#wowe i can never draw him consistently huh

[relamune]

map of azariah's scars + tattoos

[harringtonswriting]

okay this took me way longer than i wanted to like, fully read and digest but oH MY GOODNESS JADE 🥺💕

this is absolutely so breathtaking, so wonderfully delightful, adorable, sweet, beautiful... i could go on for hours about how much i LOVE the tangled!au and how well you wrote this

im gonna put more thoughts under the cut so i dont clog the dash but pls know i am in LOVE with this au

Flowers made up of a thousand colours, petals dripping with dew, their anthers heavy with pollen. A field of every flower he's ever seen and a hundred others he's not familiar with. He has really, truly, never seen anything like it. Not even the spectacle of the Palace could hold a candle to what he sees before him. No books he'd read growing up had ever conjured an image as sharply magical as this.

your imagery? your descriptions? breathtaking. like i can see this and how gorgeous it must look in the sunlight and wowowow steve's girl is SO talented

A rainbow of light arcs through the air and caresses your cheek, and the wind chime hanging in the window tinkles softly with a warm summer breeze. The tower echoes with your huffing breath. The pan is too heavy for you to hold any longer and you let it drop with a wrist-tugging defeat. 

i love this description so much, like? i can close my eyes and see what steve sees and it's beautiful, like probably more beautiful than tangled itself, i love this version, your version SO much 💕

The hair on his head and tucked behind his ears is comely as corn silk but much darker. It shines in the descending sunlight now flooding the room. There's a golden tinge to everything at this time that leaves no inch of his person unscathed; his eyes glow with it, his irises a melting brown that reminds you of rare, thick honey. 

god i am SO in love with your steve and the way you describe him; he's glowing and he's a treasure himself like who cares about the tiara when we have tangled!steve?

He tries to intimidate you. Steve is not very intimidating. He frowns and he looks unhappy rather than angry, the worst he dips into is a pestered annoyance. His stomach gurgles in the ensuing silence.

the commentary about steve i'm 🥺 even though this is an au and you have total free reign, which is wonderful, you still manage to capture the steve-ness of steve harrington

You look like one of the women from his storybook. A water nymph. A siren. The room is warm with steam, and his cheeks, hot to begin with, emanate enough heat to warm your tub again as he makes the comparison. Your looks alone might draw him to drowning. 

WOW STEVE IS IN LOVE HUH? good for him!! admire his gorgeous girl!! i love that steve has a storybook and he's seeing this magical girl, and just the consistency of the water imagery and concepts? yes please? i am falling even more in love

Eddie takes a step forward, his shoes like a thunderclap across the wooden floor.

AHHHHH EDDIE i am in love with him now too and we've had him for like fives minutes. he's gonna stir stuff up i think and i am ready for it, i love him and i love this au SO much 💕💕💕

𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐥𝐨𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 | 𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐯𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐭𝐨𝐧

You want to see the floating lights. Steve wants his satchel back. You come to an arrangement that is mutually beneficial… sorta. tangled!au

10k words, reader insert, fem!reader, medieval times (ish!), begrudging allies, fake dating/marriage, lots of changes from tangled movie but it’s got the spirit, I tried to be inclusive of all hair types but it is magical and floor length nonetheless, magical realism, TW for abusive mother + narcissism, mother is awful, steve is gonna show her the world is a good place!! allies to friends to lovers, pining

˗ˋˏ ☆ ˎˊ˗

Steve's hands are bleeding by the time he works his way into the tower, raw from the rough grit of old hewn stone. He hisses with every handhold he finds, adrenaline staving off the worst of the pain as his eyes scrabble for the next ledge. 

Five feet, three. His hand slaps into the dark wood of a window ledge and he heaves himself up, the joints of his arms screaming in protest. Were it not for the rumbling of horse hooves like an earthquake outside of the grotto he might've given up, hoped for a soft landing. 

The threat of being caught propels him forward. 

He lands on the tiled flooring of the main atrium of the tower with an audible plop of fabric, his satchel clunking hard by his hip. 

"Stars," he says. He breathes hard, trying and failing to slow his heart now he's found sanctuary. 

He lifts his cheek from the mosaic beneath and peers around the room. He gawps. 

It's mostly dark, and still he can make out the intricate, masterful artwork decorating the curved wall. Flowers made up of a thousand colours, petals dripping with dew, their anthers heavy with pollen. A field of every flower he's ever seen and a hundred others he's not familiar with. He has really, truly, never seen anything like it. Not even the spectacle of the Palace could hold a candle to what he sees before him. No books he'd read growing up had ever conjured an image as sharply magical as this.

He pushes up onto his elbows. Sunlight drips into the room from the wooden shutters he’d crawled through, illuminating the feet of each cabinet, a washing basin, and the brick oven under a staircase that ascends into the tower. He sniffs and finds the stick of coal dust heavy in the air; somebody lives here. 

Steve's quickly proven right when you swing from behind an alcove near the kitchenette. 

He startles backward and away from you as you advance, a cast iron pan held aloft in delicate hands and wielded with an intimidating confidence. 

"Holy- Wait! Wait, please," he cries, holding his hands palm out in surrender. 

Steve doesn't suppose you'd been expecting such a feeble intruder. He'd feel a strike against his dignity if it hadn't worked — you slow in the centre of the room, your breath coming in quick pants as the iron pan in your grip shakes. 

You're scared.

You're beautiful. 

"What do you want?" you ask, a pleading sort of twist to your question. "I don't have anything. I don't have anything worth taking." 

"Please," he says loudly. "I don't want anything. Sanctuary for the night, nothing else." 

Your chest rises. Steve feels smarmy, but he finds his eyes drawn to the valley of your chest, the bodice of your dress. A soft and buttery orange sewn with the palest pink and lilac embroidery. It's a gorgeous piece of craftsmanship, lovely enough that he wonders briefly if you're of royal descent, but the dress itself is a peasant's gown. 

His eyes rise back to your unhappy face. Your brows are pulled up at the starts, a delicate display that betrays your fear. 

You glare at him. 

"You can't stay here," you assert.

"One night." Steve pulls his satchel into his lap to procure a small coin purse. He'd love to say it was his coin purse. He cannot. "I have silvers. I can pay you." 

He will not be paying you anything. He won't rob you, though. He's not a total miscreant. 

"You can't stay," you say again, raising your iron pan higher above your shoulder. He sees a flash of something at your hip. "My mother–" 

"Holy stars, is that your hair?" 

You seize up, making an almost inaudible sound of dejection. "No." 

"Are you sure? It looks very much like hair."

Steve anchors his hand to the floor and leans downward to get a better look. You turn with him, attempting to shield your long hair from view and only helping him along. It sways with your movements, the ends near long enough to dance over the floor. 

"You have to leave. Leave!" 

Steve bites the inside of his lip. A rainbow of light arcs through the air and caresses your cheek, and the wind chime hanging in the window tinkles softly with a warm summer breeze. The tower echoes with your huffing breath. The pan is too heavy for you to hold any longer and you let it drop with a wrist-tugging defeat. 

"I'm not trying to scare you. But I really can't leave. I won't harm a hair on your head," he adds with a smile, eyebrows slightly raised in wait of your laughter. 

You don't laugh, nor do you smile. 

"My mother, she'll come home any minute now," you say unconvincingly. 

He tips his head to one side. "Then I'll speak with your mother and get her permission to stay." 

"She won't give it." 

You're really too handsome to be frowning as you are. Steve wants to do as he does with all pretty people and make you smile, but the task feels insurmountable. You want him to leave. He can't. 

"If I leave, I'll be killed," he says. While it's not a lie in its entirety, neither is it a truth.

Your grip tightens around the handle of your pan. "What?" you ask worriedly. 

He feels guilty for garnering your concern though it's exactly what he'd been aiming for, nodding his head gravely. 

"I'm being pursued by ruffians. For days now. I only need to hide here for the night while they clear the forest. They'll look for me elsewhere, after." 

His storytelling voice is clear. Admittedly much too dramatic and yet you eat it up like a child devours spun sugar. Your hands press to your chest, frying pan held in your palm like the pommel of a sword. 

"Ruffians?" you repeat.

He swoops in. "Not to worry. They didn't see me scale the tower, or even enter the valley." He gives you a commending smile. "You're very well hidden."

"Not well enough, clearly." 

"I got lucky."

You back away from him. You don't turn your back to him, smart girl, only widen the gap between your two bodies with a fluttering unease. 

"I wish I could help you," you whisper urgently, "I wish I could. But my mother, if she finds you here, I- I'm not sure what she'll do." 

Steve blinks dazedly. "She would kill me?" 

"No! Of course not." 

"Then whatever it is will be a kinder fate." 

That shatters the very last of your resolve. You visually err on what to do next, how to handle his being here. Steve’s head races with thoughts of the palace guards, of Thomas and Carol, and of you — your skin lit by the sun, and your long, long hair. 

"Do you want some water?" you ask quietly. 

The relief he conjures is as authentic as it comes. "Yes. More than anything." 

—

Your mysterious stranger sits at one end of the table in Mother's seat while you sit across from him, a small clay drinking cup encapsulated by his large hand. You're making no effort to hide how closely you're watching him, though if he's under the impression it's for safety's sake then that's best. 

He's very, very fine. 

You haven't seen a man in person before, and if they all look like this you might wish you'd ventured out of the tower sooner. He wears a worn brown tunic that shows evidence of numerous careful darnings, its top button popped open to reveal a tiniest hint of curled hair disappearing downward. 

The hair on his head and tucked behind his ears is comely as corn silk but much darker. It shines in the descending sunlight now flooding the room. There's a golden tinge to everything at this time that leaves no inch of his person unscathed; his eyes glow with it, his irises a melting brown that reminds you of rare, thick honey. 

"The flowers," he says after an aching pause. "Are they painted? They must have been a huge expense." 

You follow his gaze, surprised at his question in two ways. That he would ask, and that he would think somebody else did them. 

"They're how I spend my summers." 

"Looking at them?" 

You laugh from the pure joy of the complement he's implying, unused to his awed reaction. Mother usually nods or hums at a new unveiling, and one time you'd earned a, "That's wonderful, darling." 

You're not sure she'd actually been looking at the time. 

"I painted them myself." 

The stranger's jaw drops. "A little thing like you?" he asks. 

"I'm hardly little," you deny, neither of stature nor burden. 

"You're young, aren't you? You can't be more than twenty summers."

"What a funny way of speaking," you murmur, more to yourself than him. "I'm twenty. I'll be one and twenty, in a few days." 

His eyes narrow. "Well, what's wrong with you?" 

"What's wrong with me?" 

"You aren't married?" 

You try not to be offended and fail spectacularly. "Most don't get married until they're nearing five and twenty!" 

"Most," he agrees. "But a girl as pretty as you? Who can paint like this? Don't tell me you've been hiding from every man in the kingdom."

You turn your face from him in case he can tell how flustered you are. Two complements in one day is unprecedented. Your heart bump-bump-bumps. 

"Are you married?" you ask swiftly, hoping to redirect this line of conversation away from something as treacherous as your own isolation. Any answer would expose you.

"I am, actually. She has the most gorgeous shine to her face, and her laugh is melodic and sweet as anything, a tinkling sound. She's bronze-skinned, a slight thing, but she's worth her weight in gold." 

He grins. You can't help but smile in response, infected by his endearing affection.

"What's her name?" you ask, voice near a coo. 

"Argento." 

You stare at him. His smile gets so big it looks like it could bruise his cheeks. 

"You're talking about money." 

"She's a brilliant bedfellow, isn't she? She keeps me warm and fed every night. She's a good girl." He sighs and crosses his arms behind his head. His attempt at nonchalance is ruined when he cringes in pain and drops them gracelessly back into his lap.

You cover your mouth and laugh. He's funny. Mother doesn't make half as many jokes. 

Mother. As if the mere thought of her is enough to summon her presence, a shrill call echoes from the bottom of the tower. 

"Y/N, darling, throw down the rope for your mother!" 

You jump to your feet, slippers sliding against the mosaic floor in a hurried scratch. "You have to hide," you whisper harshly.

The stranger pouts at you. "Seriously, let me talk to her, I–" 

You shake your head voraciously at his loud volume and press your finger to your lips, eyes begging with him to be quiet. 

"Please," you whisper, "hide. I'll hide you 'til tomorrow, when she leaves in the morning." 

He doesn't move. 

"Y/N? I don't have all day!" The irritation in her voice is obvious. 

"Please," you whisper again. 

He gets up with a mild eye roll. You rush to the window and look down at your mother where she stands at the bottom, looking impossibly small. 

"There you are! What are you waiting for? I'm not very happy with you, darling." 

You lick your lips. "Sorry!" you call, turning to the rope spooled to the right of the window. You throw the rope over the hook at the top of the frame, pausing when you see the stranger lingering in your peripheral vision at the top of the stairs. 

"What are you doing? Go!" you whisper. 

He nods toward your hands. "Couldn't have thrown that down to me, could you?" 

You shoo him away, his easy laughter doing nothing to assuage your racing heart as you drop the length of looped rope down to your mother. You wait until she's secured her foot in the loop before you start to walk backwards, lifting her weight. 

It doesn't get any less laborious as you grow up. By the time she's reached the top of the tower you can hardly breathe. You cough so hard you feel nauseous. 

"Holy stars, you sound ghastly. And it's completely unbecoming to cough like that without covering your mouth. You know that." 

"Sorry, mother." 

She hums. You can't decipher what it means, but it likely isn't something forgiving. 

"I hope you had some time to think about our argument." 

You hold your clasped hands behind your back, hair tickling your knuckles. "I did… I'm sorry, mother." 

She stares at you for a moment from under dark eyebrows before her face lifts, the wrinkles in her soft forehead appearing more prominently as she says, "Darling, why do you do this? Why do you insist on making me angry?" She raises her hands to your neck, long fingernails weaving seamlessly into the mass of hair she finds there. "You know I'm only trying to protect you." 

"I know," you say, tears burning hot behind your eyes. You will them away. Crying will make it worse, it always does. 

She toys with your hair, eyes on your shoulder. You have the peculiar feeling that though she's looking at you she isn't truly looking at you, but through you. Her eyes are distant, unfocused. 

Her finger wraps into your hair, twisting a strand behind your ear over, and over, and over. You shift uncomfortably at the tugging feeling at the back of your scalp but don't protest to her touches — any touch at all feels like a gift. Mother isn't generous with her affections. 

"Maybe I've been too hard on you," she murmurs. 

You loose a pained breath as she takes her hand from your hair and brings it to your face instead. She draws a line from the corner of your eye outwards, a kind, soft petting that gives you goosebumps. 

"No, mother. I'm grateful for everything I have. I was being unreasonable, I don't need anything else. I… shouldn't have asked about the stars." 

"No, you shouldn't have." 

She moves from you to hang her robe up on the hanger. You tamp down your frowning because mother hates when you make her feel guilty and try to decide how it is you're going to escape to your bedroom for the night. You have lots of questions you want to ask the stranger. 

You spot something out of the corner of your eye as your mother flits to the kitchen. There, on the table, sits two clay cups half empty and at opposite ends. You side eye your mother and find she's distracted herself with putting a wooden log into the oven's belly, grumbling about how you've neglected your afternoon chores. 

You throw yourself in front of the table with a thud. 

"What are you doing?" Mother asks, disgruntled. 

"Nothing! I mean, I'm cleaning up. I forgot to empty these cups of paint after I finished." 

"Why doesn't that surprise me?" 

The thing about mother is that most of the things she says are neutral. Anybody else might think she was being light-hearted or blasé. She phrases everything so meticulously. 

But she is not kind. 

You laugh breathily and turn to the cups. Your heart leaps into your throat when you find the cup isn't the worst of what might give you away. Hooked over the back of the chair is the stranger's leather satchel, a ratty old thing sagging with the weight of its contents. 

You take it. The zipper snags and the cause of the weight reveals itself in a clinking upheaval, a flash of light across the floor. You throw yourself over the chair to grab for it, a mindless scrambling, silver and gems cool and sharp under your hand. You shove it back in the satchel, no clue what it is. You've never seen anything like it. 

"What are you doing?" Mother asks, her voice occluded by the soft bubbling of the cooking pot. 

"It's dusty down here!" you call. 

"Yes, well… it's to be expected when all you do is paint all day, darling." 

"You're right," you say quietly. "Of course you are, mother." 

-

Steve hadn't suspected your room would look as plain as it does. You've a simple bed with a modest quilt and one tired looking pillow, though it's been made with neat folded corners. A stuffed rabbit sits at the bottom, lavender velveteen with a pink button nose. He doesn't touch it, though he'd like to. He's not sure he's ever touched a stuffed animal before. 

He can hear you talking to your mother, or rather your mother talking at you. He must say, she doesn't sound like the easiest woman to get along with. But Steve's never had a mother, so maybe that's just what they're like. 

You have a small table to one corner covered in small trinkets. Shells, stones, papers loose and bound. He flips open the soft cover of a book and finds it filled with pencil sketches, corner to corner of every page. 

You've drawn the most mundane things in remarkable colour and detail. The cooking pot over the stove top, the washing basin, the wooden table. Your slippers, your hair brush. Ordinary things in extraordinary detail, and extraordinary colour. 

He pauses at a loose leaf of brown paper tucked toward the end of the book. It's a bird on the window ledge, a fruit dove. The face and beak are in great detail, white feathers made corporeal by the smudge of hard pastel. The wings are rough, white and pale pinks and greens unrendered. 

Footsteps sound up the stairs. 

Shit, Steve thinks. They're a hurried sound. He's been sussed. He turns on his heel to find a place to hide. 

"Shit," he says, climbing the circular platform that holds your bed and collapsing to the floor, wriggling on his back until he's hidden underneath the bed and sheets completely. 

He holds his breath as the door creaks open. 

"Um… mister… uh, stranger man?" 

He waves his hand from under the bed. 

"Oh, right. Move over," you say, and then you're getting under the bed to join him. 

Steve moves over and suddenly you're there beside him, the two of you pressed arm to arm under your bed. Your smell is impossible to ignore, the fruity fragrance of jasmine and milk-soap. He stares at your face as you settle, your eyelashes fluttering, your subtle smile. 

You turn your head to his. The two of you flinch in tandem, eyes flying away from each other to the underside of the bed. 

Oh, Steve thinks. Holy stars. 

You've painted lanterns on every slat. Purple paper lanterns that glow orange and yellow in their centres, tens of them in different sizes. It's as breathtaking as your field of flowers downstairs despite the major decrease in scale.

"Wow," he says, on impulse, "these are amazing." 

You inhale happily. "Thank you. The floating lights are my favourite thing. They always come out-" You cut yourself off with a cough. "Well. I love them." 

"'Floating lights,'" he quotes. You're strange. 

"I wanted to go see them, but…"

"But mother said no?" 

"No," you murmur weakly. He takes it for yes. "She doesn't believe they're not stars." 

He can hear each individual breath you take this close and suspects that you can hear his own. It's a funny thing to be this close to you when he doesn't know you beyond your painting and your too-long hair. He can see a lot more of your details, your tiny bumps and fine hairs.

"What's your name?" he asks quietly. 

"I'm Y/N." You lay your ear against the wooden floor to look at him. "What's your name?" 

"Steven. Steve will do just fine."

"Steve," you say, like you're testing it out. "Steve, you lied to me." 

His eyes widen. 

"Did I?" he asks, trying to disarm you with a smile and failing yet again. 

"You lied," you whisper. "What's in the satchel, Steve?" 

"It's not what you think." 

"I think it's exactly what I think." 

You're giving him a hard stare. He smiles and smiles and smiles, his facade cracking the longer you look at him. His breath all falls out in a rush, blowing the hair from his eyes as he sighs. "Alright, fine. I lied about the ruffians. In my defence, there isn't a big difference between those fools from the palace and true ruffians." 

You sit up and wack your head on the bed slats above. Steve reaches out to help though there's nothing to do. 

You push his hand away. "Palace guards?" you ask in an urgent whisper, hand held to the top of your head. 

"Obviously. They don't just let you walk out of there without a fight… Wait, why are you surprised?" He measures your sheepish face. "You conniving, deceitful gir!" 

"I might not know what it is, but I can tell it's not the kind of thing someone like you would have on his person," you say, grumbling at his insults. 

His injustice at having been tricked drops away. "You don't know what it is? You've never seen a tiara?”

Your embarrassment is adorable. You change the subject deftly. “You lied to me, let’s not forget. You’re in danger because of the consequences of your own actions. Can’t believe I fell for your sob story. I should tell my mother exactly what kind of man I have hiding under my bed.”

“Who you’re hiding under your bed with.”

You climb out from under the bed with an irritated harrumph. Steve untangles a length of your hair that’s gotten wrapped around one of the beds feet before you can yank your own head back and follows you out. 

“Don’t be mad,” he says.

“You’re a criminal,” you say angrily. 

“Nobody’s perfect.”

Your furious whispers pause when your mother starts to sing downstairs. Steve can see the debate on your face. Yes, he’s a liar, yes, he’s a criminal, and yes, you should churn him back out into the valley. Send his untrustworthy self on his sorry way and wipe your hands of him entirely. 

To do so would mean admitting to your mother that he’s here. 

“Just… don’t talk to me. And don’t steal anything.”

He grins. “As you wish, my lady.”

—

“Y/N?” a voice asks in the dark. 

It’s impossible to relax with him here. You’re worried he’s going to slit your throat while you sleep. You’re doubly worried he’ll see your unattractive resting face. Warped priorities aside, you can’t make yourself sleep. 

“Yeah?” you whisper. 

“The floating lights?”

Your eyes fly open. You get the disorienting feeling of blindness and blink in the dark until you can make out the faintest glow of moonlight under the door. “Yeah?”

“Those are called lanterns.”

You swallow a rough breath. “Lanterns.”

“Mm-hm. They’re made of paper. You light them and send them up with the breeze. The ones you’ve been seeing, they’re probably for the lost princess.”

“The lost princess?”

“Yeah. The entire kingdom floods into the town and each person lights a lantern for her. It’s more of a festival these days, but… They're supposed to help her find her way home. If she’s really lost, that is.”

You hum something, an attempt to reply, but you're too distracted to say anything else. Floating paper. A lost princess. You close your eyes and clouds of purple, pink and orange burn against your eyelids. 

— 

"You want me to what?" 

"I want you to take me to see the lanterns." 

Steve's back aches from sleeping flat on the floor all night long, and his shoulders scream every time he moves from climbing, and his hands are gross and sore with scabs, and he truthfully doesn't have the patience for this conversation. 

"No." 

"Fine. Don't take me, and I will keep the tiara as an innkeeper's fee." 

"There's usually breakfast at an inn," he says. 

You slap a steaming hot bowl of porridge in front of him. You've drizzled the surface with honey and placed red berries over the top to form a smiling face. The heat of the porridge has melted the berries into blobs that break from their skin when he pokes them with a spoon. 

"Oh," he says. Nice.

He looks up to find you dressed in a different gown than yesterday, this one made up of a green bodice with white sleeves and a white skirt. The bottom hem is sewn with dainty yellow flowers, the bodice with vines in a darker shade of green. It's a very sweet dress on an otherwise sweet looking girl, if you ignore the formidable twist of your brow. 

Fine, he'll bite. Your frown is sweet too. 

"I'm not taking you anywhere," he says, about to scoop up a bite of porridge. He's starving. 

You pull the bowl away from him, his spoon diving straight into the gnarled wooden table. 

"You'll take me, or I'll tell the first palacemen that I find who you are and where you were." 

"This isn't how you negotiate." 

"Good thing I'm not negotiating." 

He tries to intimidate you. Steve is not very intimidating. He frowns and he looks unhappy rather than angry, the worst he dips into is a pestered annoyance. His stomach gurgles in the ensuing silence. 

"Why do you need someone to take you? Your mother left just this morning by herself."

You raise your eyebrows. 

Steve sighs. "And if I did take you… then what? I suppose you'll want safe passage home, as well?" 

You slide his porridge a little bit closer to his outstretched hand.

"You'll be coming back this way anyhow." 

Well, yeah. He didn't know you knew that. Steve sighs, the most pained and inconvenienced groan he can muster because everything is awful and he's hurting in six different places. You don’t budge. 

"Fine. Fine! I'll take you into the city to see the lanterns, and I'll bring you home. And you will give me back my satchel and my- uh, findings." 

You push the porridge toward him. "That was easier than I expected."

Steve wishes he could pretend your smugness wasn't sweet, either. Because he isn't going to make this easy for you, not one bit. 

He watches you pack your bag from the table and feels very, very sorry for you. For starters, you don't really have a bag, only a sack for potatoes now emptied. You take two clean dresses down from the clothesline they'd been hanging on and fold them before putting them at the bottom of the sack carefully, and then you're clueless. 

"It'll be five or six days," he says, "now I've lost my horse." 

Lost isn't the right word. His stolen horse had sprinted off into the forest and left him stranded. Another ailment to add to his list — thrown bodily off of a stallion. 

"Do you have any better shoes?" 

You look down at your pretty slippers and grimace. "No." 

"You don't get out much, do you?" 

You ignore him and pull a case of things out from under the small counter in the alcove of your kitchen. You drop a roll of linen bandages into the sack and shove the case back under the counter with your foot as you bring out a block of cheese and a box of matches. 

Poor girl, he thinks. 

"Don't worry too much about it." 

"I'm not worried," you say, topping your provisions off with a punnet of fruit and the last of your fresh flatbread covered in a beeswax wrapping. "This will be fun." 

—

You're scared enough to feel tears welling in your eyes. 

Steve walks ahead of you, shoes hidden by lush green grass as he makes his way toward the valley's exit. You're not sure he's realised you're not behind him, or maybe he has and he refuses to wait. You've finished bricking the secondary entrance to the tower closed again, and while it seems obviously disturbed you have no choice but to hope mother doesn't steer around the back anytime soon. 

Your adrenaline has been pumping ever since you jimmied the tile and unlocked the trap door. Your chest physically aches with anxiety, and your breath has begun to feel short and shallow. 

"Are you coming?" Steve calls. 

You heave the potato sack over your shoulder and take a step forward. 

The earth is soft and hard underfoot, an impossible sensation. You rock your heel back and forth and test the uneven ground for purchase. The temptation to reach down and touch it for the first time is high but Steve's still watching you, so you hurry toward him and try not to fall over. You take a huge, calming breath. 

It smells gorgeous out here. Despite keeping the window cracked and the tower clean, there's a lived-in smell that can't be escaped. Out here, you can practically taste the earth. The crisp air burns your nose. 

Steve keeps a fast pace and neither of you talk. Your companion isn't happy about his predicament and you can't blame him, you've practically taken him hostage. He isn't a poor sport either, and he hasn't been cruel. Quiet, he parts the ivy covering the valley exit and lets you pass. 

The world is even bigger from there. 

"Stay close, okay? I don't know what kind of vagrants we'll come across this far from town." 

You swallow a lump in your throat. "Uh-huh." 

You stay likely too close, your arm gracing his own every now and then. Each time you pull away and each time you end up drifting back toward him. The quiet is impenetrable. You don't know what to say to a man. To anybody. Mother's usually the guiding force of every conversation, and her insistence has left you poorly equipped. 

Steve seems content to languish in silence. 

You walk. You watch the sun move, heat burning your skin by midday. You're not used to walking such long distances or being so exposed to the elements, and by evening you hurt everywhere. Your face shines with perspiration and your shoes chafe your ankles raw, each step a barb. 

As if things couldn't get worse, guilt grabs and holds you. Guilt and fear. What will mother think if she finds out you've left? What would she say? How ridiculously naive, darling. I told you, you aren't to leave the tower. Do you seriously think you know better than I do? Do you think I'm stupid? I'm hurt. I'm hurting that you'd think so low of me. 

You try to shake the thoughts away. A shiver rushes down your spine. 

Steve holds a hand over his eyes, turning his head to the West where the sun approaches the horizon. 

"It'll be dark in a few hours,” he says. 

You nibble the inside of your cheek, voice hoarse and throat dry from your lack of conversation. "Will we camp for the night?" 

He shakes his head, the sun climbing up his neck to paint his brown hair blonde. "If memory serves, there's an inn not far from here." He smiles. "You'll like it." 

"Oh. That's good." 

"Yeah." 

You kick a small stone. "How do you know where we're going?" You'd been on a dirt path now for an hour or two, or rather two dirt paths, worn by carriage wheels. "Everything looks the same." 

"I'm an excellent navigator." 

Sure enough, he navigates the two of you toward a pretty little inn snugly hidden between a crop of towering, leafy trees, a shock of beige and brown in an overwhelmingly green landscape. 

"Le Vilain Caneton," you read off of the sign, giving him a bright smile. "That sounds nice." 

"What did I tell you? You're gonna love this." 

—

Steve doesn't feel bad, at first. 

He throws open the door. The handle slams hard enough into the wood behind it that he's surprised there isn't a cracking sound. He ushers you inside, finding that the handle hasn't broken a hole in the wall because there's already one there. 

It's sleazy, all things considered. Steve has avoided this place pretty much his entire adult life after a trade gone wrong, and while he feels his appearance has changed enough to spare him a skirmish he affects the Steven Harrington manner. Two-timing baby Stevie is nowhere to be seen. 

He's still a two-timer. Case in point. 

"Isn't it charming?" he murmurs to you, hand held aloft behind your back. Not touching but ready to if you step back. 

"Yeah," you say weakly. "Really cute." 

Adorable. 

Steve takes a step that encourages you forward into the main area of the room. The smell of cheap ale blooms and the floor is sticky with it. He regrets how it will likely ruin your pretty slippers but he isn't a coward, walking you right up to the bar where a scary looking guy stands wiping glasses with a dirty rag. 

"Are you the innkeeper?" he asks jovially. "We'd like a room." 

Scary guy squints, looks between you and Steve with apprehension. 

Steve's trying to scare you, not get caught. He throws his arm over your shoulders. You shrink under his touch. It's too late for him to pull away, guilt softening the grasp he has on your shoulder as he lays down a thick facade. 

"My wife's tired as a lamb from walking all day, could we get a hot bath drawn with that?" 

Scary guy spits into the cup with a scoff. "Judy?" he calls out gruffly. 

Steve beams. You curl into him slowly, a flower turning to the sun, hiding from the cold. You still smell of jasmine milk soap after all these hours of walking, but he doesn't miss how the lengths of your hair have grown dishevelled with sweat and wind. He wonders how long it might take you to brush free the knots and tangles. He wonders if you do it in the bath. 

You turn to him with your face shining with a trust he doesn't deserve, like you're seeking his protection. 

"Steve, I don't have any money," you whisper. 

His hand rests in the nook of your neck. "That's alright. Consider it part of your innkeeper's fee." 

"Does this come with breakfast, too?" you ask genuinely. 

Judy, a tall, lithely woman who can't be more than thirty takes her station behind the bar and smiles at you before her eyes follow Steve's arm to his body. He freezes at the calculating tilt of her head, the subtle but not invisible squint. 

"Breakfast is an additional two silvers."

"And for the room and bath?" 

"Ten for the room, five for the bath, two for breakfast." Judy grins. Her hair is like copper, shifting around sharp cheekbones. "Seventeen silvers all together." 

Steve frowns but hands over the money. 

Judy takes you up the first flight of rickety stairs to your room, and nods toward the bathing room as you pass it. She shows you where you'll be spending the night, a ramshackle room with a bed made of what Steve suspects to be more straw than padding. He's relieved at the thick quilt set and folded at the bottom. It looks clean enough. 

"I'll knock when the bath is drawn. Will that be for both of you?" 

And so. Steve had feared this, feared the bath in general, and had forgotten to explain this fear to you. 

"Both of us," he says, nodding. 

You're thankfully smart enough to keep any grievances you have at that to yourself. At least, until the door closes, and you pin him with a look that's a mixture of betrayed and furious. Your eyebrows pinch together. 

"Why did you say that?" 

"It's what's expected of us." 

"By who?" you ask, near belligerent. 

He shushes you, a frown of his own taking form. "By everybody. It's what married couples do, they share the water when travelling. And it wouldn't be proper for you to be in the bathing room by yourself, how could your husband protect your honour?" 

"You're not my husband." 

He shushes you again, this time with a severe expression that finally has you giving pause. Your eyes flash with fear and quickly clear. You take a step back. 

He holds a hand out toward you amicably. "Sorry. But it will be much safer for both of us if we can keep our ruse alive. Someone as handsome as you, it isn't right for your reputation to be travelling with me while you're still unmarried, you know? And for me…" He doesn't want to explain the horrible truth to you. If Steve refuses to leave you, to share you, to let men do what men would like to do to you, that might invite a riot.

"I don't have a reputation," you say. 

He shrugs. "It is safer for us to be married."  He hesitates, remembering why he'd brought you here in the first place. The horrible truth may be unseemly, but it could be enough to get you to bow out. "If we aren't married… Well, it doesn't bear saying." 

"What?" you ask, a curious thing. He loves it, and not only because it works to his advantage. 

"Men will take anything they find beautiful. And without care." 

Your fingers tighten around the mouth of your potato sack bag. 

"I see," you say. "Of course. I knew that, mother always says, but." 

He winces at the reminder of your cruel mother. He feels cruel himself, suddenly, for scaring you on purpose as your mother likely does, for being another member of the opposition in your life. All you want is to see the Princess' lanterns, so much so you've hidden under your bed and painted their colours painstakingly onto each slat of supporting wood. A hidden wish, and one you'd deigned to share with him. He starts to think, Maybe I should just take her. How much could it possibly cost me? 

But Steve's from nothing. He was born from nothing, he grew up with nothing. He is, in the grand scheme of the universe and its many, many stars, nothing. Another orphaned boy destined to waste his life stealing coppers from coin purses and sleeping in doorways. 

The sooner he gets that tiara, the better. No more sleeping outside. No more staring up at the wine dark sky and wondering if any of those blistering stars can hear him. 

If they can, they aren't listening. 

You put your bag down on the floor. It thunks. 

"What have you piled in there, sweetness? A mountain?" he asks, momentarily distracted. 

"Nothing!" you rush to say, standing in front of your bag like it might hide it from his view. 

The door knocks before he can question you further. "The bath!" comes Judy's solid tone. 

"Thank you," Steve says, "we'll be right out." He nods at you. "Your change of clothes?" 

You search through your bag with your shoulders to him, hunched to shield the mystery. 

"You can keep your secrets," he teases lightly. The stars know he keeps his own. 

Through the hallway to the bathing room, Judy kicks open the door, points to the bath as though he might not see it otherwise, and then the small weight by the doorway to keep the door closed. There's no steam to the water. 

"How conning," Steve mutters, closing the door after Judy's departure. 

"What?" you ask, your voice curiously strung. 

"The water’s barely hot." 

"I've never had a hot bath before." 

He looks at you through the corner of his eye. "Never?" 

"Sometimes mother would pour warm water through my hair, but no. Does it hurt, when it's too hot?" 

He can't help grinning at you. "Some of the time," he concedes. "It's a nice kind of hurting, though, do you know what I mean? You'll feel much better after." He chuckles, sticking his finger into the water. It isn't not hot, but it could be better considering its cost. "Not that this could ever hurt you." 

"A nice kind of hurting," you mumble. 

"Mm. You should try to be quick, they might want the bath for someone else soon." 

You nod, eyes darkening with your remembered predicament. You hug your clean dress to your chest. He thinks, suddenly, that your hair looks very heavy, and that it must hurt your neck. 

"I won't look," he says, voice soft with sincerity. 

Your shoulders relax. 

He sits with his legs stretched out and shoes pressed to the door to stop a potential intruder, listening, trying not to listen, as you peel out of your clothes. Your bare feet sound strange over the wooden floor, a shushing sound. Your dress and corset fall in rustling waves. 

You gasp as you step into the water. "Oh," you say, the small sound imbued with a simple, common pleasure. 

He feels the tension like fog over the kingdom waters in summer, when the heat is tangible and the nights are short. You look so soft in your clothes. Outside of them, Steve can only imagine. 

He tries very hard to push it from his mind, feeling an unwelcome heat rise anyhow. He blames it on the humidity of the room. 

You pitter for a moment, in awe of the heat. 

"How–" His voice gets caught. He clears his throat, tries a second time, "How do you wash your hair?" 

"I lather the soap in my hands and–" You seem to be victim of the same affliction as he is. "Steve, could you pass me my soap? I'm sorry, I've left it on the vanity with my dress." 

"If you want me to help you, you need only ask. I've been said to have very hard-working hands."

"I thought you were a thief?"

Steve stands up grudgingly. He usually has much better luck with the ladies, yet all his joking flirtation soars straight over your head. Not that he actually wants it to land, nor does he think he could handle your attention. 

He doesn't look at you as he grabs your bar of soap. He unwraps its beeswax covering and hands it to you, looking decidedly at the damp wall opposite. He feels your wet hand touch his. Your skin is so hot it startles him, and the bar of soap slips between your outstretched fingers, slamming and sliding somewhere unknown. 

"Shit," he says. "Alright, best cover yourself." 

He hears quick movements in the water as he turns to you, throwing his gaze to the floor, only a split flash of your naked skin to be seen. Your soap has rounded the corner of the wooden tub, lying behind your straight back. He kneels to pick it up, scowling at the scum sticking to its underside, and nearly headbutts your forehead as he stands. 

He springs back, and he stares. You have water running in rivers down your face, your wet hair framing your shining cheeks, pooling down. It covers the swell of your chest so precisely that Steve bites his tongue, forcing his eyeline back to your waiting face. You have water in your eyes like tears, their lashes turned to triangles, clinging to one another. 

You look like one of the women from his storybook. A water nymph. A siren. The room is warm with steam, and his cheeks, hot to begin with, emanate enough heat to warm your tub again as he makes the comparison. Your looks alone might draw him to drowning. 

"Steve?" you ask, holding out your hand. 

Hair shifts over your body like a dancing shadow, or a beaming light. He isn't sure. There's something about it that feels extraordinary, not just in the length of it. 

He passes you your soap. Ridiculous, he thinks. Imbecilic. Your hair is hair and nothing more. While you're achingly pretty and you have a fine hand, that is where your remarkability ends. 

"Could you turn around again?" you ask, flustered.

He turns around. 

—

"You brought your pan?" Steve asks you, bewildered. He's standing by the small, thin window, metal-wrought panes that filter the last of the sun's rays. 

You stand shivering by your potato sack and frown at him, setting the pan on the sheets. "I think we might have a more pressing issue." 

"We don't have anything." He seems to appraise your condition. "How do you usually dry your hair?" 

"You wouldn't believe me." 

"How cryptic! I'm afraid you're destined to freeze here, my heart. Or we could take you home, where you may comfortably perform whatever ritual it is that you perform and dry your hair." 

"Wasn't there a fireplace downstairs?" 

"We aren't going back down there." 

"We aren't," you say in agreement, turning his distaste of the collective pronoun back on him. "I'll go by myself." 

"That is a horrible, terrible, awful idea." 

"I'm not going home. I want to– I’m going to see the paper lanterns." 

Steve sighs. After your bath, he'd taken the smaller basin of clean water and washed up, now standing in front of you in his only change of clothes, a darker, navy tunic buttoned to the throat and simple slacks. His shoes are tightly laced even at this hour. You look down at your bare feet and feel majorly abashed by their new blisters and haphazard bandaging. You can't make yourself put your slippers back on. 

He continues his sighing as he crosses the room. He's still grumbling when he opens the door. 

"Well?" he asks, holding it open. 

You pat his arm gently as you pass. "Thank you." 

You trek down the stairs, careful with each footstep that you aren't trodding on a misplaced nail or scary splinter. Wood changes to stone flooring, tiles of a terracotta colour that are large and misshapen. You keep your eyes on them as you cross the room to its only source of heat, a blistering hearth just shy of the room's stage and piano. Somebody sits behind it on the piano bench, though they aren't playing the piano at all, but a great wooden instrument you've never seen. 

"What is that?" you ask Steve. 

He doesn't bend under your attention. He frowns ever so slightly. "What?" 

You point to the instrument as conspicuously as you can. 

Steve takes your shoulder into his hand and guides you toward the fireplace without malice. He's prompting you along, as you've stopped in the middle of the room. 

"You've never seen one of those?" he asks. 

"Not in any of my books." 

"I guess they're still new. That's a vihuela. It's a… it's a nice sound." 

You nod appreciatively, and feel much happier as Steve pulls a nearby chair as close to the hearth as he can without garnering any disgruntled looks from the other patrons. You sneak a peek at their faces. Most are naturally intimidating; there are men with weathered, unkind faces lining the walls with tankards of ale in hand; there are travellers such as yourselves, though they look hardened, sharper than you ever could, coin purses on tables as if daring you to try lifting them; there are women, sparsely, who are sharper in a different way. They remind you of a summer rose, darkly red, a gorgeous head of petals distracting from a thorny stem. 

You sit down in your chair and feel the heat of the fireplace greet your chilled skin, and your soaked back. Your dress has soaked up much of your hairs dripping, the kind of unfortunate happenstance that might spiral into your hypothermic death. Steve puts his chair beside yours and turns his entire body toward yours. You like it. It's like he's hiding you from everybody else, replacing their sneering gazes with his fed-up acceptance. You find extreme comfort in this feeling, as though Steve is the only person in the room with you. 

"Turn to me." 

"What if my hair catches?" 

"You aren't close enough for that." 

You turn to Steve completely. You look like lovers, you must, worse when he takes your slippers and holds them on top of one of his thighs. He has wide thighs, and they make you feel a feeling you don't understand. Everything you know about men has come from Mother or books. Mother claims them to be evil in their entirety. Of the few books you have, and fewer that talk of men beyond the factual, none have ever mentioned why their legs look like that, and why it will make you feel like you've swallowed something much too hot. 

"I'll make sure your hair doesn't go up in flames," he promises grandly, unnecessarily, "consider it one of my guidely duties." 

A shy, pleased smile takes your lips. "Thank you." 

"Yeah, you're welcome." He closes his eyes and tips his head back. "Stars, I'm hungry." 

"I have–" 

"We'll buy dinner. They have hunter's stew here, have you ever tried that?" 

"No." 

He laughs, crossing his arms across his chest. "Of course not. Alright, this will sound gross, but it's really old stew. Years old, maybe decades. They keep adding and adding to the pot with whatever’s in season." 

You don't know everything, or anything, really, but you know that sounds like food poisoning in a bowl. "How doesn't it kill you?" 

"They keep it really, really hot, all day long." 

You like the way he says it, even if he's maybe making fun. He almost sings each word, a melodic cadence to his pronunciation that endears you further. 

"And you've had it? What does it taste like?" 

"See, you'd think it tastes a bit muddled, right? But it's good. You'll like it." 

He makes no move to get up and get the aforementioned soup. You aren't particularly hungry, leaning back just a little so the brutal heat of the flames can warm your damp shoulder. The wetness of your dress is fading, warmed but still undeniably wet, and you wonder if the heat is hurting your hair. Mother always says to keep your hair as far from the hearth as you can at all times, and gets angry when you sit too close. 

The soot, darling. The soot will cling to your hair and ruin it. It is, in Mother's opinion, the most beautiful thing about you. 

Mother. She shouldn't be back home for days now, and still you're worrying. Mostly about being caught. But if you're caught, and she knows you left… 

You have a strange love for your mother. The kind that makes you feel sick in intensity. You want, at all times, to please her. And you know this isn't something she would approve of, Stars, she'd be so disappointed in you for taking this risk. 

You stare up at a wooden beam past Steve's head and try not to tear up. Anxiety eats at you until there's nothing left but your skin, your insides a tangled dark whorl of misery. She must know you've left home. She must know how terribly ungrateful you are for everything she's sacrificed. She must know–

"Are you okay?" 

You blink hurriedly and face Steve, hoping this will dispel the quick-welling tears clouding your vision. It doesn't work: blinking can’t erase years of pent up worry. You wipe your eyes before they can roll down your cheeks and humiliate you further. 

"I'm okay," you say. 

Steve frowns again. He's a frowny guy. 

"What's wrong?" He takes your elbow into his hand.

"Nothing. Uh…" You smile through your embarrassment. "We don't light the hearth at home, often, and uh, I think the smoke is irritating my eyes." You nod for emphasis. 

Steve does not believe you, clearly, but he squeezes your elbow and nods back. 

He looks at your face until you're uneasy. 

"I'll go get that stew,” he says, patting your arm. 

You feel strange once he’s gone. It's nice to be by yourself for a moment. You've spent the majority of your adult life alone while mother goes here, there, and everywhere. You're never allowed to go with her, too stupid for the outside world and all its challenges. 

You look around the room now and wonder if this is really the world she means. Sure, it's foreign, and it's unsettling, and without Steve by your side you might not be left alone as you have been, but you'd expected more. Where are all the insects that make you sick, and the men with cutlasses and shackles? 

Your eyes drift to the vihuela player. He's moved to sit at the opposite side of the fire. He strums lackadaisically at his instrument, his shoulders against the wall and a cup of mead at his feet. It's obvious nobody's given him any coin in a while. 

Behind him sits the piano, glimmering with the flickering firelight. You've read about them, you've even seen drawings of harpsichords, but never heard one played. You wonder what it sounds like. Any music at all is amazing to you. All you've ever heard is singing. One song. 

Steve returns with two bowls of hunter's stew. You're scared to try it but horrified that you might look like a coward in front of him. Again. Your tears had been bad enough. 

You swallow a spoonful and your eyes water unbidden. "Oh, wow." 

"Good, huh?" 

You try not to cough. "It's rich." 

"I guess you haven't had stuff like this before, huh?" He forks through his bowl and pulls out a big pale vegetable roughly cubed. "You like potato?" 

"Yeah," you say, and before you've finished he's pushing the potato against the lip of your bowl and pulling the tines of his fork free. It falls into your stew with a small splash. "Oh. Thank you." 

You try to eat as much of it as you can but start to feel sick somewhere in the middle. You set your bowl aside and Steve, bowl emptied, drops his next to it, wiping his hands together and standing. 

You look up, puzzled. 

"Come on." 

Your hair isn't quite dry, a tugging weight for your neck as Steve slides his hand over your warm shoulder. You worry it might never full dry again, not without a helping hand. 

He leads you up the small platform to the piano. 

You look to him inquisitively. 

"It's alright. I asked them if you could try it. Just try not to play too loudly and disrupt the bard." 

"How do you adjust how loud it is?" 

He pushes down on your shoulders until you're sitting on the bench. "You play softly. It's going to be a little loud no matter what. Don't smash the keys." 

"Are they fragile?" you ask worriedly, holding your tensed fingertips above the white and pitch keys. 

"No," he says, laughing without any judgement, "move over, I'll show you." 

He sits on the bench beside you. There's not a whole lot of room, and his arm presses hot to yours. He places his hand above the keys like he knows what he's doing, and presses down. He plays a line of notes, the sounds a plinking rising melody that has you gasping in awe. 

"Don't," —he presses down a huge chunk of keys, and the sound is awful— "do this." 

You look up to see if anybody's glaring. Then you burst into giggles, face pressed to his shoulder on automatic as you try to smother the sound. He laughs warmly near your ear.

You probe curiously at the keys and try to make a song. You don't know how, don't know one note from another, you can't fathom how someone might make this into anything more than the bard's lazy fingerings. 

"Do you know anything?" Steve asks. 

Do you know anything? Mother demands. Darling, I've told you a million times…

"No. Sorry," you say. 

His voice is sincerely sweet, like he's confused you'd ever be sorry, "For what? I can play you something. Choose a song." 

"I only know the one." 

He blinks at you. You shrink into yourself as he averts his gaze, knowing what he's thinking. How useless you are. 

The song starts slowly. Steve taps one key, and then another. It lends and lists into music suddenly, the repetition of a simple melody. He doesn't sing, just speaks the words as he plays. 

"She sends me a flower to hold me," he says, an echo of song in his tone. "She sends me a flower to– night." He moves his hands up to a higher sound. "She loves me too much, so she's told me. But if she loved me, oh loved me, she might… Come to see me, oh sweetheart, come to see me, oh lover, come to see me, oh darling." He smiles at you. "Come to see me to– night." He clears his throat, hand stilling. "You'd sing the bridge again, but I think I'll spare your ears." 

"Is that yours?" you ask him. 

He drops his hand into his lap. "No. Steve Harrington doesn't pen love poems, I'm afraid." 

"Only plays them." 

His smile turns to a smirk, so sticky it's catching. 

"You're not the mouse I'd thought you were," he says.

"Was this realisation before or after I tried to maim you with a cast iron pan?" 

He's about to answer, a spark behind his eyes, when the door opens wide enough to split its hinges. The origin of the hole in the wall is clear, and he waltzes in with a band of men behind him, grinning. 

"Oh, for Stars’ sake," Steve mutters. 

"What?" you ask. 

The man at the front of the group of men — or, as they step into the light and reveal themselves, boys — sets his one un-patched eye on you and Steve, smiles like the devil, and croons, "Stevie!" 

Steve's smile is gone. 

"Eddie," he says tiredly. 

"You're back!" Eddie looks you up and down, and his expression turns to one of complete surprise. "With a wife? My, my, we have been busy." 

Steve stands, and Eddie, in all his darkness, dark hair and eyes and tunic, his grin turns mean. You hide behind one of Steve's thighs, hesitant. He drops his hand against the top of your head. 

"Why's it matter?" Steve asks. 

"It doesn't." This Eddie sounds all too cheerful. "What does matter, I'm afraid, is the debt between us." 

"I don't owe you anything." 

You watch with widened eyes as Eddie unsheathes his sword. The scabbard has a mottling of shiny reds and blacks, and the blade glows silver to white in the light. It's sharp.

Steve pulls a small knife from his hip. You hadn't realised he was carrying a weapon. 

Eddie takes a step forward, his shoes like a thunderclap across the wooden floor. 

"I'm afraid my Sweetheart here doesn't agree." 

˗ˋˏ ☆ ˎˊ˗

eddie isn’t a bad guy he’s just confrontational <3 thank you so much for reading! i hope you enjoyed, and if you did, please consider reblogging i promise it makes a huge difference <3

[etheriaaly]

Just The Two Of Us [C! Tommyinnit x GN! Reader]

FLUFF TO ANGST (PLATONIC)  WARNINGS: Mentions of suicide, suicidal thoughts, character death, cursing

Reader pronouns: They/them 

A/N: Hi, this is my first DSMP fanfic so uhh I hope u enjoy lmao. There might be grammatical errors so pls do not mind it :D

ɴᴀᴠɪɢᴀᴛɪᴏɴ ∣ ᴍᴀꜱᴛᴇʀʟɪꜱᴛ

—

[Y/N] already lost count of all the pranks and chaos they made with Tommy. They didn't like causing havoc or pulling pranks on people but if Tommy asked them to tag along, they would. Tommy is their best friend after all. Plus, where's the fun in life without a little risk?

[Y/N] was just at their Cottage house, peacefully making the potions that Quackity ordered just hours ago. Since [Y/N] is a skilled witch, it was no shock when they owned a Potions business. Everyone in the SMP server knows about this and they usually come and buy their potions. 

They were about to finish the last set of potions that Quackity ordered until they ran out of ingredients. "Dammit." [Y/N] muttered under their breath. They turned around and immediately went to find if they have any stock ingredients in their barrels or chests.

When they saw no stock ingredients, [Y/N] sighed and decided to do some last minute ingredients grinding. It was until they opened the door and saw Tommy standing in front of their house door.

[Y/N] knew that his presence is no good because that motherfucker is grinning ear to ear. They playfully groaned and asked, "What is it this time child?"

"Hey, I told you not to call me a child anymore!" Tommy suddenly protested, feeling insulted but went back to his sly grin and said, "Let's prank Skeppy and Bad." 

"That's a horrible idea." 

"Come on, bitch. It'll be fun." 

And they did come with Tommy. A couple hours had passed and [Y/N] had already forgotten about the ingredients they were gonna get for Quackity's potions. Tommy said that Big Q's order can wait but the prank can't. 

It wasn't long after Bad and Skeppy saw the two teenagers doing their little harmless prank on them. 

[Y/N] caught sight of the two and immediately tugged on Tommy's shirt. "Fuck, Tommy we gotta go." 

Tommy, unfazed and still focused on the prank, said, "Just a little longer." 

[Y/N] nudged Tommy's side using her elbows as the two teenagers can now hear Skeppy and Bad's incoherent yelling drawing closer and closer to them. 

"RUN!" [Y/N] yelled as they both left the things they used to try to prank BBH and Skeppy. 

The two let out a laugh as they ran away. Tommy constantly turned his head back to see if Skeppy and Bad are still after them. 

[Y/N] and Tommy continued to run even though Bad and Skeppy stopped coming after them. It wasn't until the two teenagers finally stopped running so that they could catch their breath. 

"What now?" [Y/N] gasped, who is still out of breath from both running and laughing at the same time. They looked at Tommy. 

Tommy grinned again and then grabbed their arm, "I have something pog to show you." 

[Y/N] didn't question Tommy and just let him drag them to a mountain. 

Once they have reached the destination, [Y/N] let out a 'wow'. The view is breathtaking and it is very peaceful. The mountain isn't that very far from the SMP but it looks like very few have come across this part. 

"So, what do you think?" Tommy asked, looking at the view. The view consists of the calming ocean waves and a peaceful sunsetting with birds passing by. 

[Y/N] turned to Tommy and smiled, "This could be our secret spot." They slowly walked towards the edge of the mountain cliff but were immediately stopped by Tommy. 

"Oh, [Y/N] wait. Be careful, the edge of the cliff looks really faulty." Tommy warned. 

[Y/N] immediately stepped back a little and took note of what Tommy said. But, they were still curious and looked down at the edge of the cliff, only to see the water from below. 

If someone would fall from this cliff and took a heavy impact on the water, that person wouldn't survive due to how high the mountain cliff is. 

[Y/N] then proposed, "You know, when things are stressful and stuff. We can just go here, sit in silence and look at the view as the wind or the waves takes away our problems for a while." 

"Just the two of us." The blonde haired lad said and then they both stood in silence, admiring the view and beauty of the server. 

Oh, if only you could turn back in time and relive this memory. If only things are still the same the way it was before. 

It's been so long since [Y/N] had fun and peace. Probably so many months since Tommy first showed them their secret mountain hangout area. 

[Y/N] currently stood still, gazing at the view that was once calm and peaceful but was now replaced with sounds of flying TNTs, fireworks and screams from the background.

They were in no state of mind as of the moment. They don't even know what to do anymore. A lot has changed ever since the wars, the exilation of Tommy. 

[Y/N] sniffed, wiping their tears using their now mangy sleeves caused by the current chaotic event. They continued to stare at the ocean, a potion of poison glistening in their hands. 

[Y/N] looked at the Potion of Poison that they were holding and pondered whether to drink it or not. 

Maybe it's best to end it once and for all. They don't have anywhere to go anyways. They don't have any friends or family to turn back to since everyone is against them or thought badly of them now. 

[Y/N] can't even go back to L’manberg as well since they're now a wanted criminal for breaking the laws and escaping from their house since they're supposed to be on house arrest for the crimes they didn't even do. 

They opened the cork of the potion, but they didn't drink it yet. They let their mind wander for a while and process everything that has happened. 

Maybe Dream was right. Maybe the people they loved never even cared for them at all. Maybe it was all just a lie. Maybe—

"[Y/N]." A familiar voice that they haven't heard in a while. 

It was windy. The cool breeze of air touched their skins. But along with the wind, there are particles of TNT or fireworks dusts. 

The [H/C] haired person turned around and saw their best friend for the first time in months. 

"Tommy." [Y/N] replied. Their voice were hoarse and dry. "What are you- What are you doing here?" 

"I could ask you the same thing." Tommy glared at them.

[Y/N] quietly groaned, closed their eyes for a while and pinched their nose bridge, still holding the potion on their other hand. "So, you believe all that shit?"

"Enough for me to believe the fact you tried to murder Tubbo, burn my invites and team up with Dream." 

Tommy added, "Maybe they were right about you. You're Dream's sibling after all." 

[Y/N] scoffed and threw their available hand around the air, "He may be my sibling, but we are never alike." 

"Why, [Y/N]? Why did you do it?" Tommy asked, hands gripping tighter on his sword. "Did Dream finally get into your head for you to commit these crimes? Or did you just do it because it's in your blood?" 

"You don't know a thing that happened," [Y/N] harshly spit back, completely trying to avoid the topic of Dream. "Of course you don't. You were exiled."

Tommy never understood why. Why had they turned like this? He felt rage and betrayal. During his exiled time, Tommy thought that they were gonna be that one person who would try to find him. Comfort him or even send him secret coded messages. But no, he received nothing. 

It hurts. Hurts like hell to know your best friend turned their back on everyone. A best friend that he has known for years. A part of him wants to believe they didn't do it but the proofs are enough for him to believe it was really them. 

"Well, you really can't blame me can you? You can only blame yourself," [Y/N] said. "This all started because of you and your stupid discs. All you ever care about is the FUCKING DISCS. Wars started, lives were lost, relationships were destroyed, all just because of those discs." 

They had never done this before. This was their first time just being angry and shouting at each other. Although this might be new to each other, it was obvious that they have been bottling up their emotions way too long. 

"You know what?! Things would be so much better if only you didn't exist." Tommy instantly regretted what he said as soon as he saw a potion glisten from [Y/N]'s hands. 

He may not be an expert but he knew well enough of the potions due to him hanging out too much with them before. "What are you doing?" Tommy immediately asked. "Is that a potion of poison?" 

"Nothing for you to care about." [Y/N] turned back towards the cliff and stared at the view once again. 

"Just the two of us again here, huh?" They said as they pulled the potion towards their mouth, just inches away from the lips now until Tommy hurriedly ran towards [Y/N] and tackled them. 

"What are you, an idiot?!" Tommy scolded as they both fought each other while trying not to fall from the cliff. He tried to pull the potion of poison away but it was hard since they kept gripping on it. 

It wasn't until Tommy was finally able to remove the potion from [Y/N]'s grasps. He threw the potion far away as it got smashed on the ground. 

The two of them were too busy fighting over the potion to notice that one of them is now standing on the faulty edge of the cliff. 

[Y/N] was on the edge of the cliff and accidentally backed away from Tommy, thinking there was still space. A loud shriek came out of their mouth.

Tommy immediately ran towards the edge, scrambled on his feet and looked down. Luckily, [Y/N] was able to hold onto the edge but their hands are shaky and tired from all the things that just happened. 

"I got you, I got you." Tommy frantically muttered, his breath increasing as to not knowing what will happen next. 

[Y/N] grip is slowly failing. Once their hands slipped, Tommy instantly grabbed their hands and tried to pull them back up. But, he too was tired from everything that has been happening. 

He tried to pull them up again but it was no use. Stress was adding up even more the moment they both felt the edge of the cliff shaking once more. 

Tommy can't do it anymore. So, he let out all the tears he's been trying to fight back. 

"It's gonna be okay, Tommy. Let me go." 

The blonde haired teen's eyes widened at [Y/N]'s statement. He can't do it. He can't bear to lose another loved one in his life. 

"I can't lose you too, [N/N]." Tommy croaked. 

The two might've fought just minutes ago but this is now a life and death situation. Problems and angst aside, they still care for each other. 

"You already did." Tommy's eyes widened in confusion and sadness. [Y/N] forced their hand to slip from his as Tommy tried to tighten it even more. [Y/N] had a few energies remaining, so they used it to push themselves off the cliff with their foot, making Tommy let go. 

For Tommy, everything is going so fast that his mind almost stopped working. 

But everything was in slow motion for [Y/N]. The fresh wind was so refreshing, almost making them forget what is currently happening to them. 

They closed their eyes, not wanting to see anymore reactions from Tommy. This is their end. This was meant to be. 

The moment [Y/N] chose to fall out from Tommy's grip, the blonde panicked and set aside all items he had with him. Without thinking properly, he lunged himself off the cliff. The only goal he had in mind was to save [Y/N] before it's too late. 

But he was, indeed, late. 

Everyone's communicator beeped. They all took at least some time to look at what the message could be on the communicator. As soon as everyone read the 2 words, their jaws dropped. 

[Y/N] drowned. 

[glowinggator]

Cuddles - All Turtles

Request: Hi I really like you writes! keep up the good work, I was wondering if you could do a rottmnt cuddle Imagines? If that's fine?

Pairing: All Turtles! (Non-Poly) 

Content: Fluffy as FUCK. Brush your teeth after you read this, cause it’s sweet as hell. 

Raphael: 

He loves to cuddle! But...he’s nervous. He doesn’t want to prick you with one of his spikes, or...worse. With his brothers, it’s different! They’ve got hard shells and plastrons, but you’re so... squishy! What if he hurts you? 

He gets so happy about casual touch. Putting you on his shoulders? Throwing his arm around your shoulders? Affectionate hair ruffle? He’s the physical embodiment of :) 

If you want full cuddles, though, you’re gonna have to be the one to initiate it the first few times. He’s just too nervous, otherwise. 

Rest your head on his plastron when you’re watching a movie and he’ll melt. 

Seeing how your arms maneuver around his spikes to embrace him, how gingerly you hold him...Maybe it’s possible. Maybe you two can cuddle without getting any boo boos.

He can’t really lay on his back because of his spikes. He’ll either get stuck that way when his spikes inevitably get embedded into the material, or he’ll shred up whatever he’s laying on.

(He’s banned from the beanbag chairs.)

He wants to be the little spoon so bad, but it’s physically impossible. He’s forever bound to big spoon duty. He’s okay with that, though. 

(One time you showed up wrapped in mattress foam and bubble wrap to try and be the big spoon. It's a very fond memory, even if you were padded too stiffly to actually hold him.) 

He likes to rest his head in your lap. Run your nails along his head or shell and he’ll be asleep in no time.

He won’t lay on your stomach or chest though. He really wants to, but he’s afraid he’ll crush you. There’s no debate with that topic, unfortunately. 

He’s such a good big spoon!! He’s so strong, and he cradles you like you’re the entire world. Because you are! 

He likes to rest one hand on your stomach and tangle his other hand with yours. It’s so cool to look down and see how his spikes cradle you. Almost as though you were a treasure encased in barbed wire, protected from the outside world. 

You always feel so safe when you cuddle. I mean, it’s hard not to when you’re cocooned in 1000lbs of muscle and spikes!

His hold is firm, but noticeably gentle. 

He runs pretty warm, compared to the rest of the turtles. Great in the winter time, not so great in the summer.  

He traces little doodles on the back of your hand. You can never tell what they are, though. And he won’t tell you what they are, if you ask.  

(They’re dogs.) 

He’s not coldblooded, due to the way he was mutated. As such, he doesn’t really have any issues regulating his body temperature. He does find himself seeking out heat sources, however! Donnie calls it a vestigial response. Raph absolutely does not care about no scientific names or explanations: he just knows that he likes to sit under the heat lamp in the morning.

Prepare to be his next heat lamp. 

If you come over in the mornings, prepare to be greeted with a very sleepy Raph the instant your feet hit the lair concrete.

He’s never on his phone when you cuddle.

He is a talker, though. He doesn’t quite whisper, but he definitely invokes the gentle voice. 

He falls asleep very quickly if he doesn’t keep himself talking. Your presence is just so calming to him, he can’t help it! 

He’s a very deep breather, and it’s really calming to listen to!

Unfortunately, he starts to snore about 15 minutes after he falls asleep. And he’s loud. 

You’ll get used to it, eventually. 

Donatello

He doesn’t sleep consistently, so full cuddle sessions are far and few between.

He read that fake rumor that Albert Einstein only slept for five hours a year: while it’s since been debunked, it’s stuck with him. He started training himself when he was little to power nap instead, and now it’s hard for him to get out of the habit.  

But..you’re a good motivator.

He’s a little nervous around the concept of cuddling, at first. He’s very touch-starved, and once you warm him up to the idea, it’ll be hard to pull him off you! But he’s incredibly nervous about it at first.

It’s...intimate, you know? He’s vulnerable, and that freaks him out.

His shell is super sensitive. Partially because it’s soft, but wearing his battle shell all the time has removed a lot of stimuli that would have made it less sensitive.

He reflexively rolls his shoulders when you run your hands along his exposed shell. At least, for the first few times. If you do it enough, it’ll quickly become a way for him to relax.

Likes to pull you to his chest and hold you like that. He usually has your head under his chin so he can scroll through his phone while you cuddle. He doesn’t move his arms much though, so it’s okay.

(He also likes it when you’re facing him so he can steal glances at you once you fall asleep. He thinks you’re even prettier when you’re completely relaxed.)

You’ll rarely see it for yourself, but his eyes get all soft while you’re cuddling together. The quietest, calmest smile graces his features when you’re in his arms.

However, you do notice how all the tension fades from his body, and how his breathing seems to slow down.

He’ll run his free hand along your back every now and then, pressing a quiet kiss to the top of your head.

He runs fairly cold, which is awesome in the summertime. He always lets you borrow his hoodies when you cuddle. If you ask nicely, he’ll let you keep ‘em, just so long as he has one or two in the closet.

His bed has super soft blankets, and they’re so nice to curl up in. You’ll probably stay there for a little while after he gets up, honestly.

He’s not a talker, surprisingly. Every now and then he’ll pull his arm back to show you some meme on his phone, but that’s about it. He’ll listen to you though! He actually really likes it when you mutter about whatever's on your mind while you cuddle.

King of “Uh huh,” “Wow,” “Mmhm,” and “Damn that’s crazy.”

He really is listening, though. He just likes to tease you a little bit.

His grip is either iron-tight or loose as hell.

On bad days he’ll curl up as the little spoon, and not even the gods could convince him to let go of you.

It takes him a while to warm up to the idea of being a little spoon. Both because his shell is hyper-sensitive, but it also kind of erodes that “bad boy” persona he’s got going on.

Once he’s more comfortable with it, he’s about 50/50 on it. He’s more likely to indulge himself on bad days, but it honestly just depends on his mood.

If you pull him away from work, you can bet that he’ll pull you to his chest while he’s sitting on the bed. He’ll lean forward to rest his chin on your shoulder as he explains his latest breakthrough. He shakes a little bit when he’s excited, and you can feel it as he holds you.  

He panics a little bit when he’s on his back, but he really likes it when you lay on his plastron, so...Chair cuddles!

He likes to have you in his lap while he works.

He also likes to kick his legs up onto your lap when watching TV. If you guys have the couch to yourselves, he’ll also lay all the way on your lap. If anyone sees you guys, or if anyone comments on it he’ll just hit ‘em with a very snarky quip.

“Okay, and? At least I actually have a partner :)”

You don’t know how he said “:)” outloud.

Leonardo 

He thinks he’s so smooth, but honestly? He’s such a dork.

He’s huge on touch. But cuddling? It’s a whole ‘nother ball game. He loves it a lot, but...he’s so vulnerable! It’s so intimate to him. He’s not adverse to it in the slightest; in fact, it’s the exact opposite! He’s super excited when the topic comes up.

You can tell that the idea of fully cuddling affects him more than he lets on, because he won’t stop talking when you bring up the subject for the first time. He rambles when he’s nervous.

(He talks with his hands a lot, and it’s really cute how he rambles and rubs the back of his neck.)

He’s actually a great cuddler, though.

Big spoon? Hell yeah. Little spoon? Awesome. Horrific entanglement of limbs that would put eldritch horrors to shame? Sweet! He’s just happy to be close to you.

He can go 50/50 on having his phone with him. If he does, he’s usually either watching memes with you or playing a mobile game.

(Kind of unrelated, but he was very excited about that weird, Subway Surfers revival that happened earlier this year. It was all he played for a while, and now you have the tune lodged in your brain forever.)

He’ll talk for a little while if he doesn’t have his phone, before you settle into a comfortable silence.

He’s either ranting about something shitty that happened that day, or shitposting. There’s no inbetween.

“If I shot someone from Texas while I was on the moon, would that fall under Texas’ jurisdiction or the moon’s?”

He also likes to trace little patterns on your hands, if he has access to them that day! You can usually tell what they are. Other times, it just seems like he’s finding an excuse to hold your hand. It’s really cute.

(If you ask him what he’s drawing, he’ll say he’s reading your palms before dropping a sweet little line about how he’s in your future.)

(He does NOT know how to read palms but it’s the thought that counts <3)

Not ashamed about cuddling in public. Hell, if you’re fine with it, he’s more than happy to cuddle during movie night. In fact, it’s kind of a source of pride for him!

He looks so cocky about it that Donatello has to make a physical effort to NOT hit him.

Please run your palms over his shell, he’ll melt.

If he’s the big spoon, squeeze his biceps. He might not say it out loud, but he’s melting internally. It sticks in his head for at least a few weeks afterwards. Ego Boost 100

If you’re ticklish, prepare yourself for tickles. He strikes without a pattern, and without warning. He doesn’t always do it, though. Maybe about one in ten times. He just likes to hear you laugh :)

He’s very nice to cuddle with overall. He’s the best cuddler in the lair, hands down.

Michelangelo

Literally the only one in the lair who isn’t embarrassed when you bring up the topic.

He’s been WAITING for this moment, actually.

Doesn’t care about whether he’s the big or little spoon.

He’s super talkative when he cuddles, it’s cute. He usually likes to spend this time talking about one another’s day. He’s a great listener too!

He’s always 100% engaged in what you have to say.

He has trouble settling down outside of his normal schedule, so it’s rare that he’ll fall asleep while cuddling.

If you’re in a position that gives his arms a lot of mobility, he’ll draw on you. Not just tracing patterns, but he’ll actually bring out his markers and draw on your arms, back, or just any exposed piece of skin.

He always manages to find the prettiest colors to compliment your skin tone. You never want to wash it off, honestly.

He HAS to keep himself busy with something, or else he’ll explode. At least, that’s how he describes it. If you try and get him to lay down and fall asleep...well, he’ll try! But he’ll be squirming the whole time.

It’s best to throw on a Jupiter Jim movie if you want him to stay still.

He likes to tangle his legs with yours while you cuddle. Whether he’s taller or shorter than you, he WILL find a way.

He’s the lightest out of all the turtles, so there’s a possibility of letting him (partially) lay on you without shattering your sternum! Congratulations!

(He’s around 525 lbs. He’s only half of what Raph weighs, but he still has to be careful about how he lays on you. It’s crazy to think that you’re so small compared to him.)

His hands are so cold, and he’ll absolutely use that to his advantage. If he gets bored, or if he just wants to make you laugh, he’ll grab your waist with his cold fucking hands. Hope you’re a northerner <3

He also likes to tickle you, way more than Leo.

Don’t try and tickle him though, he HATES it. He’s absolutely the type of person to just Scream if you try.

Like I said, he gets bored really quickly. He also just likes to make you laugh.

If you’re cuddling in bed though, like right before he falls asleep? It’s so nice.

He’ll still tangle his legs with yours, but he moves so much slower. He loves to let his hands lazily roam across your form as he pulls you closer to him, savoring the comfort and heat that you bring. If he talks, it’s in drowsy whispers that only you two can hear.

[alreadyblondenow]

Heaven knows

▸ Jung Jaehyun x reader ▸ 2k words ▸ Fluff, Smut, Angst ▸ angel reader, demon jaehyun, loss of virginity 

From when you were only just a small angel, your senior angels told you to never trust a demon or anything that came from hell. The instructions were simple, avoid them at all costs.

Now that you’re all grown up, you’re finally allowed to guard and guide humans that in need of your presence. And as you do your job, of course, demons will always and always distract you. Demons are always awfully handsome, it’s part of their ways to distract humans and even angels like you. Growing up, there’s this one consistent demon who’s always following you from when you were just starting to be a guardian and up until now that you’re a senior angel.

Jung Jaehyun. A handsome demon who’s always by your side, annoying from sun up until sundown.

“Hey” he called you while you were putting a child to sleep, making the little girl calm because she was afraid of the dark. You ignore the demon and continue making the little girl calm. “I just wanted to say you’re beautiful” he whines. The demon is not just annoying because he wants to, he was bold about his feelings for you ever since you two hit puberty and the demon fell for your angelic features.

“Thank you” you replied coldly and spread your wings, ready to leave the sleeping child.

“Wow. That’s the third time you talked to me… So that’s the secret huh, I have to be good so I can win you” he smirked and blocked your way, looking at him sternly and flapping your wings so hard so he will be blown away. He loves it when you do that. You fly up back to heaven only to see the demon still following you in front of the huge gate. This is as far as he can follow you. Every night he watches you go inside those pearly gates and go back the next morning to watch you step out and start annoying you again.

This day, he brought you flowers. It was kind of him, to be honest, but you can’t take it. So you admired his kindness inside you and imagined yourself taking the flowers with a smile. You walked past him and went on to your day guiding people in need and avoiding the oh so talkative demon. And once again, he followed you back to the gates of heaven, smiling at you while he watches you go home safely.

After that day, he started doing kind gestures that moved you. Sometimes when you’re hands are all full and you’re not done helping someone, he will do the next job for you. Helping a human in the best way he can just to impress you. Day after day he’s becoming even sweeter and his sweet words are slowly becoming hard to ignore that you start smiling in front of him. Lying to yourself that you don't have even a small amount of crush on the demon won't work. But still, you kept your mouth shut and again, only thanked him inside your head and ignored him.

“Thank you. But really you should stop doing this or we will get into trouble” you said, taking the flowers from the demon whose smile is from ear to ear because you finally accepted something from him. Oh, you’re in big trouble.

“Tomorrow is my birthday and it will really make me happy if you spend the day with me without giving me cold shoulders” he requests with hopeful eyes.

Well, he has been nice lately and he’s been doing some good deeds. You don’t see any reason to be harsh on him during his birthday. “Just this one day and promise me you will stop this,” you said, pointing a finger and offering your hand to make it an unbreakable deal. Something angels do to keep their promises. He scratched his head, hesitating to shake hands with you. “I’m a demon, breaking promises is my thing. I don’t want to disappoint you because for sure I won’t leave you after tomorrow.” And again you admired his honesty, “fine, I’ll see you tomorrow then. Uh… advance happy birthday” you turned your back and entered the gate.

Jaehyun’s birthday is what human’s called heart’s day and couples are out and about dating. While you two walk on earth, invisible in the eyes of the humans, you and Jaehyun had a great time laughing and talking about random stuff like everything is fine. Surprisingly, he’s a great company, funny but too bold sometimes that you needed to warn him and he’s happy to comply.

It’s his birthday but you’re the one who’s getting gifts from him, stealing flowers and a box of chocolates just to make you feel loved and admired. “Those are stolen, I can’t accept those” you giggle and watch him open the box of chocolates, gave you a piece which you accepted with a smile. You two were watching the sun go down at the beachside, feeling the sand on your toes.

“I don’t want this day to end. Tomorrow you’ll hate me again and-“

“You’re wrong I don’t hate you but there are rules that we need to follow. And to be honest, me too. I don’t want to end this day yet. I don’t know how to face you tomorrow with my cold stares.”

There was comfortable silence as you two watch the sunset and watch the sky from orange to blue. It’s time to go home. You greet him a happy birthday again and told him to be happy. As you were about to fly away, he stopped you. Grabbing your wrist which made you face him.

And just like that, your lips touched.

The betrayal was not in his plans for today. Jaehyun just couldn’t stop himself. Nervous about what he did, he will completely understand if you fly out and leave him. But you didn’t. Slowly you covered your bodies with your wings and protected him from the eyes watching from above. “I hope this works,” you said, and returned the kiss.

You were planning to give him a smack on the lips but he became selfish and asked for more which you gave in wholeheartedly. You feel the demon’s hot tongue in your mouth, biting your lips, and hear him moan lustfully. When the kiss is over he caressed your face, said beautiful words that made your heart flutter, and completely fall for him.

"I promise to be good every day if that means winning you and letting me love you. Just say yes my love" he begs and grabs your hand. "I will make you feel loved every day, make you happy every second"

You giggle and watch him kiss your hand over and over again, "I thought you don't do promises?"

"Mhmm. But I also don't want to see you broken and disappointed so I wouldn't dare hurt you. Watch me keep this promise and prove to my love for you"

And that’s it. That’s the start of your rebellion against your kind. You and Jaehyun loved each other fiercely and hid your forbidden love for months. Spending time with each other every day and forgetting your duties as an angel. Being with Jaehyun means you’re giving up your purity in exchange for pleasure and happiness. How can being happy with the man you love became a sin? How can your kind forbid something so great and one of a kind? Choosing to love Jaehyun is the most wonderful thing you did for yourself. And as days go by, the demon became more and more in love with you that he can't help but get mad whenever other demons look at your perfection.

“Are you sure you want to do it tonight? The gates will soon close, I don’t want you to get into trouble” you two were on a thick cloud, kissing each other passionately under the stars. You remove your dress to answer his question, leaving you with only your damped underwear. He smiled and proceeds to kiss your neck, you feel your head dip in the thick cloud feeling Jaehyun’s wet kisses, legs shivering by how he teases your wet slit.

“Oh do that again?” you request.

“What? This?” he put his finger inside your damped underwear and it made you moan and close your eyes. “You love that, huh” he continued to finger you slowly, removed your panties, and spreading your legs wider so you could have the full experience of the pleasure.

“You don’t know how beautiful you are right now, I’m so lucky to have you” he smacked your ass and made you jolt. You don’t know when did he removed his clothes but he looked ethereal without a single fabric covering him. He guides your hand around his beautiful body and taught you how to pump his hardening cock. He went in between your legs and kissed you passionately again, pinching your nipples whenever he pleases, praising you with dirty words that sounded so good when it came from Jaehyun's mouth.

His lips, his hands, and his sweet words. The holy trinity that makes you jump headfirst to pleasure.

"Say, 'fuck me please'" he commands.

“Fuck me please” you moaned. The demon smiled and nod his head, intertwining his fingers with yours before he pushes in. He knew you're a virgin that's why he's being gentle as possible. He was thick and the stretch really hurt you that you have tears in your eyes already. But when he finally rolls his hips deliciously, you asked for more. Kissing Jaehyun's lips over and over again asking him so nicely to don't stop.    

“Jaehyun, harder” the demon granted your request. Giving you a hard and piercing thrust that drags your skin on the cloud your head is already dangling at the edge of it. “Don’t worry you won't fall” his pace was quick and the sound of skin slapping was so sinful but you don’t care anymore. You spread your legs wider and wrapped your arms around the man you love, look deep in his eyes as he fucks you hard. “not yet” he felt you clenched and you went quiet because you felt something ball in your lower abdomen. You moan his name, and you feel his finger drawing circles on your clit.

“That’s too much”

“And you love it, right?” admitting that he’s right. You cum in less than a minute and feel your legs shiver. You call out his name over and over again but he was busy catching his own sweet release. And when he finally did, you feel hot liquid inside you and your body was so sensitive that even a small touch from Jaehyun makes you whine.

“I was supposed to pull out but your legs are wrapped around me so tight baby, I’m sorry” he kissed you sweetly and helped you calm down. Hugging you tightly so you can feel his warmth. He watches you smile while your eyes are closed, his heart still beats so fast whenever he sees you smile. “Are you going to sleep?” he tickles you which made your eyes open, “you okay?” he added.

“Yes. I’m fine. I just feel weak, I can’t feel my legs” you hugged him tightly.

“Hmm. You’re going to be fine. You did great” he kissed your forehead and kept you close, “I love you so much, never leave me okay?" you nod your head yes and whispered, "I love you too so much, Jaehyun. You're the only man that I will love don't you worry"

Losing your virginity was something you will never regret doing especially when it’s Jaehyun who took it. After having sex, he flew up with you and watched you enter safely. Little did he know that’s the last time he will see you.

On the next day, Jaehyun went up with flowers in his hand and wore the sweetest smile. He waited outside the gates with his fellow demons and watch them leave one by one as they go and annoy their chosen angels. But you never came out. Why? Are you okay?

The same thing happened for days. Then days turned into weeks, then weeks turned to months. Until he reached a decade. Jaehyun was heartbroken each day that passes and even though he knew you will not appear again in that huge gate, he still waits everyday.

He wondered around the human world, following the people whom you usually guide and hope that he could see you. But he never did.

Until one day, he saw you standing in front of the church. Without your wings. Your iris aren’t glowing anymore and your halo is gone. “What have they done to you?” he then realized that heaven must have known about your relationship and punished you by making you human.

You fix your wedding gown and you ready yourself to walk down the aisle. You put on a smile in front of the demon that you can’t see and walked through him. Slowly, you walk inside the church while Jaehyun is screaming his lungs out, crying begging you to stop walking, and from entering the church. He can’t go inside of course. And watching you marry someone in front of his eyes was his punishment.

↩︎ prev next ▶︎

[ramen-rambles]

Bottom Bitch

Kinktober Day 1: Sex Toys

Pairing: Oikawa Tooru x Reader

Warnings: 18+, tw: drugs, weed/marijuana, sex toys (double edged dildo, vibrator), scissoring, anal, rimming, spit play

Word Count: 3.2K

Summary: Quarantine fucking sucks. And unfortunately, your boyfriend’s birthday just so happened to be in right in the middle of this pandemic. With the end of the world seemingly drawing near, you suggest to do something you two have never done before. Who knew that Oikawa would turn into such a needy bitch when he was high? 

A/N: Ahahahaha I’m sorry I haven’t written anything since February LOL. And also, I’m sorry for randomly disappearing for literal months. Uh, please accept this as an apology… I feel like I’ve been a little rusty but I hope you guys enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Happy Kinktober! 

♡ ⌒*ﾟ.❉・゜・。. ♡ ⌒*ﾟ.❉・゜・。. ♡ ⌒*ﾟ.❉・゜・。.

Today was July 20th! Which means that it was Oikawa’s birthday. 

Every year, you and your boyfriend usually did what every couple did to celebrate. A cute date, a nice dinner, a rough fucking — you know, the works. But this year you two ran into a bit of a problem. Unfortunately, due to the mandated self quarantine orders, you couldn’t really do that. But you still wanted to make the most of the situation. 

Just before all the non-essential shops temporarily closed, you were able to make a stop at your local dispensary. You figured that since it seemed like the end of the world was drawing ever near, why not indulge yourselves in some of mother nature’s best gifts? 

The hardest part of this whole thing wasn’t even the fact that you were stuck inside for Oikawa’s special day, no, the hard part was going to be convincing him to get high with you. He knew that you smoked. For fuck’s sake, all of his friends did too. During your high school days, the Seijoh third years were notorious for blazing it up (Matsukawa and Hanamaki, especially). Even as adults, there were times when you would all find some free time just to have a relaxing smoke sesh and catch up on each other’s lives. As they say, old habits die hard. 

So, you wanting to get stoned was no surprise to him. He, on the other hand, was not an avid participant. 

Currently, the two of you were laying down in bed, watching whatever was on television, not that you two were really paying attention. Your mind was more occupied on how exactly you were supposed to bring up this little idea of yours. Getting Oikawa to agree to anything was hard enough as it is, let alone something that seemed so out of his comfort zone. 

“Hey, happy birthday again, Shittykawa. I love you so much, you know that?” You said, looking at him lovingly and nudging him on his side, placing a sweet kiss on his lips. 

“Who are you, Iwa-chan?” He scoffed. “But I love you too, baby. And you know you’ve greeted me almost a million times today, right?”, eagerly returning your gesture.

“I can’t help it! I’m sorry that our usual birthday plans got ruined because of this stupid quarantine. I wish I could make it up to you.” You pouted, looking up at him with pleading eyes. 

“I have a couple of ideas that would more than make up for it,” he teased, grabbing your ass before giving it a loud smack, “but have you got anything in mind, princess?” 

“I actually have something in mind that I really wanted to do with you…” 

“Oh? And what could that be? You going to let me eat that cake of yours?” He said, sitting up on his elbow, with a shit-eating smirk plastered all over that pretty face of his. 

“Well… I was actually hoping that we could get high today… You know, since it seems like the world is ending and all.” You said, nervously scratching the back of your head. “I thought it would be fun to celebrate your birthday in a way we’ve never done before!” 

You sounded doubtful. You had a feeling that he was going to refuse, but his answer came as a surprise. 

“Okay, deal.” 

Did you hear that right? Did he just agree with you? Did your stubborn boyfriend say yes, with absolutely no hesitation?

“R-really!? Wow, I didn’t expect you to be so on board with it! I thought I was going to have to convince you way more.” You cheered, hands wrapping him in a tight embrace. 

“Whatever, it’s not like we can go anywhere anyways. Might as well go wild!” He said with a smug smirk on his face. 

You excitedly hopped off the bed and ran towards your closet, grabbing the goodies you bought. You had bought quite a few products — some edibles, a couple prerolls, and a brand new wax pen. 

“Jesus christ, how much shit did you buy? You must have spent a fortune.”

“Money is no object when it comes to you, Tooru. Also, you don’t really do this kind of thing, so I just wanted us to have some options. In all honesty, I didn’t even think you’d say yes to doing this.” 

“Well, let’s get this party started, princess.” 

You smiled eagerly and laid out all the products in front of him, “So, what do you want to try first? Birthday boy gets to choose.” 

He immediately went for the wax pen, taking a long drag and inhaling the smoke, making sure to keep it in his lungs for a bit before grabbing the back of your head, and forcing your lips to part open before he exhales the smoke into your mouth, as if he was an expert at it. For someone who didn’t do this often, he sure as hell didn’t look like it. 

“Someone seems a bit excited, huh?” You teased, before crashing your lips together in a heated spit swapping session. 

You made your way on top of him, mouth never leaving his, running out of breath as he starts sucking on your tongue, drool spilling out the side of your mouth as it dribbles down onto his face. 

“Fuck. You nasty bitch, you just spit all over my fucking face.” 

“Oh, shut up,” you breathed, “you act like you practically weren’t drinking out of my mouth just a second ago.” 

The both of you consistently took turns taking hits off the pen. Inhaling and exhaling the delicious smoke as if your lives depended on it.  

The two of you started feeling the effects of the drugs get to your head. Lightheaded. Spinning. Intoxicating. But it wasn’t enough. You wanted to feel more. No, you needed to feel more.

You went for the edible and shoved the cookie into your mouth, leaving half of it hanging out. You fed Oikawa the rest of it. He took it willingly, watching a shiver go down his spine as he shuddered from the bitter taste go down his throat when he swallowed. “That tastes like shit. How the fuck do you eat this crap so often?” You let out a small giggle, admiring how cute his inexperience was. “Oh calm down, it shouldn’t take long for you to start feeling it kick in.” 

“So, c’mon birthday boy, let me take care of you.” 

You started kissing over his jawline, licking and letting your teeth bite down on the soft skin of his neck. You nuzzled your face closer, leaving marks and bruises painted all over him.

You continued straddling his waist, your clothed cunt rubbing ever so slowly against his growing erection. Teasing, dragging out the sensation of his cock throbbing over your slit, feeling yourself get more and more drenched with desire. “Are you doing okay, Tooru?” 

“I feel so fucking good. You make me feel so fucking good.” Hearing him sound so desperate and needy caused your cunt to clench. “F-fuck, can you suck my cock, princess? Can you do that for me, please?” You had never really seen this side of him before, but the tables were turning and you were more than willing to give him what he wanted. 

You pulled his shirt up, making your way down his torso, licking and kissing all over his toned abs, sucking on his sensitive little nipples. You slipped your hands under the waistband of his underwear, stroking his hardened cock. You quickly rid him of all his remaining clothes. You followed suit. Now, with the both of you completely naked, the fun was just about to start. 

Gently, you licked a stripe along his head paying close attention to the prominent veins that adorned his massive length. His cock was already dripping, the head beading with his precum. Spitting on your palm, you languidly stroked him, watching his toes curl and a small moan slip out of his mouth. You looked up at him and his eyes were screwed shut, he used his free hand to find purchase on the back of your head. Fisiting your hair, he moved it to the side to make sure he got a good look at how well you sucked his cock. He pushed you further down his length, causing you to gag as he hit the back of your throat. 

You could tell he was close, but just before he could finish, you pulled away. “Shit. Fuck. W-why’d you stop?” 

Aw. He sounded so disheartened. 

“Get on your hands and knees, baby. I want to try something new.” You said with a devilish grin on your face. He looked hesitant at first but his head was spinning so much that he just did it with no resistance. 

You roughly pulled his ass up in the air, your small hands spreading his cheeks apart, exposing his tight, puckered asshole. You let your spit pool in your mouth, teasingly letting it string in between your lips before allowing it to drip over his ass. You circled the pad of your tongue around his rim, prodding it slowly in and out of his tightness. Continuing your assault, you sneaked your hand in between his thighs, stroking his cock every time you pressed inside of him. Oikawa’s hands were fisted into the sheets and his face looked hot to the touch, a red tint glazing all over his body. 

You bit down on your bottom lip, and rubbed your thighs together at the ideas that were brewing in your mind. You reached underneath your bed and grabbed your box full of sex toys, pulling out lube, two vibrators and a thick, purple, double edged dildo. The look of Oikawa getting off to having his ass ate made your cunt pulsate with lust, and so the mere thought of him having him stuffed with a toy had your head fucking spinning. You wanted nothing more than to make a wreck out of his pretty little ass. 

Oikawa was still face down on the bed. His mouth was hanging open, panting heavily as he tried to control his breathing. He was so blissed out, his head seemed to be somewhere in the clouds. 

“Tooru, hey, are you okay? Lie down for me.” You squished his face in between your fingers to get his attention. When he finally turned to you, you could tell he was high beyond belief. “Mhm. Just feeling weird. It feels like the room is both spinning and still at the same time.” He huffed, moving onto his back, resting against the soft satin sheets. You giggled at how he turned into such a needy little boy, practically begging to be fucked into absolute senselessness. 

“Look at me, baby.” You brought one end of the dildo up to your mouth, slowly sucking it off as if it was Oikawa’s cock fucking your mouth instead. He could feel his dick twitch at the sight in front of him, his asshole involuntary clenching thinking about how it might feel to have it inside him. Inching closer to him, you held the dildo in between the two of you and guided the other end of the toy up to his lips. Parting them slowly, he began copying the same movements that you were doing on the other side. Pulling away momentarily, “Shit. You look so fucking hot when you suck cock, baby” you say, letting your free hand roam down to his hardened nipples, pinching and tweaking them, illiciting small moans to escape his lips while he choked on the toy in his mouth. 

“As much as I love seeing you suck on that pretty toy, I know a place to put it that’ll make you feel real fucking good.” Taking the dildo out of his mouth, you slide yourself down towards his lower half, spreading his thighs apart to see his hole that glistened with your spit, and his cock that oozed precum. You pressed wet kisses along his length, tongue stroking his balls, allowing yourself to slither over his perineum, causing him to writhe underneath your touch. You brought your fingers up to his mouth, collecting saliva around your digits before gently pressing them against his tight hole, slowly inching them deeper and deeper inside of him. 

He winced at the intrusion, making his face contort in pain. But surely, that burning sensation of you prodding your slim fingers inside his tight hole began morphing into a euphoric pleasure. He let out a small moan, bringing his fingers up to his lips and biting down on them to suppress the noises that were coming out of his mouth. You paused what you were doing to him to look up and whispered “Aw, c’mon baby, don’t be like that. I want to hear all those pretty noises you’re making while you act like such a little whore.” 

“So be louder for me, sweetheart” you snickered sinisterly as you continued your ministrations on his overly sensitive hole. 

If you weren’t high earlier, then you definitely were now. The effects of the marijuana elevating your sense of reality as the two of you drift into a state of pure fucking bliss. 

You started feeling more impatient, more needy. You needed to get off and you need it now. And Oikawa felt just the same. The look on his face was confirmation of that. Panting heavily, drool escaping the side of his mouth, and wet tears decorating his red cheeks — he looked like he was about to cum without even trying. 

With no delay, you grabbed the dildo and the lube from the side of the bed and began to slather the cold fluid over both ends of the toy. You positioned yourself in front of him, placing one end up to his tight rim while you lined the other side against your dripping wet pussy. You hadn’t even realized how wet you had become because you were so focused on Oikawa — you didn’t notice that your cunt was practically leaking all over you. 

“Haaah. Look at you, baby. Your pussy is begging to be stuffed. So wet for me. So fucking b-beautiful.” Oikawa shuddered, his speech slurred as he was still utterly fucked out because of your incessant teasing from earlier. His words caused your cunt to clench, your eyes closed as you shakingly breathed out, “Please, T-tooru…” 

You started to ease the toy inside of Oikawa — slowly but steadily sliding the thick purple dildo into his stretched out hole. He flinched as you finally got half of the toy into his ass, letting out a sinful moan as the head involuntarily hit against his prostate. “Ah, f-fuck! That felt so fucking good. Baby, please…” 

His eagerness sparked a flame within you, and so you hurried to shove the rest of the toy inside of your own hole. You let out a sigh of relief as your pussy was finally getting some much needed attention, after being neglected for so long as you focused on pleasing your boyfriend. 

You started to move slowly, rocking back and forth against each other as the two of you got used to the sheer size of the toy that connected the both of you. To help ease the pain, you grabbed one of the vibrators, held it up to Oikawa and said, “Here you go, baby. Put it against your cock and show me how you make yourself feel good.” 

He took the vibrator from your hand and followed your instructions like a good boy, letting out a loud whimper as the strong vibrations on his cock made his head spin. As he let his sense of control run loose, he started rutting faster against you as you placed your own vibrator on your sensitive clit. This caused the toy to simultaneously hit your g-spot and Oikawa’s prostate, and so the two of you both let out a loud moan together. 

“F-FUCK! Tooru — shit. That feels so fucking good! Go faster, I need it so bad. C’mon baby, please, I need you to make me cum!” You panted, circling the vibrator faster against your clit, bringing you closer and closer to the orgasm that you craved so much. 

“Oh fuuuuck, princess.” Oikawa moaned, his eyes rolling to the back of his head as he ditched the vibrator and tightly wrapped his hand around himself so he could fist-fuck his weeping cock. 

A collective string of “shit” and “oh fuck” escaping your mouths as the two of you rutted against each other faster and faster, the dildo pounding in and out of your tight holes — each thrust causing the tip of the toy to slam against both of your sweet spots at the same time.

“Fuuuuuuck. Fuck. Fuck. FUCK!” Oikawa groaned as he stroked his cock one final time before he came hard all over himself, his chest painted white as his cum came out in hot spurts.

Seeing your boyfriend’s blissed out face was the final push you needed to set yourself over the edge. Your cunt clenched down on the toy as you came with a loud whine, your juices squirting out of your glistening pussy — making a slick mess all over your thighs and on Oikawa’s lower half. 

You were so spent that the whole world felt still, the both of you trying to catch your breath and recover from one of the most intense orgasms you two had ever had. 

As you came down from your highs, you slowly pulled the dildo out of your abused cunt and Oikawa’s gaped asshole, lazily leaving the toys on a mess of sheets. 

With what little ounce of strength you had left, you got on your knees and crawled up next to your boyfriend. After grabbing a tissue and gently cleaning up the mess you two had made together, you placed gentle kisses along his shoulders and collarbone, wrapping yourself up in his embrace. 

Now, whether it was the drugs or the intensity of his orgasm, Oikawa looked like he was about to pass out. And honestly, you felt like you were about to knock out too. Not that you could really blame him. 

“Hey, wake up, sleepyhead.” You whispered quietly, gently poking Oikawa on the cheek to nudge him awake. You might have been used to handling your high, but Oikawa was still inexperienced when it came to these kinds of things.

“Did you have a good birthday this year?” You asked him, as if you didn’t already know what he was going to say.

“Hi, baby~ Of course I did! I feel so goooood right now! Best birthday everrrr!” He said sheepishly, a tiny grin spreading across his face as he let out a breathy chuckle. 

You decided not to question him anymore, knowing he was too far gone to answer anything coherently. 

“I love you so much, Tooru. Happy birthday.” You whispered to him before the two of you began dozing off into dreamland. 

♡ ⌒*ﾟ.❉・゜・。. ♡ ⌒*ﾟ.❉・゜・。. ♡ ⌒*ﾟ.❉・゜・。.

[whomst-art-thou-whomst-whomst]

Texts from the Lost Tomb part 6.1

🎶 Back on the bullshit I never got off🎶

Is this another unnecessary story arc?? With three sections??

Yes.

Wushanju Crew Chat

Wang Meng: You know, I’m someone who appreciates consistency in my day. My life is pleasant, very few issues indeed if you ignore the big ones. And yet. Yet here we are. With unresolved messes at the end of a day.

Wang Pangzi: SOMETHIN YOU NEED TO SAY MARY POPPINS

Wang Meng: We need to talk about Huo Daofu and the glittery bead curtain.

Wang Pangzi: MY FAVE TEEN WIZARD SERIES

Wu Xie: did you turn on that suggested word thingy lol

What glittery bead curtain

Wang Meng: I closed the shop at 6:00pm this evening on the dot. I locked all of the doors in and out of the shop very carefully, especially in light of recent events. The hall leading to the back office was empty. I filed the day’s paperwork, updated and sent emails, and then spent an extra hour organizing receipts and dusting. When I came back out, there were glittery iridescent bead curtains over the front entrance to the shop.

What could this mean?

Wu Xie: uh that you need to spend less time at work?

Wang Pangzi: LOOKS LIKE WE GOT ONE FOR THE DETECTIVES. THE MYSTERY OF THE BEDAZZLED THRESHOLD COMMENCES

Wu Xie: I think we can be relatively secure in thinking a glittery bead curtain isn’t a hostile threat

Wang Pangzi: SAYS YOU

I REMEMBER YE OLDE EXPLORATION TIMES HOW FAST THINGS GOT FURIOUS

BEANBAG CHAIRS SET AFLAME AND LEFT ON DOORSTEPS AS A WARNING

GLITTERBOMBS FOR DAYS

PANIC AT THE DISCO

Wang Meng: Ugh, forget it. I should have just taken them down, regardless of who they belong to.

Zhang Qiling: They are not mine.

Wang Pangzi: A BOLD STATEMENT COMING FROM OUR PRIME SUSPECT

SOMEONE QUICK GO DRAW CHALK AROUND THE DOORWAY TO MARK THE SCENE OF THE CRIME

Wang Meng: Do we know anyone who *would* sneak in and put those up? For whatever reason, legal or not? Even as a joke?

Wang Pangzi: ARE YOU SERIOUSLY ASKING WHETHER WE KNOW ANYONE WHO IS CHAOTIC, AN OUTLAW, A PRANKSTER AND/OR SNEAKS INTO PLACES

BECAUSE THAT WOULD MEAN OUR SUSPECT LIST IS LITERALLY EVERYONE WE KNOW EXCEPT FOR YOU.

Wu Xie: okay let’s think about this; for starters, I didn’t break into my own shop

Wang Meng: You would be in danger of doing some work in the process, that’s true.

Wang Pangzi: LOL

Wu Xie: ANYWAY let’s keep going. For example, Xiao Ge would only break in somewhere for a good reason. Xiao Ge, did you do this?

Zhang Qiling: No.

Wu Xie: okay who’s next

Wang Pangzi: YOU REALLY MISSED YOUR CALLING IN INTERROGATION TIANZHEN

REALLY PUT THE SCREWS TO HIM

IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE;)

Zhang Qiling: How can we be certain *you* didn’t do it?

Wang Meng: Admittedly that was my guess, too.

Wang Pangzi: WOW I SEE HOW IT IS

BLAME PANGZI AS USUAL

ANYWAY HOW DOES HUO DAOFU FIT INTO THIS

Wu Xie: Oh yeah him! Oops I got distracted

Wang Pangzi: UR ENTIRE HISTORY IN A NUTSHELL

Wu Xie: Ugh fuck off

Wang Meng what abt Huo Daofu??

Zhang Qiling: ?

Wu Xie: oh sorry xiaoge I didn’t realize you wouldn’t have spent much time around him last year

He and I go way back

Zhang Qiling: Way back where?

Babysitters Club Chat

Wang Pangzi: I CANNOT BELIEVE HE IS BUYING YOUR INNOCENT ACT

IF YOU EVER TURN TO EVIL WE ARE FUCKED

Zhang Qiling: ?

Wang Pangzi: YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHO HUO DAOFU IS

YOU WERE EXTREMELY POLITE AND BORDERLINE FRIENDLY TOWARDS HIM

Zhang Qiling: I wanted him to feel welcome. I wanted to be sure he understands he has a place here. A specific place.

Wang Pangzi: FOR A SILENT GUY YOU ARE A MASTER AT SUBTLE POWER PLAYS IM ALL TINGLY

LMAO THE IDEA OF WU XIE LEAVING YOU FOR HUO DAOFU IS HILARIOUS AND ALSO NOPE

Zhang Qiling: Rationally, I understand that.

Main Chat

Wang Meng: Huo Daofu is coming for the weekend—didn’t Wu Xie tell you? Wu Xie asked me to check in a week ahead so we could start getting ready for his arrival

Wu Xie: oh yeah I did do that

Wang Meng: Fortunately I know you and so I already went ahead and took care of everything.

Re: the trip

He made a deal with Wu Xie’s doctor that he would do periodic checkups on him here at Wushanju

Bc Wu Xie hates being in the hospital

And frankly the hospital hates him too

Wang Pangzi: FAMILIARITY BREEDS CONTEMPT LOL

I FORGOT HUO DAOFU WAS DOING THAT

A VERY CHIVALROUS GESTURE

WOULDNT YOU SAY

XIOAGE

Zhang Qiling: Is it safe for him to be here with a criminal loose on the premises?

Wu Xie: Right, back to the curtain! Let’s focus on the curtain, hmm?

Wang Pangzi: I AM SO LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS WEEKEND.

ALSO WE CAN RULE OUT XIAO BAI FOR THE CURTAIN SHE JUST SENT A SELFIE FROM NORWAY COVERED IN GREEN SLIME WITH ZERO CONTEXT, UR PROTEGE INDEED

Wu Xie: okay but who else would do something so oddly charming yet illegal and—wait.

Snake Eyes Chat

Wu Xie: hey, Glasses hasn’t been in touch lately right?

Li Cu: uh nope

Unless u count the outdated memes

Why, is money or Xie Yuchen missing

Or is this curtain related, I saw Wang Meng’s tweet

Wu Xie: haha no nothing to worry about really

(I mean maybe? but who knows)

Wang Meng is probably just getting a little paranoid in his old age

Li Cu: better than getting reckless and stupid as hell in ur old age

Wu Xie: …hey:(

Unknown Number: Li Cu, we discussed this.

Wu Xie: ????????

Li Cu: *sigh* fine, reckless and stupid as heck

Unknown Number: …close enough.

Wu Xie: EXCUSE who is that

Madame, Sir, Non-Binary Tree Spirit, etc—whomst the fuck

Are you

Li Cu is underage FYI

So Im staying on this chat

Li Cu: okay first of all, it’s not like that

Second of all I’m literally not underage I s2g

u threw the embarrassing surprise bday party, okay so u should remember

And C, that’s my counselor and I invited her. She wanted to meet u and I knew u wouldn’t agree to a visit so I added her to our chat

we have been discussing u

Wu Xie: Oh wow!!!!!!!

What a surprise:)

hi so nice to meet you:)

Main Chat:

Wu Xie: RED FUCKING ALERT

FUCK THE CURTAIN FUCK THE VISIT

IVE BEEN TRICKED INTO FAMILY THERAPY BY A SMUG TEENAGER WHO TEXTS UNKNOWN NUMBERS

Wang Meng: I assume that means something to someone here?

Not my problem? Good.

Wang Pangzi: AHAHAHA GOD I LOVE LI CU

HES LIKE ADORABLE KARMA FOR ALL THE SHIT YOUVE PUT ME THROUGH

IM RAISING HIS ALLOWANCE

Wu Xie: wait i give him an allowance

has he been collecting on two allowances??

Zhang Qiling: Three. I knew about both of yours.

Snake Eyes Chat

Wu Xie: so uh may I ask your name?

Unknown Number: you can call me Ms. Lee.

Now, if you’re comfortable talking in this format, why don’t you tell me how things have been going?

Wu Xie: oh everything is normal and fine and safe as usual, why do you ask:)

Li Cu: I heard about ur necklace thing. nice of you to NOT mention it.

another dangerous adventure. again. prick.

Ur lucky your cool boyfriend cares about you so much or you’d have already died like ten years ago

Wu Xie: lol try twenty years ago

Li Cu: That isn’t funny.

Unknown Number: …What?

Wu Xie: shit ur right, okay that was a bit glib, my apologies.

…I use humor as a coping mechanism?

Unknown Number: and Li Cu, how do you feel about that?

Li Cu: he doesn’t even know what that phrase means

He doesn’t cope, like ever

In fact

It’s kind of why we met

Which is a funny story in retrospect tbh

Wu Xie: haha what are you talking about sweetie hahaha need I remind you of certain anecdotes that could idk send me to jail maybe lmao

Unknown Number: …You know, perhaps an in-person meeting might be more effective?

Wu Xie: haha such a nice idea but why

Main Chat

Wu Xie: If I go to jail, I’ll have to create alliances for protection, right, that’s how it works on tv

Who do we know who spends time in jail

Other than Hei Yangjing, he’s only ever there for like 12 hours and i suspect he just gets himself arrested bc he enjoys the breaking out process

Also how’s the curtain case coming along

Zhang Qiling: Has someone threatened you?

Wu Xie: well not yet but soon I’m sure

Wang Pangzi: WHERE WAS THIS PARANOIA WHEN WE GOT TAKEN TO THE TEA HOUSE HUH

Snake Eyes Minus Your Fucking Therapist Chat

Li Cu: okay how tf did u pull off spy and undercover shit

u are sus as hell

Wu Xie: damn son is it pick on Wu Xie night

I missed the flyers or I would’ve invited my uncles

Also re: the curtain it’s been mostly solved

Li Cu: I’m not your son, idiot.

Wu Xie: …oh. Sorry, sorry, you’re right, bad choice of words, haha

Forget i said anything

Delete this chat even

Li Cu: shit I meant

Legally, biologically, I meant—

shit

…I turn into an asshole as a coping mechanism?

Wu Xie: oh that’s all okay! I have to go do something else now let me know if you need anything okay kid thanks!

Li Cu: goddamn it calm down who’s the kid here

lemme organize my thoughts so I can articulate my emotions fuckin healthily or w/e

Ugh maybe for like one afternoon we could go to Ms. Lee together? She knows how to word stuff

Wu Xie: uh…okay.

Li Cu: Anyway you don’t need to worry abt jail

As if you would survive prison for one day you’d piss off half the place in like an hour or less

I gave Ms. Lee the heavily edited version of the desert highway to hell roadtrip and i discussed it more in terms of like “nightmarish but still wouldn’t take any of it back”

Well maybe the sand

that shit was everywhere

Wu Xie: oh kiddo. It’s fine, really…You don’t have to explain yourself to me.

Li Cu: no, no it’s just

I do technically have a dad

who is an asshole. Being a son doesn’t really mean shit to me bc it sucked.

So you need to stop backing down just cuz ur guilty abt stuff. I’m really really glad ur not my dad in a good way. Do u get what I mean there

Where’s the mafia widower I followed into hell, huh

Wu Xie: Ur a good kid, despite my influence. I’m really glad you have someone to talk to after everything I…after everything. Wow this talking through feelings thing is kind of weird but nice ur right

Jfc no wonder it took me and xiaoge so long to—you know what, we won’t get into that

Li Cu: ew tmi

Also re: this week’s recent necklace fuckery

I moved my stuff here, I live here now

So you can’t die anymore

Or else…Idk I don’t have a threat planned

anyways abt the curtain

Wu Xie: oh my god, kid…kid you have no idea

I am in tears.

Li Cu: see this is why I can’t be nice to you I can sense the hallmark channel from here

Ugh don’t be sad in ur room that’s dumb

Go hug Pangzi or something

Maybe delete this chat

Or the curtain thing

Focus on the curtain thing

Just stfu and go away

Wu Xie: <3 screenshotting this <3

Li Cu: I take back everything I said. This is why Xiao Ge sleeps on the roof. I hope the ghosts of the Wangs put up that curtain to strangle you somehow. Go die in a stupid way, it’ll suit you.

Wu Xie: lol don’t worry I’m not gonna embarrass you with it or anything

Main Chat

Wu Xie: omg guys look how cute my kid is *sending screenshot*

Wang Pangzi: I MEAN

HE IS WISHING YOU DEATH

BUT SURE

CUTE I GUESS

Wu Xie: no but read the whole thing:):):)

Zhang Qiling: It is indeed very hard to remain angry with you. And you are welcome to join me on the roof.

Wang Pangzi: UH NOPE

NOT WHENI HAD TO BLEACH THE COUNTER IN THE KITCHEN

DONT TRAUMATIZE THE EARLY BIRDS THEYRE ALREADY FREAKED OUT BY U YA HOODIE CRYPTID

Wu Xie: ok true but babe ur like a sexy cryptid

Wang Meng: so, are we just accepting that there is a glittery curtain of unknown origin, and Huo Daofu is going to have to see it while he’s waiting for you at Wushanju bc you’re going to family therapy?

Wu Xie: right

Wang Pangzi: SHOULDA TAKEN EARLY RETIREMENT HUH

Wang Meng: I’m going to go dust something.

Unnamed Chat:

Unknown number: so the curtain…

Unknown number 2: yep, not my best work but I kinda panicked last minute u know

Unknown number: what is in the water at Wushanju that makes everyone dumb and attractive

Unknown number 2: relax they’ll figure it out

[arminbitchlover]

reincarnated lovers (3)

armin arlert x f! reader

summary: reader and armin decide to give the start of their relationship a second chance.

word count: 3.7k

content warnings: content warning: mentions of drug use, vaginal and oral sex (F & M receiving), a slight insinuation of overstimulation, fingering, praise, & creampie

“Wow, you have a nice apartment.” Armin opens the door for you, and you gaze at his spacious apartment in awe.

“No need to flatter me.” He slightly chuckles, placing his keys on the small table against the wall.

“Trust me, I would never.” You tease as he grabs your hand and leads you to his kitchen.

You immediately take notice of how modern and simplistic his home is. The color palette throughout his apartment is cool tones, mostly consisting of white and gray. It somewhat makes you feel like you're in a museum rather than someone’s house. He doesn't have any pictures of family or friends on his wall, not even a frame of him and Eren.

“How do you feel about pancakes?” He crouches down to the bottom cabinet and pulls out a baby blue griddle.

“That actually sounds amazing right now.” You place your stomach in your hand, realizing how queasy you feel with only alcohol in your stomach.

“Could you get the pancake mix from the pantry, please?” He smiles at you while grabbing the oil from the upper shelf and placing it on the counter.

You open the door and instantly spot a never-ending pile of ramen neatly stacked on the floor. Adorable. Your eyes shift to the box of pancake mix on the middle shelf that's surrounded by other dessert mixes and grab it. You walk over to Armin, who already took out the ingredients with a bowl, measuring cups, and a spoon that's nicely arranged next to the griddle.

“I’m letting you know right now, I am not a gourmet chef so you cannot complain about the results,” He playfully warns you as he opens up the pancake mix.

“Armin, we’re making box pancakes. Not even from scratch.” You laugh, pulling out the plastic bag from the box, and cutting it open.

“You don’t have to make me feel bad about it.” He fakes a pout as he starts to pour the oil into the measuring cup.

You try to give him a serious look, but immediately break out into a smile when he makes eye contact with you. He hands you the ingredients while you incorporate everything into the bowl, enjoying the presence of one another.

As you pour the batter on the griddle, Armin starts asking you random questions from your dream job as a kid to your biggest fears in life. While it was somewhat arbitrary, you thought how cute he looked while he listened to absolutely every single word that came from your lips. Occasionally, while you're busy flipping pancakes and answering his questions, he gets a quick glimpse at your slightly parted lips, but you never seem to notice.

"You're a really interesting person, you know." He leans back against the counter, watching you place your dinner onto the plates.

"I doubt that very much." You argue while taking the plates to his dinner table.

"Well, I think otherwise, and you still haven't thanked me for making dinner for our date." He rolls his eyes but quickly breaks character, seeing the confused look on your face.

"Huh, so it wasn't you that was just sitting on your ass and questioning me as if I was at a job interview?" You joke with him, taking the seat that's across from him.

"I have no recollection of such." He smirks as he walks over to the refrigerator and grabs two water bottles.

"Thank you." You takes the water bottle out of his hand, taking notice of how pretty his hands looked around your beverage.

He smiles and sits down, eyeing what he thought to be the best-looking pancakes he's ever seen.

"Well, enough about me, I want to get to know you now." You make eye contact, holding it a bit longer than needed before looking down and cutting up your meal, not wanting to make yourself look weird.

"Ask away." He opens his water and takes a quick sip.

"How were you like as a kid?" You begin eating your pancakes, waiting for Armin to answer.

"I was and still am a quiet kid. I've always minded my own business, so I didn't have many friends growing up. I only had Eren and Mikasa and we only met because they defended me when they saw some older kids messing with me." You look up at him, only to be met with a neutral face.

"I'm sorry about that, Armin." You break eye contact, worried that you may have just ruined his night by making him reminiscent.

"Don't apologize, I stopped thinking about those assholes a long time ago." He gives you a reassuring smile as he continues to eat his food.

"I'm happy to hear that." You take a swig from your water bottle, thinking of the next question to ask him. "What's your favorite memory? Whether it be from last week or years ago." You lighten the mood, immediately noticing Armin break out into a huge grin.

"There was this one time during senior year in high school with Eren and Mikasa and we smoked weed but for Eren, it was his first time. So, I guess to like 'impress'," He starts giggling as he does air quotes, "me and Mikasa, he decided to take a long ass hit and it completely backfired on him. When he first breathed out, he started coughing but tried holding it back, but he just started hacking nonstop, and every time he tried drinking water, he would just spit it back up." He throws his head back, cracking up while finishing his story.

"So, you enjoy watching other people suffer?" You smile, not aware of how contagious his laugh is.

"Yeah, I guess." He keeps laughing as his eyes start to tear up.

"It just makes it so much funnier than I was already somewhat high, and everything just gets a billion times more amusing than what it really is." He chuckles before looking back into your eyes, taking in the beauty that'sin front of him.

"Damn, I wish I was there to see it." You snicker, thinking about how Eren embarrassed himself even though you feel a bit guilty thinking it was funny in the first place.

"Well, we frequently have sessions so you should definitely join us if you'd like." He finishes up his dinner and takes his plate to the sink.

"I'll think about it." You quickly eat the last of your pancakes and feel your phone vibrate in your pocket.

༛༛ ༛ ༛༺༻༛ ༛ ༛༛

roomie <3

Today 12:12 AM

where tf are u

i've literally been gone for the

past hour

with armin right ;)

uhhh

omg i need to stop texting you and

sleepover while you're at it :)

we'll see (;

have fun and use protection

love you

oh god

love u too

Read 12:14 AM

༛༛ ༛ ༛༺༻༛ ༛ ༛༛

"Is everything alright?" Armin looks at you concerned, noticing your eyes widening at your screen.

"Huh? Oh yes, uh it was just Sasha." You put your phone back in your pocket, not wanting to give Armin any ideas.

Your heartbeat quicken as you face Armin, Sasha's message ingrained in your head. You doubt anything would happen tonight, it's barely your second date, but it was something to think about. As soon as your mind starts wandering into more inappropriate thoughts, you're interrupted by Armin's voice.

"Do you need me to take you back to your dorm?" He starts making his way to the door, not letting you respond.

"No, I can stay." You clear your throat; he stops in his tracks, having a bit of excitement by your answer.

"Oh okay, well is there anything you want to do?"

He stares into your eyes, feeling the tiny spark that wants to ignite. You feel your face start to heat up, trying to muster up anything to continue your night with Armin.

"Can I ask you one more question?"

"Of course." He feels his chest tighten, the electricity between you grow stronger as the silence stretches out.

What the hell do you want to ask him? You have little to no idea what you wanted to face him with. While you have to admit, everything about him at this very moment is so fucking perfect and you don't mind trying something, you wouldn't dare pressure him into anything. You continue bouncing with thoughts and kept convincing yourself that a little persuasion wouldn't hurt him and besides, it would be a shame if nothing fun went down.

"Is it okay if I kiss you?" You stay in your seat, worried that you may have broken a boundary that Armin had no intention of crossing. Your chest gets knotted up as you feel embarrassment rush over your body, regret started to quickly sink in.

His eyes widen and feels his heartbeat in his throat, indulging at the thought of doing so much more than just a kiss. He starts walking towards you, not aware that he didn't answer your question, rather just pulls you out of your seat and snakes his arms around your waist.

"Is uh- this okay?" His face turns into a bright pink, feeling a mix of excitement and nervousness.

"Yes." You wrap your arms around his neck, not wasting a second longer.

You meet your lips with him, a soft whimper comes from his throat as you pull him closer. Your lips move in sync as if you had already done this a million times before. You bring one of your hands to his hair, slightly gripping it to try and get another noise out of him. You feel him pour all of his desire for you into that one kiss.

"Fuck." He mumbles under his breath, moving his hands to your ass, slightly squeezing it. Before you can take it any further, he pulls away from your kiss, grabs your hand, and takes you to his bedroom.

"Are you fine with this?" He has a concerned look on his face, making sure what he felt was a mutual feeling.

"Mhm." You nod your head, and he collides his lips with yours, drawing you in for a more heated kiss.

You part your lips, allowing his tongue to slip through, and you feel your body thrill with electricity. Everything just feels so natural between the two of you, there's no second-guessing or hesitation; it all felt right.

You both slowly started making your way to his bed, not breaking away your kiss as he lowered you onto it when the back of your knees is met with the edge. His hands traveled lower and made their way under your shirt and his cold fingertips are met with your warm soft stomach while pulling your shirt over your head. You slightly gasped when he came into contact with your skin, but this doesn't stop him from going any further. He took his lips to your neck, softly sucking and biting along your collarbone, letting his hot tongue glide over each spot he marked.

"Shit-" You choke and slightly arch your back, thinking to yourself how you've never felt this kind of delectation from someone before.

You grab his chin and pull him back to your lips and push his wrist down to your clothed core. He lightly presses against you, causing a jolt in your thighs while you moaned into his mouth. You feel a slight grin form on his face as he continues to tease you and felt you grind against his middle finger.

"You sound so pretty," He whispers into your ear.

You feel the arousal pooling low in your stomach, feeling him slowly dip under your panties and started massaging circles on your clit. You felt your legs start to slightly tremble and your back arched even more than before as the heat from his body filled you with a wave of delight.

"Armin." You grip your hands against his shoulder, becoming desperate for things to start escalating.

"Say my name again," He commands as he lifts his head and stares into your eyes, full of lust and desire.

"Armin, give me more, please," You whine, feeling your walls fluttered around nothing.

"Anything for you." He makes his way down your body, leaving a trail of peppered kisses from your neck to your pelvis.

He pulls off your panties, leaving you in only your bra, admiring what was inches away from his face. You could almost feel his gaze travel all over your body. You look down and make eye contact with him, watching him lower his face into you. You grasp the bedsheet and your eyes rolled back as his tongue lightly flicks against your clit. You buck your hips against him, growing incredibly impatient and he knows it.

"C'mon, please," You whimper, moving your hands to his head, and clutching his golden hair.

He grips the sides of your thighs and begins devouring you, his tongue becoming completely coated with your slick arousal. You feel his nose bump against your clit and causes your vision to swim while tugging on his locks from the bliss Armin created. You suddenly feel one of his fingers slip into you effortlessly, causing your mind to go blank while he curls it to hit the perfect spot.

"More," You cry out, grinding on his face as you felt your orgasm start to build up.

Without any hesitation, he slips another finger into you, widening your legs even more, making you start to see stars. It all starts to become too much for you, the stimulation starts to overload all over your drenched center. His tongue vigorously presses against your clit and fingers hitting your sweet spot, making everything feel so delirious.

"Sh-shit, Armin I'm close." You dig your nails into his scalp, throwing your head back, trying to hold off as long as possible to make it last a little longer.

"Let me hear you." He pull away for a second before enveloping himself back into you, making sure you feel nothing but pleasure.

That's all it takes to put you over the edge, and you reach your climax while moaning out his name. Your body becomes filled with a riptide of euphoria as you lose yourself in all the sensations. You can't believe the way he makes you feel; every little thing he does to you makes you feel so weak and submissive to him. Your legs are trembling, and he doesn't waste any time and begins to start kissing your inner thighs while gently rubbing your clit to help soothe you from your high.

"God, you're so beautiful," He breaths out while making his way back up your body and to your chest while unclipping your undergarment with a single hand.

"Y-You make me feel so fucking good." Your hands moves across his shoulder blades as he starts kissing your breasts, using his index finger and thumb to stimulate your nipples.

His other hand travels over your curves, feeling as if he needs to memorize every single feature of your body. You feel ecstasy relish over you, breathing heavily as Armin's lust for you takes over his mind. You can't ask for more than this right now, having someone do everything they could to make you feel nothing but absolute pleasure and you want to return the favor.

You slide up from under him, sitting up against the pillow, and flip him to the bottom.

"Wha-" You cut him off with a rough kiss, moving your hands to the bottom of his long sleeve, tugging at it.

You pull away and allow him to take off his shirt, admiring his pale, milky body. You can't believe the sight in front of you, he looks so fucking beautiful. You meet with his eyes and notice embarrassment rush over his face. You lean down and give him a gentle but passionate kiss.

"You're so handsome," You whisper his ear before you nibble on his earlobe, causing his thighs to slightly jolt.

You begin kissing down to his jawline, somewhat pressing your tongue against it while your hand softly traces his abs. You feel his stomach muscles contract under touch while his arms loosely wrap around your waist, delicately sliding his palms across your back. It doesn't take long for you to make your way down his body while you make sure to leave a hickey or two on his chest before meeting his bulge.

"You d-don't have to." He starts sitting up, but you place your hand on his chest to stop him.

"Let me make you feel good." You plead, pulling off his pants and boxers to reveal his hard cock that was seeping of pre-cum, just for you.

You run your hands on his thighs before bringing one up to the base of his dick. You look back at Armin, who seemingly has his head back while his face is flushed into a soft red. You glob spit on his dick before pumping your hand slowly, making sure that he feels every little sensation you're making. He lets out a shaky exhale, trying his hardest not to release with only a single touch.

You smirk to yourself feeling him pulse in your palm before moving it back down to the base and swiping your tongue on his tip.

"O-Oh." He moans out, moving one of his hands to your head.

You start humming very quietly, bobbing your head up and down with the slight pressure of Armin's palm. He groans, feeling his face heat up with everything you're doing to him.

As seconds passed, Armin's pressure on the back of your head only becomes more forceful, making you gag a bit and cause tears to form as he starts throat fucking you. It doesn't take long to begin to feel him twitch in the back of your throat, but before he could release himself, you pull away, looking up and seeing a shocked look on his face.

"I'm sorry, did I take too far?" He starts sliding up against his headboard, thinking he made you uncomfortable.

"No! Not at all... I just want to do something more." You hesitate with your words.

All you want at this very moment is to make sure Armin felt nothing but pleasure from you. Your heart starts thumping sporadically, loving the idea of riding him till he couldn't take it anymore.

"Y-Yeah, of course," He stutters as he quickly pulls out a condom from the drawer in his nightstand.

You think to yourself how cute he lookes getting flustered and excited with the thought of you topping him. You watch him slightly stumble while taking the condom out of its packaging before rolling it on himself. He looks back at you, a smirk on his face as he grasps your waist and pulls you onto his dick.

You align yourself with him before lowering yourself, watching his head fall back. His eyes become filled with desire as you bite your lip from his cock stretching you out.

"Shit.." He groans as you take all of him in, feeling your walls become adjusted to his cock.

You don't move for a second, savoring how it feels with him inside of you; feeling connected with one another. But once you begin to move, it's impossible to stop.

You start off slow and sensual, feeling him hit your cervix that caused a delightful pain in you. You bend down to his face leaving kisses all over across his jaw as you slowly move against him. You don't want this to end, everything feels so right.

"You feel amazing." He drags out his words, sliding his hands up and down the sides of your body.

You pick your head back up, speeding up from his praise.

"I hope I make you feel so fucking good," You cry out, feeling him start to hit all the right spots that you didn't even know were there.

Before your legs could start to burn, you feel his hands form a good grip on you before he starts thrusting forward, at this point making himself fuck you instead.

"A-Armin!' You yelp, feeling overloaded from the overwhelming pressure that begins to build up inside you.

He starts controlling the rhythm, taking all the power you thought you had over him. You grip his shoulders, leaving crescent-shaped markings from his strokes becoming harder and deeper.

He admires the way your tits bounce every time he thrusts into you, wanting to see it happen over and over again. He loves seeing your head falls back as your eyes roll to the back of your head, starting to lose control of yourself from everything he's doing to you. He worships the idea that he's the one making you feel this good.

"I'm about to.." You close your eyes, letting yourself surrender and submerge into the wave of pleasure.

"Fuck, me too." His eyes darken, picking up the pace as your grip on him began to loosen.

You feel your stomach swoop from his words.

"C-Can I cum inside you? He groans, feeling himself twitch in you, worried that he might release himself too soon.

"Please." You unravel yourself onto him, your walls flutter against him and your arousal drips out of you.

"Armin!" You cry out his name one last time, the sensation becoming too much that it was almost painful.

The feeling of bliss and ecstasy take over as you feel his cum gush into you while moaning out your name. You ride him out a little longer, helping him come back down from his high before lying next to him.

You both exchange lazy kisses with one another, savoring each other's warmth for as long as possible.

"Thank you for an amazing second first date." You smile, resting your head against his chest while he softly caresses your jaw.

"You deserve nothing but the best." He kisses your forehead before pulling you closer to him.

At this moment, you fee nothing but happiness; you know from then on that Armin is the person that you're going to spend the rest of your life with. You just can't believe that it took you nineteen years to find your soulmate, but luckily, you'll be spending the rest of your lives together in pure bliss.

a/n: armin does ask reader permission to cum inside her even though he has a condom on because he wanted to make sure she was completely comfortable with it :)

previous chapter | series masterlist

[phoebehalliwell]

on the subject of crackships.

in a prue lives, phoebeleo piperkyle pruecole paigeandy au (in which paige meets them in s1) how do u see it playing out and ALSO. do u see them all having kids still. this is so random i am so sorry (also i don't mean they have to be set from the get go and never get w anyone else but these would hypothetically be endgame)

i mean with phoebeleo like hard yes like in s2 when they're watching the baby at the end everyone's like phoebe ik you're gonna be a great mom you're gonna have like a million and one kids like mark my words and phoebe's real smitten about it like wow u really think you : ) i'd like to. guess i should probably find a guy first tho huh. but if that guy's already there bc it's leo and he's been here since season one i think they are easily first to have kids and first to get a full power of three the other three is definitely like another can of worms bc like.

okay so for paigeandy obvi we're starting andy's an old childhood friend of the halliwell's for the sake of cleanliness did not date any of them (if we're going messy tho dated prue hooked up once or twice with phoebe (not while dating prue, but neither of them ever mentioned it around prue bc well. yikes.) And piper had a major crush on andy for like. a decade. from ages 13 to 23) and he's a cop and does. stuff idk helps people and this lands him frequently in bed with social services which is. consistently. a pain in the ass. and he doesn't try to hold it against them bc they're clearly understaffed underpaid there's a lot to do but um jesus. and everyone in the precinct Hates having to go over there to do stuff bc you're just standing in the lobby drinking bad coffee for fifty minutes before you can even get a word in with the work and unlucky andy he drew the short straw ends up at social services and who should he meet there if not this gorgeous but really scatterbrained berkeley grad with a mouth like a sailor and a heart of gold and now um there's no need to draw straws at the station because andy straight up volunteers to go to social services just to see paige which she notices of course because like. were you jinxed or something? cursed? i've never known someone to draw the short straw so many times. and andy's like no i just um. like being hands on with my work i don't like leaving up to some dumb rookie with bad luck and paige is like oh don't worry i promise it is still being left to some dumb rookie with bad luck i mean i am right here blah blah blah banter conversation hint at a tragic backstory give it half a season and then it's official bf/gf shit and as far as charmed goes it's a prophecy about four sisters and the halliwells are like phew. dodged a bullet there lmao. until they do something only charmed ones could do and they're like Wait. Fuck. Is There A Fourth Sister Out There? so they find paige within the first hmm ten episodes or so.

so since we have both s1 phoebeleo and paigeandy i'd say they'd be on the fastest track but i feel like paige does have a lot more issues when it comes to getting married and having kids than phoebe does regardless i think by s4 they're married on track to have kids with pruecole we're doing the s3 introduction and the enemies to lovers arc we seal that with either a wedding at the very end of s4 or at the very beginning of s5 however kids is like. like they both want kids but prue has daddy issues and cole has mommy issues not to mention the charmed one/demon hybrid so they need to do some soul searching on that one. prue's probably pregnant by the end of s5 and has her baby halfway thru s6. paige may or may not have had kids at this point if they did they were kind of a whoopsies baby but she and andy r embracing it with open arms.

piperkyle imo is peak in a divorce/widower era it's been pitched like piperkyle au where he's not fucking insane piperkyle au where she's not brokenhearted piperkyle au where they're both normal happy people who then meet but like. nah. the appeal of them to me really is being the broken fucked up human being and feeling like you're kinda just gonna stay broken and fucked up bc you had your shot and you blew it so now you're here get used to it and then to have someone to meet someone who sees you so genuinely as you are that at first it's disgusting leave me alone i hate you but out of that just honest sight grows familiarity and comfort and before you even realized it happened love and jfc i'm in love with them???? but you realize that you're always happier when they're around you want to stay by their side and you don't even have to wonder if they feel the same because you just know they do because you Know each other and you don't have to wait for them to turn and run once they see who you really are because they know who you are they've known from the start saw the ugly the broken and vile and looked past that and saw the beauty and genuine love underneath like 🗣‼🗣‼🗣‼🗣‼. piperkyle consistently makes me insane. So. in order to hit this. we're bringing in dan. that's right, from season two to six (maybe just five but i'd like to have the pruecole arc wrapped up in a nice bow by the time we open up the next enemies to lovers) piper and dan give a relationship the old college try going from the honeymoon phase to the cringe failmarriage stage until it's eventually just time to call it quits like you literally can't move forward. so because of the delayed start piperkyle would def be the last to have kids but because this is a long slowburn full of character development and just like. vulnerable bonding moments i think that once they go official as a couple wedding and kids are not far off on the horizon i think if we close out a season (a hypothetical 9 or 10) with them getting together for the first time then we gotta burn some miles on the freak out denial stage because i always think that's funny that'll last half a season? maybe a third. and then by the end of the season we're looking at a wedding. by the end of the following season they def have a kid

superlatives!

most fashionable couple: pruecole

most likely to name their kids after dead relatives: piperkyle

most likely to break p tradition: paigeandy

most chill about dating a charmed one: phoebeleo (andy kyle & cole would all be way too willing to throw themselves into danger, leo trusts phoebe's foresight and knows when he needs to sit on the sidelines. it is a lesson all the other men still struggle with)

bonus round!

best bromance: 1st place: leoandy 2nd place: leocole 3rd place: colekyle

[spicynamericano]

Perception. - mk lee

sypnosis: you meet a stranger in the park, who helps you prepare for your interview with renowned author, mark lee.

word count: 2.1k

genre: fluff, strangers to friends!au, author!mark x reporter!reader

a/n: i impulsively wrote this in the wee hours of the morning because i can't stop thinking about mark lee and his poems! btw, this is my first time posting an au on this platform, but i do have ongoing twitter fics (written in eng/fil)!

I had just finished my late night shift at the office and was on my way home from work. Being a field reporter is not an easy job. I have to work my butt off to always stay up to date on the latest news and make sure to grab even the rarest exclusives.

I have to travel to basically anywhere, just to gather the most accurate information for the daily primetime news. And even if work is done for the day, I would usually go overtime to make sure no single detail is left out for tomorrow’s reports.

My workplace isn’t that far from home, or what I call home now. Moving into my elder sister’s old apartment was not a hassle. It was actually quite a blessing since I always used to stay over whenever we visited the city. I really thank the heavens that her place was near my workplace. Imagine the struggle of moving in and out from scratch. Actually, I wouldn’t even dare to imagine.

I would usually ride my bike to and from the office, but since I was running a bit late earlier in the morning, I decided to take the bus. Convenience at its finest. But it’s late now. A fifteen minute walk back home won’t hurt, right? Besides, I needed a breather. A walk in the nearby park would suffice.

It’s midnight and of course, the park is empty. Although Seoul is alive 24/7, I really like how some areas still have that laid-back vibe. I walk to the swings and place my bag on the ground. I do wish someone would push me right now. I just wanna be free from all the hectic stuff I’ve been doing lately.

But no, the quick rest I thought of didn’t stop me from going over tomorrow’s duties. I scan my little, brown notepad and check the work I have yet to accomplish. I mostly finished them before I got off work, but there is one more that I needed to do for tomorrow: interview Mr. Mark Lee, the author of the best-selling Late Night Scribbles.

It’s a collection of poems and prose he’s written over the course of five years during his travels to different cities as a renowned travel writer. His travel reviews and recommendations were something I always looked forward to reading. Maybe someday I could go on a stress-free holiday trip thanks to his advice.

I have read his book. For someone who’s trained into more technical writing like me, I could still clearly resonate with most of the poems he’s written. Not too shallow, not too deep. Though you do need to have a sense of literature in order to understand more of his deeper works. He isn’t famous for nothing.

What appalled me though is that he never showed his face to anyone, not even once. Some say he’s actually the main rapper of the world-renowned boy group NCT, since they bear the same name. I think otherwise. Well, it could be, though. Rappers do make their own lines and tell their own stories.

But I don’t think that Mark Lee would be the same person I’d be interviewing tomorrow. It’s weird because I won’t be actually meeting him face to face. He said he’d rather converse through email. Works for me since I don’t have to travel tomorrow. Thank God.

Well, let me tell you a secret. The reason I don’t think author Mark Lee is singer Mark Lee is because singer Mark Lee is actually my childhood best friend. Crazy, huh? I used to live in Vancouver when I was young until my family and I moved back to Korea during my teen years.

I don’t think he remembers me, though. But I do remember him. Our moms were practically best friends. I couldn’t say the same to us, only if he still actually remembers me.

I stretch my arms up high and bend it side to side. God, I need a massage asap. I was about to pick up my bag when a basketball rolled over and hit the tip of my loafers. A man dressed in black waves from the court, signaling to toss the ball to his direction.

I would toss it if I could but I walk over instead. Blame my poor strength and reflexes. And I obviously do not want to embarrass myself. A rough day’s a rough day. I don’t want an addition.

“Uhm, are you looking for this?” I ask the guy, tossing the ball mid-air.

“Yes, thank you…” he pauses. “uh…”

“Oh, it’s (y/n).” I introduced myself, “And you are?”

“Minhyung.”

“Well, you’re welcome, Minhyung. Good luck with your basketball practice!” I gave him a nod before finally turning back to go home.

“Wait!” he calls out. “Do you maybe wanna have a cup of coffee? There’s a nearby convenience store still open. I figured you might need it.”

Was it that obvious? I can’t imagine how stressed I look right now! He has probably seen the dark circles under my eyes. Gross.

I finally turn around and give him a smile, “You know, maybe I do need it. Let’s go?”

This man and I walk to the nearby convenience store just a few meters away from the court. It’s midnight and not many people are here. Well, just exactly like how I want it. The park can actually become full, even until 10 pm. But I guess these people also need some shut-eye. I’m actually surprised this man right here still has some energy left.

I wait outside and sit at the nearest gazebo while he buys instant coffee for the both of us. He arrives with three in hand. Does he like coffee that much?

“You’re really gonna drink two?” I ask him curiously.

“It’s actually for you,” he says as he hands me one of the cups. “I feel like you’re going to be staying up late tonight.”

Well, he’s right. I am gonna be staying up late. I still need to prepare questions for tomorrow’s, or later, rather, interview. I really won’t be getting some sleep tonight. I also need to do research on him too.

“Well, I do have an interview for tomorrow. I still need to prepare as it’s a very important one.”

“With whom, may I ask?”

“Mark Lee, the author. Not the singer.”

“Oh,” he lets out a soft sigh that can be heard, even through his mask. Is he offended that I don’t think author Mark Lee and singer Mark Lee are the same?

“Why do you sound so disappointed?”

“Uh, nothing. I just remembered the book he recently released. Have you read it?”

“Late Night Scribbles?”

“Yes, that!” he answered enthusiastically. Wow, I guess I found a fan right here. He might actually help me with my interview later. I need to grab this chance.

“Do you mind helping me? I’m actually going to interview him about it tomorrow.” I gave him the widest smile, hoping he’d say yes. I normally wouldn’t do this to strangers, especially at night. But I really just need to get this over with.

“Well, as someone who’s a fan of his works. I’d like to give it a try and interpret it,” he said, taking a sip of his coffee. “Just imagine I’m Mark Lee. Shoot your questions.”

“Hmm, I can’t be answering personal questions since you’re not Mark Lee.” I scratch my head. Damn, I can’t think of anything. My brain is not working right now! “But if you were Mark Lee, what would you want to be asked?”

“If I were Mark Lee? Well, rather than asking what my inspiration was behind the works I’ve made, I’d rather be asked on how I tried to convey my thoughts and feelings to this piece of work,” he explained, staring at the night sky.

I followed the direction of his gaze, and he’s looking at Orion, one of the brightest constellations out there. I gaze at it too while waiting for him to continue explaining.

“But isn’t it basically the same as drawing inspiration from something?” I ask profoundly.

“Not really. You can draw inspiration from anything. And you can come up with different outputs based on one inspiration. What’s important is how you’re able to connect the context of what you’re writing to the feelings you want to draw out,” he continues.

“With a single inspiration, I can come up with two completely different works based on how it’s written. The idea may be the same but the context is not.”

“Hmm, care to explain a little further?” I ask politely.

“We can use Black Socks as an example.”

Black socks are underrated

The way they connect the bottom sleeves of

my black sweatpants to my black sneakers

is just perfect

Pleasure from perfect alignment

That also goes for the ability to be parallel

with my thoughts and actions

I try to live out what’s in my mind, and keep

it consistent even when forgotten like a

working habit

A moment to think twice about what

seemed unimportant

Black socks have been making my day

these days and I knew I had to return the

favor by acknowledging them

I throw you in the bin only so that you can

be renewed again

“Black socks, literally an ordinary object that is tossed to the bin right after use. But what caught my eye is his appreciation for this mundane thing.”

“Through his words, you can tell black socks gave him comfort. He used a simple subject to convey his inner thoughts of how every little thing we don’t really recognize can actually be part of our routine, our life,” he said, looking me in the eye seriously.

“He found comfort in the most ordinary things no ordinary person would take notice of.”

Minhyung stands up and stretches his arms. He then continues, “It’s actually cool he shared this piece with us. If I were him, I’d go on and ramble how black socks could ruin my laundry.”

We both chuckle at the thought. It’s true. I hate how some of my black socks actually ruin my laundry. I dread the thought.

“It’s only a matter of perception, (y/n). Sometimes, you have to open your eyes and see, not look. Listen, not hear. Savor, not taste. Feel, not touch.”

“You know, you could actually be Mark Lee himself,” I tease him, “You do know your literature.”

I know he smiled at my remark. I can see his cheekbones rise from the edges of his mask.

“Sometimes, you just have to ask the right questions in order to get the answers you want,” he said teasingly. “You can’t get what you want if you don’t know what you want.”

For a stranger, he’s indeed a good talker. I actually learned so much from our talk tonight.

“Thanks for tonight, Minhyung. I really learned a lot.” I thank him before gulping down the last cup of coffee he bought me. “And thanks for the coffee, by the way! I now have energy to prepare for my interview later.”

“No problem. I’m just glad that I was able to help.”

I stood up from my seat and we both started walking away from the park.

“It’s 1 am. How are you gonna get home, (y/n)?” Minhyung asks worriedly. Yeah, it is pretty late. It’s a good thing I just live near.

“My apartment’s just two blocks away. I can manage,” I say with a smile, a genuine one at that. “How about you?”

“I’ll just grab a cab. Do you mind if I walk you home?” I don’t know why but I felt flustered for a moment. Surprisingly though, I just nodded my head, giving him permission to accompany me home.

We both arrive at the entrance of my apartment building and we say our last goodbyes.

“For a stranger, you really do know how to make people comfy,” I say, crossing my arms and giving him a stare, brows furrowed to tease him.

“Well, that’s just how I am,” he says while giving me a wink. Okay, now he’s flirting. Someone stop him, please. Just kidding.

“By the way, you haven’t taken your mask off the entire time except when drinking coffee. I couldn’t get a good glimpse at you since it was dark,” I explain. It’s true. Add the fact that I’m barely keeping myself awake the whole time. “I might’ve actually thought you’re an idol of some sort. Perhaps, maybe you are Mark Lee.”

“What?” he asks, puzzled and clearly taken aback. “Why’d you think so?”

“Because you share the same name with him.”

[jimlingss]

The Seven Year Itch

➜ Words: 5.2k

➜ Genres: 99% Fluff, 1% Angst

➜ Summary: The seven year itch is the curse of all marriages. Your own parents divorced after seven years. Your friends separated after that doomed number too. And now, you're trying to prevent the same downfall from reaching your marriage with Yoongi.

➜ Warnings: Implied smut and discussion of sexual topics.

You and Yoongi met at eighteen.   It was during a crazy New Year’s festival on the beach around a bonfire when you were introduced to one another from friends of friends. Much to your mortification, you were totally drunk that night and hit on him while insisting he should make you s’mores since his toasted marshmallows were the best.   The two of you started dating at twenty two after a few years of friendship and a tedious period of time wondering if he liked you like that. That New Year’s Eve was spent on a cute, romantic date holding hands while watching fireworks by the river.    And now at thirty two….   “Did you do anything over the New Years break, Y/N?” Kijung asks as she stirs sugar into her steaming mug of coffee, leaning against the kitchen counter. She’s your colleague of several years now and part of the marketing team that attributed much to the profits and sales — or at least that was your opinion as part of the finance department. But your manager who has a stick up her ass and has a fixation for the research department would adamantly disagree.   “Nothing much,” you reply. “Did you?”   “Not really, but my boyfriend and I went on a road trip on New Year's Eve to the hot springs and we managed to catch the fireworks.” Kijung smiles and your eyes light up.   “Oh, I went there a long time ago with Yoongi. It was nice.”   “Yeah, I really enjoyed it.” Her cheeks are rosy and you muse how pleasant it is to be young and in love. Those old days of dating and shy flirtation seems so long ago. “Did you and Yoongi do anything special for the countdown?”    “I don’t remember…” you murmur gently while you try to recall. These days, everything blurred together. Waking up, eating, television, bed time. “I think we just slept through the countdown.”   “You make it sound like you’re fifty,” Seokjin laughs much to your chagrin, entering the kitchen and firing up the coffee machine.   “Easy for you to say,” you retort back to your coworker with a light scoff. “Weren’t you having back problems a month ago?”   “Nothing my chiropractor couldn’t fix up.” The human resource manager dramatically stretches out his muscles and rolls his broad shoulders as if to prove it. Much too early for his shenanigans, both you and Kijung exchange unimpressed expressions and choose to ignore him even when he begins to loudly protest.   “Oh yeah, isn’t your wedding anniversary with Yoongi coming up?” Kijung asks, remembering that a few years ago, you took a long vacation to celebrate right around this time.   “Yep.” You smile. “Seven years.”   “Wow, that’s a long time,” Jin notes as he sips on his coffee. “My cat hasn’t even been alive for that long.”   You’ve never really thought about it before. “It has been a long time, huh?” you hum.    Kijung grins. “Congratulations.”   “Thanks.”   Time was so gradual, one day after the next, one moment after another. It was only when you stopped to turn around did you realize how long and extensive the journey has been. That you discover that you’ve actually been married to Yoongi for seven years now.   Seven years….   Seven.   Suddenly, it hits you. There’s a sickly feeling pooling in the pit of your stomach. It makes you nauseous like you’ve dropped from a ninety degree roller coaster. It propels you forward, making your mouth and throat dry, your face drained of all colour. You can’t believe you could’ve forgotten—   The infamous seven year itch.

The seven year itch is a curse. It’s known to be the point where marriage satisfaction begins to decline. It’s the average length of a marriage. The point of no return.   To some, it may just be a myth or a simple statistic, but your own parents were together for only seven years before getting themselves into a nasty divorce. And you know friends who were only together for seven years — Hoseok and Jimin were separated six months after their seventh year anniversary. Jungkook and Eunbi left one another before their seventh year…   You can’t believe you’ve allowed yourself to forget about the cursed number seven.   And now that you’ve realized, you’re worried you’ve allowed your marriage to become stale.   “I’m home.”   The house is quiet and dark except for the sound of sizzling coming from the kitchen. You follow the dim light and cross your arms, leaning on the doorframe as Yoongi turns from the stove.   “The patties in the freezer were about to expire,” he says as if to explain what he’s doing and you nod.   “Burgers for dinner then?”   “Uh-huh.” Your husband is dressed in gray sweatpants and a black shirt oversized on his body, dark hair in a disarray as if he just rolled out of bed an hour ago. It might not be too off the mark considering he’s been working from home for a few months now, an arrangement he’s fallen in love with. Namjoon might never be able to drag him back to the office after this.   “I fixed the plumbing issue in the shower, by the way,” he calls out as you drag yourself down the hall.   You stick your head out the door. “You didn’t have to call Taehyung?”   “Nope.”   This was your life with Yoongi. He’s stable, a grounded and secure force, who lives in a consistent routine. It’s peaceful and you love it. It’s all you could have yearned for after your chaotic childhood and crazier teenage years. But now, you wonder if these habits you cherished will someday be your downfall.   This mundanity might breed boredom and then discontentment.   It’s only a matter of time now.   “—took me two hours at the hardware store. But then I managed to find—”   “Hey, Yoongi,” you interrupt him in the middle of his story in the midst of dinner, unable to shake the thought off your mind. There were more pressing matters to you than Yoongi trying to prove to Taehyung that he doesn’t need his help.   The man blinks at you. “What?”   “Do you want kids?”   Yoongi puts his burger down, visibly taken aback by the sudden change of topic. “I mean, if you want to. But I thought we were going to wait until we were finished paying off our mortgage and had more saved up.”   He’s right and having kids won’t make your mundane marriage any more exciting.    If anything, it might just make it worse.   “Where’s the diapers?” you would screech to the other while holding the howling baby in your arms, your phone sandwiched between your shoulder and ear in the meanwhile.   “I thought you bought them!” Yoongi would emerge from the bathroom, juggling the other two shrieking babies in his arms with his shirt unchanged from a week ago and still stained with milk puke.    Triplets, you can envision them as clear as day. A luck of the draw or a curse, you wouldn’t be sure of.   “What?!”   You dispel the horrible vision from your imagination, crashing back down to reality. “Never mind.”   Yoongi catches your long sigh, but doesn’t comment.    That night, you turn to him while you’re both in bed and the warm sheets are pooled around your laps. And more enthusiastically than you intended, you declare, “We should make our sex lives more exciting!”   He flinches from the sheer volume of your voice but it seems to catch his attention and his brows lift curiously. Yoongi puts his phone down. “What are you thinking?”   Your eyes are big and excited and you lean over as if to whisper a dirty secret in spite of being the only ones in the bedroom. “How about...anal?”   Yoongi’s blank expression remains unchanged. “We already tried that and we weren’t into it, remember?”   Oh. Right.   You quickly retract, stuttering and bumbling, “I-I meant you can be the one on the receiving end—”   “We already tried that in college,” Yoongi reminds.   “How about role-playing?” you offer, a last ditch attempt at trying to come up with something creative that the both of you haven’t attempted in your fourteen years of being together.    “We tried that on Valentine’s two years ago. It didn’t work out well,” Yoongi recollects.   “Never mind then.” You sigh, giving up. You’re going to need to put a lot more thought into how to keep your marriage from being so mundane.   But for now, you crawl out of the sheets to the bathroom and Yoongi takes off his rounded spectacles, placing them on the nightstand. He watches your backside with his lips pouted and his brows slightly furrowed, wondering what’s wrong.   //   For the following days, you begin to brainstorm ways to spice up your marriage with Yoongi and keep the seven year curse at bay.   You read a few articles here and there and ask some married folks around the office how they keep their marriages exciting — to which they give you too many details over their sex life that you never wanted. But your attempt at a candlelight dinner ends up with the candles blown out when the tablecloth nearly sets aflame. Yoongi also cooks again when you undercook the fish.    You try to surprise him by getting naked but you give up when he takes too long in the shower and you start violently shivering from the brisk air conditioning. You pull the whip out from the back drawer too to get freaky in bed, but one spank has you cussing him to stop. And when Yoongi denies you of your orgasm, you throw in the towel and call it quits, deciding to go at it the old-fashioned way for just some simple love-making.   The two of you aren’t as young and adventurous as you used to be — it was something you were quickly realizing.   But you weren’t going to give up so easily, not when you were so desperate to keep your marriage with Yoongi alive and keep boredom out of your partnership….   And it’s when you’re putting away the old leather whip to the back of your closet that another box comes tumbling out. It’s a memory box, full of high school yearbooks, knickknacks at amusement parks, and a bright pink book with pages and tabs sticking out of it.   “I forgot I had this,” you mutter to yourself, holding your worn diary that’s filled with memories and nostalgia.   Opening it up, the spine cracks and you’re met with your sixteen year old self encapsulated between the pages. There are scribbles and doodles, entries from random days, notes that you passed to your friends, pictures and movie tickets taped to the pages. There’s even a whole section dedicated to your old celebrity crush — Lee Hyun — and you cringe while reading the small blurbs around cut outs of him describing certain scenarios. First date. First time he held hands. First time he proposes and how the paparazzi go wild and you become famous too.   But as much as you cringe, it’s kind of wholesome.   You forgot what a hopeless romantic you were.   Flipping the page, you’re taken aback by the decoration, vivid colours and washi tape. It lines the paper, bright markers that bleed to the next paper. But what takes your attention is the bold letters at the top. It’s written: Couples Bucket List.    Your eyes skim the rest of the page.

Flowers delivered on doorstep :)

Receive a love letter!!!

Be confessed to***

Be serenaded outside a window!

Dance in the rain.

Go stargazing~

Take a long walk on the beach <3

The first on the list is to have flowers brought to your doorstep — which you muse has been completed many years ago. Yoongi did it once on Valentine’s….mostly because he had to go to work and you were busy running errands with your mom, so he had no other choice but to leave his gift for you at the doorstep. It still technically counts though.   The second goal you have written is to receive a love letter. That would be impossible. Yoongi doesn’t do declarations like that. He’s not one to talk about his feelings. But ironically, the third point on the list you wanted to achieve with your future significant other is being confessed to and he technically accomplished that one too….   In tiny text, there’s a description of your fantasy — how your crush would call you out to the back of the school and declare it underneath that giant tree that kids used to climb. It’s utterly ridiculous but you find yourself standing, grabbing a red pen from your vanity and putting a check mark next to it.   Yoongi might’ve never professed his love in the way you imagined it but you remember how he proposed to you. It was supposed to be in private, but the ring box fell out of his pocket and you noticed, picked it up, and he scrambled to get on his knee in the middle of the park.   You smile at the memory.   The fourth thing on the bucket list is to be serenaded outside your window. And you burst out laughing at the mere thought of it. Yoongi can’t sing for shit and he wouldn’t do it even if you paid him to.   The following point is to dance in the rain, but your husband would never. He hates the rain. Yet the sixth task on the list has been completed. The two of you had gone to a planetarium on one of your first dates and you’ve spent many late nights outside together during winter where you were able to see the stars past the light pollution.   You’ve taken a long walk on the beach too, holding hands and watching the sunset. It’s something you did on your honeymoon and you grin while recalling it.    You flip the rest of the pages in the diary, giving it a skim before you’re about to tuck it back where it belongs, but you hesitate. Your hand tightens on it. You can’t let it go.   There are still things that you have yet to complete.   //   “Hey, do you remember when we used to write notes for each other?”   Yoongi’s eyes are plastered on the television playing some random Netflix original series that was on his recommended section, one you had not bothered to pay any attention to.   He mumbles past his cheek full of food, “Kind of.”   Your eyes pin onto your husband’s profile and you rest your cheek in your hand, elbow propped up on your knee. “We should do that again….or maybe we could write a really long letter to one another.”   It’s still lingering on your mind — the couples bucket list and your unfinished task of receiving a love letter.   “Why?” Yoongi chews haphazardly and goes quiet for a moment to watch the action on screen before he speaks again. “We did that when we were living apart. If I need to tell you something, I’ll just tell you now.”   You hold your sigh in your nose. He’s not wrong, but it was still worth a shot.    You fail to notice the way Yoongi glances at you, obviously aware of your disappointment. But he doesn’t ask. It’s already been long established that you can come to each other for anything. Yoongi knows that you’re fully aware of that. So while he doesn’t pry, it doesn’t stop him from wondering what’s the matter with you.   //   It’s a Sunday afternoon when you’re quietly watching the rain pitter-pattering on the ground outside and against the window frame, spraying like an artist splattering paint on their canvas. It’s showering, enough to collect puddles and to wash the grime off the driveway.   The peaceful sound of the droplets hitting against the roof is interrupted by Yoongi coming up behind you with crossed arms and grunting, “Looks like we can’t pick up groceries today. We’re running out of toothpaste though. Do you want to pick that up tomorrow after work?”   You don’t answer. You merely turn around as an idea flickers into your mind. A mischievous smile spreads into your features and you grab hold of your husband's wrist.   “Let’s go outside.”   It swirls in the forefront of your brain — dancing in the rain.   But at once, Yoongi’s expression blanches and he looks as if he ate rotten eggs. “What?”   “C’mon! It’ll be fun!” You drag the grumpy, old man and he stumbles forward from the sheer force.   He whines childishly, already pouting at the thought of it. “We’ll get wet.”   “That’s the point!”   Yoongi’s not impressed with your antics whatsoever. When you open the door and try to haul him out, he protests and grips the doorframe like a child not wanting to leave a toy store. But he ultimately relents at your insistence and is yanked outdoors to the downpour of pelting rain.   You burst out laughing the moment you see him despite his glare. Yoongi’s black hair shags down in front of his forehead, nearly pricking into his eyes. His clothes are becoming drenched, heavy on his body and dragging down. The sleeves of his flannel pulls past his fingertips.    His tender features are wrinkled into distaste, lips pouted, his eyes unamused and full of hatred of the rain. Yoongi looks like an angry, wet dog.   Unable to resist, you cup his cheeks, lean in and kiss his lopsided mouth. It’s a short peck, one you can’t draw out when you’re grinning and he refuses to reciprocate.   “It’s cold!” Yoongi shouts as the rain becomes heavier.   You giggle and tug on his arm, dragging him further out onto your driveway where the neighbours might be able to see and conclude that the pair of you have absolutely lost your minds — something you’re sure isn’t too far off. But you don’t dwell enough to get self-conscious.   You clutch Yoongi’s hands tightly and slowly walk in circles as if you’re playing ring around the rosy.   “C’mon, husband, you can be more enthusiastic than that!” you laugh much to his dismay.   You step forward and back, dancing stiffly and Yoongi’s body is like jelly. He allows you to pull him along as you please even when you lift his arm, twirl around and land back in them.    “Why are we doing this? Why?” True to himself, he’s trying to act like he’s not at least enjoying this a little bit. You’ve known Yoongi for long enough to see the way he’s trying not to smile and opts for whining instead. “I already showered, you know!”   “You can always shower again!”   Yoongi lets you move his body like a marionette doll, dancing along with you, and your giggles finally lets a smile on his face slip. But at that moment, lighting flashes over the horizon and thunder booms loud enough to shake the ground. The pair of you jump and rush back inside.   You both enter in the midst of laughter and then Yoongi sighs lightly, looking at the mess on the tiled floor. “The floors are all wet.”   “You were going to mop them today anyway,” you cheekily retort and he playfully spanks you, ordering for you to get into the shower before you make an even bigger mess.   The two of you hop in together, but Yoongi finishes faster. He gets himself dressed while you enjoy the steaming water for longer. As he’s drying off his hair haphazardly with a towel in the bedroom, he picks up his phone. Yoongi notices the low battery percentage and searches for his charger. When he’s unable to find it in its usual spot, he assumes you stole it again and pulls out your vanity drawer.   Yoongi doesn’t find his charger, but he discovers something else inside.    A bright pink book with worn pages.   Curious, he picks it up and flips it open. It automatically falls to the doodled page that you’ve been studying most recently these days and he skims it.    After a moment, Yoongi scoffs. But a softened smile stretches into his face.   //   “You’re happy,” Seokjin comments passive aggressively as he observes your expression while stirring his mug of coffee on this cold Monday morning.   “Yeah.” Your grin widens and your dismayed colleague wonders if you know that the week has barely begun. “I am.”   These days, you’re having a lot of fun trying to find ways for Yoongi to secretly fulfill your wishes, even if it’s silly and childish. There were only two more things that needed to be done on your bucket list — receiving a love letter and being serenaded to, things you’re sure Yoongi would rather be killed than be seen doing. But your new fixation and ambition has kept you preoccupied from thinking about the seven year curse approaching in three weeks time.   It’s a win-win. The bucket list might, quite literally, be the solution to the seven year itch. Completing it might just be enough to deter the curse and keep discontentment at bay.    After a long day, you arrive home while brainstorming a strategy to get Yoongi to profess his love for you in a letter — perhaps something you might enlist Taehyung’s help in. But your thoughts are interrupted when after dinner, Yoongi suddenly grabs his coat.   “I’m going out. Don’t wait up for me.”   “What?”    You’re utterly confused at why someone who was as an intense homebody like Yoongi would want to step outside the comfort of his warm home at such a ridiculous time of night.   “We still need toothpaste, remember?” he says nonchalantly. “You forgot to pick it up after work.”   “Oh. Well, I can always get it tomorrow.”   “It’s alright. I’m going to stop by Jimin’s too. That brat keeps telling me I should come over, so don’t wait for me.”   “Okay.” You nod, bidding him farewell. It’s a bit of a foreign sight, one where you can’t tear your eyes away from until the door shuts and he’s gone. You end up surfing the internet and playing on your phone for a good half hour in the serene silence before your boredom spurs on yawns.   You decide to head to bed early and brush your teeth, completing your whole nightly routine.   But before you crawl into the toasted sheets, an unfamiliar envelope on your vanity catches your attention. It's thin and rectangular without postal stamps or an address — only your name written on it in sloppy cursive. You approach the dim light of the lamp on your bedside table to get a better view and you rip it open.    Immediately, a gasp tears out of your mouth.   Your heart stutters in your chest. Your breath holds. It’s Yoongi’s chicken scratch writing.   To my beloved wife,   It’s me. Your lovely, amazing, best husband, Min Yoongi.   This is really embarrassing and I don’t know what to write either. But I was just thinking about how difficult it is for us to meet and be together. If you think about it, there’s almost eight billion people in the world but we still met each other. I don’t know if it was luck but I’m relieved to have met you. I also can’t believe we’ve been married for seven years now.   Thank you for making so many memories with me.   Love you, Yoongi.   P.S. please stop digging your ice cold feet into my feet at night. go to the doctor it’s not natural.   You choke on your own saliva, tears flooding your vision as your overwhelming emotions swell into a lump in your throat. It’s Yoongi’s love letter. Everything that’s so unabashedly him encapsulated in a few sentences — not cringey, a bit distant, but tender all at the same time.   You don’t know why he’s written this so out of the blue or how he knew you wanted this so badly, but you don’t care enough to question it. You hold the letter to your chest, head falling as your tears rise to squeeze out of you — but before you can melt on the carpet, you’re startled by a giant rock slamming against the window.   You jump, screaming, and your face drains of colour.   What’s left on the glass window is a jagged line split in different directions and you rush over in shock, opening up the latch to figure out who the perpetrator is.   What you find is your dumb-ass husband standing below your window. “What the hell are you doing?! You cracked the window, you idiot! We’re going to have to get it fixed,” you hiss into the dead of the night.   “Shut up, will you?” he sharply whispers back and your eyes adjust to the darkness.   From the glow of the street lights and the lamp on your table, you’re finally able to discern the acoustic guitar slung over his body.    Oh my god.   Before you can even burst out laughing and tell him to get inside, much to your mortification, Yoongi begins to sing in spite of his tone-deafness. “If I should stay, I would only be in your way….”   He strums one chord, the wrong chord, and it jumbles with the false notes streaming from his vocal cords. Yoongi stares down at his fingers, stretching them across the guitar neck and he strums every other sentence. His singing is awful and it’s noisy, especially when you begin to laugh.   You’re tempted to grab your phone and record him, but decide to savour the moment first-hand.   Your husband struggles and at some points, the pitch goes too high and his voice cracks so horrifically that he stops singing altogether.   Yoongi’s only put out of his misery when across the street the lights inside the house turn on and there’s a grumpy voice shouting— “Shut up! Some people are trying to sleep!”   You end up running downstairs at the same time he’s finally coming inside and you’re still giggling as he sets his guitar down, leaning it against the wall. “Where did you even get that?”   “I borrowed it from Hoseok,” Yoongi sighs. “He kept on asking so many questions. I had to tell him that I was bored at home and wanted to give it a try.”   You close the distance and encircle your arms around his neck. Yoongi’s hands immediately find purchase on your waist and you plant a fat kiss on his mouth before leaning away, confused curiosity not allowing you to prolong the affection.   “Why’d you write me the letter and why….this?”   Yoongi answers you by moving away to the entryway table past the foyer that’s there more for decoration than usage. He goes for the second shelf and holds up your worn diary.   That’s when you realize you’ve been caught and Yoongi’s brows lift with a tiny smile.   “I hope I got to fulfill the rest of your wishes, even if they were back to back.”   The pair of you gather together in your cozy bedroom, guitar tucked safely away and the letter still displayed on your vanity where you’ll be able to see it for the rest of your days. But those silly antics are far from being over and you know it with the way Yoongi’s been looking at you.   “You should’ve just told me if you wanted to do those things,” he says as he rips off his socks and changes into comfortable pajamas.   “Yeah, but you would’ve refused…” You twiddle with the hem of the duvet and Yoongi hums after a moment, crawling into bed with you. He realizes that you’re right. He probably would’ve scoffed at the idea of writing you a love letter or serenading you if you asked up front.   “I thought there was something wrong. You got me worried for a few days.”   “I’m sorry. I just…..I know I’ve been a bit off.” You sigh, locking your gaze with your husband as you finally confide your concerns to him. “You know how our seven year anniversary is coming up, right?”   “Yeah. What about it?”   “I know this is going to sound really, really stupid and dumb, but I was kind of, a little bit, worried about the seven year itch.”   Yoongi’s brows furrow and he squints. “The what?”   “You know, the seven year curse thing.” When his expression remains blank, you exhale and explain, “it’s when marriages are known to go downhill and divorces happen because people get bored. My parents got divorced after seven years, remember? So did a bunch of our friends and I don’t know, the thought kind of freaked me out.”   Yoongi softens and the corner of his mouth quirks. His arm reaches over and around your shoulder, and he pulls you closer to him in a loose hug. “I don’t know about you, but I have no plans of divorcing you any time soon.”   You mold yourself against Yoongi’s embrace, allowing yourself to melt into his comfort. It was soothing to hear his deep timbre next to your ear, to let him reassure you in such a way.   In one instant, all your doubts seem to vanish.    “I’m not bored of you, Y/N.” Yoongi smirks and you lean your head on his shoulder. “I don’t think I’ll ever be.”   “Are you sure?”   “As sure as I was when we made our vows,” he consoles without even needing a second to think about it and pulls away with a tender, thoughtful smile. “Plus, we’ve survived this ‘seven year’ curse anyways.”   You frown. “What?”   “Didn’t we start dating ten years ago? Yeah. It’s our ten year anniversary of being together. So we technically passed it three years ago already.”   You’re puzzled — you’ve sure the seven year itch only applies to marriages, but in a way Yoongi was right. It’s not like you want to disagree with him anyways. But the pair of you have been together for considerably longer than seven years. Your relationship had begun much farther back.   You lean in, planting another kiss on Yoongi and it’s one he happily obliges to deepen.   It’s a familiar kiss, but not one you’re discontent with. It’s practiced, skilled and full of technique. Not hesitant, lackluster or sloppy like the first time. Yoongi kisses you the way he knows you like it. After so many years and spending so much time with one another, it’s been perfected after all.   He pulls apart and you snuggle in him with a giant smile, digging your cold feet into his warm ones much to his dismay. But this time, he doesn’t complain and molds himself against you.   Yoongi plants one more kiss on top of your head, feeling sleepy and too tired to even turn off the lamp on the bedside table. “Is there something special you want to do for this year’s anniversary? We still haven’t talked about it yet.”   “I don’t want to stay in,” you hum. “How about a road trip up to the hot springs? Kijung was talking about it and it sounded nice. We haven’t been up there in a while.”   “Okay.” Yoongi is happy to oblige. “Sounds like a plan.”   You and Yoongi met at eighteen. After four years of being friends, the both of you broke the barrier and started dating. It took only three years for him to put a ring on your finger and for you to share his last name. It’s been seven mundane but wonderful years since. And while it seems so long ago, you’re certain there will be many, many more years to come.

[akaiamedama]

Of crocodiles and rings and a possible connection to a teased weakness

Crocodile is a guy that is real extra and dresses sharp and loves his bling bling, right? He’s a man of high standards, so of course, he’s gotta wear bling to show that. Other bling loving characters are Capone Bege and Blackbeard for example. All three of them like to show off that bling. Now why do I mention the other two? Coz look at these three bling loving gentlemen, wearing rings on every finger and tell me where the difference lies. I’ll wait.

Exactly!

As opposed to Bege and Blackbeard, Crocodile doesn’t wear a ring on every finger. Obviously he cannot wear 10 rings coz he only got one hand with 5 fingers but he also never wears 5 rings. No, no. This guy, ladies and gentlemen, kinda makes it a point to always leave out one finger and that’s the ring finger. Ha- interesting.

Now, of course this could be mere coincidence. But let’s be realistic here, it’s Oda. He clearly has a reason for it as he’s been true to this detail ever since Crocodile was introduced over a decade ago and the only real question is ‘why’?

Why would Crocodile do that? He clearly loves wearing rings so why not wear them on every finger? Why leave out the ring finger for crying out loud? If one wanted to leave a finger without a ring, one would probably leave out the pinky or the thumb but who puts rings on every finger and leaves out the ring finger? I tell you who.

Crocodile. That’s who.

If you’re one who believes in symbolism and all that stuff, then you’d probably find it interesting that the ring finger symbolises releationships with others especially romantical ones as it is seen closest to the heart and therefore or because of it is the finger a wedding ring is worn on. In most cultures the engagement ring is worn on the right hand and the wedding ring on the left as the right hand is often the ‘physical’ one and has a greater visibility. It’s probably interesting to note that the left hand is considered to represent your character and beliefs. Ha. Interesting that Crocodile is missing that one, huh? Anyhow, in Crocodile’s case left or right hand doesn’t really matter as he only has one left (duh) so an argument can be made that sides don’t matter and the importance lies on the finger itself.

The way it looks right now is that he’s making a statement leaving out the ring finger and there are a few possibilites here. Of course it could be a family ring and he could be from an important family but really, not only would that be a bit to similar to Doflamingo, it would also not make sense to not just replace the family ring on the occations he’s not wearing it. But he never wears a ring on that finger so one can only come to the conclusion that there’s some sentimental thought behind that.

The most logical would be that there is a ring he believes should be on that finger. Either he’s keeping it free for a future event coz he doesn’t have the ring yet (which I doubt) or he’s keeping it free coz technically there already is a ring for the finger. This could be a ring he doesn’t have anymore and regrets it (like he lost it with his left hand or threw it away) or a ring he does have but decides not to wear for his own reasons. Whichever it is, it clearly has such an important value that he doesn’t just covers it up or replaces it. 

Now, given the ring finger and it’s symbolism the thought of a wedding ring isn’t too far fetched. We don’t know enough about his past to say that he could never have been married so I think it’s worth looking into.

Let’s just imagine for a second, that the ring missing is indeed a wedding ring, what could that mean?

He could have had a wife but she died and even though he’d technically not be married anymore, people who lost their partner almost always keep their wedding ring as a memento. If they move on, they don’t wear it anymore but they often keep it. This could give another perspective to the ‘wounds’ Daz was referring to after Marineford as he was clearly not talking about Luffy’s physical wounds but about the emotional wounds that came with losing a loved one.

Crocodile could have had a wife but she betrayed him and he took the ring off as to break the relationship and connection. Then the choice to not wear a ring on that finger in the future could serve as a reminder to himself not to trust people, not even those close to you. This could possibly explain his huge trust issues.

However, these two scenarios, while possible, don’t strike me as the most likely simply due to the two following scenes:

“If you want to protect something, do it right!!” 

This could be totally random and only refer to the moment at hand but it could also indicate that he knows a thing or two about how to successfully protect someone. Which leads us to the infamous

“I know one of his weaknesses ...!! But if he cooperates with us ... then I won’t say anything about it!!”

Think about it, the biggest weakness ANY pirate of Crocodiles caliber could have is a loved one or people they care about and their identity and location to be known by the public or enemies (marines, pirates etc.) because no matter how powerful a pirate you are, if information like that was to spread and reach the wrong ears, this could have catastrophic consequences for you and the people you care about. It’s used over and over in OP stories like when the marines hunted down Gol D. Rogers offspring and slaughtered all newborn who could potentially have been Roger’s child or when the marines swore to kill Luffy for being Dragon’s son or when Zeff was used as leverage to force Sanji to comply. I doubt anyone knows Usopp is Yasopp’s son or that he had a woman and child in Syrup village otherwise someone would have probably attacked them to get back at Yasopp. Maybe that’s one of the reasons he left them. As to protect them.

Ivankov and Croc met years ago when Croc was still considered a rookie, so in his early/mid twenties. If there is indeed a ring to that finger and the person is still alive, Ivankov could know her identity or location and this could totally be the weakness Ivankov was refering to. Of course this only works if the person is still alive. 

Now I know, you’re probably scratching your head, thinking I might be a bit nuts going this direction considering it’s Crocodile we’re talking about but really, think about it. His choice of jewelry is mega weird so what could be the reaaon for it? Also it’s hardly the weirdest theory out there (looking at you femCroc theorists).

This would also tie in neatly with why he decided to have his Baroque agents working in teams of two with male/female. I mean, unlike other characters, he clearly doesn't seem to see women as the weaker sex and him having his agents work in pairs has to be grounded somewhere. Maybe he was raised like that and his parents where a good example of how well men and women complement each other or maybe he made the experience himself. If so, I tend to think that he wasn't betrayed by the woman... or maybe he was and that's one of the reasons why he was so paranoid and basically expected Robin to betray him. All possible, really.

It’s also apparent that Oda incorporates marriages a lot more often nowadays than he did in the early years of One Piece. Mr 9 and Mrs Mondey got married on a cover page and have a baby, Capone got married and his henchman Gotty married too, Sai and Baby 5 married, Sanji and Pudding were meant to marry and let’s not forget poor Senior Pink’s backstory. 

Last but not least, I’d like to point out a seemingly random fan question Oda answered in an SBS which seems just kinda odd once you consider everything I said above.

Now the question focuses on “they never had a child” and “I wonder what faces their children would have”, yet Oda starts with “They’ve been to weddings before ...” ... WOW. Really? Why would he say that? XD No one even asked about weddings. Funny. So they’ve been to weddings, huh? As what? Guests? Grooms? You know? It doesn’t seem to mean anything but if you consider Crocodile’s rings and such imo it’s just a weird thing to say. Then the mysterious “I wouldn’t say whether they had children or not ...” ..... 

Note: Especially during Alabasta Oda often forgets to draw Croc’s rings at all or accidentally leaves out the wrong finger but he is consistent with the rings since Impel Down. He still forgets them from time to time but he doesn’t switch the fingers anymore so one could reason that he had a vague idea of Crocodile’s reasons behind the rings when he introduced him but only solidified it or gave it more details once Croc showed back up. The anime and games however often just leave out the wrong ring probably thinking that it doesn’t matter.

[sagemusesoutloud]

Anti-Romantic, Part 4

(credit to the original owner of the image)

Character | Jaehyun x reader

Genre | nonidol!au, Mutual Pining, Slowburn, Fluff, Angst

WordCount | 1.5 k

WARNING | Mentions of verbally abusing relationships! It's brief, but there. If you or anyone is going through something similar, please seek outside help!

Author'sNote | I'm not giving excuses as to why it took so long to update, but I'm trying my hardest to be consistent! Let me know if you like how the story is going so far!

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 4.5

Sorry I’m an anti-romantic, I don’t believe in romantic

I am afraid that it will burn my whole heart, It will only leave behind ashes.

When you were younger, your family used to call you ‘spitfire.’ They said you were too fiery, argued too well, and too passionate. They had never meant it as an insult, in a way, it was a form of flattery. You grew up as the only female cousin in your family, but you were always leading your cousins on whatever diabolical plan it was that you had come up with: sneaking off to kitchen in the middle of the night to eat all the pastries meant for the morning after, convincing everyone that leaving your grandma’s territory and into the forest in the middle of the night to see if you can find the fairies, racing along the town’s border to see who was the fastest on their bike, and many other child-like plans. You were tough and you were proud, you never allowed yourself to lose.

Later on in life, that same nickname evolved to a less loving version. As you grew older and started to date, your partners always called you out for having strong opinions and for not bending at their will. They never saw you for what you wanted to be; which was an equal. If they said something against one of your friends, they expected you to throw away the friendship. All because they were the opposite sex and made your partner insecure. How could a girl and boy only be friends? Later on, when rumors would spread about your partner and other girls, they would get exasperated with you. If they’d get caught, they would only blame you for being too stiff.

“Why couldn’t you be more passive? If I want to kiss you, I’ll kiss you. You’re my girlfriend, why the fuck would I need permission? Is that what your ‘guy friends’ do? I bet you’ve let them all have a run at you, huh? Keep acting like a bitch, get treated like a bitch. And you wonder why I cheated? What a joke.”

You had to admit, you didn’t really date the greatest of guys. But you could say that now, because you knew now. Back then, you really thought you deserved those kinds of relationships. Like how they say, you only accept the love you think you deserve. However, in a way, it was why you were the way you were now. You always made it a point to communicate and avoid misunderstandings because you didn’t want your partners to throw your words back at you or your actions. It’s why you treaded carefully and avoided one-night stands. You’d rather get to know a person first and then start dating. It’s the exact reason the date you had with that other barista didn’t go through, majority of the guys you talked to thought you were too much work and therefore, not worth it.

Now that you’re an adult, you’d rather be too much work than let a guy walk all over you. Boundaries were important to you because how else were you supposed to gauge their respect for you? You had a tight grip on your morals and rules.

But damn, you’re only human!

The moment your lips crashed, it’s as if the only thing you could keep in mind was one word.

More.

You needed more of him, needed to breathe the same air as him, needed to feel every ridge of his hard body against your soft one, needed to cling to him as close as possible and for as long as possible.It’s as if his lips were the only reason you needed to dive into whatever this was. You were tired of keeping a strong hold on yourself. All that boiling anger turning into dangerous tension, and the only way to release it was to give into the passion between you two.

You settled your arms around his neck, taking that last step closer into him as he cradled your face and deepened the kiss. His other arm wound tightly around you, hand sliding dangerously close to your ass. You feel a deep groan against your chest, one of your hands wandering down his torso, enjoying the shiver you feel as you move lower. His tongue swipes at your bottom lip, a question, so you reply by opening your mouth, tongues fighting for dominance. For every move you delivered, he retaliates just as ardently. You feel your head grow lightheaded as you bring your hands to hold on to his shirt, anything to stabilize you. His hand finally squeezing your ass, shifting you closer to his hips. Oh, lord.

You let out a moan as he bites your lower lip, his kisses descending as you fight to catch your breath. You involuntary let out a whimper as he finds your pulse point and sucks the skin, soothing it with light kisses. Leaving behind a trail of purple blotches, beautifully contrasted against your skin. You’d never been into marking, had it always felt this good?

“Jae…” you can’t think, you can’t even stand properly as he pushes you with his hips against the counter for support. You don’t even know what you wanted to say, do you want to ask for more? What do you want?

“God, I’ve wanted to do this for years.” You pause at that, your hands freezing on their tight grip on his shirt. You feel as if someone had just dumped a bucket of ice water at you, your rationality finally catching up with you.

He leans back to look at you, “if you’re going to stop me, do it now because if you don’t say anything I’ll keep going. And I don’t think I can stop on my own.” His hands drawing gentle, tantalizing circles along your hips where your shirt had ridden up.

You gasp at that; finally bring your eyes to his. He looked exactly how you felt, desperate. His lips were red and puffy from your kisses, his hair messy after running your hands through it. In the light of the kitchen, you could still see how his pupils were blown wide. You’re pretty sure you’re not in any better condition.

“Jae,” you whisper, brining your hands to his shoulders, either to support yourself or to brace yourself for what you were about to say, “if we do this, there’s no going back.”

He lets out a deep breath, “I know, and I’m ok with that.” He offers a gentle smile, “I want that.” His heart drops as he notices how you drop your gaze and bite your lips.

“if we do this, can you guarantee that it won’t ruin our friendship?” for some reason, you can’t bring yourself to speak higher than a whisper or to look at him. “can you promise that you won’t run away again?”

You wait for his response. When it doesn’t come you finally look up, only to find a frown forming on his brow. You don’t expect when he takes a step back, “is that all I am to you? All this is? Just a risk you’re not willing to take just because you don’t want to ruin the ‘friendship’?”

“I don’t know…Am I supposed to forget what you just said a few minutes ago?” He gives a humorless laugh as he paces around the small kitchen.

You’re frozen in place, spaced out at his words. It’s like as if you’re watching yourself from somewhere else. But you think about it, is that what it is?

Before you can respond or come to a conclusion, he stops at the entrance to the kitchen, back towards you. “Are you really not understanding what I’m saying or are you avoiding it?” his shoulders sag but he keeps going, “If loosing me is what you’re so worried about, then let me make it simple for you.”

Your body grows number by the second, what’s wrong with you? You’ve finally done it, burned away the last semblance of security and friendship. Just like a thoughtless spitfire.

“I can’t go back to this back and forth bullshit. I’m tired. I don’t think you even know what you want, so until you do, I think I need my space.”

He motions towards his front door, “I’m gonna go, if you’re still here by the time I come back, I’ll take it as a sign that you do want us…to happen. If you leave, I’ll pretend the last two days didn’t happen and we can go back to how we used to be. I’ll never cross the line again, and I’ll do everything to move on.”

You only notice you’re sobbing when you tears blur your vision. What have you done?

You don’t even hear him leave, only when the door slams after him.

I can clearly see the end, Worse than a hangover

It will be hard, Now, Just end it somewhere here

EndNote | Damn, I've never written a kiss scene before. Hopefully it wasn't too awkward. This is a lot of angst too, which I'm not a big fan of reading, but wow... who hurt me lmao. Promise the next chapter won't be as bad, or will it?

Previous: Part 3 | Next: Part 4.5

[sweetestlamb]

Teenage Dream - All I want for Christmas is You. (Part 1)

Summary: Gang-tae gives Mun-yeong the Christmas she deserves.

Author Note: Wow. Writing IOTNBO again feels surreal honestly. This is for anyone who was waiting for me to write them again, hi I hope you like part 1 but this is my Christmas gift to @truccieeboo​ who regularly tells me that I am awesome and that I can write whenever I want to and I owe no one anything. I already know that of course but it’s so nice to hear that thought echoed by someone else. I’m happy to be back, hi guys!! It has been a busy week but I tried my best to get something out for you to read, there is so much more that I have planned and so I will be breaking it up into parts. 

He hadn't realized it but every moment of their miraculous relationship- he'd been holding his breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop and for Mun Yeong to realize that she was dating a complete and utter nerd. But instead he's consistently greeted by a warm smile and her slight body being flung into his arms.

She doesn't get tired of him and months fly by, the happiest months of his life and suddenly it's Christmas week and he's smiling down at her beautiful face as she hangs off him like a limpet, convinced she's his ultimate gift. They should both be in class but he'd went to the bathroom only to run into her in the hallway, she'd walked over immediately her strut filled with confidence and purpose before redirecting him.

He'd almost tripped over his own feet as she bodily shoved him into a closet he'd never noticed in the hall before.

"Woah where are we going?" He asked over his shoulder as she rolled her eyes and shushed him, pinching his butt and then smirking at his affronted squeal.

"I've been walking around forever trying to accidentally run into you. I'm going to take advantage of this." Her eyes twinkle as he stares with a gaped mouth, it has been a while since their last makeout session and he's just as frustrated as Mun Yeong is. Christmas is always busy for his family with his mother decorating every inch of their humble home, not taking no for an answer.

Sang-tae always swindled his way out of working by complaining about fatigue from work while poking out a tongue when their mom wasn't looking. Leaving most of the heavy lifting to Gang-tae himself, literally their box of ornaments and lights made his arms strain.

He reaches out to gently palm Mun Yeong's face, looking deeply into her eyes.

"I missed you." He breathes out, heart growing three times larger as she smiles until her eyes disappear into perfect crescents. He's only ever seen that particular smile directed at him.

"You're such a sap." She snuggles in closer to him, actions contradicting her words. He holds her tighter, breathing in the intoxicating scent of her shampoo.

She gently sways in his arms, fingers swirling aimlessly on his broadening back. She's told him many times how he makes her feel small, contrarily she makes him feel huge. Like he's important and worth her time.

Again those words are on the tip of his tongue. He can feel them right there, bursting to come out. But fear cripples him and he pushes them back down into an abyss, locking them away with a key.

Next time.

"Okay. We've been nice, can we be naughty now?"

"Wha--"

His reply is interrupted by her tongue in his mouth, latching on to his shoulder she tugs him down slanting her head to delve deeper into his mouth. Fire sears through his skin as she twists her fingers into his thick hair, scratching achingly at his scalp. Driven solely by primal desire he snatches her up, his hands cupping the meat under her ass dragging her up the length of his body.

Without preamble she wraps her legs around his waist, her heat sweltering through the thin material of their uniform. When he slides his hands under her skirt he almost drops her when he meets nothing but bare skin. Bare smooth skin.

Ripping their lips apart he stares at her with blown out pupils.

"Where is....what- I. Mun Yeong."

She only smiles at his whine. Dragging his hand back under her skirt.

"I've been a naughty girl huh? What are you going to do about it?" Heat washes over him at her purposeful words, he'd come unexpectedly at her calling herself a bad girl once and that had been it, she was relentless finding every possible way to milk his kink -her words- and torture him.

He surges at her, sliding his tongue into her simultaneously as his fingers sink into her velvety wet heat. He's forced to swallow her loud gasps as she seductively squirms in his arms.

"Gang-tae, more." She demands.

She's already so wet it's obscenely easy to sink another finger alongside the first, stretching her tight walls.

It takes him a few seconds to realize that she's trying to speak to him, twisting away from his lips. Finally he lets her go, panting into her neck as he thrusts into her over and over and over again. Wet noises ringing in his ears and tightening his pants until his cock is painfully pressing into his zipper.

"Gang-tae, I want you to fuck me."

Those inflammatory words engulf him in an inferno of arousal and hormones, his dick hardening so fast that all the remaining blood in his brain rushes to his groin and he sways unsteadily on his feet. He has to tighten his grip as to not drop her and the feline grin she shoots his way coyly informs him that she knows exactly the reaction those words had on him.

“Do you want to, hmm? Right here in the closet? You’ll probably have to cover my mouth I’ll probably scream because it’ll feel so go--”

His hand slams into her mouth cutting off her ability to render him anymore useless. He glares weakly at her, blaming himself for letting himself be caught off guard this way.

“I’m not going to....do that with you in a closet.” He blushes at her raised eyebrow at his hesitance to use the same vulgar words that she did. She giggles at him, rubbing his cheeks like he’s a much younger child. He balks at the treatment, his penis thoroughly confused.

“You can curse Gang-tae, I won’t tell anyone. You won’t fuck me in a closet? What if I want it though? What if I beg you to turn me around and fuck me so hard that my teeth rattle?”

His dick jumps painfully onboard with every word of filth dripping from her mouth and she snatches his hand bringing it back under her skirt pressing his index finger against her sopping wet core and he tenses as his finger slides in and  then he hears the worst thing possible, a voice right outside and a familiar one to boot.

“Where the hell did he go now and why did I have to look for him? I’m not his keeper.” Jae-su grumbles sounding far too close to them for his liking and he whips his head to tell Mun-yeong they need to be extremely quiet, to not be caught. Before he can get a word out she lifts herself up and grinds back onto his finger, a loud whimper falling from her bitten lips and echoing in the small room. He holds his breath hoping his meddlesome friend missed that but he hears the grumbling stop and the footsteps lurk back to their hidden location and he waits with bated breath.

A second passes by, Mun-yeong tries the move again but he is holding her hip with an ironclad grip placing her back on her feet much to her disappointment.

He almost releases a sigh of relief.

But then Jae-su calls out, “Moon Gang-tae? Are you in there, what are you doing?”

He has no planning of answering, has no feasible way of explaining his circumstance to his best friend right now. He’d been seduced completely, losing his wit and control, if Jae-su had not appeared there’s no telling what he would be doing.

Fucking Mun-yeong until her teeth rattle, his brain supplies.

He silences the voice.

Despite their lack of response Jae-su does not leave, instead the doorknob begins to rattle and then twist and too little too late he tries to stop the metal from being turned.

Suddenly he’s face to face with his friend of ten years, Jae-su’s eye bulging as he takes in the scene, a glance over to the temptress reveals that she is as calm and cool as a cucumber smiling serenely at being caught red-handed per se.

Jae-su speaks first, “What are.....why are you two in here?”

“I was trying to get Gang-tae to fuc--”

“Mun-yeong!”

He shouts her name looking at her in disbelief, her forwardness is one of the things he lo-likes about her but this level of honesty is not necessary right now. But when he looks over at his best friend the fiery rouge on his cheeks reveals this interruption did very little to conceal what they were doing in the closet. He shrinks in embarrassment his own cheeks pinking in commiseration.

“I don’t wanna know! I’m leaving don’t say anything more, you’re both such perverts!” Jae-su runs away from them looking comically horrified, stopping once down the hallway to glare at them before disappearing completely.

“Well...want to continue where we left off?” Mun-yeong drawls easily, rubbing circles into his arms.

He stares credulously at her, only for her to shrug and reply, “What? I’m horny and we were just getting to the good part.”

He shakes his head in decline, staring at her deep in her eyes.

“I already told you, I’m not doing that with you here. You deserve way more than a quick....fuck in a closet. When we have sex I want to remember everything, I want to take my time and enjoy every second.”

This time she is the only whose eyes glaze over, breath hitching as color explodes across her gorgeous face. He almost ravishes her right then and there, her palpable arousal calling to him like a siren’s call.

“You promise?”

She sticks her little pinky out, wiggling it at him and he wraps his larger pinky around her own weaving their promise.

“Now let’s seal it.” She commands, already tugging him into a kiss. Their lips slap together, the sound of their mooch ringing in his ears.

As she draws away, he halts her with a hand on her hip.

“You only seal promises like that with me right?”

She tilts her head in question first before comprehension washes over her features and a devilish glint flashes in her eyes.

Winking at him and twisting out of his hold, she dances away.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” She teases. He hopes she’s teasing. Jealousy sears in his body and it must show on his face because she practically cackles at him and runs away now, laughing all the way.

“See you later Gang-tae, think about me.” She demands, waving at him with her fingers as she disappears around the corner.

As if he has a choice, he stares down at his erection sending a mental apology to it as he actually goes to the bathroom. Today is turning out to be an exhausting day.

There are more heated makeout sessions in various parts of the school, he can no longer look much of the student body in the eyes but when he has Mun-yeong squirming and panting in his arms. all rationale goes out the window. His mother demands that he leave his bedroom door ajar after the last time she caught them “studying”, in his defense he did invite Mun-yeong over to study. Who knows how they ended up lip tangled on the bed with hands in provocative places, claiming possession didn’t seem to win his any favors with his seething mother. Now whenever his girlfriend is over, his mother finds any reason to check on them, even going as far as to send Sang-tae in to supervise them, it is beyond infantilizing.

Sang-tae commonly barges in, exclaiming, “Hey! I’m here to make sure you babies don’t make any new babies.” With a shit-eating grin on his lips as he obnoxiously sits in between them, beaming smile splattered on his face.

So it goes without saying that he too is horny beyond belief.

Which is how he finds himself searching for Mun-yeong in the halls, but to no avail and no replies to his messages.

He hasn’t heard from her all day, he realizes and worry overrides his desire as he pulls out his phone sending her another message.

Are you in school?

He looks at the screen awaiting her response but nothing comes, the message is marked delivered but not yet read.

He sends another message, Are you okay? Just like the first message, his second is felt unread and unanswered and he walks the all too familiar route to her locker, not sure what he is hoping to find.

Unfortunately his missing girlfriend does not magically appear however he finds the next best thing, her closest friend.

Seung-Jae is leaning against the locker in question, concern etched across her expressive face that is mostly eyes. She has her phone pressed to her ears and he can hear the tiny ringing through the phone as the operator recites that the person she is dialing is unable to get to the phone.

She sighs, head falling towards the ground. He clears his throat finally garnering her attention. Her head snaps up and instantly a smile breaks across her face.

“You!” She all but screams and he steps back taken off guard by her intensity.

He blinks owlishly, “Me?”

“Mun-yeong is absent today. She will be absent tomorrow too if we don’t stop her.”

This grabs his attention, he has no intention of not seeing his girlfriend for that long, his heart can’t take it.

“Why? Is she sick, is something wrong with her?” He replies, checking his phone once more and grunting when there is still no reply.

“She’s not going to reply. You have to go see her. Today. She’s going to try to lock you out but you need to be persistent okay? Don’t be your usual nice polite self unless you’ll never get in.”

His head is swimming from the information and her words do nothing to untangle the web of confusion but before he can prod her for more answers she is already ambling off, with a wave over her shoulder.

“I’m counting on you Moon. Don’t mess this up.”

He stands in shock, rubbing the back of his neck. He can’t walk home with Jae-su today.

Getting up to Mun-yeong’s lavish apartment is simple enough with security seeing him enough to register that he is with her. He still has to sign in but the whole ordeal is far less intimidating than it was all those months ago. He almost feels like he belongs. The marble walls of the elevator do a pretty decent job of swatting that feeling down.  

The ease of his entrance is squandered by Mun-yeong’s refusal to let him in her apartment.

“Mun-yeong? It’s me Gang-tae”

No response.

“Mun-yeong I know you’re there. I can see the lights, please let me in.” At his evidence of her presence the lights are suddenly shut off.

“Well now I know for a fact that you’re home. Open the door. Mun-yeong, open the door.”

“”It’s that time of the year. It’s impossible to get to her, just leave her alone and she will come out when she wants to. She always like this around Christmas.” He jumps at the sudden voice behind him, whipping around to the sunken face of Mun-yeong’s driver and adoptive father, Sang-in.

“Why? Why does she hate Christmas?”

“Why do you like it?”

Immediately he thinks of his mother and his brother and freshly baked cookies and decorations and then it clicks for him.

Mun-yeong doesn’t have any of that, she’s all alone in her beautiful prison.

“Exactly. Her parents never come, they hire people to decorate and Mun-yeong hides away for a few days until she’s ready to face the world again.”

It shatters his heart that this is her normal. So much so that everyone seems to know about this occurrence, Sang-in explaining it to him as if he’s reading the weather report.

“I can drive you to your house. Don’t worry, I will keep her company. I know how to handle her.”

Gang-tae feels his skin bristle at those words, no one can handle his Mun-yeong.  He stands taller, making his decision.

“Call my phone.”

Sang-in looks puzzled at his sudden request looking at him, as if he’s lost his mind and hell, maybe he has but there’s no way he’s leaving Mun-yeong to wallow in her sadness, not alone. She has him now, she never has to be alone ever again.

“Call my phone.” He repeats harder, and finally the man sighs pulling out his phone and following directions.

The all too familiar jingle of his phone rings out loudly and Gang-tae answers it just as loudly, “Oh Ju-ri? You want me to meet you where? What time?

He has to jump back to avoid being hit by the door that bursts open, a seething Mun-yeong on the other side. She snatches the phone from his hand finger set to hang up before she sees the name on the screen, Mun-yeong and a little symbol of a car.

He smiles innocently at the sharp glare she sends first his way and then to her driver who sputters out some nonsense about parking illegally and needing to move his car. Neither one of them acknowledge his departure.

“Go away. I don’t want company right now.”

“That’s too bad. I miss you.” He answers as he pushes his way past her, she attempts to stop him but it is futile and he closes the door behind him.

It takes a second for his sight to adjust to the darkness of her apartment but when it does he sees the destruction that lays around them, broken glasses and tinsel and Christmas decorations littering the floor. It looks like Christmas threw up on the floor.

He ignores that all and takes her hand. She doesn’t fight him, just stares back blankly at him. Looking as small and lost as she did on her birthday, the first time he saw her like this.

“Mun-yeong. Let’s go.”

Then she reacts, “No. I don’t want to go with you. Just leave. This is what I deserve.”

He squeezes her hand tighter, refusing to let those words settle in the air. “No you don’t , you deserve to be loved. You deserve everything Mun-yeong. Don’t shut me out, please.”

She rips her hand viciously from his grip, hissing like a viper.

“No! I let you confuse you, this is what I deserve. I don’t get to be happy, I should be alone. I don’t need anyone. I’ve been alone my whole life. I was an idiot to think that this would work. You’ll never understand me with your perfect family, why would you want to be with someone as broken as me?

Tears pool in his eyes as he listens to her berate herself, the pain is transparent on her face. The wound from her parent’s abandonment raw and throbbing.

“I hate them! I hate them! Why do they hire decorators? Why remind me that it’s Christmas when I’ll spend it alone,? Why give birth to me if they knew that I would be a burden?!” She is a tempest now, rushing to the perfectly decorated tree in the corner by large gleaming glass windows and he watches with tears streaming down his face as she shoves the tree to the ground, the delicate glass bulbs shattering with the impact.

Then she sinks to the ground as well, shoulders shaking up and down rapidly.

It’s not how he planned it but as he watches her fall apart, all his fears and hesitations fall out the window, there are more important things right now.

“I love you.”

She turns to look at him like he has two heads, her eyes large and wet. Tears aching to fall.

“What?”

“I love you Mun-yeong.”

“....And you realized that right now?” She eyes all disaster all around her.

Now she is crying and he can’t decipher her feelings at all. She is glaring at him as she hiccups on the ground.

“I don’t like you. Why can’t you ever do as you’re told?”

He moves closer to her, bending at the knee until they’re eye level.

“Spend Christmas with me?” He pleads and she simply looks at him before collapsing into his chest. She sniffles into his collar, gripping at the lapels of his uniform before whispering her reply, “I’m scared. Gang-tae I’m scared.”

He has never cared for Christmas, it’s a chance to spend time with his family but nothing too serious, nothing he has ever made plans for. He has always been happy to follow his mother’s lead on everything, but as he stares down at Mun-yeong shaking in his arms, the most precious thing that he has ever had. He makes a silent promise that he will make this year different, this will be a Christmas that she never forgets.

I want to make her happy.

[cakejots]

this is us trying, Chapter 10 - The Epilogue

In this AU, they don’t know each other outside of the suit. And in this AU, Ladybug and Chat Noir love each other. But in this AU, Chat doesn’t want their identities revealed.

Written for @ladynoirjuly 2021

notes: the last chapter consists of the last 2 prompts

Ch 1 | Ch 2 | Ch 3 | Ch 4 | Ch 5 | Ch 6 | Ch 7 | Ch 8 | Ch 9 | Ch 10

Read on AO3

30. Rose

Chat was down on one knee, a palm placed right on top of his heart, and presenting something red to her.

A rose. It was something she hasn’t seen much ever since the final battle, minus the time of the reveal because that was special, but it really has been a while since he last held out a red rose to her.

And he was down on one knee in a very public area. Parisians were watching.

“Chaton, what are you doing!” She spoke through gritted teeth, which just made her seem like she’s smiling with her white teeth.

“A display of affection!” A shit-eating grin sat on his handsome face.

Ladybug made a noise. “I can see that! And it’s very sweet of you, but right here?!” she yelled in a whisper.

“I think Parisians need an update that we’re officially together meow.” His smile grew wider.

And she finally caught on. It has been at least 6 months since she proposed her stupid idea of patrolling around when they were actually dating. But ever since they’ve gotten together, they patrolled, really patrolled, around Paris.

So an update they’ll give. Ladybug walked over to Chat and took the rose from his hand to give it a long sniff. Chat stood from the ground and waited until she’s done before wrapping his arms around her waist, drawing her closer. Ladybug giggled and snaked her arms around his neck, pressing her lips onto his. They heard the crowd around them cheering before they could get lost in the kiss.

They pulled back slightly, still looking at each other adoringly before they directed their attention to the crowd. Sure enough, phones can be seen in their hands. With pink cheeks, they posed for a few photos and said their thank-yous in response to their blessings. Ladybug and Chat Noir then made their way, hand in hand, to a nearby rooftop.

“You think that’ll bring an interview our way, my lady?”

“It’s Alya, Chaton. Once she catches wind of this, of course she will,” she ran her hand up their once-connected hold to his chin to scratch. “Her LadyNoir ship has finally sailed after all.”

“Our superhero ship name, huh?” He fluttered his eyes close, really enjoying it when she does that.

Ladybug stopped her ministrations gradually. “Mon Chaton, what’s the real reason for giving me a rose?”

Chat opened his eyes and smiled sheepishly. “I realised I haven’t given you anything ever since we became official, as our civilian selves.”

“A romantic at heart, huh?” She flicked his bell. “Thank you.”

He twinkled and placed a kiss on her knuckles. “Anything for you, my lady.”

They made their way home after patrolling around for a while longer, and Ladybug de-transformed the moment the balls of her feet touched the floor. She gave Chat a quick kiss on the cheek before finding a suitable vase for the rose. A soft look reserved only for her sat on Adrien’s face as his eyes lingered on Marinette before she disappeared around the corner.

Marinette exited the kitchen with a cup of tea in her hands when she suddenly came to a halt. Adrien was down on one knee again, but this time, instead of a single rose, he held out a bouquet to her.

“Adrien?”

“Yes, my love?” His eyes were shining.

She blushed at the endearment. “Why am I receiving something from you again?”

“Can’t I shower my lady with gifts?” His pupils were dilated.

“You can, you absolutely can.” She placed her cup down on a nearby table and went to help him up before taking the bouquet from him. “And I’m not complaining.”

Marinette hugged the bouquet and brought it to her face before lifting her head, a smile on her face. “Thank you again, Adrien.”

Adrien leaned in to kiss her cheek. “I’m glad you like it, Marinette. Red suits you really well.”

“It’s really lovely.” Her cheeks bloomed and she sniffed it once again. “So… what's the reason?”

He brought a hand to his chest.  “My lady, can’t I give you anything without you assuming I’ve an ulterior motive?”

She tilted her head.

“I can't hide anything from you huh?”

She gave him a sly smirk.

He released a short breath of laughter. “I would like to take you out on a date, as Adrien and Marinette.”

Her smirk turned into one of surprise. “Wow, I wasn’t expecting that.”

It was his turn to be smug.

“Is this for an event or?”

“Just the two of us having dinner together.”

Marinette looked at the clock. “It’s not today, is it?”

“My lady, I would never.” He placed his hand on the small of her back to pull her in. “I know how important it is for you to have enough time to prepare.”

“Adrien! The flowers!” Her lips curved downwards as their bodies squashed the bouquet a little.

He chuckled, picking the bouquet from her arms and settling it down on the table where her cup sat before his arms rounded her waist, peering at her earnestly. “Is that a no?”

Marinette pulled him down for a kiss before smiling. “It’s a yes. Of course it’s a yes, you silly kitty.”

.

A day had passed since Adrien told her about the dinner date, and Marinette was currently in her home choosing the perfect outfit to wear for it. It’s her dream to date openly with her kitty, masks off. And now that she’s finally going out on a date with Adrien, she had to look her best for this special occasion.

The problem was, she had no idea which outfit was suitable for the date.

“Chaton, what will you be wearing for the date?”

Adrien was currently sitting on her bed admiring her vast creations of apparel as she dug through her wardrobe.

“Why, just a normal suit you’ll wear for dinner,” he smiled, knowing exactly what her dilemma was.

“Not very helpful, Chaton.” Her voice was muffled as she had the top half of her body shoved into the wardrobe to dig deeper. “Have you seen anything suitable from those on the bed?”

“I think any one of them is perfect, my lady,” the smugness on his face grew larger by the second.

“Chaton!” She whipped around and stomped her foot. “I really need some advice here.”

She’s so endearing even when she’s angry, can he get any luckier? “And I’m giving you legitimate advice, anything here is stunning.”

Marinette made a strangled noise. “Okay, fine then. Where are we eating?”

“It’s a secret, Buguinette,” he winked.

“Adrieeen!” She whined. “Okay, okay, calm down Marinette. Just think logically. Your boyfriend loves spoiling you, so it’s reasonable to think he’ll bring you to a nice and classy restaurant…”

She glimpsed at him, and he just smiled.

Marinette groaned. “As dreamy as you are with that smile, it’s not really helping me with my predicament here.”

“Marinette, it’s like I said earlier, any—”

“—one of them is fine,” she finished his sentence. “Yeah yeah, I’m painfully aware.”

She activated her kitty eyes. “May I know the colour of your suit at least? Please, Chaton?”

Adrien was offended. How dare she use his own weapon against him. And it worked so well. It’s no wonder Marinette can never say no.

“N-N—”

“Pleaseee!” She made herself look even cuter than before.

Man, it sucked to be the receiving end of it.

“Oh alright,” he gave up, “I’m wearing black.”

He was tackled onto her bed in an instance. “Yay! Thank you, Chaton! Now I can narrow down the number of outfits to choose from!” She flashed him a genuine smile.

Maybe he should’ve just let loose some facts earlier. Her happiness is his dopamine.

.

They walked through a hotel to get to the restaurant Adrien had in mind. Marinette still had no idea which one it was, but she was definitely right on him wanting to spoil her.

The walk was a long one, but she couldn’t find herself complaining. With no one else around but themselves, it indeed felt like they were in their own mini-world. Their hands were clasped together tightly, with Adrien rubbing his thumb soothingly on the back of her hand. Marinette had never admitted it but she really loved it and found it comforting when Adrien ran circles on her skin. She almost wanted to just push him into a corner and make out for a while given how private the moment felt.

But Adrien’s hand was starting to get clammy for some unknown reason, and she was about to call out to him when they suddenly stopped in front of a square mirror.

They looked so adorable together Marinette honestly wanted to snap a few pictures and keep them as cherished memories. It was their first after all. But before she did that, she directed her attention towards him to wait on him, except he was already looking at her.

“I would like to share a picture of us on my account?”

Oh.

His forehead had beads of sweat. And his hands were still damp.

Oh.

“I don’t see why not?” She dug her purse for something. “My face’s already on your account, no?”

“You are, and the public has been very accepting of our relationship as of late.”

She brought tissues to his face. “Then why are you sweating so much?”

Adrien let her dab the sweat off his face. “I was worried you’ll see it as me trying to give you exposure through my account.”

“Well, seeing that you said any outfit of mine was stunning enough, isn’t it?” She smiled.

He winced when she acknowledged it. Yet, she kept smiling.

“But…?”

“It’s your account,” she booped his nose with her finger. “You decide what goes on it.”

Relief flashed across his face.

“Besides, there’s only so much I can do to get my designs out there.”

“So—”

“Yes, I don’t mind it. And I really really want to keep memories of this night.” She turned both of them towards the mirror. “Just look at us! We look so cute together!”

Adrien laughed as he stepped behind her to wrap his arms around her waist. “As my lady wishes.”

Marinette took out her phone, getting ready to take a few photos. Her hand enclosed his as Adrien bent a little to kiss her temple, and she captured the image of them in the mirror.

She swiped through to find the one which had them both looking the best. “How’s this for your account?”

“You look gorgeous,” he breathed as he placed another kiss on her cheek.

“And you look charming,” she giggled. “Now let’s take cute and silly pictures together!”

Marinette escaped from his arms to stand beside him and posed.

He chuckled. “Buguinette? Our dinner?”

“Yes, I’m hungry too. So hurry up!”

31. Pound it

“Buguinette,” Chat called out.

“Chaton,” Ladybug replied.

He smiled at her attempt to be kittenish.

“The interview with your friend Alya is this Friday,” he detailed.

And she confirmed. “Indeed it is.”

“And I was thinking…” he drawled.

“And you were thinking…” she rephrased.

“Can you formally introduce Alya to me?”

Ladybug blinked in surprise before her smile returned.

“You want to get to know my friends,” she stated.

He nodded. “Indeed I do.”

“I can do that. But…” she hummed.

“But?”

“Why don’t we go on a double date with Alya and Nino?”

Chat tilted his head. “Nino?”

“Alya’s boyfriend and my childhood friend!” She puffed her chest proudly. “I’ve a feeling you’ll be best buds!”

Ladybug suddenly had her back flat on the rooftop, a certain cat had tackled her into lying down and he was rubbing his cheek against hers.

“Thank you, my lady! Thank you!”

She patted his head. “Of course, mon Chaton.”

Chat let her go and hovered above her.

Ladybug brought her hand to his cheek. “Your eyes are sparkling.”

“Of course they are!” He grabbed her wrist and smiled. “I’ll have two new friends at the end of the double date! Two!”

“You so sure,” she chuckled.

He kissed her palm. “They must be as awesome as you are, so yes.”

“Well then, we better finish up with patrol soon!” Ladybug pushed herself up. “So that I can call Alya as soon as we arrive home!”

.

They had collectively decided on a game night at the Agreste mansion. And since Adrien didn’t have the dancing video game Alya and Nino love playing, Alya will be bringing that game over so that they can all play together.

Adrien and Marinette were in charge of providing dinner for them all, and Alya had suggested ordering some delivery. Adrien, aiming to be a good host, wanted to cook but Marinette assured him that calling for delivery would suffice.

Now that preparations for the game night were done, all they had to do was wait for their friends’ arrival. Still, they were taking a while to get here, since it’s a workday after all. Marinette suggested playing some video games to pass time, and they were back in his room again.

Maybe they got bored of playing the same video games. Maybe they got tired of waiting for their friends and were beginning to get restless at their tardiness. Whatever it was, Adrien and Marinette were currently making out on his bed. Their hands grabbed any body part they could get hold of, and their lips wet from all the kissing and biting.

It had started out like any other kiss they had had, until Adrien got cheekier and started nibbling on her lower lip. The mewls she let loose spurred him on and he bit down and pulled. Marinette moaned and released her hold on his neck. Her brows furrowed as he caressed her cheek and tasted his lips, a smirk sitting on his face; warmth burst forth within his chest at what he was able to do to her. She pushed him onto his back to straddle him, her fingers sprawled and glided across his chest, shoulders and neck, before reaching up to play with his hair. Marinette leaned towards his face, leaving butterfly kisses on his forehead, nose, lips, chin, jaw, and finally stopping at his ear. She started licking and grazing her teeth on his ear, giving it a nibble before moving down to his pulse to suck.

Adrien was quick to grab her face and brought her lips back to his before she could leave a mark.

“We’ll have guests over soon, Marinette,” he breathed over her lips.

“You didn’t seem to have that in mind when you bit my lips, Adrien,” she growled and gripped his hair hard. Adrien groaned and Marinette’s tongue traced over his lips before sliding into his mouth. It felt around, eager to roam and discover each and every corner it could reach. Adrien breathlessly drank her onslaught, enjoying her strawberry flavoured lips and the thrill that was coursing through his being. He hummed as his hands clutched onto her hips as tightly as they could, and she licked his lips once more before biting down on his lower lips to pull and suck.

Adrien moaned in approval and Marinette smirked at his reaction. When he finally realised what he had just done, he opened his eyes to see his lover’s face full of smugness. But it didn’t last long as she was flipped onto her back.

“Two can play this game, Marinette,” he grunted and devoured her lips. His hand interlaced with hers, bringing them above her head while the other caressed her cheek. Marinette felt herself trembling and whimpering as he continued to kiss her vehemently and his hands caressed her body as it went down her neck, down the side of her chest, down her waist before travelling under her shirt to brush her ribs tenderly. Adrien’s mouth ghosted over her burning cheek to the side of her face and nipped her ear. She gasped and Adrien pressed his body into hers harder. Marinette felt hot all over, she wrapped her legs around his hips and twisted her core to sit on top of him once again. She wasted no time and went straight for his neck. The desire to one-up each other continued for who knows how long until Marinette’s phone rang.

They sprang apart for Marinette to answer her phone.

“Marinette? Are you not home? We’ve been ringing the bell for over a minute now,” came Alya’s voice.

Marinette was horrified, they got so carried away that they didn’t even realise the doorbell had been ringing that long.

She swallowed hard. “O-Oh! We must’ve f-fallen asleep or something! We’re coming to get you now!”

Hastily, she hung up and pulled Adrien out of the room, almost falling in the process. “It’s Alya! T-They're here!”

Adrien’s eyes grew to the size of saucers and they ran to the front door.

“Uhh,” Nino started, “are we interrupting somethi—”

“No,” Marinette answered before Nino could finish his sentence.

Alya snickered and snapped a photo.

Their hair was a mess, they had their cheeks ablaze, and lips red and swollen. Fierce red marks can be seen on their skins as well.

“Look!” Alya shoved her phone into Marinette’s face.

“I know how I look, don’t show me that,” she covered the screen with her hands and turned around. “Come on in.”

Alya looked at Adrien and smirked. “Don’t worry, Sunshine. I’ll send it to you later.”

Adrien crimsoned.

Marinette showed her friends where the game night would take place before heading to another toilet to tidy up. Adrien used the toilet in his room.

Both of them returned to the room, only to have Alya and Nino challenge them to a showdown.

Marinette knew Alya and Nino have been totally in sync ever since they got together. She wasn’t as surprised about their score as Adrien was; he was really impressed.

When it was their turn, Adrien stood and offered his hand to her. Marinette chuckled and took his hand, moving to the play area hand in hand.

Alya and Nino were shocked that they got a near-perfect score. After their ‘workout’, the four of them sat on the sofa and enjoyed their dinner.

“My little sis has finally found the one,” Nino wiped fake tears away. “Adrien, you’re a mec!”

Adrien beamed at the nickname Nino had given him, and Alya was really glad that Nino liked Adrien enough to call him ‘Mec’.

“Nino look!” Alya showed him the picture Adrien had of them on his account. “Aren’t they adorable?”

“Oh! Marinette, you finally gave him that scarf huh?” Marinette nodded. “See, there's nothing to worry about, Adrien looked like he really loved it, don’t you mec?”

Adrien’s smile faltered a bit, but he nodded nonetheless.

“Nino!” Alya whacked his forearm. “He’s not supposed to know that!” she whispered harshly.

“You’re worried that I wouldn’t like it?” Adrien looked at Marinette. Alya just smacked her forehead and Nino slapped his hand on his mouth.

“Uhh, yeah…” she admitted. “Honestly this was a huge gamble for me because I really didn’t know if scarves are even your kinda stuff.”

She held his hand. “But I’m glad you like it! Your reactions when you first saw it will forever be carved in my memory. And when I saw that you wore it on our first public date, I almost cried,” she laughed a bit.

Adrien placed his hand on the back of her head to bring her towards him, and he pressed his lips to her forehead. “I love it, Marinette, please don’t doubt yourself.” Then he whispered. “I hardly receive things from anyone, so really, I’m delighted I could even get anything from you.”

Marinette gawked at him and tackled. “You’ll be receiving tons from me from now on.”

Alya crossed her arms. “Mhm,” and nodded, “sickeningly sweet.”

“Man, you’re not wrong. I could really get diabetes from this,” Nino acknowledged.

Adrien sat up and Marinette let go of him, both had rosy cheeks, but they were still looking at each other.

“And has anyone scouted you yet, Marinette?” Nino waved to get her attention. “You said something about giving Adrien tons of gifts?”

“Shit. I totally forgot about updating you guys,” she scratched the back of her head. “There was a number and I’ve been discussing with Adrien to see which one is the most suitable before I reply to them.”

Adrien was gleaming and Alya and Nino were frowning but they just looked constipated because they were also delighted by the news she just dropped. And they spent the rest of the night congratulating Marinette and enjoying themselves: playing, eating, and talking.

And Adrien got two new friends.

.

The livestream of the Ladyblog had already started when Ladybug and Chat Noir suddenly dropped down onto the seats reserved for them.

“So you guys were making out and lost track of time?” Alya shot them knowing looks.

Ladybug and Chat Noir regarded each other and saw that their lips were redder than usual. Their cheeks were flaming and their hair was messier as well. They scarlet even more than Alya thought possible.

So much for looking prim and proper.

“Anyway, has my LadyNoir ship finally sailed?”

“If this,” Ladybug signalled to the both of them, “isn’t enough proof then I don’t know what else to tell you, Alya.”

Alya addressed the livestream once again. “Well, there you have it, folks! They’re official now!”

Ladybug beamed. “Wait, that’s it?”

“Wouldn’t you like that?” The sly smirk from before came back onto Alya’s face.

Her cheeks blazed and Chat took Ladybug’s hand to hold and caress, throwing her soft and loving gazes. “My lady.”

Ladybug smiled, remembering that they were in this together. “Alright, any questions you and the viewers of Ladyblog have, we’ll answer them.”

“Well, it was really beautiful to see your relationship grow from your first day till now,” Alya praised. “So, any plans to get married?”

Ladybug chuckled while Chat smiled broadly and answered. “That’s the plan, isn’t it?”

“You hear that, viewers?” Alya squealed. “We’re going to have a miraculous wedding!”

She turned her attention back to them. “Any dates in mind?”

“That’s for us to decide and for you to find out in due time,” Ladybug returned.

Alya’s eyes glowed. “So we’re invited?”

Chat spoke this time. “We’ll see, Alya. We’ll see.”

“You guys are being vague here, is it a yes or a no?” She furrowed her brows.

“Thank you for your service all this while, Alya,” Ladybug added and gave her the best smile she could offer before clapping her hands. “Next question!”

They landed on the top of the Louvre Museum and made themselves comfortable, the interview playing on her bug phone.

“The comment section seems very ecstatic for us,” she grinned.

“I mean, didn’t you see, my lady? We’re ‘so cute together’, we’re ‘couple goals’,” Chat scrolled through the comments and twinkled. “I think they really are.”

“Bien joué ?” Ladybug smiled and brought her fist towards him.

He connected his fist with hers. “Bien joué !”

Chat saw her smirk, but it still didn’t prepare him for Ladybug’s unprompted endearment. He froze for a second before cupping her cheek and deepening the kiss.

.

The next day, a picture of their kiss on top of the Louvre Museum was submitted by an anonymous user to the Ladyblog, and it was the first thing one would see when they accessed the site. Ladybug and Chat Noir were extremely pleased that it was a very flattering image of them both, and they made absolutely sure to download the image for themselves, a reminder of how far they’ve come together.

[rhysismydaddy]

Naughty Neighbors pt. 4 (Elriel)

I’m thinking there’s going to be two/three more parts to this. I know it’s longer than what I usually put out, but I did mention it’s a slow burn, so... Idk. I really like it and want to keep writing it. 

DRUNK NOTE: thank god I wrote this earlier because i’m too far gone to do much editing hahah sorry if there’s errors also sorry it’s short

__________________________________________________________

~Elain~

For exactly three horrible seconds of Elain’s life, he doesn’t move. He doesn’t so much as breathe as she stands there, holding him to her, mouth pressed against his. 

It’s absolutely horrifying. 

But then he pulls back just enough to murmur, “Holy fuck, Elain.”

And then he kisses her. 

Walking forward, he presses her against the wall, sheltering her with his body and caging her in. 

She’s quickly becoming addicted to the way his chest is pressed against hers, hard muscle dragging against her now-heavy breasts in a way that makes her pant. 

But that’s nothing compared to the addiction she was forming for how he kissed her. 

It’s deep and heavy and so seductive her knees go a bit weak. He--Azriel--seems to notice and slides a knee in between her legs, which helps keep her upright but does absolutely no favors for the growing ache at the apex of her thighs. 

Gods above.

Elain shoves her hands in his hair to keep him close to her, and his go to her hips, then slide around to her backside, then run across her waist. He’s everywhere, hands and body surveying every inch of her, but his mouth moves consistently slow against hers. 

She feels like he can’t get enough of her, like she's driving him crazy. And she fucking loves it, because she’s never felt like this before. 

Never... been kissed like this before. 

He moves to her neck, then down to the top of her breasts. “Azriel,” she moans. Or maybe begs. 

His head snaps up, eyes meeting hers instantly. His usual honey and moss colored eyes are dark, lined with urgency and desire and maybe just a little crazy. “That’s going to be the fucking death of me.”

Before she can analyze that, they’re kissing again, and Elain can’t stop herself from running her hands over his chest and abs, then pulling him even closer. 

Azriel presses his hips into hers, and she gasps into his mouth, making him smile. She reaches behind her to open the door and take him inside, but he stops her with a hand on her wrist. 

“Elain.”

Still a little breathless, she whispers, “What?”

Taking a healthy step away from her, he shakes his head and says, “We can’t... I’m not going in there.”

“What?” she repeats, beyond confused. She’d thought he’d wanted to... and his body had definitely wanted to...

“I’m not taking you to bed while you belong to another man, Elain.”

“I don’t belong to anyone.”

“Maybe not your body,” he agrees, placing a wide hand on her chest, right above her heart. “But I want this to be mine. And you’re going to give it to me.”

Her mouth is open, probably grazing the floor, but she just stares at him in disbelief. Azriel smiles softly, runs a thumb over her bottom lip, then kisses her cheek. “Goodnight, Elain.”

Then he turns and goes inside his apartment, the door shutting between them with a deafeningly quiet click. 

~Azriel~

Yeah, I’m one dumb motherfucker. 

I had the girl I’d been pathetically pining for finally kissing me, finally admitting she wants me, and I told her I wasn’t going to have sex with her. 

And where does that leave me? With a fucking painful erection and the urge to put my fist through a wall. 

I head straight for the bathroom and turn the shower to the coldest setting possible. But even as the ice water runs over me, my blood continues to thrum. 

Good gods, I want to kiss her again. 

I want to kiss her all the time. 

Her full mouth fits mine perfectly, and the way she kissed me... no cold shower is going to get me to forget that. Not to even mention the way her body felt under my hands, the soft curves practically begging to be touched. 

Shoving my head against the tile, I try to ignore all that. But it doesn’t do an ounce of good, because then I think about the way she said my name. 

It was so natural for her, even though she’d learned it ten minutes before. She’d said it like it was everything to her, like a precious gift she’d never return. 

By the time I cut the shower off and flop in bed, I’m exhausted, so when the phone rings, I ignore it and shut my eyes. But it rings again, and I see that it’s Mor, so I answer. “What?”

“Wow, thank you for that heart-warming greeting,” she teases. “Bad night?”

“No, I’m just-” thinking about Elain and don’t want to talk to you at the moment, “tired.”

Thing about Mor is, she can always tell when I’m lying.

“Something happened! What happened?” 

“She kissed me,” I tell my best friend, smile on my face. 

Mor howls on the other end of the line, making me laugh. “I told you making her jealous would work!”

“Yeah, yeah, you were right. It worked. She wanted to...” Cursing, I cut myself off. She doesn’t need to know everything. 

She, apparently, doesn’t hold that belief. “And did you?” 

“No, we didn’t. I want her... I want her to love me first, Mor.”

She’s quiet for a few moments, but then she says softly, “You really like her, huh?” I stay quiet, but it’s answer enough. “Then make her fall in love with you.”

“Oh, I plan on it,” I chuckle, because it’s true. Now that I know what I’m missing, I don’t want to waste another minute without it. “But I have to be well-rested to trick fair maidens into loving me, so goodnight. Love you.”

“Love you too, stupid.”

I hang up and stare at the ceiling, still smiling like an idiot. 

My very helpful brain thinks about Elain on the other side of that wall, lying in bed doing the same thing, thinking about me. 

I tell it to shut up and go to sleep, but the stupid bastard doesn’t listen. 

The last thing I think before finally falling asleep is that I can’t fucking wait to see Elain tomorrow. 

~

Elain doesn’t go to work all week. 

I know because it’s Friday, and I’ve been by the store every single day since Monday. Some girl named Christine has been there, and she gives me a weird look every time she notices me peeking in. 

Honestly, I don’t get it. 

Last time she tried to avoid me, she was embarrassed and knew I’d tease her. This time... I didn’t do anything wrong, right?

Maybe she’s sick. 

Or maybe she just feels guilty. That’s probably it. I haven’t heard the boyfriend come around this week, and she’s not the kind of girl to dump someone over the phone. So maybe she’s waiting until she sees him and ends things to see me. 

The thought makes me smile, drawing a raised eyebrow from the guy I’m currently tattooing. 

“You look like you’re thinking about a girl,” the old biker-looking man remarks with a gruff. I can’t help but grin and shrug and he sighs. “Just don’t fuck up my tattoo.”

I nod and focus, shoving all thoughts of Elain into a small box in the corner of my mind. 

But the damn box won’t stay closed, and by the time I leave work that night, I don’t care if she’s trying to do the right thing and avoid me. I have to see her. 

Even if nothing happens, I have to see her. 

The week’s been boring without her soft smiles and cute little dresses, and I want to hear what she’s been up to, cooped up in that apartment. 

I practically run up the stairs and down the hall to her door, already smiling as I knock. It takes a few minutes for the door to open, but when it does, the smile falls away and takes every last drop of happiness with it. 

She looks awful. 

I mean, she’s always beautiful, but she looks like she hasn’t slept or eaten since I last saw her. Her hairs a dirty mess, she’s in a raggedy sweatshirt and sweatpants, and there’s dark circles under her big brown eyes. 

Eyes that don’t hold an ounce of happiness to see me. “What do you want?”

The question throws me, but I answer honestly. “I wanted to see you. Are you alright?”

Elain doesn’t answer, just stands there for a minute. Then she says, “Leave me alone.”

The door swings towards me, but I jut a hand out and stop it from closing. “What’s wrong? Did I do something?”

Because like Mor’s told me for years, it’s always the man’s fault. Even when it isn’t the man’s fault, it’s the man’s fault. 

Whatever it is, I’ll apologize and smile and tease her until she’s smiling, too.

“Did you do something?” she repeats in a small voice, eyes going a bit misty. 

The sight hits me hard, and I take a step forward, but she shoots out a hand and shoves me back. “Stay the fuck away from me.”

If it wasn’t the unusual curse that stops me dead in my tracks, it’d be the way her voice sounded as she said it. None of the usual warmth, no soft laughter. 

She sounds... she sounds like she hates me. And I can’t take it. “Elain, what the hell did I do?”

~Elain~

Is he serious? What did I do? 

The genuine confusion on his face makes the carefully-crafted dam she’s been building around herself burst. “What was this to you? Some sort of sick game?”

“What are you-”

“You tried your goddamn best to drive me crazy, and like a complete idiot, I let you! How stupid could I have been...” She looks up at the ceiling as if that will give her the strength to face him, to say the words. “To think you wanted me.” 

His eyes go wide, and she lets out a humorless laugh. “Elain-”

But there’s no going back now, and there’s no stopping the words from coming out.

“Oh, save the bullshit. You got what you wanted. You proved I’m a horrible girlfriend and an even worse human being, so just leave me alone.”

Before he can respond, she demands, “And what was that crap about wanting my heart? You’re a pathological liar. It’s just not enough for me to cheat on Lucien with you, is it? You want me to fall in love with you.”

His jaw is tight, hands bunched into fists, but he stays silent. 

Tears are streaming down her face, but she forces herself to glare and say, “That will never happen. I’m not stupid enough to love you.”

She slams the door in his face, then drops to the floor to cry. Pressing a hand to her chest, she tries hopelessly to ignore the voice in her head telling her if that were true, this wouldn’t hurt so damn much. 

____________________________________________________________

Uh, can I just say right now that I’m sorry? Hang in there. I TOLD YOU IT’S A SLOW BURN. Part 5

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