to her voice replied, “And you almost deserved it.”

TWAP!

Steve stepped back with the force of a denim vest being thrown in his face. He looked up at Eddie in shock.

“For your modesty, dude.”

Steve looked down at the vest in confusion. “Wha–”

Just then there was great big roar and the ground shook. Robin tumbled into Eddie and Steve barely managed to catch Nancy before elbowed him in the side.

Steve and Nancy were able to keep on their feet but Robin and Eddie fell to the ground.

Eddie looked at Robin and then back at where the noise came from.

“Guns are really starting to sound good right now,” Eddie muttered.

Robin looked back at him and nodded. “Oh yeah.”

Eddie was rubbing his shin as Robin’s heel had kicked it on her way down but his brain turned off when he saw Steve walk by as he pulled on Eddie’s vest.

Shit. He had miscalculated on that one. He hadn’t wanted Nancy Wheeler to ogle his soulmate but he didn’t take in the fact on how hot Steve would look wearing his battle vest. He only barely managed to help Robin to her feet before he was hoping forward to catch up with Steve.

His little lizard brain lighting up with, “Hot boy! Must follow hot boy now,” as his feet danced around the vines to be by Steve’s side.

And just maybe Steve wanted it too, because as Eddie fell in step next to him, Steve blushed and ducked his head.

Eddie grinned up at him as they made their way through the darken forest of the Upside Down.

****

Eddie kept looking over at Steve, who was looking like he had merely taken a tumble in gym instead of being eaten alive.

And yeah that was hot, it was also worrying as fuck. Eddie was starting to think that maybe Steve wasn’t a dick, the dude was just traumatized.

Robin and Nancy walked slower behind them to give them some privacy. Finding your soulmate in the middle of the end of the world, again, sucked.

“Hey, I wanted to thank you for saving my ass back there,” Steve said, softly.

Eddie bumped their shoulders together. “You saved your own ass, man. What you did there was very Ozzy.”

“Who?” Steve asked, confused.

“Ozzy Osborn? Black Sabbath?” Eddie prompted. Steve’s confusion only deepened. “He bit the head off a bat on stage.”

“Wha?” Steve said, rearing his head back. “I don’t know you’re talking about.”

Eddie smiled faintly. “It’s okay. All I was saying that that was a very metal thing you did back there.”

“And metal is...good?” Steve asked, unsure.

Eddie chuckled. “Very.”

“Thanks,” Steve said, grateful the dirt and grim of the Upside Down hid his blush.

They walked on for a few moments in silence. “I was so jealous of you, by the way.”

Steve reared back his head. “Me? Why?”

“Dustin talks about you all the time, man,” Eddie said. “Like all the time. Never shuts up about you, in fact. The kid worships the ground you walk on. Called you a badass on more than one occasion.”

Steve scoffed. “Dustin thinks I’m badass?”

“Oh, yeah,” Eddie said thoughtfully. “I think I just couldn’t accept that Steve Harrington was a good dude, you know? Rich parents, popular, good with girls, not a douche? There was no way. It just flies in the face of life, the universe, and everything. Including my very own Munson doctrine.” He twisted the rings on his fingers nervously.

Steve reached out and gently took his hand.

Eddie took a deep breath and let out it slowly. “I’m still jealous because you’re the real deal. I’m learning that outside DnD, I’m no hero. I see danger and I turn and run. Or at least that’s what I discovered about myself this week.���

Steve squeezed his hand. “Hey, give yourself a break. There was nothing you could have done about Chrissy, okay?”

Eddie let out a shuddering sigh. “The truth is that if those two ladies hadn’t dived in after you, I would still be up in that boat. I don’t know how you managed to get the loyalty of two of the smartest girls in school, especially with one of them being your ex, but holy shit dude. Nancy just dived in no hesitation.”

But before Steve could answer another rumble ripped through the Upside Down.

“Jesus!” Steve hissed as Eddie said, “Here we go again!”

They clutched each other as they struggled to remain on their feet. Steve looked up at Eddie and his breath stopped in his chest, tightening like a vice.

They were so close that Steve could taste their mingled breathes. He yearned to just lean forward and–

Robin tapped his shoulder. “Come on, let’s get to Nancy’s before another quake hits us.”

****

When they got to Nancy’s room, their hope for salvation turned to ash like the dust falling from the sky.

“What do you mean they don’t exist?” Eddie hissed.

Nancy looked like she was going to cry. “The Upside Down is stuck in 1983. Most likely the day Will vanished and I didn’t get my guns until after.”

Even Robin looked disappointed at not being about to see Nancy’s guns.

It truly seemed like all was lost when Steve suddenly stopped.

“Holy shit!” he cried. “Can you hear that?”

Nancy and Robin shared a glance.

“Hear what?” Nancy asked.

“Dustin!” Steve said happily. “I can hear Dustin! And Lucas! And Max!” He giggled.

“It’s like they in the walls!”

Eddie grimaced. The pain must be really getting to the guy if he was hallucin–

But then he could hear it too. Steve and Eddie shared a look and they turned, booking it for the door.

They thundered down the stairs and they noticed the golden light glittering around the chandler.

But now the girls could hear the kids too. It sounded like they were in trouble.

All four them were drawn to the light. It was warm and comforting. And god, Eddie couldn’t stop touching the light.

“It’s warm,” he muttered.

The other three reached up and touched the glittering glow. Steve and god, how Steve seemed to watch to reach out to him as well.

“Does anyone know Morse code?” Nancy asked, trying to figure out how to communicate with the right side up.

Steve shook his head and even Robin wasn’t clueless.

Eddie licked his lips. “Um...does SOS count?”

Nancy nearly screamed at him, but let Eddie do his thing. They managed to communicate with Dustin, Erica, and Max, who had somehow gotten themselves under house arrest. Or whatever the hell the cops wanted to call keeping children against their will.

They managed to find a way to communicate with them through Holly’s LiteBrite. And so Dustin rambled at a million miles per hour about gates and murders and Vecna.

“Does anyone understand what he’s talking about?” Nancy asked.

Everyone shook their heads. So she simply sent back a single question mark.

“How many times do I have to be right on the money before you guys trust me?” Dustin screamed.

Steve sighed. “Jesus Christ, this kid has to get his ego in check.”

Eddie leaned over so that he could talk to Steve around Nancy.

“It’s his tone, right?” Eddie asked.

“Yes!” Steve agreed, happy that he had someone who understood what a menace Dustin was at the best of times.

Basically it boiled down to needing to get to the nearest gate. Eddie’s trailer.

“Which great and all,” Eddie huffed. “But let me tell you, Forest Hills is no easy walk from here.”

Nancy looked around at them like they were stupid. “The kids left their bikes here. There should be four of them in the garage.”

Steve rolled his eyes. But they all dutifully followed her out to the garage.

The bikes were tiny. God, are they minuscule. They all climbed onto the bikes and rode all the way to the trailer park.

And if Eddie hung back to watch Steve’s ass all the way there... fuck you, no he didn’t. The view didn’t hurt, though.

They made it his trailer and they laid down the bikes in front of it. Eddie began to shake. Frozen in fear. He couldn’t go back in there. They couldn’t make him.

They could find another ga–

Suddenly there was a warm hand on his shoulder. “I know you don’t want to go in there. But we need to get back to the Right Side Up, breathing the shit down here isn’t good for you.”

Eddie gulped, but nodded.

“I’ll be right beside you,” Steve continued softly. “If you need to, take my hand.”

Eddie instantly latched on to Steve’s hand as he led the group into the Upside Down version of Eddie’s home.

He stumbled a bit as he saw the great, big, red, pulsating...wound.

“Shit!” he whispered, a little awed and a lot scared. “That’s where she died. Like right where she died.”

Steve squeezed his hand gently. “I’m sorry, Eds. We just need to find a way to contact the kids and get us out of here, okay?”

Eddie looked around at his home and just wanted to cry. Nothing was where it was supposed to be and yet exactly where it was supposed to be. And that really fucked with his head.

Nancy looked up at the gate. “It’s too high. There’s no way we can get to it without help.”

Steve and Robin looked around trying to see it there was something that could be used to pry it open from below.

Eddie knew he should help them. He knew where things were kept. But he just couldn’t move. All he could do was stare up at that red wound in his ceiling pulsating with a sick twisted form of life.

Just then something poked through it and Eddie screamed. He didn’t mean to, but the sound had escaped his mouth before he even knew what it was.

What it was when Steve got him calmed down enough to actually see it, was a shovel.

It didn’t make him feel any better, until that curly little mop of hair stuck through the now decent sized hole in the ceiling.

“Henderson!” he cried in relief.

“There you are!” Dustin called back. “Do you think that you guys can work it open from your end while we work it open from our end?”

“Is everyone okay?” Steve asked.

“Yeah, we’re fine,” Dustin said. “Let’s get you guys out of there, okay?”

Between them, they were able to get the Gate open and a mattress set up to catch their fall.

“What are those stains?” Robin sneered.

Eddie looked up at them and licked his lips. “I, um... I don’t know what they are, honestly.”

Robin’s lip curled. “Gross.”

The truth was that Eddie really didn’t know. He had gotten it used a couple of years ago when his old mattress fell apart. They could have been there from its previous owner for all he knew.

“So who’s going up first?” Steve asked.

“Not you, pretty boy?” Eddie teased.

Steve blushed. “I want to make sure everyone else gets up there okay.”

Robin eyed the sheet rope and then said, “I’ll go.”

Steve nodded and watched carefully as Robin scaled the rope. She flipped around and landed on the mattress with a flomf!

Dustin helped her to her feet.

“That was quite fun actually.”

Back in the Upside Down, Eddie looked at Nancy and Steve, but neither one moved, so he shrugged. “I guess that means I’m next.”

This was Eddie’s least favorite part of gym, climbing rope ladders. He didn’t ever see the point. Though getting detention for pointing out it was part of the military industrial complex was one of his best days in that class, so...

Up he went. It wasn’t that he couldn’t climb the damn thing, he just loved ranting about having to.

“Okay, Nancy,” Steve said. “You’re next.”

But she didn’t answer. Steve turned to her but she was just standing there. He called out to her again.

“Nancy?”

Eddie’s head immediately popped back over the gate. “Shit!”

Steve shook her shoulders, but she remained immobile.

No, no, no, no...

Not Nancy!

****

Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Epilogue

Tag List: @mira-jadeamethyst @rozzieroos @itsall-taken @redfreckledwolf @emly03

@spectrum-spectre @estrellami-1 @zerokrox-blog @gregre369 ​@a-little-unsteddie

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@tinyplanet95

[cutestkilla]

Happy Sunday! Thanks for the tags today @monbons, @run-for-chamo-miles, @orange-peony and @nausikaaa.

(And @thewholelemon and @rimeswithpurple on Wednesday.) I love all of your creations!

So this week, I posted updates on two different fics. (A first for me, and probably something that will never ever happen again 😂.) It often seems to end up that I'm too busy when I actually am working on the WIP to share it, so instead, have an indeterminate number of sentences from each of those updates. Under the cut for length (and spoilers and minor smuttiness too, I guess).

First, from Ch 2 of Into Her Arms (a birthday gift for @ivelovedhimthroughworse written by @bookish-bogwitch and I):

He raises his head and looks at the reams of streamers and bunches of balloons hung from every bookcase in sight. “Very beautiful,” he says seriously. Then he points. “Aubergine, emerald and crimson.” Natasha smiles proudly. “That's right darling, just like you asked for.” Basil tilts his tiny head to the side, squinting at one of the nearby balloons. “But is that—” He screws up his mouth like he just sucked on a lemon. “Why did you use tape, mummy?” It certainly wouldn't have been Natasha's first choice to spend the past hour and a half climbing up and down and then back up a ladder. She might prefer to be dealing with matters of far greater import, such as the care and cultivation of every single young mind in the World of Mages, but today is too special to leave in the hands of the staff. Today, she’s celebrating her precious boy’s third birthday, and no matter how busy she is with curriculum updates and budget allocations and dealing with the unfortunate results of a careless fourth year putting magic into the phrase “The bomb dot com”, Natasha is determined to give every aspect of this party a mother’s touch.

And from Chapter 7 of Hiding Out in the Open, my gift to @artsyunderstudy:

There’s a new potential charging the air. Like the possibility of sex is somehow bending spacetime, like the lube I left out on the milkcrate next to his bed is a gravity well, dragging his hand down, lower and lower on my stomach with every circle it traces. His knuckles brush through the hair below my navel, and I hold my breath. I hold it as he skims across the waistband of my pants. I hold it when touches me through the thin fabric, as the backs of his fingers graze across my cock, until I can't anymore and it comes out unbidden, as a small raw sound, into his mouth. He hums and keeps going, making smaller and smaller circles and I can’t—I don’t know if I can— “Simon,” I say, without meaning to say anything at all, and he groans. One of his wings wraps around me, crushes me against him, and I can feel how hard he is against my hip. He kisses me hard, pulling my lower lip between his teeth, and I groan too.

TAGS!

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[chaoticbardlady99]

Darling, Never Stop Haunting Me

Spawn! Astarion x F! Ghost Reader

Chapter One: Music, Regrets, and Party Tricks

 Synopsis: (3 months post Netherbrain) You ask Astarion to take you to see a violinist in a park and end up having a heart to heart. You begin to have very peopley feelings towards Astarion. Someone from Astarion's past makes an unwelcome fourth appearance and you help Astarion get revenge.

CW: Mentions of SA (Astarion), violence, revenge, brief mentions of suicidal ideation, a tad bit fluffy

Note: The first couple chapters will have time skips because it is meant to set up the main plot- more chaos is on it's way!

Disclaimer- I put together the picture for the banner, but I do not own any of the pictures. Birdie is a stock image. I will not describe the readers body in detail- she is just merely on the banner for ✨drama✨. I believe the picture of Astarion is from @cheekylittlepupp . And then the symbol of Orcus in the back is a free image off the internet.

Prologue : Chapter Two: AO3

You wait anxiously by the door as Astarion takes his sweet time bathing in the other room. You have both been staying in a room in Elfsong Tavern since the Netherbrain was defeated about 3 months ago.

  You and Astarion usually spend your days in Szarr palace looking for any information on Sunwalking. You’ve found lots of promising leads, but they are all very very far away- the first lead is in some mountain in Amn and you’re excited to see more of the world.

 Tonight is your last night in Baldur’s Gate for a while and you had overheard some tavern goers talking about a Violinist playing in the park tonight. You had felt your entire body perk up at the idea. 

 The only obstacle was getting Astarion to take you. 

  The man pretty much abandons you at nighttime- leaving you alone and lonely. He used to pet you to sleep every night, talk with you and laugh with his companions, and then he lost his ability to walk in the sun. 

 Recently Astarion has been falling into some habits that haven’t been great for his mental health. He’s usually picking you up for a hug after some terrible tryst he had and pretends to joke about the whole thing like it was just a bad fuck, but you knew better.

 You could see the regret in his eyes and the worthless feeling in his soul. It broke your heart to see him go from being on top of the world to rock bottom again. The one time you tried to talk about it with him- he disappeared for a day and you were sure he had abandoned you. 

  Astarion eventually came back and he had actually spent the entire day with you. It was in silence and with many tears, but eventually he told you that he had been pressured into having sex and he felt pathetic. You reassured him a thousand times he’s not and he began bringing them to your room instead so if they are a problem- you would be the solution. You have sent many people screaming out the door with claw marks across their scalps- you even lost a claw in someone’s head! 

 “I can defend myself, Darling,” Astarion said as he cleaned up the mess your broken claw left on your paw, “you don’t need to be my Cat in Shining Armor.” 

 “I know, but isn’t this just so much more entertaining for both of us?”

 Astarion smiled widely, “that is a very good point.” 

  He began spending more time with you at night, but there are still days where he falls into his old habits and is sucked in by his despair. 

 You are really hoping today isn’t one of those days because you really want to go listen to the Violinist. 

 You jolt to life when the door creaks open and Astarion walks out without a shirt while toweling off his hair. He freezes instantly when he sees you sitting there with wide eyes and limbs ready to pounce. 

 “Uh oh, what did I do now?” 

 “It’s about what you are going to do.” 

  Astarion raises an eyebrow at you and you jump up onto the empty desk next to the door so you feel slightly more equal and powerful in the situation.

 “I want to go to the park tonight,” you say, “there is going to be a violinist playing and I want to hear them.” 

 “Oh, so you just need me to leave the window open tonight?” 

  You blink a few times and try to fight the hurt that flits in your chest. Yes, you could go alone and just do that, but you were kind of hoping you could go together as friends and have a normal time together again like you used to. 

 “I was actually hoping you might come with me?” 

   Astarion looks at you like you’ve grown a third head.

 “It’s our last night in Baldur’s Gate and you want me to go with you to listen to a violinist in the park?” 

  His voice is on the border of amusement and irritation. Your heart cracks ever so slightly more. 

 “Yes,” you squeak.

  “That’s ridiculous, Darling,” Astarion says with a dismissive wave, “I would much rather spend my last night in Baldur’s Gate indulging in sinful activities- not some violin concert.” 

 You don’t know why you even try to push it.

 “It shouldn’t be all night,” you say quickly, “you could easil-“

 “No offense,” he interrupts you, “but I would rather spend my night with a person and not my cat.” 

  That shatters something so deep within you that you don’t even know what to do with yourself. You are possessing a cat, but you are still a person and your feelings matter to you. 

  You’ve been nothing but respectful of Astarion and his feelings. You’ve been there for him because that’s what friends do. Obviously- you aren’t his friend, you are just ‘his cat’.

 You aren’t his cat though. You would be able to survive just fine on your own- you will go back to gardening and befowling Donella’s home.

 “I am NOT YOUR CAT!” You scream at the top of your lungs- Astarion takes a step back in surprise, “I am a person! A person with feelings! I am a person first, ghost second, and then cat third! 

“And you know what!? Enjoy your sins and your adventure to find some stupid solution for the sun- I’m done!” 

 You bound out the window in two quick leaps and you can hear Astarion calling from the dark of the room. The fading sunlight warms your fur and is an unwelcome reminder of the wretched form you threw yourself into. You’ve really come to feel terrible for cats- everyone thinks they can just pick you up Willy Nilly or disrespect you as they please. A few children have learned the hard way that you are not to be fucked with.

  Your trek to the park is easy and you get there just in time. Couples stroll around the park and the violinist is tuning up his violin. The moment is so peaceful, but the excitement you had felt previously had disappeared. 

  A couple laughs and another gives each other a lingering kiss. Others are laughing with each other and holding hands. They all look ridiculously in love and so happy- it makes your body hurt and your stomach turn.

  You never had the opportunity to have a partner (which is a sore spot for you) and the moment the violinist strikes the first note of one of your favorite love songs- you find yourself miserably wandering to the only place you could think of, the Rothwell Crypt. 

 You slide through the grates with ease and you jump up onto your mother’s coffin with your head on your paws. Tears fall out of your eyes- a new quirk you didn’t know you could do. 

 You sniff the air tepidly and a choked sob escapes your mouth. Not a single trace of her perfume is around- not that you expected it to be, but you had so hoped. 

  She would have gone with you- cat, person, or ghost. She used to love taking you to see violinists in the park as a child and she would tell you grand love stories that you hoped to one day experience. 

 The worst part? Your mother is long gone. You are no longer the happy-go-lucky 10 year old with the spontaneous, enthusiastic mother who had a sense of adventure. She will never cheer you on at a street corner ever again and you will never smile brightly at her when she put a gold piece in your case- it always made others feel like they should do it too. Your life was happy and warm.

 Now? You are a ghost doomed to be trapped in this form until it dies and then what? Will you even be able to move on? You couldn’t last time so why would it be any different now? It all makes you so angry you could tear your fur out.

 You will never see a violinist with her again. You will never know what it means to truly love someone and to be loved in return. You will never be able to play the Violin again all because Donella thought you were ‘promising’.

  If you hadn’t died, would you have been one of those violinists in the park? Would your parents be there cheering you on? Would you have had full blooded siblings? Gotten married? Become famous? 

 The thoughts cause you to cry harder and you decide you are going to take control of your own fate for once- you will lay here until you eventually starve to death. That seems like a full proof solution. 

  You hear the gate to the crypt open, but you don’t bother to look. Whoever it is better put you out of your misery sooner rather than later. 

 “Gods below, you are much faster than I thought you were,” Astarion exclaims as he practically clammers down the stairs, “come on- that violinist of yours is still playing and - what’s wrong?” 

 “Go away,” you say weakly.

 “But your violinis-“

 “I don’t care anymore.” 

   You expect him to yell at you and to be angry, but instead he walks over and kneels down until he’s at eye level with you.

 “I’m sorry, Darling,” Astarion pleads, “you’re right- you are a per-“ 

 “No,” you choke, “I don’t want your apology. You’re right. I’m just a cat now. So please, leave me alone.” 

 “No.” 

  You finally take the opportunity to look at him and your own misery fades a little when you see his own tear stained face. You both just stare at each other like you so frequently do when you are at a verbal crossroads. 

  Astarion gets up and you expect him to leave, but instead, you are being swung up into his arms and marched out of the crypt. 

  You don’t bother to protest- what does it matter? You’re a lower class citizen in this social situation. Quite literally too- no one will open a bank account for a cat. You and Astarion tried one time and the banker looked like she was going to call the City Watch to detain a lunatic. 

  The last place you expected Astarion to take you was the park. He finds a bench as close to the violinist as he can and puts your defeated form down on the bench. Astarion begins to hesitantly pet you and you can’t help but lean in a bit- your sadness still a weight in your heart. 

 Astarion comments on the music and asks if you have ever played it before. At first your answers are plain and generic, but he somehow pulls the old part of you out from deep within your soul.

  You chatter about what you would do differently, why certain songs aren’t frequently played, etc, etc. and it actually seemed like Astarion was enjoying himself for once.

    The music floats through the air and your heart soars as you hear another song you were extremely familiar with- ‘Meleth’. It’s a slightly darker love song and not one that is popularly played in places where there are a multitude of settled down couples.

  The song itself is about the pining a man has for a woman who is out of his reach at every turn. She isn’t trying to elude him, but the circumstances are just never right. Then, one day, he gets the courage to tell her and she’s been in love with him the entire time as well. It ends with the two of them together- the notes brighter as they flit through the night air. 

  “I always liked that song,” Astarion says absentmindedly. 

 “It’s a pretty one,” you agree, “I wouldn’t personally play this song for the environment, but no one seems too perturbed.” 

  Astarion looks around and notices the couples all enjoying each other’s company. 

 “I guess I didn’t notice.”

 “Really?” You say in surprise, “it’s the first thing I noticed.” 

 “Is that why you didn’t stay?” 

  You freeze and you know for a fact your heart stopped momentarily.

  It’s a fair question to ask, but you try to avoid talking about… you. You will tell him you were just so disgusted by all the love in the air- a lie is better than the truth and he doesn’t need to worry about this. 

 Except, when you finally make eye contact with him, his eyes are soft and inviting. Astarion seems genuinely invested in what you have to say. The look is sweet and it causes a warm feeling to glow in your chest. Maybe it would be safe to divulge this information. 

 “It was,” you say with a sigh, “I dedicated basically my entire life to the violin. It’s insane- looking back on it now. 

“I died never knowing what it felt like to have my hand held or to be kissed. I didn’t even have the chance to fall in love because I didn’t bother to think about it! I was rarely pursued by anyone because I had my head in my music sheets and never made the time to talk to anyone outside of my parents. 

“All of that hard work was gone in less than two minutes and the last thing I remember thinking about was how devastated I was to lose my first consistent gig- as if that was the most important thing I was losing at the time. It’s- it’s dumb that I lost my future because Donella thought I was ‘promising’ and had some sick idea in her head that she would mentor me. Her and her ego- she just had to try to create a fucking vampire spawn with little to no knowledge on the topic. 

“She wanted to mentor young women and try to prove to the higher ups that women were just as capable as men- which is something I strongly believed in! I was all for destroying the patriarchy! Hells- I would have been happy to just have her as a mentor, she was very well known for being a woman of poise, but no! Turns out, Donella was a gods damn Vampire Lord. She wanted a spawn and instead she damned me to a horribly lonely and sad existence in that fucking PALACE! 

“I wish I had been a cat while she was still alive. I would absolutely piss on her head and destroy her curtains. I wonder if pee is considered running water- that would have been very entertaining.” 

 You leer at the tower standing tall in the distance. At least you can destroy the curtains and piss on her grave. Astarion is laughing at your last sentence, but his eyes also tell a different story. He looks sad for you- heartbroken even. 

  Neither one of you speaks for the rest of the violinist’s concert. You’ve watched Astarion’s gears crank away in his head for at least a good hour now and they are still going as the two of you head back to Elfsong Tavern. There is practically smoke pouring out of his ears by the time he sets you down on the bed and lays in his usual spot on the bed. 

  You want to ask him what he is thinking about, but you are also afraid to ask and have it be something dismissive so instead you curl up in your usual spot at the top right of the bed, up against the wall like you so adore. Your fluffy pillow is still waiting for you like it had been before you stomped off and you definitely note the closed windows. 

 “I’m sorry,” he finally says.

 “For?” 

 “For forgetting that you were also very much a prisoner there,” Astarion says quietly, “and for not treating you like my equal. I haven’t been a very good companion lately and I’ve…. Admittedly been trying to push you away. I suppose I didn’t realize how much I didn’t want that until you leaped out of the window- which by the way- you could have died so please just ask me to open the door if you intend on storming off next time, Darling.”

 You roll your eyes.

 “I landed on my paws!”

 “You seem to forget the several thousand other times where you have belly flopped into those rose bushes or onto the cobblestone,” Astarion says through narrowed eyes and pouty lips, “you were terrible to live with when your ribs were broken- you sounded like you were about to keel over at a moments notice.”

 “You seem awful hyperfixated on me dying,” you say slowly, “I’ve died before- it’s not like it’s that scary. Well it is, but I would be fine. I would just be… quieter!” 

  Astarion looks at you and his mouth drops into a frown while he shakes his head.

 “I need you,” Astarion says quietly, “more than I care to admit. I enjoy your company- you make me happy and I would even say you are my friend. I don’t want you to ‘just be in the background’ of my life ever again.”

  You’re stunned by his words and he is actively avoiding eye contact with you. He must have fed recently because a nice rosy blush crawls up his neck and paints his cheeks. 

  You’re grateful cats can’t blush because you would be a sputtering mess- you would get red as a tomato when you were embarrassed. 

 You’re his friend! You are really his friend! 

 “I need you too,” you say brightly, “I’m very little, terrible at hunting, and prone to injury, but I also very much enjoy your company too. I share the same sentiment, if that helps. I prefer being on the forefront of your life.” 

 Astarion looks both relieved and elated at the same time. He picks you up into a hug that you gladly sink into. This feels like three months ago and you silently curse your cat body for purring in delight.

  That warm feeling in your chest is back again and you can’t help but feel intoxicated by the way he smells, how beautiful he is, and how complex his mind is. You really do lov-

 Oh no. Those thoughts need to be put away- not that you would know anyway. Love? Naw. That’s impossible. Your heart can’t possibly be so stupid as to fall in love with a man who will only ever see you as his friend trapped in a cat. Your situation doesn’t necessarily scream romance.

  Except it does make sense because it does break your heart to know he’s off with other people and you will never be able to be one of those people. 

 Well, you’d prefer to be a lot more to him than those people, but that’s not in the cards for you. Being a cat is okay- you get all the love in the world from him, even if it’s not the love you would prefer. 

  You push the thought away and reground yourself by listening to the phantom heartbeat that rings through his chest. He must have fed very recently. 

   You remain there for a while until a loud knock on the door gets both of your attention. 

 “Astarion? Are you in there?” A woman with a high pitched, sickly sweet voice calls out, “are we still going to have a drink together?”

  You and Astarion both look at each other then back to the door. She knocks again and calls out louder. You blink at him a few times and he very awkwardly puts you down before giving you a, “Gods, help me please” face, motions for you to hide, and he opens the door. You turn invisible instead- you may need to commit some major inconveniences and you enjoy using the little bits of magic that are accessible to you. Being a cat with ghost powers is pretty freaking phenomenal if you do say so yourself. 

 “Astarion!” 

  The Tiefling woman is very very pretty, but something is off about her and you don’t like it. She smells wrong and from the way Astarion’s posture changes- it’s obvious that your suspicions are correct and something is off. 

“I apologize, um,” Astarion pauses. 

  By the Gods he doesn’t even remember her name. 

 “Morgana,” she says with a slightly annoyed tone,” it’s okay though, you can make it up to me by buying me a drink.” 

  Astarion agrees to this nonsense and follows her down to the bar. It makes you bristle- something really isn’t right so that must be why the door is cracked ever so slightly. 

  You quietly squeeze through the door and stay close to the wall as you watch Astarion and the mysterious woman walk down the steps. You catch Astarion looking behind him at the door with worry. Your heart once again catches in your chest and is filled with that stupid, unfair glow. 

FOCUS BIRDIE!

 You shake your head and rake your own paw over your ear as if to chastise yourself. You put your adorable pink nose in the air and take a big whiff- the putrid odor from the woman is coming from a room down the hall and the closer you get to it, the worse it becomes. The scent has an underlying metallic smell so you are almost positive something is wrong with her blood. 

  You peek under the doorway and use Misty Steps to enter the room- you immediately throw up upon entering. 

  The room is scattered with papers and it looks borderline manic. There is a dead woman laying out on the bed and all of her blood is completely drained. It’s the same woman that Astarion had left with except she smells normal enough. 

  You reluctantly hop up on the bed- finding, to your horror, that the woman has multiple stab wounds in the chest and her eyes are wide in horror. It takes every last bit of your strength to swallow the nausea that threatens to consume you as you cast Speak with the Dead. She regards you, but she’s not nearly as lifeless as you thought she would be. 

  In fact, she screams, “ARAJ NO!” the moment she reanimates which causes you to leap at least 10 feet in the air with your tail puffed up. You clench your teeth and take a deep breath through your mouth before talking- you don’t want to begin cussing the corpse out. That is not a good way to start an interrogation. 

  “Why did you say, ‘Araj, no’?” You ask sheepishly.

   You know Araj- she’s the person you lost a claw to. She had come to your room in the middle of the day and demanded he bite her. She would not stop asking and wouldn’t take no for an answer until you forced her to accept it. 

  “Araj… paralyze… force herself… Astarion.” 

  Oh that woman is dead.

  “Why!?” 

 “Anything… to be… bitten.” 

  You are sprinting towards the door and smack into it from going too fast. You pop back up, your head now throbbing, and use misty steps once again to exit the room. Turning the corner, you see Tavern goers begin to aww at you, but you hiss loudly and scare them off.

  This feels even worse than Cazador for some reason. At least you knew the bastard was a sadistic, evil man, but Araj just seemed like a minor inconvenience. Now she’s a really big inconvenience. 

  You spot them quickly in a secluded corner of the bar and weave through the tavern goers. You can sense Astarion’s anxiety, but you hear him talking as if he has not a single care in the world. She flirts with him, but he deflects it which seems to upset her- you’d be upset too if your piss poor plan was going to the grave. 

  Adrenaline fills your body as you get closer and see the little paralytic bottle peeking out of her pocket. You race forward and skid to a halt underneath the table. Neither one of them has seemed to notice your appearance so you go straight for the bottle in question. 

 “Has anyone ever told you how incredibly handsome you are?” Araj says, “you look like you have walked out of a poem.” 

  Disgusting.

  “I have heard that before, yes.”

 HA! Take that lady! He could not be more interested and her plan really won’t work if he isn’t interested and her bottle of paralytic disappears.

  You put your teeth around the neck of the bottle and slowly pull it out of her pocket. Your teeth are able to get a solid grip in the cork, but it definitely has some residual paralysis potion on it because your body begins to tingle painfully. However, you continue with your mission and you are able to get the bottle out of her pocket; Only for it to crash to the floor when you drop like a dead weight. One thing is for sure- that’s a hell of a paralytic. 

  The sound gets both Araj’s and Astarion’s attention- Astarion is quickly picking you up off the ground.

 “What’s happening?” He asks you in his panic, “are you hurt? Are you dying? What-“ 

  You see how panicked Araj is as she looks from you to the broken bottle on the floor. Astarion is so distracted with you that he doesn’t see her frantic mind trying to piece together a reason for this to be happening. At least she’s smart enough to realize saying, “I made that paralytic to roofie you so I could force you to drink my blood and it looks like your cat ruined my plan” would not end well for her.

 “Oh your poor kitty must have found someone’s bottle of paralytic,” Araj says while feigning innocence, “I have an antidote I can give her- do you want to continue this upstairs.”

  Astarion nods, but mostly because he just wants you to be okay. You are infuriated right now- this woman is taking advantage of the fact that you can’t talk and you doubt she has an antidote. She’s probably going to poison you and then attempt to assault Astarion. 

  She parts ways with you both so that she can grab the antidote. You want to scream- Astarion needs to follow her and see the nightmare that has been created. However, he brings you into your shared room and begins digging through his pack. A sigh of relief leaves his mouth when he finds an antidote bottle. 

 “I don’t trust that woman,” he grumbles, “and I have a feeling you found a lot in your investigation.” 

  You gladly drink the entire bottle as fast as possible before popping up and looking Astarion dead in the eyes with your tail puffy and tall.

 “Thatsarajandsheisgoingtotrytoforceherselfonyou,” you shout all too fast. 

  Astarion looks positively perplexed, “I’m sorry Darling, but I think I may have misheard you- Araj is a Drow woman and this woman is a tiefling.”

 “YES but she killed her friend or assistant- the details are fuzzy, but I cast Speak with the Dead and Araj was going to give you the paralytic so she could force you to bite her,” you pause for a moment, “which now that I think about it- probably isn’t possible for her to do.”

   Astarion appears to go through the five stages of grief almost instantaneously while he thinks. You wonder what’s going on in that beautiful head of his. Is he sad that she isn’t really the person she was pretending to be? Your heart hurts at the thought and you once again bat yourself over the ear- earning a weird look from Astarion before he goes back to contemplating.

  The shit eating grin that threatens to break his face throws out your non-feline and non-ghost thoughts.

 “It appears we have a problem on our hands,” Astarion says with a mischievous grin, “whatever should we do? We don’t want such filth contaminating our space!”

You nod in agreement, flicking your tail back and forth. You think hard and long about the best course of action. There has to be at least a billion things you could- WAIT!

                    *************************************

  You and Astarion snicker as he sets up Godey’s destroyed bones next to Araj who he had put in the cuffs hanging from the wall. She’s fast asleep- Astarion had asked her to go on a walk with him and then casted sleep on her when he was just outside Szarr palace. You served as the distraction so she couldn’t counter it by popping out of the corner and scaring the woman out of her illusion. The look on Araj’s face was priceless when she realized Astarion knew exactly who she was prior to the big reveal. 

  The last part of your masterful plan wasn’t your idea, but Astarion insisted. He dragged Cazador’s disgusting, rotting corpse up from the dungeons and sat it up in a coffin. He had opened the man’s eyes (how they are still intact is beyond you) and maneuvered him so that it looks like Cazador is staring at Araj. 

  A stirring from behind you causes Astarion to pick you up before casting invisibility. You are going to do a quick body jump- as much as it horrifies you. 

  Possessing a dead, rotting person is absolutely disgusting- you think you’ll stick to being a cat until you can find another solution. However, Astarion promised you that he would take you to the beach when you reach Amn and let you teach him how to read music in return for your discomfort. 

  Cazador’s rotting limbs move uncomfortably and Araj begins to scream in terror as you descend upon her. 

 She did say she would do anything to be bitten.

*********************************************************

Author note: Likes, Comments, and Reblogs are always appreciated! Please let me know if you would like to be on the tag list! I am using the Ghostwalk campaign for NPCs, locations, etc. It is a 3e Campaign and doesn’t mirror 5e Ghosts. I have tweaked some of the ghost powers and such for the sake of the story, but if you would like more information on Ghostwalk and the City of Manifest, there is a PDF online that is free to download :)

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