#which i do with the refreshed energy each day

[sylusvrse]

LEAST TO MOST LIKELY TO . . . get along ?

which of the love and deepspace men would get along if they met? ⸺ ㅤpurely interactions between lads love interests! no mentions of mc, so i’m avoiding the jealousy trope.

LEAST LIKELY TO

rafayel + xavier

it’s not that i think they won’t like each other. it’s just that rafayel needs someone to match his energy and challenge him, while xavier seems just okay with being passive when interacting with other people. rafayel needs his full attention while he’s ranting, so if xavier falls asleep, they’re done.

not to say xavier is dumb— he’s very intelligent when he wants to be, but he comes across as someone with a one track mind. i’m not sure he’d understand what rafayel is saying half the time, but he’s very polite and understanding about it.

sylus + caleb (pre farspace fleet)

outwardly, they would get along. they look like the perfect picture of brotherhood: an arm swung over the other’s shoulder and a loud promise to get drinks sometime.

in reality, they’re running background checks on each other the moment they’re out of the other’s earshot. sylus knew there was something darker beneath caleb’s charismatic gaze and caleb definitely picked up the fact sylus wasn’t telling him the full truth of his profession.

zayne + rafayel

zayne is a man very comfortable in his space. rafayel is a man very comfortable in zayne’s space. the artist thinks zayne is too uptight and tries to get him out of his office and have some fun, but the doctor is clearly not interested in that.

rafayel would never push it and make zayne uncomfortable. he’d simply except that the other man was happy with where he was. there’s no tension between them, but they just don’t compliment each other. no hard feelings.

MOST LIKELY TO

zayne + xavier

there’s a quiet understanding between them. zayne is a little concerned about xavier’s health if anything. obviously, they don’t become best friends, but they do get along.

i don’t think either of them are the greatest with expressing their feelings and neither of them are interested in talking about it. they recognize that in each other and find the most solace knowing that neither of them are expecting anything more from the other.

rafayel + sylus

two rich men with an appreciation for the finer things in life… they would 100% get along. rafayel wouldn’t judge sylus for the things he’s done— he’s probably done worse anyway.

i imagine they met at one of rafayel’s art exhibition and started talking. there’s something so refreshing about the way rafayel describes his art, much better than the suffocating corporate speak sylus is forced to hear every day.

sylus is invited to all of rafayel’s next exhibitions and and rafayel happens to be sylus’ occasional plus-one to auctions. they’re besties now sorry i don’t make the rules. i could talk about them forever

note: i didn’t include as many caleb pairings because his lore is genuinely so intertwined with the mc that i had a hard time coming up with any ideas. also, even the most sociable people like sylus or rafayel are perceptive enough to see there’s more beneath the surface. they notice that caleb is actually… kind of off putting? love caleb though!

obviously there are some more interactions i missed like zayne + sylus. they probably wouldn’t like each other, maybe they would, and i don’t know when it would make sense for them to meet… sylus gets a check up i guess <3 old men yaoi

[swimmingferret]

would you recommend infinity nikki as a game? i heard it's got like, loads of micro transactions and stuff since it's a gacha/lootbox game

Well the base game is entirely free with no paywalls anywhere and you don't actually have to buy anything. Like if you want certain outfits you really like sure, but you get enough crystals while exploring and doing the special events you don't need to unless you're one of those 100% perfectionist types and even then if you're crafty you prob don't need to do it. I don't mind buying stuff now and again but that's 'cause I got disposable income lol. It just means you'll need to do more grinding for items or crystals but it's actually fairly easy enough to do. I actually found the fact you have to play it constantly online as more annoying than the store.

The base game has more than enough content for you to ignore the store entirely. The game is also good if you like open world exploration and dress-up games, which I both like so I've been playing it a lot lol but yea, store is not essential. I just like this game a lot cause it's cute and pretty and open world like Portia and whatnot

[heart-writesss]

it had been 2 weeks since you originally met connie. you guys had been casually texting which turned into being on the phone multiple times a day. conversations just flowed so easily between you guys. it was never a moment of awkward silence for you guys. connie loved your positive energy and hearing you ramble on about the things you love. hearing your sweet giggles over the phone weren’t enough anymore he had to see you soon.

you were at home tidying up when your music paused meaning you were getting a phone call. walking over to the phone you say it was connie calling. you smiled big before answering.

“hellllloo pretty girl.” connie cheeses when you pick up the phone. he loves seeing your smile whenever he calls you little petnames so he makes sure to do it often. he was sitting at home bored and just wanted to hear your voice. “so what are you doing?” connie asks and you begin listing all the little things you had to do around the house. water your plants, mop the kitchen, do some laundry but nothing too crazy. before you could finish he says a set of words that almost make you audibly gasp. “so do you think i could come over? y’know just to hang out.” and before you could think about it you had already said “yes.”

it was 2 hours after you and connie had spoken and 1 hour until connie was supposed to show up. from the moment you hung up the phone you’d been freaking out. connie in your home was absolutely mind boggling for you to process but you had no choice but to get ready. you took a shower with all your best smell goods and did a little shaving for extra precaution. not that you planned on doing anything crazy. this was a simple friendly hang out. right. you put on a pair of black oversized sweatpants and a white tank top. as you were refreshing your curls you heard a knock on the door involuntarily you squeal. looking in the mirror you double check your appearance and take a few deep breaths. it’s kind of embarrassing that you were so nervous about a guy coming over at your big age but it had been a while.

you and connie were sitting on your couch with the tv playing but neither of you were paying it any attention. when connie first came in it was crazy to see this tall man covered in tattoos in your pretty pink apartment. he came in and admired your decor he thought to himself how he couldn’t have imagined a more you looking home. all the little knick knacks and plushies everywhere suited your vibes so well. it was just very cozy. sitting across from you on the couch he was able to admire your features better than over the phone. the way your cheeks looked when you smiled or laughed. the way you spoken with your hands. the intense way you look at him when he’s speaking showing you’re really listening. you had connie feeling a way he had never felt before. and it was just the beginning.

“why are you looking at me like that?” you ask connie who’s been staring at you as you rambled on about your doll shelf that was by your tv. he was watching you talk with a look on his face you couldn’t decipher. “no reason.” connie responds with a smile. a few beats of silence linger in the room.

“c’mere” connie almost whispers. without protest you made your way towards him and he took over having you straddle his lap. you and him sat face to face. you were certain he could probably hear your heart pounding in your chest. despite the nerves you felt your bodies seemingly fit together perfectly as if you had been made for each other. connie’s hands roamed aimlessly across your back and over your hips somehow ending up underneath your tank top. still no one broke the silence. when connie looked as if he was going to say something you took a leap you were surprised by yourself. you leaned forward and pressed your lips to his. it took connie no less than a millisecond to catch up and follow suit. your hands made their way around his neck and your hips began to against his. pulling apart to catch your breath you look at connie and get out a breathy , “hi.”

connie had officially accepted you were going to be his and you knew in your mind you wanted the same.

[wonlvures]

FALLING FOR YOU ୨୧ - SIM JAEYUN

PAIRING: idol!Jake x Idol!reader

SYNOPSIS: you and Jake secretly have a thing for each other when you guys are idols and have a secret relationship

GENRE: fluff, romance

AUTHORS NOTE: this was highly requested by a generous user!

Jake had always known that being an idol would come with its fair share of challenges—late nights, early mornings, grueling schedules, and fans who loved him unconditionally. But there was one thing he hadn’t expected when he first entered this world: to meet someone who didn’t seem to care about any of that.

It happened on the set of a variety show. Jake, along with his group, had been invited to participate in a cooking challenge against another group of idols, and Y/N was the one chosen to co-host and judge. She had been in the industry for a while, but not in the same group as Jake. He had seen her on TV, admired her work, but he never imagined their paths would cross in such a casual way.

The cameras rolled, and the challenge began. Jake, known for being a bit of a perfectionist, was focused on the task at hand, but there was something about the way Y/N smiled and teased the contestants that caught his attention. She was sharp, quick-witted, and radiated a warm, approachable energy that made everyone around her relax. Jake noticed, too, that she didn’t treat him like a star. While others hesitated or were overly polite, she was relaxed with him—like they were just two people doing their jobs.

During the break between filming, they ended up sitting next to each other. Y/N turned to him with a grin.

“You know, I’m actually kind of impressed by your cooking skills. I thought idols couldn’t cook.”

Jake laughed, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “I may not be a chef, but I can follow a recipe. Plus, I’ve been living on takeout too long. I had to learn something.”

Y/N’s eyes twinkled with amusement. “I totally get it. If I didn’t learn how to cook, I’d be living on ramen forever.”

As the conversation flowed easily, Jake realized just how down-to-earth she was. She didn’t talk about her fame or her achievements. Instead, she asked about his hobbies, his favorite food, and even complained about the exhaustion of being in the industry. It was refreshing. She wasn’t fawning over him, or putting him on a pedestal—she just treated him like a regular person, which, for Jake, felt rare.

When filming wrapped up, they exchanged numbers to keep in touch for future shows. Jake didn’t think much of it at the time—he figured it was just part of the job. But over the next few weeks, he found himself looking forward to her messages.

Their texts started off small—simple messages about scheduling, a funny meme here and there, or asking each other for advice about their upcoming performances. But something shifted as the days went on. They began to open up more. Y/N shared her worries about the pressures of being an idol—how fans’ expectations sometimes felt suffocating. Jake, in turn, confessed his own struggles with the constant demand to be perfect, to always smile, to always give his best even when he was running on empty.

It was during one of these late-night conversations that Jake found himself looking at his phone, fingers hovering over the keyboard, uncertain of what to say. He had never been the type to wear his heart on his sleeve, but there was something about Y/N that made him want to.

He typed, then deleted, then typed again.

Jake: "I know we’ve only known each other a little while, but... I feel like I can actually be myself around you. And I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately."

Y/N’s response came just a few moments later.

Y/N: "Jake, I feel the same way. I’ve never really had a chance to connect with anyone like this in the industry. It’s... kind of nice."

Jake felt a weight lift off his chest. For the first time in a long while, he felt like he was talking to someone who wasn’t interested in his status as an idol but in him—the person behind the image.

It wasn’t long before they started meeting up in person. Sometimes it was after a late-night show or a photoshoot, where they’d steal a few quiet moments for themselves. They didn’t have to go to fancy restaurants or glamorous locations. It was the small things that mattered—grabbing bubble tea together, walking around the park after a long day, or just sitting in a cafe and talking about everything and nothing at all.

One evening, after a particularly exhausting day of filming, Jake texted her again.

Jake: "Hey, I don’t know about you, but I’m about ready to collapse. Want to meet up for a quick bite? Somewhere quiet?"

Y/N read the message and smiled, already feeling the same fatigue, but also the familiar pull of wanting to see him again. There was something comforting about being with Jake—something that allowed her to forget about the bright lights and the pressure for just a little while.

Y/N: "Sounds perfect. Meet you at the usual place?"

They met at a small, out-of-the-way restaurant, a little hole-in-the-wall that had become their spot. It was the kind of place where no one cared who they were or what they did for a living. No flashing cameras, no eager fans. Just food, laughter, and quiet moments together.

As they sat down, Jake looked at her across the table, watching the way she pushed her hair behind her ear, a habit she had when she was nervous or thinking.

“I’ve been meaning to tell you something,” he said, his voice softer than usual. “Lately, I’ve realized I look forward to our conversations more than anything. It’s... it’s strange, but it feels different with you. Like I can finally relax.”

Y/N felt her heart flutter, her chest tightening with an unfamiliar warmth. She had thought about Jake a lot too—about how easy it was to talk to him, how much she enjoyed his presence, and how it felt like they were falling into something that was beyond just friendship.

“Jake,” she started, her voice a little more nervous than she intended, “I feel the same way. You’re... different from everyone else I’ve met. I feel like I can just be myself.”

There was a long pause, and Jake’s gaze softened. Then, almost as if he had been holding his breath, he leaned in slightly.

“Y/N, I like you. I’ve been thinking about it for a while now, and I—"

Before he could finish, Y/N reached across the table, placing her hand on his.

“I like you too,” she said, her smile genuine and a little shy. “I’ve been trying to figure out when the right moment would be to say it, but I guess... now’s as good a time as any.”

Jake laughed softly, the tension in his body releasing. He didn’t need to say anything more—he could see it in her eyes. They had both been tiptoeing around something that had always been there, and now, it felt like they had finally crossed that invisible line.

From that night forward, their relationship deepened. They still had their moments of uncertainty—moments when the pressure of being public figures weighed heavily on them. But through it all, they kept finding ways to support each other, even when the world seemed too loud or too demanding.

They continued to meet in secret, sharing quiet moments in the midst of their busy lives. Sometimes they would slip away for a quick coffee, other times they would sit in the park at night, talking about their hopes for the future, about what they wanted for themselves and each other.

One afternoon, after a particularly grueling practice, Y/N found herself waiting for Jake outside the practice room. When he stepped out, exhausted but smiling, she couldn’t help but laugh.

“Are you always this tired?” she teased.

Jake grinned, his eyes bright despite the exhaustion. “Pretty much. But it’s worth it when I get to see you.”

Y/N smiled, feeling her heart flutter once again. It was in moments like these that she realized how much they had changed each other—not as idols, but as people. Jake wasn’t just the idol she had admired from afar; he was someone she could trust, someone who understood the difficulties of their world and who was willing to take the time to show her that there was more to life than just the spotlight.

And as for Jake, he had never imagined that something so simple, so pure, could grow out of the chaos of their shared world. But with Y/N by his side, he began to believe that maybe, just maybe, there was a chance for love to bloom amid the flashing cameras and the noise.

Their love wasn’t something they shouted from rooftops or shared on social media—it was something they kept close, something between the two of them. But in their hearts, it was more than enough.

Together, they learned that sometimes the most unexpected connections are the ones that last the longest.

[jiraisupportgroup]

First of all - I'd like to note that this post is not intended to pressure anyone to change or to make people feel ashamed for the position they are in in life. I feel like a lot of people don't understand that being in this position is not often a choice. A majority of the time there are mental illnesses or chronic physical illnesses which lead someone to this point. It isn't like they're just hanging out at home all day having a blast - it is emotionally and physically taxing to be in this position, and it can be incredibly hard to break out. Not impossible!! Just very hard.

It is not as simple as "just go outside" "just get a job" etc; that kind of advice is not helpful. This post is mostly aimed at people who want to make some sort of change in their routine. Again, if you don't want to change or don't feel a need to - I'm not here to pressure you into changing your life or to tell you you are wrong for living this way - you're not, you're okay I promise. More so this is for people who are thinking about changing things up or adding a little more structure to their life.

Keep in mind - there is no shame in this. If you're looking at your daily log of activities and it isn't what you want it to be that is okay! Don't beat yourself up or be down on yourself for not being perfect or not being where you want to be. This is just so we can identify trends in our behaviours and more clearly see the things we want to cut back on or the things we want to add to our daily / weekly routines.

Try to keep this in a place where it is easy to keep track of. I typically recommend something digital like a notes app on the phone or a google document since you can access that from a computer or your phone - that way it's much easier to just pop in and write a simple note like "10am - had a bagel for breakfast", or a little pocket notebook that you can keep on your person. Make it as easy for yourself as possible.

It can also help to add little notes about how certain activities make you feel or your general mood throughout the day. This doesn't have to be extensive, but something like "Took a shower, feel refreshed but exhausted", or "2-4pm scrolling TikTok, I don't feel anything, I'm a little irritated". Keeping in mind how certain activities make you feel is a good step in identifying how different things affect your mental health and overall energy / stress levels. This can also help us start to see some of the underlying reasons for some of your behaviours. If you start to see why you do or don't like doing certain things, you can have a better understanding of yourself and how you can go about changing certain habits.

For example if you absolutely 100% detest doing the dishes, the feeling, the smell, how long it takes, etc, it isn't going to be very helpful to have a "just do it" approach to building the habit. It will become much easier if we also adopt other things into this such as having a dish-washing chair, a special soap, or gloves to make the process more bearable before throwing yourself head-first into it.

Some goals are easier to identify than others. For example "I want to brush my teeth every night" is a pretty identifiable goal and the steps you need to take to achieve that goal are pretty straightforward. Other goals like "I want to feel more productive" or "I want to have more energy" are vague and difficult to achieve in themsevles, so we need to break them down.

What does each goal mean to you? What does "being more productive" mean? Does it mean keeping your room clean? Creating a physical product or hobby? Achieving smaller goals throughout the day? Exercising more? Trading social media for something like a book? Learning something new? What smaller aspect of this larger idea stands out to you? Once it is broken into parts it's much easier to work on one aspect at a time instead of just trying to change everything overnight.

Other goals seem like too much, like "I want to be able to go to the grocery store by myself". That's an easily identifiable goal, but it's a BIG goal. There are likely steps you'll have to take to work up to this goal, and those steps are heavily tied to the reasons why you don't like going to the grocery store in the first place. If the crowds make you anxious - going out with friends or family to less crowded places, or going to the grocery store at less busy times of day could help. If the food items stress you out - going out to places like office supply stores that don't carry food items or going to the store without the intent of buying anything just to walk around and get used to it might be helpful. Some stores like Kroger, Ingles, or Target often have little coffee shops in them - maybe going to one of these with friends just to get a snack and hang out can help expose you to the idea of the store itself without the pressure of having to pick out what you're buying or the pressure of interacting with the cashier so you don't have to tackle it all at once. Or if you typically get groceries delivered to your house, maybe you could do a purchase online pick up in-store thing one day - you don't have to spend much time in the actual store, and you don't have to pick items out while you're there, but it'll get you to the actual store and then you can just go home right afterwards. Try to find ways to get slowly closer and closer to your final goal without throwing yourself headfirst into it. (One thing I will say specifically about going to the grocery store is try to avoid planning out exactly what you're going to purchase beforehand - I used to do this and I would end up crying in the middle of the store if they didn't have the exact bread they wanted, it backfired on me more than once T-T so do that at your own risk).

Write out as many or as few goals as you can think of. These are long-term goals, so if your list feels really long don't worry! You don't have to do all of this at once! In fact, I implore you not to try and do too many of these things at once! Try not to get overwhelmed if it feels like a lot - you've got time, this is not a once-and-done kind of thing, we're going to take it slow and try to be reasonable with ourselves and our expectations of ourselves.

But how do you pick a goal? There's a lot of ways you could do this. Some people like to try and go for the one that seems the hardest first - I've never really had luck with this I usually just give up when I feel like it's too hard. Some people try to pick the one that seems the easiest to ease themselves into it - this is always nice because it can help you feel like you're actually making progress and changing things. Some people pick ones that overlap. Like if you want to spend less time on social media and more time doing a hobby like knitting - you can combine those two goals into "trade social media time for knitting" to kind of tackle two things at once. Try not to combine too many things together - we do still want these goals to be small and separate from each other - but smaller ones like that it is okay to and makes sense to combine together.

So! You've picked a goal to work towards! Yay! How do we do that? It depends on the goal you've picked. If it's something physical like showering, brushing your teeth, vacuuming, doing the dishes, going for a walk, or cooking dinner, it's a little easier to track. Setting reminders or keeping a log of when you do these things can help, some people like having weekly or daily checklists to keep track of what has been done and when. Try to avoid putting too many things on the checklist - we don't want to overwhelm ourselves, remember we're just working on one thing right now.

For others, picking a certain day of the week or time of day to do these things can help as well. Having a set time or day for certain activities can help set the routine of doing them, and also makes it a little easier to keep track of when they are done. If you miss these days or times don't beat yourself up! Try to avoid the feeling of "oh well I was supposed to shower at 7pm and now it's 10pm so I missed my opportunity" you can deviate from the timeframes you set for yourself they're just a guide. But over time if you decide you're going to brush your teeth at 9pm every night, after a month or two you'll start being like "oh it's 9pm I'm going to go brush my teeth" it becomes a second-hand habit that you don't have to think about too hard after a few months.

If it is a more nebulous or vague goal, we might want to make a roadmap. Like if your end goal is "I want to be able to keep my room clean consistently" there's a lot that goes into that. Often that includes dishes, taking the trash out, doing laundry, folding the laundry, vacuuming, etc. Trying to take all of that on at once can be really overwhelming! Start small. Let's say, maybe every other night you want to take the dishes from your room to the kitchen. Just focus on that. Or maybe you want to make your bed every day. Or maybe you want to do your laundry once a week. Pick one aspect to focus on for a while, and slowly build on that. After about 2 weeks of taking your dishes to the kitchen every other night, maybe you can add washing them into that. Or after doing your laundry once a week for about a month, you can add folding it into that. If you ease yourself into it, it gets much easier to actually build these habits and not super overwhelm yourself right off the bat. And if you miss a day, that's okay! I'm not expecting you to set a goal and then immediately be able to do it all the time, and you shouldn't expect that of yourself either. Go easy on yourself. Slow progress is still progress. Maybe you're not making your bed every day, but making it once or twice a week is still progress! And over time that once or twice a week will evolve into three or four times a week. And it'll just keep going from there.

On the other hand, if you're trying to STOP doing something as much - the approach is often a little different. Some people like to use timers or notes to show when they last did something so they can see how long it's been or notice changes in whether they're doing it more or less frequently. If it's something like trying to cut back on social media you can set time limits on your phone for how long you're allowed to use each app. These are easy enough to bypass but often times having that reminder of "Hey it's been 15 minutes your time limit is up" can be a reminder to yourself that you want to be more mindful of how long you're spending on these apps, even if you just extend the time limit when it pops up.

Set up alternatives for yourself! It's really hard to say "oh I just won't do that anymore", give yourself something else to do instead. If you want to spend less time on social media, you might instead spend more time reading, drawing, or even playing video games. (Trading social media for video games is a healthy trade I will die on this hill - I don't care how many articles you've seen saying they're just as bad as each other I promise you Persona 5 is not as bad as Twitter for your mental health). If you want to stop smoking, instead have gums, lollipops or a drink you enjoy; or practice breathing techniques when you want to smoke; or if you vape try switching to a lower concentration juice (I'm also trying to stop smoking so I feel you on this it's a tough one). If you're trying to stop SH, have other things like ice cubes, rubber bands, pens, or something that will give you a physical sensation without causing harm (or as much harm). Work with yourself, identify what you're getting from each of these things, and try to make a trade for something that is a little better for you but still gives you some of that thing that you want. Don't beat yourself up if you do still engage in these habits, it is hard to stop. Instead of punishing yourself for still doing these things, praise yourself for doing them less often. (And if you're not doing them less often, praise yourself for being aware of your habits in the first place).

The hardest thing about this whole process is getting the motivation to start. Once you get started it's much easier to keep it going, but that first push to get the ball rolling is the hardest part. For a lot of things you can't wait until you feel like doing it - often that won't come. There are different ways people motivate themselves to do things they don't want to do. Ease yourself into it, don't do everything at once do the first step of the process and then take a little break. For example, if you're folding the laundry, separate it into categories then take a little break. When you come back fold one category, then take a break. Then do the next category. Over time the laundry will be all folded! Set a timer, think about how much time you could reasonably spend doing something. Let's say 10 minutes. Set a timer for 10 minutes, then start whatever task it is you want to do. If you want to clean your room maybe set a timer for 10 minutes and spend that time picking up trash. After those 10 minutes are up you're done. You can come back to more of it later. Often times you'll find that you're able to finish a lot of tasks faster than you thought you'd be able to, and if they're not finished oftentimes times you're more inclined to keep going once those 10 minutes are up since you've already started the ball rolling. Some people use a sort of "rip the bandaid off" technique where they set an alarm to go do something and as soon as that alarm goes off they just force themselves do it. This is hard at first but it does become easier. Think of it like you're jumping into a pool. 3...2...1... GO! Often that initial push to just start walking to go to the thing you want to do is the hardest, and once you're moving it becomes easier.

Tell a friend you're going to do it. Sometimes this helps you feel more motivated to do it since you're giving yourself a little bit of outside pressure to complete the task. On this note, weirdly enough, stretching can help you get motivated to do harder tasks. Like if you want to take the trash out but you're laying in bed, stretching in bed just to get your blood moving can sometimes help you get that initial push to get up and take the trash out.

Work with yourself. Try different approaches, and celebrate your successes no matter how small they may seem. Over time you will find things do get easier, and after tackling one small goal for a month or two, you can add another small goal into the mix.

Some popular app recommendations (I'm so sorry this list is so short - hoping to add to it in the future)

IAmSober - Andriod and IOS - allows you to set multiple goals of things you want to stop doing and shows you timers for how long it's been since you last engaged in that habit.

Flora - Google Play, IOS, and Chrome Extension - sets a timer for how long you don't want to use your phone or computer, once you finish this timer without using your device it grows a tree, and adds that tree to your garden. I used to use this for studying back in college and I quite enjoyed it.

HabitShare - Android, Google Play, and IOS - set habits and keep track of when you've completed them, you can also link with friends to see each other's habits too (although, this is optional you can also keep it private).

These are the best-rated free apps I could find for this kind of thing, if there are others that you use or have used in the past please feel free to comment or rb I would love to be able to add to this list.

Thank you so much for reading! I hope this can be at least a little helpful and I hope it doesn't come off as a "just do it" kind of vibe. I know getting the motivation to start building new or breaking old habits is realllllly hard so hopefully, this is at least a bit helpful T-T

As always, I love you guys and I'm proud of you for being here and doing what you can ˗��ˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗ please feel free to comment or send in any questions, comments, concerns, additions, or anything of that sort ~ ♡

[hoseoksluna]

CRANBERRIES | jhs ft. jjk

pairing: boyfriend!hobi x berries!oc (feat. ex-boyfriend!jk and... hyeonwol)

genre: heavy smut, angst

word count: 18.4k

summary: the final breaking of the curse hurts, but pain brings fruit.

pinterest board: cranberries / taglist: join

warnings: physical violence, fight, daddy issues, alcohol consumption, smoking, thigh humping, female masturbation, use of a vibrator, squirting, multiple orgasms, oral sex (f. and m. receiving), raw sex, conception, fears of infertility, finger sucking

note: THE FINAL CHAPTER OF THE BERRIES SERIES WHAT. i can't breathe, i can't speak. i wrote the moment i woke up and it's now 4pm. ran out of cigs. :( i was so emotional as i was in this world with them and i love them. so much. i'm so excited for you to read this. i had iffy feelings about this series in the beginning, but that has changed. i love every chapter, every detail, every moment. and i think i did a good job. so, enjoy this. i poured my entire heart into this. my issues, personal experiences, everything. it means a lot to me. i love you, guys. i'm happy to give this to you after two long weeks! HAPPY READING.

side note: please, do check out the pinterest board. i'll add pics of every place oc and hobi have been. <3 SPAM MY INBOX. I NEED TO TALK ABOUT THIS.

The sleep lines are paused shooting stars across his back. The dips and definition pools of refreshment for those dimmed lights and when you cross over the threshold with Hobi right behind you, with his finger hooked over the waistband of your ivory mini skirt, your own fingers gain feeling. Much to your dismay, they remember the sharpness of those lines, the stickiness of his sweat as his body boiled during any weather he slept through. 

He must have been on the brink of awakening, for you didn’t wait long before he answered the door. His gray curtains are pulled in and Jungkook walks over them, invites in the light of the early afternoon. In your peripheral vision, you recognize that the easel, which holds the painting in all its glory, is right there on your left side, and you strain your eyes to remain fixed on his bare back, even as wrong as that is. Hobi’s word of advice regarding thinking twice before you look at the artwork are pink blossoms that begin to grow in your ribs, spreading down to your stomach—because whether you like it or not, the place you find yourself to be in used to be one of absolute safety. 

It used to be your home, once upon a time. 

Cold, cold home that only ever reached tepidity at best. It’s all you ever knew—as the home you grew up in with your parents invariably had the same temperature. The same energy, too, charged with silence, ignorance and very little care that seldom carried love. 

Which brings a certain thought to the front of your head, just as Jungkook is bathed in light, arms extended as if he bore wings. 

He never loved you. 

Because if he did, then his home and the memories that are rushing in would feel the way Hobi feels. 

And like Hobi carried the false beauty in his heart, in his life��in the form of the poetry book—you carried the false perception of safety. If Hobi wasn’t here, if the stability of his antique stature wasn’t a wall doused in rain-kissed humidity that you now feel your body gravitating towards, and even if his finger wasn’t hooked behind your skirt, you wouldn’t feel safe. 

But on the other hand, softness coats Jungkook. Strange, strange softness that you haven’t seen in ages. Since the first days of your relationship, the first dates, the first kisses and touches, for everything you did with Jungkook was different each time, never the same until his life story shared with his childhood best friend ended on bad terms and the guy moved across the sea. It’s what triggered his mental issues that in the long run ended your story with him. 

As it seems, Jungkook has been trying to write a sequel that was never meant to exist. 

He bends over his coffee table and it is only now that you notice the clutter of crumpled tissues that he now picks up. Bile scratches your throat as needles prick it because it dawns on you fairly quickly what those issues served him for. A blanket is strewn over the backrest of his leather couch and a singular, flat pillow is propped against the armrest. He slept on it during the night; had a perfect view of the painting right across from him. And if your mind serves you well, he sent that picture in the middle of the night, in which he deliberately showed you that creating the message sexually thrilled him. 

It’s not hard to pinpoint that he fist-fucked himself while looking at the painting. And by the number of tissues that he hides in his palms and throws away in the bin in the kitchen, it’s evident his gratification process took a long, long time. 

You anticipate the bile pouring out of your throat again, but… it never comes. Oddly, it’s second-hand embarrassment that you sense swirling in the cranberry lumps of your bloodstream, its fumes drooping your pink blossoms, your veins thick and ghastly on your wrists. And while you should feel disgusted, for some reason you don’t. 

The discovery added magnitude to the star of his softness, weightiness and substance. It made it more real, bigger. It envelops him, confusing your mind because the only way it allows you to remember him is through the pain he caused you, using the expression of his fury. He broke your heart. Degraded you. Handled you harshly. Threw away your vape. Made you lose the respect you had for him, the worship you carried in the back of your heart. This can’t be the same person, kissed by a good night’s sleep. 

You don’t recognize him and you feel so out of place, standing in the middle of an obscure, amorphous dream that you’re trying to remember. A bizarre, uncanny feeling. You wish to run—as it lessens your form into that milky blue aura of smallness, but not in the way you like. Your body pleads to stand behind Hobi and clutch the back of his shirt in your fists while he steps in and makes order. But the energy around is too light, too gentle for a fight. 

Which is why you’re not sure if it’s a good idea that Hobi should unfurl his plan here. 

Hobi looks down at you as Jungkook answers his phone in the kitchen. You didn’t hear a thing due to the way you were lost in your thoughts and your confusion deepens as you regard the crooked furrow of his brow and the pinpricks of his pupils. Hobi wraps his arm low on your waist, tugging you flush to his side, kissing the plane of your head, lingering there for a second more as he inhales the natural scent of your hair. One you didn’t wash today, for he kept you busy. You fear he can smell your puke on you from earlier, despite the fact you almost sprayed the entirety of your vanilla perfume on yourself that you carry in your purse before you and him left together. You grow insecure, lessening furthermore. 

“Do I stink?” you ask, hushedly, gazing up at him with intention, willing him to answer you truthfully. Hobi smiles down at you, tenderly, pleased with the hint of familiarity and normalcy in the middle of the battlefield. Inhaling your scent and touching you diminished the intensity of the bloodthirst in his eyes and you’re glad for it. You hope that he perceives the elephant in the room and doesn’t strike first, but knowing how smart he is, you trust that he will, if he hasn’t already. 

Hobi doesn’t answer you. His smile falls as briskly as it appeared and his head swivels in the direction of the kitchen, features tight and startling. Your heart ceases its beat for a second before it speeds up, thumping painfully against your ribcage. What did Jungkook say over the phone? You weren’t paying attention. 

He lets go of you and stomps over to the kitchen. His back faces you, bringing your consciousness into present time, shudders with long staccatos of breaths. He’s fuming. Concern crawls up your back, leaving goosebumps in its wake. 

“So, that’s what you do? You traumatize my girlfriend while you have someone else on the side?” Hobi says, brusquely, placing his fists on his hips. “Does she know you paint degrading pictures of your ex in your spare time?” 

A beat of silence. Your breath hitches in your throat.

Your blood freezes over and you don’t know how your legs take you over to Hobi, weak and tingling as they are. You can’t feel anything. Can’t feel your fingers as they hook over his back pocket, your inner child’s deepest wish infiltrating through reality. 

Jungkook worries his bottom lip, his phone still held over his ear, and he exhales, shortly through his nose, dropping his gaze. “I’ll call you back.” 

He throws the phone over the kitchen island, sliding his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants as he so often does, staring Hobi down. 

There’s no doubt she heard it. Hobi said it loud enough. 

Good. 

Good of Hobi to take the ruination by its legs and launch it back at its creator. You change your mind by the shift of the energy, having foolishly forgotten the girl personification of the storm that you saw by Jungkook’s side in the museum. She has no idea how preoccupied he’s been with you, chasing you down ever since he laid his eyes on you after nearly a month. And you pity her. She doesn’t deserve this kind of unfair treatment, no matter the hostility she showed you and the fraction of the same emotion you felt towards her in return. 

Jungkook had it coming, that’s what you’re sure of now—sowing the seeds of his downfall in your orchard. What he didn’t know was that by staying around, hurting not just you, but another vulnerable person at the same time, he would also reap its poisonous growth. You hope his hands are red and burning, pulling out the weeds and poison ivy. 

He leans against the kitchen counter, the muscle of his pierced brow quivering with the onrush of anger. You find it so pathetic that you almost dryly snicker, backed by the continuous, fatherly act of Hobi standing up for you—your antique wall, the architecture of the old, Mediterranean times. 

Strong and unwilling to break under pressure. 

“My personal life is none of your business—”

“And mine is?” Hobi interrupts him, leaning forward due to the influence of his own anger and the sight is horrifying. If you were in Jungkook’s place, you’d be trembling like a sissy. Hobi laughs, scornfully, doing it for you and your heart rejoices. “You stalked my wife, touched her, painted that shitty—”

Wife.

“I didn’t stalk her,” Jungkook says, awfully calmly, as if he were bored, despite the tremor of his pierced brow that divulges the true face of his feelings. “Wife?” He laughs, humorlessly, and you bunch your fists, letting go of your private, personal link to Hobi. Even though you swore you wouldn’t raise them again when facing him, it’s all you want to do now for the way he mocked something so meaningful to you. Raise them and use them until they bruise. 

The concern that hung over your back fades into a discomposure that slices over your skin with a blunt knife. Over and over, maddened by the incessant rampage to cause you pain, incited by his mockery. Won’t let up until blood pours out.  

“Don’t talk over me, I wasn’t finished,” Hobi scolds and your second-hand embarrassment for the opponent doubles, abating your discomposure just like that. 

The knife is lifted in the air, paused. 

Jungkook’s jaw begins to tremble, disliking the easiness to Hobi’s overpowering tendencies, the way his stern words force him to become that aforementioned sissy that you’d be in his place. You think it suits him right. 

“You shamed my—” Hobi points to his heart, like Jungkook did last night when he bared his feelings for you and your throat dries, unbelief peculiarly setting your discomposure free at the rightful turning of tables. “Wife for moving on with her life, for becoming the person she needed to become without you controlling her. Sent her a picture of your dick while you were at it, belittling her, using sex to lure her back to you as if she wasn’t smart, as if she wasn’t mine. You did all that and you think you’re gonna come out of this unscathed? Let your girlfriend see what you’ve done. What, you were going to hide that painting under your bed like a little bitch?” 

It’s Hobi who laughs now, the sound full of that same mockery Jungkook used to inflict pain. You wrap a hand around his arm, coming over to stand side by side with him, sliding your hand down to his, needing it and not being afraid of it. Not to his palm, but over the back of his hand, slipping your fingers through his. And together you clench that singular fist, stronger. 

You thought all your life that you were stupid. Your own Father bashed you for it every chance he had; you, yourself, hated your being for it with all your might. Thought it was the root of the curse over your life, made strong by your bad decisions, bad actions, bad footfalls. Learning that Hobi doesn’t regard you as such cuts that majority of your life away from you. He binds up your wounds, cleaning them. And the fact he put two and two together apropos the meaning of the painting, the reason behind the punishment, using your recitation of the bizarre poem is a kiss to make the boo-boo better. 

You weep, silently. Your love for Hobi trickles out of your tear ducts, doesn’t touch your makeup, doesn’t steal the attention of the two males away from each other. It dips into your ribcage through your chest, sprucing them until they can breathe again and fill your lungs with sweetened, poetic air, with a will to live on, reminding you that you have a future ahead of you that is beautiful and bereft of the curse and all you’ve ever known. 

And you wash that breath, purposefully, over the bare skin of Hobi’s warmth. Remind him, too, as you press your lips over it. He squeezes yours and his united fist, hearing you. 

Lifting your gaze, Jungkook crosses his arms over his chest, devoid of those sleep lines. His biceps bulge, but it does nothing to you. Hobi’s fixing of your dignity, heart and life has taken care of that, all via that sonnet of his that he spat in Jungkook’s face, one that contorts in envy upon seeing your intertwined hand with Hobi’s. He nibbles on his bottom lip, eyes wetting, but the following words he says sting as if his face never wore those softened emotions. And the discomposure returns in the form of a colossal spider on your back. A slimy, heavy, breathing spider. 

You cringe, tensing your muscles, nuzzling your body deeper into Hobi’s arm. It only menaces your vivaciousness, but the fluff on your body stands on end, nonetheless. 

“She came here to look at the painting. I don’t know what you’re doing here,” he mutters, crossing his leg. Double protection. He’s stuck in a peril—feels vulnerable and threatened, just like Hobi said. “She likes being spanked, being punished. That’s why she’s here.” 

It takes two seconds for Hobi to release your hand and slap him like the little bitch he is. A fatherly discipline, that hard swoop of the back of his hand, a new line indenting his carmine face, one belonging to the ring on Hobi’s middle finger. Absolutely humiliating, that act you are a witness to—but you don’t feel a slither of pity for him. The joy from your heart springs to your eyes and you feel yourself blinking unorthodoxly—more briskly, serenely, femininely. 

The spider jumps off your back, afraid of Hobi. You sigh in relief, willing strength into your knees as they signify their giving out on you, boneless as they are. 

And Jungkook is afraid, too, once he recuperates from the hit, straightening, but not facing the king. His mouth rounds as if he were on the verge of crying, and maybe he is. He focuses on stalling the natural flow of his emotions, his pride forbidding him from being weak, even as he’s getting hit like a teenage boy. 

But Hobi makes him look at him. He grabs his face, repeating the motion of last night; squeezing his cheeks until his knuckles turn white, although this time Jungkook doesn’t moan in pain. He scrambles the last of that pride of his, threading it into the stiflement of his reaction. 

“Are you that dumb that you forgot about what I told you that would happen if I heard those words come out of your mouth again?” he seethes in his face. Jungkook sucks in quick breaths, a caged animal, furious. “You degraded her again. You’re asking for it at this point.” He slaps him again, harder this time, still with the back of his hand. Doesn’t give him time to shake it off. Grabs him in the same way. “I’ll let you know that those words you read in that little message? That probably made your dick hard? Those were my words, boy. I came here to break that painting, but I changed my mind. I want your girlfriend to see the work of your hands.” 

Hobi told him the true story while he omitted the detail he could’ve used to inflict further pain on him. He could’ve said that he told you to write that message after he was done fucking your trauma out of you. He could’ve rubbed that in his face and you wouldn’t mind. 

But he didn’t. 

He respects you. Protects your dignity. Doesn’t need to flaunt his private life with you; isn’t insecure to do something like that. And along with joy, he installs something within you that you lacked all your life. 

A respect, a high regard and an expensive love for yourself. 

You stand straighter, all of a sudden. 

Jungkook looks at you. A rawness of pain daubs his even softer eyes, but you recognize that it’s all pretense, a manipulation technique that you see right through. You lift your chin higher, interlocking your hands behind your back. A powerful, feminine stance. His eyes descend to your pride in the middle of your breasts, drench as he mumbles something your way that you can’t comprehend due to the way Hobi squeezes his cheeks harder, that moan of pain slipping through, at last. 

You smile, sensing the end of this chapter. You can see the door to it, wide open, Hobi standing by it, gripping the doorknob. And he shuts it with his following words. 

“Don’t even look at her. It’s over. The little game you’re playing? You lost,” Hobi says and lets him go. Jungkook grumbles, baring his teeth, his hand shaking as he lifts it to his jaw as if to rub away the pain, but he changes his mind at the last minute. Doesn’t want to show his weakness. His hand falls, flaccidly, to the side. Throws Hobi’s way a dirty look that makes you laugh. 

“It’s over,” you intone along, lips stretched in a glinting grin, the crown of your victory. You’re the queen to your king. Jungkook gazes at you with a puppy’s sadness, for a mere second before Hobi pushes his head away from your direction with a poke of his fingers. His inhales are sharp and thunderous and you think he’d be a perfect match to his companion, that is if he were a good guy, deserving of her. 

“Did you even see the painting?” he hushes out, head still turned towards the windows, and the redness on his face inflames in vibrancy, darkening. Why he thinks he needs to keep fighting, in spite of the way Hobi overthrew him, is beyond you. His head slowly swivels back to face you and tears cloud his eyes. It inspires no pity in you, no curiosity to look behind you at the painting. “I made the background an imitation of Monet’s waterlilies. The green ones, the ones you’ve always liked. Does that mean nothing to you? Can’t you see that I still care—” 

“No,” you interrupt him and you bask in it, inhale the power. Your pink blossoms grow in abundance, becoming a collection of beauty and strength that will live on forever, never to wither. “I didn’t look at the painting and I refuse to because I don’t care.” 

You open your mouth to continue, but he outruns you. 

“So, you lied to me? Why are you here, then?” 

The wheels seem to whirr in his brain, at last. 

“My husband and I came here to make one thing clear,” you explain and you flick your eyes to Hobi just in time to catch him smiling at you, fondly, his loving pride bursting through his own pools. “It’s over. You’re not gonna bother me anymore; you’re not gonna text me, call me. In fact—” You pull out your phone out of your front pocket and unlock it, tapping on Jungkook’s contact and blocking him, deleting the number right away. “You can’t anymore.” You smile, satisfied with your decision. “I live a happy life without you and it’s going to stay that way.”

Jungkook’s posture slouches and he wrinkles his brows, mouth agape, downturned. “Husband? What the fuck is this?” 

You only lift your hand in the air, for Hobi to take, dismissing him once and for all. “Let’s go.” 

You take a step back as Hobi rushes to you in a comical, endearing way, a huge smile engraving crinkles by his glimmering, pearlescent eyes. He takes your hand and when you look at Jungkook one last time to say goodbye to him, he whimpers like a wounded animal. 

Your heart constricts, not touched by pity, but by discomfort. It’s time to leave; you don’t want to be here anymore.  

Hobi leads you towards the door and you follow him, but Jungkook’s final words halt your footsteps. Hobi’s too. 

“I can be like him and better when he drops you. Don’t forget that.” 

You frown at him, your mouth pressed in a tight line. “There’s no when to me and you. I never want to see you again. Goodbye, Jungkook.” 

He mewls, the final kick to his bruised body and you leave. 

You leave his life for good. 

The air of the afternoon’s breath is floral. You thought the clouds would’ve smothered the last remains of the summer, but it is still, most strangely, in full bloom. You feel hot in Hobi’s linen shirt and the sun is scorching hot, balmy and paradisiacal on your bare thighs, though you wish you hadn’t worn your Nike’s. Your toes are asking for some sand, for the pecks of sea waves and the entanglement of seaweed around them like tropical adornment of toe rings. 

You met the girl, the personification of storm, behind the door to his apartment. She was about to rack her knuckles on the wood like you did, but Hobi opened the door for her. Her breath hitched in her throat, hard and heavy like the wind during that storm she resembles so much, and you felt bad for her. So much that you told her to leave him, unabashedly and plainly, and didn’t stick around to hear her response. 

But you did hear muffled sounds of vocal violence and you prayed, for the first time in your life, to someone in the sky, who has always been a witness to your curse and never did a thing about it, to guide her to break that painting in two. 

Not for your healing, not at all. But for the curse to be unleashed on him, turned to him and fixed on him.

You’re not ashamed to carry such evil in your heart. You know, full well, that it will dull overtime. Your mother would’ve rebuked you, told you to forgive your enemies and wish them well, but bricking up your heart for him to feel safe is something she would never understand. Because if she did, she wouldn’t share the same home with your Father. And if she did, you would’ve never ended up with a guy like Jungkook that was the raw epitome of him. 

It’s a good thing she’ll never learn of your secret. She never met Jungkook but she looks at his face every day, and you’re not so sure if the idea of introducing Hobi to her is pleasant. You sense the time you find yourself to be in is meant to be a solitary one, spent in a bubble with your husband, and there’s nothing you want more. 

You and Hobi, alone. 

For a little while before a little creature comes along. 

The mountain peak is awaiting—you feel it profoundly in your bones. 

Hobi opens the door to his car for you, places a hand on the edge of his vehicle so you don’t hurt your head as you sit down—like he did on your first date. But he doesn’t close the door and walk over to the driver’s seat. No, he straddles you. Pushes your seat back a little in order for you to have a perfect and comfortable view of him. You sputter out your giggles, felicitously confused by his actions, and when he props his hands by your head, his smile quivering in effort to not laugh along with you, your giggles rise in volume. 

And then his gaze deepens on you, lessening the pitch. Seriousness shrouds the energy, your little giggles ringing, faintly, and you press your thighs together between his legs. 

“I’m not fucking you here,” you whisper, the sound full of humor, your eyes feignedly widened, but Hobi is deep in thought, his imaginary wings furling and unfurling in the spaciousness of his car. 

“How do you feel?” he asks, steeped in that earnest, warm and lightweight solemnity. It feels like home. That question, too. 

You relax, your expression of joy fading into a comfortable silence and you take a moment to focus on what you’re feeling right now. 

A graze of the pink blossoms on the inside of your ribs. Relief, a wave sloshing over them. Freedom, the sunlight that heats up that body of water. Joy—a full rainbow of joy after a century-long rainfall. 

And you tell him. 

“I feel free. Happy. I feel happy, Hobi.” 

He smiles, fondly, that blush rolling over his cheeks like it always does. And you love him, irrevocably. You love him, you love him, you love him. 

He did this, your God. It’s the creation of his clean hands. 

And as he kisses the tip of your nose, you thank him with the same earnestness he brought in. 

And you mean it. You would’ve died, had he not found you. You would’ve died, had you not taken him to that museum. You think about what your life would’ve looked like if you never suggested that place, but your mind stumbles upon a dead end. You can’t—there’s nothingness up ahead. 

It was meant to happen this way. Along with the pain, the tears, the scars. If it never ached this much, it wouldn’t matter; it wouldn’t have the gravity, the substance, the meaning. It would’ve been plain and it wouldn’t change your life so devastatingly, so beautifully. 

You wouldn’t have wings and neither would he. 

You kiss him right back on that slender nose of his and much to your surprise, he gives his voice over to your heart. 

“I love you,” he confesses, the pearls in his eyes wetting, and he cradles your face. Your heart stops and then beats differently—in a way you never heard it sing before. “Is it too soon to say that?” 

Another surprise comes. A tear trickles down your cheek, a happy, elated, small rivulet that cleanses the last, difficult events that just ended. Down your cheek that stretches and aches, blissfully, as you smile up at him. 

“Is it too soon to say that I love you, too?” 

The song melts into another poetic stanza and Hobi kisses you. But he smiles as well, so the kiss is full of clashing of teeth and sudden hunger to express the fulfillment of that love. You and him try and try again until your lips mold into his and the hard kiss, filled with passion, respect and devotion, splits the curse in two. 

Now the residue, the smithereens only need to be fucked out of you.  

Hobi will do a good job, no doubt. 

“Let’s celebrate.” 

Hobi was eyeing a bottle of soju in a market nearby his house, but settled eventually for a bottle of spirits that he’s now popping open and drinking right from the lip of the tall, glass container. He’s sat on the ground of your bedroom, back propped against your bed, the bottle between his outstretched legs as he watches you strip out of the combination of yours and his clothes. A blackberry vape might be in your hand, the fume curling around the curds of cranberries that your blood still consists of, but a pack of cigarettes lies crooked on your bedding.

You told Hobi you needed something stronger after that happened. And he brushed a wisp of your hair away from your face and said he’d willingly have a cigarette with you as he still felt adrenaline coursing through his smooth bloodstream. Bought a pack of gold Davidoff’s for you, the ones you shared with him that you used to smoke until…

You haven’t voiced your panic, though. Not in the market, not in the car, not right now as you’re standing in front of your closet, searching for a lounging outfit to wear, similarly like Hobi did back at his house a few hours ago. Jungkook forbade you from smoking. Hated the sight of it. Hated it even more when you switched to vapes. And as you recollect his anger whenever he saw you with it, you can’t believe you let him do it. Can’t believe you stopped smoking just to please him. 

And you can’t believe Hobi bought you a pack. With his own money, by his own will. To please you. 

You should be feeling happy right now, but the panic… it stands behind you, the silhouette of Jungkook’s form, waiting for you to take that cigarette between your fingers and place it between your lips, daring you, taunting you, waiting for the right moment to strike, to rebuke, to untether its anger. It’s what keeps you planted on your feet, whisking your eyes up and down along the corner of your closet, where your comfortable clothes are neatly folded. 

You’re afraid to turn around. Afraid to see Jungkook there—

“Come here.” 

Hobi’s voice. Not Jungkook’s. 

“I need to get dressed,” you say, softly, staring down a pink wisp of your sleep shorts. 

You hear the sloshing of alcohol in the bottle. Hobi must be taking another sip. 

“You don’t, really.” 

You laugh through your nose. 

“I don’t want to get pregnant here.” 

Hobi lets out the same sound, making a smile curl on your mouth. “Come here, pup.” 

It’s the gentleness sunk within his intonation that is a force of the same nature that turns your body around. Hobi is staring at you as if he were looking up at an angel—those pearlescent eyes of his bright and swimming, but not prematurely under the influence of the alcohol. They’re swimming with love. 

You used to be an angel. Now you’re you. 

And Jungkook isn’t standing there; Jungkook is gone. 

You walk over to him with ease, the panic dispersing and flying out your wide open window, your rosy curtains guiding it out. You sit on his outstretched thighs and as your bum plops down, you take off his green beanie. Run your fingers through his hair, fluffing them. Cradle his face to your naked bosom as you inhale him, tracing patterns on his scalp. 

Hobi begins to purr and you melt, becoming a liquid form of you, making his hands shine in the ever undying stark sunlight as he wraps his arms around your torso, tightly. 

You’re not going anywhere, the act says. 

This is what deserves to be painted, you muse. 

Listening to him emit that sound, your heart notices the absence of Luna and it craves her, awfully missing her. And the more you receive it through your ears and it settles within the chambers of your softened muscle, you realize that you’re holding her in the form of a human. 

He’s so much like her. You recollect the way he tilted his head into your touch, join it to the memory of how she did it when you petted her head for the first time. And you test him—withdraw to pat his cheek and he does it. Leans into your touch, lingering there as you cup him. 

He’s a God and a kitty. And you love him. 

Hobi reaches for the bottle of vodka. Takes a sip as he locks his gaze with yours. Your hand slackens at the sight, dropping to the crook between his neck and his firm shoulder, and you can’t hold it. Like your limb, your eyes descend to the way his mouth is wrapped around the rim of the bottle, to the bottle of his throat as he swallows and doesn’t make a face. Lift back up to catch a glint bouncing off his wet lips and abruptly, you want a taste of that heady sting of your own. 

He can read you, and fairly well—because he drinks again, but this time he doesn’t swallow. No, he pushes your head to his in one swift, brazen motion. Parts your lips by tugging your chin down with only his thumb while he cups your cheek and, sitting up so he can once again take advantage of the size difference, he pours the pungent liquid beyond the arc of your mouth. Remains there, a breath away. It seems as though he wants to feel you swallow, wants to inhale that sharp scent of the alcohol; wants to sense in his bones that principle of him giving it to you in a profound, private way. 

And you swallow it, fixing your attention on the burn coursing down your throat, softened by his saliva. This—this was your first drink, a safe occurrence, watched over by your Father. The ones you had before in your past life didn’t have a sliver of the magnitude that you feel suffusing your lungs. This is your first life with him. 

“That was so hot.” 

You agree with him, liquid heat pooling low in your core, and you need that cigarette. And his dick impaling you as you take that deep, heavy drag that you haven’t inhaled in months. 

And most peculiarly, there’s no panic, nor fear, as you snatch that pack of cigarettes from your bedding behind his head and look for the little flap that will help you open it. Hobi lifts his hand from your cheek, though, and steals it from you—finding the flap with ease and opening it as if he spent the last decade faithfully smoking. 

Your panties are ruined, just like that. 

Drenched when he pops the butt of the cigarette between his wet lips, rummaging in his pocket for the pink lighter that he got you along with the pack. 

Soaking when he lights it up for you, blows the first smoke into your mouth, pecks you softly, and places the butt between your lips. 

But he doesn’t place his hand back on your face—he keeps his thumb and forefinger on the body of the cigarette, the burning tip facing him, holding it for you as you take a drag. The thick smoke billows around his palm, milky blue in the golden light, and as soon as its heaviness caresses your lungs and you exhale it into the air, he returns the cigarette back to its original place. Puffs it one more time before he lets you have it, coughing a little, blowing the fume onto your bare breasts, lips opened halfway in a tiny circle. The warmth tickles and your body naturally curls forward in reaction, your arms pushing your breasts together. Hobi makes a sound that is a godly synthesis of a coo and a moan, uttered from his weakening grin, eyes gliding over your squished breasts. 

Eyes that never darken when regarding your nakedness; eyes that remain full of that celestial, sea-kissed light. 

Do they have the ocean in heaven? He must know, for he’d been formed by it. 

And you want to be stuffed full in it. 

Hobi must like the sight he sees because he takes a finger and drives it down the right side of your body. From your clavicle, down to your breast, your stiffened nipple that he stops at, pinching it, heightening the pressure until you squeak, the pool bursting in your core. At that sound, he continues on his path down your stomach and you let him feel the contraction of your muscles there as your body reacts to his touch. He ends his venture at the waistband of your panties and he tugs it towards himself, peeking inside. 

“Someone’s wet,” he comments and you cough, embarrassingly, caught off guard, as you take a drag of your cigarette, not expecting him to say that. Hobi smirks and the growing moistness on that fabric becomes uncomfortable. He rubs your back, helping your lungs to quiet down, the waistband snapping back making you jump—and incredibly horny. 

He steals the lung burner and you love it, your obsession with it construed by his apparent need to smoke in this heavily sexually-charged situation. You wonder if he’s holding himself back from breeding you right here and there. 

He could, if you wanted him to do it here—all things are settled, after all. But you don’t. You don’t want to reach the peak in your bedroom, where Jungkook has been so many times. 

You want it to happen at a place, where his footfalls never ventured. 

“Someone’s wet from watching their man smoke,” you flirt, looking at him through your lashes, hips instinctually drawing closer to his crotch and beginning their dance. Back and forth, the rhythm of the sea. 

“Don’t do that or I’ll fuck you,” he threatens, flicking his eyes to the rising peak of the cigarette ash and he bores them into yours with a challenge. “Be a good pup and get me an ashtray, please.” 

Please? 

Yes, Daddy. 

Ashtray? No. 

That would mean going to the kitchen and flipping it upside down in search of it. You stand up to your feet, your wetness flowing down your inner thighs with the movement, and you fetch the empty glass from your bedside table, lonesome and dust-scattered. You can’t really remember the last time you put it there. 

Sitting back down, you straddle his thigh as you hold the glass for him to flick the ash there. And once he does, you start to move back to your original position, but he stops you. 

“Stay here,” he says, enveloping an arm around your waist. “Ride it. Make a mess for me.” 

You don’t hesitate to do so, your body begs you for a release, weakened yet enlivened by his command. But the question of why he doesn’t want to fuck you bothers you and you decide to voice it out, willfully. Unafraid, safe, comfortable. 

You roll your hips forward on his thigh, which he flexes for you. The curves of his toned muscles hit the right spot and you throw your head back, using his throat for support, mewling little sounds that make him bite his lip, abandon his cigarette, let it fall into the cup that he forces away from your grip and sets it down. The smoke still billows out, twirling around your form, magnificently. 

“Why don’t you wanna fuck me?” 

Hobi sucks in a breath, leaning his head back against the mattress, hands following the movement of your hips. Drunk not on the alcohol, but on you. 

“Because I’ve been nonstop fucking you and I don’t want your little pussy to be sore,” he says, truthfully, adding vigor to your dance with his words, even if he doesn’t realize it. “Which is why I want you to use me like this when you need me.” He breathes, raggedly, and you’re dazed. “And because—” He fists the front of your panties, squeezing the fabric between your folds, stimulating your clit with the pressure. “The next time I fuck you, we’re making a baby.” You cry out, your pleasure heightened, and, meeting your thrust, he slides the knuckles of his fingers down to your clit, letting you ride them, letting himself feel the swollenness, softness and wetness of your flesh. He moans along with you—the feeling divine. “You said you didn’t want it here. Tell me where.” 

You can’t. Your orgasm quickens as do your grinding motions and you can’t see, you can’t speak, you squeeze your eyes shut—

“No, pup.” He stretches the fabric towards himself, essentially moving his hand away, and pushing your stomach back, your hips rolled forward, pussy throbbing and dripping in the air. You pant, gripping his hair at the crown of his head, eyes flung open, yet lidded. Terribly, terribly lidded. Sultry, dreamy, mesmeric. Despite the fact he ripped your orgasm away. “You don’t come unless you tell me where.” 

He holds you in place, immobilizing you. You try to grind on him again, but to no avail. You expect him to click his tongue at your brattiness, but he doesn’t. 

He does something else entirely. 

“Take your time. I know. That was really intense.”

It’s a stark contrast to the restraint he has you in—your slowly sobering brain makes a note of that, only to dip back into the stupefying pool of your arousal. 

And you whine, electrified by the pleasure that comes from all directions, that pushes forcibly against your neediness, heightening it. 

You can’t take your time. You can’t tell him right now. You need to come. 

“I can’t, Hobi.” Your breath shudders. “I can’t—”

“Breathe,” he rasps and you can see the way your neediness affects him, his chest heaving with almost identical staccatos, as though he was zapped with the delight he gets from it. His pupils are so dilated as his eyes melt into yours, a black pearl, but still enveloped by light. Cheeks flushed, mouth wet. The scent of patchouli, cigarettes and vodka, the remote corner of heaven. 

You try to breathe, fluidly, as you take it in and Hobi helps you. Breathes with you, steadies the cadence of your recuperation. Doesn’t stop until he’s assured that your lungs are calm. And as a reward, he lets your panties slap back against your pussy, coaxing a moan out of you. 

Doesn’t remove his hand from your hip, though. 

A quid pro quo. 

All right. 

“I don’t want to get pregnant here. Not in Seoul, not in Korea,” you start, your lungs in a perfect rhythm. Hobi’s eyes enlarge as he listens, fingers spreading over your bum, just holding you there, squeezing the flesh every once in a while. The gesture soothes you, blesses you with tenderness that helps you continue with your words. “I want you to take me overseas, where I’ve never been.” 

He hums, nodding, thinking for a mere moment, his eyes distracted on your belly button. And when he lifts them, he smiles. “Any particular place in mind?” 

The country slips off your tongue, naturally, on its own, and you think that’s the one. Your heart spoke it, so it must be the place. You haven’t given much thought prior to it, just knew you didn’t want to conceive a child on this soil that remembers nothing but your pain and anguish. You held this within the chambers of your heart before you met Hobi—and way before you met Jungkook. And you figure that in the process it acknowledged itself with Hobi, studied his face, learned the ins and outs of his heart in such a short time, it riddled out the place, where the curse is meant to be broken in. 

Once and for all. 

“Turkey.” 

You’ve seen the videos. Seen the dramas. The pictures. It met you and kept meeting you throughout your life, but you never gave much meaning to it. And now you perceive why. 

You reckon that’s how life works. And it feels nice—to get to know life, to get to know its mercifulness. 

“That’s a beautiful place, pup,” he whispers, taking his hands off of your body and cradling your face, pulling you closer and kissing you, lingering there for two, three, four seconds more. Your heart jumps, delighted to be validated, and you feel like weeping happily. 

“You’ve been there before?” you ask, the wetness of your eyes gracing it with a glint that very seldom finds your usually saddened pools. 

This is it. 

This is it. 

“I’ve had business meetings with Turkish companies that do their job well. Good people, good atmosphere.” Hobi smiles, reminiscing on something private and his cheeks warm. 

You wish, intimately, that he would tell you everything. 

“Will you tell me about them when we get there?” 

Hobi nods, pecking your chin. “Yes, and then I’ll fill you up.” 

You grin as he lingers there beneath you, eyes so bright and big, becoming crinkly at the corners once he reciprocates the grin. He kisses the front column of your next, tasting the layer of sweat that has enveloped it during your oh so evident neediness and you dip your head in your pool of arousal all over again—as soon as he withdraws and slaps your thigh, signaling you to hump his thigh. 

You can’t wait to get knocked up. Hope time passes quickly, transforms into a substance that lifts you up and carries you all the way to Turkey, mercifully, kindly. 

It’s this notion that you focus on as your hips begin to roll forwards and backwards on his thigh, but this time, as Hobi watches you with intention, he pulls your drenched panties to your side, his hand coming over to your bum and doing the same thing there, so the fabric doesn’t get in the way. 

You kiss him for it, hungrily, licking over his tongue, and he moans into your mouth, the sound traveling down your body until it roots in your clit, where it spreads and drums a hymn for your feminine titillation. 

And the feeling is divine—the sparks of pleasure that shoot up your core while your bare pussy rubs against the fabric of his pants, darkening it ever so quickly with your wetness. The feeling that he enjoys it, even more so when he voices it out. 

“This is what it does to me,” he murmurs so terribly close to your puffed lips, grasping your hand and leading it to the place between his outstretched legs that he speaks of. He presses it against his painfully hard imprint and your fingers automatically wrap around it as much as they can, as if they recognize it’s their own toy. “To see you get turned on like this. To watch you use me because of it. I’m crazy for you—”

His phone rings in his pocket and your heart stops—as do your motions. 

And you fear, rottenly, that it’s Jungkook who’s calling him. That he somehow found his number and is back at it again, clutching the curse like a sword in his hand. Ready to ruin, ready to devastate. 

The feeling paralyzes you enough that it dries up your pool of arousal and you can’t blink, you can’t breathe, you can’t move. Your mouth parts, but no breaths come out. 

At the sliver of freedom and joy—

“Jung Hoseok speaking,” Hobi answers the phone, the device slender and way bigger than his monumental hand, gazing into your eyes. Unblinking, too. 

He listens to the other side spilling information in and once you catch his mouth flattening, those dimples gouging something unpleasant onto the smooth surface above his top lip and the brightness in his eyes dimming ever so slightly, the cranberries of your blood crumble, uncomfortably, beneath the skin of your forearms. 

You pull your hand away from his crotch, slipping out of his grasp. He stops you before you get up on your feet, holding your strayed hand as he listens some more. 

It can’t be Jungkook. 

Hobi wouldn’t listen to a word he said and that phone would’ve long been flung across the room, if it were him. 

You sigh a breath of relief, your body relaxing and slouching. You run a hand through your hair, gripping it at the back of your head to will some feeling into your muscles—as there’s nothing to fear. 

It’s over. 

It’s fucking over. 

No ruination. No devastation. No impending curse about to absorb your life. 

Nothing. 

“I understand what you’re saying and I appreciate your work and thought, but allow me to remind you that it’s Sunday and I don’t work on Sundays, neither do my employees—”

Oh, the big bad boss. 

The person on the other side interrupts him and Hobi scrunches his brows, mouth parting at the disrespect. Then, a smirk crawls over his mouth and he rolls his eyes, directing that smile towards you as the brightness in his eyes blossoms back. Playfully, he rolls his eyes again now that he knows he’s got your attention—and silently, he mimics the words the other person is saying, mocking them. 

You laugh, softly, your relief expanding in you and shifting you back into your comfort zone. Hobi’s eyes widen and, using his intertwined hand with yours, he presses his index finger to his lips to signal to you to be quiet. 

And he shouldn’t have done that. 

He refreshes your pool. 

And he seems to be aware of it by the way his countenance grows serious. It does something to you—the way he’s listening, working essentially, while being attentive to your feelings and state of mind. It’s attractive, the splitting of his attention. And you don’t have to rock your hips first—he encourages you to do it by curtly nodding his head at your hips, untwining from your hand and guiding your pelvis to dance again. 

Not for him. 

For you. 

And the pleasure is much bigger this time around. 

You can’t stifle your noises. 

“That sounds absolutely great,” he says, quickly, in order to camouflage the volume of your delight as you hump his thigh faster, more vigorously, your breasts bouncing and slapping against each other. Hobi watches them with a deep furrow of his brows and his bottom lip caged between his teeth. Tortured, absolutely tortured. 

It only urges you on—and you find yourself in a vapor of horniness. 

“Yes, Da—”

He clamps your mouth shut with his hand, your moan caught in his palm. That act alone drives you prematurely to the peak of your orgasm and you know, you know, that if your clit rubs against his toned, clothed thigh just once, you’ll be coming all over him. 

But Hobi manhandles you, pushes you down, gently, onto the floor. 

You’d think he was angry with you, hadn’t he smiled at you—and your vapor thickens, your hormones fucking with your brain. Hovering above you, he grips your throat, merely holds you there without any pressure, and he kisses the tip of your nose. 

He fucking kisses the tip of your nose. 

Your pool leaks onto the floor. 

“Be quiet,” he mouths and does it again, more prominently, to make sure you understand what he’s voicelessly saying to you. “Yes, I have about five employees in that department who would be willing to work on that. Very diligent and dedicated. One of the best people I’ve ever had under me.” 

He cringes, realizing the wrong string of words he used in that silence, and you burst out into laughter—one he has to silence by clamping your mouth shut again, looking away to focus on a fixed point somewhere in your bedroom while smiling himself. 

And you get his attention right back at you when you lick his palm. You expected him to be repulsed by it, but his eyes enlarge and his mouth falls agape as strange feelings wash over him. Then, he ruts against nothing and plunges two of his fingers, index and middle, into your mouth. 

Your slick is warm as it trickles down your flesh and onto the floor; your body hot all over from the situation, the secrecy, his dominance and his fingers alone. His eyes deepen when they slide over your full mouth and you can see, even through your thick vapor, the way he’s swallowing down his growls. He strokes your tongue, barely, softly, plunging them further until he hits the spot that makes you gag. It sobers him quite rapidly, the sound. Swearing—still voicelessly—he starts to pull out his fingers, but you wrap your hands around his wrist, keeping him there as you suck on those long, slender digits, focusing on not making a sound. 

His eyes lid, heavily, at your diligence. 

“Three months, you said?” He tugs his fingers out, that anger evident, but not towards you—towards the other person. And he lets it out by ripping your panties away from your body in a blink of an eye. “Can we make that two?” He caresses the silky skin of your mound with his knuckles, without venturing downwards, and you shudder, needing him there. “Rub your clit,” he mouths and you gasp, even though you don’t know why. You’re so overwhelmed by the respect he emanates, horny and sensitive that any word he’d throw your way would make you react this way. You feel like a schoolgirl; small, submissive, breedable. And you want to please him, make him proud, do as he says. But you don’t share the same hastiness as him—because before you can get to the end of your thought process, he takes your hand and places it on your pussy. 

He must be getting the same thrill out of it. 

You rub your clit, obeying him, and watching him watch the work of your fingers as you twirl them on that swollen, little flesh—it’s nothing you ever experienced before. Your pleasure quickens, as hasty as Hobi to get you to your peak, and you have to lift your fingers in order to not come quick, your lungs heaving, your mouth letting out short breaths that make him absolutely feral. 

“Oh, pup,” he mouths, the wrinkles on his forehead divulging the depth of his torment and pleasure from the sight. “Good job. So good. Yes.” He nods, encouraging you—and you almost come right then and there, but you lift your fingers just in time. Fists clenched, you throw your head back, frustrated but pleasured just the same. And you can’t take it anymore. 

Neither can he. 

He runs his hand down the middle of your body, stopping at your thigh, wrapping your leg around his torso. 

“If you can’t make that work in two months, then we have nothing to talk about,” he bites, panting, but he hides it well, his voice untouched by it. Firmness and respect coats it, strengthens it, gives a new instrument to the hymn of your clit. “I have things to do and places to be outside of Korea and I can’t afford to be held back by three months. I’m sure I can find business partners who’d be able to make everything work in just one—”

Seething, he leans over, grabbing your vibrator. He turns up the intensity, the sound growing louder and louder and you shriek, soundlessly. 

You’re going to explode if he uses that on your tortured clit—

“Apologizes for the noise.” Hobi spits on your clit, the long string of his saliva plopping onto your flesh, making you quiver and moan, quietly. “There’s construction work outside. I guess you’re not the only one working on a Sunday.” 

The bitterness, the snide comment—you feel like screaming, in the most delicious, exhilarating way. And you do, when Hobi places the vibrator down on your needy clit. 

He moves it, rapidly, from side to side while he’s still talking on the phone, but his words are a blur that you fail to understand, your whole being fixed and concentrated on the adrenaline blended with fireworks of intense pleasure that create an orchestra of passion. His imaginary wings unfurl and beat in the air, opulent and dusky black. His eyes never falter their hypnosis as they bore into yours, coaxing your orgasm out of you, while his mouth keeps silently telling you to be quiet, praising you to motivate you. 

And you do explode. 

In his face when he explains something you can’t comprehend. 

And you come again when he takes a deep breath, stopping short in the middle of his sentence, shocked, zestful, wet and ecstatic. You sprinkle his chin and his neck, ruin, most beautifully, his polo shirt and devastate, even more so, his pants. 

And he’s grinning, so awfully pleased. 

Lifts the vibrator. Doesn’t turn it off. 

“I’m sorry. I’m getting an important call from a family member, who comes first on days such as these. Please, don’t hesitate to contact my secretary and make an appointment with me. We will discuss further on the matter. Have a nice day.” 

And he’s smart. 

Ending the call, he turns off the vibrator and tosses both things sideways. Props both arms beside each of your shoulders. And the flush that was stifled during the entirety of the work phone call now peeks through the surface, the petals of roses licking across his skin. Your own flush promenades hand in hand with him in this close proximity, your golden aura, gained from your exquisite orgasm, bathing you in holiness. 

And you still can’t speak, tongue-tied. 

He sweeps away your flyaways matted to your glistening forehead, brushing his knuckles down your face. And when he reaches your jaw, he cups your chin and kisses you, tenderly. Gives you a hundred more. Little, hungry, yet pure kisses. 

“What did we just do?” He laughs, softly, in disbelief, shaking his head. You laugh along with him, your still lingering and heightened vapor causing you to nearly levitate underneath him. 

He kisses you again, deeper this time, more slowly. Your nectar gets smeared on your cheek from his with each voracious movement of his mouth, his head. And it’s an element that makes this become real for you. That helps you fathom that you just experienced an adventurous event that wasn’t a part of the curse—that was good, through and through. 

And it’s yours. 

No one else’s. 

And he makes it even better when he shares the details of his phone call with you. Lifting you up and carrying you into the shower, he tells you of the way the “motherfucker” tried to keep him from breeding you for three months. Was cocky enough to promise him he won’t find a better business partner to work on a project that Hobi’s been passionate about for weeks—a way to get older children better education in schools in terms of things that aren’t normally taught: surviving skills, basic medical skills, cooking skills and life skills regarding various of things that they will need during and after high school. His organization also offers a form of preschool and elementary babysitting, therapy, library, game activities, singing, dancing, language learning—anything to keep those kids busy and away from their phones. It’s a place of rest, a place of safety and comfort and Hobi works hard to maintain that. 

The guy offered his premises and means of educational materials, even though Hobi makes do just fine—but it wouldn’t be available for at least three months. He explained that he needed them for the semester, wanted to elevate his ways, which is why he sent out a word. 

He told you all this while washing you clean in the steamy, hot shower. And it wasn’t until a week later that you found out the guy truly wasn’t able to make it happen sooner, but upon talking with him in person, Hobi was so satisfied with him and his work ethic, that he was willing to risk it. What he didn’t tell him over the phone was that he specializes in a group of orphaned children, homeless, and those who live in children’s homes. And Hobi’s mind was blown, his heart moved and softened, enough to shake his hand and start working on this renewed, expanded project. He put the kids that weren’t his first—and you fell in love with him deeper than you ever had before. 

And it wasn’t until spring came about and the first heat waves of the sun caressed your skin that he booked the flight, paid for a luxurious hotel resort in Antalya, paid for your mani, pedi, your Shein order and shopping sprees in malls, where he found you the simple dress he was apparently going to marry you in, and held your hand the entire way there. It took half a year to fulfill his longing and his biggest dream—and half a year to break your curse. You spent it visiting him in the office to bring him snacks, eye patches and face masks, distracted him with quick fucks, strip-teases, blow jobs underneath the table while he kept his suit on, smeared makeup and lipstick on his face and collar whenever you were in the mood to make out with him. 

It took such a long time, but you didn’t mind at all—because at night, you and him would pretend. Hobi didn’t want you to get on birth control; cared enough for your well-being by not wanting to confuse your body for a few months. Settled for the play of pretending—for condoms and nutting inside, going through the motion that there’s no latex preventing his longing from erupting. And during the day, you got to know him on a more meaningful, profound level. 

He loves to dance. Has danced with you in the living room on multiple occasions. Slow dancing, bachata, lambada. He wasn’t shy; enjoyed every minute of it and you watched him shine like the heart-shaped sunlight he is. You found the core of him, like a seed within a cherry, when you had your arms locked behind the nape of his neck and he led your hips into the rhythm of the sensual song. 

He loves children because he was loved right as a child himself. Wants to pass that on. Wants the kids to know that love exists, no matter what they’ve done. You broke down when he shared that with you and wished a place, like his organization provides, existed in your forlorn girlhood. 

Maybe you wouldn’t have been so broken. So prone to bad decisions, imbecility. So liable to the poisonous kisses of curses, to their tempting touches and their manipulative sounds of sweet nothing. 

Hobi had given you a promise ring right after he told you that there was to be a long waiting period for the baby. And when the time came and spring opened their buds of flowers, Hobi proposed to you. A grandiose diamond ring on your finger; plane tickets and more wons that you ever held in your hand, safely tucked in a white envelope. That’s how he announced it to you. And he didn’t get on his knee on the beach, where you glued your heart together. 

Not in Seoul, not on the island of Jeju. 

He proved his devotion to you and his irrevocable love for you amidst the surrounding mountains in Juwangsan national park by the Yongchu waterfall, five hours away from Seoul. Scraped his leisure pants because for a while you were paralyzed before you burst into tears and started running around, your first reaction of shock dispersing and turning into a holy euphoria you never experienced before. He laughed as did many people who were witness to the engagement, his hands that still held the ring box shaking as the audience clapped and cried along with you. Your white, linen dress billowed in the warm, spring-breathed wind, but you didn’t care much for it—because when you gained feeling in your muscles and your hunger to kiss him overpowered you, you stole and drew all of his patchouli-filled breath. 

You made it yours as he became yours, too, eternally. 

And when you gave him your yes, the mountains glorified yours and his love, exalted your unified souls, worshiped your hearts that beat for one another. Sang the praises of your unborn child.

You inhaled it, with gratitude and great importance, and it swirled within you even as you continued on your hike. Even as you visited the Daejeonsa Temple, where you spent the most time, dwelling in that thankfulness. You took in the beauty of the greenery, fresh air and mountains differently, more thoroughly and tremendously because you sensed they were there for you. Flaunted their earnest opulence and fervency for your happiness, for they knew you were looking back. 

Life gained feeling, too.

And Hobi wouldn’t stop fondling your ring while he held your hand. 

It’s what he does now as he presses the hotel room card against the device by the doorknob, a half month later. And it’s not lightness that is intertwined in his shoulders, but immense heaviness. Your flight was delayed by two hours and you waited another two hours for your luggage. Hobi didn't have to say a thing—it was written all over his countenance and figure, the weight of his perturbation. From his solemn look, tense features, lack of speech to his slouched shoulders, slightly shaking hands and deep breaths. 

You don’t want to poke the beast, but you do want to pet it—make it feel better. Because despite the misfortunes, you don’t consider them setbacks or ruination. You are here, with him, engaged and about to get filled with his baby. No troubles can take that away from you and they can try as hard as they want. 

You are about to carry his berry baby, conceived from the orchard he built in you, in the middle of Antalya, Turkey. 

Nothing could be better than this. 

Thinking about it, it paints a smile on your face. Hobi plants your suitcases on your king-sized bed, paying very little attention to the swan, made out of towels, sitting prettily in the middle of it, surrounded by rose petals, the ones that live beneath his skin so joyously and most comfortably. Feeling pity for him, because you know why he feels the way he does, you take his arms and slink through them, hugging his torso from behind, nuzzling your face in his oversized shirt-clad back that he wore for the first time in your presence. 

Hobi? Oversized clothes? Strangely, it works, even though you’re so used to his suits, his well-fitted classic clothes that accentuate his buff figure. 

He sighs, running his hands down your sides like he always does. You kiss his spine, without fear as you chose to wear zero makeup for the flight, but then he clasps your hands in his—right there in the center of his chest—and you swoon, tender and in love, appreciating the gesture, even though he’s done it many times before. 

It’ll never get old. 

“I can’t breathe in this room,” he murmurs, sighing a little louder this time around, and you furrow your brows, a wisp of worry curling in your gut. 

You’re about to let go and open the balcony doors to let some fresh air in, but Hobi acts faster. He swivels halfway, takes one step back with you, and turns on the air conditioning. Waits a little bit, stares at a fixed point on the ceiling—only to discover that it’s not working. 

Hobi punches the wall, startling you. 

“Hobi?” you call out his name, the wisp fading into a strong wind that moves your organs to and fro. 

He pinches his forehead, seething, and your instinct is to put a stop to it. You take his hands, notice they’re trembling, and the wind is knocked out of you. 

Trembling hands… What are they portraying? Anger? Anxiety? 

You sit him down on the bed, coming to stand in between his legs, and you cradle his face. Even the muscles in it quiver. Feebly, but they’re there. Pity constricts your heart. 

“What’s going on?” you ask, searching for his eyes, and when he meets you halfway, there’s unbelief that paints a murky landscape across his darkened pools. The brightness is dimmed. Your heart laments it. 

“Everything is going to shit. I wanted this to be perfect for you, but the air conditioning isn’t working. We waited for hours at the airport—”

You kiss his forehead, silencing him, and you linger there, even as you reassure him. “I’m so happy to be here with you that I couldn’t even give two shits about that.” 

The unbelief deepens and you figure he expected you to be as disappointed and as cranky as him. He doesn’t understand that the time you’d been graced with, the absence of your ex and the opportunity to be in a place your heart had quietly dreamed of conquers any obstacles that have tried to get in your way. 

You can’t be shaken. 

Not anymore. 

“We’re not at the airport anymore, we’re here. You can make a call to the reception and they will send a guy to fix it. It’s already perfect because I’m about to hear your English, first of all. And second of all, you’re gonna—” Your tone lowers to a whisper, “—breed me. Do unspeakable things to me here. Are we gonna fuck in the ocean? Oh, my god. I want that so bad. We can go to the beach at sunset with very few people around and you can nut in me. We’ll have a sea baby.”

This time, his sigh is dusted with relief and he slides your thighs over his, making you sit on his lap. The brightness in his eyes begins to flicker, shining through the murkiness, making its way back, and you’re happy to see it—relieved just the same. Though, you note something else, something new appearing in those pools. 

The moon. Night-caressed pearls. The waves of the turbulent, passionate sea at midnight as they wash out that terrible landscape. 

The same moon he carved into your thigh on your first date. The same moon that you hope will be lining your skin once he smothers you in his longing. 

“I’m so grateful to have you. I’m so grateful to have you as my wife. No one compares to you,” Hobi says, the moonlit pearls in his eyes wet as he’s overcome with emotion. He rests his head on your bosom, hugging you tight. “I love you, pup.” 

You bury your face in his silkily soft hair, reveling in the fresh undercut he got for this baby-making vacation. He purrs, happily, like a kitten, when you gently scrape your long acrylics upon that gritty surface. 

“I love you, too.” 

It’s time for dinner by the time you both come out of the shower, sharing one humongous towel. You push him down onto the bed and massage his back, helping him unwind on a deeper level—until his body is light and soaring, his eyes drowsy and lidded. Arm shading the lower half of his face, he studies the way you make love to your body by lathering it in shea butter lotion, then dressing it in a skin-tight, pale green, sleeveless dress with a slit in the back, its hem almost reaching your ankles. You put on some Aretha Franklin and open your clear makeup bag, reciprocating the eye contact in the mirror in front of the bed as you squirt foundation on your flushed cheeks. 

You didn’t realize he was watching you. 

“No panties, no bra?” he asks, his tongue dry as he licks his lips, still naked, glistening in the sundown from your lotion. Your eyes wander to his lower regions and find him hard. 

You smile, tapping in your foundation with your beauty blender. 

“I made the mistake of accidentally ordering extra small instead of small, so it’s tight on my body,” you explain your lack of underwear, your mouth ends quivering as he just keeps looking at you with bottomless devotion. “So I don’t want any panty lines or straps.” 

“I think that’s no mistake,” he says, his hand gripping his shaft for a moment before it relaxes, concealing his weakness for you. “I’m gonna rip it off of you with ease once your belly’s full. And I’m gonna make it fuller.” 

You bite your lip, blending your concealer, feral. “Careful, or no dinner for you.” 

Hobi chuckles, his body twitching, and you sink your teeth deeper into the pillow of your bottom lip. “Why?” 

Cream bronzer—you suck in your cheeks, making him suck in a breath. “If you keep talking, we’re skipping dinner and I’ll force you to make good on that promise.” 

He scoffs, the sound full of humor. “There’s no forcing when it comes to you.” 

You put on cream blush for nothing as your own natural blush resurfaces under that layer of makeup. “Your game will never not get to me, Hobi.” 

He hums in response, a tinge of embarrassment coloring that sound, and you coo, finishing your make-up with a thin eyeliner, mascara, brows and a brown lipstick. You brush out your hair, letting it cascade down your back. Put on some gold hoop earrings. Spray on your perfume. Crawl over Hobi’s lap to show yourself to him. 

“What do you think?” 

He fails to cup himself now that he’s turned on his back, with how long he is, and you pry his hand away, kissing his palm, marking it with that brown shade. 

“Beautiful,” he breathes out and your smile aches. “I’m gonna fight anyone who looks at you tonight.” 

You laugh, softly, leaning over to plant that same mark in the middle of his chest—just like he marked you all those months ago. “No need to fight for me. Are you gonna get dressed?” 

His shyness comes through, his flush reaching his neck and collarbones, and you salivate. 

“I’m hard,” he says, nearly pathetically, and you coo, endeared by him. Grasp him with your left hand, purposefully, and his eyes flick to your ring, moaning. “Oh, pup.” 

“What are we gonna do with you? I just put on my lipstick,” you whine, pouting feignedly, and Hobi whimpers, enveloping your hand with his fist, leading you to fuck him in a fast rhythm, the left over lotion on your palm making it slick and easy. 

“Just lick my tip and stroke me like that,” he croaks out and you feel your folds soak with your nectar. You were fine with him marinating your makeup, but this is better. “You don’t have to suck it. Just lick it with that tongue of yours, pup.” 

You swear, moaning, darting out your tongue and kitten licking the ridge of his head like he asked, twisting your wrist as much as he lets you in the deathly grasp he has over your hand. 

“That’s it, baby. You know how to do it. You’re my smart girl. My smart wife,” he praises, throwing his head back as he takes the pleasure you give him, going as far as hollowing out your cheeks on that sensitive part of him, despite the fact he told you that you didn’t have to. He groans, deeply, lifting his shoulders from the bed and gripping your hair, his hand trembling all over again. “Fuck, you make it so hard for me not to fuck your mouth.” 

You moan around him and he pulls you away from his cock and smashes his mouth against yours, kissing you so devastatingly ravagedly that you can’t breathe and you grow slack in his hold, sinking onto your knees on the floor. 

He holds your face as he lets you go, your foundation and lipstick smeared all over his chin, lips and cupid’s bow. You gasp at the sight, gulping. 

“I’m sorry, pup. You’re gonna have to redo your makeup. I couldn’t help it. You’re just so good,” he apologizes and you can see it on his face, how serious he is about it. “You deserve to be kissed like that. Hm, you’re such a good pup for me.”

You mewl, missing his lips already, and you quicken your pace around him. He lets you, matching you, and his sounds rise in volume. 

“I’m gonna come so quick for you, just because you look so good like this.” 

You hiccup, squeezing him. “Like what?” 

He hums, licking his lips, tasting your girlishness, and he grins, lopsidedly. “So pretty on your knees for your husband with your makeup ruined, knowing he did it because you sucked him so well.” 

The third person. You die—you die a beautiful death. 

“Oh, fuck, Daddy.” 

“Yeah, baby. I know. So good. Like always with you.” 

And you come back to life. 

You moan, giving him your all through your motions, sucking him, licking him, going even as far as taking his balls into your mouth, spreading your noises all over them, divulging how much you love that part of him. And he warns you before he comes. Doesn’t want to ruin your dress. And you watch as he spurts his cum all over his stomach while you milk it out of him—bedazzled, in love, fucked out and absolutely mesmerized.

And you rub his cum into his skin in the way you’ve noticed he likes to do on yours. Dig a grave for all the negative things he had to go through because of you and for you. You didn’t do that all those months ago, focused as you were on forgetting. But now that you’re healed from it and so is he, you dig that grave deep. Throw in his rightful anger, your ex, the painting. Sweep the soil back over it. And never look at it again. 

He thanks you for taking care of him. Tells you that it was all because of how beautiful you are. Cleans the little you left behind of his own nectar while you fix your makeup. Dresses himself in black pants and a shirt that makes you laugh so hard that your stomach hurts. 

A black and white shirt with a pattern of condoms. 

“What?” he asks, but laughs along with you. “We’re saying goodbye to condoms once and for all, pup.” 

You blush, terribly. He leaves the top buttons undone, letting all eyes see the way you marked him with your brown lipstick. 

And he gets stared down at dinner. Cares very little, as smitten as he is with you—can’t lay his eyes off you as you walk, even as you eat and drink your Turkish tea, as you sway your body to the live, foreign music while your cigarette smoke dances along with you. Can’t stop touching you either—has to have his hand on you under all circumstances. On your forearm, the back of your hand, your knee or your thigh under the table. 

Your belly, after all that food. 

“I’m gonna marry you,” he says after a long moment of balmy silence. The spring wind, drifting from the palm trees, chilly ever so faintly, brushes your hair away from your face, caressing so coolly your freshly washed body, and you’re obsessed with the feeling. With his reminder that he’s gonna marry you. With him. With the fact you’re here with him.

There’s no other place you’d rather be. 

“I know,” you intone, shyly, grinning, so terribly happy that its sparks detonate on your face, your thumb mindlessly playing with your ring. “I feel at home here.” 

He seems to be touched by that. But you didn’t understand the gravity of his words. 

Not until later. 

Two strong cocktails in, the night falls. The musicians gather their instruments to leave, but Hobi, with a mind of his own, pulls you up to your feet to dance with you to the song of that balmy, restful silence. And the ardent dance, filled with twirls and sways, catches the eye of one of the musicians. An elderly man, with ebony hair, mustache and tender wetness in his eyes, picks up his decades-loved violin from its case and starts playing a song unheard by the night. A song made, intimately and privately, from his own gentle, but kindled heart for you and Hobi. The fervid song, tied with the fire of a passion shared between a husband and wife, moves you to tears and once the man sees them, he weeps along with you. 

With your face pressed against Hobi’s, he barely leads you in the dance as you still ever so slightly to listen to that expression of love and marriage, paying your full attention to it. And if there ever were any forgotten crumbs of cranberries in your blood, the man’s mastery and Hobi’s touch smooth it out, completely. Order it, wordlessly, to swim out of your tear ducts. 

The man ends the song and you and Hobi clap for him, bowing in all respect and sincerity. He sends you a heartfelt kiss and a thumbs up Hobi’s way, pointing at his shirt and you wave him goodbye, laughing. 

No need for words. 

All was said. 

And Hobi senses it, a changed man. Because when you walk up to your hotel room and he sets you down on the bed—he doesn’t rip your dress away from you like he promised he would. No, he takes his time, revealing your skin little by little, kissing and licking every inch that opens for him. He’s that embodied passion and he unravels himself on your body, sucking on your perked nipple as he holds the rim of your dress beneath your breasts. Sighing, humming. Circling the tip of his tongue around that sensitive trigger. Your moans echo around the spaciousness of the room and he answers each and every one of them with his own. 

“Do you want it now? On your first night here?” he asks, pools whisked to yours, grazing your nub with his teeth. You cry out, spreading your legs as far as the tightness of your dress lets you while Hobi’s body compresses them down with his weight. 

You want it every night, every day until you have to return back to Korea. Want to be so full of his nectar that you’ll still feel it, even at home. 

“I want us to try every day,” you say, stroking his hair, shuddering as he rolls his tongue up and down on that nipple of yours, nuzzling his face in your breast as he sucks it. Makes your brain malfunction a little bit. “Do you think they sell pregnancy tests in that little shop? I should’ve brought some from home.”

Hobi grows serious, popping your nub free. His puffy lips search for yours, enveloping them in a deep kiss. And he spreads tiny kisses on your cheek and jaw as he responds. “We can say fuck it and take that test when we get home.” 

The same seriousness closes down upon you. “What if we fail? What if there’s something wrong with me that I don’t know about?” 

He cradles your face, his thumb fondling your skin, your black eyelashes, sturdier than they usually are due to your mascara. “You’re young, you’re healthy. You have nothing to worry about. I’m older. What if my swimmers are blind, hm?” 

Your eyes wet at the thought, but a sweet reminder seizes you—the softness you saw wrapping around him when he told you about the renewal of his work project, the amount of poor children without parents or homes that have won over his heart. And your answer is ready on the tip of your tongue. 

“There’s always the children from your work. We can adopt. As many as we want.” 

Hobi looks into your eyes, deeply, for a long time. And you don’t catch the drenching of his pools, nor the tender glint, the wetness of the pearls. No, you catch a single rivulet trickling down on each of his cheeks, plopping down onto your chest. The hard sucking in of his breath due to that softness swathing him all over again. The tremble of his lip. The petting of his hand over your hair as he exudes gratefulness. 

“I love you, you know that?” he whimpers and you burst, your own tears dripping down the sides of your face as you take him in. The raw, compassionate and humane version of him that only few, selected people are allowed to see. You, his mom, his dad, his sister and… little Luna. And you sob, your whole body warm from the amount of love that boils in you for him. “You’re my good little pup. I love you so much.” 

“I love you,” you whisper, your voice broken owing to the intensity of your feelings. Hobi kisses your neck and your hand brushes down his back, scattered with myriads of condoms. Try to feel for his wings. Want them as sensitive as his heart. “Your swimmers aren’t blind. They have 20/20 vision.” 

Your little joke causes him to chuckle, adorably, and he makes that sound travel down your throat as soon as he kisses you again. Slowly, carefully—as if engraving the shape and the feel of your lips deeply into his brain, into his system that he will give to you. You want more of him, the intangible things as well as the tangible ones. All of him, all that put his being together; all that helps him get up in the morning and lay his head down at night. 

And it invigorates you, the knowledge that you will get just that—once he fills you up with his nectar and his swimmers find you, perfectly. Yours and his berry baby will grow amidst the orchard he will continue to take care of; and you will have him. 

Eternally. 

Beyond death. Beyond the end of time. 

You will have him—and you will have a little him as well. 

“I want you,” you whisper onto his lips, perking up your breasts for him by squishing them together and he sees you, sees what you’re doing and he licks your nipple again, both of them at the same time in fact, torturously slowly, humming. “And I want a little you.” 

Lifting his head to kiss you, nastily, he groans. The smack of yours and his mouth, the ridding of your dress—still slow, still sensual. He studies your body for a moment, shuddering, full of longing for him and his nectar, ready for him with the way it’s glistening in sweat and arousal. And he sighs, differently this time. 

The sound is coated with as much longing as your body is. 

You love being looked at by him; love the knowledge that he’s looking at something that’s his. Always been his to transform, make new, clean and heal. Always been his to love. 

And he kisses his pathway down your tummy as if he thought about the same thing, his hands following every inch of your skin, fondling the places he kissed, licked and sucked. Not hard enough to create a mark, but lovingly enough to moisten you even more, to make your heart swell—and something else, too. 

He stops at your navel. Squishes the lower belly fat, biting it as he coos—and you can feel how much he loves that part of you; always has. Because of that, there’s no insecurity tightening your lungs or worrying your brain. Only balminess, the sound of cicadas, the dance of the palm trees as the wind blows through it, the faraway sea sloshing upon shore and his noises caked with yearning—for you, for the baby. 

“Our baby is going to live right here,” he says, as if he was coming to terms with it, now that he’s about to make it happen, and you soften, running your hand through the tufts of his windswept hair. “It’s going to grow and feel our love. Feel how much I love him or her. How much you do.” 

You nod, a liquified softness. “Do you want a boy or a girl?” 

He gazes at you through his lashes and butterflies zap your stomach. “I want a baby that looks like you.” 

Your heart, too. 

“So, a girl?” 

He rubs his face in your tummy, breathing evenly against it. “Even a boy can have your features. Your hair. Your hands.” He takes it, the one closest to him, and drifts his fingers through yours. “I want to hold their hand and know I’m holding yours. And I want to give them the love I have for you.” 

A film flashes through your mind. A little boy, sitting on a sofa next to resting Hobi, watching TV while his Daddy absentmindedly plays with his small fingers, kissing them, biting them playfully to make him growl in that adorable way. The same little boy growing into a young man, having been watered by the love Hobi has for you and the new, fatherly love he gained for him. One that does not cease even as he’s older. 

A boy, a man loved by his Father—ceaselessly. 

Something you never had, but your child will. 

You don’t realize you’re crying until Hobi wipes your tears away. Your heart thumps so rapidly against your chest that you believe it could poke through the flesh. 

And you fall for him, all over again. 

“That’s the most beautiful thing you ever said to me,” you whisper, high on your heightened feelings for him, high on him. “Besides, ‘will you marry me?’”

Hobi smiles. Moves you so your head reclines on the pillows, knocking towel swan off the bed, making you giggle. And he sits on his legs, clutching your waist, thumb rubbing circles on your tummy, squished and overspilling in your position as you wrap your own legs around him. 

Comfortable, safe, elated. 

“Two days from now, I want you to wear that dress I bought you,” he says, his smile blossoming wider and your lips mimic the same movement for some reason, despite the fact your brows furrow in confusion. 

“What dress?” 

He slides his hands up your highs. “The white one. The one I told you I was gonna marry you in.” 

A soft gasp leaves your lips and a mist of tears thicken in your waterline, understanding what he’s saying. “Are we—?” 

“Yes, pup.” A stream, not a rivulet, cascades down his cheeks and you break, you break beautifully and happily. “We’re getting married in two days. I prepared everything. Your parents and mine are flying in. I paid for their plane tickets. A small wedding with the closest. My sister slapped me when I offered to pay for hers—”

An alarm rings loudly in your sternum and you don’t think before you voice it out. Hasty in a way you don’t like, but it’s due to a certain fear that you feel expanding throughout your body. 

“What did my Dad say?” 

Hobi’s smile doesn’t fade and it spurs a fragment of ease to shoot down your form. 

“Your Dad gave me his blessing.” 

A brand new shrub begins to grow in your orchard. The final one. A shrub of goji berries, healing, beneficial to your Father complex, the very means that will treat your scar caused from it, rejuvenate the skin that bears his ignorance, lack of love, care and attention. 

And you can’t breathe.

Hobi lays the front of his body against yours, propping his chin against your chest, holding the side of your face in his hand, tracing your shock and unbelief with his thumb. 

“He looked at me as if he wanted to kill me, but once he heard that I mean well with you and that I make good money at my job—actually, once he heard that I work with children, his whole demeanor changed—”

“He loves children,” you blurt out, your vision unfocusing. “He just doesn’t love me because I grew up. It’s some kind of block in his body, I don’t know.” 

Hobi pauses for a moment, thinking about your words, his thumb now tracing your lost eyes—your eyelids, your eyelashes. 

Your Father played with you when you were a little girl. Took you on walks around the city. Bought you McDonalds. Taught you how to count money when you were struggling, unsure if you had enough from the paper Wons he gave you. But once the sadness of your girlhood absorbed your life, his presence in it shifted and moved away. 

And never returned. 

“He does love you, he just doesn’t know how to express it. That’s what I sensed,” he whispers, his hand descending to your neck, and you wonder if he feels the twigs of those goji berries underneath that skin—that quickly they grow. “If he didn’t love you, he wouldn’t have listened to a word I said. He wouldn’t have asked me if there’s anything I needed from him in terms of the wedding. And he wasn’t mad about the fact that it would be non-traditional and in Turkey, though your mom insisted she’d wear a hanbok anyways.” 

You’re so overwhelmed that you can’t speak, the notion that your Father always knew you strayed away from your heritage and preferred the West sneaking into your heart. He accepted it; and he accepted Hobi. 

You reach within yourself, pluck a goji berry and feed it to the emptiness that lived within you for too long. And you do it again and again—until there’s no hollowness that eats at your insides. 

You’re whole.

“Thank you for telling me,” you murmur, brushing your knuckles down his cheek and Hobi leans into your touch like he always does. “That healed me. I can’t wait to marry you.” 

Hobi mirrors your softness and kisses you with it. And it’s now that the dip of the scar in your skin replenishes—through each and every moment of his mouth against yours and through his shifting to the place between your legs once you coyly ask for him there. He eats you as if he were starving, and it has great meaning to you—the fact it’s someone you love that is consuming you and not your emptiness anymore. Your feet slide across the pattern of the condoms on his back and it quickens your orgasm in the middle of his sucking and finger-fucking, all owing to the fact that Hobi made order in your life; healed your Father’s complex and now is preparing you to impregnate you, only to marry you two days later. 

You come so hard that you don’t sprinkle him, but drench him whole, your nectar painting him in glimmering light that becomes holy in the moonlight that streaks through the balcony. 

He heaves, ferally, kissing your clit over and over again—so hard that he’s essentially sucking it and you cry out in overstimulation. 

“Taught you how to squirt, didn’t I?” he growls, hovering above you as the drops of your nectar pitter-patter on your chest and within your shyness due to his words, you’re ready for him. 

He did teach you that. Since the fateful day of his work phone call, before and during which you edged yourself so painfully that when he pleasured you with your vibrator, you exploded just the same, you aren’t able to have dry orgasms. He has triggered something within you, using his businessman voice and respect, that rains for him and it has changed your sexuality once and for all.

“You did,” you try because of your shyness, your hands instinctively popping the button of his pants open, and Hobi hums, wiping his face clean and pushing his soaked fingers inside your mouth. 

You didn’t expect it and the loud moan that slips out of your throat comes as a surprise to you. Hobi’s length twitches beneath your hands and twitches again when you suck on his fingers, just as loudly. 

“I love it when you squirt for me, but pray to God, pup, that you don’t squirt around my dick because I’m not pulling out, you hear me?” he rasps, his voice deep and solemn, causing your walls to clench tightly and your heat to reach a boiling temperature. Your hand, mindlessly, slinks to your pussy to rub your clit and he tips his head, noticing it. “Move your hand.” You do, your heart bouncing in your ribcage. Hobi begins to thumb your clit and you writhe your body against the mattress, following each circle with your hips, the pleasure faint but so good. “Do you think you can hold your orgasms for me once I fuck you, hm?” 

You whimper, regarding the idea impossible, knowing how well he does it. Impossible and rapturous. “No.” 

He chuckles. Stops his circles. Lets you use his thumb. “I’ll make you, then. I can stop anytime.” 

You roll your eyes back, his dominance-tinged words better than the stimulation of your clit. “Can you?” you bite back, playfully, your shyness vanishing. 

Hobi bites his lip, intoxicated by your new confidence. Pins your hands above your head, leaning his weight on them. Brushes his lips against yours. “Don’t go bratty on me now. Don’t do it to the baby.” 

You choke out a curse and Hobi digs his half-moons into your forearms. The moonlight anoints them, purifying the atmosphere. 

“I’ll be good for the baby,” you whisper, curling your hips to feel more of his manhood, eager for it. “And good for you.”

Hobi growls, kissing the skin beneath your jawline just once. “A good what?” 

You know what he wants you to say and your eagerness lengthens. “A good pup.” 

Shifting so he can hold both of your wrists in his singular fist, he glides the tip of his cock along your feminine flesh—up and down, up and down. 

“That’s it. A good Mommy for the baby and a good pup for me.” 

He buries himself in your heat and it’s the breaking of the curse upon your life, for the intention is there. The final installment to your healing of your Father’s complex because you’re not a little girl anymore, walking in the withering forest of your saddened girlhood. 

You’re a tender woman and you’re being made love to. 

There’s respect to the languid and dionysian movements of his love, no matter the hardness he uses. A breath is choked out of you and he inhales it, letting your hands free to cradle your neck, pressing his forehead against yours as he moans. Your mouth is parted and Hobi plays with your tongue without closing down his lips on yours, which causes you to mark your nails down his lats. Goosebumps decorate his skin at the feeling and he speeds up, beckoning out your whiny noises as you take it. 

His cock, the healing, the respect, the love. 

“I love you,” he murmurs, consuming your noises as soon as he kisses you. Doesn’t stop ramming into you. “I love you, my pup. You’re my life.” 

You cry out and he rips the coil of your orgasm by filling you to the hilt and lingering there, stimulating your clit by giving you fast, little strokes that makes his mound rub against it. And the orgasm overtakes you, your whole body limp and delighted as the heavenly pressure courses down every nerve ending, spreading that healing, respect and love, sealing it there. 

“God, that was beautiful,” Hobi comments, stunned by the explosion of your pleasure, and he begins to give you long, hard strokes that empty out your brain and try to push out your sudden guilt for coming when he wanted you to hold back your orgasm. 

“Oh my God, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”

“No, pup,” he groans, the muscles around his eyes tightening as he pants. “You’re good. Just keep coming for me. I was only kidding, pup.” 

He takes your nipple in his mouth, his back strong and monumental and you sink your nails into it, marking him with the same half-moons, blushing, joyful. Hobi returns to your neck, your jaw and lips and you whine at the principle of him returning. 

The feeling of it is so enormous that you come again. 

“Yes, pup, that’s it. Come for your Daddy. So pretty, yes. I’m so close. I’m right there with you. Gonna make you a Mommy.” 

The words that are true, at last. Not a pretense. 

And then he’s fast, fucking you into the bed. Changing his mind at the last minute and lifting your hips into the air, slamming into you so hard that you have to hold onto his forearms, scattering your half-moons there and you take it all, ravenous, yet tender as you are. The squelching noises, his growls melting into soft mewls as you squeeze around him and it’s him who can’t take it. 

Who can’t take the distance. 

Who places your hips back down and eats your mouth, plunging his tongue inside while keeping up his rhythm. Never once faltering, nor wavering. He kneads your breast, sucks on your lip, bites it. Holds you by your throat, pushing his thumb inside your parted mouth and you have a feeling, amidst the haziness of your mind, that’s your trigger. One of them, at least. 

“Suck on it.” 

You clamp down on his length, obeying. Your orgasm inches closer, your fourth one of the night. 

“Good pup,” he husks, closing his eyes for a split second, slowing down, rolling motions. “Are you ready to become a Mommy for our baby? Daddy’s so close.” 

The sound that leaves you is of such a desperate kind that he grunts, delighting in it. Buries himself inside you to the hilt, stopping there, giving you tiny strokes that scramble your brain, plays with the haziness. Your arousal and your yearning is so raging and feverish that the pain of his tip osculating your cervix feels divine. And all you can think about is how it’s going to widen over time for yours and his baby. 

“Yes, yes, please. I want it. Give it to me, please, please, please,” you beg, your lungs and your pulse quickening, muscles taut and Hobi moans in a way you’ve never heard him before. 

The longing at its peak, sensitive, delicate and frail—yet he still remains as strong and monumental as he is. His Achilles’ heel has been struck and he begins to twitch inside you. 

“Oh my God, pup, I’m coming so hard for you.” Long strokes, whimpers. “Are you gonna take it like the good little wife you are?” The ultimate hard thrust—the blooming of his longing, your agreement, and it’s happening. He comes. “Fuck, fuck, yes. It’s all yours. It’s all yours, pup.”

He paints you anew with the warmth of his nectar, fucking it deeply into you. And the title you utter is not one construed out of your lack, but it’s a crowning of his new role. 

“Daddy.”

The final breaking of the curse. 

The conclusion. 

He continues to ram into you, softly, his thumb finding your clit—and it’s over. 

Everything. 

You step into a new life with him while you’re still connected and he keeps coming for you, his swimmers antsy and desirous to find your egg. And crossing the threshold, you come—devastatingly intensely, your body trembling and his mirroring the same shakes while he gives you the last of his all and a kiss that lasts a lifetime. 

A clean slate, a clean heart, a clean body. 

A clean life.

An orchard, brimming with fullness and ripeness. 

Ready for your berry baby. 

He looks at you for a long time, then, grinning so widely that you can sense the entirety of his joyful heart in it. His eyes wet and his smile softens as the gravity of what just happened washes over him. You feel the same process collapsing over you, splendidly, and you think that you and him must have become one. 

“We did it,” he whispers, a tear pouring down his cheek and another one following. 

You nod, your cheeks stained with the same tears. “We did it.” 

And the newness of your life and being feels natural—just as though it has been there the whole time. 

On the day of your wedding, bright early in the morning—after Hobi woke you up with his sensual The Weeknd playlist and ate you out so calamitously that you had to give it back to him by riding him into oblivion—you sit down for breakfast and discover something about him that almost makes you call it off. 

Hobi put strawberry jam on his butter toast with scrambled eggs. 

The Turkish sun envelops him bewitchingly, makes his tanned skin glow in its light as he enjoys, provocatively, every bite of his strange breakfast, focusing all of his attention on it. His eyes never leave it and his mouth smacks so loudly that it as irks you as it makes you laugh. 

Your unbelief towards that combination is so strong that it took you some time before you could speak up. 

“What the fuck, Hobi?” 

His eyes flick in your direction, innocently, cheeks full and squirrel-like, layered in sweat. His hands hold a half of the toast, despite the fact you and him just sat down. Does he really enjoy it that much? He inhaled it. 

“What?” he asks, mouth full, and you chuckle. 

“Jam and eggs?” 

He swallows, making a sound that divulges just how much he loved that bite. “Pup, it’s so good.” 

You widen your eyes. “I’m not marrying you today,” you say, but you don’t mean it. You’d marry him even if he forced that abnormal toast down your throat. 

He’s not one bit perplexed by your sentence. Stares you down as he runs his tongue over his teeth, mouth closed. “Be quiet.” 

Heat comes apart in your body and you blush, squeezing your thighs together under the table.

“How could a combination of eggs and jam be good?” you ask, standing your ground, despite your feelings. 

Hobi smiles. “One time I accidentally put sugar instead of salt on my scrambled eggs and it changed my life forever.” 

Your eyes might pop out of your sockets. “What?” 

He laughs, extends his hand towards your face. The sweetened, yet buttery smell of the toast hits your nostrils and your repulsion towards it dissolves. “Try it.” 

You don’t trust it, though. “I’d rather die.” 

He tightens his lips. “Be quiet and take a bite.” 

Taken aback, your instincts win and you don’t realize your head is leaning towards the toast until your teeth sink into the crunchy tastiness. You take a small bite and thoroughly chew, the mixture of sweetness and a little bit of saltiness, wrapped around the crispiness of the toast and the slight mushiness of the eggs creating something metaphysical in your mouth. 

Hobi watches you with a proud, lopsided grin. Knows you like it before you say it. 

“What the fuck?” 

He bursts into laughter and lets you have it, places it on your plate before devouring his second one, your liking for it elevating his. 

And you devour it just the same. 

“Life changing, isn’t it?” he intones, smacking his mouth in all the pleasure of the world. “Expect this kind of breakfast every morning when we get home. After I eat out your little pussy.” 

You choke on it and hide your feverish face in your hands, your stomach doing somersaults. “Oh my God, Hobi.” 

He laughs again, tenderly, and the sound travels all the way to Cappadocia, where he marries you at sundown. 

On the rooftop of a cave hotel, overlooking an immeasurable amount of kaleidoscopic hot air balloons that magnetically travel to the heat of the orange sun, the mountains and volcanic peaks darkened by its overpowering magnificence. It encourages the sleepy walk of camels and tightens the hearts of the witnesses below and the hearts of your parents, parents in law and Hobi’s sister. 

The simple dress Hobi bought you ripples in the compassionate late afternoon wind. Silky, pearlescent like his eyes in a certain light, caressing your tanned skin. So very akin to the one you wore on your first date with him, but longer, sleek, homeric in its significance.

And he matches you, all white, in his tuxedo, a stark contrast against his bronze skin and black hair, a wispy strand softly being blown sideways from his forehead by the wind. He holds his tears back in the same way he holds your hand—with all his might. And you do the same. 

You share your vows. 

He shares his, intertwined with the first poem you recited for him. 

“I’ll carry your heart with me ‘til my last day on this Earth and I will fear no fate because you are my fate.” 

Through your tears, you can see the way he’s stifling his habit of saying your pet name. And when he catches your quivering smile, he breaks into more tears. 

And when you proclaim that you do take him as your husband and when he proclaims that he takes you as his wife, your tears conjoin as do your souls in a kiss that makes the mountains quake. The heat of the Turkish sun perpetuates the act of love. 

The audience cheers. 

Your Father weeps.

And you believe no sadness, no ruination will ever come close to you again. 

You and Hobi celebrate. Dance throughout the night to foreign, passionate music that your heart seems to know. Fly in a hot air balloon, where he gets drunk and kisses you until your lips get numb. 

Almost throws up all the dark liquor he drank once he sees how high from the ground he is. 

And you can’t stop laughing. 

Not as he takes you to the Valley of Love the next day to look at penis-shaped rock formations that nature apparently formed out of the blue. 

Not as you give birth nine months later and he makes his sound effects as you push out his child. 

A baby boy that has your hair, your hands, your mouth and your chin—and a whole lot of Hobi’s pearlescent eyes and slender nose. A delectable, heavenly concoction. 

And certainly not as you take the five-year old boy to the Yongchu waterfall, where his Father proposed to you, and he starts sputtering out uncontrollable giggles when Hobi tells him that you ran around when he popped the question and precisely, with utmost detail, shows him how. 

On your way back, when little Hyeonwol’s legs hurt and drowsiness weighs him down, he surveys the mountain peak, transfixed by it. You and Hobi notice it at the same time and share a look that could never be described through any poetry, through any beauty of words, not even the ordinary kind. 

And it’s automatic, a silent, collective and simultaneous decision to break Hyeonwol’s spell by kissing each of his cheek. 

The dream came true. 

All dreams have, even those undreamed. 

And you believe that even as you grow old with Hobi, you’ll never stop laughing. 

You’ll never stop eating strawberry jam toasts with scrambled eggs with him. 

With Hyeonwol, too. 

And you'll never stop feeding the berry boy the fruits from the orchard that Hobi continues to take care of within you.

HYEONWOL — HYE-ON-WOL 

賢월

Meaning: worthy moon 

This name is given to a worthy person who is as precious as the moon. 

𓂃 ౨ৎ LOVE-KISSED BABIES: @tkslovechild, @jjk7k, @parkinglot-nights, @bethvar, @Sexytholland, @yoongibaybee, @crystaleah,@fennecnco, @lil-kpopstan.

© 2024 hoseoksluna, all rights reserved.

BACK to masterlist | READ part one | READ part two | READ part three | READ part four | READ part five

[sweetkpopmusings]

seventeen as dreamwalkers <3

a/n: i started this after "last night" dropped because i was thoroughly obsessed with the concept. since i went to the last show of their tour, i needed to escape into thoughts of them, lest i wallow in my post-concert depression </3 please enjoy these sweet moments that i hope you share with them in your dreams tonight :,-) pics not mine~

content: dreamwalker!seventeen, supernatural au | wc: 2.3k | warnings: none really! | pairing: seventeen x gn!reader | requests: open

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

seungcheol♡‧₊˚

inside jokes with your best friend, a refreshing breeze on a hot day, pure relaxation

the first time you saw seungcheol, you were charmed by his boy-next-door looks and grounded energy. seungcheol didn’t start with a special plan for your dreams. he wanted, more than anything, to get to know you. in his mind, the better he knew you, the better he could comfort you, bring you joy, and make your dreams a safe space overall. it turned out, however, that the best way to spend your dreams was simply bonding with seungcheol. he was surprised at first when you wanted to know more about him. seunghceol often forgot that he could be the center of attention, but, after meeting you, he was reminded of his worth. it wasn’t long until he happily shared the parts of himself no one else had seen, cherishing every part of you he got to hold through each night. one night, after a particularly vulnerable conversation, he sighed contentedly and admitted, “i hope i get to spend every night like this, with you, for the rest of my life.”

jeonghan♡‧₊˚

someone tucking your hair behind your ear, freshly cut fruit, cherry blossoms 

jeonghan’s sweetness was the most refreshing thing you had ever dreamt of. after he grew more comfortable with you, his mischievous side crept out, but, in the beginning, he was the definition of charming. even after he started joking around and fondly teasing you, there was a tenderness underneath every word and action. jeonghan wanted to be gentle with you. he valued the trust you gave him, and he was well aware of the responsibility that came with visiting your dreams. therefore, regardless of the silly activities he conjured up for the night,  jeonghan always asked you how you were doing. he loved celebrating the highs with you and holding you through the lows. jeonghan, it seemed, thought nothing was sweeter than sharing time and space with you. once, he made you promise that you’d never dream about anyone else, smiling with his pinky outstretched to you and his heart on his sleeve.

joshua♡‧₊˚

a happy ending, finding the perfect song when you need it most, the smell of flowers blooming

from the moment you met joshua in your dreams, you knew he was a romantic. you didn’t have to assume; he told you immediately. joshua thought that, if you two were interacting in such a romantic space, then he, as the resident gentleman, should take the lead in curating your dreams. every night, you two recreated movie scenes. at first, it was classic romances. after a while, he asked you about your most beloved characters and ships, wanting you to experience the love you admired on the screen. it was funny, cheesy, heartwarming, and so very sweet to act like this with joshua. at the end of every performance, he would give you a huge round of applause and claim that you both were award-winning actors. though he was too shy to tell you this, joshua’s favorite scenes to recreate were the ones in which he got to say, “i love you.” 

junhui♡‧₊˚

your favorite plushie, fully belly laughs, hearing “i miss you” from someone you love

you were caught off guard when you encountered an unbelievably statuesque man in your dreams. you were even more surprised when the first thing he asked was, “do you want to play hide and seek?” junhui understood the importance of dreams being a reprieve from the stresses of the real world. that’s why he designed different playgrounds for you to enjoy. every night you met, you would laugh through the night, racing down slides, watching jun jump off the swings, or, of course, playing hide and seek. he always had the biggest smile when he played with you. while he knew he was there to make your dreams wonderful, he never shied away from saying that every moment he spent with you was a dream come true. usually, after saying that, he’d giggle relentlessly and dare you to chase him around the playground. you complied every time, still unable to believe how free and invincible jun made you feel.

soonyoung♡‧₊˚

sunlight reflecting off clear water, freshly picked berries, a voice sweetly calling your name

soonyoung found you during one of your lowest nights. or, rather, he looked for you, sensing your pain and wanting nothing more than to ease your burden. with every smile, with every gesture, with every word spoken, he made you feel light as a feather, regardless of how heavy the world was. soonyoung buzzed with excitement as soon as you met, and it was contagious during each visit. soonyoung told you stories. he asked you a million questions, wanting to know your habits, likes, dreams–really everything about you–but he always reminded you that you could tell him “no.” you rarely felt the need to, though. soonyoung was the softest person you ever knew, and the comfort corner he created in your dreams was where you found complete authenticity and peace. the second you confessed this to him, he practically squealed from the elation of it all. soonyoung thanked you over and over, admitting that bonding with you is one of the greatest gifts he has ever received.

wonwoo♡‧₊˚

sunlight breaking through the curtains, a compliment you’ve always wanted to hear, a dash of cinnamon

wonwoo believed that dreams were a source of relief, a reprieve from whatever turbulence waking life may offer. when he met you, he saw the tension in your shoulders and that broke his heart–how could someone like you be carrying so much weight even while you slept? at that first encounter, wonwoo led you to a bench swing beneath a beautiful tree, sitting beside you and breathing peacefully. he let you know that, no matter what, he would offer you quiet time to be yourself. when you suggested you two have a picnic, he happily agreed, ensuring your favorite items were available and that the weather was just right. his most cherished time with you was when you rested your bodies on a soft sofa, and you watched him as he read you his favorite stories. he wasn’t sure what the look in your eye meant. before he asked, you answered, “everywhere with you feels like home. when i look at you, i see my home.” the blush that covered his skin let you know that wonwoo saw his home when he looked at you too.

jihoon♡‧₊˚

the echo of piano keys, familiar footsteps, a promise to return that’s fulfilled

the first time you saw jihoon in a dream, you awoke with only the feeling of serenity and a brief but vivid memory of his angelic face. even as his visits became more frequent, you were always left with little more than a glimpse of him. jihoon felt just out of reach and entirely a part of you at the same time. one morning, by some stroke of luck, you remembered asking him in the dream, “why can’t i ever remember you properly?” he smiled sweetly, amused by your desire to engrave him in your mind. he admitted, “all i wanted to be was a safe place for you to rest. i never thought you’d want anything more than that.” when you told him you wished to carry memories of him in your waking life, he promised that you’d remember him each morning when you opened your eyes, just as you had recognized him every night when you closed them. jihoon kept his promise, leaving you with such clear memories that the feeling of safety he created for you every night enveloped you throughout your days too.

seokmin♡‧₊˚

the first day of spring, secrets shared in a pillow fort, laughing until you can’t breathe

you were the first person seokmin ever visited in their dreams, so he had no idea what he should do. in a panic, he told you he could sing before he even told you his name. as soon as you heard his angelic voice, you knew there was no going back. seokmin was thrilled. he kept a running list of your favorite songs, learning them as quickly as he could. seokmin also sang songs that reminded him of you, filling your nights with the sweetest serenades. nothing made seokmin feel more special than the sparkle in your eyes and the look on your face when you listened to him sing. he truly felt that he would be content if you were the only person he ever sang for. you were his perfect audience, which he told you many, many times. once, when you asked how he sang so well, he casually replied, “i’ve been practicing all my life because music is one of the most important things to me.” as he watched you applaud for him, he wanted to add, i never knew that singing would lead me to the most important person in my life, but i’m glad i worked so hard for you.

mingyu♡‧₊˚

the glow of a fireplace in a dark room, bedsheets hung in the yard to dry, a smile meant for only you

mingyu made your dreams a home. he knew that he could take you anywhere, explore the whole world with you if he wanted, but truly he just wanted to spend time with you. mingyu loved seeing you comfortable. he was enraptured by you, and he loved nothing more than creating a life with you. together you two spent time making meals, rearranging furniture, playing games, having deep conversations, or sipping tea and enjoying each other’s company. to some, it may have sounded strange, but mingyu insisted that you two plan a future together. you resisted at first, unsure how planning a future with the man who was only in your dreams would be helpful. then, because mingyu is adorably persistent, you played along, not really believing it was more than fantasy. after some time, however, you got the same feeling in your heart that mingyu had all along: we were meant to meet each other. it started here, but it’s only a matter of time before we find each other after the sunrise. 

minghao♡‧₊˚

whispered confessions, your beloved’s fingers brushing against yours, the pink clouds at dawn

dreams of minghao should be considered the eighth wonder of the world. every time he appears, he recreates beautiful places he has traveled to before, so you can experience them too. he cherishes nothing more than walking beside you, either in silent contemplation or excited conversation, through all the locales that left a lasting impression on his mind. minghao cannot fathom spending his time in any other way. you, after all, have left quite the impression on his heart. he will do anything to find you again and again, just to witness the glimmer in your eyes when he shares something beautiful with you. what’s most engraved in his brain is the moment you stood beside him and admitted, “every special place i’ve been to, i have been there with you.” minghao spends every night trying to find the right way to express how your dreams have become the most special place he’s ever experienced.

seungkwan♡‧₊˚

the moon’s reflection in still water, kind conversations on city streets, the smile of someone who knows you well

seungkwan thought it was magical, how he could find you every night. to him, you were the dream. he never wanted to show off or to make anything so spectacular that you wouldn’t be able to enjoy the shared energy between you two. as such, he loved nothing more than to create a star-filled night sky for you. you’d tell him your favorite things, and he’d rearrange the stars to your liking. as clichéd as it was, seungkwan adored watching you stargaze. he marveled at your beauty every time your dreams brought you together. one night, when your eyes sparkled while observing a constellation of your favorite flower, seungkwan murmured, “ah, you are so beautiful, my sky.” his ears turned bright red, but the sweet smile on your face meant he had no regrets about his confession. 

hansol♡‧₊˚

finding the perfect idea, someone who understands you completely, the warmth of your favorite place

you laughed the first time you met hansol because, rather than a grand entrance, he casually walked up to you and asked, “so…what do you want to do?” this relaxed energy permeated every night you spent with hansol. eventually, you two developed a habit of trying out different crafts together, mostly because you could laugh when you failed and fawn over each other’s successes. hansol created a place for you to experiment and express yourself, and he did it so naturally you felt he had been by your side your entire life. when you confessed this to him, he confessed that he felt the same way. hansol even had a theory that you two had been meeting in dreams your whole lives, despite only remembering the times you met as adults. at first, you thought it was just another of his silly conspiracies. you changed your mind, though, when you woke up to see the origami he made the previous night next to your bed. your connection with hansol transcended dreams, and this paper figure of your favorite animal proved that.

chan♡‧₊˚

childhood belief, a long-awaited victory, hearing “i’m proud of you” from someone you admire

you’ll never forget the first time you saw chan in a dream. he was bright, bubbly, and all around ready for a good time. he wanted to show you how far you could push the limits of reality in your subconscious, and he did so by trying out different superpowers with you. there were no villains to fight–unless you wanted them–but there were plenty of ways to transform with superhuman abilities. chan ran through all the classics with you: invisibility, teleporation, flying, etc. then, he would laugh hysterically while you two tried to invent new superpowers. anything from changing coffee flavors by snapping your fingers or being able to breathe underwater, chan wanted to try it with you. he convinced you that all it took to save the world was a smile, which is something he gave you every time you looked at him.

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

[numinously-yours]

Pick a card: From your Soulmate

Happy Friday! Today's reading is a soulmate reading. Your reading includes: Characteristics of your soulmate & a note from them <3

Pile 1: Ace of Pentacles

I’ve been kicked down in life, but each time I get back up the light at the end of the tunnel gets brighter. I have been trying hard to trust in the universe because I know it’s bringing me everything I could want – and that’s you. You are such a compassionate, beautiful, smart, and wonderful person pile 1. You know how they say to never stop dating the person you’re with? That is my plan with you – to woo you forever. You deserve to be wined and dined. I hope to show you each day how much you mean to me. I’ll bring you flowers. I’ll give you shoulder rubs. I’ll tell you silly jokes just to make you laugh. I will spend our time together making sure you never feel unloved. You are my manifestation and I can’t wait to be with you.

Pile 2: The Lovers

Your love is a breath of fresh air. Being with you brings me mental clarity. It makes me understand that the way I’ve been treated in relationships up until now were not an accurate representation of a healthy relationship. Gosh, it is so refreshing! You may find when we begin our relationship that I am hesitant to make big decisions. Because you are showing me something I’ve never known before, it is going to take a little time for me to be convinced that you’re not going away. But let me tell you, once I am shown time and time again that you show up, it is game over (in the best way). The way that we align will take away all the doubts I’ve ever had about love. And I won’t be able to thank you enough.

Pile 3: The Hanged Man

A lot of my life has been about competition; mainly, competition with myself. I have a need to prove myself. I want to be the best at what I do. And I know that that mindset isn’t always the most productive. With you in my life, soulmate, I am reminded to pause. I am reminded that there are more perspectives out there from my own and that I’m allowed to let go of what I think SHOULD be to open room for what IS. You’re really going to allow me to look at my shadow self and understand why I have this need to be better than the previous version of me. You’re going to help me see the restraints that I’m binding myself with. My competitive nature will always be a part of me but I’m looking forward to the time in my life where I can experience joy just being who I am, where I don’t feel like I need to be constantly winning. My life with you is the ultimate prize.

Pile 4: Two of Cups

I’ve held myself back for much of my life with the fear that I don’t have the tools to succeed. I always think that if I just had that one thing – more money, more confidence, more time – that then I can take the plunge. At times, I also find myself wanting to do everything for everyone. If I put effort into one thing, I feel like I am neglecting the other, and then I stop doing either. I want to be the best RIGHT NOW, no matter how unrealistic. And then you came into the picture. My inspiration, my muse, my reminder that each day is a clean slate. Not only do I know we will grow together, but I know that I will grow personally because of you. You never fail to encourage me to follow my dreams. You have a way of reminding me that, even if I “fail”, I can always get something out of a situation which means I didn’t fail at all. I really hope I can do the same thing for you because you deserve the same, if not more, of the energy you give to me.

[britcision]

FRIENDS IT IS HERE. As promised even! We are technically just under 20k for this chapter, but still not small enough that cutting it in half has stopped it from brutally murdering the app, so…. We’ll see how this posts! 😅

I did myself a whole honkin’ reread on the whole thing too, refreshed my lil reminders of what I named things and all the lil threads I was playing with… and hot damn it’s a beast huh?

The good news is, although we are getting into plot, we are getting out of the heavy stuff, at least for the next little bit! Back to our silly happy fun times with the boys 🥰

And, y’know, dealing with Jason’s death and first transformation and all. Totally all fine! Nothing to worry about! 😇

Today’s chapter is a lil Bruce-heavy in this front half because the main thing stopping me was that I got most of the way through before I realized I needed to rewrite Jason’s entire first scene, but I’m a lot happier with it now 😁

First Chapter and AO3:

Previous Chapter:

——————————

The Finished Core part 1

When it finally happened, Jason’s core coming in was pretty anticlimactic. For all they’d worried it might trigger a transformation, rile up the pit, or even have a physical shockwave… the event itself was almost disappointing. Buried busily in some paperwork for the library, Jason himself hadn’t actually noticed.

He’d already started feeling what he thought might be his core over the past few days; like a vibrating ball of energy, usually in the middle of his chest (although it wandered in all directions). Which would make the knot of tension that sometimes sat in his gut and sometimes went as far up as his throat… probably Pitty.

Not fun having a distinct sensation that went along with everything else the Pit was. Did nothing at all to ease his worries about what the hell would happen when they were both actually completed.

But when the day finally came… yeah, nothing. The soft, warm glow in his chest when he thought about the project had grown steadily stronger over the week and a bit he’d known Danny at that point, so he hadn’t really paid enough attention to notice a change.

They’d still been seeing each other every day, although now that the new school semester had started up it had slowed down to a couple hours in the evening. Jason had dived headlong into his restoration project both on Frostbite’s advice, and to keep himself from counting the hours. Which, apparently, worked?

The biggest disruption was actually Danny blasting in through the wall not a minute later, invisible until he dived through one of Jason’s freshly legal goons and almost knocked the table over. Luckily there were no actual Red Hood links lying around - Catherine’s name was staying clean, which was for the best since Jason still hadn’t thought of a way to bring it up.

Even now, back from another appointment with Frostbite to confirm all was well, Jason didn’t actually feel any different? It was official though; both cores were complete, and now all they had to do was wait until the pit matured enough to actually leave Jason’s body and do its own thing.

Now that he didn’t have any choice but to confront it, he couldn’t have said what he’d expected anyway, but… well, surely there should have been something? More energy? More corruption? Hell, even increased ghost senses or some indication that the powers would be coming in.

According to Danny, intangibility usually came with the pit dropping out of your stomach and feeling floaty. Accidental floating came with a head rush or feeling like falling. Invisibility just fucking happened.

All he felt was weirdly normal? The fancy ecto ice was working, and his little ghost succulent - that or all the time with Danny; even Pitty’s flares of emotion were manageable. The green haze hadn’t come back since meeting Lady Gotham.

And okay, maybe he was pushing that by going right back to the manor the next day, but listen. Frostbite had reminded him to do calming tasks, since Pitty should start being more aware of their surroundings now.

Baking with Alfred was as calming and soothing as Jason could imagine, without stapling himself to Danny in classes. And sure, he’d helped with Danny’s homework the past couple nights, but the guy would get sick of him eventually. Faster if they stayed attached at the hip.

(And that had been another “fun” tidbit Frostbite had dropped on them; if they were actually making their own ghost baby, they’d have been able to trade the core off between them. Jason hadn’t thought anything could make that idea sound appealing, but if he coulda just stuffed Pitty into someone else… well, he probably wouldn’t actually wish its corruption and constant tantrums on anyone else, but having a break woulda been nice.)

Now that his core was done, technically the daily hanging out probably wasn’t as necessary. So long as Jason had some backup plans to keep himself calm and in control. Which should mean that they could go from hanging out as a necessary chore to just… friends.

And since no one in the city wound Jason up like Bruce, if he happened to also be at the manor he’d have a trial-by-fire for his shiny new core. He’d kept his word and tapped out of patrol since meeting Lady Gotham (and apparently Harley had taken the manor in fire and glory the night after and locked Bruce… somewhere for two full days), so he’d not heard from B since.

According to Tim, Constantine hadn’t returned to Gotham at all.

The thought of their names only stirred angry bubbles from Pitty, and Jason absolutely wasn’t self destructive or a masochist, so he was just testing to see how far that’d last. How careful he’d need to be, and how aware the little guy was.

So obviously he wasn’t even all the way into the manor before he ran into the man himself.

Stopping short, Jason’s fist clenched more from force of habit than any actual desire. Sucking in a deep breath, he thought of his ghost succulent (which had started glowing faintly blue a couple nights ago, which was hopefully a good thing?) and carefully unclenched. Nodded a little stiffly.

This would be the first time they’d been alone together since… shit, he didn’t even know. He hadn’t seen the guy without the buffer of at least one other bat in months.

“Bruce,” he said warily, half hoping the man could just… be normal. For once. Nod, say hi, fuck off about his own business. He couldn’t still be on his anti-Danny crusade, could he?

The man actually flinched, face twitching through a couple of expressions Jason couldn’t even guess at. A sudden urge between his shoulder blades did nothing to help, distracting him long enough for everything to be smoothed under the usual masks.

If Bruce just had a damn aura… okay, that’d be one change with the completed core. All of his attempts to reach out with his own aura before had basically involved his whole body actually leaning in the same direction.

That… urge, itch between his shoulders, if that had been his aura trying to reach out, felt more like an entirely new muscle group. Curiosity won and Jason focused, trying to follow the urge and reach out… and wasn’t sure it had worked at all.

Because all he could feel was sorrow and regret, and that didn’t sound like B. At all. His compartmentalizing was out the ass, sure, but what the hell would he actually feel sorry for?

“Jason?” And from the sound of it, not the first time he’d said his name. Great.

Shelving the apparently-faulty aura for now, Jason frowned back.

“I’m here to see Alfred.” It wasn’t exactly a warning. Wasn’t exactly a threat, although it carried the possibility. Meant that if B pissed him off enough to leave, he’d face some British disapproval.

Bruce’s shoulders sagged just a little, and then he drew himself up, his face firm and resolved. Jason tensed automatically; if he actually tried to bar him from seeing Danny face to face, would he still be able to walk away?

That was why he’d brought the glacierfrost. Slipping a hand into his back pocket, he crushed a crystal quickly before the man could open his mouth. Wintergreen mint burst across the back of his tongue, another brief flicker of distraction that, for some reason, came with another pang of sorrow.

“I’m sorry.”

Jason nearly stumbled, and he hadn’t even been moving. Bruce looked… tired, all of a sudden. More tired than he could remember ever seeing him.

“Wait… what?”

Bruce gave him a sad smile.

“It’s been brought to my attention… multiple times… that you should have heard that from me alone first. And then I kept adding more and more to be sorry for. And I know you don’t want to see me, so now seems like the best time to start.” It was jerky, and awkward, and probably the most uncomfortable Jason had ever seen Bruce in a conversation.

Which only served to confuse him further. Bruce overplanned everything; he never acted without at least two layers of backups. It was why he had a million plans for every possible micro-scenario. He didn’t do spontaneous.

“What are you even talking about?” He asked, half exasperated, and Bruce’s smile widened a fraction. That only made it more self deprecating.

“There are too many things to count, but… Jason, I’m sorry I sprung the apology on you at the gala. I thought having the world as my witnesses would show you I meant it, but I should have asked first. I should have apologized first, to you. Alone. I’m… aware what it says about me that I couldn’t.” He was almost wearing one of Brucie’s self-deprecating smiles now, but the edges were raw. Unpolished. Certainly not camera ready.

Real?

Jason’s mouth opened and closed a few times, his brain entirely short-circuited. Of all the things Bruce could have said to him… of all the things the man might apologize for, he’d honestly forgotten all about the damn gala speech.

Forcing himself to focus, he folded his arms and regarded his former father figure warily.

“Sure, that’s a place to start,” he agreed, more sarcastically than he’d meant to. But he couldn’t take it back.

There was another moment of stiffness, and then Bruce’s shoulders sagged as well as he breathed out, still looking… well, so much more human. More breakable, more fallible. Or was that just from hearing him admit he’d been wrong?

“I do mean it, Jason. I did mean it,” he said softly, piercing blue eyes unusually gentle as he looked him over, and suddenly Jason knew what was bothering him.

The mask. The iron mask of Batman, the bumbling shield of Brucie. B always had a mask, over every interaction. Every situation, every possible scene, B always had a character to play. And he played them well.

That was what looked wrong about him. He wasn’t… intentional. His posture was open and unthreatening, his face lax in a way it never was while he held every muscle in check.

This was just actual, sincere B.

Jason wasn’t completely sure why that made him want to run or cry, but it said a fuck of a lot about him too.

More that he just couldn’t bring himself to return it.

Sucking in a sharp breath, seriously considering grabbing for another crystal, he nodded sharply.

“Okay. Now what.” Because that was the thing; Jason had never wanted B to be sorry that he hadn’t come for Jason. That he finally hadn’t been on time to save him from himself.

He didn’t want the apology, he wanted things to change. To be better. For Bruce to accept that it had happened, and Jason was who he was now because he’d decided to be, not the pits or Tallia or the Joker.

He wanted so many things.

Bruce was searching his face, eyes sharp even as he consciously kept the rest of the expression open. Jason could see the tick of muscle in his cheek. Fuck, was it that hard for Bruce not to put on the act?

After a moment, he spread his hands. A gesture of peace? Not holding a weapon, not tensed for an attack?

“That’s all. For now. I just… wanted you to know. I’m sorry. And I’m…” the expression pulled a little, becoming pained, “I have been told I am overreacting to the news from Amity Park as well. I should trust your judgement. So I’m pulling myself from the case to focus on the Anti-Ecto Acts.”

This time Jason’s jaw just dropped. B… Bruce never. Never pulled himself from a case. Not for broken bones, ruptured organs, not even if he’d died.

It was almost worse than the rage; all of a sudden he was lost at sea, the one grounding, immovable rock in his life swept away. Part of him was even angry at that - at B suddenly deciding that now, this time he was going to be reasonable.

When all Jason expected from him was judgement, antagonism, stupid overbearing demands and being held at arm’s length, now all of a sudden the Bat was human.

It was too late to pretend the moment hadn’t happened, to completely hide his shock, but he also couldn’t stop the bluster from rising. Not the way his eyes narrowed suspiciously, even when every part of him that had been Robin desperately hoped this was real.

“And what the hell brought that on?” Not the accusation in his voice, although for once Bruce didn’t rise to it. He just chuckled dryly, like he’d been expecting Jason’s reaction.

“Because you were right.”

And now Jason was fully on edge again, scanning the man more closely for any signs of hypnotism, mind control, that this was a clone or a replacement. A trap or a trick. Because B… Bruce would never…

Bruce raised both hands quickly, possibly expecting Jason to just… jump him. Which, to be fair, would have been a more normal interaction.

“You were the one who brought the Amity Park situation to our attention. And you’re right, that I can’t expect your doctor or any other ghost to come here to help you until it is safe for them to do so,” he added quickly, and Jason rocked back onto his heels.

Of course, the caveat. That made sense, bitter in the back of his throat as it was. Just an inarguable set of facts.

Not like he’d ever actually admit that Jason’s judgement was reliable or anything. Folding his arms again (partly to stop his fists from clenching), he gave Bruce a sceptical look.

“Right, so what finally yanked your head out of your ass about it?” He asked sharply. Bruce gave him that same wry smile.

“Diana. And Harley. And Alfred. And Selena. I have been… extensively informed I had my head up my ass. So. I’m sorry for that too. I just wanted to tell you before I left, since I don’t know when we’ll see each other again.”

And it shouldn’t have been funny that he actually looked more pained talking about this, admitting a mistake, than he had when nursing broken ribs in the infirmary. Than he’d looked during any of their fights, than when Jason had all but grabbed his face and forced him to see that it really was him, that his dear little Robin came back wrong.

But dark humour was a refuge for all the bats, and if Jason didn’t laugh he had a horrible feeling he’d cry. All that tension, all those days he’d worried about what he’d say or do when they came face to face again… he’d never have imagined any of this.

Could imagine another bloody battle before imagining Bruce saying sorry.

All of a sudden he was just tired. Ha. Dead tired.

Nothing drained the life out of him like dealing with Bruce.

“Great. So where are you going?” It was almost a rhetorical question; he didn’t really expect an answer.

Should have, though. Obviously B had to stick his foot in it again.

“Amity Park. As Bruce Wayne, not Batman,” he added quickly when Jason’s head snapped up, glare sharpening, “it seems the logical place to begin work on the acts.”

And alright, Bruce didn’t sound defensive. He never did; just obstinate, which meant so many things that guessing when it meant what was a losing game.

Jason groaned loudly, raising both hands to scrub down across his face. Because of course all that weirdness hadn’t changed a damn thing. B was gonna B, creepy and intrusive and all.

“And look into Danny.” He said flatly, locking eyes with Bruce in time to see his expression twitch. Was he actually gonna lie?

Apparently not. Bruce sighed and nodded.

“My focus will be on establishing a connection between “Brucie” and the Anti-Ecto Acts, and investigating the GIW. Danny has been involved in both, and Zatanna has requested the elder Fentons provide me with protection,” he said like it was anything but a weak excuse.

Jason stared at him for a long moment, and then figured fuck it. Actually telling them before he left was technically still an improvement, and Danny and Jason were both well aware that there was gonna be some nosy bullshit.

He’d warned Danny this was gonna happen, and Danny had said it was fine. That he didn’t care about anything Batman might find… and knowing just how badly the Justice League had fucked up was going to eat the asshole alive. Which he could have avoided just by listening.

About to just walk away, Jason hesitated. There was actually one thing… technically not a necessary for a halfa, but fuck it. Might as well get B used to some ghostly etiquette early.

“Have you asked Danny?”

Bruce stilled, giving Jason a complicated look that mostly felt like judgement. Like Jason should know better than to ask.

“I was under the impression that removing the Anti-Ecto Acts is a priority?” He said stiffly, all awkward tension again.

Jason really did roll his eyes this time.

“Sure, but you’re going to his haunt. You text Superman before investigating in Metropolis.” Which technically hadn’t even been true when Jason was actually Robin, but B did text Clark before getting caught investigating in Metropolis. By anything but Kryptonian hearing.

The protocol basically only applied whenever another hero wanted to operate within Gotham because only Batman cared, but it was on the League’s books.

Bruce had picked up the wording though, because of course he had.

“His haunt?” He asked carefully, that tiny tick between his brows that meant he was processing starting up.

Jason rolled his eyes harder. For emphasis. Had JL Dark actually missed this part of the briefing? He was so not writing up Ghost Etiquette 101 for the league. No way.

But. It. Might be kinda cool. To have for himself. Especially since it was gonna be increasingly relevant.

“He’s a ghost hero, B. He died there, he protects the city. He’s like, the only one who’ll actually get your territorial crap, because in his case it’s part of his makeup.”

Actually, might be part of B’s too. Danny hadn’t said how liminal Bruce in particular was, but it really wouldn’t surprise Jason if claiming a haunt was part of it. Or if Lady Gotham had already picked out a spot for him.

That thought stung, so he dismissed it immediately and turned towards the kitchen. Hell with the brownies he’d been planning, he was gonna need something much more complicated to keep his mind off the latest wave of bullshit.

Alfred liked soufflés. Jason could activate the house defences to keep the little gremlins out until they were done.

“Just fucking text him, B. Entering a ghost’s haunt without permission is declaring intent to throw down, and that’s a fight none of us need.” No matter how much he might like to watch B go up against the ridiculous power-set Danny was packing.

Sure, the Bat went toe to toe with the gods, but that was with plans, tech, and often, backup. Apparently he still didn’t know shit about ghosts, so it’d be fun to watch him try and adapt on the fly… especially when even Danny wasn’t sure how many actual powers were on the table.

**

Bruce hesitated for a long moment, looking at Jason’s retreating back.

That had gone… frankly he did not trust his own read on Jason enough to tell. Neither of them had yelled. He’d said what he was prepared to; he was still working on the appropriate format for the rest.

Jason… hadn’t reacted. Not with anger, which was a blessed relief, but not with anything else either. Except disbelief. Exasperation. Shock.

Not really any aggression, though. That had to be a decided improvement. And while part of Bruce suspected he’d been told to inform Danny so the boy could hide anything unsavoury….

He’d known that was likely to happen when he told Jason his plans. Jason would tell Danny; his allegiances there were firmly (and worryingly quickly) established.

Telling Danny himself… there was a chance that Jason had been serious about it being a matter of protocol. A formal request, for contact with an inter-dimensional entity.

Despite that entity being present and active in Bruce’s own city without so much as a nod to the Bat. But then, Batman was not a ghost, despite what the goons liked to suppose.

Firmly marshalling his own suspicions, Bruce pulled out his phone to message the youngest Fenton.

Stopped.

Bruce Wayne didn’t have the boy’s number. But Danny knew at least Nightwing’s identity; it was possible he knew them all.

He was going to Amity Park as Brucie Wayne, not Batman. But Brucie Wayne had no way to get the correct phone number. Unexpected contact from Batman was… well, expected, to an extent.

And his investigations would be handled and presented as Batman. Surely no one would challenge Brucie Wayne to a fight?

Mind made up, Bruce took his vigilante phone out and did a quick scan through his childrens’ updated contact lists. Most of them seemed to have been enjoying the company of the Amity Parkers; it wouldn’t be hard to get Danny’s contact information.

**

So. New year, new problems. Danny used to say it as a joke, but this year it was looking pretty darn literal.

Last year, for example, he hadn’t had to worry about his parents finding out about his supposed “love life” from a magazine (that Jazz must have sent them after they’d gone back to Amity Park, the traitor), and calling to hound him for details.

He’d managed to talk them out of driving the GAV straight to Gotham to threaten Jason into “treating him right”… which Jason thought was funny solely because he still didn’t actually know how large Jack Fenton was, nor how intense Maddie could be.

He still thought of them as civilians, and maybe a little less than competent, thanks to the database and their zero capture record.

Maybe Danny was cultivating that ignorance specifically so he could watch the moment of truth in person. Sue him, it was funny.

Unfortunately, since the magazine had also included that the gala they’d been “hooking up” at had been to celebrate Jason’s return from the dead, his mom had reached the halfa conclusion on her own. Danny had wanted to let Jason decide when to tell her, but that very first phone call the first words out of her mouth had been “Daniel James Fenton, have you met another halfa without telling us?”

And Danny had been so taken aback by them actually noticing anything (it was to do with ghosts, of course they’d noticed, he’d kicked himself for days after) that she’d taken his speechlessness as confirmation.

So.

They had that out of the way before they even said hi.

Despite Danny’s firm assurances that he and Jason weren’t actually dating, the papers were making the whole thing up (the photos hadn’t helped, but his dad seemed to buy that he’d been. Trying to help Jason fix his shirt. After the rogue attack, y’know), his parents had insisted on another call with Jason.

And Jazz. Because he had to introduce his sister to his new boyfriend too.

Jason had… taken it well? Hadn’t gotten much of a word in edgewise, around Jack Fenton’s boisterous laughter and insistence that he come around some time soon. He’d agreed with Danny that they definitely were not dating, which.

They weren’t.

They just weren’t.

They were just. Friends. Who hung out after classes in the evening. And texted all day. And told each other their deepest darkest soul secrets in like, a week after they’d met.

Danny’s mom had seemed a little more convinced by the end of the call, but still insisted Jason should come down to Amity Park anyway, to get to know the family.

Danny was still in denial about it being even a little bit helpful, but Jason had decided to drop the Fright Knight bomb right away. It was the actual real reason they were so close now, so it made sense as an explanation that wasn’t them being partners or whatever.

(Danny still hated it. Resented he couldn’t be trusted to just… have a friend. It always had to be something stupid and dramatic.

And he was totally offended by how immediately relieved his mom had been that he’d have someone “looking after him”. Like he wasn’t a whole ass adult for years already, and the king of a realm for longer than that.)

And now he was gonna have to call them back, and probably get a message to Fright Knight, because Danny’s newest problem was that Batman now had his phone number.

And was asking his permission to go to Amity Park to deal with the Anti-Ecto Acts.

(“Brucie Wayne” was officially the one going for the Acts, the message only said that Batman would be escorting the billionaire and gathering evidence separately, but Danny wasn’t fucking buying it.

And since Batman had his phone number and had used it, Tucker could technically get into Batman’s phone and prove it. Like Constantine showing up at Wayne Manor left a shadow of a doubt.

But noooo, Danny knew all about dramatics and billionaires and their sketchy underground labs. He could play along.)

Which, technically, might wind up solving one of his biggest problems.

It was also gonna completely ruin all the work he and Jason had done persuading the Fentons they weren’t dating; he could already hear his dad booming delightedly about meeting future in-laws. Because why else would Jason’s dad go to visit?

Not like there were actual laws on the books declaring Danny as a mandatory extermination target. Or like the Justice League might finally have gotten their thumbs out of their asses and want to check in.

Clearly Danny’s love life was the only thing that mattered.

At least he wouldn’t have to worry about that crap from Frighty; all the ghosts were gonna know all about Danny and Jason’s soul resonance (be still his beating fucking heart that was still ridiculous). He would have to let him know a superhero was gonna be in town though.

Actual ghosts weren’t likely to mistake Batman for one of their own and these days most of Danny’s rogue gallery was cool about not picking fights with humans without Fenton tech, but Danny figured better safe than sorry.

And.

Maybe.

Really wanted to see Batman and Fright Knight hang out. They were gonna totally love or totally hate each other, and either way he was a little sorry he was gonna miss it.

Unless he gave in and took time off class, kidnapped Jason from whatever work he did, and made the trip home… because he’d been direly warned that if he did show up without Jason, Jack Fenton would drive him back to Gotham personally. So, no. Nope. Not happening.

The long and the short of it was that instead of being blissfully free of his parents nagging him to visit until the summer, he was now fielding calls and texts demanding he come back home for March Break, at the latest. And bring Jason.

Mom wanted to “assess him”, which was fucking terrifying and the more Jason didn’t take it seriously the more Danny was tempted to actually make the trip. It would at least come with a defined end date. And force Jazz to take a break if she wanted to come too.

She at least had been less insistent on calling him every single day to bug him about it; probably because she was busy frying herself to death at university. She’d apologized for missing the group chat too, and the first family phone call, but it wasn’t a huge surprise.

Jazz had had the helicopter parent firmly knocked out of her by double majors, which Danny used to think was a good thing. Now he considered it might actually be a sign she was… not cracking under the pressure? But not taking care of herself.

Hopefully it wouldn’t return full force once she got some actual sleep and decent food in her.

Honestly, Danny wasn’t unaware that this was the most normal his problems had ever been. Just a few years ago he’d have done anything but wish to Desiree that his biggest problem would be “my parents think I’m dating one of my friends”.

Right now it was looking pretty good too, actually. Because at this precise second, Danny’s biggest problem was that he was running out of excuses not to talk to Nocturn.

***

Tim was beginning to think he had a bit of a crush on Tucker Foley. It was a surprise to him as much as anyone else; normally the kind of fawning adoration that tech geeks usually followed him with was an instant turn off. There was just… no point getting close to people who saw him as an idea, not a person.

And, frankly? The mere existence of Timblr probably would have been a red flag for anyone else. Sure, Tucker had closed it down, but it still existed - and Tucker Foley could have taken care of that easily.

The thing was… even under the hero worship he’d caught in Tucker’s eyes when they were first introduced… well, Tucker wasn’t exactly respectful to his heroes. That did tend to follow along with a friend in a teen hero career; everyone else was instantly less cool by association.

Tucker just plain wasn’t a good fanboy. He hung on Tim’s every word, right up until they started talking tech - the subject he most admired Tim for. Didn’t admire him enough not to cut him off half way through an explanation, call an idea “archaic”, or ask if Tim was serious.

(And okay, once or twice he hadn’t been; just testing his technical chops.)

The thing was, Tucker wasn’t only a genius with regular technology, he was a prodigy in an entirely new field of software and occult collusion, and he knew it. He was delighted to upgrade Tim’s systems (although Danny would still need to do the full ecto-infusions; Tucker could interface, but didn’t produce his own ectoplasm), and more than happy to point out everywhere they needed improving.

Tim genuinely respected his opinion, which wasn’t a distinction he gave to many people who’d never worn a cape; he’d already cc’d the other, Lucius Fox, into his and Tucker’s email chains. (Lucius was very enthusiastic about the oncoming apprenticeship - for him.)

And Tucker was funny, allergic to personal privacy, and… well, Tim was pretty sure he’d felt those first twinges when, as promised, he tagged Tucker in to help interrogate the Riddler.

Digitally, obviously. With Tucker’s classes starting back up and the New Years hangovers finally clearing the board, the next time they saw each other in person might be upsettingly far out. But Tucker had cheerfully hacked his way into Gotham PD’s systems and made himself comfortable while Red Robin and Batwoman waited for Riddler to be brought in.

Tim had so few pure pleasures in his life, but watching Kate try to keep a straight face when the interrogation room’s speakers began blasting what was essentially a stripper theme perfect for Eddie Nygma the second the door closed?

Riddler had been utterly baffled as well, talking over the beginning until they reached the chorus, where the singer practically spelled out his name. His stunned silence had given way to a burst of offended protest that was entirely undercut by the way his fingers kept time.

As the teen hero in the room, Red Robin was allowed to snicker at him, but Batwoman had to pretend to be an adult about it.

And when the first song ended, silence had fallen for what must have been a perfectly calculated fifteen seconds, and then the Jeopardy theme began playing.

Of course, soundtracking hadn’t been Tucker’s only contribution to the interrogation, just Tim’s favourite. Red Robin had the tablet from the gala back from evidence, from which Tucker had cheerfully admitted in Matrix style scrolling green text that he’d been the one back-hacking Nygma’s files… and locking him out of them.

And replacing every single link Nygma had clicked from the night of the gala to the day Batwoman hauled him in to a random page from Riddles.com, which Riddler had declared a new vendetta against every time anyone would listen. It was beautiful.

Robins were professionally annoying, it was part natural talent on all of their parts (except Damian) and part intensive training on how to disrupt thought patterns and push people into mistakes. Tucker could have led the class, and Tim had been overtaken by a powerful urge to kiss the smug grin he could feel through Tucker’s text straight off his face.

Of course, Tim had a boyfriend. And had been overtaken more than once by similar urges for almost every one of his friends, when they did something brilliant.

Steph called it oral fixation, Tim preferred positive reinforcement. Conner found the whole thing extremely funny, especially since Tucker still stumbled over his words if Conner was so much as looking at him.

Which made all of his siblings trying to tease him about Tucker’s “crush” on Tim look ridiculous, by the way. Tucker Foley was not a subtle man; he couldn’t even string a sentence together around someone he actually liked.

He could string plenty of sentences together around Tim, the two of them could finish each others’ half the time.

(He wasn’t upset about Tucker’s obvious interest in Conner either; Tim knew damn well his boyfriend was an incredible catch and he was lucky to have him. Tucker’s crush was just… peer review.)

Already he was counting down the days until March Break, when Tucker was going to visit in person again. Honestly, he might push to get a zeta put in nearer to MIT in the meantime.

It wasn’t like the institute was never targeted by supervillains, it would just be practical.

But Tim himself couldn’t suggest that now, because then all of his siblings would jump on the Tucker thing and he’d never hear the end of it. It was a dilemma… because even if Conner or Danny could just go and pick him up again, zeta was just faster.

It had nothing to do with missing time that Conner and Tucker were bonding, or being a puppy waiting for his master to come home, whatever Steph said.

(And honestly, Tucker Foley? Not exactly commanding “master” material. Until he was talking about his area of expertise. Then he was certain and confident and got this really attractive gleam in his eye…)

The quickest solution would be getting all of Team Phantom officially involved in the Justice League, of course. Then he wouldn’t even need to suggest it; close zeta access was vital for all of the heroes.

But Team Phantom couldn’t join the League until Phantom’s existence was no longer illegal. So they had to dismantle the Anti Ecto Acts. Bruce was investigating the GIW, and planning what he probably thought was a secret trip to Amity Park, but none of it was happening fast enough for Tim… because it probably wouldn’t be done by March Break. In two months.

He’d broken more than just the American government in two months; all it took was the right leverage. And a complete lack of self restraint.

So, y’know, Tim had a new side project in and around his other Gotham cases. All he needed was a house and then senate majority, and they could get those laws repealed the second the government came back from break.

Lois Lane was already working on the story, Clark would probably join Bruce in Amity Park (whether he knew Bruce was there or not) for interviews. There was only so much public pressure could do though, and that never worked fast enough either.

Not compared to Tim’s preferred methods. He liked the personal touch.

****

Fun fact, slower core formation? Had not meant slower ghost powers. Not in Jason’s case, anyway; not even a week after his core came in, a coffee cup had slipped straight through his hand and shattered on the floor.

He’d stopped handling Alfred’s good china that day, mindful of Danny’s many horror stories about the school lab’s glassware. Alfred hadn’t actually questioned it, although he’d gotten a couple of raised eyebrows when he slid a junk mug toward the kettle.

It was just a good thing he’d already cut down patrolling; he’d been planning to take a step back anyway for a while. Just until he got the balance right between being Red Hood and the newly resurrected Jason Todd.

He’d had to stop entirely, at least until he got the intangibility under control. Sure, becoming temporarily impervious to weapons would be convenient when he got to choose when it switched off or on. Phasing various limbs half way through solid surfaces and getting stuck though?

No.

Not a chance in Hell. That was not an acceptable risk.

Invisibility had started not long after, which had definitely complicated his trips to the manor; all the bats were good, but vanishing completely out of the blue? That would raise comment.

The good news was that the glacierfrost seemed to be helping there too; either because of the ecto in the ice, or just keeping his emotions regulated, which kept the powers from acting up. Jason wasn’t taking unnecessary risks, but he’d noticed that for at least a couple hours after a hit, he was in more control.

Intentionally turning the powers on was still a struggle, but apparently that’d just get better with time. And probably fighting - that was the common denominator under all his ghost problems.

Ghost Fight Club was officially starting the second he’d got the transformation down, but how exactly they were going to try and trigger that in a controlled environment was still… less clear than Jason would like.

They’d have to work it out soon though; the only other ability that was likely to kick in before he could transform was flight, according to Danny. Time was a-tickin’.

And… alright. It wasn’t like Jason was sat at home every night; that was what he and Danny were doing after school now that they’d cut back to at least a couple days a week. A little practice on budding ghost powers, with backup.

“Surveying his haunt” was what Danny called it, but it basically meant Danny going ghost and Jason putting on a domino he claimed he borrowed from Dick, and the two of them bouncing around the Alley. And occasionally Danny pushing him off roofs to see if flight had kicked in yet.

(It hadn’t, but he still had his grapples, and refused to let Danny rescue him from his own bullshit.)

Sensing the city’s natural ecto had gotten much easier with his core fully developed, and Danny was teaching him how to mark it with his own. Pitty’s ongoing corruption was fucking it up though; it was still producing corrupted ectoplasm, and actually more of it now that they were both whole.

(Jason had started sleeping with Frostbite’s ghost succulent next to his pillow. That was how he’d noticed the new blue glow, which he still meant to ask about. It was still firm and strong, and it… didn’t feel sick?)

Corrupted ecto reeked so strongly of that corruption that it was completely useless for anything else, apparently. So until they finally finished purging Pitty, what all their little adventures actually amounted to was tagging.

Danny made them special ecto-spray-paint, and they spent the nights finding weirder and weirder corners to spray a little mark onto. Jason would have liked to use something to do with Red Hood, for the symmetry, but. Well. He hadn’t worked out how to have that conversation yet.

He’d been making do with little ghost doodles. It had been years since he’d done any real graffiti art, but it was like riding a bike, and the ecto sprayed really well. A cartoon ghost wasn’t all that hard anyway; an elongated little blob, occasionally with little fangs or unattached clawed hands.

He’d been going for something like an Among Us bean, but Danny had declared that he was drawing Pitty, and well… it stuck. Doodling little Pit ghosts was the order of the day, ranging from cute little Pittys (modelling good behaviour, Danny called it) or vicious little bastards, depending on how both Jason and Pitty had been that day.

Because that was definitely one piece of good news, in with all the bullshit new ghost powers was causing. Before he’d felt surges of rage, the moments where the Pit was reaching out and trying to affect him. Universally bad, aggressive, and violent, pre-Danny.

He could kinda feel it all the time now, like a heated scarf draped over his body, or the constant breathing of a dog just behind his ear. It was quiet mostly, and he was beginning to suspect it had cost more energy than he’d ever expected for it to reach out to him at all.

For all that he’d worried about it being too much like raising a kid, it… well, the nice way to say it was probably that it wasn’t that bright. It could talk to him in ghostspeak, kind of; most of what he actually heard felt like emotional reactions, closer to speaking through auras than words despite how much it’d felt like it was crawling up his throat.

The Pit could handle basic concepts, recognised Danny’s name, but other than that? It mostly seemed to follow Jason’s emotional lead… and then dial it up to eleven. Which, yeah, was exactly what he’d been scared of when he thought it might be like, a whole ass person. Toddlers were terrifying little sponges.

Jason’s experience of kids wasn’t exactly what he’d call normal, sure, but Pitty was reminding him less of a kid and more and more of some kind of small and bitey animal.

Which, y’know, was a relief. Sort of. It wasn’t like he could fuck up an animal in the same way as he could a kid. Nowhere near the same level of responsibility.

Just. When he thought about the pit rage, the idea of it being attached to something which literally had fangs and claws was not exactly reassuring. Even at the size of a chihuahua.

A little impromptu art therapy while they marked his haunt wasn’t exactly helping with that part, but it wasn’t hurting. And he was trying to explain that feeling bad was not actually dangerous or harmful… via spray paint.

He was only about 70% sure that Pitty could see.

But it got him out and about, kept him in shape at least for swinging from roof tops, and gave him an excuse to hang out with Danny. It did involve actively avoiding anything he’d normally investigate (at least until he had a reasonable explanation… or brought up the Red Hood thing)… but it felt good. It was soothing.

Even knowing full well he’d made plans, prepared extensively, still had his guys making sure the Alley was safe and all was well, he still found himself itching to patrol on the nights he stayed in.

He could only assume that was part of the whole Haunt thing; he had good people working under him, and a couple of bright lieutenants that while he’d never let them wear the hood, he was comfortable giving them some solo enforcement missions to keep the fear of Red Hood in everyone’s hearts. All relevant parties, anyway.

Luckily he still had the library project as a convenient excuse for the bats. It kept them off his ass, and Jason could admit that it probably wouldn’t have taken much to persuade him to take a night run.

And get his ass stuck half way through some fucking wall somewhere, or lose a foot to a rooftop, and need to break himself free or call Danny in the fucking suit. Nope.

(He’d been tempted to let his family think he was saving his nights for Danny, which wasn’t even completely untrue; Danny wasn’t over every night anymore, not with his school schedule, but if he wasn’t over they texted.

Jason had begun saving a meme folder just for things to show Danny, which had quickly absorbed his full folder for death jokes and just kept going. Danny was going to be a very supportive “father” for their fake pit-kid, and had clearly been stockpiling dad jokes to send back.)

Honestly though, Jason was just relieved he’d already planned to slow the vigilante side for a while in the wake of his official revival; there was a lot that had to be done to come back from the dead, and a lot more he could do with official Wayne backing for areas of Crime Alley that Hood couldn’t touch.

He’d even let some of the bats in on those plans before Danny showed up; it wasn’t a surprise that he wasn’t patrolling. They were mostly leaving him alone about it, although Dick had offered to pop his Red Hood gear on and run a couple of patrols if things got too rowdy.

Jason had told him to fuck off, then got his street kids spreading the rumour that Hood was gearing up for something big. Let people think that the momentary quiet was just the first rumbles for an oncoming storm.

Hell, let them think Hood was in cahoots with Jason Todd-Wayne; that or preparing to run him out of the Alley. Let both of his lives work together for a while. The rumours shut half the fucking low-level dealers up; no one was pushing anything within three blocks of his territory, in case Hood was planning an expansion.

That’d boil over after a while and bite him in the ass if he didn’t go and kick something down, but for now it worked. He had so much to do for the library, for the new shelters from the Wayne foundation, for the soup kitchens. He actually was pretty busy, even on his nights in.

Fuck, he’d even taken time to hang out with the actual Alley kids, as Jason and Hood. The mouthy little shits kept him grounded, and maybe he’d tried it as a trial run for Pitty, but since that wasn’t gonna be the same problem he’d kept it up as a test of his own patience.

Which had. Very abruptly. Become the cause of one of his biggest concerns. Because the biggest change since his core came in had actually taken him a couple more days to notice.

Because now, Jason could see the fingerprints of the new entity.

That hadn’t been fun to work out; he’d been intentionally taking it slow until his core formed. Part of him had been sorta hoping to be able to just avoid anything that might set them both off until the Pit was ready to pop out on its own. Nothing related to the new case he couldn’t start, nothing related to the Joker or pits or any of that shit.

So when some of the kids had been showing up with some weird shadowy smudge on their clothes, he’d assumed it was the usual Gotham grime. They claimed not to see it, he threw them at the laundry room and cussed them out, it always came off.

Now the Curse, the Curse was staying out of Crime Alley entirely. He’d seen it during the day once or twice, a shadow attached where it shouldn’t be, a flicker over Damian or Tim’s shoulder. He always knew when the Curse was around now, a frosty fog filled his lungs whenever it was close.

(Danny had called it his “ghost sense”, which was lame but Jason didn’t have a better idea.)

And those smudges didn’t have the same kind of ozone-aftertaste that the Curse left in his mouth.

And then one of his girls, maybe seven years old, had come in with that same kind of smeared shadow sticking through soft black hair. He’d had some sharp fucking words with the older kids about that, he didn’t expect them to stay pristine at all times, but for fucks sake it was clumping.

Basic hygiene fucking mattered on the street, none of them could afford a proper de-matting or even a decent razor to shave their heads, so Jason had instilled the importance of bare-minimum finger combing in every one of them years ago. You could live with a fucking rug dragging at your skull, but it made absolutely everything harder.

He’d sat the girl on a stool and washed her hair in a bucket himself, while repeating the same fucking lecture to the other girls. Noticed half way through that while the sticky shit was indeed washing out of her hair, it wasn’t being broken down by the soap.

It was clinging to him instead, seeping into the creases of his fingers and under his nails. He’d tried not to visibly react, giving her a last rinse and wrapping her hair in a towel-hat that she didn’t stop touching for the next forty minutes, fucking it up a dozen times.

The smudgy crap had washed off his hands eventually, but when he saw Danny the next day he’d visibly backed up a few steps, then given Jason about six shots of ecto because his was apparently rancid again. No prizes for spotting the connection, and from there it was obvious.

And then he’d seen Harley the next day, that same smudgy crap a handprint around her fucking throat, and he’d seen red. Hot, angry, blood red, and it not being green had startled the life out of him.

(Harley noticed. Duh. It was her thing. And while Jason couldn’t just tell her some malevolent fucking entity made from her shitty ex was crawling through the city, he’d been as honest as he could be.

Harley definitely couldn’t see the smudges. Danny hadn’t had any answers or way to make it stop fucking touching people.)

Hypothetically, this was all gonna be good in the end. It’d make things easier, being able to see and track this shitstain’s work.

It did not feature in his “don’t get pissed off or think about work” plan.

It was just faintly possible that obsession, self flagellation, and a desire to be personally responsible for fucking everything might be more than just Bruce’s problem. Could maybe be a family affair.

Jason made more pies. Occasionally narrating what he was doing aloud, half for Pitty’s benefit and half for Danny’s when the little shit was crashing on his couch.

It was fine. He was coping. Another couple weeks, Danny reckoned, and Pitty would be out of his body and he could get back to his fucking life.

With a pet Pit ghost in tow, apparently, but if the worst came to the worst he could fucking soup the thing once it was outside him.

(He was also going to teach Danny to make soup. Proper soup. On principle.)

**

Preparing for his trip to Amity Park had taken longer than Bruce had expected. Not least because Alfred had finally run out of patience, and sentenced him to bedrest for the next 12 hours after he returned from the Justice League meeting lest he unlock the tranquilizer guns and give his children free reign.

In the old days, when he’d just become Batman, Bruce had assumed Alfred would never be able to catch him anyway. He’d been cocky and confident in his skills, and often ignored Alfred’s demands.

And yet the man always seemed to know, raising a disapproving eyebrow at Bruce every time he’d slipped back into the room just before Alfred made his rounds.

And then Steph came into his life, and Bruce learned all too fast that Alfred had merely been waiting for appropriate safeguards. That was three kids along of course, but by now Bruce knew exactly why it had been Steph Alfred had waited for.

His relationship with Dick was too tumultuous. While Dick never feared Bruce and was perfectly happy to join Alfred in nagging and bossing him around, by the time Dick moved out Bruce had half expected to only see his son at Justice League meetings, if at all.

They were different men, and Dick had always had an anger in him that Bruce couldn’t fathom. He’d mastered it, his control very rarely slipping, but… Bruce had trained Dick himself, and he was one of a very short list of people that Bruce had no concrete backup plan for.

Nothing but hope to make him cocky with the first attack, and pray the second caught him off guard.

His relationship with Dick hadn’t improved until Tim came into his life… and helped him get his head out of his ass.

Jason? Jason had been an angel. A scruffy, beaten down angel with badly bruised wings when Bruce first picked him up, but he’d flourished in Wayne Manor. He’d taken to Robin with joy and enthusiasm, but had more devotion to his studies than any of Bruce’s kids before or since.

He’d even stay in to study for tests, and if things had been different… perhaps he’d have been the one to break Bruce’s obsession with his night life.

But Bruce had begun taking that good heart for granted, pushed when he should have listened, and sent Jason to his death.

Tim had a hard enough time keeping Bruce from killing himself, along with anyone who stood in the way of his mission. He was a solemn, serious little boy from the start, and though Dick took a more active role this time around and declared himself a big brother (possibly to spite Bruce)… well.

It had to be Steph.

Steph, who would vehemently deny being one of his from whoa to go, was just like all of his children; a feral little gremlin. But Steph had that one more element too, the one which young Dick had had in spades but pulled back from with Bruce years before.

Steph liked to have fun.

Tim treated Bruce as a mission just as much as Gotham was Bruce’s, and Dick had never forgiven him for Jason. Or the fights that went before. Neither could pick up a Nerf gun and hunt him through the city in pure play in those days.

Until Steph gave them the guns, of course. Now any and every one of his children would happily take a tranq gun from Alfred and merrily stalk him through the manor and city at large, and even to the Watchtower if he tempted fate (and Tim).

Bruce was powerless against them, although pride warred with frustration every single time one of them managed to drug him to sleep. He’d trained them well. Well enough that they’d put what was right over what he wanted, that none of them were even a little afraid of him.

He’d planted the seeds of his own destruction.

So when he’d seen Duke and Dick hanging “casually” around the halls while Alfred escorted him to bed, he’d resigned himself to twelve hours of rest.

He’d slept for sixteen. And woke feeling much better, to his own chagrin. His head felt clearer, the migraine almost gone, and the sudden swoops of nausea had finally begun to pass.

He still had odd moments, especially when he’d been on the computer planning the trip to Amity Park for too long, but he’d reluctantly agreed with Alfred. He needed to fully recover from his concussion; that meant rest. And taking days and weeks instead of hours.

Amity Park would still be there, after all. He couldn’t get back the years they’d been late. He’d had to concede another two weeks.

Zatanna had also demanded an explanation for why he was suddenly interested in the town - luckily the Anti-Ecto Acts provided a sufficient cover. They were even most of the reason he was going.

She could also see the gravity of the situation, and offered to put him in touch with some local specialists who claimed to have tech that would keep him from being possessed. Specialists named “Fenton”. Because of course they were.

She’d offered him a ward as well, but mostly in jest. She knew how Bruce felt about magic, and had told him science was on the table almost immediately.

Bruce knew full well it wasn’t a coincidence. Formerly regarded as quacks, the Fentons had been featured prominently in all of their Amity Park news sources. Usually as menaces and a hazard to society, which aligned with what the Mansons had told him.

Still, their actions had nothing to do with the character of their son. Danny Phantom had been Amity Park’s protector for six years, although he’d not had many serious ghosts to fight for the last three.

As Foley had claimed, the ghosts seemed to have settled into a status of local nuisance that was oddly aligned with the Fentons senior; loud, intrusive, and often an inconvenience to your day, but not the threats to life, limb, or infrastructure that had characterised the first years after the portal opened.

Amity Park’s general consensus seemed to be that Danny Phantom had tamed the ghosts, won over the Fentons, and quite efficiently saved the day. He hadn’t been sighted there much in the past year, but that was because he’d been in Gotham.

In school. Finally being able to study and look towards his future.

His main heroic endeavours in the last three years of his career had involved the same GIW, the Ghost Investigation Ward that Foley had told Tim about. They unfortunately had not followed the general trend of de-escalation… although they had been rather subdued in the last year.

It felt different to Bruce, though. Incidents were less frequent, but those occurrences where they did find a ghost had become markedly more violent. The decreased frequency seemed to have lulled the townsfolk into believing they were also less of a threat, but the problem with pushing your enemies into a corner was how much more dangerous a cornered animal became.

There was something worrying happening with the GIW, that would have borne looking into even if he wasn’t also looking to understand Danny better. Preparing everything he’d need for the official investigation was most of what had slowed him down.

Of course, he was going to Amity Park as Brucie Wayne, not as Batman. Vlad Masters’ friendship was going to help him there; the man had been delighted to invite him down for the weekend when Bruce had reached out.

A little faked enthusiasm for football and interest in Vlad’s favourite team and he was a seemingly completely open book. He was more than happy to give Brucie the grand tour of his little town, and even promised a personal escort from the airport.

Bruce was beginning to suspect that getting away from the man might be more of a challenge, although he was another potentially useful source of information on the Amity Park situation.

Not that Masters was a particularly high priority source. But Bruce could admit he may have been hasty to dismiss his views on Danny as being biased, and as mayor he should know something about the GIW operations in his city… and given how many contracts with the agency could be traced back to his companies in the early days of the agency’s formations, he would be a much more serious subject for investigation than a source.

The good news was, everything was now in place. He had Danny’s permission and would be flying down to Amity Park in a matter of hours, and had already bought out the entire top floor of a local hotel, so he should have plenty of privacy to operate from.

With any luck, being able to set things in motion to repeal the Anti-Ecto Acts could also be a first step towards patching things up with Jason… and with Danny. No matter what conclusions Bruce came to in Amity Park, the Justice League owed Danny Phantom a serious apology, and the Infinite Realms some swift action.

Their negligence could have sparked an inter-dimensional war, and nearly had cost a young man his future. Bruce was self aware enough to admit that the guilt of that knowledge was a major factor in why he hadn’t spoken to Danny face to face again.

Yet.

At least Danny had given him permission to visit and explore his haunt. That had to count for something.

He was going to apologize. Probably after giving Jason the proper apology his son so richly deserved. Perhaps Jason would even be willing to help him work out how to properly apologize to Danny too; Bruce wasn’t good at apologies at the very best of times, but Harley had made it explicitly clear that he was going to be getting in a lot of practice.

**

Now, ya can call Harley Quinn a lot of things (and people definitely have), but one thing she ain’t despite the goofball act? Stupid.

Somethin’ was up in Gotham, somethin’ one heck of a lot weirder than all the weird shit that had marked her time in the city.

Oh, she’d gone an’ had another word with Brucie after Waylon told her how Jason’d had to leave through the roof after his talk with Constantine.

(She’d hunt Johnny-boy down later too, probably just after he decided she wasn’t gonna come for ‘im and stopped hiding, but odds on? Brucie’s fault, and Connie was just his unfortunate messenger.)

The thing was, he’d decided to sicc Johnny on poor Jason before they’d had their little talk, so by the time she caught him again he was already all downcast and shamefaced. Already admitting he done fucked up.

And it just wasn’t satisfyin’ to kick him while he was down, an’ while he was already tryin’. He’d even decided on his own to leave both boys alone for now, to let things cool down before tryin’ again.

Now, Mama Quinzel didn’t raise no dummy, she could see a million ways ol’ Brucie’s plan to go and try an’ fix Amity Park for Danny was gonna go wrong. But she wasn’t an expert at this ghost business, so she didn’t pretend to be.

She did exactly what she’d told Brucie to do; consulted an actual expert.

She asked Sammy and Jazzy, Danny’s big sis who was just a real darlin’, in their group chat (which had been popping off since Sammy was a lil sweetheart and set it up for ‘em; Jazzy-boo was of doin’ all kinds of neurological shit but she’d read some psych textbooks in her day, and Harley loved watching a self taught student grow). An’ then she hunted down Jason and Danny, to ask ‘em directly.

Which had been when she’d got her first clue that somethin’ was up; when Jason looked at her like she was still wearin’ a certain other clown’s paint, all stiff and locked up and full of anger.

See, that’d happened before. When they first met, him fresh outta the grave, her fresh outta Hell. When he’d asked if she and Joker were really through, an’ she’d told him hell yeah.

When he’d asked if she’d get in his way of killing the asshole.

That anger, all tight an’ tense an’ burstin’ had been wrapped around his throat then, chokin’ him on it. It was cooler now, more human, more like somethin’ the sweet lil sunshine child who could melt her heart with his tears could feel.

It still wasn’t, ya’know, in the vague vicinity of healthy, but she’d seen Jason Todd about to lose his shit before. An’ his hands shook when he touched her, when he asked what the hell she’d done to her neck.

Harley’d taken a good long look in several bathroom mirrors since. There was nothin’ she could see there, but Harley Quinn had been a short term guest in more than one Hell. There was plenty of shit she was all too happy not ta see.

Then there was ol’ Harvey. She’d run him down faster’n the bats, because she wasn’t also chasin’ Riddler, Great White Shark, at least three new plots from ol’ Pengy, or a suspiciously quiet and freshly escaped Scarecrow.

Two-Face had been all quiet an’ polite since his heist on the young Mr Todd’s party went tits up, so he’d flown under their radar.

Not hers.

Harley always made time for her old friends.

And Harvey had been weird too. Twitchy, on edge, jumpin’ at shadows. That happened if he thought the ol’ Bat was after ‘im, but he’d had no reason to think that. An’ for all he’d flipped his little coin and played up the bit, Harley knew when her friends were off.

Something had put Harvey on edge. Stuffed a bee up his ass and made him all snappy.

He’d even tried to pull a gun! On her! His sweet, darlin’, perfectly loveable and innocent Harleen!

So, ya’know, when she’d touched ground again an’ he’d run outta bullets, she’d knocked it outta his hands before he could reload and reminded him there were more than just Bats to fear. There was also her bat.

An’ by the time they were both all tired out and slumped against each other to order smoothies, he’d admitted he didn’t know why he’d decided to go fer young Jason. To attack their buddy Brucie’s boy.

Now, Harley wasn’t sure Harvey knew silly ol’ Brucie was the Big Bad Bat. She suspected he did, somewhere, in the part of him he hid from all the unpleasantness.

If he knew, he was repressin’ it real deep.

But he’d seen word of the gala, an’ something inside him went dark, and he’d flipped a coin. Got all sorts of plastic explosive of all things ready to really give Gotham a show they wouldn’t forget.

An’ then when it was time to roll out, nunna his cars’d start. An’ he’d flipped the coin again. And stayed home.

She snagged the detonators on his explosives on the way out, on principle. There were some rules after all, and while the Bats could certainly handle anythin’ ol’ Harvey could build, he shouldn’a shot at her.

Harley Quinn was officially out of the rogue game, but that had nothin’ ta do with shit disturbing. She was beginning to wonder though.

Somethin’ was weird in Gotham, a kinda energy in the streets that wasn’t the same black stubbornness she’d known and loved. Somethin’ that felt a little nastier. A little closer to biting.

Now, Harley Quinn was a lotta things. She also wasn’t a lotta the things everyone else thought she was.

She was no quitter. She was no fool. She was no coward to turn tail from some nasty vibes. She might still be a teensy weensy bit mentally disturbed, as you say, but she had her shit together.

An’ she knew when somethin’ else was tryin’ ta play with her head.

Much as she loved Gotham like a second home, she was beginnin’ ta wonder if she shouldn’t head back to Pammy an’ let their mystery of who was givin’ Coney Island a hard time sit with the Bats.

——————

The song Tucker’s playing for Tim and Nygma is here:

Tag List - @welcometosasakiworld @someonebored0100 @stealingyourbones @starkcravingmad @frostedthroughghost @akikkobara @rainbowbunny0159 @littlefeather345 @violet-catsarelife @serasvictoria02 @wolfjackle @blacksea21090 @secretdestinywerewolf @anime-hipster-the-amazing @undead-essence e @skitscratched @blackroserelina a @snoodly-boop @mayoota-blog @xysidhe @little-apricot-the-writer @chaoticmistake @the-legal-shipper @bun-fish @aroranorth-west @demon-cat-goes-woof @perfectwastelandcreation @onyxlightdragon @larks-and-katydids @peachesandcreamfemboy @jesus-camp-the-sequel @may-rbi @mothman-the-mothman87 @viyatrix @stargirl1331 @idfk-man10 @thedepressedrobin n @skulld3mort-1fan @rootsmudge @ravenshadow17 7 @cankoking @phantom-dc @mentalcarebear @magic-pincushion @redamancyardor @lyra689 @itsparadoxlacuna @alcorbearson n @asphyxia778 @why-must-i-be-like-this s @tkiesai @greenpyrowolf @frivolous-pastel @honeysuckletook @adorkable1291

IMPORTANT NOTE! Since about half the tag list no longer links to a blog, I will probably be retiring it for chapter 20, so either comment and let me know you still wanna be on it, or proceed on over to AO3 for alerts!

Part two:

[amourdivine]

PAC ઉ YOUR CURRENT ENERGY!

Hello, lovelies, I know it has been some time, but I missed you. I hope everyone is doing ok these days. Let's look into your energy today, shall we?

paid readings are closed as of february 2024

none of the images are mine unless stated otherwise!

pick a card masterlist & information

the piles.

1 → 2 3 → 4

how to choose your pile.  take deep breaths for a few minutes & look at each and every one of the piles separately. see which one brings you to a feeling, a place or a memory. take your time and feel free to come back to it later.

amourdivine. 2021 - 2024 © do not copy, redistribute or edit my content.

disclaimer. this is a general reading! tarot is a divination tool & is not a substitute for medical and professional advice, nor is it meant to be taken as such. i do not take responsibility for any choice(s) made by you or others regarding my readings.

PILE ONE

queen of cups ✧ death ✧ ace of swords ✧ the high priestess

Before I shuffled, I couldn’t help but feel lonely, like there’s this pang in my chest whenever I think of life and the current state of the world. It reminds me of the term “loneliness epidemic” and how so many of us are struggling to make friends or maintain pre-existing relationships. I think you are beginning to find emotional fulfillment in different things than you did before. Nothing may have worked out - at least, the things that used to work out aren’t working out anymore. There’s this voice inside of you begging for a new beginning, for clarity, and it’s slow but surely coming towards you. Where your energy is will wildly depend on how much you’ve listened to that inner voice already, but it’s a calling towards something new, regardless.

I think you’re scared because you haven’t done this before. You may be discovering things about yourself as well that are quite surprising, like new hobbies or gifts. It’s refreshing too, both painful and refreshing. Sort of like the concept of growing pains - growing up is not easy and there are no guidelines, no roadmaps. Often, we discover things through trial and error. 

You may have withdrawn your energy as well, especially from old social circles. I get the feeling you were unsatisfied. Things felt stuck. They may still feel stuck, boring and completely lost in the routine of it all. It’s okay. You’re growing. Bones can hurt when they heal and grow. The same goes for you. I see snakes here, shedding their old skin. In your case, I don’t think you have found a “new skin” already, but you’ve shed your old life either way. It’s okay to want more, pile one. It’s okay to change. We’re ever-evolving. What suited you then won’t suit you now, that’s how life goes, with the changing of the seasons. It’s beautiful to witness - and when you look back you’ll realize just how much we can shift, how many places we’ll go and how much more there is to life than our old selves.

It’s okay to let it go. You’ll be okay even if the waters are muddy for now.

This is a very spiritual pile! Make sure to cater to your emotional and spiritual needs, taking care of your physical body and being around soothing, comforting or quiet places while you tend to this new self.

channeled messages & songs: white snakes, ring, scarf, life path 8 (or 8 in general), silver jewelry, bodies of water, sleeping, bed-rotting, kundalini awakening, modern loneliness by lauv, scorpio, pisces and cancer, hermitting, social batteries, introvert, epiphany, books, the bible, prophetic dreams, chocolate, ego death. 

PILE TWO

six of cups ✧ the hanged man ✧ eight of cups ✧ seven of wands

You are returning to yourself, it feels like a sort of homecoming. Fighting for your peace while, at the same time, learning to accept what you can’t control. You have walked away from old beliefs, from restraints of the past and renewing your faith in yourself. Even the picture you’ve chosen is a close-up of someone’s outfit walking away. You’ve found dignity and you’re not willing to sacrifice it anymore. Maybe you’ve left a situationship or relationship that was draining you, molding you into someone you weren’t. Props to you for that. It’s not easy and I know it.

Your guides are proud - they’re very serious and regal. They think you deserve more than what you’ve had. Not in a self-serving way, don’t mistake it for self-indulgence, but in a human, dignified way. They see you as royalty, too. They don’t want you to settle for breadcrumbs in life anymore. No matter how difficult it’s been, they don’t want you to stop believing that things can get better.

For most of you, this is a time when you’re shifting into a more peaceful but assertive phase. You’re taking charge of your joy, your future and your responsibilities without clinging to self-blame or guilt. Maybe it took you a long time. I heard “recovery” in my mind and this has possibly something to do with a specific illness or disease you’ve battled for so long. There’s a huge feeling of relief, of taking a long breath after a tiring day. 

It’s okay, you’re home now, you’re safe now. You can relax. You’ve got this, pile two.

channeled messages & songs: therapy, journaling, barbie or baby doll, sage green, green tea, pastels, tiktok, doomscrolling, healing, “i’m not the girl i used to be”, rainbow by kacey musgraves, self-acceptance, shadow work, “i’m still standing”, camping, nature, libra and taurus.

PILE THREE

three of swords ✧ the hermit ✧ the star ✧ queen of pentacles

Your heart is broken. Someone or something has left you to lick your wounds and tend to the bruises they gave you. You’re in pain, so much pain that it may be unbearable to wake up everyday. You’re questioning your worth, your self-esteem has crumbled.. and you don’t want anyone to find you, to see you in such a vulnerable state. All you do now is hope for better days, pray a rainbow comes after the storm because the current is heavy and has taken you astray.

Unfortunately life can’t always be what we want or expect. Allow room for these heavy emotions - this too shall pass. It’s okay to be disappointed, to feel betrayed and hurt by what happened. If the ground was pulled beneath your feet, was it ever really that solid to begin with?

This is the aftermath of something painful. And that’s okay. You can’t force yourself to feel good. In the meantime, you can take it slow, nurture the hope for better days and hold onto it. I know we tend to view hope as mostly something negative and passive, but you can take baby steps towards emotional fulfillment. The Queen of Pentacles suggests you take it slow - there is no rush to healing, nothing to be accomplished, there is nothing for you to prove. You’re human, and therefore, worthy of compassion, patience and healing. Remember the Wheel of Fortune: what comes up must go down, what goes down must go up eventually. You’ll feel better, pile three. I promise.

channeled messages & songs: taking a walk, flower pot, cacti, heartbreak anthems, olivia rodrigo, punk rock, “i’m angry all the time”, hurts like hell by fleurie, capricorn, saturn, personal year 5, backstabbing, depression, navy blue by muna.

PILE FOUR

the hanged man ✧ the hierophant ✧ six of pentacles ✧ the star

You’re learning and teaching. Giving and receiving. Letting the scales balance themselves out, remembering that balance is not always fifty fifty. All the piles have had somewhat similar themes, so I wouldn’t be surprised if you have felt drawn to either pile one or two, but this one feels like a continuation of it, so it could be that you’re transitioning from one to another. Naturally, please take only what resonates for you!

You may have found a new job, a stable relationship, a good circle of friends. You know, despite the positive feeling of these cards, I can’t help but wonder if you’re waiting for it all to crumble again, feeling like the shadows of your past are going to haunt you forever. I keep wondering if you’re okay, I keep wanting to ask you. You’re scared, you’ve got your guard up. You can’t really trust it will last - and while it’s true that it all comes and goes, you can trust nothing is ever wasted. 

Let your guard down. Not everyone has your worst interests in their heart. Maybe self-isolation suited you before, didn’t it? You weren’t used to being loved, you still aren’t. But you still deserve it. Sometimes it’s easier to endure the hard things because they’re all we expect. It’s difficult to take in the good things, isn’t it? To feel worthy of them. To realize there is more to life than survival. You’re finally living now - and that’s a good thing. Uncertainty is scary, but in a way, so is the familiarity of hurt, of unrequited lovers and callous friendships. Are you ready to be loved, pile four? You can ask for the good times as much as you want, but when it is here, you have to remember to enjoy it, to not be on the lookout for the bad things so much.

We’re rarely in control. I know it’s difficult, but that’s often a good thing. Not being in control means you can worry less. You can fret less. You can take it day by day, knowing that the outside forces will do what they must and we’re all silly little souls on a giant floating rock.

PS: You’re doing well, I promise.

channeled messages & songs: self-sabotage, nightmares, attachment issues, bulletproof by la roux, bones, candles by daughter, earrings, 2024 planner, five year plan, entj, istj, quiet singing, “the pen is mightier than the sword”, studying, sweater weather, stress cleaning, autumn girl.

amourdivine. 2021 - 2024 © do not copy, redistribute or edit my content.

[strwbmei]

Hullo Mei!

I was hoping I could request something similar to the hu tao / Miko thing but for Tingyun and Ganyu. Basically reader coming home after a rotten day very out of it and clinging to them for comfort and warmth as they slowly fall asleep.

:)

pairing(s): pre-established ganyu x gn!reader, pre-established tingyun x gn!reader

Ganyu

: ̗̀➛ This woman is as, if not more, tired than you are. Still, that doesn't mean it doesn't kill her to see you so out of it. All she wants is for you to be happy and healthy, but she's not really sure how to help you with that considering how different a human and an adeptus' perception of happiness is.

: ̗̀➛ She tries, though! She'll do all of the things that you do for her every time she's had a rough day at work, getting you water and food, and spoiling you with cuddles and kisses at every opportunity that she has.

: ̗̀➛ Also, she'll ask you about your day and lend you an ear for all of your vents about whatever annoyed you, which eventually ends up with the two of you asleep in each other's arms.

: ̗̀➛ If she wakes up first, which she most likely will, she'll (try to) cook you your favorite meal. It pains her to have to leave the warmth of your embrace, especially when you look at her with those eyes, but your health comes first!

: ̗̀➛ Her cooking isn't world-class or anything, but nothing tastes better than your favorite meal when it's served by your absolute beauty of a partner!

: ̗̀➛ Afterward, she'll put on a movie (which usually just ends up as white noise to both of you) as you enjoy each other's company. The two of you fall asleep again, but this time, you fall asleep content and full of energy.

Tingyun

: ̗̀➛ She's not surprised when you come home looking like you've been dragged to hell and back— after all, she herself has been there multiple times in the span of her long life. She is very worried, though.

: ̗̀➛ She tries to take care of you by suggesting what she would do to cheer herself up: a spa day! To her, nothing is better than glamming herself up and feeling like the prettiest girl on the Xianzhou after a tiring day at work. She's more than wealthy enough to afford it, too.

: ̗̀➛ Saunas, massages, or even a manicure if you want; just say the word and she'll quickly arrange an appointment for the two of you! She's not gonna let the day end without you feeling the most refreshed you've ever been.

: ̗̀➛ If you're not really into that or just don't have the energy for it, she's also completely fine with just staying at home and cuddling. She's already very physically affectionate when the two of you are alone, but that's intensified 10x now that she's set her mind on cheering you up.

: ̗̀➛ She'll even let you touch her foxian ears and tail, which you know is a really big thing for her. They're very sensitive and she spends a lot of both time and money to properly take care of them. It just goes to show how much she's grown to love and trust you.

: ̗̀➛ You'll probably end up lying on her lap with her tail protectively wrapped around you, eagerly listening to all her stories from her travels and business ventures. You can't help but think of how lucky you got to have met her as you fall asleep listening to her soothing voice. <3

[tojiscumdumpster]

⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ vii. reader

⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⭑๋࣭ summary page

please refresh your memory of the content warnings that's mentioned on the summary page. this chapter will include vi0lence.

 For some reason the takeout I ordered is taking longer than usual, which is strange for a Tuesday night. I was told a forty-five minute delivery time, but they’re fifteen minutes over. 

 Now that I think about it, they did sound pretty busy over the phone, so I guess a couple of minutes won’t be too bad. Hopefully they hurry because I am dozing off a bit, and I’d like to take advantage of my weariness since Toji isn’t here to comfort me before bed. 

 Just being without Toji for three days puts me on edge, however, he reassures me that Naoya is on standby if I need anything or if I feel unsafe. Not like I can while being in our home. Living in a penthouse has its perks. Great security. Code required entry. I think I should be fine. And after the party a few weeks ago, I don’t think I’ll ever see Suguru again. 

 I curse myself everyday for succumbing to the temporary pleasure he provided me those two times we had sex. Honestly, I feel embarrassed. I knew Suguru was a bit clingy but I didn’t think about it at the time because I wanted attention. The desire. The chemistry. The mind blowing sex and how he practically worshiped my body. All of it felt good. Now, I feel disgusted.

 It’s been almost two months since I met Suguru, and a month since I told Toji about my infidelity. He has admitted how much it hurt him that I stepped out on our marriage, but decided to work on forgiving me and move past it. I can’t say our marriage is perfect. We still have our small arguments, especially about me cheating, and I give him the space to express how he feels. I mean, there’s nothing I can say. I cheated. 

 Quite frankly, I’m surprised Toji and I are still together. Maybe something in me thought when I told him I cheated that he was going to use that as a way to finally divorce me. Because again, I thought he didn’t love me anymore. However, Toji made it clear that our love for each other should never be questioned.

 I know that now.

 A yawn escapes my mouth and I begin to wonder where the delivery driver is. I grabbed my phone to call the restaurant but before I was able to, a message from an unknown number came through:

Hi. This is your delivery driver. What is the access code?

  Finally .

Hi, it’s 02315.

I go to the bedroom to grab some cash from our safe and hear the doorbell ring. I just know as soon as I eat a good amount of food, I’m going straight to bed. Tomorrow I have to meet with Teresa to do some nursery shopping (maybe clothes and shoes, too) and I need all the energy for our early morning. 

 Although I know it’s the delivery driver at the door, paranoia causes me to look through the peephole and I see the delivery guy from the restaurant, in uniform, waiting for me. But the moment I open the door, my heart nearly sinks to my stomach seeing the delivery guy coughing up blood and behind him is Suguru, pulling a knife out of his lower back. 

 He falls forward, food spilling everywhere along with broken glass from the pop that I ordered. He’s… he’s dead. 

 Suguru killed him. 

 I gasp, and numbness finds its way to my knees that feels like they’re giving up on me but manages to give me enough strength to put distance between us. How he slowly locks the door behind him while giving me a sardonic smile fills nausea in my stomach. 

 Suguru’s purple irises darken to the color of midnight as he looks over my body. I feel violated. Disgusted. I’m trying to control my mind to prevent me from thinking about throwing up, but the more he ogles me, repulsion flares in my gut. 

 A man, that I had sex with, that doesn’t know what no means, is now standing in the middle of my home with a bloody knife and an intent of I don’t know what. I turn on my heels to run toward my phone, however, he breaks the distance in three long strides to grab me by my coils and pull me to him, causing me to yelp from the sharp pain I felt. 

 My breaths softly burst in and out, and salty tears trickle down my cheeks just thinking about what’s going to happen to me. 

 Will Suguru kidnap me? Kill me? The possibilities are endless as they spiral in my mind, but really all I can think about is Toji. 

 “Shh, don’t cry, sweetheart,” he whispers, kissing the shell of my ear that causes the slightest hint of vomit to rise up my throat. “I won’t hurt you. I would never do that.”

 “You’re hurting me now.”

 Suguru lets out a breathy chuckle, almost as if he’s mocking me. “Funny. I don’t remember you having an issue with me pulling your hair when my cock was inside of you.” 

  What was I thinking? 

 “What do you want?” I ask, trembling. 

 “I just want to talk, baby.”

 There’s one of two things. I can play along and listen to what Suguru has to say to give me time to think of what I could do. Or, find a way to get to my bedroom to get the gun out of the safe. 

 The former is my best bet for now.

 “Okay,” I answered. “We can talk. Just let go of me.”

 “Will you run if I do?” I shook my head, and although Suguru hesitated, he released my hair.  “I miss you, Y/N.”

 “You have a weird way of showing it.” I move to the other end of the couch to create a greater distance than before. Suguru attempts to come closer, but I put my hand up to reassure him. “Give me space.”

 He nods. “Anything for my pretty girl.”

 There was a time when hearing him call me his pretty girl made my stomach flutter.

 I loathe it now. 

 “How the fuck do you know where I live?”

 “Hm, coincidence. But be more careful giving out your code, angel. It’s dangerous.”

 “Are you sick in the head?” The question was rhetorical, but Suguru felt the need to answer. 

 “Love can make you do crazy things, Y/N.”

 I scoff. “ Love? Do you… think that I love you? That you love me?”

 “I do love, angel-”

 “We fucked, Suguru!” I yell at him, anger ripping through my throat and breaking past my tears. “I don’t know you, and you don’t know me.”

 He shakes his head, eyes softening. “That’s where you’re wrong, Y/N. I do know you.” He slowly walked toward me and I began stepping backwards. “I know your favorite bakery. I know that makeup store that you love going to every Saturday. I know how much you love reading. How much you love ordering from this takeout place. Oh, and don’t worry, sweetheart. I’ll order you some more.”

 “Why? So you can fucking kill the next delivery driver?” I retorted. 

 “In my defense, he wouldn’t cooperate with giving me your order. I told him I was your boyfriend and the fucker didn’t believe me.” Suguru laughs menacingly while pulling out a handkerchief to wipe the blood off his blade. “Says he knows your husband. Your fucking husband that’s a pain in my ass.” 

 Clingy wasn’t the word to describe Suguru. Crazy. A complete psychopath. He’s fucking delusional. For all this time I’ve known him for, the very little that I know, he’s been building this illusion in his mind that we’re meant to be. That we’re in love. 

 Where did he get this from after sex and a few conversations about sex? 

 On the outside, it seems like I calmed down, but inside? Fear gnaws me. If Suguru claims he’s not going to hurt me, why is still holding the blade in his hand after he wiped it clean? 

 I need to find a way to get past him. Think, Y/N. Think. 

 “There’s other ways to show me that you love me, Suguru.” Reassuring him to make it seem like I’m interested in building a relationship is worth a try. “You don’t have to kill to prove that you love me. I feel it. I know you do. I’m sorry for doubting you before.”

 His brows raise in relief. “You do?”

 “I do, Suguru. I do,” I say softly. “You were there to make me feel special when Toji wasn’t.”

 “Don’t say his name, angel. He doesn’t deserve your breath.” Suguru comes closer to me and reaches for my hand. To keep the act that I’m on his side, I allow him to touch me. If I make it out alive, I remind myself to scrub my body hard next time I shower. 

 A slight shiver races through my spine as he caresses my face and sniffs the scent of my hair. Behind me there’s a bottle of wine I planned on drinking with my meal, and while Suguru takes his time embracing me, I grab the bottle and smash it against his head. 

 I don’t wait to see his reaction. My legs move on their own to where my phone is and I rush upstairs to my bedroom, but before I could make it to the fourth step, Suguru pulls me by my leg. And you would think he would be furious, boiling because of my betrayal, his anger is masked with a sadistic smile. 

 “You lied to me, princess. Why. Did. You. Lie. To. Me?” He asks me through gritted teeth. 

 I kick at him, hitting his chest and face to let me go, but he doesn’t budge. “Let go of me you fucking psycho!” 

 Suguru slices the back of my leg with the knife, deep enough to inflict damage, to which I scream in pain. But I know the pain is temporary. 

 While I continue to kick him, I throw my phone up the stairs and yell out to the digital assistant installed in my phone to call Naoya. I’m not near to know if it worked, but after hearing calling Naoya out loud, it’s dialing. 

 I managed to stand up on one leg despite Suguru still having my other in his grip, kicking him in his eye socket where it’s still bruised from Toji’s beating. Every bit of my power is used to jab my heel into his eye until he winces in pain and eventually releases me. 

 My steps are wide when running up the stairs, two at a time, to reach for my phone and rush into my bedroom. Naoya is still on the phone and I want to let out a breath of relief, but I can’t. Not with this fear rushing through me. 

 “Naoya? Naoya?” I call for him frantically, tears returning to my eyes. 

 “ Y/N, what the hell is going on? ”

 “Please come. He’s here, he’s-” I yelp and my body flinches from the abrupt banging on my door. 

 “Angel, come outside. Don’t make this harder for us. You know I don’t like scaring you.”

 “ I’m on my way now, Y/N. Go get the gun ,” Naoya orders.

  The gun. Right.  

 I ignore the excessive banging on the door and head to the walk-in closet, going deep back to where the safe is. My hands tremble when putting in the code, but I was able to get it open. I hate using the gun, let alone holding it, but it’s the only chance that I have at defense until Naoya comes. 

 “ Y/N, talk to me. What’s going on? ” I almost forgot that he was on the phone. 

 “I have it.”

 “ Okay, I’m fifteen minutes away, I’ll try to get there in five ,” he tells me. “ Just stay in the room. ”

 When I’m back in the middle of my bedroom, it’s quiet. I no longer hear the excessive force on the door nor him yelling. Something doesn’t feel right. Nothing in my mind will lead me to believe that Suguru just gave up, but what is he doing? 

 Is he thinking that the silence will bait me? That he left? He returned downstairs? No. The quietness is making me uneasy.  It’s too loud. Loud enough for me to hear how shallow my breaths are, and the thumping of my heart. 

 “Naoya…” I cautioned. 

 “ What happen- ”

  The balcony.  

 We live on the highest floor alone, so there was never any reason to lock the doors. My head whips to the window to find Suguru with a sinister smile on his face, waving at me with the hand that carries his knife, like everything is peaches and cream between us. 

 I drop my phone and hear Naoya repeatedly calling my name, however, I tune him out. Shooting through the window is useless when they’re bulletproof, so I cock back the gun and wait until Suguru steps inside. 

 “Stay right fucking there,” I demanded. 

 “Don’t you think this is some pretty intense foreplay, angel face?” 

 “What I think is that you’re a disgusting piece of shit that deserves to die.”

 He sighs, shaking his head. “I don’t think that’s a nice thing to say. We shouldn’t be hurting each other, princess.”

 “Stop fucking calling me that!” He steps closer but halts his steps from seeing me apply pressure to the trigger. “I swear on my life I will put a bullet through your head if you keep fucking with me.” 

 “You don’t mean that,” he says, solemnly. 

 “Want to try me?”

 He looks up in thought and I feel mocked for him actually considering taking a chance to step toward me. I can no longer be surprised by the extent Suguru will go just to prove he’s worthy to me, even if it potentially costs his life. 

 My reaction wasn’t quick enough to shoot him in the head when he charged at me, but I managed to get a shot in his right shoulder, causing him to drop the blade. It’s like Suguru is a beast and I am his prey, ignoring the pain that I inflicted on him to smack the gun out of my hand and pin me to the ground. 

 I try to fight him off of me, but my strength against him is no use. 

 “You’re being a bad girl, Y/N,” he rasps. “A very fucking bad girl. Why do you have to act this way, huh?”

 “Get off of me, Suguru!”

 “No! Why can’t you understand that I love you? I’m better than he is, sweetheart.” He lowers his face against my neck and breathes my scent in, whispering,  “Ask me. Do you need me to kill him? Is he in the way? Just tell me, angel. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”

 At this moment, I fear for my life. I think of all the stupid decisions I’ve made throughout my life and hooking up with Suguru at the bar two months ago is my biggest mistake. As I cry out hysterically, I call for Toji like if I continue to do so, he’ll appear. 

 And for the minute I am hallucinating, thinking it’s Toji that’s calling back to me, it’s Naoya still on the line. I didn’t get a chance to respond to him before Suguru grabbed my phone. 

 “I’m sorry. Y/N isn’t available to speak right now,” he says, throwing my phone against the wall, which breaks. He then returns his attention to me. “Anyway, princess. Where were we?”

 Hell. . . That’s exactly where I’m at. 

previous chapter | next chapter

[kewpie-aisle]

𝕔𝕙𝕒𝕣𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕟𝕖𝕨 𝕨𝕒𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕤

pairing: Bokuto Koutarou x gn!reader

notes: suggestive language, mental stripping, general horniness, yoga poses, workout talk, minors do NOT interact pls

wc: 1.5 words

AN: I saw this artwork by @akiisks and every neuron in my brain said, Bo had to be the next installment in the series. Mm mm mm I love ONE owl themed gym bro. banners by @cafekitsune my hero you like what you see series other parts: Atsumu

The gym in the early morning hours was always quiet and peaceful. Majority of the MSBY players preferred evening or late night workouts, considering it a cool down for the day. The early morning hours introduced a peace and lull that was necessary for those that start the day with energy to expend. Calming overactive minds and bodies, both gifts held by the outside hitter of the team. 

Bokuto needed the cool down early in the morning, to ease down his energy levels to a “normal person”. That’s what Akaashi has always put in his head since they were younger, unsure what it means but the morning workout is now a routine for the man. As he got older it became an anchor to familiar times which helped him navigate unknown feelings and obstacles; riding through any crashing wave in peace. That peace has recently been shaken up.

Pulling out his headphones, he reaches for the gym door, coming to a halt when the sounds of the room touch his ears. There’s someone else in the gym already. He checks his watch to see it’s 4:30 am. Frustration is what he should feel, with a disturbance in his routine, but he could feel anticipation flush across his face and tickle the tips of his ears with heat. It’s not just someone in there, he had high expectations on who beat him to the gym. With a heavy pull, the door swings wide open and his eyes scan the floor, easily finding the source of the noise. Lo and behold, there you were. 

The new MSBY athletic trainer, who had joined a month ago. Clad in fitted black workout gear, long sleeves compression shirt and shorts covering each dip and curve of muscle and skin. Edge of the shorts seamlessly meeting the start of skin down your thighs and shins, glistening in sweat. Bokuto gulped down a lump in his throat, slammed by waves of uncertainty uprooting his anchored mind. 

With your headphones on, canceling out all noise in the room, you had missed Bokuto entering. You woke up that morning with more energy than usual. Chalking it up to new hire jitters, but that’s not what it was. Surrounded by players with large egos wasn’t new to you, it came with the territory of being an athletic trainer. Hell, even if you’d stayed in personal training, there’s no escaping the egos of gym bros. Everyone lifts more, knows more, trains better than you. With a smaller stature than most, you’d gone your whole life always being underestimated. Working out had always been a safe relief for pent up frustration and anger, letting you maintain a calm for the rest of the day. A godsent gift in your chosen profession. The MSBY Black Jackals’ team reputation was known far and wide in the industry. The most polite and friendliest team, hungry for growth. The “Eternal Rookies”, a moniker agreed upon by journalists and teammates alike in the volleyball world. It had been just the right move for you, but your professionalism had been shaken up from Day 1, when you met the rising star outside hitter, Bokuto Koutaro. 

Most guys that looked like that were always wolves in sheep’s clothing, regardless of team reputation. But Bokuto had surprised you in every area, clumsy yet straightforward and honest. Earnest in practice and a trusted leader during games. Strong and smart but humble and kind. And agonizingly good looking. Work days became an every day battle to not ogle the man every second he was in your sight. Coming to the gym in the morning was your refresher, a clean way to start the day to ensure you're energized throughout. But it seems Bokuto also frequented the morning time, so you had been adjusting to come earlier and earlier to try and avoid him. Waking up at 3 am from a particularly delicious dream, was enough reason to head straight to the gym to clear your head. Taking a quick break you glance up to the mirror to ensure proper stance, eyes widening seeing the very devil from your dream getting off the treadmill and preparing for his routine. Head down, completing incline chest rows, your entire backside on display for Bokuto. He had finished his cardio and started his lat exercises, fortunately unfortunately the machine was positioned to maintain the weights area in direct line of sight. He had wanted to power through his routine, crushing on the trainer was a childish distraction and completely unprofessional. Having childlike fun is one thing, but entering frustrated territory was completely unlike him. The heat that sat in his core, rising up, coating his entire torso in a voracious fire with desire he’d never felt before. He hated it. He’s always been in control of all his emotions and desires, but you shook every semblance of proper thought from his head. Failing miserably at keeping a focused mind, he dove into the siren’s song and watched you closely throughout his workout. Wiping down machines, adjusting weights, huffing through his sets, but eyes trained on your body throughout it all. He had watched you wrap up and make your way to the yoga mats for cool down stretches. 

With only a nod of acknowledgement, the two of you hadn’t exchanged any words in the past couple hours of working out. Maintaining distance in balanced routines for the day, a dance playing out in the gym. But the tension was palpable, suffocating in the already stuffy gym air. You watched a bead of sweat drip down his chin into the crevices of his pecs. Wondering if it had traveled down his abs and through the defined v-line you could glimpse every time he raised his arms. You licked your lips in hope for a taste, even if in your imagination. The craving for a taste increased, because you had felt his eyes on you the entire time. Watching every movement, eyeing you from top to bottom and back. You could feel the ghost of his hands running over your body. Leaving behind a tantalizing trail of heat everywhere, yet not placing a single finger on you. As you leaned down into downward dog, Bokuto had stopped to take a water break, eyes washing over your body in haste. A smirk playing on your lips as you feel yourself fall over the edge of your self control. “Bokuto-san, could you help me stretch out my back?” 

The last gulp of water catches in his throat, coughing as he averts his eyes. Finally breathing air back into his lungs he turns his attention to the voice calling for him. Headphones now out, he hears you repeat your question, as if it hadn’t been bouncing around the walls of his mind already. His throat somehow dry despite finishing off his entire bottle, he makes his way over. Watching as you adjust yourself into pigeon pose, left leg fully stretched out and right leg folded out and tucked in. Opening up your hips to stretch, you motioned him to push down on your back. Palms on your back he leaned down on you, folding you completely over, without any resistance. Your chest flush against the mat and arms spread out forward. With a slight push up off you, he stands up to watch over your form. Drinking in the ease of your stretch, mind running with other ways he could be folding you to take him in completely. A jolt running right to his core when he meets your eyes to see a flush on your face, still pressed against the mat as you watch him. 

“Ya like what you see Bokuto-san?” The words slipped out of your mouth before you could stop yourself. The heat of the room, the thrum of your heart in your ears, blood rushing to multiple places at once, has all your senses on high after your workout. Bokuto’s weight against you had set your entire back on fire, engulfing you completely and you ached to feel him over you again. “My form, it looks ok?” You tease as a flush comes across his face. With a lick of your lips, you roll over, legs spread open wide. “Can you help stretch out my front too...I can fold into another position if you’d like?”  The question crashed over Bokuto, anchor ripped out of the ground, untethered and washing away into the depths of the ocean. He closed the distance in a few short steps before pulling you up into him, lips against his in an instant. Tasting you finally, feeling you with his hands, swallowing you completely. His parched throat slowly soothed as he drank you in, the way he needed.

Relentless moans falling out of your lips, echoing in his mind. He looks down at you ruined, but you reach your hands out to wrap around him to bring him closer for more. He closes his eyes to fall right in, a new anchor rooted in your waves pulling him as close to you as possible.

[shegatsby]

Could I ask for Hannibal lecter with a former patient reader with extreme anxiety and fear of going outside and people? Maybe a house call for this little recluse?

(Would appreciate if they were also FTM but not a requirement)

Thanks!

-B

A/N; Hi B, thanks for the request even though it had been weeks since you sent it to me... oops. I hope you'll like it. Enjoy!

Warnings; Anxiety and panic attack, reader has phobia of going outside.

You were triggered again, you had a specific nightmare last night. In the nightmare you were being chased by your stalker (you had a stalker last year so developed a certain anxiety about going out. Thankfully he is behind bars now.) in the nightmare he was holding a gun and chasing you in the public but no one helped you. Except him.  Doctor Hannibal Lecter. Due to your circumstance you sought professional help. You did a profound research about him and his techniques and you found nothing but good review. You decided to give it a shot and you didn’t regret it at all. You explained your situation to him in detail via email, he replied saying that he was glad to work with such an open minded and communicative young woman.

He urged you to go to his office for the first session but you were unwilling so you suggested to do it online, it was 45 minutes and when you were, put the laptop away… you felt a sudden relief.

The next session he suggested to go to a coffee shop near your home, you liked the idea and agreed.

It was a cold Baltimore weather so you both had gloves, long coats, he couldn’t help but notice how professional you dressed. A black pencil skirt, a dark red blouse, soft make-up, hair let loose yet kept under control and delicate hands holding your coffee mug. You were well mannered and put together. Also, your impression on him was the same as him, both of you had a mutual feeling for each other that day. Normally, Dr. Lecter had 45 minute sessions with his patients just like your first session. However, with you, it was more than 2 hours. The conversation was elite and brilliant that he didn’t want to leave that cozy place, after the session he gave you a lift and planned the next session.

Weeks passed and you started to go to his office, you had an idea about his environment but seeing it for the first time was something else. His office was like a mixture of library and museum, which both of those places were your favorite. When he saw the inquisitive shine in your eyes he let you explore.

You talked about your favorite books and art and culture etc.

You loved talking to him and he loved talking to you. Most of his patients were shallow and stupid but you knew your art and literature. After decades of being surrounded by peasants Hannibal found someone who got excited about small things and had her own brilliant opinions. Your energy was refreshing to say the least.

The nightmare you had made you paranoid, your door was locked, windows shot and curtains closed, you were in your pjs and in 45 minutes you had to be in Dr. Lecter’s office. It was impossible, you sent him an email about bot being able to make it today. Instead of replying by an email he called you directly, ‘’Hello, Dr. Lecter.’’

‘’Hello , Y/N.’’ he started, he had started to address you by your name few weeks ago and asked you to do the same but his demeanor and the way he held himself made you a bit intimidated. ‘’I hope you are well.’’ He continued, ‘’Is there a problem?’’ there was a silence. ‘’Yes, I don’t think I can come today.’’ You simply replied, covering yourself with blankets on your couch, total darkness surrounding you.

‘’Your voice sounds strange.’’ He announced, you didn’t say anything and he let a sigh of distress, He ‘’I’m coming over. Do not move.’’ And he hung up.

He knew your address, something in you kept you at your place or maybe it was his strict tone.

Some time later there was a knock on your door which made you jump from your seat, you grabbed a knife from the kitchen and walked to the door.

‘’Its me.’’ You heard his voice, ‘’You can lower your weapon of choice.’’ He added, how did he know that you were carrying a weapon?

You opened the door to him, he looked at you up and down and let himself in, closed the door and locked it. Seeing such a young and elegant woman being torn apart by her mental state made him feel something… he felt as if he was her savior.

You noticed that the second you saw him you felt safe, like a sense of warmness spreading inside of your chest.

You turned to go to the living room, he followed, this was the first time he saw your house, he was in awe of how clean and organized it was even though it was dark due to the fact that all the curtains were closed.

He sat on a single armchair, placed his leather bag next to his feet, his coat placed on his lap, you took your place among your blankets.

‘’May I ask what has made you… like this?’’ he looked around the room, ‘’I don’t want to talk about it.’’ You said like a little child.

‘’Are you hungry?’’ he asked to change the subject, you realized that you didn’t eat anything since you have woken up. He understood from your deep eyes and stood up.

Soon you heard sounds coming from the kitchen. You decided to get a sneak peek, he wore your red apron and cooking something from the things he found in your fridge. It melt your heart.

Hannibal Lecter wasn’t used to this but when he saw you like that he couldn’t help but be there for you, you were an interesting case for him and he even thought about keeping your mental health not worse but not good either so that he could keep having you in his life but it seemed like you were planning to be in his life for a long time weather as a friend, a patient or someone close..

Thank you. :)

[superbtiti]

Word count: 1.4k

Izuku Midoriya, Katsuki Bakugo, Shoto Todoroki

A/n: should I write a part 2? (Part 2 out) Anyway enjoy 🫶🏾

________________

"Can you guys just shut up for one second?" my voice snapped through their noise like a whip. I shot each one of them a sharp glare, my gaze like a knife to their throats.

"Fuck..." I kissed my teeth.

"Y'all giving me a headache..." a frustrated sigh left my mouth, my foot continuously tapping the ground.

They all fell silent after the sudden snap, even Bakugo, who rarely listens to people, kept his mouth quiet. The suffocating silence was broken by the soft, tinny elevator music.

I closed my eyes, breathing deeply in an attempt to steady myself. My patience was seemingly thin, exhausted from the intense training session we just completed that had drained every ounce of energy from my body. Being cramped in an elevator with the three boys, whose personalities clash like fire, water, and earth, is definitely not what I am in need of right now.

"Sorry..." Izuku murmured behind me, his voice barely audible.

I opened my eyes and turned my attention to them. Izuku stared at me sympathetically; his hand never stopped fidgeting. Todoroki shifted slightly, keeping his gaze lowered on the ground. "Apologies," his voice monotone, a surprising hint of sincerity.

Bakugo kept his hands in his pockets and avoided my gaze, probably mumbling some dumb shit under his breath.

'Ding.'

We arrive at our destined floor, the elevator doors open. "Whatever," I breathe out, exiting the cramped space.

I slowly walk through the hallway of Endeavor's agency, the echoed footsteps signaling me that the others were following me.

Furthermore, I pushed the door open to the conference room, where we are to meet up to discuss our training progress.

Greeted with a massive screen glowing ominously on the far wall. I took a seat near the center of the table, the others hesitantly sat next to me, Todoroki on my left, his calm presence refreshing after the tension in the elevator, Izuku on my right with his notebook out and ready to scribble, and Bakugo slouched into his seat across from me, the expression on his face saying 'fuck off' loud and clear to anyone who dared to say something.

The heavy tension is visible to other bystanders, like an unwelcome guest.

Endeavor enters the room a moment later. "Alright, children," he began, his tone sharp.

"We're going to go over today's training session. Pay close attention to your performance footage. I want you to identify at least three areas for improvement."

I couldn't help but roll my eyes. After hours of laborious training, the last thing I wanted was to sit through footage of every mistake I'd already replayed in my head a hundred times. But Endeavor didn't care about what we wanted—only what we needed to improve.

The screen started displaying our recent exercise. Izuku glided through our training field, dodging attacks, while Bakugo blasted his way through, activating most of the traps and disabling us on his way. Todoroki blocked the explosion thanks to his ice abilities.

Then my own performance came up. I watched myself make mistakes and waste precious time, which only fueled my aggravation and frustration. The unwanted comments of Endeavor not assisting.

"You were too slow there," he let out. "And in lack of critical thinking, we cannot afford such disheveled actions. The time wasted would have been major and could cost a civilian their life in a real situation," he addressed.

The old man does nothing but comment on everything I do, no matter how hard I try, to the point I don't sleep at night to study for the next day. Will he ever be satisfied with what I have to give?

"What an asshat," I muttered, just loud enough for the others to hear. Endeavor's glare cut through me like fire, sharp and burning. I sighed, forcing myself to sit up straighter. "Apologies," I said, though the sarcasm in my voice didn't go unnoticed.

__________

The room dimmed as the screen continued displaying clips of our earlier session. His attention on his performance, Izuku's muttering returned in full force, jotting in his notebook, the sound of his pen scratching the surface of his book aggravatingly. Bakugo, on the other hand, leaned back into his seat, arms crossed while observing his own.

"Izuku," my voice cut sharp, "quit mumbling, it's distracting."

"My bad," he acknowledged, lowering his voice.

"Oi," Bakugo hissed from across the table. "If you’re gonna nag, how about you keep it down as well, huh?"

I shot him a glare. "How about you mind your business and take this seriously."

"Take this seriously?" His voice rose, catching the attention of others. "I don't need your lecture when you’ve been moody and unpredictable since morning, princess. And besides, I already know I’m better than you all."

I huffed. "Coulda fooled me. Your so-called 'superiority' caused you to trigger half of the damn traps in the field." I shot back, leaning forward as if it would get my point across more.

The corner of Todoroki's mouth twitched, and I could've sworn he was suppressing a smirk. "Careful, Bakugo," Todoroki chimed in, his voice calm but cutting. "Your temper's showing again."

"Shut it, Icy Hot!" Bakugo snapped, slamming his hands on the table. "You wanna say that again?!"

"Someone's getting heated," I commented provocatively.

"Can we not do this right now?" Izuku complained

"Enough!" Endeavor commanded, his sharp tone silencing the brewing argument. "If you can't keep quiet, you'll be running the course again—together. Am I clear?"

"Hell nah."

"Over my body."

"I'd rather not."

The three of us grumbled varying acknowledgments, izuku remained silent, sinking back into our seats as the instructor resumed the debriefing.

__________

After what felt like an eternity, the meeting finally ended. I stretched as I stood, the stiffness in my shoulders easing slightly. The boys stalled near the exit, clearly waiting for me.

"I'm heading back to the dorms," I informed them.

"Me too," Izuku added. "Need to review some notes."

"Ima go get some food. Careful not to choke on your nerd shit." Bakugo turned away, stepping toward the exit with his hands shoved in his pockets.

"Seriously?" I let out an annoyed groan, pinching the bridge of my nose. "Can't you just shut the fuck up and not insult people everywhere you go?"

He stopped mid-step, turning to glare at me.

"You’ve got a bad mouth, princess. Do you think you’re better than me? And besides, keeps things interesting." he sneered, stepping closer.

My face scrunched up in distaste. "Not every damn thing is a competition." The words shot out of my mouth laced with venom. "How about you start working as a team? Maybe then you'll notice how much of a liability you are," I snapped back, meeting his gaze head-on.

"Good luck with that," Todoroki muttered.

Bakugo’s eyes widened, his hand sparking faintly with explosions.

"Liability?! Say that again, and I'll blow your shit up!"

"Blow me up. I fucking dare you," I countered, my tone daring and condescending.

"Stop this buffoonery, at once!"

Endeavor yelled, fumes steaming from his head. His aggravation and vexation were clear to every living being near his radius, flames emitting from his body. The room turned dead quiet, all eyes snapped to him.

"I can't believe how childish and insolent you are behaving! All of you are far from representing the heroes of our near future," his voice railed through the hallways, his fiery aura intensifying with each word. "I am far from pleased with your actions today, both individually and as a team on the field."

Bakugo clicked his tongue, shoving his hands back in his pockets. Todoroki quietly glared at his father, while Izuku shifted uncomfortably, his gaze falling to the ground.

I swallowed hard, my throat clenching as my mouth ran dry.

Endeavor let out a heavy sigh, the flames on his body dimming slightly. "If this behavior continues, none of you will be fit to graduate, let alone work in the professional hero field. Learn to control yourselves and act like the heroes you claim to want to be."

With that, he turned and stormed out of the room, leaving the four of us in an uncomfortable silence.

Bakugo was the first to break it, muttering, "Tch. Whatever." He stormed out, his footsteps echoing down the hall.

I clenched my fists, the tension in my chest building up as my eyes started to sting, tears threatening to fall.

"I got you," a soft voice said from beside me. I felt a hand on my back, providing me with an all-too-familiar sense of comfort. I turned slightly to meet Izuku's gaze.

"Let's go back to the dorms."

---

[windvexer]

RE: your recent 20 point post attempting to convince people to practice sorcery:

One of your first points is that sorcery and spellcraft *can* be goal oriented, but that the practice itself would be fulfilling on its own. That really resonated with me, and I'm actually more interested in that *kind* of practice. Imagine me as someone who wants to learn magic the same way someone might want to learn Tai-chi *not* as a means of self defense, but instead as someone who wants a slow, meditative experience, and any fighting prowess that might come about is a side effect, rather than the intent. How might I go about approaching magic or sorcery in this way? Is there such a path?

Thank you for your patience.

Just having written another post about why magic can be a huge chore and that's fine seems like the perfect time to reply to this.

We are in reference to list list of reasons to practice sorcery.

You may also find this other post on witchcraft as a spirituality to be helpful.

Also, this post on how to develop a practice that, like a good shampoo, is gentle enough for daily use.

That daily practice post might be what you're looking for.

Also, you may enjoy this post about your toes being in a stream.

Anon, I think it's fun that you've arrived at a place I usually assume people arrive at later on, when they've accidentally built a practice they hate out of pursuit of practical utility, or because they did a bunch of stuff they thought they were supposed to do, and now the burdens of their own path are drowning them like a millstone around the proverbial neck of joy.

I think it's very nice to approach witchcraft from a place of doing it just because you enjoy it. It's refreshing, which might say something sad about the state of witchcraft affairs, but maybe I just tend to stare into dusty corners.

Check out that developing a daily practice post, which I think is in the spirit of results, but is a lot more focused on finding out how to integrate witchcraft into your lifestyle without crashing and burning, like a little fuzzy bird just ready to experience the joys of flight, but whom accidentally tied a rock to its foot, and the rock is called "daily offering and meditation schedule, energy work at 9 every day :) choose each outfit with intention! no excuses not to practice."

Apropos of drowning and falling metaphors, I think that if you cast your net you'll find a heck of a lot of theory available out there is about magical efficacy.

Things are done a certain way not because that's the most enjoyable way to do them, but because that's the most effective way the author has found to do them. That is, if you can find content relating to theory in the first place. A lot of people don't like to share why their work is the way it is, my best faith take being that it's a lot of work to write down, my worst faith take being that they don't know, they just read it somewhere.

So when getting into things and reading and researching, keep in mind that you're probably not going to see a lot of "do it because it feels good." Reading with a critical eye will probably be helpful and keep in mind that you are probably going to be walking a parallel track with its own twists and turns.

But anyway, what I really recommend for you is to find out why the steps are done that way, so that you can then adjust it to your liking without ruining the recipe.

But I think the only fish to catch with your net of inquiry is that start doing anything; see what you liked about it and what you didn't like, and re-work it until you do like it.

And keep in mind, when most anyone recommends some kind of training regimen, they are meaning witchcraft in the self-defense way. Not in the meditative experience way. Although ironically, they will almost definitely recommend meditation.