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catfern · 3 months ago

Text

─ restless dreams.

in support of palestine ∙ the reality of tlou ∙ resources

pairing: ellie williams x fem!reader (?)

music: a world of madness - akira yamaoka

word count: 2.3k

summary: you're dead. with how ellie's been coping, she might as well be. that is, until she sees you, or rather, a woman with your face.

WARNINGS: heavy discussions of grief, illness, death. implied hallucinatory sequences, general themes associated with silent hill 2. smut, oral (r!receiving).

cat says ⎯ were ya'll waiting for pyramid head to show up?

if i could be … her.

but i’m not her

and she’s not me.

and you’re somewhere different.

on a different planet.

cold.

the merciless descent of winter had done nothing but bury ellie in a fog. a blur of forgetfulness, of numb reaction.

everyone had told her it would become easier. the festering pain in her joints would fade, the endless congestion in her head, like a dragnet of her slowed thoughts, would release.

“grief is just one of those things that you have to learn to live with.”

ellie wasn’t sure if she was learning. if she knew what that even felt like. what was it, to learn to love an absence? a gaping chasm, in one’s soul?

plagued. the sweetness of your voice lingered like stubborn molasses in her ears, a ghosting touch, nails scratching at her scalp, she could feel it. at least, for a few fleeting moments. in the sticky dark of her bedroom, memories of you clung to her back.

the pavement, slick with thin ice and dirty snow, echoed the song of her footsteps in the empty streets. she needed milk. a sick darkness had descended on the small space of her apartment, and her fridge stunk of something sour.

the hairs on the back of her neck prickled in the bitter wind. she hadn’t been sleeping.

she had thought, maybe, the chill in the air would help her. that the light would snap her from this daze, bring her to see this delusional miasma for what it was. but the wet sun, shrouded in grey, granted no such reprieve. she still saw you everywhere.

the shine of the linoleum tile seemed blinding in artificial light. ellie squinted in the change, her skin dry, pale and discoloured from weeks inside.

she can feel the clerk’s gaze burning her through her clothes. she shakes the dusting of snowfall off her shoulders, and sees the tracks of mud she’s pulled in from outside. oh.

she scrapes the soles of her sneakers along the peeling grout of the tile, and shuffles her way along the aisles. the rows of fridge doors buzz in the dim silence of the store, there’s something metallic in the air.

it was a dying habit, beelining for the skim milk. something you had put her on to, with your endless buzzing about dairy. it was comforting, following a path well-trodden through the small grocer, one she had so often taken when she had a softness to return to. her footsteps fell, heavy and loud and ringing her ears, empty.

ellie grunts a hoarse ‘excuse me’ to the woman standing in front of the milk fridge. she wasn’t grabbing anything, just standing … watching the milk as if waiting for it to move. so, ellie figured it was okay to push past. the woman moved back without a word.

the jug felt cool, and almost anchored, beneath ellie’s fingertips. something to latch on to, tangible in this maze of wretched passing time.

“sorry! i didn’t see you there.”

ellie bit so hard into her cheek it drew blood. warm, foreign in her mouth, an iron taste.

your voice was not an uncommon ringing in her ears, in these hellish pastimes. the open world teased her, so often she heard you in a gentle ripple of water, the humming engine of a passing car. but this …

it was you. ripped from fresh fucking dirt.

well, ellie wasn’t sure. a ghost in the corner store was not something she was eager to find, if that’s what this woman was. what you were. she could feel her hand twitching in her jacket pocket, an obsessive itch to reach out, to feel the tangible, the absent real.

your name slips past her lips like a familiar groove in her tongue, and the woman laughs. it’s deeper than yours, jilted, not sweet.

“are you confusing me with someone else?” she asks. no, no, she can’t be. it’s your face, every mapped detail from the haze of her dreams, ripped from your coffin and supplanted here. on this body, obscure.

it could be a mask. ellie could dig her fingernails under your pretty, unblemished skin and tear it off this creature, this … offence. would you bleed the same?

“i-“ the milk jug suddenly felt too cold, burning into the skin of her palm. she hesitated, joints locked, body aching. whatever frantic obscenities ellie had wanted to hurl at her, at you, for the affront of your very existence, dripped back down her throat, made her choke.

the woman tilts her head in anticipation. you don’t do that, you didn’t do that.

it’s not you.

“ellie? you told me you weren’t coming today.”

she can still hear the wheezing undercurrent in your voice, a haunting possession of the brilliance in your body. you weren’t meant to exist somewhere so … clinical.

“i .. wanted to see you.”

your hand ghosts her cheek, the prickling of neglected texture along the bone. she refused to touch you. not like this.

ellie’s breath comes heavy in the heady air of her apartment. she can smell the stale rot in the walls, consuming her with every struggling heave of her lungs.

she had left the fridge door open when she left, the flickering cold light leaving a staggering crack along the darkness. she slumps against the wall of her kitchenette, pressing her hands into her muddy hair, as if trying to hold herself together at the seams.

she was going crazy, wasn’t she?

you’re haunting her. ellie supposes that she knew you would. a spectre, a shadow tethered to her feet. she had hoped, she could push past it, cradle your tenderness close to her heart, lock away the rest. naive.

she had become too complacent with the shell of you that malady had created. she’d forgotten how angry you could get. even from beyond the veil of death.

but it wasn’t you. no, no, ellie reminds herself. that … woman, was a coincidence. a trick of the flickering, sickening lights. her grief had muddled her mind, made her see things that weren’t there.

maybe she so desperately wanted to see you. deep within the dairy aisle. maybe, she no longer had the strength to turn away from you, like she once had. maybe, she just craves something you can no longer provide.

three raps knock the wood of her door, and ellie shakes. visceral.

she doesn’t remember answering, but the threshold was there, her hand warming the cool bronze of her doorknob.

this was just cruel.

“oh! it’s you again!” her smile is a wicked caricature, something hollow. snow sits in her hair, and ellie is blighted with your warmth, ghostly in this empty winter. “sorry, my phone’s dead. i’ve been asking around, is everyone on vacation? you’re the only one that answered the door.”

“wh - what?” ellie couldn’t listen.

you had broken your nose, as a child, a detail never lost on her in the intimacy of your nights together. she would trace her fingers over the bump the accident left, the irreverent flaws that endeared her, magnetised ellie to your person.

she studied this woman, her … perfections. the faultless slope of the bridge of her nose.

so … she was different? this wasn’t you. ellie wasn’t sure if the constant reminder was her anchor or her chain.

“can i use your landline?”

the question was simple, and ellie ached to oblige. invite her in.

“uh, sure.” it was a hoarse, quiet agreement. she shuffles to the side, carves a path for the stranger, who smiles at her sweetly, tight-lipped, in thanks.

her perfume was different. heavier, something darker. red fruit and earth. it caught in ellie’s nose, unwelcome. your name is a phantom on the dry ridges of her lips, and the woman snickers, the fur collar of her snow-dusted coat ruffling as she turns to meet ellie’s foggy gaze. the glory of what was once your gaze, now shared, was lost on this cheap copy.

“you keep calling me that. what, do i look like your girlfriend?”

ellie chokes on something that is not there.

“n-no, my late wife.” ellie could feel her gravity changing, re-centring. she crosses the floor slowly, listening to every creak of the old floorboards. reverent steps. “you … you could be her twin.”

she laughs, distant and deep, like a joke. like she couldn’t see the lines of desperation, of reaching hope that haunt the withering skin of ellie’s face. couldn’t she see? was she not aware of her own part she played in ellie’s torment?

or was she seperate from it all? was she simply passing through, a tourist in this purgatory?

the woman hangs up the receiver of the phone, having never called anyone. her eyes splay pity on this platter between them.

“i don’t look like a .. ghost, do i?” the teasing lilt in her voice was familiar. it was yours. she purses her lips. “maybe i shouldn’t have come. you’re clearly going through something.”

ellie’s hand darts out to ground itself on her skin, pressing into the bone of her wrist, the base of her body.

“ellie.”

she shook the molasses of your voice from her ears, pressed her eyes shut in beseeching of something free.

“please.” her voice was barely there, small in her throat, but enough to hear in the absence of wherever this was. wherever she has ended up. “you have to tell me who you are, if you’re real.”

the woman pouts, the way you did when you wanted something. her touch is soft, leading, like yours was, as it slips from ellie’s rusting grip and falls back, unceremoniously, onto the leather armchair in the living room. plumes of dust greeted her, only added to the stench in the air, the musk of unforgiving.

“it doesn’t matter who i am.” she says, and ellie almost stumbles after her, her knees aching as she falls, devout, ready to worship, if only this spectre gave her answers. “i know what grief’s like. and … i’m here for you.”

ellie breathes unsteadily, her hands shaking, cool sweat dripping down her back. the woman reaches out in the growing silence between them. her nails were bumpy, bitten down to the quick, covered poorly in thin, pink nail polish, as they scratch gently along ellie’s cheek.

“see? i’m real.”

an illness lined ellie’s stomach. wanton belief … this was real. there was a simplicity in this, in the dream that you had come back to her, after all. flesh warm and alive beneath her fingers, untainted.

“don’t you want to touch me?”

the image of you, of her, bleeds in ellie’s brain. you were asking with a sweetness you knew she could never ignore. temptation rots the soul, but hers had died with you. in your final breath, you had clawed it out of her.

there’s a certain cruelty to her touch, the way ellie splays her decay of passion upon this blank body. control is lost to her here, although a mirage of it echoes in her grip on your thigh, her nails ripping into the stranger’s skin, hoping to study whatever is beneath.

“please, please…” ellie’s voice is soft, chasing a dead docility up the woman’s inner thigh, her tongue pulling a cotton trail into familiar warmth. “i’m sorry…”

your head falls back against the edge of the armchair, soft, sweet whines dripping from the woman’s lips like honey, ellie’s nose pressing into the silk of your cunt, her tongue dazed and ever desperate to taste you. to feel you like you once were, broken, made whole again in the creeping twilight of an oncoming snowstorm.

a low rumble pulls through both of you, her lips a current on your clit, a tremor in the key of her voice. she has to pull herself up on her knees, push herself into your presence, to keep herself there, within this second chance. her body shakes beneath yours, in wait, for something that had long since disappeared.

she groans, something deep and distant below her throat. her tongue dances along the warmth inside you, painting her apologies, her dying grievances along the soft expanse of whatever lay inside, forever unheard. her fingers grip bruises into your stolen skin, a rough yank pulling you towards her.

you had hated when she was rough with you, but were you really here to complain?

“please, i…” her voice is something dark, muffled against your skin. “i need you, i.. you shouldn’t have left me. i’m sorry.”

“that doesn’t matter now.” firm and bitter, dry, calloused hands pull ellie up from her home between your legs. she could nearly whine at the absence of warmth, if the vitriol freeze wasn’t something she had so long deserved, so duly needed. ellie’s touch softens.

“nothing matters now.”

your gaze, her gaze, is scrutinising, painful to hold in her eye. but she needn’t look away, she shouldn’t. otherwise, she was sure you’d disappear. she couldn’t let you, never again. she could keep you alive, deep within the ire of her eye, she could, she was so sure.

something stings within her. feeling, it prickles back into ellie’s body like she’d been long asleep.

“i miss you,” ellie’s voice breaks against the cool, unwavering hand of the strange woman, the absence of mercy she so desperately sought. a sob shakes, sore in the column of her neck. the pain was welcome. “so, so much.”

tears run hot, her spine crooked as she falls back, looking up at you with a newly discovered vulnerability. you look at her, your eyes cold with pity and hate.

“i love you.” she chokes, begging like you’ll listen. “come back to me, i love you still.”

you shake your head. you won’t. ellie doesn’t deserve that kindness. no longer, anyway.

your wife slumps forward, pressing her face into the softness of your thigh like that would mean forgiveness, like that would bring back the innocence she had sorely stolen from you. your hand, with jagged nails, runs through ellie’s hair. brick wall comfort.

when you speak, your voice lingers in her ears like a bad hangover. it’s not yours, not anymore. whatever was left of you was rotten, spiteful.

“are you afraid?”

ellie sobs, loud in the impending silence.

there was something here. it’s gone now.

tag list: @r3starttt

#ellie williams x reader #ellie x reader #ellie williams smut #ellie x fem reader #ellie williams x you #ellie smut #ellie williams x female reader #ellie williams headcanons #ellie tlou

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ash5monster01 · 10 months ago

Text

Cold Spring Harbor

Chapter One - She’s Got A Way 🎶

Pairing: Steve Harrington x FemReader

Warnings: fluff, instant attraction, invisible string theory, mentions of childhood trauma, mentions of death, coping mechanisms

Summary: Just when Steve figures he’s bound to be alone the rest of his life, somehow he finds you, and for some reason just being near you makes him feel much less alone in the world.

word count: 2k

→ Two

Masterlist

Spring 1985

She's got a way of showin', how I make her feel

Steve hated being sad. Yet for the last six months that was all he had felt. He should be over it by now. He wished he was over it, but everyday he went to school just to see Nancy with Johnathon and know everything that he lost. He had given up his friends for her, and when she gave him up for Johnathon, he had no one left. No happy family to come home to, and no friends to spend time with, especially no girlfriend to love. Maybe that was why it was so hard to get over her, because she was the only person he had left and she left him too.

So he woke up on the first day of spring break, no parents, no plans, no one at all. It didn’t matter that the first warm sun was shining through his window and the birds chirped happily outside. He figured he would always be alone and he was still just as miserable as before. The only person he did have was Dustin but how many times can you ask a middle schooler to hang out before it gets weird? Steve didn’t want to find out.

He wasn’t going to last all of spring break like this so he was going to do the only thing that made him feel better. The only thing that gave him enough motivation to get out of bed and get ready for the day. So it’s not long until he is walking out the front door and towards his car. Yet before he unlocked it he stopped, eyes glancing into the bright blue sky, and deciding against the drive. It was sunny and almost seventy, plus a walk would be good for him. So he stuffed the keys back in his pocket and started down the road.

Town was half empty once he got there, signs showing that the new mall being built was already taking away business. It was sad to see the town that once was so busy become a shell of nothing. Kind of like him he supposed. Yet the sight of the familiar blue door eased his mind as he pushed in the one place he hoped would be here forever.

“Hey man, long time no see” Ron, the owner smiles from behind the register. Steve matches the smile right back even though he doesn’t feel it. He wished he did.

“Hey Ron, how’s business been?” he asks, eyeing the various shelves throughout the room.

“I wish I could say busy, but ever since word got out that Sam Goody was being built in the mall, no one really cares about Ron’s Records anymore” he says and Steve nods, his throat tightening at the thought.

“I’m sorry about that man, you know I’ll be a customer for life” he tells him and Ron nods, smiling at the boys kindness.

“You and your Grandpa both” Ron says kindly and Steve has to look away before tears form in his eyes.

“I’m gonna check some records out” Steve tells him and Ron nods as he moves to the section he knows it will be at.

Finally reaching the B’s his fingers start skimming the records. It feels like he’s passed a hundred Barry Manilow records by the time he reaches exactly what he’s looking for. Smiling to himself he scans which ones are there, determined what would be the best to listen to. Something that for an entire forty minutes could make him feel much less lonely in this world.

“Billy Joel huh?” Steve looks up and nearly freezes. There you are, the prettiest girl he’s ever seen, and something about the world stops. He’s not one to be shy but it’s as if the words somehow can’t leave his mouth. There was just something about you. “Since when do boys your age listen to Billy Joel?”

“Hey, he’s still rock n’ roll to me” Steve defends, and it’s cheesy. He knows that, but it doesn’t stop you from laughing. You’re wearing the most perfect smile he’s ever seen and he wants to make you do it again.

“I’m not saying he isn’t, just most guys these days don’t know good music anymore” you say, pulling the record out of his hands and he almost gasps at the way your fingers feel against his.

“Well good music to me is just Billy, always has been” he says and you give him a small nod, smile still on your face. He briefly wonders what it could be about you that makes him suddenly so content.

“Cold Spring Harbor? I don’t think I’ve ever heard it” you say and Steve’s heart clenches.

“It’s his first album, he was only 22 when he wrote it. It’s one of my favorites” Steve tells you and the mischievous grin you give him makes his heart stutter in his chest.

“Well let’s listen to it” you tell him, hand grabbing his own, and leading him to the front of the building. In the front window there’s two chairs and small record player in between. They had been there for as long as Steve could remember, he had sat in them hundreds of times. He sits in his, the one chair he always sat in, and you sit, well in the other. His throat dries as he sees you sit across from him in the chair that had been empty for many years.

“What’s your favorite track?” you muse, hands delicately working to pull the record from its sleeve and place it on the player.

"The first one, She's Got A Way. It was my Grandpa's favorite, the first Billy song he ever played me" Steve says, looking off onto the rows and rows of records. Remembering a time when he was just short enough to be the same height as them. Rushing around and looking for the most colorful covers while his Grandpa went straight to the B's. Then he'd sit in the very chair he was now, ankles just barely hanging over the edge as his Grandpa played him song after song, in the very seat you were sitting in now.

"So that's where it comes from" you muse, the record spinning as you turn on the machine. Steve watches as you set the needle on the record, sratching till it finds its groove, and fills the silence between you both.

"Why is it his favorite?" you ask after a few moments, watching the boy as he let's the words sink in.

"He claimed it was the only song he ever heard that perfectly described how he felt about my Grandmother. How the right women could completley turn you around and heal you when you least expect it" Steve smiles fondly as he repeats those words he hadn't in a very long time.

"A charmer, I'm sure you are too" you say and the shocked look Steve wears has you laughing lightly. It takes Steve only a second to laugh along with you, realizing just how quickly you had revealed him. It's when your laughter calms he realizes the smile on your face has eased his heart more in the last six months than anything else.

"If you must know" Steve says and you giggle again which has Steve wanting to spend more and more time with you.

"Where is this Grandpa of yours, I have a few questions for him?" you ask and Steve freezes, not expecting the words to leave your mouth. It takes him a moment to respond and you sense the discomfort and place your hand on his own. Steve nearly jumps at the electric touch that comes from it.

"He passed away when I was fifteen, right before high school" he tells you, throat tightening around the admittance.

"I'm so sorry, that's awful" you try to comfort but Steve just smiles.

"You would have loved him though. Everyone did. He was my best friend, the only family I really had that spent time with me. Since my Grandma passed when I was ten, me and him made sure to spend all of middle school together" Steve isn't entirely sure why he is telling you this, he just knows your the first person he has been this comfortable around since his Grandpa and he didn't even know your name yet. He didn’t know what it was about you but he figured there didn't need to be a reason.

"That's so sweet, he sounds so special" you tell him and Steve nods, recalling memories he hadn't allowed himself to think about for years.

"He was, just wish he was still around. He was the only person to ever be there for me, front row at every swim meet and basketball game. Was hard going through highschool knowing he was no longer in the stands, but Billy. Well that's all me and him ever talked about. So sometimes, on days like today when I miss him a little extra, I find him in the lyrics of a song" and your heart soars for the boy in front of you. A boy with a deep sadness buried within him. A boy the world hadn't given a chance yet.

"Is he there right now?" you can't help but ask, the last few lines of the song coming through the speakers on the machine. Steve listens, can practically see his Grandpa yelling at him for not making a move. ‘At least ask her name’ he groans and Steve chuckles lightly to himself.

"Yeah he's here. He always is" Steve says and you give him a smile that somehow heals him. "I'm Steve by the way"

"Nice to meet you Steve" you tell him before offering your own name and Steve finds it rattling through his head, the most beautiful name in all of existence, and somehow it belongs to you. The very girl who showed up while he was feeling down and has inspired him without a sound. The beginning notes of You Can Make Me Free fill the silence between you both and Steve sits up, realizing your hand is still atop his own.

"Sorry for spilling my guts" Steve says and you shake your head, wanting him to know that he had done nothing wrong this entire time.

"Don't be, it actually happens a lot. I seem to make people very comfortable. Guess I just got a way about me" and Steve agrees because somehow in just this short exchange you have inspired him to keep on going, reminded him that this is not the end and it won't be all bad. It is like you have some bright light around you and it gives him the strength to keep going.

"Would you maybe want to go get something to eat?" Steve finds the confidence to ask and you beam a smile brightly back at him.

"I'd love to Steve" you tell him, using his name like it now somehow belongs to you and Steve wishes it does. A million dreams of love surrounding you and for the first time since Nancy he finds himself feeling something for a girl he never thought he'd feel again. He just knows he no longer wants to live without you.

"Have fun you two" Ron calls out as you both exit, the record still playing as you both leave it behind. You talk the whole way to the small diner in town, Steve just smiles and listens, loving how everything sounds the way it comes out your mouth. It's as if every word lifts him up as you are walking.

For the rest of the day Steve does his part getting to know you. Making you laugh and flirting where necessary which never fails to make you blush. The sight of your red cheeks alone make his heart soar for you. It's cute the way you show it, exactly how you feel about him. In return you do find yourself charmed by the very boy you couldn’t resist talking to. You wondered where a sweet boy like him had been your whole life and for the first time you aren't as embarassed by the blush on your cheeks as you normally would be.

"I really like you Rosy" he says matter of fact, the nickname falling easily from his lips. You blush at his words again, shaking your head at the boy you figure you aren't getting rid of anytime soon.

"I like you too Steve"

Taglist: @slvtforstve @keerygal @goosy-goose @livsters @blckburd @loveshotzz @ohwauwdoritos @superblysubpar @southereads @amataadriana @violet2022 @mxrcjqckspnchqsc @madaboutjoe @thunderstomp-and-tequila @justdamnpeachy @micheledawn1975 @fangfatale @kingstevesgf @notlilyyyy @eddiesguitarskills @palmtreesx3

Comment if you want to be added to the taglist :))

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nottivagos · 24 days ago

Note

i also miss stalker!carlos :( maybe mafia!carlos but not as much as stalker!carlos. he has me in a chokehold.... (could he PLEASE) imagine him just being so attentive to your schedule, always appearing when things get so stressful and he just knows what to do... what if she falls asleep with her head on his lap, and it's just the most beautiful view he's had? so angelic, so perfect, and it just fuels his need to keep her his and trap her. idk I HOPE YOU HAVE A GOOD DAY

ITS THAT TIME AGAIN BABY! Welcome Notti's "Not So Innocent" Notebook where I write some filth to make your Saturday a little bit better <3 || 18+ mdni pls and ty

tw: themes of stalking, mentions of kidnapping & overall very immoral and illegal behaviours.

an: oh nonnie... are you trying to kill me? I'M GOING INSANE YOU READ MY MIND. let's keep this a secret between you and me but your ask has established the prequel to the main stalker!carlos fic i'm working on <3

It’s weird how he was always there when you needed him the most.

It was as if Carlos Sainz was a ghost looming over your every move, following your every footstep two feet behind so you wouldn’t suspect anything, hidden by the distance between you both. A cold entity crawling up your skin, one that seemed to know more about yourself than even yourself knew, the fear making your blood run cold, but the underlying thrill made a rush of heat pool to your insides.

Isolation leads to helplessness, turning to the first person who shows you kindness in some way, unable to read the lines between their good morals. Drunk on the dopamine, latching onto the warm and homely high, the feeling that someone cared about you, is enough to make anyone swoon. It's typical human nature.

Carlos had seen you through most stages of life since you’d moved into the neighbourhood. The highs of when you got that promotion at work after months of hard work and trying to impress your unimpressed boss, to the lows of another failed relationship with a jerk who couldn’t even turn up to the second date, he was always there. It was eerie to think about, scary that you hadn't even thought for a moment that he was a chronic stalker, like a wolf ready for the kill, hunting for the most innocent lamb it could sink it's sharp molars into.

The sadness you felt made his insides boil with rage. How dare someone stand you up? How could anyone not appreciate a pretty little thing like you? He could’ve hit the asshole in that moment, telling him to “never talk to his girl ever again”, but instead he took you inside with open arms, silently gritting his annoyance at your situation, before hushing and cooing soft murmurs into your ear to stop the overflowing tears from shedding onto his new hoodie and ruining your makeup in the process.

If only he could have you all to himself, he thought. Only if there was some way to just scoop you up off of your feet one day, make you abandon your dreary life just so you could be with him. He’d find you a pretty little cottage somewhere, like he'd observed you saying, secluded from the horrible world you both lived, and you wouldn’t even have to lift a finger. You’d just have be his pretty little girlfriend, maybe even his wife later on, smitten and completely enamoured whilst he did all the work.

Today wasn’t any different. Carlos observed the way your shoulders were hunched as you exited your car parked in the driveway, the way your eyes looked sunken and tired, the fatigue radiating off your body as you sluggishly walked into your house. He could sense your stress from his own home, the way the knots were probably stiffening in your shoulder blades, the fact that your eyes were probably begging to cry tears from the overwhelming pressure bubbling inside of you— it was too much for you to comprehend, and he knew your ways of coping all too well.

Beautifully manicured nails hovered in front of your mouth, just begging to be bit into to alleviate the pressure of the day you’d had that you were feeling. As your teeth started to come down on your thumb, your motion was stopped by the abrupt ringing of the doorbell. Sliding off the couch with a raised eyebrow, you opened the door to Carlos, holding a small shopping bag with a friendly smile.

“I brought some bath salts and some chocolate that were lying around in my cupboards. I thought you might appreciate them a little more than I would,” he explained with that thick accent that made your insides flutter, inviting himself inside your house with ease. Your heart melted at the action, fluttering as his large hand came to press on the small of your back, his doe brown eyes soft as you made eye contact with him.

The bath was euphoric and overall a success on both parts. Carlos’s hands knead against your knotted muscles with ease, as he let you ramble on about everything that was stressing you out. It was beautiful, you felt validated for once in your life, a feeling that made you feel giddy like a little child. He was charismatic and a gentleman to you, murmuring about how you “shouldn’t have gone through that” or that “a girl like you shouldn’t feel this stressed, let alone upset”, the softness of his voice making your brain fuzzy on the dopamine.

By the time you were all cozy in your loungewear, you’d snuggled with Carlos on the sofa, basking in each other’s presence, hand idly stroking your hair whilst you nested into his lap. The TV softly hummed in the background, but you both didn’t pay much attention to it. The stillness and the tranquility of the evening made you even more drowsy than you were originally, and you could feel yourself slowly dozing off as you let your fatigue win. When you’d become unresponsive to your intimate small talk, Carlos looked down at you with curiosity, wondering why you’d gone silent all of a sudden.

“Cariño, did you fall asleep?” he asked with a soft chuckle, brushing some hair out of your face to reveal your closed eyes. Your soft breaths filled the room as Carlos relaxed on your couch, resting against the plush cushions. He let out a content sigh, doe eyes fixated on your snoozing form, softly snoring whilst curled up by his side like a sleeping animal.

Calloused fingertips continued to soothingly comb through your damp hair, as he let his mind wander. The sight below him was angelic. A beautiful sight he wanted to remember forever, too pure to even disturb in the slightest of ways. In his eyes, it fuelled his desire to keep you as his own more. The way you looked, the trust you’d put into him over the past few months, he knew soon enough he’d be able to finally put his claws into you forever and you’d not even bat an eyelid.

“Soon enough you’ll be mine, princesa,” he mumbled, brushing some hair behind your ear ever so gently. “Soon enough you’ll be safe, away from all this stress that’s tying you down. With me, forever.”

And after that, he let the boldness of his statement and overall desire linger around the four walls that were about to trap you in a hell disguised by his own designed domesticated haven.

nonnie, i just want to say thank you for actually requesting this. you're my first nonnie and i'm SO HONOURED that you requested something! the past few days have been such a rollercoaster for me with divorced mechanic!danny so thank you for appreciating my silly little thoughts, it means so much to me. - notti <3

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tickletastic · 1 month ago

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Walls and How to Climb Them

Fandom: The Inheritance Games

Ship: N/A

Summary: Nash knows exactly how to calm Jameson down after an argument with Grayson. Big brothers always do.

Nash Hawthorne is not an enigma, he’s not a mystery or a big ball of trauma pretending to be a person– unlike his brothers. That means Nash has a healthy– as healthy as it can be given he grew up in Hawthorne House– relationship with his emotions, and an uncanny ability to see through the absolute bullshit his brothers put on when he checks in.

When Nash is dealing with something, he talks to Libby. Or he goes out to a bar. Or he gets into a bar fight. Totally normal ways for a well-adjusted 26-year-old to take out his frustrations. On the bright side, at least Nash can actually acknowledge when things are slipping, when he feels things bubbling just under the surface. His emotionally constipated brothers had never been so lucky, yet another thing he could blame on the mystique and allure of their late grandfather.

Still, somehow, Nash had his ways of getting his younger brothers out of their own heads. Pushing them past the ‘emotion is weakness,’ ‘boys don’t cry’ bullshit their grandfather drilled into them.

Xander was probably the easiest to crack. Afterall, their nearly ten year age difference was enough that Nash had always been closer to a father figure than an older brother. Nash could just saunter into Xander’s room, or the circular library, or his lab, and make things feel a little too serious for a little too long, and Xander would crack, spilling exactly what was bothering him or who Nash had to beat up. Nash would listen without judgment, even if the issue was as small as a screw not fitting into one of Xander’s new robots, and take him out for ice cream or cupcakes afterwards.

Jameson and Grayson were, obviously, much more difficult. The heir and the daredevil had far too much time collecting bad coping mechanisms.

Grayson, typically, wandered on the side of emotionlessness. Spit in his face? Grayson’s stone-cold exterior isn’t cracking. Threaten him? Steal from him? Trick him? Grayson would never show it, he’d greet every challenge with a tight-lipped look and a firm handshake.

Yet somehow, Nash, with his older brother instincts and extra year with Grayson before Jameson was born, could always tell when Grayson was trying just a little too hard to keep his face blank. He could see the small wrinkle next to his left eyebrow, or the way Grayson would dig the nail of his thumb into the tip of his index finger. Grayson usually took a while to come around, and it would never be completely, he would never, ever, open up entirely. Nash still had ways of making things easier on him, and he never took his Grayson-reading skills for granted.

Jameson, though, has always been a different story, His fearlessness, his borderline recklessness, was always rewarded, always nurtured. When he showed himself to be unwilling to back down from any challenge, their grandfather would reward him. His brothers might not have jumped from the top of the solarium to unlock a clue during one of their Saturday schemes, but Jameson would. His brothers wouldn’t wander into a drug den on the opposite end of the world to retrieve a singular coin, but Jameson would. The fear, the adrenaline of the chase, it took away from all the rest of it for Jameson.

Jameson never let himself get still enough to think about the bad, and there was a lot of bad. He just spent his life running and running from the inevitable break. When Em died, there was a glimpse, just a sliver, of what Jameson was feeling on the inside, but it was covered up by his constant fighting with Grayson, the calloused shell he adopted like a second skin.

But Nash knows. He always knows. When Jameson jumps a fraction too quick, when he rushes into things headfirst without giving things a moment to set in, when every challenge looks like a competition to him, that, that is when Nash knows Jameson is losing it.

When those risks, that danger, isn’t close enough for Jameson to touch, or to throw himself towards, he goes to the rock wall.

Nash had always thought the rock-climbing wall was a bit silly, and he hadn’t been kind enough to his eight-year-old brother when he decided to pick it up as his skill that year, insisting instead that he could learn rock climbing in ten minutes at a playground. It didn’t matter now, ‘cause Nash quickly adapted to the rock wall, the incredibly dangerous heights Jameson would reach, serving as his younger brother’s coping mechanism.

It was better than climbing a real cliff, sans rope, afterall.

Nash preferred the rock wall now, as opposed to all the other options, because Jameson’s been climbing the thirty-five foot wall without protection since he was eight, he could trust that Jameson knew all of the risks, all of the possible outcomes. He just couldn’t always trust that Jameson would do what’s safest for himself.

Given Nash’s amazing Big Brother Instincts, he also knows exactly when Jameson is using the wall to de-stress rather than channel anger, and tonight is one such night.

Things are going well. Well, as well as they can be going in the Hawthorne house, Avery’s keeping Jameson steady and everyone’s mostly getting along. Today, though, Grayson and Jameson got into an argument that even had Grayson losing his cool for a moment.

Grayson and Jameson somehow manage to fight even when everything’s going fine, in fact, especially when everything’s going fine, and it usually took both Xander and Nash to get them to relax. So while Xander forces Grayson to join him in a baking lesson with Libby, Nash goes to the rock wall to find Jameson.

Jameson is exactly where Nash believed he’d be, halfway up the wall, eyes closed as he seemingly just hangs there, taking everything in.

“Jamie,” Nash calls up, and he sees Jameson take out a wireless earbud and drop it in the pocket of his sweats.

Jameson rolls his eyes, his teenaged-era rebellion always flaring its head when he Nash has put on his big brother hat. “What? Not baking bubblegum cupcakes and ice cream frosting with Libby?”

"That sounds far too sweet, even for Libs," Nash says, his voice jokingly solemn, “besides, somethin’ tells me Xan’s got that handled.”

"What do you want, Nash?" Jameson asks, straightforward, annoyance seeping into his tone.

Nash grins, taking his cowboy hat off and setting it gently on the floor behind him, “You gonna come down yourself or am I gonna have to come up there and get ya?”

Jameson just rolls his eyes again, but begins to eye the height he's at on the wall. When Nash sees Jameson bracing himself to jump, he can’t help but yell back up at his younger brother “you won’t like to deal with the consequences if you jump down from that wall.”

“Like jumping from this height is even a big deal” Jameson responds incredulously, looking down, more than fifteen feet up the wall. “I’m not made of glass, Nash, and I’m not a child.”

“A child you are not,” Nash drawls, “but your knees will be sore like a motherfucker in two years time if you don’t stop jumping down from this damn thing.”

Jameson sighs, defeated, and makes his descent down the wall, much less practiced at climbing down than he is at climbing up. When he’s within Nash’s reach, Nash grabs him by the nape of his neck, and Jameson tumbles into his oldest brother’s arms with a sound he would definitely never refer to as a giggle.

Now, Nash is no stranger to dealing with a devastated Jameson, but frustration is a much easier demon to fight, and he must admit that today he is glad it’s just frustration. He knows exactly how to deal with that.

Nash doesn’t waste a minute, he gets Jameson on the floor and pinned in the blink of an eye, fingers fluttering over his stomach in the way Nash knows drives him crazy.

“Nash!” Jameson screeches, trying to grab his brother’s hand, even though he feels his strength leaving with every ticklish touch. He’s making aborted snorting noises, scrunching his nose with the force of the threatened laughter. Usually Jameson was the hardest to crack, able to hold out for a while without laughing when someone tickled him, but Nash took him off guard, knowing it was exactly what they both needed.

“What’s the matter, Jamie?” Nash asks, feigning innocence “something botherin’ ya?”

Nash forms his hands into claws and vibrates them on either side of Jameson’s belly button, and Jameson bursts into loud belly laughter, hands flying everywhere to protect from the attack. He’s arching his back in an attempt to dislodge Nash’s hands, but somehow, the longer Nash stays in the same spot, using the same technique, the more it tickles, and it’s driving Jameson mad already, when he knows his oldest brother has only just started.

“NAHASH!” Jamie screeches, digging his heels into the ground when one of Nash’s fingers worms its way into his belly button, pulling at the sensitive skin. When Nash moves his other hand to just above Jameson’s hip bone, his younger brother can’t hold back a stream of snorts, and Nash can’t help but laugh along with him. Jameson’s laugh has always been the most contagious, and it doesn’t hurt that seeing his face scrunched up as his older brother tickles him is just too damn cute.

Nash now vibrates both thumbs into Jameson’s hips and Jameson hiccups, throwing his head back while a blush climbs up his face.

“Are you alright, Jamie? You’re lookin’ a little red,” Nash teases, grinning down at his brother.

“Fuhuhuck ohohoff!” Jameson quips, and immediately regrets it when Nash reaches his hands back to squeeze underneath his knees. He lets out the loudest snort yet, shaking his head uncontrollably while he kicks out his legs in an attempt to dislodge Nash. Unable to even reach Nash’s hands to try to fight him off, Jameson winds his arms around his ribs, laughter catching in his throat “PLEHEASE!”

Nash snorts, but relents, moving his hands back up to Jameson’s torso, tickling his sides. “Begging already, Jame? I thought you could take more than that.”

“Ihihit-” Jameson squeaks when Nash’s hands hit his bottom ribs, “ihihit tihihickles soho bad!”

“God, you’re nearly as bad as Gray. Maybe it’s genetic? Where do ya think all this sensitivity came from?”

“Ihihif it’s genehtic, Li- Lihihbby would wahahant to knohohow!” Jameson attempts to fluster his brother back, but of course, in his current predicament, it doesn’t work so well.

“Or maybe I should tell Avery,” Nash responds, nonchalant. “If you can still muster the energy to be a smartass, I guess that means I’m not doin’ my job right, huh?”

Nash wiggles his fingers up Jameson’s ribs, already enough to make him scream, squeal, and thrash, before lodging his hands firmly under Jameson’s arms. His younger brother arches his back almost painfully, flattening his arms to his sides and effectively trapping Nash’s fingers in his armpits. None of those reactions, though, hold a candle to the ear-piercing squeal Jameson lets out when Nash’s fingers start to wiggle, worming around in his worst spot.

“Ihihi’m gohohonna kihihill you!” Jameson screams. His smile is so wide it nearly splits his face in two, his eyes closed and nose scrunched while he throws his head back in ticklish agony. Part of him wishes Nash had chose a different torture method, anything would have been more bearable.

“I’d hate to be the one to tell ya,” Nash says calmly, “but you’re not too intimidating like this, Jamie.”

When Nash starts to drill his fingers in, rather than wiggling around aimlessly under Jameson’s arms, Jameson’s laughter gets shrill and panicked, as his tired attempts at squirming become renewed.

“Nahahash! Mehercy! Uhuncle, PLEHEASE!” Jameson begs, bringing his hands up to cover his cherry red face while his elbows remain firmly pinned to his sides.

Nash wiggles one of his hands out to free it, rotating his body a bit so his other hand can continue under Jameson’s arm while the other can return to the soft skin under his knee. When Jameson’s laughter quickly goes silent, Nash pulls both hands away, rolling off of Jameson and sitting next to him on the floor.

Nash combs the dark, black hair out of his younger brother’s eyes while he tries to catch his breath, giggles and snorts peppered between laborious inhales.

When Jameson finally sits up, red with a goofy smile still on his face, he’s panting for breath, “you couldn’t have done that to Grayson?”

“He’s in the kitchen with Xander,” Nash stands up, brushing off his jeans, and reaching out to ruffle Jameson’s hair. Jameson ducks away with a playful glare, and Nash just snorts at his reaction. “Something tells me he’s probably gettin’ the same treatment.”

#the inheritance games #grayson hawthorne #jameson hawthorne #xander hawthorne #nash hawthorne #ticklish!jameson #lee!jameson #ler!nash

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bamboozledbird · 5 months ago

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IGNITE: A Teen Wolf S1 AU (Reader's Version) // Prev. / Chapter 4 / Next

Characters: Stiles Stilinski, fem!reader, Scott McCall, Lydia Martin, OMC Pairing: Eventual Stiles x Reader, but man are we talking slow burn Word Count: 4.5k Warnings: Canon typical gore/violence, parental death (rip to your fake mom), depictions of depression (apathy, dissociation, 'numb little bug' vibes), alcohol as a coping mechanism, season 1 Lydia behavior (her comments on addiction are wrong and insensitive and she's knows it) Tags: Canon has been lovingly scrapped for parts, author is a chaotic bi and it shows, prolific overuse of the em dash, the slowest of burns i fear

Summary: You can always smell ash long after the fire is gone. Perhaps, that’s why you still can’t breathe without choking on the past. It’s been four years since your mom died. Four years since she burned alive. Four years since you didn’t. You survived, but they must have buried your heart with her because most days you feel like a shadow, some horrifically sad creature caught halfway between a ghost and a lamb for slaughter.

You can’t scrub the bitter smell of hospital from your memories, not even with denial. Maybe, that’s why death and disease follows Stiles wherever he goes now. It’s been eight years since his mom died. Eight years since he didn’t. Eight years since he decided that he wouldn’t let anyone he loved die ever again. He survived, but Beacon Hills’ bloody underbelly is making it pretty damn hard for him to keep his promise.

Time never stops turning. The grief never dissipates. Children soldier on—but in a town where all the monsters under the bed are real, and old family secrets rattle in every closet, how long can two fragile, breakable humans survive?

Maybe, the real question is: How long will they want to?

Chapter Summary: Your life somehow becomes further entangled with Stiles and Scott's strange secret world, and Lydia is concerned in her own aggressive way.

A/N: this is in fact a scott mccall stan account. i love that boy like he's my own. you can also check me out on ao3 (dork_knight) for the full lore version!

The drive home was ultimately uneventful. No need for tasers, silver bullets, or wolfsbane goop. You would need to get gas before you left for school in the morning, but you supposed that was a relatively minor inconvenience when the other end of the scale was being torn apart by a fanged monster.

Your jaw cracked with an aggressive yawn as you slowly stumbled through the garage door, fumbling for the light switch on the wall. You flicked on the light and paused, shivering a little as the cold air from the vent above your head skimmed over your bare arms. After a moment of hesitation, when that little persistent wriggling in your ear wouldn’t go away, you ducked back down the concrete steps to poke around the garbage can. Underneath a few Styrofoam take-out boxes, there were four empty beer bottles. The glass bottles clinked against each other as you nudged them out of the way, unearthing the real object of your paranoia. A drained bottle of 100-proof rye whiskey was cradled between two sacks of trash from the night before. You just stared at the bottles, heart and lungs wound tight, and then you dropped the lid back on top of the can.

When you reentered the house, you were careful to keep the noise to a minimum. It wasn’t that late, only a little past nine, but you didn’t want to disrupt your dad’s slumber. Usually, he was a night owl—which, of course, was really just a pretty way of saying chronic insomniac, another thing you’d inherited from him—but it’d been a hard liquor night. Your dad always went to bed early on hard liquor nights. You didn��t know if he actually slept or if he stared at the ceiling, watching memories play on spackle until dawn streamed through the cracks in the blinds. Probably the first. You hadn’t ever heard him cry through the thin walls, not even once. You, however, couldn’t ever stop crying, not on the nights you trembled for something potent enough to mask the scent of the coconut oil your mom used to remove her makeup. The echoes of your mother had seeped into the walls, saturated the insulation with the faint sounds of the 70s pop rock vinyls she put on when she was in a good mood. They faded sometimes, but they always came back. You desperately hoped, and you hopelessly feared, that they always would.

You rubbed at your eyes with the back of your hands aggressively and slipped under the covers, still in your plaid skirt and black t-shirt. Mascara smeared against your silk pillowcase, blurred your vision as it melted into your waterline. You stared at the wall until the silver swirls in the teal wallpaper started to sway. The teal was so dark it almost looked velvet with the lights off, and you had a heavy-eyed impulse to stroke it, but your hand was too leadened to lift.

Your lids slipped shut, and in the haze between consciousness and slumber you felt the vague sensation of something solid against the back of your head. You murmured something incomprehensible and pulled your arms closer to your chest, taking in a breath of sharp whisky and a familiar woody cologne. You kept your eyes closed, and the warm weight cupped your skull for a moment. There was a brief kiss pressed against the top of your head and then the warmth was gone. Something large caught in your throat, and you squeezed your eyelids until your forehead wrinkled, forcing yourself to fall into a restless sleep filled with dreams of pancakes swimming in bourbon and howling beasts.

Stiles was waiting for you by your locker when you arrived at school the next day. His friend—Scott, you reminded herself—was leaning against the locker next to him. Scott’s eyelids were heavy, and there was a coolness underneath them that stained his tan skin with a swathe of puce. Puce: From the French term ‘couleur puce,’ meaning ‘flea color.’ You dug your incisor into your tongue once you recognized that the intrusive internal narration was in Stiles’s voice. You didn’t even know if he spoke French, but it seemed like the kind of weird detail he’d know. You ran your tongue over your teeth and shoved your fists into your jacket pockets, thumb poking through the hole in the lining from previous twiddling—when the hell did you start thinking about the kinds of things Stiles would and wouldn’t know?

You pivoted sharply, and your traitorous leather boots ruined your attempted exit when they squeaked against the freshly waxed floor. Stiles’s head popped up from his hushed conversation with Scott, and he waved vigorously when he made eye contact with you, “Hey! C’mere!”

You tipped your gaze towards the tiled ceiling and sighed. It was inevitable, really; you had to get your English binder before homeroom—homeroom, yet another reason to hate Wednesdays. It was one of your few classes with Lydia, and there wasn’t ever any actual teaching to distract you from the disgusting goo-goo eyes she gave her boyfriend. Studying was your only respite.

“Patience,” you nudged Stiles out of the way and spun your combination into the padlock, “work on it. It’s an essential skill.”

Stiles scoffed and leaned his shoulder against the locker next to yours, arms folded over his chest, “Essential. There’s nothing essential about wasting time. It’s actually unvirtuous if you think about it.”

You swung her locker door open, blocking out Stiles’s frown, and rested your backpack on your knee so that you could unzip it. “Was there a point in there somewhere, or are you stalking me again?”

Stiles ducked around the locker door and placed his hands on Scott’s shoulders, shoving him a little closer to you, “Scott had a question for you.”

Scott’s eyes didn’t look so tired when he reared his head back to stare at Stiles. They had an intense conversation for a moment. There weren’t any words exchanged, but you got the gist: Scott was pissed, and Stiles was relentless. In the end, Scott lost the battle and swallowed thickly, “So, uh, you know a lot about supernatural stuff. That’s cool.” Stiles rolled his eyes and smacked the back of Scott’s head. Scott glared at him before mumbling, “Do you have any more of that wolfsbane…potion?” towards his muddy Converse.

You directed your annoyance over Scott’s shoulder, more than confident that the real culprit of this request was the idiot avoiding your eye-line. “What? You already burned through your goo sample? Are the streets finally free from the demon beast of Beacon Hills?”

Stiles held up his hands and shook his head, “This is all Scott. See, me, I’m a fan of not being a greedy little bastard, but Scott—” This time Scott smacked Stiles with a resounding thwack. Stiles rubbed his shoulder, mouth agawk with indignation.

“He…dropped it.” Scott glowered at the side of Stiles’s face, “‘Doing something stupid.”

You smirked, “Sounds about right.” You shoved your binder into your backpack and brushed your hairs out of your eyes, “I’d give it all away for free, but it’s not up to me. Sorry.” Zipping your backpack shut, you slung one of the straps over your shoulder and shrugged, “You could always buy some more, but I’d strongly advise against such a dumb financial investment.”

Scott rubbed the back of his neck and gave you a smile. It was small but riddled with warmth—like he just couldn’t help it, like sunshine leaked through every one of his pores, and you were filled with the sudden urge to buy the stupid wolfsbane gunk for him. “That’s what I figured,” Scott looked at Stiles pointedly. His voice dropped a few octaves and a growl slipped into the end of his sentence, “But someone thought we should ask anyway.”

The bell rang, and Scott flinched, smashing one of his ears into his shoulder. He turned around, a little dazed, and Stiles trailed after him after giving her a distracted wave. As you watched them leave, a parasitic impulse wrangled through your throat, prying the hinge of your jaw open as you shouted, “Hey!” The hallway was abuzz with various conversations and clomping feet, but your voice was still a bit too loud for the short distance between you and definitely too urgent for 7:45 in the morning.

Stiles turned around first, almost tripping over his sneakers, and then he yanked on the scarlet hood of Scott’s jacket until he stopped too. You shifted your weight from one foot to the other and licked your bottom lip, suddenly realizing how dry it was. “I, uh,” you sighed and took a few steps forward so that you didn’t have to raise your voice, “I could talk to Maggie. I bet she’d cut you a deal if I asked.” You let out a little laugh and raked your fingers through your hair, accidentally dislodging the satin bow tying your hair out of your face. “I know, actually. I know she’d give you some for free. She’s a terrible business woman.”

Scott’s smile put the moon to shame, and Stiles looked like he’d been waiting for you to change your mind since the moment you told them no—when the hell did he start thinking about what you would and wouldn’t do?

“That would be awesome,” Scott ducked down to grab your black ribbon and held it out to you with an open palm, “thank you. I’d owe you big time.”

Stiles looped his arm around Scott’s shoulders and smirked, “We’d. We’d owe you. I’ll stop by the store and bless you with my scintillating conversation sometime.”

“Don’t worry about it,” you smiled softly at Scott, taking your ribbon from his hand. You attempted to tie your hair back in a neat bow, but it was difficult without a mirror. You assumed it was halfway decent because Stiles didn’t take the opportunity to tease you—you, on the other hand, had no such qualms about mocking him. You smiled at Stiles, far too sweetly to be considered congenial, and sneered, “Seriously. Don’t worry about it.”

Stiles’s eyes narrowed, face curved around a smirk that screamed trouble, and Scott slapped his hand over Stiles’s mouth before he could say something to make you reconsider, “Thanks again. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to pay you back. Name it, and we’re there.” Stiles winked at you with a glint in his eye that was as vexing as it was bright, and Scott rolled his eyes as he hauled him away by the nylon material of his backpack, “C’mon, dude. My mom’s gonna kill me if I’m late again.”

You watched Stiles’s buzzed head bob amidst the congested crowd of students, all shoving each other in their rush to get to class on time, until you couldn’t hear his surly complaints anymore. You rubbed your hand over your chapped lips, swallowing hollowly, like you could erase every impulsive word that’d spilt from your stupid mouth.

You were still thinking about what you’d gotten yourself into when you walked into Mrs. Farias’s classroom—and that must be why you forgot your copy of Metamorphosis in your locker. You groaned internally and dropped your forehead against your desk, bumping it against the cool laminate finish a few times, before ducking out the door with a hall pass.

The halls were empty—silent too. You could hear your own footsteps and the tick of the large clock above the main office as you walked around the corner, and then, just as you approached the hallway your locker was in, you heard something else. Voices. Angry voices. One familiar—your face scrunched as the recognition wriggled through your ears to your brain—and one not. You cautiously glanced around the corner and frowned. Jackson, Lydia’s arrogant prick of a boyfriend, was talking to a hulking, leather-clad stranger—or rather infuriating him based on the murderous look in the man’s dark eyes.

The stranger looked a good five years too old to be in a high school hallway, but the grown-out stubble and over-defined muscles weren’t of immediate concern. You were more focused on the color of his face. His skin was pale, clammy, and quite honestly a little corpse-like thanks to the purply-blue tinge carving out the hollows of his face. You assumed that he was too strung-out to care if anyone noticed their altercation because you could hear him from halfway across the hall.

“Where’s Scott McCall?” His voice was deep and gravelly, as expected, but there was a desperate undertone you hadn’t anticipated.

You could only see the back of Jackson’s head, but you knew exactly what his face was doing when he puffed out his chest and folded his arms—no one else could make a smirk look quite so punchable. It was a gift, truly. “And why should I tell you?” “Because I asked you politely,” the man leaned forward, bared his canines, and you couldn’t believe that Jackson didn’t even flinch, “and I only do that once.”

“Okay, tough guy,” Jackson sneered, meeting the man’s challenge with another step forward and a shrug that reeked of false-superiority, “how ‘bout I help you find him if you tell me what you’re selling him. What is it? Dianabol? HGH?”

“Steroids,” the man’s voice was dry, and if he didn’t look like he was about to double over and puke all over the floor, you’d say the menacing glimmer in his eyes was a little amused.

“No, Girl Scout cookies. What the hell do you think I’m talking about?” Jackson tutted, maddeningly haughty, and shook his head, “By the way, whatever it is you’re selling, I’d stop sampling the merchandise.” He let out a low patronizing whistle, and you kind of hoped that the stranger would suckerpunch him in the throat for it. “You look wrecked.”

The man didn’t punch him. Instead, he pushed himself off of the locker he was slumped against and started staggering stiffly down the hall, “I’ll find him myself.”

Jackson grabbed onto his broad shoulder and yanked. The veins in his bicep bulged with the strength of grasp, “We’re not done here.”

Your limbs suddenly remembered how to function. You ducked back behind the brick wall and closed your eyes, waiting for the inevitable sounds of bone colliding into flesh. Your right eye cracked open a sliver when the noise never came. Instead, there was a loud thud and the echo of clanging metal. You peeked around the corner again and froze, eyes wide and throat dry. Jackson was pinned against a locker by his neck. You’d already noticed that the stranger was tall, but you didn’t truly realize just how large he was until now. Jackson was a lot of things, but he wasn’t small. He was captain of the lacrosse team—everyone within a ten-mile radius knew that thanks to his constant reminders—and if anyone on campus was taking steroids, he would’ve been your first guess. But next to this sickly beast of a man, Jackson looked meek and mousey, and you didn’t even get to savor it. After a brief moment, no more than a second, Jackson’s assailant sniffed the air and slowly turned his head in your direction. It wasn’t an accident; he wasn’t surveying his surroundings. His eyes landed on yours, and he didn’t look the least bit surprised.

The man’s irises were dark, nearly black, and they didn’t stray from your face. You forgot how to breathe, feeling distinctly like a rabbit trapped in a fox den as your heartbeat hammered against your ribs. He spared you after a few seconds of paralyzing eye-contact and turned his petrifying gaze back to Jackson’s neck. You recoiled, slipping back to your spot around the wall, and pressed your back against the bricks until the sound of your heartbeat wasn’t so loud in your ears.

When you found the courage to look down the hall again, the man was gone, and Jackson was bleeding from the back of his neck. There were four distinct punctures along his cervical spine, trickling crimson droplets onto the stark white collar of his polo. The gouges were small, almost like…nail marks. Baffling. This town was fuckin’ baffling.

You poured over the incident all day, barely conscious enough to take down notes and roll your eyes at Stiles’s badgering and bad jokes. You’d never been more ready for the final bell to ring, not even during sex education with the extraordinarily sweaty Mr. Peterson.

You twisted your pendant around its onyx chain as you walked out of your last period, winding and unwinding the charm over and over again as you mulled over your thoughts. Scott didn’t seem like he was on drugs. You didn’t exactly know him, but he was the least aggressive person you’d ever met, and he had to be eternally patient if Stiles was his best friend. You spun the medallion again and shouldered your way through the cramped halls to the parking lot, scolding yourself. What Scott McCall did or did not inject into his bloodstream wasn’t any of your business…even if his alleged dealer looked like he was on death’s door and had a habit of throwing teenage boys around when he got mad.

You’d just convinced yourself that you didn’t care what happened to Stiles’s best friend when a discord of honking stopped you in your tracks. You flitted your gaze around the parking lot, searching for the cause of obnoxiously loud cacophony; your shoulders wilted along with your resolve when you spotted the guilty party. The man from the hallway was sprawled on the asphalt, and Scott and Stiles were scrambling to help him off of the ground.

Your feet reluctantly trudged towards the peculiar trio, arms tightly folded over your cropped sweater. You would’ve laughed at how wide Stiles’s eye stretched when he finally noticed your presence, but you were a little preoccupied with the fact that he was currently trying to stuff a ghoulish grown man into his front seat. You watched him struggle to hold up approximately 200 pounds of solid muscle with his spindly arms, absentmindedly lamenting that you couldn’t truly appreciate the humor of the situation. “Hey,” you slanted your head and searched Stiles’s face for any sign of an SOS signal, “you good?”

“Ayup,” Stiles nodded emphatically, and Scott shot you a weak thumbs-up from his squat next to his tipped-over bike.

You looked between the two of them, waiting for the truth to crack through the awkward pretense, and narrowed your eyes, “You sure?”

“We’re good,” the man barked from inside the jeep, teeth bared. It was a little less intimidating now that he was slumped over and at the mercy of a sixteen-year-old with a dork complex, but you still flinched. You couldn’t help it. It was a small twitch, but Scott still managed to track the minute movement from his low perch. He glared at the man, shockingly firm for such a sweet-faced boy, until the stranger stopped scowling at you. Mr. Sour Face turned his head towards the window and stared intensely at the hazy tree line over the hill. Your fingers relaxed. You hadn’t even realized that you’d dug your nails in your palms until the stinging stopped.

Scott jumped to his feet and pulled his bike up by the handles, rushing through his weak explanation, “Stiles is just…doing me a favor. Derek needs a ride, and all I’ve got is my bike.”

Letting out a flimsy snort, your brow pinched, “So…he walked here?”

“Uh,” Scott squinted, and Stiles nodded behind him, “yeah?”

You pursed your lips, ignoring all the students who’d started shouting over the beeping horns, and watched Derek grit his teeth and clench his fists through the dashboard window. You looked back at Stiles and chewed on your lip. Stiles was taller than you, but he was on the scrawnier side of lean and wouldn’t stand a chance against a man of Derek’s size—even if he was barely clinging to the rapidly fraying threads of consciousness. “I could use a ride to work,” you pulled the backseat door open before you could talk yourself out of it.

Stiles lurched towards you and slammed the door shut, narrowly avoiding your fingers, “Normally, I would seize any opportunity to have you further indebted to me, but—that’s Lydia Martin.” His eyes bulged out of his head, and he leaned against his jeep, slipping down the blue frame as his legs went boneless, “Walking towards me. Cool. Cool, cool, cool.”

The prospect of riding in the same car with Mr. Resting Bitchface was being more appealing by the second. Lydia didn’t even look in Stiles’s direction. Her cutting green eyes were fixed on you and you alone. “Are you an idiot?” Lydia snatched your wrist, mauve manicure digging into the delicate skin on the inside of your wrist, and yanked you back to the sidewalk.

“What?” you went brainless for a moment, taking in all the glory of an enraged Lydia Martin.

Lydia’s cheeks were flushed pink from anger and adrenaline, “Or just suicidal?”

The shock had worn off. Now, you were thoroughly pissed, “What?”

Lydia’s eyebrows, perfectly tapered and freshly threaded, knitted together until she was in danger of developing a unibrow, “Do you have any idea who you were about to get in a car with?”

Your eyes flicked to the side, and it took gargantuan strength not to roll them too. “Stiles?”

“What the hell is a Stiles?” Lydia’s riptide of fury gave way to confusion, but her soft features sharpened abruptly when she returned her attention to your scowl, “I meant Derek Hale. Obviously.”

Your hip cocked to the side as you crossed your arms, “And?”

“And he’s a murder suspect,” Lydia’s lips curled into a vehement sneer. It was so strange to finally see it first-hand. Lydia had such a sweet face, cherub cheeks and doe eyes—a clever smile. She hadn’t quite mastered disdain when you were friends; the ice queen routine wasn’t performance ready until you’d drifted apart. It was an awful face, you decided; it completely erased the last few pieces of the Lydia you knew.

“In an animal attack,” you muttered under your breath.

Evidently, it had been a long time since someone dared to disagree with the Lydia Martin because she was struck speechless. It didn’t last for long, but it was still satisfying. “He’s dangerous,” Lydia hissed. “He went completely off the deep end after his family died. Seriously, his life is like a textbook precursor to violent behavior; he’s a profiler’s wet dream.”

“Because his family died,” you repeated. The numbness eroded some of the snark in your voice.

Lydia either didn’t notice or didn’t care about the glaze creeping over your eyes. She continued, barbarous and unashamed, “Because he watched them turn into charcoal, and his sister was just ripped in half. At best, he’s unstable—but his little hobby of trolling for minors is a bit of a red flag, don’t you think?”

“Charcoal,” you spoke—more of an echo really with its resonating hollowness. Your eyes were on Lydia’s face, but your mind was somewhere far away. A lifetime ago, with the ashes of everything you once knew.

Lydia’s eyes went wide, and her mouth gaped into a perfect little ‘o.’ Her dainty fingers twitched by her sides, and then she smoothed out the non-existent wrinkles in her flouncy mini-skirt. “Most of his family died in a fire,” her voice was much softer this time, a bit of tenderness accidentally rooting through the cracks in her veneer. Lydia looked away and gripped the thin strap of her handbag, “Accidental house fire. It was all over the news like five years ago.”

You stared at Lydia, and for the first time in the last four years, you didn’t miss her. For the first time in such a mind-numbingly long time, your anger strangled your heartache with a wrought-iron grip that felt a whole lot like hate. It was always going to be like this, you realized. You would just have to walk around with all these what-ifs, if-onlys, and what-really-happeneds needling your heart with every thud—always. You had to learn to live with this: knowing that Lydia was never going to apologize and that there would be no closure. Ever.

“Right.” You laughed, shark-like, with your canines on display. You hoped it would make all your constants sharper. “So he’s gotta be a lunatic now.”

“Y/N…” It was surreal to hear your name out of Lydia’s mouth after so long. You didn’t know if you liked it, and, currently, you didn’t even know if you cared. Lydia chewed off what was left of her nude lipstick and then squared her shoulders, “So we’re just going to pretend that he wasn’t completely strung-out and totally embracing the heroin-chic aesthetic?”

You slanted your head a bit and then let out another serrated laugh. There wasn’t any point in having it out, you decided, because Lydia didn’t care. She got to move on and erase your entire existence—live her perfect, popular girl life without all this suffocating quicksand binding her to the past. Must be nice, you thought venomously, souring your tongue, stinging your eyes. Showers were probably just showers for Lydia. She didn’t singe her skin until the water went cold, imagining what she’d do, what she’d say—how she’d hurt her back. Must be so fucking nice.

“Lydia, I really don’t think you really want to get into all the things we’re pretending,” your voice was tight, strangled at the ends. You would not cry. You could not cry. Lydia sensed weakness like blood in the water, and you refused to give her the satisfaction.

“Fine,” Lydia’s curls spilled down her back like strawberry wine as she pivoted in her designer heels, “ride off into the sunset with a 'roid-raging creep. Don’t act surprised when you turn up dead in a crack den.”

Truthfully, Lydia had a point, but at this moment being contrary seemed far more important than being right. “It’s kind of difficult to act like anything when you’re dead,” you called, eyes zeroed-in on the back of her head as she slid into Jackson’s Porsche with a sensual grace you would never possess. Lydia was too far away to hear your retort, but you felt a little less like punching something after you said it.

You didn’t notice that Stiles and Scott were gone until the threat of bitter tears stopped burning your sinuses. The last thing you needed was to cry like this upset you, even if the only nearby witness left on the vacant sidewalk was yourself. You scoured the parking lot for even a flash of powder blue, but the jeep was nowhere to be seen. Probably long gone by now—your spat with Lydia must have taken longer than you thought. It was certainly louder than you meant it to be. Little clusters of ambling students were looking at you a little too long to be casual, and the indiscreet whispering once they turned back to their friends forced your legs forward.

You didn’t know where you were going when you started your car, but far, far away sounded pretty damn good.

#here's the update i promised pls forgive the lateness i am Ashamed and So Sorry #stiles stilinksi x reader #stiles stilinksi fanfiction #stiles stilinksi imagine #stiles stilinski x you #dylan o'brien imagine #stiles stilinski #teen wolf fanfiction #stiles stilinski x reader

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silvabacca · 3 months ago

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Spoilers for Dandadan ep 7

(Maybe someone already wrote about it, but idc I needed this, treat this as my coping mechanism)

How to accomplish a masterpiece? This word is used too often today, but it perfectly describes a scene we see in ep 7, I’m talking about a backstory of yokai woman.

In the whole scene there are a few words, but that’s enough, enough to tell the story. We get a beautiful combination of images accompanied by an amazing music. Every frame is vividly showing an emotion a scene is saying, for example before the woman opens a door to, as we can guess her apartment, everything is gray, dark and depressing. It’s depicting her life outside, her feelings when she’s not home, but as soon as she opens a door there is a bright beam of light and a first sound that isn’t a rain. We see a little girl, grinning from ear to ear and welcoming her mother home, it’s the first time we see this woman smile. This shows, in the most simple way, how important her daughter is to her, how the moments they share together are motivating her to keep trying.

We then see how her everyday life is going, from multiple jobs to spending time with the little girl. It’s nothing extraordinary, just a normal life. It’s hard, no doubt, we can tell that she is struggling, facing problems, fighting for their happiness, but that’s ok, because she has hope, she has her light.

The music is adding a great part to the story, it’s as if it’s holding our hand in a beautiful but difficult dance, it’s leading us, the characters and the story across the ballroom…

Then everything stops. The music, that was reflecting the feeling of their happiness, the delicacy of each frame, the warm and welcoming colors. It all disappears in a blink of an eye. The only sound that intensifies is rain, that same rain we heard at the beginning of her story and screams of her daughter.

The work of a camera in this sequence adds to the feeling of desperation. As if we were running with the mother or more like as if we were the mother, chasing after kidnappers that took our daughter. It’s chaotic, messy, foggy, not clear and scary. The panting, heavy breathing hits like a truck, everything combined is a true depiction of everything that any mother in her place would feel and do. As the screen stops at the blood in water and slowly goes dark, it than dramatically changes. There’s no darkness, no visible blood, no rain, but stars.

The night sky with a city view in a distance is overwhelming. It’s big, bright and breathtaking. This change from blurry, gray and messy sequence to this calm, quiet and bright view is another depiction of emotions. A couple of minutes earlier it was pure desperation and rage, now it’s…nothing. One big nothingness. There is a light, but it’s not for her, stars shine on the sky, but they are not as warm as the one she used to see. It’s all so pretty, but it’s also cold, there is not a single warm color, the whole palette is blue, purple and white.

Now…the dance. From what was shown earlier it seemed like the woman was sharing her passion for dancing with her daughter. Her posture, exercises and movement suggested that she knew how to dance or at least she had some acrobatic skills. But we didn’t see her dance, not until now. The music is again playing, the piece we heard earlier is now a mer memory of their time together. The woman stands on her toes and it begins. The most beautiful, well done, animated perfectly to the smallest detail dance scene. Not just the move, the way the dress flows, but also the angles, the camera movement and all of this on a peaceful city night sky. You know what is going to happen and you can’t prevent it from happening, but you can’t stop looking, you can’t take your eyes off of her, because it’s too stunning. And the final jump as the background changes perspective behind her and…the fall.

She lost everything that kept her alive, that kept her trying. Her little light, her little girl, her whole world.

#not me writing this 5 min after finishing the ep #still crying #dandadan #dandadan spoilers #dandadan episode 7

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shypinkprincess · 18 days ago

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RED SCAR // YANDERE ONE PIECE X OC :: MODERN AU! ::

~Plot:

“Aura, a girl with a traumatic background, finds herself overturning her life, though not by her own will.

New home, new school, new opportunities, but the past seems to continue haunting her, and her relationships with others start becoming increasingly turbulent, especially towards those who seem to care about her or show interest in her.”

Chapter One

Never in her life had she thought she would find herself in this situation. It felt like one of those lucid dreams you have when you’re in a state of half-sleep: so real you can feel it on your skin, in your flesh, yet so absurd that your brain can’t quite process it, unsure whether you’re dreaming or still awake.

She was in a car that reeked of old leather, accompanied by a stifling heat she couldn’t figure out the source of.

These elements weren’t helping her mental state at that moment.

She wanted it all to be a bad dream, but it was so real that it made the tips of her fingers tingle and sent cold shivers down her spine.

She felt empty and angry, even though she didn’t know who to direct her anger at—herself or the outside world—but she already knew she would lash out at both.

The man with the thick, long white hair was watching her with concern through the rearview mirror, adjusting his small iron glasses every now and then with a twitch of his straight nose.

A whirlwind of thoughts raced through her mind, yet she couldn’t give shape to any of them. He, who always gave advice to teenagers, couldn’t understand his own niece, and not only that—he couldn’t even think of any comforting words for her. He felt useless, like a worn-out rag when he was around her.

He had been a teenager too, but he couldn’t for the life of him understand how his niece’s mind worked.

He could only reassure himself by repeating very general and bland notions that had always been passed on to him when he was young: he blamed adolescent hormones, perhaps some desire to provoke the adult world at that age, experimenting to try to form a personality; but deep down, he knew none of these labels fit his niece, and instead of reassuring him, they made his stomach churn.

Rayleigh, that was the man’s name, couldn’t understand. He was so used to working with teenagers; he’d been doing it for years: giving advice when they had problems at school, with their parents, in love; he understood them and thought he did it well, and yet, he couldn’t understand his own niece, what she was feeling, how she was coping.

No matter how hard he tried, that girl was an impenetrable wall to him, and it frustrated him and worried him.

Even the girl’s father, whom he had known since he was a child, was a bit closed off, but still brilliant. He was always to himself, but he’d never been like this. He had never made him worry this much, he had never forced his parents to send him to another city “to change the air.”

Once they arrived, the man turned to look at his niece.

Technically, she wasn’t his niece; he had been his father’s mother’s partner before she passed away. He was seventeen years younger than her. Another heartbreak to add to the list.

Still, the young girl had always called him “Uncle,” and it had become a habit for the rest of the family as well.

The girl, in response, didn’t even glance at him; his words died on the tip of his tongue. He decided to get out of the car and unload the luggage to bring it inside the house.

When the girl saw that he had finally left, she got out of the car.

She didn’t want to talk to anyone. She had even sat in the back seat instead of beside her uncle, just to mock him, to get some reaction from him, to make him feel at least a fraction of the pain she was feeling, even though he hadn’t done anything wrong, and that was precisely his fault. He, in response, looked at her like a whipped dog, turned on the car, and began to drive in complete silence.

The girl took a deep breath, almost as if she couldn’t breathe, as if she were trying to cool the fire inside her with the fresh air of the hill they were on. From there, she could see the whole town she had ended up in by misfortune.

After several minutes spent in the well-kept small garden, she finally decided to go inside, something she particularly feared: entering, crossing that threshold, a metaphor for the new life she was about to begin, a life that didn’t belong to her. She wanted to leave the past behind, but now that she had the chance, she wanted to hold on to that old pain, because it was the only thing familiar she had left.

She hated acting so ungrateful toward her uncle, but she didn’t want to, and couldn’t swallow that bitter pill, she just couldn’t, even though deep down she knew she’d be forced to do it, not just for her mental health and dignity, but also—and especially—for those who cared about her.

She had always wanted to be the daughter, the friend, the perfect sister, to get good grades, to be kind to everyone, to face her problems maturely and not with the dysfunctional methods she used.

But at the same time, she wanted to hate them all, so much that the hate would tear her flesh apart. She wanted to see their faces twist with concern for her, make them believe it was their fault she was this way, but in reality, it was all her fault. She had stripped herself bare, ruined herself.

They didn’t understand her, they didn’t understand the effort it took to carry every fiber, every small bone, when it was time to get up in the morning and try to survive, when even the air felt heavy on your head and when you breathed, it felt like you were filling your lungs with stones.

No one truly knew what she was feeling, not even she herself, deep down.

She finally entered the hallway, the unfamiliar smell of someone else’s home filling her nostrils and clothes; soon, it would be her scent too.

That made her shudder and a small crystalline tear fell from her left eye, stopping halfway down her made-up cheek before falling heavily onto her red shirt.

“Aura?”

As soon as she heard her uncle’s baritone voice, she immediately snapped back to reality, pretending nothing had happened, as always.

“Yes?”

“Today I’m going to train my boys.”

And when the man said “my boys,” Aura swore she felt a slight pang of pain in her chest.

It still hurt, even though it wasn’t visible, because she didn’t let it show.

Her uncle had never been so excited to see her, it was evident from his expressions and the little attention he paid her.

To the girl, this trivial piece of information was irrefutable proof that the man cared more about a bunch of kids he’d known for two weeks than spending time with his traumatized niece.

And that gave her confirmation; she didn’t know whether it hurt more or if she felt relieved. Perhaps it would have hurt more to realize she was making a scene for nothing, and deep down, she knew that was much more likely, but she couldn’t control her emotions, her thoughts.

“That way you can do all your things without an old man underfoot,” Rayleigh added with a half-smile, almost as if to comfort her, but it was clear from a mile away that even he didn’t know how to act.

“Okay,” was all Aura said before heading off to find her new room, not hearing the long sigh from the man behind her.

***

An hour later, she received a message from the man informing her that they would have pizza tonight. The girl felt a bit conflicted but didn’t dwell on it. She was actually happy because maybe her uncle was truly glad she was going to live with him and wanted to celebrate by getting pizza.

She grabbed her planner quickly and checked: she had consumed twenty calories from grapes, forty calories from crackers, and one calorie from Diet Coke. Her plan for the day wasn’t to binge, especially on such a calorie-dense pizza, but she was so happy that her uncle wanted to celebrate that she let it slide.

Upon hearing this, the girl’s empty stomach seemed to become sentient, as it began to growl loudly.

About half an hour later, the doorbell rang. The girl thought it was strange that her uncle would ring the bell to enter his own house, but she thought maybe he had forgotten his keys.

She opened the door and found a young man, about her age. He had medium-length light pink, slightly messy hair, and a shocked expression on his face.

In a rush, he pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and stared at it obsessively before looking terrified into her eyes.

“Excuse me, but this is Silver Rayleigh’s house, right?”

“Yes, and you are?”

“Coby, I mean, I wanted to say, I’m the delivery guy, I need to deliver the pizzas.”

He spoke so fast and stammered so much that the girl almost didn’t understand him.

“Give them to me.”

“Oh, yes, of course!”

He handed over ten huge pizza boxes, his arms nearly trembling.

“Wait, maybe I’ll bring them inside. Don’t worry, I know Rayleigh, he’s my physical education teacher.”

“Ah, sure,” he replied distractedly, thinking about the absurd number of pizzas.

Her uncle must have invited someone, she thought.

She reflected that maybe he was trying to introduce her to new people. He was happy to have her here, right?

The young man placed the pizza boxes on the large wooden table in the living room.

“So… you’re…”

“His niece,” Aura replied quickly, anticipating the boy’s insinuation. The man was known for being accompanied by different young women.

“Ah, okay… and you just moved here?”

The girl nodded quickly.

“Are you throwing a party?”

The girl looked him in the eye, unsure what he meant, since she didn’t even know herself, and that troubled her. Every small unknown threw her off, but she tried to stay calm, not just to avoid making a bad impression but also for her own sake.

“Looks like my uncle invited a few people,” she said nervously, trying to make it sound like she didn’t mind.

Fortunately, they were saved from the awkward silence that was starting to build when the door opened, revealing Rayleigh.

“Oh hey, Coby, how—” The man’s question was cut off by loud screams, and suddenly, a boy with short black hair barged into the room like a whirlwind, followed by a group of other boys.

Aura didn’t know how to feel. She just knew she was confused; she couldn’t understand her uncle’s intentions.

“Hey, Luffy, calm down!” Rayleigh suddenly shouted as he placed his keys on the dresser and walked over to the table, starting to open the pizza boxes to check the contents.

“Aura, I can’t remember how you liked your pizza, but I’m sure you’ll eat it anyway, right?”

That sentence, said so lightly with an unsettling undertone in his mind, broke her heart.

She tried to reassure herself that there was no malice in what her uncle had said, but she couldn’t stop herself from instinctively putting her arms across her stomach, trying to hide it from the eyes of the strangers who seemed to weigh heavily on her figure, scanning every gram of fat in her body.

She weakly responded with a simple and resigned “yes.”

“Coby,” Rayleigh called suddenly, waking the boy, who had been staring at Aura with a vacant look, “stay for the evening, I’ll talk to Alvida, or do you still have deliveries to make?”

“No, actually, prof, that was the last order.”

The man smiled.

“Perfect, then stay. Aura, please go get the plates.”

The fact that her uncle hadn’t even bothered to introduce her only worsened the situation in the girl’s mind.

She placed the plates on the dark wood of the table, not daring to look up. In her mind, everyone was staring at her, thinking about how miserable she was, and even though the number on the scale kept dropping dramatically, in the mirror, she always saw that she was too fat, that something was wrong with her face, her hair. Then she thought about it again—maybe there was something deeply embarrassing in the way she walked, or perhaps in the way she sat. She must have looked ridiculous, there was no other way to put it, and that’s why she had to try harder.

She finally looked up only when they were all around the table. The others’ stares frightened her, but not as much as the meager slice of Margherita pizza that sat on the white porcelain plate.

She tried to act nonchalant, but the truth was, she couldn’t eat in front of others anymore. Not anymore.

She briefly locked eyes with the hyperactive dark-haired boy who was talking loudly with her uncle. It was only for a split second, but she felt a rush of anxiety in her veins, so she quickly looked away.

She felt wrong, and like she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

She looked back at her slice of pizza, hoping no one noticed that she hadn’t even touched her food yet.

“What’s your name?”

The question made the girl immediately raise her head, finding herself face-to-face with the same onyx eyes she’d locked eyes with just moments earlier.

He had a dazzling smile, and his amber skin was marked by a small scar below his left eye.

“Aura,” she answered quickly, her gaze briefly darting over the faces of the others, who had stopped talking and were now staring at her.

Her heart was pounding, she wasn’t used to all this attention, especially from the opposite sex, and she didn’t know if it scared her or if she liked it.

Her uncle then intervened in the conversation.

“My niece just moved here, and she’ll start attending school here tomorrow. By the way, I think you’re the same age, so you’ll be in class together. Maybe Coby is the smallest one here.”

The boy with pink hair smiled awkwardly at Rayleigh’s comment.

“Anyway, Aura, if you need any school information, I’m here too. In fact, if you’re in their class, I’ll be your teacher. It doesn’t get much better than that, even though tomorrow is my day off, I think…”

He rubbed the back of his neck as he tried to remember.

“If you want, prof, me and my brothers walk this way every day to go to school, we can give her a ride tomorrow,” the same boy offered, continuing to smile at her with that same grin on his handsome face.

“You say ‘sir’ to the teachers, you fool!” interrupted a curly-haired boy with amber skin.

Meanwhile, the girl, unable to bear the oppressive gaze of the dark-haired boy, started scanning the room until she locked eyes with a boy with mint green hair. His presence was chilling, and he stared into her soul with those steel-colored eyes, as if he knew something, and with that terrible hypothesis flooding her mind, she quickly looked away and finally took the utensils in her hand, beginning to cut the slice of pizza on her plate with ease, as if it were a natural gesture, not driven by panic.

She tried not to think too much about it and immediately put the small piece in her mouth, chewing quickly.

If she thought about it any longer, she’d probably lose her mind.

She didn’t dare look again in the direction of the boy with the chilling eyes, but it was as though the coldness of his presence followed her, making the skin on her neck crawl like a worn sheet of paper.

When the evening finally came to an end, it was well past nine o’clock.

Aura lay on her bed, exhausted from the day, but even more tired at the thought that this would now be her life.

Suddenly, she heard a knock on the door, before her uncle opened it slightly and poked his head in.

“Sorry, Aura, if I’m disturbing you. Luffy told me they’ll be here at seven-thirty tomorrow.”

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emmitaaa4 · 1 year ago

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Elriels... I am sorry. I fear I may have come to my senses.

I hate to say it, but from my time in the fandom, it has become increasingly clear that Elriels tend to have superficial views of Elain and Azriel: when you actually deep dive into their characters, it's hard to ignore how toxic they'd be for one another. And they’ve been telling us:

"… Elain and Azriel are such different characters; Elain wouldn't understand Az nor fully accept him. After all, how could she deal with his darkness, when she couldn't handle Nesta's? They would stunt each other’s growth by enabling the other’s ‘toxic traits’—Az would coddle Elain and she would let him."

Right ?! I just—I didn’t want to see it, but their incompatibility is so evident.

I mean, it’s not like:

It’s not like they are both said to draw their strength from hope, even as the world holds that hope by the throat and tells them to despair.

It’s not like they both power through their lives quietly, not making too many waves as to not bother anyone: after all, they couldn't possibly both feel like burdens to their families, however differently they may cope with it... Elain hiding the parts of herself that do not conform to what others have made of her, while Azriel defines himself through his ceaseless work as the NC's Spymaster and torturer—for if he is needed, he cannot be abandoned.

It’s not like they both would do—and have done—absolutely anything for their loved ones, nor like they both tend to be overlooked amidst the stronger personalities of their entourage.

It’s not like they both explicitly say that they value fae traditions & celebrations for how they bring loved ones together.

It's not like they both seem to be a little lost in the world sometimes, Elain rebuilding her life & finding a home wherever she must, and Azriel saying he is unsure of where he belongs even after 500yrs. If at least Az didn’t already have an established place/apartment for himself in Velaris, I could maybe imagine them carving their own place in the world, where they are free to be whoever they want (wait—).

It's not like they both tend to wear a mask around others—one warm & pleasant, one cold & distant—nor like we see freer, more genuine sides of them when they are with people they are comfortable with. It’s not like they both reveal themselves through actions, gestures & well placed quips, nor like they both show their care through thoughtful gifts—imagine if even their gifts were complementary: one giving paints the other brushes, one giving books and the other a reading lamp… nah, couldn’t be.

…

Right ?

… Not to mention their lack of understanding:

If at least SJM showed that they understood one another despite all of the red flags described above, they might be able to grow together, but let’s be real, she just hasn’t.

She’s never pointed out that Azriel, like Elain, understands what it is like to struggle with rare, prized powers in silence; what it’s like to be othered by them. All that time together and he's never bothered to actually listen to her.

Those two can’t even read each other without words nor communicate with just a look, so how could they work? Anyways, even IF they could (which the bonus shows they can't), everyone knows that the basis of any healthy relationship is ceaseless friendly banter, so even then they make no sense. She doesn't even bring him joy, let alone make him laugh: even their senses of humor are incompatible!

Their powers are too different, and in no way complementary; she sees everything and he hears everything, that’s like, not even the same senses. He walks through a shadow realm and she Sees through a murky realm—not to mention that what she doesn’t See is all « mist and shadows », so obviously their powers could never work together.

After all, Azriel is a Shadowsinger, it’s not just some title people have made up, and honestly Elain would not understand that.

She’s never looked at his swirling shadows, wide eyed (with awe)…. nah she just ignores them. His shadows lightening at the sight of her smile has such a negative connotation, too.

All those visions she has, plaguing her mind, they’re just too dissimilar to the voices howling in his head, which is obviously why she hasn’t noticed his headaches. His head quieting around her is such a red flag, I’m sorry.

PLUS, don’t you guys remember all the times she’s flinched away from him? She won’t even see beauty in his scars, for Mother’s sake, how could she ever possibly love all of him? If you want to see all the ways in which Elain is clueless in terms of who Az is, check out this post (shoutout to my fellow enlightened Elriels, @nikethestatue and @rahjasmine).

I mean, does everyone forget that Elain even loses her newfound boldness around hi—

...

Like babes.

#ewriel indeed #… be so serious rn #elain archeron #azriel #pro elain #pro azriel #elriel #anti anti-elriel #I have examples for every point i made FIGHT ME #azriel shadowsinger #azriel acotar #elain acotar #pro elriel

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alphabetboyluvr · 2 years ago

Text

throttle | jjk - three

one / two / three / four / five / six / seven / eight / nine / ten / eleven

warnings - car sex (yay), talk of wet dreams, jaykay is down so incredibly bad, talk of buying a fuck toy just to cope with how much he wants YOU, reader on top, unprotected sex, huge cawk jk, missionary (in a car! very cramped!! but he does it for YOU <3), jk is chatty during sex (like, actually chatty), mentions of politics, mentions of drugs, the plot is plotting, jin is sexy, namjoon is a prick, jungkook is losing his god damn mind, OH and! the oc is given a nickname - she's CC (ceecee) he he he

word count - 7.5k

minors dni // posted to wp late 2021 // series masterlist

There's a symbiotic nature to the way in which your bodies move together.

You're the moon, Jungkook your tides.

You work in tandem to turn the earth, finding peace in the rhythm that you provide one another. He'll reflect your beauty back at you, and you'll drag him to the shores; offer him respite that he didn't realise he needed until you came around.

It's a fantastical way to think about it, whimsical and ridiculous, but it's the only way that any justice is given to it.

Foolish, some may say, to compare a man to such a vast and complex ecosystem, but you think that maybe there are worlds inside of Jungkook that nobody will ever get to know. Some that maybe he isn't even aware of - but you want to be. You want to learn him. What makes him tick, what gets those dimples of his showing.

It's a fantasy. A what-if. A world of possibilities in the vessel of an impossibly handsome man, carved of stone, filled with feathers. Gentle to the touch, hard on your heart.

Funny thing is, Jungkook kind of regards you to be a fantasy, too. Make-believe. A story told to kids about princesses so pretty they're put to sleep at the tops of towers. The unattainable elite, who are somehow a friend to all, and an enemy to just one.

Jungkook knows better than to let himself indulge in the fallacy of you. It's a misconception he's dreamt up; a romanticisation of the reality that he loathes so much.

He isn't really sure why he's letting himself get so caught up with you. Maybe he just thinks he can keep you at arm's length if he keeps you as part of his imagination.

Which is ironic, given the way his arm is tight behind your back as your hips roll on top of his lap. Can't really get much closer than his cock being inside of you.

There's just something about the way you look at him - the little glances beneath your long lashes and the roll of your eyes - that makes him unable to stay away from you. He keeps coming back for more. Again and again.

You're like crack, he thinks. He's never done it, but he's seen enough poor sods trying to ween themselves of it. The withdrawals are akin to the way he feels when you're not around.

He's always been this way; attracted to the things he knows he shouldn't be. You're not the first forbidden fruit he's ever tried, but he's got a taste for them now. He doubts you'll be the last - unless you're the one that finally poisons him.

As he breathes you in, lips on yours, a hand in your hair, the other on your hip, Jungkook knows that you could, in fact, very well be his last - but he doesn't care.

You're still dressed, missing the intimacy of his skin sticking to yours, but neither of you could wait.

The backseats are icy cold, so your tights have just been pulled off, soaked underwear pushed to the side so that his cock - which has barely been set free from the confines of his trousers, still at the top of his thighs - can push up into you as quickly as possible.

The way his hands grip onto your ass makes up for the lack of skin on skin. He's in control, pulling you up and down his shaft like his own personal sex toy.

Maybe that's what he should do, instead - get himself a toy. A fleshlight. Or maybe even one of those fake torsos, the ones with a perfectly hairless cunt and a bolted-on pair of tits, so that he can mimic the way he grips onto your waist as he does it. That'd solve his problems. Stop him from screwing you. Maybe.

He could fuck himself into it; the silicone a pathetic replica of the silky feeling your walls provide him with, and spill his seed into it while he thinks about you. He could even circle his lips around the plump pussy, have his tongue toy with the labia, dipping down into the leaky hole he'd have stretched out with his thick cock. Lick it all up like a good boy, like he did the last time - but you wouldn't be there to swallow it. He'd have to eat his own cum, and that's just never as much fun.

Plus he remembers the ways your legs clamped around his head as you came, so tight he swore his skull could have cracked.

A sex toy would never have him fearing for his life (although he would die from embarrassment if Jimin ever found it), not the way that you do.

In his sheets, in his car, in his life in general; you're a threat to it. To him. And the acknowledgement of this gets his cock all hard and angry - engorged, flushed red at the tip, leaky - when he's alone and thinking about you at night.

Wet dreams had been reserved for his teenage years, but he'd woken up to damp sheets twice since he'd met you.

The first time, about three weeks ago, he was confused; the head of his cock, still a little firm, peeking out the waistband of his Calvin Kleins, a puddle of his semen gathering in his belly button. He'd poked at it a little, his sleepy yet deliriously horny brain not quite awake yet. Tracing his toned chest with his fingers tips, he ghosted his abs as delicately as he wanted to touch your body - and then he realised.

Or should that be remembered.

Remembered the pair of eyes he'd seen as he checked the rearview mirror in his dream. Didn't matter that the car was somehow driving along that little damp area where the sand meets the sea, or that he also seemed to have been wearing inflatable shoes. It was the eyes - sultry and subdued, sunset catching in your irises - that had his cock getting plump in his sleep.

'Show me all of you,' whispered in a hushed tone, and followed with 'I'll show you all of me, too,' was the thing that had his stiff cock oozing onto his abdomen at four in the fucking morning.

The next time, last week, was a little less dignified. He woke up to himself rutting against his mattress, laboured grunts muffled info his pillows, a wet patch growing midway down the bed. There had been a rag left too close to his bed, the smell of gasoline filling his senses, reminding him of you. Hardly his fault. Did also concern him that he was beginning to get conditioned to developing a semi at the mere scent of gasoline.

It was pretty clear to Jungkook by that point, that if he couldn't fuck you, he'd simply die.

Admittedly, he hadn't expected it to happen so soon.

He also, thankfully, hadn't placed bets with Jimin on it, cause he'd have been out of fifty-thousand won if he had. Little fucker never gives Jungkook any benefit of the doubt. Always bets on him caving as quickly as he can. 'No willpower. All cock and balls, no brain.'

You're both Jungkook's proudest conquest and deepest darkest secret.

Can't be letting the boys know about you. Can't be sharing you with them. Can't so much as admit the fact he's been getting laid whenever they rib him for being celibate (which is a reach - he's only been out of action for, like, a month. Two, tops.).

If they could see the grip he had on your hips and the way your hand were locked behind his head, hair draping over his face, lips lost in his, they'd be asking for tips. Probably be wishing they had x-ray vision so they could see beneath the pooled clothes that protected both of your modesties.

But the windows of his car are clouded, the heat of the exchange between the pair of you preventing anyone from intruding. This is your safe place; with him.

He tightens his grip, but pulls away from your lips. You mirror his actions, curious to see why he'd be willing to leave such a warm embrace, your hips stalled by his hands. He's looking at you, blonde hair tangled over his eyes, the metal of his piercing reflecting tiny fragments of light that sneak into his windows. There's a silhouette to his face, beautiful and bold; the kind of art you'd find in the museum on the outskirts of town.

Maybe you'd go there together one day. Laugh at the pompous nature of it all, revel in the fact that you're both too churlish for all that shit. He'll make up stories for the people in the pictures, and you'll play along, narrating the lives of fictional people for funsies.

When you aren't looking, he'll take a picture of you in front of some drab minimalist piece. He won't show you it. Keep it to himself. A reminder of what once was; the beauty of a girl who could capture every ounce of his attention in a room of priceless masterpieces.

That was the thing that always puzzled Jungkook about artists; how did they know when to stop?

If the artist kept trying to blend out their muses' almond eyes, would they surely not become at one with their skin?

How much paint would saturate the canvas?

At which point would the brush stroke turn into nothingness?

He supposed the same could be said for the illicit embrace he was entangled in; how many kisses would it take for a casual fuck to turn into something a little more consequential?

If eyes are windows to the soul, would he be giving his up if he looked at you as he came?

At which point does a thumb in your mouth become a thumb stroking your blushed cheek, and does it really make as much of a difference as it feels like it should?

When you whine into his mouth, displeased at the way he isn't letting you bounce on his cock, he smiles, and knows that it's already crossed that line.

In fact, the lines are so blurred that 'indistinguishable' is the only appropriate way to describe them.

"I really did want to talk tonight," he hums quietly, pushing your hair back. It had been hot when he was covered in it, the scent of gasoline suffocating him, but he wants to look at you now. You hold up your wrist as he piles it all to the back of your head, his hips moving gently as he pulls the tie from your wrist and secures your hair in place.

"We still can," you say a little breathlessly. You're not exhausted, barely used any of your energy on the languid nature of the fuck you're indulging in, but the way he stretches you, cock thick and plump between your tight walls keeps you slightly out of breath.

"Now?"

"As good a time as any."

He smiles, pretty teeth resting on his bottom lip. Head shaking, a little bashful beneath the lunar light that peeks out from beyond the clouds, he lets his eyes rest on yours. They're inky, full of unspoken words, and you want to spend days studying them, just to decipher even a handful of words that make up who Jungkook is.

"Tell me about your life," he hums, head resting back against the headrest. There's an intimacy to this position. The way you're keeping his cock warm is something that's reserved for, well, no one. You've never done this before. Never shared anything other than your body during sex. It all feels foreign - but surprisingly, his stiff cock inside of you doesn't. "Your dream job as a kid. Your nicknames."

You smile, now, and the way your diaphragm tenses has his cock throbbing. "Vet. Popstar. The usual. One that stuck? Lawyer. And I never had a nickname. My family weren't really like that," you say, before rolling your hips, scared that the mundane talk would make him soft again.

Jungkook stills you. Looks at you with an expression you don't really recognise. His eyes are all hard, the dimple above his lips present as if he's thinking. A miracle, really, given most men's inability to produce a single thought during sex.

"You're smart," he assesses. Thinks that girls who dream of becoming lawyers always are.

"Was an overworked teenager. Burnt out. Flunked," you shrug, failing to disclose exactly why you flunked.

He nods, that fierce contemplative gaze still lacing his features. The pads of his fingers are delicate as he pushes your skirt a little further up your waist. His eyes are still on yours as his thumb hooks beneath the lace of the panties you're still wearing. He presses against your clit. It's only a little pressure. Just enough to have you gasping.

"Could always retake your exams now," he says, as if he isn't toying with your pussy like it's his favourite arcade game. Slow and steady. Easy does it. His eyes are wide. Doe-like. Incapable of committing any crimes, it seems. Innocent. "You're smart enough to do it, CC."

Your lips curl to the side slightly, head tilting, ignoring all of what he said except for those two little syllables at the end. "CC?"

"Everyone deserves a nickname."

"And CC?" You laugh, strands of hair falling loose, framing your face. Jungkook was right. You are a work of art.

"CC," he smiles, leaning a little closer to steal a tiny kiss from your lips. "As in, LMCC."

Brows raised, he's got you curious. "LMCC?"

"Little Miss Clutch Control," he grins, so proud of himself that you can't help but smile, too.

The pressure of his thumb on your clit gets firmer, and Jungkook lets his smile drop as your pout rests ajar, a small moan shaking from your very core. There's an intimacy to be found in the way Jungkook can procure such radiant happiness and sinful lust from you within seconds of one another.

He's harvesting for diamonds again. They're not in your eyes tonight. It's too dark for that. But they are in the hushed moans that let him know he's got a hold on you that no one else has. You could talk all the shit you liked about his clutch control, but if you even attempted to argue with him about his clit control, he'd just laugh.

"Thought you wanted to talk?" You say, though it comes out as a gasp. He's got a rhythm, but he isn't moving his hips. He's just feeling your walls tense around him.

"I do," he says with a shit-eating grin. He's too hot, you decide. So hot that you could never be with him, not properly. You'd probably lose your mind fearing he'd cheat. Boys that look like him always do. "Favourite food?"

The casual nature of his tone is a challenge. One that you accept. Even if your thighs are shaking.

"Don't have one."

"Any pets?"

"Family had a dog."

"Name?"

"Bingsu."

Jungkook is so pretty when he laughs. Cheeks all plump, the tip of his nose shiny from the moonlight his car is being bathed in. It's in his eyes, too, twinkling as if it's joining in on the joke - but of course, it is. You are the moon to his tides. Your happiness, for the moments of which you spend entangled in one another, is intertwined.

"Very original," he teases. He knew at least three girls who had called their pet rabbits Bingsu. Some cats, too.

"I was like 10," you defend. "Fuck off."

You say, as if you arent mounted on top of him.

"Favourite position in bed?" He questions, lifting your skirt so that he can see where your pussy meets his cock. He lets a small pool of spit gather in his mouth, before slowly releasing it, aiming for your clit. He spreads it around with his thumb, getting your pussy all nice and wet as he feigns indifference to the way your moans increase.

"How do you go from pets to sex?" You question, finding his method of enquiry maddening.

"Dog," he tilts his head from side to side. "Doggy. Very easily. Answer it."

"Missionary."

It's a lie. You just want to see how he'll react.

"Boring."

"Intimate."

"Old people position."

"Didn't we say we're already married? Perfect for us."

"We're still in the honeymoon period - and don't give me that bollocks about intimacy. I'd say that this is pretty fucking intimate," he protests, thinking that having you on his lap, warming his fat, leaky cock is far more intimate than any rendition of missionary he's ever had.

"And I'd say missionary is only boring if you don't like the person you're fucking," you bite back, just to be difficult. "I could force you to give up all other positions for lent, and I bet you'd still be dying to fuck me every single night, regardless of whether or not it was missionary."

"Yeah, you're right," he admits. Doesn't even find missionary that boring. Quite likes it actually. and he'd happily fuck you for forty days and forty nights. "I prefer morning sex, though."

"Fine," you shrug. "Missionary morning, noon and night."

"Three times a day?"

"Can you handle it?"

"Can you?"

"Only one way to find out."

"You're on," he grins. What he wouldn't give to be buried in your pussy three times a day. "Next question. Political stance?"

"Liberal," you respond instantly. "Left. Whatever you wanna call it. Also, this is terrible dirty talk."

"Good," he nods, as his thumb begins to brush at the hood that protects your sensitive nub, pushing it from side to side. Your toes fucking curl. "I don't fuck conservatives. And also? I can feel you leaking around the base of my shaft. You're still turned on, dirty talk or not."

You ignore his winning remark.

"What if I'd have said I was conservative?"

"You're on my dick in a car down a back alley of Daegu. You're not conservative in any sense of the word."

"But if I had?"

"I'd have probably carried on," he concedes. "Hate fuck."

"You're into that?"

"Not really."

"No?"

"I fuck girls 'cause I like them, CC. I don't really get those straight dudes who always go on about how much they hate women. Surely just fuck dudes instead? Regardless, if I'm fucking someone, it's cause I like 'em."

He says it without a single care in the world. Yet you feel like your whole entire world is imploding, in the best possible way.

"So you like me?" You question, all coy and a little shy. The tip of his cock leaks a little precum into you.

"My dick is in you, no?"

Touché.

And then your morbid curiosity makes an unwelcome appearance.

"When did you last like a girl enough to stick your dick in her?"

Jungkook laughs.

"Last night."

You're about to be offended. He can see it, the way your brows contort, a scowl forming - and then you realise. The smile you give him is sweet, but doesn't last for that long. He'd avoided the question, and you still want the answer. "Before that."

"About two months ago."

"She better than me?"

"I've only fucked you once. Not really a fair comparison."

Disappointing response.

"I'm fucking you right now," you remind him. "The correct answer was to say no."

"Actually," he argues, because of course he does. It's what the pair of you were born to do. "The correct answer is that you're incomparable - but the answer that you want? The one that means anything?" He pauses. Stops toying with your pussy, and pulls you in for a shallow kiss. It's fleeting, but enough. "The way I've been thinking about you doesn't compare. Been going insane thinkin' 'bout you, CC. Wrapped those pretty little legs of yours around my head and have been embedded in my brain ever since. Making me in-fucking-sane."

He's right. It is the answer you wanted.

"So stop asking me questions and fuck me," you laugh. "I've never met a more confusing yet straightforward man."

He ignores your statement, though he doesn't disagree with the sentiment.

"Am I comparable to your last fuck?" He asks, taunting you. He doesn't want to know, not really. But you asked first. He wants to see if there's a reason why; if maybe you're still harbouring some sort of attachment just like you're accusing him of having.

The way your body gets a little tense in his grasp confirms this. He notices. Hard not to when he's trapped inside of you. Thinks it's rich of you to grill him in the way you did, only to clearly be projecting your own feelings onto him.

But there's a look in your eyes that he doesn't like, now. The moon is hiding behind a cloud again, stealing the diamonds from his line of sight.

"I'm sorry," he says. The smile that had been on his face when he'd asked the question is gone, and he's looking at you like he's truly seeing you; the eyebrow hairs that need shaping, the pores that need cleansing and the flyaway hairs that land on the wrong side of your parting.

"It's okay," you say, because you should have expected it. The question was fair game.

Jungkook knocks his head to the side briefly as if to say 'no', but chooses against it. Instead, he pulls you in closer to him and kisses you tenderly, his hips pulsing upwards beneath your weight. His hands are in your hair, tongue in your mouth, and he's reminded again why the answer to his question doesn't matter.

"Let me fuck you how you like it, baby," he mumbles into your plump lips, his tongue flicking against the tip of yours as he speaks.

You question what he means as he grips onto your waist, elevating himself a little but keeping himself snug inside of you. He turns, restricted by the tight space in the back of his car. The movements are a little awkward, but it's endearing how he gets you on your back, sprawled lengthways across the back seat.

Your legs are bent at the knees, a foot resting on the ledge of the window while the other perches on the centre console. You're spread for him, but he can't devour the beauty of you blooming in such a way, thanks to the cramped room. He shuffles his jeans down a little, just beneath his ass, and strokes his cock; pumps it once, twice, as he lines himself up with your entrance.

The position is gonna be hellish for him, his backseat too narrow to really fit the both of you, but he figures if he hooks your foot resting on the window ledge over his shoulder instead, then it should be okay.

And so he does just that. You're surprised you can still bend like that, but you're also pretty sure your bones would turn to jelly if Jungkook asked them to. There's nothing that you wouldn't do to keep him close like this.

"Thought this was boring?" You hum, knowing that it doesn't really compare to standard missionary.

He's stroking the tip of his cock against your folds - and then he sinks back into you, a laboured moan hanging off the cushion of his bottom lip before he presses it into yours. His hips don't really waste much time, fucking into you slow and deep.

"It is," he groans, before hooking your other leg over his shoulder, too. You're a little tighter like this, the grip your pussy has on his cock akin to heaven on earth. "But you're not."

You go to say something, but he can feel you smiling against his lips so he tells you just to kiss him, instead. He rolls his hips into yours, resting himself a little deeper every single time. The tepid air in his car wraps around the pair of you like satin ribbon, tied in a pretty little bow where your bodies meet.

It's a gift, how well you work together. A blessing. A curse, too, but that only concerns Jungkook for now, and honestly, he isn't thinking about it. He's just thinking about the way your hair smells, and how much he wants to suffocate in your scent.

When Jungkook cums, the weight that eases off his shoulders settles in your stomach instead. It traps the movement of the chime that hasn't stopped ringing since he first stepped foot into the gas station that evening. He moans into your lips, tells you how well you take him, how much he likes it, likes you. "Think I'll die if we ever stop hooking up."

He asks if you came, but knows that you didn't. He remembers the way you felt the last time it happened - and as incredible as it had been to have your pussy wrapped around his cock, he knew that it hadn't throbbed in the same way that it had last time.

You shake your head, but you're already moving to sit up. There's something refreshing about your honesty. It's not that he doesn't want to make you cum, it's just that he's getting a bit of post-nut clarity and is highly aware that Namjoon could be around the corner. City isn't that big. Especially not this side of the river.

"Too cold," you smile, to which Jungkook responds with a small, confused hum. "Can't cum when I'm cold. Your car is fucking freezing, Kook."

The way you say his name has him wanting to blast the aircon just so he can get you warm enough to finish all over his tongue - but then you yawn, and he feels bad for keeping you out late after your shift. You're cute when you yawn.

Cute how your hand curls, eyes scrunching up tightly, shoulders hunching and then lowering back down again. He likes your shoulders. They're sloped, and petite, and a far cry from his. So dainty. Everything about you is. The way you look, your pretty lips, the earrings you wear. So pretty, and perfect, and in this moment, his.

Doesn't want the moment to end.

"Come back to mine," he offers, in a bid to elongate that feeling. "Stay the night."

"Again?" You ask, and your tone of surprise has him laughing.

"What? It's not like I'm asking you to marry me, C."

"I'd say no, anyways," you bicker back without even thinking about it.

"Thank God," Jungkook grins, rummaging about to find a packet of tissues he's sure he put in his car at some point.

He'd hidden them up after Jimin had teased him about having car sex like a fucking teenager, but Jungkook had waaaay too much pride in his car to do that.

The tissues are for when he gets greasy food from gas stations. Can't be getting the leather all fucked up, not after he spent so much getting it reupholstered.

"Ah, here," he pulls them from the back of the passenger seat and passes them over to you. Apparently, his mind has changed on the whole 'having too much pride to fuck in his car' thing. "Nah, I just-"

He pauses. Shrugs. Does his trousers back up, and doesn't look at you as you sort out the mess between your legs.

"I liked having you there last night. I'd like to have it again."

He glances over his shoulder, to find you looking at him in the very way he was afraid of. You look fond.

But so does he as he smiles at you.

"Plus, I kinda owe you an orgasm now, and my apartment is way warmer than this tin can."

You tuck the tissues back into the now-empty packet and scrunch your nose up, trying to fight a smile. He doesn't realise, but Jungkook does the same thing back.

Your legs hook over the centre console, and you plonk yourself back down in the passenger seat.

"I do actually wanna sleep tonight," you tell him.

Jungkook smiles, popping open the rear door, making his way back around to the driver's seat. The leather is freezing when his body falls into it, and he starts to realise just how cold you must have been all exposed like that.

He wants to get you home quicker than ever. Shower you in the warmth of his kisses, use his fingers like strike anywhere matches along your skin, igniting fires from the tips of your toes to the very centre of your core.

He'll get you warm.

Get you coming undone. Get you all sleepy and cute. Get you dreaming the sweetest dreams as he holds you close through the night.

"Me too," he says as the engine starts up, his motor purring almost as pleasantly as you do. And perhaps he's just a little cum-drunk, and doesn't realise the weight of his words as he knocks the car into first and heads in the direction of his apartment, humming softly: "Let's get you home."

────────────

When Jungkook wakes up at four in the morning, he's hot. Cheeks a little puffy, hands clammy, tongue dry. Hot.

Your lips are pursed and pouted, firmly shut, body curled up next to his. He wouldn't normally complain, but his arm is trapped beneath your body, and so he's fixed in position next to a girl who burns like the heat of a thousand matches. He'll get scalded, skin tarnished, branded by you, and yet he can't bring himself to disturb you.

He reaches for his phone to check the time, and you hum softly in your sleep. Wonders if you're dreaming; if it's about him. Hopes you are; hopes it is.

His voice is low as he berates himself, whispering to 'get a grip', rubbing his free hand over his face and pushing it back into his hair. It's a little brittle, in need of a deep condition, the bleach damage a small price to pay for the anonymity his hair gave him - until, of course, it became his trademark.

He thinks about cutting it all off sometimes, but he's got a Samson complex. Fears he'll lose his strength without it. Wonders if one day you'll be his Delilah. Kind of already feels like you are.

You would never cut his hair off, though, purely for selfish reasons. Mainly 'cause the way it frames his face makes him look like art; but also cause you like having something to hold onto when things get a little rough (though his ass is also ideal for that).

He likes the way you always play with it. Knows you think it's a little sexy, all wavy (unintentional, just fried) and long. The roots are as dark as his eyes, though.

You romanticise it, in a way. It's like his true self is peeking through, and it makes you think that maybe one day you'll get to know who that is.

Jungkook isn't so sure.

In fact, he knows you won't. Sucks, but such is life.

It's not that he doesn't want you to know when his birthday is, or his favourite spot along the river to watch the world go by, it's just that it's asking for trouble. He gets into enough of that alone.

Still, he likes it when he's not alone. Likes it when you're with him - and so he falls back asleep, the beating of your heart soothing him into his REM cycle like the white noise he normally listens to instead.

It's gone seven by the time he wakes up again.

He reaches out, strokes the mattress where you'd once been and sighs. It's empty, though a little warm. There's silence in his apartment, and your bra isn't hooked over the end of his bed anymore, so he knows you're gone. Probably just didn't want to wake him.

He's cold, now. Hates the fuckin' cold. Isn't made for the winters. His lack of body fat does a terrible job at keeping him insulated through the cold nights, and heating is a luxury that he can't really afford these days, not with the sheer amount of gas he funnels into that goddamn car of his.

You had been a welcome, warm addition.

He'd teased you about it, told you it was the only reason he'd invited you over when you cursed about how bloody cold it was - but then you reminded him that you couldn't cum cold, and it had him flicking on the electric fan heater quicker than you could click your fingers.

Bleary-eyed from the morning sun, his hair a haphazard mess falling over them, Jungkook makes his way to his bathroom. He trips on his jeans in the process, forgetting the way you'd practically stripped him of his clothes the night before. Insatiable, that's what you are - and he loves it.

There's no coordination in his body as he walks, and he imagines a shower is the only thing that will really wake his body up - but there's no point. He needs to be out of his apartment within the next ten minutes. He's already running late.

His tardiness is noticed by everyone by the time he gets to the boxing club that morning.

"Here he is," Jimin grins as Jungkook avoids eye contact with every single fucker in the room. He slings his bag down and chucks his jacket on top, mask following. The room is cold, Old Man Kang not one for wasting precious profits on heaters.

Cold? He'd say. Train harder.

"Sorry I'm late," Jungkook mumbles, head hung a little low, throwing his body down next to Jimin, into the empty seat of a tatty sofa that sits in the corner of the rest area.

Jungkook can feel Namjoon's eyes on him. They're as cold as the ice that's melting on the roads outside, a little bit of spring sunshine thawing what once was frozen. He twists his neck, bones cracking at the top of his spine. Rolls his shoulders back. Postures himself correctly - and only then does Jungkook look at Namjoon.

"Where'd you disappear to last night?" Jungkook taunts him. "One minute you were tailing me, the next?" He clicks his fingers and sticks his bottom lip out, eyes all wide and faux-friendly.

They're the kind of eyes that remind you of the summer before you started secondary school; warm custard on a sponge cake, served up in a yellow cafeteria. A little bit of colour, hundreds and thousands sprinkled on top, but overwhelmingly yellow.

All yellow.

The school regulation sundress, the frills around the top of your socks. The highlighter stains on your fingers, and the rubber band charity bracelet worn around the wrists of every single boy in your class because it was 'trendy', not because any of them actually understood the concept of charity yet.

Yellow; canary, butter, midsummer Daegu sun. Lemon kombucha, mustard, and honey, too. In some lights, maybe even gold.

It curious how eyes so new, so foreign to you, seem to harbour memories of childhood that you thought had been lost. If not the memories, at least, the feelings; the notion that after the sunshine fades, nothing will ever be the same. Jungkook is the summer before secondary school, the final song of your favourite bands' encore, the subway doors closing at 11:57 pm. He's the end of something good, familiar, safe - but nothing great ever came from safe, now, did it?

His eyes are nostalgic, served up with a side of the unknown. Promises. That's what they're full of. Or is it potential? You're not sure, but you're actively choosing to be naive to the fact that it all seems too good to be true.

You don't know him like the boys in Old Man Kang's boxing club do.

Jungkook's void of colour in there. His eyes are black when they look at Namjoon. There's no honey in them.

They're bitter like black treacle, his disdain thick as it oozes over last nights competitor.

"Bastard lights," Namjoon shrugs, his indifference not convincing enough to come off as authentic. "Bad timing. Those cars were all coming from CGV. The last film of the night had just finished. Wasn't expecting the rush."

Jungkook holds back a snort. Typical of Namjoon to go and check the fucking cinema listings, just so that he had something else to blame his poor performance on.

"I mean, I made it through the lights on time," Jungkook smiles. It doesn't reach his eyes. Treacle drips from his whole entire being. It's sticky, and it coats every single surface in the room. The floor, the ring, the people. All covered in the heaviness. Everyone can feel it; how uncomfortable the empty silence is.

"Alright, ladies," Seokjin breaks the tension.

Shoulders broad, shirt discarded by the punching bag he's spent the morning working out his frustrations on, there's a sheen to his skin. It's damp. Salty, presumably, though no one in the room would dare lick his torso to check.

It's as if he's got sodium chloride crystals on his chest, glimmering when the light pours in through a tall window to the rear of the building.

His muscles are made from clay, carved out so intricately that Jungkook wonders why he bothers training himself so hard when he'll never look like his mentor. Impossible.

He's glad Seokjin has never stepped foot in the GS25 you earn your keep from. Thinks it will impact the way you look at him. Thinks maybe you'll start picturing Seokjin's face, instead of his own, whenever he takes you from behind in the future.

The thought unsettles him. Has him adjusting his legs, repositioning his cock so no one notices the fact it's a little plump now.

What? He was thinking about fucking you. Bound to happen. He's only human.

Male to be specific, with a libido to rival that of a bonobo.

Sometimes, Jimin likes to joke that Jungkook's genealogy must be closer to them than it is to his own grandfather. Even made him watch a documentary about it once. Only difference between Jungkook and his distant primate relatives is that Jungkook prefers to keep his sex monogamous.

He's made mistakes before; learnt the hard way that in order to keep things messy in bed, emotions have to run clean.

"Kook?" Seokjin interrupts his thoughts. He hadn't even realised he'd zoned out, but everyone's looking at him now, thankfully none of them noticing the semi in his pants. "You listening?"

"Huh?" He mumbles. "Sorry, was thinking. What were you saying?"

"We're swapping you out. You've been working well -" Namjoon scoffs in the corner, but Seokjin ignores him "- but I want to see if Park can get things done a little quicker."

Oh, fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck. This will not do.

"No!" Jungkook shouts, before realising how out of pocket his tone was. Cringe. "I mean, uh. I just. I've been making good progress. She's a tough cunt to crack."

"Charming."

"Fuck off, Jimin - see, that's what I mean," Jungkook begins to over-explain his outburst. "She'd call me a cunt right back. She likes my sense of humour. It just takes a while for her to open up. Sending Park in would just put us back at square one all over again."

"Yeah, but what's better?" Namjoon interjects. "Square one, going nought to sixty, or square two, still, only going five miles per hour."

"I'm on, like, square ten, asshole," Jungkook spits, incredibly childishly. If he wanted to, he could get specific. Talk about a different game that requires squares. Bases. Tell them all that he hits home runs, and that he's getting pretty consistent.

But if he tells them that, he'll be stopped from playing the game altogether.

"Sure," Namjoon just smirks.

Jungkook runs his tongue along his cheek, and looks at Seokjin, nostrils all flared, lips pouty.

"Calm down, Kookie," he says, and even though it's a little patronising, it has the desired effect. Jungkook respects him too much to fight against him. "I'll give you a week - and then you're swapping out with Park, alright? Get me something good. Something we can work with."

"I've got something," Jungkook shrugs. It isn't much but it at least confirms something they've theorised. "Asked her about politics last ni- last time I went in for gas."

"Casual kiosk discussion, seems legit."

"Do you ever shut the fuck up, Namjoon?" Jimin shoots him a glare.

"See, this is what I mean," Jungkook grumbles. "I can ask her shit like this 'cause I've built up a rapport with her. We talk." Fuck a little bit, too, but who's keeping tabs? "She won't be like that with Jimin."

She better not be.

Seokjin nods. He accepts what Jungkook is saying. Knows he's right - but knows that the lack of results is making his leadership look weak to Old Man Kang. "Carry on. What did she tell you?"

"She doesn't subscribe to her father's idea of politics. Didn't name drop him - never does - but she said she's left-wing."

"Performative," Namjoon scoffs, proving that no, he doesn't ever shut the fuck up.

"Or maybe she's the black sheep," Jimin counters. "The name change, the distancing herself from him-"

"Is all standard witness protection shit," Namjoon argues before Jimin can even finish making his point. "Her daddy is keeping her hidden so that he can keep her safe during the election campaign. Remember the amount of assassination threats he got during the last one? "

There's back and forth between them all, assessing how you ended up behind a gas station kiosk without a single link tying you back to your father. Most photographed man in the city, and yet you've been out of the pictures for a good three years, now.

The four of them never would have known who you are, or how expensive that pretty little head of yours is, had it not been for Old Man Kang and the job he'd given them all a couple months back.

Jungkook didn't exactly lie when he told you he was between jobs. He's just got a little something part time going on, too.

"Well, how about this?" Jungkook interrupts them, cutting their discussion about you short. It was annoying him. None of them know you. Not like he does. He's the only one qualified to have an opinion on the matter. "Keep me on the job. I'll be able to find out far quicker than any of you fuckers."

Seokjin concedes. Accepts that Jungkook is the best bet they've got. Dismisses them all, but keeps an eye on Jungkook as he pulls the neck of his shirt over his head and tosses it down onto his bag.

His composure is cool as he begins to wrap up his palms, but he's nibbling at his lips. Nose all twitchy like a bunny - and when he gets the bag he'll be working on, instead of testing the weight, he just hangs his head. Rests his forehead against it. Holds it. Taps it gently with his knuckles, before whispering a sharp 'fuck'.

But then he's bouncing on his feet, squaring up, getting ready, as if he hasn't just very visibly gone through an existential crisis, of sorts.

He would ask Jungkook what's going on, but there'd be no point. He's as good at lying as he is at throwing punches - and he's got the best left hook on the team. Doesn't use it much - but never misses when he does. Lies? Yeah, he uses them a lot more.

In fact, he's so good at fibbing, that Seokjin half thinks he doesn't even realise he's doing it a lot of the time. He cleans up the ink of his bad choices with white lies, and before he knows it, everything in Jungkook's life is grey.

"Posture straight," Seokjin calls over to him. "Don't lose your form."

Jungkook grunts a response. Does as he's told. Stays in the boxing club long enough to convince them all that it doesn't feel like he's having a heart attack. Chest all tight and shit. Lungs twisting beneath his ribs.

He grabs his stuff as quickly as he can without looking like a mad man on a dash, and locks himself in his car, staring into the oncoming traffic. Hands on the steering wheel, his chest heaves. Up and down, in and out. Contracting and expanding in all different directions.

The soiled packet of tissues is still on his backseat, your hairband looped around his gearstick. Your perfume spices the air, sweet vanilla and black cherry. He can only smell your hair when his nose is nestled in it.

Bizarrely, thinking about it doesn't make his heart race like it normally does. It calms it instead.

Jungkook whines. Stomps his feet a little in his footwell, then rests his forehead on the wheel.

"I'm so fuckin' screwed."

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minors dni // posted to wp late 2021 // series masterlist