#trek to dead water
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ligiawrites · 13 days ago
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Your life as an alchemist has been safe and comfortable so far... but when your sister makes you one last wish before passing away, you'll embark on a dangerous journey that might change your life—and the lives of your two companions—forever.
game link || all about the dev
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YOUR SISTER HAS CARRIED the mantle of "Peregrine" for more than two decades. Twelve years older than you, she saw and wrote about the lives of common people, the birth and fall of foreign noble houses, the discovery of plants and animals, and the complex politics of your home kingdom. She lived a life of dangers and excitement, of travels, passions, and experiences you can't even begin to imagine.
And now that she's dead, this mantle (and her newborn child) is yours. 
Ghosts, zombies, fantastic animals, arcanes, and criminals. Fool the monster hunting you, the bandits trying to kidnap you, and your own fears while you travel from South Safira to the very heart of Dead Water.
Thank Goddess, you won't be alone. But with a conniving liar at your left and a deluded "Knight" at your right, will you be able to fulfill your sister's last wish? Will you go back to your niece? And will you allow yourself to love for the first time?
Develop your personality, see how your choices build, and change your bond with Yulie and Tobias (and yourself).
Hopefully, you'll also learn to see the world in a new light after this Trek to Dead Water.
🍂 Full game release: Autumn 2025 🍂
If you want to support the development of this game and access exclusive rewards, please consider supporting me on ko-fi!
About the game:
This story is set 53 years before the beginning of Love the Guard, Be the King.
Experience the world of Five Kingdoms in a completely different way, learning the hidden lore of Opala and Safira as one of the most influential (and non-highborn) figures in their society.
This is a game about the power of story, the powers that *change* history, and the impact that fleeting relationships may have in our lives. Enjoy this mix of Visual Novel and text-based Interactive Fiction!
This short game will have three chapters, and I have almost half of it already. :) Right now, you can play one out of three chapters (~9k words), and they are only available for my supporters on ko-fi. 
So, if you're seeing this, thank you for being amazing and for believing in my career! :)
If you have any comments, suggestions, problems, or worries, please let me know on ko-fi or in this forum.
AGE SUGGESTED: 16+ for erotic nudity, non-explicit sexual scenes, and mild violence and gore.
Main Characters:
Yulie of No House - The deluded "Knight" - 27 - She / Her
Born in Safira to a Topazian ambassador and a Safiran barman, Yulie saw her world crumble when she was six and a half, and her mother dared to question the Safiran nobility's interference in Topazian politics. Queen Juliana of House Inara did her best to protect Yulie's life, but there was little the Queen could do for her parents.
Stripped of her family and her surname, she lived under the Queen's care in a secretive palacete in the South, but as soon as she turned fourteen, Yulie knew she needed to leave the care of the people who ruined her life.
Now, at twenty-seven, Yulie's dream and main objective is to become a Knight of the Opalean Dragon Order—but focusing on this might be way harder than she thought, mainly when she manages to hold certain Safiran Peregrine in her arms.
Tobias Cidreira Dasherner - The Conniving Liar- 29 - He / Him
Tobias is a trans man born and raised in the biggest capital of Safira. With an immense talent for the Arcane, Tobias was taken under the wing of Great Arcane Master Domingos of Safira when he was only five. 
The Arcane College of the Balanced Arts is an expensive place, though, and despite the Arcane's great fortune, Tobias changed over the years. Once studious and quiet, Tobias grew tired of the absurd rules in the Safiran College and the kingdom's abusive laws. He tried to do good. He tried to change things for the better. Still, thanks to a grave mistake on Tobias's part, the Great Domingos lost everything.
Now, the only thing Tobias wants is to make enough money for the greatest con of all: a nice tavern of his own, so he can recover at least part of the money his old master lost.
… And YOU! - The newest Peregrine in Safira
Child of a long line of alchemists who lived their whole lives in The Village, you never felt the need to travel. Your sister did, so it felt just and good (for you and for her) when she was chosen as the new Safiran Peregrine. But this happened twenty-three years ago, and now she's dead after giving birth to your first niece.
Your task (for more than one reason) is to travel to the dangerous Dead Water, so your sister's soul will finally rest and stop coming back to haunt you.
Build your Peregrine and your relationship with your companions, and discover the hidden history that brought you to this point.
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saint-moro · 2 years ago
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Okay Saffi Nation, considering this interview, how do you think things will turn out for Seven and Raffi by the end of season 3?
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shomatoriashi · 27 days ago
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11/29/24; 03:03pm
dragon!sylus x fem.reader
notes: for all the sylus girlies out there, this is going to be my thirstiest and most self-indulgent dragon!sylus fic (⺣◡⺣)♡ again, this is all just my interpretation and it may not even be close to canon!
warnings: monster f-cking oh my god i can't believe i'm going to do this since i've never written this type of spicy story before 😭😭😭😭😭 i'm sorry if this ends up sucking so bad !! i just want to type out my spicy thoughts hhhhhh
[ minors don’t interact; by choosing to interact with this content, you have consented to viewing something n-fw despite the warnings. ]
night had fallen across your small village, painting the once lively desert in somber hues of blue. with the moonlight as your guide, you drape your shawl even closer to your body to help with warding off the cold air.
as you made your way to the oasis, your mind was filled with anxious thoughts pertaining to your mother. she had once again fallen ill, her frail body being taken over by a fever as she struggled to even breathe while she lay motionless in bed. your heart was filled with love for your mother as you spent the night wiping the sweat from her brow with a damp cloth, not wishing to leave her side.
feeling your presence next to her, her eyes blearily meet with your gaze as a tiny smile paints her expression. "you should...rest..." even with her reassuring words, you refused to leave her side.
yet when your bucket of water runs dry, you knew you had to leave your mother to get more water. you needed to help her with breaking her fever, and in order to do that, you had to get more water from the oasis. leaving the damp cloth across her brow, you told her that you would return soon before setting off towards the crystalline pool of water. each step that you take brings an image of your sickly mother and the thought of how much weaker she had become-
with a click of your tongue, you banish such intrusive beliefs, refusing to even entertain the thought that you would ever lose her. fighting back against the cold, you push forward as you made your trek across the sands, noticing the palm trees and the sight of those ruby red flowers in the distance as they swayed in the wind. anticipation was felt coursing through your veins, your legs now breaking out into a run until you were just a mere few feet away from the crystalline waters of the pond-
but as fate would have it, you were not alone.
settled in the midst of the pond was what appeared to be a winged demon, his wings remaining spread as you felt pinpricks of fear clenching around your heart. your breathing was uneven and heavy as you slowly backed away from him, only to see the demon lift his head, his silvery hair seeming to glow beneath the moonlight.
"your heavy breathing is a dead giveaway." you gasp, feeling your heart jump within the confines of your throat the moment he suddenly appears before you. rufescent eyes gaze down at you in amusement as full lips remain tilted up in a smirk. your eyes trail toward his silver locks of hair and finally noticed the two horns settled atop his head (the image reminding you of a dark and regal crown). from his broad chest to the alluring crimson gemstone settled in the middle of his pale skin-
the demon was equal parts devastatingly beautiful and terrifying to you.
his wings end up engulfing you, trapping your body against his as he takes in a deep whiff of your hair before trailing the tip of his nose against your skin. as he takes in your scent, you were certain that he could hear the way your heart seemed to pound from out of your ribcage.
"yet perhaps what's more distracting than your breathing is the lingering scent of death you have..."
his words succeed in making your heart cease its beat, your fear now replaced with anxiety as you narrowed your gaze at him. "w-what do you mean?"
a look of intrigue was seen settled within his crimson gaze. "there's no need to be so frightened, treasure. you look to be as healthy as a mare... yet someone close to you-"
mother...!
you gripped at the demon's shoulder, allowing your nails to dig into them while your gaze became wild, "my mother... you're referring to my mother. please, can you save her?!"
he doesn't answer your panicked words, but at this point, you were willing to do anything to save the only family you had left-
even if it meant forging a deal with the devil.
"please, i'll do anything for her! if you have the means to save her-"
the demon lets out a deep chuckle, the sound being enough to send almost pleasant vibrations down your spine. using his free hand, he wraps it around your waist, bringing you closer to his naked chest while at nearly eye level with the ruby settled on it. "relax, treasure... if you're willing to do anything, then i suppose i can give you this."
as if it were made by magic itself, he gently pulls something out of your hair, extracting a vial that held a deep red liquid. "give this to your mother, and it shall heal any ailment that she has."
hope erupts within your chest, yet before you could utter another word, the devil whispers into your ear, "remember your promise to me, treasure."
and with those final words, he disappears away from you, leaving you alone with an empty bucket and a mysterious vial. not wishing to wait another second, you rush back to your mother, nearly pushing your body to its limits.
your lungs were burning now when you finally reached home, a quaint little hut settled near the edge of your village. you enter and immediately go to your mother, holding her frail frame closer to your chest as you uncapped the vial and open your mother's mouth, pouring the crimson liquid inside.
she coughs a bit, but manages to swallow the entire contents of the vial. once you were certain the vial was emptied, you toss it to the side, watching your mother with baited breath.
despite your anxiety, you felt your hope continue to grow when there were noticeable changes seen within your mother. the color slowly came back to her skin, her lips no longer appearing ashen and dry. along with those changes, you noticed how her hair slowly became glossier, and as she opened her eyes, it was clear that they were livelier than ever.
"mother...!" letting out chocked sobs, you cling to your mother, basking in her soft coos of your name as she places a gentle kiss against the top of your hair.
and as you sought the comfort of your mother's arms, you remained blissfully unaware of glowing ruby eyes watching your every move.
{ ... }
your life had gotten brighter with your mother by your side, healthy and glowing with vitality. now that you had her back, the memory of the devil and your promise to him became a distant memory-
however, it would quickly become apparent that not even demons would go back on their words.
one late evening, as you were in the midst of making supper with your mother, the sounds of a stampede approaching fills your heart with dread. the commotion doesn't go unnoticed by your mother as her eyebrows remain furrowed in response.
"what is going on?"
you put a finger over your lips, blowing out all of the lit candles as you listened intently to the conversation from outside of your home.
"our king has requested that we find her and bring her to him."
"but of course, as if i would be foolish enough to go against the drake borne from shadows."
upon hearing such a strange title, your mouth goes dry as your mind goes back to that fateful night-
the night the demon had helped with saving your mother from appearing at death's door-
he had remembered after all.
the sounds of footsteps grow louder and heavier, giving you little time to react when the flimsy door of your home was kicked down. dozens of men dressed in suits of armor began crowd around you, and your mother's panicked cries made your head spin.
"it's her, his bride...!"
"get your hands off of my daughter!" your mother's shrill cries echo within your ear as she tried to claw at the men who had captured you.
"get this wench away from us!" the broad man holds you close to his armored chest while tossing your mother a large pouch filled with gold. "take this as a gift from our king... consider it a dowry of sorts."
"you bastard, give my daughter back to me! SHE'S WORTH MORE THAN JUST A MERE FEW PIECES OF GOLD!" your mother cries out to them, about to reach out to you once more when you stopped her.
"no, it's okay... i'll be okay..." you swallow back your tears and meet her gaze, "i-i was the one who made a deal with the devil. h-he saved your life... and i promised to repay him."
a pained expression crosses your mother's features, "w-what do you mean...?"
the knights remain silent, yet still kept you in a tight grip to prevent you from running away, "that night when you suffered from a fever... you were close to dying... and he had sensed that. i didn't wish to lose you, so he gave me this vial filled with a deep crimson liquid-"
"you have been blessed by the shadow dragon's blood, do not let my king's sacrifice go to waste."
you felt your heart break the moment your mother's face crumpled a bit when she realizes the truth, with her hands immediately covering her lips as she watches you being taken away from her.
as they began to carry you out of your hut, you didn't wish to worry her as you cried out, "i'll be back soon... just please... do not worry about me! i'll come home soon..."
the last sight you had of your mother was of her falling to her knees with tears streaming down her face.
{ ... }
tarus city was what they called this place-
and you felt as though you were living in a dream, surrounded by glittering gemstones and polished gold. your eyes seemed to water with each new sight that came to you.
even with all of this beauty, you felt a little numb and homesick-
but a promise was a promise.
your devil held up his end of the deal by saving your mother-
and it was your turn to repay him.
you were broken out of your thoughts and given little time to take in the new sights as you were lead even deeper into the city. while the knights dropped you off in a golden palace, you were surrounded by women who helped with preparing you for their king. your body was stripped of your tattered clothing before being dunked into a luxurious tub filled with water warmed by what appeared to be heated stones. the sweet scent of rose petals fills your senses, putting you in a daze as the other maids worked on washing your hair.
once your body was cleaned, the women placed a thin sheen of rose oil against your skin, making sure that you were glistening before wrapping a sensual dress made entirely of silk around you. the finishing touches were added when they painted your lips in a light pink hue before taking you out of the palace.
and you were given little choice but to follow.
settled in a line, you follow the maidens as they walked across tarus city, keeping their heads down with every intention of bringing you to their king. your eyes take in the townspeople and felt a sense of discomfort fill you at how they were looking at you-
like you were someone that was meant to be worshipped.
your reveries were cut short when the women stopped walking, not daring to enter the gaping cave as they parted, settling your form dead in center as they made a path for you. with your heart racing with fear and anticipation, you step forward into the cave with your head held high.
the deeper you walked into the cave, the more you realized that the man wasn't a demon at all, but a dragon after all. when you were younger, your mother would read fairytales to you pertaining to dragons and how they liked to hoard and collect treasure.
and surrounding you was just that- an infinite amount of treasure.
you had never seen such riches before in your life. from rainbow gemstones and rare diamonds of every size to varying gold coins, it was no wonder that your mother had received such a high 'dowry.'
your eyes continue to scan all across the cave only to stop when you saw a familiar sight settled before you.
the devil's drake's back was facing you, and you watch as his serpent-like tail sways back and forth almost lazily. he lay on what appeared to be a smooth marble tablet, his wings nowhere in sight as he was dressed in his dark armor (was it even armor after all? or were they just a part of his body?)
"your footsteps are noisy, and you breathe heavily." the drake manages to reach out to your trembling form with his tail, wrapping the armored appendage around you as he brings your form down against the marble tablet. you land on your back with a gasp, heart beating wildly out of your chest when the devastating man smirks down at you. you were left gazing up at him through your lashes, watching as he closes his eyes before breathing in your scent, "ah, but it seems as though the lingering scent of death no longer haunts you."
he brings up a heavily armored and clawed hand up to your face, gently caressing at your skin with the back of it. even as your heart began to race within the confines of your chest-
you felt no fear-
only a sense of duty for fulfilling your promise to him all while ignoring the strange ache and tingling sensation felt between your legs.
"there's no need to be frightened, treasure." he leans closer to you, placing his lips against your temple. "sylus... you may call me sylus, for only you can call me by my name."
you shiver in response to his voice, feeling it reverberate throughout your body as sylus keeps his head hidden within the curve of your neck. "mmm, they did a good job, making you appear so utterly delectable for me..."
you gasp when you felt the tip of his tail travel between your legs, with sylus purposely sliding the underside of his scorpion-like tail against your slick folds. the odd sensation makes you writhe beneath him against the marble slab, your gasps echoing throughout the cave as you felt a strange pressure build up from within your abdomen.
"hah...ah... this feels... weird b-but so good." your mind was going drunk and hazy from the pleasure as you looked down to see his tail lazily going up and down your pussy lips, collecting your honeyed arousal. sylus lets out a soft groan before removing his tail.
"you smell so fucking sweet..." you tremble when sylus meets your gaze momentarily before descending upon your form. the tip of his horns gently gracing at the silk fabric of your dress, making paper thin tears in them as it slowly fell away from your form. with you remaining utterly bare for the powerful drake, you tremble as he lets out a guttural groan of your name, settling himself between your legs while breathing in your pure feminine scent.
with your slick entrance so close to his lips, sylus wastes no time diving into you, pressing his lips against your entrance as the sheer amount of pleasure he gifts you reaches almost dizzying heights. your hands grasp at his soft strands of hair, yet when he introduces a finger inside of your heat, you opted to cling to his horns for support.
sylus knew of how soft and pliant your body was compared to him, and he was able to maintain a certain amount of gentleness when he allows his hands to trace at your pussy lips. your sweet taste was all that filled him, and when he gently pinches at your hardened, bundle of nerves, he knew he was on the right track when it came to making you fall apart for him.
your back arches against the marble slab, hands gripping at his horns when you called out his name before allowing the tightness felt in your abdomen begin to snap. something warm and hot rushes out of you, earning yet another guttural sound from sylus as his tongue laps up everything you had to offer.
in the midst of your pleasured haze, you watch as sylus stands back to his full height, his hand gripping at the leather the covers his lower body before ripping them away from him. while watching him, you felt your eyes go wide upon seeing such a magnificently terrifying sight.
you had never once been subjected to witnessing a man's arousal before, watching as his cock goes hard while ready to be mated-
let alone two hard cocks that appeared pulsating with an angry shade of red. clear fluids were seen escaping from the tip, but perhaps what was more interesting were the ridges seen decorating the underside of his cock. sylus catches your wide (and admittedly, scared) eyes and smiles down at you. gently framing at your face with his free hand, he uses his other hand to help with further stroking his two cocks. "erase such expressions of fear treasure, for these exist for the sole purpose of pleasuring you."
sylus purposely leans over your, stroking his cocks against your slick folds. with a shaky sigh of his name, you wrap your arms around his broad back, feeling the strange ache become even more intense the moment sylus continued to rub himself against you. "my bride... my precious bride... i'm going to mark you as mine for all of eternity."
with those final words (sounding very much like an oath), sylus thrusts both of his cocks into your slick heat, making you cry out to him as your body struggled to take him all in. not wishing to overwhelm you with the flurry of new sensations, he keeps only half of his cocks within you, sliding them in a rhythmic, back and forth motion inside of you, making you feel not just every inch of him-
but each individual ridge as well.
the pain of having your purity taken was there, but more so than that was the intense pleasure you felt upon feeling his cock taking over the entirety of your slick walls. with his eyebrows furrowed in intense concentration, sylus works on pumping his cocks in and out of your aching cunt, basking in the squelching sounds that seemed to echo across the cave each time he rammed his hips back into yours.
"ngh, s-sylus!" being a now former virgin, you had never experienced such intense pleasure before, with your release rushing out of you in what seemed like an intense wave. the red hot sensation courses through your veins as you spilled your love juices down each of sylus's shafts, earning a broken groan from him.
"f-fuck, i can't last even a second inside of you!" stilling his hips, your moans quickly morphed into broken sobs when he pumps your womb full of his thick cum, with your aching entrance unable to hold it in as his seed spills out of your core in soft spurts.
sylus ends up landing on top of you, his chest pressed achingly close to your breasts as his cocks continued to pump you full of his seed. the intensity of his own release makes him let out a string of curses as he kept his hands in a fisted position next to your head.
when the twitching finally stopped, you were able to catch your breath, feeling the droplets of sweat running down your brow. it takes a couple of minutes for the post, lovemaking clarity to kick in, with sylus letting out a dreamy sigh of your name. he was ready to pull out of you, yet you had stopped him with your legs now wrapped tightly around his waist.
"wait, don't leave me..." you admit to him with heat felt against your cheeks. sylus meets your gaze while giving you a cocky expression, "oh? is my treasure getting greedy now?"
sylus lets out a rich chuckle before tossing both of your legs over his broad shoulder, making you moan when you felt both of his cocks harden while remaining buried deep inside of you. he begins yet another rapid pace while telling you, "hah, fuck, i wanted to go slow and be romantic with you... i had thoughts of spoiling you as my mate by promising to protect you and your mother... but that'll have to wait. right now... i wish to witness your further descent into impurity as i make you dumb and needy on my cocks..."
needless to say, your now husband and mate had successfully accomplished such hedonistic goals.
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end notes: man sylus being canonically a dragon makes me so h-rny for him,,,, i need him so bad someone send h e l p. this is unedited, but my goal is to make all you sylus girles just as needy as i am with this post 🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠
all stories are written by rei; please do not repost, plagiarize, or translate my works!!
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rueclfer · 5 months ago
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shut up, my moms calling // touya todoroki
when you sneak out to share a first at the river.
a/n: back on my touya b.s.
part two
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"Jesus, what the fuck happened?"
By the time you approached Touya, you were gasping for air. There he was leaning up against the fence, tossing his flashlight up in the air while he patiently waited for your arrival while it looked like you just came from an animal attack.
You didn't answer him. You were bent over, clutching onto the chain link fence with one hand and the other on your scraped knee as you tried to catch your breath.
"Fuck." You hiss. "God damn."
You look up to see his shit eating grin, holding back his laughter.
"Fuck off." You huff. "My...neighbor's light...came on...so I booked it." You say in between gasps of air.
"And your knee?" He cocked an eyebrow at you clutching onto your ripped jeans and bloodied knee.
"What do ya think? I ate shit." You groan, finally standing up straight. "How long have you been waiting?"
"Like 10-15 minutes? I told you, you should've just asked your dad to sleep over. All this could've been avoided." He shines his flashlight to your knee, illuminating the caked blood leftover on your knee and pants.
"You forget that my dad isn't your biggest fan." You shoot him a sideways glance as you begin to shrug off your backpack, lightly fanning yourself.
"True, but, he's friends with my mom, and my mom likes you so that's an automatic in. Rei would've vouch for you."
"I guess." You mutter under your breath. "Next time we'll have her call my dad and ask for me, then."
Touya slips off his own backpack and tosses it over the tall barrier, letting it softly thump onto the patch of dirt and dead leaves, following it with your own bag.
He starts his climb first, effortlessly making his way to the top and jumping straight off from there, landing into a squat. You followed suit, but of course there he was standing close by behind you to make sure you have all of your bearings and not slip.
"You got it?" He holds out his arms, anticipating your fall.
"Duh."
Once your feet hits the ground, you slip your backpack back on after dusting the remnants of dirt off.
"You have your flashlight?" He asked. "Or do you need one? I have an extra."
You whip out your flashlight from your back pocket and shine it straight onto his face, causing him to wince and block it with his hand.
"Perfect." He groan. "After we get past this tree, it's all rocky and shit, okay? So watch your step because I'm not going to carry you back if you fuck up your other knee."
You silently flip him off. After he returns the gesture, he begins to lead you two deeper into the woods, letting your flashlights guide your way. You weren't really sure where you were heading, but this morning Touya told you that he "knew a spot," so of course here you are now, walking through a forest.
"Touya, look." You whisper, clutching onto the strap of his backpack to stop him and and point your flashlight at the base of a nearby tree, revealing a frog perching on an exposed root. "It looks like you."
"And you look like the piece of dog shit next to it."
At some point, when you were you felt you had possibly walked into the danger zone of the forest and were ready to tell him that you should head back, he turns around and stops you first.
It was sudden, almost causing you to fall back.
"What the fu-" You began, about to scold him for startling you. He grabs your shoulder and holds a finger to your mouth. You press your lips together, searching his face for a sign as to what your reaction should be. Should you be panicking? Is there an animal nearby?
"Shut up and listen." He whispers, cupping his ears.
From the distance, you hear a soft murmuring of continuous running water. You mouth slightly gaped open.
"No way." You mouth, slowly growing into a wide smile. "How much farther?"
"Should just be up ahead. Let's go." He motions for you to continue following him.
After a few more minutes of trekking, the trees open up to a shallow river lined by rocks and boulders. The water was almost still from where you were standing, but from afar, you could hear it rushing down against more rocks that stood in the middle of a stream.
"This is so fucking cool." You beam, turning to him to see him holding onto a tree to take off his shoes.
You two ended up choosing a boulder to perch on, letting your feet hang into the cool water. You close your eyes and take in the hot summer night and ambiance of frogs and the chirping of crickets.
"I actually stole this spot from Natsuo, surprisingly. The nerd took his girlfriend out here to ask her out."
You gasp "Natsuo? A girlfriend?"
"I know." He laughs, keeping his gaze forward. "My little brother has a girlfriend. Hasn't even introduced her to the family yet, that fucker."
"Damn before us too. We really do have no game." You laugh at yourselves.
"Pshh, says you." He waves you off. "At least I've had my first kiss."
You jaw drops and your head snap towards him.
"What? How come you never tell me these things?" You whine. "When was this?"
"Ah, it's embarrassing." He turns his head away to avoid your gaze, obviously regretting revealing that bit of information. In the darkness only illuminated by moonlight, it was hard to tell, but you just knew his ears were turning red. "It was when I was like 8."
"Oh." You deflate. "I mean, that barely counts" You roll your eyes.
"Still counts though."
"Tell me about it then. How was it?" You couldn't help but feel a twinge of curiosity. You were at the bright age of 17 with no experience with romance, let alone a kiss, and you were surprised to hear that your best friend since childhood was somehow one step ahead of you in this category without even trying.
He sits and thinks for a moment, lightly kicking his feet in the water. "Kinda gross. 8 year olds are inherently little grubby and unhygienic things, so imagine two of those pressing their mouths together."
"Figures." You sigh. "We're such losers."
"Who is we? Maybe you're a lovesick loser, but I'm perfectly fine." He flicks water at you, which you return with a handful of river water.
"You really haven't kissed anyone since?" You wiped your hand off on your pants.
"Nope." He popped.
"You're almost 18." You mutter. "Don't you think having a real first kiss is like, a mark of growing up? Maturity?"
"Mmm no I don't think so. That's just life, ya know? It just comes at you and I bet tons of people don't get their first kiss until well into adulthood." He shrugs. "Why do you want yours so bad?"
"Sometimes I feel so behind everyone else." You bring your feet up out of the water and hug your knees, using it as a head rest as you look over at Touya. "Everyone has an admirer, everyone has a romantic interest, everyone has kissed someone, except for me."
"You want your first kiss, then?" He mutters under his breath, looking away from you.
"Huh?" You scoot yourself closer to him, leaning into to his direction. "What did you say?"
"Do you... want your first kiss, then." He says a little bit braver this time, slightly meeting your eye from the side.
Your mouth gaped open and your hands suddenly go sweaty.
"From.. you?" Your eyes widen in surprise.
"I mean, yeah. If you want. Since you're so desperate for it" He starts playing with the drawstrings of his hoodie. "Only if you want to though." He quickly adds on.
"You're fucking with me. Do you want to? I know I'm bitching and moaning about it, but you don't have to do charity work, ya know?" You nervously laugh.
"It's not charity work." He quips back "We're best friends, so... I don't know, isn't it easier to do all that with someone you know and trust? If it makes you feel better, I guess this would be my first real kiss too."
You blow out a long breath of air. "Okay... I guess you're right. Best friends.. but, I don't know what I'm doing. Do you?"
"No, I don't." He sheepishly rubs the back of his neck. "I just figure it's all improvising."
You turn to face him, motioning him to do the same. He takes his feet out of the water and criss cross them, scooting close enough to where your knees meet.
You flick on the flashlight and set it in your lap, letting it slightly illuminate his face. His face is bright red, but you wouldn't dare tell him. Not in this moment. Yours probably was too- you could feel the heat off of it.
"Can't we do this in the dark?" He whines, blocking the light with his hand. "It's embarrassing."
"How am I supposed to see what I'm doing?" You shoot back. "You want me to pretend like it's not you, or something?"
"No." He quietly mutters. "Your eyes are going to be closed anyways. How are you not even a bit embarrassed by this?" He rubs his pink stained cheeks.
"Because you're my best friend, and I love you, and this is all for the purpose of science." You pat his knee, comforting him all while your heart was racing and your hands were clamming up. "And this is your idea so if this blows up in our faces, it's your fault."
"Okay, fine whatever." He rolls his eyes. "For science."
"Put your hands behind your back." You instructed.
"The fuck? Why?"
"Because if you touch me, I'll panic." You pout. "Please."
"Every guy you kiss you're gonna ask them to sit on their hands?" He cocks an eyebrow at you.
"Shut up and do it, Touya, before I push you in this river."
He grumbles to himself for a second, but does as you say, interlocking his fingers behind his back.
You place both of your hands on his shoulders, leaning your faces in close. You look down at his lips, parted in anticipation. You could hear his slight heavy breathing layered over the running water in the background.
"Say stop whenever, okay? Okay. You ready?" You whisper. "Not nervous?"
He slowly nods his head, glancing down to your own lips, causing your stomach to flip. "Stop talking and just do it."
You weren't sure who leaned in first, but before you knew it, your lips were connected.
Soft. Warm. Slow. Running out of breath.
Your hands unclench his shoulders and move down to his knees, letting yourself comfortably relinquish control. Your body was on fire, and you were ready to jump up and hide after this, but you kept reminding yourself that this could be considered his first kiss too. You two were doing this together.
Suddenly, you feel his hands placed on top of your own, causing you to tense.
"Don't freak out." He breaks away for a moment to mutter against your lips, before continuing to let his hand climb up.
Right as his hand gets comfortable against the side of your neck, his phone resting in the pocket of his hoodie suddenly starts vibrating, causing you two to pull back, and snapping into realization of what you two had just done.
With wide eyes, you instantly flip off the flashlight and turn your head to avoid his gaze as you lightly pant to catch your breath.
"Fuck." He mutters, running a hand through his hair, looking at the caller-ID.
"Who is it?" You whisper-yell. "Who's calling you at this fucking hour?"
"Shut up, my mom's calling." He leans his head back and groans, rubbing his face in his hands. He hops off the boulder and began feeling around the ground for his shoes.
"Hello?" He slowly answers into the phone.
"Touya! Where are you?" You could hear Rei scold him loud enough even when she wasn't on speaker.
"Sorry, mom. I couldn't sleep so i'm just out and about." He press his phone against and cheek and shoulder as he begins putting his shoes back on, in which you follow suit.
"Is Y/N with you? Please tell me she is, because her dad called."
"FUCK!" You mouth silently to him. "Say no. He's gonna beat your ass. Say no." You whisper to him.
Touya looks at you for a moment, biting his lower lips while debating on what to say to his mom.
"Don't lie to me either. I will find out." She warns.
"Yeah she is, but we're fine." He sighs in defeat.
"Sorry." He mouths to you, reaching his hand up to ruffle your hair.
He starts to pace around, making it harder for you to hear her tucked into his ear.
"No we're just sitting."
"Yes sober....unfortunately." He lightly chuckles. "Okay, okay, sorry." he quickly follows up.
"By the river."
"Yup we have flashlights, pepper spray, and everything."
"She's fine."
"Yes I do know what time it is."
"Mom!" He exclaims, glancing your way with an embarrassed expression. "Yes! We are fully clothed. Stop it."
"We're going to head back right now."
He finally comes closer to you, making a choking motion to his own neck, causing you to giggle at his unfortunate and uncomfortable conversation with his mom.
"Touya." Rei sighs. "Bring her home safe okay? I'll talk to her dad, but we're going to have a chat about this later tomorrow."
"Can Y/N sleep over?" He shoots you a sly glance in which you return with a glare.
"Hello?"
"She hung up on me." He slides his phone into his pocket and shrugs. "Wasn't a no, though."
"Fucking idiot." You huff, gathering your things.
You two began your long trek back towards where you entered, walking side by side now. The air was thick around you two in tension and awkwardness as you waited for the other to bring it up or start a conversation to avoid it all together.
"Thoughts on your second, first kissed?" You break the silent wall and glance up at him.
"Mmmm definitely better than the first." He smirks down at you. "How was it for you? You feel okay?"
"Yeah." You mutter. "It was pretty good." You start "For the purpose of science, ya know."
"For the purpose of science." He repeats. "Any other experiments you wanna try while we're at it?"
"Touya!" You gasp and hit his arm. You pull the collar of your shirt over your nose to cover an incoming blush creeping up your neck.
"I'm kidding!" He laughs at your reaction. "Why are you so embarrassed all of the sudden now that we did it?"
"God you're annoying." You huff. "Why are you all of the sudden not? And flirting with me? Who even are you?"
"I'm just teasing." He nudges you playfully.
"Don't fall in love, now." You warn. "You wanna ruin this friendship so bad. In more ways than one." You mutter, returning the nudge.
"Yeah, whatever." He rolls his eyes, but landed his gaze back on you.
You continue the walk in silence, letting the back of your hands brush every now and then. You would blame the blush tattooed to your cheeks on the humid summer air, and avoid his gaze at all cost until he says something about it (he definitely will), and when you sneak back into his house, you'll go straight to his room where he'll bandage and clean up your knee and let you sleep in his bed while he'll sleep on the floor right beside you. He'll wait for your breathing to steady out into sleep and then he'll silently curse himself out and relive that moment with you at the river.
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bonus scene:
the next day when the whole house is awake, fuyumi's sisterly senses slaps her silly.
she just KNOWS that some shit went down between you two. she's naturally so observant, so when she sees you two padding out into the living room for your morning tea with your hair messy, cheeks flushed with a shy smile on your lips, subtle glances at one another and his oversized shirt hanging on your shoulders, she just knew she has to ask one of you about your late night rendezvous.
it's not the first time she's seen you like this in the morning. you had been close to the family and her older brother's best friend for years now, but she instantly sniffed out a different aura emanating from you two.
"touya, can you help me grab something from the top of my closet?" fuyumi motions for touya to follow her to her bedroom.
"sure." he shrugs nonchalantly. "keep my tea warm." he shoots you a coy wink.
touya follows fuyumi into her room, a silence falls between then until the moment she clicks her door closed.
"before you ask, nothing happened." he rolled his eyes as if he was already anticipating her interrogation.
maybe her brother's instincts were much stronger than her's...
"liar!" fuyumi squeals. "it's all over your faces! mom was so pissed at you last night, where did you go?"
"we went by the river where nat asked out his lady." he shrugs.
"and then? i know something happened!" she presses on "tell me!"
"its nothing. just that.. we might have...kissed." he tries hiding the smile behind his arm. "crazy, right?"
she silently squeals some more, jumping and slapping her brother's arm in celebration.
she had known about her brother's crush for a while now, how could she not? they were only a couple of years apart, so it would be impossible to keep things a secret from one another.
"and what else? did you ask her out?" she looks up at him with stars in her eyes.
"one step at a time, little sis. stay tuned." he pats her head and goes back to join you and attend to his tea, which you of course, kept warm.
894 notes · View notes
crescenthistory · 2 months ago
Note
May I request C6 with Regulus? I’m in some desperate need of Reggie comforting reader 😭😭😭
there are sosososo many different ways to interpret this prompt, and somehow i chose? perhaps the darkest one? so sorry, you are really going to need that comforting now... thanks for requesting lmao xx
Prompt: C.6 "I don't know, it just happened"
Words: 5.5k
Warnings: not proofread, fem!reader, blood racism, internalised blood racism, hate crime/minor assault, emotional breakdown, mutual self-hatred, regulus has not left the black family, alluded black brothers drama, undecided side regulus, perhaps a bit cliche/romanticising, established relationship, your dad is dead (long ago, mentioned), heavy hurt/comfort, happy ending
Notes: lol i am not okay
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It was a rare occurrence that Regulus Black felt light these days, in any meaning of the word. 
His feet felt shackled as he trekked through the Hogwarts halls he felt were increasingly unwelcoming to him. His consciousness weighed him down like a thousand bricks as he knew he had to either take a stance against his parents or become complacent in a hope of survival. He knew he had to do the former; he had no idea how to stop himself from the latter. Trapped, cornered, cowardly – heavy.
Yet, when walking the final few metres to your dormitory that he knew housed your soft self now that you were done with tutoring first years, he felt undeservingly light. A sensation only you could inspire in him these days.
While conversations were growing tenser and tenser between you the more Regulus struggled with freeing himself from his family, your love for him had yet to falter. He knew he was only biding his time, but until then he could not help revelling in it, albeit guilt ridden. 
He does not knock before entering, just carefully pushes the ajar door further open. You had told him off for knocking so primly every time – “you’re always welcome here, Reggie” – and he wanted nothing more than to please you.
“Amour?” he called out as he closed the door softly behind him, looking around the dorm for a trace of you, or at least one of your dorm mates.
None to be found.
He dropped his bookbag by the end of your bed, reaching up to scratch the back of his head as he looked around. Some of that heaviness began returning to his limbs at your absence, his hope of slipping away from the world with you for the next few hours dissolving.
Then, he heard the water running from the adjunct bathroom. A sigh of relief escaped him, though his body remained tense, and he made his way over. He could hear the water splashing from the sink and he carefully knocked on the door with one knuckle.
“Amour?” he tried again.
This time he technically got a response of sorts, though nowhere near the one he had been hoping for. All movement behind the door stilled. The water was still running in a steady stream, but whatever you had been doing with it, you had stopped. Regulus could almost picture you standing like a deer in headlights – his brows furrowed unhappily at the thought.
“Are you alright, love?” 
Finally, your voice answered, but the fragility of it rattled him. “Oh, um, hi Reggie, I– I’m alright, be with you in a minute, yeah?”
You seemed distressed. Regulus did not care for it at all.
“Could I come in, amour?” He spoke to the door as if it was not there, as if he was looking you in the eyes, willing you to let him in.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” you murmured, but he just barely caught it through the wood.
Regulus seemed to have met a divulge where he had to make a choice – a relatively minor one, but it felt important nonetheless.
A large, painful part of his mind was screaming at him to leave you alone. She doesn’t want you, she’s finally seen you for what you are. Scum staining the story of her life. It is this voice that rules most of his actions, the voice keeping him and Sirius apart, the voice tying him to something he does not feel comfortable with. 
Then there is another, burning hot part that aches to reach for you. The part that knows you better than the first thinks he deserves, the part that can tell by the tone of your voice, by a jerk of your finger, exactly how you are feeling and, hopefully, what you need. This part is one Regulus takes a great deal of pride in, this part feels good. Though it scares him and the first part tries to quell it, he holds it near his heart.
And it is this part that opens his mouth and says, “Could I come in anyway?”
A minute. A hesitation. A sigh.
“Yes,” you whispered.
His hand is tentative as it grips the doorhandle to the bathroom, as if it has become a part of your body from him talking to it, deserving of that same care he attempts to show you. He twists it and pushes it open.
The bathroom is swept in darkness – a conscious choice on your part, seeing as you would have to magically blow out the candles that lined the walls. He could still see you, leaning against the counter with the sink, face turned slightly away from him.
“Hi, my love,” you greeted, trying to seem casual as if he had just walked into your dorm under usual circumstances. With your hand awkwardly angled so that he only saw the inside of your palm, you adjusted the faucet. “How was practise?”
Regulus ignored your small-talk, walking up to stand beside you, body angled fully towards you as you began scrubbing at your hands once more. With the light trickling in through the open door, he swore the water looked pinkish. His breath hitched, eyes flickering all over you and the room to make sense of whatever was happening.
“Amour, what’s wrong?” His voice was rawer than he was comfortable with.
“Oh, it’s nothing, really.” You were getting a hang of the bright and airy tone of voice you were going for, but it was too late for that. “Just a long day, you know? Do you want to go get the bed ready so we can relax?”
The voices were warring in Regulus’ head at the rejection of his presence, but once more the part he could only describe as lovesick took a step closer to you, so your bodies were just barely touching. “Y/N,” was all he said.
Your ministrations grew more desperate, scrubbing water up and down your hands and forearms, breath laboured. He lifted a hand to brush against your face – when you flinched, his heart broke. 
She’s scared of you.
No, she’s just scared.
He let his hand ever so slowly land on the cheek furthest away from him, cradling your jaw with the kind of light touch reserved for baby birds and broken children. He found the skin there soft and wet, and he swore he could cut himself on the shards of his broken heart.
He guided your head to turn towards him, his grip loose so that you could stop him if you wanted. Once your face was opposite his, Regulus fought every instinct in his body that told him to study you, search your face for the spawn of your pain. Instead, he closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against yours. Giving you space, privacy even, giving you the moment you clearly needed – but sparing you from doing it alone
Your hands slowed down in their scrubbing, and with his free hand reaching out blindly, he turned off the faucet. Your breath stuttered where it spilled over his lips.
“Do you reckon you want to sit down? Talk about it?” Regulus whispered, eyes still closed.
He felt you nod against his skin, grabbing a hand towel as you walked backwards the few steps needed before you could sit down on the toilet lid. Regulus followed you, eyes opening and attempting to adjust to this darker corner of the bathroom. He sat down on his knees between your legs, painful tiles be damned, and looked up at you intently. 
In front of him sat the light of his life, visibly sullied. Your face was red and he could make out the tear tracks and smudged mascara underneath your eyes. You clutched the towel, hands buried within it and out of sight.
“Amour,” he whispered dumbly, unsure of what else to say, as he carefully brought his hands up to wipe at your tears. 
You mumbled his name and it almost sounded like a sob. 
Your hands were writhing in your lap around the towel, and he reached down to take it and help you dry yourself when you jerked your hands closer to you, towel still in grasp. “No,” you whispered.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know,” you lied through your teeth. “I’ve just had a bad day and– and felt anxious. Couldn't help but cry over it. I don’t know, it just happened.” 
Regulus gave you a sad smile, squeezing the still-wet skin on your forearms. “Uh-huh. And you felt like taking it out on your hands?”
A sob finally tore through your body properly and you brought your hands up – still in the towel – to cover your face. You leaned forward and cried into it, and Regulus immediately opened his arms to hold your shaking frame. Your towel and face were smushed into the crook of his neck and he drew big circles on your back with one hand, the other securely holding the back of your head. 
He was broken, at a loss for words, trying to recall any and every memory he could find of witnessing others comforting, not trusting his own instincts. Through them all, out flashed a memory of Sirius humming to him when he had nightmares as a child, how the vibrations soothed through him until he could finally fall asleep again, in his big brother’s bed this time. Without any distinct melody or song in mind, Regulus began to hum as he swayed you just ever so slightly back and forth, hoping to bring you some semblance of safety.
Your gasps lessened until the bathroom was near-quiet again, but he did not stop his movements with you or the humming. Your heart blossomed from his efforts and broke at what you knew was to come.
You lowered your hands from your face, letting them fall into your lap with their towel. Your face was now in direct contact with the soft skin of his neck and you took the opportunity to press a soft kiss there.
“Can I please do something to help you?” he whispered into your hair.
“You are.”
He breathed in slowly. He is. “With your hands, I mean. Are you hurt?”
Tears slipped quietly down the expanse of Regulus’ neck, trailing down underneath his shirt. You tried to nuzzle deeper into him.
“I–” you stop, seemingly changing your mind. “I’m alright, I just need to… to remove magical ink from them and I can’t get it off.”
Regulus fought back the that’s all? that was creeping up his throat. He knows at least two spells that work for most permanent inks and can brew a potion for it within the hour if those don't work. 
Your head squeezed against his shoulder as he nodded his head, still stroking your back. “No problem, beautiful, I can fix that.”
“No,” you whispered once more, seeming to shrink in his grasp. “I have to.”
He helped ease you out from his neck so that you were face to face once more, his hands coming up to brush over the sides of your arms. The look in your eyes was one he struggled to decipher, apart from the shine of anxiety. 
“Why do you have to? Let me help you, amour.”
You took another shuddering breath, brazing yourself for impact. “You can’t see,” you whispered finally, fighting the quiver of your lips.
“I… I don’t understand.”
“You can’t see them, Reg, I’m sorry.”
“Did someone do something to you?” It was the only explanation he could conjure up for why any permanent ink would make you this distraught – and why you would hide from him like this.
You searched his face carefully, faintly nodding in a way that made him think it was a response to your own thoughts and not his question. Like you decided on something. 
“Someone wrote something. I just want it gone.”
Regulus’ stomach churned. He regretted the harsh tone of his voice as he demanded, “Who?”
“It’s not important.” 
“It is to me. Please. Who?”
You pulled your bottom lip in between your teeth, gnawing at it as you realised he would find out. Someone would tell him, even if you refused to show him. He would know. You tasted blood in your mouth.
With his eyes adjusted to the dark, Regulus saw the faint red on your lips as well and immediately reached out to gently pull your lip free from its torment. His fingertips lingered on your lips until he replaced them with his own with a short, tentative kiss. If you were to have blood in your mouth, he would too.
Lips still against yours he whispered again, more pleadingly this time, “Who?”
You let your walls crumble. This sweet, caring boy was in your grasp for now and you could not help but let him care while he still wanted to. “Mulciber,” you whispered back.
Regulus pulled back enough to meet your gaze, confusion filling his. “Why Mulciber? What would he have to write on you?” 
Up until now he had half-thought that some of your first year tutees had pranked you in some ungraceful manner. He was certain he had never seen you and Mulciber even talk before, let alone have an altercation that could involve magical ink. He was one of the more brutal Slytherins, but he had never had any reason to talk to you, and he knew that you were someone Regulus cared for. What he had hoped would let him in on your pain only confused him further away from any answer.
“Regulus, please,” you begged, ignorant to his confusion. Tears were once more filling your eyes and he wished for nothing but to stop them.
“Okay, okay,” he whispered, hoping to convince your tears to stay where they are. “You– you don’t have to explain it, love. I can just remove it for you.”
“Could you teach me instead?” Your lip was back between your teeth, lightening in colour underneath the force it was exerted to.
“I’m afraid you wouldn’t be able to remove something from your hands yourself, you need them for the spell.” Regulus hoped his gaze seemed sympathetic.
You squeezed your eyes shut, moving your head slightly to your side. Regulus recognised your breathing pattern to follow a technique you had taught him to calm down the first time he had a panic attack around you. Afterwards, you didn't mention it, only giving him space to talk about what he was comfortable with, comfort at the ready.
His own breath was bated as he watched you make your decision. A definite tear slid down the cheek closest to him, in a hauntingly cinematic manner. At last, your eyes slowly fluttered open and you looked back into his eyes with the most devastating expression. Slipping a hand slowly out from your towel – out of Regulus’ line of sight – you brought it up to his cheek to bring his face closer to yours.
The kiss was searing, filled with a love and devotion he was not prepared for in a situation like this. He was enveloped by the smell of you, and though you still tasted of copper, your lips were painfully soft and he let himself fall deeper into you. When you pulled away, you pressed a lingering kiss to the side of his mouth.
“I love you,” you whispered. Regulus hated how it sounded like you were saying goodbye. 
His brows were furrowed as he looked at you, and he hoped it looked like confusion and nothing more sinister. “I love you too, amour. You know.”
“I’ll let you remove it, if you want.”
“Please.”
Your gaze fell to your lap and remained there as you let both hands out of the towel, placing them palm-down on your thighs. Regulus had begun reaching for his wand in a holster on his belt, ready to rid you of the source of your discontent, but he was frozen still when his own eyes finally took in your hands and the two bold, dark words written on each one.
MUD on the left. BLOOD on the right.
Mudblood. 
Regulus’ blood had run cold in his veins and he found himself having to adopt your breathing technique. His vision blurred as the two words seemed to grow larger, which seemed impossible considering they were written to take up as much space as possible. The handwriting was shaky, as if there had been a struggle when they were written. There were some light bruises already forming around your wrists and upper arms that further proved his fear. Mudblood. With red streaks over both works, likely from how hard you had been trying to wash them, all but scraping them off. Mudblood. The word was choking him. His hand that had remained still midair by his belt began to tremble.
He was knocked out of his trance as he saw a single tear splatter across the lettering on your right hand. 
Regulus moved his gaze back up to yours to find it was still trained on your hands, eyes glossy and unseeing.
“I–” he tried, but his voice broke off. “I don't understand. Y/N, I don’t understand.”
You seemed to flinch a little at the sound of your name, but other than that you made no sign that you heard him.
“Amour,” he rectified. “Why would… what is this?”
You moved your right hand over your left, starting to scratch at the word scribbled there, nails digging deep. Regulus’ hands flew up to stop your ministrations at the sight of the worsening redness, but your whole body physically flinched away from him in a way he was sure must hurt.
Regulus was lost.
“I don’t understand. Why would Mulciber write that? You’re not a–” He cut himself off, scared of what word would slip off his tongue. “You’re not muggleborn.”
Finally, you looked up and met his eyes. Your fearful, heartbroken expression seemed to soften at the sight of him and you gave him the saddest smile that did not reach your eyes. “I’m sorry,” was all you could whisper.
Realisation dawned on him. 
“Your father…?” 
His half-blood best friend turned lover, who he already had not dared tell his parents about, living with her muggle mother after her wizard father passed away. It was a convenient story in times of tension and division. Death is an easy excuse, hard to verify.
Although, clearly, someone had now, and the truth had come out.
“I’m so sorry,” you whispered once more through a sob. Your shoulders were hunched and knees drawn close to your body. You looked like you wanted to disappear. 
It took him a greater amount of strength than he was proud of to push the shock and confusion from the forefront of his mind and pull back up the memories of how to comfort. To focus on those and not the million of questions running through his head.
What does this mean? Why didn't you tell him? Have you been hiding from everyone, or just him? How have you been carrying something so scary and he was none the wiser? Is there an award for shittest boyfriend at Hogwarts that he can be looking forward to?
Regulus reached out for you and pulled you slowly into another hug, arms circling securely around your back. Your body stilled in his grasp, apart from the small heaves for air in between your sobs.
“What are you doing?” Your whisper was muffled into his shirt. Your frail voice and tense limbs cut him deeper than any spell could.
“I'm comforting you, sweet girl,” he mumbled into your hair. “Or at least trying to.”
“Why?” you asked miserably. 
Regulus pulled back just far enough to see your face, making sure his arms were still holding you with love, drawing patterns across your back.
"Because I love you," he whispered intently. His eyes tried his hardest to lock on yours, but you still would not meet his gaze. "Because there is nothing to be sorry for."
Your expression grew incredulous, bordering on angry – if it was with him, yourself or the world he was uncertain. "I've lied to you. I've deceived you into a relationship you wouldn’t have agreed to had you known, I– I’ve put you in an impossible position–” You had to cut yourself off as another sob tore through your body. “I’m so sorry.”
Regulus shuffled impossibly closer to you and brought his hands up to cup your cheeks, thumbs stroking slowly across your cheekbones. He felt his own eyes fill with tears at the sight in front of him, anxiety rising at his chest as he struggled to find the words he knew the situation called for.
This was all unknown territory for Regulus. The two of you had had as few conversations about blood status as possible, both weary about the growing tension at school and in the wider wizarding society. You had held him the one time he dared cry in front of you over a particularly harsh letter from his mother. You had whispered sweet nothings about you're not them and I will always love you, but he thought they were just that – nothings. In turn, you had mentioned your parents and cried over your father a handful of times, but never divulged too much. He had weaved his way through comments from other pureblood students at school regarding his relationship with a half-blood, but most pureblood families have lapses with a half-blood here or there that he could usually throw back in their faces to silence them. No one dared push it further than that. When Andromeda left the family for Ted, he almost had to confront it all, confront what he now knew to be lies that had been spewed to him all his life, but even then, he managed to avoid it as he instead received the beating of his life for not alerting the family about the signs he must have seen at school. He let himself simmer with that pain instead of looking inwards, instead of seeking help. He figured he didn’t have to, not just yet.
That time had evidently passed, as he now held a sobbing and defiled sun in his hands.
No, this was uncharted territory for him entirely – but he could not afford to let it stay like that.
“My love, Y/N,” he said with a surprisingly steady voice, never letting his gaze stray from you. “Please, please listen to me. Please hear me. You are everything; it is you, you are everything. You could be muggleborn, muggle, werewolf, siren or fae. It would not change anything.”
Your eyes met his, red rimmed and glossy, confused and bewildered. This time it was your turn to whisper, “I don’t understand.”
“It is difficult–” Regulus’ voice broke as the first few tears slipped down his face. “It is all so difficult right now, I feel lost and… scared and I don’t know what to do.” The words almost clogged in his throat, like barbed wire to admit, but he knew he had to. “I should have told you all of that already, I should have shared with you so you could feel safe to share with me. I haven’t known what to do, how to do it. The one thing I do know is that I love you and I need you to be safe and I need you to be here with me. I have not been deceived, for I would always choose you.”
Your eyes were wide, but you were not crying at the moment, gaze flitting all across his face, as if to ensure he wasn’t lying, hanging onto his every word. It was the motivation he needed to continue.
“You are not allowed to be sorry, amour, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” A small sob escaped him and his heart flipped when your right hand came forth to just barely touch his shoulder. “I should have been here for you, you shouldn’t have to hide. You should never have had to question my love for you, my loyalty. It will always lay with you, I swear it. Gods–” a heaved breath “– I’m terrible at this, you know I’m terrible, but I’ve been trying so hard for you and I will continue to. Just please let me. Let me and I will try.”
“Regulus…” you whispered, hand creeping from the brush against his shoulder to settle on the side of his neck. 
He looked at you, ready to take any reaction you would give him, to tell him off for his horrible apology, for making things about him, for not being enough. Your mouth opened and closed as if you couldn’t settle on the words. Instead you let out a small breath and pulled him back into you in a tight embrace.
It took him not even a second to hold you in return with passion, hands appraising as they swept up into your hair and around your waist. 
“Do you mean it?” you whimpered into him and he let his forehead fall to your shoulder as he cried.
“Of course, I mean it. Of course, of course.” He kept muttering it into you as he held you tighter and tighter.
His body was filled with an entirely new set of fear. A warm one that spread through his blood at the thought of what you had to face. Mulciber already knew and had taken action on that knowledge seemingly without hesitation. Regulus had heard what was being said amongst the Sacred 28, he knew to what degrees the hatred was building. His entire body was built on fear as he held what he now realised could be disturbingly fragile.
That is, until you whimpered another question into his hold and his body ached with a love so deep he had never thought it possible.
“Do you still love me?”
He had already said so, but he would happily say it again, over and over, damning himself for allowing you to wonder. “Yes, amour, always. Always.” 
Regulus took your face in one of his hands again, cradling you as he brought his forehead back to yours. Angling his face forward, he pressed what he hoped was a sweet kiss to your lips. It was wet, metallic and everything he needed. 
“I’m sorry for lying,” you whispered. He shook his head against yours.
“No, I’m sorry for stalling.”
A beat of silence. “Stalling what?” He thought you knew, but he tried to have no qualms about being explicit about it.
“Leaving.” He said it simply, hoping it would will it to be.
This time it was your turn to shake your head. “Can you leave, though? Safely? They’re becoming more and more fanatical, Reg, what if they hurt you? I’ve seen the letters.”
The fact that you have experienced what can only be classified as a hate crime, yet you have the goodness in your heart to worry about him in this way only makes him more certain of his choice.
“I have to, my love. I have to. It’s time.” He took a deep breath. “I will… I will ask Sirius for help.” 
You looked into his eyes, vision blurry from your proximity. “I’m scared for you, but I’m so proud of you at the same time.”
“The feeling is entirely mutual.” Regulus tried to huff out a small laugh, but it just came out teary. “Will you please come with me?”
“To Sirius?”
“Yes.”
“Of course.”
His hand on your squeeze pressed further into you, reverent. “We can ask for help for us both. They practically wanted Ted dead when they disowned Andromeda, and she was not even the sole heir. I’m so sorry for putting you in that situation, I–”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” you assured, voice more stable and beautifully soft. “You are everything to me too, you know.”
“I’m scared,” Regulus whimpered. It’s the first time he can remember saying that out loud to someone since he was 6.
“I’m scared, too. But less so, now that I know I still have you. I couldn’t handle losing you, Reg.” Your eyes teared up again and he leaned up to kiss the corners of your eyes sweetly, collecting the tears before they had a chance to spill.
“You have me, you have me,” he whispered almost feverishly against your skin. “And I’ve got you.”
You sighed, the closest to contently you think you can get at this moment. “Will you please help me?” you whispered as you looked down at your hands.
Regulus shook himself out of his mini spiral, shook off that first voice in his head that reared its head once more and over and over, shook off anything that was not you. He mumbled an of course against your cheek before he kissed it, taking your hands in one of his. 
Unsheathing his wand he never managed to retrieve the first time around, he took one last look at the ugly markings on your hands – the hate was precisely that, ugly, and it had no place on your skin. Starting with the left – MUD – he tried the first spell he knew, and it did nothing. The bile rose in his throat as he went to try the next, fearing the worst, but by the grace of a nonexistent god, the letters finally melted away. He repeated the process on the other one.
You tried to pull your hands out of his grasp at that, but his hold tightened. He healed the viscous red streaks and peeling skin from where you had scratched at them, a cold sensation soothing over your skin as he moved his wand. Tears pricked at the corners of your eyes at the gentleness, but you found yourself beginning to become completely dehydrated.
Regulus brought your hands up to his lips while he put his wand away to grasp at them with both hands. He kissed the spots he had just cleared up. Long, lingering kisses in the middle of your hand, followed by soft butterfly kisses all over it. His fingers intertwined with yours, squeezing tightly, giving the flesh new sensations to remember instead.
“You’re so good to me,” you whispered, almost like a revelation. You had loved him and you had trusted him, you had just not trusted that it would be forever, that it would be more than any loyalty to his family. You were ashamed at the thought now, as you looked at the boy on his knees in front of you, crying from loving you, kissing away your pain. It filled you with something you had not believed this day would hold for you – hope.
“I’m not,” he whispered, letting your hands settle together in your lap. “But I hope to be. I want to be. I will be.”
You smiled wetly at him and leaned forward to kiss him once more. Originally intended as a peck, the kiss grew deeper, a slow passion as you held his lips between yours, feeling the love seep through the thin skin. He continued pressing kisses all over your face, much like your hands. Any teary or red skin had his lips faintly brushing over it, taking his time to dote on you. You let your breath calm down in the meantime, panic and tension slipping away from you to be replaced by a deep exhaustion as you leaned into him.
He noticed – he had to notice, swore he always would from now on.
“Are you ready to lay down in bed, amour. Face the light?” He smiled sheepishly at the poor attempt at a joke. You seemed surprised as you looked around, almost like you had forgotten you were in a shadowy dorm bathroom.
“Only if you will lay with me.” Your tone was nearing teasing, though not quite there. He was determined to achieve it within the hour.
“I promise,” he whispered, kissing you one last time before helping you up.
And he would go on to help you to bed and hold you tight for as long as you would let him. He would listen to you cry and laugh and worry without a second thought. He would take you with him to ask Sirius for help on escaping and keeping you safe and he would devote himself to being better. He would do anything for you – because you were, after all, everything.
412 notes · View notes
evilgwrl · 4 months ago
Text
TF 141 x Reader (Apocalypse!AU)
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Immune: Three
WARNING: This is a 18+ Poly!141 series (MDNI)
CW: Suggestive themes (smut is coming I promise)
I literally wrote a whole chapter and it deleted </3
Masterlist
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You woke up, body slumped against the door as you groaned. The soft strum of pain vibrated through your lower back, the dull ache sending a small zap through you as you stood up.
Groggy eyes drifted to the stained window, the barely visible streak of sun peaking over the forest as you sighed, feet padding against the floors as soft creaks spoke back to you.
You stared in the mirror, dull eyes staring back. You rubbed your face, small streaks of sticky sleep dragging across your palms as you picked them off.
Mortification is all you could feel. Not only are four men in your house, but you touched yourself to one, and another walked in on you. MID ORGASM. You silently prayed they had packed up their stuff and left. Or maybe it never happened and Ghost hadn’t seen anything. Or maybe- fuck it. There wasn’t much use denying.
The chill of the water woke you up as you scrubbed vigorously, almost as if you could wash away the embarrassment you felt.
You dressed yourself before heading to the barn, the acreage becoming more and more visible by the minute as you fed the animals, collecting any eggs in your makeshift apron, before letting the horses roam in the paddock
You took note of the overcast, thick smog of clouds littering across the barely visible sky. You needed the rain, but you also knew it would make it harder for them to leave if it did.
Conjuring that it would make things easier if they woke up and you were gone, you cooked yourself breakfast before heading out, planning to target a small set of shops you were yet to raid, tucked away on a more secluded part of the area. In fear of waking them up, you rolled out the rusting bike from the garage, a small woven basket adorned with half broken flowers as you rolled the worn wheels onto the gravel road.
You didn’t take much with you. Only a bottle of water, a pistol (incase you magically needed it) and two apples as well the large backpack stitched on your back.
The trail was mostly flat, a few rocks causing you to wobble from time to time, but for the most part it was an enjoyable ride. The soft flicker of the sun stretched through the adorned trees, the heaviness of the clouds beginning to weigh on you as you peddled faster.
It was an hour or two trek, you believed, the roaring ache of your thighs begging for the needed break as you pulled into the abandoned town. Sometimes you expect people to run out, waving you down in celebration, but it never came.
You could hear the soft groans of nearby dead, wobbling their rotting limbs towards the bike before turning around. The tinkle of the rusted bell greeted you as you ducked through the aisles. It was a small store, only supplying anything for a couple hundred, most items expired now anyway, but it was worth a look.
You held your bag open, dumping a few cans of tinned vegetables in as well as a bag of sugar, a pack of razors and some long-life cartons of skim milk. With achy thighs, you jumped over the counter, mess everywhere, register half open with nothing inside. It was funny, even during an apocalypse people found the time for money.
You rattled at the metal knob on the staff door, growing frustrated when it wouldn’t budge before you began to kick, slamming your boots against it repeatedly before it eventually swung open. It might have taken you 15 minutes, but it was sure worth it as you snatched up the golden sweetness many would refer to as whiskey.
You headed off with a few other things, half open stock boxes tipped everywhere as your hands grabbed for anything that hadn’t expire, or was about to. With a heavier bag, and a smug smile on your face, you peddled your way home.
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“Y’ think she got scared and buggered off?” Soap quipped, mouth half full with an apple, juices spurting across the room as Ghost glared back.
“If it wasn’t for him,” Gaz interjected, thumb pointing towards the masked-man, “she probably would have let us stay.”
Ghost rolled his eyes, replaying the scene in his head for the hundredth time. Sure, he should’ve knocked but he’s glad he didn’t. Half of him wanted her to ask him to stay, to fully satisfy her, to fully satisfy him.
“She wouldn’t have just packed up and left- put far too much effort into all this place to leave,” Price said, voice deeper than usual as he took a swig of water. Time ticked slowly as they waited around, searching every crevice of the house before they landed on a bow and arrow.
Soap snatched it, veiny hands clawing at the weapon as if it was gold. “What’dya say, LT? Fancy hunting some deer?”
“I ain’t hunting for anybody if I ain’t staying-“
“Go hunt a f’cking deer,” Price huffed.
The two me disappeared into the forest as Gaz stepped outside, bottom plonked in the barely comfortable porch chair. The Captain knew you would probably bitch them out, but a sick part of him wanted you to let them stay, wanted you to realise they were what you needed, that they magically landed on your farm for some Godforsaken purpose.
He would make you realise. He knew he would.
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You felt like vomiting now, your bones burning as if they had clawed through your flesh, attempting to escape the treacherous journey that you forced yourself to endure.
You almost felt lost. Why did it feel so much longer on the way back?
You smiled to yourself softly as you passed the tree you marked a few months ago, the unmistakable smiley face almost greeting you. Your smile quickly faded when you felt a spit land on your cheek. And then another. And another. Until you were peddling faster as wet pellets hit the ground.
Slippery hands clutched the leather handles as you neared the entrance of the farm. You were drenched now, hair matted to your neck and face as you flicked it behind you, annoyed that you neglected your clip.
Your boots squelched against the ground as you slammed the garage door shut, weak arms clutching your bag as you swung it around your shoulder, weaving in and out of trees as you stumbled up the front steps.
Tumbling inside, you took note of the cleaner house, a small wrapped bowl of vegetables and a bowl of tomato soup (that was probably cold now) greeting you as you kicked off your boots. You stood over the sink as you scrunched your hair out, the trickle of water tapping as you shrugged off your coat, fumbling outside to hang it on the underground clothes line.
For a minute you thought they had left, no manly faces greeting you until you heard the soft clearing of a throat. “Made you some lunch,” he said.
“Thank you… Gaz, isn’t it?” Clammy hands gripped the bowls as you sat down on the couch, the lukewarm mixture sliding down your oesophagus.
“That’s right,” he replied, gentle smile adorning his face as he watched you, trying to observe you, almost as if you were a war criminal he wanted to break in. Military men, you thought.
You sat in silence, yet didn’t find it to be uncomfortable. Though Gaz was incredibly handsome, and well built, you almost felt comfortable in his presence and you couldn’t quite place why.
“Where did you go?” He asked, almost as if he was hesitant to speak. Your eyes flickered to his lap, hands gently rubbing together before rubbing against his denim-covered thighs. He has nice thighs.
“Uh, I went into a town.. bout two hours from here. Got a few things and I also just wanted to.. get out, I guess.”
He nodded.
Once you finished up, you braced yourself as you ran outside, yet found no horses frolicking frightened in the paddock. Fear ran through you as you sprinted to the barn, heavy footsteps slapping against the mud as you took in the closed door.
You let out a shaky sigh, relieved, when you saw two large, longer heads staring at you from inside, the gentle squawks of hens sounding across the room.
“I hope you don’t mind that I put them inside, figured you would hav’ done that anyway when you got back.” You jumped at the voice, body jolting as you snapped your head.
Price stood there, rough hands clutching a wooden broom as he swept, a beanie now plonked on his head instead of the hat he greeted you with.
“Uh- thanks. Yeah, they’re afraid of the rain.”
“Y’r a good owner, picking up the slack after they were abandoned.”
“I guess so,” you conceded. You looked at him, taking in the way his eyes flickered down your drenched frame, a cerulean blue darkening into a navy.
“Y’r wet.” His tone was sharp, even while stating the obvious, a visible clench of his jaw causing you to tense as you wobbled, suddenly nervous under his gaze.
“Well, I was out in the rain,” you said, almost like it wasn’t the most obvious thing in the world. You looked away but could feel him walking closer to you.
“Y’r gonna catch a cold if you don’t change.”
“I’ll survive,” you replied, your voice now dropping to a low whisper. You looked at him, his stare heavy, almost like it was weighting you down. He smiled at you, a hand reaching out before it landed on the flesh of your waist, squeezing as you felt the familiar heat you encountered last night, prickling through you again.
Your breathing was shallow, an occasional hick passing through you as his hand lingered. “Pretty thing, hm?” He gestured, nodding towards your chest as you noticed the faint outline of the rose-coloured brassiere you chose today. You blushed and you were sure you looked silly, a red hue across your face as you barely stuttered a reply.
You turned, almost feeling like you were about to choke. Feeling betrayed by your own body, you pressed your thighs together and you were sure he noticed.
“Y’n need any help staying warm,” he began, “just tell me, sweetheart.”
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sankttealeaf · 1 year ago
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Can I request Tav and astarion but they get trapped together and astarion has to feed but feels like Tav offering isn’t really giving consent since they are trapped and he thinks they feel obligated. Bonus points if they’re also bickering and pining for other
this was so much fun to write! i may have gotten a little carried away but i hope you enjoy!! requests are still open if anyone is interested<3 i'm really enjoying writing these and am open for more ideas!!
✧・゚: *✧・゚:*
trapped
pairing ; astarion x gender neutral!reader
summary ; a wild treasure hunt leads to an unfortunate situation where you find yourself stuck in a cave-in with Astarion. / ao3
other info ; wyll, karlach and gale get special roles in this because i physically cannot stop myself from including other companions in the background. no real spoilers for the game so you're free to read wherever you are in the game!!
warnings ; vampire feeding, blood mention, vague mention of Astarion's past, general conversation surrounding consent (but everything is consensual because that's hot)
word count ; 5.9k (again. went a little wild)
You have no idea how long you have been walking for. It feels like days though you are certain it was only a few hours. The lack of sunlight is starting to get to you and the cramped cave system you are walking through is really not where you wanted to be today.
Was it a little ridiculous to be chasing a lead you found on a note on a dead traveller? Probably. Did you have to convince everyone that it wouldn't be a waste of their time? Yes. But here you are, travelling in the dark to hunt down buried treasure.
Karlach was more than happy to join you, in fact she was the first one who volunteered to be part of the “treasure hunting team”, as she called it. She managed to get Wyll involved and you were happy with this group. As you were getting ready to leave you had a last minute addition to the team - Astarion. Why he wanted to join you trekking through a damp cave, you had no idea. You weren’t going to ask, either.
So, here you are in the depths of a cave system, following a badly drawn map that should lead you all to hidden treasure. It took you way too long to get to this location and the day is already drawing to a close. You are certain you weren’t going to make it back to camp before nightfall. This treasure has to be worth it.
Through flooded areas and tight walkways, the deeper you get into the cave the quicker your hopes that this treasure would be easy to find crumbles. On the map it looks simple, yet the actual cave was difficult to navigate and you are not as prepared as you thought you would be. Perhaps you should have taken the spare rope from Halsin before you left camp. Karlach spends the time picking up interesting rocks she comes across, rushing over to show you with a grin on her face and a list of places to put it back at camp. You have a few rocks she gave to you in your pocket and you are glad that her optimism never falters the longer you travel. Wyll has marked arrows on the walls to keep track of where you have been, which is an idea that didn't even cross your mind until you noticed him doing it. And Astarion is… complaining.
Maybe complaining is the wrong word. It's more like he has been announcing loudly how he thought this would be an easy task to complete. He didn't sign up to be wading through knee deep cave water or scrambling over rocks to get to the next area. Neither did you, but you aren’t complaining about it.
You have managed to drown out his comments for the most part, keeping your focus on following the map and making sure not to get lost. There have been a few times where you almost walked on some loose stone and went plummeting down into the depths of the cave and you really didn't fancy getting stuck down here. You have also noticed the further you went into the cave the more dust and debris that fell from the ceiling. A sinking feeling begins to settle in your stomach and you approach each step with caution.
“Personally I think this map is leading us to a dead end,” Astarion says as he slinks up next to you, ignoring how lost in focus you were. “We should cut our losses and return back to camp before nightfall, don’t you agree?”
The dust from the ceiling drops in front of you again as you pause, reaching an arm out to stop Astarion in his tracks. “Be quiet, would you?”
“Everything alright?” Wyll asks from behind, hand reaching for his rapier in case something jumps out to attack.
Either something was down here with you or the cave ceiling isn’t as strong as you would like. You didn't know which thought was worse. Turning back to Wyll and Karlach, you shake your head slightly. “Be on your guard. Something’s off.”
“This is what I’ve been saying for the past five minutes. Have you seriously not been listening to me?” Astarion asks as you continue walking at a slower pace now, acutely aware of every foreign noise that doesn’t come from your group.
“Not really. I’m trying to keep us alive here,” you reply quietly, eyes darting from the floor to your surroundings in quick succession.
You stop in your steps as you hear the rumbling grow louder, though Astarion keeps talking even after you shush him again. It’s a rolling noise, one that grows the more you focus on it; a sound of rock against rock and a low rumble from above. You cast your gaze upwards and spot the beginnings of a large crack splitting the ceiling. Like pressure on ice, it splits into several off shoots before crumbling beneath whatever weight was on it.
You quickly pull Astarion towards you, dragging him away from the collapsing ceiling as you both fall to the floor with a thud. In an instant, your surroundings grow darker as a wall of stone and rubble barricades you and Astarion from Wyll and Karlach. The dust settles from the sudden upheaval of rock and the noise you have been hearing stops. Shit.
“Are you both alright?” Wyll calls out from behind the rubble and you can hear the sound of stone grating against stone which only cements your idea that this could be an early grave for you both if you didn't think fast.
You glance over at Astarion who is dusting himself off, rubbing at his elbow in a way that makes you assume he landed on it wrong. “We’re alive… just.”
“Does the map show any other ways to get to you? I’m not certain we can budge all this stone…” Wyll asks as you hear the sound of metal against the stone and a disappointed sigh from Karlach. You sit upright, grabbing the map from where it fell onto the ground and frown. It was a one way system, looping back around the way you came once you got to where the treasure was. This pathway is the only way in and out of the cave. You are stuck.
“So, uh… bad news… There’s no other way around,” you reply. The silence that follows on their end is not a good sign, however it is quickly broken by Astarion.
“What?!” He looks at you in dismay, his face falling at the thought of being stuck here. “You cannot be serious.”
“We’ll find a way to get you guys out! Don’t even stress!” Karlach yells. Her voice gets quiet but you can still hear her. “Do you think they’re stressed, Wyll?”
You take a moment to assess the cave-in, trying to budge a few rocks out of place but nothing moves. Perhaps with enough force they could be displaced, but you don’t have anything on that level right now.
“Wyll? Do you have anything that could push the rocks away?” you ask, hoping he has something in or on him that could force the rocks out of place.
“I don’t…” he pauses for a moment, before you hear him click his fingers together as an idea forms. “But Gale does. I know the spell you are hinting at. We can go back and get him?” he suggests, and you run the time it would take for them to get back to camp and back here again in your head. They would be back by early morning at the earliest… Which means you will need to spend the night in a cold, slightly damp cave. You give Astarion a look.
“Don’t look at me like that. I’m not going to dig our way out. My hands are way too delicate for that,” he says, turning his back to the problem at hand.
“Gale seems to be our only way out, which means we may need to spend the night here…” you tell him.
“Gale? Our only hope? What is he going to do, talk the rocks to death?” He rolls his eyes. “Surely there’s another way out?”
“There isn’t.” You sigh, rubbing at your temples as you begin to feel a stress headache forming. “And he can use spells, Astarion. Gale can shatter the rocks or something. They’re too tightly packed to move them normally. We’re stuck here until he can sort it out.”
“Great. Wonderful, actually. I’ve always wanted to spend a night in a cave. Thanks for this, really!” His voice drips with sarcasm and you have to physically hold yourself back from getting annoyed at him.
“I didn't personally cause this cave in! You think I want to be stuck here with you like this? Gods, you are infuriating.”
Before the argument could escalate, Wyll calls out from behind the wall of rocks that he and Karlach are going to head back to camp and grab Gale. They’ll be as quick as they can, he promises. It gives you some reassurance that you will not be stuck here for too long with Astarion.
The sound of your fellow companions leaving fills you with anxiety as the clock begins to tick on getting you both out alive. This is not how you planned this trip to go and you are starting to wonder if this was even worth it at this point. Astarion didn't seem to think so.
"For your information, I am not sleeping on the floor with no bedroll. This is expensive fabric, I’m not ruining it.” Astarion gestures to his outfit as you begin to set yourself down on the ground, ready to call it a day.
“We’ve camped in worse places, I don’t understand why you’re complaining so much about this,” you say, rummaging through your bag and thanking the Gods you packed some food for yourself.
“At least at camp I have my tent. And all my belongings. And comfort. Do I need to go on?” He shifts in his stance, looking down the tunnel to avoid your gaze.
You glare at him. “Okay, fine, I guess this isn’t an ideal place to rest. But I don’t want to travel too far in case we get lost. And then we’ll probably die down here. Do you want that?”
He sighs but doesn’t make a comment. You take it as a win.
After placing the contents of your bag onto the ground you come to two conclusions. One: the floor is far too damp to start a fire which means you are going to spend the next few hours cold. Two: you have enough food for yourself, but you aren’t sure if Astarion bought anything of use with him. You didn't see him pack much before he said he was joining you. He is still standing when you look over to him again.
“Are you going to stand all night?” you ask as he nods, still avoiding your gaze.
“Like I said. Expensive fabric. I’m not ruining it because someone got us trapped in here,” he replies and you roll your eyes. Wordlessly, you unbuckle your cloak from your shoulders and place it down on the floor for him. The dampness of the floor is most likely going to ruin your nice and expensive cloak, but at least it will stop him complaining. Hopefully.
He looks from you to the cloak and back again, confusion crossing his face and disappearing as quickly as it arrived. “What’s that for?”
“Just sit down. Please.” You start to reorganise the contents of your back, returning the tinderbox and an almost empty waterskin but keeping out the food you swiped before you left. When you look back up, you see Astarion has sat down atop your cloak. You hold back a smile.
The silence that falls over the both of you is broken by droplets of water or the sound of other vaguely ominous cave noises. If your timing is right you are certain it was now early evening. Hopefully Karlach and Wyll have left the cave by now.
“Did you bring any food?” you ask after a little while passes. It’s only when the question leaves your lips that you realise it is a stupid one. The look Astarion gives you only enhances your point.
“Yes, actually. I have three live rabbits tucked neatly away in my bag in case I fancied a snack,” he responds, opening up his pack with a flourish. “Did you want one? I’m so happy to share.” A few books and his trusty thieves tools were the only things you spot before he shoves his bag to the side with a frown. “Of course I didn't bring any food.”
You feel bad holding a stale bread roll in your hand as he tells you that and you lower it down slightly, letting him continue his rant.
“I was considering going to hunt down a cave bat or something. Not what I wanted, but I guess a life of “adventure”-” he says the word with exaggerated air quotes around them, “means that I bury the idea that I’ll ever get a lavish meal again.” He crosses his arms in annoyance.
“You shouldn’t eat a bat. You could get sick. Rabies, or something like that,” you tell him, though you aren’t sure your fun fact is a welcomed sight right now. The look on his face tells you that it isn't. “Halsin told me that after I tried to convince him to keep a family of bats that were living near one of the spots we set up camp a while ago…”
Astarion blinks, unsure of how he is supposed to react to that nugget of information. “Now my meal options have been reduced to nothing. Thanks. You’re truly a beacon of hope.”
An idea pings into your mind as you take in how irritated he is getting, most likely from the lack of food on his part. Not that you have been keeping tabs on when he would feed but from your calculations it had been a while. The last time he fed on you was a week or so ago and you still felt the sting of his fangs against your neck even now. It is an uncomfortable sensation and you were certain that it would only happen again in dire circumstances.
This feels like a dire circumstance…
“You can feed on me if you want.” The words come out quickly before you have a chance to think too deeply about the implications of it. You take a mouthful of bread to stop yourself from taking back the offer.
The irritation on his face dissipates into a softer look, one you didn't recognize. His usual quick remarks have vanished at your suggestion and it takes him a good minute to respond. The minute feels like hours to you as you start to regret even offering. Was it weird? Did you say it in a strange way?
“You don’t… I mean, I’m sure I’ll manage until we get back to camp.” He waves nonchalantly though you are unsure if he really means it.
“No offence but I have noticed you lagging behind a little lately…” you begin, unable to hold your gaze on him. “I just assumed, well, y’know… Plus I have a lot of blood to spare, so I don’t mind.” You cringe a little at that last sentence, wondering why you said it like that.
“It’s really not a big deal, I’m perfectly fine! If need be I can always go and find…” he grimaces at the next few words that leave his mouth, “a cave rat or something.”
You aren’t sure if you should feel offended at how he hasn’t jumped on the opportunity to feed from a person. Maybe it is because of how little you allowed him to feed on you. Maybe he hates you and would rather drink blood from a rat than you. You push that thought away with a frown.
“Astarion, I’m offering this to you if you need to,” you say as you set down your own food. “I’d rather you do it while I’m awake this time.” You see that he is thinking of more ways to put barriers between him and feeding on you and you wish he could be straightforward with you and say no.
“You’re all the way over there and like I said before, I don’t want to get my clothes wet,” he says and you can’t help but laugh at that. “What?”
“You can tell me no, it’s okay. I just thought I’d offer seeing as I really doubt you’ll find many cave rats around.”
He’s quiet for a moment and you can’t work out what he’s thinking. With what little you know about Astarion and his past you can’t help but assume he hasn’t had that many opportunities to say no to things.
He considers his words, opening and closing his mouth a few times before sighing, looking at you with a soft frown. “I don’t want you to feel like you are obligated to do this considering our circumstance.”
You blink in confusion at that, unsure why he feels that way. You wouldn't have offered if you didn't feel comfortable in allowing him to feed, so why was he convinced you were doing this because there was no other option?
“We haven’t built up much of a feeding rapport, that’s all! We haven’t… done this much. It still feels new.” He looks away and it clicks in your head at once - he’s nervous. You are also incredibly nervous about this, but if it means he is at the top of his game afterwards then the pain would be a small price to pay for it.
“I have no idea how else I’m supposed to say this: I’m giving you permission to feed on me, Astarion.” You want to know what he is thinking as your words hang in the air. You want to tell him that this is you telling him it’s okay, you’re wanting this just as much as he needs it.
He waits a moment, like he is expecting you to tell him you're joking or change your mind but it doesn't happen. When he realises you mean this and aren't saying it for the sake of it, he gives you a nod.
"Alright. Only if you're sure," he says quietly, moving over on your cloak to give you room beside him. You move over to sit next to him, glad to be off the cold floor and sitting on something that wasn't as uncomfortable.
"Is this alright? Do you need me to be in a certain position?" you ask quickly, shifting yourself from sitting on your knees to crossing your legs.
"It's easier if you lay down," he replies, quickly adding, "for the blood flow."
"Right. That makes sense." You check to see how much room you have of your cloak behind you before shuffling forward, coming face to face with Astarion for a moment. The sudden closeness causes you to stop in your tracks for a moment, holding his gaze for a moment longer than what is normal.
It's strange how you never really see Astarion without his guard up. Whenever you two bicker it was always with his signature smile on his face and a carefree laugh after each comment. But seeing him here and now with the gentle furrow of his brows and the soft lines etched along his face you can't help but try to memorise it all. Without even realising you found yourself moving a hand up to brush some hair from his face, stopping yourself once it rested ever so lightly against his cheek. You are about to pull away until you feel him lean into the touch, something you had not planned on happening.
The sound of a loose rock falling a little way away causes the moment to break as you pull away from him quickly, ready to move in case there was another cave in.
In an instant, the facade he has is pulled back up. "Are you trying to get me to starve to my death?" he asks once you have realised there was no chance of another incident. You laugh a little in response, cheeks warming up at the moment the two of you just shared.
"Wanted the last thing I saw to be something good. You know, in case you drink all of my blood and I die," you tease, before laying back on your cloak. The reality of what was about to happen is starting to settle in now and you keep your focus on the ceiling above you, not on Astarion.
"I promise you I won't kill you. I don't have any way of getting you back and I'd rather not have to explain to the others what happened," he replies, hands moving to either side of your head to hold himself up. He's at an angle, legs staying to one side of you. It's a little awkward and you can tell it's not ideal for him.
"That's good to hear! I do bring a scroll of revivify with me everywhere so we have a backup plan… just in case." It is hard to keep your gaze on the ceiling now as Astarion leans over you. Your heart pounds heavily against your chest and you cannot work out if it's because you know you are about to lose blood and it was working to keep it flowing or perhaps because of something else you didn't want to admit to yourself.
"Are you ready?" he asks softly, and you can already anticipate the sharp sting of his fangs piercing your skin. You give him a nod and turn your head to the side, exposing your neck to him.
He leans in and you can feel his breath against your neck. It takes everything in you to not turn to look at him, even seeing him so close out of the corner of your eye was enough to redden your cheeks. You hope he didn't notice.
The sudden pain is sharp and takes you off guard, reaching to grab onto Astarion's shoulder tightly to try and take your mind off of it. It's not as bad as the first time he fed from you, but it certainly isn't any better. He shifts positions as you see his legs now straddling you, and if anyone were to suddenly burst down the wall of rock it would be a rather embarrassing encounter for everyone. You forgot how intimate this whole ordeal could be.
You close your eyes as the pain subsides, now giving way to a feeling of numbness that crashes over you. You're very aware of the feeling of his lips against your neck and it would be so easy to let yourself imagine this was something else entirely. But then you move and the discomfort of your blood being removed from your body kicks back in and you have to stop yourself from allowing him to take too much from you. You give his shoulder a soft squeeze, and when there's no response from him you are forced to find your voice.
"Hey…" You mumble, tightening your grip on his shoulder. "Astarion..?"
He does nothing except press himself closer to you, savouring every last drop he could get. Black spots begin to fill your vision and with what little strength you had in you, you smack your arm down into his side to get him to stop.
He pulls away from your neck at the impact, blood smeared across his lips and his pupils dilated - you can hardly see the red anymore. Would it be odd to say that he looked so very handsome like this?
"Shit," he says breathlessly, "might have over indulged there. Sorry."
You give him a weak laugh, feeling your head spin at the sudden blood loss. "S'alright. Just glad you didn't kill me."
His eyes glance back at your neck as you speak, and when he leans you worry that he was going in for round two. You are taken aback when he licks across the area he had just bitten. If you weren't so dizzy you would have questioned him as he sits back, still straddling your waist.
"I'm not about to waste perfectly good blood," he says, noticing the confusion on your face. "Are you alright, though? You look a little pale."
You give him a thumbs up, still laying down. "All good. Missing some blood, that's all."
He nods, watching as you close your eyes again. You could quite easily drift off to sleep right now, the dizziness and the general feeling of not being right only adding to the need to rest. When you don't feel Astarion move off of you, you open one of your eyes to make sure he was okay.
"Are you alright?" you ask, catching him deep in thought.
"Oh, yes, I'm great. Wonderful. Absolutely perfect," he replies too quickly for it to be truthful. You frown, sitting up slowly to be at eye level with him.
"Is there more blood there still?" you ask him, watching as his eyes keep going back to your neck. "If there is, you should get it."
His touch is so soft you cannot discern if he was cleaning up some blood on your neck or if it is a kiss. When it happens again you realise he isn't cleaning up your neck but kissing over the spot he had just bitten. It is a strange feeling and one you didn't expect to feel after being drained from your blood, but as he moves along your neck leaving faint kisses in his trail you wonder if perhaps he had similar feelings towards you as you did him. You have always been happy to push those feelings down, keeping your focus on the main goal at hand. But here, trapped in a cave with no one to bug you to keep on track, maybe you could indulge yourself this once.
Astarion pulls back from your neck to look at you, his lips are still tinted a softer red from your blood and you find yourself staring at them for a little too long. Gently, you place your hand back on his cheek, smiling when he leans into the touch again. His hand moves to cover yours and you are still in shock at how soft his movements are.
The gap between you both closes slowly and you are aware of what this would lead to. Playful remarks and comments about hooking up were one thing, but this was not playing out like how you imagined it would. You didn't picture yourself being stuck in a cave with him, for starters. You want to ask him if this was okay, if this was even allowed.
You opened your mouth to speak and are suddenly caught off guard by the sound of more rocks falling elsewhere, echoing through the cave. The sudden sound causes you to flinch as you both turn to look in the direction it came from, further along the tunnel. At least it wasn't the way you came, you thought.
Astarion looks back at you after a moment and clears his throat, sitting back to put some distance between you both.
"You should get some rest. I'll, uh, keep watch in case the others turn up," he says quickly, climbing off of your lap in a clumsy manner. You can't help but feel slightly sad at the loss of his touch, but sleep was begging for you to join it.
"Wake me if anything happens," you tell him as you lay back down, already closing your eyes. You don't hear his response as sleep greets you with open arms.
Sounds of your name being called over and over again wakes you up from your slumber. Your head hurts and you feel as if you've been fighting fifty different battles and didn't win one of them. There was a pressure on your chest and as you come to you are met with a mess of white hair laying on you, Astarion's arms wrapped tightly around your midriff. You smile softly at the scene, hand moving to brush through his hair slowly. He hums in response but the moment is broken by your names being called again.
"Are you both still alive?" It's Wyll, you note, which only means he and Karlach had either gotten lost and returned back or they had Gale with them.
"We're still here!" you call back, still groggy from sleep. "Is Gale with you?"
Gale's voice is heard next and you have never been so happy to hear him speak. "The one and only!"
"Thank the Gods. Gale, I promise you that I will buy you whatever you want when we get to Baldur's Gate, just please tell me you have a way to get us out of here," you say, hoping that he had good news with him.
Astarion stirs from all the loud conversation, pressing himself closer to you in an attempt to drown out the noise. You move your hand from his head as you try to sit yourself up. It doesn't work.
Gale continues speaking. "I have a way to get you both out, don't you worry. I will need to ask you both to stand as far back as possible. I mean it. Far. Back."
You give Astarion a shake of his shoulder, trying to wake him. "Hey. Get up. We're almost out of here."
"This is not a good time to wake me up," he grumbles, swatting your hand away with a groan. "Too early."
"Gale is literally on the other side ready to blow this wall of rocks up. Wake up." You continue to shake him awake, ignoring the groans of protest.
He turns to look up at you with pleading eyes. "He can wait five more minutes. Please?"
You want to say yes, to give in and allow himself a moment of comfort. But your back hurts from laying on rock for hours and you want nothing more than to sit in your own tent and get some fresh air. You sit up quickly, causing Astarion to lose his place on your chest and sit up with you.
"I cannot believe this betrayal," he exclaims dramatically, giving you a half-asleep but playful glare. "Being this pretty doesn't come easy, you know. I need my sleep."
"You don't even sleep," you mumble, ignoring how your head sways as you push yourself up to your feet. "And you're pretty enough already." You blame the aches and pains for that last comment, though it doesn't seem to go past Astarion as quickly as you wish it did.
He grins. "You think I'm pretty?"
"Shut up and move your things. I want to get back to camp." You begin to pack away your belongings, shoving things back into your pack and waiting for Astarion to do the same. He picks up your cloak and gives it a quick brush off before putting it on himself. You're too busy putting distance between yourself and the rocks to even notice this. He slides up next to you after a moment, arm wrapping around your shoulder with a grin.
"Okay, I think you're good to go!" you yell, hoping Gale can hear you through the wall. You get confirmation almost immediately afterwards.
You feel Astarion lean towards you as you wait. "I think we should get trapped together more often. Who knows what else it could lead to?"
"More puncture holes in my neck, probably," you mumble in response. He laughs, his lips meeting your neck again just under the place where he drank from you hours ago.
"But you're so delectable," he whispers and you glare at him. The blush rising on your cheeks tells him you aren't mad.
With an almighty crash of thunder, the rocks that made up the wall you have been trapped behind suddenly disperse, the larger ones shattering and the smaller ones turning into dust. You cover your face at the impact and when your ears stop ringing you turn to see Gale, Wyll and Karlach on the other side.
Karlach immediately runs over, arms outstretched and embracing both you and Astarion without thinking.
"I'm so glad you both aren't dead. I have no idea how I'd break the news to Scratch and the Cub! Or everyone else, I suppose," she says once she lets go of you both, your clothes slightly singed by the warmth emanating from her.
"Did you find the treasure?" Gale asks when the three of you walk back to him and Wyll and is only slightly disappointed when you shake your head no. "Ah, well, nothing lost then! I'm sure there's plenty of other treasure to be found. Hopefully not in caves, though. Might I suggest avoiding them in the future?"
"Suggestion taken. I miss sunlight," you reply, feeling Astarion's hand move from your shoulder to the small of your back.
"We had fun though, didn't we? A cave-in can certainly bring people closer together. Right, my dear?" Astarion grins, giving you a wink.
"As much as we all would love to know what that's insinuating, we really should get out of here before there's another freak accident," Wyll suggests, gesturing to the way out.
You nod, wanting nothing more than to breathe fresh air and be away from cramped spaces.
The journey out of the cave is long and feels longer due to the woozy feeling of having a little less blood than you started the journey with. You find yourself leaning on Astarion for support every now and then and he is more than happy to wrap an arm around you to keep you up. The two of you are at the back of the group; you didn't want your slow pace slowing everyone else down.
"I never thanked you earlier," Astarion says quietly to you, a look of sincerity on his face.
"Oh, it's no problem," you reply, nudging him with your elbow. "Just don't almost kill me next time."
"Next time?" He raises an eyebrow with a grin. "You'll allow me to go for seconds?"
"As long as you treat me as nicely as you did afterwards, I may consider it." Thinking about the almost kiss that happened after makes you blush and Astarion shrugs casually, though you can spot the faintest hint of pink spreading across his cheeks.
"Maybe. We can always do that without the biting part," he suggests. "Only if you want."
"I'd like that." You give him a smile, leaning over to press a kiss onto his cheek. "Only if you want, too."
The first sign of daylight causes you to pull away from him before he can respond as you rush over to the opening of the cave with Karlach, thankful to get fresh air again.
Astarion watches you go, listening to you cheering and praising Gods you didn't believe in. How quickly his plans could crumble. How quickly you made him feel accepted. There was a knot present in his stomach that was slowly untangling itself the more he thought about intimacy with you. Perhaps, one day, he would want that with you.
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deepdarkdelights · 5 days ago
Text
Predator (Jungkook x Reader) Part II - Prey
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Pairing: Vampire Jungkook x Reader
Word Count: 5.2k
Series: Predator Universe
Warnings: 18+, Yandere, Vampire Jungkook, Obsession, Manipulation, Forced Relationships, Blood (So much of it), Fear (Copious amounts), Panic/Anxiety Attacks, Mind Games, Tormenting the MCs, Discussions about dead bodies, Jungkook and his unblinking stare, Self Injury (Non Mental Health Related), Forced Feeding, Isolation
I do not condone the acts displayed in this story nor do I believe any members of BTS would actually engage in this type of behavior. This is simply written for entertainment purposes and should not be taken as a reflection of my own values, opinions, or morals.
Preview: The worst part was that you never tried to run. Jungkook never tied you down to anything or bound your wrists or feet. He simply knew that you would never try. It would be idiotic for you to try and run, you knew he was a talented tracker - he would be able to find you within minutes of your escape. There was nowhere to run and nowhere to hide from him, he would always be able to find you.
A/N: I am alive! This was entirely inspired by an ask that was sent to me so the entire reason this exists is because of the wonderful anons who have asked be about what has happened since the end of Predator and who have asked to see what a more lucid Jungkook would look like. I haven't had this much fun writing in such a long time. I'm sorry it's so short, I hope you can forgive me 💜
READ PART I - PREDATOR
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It was dark and quiet, the only sound being the steady, slow, drip of water hitting the dusty floorboards and the harsh chatter of your teeth as they clashed together. 
You were freezing, your body trembling despite your best attempts to collect yourself. It was no use, no matter what you did you were never able to warm up anymore. You knew it wasn’t all that cold outside, but that didn’t really matter. Despite the chills that wracked your body there was a fine sheen of sweat that coated your skin.
You were unsure as to how much time had really passed since you had found yourself here. All of the days had begun to blend together like some horrible fever dream you simply couldn’t wake up from. The only constant in your life has become him. 
If you didn’t know any better, you would think he was trying to kill you. 
What was truly likely, was that this was a side effect of his treatment of you. It was very likely that he just didn’t know how to take care of a human. And despite your incessant pleading, he had told you that he would not kill you. So really, it was his own ineptitude that had you knocking on death’s door.
Your skin felt grimey, not entirely from lack of hygiene, but from the film of blood that coated your skin. It was all over you but it mostly dominated your cheeks, lips, throat, chest, and fingers. He was not violent when he claimed his feeds, but he was not necessarily gentle either. You hadn’t looked in a mirror for quite some time, but you were certain no amount of vampire blood would be able to seal your wounds with how often they were readily reopened.
This wasn’t a life, it was a slow and painful trek to the afterlife.
Your trembling increased as the front porch creaked, he was already back. Your head lolled backwards and hit the wall behind you in defeat. You couldn’t do this again, you couldn’t give him another part of yourself - this time you were certain that it would kill you. 
Every time he fed from you, there was a horrible, delightful, exhilarating rush that followed. Whatever it was that he was doing to you, it was forcing you to enjoy the very thing that was killing you. It was perverse. It was disgusting. It was addicting.
It was hard to hate him in the throes of ecstasy, there was this horrible thrill that came the second before his fangs pierced his limb of choice as you knew you would be rewarded with bliss in the moments that followed. It was easier to hate him when he wasn’t there, his lack of presence giving your mind the briefest of reprieves to remind yourself of the horrible situation you were truly in. 
The distance, however, didn’t seem to allow him the same clarity. If anything, it made him grow more needy, more irritated, and more clingy.
The door creaked open, and your time to yourself disappeared. Your body shook tenfold as his presence filled the room. He still looked the same as he did the first time you had come face to face with him. His clothes were worse for wear, even more blood stained and shredded than they had been before. There was a permanent coppery scent that surrounded him, the dried blood being the prime suspect. 
You were certain that you didn’t smell that much better. Although, to a vampire, you probably would smell all that more enticing.
His gaze was immediately drawn to you, your eyes locking with one another, bridging the fifteen foot gap between you. His eyes often fluctuated in vibrancy depending on how hungry he was. The days where they were near black were the most difficult for you, but today they were a bright crimson red. He had fed on someone, someone who luckily wasn’t you.
“Hello little mouse,” He greeted, his voice low and surprisingly soft, devoid of the almost manic tone you had been familiar with for the longest time. 
He began to close the distance between the two of you, his gait smooth as he approached you. The way he moved was unnaturally perfect, the silent power of a predator imbued in every muscle of his body.
He wordlessly dropped a bag in your lap as he sank down to the ground beside you, his wide, red, unblinking eyes staring at you, waiting for you to make a move. No matter how much time you have spent with him, his stare was still unnerving.
It took you longer than it should have to open it, your fingers trembling beyond your control. But Jungkook was patient, he has all of the time in the world to wait.
The scent of food hit your nose, your mouth watering and your stomach growling eagerly in response. From the color of his eyes and what he had brought you, you assumed he had decided to have his fill of a hiker instead of you. 
Jungkook didn’t know how to take care of a human, that much was obvious. He had, however, been keenly aware of how much blood he was draining from your body on a daily basis. You had become so weak, anything but sitting felt like a herculean task nowadays. And the lack of consistent meals was weighing heavy on your body.
You didn’t care that he was watching you eat, your mannerisms ravenous and most likely off putting. But you no longer complained when he took his fill of you, and for some reason he remained silent and returned that courtesy. 
You had noticed a shift in his behavior when that other vampire had found the two of you not that long ago. He knew Jungkook, from the way they spoke it appeared he knew him very well. This other vampire, despite how he appeared more human than Jungkook, frightened you just as much. You could tell from the curl of his smile to his confident gait that he was just as bad, if not worse, as Jungkook.
You had nearly fainted on the spot when he suggested the two of them share you, you were already tapped out as it was, Jungkook had fed on you that morning. The two of them, together, would kill you for sure.
To your surprise, Jungkook had not responded enthusiastically. He responded like an animal defending its territory - baring his fangs and growling in just barely contained rage. And that reaction had set off the other vampire and before you knew it they were a blur of limbs.
They moved so fast your human eyes could barely keep up with them. You were only able to focus when one of them threw the other giving you just enough time to watch them separate before they came back together again. The sound their bodies made when they clashed together was like thunder from what you could only assume was the pure force and strength they possessed. And, much like animals, they ripped and tore into one another with their teeth and nails.
By the time the two of them had finally separated for good, it was because of how much they had injured one another. The both of them were covered in wounds oozing black blood, some of which was their own, and some belonging to the other.
The other vampire, whom you had briefly heard Jungkook address as Hoseok, was tired but still enraged.
“Are you fucking serious? All of this for what, a pathetic little human?!” He yelled, his nostrils flaring in anger. “It’s food, Jungkook! I’m your brother!”
Your body flinched out of habit at the snarl that left Jungkook.
“With the rate that you’re going you’ll kill her anyways! Why does it even matter?!”
“She’s my human,” Jungkook replied, his voice low with warning.
“This isn’t even supposed to be about her! She’s nothing! Namjoon sent me to come and find you but you know what, I think I’ll let you deal with the consequences of your actions. It’s only a matter of time before he comes for you and when that happens, you're on your own!”
He disappeared quickly after that, it was like he was there one moment and then vanished the next. Once he was gone, Jungkook’s once sturdy stance softened, his shoulders bending forward from the strain of his own weight. He was hurt, badly.
He slowly turned to look at you, the red of his eyes and his dark mop of hair just visible over the curve of his shoulder. You knew that look, it usually didn’t end well for you. 
“No, no, no, Jungkook, please!” You whimpered, scrambling backwards.
But it was no use, he never listened to you anyways. He always took what he wanted, even when you had nothing left to give. 
He stumbled when he moved but he quickly regained his footing, his black blood stained hands grabbing you by the shins and pulling your retreating form towards him. You fought as hard as you could but you were already weak to begin with.
“Stop it, please!” You begged, but he didn’t listen. He wrapped his arms around you, his grip too tight and utterly uncomfortable. 
“Jungkook-”
“Shut up,” He grunted before yanking your head roughly to the side and sinking his teeth back into the scarred skin of your neck. The shriek that left you was borderline inhuman, the building scar tissue made the intrusion all the more painful and Jungkook was not gentle.
And he had already taken so much blood the day before. It wasn’t long before your eyes rolled to the back of your head and you went limp in his iron hold.
That was the first time that Jungkook had given you vampire blood. You had almost died that day, you had gotten so close to finally being free of him and still he wouldn’t let you go. Even death wasn’t a great enough adversary for him. 
When you had woken up after that attack, shocked that you managed to survive, you were met with those big, red, frightening eyes. The look on his face was the most serious you had ever seen it before, an odd clarity in his eyes that you were seeing for the first time.
He had been dreadfully quiet since then, speaking even less and shorter sentences than he normally did. You wouldn’t say he felt bad for what he did, but he had become increasingly aware of the inherent fragility that came with being human. He never apologized, but he had fed from you a lot less after that.
You froze mid bite as you felt his icy fingers graze your flesh, the coolness biting your skin and seeping into your veins. His touch was feather light, just barely there, but you went still beneath it anyways. You were incredibly aware of the strength that was concealed in that touch. He appeared unbothered by your response, his thumb smoothing over the curve of your jaw as he leaned in unbearably close.
You flinched at the feeling of cold metal being draped around your throat, his fingers clasping the material at the nape of your neck. It was a necklace. Your chest felt tighter, the food in your stomach quickly souring. 
He was doing it again. 
You were well aware of Jungkook’s strange and disturbing habit of taking mementos from his victims. His ears, wrists, neck, and practically every inch of his body were adorned with items he had stolen. You noticed he had an affinity for jewelry, but his jacket and boots had been taken from someone’s corpse as well. And, recently, he started bringing them back for you as well. 
Your bloody fingers were littered with several rings, a bracelet on your right wrist, and your ears decorated in earrings - some of which he had pierced himself. And now, the necklace.
It left your stomach in knots when he did this, you couldn’t help but think about the bodies abandoned in the woods that he had slaughtered every time the metal glinted back at you. Each piece felt like another shackle keeping you at his side. 
The worst part was that you never tried to run. Jungkook never tied you down to anything or bound your wrists or feet. He simply knew that you would never try. It would be idiotic for you to try and run, you knew he was a talented tracker - he would be able to find you within minutes of your escape. There was nowhere to run and nowhere to hide from him, he would always be able to find you.
And so, you had become his plaything. His dinner and now his doll, a weak body that he could play with and decorate to his greatest desires whether that be with a corpse's jewelry, or a litany of scars.
“Pretty,” He said, his voice deceptively soft as he grazed the skin of your neck, his fingers moving from the clasp of the necklace to trace over the scarred imprints of his fangs and teeth.
You were thankful that he wasn’t hungry.
The odd, calm atmosphere between the two of you was quickly dissipating. Jungkook shifted away, agitation clear on his face as an annoyed growl parted his lips. You flinched back against the wall, scooting away to stay out of his path. 
This wasn’t unusual - he had been having rapid mood swings lately.
The few moments of peace the two of you would share were often interrupted by the sudden pained twist of his features - his eyebrows drawing together and his nose scrunching in a snarl. It almost looked like he was in physical pain despite there being no signs of any injury.
And then, the pacing would start. It was like watching a caged lion sweep the perimeter of their enclosure. Back and forth, slow and menacing steps. It was like he was looking for something, or trying to guard the two of you from someone else. You hadn’t dared to ask what he was doing, to be entirely honest you tried your best to avoid initiating any interaction or conversation with him at all. The few times you did speak to him, it was usually to beg for him to leave you alone, pleas that often fell on deaf ears. 
You didn’t know what to do with this. When you first “met” him, he had been sadistic, like a zealous child with more power than they knew what to do with. He had wanted to play his sick and twisted games with you and the plan had always been to gorge himself on your blood and leave your mangled corpse deep in the forest to wither and return to the earth. That was what was familiar to you, that was what you were expecting. 
You were never supposed to live, that had been an unfortunate circumstance, a split decision he made to prolong your torture and pain. You didn’t know what you were supposed to do with this suddenly quiet, confused, and barely human creature in front of you. One that would rip open your flesh to feed just as soon as he would leave bruising kisses on your lips and throat, painting the flesh a rich red that was left to rust.
You were waiting for him to snap, waiting for it to all finally be over. But that would be luck, luck that you didn’t have. He had promised you, so long ago, that you would never be alone again, that he would keep you. And you have suffered the consequences ever since.
When he said your name you felt your blood freeze over. He had never said your name before, you didn’t even know that he knew it. He had always called you that horrific pet name, his little mouse.
You wrapped your arms around your legs, pulling them into your chest in an attempt to feel some sense of security as he continued to speak. 
“We’re leaving soon.” He said, the words simple but the expression on his face ever so complex. Reluctance, frustration, pain, anxiety.  
You swallowed, but did not move. The silence was deafening. But, by the look on his face, you knew that he was waiting for your response. You would have to break the stalemate. 
“Are you…taking me home?” You dared to ask, your heart thundering in your chest as that predatory gleam returned to those red eyes. 
“No,” He growled, his jaw clenched as his fangs ground against his lower set of teeth, “You’re not going back there, ever.”
Your heart shattered. 
“I’m being called back to my home.”
His home? This was the first that you were hearing of it, you never stopped to ask yourself if he had a home. You couldn’t picture it even if you tried, it was a puzzle piece that simply didn’t fit. You had always assumed he was simply a nomadic creature that moved as he hunted. And, due to his supernatural nature, it seemed that he never needed the typical human necessities and comforts such as four walls and a roof. 
You knew he had some sort of family at the very least. You had, after all, had the displeasure of meeting Hoseok who had referred to himself as his brother. And he had mentioned the name Namjoon, the phrasing suggesting a hierarchical structure. But even the notion that he had a family felt just as mismatched. And how ironic it was that he was returning home to a family he didn’t even want, and he wouldn’t let you go home to the family that you missed so much. 
“And that’s bad?” You hesitantly asked, flinching as he growled in frustration. 
“It’s worse than bad!” He yelled, his hands sliding through his hair in stress, “It was difficult enough fending Hoseok off, but all six of them? You’re as good as dead.”
Hope.
“Then…don’t go?” You said, although it sounded more like a question. By the way he was acting, it was like returning was not a choice. 
“If only it were that easy,” He laughed, the sound bordering on being unhinged. “I can’t ignore it, if I’m called I have to answer. If I don’t it becomes more and more persistent. It feels like a cord that grows tighter and tighter until it pulls and my body moves on its own and takes me back.”
That explained the pacing, the restlessness his body had been experiencing. He had been trying to redirect it by walking the perimeter of the decrepit cottage but it had been a temporary fix to the problem. You could only assume that he was getting to the point now where his body was ready to return against his will. 
How horrible it was, to be someone’s unwilling puppet. You knew that feeling all too well. 
You didn’t know what you were supposed to tell him. There were no choices to be made by the two of you. He would have to return, and he wouldn’t leave you here on your own as he knew you would be given the greatest opportunity you have ever had to leave him. So, he would have to take you with him right into the lion’s den where you would undoubtedly be consumed.
He was mumbling to himself now, his pacing becoming more frantic and much faster, your human eyes struggling to keep track of him. You were sure that he was moving so fast he would wear down the old floorboards beneath him and the soles of his beat up boots.
You could only assume that meant the call was becoming even stronger. Before - it was asking, now it was commanding.
You had never seen him so frantic before, those wide blood red eyes unblinking and shifting back and forth faster and faster as his thoughts raced. It was borderline demonic, like something you would see during a paranormal movie or an exorcism. It was terrifying. 
You began to scoot back as far away as you could until your spine was flush with the wall behind you. You felt better with some part of you concealed from the open, but that did little to calm your racing heart and the creature that raged in front of you.
What was he so afraid of, so panicked by? You couldn’t imagine anything scaring him, not with how terrifying he was on his own. What could be so bad, so scary, that it frightened a monster? You weren't sure you wanted to find out, even if it meant you could finally feel the sweet embrace of death and escape him once and for all. 
Jungkook finally came to a stop, his body still but his eyes continued to move erratically. And then they too settled, and a look of deadly calm settled over them. He had decided something, and you were certain that whatever his decision was it wouldn’t be good for you. 
“They wouldn’t,” You heard him mutter to himself, “Not if I put a fail safe if place.”
A fail safe?
Before you could even blink he had moved across the room, faster than your eyes could track. Your body had been ripped away from the wall and set in between his legs, your spine pressed against his chest, the both of you seated on the ground.
An uncontrollable wail shook your body, the sound emanating a feeling of pure hopelessness. You had been surprised it came out of you, but you knew why. You were terrified he was going to feed from you again. 
His one arm was wrapped around your ribs, his legs tensed and forcing your own to squeeze together. He had immobilized you, there was nowhere else you could go and no way to escape him. 
Your entire body shook and heaved with hysterical breaths as you writhed in his grip. “Please, please don’t do it again I can’t take anymore of this!”
He hushed you, his free hand brushing over your hair in a surprisingly gentle manner. It was more like someone who was trying to calm a startled stray animal than anything else. His touch moved to your chin, lightly taking hold of the point where your neck and jaw bone met.
He didn’t say anything, instead he forced you to look at him, turning your face so that he could look directly into your eyes. And then, to your shock and horror, he plunged his fangs into his own wrist and ripped the flesh wide open. A torrent of thick, viscous, black blood rolled down the pale flesh of his forearm. And before you could do or say anything he grabbed you by your hair and jerked your head back before pressing his open wound to your mouth. 
You gagged at the smell and taste, tears blurring your vision as you tried to move your head away but he did not budge. His arm around your ribs finally moved but only to help him pry your jaw open and force the blood flow down your throat. He continued to hush you as he forced you to drink, gently rocking your body in stark contrast to the harsh and violent hold he had you in. 
“Just relax,” He whispered against the shell of your ear, “The more you struggle, the longer I’ll keep you here. We need to get as much of my blood as possible into your system.”
You were crying even harder now, the salt of your tears slipping between his wrist and your lips and mingling with his blood in your mouth. What had you ever done to deserve this? What horrible thing had you done in some past life to deserve this kind of punishment?
You just wanted to go home. You wanted your mom and dad, your grandparents, and the gentle comfort of your bed in your childhood room. You wanted that life back, and you were never going to have it again. 
His harsh grip on your jaw loosened as you went limp in his arms, resigning yourself to your inescapable fate. His hand returned to those soothing strokes against your hair, a low hum in his chest vibrating against your back as he watched you feed from him with a curious gaze. You were such a weak little thing, you needed him more than you would ever understand. 
You hiccupped pathetically when he finally removed his wrist from your mouth after what felt like hours. Your lips and chin were stained black from the blood he spilled when you had struggled. He stared at you again, curiosity evident in his gaze, as he leaned forward and licked the flesh of your lips, tasting his own blood.
You shivered as he made a soft hum, cocking his head to the side before doing it once more, stroking over the bitten and chapped skin with his tongue as he transitioned into kissing your battered lips in a grotesque act of intimacy. He laughed against your mouth as you weakly pushed against his chest, he was amused by your pathetic attempts to push him away. It only encouraged him to kiss you harder and deeper, sampling the taste of his own blood straight from your mouth. 
Once he was satisfied he finally allowed you to breathe, a devious gleam in his eyes that you had not seen in a long time. 
“They won’t be able to kill you for a while now, not unless they want another vampire to worry about.” He said. He was gloating, reveling in the win his family had no idea he had already achieved.
Your blood ran cold, your body freezing at his revelation. The very thing you craved, your own death and by association freedom from him, would be the very thing that would trap you with him for the rest of eternity. If you were killed with his blood in your system, you would become one of them. He truly had taken everything from you, even the dignity of your own death. Your life was his and his alone.
He really was a monster.
His features suddenly twisted in pain, his head jerking to the side as he released a low and threatening growl. The call was becoming even stronger, the most intense it had ever been. There was no more delaying it. They had to go, and they had to right now. 
He quickly lifted you into his arms as his body began to move on its own, forcing him to begin to move in the direction of his home. There was nothing more that you could do, all you could do was remain limp in his arms. It was over, there was point in fighting anymore.
He had finally broken you. 
When he stepped outside you were shocked by the fresh air and the cold weather. Then again, you always feel cold now. The clouds were thick today, the sun hidden behind their cover. It had been so long since you were outside, and even longer since you had been in the sun - that wouldn’t change in the near future. But what truly shocked you, was that the world went on without you. The seasons continued to change, the flora continued to flourish and then decay. The cycles continued while you were stored away. How cruel the world was to keep going on as you withered away. 
You leaned your head against his shoulder, shielding your face from the harsh wind as he began to move faster, running at his impossibly fast pace that no human could ever wish to match. How had so much changed? When did you go from human being to a play thing for a monster like him. You had a life, but now it had become inconsequential, toyed with and thrown away like it never even mattered.
What were you supposed to do now? At the end of the day, it didn’t really matter. He had won, he had played his sadistic stupid games with you, and he had won. He had broken you. You tucked your chin into your chest and like the pathetic creature that you were you whimpered.
You cared about what was going to happen next. If Jungkook had been wrong, then the two of you walking into the proverbial lion's den would end with you turning into one of them, a fate worse than any other that you could imagine. To be tied to him for all of eternity would be your personal hell on earth. 
What would they do to you when you got there? Would your death before your next life be slow and torturous, or quick and merciful? Would it be planned and intentional, or accidental? 
Jungkook began to slow, his fast pace relaxing into a natural walk. The tension that previously rested in his body had begun to dissipate. You could only speculate this was the relief of obeying the command to return home. His control over his own body was slowly but surely coming back to him the closer the two of you came to his home.
He stopped for a moment, placing you down on your own two feet before he took hold of your wrist and forced you to follow after him. Your knees wobbled beneath your weight, unaccustomed to you standing after being curled up in a ball in that abandoned shack for the longest time. You looked more like a baby fawn learning to walk than you did that meek little mouse Jungkook always thought you were. He, however, paid little attention to you at that moment. He was tense, his body in a state of alert as subtly surveyed the area as you continued on. 
He could sense something that your dull human senses weren’t entirely picking up on. However, the hair on the back of your neck prickled and your gut twisted as you felt phantom eyes digging into your body. 
Someone, somewhere, was watching you. 
A building began to break through the cluster of trees. A modern, contemporary house in the middle of the forest was coming into view. This was the last place you thought of when Jungkook had mentioned his home. In all honesty, you would have been less surprised by a crypt and a row of coffins.
In front of the house, stood a man. His arms were crossed in front of his chest, his eyes that familiar shade of deep burgundy, the same shade the monster’s eyes were when he was hungry. This sent chills throughout your body, your entire being sensing the danger in the vampire that stood across from you. 
Those burgundy eyes swept towards you, a look of shock and confusion discoloring their once calm gaze that you speculated was rarely rattled. His features twisted as he took in the state of you, the dried human and vampire blood that coated your body in thick layers, the dirt that was caked into your clothing, your hair that needed to be washed, and the smattering of scars that decorated your body and glistened in the cloudy daylight. 
You were barely human anymore, you were a walking corpse.
“You called me home, Namjoon.” Jungkook simply said, his body moving to shield you from the other vampire's gaze.
“Jungkook,” Namjoon said, utter disbelief tinging his words, “What are you doing to her?” 
In every possible scenario you had conjured in your mind, this had not been one of them.
Sympathy.
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thefreakandthehair · 9 months ago
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apollo, who?
prompt: beach day | pairing: steddie | wc: 1.5k | rating: teen & up | tags: eddie munson pov, athletic steve, post-canon fix it, pining, reciprocated crushes | written for @pearynice for the @strangerthingswritersguild April Fools exchange! 💕☀️🌊
There are three absolute truths when it comes to Steve Harrington: 
The first is that Steve is a gifted athlete. 
The second is that Steve was born to thrive in the summertime. 
And the third, much to Eddie Munson’s chagrin and horror, is that the combination of the first two truths will be his undoing. In public, no less, because the universe has apparently concocted a plan to let Eddie live but to make him suffer nonetheless. 
Unloading the van had been easy enough— Steve grabbing the cooler stacked to the brim with soda, water, and snacks and Eddie watching as he’d trekked through the sand to where Robin and Nancy set up their chairs and beach umbrella. Most of the kids were long gone already, staking their claim with blankets and towels a few feet away from Robin and Nancy, leaving Eddie to snag the sunblock he’s basically been made to swear a blood oath to Wayne that he’ll apply generously over his scars. 
He leans back over the passenger seat to grab it from the center console, along with his walkman and sunglasses, and when he turns back around, he stops dead. 
Steve’s shirtless.
In the span of ten seconds, Steve’s already shirtless on the beach, nothing but swim trunks hanging from his hips, and Eddie realizes he’s underestimated how fucking beautiful this sight might be. 
The edge of Lake Michigan laps at the rippled sands as Steve reels back and tosses a football that Eddie’s pretty sure materialized out of nowhere to Lucas a few yards down the shore. All of his freckles and moles and scars out on full display, the sun beats down on his tanned skin and uncharacteristically messy hair that Eddie’s watched slowly morph from chestnut to ash brown over the course of the season. 
As Eddie applies his stupid sunblock, he lets himself stare unnoticed. Lucas throws what Eddie assumes is a good pass if Steve’s celebratory, “Great spiral!” means anything and when he puts on his sunglasses, it’s more to shield the blinding light of Steve’s smile than the sun. Maybe it’s cliche, maybe it’s overdone and contrived, but Eddie can’t stop himself from comparing Steve to a Greek fucking God. 
Apollo, who? 
El appears next to Steve and Eddie continues to watch— about three layers of sunblock in at this point because he’s lost track— as Steve demonstrates something. Holding the football in one hand, he points at the laces and seems to check in with El for understanding before handing it over to her and adjusting her grip slightly. When she attempts to throw it to Lucas, it falls short and lands in the sand just a few feet away from where she and Steve stand. 
Eddie’s chest fucking swells as Steve trots over to grab it and simply hands it to her again, smile in place to counteract El’s pout. Three or four tries later, the ball flies straight enough for Lucas to catch it and Jesus H. Christ, Steve cheers like she scored a touchdown, or whatever the fuck it’s called. 
He can’t leave the side of the van. If he makes his way down to the beach, it’ll be all over for him. He’ll have to hide in the water the entire time, and now there’s too much sunblock on his face to blame the inevitable flush on sunburn. It’s fine, he can hang back. Everyone looks preoccupied anyways and with any luck, no one will notice he’s not enjoying the surf and sand with everyone else until it’s time to leave— 
“Eddie!” 
Right, he thinks to himself. I have no luck. 
Steve waves at him to come join, turning that sunshine smile directly at him and it’s a direct hit. Apparently, even on the opposite side of the sands, he’s still a goner. 
“Eddie! C’mon, what’re you waiting for?” He calls out again, both hands resting on his hips. 
It does nothing to quell his urge to stare at places friends aren’t supposed to stare at. As far as he knows, the only person to have picked up on his unfortunate crush is Nancy, who’d seemed to understand the importance of discretion and hasn’t said a word. If he can leave this beach day with his secret intact, he’ll chalk it up as a success. 
“I’m comin’, I’m comin’!” 
With a deep breath, he locks and slams the passenger door to the van and walks out onto the hot sand, barefoot with his sneakers in one hand, SPF 70 in the other, and sunglasses hung over his nose. Distantly, he recognizes the grittiness of the sand beneath his toes and the earthy scent of the freshwater stretching out for miles in front of him but more acutely, he just keeps his eyes on Steve. 
Please let these glasses be tinted, he thinks. 
“Finally, what the hell were you doing up there?” Steve asks when he makes it down the narrow path lines with tall grass. 
“Aw, did you miss me, Big Boy?” Eddie drones with a smirk. If he just acts normal, no one will know the difference. It’s not like Steve ever flirts back—
“And if I did?” 
He hasn't planned for that response. All he’s prepared for is a gentle eye roll, maybe a flustered laugh or furrowed brow, and now Steve’s shirtless, sun-baked, sweat dripping from his temple and suggesting he missed him. 
What the fuck. 
“Heads-up!” Lucas yells and Steve turns just in time to take two steps backward and catch the football coming in their direction. 
There’s no way for Lucas to have known he’d just saved Eddie from something horrendously embarrassing, but he’ll find a way to thank him all the same. 
“Ever throw a football?” Steve holds the oblong ball in one hand, wiggling it at shoulder height with a grin. “I taught El how to throw a spiral, so I think I can teach you, too.” 
Okay, actually, he’s still being subjected to something humiliating. 
“Sports have never really been my—”
“Don’t start with that, c’mere. It’s easy.” Steve gestures with a nod of his head for Eddie to join him further out on the beach and like a satellite to its orbit, he follows. 
It takes way more attempts than it did El— something Max was all too quick to point out loudly— but he does eventually throw something that Steve considers a spiral. Maybe it would’ve taken fewer tries if Steve hadn’t insisted on standing directly behind him, adjusting his stance and grip with his chest damn near pressed against Eddie’s back. 
Of all the unfair cards life has dealt him, this has to be the worst. More than once, he makes eye contact with Nancy who raises an eyebrow and smirks before returning her attention to whatever she and Robin are talking about. 
Probably him. Him and Steve and his dumb, dumb, dumb crush that’s ruining his life. It’s fine. 
When he finally throws the ball at an acceptable angle, Steve claps him on the shoulder and stands next to him, effectively draping an arm over both shoulders. 
“See? That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
He swallows and turns, breath catching his throat. All of the sun has brought Steve’s freckles to the forefront, a shade darker than usual with new tiny pinpricks of color appearing along his nose with a faint pink hue along his cheekbones. 
If they weren’t in public, he’d do something very, very stupid. Instead, he clears his throat subtly and finds words. 
“Sure, yeah, I’m a regular sports guy now, Steve. Guess I’ve gotta find something to teach you, huh? Y’know, return the favor?” 
“I’ve always wanted to learn guitar. You can show me the basics some time. Or uh,” Steve grins and lowers his voice. “I’m sure there are some other things we can learn together.” 
Eddie’s fully lost track of how many times he’s been caught off-guard so far today, but this one takes the cake. Steve’s fucking flirting with him. Actually flirting with him. Beating him over the goddamn head with it, really. 
“Yeah! Yeah, uh, yeah,” he repeats, smooth. “To both, I mean. Yeah, to both.” 
Steve squeezes his shoulder and unravels his arm with a hopeful expression. 
“We’ll talk more when we aren’t surrounded by nosy shits, especially those two,” Steve nods at Robin and Nancy who wave with their fingers. “In the meantime, race you to the water?” 
“What is it with you jocks?”
He barely has time to get the question out before Steve takes off, plunging into the water a solid foot before Eddie even reaches the shore. 
“That’s cheating, Harrington!” He bellows, running through the sand to join him, heart thundering between his ribs and head still spinning from what just happened. 
“Sounds like what I’d expect from someone who just lost,” Steve shoots back, taking a breath and submerging himself before popping back up. 
Hair slicked back with the freshwater of Lake Michigan, Eddie watches as Steve runs both hands through it, then down his face and back into the lake. Water droplets glisten off his skin and Eddie wades a little closer, finding Steve’s hands once they’re submerged enough to disguise it. 
“Oh, contraire,” Eddie muses. “I feel like I just won.”
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ligiawrites · 1 month ago
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Only three weeks to the release of the demo for Trek to Dead Water 🙈 these two are dying to meet you:
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nayaesworld · 1 month ago
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The Beast in the Woods
Warnings: smut, supernatural!Terry
Word count: 3800+
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Don’t let the wolf in through your back door…
Nature attracted Willow for as long as she could remember it enchanted her and she filled her time nurturing plants and animals alike. Some would say she spent way too much time surrounded by thick greenery and that’s why she couldn’t stand to be around people. But Willow just preferred her own company most times.
Buying a cottage smack dead in the middle of lush woods sounded like a nightmare to most, but this was prime real estate to Willow. Mornings were spent feeding the neighboring deer herd and wild bunnies that had taken a liken to her and her vegetable garden. After getting tired of trying to keep them from her garden, she had given in and just decided to share what she couldn’t eat, they had a beautiful balance out there and she was content with her little piece of paradise.
This morning was no different, she had awoken from her soft bed in a cheerful mood, an angel in her own right. Completing her morning routine she shook out her short curls and misted them lightly with a little water. This morning a light fog blanketed the woodlands and she pulled on her hiking boots and coat eager to rush out into it.
Expecting to open her large front door to hungry animals, she was shocked to find her front yard and small porch clear of any wildlife. Shrugging to herself she shoved her phone into her coat pocket and started her trek out to the pond a little ways past her cottage.
She loved to visit it because it was a great spot to take pictures and watch nature move around her. The air was fresh and dewy and she smiled up into it, soaking in the clean fresh country air. She thrived off it.
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It didn’t take her long to see the pond up ahead and she began to quicken her pace, rushing to seat herself on a log a few feet from the water. And oddly enough when she sat there and waited, no deer rushed out to meet her, no bunnies nibbled at her boots, and no birds chirped from their high perches. Something felt off, it was eerily quiet in the usually loud and bustling woods. Willow felt out of place and oddly like a sitting duck, what had happened between yesterday and now? Sighing to herself she felt like what people said about her was true, if this is what her happiness depended on… was she broken? She admitted she wasn’t into what your typical twenty-three year old was into, but twenty somethings weren’t a monolith… they couldn’t possibly expect her to like something just because they did.
“Maybe I do need to go out and meet people… this is pathetic.” She mumbled to herself and tugged on her short curls, she didn’t wanna beat herself down over human companionship… not again. It had never gotten her anywhere before, but every now and again she truly did long for someone, someone to love and care for outside of her animals. A man? She laughed out loud this time. Would she know the first thing to do with a man? How to cater to him, feed him, pleasure him? God no, she had no such idea the first thing to do with a man,and maybe that’s why she’d never been with one.
Twisting her lips to the side, she decided she wouldn’t make this trip into the woods a depressing one. She would make the very best of it all.
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He’d spent the last two weeks watching the little brown beauty flit and twirl effortlessly through the woods. It had been exactly two weeks since he caught a scent so strong and enticing in the wind, that he could only focus on one thing until he found her. Her scent had traveled for miles on the wind, over rivers and lakes and smacked him dead in the face. A sweet scent that reminded him of the honeysuckle that grew in large vines in the bushes, at first he fought to overcome the bloodlust but now he realized he had succumbed to it.
The constant stalking and eying had made him a student to her never changing routine. Each morning she would water her garden and feed the wild animals that gratefully took the easy food from her,each afternoon she would walk the trail to the pond, and she would end her day meditating on a mat in the middle of her flower garden.
Did she know that he’d been watching and waiting around to be fed by her? To feed from her, to soak in the very life force that pumped through her veins. He felt feral and out of his own body most times he was in close proximity of her, the beast inside grinding and gnawing at his mind.
Today was no different; her humming and singing through the woods had alerted him, he cocked his head towards the music coming from her mouth, listening and intrigued yet again. Wasn’t she afraid to be taken out here all alone? Hadn’t she known that she could be snatched and no one would ever find a trace? What was she trying to prove, he felt insulted by her lack of awareness, maybe she needed something to scare her into a sense of self preservation.
This night he knew he could no longer hold back, he felt the presence of the full moon before nightfall ever came, it compelled him to do two things, feed and fuck. Would she even survive something so animalistic as him, and would she accept him for who he truly was? Her love for all things furry and wild made him believe so, but he wouldn’t bet that her pretty little eyes would fill with terror and flee at what he truly was, the form he would take every full moon.
He didn’t have all day to get close to her, so he began to plan his attempt…
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Dressed in a cream colored milkmaid dress Willow twirled from side to side, she felt pretty and ethereal. Her curly hair was pulled into a low ponytail and she left her short curly bangs to grace her forehead, slipping on her chocolate brown cowgirl boots she hurried out her back door and into her backyard to water her flowers.
Turning on her water hose she turned the nozzle a few times to her preferred setting and drenched her thirsty plants with water. Her sunflowers had wilted a little from her neglect, but she was hopeful they would perk right on up by tomorrow morning. Walking over and checking her rose bush, she snipped a few stems with her garden pliers and slipped them into her glass vase. These would look gorgeous in her kitchen window. She enjoyed the extended sunlight because on days like this she could water her flowers at 8 pm.
A twig snapping in the close distance snapped her from admiring her flowers, standing to her full height she waited for the deer to come to her… but they never did, instead to her horror she watched a man step out from the woods. Dropping the water hose from her hand she stood in shock, she stared out at him confused by his presence yet curious. Did she have new neighbors?
“Hello…umm are you lost?” Her chipper voice carried across the small meadow.
“Yess… and I’m hurt… I was attacked out in the woods and lost my phone. I’m bleeding and I need to call for help.” His deep voice touched her ear drums and rattled her head, it was so rich and she found herself wanting to hear him talk more.
“I.. umm.. I have a phone you could use, but you’d have to wait outside. Is that ok?” She wanted to help but she still was weary of strangers, no matter how handsome.
“Yes that’s fine with me….thank you.” She watched him walk closer and she stepped into her back door to grab her cell phone. When she made it back outside the size of the man smacked her in the face, even sitting on her bench he seemed to be just as tall as her standing up. The shirt that clung to his body was like a second skin, ready to rip to pieces at any sudden movement. His arms were huge and his bulging biceps were the same size as her head. Stepping closer to him she noticed the blood dripping from his side where a large gash had ripped into his shirt and skin.
“Oh my god… your side.. are you sure you should bleed out like this?” Her panicked questions came out in a blur, this was worse than she had imagined.
“No… I feel dizzy and hot. I need some water please… I feel like I might pass out.” The handsome stranger looked green in the face, like his life was fading away slowly and that he might not last long.
Willow couldn’t let this man die in her backyard. Throwing caution to the wind, she helped him off the bench and let him inside her home to her dining table.
Rushing to her medicine cabinet she pulled out gauze pads and peroxide along with a ointment to help clean the wound while it was patched up.
“I-I can help you ok…. Please don’t die on me…hello, sir can you hear me?” Raising his head from her dining table he put a thumbs up, and she breathed out heavily. Placing the first aid kit on her table she watched him lift his shirt, grimacing as the fabric and old blood stuck to the gash.
“I’m sorry if this hurts… but it’s all I have for something like this… are you ready?” Lifting his head he peered into her eyes and nodded his head. Uncapping the peroxide she quickly doused the wound, the fizzle of it drowned out by his loud groans. His fist balled up at his sides and she lightly placed her hand on his back.
Hurrying to douse it one more time for good measure she cleaned the debris and blood from the area and placed a large gauze over the area. Rushing to her fridge she grabbed two cold bottles of water and sat them in front of him. Uncapping the water she watched across the kitchen as he sucked down both bottles insanely fast. Could her day get any weirder?
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It worked? The injured stranger ploy had really worked. He wasn’t too surprised though and enjoyed her tending to his self inflicted wound, her small warm hands felt like dancing fire on his skin, flickering and flitting as they pleased. Yet trying not to hurt him.
Her small frame was now across the kitchen as she carefully watched him, probably wishing she hadn’t let him into her home.
“Thank you… I imagine it wasn’t easy to let a stranger into your home… but I’m appreciative.” He let his voice drop and become soft, and he watched her form straighten up. A small smile gracing her perfect cherub face before she spoke.
“Umm…you are very welcome…are you from around here… you can still call someone if you need to?” Oh he would be doing no such thing, he was exactly where he needed to be; wanted to be. The lion oh so entranced with the lamb…
“Yess I’d still like to take that call if I can.” Placing her phone into his large hands he pretended to dial a number as he faked a phone call to a family member.
As he ended the fake call he glanced at the time in the corner of her screen… 10:30 pm.
He couldn’t hold it in anymore, felt it in his bones, felt it where she touched him. The full moon loomed over the cottage like a bat signal, and he watched her chest rise and fall with her breast. Her perky titties sitting up in her little milk maiden dress, he heard the pulse racing in her veins. Was she getting scared? She should be, you don’t talk to strangers and you certainly don’t let them into your home.
“So… is-is someone gonna come to pick you up…. If not that’s fine … I can drop you where you need to go?” She was growing suspicious of him; he even smelt a little fear mixed into the air. Was he sick to be turned on by this little doe’s fear, couldn’t he just walk away and spare her… no he had gone too far already to turn back.
“No one is coming to get me… and I don’t want you to drop me anywhere… I’m exactly where I need to be, sweetheart.” Grinning at her he could feel his canines begin to elongate and come to a point. Her eyes widened as she backed into the corner in her kitchen, he raised out of her kitchen chair and stalked towards her.
“Please don’t make this hard for me little doe… I’m here to bring you pleasure… and a little pain if you let me.” He took her face into his hands and sniffed the jet black curls on her head, filling his nose with the pomegranate scent from her favorite hair care line.
She smelled sweet from head to toe, a lamb walking into a lions den. She finally let her big chocolate orbs meet his and he watched the fear wash from her body, what had she seen in his eyes that caused a sudden change of heart… she couldn’t possibly feel for him what he felt for her.
“Please don’t hurt me….I don’t want you to hurt me… please be gentle.” Ahh so she was giving in, and she didn’t even know what to. She didn't know that she’d be devoured from the inside out and ravished. She took the first chance she could to lean up and press her lips to his, her little body felt electrical. Sparks flying from her hot skin, he growled and curled his large hand around her slim neck and hungry introduced her mouth to his tongue.
“Why are you giving yourself to me so eagerly… aren’t you afraid?” He watched as she shook her head no, she should be.
“No… I’ve waited for something like this for so long… why be scared? You won’t hurt me… right?” His intense ocean eyes squinted as they stared down at her, opening his mouth he revealed his long canines. Her dainty hand reached up with her pointer finger and touched his teeth in awe. As she began to retract her hand he captured it in his and sucked her finger into his hot mouth.
“Wha-what are you?” Her breath came out in shudders as he reached into the crook of her neck to nip into it.
“I’m a beast you’ll learn to love… or you’ll die trying.” Tugging her ponytail back he extended her neck further and ran his tongue along her jumping pulse, it was all he could hear right now outside of her little gasps. What did her blood taste like?
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Slinging the little brown beauty over his shoulder he carried her down the hall to her bedroom. The room smelled of her, had a boho vibe and was filled with greenery. A true reflection of the little nature fairy he couldn’t wait to sink his teeth into. She had long ago kicked off her boots and now only resided in her cream dress, brown eyes low with need.
“This is my first time… will you be gentle with me…I want this to be special.” She was cute, cute to assume gentle is what she’d achieve fucking with an animal. The news excited him and furthered his own obsession for her, could humans carry Lycan cubs… he was being irrational, hung up on the thought of never feeling loneliness again.
He pulled her up and watched her undress, all that was left… a pair of white cotton panties. Stripping out his own clothes he moved to hover above her and suckled her c cup breast into his mouth. His large tongue sucking her pebbled nipples into his mouth, her skin even tasted sweet… whatever homemade body cream she had whipped up; her skin the scent of mangoes. Moaning low in his ears he watched her writhe beneath him, thighs rubbing together to apply friction to her dripping pussy.
“Aht aht… let me work my way down to it lil mama… are you wet yet?” Still sucking on her breast he raked his hand down her body until they met the hem of her panties. Sliding his hands into her panties he felt the wet spot forming in the front and groaned. This wet little pussy was priming itself for him, and it had no idea what was in store. His finger rubbed up and down her wet lips, slowly reaching the little slit that poured liquid like a faucet.
“Please… put it in please I’m begging.” Her pants were music to his ears and he pushed his middle finger into her warm entrance and stroked slowly, listening to the squish get louder and louder. Her legs widened and he positioned her to sit with her back to his chest and pull her legs up to hers. He ordered her to kick off her panties and lay against him as he worked on adding his second finger.
“Ahh-hmm… please…pl- oh I want to cum… can I please” she squealed out at him and he sped his fingers up, smacking into her fat mound at a speed she couldn’t catch on too. Her breath rushed out of her breath quickly and before he knew it a clear coat of liquid coated his fingers. Pulling his fingers out he observed the liquid up close and placed it to his nose. His own personal drug, he was sure his eyes had crossed as he let the sticky fluid touch his tongue.
Moving from behind her he stood in front of her and grabbed her chin into his hand. “I want you to taste yourself… taste this sweet pussy.” She allowed his tongue to seize her mouth, and their tongues tangled in her mouth. He was changing again, his nail beds now long, dawning claws at the bed of them.
He stood again dick hung and swinging in front of her… it was now or never. He had to take this little doe and expose her to the reality of him. He couldn’t ignore the worried expression on her face if she tried.
“Listen to me, I can only make this gentle if you relax for me… if you seize up it will hurt… I need you to trust me and let me do this for you.”
“Ok… I’ll try.” Her voice came out low but his ears caught her words. Laying her down on her back he placed her legs on either side of his head and started to lead that fat head of his penis into her tight little hole. It was excruciating for him… the pressure her walls put on him made him eager to hold her down and pound her out… but he had to go slow and be patient for her. He lifted up and watched her face, it was scrunched up and her mouth laid wide open sucking in air slowly, sliding another few inches in he felt her hands rest at his hips to stop him.
“Just a little slower ... .please” and slow is what he gave her, pulling all the way out he started over. Eager to have her begging to be filled with ten inches of supernatural dick. The slow stroking opened up a small water park between them, her cunt now open and taking his heavier strokes.
Her bed shook and smacked into the wall loudly as he slammed down into her awaiting pussy. Pulling out he drug her body towards the edge of the bed and pressed her knees into her chest; continuing his assault on her good pussy he anchored himself to the floor and dipped his hips, knocking the Mario coins out of her. Reaching out to grab at his back she gasped for air, her face a mixture of confusion and ecstasy.
“Oh-ahh… please I feel something…. I have to pee please… oooweee.” This put his stroking into overdrive and he watched as a geyser erupted from between them.
Her spent body splayed out in front of him, he felt the effects of the full moon begin to fully change him. She watched in fear as his body contorted and twisted, skin ripping apart to make way for fur and claws. His already large ears thinned out and grew long on top of his head, his mouth elongating into a snout. The creature barely able to stand up fully in her bedroom watched her carefully, she was too afraid to move a muscle and offered herself up to the beast.
It moved towards her in a stalking manner and stroked the soft skin of her cheek. “Please don’t stop…. I still want more…. I don’t care if this is what you really are.”
He had waited to hear those words all night long, and indeed had no plans on stopping. Careful not to scratch her with his long claws he flipped Willow over and arched her back, sitting her ass as high up as he could get it. The beast growled as it reached down to lap at the wetness that still leaked from her, the long dick between his legs jumping having a mind of its own.
Leading his penis into her snug hole he lifted his head back and howled, the sound booming throughout her house and her brain, the strokes were hard and fast. The constant feeling of fur brushing against her body tickled her and made her pussy leak more into him. A small cut formed from where his claws had nicked her and he reached down and suckled at the blood.
“Ohhh fuck me… har-harder…. Yessss baby please.” She was lost in euphoria, clouded and claimed by the beast’s presence. He continued to pound into her alarmingly fast, reaching down to tug on her curls.
His hips began to falter and she felt her walls tugging on his dick, with a deep growl and a nip to her neck she felt him pumping his semen into her. His full body weight on her she could only lay there and succumb.
Willow awoke the next day feeling….freshly fucked. Her mind and body wrapped in a mini coma that she would gladly endure again and again. Turning around she stared down at the beautiful man in bed next to her…he had come into her life and quite literally rocked it.
“You never told me your name.” She pouted down at him and accepted a peck to her lips.
“I’m Terry… Terry Richmond.”
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A/N: I am so insane for this😭it’s currently 3am my time and I just finished typing this up… it was a random thought at like 8pm and I was like woah wtf. Anywho I really hope yall like it🫶🏾
@nahimjustfeelingit-writes @keyaho @kimuzostar @theereina @fakxmbj @uzumaki-rebellion @miyuhpapayuh @megamindsecretlair
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elysianightsss · 10 months ago
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I have a request: how would the Techno react if Reader dies but appears a few months later alive but very injured?
Now this inspired me.
Warnings: 18+, angst, suicide mentioned, hints at nsfw, blood, alternate timeline where she was never pregnant; adding Athena and Apollo into this would have made me cry so no. 
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Techno was distraught, it was against his nature to love and be loved and yet you taught him how. You were his everything and more. From the moment you shot him in those woods all that time ago, when the voices went quiet when your face came into his eyesight, everything changed for him.
He loved you more than life itself, so when Phil broke the news to him that you were dead, he lost it. Standing in the living room of the home you had shared together, rage burned through him, his shaking hands ripping, shoving, destroying. By the time he was done, Phil had witnessed something he thought he’d never see.
Techno was weeping, sobbing, screaming for you. A broken man wanting the only thing he couldn’t have. For months Techno barely ate, barely slept, contemplated suicide daily. How could he live without you? Why would he even want to? Without you there was no meaning to his life. It was like a huge hole had been punched through his chest.
The absence of you was everywhere he looked, the little touches you had slowly added to the house over the years. Your perfume, oils and lotions on the white vanity in the corner of the room. Techno remembers vividly, when you had talked about wanting one and he worked for weeks to build and paint one you’d love. He sat for hours carving intricate designs onto the legs and around the mirror just for you.
The wardrobe filled with your clothes, the beautiful materials you covered your body with, he was always envious of them, they got to touch you all the time. Dresses hanging there that hugged your figure perfectly, that made his heart beat faster.
The bathroom filled with your sweet bath oils and bath salts, countless times he had come home from fighting and you drawn him a bath and washed him clean. Countless times had he taken you apart in the sweet smelling waters and steamy room.
The bed was the hardest to deal with, it reeked of you. The mouthwatering smell he wanted nothing more than to roll around in, it was always present when he slept. It was a slight comfort to him, but always left him distraught. He thought about sleeping downstairs but had to remind himself that he had destroyed the couch.
More time passed, around six months now since Phil had told him about your death. He was a hollow shell of himself, he had lost a lot of weight and always had dark bags under his eyes. He was surprised he was still breathing.
“Techno!” Phil had screamed, a dreaded, fear filled, confusion dripping scream. Techno sighed, it took so much energy out of him to simply stand. Feet practically dragging along the floor, he shuffled to the front door sparing a longing look to his axe of peace. Whatever was on the other side of his door was dangerous if Phil’s scream was anything to go by, and he was happy to let whatever it was kill him.
Opening the door and stepping out onto the wood panels just before the stairs that led down to the snow, red cloak and gold crown nowhere in sight, The Blood God isn’t who stepped out to fight, but a broken man ready to die.
That all changed the second he saw you. You who had been dead for six months, you who he had mourned for six months, you who was bruised and covered in cuts with blood dripping from them. You who looked just as starved and exhausted as Techno did, in fact you looked worse.
“Sweetheart?” Techno’s voice cracked as he uttered the term of endearment he hadn’t spoken in so long.
“Tec.” Your voice was small and fragile, your hand reaching for him. The clothes you wore were torn and certainly not enough to keep you warm in the freezing cold snow you had trekked in to get home.
He ran to you, feet moving quicker than they ever had before all so he could take you in his arms and hold you close. “I’ve got you darlin’, I’ve got you, hold on to me.” He used all his strength to help you into the house, Phil running to your aid too.
You took in the state of your home and honestly it was alot better than what you had expected. Glancing at your husband, he avoided eye contact sheepishly, normally it would have made you smile. You don’t even think you know how to do that anymore.
“Let’s uh, get you upstairs.” Phil said awkwardly, helping Techno carry you up into your bedroom, and onto the bed. You sighed in pure relief that you body didn’t have to hold itself up anymore, that you weren’t on a nasty cold stone floor too but the soft, Techno smelling, mattress you had been dreaming of for six months.
You were so happy you cried. You cried ugly, hard, loud. Letting all your emotions out. Techno was there stroking your filthy, greasy hair and holding your dirty, sore hand. “Sweetheart?”
“I’m just so happy, I thought this day would never come. I had convinced myself that it wouldn’t. And yet here I am. Home.” You sobbed out the words, looking at your husband through your tears blurred eyes, just about making out the crooked smile on his gorgeous face.
He wanted to ask what had happened, wanted to know who had done this to you. But just seeing your relief to being in a bed, to being home, he knew you’d need time.
Phil went home after Techno had asked him to, they agreed not to tell anyone you were back until they figured out what had happened to you and by who.
Techno ran you a bath and took extra time and care into washing you off, he had to pull you out of the disgustingly mucky water and run you a new bath. This one you could soak in, allow yourself to relax, even when the clear water did dirty again, only a little this time though.
You saw the look in Techno’s eyes as he washed you and you knew, remembering the vow he made to you all those years ago; “I love you, it took me a while to say it I know. But I need to know you understand—“
“Understand?” You asked.
“How much I love you. I’d destroy empires for you. Pillage country’s for you. Kill for you.” He pressed his forehead to yours. “If anyone ever even thought about hurting you, they’d be dead before they could finish that thought.” He growled, deep from within his chest. The ruby of his eyes shining brighter the more he talked about it.
“I understand.” Of course you did. You knew from the moment you said ‘I do’ exactly what that meant.
“You’re going to kill him aren’t you?” It was a question you knew the answer to but you still felt compelled to ask nonetheless.
“Yes.”
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charmercharm3r · 1 year ago
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okay but after reading that 9th member boxing, i need to hear more instances where the boys see her practically naked. like idk at the the gym(again), practice, around the dorm, etc. like maybe she’s getting more comfortable with showing skin but only around the boys so it still catches them off guard cause of how new it still is to all of them
a lil blurb cus I thought this was cute
Masterlist
prev: one, next: three
☆゚
You were just so tired, dehydrated, and felt sticky from sweating for the past god knows how many hours at dance practice. It was just you in the practice room for a while until Hyunjin convinced you that it was time to head home. He was surprised you were even still at the company, considering it was supposed to be a rest day for the group.
The two of you headed home together, him having to almost hold you up most of the way because it felt like your limbs were going to give out any second. “You can have the shower first, you’re kinda stinky,” he teased as he led you through the threshold.
“Gee, thanks! You’re so kind.” Hyunjin smirked at the sarcasm, nudging your shoulder before departing to his room.
Living in the dorm with him, Chan, Changbin, and Jisung was usually rather quiet when 3racha were gone. Hyunjin enjoyed his alone time, as did Jisung when he was home, though when everyone was back at the same time, there was no such thing as peace or personal space.
The only thing you were glad for was finally having your own room, how the company managed to find a 5 bedroom apartment, you had no idea, but you weren’t complaining in the slightest. Room not too small, just enough space for a bed, desk, and closet, you were comfortable.
Tossing your bag down and grabbing a clean towel, you headed to the bathroom before the rest of the members could come home.
There was a new bottle in the shower, brown and expensive looking. “Jinnie, did you get a new hair product?” You called out, picking it up to inspect.
“Yeah, I heard it was really good. Try a little if you want,” he yelled back from his room. Calling back a, "sure, thanks," you shut the door and started your shower.
There was so much on your find, you don't know how long you spent under the water. It took some time before you even undressed, looking at yourself in the mirror and examining what body part you thought might stand out for the public to talk about for the next come back. There was always something wrong, nothing you did ever felt good enough.
Sometimes your thighs were too big, sometimes your arms weren't toned enough. Oh no, you're wearing a crop top? Someone cover her up, she's seeking validation! God forbid you wear anything other than long sleeves because elbows are just too sexy. As if she doesn't get enough spotlight already being in an all male group, gotta have a part in the song a second longer than the rest because you have to be the center of attention!
Another few minutes to let the water soak down to your bones, you took your time shampooing, soaping, everything in between and taking mental notes of things you needed to improve upon. One wrong step and it's over, not just for you, but your entire group, as well. If you were to be the reason they got dragged down-
No, that's the shower thoughts talking. Probably time to get out, anyways. Changbin will have a fit if he doesn't get some warm water for himself.
So consumed in your own head, you weren't thinking when you threw on just your bra and underwear and opened the bathroom door. Dirty clothes in one hand, rubbing the towel into your hair, the trek to your bedroom through the house felt so long up until you got through the door.
The dorm was quiet, the others must still be out. Hyunjin won't show his face until dinner time, if you were fast you could grab a snack from the kitchen. Yeah, it won't take longer than a minute. Make it quick-
You padded out of your bedroom and made it a step into the living room before stopping dead in your tracks, eight pairs of eyes looking at you big with mouths dropped so wide it could catch flies.
The other members were sitting in various places surrounding the couch and coffee table. Chan scratched at his ear and darted his eyes back and forth, unsure of whether or not to look. Minho didn't seemed like he cared too much, while Jisung and Seungmin obviously raked their gaze from your head to your toes. The other four focused on different areas, but you ran away as quickly as you came with a trail of beat red embarrassment to follow.
As soon as the door slammed shut you threw your pajamas on and paced back for forth for a bit.
You should just act like nothing happened. They probably don't care. No, they definitely don't care. They're just body parts and everyone has them. But they were your body parts. For as long as you'd known them, you'd been so careful.
It's fine- they're not prudes, they're young adults that watch more porn than you ever could in your life time. They're just boys. Your boys. Your best friends. Yeah, they won't care. It's fine. You're fine. You're-
"Y/N'ie?"
A knock on your door had you stutter in your steps. When you didn't respond, the voice spoke again, "there's food here if you wanna join."
It took you another second to process what had just happened. The floor creaked on the other side and you panicked again, "Felix?"
The footsteps backtracked and stopped outside your door again, "yeah?"
"What kind of food?" He giggled lightly to himself.
"Come eat with us and you'll find out."
Slowly you came to the door, torn on hiding in your room for the next few hours or facing the eight people that caused your massive embarrassment in the first place. It felt so stupid to even feel such a way around those who you'd already been through hell and back with, the same people you've lived with and known for years and have seen you at your worst.
Felix's weight leaning against the other side of the door made him stumble forward when you finally opened it. Setting aside his momentary hiccup, he smiled and wrapped his arm around your shoulder to bring into a quick hug. You let him drape over you as you made your way back into the living room where everyone else was waiting.
Quiet as you sat down between Minho and Jeongin- Felix across the coffee table, quiet as you grabbed a pair of chopstick, quiet as you began to eat. The eight of them watched you chew, chew, swallow, not moving a muscle as though they were walking on eggshells as not to scare you off.
Now you felt stupid. This was stupid. Just body parts. They're just body parts.
"Stop staring at me, virgins. Eat before it gets cold." Minho at your side dug in first, then the rest followed suit as you all enjoyed the meal together.
You could feel Jeongin taking quick peaks at you as you ate. He jolted a little when you nudged his shoulder to get him to talk. A light blush flooded his cheeks and ears, putting another piece onto your plate as he leaned in to whisper, "you looked really pretty."
"Don't spread gossip, Yang Jeongin. Share it with the table," Jisung teased and drew the attention of the rest of the members.
"Look, he's flustered. What'd you say to Y/N'ie?" Hyunjin joined in and ruffled the younger's hair.
"Nothing! It's none of your business-"
"He called me pretty," you played along and pinched Jeongin's cheek, making him swat you and Hyunjin away with a few curses under his breath. Giggling and picking up your chopsticks again, you brought some food to your mouth, "you wanna kiss me sooo bad."
All of them spoke at once, "yes."
"Wait, what?" Quiet again. What is it with them and perfectly timed silence?
When you faced Minho, he was particularly unashamed in the way he eyed your lips as you slowly chewed your food. You looked at them around the table, "ew. Bitchless. All of you," and stole a large portion of food to take back to your room.
-
tags: @sensitiveandhungry @babebatter @changbinluvr @epiphanynaffi t@fawnpeaks @linovely @dumplinbokkieracha @finnydraws @naturules @djeniryuu @hamburgers101 @skzhomiehopper @yesv01 @hyunjinsamdl @dazzlingligth @lvrhyuka @alexis-reads-fics @linaliskz @0002linoskitten @chillichillicrabcrab23 @zerefdragn33l @straycrescent @binnies-donuts @soldierstangirl-blog @bakedlilgoonie @levanterlily @shelbyyy44 @yeetmehome @in2heartz @astroodledream @the-sweetest-rose @goblinracha @lilbugs-things @viviennenstan @staurdvst @alex--awesome--22 @imzenning @jeyelleohe @kaitchandler @iadorethemskz @skyvastbunny @mamabymychem @katsukis1wife @woozarts @noellllslut
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wynnyfryd · 1 year ago
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Trailer park Steve AU part 37
part 1 | part 36 | ao3
cw: depression, ptsd, references to canonical death and horror
Chapter 9
December
The smudged feeling comes back.
Which sucks, if he's being honest.
Despite the new thing with Eddie and the breathing room in his budget; despite everything going fine with Robin and work and the kids, his good moods never seem to hold. They keep getting muddied up, can't shine through the grubby handprints that threaten to blot them out.
And sure, it's not like he expected one great make out session to change his life (and it was a great one, to be clear; a great make out session and an even better handy later that night in Eddie’s van), but he just…
Shit.
He doesn’t know.
He thought it might feel easier. Life, adulthood; everything. Like the lightness and warmth he felt that night might carry over, might drift through to fill the cracks in him like a blanket of fresh snow.
But they don't, because they can't.
They can't touch the fact that he has no clue what he’s doing. That Steve Harrington's got no purpose, no direction and no point.
Most mornings he's got nothing but his creeping paranoia and a bone deep sense of dread.
The new year closes in like a wet tongue up the back of his neck; hot breath of a drooling grizzly getting ready to take a bite, and the long winter shadows around his house are growing fangs, rows upon rows of razor teeth in petal mouths.
His nightmares tastes like rot and lilac. Something heavy in the air.
And in the mornings he feels stupid when he wakes up shivering in cold sweat, foolish and young and alone. He clutches at his nail bat and peers through the cracks in the blinds, and he feels like a lunatic because there’s nothing out there. Nothing abnormal. Nothing wrong-side up. Just the shadows and the strays; the scurrying of house mice and the skitter of dead leaves.
It’s over now, they told him. It’s over, kid. We won.
They said it all three times.
"Uh...”
Eddie's standing in Steve's doorway, leaning against the frame with his arms loosely folded over his chest, a weird smile on his face like he's deeply fucking confused by what he's seeing but is trying so hard to be cool about it.
Which, like. Fair.
It's mid-morning on a Sunday and Steve is crawling on hands and knees in his gutted disaster of a living room — ripping up the edges of his terrible burnt orange carpet without even pausing to say hello — and the kids will be here any minute to help put up the Christmas tree, and he hadn't meant to do this; knows he looks completely manic, sweat dripping into his eyes, knuckles bleeding from the tack strips, but he woke up trembling from another nightmare and decided that everything had to go.
The nightmare felt too real. Long claws and sharp teeth, squelching muck and snaking vines; a flash of Chief Hopper bloody and shorn in a frozen wasteland, but the chief is dead and everyone's dead and Steve is so tired of being haunted by their ghosts, and in his shaken, post-dream haze he convinces himself that it's this place.
This place is the fucking problem.
This godforsaken tin can with spirits crawling in the walls.
They're clinging on like static just before a thunderstorm. In the floorboards, in the rug. Steve can feel them with each step. How many footprints buried themselves in these worn fibers? How many exhausted treks to the fridge and frenzied rushes to the phone; how many angry late-night pacers and visitors overstaying a welcome?
"Stevie?" Eddie clears his throat.
Steve just wants them all gone. The whole haunted circus — wants to strip it to the bones, start fresh with something new.
So far all he’s done is make the place smell like his nightmares. Like dust and death and lilac as he pulls the carpet up. There’s an oily stain on the subfloor from where he smashed his mom’s perfume, and a green-black mystery splotch by the kitchen that could be water damage, or it could be the remnants of a liquified rat. Or a person; so many people, melted meat monster smashing through the city blood and gore in a demodog's jowls the walls pulsing with membranes like some fucked up rotten womb and—
"Hey." Eddie's boots come into view. Calm commandment in his tone, stepping right into Steve's space. "Look at me," he sighs.
Steve sits back and wipes his brow. The sweat stings his cut-up hands, and he wishes he weren't so busy being a nutcase, because Eddie looks good like this. Standing over him, petting a hand through his damp hair. Making him kneel down at his feet. It’s hot. They could do something with this. Steve could—
"You want to tell me what you're doing?"
Tears prick up in Steve's dumb eyes.
What's he supposed to say? There were ghosts in the fucking carpet?
He shakes his head and sniffs, and Eddie steps in a little closer; moves his hand to cup Steve's jaw. "No?" he lifts a brow.
Outside, tires crunch over the gravel, the kids making a racket as they pour out of the Wheelers’ car. Goddammit.
Steve huffs and gets to his feet; lets Eddie steady him. They share a look. The kids are shouting on the lawn. "Can you take us to Home Depot?"
part 38
tag list in separate reblogs under '#trailer park steve au taglist' if you'd like to filter that content. if you want to be added tomorrow please comment and let me know (must be over 21; please either verify in the comment or have your age visible on your blog)
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insomniac-dot-ink · 7 months ago
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Deep in the Woods in the Dark of the Road
Everyone talks about the fear of hitchhikers. Parents and urban legends repeat, Never pick up someone on the side of the road. Like food from the floor, you don’t know where they’ve been. Smiling ghosts, prison breakouts, serial killers on the lam. Very few stories talk about the edge of the road, the place where you lose yourself to these strangers in a stranger’s land. The ones that pick you up. I tell the story to anyone who will listen.
First, I have to tell them, “of course I don’t hitchhike anymore,” condemning my youthful folly for them before they will consider me a credible source. As someone worth listening to. My sister likes to remind me I was on the type of adventure only clean-shaven young men can get away with in the first place.
I like to remind her that I’m not sure I got away with anything.
May 12th, everything else shifts around it like the light, but that date might as well have been printed on the back of my hand. 
May 12th and the small Canadian town I had been staying in had a high school graduation, the place swelling with relatives and well-wishers. There was only one high school and their hockey team seemed to be the one big rallying point the people shared. Everyone became a grandkid to every aging adult and I knew it was time to move along in the same breath.
I meant to leave early in the day. Meant to leave earlier in the week too. Nonetheless, when you're on a country-long trek you do start to appreciate the little things and the Johnsons’ had a high-pressure shower. The Johnsons were a family of pit-stop angels for hikers and bikers, turning their home into an invitation. Hippies, aging athletes, and former-vagrants were the main types of pitstop angels–literal angels in my mind at that point. I told myself a second shower was indulgent and then I gave myself another shower. Me and time we’re never really on the friendliest terms, especially when I was a thru-hiker that had lost the trail.
I stood under the burning hot spray and melted. During the first shower, the water always runs brown and muddy, sloughing off layers of dirt and dead skin. I think I understood religious resurrection after showers like that. 
This one though, a second shower, ran clear and crystalline and perfect. 
Hot, steaming water and a steady drumbeat of pressure. Heaven. Heaven though, eventually turned cool and then freezing. A cold river from every faucet. I jumped out and had a mild freakout session. Leaving someone’s worse-off than when you found it was a big taboo. 
Plus, I was young and still embarrassed by everything. I wrote a hasty apology note, and then packed up as quickly as I could. It’s the type of age where you’ve started to realize you are responsible, but not old enough to know how to go about doing it correctly. I left a note. I scrubbed their counters and stripped the sheets off the pull-out bed. I scrubbed the counters a second time and then tripped out the door before they could get back. The day had turned into late afternoon. A spring chill seeped across the land and I took a backroad to the highway.
Originally, I had told my parents I’d be back by the end of season. Then I told them I deferred my college start date to the second semester. Then deferred again to next fall. Bumming around ski towns during the winter and making just enough money to get back on the trails in springtime. I had been skipping around different trails since then.
I needed to get on the road. I needed to find another car.
One of the tricks to getting picked up is to be clean, so I had that much going for me. Boiled like a lobster in oil, I felt new and good and I walked confidently backward with my thumb out. The second trick is to smile. I smiled and waved and walked along a long stretch of highway bordered by dense conifer forests.
If worse came to worse, I’d set up my tent somewhere among the tree trunks. A dampness coated my skin. Strong wind rustled the branches. A minivan approached and I smiled wide enough to make my eyes water. The van passed.
I took a break to chew down an energy bar and some Slim Jims. Drivers normally don’t stop if you’re chewing furiously and an internal sigh was building in my core. I wondered if the Johnsons’ were toasting their daughter right now. Giving a cheer. Making plans for dinner. I’d miss their dinner.
When I stood up again, the sun had dipped toward the steep mountains. I shielded my eyes and scowled. How the hell did so much time pass? I hurried to the side of the road, thumb out, smiling, rehearsing some of my best stories in my head. I liked telling stranger’s stories, a “thank you” for the ride. I had learned the best ways to spin terrifying encounters with mountain lions and the chipmunk trapped in my sleeping bag. Most drivers seemed to like it too. 
The sun disappeared behind the first peeks and the temperature plummeted. Pockets of darkness spread out before me between the shards of sunlight quilting the land. My teeth chattered.
The dusk had a feeling to, a weight. A car approached from behind me and I whipped around, hands too cold to be out. A beat-up Hyundai, off-green and compact. A tacky Sasquatch air-freshener hung from the mirror and the person behind the wheel wore sunglasses. He looked like a young guy, early 20s, with long brown hair down his shoulders. The hair reminded me of a girl, curly and well-kept, shiny in the dying light. The dusting of a beard offset the look. 
Several cars lined up behind the Hyundai. Their lights were all on, shining like a procession of lanterns. This is where they all were apparently. Figures, I thought, and I stuck my thumb out.
My stomach sank when the Hyundai swerved off to the side of the road. I was hoping he would pass and let one of the others pick me up. I usually preferred families, women, couples, and the like. I would like to say it was the romantic in me, wishing for ladies or aging lovers, but the truth was I had never really gotten along with guys my own age. But beggars can’t be choosers.
He honked the horn once and grinned at me. I checked over my shoulder like the trees might turn into a Holiday Inn, and then approached the window. 
He cracked the door. “Where you headed?”
“Vancouver,” I said, which was true enough. He gave the horn a second honk. “Alright, alright, alright, my brother. Going to the same jungle. Hop in.”
I gave him a crooked smile and avoided responding by opening the back door. Storing my enormous backpack was always a challenge, but the back seats were down and I slid Jessica, my pack’s nickname, right in. 
“How’s it going?” The guy had both a California accent and swagger to him. I ran a hand through my hair, already on guard.
“Cold as a witch’s tit out there.” I might as well get the bro-ing over with. The driver had holes in his faded band shirt and board shorts. Sandals probably too. 
“Only if you're walking down the side of the road like a lost kitten, my man. Here.” He cranked the heat in his car and I exhaled, gratitude shining from my center. 
“Thanks,” I said, showers and warmth and soft beds having changed me. I swallowed a couple times, not sure if bros even thanked each other. “So, what are you doing out here?” I asked, already formulating my story about the mountain lion. And yes, I do embellish just a bit.
“You know, this and that. What are you doing getting yourself ax-murdered all the way out here?” I shot him a look. “You know, this and that.” I cleared my throat, mimicking his tone, “Ax-murdering. Collecting hooks for my right hand.” He lets out a big laugh and that’s a relief. I grow emboldened. “What are you doing to avoid getting hook-handed this late at night?” He chuckles, chest rumbling like a car engine. Taking off his sunglasses, he places them in the cupholder. “Distract them. Ask them what ACDC they are into.” His gaze flicks to the back as he says it.
I noticed for the first time a guitar case wedged into the back. My eyebrows raise. “Sweet. You playing gigs?” “Just coffee shops and anywhere that will take a burnout with a dream.” I copy his tone. The swagger. “You any good?”
“Hell if I know. Coffee shops aren’t Juilliard.” He winked. “But don’t tell my mom that.”
My arms gooseflesh and at least my teeth stopped chattering. “Good to know. You have an LP? CDs?”
“Not yet. Still working it out.” “Nice. Well, I’m Ben. Not really a music guy, but an appreciator.” I realized I had gotten all jumbled by being freezing and messed up my usual intro. “Hailing from Boston by trying to be anywhere else.” He chuckled again. “Christopher.”
“Not a Chris, I take it. The whole thing?” “All the way through, brother. Think you can handle it?”
I clicked my tongue. “I usually stick to single syllables, but I’ll make an exception for you.” “From my new friend Ben? Can’t complain about that. Damn, can’t complain about a long night on the road. Nice to pick you up.”
“Nice to be picked up.” I realized too late the way that sounded and rubbed the back of my neck. “Beats walking. Or have to hook-hand my own damn self.” “Heh.” His inky eyes flicked my way and then he grins. I looked away at that, gently embarrassed in a way I couldn’t explain. I had gotten pretty good at the chameleon act but still wasn’t finding my footing here. His eyes were deep brown, inky-almost, and deep-set in his face. 
The beat-up Hyundai rumbled up a mountain pass and the sky turned the blue-black of a bruise. I tear my eyes back to the window. The conifers appear larger–like everything does at night, and pass in a blur on the back-forth mountain road. I spy a river through the trees and birds taking flight from somewhere in the distance, lights of tucked-away homes even further up.  
Christopher turns the music up at that. “You ever listen to house music?” “Can’t say I have.” I turn back, mountain lion stories forgotten. “Ben, my guy, you’re missing out. You don’t do German house music either, I take it.”
I put a hand over my heart. “Purely provincial.” “I’ll play the good stuff.” He grins. “Make an exception.” “You usually play your hitchhiker’s mediocre playlists?” “Exceptionally mediocre. The last one didn’t even make it beat drop.” “I’ll sit and take notes.” “Don’t let me down, Benny.”
“Now who’s not going all through?”
His dark eyes flash. “Thought you wouldn’t mind.”
“For you?” I gave a sardonic half of a smile and then let it fall.
Noises with bumps and chs played out over the speakers and I had to wonder why Christopher had a guitar instead of a DJ soundboard. Maybe he had both. A hand placed on my knee and I jumped. I went to brush it off, God, I didn’t need this to get unpleasant, but when I looked down nothing was there. Christopher’s hands were lazing on ten and two and he raised an eyebrow.
“You still headed all the way to Vancouver? It is a long drive.” he asked slowly and I nodded, unwilling to say my real plans. To just keep going. I started on the east coast and wouldn’t mind making it to the other ocean. “Good.” He turned the music up a second time. Despite the grating techno and sense of still not having found my feet here, the heat of the blowers washed over me. The rocking of the car and dull humming of the driver next to me. The lights of cars wound through the roads behind us and my eyes fluttered closed.
You don’t sleep in stranger’s cars. It’s rude for one thing and dangerous for another. Yet, the cold leached out of me and a drowsiness sent me over the edge into a deep abyss.
—----------------------
I heard humming now and then, dreamlike and threaded through my personal abyss. I cracked open my eyes, glanced at Christopher, humming to himself and tapping a beat on the wheel. And then drift off again in the very way I shouldn’t.
—-----------------------
A hand shook my knee. I had no idea what time it was and the weight of night startled me awake more than anything else. A pair of headbeams blared into my face and I brought up one hand. “What the hell?”
“Hey, Benny, buddy,” the driver, Christopher, said. It took me a moment to turn toward him. His sunglasses were back on and he was frowning. “Do you think you could mess with my phone? I’m not getting anything up here. Do you have service?” I blinked rapidly and pieced together the back of tail lights in front of us and head beams behind. “Traffic?” I croaked, rubbing my throat. “Here?” Only three cars ahead were visible, disappearing up a mountain bend into who knows where. However, I get the sense of lights lined up like little soldiers through the night, long and duckling-like. 
“I know, it’s whack. I was looking for a sideroad or something to get us out of this.” “How is there traffic in the middle of the mountains?” I rubbed my eyes until I saw spots, feeling groggier than ever.
“Probably a rockslide up ahead or a truck fell over, who knows. I think someone’s cleaning it up now but at the pace of, like tomorrow morning.” “What the hell?” “Now you’re getting it.” The line inched forward and Christopher refreshed his phone with one hand. I fumbled for my own phone in my small pack and cursed under my breath. “What?” Christopher prompts me.
“Out of battery.” I shake it like that might do something. “Hold on, I have an Anker in my pack.” I turn to climb into the back and dig through everything for my charger. 
“Wait, wait, I think I see a road. Put your seatbelt on.”
“We can’t just,” Christopher grabs the back of my shirt and tugs me back to my seat. I inhale sharply, remembering I am in a car with a stranger–maybe getting too close for comfort. I sputter out my protests, “we don’t know where we are. Where that goes.” Christopher was already turning off the side. “I bet I’ll get some signal if we head down the mountain. That’s headed down. Don’t worry about it. Put your seatbelt on Ben from Boston.” The nose of the car dipped down and I clenched my teeth, clicking my seatbelt in place. We rocked, boat-like, and the wheels fought against the dirt until we were level again. 
I wasn’t sure how I was feeling about Christopher at that moment. I wish I could charge my phone or maybe get out and walk. There were plenty of cars to hitch a ride from by then. Too late to make up my mind, the car’s wheels crunched on a new gravel road and our headlights streaked against an empty dark. The car behind us drove forward to take our place.
“Don’t you think other cars would go this way,” a bump in the road sent me jostling, “if it leads to the main road again?” “I’ll just get us some signal,” he mumbled. “Better than sitting in traffic.” I huffed, “Right.” The gravel road had the feel of a worn-down side street, probably leading to a series of fancy mansions or off-the-grid weirdos. Nowhere real. Christopher took off his sunglasses all over again and met my eyes.
“Sorry to get you take you on a side adventure.” He cleared his throat. “And wake you.” I remembered myself all at once and ran a hand through my hair. “Sorry,” I said, giving a self-deprecating laugh. “I’m normally a better house guest. Promise I don’t normally pass out in stranger’s cars.” “What do you normally do?” I shift in place. “Convince them to go off-roading in the middle of the night,” I deadpan. “Keep things interesting.” “That’s my line.” He laughs. Before we can really get back to normal and I can push away the dark flick of his gaze, Christopher slams on the breaks. “Holy hell!”
I grip on to the seatbelt, jostling back and forth, eyes go wide. “What?”
A line of cars appeared up ahead. My whole system tingled. “Were those there before? I didn’t see those before,” I repeated the phrase like a fool, “I didn’t see any of those cars a second ago.” A long line of cars, trailing off ahead and into the hills. “Out of the frying pan and into . . .” he trailed off. Christopher’s gaze lost its humor. He put his sunglasses back on. “Get out.” “Excuse me?” I definitely shouldn’t have taken that nap. “Get out.”
The hairs on my arm stood on end, breath catching in my throat. I glanced into the woods. The trees were tall here, leaving little undergrowth, and a sliver of moon lit barely penetrated the textured black. I could still make out headbeams, bright here, blaring, and moving through the trees. I reeled back, watching the lights bob in place. A few minutes ago, I had been chomping at the bit to get out of the car and find someone else to ride with. Now, I wasn’t so sure.
Head Beams swayed. Oddly. Unnaturally. Too far off the ground. Head Beams that couldn’t be headbeams when I squinted and looked. I gulped.
“Sure man, just give me a second.” I clutched at the seatbelt. A hand squeezed my knee and I glanced down, almost grateful if he was going to keep me for this reason or that. Nothing was there. 
I buttoned up my jacket, readying myself to walk until I couldn’t walk anymore. Get ready to be eaten by a mountain lion because I sure as hell wasn’t setting up camp any time soon.
“Nevermind.” Christopher grabbed the back of my head. His hand was large and firm around the nape of my neck. “Too late. Get down.” The lights bobbed and weaved around us and I didn’t need to be told twice. Better to be hunkered down than out in the open. A second later, a knock came at the car window. The type you might hear from an officer in a tv show. I hoped. Just a regular official telling us the roads weren’t clear, the rockslide was too big. Go back, go home, all of this was explainable.
“Can I help you?” Christopher’s window rolled down. I tucked myself into a tighter ball in the foot space. 
“Do you want to be loved?” The voice was sharp, a splash of cold water cloying through my senses. Branches against glass, more garbled than real. Then the words righted themselves in my head and I wished I was back at the Johnson’s. I could be with their family right now, however out of place, holding up non-alcoholic champagne and telling her life after graduation wasn’t so bad. Didn’t have to be.
“No, I’m all good.” “Do you want to be loved,” the voice said in an insistent tone.
“I don’t want any.” He cleared his throat. “We’re running behind, anyway. Have to go. You could tell th–” “Seven years. To be loved, do you want to be loved,” I peaked up from my fetal position, a thing bent into the car, “Seven years and a day. To be loved.” Christopher rolled up his window, slow and deliberate. “No. No,” he said, “not that.” I caught a glimpse, however briefly, of a head of something impossibly tall and with a singular eye, blinking and glowing and bobbing in place. My heart sang, briefly, called out, wanted. Then, the thing at our window turned and disappeared.
“That’s what I get for thinking it’d be someone important.” Christopher’s gaze lingered on my own, keeping me there and for the first time, I heard him humming, gently, in the back of his throat. Inky eyes, dark as night, and holding me there. 
“Stop it!” I clawed at the air back to the door. My chest heaved.
He swallowed, looking away. “I really was just trying to give you a lift,” he muttered, gripping the wheel. “I don’t even think they’d want me back so soon.” “Who?” I lapped the roof of my mouth, realizing I was parched.
Christopher leaned his head back against the headrest, looking above. “Don’t tell my mom,” he adjusted his seat, “I’ve been playing music for mortals.” —---------------------------
There are ghosts and ghouls and monsters and many things that want to eat you. I was a fool, not recognizing what types of things might want to eat me. Traffic was barely moving, whatever this traffic was. I was getting thirstier.
I swallowed, again and again. A steady stream of knocks came at the window, but Christopher waved them all off. “No thank you, no thanks.” 
Music spilled in the distance, faint and dreamlike, just like the soft humming Christopher had let out. I could see streaks of light against the seat, Christopher’s face, the trees up above. Once, impossibly, something passed overhead. An enormous head you might see displayed on mantles. Big as a house, mighty and towering up above. A long white nose and antlers thick as redwoods. Great tendrils of moss seemed to hang from the antler’s alongside lanterns. Lights strung up among the foliage and impossible prongs.
An elk, an elk enormous beyond imagination, passed and I exhaled. I really wasn’t in Kansas anymore.
“Do you have any water?” Christopher glanced down, eyebrows arching and eyes wet as dogs noses.
“None for you,” he said but in a tone that somehow did not convey rudeness. “Trust me.” “Trust you,” I muttered, “after being cramped and hiding for over an hour? God, it must be sunrise soon.” “No. I’m afraid not.” He heaved a sigh. “Fairy market and all that.” I gaped at him. “Would you like to run that by me one more time?” He shook his head. “Ben,” he said, tasting the name on his lips, humming, “sturdy name. Useful. You’ve got strong fate lines. You won’t die here tonight, as long as you do as I say. Well, won’t die or be stolen if I can help it.” I set my jaw and Christopher put his sunglasses back on. “Happy?”
I kicked out, deciding if I was going to have a delusion, I might as well have it sitting. I rested my back against the door, head peeking up above the windows now. “I want to go back to the main road.” 
Christopher didn’t reply. 
It could have been an hour or only a few minutes, before a face appeared in the window. At first, I didn’t recognize it as a face, a smooth moonlike token in the window. Then, it gathered itself into two sparkling eyes, a clever mouth, and delicate cheekbones. The lady's white hair piled high on her head, adorned with blood-red leaves and berries and she smiled. Her eyes were ink-dark.
“Oh no.” Christopher clutched at the wheel. The lady inclined her head, clever mouth remaining closed but eyes beseeching. A pang went through my chest, unbidden, I felt bad for Christopher. Lord have mercy on a fool. “I have to take this,” he said in a monotone. Air whooshed into the car, cool and light against my skin, tasting of mint or something sharper.
“Wasn’t expecting a visit so soon. Is dad here?” The woman didn’t seem to speak, but inclined her head. Christopher leaned forward, blocking my view or maybe blocking her from me. He got out of the car. 
The second the door closed, taking Christopher with it, I decided to make a break for it. 
—---------------
I racked my head for what I knew about fairies. Cinderella’s godmother, the tooth fairy, Peter Pan. Tinker Bell was probably not going to help me much unless, of course, pirates became relevant in the near future. Which they might, given the night I was having. I opened the door a crack. Sweet brisk air filtered in.
I contemplated the ground below. No longer gravel but rich black earth. My spine prickled and I held very still. The only thing I could come up with half-way relevant was a 11 grade project where we had to choose a poem to analyze. I had picked The Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti. As a 16-year-old I had chosen it for the racy content and riskier presentation in class.
Looking at the dark soil, I muttered to myself, “We must not look at goblin men, we must not buy their fruits: Who knows upon what soil, they fed their hungry thirsty roots?”
I squeezed my eyes closed. I had already spoken to the dark-eyed man and listened to his music, I suppose. I didn’t remember much else of the poem but the heat rising in my cheeks and Lizzie walking into the market. 
I kicked the door open, kept my eyes down, and went for my pack. My heart beat at the pace of the hummingbird's wings and my hands slipped on the door handle. Voices, whispering, indistinct. At the third try I wrenched the back open and got my pack out in one swing. The whispering grew louder and my eyes caught on the lights and the forest.
I knew the Canadian Rockies. I tripped over pine cones and hard stone, drank from crystalline lakes, ran my hands over Alpine forget-me-nots, froze and sweated and bled. This was them and so much more. The trees were the whitebark pines and firs, tightly knit together and crowned in ragged peaks. Voices called to me.
The darkness between the trunks bled into hands, red and mangy, like huckleberry shrubbery waving in the wind. Faces appeared in the shards of moonlight, lanterns bobbed and lurching heaving mountains of things moving in the far distance. Elk perhaps. Mountains. 
I pivoted in place, keeping my eyes away from stalled cars that made up this place. Voices called and righted themselves into words this time. “Young man. Mortal son. Hello.” A sheet of misty rain appeared to my left, melting from the dark and blinking handsome golden eyes. A sturdy nose. A pretty mouth.
“Would you like–” “Thanks. No.” I copied Christopher, not meeting the thing’s eye, and began to walk. The underbrush was not empty however, the forest moved with creatures big enough to crush. I wondered if any amount of walking would take me home.
Another voice broke through the murmuring. “You’ll never make it that way.”
I turned. And there were cars. Glowing bright as stars and windows cranked open. Figures sat inside alongside various goods. Twinkling soda cans and pearl necklaces hung next to each other on string. Stuffed bears and empty plastic bags filled baskets hanging out of car windows. Paint brushes, old CDs, and pine cones set out on car hoods. 
Market stalls. Of course. Some of them appeared as cars, others were old barrels and broken-down train cars off to the side. The beckoning of hands felt like it was coming from all directions.
“I don’t have any money!” I called like that would matter. “I’m, I’m a hiker. A traveler passing through.”
“We don’t take money. Those things,” a clump of white moths, fluttering around and around in a mass, spoke. Ink eyes. Beautiful, tumbling curls. She pointed at the empty soda bottles and stuffed animals, “not for you.”
I backed away. “I don’t have anything you might want.” 
The clump of moths smiled. “My darling, sweet boy . . . Would you like to be loved?”
I gulped down air. “I have to, have to go.” Weaving between stalls one moment and stalled cars the next, I hurried to where there must be an end. There must be an end to the market. 
Fruit the color of sapphires piled high on discarded card tables. Sardine cans and quilted blankets. Water bottles. Canisters and other hiker’s camel backpacks. God, I was thirsty. And I could hear all of them now. 
“Boy, would you like unfading beauty?” “Ten years of glory and a lion’s heart. Heart of lion’s for only ten years.”
Calling. Beseeching. A market you could understand the poem’s sisters getting lost in. My sleeve snagged on something in this endless market. I stumbled into what felt like a rock face.
“Hush now, sweet thing,” thick lichen, flaking and upright, spoke, “I will give you a belonging you have never felt before.” My heart went double time and the thirst ached. I knew it was aching. I knew I was Lizzie about to have her skin pinched and clothes torn. Sullied. Or perhaps, like Laura, changed. I wondered about my sister then. I wondered about being home.
“Belonging for thirteen years and thirteen days,” she smiled. My heart raced and I searched the fairy's face. “You deserve to belong just like anyone else, don’t you? Thirteen years and nothing more.”
“Of my life?” She smiled wider and placed a hand on my chest, fingers spreading like a mold. “Or your heart. Your soul. Memories. Wakeful hours. A song.” I shook my head, slowly and then vigorously. I took a step back.
“A bargain then,” her voice crooned in the groaning of old wood, “Twelve years. Twelve days.” Her hand spread, soaking into the flesh of shirt. “And a kiss.” 
“Thank you!” I nearly shrieked. “I’m not, I’m not. No.” I stumbled back, teetering away from the bright lights. I ducked and dodged into the darkened wood where smaller, stranger things dwell.
I stepped out of the light. The fairies called after me and their voices, luckily, faded into the murmuring of brooks and bird calls and rustling once more. I turned and felt the despair leach into my center. The line of stalls appeared endless, a train, a caravan, a curse.
I slumped down and put my head in my hands. No matter where I had looked, there was no sign of sun. I counted back from ten before I pried my eyes open again. “Christopher?” I called once and then shivered in place, perhaps the most lost I’ve ever been.
“Would you like to be good?” I didn’t look over when it spoke. “Good and know that you are good.”
I ran a hand through my hair. “I want to go home.” I groaned, still not looking down. “Or at least for my ride to come back.” Christopher, at least, had not tried to make any deals. 
“Hmm. Not home. No.”
I saw her hop up from beneath a crop of twisted roots. This fairy was smaller and less beautiful. A dainty clump of mountain ash that was only a hands-length tall. A bushel of delicate white flowers crowned in dew-like hair. She reminded me a bit, only a bit, of Tinker Bell. 
“You’ve been running from something,” her voice was more of a squeak. I was tired. 
“You could say that.”
She patted my knee and my throat throbbed hard enough to make me groan.“You could be good. And know that you are good.” 
I leaned back against the tree trunk. “How much?”
“For good?”
“For home.” “A year or two.” She shrugged. “For being good and knowing you are good. I’m not sure about home.”
I chuckled without humor. “Less than a decade. You’re not much of a bargainer.” “The others know I am small. And crushable.” Dew leaked down her shoulder tops. “So, I’ll take just a year or two of your heart. That’s all.” “My heart?” She shrugged once more, the water making its way down her fluffy skirt and dripping on the ground. “No love. No opening of it.” She put a hand over her chest. “And you’ll be good.” “Good. Huh.” “And know it!” she chirped, “so when you ask yourself, am I doing alright? Am I enough? When I am not earning or making or promising or getting a wife or standing big. You will know. Know that you're good without wondering.” My eyes burned and I rubbed at the corners until I saw spots. I cleared my throat, knowing I needed to steer away. “Where did you come from?” “Silly question.” “Sure.”
“I am like you.” “Not good then?” I raised an eyebrow. “In need of being good, apparently.”
She laughed, shrilly. “No. Not very good at all. Small. Crushable. Small and crushable are not allowed in the queen's caravan.” “That does sound bad,” I said, quietly, staring up. “I’d like to say I know how you feel, but . . .”
“But I do know things. And little boys like, they don’t have to make their own lives so difficult.” “Ha.” My gaze drops to hers. “You’re offering to make my life easy?”
A smile across the face of the little ash fairy, spreading all the way across her face like a jagged wound. “Good.” 
My breath wheezed out and I dropped closer. I was tired, eyes heavy, body aching like a kicked dog coming back to sit at your feet. “It wouldn’t hurt, would it?” She held up a cup made of her own petals. A cup of deep water and lapped at my cracked lips. “All you have to do is drink your fill.” The moonlight caught in the shallow dip and I tipped my head back. Three droplets passed down my lips, fresh as spring, cold enough to strike from my chest to my fingertips. I screwed my eyes shut and clutched at my chest.
The cold blossomed and it was what I imagined a heart attack might feel like. Or perhaps the opposite of one. 
“Wait, shouldn’t we, shouldn’t there be something to sign–” I choked and sputtered and then pain burst from my middle finger on my left hand. The fairy, small and crushable, dug her teeth into my flesh. Gripping ruthlessly, she attached to an open wound, drinking her fill. Dew perched on her head turned red and she made a supping, singing noise in the back of her throat. 
“That’s enough!” I shook her off and another sharp prick went through my wrist. A sting in my neck and then another by elbow. “Stop it!”
A chanting went through my head, a child’s chant like a nursery rhyme. You are good, you are good, you are good. I covered my ears with both hands.
“Stop it!” I bellowed. “This isn’t what we agreed to.” What had we agreed to? The creature tittered and others gathered around it, sharp and hungry. The roots and the rot and the writhing soil. 
I stood, world spinning and heart crushing together into a perfect aching cold. Are fairies allowed to be liars? A tingling spread to the ends of my fingertips and a dizziness overwhelmed me. I covered my mouth with one hand and stopped myself from heaving.
I might have blacked out, blacked out and not come back, and then a light parted the darkness of the wood.
“What have you done?” The words echoed in my head. The face of man, inkdrop eyes, and shining curly hair, looked down on me, pitying. “No,” he said simply. “You can’t. He is my guest.”
Blood seeped out of the cut on my hand and I think I might faint, actually faint like in the movies. Strong hands caught me and then two fingers, clean and warm, human even, pressed to my mouth. Light like the moon poured off of him. “Swallow,” he said. The light burned away the sickly chill. A white fire, burning a path down my throat and into my chest and leaving new life in its wake. 
“Better?” A crown hovered around the man’s head in a halo, stars, the moon even. 
Maybe I could have stayed, made clean and whole, and neither good nor bad. Could have stayed to be made better by the prince of fairies. But I wasn’t that type of person. Voices, again, of birds and wind and roots. I tuned them out. My eyes fixed on lanterns in the distance, meaningless words rushing over me. He spoke of being clean now, healed. The lantern flickered, floating there like something from the stories. 
I looked down at my veins, spiderwebbed in light. They glowed from the inside out. A light, poured from the outside in. A hand was on my knee. Like it had been in the car and I saw it was my own, digging into my flesh. My own hand clutching my own knee and taking me back to myself.
“Can we get him a blanket?” Christopher turned his face. I bolted. No packback, no thoughts, only feet on the ground. Light blared into my face, branches gripped at my clothes, tearing at seams. My nose began to bleed, tasting heated and metallic. I didn’t stop to mop it up. I kept the light of that bobbing thing in my vision, running and bleeding like I never had before.
Later, I would learn a will-o-wisp will is a type of fairy as well, meant for travelers. A light that will get you lost or drown you, if it gets the chance. Though, I was already lost. I ran until my shoes lost the ground. One moment I was sailing ahead, the next I burst through the surface of a lake. Cold engulfed me from all sides, plunging me back into my flesh. I kicked for the surface, up into the fresh night. The trees surrounded this lake in beetle-worn packs, brown and small. Mud caked the banks of the water. Stars were distant and small overhead. I laughed. 
I tore at my shirt and shoes and pants and rubbed deep dark mud across my skin. I laughed and laughed and laughed.
The water ran muddy. Ran red. Then, at least, ran a bright horrible glow, bleeding out and out and out. I bled out the glow of the fairy prince. I washed myself, heaving enough laughter until it turned into a whimper. I scrubbed myself raw until the water, with the sun rising among the peaks, ran clear. 
—----------------
I thought of the prince now and then, how he saved my heart from closing. How he looked at me. How he poured light down my throat, burning me up from the inside out and taking with it a curse. I should be grateful. I went home after all, I hugged my sister and my parents. Hell, I even re-signed up for classes, even as I knew I’d eventually drop out again. Went on a few dates. Gained some roommates I loved and a dog I liked even more. I told stories and stayed. My heart was my own. But I didn’t come back the same after hitchhiking into the depths of the woods in the dark of the road. It was hard to be grateful. Hard for it to feel like a favor to have my heart kept open when it was only replaced by a worse sort of feeling. Longing and longing and longing for inky depths and impossibility, memory that grips you by the throat and murmurs, what if you had stayed?
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mxltifxnd0m · 5 months ago
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falling foolishly ღ s. winchester
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summary: your best friend jess makes you go to a get-together to meet one of her classmates, the thing is, she mentioned two and you don't know which one she meant
pairings: stanford! sam winchester x reader, sam winchester x fem! reader, platonic! jessica moore x reader, platonic! sam winchester x platonic! jessica moore
requested: yes/no: by @s4wdvator thank you for requesting lovey!!
word count: 4.4K
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warnings: modern/no hunting AU, no use of 'y/n', a shit ton of fluff, you and jess being little shits to each other, mentions of sex, some cursing, title is a lyric from must be love by laufey, the prequel to my smau's: must be love and too tongue tied!
a/n: my first request for sammy and its the prequel to my smau's! it was very fun to write and i hope you guys enjoy! and I love sam and jess <33
please reblog and comment! i love to hear your thoughts and it helps out a lot <3
𝘴𝘢𝘮 𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘮𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘵
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The cool, crisp January air hit your cheeks as you exited the lecture hall and wrapped your red wooly scarf around your neck. California didn't see any snow, but you were surprised that the state was capable of dropping below 60 degrees during the winter.
A slight breeze swept through the campus as the dead leaves from autumn skittered and drifted across the grass and pavement. The leaves littered the ground as you walked through the nearly barren quad of the Stanford campus and headed back to your dorm.
You were grateful that you only had two classes today, the one you just took, and you had a four-hour gap before your last one. You had your headphones on as you made your trek back to your dorm, where your roommate was no doubt still there or getting ready for her classes. You almost let out a sigh of relief when you entered the heated lobby of your dorm and quickly made your way to the third floor.
As you entered your room, you set your bag at the edge of your bed while a familiar head of long, curly blonde hair sat at her vanity as she got ready for class. You made eye contact with her blue eyes through her mirror, and you saw her mouth widen into a smile.
"Hey! how was class?" Jessica asked you as she applied a coat of mascara to her lashes.
"It was fine." You said with a roll of your eyes while taking off your scarf and cardigan, leaving you in a thin black long-sleeve and jeans.
A chuckle left Jess's lips. "You're regretting taking this 8 am aren't you?"
A mournful groan left your lips as you kicked off your shoes. "I thought I would be able to, but it's going to be the bane of my existence for the rest of this semester." You walked to your bed and face-planted into it
"Is it too late to drop it?" You heard her ask as her chair moved against the carpeted floor.
"It might be," Your pillow muffled your voice. You moved your head so you could breathe. "But the stupid class is only available this semester and not at any other time."
Your eyes followed Jessica as she shrugged on her black North Face puffer and as she walked up to your bed.
"You have my sympathy and pity." Her eyes were sparkling with mirth as she patted you on your head.
You scowled at her and swatted her hand away from your head. Jess managed to rip her hand away from your head before you could hit her as she laughed at your grumpy mood.
"Just go to class." You grumbled as you sat up and grabbed your laptop out of your bag to start on some work.
Jessica laughed before grabbing her backpack. "See ya later, bitch!" She sent you an air kiss.
"Whatever, bye whore," You sent her a two-finger salute while reading the article your teacher assigned her as Jess left your shared room.
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"Hear me out-"
"No good sentence starts off with 'hear me out', Jess." You cut her off after taking a sip of your water.
The two of you sat in the dining hall, eating dinner together as people bustled and chattered around you, absorbed in their own conversations and worlds.
Jess whined your name. "Can't you hear me out for just a minute?"
"The last time I did, you got black-out drunk the day before winter break started and I had to drag you back to the dorm."
"I wasn't that bad."
"You almost threw up on me and clung on to me all night." You deadpanned at her before taking a bite of the pasta you had chosen for dinner.
"What can I say, you're a really good cuddler." Jess winked at you, but all you gave her was a straight face.
She rolled her eyes at you. "Can you blame me? We had just finished finals!"
"Righttt." You drawled out.
"Whatever, just hear me out for just a second and I swear it'll be worth your time."
You pressed your lips together. "Fine, you get a minute."
"I was invited to a small get-together and I want you to come with me as my plus one."
"Is this an actual small get-together or a ploy to get me to another party?" You narrowed your eyes at Jess.
She shook her head. "I swear." Jessica made it a point to cross her heart. "The friend I made in my Philosophy class invited me and two other classmates to their small housewarming in the apartment they just got."
"Are you sure you're able to invite someone else with you?"
Jess nodded. "Yeah, I asked them and they said it was alright."
You sighed. "Fine. I'll come."
Jessica's dazzling grin appeared on her face, and you could see her visibly getting excited. "Yes! I've been dying for you to meet my class mate anyways."
"Which one?" You raised an eyebrow.
Her grin turned into a sly smirk. "You'll see on Friday."
You squinted suspiciously at her. "I don't like that look on your face."
"What look?" She said with innocent eyes and a scheming smile still on her face as she took a bite of her food.
"I'm onto you, Moore." You pointed your plastic fork at her as menacingly as you could, but all she did was chuckle.
"I'd rather you be on top of me instead." Jess cooed as she fluttered her eyelashes at you.
The two of you had flirty banter since a month of living together. You had met Jessica at freshman orientation, and you guys had hit it off immediately, becoming fast friends and stuck by each other like glue until the day ended. You guys traded socials before you guys left. So when the move-in day came around, to both of your surprises, you guys were each other's roommates.
Since then, you guys have been best friends. It felt like you guys have been friends since you were kids. But you've only known each other for about four months, and it's only your second semester of your freshman year. Nevertheless, you have a feeling that she's going to be by your side until both of you kick the bucket.
You rolled your eyes, but a smile grew on your face. "I'd always knew you'd be the bottom out of the two of us." You teased.
Jess scoffed. "As if."
"That wasn't a no, Jess." You said in a sing-song voice as you got up to put away your now empty tray.
"Wait, no! It was!" Jessica said as she got up to follow you, your laugh ringing throughout the already loud dining hall.
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You were typing away at your laptop when something was flung at you, and your vision was obscured by a piece of clothing.
"You're wearing that." You heard Jess say before you pulled it off of your face, your hair askew.
You glared at her back as she dug around the small dresser on her side of the room before looking at the offending article of clothing she unceremoniously threw at you. It was a tight, black, long-sleeved dress that had a plunging neckline. It had a skirt that flared out, and it looked like it had ended around your mid-thigh.
"Jess, are you crazy? I'm not wearing a dress in the middle of winter!" You hissed as you were getting ready to throw it back at her.
She threw something else in your direction wordlessly, and it landed on your bed. You leaned forward to grab it and saw it was one of her fleece-lined tights that she would wear if she wanted to wear a skirt in the cold.
You opened your mouth to protest before she whirled around and held a finger up. "Nuh-uh, no complaining. I let you wear whatever you wanted when we went to those parties last semester."
"Are you insulting my fashion sense?"
"Of course." Jess flashed a sarcastic grin at you.
You scowled at her in response before closing your laptop with a little more force than you needed to. You huffed before getting off your bed and began to change out of the t-shirt and leggings you wore for the day since you had no class on Fridays.
"Are you sure you're still the top in the relationship?" Jessica quipped and dodged the stuffed animal that you chucked at her from your bed with a chuckle.
After you changed into the dress and tights, you did your makeup as you usually would but applied a raspberry-tinted lip stain and some black eyeliner instead of the usual brown you did on a day-to-day basis.
You let down your hair from the hairstyle you had on all day and curled it lightly. Once you were with your hair and makeup, you put on your everyday rings, necklace, and a few spritzes of perfume and slid on your cherry red platform boots you had gotten from your sister for Christmas.
As you were bent over and zipping up your left boot, you heard a wolf whistle come from Jess. You looked up to see that Jess was wearing the opposite color as you.
Jess's dress was a frilly long-sleeve dress that ended at her mid-thigh with nude tights underneath; you assumed that they were fleeced-lined as well. Her blonde hair was pulled up in a high ponytail, her makeup made her look angel with flushed cheeks and wide eyes, and she was wearing black Mary Janes. If you stood side by side, you'd look like the living manifestation of yin and yang.
"Damn, it's not fair you look better than me in that dress." Jess all but pouted at you.
"I'd argue but I have a feeling you don't want us to be late."
Jess looked at her phone, and her eyes widened. "Yep, we should go now if we don't want to be late for the Uber since its like five minutes away."
You nodded and grabbed the red leather jacket you thrifted a while ago, along with your scarf, and followed Jess out the door as she grabbed her black leather jacket. The Uber to the apartment was brief, but it was filled with awkward small talk between the driver and the two of you.
As you walk into the apartment complex and ride the elevator to the fourth floor, where Jess's friend's apartment is, you feel a little nervous. You had yet to meet these people before, and you were not the most socially adjusted person.
Jessica was the extrovert out of the two of you and did most of the talking while you let her. You preferred listening anyway and chiming in when it was appropriate. You would only let loose around people you knew and were comfortable with.
Before you knew it, you had followed Jess to the apartment door. Her knock on the door broke you out of your slight daze, your body on autopilot before you snapped out of it. You heard the door unlock and swung open.
A girl with long, straight red hair, wearing glasses, and a broad smile answered the door. "Jess! I'm glad you could make it!" She greeted her with a hug before her blue eyes landed on you just behind Jess. She said your name with the same amount of enthusiasm as she greeted Jess.
You hid your confusion behind a smile as you gave her a small wave in greeting before she ushered the two of you inside her apartment.
"I've heard so much about you from Jess! I'm Mel." Mel introduced herself as she led you guys into the living room. You had noticed that there were about six or seven people in the living room, chatting and snacking on the food and drinks that were laid out.
The apartment was spacious and had an open floor plan with the kitchen to your left, the living room in front of you, and to your right, stairs that led to a loft area. You noticed some sliding doors that must have led out to a balcony since you had seen some as you looked up at the apartment complex.
Someone squealed from the kitchen, and out came a girl with tanned skin and brown bouncy curls barrel into Jess, giving her a massive hug.
"Hey, Dinah!" You could hear Jess greet who you now know is Dinah as she pulls away from the hug. "Come meet my best friend and roommate." Jess said before gesturing to you.
You saw Dinah's warm brown eyes land on you, and she smiled wide. You all got properly acquainted before you guys joined everyone else in the living room, being introduced to some of Mel's friends and Dinah's friends. You felt comfortable after being introduced and listening to the conversations that were being had. You even chimed in a couple of times, leading the conversation one time.
At one point, you saw Jess lean over to Mel, who was sitting on her other side. "Where's Sam? I thought he said he'd come?" You heard her ask Mel.
Mel nodded. "He said he was going to be a little late."
Jess hummed in response. "Okay, but-" Jess was cut off by a loud knock on the door.
"Speak of the devil and he shall appear. That must be Sam." Mel said before getting up from her seat and answering the door.
Mel came back with a guy who you assumed was Sam, and your breath hitched as you took in the sight of Sam. He was tall with brown hair and bangs you wanted to brush from his forehead. You couldn't tell what his eye color was from where you were sitting. But he had a cute nose that you traced with your eyes. He was dressed in layers from what you could tell was a dark undershirt peeking out from underneath the navy blue polo, which was covered by a worn, unzipped brown Carhartt jacket, with his hands shoved in the pockets.
Mel introduced him to the group, and everyone said variations of greetings. You saw Sam's eyes scan the group before they met yours, and you could see that his eyes were hazel, and you could tell that they shifted color depending on the lighting. You gave him a small smile, one he returned before his eyes moved to the person next to you.
Jess saw this small interaction and smirked to herself. She stood up and greeted Sam. At this point, everyone had gone back to their conversations, and you were brought into one with Dinah and another guy named Brady. But you were only half listening to them, your mind still stuck on the tall guy with hazel eyes that only stood mere feet away from you.
As the night went on, you found yourself wanting to talk to Sam but couldn't. You always seemed to psych yourself out of talking to him. As people started to get a little tipsy, you managed to slip out of the living room unnoticed and out to the balcony. Which now, you regretted instantly.
The cold night seeped into your skin as you rested your elbows on the metal railing. It was bearable, but you would prefer to wear something warmer than the dress you were wearing in this kind of weather. You were debating on going back inside to grab your jacket.
"Aren't you cold?" A voice startled you out of your thoughts, and you whipped around to find Sam standing at the closed balcony doors.
"Oh, I'm sorry." He apologized with a sheepish smile, which you thought was cute. Sam must have realized that he had scared you.
You shook your head. "You're fine, I was just lost in thought and didn't hear you come out here." You reassured him with a slight smile.
Sam seemed to relax at your words and smiled back at you. "I'm Sam." He introduced himself as he stuck out a hand for you to shake.
"I knew that." You said through a small chuckle as you shook his warm hand, his hand almost dwarfing yours as you did. "Mel introduced you when came in."
There were fairy lights strung on the metal railing and around the balcony, lighting the area with a warm and inviting atmosphere. You could see a blush grow on Sam's cheeks as he realized that she did, in fact, introduce him to the entire room.
"Right, I forgot about that." Sam let out a nervous laugh.
You quickly introduced yourself to Sam, and he said your name like he was testing how it rolled off of his tongue. The way he said your name sent butterflies fluttering in your stomach as you smiled at him.
"How do you know Mel?" He asked with a gentle smile on his face.
"I don't. Jess asked me to come with her to meet some of her classmates."
"Oh! That's right I remember Jess talk about her best friend a lot before class."
You raised your eyebrow at that factoid. You didn't realize that Jess talked about you that much, which sent warmth to your chest. "Didn't realize that Jess talked about me that much." You said with a nervous chuckle.
Sam's smile broadens as he nods. "She does."
"Well, what's your story, Sam? What brings you to Stanford?" You ask him.
Before you know it, the both of you were launched into a conversation that flowed like a river in a dense forest. You found out Sam was in pre-law; he is from Lawrence, Kansas, with an older brother named Dean, and his brother is a firefighter back home. In turn, you told him about the major you were in, your family, and where you grew up.
You guys were so deep into your conversation that you didn't feel the cold anymore until a shiver racked your body when the breeze suddenly picked up. Sam noticed, and his face twisted with concern.
"Crap, I didn't even realize it was that cold out here. Here." Before you could protest, he shrugged off his brown jacket and stepped closer to you to drape it over your shoulders, filling your nose with a faint woody and fresh linen scent.
You were stunned by his actions momentarily before his stepping away snapped you to the present, and you put your arms through the sleeves. The jacket engulfed you; it was the same length as your dress, and you had to scrunch up the sleeves since they were so long.
Sam had a fond smile on his face as you focused on pulling up his sleeves before he looked away and exhaled a breath. He realized you could see his breath, so he looked back at you. His breath caught as he saw the girl that Sam thought was pretty when he first walked into the apartment, swarming in his jacket before he shook his head to get rid of the thoughts that were forming in his mind.
"We should probably head back inside." He suggested as he shoved his hands into his jeans, no longer being warmed by his jacket.
You agreed with his words, and Sam opened the sliding door and gestured for you to go inside first. You shot him a grateful smile before stepping into the warm apartment.
You took a few steps forward until you were propelled backward as you got a faceful of blonde hair in your face and arms wrapping around your shoulders. You would have toppled over if it wasn't for Sam's tall form and hands landing on your waist, underneath his jacket, and steadying you from behind.
You couldn't focus on anything besides his warm hands seeping through the fabric but were brought back to Jess's tipsy ramblings.
"You're b-back! I was wondering where you went." Jess's words were slurred slightly as she booped you on the nose.
Sam eventually let go of you as you steadied yourself with Jess in your arms.
"Yeah, I am Jess," You chuckled lightly at the blissful smile that was on Jessica's face. "I was out on the balcony with Sam."
Her blue eyes brightened at the mention of Sam, and she finally seemed to notice that he was behind you. "Sammy!" Jess called out cheerfully.
You heard Sam chuckle as he moved to the side so you could see him. "Hi Jess," Sam said with a smile.
How in the hell are you now noticing that he has dimples. Christ, this dude was getting more and more cuter by the second.
"He was the classmate I wanted to introduce you to. Sam is totally your type, you know?" She whispered to you a little too loud, and Sam could still hear her.
"Like he's smart, tall, handsome, and-" You cut off Jess by slapping your hand over her mouth. She continued to speak, her words muffled as you felt your cheeks flush with heat as you dared to look at Sam.
You could tell that Sam was thoroughly amused by Jess's drunken ramblings and your now flustered state.
"She's a clingy and loud drunk if you couldn't tell by now." You said with a tight smile on your face as you thought of the many ways that you could murder Jess.
The smirk on Sam's face was making your heart beat faster. "Yeah, I think I got the picture now. I've never seen her like this."
"Yeah, well, I've seen her like this many times." You finally pulled your hand away from her mouth when you felt her stop talking and nuzzled her face into the crook of your neck.
You sighed and patted her back. "Come on, Jessy. Let's go sit down and get some water in you."
Jessica grumbled into your neck, and you could barely make out the words, but it sounded like she wanted to go home. You looked at Sam with an exasperated expression on your face, making him laugh. You couldn't hold back the smile on your face at the sound of his bright laugh.
"Okay, but let's drink some water, say bye to everyone, and then we can go, okay?" You said gently to Jess as you petted the top of her head, and all she did was nod into your neck before adjusting herself so she could be tucked into your side.
"I'll come with you," Sam said. "Looks like you have your hands full and need help." He gestured to the 5'10 blonde nineteen-year-old hanging off of you.
With some thought, you eventually accepted Sam's help. With his help, Jess drank a bottle of water and ate some food that was still out. You said bye to everyone in the apartment, grabbed your jackets, and Sam called an Uber for the three of you to take it back to the dorm since he lived in the building across from yours.
Sam graciously took the front seat while you and Jess sat in the back. She dozed on your shoulder, and before you knew it, the three of you were back on campus with Jess's shoulder slung over your shoulder as you led Sam to your room. You were okay with just walking back to the dorms by yourself with Jess, but Sam insisted that he'd walk you guys to your room.
If this was anyone else, you would have been creeped out, but you knew Sam had nothing but good intentions behind those eyes that reminded you of a puppy's. So he walked with you and Jess all the way until you made it to the room. At this point, Jess had sobered up slightly but trudged into the room as you unlocked it. You stood in the doorway as Sam lingered in the hall.
"Thanks for helping, you made things easier than it had ever been before."
Sam shook his head. "No problem. Does she get that way a lot?"
"No. Sometimes it's me clinging to her, but more often than not it's Jess." You said with a small chuckle. Sam smiled at the sound of your laugh and looked down at his feet.
Sam looked a little nervous as he looked back at you. "I'm glad we met. I really liked talking to you tonight."
"So did I." You sent him a kind smile.
"Could I get your number?"
Your smile widened as you nodded. The two of you traded phones as you set up new contacts with one another. Once you were done, you guys gave each other's respective phones back, smiles lingering on your faces. You looked down at your boots and remembered that you were still wearing his jacket.
"Oh! here's your jacket." You took it off, even if you didn't want to, and gave it back to Sam.
Sam took it and folded it over his arm as if it were a suit jacket. You both stared at each other for a moment before you spoke up.
"Well, thanks for the help and walking us back, Sam. You've been a real gentleman."
He playfully bowed, bending slightly at the waist as he placed his free hand on his chest, looking at you cheekily. "The pleasure has been mine," Sam said before straightening to his full height.
A giggle escaped your lips. "Cheeky." You said before you bit your bottom lip. You didn't want to second guess yourself, and even in your platform boots, you had to lean up and plant a kiss on Sam's cheek.
"Goodnight, Sam." You said with a shy smile as you drew back from him, a dopey smile on his face as his dimples appeared on his face.
"Yeah," He said breathily before shaking his head slightly and clearing his throat. "Goodnight," Sam said your name before the two of you shared a smile. You stepped back from the doorway and closed the door. You locked the door and turned around to find Jess sitting on her bed with tired eyes but a shit-eating grin on her face.
"You saw the entire thing didn't you?"
"Mhm. Never knew you had the balls to kiss him on the cheek. Maybe you are the top."
Jess wasn't fast enough to dodge the massive stuffed animal you kept on the edge of your bed, and the two of you dissolved into laughter as it hit her face.
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