#winter strobing

[faaun]

she says my heart is yours, from the caspian shores.

[xradiant]

For the longest time she just stares at him, even almost not realizing the feel of his hand on her leg. She usually feels overwhelmed by his physical contact but right then it seems to go over the radar. Instead all that she feels is a stunned feeling that spiked inside of her. She blinks and swallows harshly. "You're scared of water?" She asked slowly, trying to understand that it was indeed what he had actually said. "That's what you're…" Breaking off she shook her head, clearing her throat. She wasn't even sure how it was that it matched up to what she had confessed but she wasn't going to press him because he seemed burdened by that. "Ivar? Do you - " she cut off and then cleared her throat eventually. " - do you want to…ask about it?" She asked because that was actually something that she had expected him to press on.

@tothedevilsshow xxx

[xaviergalatis]

Photographs by : Xavier Galatis

NIKON D40

Fixed 50mm Nikkor

Strobe triggers

[apatheticlexicographer]

BRO WHY IS IT THAT LITERALLY EVERYTHING HAS DECIDED TO FALL APART AT THE SAME TIME

[greengoblinswifey]

Silken Punishment—Bucky Barnes x Fem!Reader

summary— you and bucky have a petty argument that leaves you upset and defiant. he finds you at a club, upset by your behavior and outfit and takes you home to teach you a lesson.

warnings— brat!reader, spanking, praise kink, slight degradation, face fucking, cock worship, sergeant and sir kink, fingering, katoptronophilia, orgasm denial, edging, choking, unprotected sex, spit kink, creampie, aftercare.

a/n— my first bucky fic on here, i’ve only ever written for him on my ao3 @/greengoblinswhore. comments and reblogs are appreciated, enjoy <3

︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵‿

The fight between you and Bucky had started over something trivial. He’d been more protective than usual lately—maybe too much. You’d gone out with some friends, and he didn’t like how late you were staying out or the company you were keeping. Tempers flared, words were exchanged, and before you knew it, he stormed off to the Avengers Tower, muttering something about needing space to think.

But space wasn’t what you needed. Frustrated and defiant, you slid into a delicate, lace overlay garment with dress, if you could even call it that. Its semi-sheer design subtly revealed your figure underneath, giving it a bold yet elegant allure. The white lace contrasted beautifully against your dark skin, creating a striking visual that you knew would draw attention to your curves and ass. The club down the street beckoned, and within minutes, you were there, moving to the rhythm of the music under the pulsing lights. You knew heads turned as you swayed your hips, your dress catching the strobe light, revealing your bare ass and your boobs but you didn’t care. Tonight was about you.

The air shifted suddenly. A familiar presence sent a shiver down your spine before you even saw him. Bucky. You felt his icy blue gaze cut through the crowd, pinning you in place. Turning, you saw him striding towards you, his jaw tight and his expression unreadable.

“Let’s go. Now,” he growled, his voice barely audible over the pounding bass.

You tilted your head, smirking defiantly. “I’m not going anywhere with your bossy ass.”

His eyes narrowed, and he stepped closer, his metal arm glinting under the club lights. “We’re not doing this here. Let’s talk at home.”

“Maybe I don’t feel like going home,” you shot back, taking a step toward the dance floor.

Before you could blink, Bucky had you over his shoulder, his vibranium arm holding you securely as he made his way through the stunned crowd. “You’re testing my patience, doll,” he muttered.

“Put me down, Bucky!” you squealed, pounding at his back, but he didn’t flinch. You knew better than to think anyone would intervene—who would dare challenge the Winter Soldier?

Once home, the door barely clicked shut before Bucky carried you straight to the bedroom. He set you down briefly before sitting on the edge of the bed, his intense gaze never leaving yours. “Over my knee,” he commanded softly but firmly.

You blinked, your defiance faltering for a moment. “You can’t—”

“Now.”

His voice left no room for argument. You hesitated, your heart pounding as you realized exactly what kind of punishment he had in mind.

He smirked as his metal arm rested on his thigh, the other guiding you firmly over his knee. His fingers skimmed over the hem of the dress you’d worn to the club, shaking his head. “This little thing leaves nothing to the imagination,” he muttered, his voice tight with frustration. “Back in my day, they’d have called you all kinds of whore for showing this much skin.”

You twisted your neck to look at him, a small, teasing smirk tugging at your lips. “Maybe, but I’m your whore, aren’t I?”

“Not the time,” Bucky snapped, his tone cutting enough to make your smirk falter. “You scared me half to death tonight, and this is how you decide to act? Think you’re getting off easy, doll?”

Before you could respond, his warm flesh hand came down against your ass with a sharp smack, making you gasp. The sting wasn’t overwhelming, but it was enough to make you feel it. He never used his metal hand for something like this—it wasn’t in him to ever risk hurting you, even when he was upset.

“Count,” he instructed, his voice low but commanding. “And if you mess up, we start from one. Understood?”

“Yes sergeant,” you murmured, your voice soft but shaky.

“Good girl,” he replied. His hand came down again, and you squealed, “One!” He continued, the sound of his hand meeting you filling the room. Between each smack, you counted, your voice wavering as you tried to hold back the little sobs spilling from your glossy lips.

By the time you reached twenty, your protests were softer, your words nearly swallowed by your tears. “I didn’t mean it,” you whispered, burying your face into your folded arms. “I just wanted to have fun—I didn’t think it’d turn into all this.”

“It’s too late for that, doll,” Bucky said, his tone firm but laced with the quiet concern he was trying to mask. He helped you up after a moment, pulling you close against his chest. Your arms wrapped around his waist as you let out a soft sniffle, your cheek pressing into his shirt.

“You were scaring me,” he admitted, his voice finally softening as he stroked your back. “I don’t ever want to feel that way again.”

“I’m sorry,” you mumbled, pulling back just enough to look at him. “Can you hold me? Please?”

Bucky’s jaw tightened slightly. He wanted to scoop you up and tell you it was all forgiven, but you weren’t off the hook just yet. “When you’ve learned to be a good girl,” he replied. He tilted your chin up, meeting your watery gaze with his piercing blue eyes. “But you’re not there yet.”

Guiding you gently down to your knees, Bucky settled back into his seat on the bed. “If you’re really sorry, show me. Worship my cock,” he murmured, his lips curving into a small smirk. “Show me just how much you mean it.”

Your hands trembled slightly as you lowered his pants, the heat of his gaze making your skin prickle. He didn’t rush you, his metal fingers brushing against your cheek, his touch cold yet grounding. When his cock was free, you paused, your breath catching in your throat at the sight of him, hard.

“Don’t stop now, doll,” he said, his voice low and husky. The way his thumb grazed your bottom lip sent a shiver down your spine. “You’ve got something to prove, don’t you?”

You nodded, leaning forward to place a soft kiss on his tip, murmuring, “I love how perfect you are.” Your lips traced a slow, deliberate path, and you could feel the weight of his stare on you. “So big sergeant, so beautiful,” you whispered, your words a mix of praise and awe. You knew he liked hearing it, the way his jaw tightened and his fingers threaded through your hair told you so.

“That’s enough talking,” he said, his tone more commanding now. “I don’t need you to tell me, you’re gonna show me.”

Your lips parted, and you took him in your mouth, your movements deliberate and careful, your gaze flicking up to meet his. His hand tightened in your curls, guiding you just enough to remind you who was in control. “That’s it, doll,” he murmured, his voice dark and rough. “Keep going, just like that.”

You continued, your focus entirely on him, feeling his quiet approval in the way he relaxed, though his hand remained firmly in your hair. He let out a soft grunt, his other hand brushing against your shoulder as if to steady himself. “You’re doing so good for me,” he murmured, his words sending a wave of warmth through you. “Sometimes you can be a good girl.”

When you pulled back briefly, you kissed along his length, your lips soft against him, your voice barely above a whisper as you said, “I love making you feel good.” Your fingers traced gentle patterns on his cock, adding to the warmth of your affection. He groaned in response, his hand tugging lightly at your curls.

“Don’t get too cocky,” he warned, his words carrying a teasing edge. “You’re still making up for earlier.”

“Yes, sir,” you replied with a soft smile, letting your lips and hands continue their work, eager to earn his forgiveness.

You took him deep into your throat, gagging as you did but it only turned him on. His grip on your curls remained, pushing your head down then thrusting when you got too comfortable. You swirled your tongue around his shaft, saliva and pre cum dripping down your chin, and you made sure your eyes looked up at him, full of admiration.

“So fucking beautiful even when you’re a brat,” he moaned. He began thrusting faster, ready to shoot his load down your throat. “Get ready, and you’re going to swallow every drop.” You hummed in response, the vibration sending him over the edge and he pushed your head all the way down until your nose touched his pelvis. His cum shot down your throat and you swallowed every drop like the good girl you aimed to be.

His hand slipped under your chin, lifting your face to meet his eyes. He pulled you into his arms, his kiss firm and possessive, but the warmth behind it told you everything you needed to know. “You’ve got a lot to learn about behaving,” he said, brushing his thumb across your cheek, “but you’re lucky I’m a patient man.”

Bucky pulled you up effortlessly, his grip firm but careful as he placed you in front of the tall mirror. His sharp gaze met yours in the reflection, and you felt a flush creep up your neck when his hands slid down to your hips. With a slow tug, he removed the delicate fabric of your G-string, letting it fall to the floor.

“Look at you,” he said, his voice low as his fingers brushed against your inner thighs. His vibranium arm encircled your waist, holding you in place. “Soaked already? Really?” His tone was dripping with mockery, his smirk widening as your eyes darted down, embarrassed.

“Sergeant, I—” you stammered, but he cut you off with a shake of his head, his flesh hand slipping between your legs.

“Quiet,” he said, his lips close to your ear. “You’re going to take everything I give you, understand?”

Your breath hitched as his fingers moved against your clit, skilled and purposeful, drawing moans from you that you couldn’t contain. His vibranium arm tightened around your waist, keeping you pressed against his chest when your knees began to weaken. “Stay still,” he warned, his voice firm. “You wanted to act out? Now look at the mess you’re making—on me, on the floor, everywhere.”

Your head fell back against his shoulder, his fingers plunging inside your pussy deeper, each movement making you squirm against him. “Stop squirming,” he growled, his tone almost mocking. “You’ve got no one to blame but yourself.”

“Sergeant, please,” you gasped, your voice barely above a whisper as you felt your orgasm building inside you. Just when you were teetering on the edge, his hand stilled, leaving you desperate and trembling.

He stopped abruptly, taking his fingers into his mouth to suck off your juices before leaning down to spit it in your awaiting mouth. “Thank you sir,” you moaned, “can I cum now?”

“No,” he said, his voice cold and unyielding. “Brats don’t get rewarded.” He turned you to face the bed, guiding you forward. “Now, get up there. Face down. Ass up. Move.”

You obeyed, biting your lip as you crawled onto the bed, positioning yourself as he instructed. Your heart raced as you glanced at the mirror, where you could see the reflection of the both of you. Bucky stood behind you, his intense gaze fixed on you as he pulled off his shirt, revealing the muscles of his torso.

“As much as you look like a damn whore in that dress,” he said. “You look so sexy, it stays on.” His smirk was almost cruel, his hands brushing along the curve of your hips as he positioned himself behind you.

“You’re going to behave now, aren’t you, doll?” he murmured, his voice low but commanding. “Or do I need to remind you who’s in charge?”

You rolled your eyes and he slapped your ass in response, making you yelp.

Bucky didn’t hesitate, gripping your waist tightly before plunging into you with a force that left you gasping. Your face buried into the pillow instinctively, but his low, commanding voice brought you back. “Uh-uh,” he growled, his fingers tightening around your hips. “Look at yourself. Look at what happens when you act out. Watch me punish you.”

You turned your head toward the mirror, catching sight of him in all his glory. His sculpted muscles rippled with every movement, his biceps flexing as he held you in place. His sharp blue eyes met yours in the reflection, a look of dominance swirling in them. “That’s right,” he said, slamming into you harder, his voice a mixture of mockery and authority. “Watch. Don’t you dare look away.”

Your breath hitched as his pace quickened, each movement sending waves of pleasure coursing through you. “Sergeant, I’m sorry,” you gasped, your voice trembling.

“It’s too late for that,” he said sharply, his lips curving into a smirk. “You’ve been a brat and a damn whore all night. You don’t get to apologize now.”

His rhythm didn’t relent, his grip firm as he hit that spot inside you that made you tremble uncontrollably. “You’re enjoying this way too much,” he murmured, his tone almost teasing as he noticed the way your pussy soaked his cock. When you clenched around him, he let out a low groan, his hand coming down to your hip. “Are you gonna cum?” he asked, his tone dangerously low.

“Yes sir,” you admitted breathlessly, your body on the verge of giving in.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” he snapped, his tone a warning. “You better hold it.”

“I—I can’t,” you stammered, your voice breaking as your body betrayed you. “I’m sensitive, sir. Please—”

“You better,” he interrupted firmly, not letting up for a second. The sound of his voice made it clear he wasn’t going to let you off easily.

Without warning, he switched positions, lifting you effortlessly and laying you on the bed. Your upper body dangled off the edge, giving you a full view of the two of you in the mirror. His hands gripped your curls, holding you steady as he leaned in. “Open your mouth,” he commanded, his voice low. When you obeyed, he spat into your mouth, watching as you swallowed before letting go of your head.

Your vision swam as your head hung back, the view in the mirror giving you a dizzying look at him in control. Bucky’s pace was relentless, each movement rough, his body moving with a confidence that left you breathless. “Look at me,” he said sharply, his hand coming down to your thigh to steady you. “Keep your eyes open. I want you to see how hot this looks.”

“I’m sorry, Sergeant,” you whimpered, your voice barely audible as you struggled to keep up. “It won’t happen again, I promise.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” he said, his smirk widening as he continued without pause. “You’ve got a lot to prove.”

The sight of him, his sharp jawline clenched, his muscles taut as he worked you over was almost overwhelming. His focus never wavered, his gaze flicking between your reflection and your trembling form beneath him. The mix of roughness and control left you unable to look away. Your body bounced wildly as his hips snapped against yours and you weren’t sure how long you could take as the blood rushed to your head.

Bucky’s grip was firm around your throat as he pulled you up, his fingers brushing against your flushed cheeks before guiding you to straddle him. His broad frame sank into the mattress, his gaze flickering to the mirror in front of you both.

“So fucking sexy,” he murmured, his voice low and steady, an edge of possession lacing his words. “That dress, you know how many looks you got tonight? Too many.”

With a sharp tug, the delicate fabric tore easily under his hands. You gasped, eyes widening. “Bucky! That was my favorite!” you protested, pouting.

“Too bad,” he replied without hesitation, his lips curling into a smirk. “You’re not wearing it again, not out there, not for anyone else. You’re mine.”

Your skin prickled under his gaze as he adjusted your position, his hands steadying you on his lap. In the mirror, the two of you looked like something out of a dream, his powerful frame grounding you as your reflection showcased every subtle movement.

“Move,” he instructed, his tone soft but demanding. “Ride me like you mean it, doll.”

You obeyed, slowly at first, your hands bracing against his chest. His grip on your hips tightened as he guided you on his thick cock, his voice softening with praise. “That’s it, just like that. You’re doing so good, baby.”

As you found a rhythm, his eyes stayed locked on you in the mirror. “Fucking look at yourself,” he said, his hand tilting your chin so your eyes met his reflection. “Look how gorgeous you are, bouncing on my cock like that. All mine.”

You bounced on his cock faster at his praises, the sound of his voice spurring you on. “Faster,” he murmured, his voice dropping even lower. “Come on, doll. I know you can do better than that.”

You whimpered, your legs trembling with the effort. “I’m trying, sir,” you whispered breathlessly.

“I can see that,” he replied, a flicker of a smirk crossing his face. His hand moved to your throat, tilting your face toward him for a soft kiss. “But you’ve got to earn it. Don’t stop.”

As exhaustion set in, your grinding on his cock slowed, and he steadied you, his fingers trailing gently across your skin. He pulled you closer, his lips brushing your ear as he whispered, “Good girl. That’s my good girl.”

You gripped his muscular body for dear life, doing your best to grind against him to give you both the pleasure you needed. “Aww, that’s my girl, you’ve earned it, cum for me.”

His words were all you needed, your body shook on top of him, and your orgasm took ahold of you. Babbling incoherent words, you squirted on his cock, the sensation so intense that his cum spurted inside you. You both panted in each other’s arms as you rode out your high, Bucky laying kisses all over your face as he tried to ground you.

When it was all over, he laid you gently on the bed, his movements uncharacteristically tender as he grabbed a warm cloth and began to clean you up. His hands worked with care, his voice softening as he murmured, “I was worried about you tonight, you know. Don’t scare me like that again.”

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, your voice cracking slightly.

His gaze softened as he pressed a kiss to your forehead, pulling you into his arms. “Just don’t let it happen again, doll,” he said with a small smile, wrapping you in his warmth.

[forlix]

‧ ❆ ˚ 𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐭𝐲 𝐦𝐲 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐝・h.j.

— stars flare brightest in the absence of light, and you see his clearer than day.

words・6.4k

pairing・han jisung x female reader

genres・college!au, friends with benefits to lovers, snowed in trope, smut, MINORS AND AGELESS BLOGS THAT INTERACT WILL BE BLOCKED, angst, ANGST, you have been warned, hurt/comfort, i can't write normal fluff to save my life, happy ending!!!, semi-slow burn

warnings・depictions of insomnia, recurring nightmares, graphic violence, character death (in the nightmare), fears of abandonment and falling in love, alcohol consumption, humans helping each other heal. smut warnings under the cut

playlist・stay - acoustic by jonah baker・all of me by big gigantic・babydoll (speed) by ari abdul・oasis by exo・volcano by han

a/n・hi, here's my second installment of winter falls. writing this was immensely challenging and twice as meaningful, so feedback would be greatly appreciated. thank you to my may for being so fucking instrumental in piecing together this rollercoaster—this one is for you, i love you. thanks to my sahar for everything, always and forever. and thanks to all of you for being here. happy new year ♡

smut warnings・spitplay, unprotected piv, please practice safe sex!!!, car sex, dirty talk, jisung's dick game is kinda crazy, squirting, lots of aftercare

Every time Jisung closes his eyes, he sees somebody’s back.

It’s leaving. Traipsing somewhere he can’t follow. He tries to chase it—he always does, he never learns—but the premise doesn’t so much as surface before the ghosts circling around his ankles go for his throat instead. They snare him by the shoulders, force him to his knees, slam his forehead into the permafrost hard enough to break bone. They make sure the next time he tries to move will be the last.

So he remains, keeled over in the cold, until tearwater clings to his lower lashes in small icicles. Until bloodstained snow coats his lips like the manifestation of a curse. Until the back has disappeared.

Who does it belong to? He’s left to wonder. Where is it going?

Why can’t I follow?

Then he wakes up.

No longer does he lay awake for hours afterwards, scouring the dream’s every frame for his answers.

Now, he tosses and turns in clammy sheets until his exhaustion wins.

Now, he welcomes sleep like a miracle granted by some pitying god.

You see him.

Through a living room packed with red-faced partygoers and dissected by oscillating strobe lights, albeit, but you see him anyways. 

Jisung can barely make out the rest of your face—he blames the lighting, or the soju, or both—but your eyes alone turn him to glass. Not a fancy vase through which the world distorts, but a simple pane that puts him and his ghosts on full display.

He hopes you like horror movies.

Felix knows you, because of course he does, and Jisung has never been happier to call the extroverted Australian his friend than when you come over to say hi. You stumble out of the crowd all smudged makeup and sweaty skin, your figure hugged by a short black dress with two diamond-shaped openings just above your hips, your glossy lips curved in a drunken smile. Jisung immediately wants it against his mouth.

Instead, it disappears behind his friend as you pull him into a quick hug. A few wisps of your hair dust over Jisung’s arm, momentarily replacing the smells of grease and vodka with cherry blossoms and vanilla.

“Lix, hey!”

“Darling, it’s good to see you! Feels like it’s been ages.”

“I know, right? How are you? How is everything?”

“Good, thank you. Just happy the semester’s over.”

“I’ll drink to that.” Then you go to lift your drink and discover thin air in its place. “Or I won’t. Whoops.”

This prompts Jisung’s first contribution to the conversation—and his first effortless laugh in a long while.

“Eventful night, huh?”

He meets your gaze from all of two feet away this time, and his knees buckle under him. That gaze, fuck. So clear and true, like a prism of glass refracting light into a rainbow. He would let you refract him a thousand times over if he had any light to give.

“Maybe,” you giggle. “Seems I’m a little too happy the semester’s over.”

“Wanna not get a drink to celebrate?”

Your expression flickers. Not in a bad way, more like you hadn’t expected him to ask so soon—or for yourself to have your answer so quickly.

A strobe light catches right under your eye and refracts the color in your blushing face. A rainbow.

“I’d like that.”

He tilts his head towards the kitchen. You give Felix’s elbow a light squeeze before moving past him; he gives Felix a glimpse of his growing smile before falling into step behind you. The blonde shakes his head, throws back the rest of his beer, then swivels at the sound of someone calling his name from across the foyer.

Felix will get drunk enough to forget the sight of you leading Jisung up the stairs, two bottles of pink lemonade tucked under your arm. Nothing stronger, as promised.

Jisung asks his question an entire minute after he intends to. “Where are we going, by the way?”

“Somewhere I can see your pretty face without having to squint,” you reply, and his stomach tumbles like a schoolboy with a valentine.

You don’t stop at the second floor. Instead, you nudge open a door Jisung swears just materialized to his left and emerge into the night air.

It’s warm for December, but he’s still met with chilly winds licking down the sides of his neck. That’s not the only reason he shudders, though. Below his feet, he finds a metal platform akin to that of a fire escape. Above his head, a staircase that looks one forceful step away from dropping off the side of the building.

You turn towards it. 

In a hurry, he sputters, “I’m, uh—I’m not sure about this.”

A beat passes. Your hold on his wrist loosens, not to let go, just to trace wordless reassurance down the back of his hand. Your fingers feel perfect sliding into the spaces between his, like drops of honey in the craters of soufflé pancakes.

“It’s safer than it looks, I promise.”

Jisung heaves a sigh. It seems saying no to you is an impossible task.

You’re right, though. The iron rungs are surprisingly rigid beneath his feet, and the two of you make it to the roof with no trouble. He does stumble when you pull him up onto the gravel, but it’s intentional, a purposeful blunder to have you closer. To snag another glimpse of that blush, another trace of that floral vanilla.

“Sorry,” he whispers almost directly upon your lips. And that earns him all three.

The next hour evades him for the most part, and Jisung is pissed about it. He’s with the woman of his dreams under a sky so clear it’s almost lustrous and he’s too shitfaced to recollect when he gave you his hoodie to wear; what you said that made his lungs capsize with how hard he laughed; how you ended up so close to each other, your legs strewn over his lap, his hands tracing over your thighs.

Thankfully, he remembers a few things. He remembers how frighteningly easy you are to talk to; he remembers your habit of smacking his stomach when you get flustered; he remembers you getting flustered a lot. He remembers the timbres of your different laughs and how your stunning features crinkle with each. He remembers feeling like a pane of glass in front of you, just like he had downstairs, and he remembers liking it, somehow. Liking the way you see through him, the way you allow him to just exist as he is. Liking the way you acknowledge his ghosts with such nonchalance, inviting them over for tea and biscuits.

He wants to remember everything about you.

It’s not often he wants to remember anything.

Eventually, your conversation comes to a natural close. In its absence, Jisung notices that the alcoholic sludge in his brain has largely diffused; with it, the rumbling bass of the party below. The full moon hangs at its highest point, blanketing the two of you with anticipatory silence, nudging you towards the only topic you’ve yet to breach.

He meets your gaze again, from all of two inches away this time, and his insides twist.

“You’re still drunk, aren’t you?”

You blink at him, not following. Then he leans his forehead against yours, lets his eyes flicker to your mouth with such unbridled want that you’re instantly dizzy—and no longer confused.

Regret pools in your eyes moments before they close. “Yes, I think so.”

Your lips are so, so close that he can feel the air shift between you when they move, can feel the soft warmth emanating from them. Jisung pulls away before he does anything stupid.

You do the stupid thing for him.

You push his shoulders to the plaster behind him, push yourself onto his lap with a swing of your body and a slotting of your legs on either side of him. 

The plush of your thighs hugging his hips, the curves of your breasts pressed against his chest, Jisung tries to stare up at you, perplexed, aroused. But you’re so close that he can’t, so he settles with whispering upon the underside of your chin, “what are you—”

“Gimme your lemonade.”

The authoritative words come out in a slurred haze, and he all but hastens to oblige. 

You pluck the plastic bottle from his wavering grasp. His empty hand hovers as if uncertain where to go. But matters as trivial as hand placement drop off his mind’s precipice as he watches you unscrew the cap, the slope of your neck illuminated by spindly moonlight, and without thinking he pushes his hands beneath the hem of your—his—hoodie.

The skin of your waist is warm and smooth where his fingertips are cold and calloused, the juxtaposition unimportant in your reciprocal desires to touch and be touched.

“Open,” you murmur.

His jaw goes slack, firstly from pure disbelief. Then, obedience. The dark locks that obstruct his vision of you fall away as his head meets the brick half-wall behind him, as if the midnight breeze itself mandated their removal.

You pour some of the pink liquid past Jisung’s parted lips. Stray rivulets slip down his cheek and vanish beneath his neckline. You break eye contact to follow their path with dilated pupils and fluttering lashes. With unadulterated desire.

He swallows, gently, and feels the sweet substance surround his tonsils.

He swallows, forcefully, when you wrap your lips around the bottle, the plastic still slathered in his spit.

The swig you take is long, deep. Your throat bobs and your eyes close as if you’re savoring a finely-aged nectar. Then your lips are popping off the opening with a soft thwock, leaving a thick strand of saliva to suspend, suspend, suspend until the very second it’s about to drop, which is when you collect the residue with a deft swipe of your tongue.

“A placeholder,” you breathe, and Jisung’s head careens. A shared bottle. An indirect kiss.

“You’re a monster,” he croaks.

You giggle and lean down, curling a hand around his cheek, pressing a wet kiss to his Adam’s apple.

“Tomorrow, if we’re both sober…”

One, two, three pecks up the length of his jaw.

“...and you still remember my address…”

A suckle to the lobe of his ear.

“...you can kiss me, for real.”

A trembling breath.

“And then some.”

Jisung moans, loudly.

Thankfully, he remembers a few things.

He shows up at your place shortly after sunset the next day. You swing open the door, your face already alight with your world-ending smile.

“Hi.”

“Hey.”

Then he’s kissing you like a man famished.

Jisung learns to love your back, that night. He loves its dips and curves, loves its rise and fall. Loves how it arches into him, how it looks drenched in his cum. It’s the back of his dreams.

The back in his dreams keeps walking.

Jisung has never liked winter.

He has never liked its winds, whispering woefully as if mourning something unnamed and unseen. He has never liked its palette, whitewashing the world as if refracting a rainbow in reverse.

He has never liked cracking open his eyes and seeing the scenery of his nightmare outside his window. Nor does he like trudging over the sleet as if weighed down by the same ghosts that break him time and time again in his dreamscape. They love winter. 

And this winter, he swears, is the bitterest yet. On the nights when he’s allowed to sleep, the nightmare comes in such sharp relief that he thinks he’d rather anything else, the ghosts meaner, the blood redder, the silhouette slower. It’s an act of mercy when he’s still awake by the time bleached sunlight perforates the curtains, resting upon his salted cheeks and balled fists.

This winter, it is not just dislike that he feels towards the gray winds—it’s hatred. A maelstrom of loathing so large and dark that Jisung no longer knows where it’s headed or what it’s directed to. Or who.

When winter break comes to an end, he’s probably the only person who’s happy about it.

His friends certainly aren’t, looking like a line of angry nutcrackers with their folded arms and thunderous faces standing outside Greem Cafe.

Jisung calls out a greeting as he jogs towards them, and cue the grumbling.

“What is there to smile about? Enlighten us.” That’s Hyunjin. “I have to deal with four finals and three essays in the next five days and this guy is smiling.”

“He’s accepted his fate, I reckon.” That’s Felix. “We should do the same, boys. Let ourselves down easy, y’know?”

“No, no, he’s smiling because he remembered to bring me his chem notes.” That’s Jeongin. “You did, right? Please say you did.”

Jisung is stunned into silence. “Can I not be happy to see my friends?”

“No,” Hyunjin and Felix reply in unison.

“My bad,” he sighs.

“My notes,” Jeongin repeats.

“I have them, dude. Let’s sit down first.”

The younger boy shouts an impassioned “THANK YOU” at the sky like the clouds just saved his GPA. Jisung reaches for the door to the café, then stops at the sound of Felix’s voice.

“We’re waiting on one more person.”

He turns towards the blonde with puzzled eyes. He’d been under the impression the study session would comprise just them four.

“Who?”

Felix’s response falters on his tongue when he catches sight of something in the distance, and his face changes in a way Jisung’s seen before.

“Look behind you.” Felix shuffles past him, raising his voice to shout, “yo!”

Jisung glances away from the newcomer as quickly as he sees her. It’s not until his eyes pivot to the fire hydrant across the street that he processes her identity.

In one second flat, his mind clutters full. He thinks back to that party, when all it took was the sight of your smile for him to theorize you were the most exquisite thing ever made. He thinks back to the next evening, when he kissed you and verified his hypothesis. He thinks back to what followed and would continue to follow in the few days that remained before break: entwined tongues and emblazoned hickeys, whitened knuckles and whiny praise, snapping hips and shaking bedframes.

This winter, Jisung swears, is the bitterest yet.

But seeing you, the scarf wound multiple times around your neck doing nothing to hide your gorgeous smile, feels like catching a fragment of summer in his frozen hands.

“Thank god,” Felix groans before embracing you. Collapsing on you, more like. “I’m saved.”

You reach around to pat the boy on the back, your eyes brimming with laughter. “Lower your expectations, please. I did well on one exam.”

“You aced the midterm. That automatically makes you a rocket scientist,” Felix corrects, his voice muffled into the shoulder of your coat. A few beats of silence pass. Then, “this is comfy.”

“Okay, okay, let’s go get some caffeine in you,” you giggle. “We have a lot of ground to cover today.”

Felix straightens up sleepily. And sadly. “Superb.”

Jisung hangs back as you introduce yourself to Hyunjin and Jeongin. He doesn’t even notice his growing smile until you’re standing directly in front of him and for the first time in three weeks there’s the smell of cherry blossoms in the air and a rainbow shining on his face again.

“Hi,” he offers.

“Hey,” you reply.

Hyunjin is the one to shatter the prolonged silence that follows. “Are you guys betrothed?”

Felix and Jeongin stalk into the café snickering. You and Jisung trail behind with flaming cheeks.

It takes Jisung two and a half hours to talk to you again. At that point in the afternoon, Felix is napping on the second practice test you’ve given him; Hyunjin has downed three shots of pure espresso and is currently viewing his screen with concerning intensity; Jeongin is at another table on a quiet Zoom call with his chemistry T.A., Jisung’s notes clutched to his chest like a life vest. And you’re leaning back against your seat opposite to him, scrolling through your phone in what he presumes to be a well-deserved study break. As good a time as any.

He opens up his texts with you. His fingers fly across the keyboard.

Jisung: do you have plans after this?

Your eyes stutter to the top of your screen, linger there for a moment, and lock onto Jisung’s from across the table.

He presses his lips into a thin line to suppress his smile. You let yours spill over in full form, and with it comes a soft giggle that would be worth getting his number fucking blocked just to hear one more time.

Three gray dots appear before elongating into a prompt response.

Y/N: I was gonna ask you the same thing…

He’s the one who laughs this time. Fuck, you’re cute. You’re so cute.

Jisung: can i take you to dinner? Y/N: Yes, I’d love that :) Y/N: When should we leave? Jisung: 9? Y/N: Sounds good~ Jisung: cool Jisung: it’s a date Y/N: It’s a date! Y/N: Excited 💛

With that, you put your phone face down and return to work, though your lips remain privately upturned. Jisung wants to kiss them again.

He also wants to turn you into a mess on his cock again.

Or both.

He doesn’t get much studying done after that thought surfaces.

Jisung: me too <3

When nine o’clock rolls around, you and Jisung begin cleaning up your work stations in near-perfect simultaneity. There’s confusion written all over Hyunjin’s and Jeongin’s faces as they watch you swing your backpacks over your shoulders—but Felix’s expression is a blank slate as he sips from his macchiato. Your ingenuity isn’t the only reason he invited you today.

As you make your way out of the café, your shoulders brush once, twice, and then Jisung drops his hand into the space between the two of you without uttering a word. You scoop it up in your own without missing a beat.

He steps into the freezing night feeling warm all over.

“You know what I realized?” You say as you walk towards his SUV.

“What did you realize?”

“We’ve never had a sober conversation before. Can we change that tonight?”

Jisung has broken hearts before.

There’s no euphemistic way to describe his tendency to abuse the sensitive organs, to wring them out and throw them away like irrelevant trash. To juggle and drop them with a sheepish laugh like they’re nothing more than props in a circus act.

He doesn’t do it to save himself or his partners from getting hurt or any self-ingratiating bullshit like that. It’s for himself, all for himself. All to unload his balls and his mind for fifteen blissful seconds. 

There’s blood on his hands. He never cared to wash it off.

Except you are the one asking for his heart this time around, a dash of hope in your smile as you do so, and he thinks it would be his life’s greatest honor to be discarded by you.

“Sure,” he answers.

He doesn’t even last until he’s inside the car.

Your back meets the door to the passenger’s seat, guided there by his hands on your hips. From millimeters away he watches your surprise morph into understanding, then darken into lust.

“I like when we don’t talk, though.”

It’s the most annoying thing in the world to remove so many layers in such a cramped space.

Combined, your clothing forms a tower high enough to block out the driver’s window completely. An unnecessary blockade.

The glass fogs up anyways.

“Fuck, Ji, yes, right there, oh my god.”

You have your legs spread open and the back of your neck digging into the cupholder on the door. It’s not comfortable. You’re too busy getting fucked open to care.

Jisung detaches his lips from your neck to ask, “here, baby?”

The head of his cock hits that gummy spot again, harder, sweeter. You convulse, your hand scrambling for purchase in his raven locks.

“Yes, yes, yes, don’t stop, please.”

Please. The word plays over in his fuzzy mind.

It seems saying no to you is an impossible task.

His cock slips out of you and you lament the loss of contact with a high wail.

“W-why’d—where’d you go?”

He can’t help but chuckle at how incoherent you’ve become. He cradles the back of your head with a tender hand and lowers your upper body onto the leather seat, adjusting himself to your new elevation.

“Right here, beautiful. Didn’t go anywhere—promise—” 

He expels the final word through gritted teeth as he slams into you again, and the new angle is glorious. Your bodies keen in flawless harmony. Profanities tumble from his lips in a steady stream before they turn back into syllables.

“Would never go anywhere. Would never leave without making this pretty pussy cream like it deserves—holy fucking shit, baby.”

You clench around him at his words and then he’s setting a new, relentless rhythm, rocking the whole vehicle with every hearty smack of his hips against yours, your wet walls squeezing him so dreamily he thinks he sees nirvana with every thrust.

You’re enjoying it just as much, if the bubbles of spit in the corner of your mouth are any indication, and Jisung is viciously proud to be the cause. Unbelievably lucky to feel your breasts jiggling under his chest and your nails digging into the back of his neck.

“Good?” He whispers, and you nod blissfully.

“So—good, Ji, so fucking good. Your cock is perfect, fuck, I can’t even—can’t even think.”

“You’re the perfect one. Can’t believe how well your cunt takes me, shit. It’s like it was fucking made for this.”

“It was,” you breathe, and he nearly shoots his load into you at this alone. “It was, it was—oh, god, I think—think I’m gonna come—”

“Do it,” he rasps. “Come for me. Come on this cock and it’s yours.”

“R-really?”

“Really.”

“Then, I will. I’ll come on your cock—make it mine. Need it so fucking bad, I’m so fucking close, oh—please—”

He anchors himself in place with a hand against the windowsill and the other travels down your body to rub fast, tight circles into your clit. You let out a wanton, prolonged moan, tilt your head back to expose him to your fluttering throat. And then you’re pulling his lips onto yours again, and the following kiss is sloppy beyond belief, the kind that can only antedate the happiest of endings.

“My cock,” you sigh into his mouth. “Mine.”

“Forever,” is the breathy response he doesn’t know if he means, the response he gives you anyways.

And then you curl your fingers in his hair. Clamp your teeth around his lower lip. Clench your thighs around his waist. There’s liquid everywhere. Tearwater spilling down the sides of your face. Release gushing all over his dick and pelvis and backseat.

He catches up the moment he realizes what’s just happened. Pulls out of you. Presses his head against the roof of his car. Spits on his hand. Pumps his pulsating cock. Sends himself over the edge you’ve just finished tripping over.

Eventually, he regains feeling in his limbs.

He opens his eyes, surveys the damage, and grins.

Your stomach is covered in ropes of white, your expression hidden behind your hands. You start shaking your head in profuse embarrassment the moment you feel his eyes on you.

“You squirted,” he says.

“I know,” you almost yell, and his grin erupts into a laugh.

He lowers himself back over you, takes your wrists, and removes them from your blushing face. He doesn’t think he’s seen you so flustered before and it has him palpitating in ways he never thought feasible.

Maybe he did mean the damn thing after all.

He pushes off the strands of hair clinging to your damp forehead and replaces them with a gentle kiss. “It was sexy as fuck and you’re everything.” 

There’s a certain softness in your eyes when he pulls away. He hopes, for your sake, it’s all in his head.

His car is in need of aftercare most of all. You shrug on your clothes with considerable effort and get to work, all while sharing comfortable chatter and easy laughter.

Those things persist during your dinner date at a nearby Chinese restaurant and the drive back to your place, which Jisung knows well enough to no longer need his GPS. Those things persist until he kisses you goodbye on your doorstep, because he would have to be fucking crazy not to after you gave him the best night he’s had in so long.

After you reminded him that he’s still capable of comfort and ease, in spite of it all.

Snow comes a few weeks into the new year. 

This winter, it falls late, and it falls hard, like a gust of breath expelled from drawn lungs at the very last minute. Held there as if lying in wait for something unnamed and unseen. 

The gust of breath is too quiet to be heard over the one Jisung lets out against the shell of your ear. “Wait here.”

He goes to roll off you. You don’t let him just yet, darting your hand around his wrist and bringing his face back within centimeters of yours.

Han Jisung is beautiful. You knew it for the first time at that houseparty and you’ve known it every hour of every day since. But it’s always clearest to you in the afterglow, when his bare skin is golden and sticky and his delicate lips bitten to bright fuchsia. 

When his irises have gone black and you see stars, flaring in the absence of light.

You close the distance that remains between you. Your lips part with a content sigh. Your hands drift over the slant of his neck; his find home in the dips above your waist.

He breaks away once you’re both out of breath, and the pad of his thumb wipes lightly at your lower lip.

“Everything okay?”

“Yes,” you reply shyly. “I couldn’t help myself.”

The smile this brings to his face reminds you of a candle’s flame. Soft on the eyes and scalding to the touch when he presses it back against your lips. Once, twice.

“Can you wipe your cum off me now?” You whisper, and he laughs straight into your mouth.

The mattress lifts. His footsteps grow quieter. You shiver in his absence.

Only then do you notice the blizzard.

You stumble off the bed to throw your curtains aside. Snow descends from the sky like spools of unraveling yarn. The streetlights have been reduced to foggy specks, the parked cars to blurry heaps. Every sidewalk and rooftop in sight has already been slathered in ivory.

Jisung announces his return with a disbelieving whistle.

“Am I dreaming?” You murmur.

“When did that happen?”

“I have no idea.”

You don’t even notice the wild smile on your face until you turn to him and catch his reaction to it. He looks like he’s asking himself the same question.

“C’mere,” he hums, and you oblige.

He laves the warm towel over your breasts and stomach, as well as the places his release has trickled since you flung yourself to your feet. All while supporting the small of your back with a touch fatally careful, an expression wholly adoring. All evidence of just how blurry the line between sexual escapade and lover has become in two short months.

Your ribcage fucking throbs.

“You don’t seem excited,” you say.

He finishes cleaning you off. You give him a distracted thank you, noticing the sudden shadow draped over his face like a netted veil.

“I’m not,” he answers, not unkindly.

“You don’t like snow?”

“Not really.”

“Why?”

He circles around the bed to get dressed. You bend to pick up the clothes tossed aside earlier and drop them into your hamper, then slip into a clean pair of underwear and sweatpants.

“It’s a long story.”

Just as you reach for a top, a bundle of cloth travels in an arc across your bedroom and hooks itself around the crook of your arm. His T-shirt. 

You glance at Jisung. He’s already looking elsewhere, but his private smile makes its way onto your face as you slip it on.

“Well, I have time.” You sink into your mattress, now surrounded by his muted musk, his papyrus and petrichor. “We’ll be stuck here a while, after all.”

“Stuck?” Jisung repeats, the lanyard of his car keys dangling from the pocket of his hoodie, his feet turned towards the door.

A pregnant pause commences. His intentions dawn, and you gape.

“You’re not driving right now.”

He breaks eye contact.

“Right?”

That was the plan, you read in his expression.

You know better than trying to reverse a river’s current by kicking up rocks. You know better than trying to curtail the flight of an albatross by clipping its wings.

You know better than asking someone who thinks he was made to leave to stay.

And you won’t.

“I have somewhere to be early tomorrow morning,” he stammers, the lines terribly rehearsed. “The snow’s not heavy, I’ll be—”

“Stay.”

You’re not asking.

Jisung looks at you, startled, as you glide across the bed. You place your feet on the hardwood and circle your arms around his waist. Lace your fingers upon the hollow of his back. His pulse goes uneven at your abrupt proximity.

Akin to the drag of a feather, you mouth at his cheek, then the side of his neck.

“You can stay, Jisung.”

He shudders at your words, and you’ve got him.

It’s oddly normal, the sight of him clambering into your bed in your clothing—a pair of old sweatpants and your favorite crewneck—like this isn’t the first time you’re sleeping together in your two months of sleeping together.

In fact, the only indication of anything unordinary is the floaty feeling in your stomach when your head hits the pillow and discover Jisung’s face only inches away. He drapes an arm over your waist, gathering you close. You nuzzle into the crook of his neck.

The inevitable question follows.

“Can I save the story for another time?”

“Sure,” you return, keeping your voice small. He doesn’t hear your disappointment this way. “Should we go to sleep, then?”

“We should.”

Your foreheads touch. Your noses bump together. Your eyes cross, watching the adoration pull at his. You dimly register your hand threading in his fluffy locks, his thumb running over your cheekbone. Your lashes narrowly miss the surface of his eyes, and then he tips your face up by millimeters.

You don’t remember when you fall asleep. You only recall the hour beforehand that you spend with Jisung’s lips traversing yours, like you are the ocean and he’s uncovering new waters with every bruise he prints against your throat, every suckle he leaves around your tongue.

In your dream, the roles reverse and you are the one exploring him, mapping out his constellations with wide-eyed wonder.

You wake to a black hole.

For the first five seconds, you see nothing. You hear nothing. You feel nothing. You only blink in the darkness, your mind kicking into groggy gear to ask the very good question of why you’re conscious again.

Instinct moves your hand across the mattress. Empty space greets you where Jisung should be. Unfounded dread shoves your back off the bed. You gasp, the sound seeming to echo in the cavernous silence.

Your eyes adjust enough to discern light in the crack beneath your door, and you’re wide awake.

The following events go by in a blur. You stumble out of bed and into your closet, fastening your fingers around the thickest piece of fabric you find. You fly into the living room, where the lamp by the couch is left on and the pair of worn black Converse on your doormat have gone missing.

The front door is cracked open, and through the narrow inches you spot someone hunched on the stairs outside, his dark hair dyed platinum by the awning light’s fluorescence.

Your heart stills in relief, then quickens with anxiety.

You’ve tried wearing this crewneck in January enough times to know you can’t. In fact, you suspect that it somehow soaks up the temperature, lets it seep in between its every seam until it becomes one with the bitter winds. 

But he isn’t shivering, you notice as you take a seat next to him, draping the puffer over both of your shoulders on your way down. He’s simply staring off into the bleak storm, snowflakes sitting atop his head like a coating of ash, their color matching that of his frozen skin. He’s becoming one with the bitter winds. 

At first, you don’t recognize the man in front of you.

You’re well familiar with those ring-laden hands and the whetted jawline thrown into shadow, those remnants of cologne clinging to his frame. But you have never seen that gaze before, bloodshot and bleak and belonging to somebody new. Somebody who isn’t completely here, straddling the partition between the realms of people and phantoms.

Then he lifts his eyes and you see stars, flaring in the absence of light. Your stars.

And you recognize him for the first time ever.

You drop your hand to your hip, and his fingers feel stiff and cold and perfect, sliding into the spaces between yours.

“Why don’t you like snow?” You ask.

Jisung’s eyes return to the swirling sleet, but he moves your interlocked hands to rest on his thigh, and you know that he’s with you.

He’s been having this nightmare.

It takes place in a small clearing. It’s winter, and everything is covered in snow. Not the gentle kind that you can catch on your tongue, but the unyielding kind that’s hard and dense and covered in cracks, like a lake newly frozen over.

Somebody is in front of him, walking away. He can only see their back. He wants to chase after them. He doesn’t want to be left behind. But there are ghosts nearby, and they’ll split his skull open on the permafrost and tie his windpipe into a pretty bow if he so much as dreams of pursuit. He always does. He doesn’t know how not to.

Normally, the back leaves, and he can do nothing but remain. He can direct his loathing only to the snow into which he bleeds. 

Normally, he waits for the dream to end with something bordering on boredom. He’s seen this movie too many times. He fucking hates how it ends.

This time, though, the snow tastes like something.

After the flavors deliquesce upon his tongue, his head shoots up, his eyes blowing wide as they latch onto the retreating figure. He knows who it is.

His feet scrabbles against the ice with his attempts to rise to them. He lunges forward with frenzied resolve, and that is when the ghosts snap his neck.

He wakes up.

“Cherry blossoms and vanilla.”

You blink, tearwater streaking from your eyes in silent, steaming trails.

“That’s—”

My shampoo.

A broken sob escapes you in lieu of the rest of your sentence, and Jisung laughs, a flimsy facade that crumbles when he lifts his hand to dab at your moistened cheeks and it’s trembling.

“Silly,” he murmurs. “I’m used to it now.”

“I don’t want you to be.”

“I don’t want you to cry for me.”

“You died.”

“And I would do it again.”

This response comes without an shred of hesitation.

You first realized you had something to confess, that night in the the back of Jisung’s SUV. You’ve kept it locked away for your sake and his, even moreso. You see how fear clings to him like an unshakeable wraith, and you refuse to feed the parasite.

Now, your confession explodes from its fortress in the center of your soul and rises up your larynx. You panic like an inept security guard letting their only prisoner bolt free. Is it really the right time? Do you know what to say? Have you really thought this through? 

Too late. It’s rushing to the point of your tongue already. You suppose you’ll find out.

He saves you the trouble.

“Honestly?”

Your confession stills. 

“I don’t know if I’m okay, and I won’t try to convince you otherwise. You’d call my bluff. You’re good at that.

“But everything feels okay when I’m with you. You see me. You allow me just to exist as I am. You make me feel human again—you make me want to feel human again. You empty my mind.”

You feel as if you’ve been ejected into space naked, griping for air where there is none.

“I never believed in having somebody to lose,” he utters, gently leaning his forehead against yours. “But I would rather disappear than watch you go.”

You cradle his jaw with shaking fingers, trying and failing to quell the violence of your emotion.

“Don’t go,” he exhales.

You kiss him.

It should feel the same as before. You reach for the slant of his neck, him the dips above your waist. You sigh into him, parting your lips, and he moves into you deeper, harder, dipping into your mouth with his tongue’s pliant swipe. But there’s something new in the way you hold each other, in the seal of your mouth against his.

The line between sexual escapade and lover vanishes as if swept off the sand and into the sea. His stars come out of hiding at last and they bathe you in their residue, light your heart aglow.

Your confession resurfaces. It wants to stargaze also.

“I love you too,” you breathe.

The night comes and goes.

The two of you spend it entangling, sweating, your lips glued the expanse of his neck and the arcs of his shoulders, writing over the ghosts’ injuries with bruises of your making.

Only when the winds have faltered outside do you attempt to rest again. You are curled up in balmy bliss, utterly depleted. Jisung’s arms around your middle and legs threaded among yours bring you that much closer to slumber’s cusp.

You attribute it to your exhaustion when he mumbles something against you, and you have no idea what it means: “Thank you for refracting me.” 

Your confusion is palpable in your silence. His laugh hits the nape of your neck with a gentle puff, and he kisses the spot just beneath your ear. “Never mind.”

🔖 (send an ask to be added)・@astraystayyh・@like-a-diamondinthesky・@fire-08・@starsandrqindrops・@txtxlz・@laylasbunbunny・@strayghibli・@nuronhe・@seungminsapuppy・@vivisoni・@skzms・@moon0fthenight・@sweetpickledjins・@svintsandghosts・@nhyunn ・@liknws・@hotgorloikawa・@randomwimp・ @automaticpersonabatpaper・@aceofvernons・@linos-kitten

© 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐱 (est. 090323) · 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤? please consider reblogging, commenting, or sending me an ask to let me know; or, read my other writing here. thanks so much for the support!

[irisintheafterglow]

"don't wanna watch the fireworks?"

"not the biggest fan of loud noises," you mumble from the darkest possible corner of the enormous house. the nearest clock reads 11:55.

"yeah, me neither," touya replies. "mind if i sit?" you shrug and make room for him on the black leather couch. something sharp digs into his back and he curses under his breath, pulling a gold party popper from between the cushions and tossing it aside. "such a waste."

"at least the glitter makes everything shimmer." the sarcasm in your voice isn't lost on him.

"including your asshole if you happen to sit in it," he deadpans. you make a noise between a chuckle and a snort, and his mouth turns up in a smirk. you'd never been this close to touya, despite seeing him often because of your work with his agency, and find yourself mesmerized by the mottled purple tissue of his face.

"you know, i thought i'd be happier." you decide to examine the glitter under your fingernails to stop yourself from staring at his scars, but are met with intense blue eyes when you look up in the silence. "this time, the new year. i thought it'd be better."

"what'd you imagine?" 11:56.

"i don't know," you admit sheepishly. "just not..." you gesture vaguely to the empty living room, all of the guests having filed out to celebrate the time striking midnight. "this. i wanted to be alone but then i realized just how sad it is being alone on new year's." you were rambling--probably a flute too many of champagne--but you imagined touya had tuned you out.

he didn't.

"at least you made it." there's a sort of pride in the molten burning of his eyes, but you can't tell if it's for him or for you. "you got through the year. it's a big ol' fuck you! to anyone who thought you couldn't do it, even if you're alone."

"but i'm not alone, am i? i've got you here with me." 11:57. the crowd in the backyard's murmurs turn to cheers of excitement. their new beginnings were just around the corner.

"sure, though i don't imagine you want me to kiss you at midnight," he drawls. "i wouldn't blame you, with all the--"

"i do." your answer shocks you both and you're not sure whether you even thought about the words you were uttering. "i think your scars make you more handsome." he's equally as surprised by your praise but hides it quickly.

"that makes one of us, sweetheart," he says coolly, but you can tell his ears had turned the slightest bit pinker under the shining white locks of his hair. "hope you don't think i came over here just to get a midnight kiss."

"i don't, but i also don't know why you came over here in the first place," you admit. 11:58. the rave-worthy strobe lights in the yard dim in anticipation.

"would you let me explain over breakfast?" there's only the slightest nervous waver in his voice. outside, the crowd begins counting.

"you didn't strike me as a morning person. i was thinking black coffee and three raw eggs in a blender for you." he huffs a laugh through his nose, his eyes sparkling at your antics. you didn't notice how close you'd unconsciously brought your bodies together.

"i'm not, don't get me wrong," he amends and you smile. "i'm talking about ditching once it's midnight and grabbing soba. hopefully with you accompanying me?" you hum in fake thought.

"depends on how well you kiss me."

"i do love a challenge." you're close enough to count the flecks of cerulean in his irises. he radiates heat, drawing you in like a fireplace in a winter storm. it's the warmest you'd felt during the entire party.

11:59.

when the clock strikes midnight and touya carefully presses his lips to yours, cradling your head with unexpected gentleness, he tastes like your own new beginning. it starts with a hand slipping into touya's large palm, continues with a few rounds of soba noodles and numerous belly laughs, and ends with one more kiss just outside your apartment as the sky starts to glow a new orange.

it's more beautiful than any fireworks.

[chilling-seavey]

Winter Warmers: Day 31 — Overstimulation & NYE Countdown

↳ A/N: Thank you all for sticking with me through my first writing festival! It was certainly a challenge but a fun one and I hope you enjoyed reading these little daily blurbs. Here is a doubly long final blurb to close out our festival x Happy new year, everyone :)

↳ Summary: New Years Eve in the Monte Carlo clubs is a force to be reckoned with.

↳ Word Count: 2070

↳ Warnings: 18+, exhibitionism, grinding, fingering, countdown 

↳ Winter Warmers Prompt List | The Way It Goes Masterlist

The thudding of the music from the club echoed in your skull with every beat. Around you, bodies swayed and danced under strobing neon lights that flickered through thick haze of shadows and fog. You couldn’t tell if you couldn’t see straight from your alcohol consumption or from the smoke machine that was positioned uncomfortably close to the corner of the dancefloor where you and your group had claimed. Even still, your attention was far more focused on the man in front of you, chest to chest with you, hands all over you. 

In your short shimmery cocktail dress, you had somehow stumbled yourself into some club with your boyfriend to ring in the New Year. It wasn’t generally your scene but with your group of friends with you and George never leaving your side, it felt drastically more enjoyable than you had once remembered. George in his black slacks and white button up tucked into them, two buttons undone from the top—he had a tendency to start to unbutton his shirt the drunker he got. 

All of your senses were peaked in the insanity that was the Monte Carlo club scene and the expensive alcohol that just kept coming. From the music that rendered conversation impossible to the limited visibility in the shadows and flashing neon lights to the ache of your feet in your heels and the stickiness of your skin from sweat and spilled drinks. Everything was so much. 

But George was all you could focus on, keeping his gaze and sharing in his smile, dancing ungracefully together in a way that you would look back on with a sober mind and cringe. His hands were on your waist, sliding over your hips and dangerously close to your ass, holding your body against his to move in rhythm. You couldn’t get enough of him, hands gliding up his chest and over his shoulders and biceps, accepting his lead and the gyrations of his body until you were arching into him. 

Somehow you ended up turned away from him, his hands yanking you back against his front. In any other mindset maybe one of you might have been concerned over someone from the public being nearby to snap a picture but your cares had long since disappeared that night. Instead, you let yourself grind back on your boyfriend to the rhythm of the beat-heavy song, following the greedy guidance of his hands. His breath against your neck was hot and sticky—everything felt sticky—and you tilted your head back with your eyes fluttering closed to bask in his fiery touch and the feeling of his semi pressing against your ass in your tight dress. 

You hardly remembered leaving the dancefloor before your back was pressed hard against the dark painted wall of the club hallway that led towards the bathrooms, George’s lips chasing yours as he leaned in after you. Your hands framed his face, kissing him like he was the sweetest drink of the night, an intoxicating concoction mixed just for you. The flood of music chased after you into the hallway; still just as loud and just as throbbing. You couldn’t hear your kisses, your moans, the way George spoke into your mouth in words you would never hear. 

His eyes locked on yours as if expecting an answer. All you could do was nod.

Bursting into the bathroom; it was a momentary refuge from the club music, your ears ringing from the sudden quiet as the door shut behind you and muffled the sound. In the single room bathroom that was no larger than a closet with just a toilet and the smallest sink known to man, you had no choice but to be in each other’s personal space. It was where you both much preferred to be anyway: impossibly close to each other. 

George’s hand was clammy on the back of your neck as his lips captured yours in a filthy kiss again, his tongue pushing its way into your mouth. Your fingers gripped onto the damp fabric of his shirt, creasing it in your grasp in your feverish need to get him closer. He already had you trapped back against the graffitied wall of the cramped bathroom, pinned there by his body, the sequins of your dress scratching against the poorly painted drywall. 

You could taste the bitter alcohol on his tongue and as you grabbed onto the edge of his collar, you couldn’t help but suck on his tongue a little to taste every ounce of him. George groaned lowly into your mouth, eyes half-lidded and full of lust, his thigh shoving between yours in an unspoken need to get you closer. That simple action was all you needed to start to grind on his thigh, causing the tight fabric of your dress to ride up up to your hips. George bit your bottom lip between filthy kisses, giving it a tug as he pulled away for just a moment. 

Both of you were breathing hard and had yet to speak a proper word to each other but, after almost two years together, words weren’t necessary in moments like this. Instead, George helped himself up your dress and he linked his fingers in the edge of your underwear and shimmied them down your legs. You held onto his shoulders as you stepped out of them—and only got one heel stuck in the leg hole in the process but your balance was kept by your boyfriend so close to you—and then George was slipping them into the pocket of his slacks. 

And before you knew it, he had his lips back on yours and two fingers knuckle deep inside you. The thudding music rattled the wall on which you were pressed back against, muffled by the bathroom door but still strong through the foundation of the club, setting your senses ablaze with a reminder of where you were. George kissed you breathless, your arm slung around his shoulders with your other hand grasping his bicep and pressing your nails into his muscle. He swallowed your moans and whimpers up with his plush lips and tongue, tilting his head to deepen the kiss until you were almost licking into each other’s mouths. 

Your hips kept nudging towards his hand as if trying to path the pace of his fingers and their firm but gentle curls. Being intoxicated, his movements weren’t as entirely practiced and precise as they otherwise might have been but you were also too drunk to notice. Everything felt so good. You felt like you were tingling all over. All of your senses were on overdrive, succumbing to him with ease, kissing him back like your life depended on it no matter how clumsy it was. 

When you finally had to break away to breathe, you tilted your head back against the wall behind you with a pitchy groan, eyes fluttering shut. The single light bulb from the ceiling that illuminated the cramped bathroom had you sheltered in the shadow from George’s body, only the sequins of your dress along your sleeves shimmered in the warm light as you held him around his shoulders. George breathed against your cheek, hard panted breaths that reminded you of his presence. 

“That’s it…” George spoke lowly, barely heard over the muffled music through the walls as he fingered you a little faster, “Fuck, that’s it…”

“Yeah—” you choked out in encouragement. “Yeah, baby, please—”

At that moment, George raised his left hand up to check his watch—classic George to wear a $80,000 watch to a club but perhaps that was normal in Monaco. He then looked back at you, setting his hand flat against the stick wall beside your head, announcing, “One minute to midnight.”

“Ohh,” you writhed against his hand still up your bunched up dress, his fingers still working magic inside you, and you slurred out a pitchy, “I don’t care.”

“Uh huh? Yeah, you do.” George said firmly, staring at every expression your face made, “Because I’m gonna make you cum for me in sixty seconds.”

He checked his watch again.

“Fifty seconds now.”

Your fingers tugged at the fabric of his shirt, whining and whimpering to the walls of the cramped bathroom. Your hips pushed towards him, wanting and needing more, entranced by his determined pitch.

And then his lips were back on yours and your hand tangled in the back of his hair, right at the nape of his neck where the soft brunette waves were damp with sweat. Despite the fact that every ounce of the club had your senses on high alert, at that moment all you could focus on was George. He fingered you a little harder, a little faster, building that burning warmth in the pit of your stomach like a man on a mission. 

You broke away from his kiss to press your cheek to his, crying out his name with a gasp, toes curling in your heels. George groaned against your ear, pinning you right against the wall with his body so you could hardly move, his fingers meeting all the right spots and the heel of his palm giving you just the right friction against your clit. 

“Fifteen seconds.” he spoke lowly, “Are you close? Can you cum for me?”

“Uh huh!” you answered quickly, clinging onto him. 

“Yeah? Gonna be a good girl for me and cum all over my fingers at midnight?” he taunted, “Welcome the new year in with a nice little orgasm?” 

“George—” you quivered. 

“Ten…” he started, eyes focused on his watch as he leaned on his forearm against the wall beside your head, his other hand keeping its pace between your legs, “Nine…eight…”

Through the bathroom door, you could hear the music fading slightly to be replaced by the crowded club starting their own countdown to the new year. Despite how the music quieted, your ears continued thudding but this time with your pulse, fast and anticipatory. Your arm tightened around George’s shoulders.

His voice was rich against your ear, “Seven…six…five…”

You almost had to hold yourself back to make it through the countdown, trying to squirm under his strong presence and the rising pleasure. His two fingers deep inside you had your thighs quivering, struggling to stay standing in your heels. 

“George—” you cried again, all you seemed to be able to say was his name. 

“Four…” he continued, a hint of a smirk in the sound of his voice, as if he could feel you throbbing around his fingers and knew just the effect he was having on you, “three…two…”

“Yes—” you squeaked, fingers tugging at the roots of his hair, “Yes, please—”

“One…”

And as the crowd shouted “Happy New Year!” from the dancefloor, you clung onto George in the privacy of the cramped club bathroom and came on his fingers. He groaned into your neck at the pressure of your embrace and the way your body squeezed around his fingers as he kept them going inside you, desperate to work you through it and addicted to the way he could feel you drip down his hand with every thrust. 

You shuddered in his arms, hips jumping in sensitivity, but he just kept fingering you. Despite how sensitive you were, you didn’t stop him. Instead, you sunk your teeth into his shoulder to smother your cries, tugging at his hair and his shirt and anything you could reach, torn between wanting him close and pushing him away in oversensitivity. He made you come again in a few seconds, a little weaker than the first but just as enjoyable until you felt like you were completely hazy and dreaming. 

George let you ease out of it and he pulled his fingers out of you and tugged down your dress back into place, smiling at your expression. You slumped back against the wall as your face broke into a pleasured grin, legs trembling in your heels and still needing something to keep you standing. Unbothered by the dampness of his fingers, he grabbed your waist over your dress and leaned in to steal a breathless kiss from you.

You shared a few soft kisses like that before he pulled away again and rested his forehead against yours, whispering out a gentle and yet somewhat prideful, “Happy New Year, my love.”

With an intoxicated but love-sick smile, you stroked your thumbs over his flushed cheeks, “Happy New Year, sweetheart.”

♡ Enjoying my content? Support my writing here :)

♡ None of the original writing on this blog may be reproduced, reposted, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

[sweetheartsaku]

(BHNA) REAL MAN.

𝜗𝜚 TOUYA TODOROKI: 𝓑LOOD SAGE.

a/n: [fem!reader] touya meet not-so-cute 🤍 for @seneon the only touyalvr ever and @katsukistofu's fav fire hazard 😔✊!!

a cold wisp floods the concrete path, tickling your ankles through your thick boots. deafening music mixes with distant police sirens and train blares, loud synthesisers muffle between agape windows and violent yet causal chatter. bustling, late-night city life pulsates through your ears.

you aloofly roam past unique, ominous quirks with boomboxes and strobe lights, knives and blades as if it’s purely a walk in the park. instead of cute dogs they were rabid, probably radioactive creatures. instead of lush trees, there were blinding neon lights. there was probably cursed chemicals concocted in the air too, but if it didn’t kill you, who cares? did everyone just come to forget how easy villain life can be, if you just— made it look easy?

the concrete beneath you is damp, puddles of water in every dent and crease of the ground, water trickling off stall roofs and rain runs down your cheek. the cold winter breeze makes it difficult for a nearby crook to light his cigarette, causing him to throw it on the ground, mercilessly crushing the warm cigarette butt with his heel.

you watch as the rando does his work, slowly proceeding to walk along. you find yourself a couple buildings away from the man, looking up at the flickering, slanted sign that read: “SIX TO MIDNIGHT.” the light on all the vowels faded out.

“watch it, doll.”

you turn around and your eyes meet a pair of vibrant turquoise ones. —what’d he just call me?

the mysterious ravenette chuckles before he sees your fists slightly clench, but facial expression remain the same.

“woah. touched a nerve there.” to then gently shoving you out of the doorway, palms heating up; leaving ash on your shoulder before slipping through. you lose him in the crowd within the classy bar, the scent of alcohol with strong cologne filling your senses and gag reflex at the tip of your tongue.

get the money, get out.

your client is one of the most successful and most popular in the area, but at what cost? payment pickup at the worst, most crowed bar, only available at the peak number of drinkers and villains, at the smack-bang very centre of the bar. being one of the best assassins had its perks, and this definitely wasn't one of them.

can’t believe i beat ass just for a little gain in a pig's den.

you never felt the need to grab a beverage while your inside though. you just feel the need to get in and out as fast as possible every time, so how could this time be any different?

his turquoise eyes haven’t left you. that's what.

his piercing yet agile gaze remains on your figure. he didn’t stand out in height, nor costume. but what slightly piqued your interest was his burnt flesh stuck together with staples and oh don’t forget his undeniably enchanting, teal eyes.

you decide to ignore it, but why can't you bring yourself to take the last step out the door? the money is in your hand, the bar’s atmosphere is still lingering with alcohol, and your first impression didn't seem close to a fairytale.

was this that stupid gut feeling of danger heroes have when their sixth sense ignites? oh please, forgive me for thinking it's a fleeting romance.

a dim purple light shades an area in a nearby corner, instantly attracting your on-edge figure. naturally pivoting to the nearest empty seat, the unsettling feeling seeps in as you manspread, taking as much space as you could crossing your legs. your gloved arms reclined on the backrest behind you, sighing as this funny feeling echoes through your head. the leg beneath the one you crossed it over begins to bounce by habit. you brush loose droplets of rain off your shoulder. your mind runs to places. your hands tightly grip th-

"our first encounter was pretty abrupt, huh, doll? slow dance it out on the floor?"

you quickly react to the same mysterious man who once had his eyes glued on you, now in front of you. you cockily smirk before retorting,

"no one ever taught you to be a real man, huh, handsome?"

he chuckles as he extends his hand, brushing the end of his coat as it drifts behind him. your gloved hand that once tightly gripped the backboard of the seat instinctually clasps his. he promptly pulls you up, finding yourself with one hand on his shoulder and the other lightly laced with his. his other hand finds its respectable spot on your waist, fingers sprawled against your plush side.

"what should i call you, hm?" she stares at his lips before her glare moves up to his eyes.

their bodies were so close and nearing to pressing each other. this was not a good rep for a prestigious assassin like you. the proximity clicks your senses back on finer than before, his sage cologne fusing with the scent of blood and smoke.

"touya. you?"

"pretty name, touya. couldn't keep your eyes off me before?"

"you're a peculiar one, aren't you?" he snickers.

"interesting. not peculiar." you correct.

you continue. "gonna answer my question?"

his grin cocks up as he watches your smirk form with stitched eyebrows. your hand slowly moves from his shoulder to behind his neck, fingers brushing the hairs on his nape. your grip on his intertwined hands become tighter.

"getting eager, are we?"

locked eyes, tight proximity and brash yet romantic words have got to be one of the worst combinations known to man right now. a rosy blush warmly spreads across your face, (hopefully) hardly visible under the dim cold lights.

would you hold it down and take it if I gave you a chance?

he feels every inch of you, from the hand slightly grazing the back of his neck to the soft skin underneath thick material of your gear. heat arises from every place, the warm, tender tension stirring within both of you.

need the reassurance, baby,

not a silly romance.

[novankenn]

I had an idea for Mafia AU. Weiss and Winter Schnee. Sisters on opposite sides of the law learn that their father IS responsible for the hit on Jaune. The Arcs leaving have hurt his bottom line and he can’t abide it. Through different approaches the two sisters learn Jacques has hired “The Scorpion” an assassin that can’t be swayed once he accepts a contract. It is a religious matter to him. How do they respond and would the head of the Schnee family survive their response?

Mirror, Mirror in the hall, who do we call?

(A snippet from "a Mafia" & "From Assassin to Sales Clerk" AUs)

Weiss was having the time of her life tonight. Under the strobing black lights of the club her neon pink and yellow twin trail styled hair, and form fitting shirt and hot pants glowed brightly. The world renown singer and heir to the Schnee Family was loving the anonymity her outfit and acts were giving her.

In fact she was currently getting very up close and personal with a very energetic and flirty cat faunus, dressed in similarly bright colors. A quick thought about the young man her father had betrothed her to passed through her mind, making her feel even better about sharing these... intimate dances with Neon.

The betrothal was just another attempt by her father to bring more wealth and power under Schnee influence. The Vasilias were fairly powerful in their own right, and if linked to the Schnee via a marriage between Weiss and Neptune... all the better. Which was why Weiss had been paying more attention to her father's actions... and the family's public and private books.

Which was why she was risking meeting her black sheep of a sister, Winter. Weiss still didn't fully understand why Winter threw away everything her family could have helped her achieve to struggle and slave for pennies as a SWAT member in the AMPD. Weiss licked her lips when she felt Neon's tail brush her behind while moving to coil about her waist.

"Some one's getting frisky." Weiss purred into Neon's ear as she draped her arms over the slightly shorter woman.

"Do you blame me?" Neon purred right back, while leaning in for a kiss.

Weiss' heart was slamming inside her chest and she lowered her head to meet the beautiful girl's lips, when the world exploded in light.

"AMPD! Everyone on the ground now!"

Neon grabbed Weiss' hand and tried to drag her away, but Weiss refused. This was all part of the plan, to speak with Winter, so she needed to stay. Pulling Neon close, Weiss gave her the kiss she had wanted, and then pressed her forehead to hers.

"I need to stay." Weiss whispered. "If you stay with me, I'll take care of you. But if you want to go... I'll understand."

"You promise?" Neon asked as she slid her hand down from Weiss' wrist and intertwined her fingers with Weiss'

"I promise."

"Down on the ground! Hands on you heads! NOW!"

Thirty minutes later Weiss found herself in an interrogation room. She remained silent as Officer Marrow tried to get her to explain why she was attending a rave in a drug den. Weiss just slid a business card to him. A card with the contact details for Detective Winter Schnee of AMPDs Special Weapons and Tactics Team. Officer Marrow picked up the card.

"Okay, Ms Harlequin." Marrow rose from his seat, knocked on the door twice, and before leaving, "Det Schnee will be with you shortly."

Another twenty minutes later, a rather stern looking woman, entered. Her uniform was pristine, and she radiated an air of authority. She said nothing as she took her seat. Before the door closed she gave a nod to her partner, Detective Elm Ederne, who returned the nod.

The pair sat in silence for a minute before the blinking redlight on the camera stayed off.

"Sister. What is it this time?" Winter spoke with a disinterested tone. "As much as I appreciate you trying to stay in... "

"The girl brought in with me. Neon Katt, can you make sure she is released with me?"

"Why?" Winter cocked an elbow as she crossed her arms over her chest. "Is she special?"

"Just to me." Weiss replied, "As for why I did this..."

"It better not be to ask me to a secret birth..."

"NO!" Weiss snapped. "This is important! Danger to the family important!"

"Weiss?"

"I've been looking at the books, and watching father." Weiss reported to her sister, "He's up to..."

"The bastard is always up to something. Legal or illegal. He's always scheming, and fucking people over."

"Well this will fuck us all, if it means what I think it means." Weiss countered. "I think father has issued a contract. I'm not sure for how much, or on who specifically."

"I'll need more information then that Weiss. You know this."

"There is forty million missing from the accounts."

"Shit."

"I contracted someone, Flynt Coal, know him?"

"Why did you hire a Black Hat hacker?"

"To get into Father's personal systems." Weiss explained, "He did, and he found two names. Arc and Scorpion. Do those..."

"Are you positive!" Winter snapped.

"Yes? Flynt drop-boxed me the time stamped screen shots."

"Fuck!"

"Winter, I don't...."

"Get hold of you friend Flynt and tell to vanish. Then you take Neon, introduce her to Mom and Whitley..." Winter paused. "And then CONVIENCE or COERCE her to take you all to Mistral for a holiday. Understand?"

"I don't but I'll do it." Weiss responded. "Can you tell me what is going on?"

"Father in his stupidity may have just killed us all." Winter growled before standing up, and banging on the door. When it opened. "She knows nothing. Just a stupid girl and her girlfriend looking for a fun time. Cut her and Neon Katt loose."

"Everything okay Winter?" Elm asked. "You look a little... stressed."

"We need to speak to Chief Ironwood."

Ten minutes later, Wiess was desperately sending Flynt a message, through a BBS while dragging Neon with her towards the bullhead pads for Atlas proper.

[lassieposting]

Okay but. For anyone who's unfamiliar with the UK. Pop-up street funfairs are kind of a Thing here - they show up for carnivals and village fetes and shit and when you grow up in the middle of buttfuck nowhere like I did they might be the only entertainment you'll get all year, so you really come to love the atmosphere and the strobing lights and the pounding music and the nostalgia of better, easier, safer times.

And every year, in London, they have the Hyde Park Winter Festival, which is hands down the biggest pop-up funfair I've ever seen.

Anyway hc that the year Lucy runs away to London, Lockwood and George take her to the festival. It's George's idea - she is from the Barbarous Wastes Oop North, Lockwood, she's probably never seen a funfair before, and she does gasp and go all wide-eyed every time their taxi drives past it - and Lockwood pays, because his house might be mortgaged to the hilt, he might be practically a serf, but he's the boss and he's pretty sure he still owes George a tenner anyway for those beers, so, whatever -

And it's just a whole thing for Lucy because she's never really been treated before. Everything she's needed since she was thirteen came out of her Jacobs' wages. Her mum never spent a penny on her that wasn't absolutely necessary, and begrudged her even that. So she's always had to be a penny-pincher, always had to deny herself fun things because her wages were being spent on essentials or frittered away on pints of Fosters, and being able to do whatever she likes purely for her own pleasure is utterly foreign to her.

And he doesn't make her feel bad for it. For wanting to have fun for once. Neither of them do. George spouts useless facts about when rides were invented and the origins of ice skates, and sometimes puts his fingers in his ears with a grimace, but when she grins at him, he grins back. Lockwood plays the yes-man for her all evening, eyes twinkling when she hangs off his arm or pulls him over to see something by the wrist. He stumps up for candyfloss, for sweetie cones, for fresh donuts and hook-a-duck and the shooting gallery, because "You were looking at it like you wanted it." She has three goes on a claw machine trying to get a particular stuffed dog, and then Lockwood has a go, before George finally wins it for her. And she loves them so much, these boys who put her first more than her own family ever did.

She falls asleep on Lockwood's shoulder in the taxi on the way home. Mostly. She dozes, at least. She's still vaguely cognizant of what's going on around her - the low hum of the radio, the pulse of the taxi's engine, George's voice when he leans around her and says, "I didn't realise you noticed that thing she does."

She's been faintly aware of Lockwood's arm around her shoulders since he put it there, when she started listing drowsily into his side, but she hadn't noticed his thumb idly petting back and forth until it stills. "Thing? What thing?"

"The thing," says George helpfully. "Where she looks at things like she wants them but she knows she can't have them."

Lockwood snorts. It's a small, derisive sound, probably accompanied by an eye roll. "I'd make a pretty piss-poor agent if I hadn't. She does it at lots of things."

"Oh." George seems to muse on that for a second. Then, "Just you never seem to notice when she does it at you."

Lockwood goes very still, for a second. Clears his throat, just quietly. His arm jostles her a bit; she thinks he's fussing with his cufflinks, which he seems to do a lot ever since he started wearing them in the first place. His voice is warm, though. "Shut up, George."

"Yes, boss." Irreverent. Grinning, probably.

With her face tucked into his shoulder, Lucy smiles, and lets herself drift.

[jev-urisk]

Halloween Short: Suburban Witch DIY

I haven't been posting much this week- but here's a fun little story I wrote a few years back about a witch to tide y'all over.

Happy Halloween!! 🎃 

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

The monthly coven gathering was going to start in less than an hour and Maurli was just taking care of the finishing touches. The fish legs and frog tails had been taken out of the freezer to thaw, the bags of commercial brand coal had been hauled from her baby blue sedan into the gathering space in her basement, and totems of protection had been carefully placed on every windowsill and hung in every doorway. All that was left were the decorations.

Since it was the spring equinox gathering, Maurli wanted her home to be blooming with plant life. Over the past two weeks she had been administering a growth potion to all of her houseplants and even used it to cultivate new plants from seeds. Now her house was stuffed with more greenery than the garden section of a home depot: Sage, rosemary, and thyme crowded the hanging pots of her kitchen, her Livingroom was a jungle of bamboo and money trees, and the bathrooms were made delightfully aromatic with flowering vines and budding stalks. Every corner, every table, and every wall was overflowing with life. For most witches this would be enough, but after the Yule party last winter, Maurli knew she needed to step it up.

Yiressa had been the host for Yule and had used an unmelting glittering snow spell on the ceilings in her home, creating a stunning winter wonderland. The spell itself wasn’t that difficult, but that uppity broom-licker Yiressa hasn’t let anyone forget how good her party looked and was constantly asking Maurli how she was going to top it.

Well Maurli had found an article in one of last months issues of Bewitched Weekly and had turned her abode into a greenhouse to maximize the wow factor of the spell. The article was “DIY Glowing Houseplants” and when her guests came into her house, Maurli planned on shutting off all the electricity, and lighting her house with the soft glowing of the hundreds of plants strategically placed around the suburban home.

Maurli bustled into the kitchen, pulling the magazine clipping out from the spell book she shoved it into. She had everything she needed: beard of gnome, 2 teaspoons birchbark, a pinch of arrowroot, and 20 grams of overpriced dryad clippings she found at the Charmers Market. She mixed all the ingredients into a fine dust using her bullet blender before sifting the dust into a stone bowl. Maurli turned off all the lights before tossing a match into the mixture. A green glowing flame rose up within the bowl and Maurli chanted the spell, peering at the recipe on her counter.

“Paak'alo'ob Paak'alo'ob

Iluminan a kuxtal yéetel guían in beel

Brillar yéetel u páajtalil a concede a el

Igual u le k'áak'o’ brilla tin k'abo'ob!”

As she chanted, the fire burst out of the bowl into hundreds of small glowing orbs, flying to the plants spread about the house and melting into their leafy auras. When all the orbs found a host, the foliage began glowing, and Maurli knew she had made a mistake.

Every plant, from the lilies on the fireplace, to the ivy snaking through the halls, was not only glowing, they were FLASHING. Not a slow soft flashing either, but a bright strobing that assaulted Maurli’s eyes. Maurli dropped the stone bowl and put a hand up to shield her vision, her other hand snatching up her DIY instructions. Maybe the dryad clippings were actually ent clippings? she wondered in a panic. That son of a witch at the charmers market might have screwed her over. Maurli read through the article several times, trying to find any reason for the spell to have gone wrong.

“Merlin’s ass, it called for 2 tablespoons of birch bark, not 2 teaspoons” Maurli muttered bitterly, glaring at the failure around her. She wanted her decorations to be the talk of the coven, and with the way her house was lighting up like a will o’ wisp on basilisk juice, Maurli was sure it would be.

“Craaaa Craaaaa” came the squawking of the doorbell, interrupting Maurli’s brooding. Her coven sisters have arrived, and her house was as charming as the broken turn signal on Syv’s broom. There was no way Maurli was ever going to live this down, she needed to find a potion to fix this, fast.

She ripped through her pantry, her doorbell croaking urgently all the while. “Just a moment!” she shouted cheerily, clawing her way through boxes of wormwood crunch cereal and mason jars filled with sleep warding potions. After picking through the many bottles on the back shelf she came upon the one thing that may save her reputation with the Coven, a potion that can dilute the senses and lower expectations.

Quickly flipping through her phone, she selected a playlist with heavy bass and pumped it through her home speakers before she strode to the door with confidence, carrying a basket full of Vodka as the plants flashed in time with the music.

This was going to be a spring equinox to remember.

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

A lot of other blogs on here have fun Halloween stories, idk if they'll post them to their blog directly but in case they do go check out @marlowethelibrarian @dragoninatrenchcoat @rotting-moon-writes @words-after-midnight @cowboybrunch

@gioiaalbanoart @saturnine-saturneight @leahnardo-da-veggie and @wyked-ao3 (I wrote one for this year but uhh.. couldn't figure it out. So I cheated.)

[badfanfictionaire]

Scare-o-Ween Haunted Graveyard has had a long standing rivalry with the haunted corn maze, Acropolis Extreme, across the street since… well as long as they’ve both been open. During the off season, Scare-o-Ween is actually a petting zoo, and Acropolis is just a field with some porta-potties parked off to one side. But for the month of October? It’s all things spooky and creepy. And fraternizing with the enemy is strictly forbidden.

This year Eddie’s been cast as Gregor the Green, a zombie who used to be a deep sea diver when he was alive. His skin is coated in thick luminescent green paint to look like deadly algae, and he has a big old fashioned diving helmet over his head with strobing lights that shine through the portholes. He is really good at his job, and that’s mainly because he loves Halloween. It’s the time of year when freaks are appreciated rather than shunned, and he’s nothing if not a freak. During the summer he works the carnivals and fairs that come through Indiana. In the Spring he works at a garden center, and in the Winter he bar tends or waits tables. He’s not fussy, but if he could work as a scare actor all year he would be in heaven.

He knows he’s not supposed to fraternize with anyone from Acropolis when they all file out of work after their shifts. The staff parking lots are very close together, so Eddie usually keeps his head low while he walks to his van least one of their enemies tries to make contact.

Now, if he’s being totally honest, he has zero clue why the rivalry exists. Most customers go to both venues just on different nights; and aside from being a spooky attraction, they don’t have much in common. The rumor is that back in the day when they both started up, they were run by families who didn’t get along. He’d heard a lot of tall tales, like how one of the Acropolis employees had allegedly put itching powder in all of Scare-o-Ween’s actors’ costumes. Or how Scare-o-Ween’s owner had allegedly tried to burn down part of the corn maze right after it had been shaped for the season. No one really knew what was true, but they knew better than to make contact with the other employees and give them any reason to start something.

Usually he’s fine with this, but tonight something happens. He’s walking, head down like always, when he hears someone very softly say, “Um, excuse me?”

When he looks up, it’s like the world has turned on its axis and he’s wildly spinning through space. Even with the remains of her face paint on she is divine.

“I know I’m not supposed to talk to you, but, everyone else already left and my car won’t start.” They glance around at the empty Acropolis parking lot. Eddie’s surprised everyone is gone already, but his shift had ended a little later than normal.

Eddie quickly glances around on his own turf and sees that basically everyone else is already in their cars and driving for the exit gate.

“I um, ok. Let me just run and grab my jumper cables, yeah? It’s probably a dead battery.”

“Great!” she smiles and him and it’s like the sun slapping him across the face.

Goddamnit, with how cute she is he would probably be willing to do something way stupider than just helping her start her car. Hell, he hardly even cares of anyone sees him talking to her. If she asked, he’d probably quit on the spot and start working at Acropolis.

He darts to his van and wrestles the jumper cables he keeps in the back out from underneath a pile of random shit, then takes a flashlight from his glove box and beelines back over to her.

“What’s your name by the way?” he asks, tossing the cables over the short fence between lots.

“Chrissy,” she says, “And you?”

“Eddie.”

“Eddie,” she repeats, and his heart slams harder against his ribs, “My knight in shining body paint.”

He grimaces, remembering he’s currently fluorescent and in the presence of a literal goddess. Embarrassing.

“Dead scuba diver,” he says sheepishly.

“Corpse bride,” she says with a curtsy.

“Milady,” he says handing her his flashlight.

He pops the hood on her car and props it up so he can take a peek. “Go ahead and try to start it.”

Chrissy gets behind the wheel and turns the key, nothing happens.

“Crap,” he bites his lip, “I wasn’t even thinking, I can’t jump it without my car, and I can’t get into this lot.”

“So it is the battery?” she asks.

“Seems like it, since not even the accessory mode comes on when you turn the key.”

“Shoot.”

“Hey, I have an idea. Let me have your parking pass, I’ll just drive around and swipe your pass to get in and then I can jump it and you’ll be good to go.”

“How do I know you won’t steal it?”

“I’ll give you mine as collateral.”

Chrissy smiles at him and holds out her hand, “Deal.”

They shake on it, and she fetches her card from her purse while he takes his out of his billfold.

In no time at all he’s pulling the van into enemy territory and up close to Chrissy’s car. It doesn’t take long to get her battery juiced up enough to turn the engine over, and before he knows it she’s ready to head home.

“Will I ever see you again?” she ask, twirling his ID in her hands.

“You know we’re not supposed to mingle.”

“I know,” she says, kicking at the gravel under her feet, “But what if it was in secret?”

“Someone’s a naughty little thing,” he teases.

“My parents think I work at the movie theater, they wouldn’t approve of me working at a haunted corn maze with “devil worshipers”.”

“I like you already,” he hums, bouncing on his toes.

“So, I’ll see you again then?” she holds out his card toward him.

When he takes it, he kisses the back of her hand. “For you, mademoiselle? I’d break all the rules for you.”

She surprises him once more when she kisses him square on the lips before slipping behind the wheel.

“Goodnight, Romeo,” she says sweetly before she pulls away.

“Goodnight, Juliet,” he calls after her.

(And if the security cameras caught the entire ordeal, and they both get fired the next day, well, at least they get their happily ever after, unlike some star-crossed lovers…)

👻👻👻👻

(Read on AO3)

[readnburied]

169 Scavenger Hunt Reading Challenge 2024 — Announcement

As this year draws to a close, it’s time to announce the 169 Scavenger Hunter Reading Challenge 2024. This is a reading challenge which is hosted by me and takes place every leap year. The first one took place in 2020 and 2024 will be a leap year so it’s time for this challenge to appear. 

Rules & Levels

The challenge will run from January 1st, 2024 till December 31st, 2024. There’s a list of 169 items given below and your job is to find each item in the books you read. You can find multiple items in one book, or you can choose to read one book per item, that is up to you. 

There are levels of accomplishment based on how many items you manage to find in the books you read which are as follows: 

Bronze Level: 0 — 52 items

Silver Level: 53 — 91 items

Gold Level:  92 — 169 items

So without any further delay, here is the list of items you need to find for the 169 Scavenger Hunt Reading Challenge 2024. 

169 Scavenger Hunt Reading Challenge 2024

wristwatch

Scarf

Mason Jar

Ticket

Fuse

Guitar

Rocking Chair

Rock

Picture Frame

Fireplace

Moon

Calendar

Duffel Bag

Boarding Pass

Star

Plate

Ceiling Fan

Coffee Cup

Barista

Sparrow

Bottle

Soda

Egg

Mascara

Strobe Lights

Martini

Leaf

Stethoscope 

Squid

Dagger

Blue Car

April

Bow

Cat

Tapestry

Bookshelf

Pearl

Ice Cream

Christmas Tree

Grandfather Clock

Staircase

Shampoo Bottle

iPhone

Crocodile

Facebook

Winter

Teeth

Pen

Space

Spa

Mouse

Bar Stool

Sculpture

Faucet

Shoe Rack

Tulip

Black Tie

Gym

Flag

Soccer Ball

Halter-Neck Dress

Seashell

Windmill

Selfie

Mahogany

Red Light

Wallet

Brain

Building

Fashion Designer

Chinese Vase

Seed

Hot Chocolate

Envelope

Heart

Herb

Flame

Road

Web

Stitch

Music Notes

Chocolate

Sling

Bracelet

Bell Boy

Shovel

Racket

Flip Flops

Fireworks

Waffles

Frosting

Condensation

Sticker

Headline

Tea

Folder

Salt

Soap

Pipes

Tiles

Raindrop

Brick

Gravel

Cloud

Teardrop

Ring

Speaker

Balloon

Basketball

Marble

Pestle

Parsley

Tracks

Ice Cube

Pouch

Comforter

Fridge

Rainbow

Highlighter

Bulb

Earthquake

Lamp

License

Diploma

Gown

Tunic

Wand

Boots

Lighter

Laptop

Socks

Cookies

Foam

Dolphin

Grass

Helicopter

Skyscraper

Credit Card

Boat

Camp

Hat

Invite

Vampire

Syringe

Coat

Switch

Twig

Bag

Bulldozer

Couch

Pizza

Hot Air Balloon

Keychain

Charm

Medicine

Tweezers

Fountain Pen

Pirate

Treasure Chest

Mist

Instrument

Carton

Moisturizer 

Baloney

Fish

Sweater

Cabinet 

Air

Popsicle

So here is the list of all the items you need to find to complete this reading challenge. I hope you find it interesting and wish to participate. If you do, feel free to comment down below and if you can’t or don’t want to comment that’s okay as well. I just hope you enjoy doing the challenge! 

Happy Reading!!

[latibulater]

YOUNG 20S TRIANA x SIRENA drabble

⋆｡°✩⋆｡°✩⋆｡°✩⋆｡°✩⋆｡°✩⋆｡°✩⋆｡°✩⋆｡°✩⋆｡°✩

Triana ducked out of the party smiling. It was still snowing outside, and she stuck her tongue out to catch a few icy flakes. She left the sounds and warmth of her father's New York home behind her as she began to walk around the block. It was nice to be back in town and seeing her family and friends. The Venture twins hadn't been able to make it tonight, citing "living goo" as their reason, but it was for the best. Their opposing temperaments made tornadoes of social scenes, and for Jefferson's 60th birthday that would have majorly sucked. As much as her dad and step-father liked the two young men, Triana knew they were delighted with how smoothly the evening went.

"Woah!"

She slipped on the ice. Her feet skittered under her and her arms pinwheeled through the air. Snapping her fingers, Triana floated upright before settling on two flat feet. After brushing herself off, she noticed the bright light. Down the side street on her left, was a glowing white sign of a lightning bolt over a microphone. No letters or numbers. The crunch of snow no longer filling her ears, the sound of EDM filtered down the alley and drew her in. As Triana got closer, the shadows pulled back and revealed about a dozen people on the stoop, standing and smoking under the slowly falling snow. Most of them wore dark colors and flashy jewelry accompanied by heavy makeup and styled-hair. It was exactly her kind of crowd.

Triana slipped by the small cloisters and showed her necromancing license at the door. It wasn't a driver's license, but it was state-certified and listed her birthdate. The bouncer opened the door for her without issue. Inside was another world. The heat shocked her skin and made her shiver. If she had just exited a winter wonderland, this was a dancer's dream. As she entered there was a sign informing of three dance floors above the ground floor bar, each with a different DJ. The stomping from upstairs reverberated down the walls to the foundation and shook up through her shoes. She grinned widely enough it threatened to split the healing cut over her lip. Just a souvenir from her last dust-up.

She quickly made her way up, taking in each floor's different music style. It was all similar enough that Triana was going to get a drink and then figure it out, but spotted a strange flutter. Heart stopping in her throat, she looked closer with a mumbled spell. A woman with gills on her neck and a cocktail dress of a thousand shimmering sequins danced near the center of the floor. The necromancer's dark eyes followed the line of the white dress up to the lady's collarbone and around the curve of her full-toothed, energetic smile. Triana swept through the crowd, the grinding couples shuffling over a step to clear a path. She blinked, and the spell expired. Triana gasped as she lost sight of the be-gilled woman.

Without a beacon, she lost momentum, and with that, Triana was canned in by the crowd. She kept moving forward but was spun out to the ebbs of the beat. Pushed to the wall, Triana wiped the sweat off her brow. That sucked. Maybe it was time to get that drink now. She turned around to the stairwell and came nose-to-nose with reflective eyes. They sparkled a new color as the strobe lights flashed. Triana lost her composure, staring into the oddly shaped pupils framed by thick, fake eyelashes.

"On the hunt?"

The heavy Brooklyn accent woke up the working part of her brain, breaking the spell she had fallen under so suddenly. Triana inched closer and looked down. She met those hypnotic, strange eyes. "I was," she answered. "Want to help?" The gills on the lady's neck fluttered again as she bit her painted lower lip, showing off her pearly sharps.

"What's the catch of the day?"

This close, Triana could see the outline of powdered scales over bare, brown shoulders. "Fish?" She asked, hooking one finger around the marine-woman's shoulder strap. With a delicate pull, Triana walked backward till her own head bumped the wall, letting herself be crowded in. The lady laughed deep in her chest, and it hummed between them.

"No," she said, drawing Triana in for a kiss. "Shark."

[thatone-brightstar]

Before You (Carmen Berzatto X Fem!OC)

It was Isaac before Carmy, and it was Ross before you.

Part I. // Part II.

Part III: February.

words: 5.8k

a/n: I'll be gone for a while. Enjoy this ferewell gift. Not proofread, couldn't bother to.

 “What’s Vygotsky’s theory?”

“Uhm… the one where a child’s cognitive development and learning ability is guided by their social interactions?”

“Yes, good.” Carmy whispers back with a gentle smile. “Okay, now gimme the four stages of Piaget’s cognitive development.”

Sensorimotor… preoperational, concrete operational and… shit.”

Her head goes blank, lids heavy with the weight of the day and the darkness. The only source of light coming in from the green neon light continuously strobing behind his flimsy curtains.

“C’mon, you know it…” He reassures from his space in the mattress, legs crossed and bare back resting against the wall.

Ross throws herself face forward and groans against the plushness. School and her job had extended the day longer than usual, and now with the post-sex study session not being part of her plan, all she wanted was to finally give her drained body a rest.

“Formal-” She jolts her head up from the bed, hair an even bigger mess around her. “- formal operational!”

Carmy nods, his own messy hair swaying to the rhythm of his soft movements. “Fuck yes- see, told you you could do it.”

She falls back against the covers with a pleased smile and stretches her limbs out in a way that reminds him of a cat- confident and graceful. His shirt feathers delicately around her upper thighs, cotton taking the place of where his lips had met the tender skin not so long ago and he can still feel her soft flesh rub over them again.

“Last one-” He tries to say but is interrupted by her groan. “-it’s the easiest one c’mon, first rule of patient confidentiality?”

“ ...snitches get stitches?” She whispers, doe eyes boring deep into his from her laid down position.

Her answer yanks a chuckle from his overworked chest and he nods down to her, repeating the phrase back. “Yeah that’s… actually correct- snitches do get stitches.”

He contemplates her closed eyes and relaxing features for a couple seconds, how every slow breath takes her deeper into her subconscious and away from him, before closing her binder and standing to turn off the bathroom light. 

Ross stirs in place, slight frown forming when the mattress dips heavily beside her, and the weight of his body has hers rotating a few inches to his side. Carmy remains still, hands by his sides and making little effort to move or even breathe as the act of sharing his bed is still one of novelty. Ross hadn’t spent too many nights over, always creating an excuse to exempt herself from the situation. 

On days like these, though, when she’s too worked out to make the drive back home and the warmth radiating off her is enough to chase the winter chill away, Carmen feels an unnerving sensation flourish deep in his chest. He would associate it as melancholy, although he doesn’t know what he’s melancholic for exactly. 

Maybe for being given a glimpse of something that had been unknown to him until now, something he knew wouldn’t last him long. Like mourning the death of a loved one long before it happens, the inevitable loss. 

“What’s the original beef?” She mumbles half asleep, pulling him from his head and he swallows back down the thick goo bubbling in his stomach once again.

“Hmm?”

“There’s like… five shirts of ‘em in your drawer.” Her voice is thick, mostly speaking past the veil of sleep. “Is it like a band?”

He breathes out a thin laugh- a lighthearted sigh- and remembers the multiple blue shirts hiding in the bottom of the drawer he let her pull a shirt from. “No… it’s uh- the family restaurant.”

“Hmm, that sounds really cool…”

“A restaurant?” He scoffs.  “You work in one…”

The girl’s voice is such a quiet whisper, that he can hear the light crinkles and whistles of the vowels forming on her tongue. “No… a family one.”

The warmth of her hand slides timidly over the sheets, pointer finger wrapping shakily over his cold pinky and eradicating the few inches left of the glacier wall she had been unknowingly calving at since before New Years. With her euphonic laughs invading the service area anytime she walked to the back; and with her short temper terribly disguised behind expressive eyes. 

With a shuddering exhale and eyes glued shut behind a creased brow, he hooks his finger around hers and gently drapes her limp hand over his abdomen. His other palm and volatile pulse cradle it tenderly, rubbing a calloused thumb over the velvet knuckles until he drifts peacefully asleep.

It felt almost like slipping into a warm bath. Comfortable, fragrant, embraceful. His kind words flickered bright on the wicks of the candles he lit just for her, painting the steam across a matted gold.

It felt like soft kisses over shoulder blades, uneven digits tracing goosebumps across a bare back, hair brushed to the side. The sweet mumbles pouring from her lips fall on paper boats, rocking on the choppy water over their joined thighs. 

It was soft and slow and silky. Like the taste of roses and soap invading her mouth with each gentle stroke of his tongue and the gasps she takes when his hips snap up. Her hand slips from the edge of the tub, wrapping instead over golden tendrils catching the lowlights. One of his arms circles her waist while the other has disappeared between them, past the pink shimmering liquid.

She braces herself for the wave of shivers the contact will arise, but it never comes. Instead, the walls seem to be growing taller, making space for the water that’s beginning to surpass her waist. 

Ross pulls around the tightening arm to make an escape but it’s useless against the growing strength of Carmy’s hold, almost pushing the last bit of air from her lungs. She wants to scream at his face- beg with burning tears that he let her go- as the water rapidly bubbles around the shoulders he once sweetly kissed. There’s rocks in her mouth, thick and heavy ones that roll down her esophagus and ground her back to the porcelain floor.

With a blurry sight and tear stained cheeks, she tries to quickly read his hardened expression for any trace of apathy or remorse, but any of it is gone. He sees through her, past her ghost, like you would a glass window in a café while awaiting the arrival of somebody else.

It’s the haunting expression of nothingness that breaks her out right after the water devours them both. 

The strobing green neon light outside his window flashes in her widened eyes once awake, though not fully conscious. She pries the deadweight of his arm off her waist with all her strength and rolls to the side in a heaving fit of dry coughs that will surely wake him up. Throat burning dry, Ross reaches an arm back to his chest, feeling the accelerated rhythm of his breath and while her coughs subside, she turns to catch the pained expression looming over a sweaty brow.

A croak similar to his name scratches the walls of her throat as she aimlessly crawls over the covers to his tense form. She grazes her trembling hands over his face and pushes back the strands sticking to his cold forehead. “Carmy- hey, c’mon wake up-”

His words are a mumbling mess, mixed between sighs and desperate inhales failing to pass through his tightened jaw. Strained tendons bulge from the sides of his neck and the scattered movement of his eyes behind the thin lids raises her panic even  higher. Her logic hangs off the window railing, next to the flashing sign, as she moves above him and pulls his head to rest on the soft of her thighs. 

The room is silent, apart from his struggling breaths. “Carmen, please… c’mon hun, you gotta wake up-” She mutters close to his face.

Ross leans down to press her lips over his temple, repeating his name over and over while rocking him side to side. She does it until the salt in her tears combines with the one on his hair and the messy sheet has ribbed her sensitive knees. 

In a short instant, Carmy takes in a sharp breath, catapulting his upper body off the mattress. Ross pushes back with a hand flying over her stammering heart as her eyes scan over him. His look is wild, unstable as he searches around the darkened room. With a shaking hand, she barely graces her fingertips over the tense muscle of his shoulder. 

“Hey-It’s okay-”

He flinches back as if her skin stung his own and he whips his head back with the sound of her voice. His scattered gaze flickers over her face, eyes wide in fear, as if he’s still stuck inside his nightmare and doesn’t recognize her. Her hand hovers inches away from him, not daring to move any closer.

“You’re okay, Carmen.” She pulls her hand back, down onto her folded thighs and guides him with the best blank tone she can manage. “You’re safe. Breathe…”

He follows the rising movements of her chest, unblinking eyes orbiting back into reality with every inhale. She sneaks a tender ‘You’re okay’ in each exhale.  She doesn’t stop her words until she sees his heaves have gone down to slow intakes and his brow isn’t as pinched together anymore.

Carmy mumbles a ‘sorry’ that muffles with the skin of his palm. He takes another inhale, rubbing harshly over his features, then finally opens his eyes to hers. “So-sorry…” 

Ross immediately shakes her head. “It’s okay.”

“Are- are you okay? I didn’t hurt your or anythin’- right?”

The bruise forming over her stomach is beginning to hurt, though not as much as the hole his preoccupation for her creates. Despite waking up from what appears to be the worst of night terrors, he still asks her if she’s alright, and she’d rather conceal the aching palpitation over her abdomen with a lie than break him any further.

“No-no. I’m… I’m good. You did scare the shit out of me though…”

“Good… good.” He adds, absent minded and following her nods with his own, then he winces at his response, “Sorry- I mean, good that you’re okay- not that I scared you- that’s… fucked.”

All she can do is offer a thin smile and another low “It’s okay.” because she’s not sure of what to say or even if she should say anything at all.

The silence grows long and heavy. His eyes unfocus to an empty space on his wall, past her head, where he’s probably recreating fragments of his nightmare once again, trying hard to tell reality apart. 

Ross swallows hard- the action nipping at her sensitive abdomen for only a moment- then she moves her cramped legs from under her and lays on the space by Carmy again. With a gentle tug to his wrist, she’s able to draw his attention back to her and it doesn’t take much convincing to have him sprawled out back at her side. 

“Do you know how to make pasta from scratch?” She asks in the silence, both sets of eyes holding up the ceiling with their unwavering stare. Ross feels him nod beside her and she can tell his head is still clouded with the mirage of his subconscious. 

“Tell me how?” She whispers again, turning to his side with an arm tucked under the pillow and drinking in the strong silhouette of his nose and jaw. 

Carmen swallows to alleviate the thin ache the scream left in its wake before he answers. 

“It’s, uh, kinda easy…” He begins to list the ingredients by heart, unaware of the subtle drowsiness behind his voice as he reaches the kneading process; or the lulling motion of her nails raking along the inside of his arm. Soon, his pauses grow longer and his tone lighter, until his soft snores fill the room one after another.

He goes dreamless for the rest of the night, at least the few hours he had left before his alarm blares from somewhere in the bed. Once he finds it and turns it off, an arm instinctively reaches to her side, but finds only the messy sheets and a lack of warmth in its wake. The cold covers let him know Ross has been gone long before he even woke up, maybe even hours ago. He searches around for a discarded note or his phone for a  text, but there’s nothing when he remembers he doesn’t have her contact, and his chest is once again constricted with the stinging sense of melancholy that replaces her absence.

**********

Ross hadn’t been able to hold anything in all day. The sole idea of food was a passing thought that couldn’t stick to the anxiety ridden walls of her brain. Her last try had taken place that morning, under fluorescent lights and dawn barely breaking past the skyline. Through a caffeine induced awareness and a heavy sleep deprived haze, she managed to drag her way across the exam, though not really remembering any of the questions soon after. She tried to concentrate, truly did- it was her future in the form of paper after all-, but each segment seemed to be written in Simlish and no amount of re reading helped getting the information in. 

It also didn’t help that in each microsecond of her tired blinks, all she saw was a haunted stare behind baby blue eyes. The lines had blurred too far, too deep, too out of her grasp and control and now the idea of the unknown occupied her every thought. 

To leave him in the middle of the night, with the fear that he might have another nightmare and she wouldn’t be there for him, was a hard decision to take. She had swayed on the balls of her feet for minutes, just staring at his puffing chest from the corner of the bed like some sort of creep, before quickly padding forward and planting a goodbye kiss on the center of his forehead. She felt the stress of being suspended over a tightrope with only a flimsy string tied at the waist each time the idea that it might not be just a fling slithered into her mind. 

Seeing him the way she did, almost in agony, would naturally have her cutting ties with anyone else, ghosting them without a second glance. But she couldn't do that to him, not sweet Carmen. Not to him, who asked her if she was alright seconds after having what looked like the worst of night terrors. To him who made her dinner after a long night of cooking for others and still explained every step with patience.

“-you just gotta keep stirring so it doesn’t stick-” He commented from the other side of the tiny unused kitchen, curls bowed over the bubbling pot of mac & cheese. “-are you even listening?”

She nodded out of habit, though her thoughts were flooded by the view of tight veins trailing up his arm as he slowly moved the wooden spoon around. Carmy couldn’t help the small grin pulling at the corner of his mouth when his eyes found hers on his body.

“Totally listening…” Ross added, then blinked a few times to chase away the dirty thoughts. “I know how to make mac & cheese y’know, it’s not rocket science.”

“It’s also no Kraft’s” He joked back and followed her movements with his eyes, how she rounded the small island then hopped to sit on the surface beside him, the slick skirt rising higher up and exposing her thighs. 

“Hey, don’t shit on Kraft like that-” She responded with a small laugh that pulled his gaze up to her face instead. “-it’s easy and delicious. Plus it’s the first thing I ever learnt to cook.”

“Oh, yeah?” Carmy asked and she nodded with a proud smile. “How old?”

“Uh… four, I think.”

“Damn, that’s young. How’d you reach the stove?” He asked, taking his eyes off her only to turn off the flames. then leaning on his hip and giving her his full attention.

“I had a uh, milk crate, that I’d drag around the house.” Ross tried to hide the drop of her lips behind her palm by rubbing her finger over her cupid’s bow, but the slight sadness in her tone didn’t go unnoticed to his ears. “You?” She asked suddenly.

He contemplated her question for a long moment. “A… step stool.”

“Ooh, fancy.” She mouthed, pulling a chuckle from him.

“Very self-sufficient of us, huh?” He praised after a few seconds of silence, 

“Had to be.” The girl said with a shrug and a forced smile.

It was the way he was looking at her that gave her a sense of solace, the silent comprehension between two people bonded by similar childhood experiences. His eyes bore big and weighted over her for an eternity, under the dim light bulb above his stove. It’s not like he’s never looked at her before, but the glow behind them was different the closer he moved towards her still form.

“So is it done?” Ross whispered, no need to speak any higher in their limited space.

“What?”

A slow smile unrolled over her lips at the way his eyes flickered down. “...the mac & cheese, Carm.”

Carmen blinked a few times and cleared his throat with a choked laugh. “Right, ye-yeah it’s done.” He pushed off his side and pulled open a drawer to take out a spoon. “So… I uh, only have one spoon.” He reached up to rub his neck embarrassed.

“You’re one person.” She teased back, making the tint on his skin grow darker. “It’s fine, we’ll share-” She shrugged. “- it’s not like I haven’t tasted your spit before…”

Her insides flutter at last night’s memory. It was the first time she had ever felt a single doubt about someone, it was uncharted territory and it made her absolutely fucking terrified.  It was the reason why she had been avoiding the back of house all night, filling her bottle at the bar instead and passing any requests through Meg, who couldn’t stop huffing with every ticket her way.

“Hey- ‘member there’s a birthday on 32, please.” She calls out to Meg, seeing her pass through her peripheral vision, then throw her head back with a groan.

“Dude just go in yourself, I’m swamped-”

“I can’t, my scores will be up any minute and this is the only place with good wifi.”

She snatches the paper from her outstretched hand. “Test scores my ass- just admit  you don’t wanna see him and move on.”

Meg leans slightly on the wooden desk that separates the entrance hall as she keeps her eyes on the bustling dining room. 

“Thought you were swamped…” 

“I lied.” She shrugs and leans her head in closer. “So what, did he give you the ick? Called you baby girl or some shit?”

“No…”

“Then what, is his dick all wonkey lookin’? Y’know, like when it curves to the side?”

Ross keeps tapping at the tablet in faux concentration, hoping that the lack of an answer will drive her friend away. 

“Oh my god, of course- it’s not him is it?” The almost blind tension in her jaw is enough of a response. “You actually like him!”

“Shutthefuckup Megan-” Ross snaps, turning her head back to her friend who couldn’t seem to hide the gleam on her face.

“Oh god- you so do!” She whisper-cheers, throwing a hand up to cover the wide smile threatening to burst at the seams. “Dude, I thought it was just a fling!”

“It still is… I think- I’m not sure anymore-” She shakes her head a bit too hard and closes her eyes to erase the little spots beginning to form. “I’m just gonna cut it off tonight. I don’t have time for that shit.”

“Oh c’mon, seriously? How ‘bout you tie your laces together while you’re at it.”

“What?”

“If you wanna self-sabotage that’s easier, don't you think?” Meg explains and Ross rolls her eyes, turning back to the tablet.

“Well what would you rather I do then?!”

“I dunno, take ‘em and run! Ross, he seems actually decent- better than anyone else I’ve ever met you-, plus he’s really cute…” She teases, both hands wrapped around her forearm and shaking excitedly.

With a heavy-hearted sigh, Ross shuts her eyes hard enough that the stars behind her lids block out the deep blue.

“I can’t.”

“Yes you can-”

“No I can’t- you don’t get it Meg. He- he’s really good, like too good-” She can faintly hear Martin's voice travel towards them behind her rambling, but that doesn’t make it stop. “-he makes me food n’ he’s sweet and-”

There’s sweat beginning to accumulate on the palm of her hands, making the pen she’s constantly tapping on the desk extra slippery.

“-what if I fuck it up?” She finally admits, eyes screwed shut. “What if he doesn’t feel the same, or- or he does- and I end up fuckin’ it up catastrophically cause I’m just like them and I don’t know how to properly show it”

“Okay, chill and breathe or you’ll puke on yourself-“

Ross shakes her head a bit too hard as her breath comes out in short gasps. “Can’t- there’s nothing to puke out.”

“What? When’s the last time you ate?” Meg asks again, ignoring Martin’s second call. 

“Last night, I think. I was too nervous- couldn’t eat.”

Despite knowing this, her mouth begins to develop the excess saliva that comes with the contractions of sickness. A thin layer of cold sweat forms over her forehead and through the light haze, Ross can hear Martin’s consistent stomps move in their direction.

“Megan, did you not hear me?! 37’s been waiting for their third course for almost ten minutes-” He stops shouting long enough to spot Ross’ disorbiting gaze. “What the hell’s wrong with you?”

“Sorry Martin, Ross isn’t feeling well and I’ve been trying to help her-” She half lies, heavy hand dramatically palming around the moisture on her friend’s face. 

“I’m good- probably just need some air.” Ross puffs out her cheeks and swallows down the thick liquid in her mouth.

“Alright, you heard her- she’s fine, go watch your tables.” Martin shoos her off with a motion of his hand then turns back to his hostess with a creased frown. “You, go to the back and take a breath, I’ll keep watch here. Maybe drink somethin’ sweet- you look like shit.”

“Yeah, thanks.” She mumbles, too tired to make a sarcastic comment, and moves blindly around the perimeter of the room to avoid bumping into any of the servers.

The sensation only intensifies once she crosses to the back of house, as hundred different smells bombard her senses and twist at the already tight knot invading her stomach. She doesn’t stop or look up from the non-slip matts while crossing the narrow hallway to the back. 

She’s crouching and heaving dryly by the wall before the door even finishes closing. There’s just the repeating sound of hard contractions leaving her throat, but nothing other than that exits her body. It’s still torture, but the fresh bruise decorating her midrift distracts her enough from the multiple shakes. When her gut finally stops, Ross spits out the bile coating her tongue, wipes her mouth and leans back against the cold wall, all puffy-eyed and sniffles. 

Her hard puffs materialize in the February breeze, little clouds of vapor that caress her reddened cheeks only momentarily, then disappear into nothing, almost poetically. She stays glued to the cold bricks while her pulse de-escalates, only to spike up again at the sound of the door slamming hard beside her and another figure running out a few feet away.

She watches immobile how he paces in the small space, hands shaking by his sides then raking painfully hard through his hair. He’s breathing hard enough that she can hear it from her space by the entrance and despite the alarms ringing in her head, she can’t stop her feet from moving forward.

“Hey, you good?”

He stops abruptly at the sound of her voice, head turning in her direction for only a second, but it’s enough for her to see the fierce emotion bubbling behind his eyes, a more somber one than what she’s used to.

“Not now, okay-” He snaps still pacing, hands moving wildly because the anxiety coursing through him doesn’t allow a second of peace.

She stops a few feet behind and tries hard to ignore her own bubbling stress. “You gotta breath, okay-”

Carmy shakes his head again, gaze still lost. “I’m fine.” He shuts his eyes hard enough to crease his forehead. 

“Carm, you’re not-”

“Jesus fuck, Roslyn- can you just leave me the fuck alone for one minute!” 

The strength in his voice makes her take a step back. “I know you’re pissed but-”

“Can you not fuckin’ psychoanalyze me right now-”

“-I’m not.” Ross cuts in immediately. “I’m not- I-I just wanna help-”

“- well, I don’t need your fuckin’ help, okay?” He spits. “I said I’m fine.”

“Yeah, clearly.” Her mumble drips with sarcasm as she straightens her posture and moves back.

“What- what’s that supposed to mean?” She can hear the edge in his voice as she stares down at the gravel under her feet. “Ross-”

“Nothing- you’re right, it’s- you’re totally fucking normal…”

Her shoes turn on the crushing gravel as she takes a step towards the exit, but his anger moves him faster, stepping in between her and the door, heaving chests almost touching. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean, Roslyn?”

His eyes grow cold, anger clinging with its nails onto the last bit of sensibility.

“Nothing.” 

Carmen takes a step in her direction and the gravel creaks again as she takes another back. Once her eyes meet his face, she can see the tightness of his jaw and the way his shoulder square tall, like an animal ready to pounce.

“No, go ahead- you got somethin’ to say, go ahead and fuckin’ say it-”

“You’re being a dick.” She finally snaps.

“What?”

“I said you’re a dick! I spent all of fuckin’ last night trying to stop you from choking on your own breath, Carmen. So maybe a fuckin’ thank you would be nice instead of tryin’ to pick a fight.” She rolls her eyes and pushes past him, reaching for the door, but he takes another step and once again blocks her way.

“That’s the fuckin’ problem? Shit- well thanks for the fuckin’ breathing exercises.”

Her head snaps up to his face and tilts with a hardened expression. “Y’know, what- next time, I’ll just let you choke on your own tongue, how ‘bout that, huh?”

“Nobody asked you to do it, y’know?” There’s no space between their puffing chests as they stare each other down, flight no longer an option. 

“I was trying to help you, asshole-”

“I don’t need you’re fuckin help, alright!” He shouts back. The words pierce her skin, like falling knees first over sharp glass, each letter digging into the frail skin. “D’you think just cause we fuck around that makes you my fuckin girlfriend or somethin? Cause it doesn’t, so just- back the fuck off.”

The force following his words hit harder than the bruise and knocks the last bits of composure from her. “You know what- thank fuck for that, because why would I ever want to be stuck with some egotistical jagoff with seriously rooted mommy issues-”

“-You don’t know shit about me.” 

“Oh, I know enough. I know you’re too fuckin’ stuck trying to prove your worth to others, but you don’t really believe it yourself-” Carmy’s jaw grows even harder, hooded eyes drilling a hole on hers.

“Stop-”

“You can’t really believe you deserve anyone that actually likes you so you do this-” She says, hand pointing between them. “Push anyone away with hurtful remarks and a shitty attitude, then wallow in self pity because that’s what you’re comfortable with.”

The city is eerily silent, or maybe it’s the anger ringing behind her ears that deafens the noise around her. Whatever it is, seems to drag on forever in the narrow space.

“You’ll find someone one day, Carmen. Not me, of course-” She dismisses with a wave and a bitter taste that she’d never let herself admit. “-but you will. And if you never learn to let go of all the crappy traits that make you a crappy person, you’ll end up just another sad and bitterly lonely man,”

Ross doesn’t wait for an answer back, not even just to hear a last ‘Fuck you’. She brushes past his side for the third time, but this time he doesn’t try to block the door and she makes no effort to stop. At least not until the warm air circles her and the sound of the pans grounds her again. The knot left back on her throat resembles the rocks from her nightmare and she’s quick to painfully swallow it back down before anyone can catch her.

There’s a small tickle over her cheekbone, one that travels slowly down her skin. She swats away the tear with the back of her hand, sniffling, then takes a deep breath before moving forward and out the back of house. She tries to resume her shift as best she can, counting down the hours left until closing and busying herself drawing flowers at the bottom of a discarded ticket while saying goodbye to the diners.

The phone rang at around 10, when most of the tables had started to clear out and she was busy collecting the menus that she almost didn’t catch it. The woman on the other line seemed worried and tired, on the verge of breaking down as she asked for her brother.

“Berzatto, I think he works there- I called his cell but he’s not picking up.” She explained through rushed words. “Please, tell him it’s urgent.”

“Uh yeah… he’s kitchen staff.” Ross answered a bit disoriented but hoping to maintain calm for the lady on the line. “I think they’re just finishing up, but I can call him over, just give me a sec-”

With her stomach in a knot and hands glued together, she called over for him, swallowing her pride. The kitchen was half empty by then and he even seemed surprised to hear her call for him after the fight. 

“Someone on the phone. She says it’s urgent.” She spoke softly, leaning on the entrance.

He nodded lightly, stepping around the counter and wiping his hands on the towel he managed to keep pristine all night. Just before walking past her, he stopped as if he had something to say but couldn’t find the words.

“Can we talk later?” His tone sounded shy, eyes darting around the half empty space, then landing on hers. “Look, I know I was a dick- and I’m really sorry. It’s just… this is really nice and I don’t wanna fuck it up-”

“I’ll wait for you here, yeah?” She places a hand on his shoulder to push herself up and plant a kiss on his cheek, the anger disappearing with a look of his clear baby blues.

He whispers a sweet ‘okay’ as he watches her fully move into the room and lean on the granite bar to wait for him, a thin smile pulling at his features before turning to the swaying doors.

The wait seems infinite but she tries to pass the time by pushing at the now cracked gel on her nails. Ross turns several times towards the far wall where the clock sits, hoping he’ll show up under it. Five minutes turned to fifteen and the knot in her stomach grew again with each tick. 

By the twenty minute mark, her worry was too overwhelming and she pushed herself past the doors and to her area. She expected to find him there, still on the phone, but the desk was empty. No note, no Carmy, no worried woman on the phone. There were still a few servers left as she moved again to the back to see if maybe she had missed him, but the lights in the kitchen were already off by the time Ross stepped back in.

He doesn’t reappear all night, not when she takes her bag from the lockers, nor is he standing by her car when she reaches it parked at the end of the block. He doesn’t show up to work the next day either. Or the day after that, or any of the days after. 

At first she tries calling in hopes he’ll pick up with a great explanation on why he went m.i.a., but he never does. So on a saturday morning, she shows up at his place. It seems crazy and invasive in a way, but she’d rather have him think she’s crazy than not know if he’s alright, or alive.

With nervous hands, she reaches up to knock. The door beside his opens up instead, letting her see a short woman cradling a Tabby in her arms.

“He’s not there.” She answers before Ross even has a chance to ask.

“Sorry?”

“If you’re looking for the boy, he’s not there. Fled a couple days ago, in the middle of the night.”

“Fled?”

“Yes, girl, fled- slamming doors n’ all- little disregard for anyone else with a decent sleep schedule…” Is all Ross could hear before the lady slammed the door shut.

The stone steps to the entrance of his building turn her skin cold and the light wind bites over her cheeks. Her trembling hands cradle the thin phone opened up on his contact and her finger hovers over the call button one last time. A sigh escapes her chest once more as she opens her emails instead. 

The approbatory message glows with the artificial light and there’s an ache in her chest that she did not expect would come with the good news. The news she had waited so long to receive, she had passed. All her effort had finally paid off.

Ross felt happy, to an extent. She tried not to think about it too much. Because everytime she did, the memory was polluted by late night dinners, sleepy study sessions and a wave of nauseating blue that reminded her of him.

She stands off the dirty staircase and wipes off the dust from the back of her jeans. Then she readjusts the zipper over the washed out blue shirt and pushes her cold digits into the warmth of her pockets. Ross throws a last glance at the neon sign flashing just beside his empty window and sighs deeply, slowly making her way back to her car with an empty chest.

*********

Taglist: @pearlstiare @teteminne, @beebslebobs, @harrysmatcha, @yum-yahgurt, @pussy-f41ry, @kirakombat, @redsakura101 , @hobisunshine13 and that’s it lmao