#EVERYTHING IS AWFUL IN LATE CAPITALISM | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

agroteraa · 6 months

Text

Calling All My Lovelies

Felix Catton x f!Reader

My fic masterlist

Summary: AU where Saltburn's ending never happened. Felix lived happily up to 2017 (and on), where he happened to meet you. Meaning he is around 29-30 here.

Featuring the song "Calling All My Lovelies" by Bruno Mars

Also mentioning songs like "24K Magic" and "Too Good to Say Goodbye" by Bruno Mars, you can listen to them or even the whole "24K Magic" album for the right mood and atmosphere ❤️

Tags: fluffy angst, AU.

Warnings: mentions of sex, kinda?cheating, relationship misconception.

Word Count: 2,7K

Felix's London apartment was luxurious. Of course, it wasn't Saltburn, but there was a lot to see and be impressed by here too. Especially the view of the Thames, which was strewn on both sides with many lights of the most beautiful sights of the UK capital. Felix and all his guests found the lights especially bright in winter, as on this late February evening.

Especially the girls. Each of those whom he brought here stopped in awe at the huge panoramic windows and looked at the views almost from the height of the flight of a city bird. If before that they had somehow not been one hundred percent fascinated by Felix and his lifestyle, then this luxurious apartment was always the final charming argument.

Y/N was no exception.

When he brought you to his place after a fun evening full of alcohol, it seems that you looked at the views of the city more closely than anyone else and even managed to point out to him some new places from afar, which he did not pay much attention to or did not know what exactly these places were.

Felix smiled warmly - he would love to admire the view of the city with you, preferably standing in an embrace. But then he wasn't interested much of it back then, rather in something else. When he returned from the kitchen with a bottle of expensive alcohol and two glasses, you barely had time to taste the drink, as you merged again in a passionate kiss, which flowed into an even more passionate night. One of the best for both of you, and oh how he would like to repeat it.

But you weren't here right now.

There was no one but Felix himself, this evening was also full of alcohol, but there was little fun in it.

And all because you misunderstood each other. Very much.

When he brought you to his house from the club that day, he didn't think that you would take it all so seriously. Kate didn't take it in. Therefore, from her friend (or whoever you were to her, or maybe you didn't communicate that close? After all, if Felix had to think about it, it was the first time he saw you there with her…) he expected the same understanding.

You had a great time at the club, and then a night at Felix's apartment. Then you started to chat online a lot, went for a brunch and for a walk in the park, where you talked for a long, long time, cheerfully chatting about everything in the world. Well, except for discussing relationships. Then another night together, no less, if not more wonderful than that the previous one. Then another brunch. And after that… You had a lot of work and things to do, while Felix had a lot of free time and his own needs.

When you found out from Kate that he had slept with a couple of girls during that time (not with Kate herself, though they stopped sleeping not so long ago), you were crushed.

And she just shrugged her shoulders and said that you should have known or guessed that Felix lives in a free relationship mode.

You didn't know. Or you didn't want to know. And the main thing was that you thought that something special was going on between the two of you, you saw it in Felix's eyes, felt the distinct warmth of his touch and a certain special thrill overall. The way you talked to each other. It wasn't just sex or an empty mindless flirt, even if the beginning of your relationship was very fast and passionate. It was all felt even after two nights and many days, evenings and nights of mutual texting and calls.

Anyway, you didn't discuss otherwise. That was the whole point. And so, when, after things suddenly got clear, you received another usual message from Felix, you ignored it for a long time, unable to respond, being numb with pain, indignation and shame. You still was processing it and didn't believe to the end (that it would happened or that you were such a fool, you weren't sure yourself, probably both). Then, after a few more of his messages, you somehow pulled yourself together and answered all of them at once, quite briefly and dryly.

After some dialogue in this manner, Felix realized that there was clearly something wrong. He started asking what was the matter, to which you answered him:

"As if you don't know yourself."

"Explain?"

"I don't want to, I'm not in the mood to talk to you right now. If ever at all."

"???"

You didn't answer. Felix called. So, roughly in ten minutes of a phone conversation, you found out in raised tones that he "doesn't owe you anything nor didn't promise anything" that you "are fine as you are now, why complicate everything" and that "please, let's keep seeing each other, it doesn't mean anything special" was a real argument to him.

You shouted into the phone "No, if you don't want to complicate things, then I do, I'm sorry! More precisely, I wanted to. I thought we were serious.… Maybe... it seemed all... special. That's it, look, I... I don't want to talk any longer. And don't call me anymore, okay?"

And so, one day had passed, then two and three. And now the fourth day was already ending, turning into the fifth. You really didn't pick up the phone anymore and didn't respond to his messages, which were getting fewer and fewer every day.

But Felix had more and more thoughts in his head instead. He has almost passed all the stages of acceptance these days:

denial - "no, it's nothing, she's going to be mad a bit and come back to me";

anger - "not coming back? Well, fuck her!";

bargaining - "please, Y/N, answer my messages already...";

depression - "have I really lost touch with her forever?..".

Except for the acceptance itself, of course. And besides the fact that he was returning to all these stages randomly from time to time.

He really did not understand, he was not used to the fact that a girl could take a relationship with him that seriously, especially so immediately. Okay, these infatuations at school and even sometimes at university, when people fell head over heels in love with him, romanticizing him without really knowing him, but now? In the adult world, when everyone should understand the "rules of the game" and that no one seriously owes anyone anything until it is discussed. That was how Felix thought about it. And that was why it was so strange to him that it could hurt you so deeply.

He contemplated about it all the time and, to tell the truth, it even began to flatter him that someone could fall in love with him so much and take him that serious from the start. If he got everything correctly. Yes, at first it surprised him, then it worried him, then it flattered him, and after that... something inside him began to hurt unpleasantly?

He wasn't lying back then. These girl didn't mean a lot to him. But did this mean that Y/N did?..

His heart and mind began to fill with deep, complex feelings that he had not experienced for a long time and, to be honest, had not realized properly and processed in an adult way, being almost-thirty.

And Felix got scared. He was genuinely scared, that was why, first of all, he was pouring alcohol into himself all evening, inhaling lots of smoke as well.

And right now, he decided to brighten up his company not only with wine, champagne and cigarettes, but also with music. He chose Bruno Mars, whose new album he has listened to quite often since its release. Fancy stereo speakers filled his apartment with the loud sounds of "24K Magic".

Felix danced to the rhythm of the songs, sipping wine straight from the bottle. Now he tried to imagine that he was having fun in a club, and not alone in a dark empty apartment, and he almost succeeded in that.

That way Felix Catton decently lifted his mood along with the level of alcohol intoxication.

He skipped the song "Versace on the Floor" because he wasn't in the mood for slow romantic songs. But when "Calling All My Lovelies" started playing a little later, Felix was unable to switch it either.

He leaned back in one of the chairs, frowning and very intently listening through a decently tipsy consciousness to the lines of the song that had begun.

I got too many girls on hold for you to be so bold

Too many on my team for you to act so mean

"Oh, yeah. Exactly so," Felix thought.

You say you wanna go and have fun, well, you ain't the only one

If I ring, don't let it ring too long or I'm gone

"That's bloody right," he said aloud and nodded slightly several times, taking another sip of wine from the neck of the bottle.

I got Alicia waitin', Aisha waitin'

All the -eeshas waitin' on me

And also Stacey, Tracey, Macey, Lacey… Had he mentioned Tracey already? In general, all sorts of -aceys were waiting for him too, and not only them.

So why you contemplatin'? Playa hatin'?

If this is how it's gonna be

I'm callin' all my lovelies (Callin' all my lovelies)

'Cause I can't get a hold of you

At these words, Felix gripped the bottle so tightly that it almost broke under the force of his fingers squeezing it. It was definitely unpleasant for him to hear from Bruno Mars things that Felix was afraid to admit even to himself. He shook his head, closing his eyes. No, that was bullshit.

Since you ain't thinkin' of me (Since you ain't thinkin' of me)

Oh, look what you're makin' me do

Sharp breath. Closed eyes. Exhale.

Honey pie, I'm far too fly to be on standby

Sendin' me straight to voicemail, suga, what the hell? (What the hell?)

That was right! What the hell was all that? You ignored him too! How long had he been texting you and even calling you? Was that fair? Why should he run after you? He shouldn't.

Ooh, you ought to be ashamed, playin' these childish games

I don't get down like that, tell me where you're at, hit me back

Yes. Come and tell him that to his face. Oh, how he wanted you to be right in front of him now. Or didn't want to. No, he actually did. And not only to talk, getting things clear, but also to repeat the night like these… His imagination had already begun to draw pictures of how he would kiss you, undress you... and then… Your sensual moans echoed in his head. He almost felt your skin with his elictrified fingertips. And after that... no, no, stop.

Mmm, I got Alicia waitin', Aisha waitin'

All the -eeshas waitin' on me

"That's it, Bruno, you understand me, buddy! Felix mentally raised a bottle of wine as a toast and drank another sip to "them boys", to "free spirits".

So why you contemplatin'? Playa hatin'?

If this is how it's gonna be

He could have called any of the girls he mentally had listed. And everyone would come to him immediately or at least as soon as possible, doing everything Felix would have wished. Ha. How do you like that, Y/N?

But for some reason he didn't want to text to any of them, much less call them.

The only voice he wanted to hear right now was yours.

I'm callin' all my lovelies (Callin' all my lovelies)

'Cause I can't get a hold of you

Since you ain't thinkin' of me (Since you ain't thinkin' of me)

Oh, look what you're makin' me do

For the second time, he couldn't stand listening to these words. Abruptly and carelessly putting the bottle on the glass table and staggering decently, Felix wandered off to get his phone. It was time to call his not-even-ex-not-girlfriend. Catton-Jr. seemed to be listening to the dial tone more on purpose, just not to listen too closely to the words of the song that went on:

Pick up the phone, pick up the phone

'Cause all this lovin' needs a home, oh, yeah

Oh, no, look at what you started, baby

Now, I'm left here brokenhearted, baby

"Pick up the phone, yes, pick up the phone, come on," he repeated, tapping his foot. The phone dropped the call after a short time, and the guy dialed for the second, then the third time and…

There's a pain in my chest, I cannot explain

I told myself I wasn't gon' cry (Oh, not gonna cry, no, no)

But somebody's gotta come dry these eyes 'cause (Dry these, ah, 'cause)

The dial tone beeps continued. Felix studied London at night under their measured rhythm. His favorite activity was to peer at passing boats and ships of various sizes, models and speed, as well as trying to count their number. He often got distracted, but still loved it.

So, he didn't notice that the beeps from the real phone had flowed into the beeps from the song. In "Calling All My Lovelies" Bruno's imaginary crush was a famous actress. Her voice "responded" in lively yet sensual tone:

Hi, you've reached Halle Berry. Sorry I can't get to the phone right now

But if you leave your name and number, I'll get right back to you *mwah*

Damn... (Bruno Mars' voice hissed back with increasing echoes and annoyance).

At this point, Felix himself clenched his teeth and threw the phone on the floor out of anger. Fortunately, the carpet was soft enough for the phone to survive the fury of its owner and continue to function in case you suddenly wanted to respond.

I'm callin', callin', callin', callin' all my lovelies

'Cause I can't get a hold of you

Oh, since you ain't thinkin' of me (Since you ain't thinkin' of me, baby)

Look what you're makin' me do

Felix almost whimpered at the realization of what a fool he had been and what a stupid situation he was in right now. Where he led himself. Why couldn't you two just talk? Why couldn't he just tell it all at once, from the start? Maybe it would have been different otherwise now. Resting his forehead against the big window, he felt its pleasant coolness, but it could not cool down his burning resentment inside. Most of all, he did not like it when the blame for the current situation could not be shifted to anyone or anything else, and this pained him incredibly right now.

Pick up the phone, pick up the phone

'Cause all this lovin' needs a home, oh

He collapsed into a chair near the window, clutching its handles tightly and stretching his long legs. If only he would…

Felix inhaled and exhaled noisily, throwing his head back and taking a pack of cigarettes along with a lighter out of his shirt pocket. The fingers did not obey a little, as the hands of their owner were shaking slightly from nerves and alcohol intoxication. He growled slightly in irritation. When the guy was finally able to light a cigarette, he took a long drag on it.

Now he wasn't in the mood for energetic and carefree songs. He skipped "Finesse".

That was how the last song from the album started playing - "Too Good to Say Goodbye":

I've made mistakes

I could have treated you better

I let you get away

There goes my happily ever after

Tell me why, why can't we try and start again?

This can't be how our story ends…

Oh, please…

He really did miss you.

And he was not right.

He wanted to win you and your trust over again. He finally admitted it with all his heart to himself. He would try. Really.

If only you could…

The phone, thrown on the fluffy carpet, suddenly came to life and started vibrating.

Releasing all the smoke from his lungs, which Felix had inhaled, at once, he abruptly bent down to the carpet.

Your name appeared on the phone screen, gleaming brightly in the darkness.

230 notes · View notes

sapphire-writes · 2 years

Text

Playing with Fire (part 2)

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

pairing: Aemond Targaryen x Reader x Aegon II Targaryen

summary: Your adventure in the capital continues as you grow closer to more than one Targaryen prince.

warnings: some sensual themes, drinking

word count: 3.4k

A/N: In absolute awe of the love for part 1!! Hope you all enjoy part 2 as much as I enjoyed writing it! 💚

masterlist

“I shall not have my daughter late for such a charming event,” your mother says, moving to fix a broach from its tilted position on your neckline. You purse your lips. Your time in the Red Keep was to be full of different social events, all catered to winning Prince Aegon’s affection.

“I suppose I do not need to attend,” you tell her, batting your lashes, “the Queen did specify it was not mandatory.”

“We came to the capital to find you a husband,” your mother said, giving you a stern look, “and after last night’s escapades you need to remind the members of court what a charming young lady you are.”

You groan at your mother’s words but are silenced by her fierce motherly glare. You press your lips together in a thin line. She smiles at your surrender.

“A walk in the gardens is quite the romantic opportunity, Y/N,” she says, brushing your shoulders. Your mother moves to caress your cheeks.

“Beautiful,” she whispers, and you can’t help but smile at her kind words and the loving look on her face.

As you make your way to the gardens, your mother is an overflowing fountain of advice.

“Make sure to take his arm,” she informs, “and smile often, but not too much, we do not wish for him to think you are fatuous.”

You tilt your head to the side, frowning at your mother.

“What?” she says, ushering you forward through the castle doors.

“You think me fatuous?”

“I do not,” your mother argues, “hence why I wish you do not act like it.”

The gardens of the Red Keep are a beautiful sight. Rows upon rows of flowers from all over the seven kingdoms make a colorful sanctuary, with tables and benches scattered throughout the many paths that twist and creep throughout them.

The air is perfumed by the sweet scents emitted by all the flora. You have never traveled to Highgarden, but if it is anything as beautiful as the gardens in front of you now, you can scarcely imagine it.

As you enter the gardens you are greeted by several of the lords and ladies from the previous night. Everyone is dressed in gowns of expensive Myrish lace, colors bright as though the plumes of birds.

“Does Prince Aegon enjoy bright colors?” you ask and your mother shrugs, clearly surprised as well by the fashionable efforts.

Cassandra Baratheon spots you, a smile overtaking her. You raise your eyebrows at her as she approaches, only to realize too late she was smiling at someone behind you. She brushes by you, with little decency, causing you to stumble.

“My prince!” she says, skirts dancing around her as she approaches Prince Aegon, who has entered just behind you. He smiles at Cassandra before his gaze falls on you. You feel the heat rush to your cheeks as his eyes light up.

I remember you, they seem to say.

Cassandra loops her arm through his, attaching herself to his side. Aegon’s eyes widen at her boldness and he allows himself a once over of the Baratheon lady. She is breathtakingly beautiful, everything a future queen should hope to look like.

“I would be honored to join you this morning, my prince,” she says, leading Aegon toward the gardens and away from other ladies who seem to pout as they see Aegon’s arm has been claimed.

“That would be lovely, my lady,” he says to her, but as they pass his eyes stay on you. You look away first, unable to hold his piercing gaze. You swear you hear him chuckle, before the pair disappear within the greenery, trailed by several goldcloaks.

“Perhaps when Cassandra returns,” your mother says hopefully, watching where the pair headed off to. You shoot your mother an exasperated look.

“It is rather pointless,” you tell her, “Cassandra is quite determined the prince is her match.”

Your mother pats your arm, attempting to comfort you. You roll your eyes at her efforts.

“We shall see,” your mother says, ever confident in her daughter. You stay next to her as other ladies begin to promenade.

“I have seen one near the tulips,” a voice says softly, causing you to turn. Prince Aemond stands behind you, a small smile on his face. His hands are crossed behind his back, violet eye sparkling.

“Good morrow my prince,” you tell him brightly, crossing your ankles in a brief curtsey.

“Or perhaps near the golden roses?” he continues as if not hearing you. Your brow furrows in confusion.

“I do not follow, my prince,” you tell him, following his gaze into the gardens until it landed on a table full of refreshments.

“I only assumed you may need another hiding space,” he says. Cheeky bastard. You scoff in surprise, but a smile forms on your face at his jest. Blush blooms on your cheeks and he chuckles.

“I apologize, my lady,” he begins, “I could not help it.”

You smooth your gown, as a laugh escapes you. Prince Aemond was jesting with you.

“I suppose I deserve it, for my foolishness,” you tell him, more laughter bubbling from your lips.

“May I?” Aemond said, offering his arm to you. You smiled at the kindness, linking his arm in yours.

“I promise not to lose my slipper this time,” you tell him, earning a chuckle from the one-eyed prince.

You began your promenade through the gardens. You glance behind you and your mother gives you an encouraging smile, trailing behind a modest distance from you and the prince as a chaperone.

As you continue your walk with Aemond, you notice sideways glances from ladies as they pass. You turn, watching them whisper and giggle before hurrying along down the path.

Aemond notices your confusion and clears his throat.

“I suppose it is a strange sight, to see such a beautiful lady on my arm,” he says softly, flashing a half smile. You can tell he is trying to ease the awkwardness of the encounter. Your eyebrows cinch together, not understanding what he is implying.

“Why would that be strange, my prince?” you ask.

“My condition frightens most women of court.”

You look at Aemond, and note the way his mouth sits in a tight line, blush blooming on the tops of his cheekbones. Your face softens.

“It does not frighten me,” you tell him. Aemond meets your gaze, expecting to see some hint of displeasure. He finds none, only fierce honesty in your expression. You stop your walk as the path opens to a large courtyard. Lords and ladies are deposited around, talking and drinking leisurely in the warmth of the midday sun.

Aemond picks a goblet up, filling it with wine. He hands it to you before pouring one for himself.

“You are very peculiar, Lady Y/N,” he says, sizing you up once more, “I do hope you do not take offense to me saying that.”

You shrug nonchalantly, taking a sip from your cup. The Arbor red burns a path down your throat.

“Not at all,” you assure him, “I do not believe there is shame in the odd or unusual.”

Aemond cocks his head, before nodding in agreement, taking a sip from his cup. You watch as a dragonfly buzzes by, opaque wings catching in the sunlight.

“Fascinating,” you murmur and Aemond follows your eyes.

“You should speak with my sister Helaena,” he tells you, “she is fascinated with the creatures that reside in this garden.”

“I did speak with her,” you tell him, recalling your late night discussion with the princess, “she is a very interesting woman, your sister.”

Aemond feels a sense of sharp pride at your words. Helaena was the sibling he was always closest to. He spent most of his time defending her from odd looks and jests from ladies of court, it was a refreshing change to hear you speak so kindly of her.

“She was telling me about her recent readings of insects outside of the seven kingdoms,” you continued, craning your neck to see where the dragonfly had flown off to. You make a noise of contentment before taking another sip of your wine. You feel your body beginning to warm from the liquid.

“I quite enjoyed the time I spent with her,” you continued, glancing at Aemond, “and with you , of course my prince.”

Aemond chews at the inside of his lip as he takes in your words. He suddenly wants to sweep you away from the gardens, keep you out of sight until Aegon chooses a wife. Aemond cannot help but remember why you are here. You have come for his brother’s hand, not his. A rush of possessiveness rolls through him at the thought. Aemond places his cup on a table closeby, before leaning closer to you, speaking low into your ear.

“You enjoy that?” he asks, the look in his eye changing, “spending time with me?”

Gooseflesh prickles on your skin at the feeling of his breath on your ear.

“Of course, my prince,” you say, and you can feel your nerves, twisting and twirling in your stomach. He is so close to you, leaning over your frame, and you find yourself stumbling backward.

Your foot catches a loose stone and you feel your ankle twist. As you throw out your arm to steady yourself your goblet flings from your grasp and into the chest of Aegon Targaryen. You hear the shriek of Cassandra as drops of red liquid rain down on her. You watch, eyes wide, as the red liquid seeps into the fabric of his shirt. As you feel your cheeks heat up, you meet his gaze.

You’re not sure what you expect. Anger, fury perhaps. But as you look up, Aegon’s smile is wolfish, his eyes hungry. You feel your heart drop into your stomach as his eyes meet yours. It is the same look he gave you in the corridor the previous night, as though you are a feast to be devoured.

“When I suggested we have a drink,” Aegon begins, the grin never leaving his face, “this was not what I had intended.”

“Seven hells!” Cassandra grumbles, wiping the wine from her arm. The expression on her face is murderous. Aegon barely pays her any mind.

“Your grace, I do apologize,” you say, flustered by his words, by your mistake. You reach for a handkerchief, for something, and Aemond holds one out to you.

“Thank you,” you say, looking up at his chiseled face. His mouth sits in a taut line, and he does not meet your gaze, only giving you a slight nod.

Your mother saw the scene, unfortunately for you. Eyes wide, she hurries over to you, skirts a whirlwind behind her.

“My prince, you must excuse my daughter,” she says nervously, snatching the handkerchief from your hands as you bring it towards Aegon’s chest. You look at him, a wild look in your eyes. His face is the picture of amusement, as he takes the handkerchief from your mother.

“Lady Y/N is quite ungraceful,” Cassandra sneers, attempting to re-engage Aegon. His attention is lost, and Cassandra can sense it, eyes flickering from the prince to you.

“No harm done,” Aegon says, dabbing the red liquid that pools on his shirt, “it has happened to me on more than one occasion.”

Your mother gives a courteous laugh, but you can tell she is embarrassed by your actions.

“May I introduce my daughter, Lady Y/N?” she says, smiling cautiously. Aegon looks from your mother to you.

“Yes,” he says, eyes flickering again to your mouth, “we have been introduced.”

Your mother’s brows lift towards her hairline. You bite your lip. When were you supposed to tell her? When you arrived in your chambers she was deep in sleep, and as you sat to break your fast the conversation of the previous night had quickly shifted to one of the new day.

You could picture your mother’s face if you had told her about your rendez-vous with Prince Aegon. It would probably look an awful lot like the expression she wore now; of confusion and anxiety.

“You have?” she asks, looking at you for help.

You swallow, thinking of a delicate way to phrase it.

“Yes,” you tell her, “you see I happened to run into Prince Aegon on my way to bed last night.”

You can’t help but notice the way Aemond’s shoulders tense at your words. Your face flushes. You want to continue speaking, tell him that nothing happened. He probably thinks Aegon did something unseemly to you. You imagined the red haired lady he was with, his lips on her neck. Suddenly you imagined yourself in her place, your fingers tangled in Aegon’s hair, his hands all over you. Surely that was what Prince Aemond was thinking.

You opened your mouth to speak, to clarify what had happened, when Prince Aegon interrupted you.

“Might you escort me to my chambers, Lady Y/N?” Aegon asks, “if it is alright with your mother of course. I should like to change.”

Your mother nods encouragingly. You raise your brows at her. Perhaps she is hoping Aegon does have his way with you. A babe in your belly would be a reason for Aegon to marry you. You shake off the thought.

Cassandra is furious.

“Are you sure you would not like me to escort you, your grace?” she asks, attempting to mask her anger with a polite smile, “surely Lady Y/N should take a moment to compose herself.”

Aegon gives her a gracious smile.

“How right you are Lady Cassandra,” he tells her, “ever more the reason you should join me, Lady Y/N, let us get you out of the sun.”

Aegon winks at you, so quickly you’re sure no one else had seen it.

“Of course my prince,” you tell him, as he holds his arm to you. You turn to Prince Aemond as you take Aegon’s arm.

“Thank you for the walk,” you tell him earnestly. Aemond’s expression warms.

“It is you I should thank, my lady,” he tells you, bowing slightly. You smile at him, as Aegon ushers you toward the castle.

“Quite a dramatic way to get my attention,” he murmurs, a sly grin on his face.

“I did not mean-”

“I jest, my lady,” he says, grinning, “though I had hoped to find you. It was getting rather boring with Lady Cassandra.”

You laugh as Aegon leads you to the door of his chambers. He opens the door and you walk inside with him. The room is spacious, and full of light. Aegon closes the door behind you.

“I shall wait outside,” you tell him, as he is already unbuttoning his shirt.

“Nonsense, I’ll be quick,” he says, looking up from where his fingers work. Aegon takes in your expression, your wide eyes at the sight of his bare chest. He makes a face at you.

“Relax,” he says, laughing slightly, “I’m not whipping my cock out.”

You gasp like a fish on dry land.

“I-I’didn’t say-” you begin, turning beet red. He grins wolfishly.

“You didn’t have to,” he says, fully shirtless. He tosses the soiled shirt onto a chair. You can’t help but admire the muscles of his back as he turns towards the wardrobe to pick another shirt. You clasp your fingers in front of you nervously, before moving to hold them behind your back.

You have never been alone with a man before, let alone a prince. Let alone Prince Aegon. You shift from one foot to the other. Aegon picks out a shirt, putting his arms through the sleeves. He glances over at you and smiles at your nervous expression.

“My lady?” he asks, beginning to approach you.

“Mhmm?” you say, not trusting your voice. Aegon tilts his head as he comes to stand in front of you. His eyes flicker down, then back to yours.

“Might I ask your assistance?” he asks, motioning to his unbuttoned shirt. Your lips part, drawing his attention to them.

“Of course my prince,” you tell him, reaching forward. You will your hands not to shake as you begin to button his shirt, fingers brushing against the skin of his chest and stomach.

“Did you enjoy the gardens?” he asks, studying your face as you continue your task.

“Very much, my prince,” you tell him, trying to focus on the buttons instead of his closeness. Instead of the feeling of his breath on your face. His skin under your touch.

“I see you are acquainted with my brother,” Aegon says, causing you to miss a buttonhole, nail scraping against his chest. You feel your cheeks flood with color as you quickly loop the button in the whole.

“Yes, Prince Aemond was very kind to me last night,” you told him, glancing briefly in his violet eyes that watched you suspiciously.

“Kind?” Aegon asked, tilting his head back as you got to the collar of his shirt. You nod.

Aegon reaches up as you secure the last button, fingers wrapping around your wrists. He holds you in place as your eyes widen. Aegon’s mouth turns into a lazy smile that sends warmth pooling in your belly.

“Thank you, my lady,” he murmurs, “it is much appreciated.”

“Of course,” you whisper.

Aegon releases your wrists, wetting his lips.

“There is a feast tonight,” he tells you, eyes flickering about your face.

“Yes, my prince,” you tell him.

“I require your presence there,” he commands, “I shall escort you later on, since you evaded me the previous night.”

Your lips part and Aegon reaches up toward your face, grasping your chin between his fingers.

“You’re very beautiful, Lady Y/N,” he murmurs, eyes dropping to your lips, then back to your eyes.

“You flatter me, my prince,” you somehow manage to get the words out, squeaking the final word. Aegon smiles at that, teeth biting into his lower lip. Fire coils in your lower stomach, your eyes cannot seem to stay on his. Eyelashes fluttering they keep dropping to his lips, so soft and inviting. You wish to bite it as he does, to sink your teeth into the pink flesh.

“It is in my nature,” he tells you, giving your chin a squeeze before setting your free. You suck air into your lungs, not realizing you had been holding your breath.

“Come, my lady,” Aegon says, leading you towards the door, “I shall have my guard escort you back to your chambers, to prepare for the festivities.”

“Yes my prince,” you tell him, reaching to open the door. Aegon places a hand on it before you can open it. You turn back to him.

“Fuck,” he growls, before placing his hands on your cheeks and pressing his lips to yours. His lips are soft and warm, just as you imagined they would be. Fire courses through you as he deepens the kiss before he pulls away, gaging your reaction.

“What are you thinking?” he asks, not moving his hands.

I am hoping you’ll kiss me again.

The words do not come.

“My lady?” he questions, concern evident on his face.

“I was-” you begin, head feeling airy and empty, “I enjoyed it.”

Aegon smiles, before pressing his lips to yours once more, a softer, sweeter kiss this time.

“Now you may leave,” he tells you when he pulls away, leaving you dazed, “I shall see you tonight, my lady.”

He opens the door for you, relishing in your dreamlike expression. You stand outside his chambers for several moments, his guard waiting for you to begin walking.

You walk towards your chambers in a haze, before deciding to stop and get some air at a veranda you pass. As you lean across the balcony letting the air of early evening cool your burning skin, a dragonfly lands next to you. Your heart cinches in your chest, confusion flooding your mind.

Aemond. Aegon. Aemond. Aegon.

taglist: @afro-hispwriter, @aemondsb1tch, @twobluejeans, @s0urmarvel, @fan-goddess, @the-phantom-of-arda, @cicaspair418, @loxbbg, @arraxthatsonjah, @missbeeentertainment, @maximizedrhythms, @xdeath-soulx , @wrendermeuseless, @hiatuswhore, @sho1407, @minttea07, @arkainea, @elissanatok, @alitaar, @bellaisasleep, @itsleniiilosers, @cassiopeia-black-brenda, @bogwaterswamp, @applepie02, @youngestxhearts, @aurabluestar, @watersquirtpewpewboomm, @w3ird11

2K notes · View notes

mitchellpete · 11 months

Text

Kinktober Day 9 - Praise

pairing: pete “maverick” mitchell x f!reader

cw: post top gun: maverick, student x teacher relationship, power imbalance, age gap, rank use, praise, oral sex (f receiving), penetration, unprotected sex

word count: 1440

kinktober masterlist here.

18+ ONLY | MINORS DNI

The good thing is that the mission was a success, and that it’s finally over.

The bad thing? You’re burnt out on all levels, muscles achy from the strenuous flight, the dogfighting, the getting out of there alive—quite frankly, the very uncomfortable cots on the carrier, too—and you feel like you could sleep for a month.

That is immediately forgotten the second you hear the knock on your door. It’s late; you just showered, slipped into PJs and prepared to climb into bed for the first comfortable and stress free sleep in a long, long month, but that is obviously not going to happen anymore. Not when you know exactly who it is on the opposite side of the door. Despite how socially drained you are (thanks to the awful overstimulation you always get on the overcrowded carriers), he’s the one person you want and need right now.

When you open the door, Maverick looks just as tired as you are, but he’s got a soft smile on his face. You beam at his presence, allow him in and practically shove him against the door for a long awaited kiss.

Everything that had led up to the mission, Maverick grieving his best friend and really just the stress of it all had kept you apart for almost two weeks. Intimately, at least. You hadn’t been alone with him in what feels like forever, and it shows in the way you kiss him, needy and starved for him. Maverick gracefully kisses you back, grinning into the kiss and wrapping his arms around your frame. Your arms envelop the back of his shoulders, a hand cupping the back of his neck to pull him flush against you.

“God, I missed you so much,” you sigh happily, your lips brushing against his. “How’d you know I was dying to see you tonight?”

He pulls back, leans his head back against the door and looks at you longingly. Takes a real good look at you, for the first time since before the mission. “You don’t know how much I’ve missed you.”

You raise a brow. “I don’t. You should show me.”

Maverick smiles deviously, poking your side. “I don’t know,” he sings. “I wouldn’t wanna take advantage of you, Lieutenant.”

You groan at his teasing, but it does give you an idea. “Oh, c’mon, Captain. After that mission, I think we both deserve it.”

He smiles wider, beat. “Hm.”

Pulling him in for another kiss, your hands snake under his shirt, sliding up his abs, up to his warm chest. He shudders underneath your touch, complying. He gently begins pushing you backwards towards your bedroom, and you whimper quietly against his mouth at the sudden anticipation.

Maverick sets you down on the bed, and you eagerly lay back against the mattress. He climbs on top of you, mouth still hot and eager against yours. You’re suddenly impatient, so you reach down in between your bodies to yank your pajama pants down. He pulls back to help you remove them, as well as your top, and then begins working his own clothes.

Watching him strip, you decide to continue playing with him. “I haven’t even mentioned how good of a job you did getting us out of there, Captain.”

He gets his Levi’s and his briefs down at the same time, cocking his head at your obvious bait. “Oh, don’t do that,” he warns playfully, shaking his head. He tosses his clothing aside to climb on top of you again, skin meeting skin. You smirk as you embrace him, knowing very well what he means. Don’t call me Captain, he means. Don’t praise me like that.

It should be the other way around. Instructor praising student.

Too bad you know him. You know very well that reversing the roles is gonna drive him crazy, and you fully intend on capitalizing.

“I mean it,” you continue, moaning quietly as his mouth begins leaving wet trails in between your breasts, down your sternum. “You were great.”

At your words, he makes a satisfied noise, his head traveling lower and lower down your body, mouth still trailing all the way down. It’s hard not to whimper the lower he gets, his fingers delicately caressing your hip bone. Your body grows excited for him, needy, actually, wanting to feel every bit of him against you.

Maverick has other plans, however. You gasp when he spreads your legs open and immediately ducks his head, eagerness overtaking him. His mouth slots against your cunt, tongue hot and wet. He licks into you, sucks at you harshly, and repeats the pattern, eyes looking up at you for approval.

“Fuck!” you cry out, momentarily throwing your head back, your back arching. Still, you return your gaze to his. “That feels so—feels so good, Captain Mitchell.”

He very audibly moans against your core at that and it sends a vibration up your entire body, your hips jerking in pleasure.

He continues lapping at you hungrily, showing you how much he missed you, indeed.

“N–need you so bad all the time,” you stammer, squirming profusely. Just talking to talk.

His grip around your thighs tightens just a bit, his eyes unmoving and stuck on your beautiful expressions of pleasure.

When he starts to delve his tongue inside you, you try not to scream.

“God, Cap—Captain, please—” Your hands absentmindedly travel down to grab his hair. “Fuck me. Now, now, please.”

One more long swipe of his tongue over your clit and he’s pulling back, climbing over you again to meet you for a kiss. You taste yourself on his tongue, mouths slick and noisy against each other as he works his cock through his fist down below, blindly lining himself up against you. It takes a second for him to find you, but when he does, your vision blurs in ecstasy.

Burying his face in between your neck and shoulder, Maverick gasps at how tight you feel; perhaps he’d forgotten after going a while without this. That, or you’ve got him spellbound, gripped by your words and praises. He almost aches for the rush, and begins thrusting into you immediately. It’s easy enough, considering how wet his mouth has left you. His moans spill louder than usual, mixed with the hot and filthy noises from below.

“That’s it,” you whine, breath catching in your throat. “Just like that, Captain.”

He snarls, his nose rubbing up and down the length of your neck with each sharp thrust.

He knows very well what it is you’re doing, but he has no intention of stopping you now.

“So so good—fuck!” you continue, fingernails slightly digging into his shoulders as his pace roughens. “You take such good care of me.”

Something like a whine comes out of him, enthralled entirely by your choice of words. He’s gonna have to work hard not to cum soon, to hold it together for you.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he groans in response, squeezing his eyes shut and gritting his teeth.

Maverick’s pace remains relentless, and frankly, you’ve put him here. Grounding his hips into you over and over, he exhales sharply as you clench around him. You still hold on as tight as you can, wanting to push him to his limit before cumming yourself. It’s your self-proclaimed mission tonight.

“Mav,” you whine out, eventually too dazed to remember you were supposed to call him Captain. “Mav.. you feel so—nghh, you feel so good inside me.”

He bites down hard on his lip, a hand balling the sheets into a fist. He’s trying to hold it, trying to get you there first, but there’s absolutely no way he’s going to make it. Not if you keep talking like that.

Just a little more..

A thought pops into your head. Somehow, through the white hot blur overtaking every bit of your senses.

“Best pilot I’ve ever flown with,” you manage, voice shaky.

Maverick cums, hard and suddenly, a loud groan next to your ear. You’re eager to let it go, doing so right with him. Your heels dig into his lower back, legs jittering as it washes over you. You wail out, feeling the tension escape both of your bodies. You pull him down to slot your mouths together again, murmuring incoherently against his tongue.

He’s almost trembling when he pulls out and pulls back from the kiss. Still hovering above you, green eyes stare you down as he pants, trying to catch his breath. “You mean that?” he huffs. “Or was that just for the moment?”

Mixed with the remnants of your orgasm, you burst into a fit of giggles. “No, I meant everything.”

#kinktober 2023 #top gun: maverick #top gun #top gun 1986 #pete mitchell x reader #maverick x reader #pete maverick mitchell x reader #top gun maverick fanfic #maverick x you #mav #top gun maverick fic #top gun headcanons #tom cruise x reader #*

304 notes · View notes

pedrito-friskito · 1 year

Note

cassian andor + smut prompt #10

i am a whore <3

nonnie if you're a whore I'm a whore 🤍

you called - cassian andor x fem!reader

word count: 3.1k (this one got away from me can you tell?)

warnings: unprotected p-in-v, brief oral (f receiving), jealous/possessive!cassian

“Two shots of Corellian whiskey, please,” you ask, stepping up to the bar beside Cassian. The sound of your voice almost makes him jump, but he hides the movement smoothly, adjusting in his seat. From the corner of his eye, he watches you lean back against the bar, propping your elbows on it. You wait for a few other patrons to pass before you drop your voice low. “You’re late.”

“I am not late,” he grumbles, polishing off the rest of his own drink. “I’ve been here waiting for you for hours now.”

You scoff a laugh, shaking your head. “After all this time and you still think you can lie to me, Cassian? You don’t think I had a lock on your ship the moment it entered the atmosphere?”

He balks, tries to hide it and fails. You’re good. Too good. He doesn’t say a word, shakes his head as the bartender returns with two shot glasses, placing them on the bar between you and him.

“That Fondor looks like it’s more mod than original,” you comment, reaching for one of the shots. “Where’d you steal it?”

“I didn’t steal it,” he shoots back, watching your brow raise. “It’s on loan, from a friend.”

“You don’t have friends, Cassian,” you quip, tossing back your shot. You slide the second one over to him. “Just people you owe money to.”

“I don’t owe you any money,” he mutters, unable to stop himself from giving you a cheeky grin. “What does that make us? Friends?”

“You know exactly what we are,” you return, giving him a sideways glance before setting your glass back down. “The mark just walked in. Keep an eye out, will you?”

“I always do,” he replies, and then you’re gone.

This is an old habit for Cassian. He’s known you a long time; you grew up on Ferrix same as him, but you managed to get off-world far before he could bring himself to. By the time he first met up with you on Coruscant, you had already started to make a name for yourself in the Capital’s underworld, and Cassian was in awe. He longed to get the hell off of Ferrix, to go somewhere warm and easy and carefree. He knew Coruscant wasn’t that place, but judging by the amount of credits you were raking in, it was a step in the right direction.

You sent for him often, over the years. He was the only one you trusted to watch your back, to keep a careful eye while you gathered intel, traded information with some of the shadier types in the galaxy. Most jobs went off without a hitch, but there were more than a handful of times where Cassian had started bar brawls to get you the hell out of dodge. He hadn’t had to kill anyone yet, but after everything that’s happened to him, he wouldn’t be surprised.

This is the first time he’s seen you, since everything happened on Ferrix. Maarva, Bix, B2. Luthen and his newborn rebellion. Cassian doesn’t totally know where he stands, what he’s doing, what his next move might be. But when he picked up your signal, Luthen loaned him the ship with little protest, and he was jumping through hyperspace an hour later.

You call, and he comes. It’s how it’s always been.

There had always been something between you, Cassian knew that much. His reputation might not have been the most pristine, but you never seemed to mind, having a bit of a rep yourself.

But tonight…He could hear the unspoken in your voice, the strain of the events of the last time you met up. The job hadn’t been the issue - it had gone perfectly, in fact - but after, you asked him to walk you back to the apartment you had on the other side of the district.

He’d done as you asked, going so far as to bring you right to your front door. You’d asked him if he wanted to come inside, and before he could get the word yes past his teeth, you’d grabbed him by the front of his collar, and kissed him.

Clothes scattered on the floor, you’d stumbled your way to your bedroom. It was…blissful, in a word. It was everything he felt like he was missing, and that unspoken thing rumbled through you both, but there in your bed, he didn’t think it needed to be spoken aloud. It just…was.

Morning had come too quickly, and when he woke, you were gone. No note, nothing, just his clothes folded and stacked on the table beside the bed. He’d dressed quickly, and got on the next ship to Ferrix.

He wants to ask. He wants to know why you didn’t stay, why you didn’t leave him any sign that you wanted him to stay. But after everything that’s happened, it feels inconsequential, almost.

Cassian drinks down the shot, setting the glass down on the bar with a little too much force. You’re easy to spot, weaving your way through the bar to a man lurking in the dark corner. Brow furrowing, his hand brushes over his coat, where his blaster sits, tucked against his hip. He’s gotten quick on the draw, since he last saw you.

The man spots you as you draw closer, and Cassian bristles at the recognition on his face. He’s glad to see you, and it only becomes more and more evident as the two of you move closer and closer together, heads bowed as you speak, the man’s hand moving to rest on your hip. Then it moves up your back, pressing into the dip of your spine, and Cassian grits his teeth.

Something like jealousy flares in his gut. No, not something like it, but the thing itself.

He wants to touch you like that again, like he had that night. Seeing someone else with their hands on you…his fingers twitch over the blaster again.

No, something else warns him, a clearer voice in his head. That won’t go well, and you know it.

So instead, he watches. He leans back as casually as he can, one elbow leaned on the bar, tapping his other hand against his thigh. The conversation doesn’t last much longer, and before he knows it, you’re returning to his side, a contented grin on your face.You toss your hair over your shoulder as you wave down the bartender again. “Another round.”

“Got everything you needed?”

“And then some,” you reply, looking at him over your shoulder. “Thank you for coming, Cassian.”

He just nods. “That’s what friends are for, right?”

“We’re not friends,” you say, shaking your head as the bartender brings you another two shots. You toss them both back quickly. “I thought we made that clear the last time you were here.”

“The last time?” he repeats, lifting a brow. “You mean when you dragged me to bed and disappeared the next morning? That last time?”

He doesn’t mean for it to come out with such venom, but it does. Jealousy has taken hold of him and refuses to let go. His blood boils with it.

You narrow your eyes at him, your tongue poking between your lips to wet them. He watches the movement and ignores the way it makes his trousers tighten. He’s mad at you, he’s so glad to see you, he’s infuriated at you for leaving him alone last time, he’s so in love with you he might burst into flames.

“You’re jealous,” you determine, and though everything in him screams YES!, he rolls his eyes, turning half away from you. But you don’t let him go far, grabbing his shoulder and spinning his stool back in your direction. “Tell me I’m wrong, Cassian.”

Your hand moves from his shoulder to his thigh, and Cassian’s jaw goes tight. “We are not friends.”

“No,” you agree. “We’re more than that.”

“And your way of telling me that was disappearing the next morning, waiting three months, and then calling me to be your sidekick again?”

Your face falls, and you step back, removing your hand from his leg. “Come with me.”

Without another word, you turn on your heel and stalk out of the bar. Cassian only finds it in him to move when you reach the doorway, and then he’s all but chasing you, walking the almost familiar path to your apartment. You take the stairs, seeming to float up them as Cassian almost struggles to keep up. He loses you for a moment, but when he reaches your door, it’s open, only closing when he steps inside.

He calls your name, hears your quiet in here come from the direction of your bedroom. The place looks the same as he remembers and as he rounds the corner of the hallway, stepping into your room, he finds you perched at the edge of your bed.

“I left in the morning to get us breakfast,” you admit, looking up at Cassian, your eyes shining in the dark. “I’m not here a lot, and there wasn’t any food, so I went to get us something. When I came back, you were gone, and I realized I’d made a mistake.”

He says your name again, softer, and you shake your head.

“And then I started hearing the rumours, about Ferrix, about you. I heard about Aldhani, about Narkina-5, all of it. I even called Brasso, and that was when he told me about Maarva. I’ve been trying to call you ever since then, but nothing was going through. Then I met Vel, and she gave me the right frequency to contact you.”

Cassian sighs, leaning against the doorway. He never even questioned how you’d gotten his contact info after he was off Ferrix…he just…

You called, he came.

“You met Vel,” he says, unsure of what else to say.

You nod. “Hell of a woman.”

Cassian nods. “So you know, then. About the Rebellion.”

“I do. Figured I should put my talents to good use. Better than ripping off ex-senators and making credits I don’t need. And, if it keeps me closer to you, then it’s a win on all sides, as far as I can tell.”

His stomach drops into his toes. “You’re joining?”

You nod again. “Aren’t you?”

“Yes. I tried to resist it, I really did. But now…everything else seems…”

“Meaningless?” you supply. You pull your eyes from his. “For what it’s worth, Cassian, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t call you sooner. I’m sorry about Maarva, Ferrix, all of it. ”

“You didn’t cause it,” he replies, propping his hands on his hips. “I did that all by myself.”

“Come here,” you say, your voice going soft and your eyes meeting his once more. “Please?”

Slowly, he closes the distance. He watches you reach for him, your hands moving to the belt that holds his blaster, undoing it quickly and letting it slip to the floor. He tries not to groan when your hands move under his loose shirt, fingers curling around his hips.

Silently, he shakes his coat off, letting it drop to the ground before he hooks two fingers in the back of his shirt, pulling it forward off his torso. It joins the pile on the floor and then he hisses, your teeth sinking into the skin over his hip bone. He lets one hand dive into your hair, holding you against him, feeling your tongue soothe the mark you’ve left behind.

“Promise me something,” he whispers, and you tilt your head back, pulling your mouth from his skin long enough to meet his eyes.

“Anything.”

“Promise you’ll still be here in the morning.”

“I promise.”

You kiss your way across his waist, fingers working the button on his trousers while you distract him with your mouth. He’s got both hands in your hair now, silk between his knuckles, and it almost pulls his focus completely, enough that you have to repeat the next words out of your mouth.

“You never answered me.”

“Huh?”

“Back at the bar, I said you were jealous. You never answered me.”

You pull his zipper down, snap the elastic of his boxers against his skin. Cassian hisses. “I thought it was obvious.”

“It was,” you agree, nipping at his hip again. “I just wanted to hear you say it.”

He tightens his grip on your hair and pulls, just hard enough that your head tilts back and he bends slightly, pulling his body away from yours, but putting his face close enough that he can feel your breath on his cheek.

“You have any idea how much I hated seeing someone else touch you? Someone else put their hands on you?”

You inhale sharply, sinking your teeth into your bottom lip, and Cassian prods it with his thumb, pulling it free, rubbing the pad of his thumb across the plush of your lip. “Show me.”

And he does.

He makes quick work of your clothes, shucking his trouses off once you’re naked on the bed. You don’t let him go far, surging up to kiss him when he steps back to undress completely. Your hands are in his hair, same as his are in yours, and Cassian groans when you tug, both of you finding similar pleasure in the movement.

The first night was different. You’d stumbled your way through the dark, finding your peaks quickly. You’d fallen asleep after, and Cassian had watched you for a while before drifting off. That unspoken thing lulled him to sleep.

But now, he turns the bedside light on. The room illuminates with a soft orange glow, and he leans over you, until you fall back against the pillows and blankets, laid out for him, reaching for him. He molds himself into your palms, covers your body with his own.

The first night, he hadn’t had the chance to taste you. Refusing to miss out a second time, he arranges you on the bed, pushing your knees apart to make room for his shoulders, tracing his mouth along the inside of your thigh, eyes darting between your glistening cunt and your face, the way your eyes roll back in your skull when he buries his head between your legs and sucks your clit between his teeth.

He wants to feel you cum on his face, to feel your thighs tremble around his ears, but you have other ideas. You haul him up with a gasp, fitting your mouth to his and licking your taste out of his mouth. “I wanted to-” he starts, but you cut him off, reaching between your bodies and squeezing your fingers around his cock.

“Plenty of time for that later,” you murmur, lips at his jaw, words spoken into his skin. “Right now I need you inside me, Cass.”

He groans as you stroke him, curling your wrist just right, but then he pulls your hand away, pinning your wrists either side of your head. Using his knees, he spreads your legs wide and drops his hips, the tip of his cock dragging through your wetness.

“Please,” you beg, your own hips lifting, chasing him, trying to notch his cock at your entrance. He teases you a moment longer, waits for the angle to be just right, and then he pushes into you. Your fingers flex against the bedsheets, mouth dropping open with a moan as his hips press into yours. Your legs twitch, one calf wrapping around his thigh. “Cassian, fuck, oh my-”

He covers your mouth with his, swallowing down your words and moans. You tighten around him, impossibly so, and he starts to move, finding his rhythm, filling you to the hilt with each thrust only to pull out almost all the way and do it all over again. Over and over and over, and you’re babbling into his mouth, straining against his hold. He leans up just that much more, pulling his lips from yours, both of you staring down at the spot where you’re joined, where he’s disappearing into you with every move.

“I’m the only one who gets to touch you like this, yes?” he grunts, hearing you gasp as he gives you one particularly hard thrust. He feels your head wobble with a nod, but he wants to hear it. “Say it.”

“Only you, Cass,” you breathe out, throwing your head back as you go even tighter around him. “Oh gods, fuck, only you.”

Pleasure coils like a serpent at the base of his spine, and he drops, trying not to smother you with his weight, pressing his face into the arch of your throat. You moan loudly as he releases your hands, curling his own around your shoulders while yours find purchase in his hair again. The bed shakes with your movement, both legs lifting to wrap around his waist now, your ankles hooked together at the small of his back. “Please, please, please, please, please,” you beg and Cassian bites at your pulse, groaning into your skin as his release threatens to overtake him.

“Cum for me,” he says, and you obey.

Your back arches and you make the sweetest sounds. He wants to bottle them, keep them for himself. He rides out your orgasm, keeping his own pleasure at bay until you’ve caught your breath, sighing at the press of him inside you, pulling him close. “Now you,” you whisper, nipping at his ear, lifting your hips so he gets that much deeper inside you, the warmth enough to swallow him whole. “Let me feel you.”

You call, and he comes.

He growls into your throat, fingers digging deep into your shoulders. You press kisses along his cheek, the space below his ear, his temple. Murmurs of how good it feels, how you missed him, how you’ll never let him go again, it’s the backdrop to the pleasure roaring through his body. It makes every muscle in him tense up before he relaxes completely, sinking into your embrace.

His eyes drop shut as he softens inside you, completely spent. Your fingers comb through his hair, soft kisses still scattered across whatever skin you can reach. After a few minutes, he finds the strength to roll off of you, falling onto the bed at your side.

You kiss his mouth before you get up, disappearing into the fresher for a moment, coming back with a glass of water for you both to share. Cassian gulps down the liquid as you slide back into bed with him, pulling the blankets over you both. You go to turn out the light, but he stops you.

“I’m not done with you yet.”

#my fics #sleepover sundae #cassian andor #cassian andor fic #cassian andor smut #cassian andor angst #cassian andor x reader #cassian andor x you #you called

376 notes · View notes

sallytwo · 7 months

Text

MOUNTAINHEAD ANALYSIS ⛰️

Preface: I know this album was inspired by Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher, that the concept of digging a giant pit and living in a hole to build up a mountain that no one ever gets to see the top of is a very heavy-handed metaphor for late stage capitalism. Everything Everything has dealt a lot with the concepts of modern lonliness and isolation and disconnect before but holy shit do they hit the ball out of the park with this one. The way it slowly builds, the realization that the mountain is a lie, the growing bitterness and resentment but being resigned to not being do anything about it. It's absolutely phenomenal and a lot more direct than any of their previous concept albums.

"IT ALL MADE SENSE."

When End of the Contender dropped it was an instant favorite for me, with the theme of a whole generation of people who used to be well-respected and important who are now past their prime and don't know how they got here. Still feeling big and important when the world has left them behind.

This wasn't just EoTC though. The entire album dives into misplaced nostalgia, longing for the "good old days" and wanting that back. You see it all the time in real life, the idealization of the 50's and 80's and 90's, purposely misremembering all the terrible things that happened then. Because yes late-stage capitalism is awful but instead of tackling the route issue of that, we can just reminisce on "wasn't it great when you could buy a house?" "remember how good the music/fashion/TV was 20 years ago?" The issue isn't isn't capitalism, it's just the modern era.

Rather than do anything productive to change things, the album is stuck in a glorified past.

2. "MAYBE I'LL GO MISSING IN THE RAIN"

So it's been a scam all along, there's no glory on top of the mountain and building it has all been a waste. This one thing that you looked up to that to and placed your faith in has betrayed you.

You did everything right, you followed all the rules and now it's for nothing. You've wasted your life chasing something that wasn't real. The only thing at the top is a mirror, reflecting your own image back. The mountain is a lie.

What do you do now that you've realized this? Where is there to go?

I joked when Cold Reactor dropped that EE needed to stop making songs about disappearing into the wilderness, but that's what this album is about. There's nothing left for you in modern society, so what do you do? Sell all your belongings, disappear into the woods, disconnect from everything and maybe you'll be happy.

Here's the thing. This doesn't actually happen. It's an empty threat, since this society has left me behind now I get to leave it behind. But you never do! Which leads us to

3. "I STILL WANNA BE THE BEST"

Because even though there's no hope for the future, even though you're a has-been and your glory days are behind you, you still think you can get it back. You'll be famous again, and powerful, and everyone will know your name. It all links back to EoTC

As long as there's still a chance to make it, no one will ever leave. Falling into old habits, watching the pit grow bigger, because one day maybe you'll be the one at the top of the mountain. There's no change or action, just continuing the drudgery of life for the hope of something better. Too caught up in nostalgia for the past, still thinking that one day you'll be a contender again.

4. "PLEASE CAST LIGHT OVER ME"

But at the end that falls away. On "The Witness" the narrator is left watching the brutality around them, but too disconnected to do anything about it. It ends with a question- what if I had done something? What if I stopped, or went missing in the rain, or did anything to stop this all from happening? What if the pattern was different?

It doesn't matter because it never happened. It all continues, the pit grows, the mountain climbs, nothing happens. So caught up in the promise of the mountain, you never did anything. Even when you knew it was a lie, even after you realized that your life was meaningless, you continued along in this system to keep things moving. You're not going to be a contender again. You won't be famous and powerful, the wistful summers you fondly reminisce on aren't coming back. You're not going to go missing in the rain. The mountain continues to grow, and you continue to live in the pit.

#JUST MY PERSONAL INTERPRETATIONNNN IT ALL CLICKED FOR ME LAST NIGHT #litrerally i didnt' expect the theme of escaping to the woods to be SO important to this album LITERALLY MADE FOR SAM #and theres tons more to analyze this is just a piece of it. there are so many layers in this thing.#everything everything #mountainhead

55 notes · View notes

decolonize-the-everything · 6 months

Note

hi, kinda late to the convo, but I just wanted to add that using ai for a replacement for real interaction really just reveals a systemic issue to capitalism with alienation from others. In Japan there’s the hikikomori phenomenon of people not even going outside for years, and I’ve heard experiences like this are growing in the US and other capitalist countries around the world. At this point we’ve made introvertedness just not wanting to talk to people then glorifying that. (I really like Jregs video about atomization and recent one about irony poisoning) Like this is 100% a symptom of all the lack of community from colonialism, white supremacy, capitalism, car based infrastructure, etc.. I remember a few years ago I was rlly in a low point and used ai as a replacement, but I know that it’s because I had no community whatsoever to actually interact with, esp with covid and stuff. I hate using ai as a replacement, but I do think this is just another reason to get radicalized against colonialism and capitalism.

I agree with everything you're saying and those reasons are in fact why I find it to be an insult to life itself.

Like privilege and inequality is so rampant that we are no longer interacting with each other like human beings that live in a society with a community.

It reminds me of a rather dystopian book I was reading fairly recently actually.

It was about how family units & community had been outlawed.

Why?

During an awful war called the Great Reckoning people had more loyalty to their communities than to their states or their obligations. And so "for the safety" of themselves, their government, and their communities...attachments were outlawed. Yes, including families.

The book follows a main character who was born long enough ago to have remembered having a mother and connections. Nobody else really does. Nobody really has any attachments to any real person.

It's called You Feel It Below The Ribs if you or anyone else is interested. Honestly I found it triggering because of it's relatability to my dissociation that I didn't finish so I couldn't tell you how this was corrected or resolved or if it even was. Maybe you or another follower could tell me.

I find the premise to be extremely interesting and relevant still.

#asked #answered

28 notes · View notes

madarasgirl · 1 year

Text

A Night for Hunting Ch.7- Fear

T/W: 18+, Alucard (Ultimate) x F!Reader, memory loss, horror, violence, gore, angry feral vampire, comfort, eventual romance Words: 5066 On AO3

I'm back! This chapter taught me that I have a long way to go as an amateur hobby writer! Action scenes are hard. Hope you enjoy anyways!

You thought about him on your stroll home after dinner, that vampire that hid in shadows, that delighted you with an adorable colony of furry bats, yet who could also summon a writhing sea of vile centipedes. He terrorized you endlessly and was the cause of many sleepless nights. He was like a tempest that upended everything in his path, leaving destruction in his wake, though his majesty was breathtaking. He made you beyond angry.

But then he unexpectedly took care of you that time when you were drunk and alone. The way he looked at you when he wasn't being an infuriating ass hat…he also physically threatened you the last time you met.

He scared and confused you.

To your chagrin, your thoughts lingered on him, and the longer they did, the more conflicted you felt. Several weeks later, he still hadn’t visited. Part of you was glad he was finally gone for good. Another part of you had gotten somewhat used to the routine of entertaining this uninvited guest and his extended absence was beyond odd. Yet you would also be unsure about seeing him again after the way you parted last time.

You were right. All you needed to do was endure him until you earned your freedom. It was about time he got bored and moved onto his next victim.

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

A breathy moan rang out from around the corner and you got ready to dodge the careless person who was right there as you rounded the corner.

Holy shit.

They were a corpse, their skin was sloughing off, hollowed eyes glowed with a ghostly violet light. You cried out in shock and stumbled back at the last moment as the thing's arms reached out for you.

What is this new devilry?

Your head pounded, but now wasn't the time for a migraine. You jerked your shoulder back again to avoid its flailing grasp. Its fingers looked like shrivelled sausages where dried up leathery skin was pulled taut over knobby bone.

Multiple people have disappeared after dark in London over the past months –by the popular tourist attraction Tower Bridge, at an abandoned factory, and even in Soho. The sirens of emergency vehicles have been much more frequent lately. The news reports of recent mysterious occurrences you once dismissed as irrelevant freak incidences slowly gained salience.

Haaaa. Haaaaaaa.

Your skin crawled at the raspy breathing and you took off at a sprint. The slobbering zombie followed at a fixed pace and the stench of gangrene hit you. The walls blocking off suppressed memories were peeling back layer by layer to unveil the obscure truth within. That disgusting smell of rot…triggered the forgotten experience of being tailed by a homeless woman, who walked with an unnatural jerking stumble according to the tempo of a metronome. Her face was grey and she might as well have been dead. Your heart clenched with remembrance. What were these memories? They were yours?

You ran blindly in terror-stricken confusion with the wind in your face, taking numerous turns before finally fleeing down a flight of stairs lined with trees while slapping away the offending branches that were in the way.

You were hastily running through a park, the one where Alucard last chased you through, where the foliage became shapes of shadow that took on a demonic life of their own.

The soft murmur of flowing water whispered into the night. The lifeblood of London glided solemnly through its path, indifferent to the woes of the people who inhabited its banks. Oh no, you inadvertently came to the Thames River.

You gasped for breath. Historic buildings painted the river’s face in sparkling gold streaks, the image of the capital city at night reflecting radiantly on the calm surface. It was awe-inspiring. And completely at odds with how you were feeling at the moment. If you weren’t this rattled, you would have paused to marvel at the sight where the beauty of nature met the sophistication of man-made architecture.

The fetor of decay invaded your senses once more. Calm down. Tower Bridge wasn’t too distant, but this was in the heart of a tourist area. On a Friday night, it should be bustling. And there was no way you could be that unlucky.

The riverside wasn’t deserted, but it was hardly bustling either. Where were all the people?

Glancing behind to confirm that the thing earlier hadn't caught up yet, you turned to go home, only to walk directly into a solid chest. You yelped, having completely missed this person’s presence. For a moment you panicked. It was impossible for that fumbling zombie to arrive here so quickly! You looked up and breathed a sigh of relief. It was just a normal man.

“A-apologies. I wasn’t looking where I was going. E-excuse me,” you stuttered, your eyes were wide and you looked away.

The man raised a brow and smirked.

“There is no issue, Miss,” he told you with a sweet voice and gave you a quick once-over. “But if you’d like to express your sincerity, allow me to take you out for a drink tonight.”

“I…that’s not a good idea. I need to go, I apologize.” You were skittish and checked behind you again. There wasn’t anyone else except another couple by the riverbank watching the lights.

An iron fist gripped your wrist and you went cold at the glacial touch. “I insist, Miss. Please allow me to show you an excellent night.” His leer turned cocky, revealing a razor sharp grin. You stared in disbelief.

Attempts to pull your hand back were in vain. Unwanted fingers flitted across the palm of your hand and he sighed, “You are very warm. I was hoping you would share some of it with me…” Your skin crawled from his touch and goosebumps formed from the seeping chill. Everything about this was wrong.

…Vampire…the word tickled the back of your mind.

Your head went into overdrive to think of a way to escape your predicament. If you were right, the ‘man’ was much stronger and faster than you. He can see and smell better than you as well. What could you do when you were completely outclassed?

You started shaking. This experience was way too familiar. Not again! You stared at him in anguish, frozen to your spot when you came up with a blank.

“I-I’m sorry sir, I don’t drink!” You whispered weakly, hoping against all odds he would let you go.

His lips curled and he took a step closer well into your space. “...Unless you believe yourself too good for me?”

You inched away despite being unable to break free and thought about screaming for help before stopping yourself. Piece by piece, the puzzle was falling into place –the mind conjured up an image of red-rimmed shadows digging into a body’s crevices, snapping bones and ripping up its limbs in a dark alleyway.

If this man was the same, you doubted any human interventions would be of assistance to you. You were completely, utterly screwed.

“Is this man bothering you?” The two women who were holding hands by the river came closer with a frown, one of them with a hand on her phone looking like she was about to call for help.

No…don’t get involved…You thought helplessly.

“Tch. You two aren’t my type. What’s this?”

–A severed forearm holding a smartphone dangled from his other hand. The phone dropped from the lifeless hand, its screen shattering upon impact with the pavement.

“AHHHHHHH!!!!!” One of the two women howled in agony as blood erupted from the stub where her arm was moments ago.

“Hahaha. Shh…quiet down bitch, or else you might summon the ghouls.” He let go of you and faster than any of you saw, the next thing he ripped out of the unfortunate woman was her throat. You will never forget the scene. Even years later this night will come to haunt you.

With her remaining hand, the woman held the gaping hole in her neck where jagged wisps of flesh still held on like chicken skin. She was in shock, as were all of you. Surprisingly, she wasn’t instantly dead. For several seconds, she remained standing while blood shot out in pulsing squirts. All too soon, it was like someone turned on the faucet at full blast. Her forcibly severed carotids exsanguinated, multiple ropes of blood exploded out of her throat for only another couple seconds until she collapsed on the ground with a gut-wrenching gargle as her life essence continued to empty from her vessels in powerful jets.

The thick pool spread beneath her rapidly. It sprayed everywhere. It painted your face and filled your mouth with copper as you looked on in horror. It dumped into her open windpipe and she drowned at the same time as she hemorrhaged. The gargling was the same…as that time. You remembered now. Not long ago, you witnessed someone else drowning in their own blood beneath a monster of lore.

This monster revelled in the pandemonium and smacked his lips. “AB+ is my favourite blood type, did you know that? Much more flavour.” You weren’t sure if he was asking you.

Already drenched from head-to-toe, her girlfriend wailed with a hand pressed to her mouth. “AHHHHHH!!!!”

“Gah, shut up, will you? She’ll be back soon enough and you can join her.” The vampire bore a sadistic smile framed by wicked teeth. He thoroughly relished killing some helpless woman.

No…

He spun around to face the second woman who remained bolted in place staring at her now-dead lover twitching on the ground. He strutted towards her.

You had to leave. Closing your eyes in guilt briefly, you knew you had to go now. There was nothing you could do to save the other woman, if you could even help yourself. When your eyes opened a mere moment later, she was already dead. Her mangled body hit the ground with a thud. Too fast. You couldn’t keep up with the pace of everything that was happening. One foot inched backward, then your other foot followed the first.

“You still aren’t interested in sharing a drink with me, love? They weren’t my type, but you are. I’ll be nice to you, I promise.” His voice travelled and reached your ears. What a twisted joke.

With a breathless wheeze, you rushed from the nightmare in front of you. All you ever did was run, but you knew there was no way you were getting away this time. Tears of desperation fell down your cheeks.

Golden lights streaked by in the periphery of your vision in a blur. There was no comfort in the beauty of the Thames. London was your home, but for all its old-world elegance, it was as callous and uncaring of its inhabitants as the river this city depended upon. This city will offer you no aid. No, two people just died trying to help, but what can anyone do in this situation?

From beneath your consciousness it bubbled up –a flash of the floating sensation on a night you fell asleep to a familiar purr while warm golden orange orbs kept vigil as you faded away. Your eyes widened in recognition. It was too late now to do anything with the truth.

I'm scared…Alucard…

"Smells like a terrified bitch." He already caught up and took a deep whiff of the air. Red eyes regarded you with a sinister gleam while you sobbed. You stared at the monster with frantic, despairing eyes, wondering how exactly you will be meeting your end. “That’s an excellent expression!” The vampire snickered as he cracked a knuckle.

You twisted around him and kept going back the way you came from. He chuckled, wearing a demented expression baring two rows of spiked teeth. This was too much like old times. You never escaped Alucard until he decided to allow you to leave. There is no reason this will be any different, but you will try until your body gives out.

Two figures stumbled towards you up ahead. You wanted to warn them to run too, that they were in mortal danger, but the breath wasn’t available.

They were wearing the same clothing as the two women earlier. They were the two women earlier. One was missing an arm and her throat, the other’s head was split open, dripping brain matter on the ground. Her chest cavity gaped through dismantled ribs.

What in the world was going on?!

You heaved with over-exertion and managed to skid to a stop well before you ran into them. Zombies. You were literally looking at the walking dead. Somehow, the vampire did this?!

You were so stupid. Why did you come back this way? Even if the two ladies stayed down, there was still the one chasing you from before. Three zombies blocked the way up ahead while you were trapped down by the river with no way back up its bank without access to the stairs.

You whipped around at the guffawing murderer. There were now dozens of undead behind him. They hobbled around in an identical manner as the ones you met previously, with arms out, their corpses at various stages of decomposition. You were surrounded by a whole den of zombies.

As if you were just going to give yourself over to your fate.

You panted as your eyes darted about. The creatures closed the last gap in the circle around you. Tears turned your vision into a blurry mirage. There was nowhere left to go, but even if you were brutalized and died screaming, even if you didn't know how to fight, you were going to resist them, no matter how useless it was.

“Did you know that power is both a blessing and a curse? I can do stuff like this now,” he decapitated one of his undead companions and you flinched. “Yet the ladies never seem to favour me until they are my pets.”

He studied the blood trickling down his fingers, pressing his thumb and middle digit together before pulling them apart. He bursted out in laughter. “I’ll be very good to you when you become my pet, even if you’re an unappreciative whore.”

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

The surroundings exploded and you squealed in fright. It was suddenly bedlam. The menacing figure draped in crimson stood with his back to you. A massive firearm pointed out to his side and he snarled, the tails of his coat rippling as if they were immaterial tassels. You knew him immediately.

Alucard!

The clash evolved into a symphony of horror. It was almost like you were in a shooter game with him, except he never missed. One after the other, zombie heads became popping balloons, spilling more gore in a splatter of blood and brains. Each shot exploded and left a hollow in the stone wall behind the felled zombie. After the heads were gone, he shot the corpses more for good measure. Arms, legs, bodies, nothing was spared. But he never missed the mark.

You were deaf from the gunshots. As your ears rang, all you saw was the butchery of Alucard unleashed for the first time. He spun and his guns went pointing in every direction. He was a tempest, the eye in a storm of flying iron and carnage. It seemed like even those monsters couldn’t react in time. Bodies fell at his feet in pieces. The squelching sounded like when you blended your minced meats with spice and seasoning by hand. He cackled again with glee, a glint of madness in the glimpse you caught of his visage.

He resembled the time you were reunited after you moved to this part of London. His demeanor screamed of bloodlust. This was a massacre.

You flinched and covered your head when a shot found its mark closer to you and pieces of a crumbling wall scattered nearby. Forked shadow tendrils formed a barrier encircling you that pulsed with dense, arcane power. Nothing got past it. Not zombies, bullets, nor fragmented stone.

“A sorry excuse for a vampire. What will you do now that your ghouls are dead and your weapons empty?” That was Alucard? His voice was guttural and nearly unrecognizable.

“W-what are you? You m-monster!” The other vampire sounded miserable.

“That is correct,” You heard the smile in Alucard’s voice. “I’m a monster. Where are your familiars? Turn into bats or mist! Fight me like a real vampire!" He boomed.

…"Tch. Pathetic. You do not even know what you are."

Too bad Alucard’s shadow didn’t shield you from sound. Your ears weren’t working properly. The buzz was getting louder and it was difficult to hear anything else despite straining. That might as well have been a watermelon crunching. Your eyes fell shut.

-------------------- Alucard saw red. The scent of blood suddenly blossomed in the air earlier. It was miles away, but it was so pungent and strong, the odour travelled far. He rushed to investigate the occurrence, only to discover the unmistakable stench of ghouls and a lone vampire that was ubiquitous in this area once he was close enough. And then he caught the overwhelming scent of your fear. He hoped he’d make it.

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

He was on one knee in front of you with his head bowed when you braved peeking out again. Something was squashed under his hand, which took a moment to work out what it was. It was what was left of that vampire’s detached head, flattened into paste on the ground with splinters of skull coming through around a mush of brain. The rest of the body convulsed off to the side before he shot it without needing to look. Right in the heart.

You winced at the bang as bile came up and filled your mouth. You retched up the remains of a half-digested meal of ramen and broth. The festering flesh and your puke, as well as the thick metallic flavour, breached your nose. It stank like putrefying meat soaked in foul blood that should be crawling with maggots. You threw up again.

The dead vampire’s blood seeped through the cracks in the pavement and trickled towards you, causing you to crawl back against a tree and gaze around. Everywhere you looked, body parts were strewn about. Who even knew which leg belonged to which body. There were no longer identifiable heads, only viscous pools of liquefied matter that oozed from the source body stumps. Some of that stuff dribbled from the leaves of an ash tree.

A wretched whine you didn’t recognize as your own crept from your throat and you hurled yet again. Your hand landed in the puddle of vomit as you bent over for your stomach to turn itself inside out.

You lifted a tearful gaze. Through midnight bangs, a pair of blood-red eyes watched you with an unworldly blaze. You whimpered.

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

Aggression and the thirst for more violence thrummed through his undead veins, but there was unfortunately no one left to take it out on. The feeling of possessiveness left him berserk. How dare anyone else touch you. How dare anyone frighten you. How dare anyone threaten you.

Your distress saturated the air. He scented the other vampire on you and growled low.

He was this close to letting you get hurt. This close to losing you. The vampire king reached for you.

“!!!” You gasped in terror and pressed against the stone wall at the craze and blood thirst in his eyes, the breathy intake morphing into a fearful squeak at the sight of organic matter dripping from the hand that approached.

The tang of your fear tainted the air even more heavily, so thick it could probably be cut with a knife. Alucard recoiled as if you struck him.

"You are afraid of me?" He whispered, drawing back from the discovery.

He came back to himself and realized how he must appear to you. Like a bloody murderous monster dripping in the viscera of his foe. It took all his control, but he calmed himself. Irises swirled from raging crimson into a familiar orangey-gold.

Alucard was confused, he gleaned no pleasure from your terror. He strangely found he didn't want it anymore as he took in the sight of you cowering from him with your limbs drawn up tightly against your body. Even your small sandaled toes curled away from him.

He said your name softly. No response. “Little one?”

Your lips pressed together and you clenched your eyes, shrinking further from him.

Alucard had been away from London for several weeks on a mission for his master Integra, which culminated in an assignment out-of-country. He almost didn’t make it back in time to rescue you from the ghouls and vampire.

"I will not harm you little one. That has not changed."

You stayed huddled against the wall in the fetal position, your gaze distant as you stared blankly at the soaked ground. Alucard couldn’t pick out any coherent thoughts from your head right now, only the unadulterated fear that was absolute and all-encompassing.

You couldn’t move or object as he bent down to pick you from the ground, taking care to cradle you in a comfortable position. He took off for your home.

-------------------- Alucard arrived on your balcony. Both of you were soiled and covered in filth, yet the balcony was no place to remain. He quickly considered his options before opening the latch with a thought and floated to the bathroom. He sat in the wide shower stall with you nestled into his chest.

…He was to report on the incident tonight as soon as possible, however…he watched your stiff posture and lack of expression. Alucard flipped open his phone and placed a call to Hellsing before putting it away after giving a concise report.

“Nest of ghouls and a vampire by Tower Bridge. Targets eliminated.” He hung up before the unfortunate sap who would relay his message to Integra could say a word.

He took another look at you and sighed. He detected no spilled blood of your own on your clothes, which was encouraging. He however didn’t know how to mend your other scars, besides wiping your memory clean again. It probably wasn’t something he should do repeatedly, especially with how traumatic this experience was. But if it will spare you this hell…

Your gaze tentatively crept up to his. Your pupils were fully dilated, your eyes so wide the whites were showing around the irises. The stench of fear permeated the air all over again and you made a tiny, shrill whine. You started quivering, then all at once, you collapsed into his arms, choking on your cries with your fingers tangled in his suit.

You were completely beside yourself in shock. Air came to you in lurching breaths you couldn’t control. Alucard remained still while you came apart, unsure of how to comfort you without utilizing his supernatural abilities.

“Ahhhhh…” You moaned softly, piteously. And still you sobbed, sending wave upon wave of your confusion and panic to wash over the vampire king’s senses. His hand drifted up with hesitation. It hung in the air behind you.

Again you looked up at him frantically, desperately beseeching him for something. Your fists tightened in his lapels. The tears dripped non-stop, leaving clear tracks over your blood-stained face.

“Ahhhh…” Your voice was so small. You were small sitting there helplessly in his lap. Your face landed in his chest, smearing putrid filth over yourself, but you were uncaring of your state of cleanliness. Your hands shook as they gripped their anchor with need. You were safe now, you somehow knew this, but everything that happened was too much to bear. You couldn’t just get over what transpired tonight. You needed…

A cool, bare hand landed lightly around the back of your head, bringing you back to the reality that you were alive. Another arm draped over your shoulders gingerly.

Your loose limbs spasmed against a solid frame that surrounded you. It remained steady no matter how much you quaked. Its sturdiness became the only thing that was definitive, the only thing you were certain you could depend on to hold you up and not harm you.

You held on tightly to your lifeline.

-------------------- It felt wrong to touch you with his soiled hands even though both of you were stained from top to bottom. He figured it wouldn't make a difference, but he removed his bloodied gloves before making contact with you.

Then he sat with you for hours until your tears stopped. Eventually the sharp draws of air evened out as well and you were able to form words once more.

"Oh God, what did I see tonight?"

"It's no use praying to God, my Dear, He will not offer salvation. But I will do what I can for you," Alucard muttered, feeling subdued now that your cries finally died down.

“What were those things?” You whispered.

“...The things that chased you were ghouls, the undead spawn of the lone vampire who set his sights on you.” He was hesitant to tell you much more. You were a creature of the day, a daughter of sunlight, and wholly unsuited for the violent way of life at Hellsing.

After tonight, you felt you shouldn’t even be surprised anymore at finding out that not only vampires, but other damned creatures of fable also existed. The obvious question of whether Alucard can create ghouls as well didn’t cross your mind.

“Are they common? Ghouls and vampires?”

How much should he tell you? His lips flattened. After your admirable show of strength tonight, where despite the hopelessness of your hellish situation, you remained steadfast and never gave yourself up…he supposed you deserved some answers.

“You will not encounter them every night, but they are more common than you assume. Lately they have been more numerous than in past times, but they have been exterminated from your old neighbourhood.”

The night is dark and full of terror.

Understanding unravelled over the course of this night like the queen of the night’s bud in bloom. Your prior encounters with this vampire were not as random as they had seemed. Everything suddenly made sense.

“You said you were employed…what do you do?” The silence stretched out, but you had to hear it for yourself.

Molten pools of lava flashed. “I hunt vampires and ghouls.”

Everything now made sense, but the revelation that dawned tonight still shocked you, especially after what had passed. You studied his face curiously, your voice now hoarse… “All this time…you were protecting me from the shadows?”

“...” The liquid pools continued to twirl lazily as this vampire studied you quietly.

"Alucard, I-"

You were quaking again. You threw your arms around him and buried your face in his chest in relief. In spite of everything he did to you, by some miraculous stroke of luck tonight, you were alive, all thanks to Alucard. “Thank you,” you told him with heartfelt sincerity.

His eyes narrowed. The Nosferatu was not an altruistic being. Your gratitude was undeserved. You were right –he was selfish. You told him clearly that you wished for no further involvement with him, yet he didn't want to stay away.

He had dedicated abundant time to patrolling your former neighbourhood. Ghouls and lesser vampires were non-existent these days in your old area as a result of his efforts. After your move to the other side of London, Alucard had to make nightly hunting trips to pave the way for your safety.

He visited you on multiple occasions. One recent night, he had to dispose of a ghoul and vampire that stalked you. As he stood on your balcony to check on you after the fact, you tried fruitlessly to sleep, your fear so biting, he could taste it outside from the balcony.

Somehow it was wrong to him. He enjoyed your fear for the better part of the year, but for you to fear for your life when nasty ghouls and lesser vampires hunted you, it wasn’t the same as when he did it.

He growled, the unpleasant sense of having his territory encroached on pervaded. No one else was permitted to make you feel that way. He worried about what would have happened to you if he hadn’t arrived when he did tonight. It was why he dedicated so much time to following you home these last months.

Alucard shifted to move you from his lap, but you tightened your grip on his back. "No! Don't go!” Your words surprised you. “...Please don’t leave me alone tonight."

The vampire was tense. His first instinct was to remove himself, to self-extricate from this baffling experience. Instead, he tentatively wrapped an arm around your side while you eased back into his chest. He was confused from the mixture of your emotions roiling through his sinuses. You felt good in his arms, and he was somewhat pleased with you seeking comfort from him, but you remained frightened. After the battle, he was disoriented to find he still no longer relished your fear.

He put another hand behind your head to massage your scalp gently. This felt right. For the first time ever in memory, you trusted him. How strange it was to be needed by another person for something that didn’t involve putting a bullet in someone's head. Such an alien experience.

Time passed late into the night.

Eventually, you sat up in his lap with your body away from his as you stared at each other. The showerhead let loose a drop of water from its nozzle.

Drip.

Alucard backed you against the wall and bent down to claim your lips, to make sure for himself you were unharmed and safe with him. You must have been entranced too. Or possessed, whatever. But your initial instinct wasn’t to flee from this vampire.

Your vision landed on the specks of gore marring his attractive face. Sharp fangs peeked out from behind smooth lips. An image of that twisted monster who promised to do horrid things to you reappeared. He too had dagger-like canines like Alucard’s.

Before your lips met, your eyes widened and your breath hitched, and finally, you shied away from him. He let you go, brushing off the tinge of disappointment.

Much had happened tonight.

He may be a trigger-happy killer, but he can be a patient beast too.

~To be Continued~

Next Chapter: The Currency of the Soul

Notes: Yes this whole time in Alucard’s mind, his creepy stalking was just his way of protecting us from the other night critters he hunted during your rendezvous. He was just having some 'fun' with us while doing so.

He may still believe that what he's feeling is a mixture of obsession and possessiveness, but it's been more than that for awhile.

Now that some "misunderstandings" between us are cleared up and he's in better standing with us, the relationship with our favourite No Life King will escalate! I'm quite excited about the next few chapters!

The queen of the night is a cactus that blooms nocturnally for only one night. The flower is huge and very fragrant. It’s most commonly white and hence also called the “moonflower.” Because of its short flowering time, it is seen as a gentle reminder to cherish the important things in life because they may not last until tomorrow. In some cultures, getting to see this rare flower bloom is very lucky and considered a sacred experience. The queen of the night attracts pollinators such as bats and produces dragon fruit.

#alucard fanfiction #alucard x reader #alucard x you #alucard hellsing #yandere alucard #hellsing ultimate #hellsing alucard #alucard #hellsing fanfiction

87 notes · View notes

jayesprite · 4 months

Text

ok since i'm all done with college. here are "some" alpha kid college hcs

DIRK (Computer Science):

either did everything a month before during an insomnia episode when the syllabus got released or the night before it's due. he had a habit of pre-doing the coding projects and only when he learned the professor wanted them to be done a certain way he'd go back in and edit them (sometimes. sometimes he'd just turn it in stone-faced and still get good grades).

type of student to show up and turn in his work via canvas but then skip class regularly. the main thing that tanked his gpa was a lack of attendance because he'd go through several insomnia episodes and then pass out for three days straight.

has dropped class out of impulse before and because of that took multiple winter and summer classes.

well also his overall gpa was horrible freshman year because he hated gen ed classes. the only class he liked was an ethics class that counted towards a social studies credit. he did not shut up in that class because he'd go on tangents and just keep going.

otherwise he doesn't participate in classes. his classmates know him solely by his projects. when they make a class discord a classmate will post about a coding issue, dirk will ask for the raw code, come back half and hour later with corrections that ALWAYS worked, then never spoke again. repeat cycle. they're too scared to dm him.

sometimes hal would use dirk's nitro that d is paying for to super react to classmates' messages but that's about it

JAKE (Biology major who got on his knees and begged for a Film minor)

he doesn't have aesthetic notes but otherwise he is the picture perfect example of studytok. he spends a lot of his time studying/researching/etc, and almost never pulls an all-nighter because he loves his sleep so much. goes to bed at 11 wakes up at 7 on the dot.

has only had two late homeworks his entire college career and both times he thought he was going to pass out from anxiety emailing his professors explaining he had gotten sick and was unable to finish it on time.

generally very quiet in class but will speak when called on. he typically sends his discussion responses to jaye/jane first to look over to make sure they make sense. he hasn't told his professors this but he gets really good grades because of that and goes "aw shucks" whenever a classmate compliments them.

his participation grade is usually B-range because he won't go out of his way to talk because of anxiety. he tends to get in detailed discussions with classmates via email or discord, especially the film classes that he's taking. his film advisor is still confused why he didn't just pick it as a major because it's something he's incredibly passionate about.

lives at the school library because of his major, uses the school computers most of the time just for convenience sake. when asked he says it's because his laptop offers "too many distractions".

JAYE/JANE (English with a Creative Writing minor):

"Why English. She would be a business majo-" SHUT UP!!! I KNOW MORE THAN YOU. He knows that he has a job at Crocker Corp if he chooses to take it and his freshman year he was undeclared and was looking at the business classes for the major and thought he was going to die and all the other business majors he kept meeting hated him. After his breakdown his dad patted him on the back and told him that he could choose a major that made him happy, that he can always go back and get a business degree later on. So he picked english and accidentally fell down the creative writing pathway.

He writes a lot of detective noir and stories that explore the duality of the gilded age vs great depression and exploring capitalism as a way to cope with growing up as the heiress for this huge company. There are always lgbt+ characters.

Extremely active in discussions and is well-known by both his professors and his classmates for never shutting up but his contributions are interesting. Because of the media he grew up enjoying he pulls a lot of older references that his professors enjoy.

Does not do his homework in a timely manner. It always is done ON TIME, sure, but he pushes things to last minute or spends so much energy making sure everything is worked on properly that it's done early by accident.

forgets to check class discord servers but frequently in dms when he can get over his anxiety. he mostly has all of his friends read his drafts before he turns them in to class, and they all love his little OCs that he is constantly thinking about. he also has written essays for all of them that they've turned in as their own work. they never got caught.

ROXY (Initially also Computer Science, dropped out, took a gap year, now doing Architecture)

Went into Computer Science because she was undecided but went with what Dirk was doing. She joined a sorority her freshman year for the social aspect and it accidentally really fucked up her career pathway. Her teachers knew she was incredibly smart but she could not keep up the lifestyle she was living, and she failed out of her classes even with her friends' help.

Took a gap year and realized that she was not going to be able to do Computer Science based on Dirk's sophomore year work. her mom gave very similar advice to what jaye got, except it was more like "You don't need to take the obvious pathway, think about what you enjoy most and go with that." and she realized she really loves building and construction. That was her favorite part of building her robots. So after a gap year she started an architecture major.

Extremely hardworking in her major but struggles with deadlines. Her charisma helps her out a lot (plus accommodations) that lets her explain her way out of missing project check-ins. Her stuff is always done in time for critiques but she frequently misses in-progress ones because of how she works.

She's EXTREMELY popular in her major. She has a ton of friends and they frequently camp out in the architecture building working on projects together. She uses her college dollars to get snacks for everyone and shows up with them. She tends to stay in the building until 4am and Dirk comes to pick her up. He doesn't mind because he's happy she's working so hard.

She's on track to graduate the year after everyone else does!! (She doesn't know that one of her professors is ready to give her an entry-level job at his firm when she does)

#typing #yall i spent so much time on this sorry #dirk strider #jane crocker #roxy lalonde #jake english #jaye crocker

19 notes · View notes

cabezadeperro · 10 months

Note

Friend as you know I am in the codybly blender rn, may I please request them with 💘 or 💛 whichever you like best!

1 codyblynder for len.

i chose the second one because 1. yellow!, and 2. i do love a good reunion kiss

💛 reunion kiss / relief

---

The sky has yet to lose Bly’s interest. He sits on the tarmac, the base buzzing all around him and his back against one of the many crates waiting to be loaded on a ship and off-world. After so long in space stations and capital ships and conference rooms, Bly’s slowly but surely remembering how it feels to be out in the open. He leans his head back and follows the wispy white clouds with his eyes, the vibration of ships landing and taking off making his bones rattle.

He knows better than to think himself unguarded, but they leave him the hell alone, and he’s come to the conclusion that that’s what matters. The birthers don’t quite know what to make of him; his brothers pity and fear him in equal measure. Bly’s tired: tired of himself, tired of awkward silences, tired of vigilant eyes, and too tired to do anything about the whole thing, so lately he just tries his best to find himself a place to sit and look at the clouds that’s out at the way and think of nothing.

He’s thought more than once about leaving. It wouldn’t be easy, but it wouldn’t be too hard either: the rebels are a paranoid, suspicious bunch, but Bly was trained by the best of the best, and he’s been doing this for a very long time.

They would hunt him down. They would find him and they would probably kill him, and—and.

There’s a certain kind of bitter, awful pleasure in thinking about that. About being killed, about dying. He has outlived not just his purpose but everything else as well: he’s but a living fossil, slowly ossifying, worn down by time and weather. He doesn’t think he wants to die, not really, but he doesn’t quite know if he wants to keep on living. What’s left to live for?

If he lets himself, he can almost intellectualise the whole thing: what he’s feeling is some kind of compound, overcomplicated grief. He’s grieving nothing and everything at once: the world has ended, and he helped end it, the world keeps on keeping on.

In a way, he misses the simplicity and ease of mind that the chip gave him for the first few weeks, the first couple months: it didn’t last, but while it did, it didn’t let him think. Not about anything that mattered.

And then: Cody’s favourite captain, aiming the business end of his blaster at Bly, and then waking up in that shitty medbay, and then, and then. And then.

Bly exhales. His ass is falling asleep, so he stands up with a groan and shakes himself.

For a supposedly secret base, it sees quite a lot of traffic. Bly leans his elbows on a crate and watches with something that’s not quite interest a ship trying its best to navigate the narrow space between full landing pads. It’s an old GAR model, an ancient larty, the paint on the sides chipped and washed out, the bright colours of the nose painting cheerful and awful under the clear morning light.

The pilot knows what they’re doing, but it takes them some time, and Bly watches all the while, amused despite himself.

By the time they finally touch down, he’s sitting on top of the crates, cross-legged, his right elbow on his knee and his chin resting on the palm of his hand, and he’s not that surprised to find out that the shuttle was mostly carrying clones.

What he did not expect is for one of those clones to be Cody.

At first he’s just one of them: he’s wearing an awkward mix of civvie clothes and thermals, his dark hair overgrown, patchy stubble on his jaw, and he looks stiff and angry and out of place. He exits the larty and stop to the side, blinking half-blinded in the bright sunlight, and Bly doesn’t quite realise he’s on his feet until he’s half-way to the ship, his body moving without his input, his legs carrying him closer and closer until it’s too late and Cody has seen him too.

Cody’s on him in seconds. He launches himself at Bly, his arms going around Bly’s neck and his legs wrapping around his hips, and Bly holds them both up the best he can, stumbling on the cracked tarmac, the sun in his eyes and Cody warm and smelly and alive and heavy in his arms. Cody has hidden his face in Bly’s neck, he’s holding Bly so hard it hurts, and Bly would take it and take him forever and a day, if Cody let him.

“I thought—” Bly croaks. Cody peels his face off Bly’s neck. He’s flushed and scowling and his eyes are bright.

“Shut up,” he says, and kisses him, off-centre, their teeth clacking together. Bly snorts. He allows himself to be kissed quiet, and this doesn’t fix anything, this doesn’t fix him, but he kisses back anyway and holds on.

#codybly #commander cody #commander bly #maría writes #cloneshipping #ship snippets

24 notes · View notes

jungle321jungle · 4 months

Text

False Dawn: Two

For his entire life, Janus Ekans had done whatever he could to prove himself and rise in the ranks of his father’s court, but it was all worthless in the end. Now, the only path to survival is to rely on his father’s killer, Duke Logan Ackroyd, even if it means discarding his pride and blood ties. It might not be freedom, but at least it won't be his head rolling on the floor next.

~~~~

False Dawn:

Idiom: A situation that looks like it is beginning to improve when, in reality, it is not.

Read on Ao3 - All Chapters - Masterlists

The days of travel to the capital were long, to say the least. And things weren’t exactly improved by the fact that he hadn’t seen the Duke since he had demonstrated his magic. It made sense of course; the Duke had said he needed to speak with his emperor before anything else, but the passage of time had caused the seeds of doubt within Janus to grow like weeds. But it was too late to escape.

It was more than clear to see where the border between the two nations lay. Even if the large wall and gate weren’t here, it was quite easy to determine. Because moments ago they had been paraded through a border town past all the commoners who looked on in shock, awe, and worry. Moments ago Janus had heard their chitters and felt their gazes as he kept his head hanging low. Moments ago there was so much going on, and now there was nothing. On this side of the gates, the grasses appeared dull in color, or they had withered entirely. The trees were trying and failing to sprout their leaves, and silence rang loud. As they went on into the dying forest, he couldn’t even hear a sound other than the convoy itself. No birds singing, no wind blowing, no animals scurrying. The air itself felt heavier than air ever should, and the smell of death pierced his nostrils.

This was the curse his father had placed.

He had only ever known a few things about the curse. First, he knew that his father had gone to war against his mother’s homeland in order to get what he needed to cast it after they had refused involvement. Second, he knew that the blood of the former kingdom of Osteria had served as a catalyst for the curse. And third, that it had crippled The Angoro Empire. He had asked questions in the past, how it managed to take down an entire nation, he had asked how people had let his father do this, and he had asked why The Empire was believed to be a threat… and yet now, seeing its effects with his own eyes, he realized he had been asking the wrong questions all along. Now he knew that it crippled them by seemingly sucking the life from any and everything. People had let his father do such a thing because they were too cowardly to stand up to a tyrant- but that was a feeling he knew well. And his father’s greed had been the reason to do this, not because they were a threat but because it was what the tyrant king had chosen to do. He knew all of these answers, but he still never asked until now what he could do to help? Before, it had just been a fact of life that The Empire was cursed. But now that meant something different, and he knew the lump of guilt in his throat meant nothing to anyone here.

The feelings of guilt only increased the next day as they rode through the first village on this side of the border.

They rode through slowly, but Janus couldn’t tell if it was due to the Duke choosing to parade them through or if it was due to the village’s condition. The village seemed as if it had been bathed in gray. The homes were small, and many were in different forms of disrepair. Some spots were crumbling, other homes were caved in, and some looked like they had been repaired over and over and yet still it hadn’t worked. The villagers themselves looked starved, but given the dead and empty fields they had passed, Janus supposed it made sense, but it didn’t make it any easier to see. He never knew skin could sit that close to bone, or that a person could be so skinny, or how hollow a person’s face could look.

His siblings seemed to be thinking the same, as Janus’ youngest brother asked, “What happened to them?”

The boy was quickly hushed, but his question went unanswered as none of them wanted to speak the truth in front of the victims. But given the silence around them- the silence in which a normal village would have shouts of joy, anger, chatter, laughter, or the sounds of various animals as opposed to this horrific silence- given the silence around them Janus could hear the words spoken in the wagon ahead of them.

“It’s horrible,” someone had said quietly. He wasn’t sure who, but he heard the Crown Prince respond.

“Idiot! It’s their own fault!” he spat, drawing Janus’ gaze. The Crown Prince’s clothes (much like the rest of them) were soiled and ripped, his hair was matted to his forehead and sticking up at odd angles, and despite his dirty appearance and his hands bound, he still seemed as proud as the crown askew on his head. He sat up straighter, seemingly knowing he had the attention of everyone within a mile, and looked out at the villagers with a sneer. “They were going to use their magic to destroy us. Don’t waste your pity on those who get what they deserve.”

The silence was suffocating. Janus waited a moment, and then another, and another. Waiting for someone- likely one of the knights to remove his brother’s head, but the swing of a sword never came.

The former Queen gave a slight yet still visible sigh of relief before she spoke, “You can’t say-”

A sword swing never came- but the rock did.

Janus only noticed it the moment before it knocked the crown off the smug man’s head. It fell to the wagon floor with a clatter, and as the blood began to fall down the crownless Crown Prince’s face, so did more rocks. All at once, they seemed to come through both sides of the bars, and yet all Janus could do was use his arms to cover his face. The silence was gone now. Now was the sound of rocks hitting skin and shouts of pain that were drowned out by the screams of anguish the villagers let out as they let the stones fly. He kept his head down and covered as he scanned his siblings in the wagon with him. The three younger ones had made their way into the middle, and the others were trying to block the stones with their bodies. Janus squeezed his eyes shut momentarily as a well-sized stone struck the center of his back, but ultimately, he scooted forward to circle them as well. And as the pelting continued and blood began to trickle from his head, his arm, and his back- he ultimately chose to undo the progress he had made as he began to undo the bonds from the three youngest children. He wouldn’t fully free them. He couldn’t go that far… but at least he could give them a chance to protect themselves. Janus’ gaze drifted behind him to the shouting and jeers, and he couldn’t help but notice a child who appeared to be on his last leg- and yet, with the little strength he had, he threw pebbles at the wagons.

Janus closed his eyes as he looked forward once more as guilt and other emotions he had repressed seemed to bubble to the surface. He could almost laugh at himself- what had happened to his perfect mask? What had happened to his unaffected gaze? What had happened to his false confidence? He had been full of it back in the ballroom when the Duke was a hair's width away from taking his life- but here and now… Janus squeezed his eyes tightly as another stone slammed painfully into his hand, and yet he refused to let a tear shed. He had no right to do so, not here… not in this Empire. Not after all his family had done. And not after what he- what he personally had done.

~~~~

His family kept their mouths shut throughout the next stops on their journey. The locals they passed either watched in silence or cursed in loud whispers, but no more rocks were thrown- but he didn’t doubt that some had considered it. Throughout all of it, the soldiers had paid them nor their wounds no mind, the closest thing to concern being allowing them the choice to dunk their bloodied and dirtied bodies into a river they crossed, which was a color far from blue. Upon looking at the gray and thick water, Janus instead had negotiated to use a bit of the drinking water he was allotted to wipe some of the blood from his face, to which a soldier had simply told him not to complain about it later. But thankfully, none had beat him or even shouted at him for freeing his younger siblings from their bonds, likely assuming that they were no threat. But then again Janus refused to get complacent in his assumption that this wouldn't come back to haunt him later.

A thought that was perpetuated by the convoy’s sudden halt one afternoon and the Duke’s approach to the prison wagon. His eyes had scanned them all with disinterest before his eyes locked with Janus’ and he stepped back as his knights moved to unlock the bars. Janus was slow to climb out as his muscles ached, but the moment his feet were touching the ground the man was leading him away. Janus followed as closely as he could as the Duke led the way up the hill they had been riding beside until they were far from sight of everyone else.

“I’ve found another use for you,” the Duke stated simply as he came to a halt. “The scout I sent ahead didn’t return. Nor did the one I sent after her. I need someone who can follow their trail and get out quickly to tell me what’s ahead. Turn into a bird that should suffice… preferably one that’s small and fast.”

Janus would never admit how much he hated the fact that he wasn’t given an option, so rather than agreeing, he asked a question. “Why do you need scouts in your own empire?”

The look the Duke gave in response screamed he was wondering if Janus’ intelligence had plummeted to a depth below zero, but he answered nonetheless. “Monsters were part of our well-deserved curse.”

Janus couldn’t hide his grimace at the man’s sarcasm, “I can’t stay in non-human forms for too long.”

“Then be quick about it.”

“But I-”

“I wasn’t asking for your opinion, Prince Janus.”

“I understand that,” Janus tried slowly. “But Duke-” Janus tried to hide his anger and surprise at himself as it suddenly struck him that he didn’t know who he was speaking to. He knew well that there were three dukes of the empire and one archduke underneath the crown, but of the three, he had no clue which this man was. The man wore nothing to identify his house other than the navy and black color armor he shared with his soldiers, and while Janus had spent time learning the crests of the Empire, color had never been that important. Ultimately, Janus took a deep breath, attempting to make himself appear as if he was simply considering his phrasing as opposed to being the idiot he was. “What you’re asking of me is more than I think I can do. I won’t lie and say that I’m not concerned for my own life, but also, I think there needs to be more to this plan than simply, ‘turn into a bird and go check it out.’”

The Duke paused, considering before he seemed to give a nod, “I never said there wasn’t. I was going to explain further once you transformed. The road forward is a clearly marked one, but that doesn’t mean it’s without danger. I have some chalk in a pouch. I’ll tie it to your leg and periodically, you can stop and mark a tree for us to know it’s safe up to that point. Simply come back if your mana runs out, but if there are issues and you need to run, drop the pouch near the dangerous area, and we can use that as a marker as to where the battle will take place. Does this plan suffice?”

“Y-yes, it does.”

“Then transform and get moving. We’ll follow after some time.”

Janus nodded once and began to focus on the image he held of his mind of a crow and how it looked compared to his own body, and what he had read about the animals in the past. It was a form he didn’t particularly like, but clearly, it was one which was necessary. The Duke reached down with an unaffected gaze and bent down, and Janus watched as a small sack was tied to his leg. He gave a few experimental flaps as he lifted off the ground, happy to find it didn’t weigh too much.

If the Duke was pleased, he didn’t show it; rather, he simply gathered Janus’ grimy clothes and tucked them under his arm. “Then you should get going, Prince Janus.”

Janus gave a curt nod as he began to fly upwards out of the trees, but he nearly fell back to earth in surprise and embarrassment when the Duke spoke again.

“Ackroyd. I am Logan, the Duke of Ackroyd,” Janus glanced back to see the man’s arms were crossed and a slight smile played on his lips. “But you knew that, of course.”

Rather than reply, Janus let out a caw as he took to the skies.

The feeling of wind in his feathers was something he always enjoyed when he took such a form. Transforming into a bird and feeling the sensation of flight was something that never failed to entice and excite, but now was not the time for the luxury of having fun. From here above the trees, there wasn’t much he could see beyond the tops of barely living trees themselves and the dirt road they were meant to follow. So, without having much choice but to do as he was asked, he glided down towards the road and began to fly above the trees beside it. He flew a slight distance and around a bend where he knew the convoy would not be able to see, and he picked a tree visible from the road. But as he approached the tree, he silently wondered who exactly he was supposed to get the chalk on it. Yes it was tied around his ankle, but who was he supposed to leave a defined mark on it without reaching a finger into the bag? His wings didn’t have the kind of dexterity to do as he pleases while keeping aloft.

He paused for a moment before, ultimately he decided to try something. He picked a low-hanging branch that was clearly visible from the road, and after backing up a bit, he flew just barely over it so the bag of chalk would bump into it. The bag did so- thankfully without snagging- and upon flying backward a bit, there was a mark of chalk left on the branch. It wasn’t much, however, so he could only hope the knights had good eyes.

He moved quickly to get the job done, but also because his nerves were rising with each passing moment. He knew he didn’t have long in this form- but he wasn’t sure how long that was. His magic had been something he had honed to take the form of others to aid in lying for whatever he had needed (which, more often than not, was simply to sneak out of the castle from time to time). This was something he simply wasn’t used to, and yet he had no choice but to continue. Janus flew on, trying to focus on the sound of anything other than his quick beating heart and the sound of his wings. He marked tree after tree with ease, but his anxieties only grew- if the scouts had truly been attacked by monsters, he should’ve seen or heard something by now, right? Or was he simply being impatient? He landed on a branch briefly and forced himself to take a deep breath, and then another, and another. Panic would only make this worse. He needed to keep calm. To remain unaffected. That is what he had learned to do in the past, and it’s how he would remain in the future. He had already learned the hard way what had happened when he let his mask slip too far.

He took off.

Flying and marking trees, as time progressed, his mana began to trickle away. He wasn’t sure how long he had been at this when weariness began to creep into his mind. He flew along silently, noting how the bag felt lighter than when he had started and wondering how much further he could make it before he needed to turn back. Upon marking another tree, he sat atop the branch he had marked and gazed at the road ahead. It looked the same as when he started, with dying trees on either side, but it seemed that a small amount of other plants had increased. It was nothing in comparison to a normal forest, but here, with the occasional bush, flowers, or trees that dared to have one or two green leaves, it only looked “healthier,” where the road curved around a bend to go around a hill. The bend didn’t appear too far, but it was hard to gauge in a form so different from his own, but ultimately he chose the bend as his final marking. After that, he’d fly back, or if he couldn’t make it all the way, he’d perch on a tree until the Duke caught up. Janus gave his wings a stretch before he lifted himself in the air. He soared ahead, honestly just ready for this entire day to be done with. He was ready to just go back to the prison wagon and sleep for two days straight to recover his mana when he rounded the bend.

The first thing he noticed was the intense greenery. Yes, he had seen it improving, but now it felt as if he was in a real forest. The grass was tall and lush, the trees thicker and flourishing, and the wind that blew through even felt clear and kind. It was as if he had gone somewhere else entirely. It was curiosity that pulled him further in than he initially intended to go, but it was the second thing he noticed which stopped him from progressing much further. A lack of animals. It stood to reason that an oasis such as this should’ve had many animals within it as they tried to survive- but it would make sense that only the strong would. Only the predators- perhaps something like monsters. As panic rose within him once again Janus turned and began to fly back the way he came. He’d fly around the bend and then perch and peck off the string around his leg. He’d then go back and explain his worries. He hadn’t made it ten feet before he saw the third thing he hadn’t expected- a woman. She was short and sitting high up in a tree, but she wore the same colors as the Duke’s knights. One of her eyes frantically looked about as she searched for something Janus couldn’t see. Her other eye, meanwhile, was closed tightly as a stream of blood from her head kept it shut. One of her hands held a dagger close to her chest, which rose and fell quickly in panic. Her other hand held the tree so she could steady herself as she shifted slightly, but Janus watched as her face contorted in pain. Adrenaline had never felt so cold in his veins as Janus quickly perched himself on a tree beside hers and began to make work of a string holding the chalk. He pecked at it again and again, wanting it to fall so he could mark the place the soldier was for the Duke, but the woman herself kept drawing his eye in worry. She shifted again, and from this angle he could see as she tried to move one of her legs up onto the branch instead of simply dangling. But the three bright green protrusions that pierced her protested. Janus held in a gag at the sight of her bloody leg with the green things bored through- but he managed to get the chalk bag to fall. The moment he was freed, he leapt from the branch into the air to go find someone who could actually help- when he noticed the fourth thing.

He had seen something move out of the corner of one of his eyes, and he barely had time to register the giant green blur- before it pierced his wing. A scream of pain escaped his lips as he fell- his body transforming as he did until he hit the ground, forcing out what little air he had within him. He couldn’t even muster up a groan as his arm screamed in pain from what he could now see was a giant green needle or thorn piercing his left forearm. The pain was searing- greater than anything he had ever felt, but he drove his teeth into his tongue, too afraid to move or even make a sound. But his eyes, wet with tears, did drift to the soldier in the tree and the pitying look she gave him. Sure, she wasn’t in a great place, but at least- unlike him- she was hidden, and she was clothed.

Janus took a deep yet shaking breath as he tried to muster what little mana he had yet to turn into something that would allow him to flee just around the bend he had come from- but he couldn’t muster a single ounce of the power. He couldn’t feel his mana at al, as if it had been sealed off… he could almost laugh at the stupidity of it- of himself. And as the sun above him felt cooler as shadows looked over him and the sound of something approaching grew louder as the soldier stiffened in place, Janus couldn’t stop the tears in his eyes from falling. Nor could he stop the panic from making it harder and harder to breathe. He couldn’t stop the pain he felt. He couldn’t stop the creature from approaching him. He couldn’t do anything- but with the last of everything he had- he let out a scream.

~~~~

All Chapters

#sanders sides fic #janus centric #janus sanders #logan sanders #minor violence #shapeshifting #enemies to friends to lovers #enemies to lovers #monsters #magic #royalty au #tags may change

7 notes · View notes

fairycosmos · 1 year

Note

Girl I don’t have it in me to live like this. I don’t even mean this in the cute quirky internet “I hate capitalism” way but genuinely… I don’t have it in me lmaoooooooo

no i know like it's getting severe. everythings burning and i can't imagine a future where most of us are safe and happy and healthy and thriving. and no amount of ignoring it or joking about it or watching satirical shows about it is helping. LOL. sorry i don't have anything more comforting to say but i understand. lately ive been trying to focus on small tangible things like volunteering and looking for positive news and quitting doom scrolling and giving myself days (or weeks or whatever i need) to just cry and collapse. none of this solves the whole world but if you practice it enough it can sometimes keep those awful feelings of pure hopelessness at bay. for real not in a quirky internet advice sort of way. like quite literally

#anon

42 notes · View notes

lily-blue · 2 years

Text

13 reasons why | reason no.8: they support aspiring artists

☆ characters: music producer!jihoon & singer!you (Jihye - ‘94 liner) ☆ genre: coffee shop au, coworkers au ☆ summary: you are struggling to make your dreams come until one day you cross paths with jihoon who not only sees your potential, but falls in love with your music and then, with you ☆ words: 11,9k ☆ massive thank you: to @dat-town ♥ for always taking your time to support me, my writing and my dreams ☆ taglist: @soobin-chois

➼ chapter index

You didn’t hate your job. However, you wouldn’t have said that you were particularly content with it, either. Sure, with years of work experience at the same company, you had managed to get yourself a team leader position that paid enough to live a comfortable life in the capital city, but the workload had started to slowly burn you out during the last couple of months and you didn’t like how you were always too tired for your hobbies. You missed working on lyrics and recording your own songs a whole lot.

A part of you had been hopeful that with the end of the holiday season, things would be a bit less hectic again, but it was already late January and you still hadn’t had a week when you hadn’t had to stay overtime three or four days out of five. The only reasons why you could have left the office before seven this once was your little brother’s birthday and the fact that you had your brother-sister cinema date in your work calendar since November.

Taking a step forward, you lifted the back of your hand in front of your mouth to hide your yawn, then took a glance at the screen of your phone, checking the time. You had around one hour to get yourself a black coffee to not fall asleep ten minutes into the movie and arrive at the cinema where Jiung had promised to wait for you with the tickets and snacks despite your protest that you should have been the one who paid for everything. He had made awful good arguments for his age. If he had waited for you just so you could have used your card, you would have missed the trailers of the upcoming movies. And you both loved making future cinema plans on the spot, while you were sipping on your coke.

When the person in front of you bid her goodbye to the barista and left the line with a tray of delicious pastries, you took another step forward and greeted the guy with a polite smile.

‘I would like to have an espresso and an avocado-chicken sandwich to go, please,’ you said, deliberately disregarding the fact that you would have a huge basket of sweet popcorn to eat in an hour. You needed something more filling for dinner that you had skipped on purpose to make up for your early departure. You were also too old to live off on snacks.

While the barista was preparing your order, you watched him swing from one of the coffee machines to the food display, then back to your drink and listened to him as he was singing along with the radio. His voice was surprisingly stable and not just that, he managed to hit all those high notes Taeyeon executed flawlessly in the original ballad, which made you wonder whether he had been taught professionally or learned on his own just like you.

‘You know, this place could use a live singer. Open mic nights are pretty popular nowadays, but they’re still relatively rare, so the competition isn’t that cut-throat,’ you suggested with a hint of a smile, the musician in you feeling some sort of connection with the guy although you hadn’t paid attention to his name tag when you had ordered. ‘You have a beautiful voice,’ you added as you belatedly realised that you should have looked for your wallet if you hadn’t wanted to hold up the line for too long.

‘Thanks,’ the barista said, his sudden shyness merging with his voice, his tone a pitch higher than before. It was adorable, but you obviously didn’t voice it out loud. ‘I’ll make sure to mention your idea to Seungcheol hyung,’ he added while he placed your paper cup in front of you on the counter along with a brown paper bag.

You fished a few bills out of your wallet, then shoved the change back into it quickly before you grabbed your order, bid your goodbye and let the next customer ask for a medium sized caramel macchiato.

You didn’t stay much longer, only until you threw your wallet and your sandwich into your bag and made sure you had an empty hand to open the double door with. You might have had to take the subway to the cinema, but you couldn’t have been sure you would be able to get on the first one and you didn’t want to make your brother wait. He deserved the world and more for being your biggest supporter and the best baby brother you could have wished for.

Arriving on time, making his only wish come true and spending the rest of your day with him were the least you could have done. (You also couldn’t have waited to see his face when he opened his present and put his hands on the designer backpack you had gotten for him from Milan.)

Late January and early February for your team was all about Valentine’s Day. You had to find not one, but a dozen of different ways to include the holiday in your seasonal advertisements without being too cliche or liberal, without coming off as cringe and pushy. It was draining, because love in itself was somewhat banal in your opinion and there weren’t many sides of it that hadn’t been overused by artists all around the world, but what needed to be done was needed to be done, therefore, you tried your best to add a bit of uniqueness to every idea that come up during your brainstorming sessions.

With your decayed creativity, it didn’t get easier to work on your mixtape, but you had some promising snippets you could send to independent producers and entertainment companies, so you wouldn’t have said you were short on feedback you could anticipate. It usually took them a week or so to respond to your email, however, you had already encountered agencies that had turned your demos down within a day or reached out to you after a month, which meant you preferred checking your personal email once in every hour. Just to be sure you didn’t miss out on a good opportunity because of your slow reply.

At the familiar ping of your notification, you shifted your gaze from the line your brother was standing in to your phone and took it in your hands with a semi-excited, semi-anxious heart. You didn’t want to get your hopes up, but it was a Saturday afternoon. You would have liked to think that people who were working on the weekend didn’t spend their time on sending out rejection emails, but seeked out talents they couldn’t afford to lose.

‘Is it from YG?’ Jiung’s question came from in front of you, the fact that he was already back with your orders genuinely taking you aback.

How long have you been staring at your screen without opening their email? It felt like you had barely unlocked your phone.

‘Yeah…’ you mumbled, willing yourself to touch the envelope icon in the left bottom corner, then the first incoming email above many that you hadn’t had the energy to delete yet. You should have really taken your time to unsubscribe from all those mass emails you received on a daily basis but never bothered to read. It was easier to just ignore them.

The polite rejection was in the first sentence after the greeting, but you pretended to read the whole letter to steal yourself a couple of moments to contain your disappointment. You didn’t want to look disheartened in front of Jiung, because you had noticed that sometimes he talked and acted like the older sibling and you wanted to be someone he could have relied on and turned to instead of another person he had to lend his shoulder to cry on.

‘They don’t need it,’ you spoke up with a pseudo-unbothered tone, then put your phone back on the table and reached out for the tomato-mozzarella-ham sandwich you had asked for.

‘That company is a sinking ship anyway. They wouldn’t recognize good music even if it was shoved into their face,’ your little brother scoffed, coaxing a genuine chuckle out of you with the disapproving grimaces he made. He was clearly over exaggerating; YG was one of the big three for a reason even if their idols were managed poorly. Still, you were grateful for his lighthearted words and painfully biassed opinion.

Lacking a response that could have brushed Jiung’s worries away without sounding insincere, you decided to take a big bite from your food without adding any further comments to the topic. You prayed that your brother would take the hint like he usually did, but his emotional intelligence had either left the building or he deliberately ignored your silent request to move on from your newest failure.

Knowing him, it was most probably a mixture of both: he saw right through you and wanted to make sure you wouldn’t have given up on your dreams because of another brick wall.

‘Hey, if they don’t need it, it’s their loss,’ he claimed and at that moment, you envied him for his faith in you. Not that you were about to throw in the towel for real, but there were days when it felt harder to run after the cart that didn’t want to take you.

‘I know. I wasn’t too hopeful about them anyway,’ you claimed with an enervated shrug as you lifted your sandwich in front of your mouth and took a big bite from the heavenly food. You concealed your bitterness with your exaggerated reaction to the perfect combination of flavours, though, you weren’t lying. Comforting lost souls with your music and working on new snippets in your own studio had been your dream since high school. You had started to send your demos to entertainment agencies during your freshman year in university when you had realised your voice cracked in front of a real audience. The years behind your back had taught you not to be too hopeful.

Even when the initial reaction was positive about your songs. Nothing was set in stone until one had a contract in their hands and sometimes, not even then.

Munching on another bite while playing with the spoon in your black coffee, you were about to ask Jiung about your parents and how your father had taken the news that instead of going to the same university everyone in your family had attended, your brother wanted to study animation at Bang Arts Academy, when the furrow between his eyebrows made you alert and you changed your priorities.

‘What’s…’

‘Sis… have you seen this?’ Jiung’s stunned question cut off your worried one, successfully confusing you with the lack of details or pointers in the inquiry. You lowered your half-eaten sandwich and let your lower arms touch the edge of the table as you leaned forwards, trying to see what he was so focused on.

It was one of the leaflets the employees in Coffee Carat had put on every table; the one they advertised their first open mic night with. You had already seen the A3 sized version of it on the entrance, not to mention that Wonwoo also sent the draft versions to you after one of your visits because for some reason his boss wanted you to have one vote, too, besides all those people who could have had a say in the final design.

‘Yeah, their manager pulled me aside two weeks ago and asked me whether I wanted credit for the idea. I said it wasn’t necessary, but he even gave me a month’s worth of free coffee coupons, so I rolled with it,’ you said with an amused chuckle, not deeming it necessary to tell your baby brother how the coffee shop’s giant baker had walked over to you when you had given your business card to Wonwoo and torn it into pieces while he had enlightened you that his friend had already had a girlfriend.

Like you would have ever hit on someone in the catering industry - or put up with their lame attempts to charm you - while they were on the clock. Some of these people earned more tips a week than their actual monthly salary. They flirted for a living. And while you didn’t judge them for it, you looked for something more serious.

‘Cool! Do you plan to sign up for their first open mic night?’ Your little brother asked, his dark, chocolate brown eyes shining with the same excitement you often saw in them when he was talking about fashion and his favourite webtoons.

You took a sip from your coffee and made a face.

‘No, not really,’ you mumbled, suddenly unable to look at Jiung’s face as you were afraid you disappointed him with your answer. It wasn’t that you wouldn’t have liked to sing in front of people. It was more like you couldn’t.

‘Come on! Why not?’ He pressed and you genuinely weren’t sure whether he was pretending to be unaware of your boundaries or he was about to lecture you that most things were only impossible because you made them to be.

You decided to not give him enough time for the latter and instead of taking another bite from your sandwich, you leaned your back against your chair and raised a brow in annoyance. You obviously loved your brother too much to be angry with him when he acted like this, but his laid back and optimistic personality could piss you off in no time when you had to spell the obvious out to him to make him stop.

‘Because this coffee shop is actually pretty popular. There will be people,’ you made a point, going as far as shifting your gaze from one table to another in the customer area for emphasis.

‘That’s even better!’

‘Tell that to my anxiety,’ you retorted sharply with a scoff, disbelief more dominant in your actions than anger.

‘But what if it could actually he–’

‘Can we talk about something else? Please,’ you pleaded and your pouty lips and puppy eyes seemed to do the trick. Because the next moment your brother bit into his mouth and put the leaflet back into its place.

Jiung shot a sheepish smile in your way and scratched his nape like a child who got caught red-handed while stealing candies from a cookie jar. It reminded you of those months when he had actually had the tendency to stuff himself with sweet snacks before dinner and your frustration was no more.

During the rest of those hours you spent in Coffee Carat, you did ask him about your father’s reaction to his future plans, but you dismissed that topic as well when his answer implied that he hadn’t taken it well. You knew your mother would have moved out as well if your old man had thrown Jiung out of home for real, so you weren’t worried. Still, you made a mental note to give your father a call and talk this matter through with him before your brother had taken it into his head that he would have paid for his tuition on his own. You wanted him, you needed him to stay a child for a bit longer. He could have obviously worked part-time during school breaks like he had done last summer and this winter, but you weren’t willing to let him work beside the academy.

In this matter, your opinion was final. So even if you had failed to talk some sense into your dad, you would have found a way to support him financially. He could have whined about it as much as he wanted, it was no question at all.

You couldn’t have pinpointed which one of the following had convinced you in the end that singing up for the open mic night was a good idea: Jiung’s pleading emojis and encouraging messages whenever the topic had come up in your conversations (and he had always found a way to hint at the event even when you had been talking about cooking), the curt reply in which the representative of IST Entertainment had advised you that you should have tried for their upcoming audition, or the degrading comments under your latest cover on your Youtube channel that had called you fake.

Well aware that you rarely acted on impulse, it was most probably the result of them all. You might have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed that day, too, getting easily irritated by the comments people had made at work. Anyhow, what had been done had been done and your name was about to be called by the emcee in any second.

‘Okay, guys! Let’s give a round of applause to Kim Dahee,’ Boo Seungkwan encouraged the crowd to cheer for the brunette and his bubbly personality would have made you smile under almost any other circumstances. If only you hadn’t felt like throwing up.

You tried to focus on the girl’s song that might have been a bit amateur in the context of beats and composition, but had lovely lyrics. However, once she got to the refrain for the second time, your chest got heavy and your heart was about to explode inside your ribcage.

You didn’t think much. You rushed towards the hallway in the back that led to the restrooms, then locked yourself in the women’s once you were sure the tiny room was completely empty. You put your hands on the marble countertop and shifted a big part of your body weight onto them, relieved to be alone.

The space obviously wasn’t sound proof. You could hear the blond emcee calling your name, but you willed yourself to shut him out along with the disappointed and confused noises of the audience. You tried to calm yourself with the usual, textbook-like methods: you counted to ten, twenty, then fifty, but it barely helped. You also washed your face and neck with cold water, but that did more harm to your grey tee than good to your nerves. Therefore, after two attempts at different breathing exercises, you decided to focus on what made you feel the best in life: music.

As you were humming the same song you had sent to those entertainment agencies that were constantly rejecting you during the past couple of days, you could feel the tension leaving your stiff muscles and you were finally able to breathe. Singing in front of so many people might have been one of your biggest fears, but enjoying the melodies you created was what made you keep chasing your dreams.

It could have taken mere minutes or half an hour, you weren’t sure. All you were aware of was that impatient knock on the restroom’s door that pulled you back to reality and urged you to leave the room before the person on the other side called for the employees’ help. The last thing you needed was Wonwoo coming to your rescue when you weren’t stuck and reassuring you that you could have still gone on stage after the last participant.

‘I’m sorry,’ you mumbled under your nose, avoiding eye contact while you bowed to the older woman with your palms pressed together. You hoped your voice was loud enough for her to hear, but quiet enough to ignore easily.

Not exactly keen to stay until the end of the open mic night and having no other reason to be at the coffee shop, you were about to keep your head down and sneak out of the building when someone cleared their throat on your right and took advantage of your reflexes to gain your attention. You snapped your head towards the black haired boy before you realised and his sharp gaze sucked your soul out of your body as soon as your eyes met.

He made you feel uneasy: like you were a mere child up to no good and he was about to scold you for every harmless crime you had ever committed in your life.

‘What’s the name of that song? I’ve never heard that one before,’ the boy asked and the blood ran cold in your veins upon hearing his question. With furrowed eyebrows, you took in how he had his back leaned against the wall and for the first time since you had noticed him, you couldn’t have helped but wondered: was he waiting for his turn to use the men’s restroom or he was waiting for you.

‘What?’ You gaped at him, internally scolding yourself for exaggerating your surprise when you could have just told him you couldn’t recall either the artist or the name of the song. ‘I… I don’t know. I don’t remember,’ you tried to save the situation, although a part of you was convinced that you only made it worse.

The silence that followed your statement was heavy. It made you fidgety, because you didn’t know whether he would call you out on your blatant lie or cut you some slack instead, saving you from the urge to lie into his face again, this time, in more detail.

‘I see. Are you perhaps one of the participants?’ The boy asked, approaching the matter from another direction. You didn’t understand why he was so pressed about your song, but you had gotten enough rejection letters in the past weeks. You might have always been down for the good old constructive criticism from a fellow musician, but you didn’t want him, a layman, to talk poorly of your skills once he had figured out that it was your own creation.

‘No!’ You retorted a bit too loudly, earning a side eye from the old woman who just left the women’s restroom and passed you by. Coming to your senses and realising how ridiculous you were acting, you straightened your back and cleared your throat. You even fixed your hair with your fingers before you rephrased your answer in a calmer tone. ‘I mean… No, I’m not.’

This boy had no power over you! He was just a stranger. Someone you would most probably never see again, let alone talk with.

‘What a shame!’ He exclaimed with an almost pout that you couldn’t have helped but found cute despite your better judgement.

Your cheeks turned ruby when you realised you weren’t just zoning out, but staring at his thin lips for literally no reason and for shamelessly too long.

‘Here! In case you suddenly remember,’ he took a step closer to you and held his business card out for you until you took it. ‘It could use a few more modifications, but it has potential,’ he added with an encouraging smile before he bid his goodbye and left the corridor.

Instead of following him with your eyes until he disappeared, you were staring at the business card he had given you and his name that was more than just familiar. As a wanna-be singer, songwriter and producer, you were obviously up to date with the cream of the industry you oh so desperately wanted to be a part of. However, you had never seen any footage of Woozi in spite of those two dozen awards his songs had received since his debut under Pledis Ent. No one had.

He looked nothing you had imagined him to be based on those songs he had written about dreams, bittersweet love, and yearning for something better. If he had really been Woozi. But that was a “you” problem, and a fact you should have accepted on your own.

Taking a deeper breath, you shoved the business card in your pocket and fixed your clothes. On the count of three, you power walked to your table and grabbed your purse. You might have been tempted to finish your black coffee even though it had gotten cold, but you didn’t want to take risks. Thus, you left the crowded building immediately: without explanations or goodbyes.

On your way to the metro station, you told yourself they didn’t need you to call the open mic night a success and that you could have always apologised to Wonwoo via text for not feeling well enough to go on stage. You had a feeling that he would have understood.

Needless to say, you were sceptical about the black haired boy and his real intentions with the song you had written. Because no matter how much respect you had towards Woozi as a musician, you couldn’t figure out why he - of all people - would have seen so much potential in your work. Not to mention that a defensive part of you still questioned his identity. It was hard to picture the industry’s young prodigy at an amateur open mic night, looking for talents. Maybe, if it hadn’t been the first event at Coffee Carat, your gut feeling wouldn’t have pulled walls around your heart at the thought of being discovered by one of your idols, but it just felt too good to be true. Something that would have happened with your annoying cousin or your neighbour who always greeted you cheerfully in the elevator, but never with you.

No wonder it took you two weeks to write to the boy about the song that you had suddenly remembered without attaching the file to your email. But at least he didn’t seem to mind your caution based on his reply, his professionalism helping you ease yourself into the thought of meeting him again. He even let you choose the location and while it would have made sense to talk about your song in his studio, you picked the same coffee shop you had first met since you had already known a few of the baristas there by their name. They could have been your safety-net if something had gone horribly.

While you were waiting for your usual black coffee in front of the counter, you made a poor attempt at fixing your dishevelled hair. However, despite doing your best, you still felt like a mess when Sooryeon slid the porcelain towards you and sent an encouraging smile in your direction as though she knew you were worried about the worst first impression one could have made at an important meeting.

In your case, another horrible first impression since you had already lied in the boy’s face the first time.

‘I started to think you wouldn’t come,’ you heard the boy say in a neutral, almost eerie tone that made you gulp as you took a seat on the chair next to him instead of the one across from him.

‘I’m sorry. I needed to take a small detour. Check on a venue for work,’ you explained curtly, hoping that he wouldn’t ask for more details although you would have told him everything if that could have lightened the mood. It wasn’t that he gave you side eyes for arriving half an hour late, but you felt bad for doing so anyway.

To your surprise, he didn’t call you out on the fact that it was a Saturday afternoon. Whether it was because he didn’t care or believed you, you couldn’t be sure. Anyhow, you decided to focus on how he was still at the shop and intertwined your fingers around your cup to avoid fidgeting with the handle. The porcelain was pleasantly warm against your skin.

‘Did you bring the audio file? I’d like to listen to the whole song first,’ he asked and you let go of your coffee quickly, so that you could have fished your laptop out of your bag.

‘Of course!’

You placed the device in front of the boy in an angle that allowed you to see the screen, then typed in your pin code and opened the folder in which you kept your songs - including both the finished and unfinished snippets. You had never realised before how ridiculous the funny titles of the latter were until you were suddenly super aware that Woozi could see them. Still, despite feeling his judgemental gaze burning holes in your skull, when you glanced up at the boy, he was staring at your laptop, waiting for you to open the file with endless patience.

Thus, this was exactly what you did next.

You had a couple of scenarios in your head about what could happen after he took his headset off and turned his attention to you again. He could have turned you down politely and said he had been talking about a different song and it was all a misunderstanding. He could also have been straightforward and claimed it sounded better in his memories. You were fairly prepared for the worst of the worst, but his first question, nevertheless, managed to take you aback.

‘Where do you work?’ He asked, his eyes telling you that he was serious despite the comedy in his words. Shouldn’t he have asked you about the story behind the lyrics or what had given you inspiration to write about the happiness in heartbreaks?

Shouldn’t you have talked about music?

‘Uhm…’ you started, a bit confused. You hold onto your drink with tooth and nail to resist the urge to scratch your nape out of uneasiness. ‘I work for a multinational company. I’m the leader of their marketing team,’ you answered, once again, not going into too much detail on your own.

‘What about your free time?’ He threw yet another irrelevant question at you before he lifted his coffee in front of his lips and took a few gulps from it, keeping his piercing gaze on you.

In theory, you were well aware that you weren’t obliged to answer or tell him the truth. You could have easily and rightfully said your personal life wasn’t his business and asked him to not waste your time if he had hated the song, but reality in a conservative country often went against these kinds of ideas.

If he had indeed been Woozi, he was not only a man, but also your senior. You shouldn’t have offended him deliberately when he was here for you.

‘I’m either with my little brother, do some house chores or work on my music,’ you admitted, hoping you didn’t sound too plain or lame. Obviously, you had friends. And you were kind of up to date with their lives even beside your inhuman working hours. It was just… you always told yourself it was an inevitable part of adulthood that the three of you could meet up for dinner only once a month. There was nothing wrong with preferring texts over friendly dates until you were genuinely concerned about them.

You must have furrowed your brows or puffed out your cheeks while you were lost in your thoughts because the next thing you realised was Woozi trying and failing to hide his smile while he was watching you.

Bashful, you tore your gaze away and chose to analyse the cup you had gotten your drink in, how it was pristine on the outside and how you could make out a few light-brown lines close to its edges where your coffee touched it on the inside. Undoubtedly, you were acting ridiculous.

‘I mean, how much free time do you have on a usual week?’ Woozi asked and you shrugged without looking at him. You couldn’t have said you had a lot, but it could have been worse. If you had learned anything after moving out from your parents’ house it was how things could always get worse.

Having a job that you didn’t despise, a job that paid you enough to lead a comfortable life in the capital city was in itself a privilege. Even if it drained you and killed your creative energy sometimes.

‘It depends on the season. But honestly, not much,’ you admitted, although you made sure your voice wasn’t too blue. You didn’t want him to pity you or worse! To think you were just another sad girl in the line, dreaming about making it big in the music industry. ‘But today was an emergency! It’s rare that I need to work on the weekend,’ you added quickly as an afterthought when it hit you how your actions might have made your statement worse than it was.

‘Good,’ the boy said, confusing you with his almost relieved tone. He acted like it mattered to him. Like the lack of your free weekends and nights had any affect on his life when you were still calling him on his stage name in your head. When had you jumped to the part when you had become his concern? You hadn’t even realised you had been going in that direction.

Not sure how you were supposed to react, you opted for sitting in silence and waiting for him to take the first step, but instead of literally anything you could have come up with in your head such as him having a friend who was in the same shoes as you, he did none. Instead, he finished his black coffee in one go and leaned his back against his chair, observing you with his arms linked in front of his chest.

You wondered whether he was about to tell you your song was mediocre at best.

‘Would you like to work with me? I’m talking about a one-month trial as an intern who does more than bringing me my black coffee every morning,’ he specified before you could have asked, his words registering in your mind a bit slower than you would have been proud of. ‘It won’t be easy. You will definitely need to learn to be more confident, more adamant while staying humble and open for suggestions,’ Woozi claimed, and while what he was offering you was quite literally your dream job, your first instinct was to tell him all those reasons that made you unqualified for the internship.

For example, your current job.

‘I… I don’t have tim–’

‘It’s enough if you come by only on the weekends. You can also leave around eight or nine on Sundays so you could sleep enough before your full-time job. How does that sound?’ He drove a hard bargain like he really wanted you to jump on the opportunity despite the voice in your head that kept reminding you that some dreams were meant to remain just that: a dream. You were already closer to thirty than twenty. Weren’t you too old for believing in miracles? (Or to try yourself out in an industry where some people became sunbaes before graduating high school?)

A part of you was afraid that living your dream would ruin it for you forever, the picture you had of the musician life in your head. But it was also something you had wanted to explore with your whole being. You would have regretted turning down this internship even if giving it a try had left a bittersweet taste in your mouth afterwards.

‘I’ll do it!’ You exclaimed before your worries could have caught up to your determination and forced you to accept that you were a marketing team leader, not a singer. You could have been both and whatever you wanted to be. It wasn’t too late for you.

You might have been high on the moment, you probably were, but if anyone had asked you, you would have sworn Woozi’s smile was proud before he said:

‘Then, see you tomorrow,’ and got up from his chair.

You wanted to ask him about the specifics: the exact time when you should have shown up at his studio, the things you should have brought with you, what you should have told at the reception. You wanted to know whether the company knew about his offer or it had been a split second decision because he had liked your song that much. If it had been the latter, what would happen if his bosses didn’t need you?

However, your million questions obviously needed to wait because by the time you untangled your messy thoughts, the boy was out of the door and you were sitting by the table on your own. If he had bid his goodbye to you or anyone else in the building, you hadn’t noticed. You barely registered that Sooryeon walked up to your table and gave you a slice of chocolate pie to congratulate you on surviving your meeting with Jihoon.

Oh. She called him by his birth name. Could it have been that he had come to the open mic night because he had known someone from the shop? Then, it hadn’t been pure coincidence, nor had he been looking for raw gems in his free time when he had found you.

‘Thank you, Sooryeon-ah,’ you mumbled under your nose a bit belatedly, but the girl didn’t seem to mind your absentmindedness. She walked back behind the counter where Wonwoo was explaining something to another barista by the cash register, then patted her coworkers’ shoulders and entered the staff only area that was hidden behind a pair of curtains.

You didn’t stay much longer. You finished your extra dessert and your black coffee then said hi to Wonwoo and left. The odd feeling that your alarm could have woken you in any minute stayed with you through the day, but you didn’t mind it, not really. It kept you on your toes, not letting you get your hopes up too high.

Because the more you expected or secretly wished for, the bigger your disappointment could be when these expectations didn’t match with your reality. And you didn’t intend to start this new chapter of your life with a bitter heart.

In the next three and a half weeks, you had pinched your arm each and every time you had entered Woozi’s studio. And you did it again, when two days before your internship ended, he slid a pile of papers in front of you during your short albeit well-deserved lunch break.

‘What’s this?’ You asked with a raised brow, right after you had swallowed down a huge bite of your jjajangmyeon. You usually opted for less messy food when you ate this close to the equipment, but tonight you were both too lazy to go as far as the canteen on the second floor.

You looked up at Jihoon in confusion who took a sip from his coke before he pointed at the stack with his index finger.

‘A full-time producer assistant contract,’ he said, encouraging you with a nod to look through the papers. ‘You know my drafts aren’t this neat,’ he added with an amused chuckle while you slowly slid your gaze back to the pile and placed your chopsticks carefully atop of your bowl.

‘Are you serious right now? Do they really want me to stay?’ You asked, disbelief loud and clear in your voice. You made sure to wipe your hands clean with a tissue from your tote bag before you touched the contract, but even then, with the evidence in front of you, it was hard to comprehend.

‘Why not? You’re talented, diligent and a quick learner,’ Jihoon argued between two small bites, his mouth full with lukewarm black bean noodles. ‘Not to mention, we’re a good team. What else would they need?’

It was clearly a rhetorical question, hence you pressed your lips into a thin line and hovered over the first page of your new contract silently. You were aware that Jihoon was right. You were more than just good together. Your team work had been spot on from the beginning as you were precise and reliable that gave the producer a reason to rely on you when he felt like his schedule was all over the place, blocking his creative flow. You had composed five new songs - songs that were accepted by your higher ups - in the past three weeks and you had a good feeling about finishing the sixth for Minhyun sunbaenim’s solo album in the next 24 hours.

However, you weren’t delusional. You knew the monster part of these projects were done by Jihoon. He was the one who stayed at his studio to work on them when you needed to leave and catch up on some sleep before your full time job. You merely helped him with your ideas and beginner enthusiasm, criticising him professionally and cheering on him when he felt he was running in circles fruitlessly.

‘Shut up!’ You grumped under your nose and pinched your lower arm one more time, making Jihoon scoff with affection because of the ridiculous sight. You were acting ridiculous again. Especially when finishing the first paragraph of the contract, your first thought was that you couldn’t have met the criteria. How were you supposed to take on so many administrative tasks and help Jihoon with the songs when you worked forty to fifty hours a week at another company? ‘Even if I quit my job now, I’ll still need to work there for another month,’ you explained, your sour expression more disappointed than you intended to showcase.

‘Just look at page four,’ the boy mumbled with a full mouth, encouraging you to do as he said and you did.

Scanning through the fourth page, your lips parted in bewilderment when your eyes fell on the second paragraph. There, it was stated black and white that the company would give you another month of paid internship at the beginning with the slight difference that instead of a fixed amount of hours - now you worked twenty hours a week -, this time you would need to work as many hours as Jihoon required you to.

Your smile was small albeit grateful. You had no doubt about it that it was Jihoon’s doing as he was pretty up to date with your schedule at the marketing team, so that he could have had you around when he knew you weren’t too exhausted to form complex sentences or bear with his occasional mood swing without crying. He had told you on your first day that he couldn’t comfort crying people and that you shouldn’t have taken it to your heart if he had left you alone as soon as you showed the first signs, because it was simply his way to give you more space to put yourself together without him awkwardly staring at you from a distance.

Needless to say, the boy hadn’t seen you cry so far. However, you were pretty certain it was because of his warning, his willingness to let you sleep enough, and your determination to prove to everyone you could handle the industry.

You took your sweet time reading through the details, but Jihoon didn’t seem to mind your speed even though initially you had given yourselves a twenty-minute lunch break so that you could have had time for recording a demo, too, once you finished the current ballad. Instead of reminding you of your plans like he would have usually done, this time he finished his noodles in silence, threw away the trash and walked back to you with his notebook and a pen, jotting down what most probably were new lyrics and song ideas.

You were about to sign your name at the bottom of the last page when Jihoon chose to break the silence.

‘You don’t look too happy, though,’ he stated, a clear observation, and you wondered whether he had known you so well already or your face was just that bad at concealing your thoughts.

Frankly speaking, under the anxiety-filled layers, you were beyond happy. You were joyful, you were over the moon, you were every bright adjective in the dictionary. You just couldn’t have helped but being reminded of your original ideas of your future as a delusional teenager now that you got so close to living that dream.

‘I am happy,’ you claimed and signed the papers before you slid the pile back towards Jihoon on the coffee table you used for eating. He raised a brow at your curt answer and you sighed in defeat. You reached out for your cold jjajangmyeon and took a bite from it to steal yourself a couple of seconds before you would have elaborated.

Jihoon didn’t rush you, but you could feel his attention on you even when he did everything in his power to keep his eyes on his notebook.

‘I’m happy. Working with you… it’s an amazing opportunity I’m grateful for,’ you started to make sure the boy didn’t misunderstand you. You had loved every minute of your internship under his direct guidance even when it had been disheartening to retake the same two lines over and over again. ‘It’s just…’ You took another bite from your soggy lunch. ‘I still can’t sing live in front of a living, breathing audience. I’ve always thought that once I sign with a label, I’ll do it as a singer and not as a producer,’ you admitted, the words heavy on the tip of your tongue. You felt so stupid, so shameless and ungrateful.

Jihoon’s calculative eyes didn’t leave you. He tilted his head sideways, let his shoulders fall a bit forwards, then let out an amused scoff.

‘That’s it?’ He asked, his reaction irking you because of the palpable relief in his voice. As though now that he knew the reason for the change in your mood, he deemed it unworthy of his worries.

A rational part of you was aware that your dream was none of his business, hence his tone should have been understandable, but people had never meant to be rational, especially about things that were dear to their heart. Thus, you rolled your eyes, annoyed but kind of polite, then took another bite from your lunch.

You expected the conversation to be over with this and maybe a reminder that he was your boss - although Jihoon had not once used his title against you in or outside of his studio -, but what you got was a soft smile and another offer that made it hard to believe you were awake.

‘I can help you with that,’ the boy claimed, unbothered and confident while he kept his brown eyes on you.

‘You make it sound like you could fix all of my problems in a week,’ you stated slowly as one of your eyebrows slid a tad bit upwards. It wasn’t that you hadn’t tried every damn trick you had found on the internet. You had sung with a mask on your face just for your voice to crack after the first verse; you had tried singing with your back to the audience, but your hands had been shaking so much, you had dropped your mic. Your case wasn’t as easy as he thought.

‘Only your stage fright,’ he retorted. ‘And I might need a month or two.’

‘A month or two?’ You echoed with disbelief, but Jihoon just nodded. He didn’t elaborate. At least, not as much as you wanted him to.

‘Come to the coffee shop on Tuesday after work,’ he said before he pointed at the half-empty bowl in your hands. ‘And speed up! We don’t have all the time in the world,’ he reminded you that you still had a song to finish, which immediately set your priorities straight.

Instead of calling him out on his overconfidence or pestering him about the details of his plan, you finished the rest of your noodles silently, then tidied up the area around the coffee table and got back to work.

You two stayed until 11:30PM that Saturday, but the familiar tiredness in your bones was so worth it, you thought, when listening to the last take of the demo, you noted that you once again succeeded at creating something beautiful that could have brought comfort to people.

(This was the part of your new job that you had failed to find in any other profession.)

After the first night you had stayed at Coffee Carat after closing time with Jihoon and a few of the staff members, you had had serious doubts whether you would have ever been able to sing in front of people.

Three weeks, seven failed and two semi-successful attempts later, your confidence level was stagnant at your newest low, but you still kept coming back because what else could you have done? These people had already seen you losing your balance in the middle of a song when you had tried to shut them out and closed your eyes. It could hardly have gotten worse.

‘He’s making me nervous,’ you admitted when Jihoon walked up to you with a glass of warm honeyed herbal tea that might have tasted like cough medicine, but always helped you feel a bit more in control while it warmed up your vocal cords.

‘Who? Minghao?’ The boy asked when he stole a glance at the customer area from above his shoulder, his sharp gaze loitering over his friends who were chatting by the tables that were closest to the counter and the corner where you were about to perform one of your ballads. ‘That’s just his face. He’s built like that,’ he insisted with a nonchalant shrug, his attention back on you and your stiff posture.

You took a sip from your drink and frowned.

‘Last time I dropped my coffee on the floor and Wonwoo asked him to take care of the mess. I’m pretty sure he hates staying here longer because of me,’ you complained in a small voice while your fingertips were drumming a familiar melody on the outer side of your mug. The porcelain was pleasantly warm against your palms, but the mere memory of the boy’s grumpy face from Monday kept you on the edge. You were old enough to understand that being loved by everyone in life was an impossible concept, but he was Jihoon’s friend. For some reason, getting on his bad side didn’t sit well with you.

‘No one is forced to stay longer because of you,’ the boy said in a neutral voice for which you gave him a sceptical look. You honestly doubted all of them stayed at the shop willingly each and every time when you couldn’t have finished one song during the past three weeks. ‘They are not! He’s here because his girlfriend wants to support you and he doesn’t want her to get in trouble on her way home,’ Jihoon explained and you shifted your gaze from his face to the girl who was sitting next to Minghao. Sooryeon was stuffing her face with a leftover croissant while she was chuckling at someone that the owner’s fiancée was explaining to her with big hand gestures.

‘So it’s because of me,’ you concluded. Because at the end of the day, it was still on you that these people were at the coffee shop. You needed them so that you could practise in front of a real audience.

‘Since when are you so whiny?’ Jihoon asked, the furrow between his brows showing only a slight annoyance and a lot more confusion.

You pressed your lips together, into a firm, pale line.

Since when were you this self-conscious? Your behaviour must have had something to do with your frequent appointments for embarrassing yourself in front of the same employees who served you black coffee five times a week. But breaking this down to the boy aloud might have sounded ungrateful considering how much Jihoon had done for you in his free time, so you chose to keep your mouth shut and answered with a small albeit apologetic smile.

‘You will be fine. I brought you blindfolds.’ He squeezed your shoulder, then pulled a grey textile out of his hoodie’s pocket.

You narrowed your eyes as you let your gaze linger on the silk-looking stripe. Honestly, you weren’t sure it would stay up in case he planned to secure it with a knot at the back of your head, but instead of making a comment on that, you decided to pull his attention on a more crucial fact: your awful sense of balance while nervous.

‘Thanks. I hope you brought pillows, too, before I faint again and crack my head open,’ you said with a playful edge to your words and a light nudge, earning an eye roll from Jihoon that seemed as amused as annoyed.

‘It’s super thin. You’ll see everyone, just not as clearly as before, so their faces won’t distract you,’ he informed you and waited until you finished your drink, so that he could have placed it on the counter behind you.

Jihoon’s hands were working gently when he tied the blindfold around your head and you had to give it to him, his idea felt a lot less problematic than you had previously thought when you took a look around the shop. Just like he had promised, you could make out shapes and a bit of depth, too, through the thin material. You saw his friends, Hoyeon’s hand gestures and Mingyu’s lame attempt at stuffing a piece of something into his best friend’s mouth. Yet, their facial expressions didn’t make you overly self-conscious anymore since they were too blurry for you to put your hands on their assumed feelings and thoughts.

After a deep breath, you took your worn guitar in your hands and walked in the middle of the stage without tripping and causing another accident. This achievement in itself gave a little boost to your confidence. You could do it!

It was Seokmin who announced you to your audience and it would have been a lie to say that your heart wasn’t pulsing frantically in your throat when the buzzing of the coffee shop came to a sudden silence. However, being blind to the guys’ reaction helped. Your fingertips might have slid on the strings a few times when they weren’t supposed to and your voice might have cracked in the middle of the last bridge, but you successfully finished the song without major mistakes. And most importantly: you did get to the end of the ballad.

It was a baby step that every fibre in your body celebrated with the small albeit proud smile in the corner of your mouth. However, what was an achievement in itself in your dictionary was the opportunity to thrive for more in Jihoon’s.

You knew him. You had been working with him for over a month by then, but it still took you off guard when instead of congratulating you like the others did, he asked you to sing another song right away. And a third one when you managed to perform the second one with only two tiny mistakes on your guitar.

‘Good job!’ Jihoon exclaimed, clapping calmly while you reached for the blindfold and took it off with a bright smile. His acknowledgement meant a lot more to you than he thought; he had been your idol once and now, he was your mentor.

High on adrenaline and the feeling of finally moving forwards, you rushed up to the blacked haired boy and wrapped your hands around him. You were rocking back and forth due to your excitement and didn’t let go of him even when his characteristic, musky scent reminded you of how close you were standing.

You had never stood this close before.

Contemplating whether you should have apologised immediately, making everything more awkward in front of his friends, or just pulled away like it was no big deal, your eyes widened at the realisation that you could feel the light weight of Jihoon’s palm on your back. He was patting you a little clumsily, but it was precious: his attempt to reassure you it was alright.

You pulled away after a couple of seconds, flustered, but happy.

‘I’m… thank you,’ you mumbled, unsure how the rose tint of the boy’s cheeks made you feel. You were too used to his snarky remarks and affectionate eye rolls to comprehend the slight change in his attitude. Not that you weren’t aware it was your fault. You had just jumped on him in front of everyone, of course, he was affected. You could have only hoped his obvious discomfort would have disappeared quickly.

‘Yeah, no big deal. It’s not like I cured your stage fright already,’ he brushed your gratitude off with a nonchalant-looking shrug, and you let out a lighthearted scoff due to the familiarity of his tone. He seemed fine. A tad bit flushed, but fine, which put your heart at ease. The last thing you needed was things getting awkward between the two of you now that you also had a signed contract with Pledis.

‘True. But you still have time,’ you reminded him of his confident claim about how he would help you sing in front of a living, breathing audience in a month or two; the promise more possible than it had sounded to you weeks ago.

The last thing you heard before Sooryeon, Seokmin and Mingyu showered you with their congratulations was the click of Jihoon’s tongue. You got a “nice job” cupcake from the tall baker and a bone-crushing hug from Seokmin before the only other girl in your small group pulled you aside and asked you about how you were feeling and what did you think, when would you have been able to attend their open mic night.

The more people gathered around you, the more overwhelming the experience got, but it was also very comforting to know that they were so excited for you. It made you believe that they really hadn’t been forced to stay after their shift in the past few weeks.

It was Jihoon who reminded you that tomorrow was a Wednesday, hence you shouldn’t have stayed for too long if you hadn’t wanted to feel exhausted during your 9AM meeting. And he was right. No matter how much you enjoyed talking about your music, you got easily irritated when you were sleep deprived and you still needed to cook something quick but delicious for your lunch break. It was better if you bid your goodbye.

Which you did not long after, bowing and waving on your way towards the exit, grateful for Jihoon’s offer to give you a ride back to your place. It proved that the impulsive hug that had turned both of your cheeks’ rose coloured had done nothing to stir the waters in your relationship.

You weren’t sure what had made you see Jihoon in a new light in the end when everything had felt normal after he had dropped you off on Tuesday. However, let it be because of how you were suddenly incapable of not noticing the light tint of his cheeks when he was looking directly in your eyes or due to his support, you couldn’t have denied that it felt different to be around him after that night.

Anyhow, it wasn’t like you could have asked your immediate boss whether he had felt just as confused and excited around you as you did around him. You had just signed with the label and you still had a bit of time from your offboarding period at your previous workplace. Both a negative and an affirmative answer could have messed up the path that led towards your dreams. You couldn’t have afforded to develop feelings for him (or confront him about them now that you were more than possibly screwed).

Taking a deeper breath, you gave yourself a couple of seconds before you opened Jihoon’s studio with your card, then took a seat beside him by his table where the two of you had been working on a hopeful love song before you had excused yourself to the restroom. It was for a new artist, a female soloist with the most beautiful, raspy voice you had ever heard and you were determined to fit the lyrics to her uniqueness despite the cliché concept the management had chosen for her debut.

You looked at the notebook in front of the boy and let out a pleased hum when you saw the progress he had made while you had been away. A complete verse in five minutes? He wasn’t called a prodigy for no reason.

‘You make it look like we were playing around all morning,’ you joked, earning a soft chuckle from him with your comment even though he kept his focus on the scribbled page. You both knew it wasn’t true. You had already had a vague idea for the melody and a theme you intended to build the lyrics around.

‘Always a sweet talker at work,’ he teased and jotted down a few promising one-liners that you could have used in the last verse before he read through what you had so far and changed a couple of words here and there, so that the flow of the lyrics would have been smoother or more poetic.

He always did this; never a hundred percent satisfied with his own work even when you two had already decided that the last version was good enough.

‘No, but seriously. What gave you so much inspiration all of a sudden?’ You asked when you stole another blunt glance at the notebook and leaned close enough to the boy for Jihoon to be hyper aware of the lack of distance between your bodies.

That, or his timing to lean his back against his chair and simultaneously get further from you in the process was very unlucky.

‘Dunno,’ Jihoon said and you furrowed your brows when he cleared his throat and slid the notebook closer to you on the table. This way, his notes were right in front of you, so you could look at the current page while you were sitting comfortably in your own chair. ‘Check the new verse, I’ll bring us something to drink,’ he announced before he stood up and turned his back to you.

You watched him walking towards the door with bewildered eyes, but shook your confusion off fairly quickly. Thus, you were able to find your voice before he closed the door on you.

‘Strawberry coke?’ You asked, forcing him to look at you from above his shoulder just so he could give you a displeased glare. His nose scrunch was more adorable than intimidating, but you wouldn’t have broken this down to him for the world.

‘I’ll see,’ he retorted with a visible frown, but without lecturing you on how every flavoured version was a disgrace to the original taste of coke. ‘Check the new verse!’

You saluted with a cheeky grin on your face, then turned back to the notebook right away; the echo of the quiet collision of the door and its frame filling your senses as you hovered above the last page.

Reading the new lyrics, you couldn’t have helped but wonder what had made Jihoon feel the way he had felt when he had come up with these exact lines. What had made him yearn for something or someone so intensely, his similes grabbed your heart and squeezed it dry over and over as you jumped from line to line?

These questions stayed with you even after the boy came back with your drink and asked for your opinion. They were in the back of your mind while you were working on the rest of the ballad, after you had bid your goodbye to Jihoon at 10PM, while you were waiting in line for your takeout at your favourite diner, and under the shower head as you were getting ready for bed.

You fell asleep thinking of that particular verse the black haired boy had finished on his own and wondering whether you were delusional for assuming: maybe, it had been your absence that had made him come up with those lines.

You were talking on the phone with your brother, throwing questions at him about his senior year in high school and those bonbons he had received on White Day, when you heard your name echoing off the walls close to Jihoon’s studio. Your steps came to an immediate halt.

‘Jiung-ah? I need to go, I’ll talk to you later,’ you murmured into the speaker, suddenly super anxious about being noticed although a rational part of you tried to convince you that hiding behind a wall wasn’t necessary or a good idea.

‘Noona, are you oka–’

‘I’m fine, it’s just a work emergency. Love you,’ you cut him off in a hurried manner, giving him just enough explanation to not call you back before you hung up the phone and shoved the device into your pocket.

‘Why won’t you introduce me to her? Everyone else has already met her, it’s unfair!’ The boy, who was standing in front of Jihoon, asked, his pouty lips emphasising his distress. As you were watching the interaction, you couldn’t decide whether he was that good at acting or he was genuinely hurt by being left out, but his puppy eyes tugged on your heart nonetheless.

‘They met her because they work at the coffee shop. Don’t start!’ Jihoon sighed and took a step sideways. However, the other boy copied his movements without missing a beat.

‘Tsk, so now people need to work at Cheol hyung’s to be introduced to your girlfriend? I am your best friend!’ The kicked puppy boy claimed and you needed to cover your mouth with your hand to not let out a giggle because of his dramatics. You would have never guessed that Jihoon of all people had such a hyperactive best friend, but the more you saw, the easier it became to understand why their friendship worked.

Sometimes opposites did attract.

‘She’s not my girlfriend,’ Jihoon hissed and only when his words got to you did you realise what they were bickering about. A not-girlfriend girlfriend. Oh.

Your nails scratched the surface of the wall when you leaned closer to the duo, desperate to hide your body, but eager to steal a glance at the black haired boy’s face. You wanted to know whether he really meant it. Was he sad that he wasn’t in a relationship with this girl? Was he unbothered by the topic and annoyed only because his friend was pushing it?

‘But I’m your best friend and…’

‘Debatable,’ Jihoon scoffed and you didn’t even have to see his face this time to know he rolled his eyes.

While you were busy pondering how perfectly the boy’s crush fitted every scenario you had come up with since you had read his yearning lyrics for Rayun’s solo debut, Jihoon pushed his best friend out of the way and took a couple of confident strides towards his studio. He was almost in front of the familiar, midnight blue door when the puppy boy raised his voice and shouted after him.

‘You got her a contract and wrote songs about her!’ He said, kicking the air out of your lungs with his boldness and the implication his words carried in themselves. You closed your eyes for a second to gather your thoughts, then leaned your forehead against the wall.

Jihoon had gotten a contract for you. And you had definitely heard your name before you had hung up the phone on your little brother.

The puppy boy’s claim was followed by eerie silence. It was heavy and sticky. Instead of embracing you with warmth and comfort, it stuck to everyone and made you anxious. You obviously didn’t think anyone at Pledis would have been willing to offer you a full-time job if you hadn’t had potential, but it was your opinion. Jihoon’s friend should have known better than to say something so controversial in the company’s hallway where anyone could have heard and misunderstood them.

‘Fine, I did. So what?’ Jihoon retorted, visibly irritated. However, in a twisted way, the boy’s admission made you really happy. Because it meant he liked you, too.

Giddy, you were so hung up on the revelation, you didn’t notice the person who walked up to you and tried to gain your attention by waving her hand in front of your face after you had unintentionally ignored her calling your name.

The yelp that escaped your mouth was a lot louder than it should have been. And you weren’t particularly proud of the way you jumped backwards, either, but that was embarrassing for a completely different reason.

Because one uncertain look at the boys made it as clear as day: they both knew you had heard them. The sharp difference between their reactions lay in one small albeit significant detail: unlike Jihoon, his friend had no idea who you were.

You sucked in your lower lip to not make things worse with your cheap excuses. Even though you would have most probably made the same decision if you could have turned back time, you were aware that eavesdropping was morally wrong.

‘Can we… can we talk?’

It was Jihoon who broke the awkward silence and you nodded wordlessly before you bowed to Mina and Jihoon’s best friend with an embarrassed smile on your way to Jihoon’s studio.

When the door closed shut behind your back, you considered apologising immediately. Yet, just as you parted your lips, Jihoon cut you off with his hesitant words.

‘Look, I…’ he started and the panicked glint in his eyes closed up your throat. It made you feel that if you hadn’t been straightforward enough, if you had let him overthink the situation, he would have denied everything you might have heard and you didn’t want that.

So you took a deep breath and a step closer to him to make him focus on you instead of the walls and his equipment he was suddenly so interested in.

‘I know we’re coworkers, but… would you like to go on a date with me?’ You asked and you genuinely couldn’t believe you had just done that.

Based on the boy’s wide eyes, he had a hard time believing his own ears as well.

It was nerve-wracking: waiting for him to process your question and say something, but then he shot a beautiful, grateful smile in your direction and your heart found peace even before he said:

‘Yeah. I’d like that. Very much, actually.’

Feeling like a happy mess, you were about to hug him for the first time since that Tuesday night at the coffee shop, but before you could have wrapped your arms around him, Jihoon’s best friend made his presence known with an annoying(ly adorable), whine-like noise.

‘Psst! Does this mean you can finally introduce me to your girlfriend?’ He asked from behind the door, only his head and his fingers visible in the position he clung onto the moving object to be able to peek inside the room.

Although you tried, you couldn’t contain your chuckles when Jihoon took a deep breath and launched himself at his friend. You watched them from a safe distance, seriously taken aback by the black haired boy’s vigour and determination to push the taller guy on the floor. You had never seen this side of him before, but you found it oddly charming.

At the end, Jihoon did introduce you to Soonyoung who stayed at the studio for half an hour, entertaining you with ridiculous stories about his best friend and the guys from Coffee Carat. He kept referring to you as Jihoon’s girlfriend and while it was obviously too early to claim yourself that title (you hadn’t even dated yet), the fact that the black haired boy didn’t correct him made you feel hopeful.

It felt like an unsaid promise that he wanted this thing between you two to work just as much as you did.

➼ next reason

#seventeen scenarios #caratwritersclub #jihoon x reader #woozi x reader #jihoon x you #woozi x you #woozi #ssbyme #seventeen series #coffee shop au #coworkers au

71 notes · View notes