#Somehow it never sinks in for me that people might indeed remember me or my artwork

[marcianek-talks]

; w ; <3

[oh-mother-of-darkness]

“Are you here all night?” Jason asked, “or are you planning to, you know, be a human? I think those go home sometimes.”

High above Jason’s head, a swarm of bats entered the cave, winding among the stalactites and screeching a kind of garbled response.

Dick, however, said nothing. He remained bent over one of the long tables on the cavern floor, examining a map Jason could barely see from his own seat a short distance behind, ignoring Jason and his sarcasm both. 

Jason didn’t enjoy being ignored. 

Fine. 

“I have some tasks you could take over,” he suggested, in his least helpful voice, “if you’re in the market for an excuse to keep working. I know you make those sometimes.”

Nothing.

“I have some weapons to clean, if you want to do that. You could type out all my old cases, if that works, because I only have the originals and those are hard to work with.”

Still nothing.

“Take out the trash?” Jason tried. “Wash the dishes? I put a load of laundry in a couple of hours ago, but there’s a wool jacket in the mix, so be careful what you put in the dryer.”

Dick didn’t move. Jason was enjoying himself now.

“Write a sonnet? Map the White House?” Jason held up a finger Dick couldn’t see, like he had just remembered something interesting. “I think there’s a library on 8th that exploded a few days back, so if you could just grab the rubble from the street and rebuild it by hand, that would be great.”

No reaction. 

“Whatever,” said Jason, “I’m out of here. Get some sleep maybe? I know the whole work-to-outrun-despair routine is your ‘thing,’ or whatever, but it never looks good on you. Have you considered—”

Jason cut himself off as Dick finally turned away from the table. Looking him in the eye, Jason felt suddenly and inexplicably afraid. 

“Go on,” said Dick, quietly.

“I’m just… saying that it might make things worse, to shut off and—” Jason pointed at the mound of paper on the table, “obsess over this stuff instead.”

“You think?” Dick asked. “No shit.”

Jason blinked. “Wait, are you—”

“Did you think it never occurred to me,” said Dick, “that I might be spinning out?”

“I didn’t say you were spinning out.”

“Were you thinking that maybe,” Dick leaned back against the table edge and crossed his arms, carefully casual in a way Jason didn’t like, “hey maybe I, Dick Grayson, haven’t noticed how it feels to be forty-nine hours into a case and puking in the bathroom sink?”

“I didn’t—”

“Maybe I just haven’t realized why my vision blurs out and I can’t think straight, and it’s weird how this happens—” Dick held up a hand, and Jason could see his fingers shaking, “—if I keep going for too long.”

“I didn’t mean to—”

“Wow, yeah, now that you mention it, this might be,” Dick said, flatly, “bad.” 

Jason glanced down at his boots to break the eye contact. “I’ll back off,” he said. “I’ll go.”

“It might be bad that I can’t sleep until I’m falling-over exhausted. Maybe I shouldn’t be taking all these cases—”

“I said I’ll back off.”

“Or writing all these notes or spending weeks on research, more than that on training—”

“Listen—”

“I probably shouldn’t be leading all these teams, huh?” Dick smiled in a way that reminded Jason of what he should have remembered before he opened his own mouth: that Dick could be very, very dangerous. “Can I get your opinion on that?”

“I’ll—”

“I KNOW!”

Jason stumbled back a step in shock. 

“I KNOW that I’m working too hard!” Dick yelled, “And I KNOW why I do it!”

“Okay!” Jason backed away again. “Okay, I get it!”

“I work so I don’t have to think! I’d rather drop dead doing this shit than stop for the millisecond it would take to feel again! Are you happy now?”

“Calm down, okay? I didn’t—”

“I don’t want to feel,” said Dick, gesturing around him, “so I’m going to stand right here over and over again.”

“Fine!”

“And I’m going to keep shutting down because it goddamn WORKS!”

Dick turned away again, bending over the table like he hadn’t said anything at all. Jason stood frozen for a moment, staring. 

“Does it?” he asked into the silence.

“No.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“Do you have something better?”

Jason looked down at his own hands and saw that they were shaking too.

“No,” he said.

“Then fuck off.”

Jason turned to leave, but Dick, it appeared, wasn’t ready to let it go. 

“I’m alive,” he said. “I’m standing and walking and doing all the things that matter.”

“Yeah.” 

“I’ve had enough of— enough of asking for help and getting—” Dick jerked an arm above his head, still turned away. “I don’t want to hear that the way I live is self-destructive. I already know. That’s why I’m here, that’s what I’m saying, that’s why I’m trying.” 

“Yeah.”

“Just… show me something better, or let me self-destruct.”

Jason fumbled awkwardly for something to say. “I’m sure— I don’t know who you’ve been talking to, but whoever that is— I’m sure they’re… trying to help.”

“You weren’t,” said Dick.

“No, I wasn’t.”

“You were trying to land a cheap shot,” said Dick, “and feel like you’re better than me.”

Yes, that was true. Jason wasn’t sorry, exactly, but he regretted it, and those were different things.  

“I guess that makes me an asshole.”

“And a hypocrite.” Dick turned around again and leaned back in the same way, quiet, in control. “You never stop either… not since the pit anyway.”

“Don’t.”

“I mean it’s different, obviously, because I don’t think you’re trying to hide it. Me, I don’t want cracks to show. I don’t want all this grief and anger and— you said despair, right?”

“Stop.”

“I don’t want the despair to show because I want to look whole, but you—”

“You’ve made your point.”

“You want to look like a week-old corpse rotting on the concrete, and may I say?” Dick smiled. “Excellent performance. You look exactly like that.”

Jason didn’t say anything.

“It’s a world of difference,” Dick continued, “because I— I’m pushing through pain… and you’re pushing to feel it.”

For a moment, they stared at each other, and Jason found that it was difficult to breathe. 

“I could yell back for that,” he said. It came out softly, more soft than he meant, as Jason shoved away something very close to shame.

“Do it.”

“No. I think it’s funny when people call me the angry one.” Jason looked down at his shaking hands again. 

“I am angry,” he conceded, “but you’re just as bad as I am.”

“Thematic,” Dick snapped. “Get out.” 

“No. You opened this book, so we’re going to read it. You’re right.”

“Leave.”

“You’re right, I do exactly what you just said I do. Sometimes I don’t sleep for days, and it’s not because I can’t.”

Well, that might not be fully true, so Jason stopped to backtrack.

“I mean,” he corrected, “I don’t know if I could sleep, if I really tried, but that’s the point I’m making. I don’t try. I don’t want to sleep.”

“I said leave.”

“It’ll be four in the morning and I’m slumped sideways on my couch watching surveillance footage I don’t need to watch, because I know when I finally drag myself to the bathroom mirror, I’ll look like hell—”

“Get out!”

“—and I want to! I feel like hell, I feel like goddamn Brutus in the Devil’s jaws, and I want to look like it. If I look like death, that means my pain is real.”

“Get out or regret it.”

“Oh, I know it’s self-destructive,” said Jason, smiling his best unnerving smile. “How could I miss it when I’m blacking out in stairwells and picking fights on purpose, just to get kicked around?”

That particular sentence, it appeared, caught Dick’s attention, because he stayed quiet this time, glaring from across the room.

Well then, Jason decided, it was time to push further. 

“Let’s get personal, shall we? Why do I live in this fucking city to see you or him or whoever else is living in the capes this week? I’m not shooting for reconciliation!”

“Well?”

“I’m going to stay here and cause problems until every single one of you hates me enough to shove me away. How’s my performance, by the way? Is it working? I’d love to get your opinion.”

Dick made a face that Jason couldn’t interpret, so Jason chose to press on. 

“It’ll hurt when I pull that off because I do actually care about you, but you know what? I’ll like that. Maybe someday all of this will kill me, and I’ll kind of like that too.” 

Jason paused a beat to let Dick interject, but Dick didn’t. 

“Your turn,” said Jason pleasantly. “Thoughts?”

Nothing.

“I like the aesthetic of self-destruction,” said Jason. “I’m going to look in the mirror tomorrow and see dark circles and scars, and it’s going to feel like being myself in a way that nothing else does.”

In that moment, watching Dick glare, Jason felt very tired— not in a way that sleep could solve, and not in a way that anyone could fix. No matter what Jason did, no matter what he tried, he could always feel himself sinking. He was empty and heavy at the same time, somehow trapped in place, unable to do anything except lie in his own blood.

A rotting corpse indeed.

“I’m not judging you,” said Jason. “I don’t have the space for that. I won’t tell you to just… change. I’m sick of hearing that too, hearing that I don’t have to do this to myself, that I am doing this to myself.”

Dick nodded. Jason wasn’t sure at what, but it felt like permission to keep going, so he did.

“I know I’m holding on to something I shouldn’t,” Jason admitted, even though it hurt to say out loud. “I know, but I can’t let go when there’s nothing else to take. I don’t have anything profound to say. I don’t… know what else there is.”

That was it. That was all Jason had, so he shrugged and stared down at the floor, waiting.

“I think if I stop working I’ll fall apart,” said Dick, finally, “and this time I won’t be able to scrape myself together.”

“Yeah.”

“I think fine, so I don’t have to keep going. I don’t have to shove away the dark and force myself through, but what would happen if I didn’t?”

“I don’t know.”

“I would be a shivering, hollow shape on my floor, maybe forever. I don’t know what I want to be, but I can’t be… I can’t be only that.” 

Jason understood.

“It’s hard,” said Dick. “I always hear— and say, I say this to other people— that things can be okay. I guess it’s true, but does it matter?” 

“What do you mean?”

“Unless I leave the cave right now and never come back, this is my life. I have an apartment and a fucked-up family—”

“Thanks.”

“—and I spend every night jumping through smog and the ghosts of everything I’ve ever done.”

“Saving people,” Jason noted.

“Win some,” said Dick, “lose some. How many times have you watched a person die?”

“A few.”

“A few.” Dick shook his head. “I know too much, but I have too much to leave behind.”

“I have a guy who makes passports on demand, if you change your mind,” said Jason. “He’s amazing.”

“Thanks.”

“Prints while you wait.”

Dick shot Jason a flat kind of look.

“What?” Jason asked. “It would simplify my plans.”

Dick half-smiled at that, and Jason got the sense that they were done yelling, maybe, for awhile.

“I feel trapped, and I don’t know how to fix myself,” said Dick, “while I’m still… here.” 

“Yeah.”

“I’m just trying to stay alive.”

“I know. Me too.”

“It isn’t getting any easier.” 

Jason thought about that for awhile. It would be nice to have an answer— something simple to say, some match to light in their common ground— but Jason couldn’t find one, so he shrugged again and hoped that understanding would be enough. 

It had to be something, didn’t it?

It was the best he could do. There were times, Jason figured, to talk about breathing exercises and the mess of self-help books piled on his dresser, but he knew this wasn’t one of them. They could call it catharsis, he decided, and leave it at that. 

“We could say it’s Bruce’s fault?” Jason suggested, since he was out of other ideas. “I like blaming Bruce for the shit I do.”

“You do?”

“Fuck off.”

Dick smiled fully at that one. “I’m not above it either.”

“Great,” said Jason. “Can I leave a note saying we blame him? No context at all, maybe on a single post-it? I think it would be really funny.”

“Sure.”

“I’ll bounce after that, for real this time.” Jason spun a finger in a circle a few times, pointing around the cave. “I don’t want to be here anymore.”

“Yeah.” Dick tapped a finger against the table a few times, like he was thinking. After a moment, he pulled a bag from the edge and started packing up his things. 

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, me too.”

Fin.

---

art by @doc-squash​

[dickwheelie]

this is a ficlet based on @tired-dummy's star!martin, an immortal who can make stars, who falls in love with jon, a human, despite how short jon's existence is in comparison to martin's eternal lifetime. it's such a romantic concept that I had to write about it. all credit to them for the concept of this fic!

_____________

There are no stars in the sky that night.

In places like London and New York, no one really notices or cares, but where Jon lives, out in the Scottish countryside, in a village of less than five hundred people, the stark blackness of the night sky has everyone standing out on their porches, staring up in puzzlement and concern.

Jon knows why, but he doesn't tell anyone. He just looks up at the empty sky through his kitchen window as he washes the dishes, and when he is done, he draws the curtains.

The following night, the stars are back, though Jon thinks they might be dimmer than they had been before. Just when he is about to dress for bed, he hears a knock on the door of his tiny cottage.

Martin is on the other side, his amber glow lighting the surrounding forest, the constant, faint hum he emits disturbing the frogs and porcupines, who scuttle away towards less strange locales. White-hot tears still pour from his eyes, falling to the ground at his feet with a hiss. "I'm so sorry about last night," he says at once, his voice split into several frequencies speaking in unison, giving his speech a haunting, melodic sound. "I despaired, and lost control. But I put them back. I shouldn't have taken them away."

"People were scared," Jon says, not unkindly. "They thought they were gone for good."

"I know," Martin says, and his voices are remorseful. "I--I wish I hadn't done it."

A cool breeze blows around them. "Here, come inside," Jon says, opening the door wide. Though Martin seems somehow too big to fit within the confines of the doorframe, or indeed Jon's cottage, he has no trouble placing his physical from on Jon's sofa, with enough room that Jon can sit next to him. Jon makes them both tea, and Martin's hands fit just fine around the mug. His glow alights the entirety of the living room, so Jon turns off a couple of lamps before joining him on the sofa.

They drink for a while in silence. Martin has stopped crying, at least. Jon wishes he could wipe his tears from his eyes himself, but he's afraid of burning his fingers.

Eventually, Jon says, "I'm sorry, Martin."

Martin glances up at him, his bright white eyes wide. "Why?"

"For . . . what I told you, yesterday. That I . . . that I love you. I--I didn't mean to hurt you, a-and to be honest I'm still not sure how I did, but I did hurt you, so I wanted to apologize." He stares down at his tea. "I-If you could tell me what I did wrong, I'll try to fix it. I just . . . I don't want to see you cry anymore."

"Oh, Jon," Martin breathes, and there's a thump as his empty mug falls to the carpeted floor. Jon looks up, alarmed, and Martin is still sitting next to him, on his sofa, in his cottage, but he is also somehow infinitely large, larger than a planet, than the sun. His eyes blaze, and his amber glow is so bright it's almost orange. "Jon, you've done nothing wrong. The only thing that is wrong is how dearly I love you."

Jon's heart leaps at the words, but then sinks with realization. "Oh," he says, faintly.

Martin blazes even brighter. "No. That--that isn't what I meant, I--" His voices grow discordant, before he seems to calm slightly and they harmonize again. "You know what I am, Jon. I am so, so old. I will go on to become much older. I will live beyond humanity, beyond most life in the universe. The life of any human is far too short for me. It's gone so quickly. I . . . I am better off alone. I always have been. To love is . . . is to hurt, so I try not to get too close to anyone. But I couldn't help myself with you, Jon. You caught me so easily, so quickly, I was yours before I even knew it. I--I wasn't sure, until yesterday, how much I felt for you. Maybe I was just trying not to think about it. But when you told me . . . when you told me you loved me, I . . . I knew. I'd fallen in love with you, too, and . . ." Tears spark in his eyes again. "And that meant I would have to lose you."

Jon's chest aches. "But . . . I'm here, now. Is loving me so . . . so horrible?" He swallows, trying not to let tears form in his own eyes.

"It will be," Martin says. "One day I'll blink my eyes, and you'll be gone, and then . . . I don't know if I'll ever stop crying."

"But . . . until then, we can be together." Jon takes Martin's hands in his own, hands that have shaped galaxies and placed stars in constellations. They are warm and calloused, and big enough to engulf Jon's entirely. "I know a year is barely any time for you, but we can still make it count. We can make every day count, stock them so full of memories you'll feel like you've lived a dozen lifetimes."

Martin sniffs. "I . . . I don't know if that will work . . ."

"Have you ever tried it before?"

Martin shakes his head. "I . . . this is the first time I've ever been in love. I've never allowed myself to get close enough to anyone before. I don't know what to do now. I can't . . . I can't stop myself from loving you."

"Do you want to?" Jon says quietly.

"No," Martin says at once, and then his eyes widen, as though surprised by his own certainty. "I . . . No. To not love you . . . that would be worse, so much worse, somehow." A burning tear traces his cheek. "But I can't keep taking the stars from the sky. And I can't keep crying like this."

Jon's heart burns. "So . . . so let's try it," he says, squeezing his hands.

"Try it?"

"My idea. Let's be together, and try to make each other happy, as well as we can, one day at a time. Live in the moment." Jon tries a smile. "Humans are good at that sort of thing. I can teach you, if you like."

"I . . ." Martin's voices tremble, overwhelmed. "I . . . I don't know . . ."

Jon presses a kiss to his knuckles, rubs a thumb over them. "You don't have to decide tonight. Despite what you think, we have time."

Martin looks at him as though Jon were the one who created stars. "A-Alright," he says softly.

"Would you like to spend the night?" Jon says, nodding towards his bedroom door. "I was about to go to sleep when you knocked."

"I . . . yes. That sounds nice. Thank you, Jon," Martin says, his voices sounding like a lullaby. And then he kisses Jon. It's gentle, so unbelievably gentle, and it burns in a lovely way. Jon kisses back, pushing a bit, letting Martin know he needn't be so careful, that he is adored and he is allowed to adore.

Later, in Jon's bed, Martin lies against his back and wraps his arms around his waist, holding him so tightly. Jon knows Martin does not sleep, and he knows he will not let Jon go until he wakes the next morning. As Jon drifts off, he stares out through his bedroom window, at the sky full of Martin's beautiful stars, and he thinks that perhaps he was wrong before.

The stars are not dimmer than he remembers. If anything, Jon thinks, tonight they're brighter than they've ever been.

[reciprocityfic]

passing afternoons

title: passing afternoons fandom: little women pairing: theodore laurence x amy march  rating: m summary: “did you have any dalliances after me?” she asks.

he blinks hard as his brain reels for a moment, as he struggles to comprehend what she’s saying. after her? there is no after her. there never will be.

then, he stops. thinks. she means...oh. oh.

she means after that time in the garden, in paris. when he’d first revealed his feelings for her, and she’d rejected him. left him standing there alone and feeling like an utter, hopeless idiot.

oh.

(laurie and amy spend a late summer afternoon talking about the past.)

author’s note: i've literally shipped laurie and amy since like fourth grade. so when i saw little women (2019) and found out it did my bbs justice, i basically cried. i've been meaning to write fic ever since, but alas, here we are almost a year later. i hope you enjoy it anyways.

i have another fic in the works that's longer and definitely more angsty, which i hope to post relatively soon. i also hope to write more fluff (also maybe smut???) for them in the coming months bc GOD i just love imagining these two together. in the meantime, i hope you enjoyed this!

xoxo, rebekah

passing afternoons

They enjoy being lazy after sex.

They’re not always afforded the opportunity, of course.  At night, they tend to fall asleep rather quickly afterwards, exhausted and sated and tangled together.  And the occasional forbidden interlude - when they’re some party or gathering wholly bland or pretentious and the two of them (sometimes tipsy, sometimes bored, always and perpetually desperate for each other) run off to some dark corner or isolated room where he lifts the skirt of her dress and the too-many layers underneath and uses his body to press hers against the wall as he sinks into her from behind and they pray their moans and the sounds of their bodies together won’t be heard - must be short and altogether swift, no time to dwell in the aura of the sensations and feelings between them.

But then, there are days when Grandfather is occupied with the business and the Marches are busy and they dismiss the servants.  It’s just the two of them in their grand house with time that seems to stretch on and on.  Sometimes they’ll make it a game of sorts, shamelessly flirt and tempt each other to see who will break first, but oftentimes they’ll share a look and a smile and then they’re off in a race to their horizontal surface of choice.

Today is one of those days, when they’ve nowhere to be, nothing to do, and are all alone.  It’s an unusually hot day in late September, and when Amy had complained about the warmth, he’d suggested she take her blouse off.  She’d raised an eyebrow and told him to go first, and then one thing led to another and now they’re naked and sore and satisfied, laying on their bed as the early afternoon sun shines in through their open windows.

He lays on top of the sheets on his back, head at the foot of the bed and hands on his stomach, staring up at the ceiling and trying to find imaginary patterns in swirling paint.  She lays parallel to him, but leans against the headboard, her long blonde hair falling around her face as she sketches him.  He hadn’t seen her take out the pad and pencil she keeps in the dresser near their bed, but he can hear the sound of graphite moving against paper as she draws.  He grins as he imagines her face, lips pursed and brow furrowed, wide green eyes focused and the movement of her hand knowing nothing but purpose even with the most casual of sketches.

They do not touch and do not talk.  Still, the intimacy of the situation - of being together and completely safe and comfortable with the person you love most in the world - is overwhelming.  Its warmth cocoons him, and he feels his eyes getting heavy as he lies there, a breeze blowing in from the open window and caressing his skin.

“You had your many dalliances after Jo, yes?”

His eyes snap open when he hears her question, his stomach lurching slightly and his mood dampening.

He ran away to Europe and drowned himself in alcohol, drugs, and women after Jo broke his heart, and he admits this.  Amy knows it, too.  And it’s not that he’s ashamed of that period of time, exactly - while he wishes he had, indeed, bore it better, he finds himself sympathetic to the plight of people scorned by love, however misguided that love might be.

He just doesn’t often talk about it.  Doesn’t like to.  In his mind and in his heart, it is only Amy.  Has always been, and always will be.

Amy doesn’t really like to talk about it, either.  He finds her inquiry curious, but answers anyway.

“Yes,” he tells her, although the word comes out sounding more like a question than an answer.

He waits for her to explain her line of thought, but she simply hums to herself.  He stares at the ceiling a moment longer, then leans up, resting his weight on his elbows.

She’s staring down at her drawing, her face just as he pictured it, pencil grasped between her lips as she swipes her thumb against the paper.  He watches as she takes the pencil out of her mouth and starts at it again, and he watches her for nearly a minute before opening his mouth to speak.

She beats him to it, though.

“Did you have any dalliances after me?” she asks.

He blinks hard as his brain reels for a moment, as he struggles to comprehend what she’s saying.  After her?  There is no after her.  There never will be.

Then, he stops.  Thinks.  She means...oh.  Oh.

She means after that time in the garden, in Paris.  When he’d first revealed his feelings for her, and she’d rejected him.  Left him standing there alone and feeling like an utter, hopeless idiot.

Oh.

He shifts on the bed, drops his eyes from her face.  He can feel his skin begin to flush from embarrassment.

They’ve never talked about this before.

Not that there’s much to talk about, he supposes.  He still hesitates to tell her - not because he fears she’ll be angry with him, but because he doesn’t like to talk about it.  If it were up to him, he would erase from his mind the memory of every woman he’d ever been with until only his wife remained.

But she’s asked, and he’ll be honest with her.

“One, I suppose,” he murmurs.

“You suppose?” she questions.  She’s still staring down at her artwork, but her pencil doesn’t move.

“Sort of, yes,” he confirms.

She finally looks at him, her eyebrows pulled together and a frown on her face.

“How do you sort of have a dalliance?”

She looks genuinely confused, and he laughs lightly at the crease between her brows, sits up fully and reaches out to her.  He cups her face and uses his thumb to rub at the wrinkle of skin.

“Shall I explain?” he asks her.

She nods.

“I...tried to be angry after you left.  Just think - to be turned down by not just one, but two March girls!” he gasps playfully, and she snickers, pushing against his shoulder playfully before dropping her hand to run over the sparse hair on his chest.

“But?” she prompts.

"But I couldn’t make myself angry.  Not at you.  But I also knew I couldn’t just stay there in France and watch you and Fred Vaughn…”

He makes a noise in the back of his throat, and she rolls her eyes playfully.

“We’re speaking of all your affairs, and you want to tease about Fred?”

“It’s part of my story!” he insists with a wink, and she rolls her eyes again.

“Well, keep telling it.”

He smiles, and continues.

“I couldn’t stay, so I did what you told me to.  I went to London, as you know.  And when I first got there, there was a woman staying at the same hotel as I was.  We got to talking one evening at dinner, and one thing…”

He trails off, feeling himself flush again.

“...led to another,” Amy finishes.  “I understand.  I don’t need the details.”

She’s frowning now, even though her fingers still run over his chest, and he despises it.  He has half a mind to drop the subject, to kiss her lips and make her happy and forget life before, but he can’t.

“Wait, I’m not done.”

“Laurie, I don’t need to hear any more.  You had your dalliance, I’m not upset, and we can stop - “

“I couldn’t do it,” he interrupts.  “It didn’t work.”

She pulls back from him slightly, her eyes wide and curious.  She looks down his body.

“You mean you couldn’t...?”

He follows her gaze, and then snorts.

“Not like that.  It - it didn’t even get to that.  Amy, my dear.”

He lifts her chin, and she gazes at him.  He can tell she’s still confused.

“Every time I closed my eyes,” he explains, “I saw you - the face you made in the garden before you turned away and left.  It broke my heart.  It still breaks my heart.  And when my eyes were open, all I could think about was how her skin wasn’t as soft and her hair wasn’t as fair and her eyes were brown instead of green and she just...wasn’t you.”

“But with Jo...”

“It was different with Jo.  I could make Jo into anyone.  I could always pick out the tiniest thing that reminded me of her, in any woman, and then pretend that woman was her.  I couldn’t...do that with you.  Or maybe I didn’t want to.  In any case, being with that woman didn’t make me forget.  She made me remember all the more.  And I only kissed her for about a minute before I realized it was worthless.”

He stops and grabs one of her hands, brings it to his mouth so he can kiss her fingertips, before holding it over his heart.

“And that’s when I knew that this was different.  You weren’t Jo, and I wasn’t going to be able to just...drink and fuck you away.”

She’d normally gasp and swat him playfully for his use of the coarse word, but now she stays silent and presses her hand more firmly against his chest.

“I was in love with you.  Hopelessly and completely.  And I realized that all I could do was stay in London and toil away and... pray that somehow you would change your mind.”

Then, everything had changed.  Beth died, and then he knew he had to be with her.  It didn’t matter if she despised him, or if Fred was there.  He needed to be with her.  But before that, he had been rather resigned to his fate - to work for his grandfather and forever pine after Amy March.

God had smiled upon him, though.  And now, here he sits with his wife, Amy Laurence.  Married, in love, and happy.

“So does that explain how one can have a single, sort-of dalliance?” he asks her.

But she stares at him, eyes shining, almost with tears.

“You were going to wait your whole life for me?” she whispers.

He smirks slightly, turning away from her and shrugging, somehow embarrassed.  But she grabs his face, turns it back to her, and locks their gazes.

“What else would you have me do, my lady?”

“Oh, my lord,” she breathes, and kisses him deeply, until his toes curl and he can feel himself begin to harden once again.  When she pulls away, they’re both panting.  He wants to grab her, to gather her up in his arms again, but her pad and pencil remains between them.

He motions to the picture.

“Still working on that, Raphaella?”

“Maybe later,” she remarks, taking the paper and all but throwing it on the floor beside the bed.  She pushes him back so he’s laying once again, and climbs on top of him, straddling his waist.  “I have another idea how we can pass time this afternoon.”

She leans down and kisses his smiling mouth.

Yes, God had smiled upon him.  Had given him back his love.  And he’s married, in love, and happy.

Achingly happy.

[fanfic-collection]

Loki x Reader: Apocalypse ch 6

Thanks for reading, please oh please like/comment/reblog

-

You tilted your head as you saw the defeated look on Loki’s face. “Oh, did I say something wrong?”

Loki looked away, “No, you’re fine, just.” He trailed off.

You leaned forward, spur of the moment and hugged him. “It’s so good to see you.”

“What?” Loki stiffened at the contact.

“I never thought I’d see you again after Tony’s, and the compound and just. You seemed better than what they made you out to be. You made a heroic sacrifice.”

For a moment Loki relaxed into your touch. “Oh.” His bloodied red eyes flickered in your direction. “I would say the same but.” He stopped.

You bit your lip, a shiver running through you at the cold. Slowly you nodded, your eyes scanning over the strange contraption on his neck. You were silent, wanting to reach out and touch it. Unbidden, your hand reached for it, sliding over the icy cold metal. It burned to touch through your gloves.

Loki pulled back, “Don’t.”

“What is it?”

“It’s best not to talk where wandering ears can hear.”

“Good point, let’s get to somewhere safe. Besides, it’s getting colder and later in the day. I can’t risk being out at dark, and you shouldn’t either. Without the sun, we’ll freeze to death in minutes.”

Loki chuckled, “I can assure you, I’ll be fine, but I appreciate the concern.”

You fought the urge to blurt out if it had something to do with his strange eyes, but you figured that was just some weird magic. Instead, you nodded and stood up, offering your hand to him.

Loki, touched the ground timidly, feeling for painful shards before pushing himself up.

You reached out and grabbed his arm, helping steady him. There was a brief moment where he scowled in your direction before he sighed and accepted your proffered hand. “Thank you.” Loki mumbled.

Nodding, you started to guide him slowly through the store and back the way you had come. You made sure to collect Loki’s daggers. One you gave to him, knowing he was more lethal with it than you, even without his sight and the other you kept in your hand. You watched for signs of the blue beasts as you trudged up the street. Somehow Loki seemed to float atop the snow, not sinking into it.

As you walked, you couldn’t help but toss admiring glances over your shoulder at Loki. Even with his hair mussed up from the fight, his body bent slightly in pain, and the bloodied face, he was as stunning as you remembered.

“You really don’t have to do this.” Loki muttered, breaking the eerie silence. Today there was no wind, just bitter cold.

“I know. I want to.”

“Why?”

“You made a great sacrifice for the people of Earth before the blip, you tried to save a lot of people. And the Avengers trusted you, Tony trusted you.” Your voice was muffled by your scarves.

Loki nodded, painfully, “I did. Why does it matter what Stark thinks?”

“Uh, did I mention he’s my, like, second cousin?”

Loki’s eyebrows rose, then he hissed in pain. “No, I don’t believe so. Is that why you were at the compound and his home?”

“Yea.”

“That doesn’t explain why you were so keen to be around me though.”

“I just wanted to get to know you. Is that so bad?”

“No one wants to know me without an ulterior motive.”

You blinked, nearly stumbling to a halt and causing Loki to walk into you. “What?”

Loki grunted, stumbling and righting himself as he gripped your coat. “What?”

“People don’t just, be your friend?”

“Can we move on? And will you stop staring it’s disconcerting.”

“I’m not staring.” You felt your cheeks heat up, “I’m just making sure you’re still nearby.”

“I’m sure you could tell by the fact that I’m holding your arm.” Loki smirked.

You jerked your chin, “Over there, that’s my building.”

Loki nodded, panting heavily. “Good. This body is weak.”

“You say that like it’s not your own.”

Loki clenched his jaw and with his free hand grabbed at the device on his neck. It only served to dig into his pale skin further.

“Please don’t, it looks like that hurts you.” You mumbled, glancing back again as you guided him nearer the building.

Opening and closing the door, behind the two of you, you stepped inside. The two of you made your way to your room and you stepped within, turning the heat up as high as you could, before looking around with a smile.

“Tah-dah!” You said, stretching your arms out happily.

Loki gazed blindly around the room, “It seems adequate.”

“Probably not what you’re used to.”

He shrugged, “It will suffice.”

“Here,” You guided him over to the bed and had him sit down. The sun was hitting the horizon outside and you were thankful you had made it into the safety of your home in time.

Slowly you stripped your outer layers of clothes, hanging them in the corner to let the gathered snow melt and dry for the next day’s excursion.

Loki sat stock still on the bed, back ramrod straight and you found yourself wondering what he was thinking. You ended up in a thick sweater and sweatpants with woolen socks, though you found you did not need your gloves today. It seemed the added person in the room was contributing enough heat to make you a bit warmer.

“Hey, do you have anything you want to change into…?” You trailed off realizing how dumb that sounded. Loki didn’t have a bag with him. Then again he was a sorcerer, maybe he could just magic some clothes.

Loki shut his eyes bitterly and dug his fingers into his knees. “All I have is this.”

“Well, my neighbor across the hall was your height, maybe we can scrounge up something from him. Let me go look.”

-

Moments’ later you were back, shivering, with a pile of the warmest clothes you could find in a hurry. As well as any necessities you thought a man Loki’s size and apparent age might appreciate, the creature comforts he might want. You dumped them on the bed.

“Did realize he was an ER tech. Or something with medicine. No wonder he was always coming home at weird hours.”

Loki lifted up a thick sweatshirt and soft black sweat pants. He shook his head irritably, “These are not fit for…” the words caught in his throat.

You sat down next to him and couldn’t stop the instinctive action of placing your hand on his thigh.

Loki stiffened at the contact.

You quickly pulled your hand away. “Sorry.” You squeaked.

Loki coughed, standing up and removing his cape. Then slowly he stripped his shirt.

You told yourself you were going to look away, you were going to give him privacy. But he just took his shirt off right in front of you.

For a moment you ogled his toned back muscles, hardened from years of dedication to his craft.

Then the moment was lost and you noticed the injuries.

“Loki.” You whispered, standing up and reaching out to touch his skin gently. A rare pale place that seemed free of bruises, cuts, scars, or other maladies.

Loki’s muscles rippled beneath your hand as he stiffened at your touch, a visible shiver running through him. Spinning around, Loki looked at you warily. “What?”

“These are fresh. Why didn’t you say the blue creature had injured you so? I didn’t know it was able to do that much damage to a god.”

“I’m not a god.” Loki spat bitterly, “I’m mortal.”

You had reached out to touch another cut still bleeding on his chest, causing Loki to hiss.

“Woman, do you always touch painful injuries, or do you make an exception for me?” He asked irritably.

You felt your cheeks flush, “Sorry.” Turning you reached for the first aid supplies your ER neighbor had kept at home. “Here, let me help.” There was anti bruising cream, sutures, and plenty of gauze. You cleaned each of the wounds as best you could, finding occasional shards of glass, rocks, or plaster in some of the deeper cuts and used tweezers to dig it out. Loki would wince from time to time at the deepest and largest pieces, but otherwise he remained mostly silent.

When you finally got to his face and his eyes, you poured warm water around them, cleaning the dried blood. “I wish I knew how to treat them.” You glanced down at the contraption on his neck, “and that thing.” You tugged on it gently.

Loki grunted, “Don’t, you’ll just dig it in worse.”

“What put that on you?”

“The Allfather, king of the nine realms.”

“Isn’t that… isn’t that your uh dad?”

“Adopted. But yes. Dear old dad.”

“That’s barbaric, you’re bleeding from it!”

Loki smiled sadly. “Indeed.”

You wrapped the gauze around his head, covering his eyes and figured it would soak up the last of the blood until it stopped, then you could remove it once again. After that, well you didn’t know what you’d do about him being unable to see. Given that Odin was part of the reason Loki was in such a predicament, you figured he wouldn’t kill you for letting his son go blind.

“Well, here.” You said after a quiet moment, helping Loki pull the hoodie on.

Loki’s red eyes stared in your direction forlornly when the hoodie was on and your hands had pulled away from him. Almost instinctually he had pulled toward you. But now, with the hoodie separating you, he shifted away once more.

“Loki?”

“Hm?” Loki hummed in response, shoulders hunched and placed his hands between his legs as he sat staring unseeing into the distance.

You wanted to ask him the last time he’d been touched, hugged, held, instead you asked, “When is the last time you slept?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Humans can’t go very long without sleep.”

“Neither can Asgardians, and yet I have often done so.”

You tilted your head curiously. “That’s not very healthy.”

“No, I suppose not.”

Throwing caution to the wind, you reached up and rubbed his shoulder blades, knowing that was one of the lesser injured places. At first he stiffened at your touch, but slowly he seemed to relax, warily. “What are you doing?” He finally asked after a few moments.

“It calms me.” You admitted truthfully. How long had you been by yourself? You were lonely, scared, on edge. The rhythmic circles lulled you. It would be better if he had done so to you, but you knew he needed them more.

Loki looked slightly to the side of you suspiciously. “Very well.”

“Remember at the tower?”

“It has been some time.”

“You’d be in your recovery bed resting. I’d bring whatever books I could find and read to you.”

Loki smiled fondly at the memory. “You had some peculiar choices.”

“I’m not the most well read person, I’ll be honest. But you did enjoy Shakespeare.”

Loki chuckled. Round and round your hand smoothed over the soft texture of the hoodie. “Yes, he could compete with the bards of Asgard.”

“You kept telling me I should try reading a real book. I wanted to flick your nose so bad, but you weren’t so bad, you just needed someone to listen to you.”

Loki chuckled, “Not so bad.” He stifled a yawn.

“And then I discovered you could do magic. Real, powerful magic. Dr. Strange could do magic, but he was only just learning, and without the Eye of Agammoto to cheat, he was stuck learning at a human pace and now, he was pathetically behind. He didn’t know what real power was.”

“Now you’re just flattering me.”

“It’s true! You could tell me what real magic looked like, tell me what a real sorcerer was capable of.”

Loki held out his hand and then sighed, a strangled cracking sound in his throat as he clenched his teeth.

“Loki, I didn’t mean it that way, I just. I wanted you to tell me about you. What fascinates you, what was the first book you read, when did you first ride a horse, fight a monster…?” Kiss someone… woah now where did that thought come from?

You pulled your turtleneck up to cover your cheeks.

Loki turned towards you. “You really want to know those things?”

You had stopped rubbing his back, “Yea. They sound interesting. Why not? You’re fascinating.”

“We spoke of this earlier, what do you gain?”

“Well, I hoped we were friends at the time, and I wouldn’t mind being friends now, if not allies, we’re both living in a dangerous world. I take it if you’re mortal, you’re not in Odin’s good graces and you could use someone to watch your back. I… I could do that.” You offered sheepishly.

You quailed under Loki’s blind gaze. He couldn’t physically see you, yet he could see into your soul now.

“Allies, friends?” Loki asked slowly.

You smiled at him. “Yes. And hey, maybe we can brainstorm ideas to get that nasty neck thing off you, in the morning though. I’m beat, I need to sleep.”

“Oh, right.” Loki stood up.

“Where are you going?”

“To give you privacy.”

“The bed is big enough for two, besides, it’ll be warmer if we’re both in it.” You couldn’t believe you were suggesting that.

Loki turned his head down at you. “Very well.” Sitting down, he slowly removed his boots and began to fumble with his trousers.

Your eyes widened as you realized he was going to change into the sweatpants you had procured for him. You dove under the covers on your side and scrunched your eyes shut. Breathing heavily as you tried not to picture what he might look like.

The bed indented on the other side as Loki climbed in next to you.

“Pet, are you hiding?” He asked curiously. You could hear the amusement in his voice.

“No. No.” You stammered, trying to strengthen your voice and keep the pitch from being so nervous.

“Very well. Sleep well then.” Loki grunted at the contraption as he rolled over and then lay still.

You lay on your back for hours, staring up at the ceiling. It was true the bed felt much warmer with him nearby, though you weren’t sure that was actually the shared body heat so much as…

You swallowed and risked a glance towards Loki’s sleeping form. His chest rose in deep even breaths. Watching it rise and fall you began to count, slowly, steadily, you too were lulled to sleep.

[cristalconnors]

TOP 20 SONGS OF 2020

20. “BELOW THE CLAVICLE”- EARTHEATER

“The meaning hasn’t come up yet. It’s still under the surface below the clavicle.”

It isn’t just Alexandra Drewchin’s ear splitting soprano when she hits that impossibly high B, practically shrieking out the “cle” syllable of clavicle, though that’s undoubtedly when I first knew that Eartheater’s avant folk was for me- it’s also the cinematic, lush strings, both bowed and plucked (is that acoustic guitar or harp? I genuinely can’t tell), deepening and complicating the sonic texture of Drewchin’s study of parsing through emotions you aren’t ready to make sense of yet. 

19. “PUSSY TALK”- CITY GIRLS, FT. DOJA CAT

“This pussy so ghetto, this pussy speak ebonics”

“WAP”’s funnier, classless Irish twin, though it’s important to note “Pussy Talk” came first. Yung Miami and JT enlist Doja Cat to expound on everything their pussies deserve and will absolutely settle for nothing less than. And why should they when they’re spitting out verses this inspiredly hilarious with such confidence and flow? 

18. “LICK IN HEAVEN”- JESSY LANZA

“Once I’m spinning, I can’t stop spinning...”

Jessy Lanza is talking about losing your cool, letting your emotions get the best of you and lashing out instead of letting cooler heads prevail, but when that earworm of a chorus hits- “once I’m spinning, I can’t stop spinning” - I can’t stop spinning. I’m that woman on the single art, a wine mom lost in the delirium of the dance floor and in Lanza’s hypnotic, fragmented rhythms.  

17. “GASLIGHTER”- THE CHICKS

“Boy, you know exactly what you did on my boat!”

“Gaslighter” finds Natalie Ames and her Chicks at their most simultaneously ruthless and ebullient, ripping Ames’s ex-husband Adrian Pasdar a new asshole and ratcheting up the righteous anger of “Goodbye Earl” tenfold, channeling it into a glorious wall of sound in what might be their most rousing, emotionally resonant chorus in their storied career. 

16. “HANNAH SUN”- LOMELDA

“Hannah do no harm...”

While “Hannah Sun” begins as an exquisitely observed rumination on grappling with long-distance, pining for someone who’s a continent away, it gradually becomes clear that Hannah Read blames herself for putting the distance between her and the subject of her longing, and that the distance isn’t strictly literal. Skittering synths (or is that distorted flute?) complicate and enrich the texture of the song, allowing it to build organically and stunningly towards a heartbreaking plea to herself- “Hannah, do no harm.”

15. “FIRE”- WAXAHATCHEE

“And when I turn back around will you drain me back out? Will you let me believe that I broke through?”

When I’d drive back and forth between Dallas and Austin over and over again when I was in college, I’d often get off I-35 past Waco and take the back roads through towns I’d never heard of, the sun setting spectacularly behind the titular hills of Hill Country that were beginning to roll out in earnest. I think about that a lot when listening to “Fire,” a song dripping in rural Americana that was, unsurprisingly, inspired by a road trip. We’ve probably all been Katie Crutchfield as she crossed the bridge into West Memphis- alone in the car, awed by the simple beauty of the American countryside, making speeches to ourselves about our past mistakes and figuring out a way forward. 

14. “3AM”- HAIM

“On the screen and in my jeans, just make me feel good.”

On an album full of genre departures and decidedly darker themes than we’ve typically heard from Haim in their near decade of syncopated bubblegum pop rock, “3AM” stands out not only as their most effective stab at pastiche, slipping into the trappings of contemporary R&B with shocking ease and gusto, but also as their most unabashedly fun track in their entire oeuvre. “I think you can hear the amount of joy and laughs we had making this song” Alana Haim tells Apple Music, and you absolutely can.

13. “QADIR”- NICK HAKIM

“We’re sinking down a hole without thinking about our loved ones who might be shrinking...”

I often wonder if I’m putting enough effort into maintaining my relationships with friends I don’t see regularly, who live several time zones away, living their own lives while I live mine. When the thought of sustaining simple correspondence becomes overwhelming, it’s easy for months to go by before you realize you haven’t spoken to one of your closest friends. “QADIR” plays less like a eulogy for a friend gone too soon (though of course it is that) than a plea to the listener to put in the work. It’s worth it. You never know when it’ll be too late.

12. “LEVITATING”- DUA LIPA

“Glitter in the sky, glitter in our eyes shining just the way we are.”

Just a few bars of that delightfully bouncy, extra-terrestrial beat is enough to launch me into space. It’s so refreshing to hear a song that remembers that pop is supposed to be joyful and is best when it’s a bit silly. When discussing this track with Apple Music, Dua Lipa cites Austin Powers as inspiration, elaborating that “if I do a video for this, Mike Meyers has to be in it.” Can’t you just see them together, performing a farcical pas de deux of seduction like the spiritual successor to “Beautiful Stranger?”

11. “RIQUIQUI”- ARCA

“Love in the face of fear! Fear in the face of God!”

Arca’s made a career of harnessing chaos and somehow making sense of it. On an album that finds her embracing more traditional, accessible song structures, “Riquiqui” is a reminder that even when working within an AB structure, she’s still breaking rules left and right and having a blast doing it. She’s also never sounded so ferociously empowered in either her femininity or in her Venezuelan identity, rattling off local colloquialisms with affection and verve without a second thought as to who’s going to understand it. 

10. “FANTASY”- AGAINST ALL LOGIC

“I think about you all the time...”

Or, the musical embodiment of this gif:

When Nicolas Jaar’s tormented synths and crunching beats give way to Beyoncé’s unmistakable alto, it is indeed quite the shock. But should it be? Even if 2017-2019 finds him ditching the dancefloor in favor of more severe, unforgiving soundscapes, his already varied career has shown us nothing’s off limits to him. So why not reinvent Beyoncé’s iconic “Baby Boy” into an industrial, vaguely sinister certified bop that arguably surpasses the original?

9. “PEOPLE, I’VE BEEN SAD”- CHRISTINE AND THE QUEENS

“If you disappear, then I’m disappearing, too.”

“People, I’ve been sad” plays out with the vulnerability and intimacy of a tumblr text post you put out in the middle of the night, only to hastily delete later when it gets no notes. It forgoes flowery language in favor of just getting to the point. “I’ve been sad.” Héloïse Adelaïde Letissier blows up this deceptively simple sentiment with richly layered textures and a big screen gloss not to offer any remedies but instead to offer solidarity. We’re all in this hell together.

8. “DESCRIBE”- PERFUME GENIUS

“Can you just find him for me?”

Mike Hadreas has never sounded so hopeless. Utilizing harsh, rattling guitar that would make Kevin Shields swoon, he conveys the experience of being so estranged from happiness and joy that you need to rely on others to describe the sensation to you. But how, when exploring darker textures than he ever has before, does he make despondency sound so divine? 

7. “4 AMERICAN DOLLARS”- U.S. GIRLS

“No matter how much you get to have, you will still die and that’s the only thing.”

Meg Remy picks up where she left off on “4 American Dollars,” reviving the subversive pastiche she mastered on In a Poem Unlimited, this time harnessing the power of funk to dismantle the fallacies we’re taught about the virtues of capitalism. Heavy stuff, but Remy makes it less didactic than joyous, ensuring the listener will be singing “I don’t believe in pennies and nickels and dimes and dollars and pesos and pounds and rupees and yen and rubles” until they start to wonder if maybe they shouldn’t, either. 

6. “STUPID LOVE”- LADY GAGA

“I freak out, I freak out, I freak out, I freak out!”

Due to a healthy spirit of contrarianism mixed with a touch of internalized homophobia and genuine bafflement at her universal appeal and praise, I was a proud Lady Gaga hater for as long as she’d been a cultural entity. I just didn’t get her at all and loved that about myself. Annoying, I know. 2020 was the year I was finally ready to let that all go. Just before the world fell apart in March, I was out at Flaming Saddles (RIP) with friends the night this song came out and by the sixteenth time it played, I understood why it was inducing such hysteria. This was a cultural shift. After a frustrating near-decade of Gaga subverting expectations so thoroughly that she was actively working against her strengths and sabotaging her cultural ubiquity in the process, coupled with the most frightening era of political upheaval in our lifetimes, she was finally ready to save us and be Lady Gaga again. Booming synth, drag sensibilities, absurd thematic conceits- all was right in the world. For the first time in a long time, people had something to be hopeful about, and as I danced that night, I felt that hope, too. 

5. “SHELLFISH MADEMOISELLE”- RÓISÍN MURPHY

“How dare you sentence me to a lifetime without dancing?”

As soon as that bass starts (the funkiest bassline in the history of music?) it’s like Róisín Murphy’s snake charming oboe, coaxing even the most stalwart curmudgeon onto the dancefloor and keeping them there, dancing frantically and involuntarily like the citizens of Strasbourg in 1518, trying their best to keep up with Murphy who isn’t even breaking a sweat, commanding the masses with a sultry remove, beckoning you closer, pulling you inexorably deeper into the mass of gyrating bodies and whispering in your ear “come and have a dance with yer mum.”

4. “PARTY 4 U”- CHARLI XCX

“I only threw this party for you...”

As PC Music / Bubblegum Bass / whatever you want to call it enters its second decade, Charli XCX proves not only that there’s still new textures to explore within it, but also that no one can exploit its artifice to get down to emotional truths like she can. How can she make something this slick sound so vulnerable? “I only threw this party for you” she croons over and over again over glorious syncopated synths that build exquisitely, reaching their climax only to immediately fall away, until it’s just her and her trusty autotune, pleading with the subject of the song to just come to the damn party. But they won’t, of course. They never do, do they?

3. “WAP”- CARDI B, FT. MEGAN THEE STALLION

“I want you to touch that lil’ dangly thing that swing in the back of my throat!”

Sometimes you just immediately know you’re living through a significant cultural moment. No, not COVID. I’m talking about the experience of hearing Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s instant classic “WAP” for the first time, a titanic meeting of the minds that finds both of them at the apex of their cultural influence and at their most undeniable. Can the argument be made that these two aren’t the two best rappers in the game right now? How could you hear this inspiredly filthy sex positive juggernaut, where Cardi and Megan are trading the sickest verses of their careers, and not think these two deserve the world? 

2. “KEROSENE!”- YVES TUMOR

“I can be your baby in real life, sugar. I can live in your dreams.”

If the 2010′s were all about the pop-ification of all music, trading in live instrumentation in favor of polished synths, 2020 forcefully announced the return of the electric guitar when Yves Tumor and Diana Gordon’s back and forth lustfully submissive declarations of desire suddenly gave way to that nasty guitar rip lifted from Uriah Heep’s “Weep in Silence” to announce yet another cultural shift in a year chock full of them- rock and roll was, indeed, here to stay. 

1. “I WANT YOU TO LOVE ME”- FIONA APPLE

“I move with the trees in the breeze, I know that time is elastic.”

We live and we learn. Years spent soul searching and on self-discovery shape us into better, smarter people, progressively knowing and understanding ourselves and the world around us more and more clearly, but Fiona Apple knows that none of that can quell the ferocious desire to be loved by someone. By anyone. By you, whoever that is. We can know that time is elastic and that when we’re gone all our particles will disband and disperse and then we’ll be back in the pulse, and we can know that none of this stuff actually matters, but still- we want, we want, we want. 

[liv-laugh-die]

||Admiring|| 💖Miya Osamu x Gn!reader

trope: strangers meeting in the park (ik its random bear with me😭)

warnings: its not proofread all the way through (im sorry im tired), so theres probably grammatical errors or typos but other than that none

genre: fluff pretty much just sappy stuff

pairing/s: osamu x gn!reader

wc: about 2.5k

a/n: oh my god idk where i came up with this but i think its cute so :p i hope you enjoy!!

You stared at your blank computer screen, hope of finishing your assignment before its due date at midnight slowly vanishing. 

     The clock on your desk read 11:27pm, the green lines wavering in your vision as your eyes slowly drooped, trying to drag you into the depths of slumber. You wanted to sleep, you really did, but you knew there was no way you could give up writing your essay, even now, knowing you weren’t going to submit it on time, because you would stress too much about it if you didn’t at least try to complete it before the due date. 

     Pushing yourself away from your desk, your chair squeaking against the floor ever so slightly in your dead silent dorm room, you tried to think of some excuse that your professor might believe. You doubted there was anything you could think of, but hey, your professor was better than what your roommates’ had mentioned theirs being, and you were grateful for that. Maybe you could tell him that you were exhausted from working extra hours at your job since you had had to cover your coworker’s shift and that’s why you couldn’t complete your essay on time? Or, maybe you could get away with a simple “I was lacking interest in the material, and couldn’t understand anything, and I didn’t ask for help because I knew that you are such a busy man trying to do so many things at once. Another hopeless near college drop-out wasn’t something I thought you needed on your hands.”

     ....Maybe not the latter.

    You sighed, running a hand through your tangled hair, practically feeling it screaming at you to wash it. You barely had time in the mornings to take showers anymore, and when you took them at night, you never had the strength to wash your hair, always knowing that putting a hat on overtop or throwing on your hoodie would make it seem fine on the outside, and that was good enough for you. As long as you looked at least decent and somewhat presentable.

    Your dorm room was fairly small, like every other one, but the lack of furniture made it seem larger than the rest. Nothing more than you and your roommate’s joint desk, the mini fridge in the corner, and the beds filled the space. You almost tripped over your backpack lying next to the bunk bed pushed up against the wall, falling to what would’ve been inches away from your roommate’s sleeping body.

    In an attempt not to disturb them, you tiptoed through the room, stepping over the occasional heap of clothes or homework, until you reached the bathroom. You fumbled over the door knob before almost tumbling into the small space. Glancing in the mirror, you didn’t fail to notice your messy hair, the dark circles tracing beneath your eyes, or the way you looked like you were seconds away from passing out. The sound of running water rang in your ears as you turned on the sink faucet, cupping your hands together and bringing your face down to meet them, rubbing the cold water all over you in an attempt to keep you awake for just a few moments longer.

     Your eyes returned back to the mirror as you sighed at your dripping wet face. There was no way possible you were going to finish your assignment on time. You knew it, your roommate knew it before they passed out, and you had noticed your professor’s wary glance this morning in class as a sign that he knew it too.

     An idea sprang into your head, part of you dreading the optimism that seemed to seep through your brain slowly. You didn’t feel like being energetic right now.

---an hour later---

You weren’t exactly sure how, when, or why you decided it would be a good idea to take a shower (you did end up washing your hair, thank god), get your things together in your bag, and head to the off-campus coffee shop (since the one on-campus had already closed), but you found yourself with a warm cup of coffee in hand as you exited the shop, the cold midnight air enveloping you in an unwelcome embrace.

     You shivered. The only thing your spontaneous brain had forgotten had to have been your jacket, the one thing your normal brain would’ve remembered if it weren’t already past midnight and if you weren’t majorly sleep-deprived.

     You most certainly weren’t done with your essay yet, nor was there any possible way for you to finish it on time since it was now approximately thirteen minutes past the due time, but you let yourself breathe for now.

     There weren’t many people out at this hour, and it made the usual busy city streets seemed like a ghost town. There were a few restaurants still open as you strolled along the sidewalk, their lights responsible for illuminating more than half the area in front of you. You passed by an onigiri shop your friend had recommended to you, but you just weren’t that hungry. Most nights, you’d kill for a midnight snack, but your single shot of espresso coffee was satisfying your needs for now.

     You decided to head to the park after seeing a rabbit hop its way across the vacant street and into the bushes in that direction. The fresh air was nice and cool against your dry and croaky lungs, and your ears needed a different sound than that of you miserably attempting to touch type quickly, your fingers rapping against the keyboard with vigor.

     A stream nearby flowed softly, the dripping of the water against the rocks complimenting the noise of the crickets chirping in sync just downstream. Your footsteps cut through the grass slowly, not bothering to follow the stone path. The park was a nice change of scenery. You couldn’t remember the last time you’d been here by yourself in peace, it was always you and your rambunctious friends who ran through every now and then just to see the dogs running through the sprinklers, or the occasional poor cat whose owner dragged them out into the daylight for exercise. This was peaceful, though, and you appreciated that.

     A few more rabbits crossed your path, giving you that wide-eyed, side glance before darting off into the darkness, outside the reach of the lampposts emitting light. The sound of the stream soon faded out as you continued to walk through the park, sipping your coffee every so often. The warmth from your cup was soon dying out, and you figured you’d have to start walking back to your university sooner or later. Maybe you could crash at your friend’s house who lived just off campus, though you had forgotten your phone back at your dorm and had no alarm, no laptop to complete your work, and no contact with anyone else who might worry where you’d be. You had really no choice but to trek back to your dorm in the darkness, cutting your peaceful visit to the park short.

     You let yourself have a few more minutes of stress free relaxing as you sat down on a bench just before the ground let out into a downhill slope overlooking the rest of the city below. The trees around you swayed in the breeze, and for a moment, you thought it was the wind talking, and not an actual human being who had somehow made his way beside you without gathering your attention.

     “Didn’t think anyone else would be up at this hour,” the stranger mumbled. You glanced up, almost startled that, indeed, someone else was actually awake and strolling through the park.

     The boy couldn’t have been much older than you were, maybe the same age. He had his hands stuffed in his jacket pockets, the wind tousled his dark hair ever so slightly, and the moonlight played along, illuminating his face just so you could actually see how gorgeous he was.

     You cleared your throat, averting your eyes back to the ground as you shifted over, creating more space on the bench in case he wanted to sit down beside you. “I decided to actually take care of myself for once and give myself some time to breathe before facing the wrath of my professor tomorrow when he finds out I didn’t turn in my essay on time.” You let out a low, breathy chuckle, not exactly sure of what would happen next.

     The guy sat down on the bench next to you, though he made sure to give you some personal space, which you were grateful for. He laughed along with you a bit, and you could tell just from his tone just how tired he really was.

     You gave him a side glance, raising an eyebrow. “So, what the stressful thing that brought you here in the middle of the night?”

     He smiled half-heartedly, eyes trained on the moon. “Work stuff. Jus’ been busy, I guess.” He shrugged. 

     You waited for him to continue on, but he stayed silent. You didn’t complain, though. Wasn’t your whole reason for coming out here in the dead of the night for some quiet? Plus, it wasn’t awkward either. You were comfortable sitting next to this stranger.

     “What do you do for work?” You waited a little longer than necessary to ask, but he didn’t seem to mind the long pause.

     “I own a restaurant a few blocks away. I love the job, it’s just tiring havin’ to deal with rude customers like my brother who won’t get the hint and get out sometimes. I got into an argument with him earlier today and he just wouldn’t shut it.” He rolled his eyes and took his hands out of his pockets, making eye contact with you as he went on about his day, and you couldn’t help but smile at his passion. “The guy thinks he can just walk in when I’m working with a new employee and just act like he runs the place! Quite stupid if you ask me. Such a jerk, he is. Thinkin’ about just banning him from the place, really.” 

     You snorted. “He really bugs you that much, huh?”

     The guy smirked at your laugh, admiring it, though you would never had guess that was what flashed across his face in a million years. He nodded. “Yeah, ‘course I love ‘im ‘cause he’s my twin and my best friend, but he really knows how to annoy the hell outta me.” He shrugged. “Maybe I’ll just get a sign in the window that says “no shirt, no shoes, no service” and cross it out and write my brother’s name instead,” he reasoned, and the pondering look in his eyes made you wonder if he was actually considering the idea.

     You smiled. “You’re funny.”

     “You say that like ya weren’t expectin’ it.”

     A laugh made its way out your lips. “Well, when you’re approached by a stranger in the middle of the night you sort of expect the worst.”

     The guy glanced off in the distance, away from you, furrowing his eyebrows. “Sorry, didn’t think of that comin’ off that way.” He shrugged a shoulder. “Guess it’s a good thing I’m funny then, and not some creep, eh?”

     You nodded, the smile on your face not fading as he changed topics.

     “So, what’s your essay on? Any way I can help ya finish it?”

     You shook your head dismissively. “Oh, no. It was due thirty minutes ago.” You quickly explained the topic you were writing about in class before getting side tracked. “My professor had said he would allow it to be turned in the next morning, but I doubt he actually meant it.”

     He smiled a wide grin, making butterflies flutter in your stomach. “You go to the university nearby, right?” 

     You nodded in confirmation, raising an eyebrow. “If I’ve got any luck, there’s a chance you go there too?”

     He laughed a little, shaking his head. “Nah, I don’t, sorry. I’ve visited campus a few times because some of my friends go there, but I just usually focus on work.”

     His gaze was tilted upwards towards the sky, and you couldn’t help but admire how the exhaustion still shone in his eyes, but somehow that same passion gleamed there too just mentioning what he did for a living. You wished you were that passionate about something that would actually support you financially in the future and make you happy.

     When he glanced back at you, you were still taking his essence in, and he made a look of confusion. “What?”

    You shook your head, chuckling. “Nothing. I just admire that you can dedicate yourself to something and make it seem so easy.” He looked at you, interested to hear what you had to say, even though you were sure you couldn’t be the first person to tell him this. “I haven’t even known you for more than ten minutes and I can already tell you’re passionate about what you do and if you’re stressed about it, it must mean you’re dedicated to seeing your work through, and that’s more than enough to admire and appreciate, especially when that can be so difficult sometimes.” You finished your short tangent, looking back up at him to see him staring intently at you, seemingly in awe of what you’d just said. You felt a blush creep onto your face as you quickly blurted out, “Sorry- I didn’t mean to be so straightforward and weird like that- I sound like some crazy secret admirer or something...”

     The crickets chirped in the silence between the two of you, and it felt like it would never end.

     “Y’know, I wouldn’t mind havin’ a secret admirer. I mean, wouldn’t be so secret, but...” You saw the smile creep up onto his face. “It’s nice being appreciated. Nobody really tells me that kind o’ stuff, so... thanks, I guess.” 

     The heat on your cheeks didn’t go away by any means, but you grew more comfortable with it as you mumbled, “Maybe I wouldn’t mind admiring you.”

     Now, it was the boy’s turn to blush, and you smiled at how his cheeks grew redder with every passing second, and how his subtle grin spoke a thousand words he didn’t need to say.

     “Miya Osamu.” The boy’s hand came into your view as he extended it for you to shake. “I own Onigiri Miya across from the grocery outlet.”

     You smirked, grasping his hand in yours as you said, “L/N Y/N. I own an official license for being a horrible driver and an ID that proves I’m a sleep-deprived college student and that’s about it.”

     He laughed, shaking your hand and standing up, letting go too soon for your liking.

     Because for some weird reason, his hand felt right in yours.

     Osamu said a quick goodbye, mentioning something about how he should get going and how you should get some sleep before he disappeared down the stone path back into the darkness.

     You stood up not too long after he’d left, your coffee now entirely cold as you plopped the half full cup into the trash can on your walk back to your dorm, not needing the pathetic warmth anymore. Your heart was beating fast and the feeling of Osamu’s hand resting in yours lingered on your palm, and that kept you warm enough.

     Maybe you’d be visiting that onigiri place your friend recommended to you a little sooner than you’d originally planned, and maybe more often than you would’ve expected.

[piratesfromspace]

Two saviors and some hope

Pairing: The Mandalorian x Cobb Vanth x Reader

Summary: You've been captured to be sold as a slave. But two men clad in beskar armors cross your path. Maybe this means there's some hope. Set after ep 1 of season 2, canon-divergent.

Word Count: 4.2k

Warnings: canon-typical violence, blood, alcohol, slavery (but reader is free pretty early in the fic), light smut (threesome). Rated explicit.

A/N: Neutral pronouns for reader. English is not my native language, please be kind. I’m really happy to share this short fic with a rare pairing, hope you’ll like it! Fic also available on ao3. 

“Move! Faster, I might miss a client” the abhorrent creature tugging at your chains croaks. You are trying to keep up behind him as best as you can. But with the chains linking your ankles and your wrists, it isn’t an easy task. Especially since you are barefoot in the burning sand of this barren planet. The scorching heat of its two suns is just aggravating your ordeal. The blue-skinned Chiss that is your captor and you soon arrive at the destination he was so eager to reach. A small town and its market. If the previous remark had left you with very little doubt about his intentions for you, it was now even more clear that he indeed has planned on selling you.

“Here, that’s perfect. On the ground, sit, slave.” His order comes with a hard tug on the chains between your wrists, and your knees fall on the compacted sand of the marketplace. You raise your head in a poor sign of defiance, looking at the slave trader. He puts his backpack down at his feet and rubs one of his shoulders. Despite his human-like figure, he is way stronger than expected. Clad in some sort of beige toga, he could easily be mistaken for a simple merchant, but you have learned the hard way he is a hunter as well. The anxiety slowly gnawing at the edge of your mind is becoming more and more hard to ignore with every second. You close your eyes, breathing through your nose and trying to calm yourself. A freaking slave. He has called you a freaking slave, and is about to sell you as one. In those forsaken parts of the galaxy, slavery is apparently still a thing and no one would come looking for you. Even if everything happened in a blur, you know the small village where you were finally living a simple life after a troubled childhood has been destroyed by the Chiss and his friends? Colleagues? Regardless of who they all were, your situation is the same. He has taken you and decided to make a quick buck by bringing you to the first market on the closest planet he could find.

But you can’t resign yourself. Maybe if you run fast enough you could hide yourself somewhere? Find a way to destroy those chains and escape from your grim future. It’s now or never. You take a deep breath and you push as hard as you can on your legs, soaring, ready to run. But as soon as you're up, you barely have taken your first step, that the Chiss grabs your upper arm and yanks you towards him. His grip is cruel and his fingers dig deep in your skin, likely to leave nasty bruises there. You let out a scream, but the air is pushed out of your lungs when he kicks you in the back of your knee, your legs buckling beneath you. You fall again on the ground and you try to soften your landing with your hands, but the chains prevent you from really succeeding.

“Pathetic.” you hear him mutter, slightly shaking his head. You want to disappear. You’re huddled in the sand, your knees and arms hurting, your heart pounding in your ears. You don’t want to raise your eyes and meet his again. Around you, the market is bustling with life, people happily chatting and loudly bargaining cheap items. Though it looks like your little scene has attracted a few surprised glances and hushed conversations. You close your eyes again, wincing from the waves of pain creeping from most of your body. You’re taken out of your suffering-induced trance when you hear heavy footsteps coming close to you and the Chiss greeting someone with his sketchy smooth voice. “Hello gentlemen, do you need a servant? I’m sure this one will be perfect for your…” He hasn’t the time to finish his sentence, because the tallest of the two armored men standing in front of you aims his blaster on the chest of the Chiss without any warning. “What are you doing here, slaver scum?” “I.. what do you…” the Chiss stutters.

“There are only free people in this town, and this is gonna stay that way as long as I’m the Marshal here. So you’re going to release this person and get away from this place as quick as you can. And I’m not gonna ask you twice.”

Your mind is slowly processing what’s happening, and you watch more closely at your two saviors. They’re both clad in beskar armor, one shiny, one painted in red and green, the traditional helmets of the Mandalorians safely hiding their faces. You’ve heard of them of course, the intriguing tribe is well known where you used to live. And it is also well known it is a bad idea to mess with them.

There is a moment of tension. The Chiss seems to be gauging if he can win a fight against the two Mandalorians, or if there is any way he can turn the situation to his advantage. The smaller warrior, the one with the shiny armor, moves a hand on his blaster and slightly shifts in his position, making clear he’s not afraid to shoot if necessary. Anger crosses the face of the blue-skinned man and he pinches his lips in a disgusted pout before speaking. “Alright, no need to be so menacing. I’ll leave, but I can’t let my property here, they’ll come with me.” He collects his bag and pretends to be leaving, tugging on your chains for you to get up. “I think you don’t understand”, the smaller Mandalorian finally speaks for the first time, “they’re not your property, and they will stay here.”. He’s very calm but determined and the modulator filtering his voice gives an even more terrifying tone to the veiled threat. His blaster is now in his hand, casually aiming to the Chiss.

With two blasters now facing him, your captor has very little choice. He lets out a nervous sight and reaches inside his pocket to find the magnetic key to your chains. He reluctantly presses it against your ankles and then your wrists, freeing you from the vicious bite of the metal around your limbs. The discarded shackles tumble in the sand with a soft clatter. Free. You’re free.

“You don’t know who you’re insulting Mandalorians…” you heard him muttering under his breath before quickly leaving the marketplace, under the scrutinizing looks of the nearby crowd. You’re still in shock of what just happened. The world is becoming a blur around you, the ambient noise turning into a high pitch sound in your ears, you feel like you’re gonna lose your footing.

“Hey… can you hear me? you ok?” a gentle touch on your shoulder and two brown eyes with a kind look prevent you from totally fainting, bringing you back to reality. The taller Mandalorian has removed his helmet and is watching you. A concerned smile crossing his face. The information makes your brain glitch. Mandalorians are not supposed to remove their helmet, ever.. But you don’t have the time to dwell on this puzzling news, because the second warrior reminds you of a more pressing issue: “Did he plant a chip? In your neck? Or your back maybe? Do you remember?” “Yes…yes, in the middle of my back I think.” “Shit.”

--------

The table in the center of the modest living room is swiped free of the few bowls and trinkets placed there. The Mandalorian is carefully lying you on it, instructing you to turn on your belly. He loses no time, tearing the thin fabric of your tunic to expose your back. The Marshal comes back from another room, hurrying, with a medkit in his hands. “Din! I think there’s a scalpel vibroblade in here, but I couldn’t find any anesthetic.” The helmeted warrior, Din, doesn’t lose his calm and pulls out the scalpel from the kit.

“I’m sorry, but we must remove it now, before this son-of-a-Kath-hound dares to make it explode.” he says, his helmet turned toward you.

You hear the Marshal searching in the kitchen for something, frantically opening cabinet doors. “Here, you can bite on this.” a clean cloth is finally shoved into your hands and you bring it to your mouth, sinking your teeth in the fabric and steeling yourself for what’s to come. The gloved hand of the Mandalorian is feeling each bone of your spine, looking for the exact location of the chip. He’s fast, methodical, like he’s done this before. His hand suddenly stops a couple inches below your neck. “Found it. It’s gonna hurt. You can scream if it helps.” He turns to the other man “It’s best if you hold them still. Safer this way.” One powerful hand grabs your neck, gentle but firm, while another one presses on the small of your back, making sure you won’t move too much and hurt yourself. The Marshal has removed his gloves, and the feeling of its warm callused hands against your exposed skin is somehow weirdly comforting. Your fingers clench hard on the table’s edge when the blade sinks into your flesh, you squeeze your eyes shut, letting out a growl through your gritted teeth around the cloth. The pain is radiating in all your back, you want to move, to escape the awful sensation although you know it’s for your own good. You can feel the droplets of blood trickling down your sides, ending on the table, forming little puddles soon staining the front of your tunic. The feeling of the blade moving so close to your spine makes your head spin and when you open your eyes, blacks spots are filling your vision. You let go of the edge of the table, your fingers going numb. “I think they’re gonna faint.” the Marshal warns Din. “I’m almost done...” A metallic clatter can be heard as the Mandalorian lets the chip fall inside a cup. “Just need to close the wound now. You’re good.” You’re doing your best to stay awake, removing the cloth from your mouth with a feeble hand to try and take some deep breaths. The process of closing the deep cut in your back is nowhere near pleasant, but at least the menace of the chip blowing up your spine is gone. “It’s done. I just need to apply some bacta.” “No” your voice is wrecked, the tone slightly desperate. “No bacta. I want the scar to stay.” “It’s your call.” Din simply states.

The hands against your back are lifted and the Marshal reappears in your visual field. He fetches a bottle and a cup, and when the Mandalorian finally gives you the permission to sit up, he offers you a glass of an unknown blue liquid. “For the pain.” he says with a smile. It smells funny but you gulp the thing down, and while it burns your throat a little, its heat is welcome. You feel your muscles relax a bit thanks to the alcohol. “Thank you.” His brows furrow while he looks at you. You must look like a mess. Your tunic ripped open in the back, stained with your own blood, your skin coated in sand and sweat, your short hair messier than ever. “I’ll try to find you new clothes.” Behind you, the Mandalorian is trying to clean the blade and the mess you all made. You feel very self-conscious all of a sudden, realizing you’re half naked, alone on a planet you don't know, with two strangers, no money and no weapon, not even a proper garment on your back. You wrap your arms around you, making sure the torn fabric doesn’t expose you more than it does. But the move makes you wince when you unwittingly touch the bruises left by the Chiss on your upper arms. The Marshal frowns even more. “Is there a refresher I can use?” you ask tentatively. “Yeah sure” he seems a bit surprised by your request “Over here, the sonic works and there might even be some water left.” he answers nonetheless, while gesturing toward the small corridor at the other side of the room.

You don’t wait for any more explanation, jump from the table, and almost run to the refresher, locking the door behind you. A thousand thoughts are spiralling inside your head. You let the water run and step inside the shower, trying to wash away the dirt, the pain and the anguish.

------

Days have passed since your encounter with Din and Cobb (as you learned their names were). One true Mandalorian, the other not so much. But both are men of honor - or at least they seem to be. Truth be said, you don’t care that much about honor, as long as they’re nice to you. Cobb is letting you live in his home, and you have a small room all to yourself. You don’t see him a lot since he’s always somewhere else taking care of some sort of problem or quarrel. He’s not a bad roommate and he doesn't ask a lot from you. And Din is living in his ship he brought back from Mos Eisley. Well you’ve learned pretty quickly that sometimes Din is also some kind of roommate for Cobb, in the sense that they literally share the same bedroom. They’re not very open about their relationship but they don’t try to hide it at all costs either, and you’re grateful for the trust they put into you.

It’s quite fascinating to see them together. Cobb, tall and bold, a mischievous smile always plastered on his face, his silver hair and beard highlighting a strong jaw, high cheekbones and kind dark eyes. Din is more of the introvert type, smaller, definitely more muscular, his helmet always on, although you can easily tell when there is a smile or a worry in his voice. You’ve seen them fight together against some outlaws once or twice, and you had been mesmerized by their dynamic and synchronicity. You don’t know much about them, and they don’t ask much about you, and it’s fine this way for each of you three. The only thing still bugging your mind is the reason why they chose to help you, but the small green alien baby the Mandalorian is fostering indicates an overprotective instinct you’re glad to be benefiting from. And Cobb is visibly on the same track, even more so, demonstrating a contained anger each time you mention past abuse, regularly scolding himself for having let the Chiss leave alive.

Actually you’re glad to stay at their sides and to receive their attention. They’ve been careful around you, especially the first couple days, not wanting to make you uncomfortable or to scare you. As time passed, they both showed more openly their attachment to you and you welcomed their friendliness. But lately, you’ve caught yourself wanting more, waiting impatiently for Cobb’s return or for Din’s visit, a weird feeling coiling into your chest and your belly when you caught a glimpse of Din’s skin between his helmet and his scarf, a sudden blush on your cheeks when you run into Cobb getting out of the fresher, wearing just pants, hair still damp and shimmering in the soft light of the morning. Despite your best efforts to lie to yourself, it’s pretty clear now that you’re falling for them, both of them.

It’s twisted, you’re well aware, and sometimes you’re wondering which part of your fucked up past is to blame for this. But torturing yourself searching for answers doesn’t make the crave for their attention and touch go away, on the contrary.

While you’re getting more and more settled into your new life, the scars of the previous ones are still present. Nightmares. The ghosts of past wounds. You try your best to hide it from Din and Cobb, you don’t want to bother them with your traumas, when they already have their very own ones to deal with.

One night, the ghost pain of the removal of the chip comes back. You suspect in saving your life, Din had unfortunately touched a few nerves. It hurts all along your spine, up into your skull, keeps you wide awake despite your tiredness. You roll into your bed, unable to sleep, tears of exhaustion forming in the corner of your eyes. You finally get up, looking for the new pain-killer you know Cobb keeps in the unit next to his bed. After your little improvised surgery on his kitchen table, he had felt the need to purchase some, just in case. He’s not home yet, despite the late hour, but you’re not worried. Not unusual for him to have a weird schedule. You find what you’re looking for, small greenish beads safely stored in a glass jar. You swallow two of them, fighting against the waves of pain each of your movement is sending into your body. With just a few seconds, the medication kicks in, a warm feeling settling inside of your muscles, easing your agony away. You feel your mind drifting pleasantly, your eyelids heavy. You barely have the time to take a few steps back and fall on Cobb’s bed before you blank out.

You wake up in a gasp, sitting up immediately, all your senses on the alert. There is someone in the room. “I’m sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.” you can guess Cobb’s silhouette in the door frame. He’s just wearing the light pants and tunic he usually sleeps in. “I’m gonna go sleep in the living room.” he adds with a soft voice. It’s still dark outside, you weren’t out for very long, but visibly long enough for him to come back and find you in his bed.

“Sorry.” You don’t know how to explain why you ended here, you’re just relieved to see he’s not upset with you. “You don’t need... I… Can I…” you stutters, having trouble to find what you really want to ask. “You can finish your night here, no big deal.” he sounds tired but caring. “Stay with me. I mean, if you want to”. You answer without thinking about the consequences, not knowing if it’s the uninhibiting effect of the drug or something else.

You see his shoulders rise just a little, he’s surprised although he doesn’t say anything, and just climbs onto the bed as you shift to make room for him. You’re glad he stays silent, the situation being awkward enough as it is. The mattress is wide enough for two persons, but after a few moments, you press yourself against his body in your half-sleep, subconsciously searching for his warmth. When his arm gently wraps over you, he asks in a whisper if it's ok, and when you clutch his hand tighter against your chest, he takes that as a yes. You fall in a deep restful sleep, the best you had in a long time.

It becomes a little habit, everytime you feel the pain in your back or when nightmares wake you up in the middle of the night. Din knows about it obviously. He’s not angry at you, or Cobb. He understands, and you even recon he’s becoming more and more protective around you. Days turn into weeks, and while it’s nice to sleep in Cobb’s arms and to get renewed attention from Din, it doesn’t really help with your complicated feelings.

One afternoon, you’re heading back home early, and as you enter the living room, noises coming from Cobb’s bedroom make your heart miss a beat. Soft moans, deep voices whispering dirty words and the sound of flesh on flesh. You’re clearly not supposed to be here at this time of day, not supposed to witness whatever is going on. A hand on your mouth, you retreat to your room as quietly as possible, close the door shut and try to calm your erratic breathing. You spend the rest of the day locked up, too embarrassed to dare going out and to risk bumping into them. You don’t really know why, it’s not like it’s a dangerous secret that they’re fucking each other. You guess it has more to do with your own guilty desires than with them.

The very next day, you’re all enjoying a drinking party at the local cantina. The spotchka is burning your inside delightfully, Cobb is telling funny stories from his past and the small crowd gathered around your booth is laughing, unbridled. It’s hard to tell if Din is enjoying himself since he can’t drink in public but you suspect he has taken his share of the blue alcohol before coming here. His gloved hand is casually resting on Cobb’s thigh under the table top, an unusual demonstration of affection. The night is well advanced when the three of you leave the cantina. You’re expecting them to go straight to Din’s ship but they follow you into Cobb’s home, exchanging teasing jokes and clever quips. As you make your way toward your own room, Cobb catches your wrist. “Stay with us. I mean, if you want to.” he offers, using your own words from the other night, smiling without malice. Your eyes dart to Din, silently asking for his consent and he nods slowly.

You all land on Cobb’s bed, and before you dare ask about the helmet situation, Din makes sure the blinds on the windows are perfectly shut, and switches off the light. The soft clatter of beskar against the floor makes it clear he has removed his helmet, his face impossible to see in the complete darkness of the room. You’re in awe of the trust he puts into you. You could easily mess with him and try some tricks to see how he looks, even though you have no intention to do so. You’re too tired to really think further about it, and you decide to just embrace the gentleness of the moment, cuddling up against Cobb like you’re used to. Except this time you can feel Din’s arm wrapped around the Marshal’s body and it makes your heart flutter with a joy you wouldn’t have dared to dream of.

You’re awakened by Cobb shifting against you in his sleep. You feel well rested and despite the lack of light thanks to the thick blinds, you conclude it’s probably late in the morning. The body against your back moves again, and you feel Cobb’s breath against your shaved nape. “Good morning sunshine” he says before planting a kiss there. Your breath hitches in your throat. “You ok?” he whispers, concerned. “Yeah, just… Can you... do that again?” He chuckles and his lips find your neck again. Taking his time, leaving small kisses up to your cheek. You feel a familiar heat building really quickly between your legs. His hands are on your waist, feeling good and warm on the exposed skin between your shirt and your shorts. You’re closing your eyes, savoring the sensation when Cobb unexpectedly lets out a laugh. “Well, hello Din…” “What? I thought I could join.” Din mutters between two kisses on Cobb’s neck. Before you can say anything, you find yourself between them, night clothes soon discarded after you answer positively when they ask you if this is fine, muscular bodies pressed against you from both sides. They kiss every inch of your skin and and at some point, Din grabs your hand and places it gently on his face, giving you permission to trace his features in the dark. You feel a chiseled jawline and a two-day stubble, soft lips and a strong nose, small wrinkles at the corner of his eyes forming there when he smiles. You keep on touching his forehead, up until you find the soft curls of his hair. You guess he must be a few years older than you, surely a bit younger than Cobb. But it doesn’t really matter, and the question disappears when you feel his lips on yours.

You relinquish yourself to the mind-blowing feeling. Even your wildest fantasies weren’t this good. You lose track of how many times you come undone under Din’s skilled fingers and Cobb’s hungry mouth. And when Din finally sinks into you and Cobb sinks into him, your heart misses a few more beats, your bodies moving in perfect sync, making you go over the edge one more time.

It must be late in the day, because you start to be really thirsty. “I’ll go fetch some water” Cobb offers, and when he’s back from the kitchen with the cups, you and him respectfully turn your back to Din to let him drink before he has the chance to put his helmet back on.

When it’s your turn to head for the refresher, you let the water run and step inside the shower, just like you did for the first time a few weeks ago. There is a difference though. Today, there sure is some dirt to wash away, but the pain and the anguish, they are already gone.

[chemicalpink]

Starring Role ♡ Kim Namjoon

Pairing: Kim Namjoon x Reader

Genre: smut, angst

Word Count: 2.2k

Warnings: unprotected sex, emotionally unavailable Namjoon, infidelity, dubious consent

A/N: HELLO I am back with this series I’m so sorry it took so long I’m trying my best at organizing my life but you know how it goes. I really liked this one so I hope you do too, please let me know what you think! I love you!

Summary: I don’t love you, big fucking deal. Don’t ever tell me how you feel. I know you’d rather walk alone than play a supporting role but you can’t get the starring role.

You toss on your bed for what feels–and probably is– the millionth time, a light breeze coming from the open window that helps your shivers intensify as you try to cuddle further into the bedsheet, the body sleeping soundly beside you doing nothing to keep you warm or even help you sleep. Namjoon’s naked and very much toned back greets you after you quickly glance to the alarm clock: 4:55 am, without even a blink of sleep in.

So you see, Namjoon is a great guy, he really is, it’s just that well- he likes to keep to himself, and not in an ‘I’m dark and mysterious’ type of way, but as in ‘I’ll talk about my feeling over my own dead body’ type of way. They could be so similar and so difficult to identify one from another. That’s what lured you in. 

You can still remember the first time you met him, as every story out of a movie. Perhaps that was the first red flag. Real-life isn’t a movie after all. Being a party animal isn’t really how you could describe yourself, but sometimes, things get lonely and what better way to drink your problems away than to do so with a bunch of strangers right? After a few beer pong rounds and shots accompanied by intoxicated dancing in the middle of the living room and in front of the TV, you took a seat next to this good-looking blond guy with his eyes stuck on his phone screen, tongue lapping over his lips over and over again.

“Wouldn’t mind being your phone screen right now if it meant you staring at me like that” you blurted out, perhaps it was time to go home. The good-looking stranger immediately locked his phone and put it away while turning to look at you, a smirk on his pretty face.

“Well I guess tonight’s your lucky night then” if he was as intoxicated as he later claimed to be – which you are still doubtful of– he didn’t look like it. Plus, your bubbly drunk self didn’t help one bit to the situation.

You both started talking, Namjoon smiling at every word that came out of your mouth, his hand not so subtly touching your leg while you found weirdly specific excuses to touch his arms; the third time your eyes drifted off to his lips you asked him to walk you to the kitchen –arguing that you didn’t want to fall over with your heels.

You had barely grabbed his hand, gaze clear with your intentions when his hand wrapped itself around your waist, hot against your exposed skin. His lips were on yours the second you found yourselves inside the kitchen, hands all over each other, no clothes taken away but rather bunched up or around the ankles to give access to the ministrations, thankful for the loud music covering up the sounds of what was going on on the kitchen counter. 

There wasn’t a single week after that you could go without Namjoon–which by the way, took you three more fuck dates to get his name. He was just that addicting. Friends with benefits. Not even friends. More like acquaintances that got used to fucking their frustrations on the other. More suiting. 

The sun wasn’t even in the sky for it to come through the blinds, but the moonlight did a pretty good job at illuminating the man’s face, the most beautiful you had seen. Your fingers started tracing the side of his face feather-like, down his naked torso and you couldn’t help but wonder when exactly your heart started skipping a beat at the thought of him out of normal settings. The man could barely hold a conversation with you if he wasn’t pumping himself in and out of you. Hell, you didn’t even know what he did for a living. 

“Music” he had said one day when he showed up to your apartment, eyes puffy most probably from crying–but you wouldn’t dare ask, his lips working wonders on your exposed cleavage skin. That was just the effect he had on you. Namjoon had to do the bare minimum to get your panties wet and he knew it well. Since day one. Eight months later, somehow he still had the same effect on your body. 

So what if you weren’t able to drink your problems away back then when clearly Namjoon’s dick could distract you enough from them. Even when he was, indeed, the biggest of them all.

You decide to get out of bed and start making breakfast, a first attempt at making him stay a little while longer. Bravery for the not-so-newly found feelings, you tell yourself.

You are about to plate the most perfect sunny-side-up when the door to our apartment clicks shut; you don’t even have to check your bedroom to know that Namjoon is missing, you just sigh to yourself and try–and fail miserably– not to feel the void inside your heart. It had been like that since forever. Namjoon isn’t one to stay over longer than a necessary nap after sex, or visit earlier than 10 pm; you couldn’t quite stop the feelings of regret and self-hatred once you had your hopes up anyway. 

“Nah, that asshole left again?” Seokjin, your best friend said as soon as he entered your apartment, a common occurrence for him to just stop by from time to time, and obviously up to date with the whole Namjoon fiasco “Y/N, sweetheart, I love you so much but you are a fucking dumbass”

This surely wasn’t the first time Jin had tried to convince you to leave Namjoon for good, saying that you deserve so much better than to be abandoned in the middle of early morning and no words until your clothes came off, but there was just something in Namjoon that your friend would never understand.

A good talk with Seokjin later (not without his constant mother-like behaviour) you find yourself ignoring the third notification in a row from your phone, quite out of character for Namjoon really. So what if ignoring him from time to time giving you a sense of control, a fake one at that, cause deep down both you and your lover know that he is the one that has you wrapped around his little finger. He should begin to learn his lesson that you are more than just a fuckhole he can access whenever it’s convenient for him– Seokjin’s words, not yours, but they work either way.

“That’s what I’m talking about, Y/N! Ignore his ass!” he takes a sip out of whatever it was he found in your kitchen and decided to serve it in a mug “You know, I was actually supposed to go to a family gala tonight, why don’t we both show up and get wasted in name of ou retrieving control of your life?” 

The suggestion doesn’t sound so bad, perhaps you could even find someone that would actually like more than sleeping around, or just- someone to distract you for the night, the way it had happened back then with Namjoon.

“Yeah, I’m totally in, come back at 8?” you suggested to Seokjin, to which he clapped his hands together in an overexaggerated manner before hugging you goodbye and disappearing out the door.

Your phone did ding a few times while you were dressing up, a few others inside Seokjin’s car to the gala before arriving at the beautiful hotel from where a bunch of overly dressed people walked in and out of.

You and Seokjin are soon enough inside the building, him handing you a champagne flute from a waiter passing by, gingerly taking a sip out of it before time seems to come to a halt all at once, throat closing and almost projecting the amber liquid into the floor when you dance your eyes around the room and they settle on a much too familiar figure– Namjoon. All suited up from head to toe, a side of him that you had never seen before, the again, you can’t really say you know a side of him anyways. He laughs in a way that you wished you had seen before and under other circumstances, before he places his hand – the one that you’ve had around your throat and inside your cunt countless times– around the waist of the woman beside him, your heart stops beating for a second as you watch her show off her ring finger with a sparkly rock on it, head turning to place a sweet kiss on Namjoon’s cheek. Your whole world seems to tumble down at the sight.

“Y/N? Is everything okay sweetie?” Jin turns to you from where he was talking to some of his friends

“Yeah, I’ll just- I need to use the restroom” you smile a tight lip smile at his companions before scurrying down the hall, a few heads turning to your direction at the somewhat of a commotion of someone actually running and the sound of heels against the marble floor.

You hang your head low on the bathroom counter in front of the mirror, there was, indeed, a part of you that knew it was most likely for Namjoon to have a girlfriend, but a fiancee? And the fact that you were the one he was cheating on with? It was about time you hit rock bottom though, Jin had been telling you on and on that Namjoon seemed the type to have a lot of secrets, then again, you didn’t listen.

Sure, your heart seemed to break a little– or a lot. But dear, the poor girl out there with a ring on her finger, if she only knew- that the man she was about to marry sleeps on your bed most of the time after he had fucked your brains out.

The sound of the bathroom door closing makes you turn towards it “You might as well be naked with that dress” Namjoon groans as he clicks the door locked and starts walking towards you, cornering you against the sink. He chuckles as his hand starts fiddling with the end of your dress, tracing the inner part of your exposed thigh “There is no way in hell you’ve got panties on you right now”

“Namjoon!” you swat his hand away but his smirk just deepens as his other hand presses you against him 

“Kim Seokjin huh?” he turns you so his crotch presses on your ass, his hand making you face yourself on the mirror “You really think he can fuck you better than I can?” you let out a breathy moan as he finally reaches down your dress as his skilled fingers caress your folds roughly, teasing your entrance as he humped against you at the same time, the familiar burning feeling in your belly forming already, but you are able to fight it enough.

“You never told me you were engaged” your eyes search his in the mirror.

He groans and finally inserts his fingers in you, making you tumblr forward at the invasion “ah… details, Y/N”

Your mind gets blurry and whatever words of protest die in your mouth as he starts pumping his fingers in and out of you, your legs buckling but him keeping you standing as he seemingly had the fun of his life at seeing you like that “Look at yourself, Y/N” his hand cups your cheeks and turns you to your reflection, hair dishevelled, face flushed as he stood behind you, lips closing in your ear “Sometimes, you just have to settle for the supporting role, baby” 

You moan in response, or at least at what you meant for it to be a response, since you are cut short by the sound of Namjoon’s zipper followed by the feeling of his exposed cock coating itself in your juices, teasing your cunt, which made you grip the counter tighter “I need you to understand something, Y/N” he slides in, barely giving you time to adjust before he starts moving inside of you “There will never be a ring around your finger” his hand goes down to cup your pussy, large fingers playing with your clit, making you arch back into him, forced once again to examine the image in front of you, reminded that somehow you had signed up for this yourself and was never meant to escape “But you’ll always have me in your bed”

He picks up the pace, lewd noises resounding in the acoustic of the bathroom, skin against skin harmonising with moans and grunts, Namjoon speeding up his hips, the extra stimulation on your clit forcing you to climax at the same time as he spilled inside of you, hot against your walls, your arms trying and almost failing at keeping you on your feet as your legs continued to spasm after he pulled out “You might want to find a way to keep it in” Namjoon mutters against his breath as he fixed himself, referring to the way his cum was already dripping down your inner thigh,  before walking at the door

[polpoka]

Neighbor Au

Characters- Kim Rok Soo, Alberu Crossman, Lee Soo Hyuk, Choi  Jung Soo

Ratings- K+

Shippings- Kimrokberu

Type- (Fluff)

Part 4

The symbol did indeed look like a small sun encompassed in a gigantic moon which made the sun pale in comparison, yet the pale yellow shade stood out more than that of the moon which made Kim Rok Soo’s eyes first fall on the sun. The moon on the other hand was as white as milk, with grey spots that resembled craters, or perhaps that’s what the splotches of orange juice gave an illusion of. The starry midnight sky that adorned the outer gap of the sun-filled moon occupied less space and created a small background that faded out, causing the entire mark to look like a cartoonish sketch of an eclipse. It had its own charm of homeliness and peace, yet it felt unnecessarily regal. It was as if his soulmate was once a king... Wait... didn't his neighbour—now soulmate, say that he had his name plastered on several...broadcasts. 

Kim Rok Soo took a moment to let the realization sink in, the same way the orange juice had seeped through the shirt. 

“Haaaaa…”

Kim Rok Soo sighed deeply. A famous person. That was something he’d never wanted to be, nor be with even in his wildest dreams, nor as an impossible to get Christmas present. Well, to be fair, he didn’t expect to have a soulmate in the first place, but look where that got him.

Even though many would assume otherwise, all he ever wanted was a slacker life, an early retirement, that’s all and nothing more. A tiny, and easily attainable dream. Being the soulmate of a rich person wouldn’t hamper his dream but it would put people’s unwelcome attention on him and that was an unnecessary trade off, especially when he could pave his own way to the desired slacker life.

He would rather go unnoticed than be put under the everlasting spotlight of fame. Money did interest him, however being well-known or being the latest hot topic did not. 

That was one of the reasons why he left Deruth and the entire Henituse estate without a fight. It wasn’t like there was any place for him there any way. He got his inheritance which he had in his savings just in case.

Thus he decided that he would just join his hyungs, though that had immediately backfired and he became one of the most famous musicians where everyone wanted him to play the instrument. 

Willingly choosing fame was inherently never part of his nature, he was more of a money oriented person. Yet his soulmate had to be really damn famous, huh.

How did he even get himself into this soulmate mess in the first place?

He always told himself to be as smart as a badger yet he overlooked such a crucial detail. Was it because the man had made him so relaxed that he had completely lost track of his words and was too focused on the sound of his low, gentle and overall lovely voice? 

It made sense, the man in question was his soulmate after all. It would only be natural for Kim Rok Soo to immediately drop his usually high guard down. 

He splashed more water on his face, deciding that he would think about this awkward and unpleasant situation as he was going home. He had a long drive to look forward to anyway. 

He trudged out of the bathroom, his eyes were bloodshot as the result of the orange juice getting in his eyelids and his jacket was neatly folded and tucked under his arm. He was greeted by an extremely dejected and worried man at the door. The man could also be called the one responsible for the sweet and sour liquid going in his eyes.

“Hyung?”

Lee Soo Hyuk turned to him. Kim Rok Soo could tell that the elder man was concerned. He walked in large strides and patted Kim Rok Soo’s body down, looking straight into Kim Rok Soo’s eyes, examining the damage he had done. He frowned, “Should I get you eyedrops?”

“Hmm? Is it really needed? It doesn’t hurt that much.” Kim Rok Soo asked, since his mind was preoccupied with the soul mark he wasn’t really paying attention to the throbbing pain in his eye.

“They might be infected,” said Lee Soo Hyuk while he was examining Kim Rok Soo’s eyes.

Kim Rok Soo realized there were streams of tears as a reaction to the citrus juice only after Lee Soo Hyuk pointed it out.

“It really got everywhere, huh?” Lee Soo Hyuk said, looking at the utterly soaked shirt and the removed jacket in Kim Rok Soo's hands.

He removed a handkerchief and wiped the streaming tears along with the dried ones from the younger man’s face. 

“It’s not that much, they’ll dry up soon enough.” Kim Rok Soo grumbled, only for the disagreement to be pushed aside, like all the other oppositions that had taken place that day.

Lee Soo Hyuk sighed, looking at the tear-stained face. Though it wouldn’t be proper to call them ‘tears’, it was more of a mere reflex, “My bad. I should’ve been less...startled when you told me that your neighbour was The Alberu Crossman of the Crossman family.” he looked at the blank faced man and tilted his head, “Do you know exactly how famous that family is?”

“No,” Kim Rok Soo said, definitely not revealing the fact that Alberu had told him that he was indeed a famous man, and the fact that his words had completely slipped Kim Rok Soo’s mind only because Kim Rok Soo was only paying attention at Alberu’s voice. Little did he know his vacant look was giving him away to the person he’d known for a long time.

Lee Soo Hyuk looked at the other, inspecting his dongsaeng’s reaction,

“Do you even watch the news anymore?”

Kim Rok Soo fell silent for a while,

“I stopped when they started showcasing me as one of the most popular men.” He felt a rough hand on his cheek which then gently tapped Kim Rok Soo there.

“You should really get over that,” Lee Soo Hyuk said as he wiped the other man’s face one last time. It was gentle despite the coarse hand. Kim Rok Soo knew that his hyung was genuinely trying to help him and nuzzled the hand in an unnoticeable fashion.  

“He’s the CEO of the Roan company.” Kim Rok Soo immediately remembered the Roan company. He had heard of it, “The Crossmans are the founders of one of the big corporations with several branches which are humongous even when counted on their own. Recently it was also branded as the longest lasting one.” Lee Soo Hyuk patted Kim Rok Soo’s cheek again and exaggeratedly sighed, “What are we going with you, Rok Soo-ya? You even forgot who runs the company your nephew currently has a branch in.”

Kim Rok Soo’s face turned stoic from the previously blank face at his hyung’s over-the-top reaction, “Henituses were known for their marble and wine branches. But I didn’t know that it was the Crossmans who were in charge. I just remember the Roan Conglomerate. It didn’t concern me after all.”

Lee Soo Hyuk looked at Kim Rok Soo’s now clean yet somewhat red face,

“Do you want to go home? I’ll be driving.”

Kim Rok Soo nodded, since he didn’t want to decline the offer, especially being drenched head to waist in orange juice.

Lee Soo Hyuk led him to their table, as they finally reached there lay a passed out Choi Jung Soo with the three empty glasses and Lee Soo Hyuk’s card accompanied by a paid check on the table. 

Lee Soo Hyuk looked at the younger man, and chuckled, “Look at this rascal.”

He draped Choi Jung Soo over his shoulder, turning to Kim Rok Soo before informing him, “Wait for me in the car. I'll just drag this guy over.”

Kim Rok Soo nodded and exited the restaurant and walked over to the parking lot, and gently slid into his car’s passenger seat since his hyung was driving. He reclined in his seat and shut his eyes, turning the faucet to his thoughts and letting them slowly drip which quickly escalated to a waterfall. He started to think about the entire soulmate thing. He knew very well that even though he had a soul mark, there weren't any requirements for him to date the person in question. He knew several people who had met their soulmate yet never crossed the line of friends. It was wholly possible that even if he didn't get together with Alberu right now, Alberu could find his own love somewhere else, and not with him, yet that thought pricked him. Kim Rok Soo also knew that if he did get with the man, everyone's attention would fall on him. On the other hand, there was also the fact that Alberu was completely his type, not to mention Alberu had a pleasing personality. Even though they were the same kind of people, Alberu somehow felt purer than himself. 

He remembered the panic attack he saw Alberu experience, just this morning. 

He remembered the younger man’s franticness. 

He remembered the other’s anxiousness.

He remembered the desperate way Alberu held onto his hand, as if Kim Rok Soo was his only grip on reality.

He remembered how Alberu’s dark eyebags that adorned his face always sunk deep into his cheeks, even though he had been asleep a minute before.

He remembered how fragile Alberu looked.

 He remembered how he quickly recovered, like he had been subjected to these sorts of attacks for ages. Even though Kim Rok Soo had experienced such attacks a couple of times himself, he could never get used to the feeling of fear overwhelming him like an overflowing cup.

Alberu looked like a broken mirror to him at the time. A broken mirror who no one wanted to spend their time on fixing. Alberu reminded Kim Rok Soo of himself, before he met his hyungs. 

But the brokenness of his soulmate was not the only thing Kim Rok Soo remembered about Alberu. 

He remembered how Alberu’s dark skin and hair shimmered under the moonlight, it was like the moon was calling its brethren. 

He remembered how cute Alberu looked when he was sleeping on that bench, so adorable Kim Rok Soo was tempted not to wake him up.

He remembered Alberu's embarrassed and red face when he decided to call after him that night.

He remembered the way Alberu’s hair wildly and freely flew open when he was on his balcony. It reminded him of a bird that had finally attained its freedom.

He remembered the sensual way the olive puffer jacket refused to slide down Alberu's arms. 

He remembered how inviting Alberu looked glistening with sweat, sitting on his sofa, wearing that pink turtleneck. 

He remembered Alberu's unending laugh at his short and ordinary words, at least that’s what Kim Rok Soo thought. 

He didn't understand why Alberu laughed, but he did remember the sound. It was like a pleasant tune that played on his mind as he sat in the car.

He remembered the relaxingly cool touch of Alberu’s calloused fingertips. 

He remembered everything about this man. 

This astoundingly alluring neighbour of his. It was as if Alberu drew Kim Rok Soo towards himself, like a craftsman would be drawn to the right materials. If Alberu was a cracked mirror then Kim Rok Soo would be more than glad to collect the broken shards and create a mosaic that would resemble a stained glass painting. 

At that moment Kim Rok Soo knew that he was captivated by this man. Honestly, who wouldn’t, it was a terribly attractive offer. To be the significant other of this wonderful person would be an honor. Though a nagging thought pulled at his mind. Would his affection be-  

“-Rok Soo-ya? Are you there?”

Kim Rok Soo’s eyes flew open in surprise. He had fallen too deep into his thoughts, not realizing that the car’s door had opened and closed twice already. He could also see Lee Soo Hyuk’s face painted with a cheeky grin.

“Hyung.” Kim Rok Soo said, rubbing his eyes trying to fall out of the daze .

Lee Soo Hyuk knew that this was an unusual occurrence since Kim Rok Soo wasn’t the type that used to take this much time to respond to his call. Especially since he was alone. Lee Soo Hyuk also knew what Kim Rok Soo would most probably be thinking about right now. He himself had noticed the soul mark but didn’t say a word as he was too busy taking care of his dongsaeng's tears. 

“Are you thinking about your dark skinned neighbour and-” he glanced at the now dried and translucent shirt before he continued, “possible soulmate?”

Kim Rok Soo, still in a muddled state, managed to let the words come out of his mouth, without any filter before promptly catching himself, “Ye- I mean no.”

This mixed reaction made Lee Soo Hyuk chuckle. He hadn’t seen such a slip in ages, especially when it came to matters relating to love. 'It was only a couple of years ago he decided to leave the estate.’ Lee Soo Hyuk sniffled, ‘They grow up so fast.’ He swerved into Kim Rok Soo, giving the younger man a hug and dramatically cried, “You grew up too soooonnnn. Three years ago you didn’t even think you’d ever have a lover, and now you have a soulmate. I’m so prouddddd of youuu,” whilst Kim Rok Soo sat in the passenger seat, stiff at the sudden wave of affection he was receiving, but of course he reciprocated it by letting his free arms gently wrap themselves around his hyung’s back. Kim Rok Soo gently nuzzled Lee Soo Hyuk’s neck. 

He loved Lee Soo Hyuk. His eldest brother, his respectable mentor who had taught him how to play, his elder brother figure, ever since he was young, his only escape from that excruciatingly stuffy residence. He was someone he knew he could confide in, one of the few people he held the closest to his heart. That was a fact.

Lee Soo Hyuk was a respected person, no matter how you thought about it, wherever you go in the opera world,  you would have to hear his name being mentioned whether you liked it or not. He was a famous conductor whose name echoed through the entire opera world with admiration and jealousy.

When Lee Soo Hyuk let Kim Rok Soo go, Kim Rok Soo was sure he could tell Lee Soo Hyuk about the soulmate situation, not that Lee Soo Hyuk didn’t know what Kim Rok Soo was thinking. They knew each other for a long time and naturally had gotten so close to each other that they pretty much guess what the other was thinking. 

Lee Soo Hyuk could clearly remember the first time he saw that small ball that he could tell was filled with gloom sitting in the corner of a classroom. Lee Soo Hyuk remembered passing the middle school class while he was a highschool student by the hallway before that ball of gloom caught his eye. The child was thin as if he hadn’t been fed in days. Lee Soo Hyuk also remembered pulling that tiny hand out of that corner desk and asking whether the boy wanted to eat along with him. And when the other accepted, he remembered the way the boy’s stoic face that was barely ticking out of his arms had changed itself to a more startled expression, that was before it changed back to a less animated one.

He remembered how their seemingly small friendship had continued until his college years where Kim Rok Soo had met Choi Jung Soo. Choi Jung Soo, Kim Rok Soo and him got along well enough. He also remembered how Kim Rok Soo’s eyes shone when he saw the saxophone play in a school band for the first time. Even though Kim Rok Soo would never say it out loud, Lee Soo Hyuk knew that his dongsaeng loved the instrument. The same went for Choi Jung Soo, excluding the fact that Choi Jung Soo was more vocal about his love for the flute. Lee Soo Hyuk too loved conducting operas, even more so when he saw his dongsaengs playing every single time. They were his motivation and his younger brothers that he cherished more than anything in the world. He couldn't believe his ears when he found out that one of them, especially the more antisocial one had found someone. Of course, he didn’t think it was a bad attribute of Kim Rok Soo’s to be antisocial but he was overjoyed that someone as humble and emotionally choked up as Kim Rok Soo had got someone who could love him just the way he was. “Hyung,” Kim Rok Soo said as his arms were wrapped around the other.

“Hmm?” mused a happy Lee Soo Hyuk, finally letting go of Kim Rok Soo.

“I need to tell you something.” Kim Rok Soo’s hands slipped down the man’s back as the man shuffled to return back to his seat. 

“I’m listening,” he muttered, trying to make himself comfortable in the driver’s seat.

Kim Rok Soo knew that Lee Soo Hyuk was indeed paying attention to his words, even though he wasn’t looking at Kim Rok Soo, and so continued speaking, “So, I think you may have already figured it out but I have a soulmate.”

“Mhmmm,” the other hummed, finally sitting without moving around.

“He’s my neighbour, Alberu Crossman.” Kim Rok Soo’s voice was calm, as if he had already understood what was going to happen.

“Figured as much.” Lee Soo Hyuk remarked. He had known ever since Kim Rok Soo told him that his neighbour was Alberu. 

He was surprised, to say the least but he still knew that Kim Rok Soo was not done with the even more eye opening comments on his situation.

“I also need your opinion on something.” Kim Rok Soo said as he seat belted himself.

“Go ahead.” Lee Soo Hyuk said as he started the car. 

Choi Jung Soo had already been strapped in so there was no problem if Lee Soo Hyuk took him to his house.

“Should I date him even though he’s famous?”

Somehow Lee Soo Hyuk wasn’t surprised at his words even for a bit. “Does his fame really matter?”

Kim Rok Soo deadpanned but Lee Soo Hyuk could see his eyes sparkle, “My slacker life takes the first place in life.”

Even if Kim Rok Soo said that, Lee Soo Hyuk knew that the words were superficial, since many a times Kim Rok Soo was prone to choosing the opposite nevertheless, Kim Rok Soo was a contrary man, but a man that kept his promises. That in itself was contrary.

“Wouldn’t a famous person as a lover have higher chances of leading a successful slacker life?”

Kim Rok Soo looked out of the window and spoke, “I would be put under the public eye, and it would be far worse than it is now.”

Lee Soo Hyuk knew the reason why Kim Rok Soo disliked being the centre of attention. He’d been to the Henituse residence a couple of times. And one thing that had struck him so hard that could remember was Deruth’s picturesque display of hospitality. For some petty reasons, some going along the lines of jealousy and disgust of the limelight placed on Kim Rok Soo, the reason for that was the fact that Kim Rok Soo was delicate and the youngest, not to mention, the adopted one and the one who was chosen. 

Lee Soo Hyuk also remembered how the younger brother, who had just been adopted and was clueless about the house’s atmosphere, was admonished and humiliated several times, sometimes even appearing bruised. He remembered seeing Kim Rok Soo’s eyes grow dim whenever he talked to the elder sibling, or even made eye contact with the elder. 

Their age gap was large, spanning about over 10 years, yet it had always surprised Lee Soo Hyuk how Deruth acted. He acted in such petty jealousy of the attention Kim Rok Soo received from their father, he left Kim Rok Soo utterly  traumatized of ever receiving things, so traumatized that he left the house and thought that he was the one at fault, that he was the one who was intruding, that he was better off with receiving an allowance every year without returning to the place of his birth, well not that Kim Rok Soo would want to. The allowance was large, as if it was consolation money. Maybe it was.

Lee Soo Hyuk wasn’t sure but he thought that was why Kim Rok Soo was so obsessed with his early retirement to be peaceful and mainly, not attract any attention. Perhaps, it was because of the years he had spent in that hellhole. 

Lee Soo Hyuk knew Deruth, not that well, but well enough to decide that he didn't like the child’s personality, despite it becoming a little more amiable when he had married his first wife. Only when his first child was born did Kim Rok Soo decide that he wanted to accept the long time invitation of reestablishing contact. It was not much so of regaining contact than it was not wanting his nephew to go through the same things he did, not that he would admit it.

Lee Soo Hyuk and Choi Jung Soo shared some things in common one of them being their extreme dislike towards Deruth, not his children of course, those little rascals were adorable. Lee So Hyuk still remembers the day when Kim Rok Soo had volunteered to babysit the two sons; Basen and Cale.The reason being the fact that  Violan, Deruth’s second wife, went on a vacation to get herself some rest for her upcoming pregnancy, along with her husband, of course. Basen was eight and Cale was eleven. Cale was rather annoyed all the time, until Kim Rok Soo gave him a lollipop, after that his face lit up like a firework on a starry night. Lee Soo Hyuk remembered the small pale child, with flushed cheeks sitting only next to Kim Rok Soo. Cale said that it was because Kim Rok Soo had the lollipops, which he absolutely loved, but everyone knew that wasn’t the case. 

Basen liked Kim Rok Soo because the elder man fascinated him, and he liked the way he played the saxophone. He had all these memories stored in his brain solely because these were joyful instances, some that continued even today. Even when the small Cale had grown up to be a splendid twenty five year old, even when the curious Basen seemed to have matured into a calm adult, they both seemed to revert back to the way they were when they were kids in front of Kim Rok Soo. It was also known how overprotective Kim Rok Soo was of the duo, which then evolved into a trio as Lily was born.

Lee Soo Hyuk was genuinely glad that his dongsaeng had gotten a soulmate, albeit unexpected who the soulmate was, it was good to have his thoughts take form in reality and that someone other than people close to Kim Rok Soo, who all had their own partners to worry about, had dug deep enough to find that the stoic man made a splendid companion. 

Even though it didn’t take that much time for Alberu to crack this seemingly tough nut.  

“So,” Lee Soo Hyuk asked, “Are you going to ask him out on a date?”

Kim Rok Soo looked out of the side view mirror for a second before answering,

“Yes.”

**

Alberu returned to his seat on the couch, after feeding the two cats and washing the cup, still dazed and trying to register what he just saw. 

‘That- that was a soulmark, right? Really? I’m not that sleep deprived, am I?’ He raised his sweater once more to see the mark.

‘So it wasn’t a hallucination.’ 

He sighed in defeat, until he felt a small head purring under his hand, which made his downcast gaze shift and meet the grey cat’s gleaming yellow eyes, “Hmmm?” he hummed in confusion.

The grey cat’s beady eyes seemed to twist into a more annoyed way each time Alberu saw them, or perhaps that was just his imagination.

Alberu leaned over his shoulder, “What should I do about this now?”

‘I do like the idea. Should I just see how it goes before jumping to any more conclusions.’

“What the hell should I do-”

His lamenting was cut off by the shrill sound of the doorbell, which made him scramble to his feet, leaving the two cats startled at this unexpected noise.

When Alberu opened the door, he was finally greeted by the long awaited and familiar face of his college friend and secretary. Alberu looked at the other with a half irritated expression, “You really took your time, huh?”

The taller man, tanned and adorned with two small black stars under his eyes, had a look of nonchalance, his short sun-kissed hair with beach wave nature bobbing gently alongside the wind.

He spoke with little or no care of the standing between the two individuals, despite the other being the superior, with an audible british accent.

“Sir, I was called by Mistress Angelina and Sir Choi Jung Gun for tea a while before you called me to retrieve your keys, which I presumed was an easy thing to not forget, but I suppose even the greatest minds can slip up-”

He was cut off with an annoyed shush by the other, “Could you please stop with the unpleasant pleasantries of yours.”

Taerang took a pause, before scanning the younger man, “How did you manage to get so wet?”

Alberu sighed, “It’s a long story.” 

He heard a small mew near his leg, which prompted him to look down to see the red cat rubbing itself on his ankle. Alberu looked back at Taerang, motioning that they should move locations, preferably to his home, in response to which Taerang simply nodded.

After a sorrowful parting with the cats, Alberu shut Kim Rok Soo’s door and turned to look at Taerang who looked a bit surprised. 

“What’s wrong?” Alberu asked, walking through the hallway.

Taerang’s head slightly tilted, walking at an equal pace, “You’re quite close to your neighbor. Did you already tell him who you are?” 

Alberu flinched, “Not at all.”

Alberu flinching would normally not be noticeable to other people, but Taerang knew Alberu, so he could easily see through him. “Really? I’ll have to report to Miss Tasha either way. You do remember the repercussions of disclosing your identity, right?”

Alberu was silent until they reached his house, “We’ve reached. Let’s talk here.”

**

When Kim Rok Soo returned, he saw his hall exactly how he had left it. He felt the two cats mewling at his feet. He picked the red one up and sat down on the sofa, the other following him and laying herself on his lap.

The rest of Kim Rok Soo’s day was uneventful, except the fact of him planning the confession before he slept. He decided to talk with the other person for a while, and see whether the other thought the same. Going slow would be the best for now, he thought, turning to his side.

But you know life had always been cruel to him, always raising his expectations, only to let him see them come crashing down like a child’s sandcastle built too close to the sea. Again, and again, without any pause. This time was no different.

The next evening  Kim Rok Soo decided to visit Alberu, he wasn’t greeted with the annoyed expression he’d expect from the darker man, instead, he was greeted by a paper stuck on the door that read in big font, 

‘Now on sale! Buy a new flat-’ 

Kim Rok Soo didn’t bother reading the rest. He was too shocked to comprehend the words plastered on the face of the flyer.

[darkhymns-fic]

The Heart Asks

Incredible danger. A vicious hunger. She opened her eyes and was greeted to the sight of that oh-so-fascinating daemon arm hovering just over her face.

Claws so pointed and sharp, they could slice her into ribbons. And if that palm lowered anymore, it would touch her skin, eat her up until there was nothing left within her at all. Gone, completely erased. 

“What is with that creepy smile of yours?”

Ah, and just like that, the illusion was broken.

Fandom: Tales of Berseria Characters/Pairing: Magilou/Velvet Crowe Rating: T Mirror Link: AO3 Notes: A really late fic for @talesfemslashweek​ !​ I wanted to at least have one thing for it this year, even if it's a bit after the event. For Day 2: Brutal heat wave, or "don't push yourself!"

--

The truth was, she didn’t care about life all that much.

Magilou had always been the definition of careless, ever since her troupe days. Small and weak, exploited beyond her understanding, it was always said that a witch such as her couldn’t die. Not really. Wicked things like them always could brave through fires or hold their breath infinitely underneath deep waters.

So, when nothing could fatally harm them, it did not matter what they went through. Her burned palms, her filled lungs, the ache that hands left on her skin – these were all things that a witch could endure. She believed so, too.

Melchior had proved it. She could not die so easily, not even with what he had put her through in all those years. Not even if, at times, she wished it could be just a bit easier.

Yet when she found herself waking from such a heavy sleep, her limbs feeling like weights, her head completely aching, as if she had just been slammed into concrete over and over – she had to wonder.

Incredible danger. A vicious hunger. She opened her eyes and was greeted to the sight of that oh-so-fascinating daemon arm hovering just over her face.

The first thing she did was smile. Oh, this certainly was a sight indeed.

Admitting she was frightened was a bit of an understatement. But besides the terror running through her limbs, she also felt a certain sense of appreciation. After all, couldn’t one such as herself admire the river of power that coursed through that arm, its surface like that of volcanic rock, with magma brimming just underneath?

Claws so pointed and sharp, they could slice her into ribbons. And if that palm lowered anymore, it would touch her skin, eat her up until there was nothing left within her at all. Gone, completely erased.

She had seen it done before – to daemons, the way such a great threat could squeeze the very life out of them and absorb their very essence. And Magilou had always been so eternally curious, forever drawn to this evil entity, to this promise of destruction-

“What is with that creepy smile of yours?”

Ah, and just like that, the illusion was broken.

That hand full of power, with its promise of wreaking chaos, soon reverted to a normal size, the white bindings fluttering in the air, tickling her nose before they were pulled away. Charred black winked out of existence, the painting of blood red through the cracks gone from her vision.

With the hand gone, she could then see Velvet seated just next to her, eyes narrowed.

“Oops,” Magilou whispered with a smirk. Her breath was weak, her arms still so heavy, but she paid it little mind. “Think you caught me at a… private moment.”

Velvet scowled as she wrapped the bandages around her arm. “The hell is the matter with you?”

“Oh, quite a lot actually. Thought you already knew this.”

Even as she tried to joke, she still winced, feeling a sharp sting at her side. It took her a few seconds more to understand that she was laid out on a bed, tucked in heavy covers, and was in an inn room that… well, had seen better days with the peeling wallpaper, and the cramped space. Certainly not her first choice in lodgings.

“I’m assuming you don’t remember what happened.” Velvet tied up the last of her bandages tightly, clenching her fist. She was seated on the bed with Magilou – which was also a bit on the small side – laying her head against the nearby wall it was shoved against.

“Let’s see…I was having a nice nap all by my innocent lonesome before you decided you needed a little midnight snack?” The witch was patting herself on the back for that one, except even her own laughter felt like it was stabbing tiny knives into her stomach. “Ow…” Still, she tried to sit up, the action proving harder to do than she would think…

“Not even if I was dying of starvation. And enough with hurting yourself.” Velvet turned to Magilou, the moonlight from the window nearby catching her eyes, like amber encased within. The woman was never a fan of being too close to people, so Magilou counted herself to be quite lucky to see a feature of hers so near, with little interruption.

“Oh, then what was that you were doing just now? Don’t tell me you weren’t tempted.”

“Doing what I could to finally wake you up!” Velvet hissed, the force of her words making her lean in, just a bit. It was enough to make Magilou flinch, which she immediately regretted. It was no fun if she revealed her fear right away like that.

However, she felt dim understanding just then. Her skirt of magical books no longer tied around her waist, noticing the tear in her outfit and the… oh, was that linen wrapped around her stomach. “Huh. Totally missed that somehow…”

“You idiot.” Velvet placed her head in her (non-daemon) hand, sighing deeply. “You go and get yourself a life-threatening injury from a therion and don’t even remember it. Why should I even be surprised at this.”

Magilou’s pointed ears perked at those words, blinking as she faced Velvet once more. “I’m sorry, what was that about life-threatening?” It seemed almost too surreal. Also, if I was in any real danger, I’d just get Bienfu to take the hit for me…

“It was worse than usual, but Laphicet did what he could and we were able to find a town nearby. Even Eizen, for all his blabbing, actually had some good information on how to keep you rested properly.”

Magilou traced the linen cloth on her with her right hand, pressing just against the tender area of her wound, making her shudder. She felt Velvet slap her hand away from the spot.

“Don’t poke it,” she said. “You’ll make it worse.”

“Fine, fine…” Magilou pouted. 

She felt strangely vulnerable right now, bereft of even her hat. Without the rest of her outfit, she knew she just appeared like some eccentric woman with strange ears instead of a mysterious magician. She looked again at herself, clutched her hand over the blankets, then furrowed her brow. “But that doesn’t really explain why you were here and doing your whole devouring shindig.” Another smirk. “I always knew you had a taste for little old me.”

Velvet didn’t say anything at first. She was back to leaning against the wall, eyes directed to the window, pulling off her nonchalant look like it was nothing. Sometimes the ease of it made Magilou a bit jealous.

“No, I suppose it doesn’t explain much,” she finally answered, completely ignoring the rest of Magilou’s words. She was good at being frustrating herself, which made Magilou pout even further.

“Oh, come on. Just admit you wanted to eat me up already! Not like I’d be offended!” In fact, she’d be much more offended if Velvet didn’t want to eat her at all!

Then a harsh sound – Velvet’s hand slamming the wall, enough to make the wood shudder. “Urgh, you’re so annoying!”

Magilou blinked. She knew she had a habit of pissing Velvet off but, this was different.

“We were waiting around for days and you were still asleep! We have things to do and you wouldn’t wake up, so I…” Oh, was that a blush on her cheeks? But Magilou could barely enjoy Velvet’s embarrassment before the other woman turned away. “I thought threatening you would do the trick.”

“…While I was asleep?” Even Magilou was wondering about that one.

“I didn’t have many other options.”

Oh, wait. Now she remembered.

Something that should have been a routine fight had caught her off guard. It was said that overconfidence led to one’s downfall, but Magilou always had the wit to outlast any real tragedy, for certainly she had more intelligence than most.

But a miscalculation of a daemon’s fangs, sinking into flesh, seemed to have proven her quite wrong.

Even Rokurou had looked surprised, from what little memory she could recall, how he was momentarily taken out of his bloodlust, hands gripping tight to his daggers in the middle of their violent dance. She had heard a gasp from Eleanor, that poor little exorcist who didn’t even understand the breadth of her vocation, along with a hasty chant from Laphicet to her side. What a sweet boy he was. She only regretted not teasing him even more often than she did.

She hadn’t been able to see Eizen before blacking out, and remembered an amusing thought she had at that moment. Found a way to transfer his curse to me? Anything was possible. And if that were true, she couldn’t blame him in the slightest. At least he had someone to go home to.

And so, just before, just until she fell completely, she turned and hoped to see, hoped to see her and-

Well, that’s how she ended up here. In this bed, with Velvet still doing her usual glaring.

“So you were worried about me?” she hedged. It was always dangerous territory to ask Velvet such blunt questions, like walking up to a feral cat. But, one had to take a chance for maybe that same cat to start liking you, didn't it?

And it almost worked, Velvet shifting her eyes to gaze at her, for a moment. “I’m allowed to.”

“Oh, I’m not saying you shouldn’t.” Magilou grinned, happy to have found that little nick in her armor. Of course she would do all she could to examine it, to find the snatch that would let her see even more. “But you were by my side this whole time. You might as well have tried giving me a kiss of true love to wake me up.”

And strangely, Velvet didn’t scoff at the notion, or made a motion to leave. She looked at Magilou for a half-second longer, a lock of her hair tumbling over her ear, then turned away. “Idiot.”

“…Did you actually try to kiss me?”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“I’m not hearing a no~!”

While Magilou thought about all sorts of devious things that a deamon such as Velvet could have done to her, she only wanted to know more. More teasing was always too addictive, always too fun to see the results of.

“Maybe you wanted to but were too shy, huh? Or…maybe you didn’t know how?” She grinned wickedly. “Is that why you used your scary daemon arm? I guess devouring and kissing are the same to you then.”

“Just stop talking already. I already told you why I did that!” Velvet sighed, the moonlight falling across her hair in silver streaks. “No one in their right mind would kiss you.”

“Hm, you have a point there.” Magilou nodded to that assessment. Then she cackled. “But I don’t think anyone in this room has a right mind to begin with.”

Another tease, and another moment where Velvet didn’t outright deny things. Instead, she growled out in an exasperated voice, as if she had been holding in the words for hours.

“If you want a kiss so badly, then why don’t you just take it?”

And so, in one of those rare moments, Magilou was rendered speechless.

Velvet was never as straightforward with things as she liked to believe about herself. Even when Magilou spoke in annoying rhymes or riddles, they both liked to dance around the subject.

Maybe for once, she could change that.

Holding the blanket in both hands, she finally let it go, then carefully shifted on the mattress to move closer to the dreaded Lord of Calamity, a title that would send excited shivers down anyone’s spine. And if it didn’t, such a person did not know much of anything, did they?

“Tell me, Velvet,” Magilou coaxed, leaning just a bit closer, enough to feel herself trapped in those eyes of hers. Amber that swallowed her whole and wouldn’t let go. “Why did you really come here and stay with me?”

A grimace, but Velvet didn’t move away. In fact, she moved closer in turn. “When you fell in battle, you called out my name.” A hand reached out, placed itself against the back of Magilou’s head, fingers threading through her hair. It was surprisingly gentle, but always that hint of strength beneath.  “I didn’t like it.”

Ah yes, she did do that, didn’t she? Magilou remembered the way she said the name, like something precious, something that she could lose so easily.

She had always been so reckless, as witches often were. But perhaps now, she could try to be a little more cautious.

“Maybe I can say it in a way that you do like then…” she said, reaching for that hand of hers, wrapped in bandages. What will she find underneath all of that?

She couldn’t wait to see.

[halfway-happyyy]

Until We Meet Again

this is absolutely something that nobody asked for, but here it is. short ‘n sweet and full of fluff.

A grotesque concoction of alcohol- some variant of overpriced vodka and lemon liqueur if she had to guess, set the delicate lining of her throat ablaze and she winced as she set the empty coupe glass on the tray of passing waiter. She glanced down at the watch face on the underside of her wrist and frowned at it.

An hour late to the event, and an hour left to go.

Eliciting a dejected sigh, she gazed past the expansive tent above her and at the night sky beyond it that blanketed the fountains of the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood in inky darkness. The cacophonous roar of hundreds of conversations and pulsating music was unbearably loud and she cursed herself for leaving her phone at home. She could picture it now, lying face down on the glass coffee table just inside her front entrance and in total darkness and for a fleeting moment she found herself inexplicably jealous of it. She had given up on trying to locate her friends fifteen minutes ago- though she thought she had just spotted Keane through throngs of expensive suits and dresses in a straight bee-line for the bar and thought that she ought to head there. Taking a deep breath, she stepped out into the crowd before her in search of him, but stumbled back awkwardly when the bottom of her gown caught on something and ripped.

“Oh my gosh, I just ripped your dress. I am so sorry.” She peered up at the man towered above her, at the glassy blue orbs that somehow still glittered lively under the minimal lighting from the chandeliers around them. Everything about him was immaculate. From the perfectly combed back sandy blonde hair, to the blonde mustache that grew above his pink upper lip, to the black silk bowtie that sat snug against the base of his throat.

She found his visage oddly familiar, but could not place where she might have known him from if her life depended on it. She found herself shrugging. “Honestly don't worry about it. It's one of the many reasons I try to shop thrift before big events.”

Though he offered her a shy smile, his glassy blue gaze remained unsure and it was obvious that he still wasn't convinced. “No really- is there any way it can be fixed? I can get someone over here right now to look at it for you...”

She glanced down at the sizable rip in the fabric and knew with a slight pang that the damage was irreparable. “No, please. It's really fine.”

He chewed at edge of his lip as he mulled something over and cocked his head to the side, his gaze narrowed. “At least allow me to pay for it?”

She had purchased it off the rack at one of her favourite thrift haunts on Melrose for thirty bucks, two weeks ago. She couldn't, in good faith, agree to that. “Listen- this dress has probably had a fantastic life, you know? She finished it this evening at an Emmy award after party. How many other dresses can say that? She's good. This is the end of the line for her.”

They stood in thoughtful silence for a moment, the only sign of his defeat came in the form of a resigned sigh. “Alright. But please know that I still feel slightly terrible about it.”

“I can live with slightly terrible,” She smiled knowingly at him. “Are you having a good night, then?”

He gazed at her, a funny expression coloured his features and she suddenly felt very vulnerable. “I am having a great night, actually.” He eventually confirmed. “Are you having a good night? That is- despite the gown crisis.”

She hugged her arms tight to her chest and glanced around in awe at the sheer sumptuousness of the tent in which she was currently in. Massive, golden lion statues guarded pillars around the room and gilded archways had been erected over ponds so that guests could traverse them at their leisure. No matter how many evenings she spent this way, she doubted that she would ever grow accustomed to it.

“I've never really been one for big parties, but it's been alright so far I suppose. Even despite the gown crisis.” She found that she enjoyed the way a subtle, rosy hue tinted the apples of his cheeks at her slightly teasing lilt. Her stomach gurgled warningly just then- a gentle reminder that she had not consumed an adequate amount of food and she eyed the lavish, twenty-foot replica of a dragon above her head with mild contempt. “God, I'd fight that dragon for a plate of fries right about now. Every year I tell myself I'm going to be on time for one of these events, and every year I let myself down.”

He dropped his head to his chest and elicited a hearty laugh. “You missed out this evening I'm afraid. It was Wolfgang Puck on the buffet.”

“Damn it,” She giggled under her breath. “Every single year.”

He gestured out at the mass of conversing industry people and raised his voice so that she could hear him. “You work for HBO?” He asked.

She shook her head. “Nah, I snuck in an hour ago under the guise of free food and booze.”

“Neither of which you have yet to receive…” He grinned.

“Not exactly,” She giggled. “I snuck a cocktail minutes before the old dress debacle. Tasted somewhat like what I would imagine lemon pine-sol tastes like.” Genuine laughter rose up from the base of his throat like a favourite song and she waited for it to subside with an unabashed smile on face. “I'm a freelance photographer.” She admitted, eventually.

He cleared his throat, poised to ask her another question when his gaze lit up and he cocked his head to the side in thought. “Would you excuse me for a moment? I think I've found a way to repay you for your dress.”

Her eyes widened in mild horror and she shook her head in protest. “Oh- no. Please don't…” But her objections were for naught as she watched his imposing figure vanish into the thickening swarm of people. She chewed anxiously at the soft flesh of her inner lip as she awaited his return and when ten minutes elapsed, she began to grow skeptical.

Too tall. Too Scandinavian. Too beautiful.

But then, and to her pleasant surprise, she spotted his face through the crowd and her heart thrummed in her chest as he approached her. There, in the flat of his palm and high above the heads of everyone else so as not to drop the dish- was a plate heaped high with piping-hot French fries. “This is akin to Christmas,” She sighed longingly once he had rejoined her. “But somehow a little bit better. Thank you very much.”

Wiping the proverbial sweat from his brow, he managed a nonchalant shrug. “Oh, they were exceedingly difficult to procure, but I was persistent.” He handed her the plate with a lux serviette underneath and a fork on the side. “Wolfgang and I uh… we go way back.”

Glancing over her shoulder, she spotted a vacant table a few yards away and decided to be brave. “You know… If he supplied you with a second fork, I'd be happy to share some of these with you.”

His gaze followed hers to the table and he smiled sadly. “Alas Wolfgang let me down and I was not offered a second fork, but I would be delighted to sit and chat with you for a few more minutes.”

Sinking into the refuge of the chair beneath her, she was suddenly aware that she had barely been offered a chance to do that all day long. She was content to listen to him speak while she tried not to inhale her entire plate of perfectly fried potatoes.

“I'm sure your date is probably wondering where you've wandered off to.” She offered, after a few moments of comfortable silence had lapsed.

He smiled and shook his head. “I’m sure she’s used to it by now. Probably been wondering that very same thing for most of my life.”

She cocked her head to the side, and narrowed her gaze at him. “Have we met before? You seem so familiar.”

His expression dimmed and that same shy smile that he had given her half an hour earlier presented itself again, causing butterflies to take flight in the pit of her belly. 

“I don't believe so,” He gave his head a half-shake. “I would have remembered your face anywhere.”

Utterly grateful for the dim lighting around them, she opened her mouth to counter his last statement when a man she didn't recognize appeared at his side, in a hurry and out of breath. “Alex- you need to take this back now. I am sick of people congratulating me for it and I am entirely out of answers as to how it came to be in my possession.” Without another word, the man placed an Emmy award unceremoniously in front of Alex's amused figure and hurried away.

She nodded at the unsuspecting statuette of a woman laden with a golden atom and quirked an eyebrow in mild amusement. “You are having a very great night indeed, hm?” She simpered.

Sensing that her cue to leave had arrived, she rose from the table to bid Alex goodnight.

“Your company has been a pleasure this evening… I am sorry about your dress.”

She glanced down at the French fry plate, the few scattered crumbs the only indication that something had once been there. “Your penance was plenty.”

“Two questions before you go,” He murmured.

She peered up at him expectantly.

“A photographer without her camera?”

She shrugged and offered him a wry smile. “Everyone gets a night off every once in a blue moon. Next?”

His gaze travelled to the fabric napkin poking out from beneath the empty plate, then back to hers. “Thanks to Paul, you now know my name. What's yours?”

She tilted her head to the side, a half-smile tugged at her lips. “It's Grace.”

“Grace,” He repeated it in a whisper and she ignored the way that it caused goosebumps to bloom in patterns over her bare arms. “Goodnight Grace.” He rose from the table with his award at his side but faltered and turned back to her, remembering something. “Oh- and Grace? Maybe don't leave behind the serviette.”

Puzzled, she watched a hive of bodies swallow his frame, and when he was gone, she reached for the weighted crème fabric, smiling softly to herself. There, in loopy black script from a fountain pen was Alex's name and phone number and a short note that read,

“Until we meet again…”

[sandwichrin]

A Little into You (Junkyu x Reader) (Ch. 10)

Chapter 10 - Heartbeats

Word count: 3.6k words

Genre: Fanfiction, PG13, Comedy, Romance.

 A/N: Hi! Here’s chapter 10! Hope you all enjoy this one :D let me know what you guys think of it too 🥰 

“Y/n…w-what are you both doing?” Hyunsuk stammered as soon as he heard Junghwan’s scream earlier.

“Quick, quick! Someone cover the kids’ eyes!” Jeongwoo said, as he tried to cover Junghwan’s eyes from staring at you and Jihoon.

“What are you talking about?! You’re the kid too!” Mashiho said as he struggled to cover Jeongwoo’s eyes as well.

You looked at all of them, dazed and confused with what’s going on right now.

You could feel your head pounding, due to the sudden noise made by the people in your home. Not to mention, you woke up due to a bad dream and you were crying earlier too. So basically, you were kind of overwhelmed with what’s going on right now.

You got up from your position on Jihoon, and tried to still yourself by holding onto the doorframe of your bedroom door.

Jihoon too, got up from the floor.

You rubbed your eyes and blinked a few times, trying to gather the scene not far from you.

It seems like the maknae line was half screaming, half surprised with what they saw and Yoshi was trying to calm them down. Mashiho, Junkyu, Asahi, Hyunsuk, Yedam and Jaehyuk were all staring at you and Jihoon. Still staring at you both, as if you both just committed the worst crime ever.

“W-what….” You tried to say something, but the throbbing in your head was too strong it made you stop.

“Surprise!” Jihoon exclaimed, smiling.

The rest of the room stared at him like he was crazy. You too, lifted your head to look at him.

“What?” You asked him.

“Surprise…?” he said again, but this time with less enthusiasm.

You furrowed your eyebrows in confusion at him and shook your head. You can’t handle this right now. You need to stop the throbbing in your head first.

You left your doorframe, and head towards the kitchen. Jihoon and the hyung line followed you like how baby chicks follow their mother hen.

As soon as you reached the kitchen, you grabbed a glass from the dish compartment by your sink and walked up towards your fridge to take out a bottle of cold water from it.

You poured yourself a glass of cold water and gulped it down quickly.

The rest of them just stared at you quietly.

After finishing your glass of water, you placed the empty glass onto the table and let out a soft sigh.

“Y/n…?” Hyunsuk asked, wondering if you were feeling okay.

You pushed your hair away from your face with your hand and turned your attention to Jihoon.

“What the heck is going on here??” you asked him.

Jihoon tried to smile at you but seeing that you were looking at him with no expression on your face, he decided to just answer you and not joke around.

“I…uh…brought the boys over to surprise you,” he answered.

“What? But, you said today—” you stopped. You felt your head throbbing again. Okay maybe you shouldn’t let yourself get worked up by this. You should just try to let him explain to you calmly.

You walked over to your small dining table and pulled out a chair to sit down.

“Okay, I am indeed surprised, Jihoon,” you said slowly, trying to keep yourself composed. “Now, care to explain what kind of surprise this is?”

“Okay, you see, Hyunsuk, Junkyu and I were discussing about what to have for dinner—”

Hyunsuk interrupted Jihoon before he could finish his sentence, “In my defense, y/n, I had no idea he was going to take us here. I only found out this was your place when Jae and Yedamie—” he stopped halfway when he saw Jihoon looking at him.

“Come on, hyung. Really?” Jihoon said.

“Hey, it’s true! You told me and Junkyu that tonight’s dinner place is a surprise,”

Your head shifted to look at Junkyu who was standing beside Yedam.

Junkyu’s eyes met yours and he blinked a few times, not sure if you were expecting an explanation from him as well.

You looked away, realizing that his clueless expression was somehow cute. You decided to just hear what Jihoon has to say instead.

“Okay Jihoon. Go on,” you said.

“I…I just wanted to bring the boys here so we could all enjoy a good dinner together…” he said glumly, slightly pouting.

You raised an eyebrow as you stared at his expression, his eyes no longer daring to look at you.

You let out another sigh, this time louder than before.

“But you said there was an emergency, Jihoon. You called me up at work. You said you needed the combination lock number for my apartment because Jaehyuk needed to get his secret stash of banana milk hidden here so that your manager won’t get mad at him. I was so worried, didn’t you know?? I literally gave another person the key to entering my house and here you are, ‘surprising’ me at this time of night??”

Jihoon’s head hung low now, feeling bad with what he did. “Sorry…” he mumbled.

You leaned back in your chair, your eyes still on him.

“Fine,” you huffed.

You got up from your chair and walked up towards Jihoon. You extended your arm to reach for his head and proceeded to ruffle his hair.

“Next time, just be honest with me, and with all of them, okay?”

Jihoon smiled again and nodded.

“Okay, now call up the rest of the kids to come here. Let’s have this ‘surprise dinner’ that you worked so hard at,” you said sarcastically.

The rest of the hyung line in the kitchen too, slowly smiled at you and called out for their younger members.

                                                                 *

 “Oh my god! This pizza is so good! Which store is this from?” you asked as you took another bite off the slice in your hand.

“Right?? Junghwan and Jeongwoo recommended it to me, so I thought, might as well get some for tonight!” Hyunsuk said in response to your question.

The thirteen of you were sitting on the floor of your small living room, with pizza boxes spread in the middle of the cramped-up circle you all made.

“Oooh. Nice.” You turned to look at two of the youngest ones in the group, “you both have excellent taste in food,” you praised them.

Junghwan beamed at this. “Thank you noona!”

You smiled happily, chewing on your food. Maybe this type of late-night dinner with the boys isn’t too bad, well, occasionally.

Jihoon, who was sitting a little far away from you, saw your smile and he felt glad seeing you all happy and not rowdy like just now.

“Hey, y/n. I’m sorry again,” Jihoon said to you.

“Hm?” You waved your hand, signalling him not to worry, “Hey, no, you had a good intention. I should be sorry too, for almost ruining this good dinner,”

Jihoon chuckled. “Hey, at least you didn’t suggest us to get takeout from IKEA,” he said, as he grabbed another slice from the box.

Junkyu, who was eating his pizza in peace, suddenly remembered the incident that happened earlier in the afternoon, making him cough in all of a sudden.

“Hyung! You okay??” Haruto who was beside him asked when he noticed Junkyu suddenly coughing.

“Drink, drink! Someone give him a drink!” You panicked, since you were worried if he was choking.

“Here!” Yoshi, who was beside you, passed a can of soft drink to Junkyu who was sitting opposite you.

Junkyu took several gulps of the drink and his cough stopped.

“Oh thank god. Be careful when you eat, Junkyu,” you said as you returned back to focusing on the slice of pizza in your hand.

Junkyu nodded briefly as he took another swig of the canned drink.

“Hey, has anyone seen my drink?” you asked, noticing the can of cola beside you somehow missing. You turned around to see if you have spilt it behind you or anything.

“Oh? The one beside us just now?” Yoshi asked.

“Yeah,” you nodded.

“Oh, I gave that to Junkyu just now,”

Now, junkyu, who was still taking in big gulps from the can, was surprised when he heard this so he accidentally sprayed the drink out of his mouth and coughed out loud.

“Hey, hey Junkyu, you okay??” Jihoon asked, now concerned of his best friend that keeps on choking while he was eating.

Junkyu managed to control his breathing and stopped coughing so he nodded at his friend. “Yeah, I’m good,” he said as he wiped his mouth with the tissue Haruto handed him.

“Y-y/n…..” Doyoung said.

Junkyu raised his head to look at you and his eyes widened.

Your shirt was stained with the drink Junkyu had accidentally sprayed out whilst he was choking earlier. And you were too stunned to say anything so you just kept quietly still.

Yedam, who was sitting on your left, used a tissue to wipe away some of the drink that had gotten on your cheeks.

“I-I forgot how close we were sitting in this small room, so like, when things like this happen, it’s like a domino effect, huh? One thing happens and it affects the others, huh?” you said softly.

The rest of them just nodded. They already had to see you get all rowdy earlier and they hope that you wouldn’t get all upset again this time.

You pursed your lips tightly and quietly thanked Yedam for helping you wipe your cheeks.

Slowly, a smile crept on your lips.

And then you laughed.

You laughed out loud.

The boys were so surprised to see you laugh this much.

They all exchanged looks with one another, wondering if you were okay.

“It seems like she’s caught the ‘laughing alone’ disease from Jihoon-hyung,” Mashiho whispered at Asahi who was sitting beside him. Asahi nodded in agreement.

Your laugh slowed down when you realise that the rest weren’t laughing with you.

“I’m sorry. I just, I don’t know, I’ve never had this much company at home and well, the first time I did, which was tonight, so many things happened. It’s…” you started giggling again. “It’s nice, makes me want to treasure tonight so much…thank you, all of you,” you said, in the midst of your soft laugh.

All of them smiled softly at you. It seems like you were genuine about what you said.

“Well, we are, indeed Treasure. So, of course we created a treasurable night for you,” Jeongwoo said smugly, as he smiled.

You nodded and laughed again. This time, the rest of them laughed along with you.

                                                                 *

 “Awww I don’t want to leave yet! I want to hang out more hereeee,” Jaehyuk whined as the rest of them started putting on their shoes at the front entrance of your home.

“Aw no can do Jaehyuk. It’s a weekday and I have work tomorrow. I’m pretty sure you all have work too, tomorrow,” you said.

Jaehyuk pouted at this. But he nodded in agreement.

The rest of the boys started shuffling out, with Jihoon waiting for them outside your door, making sure that all of his kid’s are out and that he hasn’t left any one inside.

They all thanked you for tonight, and you thanked them profusely too, because lol they were the ones that brought the food and drinks.

Hyunsuk was the last to leave so before he reached the front door, he turned around to thank you again for the night.

“What? Nooo I should be thanking you all,” you said to him, smiling.

Hyunsuk rubbed the back of his neck and smiled at you, “No, really. I had a great time. I hope you did too. It was nice to see you again after all these weeks,”

You nodded at this. “Sure thing, I guess…it’s not bad to have this much company at times…”

Hyunsuk grinned happily at this, “Oooh? So you’re saying, you’re open to lunch and dinner invitations with us now?”

“Not all the time! But sure, it’s not too bad,”

Hyunsuk pats your head with one hand and leaned close to you. “You’re so cute y/n,” he said as he grinned at you.

You rolled your eyes at him and playfully pushed his hand away. “Whatever, Hyunsuk,” You let out a short giggle, “Now go, everyone’s waiting for you outside!”

Hyunsuk nodded. He made his way to the front door that was kept open wide since just now and he turned around to wave at you one last time before heading out.

You smiled to yourself, feeling happy with how the night ended. You headed towards your door to close it, but then, as you were closing the door, you felt the urge to look outside.

Your eyes landed on a pair of dark brown eyes that were just as surprised to see yours.

“Junkyu! Hurry up! If you keep staring at your phone you might get left behind again!” you heard Hyunsuk calling out to him.

It seems that Junkyu had been waiting for his group to leave earlier but since Hyunsuk was still inside your home talking to you, he decided to just scroll on his phone.

However, when he realized everyone was already steps ahead from him, he almost panicked. He was keeping his phone into his pocket when he felt the door of your home was moving somehow.

That was when he raised his head and saw you, just as surprised you were surprised to see him still there. He saw your bright eyes staring at him and almost forgot that he was getting left behind.  

“Ah! C-coming!” he yelled back at Hyunsuk’s voice and hurriedly left to catch up with his group.

You let out the breath that you didn’t know you were holding in as you were staring into Junkyu eyes earlier. Why does he always make you feel breathless?

                                                                 *

 Treasure’s Dorm #1 (Hyunsuk, Yoshi, Junkyu and Haruto)

 “Aaahhh home sweet homeeee” Yoshi groaned as he entered the front door.

Taking off his shoes, he arranged it onto the shoe rack and skipped happily towards his room.

“Good night everyone!” he called out before disappearing out of sight.

“Man, Yoshi really wanted to head to bed that fast huh,” Haruto said as he kneeled on the floor to take off his sneakers.

“Hmph, you’re just the same Ruto-yaa,” Junkyu said, taking off his shoes as well.

Hyunsuk, who was locking their front door, chuckled listening to his dongsaeng’s conversation.

He looked up at the clock that was hanging in their living room not far from where they are and saw that it was almost 3am.

“Yo…it’s this late already??”

Junkyu and Haruto both glanced up at the clock as well.

This time, Haruto lets out a chuckle, “Man we really had a great time huh, just now?”

Hyunsuk smiled and nodded at him.

“Okay then, I’m heading for bed as well,” Junkyu said, stepping towards their living room.

“Okay, good night!” Hyunsuk wished him, as he was busy taking off his shoes.

Haruto too, proceeded for his room not long after Junkyu left.

                                                                  *

 Junkyu finished putting on his moisturizer and glanced at his phone, checking the time. 3.35am.

He ruffled his hair, checking if it was still damp after he blow dried it after getting out of the shower earlier.

After making sure that all his skincare routine was settled and his hair was dry enough, Junkyu proceeded towards his bed and rested his head against his fluffy pillow.

Since he wasn’t feeling too sleepy, he decided to scroll through his phone a little.

As he was scrolling his phone, he saw a message being received.

 Treasure x Y/n (Groupchat)

Jihoon: Good nightttt! Don’t sleep too late kids!

Mashiho: Go to sleep, hyung. No one else is awake right now.

Jihoon: Oh? Mashi you’re still awake? What are you doing right now 😏😏

Mashiho: Okay good night hyung

Jihoon: Oh? Noooo don’t leave me, Mashi! TT TT

 Junkyu chuckled reading the texts. His fingers moved towards the keyboard on his phone screen to reply but then he stopped when he saw another text coming in.

 Treasure x Y/n (Groupchat)

Y/n: Jihoon, go to sleep. It’s late.

Jihoon: Oh? Y/n! You’re awake! ^o^

Y/n: No, I woke up because you keep sending texts in the group. Now go to sleepppp

Jihoon: Aw, let’s talk a little more! Then when the rest wakes up tomorrow, they can read our conversations and be jealous of us 😉

Y/n: 😒 Jihoon…

Jihoon: Yes, y/n?

Y/n: Good night.

Jihoon: Oh?? Noooo. Not you too! First it’s Mashi, and now, you?? TT TT

Jihoon: Okay fine, good night everyone~ See you all tomorrow ^o^

 Junkyu smiled to himself reading the texts in the group, thinking that it was sort of entertaining. He decided not to reply since he was sure even Jihoon was already heading for bed by now.

Junkyu stared at the names in the groupchat. Unconsciously, his fingers hovered over your name and tapped on it.

Your profile picture and contact number appeared on his phone screen. Your profile picture was a picture of you smiling and holding up a ‘V’ sign with your fingers.

Junkyu observed your picture closely. Your hair was tucked behind your ear on one side, and your face was wearing some light makeup. Your smile was soft and it looked fitting with the background of some trees behind you. He wondered if you took this picture at a park?

Junkyu stopped staring at his phone.

He remembered the way your eyes stared at him earlier just now. You looked slightly different, a little pale and tired. Maybe it’s because it was late at night and you were barefaced, he thought.

But there was something about the way you looked at him that made him stopped earlier. Was it your eyes?

He realized that he didn’t really interact with you as much as the rest did and he began to wonder why. Maybe it’s because he wasn’t good at making friends with new people. Yeah, maybe it’s that.

Junkyu shook his head and put his phone aside. He shouldn’t be thinking about all this at this time of night. He should just head to sleep.

                                                                    *

 (Morning, The Comms Team meeting)

“So yeah, I think we can start visiting their company by next week? The papers have been approved too by Mr Bae,” Soomin said, as she briefed you and your team, The Comms Team. It was your first official meeting with them since you’ve only recently been added to the team by the President of your company.

You nodded, jotting down in your notebook on what your team leader said.

“Y/n, don’t worry okay? I’ll teach you the ropes of how we do work when we reach our client’s place next week,”

Again, you nodded. To be honest, you were only halfway paying attention to the meeting you just had, since you were still feeling sleepy after last night’s late supper with the boys.

“Alright then, meeting adjourned,” Soomin announced, making the rest of the team pack up their stuff to leave the meeting room.

You were keeping your stuff as well, when suddenly a hand rested on your forehead.

You jumped a little from the sudden human touch, and you raised your head to see Soomin standing beside you, her hand still resting against your forehead.

“Soomin? W-what’s wrong?”

“You were being too quiet during the meet, y/n. I was worried if you were unwell or something,”

You smiled and shook your head. “I’m all fine, Soomin,”

Soomin smiled back at you and pulled her hand back. “That’s good to hear,”

“Yeah,” You carried your stuff and bowed slightly towards her, “I’ll be leaving now then,”

And just as you were about to leave the room, Soomin called out to you again, “Oh wait, y/n!”

You turned around, “Yeah?”

“You wanna come with me? I’m doing a short visit to our client’s building to get our temporary staff ID from them.”

You tilt your head slightly. You thought about it for a while. Maybe you should just go with her, huh? Since you don’t have much to do right now too if you return to your desk.

“Hmm, I guess that’s not a bad idea,” you replied to her invitation.

Soomin smiled and linked her arm with yours. “Let’s go.”

                                                               *

 Soomin parked her car not far opposite from your client’s building. “We’re here,” she said as she pulled off her seatbelt.

“Oh? That was a short drive,” you said.

Soomin chuckled at you, “Duhh, I told you right in the meeting earlier? Our next client’s building is super near to us,”

Your eyebrows furrowed, trying to remember what else she said during the meeting, since clearly you had been distracted by your drowsiness 75% of the time during the meet.

You got out of the car a few seconds after Soomin did, squinting your eyes as the bright sun rays hit your face.

You shut the door of the car and turned to Soomin. “So, which building is it?”

“Right there,” she pointed straight ahead to the building opposite the both of you.

You covered your eyes halfway with your hand to avoid the sun rays hitting your eyes directly.

“Oh?” left your mouth when you saw the familiar design of the building. Wait. You turned to Soomin who was already making her steps towards the zebra crossing ahead of you both.

“W-wait, Soomin!” you said as you ran a little to catch up to her.

“What’s wrong, y/n?” Soomin said as she turned around to face you.

“I—” you stopped. Your stomach felt weird. Not only that, you felt like your heart was sort of racing fast. What is this feeling?

“Y/n? Are you okay?” Soomin asked, noticing your face a little pale now. “Do you want to rest up somewhere first?” She asked, concern written on her face.

You gulped. You shook your head at her, “No, no! I was…uh…erm, well, our…next client is...YG Entertainment??”

 To be continued…

[redevenir]

but never doubt i love

seokmin x reader

wc : ~ 5k

a/n : you and seokmin mourn the old world. a love letter to the sea. magic.

« Doubt thou the stars are fire ;

Doubt that the sun doth move ;

Doubt truth to be a liar ;

But never doubt I love. »

Hamlet, act 2 scene 2, William Shakespeare.

1.

The first time Seokmin sees you he wants to run. He notices you from afar, a shadow moving further down the path he’s been following through the woods. It’s misty and cold, the drizzle menacing to chill him to his bones. It’s a wonder he notices you at all. To believe people used to walk those tracks for pleasure, for sport, for fun, is beyond him. He keeps his eyes on the ground to avoid any menacing encounter.

Of course, you hear him. It’s when you turn around to face him, a dozen meters away from him, that his body shuts down. Suddenly, all the whispers he heard when he was younger resurface, the alarm in his head howling danger. And yet he cannot move. He stays still, eyes on you, as you walk toward him. The closer you get, the thicker the air around the both of you seems to get. And yet you keep approaching to the faint sound of his heartbeat. Far from his focus on you, in a little hidden corner of his consciousness, a little question : can you hear it ? Barely a meter away from him you stop and your voice comes barely louder as a murmur.

« Do you need help ? »

So it is true then. Seokmin feels warm rushing to his cheeks and a familiar sting under his eyes. He takes a deep breath to keep his chest from contracting. He cannot give way to fear right now. It is too much. Everything inside of him is urging him to run away as far as he can from you. But it has been so long since someone has talked to him. It has been so long since he’s heard someone talk. He tries to count to ten and back to keep himself grounded. Here. In front of you. You are danger. All dressed in black capes, he notices your bare feet, covered in mud. Your skin looks reminds him of citrus peel. Against all knowledge he has of you, he brings his hands to his face, closing his eyes to breathe in the familiar smell of his sweaty palms. The rain seems to stop, and he feels dry warmth graze his fingers. He opens his eyes back and lowers his hands, looking at you. You haven’t moved. You are still staring at him. Is that curiosity in your eyes ? Before he can refrain himself he answers you.

« I’m scared. » Is that his voice ?

A ray of sun seems to caress your face even if your expression remains unchanged. Seokmin wonders if this is how you smile. You held your hand to him, palm up. You both look at it a moment before you speak again. It is soft and he should not be able to hear it but he does.

« I know. You can come with me if you want. » You wave your right hand into a vague circle that includes both of you. « You know it is not safe here. We are not alone. We need to move. »

They will come at night and ask if you need help, ask if they can come into your home, and before you know it it will be theirs, they said. Seokmin follows you without arguing. Maybe he is losing his mind. Maybe he’s dead. But it is so easy to just follow. You seem warm. You seem sure. You are alive. He feels the hot sting leaking from his eyes. He dabs his cheeks with his sleeves without a sniff. He walks as close to you as he can.

It’s a wonder he noticed you at all. Somehow the brush of your cape against the branches doesn’t make a sound and neither do your feet as you walk on the fallen leaves. Its fabric barely moves but he can see the light reflected on it, in deep shades of blue. It looks like fur. Seokmin know no animal of that color. The hood covers the top of your head. Sometimes you spread your arms a bit, palms up. His gaze comes back to your feet. Covered in dry dirt and crumbles of autumn leaves up to the ankles, they silently sink in fresh mud every step you take. If he focuses enough, he can see it spread through each of your toes. All is quiet except for the noises he makes. The sucking noise of the sludge under his hiking shoes. The tired breath coming out of his mouth. The deafening beating of his heart.

Are you even real ? Or did he just die, and you are guiding him to the other world ? But you keep going the same way he was headed. Will you lure him into a cave and cook him for dinner ? A smile makes its way over his lips. There is someone to be worried about. He takes in your entire frame. If you had wanted to kill he’d probably never have seen you coming. He rearranges his bag on his back.

It’s been a long time since you last saw a human. He is scared and alone. Why he is heading toward the Wound is beyond you, but you cannot let him go north on his own. You wonder if he is the last one. He doesn’t look like he can survive on his own. He is just skin on bones. Yet instead of harshness you discern some softness. His muted glow is not unlike the one of a stag. A good balance of strength and vulnerability. You try to keep your pace slow enough for this one. You listen to him behind you. It’s been a long time since you last heard breathing. You wonder if the oaks can hear him too. You walk a bit faster.

2.

The first flake of ash you notice, twirling in the air, you say nothing. The both of you have come way further north than you would have guessed. You think maybe it’s getting better. Maybe the Wound is healing in some way. You don’t know. You’ve never been to Seokmin’s city, you’ve only heard tales from there. How the ground had opened wide. A huge crack so deep no one could see the bottom of it.

You feel less and less of the deep pounding of life through your feet as you get closer to the city. Seokmin watches you when you get lost in the examination of your feet. You look left, right, up, down, gazing at them expectantly. Like they hold some answer. He feels the air warming up day by day too. It gets harder to find shelters with a roof, but the woods are thicker and sleeping outside is not an option.

Eventually, it becomes impossible to ignore it as you keep walking northward. Little by little, ashes are more easily seen, until they cover everything like a grey veil. He walks before you, head low, deep in thoughts to which you have no access. It is hard, you remember. To reach out for people. Everyone is a unique path but the first steps are always the same. You stop walking.

« Seokmin. He immediately stops and turns around. He doesn’t look as down as you thought but he has seen better days – and they were not especially good. I’m sorry to ask… You finally avoid his gaze to look at the ground. It should be mud. It’s grey. Seokmin’s shoe prints make a bridge between the two of you. It doesn’t feel like the first time but somehow, he realizes once again you are barefoot, and how thin is your cloak. He knows what you’re about to say and he lets you. You don’t talk enough for him to have the gut to cut you short. Are you sure you have to go ? He opens his mouth but before any sound can come out you continue. I mean, do you think there is still something for you to see there ? »

« No. I just – His voice is already shaking. Are you going to leave him already ? Now that the both of you are covered in ashes he knows he cannot make it on his own. Maybe he could survive, but he would lose his mind. I wasn’t... there when it happened. And I was on my own… for so long… He bits his lower lip a bit. He doesn’t know why you’re coming with him in the first place. He really should have listened more to the grown-ups when he was a kid. That way he may be able to understand the situation more. You just appeared out of nowhere and walked with him since. He doesn’t even know if he should be worried. Are you going to eat him while he sleeps? Are you a sort of guardian angel ?

« Seokmin ? What is it ? » He opens his eyes – when did he shut them ? Suddenly his tongue feels too big in his mouth. He clears his throat.

« I feel I can’t… be at peace if I don’t go back. I know, I know it’s stupid, but there is still a part of me that keeps wondering if there is a chance, a little, little chance that maybe it’s not so bad...» He stops his ramble, a bit out of breath. You hum quietly.

« I can understand that. » He looks at you looking at his shoes. He should tell you everything.

« I’m… Hum, Well, I’m worried. About what I’ll – we’ll see when we arrive there. »

« Are you scared ? »

« Yes, he says. » He doesn’t ponder on why it is so easy for him to confess his weaknesses to you.

« Good. You should be. You know what I think about it, but -

« I don’t, actually. You lift your head so fast in surprise it makes him jump. I mean, I don’t know what you think about it. Or why you’re coming. Or why you’re staying with me anyway. » He holds your gaze as he speaks, and you think he is very different from you indeed. There is no defiance in his eyes. It happens that Seokmin just looks at you when he talks, without further thought. You let your eyes on that mole he has on his cheek. He wonders if you know you’re smiling in the dim sunrise light.

« I think we might die there, Seokmin. But we might die anywhere, so if you want to go, then we go. But don’t… I don’t know what you are imagining, and I don’t know exactly what’s waiting for us, but you really shouldn’t think too much about it. I fear it’s going to be terrible in its very own, very unique way. » He says nothing, twisting his hands together.

« And why… Why are you staying with me ? »

« What else would I do ? » He hums in agreement. Neither of you speak it out loud, but he is well aware you leaving him would mean his death. Seokmin doesn’t dare to ask if you have anyone to go to anyway. You would probably answer him all simple and genuine, as you usually do, but his curiosity isn’t worth hurting you. Far away, you hear what sounds like deep creakings.

3.

Seokmin tries to never touch you. It is a clear rule he has set up for himself. No matter how hard his longing for human touch stings him, he never reaches out for you. Who knows what you might do to him. You are not used to him. Not enough. You have been alone for a very long time before the two of you met. Seokmin too, of course, but he was always quite easy going. He also knows you could have killed him any time you wanted, and that him being alive, and staying with you, means that he has nothing to fear. From you. It is a relief, if he thinks of all the tales about your kind. Magic used to be very scary. Something never spoken of, but always luring in the back of people’s mind. Some villages were abandoned. Some forests were never visited. No warning signs, no interdiction. But a simple, unspoken rule : avoid it. And yet. What a relief, that your blood is fire. Even if he hasn’t seen it yet, simply knowing what you are is a great comfort. Knowing he is safe by your side.

The first time Seokmin recognizes the city’s landscape, he feels his stomach disappear. It is nothing much. Just a familiar gas station. Of course, the smell you have been inhaling for a few days now didn’t leave any good outcome for his imagination. Somehow, seeing a place he has known intact turned to debris is a new kind of scary. He doesn’t notice the very thin cracks on the asphalt, but you do. Smoke comes out of them, as dark as the tar, slowly floating westward, staying at ground level. You move closer to Seokmin when you realize there is no breeze to make it move. The flashing light of the station’s sign illuminates the crossroad blue and red. Suddenly he remembers magic is light, and wonders why your skin doesn’t glow. His hand reaches out for yours. You twist it a bit to be more comfortable. There is only a few hours left between the two of you and the heart of the town. You don’t feel anything anymore. From time to time, the air vibrates louder and louder with deep-rooted screeching. In a foolish spurt, the picture of a gigantic, rusty swing pops up in Seokmin’s mind. You spare a last glance at the cracks. He doesn’t argue when you ask him to avoid all main streets to his neighborhood.

You never make it that far. The day you reach the heart of the city the both of you regret ever coming. It’s abhorrent. Words you’ve heard before are so light compared to the scenery that lies at your feet. Everything is just like they said it was, but it is also far worse. Nothing has changed since the ground has opened up, and everything has. You feel yourself waver, oscillating on the verge of despair, as you contemplate the rubble. It is a giant, growing, star-shaped scar. Everything is covered in dark ashes, the gigantic buildings are all lying on the streets, their inside out. Furniture, trinkets, clothes, everything that was once a sign of life now adorns the streetlights and the sidewalks like defeated flags and dead soldiers. None of you dares to come closer. None of you dares to stand in the open. In an attempt to ground yourself you remember Seokmin is by your side.

You flee from town a lot faster than you walked to it. The first time Seokmin understands your power is when he realizes the both of you haven’t stopped for two days. When he realizes he’s not hungry. When he realizes he’s not tired. You walk for two more before allowing yourselves to rest. You keep walking southward at a more normal pace for another week before settling down in a proper shelter in the mountains. You don’t have to climb very high for the trees to stop growing. The former inn offers a spectacular view.

Seokmin falls into a torpidity after that. You let him craft himself a nest into an old couch. All the chairs and tables are put away against the walls, and you feel the last use of this room was probably a big dancing. He gets cold. You feed him. There is a fence protecting him from you. You wonder if this is what kept him alive for so long. Definitely not a fighter, but maybe guarded well enough. Since you cannot ease his mind, you let him be. You sense he is not very far. Whenever you go outside, the fire is lit before you come back. So you let it come to terms with everything on his own. There is nothing you can do about that sort of pain. You try to heal yourself in the meantime. Every night, you let the fire lick your feet to clean them up. When you begin to hear faded music, string chords and the clacking of hooves on the wooden floor to the rhythm of a jig, you consider yourself healed enough.

When it feels like Seokmin is asleep, when you can feel through the ground anew, you wait for the stars to tell you where to go next. Night after night, they tell you to wait for the sun to rise. Day after day, the sun tells you nothing.

You are not here when Seokmin wakes up. Pain tears him away from his numbess, finally leaking through his walls. He barely stands up only to collapse in front of the fireplace.

He lets it go. Burning tears flow down his cheeks and soon the soft hiccups in his throat become a loud wailing coming straight from his chest. Forehead bumping against his knees, he tries to ground himself by pulling the short hairs of the carpet – it fails. He breathes more and more erratically and any notion of time he might have kept before dissolves into his cries. It is very human to look for a way out from sorrow but he can’t find it. Any memory his mind tries to summon for comfort has turned into a burnt field.

You hear his cries from the chill of the shadows. When you arrive into the former ballroom, you don’t need to scan the room to find him : you follow the sound of Seokmin’s desperation. When your bare foot gently bumps against his back you feel him jump and he tries to inhale sharply, only to make a weird strangled noise as he fights for air. The warmth of your right hand on his right shoulder distracts him for a second – how can your heat pierce through his clothes like that ? Are you hugging him ? But words are too much to be thought of and a new wave of tears washes over him.

In return, you squeeze his shoulder as lightly as you can, murmuring what you hope are reassuring words. You slide your left hand between his curled up limbs to put it on his chest. Once again he feels the heat radiating from your touch. You push him backwards, still hugging him from the side so he doesn’t fall flat on his back. Not for the first time, Seokmin feels like a raggedy doll and realizes how much stronger than him you are. Slowly you have him lying down next to you. Let it go, let it all go, you whisper, but he’s not sure he sees your lips move.

You stay like that until the sun rises. Seokmin has never sweated that much before. He’s the first one to sit up, immediately feeling the bite of the cold, even facing the hearth. He looks back to you, still lying on the floor, only to meet your gaze. It is new. It’s dark and welcoming. Inviting him to speak his mind. His eyes catch the glimpse of a sparkle on your throat, between pink and orange. Like a sunset, before the smoke. He clears his throat. Maybe it is time to acknowledge what you are.

« It’s like you have suns in your hands. »

« But I do have suns in my hands. »

You sit behind him, your chest against his back and you feel him ease into you. You rest your chin in the crook of his neck and stretch your arms forward, palms open for him to see. When you shift them under the fire light he finally sees them. Frail, golden circles and tiny lines around them, emitting from them. You hear his soft gasp. You close your hands and cage him into a tight embrace.

« You should be dead. »

« It is the end of an age, Seokmin. Maybe we’ll all be dead soon. »

When you strengthen your hold of him he knows you can hear his faint whimper.

4.

He watches you staring at the hearth. You haven’t said a word today and Seokmin figures he should do something about it.  Elbows planted on the large wood table, the tip of his feet brushes the hard stone floor. Between the two of you, a meter and a world. He presses his lips hard and fiddles the cuticles of his thumb. To start a fire is easy. First, one must build a little hill of crumbled paper - newspapers are the finest. Then, one must use it as the base for a pyramid of kindling. Ideally, broken branches that were given the time to dry. When one talks about dry wood, it doesn’t mean it has been guarded from the rain, but that the sap has been given the time to evaporate. Only at this condition can wood burn decently, unless you are unlucky enough to find yourself caught in a forest fire. Nowadays of course, a nice forest fire would be a treat. Times change. Once the kindling has properly caught on fire, it is time to add the first logs. They’re definitely bigger but one must not go ahead of themselves and aim for logs that are too thick, for it is the surest way to smother the fire, and reduce one’s efforts to nothingness. 

You hate to make efforts in vain. So whatever you do, you try to do it efficiently. Even Seokmin, who was raised in the heart of the city, has caught the grasp of it by now. Your gaze brushes over the ashes on your hands, then back to the fire. It’s hypnotising. The bright flames rise as high as they can reach, devouring willow and beech alike. It is hard to look away from their light and harder still to believe that up in the sky, this is what the sun is made of. It’s no wonder you want to curl up inside the hearth - it is but a minuscule copy of the star that keeps you alive. Seokmin likes that you are considerate enough not to ask him how he survived without knowing how to start a fire.

Prettier than the flames is the bark of the burning log. You still haven’t found anything even close to this. Seokmin has told you before that the inside of volcanoes looks like that too, but you know neither of you has ever seen one with your own eyes. When the both of you stay near the fire for hours, he thinks it sees something new in you. Some kind of awakening. Something very deep, very raw. It induces a shudder, hidden in the shadows of your spine, in the hollow of a vertebra. If you blow gently and regularly, the bark begins to glow. It changes its very composition. Instead of a dead, cut, unmoving tree, its surface riddles black and red, shadow and light, like the river to the gate of hells must do. If you watch it long enough, everything disappears.

Seokmin can’t find anything to say. Words have lost their weight during his teenage years. Something shifted. He doesn’t know exactly when, and he surely has no idea why or, worse, how, but everything changed. He looks at you, feels his heart shrink when you absent-mindedly circle your fingers around your wrist, a ghost of the handcuffs. When he feels the canker sore exploding under the pressure of his teeth, he swallows the blood, licks his lips and decides it is time to make his move.  

If you notice him standing up you don’t shudder. When he comes closer to you and sits down by your side, where the heat is more intense, you don’t move. It’s an improvement, he realizes. He sits as close as you as he can without touching you, shoulders rocking back and forth in slow movements.

« I met their gaze today. »

There it is. The thrill of terror that passes through your body is not one that can be faked. It has been a humiliating lesson for Seokmin, knowing his voice could become a call for horror. He had grown up surrounded by music and praised for the way he sung. A master of karaoke. In your defense, what he said is bad indeed - only you’ve retracted into yourself before you knew what was at hand. You try to keep it quiet but he notices the deep breath you take before answering him. He catches the way you turn your head right, toward him, even if you can’t quite get yourself to face him yet. There are smudges of ashes on your cheek, and you could use a bath. He never mentions you don’t meet his cleanliness standards. He lowers them. 

« How long ? »

« Just the time to look back on the ground. I’m not sure it was even a second. »

« And how are you ? » He looks at you again, a smile forming on his lips. You keep looking at the fire but your tone leaves no doubt. It is nice to know you mind.

« I’m fine. » The tree’s eye flashes before his eyes every time he shuts them close. He doesn’t think it should count as any harm done to him. You hum in answer.

« I wa- I think we should go. Soon. » You’re getting better at this team thing. Collaboration. You take another deep breath. « Any idea? » He bites a smile back. 

« Well, I’ve never seen the sea, so I thought… » This time you snap your head so fast he jumps a bit. Your eyes meet his for a burning flash, and you settle your gaze upon his left shoulder.

« You’ve never been to the sea? »

« No, I just - »

« Then what’s the point ?’ » you talk slow but you sound outraged. You stare back. « Why do you care about living at all ? » It’s almost as if he could see the gears in action behind the frowns of your forehead. « So that’s why you’re like that » you add as you raise both your hands above your head, tracing little patterns he doesn’t figure out. You look even more confused when you see his smile, a crescent of harmless light. 

« I have no idea what you mean. » You let your hands go back to your thighs. You look away from his face, eyes on his knee.

« Ok, we’ll go to the sea then. »

5.

Seokmin first meets the ocean through his nose. The smell hits him first as the both of you walk down a narrow path toward the shore. Even though they are empty now, you still avoid towns. When he asks why, you merely answer they were empty for him. You usually settle for lonely constructions, exclusively the ones with at least one fireplace. You say there are shadows he cannot see. When he asks what kind of shadow, you stop, making him turn around to look at you. The sadness on your face makes his hand move on its own, but before it can reach you it stops. Your own hand is holding his other one. The warmth that comes from your skin catches him off guard and he almost withdraws. You squeeze it a bit, and catch his still hand mid-air.

« Do you think your people were the only ones affected by the Wound? Seokmin, you pause, close your eyes, open them back. This is a disaster. Do you know what came up from that rift ? He shivers. There are things that came for you, things that came for me, and things that came for others. And how can I explain to you what they are like when you cannot see nor feel them? » You don’t remind him he’s been too lonely to learn that before. How could he know stuff when there was no one to tell him in the first place ? You press both of his hands between yours. They have never been this sweaty before. He looks at his feet. His chest is shrinking and his eyes are burning.

« I’m sorry. »

« Don’t be, all right ? You cannot possibly know everything. You let his hands go with a last squeeze. Now take a deep breath. He looks up at you, surprised. How is it ? »

« What’s that smell ? »

« Power. »

Seokmin has already cried a lot in front of you when he first sees the ocean. The tears he sheds there are of a completely different nature. They’re a release. He removes his shoes like a drunk man and goes to meet the waves, the first grains of sand moulding his feet one step at the time, half walking, half running. The wind here is stronger, but his cries can still be heard. You listen to his bursts of laughter and his sobs as they blend together. You follow him at a distance, longing to be submerged by the cold waters and the foam as well. You let go of your cape, you let go of your shawls. You let the wind swirl your gown and your hair and you close your eyes. You listen to Seokmin cry. You listen to Seokmin laugh. You don’t see him kneeling into the sea, letting the waves slap his face in a rumble. He doesn’t even choke on it. Drenched in reality he casts a glance over you, and for the first time you look like what he would have expected. Dancing in the wind, dressed in a raggedy gown, possessed by the elements. From where he is he sees all kinds of lines on your skin, intricated patterns he cannot properly recognize nor understand. Even drowned into the icy waters he can still feel the warmth you poured into his hands. You catch his good-hearted chuckle, and shout at him.

« What is it suddenly? » He giggles even more, and shouts back, so loud you forget the crashing of the waves for an instant.

« You really are a witch! » He doesn’t hear you but sees the gleeful smile on your face from afar. Of course you are a witch. A stronger wave hits him and falls on his back as the water barely covers him in foam. It’s only when he stands up and takes off his sweater that you finally see it. Only when the salted waters cascades down his chest, reflecting the sunlight as a magnifying glass, spreading it around him in all shades of colours do you see his smile. Without realizing him you walk to him, his halo pulling you to him like a hook clenched to your blood. You feel his warmth on your skin, and he feels yours on his own. You let your arms go to his neck and pull him into a strong embrace. He hugs you just as tight. On the surface of the chilly waters, you can see the sparkly reflections of your glowing skin, all shades of yellows and pinks, the brighter gleams of the sun, and high above the sky, big and warm and burning, the star that keeps you alive caresses you both.

You let the ocean wash you clean.

[ineloqueent]

dreaming of you

Brian May x Reader

synopsis: a storm results in a power cut, after you get locked out of your flat. luckily, your neighbour is home.

warnings: swearing, drinking

word count: 2.7k

a/n: i hope you don’t mind that i took a few creative liberties with the prompts, m’dear <3

see the moodboard here!

⭒

London, 1973

It was one of those days that simply went from bad to worse. And then fell down the stairs. And into a frying pan. And then leapt out of the frying pan and into the fire. Except the fire was not simply a fire, but a flaming pit, that was somehow also freezing cold and pitch black.

In short, you’d had a terrible day. And as life would have it, your day was about to get a hell of a lot worse.

It had started that morning, when you’d got out on the wrong side of the bed, quite literally. You had fallen face-first over your office chair, which stood mere millimetres from the left side of your bed, because you lived in a tiny flat on Camden High Street, above a shoe shop, where, in the winter there was rarely hot water in the pipes, and you were forced to scrape ice off of the bathroom mirror with a razor in order to see your reflection.

So, you’d fallen out of bed and bruised— your forehead— instantly, only to realise that you’d slept through your alarm, and forgotten to lay out clothes for the day the night before. This was then followed by a rushed—  cold— shower, and jumping in front of the iced-over mirror to glimpse the large bump already forming on your forehead.

You’d made it to the kitchen, and found that you’d run out of both coffee and tea, forcing you to decide between going without caffeine, or being late to work in the process of getting a takeaway beverage. You opted for the latter, and sprinted out the front door with your scarf only half-slung around your neck.

You’d shouted a hasty good morning to your shop keeper neighbour from the lower floor, before running straight into your other neighbour, the one who lived right next door to you, and shared your rice paper-thin walls.

He’d narrowly avoided spilling his cup of scalding coffee down your front, but in avoiding spilling it on you, the poor bloke had instead dropped the mug at his feet, and watched it shatter to pieces, coffee spattering his white shoes.

Still, he was the first to apologise.

He was like that, Brian May. Very polite. Well-mannered. Ever the friendly neighbour.

And very beautiful. You’d noticed.

Off to work you’d rushed, once you’d helped him to clean up the mess, because you weren’t about to leave him standing in a pile of shattered porcelain, the existence of which was quite honestly your fault.

You’d been not five, not ten, not twenty, but thirty minutes late to work, and your boss had been none too pleased.

“Deadlines,” he’d told you. “We have deadlines!”

Deadlines your arse. You’d watched that man leisurely read his morning paper, with his feet on an ottoman, whilst you scrambled to get your affairs in order.

It’d then been a drab day, working at the newspaper, because it seemed that nothing was happening in the world, outside of your own little corner, where everything seemed to be happening all at once, and thus, there was no story for you to write. You’d been reduced to running fax and photocopies for various people, and— ironically— doing a coffee run, because everyone else was too busy for such a frivolous thing as a coffee run. Funny, though; for all they shunned the coffee run, they could not do without their precious caffeine to fuel their productivity.

The day seemed to drag on, and when it finally let up, the rain came down with the night, and you, with no umbrella and a good walk on either side of your tube ride, stared miserably through the window at the depressing weather.

But at home, pasta and television and your lovely, soft bed awaited you, and so, you were desperate to get home as quickly as possible.

With a sigh, you stepped outside, and let the rain soak you as you went on your way, having once read in a scientific study in the newspaper which had concluded from a series of experiments that one got more wet from running through rain than from walking through it.

The tube was crowded, as usual, and like a good citizen, you offered your seat to an elderly lady, only to realise upon second glance that she was not elderly at all, and you had just morally offended a rather prim-looking business woman. And lost your seat to the smirking man who’d watched the exchange occur.

You tracked mud all the way up to your flat, nearly breaking your foot at least twice when you nearly slipped on the rain-slick wood of the stairs.

The final nail— or so you thought—  in the coffin of your terrible day came when you fumbled in your jacket pockets for your key.

The sinking feeling in your stomach was perhaps the heaviest you’d ever felt.

In your rush that morning, you’d forgotten your key.

Brian May walked up the stairs just in time to see you kick your shoe off in frustration, and let out a laugh at the sight of you.

You looked up from your abused shoe to find Brian paused at his door, one eyebrow slightly raised in concern.

“Alright?” he asked, dubiously.

You took a deep breath, in an attempt to remain calm and appear normal at the height of your despair. “I’ve had a shitty day, since before you saw me this morning, and now I’ve locked myself out of my flat. Alright, you think?”

“No,” he conceded, “but it seemed polite to ask.”

“Do you always just do what’s polite?” you sighed.

“Now that,” said Brian, inclining his head, “wasn’t very polite.”

You shook your head quickly. “That’s not what I meant. I meant it in a much more flattering way, like, you never fail to be polite, even when it’s hard to be, or when I’m sure you’d much rather say something sarcastic, or even just plain rude. You know,” you rambled, “you’re good at that—” you waved a hand, and amusement flitted across his eyes— “filter thing. You have a filter, I mean.”

“And you don’t,” he observed.

“Exactly.”

“Well, to tell you the truth, for once,” said Brian, “you look an absolute wreck, but—”

At that moment was when the real final nail of the coffin fell into place.

Because at that moment, accompanied by an ear-splitting peal of thunder, lightning struck, and eradicated the power supply of approximately one-third of the London metropolitan area.

“Bloody hell,” Brian remarked, as the rumble of thunder receded. The two of you stood in darkness on the landing, and while before, there had only been one bare lightbulb to light your surroundings, it was greatly different to be standing in total darkness when the city outside had become equally as dark.

“The power—”

You thought Brian nodded across from you where he stood, in the blackness of the hall.

“So…” you muttered. “What now?”

“Well, given our presently rather strange circumstances, I’ll offer to let you sleep on my sofa, and we can talk to Clarisse in the morning.”

Clarisse owned the shoe shop beneath your flats, and therefore your flats as well. She was yours and Brian’s landlady, but, as with her shop, she was only ever in from nine to five. Given that it was now six in the evening, she was most certainly long gone.

You considered Brian’s offer.

The two of you had shared a landing for four, almost five years now, since you’d each come to London, and yet, though you were friendly, you’d never got past having coffee together. You knew that Brian was studying astrophysics at Imperial College, which was very impressive indeed, and that he was the guitarist in a talented, but relatively unknown band. You’d encountered the other members of the band a few times here and there, every year, given that they sometimes practiced, or held meetings, at Brian’s residence. Clarisse didn’t mind the band playing, and as the next door building always had loud music pounding, there was no danger of annoying the neighbours to the point of the police being phoned, so Brian and his band were free to hold their rehearsals. You knew they were talented because you could hear them playing through said rice paper-thin walls.

And having had coffee with the man in question at least three times, you felt safe enough in taking up his offer. You only regretted that in all your years living next door to him, you’d never invited him over. Then again, he’d never invited you over either. But here he was now, in your hour of need, and that had to count for something.

You nodded gratefully, then remembered that he probably couldn’t see you all too well, and said,

“I think I’ll take up your offer. You’re a lifesaver.”

“Nonsense,” said Brian. “I’m just polite.”

You thought he might have winked, but of course, in the dark, you couldn’t be sure.

He unlocked his front door, and you followed him inside.

“Watch out for the—”

You stumbled over what felt and sounded to be a guitar case.

“Oh shit, fuck, I’m sorry,” you apologised profusely.

He chuckled. “It’s fine. It’s empty.”

“Oh, thank god,” you muttered. “Thought I’d just destroyed something, again.”

“Yeah, it was bad enough that you ruined my coffee cup this morning.”

Reflexively, you covered your blush with your hand. “Please don’t remind me,” you groaned.

“I won’t miss it,” Brian assured you, tossing his keys onto a little table. “It was a hideous thing. Something Fred got me once from Kensington Market, where he works. Pretty sure the thing was second-hand too.”

Fred. Freddie, lead singer of the band you’d only heard through walls. Funny, charming, friendly though shy.

You wrinkled your nose. “Second-hand…”

“Yeah. He’s got no taste, silly bugger.” Though Brian’s remarks sounded harsh, he spoke with a fondness that could only have been reserved for the highest regard of friendships, and you thought that he and his bandmates must be quite good friends.

“Hungry?” Brian asked. “I’ve only got some left-over lasagna, unfortunately, since I wasn’t expecting company, and it’s vegetarian, but we can heat it up in the oven, and there’s enough for the both of us.”

“Honestly, Brian, that sounds delicious.”

Your eyes had begun to adjust to the dark, and so you saw his smile in response to your comment.

“Well, great. I’ll heat that up, then. Make yourself at home. If you can find the living room,” he added with a laugh. “There’s some candles in the chest of drawers by the window, so if you get those out, I’ll find some matches too, and we can have some light.”

“Will do.”

You set about your task, managing to only stub your toe once after removing your shoes, and set up candles about the living room, where you assumed Brian intended to set up dinner.

He brought you matches, and brought with him a glass bottle.

“Wine?” he offered you, having poured himself a glass, and you accepted, because it was Friday night and what the hell.

You lit the candles as Brian went back to his cooking, and before long, he returned with the lasagna dished up.

As your host sat down across from you, you couldn’t help but laugh to yourself.

With the candles providing a rather romantic glow, catching on Brian’s pretty ringlet curls and dancing in his eyes, plus the wine, and now, the static-y music coming in over a battery-powered radio, this atmosphere was a lot cosier than you had expected.

Brian furrowed his brow at your noise of amusement. “What..?”

“Are we on a date right now?”

With a glance about the room, with its overstuffed cushions and stitched drapes, the two of you eating a meal by candlelight, Brian laughed too.

“It would seem that way.”

He raised his glass to you, and you would have been lying if you’d said that the gesture and his words hadn’t made your heart skip a beat.

You ate in silence for a few moments, until Brian spoke again.

“Would you mind awfully if we were?

The question startled you a little, and you swallowed your wine carefully.

“No,” you said honestly.

A small smile graced his mouth, before his eyes dropped to his lap. “Good,” he said softly. “Because I always meant to ask you out.”

You blurted, “Did you really?”

He smiled fully now. “Yeah. But I’ve always been so damn shy.”

You were the one to raise your glass this time. “Well, here we are now. And you’re not getting rid of me. At least until tomorrow.”

He laughed gently in response, and you thought of how lovely and warm the sound was.

If only you were as warm as that laugh. The rain that had soaked your clothes was beginning to take its toll on you.

You finished dinner in silence, and Brian cleared the plates in silence too.

He came back after washing the dishes, just in time to see you shiver.

“Oh, yes,” he said thoughtfully. “Extra blankets.”

He fetched them, but then looked down at the bundle in dismay. It was very little; you could both see that.

You watched him close his eyes briefly in the wash of candlelight, saw him grit his teeth. You waited with bated breath for what he was going to say.

“It gets really cold here at night.”

This you already knew, from your experiences at your own flat.

“Yeah.”

“And it’ll get even colder now that we’ve lost all form of central heating… Forgive me if this is entirely over the line...” he sighed, and opened his eyes, watching you with a cautiousness that betrayed nerves. “But it might be best if I sleep here, near you. Body heat, and all that.”

“Oh,” you said, blushing slightly. Stupid blush. “Yes, that’s probably a— uh— good idea.”

“Right. Um. Bathroom’s down the hall, if you wanted to chan— oh. Well. Hang on. I’ll get you a jumper or something to change into.”

Your blush only deepened, knowing that you would be wearing his clothes.

You couldn’t look at him when you took the dry, clean clothes he handed you, and hurried to change in the bathroom, before returning to the makeshift bed now established on the floor of Brian’s living room.

He brushed past you to use the bathroom himself.

You slid under the duvet laid out, and shifted the pillow beneath your head, making yourself comfortable.

Brian returned, and began extinguishing the candles around the room.

Finally, a soft shuffling sound announced that he had laid down beside you, and you released a breath of relief, knowing you could soon go to sleep and forget the awkwardness you were so adept at in your conscious state.

But then you noticed that Brian, in his flannel pyjama trousers and t-shirt, was going to sleep with only a single blanket pulled over him; he’d let you have the duvet without a word.

You weren’t about to let him freeze to death on his own living room floor.

With a courage you knew not from where, you rolled over to face Brian. Or rather, Brian’s back. He was turned away from you. He probably thought you’d already gone to sleep.

You laid your hand gently on his shoulder, and he turned slowly.

“Hey,” you murmured, as his eyes met yours. “Sleepover?” You offered the duvet, a gift of peaceable intentions.

He smiled softly, and accepted with grace. But it was a stretch, with how far he lay from you.

“Oh, come here,” you said, and draped your arm over his lithe waist, drawing him closer to you. A little wine-tipsy and a little tired, a little cold, a little lonely, you nestled your cheek against his chest, your hands against warm skin beneath thin fabric.

Slowly, his arms wrapped around you too, and you breathed a soft sigh against his skin.

“Is this alright?” he asked carefully.

In silent response, you lifted your head, and kissed his pretty lips.

He reciprocated almost immediately, his kiss sleepy but tender, and you pecked his mouth gently once more. Then you nuzzled into the crook of his neck, and touched the skin there with another caress of your lips.

“Tomorrow,” you whispered, and he ghosted a kiss upon your temple.

“I can wait for tomorrow,” he said.

And soon you both drifted off, you in warmth and contentment, and Brian dreaming of you.

[wallgirl]

The Little Nereid Part 14

Record of Ragnarok fanfiction

Poseidon x OC

Word count: 2,800

Dynamene, youngest of the 50 Nereids, has lived most of her adolescence as a servant alongside her sisters at Poseidon’s palace. But with her coming-of-age birthday and other developments, what she initially thought was just admiration of her master blossoms into something stronger and more passionate… and painful. Loving someone like Poseidon is not easy period, let alone as your first love. But Dynamene is young and naïve, and all she wants is a chance to be at the sea god’s side.

Categories and warnings: Romance, angst, unrequited love, coming-of-age, earn-your-happy-ending, slow-burn (ish); no sexual content. There will be some graphic violence in the future.

Updated regularly; will have about 20 parts total.

Slight body horror in this chapter

—

When Dynamene's eyes opened again, she was underwater, drifting a hundred feet above a vast ocean trench. It stretched as far as she could see in either direction, jagged cliffs reaching up at her with treacherous fingers. It was a stark contrast from the glamorous palace she'd just been in.

This must be the trench where the witch lives. Dynamene turned this way and that, but saw no one else around; only an eel that slithered past in a hurried manner. Aphrodite said she lived in the deepest part, so... I guess I'm going down there. She wasn't crazy at the prospect of going into a deep sea trench, but there was no turning back now. She allowed herself to sink down, down, down into the black shadows. Deep sea fish wiggled by, some staring at her in surprise. Most of her sisters weren't fond of the deep ocean, but Dynamene stared back at them, just as curious. She remembered when she'd asked Poseidon to take her to a place like this someday. That time will come soon, she promised herself, lips setting into a line of determination.

When she finally touched the bottom, she could barely see anything around her. The silt beneath her feet was far colder and slimier than that of the shallow depths, and she shuddered. She walked for a little ways, wondering where to go next, until she made out the faintest pinprick of light in the distance.

She pushed off from the ground and swam towards it. The source of light was an enchanted torch, the first of a long row that led towards a cliff face in the near distance. Dynamene followed the trail to the stone wall, where an underwater cavern awaited her. An ancient sign, covered in rust and barnacles, simply read "Welcome." Reassured that she was in the right place, she hurried into the cavern and followed the tunnel directly up.

Suddenly, she broke the water's surface, gasping in surprise. She had surfaced in a dimly-lit underground cave, kept dry from an air pocket. She pushed her damp hair out of her eyes, looking around in surprise. She pulled herself up out of the water onto a shallow out-jut of rock, catching her breath, when she realized there was someone standing just a dozen feet away.

Staring back at her with interest was the strangest creature she'd ever seen.

It was a woman, skin as white as the pearls that hung in thin strands about her neck and down across her chest. Her body was wrapped loosely from neck to toe in dark, mismatched sheets, with webbed feet devoid of toenails peeking out from underneath the makeshift skirt. Her eyes had no discernible pupil or iris; they were just as pale and empty as the rest of her body, shining damply in the light of the candlestick she held. A drooping hood covered her head, but there was one spot where hair had come loose, resting against her cheekbone. Dynamene looked closer, wondering at her hair color, before recoiling mentally. It was not hair, but some sort of fleshy tendril.

On edge from the woman's peculiar appearance, Dynamene slowly rose to her feet. "Are you... Are you the witch?" Dynamene asked hesitantly.

The woman blinked. Her milky eyes stared at the Nereid unabashedly. "Yes, I am," she answered softly, her voice raspy and lilting. "And you are..." She swayed closer. "Mm. A Nereid." She began to smile, her teeth unnaturally small and spaced out.

Dynamene suppressed a shudder. What was this woman? She almost looked like she was part fish, but she couldn't place her as any species that she recognized. Definitely not a nymph. But she supposed it really wasn't any of her business; she had come to make a deal. "I was told you might be able to help me with magic," she said.

"Indeed I can," the witch replied cheerfully. "Why don't we sit down together, and you can tell me what it is you need." She turned to amble back into the depths of the cave, and Dynamene hesitantly followed suit, wringing the water from her chiton.

Hanging from the roof of the cave was all sorts of plants and vines of every color and shape, some with tied ingredients dangling from them. Countless shelves and cabinets lined the walls, each one filled with strange and exotic items that Dynamene couldn't place. She looked all about herself in awe. "Are those all ingredients?" She recoiled at the sight of what seemed to be several whale eyes in various stages of decomposition.

"Yes. My work demands quite the vast range of materials. It's taken me a few centuries to collect all that you see here. Rest assured, all these ingredients mean that there is no spell or potion I can't perform." The witch had led her to a small table that looked as if it was a once-thick stalagmite that had been broken off. Dynamene lowered herself carefully onto one of two thoroughly rusted stools. She made a silent prayer that the stool wouldn't collapse under her limited weight.

"Now, what I can do for you?" The witch set the candlestick down between them before folding her hands attentively.

Trying not to be unnerved by the witch's alien appearance, Dynamene focused her gaze on the rough surface of the table. "I... I need something to help me with love."

"Love?" Although it was a question, the witch didn't sound surprised at all. "Well, that's not an uncommon request for someone your age. Tell me more."

Dynamene squirmed bashfully. "Uh, you see..." There seemed to be no way to beat around the bush, as hard as it was to be direct about her feelings. "Well, like the rest of my sisters... As a Nereid, I serve Poseidon at his palace, and..."

The witch's face immediately lit up in the strangest way, like a starving shark that had smelled blood. Her small teeth reflected the candlelight damply. "Poseidon. Do you?"

"Yes. And... Well, somehow, some way... I have fallen in love with him." By the end of the sentence, Dynamene's voice was hardly more than a whisper.

"In love with him," the witch echoed. "In love with him. Oh, my. My, my. What a predicament." Her gleeful smile didn't match her sympathetic tone at all.

Dynamene bit her lower lip nervously, a bit unnerved by the witch's strange behavior. "But, you see... things have become difficult. My family doesn't want me to be around him. They wouldn't even give it a chance. They think he's dangerous. And... I know he would never hurt me, but..."

"Oh, dear. Family... So loving and accepting, until they aren't." The witch tutted sympathetically. "Even our loved ones don't always understand our hearts. It's unfair of them to not give your love a chance... To not even hear you out."

"Yes! I know I could be happy with him, and..." Dynamene rubbed tears away from her eyes, only for them to be quickly replaced the next moment. "But they wouldn't listen. And now, I feel all alone."

"Don't you worry, darling," the witch whispered. "You're not alone. So many others find themselves in this predicament: misunderstood, shut-out, feeling desperate... That's where people like me come in to help. I can help you get exactly what you're looking for." She tilted her head, examining Dynamene. "So, tell me... what is it that you want my help with?"

Dynamene took a deep breath. "I want something that will... lead to him proposing to me, somehow." The look in her eyes went from hurt to almost fierce.

"A proposal. Well, well. That's a rather tall order." The witch flicked the tendril away from her face. "Wanting the hand of an Olympian... Poseidon, no less. My, my."

Dynamene shrunk against her seat, feeling rather uneasy. "Is that something you can help with?"

"Oh, sure," the witch said dismissively, waving her hand. "Don't you fret, darling. We'll get you your man. I just..." She licked her lips with a flash of her pale tongue. "Wasn't expecting this request today."

Dynamene nodded.

"So, tell me a bit more. I assure you, I won't judge. I've heard it all. You want him to make a commitment to you, sure... But what about after? Making it to the altar is only half the battle, you know."

"I... I have a guarantee that my union with him will be happy. I just need him to make me an offer. And then... Once we're united in marriage... Everything will be taken care of." Dynamene's cheeks began to burn.

"A guarantee? What might that be?" The witch cocked one brow.

"A blessing from Hera."

The witch's eyes nearly bulged out of her head in disbelief, making them look far too large for her face. "A blessing from Hera?! Well, you lucky girl. Those come few and far between." She sighed, tapping her cheek. "I myself met Hera once, you know..."

Dynamene started in shock. "Did she give you a blessing, too?" She asked, curiosity piqued.

"What? No!" The witch gave a harsh, barking laugh. "I had an agreement with her, you see... It fell through. And, you know, her temper and all..." She scratched her cheek with one pointed nail. A single droplet of gray blood oozed from the scratch, and Dynamene flinched at the casual violence of her act. "She cursed me to become this."

"Oh my," Dynamene whispered, the color draining from her face. She immediately felt awful for having judged the woman's appearance. "I'm so sorry, that's horrible of her!"

"That's an Olympian for you," the witch sighed. "But I've done well enough for myself since then. I've honed my craft, and this is how I spend my days now. Worse ways to live one's life." She smiled once more. "But let's bring things back to you now. You're my client, after all. Let's see..." She rose from the stool and crossed to a dusty boudoir covered in tomes.

"I have quite the list of spells for situations like this; just about anything you can think of." She picked up a book at random and flipped through it, dust flying off the pages. "But I'll need to know a little more to narrow things down. Tell me... What does he think of you?"

"Um..." Dynamene couldn't resist a shy grin. "I think he likes me well enough. He's given me presents, and we've had conversations... He's a lot softer on me than he could be when I've messed up." To put it lightly.

"Oh, lovely!" The gleeful tone had returned to the witch's voice. "So we don't have to worry about making the spell too strong; that's good news for you. A stronger spell would be all the more painful." The witch tossed the book to the side and grabbed another.

Painful? Dynamene gulped. "What do you mean by 'painful?'"

"We're going to do a mild transformation spell for you. Nothing too over-the-top, but spells like that always hurt a bit. I assure you, the end result will be well worth it. Poseidon is somewhat more susceptible to the influence of magic than the rest of his ilk because he thinks it's beneath him. Thus, he's never bothered to work on his resistance to it. You'll just need something strong enough to push him over that edge and get him to realize that he just absolutely needs you at his side."

"Will that really happen?" Dynamene asked, breathless at the thought.

"Oh, yes." The witch turned back to her, her face filled with a wicked leer. "He already cares for you. This will be just the shove he needs to make it official. Such a lucky girl."

Dynamene exhaled deeply. It's finally going to happen... We'll be together.

The witch cackled at the look on her face. "Oh, isn't it grand? You'll be happy, and he'll be happy... Dreams really do come true, don't they?" She threw her current book back down just like the first. "I've got it; the perfect spell. Let's begin." She waved her hand, and the candles lining the cavern immediately dimmed. "Come, this way."

Further into the cave was a larger room. At the center of it, partially sunk into the rocky ground, was a vast cauldron, many times the size of a bathtub. Dynamene peered into it cautiously; there was seemingly no bottom to it, only a vast blackness that stared back at her forebodingly. Swallowing, she backed away and returned her gaze to the witch.

The witch rolled back her sleeves deftly and cleared her throat. With a swift wave of both arms, the cauldron slowly gurgled to life. The dim candles brightened once more, but their flames had turned blue. The witch grabbed one from a nearby candelabra and threw it with force into the simmering cauldron. There was a muffled boom from within its depths, and the water began to shimmer an eye-wateringly intense blue. Sparks began to jump from the surface of the water, and Dynamene's eyes grew wide at the sight. The witch turned away and swept over to a nearby shelf, grabbing several tall glass vials before halting.

"Oh, that's right! Before we go too far..." The witch turned to look at Dynamene over her shoulder. "Ah, yes; a deal has to go both ways."

Dynamene twisted her hands, steeling herself. She had been dreading this moment, but there was no turning back now. "What kind of deal?"

The witch slipped closer, backlit by the eerie cerulean light. "Nothing you can't pay. That is, nothing you don't already have..."

Dynamene stared into the cauldron, blue sparks illuminating her face in a ghostly hue. The tear trails that remained on her face were sapphire beads in the light. If this was the only way, so be it. She was far too close now to give up.

"Then... Anything you want. It's yours," she told the witch, her voice shaking. "As long as... As long as it's nothing-"

The witch's smile broadened. "I'm not asking for much. You'll never notice it's gone, I promise you. Say, something..." She rose a fist. "This big."

"Anything," Dynamene whispered. The flames flooded out any other reflection in her eyes. The roaring cauldron filled her ears with its torrent, and with her senses distracted and heart despairing, there was nothing she wouldn't have agreed to. "It's yours."

The witch laughed madly. "Then we have a deal. Oh, your happiness is in reach now. Can't you feel it?" She snapped her fingers, and a sudden, strange lightness came over Dynamene. But she was still alive; still breathing erratically, and still staring into the burning flames. She flexed her fingers gently, wondering only superficially what the witch might have taken. "Now, you will soon take your fate into your hands. You'll be a new woman. No man alive will be able to resist you; least of all that inexperienced tyrant." The witch nearly bent double with laughter, wheezing with delight.

Without further ado, she shrieked out an unfamiliar word. All around them, the cabinets and cases flung their doors open in a unified crash. The witch rushed about the room, sweeping seemingly random ingredients into her clutches and flinging them without a glance. Bottle after bottle smashed into the cauldron, and Dynamene recoiled away from the shards of glass and burning hot sparks. The contents of the bottles hissed into oblivion in the burning waters, billowing out a thick smoke.

"Mandrake, rue, Gorgon scales, pearls!" The witch chanted madly as she snatched more ingredients. "Rosemary, harpy feather, siren hair!" The flames roared, reaching for Dynamene with raging lashes.

"Don't shrink away now!" The woman laughed at the fright on Dynamene's face. "This is what you came for! Embrace it, breathe it in!" She threw her arms high up into the air, commanding the inferno in a tongue unfamiliar to Dynamene.

Dynamene backed away from the cauldron a few feet, readying herself. Her hungry eyes filled with the dancing fire. The hypnotic flames were his eyes, the smoke his reaching hands, searing into her core until she was nothing but blue smoke, reaching back. You'll finally want me.

You'll be mine.

"Don't hesitate! Don't blink!" The witch threw more herbs into the flames, until they reached higher than Dynamene. "This is what you want! Take it!" Her voice rose to a screech. "Don't you want him to be yours?! Go, now!"

And without another breath, Dynamene took a running start and dove headfirst into the flames.

—

Author’s Notes:  At the end of this chapter, all I was thinking was BlUe this and bLuE that. Can you tell? lol