#I know things don’t really work out like they do in fiction fantasy but my heart keeps telling my head I want it to work out like that | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

aquaquadrant · 2 months

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Philophobia

Word Count: 5,271 Warnings: Shipping, inappropriate/crude humor, paranormal activity, suspense/mild horror, descriptive kissing, mild language Summary: For architecture major and paranormal skeptic Grian, his friends’ after-hours ghost hunting group was just an excuse to spend time with his crush, Scar, without having to actually ask him out. But one fateful night, he finds there just might be things in this world that are scarier than emotional vulnerability… even if only by a very slim margin.

A/N: Did someone ask for a Phasmophobia-inspired Scarian au? Oh yeah, my friend @lunarcrown did! Inspired by the art she made here.

So this is kind of a modern-day college au (not set within the fictional universe of Minecraft), howEVER there are some fantasy aspects in that non-human species (like mob hybrids/monsters) still exist cuz they’re fun and I’m not giving anyone a normal modern name cuz that’s too weird. This is only Phasmophobia-inspired in that GIGS have a ghost-hunting group that functions the same way, but rarely find any conclusive evidence, and don’t have unlimited lives cuz they aren’t playing a game. With that out of the way, hope y’all enjoy, please reblog/comment if u do! - Aqua

~*~

Philophobia

~*~

“I think this is gonna be the one, guys,” Impulse says, turning their van into the driveway.

The suspension creaks as they roll over gravel, rattling the frame in a way that hums through Grian’s hollow bones. His arm is cold where it presses against the window; it’s almost sunset and Impulse has yet to get the van’s heater fixed despite his promises. Stupid demon blood keeping him warm while Grian shivers in the stupid custom pleather jumpsuit that Scar insisted they had made, for their stupid ‘brand’ as a stupid ghost-hunting group. Great, his stupid zipper’s come down again- he stubbornly zips it back up because unlike Scar, he doesn’t like constantly having his bare chest out on display.

Of course, he hasn’t got as much to show off as Scar, who must be getting up at 3 am every morning to work out in order to maintain all that muscle. No wonder Scar prefers to keep his zipper down to his belly button, and doesn’t seem to have ever met a shirt that fits him properly.

… Not that Grian’s ever paid much attention to that sort of thing.

Grian gives an exasperated sigh. “You’ve been saying that about every case we’ve had for three years!”

“No, no, I really mean it!” Impulse insists. “I feel it in my bones.”

“Yeah,” Scar agrees, leaning forward so his shoulder brushes against Grian’s, “you know Impulse bones good!”

The earnest nature of his statement- and the unexpected physical contact- makes Grian flush. “Scar!” he shrieks, swatting Scar’s shoulder.

“What?” Scar defends. “What, he- he’s got big and strong bones, wonderful bones…”

He acts as if he’s got no idea he said something that could be taken the wrong way. And if it weren’t for the upturned corners of his mouth and the barely-restrained laugh in his voice, Grian might actually believe him.

“Dude,” Skizz chuckles from the front seat, “shut up, that’s awesome.”

Impulse sighs. “Anyway,” he says pointedly, “the place recently had a change in ownership. Previous owner passed away-”

“From murder?” Scar gasps.

Another sigh. “No, from liver failure.”

Grian snorts. “From all the drinking he did to forget about the ghostly hauntings?” he presses, exchanging a cheeky grin with Scar.

“No,” Impulse says, with the patience of a saint, “just normal old-age organ failure. The guy was ancient, and some kinda recluse. House had been in his family since it was built, but uh, he had no living relatives, no will when he died. So the bank took ownership and it’s been sitting off-market for like, fifteen years, til some hot-shot investor thought he could flip it-”

“Ughh,” Grian groans, tipping his head back against the seat. “Investors are the worst-”

“I know, I know,” Impulse soothes, “but um, he’d barely begun when things started happening. Contractors reported it day one, then the owner experienced an event himself and called us. So it’s basically still untouched.”

They haven’t even reached the end of the driveway yet, passing by seemingly endless rows of tall, gnarled pines. Admittedly, Grian’s curiosity is piqued. When he agreed to join this stupid ghost hunting group three years ago, he didn’t do so in the hopes of actually discovering any real paranormal activity. The whole idea is laughable. Ghost hunting is a pseudoscience, at best. Just a bunch of idiots scaring themselves silly in an empty house- and now they’re the idiots! Even their name is stupid: Ghost Investigation Group Services, or GIGS, embroidered on their ill-fitting pleather jumpsuits.

But despite his outright skepticism and dislike for pulling late nights in his already extremely limited free time, Grian’s got one very good reason for agreeing to join.

And his name is Scar.

Grian spent half a semester pining away at the fellow architecture major from across the lecture halls of their many shared classes. Charismatic and easy on the eyes, it was inevitable that Grian would develop a bit of a crush. But as they spent more time together during class projects and conversations in the hallway, he found out just how kind-hearted and passionate Scar was, and how easy he was to talk to, and how strong his arms looked in long-sleeved shirts…

… Yeah, ‘crush’ perhaps isn’t the right word.

So when Impulse- the engineering major who Grian was partnered with for physics lab- got the brilliant idea to start a ghost-hunting group with his best friend and roommate Skizz, and Scar expressed interest in joining, Grian made a split-second decision in a moment of weakness. He maintained his skepticism, claiming that he wanted to tag along just to prove how silly the whole idea was. Impulse was fine with it, while Scar said Grian had to wear the same uniform as them, and the rest was history.

(To be fair, that was before Grian knew it’d be a pleather jumpsuit.)

So here they are now nearly three years later, rumbling down a long gravel road in the dark and cold, up late on a Saturday night even though he still isn’t finished with his condominium model that’s due at 8 am on Monday and he’s fresh out of popsicle sticks. Moments like these almost make Grian wish he could just ask a guy out like a normal person, so they could spend time together without chasing pretend ghosts around dusty houses all night.

But that’d require him to talk about his feelings. Ugh, he’d rather let the ghosts get him.

“Alright.” Impulse slows the van to a halt. The doors unlock with a heavy clunk. “What do you guys think?”

Grian isn’t expecting much when he glances out the window. But the sight that greets him immediately prompts a hasty exit from the vehicle, scarcely noticing the sudden chill, his jaw dropping open in awe.

It’s a Victorian. Not a house that someone has mistakenly called ‘Victorian’ just because it looks old. A genuine, honest-to-goodness, Queen Anne’s style two-story Victorian manor with an asymmetrical facade and a rounded corner tower and a generous wrap-around porch, silhouetted against the fading light of the evening sky.

Grian reaches for his flashlight. Sweeping over the exterior, his breath catches. Knots of ivy creep up the walls, and there are a few places where the intricate wood trim has been lost to previous repairs and weather damage. A couple of the windows are bricked up. Most of the paint is faded and peeling. But overall? It’s beautiful.

“Oh man,” Grian murmurs, pushing his glasses back up, “look at the shape of it... look at the dormers!”

A second beam of light joins in; Scar’s emerged from the van. “Lots of character,” he says, sounding similarly entranced. “And still in great condition! Oh, it’s beautiful. It’s enough to make a man cry.”

Impulse hops out of the driver’s seat, chuckling. “I knew you two would like it. It’s an ‘85.”

Grian gives an appreciative whistle. “Look, I still don’t think we’re gonna find anythin’,” he says with a sideways look at Scar, “but I gotta tell ya… if- if I were a ghost… I think I’d haunt a proper house like this. Not those builder-grade boxes in the suburbs.”

“Right?” Impulse says, his forked tail flicking through the air. “That’s what I’m sayin’... I uh, I think this place has real potential.”

Skizz, who’s come around the van to stand with them, nods thoughtfully. “Definitely somethin’ special ‘bout it, that’s for true,” he says, exchanging a look with Impulse. Then he claps his hands together. “Alright gentlemen, let’s get movin’!”

Impulse and Skizz turn towards the van, heading to open the back.

Grian stares after them, squinting suspiciously. That wasn’t just any look. That was a Look. A Look that he knows all too well. They had that same Look on their faces at last year’s frat mixer, when they rigged the speakers at the Heta Kappa house to play ‘Margaritaville’ every time someone flushed a toilet.

It means that they’re Up To Something.

… Grian’s sure he’ll find out sooner or later.

“Well, Grian,” Scar says, hands on his hips as he surveys the property, “if it’s any connotation, at least we’ll get to study some real architecture tonight.”

Grian gives him a bemused look. “Consolation?”

Scar blinks. “Cono- what, what’d I say? Con- coronation?”

“Don’t worry ‘bout it, ey,” Grian chuckles, patting him on the shoulder. “Let’s go.”

~*~

“Check it out, dude,” Skizz calls excitedly, “temp’s dropping in here! Five degrees colder than the rest of the house!”

Grian makes a noncommittal noise. “It’s an east-facing room and the sun’s only just set, of course it’s colder than the rest of the house,” he says, idly passing his UV glow stick over an armchair. No prints, of course. “I doubt they’ve updated the insulation anytime within the last two decades.”

“And hey, look,” Impulse chimes in from the corner, “I’ve got EMF 1.3!”

Grian doesn’t even look up. “There’s an exposed outlet in here and I’ll bet the wiring’s older than I am. And in any case, it’s still below the recommended threshold.” Ew, okay, now that’s a suspicious UV stain on the floor, but not of the supernatural kind…

“Oh, it’s definitely not up to code,” Impulse agrees. He waves his EMF reader around a bit, making the pitch warble. “But I dunno, I think this must be the ghost’s favorite room. Might not be here right now, but I’m getting some real vibes…”

Grian rolls his eyes. “Sure…”

Twenty minutes in, and despite the house’s hauntingly elegant construction, it’s been the same old story. The house is empty and quiet, as abandoned houses tend to be. Quite sparse, as most of the furnishings probably went to auction. The furniture that’s left is covered with tarps and every surface is coated with a fine layer of dust. He can smell mold somewhere in the floorboards and there’s apparent water damage in the ceiling.

The only renovation attempted thus far was the removal of some cheap linoleum tiles that were laid in the kitchen at some point- a renovation Grian can heartily agree with, there’s some absolutely gorgeous hardwood underneath- but they didn’t get far. The removed tiles are still sitting about in a haphazard pile, hammer and chisel abandoned on the floor beside them. Frantic footsteps smeared in the dust and powder paint the scene of a terrified contractor fleeing for their life from the reported ‘ghostly hauntings’.

In any case, they haven’t heard any activity from the spirit box, nothing unusual has stood out on UV, and the salt Impulse laid out is still undisturbed. Surprise, surprise. Grian’s spent most of his time admiring the elaborate wooden trims lining every wall, scuffed as they are. What he wouldn’t give to properly restore this place…

“Hey, Dipple Dop?” Skizz calls suddenly. “Your radio working okay?”

Impulse gives him a curious look. “Huh? What, is there-” He pauses, glancing down at his radio. “Oh. Oh, yeah. Yeah, actually, mine’s on the fritz, must be overdue a battery change.”

“Oh?” Grian tilts his head innocently. “You don’t think it’s a ghoooost?”

Impulse purses his lips. “I don’t think everything is a ghost,” he says mildly. He clips the radio onto his belt, turning to the door. “I’ve got extras in the van, hang on…”

“I’ll go, too,” Skizz says quickly, slinging an arm and his wing around Impulse’s shoulders. “Buddy system! You know what, I- I’m tellin’ you, you never split up when hunting ghosts. That’s how they get you, dude.”

Oh. Oh, no.

Grian gives them a warning Look.

They give him a cheeky Look back.

“Yup, yeah, that’s true,” Impulse says with obvious feigned sincerity, steering Skizz out of the room. “So uh, you two keep at it, okay, and we’ll be right back…”

“Oh, okay!” Scar says cheerfully, busy setting up the tripod over in the corner and completely oblivious to their scheme. “Have a great time not getting murdered!”

Grian opens his mouth to protest, but Impulse and Skizz are already gone out the front door. Leaving him and Scar completely alone. Totally by coincidence, surely. Oh, he knew his drunken confession to Impulse at the school’s annual bar crawl fundraiser night would come back to bite him eventually.

It’s almost insulting, in a way. Like they think the only reason Grian hasn’t made a move is because he hasn’t had ample alone time with Scar. Like he needed them to give him an opportunity. But if he’d wanted to confess to Scar, he already would have. He’d have had it well done by now. They could give him a little credit.

See, the thing is, he’s thought about it. Plenty of times, in fact. But the issue he keeps coming back to is that if he tells Scar about his crush on him, then Scar will know about it. There’ll be no going back at that point. And if Scar doesn’t feel the same way- well, Grian can kiss their friendship goodbye. So yeah, no, he doesn’t think he’ll be making any dramatic love confessions tonight, strangely enough.

The risk of an awkward silence developing is astronomical, so Grian clears his throat. “Man… isn’t this place somethin’,” he says, then immediately fights the urge to cringe.

Scar, luckily, gives an emphatic nod. “It is, it truly is amazing.” He straightens up, dusting his hands off as he turns to Grian. “You know who’d really love this place, is Gem?”

“Oh, yeah, for sure,” Grian agrees. He busies himself with the UV, so he’s not just standing around. “We should take some pictures for her.”

“Oh, good idea!” Giving the tripod a final once-over, Scar wanders over to Grian. “So, any fingering goin’ on, yet?”

Grian nearly drops his glow stick. “Sorry- any what?!” he screeches, whirling around on Scar.

“You know, ghost fingers!” Scar says, perfectly innocent. He holds his hands up, wiggling his fingers in demonstration. “On the- on the glowy light?”

Grian takes a deep breath, face burning. “Oh Scar, buddy, you gotta think through your words better before you say them, alright?”

“Whaaat?” Scar pretends like he doesn’t know. “What, I’m just- you’ve got the stick, you know, little glow stick for when the ghost touches, uh-”

“Nevermind,” Grian groans. “Anyways, no, I haven’t found any ghostly handprints and I never will, because ghosts aren’t real.”

Scar folds his arms. “Well, hey, maybe the ghost is just polite! You know, he- maybe he’s just minding his business, not touching anything or- or anyone. Just because we don’t get anything on UV doesn’t mean ghosts aren’t real, I’ll have you know.”

Grian sees the challenge for what it is. “Alright…” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his spirit box. Holding the transponder to his lips, he belts out, “Where ahhre yewww?” in his best imitation of an over-exaggerated pop-punk accent. If Impulse and Skizz are eavesdropping through their radios, he hopes he gave them a start.

Scar laughs. “Oh man, been a while since I heard that one! You-”

I’m close.

Grian jumps so badly he nearly drops the box, his wings puffing out involuntarily. “What?! Wha- who said that?” he demands, spinning around.

Scar blinks at him. “What? Did you hear something through the box?”

“I- I dunno?” Grian says uncertainly. The box seems to be working as normal; when he holds the receiver down, there’s a faint hiss of static, and the bulb remains white. No further noises come from the speaker.

After a couple seconds of tense listening, Grian feels silly. Way to play it cool. He switches the box off with an exasperated sigh. “No, of course I didn’t hear anything through the box. Like I said, ghosts aren’t real.”

Scar hums noncommittally. “Oh, Grian... you know, there are some things in the world that can’t be explained.”

Grian snorts. “Oh, yeah? Well, I- I got a few explanations for ya.” He counts on his fingers. “It could’ve been this old house creaking in the wind, or an electrical surge causing feedback through the transponder, or- or, not to mention, Impulse and Skizz pranking us through the radio?”

Scar snickers. “That does sound like something they’d do, I’ll give you that.”

“Yeah.” Grian slips the box back into his pocket. “And y’know, being in a creepy abandoned house, after dark, out in the middle’a nowhere... it’s easy to think you’re hearin’ things.”

Scar rolls his eyes, but his expression is fond. “I know, I know, so you’ve told me. But one of these days, mister, you’re gonna eat your words.”

“Right,” Grian drawls. “I’m so scared…”

The front door slams shut.

That makes Grian pause. They always leave the front door open while out on a job. It saves time when they have to go back and forth from the van, and saves battery life on their radios when they can just shout to each other through the open doorway. Obviously this job is a little different, because Impulse and Skizz have clearly got it in their heads to try and get him and Scar together, but he wouldn’t think they’d go so far as to-

The lights suddenly flicker and go out. But in the split-second before they do, Grian sees a shadowy figure silhouetted against the door.

Pure instinct takes over. Grian spins on his heel, grabs Scar by the arm, and absolutely flies down the stairs to the basement. He knows they’ve disturbed one or two piles of salt but right now, he can’t bring himself to care. His wings are bumping against the walls and he’s certainly never tried carrying someone as big as Scar before but he doesn’t stop, doesn’t even process the ache of it rattling through his body. He bursts into the basement, feathers flying, and careens towards the back of the room, around a tall shelving unit, and into the corner.

There’s a heap of boxes stacked up in this corner; Grian unceremoniously shoves Scar over top of them, dropping him in the narrow space between the boxes and the wall. He’s wedged in as far as he can himself, laying across the boxes, his double pair of wings preventing him from squeezing in beside Scar. He’s still got the UV light clenched in his fist, he realizes belatedly- he braces his forearms against the wall to try and cover it, fanning his wings out behind him to block it out from the rest of the room. Glancing back over his shoulder, he tries to gauge how much light is getting through when a noise makes him freeze.

Footsteps.

They’re soft and light- certainly not the heavy boots of Impulse or Skizz. No, they sound almost barefoot. And as they gently tap down the stairs, the sound of giggling fills the air. It’s a feminine voice. Young, like a child. Like a little ghostie girl is prancing down the stairs to murder them.

Grian thinks he might pass out. Can ghosts actually kill people? How would they do it if they’re incorporeal? He’s never considered the question before, he never thought he’d have to because it’s ridiculous, ghosts aren’t real, of course they can’t kill people-

The footsteps stop.

Grian isn’t sure if he’s still breathing. He doesn’t dare move. A chill runs up his spine, making every single feather stand on end. He can almost hear the high-pitched violins that would be playing right now if this were a horror movie; the cheesy, overdrawn kind of horror movies that are always playing at the drive-in that the four of them watch while piled into the back of the van in a tangle of limbs and spilled popcorn and oh god he’s spiraling now because he’s about to be killed by a ghost-

Bye-bye!

The chill recedes. Somewhere in his peripheral vision, he sees the faint glow of light from upstairs return.

It’s over.

Grian’s mind is spinning. What was that? What was that? It seems impossible, it doesn’t even feel real to be in this situation right now but he is, there was a ghost, there was a ghost. It feels insane to even think it. But the residual adrenaline coursing through his body reminds him it was very real, he just encountered a ghost.

A ghost! Oh, after three years of very loudly decrying the entire concept as rubbish. He can’t believe it. He really can’t believe it, this is the absolute last thing he expected to happen tonight. Ghosts are real. Ghosts are really, really, real. He doesn’t know what to do, who would ever believe him? Is this how the others have been feeling this whole time? God, he can’t believe this-

“G...?” Scar’s voice pipes up hesitantly. “What... what are we doing?”

Oh, right. Grian glances down at Scar- and his heart jolts. He’d been so focused on getting away from the ghost, he’d acted without thinking, so only now does he realize the... predicament he’s put them in.

Scar’s slumped against the floor beneath him, head tucked just below Grian’s arms. His long legs are still draped over the box that Grian’s laying across, resting on either side of his waist. And due to the odd posture Grian’s in, his chest has been thrust rather close to Scar’s face, lit by the soft purple glow of the UV.

This is probably the closest Grian has ever been to sitting in Scar’s lap.

Grian’s not proud of the yelp that escapes him. “Sorry, sorry!” His wings flail as he struggles to push himself off of the wall, stumbling back onto his feet. It’s clumsy and uncoordinated and he nearly falls backwards, his heart pounding.

Scar manages a laugh, easing himself up off the floor. “No, no, it’s okay, I- I just... what- why’d you bring us down here?” he asks, dusting off his jumpsuit.

Grian catches his breath. “Wait, you... didn’t hear the creepy ghost on its way to kill us?” he asks, frowning.

Scar‘s eyes widen. “What? There was a ghost?”

No way.

“Are you-!” Grian throws his arms up. “Honestly, I- I know avians have better hearing than most but that’s insane. She was laughing! Laughing and skipping down the blumin’ steps! And you didn’t hear any of it?”

“No…?” Scar shrugs helplessly. “I’m sorry, okay! I- I don’t know, I was- a lot was happening, you- you’re grabbin’ me, pulling me down the stairs and into this little corner, I didn’t know what was going on! I didn’t know, I- I was all disconbodulated- disco- bobo, bobumated? I was a little distracted, okay. Jeeze, give a man a break…”

“Distracted?” Grian repeats incredulously. “You’re the one who actually believes in ghosts, here, how could you get distracted? What do you…”

He trails off. Scar is very clearly fighting to avoid looking at Grian, but for the briefest moment, his eyes dart down to Grian’s chest. Suddenly confused, Grian follows his gaze, and-

Oh, for goodness sakes. At some point during his frantic flight, the stupid zipper on his stupid jumpsuit came down again, exposing a frankly scandalous amount of skin. Not Scar-level of scandalous, but pretty close.

Grian immediately feels himself turn red. “Oh. Uh- right,” he hastily pulls the zipper back up, “sorry ‘bout that…”

Wait. Wait just a second.

Scar was distracted from a literal ghost hunt going on... because Grian’s bare chest was showing? Does that... does that mean he liked it?

Scar’s avoiding his gaze again. His cheeks are tinted pink.

“Scar...?” Grian ventures carefully. “Were you... lookin’ at my chest?”

Scar’s cheeks darken. “Ah, I- I- don’t- I mean, why would you- I didn’t mean to, it’s just...” He fumbles for the words. “What- what am I- hey, your pecs were basically in my face! I wasn’t trying to look, I- I just-”

“Scar,” Grian says, keeping his voice light and teasing, “did ya… did you like what you saw?”

Scar splutters for a moment. “Well, sure, Grian,” he tries to laugh it off, “I mean, anyone- anyone with eyes can see you’re uh, you know, you’re- you’re pretty attractive. I- I’m secure enough to say it, I don’t care, it’s- sure, of course, you’re very muscular! You’re a- you’re a muscular man, it’s just not always obvious with the sweaters you wear. Or- sorry, you call them jumpers in Britain land, right, they’re jumpers-”

“You been checkin’ me out, Scar?” Grian asks, caught somewhere between playfulness and utter disbelief.

“Uh...” Scar rubs the back of his neck. He exhales slowly, clearly debating with himself. “I... maybe? What... what would you say... if that were the case?”

Grian swallows. His heart is absolutely racing now, and he’s broken into a cold sweat that’s definitely not supernatural in origin. The air between them feels fragile; he’s acutely aware that a single word from him could swiftly plunge them back into the realm of safe familiarity, of casual light-hearted teasing between friends. Scar’s always said things that bordered on the flirtatious, and Grian can hide behind the plausible deniability of teasing. This entire interaction doesn’t have to mean anything. It can be easily moved past and forgotten.

And yet, strangely enough… Grian doesn’t want it to. Maybe it’s the post-haunting adrenaline or the fact that he could’ve died tonight, but all of a sudden, he feels like taking a chance. Like he could finally say what he’s wanted to say for the last three years. He managed to hold his own against a blumin’ ghost, for goodness sakes- he should be able to face his own feelings head on.

He takes a breath. “I’d say that’s a relief… ‘cause I’ve been checkin’ you out since day one of first year.”

Scar stares at him for a long moment. His expression is utterly unreadable. The silence draws on long enough that Grian feels a spike of panic, worried that maybe he’s mishandled the situation-

“... oh my god,” Scar says finally. “Really?”

It sounds like the good kind of surprise. Grian offers a shy smile. “Yeah, yeah,” he admits. “I- Scar, I know I’m real good at playin’ these things close to the vest, but uh, I- I’ve had a massive crush on you since... basically since the day we met.”

“Huh.” Scar blinks. “You’re serious. You- you’re not pranking me right now?”

That startles a laugh out of Grian. “No! Scar, I don’t- we just survived being hunted by a ghost, I’m not pranking you!”

“Well, that’s- that’s amazing!” A grin spreads across Scar’s face- and man, oh man, does he have just the most wonderful smile. “Oh my gosh, G, I don’t- you don’t even know how long I’ve been waiting for this.”

The relief is almost overwhelming. “Yeah, me too!” Grian laughs, half-dazed and half-giddy, running a hand through his hair. “I- I even- look, the whole reason I even joined this group was as an excuse to hang out with you!”

Scar’s mouth falls open. “No way! That’s- that’s the whole reason I joined in the first place, too!”

Now it’s Grian’s turn to gawk. “Are you joking?”

“I’m not!” Scar insists, “I swear, I’m not- Impulse said he wanted to start the group and maybe we’d all join and get to hang out and I thought ‘hey, ghosts are cool and Grian is cool’ so I just-”

“Oh, I can’t believe this…” Grian groans, hiding his burning face in his hands. “We really are idiots, we’ve wasted nearly three years…”

Scar’s hands close around Grian’s wrists, lightly pulling them down from his face. “Well, I guess we’ll just have to make up for lost time,” he says smoothly, leaning in.

Corny, but Grian will allow it. He closes the gap, tilting his head up to meet Scar’s lips.

In that moment, everything else fades away. All the nervousness, all the second-guessing, even the bombshell discovery of the existence of ghosts- there could be one standing in front of them right now and Grian wouldn’t care. The way Scar gathers Grian in his arms, hands gently roving through his feathers- it’s bliss. It’s perfect.

Scar kisses him strong and purposefully, with no trace of carelessness or haste. He doesn’t rush. There’s intent written into every single movement, jaw working to deepen the kiss. Grian curls against him, hands splayed across Scar’s chest. He can feel Scar’s heart pounding through his flushed skin, and it’s wildly exciting- to think Scar is just as breathless as he is.

Growing bold, Grian dares to slip his tongue into Scar’s mouth, and the noise he makes- part surprise, part delight- sends pure electricity fizzling up his spine. His mind is starting to drift away from him, lost in the sensation of weightlessness, of floating, that almost makes him feel like he’s gone completely incorporeal- like his own spirit has become untethered from the mortal coil.

Then Skizz’s voice comes down the stairs.

“G-Sharp! Scarface! You down here? We just saw a freaking ghost on the cams, and- oh my god!”

Grian breaks away from Scar, but not quick enough. He turns to see Skizz and Impulse standing at the bottom of the stairs, expressions shocked. And then, as if they’d rehearsed it, they both break into massive shit-eating grins and spin around to high-five each other.

“Woo!” Impulse cheers. “We got ‘em! Ladies and gentlemen, we finally got them.”

“Yeah, baby!” Skizz pumps his fist in the air. “Oh, I love it!”

“Oh, would you two stop it?” Grian huffs, but he’s not really cross. Hard to be cross when he’s on cloud nine. “The ghost did most of the work, alright?”

“That’s right,” Scar sniffs, winding an arm around Grian’s waist. “You know, I- I’m startin’ to think you all were in cahoots! Cahoots, I say!”

“Dude, if only,” Skizz laughs, walking over to clap them on the shoulders. “Could not have planned it better, that’s amazing. Well done, gentlemen!”

“Yeah, it’s about time!” Impulse adds, crossing his arms. “I was starting to think we’d graduate before either of you fessed up, I- I had to take drastic measures…”

“Impulse,” Grian says warningly, “if you’re about to tell me you started this whole paranormal investigation group just as a way to push me and Scar into confronting our feelings, I swear-”

“No, no,” Impulse assures him, chuckling. “I really do like the ghost-hunting deal, don’t worry. But uh, we did deliberately ditch you guys in the hopes that something would happen.”

Scar waggles his eyebrows. “Oh, things happened, alright.”

“Scar!” Grian swats at him, but he’s laughing and it feels good. It feels right. After all this time spent worrying about worst-case scenarios, about denying his feelings for the sake of maintaining the comfortable mundanity of his comfortable life, it turns out the scariest part was the fear itself.

The irony doesn’t escape his notice. A bit on the nose, if he’s honest.

“But in even bigger news,” Impulse graciously continues, “you saw the ghost? And you believed it? You, Mr. Non-Believer in all things ghostly?”

Grian sighs. “Yeah, yeah, I know…”

“This is incredible!” Skizz claps his hands together. “Okay, okay, we gotta go cleanse the area and I wanna hear everything, got it? Don’t leave a single detail out!”

Grian slips his hand into Scar’s as they follow Impulse and Skizz back up the stairs. “Yeah, alright,” he relents. He supposes he’s due for a lot of ‘I told you so’s’. But really, it’s a small price to pay for the life-altering knowledge that ghosts are real… and for finally finding the courage to believe in something extraordinary.

Scar hums. “Wait, details about the ghost or about the kissing?”

“Scar!”

~*~

#hermitcraft #hermitshipping #scarian #my writing #listen i am only a casual phasmo enjoyer and idk anything about architecture school pls don't come for me abt any inaccuracies #just here for a good gay spooky time #wanted to see if i'd be any good at writing commissions (ie. solely based off someone else's idea) and i had FUN #but it's always easy to be inspired by mel <3

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junniieesbby · 2 months

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🐻ིྀ PhotoBooth|Choi Beomgyu 🐻ིྀ

Pairing: Non Idol Beomgyu x F!reader

Genre: Established relationship! Smut, with fluff.

WC: 1K

Rating: 18+ MDNI

Summary: You are out with your boyfriend Beomgyu and come across a photo booth. You can’t help but drag him in there and make your fantasy a reality.

Warning: Public Sex, Oral (Male Receiving), Use of pet names. Creampie, breeding kink, biting. Let me know if I missed any.

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Nothing mentioned in this fiction represents any of the characters.

A/N: Hello Lovelies!! This is part of Mine and @boba-beom Tubatu’s year long birthday Event. I hope you enjoyed it. Please don’t be shy to let me know your honest thoughts. You can send me asks as well!! Also don’t be shy to join and participate in the birthday event. We would love to see so many more participants!this is like 2 days late I’m sorry the tags were not working 🥺

MINORS DO NOT INTERACT

“Baby, look there is a photobooth, let's go please” You pouted while dragging your boyfriend to the booth. “Okay okay baby slow down” Your boyfriend chuckles at how eager you are.

Entering the photobooth you can't help but notice how tiny it really is. Beomgyu sat down first and wrapped his arms around your waist pulling you down to sit on his lap. Sitting right on his crotch you couldn’t help but move to feel more comfortable earning a groan and a “behave” from Beomgyu.

“I was just getting situated silly!” you turn to face him, giving his cheek a peck. “Getting situated? Or trying to get fucked in a public?” Beomgyu remarks. “I would never turn down getting fucked in public, but you know what really wanna do right now?” You start to slightly grind on him. “What is it that you really wanna do?” He grips your hips to stop you. You can feel his hard on. You always loved making him feel this way just from a little friction.

“How about I show you.” You teasingly told him. Sliding down from his lap meeting with his covered crotch. You worked fast on unbuttoning his pants and pulling his dick out, giving it a few strokes. “I want a strip of photos where I’m sucking your cock baby” Beomgyu whimpers and nods.

You start giving his tip kitten licks while you stroked the rest of his dick. Teasing Beomgyu was your favorite thing to do. You would tease him and he would be a good boy and listen to you, but the moment you were done he would flip you over and fuck you like there was no tomorrow.

You started to take him in your mouth inch by inch until your nose met with his pelvis. You stayed there until you gagged. “Fuckkk baby your mouth is so warm and wet you're taking me so well” He reaches for your head and thrusts, making you gag on him once again.

You kept bobbing your head and making sure to pay attention to his balls as well massaging them or occasionally sucking on them. “Start the timer please I want my strip of photos with your cock in my mouth” Releasing one of his hands from your hair he started the timer for the photos. You couldn’t wait to see his face in all of the pictures.

You kept sucking him off and deep throating him to get the perfect pictures. “Princess if you keep going I’ll cum in your mouth and I need your pussy” He moans your name pulling you off. You grabbed the photos and looked at the faces he made. He had his mouth wide open with his eyes closed. In another he was biting his lip to stop from moaning too loud. You can see your own head and how he had his hands tangled in your head.They were so perfect exactly how you imagine.

“You got your strip of photos baby girl how bout you be a good girl and come hop on my cock so I can have my own set of photos with me inside that sweet pussy” Beomgyu says as he strokes his own dick. “Okay hot stuff and make sure you come in me please!” You tell him getting up and settling in his lap again. “My little whore needs my babies inside her I see.” He said aligning himself with your entrance allowing you to adjust to his size. “Yes very much so. I need you to breed me. I need your cum so bad” Beomgyu moans and smacks your ass at your dirty words.

“Ride my cock baby, use me to get us both off come on angel I know you got it in you.” At his words you start to ride and hop on his dick like you were a bunny in heat. “Just like that baby girl just like that. Let me lift your skirt up a little so the camera captures your cute ass” You were too fucked out to form any words and your walls started to clench around him. “Fuck your sweet cunt is going to squeeze all the cum out of me isn’t it?” He starts the timer knowing you are close and so was he wanting to capture the perfect moments.

“I'm so close baby please can I come?” You ask out of habit of always asking him before getting your release. “Go ahead baby i'm right there with you let me paint your walls white hmm” He reaches down and flicks your bud which makes you come leaning down biting his neck to stop your loud moan from escaping. He took over and started to thrust upwards until his thrusts were sloppy and you felt warm liquid paint your walls.

After you both catch your breaths you pull away from his neck smiling at him while he grabs the back of your neck to bring your face close to him. “That was perfect baby.” he said, kissing you deeply. He pulls out of you and readjusts your underwear so his cum doesn’t spill out while reaching forward to look at the photos. They were perfect in his mind. The picture consisted of you with your back arched. Him smacking your ass while biting down on your shoulder. His favorite one was when you had your orgasm and you had to bite his neck to suppress the moans.

“Wow I guess we both got the set of photos we wanted '' You tell him giggling. “Be honest with me baby is getting fucked in a photobooth on your list of places to get fucked in?” He already knew the answer to that but wanted you to admit it. “You know me so well handsome, Now I can check Photobooth off my list” You say getting out of his lap. “What am I going to do with you?” He shakes his head. “Love me and fuck me duh” You dragged your chuckiling boyfriend out of the booth. Spending the rest of the day outside and feeling his cum run down your legs, but you loved it and didn’t care if people took notice.

˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖ ˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖ ˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖ ˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖ ˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖ ˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖

Permanent tag list: @laylasbunbunny @star-yawnznn @gyupremacy @honajoong @boba-beom @queeniezzzznz

Please NOTE: If you would like to be added to my permanent tag list fill out this form. If you would like to be removed send me a message/ask! No hard feelings 💕

Also make sure your age is somewhere visible on your page like your bio before you sign up to be tagged in my work! Than you

#MDNI #Beomgyu #Beomgyu smut #Beomgyu fluff #beomgyu x fem reader #beomgyu imagines #beomgyu scenarios #beomgyu hard hours #beomgyu hard thoughts #txt smut #txt fluff #txt imagines

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sailoryooons · 8 months

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fae au where human oc who doesn't know that she works in a normal looking restaurant but it's exclusive only for faeries to formally offer their human mates a lifetime in fae world also serves as common place for faes. possibly a fluffy soft fae yoongi? idk what to do with him but i trust you 😅

❀ Pairing: Fae!Yoongi x human!reader

❀ Summary: Every day, Yoongi works at the coffee shop in his little corner of the world. Every day, you come in and order the same thing, sitting in the same booth. The only problem is, Yoongi is pretty sure you don’t know that you’re one of the few humans in a faerie coffee shop.

❀ Word Count: 1,249

❀ Genre: Urban fantasy, secret crush, pining

❀ Rating: SFW

❀ Warnings: Light pining, Yoongi has an unspoken crush on reader, that’s really it

❀ Published: August 20, 2023

❀ A/N: Hi anon - I am so stupid and I did not realize until I finished your entire request that you asked for reader to work at the coffee shop and not Yoongi. Please accept my sincerest apologies, I got them switched around and wrote this entire thing with Yoongi as the worker and reader as the patron. I hope that this will work anyway, but please no I am so sorry for getting it wrong, I had to edit this author’s note because I did not realize I swapped it until I went to post this just now. AGGHHHH I’M SO MAD AT MYSELF LMAO.

❀ Disclaimer: All members of BTS are faces and name claims for this story. This is entirely a work of fiction and by no means is meant to be a projection, judgment or representation of real-life people. Any scenarios or representations of the people and places mentioned in works are not representative of real-life scenarios.

| Masterlist | Ask |Hali’s Happy Agust |

“Have you guys ever been sued by Coffee-Mate?”

Yoongi looks up when he hears your voice at the counter. He nearly spills the matcha latte in his hand, not expecting to see you, ready to order. Usually, Yoongi sees you come in. He’s always ready for it, looking up as you enter the room like clockwork. The times that you catch him off guard are few and far between, his senses always alerting him to your presence before you do.

Today, though, he’s a little bit busy. With Hoseok out on vacation, it’s just Yoongi and Jungkook manning the shop and Jungkook is better behind the scenes baking than up front taking orders. It’s left to Yoongi to make all the coffees this morning, and of course, everyone in the world seems to be at Coffee Mates on an early Saturday.

“Uh,” he tries to put together a sentence, thoughts pulling together sluggishly at the sight of your pretty smile and vanilla perfume. He swears when he goes home to fall asleep at night, he smells vanilla. “Not that I’m aware of. I’d have to ask Jin.”

“Hmm, seems like a conflict of interest.”

Yoongi’s mouth quirks a bit as he fastens the top to the matcha in his hand and slides it on the serving counter to Namjoon. The gentry fae nods in thanks at Yoongi and shoots you a raised brow before looking back to Yoongi, a silent question. Yoongi gives the tiniest shake no before turning back to you as Namjoon sighs and retreats.

Namjoon has been trying to get Yoongi to ask you out on a date for the better half of a few months. Every day you come to Coffee Mates at the same time, with the same order. You always sit in the same booth, which Yoongi might have put a glamor on to keep it open for you, and you always pop open your book to read for hours, coffee in hand.

Yoongi supposes he could ask you out. You’re friendly enough and you seem to enjoy what few interactions you have. He’s caught you looking at him at least once or twice, though he worries it’s because his glamor has dropped in your presence or you’re seeing a waver in the magic that hides the nature of most of the shop.

Because unlike most patrons at Coffee Mates, you are blissfully unaware of all the magic that surrounds you.

At first, Yoongi thought it was a joke. Humans don’t just come to this coffee shop without knowing what it is. A bridge between worlds, a little haven for faerie suitors to offer their human counterparts an invitation to Faerie. Or for fae like Namjoon and Jimin, a place to hangout among other creatures of their kind.

Coffee Mates welcomes all fae creatures and their human counterparts, which is why you’re unusual. You have no faerie partner, no knowledge of magic. You don’t notice the floating lights in the shop or the pointed ears hidden behind Yoongi’s dark hair. A steaming cup of hot chocolate levitates just a few feet away from where you stand now as Taehyung draws on a napkin, and you’re none the wiser.

It makes little sense. But it doesn’t have to. The patrons and the workers of the cafe have accepted you all in some unspoken agreement. Watching you curiously, making eyes at Yoongi whenever you laugh particularly hard at something he says.

“Almond latte?” Yoongi asks, already typing in your order on the screen. You hum and nod, handing over cash. Yoongi goes through the motions of putting it in the register, but unknown to you, the money always appears in your wallet once more. He’s been pretending to accept it for weeks now, unable to bring himself to charge you. “Give me ten.”

“Hmm, I think I’ll only give you nine.”

He smiles. “Challenge accepted.”

You leave the counter and sit in your booth. Yoongi watches you from the corner of his eye as he makes your drink, hands memorizing every ingredient and heating it just the way you like it. Normally when Yoongi makes the drinks, he uses magic to help him. He gets much more done that way, but with yours, he always does it by hand. Takes his time to froth the cream for the design on top, always careful when he pours in the cream to make a leaf, or a heart, or something else cute on the top of your coffee.

Yoongi likes to personally bring it to your table. Every time that he does, you chide him and insist that you can come to the counter. He doesn’t mind, though. It gives him a moment to stretch his legs and escape the heavy hum of machinery and the buzzing energy of magic.

Today, you’re leaned against the window, an open book in your hands when he approaches. You sense him and look up, smiling and shaking your head as you snap the book shut. “Eight minutes exactly.”

He smirks. “When have I ever let you down?”

“You couldn’t possibly, Yoongi. You are singularly gifted in making my day.”

Yoongi gestures to your book to hide the fact that he’s blushing from the tip of his ears to his cheeks. “What are you reading today?”

“It’s a romance book about soulmates.” That throws him for a loop. If you notice the way he blinks in surprise, you don’t show it. “It’s a really fun read. Do you believe in soulmates?”

He swears half the cafe turns to look at the two of you. Namjoon leans a little out of his booth, tilting his head to eavesdrop. Taehyung has dropped his pen and placed his chin in his hand, watching with a goofy grin on his face.

Of course the entire cafe full of sharp-hearing creatures is listening now, interested in your mention of soulmates. Yoongi clears his throat awkwardly, pulling on his apron. “I guess?”

“You guess?”

“I don’t see why not?”

“Hmm.” You look him up and down and for a second, he swears you see right through his glamor. See down into the core of him, heartbeat thumping a two-syllable rhythm: soulmate soulmate soulmate. “I hope to find mine one day.”

“I think you will.”

“Yeah?”

Yoongi feels his cheeks warm. Chews on his lower lip a little as he nods. “I definitely think you will.”

“Thanks, Yoongi.”

Everyone watches him return to the counter. He hides from their gazes by busying himself with wiping down one of the machines even though he could flick his fingers and be done with it. He needs the distraction to steady his hands and breathing.

Yoongi certainly believes in soulmates. The fact that you believe in soulmates sets him on fire. Ignites something in him that is nervous and excited. Something like hope, softley burning. For faeries, soulmates are quite common. It’s why Jin made the cafe in the first place, a haven for faeries to help bridge the world between the fae and their sometimes human mates.

When Yoongi looks up at you, rain splattering on the window, crowning your head, he thinks maybe he will take Namjoon’s advice, finally. Maybe he will ask you out on that date he’s been dreaming about. Because if you believe in soulmates, maybe you can believe in magic.

And maybe you can believe that the reason you’ve found this little invisible coffee shop is because your soulmate makes you almond lattes every morning.

#yoongi fanfic #suga fanfic #bts fanfic #yoongi fic #suga fic #yoongi x you #yoongi x reader #yoongi imagines #halis happy agust

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morerawerbreath · 1 year

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Fictional Men Ranked Least to Most Likely to Eat Pussy

When I’m bored my powers turn to evil. Happy to announce that @earlymodernlesbian is not only is an enabler but wrote a gay companion piece which you can and should read here!!!!

10. Mr. Rochester — Jane Eyre

No chance of oral here. Sorry, I don’t think he puts Jane first once in this book. She’s too busy being a ministering angel to ever consider anything above and beyond her wifely duty and I don’t think Rochester ever really stops being a narcissist long enough to consider her desires or even, you know, her life. I bet his french mistress asked him to do it once and he was like “ew, no”

9. Rhett Butler — Gone With the Wind

Rhett says shit like “you ought to be kissed and by someone who knows how,” and then I bet would go down on you one time just to show you what you were missing out on, and then he’d tease you about how much you liked it for months afterwards and refuse to do it again. Imagine how much more normal Scarlett might have been if she was getting regular oral.

8. Konstantin Levin — Anna Karenina

Definitely knows about eating pussy and can’t stop thinking about it. I think he might even shamefully obsess about it in conjunction with his dirty peasant laborer fantasies. However, he also has the ascetic monk thing going on so I bet he hardcore represses his desires to actually do it. That being said, I think if he ever got over himself he’d be way into it.

7. Mr Darcy — Pride and Prejudice

I’m not convinced Mr. Darcy even knows going down on girls is a thing, but once Bingley had filled him in I bet he would try it. Elizabeth I’m sure would not object but I can’t see this happening more than once or twice.

6. Oliver Mellors — Lady Chatterley’s Lover

Mellors has the distinct advantage and disadvantage of being the only character from a book that actually describes sex acts. If it was based solely on what he said (being turned on by getting women off, not shutting up about Connie’s ass, talking about how much he wants a “real” woman with a “real” body), I’d say absolutely he wants to get down there and would use the cringiest words possible to describe it. However, they textually do almost everything else so I feel like if he ate her out DH Lawrence would have told us 😔

EDIT: he goes down on her in the most recent movie!!! vindicated

5. Jonathan Harker — Dracula

Jonathan is obsessed with Mina (rightfully) and loves her to the end of the earth, so of course he’d do anything for her, including eat her out. However, there’s so much putting women on goddess pedestals in Dracula that he might just like, repeatedly kiss her between her legs and and be like, “am I doing this right?” and Mina would be like “I love you so much Jonathan” but she wouldn’t actually get off, you know?

4. Heathcliff — Wuthering Heights

Someone who is willing to dig up your grave would definitely be down to lick your pussy. Cathy and Heathcliff are so rabid about each other I bet oral is like, one of the least weird things they would have done to each others bodies if they had the chance

3. Gabriel Oak — Far from the Madding Crowd

Not intimidated by Bathsheba’s independence and position of power. Could take care of her and spoil her if she ever let him and they both know it. Plus, not afraid to get down and dirty and do farm work for her. If a man cures your sheep and saves your hay before a storm, what else will he do for you? 👀

2. Mr. Knightley — Emma

Mr. Knightly is the definition of a service top. 100% confident in his masculinity and completely comfortable putting Emma’s needs and wants first, but not gonna let her get away with being high and mighty. Excellent combination of obsessed with her but still in charge. ;) She would get neurotic about it and he would tell her to chill out and he’d be right.

1. George Emerson — A Room with a View

George chugs his respect women juice and is so turned on by the idea of women as individuals with unique desires he can’t stand to see Lucy betray herself by marrying a robot. “I want you to have your own thoughts even when I hold you in my arms” ?!? “The desire to govern a woman lies very deep, and men and women must fight it together before they shall enter the Garden” !! What’s not to love about a pro-Eve humanist who enjoys swimming naked and is constantly telling everyone to be less embarrassed about desire and the body? No question George is going to be eating Lucy out every day of their lives and getting off on it himself.

Bonus:

Marius Pontmercy — Les Misérables

Shy, but also French. Not sure which one wins out here.

#pride and prejudice #emma #wuthering heights #a room with a view #far from the madding crowd #gone with the wind #anna karenina #lady chatterley's lover #dracula #jonathan harker #mr darcy #heathcliff #rhett butler #jane eyre #mr rochester #marius #les mis

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dduane · 9 months

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The Novel as Cake

I was reading through the 'writing' tag on your blog, and came across your wonderful post about how you outline your novels using Cherryh's 'Shopping List' technique. My question is - how do you decide/come up with the 10 things in the novel? I have about 3-4 things I know must happen in my idea, and other random details about the world. But what is important enough to be one of the 10 things? And also, how do you generate your ideas for those 10 things? - Asked by Anonymous

…Okay, let’s take this from the top. (And for convenience’s sake, let’s stay in the shopping-list idiom; it’s useful enough.) (ETA: the blog entry that discusses the Shopping List outlining method is here.)

Let’s say you want to make a cake. …This cake also being your novel.

To have a solid story (in the western-novel tradition, anyway), you need at least two things: plot and theme. The plot is what happens. The theme is the why of what happens, and (to a certain extent) the book-wide spectrum of thought and emotion that underlies that; the answer to the question “But what’s the book about?”* …Think of this duality, for the moment, as the equivalent of having both liquid and solid stuff in your cake. You’ve got to have both or it won’t rise. A book with a plot but no theme has no soul.

So: you’re going to make a cake. What kind?

As an example, I’m going to ease myself out onto a limb here and equate “chocolate-chip devil’s food with chocolate buttercream frosting” with “epic-fantasy quest fiction with strong political, exoreligious, and quasiromantic components.” (A favorite for me, over time, as some folks will have noticed. I just can’t get enough of those chocolate chips…)

So how do you determine the ten things you need (or whatever number you like, but ten works for me) as major ingredients / sections?

Well, ideally from some familiarity with what has gone in other/similar cakes/works of fiction in the past: because (in genre fiction, anyway) you have at least some reader expectations to manage. If you haven’t been reading in your chosen genre, you really should be. ...Now, this doesn’t mean you have to do what other people working in the genre have done. Indeed, at all times you remain at liberty to “flip the punchcard” and do exactly the opposite of what everybody else has been doing, if that’s what suits you. But they’ve set out possible recipes for you, so (as a beginner at this work) it'd seem wise to examine those recipes and see what’s in them that might be useful for you. Once you’ve been doing this for a while, you don’t need to go looking, just as an experienced baker doesn’t need to run for the recipe book every time they want to make a cake.

Naturally you can substitute ingredients, add some or lose some, when you’re creating something new; just as you like—while always making sure you don’t throw away anything routinely required/expected in your genre. (Such as, for example, the Happily Ever After at the end of a genre romance.) But certain basics must be in place, things that make what you’re creating recognizably A Cake, as well as your own additions and embellishments.

In this case, that could be:

For a cake: flour, milk, eggs, butter, baking powder, cocoa, chocolate chips, vanilla extract, seasonings, a little bit of salt (because without that, even the sweetest cake tastes just a little insipid somehow)

For a novel: a protagonist/pairtagonist (is that a word? It is now…); an antagonist (not necessarily a character: an antagonistic or stymie-ing situation that keeps the antagonist from easily getting what they want/need will do just as well. This is where at least some of the interior drama will derive from); a change in interior or exterior conditions that sets events in motion; a “ticking clock” or similar construct that means the desired result must be achieved within a certain time or before certain conditions change or expire; various reversals or hiccups in the flow of the story that will inject a sense of realism (because when does anything ever go perfectly smoothly…?); a crisis point at which everything assembled against the protagonist rises up to be dealt with, and the protagonist rises up to meet the challenge and deal with it; and finally, a set of resolution events that (even if it doesn’t absolutely finish the story proper) brings about an end state that will leave you, and any theoretical reader, satisfied with the completion of the current story arc.

…Needless to say, this is an incredibly oversimplified take on the kind of strategizing needed when you’re creating the recipe for a novel that won’t simply collapse the minute you take it out of the oven. But starting simply is often best. The more you do this kind of work, the easier it gets.

Now: “How do you generate your ideas for those 10 things?”

There are a lot of possible answers to this, but the simplest is: Make them up out of nothing, as usual. :)

…This isn’t meant to sound like sass. You made up those first three or four things you came up with out of nothing, and now (because they’ve been there for a while, probably) they may well have started to acquire a kind of secret, temporally-based superiority in your mind—starting to feel somehow more valid than what needs to come next to fill in the gaps. This kind of creeping sense of validity-via-temporal-primacy is a commonplace when you’re in mid-process, and I invite you to ignore it.

Just insert those three or four things into your shopping list in (roughly) story-temporal order, and then spend some time thinking about what kinds of events could usefully come between / flow from them. Hints:

Events that could realistically have been caused by the ones you’ve got already, and could also realistically be seen as causal to later ones you’ve already established, are always useful. Ideally, you’re trying to establish a chain of events in which none of them look accidental, or coincidental (because readers are rightfully sensitive to plots that only work because all the characters are idiots, or keep having “lucky accidents”). What you’re working toward is an event flow that seems, when viewed in completion, inevitable: as if it couldn’t have happened any other way. You will almost certainly not achieve this easily, early on in your novel work, and maybe not at all. But it strikes me as a good thing to be striving for.

Events that badly screw things up for the main characters are also always useful. Heroes do not become heroes by having everything go their way. Their heroism is achieved and manifested by having things go to shit around them again and again and AGAIN, and nonetheless still finding their way through all that shit to do what needs to be done. The lines attributed to the Confucianist philosopher Meng-tse (sometimes translated from Japanese into English as “Mōshi”) are a touchstone in this regard:

When Heaven is about to confer a great office upon a man, it first exercises his mind with suffering and his sinews and bones with toil: it exposes him to poverty and confounds all his undertakings. Then it is seen if he is ready.

So put your protagonists through the wringer. This is the greatest service you can do them: showing who they are by showing what they're made of.

A variant on this theme: Spend a little time thinking, “What is the absolute worst thing that could happen to these characters in this story / in this world?” And when you’ve figured that out, stick it into one of those gaps as a Main Thing—ideally one between the story’s midpoint and its already-planned crisis, if you’ve got that in place—and then start thinking about how to best exploit it to show how terrific your characters can become if you kick them around a bit. (Addendum: you are allowed to have one Absolutely Terrific and Beautiful Thing happen to assist your characters in recovering from this awfulness. Because they deserve it; but also, all invented worlds [if you ask me] should have beautiful things in them—things to long for, things that make your reader wish they could live there. And that you find beautiful, and worth returning to. You are absolutely allowed to keep yourself entertained, and emotionally refreshed, while you’re creating.)

…Anyway, take your time about getting those gaps filled in. It may take a little while: laying down basic story structure is worth not rushing, if you can avoid it. Once you’ve got everything major in place, the secondary lists will follow more easily.

HTH!

*This is a hilarious oversimplification, but my job at the moment is not (as the saying goes) to explain the workings of the entire universe while standing on one foot. :)

#writing #outlining #the Shopping List #how-to #suggestions #writing process #themes

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therhythmafterthesummer · 1 year

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Camping with Wolves (M) ~Lee Know

Pairing: Werewolf!Minho x Human!F.Reader Themes: Supernatural/Fantasy AU | Smut | Fluff | bit of Angst | Best Friends to Lovers Warnings: pet names (kitten/baby/babe/etc), pining?, unashamedly pushing the soft!Minho agenda, mentions of divorce, mentions of panic attacks, mentions of blood and violence, graphic depictions of intercourse (smut warnings under the cut). Word Count: ~11k | AO3 Summary: Minho was your rock, he was your anchor, your best friend, which was why you just couldn’t stop yourself from falling for him, even when he was, essentially, a supernatural being. One ‘camping trip’ might be the last push you needed to finally confess. Or maybe not… [This story takes place within the It’s Cold Out universe, meaning it’s part of my WereRoomies series].

Author’s Note: the werewolf brain rot is real y’all… i just wanted more soft werewolf content, so here this piece is. anyway, if you’re reading this, hope you enjoy, and if you do, don’t hesitate to leave your thoughts~

Due to all the abovementioned warnings, this story is intended for an adult audience only. Minors please do not interact.

Minho’s WereRoomies Instalments: Camping With Wolves · Dog Unleashed · Are You There, Wolf?

Smut Warnings: this is all really soft, you have been warned. lots of praising, fingering [F.Rec], nipple play [F.Rec], unprotected penetration [piv] (this is a piece of fiction in which you can trust people when they tell you they’re clean. wrap it irl please i beg you), cum on body/cumshot.

Disclaimer: the story represented in this work does not represent Stray Kids in any way; anything described in this story and all actions performed by the characters are purely fictional, this was created just for good fun.

You could still remember quite vividly the day you met your best friend. It was a turning point in your life, so how could you not remember it. Moving to a new place after your parents divorce was probably the last thing you wanted to do. Your life had been turned upside down the moment your dads sat you down at the tender age of ten and told you ‘sweetie, there’s something your father and I need to tell you…’, and suddenly you were packing your bags and moving to the other side of the country.

New town, new places to see, new school, one less dad to greet in the mornings, and zero friends.

Your first day of school had been a blur of introductions, comments of ‘wow you’ve got two dads?’ and ‘you’re from where?’, and honestly by the time the day was over you were just ready to leave the building and hole up in your room for the rest of the week.

It’d been just as you were making your way home from school that you saw him. A boy, around your age, with long, black hair, crouched by the side of the road with a box in his hands, trying to put something in it. You’d never been too sure why you went close that day, you weren’t exactly a social butterfly, but something compelled you to walk close to the boy, and the closer you got, you could finally make out what was it that he was trying to put in the box, and you couldn’t help but gasp at the sight.

“What happened?!” Was all that came out of your mouth back then.

“Dunno… Just saw them here like this”, he side-eyed you a bit, but went back to try and put the clearly injured kittens in the box. “If you’re gonna stand there, at least help me out. Can’t leave them here”.

So you sprung into action, helping him put the little babies in the box, and even going as far as to going with him to the closest vet you could find–all led by the boy of course, after all, you’d just moved in and had absolutely no idea where you were standing.

“Ah, Minho–” The person at the entrance greeted him as soon as you two had come through the door, their face changing from that welcoming smile to slight surprise as they saw the box in his hands. “Dear heavens, what happened?”

“Dunno. Found them like this. They look hurt. Can you do anything?” The boy, Minho, you presumed, by the way the person at the counter called him. They hurriedly came from around the counter and took a quick look at the kittens, then at you both, offering a smile–a bit of a forced one, but you figured they were trying to not alarm you both too much, considering your faces were surely full of worry.

“I’ll have Mrs. Jung have a look at them as soon as possible, hm? Should I register the appointment under your mother’s name?”

Minho nodded, and just like that the person took the box from his hands, disappearing behind a door on the side of the room. With a sigh, he took his backpack off and moved to sit on one of the chairs by the waiting area, and again, for some inexplicable reason, you did the same, sitting next to him for a bit in complete silence.

You truly were never one of spending time with strangers like this, but when you got a chance later in life to analyse your behaviours at the time, you came to the realisation that you simply didn’t want to go back home that day, that you were trying to escape the fact that you had to go back to a new house without one of your fathers and be completely on your own until your other father came back. Which was why, that day, you couldn’t stop yourself from turning around to the boy, and attempting to start a friendly conversation with him.

“You do this often?”

He turned to look at you, with his eyes a bit wide in surprise, almost as if he couldn’t believe you were talking to him. “Do what?”

“Bring injured animals? They know your mum’s name, don’t they?”

“Ah, mm”, Minho nodded, turning to look back to the floor. “Mum’s a vet tech. And since I’m a magnet to finding hurt animals, I’m a regular here”.

“Mmm…”

You both were silent for a while, just hearing the odd beep of a machine in the distance, until Minho squirmed a bit in his seat, turning his whole body to look at you. “I’m Minho, by the way. Never seen you around before… It’s a small town”.

You introduced yourself, and explained that you had just moved in. It went on like this for a while, just you two talking as you waited for the vet to come out with news. You’d learnt that day that Minho was indeed your age, he had two cats and two dogs at home, he knew one too many facts about dinosaurs, and that he never missed one episode of Kamen Rider. It was interesting how, in contrast to his resting face, when he talked to you he didn’t look annoyed at all, and by the time the vet came out and informed you two that the kittens were fine, but a little dehydrated and that they would need to stay the night, you had learnt more about this boy next to you than any other classmate you ever had.

“I’ll be here tomorrow after school to check on the cats”, Minho said as soon as you stepped out of the clinic. “You know, in case you… Wanna see them again…”

You couldn’t help but give him a smile, hiking your bag further up your shoulder. “I’d like that. Maybe I’ll… Keep one. Always wanted a cat”.

“They’re great company. You won’t regret it!” And the smile that made its way onto his face as he said it could’ve easily outshine the sun. You had no other option but to believe him. “Can I… Uh… Walk you home, maybe? It’s kinda late…”

So you accepted his offer, and back then, you couldn’t have even imagined how that simple encounter would kick-start your lifelong friendship with Minho.

Interesting thing, how someone could become such an integral part of your day to day life that the second something wasn’t quite right, it was very hard to miss.

Since you met him, Minho and you had been inseparable. You ended up adopting one of the kittens he’d saved–Sir Percival of Camelot, you’d called him, because you liked the eccentricity of it all. Your father wasn’t exactly thrilled to have a cat at the time, but in his post-divorce guilt he just didn’t have it in him to deny you the wish, so Sir Percival and Minho became your best friends in this new town you had barely any knowledge of, and for their company, you were immensely grateful.

Minho and you would hang out every weekend, sometimes even a few times a week after school just to watch his precious Kamen Rider together, or just to play with Sir Percival, but Saturdays were solely reserved for you and him.

One Saturday, though, Minho didn’t make it. There’d been no phone call, no voice message left on the machine, no prior comment of ‘might not be able to make it’, nothing, and even though your father tried his best to assure you something simply must’ve come up, you couldn’t help the feeling of dread that was quickly building inside of you.

It wasn’t until later that day, at around midnight that you got the phone call. You were already asleep, it’d been your father who’d picked up, and as soon as the call was over he had immediately come to your room, to where you and Sir Percival had been cuddled up sleeping on your bed.

“Sweetie… Wake up, dear…” Your father caressed your hair softly, but there was urgency in his voice, and it had you stirring awake almost immediately. As soon as he saw you open your eyes, he spoke again. “Minho… He’s had a… A terrible accident”.

He might as well had shoved a harpoon through your heart. You’d never had a panic attack prior to that night, but the entire chain of events certainly led to one, and your father did try his best to calm you down. Ultimately, he’d hugged you tightly and asked you ‘would you like to go to the hospital?’ to which you obviously said yes without a second thought.

You’d never forget the sight of Minho’s mother that night, with her eyes red and puffy, and her hands slightly shaking as she waited for the doctors to give her any news on the state of her one and only son. You could still remember how tightly she hugged you and your father when you went to the hospital that night. ‘They found him by the edge of the woods, hurt… Bloodied–’ the poor woman could hardly speak, and honestly, you couldn’t blame her, even you weren’t able to produce a single word back then.

The sight of your best friend, of your dearest Minho all intubated and hooked up to machines in that hospital bed plagued you for months, even after he eventually woke up, seemingly fine, as if nothing had happened to him at all, as if he hadn’t almost died. To this day, you were still grateful you were there that day when he woke up, that you were able to hug him tight and cry on his chest as he softly patted you on the back confused out of his mind because he couldn’t remember anything that had happened.

Life went on as normal after he was discharged from the hospital, he’d continue to rescue animals whenever he could, he’d continue to go to class without further eventualities, he’d continue to take care of his pets, to watch his shows, and every day you’d ask him ‘you sure you’re okay?’ to which he’d only scoff and reply a ‘hundred percent’.

But of course, he wasn’t a hundred percent. It wasn’t until a couple of weeks after that you both finally saw the full damage of his accident. It happened at night, on one of your Saturday hangouts, you were having a sleepover, and your father trusted you both enough to stay home alone on your own, even if you were only pre-teen kids–not the safest choice, you’d admit.

You were hanging out as normal, watching the latest Kamen Rider episode, when suddenly Minho tensed where he was sitting next to you on the sofa, and he started gasping for air. To say that you were scared out of your mind was an understatement, and the fact that Sir Percival was all puffed up and had started to hiss uncontrollably at him didn’t make it any better. All of a sudden, among the pained groans and cries of your friend, strange sounding pops and cracks started to resonate in your living room, and in utter shock you saw your dear friend Minho inexplicably change shape, from his normal self to… A wolf.

Back then, you couldn’t even move, you just stared at it–at him?–as Minho thrashed around your living room in a panic, knocking several portraits out of place and making Sir Percival run away and hide. It wasn’t until you called for him, your voice barely audible for you to hear, that he finally stopped moving, turning to look at you. His eyes were the same, the same dark brown irises that you’d come to know as your best friend’s eyes, and the canine whines that came out of his throat pulled at your heartstrings unpleasantly.

If you hadn’t seen his eyes you might’ve not done what you did that night, but as soon as you saw them, as you heard his pained sounds, you just moved closer, slowly, scared he’d go into a frenzied state again. As soon as you were in front of him, you just kneeled, ignoring any and every single warning bell going off in your head as you looked at the wolf, because deep down, you knew this was your friend. Your Minho.

So you hugged that goddamn wolf that was suddenly standing where your friend used to be, and you felt as he almost relaxed fully into your hold as you whispered an incredulous ‘what the hell’s going on?’ You hugged him for a long time, until you started to hear those same pops and cracks that you heard before, giving way to your friend’s human form again, naked, looking at you with panicked eyes and tears in his eyes.

“I remember…” Minho sobbed as he held your shoulders and looked you in the eyes, and you couldn’t help the tears from running down your cheeks as you heard him. “I remember what happened. There was a wolf… Huge one… It attacked me, it bit me… What’s going on… What am I gonna do…”

You just couldn’t bear that look in his eyes, the tremble in his voice, the tears that wouldn’t stop, so you pulled him to you, hugging him tightly, all as you tried your best to be there for your friend, to reassure him, even if every single word that came out of your mouth did so between hiccups and sobs. “We’ll figure it out… Together, Minho. Together, huh?”

“No… You shouldn’t be close to me, what if I–”

“Together, I said”, you just hugged him tighter. Minho was your friend, your anchor, and there was no way that you would let him deal with this–whatever it was–on his own. “Don’t push me away please…”

“I should…” But even as he said it, Minho held you tighter.

Trying to get your living room looking normal after that was a bit of a challenge, but once you both calmed down and you fished some of your father’s old clothes for him to put on you managed to do that fairly well, so much so your dad didn’t even notice anything different the next day–maybe due to the exhaustion his night shift had brought him, you’d never know…

Minho started to change a bit after that situation. He grew taller, stronger, and his senses heightened, especially his hearing. Minho was able to hear things kilometres away from him, and it contributed to a period of crankiness in his life, where he would snap at people or be a bit harsher than usual–not to you, though. He always tried his best to not snap at you, and whenever he did, he always apologised almost immediately.

You started to change a bit, but not in any supernatural way, just in a normal, human puberty way. It was normal, your father had told you back then, and as all these new changes started happening in your body, both physically and emotionally, you started to see your dear Minho in a new light. Suddenly, whenever he hugged you your cheeks would heat up, whenever he laughed because of one of your jokes your heart would flutter, and whenever you were watching TV and a couple kissed on the screen you couldn’t help but wonder how it’d be to do something like that… To do something like that with Minho.

You reasoned it was normal, Minho was the only boy you had around you at the time, so obviously you would think these things sometimes. It meant nothing, for sure. He never really seemed to show any interest other than being your friend, and that was fine. You were fine with that. Having him with you, however it was, was truly all you ever needed.

There were some challenges, though. Minho had all these weird symptoms and behaviours now that he had been turned into what your research had told you was a werewolf. You both couldn’t exactly go to anyone and tell them ‘hey, remember that accident Minho had a handful of months ago? Yeah, about that…’ because, realistically, who would believe you? The universe, though, worked in your favour, because one day, when Minho had come to pick you up from your after school class to walk you home, another boy had approached you.

“Hey, excuse me…” You recognised the boy from your school, a couple of years younger than you, and when he approached, Minho’s eyes went wide in surprise, almost as if he recognised him somehow. “Are you… You’re a werewolf, aren’t you?”

“Who are you? And why are you asking such weird questions?” You couldn’t help but intervene, always feeling oddly protective of your friend and his… Condition.

The boy flushed a bit, but he looked you in the eyes regardless. “I’m… Jisung. And I’m asking because at first I thought it was you. I’ve been… Building up the courage to come and ask, so we could, you know, maybe help each other out? I don’t know that many people at school, but only now that I saw you together I realised I was smelling him on you”.

“You’re… You’re a werewolf, too?” Minho was slightly incredulous, stepping a bit closer to you. “Is that what I’m smelling on you? A werewolf scent?”

“You can’t tell?” Jisung furrowed his eyebrows, confused, but then he gasped, looking slightly alarmed. “Were you… Were you born as a werewolf at all?”

Minho just shook his head. “Was attacked. Now I’m like this”.

“Oh, God!” Bringing his hands up to his head in alarm, Jisung almost threw his beanie off of his head with the motion. “You have no pack?!”

“Nope. Just have my mum, and my friend here”, Minho draped his arm over your shoulder, pulling you to him. He’d been doing this often these days, keeping you close to him when someone came too close. You didn’t mind much, but it did make your heart stutter, which you conveniently always decided to ignore.

Regardless, Minho was right in his statement. He didn’t have many friends, he’d had a couple of friends throughout the years but they usually fell through, you were the constant, just like he was your constant. Funnily enough, Jisung also didn’t have many friends, or any at all, so he naturally gravitated towards you two after that day, and, in a way, you liked that. Mostly because he was able to help Minho in ways you never could.

Jisung helped him understand how to take care of himself as a werewolf, how to control certain urges and how to fulfil certain needs. He started joining you two on your Saturday plans, and your father was honestly happy that you were making other friends, too. Sir Percival, on the other hand, had a hard time getting accustomed to the two werewolves coming in and out of the house. He liked Minho enough, because he recognised what he’d done for him–or at least, that was what Minho told you Sir Percival told him–but the addition of Jisung had him a bit on edge.

Especially because, for some reason, Jisung was… Affectionate, to put it simply. He liked to cuddle. A lot. And he would often try to get Sir Percival to cuddle him, or he would try to get Minho to cuddle him, or he would try to get you to cuddle him, and honestly you were usually the only one to cater to his needs, so at some point he started coming to you directly.

You didn’t really mind, but whenever he left earlier than Minho then he also wanted to cuddle, and you never truly understood why, but you let him anyway, mostly because you… Liked cuddling with Minho. As friends, of course. Always friends. Just friends.

So you spent a couple of years like this. With your two werewolf friends, with your mildly grumpy cat, facing the hardships of high school along with the hardships of their supernatural condition. Until Jisung broke the news that he had to move out, because his pack was moving out, and since he was so young he just couldn’t make the decision for himself, he had to leave.

You could still remember the day he left. You cried a bit, you’d admit, even Minho was holding back a few tears as he hugged his friend, just as Jisung offered a ‘this isn’t goodbye, we’ll meet again. I’m sure of it’. And as you saw him walk down the road, Minho pulled you to him, hugging you tightly against him.

“Just you and me again, kitten. What are we gonna do now?”

You just chuckled, pulling away from him a bit to look him in the eyes and wipe some of the tears that were still clinging to your lower lash line. “Kitten, huh?”

“Of course!” Minho said it as if it was the most obvious thing in the world for him to use such a pet name with you. “You’re a cat person, aren’t you? And I’m a… Dog-person, heh…”

Groaning, you slapped him in the chest. “That’s such a bad joke, honestly. Why do I keep up with your shit?”

“Because I’m your favourite person in this world”, he swayed your bodies back and forth, waddling you back towards your house. “And I’d be your favourite animal, too, if it weren’t for Sir Percival”.

All you could do back then was laugh, because he was right. He was your favourite person in this world.

‘People usually grow apart, sweetie. It’s a normal thing that happens’, your father had told you once, and you believed him. But funnily enough, that never happened to you and Minho.

Sure, you moved out of your hometown after high school to pursue higher education somewhere else, while he moved out to do exactly the same–his goal of becoming a vet was still one of the most oddly amusing things to you, considering he was close to being an animal himself. You both made new groups of friends, dated different people, took different career paths, but even then, you still kept in touch. Even if you had grown and matured, in essence, you were both still the same.

Minho had finally found a pack of his own, right after he reconnected with Jisung. The second he moved into their den he invited you over and you met his entire new group of friends, his new family, and you couldn’t have been any happier for him. They were all so nice and welcoming, and you quickly found out that Minho had become one of the main pillars of his pack, something that, somehow, was and wasn’t surprising in equal parts.

On one hand, it was because you were so used to Minho The Loner, Minho the boy who only had you and Jisung, that knowing he now had other people to care for was surprising. But on the other hand, Minho was so caring, so protective, there was no doubt in your mind that he’d be able to protect these people well, especially when he cared deeply about them. Just as he had done with you throughout the years.

You two tried to meet at least once a month, and most of the time it was you who drove to his place, staying over in his flat as you recounted anything you hadn’t talked about in the past thirty days, all as Kamen Rider played in the background, a show that Minho was still to this day attached to–and you couldn’t blame him, the thing was entertaining and it didn’t seem like they’d stop pumping seasons anytime soon.

Jisung would join you often, too. Demanding attention and cuddles just in the way only Jisung knew how to, and the rest of his pack soon followed once they warmed up to you.

You could still remember the first day Minho introduced you to his pack’s leader–or ‘alpha’, as they called it. Chris was nice, he greeted you with respect, and Minho had told you after that he was the one who had to ‘allow’ people staying here, even if they were just visiting. So you figured he thought you were nice as well, considering you frequently stayed over.

As the years went by you saw more werewolves join their pack, Seungmin, Felix, Hyunjin, Jeongin, and eventually, even humans as well when Chris got himself a new roommate–his now girlfriend. The last person you saw move in here was Changbin’s roommate, also now his girlfriend, and they all seemed to take care of each other really well, they all worked together to keep their small ecosystem going smoothly, and it was honestly refreshing to see.

It made you feel happy for Minho, who seemed to finally have a full, loving family of his own. Not like his mother wasn’t family, she just didn’t know–or couldn’t know, as Minho put it–what he was, and that, coupled with the fact that she had apparently remarried an asshole–had unfortunately put a bit of a strain on his relationship with her.

“I have news, kitten”, Minho said, plopping himself on top of you on the sofa, not caring in the slightest if he crushed you, the sudden weight on your chest making you groan.

“Can’t breathe”, was all you mustered, so Minho shuffled, laying on his side and wrapping his limbs around your body to pull you closer to him.

“Better?”

“Yeah”, you just sighed, turning to bury your face in his clothed chest. “So, news?”

“Yes”, Minho rubbed his cheek on the top of your head, and you could’ve sworn you heard him mumble a ‘God, you still smell like Jisung’ before he cleared his throat and continued talking again. “Remember how we always talk about the monthly camping trips and how I’ve always wanted to take you and you’ve always wanted to come, but Chris’ never let us because ‘it’s too dangerous’?” He added the last bit with a poor imitation of Chris’ voice, making you laugh.

“Yeah, how could I not remember”, you couldn’t help yourself from inhaling deeply, getting lost in the smell of Minho’s fabric softener, on the smell of his body wash, on his natural scent, and–God, you really shouldn’t let your thoughts wander like this, not when he was this close, not when you knew you liked your friend… More than a friend.

You’d always known. How you felt towards Minho. Even if you’d dated other people, you’d always known. You always just tried to ignore it. But these days, whenever you met after spending long periods of time apart, you just couldn’t stop your mind from wandering into that dangerous territory… Into the What-Ifs. What if I told him? What if I kissed him? What if he kissed me? What if we fu–

“Well, I’ve finally gotten him to agree”, the smile was almost audible in his voice, and it made you pull away from his chest to look him in the eyes.

“Really?!”

“Really, really”, Minho’s hold around your body tightened even more. “So, hope you can get your friend Mar to take care of Sir Percival for a bit. I don’t think he’d like being surrounded by nine wolves”.

You couldn’t help but chuckle at the thought. “Oh, he’d hate it. He’s too old for that. So when’s this trip of yours?”

“In a couple of weeks, you think you can make it?”

“Hm. I’ll make it”.

“When you said you went camping every month, this wasn’t what I had in mind”, you couldn’t help but say the moment you pulled up into the house, or should you say mansion? “This place is huge”.

“Did you think we were literally sleeping in the woods?” Seungmin yawned, rubbing sleep from his eyes when you turned to look at him from the passenger’s seat.

“I mean, isn’t that what camping is? Whose house is this anyway?”

“Chris’”, Minho replied simply as he started parking. “It’s the only thing his grandparents left him after they passed. Since he had a pack of his own, they figured it’d be useful. And it is, but it’s also a pain to upkeep”.

As soon as Minho was parked, Seungmin and you stepped out of the car and opened the boot, taking out the many bags and backpacks from there so you could get them into the house. Changbin’s and Chris’ cars arrived right after, and soon enough, everything was placed securely within the living area or in the kitchen–the latter exactly where you were in right now, getting the many containers of food into the refrigerator with Minho, just as Hyunjin busied himself washing an assortment of cups, plates, and glasses.

“Which room can I take?” You asked once everything was put away in its place.

“You’re staying in mine”, Minho replied simply, chewing on a piece he’d taken off of a baguette.

“And where will you be staying?”

Minho blinked slightly, swallowing the food in his mouth. “In my room. You’re staying with me”.

“What?” It wasn’t like you hadn’t slept within the same room as Minho before, you’d done it plenty of times. But since your… Acceptance of your feelings, you weren’t sure you’d be able to share such an enclosed space without losing your sanity–or worse, confessing your feelings.

“One of Chris’ conditions”, Chris’ girlfriend explained from where she was sitting on one of the kitchen stools, taking a sip of her glass of water.

“Can’t I stay with you?” You asked her, pouting slightly.

“Not unless you want to sleep with me, too”, Chris chimed in as he stepped into the kitchen, wrapping his arms around his girlfriend’s waist just as she offered him a bit of her water, which he immediately took a sip of.

“Why wouldn’t you want to stay with me? I’m offended”, Minho said in a mock hurt tone, serving himself a glass of water as well. “Besides, wouldn’t recommend staying with these two. They’ll surely fuck even if you’re there”.

“Hey!” Chris was also clearly pretending to be offended, bringing a hand to clutch his chest. “I can behave”.

“Baby, you and I both know that’s not true”, his girlfriend chuckled, patting him on the chest as she made her way to the sink to give Hyunjin her glass.

“I can!”

“Christopher, darling, dear angel, don’t lie to yourself like this. You’d have one look at our dear mother’s child bearing hips and you’ll lose it”, Minho pointed at him, trying to sound like those cheap ‘life coaches’ on social media. “It’s okay to admit you have a problem, we’re here for you”.

Chris gasped, bringing a hand to his mouth. “For the record, I don’t have a problem–”

“That’s right, you don’t”, Chris’ girlfriend added, with a teasing smile on her lips. “You’re just shameless”.

“That I am. I mean, can you blame me? Just look at your hips… At your everything, damn…” Chris gave his girlfriend a look from head to toe, staring for maybe a bit too long, until his girlfriend mustered a ‘see? Shameless. Utterly remorseless’, making him snap out of his trance, bringing a sheepish smile to his face. And then, finally, he turned to you. “Minho’s right. You’re better off staying with him. With that being said, let’s get everything ready, the sun will set soon”.

As it turned out, ‘getting everything ready’ meant making sure there were plenty of robes ready by the back entrance where the pack would come back through, filling an insane amount of jugs with water, and having the food ready for them to just pop into the microwave once they were back. Jeongin, Felix, Changbin’s girlfriend, and Minho got busy with this, while the rest of you took the reminder bags that were left in the living room to each room.

You left your belongings and Minho’s for last, and when you opened the door to his room you could’ve almost fainted. There was one bed. You were going to have to share this bed with Minho for at least two nights and you honestly weren’t sure how you were going to survive that. On one hand, that meant you’d get to cuddle, one of your favourite activities to do with your best friend. On the other hand, you’d get to cuddle, which was the worst thing you could do when you were harbouring feelings for said best friend.

For the time being, you decided to ignore this, since the sun was setting and the pack would surely leave soon. So you left your bags there, and made your way back downstairs to find everyone already going through the back door to the backyard.

Minho spotted you right as he was taking his shirt off, a sight you certainly didn’t need, but you wouldn’t shy away from anyway. “Ready for your run, doggy?”

Minho scoffed, unbuttoning his trousers. Your eyes followed the movement, and your face went serious immediately. Thankfully–or regretfully, you couldn’t decide–he left them on. “Don’t look at me like that, kitten. I might think you want to see me naked”, he was only teasing you, just like he always did, but he was so close to the truth you were finding it incredibly hard to not look guilty. “When was the last time you saw me in my wolf form?”

“Uhhh…” You honestly couldn’t recall, or maybe it was hard to when you were too focused on not looking at his chest. “Probably before we finished high school? Which, now that I think about it, is kinda weird, isn’t it? It’s been a long time. Why do you ask?”

“‘Cause… I don’t think you’d be calling me a doggy if you’d seen me recently”, whatever response you had for that got caught in your throat as soon as you saw his eyes shift, turning from that brown you knew so well to golden, glowing a bit more intensely the more the sun set.

Minho stared at you, right in the eyes with his golden ones. It lasted probably just a few moments, but it felt like an eternity, until he finally spoke again, a bit slower than usual and with a low tone that had the hairs on the back of your neck standing on end. “I’m gonna take these off”, he took a hold of his zipper, and it was almost as if he was challenging you to keep looking. But ultimately, you were a coward, so you turned around.

You heard the characteristic sound of the zipper opening up, then you heard the rustling of fabric, and finally, you started to hear the pops and cracks you’d come to know as the sounds of his human body shifting into his wolf form. Soon enough, you started to hear the same sounds all around the backyard, and you knew the rest were also doing the same.

After a while, you felt warmth behind you, not really on you, but close enough for you to feel the huffs of breath against your back, so you turned around, coming face to face with your best friend. And you honestly weren’t prepared.

You’d seen Minho in his wolf form plenty of times in the past, but admittedly you hadn’t seen him since you entered adulthood, much less with this golden glow in his eyes. His fur was the same, the same shade, the same pattern, but he’d grown. In his human form, Minho wasn’t really considered a tall man, but like this, he was certainly bigger than any wolf you’d ever seen, and you couldn’t stop your eyes from going wide in surprise and a soft ‘wow’ from leaving your lips.

In his eyes, you could almost see his amusement, almost as if he was laughing at your reaction. Coming close to you, Minho nudged your hand with his nose, and you immediately brought that same hand to his head, petting him, scratching behind his ear affectionately, and a smile immediately made its way onto your face. “You’re still a doggy to me, you know?”

Minho huffed, somewhat annoyed, you figured. Giving your hand an affectionate lick, he turned around walking towards the rest of his pack that were already gathering by the edge of the woods. Suddenly, you felt warmth close again, and you gasped as an even bigger wolf walked past you. Chris, probably, since his girlfriend was walking right behind him, and she stopped next to you to look at the rest.

Once Chris reached the edge of the woods, he turned around, pacing a bit, getting the full attention of his pack of wolves. As soon as he was seemingly satisfied with their positions, he howled, triggering a chain of howls from the other wolves, until finally he turned back towards the woods and took off, the rest following soon after.

And just like that, they were gone.

“Well, just you and me for a few hours, then”, Chris’ girlfriend turned to you, giving you a small smile. “Wanna hang out here, or you prefer chilling on your own?”

You gave her a smile in return. “Let’s hang out”.

The moment the pack came back, it was all a blur. The group was usually chaotic, but it seemed like the run had made them even more so. Everyone’s eyes were glowing golden, some more intensely than others, but they were, and they explained to you that it was the influence of the moon, that it’d probably wear off once they all calmed down or by the time the sun was back up in the sky.

The kitchen was crammed with everyone trying to get themselves stuffed full of food. It was all heartwarming, in a way. Very homely, just like any time you’d seen them all interact together, and they even made their best efforts to keep you included in the conversation, which you appreciated immensely.

At some point, Minho left the group, only to return a handful of minutes later, out of his robe and into his usual pyjamas–a loose vest top and loose shorts. The second he stepped into the kitchen, he shushed everyone, bringing the attention to him, just as he brought his hands up.

“Time to pay up, losers. Mummy and Daddy are fucking”.

There was a mix of groans and cheers, and it was only then that you noticed that Chris and his girlfriend weren’t there. They’d never come to the kitchen at all, and you couldn’t help but laugh as you saw the group exchange tenners, until finally Minho, Jisung, Changbin, and Felix split the jackpot.

“Man, I really had hopes for them”, Changbin’s girlfriend commented as she took a sip of her drink, giving Changbin a dirty look as he waved his winnings on her face.

Felix snorted at that. “Please, did you see how Chris was running towards the end of the run? I knew we’d won immediately”.

The rest of the evening went on like this, joking, talking, just overall having a good time, and by the time Chris appeared in the kitchen to get two plates of food, looking as if he had just won Millionaire, only Felix, Seungmin, Minho, and you were left.

“Gonna go to bed”, you murmured to Minho just as Seungmin started teasing Chris about his escapade.

“Going with you”, his eyes were still glowing, and by now he was probably the only one whose eyes were still glowing–you couldn’t really tell, since some of them left earlier before the effects of the moon had worn off.

As you made your way upstairs, and freshened up for bed, you were reminded of your earlier predicament. The shared bed. Honestly, by now, you were so tired you could hardly care at all. You’d push through, just like you always did.

Tucking yourself into the covers you let out a sigh, enjoying the soft sheets on your exposed limbs, waiting for your roommate for the night to come back from his trip to the toilet. You’d push through, you reminded yourself. Minho was your friend. Your best friend. You’d slept with him a million times, it’d be fine.

As soon as the man in question made it back to your room, he switched off the light and plopped himself on the bed, making it bounce slightly, and you couldn’t help but chuckle.

“So, did you have fun with our dear pack mother? Was coming to our ‘camping trip’ what you’d expected?” Minho wiggled under the covers, turning to look at you.

“I did have fun with her, she’s nice”, you regarded him with a smile. “It wasn’t exactly what I expected, but wow if it isn’t an experience, huh?”

“It is”, Minho chuckled, smiling so wide you could barely see his eyes, but that little bit of them that you did get to see was still glowing gold, and you just had to comment on it.

“Why are your eyes still glowing?”

Minho shrugged, moving a bit closer to you. “A lot of werewolf shit going on right now with the moon, it’ll go away eventually”.

“Mm”, was all you could muster before you yawned, stretching your limbs a bit only to turn to your side, away from Minho. “Gonna sleep now, g’night”.

“Aww, c’mon”, you felt Minho move, and then you felt warmth, warmth on your back where he was almost pressing his chest to, and warmth on your waist where he had thrown his arm to wrap around you. “Let’s cuddle a bit, kitten. Hm? Pretty please?”

“Ugh, get off, you big dog. You’re too warm”, you couldn’t help but whine. Contradicting your words, though, you took his hand that was lying around your waist and clutched it to your chest, keeping him in place.

Minho noticed, because of course he did, so he chuckled, clearly amused, further pressing his chest to your back. “Let go of my hand, then. So I can move away”.

You were silent for a bit, softly running your thumb on his palm. He let you, just like he always did. “Don’t wanna…”

It was warm, he was warm. He always was, he’d always been since the day he turned, but even if it was stupidly warm under the thin covers, you still wanted him close to you. Because Minho was comfort, he was safety, and tonight you wanted just that, even if you would turn into a puddle of sweat right then and there.

“Mmm…” Minho’s hum vibrated against your shoulder, where he had been keeping his mouth pressed since he moved closer to you. It wasn’t uncommon for you two to be this close, you cuddled often. Platonically. Or at least, you were convinced it was platonic.

There was always that tiny voice in your head telling you to yank the cork you had stuffed in your heart, to let your true feelings free, but what if you did and Minho didn’t feel the same way about you? Your friendship might be ruined. Although, realistically, you knew Minho wouldn’t treat you any differently, he was that type of person, and you’d probably get over your feelings after that imminent rejection.

“Lift your head up a bit”, Minho said suddenly, so you immediately did as asked, feeling as he sneaked his arm under your neck, curling around your frame to pull you even closer to him, admittedly turning your heartbeat up a notch. “You think Sir Percival’s doing alright?” His lips brushed on your shoulder with each word, and your body was quickly betraying you, goosebumps rising under his touch and heat quickly pooling in the pit of your stomach with just the mere feeling of his lips on your skin.

Swallowing thickly, you gathered your bearings, answering as steadily as you could. “Mar sent me a picture of him earlier. Wanna see?”

“Mmm… I do”, his hold on you tightened the slightest bit. “But your phone’s too far away. Don’t want you to move from here…”

“Always so needy, huh?”

Minho chuckled at that, moving a bit so he could talk in your ear, almost whispering. “Bold of you to say, when your heart’s about to leap out of your chest, huh kitten?”

Caught red-handed. Curse his supernatural hearing… Closing your eyes, you took a deep breath, trying to ease all the different burning sensations coursing through you–nervousness, anticipation, lust–they felt like so many it was really hard to tell exactly which one was the most prominent. You had the full intent to reply, something snarky to get him to shut his mouth, but your mind suddenly went blank when you started to feel Minho’s lips on your skin again, pressing slow, tender kisses on your shoulder, and the motions had you tightening your hold on his hand that you were still keeping close to your chest.

The action wasn’t uncommon, either. Just as you cuddled often, you also kissed like this often. Platonically.

Platonically… Right? Was it platonic? It must be, you were just friends after all. Best friends. The bestest of friends.

“You know… Maybe Chris was right”, Minho mumbled between kisses after a while.

“About?”

“It… Is dangerous for you to be here”.

You couldn’t help but scoff. “Why would it be? I’m fine. Nothing’s happened”.

“Mm… Yet”, Minho’s mouth travelled from your shoulder to your nape, leisurely kissing there, too, and your brain was close to shutting off completely. “The moon… Guess I… Underestimated what it’d do to me with you here”.

He was being a bit cryptic, which wasn’t uncommon when he talked about his lycanthropy, so you wanted to inquire further. “Minho?”

“Mm?” With a deep intake of breath, Minho sighed, almost in the same way you sigh after getting a whiff of your favourite meal, and the action had saliva pooling in your mouth. “Shit, you never believe me when I say it, but you do smell good, kitten. Always do…”

The shiver that ran up and down your spine was impossible to miss. Minho always told you that, you always brushed it off as him teasing you, playing with you, but right now, with how low his voice was, with how deep it got, you couldn’t help but believe him.

“You know you… Are my favourite person in this world, right?” He murmured against your skin, and the featherlight touch of his lips had your head spinning a bit.

So you decided to poorly attempt to divert the conversation. “What about Jisung?”

Minho chuckled softly, further pressing his chest to you, holding your thumb in his fist as you still kept his hand to your chest. “Completely different feelings”.

“How so? Isn’t he also your friend?”

Minho was quiet for a while, just mindlessly pressing kisses on your skin, until finally, he removed himself from your space, removing his hand from your tight hold with ease, only to push on your shoulder to get you to lay on your back as he hovered over you, propped up on his elbow. The sight of his glowing golden eyes had you almost shivering as he stared deeply into your eyes. That look was raw, intense, and your heart truly felt like it was about to leap out of your chest when he looked at you like this.

“You’re much more than a friend to me. You know that, right?”

You just looked back at him, holding his gaze as best as you could. And as you struggled to do so, you were reminded that, at the end of the day, Minho was still a predator, and even if you trusted him with your life, your body would have a natural, instinctual reaction to his stare. Ultimately, you couldn’t help yourself from moving your gaze away, focusing instead on that mouth of his, on his pouty lips that had plagued your dreams for nights on end, slightly chapped tonight but still just as delectable looking as ever.

“Kitten…” Minho was trying to get your attention back to his eyes, but you just didn’t want to look away, enjoying the way his lips moved with every word that came out of his mouth. “Why are you… Why are you looking at my mouth?”

If there was one certain thing in this world was that Lee Minho was going to be straightforward at any given moment, and this moment–whatever the moment was–was clearly no exception to that rule.

You didn’t say anything right away, just absentmindedly licked your lips as you shamelessly stared, catching the sight of his Adam’s apple bobbing in your peripheral with the movement. “Just thinking…”

“About?”

“Things I should not be thinking about”.

The tension was palpable. Or were you imagining it? It certainly felt tense to you, but not in an uncomfortable way. You could see how taut his body was as he hovered over you, and as you kept looking at his lips, there was nothing you wanted more than for Minho to make a move. Or should you make a move instead? Maybe you should. But would you be able to deal with the consequences of that? Maybe not.

It was then, when you were having that struggle within yourself, that you saw his lips move, that you heard him. It was only a whisper, but you were sure you heard him, the sound registering a second too late, a quiet ‘fuck this’ before his lips were on yours, and you couldn’t help the embarrassing sound that escaped your mouth the second his skin made contact with yours.

Heat spread quickly within you, your mouth moving on instinct to match Minho’s almost desperate movements. Even if his lips were slightly chapped, that was the last thing you could care about, you’d get them moist, that was no problem at all. Moving a hand to the back of his head you pulled him further into you, revelling in the groan that escaped his throat the moment your nails lightly scratched his scalp.

Shuffling a bit above you, one of Minho’s legs found its way between yours, his thigh pressing against your core to add the tiniest bit of delicious pressure where you were desperate to feel him most, all as he sneaked his tongue into your mouth. If you were letting out the most embarrassing noises, you didn’t care, not when you could feel him hard and warm against your stomach, not when all you cared about was Minho and his hands on your thigh and his tongue in your mouth and his lips on your own.

“We should…” Minho started to talk, all between pecks of his lips, and it honestly didn’t seem like he wanted to stop kissing you at all. “Should talk about this”.

“We should”, you agreed, also refusing to stop kissing him, starting to shamelessly grind yourself against his thigh, the groan that left his lips as soon as you did adding to that desperate need in your gut. Your hands found their way under his shirt, feeling him up. His lower back, his abdomen, his ribs, his chest, and your touch made him shiver slightly.

Detaching himself from you for a second, Minho took a hold of the back of his shirt, tugging it off of him, only to immediately return his mouth to yours, kissing you desperately, eagerly, the bed sheets pooling back behind you two with the motion. Your hands roamed his body, hungry to feel him. It wasn’t like you had never touched him before, but never had you touched him like this, so intimately, so needy.

“Stop me”, Minho pleaded as his lips attached to your neck, sucking and nibbling on your skin, eliciting whines from your mouth, his hand travelling all the way from your thigh to your ribs, holding you tightly in place.

“No”, you replied confidently, because you genuinely didn’t want to stop, not when you finally had a handful of his bum in your hand, not when it all felt so right, so easy, and natural.

“Shit… You… Want this?” His lips returned to yours, almost stealing the air straight out of your lungs with the sheer intensity of his kiss.

“Want you. Only ever wanted you, Minho”.

Minho groaned, his hips lightly bucking into you as soon as your confession reached his ears. “Talk later?”

“Later”, you nodded in agreement, slightly breathless as you felt him tug on your top, removing it from your body. You could talk about it later. You didn’t want to stop now, not that you knew how his lips on you felt like, how his weight on you felt like.

As soon as your top was off your body Minho’s hands were on your tits, kneading the supple flesh with his hands. “You’ve got no idea how much I’ve wanted to do this, fuck… These pretty tits of yours, shit…” His fingers started to tease and tweak your nipples, making you whine against his mouth, making you further press against his thigh. “Sensitive here, huh?”

“Minho, I swear to a God that doesn’t exist, if you don’t get my tits in your mouth right now…”

“Don’t boss me around”, removing himself from your space again, Minho hooked his fingers under the waistband of your shorts, taking them down and off your legs along with your underwear. Slotting himself between your legs, his fingers found your core, lightly teasing your clit just as he swore under his breath. “If you boss me around you’ll trigger my alpha instincts, is that what you want?”

“What if that happens–” Your words died on your tongue as soon as he started drawing circles on your clit. You couldn’t help but moan, bringing a hand to your mouth to try and muffle yourself as much as you could, considering the rest of his pack was also in the house.

“Don’t act all innocent on me now, huh? You know exactly what I’d do. And I bet you’d love it, too”, regardless of his pretence banter, his lips closed around one of your nipples, licking your sensitive bud into his mouth, the motions sending sparks of pleasure right down to your core just as he dipped a finger into your entrance.

Minho’s attention on your chest coupled with his digit moving in and out of your core had your mind soaring, had your mind suddenly blank of anything other than him and you on this bed in this room. The more his tongue licked your skin, the more his teeth nibbled your chest, the more fingers he stuffed into you, the more you wriggled under him, whining desperately under his motions. Your hands held onto the bed sheets and his hair to try and keep your mind in the moment, all as you tried your best to not let a single sound out of your mouth louder than you should.

When he was four fingers deep into your cunt, when his thumb started to draw circles on your clit, you just couldn’t wait anymore. You were on the edge of your orgasm and you were feeling desperate for it, but you also had the intense need to feel him within your walls, for him to stretch you with all of him, so you reached for his crotch as best as you could in this position, feeling him up, and your eyes snapped open just by the feel of it.

Minho’s lips released your nipple with an obscene sound, all for him to further buck into your hand as he looked into your eyes, his brows furrowing slightly and his teeth sinking on his bottom lip to muffle a groan. It wasn’t like you hadn’t felt him before. There had been occasions… Occasions you both had silently decided to ignore, times when you might’ve woken up cuddled up, and he was suffering the effects of morning wood, but you never let yourself dwell on it too much. Now, though, and enhanced by the fact that he clearly wasn’t wearing anything under his shorts, you were able to feel him completely, and you felt saliva suddenly pool in your mouth.

“Minho…” Swallowing thickly, you tried to feel as much of him as you could. “You… I mean…”

“It’s just… One of those alpha things, you know? Why do you think I got four fingers into you right now, kitten?” He emphasised his words by hammering his fingers harder into you, making you whimper. “Trying to get you ready. Don’t wanna hurt you”.

“Fuck… Is this what turning before puberty did to you?” With shaky hands, you hooked your fingers on the waistband of his shorts, the pace of his fingers slowing down a bit as Minho curiously eyed you. There was some resistance, but when you finally got the garment down enough, you almost whimpered at the sight. “Shit… Even your cock’s pretty, huh Minho?”

Minho chuckled at that, slightly incredulous, but you noticed the blush that spread over his cheeks, and you couldn’t have felt more satisfied. Wrapping your hand around his length, you let out an appreciative hum, stroking him leisurely, enjoying the heavy feel of it in your hand. And before you could say anything else, Minho was back on you, kissing you eagerly, hungrily, making you breathless with his tongue in your mouth and his fingers in your cunt.

“Want you…” Was all you could mumble between kisses, relishing the groan that escaped his mouth as you did.

“Shit, wait”, Minho pulled his fingers out of you, moving away from your mouth to look at you. “There are no condoms in this house”.

The alarm was apparent in his voice, and it rubbed off of you. “You got all kinds of supernatural shit here and you got no condoms?”

“We don’t come to this house to fuck, babe. What do you want me to say?” Minho chuckled, moving away from your space altogether. The sudden lack of his body heat was unpleasant, you wanted it back, desperately. Which was probably why you spoke your next words.

“Are you clean? I am. Haven’t had sex since we went to that place to get tested like… Dunno, months ago”, the implications of your question hung in the air, and Minho’s mouth went slack.

Swallowing, he brought his hands to your thighs, softly caressing your skin. “I am. Also haven’t had sex since then”.

“In that case if you… Uh… If you don’t mind then we can… If you want… You know”, Minho knew you had an implant. Hell, Minho practically had your menstrual cycle memorised, he was the one to save you multiple times throughout High School when you didn’t even know your period would come, always keeping extra pads for you just in case. And even in present day, he had gone with you to get the damn thing put in a handful of months ago, so of course he knew.

If there was anyone in this world that knew anything about you was Minho. Your best friend Minho. Your best friend Minho who you were about to let fuck you raw. And the thought had your mouth watering, you’d admit.

“Shit, are you being serious right now?” Minho leaned into you, and you couldn’t help but take a deep breath as you felt the tip of his length on your bare skin, just as he looked you in the eyes. You nodded, you didn’t think you’d ever been more serious about something in your life than right now.

“Holy–Am I dreaming or what? Damn… You… Shit…” Taking a hold of his length, he lined himself with your entrance, making you tense in anticipation as you felt his bare skin on yours. “Gonna go slow, okay? Don’t wanna hurt you, hm?”

Minho took his time, going in slowly, letting you adjust to him, and you couldn’t help but furrow your brows at the stretch, biting your lip to suppress a whimper. “Shh, it’s okay…” He mumbled against your cheek, pressing soft pecks on your skin. “Breathe, baby…”

“Mmm, baby…” You mindlessly mumbled back, trying to focus on the feel of his lips on your skin instead of the sting between your legs.

“You like that? Me calling you baby, huh?”

“I do–” Your breath caught in your throat when you felt Minho’s hips flush against you, when he bottomed out, swallowing almost loudly at how full you felt. “Maybe embarrassingly so…”

“No need to feel embarrassed, kitten. I like calling you baby, too”, he looked you in the eyes, taking you in. Slowly, you saw how the golden glow of his eyes dissipated, leaving his brown irises behind. Bringing a hand to cup your cheek, his thumb softly caressed your skin, and you suddenly felt yourself flush under his heavy gaze. “You’re so gorgeous, huh? And cute. Pretty. Always… Only ever wanted you, too”.

“You did?”

“Hm… Still do”, he confirmed before leaning in, pressing his lips to yours to kiss you again, slowly, sensually, and you couldn’t help but clench around him when he did, making him chuckle for a moment as you kissed.

You just held onto him, caressing the planes of his back, feeling the goosebumps that rose on his flesh under your touch. Even when you could feel his bare skin against yours, his bare skin within you, you couldn’t even believe this was real, it was happening. You were lying here, with your best friend’s cock buried deep within your walls, kissing him, and your mind was almost spinning, dizzy with that realisation.

You needed Minho to move. If he didn’t move soon you feared you might actually die right there out of the intense need you felt for him, so you rolled your hips, murmuring a soft ‘move, babe’ against his lips. So he did, starting a slow, borderline teasing pace, working you up, letting you get used to the movement.

“Fuck, I like when you call me babe, too”, he looked you in the eyes, picking up his pace. “Love the way your cunt’s hugging my cock, baby, so good… Been dreaming about this, too, you know? How you would feel, and it’s so, so much better than I could’ve ever imagined”.

“You–You were?”

“Mm, I was”, sitting back on his heels, Minho threw one of your legs over his shoulder, the change of angle made it so his cock grazed that sensitive spot within your walls, making you curl your toes and see stars with each thrust of his hips, and the second his thumb pressed on your clit, you knew you were too far gone, panting heavily at the onslaught of sensations that Minho was bestowing upon you.

“Promise I’ll go harder later, hm? I know you want that, for me to ruin you”, you didn’t think you could flush further, but you felt heat on your face, and your belly tightening with the words that came out of his mouth. “But I want it like this now, kitten. Wanna enjoy you like this. Is that okay?”

His thumb on your clit sped up, and you almost choked on your words with the sudden change, even when he was still thrusting slow, but deep. You simply nodded, eagerly, holding his gaze confidently as that knot in the pit of your stomach got tighter with each and every one of his motions. “Just want you…” was all you could muster as your hand reached to softly caress his abdomen, feeling his muscles tightening and relaxing with each thrust.

“Mmm… So beautiful”, removing his thumb from your clit he brought it to your lips. “Lick it, baby. Make it as wet as you can for me, hm?” So you did, coating the tip of his thumb in your saliva only for him to return it to your clit, for him to start quickly rubbing circles on your sensitive bud, making you throw your head back with the sudden onslaught.

“Minho, babe… Please, want to…”

“Come on, baby… Give it to me, wanna feel you…” With a few more flicks of his thumb on your clit, you finally came, bringing your hand to your mouth so you could muffle the desperate moans that were about to come out of your mouth, relishing the heat you felt course through your body as Minho kept fucking into you.

With the effects of your orgasm, the rhythm of his hips was becoming more and more erratic, his face contorting in pleasure as he chased his own release. Reaching for the hand he kept on your pubic bone after you came, you placed your hand on top of his, bringing his attention back from where he had been looking at his cock disappearing between your walls to your eyes. “Want you to come on me, wanna feel you, please…”

“Shit, kitten…” Taking a hold of your hips, Minho held you tightly, giving you a diluted taste of that strength you knew he had but he was holding back on, of that strength you were surely going to beg him to release on you later, just as he gave a few more thrusts, working himself up closer to his climax.

In one final swift movement, Minho pulled out of your heat, wrapping his hand around his length and bringing himself to completion right on top of your abdomen, and, biting on his bottom lip to dampen obscene sounds of his own, he finally came, thick ropes of his cum soiling your torso, all the way from your navel to your tits. It was so much, you knew werewolves were biologically different from human males, but you were surprised at the amount, the sudden warmth making your head spin, making you wonder how it would feel when he came inside of you, in your cunt, in your mouth…

Breathing heavily, Minho looked down at you, his eyes raking your form, covered in his seed, a flush settling all the way from his chest to his neck. Immediately, he was on you, kissing you deeply, mumbling words of ‘so, so pretty covered in my cum, so pretty…’ between pecks of his lips that had you flushing impossibly further.

Moving away from you, he took a hold of the first garment he could find, using it to wipe his cum off of your body, throwing somewhere right after only to finally plop down next to you, still panting a bit and staring at the ceiling. You did pretty much the same, lying there staring at the ceiling, but you did reach for his hand, interlocking your fingers with his, revelling in the way he held yours tightly in his, just as a comfortable silence fell between you two.

After a while, Minho spoke. “Did you mean it?”

You turned to him, looking at his side profile, looking at the relaxed expression on his face. “Mean what, baby?”

“Only ever wanted me?” Minho turned to you, with a soft smile on his lips, giving your hand a squeeze.

You felt yourself blush, but you smiled at him regardless. “Mm… Only you, baby”.

“Me too”, letting go of your hand, Minho pulled you into his arms, hugging you tightly against his chest, and you could only melt into his embrace, inhaling deeply, basking in his presence. “I’m glad you came with us today. Was a bit worried at first, but now… Now I’m super glad you came, honestly…” He mumbled against your hair, and you couldn’t help but chuckle.

“You’re just happy you got laid”, you were joking of course, teasing him a bit as you caressed his back.

Minho laughed at that, bringing a hand to your rear to fondle one of your buttcheeks. “Only ‘cause I got laid with you, dummy”.

Chuckling, you draped your leg over his hip, pushing on his shoulder to get him to lay down and for you to straddle him. Looking down at him, your hands dragged all the way from his shoulders to his pecks, squeezing him a bit before they continued their path to his abdomen, the motion bringing a smirk to Minho’s face. “Did you mean what you said earlier?”

“What exactly? I said a lot of things, kitten”, Minho’s hands came to your waist, dragging all the way down after to fondle your hips.

“That you were gonna go harder later?”

“You do want me to ruin you, huh? Shameless”.

You chuckled, shuffling a bit so you could press yourself to his length, and your eyes went wide and your eyebrows rose high on your face. He was hard already, and the surprise must’ve been obvious on your face, because Minho simply shrugged, moving his hands to cup your bum. “You do smell so good, and the full moon is not making it any easier on me, cut me some slack”.

“Minho, babe, listen… And I mean this seriously. It’s important”, Minho went serious, looking at your face intently, giving you his undivided attention. “I need you to fuck me in every possible way you can and more, I’ve been waiting too long. If you don’t I might actually die”.

Minho scoffed, smirking as he tightened his hold on your rear, making you squeal with the sudden movement, with the strength of his hold. “Oh, kitten… Baby, you have no idea what you’ve just asked for. Good luck trying to stand up from this bed tomorrow when I’m done with you”.

Author’s Notex2: if you’re curious as to why Chris looked like he’d just won Millionaire when he came down to the kitchen, you can check out Love is Easy.

if you want to read more of this couple, check out Dog Unleashed.

Constructive feedback (or even keysmashes, really) is always welcome :)

Minho’s WereRoomies Instalments: Camping With Wolves · Dog Unleashed · Are You There, Wolf?

#stray kids supernatural au #stray kids fantasy au #stray kids werewolf au #lee know smut #lee know fanfiction #lee know fic #lee know x reader #minho x reader #minho smut #minho fanfiction #stray kids smut #stray kids fanfiction #skz x reader #skz fanfic #skz fanfiction #stray kids fanfic #werewolf lee know #werewolf minho #✨🌙✏

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myobsessionsspace · 1 month

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"My last point is that I don't really see JK being a club going person."

I was going to say this a well. I quite don’t get why some people portray him as a party boy when he has shared several times that he’s more of a homebody and feels more comfortable chilling with friends or relaxing at home - which, for an introvert, isn’t surprising at all. He seems like someone who has a small close circle of friends and doesn’t really socialize outside of it. Sure we don’t know him in private and it’s not like he never goes out obviously but I’ve always felt he was pretty transparent and sincere with us. So I really don’t get the need for some fans to portray him as a person he hasn’t shown to be. It’s weird, it’s like he’s not enough for them so they have to twist his personality to make it fit the way they would like him to be. That’s not exactly what I call love, but well..

~Ask Anon is referring to~

Hi lovely!

Right?! Talk your talk 💪

Like how many times has Jungkook shown and spoken about his MTBI?! He’s an introvert through and through. From what we’ve seen he has his select few that he’s himself with and has fun with but we’ve seen him when not working like a dog, at home or working out.

Introvert in the wild

He drinks at home, due to sasaengs he works out at home, he sings karaoke at home, he cooks at home.

Of course he must do things with people that we don’t see or know about but the pervasive notion that he’s some addict fuck boy boils down to ta few things, the main ones in my mind right now, small mindedness and baseless rumours.

Small mindedness because according to the teen book, movie, tv, fanfic stereotype the dark clothes, piercings, tattoo, bike riding, quiet type can and only ever will be a ‘fuck boy’. He has a group of 97z idol friends that one outing, that made headlines, determined his character from that point forward. What else has he done that warrants such judgements? Drink at home in front of his phone? Have boxing as a hobby? Own a motorcycle alongside owning cars too?

The Wattpad f*ck boy of their dreams 😑 I’ve literally SEEN countless Wattpad covers, some actually entitled ‘f*ck boy’ or with a fuckboyjungkook! tag, no joke!!!

Rumours because his blonde foreign, dancer, idol, older actress, tattoo artist girlfriends all can attest under oath to his ways, no wait it’s the random online account holders that can attest under oath due to their inside knowledge

No matter how often he shows himself to be a homebody. No matter how often over the years the members and Jungkook talk about how Jungkook likes to stay in. Jungkook saying he’d rather join in on other people’s plans as he’s not one to do much of left to his own devices. Namjoon saying Jungkook likes to stay at home and Hobi saying ‘he’ll go for Jimin’. Jungkook saying he stays in and when given Netflix suggestions says he’s watched them all, used to stay in and play video games, draw and create etc it’s not enough to shift certain people’s mindset because his outward appearance sets it in stone for them. Oh that and his FICTIONAL music videos where he holds a woman’s hand and starts at another woman’s forehead

When the camera is rolling for the MV character, the pop idol

When the camera isn’t rolling for the MV character but to capture the man Jeon Jungkook

There are so many side to this young man who has an aesthetic expression that people will not get over.

Curteous

Kind and respectful

Loving

Tender and caring

Cute. Sorry Jungkook you are a grown man, yes, but still so damn cute!

You’re right in my opinion anon but I will say one thing…

You said: ‘It’s like he’s not enough for them […]’

I say: He’s too much for them, so they have to simplify him to a caricature because him as a whole is someone they can never appreciate, how he deserves to be appreciated. Him as a whole can’t be the person they’ve deemed their fantasy or enemy.

Thank you for your ask😊! As you can tell I needed to get that out and you gave me the opportunity 🙈

💜

#Jungkook #Anonymous Asks #Jikook #the last tag just because…

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obsolescent · 9 months

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So glad people are pointing out the OOC writings that are being created.

It’s nice to have headcanons, I have some myself that I use in my own writing. Headcanons can give more life to the characters, building on their lore. But, many are just taking whatever fantasy they have in their heads and projecting it onto a character with no regard for how that character really is.

It would be better if those who wrote those type of fanfics would have a disclaimer that the content is OOC but majority don’t. I honestly haven’t seen that tag in years.

Just to name a couple characters I’ve seen it really hit, like, sorry but Ghost is definitely not abusive or toxic, and Leon Kennedy is the most awkward, kind character I’ve seen canonically. It surprises me that more people aren’t connecting with these characters on a deeper level, just using them at surface value. Aren’t delving into their lore and creating work based on that. So much could be written about these two.

The more serious work I’ve written hasn’t received hardly any attention and when things I’ve written that involve sexual situations has easily hit 100+ notes. Just seeing it firsthand is…Disheartening?

“Sex sells” is really a phrase that can sum up a lot of fan fiction that gets attention nowadays. There isn’t anything wrong with that, it’s just whenever you go to the tags it’s all you see. More serious work is drowned out and gets lost.

This is all to say that I wish to find others who write more serious work. If you do please let me know, I would love to see your stories and check out your writings!!

#o text #i’m kinda nervous to post this but i needed to rant #and find more who write more serious work!!!!#resident evil #leon kennedy #leon kennedy x reader #leon s kennedy #leon s kennedy x reader #ghost cod #ghost x reader #simon ghost riley #call of duty

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bakubunny · 4 months

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just in case you need to hear this:

bigger isn’t always better

tighter isn’t always better

both in real life and in fiction

yes, really. i’m serious.

there’s this weird, almost disturbing obsession with the tightest pussy/biggest dicks, especially in the fanfiction circles i seem to find myself in. sure, it’s all fantasy. write for yourself. i’m also slightly guilty of that as well in that i write my preferences. but i do it with a realistic understanding of the statements above.

maybe i’m just getting old and boring, or it comes down to my own experiences. but often the most popular fics on my dash feel so unrealistic that it pulls me out of it and i have to ask, “is that normal? is it even possible? am i more clueless than i thought?”

and the answer is no, i’m probably not clueless, but fanfiction is just that: fiction. it can be so easy to get wrapped up in things that aren’t real that we question ourselves or our work unnecessarily.

maybe those popular works that make me question myself or my ability to write smut well represent someone’s experiences, but they certainly don’t represent mine. and that’s okay. i most often choose to portray what i know with certainty is or can be real.

i want smut that’s awkward and sometimes imperfect, smut where someone gets off too early or maybe not at all, smut that doesn’t talk about “size kink this, manhandling that, abs and v lines and tummy bulges, he came three times and kept going, she squirted everywhere until she couldn’t see straight,” bullshit.

like. am i crazy?

i can’t be the only fic writer who feels this way.

#bunny rambles #i know no one cares #and likely this will go ignored #but this is where i’m at right now #smut writing #bnha smut #jjk smut #adding the smut tags bc i gotta know

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theodorecanaryhood · 8 months

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Will you still love me, tomorrow?

Jason Todd x Male! Reader

Warning: swearing and hints at depression

The Gotham rain hammered down so hard it ricocheted off the ground, the lights from the street lamps were blurry from the force.

Red Hood was hitting with rage tonight as he didn’t want to feel anything, he was trying so desperately to numb himself of pain, anger, sadness and anything really. Jason couldn’t handle himself. He couldn’t handle the pain.

‘How was patrol?’ You asked sleepily as Jason crawled into bed next to you, in nothing but his underwear.

‘Was fine, go back to sleep sweetness’ Jason smiled, his body aching and his heart pounding, his thoughts going at 100MPH, he didn’t focus on that.

He just focused on you laying next to him, falling back to sleep as you moved slightly closer to Jason’s form. Pressing yourself against him. Jason could just tear up from the love, he felt like he’d won the lottery everyday with you.

Four years ago, Jason was in a rut as he found himself very single and deeply unhappy about it, patrol, sleep, work and repeat.

‘Hey Jason, this is my friend y/n’ Dick said as he walked over to Jason at the coffee house. Jason saw you and was instantly smitten.

You were too but didn’t let on as Dick was your friend and you didn’t want to tell him right away you had a thing for his younger brother.

Jason was happy once you both pursued the relationship and he was out of the rut, but he found himself so deeply in love his emotions fell out of control.

‘So, what shall we do today?’ You asked, the sun was out and it was warm out for a change as Gotham rarely saw a nice summers day.

Jason sat watching you, still sore from his patrol last night, just watching contently as you put your T-shirt on over your head. Jason watched as you stretched your arms up over your head and saw as your toned body moved.

‘You keep doing that we won’t leave the bedroom’ Jason chuckled, you winked and leant down to kiss Jason’s head as he remained seated.

‘Cute, but we should get up and do something, let’s make the most of the hot days while we have them’ you said as you walked out the bedroom.

Walking down the street hand in hand, Jason was grateful your love language is touch, considering how touch starved he is.

‘Oh, that’s the bookstore you wanted to try’ you suggested as you both went in.

The aisles filled with different genres, horror, Science fiction, drama, fantasy…there wasn’t a single story left behind.

Jason kept drifting off in his head and not being able to focus, he couldn’t think on one thing, not without something else getting in the way.

Jason heard your laugh which was music to his ears, always. Until he looked over and saw you were talking to another guy and you were both laughing with each other. Jason suddenly saw red and walked over to you, wrapping his arm around your waist.

‘This guy bothering you babe?’ Jason asked as you shook your head, still laughing.

‘No, this is Mike, me and him were just talking about the irony of the new comic book that is coming out next week’ you explained as Mike nodded.

‘Didn’t know you had a friend called Mike’ Jason brought up, holding you tighter.

‘I don’t, we just met’

‘Yeah, we both like the comic series Chance and the Cloud’ Mike said, giving a look as he watched Jason hold you against him.

You looked up at Jason who towered over you with ease, who was staring down this new Mike character.

‘Jay? You ok?’ You asked with concern as Jason kept his eyes on Mike.

‘I think we should go’ Jason barked, walking out and grabbing your hand. Dragging you behind him.

As Jason got outside and the air hit him in the face he began to calm down, you walking quicker behind him to keep up with your tall boyfriend.

‘What was that about?’ You asked, finally catching up with Jason.

‘Forget about it’ Jason carried on walking as you grabbed his arm, getting his attention.

‘Jason?’ You looked in his eyes, hoping he’d tell you why he acted like that.

Truth be told, you weren’t a stranger to the fact that Jason is protective and possessive of you. He wants everyone to know your his, and only his. But he’s never done that before.

Neither of you spoke the walk back home, mostly because Jason was still angry and you were trying to make sense of the situation.

You shut the door to yours and Jason’s shared apartment, Jason walking straight to the fridge and grabbing two beers. Handing you one once he’d opened them both.

‘So, we gonna talk about what happened back there?’ You asked almost as a suggestion, Jason looked at you and rolled his eyes.

‘What can I say? You’re mine’ Jason looked back in the fridge taking out the leftovers from the night before.

‘No, don’t ignore the situation. Why did you pull me out of there? Why were you staring that guy down?’ Jason shut the fridge door and turned his body to you fully.

‘I hate that other men look at you, I hate that I have to feel like someone better will come along and take you’ Jason raised his voice slightly, not to the point where he was shouting, but enough that you could see and argument was gonna start.

‘The hell? Christ Jay, a guy in a bookstore likes the same comic as me is that really what you’re mad about?’ You almost laughed, watching as Jason walked out the room.

‘Jason, don’t you dare walk away from me’ you called out as you ran after him.

‘Y/n’ Jason muttered under his breath as you caught up to him.

‘I am talking to you’ you said as you reached your boyfriend.

‘Just let me fucking breath’ Jason screamed as he walked into the bedroom and shut the door.

You stood in the hallway not knowing what to do, you guys had arguments or disagreements before. But Jason had never raised his voice, not to you, and not like that.

The kitchen table was big and empty when sitting alone, blurry chairs as your eyes filled up with water. Tears never falling, but sitting there on the edge, tears threatening to fall.

It had been an hour as you sat and stared and thought over and over, Jason’s voice in your head. A level you had never received before today.

Jason appeared in the dining room as you looked at him, eyebrow slightly raised at him. Jason didn’t smile, speak or even move from where he was. He just looked at you.

‘You ready to talk?’ You asked as Jason nodded and walked closer to you, you swivelled in your seat to face him, as Jason stood over you.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to shout at you baby. I never did, I’m so sorry’ Jason apologised as he took your hand in his, slight fear and panic detected in his voice.

‘What happened?’ You asked, a simple question that needed no detail to it. Jason knew exactly what you needed to know.

‘Why? Why are with me? Why do you love me? I’m such a loser, I can’t do anything right and I’m not worth anything from you. You’re so much better than me’ Jason blurted out. Tears in his eyes as he let them fall.

Your throat jumped as your body shivered at Jason’s words, you felt an overwhelming amount of pressure on your body as you suddenly began to hold back tears.

‘I look at you and just don’t understand what you’re doing here. Why do you care about me? I don’t get it, you’re so special’ Jason continued as you didn’t hold the tears anymore and let them flow out of you like a waterfall.

You cried so hard that Jason got scared at your reaction, he still held your hand. Not moving as he was trying not to breakdown more.

‘Jason, what the fuck are you talking about? I love you so much because I want to, I fell in love with my best friend and it was the best thing that ever happened to me, don’t you dare ever stand there and talk about yourself like that. You’re not a loser, you’re not worthless. You’re worth so much’ you said, standing up and hugging Jason.

Jason wrapped his arms around you as he kissed your head, you soaked his shirt as you let the tears flow.

Jason had this problem for a while but never addressed it, his emotions went down and out of control sometime ago. He didn’t even know where to start with it.

‘I love you so much Jason, you’re my best friend and the love of my life. Please don’t forget that. And please don’t ever forget you deserve to be loved’ you placed your hand in Jason’s face, as he leant down and kissed you.

You remained in the kiss for a few minutes, a kiss that was mixed with your tears. Then Jason’s tears began to fall.

‘I’m so sorry’ Jason apologised, placing his hands around your neck as he pulled your head to his. Foreheads resting together.

‘Don’t apologise Jay, please don’t ever apologise to me. Please just know you are amazing and that I love you’

Jason smiled as he kissed you again while moving his hands down to your waist, holding you in place.

‘I love you too, I love you so much’ Jason breathed out as he parted the kiss.

You wiped his tears away with your thumbs, as Jason did the same to you. You both just stayed in place, holding each other. Whispering sweet words to each other every so often.

If Jason asked if you would still love him tomorrow, you would of course say yes…and the days to follow for as long as your heart beat.

#red hood #gotham #red hood fanfiction #red hood x reader #red hood x you #jason todd fanfiction #jason todd x reader #jason todd x y/n #jason todd x you #jason todd #jason todd x male reader #red hood x male reader #men have emotions too

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physalian · 3 months

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Writing Tone in Fiction (Or, Pacing your Story, Part 2)

See this post all about pacing and as the two go hand-in-hand. If you read that, I may repeat myself a little here. Tone, and how abruptly you change it, how radically you change it, and how you break it whether on purpose or on accident says a lot about your experience as a writer, and how well you planned out your plot.

**Trigger warning for mentions of mature themes**

What is Tone?

“Tone” is the maturity of the work, signaling whether or not your characters have to censor themselves for young readers. It’s also restricted by the genre, whether this is a comedy and what kind – slapstick or gross-out humor – or a scary movie about ghosts, but not graphic body horror. It sets expectations about the amount and degree of romance readers can expect, if the scene will fade to black before anything happens or if you’re in for a raunchy sex scene, or somewhere in the middle. It also helps audiences gauge whether or not characters can die in this universe, and how graphically if they do beyond Disney’s tried and true “villain falling ambiguously from a tall height” deaths.

OSP recently did a piece on Tone Armor, a device similar to but less obvious than Plot Armor where the established tone means that, no matter how dire the circumstances, your hero won’t actually die, the world won’t actually end, and a happily ever after is on the horizon. Red also discussed what happens when you break your established tone with the shocking death or mistreatment of a character, but more on that later.

How to Decide Your Tone

Depending on your genre and intended audience, content for younger readers demand quite a bit of censorship (though can get away with many, many things worse than death). In the US at least, movies go through the MPAA rating system to determine what’s permitted by the rating given – how many swear words, whether you can show blood, topless women, graphic assault, graphic violence, if and how characters can be killed or how gummy and resistant to damage their bodies are.

If you’re writing for children, you both have less freedom to write violent carnage, and more freedom to get really creative within the limits of your tone box. I can expect the kid protagonists of my fantasy adventure to murder countless monsters that dissolve into gold dust, not bloody carcasses. I can expect the villain to perhaps die from a stab wound, but probably not get decapitated, disemboweled, or drawn and quartered, at least, not ‘on screen’.

If you’re writing for adults, adults do still expect a warning for how graphic anything can be, whether that’s sex scenes, fight scenes, murders, assaults, bloody battles, garish injuries, dead pets, dead children, etc.

Unless you’re already planning to break your tone, you need to know fairly early on whereabouts you want to set those expectations. If none of the characters even allude to sex and you write in a graphic assault, your audience is going to be pissed, and horrified. If none of your characters even allude to sex, and you hint that one was assaulted off-screen, you will still upset your audience if you don’t give them time to prepare for the possibility.

You can soften the violence and graphic content you’ve previously established and few might complain about it not being gritty enough, but going the other direction puts you in a very precarious position. Choosing more mature themes will inevitably alienate younger readers, those with triggers, and those that just want to have a lighthearted good time. The trade off? You’ll invite readers with a work that’s exactly what they’re looking for.

Establishing a Tone

I’m writing this post today because I finally sat down to watch Game of Thrones. One can’t avoid spoilers for a series as massive as that, so I was prepared for the graphic violence, all the gratuitous sex, the infamous Red Wedding, murdered kids, horribly bloody battles, and the like. GoT, the TV adaptation at least as I can’t speak to the books, establishes exactly what to expect in the very first scene: Three people happen upon the site of a graphic mass murder, limbs and body parts strewn everywhere, kids among them, who come back to life as ice zombies to kill them.

That episode continues with a beheading, incest, more incest, attempted child murder via defenestration, a brother selling his little sister into marriage, rampant nudity, and… I’m sure I missed something.

**Spoiler Alert for Season 4**

What I was not at all prepared for was the graphic death of Oberyn Martell (Pedro Pascal). It’s quick, it’s violent, it’s graphic and gruesome and incredibly well-acted… it was also far more horrifying than the Red Wedding, at least to me. Murder is murder but the way this character went out almost had me quit watching right then and there. Google at your leisure.

It wasn’t necessarily outside the realm of possibility, but most everyone else died via stabbing, arrows, beheading, burning, falling, eaten by wolves, crushed, etc. This was deeply unsettling, particularly because it’s live action, not a cartoon like Invincible.

It did its job, and it’s the only moment to feature in nightmares and make me lose my appetite, so… well done? In the following Previouslies (correct me on the actual word) they don’t even show it, cutting around the actual moment because it’s just that horrible.

This was four seasons into an eight season show and nothing like it had happened before. In a tone already as dark and explicit as TV can get, poor Oberyn pushed it over the edge entirely. It broke the established tone.

Amazon’s The Boys treads the same very thin line, only these people have superpowers for a whole new level of deeply disturbed body horror.

So, when you’re establishing a tone in the realm of “less graphic than Game of Thrones but still terrible,” you can go one of two ways: Horrify your audience straight out of the gate, or slowly creep up to it with allusions and hints until they’re fully prepared for it when it hits.

If your characters have free reign of every swear in the dictionary, start with the “f*cks” and “sh*ts” as quickly as you can as part of their vocabulary, whether you intend to use the words sparingly or after every other word in their dialogue.

If you’re writing a multi-series work that intends to ramp up the rating as it goes, you don’t have to cold open with a murder, but establishing that characters do at least die in this world is a start. Establish that assault happens in the background, that killing happens, or animal cruelty. Your readers with triggers will thank you for it and read something else.

Unless you intend to shatter the tone and shock your audience with it later.

Breaking Tone via Killing Characters

The most effective tonal breakage I can think of that wasn’t even graphic, just dark and incredibly well done: Disney’s animated Mulan. The movie had been your standard Disney musical complete with grand animation for its sing-along song. Soldiers singing, dancing, laughing as they march off to war, all for a girl worth fighting—

The singing stops. The score stops. Their smiles drop. Cut to the scene before them that has murdered this Disney musical in cold blood and it’s a decimated battlefield, the snow-covered and burned bodies of their far better trained and more competent fellow soldiers, and the love interest’s father.

Mulan only briefly reprises one track in the climax, but otherwise, this happy-go-lucky sing-along has rudely and horrifyingly become a war movie. It’s still Disney, so it doesn’t get violent or graphic, but they shattered the tone in glorious fashion.

Breaking tone happens all the time, for minor events and major character deaths. It doesn’t become an issue of “you just alienated your audience” unless the tonal breakage is the aforementioned sudden graphic assault or other sensitive triggers.

Major character deaths are a whole separate monster to tackle and I’d like to, but for today’s purposes I’m talking about killing major characters when the possibility of any of our heroes dying was never established.

For anyone who never read Lord of the Rings and didn’t know the curse of anyone played by Sean Bean, losing Gandalf to another ambiguous high fall was one thing, but Boromir straight up dies in battle. Sure the story is surrounded by death and darkness but you expect heroes in a world like this to have some pretty hefty plot armor – and Boromir had so much room left to grow. In the grand scheme of the story, though, Boromir’s death was as far from shock value fodder as possible.

Sirius Black is another heartbreaking loss, but not entirely outside the realm of possibility – killing off Ron or Hermione would have been. Any mentor figure is automatically doomed with rare exception, especially ones in fatherly roles.

Bianca di Angelo is a different matter. She’s not the first death mentioned in Percy Jackson but she’s a brand new character and despite all the dangers the heroes have already been through and the warnings from the prophecy, actually killing her off for good broke the tone. Suddenly this war was real and there were lasting consequences.

Game of Thrones’ “Red Wedding” didn’t just shock audiences because a bunch of people died, it was which people that died. Robb Stark, eldest son and heir to Sean Bean (so of course he’s dead) and one of the siblings of the “hero” family had been leading a war effort to rescue and then avenge his father. He gets betrayed and murdered, along with his mother and a fair chunk of his army, caught by surprise at a wedding, because he broke an oath and married for love instead.

I knew of the scene and knew that Catelyn Stark was there just from the one time I’d seen the clip years ago, and as it got closer I worried it was Robb’s wedding, but I still wasn’t prepared for the death of the hero of the show. Jon’s off in the north doing his own thing and so is Danaerys. This was the bright-eyed usurper, the avenger, the never-lost-a-battle upstart. No author would ever kill that hero.

They’d established that anyone can die, similar to the Walking Dead in some ways, but this was a whole new level of boldness, killing off Robb. At the time of this post, I haven’t seen past season 4, but I know more deaths are coming.

Deciding to murder your hero, in any other story, would not go over well with your audience. Killing any major character is a decision that should be made with a deep understanding of the consequences or else you end up like Walking Dead after they killed Carl for shock value and never recovered their audience viewership.

—

It’s not just dead protagonists, it can be worldly tragedies, the heroes actually losing a battle, or the war, a uniquely horrifying monster or cryptid or villainous act. Or it can be a character beginning to contemplate self-harm and possibly attempting to end their own lives. It can be the reveal of an abusive relative, or an incestuous relationship. It can be mental health problems, sudden and un-curable disease and disability.

It can be less-dire things too, but I’m not much for writing comedy.

Tone, like pacing, doesn’t have to remain consistent throughout the entire story. If it’s a lighthearted comedy, let it stay a lighthearted comedy if you want to. You can change tone progressively, with hints and near-misses, or drop a bomb on your audience with a big reveal. What you do and how you implement it is entirely dependant on the story you’re writing.

Most audiences expect a book that isn’t written for elementary schoolers to mature over time and most genres come with set understandings. But hey, I hear Animorphs can get incredibly dark with a bunch of mature themes.

In general, killing a character just for shock value is rarely worth it in the long run. In general, writing in triggering subjects without warning to an audience that wasn’t prepared for it also isn’t worth it in the long run — save it for a different book.

If fanfiction authors leave author’s notes everywhere warning about the subject matter ahead, published authors can do the same, in my opinion. Content warnings should be a thing and it doesn’t have to spoil the surprise. Include it as a forward to your book, letting potential readers know that such and such work they’re considering spending real money on contains mentions of, or explicit depictions of, any and all mature and sensitive themes. You never know who’s out there picking up your book expecting a good time. Do right by them and give a little heads up and you might gain a fan you wouldn’t have otherwise.

#writing advice #writing resources #writing tips #writing tools

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yanderewritingdump · 7 months

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I've read too many COD fics, and now I'm stuck on scary military dudes who use their skills/resources inappropriately to keep an eye on you.

AFAB reader, female pronouns/gender language used, MDNI.

AN: I would like to share that I know squat about the military/guns/technology, but I think they're neat in certain fictional setting. Most of my information on the world of COD/military on has come from either watching my brother play it more than a decade ago, unwillingly listening to various people rant, and social media thirst traps. Please suspend your disbelief and forgive any inaccuracies you may find.

It was too much of a habit to pull up the camera feed of your back porch, watching you rock gently as you diligently worked at what must be your latest project. Something was taking shape in your hands, but his knowledge of things outside of war and death tended to be a bit spotty. He thought it looked vaguely like a thin, holey scarf. It was the third color he’d seen you use in the last two weeks as you tried to teach yourself from the book next to your rocking chair. He wasn’t exactly sure what you were doing with the ball of twine and weird plastic tool, and he was pretty sure you were terrible at it from the way you grumbled and picked it. The breeze rustled some of the pages, lifting stray strands of hair into your eyes, before picking up and shutting the book gently on the delicate beaded chain that you had put together. That really got you muttering, and he huffed a soft laugh.

Your hair caught the light of the afternoon sun, shining and soft looking. The desire to run his fingers through it, to grip a fistful at the back of your head and pull you into his kiss thrummed through him. He wanted to suck your lip into his mouth for his teeth instead as you chewed on it in thought.

That was too common of a thought. You were always focusing intently on something, a million miles away as you gnawed on your poor lip and thumbs.

He shouldn’t watch you enough to know all these little details, to have all these little fantasies that are ingrained in him with simple habits of yours. But some nights it was the only thing to ease his troubled thoughts half a world away. He was just as addicted to you as his captain was to his cigars, and he was even less to give you up even if the others managed to find out about you.

It's hard not to notice a hulking man sitting in the far corner, no matter how much he blends in to the shadows. At least, it was hard for you and your friend where you were propped up on the bar with your drinks and dinner. When Caden spotted him, he nudged you in the ribs, not so subtly nodding at him as the normal Thursday night crowd milled around you. "Aren’t you in the market for a fun time?" he teased, “because that looks like a fun time.”

You elbowed him back harder in an attempt to hide how flustered you were. "Shut up," you hissed. You risked a glance towards the far corner table, the second of what would probably be at least a dozen more as the night went on. Even in the dimmest part of the bar, he seemed massive, sprawled out with his arm slung over the back of the chair and his legs spread wide into the aisle as he slowly sipped his liquor. The fuck-off vibes radiating off of him were clear even from this distance. “I don’t think he’s looking for company tonight anyway,” you said with a little disappointment. Caden rolled his eyes at you, and it devolved into your familiar bickering as he tried to convince you to approach him and you grumbled at him for trying to live vicariously through you.

He rarely indulged himself in these little trips to see you in person when he wasn’t on a mission. It felt too risky. He shouldn't be seen frequenting the same places as you, staring at you for hours on end. Normally, he wouldn’t even let himself be seen, but something was making him either bolder or stupider when it came to decisions about you. How was he supposed to resist pressing you into the cheap lacquered wood of the bar and leaning down to breathe in the smell of your hair and perfume? How could he not see if your hips felt as good in his hands as he imagined they would? It would be impossible not to press against you and see what sort of sounds you'd make with his lips pressed against your throat.

But he liked catching you looking at him, lip caught between your teeth for a brief moment as you flushed and looked away. Maybe if he were a different person, a more normal person, he could buy you a drink and flirt with you. Instead, he had camera covering every inch of your home and more than one pair of your underwear hidden away in his belongings.

The others would laugh at him if they saw how he was almost drooling over you.

You were in a heated conversation with your friend, heads close together as you whispered intently back and forth before he seemed to have to last word at the way you angrily got off your stool. From his spot, it was easy to tell which profanities you were hissing at him as you grabbed your drink. He was amused by it all for a moment until he realized you were tentatively approaching him instead of finding a different chair for your friend's partner, as was generally expected of this frequent ritual.

He knew what he looked like. A giant of a man drinking alone in a dingy, poorly lit bar did not generally get any positive interest. Apparently, you were braver than he gave you credit for. As badly as he wanted to actually interact with you, he wasn’t sure he’d actually be able to reign himself in if you tried to flirt with him. He really didn’t want to have to turn you down. If his pretty girl wanted him, he would let you have him because he had no self-control when it came to you.

Maybe that’s why he ended up letting you flirt with him and buying you another drink. It was definitely why he let you lead him to your home, pretty, soft hands occasionally reaching back for him in the cool winter air as you giggled at his terrible jokes.

It made you seem even more like a dream than you already did.

He let you hook your finger around his, leading him into your cozy, two-bedroom home. He knew all about it, had access to all the cameras that your parents and family friend insisted you setup around the older home, and had even set up other cameras to cover the blind spots you had missed. Knowing all of that was different than you leading him by the hand inside.

Not that you knew what you were inviting inside your sanctuary.

That didn’t mean that he wasn’t going to press you against your front door, letting his fingers dig into your waist to finally, finally let himself know what it felt like as he presses his mouth to yours. The soft, sweet noise of surprise that fades into a pleased hum satisfies something inside him. He would take care of you tonight, and he’d make sure to ruin every other man for you while he did it.

The gentle way you lace your fingers through his hair and crane up to meet him while he dominates your mouth was adorable. You were pliant against him, letting him drag you that much closer to his body with more soft, pleased noises. How could you be so soft and yielding to a man like him?

You make him crazy, he decides, letting his hands slide down to your thighs. The way you cling to his biceps, nails digging into his hoodie and as he yanks your thighs up around his waist make him smirk against your throat. “Which door?” he murmured against you instead of sucking bruises into the thin, delicate skin like he wanted to.

Fuck, it was hot how strong he was, you thought, locking your ankles around him. He hadn’t even made that discouraging grunt as he just wrapped you around his waist. Only one arm was supporting you as his other hand crept under your shirt to rest on the small of your back. Your back arched, pressing more firmly into him and the kisses he was lavishing on your throat. Each step he took made him grind against you, and you dug your nails in harder at the sheet size of the bulge against you. “Fuck,” you hiccupped when he nipped your throat.

“Which door, sweet girl?”

Surely there was a bruise forming now from his incessant, sucking kisses. “Left door. Kind of a mess. Sorry.”

He shrugged as he set you on a clear area of the bed, laying you back and caging you in for a moment with his body as he devoured your mouth. One of his hands was keeping your hips firmly anchored to his, grinding you against him while the other worked under your top to unhook your bra. When your hands tug at his hoodie, he sat back and yanked it off, letting your ass rest against his firm thighs for a just moment. You didn’t get to enjoy the view of his well-muscled chest for long before he was leaning over you again to divest you of your own top.

Propping himself on his elbow above you, he takes a moment to enjoy the view. You were flustered and flushed, lips plush and shiny from his rough kissing. You looked like you wanted to cover yourself and hide from his scrutiny, but you settled your hands on his sides, biting your lip and looking at him shyly. “So pretty,” he rumbled appreciatively before he was diving down to drown himself in you again. He nipped down your throat to your breasts, gently biting and licking one nipple as he worked your pants open and slipped his hand inside.

He wanted to skip ahead, throw your legs over his shoulders and fuck you until both of you were puddles on the bed. He couldn’t let himself see you against after this, though, and he knew that you wouldn’t be able to take that kind of treatment.

You were impatient to be kissed again. Hand tugging at his hair as you urged him back up your body. He let himself be tugged until his face was even with yours but just out of reach. “Patience, pretty girl,” he scolded smugly. That smugness turned into a groan with him dropping his head into the crook of your neck when he felt how wet you were for him. His fingers were practical dripping as he tried to mimic how he’d see you touch yourself. “Fuck, did you like my kisses that much, sweetheart?” he asked.

You whined, arching into the touch as best as you could under his body. His voice was sinful, low and gruff with a certainty that told you he was used to being listened to. Between that, the confident manhandling, and the way he kissed you like he couldn’t live without you, how were you supposed to stand a chance. “I want more,” you moaned instead of answering. “Vince, please.”

He huffed a laugh that registered as a little dark and sinister to some distant part of your brain as you tried to rock against his finger faster. “Be careful what you wish for, sweetheart,” he rumbled, dragging you to the edge of the bed. Before the surprise had worn off, your pants were gone and he was on his knees with your legs over his shoulders. His arm was like an iron band across your hips, preventing you from jolting away at the first hot swipe of his tongue. Both of you moaned.

It seemed to set off something animalistic in him. The low grunt and groans rumbled through you as he sucked and licked at your clit with a single-minded determination. You were lost in the sensation, trying to grind against his face despite the way he held you down, and your hands fluttered between gripping his hair, his arm, and the bedding.

If he didn’t know better, he would have thought he was in heaven. How else could he explain how it felt to hear you moan and chant his name like a pray as your thighs clenched around his head? The noise you made when he sank his fingers into you must have been the sweetest thing he’d ever hear. He was glad the camera he’d set up in the bedroom had good audio.

Your nails were digging into his arm, leaving pretty little marks that he wanted to tattoo into his skin. Your walls were fluttering around his fingers, thighs trembling against his ears as you tried to stutter out a warning that’s cut off by every muscle in your body clenching. He loved the way your body tries to pull his fingers deeper and the way your clit pulses against his tongue as he sucks on it. He only let up when you whine his name, trying to wiggle away from his grip.

He let you, taking mercy on you just this once. He couldn’t have his pretty girl tap out before the fun even started when she had begged him for more could he?

You were panting, arm thrown over your eyes to block out the light of the room. “Fuck. I didn’t know I could come that hard.”

The bed creaked as he climbed back on, manhandling you on to your stomach and shoving pillows under your hips until he deemed them in the correct spot. “Oh, darling,” he rumbled against the back of your neck, ignoring your yelp of surprise, “that sounds like a challenge to me.” Something in you clenches at the dark promise in his voice.

His forearm was planted on the bed beside your head, supporting him as he ground his cock through the mess between your thighs. “Do you have a condom?” you manage to ask. “I’m not on anything, and I wasn’t planning on bringing anyone home with me.”

There’s a bit of panic bubbling in you, ruining the nice little high you were coasting on before he flashed a small foil packet at you. “Wasn’t exactly planning on going home with anyone myself, but how was I supposed to say no to such a pretty girl flirting with me? Just want to enjoy feeling how wet I’ve got you before I put it on.”

He didn’t like the panic in your eyes when you asked, but something in him preened at the implication that you couldn’t help but want to take him home with you. You knew he’d take care of you, didn’t you? He tore the packet open with his teeth, trying to memorize the way you looked under him even as he mourned not being able to have the full sensation of fucking you.

It was a tight fit despite how wet he had gotten you, and he held your hip to keep you in place as he eased inside you. Your soft, pretty noises as you tried to rock back into him were not helping him stay in control. “Fuck, you’re tight, sweetheart.” He was breathing deeply, head pressed between your shoulders as he reigned in the wild urge to pound you into the mattress and the clench of his balls.

“Fuck me, Vince,” you whined, struggling to push back against him. None of your toys had filled you quite like he did, and you clenched around him in an effort to get him to move.

He growled something against your shoulder, forcing your knees to open more with his own before he was plowing into you. His grip on your hip and the weight of his body pressing into you kept you pinned in place as he started up a steady, hard rhythm that had his balls tapping your sensitive clit with each thrust. It had you moaning curses as your hands wrapped around his wrists in a vain attempt to do something. “You wanted me to fuck you, sweetheart. Now be a good girl for me and take it,” he said, hot breath ghosting across your overheated skin before he was sinking his teeth into the meat of your shoulder.

His firm hold hadn’t relented, forcing you to take what he gave you and scramble to hold on to something. There was already a tightness building in your abdomen, and it only grew faster as he found the perfect angle. “Please don’t stop. Shit. Please, please, please,” you hissed, eyes squeezed shut tight as you chased your orgasm. As if solely to be cruel to you, he pulled away. “No, no, no, no. Fuck. Please, Vince!” You looked over your shoulder at him to try to see why he was leaving you high and dry just in time for him to flip you on to your back and sink into you again.

He looked smug and rumpled in the best way as he found his rhythm again. His dark eyes smirked down at you while that thick, calloused thumb found your clit. You wrapped around him, trying to make sure he couldn’t do that again. He kissed you for a moment, and you could still taste yourself on his tongue. “Hush, pretty girl. I’m going to take care of you. I just want to look at you when you cum.” His shot straight through you, and it was just enough to send you over the over the edge.

Your thighs clamped around his sides, nails scratching down his back. He watched you throw back your head, whispering a choked off version of his name as he tried to keep his rhythm steady. It was hard with you clenched around him so tight and the feeling of finally having you under him. “That’s it. That’s my good girl,” he murmured, petting your waist gently. He managed to keep it together until your thighs relaxed against him and you started making that needy overstimulated noise even as you arched into his touch and rocked up to meet him.

He wasn’t sure that he had ever cum that hard or that much. It seemed to go on forever as you kept grinding on his ridged body.

He managed to roll off of you before he collapsed, taking a moment to let his bones solidify again before he got to work cleaning both of you up.

#yandere male #yandere x reader #afab reader #yandere smut #yandere writing #yandere male oc #yandere oc x reader

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