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manicpixiefelix · 1 year ago

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head, heart, hand. {Felix Catton/Reader/Oliver Quick}

Part 15.

Summary: Oliver's first night and the next morning at Saltburn, and you learn that not only does he know more about you and Felix than you'd assumed, but he knows even less about the social rules of a place like this than you'd imagined.

{ masterpost }

Need to Know: They/Them. Explicitly NB Reader. FWB!Reader/Felix. Reader is from a well off family but has pretty much been adopted by the Cattons.

Warnings: suggestive themes, we finally get the basis of the consensual pervert/enabler dynamic between oliver/reader(/felix). its implications in this chapter but will probably get more explicit in future.

A/N: 4908 words. venetia catton is a menace to society and i am in lvoe with her. set up is being set up!! we're getting there, friends!!

TAGLIST IN COMMENTS!! // TAGLIST ALWAYS OPEN ! (just message or comment to be added)

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You wish you hadn't looked out of the window. You wished you hadn't cracked open the door to step onto the balcony. You wished you hadn't waited up.

Dinner had ended hours ago, and Felix was well and truly asleep, but you'd left your smokes on his balcony and had taken a break from going over the guest lists for the upcoming events that Duncan had provided you with. It was something you did every year, it helped calm your anxiety around these formal events, to be well versed on all the patrons in attendance, making everyone feel as though their place at Saltburn mattered, if only for a night. There was most certainly some deep, psychological root of your crippling social anxiety and fear of faux par and failure, but that was almost certainly a problem to investigate in the future.

The lilac study had been functionally unused since before even Felix had been born, sitting idle and untouched but beautifully furnished directly across from his room, on the other side of the long gallery, with a beautiful view of the gardens. It became unofficially your study many years ago, though sometimes Felix would use it too if he had some kind of Summer project he had to attend to. But now it was yours, set up with a bulky computer for the occasional emails from your family business that you were becoming slowly more involved in. Mostly, however, you spent your time thoroughly poring over these dossiers of guest lists with attached relevant information, committing all of them to memory.

After spending most of the day high, you felt guilty enough to get a head start on the Summer that evening.

But just before midnight you'd needed a smoke.

Oliver and Venetia painted so pale in the moonlight, Oliver half dressed and clearly ready for bed, Venetia with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders that you knew she wouldn't have brought herself. It doesn't seem to be a particularly deep conversation, but you think you can see Venetia smiling, and a smile like that can never mean anything good. Surely she'd told Oliver some pretty lie about why she was out there, but her room was on the other side of the house.

Oliver is unconventionally wonderful, and she is, and forever will be, Venetia Catton.

He will fall for her tricks, and you're sure part of her, just like her brother, just like yourself, would fall for part of Oliver's unsuspecting charms.

Just like she said she had with Eddie.

No, this was deliberate, you were sure; Venetia was playing this dangerous game again.

Retiring back to your study, you make sure to keep the door ajar to hear of anyone coming through the gallery. Saltburn is a creature that groans when you tread in the wrong places; you, like Duncan, had long ago mastered the art of moving around the house in total silence. None of the Cattons had ever felt it a necessary skill to learn. Oliver hadn't even been here a day. His footsteps practically echoed like drum beats.

"Everything okay, Ollie?" You shoot for casual, voice loud enough that you know he'd hear it in the quiet ambiance of the night, but that it wouldn't disturb Felix. The footsteps stop. There's no tell-tale creak of his door. Then, he moves towards you.

"How'd you know it was me?" Oliver, at your door, is shirtless. Oh. Right. Of course he was. He had been in the garden only moments before.

"I saw you downstairs," you say, trying to regain your train of thought. It's the easiest for him to digest, and most of the truth. He hadn't seemed to like the thought of you knowing his prescription earlier, even though you were just embarrassed to admit you'd stolen his glasses for a few days back in the first few months of meeting him, throwing enough money at an optometrist that they'd figured out his prescription from his current glasses. Right now you didn't want to tell him that you had spent enough time here that you could distinguish the Cattons from their staff, and distinguish each of the Cattons by footstep alone, and that Oliver's was so blatantly different to everyone else's that it was easy to deduce it was him. No, you don't say any of that.

"Oh," Oliver says awkwardly, shivering a little. Despite the heat of the day, it had cooled off considerably, "I spotted Venetia down there, I thought she might have been sleepwalking."

"Was she?" You ask with an automatic little smile, not wanting to give away how much you knew this to be Venetia's game.

"Said she was looking at the moon."

A sight you knew was perfectly visible from her own room. But you bite your tongue on that.

"So no?" You let the smile ease to something less robotic, something knowing, and Oliver sheepishly shook his head. Settling back in your chair in the lamp light, you look him over. Had he always looked so... you remember how he'd looked in the moonlight of your room and you have to look away, lest you get yourself flustered.

"Are you alright?" Oliver speaks up, taking a step into the study, finally letting himself look around. "Thought you'd be in bed."

"I'm meant to be," you admitted, "but I was getting ahead of this year's Summer schedule," you gesture to the book, and Oliver finally comes and joins you. He leans down over your shoulder, squinting at the pages, your shoulder pressed to his hip. He squints a little longer. Ah, "you're welcome to have a good look at it tomorrow," you offered brightly, pointedly not saying when you're wearing contacts and actually able to see, but Oliver thankfully seems to take the hint, even if he's still clearly awkward about the reminder. His hand then comes to rest on your shoulder, looking down at you and the way you're glowing in the gold light.

A moment passes; there's something on his mind, but you'll never push. Eventually it always comes out. It doesn't take long this time at least.

"Felix brought someone else to Saltburn, didn't he? Before; not just you," Oliver says softly, eyebrows knitting together. Fucking Venetia, you thought ruefully. Some of it must show on your face, because Oliver's hand comes up from your shoulders, thumb against the faintest scowl that has wrinkled your brow.

"What did she tell you?"

"Nothing really," he says faintly; while his expression is no longer concerned, there's something about the way he's watching you, cataloguing every small moment and movement of your face, each looking in your eyes, everything about you and your reaction that makes you feel... studied. Catalogued. Seen. You don't flinch away, don't move, just let yourself react, and let Oliver watch all the while. Then, after a moment, his hand is moving again, holding your chin, thumb running so gently over the curve of your lips, "called me lucky is all," he mumbled, as if transfixed by your face, by the way you're allowing this moment to go on, "said you didn't even like the last one." His words dip with disdain as he recalls what Venetia had said; what a snitch she was, you found yourself thinking.

"You need to be careful, Ollie," you tell him faintly, warning on your lips as you found yourself biting your tongue on a past that you don't feel is yours to really speak on. It was true that you had never been best friends with Eddie, but you were still rather fond of him. Even if that fondness was born from Felix's. Even if you were glad to be rid of him. Even if he hadn't even made it down the driveway before you were sending emails and worming your way into the Oxford administration usernet.

"Careful of the cold-blooded Cattons?" He asks, voice surprisingly idle, as if bored by the warnings, unphased by them. Where had his earlier trepidation gotten to, you wonder, right as Oliver gently caresses your cheek, "or should I be careful of you?" There's something in his voice that you're sure you'd only heard when he was looking up from between your thighs.

When you open your eyes, you find yourself meeting his curious gaze. The lamp paints his cool skin gold. One conversation with Felix and his hesitancy is gone. It's like you picked up right where you'd left off with each other before Felix's jealousy had awoken. It's actually a little infuriating, bordering on embarrassing, how taken you are with Oliver's quiet confidence.

After a moment in which you struggle to find the right words, Oliver actually smiles at you. It's almost condescending, like he understands the effect he has on you in these moments.

"Don't be jealous, pet," he tells you. Immediate, flustered shock flashes across your face before you can even stop it. But he doesn't tease, doesn't draw out the moment, he simply lets you breathe in and adjust to the moment, to his use of the nickname.

Saltburn creaks, the tell-tale noise of the old house settling into its foundation; Oliver, unfamiliar with the way the Estate echoes it's own, predicable, discordant melody of a night, looks to the door with sudden nerves once more. Something about his momentary uncertainty of his surrounds reminds you to breathe, to settle yourself like the house you practically grew up in.

You give a tired smile like it's all merely a joke, closing the dossier on the table in front of you.

"You should go to bed, Ollie," you tell him, voice nothing but warm and gentle, "we both should." Oliver ducks his head obligingly, stepping back from your seat to give you space, but still waiting patiently for you.

Once the lamp clicks off and the two of you are drenched in darkness, Oliver's voice cuts through the darkness as the two of you make your way to the lighter, long gallery.

"It must be nice being away from Oxford, being somewhere you don't have to pretend."

"Pretend what?"

"You know, the thing that's going on with you and Felix, whatever you want to call it." He says it so casually that you respond without really thinking. After all, he had a point; it's one of the many reasons you loved Summers at Saltburn.

"I don't even know the right words for it," after a long moment to think, you admit sheepishly. Then, moving to the long gallery that's still dimly lit, you look to Oliver with mild confusion as you fully process his words, "you... know?" Oliver, shirtless and in his pyjama bottoms, leans casually against his doorframe with a coy little smile. "How much do you know?" His smile grows wider; even from here his eyes look like they're shining with amusement.

"I don't think that kind of talk's appropriate for polite company," he teases, and you can feel your heartbeat racing. Sure you weren't careful at university, but you thought you'd at least convinced everyone it was platonic. Somehow.

"What- Oliver what does that mean? What have you seen or heard or -?" You babbled, flustered beneath his knowing gaze that suddenly burned with desire.

"Don't you want to be wanted anymore?" Is all he offered, simply wishing you a good rest of your night, slipping into his room. You're left flustered and speechless and honestly getting a little hot and bothered trying to figure out exactly what he was implying, and what he had seen.

Back in your room, you flick on the lamp on your side of the bed, trying to remain as quiet as possible as to not disturb the already sleeping Felix as you undress yourself, searching for your pyjamas. You're so in your head thinking about the encounter you'd just had with Oliver, trying to understand all the implications he left unsaid, that you don't even hear Felix yawning and shifting in the bed, half woken by the light.

"Hot," he mumbles after a long, appreciative hum, wearing a wide smile that would have bordered on leering if you didn't know him better. Actually, it was leering, but if anyone was allowed to leer at you it would be half asleep Felix, "this is perfect," he muses, pulling back the blankets to make room for you on the bed next to him, "you can stay like this; come here, don't worry about the pyjamas, no-one cares about them -" and you're more than happy to tuck yourself up against him like this. Pyjamas were more a habit than anything else, and Felix draws shapes on your bare back as you're both falling asleep.

Yes, you think to yourself as you're drifting off, it is nice being away from Oxford, being somewhere you didn't have to pretend.

The next morning you decide to chalk Oliver's boldness and implications up to the late hour, and don't feel the need to mention it over breakfast. Or, well, not all of it.

"Is there something wrong with the toast, pet?" Pamela asks gently across the table, her big, doe eyes boring into you where you'd been glaring down at your plate for the past five minutes. Venetia and Farleigh have been talking quietly together on Felix's other side, clearly comparing notes on Oliver already. Looking up at her just as the other two go quiet, you try and reassure her that everything's fine, even if your face hasn't quite gotten the message.

"Come on, shouldn't you just be happy that -" Venetia starts, but you cut her off before she can say something demeaning about either yourself or Oliver, knowing her too well to trust her mouth at any time of day, even over breakfast with the whole family.

"I am happy Ollie's here, Ven," you told her flatly, leaning forward to level an unimpressed look at her around Felix, "less thrilled about you being weird and coquettish outside my window," even though your façade doesn't show it, you're pleased by the pleased little cackle Felix covers with a sip of his drink, "do they not have the moon on your side of the house?" You snipe, and Venetia immediately rolls her eyes.

"See, I told you," Farleigh clicked his tongue pointedly, refusing to look at you in this moment, "possessive."

"Existing in my own home doesn't make me weird," Venetia gives a mean, humourless smile back, "and talking to our houseguest after he approached me doesn't make me coquettish."

"It does when you're doing it in that little, damn teddy nightgown and talking shit about me!"

"Christ, Vee," Felix sighed with faint disappointment. While your ribbing could be construed as playful or even jealous, Venetia always took Felix's negativity to heart. Not that he'd ever been able to tell that; Venetia always did well to hide her hurt behind further, thorny barbs.

"I wasn't talking shit," she sighed, terribly exasperated all of a sudden, "I just told him you were like one of those angry, little purse dogs Paris Hilton carries around," Venetia said without a hint of apology or remorse, "which of course makes Felix Paris -" Felix tears his slice of toast in half and jams both halves into Venetia's cup of tea without warning, causing her to shriek with absolute indignation.

"Felix, please," Elspeth sighs from beside Pamela, who'd all but leapt from her seat with shock, watching as two of the staff suddenly swarmed the flustered young woman to start cleaning the spilled, soiled drink from the table.

"'Felix, please'?" You huff mockingly under your breath before your best mate even gets the chance to be indignant for himself, "Venetia, please," you correct haughtily, though you're quietly glad that Elspeth has chosen to pointedly ignore you. However Venetia herself casts her gaze to you and Felix, both of you wearing near identical, childish looks of irritation, to which she responds in kind. Venetia sticks her tongue out at you both.

Pamela just watches Venetia's poor teacup despairingly as it's whisked away. Elspeth sighs deeply, and asks if anyone had informed Oliver what time breakfast would be. It had slipped your mind, and judging by the look on Felix's face, it had slipped his as well.

By the time Oliver joins you all, the tense atmosphere had disappeared, easing to something light and bright as you and the Catton family looked forward to the day, and to helping Oliver get properly acquainted with the Estate. During the discussion, the planning, you make a mental note to find one of the many beautiful books on Saltburn and the intricacies of it's heritage for Oliver to have a look at if he wanted to. While the idea of researching one's holiday home may not sound like the greatest idea of fun to most people, getting familiar with the house your best friend always took for granted made you feel like you understood it better, made you feel like you knew what you were settling yourself amongst.

"Y/N, dear, is that copy of Percy Bysshe Shelley's poetry still amongst your collection?" Sir James brings up, his eyes bright and wide. The book in all it's aged glory is sitting on your shelf in Oliver's room at that moment.

Very suddenly you're hit with a rush of affection, and the memory of a sweet summer afternoon, of being captured by Love's Philosophy written so simply on those pages. Those summer afternoons turned into evenings and the maze became the kind of magical only you could seem to feel, but that Felix would always indulge you in. Oh. You had to bring Oliver along, see if he could feel it too.

"Yeah," you cleared your throat, giving Sir James a smile across the long dining table. He seems delighted, apparently having read Percy Shelley's biography not to long ago, and has since wanted to reacquaint himself with the poet's work. For a moment, Venetia lights up with genuine interest and intrigue; for as long as you'd known her, she'd shared her father's passion for history, both harbouring a peculiar fascination for the sordid private lives of prominent creative figures.

Several years ago, Venetia had gifted her father the biography of Howard Hughes for Christmas; the following year, Sir James had pulled enough strings to get them both in attendance as VIPs for The Aviator's world premiere, the film based on that very same book. Venetia says the best part was meeting and having drinks with Leo DiCaprio; the only photo that she got properly printed and framed from the premiere, the one of her and her father beaming, says she's lying. They still spend hours in the library together when James isn't working. Venetia almost seems to be relaxed in those moments, from what you'd observed.

Oliver is back to being his quiet, awkward self when he finally makes it to the table, all fidgeting and uncertain steps towards the only empty chair at the table. Venetia lights up a cigarette as a new teacup is placed in front of her, both she and Farleigh observing Oliver's every movement with anthropological curiosity. So, instead of looking at either of them, Oliver looks to you, giving an almost nervous smile as he sits gingerly.

The mood is almost cripplingly uncomfortable.

Oliver tries to order a full English breakfast; Duncan looks like he'd just called his mother a cunt to his face.

The second hand embarrassment at the failed formality makes you feel like you're seconds away from some kind of empathetic anxiety attack, so you jump to your feet as the rest of the family act like they really live in a reality where every other person knew every secret high society script they were born knowing. They recover, but not quick enough for Oliver to not be tense, nor for you to not have made your way to the breakfast table on the side.

"Breakfast is on the side, darling," Elspeth says with an almost forcibly bright air, but falters as you call out that you've got it.

"You don't need to do that -" Oliver mumbles awkwardly, but is cut off when Venetia starts actually barking at you with a wide, mean smile.

This time, Felix picked up one of the cooked tomato halves from his plate, squishing it in his hand over Venetia's new cup of tea, letting the pulpy remains splatter into her now second ruined drink that she couldn't cover fast enough.

"How would you like your eggs?" Duncan ignores the petty siblings as the poor service staff once more whisk away Venetia's teacup, much to her exasperation. Oliver looks to the butler nervously, wondering if this was a joke or a test, assuring him that he could get them himself, but it's Farleigh who cuts in, voice like ice.

"The eggs are made for you," he explains coldly, barely looking up from whatever he had been working from, but his gaze flicks from Oliver's nervous expression to you, over his shoulder, carrying a plate loaded with food and scowling at him and his tone. Finally, convinced that it wasn't a joke, Oliver awkwardly asks for fried eggs from Duncan, who complies, and simply seems glad that the interaction had ended. When you put the plate down in front of Oliver, he glances up at you, almost looking apologetic.

"You really didn't have to -"

"I know," you responded cheerfully, giving his shoulder a squeeze, "you can get yourself breakfast for the whole rest of Summer, but it's your first day."

"You're very kind, very good to me," Oliver looks up at you through his lashes, blue eyes shining, grateful, stumbling through his words, "you- you're very good." For just a moment there's a flash of something more deliberate in his eyes that the others don't seem to see, and he watches the way the praise hits you with intent.

"Oh my god," Venetia groans across the table, "it's like you want me to bark at you -"

"Venetia, I have more tomatoes," Felix warned without even looking at her, but pointing sharply to emphasise his words. You thanked him airily as you returned to your seat and he beamed at you while his sister called you both terribly childish. She did not appreciate being reminded that she was the one barking in the first place.

It's Felix who breaks the tension to tell Oliver about the earlier discussion about the Percy Shelley biography, but it's Venetia who brings up the story of the poet's doppelganger. As she regales them all with the story of the housekeeper seeing the image of Shelley waving at him out of the window before realising the poet was in Italy and he was on the third floor, she tells it as if it's simply some scandalous gossip. Felix Catton, in possession of something of a rabbit heart when it came to anything remotely spooky, begged his sister to stop, even going so far as to cover his ears, but she seemed to enjoy getting under his skin, blithely ending the story with the housekeeper drowning only hours after the event.

While Elspeth announces that the story gave her goosebumps, and you admit it did send a shiver down your spine, Farleigh blurts out, without looking up from his notebook -

"I heard he fucked his sister."

While Sir James clearly didn't appreciate the addition, it's surprisingly Oliver who finds his voice.

"I think that was Byron."

The certainty of the correction is enough to get Farleigh to actually look up from his work. That's not how this was meant to go, at least that's what you think is on Farleigh's mind. Very rarely was Farleigh corrected at Saltburn; either the Catton's weren't as well researched on whatever he was spouting nonsense about, or they simply didn't care, but the point is Farleigh wasn't corrected at Saltburn. Farleigh could get away with the little white lies he told for fun here. He certainly wasn't fact checked by a newcomer at breakfast with the whole family.

When Oliver looks away from Farleigh, across to you and Felix, he sees the near identical smug little smiles you're both giving him. Both of you look rather pleased, and you see him almost grow rather flustered across the table. At least until Duncan sets a plate of fried eggs down in front of him.

Oliver's face falls, fork prodding the warm, gooey yolks almost like he's cautious of them.

You're back to watching, to observing and cataloguing further information about your guest. Runny eggs make Oliver sick; he looks it too, or perhaps that's simply the discomfort that comes from knowing he'll have Duncan's intense presence looming over him to take away what he'd just so kindly brought. Skin prickling with discomfort and desire to help, despite knowing there was nothing you could do, you fidget and try to finish your own food.

"Think I might head down for a swim after this," you hadn't, but you needed to say something to break the silence. Venetia and Felix are both quick to jump on the idea with enthusiasm, and Farleigh reluctantly agrees, if only to not feel left out. Across from you all, Oliver's trying to make himself as small as possible as he works on the breakfast you'd brought him. Never assuming, always waiting for an invitation, even now - "you game, Ollie?" You grinned.

Of course he was.

All you could think about as you searched for your nice bathers was how different Oliver was from last night. Then, your mind wandered back to that conversation, to all he had said, all he had implied. Catching a glimpse of Felix, already ready in just his swim trunks, towel slung over his shoulder, leaning and looking so effortlessly gorgeous and tanned already in the doorframe, you think of Oliver's implications. Clearly he'd seen enough of the two of you in private to understand the extent of your actual relationship, and considering the shit you got away with in public, and how both you and Felix admittedly couldn't be too bothered with things like closing the blinds when you have other things on your mind, you've got something of an idea of what Oliver may have seen. No, it wasn't appropriate for polite company.

But he'd slept with you, had seen and possibly heard you with Felix, and clearly had a thing for Felix himself. Why was he holding back? Why was he continuing to tease you the way he had last night? What kind of game was he playing?

Fine, if Oliver wanted to be a tease, wanted to play games, you could more than match his energy.

One of the many skills you'd picked up from a life spent next to the effortlessly attractive Felix, was learning how to put in the effort to appear effortlessly attractive even in comparison, in any situation. Of course you were hot, that was a given, but there was an art to the way you moved and smiled and behaved and posed and focused attention on yourself like it was a science you'd absolutely perfected.

Which is how Oliver, the last to arrive to the little, wooden jetty by the lake, found you laying out, glittering and glistening with water as the droplets clung to you, had your flattering bathers clinging to you in just the right way. Feet hanging over the edge, you arch your back just enough to tilt your head back, to watch him approaching upside down. Hands appearing casual, but carefully placed, one rested on your hip and lower belly, while the other reached out to give him a wave, your smile wide and sharp.

The others greet him, and though his gaze momentarily flicks to them, it always returns to you. Your back arches higher as you laugh, almost lifting you up to sitting, but you lay flat when he's on the jetty, when he's standing over you with a curious look.

"Hello gorgeous Ollie," you say with a teasing grin, "was beginning to get worried we might have lost you in there," you tell him, at least trying to look like you were trying to keep your expression serious, "its a big house."

"Are you high again?" He asks, and your smile grows all wide and sharp and amused. You shake your head.

"Why?"

"No reason," he says after a beat. Again there's quiet, apart from Felix and Farleigh squabbling over something trivial back on the grass. Oliver examines you, unashamedly letting his gaze roam down your body, the way you've displayed yourself so almost casually.

"Everything alright, Ollie?" You ask after a moment, reaching out to gently touch the side of his knee, contact, reminding him all at once to get out of his head, that this was reality. But your voice drops low enough that the others wouldn't hear, hand coming away, breaking the contact as you level a Cheshire smile at him, "is there something you want?"

Already it's worth it, since you see the exact moment Oliver realises what you're playing at. There's a sharp intake of breath, but an appreciative look in his eyes that quickly flick down your body once more. Then, he turns away, face quickly turning red as you all but cackle with glee.

The game has begun.

If all Oliver Quick could bring himself to do was watch, you'd put on a fucking show.

#felix catton x reader x oliver quick #felix catton x reader #saltburn x reader #saltburn imagine #felix catton imagine #felix catton x y/n #felix catton x you #oliver quick x reader #oliver quick imagine #oliver quick x you #oliver quick x y/n #head heart hand fic #manic writer

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lilac-witch · 1 year ago

Text

Euphoria - Helion x Reader

masterlist

Summary: Y/n and Helion spend their first morning together as a newly mated couple. Meaning: "intense excitement, happiness or elation" Word Count: 427 Warnings: 18+; mentions of nudity; implication of smut

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The Day Court had never felt warmer, more peaceful.

The sun filtered through the haphazardly closed curtains, a soft breeze disturbing the fabric. The warmth of the rays on Y/n's skin roused her from her dreams and woke up her senses.

A beautifully bronze, sculpted arm was wrapped around her waist, its partner acting as her pillow. Whisps of air met the back of Y/n's neck, cooling the warm skin.

Her mate.

Y/n turned gently onto her opposite side, wanting to see her mate's beauty up close in the morning light.

And Cauldron was Helion beautiful.

Y/n felt her breath catch in her throat. His black locks fell elegantly over his shoulder, although slightly mussed from the night before. And his face... he looked so relaxed.

She lifted a pale hand to smooth over his brow, her white skin a striking contrast against his. Like the sun and the moon.

"it's rude to stare, you know."

A smirk was now present on Helion's face. Smug bastard.

"Is it a crime to admire one's mate?"

Helion's eyes fluttered open, revealing those golden orbs to the world. To her, he could have been a god. One she would happily follow to the ends of the world.

"I suppose not..." Helion drawled, bringing a finger to run up and down her spine, his wrist grazing the side of her bare back. "But since you ogle me, I feel it's only right I do the same."

Y/n flushed under the intensity of his gaze.

"I wasn't ogling you... Simply gazing."

Helion's smirk only grew at her flushed state.

"You know, I thought you were a vision in gold, but I think I prefer you in pink, mate," he said, dragging his hands over her skin. Skin which was quickly turning pink.

"Is that so, High Lord?"

His smile exploded at her words, brightening the room even further

"I believe so, High Lady."

"So, what do you plan to do about it?" Y/n asked, lower lip catching between her teeth.

She tracked his movements, watching as his large hand disappeared beneath the black, silk blanket that covered their naked skin, and released a small gasp when it settled on her butt.

"I think we should re-enact last night's performance. After all, it would only be appropriate to arrive fashionably late to our mating party, my lady," Helion drawled, sending a small smack to her behind.

Y/n could only laugh as her mate flipped them over before disappearing underneath the covers.

Late they would be indeed.

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Two posts in one day! Hoping to have more ready for the rest of the week ;)

#acotar #helion acotar #helion spell cleaver #day court #helion x reader #helion x you

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forzafe44ari · 3 months ago

Note

I'm genuinely obsessed with your writing, it is so perfectly thought out and nuanced when exploring the intersectionalities of race and gender in your Omega!Lewis work, I literally never see it mentioned or explored in any of the fics. It's so refreshing to see someone consider how important of a factor race relations would be on Lewis and his relationships on the grid, especially when exploring sewis or brocades. I check my emails every day waiting to see if there's an update.

I love the exploration of anger in the lastest chapter, that almost explicit acknowledgement of the difference in how black men and white men have to perceive their anger, especially when in the spotlight like Lewis is. Literally the embodiment of "you don't understand the violence it took to be this gently," and Charles not quite understanding that because whilst he can share the omega discrimination experience, he has no idea about the equally painful experience of racism.

The only other author I think who writes as beautifully as you would be 'eldritcher' on AO3 and their Love: a Diptych series. It's got pieces for many drivers and in particular, "All the lonely people," "A line of beauty," "the swimming pool library," "babadook," and "in search of lost time", are the most relevant to Lewis & sewis. I think its the only other work on AO3 that dives into the impact of race and different people would have had on Lewis, and why his relationship with Sebastian worked so well compared to others.

I love reading your anaylsis of your own work, the way you explain the thought process and intersectionality of certain aspects of the plot. I was wondering (hoping) if you ever have the time, if you could read the aforementioned works and do a little review on them. I love your reviews almost as much as the work itself.

Simply cannot wait for the next chapter!!!

Thank you so much for reading! Race, gender, class, and religion cannot be separated, and I don’t think a lot of people are that interested in exploring all of those things in fic which FAIR, but that’s also why i feel like some people don’t write about Lewis, because it kinda scares them. But, it certainly doesn’t scare me! If anything all of those things just make me wanna write about him more.

And as for Sewis and Brocedes…oh man, there is one fic I think about that perfectly handled the Brocedes and how it relates to race, like…there’s one scene that lives rent fucking free in my head. it’s the night we held on til the morning. yeah that scene….woo, definitely one of the reasons i ended up writing this because i was like, now…what a banger way to bring it up.

and the exploration of anger, yeahhhh, like charles being able to loudly declare how frustrated he was. the whiteness of being able to express that and only deal with fines. like will he become called unruly and unbecoming of an omega? sure. but will the racial implications of that impact with it? well, no. but yes, very “you don’t understand the violence it took to be this gentle” indeed. he is always angry. he lives that way. he simply cannot move that way. he has to really navigate that space delicately (as seen irl by how ridiculous australia and china were in terms of media coverage of his and ricky’s radios).

i love eldritcher! i’ve read so many of their fics, and they all make me cry lol. like boohoo bawl. i could do a little review of all of those though, i’d love a reason at all to re-read them!

next chapter is being worked on now! hopefully up before sunday’s race? i can’t make promises though!

#answers #the omega lewis fic

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bartletslesbians · 6 months ago

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CJ Cregg and life-threatening situations

So at the very end of Angel Maintenance (4x19), CJ says the following thing: "I imagined myself destitute, I imagined myself unlucky in love. I never imagined my life would be in danger with really uncommon frequency. It feels a little bit good, doesn't it?"

And I just love that quote so much. She says the last bit so beautifully cheerfully, too. I think, especially in combination with the episode after (where the press room is shot at while she's inside it with Toby and Will), it's just a great insight to her character.

Simply the fact that her life being in active danger makes her a little bit giddy is 1. truly insane and 2. so much fun? This comes right after Will tells her how the plane would've snapped in two if if they'd messed up the landing. "It feels a little bit good doesn't it?" Will tells her it doesn't, and she continues to (again, cheerfully) insist that it absolutely does.

More interestingly, she says that it feels good almost immediately after saying "I'm not sure I'm good at living in a world where that kind of thing is possible." I relistened to make sure the transcript got it right, but she really says "good at living", not good with living. She's not sure she's good at it (Will kindly tells her she is, or perhaps he means that she's living anyway. Both have an interesting implication).

CJ isn't sure she's good at living in this world knowing how unpredictably dangerous life can be, but at the same time it's that same occasional life-threatening danger that we see make her happy.

And that's continued in the next episode! Evidence of Things not Seen (4x20) has Larry telling he that she's particularly upbeat for someone who's been shot at twice in four years. It gives us Toby telling CJ "why on most other nights do you think the world's going to hell in a hula hoop, but tonight..."

CJ goes on a lovely spiel about believing in the good in humanity and all that. That she's cheerful because she has faith in the people in this room, in this building, and in many other places. She might not think she's good at living this unpredictably dangerous life -- where at any point you can die for reasons you never could have seen coming -- but when actually faced with these situations? It brings out her more cheerful side!

(Sidenote: I think this is especially interesting in the context of Simon's death, and these being the first two times her life's been in potential danger since her stalker and his death. But that would be a longer post.)

For now, I think this concept of CJ becoming a more positive person (I really don't think she's that pessimistic in most other momets, though; season 4 and the wake of Simon's death give more context to "walking around like the world's going to hell", but in seasons 1-3 she's really not like that a lot at all) in the wake of her life being in danger, can tie in so so nicely with the sentiment of wondering whether all these sacrifices and effort are actually attributing to something truly important and meaningful that CJ occasionally expresses.

We see that when she talks about not being with her dad as much as she should be because she's here ("jetting around on airforce one"), and also when she's talking to Danny in season 7 about her obituary and knowing damn well that this is the most important thing she'll ever do and the constant question of and what is she doing with it?

There's that question of...am I doing enough to make up for what I've sacrificed to be here? Is this important enough to warrant not being elsewhere? And in that context, I think the fact that her life is occasionally put in danger by doing this work, it almost reaffirms that surely, it really is important enough to be worth it? It has to be, right? No one would risk their life coming into work if the work wasn't truly doing something.

I just think it's a really lovely character trait that being confronted with the fragility of her own life is something that makes CJ a more cheerful person; it affirms her faith in people all over the place when it could so easily do the opposite; it affirms that they're doing something important here, too, (it has to), and that's deeply important too when the work takes so much from you and can be so disappointing sometimes.

There's something to be said too about this being a very different reaction compared to Rosslyn, too; she's shaken there, she's not okay, there's no joy to be found. And I have so many thoughts about how that trauma could've played into how cheerful she is in 4x19 and 4x20 but ALSO about how seemingly dismissive she is about the danger she's in during the final arc of season 3. That takes a lot more time though so !!! later!

But she becomes a little giddy when she realises she could've died today, and she firmly defends that response too when questioned about it, and that's just a great choice for the character IMO.

#the west wing #west wing #cj cregg #character analysis #i adore this woman and her views on life and death and the goodness of humanity lmao

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burnttongueontea · 2 years ago

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you're SO right about the matchmaking thing! Thanks for putting that into words!!

I know a lot of classic book fans (myself included) put all that development *before s1* even (which I'd chalk up to characterization differences between book and show--aziraphale has way more self doubt in the show! the bandstand scene doesn't happen! and also as you pointed out, the 30 year long expectation of a closed canon)

and like, thematically exploring aziraphale's break from heaven and how relationships need more work than getting caught in the rain is all super interesting to me! I personally would have placed it earlier in the timeline but of course prequels are harder to pull off because you can't really heighten the stakes. You know how it ends! Metatexually, examining the format-driven differences between the book and show is super interesting 👀 (and I do wonder how the streaming format specifically drives plot choices)

It's either that or I underestimated Aziraphale's powers of repression 😅

Thanks so much anon!!!! That's so true about how the book leaves more space to imagine them as having sorted their shit out pre-canon, and possibly that was an influence on my surprise as well because I think my headcanon Aziraphale and Crowley tend to combine book and show to some extent.

That said, I do also think there's an extent of this in show fandom as well -- like, I was just being silly and had no idea of the devastating implications when I wrote that post about what happened after the Blitz scene, but it's exactly that: a bit of backstory character development we had filled in for ourselves. We'd all kind of subscribed to the idea that after the bomb fell and Crowley saved the books, there was some kind of relationship reckoning that went on that night -- whether it was a conversation or interaction that happened between them or just a question of internal processing. But it turns out they just went straight into doing silly shit together and never processed anything at all. And I think there are quite a few moments throughout the cold open/their implied history where we as a fandom (or me certainly anyway) had embroidered emotional growth onto the events that wasn't explicitly there in canon. Which works beautifully as a way to set-up a post-canon get together, and make it feel plausible, without needing another couple of seasons of material in between to hash certain things out... but then you come up against the discovery there was in fact much less of that emotional growth happening as far as Gaiman was concerned

(Personally, thematically exploring Aziraphale's break from heaven is my whoooooole jam but I feel like it could have been done in a less. brutal. way in canon. Like everything about how this was done was MAXIMUM brutality. But I can't deny it has sucked me into GO fandom again in a way I haven't been in a while so...)

#good omens spoilers #episode 6 spoilers #takes by me #good omens meta

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strayed-quokka · 10 months ago

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babydoll || ji changmin || act i

↳ Changmin isn’t popular nor is he rich, whereas you run on the other end of the spectrum, spoilt and living on your dads credit card. when you’re tasked with kicking him out of the biggest party of your year, you come to realise he’s not all that bad. unfortunately, falling in love with the ji changmin is your one way ticket to social suicide.

↳ pairing: ji changmin x female reader + ex lee juyeon x female reader

!!! this is not a love triangle !!!

~ rating: NC-17 minors please do not interact with this work

↳ genre: enemies to acquaintances to reluctant friends to lovers, slowburn, drama, angst, happy end but it takes a long ass time, rich girl broke ass uni boy

~ warnings: everyone kinda sucks, reader is a pain to deal with, alcohol, sex while on drugs, sex while intoxicated (consensual), condom where?, use of whore, degradation kinda, the classism is strong in this one, implications of eating disorder, body issues, body modifications (nipple piercings), changmin is basically a chainsmoker but we love him, cocaine is common, so is imported wine, swearing, juyeon is toxic, emotional abuse, manipulation (?), moaning the wrong name, bullying, pet names (little doll, doll, darling, princess), good girl, oral (male recieving), spanking if you squint, taller reader with long hair, is anyone redeemable?

everyone is an adult in their 20s

!!! if I missed anything or I remember something else I will add it !!!

↳ words: 14,838

a/n: this is a month late, i know. changmin broke my computer, it's simply not my fault, thanks.

I have said this previously but I will be stating this every chapter. There are some specific physical attributes to this reader which I usually avoid doing but for the story itself it was necessary.

Also, please note that the warnings are applicable to the chapter in question, not necessarily the whole story. You can find all the warnings on the masterlist to babydoll.

let me know if you wanna be on the taglist 🩵

babydoll playlist || teaser

You huff in frustration in your desperate attempts at wriggling yourself into your custom made corset without accidentally dragging the jewelry adorning your nipples with you, for the pain would be hell and you cannot be dealing with any of that on such an important night.

“Why do you still squeeze yourself into clothes that don’t fit?”

“It does fit,” your best friend raises his eyebrows, coming over to you and completely unbothered by your bare chest. He’s seen you naked before, and whilst there were many rumours of you and Chanhee being an item, you both laughed at the absurdity and simply played into it when you felt like stirring some trouble, “it has to be tight.”

“You can barely get it on,” but you let him take over, covering your chest with his own fingers as he tugs the moss coloured fabric over, until he’s sure your piercings are out of danger. You thank him and proceed to tug the rest down yourself, adjusting it so that your chest lifts further, creating the illusion of far more cleavage than you actually have, “looks good though.”

“I know,” he rolls his eyes, taking the white string of the corset between his fingers at your back, “how tight?”

“Break my ribs tight,” you’re yanked back with force into his chest, making you yelp though you ignore the pressure created on your body for the sake of beauty. For just a moment, you dare envy Chanhee, who despite being dressed beautifully in a dark red suit and a button down open far too low to be subtle, can at least breathe without feeling suffocated.

“You worry me,” and it’s genuine. His voice is sincere and it’s incredibly off putting, for you don’t do well with sincerity, nor do you do well with anything that isn’t bragging within your social circle to raise yourself above everyone else.

Out of all your friends, of which you had many, Chanhee was really the only one that you let yourself be true to, but the truth to who you were rarely came to light even for him. You hide yourself away, in favour of a rather stoic and icy personality, for it was so much easier to display power in arrogance than in empathy.

“Don’t. It’ll give you wrinkles,” he laughs, finishing up with a neat bow of the satin string down the centre of your back, your leather black shorts high on your waist and heels just above your knees. You looked good, lips stained a perfect red and eyeliner dangerously sharp with glitter over your eyelids.

Perfect.

“How do I look?” though you only expected one answer, one he gave you without missing a beat because Chanhee always knew exactly what you wanted to hear.

“Sexy as hell.”

The party is in full swing by the time you arrive. You never liked to be early, and arriving at the time given was what you considered to be a rather pathetic display of having nothing better to do beforehand. If anything, being late was being perfectly on time. You didn't care who might find it rude.

Your driver had taken a rather long and unnecessary detour upon your request so that you and Chanhee could down shots in the back of the SUV, a mess of small glass bottles littered across the floor that you’d pay someone to clean before your father ever found out. You didn’t care much for the damage you caused, mainly because there was never any repercussion for your actions.

The dents in your favourite credit card wasn’t even in your name, nor was the chaos you caused enough to cause much money to be lost. Your father allowed you to have anything you wanted, and the idea of having everything just made you want more. Your mother had no complaints either, for as long as you were out of her way, she didn’t care what you did. Well, it was partially true. You didn't like to think of the times she did say something to appeal to the idea that she was a good mother.

You were always greedy, but not only were you greedy, but you wished for your best friend to have whatever he wanted too. You took turns paying for things, weekend shopping trips more than a regular occurance, though where to most they may be simple and inexpensive, to you they were filled with luxury items that easily amounted to costs that most could never even dream to afford.

“Start of last term… how’d you feel?”

When stepping out of the car, it surprises you that you don’t stumble, Chanhee linking his arm with yours before thanking your chaffeur, handing him a large sum of bills in an excessive tip that he doesn’t need to give, “fucking finally. Can’t wait!”

He chuckles, leading you inside the house of none other than Lee Juyeon.

Juyeon was quite possibly the wealthiest young man on campus and your ex-lover, but neither of those made a difference in whether you were invited or not. It was a given that you were, even high up on the guest list along with your best friend's name as you were let in.

You’d been in these very walls a lot, could cross off many rooms on the list of where you’d been naked and bent over, sometimes high on drugs you’d barely remembered taking, creating a shift in reality and overwhelming pleasure that could never come sober.

“There she is, the little princess,” you scoff, glaring at Juyeon though accepting the delicate glass of expensive champagne that the man himself offers to you, handing another to Chanhee as if he’d prepared for this moment, knowing that if you came, the other wasn’t far behind.

Honestly, sometimes you think that Chanhee became the end to your relationship, but you were tired of it anyway. Whilst Juyeon could be fun company, the two of you were the opposite side of the same coin, far too similar in twisted and cold personality to ever be fully compatible.

“And the little prince. To what do I owe the honour?” His frown is immediate, frustrated by your constant reminder of being similar height, and he’s chucking his drink down his throat before dangling the glass between his fingers.

“Still the same bitch then, huh?”

“I learned from the best,” though Juyeon isn’t one to accept defeat. When he knows a situation can’t be won, he simply fades it out or ignores it, rather than arguing himself into a corner. He’s smart that way; something you’d taken onboard yourself for nothing was worse than realising you’d lost to someone else.

“And Chanhee, still gorgeous,” Juyeon sends him a wink, one Chanhee rolls his eyes to in a way that makes you laugh. The two of them were like oil and water, never getting along fully yet not hating each other enough either.

“I sent you the money,” your ex grins, digging into his pocket until a white paper box is between his jewellery-adorned fingers. There’s a cross displayed in the centre, ironic to you as your eyes seem amused.

“I’m aware,” he holds it out to you, though just as you grab it, he pulls his fingers back just enough for you to miss it, “just be careful. It’s good shit.”

"I would hope so with a price like that."

Juyeon wasn’t lying. When you’d cut down the white powder further with your credit card to create two equally sized lines, one for Chanhee and one for you, you hadn’t thought it would hit you so quickly. Given your quite frequent use of the drug, you’d actually become a bit immune to the first hit.

Chanhee had quickly decided that that one hit would be enough for you both. Whilst normally you’d argue with him and disagree, you let him place the rest in his suit jacket, storing it away from your glazed eyes that watched him lazily.

Your brain could’ve easily done a hundred thousand things in this moment, but instead you sat there with your legs bouncing and your hands only somewhat calmer because they were twisting in your lap, “let’s dance!”

You drag Chanhee to the living room that’s now the dance floor, back and forth in your movement before you’re easily brought to the centre of the room. With Chanhee, it was easy to grab attention, for he was a dancer before he was anything else, sober or not; he simply lived and breathed it, dragging you in by the waist to move with him.

You’re not sure how quickly the time goes. It could be hours or just a few minutes, but the cheering dies down and you’re wondering what could possibly be grabbing anyone’s attention so desperately that it’s not on you anymore.

Blurrily, you tear your eyes away from Chanhee, landing on a figure in the corner of the room alone. He’s disinterested, and it takes quite a long time for you to recognise him though when you do, you’re immediately filled with hatred.

Ji Changmin.

Beyond beautiful, sure, with his dark locks of hair and jewelry-adorned ears, his usual glasses sat over his face, framing it in a way that made him look innocent yet cute, but also completely worthless of anyone’s time.

And here he was taking yours away.

You’re not even sure how he got in. There was no way Juyeon would put someone who got into your university with pure luck and a scholarship, onto tonight's guest list of prestigious classmates who had it all. He didn’t even seem comfortable in being here, so why the hell was he here?

“Y/N,” Chanhee calls your name, though it’s a blur that fades somewhere deep within your drugged mind until you’re physically yanked back to pay attention to him. You notice Juyeon suddenly standing next to him, a lazy smirk on his lips while you have no idea where he suddenly came from.

“Explain, now.”

“Ah well, I wish I could. Don’t actually know how he got here. Impressive, though. Shall we keep him?”

He asks as if Changmin is a pet, though you suppose that’s not quite far off. To everyone in the room, the man in the corner meant very little. He didn’t have money, and whilst some of his clothes were nicely put together, they were mostly cheap. All in all, his appearance was a contrast to yours, and you never appreciated anyone who put in even a percentage less of effort into looks than you did.

You considered it lazy. Even if your rational mind told you he couldn’t afford better, it simply wasn’t good enough if he was going to be part of the world you were in.

“Mind telling him to leave?”

You hadn’t seen him all night, though here he was, Hyunjae, standing tall and proud before the three of you, dressed dark yet regal with a bottle of half-empty red wine between his fingers. It wasn’t unusual to see him avoid an actual glass at a party, for he saw no real use if he was going to drink the contents of a whole bottle anyway. Why pour it somewhere else first if the end result was the same?

“Juyeon, you’re the host,” Chanhee interjects, bitterly reminding Juyeon that he had to do most of the work unless he involved security. And when it came to using security, Juyeon liked to avoid it until it became the very last resort. He rather loved to manipulate people in conversation until they were uncomfortable enough to leave.

Whilst Changmin was a frustrating inconvenience, he was not worth causing a scene for.

“Y/N you tell him,” Juyeon yanks the bottle of wine from Hyunjae, chugging it down as you stare at him in disbelief.

“What? Why me?”

“You’re the only girl,” Hyunjae mumbles, not quite with the conversation as he attempts to get his drink back, mildly successful though there’s a fresh stain of liquid red on the carpet, earning him a rather rough punch to the shoulder from the host.

“Careful, that’s imported,” Juyeon scoffs.

“As if you paid for it,” and he couldn’t argue. His parents were often away, so he was often free to do as he liked and act like it was all his. In reality, only a small share of the luxury was, though the small share was more than enough for him to be incredibly well off and indifferent to anything.

“There’s other girls here,” you yell, spinning around as if to point them all out in an over-dramatic gesture in case all your friends were blind, but that doesn’t seem to matter, and now your head is starting to hurt as fatigue hits you from the alcohol, but your brain can’t rest to save your life because of the self-induced high you’re on from the drug you took.

“Very true,” Hyunjae confirms, though he seems to hold all the answers, so confident in the way he leans down to your level, a little condescending and dangerous in his tone, smelling of cologne and alcohol, “but none of those girls are you.”

Damn it, if Lee Jaehyun didn’t have a way with words.

“Fine,” you exasperatedly snarl, hands on your hips as you huff, annoyed, “what do I get?”

“What would you like?” Juyeon asks you, and it’s in the same tone he used to speak to you with when you were together. An attitude screaming you could have anything if you kept his bed warm at night.

“Shopping trip. Funded by you. No limit,” he’s considering it, rolling his eyes as he reaches for his pocket where his wallet lies, “and I get a plus one. Chanhee’s going.”

The smile on Juyeon’s lips immediately fades, but he nevertheless takes out the platinum card and practically shoves it against Chanhee’s chest, not trusting you to take it when you’re a little more than out of it, not to mention he’s fairly certain that you’re not even quite sure where you are in his house anymore.

“Fine,” he snarls, eyes angry but equally impressed. As if telling you you’ve played your cards well, exactly as he would’ve, but that he’s anything but happy about it.

You’re just as good as him, always unmatched and it’s his biggest frustration with you in his life. To him, you were a competitor, worthy of his time only because you pushed the limits.

Approaching Changmin should’ve been easy. He’d been standing in that corner for the past few minutes, simply unmoving, a drink in hand, alone and isolated, though as soon as you make your way towards him, he moves.

You’re not sure if he’d noticed you, or if maybe he’d grown restless and simply had terrible timing, but there was a growing anger in you at watching him walk away and go outside into the large backyard.

If there’s one thing you definitely didn’t handle well, it would be people walking away from you. And whilst sober, you may have been able to rationalise it more and thought that maybe, just maybe he hadn’t seen you, intoxicated you wasn’t as forgiving, not to mention insulted regardless if he’d known you were there or not.

It’s enough for you to angrily tear a drink away from the grand piano, a row of champagne glasses neatly lined up and filled to take, rushing after him blindly.

“Hey!”

Your voice is loud, enough so that people immediately stop their conversation to turn to you, only to realise that you weren’t paying them any mind, but the one person it’s meant for keeps walking as if he hadn’t bothered to hear you.

“I’m talking to you!”

You’re more secluded now, Changmin having chosen to rest his body against the fence furthest from the pool and crowds of people, though a few are still scattered about. He finally turns towards you, as if choosing to acknowledge your presence, though he doesn’t say a single word as he lights a cigarette.

“Do you not speak? Are you mute?”

“It’s Changmin,” he snarls back, and the way he says it makes you straighten your posture. You don’t actually think you’ve really heard his voice before, but there’s a certain dominance in the way he says his name to you that makes you still, “maybe try that, if you want my attention.”

Unbelievable.

You scoff, downing your glass in one go before you let it hit the railing to your side, hard enough to shatter and break at your feet.

“I don’t want your attention.”

“Then why did you run out here?”

There were many ways this conversation could go. Even more ways the conversation could’ve started, though you never thought the end result would be this, with Changmin getting on your last nerve before he offers a cigarette out to you, as if he’s completely unaware of how agitated you are. Or maybe he’s perfectly aware and is offering it as a means for you to calm down.

Either way, you surprise yourself by accepting it, practically ripping the lighter out of his hand. He watches you the whole time, and you’re not sure if you’re flattered or annoyed that he’s terribly good at maintaining eye contact with you when your chest is right there and everyone else has been looking down rather than up.

“You weren’t invited,” he smiles, jumping up to sit on the railing, and he doesn’t for one moment seem to disagree with you. You’d expect him to put up a fight, maybe tell you that you must be mistaken before you’d whip out the well I know Lee Juyeon personally card, but you never need to.

“You’re right, I wasn’t,” you’d say the thing that separates you both the most is how relaxed he seems to be carrying himself whilst seeming to be near or completely sober, whereas you at best only manage it either drunk or after sex for a few moments before you go entirely rigid again. You wouldn’t say you envy it, but it is something you wonder about.

“Why are you here?”

“My friend was invited. I’m just making sure he doesn’t drink too much-”

“What friend?” you interrupt, and it sounds harsher than intended but Changmin doesn’t seem very bothered. Either your words don’t affect him at all, or you’re unaware of how you’re actually speaking right now, maybe sounding far more out of character and far more gentle than you think in your head.

“That’s none of your business,” he answers and you scoff again. Any kindness you might’ve shown him is replaced with an anger that seems almost disproportionate to the situation.

“I’m making it my business.”

He doesn’t say anything first, watching as you take a drag from the cigarette he’d offered you. It bothers you, that he’s not really staring at your lips but rather what you’re doing, and you wonder why he doesn’t care. You’re giving him attention, why doesn’t he want it?

And then he walks away and you’re left standing there like an idiot. Something you absolutely refuse and detest and suddenly you’re the one chasing him again. You didn’t know a lot about Changmin, aside from the fact that he was likely smarter than you and had way less money, but what you were starting to learn, you hated.

You’d been told to kick him out and damn it, if that’s not exactly what you were going to do. You were as stubborn as anything and near yelling his name again before you simply huffed and attempted to run after him in your heels, something you weren’t really good at but you didn’t want to give the young man any more attention than he’d already gotten. From you nonetheless.

“You have to leave,” it came out weak, like you weren’t quite sure if you were gently asking or telling him, but it made him stop walking and look at you again. You ignore the way your heart lurches in your throat, clearing it and standing straighter, an attempt to make yourself seem bigger and more intimidating than you maybe were. You had to remind yourself that you were the one in charge, not him.

“Believe me, darling, I’m not here by choice,” yeah right.

“Then leave,” Changmin takes a step forward, exhaling the smoke from his cigarette near your lips, close enough to make you cough and you realise you need another fucking drink after this. Hell, maybe you’ll be dumb enough to find Juyeon to fuck the frustration away.

“I can't. I’m someone’s designated driver,” he answers back, and you see the way his knuckles clench just enough to indicate frustration. You’re getting to him, finally, though he still seems far too composed.

“You can’t afford tuition. How would you afford a car?”

“Well, you see, most people work for the things they get. I can send you a few job openings if you’d like?” God, any attraction caused by his appearance dissipated with the tone of voice he spoke in. He got under your skin and fast, nestling there with a comfort you didn’t appreciate.

“Bite me.”

“Where?”

“Fuck off.”

“Gladly. You’re dumbing me down,” your arms cross, yet even so he still doesn’t glance down when your cleavage threatens to spill over the corset you’re wearing and you huff. There were two options. Admit defeat and walk away, or hurt him. But any insult you thought of was lost on your tongue as you stared at him in near disbelief. He was waiting for you to answer, to say anything, but after a while he seemed almost bored and simply turned around again.

Unbelievable.

“Is your answer to just always walk aw-”

“You bore me,” he says, one hand in his pocket as he heads back towards the house that you’re meant to get him out of.

“You’re interrupting m- HEY!”

Never, ever would you admit defeat. It wasn’t like you to lose and you never knew anything other than getting your way, and yet here you stood frozen because someone had ignored what you wanted and it had left you speechless. He was embarrassing you and your character, both of which you knew to be strong and self-sufficient, and you were letting him.

“Did the little princess get ignored?” Juyeon looked thrilled, like he’d wanted this to happen, and yet you barely paid any mind to him suddenly appearing beside you. You hadn’t even noticed him approach, staring into a blank void of where Changmin had been walking back inside. Maybe if you imagined him still standing there, he’d appear and you could give him a piece of your mind, “Looks like I’ll have to take back that platinum card, little one.”

“What if I fuck you, can I keep it then?”

“Isn’t that a step away from prostitution?”

“Are you complaining about getting your dick wet?”

Juyeon shuts up in an instance, like even in his hazed slightly drunk high mind, he knew better than to complain. Chanhee would never let you live this future mistake down, but right now, you don't care. In this instance, you let Juyeon take your hand and tug you through a sea of people until you’re in his bedroom, shutting it quickly with your own body as he presses you against the dark wood. You grab his shirt and pull him close, tilting your head so he can kiss down your neck and you simply let him.

You were just so fucking frustrated and had already come here with the intention of fucking someone, and at least Juyeon knew you. He was insufferable, sure, but he was a source of comfort in familiarity that grounded you when you were too angry to fully think. Maybe you should learn to be more grateful for him.

Being grateful wasn’t exactly something you were good at showing, though, so instead you show your appreciation by sinking down to your knees, your shorts tightening around your thighs with your legs partially spread while you work on unbuttoning his pants. Juyeon chuckles, grabbing your hair between his large fingers, tugging in a way that shows arrogance and expectancy in your lewd behaviour.

You were both bad for each other, you think, but it’s something you don’t care about.

Juyeon’s arrogance and place in your life almost never played on your mind.

“Do you like whoring yourself out to me?”

“I can still bite your dick off,” he chuckles, low like he’s mocking you and it makes you shiver. You hate almost everything about him at this point, but he spoiled you and his cock was big and both were enough reason to keep him around.

“Maybe, but then your tight little pussy won’t get to clench around my cock when you cum,” and he had you cornered just like that, taking his cock in your mouth as you began to suck and wet the head with your lips. His free hand leans against the door, eyes cast down onto your own as you look up. You liked looking at him. He was beautiful, with sharp features and a cocky smile and your judgement didn’t matter when he stared back.

Your tongue dips into the slit of his cock before letting your teeth barely graze the shaft while you take him in your mouth, hearing him curse under his breath and his eyes finally disappear from your own in favour of squeezing them shut. You hollow your cheeks and angle your head in a way that lets you take more of him in, moaning around his cock when you do.

It’s become a little repetitive for you to give head, but you also don’t mind it because it was easy to do. You build up a pace and grab Juyeon’s thighs for support, digging your manicured nails into the flesh as he moves his hips in time with you, leaving you gasping for air each time he lets go. Your mouth releases his cock and a string of saliva falls between you both, your lips swollen red as you stare up at him with a blank stare.

You know you don’t have feelings for him, and he doesn’t have feelings for you.

“Get up,” you let him tug you, his hands moving to your back to tug the strings of the corset Chanhee had tied just hours ago, and it feels like a struggle to get it pulled over your head.

"Wait! My piercings,” you nearly yell, not ready to tear either of them because Juyeon decides to pull a little too hard. He huffs, frustrated, but he’s nice enough to listen and tries to be a little gentler while you finally allow your lungs their usual breathing capacity.

Your corset is haphazardly thrown to the floor and your shorts follow, but the minute you step out of them, Juyeon has lifted you up onto his waist. His cock presses against your lace panties, the wetness of your pussy felt through the fabric and he can only smirk against the kiss he gives you. You could verbally tell him anything you wanted, but your body always wanted him.

He sits on the edge of his bed, your legs wrapped around him while your body starts to grind down against him, making you mewl and whimper at how close he is while it still doesn’t feel like enough.

“Fuck me, Juyeon- ah!” Juyeon’s hand stings against your ass when he harshly slaps the skin, your nails digging into his shoulders before you add, “p-please.”

“Good girl,” his fingers tug the lace fabric to the side, his index teasing your clit and feeling your wetness gather on his skin and it feels agonizing and empty without him fucking you.

“Please, Ju- want your cock,” he chuckles, all too willing to oblige to your request, and you feel the tip of his dick by your tight hole, begging to be filled and dripping in your juices.

“Say please,” you whine again, but you both know he’s going to get his way in the end and you relent.

“P-please.”

His cock slips inside you with practised familiarity, but he hisses at the tight walls trying to push him out. Juyeon knows he should’ve taken more time in opening you up, but he also knows you wouldn’t have let him. He knows you like the sting of his cock pressing into you and opening you up just for him and you know not to ask for it because Juyeon knows you better.

It’s agonizing for you both, him waiting to fuck you while you lift your hips up and off his cock each time he goes a little deeper. Each inch stimulates you and makes you shake, and if he was a little less nice, he’d let his frustration get to him and have you sit down on his cock without warning.

“Princess, sit on my lap,” I’m trying. That’s what you think, but no words come out. You feel like you’ve gone dumb, which is an insult to your character but you don’t think it matters now, “let me fuck you.”

“Y-yeah-” you don’t know how much time passes, but you feel his thighs press to your ass and you nearly sigh in relief at the fullness you feel with him inside you and knowing every inch of him is in your cunt.

Juyeon slaps your ass again, hard enough that you jerk forward and a moan emits from your throat, and it’s like the sudden electricifying jolt wakes you up and has you moving against him, sinking down on his cock each time you move. It’s sloppy, maybe low effort, but given the routine you’ve both worked up, it’s almost too natural and easy to gravitate towards it.

Thankfully, the repetition is short-lived when your body strains and muscles tense, lifting your body up, though Juyeon presses you back down, hands digging into the flesh of your ass as you cum against him. Maybe it’s the drugs and alcohol in your system making this easy, tipping you over the edge way before you’re ready, but your exhausted mind doesn’t care and barely registers you being pushed off him so he can cum, a mess of white adorning your inner thigh like a decorative piece of lace.

Both your breathing is heavy and exhausted, the air thick and sweaty as you look up at the ceiling. You’re thinking, but you don’t quite know what about. You’re clouded, and you decide then that it’s time to find Chanhee and go home.

“I can drive you home.”

“Not like that,” you snarl, unwilling to get into the car with him intoxicated, but more so because you really don’t want to be near him right now. You’re not sure what it is, regret, frustration, maybe both, but you’re just ready to go home and forget this night ever existed.

“Take care,” you mumble something back, just loud enough so he knows you heard him, but you don’t find him to be very genuine. Juyeon was complicated, especially with you, and you wondered often if that circled back to the fact that you were both so painfully similar in your being.

“You fucked, didn’t you?” Chanhee is standing there, leaning against the wall by the corner you turned to go downstairs and it’s like he already knows. He looks disappointed, not because he cares about what you do or who with, but because he’s fairly certain he knows who you were with, “isn’t it a little pathetic to fuck your ex at his party just to get laid?”

“I wasn’t trying to get laid,” well, that could’ve been debated, but you could say with confidence that Juyeon hadn’t been on your list of plans for the night.

“But you fucked Juyeon, right?”

“I’m allowed to make poor decisions,” Chanhee follows after you, naturally stepping into pace with you as he pushes you both past crowds of people that cause him an abundance of frustration.

“Certainly true, you make plenty-”

“I don’t need a lecture,” you snarl, pushing your hair behind your ear after it falls from its place.

“Then don’t be fucking stupid.”

You want to turn your body around and argue. You’re good at arguing, but so is Chanhee and you’re fairly certain he wouldn’t back down from this, even if you’re both in a public setting, and it’s ultimately that and your desire to go home that has you say nothing at all. Honestly, you also know he’s right, that Juyeon is always a bad decision and will never fail to be, and that’s something you have yet to make your peace with.

A part of you still ached for someone you knew wasn’t good for you, but you refused to let any of it resurface. You weren’t going to be dumb.

Not again.

You were a little dumb. Your decisions were poor but your facade implied otherwise. You’d will away any thoughts of Juyeon and if they persisted, you’d be taking them to your grave. It was a Monday now, a terrible start to the week and you were very much ready to throw in the towel.

But you were smart and you enjoyed learning, at least to an extent, and really only your own ambitions and determination had landed you in a major that was far more mathematical than just theory, like you’d so naively believed, and it was really your own fault that you were burnt out from the amount of work you got.

It’s another reason why you feature so heavily in the university library, almost like a decorative piece, one of the statues that was carved out of stone around the massive two-story space, old oak woods and beautiful carpeted stairs spiraling up to a study area. One that you frequented more than any other place. Usually, Mondays were quiet. Especially Mondays that featured heavy rain and left most students at home. Honestly, you couldn’t blame them, which is why you were so agitated to see that almost every seat around you with a desk was taken.

Even the more comfortable chairs that spun and had a pillow as a rest but no table, were occupied and overflowing with students. You weighed your options, but given your time limit and unwillingness to stand around like an idiot and risk someone noticing it, you took a seat at a six-person table across a dark head of hair that you failed to recognise until you’d already sat down and it was too late.

Changmin.

You fucking hated Mondays.

The deflected way your shoulders dropped didn’t go unnoticed by him, you could tell, because he’d briefly looked up only to roll his eyes at the way you’d looked visibly annoyed, maybe even disappointed. There was the option to move, there was other space, but it would be far too obvious and you didn’t want to make a scene, not one that involved him. The last thing you needed was people talking, especially after you’d tried to kick him out of Juyeon’s party.

Did it bother him?

“You can quit staring at me.”

“I wasn’t staring,” but your answer came out too quick, too defensively and you knew he didn’t believe you. Honestly, you hadn’t noticed yourself staring until he’d said it, and at that point you knew saying the opposite was a lie. You just weren’t aware of it.

“About the party…” you’re not sure what you’re attempting, pushing your hair back and up into a bun to get it out of your way, using the distraction to think of what you might say.

“A pleasant conversation, certainly. Can I finish this?”

Changmin was strange. You couldn’t begin to pretend like you knew him nor could you understand him, aside from the fact that he was frustrating, a little bit too pretty and apparently smart. Two of those, you didn’t really care for.

“You weren’t invited. I was only doi-”

“Running Juyeon’s biddings because he doesn’t have the balls to do it himself?”

The temptation to say yes is on the tip of your tongue until you remember the weight of his credit card in your pocket, waiting to be spent with your best friend. You were not risking bad karma by allowing Juyeon to somehow find out and have it circle back that you agreed with Changmin on something. God forbid, you’d bury yourself alive if that happened.

“That’s not what I’m doing…”

“I already told you I don’t care,” Changmin looks back at his book, his glasses moving slightly as they do and you watch as he adjusts it with his slender fingers. You hate how nothing he says hides his intentions or feelings, it’s all right there on the surface and it drives you crazy because you know that he really doesn’t care, and it baffles you. It frustrates you.

Why the fuck was he so indifferent?

“Yeah but… that’s ridiculous…”

“Has anyone ever told you the world doesn’t revolve around you, or am I going to be the first?”

“This isn’t even about me. It’s about you being at a party uninvited,” you snarl, getting exhausted which is only exasperated when you hear someone shush you from further away. If you were speaking loudly, you didn’t care. Not enough, anyway.

“Yes, it keeps me up at night knowing I caused you such discomfort,” you scoff, feeling offended just by the tone of his voice, and yet you wish it wasn’t so obvious, just how much that bothered you.

“It doesn’t bother you?”

“What doesn’t?”

“Being at a party you aren’t allowed to be at?”

“And whose permission do I need? Yours?”

“If it were my party, sure. But in this case, Juyeon.”

“In which case, Juyeon can go tell me himself.”

“That’s bullshit!”

Except it isn’t. It bothers you so much because you know he’s right. It was Juyeon’s party. If he didn’t want someone there, he should’ve said it himself. Instead, you were left to do it, you accepted it because of the promised date with your friend on someone else's dime and it felt so incredibly shallow, not to mention you felt used.

But you weren’t ready to admit how shallow Juyeon made you feel. How lesser than you became for him. And you certainly weren’t ready to tell the person before you that he was right.

Unfortunately for him, you wouldn’t have gotten to say it either even if you really wanted to. There’s a weight of someone’s hand on your shoulder, making you look up to see the displeased face from the only male librarian, a name you never remember but a face you could go without seeing.

“I’m going to ask you to leave if you can’t keep your voice down at an acceptable level, young lady.”

“I was already leaving,” Changmin interrupts, packing his things into his arms before vacating the seat across from you, “she gives me a headache anyway.”

“I do not!”

Again, Changmin doesn’t care; it’s the way his lack of response that has a way of twisting your gut and boiling your emotions over, making you react and push against it whether you can justifiably reason with it or not. You just don’t like him.

Yet you feel like always getting the last word, he just barely seems to listen. He’s already left the library before you can think quick enough on your feet and now you’re on your own, alone and feeling humiliated because you know people are looking at you, heard you and him speak and they all know that he’s embarrassed you.

Your hatred for him had only grown tenfold in your humiliation.

Chanhee sits across from you looking almost doll-like with his black coffee in hand, your own drink before you on the table, untouched. You’d spent enough money that Juyeon might even notice it in his balance, bags surrounding you both and some already in the car because the weight on both your arms was overbearing, yet you still felt a void. You weren’t satisfied, nor were you happy.

It wasn’t good enough.

“You’re not listening. Do you want to keep insulting me?”

“Huh? Sorry… tell me again?”

“Forget it,” you sigh, feeling the guilt run through your bloodstream and settle in your heart with a heavy weight that you can’t shake.

“I’m sorry. I’m distracted…”

“Yeah, you’ve been distracted since we got here. Hours ago,” he was right, truly, but there wasn’t much you could do about it. Your mind was wandering and each time you told it not to, it persisted.

“Do you think… Juyeon should’ve kicked Changmin out himself?”

“Probably. But why do you care? You don’t like Changmin either.”

“Well… no… but he just… he’s getting under my skin.”

Chanhee laughs, but it’s caught in his throat and sinks when he realises you’re completely serious.

“Wait, this is actually bothering you?”

“Changmin is. He’s so… frustrating. I can’t stand him.”

“So, don’t? I’m not sure I see the problem?”

Because there wasn’t one. At least there shouldn’t be one. It didn’t matter. How Changmin viewed you, how he thought of you should mean absolutely nothing, and if it meant anything, it shouldn’t have been enough to get under your skin, and yet here you were, letting him get to you.

Like he meant way more than he does. Way more than you should ever let him.

“You’re right.”

It’s another Monday morning when Changmin makes you snap and you realise very quickly that Chanhee was very wrong. You absolutely should let everything about Changmin’s existence bother you. Even more now that he’s spilled excruciatingly warm fresh coffee on your white hoodie that cost way more than his entire outfit.

“I’m sorry,” it’s the most genuine he’s ever sounded when speaking to you. A part of you knows it wasn’t intentional either. You’d turned the corner too fast and he’d done the same, crashing into you before he even realised you were there and it was already too late, but your anger got the better of you. His apology meant nothing to you. He could say it twice, even a third time and it would only make you angrier.

“Are you fucking blind?”

“Actually, yeah. I don’t wear glasses as an accessory…”

“You- are you… do you think this is funny!?”

“Not particularly.”

“I’m not getting this out, Changmin,” you huff, looking down at your ruined clothes and remembering that it isn’t even nine yet, and your entire outfit is ruined. You’re sure if it wasn’t so thick of a fabric, it would’ve burned your skin too, “replace it.”

“I don’t hear a please.”

“You ruined it!”

“You bumped into me,” you’re about to protest but he comes closer to you, looking at your stained piece of clothing and then back up at you, “darling, you love to run your mouth on your riches, so put them to use.”

You don’t know what makes your head spin more. The fact that he’s directly insulting you, or the fact that he called you darling again. Your heart lurches up to your throat and threatens to beat louder, and that’s the biggest insult to you. Changmin shouldn’t call you that. You don’t want him to, and yet nothing leaves your lips to protest or tell him to stop.

He waits a moment, staring at you awaiting a response, any response, and yet he doesn’t get anything. Changmin wonders why, what silences your attitude now to simply stare at him, but he’s not going to ask and he’s not going to pick a fight with you unless he feels the need for it. He’ll defend himself, but not more than he has to.

Which is why he decides to be the more rational peace bringer in this mess of a conversation, pulling his own hoodie over his body to hand to you.

“Here, put it on and shut it,” you don’t move at first. Changmin wonders if you even heard him at all yet you stare at the fabric with such offence that he’s fairly certain you did, “what? Not good enough for the little doll?”

Doll. That was a first. You’d heard Chanhee be referred to as a doll plenty of times. Even you thought of him as one sometimes, with his delicate build and beautiful features and attitude, but never yourself. It was never you that was referred to as something that pretty.

You wondered, were you delicate to him, like porcelain, or maybe you were cheaper, not really dollike in the way that you wanted to be. Only when you realised again that it was Changmin that had referred to you as such, did you snap out of it and get annoyed, “absolutely not. I’d rather die than wear that.”

He shoves it into your hands anyway and the fabric is so soft to the touch, you nearly regret declining him at all. It’s way more comfortable than yours, at least in the way it feels against your fingers, and it’s warm too. Not in a way that feels dirty but rather like a heated blanket, like someone's body heat had been radiating off it to create a warm little shell you could nestle yourself into with hints of perfume.

“Wear it or not, I don’t care. Just… shut your mouth. Your voice is grating me, and now I have to get more coffee,” Changmin doesn’t wait for you to speak. He’s turned the way he came from presumably to go back to the coffee shop, and you’re standing there for the longest time wondering what to even do. You’re annoyed and angry, though it’s simmered down to just being incredibly confused. You stare at the dark blue fabric in your grasp, probably far too large for you and for just a moment, you consider it. You consider it until voices in the hall snap you out of your own stupidity.

“Yikes, what the hell happened there?” Hyunjae seems far from impressed, his clothing perfectly neat and ironed against his toned body, and you can feel the judgement from his eyes that makes you frown. You were being judged for your appearance and that cut deeper than anything else could.

“Changmin bumped into me,” you cross your arms over your chest, letting the darker borrowed fabric dangle over your forearm while he shares a look with Younghoon.

Younghoon was unbelievably beautiful yet so high-strung and pretentious that you couldn’t bare being near him most of the time. It was fitting, of course, that he’d be friends with Juyeon and Hyunjae in particular. You’d thought that out of the two of them, he’d be judging you far more for your ruined top but instead it seemed to be the man you’d consider yourself more close to, “look, I know it’s bad. I’ll probably call it a day.”

“Callin’ it a day this early?”

“Younghoon, do you not see what I look like?”

“Oh, I definitely see it,” that one stings. It really cuts, because it feels like a direct insult towards your appearance. Like he’s confirming what you’re already thinking. You’re unattractive and sloppy, with no effort invested in yourself. You look cheap.

Biting back with an insult is usually what you did best. It’s what you wanted to do now, to tell him to go to hell and leave you alone because you knew you were better than him. Yet you couldn’t, because something in you was threatening to break, like a vial with the sadness you were suppressing and all that was left to do was cry.

And you would not be caught crying in front of Lee Jaehyun and Kim Younghoon. Never.

“Fuck you,” you push past him with your usual aggressive tone, the one he was probably used to hearing and used to ignoring much the same, letting you leave without much of a fight.

You were a good student. You could miss a day, it wouldn’t kill you and you doubt your parents would even notice your absence here at all. If they did, you could blame it on feeling sick, but you weren’t staying here any longer today. You’d study at home, but at least you’d be at home.

Your cat greets you with an unimpressed gaze as you enter the front door, staring at you from the overhead railing above on the second floor. It’s like seeing a reflection of yourself, and maybe it’s intentional. Maybe she mirrors you, or maybe she’s just an asshole.

Chanhee loved her. She liked him, though. A lot more than you. She tolerated you, you supposed.

“Quit staring at me,” it’s not that you didn’t like her. She was a pretty ragdoll, elegant with bright blue eyes and you took care of her. But she was also a bit of a diva. Your best friend would simply say she took after you, and maybe he was right.

You’re standing fully naked in your bathroom after a long shower, wondering if you should put on this damn hoodie that’s practically mocking you at the end of your bed where you’d lazily thrown it. It was tempting you, not because it was Changmin’s but because it looked cosy and honestly, you didn’t really care if this one got messy. You could lounge with relaxed shoulders because you didn’t have to think about getting something on your clothes, because they weren’t yours to begin with.

Your body was completely dry by the time you decide to wear it and you’d been right in assuming it would be comfortable. It was long, which made sense, given that it had been big on Changmin too. It was cosy but no longer with the warmth from earlier. The only traces of Changmin came from his cologne.

And it was nice. It smelled like a mixture of rain and the burning of wood in a fireplace in the winter. Maybe pinecone. You weren’t sure, but it wasn’t overbearing to your senses. You could smell it, it was noticeable, but it didn’t make you shrink away in disgust. It wasn’t too much, just enough, and you liked it.

You wondered what it was he wore.

Chanhee would probably know. He practically swam in perfumes and colognes (mostly perfumes) and he could probably pinpoint it. But you were not about to ask him to smell Changmin’s hoodie for you. That would be humiliating to you, and you’d had enough humiliation lately to last you for at least a decade.

Assuming you made it that far.

You’d developed what you considered a bad habit. It wasn’t the parties or the drugs or Juyeon that you were worried about, but your growing comfort of wearing that godforsaken oversized hoodie at home.

Maybe if it had belonged to Chanhee or Juyeon, or even Younghoon at this point, it would not have felt so shameful. But it belonged to someone you barely considered acquainted, and it was definitely someone you didn’t and would never grow to like.

Chanhee had found out about it a week after you’d first taken the item of clothing hostage in your home. He’d come by when it was pouring rain with five bottles of wine and the remainder of your cocaine from your ex and in your drunken drugged-out state you’d confessed that what you were wearing wasn’t even yours. Property of Ji Changmin, you’d called it, before downing another huge amount of the bottle you were holding.

Your best friend’s first question was to ask if you fucked him. You hadn’t, of course, and you were honest in your protest. It hadn’t ever crossed your mind, at least not at that point. As attractive as Changmin was even in your judgemental eyes, you hadn’t thought about it.

Well, up until that point, anyway.

“I wonder what his cock is like…” Chanhee nearly spits his wine back out. He’d heard worse from you. In his opinion, he knew far too much about your sex life from back when you were with Juyeon, but it’s not like he was a prude. He could talk about sex, even in detail, but about Changmin?

“I think you’ve had en- hey!”

You down the rest of the third bottle, the one Chanhee had just been holding and he sighs and reaches to open the next one, away from your thieving fingers.

“It’s just a curious little question,” because you know that Chanhee is the only person in the world you can really ask this to. Chanhee is probably the only person in the world that you think shows genuine concern for you.

“I’ve never thought about it,” neither have I.

The conversation died quite quickly, maybe because Chanhee had no interest in discussing what Changmin might look like naked. You didn’t entirely blame him. Maybe you were just horny. Maybe you should call Juyeon.

It was a back-and-forth cycle, one that never ended, and maybe that’s what Juyeon expected. He always expected you to come crawling back either way because somehow, you always did. Tonight though, while Chanhee seemed to be sound asleep next to you, you refused to run to Juyeon. You wanted sex, but you did not want to have your tail between your legs knocking at his door and begging for it.

Staring at the ceiling was your attempt at tiring your body out to go to sleep but it wasn’t happening. Maybe it was the coke (probably), but you were so frustrated and you wanted to have an orgasm. Honestly, any drunker and you might’ve just asked Chanhee.

You did not just think about fucking your best friend.

So maybe there was some truth to the assumption that you and Chanhee had sex.

What was sex with Chanhee like?

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” you mumble out loud, ready to just give up, admit defeat and go to Juyeon after all, but Chanhee’s voice interrupts you.

“What now?”

“You’re awake?”

“I had more coke than you, of course I’m awake,” your best friend snarls, though the intentions aren’t cruel. He’s probably just as frustrated as you, maybe more, because Chanhee loves his sleep and if he didn’t get it, he always found himself incredibly grumpy.

“I need to fuck,” you relent, throwing your pillow over your head.

“Call your precious Juju,” Chanhee answers, shuffling around before you feel his eyes staring at you.

“It’s Juyeon. And I’m not going to call him. His dick is mediocre at best,” you remove the pillow to look at your best friend and for a moment you feel unfairly sad for how pretty he is. Why couldn’t you so effortlessly, even in a drug-induced tipsy state, look so beautiful?

“Which is why you keep going back to it, got it.”

“Shut up…” Chanhee shuffles again and it takes you a whole five seconds to register that he’s on top of you, looking down at you with a frown on his face. You know that look. It’s pity and hurt for his best friend and it makes you feel even smaller.

“Quit being sad. Let’s order some food and we can forget about it.”

“Easy for you to say. You don’t gain weight from eating at ungodly hours,” you catch him wanting to roll his eyes but you can tell he stops himself, maybe because he knows your weight is something you’re genuinely not secure about.

“Incorrect. I actually gained weight recently,” the scoff that leaves your lips is out of your control and you shake your head in amusement instead, but it’s more mocking.

“Yeah? Well, let me know when it’s actually visible. You’re perfect Chanhee.”

“So are you,” he lays a hand over your lips before the protest he clearly knew was coming, and you simply give up. You give up because you know you’ll both go in circles and given your current state, you’re very likely going to end up in tears. The alcohol had worn off, but it was still in your system and you were definitely upset enough to have a meltdown.

“Do you think Juyeon thought so too?”

“I think he’s an idiot if he didn’t. And I think you’ve had way too much tonight, because if you were sober you’d never even consider that question. Y/N doesn’t care,” but do you want to care?

There was no justifiable reason to care about Juyeon’s opinion, but you did. He ran in a well-respected social circle that you found yourself a part of, and you really didn’t want your reputation to dwindle. It was already dwindling just for the hoodie you wore and shame washed over you again for even wearing it.

“Go to sleep, seriously,” Chanhee mumbles, a little slurred but sweet as his leg drapes over your thigh. He wasn’t very affectionate usually, but the moments in which your best friend would reach to hold you like this, were moments you cherished. For you knew them to be rare, and whilst you weren’t very big on affection yourself, from him it was different. Because you knew that when he gave it to you, when Chanhee loved you with such tenderness, it was because he truly felt like it was needed.

You wished more than anything in the world in that moment that you could tell him you appreciated it, but you weren’t very good at expressing yourself with emotions that were deep and sweet. Things that made you vulnerable were impossible to face, you’d hit a wall until you avoided it all together. You were avoiding it now, the love you had for your best friend, because you simply couldn’t face the vulnerability that came with doing something so genuine in its feelings.

Understanding how to love was hard, learning to confess it was impossible, even platonically.

“Goodnight.”

It was raining heavily when you got into the main building, pushing the hood of your jacket down as you approached the left hallway. You were somewhat late, leaving everything deserted and empty aside from a few scattered students. In truth, you’d been up far too late the night before, overthinking. Hovering over Juyeon’s contact was once more a beautifully stupid temptation.

You felt obsessed and lacking control, and you hated it.

“Little doll,” your heels stop, turning sharply to the sound of a voice you wish wasn’t so familiar. The fact that you could pinpoint who it belonged to was incredibly frustrating, for in your mind it meant you knew Changmin too well, “where’s my hoodie?”

“Keep your voice down,” you hiss, grabbing his sleeve and sharply turning a corner into a deserted hall with one dark mahogany door leading into the auditorium. No one ever came here, “what the fuck are you trying to do?”

“Get your talon claws off me- ouch!” You dug into his skin before pulling away, making him glare at you sharply with discontent similar to your own. Changmin didn’t hide his displeasure of your presence and yet he’d sought it out.

“I want my hoodie. Or are you going to deny me of something that is mine?”

“You ruined mine,” you bite back, but he doesn’t care. He rolls his eyes and you have to suppress a sharp scoff as you move to sit on the windowsill, enough room to do so in marbled gorgeous stone that you’re far too tempted to bash Changmin’s head against.

“I apologised. Have you ever apologized for anything, by the way? You don’t seem to know how to do that,” crossing your arms, you lean up to see his eyes. They’re harsh, a dark brown that holds no real mirth. He looks at you like you mean nothing of value, like you’re beneath him and the realization makes you sharply stand back up to match his height with your heels. Actually, you might even be taller.

“I’m waiting for my replacement.”

You lied. In truth, there was a certain comfort in wearing it that you didn’t find with any of your own clothes. Maybe it was the length or how it sat over your skin. Maybe it was the softness of fabric or the initial smell of cologne that had since faded. Whatever it was, it made you want to curl up, but not in sadness, rather in contentment.

“It’s been two weeks. Possibly more, actually,” but as annoyed as Changmin was, a part of him looked like he wasn’t going to push any harder. It was his final attempt at getting it back, but he didn’t seem to be too displeased if he wouldn’t get it at all. That thought in itself confused you.

“I’m aware, thank you.”

“She knows her thanks. How endearing of you, doll,” doll. Again, there it was, flowing past his lips unbothered and gently, almost meaningless. The words didn’t hold weight to them, not for him, but for you, they felt constrictive. They felt like something you desired to hear, what you wanted to strive for in appearance, becoming the impossible similarly to how you viewed your best friend, and Changmin was handing it to you on a silver platter.

You just wouldn’t take it from him.

“Just keep it then, I really can’t be asked to chase after you.”

“What?”

Fuck. You hadn’t managed to hide your surprise and now he’d caught it, seeming almost amused as he leaned against the wall and watched you. He was dressed casually, as you’d always seen him to be, lazy even, but you couldn’t deny the comfort he probably felt in comparison to you. You, dressed in a short skirt and a top sat so tight on your skin, it was about to cut into flesh, heels high and digging into your ankle with your weight.

“Keep it. It’ll be a nice change of pace from… well… this,” he gestured, and your jaw nearly hit the floor.

“What the fuck is- Changmin!”

He was walking away from you, and you damn near couldn’t believe it. Changmin was walking away from you, ignoring you, insulting you, and you had no words for it.

“Changmin!”

“Careful, you wouldn’t want people to hear that we know each other, right?”

He’d caught you there. Stopped you right in his tracks because he was right. You were chasing after him, and the question was why? When had chasing after him ever become worth it to you? Since when did you want to prove a point to him. Since when did anything he thought matter?

You stood there, left in the hall like an abandoned, wounded frail animal, and he didn’t care. The question was, why suddenly did you? The temptation to chase him, to justify yourself and have him take back those sharp insults was near overwhelming, enough so that you debated skipping your first class altogether in favour for a cigarette and maybe a beer from the convenience store to calm your nerves.

Maybe you’d just go home.

“You still haven’t given it back?”

Chanhee interrupts your peaceful start to lunch on a bench outside beneath the overhang to shield from the light rain and you glare the minute he appears. You chip at your nails that need refilling urgently and he stops you with a hold of the wrist, making you stare back at him with a sigh, “how’d you find that out?”

“I saw it at your place this morning when I went looking for you.”

“You were looking for me?”

Had you made plans that you’d forgotten about? Maybe you’d agreed to drive to campus together, but if that had been the case, you couldn’t remember it.

“Thought if you were late we could have some breakfast on the way,” silence follows first, the wind blowing strands of hair in your face that you push away behind your ear, “I’m not judging.”

“Aren’t you? Why then bring it up?”

“I guess I’m curious. If you’re fucking-”

“I’m not. I already told you.”

“Yeah, I know, but I also know if you were, you’d probably feel like you can’t tell me. I don’t want you to think that.”

He was right. That was the worst of it, how well he knew you, truly, even with limited words spoken or a stoic expression, he could still tell. It did bother you, that you had tells. You wished nothing more to be the heartless bitch those who were strangers to you, assumed you were. Truth be told, you were heartless as an illusion to shield yourself from the reality of loneliness and isolation that came with maintaining the life you desired and wanted.

“We’re not. I’ll give it back to him. Just… haven’t had time,” or you keep intentionally forgetting it. Both are simultaneously true. It’s either not having the time to do so or conveniently going without it.

“You know… I don’t think he has really many friends.”

“Is that my problem?” Chanhee shakes his head, his lips frowning and he seems annoyed with you, like you’re too stupid to get the point and you nearly feel insulted. He was trying to tell you something without any words, and you failed to understand it.

And as if all the gods worked against you on this day, the man in question stood before you both, appearing almost as if out of thin air, his steps so light he felt weightless.

“Give me your hoodie. The one I so graciously ruined,” his tone, it was mocking you. He was speaking the way you would, but with a certain vanity and uptightness that made you grimace.

“Changmin,” your best friend acknowledged with a little nod of the head, biting his lip as he went to grab his purse and leave the awkward tension he’d stumbled into entirely without meaning to, but you grabbed his arm and pulled him right back down to sit.

“I’ll fix it.”

“Yeah, fucking right you will,” he crosses his arms first before moving his fingers up to adjust his glasses, and you note now how slender they are while adorned by silver metals. They’re almost graceful and delicate, shockingly so and you have to blink away and adjust your vision to snap out of it.

“It’s ruined, no? So either you keep it that way, or you risk me ruining it more trying to fix it. Both scenarios, you’re fucked.”

“His logic isn’t wrong.”

“Shut up, Chanhee.”

“So it’s not just me that you’re a tyrannical bitch to?” Chanhee coughed back a laugh, hiding the smile behind his hand and you felt ganged up on. You felt like your best friend was on the wrong side and it stung at your chest, making your heart clench as if it was constricting every part of you. Changmin seemed so effortlessly good at making you feel crazy, but it was worse when you felt like the person meant to be on your team was laughing because of the opposing side. He was humoured, at your expense.

And it hurt. It stung, far more than it maybe should.

“You don’t get to call her that. You want to fix her hoodie? Then do so. But don’t call her names you wouldn’t even use to refer to your own dog.”

Changmin narrows his eyes, intense in his gaze enough so that you cast yours away, his humour gone. You’ve never really been one to cower under eye contact, but it was the way in which he stared back at Chanhee that brought you unease and wariness.

For someone who looked quite gentle, maybe even kind, he seemed to hide a more dark intimidating side that you weren’t so sure you’d ever really come in contact with, despite the many times you’d thrown and insult or two his way.

“You’re right. I’m sorry little doll. Bring me that hoodie tomorrow, and I’ll see what the fairy godmother can whip up for me,” he was mocking you again. Blatantly. Without any regard for your feelings and it chipped at you. Things like this shouldn’t bother you. They didn’t bother you, so why did this? Changmin had a way of crawling under your skin, of settling deep into your veins and creating a constant sense of emotional turbulence to your feelings.

“Hey, do you wanna-”

You get up before Chanhee can finish, unbeknownst to you, hurting his feelings in the process because as rude as he knew you to sometimes be, you never acted this way towards him. You loved Chanhee, you were mostly kind to him, but suddenly something cracked in a mirror and he started to see that maybe you weren’t exactly all that he’d made you to be in his mind. Maybe you weren’t perfect.

You surely weren’t the little doll that Changmin referred to you as. A nickname that still tormented you because the question simply became why?

When you dig out the white hoodie from deep within your overflowing laundry basket, you briefly debate if it’s worth it. You could afford to go to the dry cleaner yourself, he couldn’t, and yet it was more about proving a point of exactly that. A spiteful, vindictive, evil little point, but one nevertheless. He ruined it, so he could fix it. You reap what you sow.

But the longer you stared at the offensive fabric, the more it felt pointless. You weren’t really sure what you were trying to prove, if anything at all. Aside from maybe the fact that he was worlds beneath you, that he’d never be like you, and that something as simple as going to the dry cleaners was somehow proof that you were better than him.

When you near shove the fabric against his chest the following day without even a hello, he seems used to it. Changmin doesn’t blink, barely budges or loses his footing, doesn’t really question it either. In a way, he was used to you.

In a way, you became used to his indifference, too.

It took a while. Days turned into a few good weeks and you were almost convinced that Changmin had ruined your hoodie entirely. That you’d never see it because he’d turned to some at home DIY of cleaning a stained white fabric and now it was done for.

And in those weeks, you’d felt like nothing was in your control. Younghoon had found a way to insult you twice, once with Juyeon standing right there. Though he’d stepped in and defended you, it seemed half-assed. As if he was trying to be diplomatic but his words weren’t with real meaning. It was yet another reminder that you and Juyeon lacked much real care for each other. You wondered if he ever really did, or if the doomed relationship you’d had with almost pure sex and unsober thoughts had always just been one-sided.

You were very certain, especially now, that Juyeon never loved you. But you could still care for someone without loving them, and yet you were starting to wonder if you’d meant so little that he hadn’t even cared. It made you question why you’d been in a relationship at all, if not just for the similar bank balances and the sex you’d once deemed good enough to satisfy you.

At one point, it had been good. You and Juyeon had been far from perfect, but it had worked. It had worked until it didn’t, and when it didn’t, it really didn’t. Deciding to be friends had been easy at the time, the consequences were barely existing because you still got to fuck him when either of you pleased, and yet now it all seemed to sink in in a far aftermath. It worked on delay, and your tumultuous feelings threatened to tumble over the moment Juyeon simply tried to keep the peace between you and Younghoon.

It had nearly made you cry, but you straightened your posture and adjusted your hair with a smile on your face as you thanked him instead and sent Younghoon a look that told him you hated him just as much, you just wouldn’t say it. Why you hated each other, you couldn’t quite say. Aside from his arrogance and way of looking at you like you were a whore on the streets and sending daggers at you in the form of words that were sometimes so smartly phrased, you were almost envious that you hadn’t come up with them yourself.

On top of Younghoon’s insults, Juyeon making you feel less loved and Chanhee and you being in a strange little place of not really talking but sharing glances almost to ask if the other was okay, Hyunjae had also run your way with the offer of an invitation to a party.

A perfect distraction. A much-needed one, definitely. You needed to unwind, desperately, to get really drunk and find a one-night stand that you’d wake up without and barely remember the next day. You would’ve loved to get it all out of your system while not thinking of any of them.

You should’ve known better than to assume things would go as planned.

It was one thing for Changmin to show up at Hyunjae’s house without an invite, though Hyunjae tended to be kind and hospitable in that regard unless he absolutely hated someone or if they’d wronged him in some way. Changmin had done neither.

It was a whole other thing for Juyeon to grab your wrist so harshly it bruised your skin, his fingers wrapped around as he stung the surface. You were shocked at first, mostly because Juyeon was a lot of things but aggressive in that regard was rare, but when you looked up into his eyes and saw a genuinely angry gaze, you didn’t really understand.

“Why is Changmin outside asking for you?”

“Don’t touch her like that!” Chanhee was smaller than Juyeon, both fairly slim in build but a difference in height and muscle mass that just made your best friend that much smaller in appearance, and yet he stepped between you two anyway. Chanhee was never really afraid of anything, even if he could get his ass kicked, and it was as admirable as it was stupid.

“I asked you a question.”

“I don’t know,” it was weak, but it was honest, and Juyeon let your wrist go but you were more thinking it had something to do with Hyunjae standing on the opposite side of Chanhee, ready to defend you too. It almost shocked you more, for Juyeon and Hyunjae were incredibly close, had been for years and even before you were in the picture, and yet here it didn’t seem to matter when you felt unsafe.

“Tell me why!”

“I said I don’t know, Juyeon!”

Silence. At least around you both, everything fell quiet. The music was still loud but those within ear shot had caught you both raising your voices, and now you were left having to keep appearances. Acting like nothing was wrong was something you were usually good at. Not caring is something you could do, but when everything threatened to topple over and one thing finally pushed your feelings over the edge to do so, it was hard to simply ignore it.

“I can go to him,” Hyunjae offers, but you stop him the second he takes a step with your hand to his chest.

“It’s fine. I’ll just go,” honestly, it was already a nightmare that he was asking for you so publicly at a party with so many people, but maybe if you played your cards right, it wouldn’t look so bad on your part. You weren’t friends, after all, so you supposed it wouldn’t appear to be that way. Sure, people could be fooled, but only if you played a viable part in it, and you wouldn’t.

Walking outside was a mistake. But when you realised it to be one, it was too late. Turning back might be worse, but walking towards Changmin wasn’t better. He was standing there, completely wet from the rain in a jacket that had no hood. You bit back from calling him stupid, moreso because you’d left your jacket inside entirely and it was cold. Despite the goosebumps on your skin, you refused to show discomfort, collecting yourself with a straightened posture in your short dress.

You stood tall, heels high enough that he was actually a little shorter than you, though it was only really noticeable because you were right in front of each other.

“I brought it for you,” the white garment is neatly folded between his fingers, and you note their softness, that they seem gentle to touch but you snap yourself away from the thought once you notice yourself having it.

“You brought it for me… here?”

You sound more ungrateful than you are. It’s the first time you actually reprimand yourself for the rude tone towards him because it’s not deserved this time, but you don’t quite take it back, reaching for the fabric slowly before you let it fall open to reveal a hoodie that looks good as new.

There’s no way in hell he did that himself.

“You can stop bothering me now,” he lights a cigarette, indifferent and suddenly the insulting tone you’d spoken in doesn’t feel as mean, for he doesn’t seem to care much. If he does, he’s very good at hiding it, to the point of being so good at it that you don’t believe it possible.

“Thanks,” all you can think about is how cold you are now, especially when the fabric is partially warm from where he’d held it and the fact that you know how comfortable this hoodie is. But you were at a party and it would fall awkwardly over your dress. You didn’t want to look awkward, so you choose to be cold instead.

“You should wear it. You’ll get sick,” you send a look his way, confused as a pout falls over your stained lips but again, he seems indifferent. He really, genuinely, doesn’t seem to care.

It drives you insane.

You want to say something, take the chance for once to not be rude and maybe try again to thank him because as frustrating as he is, he was kind enough to get it sorted for you, after weeks of back and forth and refusal of giving him his own hoodie back. Overall, maybe Changmin did show you kindness, albeit very terribly.

“I’d like mine back now,” you supposed that was fair, but the little candle of lit warmth faded to ashes because Changmin simply didn’t stop there. He bit back, and he did so hard in a way you knew to do, but weren’t prepared for now “but if you’d like I can wait. I’m sure you have Juyeon’s dick to ride first.”

The crushing blow to your chest feels foreign. It was something expected to hear yet not from him. Maybe as a joke from Chanhee or an insult from Younghoon, but not him. You weren’t sure why. Neither of you showed much kindness to each other and you couldn’t exactly say you’d expected him to be graceful in speaking to you, but you’d wished it.

“Fuck you.”

It’s an absolutely terrible idea to do as Changmin said. You know it, yet you storm off now wet from the rain to go inside and find the very person that would be a mistake. You know he’s a mistake. He’d left insulting bruises on your wrist just minutes ago and yet you find him in the kitchen pouring another mix of alcohol that has you convinced he’s at least reached a point where the alcohol no longer has to taste good to be drunk.

“Fuck me,” he turns, eyes sharp and dark but also just a hint of confusion.

“What?”

“Do I have to say it again?”

Juyeon shakes his head, a smirk appearing on his lips instead as he downs the little he’d managed to mix so far in his cup. You followed his gaze to a bottle of whiskey that was nearly empty and you reached for the puddle of golden brown liquid to down it, his eyes on you the entire time as you did so.

He waits for you to put the glass down and when you’ve done so, he lifts you up with his hands digging into the back of your upper thigh, the skirt of your dress rising so high you use your hoodie to cover up where your skin is revealed. This was already a mistake, you knew it to be so deep down, but you didn’t care.

Maybe you wanted to somehow prove that Juyeon did care about you. Or maybe you just wanted to spite Changmin. Maybe you just needed sex because your libido was high and you weren’t having enough of it.

Maybe it was all three.

You don’t know which bedroom you’re in but Juyeon is lazy in shutting the door, nearly forgetting to do so before he kicks it shut with the back of his foot. He’s quick to kiss you, sloppy and wet as you drop the clean white hoodie to the floor, discarding it just as Juyeon works on lifting the frustratingly tight fabric up to your hips.

“You’re not wearing underwear?”

You shake your head, wriggling out of the straps of your dress to push it down over your now bare chest, the little fabric on your body all bunched up above your ass and below your chest. You were essentially naked, and yet not quite, wrapping your legs around Juyeon’s waist as he fell on top of you and kissed you back.

You loved kissing. Especially when it was rough and desperate. Necessary like oxygen that you breathed. You loved Juyeon’s kisses, the way he bit your lower lip and roughly rocked against you, though the fabric of his pants against your bare thighs was rough and made you whine in frustration and discomfort.

At least Juyeon wasn’t entirely stupid in realising what the problem was, maybe usually willing and eager to tease and take his time a little more but now he was stripping himself bare so that the friction against both your warm skins wouldn’t hurt for you.

“What the hell did he want?”

You cursed. You cursed because you did not need to think about Changmin when Juyeon’s dick was right there, and yet he’d asked the question. He sounded bitter, angry, but not quite jealous. Maybe if it had been jealousy, you would’ve been okay with it.

“Was just giving me back the hoodie he ruined,” your hand wraps around his cock, stroking him lazily as he inhales sharply, a rough moan right by your ear before he bites down on your neck. Harder than you’re used to, but not enough to fully hurt.

Your body was used to his cock. You realise it more because when he pushes into you, the sting is sharp but easy to adjust to. The first time you’d had sex with Juyeon, you’d needed way more time and he’d given it to you. But now it was second nature and your body knew him. Your body clung to him, desperate to hold.

“You’re such a whiny little whore, d’you know that?”

If the dick wasn’t good, you’d slap him. Though you supposed he wasn’t saying it entirely without reasoning. You were whiny. That, and you were loud, unintentionally so as he picked up the pace, gripping your hip with his free hand to slam into you, your breasts pushing up from the force as your head tilted back in pleasure.

Sex with Juyeon was lazy, definitely without much care but it was good for what it was. He was rough and careless but you trusted him to never hurt you, and if he ever unintentionally did you knew he’d stopped if you asked. You trusted him, despite all his flaws, to see you like this, with your body near bare and vulnerable to him and anything he wished as he spread your legs and pushed you into the mattress.

It was natural and comforting, to find repetition in your behaviour with Juyeon. It was nice when things didn’t change, because change was something that didn’t find you very content.

“H-harder- ah-” your back arches just slightly, and Juyeon takes that moment to wrap both his hands on the side of your hips, digging his nails into the skin as he obeys your demand, your legs clinging to him. The sound of skin roughly meeting repeatedly is loud and penetrating, only covered by the vulgarity of the noises you make. If it weren’t for the loud music yet again, you’re sure everyone could hear you.

Changmin. Could he hear you?

The very thought of him pushes the orgasm you’d initially been building away, because you’re shocked. Why is he in your thoughts so suddenly, with his warm comforting hoodie over his skin that seemed so soft, with a far gentler touch than Juyeon’s?

Not that you minded Juyeon’s touch, but you imagined Changmin’s to be different, even if it might be rough.

You imagined his glasses slipping from behind his ears as he hovered over you, and you wondered if he’d try to adjust them first or if you’d eventually just take them off for him, lay them somewhere to the side while spreading your legs for him.

You wondered what it was like, very briefly, to run your hands through his dark hair and tug on it harshly as he fucked into you, his heavy breaths against your ear as you both shook in a joint orgasm as he came inside you.

You wondered what it was like, how different he was from Juyeon and if so, if it was better.

You can’t quite catch your tongue fast enough when your orgasm grows, not with your thoughts overlapping and twisting in your head and making you wonder about someone you’d never want near you this intimately. Or did you?

“C-Changmin- fuck!”

Your nails dig so hard into Juyeon’s back that you know there will be moonlike crevices on his skin, scratching down into a jagged line as your body shakes, your legs unstable and locked against the man who’s completely still. He’s unmoving, completely, and it takes you another moment of recollection to realise Juyeon didn’t finish.

You can’t say you blame him, when realisation and embarrassment and utter humiliation covers your crimson cheeks. Of all the names, you chose the worst offender. And despite alcohol being in your system, you knew you couldn’t blame it on that.

You’d just committed social suicide to a man you knew wouldn’t keep his mouth shut when he was hurt. And you could tell on his face that there was a pain in his eyes that even you couldn’t say you recognised. He felt insulted, and when you went to move up on the bed to reach him, he pushed off you so fast you thought he detested you.

“Don’t touch me,” it was stern, his tone so cold that you thought he hated you. Juyeon very well could and you weren’t so sure you could blame him. You knew if he’d done this to you, said someone else’s name, that it would cut a wound into you that would never go away and every thought of am I enough would threaten to break you.

You watched in an almost entranced state, the way he picked up all his clothes, and your few attempts at adjusting yourself and walking towards him failed because he slapped your hand away every time.

“Ju- I’m sorry. It’s not what… I- Juyeon.”

He stops, picking up your white hoodie off the floor and shoving it against your chest similarly to how you’d done the same with Changmin when you gave it to him, and it cut you all over again.

“Let me guess, you left this at his house when you let him fuck you?”

You were shocked. Of course you knew it wasn’t true but how could you prove it? Yet your silence was Juyeon’s answer. His assumption that he was right as he bitterly scoffed and rolled his eyes at you like he loathed you.

“I hope you truly end up miserable, Y/N. You deserve it, at this point,” the door slams loud and Juyeon’s gone, leaving you bare and vulnerable and so very lost as the very idea of your social circle and status dwindling into pieces, shattering beneath your feet, becomes a frightening reality to you. Everything you worked on attaining, on creating a you that everyone would envy and want, was potentially threatened with a secret that only you and him knew.

A secret that would ruin you, and you knew well that he loved to run his mouth where it gained him sympathy.

All you could do, was stand still naked with your hoodie covering you just enough in case someone came in, and yet no one did, not for a while.

You were well and truly alone.

act ii

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cow-with-a-fur-coat · 11 months ago

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I hope you’re sleeping well, on the other end of the call. I get worried, often, about what happens when you’re quiet later into the call, when I can’t tell if the silence is heavy enough to imply sleep. I think back to what you said before, how you said it, if the rustling I hear every few minutes is a sign of pained restlessness, or a content and sleep-induced shifting. I wonder if I’ve ever assumed you were asleep, and you were on the other side, needing something I didn’t know to give. “I love you,” I’ll say quietly into the phone. I hope that either you’ll hear this if you are awake and imploding and it’ll help, it’ll be the implication that if I knew what was happening that I’d drop it all and stay up for hours until I can make sure you’re sleeping comfortably. Or that the words will somehow reach you in the hollows of consciousness, that maybe you’ll still feel it somehow. Im driving home at 10:44 p.m. and you call me when I figured you’d be asleep and you’d been crying and I wish I could do more than provide the silence you asked for, and the road rattles and clicking blinkers that you didn’t ask for. I hope when I settle at home to read with the phone propped on my chest that the flipping pages doesn’t bother you- I find a system to hold the page down carefully in a way that will allow it to be flipped, soundlessly, by the air of my fan when I pick my finger up. I feel the call go quiet, and backstage in my brain, where onstage my mind is producing a performance of the book I’m reading, I picture you asleep and safe and content, and I hope I’ve helped you get there. I lift my finger and the page turns silently. I know a lot of this is just growing pains. I know it sucks, I know it isn’t a graceful thing to have to call someone so you won’t be alone at night, I know being a human is clunky and ugly and covered in handprints and teardrops and friction burns. And when I think of the unimaginable pain of being, when I hear it in your voice, I often imagine that if I say the right thing in the right way, if I hold you carefully enough, I can make sure you know and never forget that you’re loved through it all. That we only have growing pains because our bones love our bodies and want to fill it, to support it. Our hearts hurt because we want to fill our space on this earth adequately, beautifully, in a way that doesn’t feel like we’ve taken up space at all but rather become it. But please know that when I look at you I want only for you to take up more space, for you to call me when I’m driving or when I’m sleeping (I’ve chosen the most raucous ringtone I could find so I’ll wake up if you need me) or when I least expect it. I want to be here at the end of every day to massage the joints that ache from the strain of growth, of trying disastrously but gorgeously to fulfill the promise of being human and alive. “I hope you’re sleeping well,” I always say in a whisper before I hang up. And I mean it. I hope you’re at peace, I hope you’re safe, I hope you’ll meet me in the morning for another day together.

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spotaus · 9 months ago

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Gah-

Okay. So. First things first because I'll forget the tags: We talked about it briefly once, but Ccino absolutely gets a cat mask! Just a normal housecat I think (plain and unassuming, but ur 100% right about the implications! House at stand up to foes much bigger than themselves, they're loyal, *and* they keep the rats out!)

Second. Hi. Ancha may I please please request that I make this drabble part of the canon? Because you just. You managed to tie in so many things so beautifully, and filled a Ccino pothole I had, and placed all the ideas from my drabbles abd rambles into just such a neat perfect lil piece!!! Augh!!!!! (Okay we're back to internal screaming-)

Third!!! Digging into this thang like a nicely roasted chicken because!!! So many perfect moments!!!!

Okay. You got Night spot on. In the beginning he's awkward, using what little improv he's got to survive, then he's a bit more comfy showing the folks around (a space he knows thanks to Ccino) and then later as he gets more vulnerable that she'll breaks a little. I love how he reacts when pinned between Killer and Ccino for the brief moment, trying to keep that hierarchy act between them...

KILLER. I will never stop shouting his name, but he's so well portrayed here! He's sassy and playful and arrogant in all the right ways, abd he goes so far as to *tease* Night several times (which goes unnoticed basically aside from acknowledgement UNTIL he crosses the line, implying something between Night abd Ccino-). And his little "What?!" For the training- because yeah!

Night would naturally want to test his own strength in a controlled environment (ex. Killer, who has potential to be expendable if smth goes wrong (tho Night doesn't want that)), as well as *prove* his strength and capabilities to Killer to lessen chances of betrayal. And, most largely. A) He wants his potential Knight to be supervised by him alone so he doesn't get any outside influences from other combat styles or morals, and B) So he doesn't subject anyone else to Killer's murderous tendencies. Killer can't kill him, but he's certain Killer has no qualms killing others like his guard. He can't have that.

Bro thought he was getting off easy and now he's actually gonna have to train 🙏🫡

And then- AND THEN CCINO-

Gods above, Anchas I think you killed me. His little tonal qualities in how he balances his position w/ his history with Night, how he interacts with him, how... HHH It just makes me get butterflies in my stomach, but they're all mad and furious. I mean this in the best way possible. All positive.

Okay. Okay. One thing at a time-

Ccino feels comfortable with Nightmare. Obviously he would, with what he knows, but it's sweet. The way he sits with him, talks to him, *reaches out to him*. The soft touch to the cheek broke me, because there was a VERY quick shift where Ccino clearly recognized that, maybe Night had been overwhelmed, maybe it had been too much, a lecture might not be the best. He saw that change and immediately moved from the worried nagging (a needed strictness) into comfort and reassurance, because he knew Night was starting to spiral and get afraid again.

And idk man, but Ccino just slowly talking Nightmare through it all, holding him, comforting touches, it just- raughhh I loved it... Night's paranoia spiral was so so good too, because it just felt exactly like how I've been picturing it! He's such a guy who relies on logic, and he logics himself into the worst case scenario.

AND Night's lil flashback with the palm ritual thing. That one hurt so good, it had a perfect placement...

Okay. Okay. Let's see... Dream! And Ccino's role for the twins. I love that he's trapped, that he was forces to be there (and that Night offers him freedom and is so so set on ensuring Ccino be happy even in his state-). The bit in the tags about Ccino ending up as Dream's (metaphorically, literally, etc) hit me so hard because! YEAH. They would do that. Nim would do that. Like a consolation prize. One brother gone, but here's this other one you like, do as you please. Losing my mind- and Dream in an altered state? Who knows where that would've gone???

And then the shift when Night took over, and Ccino *chose* to look after him and help and care. It just. 😭😭😭 the narrative hereeeeee

I love that you have it end with them both there, and the mask case, and Night deciding Ccino deserved a mask... it made my heart hurt so so good 🫶

Ohh this gives me ideas for other stuff now (particularly Night + Killer doing those trainings, and maybe a pre-apple incident interaction between Night, Dream, and Ccino? But who knows-)

Okay lastly other tag things:

-> No no, you got it perfect! I hadn't been mentioning it much, but Ccino is probably the STRONGEST connection + bond Night has. Period. Ccino is the only reason Night survived more than a week after the ritual (he made poor choices w/ the starving himself out of fear or poisons things, and more I think-) and so you are SO correct placing Ccino as Brother Supreme 🙏 (Also Killer getting put in his place by Night immediately felt like a 'I don't care what you say about me, but mess with him and you're dead.' Kinda moment, and I loved it <3 First time Night is genuinely scary to Killz probably-)

-> Nim's hall is 100% gonna be a Cat Space haha! Honestly I could see this very superstitious kingdom noticing an influx of cats around the palace and being helpful around the city, followed by Night's Knights all having cat-masks, and deciding Night's divine symbol is a cat (despite the Owl motif-). I think this'd lead to an influx of bad superstitions about cats, immediately followed by a healthy fear of harming a cat. (A guy who, completely unrelatedly, killed a Cat to spite Nightmare in his own time, was killed by the Knights a few days later because. People in his community were unaware he was a trafficker of people, so they assumed it was the whole cat thing. Rumors spread, abd cats were treated a lot better-) sidetracked- but yeah! Cats everywhere!! Kitties!

Gifted Drabble - NewAgeAU - Understanding

Hey @spotaus !! As promised :3 I got a little something for you!

Your drabble got me thinking and made me consider something. (also i am so sorry if i got the ages wrong. I really tried)

As always. Feel free to use whatever you want from it or just ignore what doesn't fit <3 I am just having fun and it is meant as a gift for you <3 (also to motivate you to keep writing more about it!)

*------------------------*

Nightmare gets off his horse as he stares at the castle.

Well. His castle now.

He is still not quite used to that. Refering to it with his castle instead of his mother's.

Even after almost 12 months. He still doesn't expect to see himself in the mirror. or maybe the problem is that he expects his old self. The young teen.

The weakling. The failure.

No focus.

He isn't that anymore. He now has the magic. He is the new powerful leader of his land. And he will make this work. Even if he still has no idea what he is doing.

No. He needs to get back and make sure no one tried to rebel against him. That no one tried to hurt Ccino while he was gone.

Nightmare gets off the horse and someone rushes over to take the horse. Nightmare stares at this person and figures out quickly it is the stablehand who has been taking care of the horses.

Nightmare looks over his shoulder and motions the new people to follow him. The set of brothers, the dog monster. and Killer.

Nightmare walks into the castle as he speaks "Some of the other servants will take you to your chambers to rest and clean up. Tomorrow the three of you will join some of my other staff to see what is needed and where you fit. Killer. You will-"

"My liege."

Nightmare blinks and looks over.

Ccino has appeared out of one of the servant secret passages and walks straight towards him. Nightmare can see, and feel, when Ccino takes in the new people and just who they are.

Ccino's face turns a bit harder and Nightmare can feel the annoyance and frustration in the air "My liege!" Ccino smiles brightly as he speaks "Have you eben succesfull in finding a possible knight?"

Killer chuckles behind him and mutters "someone is in trouble~"

Nightmare knows Killer is being sarcastic. But if only Killer knew how right he was.

Nightmare however could never be worried or afraid off Ccino. For him? Maybe. But never because of him. He gives a tiny nod. The only amount of respect their places and ranks allow them when others are near "Ccino." He waves into the direction of the new arrivals "These people will join my workers." He looks at the four new arrivals "This. Is Ccino. He is head of the house." a title that will never pass away from him. Not as long as Nightmare is in charge.

Ccino nods "Pleasure." he looks back at Nightmare "My liege. If you have the time. There is a matter we need to discuss."

Oh yeah. Nightmare is very much in trouble.

Nightmare's voice is still calm as he speaks "Very well. I will meet you in my study after i made sure they go to their chambers."

Ccino feels unamused but he nods with a bow before he leaves the hall with a quick turn.

Nightmare turns back to his new... servants? He never quite liked that word but it works. He turns to his servants and feel his tentacles slowly rise from their position on the ground. They slowly start to idle again as he makes sure the new people learn where their rooms are and where to get food.

He brings Killer to a room more seperate from the others. Beyond the guard positions. Just because Nightmare wants to give him a chance and the fact he doesn't fear him is refreshing doesn't make Nightmare forget how dangerous Killer is.

Fuck this was a mistake.

What if Killer hurts people here?

What if he hurts Ccino?

Killer looks around his room before lounging on the bed "So what is the deal with the other skeleton?" he grins and wiggles his eye brows "Little secret going on there?"

Ngihtmare needs a moment as he wonders what Killer could mean. Then it sinks in and Nightmare feels his tentacles all spasm as he shudders "No." the answer is final and harsh. Killer actually looks surprised.

Nightmare holds his sight and speaks slowly "I will only repeat this once and remember this well. I don't like having to repeat myself." he holds Killer's gaze "Ccino is head of the house. He will remain head of the house. Nothing anyone can say or do will change this." he holds his gaze before straightening himself again as he moves towards the door "Tomorrow we will start training."

Kilelr sputters "We?!"

Nightmare stops and shoots him a look "Obviously. How am I to keep track of your skills and promise if i don't oversee the training myself?" and he leaves the room.

He hurries back through th castle towards his study. Sinking in and out of shadows as his mind, body and soul all know where he wishes to go.

He stops by his study and enters it.

Ccino is already in there. Studying the old masks in the special glass casing.

Nightmare closes the door and Ccino turns to him with a glare "What were you thinking?"

Nightmare gets taken back to a year or two prior. When he was still small. When he had cut himself to practise for the ritual. He hadn't been able to sleep and had been nervous about the apple ritual already. He had wanted to practise his part. to perform a blood oath to promise loyalty until death to his twin.

Ccino had caught him with a knife out.

Nightmare blinks back into the here and now as Ccino looks at him expecting with his arms crossed.

Nightmare blinks as he looks to the side for a moment. How is it that even wiht him being taller than Ccino he still feels small compared to him? "They were innocent."

Ccino looks unimpressed as he crosses his arms "Now with less lies."

Nightmare blinks and shoot his traitorous tendrils a look. No doubt they did something to give his little slight lie away. Ccino jsut raises a brow as he taps his foot.

Nightmare speaks again "Most of them were innocent. I didnt want them to get hang for something they did not do."

Ccino hums as he waits "And the murderer?"

Nightmare looks at Ccino "how did you know?"

Ccino sighs but has a small smile on his face. an old fond feeling as ccino looks at him and the tiny part of nightmare that had been stressed relaxes. Ccino just keeps looking slightly amused "There is a reason i told you to get out more. you only hear so many things from people in the castle nightmare. You need to go out to hear everything from everyone. I know who he is because i go to the market sometimes."

nightmare gives aslow nod as he looks away. So Ccino knows that nightmare brought a serial killer home. great.

Ccino sighs and sits on the couch for visitors and Nightmare joins him instead of sitting in his own chair.

Ccino looks at him "Just... tell me what happened. Why did you decide this?"

Ngihtmare looks at his hands. again slightly shocked to see the goop. It never stains anything yet it feels like a reminder. It is dirty. it isn't the holy light the powers promised. it is weird and looks diseased which is fitting for him. someone who betrayed everyone. who betrayed his twin. He may have gone it to protect dream. But even dream doesn't see this.

Where does that leave him?

Ccino's hand rubs his cheek and Nightmare shakes himself out of it. Ccino looks so worried as he rubs his skull "Hey... it is okay... i am not mad at you. I am worried about you. I am sorry if it seemed like i was mad."

Nightmare knows ccino isn't mad at him. Not like that at least. Nightmare can feel that. But he likes that ccino still tells him as much too.

Nightmare sighs as he leans into the gentle hold and touch. Ccino had always been one of the few to hold him. As his and Dream's babysitter it had been his job. But Ccino had always truly cared about them both. The moment that Nightmare could feel emotions he had been shocked by that.

That Ccino held no hatred for him. Not even a little bit. He enver blamed either Nightmare or Dream for his situation.

Nightmare speaks softly "The... kngihts you picked out. they were amazing. They showed much promise and would have made fine warriors."

Ccino hums as he keeps rubbing his skull "But?"

Nightmare sighs "They hated me. Even if with time they would eventually grow loyal and accept their place. They would forever hold resentment towards me for making them come."

Ccino hums and nods "I get it. It were only options Ngihtmare. there will be more people who fit the job."

Nightmare feels another part of him relax. knowing that Ccino still understands him "Killer wasn't afraid."

Ccino hums questioning.

Nightmare speaks slowly "He wasn't afraid. Not of me. Not of his situation. He stood up when near me. He didn't cower and he didn't hide." he sighs as he leans into the hug. He shouldn't need these anymore. He is an adult now and not that awkward young teen anymore. Nightmare shouldn't still count this much on the other "He saw me and didn't hate me. He knew who i was and didn't hate me. It was... new."

Ccino still feels unsure but he holds him still "And that gave you hope? That maybe if soemone didn't start with that hatred they could maybe become truly loyal?"

Ngihtmare shrugs. He isn't quite sure. he didn't think that far ahead. He just didn't want to lose another person who didn't hate him.

Ccino sighs as he keeps rubbing his skull and the back of his neck "I won't say i trust him. Because i don't. And I worry about you. I am scared he will end up hurting you."

Nightmare rolls his eyes as he answers "I have yet to even lose a fight and i had almost no training." all because of his tentacles and his newfoudn power.

Ccino just holds him tighter "There are more ways someone can hurt you Nightmare."

Nightmare feels the fear of before return. THe idea that somoene would kill Ccino. "If... if him being here makes you feel unsafe i will return him to the guards."

Ccino laughs and shakes his skull "Ngihtmare I am fine. I am not scared for me."

Nightmare keeps holding him as he feels himself start to shake. fears he had been trying to ignore and push away return to the front of his mind "Waht if they realise just how important you are? What if they try to hurt you to hurt me? What if they kill you to hurt me? Ccino maybe it is better if you hide." hide... hide away... out of sight out of mind.

Ccino just rubs his neck "It is okay Nightmare. It is okay. They don't know. and even if they have an idea your reputation adn the past of this country will just make them think I am someone who will be used as sacrifice last. That i will be punished last or least."

Nightmare shakes as he keeps holding the one person who remained "What if they hurt you because of me?"

Ccino is so calm and sure "then it would be on them. Not you. You don't want others to hurt me. It wouldn't be your fualt Nightmare and I will never see it as your fault. It is okay."

Ngihtmare still feels unsure. He made it obviously clear to Killer that Ccino is improtant. Killer is smart and Nightmare has no idea what he could be planning.

Another thought enters his mind. Somethign he had found early on in his ruling.

A very very damning piece of paper. a slave contract.

Nightmare speaks softly "I am sorry you are stuck here..."

Ccino shrugs as he keeps rubbing his back "Not your fault."

Nightmare shakes as he holds him "I.... I can undo it... I can give you back your freedom..."

Ccino had been taken from his home. Sold to the castle with a very clear purpose. First to be a babysitter. and later... well... Drema had been planning to be all powerful and go from young teen to adult in just one ritual. There is a reason Ccino's age had been only 6 years older than them.

Ccino had been suposed to be Dream's from the very start.

Ccino hums "A nice thought. Not that i thought about that contract in a long time. It hardly matters nowadays. Not like I can just leave."

Nightmare feels his grip tighten and his tendrils curl around them. He doesn't want to let go of the one person who cared. The one person he could count on to help him. To give a single shit about Nightmare. But... but how long will it take before Ccino starts hating him? If Nightmare keeps him here?

Nightmare holds him close "I... I can get you a horse... I can give you gold..." He will just use some of the treasury. Ccino deserves it. "I can send some guards with you on your way. You could go wherever you want. Back to your family."

Ccino locks both his arms around his skull and hums softly. an old lullaby and Nightmare stops. The amount of memories almost hurt. It was always Ccino who held him on bad nights. Or when he was sad. Or when everyone pushed him aside again.

Ccino speaks sfotly "Nightmare. When I say i can't leave i don't mean i physically can't leave. It means i don't want to. I decided a while ago i want to stay here Nightmare."

Nightmare shakes but refuses to let go "What... what about your family?" Ccino's fmaily have to love him. Ccino is so amazing. There is no way he isn't missed dearly after he was stolen from them.

Ccino sighs sadly "Nightmare... They have been killed a long time ago. The day i was taken the guards made sure i knew there was nothing to return to. even if i ran." Ngihtmare feels himself freeze. why... why had he thought?

Ccino rubs his skull "It hurt a lot but i accepted a long time ago Nightmare. I accepted that you two were my family now... and well... now it is just you. and it is okay. I am okay with that. I will always support you Nightmare." he grins "You may be older now but i like to think i am still the older brother."

Nightmare feels aprt of himself break as he just sinks fully into Ccino's hold "please don't also leave me." it is weak. it is pathetic. He should be stronger than this. He should have been prepared for this.

Ccino just covers his skull wiht his body and holds him "I am not going anywhere Nightmare. I will be by your side. I swear on my soul."

Nightmare relaxes and lets himself enjoy the comfort he should not need this badly. He enjoys it and can't help but let his eyes slide around the room. His sight finds the masks and remembers.

The masks are the highest honour. only shared with those most special.

He thinks something catlike will fit his older brother.

#new age au #literally I could sit here and dissect this so so much #I am gnawing on it #Ccino and Nightmare are portrayed so so nicely and... I can't believe Kiler's silly quip inspired this all #!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!#u seriously spoil me-

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wndaswife · 2 years ago

Text

every waking moment

「 thérèse raquin & fem!reader 」

tags: smut, fingering, angst, cheating, brief implication of homophobia. MINORS DNI.

word count: 4700

summary: Unbeknownst to Thérèse that you've learned about her affair with Laurent, she begins to suspect you have a lover. She spends her every moment with you henceforth, determined to make you hers again.

a/n: i attempted to write from a naturalist perspective :> which was thrilling and equally as difficult

gif credit to creator.

“I’m leaving!” Thérèse had called back to you as you rummaged through the shelfs, dividing nylon thread from polyester ones and storing them separately. Within the last fortnight, she was away from the shop more often than not. “I’ll be back late tonight with the ribbon we need,” she said.

Thérèse returned later that evening, as she promised.

But you had tired of seeing her by then, even when she peppered your cheeks with kisses and brought back with her four handfuls of the spools of the required ribbon.

You were not able to see her undressing at the end of the night in your shared bedroom, stepping out of her crinoline and unlacing her corset, without envisioning the handsome dark-haired Laurent and his wandering hands nor the intimate sights he might have seen of your maiden.

It was not the idea that someone else had shared in the experience of bestowing their eyes onto Thérèse’s fair skin and bare body that ate at you, but instead that partnership was meant to mean exclusivity. At least, that was what Thérèse had always preached into your ear and in the tight embrace of her arms.

Hours ago, you had followed her discreetly to the Seine and saw her sprawled out by the riverbank, tranquil and happy as she laid in the cool shadow of a great oak tree. A man was perched on his elbow laying beside her, his fingers running down the side of her face delicately, then to her chin where his thumb brushed across her bottom lip.

You did know of Laurent; the childhood friend of Thérèse’s cousin Camille, who you had not seen since he and his mother moved away once you and Thérèse started overseeing the haberdashery together.

Laurent was a dashing man, or so you assumed from the meaningful stares he would exchange with any woman he came within fifteen feet of.

Before you left your previous occupation to work with Thérèse at the haberdashery, you’d worked with Laurent. You would have never considered him to be anything more than an acquaintance, for the truth was that he irritated you, and sometimes you despised him. He was an arrogant lazy oaf, and should he ever come into any deal of money, no matter how small, you knew he would have never come into work.

He lazed around and did just enough to impress the superiors, getting around by flashing a few smiles and discussing his creative history with beautiful naked models for his beautifully understated pieces of art. You could not remember what kind of artist he was, if one could ever stomach calling him such, but it was not significant to you as you continued to watch him interact with Thérèse.

In an instinctual jerk of your body as if reacting to a sudden noise, you turned your head when the man lowered his face to hers. Their lips met tenderly. Despite yourself, you peeked over, beyond the grand oak tree, to find Laurent looking deeply into your maiden’s eyes. He lifted himself up so their lips could part and he could look down at her while Thérèse grinned, her chest fluttering with her soft giggles.

Dozens of hushed secrets were exchanged within that silent stare and you abhorred yourself for wanting to know them.

Presently, Thérèse embraces you from behind, unbuttoning the collar of your dress. She hushes you when your shoulders tense, uttering a quiet, “Shh-shh-shh.”

You look ahead at the wardrobe you’re facing, your body stiff as Thérèse’s hands work nimbly at undressing you.

A dim candle flickers on top of a table in the corner of the bedroom, enveloping the entire room in a warm shade of orange. From the nightstand beside the bed at the other side of the bedroom, an off-white light gleams and casts Thérèse’s shadow against your back and the top of her head over your shoulder and against the wardrobe.

When your corset is undone and is placed atop of your skirts on the floor, Thérèse pushes your crinoline down your legs and you step out of it, moving to the side and finally slipping out of her arms.

The both of you stand in the silent shadowed room in your chemises and undone hair.

Before you met her, Thérèse was a sombre, serious woman, so still and silent that one might have believed she was slumbering when she was sitting in the chair behind the shop’s counter or tending to the Thursday evening guests in her seat beside the window and away from the night’s events had it not been for the way her eyes fluttered ever so slightly at any rupture of noise and the hypnotic curling of her pale fingers as she stroked the Raquin family’s cat, François, in her lap.

Though it was nearly a year since you’d first met Thérèse and now several months since you’d known her romantically, you often felt you knew her just as much as you did that first night Camille dragged you to his mother’s shop for a game of dominoes alongside Laurent.

She reaches out to take your hand, pulling it close to her, and your arm lifts loosely.

You turn towards her and walk towards the bed because you have little else to do.

Thérèse wraps an arm around you, hugging you and burying her face against the side of your breast. Her arm drops when you lean forward and get into bed. She follows, moving close against your side until her breasts press against your upper arm.

With her fingers wrapped around the side of your neck and the corner of your jaw, she turns your head to her. Thérèse kisses you, eyebrows pushing together and exhaling a soft hum in excited relief. Her arm wraps around your waist and her free hand rounds to the back of your neck, guiding you to move on top of her.

Feeling beside yourself and with little control, you let Thérèse move your body until you’re laying on top of her, knees on either side of her thighs. Her hand moves up to the back of your head, playing with your hair and leading your face down to her neck. She moans when your lips make contact with her and you begin kissing your way to her pulse.

You no longer wanted to control yourself nor anything else, and certainly not Thérèse. You no longer wanted to take, and Therese knew of nothing but how to give.

“Please,” she huffs. “I want your fingers inside of me.”

You oblige without knowing why. Perhaps you do it out of instinct; not knowing what else you would’ve done if you had declined. You push her nightgown up her thighs and she rubs her knee against your side.

Thérèse is the only woman you’ve ever known intimately. Her long dark-brown hair fans out against the pillow her head lays on. The lamp from the nightstand illuminates her face with a warm radiance, creating the illusion that the pale shade of her skin is glowing. The curves of her figure are delicate and smooth, and for a moment you entertain being the only one to know such paths of her body.

You never imagined being with any other woman, let alone ever loving anyone but Thérèse. The thought that you may have always been right disturbs you all the more.

When your fingers find her place of pleasure and slip through her tight walls, causing Thérèse to moan out and arch up against you, you damn yourself for knowing her body so well.

You curve your fingers inside her and lean down to bury your face in her breasts, kissing up the soft swells and parting your lips to leave trails of saliva up her skin. With your free hand, you pull the collar of her slip down and wrap your lips around her nipple, then the other. You watch as her eyes screw shut and her soft pink lips part to release her whines into the bedroom.

Your insides churn as you knew she took Laurent’s cock in the same way, a sensual ritual you also knew she loved more than your fingers.

How could you ever compare to a man?

Yet she tightens her thighs around your hips and pants into your ear when you raise yourself to kiss her neck again as if she craves you more, as if she receives more pleasure from you than him. It disgusts you and you find Thérèse to be a repulsive animal who knows only of its own survival and carnal instincts. You feel you would’ve much rather she hated you.

You bring Thérèse to orgasm then climb down from her and lay back down onto your side of the bed, fingers weakly thrusting into her as she trembles and whimpers beside you.

When your fingers exit from inside her, Thérèse wraps a hand around your wrist and brings your coated fingers to her lips. She stares at you intently, a soft grin forming as she takes your fingers into her mouth, cleaning it with her tongue. Then she kisses you and places your hand on your chest.

“Shall I read to you?” she asks, mounting herself on her elbow and looking at you with a smile evident of growing excitement.

You turn over to your side, away from your partner.

The smile falls from her face and she frowns. She moves closer to you, wrapping her arm around your chest and leaning up to kiss your neck.

“Are you upset with me?” she questions, though despite her concern you can hear a twinge of lightheartedness in her tone.

Thérèse looked incredibly bored at times, dull and near dozing off, then in the next moment, taking very little seriously and laughing at every childish jest she told.

You bury your face in your pillow, increasingly discouraged as you continue to think over the discrepancies in your understanding of her. It is of no consolation to you that after seeing your maiden with a lover, you’re now beginning to realise how much you do not know about her.

Her arm around your upper body shakes you around playfully and she urges you, lips pressed against your cheek, “Tell me. Must I ask François what happened while I was away?”

Opening your eyes and pushing your pillow away from your face, you inquire, “Who accompanied you when you went out this afternoon and until the late evening? Were you alone all day?”

“Of course not,” Thérèse replies, twisting the collar of your chemise around her finger. “I was with Laurent for a bit of the day, then some of my student friends from the university he attended. But he couldn’t join us.”

“What did you do with him?” you ask, your agitation getting the better of you.

With a reply that makes you twitch in a way that surprises you when Thérèse doesn’t notice, she responds witlessly, “Why do you ask that?”

“I’m certain people see you as a couple more frequently than they do us while we live together and show every hint of being involved,” you retort, the sudden reveal of the hidden insecurity confounding even you.

Thérèse seems incredibly amused by this and she moves her leg over your hips. With her hand flat on the bed and the other on your shoulder, she hoists herself up to straddle your lower stomach while pushing you down onto your back and making you look up at her. “Laurent is only a friend,” she says then lowers herself to trail quick pecks down the incline of your jaw, “don’t be so sensitive.”

You pull the blankets over your head, feeling finished with the conversation and fooling yourself into believing you’d end it this way.

She tugs the blankets back down to uncover your face with a strength you often forget Thérèse has. She asks as if with the intention to provoke, “What if he was my lover? Would you be jealous?”

“No,” you answer plainly, lying.

“Why not?” she presses, unsatisfied with your response.

‘You’ve always fancied him,’ you want to say, and, ‘Because it would be your choice in doing so.”

But you say neither.

What good would it do?

Even if it would have been favourable to simply get your bitterness out into the open, you don’t have enough confidence nor strength to even entertain doing it.

Fortunately for you, she sleeps with her back to you that night, seemingly perturbed by your answer to her question earlier; any contact with her while you fell asleep might have conjured night terrors.

You awaken in the morning with Thérèse’s arm around your midriff anyways, perhaps having chosen to forgive you during the night or as result of a habitual act, rejecting the troubled feelings she felt even as she was asleep.

She stays asleep while you slip out from under her arm and stand from the bed.

Hours you’ve spent staring at Thérèse’s sleeping face since you ravished her body intimately that first time you spent the night together. You listened intently to every soft breath she took, watched the faint fluttering of her eyelids as she dreamt, smiled at the quiet noises she would sometimes make in her sleep.

You swore your heart truly did do several somersaults when you heard her mutter out your name in her sleep once. That entire day was spent smiling giddily while Thérèse pressed you to tell her what had gotten you so joyful, to which you only responded each time she asked with kisses that made her giggle and declarations of your love that made her swoon.

But this morning you avoid looking at her.

How many times had Laurent seen the same sight, loved her as you do? Where do his hands travel as he watches the rising and falling of her partially uncovered breasts and the vulnerability of her soft lips? Did Thérèse like how he woke her up more than how you did, which was often with a soft kiss to her forehead or not at all?

Such thoughts ate at you from the inside, and because you were dignified, you chose to look away from Thérèse when you could.

The shop needs to be tended to and Thérèse, despite everything, cannot run it herself for the entirety of the day, so leaving until the evening is out of the question.

You heat water in a steel pitcher in the fireplace. You cut a few slices of bread, lather it in jelly, and place bits of cheese on top of it evenly.

As you sit in the kitchen, fingernails running down the lines in the wooden table, eating your bread and sipping your tea, you silently question how you’d approach today.

If Thérèse left again as she has been for the last few weeks, you’d let her without question. The time away from her would be rejuvenating, in many senses. Perhaps you’d clear your mind, think up a plan. But a plan for what, you did not know.

Thérèse descends the arcade and you feel yourself bristle, damning yourself for not having finished your breakfast in time to leave the kitchen before she arrived.

Seeing the hot water still in the kettle by the fireplace, Thérèse takes it with her and places it in front of you on the table. She rounds the chairs and lowers herself to you, a hand coming to place itself on your furthest cheek before kissing your temple. “I apologise for antagonising you last night,” she says.

Her thumb runs across your chin and when her hand removes itself from your cheek, her fingers move down your cheek, caressing you tenderly. She pined for you the moment she woke up to find you weren’t in bed, reconsidering for several moments what she had said to you the evening prior.

She doesn’t badger you any further when you don’t respond, only making herself tea and spreading jelly onto one of the bread slices you cut earlier. She takes a seat beside you, adjacently, as you’re sitting at the end of the table.

Not a word is shared between the two of you, with Thérèse giving you time to become less irritated and you delighting in every moment you did not have to partake in conversation with her, until you both leave the kitchen after breakfast to open the shop together.

For the rest of the morning and into the afternoon, Thérèse sits behind the counter with François in her lap, petting him idly. You sit behind the counter, near her, fidgeting with various kinds of beads and thread and ribbon. The bubbling agitation she knows is brewing within you drives Thérèse slightly mad as she’s forced to watch you for hours.

Eventually, when the peak of the afternoon plateaus and working men and errand-running women finish dropping by the haberdashery during their lunchtimes, Thérèse reaches her limit in being patient with you.

François leaps off from her lap when her thighs shift under her skirts. Thérèse stands from her seat and wraps an arm around your shoulders. She rounds you and swings a leg over your knees before sitting herself down in your lap. She wraps her other arm around your neck and pulls herself close to you.

Thérèse lifts her hand to your forehead, pushing your hair back and placing a kiss there. “I wish to pleasure you,” she says and kisses your lips. “What shall I do?”

“I wish for nothing.”

“I want for you what you give to me.”

At the sound of the word, you perk up and look up at Thérèse, who is looking down at you with a warm smile you’d thought for months was only for you. Unbeknownst to you, Thérèse has never looked at Laurent like she looks at you, for she doesn't love him at all. She holds no sentiment for him.

But again, you look away from her and stubbornly reply, “I am comfortable with the arrangement we have now.”

Therese’s smile falls and she follows your redirected gaze with her eyes, her lips parting as something grave settles within her.

For the first time, Thérèse suspects you have a lover.

She begins to see Laurent infrequently, if at all. She spends every waking moment with you, finding every way to service you and ravish you with her kisses and gentle touches. How could you possibly adore anyone more than her if she never took her eyes off you for a moment? It never crosses her that there are many ways for you to detest her for that very reason, and they come to you at every touch of her hand and every contact her soft lips have with your skin.

Thérèse takes pride in the time she spends with you while you dread every hour with her. She hardly ever leaves your side.

Initially, you detested the way Thérèse slipped out of the shop, waving you a sweet goodbye before disappearing into the busy crowds of Rue de Seine. But now you’d count the days until she leaves you next.

An evening comes when Thérèse is overtaken with passion. Something gnaws at her and makes her unbearably anxious, the banal days in the shop having worsened her natural habit of becoming taken with nervous thoughts. She cannot keep herself away from you, roaming her hands anywhere they could reach along your body, her breath trembling with anticipation or nerves- neither she or you could tell.

She undresses you while the two of you stand in the bedroom, kissing down the valley of your breasts through your chemise as you look up at the ceiling aimlessly.

Thérèse looks up at you to see the pleasure stricken across your face as she kneads your breast in one hand, and feels dejection come over her heavily when she is met only with disinterest.

Now desperate, she takes your wrists into either one of her hands and sits you down onto the chair by the fireplace. She climbs onto your lap and kisses your lips, then each of your fingers and your chin.

Then Thérèse’s chest flares with a sharp inhale, her breaths quickening as her anxiety further blankets her, soon to completely engulf her in doubts and terrors.

A week had passed of Thérèse’s care and concern without any notable progress. How have you been communicating with your lover? Did you truly still think of them when she was pleasuring you with her tongue or making you meals, kissing you to sleep as to banish your night terrors and taking up extra responsibilities in the shop for you? She herself forgets about Laurent most days.

“Do you think I don’t know about your lover?” she snaps suddenly, straightening herself and looking down at you. Her expression is riddled with more fright than fury, even as the red-orange light from the fireplace casts angry flames onto her face.

Like the inginiting flicker of a match, you burst up from your seat, forcing Thérèse off of your lap and nearly sending her tumbling to the floor had it not been for the quick reflex of her left foot. Your sudden passionate burst of emotion soothes Thérèse’s anxieties momentarily, but they return when you begin shouting at her.

“I have a lover?” you repeat, eyes wide and wild with wrath. At the sound of your voice and having never heard you so angry before, Thérèse stays silent, now unsure of her previous resolve. “Jest about it as much as you wish, but I know about Laurent and the relations you have with him behind my back.”

Thérèse wants to sink into herself.

“You selfish bitch, never thinking even once of me and only of yourself,” you jeer.

Her shoulders raise as she bristles. “You are correct about my affair with Laurent, but you could not be more wrong saying that I am selfish,” she opposes.

“Enlighten me, Thérèse.”

“I’ve spent this entire week tending to you, doing everything for you to abandon this imaginary mistress and become mine once more,” she argues. Her lips part to argue again but you scoff and interrupt her.

“Heaven forbid you pay any mind to your partner,” you say.

Thérèse’s anxiety returns when she silently questions if any of her gestures ever warmed your heart as she had intended for them to, and if you were involved with other people, she wouldn’t have won you over with any of the attempts she made anyways.

“Why did you begin seeing Laurent?” you question, your expression calm once more and only adding to the young woman’s nerves.

To Thérèse, her affair with Laurent is as necessary as sleep is to any creature, and being with you is as necessary as the rest of the waking day is. Could she not love being awake more? Did she damn the waking hours if she should fall asleep in the evening? To her, the answer is simple. Her reasoning is simple.

But you did not see it that way.

There is curiosity and the exploration of another, a man, especially, as the centre of her affair. What harm could it have done if Thérèse continued to love you all the same, if not more every day? Your response to her affair contrasts her very values, the foundation in which she ever began the affair with Laurent. It confounds her more than anything, and she pleads for your forgiveness because she wouldn’t be able to bear the consequences of what she’d done, particularly if they meant you would leave her.

She takes your hands into hers and squeezes them.

“Please, I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’ve stopped seeing him. You’ve noticed, haven’t you? I haven’t spent even an afternoon without you, and I don’t think of him at all. I’ve enjoyed caring for you, I’ll show you. Whatever you need, I will provide for you. I love you.”

Simply, you ask, “Why did you avoid answering my question that evening when I asked you what you did with him?”

When Thérèse struggles to answer, you take your hands from her and leave, choosing to sleep in the spare room that used to be Madame’s.

You force Thérèse to sign off on a cheque that gives you half of your rightful claim to the rest of the money Madame left the two of you after she settled with Camille someplace else. It will be enough to move away and find a job, especially now that you have several years’ worth of experience in accounting and a few months in the haberdashery business.

Thérèse writes to you often, and to many of her letters you never reply or even bother opening. She seals it with wax dyed with your favourite colour and prints your name and mailing post in the most delicate way on the envelope. In many ways, the letter on its own is every kiss and embrace she wishes to give you, and you sometimes cannot even give her the pleasure of doing anything more than taking it from the mailbox and tossing it into the fireplace.

You’ve never told her your address, only the post to which she could send her letters to.

Never forgetting to miss a week, a letter comes to you from Thérèse every Monday.

When you do decide to open them, you do so because of curiosity- not out of concern or the feeling of obligation. Every week, Thérèse never fails to send you a letter, which you can feel with your fingers through the envelope filled with several sheets of paper.

What could she be writing so much about every week when she often got no more than a letter back every three fortnights?

She sometimes discusses the shop’s patrons with you, asking whether you believe red or black thread would work with a certain sleeve, or a front or back stitch on a certain hemming. Such things you often used to discusse with Thérèse when you worked together. It was a pleasure to work with someone you loved, being close to them and sharing creative ideas back and forth as you stitched and ironed together. There was little chance you could get back to her by the time the order needed to be finished, so you never understood why she kept writing about silly details like that.

Paragraphs, and sometimes an entire page, would be dedicated to asking you questions, inquiring if you were at the very least living by the Seine or if you enjoyed your job and have finally settled into your new place, and if you’d ever consider visiting Passage du Pont-Neuf, even if only for a week in the summer.

She ensures in every letter that you know she would welcome you back if you ever find yourself without anywhere else to go or if you were only visiting. If she ever thinks about you coming back to stay with her again, which she very often does, she never writes about it for the fear you’d never write back to her.

Though she has implied her curiosity many times, you never tell her whether you have begun a relationship with anyone. She did not deserve to know even that.

When you choose to take the time to do so, you write back with nearly the same answers, but Thérèse is no less thrilled each time she opens the mailbox and sees your envelope. You get a letter back twice as quickly when you send one out to her, while she still never forgets to send you another that weekend so as to ensure it arrives by Monday.

You never plan to visit Thérèse, and somewhere within her endless questions and offers for you to stay in the extra room during the summer, she finds herself knowing it too.

A year has passed since you left the young woman, and a year since you’ve seen the haberdashery or Rue de Seine.

You finish reading the stack of papers in your hands- your letter for the week.

Your eyes then run across the delicate handwriting in the lower corner of the page that reads: ‘Yours always, Thérèse Raquin.’

#thérèse raquin #thérèse raquin x you #thérèse raquin x reader #thérèse raquin x y/n #thérèse raquin fanfiction #in secret fanfiction #in secret #elizabeth olsen

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hungwy · 3 years ago

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Part of what's interesting about Disco Elysium in terms of gameplay is, yes, the developers recognize the player knows nothing about the world and so they give you an amnesiac character to address that. But it has very central implications for the actions you take, and how Harry's character develops: the player must recognize that they act in Harry's name, a man with numerous pre-existing... Quirks, and yet still must play in the style they want to play. He is so traumatized by suffering (more proximally, drugs) that he's forgotten what it's like to be him, but part of his old self is still there throughout the game. Though you are one of the many voices in Harry's head, and the main one that controls his decisions -- though those are often limited -- you are a new presence in his life. You are playing a Harry who is pretending (and being made to pretend) to be a Harry, a new Harry. Your actions are turned into idealizations of what Harry wants to say and do, reworded into disco, and often completely incorrectly executed on Harry's behalf. This is the conflict between the player's vision of the character and the limits you must work with.

There are hints of his idiosyncrasies here and there, hints of a history of personality, consistency in certain dialogue and thoughts, and these are extremely important for recognizing Harry's limits. They are invasions into Harry's new post-amnesia self, and they remind the player that he isn't capable of full reinvention -- he can't be what you want him to be. (He can't be what HE wants to be.) The player must eventually come to terms with Harry's inadequacies and limits. By design the game forces these limits into your stats: for example, a powerhouse of muscle must be completely insufficient in some other brainy stats, and a brainy detective must have an extremely weak body. A well-rounded Harry is in turn good at nothing at all, rather than being extremely good at only one thing and a failure at everything else. But no matter what Harry is he is extremely diligent in trying to be the person he wants to be, which is a central theme in the game -- coming to terms with what you want to be and who you can be.

It's clear most paths you take as a player are probably going to be very different from Harry pre-amnesia. Not out of the question, but different -- it's not unusual for Harry to be an eccentric, as we find out. But the flavor and manner of his eccentricism can be made wildly different depending on the players choices. Harry in his deep sadness is vulnerable to all manner of substitutions for the hole in his heart, taking on exaggerated ideals and behaviors -- even the moderate, boring ones are made comically central to his addictive and romantic personality. Of course these decisions are necessary to the RPG genre, allowing the player to role play in the way they want, but the game very explicitly comments on the fact that many of your thoughts are hyperbolic and experimental. But you still have them, and you try to live them.

The way roleplay is executed as a poor and sad middle aged divorced cop having a disastrous crisis suddenly radicalizing himself (to the players desires) and yet having to come to terms with the fact that he is not wholly this new (temporary?) personality is simply wonderful. Harry never really escapes anything in the game. At the end he is still a poor sad middled aged divorced cop that nonetheless wants to become more and better than that. And the player gets to participate in the transformation of his beautifully hideous life, getting to help a man who we see is truly only trying his best to be the best person he can be. And in it we can come to terms with the fact that change is always difficult -- another central point of the game. We never escape our past so much as recognize it and react to it, because even if we are able to forget everything about ourselves over night in a drug-filled stupor we are still that very person, and must confront that in order to become something more, if we ever can -- but one must try.

#Typed out last hour of work sorry if it's confusing or missing something I gotta go home LOL

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wild-karrde · 1 year ago

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NEYO, I HAVE RETURNED TO WREAK HAVOC ON YOUR NOTIFICATIONS. Like full disclosure, I absolutely annihilated this series the first time reading it, and have just yet to get back around to shrieking in your comments rather than just out loud (and startling my dogs and perhaps neighbors).

ANYWAY. I'M SORRY, BUT I AM HERE TO REMEDY THE SITUATION.

HAIR STILL SMELLING LIKE HALSIN? Like this is such a soft detail, but my GODDDDD I love it. Like finding things that smell like the person you're pining after? TOP NOTCH. And just all of the small things like the bandages and knowing the care he must have taken with you making you smile? This is truly top-tier hair-twirling, giggling, ADORABLE crush sort of stuff and I am just BLUSHING.

You can imagine him now, his large form curled up by a fire, watching the stars in the night sky move with his impossible patience as he falls asleep, and seeing the sun rise in his golden eyes when he wakes.

Ok so this entire passage is beautiful, but I love the term "impossible patience" and think that just so perfectly encapsulates him. UGH IT'S SO GOOD, NEYO.

THE BEAR DISCOVERY IS EVERYTHING TO ME. The range of emotions reader goes through is PERFECTION. I gasped and cackled and just YESSSSSS. And the reveal of the bear having his eyes? I cannot stop yelling about how much I love your writing. IT IS SO GOOD. The internal musings in the aftermath are INCREDIBLE. Like I always am so nervous I'm imparting too much character into a reader-insert, but the way you always write readers is SO relatable while also giving them so much character, and I'm just applauding you from my desk chair.

Once the panic starts to fade, you are just ashamed at your reaction, which is not helped by Halsin apologising way more than he should.

STOPPPPP THIS IS SO SWEET AND KIND AND INHERENTLY HIM.

“You were screaming for about ten minutes there.” His voice is so dry and matter of fact that you nearly burst into laughter.

CACKLING.

The talking past one another and rush to absolve the other person and just YESSS IT IS SO CUTE INJECT IT STRAIGHT INTO MY VEINS. AND HIS HOPEFULNESS WWAAAAAAAAH I LOVE IT.

The way you write Halsin is so fucking great. The man is all about the acts of service and you capture that SO WELL with him, and his eagerness and the joy he takes in it. He's SO SOFT and comforting and warm and huge and I AM IMMERSED IN THE BEST WAY POSSIBLE. OH TO LAY IN A SUNNY MEADOW WITH HIMMMMMM.

Also, the thought of this massive druid with a fishing pole just amuses me to no end.

And the way you describe his transformation? GORGEOUS. STUNNING.

The beast is hard to control when my blood runs hot. Your belly tightens when you think about the implications of it. Was he- when he got in the pool with you… how close had he been to losing control? What would-

There is something so beautifully intimate about the moment with the bear and how much reader trusts him in that moment. Like of course the apprehension is there because he's a FOOKIN' BEAR, but also, it's Halsin, and you know it's Halsin and he'd never hurt you.

AND THE NIGHTMARE AND THE COMFORT AND REASSURANCES ASHDKLGHLSKDHGLK:DSHGLK:HSKL:DGHSKLDHGLK:SHDGLKSDHG LE SWOON.

AND THEN TIME JUST PASSES AND YOU'RE SO COMFORTABLE WITH ONE ANOTHER AND IT'S JUST LIKE "YEAH, THIS WORKS LET'S KEEP DOING THIS??" Like I know this fic is going to turn SPICY later, but my god the moments in between are just so cozy and warm like a blanket out of the dryer and I LOVE IT.

THE KISSSSSS????? HELLO???? HIS EAGERNESS AND HIS TENDERNESS AND THE CONFESSIONS WEEEE BRAIN GO BRRRRRR

“I-” you need a moment to make your brain function again. “I’m sure we will find some time for that still, my love.”

CORRECT. YES. UH HUH.

“Always, little flower. There is nothing under the sun that is not beautiful, and you may be the most beautiful of all of nature’s creations I have ever witnessed.”

The way you write this man's dialogue... I am ENAMORED.

“A wise decision, little flower.” His mouth descends onto you again in a swift motion. “We’ll have to make sure I fit as it is.”

*chokes on my own spit*

NO THOUGHTS. ONLY SWOON. SWOON FOR THE BIG ELF MAN. 11/10 NO NOTES. YOU IMMENSELY TALENTED HUMAN.

⋆☾⋆ Big Love Ahead (2) ⋆☽⋆

!!! NSFW ⋆ 18+ ⋆ Minors DNI !!!

Summary: After you start to get better, feelings start to grow - and you find out Halsin's secret. Or: Halsin is the softest man and I want to live the cottagecore fantasy with him so bad.

Rating: Mature Wordcount: 6k Descriptors: The first two chapters are fairly genderneutral. Reader's physique is not really described aside from being quite a bit shorter and smaller than Halsin. CW: Fluff, softness, building up some feelings before we get to fucking, pet names, oblivious pining, Halsin in bear form, thirsting for druids is hot, talks about feelings, resolving the tension.

✦⋆ « Chapter (1) ⋆✦⋆ Main Masterlist ⋆✦⋆ If you prefer AO3 ⋆✦

⋆༻༺⋆༺༻⋆••●••⋆༺༻⋆༻༺ ⋆

Chapter 2: The Bear

The morning brings… surprises.

You wake up, your legs sore and your functional arm sorer, but you feel clean, and your hair still smells of Halsin.

You stretch, clenching your teeth at the pain that flares up as your muscles contract and your joints crack into place. New bandages cover your deeper wounds, and oddly enough, the sight of them makes you smile. Halsin must have dressed the wounds after you had already fallen asleep.

The thought of leaving the bed seems terrible, except that the last thing you remember is Halsin telling you he sleeps right outside. It may just be worth it to leave the comforts of your sheets to find him. You can imagine him now, his large form curled up by a fire, watching the stars in the night sky move with his impossible patience as he falls asleep, and seeing the sun rise in his golden eyes when he wakes.

You wrap yourself in your sheet and try not to collapse as you limp towards the entrance. It is only a few steps, but the way seems entirely too long, even if you can lean against the cave wall to prop yourself up. The outside is already bright with the light of dawn, and you squint into the sun, taking in the newly familiar sight of the grove and meadow, feeling the grass underneath your bare feet for the first time.

At first glance, you don’t see Halsin anywhere. There is no campfire like you thought there might be, no tent or even a bedroll. You look around, a little lost for what to do. This has never happened before - you have not been able to walk by yourself for so long, and you have never left the cave before yesterday’s bath. You had never needed to before - Halsin was always there whenever you required anything, and most of your time has been spent sleeping, reading and recovering.

You look around, taking in the fresh morning air and the beauty of nature before you, when a noise catches your attention. It comes from the shadows beside the cave, right behind a big boulder covered in moss. It sounds… almost like a snore. Except no person could ever produce such a noise, not even one of Halsin’s size. It’s much too loud, much too… animalistic. But Halsin would never let you sleep anywhere where you were at risk of being attacked, right? Surely not. He wouldn’t leave you alone if he was not sure that you were safe.

Carefully, though your entire body is screaming DANGER, you make your way around the boulder. And you are met by the sight of…

A really large fucking bear.

A bear. Next to your cave. Sleeping, curled in on itself, its giant head resting on huge paws with sharp claws. You can see its chest expand with deep breaths, and if it weren’t right there in front of you, you would find it fascinating. The bear shifts, huffing as it moves, it’s nose scrunching up.

You nearly scream.

But its eyes are closed, and you press your hand to your mouth just in time that all you utter is a muffled “hmph”.

You stare and stare. Your eye twitches. Your legs shake, as if the new effort of keeping yourself upright was not enough already.

You press your lips together and try to breathe as quietly as you can. And then, you move. Slowly, ever so slowly, you try to make your way back towards the cave, away from the animal that sleeps right next to your resting place. Then, a thought comes crashing in: Halsin. Where is he? Did that bear do something to him? What happened to-

In your panic, your silly feet miss a step. It’s like you are falling in slow motion, the world blurring around you. You hit the ground with a dull crack and a cry of pain escapes from your throat. The bear grunts, its head raising.

Your spine aches and all the air that has been pressed from your lungs when you hit the ground floods back in, but you don’t scream. Instead, you close your eyes and… give up. What else is there to do?

You can hear the bear shift, and you can almost feel its breath on your face, sharp fangs glittering behind your eyelids as you wait for the worst; wait to be mauled to death, to be ripped open and devoured in a bloody mess of bones and cartilage.

The worst does not come.

When you are brave enough to open your eyes again, the bear is staring right at you. With Halsin’s golden irises glowing in its face.

*****

You get over it.

Maybe that’s the wrong way to put it.

You… find out. And you accept it. As soon as your mouth has stopped screaming in terror, as soon as paw turns into hand and fur into skin, you accept what has happened.

Halsin’s explanations make sense, and his voice calms you. You feel so stupid- you should have connected the dots ealier. But your mind is still reeling, and your heartbeat still much too fast. You might have collapsed if you were not already on the ground, but… you are oddly fine with it.

It’s just him. For a moment, the relief that nothing bad has happened to him cuts through the surprise, and that is enough to ground you. You pull yourself together and snap your mouth shut. You stare and stare, not moving, but not moving away either, as Halsin carefully approaches you, both hands raised in the air.

He sits down next to you with a sigh, far away so he won’t touch you. You watch him, watch his profile. And all you can think is: you should have known. A wood elf with his build? Of course he is a fucking bear. Of course this happens. You should have expected it.

Once the panic starts to fade, you are just ashamed at your reaction, which is not helped by Halsin apologising way more than he should.

“There’s nothing wrong,” you hear your voice say, eventually, though your mind is still somewhere else entirely, but he keeps on saying sorry for something nobody should ever have to apologise for. “You are just… a bear. It’s fine. I’m fine.”

“I should have told you.” He sounds so broken that you shatter at the sound of his voice. “I should have-”

“You should have nothing,” you interrupt him. “This changes nothing. I’m fine, I promise. I was just… surprised. I’m sorry I reacted so poorly, I should have made the connection sooner, but I swear I’m alright.”

“You were screaming for about ten minutes there.” His voice is so dry and matter of fact that you nearly burst into laughter.

“I… I mean, yes.” You take a deep breath. “Was this the ideal way to find out? Absolutely fucking not. But… Halsin. Nothing could change the way I feel about you.”

“You… feel about me?” He seems genuinely confused.

You roll your eyes, and everything you have been keeping inside for weeks now, all the feelings you tried to shun and suppress, bubble to the surface.

“You are incredible,” you whisper. You push yourself closer to him, your fingers finding his and holding tight. “I…The way you took care of me- I should have guessed you were a druid. I should have known-”

“-you couldn’t have-”

“-and even if I had known earlier, or even if I hadn’t found out just now, nothing would have changed. I love staying here, with you.”

His fingers squeeze yours gently.

“I am glad I found you, you know? This summer has been one of the best I have had in many years.”

You smile quietly, but you don’t push him. There has been a sizable surprise already, you are not sure you could take another one. You are happy just sitting next to him, his large palm covering your hand entirely.

You limp back into the cave eventually, holding onto Halsin’s thick forearm for stability, and curl up in bed again.

“I won’t ask any questions,” you say as he sits by your side, peeling berries from a twig. “But you can always talk to me. You know that, right?”

There is a small smile in his eyes.

“Thank you.”

When he doesn’t say anything else, you lay back, your lids shutting all on their own.

You dream of a bear with Halsin’s voice and Halsin’s eyes, leading you through a forest with thick trees and sweet smells. He never leaves your side and you are never lost.

*****

The next day, you ask Halsin if he can carry you to the meadow that lies before the cave.

“I cannot bear another day of being bed-ridden,” you complain. After a moment of hesitation, you add deviously, “...no pun intended.”

Halsin’s face freezes, then he bursts out in laughter, so loud it makes your ears hurt in the small space of the cave. You watch his shoulders shake with joy and think to yourself that you have never been happier.

You could probably walk to the meadow by yourself if you had a walking stick or something similar. After all, you made it nearly all the way yesterday. Neither of you ever mentions that, not when he scoops you up into his arms, and not when he kneels on the softest patch of grass he can find to put you down. You like being taken care of. You like being taken care of by him. And you get the feeling he likes taking care of you, too. One day, you’ll return the favour.

You spend the whole day there, watching Halsin go about his day, enjoying the sun on your face and the birdsong around you. The meadow is beautiful, and your eyes keep finding something new every time you look around. When Halsin carries you back to your bed that night, you can barely sleep thinking about what the next day might bring.

He carries you to the meadow every day from then on, and lays you down, as gently as if you could break, to rest in the summery sunlight. You ask him if he has anything you could help with, and he shows you how to weave baskets, how to skin an animal so you can use its hide, how to whittle and sharpen your knives and so much more. You get the feeling he just enjoys teaching you things - none of this is actually directly helpful to him in any way.

But when his deep voice calmly instructs you and sings your praises when you manage to get things right, how could you ever complain? And it’s nice to see nature through his eyes: not scary and strange, but familiar and comforting, providing all anyone could ever need.

A week passes like that, and then another. Halsin spends more and more time by your side, brooding over scrolls, helping you hone your new skills. He fishes so he can stay close to you - or at least, you hope that is why. And one day, he asks you something unexpected.

He is sitting next to you, checking the rod of his fishing pole. You watch him as you always do - out of the corner of your eye, fascinated beyond measure by everything he does and the way he moves. He clears his throat suddenly, and you are startled from your daydreams.

“I want to ask you something. The bear… did I scare you?”

You consider this for a moment, your hand resting next to his on the damp grass.

“No,” you answer finally, and truthfully. “It- it scared me that I didn’t know it was you. But once I found out that you were the bear and the bear was you… you have never scared me. Never made me feel unsafe. Why should the bear be any different? He is just another part of you. Is there… Why do you ask?”

“Well,” he grumbles, shifting beside you, and putting down the fishing rod. “You haven’t seen me in that form since then, and… I didn’t know if you would mind.”

He sounds so cautious it makes you think that someone before you did, in fact, mind. But you don’t- and you tell him so.

“Good.” His sigh is one of relief, and a broad smile appears on his features. “I will be honest, I was getting tired of using a rod to catch our dinner.”

It takes you a moment to understand what he is saying. When you realise, a shiver runs down your spine - excitement more than anything else. You are way more excited to see his bear form again than you probably should be.

“Do you… usually catch fish as a bear?” you ask, trying to sound casual. Halsin turns to you, and your heart stumbles. His features are illuminated by the light of the afternoon, soft and glowing, and a strand of hair sticks to his cheek. You want to brush it back, you want to-

“I do, yes. It’s… easier. Less time consuming. And it’s not fishing - it’s a hunt. It is fun, and it helps me… keep control while I am human. The hunt relaxes me, but it also gets my blood pumping - it can be hard to control the beast if I don’t let it out every once in a while.”

You swallow thickly. You could imagine some other situations that would get his blood pumping-

“Ah,” is the only response you can utter without sounding like a desperate fool.

A moment passes. Halsin’s fingers play with the grass, pulling and weaving. You clear your throat.

“Well, I don’t think we have any food left for tonight.”

He looks up at you, his eyes shining. You know full well that there is a basket full of smoked meat in the cave, and a whole collection of berries, weeds and flowers to eat. He must know it too.

“Well, then,” is all Halsin says. “I’d better get you back inside and go hunting, wouldn’t I?”

He gets up, towering over you in all his glory. You bite your lip.

“Actually… I was thinking I could stay here,” you mumble.

Halsin cocks his head.

“You want to watch me hunt? I promise, it’s not nearly as exciting as it sounds.”

“I don’t mind,” you admit quietly. “I just… like watching you. I would like to learn more about you - and about the bear. If that is what you want as well.”

“Hm.” He glances across the meadow, over to the river, where the water gurgles and the fishes leap. “I suppose… this should be far enough away.”

Excitement floods you like fire in your veins. You smile at him, squinting into the sun.

Halsin flashes you his teeth in a short smile. You try not to stare as he stalks over to the large boulder next to the cave and starts shedding his clothes. You try really, really hard. And you fail miserably.

You have never seen an elf with his build, the bulging muscles, the soft belly, the thickness of his thighs and the roundness of his broad shoulders. It gets you every time.

He wades into the water, and you watch as a golden shimmer flashes across his skin, bringing fur and claws and wildness with it. It makes you think of that time he built a bath for you - how his eyes flashed, how you told yourself that the spark in the water was just an odd trick of the light.

Now you think it might not have been.

The beast is hard to control when my blood runs hot.

Your belly tightens when you think about the implications of it. Was he- when he got in the pool with you… how close had he been to losing control? What would-

A triumphant roar interrupts your budding inappropriate thoughts. You watch as the bear - large and imposing, the water parting around its mighty hind legs - scoops one fish after another from the river. The thought that this wild animal is Halsin- that he is actually in there, with all his careful attentiveness, all his gentle touches- makes you feel things you cannot describe.

The whole thing cannot last more than a few minutes, but you feel like you watch the bear forever, in all his wild golden-brown glory. Every once in a while, his head turns to you as if to make sure you are still watching. Eventually, the bear wades back to shore. Only as he comes closer do you realise just how huge he actually is: Round belly, soft fur and deceptively cute ears.

A sudden flash of panic surges through you when you realise that you have no way of escaping him.

Your arms start to shake and you have to remind yourself to take deep breaths. It’s Halsin. This is Halsin, he would never hurt you. You press your eyes shut, then hastily open them again. The bear’s steps have slowed, he watches you with careful eyes. With Halsin’s eyes.

Your heartbeat calms.

With some effort, you heave yourself up from the ground, and stretch out a hand towards the bear. With steps that make the ground shake, he approaches, ever so slowly, until his wet nose bumps against your palm.

Carefully, you run your fingers up his flat nose, slowing your breath when the bear plops down next to you with a deep huff. He seems so… gentle. The wildness of the hunt is gone, evaporated along with the water of the river he stood in.

You don’t fool yourself- you have seen the damage a bear’s claws and fangs can do, and Halsin would be no different. And yet, nothing about him seems threatening or dangerous.

Your hand follows the outline of his fur-covered ear, and you smile when he twitches. For a while, you let yourself stay very still, until your legs start to tremble with exhaustion from standing up. Finally, you give in, sinking to the ground. Your stomach makes an absolutely inhuman noise as you do, and you realise how hungry you are.

The bear’s ears prick up. Languidly, he rises to his feet, shaking his fur like a wet dog.

“Hey!” you giggle when the droplets of water hit you. The bear’s head whips around, and the baring of his fangs seems almost like a smile.

He trods off, towards the boulder, and in a shudder of golden light, his form contracts and fur gives way to skin once more. Halsin smiles at you softly.

“You are a miracle, little flower.” His deep voice carries across the meadow, and you wonder if he meant for you to hear it. Heat rises to your cheeks as Halsin unabashedly dries himself off before stepping back into his trousers and pulling his shirt over his head.

He never seems to care about these things: him or you unclothed before one another. He never seems to notice it in the same way you do, though you think you have caught him looking at you a few times. You always tell yourself you must be mistaken - certainly, he would have acted upon it by now.

But to see him like this, to get to be part of his world so entirely- to be able to gaze upon the bear and see the man… Well, your blood certainly runs hotter, that’s for sure.

Halsin crouches down next to you, his finger stroking your cheek.

“You really don’t mind, do you?” His voice is full of wonder. You shrug and smile at him.

“I told you that I don't.”

“Many have told me. Few have ever truly meant it,” he mumbles. There is a pause, his face so close to yours that all you want to do is grab him by the collar of his shirt and pull him in for a kiss.

Halsin clears his throat.

“I should get the fish.”

As he wanders off, you are left to stare after him, wondering if maybe, he does not feel the same way about you as you do about him.

*****

That night, you have a nightmare.

It’s the worst one since the battle, and you wake up in tears, screaming until your lungs give out. You are only half-awake, thrashing in your bed, the smell of blood in your nose, when Halsin is already by your side, in human form, pushing your flailing arms down to the bed and talking over your cries.

“It’s alright, little flower. You are alright, you are here with me, alive and well- you are fine, I’m here with you, I’m here…”

You bury your face against his chest and sob, haunted by the faces of your dead companions, by knives slashing at you and the sharp agony of an arrow through your shoulder. Halsin holds you through the pain, his arms tight around you, the warmth of his body the only thing tethering you to the presence.

When your head hurts and you have no more tears, you gently unwind yourself from his embrace, staring at him through swollen lids. The question slips out of your mouth before you think about it.

“Will you sleep here tonight? I don’t think I can fall asleep again on my own.”

“Of course, my love.” There is not a moment’s hesitation, he just crawls into bed with you and opens his arms. You bury yourself in his strong embrace, feeling small and fragile. You are so relieved that he is here, his mere presence providing much needed comfort.

“No harm will ever come to you again,” Halsin murmurs into your hair. “I shall see to that. I will be there to protect you, little flower.”

The tears you cry now are those of an affection you cannot put into words. Exhausted by your nightmares, you fall asleep wrapped in him. You wake up a few more times that night, scared and shaking, but Halsin is always there, stroking your hair and telling sweet stories until you fall back asleep.

When you wake properly in the morning, your bed is cold where Halsin used to lay, and your sheets are stained with sweat and tears. With eyes still swollen from last night, you scoot to the edge of your bed and test the waters. Your legs carry you - hesitantly, but they do carry you. You stumble through the cave, dragging your sheets with you, intent on washing them so they can dry during the day. You will not make Halsin clean up your mess again. He did enough last night.

When you reach the outside with trembling legs, Halsin is nowhere to be seen, though you find a note at your boulder:

I am sorry if I have not returned and you must find me gone. I did not intend to leave you alone, but you looked so peaceful I did not want to wake you. I am on a hunt - I shall be back before you know it, little flower.

You grumble, but fold the note up neatly to put it in your pocket.

Little flower. He makes you smile even in his absence.

The few steps to the river seem like an eternity, but you need to wash the sweat off of yourself and your sheets. In the shallows, you can sit, though the water is ice cold and even less comfortable than it was in the little pool Halsin once made for you. However, the feeling helps you wake up, and as you are hanging your sheets from the tree branches, hurrying to rest your burning legs, you spot the bear on his way back towards your little camp.

Your heart beats faster at the sight of him: Halsin is back. You knew he would not leave you alone for long - you wondered that he left at all. Then again, you have seen the amount of food the man eats, so maybe it was hunger that drove him out of the cave.

The bear lumbers towards you, bumping your hand with his snout.

“Hey there,” you smile. Sometimes, you find it hard to connect the animal and the man, even though rationally, you know they are the same. But the bear makes it so much easier to touch him, to not feel like you are asking for too much when you let your fingers glide through his fur. He nuzzles against you so hard you nearly topple over and you laugh.

“Oy! Careful there, I’m still not too well up on my legs.” You smile to soften the blow of your words, then point towards the little hollow in the meadow where you usually sit. “Will you come lay with me? I could use the warmth after my bath.”

The bear snuffles and nods his head. You hold onto him, using his sturdy form as a crutch as you wrap yourself up in a clean sheet and make your way over to your usual spot. There are some leftovers from last night to snack on, and Halsin has left you a scroll or two with some stories about the forest. You grow curiouser and curiouser how he has accumulated all that knowledge. You know he is a druid, but he seems to know so much about the forest and all its inhabitants that you want to learn more as well.

The bear curls up next to you, sniffling and groaning quietly as he does. You carefully lean back against him, buried in a living blanket of fur and warmth. He is so comfortable, his breath quiet and steady, his belly expanding against you whenever he inhales.

You have some food while you read, but soon, your eyelids grow heavy and you close your eyes. Just for a moment, you tell yourself. You will just rest for a moment.

Sleep has you faster than a net catches a fish.

When you wake up, nothing has changed apart from the light - it has become the light of a late afternoon, the sun already low in the sky. You stretch slowly, hearing your joints crack with the movement. The bear next to you huffs and shifts. You turn around to face him, raising a brow.

“Seems we’re both having quite the lazy day, aren’t we?” You chuckle to yourself. Your stomach is growling, though, and as much as you wish you could curl up against the bear again, you should probably cook something. When you tell this to Halsin, the bear rises to his feet and trods over to the boulder where Halsin’s clothes are strewn about.

The familiar golden shimmer rises from his fur, and a moment later, Halsin in his human form regards you with warm brown eyes.

“I’ll help you,” he says.

*****

It becomes part of your ritual after that: You, curling up against the bear whenever you grow tired and he is there. Every day, Halsin seems to get more comfortable changing shape around you, and you are happy about it. The bear, oddly enough, is an excellent listener. Telling him things feels easier than telling them to another person, even though you think to yourself that telling Halsin things is already easier than telling anyone else.

Maybe it’s the fact that he doesn’t speak, or the comfort of being able to touch him without implications. Still, your heart beats faster at any shape Halsin is in, and you slowly come to realise that it’s not only lust that moves your heart. You like him. You care about him - a lot more than you realised.

Sometimes, as long as the nights are still warm enough, you sleep under the stars, curled up in the bear’s warmth, talking about the vastness of the universe or the flavour of the berries you had that day. Sometimes, Halsin the man sleeps in your bed, thick arms wrapped around your body which always seems so tiny in his embrace. He always makes you feel so safe, and he never asks for anything more. He just crawls into bed with you and opens his arms, and you slot against him like you were created to fill that space.

The only time you are ever really apart is when Halsin the bear goes hunting. Sometimes he comes home with his snout covered in blood, but you don’t mind. That is as much part of him as your violence is part of you, and you know he never kills without reason. The forest is about balance, and Halsin would never disrupt that. He starts bringing you wild game to cook and brine. Under his guidance, you learn more and more about the forest and its plants and creatures.

The leaves are almost turning when you are finally fully healed.

You never talk about it - not really. One day, Halsin just takes the bandages off and puts no new ones on. One day, you can make it all the way across the meadow by yourself, and then you venture into the forest, and beyond the cave; in the beginning always with the man or the bear by your side, and after some time, you go on your own, picking berries and mushrooms while Halsin hunts. And you never talk about leaving.

It is a quiet and peaceful and happy life. You have become closer than you ever thought you would, but still, he has never indicated that he wants anything more - nothing, aside from the sparkle in his eyes when he looks at you. You are not even sure him sleeping in your bed is any indication that he likes you… in that way. That his affections are of the same kind as your own.

You try to be quiet in your love for him, afraid of disrupting the harmony, afraid he might leave if this is not what he wants anymore. You don’t press too close, you don’t bat your lashes, you don’t make any jokes, afraid it might all get too much. The thought of losing Halsin is more than you can stand.

One day, you are laying in the tall grass next to each other, your fingers interlaced as you look up at the clouds.

“That one looks like a bear,” you say, squinting at a particularly round accumulation of clouds and pointing.

“Do you say that to tease me?” Halsin laughs. “Have I become so fat and lazy in your presence, my love?”

You frown, sitting up on your elbows, unhappy that your silly joke could have made him think that way about himself.

“You are neither of those things, Halsin. You are perfect.”

“Perfect…” he muses. “It is not in nature to be perfect, and yet all of nature is.”

You watch him, the softness of his profile, the tree trunks of his arms, the lines all of his sunshine smiles have left on his face. And before you can overthink it, you roll over and clamber into his lap.

Halsin’s eyes are full of surprise, but his hands grab your hips immediately, slotting right into place as if he has been waiting for centuries to touch you. You look down at him, anxiety and excitement mixing in your belly.

Halsin looks back, his eyes warm and soft and hungry, mirroring your own.

You lean forward, tentative and slow, giving him time to stop you, to pull away, to lift you off his lap as if you were a feather. But instead, Halsin straightens up, his lips meeting yours in a sweet relief of tension.

You close your eyes, your hands burying in his hair, his fingers digging into your hips. The kiss is sweet, but there is something simmering just beneath the surface - a hunger that is hard to describe but which consumes you whole. Your lips are swollen when you break apart, and your heartbeat is fast in your throat.

“I’ve been meaning to do that for so long,” you croak out, your hands fluttering nervously to his shoulders, his jaw, his chest. Halsin smiles, and it’s the most beautiful thing you have ever seen.

“If I had known, I would have encouraged you more.” His eyes roam your body unabashedly, and heat rises to your cheeks. “All these times I slept in your bed, I could have done so much more to help you… relax.”

You choke on your own tongue, surprised by how forward he suddenly is.

“I-” you need a moment to make your brain function again. “I’m sure we will find some time for that still, my love.”

“Mhhm, I hope so.” Halsin’s fingers stroke your cheek. “I was so focused on making sure you would feel better- I should have noticed- I should have told you that this was always an option.”

“Always?” Your brain is spinning and you think you may have lost control of your limbs. Halsin’s eyes sparkle with amusement.

“Always, little flower. There is nothing under the sun that is not beautiful, and you may be the most beautiful of all of nature’s creations I have ever witnessed.”

You have never fancied yourself a particularly romantic kind of girl, but his words make your heart flutter and your breath hitch. Halsin’s eyes flash golden and he grimaces, his hands tightening on you for just the fraction of a second. The shimmer reminds you of something, something that seems so long ago now.

“The way your eyes just- that time in the pool, when you made a bath just for me-”

“I wanted you,” Halsin interrupts you. “I wanted you with every fibre of my being, but you had never given any indication that you had thought about me that way. I was worried I might scare you away if I was too forward- that you would not feel comfortable in my presence anymore. You were not well back then, and I… I could not risk losing control. The bear would have destroyed you.”

“The bear-” your mouth hangs open at the implication of his words. “Do you mean- I-”

“I told you, it’s hard to tame the beast when blood runs hot.” Halsin’s eyes are golden again in the light of the sinking sun. “Being around you so much has made things easier in some senses, and harder in others. I only want what you want, be it man or bear.”

“Or both,” you whisper. His eyes widen just a fraction, but that is enough. You kiss him again, with all the desperation, all the desire and yearning you have kept inside for the past few months. The groan that escapes him is animalistic, and before you know it, Halsin has picked you up and risen from the ground.

You wrap your legs around his waist as he carries you, your back slamming against stone when he presses up against the entrance of the cave.

“Do you know what you are saying, my heart?” Halsin’s voice is hoarse. His breath is hot on your face and you shiver at the look in his eyes - pure desire that sparks liquid fire in your belly.

You tuck a strand of hair behind his ear, lost in the feeling of his strong, warm body against yours, trying to somehow get even closer, to feel even more of him.

“I do,” you confirm quietly. “Though for tonight… maybe I’ll stick with you in this form.”

Halsin laughs, the sound rising into the air like smoke from a campfire.

“A wise decision, little flower.” His mouth descends onto you again in a swift motion. “We’ll have to make sure I fit as it is.”

⋆༻༺⋆༺༻⋆••●••⋆༺༻⋆༻༺ ⋆

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I am once again in tears over him, come and be soft with me my loves. If you would like to be added to my taglist, follow this link please.

@purgetrooperfox @ashotofspotchka @dream-alittlebiggerdarling @ulchabhangorm @queen--kenobi @samspenandsword @rescuethewretched @pinkiemme @baba-fett @witchklng @ladykatakuri @certified-anakinfucker

#fic rec #NEYO I AM UNWELL #LIKE ALSO VERY WELL #BUT WHEW #HE #JUST HE #I AM SMITTEN #bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #halsin x reader #halsin #halsin x you

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farm-witches-fic-recs · 2 years ago

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Most joyous of Fridays to you, our farm witch friends!

The coven is so happy to be able to bring you our first round of May community recs. We hope that you will enjoy these reads and make sure to give the writers some love!

Blessed be!

=========================================

Before I Met You ( @dinnfameron) “It’s 2008. David’s at his local bar in NYC feeling alone and unlovable when a very drunk curly-haired spring-breaking business student appears at his side. Dinnfameron’s account of the resulting conversation is excellent—it’s perceptive but still playful, and it’s sweet but not simple.”

Hungry (aworldofdreams) “This little fic is a masterclass in sensuous, even smutty, food-based metaphor and imagery. You will never look at bechamel sauce in the same light again. You will never look at an orange in the same light again. You will fan yourself, and then perhaps take a cool shower.”

Nothing burns like the cold (@wildxwired) “I'm a not a crier, but I get weepy over this fic. Everything about it is perfect from Patrick's introspective hallucinations and the range of emotions to the utter relief at the end.”

Spring Forward, Fall Back (The_Same_But_Different) “I love David trying to wrap his head around spring training.”

Show this town how to kiss these stars (doingthemost/@sarahlevys) “The first of a beautifully written trio of Stevie/Ruth early relationship stories. A first date in NYC that ends with the strong implication that maybe this time, Stevie will win.”

Stride of Pride (NotTheLoveGuru) “It's a cute post-night at Stevie's fic.”

What Happened to You? (therapychicken) “This is a deep exploration of Patrick's and David's established canon relationship, circa Season 5. Patrick is taken off of the "perfect boyfriend" pedestal and the two of them have intensely serious and nuanced conversations about what it means to enact honesty, vulnerability, and reciprocity in a long-term relationship between adults, and in a lot of ways they're talking about the sharing of power in a way that is rare and beautiful. One of David's speeches late in this piece has stuck with me for years and I find myself thinking about it all the time. Great stuff.”

#friends of farm witches fic recs #sc fic rec #sc fanfic #SC fic #schitts creek fic #schitt's creek fanfic #schitt's creek fic #david rose #patrick brewer #david x patrick #stevie budd #ruth clancy #ruthie

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one-strugling-bean · 2 years ago

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DSMP Fanfic Rec List because I’m bored - part 1

(IF YOU READ ANY OF THESE, DON'T FORGET TO COMMENT - even a simple "great work" or "this was a lot of fun" suffices, just comment)

Manburg vs Pogtopia Era (lots of Manburg cabinet, Pumpkin Duo, and Schlatt studies)

depressing final moments for an equally depressing man by cottageaddict

Your chest aches, a twinge you can’t quite place shooting through your ribs, and all you can do is sigh and lift the bottle to your lips once again.

“Are you- Are you drinking?!”

I’m a big fan of 2nd person narration and this particular work delivers it beautifully. I also adore the way they wrote Schlatt - the fear of death, the understanding and semi-acceptance of all the wrongs he’s done to everybody, and his response to it all being just Well fuck *proceeds to drink more* - he’s so very much in character.

That very specific, and honestly pretty fucking sad implication at the end hit me in a way I wasn’t expecting too, actually-

___

I Will Sing No Requiem by Rjeealdleyr

"Fundy wouldn't cry for Wilbur."

#cfundydeservesbetter

I second the author by saying we don’t have enough Fundy fics in this fandom, so here is one. Be prepared for angsty angst!!

___

Exorcise My Fat Old Heart by orojiratsu

On the day you die the sun is beaming.

OR: The death of a villain.

More of Schlatt’s POV for November 16th and more 2nd person. This one is written so tragically and in such short sentences, it feels like a poem. Needless to say, I like it a lot.

___

Welcome Home, Theseus. by orojiratsu

Schlatt is their president, and they will stay by his side.

Aka, an AU where Schlatt tries to get over his alcoholism with the help of those around him and the Manburg Cabinet actually works out. Sooooooo, basically S1 heaven for me.

You get it all: functional pumpkin duo, dadschlatt with Tubbo and Fundy, Tommy getting away from Pogtopia!Wilbur, a happy, hopeful ending-

When I say that in the DSMP, Schlatt is the character that could have had it all and changed the course of the the story towards a much brighter future, this fic is what I mean.

That last chapter always gets me, i swear-

___

The Nation That Got Better by lb1412 (WIP)

In one world, L’Manberg is no more, its citizens are divided and its enemies reign supreme.

In another world, however, there is still hope.

In another world, a traveller comes with a message, a warning, an omen.

In another world, everything depends on Schlatt.

And maybe, just maybe, there is hope left for him too.

Come, gather around, everyone, for I am about to tell you the tale of the nation that got better.

OR, Schlatt gets a visit from a certain time traveller the night before the election and that changes a few things in the lore’s future.

Basically, it's just more Manburg Cabinet working out, although slightly differently and taking longer. I love the broship that Pumpkin Duo has in this.

The lack of heavy angst in here is a real breath of fresh air for me, btw.

ALSO, kids are treated as kids! I repeat, kids are treated as kids!

___

Swagtopia AU by PrincessLunaLover

It was supposed to just be a secret rescue mission. Tubbo was going to get his father free from prison and let him run into the wilderness, voter fraud charges be damned. But then Fundy found out about the fake charges, and went to Quackity for legal advice.

It wasn't supposed to end with Wilbur publicly executing his own son.

Ahhhhhhh Swagtopia AU, my beloved :,)

The title speaks for itself no? An AU where Wilbur cheats to win the elections and it’s all dandy and good until Fundy finds out and decides that justice should prevail.

Schlatt and Wilbur basically switch roles and with them, lots of other things change. (I love this idea so much.)

Dad!Schlatt is a thing and the Pumpkin Duo dynamic reminds me a bit of an edgier Happy Duo - that married couple who can't stop bickering. They’re great.

Fundy gets a lot of spotlight, Quackity is really intelligent and gets to show it, Techno and Schlatt are old friends, and Sweater Duo angst is a thing, so really, what else could you want??

(Also, this fic is finished, I'm not sure why it’s marked as WIP, but it might have to do with the hints to a possible sequel that just never came to be.)

Think thats it for now - happy readings :>>>

#no one asked me to do this i felt like it #if any author whose works i mentioned ever wants me to take their fic from here i will do so immediately no problem #if you feel like adding your own fav fics to here feel free #reblog or comment or whatever #im getting desperate for new good fics #dream smp #dsmp #dsmp fanfic #manburg vs pogtopia #fanfic recs

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whoreshijima · 4 years ago

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So me and @m-mortimer did a lil collab :) all we do is thirst at eachother so here enjoy our one braincelled thinking and horniness 🤍

Thank you Izzy for allowing me to post this ilyvm and Your smart brain :))

WC- 2.9k

CW// daddy kink, reader has a vagina, mutual masturbation, voyeurism, slight mention of breeding, FaceTime masturbation, choking, mentions of fem receiving oral, basically no prep fucking

Every time Ushijima goes away, he promises to call you everyday, even if it’s for two minutes before bed or as he’s eating his lunch on the small breaks he gets. You appreciate it so much, the way he thinks about you constantly. But sometimes it gets to be way too much, way too long. He’s been away for three days now, three days too long. Ushijima called you as often as he could, simply missing the sweet tone you’d greet him with, the smile on your face as you answered the call. He loved every part of you, from how you dance whilst making dinner as he watched through the screen. Or how, like right now, you’re trying to hide your whimpers from the microphone and how you’re trying to keep your face straight, keeping the casual chatter about what you’re going to do that day.

It started as a simple FaceTime call from his cheap hotel bed, like any other day he’s away. But the grumbling deep voice on the other end of the phone, mixed with three days without his touch, made you shivery and needy. You didn’t know Ushijima was thinking the same thing. The slight mess of your bed hair and bare skin around your shoulders and chest from the small cami you were wearing made his breath catch in his chest, blood rushing south instantly.

“I dunno I might go grocery s-shoppping” you mumble out, cursing yourself for stumbling over your words as your fingers ghost over your clit, the slickness from your arousal easing your movements between your legs. Ushi can hear the sheets shuffling, the way your legs spread to give you more space to slide your fingers deep inside yourself, the wet sounds not breezing past your boyfriend's ears without notice. “Get us some f-food for when you come home?” You can’t hide the way your breath catches in your throat as you catch the spot deep inside you, the spot that Ushijima knows makes you scream and gush around him. “W-what would you like to eat?”

If Ushijima could answer honestly, he’d want to eat you. Spend hours between your legs as he swirls his warm tongue around and over your clit, strong hands pinning your legs to the bed as he spits and devours your cunt. There’s nothing better than the idea of you cumming over his mouth, writhing and wriggling under his firm grip, as two fingers curl and scissor inside you, knowing that he’s prepped you enough for his cock. Prepped you enough so that the stretch around him doesn’t hurt you as much as it should.

Just the thought of him being between your legs, cunt stretched so beautifully around him as he pushes inside you, your soft, plush thighs wrapped around his waist as he bucks his hips up into your swollen cunt. Imagining the way your warm walls surround him as he pins you to the mattress, a large hand wrapped around your tiny throat, completely at his mercy, has him pushing his hips into the mattress.

“Erm, chicken of some type?” Lower. His voice was definitely lower, almost a snarl as he talks to you, the pressure of his cock against the mattress making his eyes roll to the back of his head briefly.

“S-stir fry?” You turn your head to meet his gaze through the screen, your eyes are glazed over. Your glossy ones meet his lust filled stare, his lips are parted in small gasps and grunts. You know exactly how his other hand is gripping the sheets, knuckles turning whiter and whiter everytime the head of his cock catches against the bumps of the sheets and mattress. Neither of you bothering to hide from eachother, you let out a whine, letting your mouth hang open as you speed your fingers up against your clit.

How you wish you could see his swollen, leaking cock right now. The way it twitches with every grind forward, how the pre cum beads at the head of his cock before dripping down the shaft. But the way his face is scrunched up as he closes his eyes, the few beads of sweat dripping down his forehead and how the hand holding the phone is shaking ever so slightly drives you insane. You can hear the squeak of his hotel mattress everytime he moves against it, the steady sound obvious to anyone near his room. The gentle banging of the headboard against the wall would make anyone think he’s Railing someone hard, but it’s just him, desperately rutting against the bed.

Ushi growls out a “Fuck baby” and that’s all it takes for you to arch your back and cry out for him, fingers rubbing speedily at your swollen clit and leaking pussy. The lewd sounds of your sweet slick dripping out of you mixed with the sweet Mewls you let out, driving ushi over the edge. His hips roll one, two times before he grunts out, body shaking as he cums, spilling all over his boxers and the sheets underneath him. His cock is throbbing over the thought of cumming inside you, marking you as his. Breeding you and filling you up with his cum. He lets out a shaky breath, staring into your eyes as he watches your arm moving fast in the view of the camera.

“Cum for me” he growls, voice low and gruff as he commands you to cum. And you’re not one to disobey him, your fingers move faster as you grind up into your touch. A high whimper leaves your mouth as you reach the point of orgasm, swiftly followed by a loud and needy moan, directing it at your boyfriend. Your body shakes and twitches as you ride it out, a layer of sweat adorning your skin.

“Fuck...” you whisper, finally going limp against the sheets and pillows “I miss you... so much” his gaze has softened as he smiles gently at you. He so desperately wants to reach through the screen to stroke your cheek with his thumb, hooking his fingers under your chin and pull you in for a deep kiss. To feel how your spit mixes together, and how it drips over your chin after he’s fucked you dumb on his cock.

He chuckles deeply, it rumbling through his chest “Oh just you wait till I’m home baby”

He was late. Which was a first, because there was no skirting around anything with him, either five minutes early or exactly on time. Maybe it was the nerves making you work double speed, looking at the clock every other second, turning on your phone and forgetting to actually look at the time and having to turn it on again, revisiting the last message he’d sent you - a blunt text telling you he was just getting a taxi from the airport and that he should be back in about thirty minutes.

Forty minutes ago. The skin around your thumb was raw with how you’d been nibbling at it, but not from nerves, if the dampness of your underwear and the tension in your core was anything to go by. No, you were ridiculously turned on, from what? From everything, from nothing, from him and that goddamn look he gave you two nights ago, paired with a few choice words that sparked lightning up your spine just remembering them.

“Baby.”

In that blunt, dark voice of his, croaky from sleep and strained from moaning your name, lips swollen from how hard he’d been biting it to stop himself grunting and snarling as loud as he usually did. God - that was what you were waiting for, the sounds of him, the smell of him, the taste of him, of his mouth, of his fingers, of his cock.

You shivered, a wave of lust clouding your mind for a split second, daring to slide a hand between your thighs, trembling and tensing already, and all you’d done was think about him. 3 days, 3 fucking days and you were reduced to this quivering mess on the couch at the thought of Ushijima coming through that door and finally - finally giving you what he’d promised during that call.

A muffled vibration and ding sprung you from your thoughts, from your quick spiralling down into a puddle on the floor, ripping your fingers from your underwear to pick up your phone, heart stopping and breath catching at the singular word on the screen.

Here

It was a fucking word and yet, a fresh wave of arousal flushed through your body and you struggled to stand, shaking with adrenaline and panting heavily, the implications of the word taking a toll on your body and if you were in your right mind - you’d probably slapped yourself and remarked on how desperately pathetic you were acting. But it had been 3 days, 3 agonising days of waiting and texting and barely being able to talk to him outside his strict schedule and your shifts at work.

And now? He was here, he was here and you could hear the elevator ding at the end of the corridor and the back of your neck heated, and all you could see was the front door and your hand gripping the handle, and something thumped to the ground and -

He was here. Ushijima - he was stood right there, at arm’s length, neck pillow tucked under one arm and duffle bag slumped at his feet. That must have been the thing that fell to the floor, but you don’t really care because he’s staring at you with the dark, dangerous look on his face and it should have struck playful fear into you but all you could do was whimper,

“Toshi,”

You sounded so much better saying his name in real life, fresh and feeble and sending blood draining from his head so fast, one hand shot out to grab the door frame. Ushijima strained, against everything, knuckles turning white and he probably could have cracked the woodwork, cock unbearably hard and aching within seconds of seeing you. It would have been a lie to say that he hadn’t been half hard the entire time after your call, unable to get the vision of you with your head tossed back and your eyes scrunching in pleasure, cumming deliciously from the frantic movements of your fingers beneath your pyjamas.

“Again,”

You squeak, he’s never sounded like that before, never been so low and so gruff, on the verge of snapping, avoiding your eye because if he could see the wrecked gaze you fixed on him -

“Toshi - please,”

His shirt ripped from the force with which he tore it over his head, one arm getting caught in his desperate attempt to strip and he very nearly tripped when his foot caught in the strap of his duffle bag, dragging it over the threshold before untangling himself,

“Again, say it again baby,”

He’s on you before you know what’s going on, kicking the door shut but neither of you hear it click, too consumed in each other to really worry about the fact his bag is preventing you two from having complete privacy. But you can’t think, you can’t form a single thought apart from,

“Toshi - Toshi more please!” Ushijima’s mouth swallowing your words almost instantly, one of his hands cupping the entirety of the back of your head, tilting you just so and allowing him to lick into you, feasting on your lips and tongue like a man starved and for a second, you realise he probably is. And so are you, god - you’re hungry for everything he has to offer, wrapping your hands around his waist and trying desperately to shove his sweat pants down, hissing when he accidentally bit your lip too hard but he’s dipping to your neck and delivering an even harsher bite -

“Fuck,”

Your legs give out, like they usually do under his rough assaults of your neck but you often have a bed or a couch behind you, nothing cushioning you from the hard wood floors of the hallway except for the fat of your ass and his arms encircling your head and shoulders.

“Here - I’m fucking you here, I can’t wait,” Ushijima follows you down, mouth barely leaving yours, form engulfing yours, hands trapping yours. He spreads you out on the cold floor, snarling when he gets a face of your chest from how violently you arch at the temperature and the painful nips left over the skin of your collar bone.

Ushijima isn’t much of a talker when he’s got you trembling underneath him, but the comments that are spat unfiltered from his mouth do absolutely nothing to curb the bright hot lust making you loose all semblance of control,

“Fuck - you’re soaking, did you wait for me? Did you make yourself cum again after I ended the call? No? I didn’t - I’ve been waiting for two days to do this, to touch you like this, put my hands on your body like this - fuck baby you’re so needy - no, here, look at me,”

You hadn’t even realised you had closed your eyes and thrown your head back, feeling thick fingers digging into your jaw and forcing you to look at him, dark eyes tracing every inch of your face while he dragged the other hand down your torso, short nails catching the loose fabric of your dress. It was a short moment of clarity; him looking at you, you looking at him, eyes softening so something akin to affectionate love before it was overwhelmed with predatory intent, that soft touch of his hand shoving your thighs apart and sinking into your underwear,

“M’not - I can’t wait, I can’t - let me,”

“Yes! Yes! Toshi please!”

You two sound ridiculous, desperate and clawing at each other, your smaller fingers shoving his trousers down over his ass and your entire body jolts when his cock dropped heavily on to your cunt, hot and angry and hard as fucking steel, throbbing against your clit and you clench around nothing, the anticipation too much to contain.

Ushijima is in no better state than you, fumbling with his footing with snaps of his jaw and he’s entirely too rough with the way he pumps himself, grinding against the silk of your cunt in a feeble attempt to try and prep you, to make the breach less painful, less of a stretch but you need that, you do and it’s driving you crazy, and it’s probably driving him crazy too,

“Go - Toshi, please, I can’t - fuck me please!”

The strength that emerges from the man astounds you every time, hoisting your thighs high up his waist and then apparently changing his mind, throwing your ankles over his shoulders and looming over you, sinking into you with once, debilitating thrust of his hips. And the noise that left him, oh god - it was borderline animalistic, debauched and wrecked, and one of the hottest things you think you’ve ever heard.

He’s got his hands either side of your head, clawing against the floor for purchase, immediately starting a brutal pace, the slap of his skin on yours echoing throughout the apartment, drowned out only by the high pitched squeals coming from your mouth and the filthy way he was talking down at you,

“Taking me so well baby, so fucking well - m’so proud of you, didn’t need any prep - fuck! So tight, so goddamn tight f’me -,” he doesn’t soften, not when the sounds of your pussy creaming around his cock grows louder with every sharp snap of his hips, shoving your legs into your chest and forcing harsh shouts from your throat,

“Yes! Daddy - missed you so, so much - harder, please! I’ll be s’good for you, so good just - hah - harder!”

Neither of you realise that every sound your bodies produce, every squelch and click of your cunt, every growl and deep snarl from his chest, every needy squeal and plea from your lips can be heard all the way down the corridor. The front door was still open, propped from where the duffle bag had prevented it from closing, the light from the corridor providing a perfect spotlight for the unsuspecting neighbour who dared venture out to see what all the noises were.

The vision of Ushijima’s back rippling and rolling with his bringing his hand to close around your throat, prompting a garbled hiccup and tears to spring in your eyes, and your little feet dangling uselessly over his shoulders probably should have rendered them silent, shocked and rooted to the spot.

But the quiet gasp was caught by the hulking creature on top of you, quirking his head and making eye contact with them for a split second before simply resuming his quick, paralysing thrusts, harder even than before - drawing a high pitched wail from your throat and there was no mistaking the fluid splashing on the floor, mingling with white and smearing over his balls, slapping against your ass.

A leg struck out, kicking the door shut and locking the duffle outside, looking as sorry for itself and your neighbour, cheeks flushed and eyes slightly glassy, still reflecting the vision of you cumming harshly on Ushijima’s cock, and him simply continuing to fuck you through it, the sounds of you two muffled but no less poignant against the calm stupor of the corridor.

And so what if it carried on, moving through the apartment and quiet possibly earning a complaint from the complex security but neither of you could hear the phone ringing over the bed creaking and slamming against the wall, too consumed in each other, too wound up in the sounds you could pull and the reactions you could bring forward. Damn - if him only being gone for three days turned you both into needy desperate animals, then how the hell would you cope with his next match that required over a week away in a completely different country?

Please follow Izzy she’s a genius and the reason for me being horny @m-mortimer

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