#Plus I'm more of an 'enjoying a cup of coffee together in an afternoon or I'm inviting you to this festival it will be fun' type romance

[muchosbesitos]

it’s got to be you

pairing: suguru geto x fem reader

contents: fingering, some nipple play, oral (f receiving), marking, male masturbation, one bed trope (lmk if i missed any 😓)

synopsis: satoru found a new partner and invited suguru to join him for a double date. who better for suguru to ask to be his plus one than you?

author’s note: he’s around his twenties in this one 🌝 anyways, i hope y’all enjoy, it’s my first time writing for my pretty princess

word count: 8.7k (longest thing i’ve written holy shit)

You'd met Suguru upon moving into your apartment complex, the two of you forming a connection after he'd helped you unpack your car. You'd been a student at the Kyoto campus, so while you did hear about the special grade duo that Geto and Gojo were, you'd never actually gotten the chance to interact with them.

Other than that, he was pretty much the only other person around your age in the apartment complex. Your other neighbors were around their forties or older, giving you a 'good morning/afternoon' every time you saw them or giving you an extra cup of sugar when you needed it. But you couldn't deny that it was nice to speak to someone around your age, the connection between the two of you forming with ease.

It started off with the two of you walking to the Tokyo campus together, talking about how the students were progressing before steadily moving onto sharing a cup of coffee in the mornings. He usually came over to your balcony, leaning it against it as he listened to whatever you had on your mind. He'd usually have a cigarette dangling from his fingers, occasionally offering a tidbit of advice if you asked for it.

He started coming over for designated movie nights on Fridays, the salty taste of the popcorn shared between the two of you helping get rid of the taste that curses left on his tongue. The two of you shifted movies from week to week, with your picks varying from action to romance and his were mainly picked on the basis that it was cinematically pleasing.

And Suguru would be lying if he said he didn't enjoy these daily hangouts as well. He valued Satoru’s friendship more than anything in the world, but he enjoyed the different experience of being your friend. The early mornings he spent over at your balcony quickly became the highlight of his morning, of seeing the sun shine down on your tired features as you talked about whatever came to mind.

"You seem distracted, what's up?" You threw a popcorn kettle at the side of his cheek, his attention going from the tv screen over to you. You knew that the movie wasn't that good for him to be engulfed in it, even if you'd been the one to pick it out this week.

"Satoru’s going out on a date and he wants me to go along for some kind of double date situation. Problem is, I don't have any interest in going through the motions of getting to know his date's friend," he finally spoke up, picking up the piece of kettle you'd thrown and popping it into his mouth.

"So if you're not interested, then why does it need to be a double date?"

"Well, he came up to me practically spazzing with the idea and I couldn't say no after that seeing that stupid smile on his face," Suguru explained, almost like it was enough reason for him to go through with this crazy plan. Though, you knew that Suguru would do his best to maintain Gojo’s happiness.

"So why not just tell him you're seeing someone? Obviously, a relationship wouldn't be feasible but I'm sure you could convince him with that."

"Where am i going to find someone that's willing to go through with the crazy idea of going on a fake date with me?"

He seemed to be lost in thought as he looked over at the tv, occasionally reaching out for a piece of popcorn to pop into his mouth. You could practically see the lightbulb ignite on top of his head, his head snapping to face you. "Well since you're crazy enough to suggest it, I guess it wouldn't be too far fetched to ask you if you want to be my fake date?"

You almost choked on a piece of popcorn, coughing until it came out. You wiped away the tears that ran down your face at the motion, looking over at him in surprise. "Me? No, there's no way. we're too friendly for it to be believable," you spoke up, taking a few sips of water to help the sting in your throat.

And you would've guessed that it would end there, right?

Wrong.

"Please, I'll even get on my knees for you."

You paused for a couple seconds, more so out of obligation rather than actual hesitation. You didn't want to give him the impression of being too excited, that you were secretly hoping he'd ask you out one day. But before a word could even escape from your mouth, he was already down on the floor looking up at you.

You never would've imagined anyone to look good whilst begging on their knees.

Well, that was until you saw Suguru in that same position right in front of you. He almost looked like a fallen angel with the way he was looking up at you.

He looked the most vulnerable you'd ever seen him, completely at your mercy. You couldn't deny that seeing him like this made your insides completely turn to mush. his hands came up to yours, clasping them tightly as he if it needed to be you. "Please. I don't have anyone else to ask for this other than you."

"Okay, stand up. I can't take you seriously like that."

Suguru stands up, dusting his clothes off before taking his place on the couch. He scooted a bit to be closer to you, his hand lingering on your thigh. You'd be lying if you hadn't thought what it would be like having those hands all over you. "If anybody asks, no, I did not get on my knees. I have a reputation to uphold."

"Ah yes, most likely to be a cult leader. Can't disregard that god complex," you responded, using the honorary that had been placed on him in the high school yearbook.

"Exactly."

"You know, this could all just be easily avoided if you told Gojo you weren't interested in dating."

"Then he'd just think I'm miserable seeing him in a relationship while I'm alone."

His hand began tracing small circles on your thigh, your attention going back towards him again. His touch felt like a magnet, pulling you in towards him. "Please. I don't have anyone else to ask and even if I did, I can't think of someone who'd do this better than you."

"What about Shoko?" You countered, knowing that it was a weak argument on its own. You'd heard from Utahime that Shoko would rather let earth freeze over than ever be involved with either one of them. Suguru raised a brow, confirming your thoughts with that one simple gesture.

"The chances of Satoru believing I'm dating Shoko are much lower than him believing I'm dating you."

"Alright, I'll be your fake girlfriend.”

After all, what was the worst that could happen?

Famous last words before disaster.

Suguru wasn't one to indulge in romance, sticking to what he knew wasn't going to get him hurt. Which usually tended to be one night stands. The whole concept of being emotionally vulnerable was typically one he liked to avoid, hiding his feelings with a cold exterior. But he was willing to learn for you, For the sake of making this all the more believable to Satoru. At least that's the lie he fed himself to be able to sleep at night.

Truth was, you weren't that difficult to hang around with the purpose of dating. He'd had experiences where some of his one night stands took him on dates, only to find out that the connection they shared was physical. But these hangouts with you felt like they were meet-ups within friends, something that was out of pleasure instead of obligation. His only concern was that maybe he'd grow to like these 'dates' between the two of you as something more than just hangouts.

"So, what are we gonna tell them if they ask how we started dating?" You interrupted his train of thought, his gaze focusing back on you. or more specifically, on your lips. You had a straw in your mouth, some of your lip gloss transferring onto it to form a ring at the top of the straw. His hand twitched with the urge of wiping your lip gloss away, wondering how those pretty lips would look wrapped around his thumb. Around his co-. Nope. He wouldn't allow himself to indulge in those thoughts as much as he wanted to.

After all, this was all fake right?

Hell, this whole fake relationship had an expiration date.

"So, we'll just tell them that we met when you moved into our apartment complex. We'll keep in the details of how we became friends as the truth, and then the only part we'll be lying about is that I asked you out on a date after we cooked dinner together," he responded after a couple seconds, almost having to force himself to look up at you instead of your lips.

The two of you continued to go through some details, of how long this had been going and what your goals were for this 'relationship.' Anything that was a possibility Gojo would ask, the two of you discussed. Eventually, the conversation morphed into more intimate details about the two of you. awful first date stories, birthdays, and hobbies. Anything that would give the illusion you two weren't just friends.

"You're an Aquarius?" You asked, finishing up with the drink you had in hand. You'd recalled asking him about his birthday one morning, but he claimed that it wasn't that important to him. The only reason he even bothered to celebrate it was to indulge Satoru in having birthday cake. Even if he ended up finishing up a majority of the slices. "Yeah, I'm not completely sure what that means though. I'm not that involved in astrology."

The two of you headed back to complex together, spending most of the walk in silence. He kept a close proximity to you, his arm interlocked with yours. Upon seeing you look over at him, he let out a chuckle. "Don't worry. just so you get adjusted to the whole physical aspect of it," he told you, looking back over at the bustling streets ahead. You could feel yourself starting to like this, of having your body pressed against his.

The lines between what was fake and real were starting to blur quickly and you were unsure of what to do about it.

You hadn't realized the two of you arrived at the complex until Suguru spoke up. "Do you want to come in?" It was a simple offering, his voice snapping you out of your thoughts. You'd been more distracted than usual lately, overthinking your ability to be able to see this through. You'd been quick to accept his request but you'd neglected to think about your personal feelings involved. Not that you had any time to think about that right now. "Yeah, sure," you finally agreed, walking behind him inside.

This was the first time Suguru had taken you into his apartment, exposing an intimate part of himself with you. You'd hardly seen anyone come out of it other than him with the exception of Shoko and Gojo. It was simple, the walls were chosen to be left bare. He had a couple knickknacks around his apartment, a canvas in the corner of the living room and a bookshelf on the opposite corner.

What really did capture your attention about the apartment were the two aquariums he had set up. you stepped closer to inspect them, seeing a black betta fish in one and a white one in the other. Their aquariums looked the same, a rock in each one and faux seaweed floating around. Even the way they swam around seemed to be in perfect synchrony.

"Pretty cool, huh? Satoru got me that two years ago for my birthday," you didn't notice when sugar came over to you, his voice making you jump a bit. Now that you looked closely, you could tell the resemblance between the two of them and the fish. You'd never stood the complexity of their friendship, but it seemed more like they were soulmates than just friends.

The word 'friends' seemed too simple to describe the relationship between the two of them.

Even if the idea was a bit farfetched to you, it made perfect sense why Suguru was willing to put himself through the whole fake relationship thing. Of why he didn't think twice to reassure Gojo he wouldn't be miserable if he pursued happiness separate from him.

"They're very beautiful. They look pretty well-taken care of too," you noted, noticing how healthy their fins looked and how clean their environment was. You couldn't even begin to imagine the amount of research that it took for him to properly take care of the two of them. "It took a bit of work but it's paid off. they seem pretty content in their little tanks," he murmured. You couldn't help but notice through the corner of your eye that his attention was on you rather than the fish.

"You've never thought about getting any more?" You inquired after a couple seconds of staring at the fish in silence. You looked over, expecting to see him still next to you but he'd walked over to the kitchen. He grabbed two cups from the cupboard, setting them down before turning around to look over at you. "Not really. Those two take enough time as it is and I don't really want to get a pet just to neglect them," he responded, turning the sink knob and sliding the cups under it.

"Feel free to sit on the couch, I'll be right over," Suguru called out from the kitchen. You headed over to his black leather couch, taking a seat. You grabbed the cushion behind you, noticing that it was in the shape of a chocolate bar. Another gift from Gojo if you had to assume. Suguru approached with the two cups, extending one over to you before taking a seat.

"Thanks," you told him, taking the glass of water that he was handing over. The two of you sat in a comfortable silence, the sounds of the water rippling as background noise. While the two of you covered major ground in terms of knowing enough about each other to make this seem believable, you still couldn't help the tiny doubts planting themselves in your head.

"So what exactly are you expecting out of this fake relationship?" You broke the silence after a couple seconds, setting your glass of water down on the floor. You hardly had experience with real relationships, so you were uncertain if you would manage to pull a fake one off. You were worried and the date wasn't even for another week. Suguru set his glass down, turning his body to face you.

"Well, I'm hoping that you're okay with lying to Satoru for a couple months and then we can just make something up. That the relationship isn't working out for us or we're too busy with work," he responded, his hands folded on his lap. Not that it'd be too much of a lie, jujutsu sorcerers were notorious for being chained down to their work.

While, it was nice to know that he'd at least planned some aspect of it out, it wasn't exactly what you were asking.

"No, I mean, like in terms of affection and whatnot. To sell the story," you corrected yourself, looking at him expectantly.

He hesitated for a couple moments like he'd forgotten to consider this aspect, making your nerves rise. You'd be lucky to convince Gojo the two of you were dating for at least fifteen minutes at this point.

"Well, we'd start with the nicknames like baby and stuff. Or if you don't like that, then just let me know what works for you. After all, it's your comfortability I'm concerned about."

"Okay, that makes sense. How about the physical aspect? Like hand-holding and all that?"

"Well yeah, if you're comfortable with it. We can also include kissing in that list. Completely platonic kissing with the intention to deceive."

Yeah, the words didn't sound convincing to his own ears.

Yet, you seemed to actually be considering the possibility. Maybe this wasn't destined for disaster.

"I don't really have that much experience kissing."

Suguru nudged closer to you, his knee touching yours as he brought his hand over to your chin. he directed your gaze towards him, your throat bobbing at the proximity. "Do you want me to teach you?" you didn't trust yourself to answer him properly, so you simply nodded. "Words, sweetheart. Tell me that you want this."

"I want this."

He leaned in, his hand coming up to rest against your cheek. You instinctively found yourself leaning in closer to his touch, the palm of his hand turning you into putty. And he hadn't even done anything yet. You leaned in as well, your eyes closing once you were halfway there. You felt his lips hovering against your own, making your eyes shoot open.

"Okay, so I know everyone says do what comes naturally but what exactly is that supposed to mean?" You blurted out, pulling away from his touch when you felt him get too close. Suguru opened his eyes, looking over at you as he bit down on his lower lip. "Don't you dare lau-" you weren't even done with your sentence when you heard him erupt into laughter. You folded your arms across your chest, feigning annoyance as you waited for him to finish.

"Hey!" He exclaimed, feeling your palm slap his thigh gently. Upon seeing your expression, he couldn't help but burst out into laughter once more.

"I'm being serious!"

"Okay, okay," the syllables came out broken as he willed his laughter to stop, taking a couple deep breaths to calm down.

"You know you're supposed to part your lips slightly right?"

Your brows furrowed slightly at his question, your arms folded across your chest once more. "Yes I know that. I'm not that clueless."

"Okay, just making sure. After that, I’d say just do what I'm doing. As long as you don't bite my tongue, I don't think you'll be that bad."

Now you were starting to get tempted to bite his tongue just to spite him.

He positioned himself the same as before, the palm of his hand resting against your cheek. His thumb gently ran circles against it, almost like he wanted to calm you down. "Any other questions before a repeat of last time?" He asked, looking over at you. And you almost wished he hadn't. The late sunlight was peeking in through the window, making his eyes look like melting chocolate. "No."

He leaned in, waiting for you to do the same before shutting his eyes. the two of you bumped noses on contact, a small chuckle emitting from his lips. "Keep laughing at me and I'll look for kissing tutorials on Youtube instead," you muttered, tilting your head to the other side to avoid bumping noses again. You felt his lips on your own, waiting for access. your lips parted, allowing for him to slip his against your own.

Though you had no idea what you should be doing, you decided to follow the movements he was making. You must've been doing something right since he leaned in closer to you, his other hand wrapping around your waist to close the distance. You moved your hand from your side, pressing your own against his cheek. You were starting to forget where your body began and where his body ended.

His tongue prodded against your bottom lip, almost as if asking for permission. You gave him access, parting your lips a bit more. The sensation of his tongue against yours was a strange one, a welcome one nonetheless. He tasted like mint, an aftertaste of the gum he'd been chewing on the way back. It wasn't oversaturated, it'd been diluted enough to the point where it was pleasing to the tongue. You copied the movements he was making with his tongue, the two of you moving in a synchronized manner.

The taste of you was intoxicating. For someone who claimed to have no experience when it came to these matters, you followed instructions pretty well. It was easy for Suguru to get lost in the feeling of your lips against his own, of the feeling of your lipgloss transferring onto his lips. Of pretending that this wasn't just practice for a fake arrangement. He was stepping onto unprecedented territory, but he couldn't help but want more. Even if it ended up in heartbreak at the end.

The two of you pulled away, a string of saliva in the middle connecting you both. You could see a look of longing on his face, like he missed the feeling of your lips resting against his. And if you were to look into a mirror, you were certain you'd be able to see that same look on yourself. What would be so bad about kissing him again? Well the fact that you couldn't use the excuse of practicing this time.

"I'll see you for the date," you managed to muster up, standing up from the couch. Suguru brought his hand up to his mouth, almost like he needed the reassurance that it'd been real. "Yeah, I’ll see you then. And don't worry about those Youtube videos, you're a natural," he replied, getting up as well. He dusted off imaginary dust from his clothes, walking over to the front door. You stepped out once he opened the door, turning back when you reached your apartment to give him a small wave.

You couldn't deny that it was one of the more pleasant kisses that you've had. The past experiences you had in your repertoire ranged from cracked, chapped lips to having them slobber you up like a dog. Suguru wasn't too rough with it, putting your pleasure above your own. You wondered if maybe that translated to other aspects of his life? Oh, you were so screwed. So so screwed. 

Though you were essentially prepared in every aspect, from knowing every important detail about Suguru to what to do to convey affection, you still couldn't help but feel a surge of nervousness as the date approached. What if you messed it all up? And then Suguru never talked to you after that? Your mind was practically buzzing with what-ifs, ignoring the buzzing at the front door.

Suguru stood by the doorway, looking over at you as you paced through your room. At this rate, you were certain to make a hole in the floor. "Hey, what's wrong?" He decided to speak up at around your third lap, his hand gently wrapped around your arm. He managed to pull you out of your thoughts and back to planet earth, your eyes widening once you realized you had an audience.

"I'm fine, sorry about that," you told him, pulling away a bit to finish getting dressed. His sudden appearance didn't scare you, the two of you had exchanged house keys in case of an emergency. "You're not fine. Talk to me," he wasn't letting you off the hook easily, taking a seat on your bed as he waited for an explanation. You took a deep breath, bracing yourself to tell him.

"Just the usual, you know? I just don't know if I'm ready to pull this off," you told him, unsure of how to vocalize your issues. He got up from the bed, wrapping his arms around you. The gesture was unexpected, much like most of his actions recently. Maybe you didn't know him as well as you thought. You felt your body melt into his, your breathing steadily slowing down. "I just don't want you to find out this was a mistake and I end up losing you as a friend."

You'd expected for this constant reassuring that things would end up fine would get on his nerves, That he would seek out someone else for this arrangement. Someone that didn't overthink about it too much. But yet, here he was. Hugging you. "I appreciate you for even agreeing to this, I know it's not an ideal situation," he started off, his hand rubbing small circles on your back. "But I wouldn't end our friendship over this. I know it's a lot to ask from you."

He continued to hold you for a couple more minutes, waiting until your chest stopped heaving and your breathing returned to normal before stepping back. "Do you think this looks good on me?" You asked him, doing a 360 so he could capture the outfit in its true form. You weren't sure where the date was going to be so you settled with a backless black top and a pair of jeans. Not too modest but not overly casual. "It looks good," Suguru assured you, standing up to help you clasp the necklace you'd been struggling with for the past twenty minutes.

You should've gotten used to being so close to him by now, you were practically pressed up against him just a week prior. You found the hairs on your neck rising as he stepped closer to you, taking the two ends of the necklace from your fingers. It felt like every nerve was ignited with every brush of his fingertips against your neck, a shiver running down your spine. If he didn't hurry up, you'd doubt how long you could remain standing. "Done," he whispered in your ear, the shiver turning into full blown goosebumps.

He'd only stepped back enough for you to turn around, his eyes immediately darting to your neck. like he wanted to make sure he did a good job. "You almost ready to go?" He inquired, sitting back down on your bed. He picked up a stuffed animal you had near your pillow, throwing it up at the ceiling and catching it. "Almost," you responded, taking your heels off the floor and going over to the bed to sit down.

"Let me," Suguru spoke up before you even got the chance to put them on, taking the black heels away from you. You extended your foot out, mentally thanking whatever entity above that you'd gotten your toes done before this date. He slid the heel on with ease, strapping it up to where it wouldn't be too tight or too loose. He did the same with the other, extending his hand out for you to stand up once he was done. "Okay, let's go girlfriend."

The walk over to the restaurant was relatively short, his hand intertwined with yours. you were mentally willing your hands not to sweat, not at this moment. "Relax, we went through what we needed to go through multiple times already," Suguru told you, almost as if sensing your nervousness towards the matter. "Well yeah, but what if I just blank out," you muttered, keeping up the pace he was setting. "Then I'll fill in for you. I won't let you drown, I promise."

"You must be Suguru’s girlfriend. I'm Gojo Satoru," he introduced himself to you, extending a hand out towards you. As if most of the sorcerers in japan didn't know who he was. You shook his hand, giving him your name. "Nice to meet you," you told him before he went over to talk to Suguru. You faced his partner, exchanging pleasantries with them as well before a waiter came over to lead the four of you to a table.

Upon sitting down, you took a glance around the restaurant. A fountain lied in the middle of the establishment, a chandelier dangling overtop as the crystals each reflected a light beam from the lamps on the ceiling. Gojo truly spared no expense when it came to spoiling his date. The waiter came over after a couple minutes, jotting down on their notepad what drinks the four of you would have before leaving once more.

You were pretty certain Gojo had to be a detective in another life, with the way he was rapidly firing questions at the two of you. Since he didn't know anything about you, most of the questions directed to Suguru were regarding about where the two of you met and how'd you gotten up to this point. Towards you, though, the questions varied between what Suguru’s life aspirations were to what his favorite flavor of ice cream was in the month of April.

"So how long have the two of you been dating for?" You were starting to miss the waiter's presence upon being bombarded with another question. You looked over at Suguru, letting him take the ropes on answering this one.

"You don't think you're asking too many questions?" his date spoke up, letting out a nervous laugh like they were apologizing for his behavior. Not that they needed to, a part of you was somewhat expecting this already.

"Nah, they're fine with it. Plus, I want to get to know more about the woman that managed to tie Suguru down. Last time I heard, he was only interested in one night flings."

"We've been dating for about two weeks now, though we've been somewhat talking for about three prior to that," Suguru responded calmly, taking a sip from his drink. "As for the one night stands, I haven't been in any. Not since I met her."

He sounded too good at this, convincing almost you as well.

After the mini-investigation that Gojo held, the dinner went by pretty smoothly. The food was good, as you expected and the conversation flowed with much more ease. You learned from Gojo’s partner that they were a second grade sorcerer but they decided not to pursue teaching. Gojo also attempted to make some conversation with you, asking you about what things you liked to do and what type of snacks you preferred.

"Sorry about all the questions, I hope he didn't make you uncomfortable," Gojo’s partner spoke up, looking at you with an apologetic smile. The two of you had been left alone after Suguru and Gojo went to talk alone before you each took your route back home. "Don't worry about it, it wasn't that bad," you reassured them, looking over at where the two stood. You couldn't help but wonder what the two were talking about, if Gojo was making some kind of convincing argument that Suguru dumps your ass.

You hoped not.

Part of you wanted to prolong this fake arrangement even if that's all it would be. Just fake.

"I'm so full," you grumbled to Suguru as the two of you headed back to the apartment complex, your hand resting on his shoulder for support. He wrapped an arm around your waist, letting you lean your body against his with much more ease. It didn't help that the heels you had on were starting to make blisters on your feet, the skin peeling with every little step that you took. "You want me to carry you?" He offered like it was the most obvious solution, looking over at you. "Are you sure?"

"What kind of fake boyfriend would I be if I just let you walk back in pain?" He mused, scooping you with ease into his arms. You wrapped your arms around his neck for more stability, burying your head into his shirt. The scent of his cologne was heavenly. No man alone should have the power to smell that good. The walk back home seemed longer than usual, the two of you enjoying the night breeze rather than being in a rush. A couple of crickets filled the atmosphere, the usually loud streets gone quiet when the sun went down.

The date had gone swiftly, at least from what Suguru told you at the end of the night. "He pulled me away to tell me how happy he was that I found someone like you," he assured you, leaning on the balcony next to you. Suguru took a cigarette box out of his pocket, sliding one of them out. He knew better than to offer you one, sliding the box back into his pocket. That was the last thing you'd expected, you were somewhat convinced you'd blown it. That Gojo was being polite to you out of obligation.

"That was better than I expected, then," you told him, looking over at him as he lit up the cigarette. He dusted it against the balcony, charred pieces falling onto the floor below. "Thank you for this, by the way. We probably won't have to be together for a couple more dates," Suguru remarked, taking a hit from the cigarette. What should've been something to reassure you only served to make you a bit upset. You'd taken a liking to hanging out with him despite the circumstances. "Right. Well, at least we're still on for Friday movie nights."

The one good thing that came out of this was that you didn't hang out with Gojo and his partner that often, other than a dinner once in a while and an arcade date. Though they weren't exactly bad company, you couldn't help but feel your guilt increase the more you lied to them. How would they react if they found out about the news? Would they take it as a betrayal or would they find some kind of amusement towards it?

You wished you could turn off your mind just as easily as Suguru seemed to do.

Suguru came by your office unexpectedly, bringing a bento box that he'd gotten back at the city. He placed it down on your desk, taking a seat across from you. The training field could be seen from the window, Panda and Maki sparring against one another. "What brings you here?" You asked, opening up the bento box to see some of the favorite foods you'd shared with him inside.

"So I'm hoping that the food might coax you into saying yes though I understand if you don't want to. Satoru’s inviting the two of us to go with him and his partner out to this beach. I'm not sure where it's at but the transportation and staying arrangements would be settled," Suguru spoke up, waiting for you to finish chewing your food. Just in case you ended up choking on it.

You took the news more calmly than he'd expected, no coughing or eye widening. "I’ll have to clear my schedule with Yaga so I'll let you know after that," you responded, setting down your chopsticks. "If that's all that it takes for you to agree then let me take care of it," he told you, getting up from the chair. He was about to leave, his hand on the doorknob before turning around to face you. "Thank you."

Suguru had kept true to his word, getting Yaga to clear up your assignments for the remainder of the week so you could go. You'd gotten the message just a couple hours after Suguru had departed from your office.

You had a couple days to pack up your things, all of what you'd need tightly packed in a black suitcase. A couple bikini sets, clothes to go out in, an oversized shirt you liked to excuse for pajamas, and a couple of your necessities. You were going through your suitcase for what seemed to be third time, a pair of hands coming to rest on your waist. "Knowing you, I'm sure you're just being paranoid. you have everything that you need," Suguru spoke up from behind you, making you close the suitcase.

The drive towards the hotel had been a fairly long one. The two of you had gotten into the car at around 2 pm and you'd arrived longer after nightfall. Just like everything that Gojo set up, he'd bothered to spare no expense with the hotel arrangements. The walls inside were painted between white and gold, the marble floors underneath your feet shining pristinely. Nothing was out of line or out of place.

"Hey, nice to see you again," you greeted the two of them upon seeing them at the hotel room, exchanging pleasantries. "Nice to see you again!" Gojo’s partner called out, embracing you in a hug. you almost tumbled backward, but you managed to regain your balance. You wrapped your arms around them, returning back the hug. If the hug with Suguru was just a hug between friends then why did it not feel anything like this one?

You shouldn't have been surprised to see one bed in the center of the room, yet here you were with your mouth agape. You looked over Suguru, expecting some kind of protest to come from him but you were only met with silence. You convinced yourself not to think too much into it, that it was just the exhaustion from the drive taking a hold on him. Even if he didn't do any actual driving.

You grabbed your pajama shirt from the suitcase, heading into the bathroom to change into it. The night just kept getting more and more interesting. Upon coming out of the bedroom, you were met with Suguru just in a pair of grey sweatpants. He had his back turned towards you, his back muscles rippling with every movement that he made. "Damn," you didn't mean to say that out loud, Suguru’s head turned to face you with an amused expression on his face.

"I mean, you're gonna sleep in that?" You managed to ask after you'd stop ogling, putting up a shocked facade that you weren't even sure was believable to yourself. Not that you'd be complaining if he did. Even this was worthy of being put up in the Louvre.

"I usually sleep naked so be grateful," he responded, not helping at all with the images running through your head. Now your mind was getting clouded with thoughts of what it would actually be like to sleep next to him while naked. You cleared your throat, putting your dirty clothes in a pile on one of the seats. You'd fix them tomorrow, for now you'd just will yourself to fall asleep and stop thinking about what effect Suguru had on your body.

Everything in the room seemed to fade away when Suguru laid down next to you, your attention solely focused on the close proximity he was in. Despite the fact that the two of you had your backs turned to one another, you still couldn't help but hyperfixate on every little shift that he made on the bed. It took you a while to fall asleep, even throughout your attempts of trying to count sheep, cursed spirits, or just pieces of candy. No matter what the substance was that you were counting, you couldn't get rid of the desire brewing inside of you.

You woke up in the middle of the night, awakened by your immediate thirst. You rubbed your eyes, letting out a yawn before reaching out to the nightstand to grab your bottle of water. You couldn't move that much, though. You looked down to see Suguru’s arm wrapped tightly around your waist in his sleep. You could tell that it wouldn't easy to get out from his grasp, at least not without waking him up.

The oversized shirt you'd worn to sleep had ridden up to your stomach, your panty-cladded ass in direct contact with his crotch. You tried to keep your wiggling to a minimum, hoping that you wouldn't end up stimulating both yourself and him. You'd almost managed to reach out for your bed stand when Suguru pulled you closer to his chest. He let out a small groan, eventually shutting his mouth back up and going back to sleep.

You looked down at his fingers splayed across your lower torso, trying to pry them off one by one. You'd almost managed to get his pointer finger off you, when all four of his other fingers wrapped themselves around you. You let out a huff, trying to brainstorm a solution to this that didn't involve waking him up. Maybe if you just moved on the bed a bit, he'd stir? You wiggled against his lap, hoping that the motion would be enough to wake him up a bit.

"You just don't stop moving, hm?" His voice came out a bit hoarse, dripping with sleep. Maybe you should've apologized, yet again, you weren't exactly the one who'd put the two of you in this position. "I didn't mean to wake you up. Just got thirty," you responded, keeping your voice in a light whisper. He let go of your body, allowing you to get up and go towards the nightstand.

You moved back on the bed, his arm wrapped around you once more. With your back pressed against his, you could feel something hard pressed up against his. You tilted your head to look over at him, seeing him already fast asleep. His hips gently rocked into yours, small broken moans of your name escaping from his lips. You'd been so worried thinking about the effects he had on your body that you hadn't even begun to account for the way he felt towards you.

Yet again, he'd never made any attempt to let you know he felt anything. Everything that he'd done for you, he'd made sure to remind you it was fake. Maybe it was a reminder for you, or maybe it was just a reminder for himself?

You felt your slick clinging onto your panties, his hips bucking into you as if he desperate for some kind of release. You moved your hips against his tentatively, nibbling down on your bottom lip so you wouldn't say anything. You eventually started moving against the rhythm he was setting, though it wasn't enough. You were about to slide your fingers down to your panties when suddenly his movements halted.

"Don't do that just for my sake," his voice came out groggy, his hands around your hips. The grip wasn't tight enough to hurt, but it was hard enough to stop every movement that you made.

"Who said I didn't want this too?"

Suguru hovered on top of you, his lips brushing against yours before parting them. This kiss wasn't like the one you two shared prior. He kissed you like he was a man starved, like he needed this to anchor him to earth. The kiss itself was nothing more than a clash of teeth and tongue, though you could feel the desperation that he held behind it. He needed you as badly as you needed him. If not even more.

He moved lower, slotting himself between your legs as he kissed down your neck. You weren't sure if he made it a point to mark you because of the stupid agreement the two of you had going on or because he genuinely wanted to see you like this. He ran his tongue across the crook of your neck, sinking his teeth just hard enough to leave a hickey. "Can't wait to see you at the beach tomorrow like this."

He slid your shirt up, completely exposing your upper body to him. His pupils practically doubled in size, completely overtaking his irises at just the mere sight of you. He hooked one of his fingers along your panties, looking up at you. "Is this okay?" He asked as if he couldn't feel the arousal practically leaking out of you. "Yeah, it's okay," you consented, his fingers continuing with what they were doing.

Suguru slid your panties down at a torturous pace, if only to get you more desperate for him. to get you as desperate as he felt towards you. He spread your legs open, the pale moonlight shining on the slick coating your folds. Maybe he'd make this favorite meal from now on. The vacation now seemed pointless, all that he wanted to do was stay here with you in the hotel room and worship your body the way it made for.

His mouth attached itself to your breast, sucking on it like he depended on it. he pulled back, swirling his tongue around the nub until it hardened. With this, you also felt his fingers tracing the outline of your folds before slipping his fingertip inside. "That feel good?" He asked, though the slick running down his finger should've served as enough evidence. He enjoyed seeing you struggle with your words to give him a coherent answer.

"So good," you whispered, your voice cracking a bit as he slid the entirety of his finger inside. His finger curled upward with every stroke that he made, determined to find your g-spot. He wouldn't be satisfied if you weren't. His teeth gently pulled at your nipple, his mouth clasping around it once more. You tried to close your legs together, letting him know that he'd found your g-spot. "Try to keep them open for me, princess."

As much as you wanted to clamp your legs around his hand, you forced your legs to stay open. "That's it, good," Suguru didn't dare speak above a whisper, slipping his middle finger alongside his pointer. You felt your walls getting stretched out, your walls tightly wrapped around his fingers. Almost like you wanted to trap him and never let him go. His mouth moved to your other nipple, giving it as much attention as he was giving to other one.

He pulled away when he sensed your impending orgasm approaching much to your complains. "Only place you'll be coming around tonight is my tongue," he told you before scooting back on the bed. He had his lower body pressed against the mattress, his face in direct contact with your cunt. The way he examined it almost made you want to close your legs, but he had his arms hooked around your knees. Spreading you open the way he wanted you to be.

"Patience," his voice practically came out in a purr, his lips attached to your inner thighs. He planted a couple open-mouthed kisses, making his way up to your cunt before returning back to your thigh. It was agonizingly slow, your cunt clenching around pure air at just the anticipation of feeling him inside of you. "Please," your voice came out in a whisper, overwhelmed by all the sensations flowing through your body.

"Please what?"

“Please just touch me already,” he had the temptation to continue teasing you after hearing just how desperate you sounded but he doubted his self control would allow for that.

He, himself, had to resist the urge to let out a moan upon the first taste of you. Your pussy quenched his thirst like no other, a delicacy that he couldn't help but want to indulge in. He looked up, seeing your eyes half lidded as you leaned back on the bed. You were truly a sight to behold. Only problem was that he wanted to be selfish and have your attention solely focused on him.

"Come on, princess, look at me."

You opened up your eyes, looking in between your legs to see that he was already looking over at you. He maintained that eye contact, licking up a stripe from your weeping cunt up to your clit. "That's it," he hummed against your cunt, the vibrations shooting straight up your spine. You bucked your hips into him, one of his hands coming down to press against your stomach to hold you still.

You could've sworn you saw stars the moment his tongue plunged into you, his eyes almost rolling to the back of his head at the mere taste of you. If his fingers had made you feel ecstasy, his mouth was a completely otherworldly experience. He ate you out like no other, like he was set on this earth solely for this purpose. Your mouth parted, a moan slipping past your lips.

You couldn't help but instantly regret it, his tongue slipping out of you as he licked his lips before speaking, "As much as I'd like to hear your pretty little moans, try to keep quiet. Satoru’s in the room next to us. Your noises belong to me solely."

All you could do was nod, overridden by lust and the need to have his tongue inside you once more. You pressed your hand against your mouth, a couple heavy breaths escaping from you. Your other hand was weaved around his hair, gently tugging at the strands to guide him where you needed him the most. He tentatively stuck the tip of his tongue into your cunt before retracting. You almost let out a whine at his relentless teasing.

He stuck his tongue into you, the feeling of your walls clenching around his tongue almost too much to bear. He took one of his hands off you, using it to palm himself through the material of his sweatpants. He slid them down just enough for it to hang underneath his balls, his hand coming back up to your mouth. "Get them all nice and wet for me, please?"

You opened your mouth, allowing for him to slip his fingers inside of your mouth. you swirled your tongue around them, coating them with your saliva before he pulled away. His hand wrapped around his cock, giving himself a couple strokes before going back to eating you out. He sucked on your folds, not letting any of your slick go to waste before licking a stripe up to your clit.

His mouth clamped around your clit, sucking on it and swirling his tongue around the nub. It practically throbbed with every movement that he made, your pussy leaking out like a waterfall. He was exploring what exactly made you tick, what made your grip on his hair tighten. Your nails were practically digging into scalp but he reveled in the feeling, of seeing your eyes wide in pleasure.

He sped up the rhythm he was stroking his cock in, estimating the time of your orgasm to match his own. By the increase of the muffled moans you were letting out, he could tell that you were starting to get close. "That's it, let go for me," he spoke against your clit, the vibrations that you felt from his mouth sending you into overdrive. You bit down on your palm, your cunt clenching around nothing as you came.

He pulled away, giving himself a couple more strokes before eventually releasing all over his palm. You looked over at him through dazed eyes, seeing just how much a mess he looked. His chin was completely covered in your slick and the bun that he'd made before bed now had a couple strands sticking out. He didn't seem to have any complaints, though. He walked over to the bathroom, grabbing a towel to presumably wipe himself off.

He went in between your legs once more, cleaning you up with his tongue to the verge of overstimulation. You practically had to pull him off you, the sensation feeling like it was too much. He slipped your panties back up, sliding into bed next to you. Your breaths still came out heavy as you rode out the remnants of your orgasm, your body turning to face his. There was no way that the two of you would be able to go back to being just friends with what happened tonight.

"We're not going to..?" You left the final part up for interpretation, looking over at his face. Even if you'd pushed him when he tried to eat you out again, you still couldn't help but want to feel what his cock would be like deep inside of you. If his fingers almost brought you to an orgasm, you had no doubt his cock would make you cum multiple times. His hand came up to your stomach, pulling you closer to his body once more. "First time you and I have sex won't be in the confines of a hotel room. I'll have you all to myself along with those pretty moans."

Though, you understood his point, you still couldn't help but feel frustrated. The past orgasm hadn't been enough to satiate your want. You tried to rub your thighs together, seeking out some kind of reprieve for the lack of friction before you felt Suguru’s firm grip on your thigh.

"Go to sleep. We have an early morning tomorrow."

It was easier said than done. If you had a hard time falling asleep at the start of the night, you were having much more difficulty falling asleep now. Suguru had the task much easier, falling asleep in a matter of mere seconds. You couldn’t help but look at him as he slept, how relaxed his face was. even his body had become less tense. You wanted to commit the sight to memory. You managed to fall asleep a couple minutes afterwards, your head buried into his chest.

[lieutenantfloyd]

Hi!

I'm from Poland, so please forgive me any mistakes, english isn't my first language.

I was wondering if u could write something for Kylian. Like reader being a normal girl, out of spotlight, having normal job, and dating Kylian. It's still pretty early in relationship, and his family is kind of reluctant about them dating, because they are scared she is using him for money and fame, but then they see how she takes care of him maybe for example she helps him change or shower when he's injured, and they change their mind

Aimer et être aimé - K.Mbappe

Football masterlist

Pairing: Kylian Mbappe x Fem!Reader

Summary: While recovering from an injury, Kylian's family comes over for dinner. Reader, who's been caring for him, hopes to make a good impression and prove she loves him, not his money or fame.

Warnings: domestic fluff, mentions of injury and medications, Kylian being a softy

a/n: Hello and thank you for the request! Your English is perfect :) I hope you enjoy this!

* Please excuse any mistakes as I don’t speak any French and instead used my knowledge of Spanish and Portuguese (plus some research into French itself) for the French dialogue. 

Returning home from the market, you are greeted by a quiet house.

You shuffle into the kitchen with grocery bags and Kylian’s medicine in hand. Once everything is inside you make your way down the hallway and into your shared bedroom.

Opening the door just enough to peek inside, you immediately notice Kylian’s sleeping form. He’s wearing a white hoodie and grey pants and positioned just how you left him; laying on his back with his injured leg propped up on a few pillows. You also notice how his coffee colored brows were beginning to crease from the pain medication wearing off. The door closed with a click as you decided to let him get a few more minutes of sleep. Not only did his body need time to recover, but you knew he needed to be well rested by dinner time.

Returning to the kitchen you carefully and quietly put the shopping away before preparing Kylian’s meds. His family would be coming over today, and soon you would start preparing a nice homemade meal in the hopes it would help you impress them.

You enter the bedroom once again, only this time with the intention of waking him up. You make your way to the bedside and softly sit down. Not wanting to startle him as he’s still soundly asleep, you ghost your fingers over his delicate features. After a few moments, he stirs under your touch and his eyes soon flutter open.

“Good afternoon, chéri,” You giggle softly, appreciating the peaceful moment.

“Hello, mon amour,” Kylian says in a sleepy voice. He pushes up into a sitting position and takes the cup and bottle of water from you. After he takes his medication, you reach for his crutches and help him out of bed. The move to the common room is a slow but steady process. One that, like all the other habits you’d formed since the beginning of your relationship, had become second nature to you. You helped him get situated on the sofa and gathered a few throw pillows to prop his leg up in the advised position.

Now that he was settled, you left him to play video games while you entered the kitchen. You made quick work of locating the ingredients and kitchenware you needed to prepare the meal. The sounds of Fifa and his teammate's voices over the speakers filled the room as you began boiling the water for the pasta.

_

An hour later, everyone was seated at the table and having a pleasant conversation. Twirling your fork through your pasta, you tried your best to swallow your nervousness. Even though you and Kylian hadn’t been together very long, you had already met his family as you often attended his games together. However, this was the first time you were all together in a formal way. His younger brother Ethan had taken a liking to you immediately, while his older brother and parents remained cautious.

Kylian was young, rich, and one of the most famous athletes in the world. Millions of people would kill to get close to him, just for a chance at money and fame. These things didn’t influence your feelings for him at all, but you weren’t foolish. Anyone, especially those closest to him, was safe to assume you would use him for his status and break up with him once you got what you wanted. for the same reason millions of others.

“So, Kylian, has y/n been helping you?” His father asked, eyeing you both closely.

“Of course. If I’m honest, She’s always there for me when I need her even before my injury.”

“That’s wonderful.” His mother said pensively.

“It sounds like you make a good pair,” His older brother said before pausing “Assuming you’ve been supporting her too.” He nudged. Causing him and Kylian to jokingly argue with each other with Ethan quickly joining in. Their parents looked at their boys lovingly before turning back to you.

“As you can tell, we’re a close knit family. I know your relationship is still relatively new but I have to ask, do you think you’re ready to put up with us, and them, long term?” Mom asked nodding towards the three boys emersed in their playful argument.

Swallowing your sip of water, you nodded before voicing your reply.

“Of course. For as long as you’ll have me.”

-

Standing in the doorway you and Kylian bid goodbye to his family. But not before they hugged you both and promised to stop by again in the next few days. Once the door was closed and the dishes were in the sink, you let out a shaky breath and sank down onto the couch next to him. Feeling the stress of familial expectations falling from your shoulders, you were thankful that the night had gone even better than you had hoped for.

“Tired?” He questioned.

“A little bit. How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine. Although I’d be better if I was holding you.” He teased, opening his arms wide for you. You rolled your eyes dramatically before settling against his chest.

He took the opportunity to kiss your cheek before placing his chin on top of your head.

“Thank you, ma chèrie.”

“Of course.” You replied. Your voice muffled slightly by the material of his sweatshirt.

“Not just for this. Or the meal, or for hosting my family, but for everything.” He confessed. I meant what I said earlier. I’d be lost without you and your help.”

His words caused you to shift happily in his arms. You hesitated before replying, trying to keep the butterflies in your stomach from spilling out of your mouth.

“Well then it’s a good thing I’m around, isn’t it?” You grinned up at him.

"Sans l'ombre d'un doute" He hummed contently.

* Aimer et être aimé - to love and to be loved

* mon amour - my love

* ma chèrie - my dear

* sans l'ombre d'un doute - without a shadow of a doubt

[stardewremixed]

SDV + SVE Pairings

This is just random fluff headcanon about good pairings in Stardew Valley, imo.

Alex

+ Abigail (already wrote a post on this adorable pairing)

+ Penny (something tells me he would be super protective of her and just the kind of adventure she needs and she would be so good to Evelyn and George, endearing him even more)

Elliott

+ Olivia (from SVE - a little May-December romance going on here)

+ Penny (he would take such good care of her, showering her with praise and adoration, and she deserves it)

+ Claire (from SVE - she's half-in-love with him already as an avid reader of his books; he would just lap up the praise)

+ Sophia (from SVE - the wine is what brings them together and love of fantasy)

Shane

+ Emily (I think she would be a good influence in his life, a bit mothering at times, but he needs a firm supporter and cheerleader in his corner when he's detoxing, plus she would spoil Jas rotten)

+ Haley (an odd pairing at first glance, but this headcanon, though not explicitly Haley, has me convinced these two would make a good pair somehow)

+ Abigail (this girl LOVES the egg hunt, and gets super into talking about chickens with him; and he kinda likes watching her from a distance, not quite sure what to make of this purple-haired beauty, but he is attracted to her joy and silliness, and she just wants to bring a smile to his face and make him happy)

+ Leah (she would not put up with his bullcrap; she would dish it right back; she would hang in there with him like a champ while he detoxed and tell him what he needs to hear; and she would be good to Jas, plus she lives close by; and I think he would appreciate homecooked meals as he eats a lot of pizza at the Saloon and frozen dinners from Joja at home; I don't think Marnie cooks much; and he would appreciate her passion for art and the outdoors, particularly their shared fondness for Cindersap Woods; she could keep up with him when he is at his best; and these two would be fire together in bed)

Magnus (Wizard from SVE)

+ Emily (something tells me this pairing would be magical *wink wink*)

+ Olivia (SVE - I'm not sure why, but this works in my head and he would give her the best "trinkets;" and he would greatly admire her first-editions collection and appreciate the library she has cultivated; somehow I also think it would be really funny for these two to get high together like she did in college in the '70s)

Harvey

+ Penny (he would also take very good care of her, and he's established with a solid career, older, a bit more experienced, and help her work through PTSD of living with an alcoholic mom)

+ Leah (oh she definitely is a capable, independent woman and catches his eye, and she likes teasing and spoiling him with goods from the woods *face palm* did not mean to make that rhyme. She would bring him salads and healthy meals and they'd enjoy a good bottle of wine or a good cup of coffee together)

+ Haley (he would spoil her and call her princess, and she would dote on him; it's all very flattering; he would also invite her to spruce up the clinic and let her display her photography; and when she cries and has a bad day, he would give her the TLC she needs; and I think she would be generous with the massages and kisses; plus, I know, this is a bit shallow, but he has a well-respected job and some money, which would impress her)

+ Claire (SVE - these two intellectuals would never run out of things to talk about, even though they are both quiet people; and they would be comfortable with the quiet; I could see them spending lazy rainy afternoons and evenings together, just reading, some soft jazz on in the background)

Sebastian

+ Leah (she would scare the hell outta him initially, but he would be secretly impressed by her woodchopping and have mad respect for her independence and fall madly in love with this redhead; she would give him the space he needs, uninterrupted, so he could work without his family constantly butting in; and I see her spoiling this touch-starved man with good food and tender loving care)

+ Haley (another odd pairing, BUT, hear me out, I think she'd ask him for help fixing her iPhone or iPad or something and at first, would be kinda annoyed by his aloofness, but then somehow would make it her mission to make sure this boy had the 'sweets;' like she would bake him a cake every week and hope something else would break just so she could see him again; he would think she's spoiled and annoying at first, but gradually grow to appreciate her artistic abilities - like seeing her out in the rain one day photographing frogs and the river and being impressed with her work; also he would secretly stalk her Instagram just so he could figure out where she was in town and casually 'bump' into her; I could see him being super into black & white photography; as Haley softens up and matures a bit, he could see himself pursuing her; and she would be totally down to follow him to Zuzu so he could pursue his dreams)

+ Claire (from SVE - it would start with them both wanting the same book at the library; of course, Seb would let her have it, but she promised to return it when she was done and let him check it out, and she stays true to her word; these two are both quiet individuals so I could see them reading together on a rainy day in the library, and seeing each other often enough, asking what the other is reading, and then gradually it becoming a habit to sit together; another girl he would introduce to digitized books; also Claire strikes me as a secret geek, totally down to try DnD and enjoying Journey of the Prairie King)

Sam

+ Scarlet (from SVE - technically not a romance candidate, but I like the idea of these two together; she is into anime and theater and cosplay and he likes her geeky side and how enthusiastically she talks about it with anyone who will listen; plus I think, she would appreciate his wicked guitar skills)

+ Emily (a little weird as a pairing, and she is an older woman, BUT, he likes how she takes care of him, bringing him a scarf on a windy day, giving him a Claritin when his spring allergies get bad, carrying around a first-aid kit when he bangs up his elbows and knees skateboarding, and keeping an eye on him when he's drinking at the Saloon; I think she enjoys having someone to take care of, someone who is carefree and happy-go-lucky like she is and open to trying anything)

+ Sophia (from SVE - what can I say? I think Sam is attracted to smart, competent, independent women; I also think they would bond because her parents died when she was younger, and he deeply misses his dad, even after Kent comes back and is suffering with PTSD; Sophia would help him through navigating it having navigated it herself; and she would appreciate his joy in life, plus I could see them both being geeky together)

Lance

+ Abigail (think of the adventures these two could/would have - enough said)

+ Scarlet (from SVE - for similar reasons as Abigail - I think she would enjoy going on adventures with Lance)

+ Leah (they are both strong and independent people, dedicated to their work, capable of being on their own for awhile, but I do think the passion would burn hot between these two)

+ Claire (SVE - she would swoon a little, to go on adventures she has only read about, and he would love to show her the world *cue Aladdin music now*)

+ Olivia (SVE - a little odd at first, but she likes that he is worldly and traveled and he appreciates her voracious appetite for literature and her cultured background; they are intellectual equals)

Victor (SVE)

+ Maru (I just love the idea of these two together; she might come over to borrow a book about astronomy and they would stay up late into the night discussing space exploration, robotics, and engineering; these two intellectuals would always enjoy each other's company and help the other with their projects; plus they both understand what it's like to have a 'hovering' parent and wouldn't mind escaping together every once in awhile)

+ Penny (another intellectual pairing; I also think he would take good care of her and enjoy spoiling her, maybe even designing a home for them to live in as an engineer; and she would fall madly in love with his library and adore how he had read all the same books she has)

Gus (not really a love interest... but... I couldn't help myself)

+ Penny (yes, you guessed it, she is attracted to men who can take care of her, and secretly loves being spoiled; they would work together in the community garden, and he always ensures she has enough food at home; she appreciates how he has always looked out for her; while kind-of a dad figure to her, now as an adult, she sees him in a whole new light - and finds herself feeling things she never thought she would; and he always saw her as much too young for him, but he admires her resilience and is beyond flattered when she confesses her feelings to him; age is just a number, right?; plus these two would be great teachers together, maybe cooking classes in the newly restored community center; and then some sensual cooking and foodplay in his apartment)

Clint

+ Sophia (SVE - as two respected business-owners in town, they would initially have that in common; after being rejected by Emily, Clint's heart is tender and raw; he doesn't think he will love again; She takes some projects to him and appreciates his attention to detail; she finds herself lingering even after she's dropped something off or after she's paid and picked up her item; one day she asks him to deliver something out to her vineyard, but then he gets stuck during a snowstorm; she cooks him a meal, something he hasn't had in a long time; he is touched by her generosity and hospitality; Sophia longs to make him feel better and to help him heal after rejection, but she's super shy and he's a bit too; so maybe she starts with an innocent invitation to dinner after that first one they had by accident because of the snow storm, but then they start enjoying a few meals together, and a glass of wine/beer at the Saloon, and soon he's walking her home on Friday nights, until one night... she invites him inside for more than just a nightcap... and...)

Who's your favorite? Any particular pairing from above that you'd like to see me write together in a "headcanon" post?

[thedroneranger]

Call You Mine

Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw

Précis: It's hard to get over Bradley Bradshaw. And who can blame you? Love makes us crazy. If it doesn't, are you doing it right?

Note: Excited to finally post this! Life made this one take a little longer. This is one of two entries for @cherrycola27’s #top gun taylors version challenge! Congratulations, on the milestone, babe—I'm sure we'll be celebrating another soon! This fic is inspired by a T. Swift favorite of mine, Don't Blame Me. Enjoy!

Warnings: 18+ only, explicit: stalking, violence, attempted murder, masturbation.

Word count: 3.5k

What did he see in her? 

It wasn’t the first time that thought had crossed your mind, and it surely wouldn’t be the last.

Her hair was down, and her outfit casual—light-colored jeans with a loose-fitting t-shirt front tucked. Sunglasses shading her eyes, she sipped coffee and scrolled her phone while she waited for him. After what seemed like an eternity, he joined her. 

Through narrowed eyes, you watched as she stood to greet him and they embraced. She threw her arms around his neck, getting on her tiptoes, while his arms slung low on her waist.

You and Natasha met a handful of times. Bradley insisted he and Nat were friends and nothing more. Of course, you didn’t believe Bradley for a second. Every touch, every hug, every late night phone call said otherwise. 

They were so natural together. Like birds singing as the morning sun rose or crickets crooning in the twilight. 

No wonder Bradley thought it couldn’t work with you. How could he when there was five-foot-seven worth of gorgeous grin and glowing skin staring at him over a coffee cup?

She had to go.

Sinking lower in the driver’s seat of your vehicle, you watched as they got up together. After disposing of their cups, Bradley walked Natasha to her SUV, which you knew was parked around the corner. As they disappeared, you punched the ignition button and pulled out of your curbside spot across the street.

“Catch you later tonight?” Natasha asked as she slid into the driver’s seat. 

“Absolutely.” Bradley rasped, holding the door open. They grinned at each other as he closed it. As she pulled away, and they exchanged waves through the window. 

Bradley waited on the street, hands in his jean pockets and watched until her tail lights illuminated at a stop sign before she drove through the intersection. Then, he walked a few spaces up to his Bronco and hopped in. 

This morning, when you tailed Natasha, her day was rather uneventful. You waited until you spotted her sleek SUV rolling out of the private garage of her condo building. Shifting into drive, you followed as she first stopped at the post office. Once she came back out, Natasha took a call while she sat in the vehicle, shuffling around, looking for something she eventually found. 

Next, she stopped for gas and went inside to get a shitty gas station latte. Seemed to be a routine indulgence for her. After that, she spent what seemed like an eternity in the grocery store. Once all her groceries were loaded into her vehicle, Natasha headed back to her condo that was tucked in a mid-sized building on the downtown main drag.

You’d found the building plans in the public records and knew which unit was hers. Although the building wasn’t that large, it was well-secured. In contrast, Bradley’s bungalow had a much lower security threshold. Plus, you were familiar with the layout. 

Since you’d followed Natasha this morning, and would bet your next month’s salary that she and Bradley were meeting at the Hard Deck tonight, you decided to see what Bradley was up to this afternoon.

Leisurely, you drove to Bradley’s, taking an elongated route. As you turned onto Bradley’s street, you killed the music, glided by his house, confirmed his Bronco was parked in the driveway and continued on to the street parallel to his. You parked in the spot that gave you the perfect view of his backyard and into his house through a couple curtainless windows. 

There he was. Shirtless. Floating around, bopping his head to the music surely streaming through the living room sound system. Watching through your camera lens, you snapped a few images. 

As you captured photos, you recalled the couple times you’d witness him and Natasha twirling around, dancing. Faces lit with laughter as he spun her around, and then dipped her for the finale. 

Bradley never did that with you.

The burn of jealousy you felt quickly washed away as your lens zeroed in on Bradley’s broad back. Your thoughts drifted to touching Bradley—every dimple, every tendon, every scar. 

Of course, the few months you and Bradley spent together weren’t sexless. For you, it was some of the best sex of your life, and Bradley seemed to have no complaints. A matter of fact, each moan or toe curl you were able to pull from Bradley seemed like a badge of honor.

Thinking about Bradley laying underneath you as your hand steadied yourself on his sculpted chest had you sighing deeply. You could practically feel his hip bones cradling your thighs as you rode him and his hands curving around your hips.

The memory of his thumb drawing tight circles on your clit had you sinking into your seat, squeezing your eyes closed and heat gathering in your lap. Replays of your sexcapades continued to flood your mind, filling your dam. You needed a release. Soon, your jeans were unzipped and your legs as wide as the car seat would allow.

Your lip disappeared between your teeth as you slipped your middle and ring fingers into yourself, slicking them to then paint your swollen clit so you could attempt to recreate even a fraction of the pleasure Bradley had given you several times over. 

Envisioning Bradley’s large hand palming your chest, and then sliding up to cover your throat, had you gripping the door handle with your free hand as your pace quickened. The heat in your belly was building to boil, the pot lid close to skittering off.

Bradley’s face as he finished—the furrow of his brow, twitch of his mustache—flashed through your mind and pushed you across the finish line. A sigh only for you left your lips as you let your release wash over you, dissipating the tension. Pulling yourself back together, you continued watching Bradley through the back windows. 

On his days off, he always hit the gym late in the afternoon. You attributed it to keeping his daily shower count to one. Because, undoubtedly, Bradley would come home post-workout to get ready for the Hard Deck. 

While Bradley was at the gym, you were going to the hair appointment you’d scheduled a few weeks ago. A smile pulled your lips as you perfectly parallel parked across the street from the salon. Marc, your stylist, was there to greet you with open arms and an Americano.

Like all trusted stylists, Marc knew all about your life, including Bradley. He knew all about Bradley’s longtime friend who had had her chance to shoot her shot with him. However, she hesitated too long, and now you were in the picture. But that didn’t stop her from crossing boundaries even though you asked her to stop. 

Tonight, you were going to end it once and for all.

After an afternoon in Marc’s hands, you were practically a new person. A cute sundress would compliment your makeover perfectly. Back home, you twirled in front of the full-length mirror in your bedroom, deciding which dress was best. Eventually, you decided on the knee-length one with flutter sleeves and a deep V-neck. 

Tonight was a night that your inability to be anywhere in a timely fashion paid off. By the time you reached the Hard Deck, the parking lot was fairly full, allowing you to park toward the back of the lot undetected. With one final look in the rearview mirror, you slid out of the driver’s seat and headed for the front door. 

Bradley’s Bronco was unmistakable, proudly parked as close to the entrance as possible. A few spaces down was Natasha’s luxury SUV.

The bar was crowded, so you easily disappeared into the sea of civilians and servicepeople. Head on a swivel, still waiting for Natasha or Bradley in your peripheral, you causally wound through the crowd, venturing around the venue. 

There he was. The floral print Aloha shirt wrapping his broad shoulders gave him away. Natasha stood tucked into his side, his arm draped over her shoulders. You recognized many of the faces they were laughing with from photos. 

With them in your sight, you headed to the bar to find a spot with a view but that also kept you in the crowd. The woman behind the bar didn’t recognize you as you ordered. One of the few times you’d been here with Bradley, he had introduced you to the bartender, who also owned the establishment. 

Drink in hand, you slipped into a seat that had conveniently opened up. Bradley and Natasha bantered with each other, with their friends and shittalked while facing each other in a game of pool. 

“Hey.” The greeting bore a hint of southern drawl. You turned to see one of their friends, the good looking blond, dragging his gaze over you. You coolly returned his greeting and took a sip of your drink. 

The man had no clue who you were. Not that you could blame him. He’d met you once and had seen you maybe two or three times total. Plus, with your drastic cut and color, you might as well be a complete stranger. 

He made small talk while he waited for a fresh round of drinks. As he departed, he invited you to stop by the group. Upon his departure, you gave him an open-ended response and a wink. 

It amazed you how few boundaries Bradley and Natasha had with each other. As the night wore on, you watched each touch grow more intimate. At one point, Bradley had his arm wrapped around Natasha’s hips with his hand in her front pocket. It was a move he had put on you while you two walked to keep you close. 

You watched as each drink made them a little looser, a little flirtier. At one point, you watched Natasha play wingman for every man in their group—except Bradley. 

At last call, the crowd began to thin. You finished your drink, cashed out and slunk to your vehicle. Hand on the door and a glance over your shoulder, you slipped into the backseat. Sitting behind the passenger seat gave you a better view of the building. To the unassuming eye, your vehicle was one of several destined to spend the night in the lot.

Before Bradley and Natasha spilled out of the Hard Deck, you watched the blond from earlier climb into a black F-150 Raptor. You were surprised to see him alone. Must be all talk. A few more familiar faces filtered out. 

Finally, they shuffled out with another friend. The friend you were convinced was pining for Natasha but was too shy to do anything about it. He and Bradley chatted while Natasha clung to Bradley’s side. She clearly was not driving tonight. They parted ways, the shy friend going to his vehicle, and Bradley putting Natasha in the passenger seat of the Bronco before getting in. 

First, Shy Friend eased out of the parking lot. Then, Bradley backed out and headed for the exit. A smile pulled your lips as he turned left, signaling he was taking her home with him.

This time you drove straight to the spot on the street parallel to Bradley’s that had the perfect sightline into his house. From there, you watched as he carried Natasha through the hall, disappearing in the direction of his bedroom. Eventually, the lights died and a stillness fell upon the house.

Quiet as possible, you slipped out of your vehicle. As you walked, you slipped on leather gloves you’d had for ages but never had a reason to wear. Knowing the family living in the house directly behind Bradley’s was away on vacation, you took the most direct route to his house. Under the cover of the thick trees and sparse streetlights, you snuck down their side yard and into the back. 

You easily scaled the standard chain-link fence that conjoined their yards. Thankfully, Bradley kept his yard tidy. Looking at his grill and the outdoor dining set made you think of the few times he’d grilled for you. Surely Natasha was reaping that benefit tenfold now. 

Standing in front of his backdoor, you gingerly grasped the handle and twisted the knob. It gave you zero resistance as the door floated open. Bradley would absolutely be locking his back door after this. Making sure the hinges didn’t  betray you, you took your time stepping across the threshold and closing yourself in. 

Enveloped in a new level of darkness, you stood for a minute, allowing your eyes to adjust. Slowly, you began to see the familiar lines of the counter and the silhouettes of appliances. 

You wanted to touch everything but knew to touch nothing. Your ears were on alert, listening for the slightest disturbance. So far, the only thing you could hear was Bradley’s deep breathing that, arguably, was a light snore. However, it didn’t sound like it was coming from his room.

Curiosity piqued, you glided toward the living room. Bingo. Splayed on the oversized, for his comfort, couch was Bradley. He was in a deep slumber. You admired him. Lips barely open, but enough to produce his audible breathing. Curls mussed and resting on his bulging bicep that acted as an extra pillow. The man ran hot, so the blanket he started his slumber with was now tangled at his feet, leaving his form clad only in drawstring gym shorts. 

As you watched him, the streetlight in front of his house gave the living room a bit more light, his chest rose and fell. Your mind wandered to why he was on the couch and not in his bed with Natasha. You didn’t think too hard about it, though. It made your task easier.

Releasing you had your fists balled at your sides, you unclenched them as you turned to head for the bedroom. The door was ajar, just the slightest. Using the back of two gloved fingers, you slowly pushed it open. 

Natasha was nestled under the fluffy bedding in the center of Bradley’s huge bed, sleeping soundly. Your eyes stayed glued to her as you crept into the room and put the door back the way you found it. Staying to the edge of the room, you calculated your plan of attack. Watching her sleep with a neutral expression, seemingly relaxed, you thought you might be beginning to understand why Bradley was so taken with her.

Gaze never leaving Natasha, you approached the edge of the bed. She didn’t stir. Removing a glove, you gingerly leaned onto the bed, knee first. Eyes still glued to Natasha for any sign of movement. Eventually, you were leaning over her, face-to-face, really studying her. 

Unable to help yourself, you ran your thumb along her full bottom lip. She was soft, angelic—maybe that’s why Bradley liked her so much. Your face was so close to hers—you really wanted to know what her lips would feel like against yours. Add evidence to the case for why Bradley liked her so much.

While you thought about Natasha’s lips, keeping your gaze on your face, you managed to mount her without disturbance. The amount of down bedding between the two of you was a huge aide in minimizing the movement ripples.

You looked at her one last time as you took one of the pillows her head wasn’t resting on and held it in front of your chest. “Sweet dreams,” you said barely above a whisper as you leaned forward to cover her face with it. 

Your grip was light until you felt her tensing. She was waking, trying to free her arms that were bracketed by your legs and trapped underneath the blankets. Her screams were muffled. “Shh, I’ll take great care of him.” Your closed eyes as you hugged her head with the pillow. Natasha was fighting less and less. 

“What the fuck?!” you heard from behind you. At the same time, you heard the door bang against the wall. You looked over your shoulder to see Bradley charging toward you. Before you could move, his hand was around your neck, ripping you off the bed. Natasha scrambled to the edge of the bed furthest away from you. Bradley was there, arms open, waiting to embrace her. 

Sheer size allowed him to throw you against the dresser a few feet away from the bed. You heard a thud and felt a sharp pain in the back of your head as you hit the heirloom dresser. Your eyes were having a hard time focusing as you slid to the floor. Involuntarily, your hand moved to the back of your head where the pain seared most. As your hand re-entered your field of vision, you could see your blood on your fingertips.

Bradley’s voice sounded distant. Question in his voice as he said your name. However, you looked up to see him kneeling in front of you. Your vision was slightly blurry. “You’ve gone too far this time.” Of course, Bradley still recognized you—some hair dye and a drastic cut wouldn’t fade your face from his memory. 

“What the hell are you doing?” His voice pulled you out of your mind and back into the room.

Natasha bound into the doorway, wearing one of Bradley’s t-shirts. He must’ve dressed her before he put her to bed. They exchanged looks before her gaze dropped to you on the floor. She quickly turned and disappeared.

“Let’s go.” Bradley gruffly grabbed your bicep. He gave you no time to get to your feet. Instead, three quarters of your body dragged along the floor as he pulled you to the kitchen. When he let you go, you slumped to the floor, your forearms stopping your face from hitting the tile. You were still lightheaded with fuzzy vision as you pressed yourself up on your palms.

“Bradley…” You slowly moved into a cross-legged sitting position.

“Don’t.” He cut you off. Bradley squared his body to you, arms across his chest. “There’s no coming back from this.” Bradley was pissed. 

You shook your head. “No, no.” Panic set in. “Don’t blame me!” you squeaked. Tears were beginning to well as you tried to get to your feet. 

“Stay on the floor,” he commanded. His look was deadly. Tears rolled down your cheeks. 

He sighed and ran his hands over his face. Bradley should’ve seen this coming. You were insane. The letters, showing up at his home unannounced, somehow frequenting the same places he did at the same. However, it never crossed his mind that you would try to murder someone, let alone his best friend.

While you reasoned with Bradley, Natasha was standing next to the couch, arms wrapped around herself, staring toward the kitchen. Eyes dilated from shock. She kept forgetting to breathe. When her body finally remembered, the sharp inhale would jolt her back to reality. She could hear Bradley’s voice but was not comprehending his words. The tones of your voice were grating her nerves, causing her arms to constrict tighter around her.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw the front door slowly open. Iced to her spot beside the couch, she watched fingers curl around the edge while the barrel of a standard-issue pistol poked inside. Holding the gun was a plain-clothes police officer. “Jay.” Relief washed through Natasha as she identified the face holding the weapon. 

“Hey, Nat.” Jay mouthed and flashed a reassuring smile. Quickly, he pressed his free pointer finger to his lips. A curt nod from Natasha let him know she understood his command, and then she watched as he stalked toward the kitchen.

A friend of Bradley’s, Jay was supposed to meet them at the Hard Deck earlier but had to cancel due to work. Of course, Natasha’s heart sank a little when she heard, but the text message from him promising to make it up to her eased the discomfort. 

Jay huddled in the kitchen doorway shadows, waiting for his partner to reach the backdoor. Natasha had briefed him on the situation when she called, so they plotted their entry on the drive over. Familiar with Bradley’s house, Jay knew the entry points, so your odds of escaping were minimal. 

Back to the door, you didn’t see a face appear in the corner of the window. Bradley noticed but did not acknowledge in a way that made you aware. Not that it mattered—your vision was hazed between your head injury and the tears. Plus, you were occupied mumbling apologies to Bradley.

Everything happened all at once. The backdoor sprang open, someone jumped on top of you, and a man you had seen a few times stepped out of the shadows, pointing a gun at you. Bradley had fallen back and was standing with Natasha in his arms at the living room-kitchen threshold.

Your mind was numb as the officers cuffed you and read your Miranda rights. The last thing you remembered was falling to your knees in the driveway and yelling for Bradley to forgive you. Standing in the doorway, he looked you dead in the eyes and closed the door.

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[holdmeclosertinytaron]

RHW: Epilogue

Story Page / Playlist / Wattpad / AO3

PLEASE READ: The day is here. Right Here, Waiting is officially over. It's been a ride, to say the least. I've laughed and I've cried, but I've enjoyed every single minute of it. @brayndilyn and I turned a tiny little idea into something that I am infinitely proud of. Her love, support and help has been amazing and this story has given me a friend that I will cherish forever, so thank you, B!

You may notice that this epilogue is set on the 5th of August, 2023...TODAY. I wanted to do something fun and cool and having the story end on the day that it ends just seemed so fitting. I hope you enjoy the epilogue as much as you've loved the rest of the story. I'm off on a little hiatus now but I'll be back soon.

Word Count: 6.4k

Warnings: PURE FLUFF

August 5th, 2023

After a wet July filled with continuous torrential downpours, August brought with it the promise of the sunshine that everybody craved. Taron and Liliana had quickly escaped the hustle and bustle of London at the first sign of sun to spend the week in Aberystwyth with their family. 

Liliana was excited to spend Matilda’s twelfth birthday with her. Matilda had started high school in September and had been so busy that Liliana hadn’t been able to spend as much time with her as she would have liked. Having a week to see her as often as she liked made her insides jump with excitement. 

The second day they were in Wales, it was a warm Saturday morning and Liliana woke up before Taron. He nestled into her back with his nose tucked into the back of her neck. Liliana lay in bed for a little while after she’d woken up just to enjoy Taron’s touch on her skin, but when she grew a little too warm, she climbed out and pulled on some leggings. 

Tina was already downstairs when Liliana slipped into the living room, and she turned her attention away from the TV to smile at Liliana. 

‘Good morning, honey. Sleep well?’ 

Liliana nodded. ‘I did, thank you. Taron’s still sleeping but I don’t think it’ll be too long until he’s awake.’ 

‘You came downstairs,’ Tina chuckled. ‘I give him a solid fifteen minutes before he comes in here looking for you.’ 

‘I was going to say more like ten. I had to try so hard to pull myself away from him. I’m going to go make a cup of coffee. Would you like one?’ 

Tina shook her head softly and held her mug up. ‘I’ve got one already, lovely. Thank you though. I’ll come and chat to you in the kitchen, I’ve had a bit of an idea I want to run by you.’ 

Liliana walked through to the kitchen with Tina close behind her. She’d been at Tina’s house overnight countless times in the almost eighteen months that she and Taron had been together, but it wasn’t until that morning that she realised just how at ease she was there. 

She didn’t feel the need to tiptoe everywhere she went in fear of making too much noise with her steps. She didn’t stop in doorways to listen and make sure that nobody was in a room before she entered. 

And she felt completely free to make herself a drink or get something to eat without having to ask or feel like a burden. She let out a shaky breath as she grabbed the mug that Tina had bought specifically for her, and she blinked back tears. 

‘So this plan?’ Liliana said to try and distract herself from the emotions racing through her. 

Tina settled herself on one of the dining chairs and watched Liliana glide around the kitchen effortlessly. ‘I was thinking, because the sun has finally decided to make an appearance and because I want to celebrate getting to spend the entire week with my two oldest babies, what if we have a barbecue this afternoon?’ 

Liliana’s heart swelled at Tina calling her one of her babies, and she turned to her with an emotional smile. ‘That sounds really lovely. Taron and I could go to the shops if you needed? It wouldn’t be a bother.’ 

‘No, it’s okay,’ Tina insisted. ‘If you’re okay to watch the girls for me, I’ll go. Plus, if I’m being completely honest, I need Taron to clean the barbecue before we use it.’ 

Liliana let out a small chuckle. ‘I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to do that. I ought to be making him a drink too, huh? Considering it’s been five minutes since I got downstairs.’ 

‘It might be a good idea. Do you think Eliza would be okay with Matilda coming around today? She could spend the night too, if she’d like.’ 

The corners of Liliana’s lips curled up into a grin as she nodded her head. ‘That would be amazing. Thank you, Tina. But please let me give you some money towards the food and anything extra. It’s the least I can do for everything you’ve done for Taron and me recently.’ 

Tina shook her head firmly. ‘Nope. I won’t take money from you, Lili. It’s what family does.’ 

‘Exactly. Family helps each other out. Let me give you the money for the crisps and things at least then.’ 

‘Liliana Esme,’ Tina chastised lightly. Liliana looked down sheepishly and it took her a short while to finally look back up at Tina. 

‘Sorry.’ 

Tina chuckled with a small wink. ‘There’s been this idea floating around in my head for a few months now but I didn’t know when, or how to bring it up in the best way.’ 

Liliana furrowed her brows as she put the used tea bag into the small caddy next to the kitchen. 

‘I love you just as much as I love Taron and the girls. If anything happened to you, I would be beside myself. You are amazing, and I wish you’d had the grown up you needed in your life when you were little. I’ve been thinking…if you feel comfortable enough, this is, that you could maybe call me mum? You absolutely do not have to, I just thought…oh I don’t even know, I just thought it might be nice.’ 

Liliana’s breath stopped momentarily as a rush of contrasting emotions filled her mind. Tina had been more like a mum to Liliana throughout her teenage years than Eliza had, and she’d accidentally slipped and called Tina ‘mum’ on a few occasions. But knowing that she had Tina’s blessing–that she would finally be able to call someone mum again, and knowing that she had a mum who loved her, it sent something weird zapping through her body and she couldn’t control the emotion as she wasn’t quite sure what it was. 

‘That’s truly only if you feel comfortable though,’ Tina continued. She could sense the difference in Liliana’s demeanour and wanted to diffuse anything before it got too bad and Liliana shut down. The last thing Tina wanted to do was upset Liliana. ‘I wouldn’t ever want you to do something that makes you feel uncomfortable. 

‘It’s just…I want you to have a mum that you feel safe with. I want you to have a mum that loves you how you deserve to be loved, because my god you deserve to be loved, Liliana. Anyway, would Matilda prefer hot dogs or beef burgers for the barbecue? I’ll be getting cheese and doing some fried onions. If she’s anything like you, I’ll be buying Tesco out of onions.’ 

Liliana breathed out a slightly teary laugh. She was thankful for the sudden change in subject. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to call Tina mum. If anything she would have loved to. There was just something holding her back. 

Things with Taron were perfect, to put it swiftly, but she knew just how quickly things changed in her life; how quickly things went bad. The last thing she wanted was for her to finally feel comfortable enough in a family for it all to be pulled from under her. It had happened before, and she swore that she wouldn’t let it happen again. 

‘You may need to buy Tesco out of onions. Chances are she’ll probably have one of each. She isn’t fussy, bless her. You could put any food in front of her and she would give it a go. I don’t know where she got that from, I was so fussy when I was younger.’ 

‘You weren’t fussy,’ Tina said seriously. ‘You just hadn’t had the chance to try a lot of foods when you were younger so you were nervous to sway away from what you knew. I never had an issue with you trying new things. But if she likes both, I’ll make sure there’s both. The girls are the same. I’ll get Taron to clean the barbecue when he comes downstairs and we’ll be good to go. I’m surprised he hasn’t come down yet, it’s been ten minutes.’ 

As if on cue, Taron strolled into the kitchen with his arms stretched above his head. He yawned as he made his way over to Tina to kiss her on the cheek. 

‘Morning, mam. I heard my name. What are you talking about me for?’ 

Tina looked at Liliana and they shook their heads simultaneously with small laughs that made Taron look between them with raised eyebrows. 

‘I bet I didn’t,’ he laughed as he stalked towards Liliana. He wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her lips gently. ‘You came downstairs without me.’ 

‘Unlike some, I wake up early and don’t want to spend all day in bed,’ Liliana chuckled playfully before she kissed Taron again quickly. ‘Your mum suggested that we have a barbecue this afternoon. We’re going to watch the girls while she runs to Tesco and I’m going to call Matilda soon and see if she wants to come. Eliza won’t have a problem with it.’ 

Taron twisted his body until his hips rested against the worktop. He wrapped an arm around Liliana’s waist and tucked her into his side before he grabbed her mug of coffee to steal some. 

‘Oi,’ Liliana chastised with wide eyes, ‘that’s mine, you bugger. There’s a mug behind you that I made for you.’ 

‘Yours always tastes nicer,’ Taron shrugged. ‘A barbecue sounds amazing though. Do you need me to clean it then, mam? It’s not been used for…I don’t even know how long. The chances are it’s a right mess and will need a good scrub.’ 

Tina licked her lips as she stood to put her empty mug in the sink next to Taron. ‘Funny you should ask,’ she said playfully. 

Taron shook his head in fake disbelief. ‘I knew I heard you talking about me. I’ll get it cleaned this morning for you so it can sit for a while before I light it. Can I put towards the shopping? I don’t like the idea of you buying everything.’ 

‘I already told Liliana that I won’t accept any money from the two of you for it. You are my babies and I want to treat you. Am I okay to leave the girls with you now? They’re due to be waking up soon but I have a feeling Tesco will be packed if I leave it much longer.’ 

‘That’s fine,’ Liliana said quietly before she leaned up to kiss Taron’s cheek. ‘I’m going to go and call Matilda. I’ll be right back, babe.’ 

***

As Taron had thought, the barbecue was in need of a deep clean. It wouldn’t take much to get it clean but Taron got the power washer out to help speed things up. In a feeble attempt to stop his t-shirt from getting wet and dirty, he pulled it away from his body and threw it just inside the back door where it would be sage. 

While he cleaned, Liliana and the three young girls all laid out on blankets on the grass together. The three younger girls played on Taron’s Nintendo Switch while Liliana read a book. After working on her second book for so long, it was nice to read for pleasure rather than for work. She’d made sure to pack multiple books for their week away so that she wouldn’t run out of reading material. 

Liliana read her book until Taron rubbed his palms on the back of his jeans to dry them off somewhat. He’d distracted her so well that when Matilda scooted closer to her, she hadn’t flinched. It wasn’t until Matilda tapped her on the leg twice that Liliana diverted her attention away from her boyfriend to her little sister. 

‘Thank you for letting me come,’ Matilda said quietly while she hugged Liliana from the side. 

Liliana turned to her and smiled fondly. For all of their differences, they were still so alike. They had the same personality, and Liliana could feel the love that radiated from Matilda in the small moments. 

‘You are so welcome, Little Bug. Are you excited to start year eight in September? I can’t believe that you’re already in your second year of high school.’ 

‘I’m a little nervous. Year seven was fun but the teachers have said we’re really starting to get into things this next year.’ 

‘Year eight is a little harder than year seven.’ Liliana wasn’t the type of person to sugar coat anything when it came to Matilda. She wanted her to know that things could be hard, and then give her ways around making it easier. ‘But it will go by so fast and you are so smart that you won’t even be able to tell the difference. Before you know it, you’ll be in year eleven and doing your GCSEs. High school can be hard, and I don’t want you to let anybody tell you otherwise. 

‘And people can be awful, trust me on that one. But you are so headstrong, and so incredibly smart that I know you’re going to do amazing. If anybody starts to give you trouble–students or teachers–let me know. Taron and I went to that school and most of the teachers we had are still there and I can talk to them. Mr Francis, he could probably tell you some stories.’ 

‘He’s my English teacher!’ Matilda exclaimed happily. ‘He’s always really fun.’ 

‘That sounds like Mr Francis. He was Taron and me’s English teacher too. He caught us passing notes one day and I don’t think I will ever live that down.’ 

Matilda’s eyes widened in glee. ‘I’m going to ask him about you both in September. Hey, Lili? Do you think that you and Taron will ever get married?’ 

Liliana took a deep breath and moved her attention back to Taron. His back tensed as he cleaned and Liliana couldn’t help but want to run her hands down the length of it and let them settle just inside the waistband of his jeans. She shook her head before her daydream turned into something erotic and turned back to Matilda. 

She leaned in close and whispered, ‘I don’t know, Tilly, but I hope we do. I love him a helluva lot and it would be nice to be married to him.’ 

‘Would you have kids?’ 

‘I don’t know, Til. That’s something that Taron and I would have to talk about one day. Why? Do you want us to get married and have babies?’ 

Matilda nodded. ‘Yeah. I’ve always wanted a brother. And who doesn’t love babies?’ 

Liliana chuckled and hugged Matilda to her side. Though she kept her eyes on Taron. Matilda had planted a thought in Liliana’s mind and it had turned into a whole daydream about one day being able to call Taron her husband. The thought made her insides turn to mush and she couldn’t hold back the grin that took over her face. 

Unbeknownst to anyone else in the garden, Taron had heard Matilda’s question and had strategically taken a break from using the power washer in the hopes that he would hear how Liliana answered. Taron had known since March of the previous year that he wanted to spend the rest of his time on Earth with Liliana. 

In the April of 2022, he had designed and bought a ring that he hoped she would love, ready for whenever Liliana was comfortable enough to take the next step and solidify their relationship further. 

The past eighteen months had been utter bliss for Taron. He finally had the woman of his dreams and his best friend all rolled into one. But he knew that Liliana still faced her inner demons every day and he was willing to wait as long as she needed before he asked her the most important question. 

A couple of months after their trip to Scotland, Liliana had moved in with him and that was enough for Taron. Liliana was the first person he saw when he woke up, and the last person he saw when he went to bed. If they lived like that for the rest of their lives without the titles of husband and wife, he was sure that he wouldn’t have minded. 

Five months prior, when they celebrated their one year anniversary, he had casually brought up the idea of marriage but Liliana had been hesitant. She had drawn in on herself again and Taron knew that it was too much too soon. He apologised for bringing it up and made it up to her again and again that night, whispering sweet nothings into her ear continuously. 

He had hoped that the idea of marriage wouldn’t scare Liliana so much, and he’d come up with a tentative plan to propose to her in November. It would be the two year anniversary of when they reunited at Liliana’s first book launch. But Taron carried the ring with him wherever he went, more so that he didn’t forget where he had hidden it, but also because he was worried about how Liliana might react if she saw it. 

The second he heard Liliana tell Matilda that she wanted to marry him, he thanked his lucky stars that he’d taken the ring to Aberystwyth with him and that it was stashed in the bottom of his suitcase where there was no risk of Liliana coming across it. He decided to seize the moment, and a plan started to form in his head. 

Liliana and Matilda had continued to whisper while Taron had his epiphany, and luckily they hadn’t noticed that he’d stopped cleaning. He closed the lip of the barbecue softly so that it didn’t make too loud of a noise. 

‘Well, I believe it will do for our spur of the moment party this afternoon.’ 

Liliana looked up at Taron and smiled happily, ‘Great job, babe. It looks clean enough to eat off of!’ She winked at him and he gave her a sarcastic look while he planted his hands on both hips and wiggled them joyfully. ‘You are something else.’ 

‘You got that right, baby. I’m going to go and get cleaned up and put my top back on before I join in on all the fun you four are having. Do any of you want a drink while I’m inside?’ 

‘Can you bring us all another can, please? Thank you.’

Taron went back into the house and continued to work on his plan to get Liliana alone for a little while. He hoped that if he timed it right, they could be back at the house to celebrate with everyone before the barbecue was in full swing. 

He bounded up the stairs two at a time and changed into a pair of shorts and a new t-shirt before he grabbed the ring from his suitcase. Before he left the bedroom, Taron checked in the mirror to make sure that the outline of the small, velvet box wasn’t obvious. 

As luck would have it, Tina walked in the front door as Taron got to the bottom of the stairs. She jumped a little but chuckled when she saw that it was only Taron. 

‘God you have a way of sneaking up on me,’ she laughed. 

‘It was totally not on purpose,’ Taron laughed. ‘Let me help you with these bags. What did you buy, woman? They’re heavier than the girls.’ 

‘Hush your mouth, child. Though I may have gotten carried away with snacks. So the chances are we’re eating all of this over the next few days.’ 

‘That sounds like a plan to me. I actually need your help with something.’ 

‘Sure, baby. What do you need?’ 

Tine looked at her son with a puzzled look plastered on her face. She could tell that Taron was up to something but she couldn’t fathom what it could possibly be. He put the bags he carried down on the table and then turned to his mum fully. 

He checked the back garden to make sure that none of the girls were on their way inside before he stuffed his hand into his pocket and gripped the small box that he’d kept well hidden for almost two years. 

‘I happened to overhear Liliana telling Matilda that she hopes that we get married one day. And I figured, why not ask her today?’ He pulled the box out of his pocket and snapped it open to show his mum the ring. ‘This wasn’t the plan but I can’t wait any longer. It’s been such a long time coming. She’s the one, mum. Liliana is the one that I’m going to spend the rest of my life with.’ 

Tina’s jaw was on the floor and she had tears in her eyes. It wasn’t a surprise that Taron wanted to propose. She’d known how Taron felt about Liliana for years, but she hadn’t had a clue that he already had a ring. 

‘I was going to tell you that I planned to propose but I just can’t wait any longer.’ 

‘Oh my goodness, this is amazing. My baby boy is going to propose!’ Tina’s voice got louder and Taron immediately turned to the back garden. 

‘Mam,’ he shushed her through gritted teeth. 

‘I’m sorry, honey, this is just so exciting! What do you need my help with?’ 

Taron closed the box and stuffed it back in his pocket so that there wasn’t a risk of anybody else seeing it before the time was right. ‘I need you to distract Rosie, Marie and Matilda while I get Liliana up to Constitution Hill. I thought it only fitting that I ask her there. It’s one of the most important places to us.’ 

Tina nodded in understanding and pulled Taron in for a long hug. ‘Of course, that would be perfect. And leave it to me, I’ll make sure the youngest are good while you’re gone. I’m so proud of you, little boy. And I’m so happy that Liliana is ready for forever. I told her that she can call me mum if she wants to and she got emotional. She’s really starting to open up more and I’m so happy.’ 

‘I think she’s finally ready to accept that she’s part of a family now. I just want to make it official. I’m going to go and get her. We won’t be too long, promise.’ 

‘Take your time, Taron.’ 

‘Thanks, mam. I love you.’ 

‘I love you too.’ 

Taron hugged his mum once more before he walked to the back door and admired the four girls at the top of the garden. He slowly made his way over towards them. 

‘Hey, Love Bug, come here for a second,’ Taron called to Liliana as he neared where she rested on the grass. He opened his arms and Liliana automatically stepped into them when she got up. ‘Mum’s just got back from Tesco and it’s such a lovely day out. What do you say we got for a walk quickly? I was thinking about Constitution Hill. It’s been so long since we’ve been up there.’ 

Liliana gave Taron the same puzzled look his mum had and asked, ‘But what about the barbecue? Surely we could help your mum get everything ready? She’s already done so much by doing the shopping on her own. I can’t leave her to prepare everything on her own too.’ 

‘She had mentioned asking the girls to help her prepare everything, and you know how much they all love to help out in the kitchen. Especially when Matilda is here.’ 

Liliana was still visibly sceptical, but she couldn’t deny that she would love some alone time with Taron. ‘Sure, babe, that sounds like a great idea. But let’s take the funicular up so we aren’t gone too long. I would still like to help your mum prepare some stuff.’ 

‘My thoughts exactly,’ Taron smiled as he leaned down to kiss Liliana. ‘Come on, let’s get going.’ 

He wrapped his arm around Liliana’s shoulder and walked them towards the garden gate that led them down the side of the house and to the street. Matilda looked up at Liliana and the crease in her brow was obvious even from where Liliana was. 

‘We’re just going to take a quick walk up the hill. We’ll be back before the barbecue starts, I promise,’ Liliana assured Matilda. 

Matilda smiled and gave her a small wave goodbye before going back to playing games with the other two. Liliana waved at Tina as they passed the kitchen window. She could have sworn that Tina winked at her when she passed by, but the sun was streaming in through the window so Liliana thought that it must have been the sunlight getting in her eyes. 

***

Liliana had clocked the grey clouds making their way to town before Taron had, but she was sure the forecast hadn’t predicted rain so she hadn’t mentioned anything. Though she wished she had when she felt the first drops of rain hit her skin. Taron groaned loudly and grabbed her hand to pull her into the nearest empty doorway. 

He pushed her against the wall softly and looked down at her with so much love that Liliana could physically feel her heart pulling towards Taron’s. Her hands slid up his front until she could pull him closer to her by the neck. 

Her lips brushed over his and as she was about to pull away, Taron leaned forward and kissed her passionately. She sighed dreamily into him and held onto him tighter. When they had been caught in the rain and took shelter in a shop doorway all those sixteen years before, all Liliana had wanted was for Taron to kiss her. 

Liliana smiled into the kiss and Taron copied. He thought the same thing and without needing to use words, they gave each other what their younger selves wanted. 

‘Do you think they’d be happy?’ Liliana asked when they pulled apart to catch their breath. 

‘Who?’ 

‘Our eighteen year old selves. Can you imagine telling them that in sixteen years they would be back hiding from the rain but happily kissing one another because they were in a relationship and had been for over a year?’ 

Taron thought for a moment as he held Liliana close. The rain had stopped already but they made no moves to continue their walk. He let his hands trail up to Liliana’s waist where he held her against him. He just hoped that she wouldn’t reach her hands down too low where she would feel the ring box nestled safely in his pocket. 

‘I think they’d be annoyed that it took us so long to say something to one another,’ he said with a small smile. ‘But then I think they would be so happy. I know younger me would be. All I wanted that day was to kiss you.’ 

‘All I wanted was for you to kiss me.’ 

‘Then this is for younger us,’ he smiled before he leaned down to plant another kiss to Liliana’s welcoming lips.

***

Thankfully the rain hadn’t stopped the funicular and it was running when they got to the bottom of Constitution Hill. Liliana climbed in first and took a seat on the small bench to the left. Taron squeezed in next to her and put his arm around her shoulder happily. 

‘Thank you for indulging me, Lil. I love spending time with everyone at home but I wanted a little bit of uninterrupted alone time with you.’ 

Nobody else stepped onto the funicular and as it started to carry them up the hill, Taron leaned in and kissed Liliana. It was deep and passionate, and the passion behind it caught Liliana off guard momentarily. Though she leaned in and kissed him back just as fervently. It didn’t matter how much time passed, kissing Taron was still her favourite feeling in the world. 

‘Thank you for suggesting this, T,’ she panted when Taron pulled away. ‘I agree, it is very nice to have some alone time with you. No funny business though, we are still in public and the ride up is only a few minutes.’ Liliana wagged a finger at Taron and he put his hands up in surrender with a devilish grin. 

‘I wouldn’t dream of it, Love Bug. But there’s nothing saying we can’t have a cheeky make out session, right?’ Taron winked at Liliana and leaned in to kiss her again. 

By the time they pulled apart, they were nearing the top of the hill. Taron grabbed Liliana’s hand as he stepped out so that he could help her climb out of the carriage safely. She thanked him softly and leaned her hand on his shoulder as they walked. 

The closer they got to the edge of the hill, the more Taron’s nerves started to hit him. His throat got dry and his hands had started to shake. He hoped that if Liliana could feel the shake, she would think that he was a little on the chillier side. The drop in temperature at the top of the hill worked in his favour. 

Liliana pulled away from Taron and walked towards the edge faster than Taron. The views never failed to amaze her and the second she saw the entire bay, her lips curled into a smile and she took a deep breath. Her love for Aberystwyth grew once again when she’d started to go back with Taron. She no longer dreaded being there because she knew that she would be with the people who loved her the most. 

The sunshine that had come back quickly after the rain had stopped, and by the time that they got off of the funicular, nobody would have known that it had been raining ten minutes previously thanks to the almost cloudless sky that had taken over. 

Liliana towed Taron in the direction of their spot while she soaked up the sunshine, her head tilted up to get as much vitamin C as she could. They had never officially declared what part of the hill was their spot, but they both knew. They had spent countless hours up there talking about life while watching the clouds. 

It was where Liliana had felt the safest when she was a teenager, and it was where they had realised that they had fallen for each other all those years ago. Liliana stood right at the edge and looked out at the sea. Small waves crashed against the bottom of the hill and Liliana matched her breathing to each crash. 

There was a faint smell of seaweed in the air and the Y Consti cafe behind them wafted the smell of freshly ground coffee into the air. Taron stepped next to Liliana and took her hand in his. They stood and stared out at the sea for a moment, taking in the warm breeze and the few fluffy clouds that dotted the sky. 

As Liliana was about to tell Taron that she was enjoying the moment with him, she felt him tug on her hand. When she turned to face him, he was lowering himself onto his left knee. He took the ring box from his pocket and Liliana’s breath caught in her throat. 

‘Taron,’ she managed to choke out as she squeezed his hand tightly. Tears had already found their way to her eyes and she couldn’t help the ones that fell down the length of her cheeks. 

‘Don’t say anything yet,’ he said quickly before he gulped. ‘Please. I want to say this before I forget anything I want to say.’ 

Liliana nodded, allowing Taron the room to say whatever he needed to. Though she knew what was coming. Her heart thumped rapidly deep within her chest and tiny drops of sweat started to build on the small of her back as the anticipation of what was about to happen poured over her. 

When Matilda had asked her earlier in the day if she was going to marry Taron, Liliana hadn’t expected for Taron to propose to her that day. Things started to fall into place as she watched Taron. She’d not taken notice of it before but she should have realised that Taron had stopped cleaning at the right time, and then the next thing she knew, he whisked her away to their spot and he was on one knee in front of her. 

She swiped away the tears that had started to fall so that she could look at Taron clearly, but she couldn’t wipe them away fast enough. They were falling freely down her cheeks and she saw a couple of people out of the corner of her eye watching the scene unfold in front of them. 

‘It has been almost sixteen years since I said goodbye to you on that train platform,’ Taron started through a shaky breath. ‘When the train pulled out, I remember wondering if I was ever going to see you again. It was like I was losing the thing that mattered the most to me. When I got home, I sat in your chair and I just cried. I didn’t want you to leave, but I didn’t know if I was allowed to say anything. I remember thinking that I’d lost you for good.’ 

Taron paused and took a deep, shaky breath. Liliana wanted nothing more than to reach out and cup his cheek, to pull him into her body and hold him until the end of time. She wanted to be the one to look after him. But she held back so that he could continue in his own time. Liliana was in no rush. They had the rest of their lives to look forward to. 

‘Then one morning when I was checking my mail, I found an invitation to a book launch. The second I read the name on top, Liliana Esme, I could feel the hole in my heart shrink a little.’ 

Liliana could remember making the guest list for the book launch as if it were only yesterday. She’d been asked to give a list of names of people who meant the most to her. When Taron’s name popped into her mind, she couldn’t decide what to do. It had already been over a decade since she’d last seen him, and a whole lifetime had occurred in that time. 

She knew that it was a long shot that he would turn up, but she invited him anyway. And she would send that invite again just to have Taron by her side again. 

‘You have always been my safe space, Lil, and I have loved you since we were eighteen years old. I wake up every morning and fall in love with you even more. The hole in my heart healed when I saw you again, and every day with you makes the scar grow smaller. 

‘These past eighteen months with you have been the best of my life. It’s been a continuous adventure and I can’t wait to relive every single one for the rest of my life. I have loved dancing in Washington Square Park with you; eating croissants on a balcony in the middle of Paris; swimming in the Mediterranean Sea; running into the sea down there in the middle of the night in just our underwear.’ 

Liliana laughed through the tears that streamed freely down her face, and she held Taron’s hand tighter, if that were even possible. A stray tear fell down Taron’s cheek and Liliana leaned forward to wipe it away with her free hand. Taron leaned into her touch and let the corner of his lips turn up into a gentle smile. 

‘Liliana, you are the strongest person I know, and the love that you show everyone around you knows no bounds. You love so hard, and with everything in you. Yet you struggle to love yourself, even now. It’s almost as though you are so busy loving everyone else that you forget to share that love with yourself. 

‘I want to be the person who shows you love when you don’t feel like you can show it to yourself. I do not want you to ever feel the way you felt growing up. You’ve had me in your corner forever, but I am going to prove to you that I’m not leaving that corner. Not for one second. On your hardest days, I will be there. On days where we’re frustrated with one another, I will be in your corner. I will be in your corner no matter what. 

‘I want you to feel loved every second of every day. And one day, I hope that you’ll have children in your corner. Children that you brought into the world. That…we brought into the world.’ 

Liliana took a deep breath. The thought of children wasn’t as scary as she would have imagined, but she was nowhere near ready to think about it yet. Though she knew Taron wouldn’t push anything, ever. 

‘You are going to make an amazing mum one day, Lil. I have no doubt about it. I love you more than I ever thought it possible to love someone. You are still my safe space, my guiding light, my strength on my weakest days, and my warmth on my coldest days. I want us to be a family. I want us to start a family that will always show you love. ‘

Taron took another shaky breath and looked up at Liliana. His eyes were steady as they fixated on Liliana’s, and his hands stopped shaking just enough that he was able to snap the ring box open. 

Liliana’s breath caught in the back of her throat as she looked at the delicate ring in front of her. It was everything she could have imagined and so much more. The sapphire and diamond ring glistened beautifully in the sun that shone down around them. 

The smile she gave Taron was so big that it hurt her cheeks and she could barely see in front of her. But her smile told Taron everything he needed to know. She was ready. Liliana was ready to start the next chapter of her life. She was ready to be a wife, ready to take on the world with Taron, and ready to open up her life to him wholly. 

‘Liliana Esme,’ Taron continued through a smile equally as wide as Liliana’s, ‘will you marry me?’

[pbandjesse]

I am home again!! And Jess is here! And Sweetp is here and James is here and I am happy. I also have a head ache but I know it's just cause I am tired. That will be fixed soon.

I had a really nice day though. I slept alright last night but I didn't feel great when I woke up. I am starting to suspect I am having an allergic reaction to something at camp. A moisture or dust. So I had a lot of pain in my chest and when I took a deep breath it would cough. Plus the wounds in my mouth still hurt very much and eating in general was not fun. I was glad I got that little protein bar when we went to royal farms last night. It made it feel at least a little better. Because right before I ate I ended up having such a bad pain in my stomach I doubled over. Thankfully it didn't happen again but it was not fun.

I would have a good day though. All my groups were lovely. I took a little walk before my first group and tried to just shake off any weird feelings.

I was running low on cotton for the stuffed bears and texted Charlie asking him to help me out by getting the stuff that was up on Yukon. And he said he would. Him and Cody ended up going up there and getting it and I appreciated them greatly.

All the kids got to make their bears. And the only issue I had was in the pioneer group kids were just absolutely giving up?? There were tears?? And I had to just get very low next to this kid and tell him I wasn't playing and to stop crying because it was just fabric. And I was able to fix his issue. And everyone made a bear and it was great. But man. So many of these kids just have no perseverance and just give up as soon as it's hard. It is sad. But we made it through.

Jess was on her way here and I felt bad that it ended up taking more then 3 hours. But she would come by the end of the day and I was so happy about that.

But while I waited I had lunch. Got a little annoyed when I went to say thank you to the chef about lunch and was stopped and told I should thank them. I was like. Yeah I am? I hate being told to do things I am already doing. Ugh. But I had some lunch but my mouth still hurt very much so I could not eat much.

My afternoon groups were great though. They were all very sweet. And helped me clean up. The stockade boys were fine but we're being a little mean to each other about girls and we're going to be mean to the girls and I did not like that.

As we were finishing cleaning Jess was driving up. She accidentally went to camp running bear and that was my fault. Got my rights and lefts messed up. But she got here and I was so excited.

We walked down to the museum to sue the bathroom before my alarm group. Which was tipis. And they were pretty self sufficient and some made bracelets and some sewed or drew. It was fun. Jess helped me sort out theme stuff so that we could leave early and we cut up paper together for next week. She was a huge help.

After tipis left we went down to trading post to give Charlie his water and got roped in to helping get the candy and snacks to the kids. Absolutely made Jess work and she kept saying this was a nightmare but we had a lot of laughs about getting the kids to be use all their money. Like buying shields and lunchboxes. It was hectic and fun and I'm glad Jess got to see the way work is for me.

We bounced as soon as the last group got there stuff. We grabbed a peanut butter cup to share. And ran up to arts to help out bags on the truck and my stuff in her car.

And then Charlie came and hung out with us for a bit. We made tentative plans to get coffee with him on Sunday. And just chatted and it was fun. I told Charlie he could be an honorary bridesmaid so I am glad he got to meet Jess.

And then we were off. We wanted to bounce before flag was done. And so we left.

We went to hunt valley and decided to go to California pizza kitchen because they had gluten free options. And I got to have a cauliflower crust and I had never had that before so that was neat. I really enjoyed it.

It was fun talking to Jess and we got a big laugh when two of my campers were at the restaurant and we're acting like I was a celebrity. It was so cute.

It started raining while we were in the restaurant. But it would rain more in our way back home. I was excited to see James and sweetp.

And when we got back here, after being stuck in some traffic, I was excited for hugs and also there were a bunch of packages for me!! So exciting. Some wedding stuff. Some other things for a project. It was a lot of fun.

Me and Jess would cut her hair and get showers. We started designing a flyer for me and Jamess day after the wedding event. And talking about her trip to Scotland in a few weeks. I'm still jealous. I hope me and mom can go someday sooner rather then later.

Now it is time to get some sleep. I am really tired. And I still have work tomorrow! We have the market all morning and then me and Jess hope to go and paint pottery. I hope I am not to tired or not fun.

Sleep well everyone. Take care of yourself!!

[1234-angelika]

Seven Months

an:Hey y'all! I'm really happy to be back on schedule and all caught up, for the most part anyways. This is the fourth installment of the Happily Ever After series for Spencer. As always, hope y'all enjoy!

words:1.1 k

warnings:none

summary:"The secret to a happy relationship is two happy people." -Naval Ravikant

masterpost|taglist|have an idea

The seven months with Spencer since your first date had been nothing short of amazing.

You spent as much time together as your schedules allowed for. It wasn’t only Spencer’s schedule that was restricting yours was too. With work and med school, plus making time to study, you were extremely busy. And with his schedule, he was constantly away for about a week at a time but, that just made you enjoy your time with him more. Off-handedly, you had brought up the subject of meeting families and his team, not putting too much thought into the conversation. Spence would tense instantly whenever the matter was brought up so, you left it alone. Making sure to reassure him that you were up to meeting them whenever Spencer felt ready.

It was a few weeks before he really warmed up to the idea, actually bringing up the idea over a light night phone call while he was away. He suggested that it was time that you met the team, and you couldn’t agree fast enough. You offered the café as more of a neutral place for the meeting. The two of you chatted and planned for Friday after the team returned from their case since they were scheduled to come back on Wednesday.

The sun peeked through the curtains you had forgotten to close the night before and woke you up. Rolling over, you shoved your face into a pillow and groaned. You climbed out of bed after a couple minutes of contemplating whether or not to cancel meeting the team, and your stomach was in knots. You got up and got ready for the day, skipping all food—your stomach too uneasy to actually keep anything down—and settled for a comforting cup of coffee. Then you headed out for class. You didn’t have work until the afternoon because you were in class the entire morning.

As you sat in the lecture hall, you knew how important the material was, but you were only taking in about half of it, even with the notes. Your mind was unable to focus on anything but the upcoming meeting at the café. When your last class of the morning let out, you were out of the building before anyone could stop you and hurrying toward the bus stop. Luckily, you managed to make the bus, and as soon as it left the station, you felt yourself begin to fall asleep. You dozed on and off for the entire ride, waking up just in time for your stop.

You greeted your co-workers who were behind the counter as you made your way to the back room. You took a couple minutes to change into your uniform and give yourself a pep-talk, hyping yourself up for your shift and your afternoon meeting. Then, you punched in for the day. Making your way out to the front, you relieved some of your co-workers and then got started. All you could think about, though, was how eager you were to meet them just a couple days ago, but now, it all seemed like the set-up of a bad dream.

Doing your best to keep busy, you hustled and bustled behind the counter, doing anything that would keep your hands and mind occupied. You even asked your co-worker to work on cash so you could play barista for the day. Another poor attempt to distract yourself from your nerves. A lot rested on the result of this meeting, and that was weighing heavily on your shoulders. His team was basically his family—he had told you this—and if they didn’t like you, you were sure the relationship wouldn’t last too much longer.

The bell above the door jingled, signalling that new customers had arrived. Looking up, you saw it was Spencer and a group of people; he gave you a sly smile and gently guided his team over to the couches. Once they were settled, he walked over to the counter where you were standing with a smile. Of course, he smiled back, and that action in itself offered you a tremendous amount of comfort. And then he began rattling off the drink orders. You punched them into the register with ease before telling Spencer the total. He paid in full, leaving behind a generous tip in the jar.

You whirled around behind the counter, expertly making the drinks. One by one, you placed them on the counter. Spencer made a few trips back and forth to bring the drinks to his colleagues, and you watched as Spencer sat down and the group immediately launched into conversation. When the team had been at the café for an hour, you offered free refills and replaced the empty cups with new, full ones for those who wanted them. As you left the drinks on the table, you heard a question that was directed at Spencer.

“So, when is this girl going to get here? I thought you said she’d be here by five.”

Hurriedly, so you wouldn’t be caught eavesdropping, you made your way back to the counter. Your booked shift didn’t end for another half an hour, and since your other co-worker had already left, you couldn’t clock out early. Just a few minutes before the half-hour mark, your co-worker Jodi came up behind you to relieve you of your work. You were hasty in clocking out before changing back into your other clothes and gathering your belongings. Then you walked over to Spencer and his team. When he noticed you, he stood up to greet you with a hug before bringing you back to the group.

“Hey Spence, who’s this?” A blonde woman asked, staring at you curiously.

“Everyone, this is Y/N, my girlfriend.” Spencer said, standing beside you with a smile. It was silent for a couple seconds, and then one of his teammates broke it.

“Boy genius! How did you land a smoke show like this one?!” The man asked incredulously, but you could hear the pride in his voice.

“Y/N meet Derek,” Spencer said, conducting the introduction.

“Well Derek,” you began, “he caught my eye but, he was actually the one to make the first move. He used his charms and as they say, the rest is history.”

Spencer introduced you to the rest of his colleagues, none of them having quite an animated reaction as Derek to the news. However, once the introductions were over, you didn’t know why you were nervous in the first place. His team was amiable and welcomed you with broad smiles and open arms. They made you feel like you were a part of their family like you had known them forever.

taglist: @multixfandomwriter @myescapefromthislife @sparklykeylime @gspenc

[kiri-ah]

Something To Sink My Teeth Into || he/him pronouns version

Themes: Supernatural AU, Vampire AU, strangers to lovers, angst and fluff (so much fluff), something similar to those symbiotes from Venom and Hanahaki disease combined, interplanar travel, Jaemin and the reader are oblivious and Chenle gets mad about it, long conversations about vampires, vampires can't cry

Pairing: Vampire!Jaemin x Male Human!reader

Warnings: mentions of blood (minor), mentions of eating (human food and vampire food), character death, Chenle is kind of a butthole, in depth conversations about humans and vampires which include biting and blood drinking, Yuta's house gets set on fire

Word Count: 26.4k

Summary: A trip to Poland goes terribly wrong - or maybe terribly right - when you're bitten and kidnapped by a vampire. Between passing out, almost dying multiple times, and falling in love, you have a lot on your plate. Oh, and the magic. Right. Teaser here.

A/N: Okay so uh... this wasn't meant to be this long. I hate my brain sometimes. *sigh*

This has only been edited by myself and a friend of mine, please excuse any errors. I worked hard to make the best experience possible. For that reason, please note that this is the !he/him pronouns version! They/them pronouns may be found here, she/her pronouns here. Please enjoy!

You were on holiday in Krakow, Poland. For your twenty first birthday, your parents had gifted you a weeklong trip over Spring Break, and you had been having the time of your life. You had found Krakow rich in historical influence - it had been the capital of Poland until 1596 and still had remnants of the past, like a Renaissance-era trading post and sections of the medieval walls that surrounded the city. Plus, the section of the city that you were staying in was very close to the city center, where you discovered aforementioned trading post, called the Cloth Hall, and an old cathedral named St. Mary’s Basilica.

The first night of your stay, Sunday night, you had struggled to sleep, because of the time difference and the excitement of arriving. You stayed in Monday morning, trying to at least rest a bit, and then ventured out to the nearest coffee shop when that didn’t alleviate your sleepiness. The barista had whipped up your favorite pick-me-up morning drink, and you went to sit outside in the fresh air, surveying the plaza over the rim of your cup. It was just the right time of year, you thought, because it was nice and warm without being too hot, just how you liked it. The sun had started to rise about the buildings around you, illuminating certain structures and giving them an unearthly glow.

When you finished your drink, you put the cup into the collection bin and walked back out onto the main square, just enjoying the sun on your face (over the sunglasses you had bought in the airport after forgetting to pack yours) and letting the warmth sink through your limbs after the tired night. One of the unfortunate things about the time of year you had travelled was the tourists. There were families and older couples and people your age taking trips with their friends, and most everyone stayed right where you were staying as well: right in the heart of the city. To avoid as many crowds as possible, you had booked a tour of St. Mary’s Basilica for Thursday morning, and reserved entry to the underground museum for this afternoon.

Tomorrow you planned to go and see Grodzka Street, where you were going to try and find a souvenir. In the same neighborhood was an ancient church called St. Andrew’s Church, which dated back to around 1079. On Wednesday, you were going to brave the crowds of people in the Cloth Hall for the same purpose, and also because it was a historical landmark that you just needed to explore. Wednesday afternoon was blocked out to be a rest period, as was Thursday morning. Then on Friday you were planning to go and see the Wawel Castle and Cathedral. From there you would explore the various attractions on the property, and then return to the plaza later to eat. That afternoon, you planned to go to the Jewish cemetery. Saturday was blocked out for a trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau, which was a Nazi concentration camp and a Holocaust memorial out of the main town. When you returned to the hotel late that afternoon you would pack and get ready for your flight Sunday morning. It was going to be a very full and very fun week. Or at least you hoped it would be fun.

You explored the main square a little bit that first day and unpacked your things, making sure you had everything you needed for your trip and you didn’t need to walk to one of the convenience stores nearby.

The days passed quickly, and you finished each one completely satisfied. Everything and everyone here was so wonderful and you started to wonder how you had never heard of this place before this trip. It was absolutely one of the best places your parents could have picked.

On Friday morning you got up bright and early (well, actually, it was dark and early) to go to the Wawel Castle. You had heard from a travelling site that tickets sold out fast and it was important to get there early in the day, and you tried to heed that warning. At 7am when you arrived it was already busy, but thankfully not so much that the lines were too long. You wandered through the small exhibits and around the grounds. It was a bit more chilly today and you wrapped a scarf around your neck as you shivered, trying to find a less windy spot to hide out for a second. You found a little spot where you could take a moment and recharge your inner heater and were doing just that, burrowing into your small scarf mountain, when you realized that a person stood next to you. You looked up through your lashes at them and caught your breath - holy cow he had good genes. He had a sharp, sloping jawline that stopped at a chin less pointy than you had expected. His lips were plush and round, although he needed some chapstick. His hair was pushed around by the wind but despite that he looked, well, amazing. Sections were bleached, giving his hair an almost halo-esque look. His nostrils contracted as he inhaled and then his eyes cut down to yours, dark and deep and was that eyeliner?

He smiled then, a smirk that seemed far too self-assured for the situation, and leaned over towards your exposed ear. “I can feel you staring, baby,” he murmured. The top of your ear, which had been feeling rather numb, flamed hot at his words. It almost hurt, the sudden jump into heat. You turned towards him fully, only eyes exposed by the scarf mountain. Your hair whipped around as the wind shifted again, but he didn’t seem cold, although he was in only a pair of black skinny jeans, a white t-shirt, and a black jacket. The jacket caught your attention for a second - it was studded with thousands of little rhinestones, like a varsity jacket gone shiny. Then he shifted closer into your space and you were forced to look back at his eyes, glittering in a way that seemed almost predatory. You sucked in a breath through your mouth and started to back away.

“S-sorry,” your breath came out in a whisper. Nobody seemed to notice your interaction. “I didn’t see you there, I’ll just leave.” You turned to go before his hand, surprisingly strong, clamped around your arm and pulled you back into his chest.

His voice came out in a growl as he blocked your scream with his other hand. “I am far, far too hungry for you to leave right now, precious.” The strength in your legs seemed to dissipate at his tone, you knew you needed to defend yourself, but ‘hungry’? What was that about? And precious? The hand wrapped around your arm let go and started unwrapping your scarf, exposing your face to both him and the frigid wind. He started to lean down, and you pressed your lips together tightly. At the very least, he wasn’t getting in your mouth. You may have lost the strength in your legs, but not in your will. Then he bypassed your mouth and leaned into your neck, inhaling and causing cold air to course along the column of your throat. He chuckled when you shivered, then bit into your neck.

The pain was overwhelming, you could feel each individual blood cell crying out, every organ protesting, your head started to pound with it. It hurt far more than even a dog bite should. It hurt like a shot at the doctor going on and on, echoing through your body and you were powerless to stop it. The pain flared in your neck and your brain seemed to slow down as the blood flowed away from it and into his mouth. You crumbled into him, and without detaching from your throat, he scooped you up into his arms, holding you there to be his personal bloodbag. You had long since stopped trying to scream, it was too difficult, too much effort.

Vampires, your thoughts whispered, before the pain covered you and you passed out, collapsing completely.

☽༓☾

You woke up in a... cozy cottage? There wasn’t any sign of your attacker and, in fact, no sign of anything vampire esque either. You looked around the single room at the soft fabric couch (covered in boho style throw pillows), the kitchenette (complete with pre packed food), and the window, through which you could see a combination flower and vegetable garden. There were two doors off of the room you were in, one that led towards the lush green outside, and one that must have concealed the bathroom.

The moment you realized this, you also realized that you really needed to use said bathroom, and struggled to plant your bare feet on the floor. Your legs didn't want to hold your weight, and you crumbled to the rug with a whine. Two seconds later, the door to the outside opened with a swish of fresh air and there, outlined by the sun, stood the most gorgeous person you had ever had the pleasure to lay eyes on. When he saw you on the floor, he groaned and ran a hand through his pink hair. "Shit, I'm so sorry, let me help you!" He ran over and you allowed him to half carry you into the bathroom. It wasn’t like you had any strength to protest, and he seemed nice. He smelled like sunshine on fresh earth.

Once you had finished using the toilet you tried to stand up again, now that you at least had some semblance of strength in your legs. After a few tries you were able to support yourself against the bathroom counter, with more than half of your weight against the frigid tiles. Your legs shook as you started standing more straight up, and you made a high pitched keening sound that you didn’t even know you could make; the man’s worried voice came through the door. His voice was higher and slightly panicked.

“Are you okay? Do you need help? Are you hurting too much?”

Your voice, which you hadn’t managed to make work properly, came out lower than usual and scratchy. A portion of your throat ached as you tried to make the sounds audibly. “Yeah,” you rasped out. “I can’t stand up properly.”

“Do you need me to come and help?” There was something about his voice that just made you want to trust him. It was soft but strong and even though he had toned down the panic, it still had soft tremors of worry running through it.

You thought about it for a second and considered yourself in the mirror. You looked, quite frankly, horrible. Your hair was a mess (more than usual), your eye bags were sagging unnaturally, and your eyes themselves were dull. You did look like you needed help. You sighed. “Sure.”

A moment later he opened the door slowly and stepped into the space with you, putting one arm around your waist to help support you. You relaxed some of your weight onto him and closed your eyes briefly. It would have been a wholly relaxing moment if not for your stomach. It grumbled up at you and you thought for a moment that it sounded like an angry octopus trapped inside of you. Then you blinked to clear the thought away as the man laughed. It was deeper than you expected from a man with pink cotton-candy colored hair, a low chuckle that rumbled through his body and, in turn, yours. You shook against him slightly with the movement and his other arm came to help you lean more against his body. He was stronger than you expected and you could feel the muscles in his arms shift as he reoriented himself.

“Let’s get you some food,” he said, smiling. “Unfortunately I’m not sure I’ll have much you’ll like.” You just nodded. Your throat was still throbbing uncomfortably where you were bitten and you weren’t sure you had the energy to even debate his statement. You were sure you would eat whatever he gave you. He led you into the main room again and helped you settle onto the couch. He walked over to the kitchenette and picked up a can of soup, then walked back to you to verify it was a kind that you liked. Once you had approved it, he went back and put it in a pot on the electric stove, starting to heat it up. As he stood over it, you had some time to think as you sat on the couch. The first thing you realized was that you still didn’t know what his name was, which was an issue. You couldn’t thank him properly without knowing his name. The second thing you realized was that you didn’t know where you were, exactly. The third was that you had probably missed your flight back home and your parents were going to murder you for it when you eventually got back. You shifted so you were more comfortable before trying to speak again. You started with the easiest vocal warmup you remembered and the man looked over at you with eyebrows raised.

“You good?” he asked. You nodded in response, hoping that your throat would relax and stop throbbing.

“Yeah, I think so,” you told him. “The side of my neck really aches where that man bit me.” His eyebrows furrowed at this and you thought maybe you just imagined it, that nobody actually bit you, but the pain was real enough in that moment and it was certainly real enough when he bit you. “Also,” you continued, “I still don’t know what your name is.” He seemed to think about this for a moment.

“I’m Jaemin Na,” he said eventually. “This is my house. And I think maybe we need to take a closer look at your bite, I didn’t realize it still hurt. Usually the throbbing goes away after a day or two.” You found yourself nodding along before his words sank in.

“Okay, uh, nice to actually know who you are now. I’m Y/N,” you said. There were suddenly many more questions floating around your brain. Usually he had said, which meant he had dealt with vampire bitten people before. How? Was he one? Why weren’t you a vampire? And how long had you been asleep for? They circled around your head like a dog chasing its tail until you realized that Jaemin was in front of you. It seemed like he was waiting for you to say something.

“Sorry,” you murmured. “What was that?”

“I said we have all the time in the world for you to ask me the questions I know you must have. Don’t psych yourself out. You’re safe.” Despite the fact that you knew next to nothing about him you found yourself once again trusting him without reason. He just seemed like a genuinely nice person, someone you could believe to tell you nothing but the truth.

“Okay,” you agreed, and it came out like a sigh. Your throat gave a particularly unpleasant throb and you unconsciously brought a hand up to rub at it. Jaemin’s hand fastened around your wrist and pulled it away, looking closely at your skin. He sighed.

“You’ve probably figured out by now that the man who bit you was a vampire. If you haven’t, have your moment of denial now.” You just looked back at him, surprised.

“Denial?”

“Yeah. Usually when humans find out about vampires for the first time they aren’t very accepting of it. I’ve had to replace my windows a few times from thrown objects.” You almost laughed before realizing that he was serious.

“Okay, well, I already got that, so go ahead,” you prompted.

“Great!” His eyes got just a little bit less heavy with your statement and he continued, “contrary to popular belief, vampires don’t actually turn humans all that often. If we had that little self control the whole population would be dead or turned already.” You noted his use of the word we and shuddered a little. He could attack you too? He seemed so gentle.

For the first time you noticed your soup in a bowl on the coffee table. Jaemin reclaimed your attention by speaking again. “We’re also pretty good at choosing who to bite, and when. We’re not heartless. We try to choose people with good metabolisms so that we can return them to Earth quickly.” At this you inhaled so sharply that he paused, looking over at you.

“We aren’t on Earth anymore?” you asked shakily. He shook his head with a quirk of his lips. That distracted you enough to calm down for a moment. He really was a gorgeous person. Was the word person still applicable to vampires? You didn’t know. He sucked you out of your thoughts again with a hand waved in front of you.

“No, we’re not on Earth. Where we are… it’s like a parallel plane of existence. Vampires can live here, do live here, in bigger bunches than we can on Earth. We call it ‘Vahmpyr.’ I always thought that was a really unoriginal name, but I was turned after it was discovered so I didn’t have much of a say. It would be like you trying to rename Earth.” He picked up your bowl of soup and stirred it around, handing it to you, before continuing.

“This is my vacation house of sorts, where I nurse humans who have been bitten back to their healthy selves. Generally we vampires try to keep one certified nurse or doctor in each coven just in case, more if the coven is large. It’s a handy skill to have. Especially if you happen to have parts of your coven who are as chaotic as ours.” He looked over at you and smiled wryly before adding, “I didn’t poison the soup, you know.” You looked down at your lap where the warm bowl sat and laughed under your breath before picking up the spoon and taking a bite. It was delicious. You flashed him a thumbs up with your mouth full and he smiled brightly again.

Once you had swallowed you asked, “how can you bite humans and not turn them? I didn’t know it was possible to not turn us.” He nodded like he was expecting this question.

“It’s kind of a strange feeling,” he told you. “Biting, I mean. It’s not like the human feeling of biting into a piece of meat. It’s just… it’s amazing. It’s like cold fruit on a summer’s day, hot chocolate while snow falls. It’s at once a feeling of absolute power and absolute devotion because tasting a human’s blood puts them above everything else, at least for a few moments. At the same time you’re aware that their body is falling apart and right into you. It’s intoxicating. Every once in a while you’ll bite someone that just tastes extraordinarily good, or meet someone with a unique and, pardon my language, delicious, smell. Then your body sort of automatically realizes you want them to stick around and releases the venom.”

“So,” you said, interested by his version of vampires, “if you bit me right now, I’d be fine?”

His eyes sparked with something new. Anger, you thought, or something close to it. “I just spent four days nursing you back to health and you want me to bite you just to see what happens?” he asked incredulously.

“No! I was just confirming. I’m sorry,” you murmured, and shoved another bite of the soup into your mouth for good measure. He sighed.

“I’m sorry too, it feels so easy to talk to you. I forget that you’re new to this.” You choked on your soup while he and he hurriedly patted your back as you regained your breath. “Are you alright?”

“Did you say you spent four days nursing me back to health?” you asked, head spinning. Four days. Four days. Four days. “I’ve been missing from Earth for four days?”

He deliberated for a moment. “Yes, and no. You’ve been off of Earth for four days, yes, but you aren’t missing.” You raised an eyebrow in response and he hurried to explain more. “I mean, obviously you’re here, and yes, you’ve been here for four days, asleep, recovering from Jisung’s bite. On the other hand, there’s still a you on Earth right now. That’s the interesting thing about Vahmpyr. We can bring humans back, with some effort, and while they’re here, a version of them is still on Earth. It’s still you. And if you go back, from what I understand, you get your other half’s memories back, like you never left. It’s quite the phenomenon.” He seemed completely serious and you were inclined to believe him, but this was insanity. Another you, a perfect copy, walking around on Earth while you hung out with the vampires in their parallel plane? You pinched yourself. It hurt, and you winced. Jaemin looked at you with this horrible understanding glimmer in his eyes like he was saying I know how this is. It’s weird and unimaginable but it’s here. Please don’t break any of my things.

Eventually you just kept sitting and looked back at him. “This really is good soup,” you said. He looked at you in surprise before bursting out laughing, face lighting up like the horizon at sunrise.

“You’re not going to attack me?” he asked between chuckles. “That’s the normal response. And thank you, that’s my favorite kind of soup too.” You shook your head, smiling back at him.

“I decided that there’s no changing it even if this is just a fever dream induced by an infected human,” you explained to him. “And wait, can you actually eat still? Like stuff besides blood?” In response he ran over to the small kitchen and grabbed a spoon of his own, dipping it into the bowl and moving it to his mouth. When he was done he smiled at you.

“I can still eat human foods. Nothing is as good as blood, of course, but I can still enjoy it. It’s just dulled by the transformation. And I’m glad that’s the stance you take on being transported to a different plane, I’ve known humans to react rather badly.” He took a moment to think. “For example, there was a woman who was convinced we had sexually assaulted her, which is a fair thought, but she wouldn’t let me explain anything to her. She ran outside as soon as her legs were strong enough and ran right into Lucas. He’s a really big guy, wide and tall and strong and such. She was so terrified she ran into my bathroom and I had to give her the spiel from through the door. Not the finest of interactions.” In spite of yourself you laughed. You could imagine the woman’s fear, especially if this Lucas was as infuriatingly gorgeous as Jaemin and the man who had bit you. You probably should’ve felt the same way, but something about Jaemin was just relaxing, and you felt safe with him.

“I get it,” you told Jaemin. “All of you guys; the guy who bit me - what did you say his name was? Jisung? Yeah, him. Jisung and you and probably Lucas, you all look like models which I guess goes with the vampire narrative, but it’s a little shocking since I’ve never seen someone so good looking. It’s nearly scary.” You looked back up to see Jaemin looking surprised.

“You think we’re good looking? Even after you got bitten by one, abducted by another, and have only heard of the third in a story about someone running away screaming?”

You shrugged. “All of that doesn’t change the facts. You’re still some pretty perfect looking human beings.” A moment later you realized what you had said and wrinkled your nose. “Sorry, uh, creatures. Is that offensive?” Jaemin laughed again and wow you could get addicted to that laugh. It was so carefree. You supposed that came with immortality.

“Technically ‘creatures’ is more accurate but isn’t very nice-sounding, even if we are unnatural monsters.” He said this as though he had come to terms with it. Even if we are unnatural monsters.

“I don’t think you’re unnatural,” you told him. “I mean, if there is a higher power out there then He or It or They created a whole plane for you and if not then nature did. I don’t think Vahmpyr would exist if you were unnatural.” He looked at you without speaking as you took another spoonful of soup.

“That’s… that’s a new way of looking at it.” He looked conflicted, like he was trying to reconcile your view of him with his view of himself. “I don’t think our plane was meant to exist though, by higher power or nature. Humans are beautiful because they age and there is room for change within your society. It’s hard to change an entire plane full of the unchanging.”

“Maybe so,” you argued, “but you’re obviously gorgeous on the outside, and on the inside it seems like you have a good system too. If I was a vampire I don’t think I’d take care of the humans I had bitten. It wouldn’t have occurred to me. They would all die. I would be dead, come to think of it.”

“That’s true,” he conceded. “You really do have a unique view of things.”

“Thank you?” It came out sounding more like a question than you intended. You finished your bowl of soup, licking the excess off of your upper lip. Setting the bowl back down seemed to break whatever spell had kept you in eager conversation with him. You supposed all of your questions had been answered, for now. Jaemin helped you get set up with Netflix on his TV and went back outside to his garden. He explained that you could call for him through the open window if you needed him, he would be right nearby. You nodded, already distracted by the opening scene of your show.

After a while you realized that there were low voices coming from outside. It sounded like Jaemin was talking to someone. You turned the volume down on the TV a little bit to listen. Maybe you could meet the infamous Lucas or someone else in Jaemin’s vampire family.

“... have to bring him to me?” Jaemin was saying. “You tasted him, you know his scent. This is painful. His scent is all over my things, my bed.” He let out a small groan and the other man with him chuckled breathily.

“Hyung, I didn’t mean for him to smell so good I swear, it was a spur of the moment decision. I was hunting in his area and his scent was so enticing. Plus, I was hungry!” You shuddered at the mention of hunting. This one, who must be Jisung, was far less civilized than Jaemin, it seemed.

Jaemin made an angry noise and his words hissed out when he spoke. “You think it was enticing out in the open air of Poland? On a windy day? I’ve been smelling him acutely on my things, in my house, for four days and it hurts. My venom has been going non-stop for the entire period and it’s not like I can just change him, he’s got a life ahead of him!” Part of your heart went out to Jaemin - he was trying so hard to take care of you and even caused himself pain for it. That explained why he had reacted so negatively when you asked what would happen if he bit you. You wouldn’t have been fine. You would’ve become like him. The thought didn’t cause the anger or disgust you thought it should have. It sounded nice, almost, to be like him. To stay in his safety for eternity.

“Jaemin,” said a new voice. It was strong and rough like tree bark lined his throat. “You can return him back to the real world in just a few more days and you’ll be free of him. It’s not like he’d want to stay here anyway, his friends and family are back on Earth. We can keep Jisung home and have him feed on Chenle until he learns his lesson.”

Someone, presumably Jisung, made a wounded noise. “I can control myself, I promise. Don’t make me feed on Chenle, Hyung, he doesn’t taste anywhere near as good.” Definitely Jisung.

“Jisung,” said Jaemin’s voice. “Don’t argue, you brought this on yourself. And me,” he adds as an afterthought.

Jisung’s sullen voice responded, “fine, Hyung, but Chenle isn’t going to be happy either, you know.” You thought maybe Jaemin must have nodded or something because nobody said anything for a while. You turned off the TV, suddenly bored with the program and head full of new questions. The top one on the list was why. Why did you affect them this way? Why did Jaemin treat you so nicely when you were hurting him? Why did Jisung sound like a puppy who had been reprimanded? Why did Jaemin and the other man have the power to ground him, essentially? Then there were the who questions. Who was the man with the voice like tree bark? Who was Chenle, and why wouldn’t he be happy? Lastly were the when questions. When would you be going home? When would you see them again? Would you see them ever again? When would Jisung be allowed to hunt again?

You were so deep in your head that you didn’t notice the door opening and Jaemin coming in, two men behind him, until he stopped and waved a hand in front of you.

“Y/N, you okay? I brought you some people to meet.” He stepped back and you forced your eyes to refocus on what was in front of you. When you looked up at him, he presented the two other guys like he was a car salesman and these were his favorite models. “This is Jisung, you’ve met him already although I don’t know if you remember him.” You nodded, looking over him. He had on a grey crewneck sweatshirt over a pair of black sweatpants today and looked far less terrifyingly beautiful flanked by his hyungs.

“I remember him,” you told them. “You’re the one who bit me.” You didn’t think it was possible for him to look more sheepish than he already did but he managed to, and shrank back so that he was standing half-behind the other man. The other guy had bleached hair falling messily over his forehead, and even though he was shorter than Jisung, he seemed to command your attention more. He had on a green sleeveless shirt that showed off arms rippling with muscles. You gulped, looking up at him, but then he smiled at you. His whole demeanor changed. He felt less like he was about to kill you and more like he might accidentally strangle you to death in a hug. His eyes scrunched up into little crescents and you found yourself smiling back.

“I’m Jeno,” he said, walking forward to shake your hand. “Sorry I didn’t come to visit earlier.” His voice still sounded like bark lined his throat, but less so now that he wasn’t bothering to limit his volume.

“That’s fine,” you replied. “I just woke up earlier today.” You glanced towards Jaemin; he looked like a proud mom watching you interact with his friend. “Jaemin fed me, and since then I’ve just been sitting here watching TV. I can’t find my phone, and even if I did I’m not sure I could walk over to it. My legs are out of practice.”

Jeno smiled again. “That’s pretty common for Jisung’s victims. We found out he has these little back teeth that make it more painful for the people he bites so they usually need more bed rest to recover from the strain on their bodies and the blood loss.”

You nodded, as though that made sense. They still let Jisung hunt with his unpredictability and extra teeth? That seemed a little irresponsible of them, but you supposed that Jeno and Jaemin weren’t that much older than him in the first place. You tried to bring up your next subject subtly.

“Speaking of recovery, when do you think I’ll be going back to Earth?” The change in the room was immediate. Jeno’s smile faltered enough for you to see his eyes, Jaemin’s shoulders slumped, and Jisung’s foot started tapping against the rug. “It’s not that I don’t like it here,” you interjected, “I'm just worried that my, uh, double self will get up to trouble and stuff. What if someone notices it’s not me?”

Jisung looked at Jaemin. “You either did a really bad job of explaining this or he wasn't listening, Hyung.” Jaemin glared at him in response and chose not to dignify the statement with an answer. Jisung huffed at him and turned to you. “It’s you, y’know, back on Earth. Like… when a starfish gets cut in half, both halves grow into full starfish again. Something similar happened to you. Same organism, same guy, just two different places. Is that a weird comparison?”

“What he means,” interjected Jeno before you could reply, “is that the you down there has all of your experiences and memories and the same brain. It’s the exact same person as you, just two versions of you. When you go back you won't even have a bite scar.” At this you lifted your hand to rub at the mark on your throat. You saw Jisung’s eyes follow the action and he licked his lips. You put your arm back down into your lap and swallowed, the sound echoing in your head.

Finally Jaemin spoke. “And to answer your question, as soon as we get you strong enough to walk on your own you can go back. I mean technically there’s a body waiting for you down there, but we don’t know what would happen if we sent you back faulty, so we like to be careful.” You laughed at his use of the word faulty and nodded.

“Okay. Do you guys have a portal or something that’ll take me back?” At this all three men burst into laughter and a high pitched squeal joined the mix, coming from the doorway. Yet another man was standing there, thin orange-dyed hair flopping as he doubled over laughing.

“A- a portal,” he wheezed out between laughs. “No, we don’t have a portal.” You threw him a disgruntled look.

“I was just asking…”

Jaemin looked equally off-put and said, “Y/N, this is Chenle, Jisung’s best friend and our second child. Sorry about his lack of a filter.” His lips pursed unhappily and you rushed to reassure him.

“No, that’s okay, I don’t know if that was stupid question. No feelings hurt, he’s fine.” Jaemin looked unconvinced, so you sat up more towards Chenle and reached out a hand. “I’m Y/N.”

“Oh is that your name?” he replied breezily, shaking your hand quickly. “They were right, you do smell good.” Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Jaemin shift protectively.

“Chenle.” His voice came out a growl, raising hairs on the back of your neck. “Don’t you dare.” It was interesting, you thought, how this dynamic worked. From what you had heard with Jisung, Jaemin had always contained himself, like he was reprimanding his favorite child. With Chenle he seemed almost dangerous, like it was possible for him to hurt a fly, and things much bigger than a fly. You wondered if he was this way with all of his patients, or if Chenle just bothered him more with you than usual.

“I’m not going to, mom, chill out a moment.” Chenle, you decided, must be the bad egg of their group. Every family had at least one, and here was theirs. He seemed the most likely to hurt something for the fun of it, and it almost seemed like he should have been the one to attack you, not Jisung. You wondered, in the distant back of your head, whether he had extra teeth for biting like Jisung did. Maybe it was better not to find out.

“Please don’t call me mom,” Jaemin sighed in response, all of the fight leaving him a rush. His muscles were still tense, though, and he ran a hand through his cotton candy colored hair.

“Chenle,” said Jeno, “I think you and Jisung should go talk. He has news for you.” Jisung shuddered slightly, his nod small and tense. You remembered his reaction earlier, when he had been informed that he needed to feed from Chenle for the time being. Chenle looked between Jisung and Jeno and an expression appeared on his face that didn’t seem natural on him - uncomfortable confusion. What you had seen in this past tension filled minute was that he was self assured and rambunctious. Now you wondered if he respected Jeno, regardless of that. You supposed you didn’t really have time to find out, you would be going home as soon as you could walk on your own. Speaking of which-

“I need to use the bathroom again,” you said as Jisung walked out of the house with Chenle right behind him.

“You should try getting up on your own,” Jeno suggested. “The more you sit around the harder it’ll be for your legs to get strong again.” You nodded and used the arm of the couch to haul yourself to your feet. Your knees started shaking again and Jaemin hurried to support you a little, until you felt a little more steady on your feet. Once you did, you tentatively took a tiny step towards the bathroom. Your arms flew out to your sides to help with balance and Jaemin took the mother bird stance, worriedly standing within arm’s length to catch you if you started to collapse. Jeno watched from a few paces away and smiled at you.

“Let’s see if you can get to me, okay? Then we can help if you need support.” You nodded and gritted your teeth, shuffling forward on your weak legs slowly. The good news: you made it to him without falling or using Jaemin’s ever-there assistance. The not so good news: you practically fell into Jeno when you got to him, using his body for support. He helped you find your center of gravity again before acting as a crutch to get you to the bathroom.

“If you need anything,” Jaemin told you, “I’ll be right out here. Don’t over-exert yourself.”

“I’ll be fine, it’s just like one step to the toilet, and there’s a nice strong counter” you assured him, and closed the door behind you as you stepped away from Jeno’s warm strength. Immediately you felt weak again but you reached out to hold on to the edge of the counter while you walked and got safely to the toilet. Your legs screeched at you as you lowered yourself onto the seat and you relaxed a little bit once you were seated. Recovery was going to be hard.

☽༓☾

Two days passed in a blur of pain and people. You met quite a few new people, like the infamous Lucas (who was a giant baby and who adored you), a woman named Joy who had actual red eyes like the legends said, and a man that everyone called Ten. Actually, you weren’t sure if Ten counted as a man. He dropped by Jaemin’s house the third day, right after Jisung and Chenle had just left after getting some flowers from Jaemin’s garden. He walked in on tentacles, long and thick ones that wrapped around the door frame and curled and uncurled as he talked. He muttered something about wishing they would just admit they were gay and asked Jaemin if he happened to have clams. Jaemin, looking amused, supplied him with an entire bucket of the little creatures. Ten gave him a jar in response and flounced out the door without even looking at you.

“Jaemin,” you asked, “what, or who, was that?” Jaemin laughed happily and the sound was so perfect that you wished he would just keep laughing forever.

“Ten is kind of unique,” Jaemin said. “Obviously, he’s got tentacles, which is unusual, and then he’s also not a vampire so none of us can quite figure out how he can get here, to Vahmpyr. But he can see the future, sort of, which is pretty helpful sometimes. Warns us when we’re getting too active and need to be careful of humans. He’s also convinced that Chenle and Jisung are gay and that they just need some guidance.”

You couldn’t decide on a question to ask about these revelations, so you settled for a very intelligent sounding “huh,” and continued your walking around the house. You were doing a lot better now with your exercises and had been able to make it around the room without holding onto anything for support four times now. Jaemin laughed again and you felt yourself actually flinch from the force of his happiness. It was addicting, almost. He went back to his Gaelic scrolls, which he was translating for a man called Kun, who you had yet to meet.

You had a sudden thought and you found yourself needing to talk, to explain about the other day. “Jaemin,” you said, dropping into the seat across from him at the table with a low groan. “The other day when Jisung and Jeno came, you guys were talking outside, you know?” He looked up from the scrolls, giving you a raised eyebrow like ‘so?’

“So I may or may not have listened to your conversation,” you told him, watching as he gave you his full attention, clicking his pen closed and rolling up the scrolls gently. He didn’t look angry, exactly, more apprehensive than anything. Like he was back to worrying about you throwing things and breaking his windows.

“And?” he prompted, closing his eyes for a moment. When he opened them you saw something strange there, like fear. But certainly the immortal and beautiful Jaemin couldn’t be scared of you. You must’ve been interpreting it wrong.

“Well you guys were talking about my smell,” you started slowly. “And, uh, you said that you- that I was causing you pain. And I was just wondering, why keep me around? Why not take me to a human hospital, or just kill me? Or turn me? Why did you make yourself suffer?”

He inhaled deeply and then shivered a little bit. When he spoke, his voice was soft and a little scratchy. “For one, we’ve never had a case like this before. I mean obviously there have been people who have smelled good to me before, but usually I’m able to ignore it. With you… it’s like my vampire body can’t get enough of your scent. It wants to turn you, to keep you, in its selfishness. That part of me is weak, in its greed. And of course I couldn’t kill you, I could barely control myself when Chenle- when he-” Jaemin took a deep breath to steady himself. “He wanted to bite you. You smell good to our whole coven, to everyone who’s met you, at least, which is a first. Thankfully you don’t appeal to Jisung the same way you do to me though, because by now you’d be a full fledged member of the family. Jeno is really good at hiding it, but I could tell he wanted to drink from you too, when you used him to help you walk the other day. I think the only ones not affected by it are Lucas and Ten, although that could be because they’re both straight, I’m not sure.” As an afterthought, he added, “actually Lucas is demisexual, I think.”

Skipping over the bit about Lucas’ sexuality, you spoke, horrified. “I’ve been hurting all of you? Seriously, why not just make me go to a regular hospital on Earth?”

“Well it would be a little hard to just give you to a hospital on Earth and be like, ‘here, take this body which may or may not have a vampire bite in its neck,’” Jaemin told you. “And also because I haven’t given up on a patient yet, and I didn’t want the first to be because I can’t control myself. And as to why I didn’t turn you… I didn’t want to take your life away. I still don’t. I think your life is going to be a good one and I don’t want to steal that. That’s why you’re going back tomorrow.”

An empty feeling settled in your chest. “You’re sending me back tomorrow? I still haven’t met so many of your friends though!”

He leveled you with a stare. “The rest of my patients never got to meet any other members of the coven. This was a one and done. You don’t need to know the rest of them. Especially not Yuta or Hyuck, good gracious.”

Who are Yuta and Hyuck? you wanted to ask, but his tone implied the end of the conversation, so you refrained from forming the question. “Okay, uh, I’m going to go sit in the garden.”

Jaemin flashed you a barely-there smile, opening his scrolls again and clicking his pen open. “Mhm. Be careful.”

You went out to sit under a tree in his front yard. Actually there were a lot of trees in his front yard - his house was in a forest. He had neglected to mention that when he first told you about his home and you had found it fascinating how it worked. When you walked out, there wasn’t any path out of the small clearing that housed his cottage. When you imagined a person, though, a tree tunnel would open and you could go any which way you wanted. You had tried imagining your parents the first time Jaemin told you about it and it hadn’t worked. He had explained that it only worked for people on this plane of existence, which made sense. When you had imagined Joy, it had shown you a way to a small town. Jaemin had forbidden you to go anywhere without him in case someone got territorial or hungry and killed you by accident. You respected that, you didn’t want to be murdered, but you wanted to see Lucas, and talk to him. He had fun stories to tell of his best friends. Jaemin seemed a bit huffy. It would be fine to go and see him, right? You’d just go and be back quickly before Jaemin even realized you were gone.

You decided that you just needed to talk to a friend right now and focused your mind on Lucas, finding an apartment building in the largest vampire city you had seen so far. With a little more effort you could find his apartment, although you couldn’t see him. The trees opened and you glanced back at Jaemin’s cottage before setting off.

As you walked down the path you reveled in your ability to walk. After two days of walking in short bursts and trying to regain strength in your legs you were finally able to walk like a normal human being, no flailing arms or stops every few meters to take a break and rest your muscles. It was nice, after so little freedom within Jaemin’s one room cabin. You liked being out here better. You avoided tree limbs and roots as you went, always focused on getting to Lucas. At one point your focus switched from his apartment to a convenience store and you panicked, realizing that you couldn’t go there. There, you might actually get murdered like Jaemin had predicted. He hadn’t nursed you back to health and struggled through your scent just for you to go and get yourself killed. You waited, walking more slowly, until the view at the end of the tunnel switched back to Lucas’ apartment’s front door. You breathed out a sigh of relief and continued on your way.

It was fascinating to you how there was no life in the forest besides the plants. You didn’t hear or see any insects or birds and you wondered if that was because they were afraid of the vampires or if they just didn’t exist on this plane. You decided to ask Lucas when you got to his house. After a while you realized that the image at the end of the tree tunnel was no longer a moving image of where you wanted to go, but rather the actual thing, growing bigger as you progressed down the path. You found yourself increasing your pace in your hurry to see Lucas.

When you left the comfort and relative safety of the forest, you nearly ran across the street separating the apartment complex from the trees. You stumbled at one point and almost fell to the pavement but recovered and kept going. You entered the main door and started up the stairs, still hurrying a little faster than your body thought was necessary. You speed walked until you reached the third floor and started looking through the numbers, looking for a door marked with ‘311,’ the one you had seen in the forest while looking for Lucas. After a good few minutes searching, you located the hallway his apartment was in and walked down it, looking at the odd numbers on the right. They counted down from 39, so you had a ways to go. Part of you wondered if the vampires just didn’t care about your presence, because apparently your scent was pretty strong and you were sure that you were stinking up the whole hallway with your human-ness, but nobody had come to murder you yet.

When you finally got to the door labeled with a faded ‘311,’ you stopped to take a breath before knocking on the door. An uncomfortable pause (where you wondered if Lucas was out after all) later, the door opened and you breathed out a sigh of relief, only for the air to stick in your throat at the sight of a man shorter than Lucas, but much scarier.

He had dark brown hair, obviously lightened but only a bit. It fell over his forehead and stopped just short of his eyes. His lips set in a grim line as he looked over you before they pulled back into what should have been a heart stopping smile, but was instead a snarl, a grimace of distrust and anger. The feature that stuck out most to you were his eyes. You imagined that when he was happy, his eyes would glow with an inner light. Now they were dark and they promised violence.

No sooner had you come to this conclusion before he had you pinned against the opposite wall. “Give me one good reason,” he hissed, “why I shouldn’t just kill you.” His arm pressed into your throat, keeping you pinned against the wall, on your tiptoes to accommodate the height of his arm.

Lucas, I came to see Lucas, you tried to say, but it got stuck on the way out of your throat and instead what came out was a weak, “Lu…” followed by a wispy groan. The man furrowed his brow and moved to hold you against the wall by your arms so you could speak. “Lucas,” you gasped, air rushing back into your body and allowing you to speak once more. “Friend.” The man put you completely down now, on the floor, and you moved to massage your throat before his eyes, dark and threatening, halted your movement. Lucas certainly has a knack for choosing friends, you thought.

“Don’t move,” he growled, “Or I’ll throw you out our living room window. It may not kill you, but it will hurt.” Then he turned around slightly and called, “Xuxi! There’s someone here to see you!”

You heard shuffling inside before the figure of Lucas appeared, tall and thick and seeming like safety incarnate in the presence of someone as terrifying as the man who still had one hand next to your head.

“Yang?” he asked. “Is everything alright?”

The man, Yang, shifted so that Lucas could see your face. “This one just came knocking on our door and said he wanted to see you. Do you know him?”

Lucas gasped slightly and sped up, blurring a little, so that he reached you in less than a second. “Oh my gosh, Y/N, are you okay? Yangyang, this is the human that’s been staying with Jaemin for the past week, he’s my friend!”

“Hey Lucas,” you said weakly, finally reaching up to massage your throat now that you had someone to protect you from being thrown out the living room window. “I’m okay, I think. Just a little lightheaded.” Part of you wanted to add, Is his name Yang or Yangyang? but you figured now wasn’t the time to ask.

A strange look crossed Lucas’ face. “Well, I’m glad you’re alright, come inside and sit down, I’ll get you some water.” You followed him into the apartment, Yang (Yangyang?) behind you. He still slightly scared you and you stayed as close to Lucas as possible. Lucas spoke again as he grabbed a water bottle for you. You noted idly that it was Dasani. “But, uh, didn’t Jaemin tell you to, like, not come out here? So you didn’t get murdered? Cause that could’ve ended a lot worse.”

“Not you too!” you cried, exaggerating the syllables. “I know I could’ve died, but I wanted to see my friend! How hard is that to understand? Did it bother you so much that I wanted to see you?”

Lucas figited uncomfortably. “Well I appreciate that you came to see me, that’s really nice of you. It’s just that Jaemin was right. This really isn’t a safe place for you to be. I mean Yangyang could’ve killed you if he didn’t have such a heart of gold.” You threw a disbelieving glance towards the man in question and he shrugged, mouth tugging up in a mischievous grin.

“Okay, I mean, I can go back if you don’t want me here, I have to be back before Jaemin realizes I’m gone anyway,” you said, drinking more of your water. Yangyang and Lucas both froze.

“You didn’t get his permission?” Lucas asked in a tone that confused you. Was he scared of Jaemin? “Or tell him you were going for a walk? Or anything?”

“No, of course not. He would’ve said no!” you protested unhappily. This was not how you imagined this trip going.

“Okay,” Lucas said. “I’m taking you back right now. Jaemin will- well, he won’t kill me, but he’ll be scarily close if he finds out you came here.”

With a heavy sigh, you stood up. You knew that if he needed to, he could just throw you over his shoulder and carry you all the way back to Jaemin’s cottage. Darned vampire strength. “Fine.”

You got down the hallway and into the stairwell before Lucas tensed up again. “Shoot,” he muttered, looking down the stairs below. You couldn’t hear or see anything, and you were about to tell him so when he sighed and you heard a pitter patter like rain, growing louder by the second.

Moments later Jamin appeared in front of you, pink hair mussed and eyes wild with a mix of fear and anger. For a moment he didn’t even speak, just glared at you. The fear faded from his eyes. When he did speak, the words seemed like poison being spit off the tongue of a snake.

“I can’t believe you,” he seethed. “I kept you in my house, fed you, nursed you back to health. I let you use all of my things and was even going to send you home once you were perfectly healthy again. I gave you one rule. One! Just to keep you safe! And you go and break it. You could have died, Y/N, do you understand that? I did everything in my power to keep you in an environment where you weren’t in danger! I didn’t allow Hyuck to come over, I made sure that you were prepared to meet Lucas and Jeno and even Jisung! But all of my efforts faded to nothing when you opened that doorway to the city. I’m taking you home right now, I can’t bear to keep you here any longer, not when you obviously have no sense of self preservation!”

He picked you up before you could even blink and you felt a sharp wind on your face as he ran home. His steps sounded like raindrops falling on pavement, sharp but small, a pinprick of sound in an otherwise silent stairwell. Lucas had disappeared from view in less than a second and you shut your eyes against the vertigo of being carried at such a speed. Everything blurred, everything was indistinct and most things weren’t even worthy of notice. Jaemin smelled like ink, and you had space in the very back of your mind to wonder if he had spilled his, in his haste to find you. It didn’t seem like a very vampire-like thing to do.

A few moments later you entered the canopy of the forest and every once in a while you heard a stick break under his foot or a rock get catapulted out of the way. Then you felt the sun on your back again and you gasped as Jaemin dumped you onto the warm grass, standing tall before you. He said something in a language you didn’t know - it sounded vaguely like Latin - and the grass fell out from under you as the ground opened up and you fell into space.

☽༓☾

When you woke up the next morning to your alarm, you wondered briefly if your entire experience with Jaemin and the other vampires was a dream. The puncture wounds that had been on your neck were utterly nonexistent, and there was no evidence on you that you had even left the comfort of your bed. On the other hand, you had clear memories of your time in Vahmpyr, short as it was. You remembered how it smelled and how the trees had felt as you walked outside. You remembered the feeling of the cool granite of the bathroom countertop. Mostly you remembered being with Lucas, Jeno, Jisung, and Chenle. You remembered almost dying at the hands of Lucas’ roommate and you remembered the terrifying flight in Jaemin’s arms.

Jaemin.

You grimaced at yourself in the mirror and spit out your toothpaste. There was no way your mind could have made up someone as excruciatingly kind and beautiful as Jaemin was. At the same time you felt anger bubble up inside of you. He hadn’t even given you a chance to say goodbye - he had just put you through to your Earthly self without any words between the two of you. You hadn’t said goodbye to Lucas or Jeno either, nor had you seen the rest of your new acquaintances. The anger flared, hot against your insides, and you could swear you actually felt your chest twinge. You spat out the last of your toothpaste and replaced your toothbrush in its holder, going to get ready for your day.

The next few days were spent alternately missing the simplicity of life on Vahmpyr and being angry at Jaemin. Assignments piled onto your shoulders and in addition to that, you discovered some sort of disconnect between you and the part of you that had stayed on Earth while you were out. That part of you seemed to dismiss your time in Vahmpyr as something it had dreamed up all on its own. It didn’t acknowledge you and liked to take control of your body whenever you weren’t paying full attention to it. Every time it did that you felt the twinge in your chest again, except it got more and more painful. You started having headaches that the other part of you didn’t seem to feel but which pressed against your skull like tiny war hammers thudding into the bone by your temples and occasionally your eyes.

Your vision would go blurry and you started having lapses of consciousness, only to wake up and find yourself doing just fine with your other part in charge. During these lapses you would dream of being in Vahmpyr again, and you saw Lucas smiling with Yangyang, Chenle rolling his eyes at Jisung before hugging him tightly. Other men you didn’t know and other women you hadn’t met also flew across the screen of your eyes but they disappeared quickly. Ten even passed by once, haughtily scrolling past everyone until he sidled up to a tall man with long blond hair who smiled down at him and pressed a gentle kiss to one of Ten’s tentacles. A man with red hair and an eyebrow slit served coffee to a man who chewed like a rabbit. A group of three guys held up a sign that said “Go Taemin!” as a group played football. A woman in a suit jacket over jean shorts sat with a box of papers, crying. Joy played a game with other girls where they tried to push lockers over on each other. Everything (with the exception of the lockers) looked like fun. It was better than Earth, at any rate. Every night you went to bed wondering if you might just die by morning and leave the other half of yourself behind to control the body. You were just along for the ride at this point.

The evening of your fourth day back on Earth you went to sit outside the dorm building on a bench, just for some fresh air. For once you had control of the body and you let your head tip back, closing your eyes and just feeling. The bench pressed up against your back in a way that hurt slightly, but your body had been wracked with pain for two days straight and it didn’t ache so much as behind your eyes or inside your skull. The evening breeze blew across your eyelids and brought with it the scent of sun-warmed dirt.

It smelled like Jaemin, that first morning you woke up in his house. When he had helped you across the cottage towards the bathroom and been outlined by the sun, when he had made you soup and sat with you on the couch while he explained where you were and what he was.

Your body shook with a particularly painful pound on the inside of your ribs. You let yourself relax against the bench again and the sensations enveloped you once more. You felt yourself let go of your body on Earth and float away, less falling and more weightlessness, floating away on a wind that smelled of sun on dirt and felt like arms wrapping around you while rain fell on summer-warmed pavement. You floated away on this wind and it lifted you endlessly until you nodded off, finally free of the pains that had kept you company for the past few days. You wondered if perhaps you had died of it, if being back on Earth had perhaps been more detrimental to you than beneficial.

Then your back hit something hard and the breath was knocked from your lungs, waking you up again and telling you that something had gone very very wrong or very very well. You gasped air back into your body and rolled over weakly, now in a body you recognized as the one you inhabited on Vahmpyr. Grass poked your inner arms and you pushed yourself up to sitting with your legs crossed. You massaged your chest as you inhaled and found yourself miraculously free of pain, aside from the slight burn of breath inhaled too quickly after loss of oxygen. The war hammers in your head had vacated the premises and the aches of your ribs had subsided, making it easier to breath and just sit without drawing in pained gasps.

You registered a return of cold as a shadow fell over you and looked up to see none other than Chenle, with Jisung behind him. Did they never go anywhere without each other? Well, besides hunting.

“Y/N?” He gaped down at you, and you looked back up at him.

“The one and only,” you said, before you realized that didn’t apply to you anymore. “Well, one of only two in existence.”

He laughed that weird dolphin laugh he had again and reached out a hand to help you up. You took it, standing unsteadily on two feet that didn’t ache the moment you put weight on them. “What’re you doing back here? Jaemin-hyung said he sent you back to Earth.”

You feel the corners of your mouth tug down almost instinctively at the mention of Jaemin. “He did. I don’t think Earth agreed with me,” you told him. Jisung walked forward and looked you up and down.

“Maybe we should take you back to Jaeminnie hyung, he’ll know what to do.”

You groaned. “I really don’t want to deal with him at the moment.”

“We can take him to Kun-ge,” Chenle interjected smoothly. “He’ll know better than Jaemin-hyung anyway, he’s been a doctor and a vampire longer.” A side of Chenle appeared that you hadn’t seen yet, a side that took charge in a way that wasn’t just insulting anyone near him. Maybe he wasn’t so bad after all. He took your hand with one of his and grabbed Jisung’s arm with the other.

“Come on, let’s go see Kun-ge!”

☽༓☾

Kun, as it happened, lived in the same building as Lucas. Actually he lived one apartment over, behind the door labeled ‘313.’ When he opened the door he seemed strangely unsurprised to see you there, just breathed out a sigh and let you in. He had nice light brown hair that worked well with his skin tone and eyes that smiled even when he wasn’t. He had this aura of parenting around him, like he took care of everyone he knew. It was comfortable to be around him from the start. Once Chenle had explained where he found you, Kun sat you down and asked exactly what had happened.

“Listen,” he said seriously. “I’ve never seen a human react the way you did. Nobody has ever come back, from what I know. We have to figure out exactly what happened, why you came back, and how to get you back to Earth.”

You inhaled deeply, relishing in the painless breath. “Okay, uh, I’m not really sure where to start,” you told him.

“Tell me about how you got sent home.”

“Okay. So, I left Jaemin’s cottage to come and see Lucas and I guess Jaemin is a lot scarier when he gets mad, because he was not happy when he found out I had left. He did this, like, superfast running thing, very Twilight, and carried me to this random clearing, I guess, I didn’t look around much.” You paused to let Kun write that down on his very professional looking clipboard, but he waved you on. Right, he was a vampire. He could write stuff fast.

“So he sort of dumped me on the ground and said something in a language I didn’t know, it sounded like Latin but I’m not sure. Then the ground sort of opened up and I fell and fell and fell until I rejoined my, uh, Earthly body.” You paused to take a breath and think about how to convey what happened when you got back to Earth.

“When I got back there was this weird disconnect with my body. Like, uh, there was me, in my body, and there was also this other part of me, the part of me that stayed behind when I came here the first time. That other part sort of took the main control of the body we lived in, and it felt like I was along for the ride. It liked to pretend that I wasn’t there, that my time here in Vahmpyr wasn’t real. It was weird. Then a little into my stay, I started getting these super bad pains all over my body.”

Kun interrupted you by holding up a finger. “How long were you home before the pains started?”

You thought back, struggling to pinpoint when they had started. “I think maybe a little longer than twenty four hours? When I got back I woke up in that body, and about one sleep later I started getting the pains, which would be like twenty five hours. Twenty four and a half, maybe. At first it was just these weird twinges in my chest, like my ribs were popping every time I took a breath, then it progressed. I got these horrible headaches, and my chest hurt all the time, and walking felt like attacking my feet, and my neck was always super achy. The thing is, my other half didn’t feel any of that. It was just my half of our consciousness. Then about on my fourth day back I went outside and sat on the bench outside my dorm. I laid back and, uh, it felt like I died or something. I just felt my consciousness leave the body and I guess the other half is still there living down there and now I’m here.”

Kun, Chenle, and Jisung all sat on the couch together, Kun looking over his notes while the other two guys just sat in silence. After a minute Kun spoke. “I don’t really know what happened to you, but I’m almost certain that your connection to your human self is gone. Or at least, your Earthly self. I don’t think we can send you back anymore, I’m sorry.” He looked at you, eyes full of remorse. You expected to mirror that feeling, but you discovered that it didn’t bother you so much. The other half of yourself would keep all of your friends and family from having to mourn you, and you could stay here, painless.

“I’m actually kind of glad about that,” you told them, and Chenle’s head snapped from picking at his jeans to look at you.

“Glad?” he demanded, incredulous. “To stay here?”

“Well yeah, I mean I was in pain most of the time I was back on Earth so it’s not like I’m eager to go back there. Plus, since I didn’t actually die nobody has to mourn me. And part of the time I was like… seeing Vahmpyr. Like is Ten dating this super tall guy with blonde hair? And Joy was pushing lockers over on her friends? And you two!” You turned an accusatory finger at Jisung and Chenle. “You two are adorable together!”

Jisung sighed. “Not you too…”

Kun shushed him. “You could see what was going on here in Vahmpyr?”

“Well, sort of,” you told him. “I saw that Lucas and Yangyang were having, like, a picnic?”

Kun’s eyebrows furrowed and he muttered, “I knew they had one without me.”

“I also saw this guy with red hair giving coffee to a man who sort of chewed like a bunny. And there was this group of three guys holding up a sign that said “Go Taemin!” I think, and I guess Taemin must have been playing football with the others I could see, although I couldn’t recognize any of the people playing. Oh, and there was this lady with really pretty hair who had a box of papers and she was just, like, sitting there and crying. She had the part of her hair near her neck bleached and the outer layers were still black, and she was wearing a suit jacket with jean shorts, which is kind of a weird combination.”

Kun looked over his notes. “That’s really interesting. All of those things have happened since you left, definitely. Joy and her friends like to play games where they try to kill each other, because they’re all immortal. The red haired man was probably Taeyong, and the bunny man would be Doyoung. Ten is dating Johnny, and yes, he is pretty tall and has blonde hair. I haven’t seen Taemin-hyung in a while so I don’t know if he’s playing football again or not. I don’t know about the woman with the cool hair either.”

“Definitely Taeyeon-noona,” Jisung interjected. “She broke up with her boyfriend a few days ago, and she does have hair dyed like that right now.”

Kun raised his eyebrows in curiosity. “Huh, I hope she’s doing okay. Actually I think maybe we should worry more about whoever she broke up with, she’s not exactly good with breakups.”

As though it’s a secret, Jisung’s next words came out in a whisper, and he leaned closer to Chenle and Kun. You had to strain a little to hear. “I heard it was a human. He, like, got super insecure about the fact that she wasn’t aging with him and broke up with her. It’s killing her. She really liked that guy.”

“Why did she get with him in the first place?” Chenle sounded absolutely confused. “She knew it would end like this. That’s how the last two ended.”

“I don’t know, but now I’m really worried for the guy,” said Kun. “We might have to cover up for her.” The implications of his words sank in and you made a small sound. All three men snapped their heads up and it looked as though they forgot you were there.

“Oh, my gosh, I’m so sorry Y/N! Do you have anywhere to stay where you’ll be safe for at least a few days? Jaemin’s cottage should be pretty easy to stay hidden in.”

“He doesn’t want to go and see him after what happened,” Chenle supplied helpfully. “I’m taking him back to my place once we’re done here.” Kun appeared to consider that, and then nodded his approval.

“That sounds alright. Tomorrow we can go out and get him some things to make his stay more comfortable. Maybe we can find one of the Outer Plots to put him on.”

“Outer Plots?” you asked, because the way he said it demanded capitalization in your head.

“They’re sort of exactly what they sound like,” Kun explained. “There are these pieces of land around the edges of the towns that nobody really lives on but they’re solid places to live, if we can get a good one. It’s a little bit like Jaemin’s land out there, lot’s of forest, so we can set up tree tunnels for you to get here fast, if you need to.”

You nodded. “That does sound pretty good. I don’t know what I’m going to do though, it’s not like I have all that many hobbies. I was midway through getting my bachelor’s when I left.”

“That’s fine,” Chenle said. “I have plenty of things to keep you entertained, and we can get some of the other guys to keep you company if we’re busy. There are a lot of us with a lot of open time. I also have a ton of extra textbooks from learning languages, so if you want you can spend your life becoming fluent in Japanese, Latin, French, German, Scottish Gaelic, Hawaiian, or one of the others I have. Or multiple, if you learn fast.”

“Thanks Chenle.” He wasn’t actually so bad, you thought. He had brought you to Kun and he was offering to let you use his house and his things. “I might just take you up on that.”

“You guys should probably leave now, actually,” Kun said. “At human speeds you’ll get home right on time.”

Chenle checked his watch and nodded. “He’s right. We should get going.”

You thanked Kun again and Chenle led you out the door, Jisung following behind you. You separated ways with him once you left the apartment building, his figure disappearing swiftly into the trees. Once you blinked there was no finding him again.

You walked behind Chenle quietly, choosing to observe your surroundings. You didn’t see much in the way of low quality or old houses here. It seemed as though a lower class had been eradicated entirely and the vampires could choose where they wanted to live. When you asked him how that was possible, Chenle laughed that peculiar screech of his and said, “when you’re reborn into a family of beings that has been around for millenia, you accumulate some shared wealth. Especially when some of the coven members have doctorate degrees and work on Earth full time, and some of us had familial connections as well, like money left in wills and such.”

You nodded. “So you guys are basically like the elite class of the universe.”

“Pretty much. My house is probably the biggest you’ll ever be in, because I like to splurge a little bit. Unfortunately you might get lost, though, and if you do, just call for me. I’ll make sure to be listening all night in case you need me.”

“It’s that big?” you asked in disbelief. “Do you live in Buckingham Palace?”

He grinned, showing off his incisors. “Bigger.”

“And you live alone?”

“Well, I haven’t always. Jisung and I will probably have sleepovers for all of eternity, and whenever a new coven starts they stay with me for a few days while they get their own living quarters set up, but for the most part , yes. I don’t actually spend a ton of time in the house, it’s more just for the sensation of owning a building that large.”

You shook your head. “As a broke college student, I find that completely unfair. I was working two jobs just to keep my head above water and you’re on this alternate plane just chilling in your house that’s bigger than Buckingham Palace.”

He smiled again. “Nobody said life was fair, Y/N. Nobody.”

☽༓☾

Three days and a shocking amount of Gaelic verbs later (you only got lost in Chenle’s palace four times), a house was ready for you to move in. Johnny and Ten had furnished it for you, and Chenle had explained that the two of them were the stylists of the coven, for the most part. The mysterious Yuta had also taken part in finding high quality fabrics to fit their vision. You had thanked the whole group of vampires who helped with the house profusely for not only building said house, but also for getting you a bunch of comfortable furniture. They had smiled and said it was their pleasure and all of the typical things, but what really stood out was Ten’s reaction. He had barely paid attention to you - he barely paid attention to anyone besides Johnny and Yangyang, who he called their baby - this whole time. When you had thanked him, however, he wrapped all but four of his tentacles around you in a surprisingly dry hug.

“It’s refreshing to have you around,” he had told you. “I’m glad we could help you get settled.”

Later as you reflected on it, you figured that it probably got pretty boring to know what was going to happen all of the time, and maybe you had disrupted the usual happenings of his visions and the vampires in Vahmpyr. Maybe you made other people happy too, to have a new person around.

One person who didn’t seem thrilled to have you back was Jaemin. Every time you made eye contact with him (twice, over the three days), he grimaced and turned away like the sight of you hurt him. Maybe he was mad that you were back within scenting range. He wouldn’t get near you, so it wasn’t like you could ask.

While settling into your new normal, you discovered that Chenle was actually a good friend. His love language was insults and pointed jabs, but he actually did care for his friends quite a lot. He had watched Jaemin from across your front yard as they were laying down grass seed and sighed.

“I wish he would just talk to you,” he told you sadly. “I’ve never, in all our years together, seen him like this. I’m not sure anyone has, even Taeil-hyung.” He didn’t elaborate on who Taeil was, and you didn’t press him. Was Jaemin really so mad that he couldn’t even look at you?

“Well,” you had said, “I don’t want to talk to him. He dumped me through an interplanar tunnel without warning me and yelled at me like the world was ending when I took a walk. I don’t think there’s much to be talked about. He must hate me.” Over Chenle’s shoulder, you had seen Jaemin flinch slightly. How strange. Part of you hoped that he felt the same pain that you did, a sort of ache that told you that you were unwanted. Another part of you murmured quietly in the back of your mind that you were being petty. You had chosen to ignore it for the time being. You were being petty, but so was he. He had thousands of years on you, so he should be the mature one, right?

“I don’t think he hates you. I think you both need to grow up and talk like adults,” Chenle had said flatly, orange hair seeming to flash in the sun. Jaemin sort of curled in on himself.

“Tell that to Mister Millenia before you lecture me on growing up,” you had replied. Then you reopened your Gaelic textbook and pretended to bury yourself in it, blatantly ignoring Chenle’s judgemental gaze.

“Fine,” he had muttered angrily. “You can both suffer for all I care.” Then he had stalked off and started pounding fence posts into the dirt so hard that Jeno had to tell him to take a break before he broke them.

You found yourself thinking about that moment as you walked through the trees, ironically on your way to see Jaemin. Since you had close to nothing to do , you had offered yourself up as an errand person to anyone that would hire and found yourself working for Kun running scrolls across Vahmpyr while he translated and examined them. It kept you busy and in shape, and Kun seemed happy with your service. This morning he had sent you to get the Scottish scroll back from Jaemin, along with a few other documents to pick up and drop off. You had saved this one for last, procrastinating on having to see him again. As his cottage came into full view, you sighed, preparing yourself for a cold shoulder and a very quick visit.

“Jaemin?” you called, knocking on the front door. It was closed for once, usually he kept it open for better air circulation. A moment later the door opened and there he stood, in all his cotton candy colored glory.

“Y/N? What’re you doing here?”

“Kun sent me, he wants that Scottish scroll back. He said he hopes you’re done translating it since you’re had it for a few weeks now,” you replied, willing your voice to stay professional. You were here for the scroll. When Jaemin didn’t reply, you looked up at him. “So? Where is it?”

“I don’t know why he sent you out like this, but I sent that scroll back three days ago, on our agreed upon date. I know he got it, because he sent me back a thank you with those little stickers he likes to use.”

“Oh. Um, I’ll just go then,” you muttered, turning around as you spoke. “Sorry I bothered you.”

Suddenly a hand was wrapped around your own, keeping you in place. Your breath caught in your throat, remembering the last time that had happened with a vampire. All that came out of Jaemin’s mouth, however, was, “Can I talk to you? Please?”

“Jaemin, please let me go,” you said, trying to keep your tone even. His hand released you immediately and you stepped a pace away from him and turned around so that you could see his face. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Well, uh, do you want some tea? I have some inside…” It was clear he hadn’t expected you to actually agree and he needed to collect his thoughts, so you nodded and he led you inside, sitting you on the familiar couch while he busied himself in the kitchen.

“I actually wanted to apologize,” Jaemin said after a minute. “I worried so much about protecting you that I forgot to let you enjoy your time here. It scared me how good you were at adjusting to this world, how much you liked being with Lucas and my other friends… I’m not used to humans reacting positively.” The kettle whistled and he took a moment to pour water into the mugs, steam rising gently from them in silvery whisps.

Once he poured the water, he continued speaking. “I wanted to make sure you knew that it wasn’t all fun and games here. I didn't want you to go looking for a place in our community because I was worried that you’d get killed. Vampires are pretty possessive of their property on Vahmpyr, for the most part, and you went right into one of the biggest apartment complexes within a day’s travelling distance - and that’s vampire distance, not human distance. Lucas told me about what happened with Yangyang, and I almost tore Yang’s arm off, I was so mad. He could have actually murdered you, and I couldn’t stomach the thought. What if Lucas hadn’t been home? What if Yangyang hadn’t given you that one moment to explain yourself? What if you had met another one of us on the stairs, without any protection? It terrified me to consider.” He walked over, a mug carried in each hand, and sat on the couch, leaving a large space in between you. It was strangely reminiscent of that first day, when he had explained Vahmpyr to you over soup.

“Of course,” Jaemin started, and you refocused. “That was only after I had sent you home, that he told me about that. When I dumped you in that tunnel, it was just fear of you being unsafe that made me so mad. The fact that you would willingly put yourself in danger, when I valued you so highly? Inconceivable. And yet, it happened. So I made another big mistake: I sent you home. I thought you would be better off there, regardless of what was happening. I knew you were healthy enough to walk to the city, so I thought you were fine. Apparently not. I heard from Chenle and Kun what happened to you back on Earth and it broke another part of me apart. I hurt you, in sending you back, not just in temporary emotional pain, but in physical pain that persisted through your entire stay. We still don’t know why you reacted the way you did, but it scared me to hear of it. I had made yet another mistake that could have killed you.” He paused to take a sip of his tea, and you did too. It was pleasant, not too hot and not too cold, just warming up your insides.

“Then the last straw came when you said I must hate you…” Jaemin’s voice broke slightly. “If anything, it’s the exact opposite, I realized I missed you more than I should, given you should be just a patient. I wanted to hug you the second I saw you, but you looked so mad to see me that I couldn’t do it. I was literally building a house for you and still couldn’t look you in the eyes for more than a moment. So I went home in shame, knowing that you were right, with thousands of years under my belt, I should be the more mature one. I decided that the next time I saw you, I would talk to you, no matter the circumstances. I couldn’t have you keep living thinking that I hated you. I didn’t actually expect you to come in when I asked. I thought I’d have to follow you through the woods, honestly.”

He fell silent, took another sip of his tea, and for the first time, you spoke. “I really didn’t want to talk to you. I wanted you to realize how much I hurt from your actions, but I think maybe I took that a little too far. I knew you were protecting me, but I really wanted to see somebody, and I knew you wouldn’t let me out, so I ran away. I didn’t really know what I was getting into. I probably should have asked you to accompany me, at least. Not my finest moment.”

Jaemin laughed weakly, taking another sip of tea. “Not mine either. I should have trusted you more.”

“And I shouldn’t have run off without even asking for your help..”

He smiled at you, that gorgeous little smile that made your heart smile back.

“Friends?” you asked.

He hesitated for only a moment, a strange sort of disappointment flashing across his face, before he was extending his hand to meet yours. “Friends.”

You grinned at him, finishing your tea. “Great. Now I need to go yell at Kun for sending me out to see you when I didn’t need to.”

“Isn’t it good that he did?” Jaemin asked with a confused frown on his face.

“Well yes, but it was a very Cupid-like thing to do, wasn’t it? I don’t tolerate my friends trying to play Cupid with myself and my other friends.” You stood up and walked your empty tea cup to the kitchen. “Do you want to come?”

He laughed. “No, you can just tell me all about it tomorrow, okay?”

You nodded. “Alright.”

You walked out into the cool twilight and started going towards Kun’s house. He had a big storm coming.

☽༓☾

A few days later, you were sitting in Jaemin’s cottage again, Gaelic textbook open on your lap. Since he was close to fluent in the language, he was helping you learn it. It wasn’t an extraordinarily difficult language, but some of the words were hard to pronounce and he had been eager to help you.

“Look here,” he said, pointing at some words on the page. “Say this for me.”

“Tha gaol agam ort,” you replied. He grinned.

“That’s how it’s written, but not how it’s said. Okay, now listen to me pronounce it. ‘Ha geul akeum orsht’. Repeat that for me.”

“‘Ha geul akeum orsht’? That’s how you say that?” you demanded. “This is like French! They don’t spell things anywhere close to how they’re said!”

“Unfortunately, most languages don’t. The same goes for Korean verb conjugations and English words and, yes, French everything, but it’s just learning new rules. After a while you understand it. I promise that you’ll get it eventually. You have the rest of your life.”

You looked over at him suddenly, questions rising to the forefront over Gaelic words. “Am I really going to stay here forever? Am I never going to see Earth again, just sit here as a useless human surrounded by powerful and immortal vampires, until I die?”

He seemed surprised by the questions. “I’m not sure any of us had really thought about it,” he said carefully.

“You all had just accepted the fact that I was stuck on your plane of existence with nothing worth doing to do? When am I going to use Scottish Gaelic, Jaemin? When will this actually come in handy, except to distract me? I’m here to do nothing, and the moment I go back to Earth, I start suffering. What am I meant to do here, Jaem?”

Jaemin gently lifted the textbook from your lap and put in on his coffee table, then pulled you into his side for a hug. You snuggled into him, inhaling the scent of sunshine and warm earth. Comfort.

“I don’t know exactly how to make you feel better,” Jaemin murmured from somewhere above your head. “But we all like having you around, you know that. It’s nice to have someone young around. We haven’t turned a human in about thirty years, so the novelty has worn off, and here we have this beautiful creature who is new in so many ways. You’re refreshing, and you’re human, so you’ll continue to be refreshing.”

“Well, thank you,” you said, muffled in his side. “But still, I don’t feel like I have anything worth doing here. You can all do anything I can do, just ten times faster. I have no unique skills or brains or anything. So what am I meant to do? I can’t even go spy on the other humans or anything because I can’t go back to Earth!”

Jaemin shifted you a little bit in his arms and started rubbing your shoulder softly. “Is there anything you particularly enjoy doing? Maybe you could do art, or gardening? Or I have this book of old forms of witchcraft?”

You turned to face him. “You have a book of witchcraft sitting around?”

He released you and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “I found a papyrus scroll in this ruined Egyptian city, and I kept it just ‘cause it was cool. Then I learned hieroglyphics so that I could translate it and made a copy. Unfortunately, witchcraft is… not my strong suit, and I’m somewhat afraid of giving it away in case I never see it again. I spent a lot of time and energy on that translation.”

“And you want me to use it?” you asked, confused. Why on earth would he give it to you if he didn’t trust the perfectly composed vampires around him? “I mean it sounds super cool, but aren’t you worried about it being in my hands? I am a human, after all.”

“Well-”

Jaemin was cut off at that moment by a sharp knock on the door. At least, you assumed it was a knock, it sounded a little bit more like a wet thwap than a knock. Jaemin blurred slightly as he ran over to the door and opened it, revealing cloudy skies dropping rain onto a harried-looking Ten.

“Ten-hyung?” he asked, sounding as confused as you felt. “I’d say this is a nice surprise, but why are you here? I thought today was your Earth day? Is everything alright?”

“Yes,” Ten said, gasping slightly as he spoke. “I ran straight here from the Pacific.” You took a second to think about the fact that Ten was swimming in the Pacific Ocean before refocusing on him. “-future just completely shifted, a few minutes ago. Y/N-” He turned to face you completely. “Whatever you two just did, it caused you to become a vampire in the future.”

“But we were just talking?” you told him, confused. “It wasn’t like Jaem was about to bite me.” You turned to Jaemin. “Right?”

He looked at you solemnly. “If you were going to have been bitten by me, it would have already happened. Ten-hyung, are you sure that he’s a vampire in your future? Can you see more details?”

Ten closed his eyes briefly like he was trying to focus, and in the meantime a tentacle wrung the salt and rain water out of his hair. Jaemin wrinkled his nose at the growing puddle. Ten spoke, eyes fluttering open slowly. “In the parts I can see, he’s covered in this, like, tree? It’s a little bit fuzzy. It’s green, and looks like it has brown splotches like branches. Maybe a tree falls on him or something. Anyway, you take one look at him and bite ‘im. He goes limp... After that? Fuzzy scenes of him waking up and you taking him running. Like, really running. Vampire running.”

Jaemin took a shaky breath. “Okay, I don’t know why our conversation would have caused a tree to fall on him in the future. We were talking about, like, Earth and art and stuff. Oh, and my witchcraft book.”

Ten’s eyes refocused on him, narrowing slightly. “You’re going to give him your witchcraft book after not letting me touch it? That’s a little underhanded.” His eyes narrow briefly before looking at you. “But maybe that’s it. You’ll just have to make sure that he doesn’t practice any witchcraft under the cover of trees. Otherwise I think you’ll be fine. I’ll keep you updated.”

“Thanks Ten,” you murmured. “For warning us and stuff.”

“Of course. Now I need to go back to the Pacific. Ta ta!” Ten waved to you and walked out the door.

“Well,” Jaemin said, “that’s some news, huh?”

“Yeah,” you exhaled. “Do you think that it’s okay for me to practice witchcraft with this in my future?”

“I do. I think you’ll be fine. We’ll keep you as safe as we possibly can, and if you become a vampire… at least it won’t be because I gave in. I’ll still be strong.”

“Jaem, I don’t think that was ever in question.”

“It was for me.” His voice went dark momentarily, then he brightened up again. “At any rate, I think we can safely teach you some things that’ll keep life interesting.”

You grinned. “Then let’s get started.”

☽༓☾

You were surprised at how easily witchcraft came to you, in the beginning. Jaemin insisted that you had some sort of gift with it, and as much as you told him that was silly, it seemed possible. You could easily understand instructions on Jaemin’s careful translations that even he couldn’t decipher. You gave up on Gaelic after a while, focused more on learning the original Egyptian Hieroglyphs of the spells and potions. You trusted Jaemin’s precise translation, but there was something unique about seeing an instruction in a new language and being able to understand it.

Days turned to weeks as you experimented with the materials growing in and around Vahmpyr. Taeil, who you eventually met, turned out to be a valuable resource. He was an avid collector of ancient written works, including but not limited to an original Greek copy of The Odyssey, Chinese bamboo books saved from the book burnings of Emperor Qin Shi Huang, and an exact replica of the Rosetta Stone. Taeil must have been ancient himself to have all of these valuables, but he still had the energy of the far younger members of their coven, which amazed you. He showed you different specialties of different cultures within witchcraft, ideas born from scrolls and tablets, bamboo strips and wax blocks. It was far more information than you could ever decipher or use during your short human life, but every day you got better, starting out small with poultices that you had to injure yourself to try and ward spells that exhausted you but could make your home more secure than any in Vahmpyr (or on Earth).

At one point Chenle gifted you a book covered in old stains and strangely familiar drawings that you started to use before abruptly realizing that it was an old chemistry textbook. You invited him over that afternoon and whacked him over the head with the thick pages. He told you with a disgruntled look that he put a lot of effort into that, thank you very much. And besides, chemistry was a magic in itself. (His words, not yours.) After that you made sure to thoroughly inspect any gifts you received from the more mischievous family members.

Lucas came over and helped you set up more complicated equipment that you couldn’t lift, like a big cauldron, which you actually did use on the regular after you learned how to use it, and after some consideration you set up a chemistry station for the odd experiment. At this point your house was more magical items than actual living space, something that Kun was quick to point out when he came over.

“You know, you should really be more careful about having all of these powders and dusts and-” He cut himself off with a distasteful wrinkle of his nose. “Things.” He pursed his lips, looking at you. “We don’t really know what these things will do to you in the long run. You have to be careful.”

“Yeah, yeah,” you responded distractedly, making his coffee and a drink for yourself. “Maybe I’ll clean it all up sometime, but you know I’m awfully busy these days.” You used a spoon to stir in the milk and sugar, tapping the metal against the china in a soft clink.

He sighed tiredly. “Your health is less important than staying busy?”

You gave him a look that you hoped conveyed your need to stay busy, to continuously learn and improve. “Keeping my schedule full keeps me healthy, Kun. At least mentally.”

Kun didn’t look impressed by your reasoning. “I think your mental health will go down pretty quickly if you get sick and can’t do anything because you’re stuck in bed twenty-four-seven.”

You gave a sigh of your own at that. “And as always,” you announced to the room at large, “Doctor Kun gives amazing advice that I shouldn’t ignore but probably will.”

Y/n,” he said in a warning tone. “Seriously. You need to be careful! No human has ever lived here for so long, and I worry about you catching some mysterious illness that nobody has ever heard of!”

“Kun, I will do my best to keep myself healthy. I’ve put every kind of ward that I can around my house to protect me, I have magically circulated and cleaned air, I have literal superhumans to protect me from anything else, and I’m happy here! I finally have something to contribute. Maybe someday I’ll find some concoction or enchantment that will let me visit Earth, even. I just don’t know. But I’m going to keep trying.”

He took his coffee out of your grasp and walked back into the living room, which housed your indoor plants, magical and earthly. “That’s all I can ask,” he said, voice betraying his disappointment in that fact. “I’ll still give you monthly checkups for a while though, just to make sure.

“Can’t Jaemin take care of me?” you asked, thinking of Jaemin with his warm smile and caring words and the smell of sun on dirt and- well. Jaemin felt like safety in a person. Kun was wonderful, but Jaemin was just that little bit better, that little bit more comfortable to be around.

“He could,” Kun replied after taking a sip of coffee. “But I know he’s been busy lately though, he’s been on Earth for a few days checking on all of his businesses and stocks and his human personas. On the other hand, I hardly go back to Earth for more than a twelve hour shift here and there.”

“I understand.”

“Plus, I’m about two thousand years older than Jaemin, I have a lot of experience.”

“How old are you?” Two thousand years older than Jaemin would make Kun… pretty darn old.

Kun grinned. “I was around before and after Jesus came to Earth. I was around before the Terracotta Army was built. I was born in China circa when the Hanging Gardens of Babylon are said to have been built. Taeil-hyung turned me into a vampire when I was twenty five, and I’ve been twenty five ever since. None of us know when he was born. When you’re as old as he is, even with a vampire’s memory, history starts to blend together. He says he remembers the Pyramids at Giza going up, though, and that was after he had been a vampire for what he thinks was a few hundred years. He’s literally prehistoric.”

“Wow,” was all you could think to say. No wonder Taeil had so many artifacts. He was one. Kun was too, for that matter. And Jaemin… Jaemin would have been born AD, but how far into it? You asked Kun this question and he chuckled.

“Jaemin was born in fourteen forty two. He was twenty when Jeno turned him, and he’s still twenty, five hundred years later.”

“Who turned Taeil, then? I can hardly imagine a vampire older than him, even.”

“We’re not sure. Whoever it was is so unimaginably old now that even I can’t comprehend it. But whoever the original vampire was must have turned a whole lot of people. There are dozens more vampires just within our small community, and an entire plane full of them. From what I can tell, Taeil isn’t even the oldest. There’s this man who lives in the mountains by himself, and from what I hear, he hasn’t been seen by another vampire in nearly three thousand years. He’s almost a myth around here anymore. Taeil knew him back when Vahmpyr was sparsely populated, and he told us that the man - his name is Jinyoung Park - is older than him by so many years that he is to Taeil as Taeil is to me. He probably lived before Mesopotamia existed, even, or was right at the beginning of it. Before him, we have no idea who the first vampire was. If that vampire is still alive, he she or they hasn't been seen since, well, before living memory. If they still exist that would mean that vampires have been around since before modern humanity. I really wish we knew.”

“I wish you knew too,” you breathed. You had never really considered that immortality meant that the same vampires who existed before the Pyramids at Giza still lived among humanity today. It was mind boggling. The history in just their brains alone could fill thousands of textbooks and solve history’s greatest mysteries. But they couldn’t show themselves to the humans without risk. Even the people that they bit and sent back to Earth wouldn’t dare talk about their experiences, for fear of sounding crazy. Their gift to the world would never be wrapped up in gold tissue paper and presented with the proper awe, but here you were, in this modern metropolis of history. It truly hurt your brain to consider everything that came with that sort of age.

Just then a yell came from outside. “Kun-ge! Are you with Y/N?!” It sounded suspiciously like a panicked Yangyang. He never got panicked.

Kun stood up and hurried over to the front door, blurring in his hurry. “What happened?” he demanded.

“Well, uh, we may or may not have set Yuta’s house on fire…” Yangyang’s voice trailed off as Kun’s face reacted. First his eyebrows raised, then his mouth dropped open, and finally his eyes squeezed shut before reopening after a moment.

“You did what?”

Yangyang’s voice was small. “We set Yuta’s house on fire?” His voice was so high and squeaky that it sounded more like a question than a statement.

“Who is ‘we’?”

“Me, and Hyuck, and Taemin-hyung.”

“Oh my,” Kun said, running a hand over his face and through his hair. “I am going to murder Taemin-hyung.” He turned to Yangyang. “I might murder you and Donghyuck too.”

“We didn’t mean to,” Yangyang said. “It just happened.”

“You didn’t mean to set Yuta’s house on fire? How do you accidentally set someone’s house on fire?”

“You put on an impromptu fire show right next to the house, mess up a trick, and accidentally throw a flaming baton on their house. It was surprisingly easy. Anyway, I know that you would know what to do. You and Y/N both.”

Kun ran his hand through his hair again. You watched as a few light brown strands flew to the carpet with the force of it. “Y/N, do you have anything for flaming houses?”

You looked around your living room as though that would help you remember whether you did or not. “I think so, let me check my storage room,” you muttered, already dashing away. You did, in fact, have something that you loosely translated from the Egyptian spell scroll as “Fire Away Goop,” or something similar. It was a green, nearly transparent goop that sloshed in its bottle but it was too thick to really flow. It oozed more than anything. When it hit heat, it tended to solidify into a more solid green that would be easily removable from Yuta’s house, if said house was still there by the time you got to wherever it was. You grabbed the bottle and rushed back to the living room, panting. Kun turned to you.

“Is it okay if I carry you, to make sure we get there in time?”

“Won’t I be too heavy?”

He gave you an unimpressed look. “We’re literally the strongest things known to man. I’ll be fine.”

“Then sure. Let’s go save Yuta’s house!”

Kun carried you piggyback as fast as he could, your face tucked into his shoulder to avert most of the vertigo induced by such high speeds. Trees flashed by in browns and greens, and then you were going through the city, past the city, through more trees, in a rush that you couldn’t quite comprehend but which caused a sinking feeling to settle in your gut. Yuta’s house was far away. By the time you got there, the house was fully consumed by the flames, the fire burning merrily without knowledge that it was ruining a man’s home.

A man, presumably Yuta, stood out front, another man on his knees next to him. Once you were next to them, you realized that the standing man had the kneeling man’s ear in a tight grip. You figured that the man on his knees must have been the infamous Donghyuck.

“Yuta-hyung, Hyuck,” Kun greeted them as he set you on the ground.

“Yangyang,” said Yuta, turning around, “You’re a bit late.” He nodded at you and Kun in acknowledgement, as Donghyuck yelped at the tug on his ear. Yuta had black hair streaked through with neon green, and it framed a narrow face and startlingly pink lips. You wondered, in the back of your head, if he used lip tint. You also briefly entertained the idea that he contoured his face, because there was no way that he looked that good without makeup. He’s a vampire, your consciousness provided. All of them look that good.

“Sorry hyung,” Yangyang murmured. “We came as fast as we could!”

Kun stepped forward. “We brought Y/N, as you can see, and he has something to put the fire out.” Something like hope sparked in Yuta’s eyes as he looked over you again, taking in details of your appearance.

“Do you really? Well, go ahead.” He gestured to the house and the flames danced in your face, leaving you to hope that this gloop worked for fires this big. You took a deep breath and poured the goop onto the grass, where it oozed between the blades of grass like a big blob of snot on the lawn.

“Atlaq alnaar,” you murmured to it, and it rose into the air, following your mental directions toward the fire. The moment they made contact, the goop started to solidify and expand, covering the fire rapidly. Green overtook bright reds and oranges as you focused on the fire and made the goop cover it.

“Y/N!” Someone was calling to you, their voice out of focus as though you heard them from underwater. “You’ll get covered!” You were vaguely aware of a hand trying to lead you away, but the spell kept you rooted in place, your feet seemingly super glued to the lawn. You kept focus on the fire as the last flames were overtaken and put out. Yuta’s house was now a giant green blob. From what you could see through the jello-like goop, it had sustained a minimal amount of damage considering the amount of flames you had seen. You were so engrossed in the green substance that you missed the warning signs before it swallowed you up too, ever expanding.

It took your outstretched hands first, pulling you forward into it. Through your panic you had just enough brain power left to be amazed at how thick it was before your feet and legs were covered too, nearly encased in the goop. You leaned your head back as far as you could, trying to keep yourself in the open air, but the goop kept expanding. You felt more than saw the vampires try to dig you out, but while the spell still fueled it, the goop was surprisingly strong. A hand grasped your elbow as the goop grasped your neck and chin, keeping you completely still as it covered more of you. The hand let go. It couldn’t do anything now.

You took a deep breath just before the goop covered your mouth, nose, and eyes. You thought you felt something on the back of your neck but didn’t think much of it until it started burning. Any strength you had left crumbled as your eyes started stinging and your oxygen ran out. You couldn't see, but it felt as though the world was spinning around you, as though you had been disconnected from everything but the pain. Even through your lightheadedness the pain persisted. It had spread now, from your neck over your shoulders like the creeping vines on the back wall of Jaemin’s cottage.

Jaemin.

You realized through your hazy thoughts that you would never see him again. Your eyes and nose burned now, from tears you couldn’t cry and the pain slowly enveloping you.

You couldn’t hold on any longer.

Black.

☽༓☾

Across a forest and a small town, Jaemin was working on his Hindi pronunciation when Ten burst into his home for the second time in what seemed like a very short period. He wasn’t dripping this time, just looked thoroughly terrified of something.

“Jaemin! He needs help!”

“What? Who?” Jaemin stood up and walked over to his friend. Ten’s tentacles curled and uncurled repeatedly as he spoke.

“Y/N! The vision got sharper, which usually means it’s happening. The green blob wasn’t a tree, it was some sort of spell! He’s going to die if we don’t get there fast.”

“Where are we going?” Jaemin demanded as they ran through the trees around his cabin.

“Yuta’s house. Or, at least, where it used to be.”

“What happened to Yuta’s house?”

“Yangyang and Hyuck burned it down.”

“Ah.”

Ten was panting as he continued speaking. “I think that must be what the spell was for. Some sort of fire putter-outer.”

Jaemin tried to think back to all of the books he had given you, recalling a spell that sounded suspiciously like what Ten described. “If the one I think you’re talking about is the spell he used,” he told Ten, “we might not be able to save him by the time we get there.” A pang echoed through his chest. An empty feeling, as though your small human life had affected his own so strongly as to make him miss you without knowing that you were gone. Jaemin ran on, leaving Ten behind when he paused to rest, sprinting at his highest speed towards where you were.

When he arrived on Yuta’s plot, most of his vision turned green, not because things were actually green, but from the sheer size of the lime coloured stuff all over Yuta’s house. He had been correct when he guessed at which spell you had used. His gaze fell on Kun, Yangyang, Yuta, and Donghyuck, who stood at the still-expanding base of the blob, seemingly trying to get something out. He gasped. You were in the thing. He ran up and tried to help the others dig you out, to no avail. They couldn't do anything against the spell so long as you were alive, and he wasn’t about to kill the person he had worked so hard to protect. He tried to hold onto your elbow as it was swallowed, but was afraid of hurting you. They all watched as you took a deep breath and the gloop covered your face.

Jaemin slumped, out of ideas. There was no way to save you that he knew of. Then he thought back to Ten’s vision. He had to change you. It was the only way. You wouldn’t need to breathe, wouldn’t need to do anything. You could still be here with him. It was with that in mind that he lunged forward at the last moment and latched onto your neck, stretching his jar as wide as it would go. His fangs, already dripping uncomfortably with venom in your presence, sank into your veins, and he felt it as you stiffened slightly. You couldn’t move much in your current situation, but your muscles seized all the same. He stayed next to you as long as he could, until he was in danger of being swallowed into the goop as well. He licked the wounds closed as efficiently as possible and stepped back with the others to see what happened.

It was obvious that you had gone unconscious. The goop stopped moving so rapidly and seemed to pause in its conquest of the front yard. It started oozing slowly around again, creating something of a reverse muffin top as the top shell hardened and the bottom bits leaked out. They backed up to the edge of the yard and Jaemin used his (admittedly small) knowledge of spellcraft to create wards that would protect the house down the street and hopefully contain the goo. They watched in silence as the green kept expanding. Then Yangyang spoke.

“Will Y/N die?”

“I don’t think so,” said Jaemin slowly. “He shouldn’t, at any rate. I bit him.”

A collective tremor went around the group, as though none of them wanted to appear surprised but they all were.

“It was the only thing I could think of that gave Y/N a chance, so I had to try it,” Jaemin continued. “But Kun-hyung knows more than me on that subject.”

Kun looked pensive as he considered what Jaemin had said. “It should work, in theory. But between the wards always up around Y/N’s house, this spell, and the venom in his system, his body might now be able to take it. It’s just a game of chance, unless we can find some way to take some stress off of his body.”

They all looked to Jaemin again.

“Is there some way to break the wards that he has up?” Yuta asked.

“I don’t think so,” Jaemin said, frowning. “Not without taxing him further. We definitely can’t affect this spell without killing him, and as far as the transformation goes, we’d need to be able to get to his body in there. That’s obviously not happening either.”

“So what can we do?” Donghyuck’s voice was small and he sounded almost repentant, as though he thought this whole thing was his fault. It sort of was, but it was odd to hear that tone from him.

“We ask Ten what he can see of the future and go from there,” Jaemin said. “There’s not much else that we can do, unless anyone knows someone better with spells than Y/N.”

The whole group shook their heads. Spells could be cast by any human variant creature that they knew of, but spellcraft was a human specialty. You in particular were gifted beyond what they had seen in a very long while.

While they thought about it, Ten burst forth from the trees down the street and ran towards their group. He slowed down as he took in the blob, now pressing against the wards that contained it. Jaemin could feel a subtle sort of pressure in his head as his spells kept the goop within Yuta’s plot.

“So?” Ten asked Jaemin as he walked up. “Did it work?”

“We’re not sure. He’s not dead, or the Fire Away spell would have gone small and liquidy again. On the other hand, none of us know any way to get him out, and Kun-hyung’s worried about the toll that all of this” - he waved his hands at the blob - “will kill him while he turns. We wanted to ask what you were seeing as of now.”

Ten closed his eyes, most of his tentacles going still as he focused. There was one that whacked anxiously against the dirt beneath him, beating a steady rhythm against the earth. After a few minutes, his eyes opened and he refocused his eyes on the group around him.

“Well?” Yangyang prompted when he didn’t speak. Ten sighed.

“Good news is that he’s probably not going to die.”

“And the bad news?”

“He might die.”

“What do you mean, Ten-hyung?”

“I can’t… I can’t tell which future is the one that will come true. It’s like there are two possible ways for the future to go, and neither of them is solid. Either he makes it through, or he dies. The worst part is that I can’t tell what causes his death. It could happen two seconds from now, or two hours, or two days. I just don’t know.”

“I don’t remember your visions ever having two outcomes,” Kun said, brows furrowed.

“I haven’t ever had one like this.”

“Well,” Jaemin said, “I’ll just stay here until he wakes up.”

“And where should I go?” asked Yuta. “Maybe nobody told you, but this is my house that just got burned down.” He threw a glare at Hyuck and Yangyang.

“Go stay with Mark-hyung or something. You sleep over with him all the time anyway,” Donghyuck suggested, and Yuta grinned, a complete change from two seconds before.

“He’ll hate that. See you guys later!” He skipped a few steps before running full tilt, phone in his hands and fingers tapping. The glow of the screen disappeared quickly from Jaemin’s view, and he turned back to their now-smaller group.

“Are you sure that you want to stay here until Y/N wakes up?” Kun asked Jaemin. “I know that you don’t need sleep or anything, but that seems like a waste of time.”

“I have eternity,” Jaemin told him. “I just need to be here to watch it deflate, whether it’s because he’s turned or because…” His voice went weak. He couldn't see you die. He just couldn’t. Kun patted him on the shoulder.

“Okay. We’ll come check on you tomorrow.” As he walked away with Yangyang and Donghyuck, Jaemin heard Kun’s ‘mom voice’ come out as he lectured on the dangers of playing with fire. It made Jaemin smile a little.

His head was starting to feel uncomfortable with the pressure of his wards, so he carefully widened them, centimeter by centimeter, until there was less gloop on them. He couldn’t keep this up until you completed the transformation, he knew, but it would work for now. Maybe he could call Kibum-hyung tomorrow for help.

Until then all he had to do was sit and wait, and look at your form encased in neo pearl champagne colored jello.

☽༓☾

It was exactly twenty five hours, forty minutes, and nine seconds since Jaemin had first settled in when the goop started deflating. The hard casing that had developed collapsed in on itself when the slightly softer insides began to shrink, reminding Jaemin slightly of Honey Lemon and her chemical reactions in Big Hero 6. He sprang to his feet, rushing forward to where he could see the outline of your body inside the collapsing bubble, grabbing the empty decanter that the goop had once been held in. He scooped up the small oozing goop that remained from the spell and plugged the decanter, turning around slowly to look at your body once more.

As your still-limp body collapsed to the ground, Jaemin felt his unbeating heart sink. You didn’t move, there was no rise and fall to your chest. There was no sound of your breath in the air. Your eyes didn’t roll around under your eyelids. You seemed… corpselike. Dead. But it couldn’t be. Ten had said that you would probably survive! Jaemin opened his phone and pressed Ten’s contact to call it. He answered on the third ring.

“Jaemin? What’s up?”

“Ten-hyung,” Jaemin said, and his voice cracked. He cleared his throat before continuing. “Y/N… I think, is dead?”

Ten sucked in a breath, audible even through the phone. “Jaemin I’m so sorry-”

Jaemin cut him off. “Hyung, you said he would make it!”

“There was always that chance that he wouldn’t-”

“But you said-” Jaemin’s voice cracked again and he fell into silence. He couldn’t cry, and he had never wished he could until now. Tears might convey the hole in his chest, the emptiness of his existence without your life to partner him.

“Jaemin,” came Ten’s voice, and it was soft, delicate. “I’m so so sorry. I thought that he would make it, but there was always that second path. I can’t-” He took a deep breath. “I can’t see him anymore. I think… I think he might be gone.”

“No!” Jaemin exclaimed hotly. “He can’t be!”

“Jaemin-”

He hung up. Whatever Ten-hyung had to say wouldn’t help. It wouldn’t bring you back. He was along now, with your body and this stupid Flame Away Goop that had managed to take your life despite Ten’s prophecies and Jaemin’s best efforts. The person that you were was gone. Now you were just a still corpse, a painful reminder of what could have been and what should have been and what couldn’t be.

“I’ll give you a proper funeral,” Jaemin told your body as he lifted it into his arms gently. “I promise.”

☽༓☾

For the next three days, Jaemin worked non-stop. He prepared a funeral for you, ignored everyone except to invite them to the event. He could still picture your smile, the way he had to support you those first few steps. He remembered how you had called him gorgeous, how you had said I love you in Gaelic to him without knowing what it meant. He recalled the trust you had for him despite his own occasional self-loathing, the way you had reminded him of his worth every time you were around him.

He missed you. He missed you a lot.

People had called him, came knocking once an hour. He eventually just shut off his phone so he didn’t have to hear their pleas for him to let them in. All of his hyungs and all of his noonas came to make sure he was okay, but would he ever be? There was a Y/N shaped hole in him that he didn’t think could ever be filled up again. Jeno came around three times a day with hug offerings, but Jaemin shut him out. He knew it hurt his friends, knew they only wanted to help, but you were gone and nobody understood. Nobody had loved you the way he had. Nobody had your blood quite literally on their hands, flowing through their veins.

It hurt to think about that. He “lived” while you were dead; he had gained life through your death and that was the most ironic thing. In his attempt to save you, he may have killed you.

He hurt.

On the fourth day since your death, Jaemin gently dressed your body in the best clothes he could find, brushed your hair, and put you in a casket, standing you in an open clearing, the one where he had tried to send you back to Earth. It was the largest clearing nearby, and all of the vampires that had met you plus Ten came to pay their respects. They spoke about the short time they had known you, and the strong impact you had made despite that. They told of how you had gone back to Earth and suffered until you had returned. They told of your feats practicing witchcraft and most of all they spoke of your kindness, the lack of repulsion towards them. They spoke of your kind smile and the way you had fit in so nicely with their community.

Jaemin started not-crying, as vampires did, and he thought he would be alone, but Jeno joined him. Lucas joined him. Jisung and Chenle joined him. Ten and Johnny joined him. He was not the only one who had loved you. Donghyuck joined him. Yangyang and Yuta and Kun joined him. He was not the only one who felt that your death was his fault.

Jaemin was not the only person who choked out their words in an imitation of crying. Jaemin was not the only person who missed you. Jaemin was not the only one who wanted you back. Jaemin was not the only one.

He hadn’t realized how much he missed his friends until they surrounded him in a huge hug. It wasn’t a warm hug, necessarily, but it was a hug nonetheless and made him feel better. He was not the only one.

He was still dealing with the hole in his chest, but he had others to patch himself up with now. Like each person who had known you could bring a part of you back through their memories of you. It was nice, almost.

☽༓☾

The first thing you realized was that you could hear again. Your ears were uncovered, and you vaguely registered words being choked out somewhere near you. It sounded like a large number of people were very sad about something. You wondered what it could be. The second thing you realized was that you were laying down on some sort of padded… thing. It felt like too much work to open your eyes, so you felt around and realized that you were in a padded box. A padded box? That was new.

You tried to sniff the air and were met with the smell of cologne, not too strong but apparently on enough people that it permeated the air. You got hints of perfume too, but it was far less strong. Something in the box shifted and you felt breaths on your face. Were people looking at you in your sleep? Come to think of it, why were these many people around you while you slept at all? That seemed sort of rude. You tried to remember getting here but came up blank. Your last memories were of the pain before you passed out. You shivered at the memory.

“He’s awake!” someone shouted. The noise hurt your ears after the deafening silence of your previous state, and you itched to get away from them. A murmur of sound rolled through the room and then a familiar scent invaded your senses, that of sun-warmed earth.

“Y- Y/N?” Jaemin asked hesitantly. “Can you hear me? Are you in there?”

He sounded absolutely wrecked, like his voice had been stripped of his usual honey and sunshine. You tried to open your eyes, but it was too bright and you just couldn’t, so you nodded slightly.

“Oh my- Y/N,” he continued. “Can’t you open your eyes for me, please?”

You shook your head no.

“Okay, that’s fine, sweetheart. Let me get you out of there.” There was the sound of something wooden being bonked against a wall, but that faded in comparison to the name. Sweetheart. Sweetheart.

You were lifted gently from your padded box and carried somewhere shady and cold. It felt nice against your skin. He felt nice against your skin. He carried you gently, like you were made of glass, but you felt surprisingly strong, just out of sorts. As though while your mind struggled to catch up, your body had strengthened. It was a very different sensation to that of your first time waking up in Jaemin’s house. He walked you through what you thought must be the forest for a bit before he sat down and nestled you into his side. You felt as though some muscles should be unhappy about the position, but you felt completely comfortable.

“Y/N.” Jaemin’s voice came to you, soft and warm and familiar. It was shaking slightly. “Can you open your eyes for me now?”

You focused on your eyelids, raising them slowly until you could see Jaemin. He had on a suit; black jacket over a white shirt, accented by a thin black ribbon tied loosely around his neck. His pink hair fell neatly in waves over his forehead and you reached up to brush away a piece that had fallen over his eyes, smiling.

“Hey Jaem. What happened?” Your voice wasn’t weak, like you supposed it should have been. It came out like a melody into the air, and you marvelled internally at the sound of it, how smooth it was. It felt nice.

“You-” Jaemin broke off for a second, rearranging your limbs next to him. “You were trying to save Yuta’s house. We had to rebuild part, but it’s fine. He stayed with Mark for a few days. For the most part, your spell worked. But then, it- it swallowed you. I got there in time to watch as you were absorbed by this green goop and I thought I was too late. I bit you, back here.” He brushed his fingers gently over the sides of your neck and you shivered. “But you didn’t wake up… I thought I was too late. You weren’t breathing, and you weren’t awake… I have no idea how you managed to cancel the spell without waking up or dying. So I-” He made a choked up sound and tightened his arm around your shoulders. “We’re at your funeral. Ten couldn’t see your future anymore, so we thought you were dead…” He trailed off.

“Wow,” you said. “I died? Then how am I here now? I feel alive?”

“It worked. It must have. You don’t have a heartbeat, but you’re awake. I don’t know what happened exactly, but you must be a vampire now.”

“Huh. I thought I’d feel more… hungry.”

He laughed. It glittered over your ears and you smiled, an involuntary reaction to him. “It’ll kick in, don’t worry.”

“What about the others? I mean, Lucas and Kun and everyone? Are they just at my funeral right now? Without me?”

“Oh.” Jaemin looked as though he had forgotten about them. “I guess they are. Let’s go see them?”

“Let’s.”

☽༓☾

After that day, it didn’t take you long to realize that the other vampires were purposefully putting you with Jaemin for just about everything. On days where you went to hang out with Lucas, he would ask you how Jaemin was doing. If you didn’t know, he would suggest that you go and visit him. Kun asked you to make sure that Jaemin was feeling okay. Yuta, who you were finally allowed to meet and hang out with, constantly suggested that you should spend more time with him. It was strange. Nobody had seemed to mind that you had your own hobbies before your transformation, but now that you were a vampire, it was as though you were meant to be with Jaemin all of the time. You asked Lucas about it once you got sick of the mysterious treatment and he looked at you heavily.

“When you got trapped in that goopy stuff, Jaemin went all weird. He didn’t move for, like, more than 24 hours, and once he thought you were dead… he didn’t talk to any of us until the funeral. We worry about him, and you seem to make him really happy, so we’re trying to keep you two around each other.”

You didn’t really know what to say to that, so you chose the very eloquent “oh,” as your response. Lucas chuckled.

“I know. It was really weird, I’ve never seen him like that. I think we’ve seen a lot of new sides of Jaemin since you came along.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“It’s… well, I don’t think it’s bad or good. It just is. You affect him differently than anyone else we know.”

“Why is that, do you think?”

“Y/N, you idiot, he’s in love with you.”

“He’s what?”

Lucas sighed. “He’s in love with you.”

“Why do you think that? This is Jaemin we’re talking about here. Jaemin. He’s, like, beauty incarnate and he’s smart and kind and wonderful in every aspect of everything. He just can’t be in love with me.”

“He’s in love with you.”

“He’s not.”

“He is.”

“He can't be.”

“Why not?”

“I just told you why.”

Lucas sighed again, more deeply. “But you’re in love with him.”

“I-” You consider that. “I guess?”

“That wasn’t a question.” He rolled his eyes.

“Do you think it’s possible that he actually does like me back?”

“Yes.”

Somehow, after that, Lucas managed to steer the conversation onto other subjects and you refocused on those things, but it echoed in your head. He’s in love with you.

☽༓☾

Even with this new information bouncing around the forefront of your brain, you still had to go and spend time with Jaemin. Maybe it was a little strange for your thoughts to short circuit when you saw him, the little whisper of what if in your head. Maybe it was a little peculiar for a vampire such as yourself to stutter through sentences because you were busy thinking about what life would be like if he really did like you back. Maybe you spent less time talking on your walks together because you wanted to lay next to him in a clearing and watch the clouds instead. Just maybe.

If Jaemin noticed any of your strange behaviour, he didn’t call you out on it. He either really wasn’t paying all that much attention, or he knew enough about you to know that you wouldn’t want him to pry. It was strange, really, how well you knew each other in such a short time. You supposed that since you spent so much time together it wasn’t improbable, but he knew you nearly as well as your old human friends back home.

Thinking about your old memories was a strange experience. You could remember everything as clearly as your human self could, but you noticed more the lack of detail within the images, the way your human eyes couldn’t move as fast as your vampire ones, and your reflexes weren’t as fast, and the way you fixated on one part of the picture without taking in the details of the rest of your vision. You had entirely blocked out memories of driving, they were too harrowing. You recalled more easily now all of the times you had nearly hit something or someone, and while you couldn't die now, at least not that easily, you could have easily fallen prey to the fatal blind spot more times than you’d care to admit.

When you told Jaemin about that, he laughed that laugh you loved so much. “I was born in fourteen forty-two, Y/N. We didn’t have cars back then. The only thing on the street that would run me over was a horse-drawn carriage.”

“Well,” you retorted, “you should consider yourself lucky then. Carriages and horses don’t sound half so bad as giant hunks of metal flying at each other at eighty miles per hour.”

“Maybe you’re right,” he mused, stroking an imaginary beard. “Maybe I was lucky to be born in Korea during the 1400s. You may have heard of the emperor Sejong the Great? I was born during his rule. He was one of the best emperors Korea ever had, he introduced hangul and united the country under Confucian principles so that there was more love for the country and the people living in it. Peaceful few years we had there, from what little I remember. After that, though? Lots of killing, children on the throne, et cetera et cetera. Not so fun. And I was actually able to die through all of that, so that wasn’t pleasant. But then King Sejo, the one who did the killing, actually did a pretty okay job of ruling the country and we had a few more years of prosperity. He died six years after my transformation. I missed that event because I was here in Vahmpyr getting to know Jeno, who turned me.”

“How much of the group was around, at that point?”

“Well…” Jaemin closed his eyes briefly in thought. “Here, let me draw you a family tree.” He grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil and wrote ‘Moon Taeil’ at the top. “Okay so as you know, Taeil is here as the first of us. He turned Yuta-hyung, Kun-hyung, Johnny-hyung, and Taeyong-hyung.” He wrote in their names under Taeil’s, spacing them out across the paper.

“Yuta-hyung turned Sicheng-hyung and Shotaro; Kun-hyung turned Dejun-hyung and Lucas-hyung; Johnny-hyung turned Jungwoo-hyung and Mark, and Taeyongie-hyung turned Hyuck, Doyoung-hyung, and Jaehyun hyung.” He labeled all of these names, then drew more stems leading from Jaehyun, Lucas, and Dejun.

“Jaehyun-hyung turned Sungchan, Lucas-hyung turned Hendery-hyung and Yangyang, and Dejun-hyung turned Renjun.” He drew all of these connections and stemmed Renjun’s name down even farther.

“Renjun turned Jeno and Chenle, then Jeno turned me, and I turned Jisung and now you.” He finished the tree with a flourish, black ink stark against the creamy paper. They were all connected, in some way, to Taeil’s venom. And there was you, at the very bottom, your name small next to Jisung’s.

“You guys are all so… connected.”

“Yep! We’re all one big family.”

“Do you guys have, like, family reunions? And who changed Joy and her friends? Or what’s-his-face? Taemin?”

“We don’t really all get together a lot, just because most of us have jobs on Earth or spend our days doing stuff on our own. Some of them like having flings all the time. Obviously none of us can get STDs or get pregnant, so they can do that, no strings attached. We sort of hang out in our individual groups for the most part, and then hang out every once in a while. As far as the others, we think that they must have come from the same person as Taeil-hyung, a very very old vampire. There are other stories like ours across Vahmpyr, where one vampire created one member of each coven and let us grow from there. The difference is that some of them actually have good relationships with those older vampires, whereas I’ve never met ours. I’ve heard that there’s a man called Park Jae-sang who actually comes around to spend time with the vampires he’s changed. The closest we have to an old vampire is Leeteuk-hyung, and he isn’t really around much, plus he’s not that much older than Taeil-hyung.

“Anyway, to answer your question, when I was turned, nearly everyone was around already. Only Yangyang, Sungchan, Shotaro, Chenle, and Jisung are younger than me. And now you.”

“Wow, so you had to meet everyone right after your transformation? I bet that was chaotic.”

“It was, but it was also fun. I got to be the baby for a while. Then the others came around and I somehow became a mother figure.”

You laughed. Jaemin was a mother figure, for sure. He liked to take care of the people around him, including humans that his brothers had brought home for him to patch up. “That doesn’t surprise me one bit.”

He giggled along with you, that laugh you adored so much, and grinned. “I guess it sort of fits me, doesn’t it? Mother Jaem.” He rolled the name over his tongue and you collapsed into laughter again. “I think that works well, yep.”

The next few days, you called him Mother Jaem, and everyone gave you weird looks, but it made Jaemin laugh hard enough that it was worth it.

☽༓☾

One day after this, Chenle pulled Jaemin aside to ask him what on Earth was going on with this whole “Mother Jaem” thing. Jaemin explained happily how it had come about. Chenle rolled his eyes dramatically.

“When are you two getting married?”

Jaemin just gave him a blank stare. “What?”

“It’s so disgusting how much you guys love each other! When can we shove you two together in a house and call it a day?”

“Um, okay, first of all, that is not how you get rid of somebody. Second, he doesn't love me? And third, there is definitely not enough space in his house for me, even if he did.”

Chenle pinched the bridge of his nose. “Lucas was right, you guys are blind fools. Of course he loves you! He goes to see you all the time! And enjoys it! You’re both in love with each other and both of you are cowards.” He ran his hand through his hair, knocking a piece into his eye. He squinted unhappily but didn’t try to move it.

Jaemin sighed as he got the chunk of hair away from Chenle’s eye. “This is Y/N we’re talking about though! He might hate me for everything I put him through and only stick around because I turned him or something. Plus, he spends as much time with Lucas as with me.”

“My God, your logic is terrible. You love him, he loves you, you need to get together. Watch some dramas and kiss him in the rain or something. Lucas even told me that he loves you!”

“That’s astonishingly specific for someone who doesn’t have a romance under their belt.”

“That’s besides the point!” Chenle grabbed the sides of Jaemin’s face and held him still while he spoke. “You need to confess sometime or another before the rest of us go crazy watching you run in circles around each other.”

With that he stalked away, leaving Jaemin rubbing his face where Chenle’s fingertips had pressed into the skin. It didn’t hurt, but the echoes of his voice and his fingers held Jaemin still for a long time afterwards.

☽༓☾

The next week, Kun and Taeil invited the whole coven to a reunion at Kun’s country estate. Having never been, you looked forward to seeing the giant house as much as meeting the rest of the family. It didn’t disappoint, it was absolutely massive, at least four or five floors and extensive gardens in front. Kun gave you free run of the place, asking you to please not enter rooms marked with a “Do Not Enter” sign. Simple rule to follow. You entered the main hall first, feeling like royalty in such an elegant room. Twin staircases led from the upstairs, leading your eyes to an extravagant chandelier covered in hundreds of crystals, and a mint green ceiling. From either side of the large room extended hallways with lush pale blue rugs and endless vases on platforms. It felt as though you had entered the past, or maybe a very expensive movie set. You moved through hallways and rooms, gazing at velvet chairs and old paintings that screamed money. You wondered if someone in Vahmpyr painted them, or if they were from Earth. You found only two rooms marked “Do Not Enter,” one of which was in a long hallway of bedrooms, so you assumed it was Kun’s.

The other was in the back of a positively colossal library. The library caught your eye because of the sheer size of it. Rows upon rows of books lined the walls and seemingly endless freestanding shelves. It was as large as the main public library back home, taking up at least four average rooms worth of space per floor. Not to mention the height. You estimated that it was at least three floors high, perhaps four. An entire long wall was devoted to Kun’s studies in medicine, dating back to leeches and poultices on open wounds through Magnetic Resonance Imaging and the most advanced of current surgeries. He had records of patients stacked by century, and a desk that popped out of the wall to reveal his own notes on developing vaccines and other medicines. Had you still been human, you were certain that a room like this would have given you a headache, from the size and the amount of books to look at.

From the medicine section you moved to other sciences like forensics, geology (although that section was considerably smaller), and astronomy. You also discovered an entire section on aviation. In the astronomy section, you found cork boards with maps pinned to them, stars drawn in detail, space stations built for both humans and vampires, and more drawings you didn't know how to interpret. You pulled out a few books at random and flipped through them, smiling at the notes in the margins. Past those sections were books on every type of science you had ever heard of, and some you hadn’t.

Beyond those were histories, and Kun’s travel section. He had bins filled with brochures, maps, and travel magazines and accounts of, from what you could tell, every war known to have occurred past Kun’s turning. That blended into social studies, and you found books on language next to copies of the Bible in seemingly every version, translations of the Quran, and more religious texts. Stock market trends were recorded and stored next to books on how to hire smart and anthropology. Cultural studies were stored with ethics and political records. Newspapers appeared as well, although those were fewer than the books by far. They appeared to be from a singular area, a place called Taining County, in China. Kun must have some sort of tie to it. You made a mental note to ask him when you rejoined the others.

You climbed a staircase to the second floor, where you found a fireplace and sitting area within the books. It appeared that the entire second floor was books organized by language, starting each section with children’s books and working their way up to novels. You found all of the Romance Languages, German, Hindi, Greek, Tagalog, Russian, Dutch, Japanese, Cantonese, Thai, Korean, Arabic, Bengali, Telugu, Tamil, Urdu, Latin and more that you didn’t know. In the back was a small compilation of different countries’ sign languages, as well.

You climbed the next flight of stairs to the third floor, finding the fiction section. These were organized by genre, with horror on one shelf, science fiction hogging four shelves on the opposite walls, romance taking up a large section next to that, et cetera. You spotted a section marked “Transcribed” and walked over to it, finding books handwritten by Kun, presumably taken from other forms and written over to fit in his library. You imagined the wax tablets and stone slabs of old books and shuddered. Even as a vampire, transporting those wouldn’t be easy. This floor was open in the middle, looking down at the second. Above you, the next floor was open as well and housed more shelves.

You walked up the last staircase and came upon a musical archive. There were phonographs on tables next to more recent record turntables, followed by cassette players and CD players. Each one was in impeccable condition, and behind them were shelves of every format that would work with those machines. These were shorter shelves, since the music was thinner than books, but there were still many many of them. You saw cassette boxes labeled with the albums contained within, records in yellowed sleeves, and CDs in thick storage cases. They were organized by decade, with the earliest dating back to the late nineteenth century. You guessed that was when recorded music had been invented. Perhaps Kun could still remember older pieces though; something else you would have to ask him about. You were looking through the most recent music to see what he liked and if you had heard of it when you heard someone calling your name.

“Y/N? Where are you?”

“In the library, fourth floor!” you yelled back.

“Will you come back to the kitchen and help me with this?”

“Sure!”

You weren’t sure who was calling you, but it sounded like Lucas, so you ran towards the kitchen. You weren’t sure entirely why there was a kitchen, since you all drank blood anyway, but you figured there was a good reason. You added that to your growing list of things to ask Kun. You understood why you had a kitchen in your house since you had lived in it while you were still human, but Kun hadn’t been to Vahmpyr before he was turned as far as you knew. Besides, he usually lived in his apartment next to the other guys. Maybe it was just necessary to have a kitchen in a house, you didn’t know. It would have felt weird, you guessed, to live in a house without one.

When you arrived, Lucas was outside as you had guessed.

“Will you run in and grab these things for me?” he asked, handing you a sticky note. “I’ve been tasked with rounding up everyone else.”

“Yeah, no problem,” you replied, walking through the doors into the room. It was industrial, like Kun cooked for dozens of people at a time, and there was a surprising amount of cooking utensils that wouldn’t work on raw bodies, like spatulas. You looked down at the sticky note for the first time. If you don’t confess, it read, I will smack you when you come back out. And you know how big my hands are, I will make it hurt.

“What?” you murmured to yourself as Jaemin walked into the room.

“Oh hey Y/N, did Chenle send you?”

“No, Lucas did. But did Chenle perhaps give you a sticky note with things to get for him on it?”

Jaemin glanced down at a hot pink slip of paper in his hand. “Yeah.” He looked back up at you before his brow furrowed and he looked more thoroughly at the writing on it. He groaned. “I am going to kill Chenle.” He ran a hand through his cotton candy pink hair. “I guess I should just get it over with then.”

He walked closer to you, setting the sticky note on the counter as he came. “I’m kind of in love with you? And I have been for a while? I mean I get if you hate me after everything I put you through, but according to Chenle you like me back? And… yeah?”

You were left speechless. Hate Jaemin? Never. And he… loved… you?

“Y/N? Are you okay?” Jaemin waved a hand in front of your face. “I’m sorry, I’ll go, Chenle must have set up a prank.” He started walking away and you grabbed his wrist.

“Jaem, hold on. I’m just in shock. I thought there was no way you could like me back…” Your voice got steadily smaller until it trailed off at the end of your sentence as a whisper.

His entire face lit up like a Christmas tree plugged in for the first time, glowing and cheerful. “It’s not a prank?”

You rubbed a hand over your face. “No, it’s not a prank. I thought Lucas was kidding when he said you liked me back. Or at least that he was wrong. You- you’re actually telling me that you’re in love with me?”

“I am.”

“Holy shit.”

He laughed, a ringing sound in the quiet of the kitchen. It echoed back at you as though the happiness of the laugh had been multiplied. “They’re going to be so smug,” he muttered.

“Oh yes they are. We’re going to have to get back at them someday.”

“Well, we have forever,” he reminded you. You grinned and held out your hand. He took it.

“Let’s go get the teasing over with then.”

You walked out of the kitchen and down the hall. “What did Chenle threaten you with if you didn’t confess?” you asked.

“Oh, he was going to tell the group about the fling I had with Jeno when we were younger.”

You looked at him in shock. “You had a fling with Jeno? Why would you choose me over him?”

“It was just sexual attraction. While that works for some people, both of us were happier just being friends, so we ended it. I actually am in love with you, which makes all the difference. Anyway, Chenle got that story out of me on a dare once and has held it over my head ever since.”

“I wonder if he’s told Jeno he knows?”

“Probably.”

You had reached the front room, and you took a deep breath as you walked forward, though it did nothing for your undead body. “Let’s throw ourselves to the wolves.”

As you walked out into the sunlight, a cheer rose up that would have sent birds flapping away, had there been any. You heard Chenle’s unique laugh paired with Lucas’ happy shouts of “yes!” and the voices of the other men you had gotten to know, paired with ones you didn’t. They stood in a group in the garden, whooping and throwing up hats if they had any. Lucas was the first to reach you.

“I can’t believe you actually did it! I thought I’d have to smack you!” He sounded far too happy at the prospect for your liking.

The rest of the boys ran over. There was a repeating round of “finally” until someone mentioned the food getting warm and there was a great rush to get back to the patio in the garden. You sat next to Jaemin in patio chairs as the sun slowly sank past the tree line and talked with friends old and new.

There was something new, something warm inside of you. A feeling of belonging more than ever when Jaemin fed you a little and the rest of the guys booed jokingly. Under the rising stars you kissed him for the first time, a quick peck at the behest of Yangyang. There were more cheers and hugs and someone had a polaroid camera out, the flash lighting up the scene as everyone laughed.

This was where you were meant to be.

End.

!!Reblogs and feedback are much appreciated!!

All rights reserved kiri-ah, 2021

[aphrodite-would-be-proud]

hello! how are you? i hope you're doing fine, um i'm here because i wanted to ask if you can write about armin falling in love with someone who's related to art, like a painter and suddenly discovering a whole new world. i will be so happy if you can do it.

thank you and please, stay healthy! 💗

Hi💛 of course! I really love that idea! Plus as a painter myself the struggle is real man, just yesterday i was having an overwhelming meltdown over what type of brushes to buy.

You seem really lovely so here's a mini fic! 🌸

Armin falling in love with a Painter!reader

{ Armin x reader | tw: none | fluff, pinning | modern }

{ "The Cathedral of Saint Jacques le Mineur, Liege" 1846 by Jenaro Pérez Villaamil 1807 - 1854 }

Reading is Armin's best friend, it always has been. It kept him company on countless sleepless nights as a child, and now it offered the escape his soul needed when overwhelmed with troubles of being a living human in this current world.    

"It's just captivating," he explained to you one day while walking together, happily clutching the bags of books he just baught. You like how they smell. For someone who reads a lot, he surely seems to be out of words when it comes to describing things he's passionate about.

The winds picks up, your steps slow down. Armin is staring at your face, but it's not your eyes he's looking at. You smile and it brings him back to reality, he looks away, shifting his weight from one leg to the other.

You offer to hold some of the heavy bags for him, he gives a warm smile. You think the faint color on his cheek is a really nice shade of pink, it looks lovely under the sun.

The more he took you with him on trips to the far away bookshop near the Riverside, the more you started to understand how a rearranging of words can pull him inside an entirely different world.

It was like he could be his true self when there, carefully reading the description at the back of the books. Frowning whenever he finds a review instead of a summary. you didn't mind tho, because it ment he'd have to read a few pages into the book and the shop had a nice corner couch you two would sit in.

He'd apologise for troubling you, you'd say he's never a bother for you that and reassure him that you enjoyed every last second.

Ah, there it is, that nice shade of pink again.   

 

-

In some way he managed to share his love for books with you, as you spend entire afternoons just sitting near each other. Your sketchbook in hand, the sound of your pencil lightly scratching the paper. Him next to you, his book in hand and reading just loud enough for you to hear.

You think he has a nice voice, so you say it out loud. For the rest of the evening, he stuttered through half the book.

You laugh at the funny moments together, be it a clever joke the author weaved in a serious moment or an incredibly redundant cliche trope that while predictable, was still as enticing.     

He would always look at you whenever you let a chuckle escape, staring just for a couple seconds longer than necessary.

That sketch ended up getting turned into a painting when Armin walked you home that day.

-

"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to!"

Blue glass shards are scattered on the table and floor, what remained of Armin's favourite mug. The puddle of coffee already sweeping into the canvas you left to dry there this morning.

It took you three days just for the layering.

It was a big canvas, cotton paper and natural wood. It cost a lot.

You know this feeling when you're so so broken about something that your brain just skips the denial and anger and jumps straight into depression? To say you were mad was an underestimated, and rightfully so.

Armin is trying to remove the coffee stains with the nearest towel he could find, it only smudges the paint more.

He looks terrfied.

"It was an accident I swear, I'd never..." his voice takes a higher pitch, hands shaking. "I'd never, ever mean to do this...I..." he hiccups, Voice quivering..

And just like that, all you anger fades away.

"Armin, hey" you take a step closer, carefully avoiding the broken glass.

He doesn't look at you, he's still desperate wiping the canvas. "I'll fix it, please I'll figure out a way."

The clutch he has on the towel only intensifies when you put your hand on his shoulder. "It's okay," you say "it's fine really, look at me."

And he does, with shame filled eyes. "No no no, it's not. I ruined it, your worked so hard on this and I just..." He looks down "it's NOT okay."

"Yes it is." You try to guide him away from the glass. "That's just a material object Armin, what's important is that you're okay."

He reluctantly follows, you both sit on the couch. His hands are clutching his knees. "I'm really sorry, it's okay if you want to yell at me you have the right to."

You cup his face in your hands, "don't say that, that's not true. It was an accident, I'd never ever yell at you."

Shock is clear in his eyes, his arms leave his knees to wrap around you, pulling you closer. His face buried in your shoulder. You stroke his back. Both of you stay like this for a long while, neither of you seems to want to let go.

At night, when he's getting ready to leave and go back home. You walk him to the door and he kisses your cheek as a goodbye.

the shade of pink you grew to love really goes along with his smile.

-

"Close your eyes and hold out your hand."

With the sparkle in his blue eyes and his hands hiding something behind his back, how could you say no.

So you do, and you feel his hand brushing against yours before a light weight is dropped on your palms. He gives you the okay so you open your eyes, an envelope.

It's cream white with a straw ribbon around it, it looks too good to open but you do anyway.

"Is that..." his smile grows as you pull out the card and paper inside, "a membership card."

"For the art course you've been saving up for! You seemed really excited when talking about it." He takes a step closer, tilting his head to the side as his blond hair brush against his neck. "Do you like it?"

"Armin I love it!" You're so happy that you don't dwell on it before pulling him into a hug, he eagrly hugs back and his hand lingers on you when you pull away. "But...isn't it too expensive ? How did you.."

His lips press into a thin line as he looks to the side, "don't worry about it, I've been also saving for a different reason."

Oh...yeah you know the reason, Eren’s been telling it to everyone after all. The three of them agreed to go on a trip overseas, even Mikasa seemed genuinely excited.

You look at him, you look at the envelope containing the art course of your dreams, you put the card back inside.

"I can't, " you hold it out for him, "you can still return this, they're very lean with their policies."

He doesn't take it. "Yes, yes you can. This isn't just because I feel bad for what i did, it's because..." he holds your hand in his, "because I want you to have it, you deserve the world and if i can I'd give it to you."

"But what about Mikasa and Eren, you know they've been looking forward for this."

"They'll understand that i can't come, and if they don't it's okay, they'll still enjoy it by themselves." He cups your face, looking at you like you're the only person in the world, "It's just a material thing after all, you aren't."

-

Armin likes to get out of his comfort zone evey once in a while, he likes to try new things no matter how intimidating they look.

Which is why, seeing him hesitantly entering the art classroom was not a surprise. His wide eyes switching their focuses between all the different objects in the room, from the canvas with a glaze shine on them, ready to get painted. Or the different shapes and sizes or brushes, the ones near the water jars looking softer than the rest.

You should've seen this coming, with Eren and Mikasa away on their trip, Armin has been hanging around you all the time. Not that you're complaining.

Looking at your still drying canvas, you quickly cleaned off your brush before using a towel to wipe your hands and elbows from paint stains.

"Armin," you said, amusement in your voice at seeing the blond out of his usual element. His curious eyes focus on you and he says a small hi with a wave.

You walk him through the basics, he nods while you explain the pros and cons of each paint type, what type of paintings it goes with and which techniques are the most common.      

After a couple minutes of him asking you to show him to use certain things and hold some brushes, he settles down for watercolors. You think it's adorably fitting.

While picking his brushes, you explain how in order to not damage the cotton papers, they have the softest hairs. To make your point, you take his arm in your hand and run a soft brush against his palm. He laughs softly saying it tickles, it's contagious and you're laughing too soon.

He picks the seat next to you, looking lost with the short brush in his hand and the already wet canvase. But it's a nice kind of lost, like the way a child would look at a new toy.

While he expriments at the corner of the canvas with different brushes and swipes the colors, other people start filling the room and soon enough everyone has taken their seats.

The instructer begans setting up today's study object, a couple of pink Camellias in a tinted turquoise vase, creating a nise color contrast.

You stare at them for a while, wondering where did you see that fimilar faint of pink. The question answers itself when Armin taps your shoulder and ask how to start layering the paint

-

It's around sunset when the two of you are walking together, he's talking about all the new things he never knew about art that he just discovered today. You're listening to him while nodding occasionally, it's when he stops mid-rant that you look at him.

"I just realised something" he says, before facing you.

"Oh? And what is it"

He looks at you, really looks at you. The sun is shining behind you as it says its last goodbyes for the day, making you look heavenly. "I realised that...I'm deeply in love with you"

[strongsassysexysloane]

Eleventh Day of Twelve - A Tired but Treasured Day

A/N - Look at that! We are second from the end! Thank you to all the comments and love! Really appreciate it, it's been a long week!

. . . .

Read previous drabbles below.

. . . .

You walked into the office clinging to your cup of coffee. It felt like you were just here and you were, only five hours ago. This time however it was your own doing. You'd found a tiny shred of evidence to go on and had to follow it before the trail went cold. Then it lead to Gibbs and Nick finding the killer in a warehouse in town and bringing him in at just after 0100. You didn't finish interrogating until 0200 and it was now 0730. Coffee, coffee needed to be pumped into you to wake up this morning and a constant flow throughout the day would be required.

To your delight there was a hot cup sitting on your desk as you walked into the bullpen. No note so you assumed this time it wasn't from your gift giver. Day 11 and no one had spilled the beans or gone looking at the cameras like they wanted to on day one.

"Gibbs dropped it off about five minutes ago before he went down to get a report from Kasie who wasn't pleased to be called in so early." Ellie explained while leaning back in her chair and sipping her coffee. "He brought one for all of us."

"Christmas miracles do happen." Nick grinned, dropping his small cup in the trash. "Done."

"It's not a race. You just slugged all your energy for the next three hours."

"Oh please, I've stayed up later and come to work more tired before. Remember the November incident." He waved off.

"I still feel hungover from it." Ellie grumbled, scrunching her nose at the memory of Tequila.

"Please don't remind me." Tim groaned. "Plus I'm not allowed anymore Tequila, Delilah's orders."

"She may be on to something." You ran your hand through your hair, smirking at the banter. Turning on your computer for the day, you saw the next gift hanging from your desk lamp. It was beautiful, a little teddy bear carved out of marble with a shimmering purple and green crown sitting on its head.

"Day 11, the gift giver strikes again." You rolled your eyes at Nick's words while holding the Christmas decoration in your hand, running your thumb over the intricate detail.

It was sweet, a cute addition to your small Christmas tree at home. You'd put it up on December one. That was your tradition and some years it didn't seem worth it but you made the effort. Being alone on Christmas sucked, there was no way around it but this year you were making an effort to not sulk about it. The secret gift giver certainly lifted the spirit as well.

Your tree wasn't over the top but a nice addition to your home. This would fit perfectly front and centre and you made sure of it.

The day was relatively easy. The office banter keeping the spirits going with a good supply of caffeine. It was really just a lot of paper work and then you were set free around mid afternoon to try and have that weekend off. This time Vance made sure the team wouldn't be called in. There were other agents to take the call after all.

You'd missed Jack most of the day and didn't want to interrupt her as she was head deep in evals for the end of year. Instead you decided to shoot her a text when you got home.

- Just wanted to say have a good weekend. Didn't want to interrupt your head mojo.

You knew she'd get a kick out of it and you weren't mistaken.

- Head mojo hey? Smarty in the evening just like you said. Missed you today, didn't realise how many evals I still had to do before I went on my trip. Now I'm back logged and still at work.

It was just hitting 1830 which was a late one for Jack on a Friday. She was always hurrying along at the end of the week to make sure by the time 1700 hit she was out the door.

- I hope you are either finishing for the evening or planning on having dinner while you work. It's getting late, Jack.

- No need to worry about little old me. I need to get these done, I'll grab a bite later. Enjoy your night.

An idea popped to mind, you grabbed your coat and car keys and headed back out into the snowfall with your blue scarf still wrapped around your neck.

Thankfully, you weren't too far from the Navy yard and the Diner was just a five minute detour on the route. You called ahead so the food was ready when you got there and still warm when you knocked on her door.

"Come in, y/n."

You huffed, opening the door. "Now how could you possibly know it was me?"

Jack was sitting on her couch, shoes off, legs crossed and glasses tugging her hair back and sitting on her head. "You didn't reply, you always reply. And you care too much." She got up, placing her laptop on the coffee table and walking up to you.

Those were a lot of compliments you weren't entirely prepared for. You thought Jack was the one that cared a lot, but never too much. "I think I care just the right amount but I can eat this all by myself if you'd prefer?" You smirked, pretending to walk back out but Jack caught your arm.

"I didn't mean it like that. I lo-ike that you care so much." She ran her hand up and down your arm a few times before dropping it away. Her warm comforting smile turned into a cute frown. "And don't you dare walk out on me now that youve made all this effort to come here." She took a deep breath in. "Is that two cheeseburgers and fries?"

The frown and the way her nose twitched at the smell was completely adorable. "With a side of gravy. Wasn't sure if you liked it on your fries or not." You shrugged, missing the soft and loving look Jack gave, you walked past her and sat at one end of the couch, unpacking the bag of food. "Come, sit." You urged, patting the spot beside you as she just stood there and watched.

With a soft smile curving her lips, she came around after a beat and sat exactly where you said to. She took the small pot of gravy and poured it over her fries before pouring the rest over yours. "Thank you."

You bumped her shoulder lightly. "Anytime. Can't have Jack Sloane Hangry and loose in DC." That got you a slap on the knee but it was worth it as her hand soothed the spot she hit and stayed there for a while until it was time to eat.

"Didn't mean to ruin your Friday night plans either." She took a huge bite of the burger.

Between bites you managed an answer, "You mean my big watching The Holiday movie while eating a cup of noodles or the one where I go to sleep at 7pm because im living on about four hours sleep right now."

Skipping over how tired you were she jumped at the mention of the movie. "That's my favourite Christmas movie! It's got the best of both worlds! The sun of LA and the cold winter wonderland of the UK. God, I haven't watched that in years! My mum and I went to the movies to watch it and then every Christmas after we'd watch it together, some people had Love Actually, we had The Holiday. Guess I stopped watching when mum passed." She ate a few more fries. "Wow, Jack, way to ruin the good mood. Sorry. Got lost for a moment there."

You liked it when she rambled. She always would say so many interesting things and you just loved to hear her voice. You prayed the day never came when you wouldn't hear it anymore. "Don't apologize-" You held up your hand to stop her from butting in. "- And, no it's not because of Gibbs silly rule. I enjoy hearing about your past about things you love or did. The Holiday is a sweet movie, my must watch in December along with The Grinch, Home Alone and many more. I try my best to keep the holiday spirits up when I'm by myself for them which has been the last many."

"I enjoy hearing you talk too." She smiled, taking a massive bite of her burger and filling up her cheeks.

There was no silence after that. The evals were put to the side and you talked for what seemed like hours. Talking about childhood Christmas' and silly stories to cringe worthy dating moments over this time of year. It wasn't until you couldn't keep your mouth shut from yawning that you said good night around 2300.

"Sorry you didn't get your evals done." You sing over the roof of your car as Jack unlocked her Mini.

"Don't be. I'm happy to come in tomorrow because tonight was fun!" Her genuine smile told you that she wasn't lying. You could read people pretty well and most times Jack Sloane was an enigma to you but right now you knew she was telling the truth.

"Good night, Jack."

She opened her car door before adding. "Enjoy your movie!"

You yawned with a laugh. "You're kidding right? I'm going to sleep, I'll watch it tomorrow now."

"Fair, good night y/n. Sweet Dreams!"

. . . .

Who doesn't want this to end? Me. But I also maybe, slightly want a break from writing every day. It's been fun but tiring. I've enjoyed it a lot though! I love this time of year, if only I wasn't working in retail.

[ranposlittle]

Hii I'm a big fan of your writing(●♡∀♡)!!!! May I request a scenario with Kunikida which broke up with his S/O, and then he regrets about it plus his S/O hurt sm? Hope this won't bother you and thankss🤍🤍

Genre: SFW, Angst

Tags: Break up, I used the F-word once im sorry ;w;

A/N: Thank you for appreciating my writing, you anonymous bunny~ thank you for requesting this, too. I enjoyed writing this! Please listen to THIS SONG for maximum angst (stan day6) and I hope this will make you hurt inside, in a good way hehe enjoooy~ ٩(๑>◡<๑)۶

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The office chair creaked beneath Kunikida's weight as he stretched his arms up after doing the day's work. His back feels heavy and his muscles sore from doing nothing but sitting and typing this week's report.

Putting his attention back to his computer and the afternoon sun reflecting on the screen, Kunikida squinted to check the time; he still have thirty minutes. While everybody else was rustling about and getting ready to head home, Kunikida decided to check his files and clean up some space on his drive. While doing so, he realized that he can't remember the last time he tidied up his files and quickly scolded himself for being so unorganized. With slender fingers, he clicked on every folders within folders, rummaging its contents and hitting the small button on his keyboard to delete the old items. With each unneeded gunk out of his system, he felt lighter as if his stress was being relieved along with his computer's storage.

Kunikida's eyes never left the screen even if his favorite eye-sore asked him if he's planning to sleep on his desk because he's too afraid to be late for tomorrow, in which he just replied with a deadpanned answer and demanded the man to leave him alone before he hangs him using the very same bandages covering the man's body.

Left in serene silence now, he was able to focus more on his work and in no time, he was almost done with it. The click of the mouse echoed in the empty office as Kunikida went on the folder for videos. He doesn't even know why he bothered since he knows for sure that he doesn't keep such things on his work computer but there it is; a file with a name composed of series of random numbers and letters stared at him from the opposite side of the screen. Kunikida's mind raced as to what the video might be and how it ended up on his computer in the first place. The pointer slowly made its way to the file, he clicked on it twice and the screen turned dark as the video player loaded its contents.

The ocean. The strong blows of wind muffled the sounds of the waves crashing into the shore and the birds cawing around. The camera panned throughout the entire beach, catching some people playing about under the hot sun. Kunikida's memory has started to piece together the beautiful scenery when suddenly, a voice in the video called out his name. The camera quickly turned to the source of the voice and when the lenses focused, his heart stopped. It's you. It's been so long since he has seen your face but yet, you still manage to steal his breath away with just your silhouette.

You waved cheerfully at the camera and he heard himself chuckle lowly. A bright smile plastered across your face as another wave rippled on your sandy feet. It's your first vacation. He remembered it now. He purchased the camera especially for this occasion.

"Aren't you going to swim?" You shouted at him, your face crinkled from the sun's harsh beam underneath your straw hat.

"Maybe later," his own voice boomed in reply. "It's still too hot, you'll get sunburned. Come sit here with me for a moment."

You ran towards him and the shade of the beach umbrella he was under. The sound of your giggles rang on the speakers of his monitor and clenched up on his chest. Your face moved closer to the camera and got out of frame, followed by a snappy sound. A kiss, he reckoned. He can actually almost feel the warmth of your lips as it closed in on his like you always do before and a jolt of pain stabbed in his chest. He wanted to look away, to pause the video and just delete it, but his fingers are frozen in place and his eyes are locked in on the scene in front of him as you moved back into frame with that sweet smile of yours that he fell for.

Kunikida kept on watching as the scene cut off to a view of the sunset. The sound shuffled as he flipped the camera to get the two of you in frame as you shared a kiss. In spite of the pain in his chest, he smiled as he recalled the memory of you.

He remembered how happy the both of you were this time. Even though Kunikida dreaded missing a day of work, he remembered being nothing but excited as he waited for the day of your vacation to come. He remembered how much his heart raced whenever he would see you, his mind clouded with the thought of wanting to be with you every second of the day. He remembered how much you loved him, how you would always whisper those sweet words to him in the most unexpected times, disturbing the butterflies in his stomach. He remembered all the times where he'll get out of the comforting warmth of the bed when you share a night together as he starts a new day. How you, despite being barely out of your dream state, would always wake up before he heads to the door to remind him once more of your love for him and wishes him to enjoy the day ahead. He remembered how those words being the only thing that got him through the day alright no matter what challenge he has to face. He felt like an idiot. An idiot for not saying those words back enough, for not appreciating how good you were to him, for breaking your heart.

Kunikida smashed the space bar, pausing the video to the image of the two of you embracing. His fists balled up as the ache in his heart grew and droplets of tears trickled down his cheeks. Kunikida cursed quietly, wiping the unwanted tears away and looked up to his screen once again. Why? Why is he hurting this way? He's the one who broke up with you. So, why?

He remember that time, too. He entered the room with a heavy heart but he has made up his mind about it. He's been thinking about breaking it up to you for weeks now and he figured that it's time to just face the fact that he's no longer in love with you. He remembered the look on your face when you've processed his words. The tears, the pleading, the quiet sobs– he remember it all.

"Stay," you repeatedly asked him as if you're praying to a deity for a miracle. But he didn't hear you. His foot stepped in front of the other without hesitation as he walked out of your room and your life. Admittedly, he was hurting back then, too. He did had some nights of crying himself to sleep but he knew that it's what was needed to be done.

Kunikida exited the video, shut down his computer and stood up from his chair. It's just a memory, he thought to himself, just an old memory romanticized by nostalgia. He'll get over it once he occupied himself with other important things, he convinced himself.

But by the next few days, he's still thinking about you. He's distracted everyday as the prickling pain on his chest never left him, no matter how much he drowns himself in his work. He was feeling more frustrated everyday as his mind nagged him to see you, to talk to you. He knew it'll probably make things worse but he couldn't think of any other way to settle his feelings. So, here he is, on the corner of Cafe Uzumaki, away from prying eyes and invasive ears. His cellphone on one shaky hand as he hesitantly call you. His thumb moved swiftly across the number pad, his muscles remembering the pattern with all the times he dialed the same set of numbers to hear your voice on the other line. Kunikida gulped thickly as he once again argued with his own logic. He clicked his tongue in defeat and pressed the call button.

He heard the first ring. Then, the second. You usually pick up around the fifth ring so he waited. Third ring. Does he really want to—

"Hello?"

Kunikida's heart beat painfully loud on his chest and his mind panicked upon hearing the familiarity of your voice. His hand shook harder and his throat tightened up as he felt so nervous, he could throw up.

"Hello? Who is this?" You asked once again.

With a couple puffs of shallow breath, Kunikida raised his phone up to his ear and forced his own voice out of his dry throat.

"H-Hi," he said timidly. "It's me. It's... Kunikida."

Footfall echoes as people come and go in Cafe Uzumaki, Kunikida's slim finger rubbed at the porcelain handle of his cup. His coffee has gone cold and his thoughts are too occupied with things to say and imaginary scenarios of how this meeting will go to demand for a refill. He was in the middle of another imaginary conversation with you when a voice softly called out his name.

"Kunikida-kun?" It sounded too real to just be in his head this time.

He caught a glimpse of someone standing in front of him through his peripheral and his emerald eyes slowly lifted up from your frame, stopping at the sight of your smiling face. You're beautiful. You always have been. He keep trying to forget but you're just as beautiful as the day he first loved you.

When he didn't said anything and just stared at you, you took it upon yourself to sit yourself down across from him on the booth. A kimono-clad lady came by shortly, asking for your order. Mocha latte, you said politely. A drink you've always been fond of, just like before, Kunikida thought.

"So," you said coldly, breaking off the silence, "are you just going to stare at me or what?"

His face contorted into a mixture of shock and a concerned frown. Of course you're still angry at him, what was he even expecting? That you'll just run towards him and wrap him in a tight embrace like he didn't shattered your trust and crushed your heart?

Then all of a sudden, you brightly laughed at him. "I was just kidding, Kunikida-kun. You're always so easy to tease."

He stuttered in surprise, weren't you mad at him? Through his disbelief, Kunikida's face soften as he continue to stare at your giggling form. A small smile made its way to his lips as he feel warm inside. He have always had a weak spot for your smile and laughter. Just seeing you happy like this made him forget that things are different now.

"It's been, what," you mused after calming down from your jesting, "two years since we've seen each other? I feel so old now."

The waitress came back with your order in hand and you bowed politely in gratitude. You mirrored Kunikida's earlier actions as you fiddled with the handle of your cup, took a few sips of your drink and waited for him to return the conversation.

"I'm sorry for making you come here. I just, uh, I saw our old video. Our first vacation. Do you remember that?" Kunikida finally said, eyes falling back down on his cold coffee. It's been so long since he has to say his feelings out loud, it feels suffocating and liberating at the same time.

"It was on my computer. I don't even remember how it got there but," he continued, not really waiting for your answer as he unravel his thoughts. "I just can't stop thinking about you since then. About us."

A gloomy cloud descended on your booth as you realized Kunikida's sentiment. The atmosphere around you began to feel heavy, nostalgic and sad. You said nothing but your heart ached inside your ribcages as flashes of memories– the good and the bad– played in your head like a movie.

"I think I made a mistake, (Y/N)." Kunikida said in almost a whisper, "I made a mistake."

"Kunikida-kun, I—"

"I want you back, (Y/N). I want us back. We were happy, you know? We were so happy together and we had it all. You loved me more than anyone ever did and I— I threw it all away. I don't even know why I just had to fuck it all up." Kunikida groaned and buried his face on one hand as he tried to conceal the tears that his eyes can't hold back anymore. He cursed under his breath as he failed to compose himself despite feeling like an absolute fool for crying in front of you like this. But he just can't stop. His chest felt like it's going to burst from all the emotions he was repressing. He just can't stop his heart from hurting, no matter what his logical brain is telling him.

You let him crumble down in front of you. To say that you were heartbroken when he left you is an understatement but you never harbored any ill will towards Kunikida. You took no pleasure in hearing his regretful words and watching him hurt like this. You knew that the both of you are just victims of the circumstances; victims of fate and wrong timings. Neither one of you is at fault. It just wasn't meant to be.

"Listen, Kunikida-kun," you took his free hand and held it firmly on both of yours. "You are one of the greatest things that has ever happened to me. You are one of the greatest men I've ever met. You're right, we were so happy back then and sometimes, I still wonder if I can ever have that again."

Kunikida looked up at you, the tightness in his chest still making it hard for him to breath. His eyes are swollen and the tears still wouldn't stop from dropping down his face but the feeling of your hand on his is such a comforting feeling. For a brief moment, he remembered how you used to hold him like this when he's upset, your loving voice calming him down from any nightmares and just you staying by his side until he was alright is his remedy for any traumatic experience he obtained from saving lives. How amazing it is that you still have that effect on him after all this time.

"But what happened to us also taught me a great lesson about life, and love, and about myself. I could say that I'm a better person now because of that experience. I regret nothing, Kunikida-kun. I don't want you to, as well. Don't think of me and feel regrets about the what-if and the what-could've-been. I want you to feel happy. Be happy that it happened," you continued and Kunikida's eyes flickered as more tears came down. "We got to experience something that other people would spend their whole lives seeking. We got to share something so special that we will carry it with us through the rest of our lives. I'm glad, you know. I'm just really glad that I get to do that with you. I'm glad that it was you, Kunikida-kun."

Your voice broke off as you say his name, tears of unknown reason started to run down your face as well in spite of the kind smile you have. Kunikida's eyes widen for a second, understanding what your wise words mean. It means he's not getting you back. It means his chance had passed and no matter what he does, he knows that things will just stay the way they are. No amount of apology or regret will bring you both back at the time where your love for each other is as bright as the sun that was shining on that one vacation day.

His jaw clenched as another stabbing pain jolted on his chest. "I understand," he said and managing to muster a smile. "I understand," he repeated although it was more to himself this time.

"Thank you for calling me," you said, rubbing your thumbs against his skin. "I'm really happy to see you again. I'm glad we got to talk."

"Yeah. Me too," Kunikida gave you a half-hearted smile. He wanted to say more but there's nothing he can say to change what's already on your mind. He just have to accept it. If there's anything that he can do for you right now, it's to let you be happy even if that doesn't include him.

"Anyway, I've got to go," you said, patting his hand gently before letting go. You stood up from your chair, left some money for your drink on the table and slinged your bag on your shoulder. "Take care, Kunikida-kun."

His eyes met yours one last time, an expression of a certain kind of fondness can be seen on both of your eyes. A silent agreement was made in that moment as you lingered on his presence; an agreement to part but to still cherish the other deep in your hearts for as long as you live. Kunikida stood up from his seat, gingerly walked towards you and gave you a hug.

"Thank you," he whispered softly. You placed a hand on his back and returned his embrace, rubbing it in comfort.

Kunikida loosened his arms around you and let you go. He let you go as he also freed himself from you. He watched as you smiled, turned around and walked away. He envisioned himself that one night, when he turned and walked away from you too despite your cries for him to stay with you. Kunikida can't help but scoffed at the irony of it all.

He sat back down when you disappeared out of the door. He doesn't know if he'll ever have the courage to heal from all this and call to see you again without hurting anymore. He looked outside at the evening sky, his surroundings looked different as hues of purple and pink tinted the whole city. Kunikida exhaled, thanking that he can see the big picture now, it's just a shame that he had to move so far back to the point that he can't go back just to see how perfect it was.

[nine-mp3]

Your Neighbor Sungho | Ch. 1

Photo Credits:

- left hand corner, @116page

- center, @newat_rie

Rie (sungho) x (female) reader, fluff, slice of life, semi-angsty (?)

appearances of other OnlyOneOf and Dreamcatcher members will occur

hey so I rolled a wheel on who to write a fanfic first and got rie plus picked out a prompt to write from

warnings: alcohol, getting drunk; in this fic is PG-13, some light cursing occasionally, super tiny mention of smut in description beginning and that’s all;

btw i’m pretty sarcastic, there’s sarcasm thrown here and there, hope you enjoy :D

This is my first time sharing my writing on a public platform. As a writer, I always appreciate constructive criticism. Feel free to leave feedback in the comments if you have anything to say. Thank you in advance for reading as well

Also, please DO NOT repost my work anywhere without my permission or plagiarize.

Description: your neighbor, sungho, from the day you've moved in has kept you up countless nights with their significant other. dancing, muffled long conversations, and amongst other noises you wished you could wipe from memory. one day it suddenly stops. those days become months.

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Your neighbor, Sungho, from the day you've moved in has kept you up countless nights with their significant other. Dancing, muffled long conversations, and amongst other noises you wished you could wipe from memory. One day it suddenly stops. These days become months. Now, you couldn't help but to be concerned.

Sungho isn't a bad neighbor. You recall complaining to him at some point, amidst trying to focus on a report you had to write up for work, and he apologized for the noise. Many times. He seemed embarrassed, never realizing how thin the walls were in the apartment building, and promised to keep the noise levels down. These promises would last only about a week. Their significant other was quite the complete opposite of Sungho, a loud individual. From what you were aware, the two didn't live together. His significant other would come over daily to stay or visit.

As much as they were loud, they didn't seem to like you either. Looks of disdain thrown whenever you happen to cross them in the hallway, being in the same elevator cart, or when Sungho was trying to be a good neighbor by greeting you. They would pull him away immediately, putting his attention back on them. Sometimes you thought that they were being loud on purpose, knowing that you were next door, and very well aware of the complaints. The reason why? You had no idea. The best guess you could come up with was that they saw you as a threat to their relationship. Which was ridiculous. You hardly knew the male nor could the both of you call each other friends.

Sometimes Sungho left fruits or drinks at your door with little notes of apologies for their rowdiness. And for their significant other's behavior. For the most part, you bared through it or simply did all your work within the hours at your office now and prayed that tiredness would consume you once you hit your bed, blocking out any disturbances.

So, life goes on.

One weekend, you just happened to get home from going out with your friends. It was late, past midnight. You heard arguing through the walls between Sungho and their significant other.

"You're always like this, Sungho!"

Immediately, you felt very uncomfortable entering your apartment. It wasn't something you wanted to hear or should be hearing. Not that you could help it either since you lived next door. You backed yourself outside, considering going to the balcony on the floor for a bit. Stepping back outside of your door, their argument becomes muffled.

Why couldn't the landlord just keep the damn wall consistency the same?

Suddenly, Sungho's door flies open followed by their significant other storming out. You jump up out of surprise, the noise scaring you. They're heading down the hallway, to the elevators, without looking back. Sungho appears at his door not too long after, holding it open.

"Wait-" he calls out to them, his voice faltering.

The male notices you then, staring with wide eyes at him. At that moment, you were able to get a full picture of his current position. The hurt in his eyes.

"Oh...y/n. Are you here to complain about the noise again? I'm really sorry-"

"Uh, no! No, not at all. See, I just was returning home now. Don't worry about it," you said, awkwardly blinking a few times, reaching to grab for your keys from your bag once again.

"Um, I'm heading inside now! Okay, bye!"

You immediately opened your door again, rushing, running into your living room. The door shuts behind automatically and you let out a sigh of relief. You felt bad for suddenly running away, but you weren't about to ask or give relationship advice if Sungho wasn't asking for it. Besides, what if it was only a lover's quarrel?

They'll probably make up soon. Talk about a rough night…

Then the realization set in. The apartment would be definitely quiet for at least another day. A smile rises to your face.

What a horrible thing to be happy over...after seeing your neighbor fight with their significant other. Then again, they weren't all that nice to me.

You shrugged, waving the events aside, calling it a night, enjoying the peaceful silence...only with the slight remaining, lingering tension in the air. After you showered, brushed your teeth, and changed into pajamas, you immediately laid down on your bed. Pulling the covers over, you found yourself thinking. Staring up to the ceiling of your room in the dark.

That argument sounded bad though...ugh. None of your business, y/n. Go to sleep. They'll probably be fine tomorrow…

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Define the term "fine".

The next day, as you predicted, was quiet. That you could hear a pin drop from down the hallway. You enjoyed it, a Sunday afternoon peace. It allowed you to catch up on work, eat, watch T.V, write poetry...overall without any disturbances. Sungho, your neighbor, was long forgotten from your mind.

The thing is, it goes on for the next week. You weren't worried about it at all because you were swamped with work. The next reports and presentations came with close deadlines. The silence was appreciated, allowing you to focus; you got lost in piles of work and many cups of coffee.

Worry about your neighbor only returned on the brief encounters when the both of you were heading to work in the mornings. Sungho still greeted you, but only with a brief nod and face expressionless. They would walk ahead first, not bothering to see even if you returned the greeting or not. Sometimes you heard him leaving earlier than you and now you couldn't help but to wonder what his occupation was.

The week turns into two and three. He stops greeting you at some point, or maybe he wasn't very aware of his surroundings; his whole aura was different. Sungho usually would at least do his hair before going out and dress somewhat decently. Now it was always a mess, his bangs left down to cover his eyes, matching with black attire. You saw him up close in his current condition when you were returning to the apartment building one afternoon. The male had collided into you, by accident. Turning around immediately on the impact, once you had regained your balance, you're faced with eyes that were written with sleepless nights, dark circles prominent. At least, this time, he mumbles an apology before moving on.

By the time it reaches the end of the month, your workload becomes lighter for the year, you find more time thinking about the current situation of your neighbor. You called up one of your best friends at your workplace one night. It wasn't the first time you discussed your neighbor with them.

"Yoojung, it's the end of the month. I haven't seen his significant other in awhile. As much as I enjoy the silence, I hate seeing Sungho this dead," you said, a hand gripping onto the balcony railing out of nervousness.

“Note check. You don’t even know the guy. Why exactly are you so worried?” Yoojung on the other end replies.

Your friend had a point. Why were you worried?

“Well…I don’t have an answer, actually. I don’t know why I’m worried. Can’t I just be a good neighbor?” you replied.

“It’s none of your business, y/n. Looking at reality. But if you’re so worried, go knock on his door and talk to him. Even if it’s just a hello. Didn’t he leave you fruits before? You can do that in return if you’re so curious,” Yoojung suggested, not sounding all that interested.

“Anyways, you’re coming to the group outing for dinner next week right? On Saturday? Please tell me you didn’t forget or you plan on cancelling. We hardly ever get a chance for everyone to come together again.”

“Alright, thanks so much for the advice...I guess...and keep your pants on, Yoojung. Of course I’m coming. Good night,” you scowled at him.

You hung up the phone then, not giving a chance for the other to say his goodbye. As much as he was your best friend, he could be a pain in the ass. Turning around, you exited out the balcony to return back to your apartment for the day.

So much for calling it a night.

Once you make it back, you’re greeted with Sungho at your door, hunched over, using an arm to keep his weight up against the wall. First thought that came to mind: he’s unwell and he came to ask you for help? You immediately approach the male, only to be hit by a smell of alcohol and you jolt back. The second thought you had, only confirmed: he’s drunk.

“Sungho?! Are you okay?” you asked nervously, tapping his shoulder lightly.

The male looks up to you, quite confused.

“y/n? Oh. Yeah...I’m fine. Just trying to get into my apartment...but the key.... doesn’t seem to fit…” Sungho said, words spoken slowly as he tries to stand upright.

“Did...the landlord change the locks?”

“No, no. The landlord didn’t. You’re at the wrong apartment, this one is mine. Uh, do you need help?” you said, raising an eyebrow at him.

“Ah...well, that makes...sense now,” Sungho said, a drunk written smile appearing on his face.

“No, it’s okay...I’m always disturbing you... I’m really sorry...Have...a good night, y/n.”

It’s the first time you’ve seen him smile in such a long time. Of course, it only happens to be when he’s not sober. Also, you’re very aware that drunk people do need help but always deny it. You watch as he turns around, folding your arms and counting down in your head.

3... 2...1

The male collapses on the ground, completely knocked out from the alcohol in his system. You blew up at your hair, huffing then, staring down at his figure on the ground.

This night just got a whole lot longer.

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[nad-zeta]

Hi can I please have a ikevamp matchup? I'm goth/emo and pansexaul. I dislike rude people, too much social interactions, people harming animals and loud children. Often can be found listening to music, playing games or with animals ao reading. I'm mostly a loner, have major trust issues, can be cold and vindictive, sarcastic to the fullest, insecure when people point out the scar over my right eye and notice my selfharm scars, tend to observe more than speak. Number 1, will send in nr 2-anon🐺

Number 2, people say I'm polite and wise and tend to notice smaller details and conversations more than others and also say I'm kind as long as people don't get on my bad side upon first meeting. I can hold a grudge but can also easily forgive and have an unhealthy obbsesion with drinking black bitter coffee. Hobbies are drawing, reading, writing, listening to music, chatting with my bestie, playing with animals, gardening and daydreaming.-Anon🐺

Hi hi, love! 😊I hope you are doing well. 🙌Thank you so much for the request and sorry for taking sooooo long with this!😱🙈❤ I hope you have a super good day and enjoy this!❤❤ 

So I match you with.................. Arthur

The first time you meet Arthur, he was hella intrigued. 

You couldn't sleep that first night you came to the mansion due to some crazy scary nightmares. You made your way down to the kitchen to make yourself a cup of coffee. As you entered into the dark kitchen you noticed a figure by the fridge, it was the mystery writer himself. At the sound your your footsteps entering into the kitchen he promptly shut the fridged and closed the distance between the two of you. He stared down at you with his ocean blue eyes gleaming in the darkness. That is when Sabastian joined the two of you in the kitchen carrying a clear crystal bottle with what appeared to be a thick red liquid inside. You eyed the bottle curiously, and that's when Arthur had revealed the Mansions secret to you as he downed it. You were honestly pretty shocked, but when Arthur got up close to you, you instantly believed him as staining the collar of his shirt was undeniably the crimson red colour of blood. 

You rushed back to your room freaking out, coffee long forgotten and somehow throughout the evening, you managed to pass out. You woke up to Comte sitting beside your bed with some breakfast. He spent the morning telling you all about the residence and the exact situation that you had managed to find yourself in. As Comte continued to explain the situation to you, you drifted off into a world of your own, replaying the previous night's events. You thought about Arthur and decided to low key forgive him for scaring you that previous night, as he was simply being honest, even though he could have done it in a less dramatic way.

You spent the day in your room, reading and writing. You didn't exactly feel like interacting with the residents, not cause of them being vampire but simply because you just didn't like social interaction in general, plus it had been a while since you last had time to completely relax. 

The next morning you woke up and made your way down to the kitchen. You started a fresh pot of bitter black coffee, just the way you like it and who should walk into the kitchen and steal the very cup of coffee you had been excited to drink…. Non-other than Arthur himself. "Hey, that's mine, if you want coffee, then I suggest you make your own," you scolded the author with a frown and grumbled sarcastic remarks at him under your breath as you move to make yourself a fresh cup. Arthurs's eyes gleamed in excitement you certainly were a feisty little creature. The two of you took your sarcastic banter to the dining room as breakfast was being served. You weren't really one for social interaction, but you did enjoy the back, and forth you had with Arthur. Usually, no one could keep up with your quickfire of witty remarks and sarcastic comeback, but here Arthur was, holding his own against you. 

When the next morning rolled by the exact same thing happened, Arthur yet again stole your freshly brewed cup of coffee, you let the first time slide but this time you narrowed your eyes at him plotting your revenge. Little did this mystery writer know, you were a rather vindictive kind of person. The next morning just as you predicted, Arthur showed up to steal your morning cup of coffee, except this time it wasn't coffee that he found himself drinking but a concoction of warm sludgy, muddy water. He spat it out and started rinsing his mouth under the kitchen tap, "serves you right," you legit couldn't hold back your laughter and hosed yourself laughing, watching the expression of disgust form on Arthur's face, "oh revenge certainly is sweet." This, my dear, is how the revenge war started between you and Arthur. Since that day, he would pull small pranks on you to get revenge, and you would plot a prank twice as good to get him back. You honestly enjoyed this little game the two of you played and even though you never like social interaction if it was with Arthur, you honestly didn't mind.

Speaking of games, one day, you walked into the game room to find Arthur and Isaac battling it out over a game of chess. You stood in the doorway next to Theo to watch the intense match between the two. Theo had warned you never to play a game against Arthur unless you wanted to lose, as he had never lost a single game in his life. You low key scoffed and laughed as it seemed he was losing at your little game of revenge, as his pranks were becoming more and more predictable. Issac hung his head in defeat, having lost yet another match against Arthur and now earning himself the nickname A-chan. You patted Isaac on the back and challenged Arthur to a game, winner takes all loser takes non. He simply shook your hand and smilingly accepted the bet

You challenged him to a game of rummy, and for the first time in Arthur’s life, he was sweating. You were definitely a tough opponent, and your observational skills were like his, second to none. The game had ended in a draw, so the two of you played another round one which you had managed to win by the skin of your teeth. You stood up, smiling triumphantly, and that's when he challenged you to a rematch. The two of you spent the afternoon playing various board games and trash-talking each other. You honestly loved playing games and playing against someone who could provide you with a good challenge definitely made it more enjoyable. You and Arthur actually added this to your list of fun activities to occasionally do together. It was always something which both of you looked forward to as it was always filled with laughter and witty banter.

Arthur quickly realized that you were incredibly smart and had a keen sense for picking up on finer details. So he invited you to tag along and play detective with him, helping him to solve some cases around town. TBH he pretty much pestered you into helping him, until you finally cracked one day. However, after having so much fun using your combined skills to solve a case you and Arthur teamed up and became the towns mystery solvers. Two of you work many a case together. Arthur legit loves working on various cases with you as this means he can spend more time with you and get to know you even better. 

You guys stumble on a case where the owner of a beautiful Germain Sheppard had kept the poor dog chained up in the backyard. As Arthur chatted with the owner, you went over to pat the dog, and that's when the blood drained from your face in horror. The poor dog was incredibly thin, and you could see scars all over his body from being abused. To top it all off there had even been fresh wound on his leg. You looked over to see that the poor had no access to fresh clean water, and looked incredibly thirsty. You opened your bag to retrieved your bottle of water, you poured some water in a small dish for the dog. The poor thing must have been incredibly thirsty as he drank up every last drop of water. Your heart broke in two, and you didn't want to leave the poor animal in this cruel man's care. Just then, the man came out with Arthur and was incredibly rude with you telling you to get away from his dog. That afternoon as you and Arthur walked back home, the poor dog had been on your mind. Arthur stop abruptly and stared down at you curiously, "you know luv, I would do anything you ask, all you have to do is say the word. I do hate to see you looking so down. So tell me what is it I can do to bring that beautiful smile back to your face." You had never seen Arthur look at you with so much love and worry before, he had always been a bit of a pain in the ass, but during the past few weeks, you couldn't help but fall in love with him. And at the moment with him staring at you so earnestly, you had realized you really had fallen for this man standing before you. 

Once the two of you got back home, you made your way to Arthurs room where you poured your heart out and told him that you hated rude people and you couldn't stand it when animals were being abused. Arthur simply nodded and smiled, "well then, what do you say we go and rescue that sweet dog from the clutches of the evil villain." You nodded and rolled your eyes slightly, trust the writer to create a story out of every situation. The two of you now sat side by side at the dining room table, each with a cup of bitter coffee in hand, planning the poor dog's daring rescue.

That night the two of you had successfully managed to save the poor dog. It took no effort at all for you to convince Comte to let you keep the cutie. After speaking with Comte about keeping the pet as your own, you walked back to your room, smiling at the memories you had created that night. Not only had you managed to rescue an animal in need, but after your daring rescue, you and Arthur were so excited at a job well done that he kissed you. On the walk home, you and Arthur had confessed your feeling for one another, and thus a new chapter in your life had officially started.

Often you could be found in the garden playing with your new pet. The second Arthur would hear the excited barks of the two dogs, he would put his pen down and rush downstairs to join the fun. He couldn't help but smile like a fool at the scene before him before joining in. The two of you would spend most afternoons playing with the animals while laughing and just having the best time together. 

You had actually been the one to introduce Arthur to gardening, as a therapeutic way for both of you to relax and unwind. Plus this pale British boy had never seen a drop of sunshine in his life, thanks to always being cramped up in his room writing, so it did him a world of good to get out of his room once a while to soak up that sweet vitamin D

Arthur, like you, has had to deal with a lot of pain from the past, so he never ever did mention anything about your scars to you. He knew that if you wanted to talk about them, you would. And you did, one day after he had told you all the traumas of his past and why it had taken him so long to confess his feelings for you, you told him about your past. That day the two of you completely let your guards down and let each other in. Arthur did everything in his power to be by your side whenever you were feeling insecure about your scars. You best be sure this boi will hold you tight and tell you how perfect and beautiful you are. If that doesn't work to quieten down your insecurities he will show you with action how much he loves and adores every inch of you.

Often the two of you cuties can be found just chilling together in Arthur's room. He would be slouched over his desk, writing the newest chapter, and you would be cuddled up on his couch reading about the latest topic of interest. When Arthur discovers that you also dabble in writing, he was legit over the moon. He would always insist you read your latest piece of writing to him as he rests his head on your lap, while you lazily pull your finger through his ocean locks. The two of you cuties would also sit and talk and talk for hours in deep conversation about anything and everything.

If the two of you aren't engaged in some kind of battle of wits, you are nestled in Arthur's arms as the two of you just enjoy a peaceful moment together wrapped in each other's warmth, each in a daydream of their own. Don't be surprised if this playboy drops a few sneaky kisses on your face as you comfortably rest in his arms, daydreaming away.

Other potential matches................. Vlad 

I hope you enjoyed this dear and I hope you have a super good day!❤❤😊🌻

[quaintrelle-on-the-loose]

September 15th | Saturday

SMX Convention Center

I was scheduled to go home to Pangasinan this weekend, but due to the bad weather, I decided to stay here in Manila instead. I still wanted to make the most out of this weekend so despite the bad weather, I still pushed through going to The 39th Manila International Book Fair at the SMX Convention Center. I went to the Book Fair with him. We decided to meet at Guadalupe at around 10:30am and grabbed some breakfast at Jollibee (because this guy can't live without rice on breakfast) and went straight to MOA afterwards.

I love books so attending book events such as book fairs is one of the things that I love doing the most and having to go to such event with someone who also shares the same passion for books is one of the best things to happen in a bookworm’s life. To be honest, I didn’t see him as the book-type of a person (haha judger!) so being with him at the book fair and seeing his interest on books was a bit of surprise for me.

Anyways, before going to this event, I promised myself to just spend a certain and limited amount of money so I prepared two options: to buy EITHER this poetry book by Rupi Kaur OR Jenny Han’s To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before trilogy. I’ve already read this trilogy on eBook twice but I’ve always still wanted to have the real books in my hands. That’s why it was on the top of my priority list that day. But I still prepared a second option if ever I couldn’t find Jenny Han’s book set: Rupi Kaur’s Milk and Honey. The reason why it was the back up plan aside from me also loving poetry, was because it was what Jessa recommended (but it was more like a demand, actually lol) me before leaving the house that morning.

I first saw Jenny Han’s books but the problem was, we weren’t able to find the second book (during our first attempt). So it was just To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before and Always and Forever, Lara Jean. Ferdi and I already finished checking every booth and yet, I wasn’t able to find the complete set still. While roaming around tho, looking for the trilogy and Ferdi’s “airplane” books and really just roaming and checking every booth out, I found Cathy Bartel’s Every Teen Girl’s Little Pink Book of Prayers and since I love Cathy Bartel and God knows how much her books meant to me for it led me to seeking Him in my life, I bought it. I bought it at CBC Publishing’s booth with this little pink notebook of 100 Bucket List. But buying them weren’t enough since they were unplanned and I was desperate of going home with either of my two options in hand. That’s why we went back to the first booth that we’ve been to and he ended up buying this Sherlock Holmes’ book set. I was starting to lose hope when all of a sudden, I saw Milk and Honey misplaced on one of the shelves near the counter. And I thought, that was it. I grabbed and bought it. While we were already leaving tho, we realized that there was a 20% discount for ALL the books. That’s when I had that sudden urge to go back and just really look for the entire set of Jenny Han’s books!

Marina Oysters Seafood Grill

He told me that we could come back after grabbing lunch since we haven’t realized that it was already passed one in the afternoon. We went back to MOA but ended up choosing one of the restaus by the Bay. We had our lunch at Marina Oysters Seafood Grill. I tried their Bangus Salpicao while he had their Fish Finger. And since we were craving for oysters, we also ordered their Marina Famous Baked Oysters. It was a great meal and we really enjoyed the food.

After our eating our lunch, we then went back to SMX Convention Center and went home with not just one of my options in hand. I had both the poetry book and the book set! Yay? Yay!  Sure thing, I spent a lot that day but it was all worth it. My heart’s very happy! ♥

September 16th | Sunday

Starbucks, Greenfield District

On Sunday, I got to tick another To Do on my list — to avail Starbucks’ Statement Cup (the pink one with the “FEARLESS” word on it!). And no, people. I didn’t want it because I am a “Swiftie.” I wanted it for two reasons: one was because it is pink (duh?) and the other reason was the message of the cup itself — FEARLESS. Because that’s what I was going for this year — to be fearless. And if there’s one who inspired me to be one was not Taylor but Nikita Gil and her poem, “Her Name Will Be Fearless.”

It was indeed a great weekend with the loves. Books? Coffee? Plus, I got to see another side of him and it's a good feeling to know him more. And when I say "to know him," I mean, to really know him. We had these endless chats about family, life, adulting, and all those random stuff and I think, I went home yesterday liking him even more. It also amazes me how I could easily open up to him. Being with him every time is so easy and comfy. Even the things that I don't want and couldn't easily tell to others, with him, it just naturally comes out. Every time we're together, I feel like it's inevitable baring my soul to him. He gets the realness out of me so naturally. And I think that's something I haven't felt for so long. I'm not even sure if I already felt such thing before.

I am such a happy hooman! A quaintrelle who emphasizes life passion through these leisurely pastimes and cultivate life pleasures, indeed. ♥

[imaginedilestrade]

Valentine's.

"What are those?" You raised a brow at the flowers on your desk.

"Those are flowers...the things with petals and they small nice, you sometimes find them in a garden..." Anderson sarcastically muttered.

You rolled your eyes and bopped him on the head with a file you had in your hand "I know what flowers are smart arse! What are they doing on my desk? Did someone leave them for Sally?"

Anderson shook his head "Nope...they're yours from a secret admirer..." he wiggles his brows.

You narrowed your eyes "It better not be you winding me up!"

"It's really not!" He defended "I don't know who left them, they were on your desk this morning when I came in." You looked back and forth from Anderson to be beautiful bunch of flowers whilst you removed your jacket and hung it over your chair. You moved them to a spot on the floor beside the desk. "It's strange...sunflowers aren't usually associated with Valentine's," Anderson uttered as he tapped away on his keyboard.

You looked down at the flowers, baffled, yet the corners of your mouth were tugging upwards "They're my favourite.. you quietly admitted before your eyebrows knitted together "But I've never told anyone they're my favourite, so how does this person know?"

Anderson simply shrugged "Maybe you did tell someone and they've either a) blabbed or b) it could be the person you've told..." Anderson wiggled his brows and you glared at him through your eyelashes.

"It doesn't matter, just someone being nice. I don't do Valentine's anyway..." you began to type up a report and Anderson sniggered in his seat "What?" You narrowed an eye.

"You don't do Valentine's because in all the years I've known you, you've never had one! Come on Y/N, do you have any plans for tonight?"

You sighed as you typed, not taking your eyes away from the computer screen "Well apart from me taking a long romantic stroll up the wine aisle and then the aisle with all the chocolate at the supermarket...no."

You could hear Anderson half groan half laugh "Why don't you put those police skills to use and figure out who your admirer is?" You glanced down to the sunflowers again and pondered over Anderson's comment.

"No."

Anderson blinked at your deadpanned reply before letting out a dramatic sigh. He sighed again, even louder and then again, trying to capture your attention.

"I'm trying to focus..." you warned him with a deadly look "I don't have the time to find this person!"

"There's always time lurveeeeeeeeeeee!" He teased and you flung a pen at him, he caught it with a loud clap "I want to know who it is too!"

"I'm going for lunch..." you uttered and saved the file on the computer before shutting it down. You grabbed the rest of your things and looked down at the sunflowers again...not knowing who left them was slowly starting to eat away at you. "I'm going to drop in and see Sherlock and John before getting my usual at Speedy's for lunch. Do you want anything?"

"I want to know who your admirer is!" He stood up and practically shouted it across the office. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at the pair of you.

Your face burned from blushing so much "You are so lucky I don't have my gun on me right now because I'd use it on you..." you gritted your teeth at Anderson who sheepishly smiled. You grabbed your things and left.

"Hey," you walked into the flat and found Sherlock perched on his chair and on his phone texting away "Where's John?" You noticed the doctor's absence.

"Picking Rosie up from nursery...why are you here?" He muttered and you rolled your eyes, plopping yourself down on John's chair.

"Well it's nice to see you too! You know I pop in every afternoon before I go to lunch to see my favourite cousin!"

He looked up to you with a smirk "I'm your favourite?"

You gruntled "Don't tell Myc." Glancing around the living room you noticed a stack of unsolved cases building up on the fireplace "You taking a break?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes and stood up, making his way over to the stack of letters and papers and ran a finger through them all "I'm waiting until your finished with your current case. You know I only like working with you. Although I don't know why you work at Scotland Yard, you could do so much better."

"I enjoy it," you craned your neck to look at him "Plus I get flowers..." you added, smiling to yourself. It quickly disappeared when Sherlock caught you and raised a brow.

Before he could open his mouth to interrogate you, someone entered the living room with a tray carrying a teapot, cups, milk, sugar and biscuits "Ooh oh! Only me! Y/N!" Mrs Hudson cooed "Its so lovely to see you, tea?"

"No thank you, Mrs Hudson. I'm just popping down to the cafe to have some lunch. My break doesn't last forever!" You laughed and stood up.

"You've just missed G-" Mrs Hudson but herself off when she spotted Sherlock sending her a conspicuous glare, one that you didn't notice. She cleared her throat before continuing "-John!" She almost yelled out his name "Yes he's just away not that long ago."

"Right..." you politely smiled "Well I have to be off, see you both later!"

"Have a wonderful Valentine's Day Y/N!" Mrs Hudson grinned just as you headed towards the door. You tightly shut your eyes before groaning out a strained 'Thanks'. She giggled to herself "Oh Frank and I had wild Valentine's days...he'd do this thing where he was-"

You quickly cut her off "-Got to go!" You sent a single wave to the both of them, Sherlock was starting to grimace on his seat as Mrs Hudson continued.

You stepped into Speedy's and were instantly hit with the smell of coffee. The cafe was covered with bright red hearts and filled with couples holding hands and lovingly gazing at one another.

You made your way to the counter and just as you were about to place your order the waitress held her hand up with a smile "It's already taken care of, just take a seat."

You raised a brow "W-what do you mean?" You asked as she came around from behind the bar and took you to a table that had a single sunflower on it and a little package wrapped in brown paper and tied with red string with a heart gift tag attached to it "What is this?" You breathed out, too flabbergasted to speak more than three words.

"Courtesy of your admirer," the waitress coyly smiled "I'll be right back with your lunch." She walked away and left you more confused than ever. You slowly sat down in the chair and read the tag on the package 'Open this book and you will find, the reason why you have made me lost my mind.' You let out a small laugh and tore the paper off a journal of some sort. You looked at the plain cover with a furrowed brow before you opened it inside. You gasped to yourself finding the pages bursting with little drawings, hearts, poems and a list on the second page with the title 'Reasons why I can't get you out of my mind'. With each word you read your smile grew;

'•Your smile.

•Your laugh.

•The days you smell of strawberries because you've brought those flavour of sweets into the office.

•The days when you're proud of yourself for closing a case (I'm proud of you too.)'

You felt your heart flutter, you shut the book over with a soft thud as the waitress came with your lunch. "Can you tell me who it was who left this?"

She sadly smiled "They told me to keep it a secret, I'm sorry." She walked off and you let out a sigh, brushing your fingers over the cover as you tried to deduce who it was.

"I can't believe I'm saying this but Anderson," his head popped up from behind his computer screen and he turned the radio he was listening to down a little. You let out a defeated sigh "I need your help finding out who my admirer is."

"Yes!" He ecstatically stood up and swivelled his chair around to sit next to you. He soon got into detective mode "They left you that too?" He pointed to the book and you handed it over to him, even if it felt like handing him a piece of your soul. "It's interesting that they've typed everything and then glued the bits of paper in so you can't figure who it is by their handwriting..." he thought aloud "Have you made a list?"

"Not yet," you uttered before grabbing some paper and a pen "Okay, we'll start with this floor...let me see....there's Jackson, Daniels, Williamson, Samuels, Anderson," you playfully glared at him beside you before he tutted, took the pen and scribbled his name out. "Uhh...there's Hunter and Peters too-"

"Don't forget Lestrade," Anderson interjected.

You looked up and furrowed a brow at Anderson "Do you really think so?" You asked in a hushed tone.

"Why not?" He shrugged. Your eyes flickered up to Greg and you gulped before writing down his surname and a trembling hand. "Why are you so shaky?" Anderson asked and you shook your head. It hit him and he smiled widely "You like him don't you?"

"Shut up."

"Do you want it to be him who's done all this?"

"I don't know! Maybe?" Anderson sent you a knowing look and you let out a groan "Alright yes! Yes I like Greg and yes I want him to be the one who's responsible for this, but what if it's not?" Anderson blinked once and then twice, realising that you had a point.

The pair of you peered over your computer monitor and looked at Greg who was on the phone in his office. He looked over and saw the two of you staring, you and Anderson quickly sat back down again looked at each other. The radio was still playing in the background, the host was playing Valentine's requests.

"This next one is for Y/N Y/L/N!" The radio cackled and you looked at Anderson in shock, although he was as equally as shocked. "Apparently this is the only love song she likes..." he laughed "'It must be love' by Madness."

You turned to Anderson and a smile slowly formed on your face "It's true..." you whispered to Anderson "It's the only one I like. But again, I've never told anyone. How do they know?"

"I can ask about, see if anyone knows anything?" You nodded and he dashed away. You reached over to turn up the radio a little before sitting back down in your seat and smiling to yourself.

The rest of the day dragged in, you barely saw Anderson as he was busy trying to get to the bottom of who was your admirer.

"It's alright," you assured with a disappointed smile "Thanks for the help though." You gave him a quick hug before putting on your jacket and flinging your bag over your shoulder.

"No problem, I hope you find out. Have a nice night, Y/N."

"You too!" You picked up your flowers and left.

On the way back home, you stopped off at the small shops at your house to pick up some shopping. A worker smirked seeing you with the biggest bunch of sunflowers in the world in your arms.

"Someone was lucky!" They winked and nodded towards the flowers.

You smiled "If only I knew who they were from!" Making your way down an aisle, you reached your hand out to grab a pizza for yourself when you froze seeing a note on top of the box of your usual choice. 'Dinner's ready, Y/N. You better hurry home.'

You ran as fast as you could out of the shop and down he street to your flat. A light was on and you look in a deep breath before rushing into the stairwell and practically leaping up the stairs.

You stood outside your door for a moment, a million thoughts running though your head, nerves creating a knot in your stomach, trembling fingers...you had to compose yourself.

Lightly pushing on your door, it opened and you felt tears welling in your eyes seeing your flat beautifully decorated with flowers, candles, hearts cut out of red paper and a trail of rose petals leading to your living room. You placed down your bag and flowers on the long table by your door and then took off your coat. You walked though to the living room slowly and felt the air leave your lungs within less than a second.

"Greg?"

The Di bashfully smiled and guiltily held his hands up. You reached your hand out as you walked towards him, relieved when it pressed against his chest and knowing that he was there and he was real.

"Happy Valentine's Day, Y/N."

You let out a watery laugh and wiped away a stray tear with the back of your hand. You leaped into his arms and he spun you in a circle "I can't believe you did all this for me."

"Why wouldn't I?" You both pulled back at the same time but were drawn together again like a pair of magnets, your lips crashing together. You finally thanked your admirer for all the wonderful little gifts he had gave you throughout the day.

You pulled back, both of you smiling so wide that your cheeks ached "How did you know? How did you know everything? The flowers, the song...how did you know all of that?"

Three weeks earlier...

"And you're sure? 100% sure?" Greg asked as he took down notes.

"I'm positive...I know that her favourite flowers are sunflowers, she always goes to Speedy's for lunch. Always. I also know that 'It must be love' by Madness is the only love song on the planet she likes. I've heard her bang on about it so much that it once almost made my ears bleed and I know that every Wednesday after work she goes to the shop beside her house to pick up dinner which is always cheese pizza."

Greg nodded and scribbled down everything "Okay. Thanks Sherlock."

Greg looked off into the distance before looking down at you again, innocently ignoring your questions with a smile before pecking your lips "Dinner's getting cold!"

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

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! I hope you've all had a lovely day 😁❤️

Tags- (Let me know if you'd like to be tagged/untagged!)

@daynaan-black-dawn @the-baby-bookworm @imnottalkingtoyou @theyre-my-divsion @girl-next-door-writes @annkli @wcsteland @heyyou-guys @princesspeach212 @babynovak05 @redgreyandpurple @sherlockedtash88 @damnitman-jamlocked-inthetardis @disneymarina @-waythe-

[mystery-moose]

FIC: Angus McDonald and the Flight of the Flying V (10/?)

[AO3 link]

They’ve come a long way, but even ten years after the world was saved, they’re still not quite where they should be. A whim, a missing painting, and a handful of near-death experiences help a flip wizard and his apprentice bridge the gap.

Taako does his best. Angus takes some risks. Introductions are made, bonds are tested, and lessons are learned — better late than never.

Much as he occasionally enjoyed pretending otherwise, Taako wasn’t an idiot; when Angus gave him his key and shooed him off, he knew it wasn’t for his benefit. Which was fine, really — the kid had a job to do, and Taako was a great big walking distraction. He could have left town right then and there, called it a day and gone back home.

And then Angus would be on his own. Looking for someone who could cast seventh-level Evocation.

Nah. Taako could afford to stay a bit longer. Not like he had anywhere else to be. Besides, the boy needed his help. Not with the case, he clearly had the detective shit locked down. No, Angus need Taako’s help with something far, far more important.

Alright, first thing’s first: how do you find a cop?

“Hey, hold this.”

Taako tossed a random dwarf his purse.

“Thanks.” Then he turned, cupped his hands by his mouth, and shouted at the top of his lungs, “Thief! Thief! A thief is stealing my purse!”

All heads in the market square crowd turned toward them. The dwarf looked from side to side, panicked. “Wh—I didn't—”

“Thief! Thug! Brigand! Cutpurse!” Taako shouted. “Other words for a guy who steals!”

The dwarf threw the purse to the ground and took off into the crowd, elbowing people to get past. Nobody stopped him.

Taako snorted and went to pick up his bag. Fuckin’ Neverwinter.

Moments later, a shorter woman pushed her way through the crowd. Taako recognized her instantly.

“Alright, step aside, what’s th—” She paused, brow furrowed. “Taako?”

He clasped his hands together and grinned. “Why, Silvia! What an absolute and total coincidence!”

“Uh-huh.” Silvia nodded and removed a hand from her belt, by her wand holster. “Are you okay?”

“Oh, fine, just fine!” he said, waving it off. “Some ne'er-do-well tried to make off with my bag, but he dropped it. No bigs.”

“Yeah, I heard the shouts.” She glanced around as the crowd surrounding them began to turn away, then shrugged casually. “So, do you wanna file a report, or…?”

Taako tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Nah, I wouldn’t wanna put you out. But it’s so funny that we ran into each other again! Are you busy?”

She blinked, then gestured around them. “I’m on duty?”

“Right, right,” he said dismissively. “How about after?”

Silvia rubbed the back of her neck, looking sort of confused. “I mean, I guess I don’t have any special plans—”

“Excellent! Then we can take you up on that rain check! Stop on by Ango’s place, we’ll do dinner!”

“Uh—”

“He’ll be a bit late, probably. I mean, you know him! Always with the detecting!” Taako laughed, short and sweet, then turned serious and rested a hand on her shoulder. “Now, do you have any allergies I should know about?” Silvia blinked again. “No, but—”

“Great! One less thing to worry about, am I right?” Taako elbowed her gently. “So what time should we expect you? Six? Six sounds good!”

“Six—”

“Six it is!” Taako stepped back, taking her hand in both of his. “Now I’m real sorry to cut and run, but I’ve got some shopping to do, and you’ve got, I don’t know, whatever police-cop business is, right?”

“I'm—”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re a busy woman on the go, I get it!” Taako stepped back, tipped his hat, flashed her his best smile and spun on his heel. He waved over his shoulder as he walked away. “Keep it real, maydl! See you at six!”

Taako shoved his way through the crowd without looking back and tried to find a street sign pointing toward the merchant district.

The game was on. Now he had to prepare the field.

With a flick of his umbrella, Taako Reduced the old table and chairs to a more manageable size, then tossed them thoughtlessly into the back of the Pocket Spa. He shoved the new rosewood table out into the kitchen, and then arranged the four matching chairs around it.

Now, Taako was no mensch, but whatever his apprentice had in his kitchen reflected on him. He needed something nice and heavy, pretty but able to take a beating. Magnus had mentioned rosewood being a particular favorite of his, and if there was one area Taako trusted Magnus’ judgment in, it was this one. So rosewood it was. Of course, the carvings along the side and into the surface weren’t exactly utilitarian, but hey, if you’re gonna go to town, go in a wagon.

The art, however, he’d absolutely cheaped out on. No one cared what the hell was on a person’s wall, only that they cared enough to put something there. If the kid didn’t like ‘em, he could go and get his own. That being said, Taako did find a few pieces that spoke to him. Surely Angus would appreciate them as well. After all, what was Taako if not a living, breathing gift to aesthetics?

As for the plant, that was easy. The park wouldn’t miss it. They had dozens of those flowery bushes, and Angus’ taxes had paid for them, anyway. Taako felt he was free and clear, morally.

He was in the middle of banging a nail into the wall with the handle of his umbrella when he heard a knock at the door.

“Just a minute!” he called in a sing-song voice.

Taako picked up the painting of the cat on the clothesline and hung it carefully. He stepped back, admired it, and nodded. Then he threw on his apron, shrunk the Pocket Spa back down, pushed the potted plant to its rightful place in the corner, and opened the door.

Silvia was dressed almost exactly as she had been that afternoon, minus the militia tabard. She turned to face him as he opened the door, looking apologetic.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said, exasperated. “Some stuff came up, and I had to take care of it before I left the precinct for the day.”

“It’s cool, ketzile. In fact, you’re right on time!” Taako said, stepping aside and ushering her in. “I was just about to start dinner!”

Silvia stepped inside and looked around while Taako shut the door behind her. Her eyes caught on the painting over the fireplace.

“Nice, huh?” he said, resting a hand on his hip.

“Uh, yeah,” she said, nodding quickly. “Super nice.”

“See, 'cause dogs can’t play cards, normally.”

“No, yeah. Totally.”

Taako held his hand out. “Coat?”

Silvia blinked. “Oh! Right. Sure, thank you.”

She handed her longcoat to him and Taako hung it on one of the hooks by the door. Then he stepped around the kitchen table and opened the fridge.

“Should have everything I need,” he mumbled to himself, taking stock of Angus’ meager provisions. “Can make do, anyway.”

He looked over his shoulder at Silvia, standing near the kitchen table. “Take a load off! You want coffee? Tea? Beer?”

“No, I'm—” Silvia stopped halfway to her seat and raised her eyebrows. “Angus has beer?”

“Sadly, Ango’s a real straight-edge,” Taako said, shaking his head. “But I can whip some up, if you want. Water into wine is the easy stuff.”

Silvia considered it for a moment, then settled back into her seat. “I’ll stick with the water.”

“Square,” Taako said decisively, closing the fridge and getting a glass from the cupboard. “You two must’ve got along from the jump.”

“Actually…” Silvia laughed a little. “Not so much.”

“No?” Taako shut off the sink and handed Silvia the glass with a questioning look. “What, you butt heads or something?”

She shook her head and took a sip. Then she said, as casually as anything, “I arrested him.”

Taako stared at her. Then he burst out laughing.

“I was on the trail of this cat burglar, and I found Angus skulking around the area of the latest theft, looking thoroughly suspicious,” Silvia explained with a grin. “He fit the description. And when I patted him down and found the wand, the crossbow, the blackjack—”

“Stop! Stop!” Taako begged as he gasped for breath, bent at the waist and holding himself up with the counter. “I’m gonna black out!”

Silvia laughed while Taako fought to recover. He straightened against the counter and wiped tears from his eyes. “Ah, fuck. Poor little twerp.”

“He helped me track down the real thief,” she said. “That’s when I decided he was alright.”

Taako opened the fridge again and gathered up what he needed: mushrooms, shallots, butter and cheese, plus some green onions he could chop up and transmute into chives. The rice came from the cupboard; not the right kind, but that was easily remedied. Water to white wine, cheddar into parmesan, a little black pepper and sea salt, and Taako was in business.

While he prepped his ingredients, he said idly, “So, maydl, tell me about yourself.”

“Me?”

Taako glanced over his shoulder and gave her a look. “No, the plant in the corner. Yeah, you! What’s your story? You didn’t come out of the womb with cuffs and a badge, right?”

“Well… kinda.” Silvia shrugged. “It runs in the family.”

Taako filled the pan with water from the sink and with a swirl, turned it to chicken broth. He set it on one burner and picked up the only other skillet Angus owned. “You like it?”

“I do. It’s good work. Fulfilling. And ever since Lord-Commander Boudicca took the office, corruption has hit an all-time low.”

Taako took a moment to decide between butter or olive oil, then cupped a bit of water in his hands and subsequently coated the skillet with oil.

“I’ve met the Commander a few times, once when I was promoted to lieutenant,” Silvia said, a little awe creeping in. “She’s… incredible.”

Bit of a kiss-up, huh? Taako sneered to himself and started dicing mushrooms into the pan. “Alright, forget about work. What’s a gal like you do for fun?”

Silvia shrugged in his periphery. “Uh. Read, I guess? Solve puzzles, go hiking… oh, I love to climb, too! I’ve been meaning to take some time off and head south along the World’s Teeth, try and make a summit or two.”

“Why bother?” Taako tossed the mushrooms casually, using Prestidigitation to heat them faster and prodding them with a large wooden spoon. “You know magic. Just float on up and enjoy the view.”

She shook her head. “It’s not the same. And I don’t like to use magic when I don’t have to. I don’t want it to become a crutch.”

Taako turned and pointed at her with the spoon. “See, there’s where we differ, maydl. Magic’s like a great ass. If you got it? Flaunt it!”

To punctuate his point, Taako poured the mushrooms onto a plate (one of the new ones he’d picked up today, of course) then with a flourish, added the shallots and white rice to the empty pan. With a dexterous flick of his wrist, Taako tossed the rice in the pan and transmuted it to brown, and then with another toss, to Arborio rice. Silvia clapped politely, and Taako took a little stage bow.

“Besides,” he said casually, turning back to the stove and sneaking a grain of rice into his mouth, “some of us need that crutch.”

Silvia paused for a moment, then cleared her throat. “Sorry. It’s just how I feel. Probably picked it up from my mom.”

“She a wizard?”

“Nah. That’d be my uncle. He’s the one who taught me.”

“How much?”

“Fifth-level, mostly Evocation. Sixth, if I stretch.” She shrugged. “I’m okay. Could have learned more, I guess.”

When the rice began to turn gold, Taako stirred in the white wine, making sure to taste it on his tongue beforehand. Not a good vintage, transmutationally speaking, but it didn’t have to be. “Why stop there?”

“It was all I needed to enter the Academy,” Silvia said simply. “Militia was short on wizards at the time, and for as much as mom tried, I was never gonna be the best with a sword and board, y'know? So, I asked my uncle to teach me magic. He was over the moon about it, made a point to… well, to shove it in my mom’s face at every opportunity.”

Taako grinned. “Well, I don’t know about your mom, but your uncle sounds alright.”

There was a brief silence. Taako hummed tunelessly to himself as he stirred the rice.

“She was a good woman. Taught me a lot.”

Taako froze. His smile disappeared and he felt his jaw clench as he tapped his wooden spoon on the edge of the pan.

“Sorry, maydl,” he said quietly.

“It’s alright,” she said. In his periphery, he saw her lean her elbows on the table and smile mournfully. “Anyway, my uncle moved down to Armos to be closer to his husband’s family, so I haven’t had the opportunity to learn more.”

Taako decided to be quiet for a bit and let the awkwardness scab over. He added a bit of broth to the rice and stirred it in.

“What about you?” Silvia asked. “You teach Angus?”

“Only everything he knows,” Taako said, a smile forming on his lips. “He’s damn good in a kitchen.”

“Really?”

“Hell yeah.” He spun on his heel and grinned, tugging at his apron straps. “Compared to anyone but me, of course.”

Silvia grinned back. “He help with your cooking show?”

“Help? He was my trusted and loyal apprentice!” Taako spun back to the stove — can’t screw around too much with risotto. “Toured for seven years, helped with every single performance.”

“Wow.” Silvia shook her head. “Hard for me to imagine Angus out in the countryside, peeling potatoes in the back of a wagon.”

“First of all,” Taako said seriously, “he was paring, not peeling. There’s a difference.”

Silvia almost laughed. Then she furrowed her brow curiously. “Wait, is there?”

“Secondly,” he continued, ignoring her, “what’s so hard to believe? Ango’s a worldly kid. Been all over the place.”

“Just… not a side of him I’ve seen, I guess,” she said, rubbing the back of her neck. “So it was just the two of you?”

“Oh dear fuck, no!” Taako exclaimed, aghast. “Can you imagine? We’d drive each other insane!”

Silvia laughed. Taako turned back to add the last of the chicken broth to the rice.

“Nah, I had Krav with me,” he said, smiling despite himself. “Tall, dark, and bony. Patience of a saint, dumb sense of humor. The total package.”

Taako flattened his expression and turned to look at her. Very casually, almost disinterested, he asked, “You got anyone special, maydl?”

She blinked. “Uh. I mean — no. Not right now.”

He nodded casually and looked away. Then he grinned privately and did a little arm pump as he tended to the risotto.

“So, the three of you all on tour, huh?” Silvia asked. “Sounds like a family affair.”

Taako paused. He braced one hand on the counter and fiddled idly with the spoon, staring at nothing.

“Wasn’t always,” he said. “But… yeah. Guess it ended up that way.”

He looked over at Silvia. She looked a bit stricken, like she was afraid she’d said something wrong. Taako smiled at her and tapped his chest.

“Wasn’t ’and Company’ until they came along.”

Just then, Taako’s ears perked up; footsteps coming up the outside stairs.

“Speaking of company,” he said, nodding towards the door.

A moment later, Angus entered, arms full of books as he fumbled with the knob.

“Hello, sir! What smells so g—”

The amount of pleasure Taako took in Angus’ dumbstruck expression was extraordinary. Taako gave him the smuggest smile he could muster and spread his hands innocently.

“Risotto, my dude. Want some? You must be starving.”

People really underestimated how much fun being an asshole could be.