Tumgik
#also the book mention is a distraction
thebramblewood · 8 months
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
If the Vatores stand united on one thing, it's their absolute disdain for Old Man Vlad.
Previous / Next
(Psst... there's some bonus lore under the cut for those who can't get enough.)
More on the Vatores' complicated relationship with Vlad to come, but for now I will say that settling in Forgotten Hollow despite hating his guts was absolutely a (petty) power move on Lilith's part. Vlad doesn't have any qualms about killing humans. In fact, he has little interest in the affairs of humans at all. But what he doesn't care for is Lilith's ostentatious style. He's very old-fashioned and set in his ways regarding how a "proper" vampire should behave and doesn't like when they draw too much attention to themselves because he believes it puts vampires as a collective at risk. He once hoped to mold Lilith in his image, but that obviously didn't work out, and he now finds her indiscreet, disrespectful, and lacking manners, and he finds Caleb a wimpy annoyance who should have never been turned.
I also wanted to explain a bit more about vampire telepathy in my universe. There's a psychic link between sire vampires and their children that allows them to communicate internally (as we've seen Lilith and Vlad do before - and we'll explore the circumstances of her turning in the future!) and also to probe each other's thoughts/memories (which, for example, is what allows Caleb to track down Helena). Physical distance weakens the link, and stronger vampires can establish barricades against intrusion (like Caleb is trying to do now with Lilith). It's also not a constant thing. It's an active choice to enter another's mind. Caleb is considerate (yes, even with his sister), so he does it sparingly and accesses only the information he needs. Lilith and Vlad couldn't care less, so they'll shamelessly dig for secrets. Most vampires are also able to wield telepathic powers over humans, although obviously this takes skill and practice. Humans' minds are more vulnerable and as such more susceptible to hypnosis. This allows vampires to control humans for feeding and other purposes and also to erase or alter their memories. I don't think any of this greatly deviates from what you would expect, and I've tried to imply most of it through the storytelling, but I just wanted to explain it all in one place.
Caleb: [stiffly] Straud.
Vlad: It seems you’re out and about these days more than your sister is. How is Lilith anyway? I can’t imagine she's finally come to her senses and decided to practice moderation for once in her life.
Caleb: Why don’t you rummage around in her thoughts and find out for yourself? She picked up that habit from you, after all.
Vlad: She’s learned how to keep up her guard against me. [pointed look] As I’m sure you’ve learned your own tricks against her. No matter. There are things in that girl's head beyond description. I’d rather not get mired in her depravity. Surely you know what I mean.
Caleb: I never acquired a taste for extracting people’s secrets without their permission.
Vlad: Of course not. You’re a peculiar creature, aren’t you? I warned her you wouldn’t be suited to this life. Well, in this case, you’re likely better off. Maintaining blissful ignorance is undoubtedly more pleasant than holding the eternal knowledge of all she’s done.
Caleb: [impatiently] Is there something else you wanted to discuss?
Vlad: That man - what is it, Benali? - and his charming little book… It’s not going to cause trouble, is it?
Caleb: I haven’t seen any angry hordes yet. This is your town, old man. There’ll be no trouble so long as you don’t let it in.
113 notes · View notes
stopper-my-heart · 1 month
Text
Tumblr media
Nothing like Heartstopper S2E8 removing some of Taylor Swift's "seven" lyrics just so that the singing can specifically come back in at "Or hide in the closet" while Isaac is processing difficult emotions related to the book he's reading (i.e., Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen).
Did I mention "Or hide in the closet" hits just as the camera focus finishes shifting away from Isaac?
This is fine
#This is not fine#Warning: Long tags ahead (2 topics)#TOPIC 1:#I'm glad Isaac feels safe enough to be reading this book and processing emotions around his friends#That's the positive spin on “he's quietly dealing with a lot while next to his friends and they're not noticing and he's not sharing" right#The contrast of this with the happy friend-bonding montage time feels purposeful and sad (esp. with lyrics about staying in the closet)#but on the bright side this is in the midst of happy friend-bonding montage time so we also see them having happy bonding times together#- showing the friendship is still strong even if right now Isaac isn't wholly known or fully fitting#Hopefully this is leading to Isaac telling his friends what he's going through in S3 and the friendships adapting to fit him better#TOPIC 2:#Also - don't think it's unintentional that where the camera focus shifts to is Nick with his arms around Charlie and then kissing his head#I think we're being purposefully distracted from Isaac with allo 'cuteness'#Because what the other characters often get swept up in - especially as they all couple up in S2 - is alloromantic/allosexual interactions#And that's frequently what the world prioritises or cares more about too#I think the show is intentionally calling everyone - from the characters to us watching them to the whole world - out#So that hopefully we (general) can all be more aware and do better#[In case you were wondering this N&C/Isaac scene is also right after we see short clips of Elle & Tao and Tara & Darcy cuddling -#which also seems very intentional: Isaac - sandwiched in between views of cuddling couples - alone in more ways than one]#CONCLUSION:#I think everything is working together to highlight the contrast between what N&C and Isaac are respectively experiencing in this moment#Did I mention this is not fine?#It is well done though#heartstopper mini moment#isaac henderson#aroace#aromantic asexual#lgbtqia+#queer#taylor swift#seven
47 notes · View notes
aroaessidhe · 1 month
Text
Tumblr media
2024 reads / storygraph
Outdrawn
f/f contemporary romance
two cartoonist who’ve been rivals since uni, and now have competing webcomics online, have to work together on the relaunch of a cult classic at the comic press they both work at
they both struggle with art-related physical and mental health issues, and complicated families
#outdrawn#aroaessidhe 2024 reads#sapphic books#I thought this was decent! I liked the concept (even if I got distracted by some art related things…)#and the dynamic between the characters was good. I enjoyed their relationship development broadly speaking#and the emphasis on communication; though it was a quick flip into being together all of a sudden.#The sketchbook doodle flirting was cute. Some interesting exploration of their complicated family situations too.#There’s a lot of exploration of burnout and carpal tunnel and the dangers of artists overworking which I think are important conversations#and are done with some nuance. But it’s pretty much all discussed in the context of the personal pressure they put on themselves#rather than the industry corporate greed and artificial competition created by the comic platform - which are significant in this story!#It felt odd that that connection wasn’t really ever made?#I know that this is a romance and nitpicking the background plot is beside the point and also that I am not a big romance reader#but the premise that the comic hosting site archives everything; wipes the leaderboard; and out of nowhere has a comic competition for#new weekly chapters…I’m sorry but the art world would riot. Even if people enter because they’re desperate for the cash they’d be pissed#People live off the income from their webcomics! if they were erased (temporarily) with no notice…..there would be crimes committed istg#I simply don’t believe that it would be doable to create a new weekly webcomic with no notice while you also have a full-time comic job#(especially as the only stylistic choices mentioned are full-colour) - not to mention what happened to their 8-years-running webcomics#that were archived? they don’t think about them at all after the beginning? surely they’d care about that?#And then with their new comics they make for this competition (after work I guess) we get vague snippets about them but barely anything#- if they’re consuming that much of your time I would expect to feel like they’re thinking about them all the time#rather than the vaguest discussion about genre and cast numbers only.#I guess I just think the whole comic site stunt felt unnecessary for the plot anyway -#it would have worked exactly the same if they were just competing on the normal leaderboard with their normal comics???#anyway - I’m not judging TOO hard about all that because again I know it’s not the point and maybe the industry is like that in some place#Unfortunately it was distracting enough to affect my feelings on the book tho lol.#Lastly: the audiobook………oof. The narrators talk at different speeds; for one.#And Sage’s VA does this deeply weird raspy-anime-teen-boy voice for Noah which is such an odd choice#and doesn’t match her character at all.#unforch my library only had the audiobook (what I usually prefer) so I just had to sort of….translate the narration into a normal voice lol#anyway the romance is good tho
23 notes · View notes
empyreasheart · 9 months
Text
but on the topic of language learning apps some i used include
Drops - made by the same people at kahoot, more of a vocabulary app than learning actual grammar but it has a lot of options, free version lets u do 5 minutes every 12 hours. If you want to learn more than one language what i did was download the individual language apps (u can either just download drops for all languages or drops (specific language) ie drops spanish for just spanish) and use different accounts. i also took advantage of the free trial cuz its fun but i do think the 5-10 minutes a day thing works fine to create a doable habit
Beelinguapp - This one requires a subscription i dont remember how much you can do without one but i have an android so i just downloaded a modded apk. edit: i forgot to elaborate when i posted this but its practicing reading / listening by reading stories and articles
Mango languages - this one is a lot different than duolingo but still good, its essentially based on learning by hearing / speaking a new language than just learning vocabulary and writing sentences. It requires premium BUT if you have a library card you can check if your local library lets you use it for free (this isnt guarenteed unfortunately but i think it is more common in bigger areas), there are also some free endangered languages
Memrise - Like the name implies this is mostly an app for memorizing words and sentences, using flashcards. Theres official courses but users can make them too so you can use it for more than just language learning if you want to. I think if you used this with mango languages it would be helpful to get practice writing phrases & words in a way you dont get to with ml. Apparently theres a pro subscription but i have no idea whats different & a lot of people say the free version works just fine
Ling - Havent used this for very long but its almost identical to duolingo but with more languages, its basically premium only but once again i use a modded apk
Some more specific stuff
Lifeprint - ASL w/ videos and its all free! a very good resource even if you arent looking to learn
Tagalog.com - Free resource for tagalog you just have to make an account
If you have resources for specific languages or anything in general id love to hear, this is all just from someone who has had a casual interest in language learning
Also if you have an android you can download modded apks of a lot of paid language apps. Just be safe (use adblock) and smart, not all apks are actually modded or theyre too buggy to be worth it, so pay attention to the reviews. The paid apps are often very nice but the prices are ridiculous. everyone deserves the chance to learn. I dont know if theres ios equilivants (although i wonder if theres a way to run apks on your pc through something like bluestacks)
13 notes · View notes
fragmentedblade · 6 months
Text
Not to be a jingfu on main, but it's so cute that Jing Yuan thought of Fu Xuan with those jelly beans
#me: the Xianzhou characters are all just coworkers#also me whenever anyone is shown to be fond and have intimate knowledge of some other character: awwww#Like Fu Xuan and Jing Yuan playing starchess and teasing each other or making a reference to things they like#or Jing Yuan talking about young Yukong#Quingque apparently disliking Fu Xuan but obviously that not being the case‚ knowing what she likes and how she thinks#Fu Xuan hiding that she has a sweet tooth but Jing Yuan and Quingque knowing it and teasing her for it#I don't know. There are a lot of instances of these small intimate details in the middle of what looks like a coworker relationship#Good coworkers‚ but coworkers nonetheless#And ironically it moves me so much? Even more so than Belobog. I've been told several times that Belobog seemed more tight. And I agree#In Belobog people were friends or family or companions but linked by something closer than mere coworkers with Wildfire#Even Sampo in the Underworld was strangely 'theirs'. He had the magenta colour of Wildfire and he was trusted to some extent#The Luofu characters don't have that. And yet the fragments of intimacy scattered through their interactions move me a lot#These are people who have known each other for centuries. Jing Yuan knows of Yukong's youth‚ its joy and grief#He knows Fu Xuan has a sweet tooth and teases her about her height. Quingque does too#Fu Xuan chastises both of them for being lazy but she knows they're smart and good at their job. She plays starchess with Jing Yuan#Quingque mocks Fu Xuan for being a workaholic but is very aware of the weight she carries both in her position and ideas about destiny#I won't mention Yanqing and Bailu because there is obviously more than a coworker bound when it comes to them#But yes I love the moments of intimate knowledge scattered through the Xianzhou‚ so telling of the fact that these people have known#each other for longer than several human lifetimes‚ and that perhaps they don't necessarily regard each other as more than their coworker#But perhaps that's enough in order for them to care. Perhaps in a lifetime over one thousand years the intimacy gained with a coworker#through several centuries is something beyond what we could understand in our decades lifespan#But also‚ perhaps‚ I don't know. Also‚ perhaps‚ the do care beyond coworkers in that strange line between work and friendship#Perhaps it's strange for Xianzhou natives to tell apart that kind of relationship after so much intimacy and knowledge through the years#And perhaps‚ once again‚ as it often happens for them‚ they think they'll always have enough time to tell; until they run out of it#They play chess together. Quingque can lose time because Fu Xuan can't stay mad if she brings her sweets. Are they just coworkers?#We play chess. I know what tea and sweets you like best. I brought them today since you would indulge me and play starchess with me#Thanks for playing with me‚ I'm running out of book puzzles. You keep divining my moves but I'll invent a fake story to distract you#Are we coworkers or something more like friends? Where is the line after so many years?#I talk too much but I love this charged nothingness haha I find it ironically so true to how many relationships in real life develop#And I find it so moving‚ that representation of this endearing smallness of everyday life. Of these small things is life made
5 notes · View notes
forgaeven · 9 months
Text
sorry for not being here! irl commitment ended up taking my time, but my weekends are free 💚 i’m hopeful i could be here again by then!
2 notes · View notes
floral-hex · 11 months
Text
I wonder if any of my mutuals are doing nanowrimo this year. Is that still a thing that people do?
6 notes · View notes
transmasc-tabris · 16 days
Text
.
1 note · View note
whiskey-bumblebee · 7 months
Text
anyway two roads diverged in a yellow wood
either stay in this city, far from where i feel is home, but with a job and a boyfriend and financial security and a nice apartment, but also isolated from the life that i feel i want to be living
or drop everything again and move to the other city, the one I feel is home, leaving job and boyfriend here for a life that doesn't exist yet and maybe never will
1 note · View note
elodieunderglass · 4 months
Note
On the topic of the monarchist animals I'm just really curious. What makes the winnie pooh real animals bourgeois? It's not like they own much more than the others. Do they just have bourgeois energy?
(In reference to my addition on this post; https://www.tumblr.com/elodieunderglass/748488762087047168/hold-on-lets-do-this-properly-paddington)
In the post I state that none of the stuffed/toy animals in the Winnie the Pooh series are monarchists, but that the real animals are bourgeoisie. Obviously this is tongue in cheek, but it’s still politically interesting to me because nobody ever reads Winnie the Pooh as an actual book. They just draw depressed Disney Eeyore and think they’ve done something.
Owl and Rabbit are real wild animals that live in the Hundred Acre Wood. The other characters in the story are Christopher Robin’s stuffed animals.
The “real” animals (reasonably) consider themselves to be separate from the stuffed ones, but where it becomes unreasonable is how they assume superiority and how they use this to exert authority.
(A charming response about how the stuffed animals view this: Piglet points out that Rabbit is both clever and Has Brain, and Pooh replies that this is why Rabbit “doesn’t understand anything.”)
Owl is characterised by being a bit of a fraud. The stuffed animals respect him for his presumed education and literacy, but even a preschooler understands that Owl can’t actually read. he actively deceives the other characters in order to maintain a higher social status over them. (Actually, Rabbit’s the most literate character in the Wood.) Owl gains relatively little advantage from this status, apart from his belief that he is superior and the pleasure in everyone deferring to him. A notable theme throughout the written series involves characters approaching Owl for advice, based on his self-made reputation of being wise and thoughtful, and him giving explicitly bad advice, rather than admit that he has no idea how to help. Also, they forcibly give him someone else’s house, in such a way that the actual possessor of the house (Piglet) feels he can’t speak up. Pooh immediately offers to Piglet that he move in with him, which even as a kid felt like an incredibly unsatisfactory solution to having the shyest character’s actual house given away to the character who casually lies about everything just to feel superior.
Rabbit is a grown-ass adult real wild animal. He is the social leader of a massively large family and an extended group of hangers-on (he has fifteen or seventeen close relatives, and the extended Friends-and-Relations are a sort of army); he is the only actually literate person in the narrative, so it is understandable that he feels this (although he also believes Owl can read.) literacy and Brain are considered very important in the Wood.
Rabbit believes in his own superiority and believes himself to serve as a sort of cadet to Christopher Robin. In the series Christopher Robin is the ultimate judge, and a kindly ruler; Rabbit positions himself constantly at Christopher Robin’s right hand and wants to be his enforcer. Christopher Robin, who is five and a fairly distracted God, does not really enforce anything. This does not stop Rabbit from trying to organise the entire Wood. It’s frequently mentioned that Rabbit wants to feel important, he wants to be the Boss. A beautiful, beautiful commentary on his character is when he wakes up feeling “important, as if everything depending on him… it was a Captainish sort of day, when everybody said “Yes Rabbit” and “No Rabbit” and waited until he had told them.” Fantastic!
However, we can see where this leads him. In the first book Rabbit is shown being hostile and actively anti-foreign in his approach to other people. When kanga and roo arrive in the forest - sanctioned by Christopher Robin who has received new toys - Rabbit instantly says they have to get rid of them. Like there is NO friendship in Rabbit’s heart here. There is no “god has placed a new friend in the wood so we have to get on with it.”
Rabbit’s anti-immigration stances are funny, and in-character, and shown by the narrative to be wrong and unfair. But they’re pretty unleashed.
His plan is to kidnap the baby and hold it hostage until the mother agrees to “leave the forest forever and never return.”
This is not a normal response to a new character. It is in fact fucking unhinged. Coming from the most normal-adult real animal in the story, it comes out of nowhere. “We have to eliminate them instantly. Take the baby hostage, blackmail the parent and deport them” Rabbit these are war crimes.
Anyway it’s all very heartwarming as Rabbit learns that he likes Baby Roo. (Their relationship grows warmer as Baby Roo says “yes rabbit” and “no rabbit” better than anyone else.) We never really learn why Rabbit is so violently anti-immigration that he instantly jumps to doing crimes, but it’s possible that he doesn’t like the threat to the status quo. Baby Roo, by deferring politely, thus turns out to be a valuable social inferior for Rabbit’s power base.
But in the next book we also get another new character introduction: Tigger. rabbit does not like tigger. In fact, he stops visiting Roo because Tigger lives with them. Rabbit, frustrated by Tigger’s bounciness, also decides to deliberately trick and bully Tigger in order to make him “small and sorry.” The fact that this comically backfires on Rabbit is part of the Pooh-lore storytelling style, of course, but it’s still something obvious even to the preschool audience - that isn’t how you treat your friends.
In conclusion, due to their hoarding of (social) capital and behaviors that prop up an unjustly unequal social system, I think the real animals in Winnie the Pooh are a bit bougie.
2K notes · View notes
whipped-for-kpop-fics · 2 months
Text
Life's A Beach - K.MG
Tumblr media
🌊Who: Kim Mingyu (Seventeen) x female reader 🌊What: Smut, some fluff I guess? Strangers to lovers. Lifeguard Mingyu!!! 🌊Wordcount: 7.3k 🌊Warnings: Profanity. Quick joke about burying a body on the beach. Slight drowning, it’s not graphic and it’s very quick all in all. Passing mention of panic. Probably excessive use of “baby”. Semi-public sex, oral (female receiving), fingering, big dick Mingyu, unprotected sex, multiple orgasms(f), messy Mingyu, choking, a single solitary spank, mentions of bruising. 
Summary: You don’t like the beach, but you do like the handsome lifeguard who works there. As it turns out, he likes you too and is more than willing to risk his job to have you.
Minors do NOT interact, which means reblogging and/or commenting on this story. I WILL block any account that interacts without an age indicator in their bio.
-2024 Masterlist-
A/N- Happy birthday to my beanie @ourdawnishotterthanourday , I know I said this was to prepare for a Christmas gift but I lied hehe oops. Hope you like it, my love 💗
Thank you @okiedokrie for the very last minute beta! 💕
Tumblr media
A few weeks ago, your best friend managed to succeed in convincing you to go to the beach after some very effective emotional manipulation in the form of puppy eyes and pouting at you. She had promised you’d enjoy yourself and admittedly, you did, but not because of the beach itself. Still, she used your enjoyment to convince you to return a few days later, and then another few more and soon enough the two of you seem to spend more time at the beach than your homes in your free time.
Now, the reason for your interest in attending the sand and seas despite liking neither of those things is pretty simple. The eye candy. One particular hunk of a man with a sweet smile, in particular.
You have no idea what his name is, you’ve never spoken to him nor been in close proximity but that doesn’t deter you from setting up in that same spot under the parasol for a few hours every few days at roughly the same time just to watch Mr Hunky Lifeguard do his rounds strolling topless up and down the sand and helping where he can. 
It’s sweet, the way he’ll help anyone who asks, even with matters you’re very certain are not a part of his job description. Judging impromptu sandcastle contests between kids. Blowing up beach balls. Helping older folk set up their beach chairs and parasols. 
You can’t help but wonder if he’d help you apply sunscreen. His warm hands slipping over your thighs, working up and up and-
“Hey!” The voice of your best friend breaks you from your fantasies as she skips over happily, hands cupped and before she’s even close enough, you already know what’s in her hands. “Check this out!” She drops onto her knees at your side to proudly show you…a little crab. So not another shell to add to the pile gathering on the sand to your right as you assumed. 
“A crab,” 
“Yes,” 
“I thought you were looking for shells to decorate your castle with?” You both look over at the half-finished and admittedly, rather grand, sandcastle a little to the side, safely out of the way from any passerby. 
“Every castle needs a King, don’t you think he’ll look crabulous on his throne?” You look back at your best friend to find her grinning at you, proud of her joke. 
“Go find shells.” You deadpan, she just giggles and gets up to return to the rockpool where she had found the crab to return it to its home.
Thoroughly distracted from your fantasies of the hot lifeguard, you have honestly forgotten about it and also happened to have lost track of him. Last you saw him, he was up on the deck of the watch tower, peering over the beach through binoculars yet now, he’s nowhere to be seen.
With a disappointed sigh, you decide to just relax, leaning back against the bags you’ve piled up to create an impromptu backrest and go back to reading your book. 
It’s not even ten minutes later when a figure blocks your light and casts a shadow over your pages. You immediately assume it’s your friend from the way the figure lingers and lift your head with every intention of accepting whatever funky patterned rock or shell she’s found this time, yet it’s not her who you spot, but Mr Hunky Lifeguard himself. 
“Hi,” he greets, hands on his hips and smiling at you in that bright friendly way you’ve noticed him smiling at everyone else. 
You take the moment with him so close to quickly rake your hidden gaze over his exposed, sunkissed, toned torso and arms. Praise be to whoever invented dark sunglasses. “Hello.”
“Family day out?” He questions, motioning to the pile of plastic beach toys by the sandcastle on your right, causing you to look over and only then realise how it must look; that you’re here with your child, not your grown ass adult of a best friend. 
“Not exactly,” You huff a laugh and lean aside a little to peer around him. “My best friend.” You declare upon spotting said person and pointing to her. To your surprise, she’s squatting with another lifeguard, this one wearing the same red shorts though he’s got a white sleeveless t-shirt on, and rummaging through the sand with your friend. 
“Oh,” The man in front of you lets out a surprised little laugh when he looks over too. “I’ve never seen Vernon interact like that with a stranger. Unless they know each other?” 
“Not that I’m aware of,” You shrug and look back up at the tall man in time to see his body angle back around to give you his full attention. You briefly wonder who exactly is looking over this section of the beach when both lifeguards are currently distracted on the sand. 
“Huh, okay. I’m Mingyu,” He takes a step closer to lean over and offers his hand to you. Your gaze catches on the chain around his neck and the way it swings as he leans over. You want to reach out and grab it, yank him down and defile the beach together. 
But that would get you arrested and you really don’t want that. So you lean up onto your knees to accept his hand to shake and tell him your name in return. 
“Mm, pretty,” He hums, looking at you over the top of his dark sunglasses with a lopsided little smile. It feels flirty as fuck, but you don’t want to make assumptions that this beautiful man is interested in you. 
“Oh, thank you.” You smile a little and take your hand back yet remain on your knees, feet tucked comfortably under you as he straightens up. You can’t help but think about the fact that if he was a few feet closer, you’d be face height with his dick and within reaching distance. 
“You must really like the beach.” 
“Huh?” You blink away the fantasy of slobbering all over Mingyu’s cock and seeing how pretty he looks when he cums down your throat, or maybe on your face, that’d be nice too. 
“I said you must really like the beach, I’ve seen you here almost every day for almost a month now.” 
“You noticed me?” You mutter in shock. 
“Uhm-” Mingyu rubs the back of his neck awkwardly, his confident stance melting away as his shoulders curve in and make him appear smaller. Embarrassed. Cute. “I-It’s my job. To notice things. People. You know. To ma-make sure people are safe.” 
“I see.” You hum and tilt your head a little without even noticing, amused and endeared by him. 
As if he isn’t already attractive enough just by existing, talking to him and realising he’s got this cute shy side definitely draws you in further.
“Y-yep!” He laughs awkwardly and straightens to his full height again while putting his hands on his hips again. “Well, I should get back to it. Nice to meet you!” And then he rushes off before you can even respond, leaving you watching him scuttle off and almost trip over a stray sandal in the sand making you snicker. 
Mingyu flails to right himself and then immediately looks over at you to see if you noticed. Realising that you had definitely seen him almost faceplant the sand, he gives an awkward embarrassed little wave before turning and rushing off, quickly putting his face in his palms as he goes.
And just like that, the beach gets that much more interesting.
Tumblr media
It’s a handful of days before you return to the beach, you had been busy with work, unfortunately, so you simply hadn’t had the time or energy to take the trip.
“I’m gonna dig a giant fucking hole today.” Your best friend declares as you both put down your items in your usual spot and start to set up. 
“To bury me? Work killed me, babe.” You retort dramatically.
“Please don’t bury bodies on the beach.” The voice makes you jump over and to your surprise, a dripping wet Mingyu is standing a little behind you. “Hi,” 
“Hi,” You reply dumbly, doing your utmost to not oogle his shimmering chest, or the flex of his bicep as he lifts a hand to run his fingers through his wet hair to stop the salty water dripping over his face. You’re once again very glad for tinted sunglasses. 
“You’re wet,” Your best friend comments, making you both look at her where she’s standing and looking between you both over the top of her sunglasses, where you’re very certain she’s lowered them down her nose just to give you both this very pointed look. 
“I was teaching a kid to swim, of course I’m wet.” Mingyu chuckles, motioning over his shoulder with his thumb in the direction of the sea behind him.
“Wasn’t talking to you.” Your best friend gives you a final look before pushing her sunglasses back up into place. “I’ll leave you to set up, I have places to be.” With that, she turns and walks off in the direction of the snack carts and shacks further down the beach leaving you and Mingyu alone. 
You appreciate that, the alone time with the attractive man, but what you don’t appreciate is having to set up on your own. “She could’ve at least opened the parasol first.” You mutter to yourself, looking at the giant umbrella in disdain. 
“I can help!” Mingyu offers, bounding forward before you can even answer, to pick up the umbrella from the sand, biceps flexing as he moves. “Where do you want it?” 
“Right here,” You reply without thought. He hums in understanding, even if he doesn’t truly understand because you were definitely thinking about where you want him to rail you when you answered, not where you want the parasol set up. 
Still, Mingyu sets the parasol up and it is in the right place so you find no reason to correct yourself and instead thank him and get to work setting up the mat. 
To your pleased surprise, Mingyu sticks around to help you finish setting up everything, making friendly conversation as he goes and smiling brighter every time he makes you laugh. 
You wish he would keep you company for longer but his walkie-talkie crackles to life and announces that he’s needed so he leaves you with a smile and waves at you when he looks over his shoulder after jogging a little away. 
It makes you feel all warm inside, how he seems to be genuinely interested in being near you, you just hope it doesn’t take another three weeks before he decides to make a move if he plans to. You’re not confident enough yourself to make that move, you’d be utterly mortified if you’ve read this all wrong and he’s just being a genuinely nice guy who goes above and beyond for his job. 
So you just settle down with a new book and hold that hope next to that sun shining in your chest.
Tumblr media
“This is perhaps the dumbest idea we’ve had and gone through with.” Your best friend comments as the two of you stand ankle-deep in the sea with the rented surfboards ready for your lesson with one of the two men who run the surf supply shack.
“You signed us up,” You point out, both of you watching the man in question as he removes his t-shirt on the shore to toss at his co-worker who rolls his eyes. 
You know the co-worker personally but more because he somehow knows your best friend. His name is Joshua and he, according to your bestie, had purposely set up this lesson with his co-worker, Seungcheol, because Joshua owes her for something or other. Honestly, you long ago stopped trying to keep track of the shenanigans of your bestie. Wisely too.
“Sorry about that, Shua had to tell me something.” Seungcheol apologises as he walks over to join you two, sans surfboard of his own, confusing you but you don’t point it out.
“Sounds ominous.” You declare.
“No,” He chuckles and motions to your best friend who points at herself with wide eyes, sunglasses propped on Joshua’s head so they don’t get lost to sea, while yours are with your belongings. “Shua said you have really bad balance so I should probably hold onto you.” 
“Terrible balance.” Your best friend agrees seriously without missing a beat, even if you know she’s lying at least a little. 
It takes everything in you to not burst into laughter. Clearly, Joshua is very aware that your bestie has been thirsting over his co-worker since she first saw him. Admittedly, you have been too but most of your attention has been on The Hunky Lifeguard now officially known as Mingyu.
“Okay, so is it okay if I hold onto you to help?” Seungcheol checks, expression giving away that he truly has no idea that this is some kind of a set-up and is genuinely just concerned for his student’s safety.
“Full consent to touch me however you want.” Your best friend agrees, making Seungcheol smile, entirely missing the depravity hiding in her words. 
You have to look away to take a few breaths to calm yourself before you break, and happen to notice Mingyu up on the watchtower deck, looking through his binoculars. You can’t be certain but it looks like he’s got them pointed in your direction. You don’t want to be delusional so convince yourself that even if he is, he’s not focused on you specifically. 
Spoiler, he definitely is.
“Alright,” Seungcheol claps his hands together, making you jump a little and turn back to him and catch his adorable gummy smile. “Let’s get this lesson started, shall we ladies?”
Tumblr media
Honestly, the lesson with Seungcheol goes a lot better than expected, he takes it very seriously and pays careful attention to you both. You hadn’t expected to get anywhere close to standing on the board in the water but with his careful guidance even with his hands hovering around your friend to aid her oh so terrible balance if need be, you get your feet under you. 
After a few more tries, you manage to get almost entirely upright while Seungcheol and your friend cheer you on supportively. 
And then you make a giant fucking mistake. 
Before you’re even upright, you lift your head just enough to peer around naturally and notice Mingyu in all his topless, red short glory jogging along the beach looking like everything out of a Baywatch themed porno with his pecs bouncing with fucking every step. And as if that’s not bad enough, the man clearly is packing something very special in his shorts because you notice that bouncing too. 
Next thing you know, you’re toppling into the water so suddenly that you inhale in shock a second before you hit the sea’s surface, allowing salty water to pour into your open mouth and trickle into your lungs. 
It’s barely a second that you’re under the water before a strong arm is around your waist and heaving you up into the air while you sputter, panic starting to seize your body. 
“Move!” You hear as you’re laid down on the sand by the strong arms, though the voice is coming from elsewhere.
“I can handle this, Gyu,” This voice is right over you, the owner of the arms and you vaguely register it as Seungcheol, but you’re too busy coughing up seawater to open your eyes or give him or the other any attention.
“I’ve got it, Cheol.” Mingyu assures. 
There’s a heavy sigh and then those strong hands leave your body and you feel Seungcheol back away while other hands touch you gently, helping to remain on your side. 
“That’s it, you’re okay, I’ve got you.” Mingyu’s voice is soft and soothing where he’s hovering over you in concern, one hand rubbing over your arm and the other pushing your hair back. 
Luckily, the whole ordeal only lasts a handful of minutes and then you’re okay, breath stuttered and throat a little sore but fine otherwise. 
When you roll onto your back and open your eyes, you find Mingyu right there, leaning over you and backlit by the sun he’s purposely blocking from shining right in your eyes. Like your own personal guardian angel. Or something more poetic. 
You can be given a break from being unable to wax poetry about this beautiful specimen of humanity before you, considering what you’re going through. And no, not the just inhaling seawater thing. 
But the whole, he’s leaning over you topless with that damn silver chain dangling inches from your face, thing. Just a little closer and you could bite it. 
You wonder if he’d find that weird. Probably. You still want to do it though.
“Hey,” He gives you a tender kind of smile when you lift your eyes from his chain to meet his relieved, soft gaze. “You okay?” You just nod, pretty sure you’d say something highly inappropriate if you open your mouth.
“I dunno, I think she might need you to watch over her, Mr Lifeguard.” Your best friend speaks up. You peer at her from the corner of your eyes and find her standing beside Seungcheol with a little smirk on her face as she looks between you and Mingyu. “Maybe you should take her up to the watchtower and keep a close eye on her, just in case.” 
“She doesn’t need that,” Seungcheol points out simply, definitely unaware that your friend is trying to set up a situation for you and the man you’ve been thirsting over for weeks.
“No, no, she’s right.” Mingyu argues quickly as he shakes his head and turns to you to help you sit up and then get to your feet to stand with him. “I should definitely keep a close eye on her, she almost drowned, Cheol-” 
“She’s fine,” Seungcheol’s mutter is neither heard nor considered as Mingyu continues to talk over him as if the man said nothing. 
“So I’ll take her to the watch tower for a while until she’s feeling all better, sounds okay?” He looks at you. You just nod.
“Make her feel all better, Mr Lifeguard.” Your bestie encourages with a nod and thumbs up. 
Mingyu returns it and you’re not certain he actually gets what your friend is insinuating but you don’t really care. Whether he understands or not, you’re getting alone time with Mingyu and that’s all that matters. Bless your bestie for always trying to get you laid.
As you walk up the stairs to the watchtower, Mingyu walks a few steps behind you, a hand on your lower back gently, the same place it has been since the two of you started to walk across the sand. It’s still there when he opens the door and you two enter the building. 
“Hey,” Vernon, the lifeguard your bestie apparently befriended the other day, greets looking over from where he’s sitting at the control desk facing the large windows that oversee the beach. “Oh,” He mutters, eyes widening a little as he looks between you and Mingyu, clearly taking in the sight of the tall man’s hand on your back. “You know, I think I’m going to go get some air for a bit.” 
“Okay,” Mingyu agrees, giving Vernon a grateful look as the shorter man vacates the building without even grabbing his walkie-talkie from the desk. 
At Mingyu’s gentle nudge, you move further into the building allowing him to shut the door.
“I’ll grab you a towel.” He declares, moving over to the cupboards while you decide to check out the view from the window. 
From here you can see the entire section of the beach, especially when you pick up the binoculars Vernon left on the desk and peer through them. It’s pretty interesting, being able to watch over everyone like that and see everything while they no doubt don’t even consider the eyes on them from above. 
“Can they see us?” You wonder, lowering the binoculars to look at Mingyu as he approaches with a towel in hand. 
“I mean sure, if they try hard enough at other times of day but the sun is in the right position to just reflect on the glass at the moment. So right now, no, nobody can see us.” He informs, stopping perhaps a little closer than necessary. Paired with the information that nobody would even see if he fucked you right against the window, well heat flares in your stomach.
“Have you tested that?” 
“Mm, a few times.” 
“How?” 
Mingyu tilts his head a little at you and as you haven’t accepted the towel, too focused on the conversation, he puts it down on the desk and gently takes the binoculars from your hands to also put down. “What do you mean, how? By looking up from outside.” 
“Right.” You hum and turn your head to look back out of the window.
“What were you expecting?” He chuckles lowly. You feel him move a little closer, close enough that you can feel the heat radiating from his bare chest. “Hm?” You shrug. “Tell me,” 
“Just…you know.” You shrug again and although you can barely feel it through the wet material of the rash guard on your torso, the gentle press of his fingers on your back makes you shiver a little. 
“You should get out of this and dry off.” He suggests while running his hand up the length of your back and around your neck to the zipper in the middle of your throat. 
“I might need some help getting it off.” You reply. “Things being wet makes things harder.” 
“Oh, I know.” You’re very certain that you’re both talking in double entendre now and look at him over your shoulder as you turn your back to him a little more to give him better access.
For a weighted moment, nothing happens, just heavy eye contact as if you’re both waiting for the other to take a step backwards and prove your suspicions of the rising tension between you to be false. 
Yet you both stay in place.
You feel a slight tug against your neck, barely noticeable but it makes your body burn a little hotter as he slowly tugs down the zipper to your clavicle before stopping.
“Face me.” He mutters, adjusting his own stance to fully face you. You immediately comply and turn so you’re face to face, all without him removing his grip on the pull of your zipper. 
Then he’s back to dragging the zip down, over your breasts where his knuckles brush a little making your breath catch before his hand moves on to finish the path to open the zip all the way to where it stops at your belly button.
Mingyu only then breaks eye contact to look down at the glimpse of skin he can see now with the zipper open. “This is a one piece?” He checks, noticing how the material of the rashguard vanishes into your shorts. You hum in confirmation and then he’s lowering to his knees in front of you to tuck his fingers into the waistband of your shorts. 
He glances up at you, checking that this is okay and when you nod, he gives you a little smile before turning his full attention back down to watch the shorts move down your thighs with the help of his hands.
“Can you-” He starts once you’ve stepped out of the shorts and he’s tossed them aside, but when he looks up at you, you’re already working on pulling the front of your rash guard open, revealing your chest little by little, covered only by the little bikini you bought specifically to wear with the rashguard. “That.” Mingyu swallows thickly, watching more skin get revealed until you start to struggle to get the wet material down your shoulders. 
Without a word, Mingyu gets up onto his knees as tall as he can without getting up to reach out and grip the material to ease it over your shoulders and down your arms. 
“You’re beautiful,” He murmurs, hands bunching the wet material by your hips as he stops to take in all the exposed skin only a few feet from his face.
“So’re you,” You reply shyly. He smiles up at you then leans forward to press a featherlight kiss to your stomach. 
“This okay?” He asked in between kisses on your skin, each growing more daring than the last.
“Y-yeah,” You agree, feeling breathless already and nothing has happened yet. The tension is just so thick between you that it fills your lungs and takes up space usually reserved for oxygen. 
For a moment, you worry that if you’re this breathless already with just a couple of kisses to your stomach, you will not survive actually being fucked by this beautiful man. But then his lips are suddenly on the crease of your thigh, right at the edge of the rash guard and moving inwards and you can no longer worry about the future state of your lungs. 
Mingyu quickly tugs the rashguard off of you entirely and tosses it aside carelessly once you’ve stepped out of it, leaving you in just the skimpy little bikini that leaves very little to the imagination. “Fuck,” He breathes out, leaning back to take you in from head to toe then back again. “So fucking beautiful, baby.” 
“Mingyu,” Your voice is a soft little plea as you reach towards him, for what exactly, you’re not sure, you just want something and hope he gets the hint. He does and tilts forward to lean his cheek against your palm for a second, then plants a kiss there, tender despite the heavy moment.
“Lean back, baby,” He encourages, leading you by your hips to turn and take a step back until the edge of the desk is digging into the meat of your ass. 
You grip the desk edge on either side of you as he hitches one of your legs up onto his shoulder then leans as his free hand tugs aside the seat of your panties to allow him to get straight to work dragging his tongue up your pussy. 
The noise Mingyu lets out overpowers your own, he sounds like he’s tasted the fucking nectar of the gods or something equally as divine. Hearing him so immediately into eating your pussy only makes you more aroused and attracted to him in general. 
You have heard of men eating pussy like a man starved before but you had never experienced it until now. Mingyu truly gives it his all, holds you open and drags his tongue and lips over you with desperation and an intensity that has your legs shaking and a constant stream of moans spilling from your mouth almost in time with the grunts and needy moans vibrating through his lips against you.
“Gyu,” You breathe out, tangling the fingers of one hand in his hair and encouraging him to stay on your clit. He groans at the slight tug on his scalp and redoubles his efforts, sucking and licking at your clit hungrily. 
Your eyes are closed, entirely absorbed in the toe-curling sensations this man is giving you in spades, but when his hand touches yours on his head, you open your eyes to peer at him curiously. He’s looking at you, eyes so blown with arousal that you’re very certain you leak over his chin even more. 
Mingyu doesn’t stop suckling your clit between his lips in a steady pattern that has you so fucking close to a beautiful climax. It won’t be long until you fall over the edge into bliss. 
He removes your hand from his head and directs it between your thighs to make you curl your fingers around the seat of your bikini bottoms to hold them aside and away from his face. 
Then those same fingers that had just curled your own are prodding at your entrance. He hesitates though, staring up at you for permission until you rapidly nod and then he’s plunging two right into you, made easy from how fucking wet you are.
Just like that, an orgasm hits you so suddenly and powerfully that you don’t manage to do anything, no warning, no sound from your mouth as it rushes through your body, making your eyes roll back and back arch.
Mingyu feels you clamp down around his fingers and groans deeply as his own eyes threaten to roll back despite not being close to orgasm himself. Just knowing you’re cumming because of him, because of his mouth, on his fingers, it drives him insane and makes his cock throb.
Diligently, Mingyu works you through the pleasure pulsing through you, slowing down when your hips start to twitch and then reluctantly detaching his mouth from your clit when you nudge his head with a slightly shaky hand. 
Though he doesn’t go far and instead pushes your thigh a little further open to give his head more space to get next to his hand between your thighs and noisily slurp up every single drop that spills from your pussy. He even goes as far as to lick up the line that dribbled down his hand to his wrist.
“Gyu,” The call of his name makes him lift his head to look at you with wide eyes, looking so innocent despite his mouth and chin being soaked in your juices, all the way down to his throat. The sight and reminder of how hard he just made you cum has you unintentionally squeezing around the fingers still buried to the knuckles within you. 
He groans, tilting forward and opening his mouth ready to make you see stars all over again but you quickly put your hand to his head, palm to his forehead to hold him back. “Lemme eat your pussy, baby, prettiest pussy I’ve ever seen. Most delicious pussy ever. Could eat you forever. Let me. Please?” He’s got a slight slur to his words as he speaks, voice pitched higher than normal as he begs in a tone verging on a whine. 
“D-don’t you want to fuck me?” You ask, words a slight pant still, too soon from the intense orgasm to have your breath back but you don’t care. He can steal all the breath from your lungs so long as he makes you cum like that. 
“Fuck you?” He repeats dumbly. You nod and then it’s like a switch has been flipped. All of the innocent pussy-drunk expression and voice vanishes in an instant as his eyes turn heavy-lidded and his lips turn up into a smirk. “Yeah? Want me to fuck you, sweetheart?” His fingers in you start to move, making you jolt a little in surprise and reach down to try and remove them. “No no no, you gotta take my fingers first, baby. Need to show me you can take them before I give you my cock, okay? This is such a pretty pussy, I don’t want to ruin it by giving you my cock before you’re ready.” 
You can’t really say anything in response, both from his words and the way he’s skillfully moving those two fingers in you, slow but pressing in all the right ways to stretch you out and drag all ability to form anything but pathetic moans from your parted lips. 
“That’s it, good, just take it. You can take it for me, right, baby?” You nod quickly at his words. “Can you take another finger?” Another nod so he pulls his fingers out most of the way to work a third in beside them. “That’s my girl, fuck.” He breathes out, watching the way your pussy opens around his fingers as he carefully feeds the digits into you. 
It doesn’t take much longer for Mingyu to pull his fingers out of you and get up to his feet. You barely have time to react before he has your hips in his hands and spins you to face the window. The sun is right in your face like this, lessened in power by the window yet still an annoyance so you lean over all the way down onto your elbows and rest your forehead on your forearms.
“Oh,” Mingyu breathes out, watching you bend over the desk and stops his task of shoving down his swimming shorts to free his leaking cock. “Fucking perfect.” He approves and gives you a quick spank to watch your asscheek wobble with the impact. 
He hadn’t expected the moan that tumbles from your lips and pauses for a moment as he considers spanking you until your ass is raw and there are imprints of his hands left on your skin like a claim. 
But then his cock twitches desperately and he gets back to work shoving his shorts down enough and taking his thick, heavy cock into his hand to run his hand up and down the length, spreading precum over his heated skin while his free hand tugs your bikini bottoms aside.
A breathless curse spills from his lips when he aligns his cock with your dripping hole, he wants to bury himself to the hilt in your warmth right away but he’s very aware that frankly put, he has a giant cock, so he needs to take it slow to not hurt you.
As soon as the head pops into you, you’re moaning and trying to push back for more. Mingyu has to take a firm hold of your ass cheek and push you forward against the edge of the desk to stop you moving too fast. If you keep it up, he will fuck into you without hesitation and he’s already trembling with the effort of holding back.
Little does he know, you want him to fucking ruin you. You want him to fuck you so hard and deep that you can’t take a step for the next few days without thinking of his cock splitting you open.
But you don’t have the brain power to make your tongue move to form that specific string of syllables so you’re forced to just remain pinned to the desk as he feeds you inch by thick inch of his cock at an almost agonisingly slow pace.
But the time his hips are pressed up against your ass, he’s shaking with his eyes squeezed tightly closed and both hands gripping your hips so tightly you just know there will be bruises in the shape of his fingers afterwards. Bruises you’ll wear proudly. 
“Fuck, baby, this fucking pussy,” He groans as you pulsate around his throbbing length. 
He needs a moment, needs more than one really, with how fucking close he is already to filling you with his cum but you press back against him as best as you can considering his grip. It’s barely any movement but he gets the hint, you really don’t want him to wait anymore and fuck, neither does he.
Mingyu slowly pulls his hips back, sliding half of his length out of you before sliding back in in the same slow, careful manner. He’s testing the waters, the give of your pussy and his own resolve, really. And all three give so fucking easily that the next time he pulls out, it's all the way until only his tip is tucked up safely inside of you before he thrusts forward harshly making you cry out and scramble to brace a palm against the window above your head blindly. 
“That’s it, hold on, baby,” He encourages with a heavy exhale as he adjusts his footing and hold on you before he starts to fuck you like a man possessed. 
It’s hard and fast and so fucking deep that he’s hitting places within you that you didn’t even fucking know exist before his cock found them. Or maybe they’re special places his cock is carving out and no one will ever be able to access them again. No one will make your mind blank and eyes roll back so far that all you see is the mental image of Mingyu’s giant cock wrecking your pussy in the best of ways.
You’re being loud, both of you, moaning and whining with every drag of his cock through your rapidly tightening walls. But neither of you cares, neither of you has the presence of mind to consider anything but the way it feels to fuck and be fucked like this. 
At this point, you’re so close to another incredible orgasm that you wouldn’t even care if the door opened, you probably wouldn’t even notice and honestly, neither would Mingyu. 
And when Mingyu tilts forward enough to wind a strong arm under your waist to press his palm against the flat of your chest to pull you up until your back is against his bare, sweat-dappled chest, you almost scream in pleasure at the new somehow deeper spot he’s grinding into.
There’s a little part of Mingyu that’s still aware that you’re in public and his place of work even if he’s not consciously aware of it, and that part of him is the reason his hand flies up from your chest to your throat and squeezes in the exact fucking way to cut off your airflow.
It’s the last nudge you need to hurtle into the single most mind-shattering, nirvana-inducing orgasm of your fucking life. At least so far because once you’re more coherent, you’ll definitely think about how much you want him to fuck you again in all sorts of ways.
A choked, cut off moan spills from Mingyu’s mouth as you clamp down around his cock so tightly as your pussy absolutely gushes around him that it sends him over too. His hand on your hip quickly moves, sliding around over your lower stomach to wrap his arm around your waist and hold you tight as he ruts into you and fills you with his cum. 
It feels fucking endless, the length of your orgasm and how much it takes out of you even though it truly doesn’t last that long. It’s just an all-encompassing feeling that feels like utter bliss, a neverending pulse of pleasure, pure fucking serenity.
“You okay?” Mingyu manages to breathe out once his cock has stopped twitching as your throbbing walls milk him for every drop of cum in his body. His chest is heaving against your back, matching the deep rise and fall of your own chest, even if he had released the pressure on your throat as soon as his cock had started to empty in you. 
You can’t respond yet, you’re not quite back on planet Earth making Mingyu chuckle a little, fond of you already, and cocky at his own abilities to fuck you so dumb like this. 
Carefully, he draws his hips back to slide out of you with a wince and hears the splatter of cum hitting the wooden boards. But that’s a problem for after he’s looked after you.
Mingyu is so fucking gentle as he grabs the towel from the desk and uses it to clean between your thighs as best as he can without removing his arm from around you to keep you propped up. 
Then he manoeuvres you onto the wooden chair on your right before getting to his knees to spread your legs wide once he’s between them with his knees pressed to the floorboards. For a few seconds, he just stares dumbly at the sight of his cum leaking out of your swollen pussy and he almost leans in to clean you up with his mouth but you’re already so out of it that he figures he better not. He’ll save that for next time. 
Fuck, he really fucking hopes there’s a next time.
You come back to reality when Mingyu is doing his best to slide your shorts back up your legs. 
“Hey, beautiful,” He greets you when he notices you moving slightly and looks up to see you blinking down at him. “How you feeling?” 
“Like I had the life fucked out of me.” You reply, giving him a sated, borderline dopey smile that makes him laugh. You reach out to him and he happily leans up to let you run your hands over his shoulders and to his neck so that you can tug him in and kiss him. 
He sighs in contentment as your lips move together slowly like you have all the time in the world. Like there’s nothing that either of you would rather be doing than this right here. 
“Should’ve kissed you earlier,” He murmurs when you both naturally pull apart for air and he rests his forehead against yours. “Sorry, got carried away.” 
“There’s no need to apologise, seriously, that was…” You trail off and just giggle instead, fingers playing with his hair near his nape. 
“It was.” He agrees with a chuckle and leans back to look at you. “Could we maybe do that again?” 
“Now?” You baulk.
“No, not now.” He giggles. “I really can’t do that again now, I think I’ll pass out if I try to do anything like that now.” He assures, squeezing your thighs a little where his hands lay. “But another day in the future, when we’ve both recovered.” 
“That sounds much more reasonable to me.” 
“Reasonable, huh?” He teases and nips at your cheek playfully making you giggle. “And what about a date? Does that sound reasonable to you?” 
“No.” Mingyu’s face drops so fast as he looks at you. He looks pretty heartbroken, honestly. “I didn’t mean no as in no to the date!” You rush to assure, cupping his cheeks and brushing your thumbs soothingly over his skin. 
He pouts and pushes into your hold. “Then what do you mean?” 
“Just that it doesn’t sound reasonable but very nice and something I would definitely love to do.” 
“Oh.” He turns into your palm to try and hide the cute happy little smile that lifts his mouth and exposes his teeth, but you feel it. He presses a kiss to your palm before facing you again, no longer hiding his smile. “Good, good, I’m glad you’d love to. I’d love to as well. Maybe after my shift ends we can get lunch? Well, we’d have to take Vernon too and I guess your friend but they can entertain each other at another table.” 
You giggle and nod in agreement. “Sounds perfect to me.” 
Tumblr media
Don’t forget to reblog if you liked to help spread the story and let others read it too! And don't be shy to leave comments or send an ask so I can see your thoughts 🥺 💖
Taglist; @variety-is-the-joy-of-life
1K notes · View notes
crystallinestars · 10 months
Text
How They React to Your Death
My HCs about how I think the Genshin boys would react to your death. I wanted to write Kaeya too, but ran out of steam.
This month has been terrible to me, so I was in the mood for angst. I don't know how well these turned out, but they were fun to think about.
Part 2 here.
Characters: Alhaitham, Childe, Heizou, Kaveh, Lyney, Neuvillette, Venti, Wanderer/Scaramouche, and Wriothesley
WARNING:
Reader has death descriptions. Some are more graphic than others, but I don't get into the nitty gritty details.
Spoilers for the backstories of all the mentioned boys.
MAJOR SPOILERS for Act V of the Fontaine Archon quest in Neuvillette's part.
Childe's part contains mention of suicidal thoughts.
Kaveh's and Venti's parts contain alcoholism
🎧 Alhaitham
Despite Alhaitham’s considerable wealth, no amount of money could cure your Eleazar sickness. His money could only buy treatment that prolonged your life a little bit, but ultimately your many years of battling the illness ended when he got news from the doctors that you had passed away in your sleep.
Alhaitham had accepted the news fairly quickly. He knew your death was inevitable, could see you slowly wasting away each time he visited you in the hospital over the past few months. So it was no surprise to him when the day finally came. The other patients and staff thought it strange how Alhaitham had no visible reaction to the news, but some chalked it up to shock when in truth the Scribe was simply accepting of that fact. There was no use denying something that already happened.
When Alhaitham came home that day, the house felt silent and empty. It reminded him of how the house felt when his grandmother passed away when he was younger. The sensations were similar. However, he did not cry over your death. Instead, he carried on his life as normal, or as close to it as he could now that you were no longer a part of what he considered ‘normal’.
At first glance, people thought that Haitham was unaffected by your death. Nothing about him changed. Not his mannerisms, his quality of work, or his expression. He remained the same reserved, stoic Scribe who had no time for trivial nonsense or extra work. He also never talked about you to others aside from confirming their question if you were truly gone. Alhaitham was like a well-oiled machine that worked efficiently like clockwork, keeping up the same even rhythm.
What they don’t see is how he comes home with the expectation of hearing your voice greet him upon entering, only to be faced with a defeating silence that makes his heart sink. They don’t know that Alhaitham wakes up throughout the night, expecting to find you snuggled up next to him in bed the way you used to before your sickness got worse, and you had to be hospitalized. However, you weren’t there no matter how many times he looked towards your side of the bed, and the Scribe could only sigh and try to fall back asleep while ignoring his aching heart.
No one sees how Alhaitham gets too lost in his books in the mornings and accidentally makes two cups of coffee instead of one due to force of habit. Or how, for once, he finds the silence of his house bothersome without your voice and the sounds of your activities resounding within the walls, and it’s enough to distract him from reading. He could be found reading at the House of Daena and Puspa Café more often from then on.
During his afternoon naps, Alhaitham sneaks back home and cradles your favorite blanket to mimic the sensation of holding your soft body in his arms the way he used to when you joined him for naps. He listens to recordings of you talking with him just so he can hear your voice again. He was glad he made the decision to record your voice at the hospital before you became too weak to speak. It gave him the chance to hear you one more time even if the sound of your voice made his chest hurt so much that he occasionally had to stop the recording to collect himself.
Nobody sees how Alhaitham finally picks up the fiction books you recommended him because they were your favorite. He prefers non-fiction, but these books are the last things he has left through which he could connect to your mind and way of thinking. He reads them all cover-to-cover even if he finds the story lacking or the writing not to his taste. He will learn to treasure each and every word because you once did.
What someone might see, as Kaveh did when he moved in with the Scribe, is a bookshelf filled with a few journals, a thick book with an emerald cover, and an assortment of fiction books that exist nowhere else in the house. Alhaitham never talks about these books unless asked, but their well-worn covers are a sign of frequent use, and sure enough, one can catch him reading a rare fiction book during one specific month each year.
🐋 Childe
You went missing after going out to collect some firewood in the woods near Childe’s home. A search party was arranged to find you with Childe in the lead, and he was also the first one to find your remains. Your body had been torn apart, blood and innards splattered across the snow, no doubt the work of some rifthounds. Usually, Childe would relish in such a gory sight, but not this time. Not when it’s your blood and flesh painted in the snow.
The sight leaves him numb. He’s numb when the search party comes to retrieve you, numb when he sees your parents weeping over your gruesome death, and numb when he takes on the duty of exterminating every rifthound he finds around Morepesok.
He wants to cry too, to grieve for you the way he needs, but refrains. He doesn’t want to appear weak and unreliable when his younger siblings mourn and cry over your death. You were like family to them, and your death broke their little hearts to pieces. Childe didn’t want to burden his siblings further by breaking down in front of them. He needed to remain a reliable older brother who could support them through this tough time, even when his own heart bled and he cried in his sleep when he dreamed about you.
Childe’s underlings noted that the Eleventh Harbinger became colder and more irritable after your passing. Any mention of your name would garner the speaker a harsh glare, and if Childe assumed what said person said about you was disrespectful, he didn’t hesitate to start a fight and beat the other person within an inch of their life. He became violent and unhinged, much like how he used to be when he returned from the Abyss as a fourteen-year-old boy.
Childe knew his behavior was irrational, and it pained him to see even his own family fear him due to his violent actions. He felt restless. Spending time at home among your belongings summoned feelings of longing and sadness, but even so, he couldn’t bear to throw anything away. He lived among the ghosts of your existence, however, it drove him mad with grief.
Childe needed an outlet for his emotions, so he took to fighting monsters and other strong opponents. He became even more reckless in battle. If before, the Harbinger sought out strong enemies to test his mettle against them and grow stronger as a result, now he sought out an opponent that would be worthy of taking his life.
Childe didn’t want to abandon his family. He loved them dearly and wanted to see his siblings grow up to be happy and successful people, but life without you felt so hollow. A part of him wanted to return to his family, but the sense of his family feeling incomplete never left him. You were just as much of a family to him as his siblings and parents were. He had plans to start his own family with you. But now… now, a part of him yearns to reunite with you in the afterlife. He promised he would stay by your side no matter what, and Ajax is not one to break his promises.
🔍 Heizou
Heizou was one of the first to hear about your stabbing that occurred in an Inazuman alleyway late that evening. You were rushed to a doctor to have your wound treated, but the robber who attacked you hit a vital area. Your blood loss was colossal, and it wasn’t long after arriving at the doctor’s that you succumbed to your injury.
To Heizou, the news brought on a sense of deja vu. He’s already lost a friend to crime in the past, and now he lost you to crime, too. The knowledge made him furious and heartbroken. He was angry at the robber for stabbing you just so he could steal some money that you didn’t want to part with, and he was angry at himself for failing to prevent this. After his friend passed away, Heizou swore to nip crime in the bud by discouraging criminals from committing crimes with the threat that he would find and capture them no matter what without fail. But what good did his resolve do if you still died because of an armed robber?
The heartache and guilt he felt ate away at him as the memory of your ashen face during your last few moments haunted him. He lost you. Never again would he get to spend time with you and make you laugh, kiss and hug you, or tell you he loved you.
His anger drove him to capture the murderer in record time, but hearing the criminal’s subsequent sentence for theft and murder didn’t comfort the detective. No amount of jail time would ever atone for the loss of your life.
After that day, Heizou lost his playful demeanor, becoming somber and reserved. He threw himself into his work, feeling pressured to capture as many criminals as he could in as little time as possible. However, his grief and exhaustion caused his mind to dull and make mistakes while investigating clues. It got to the point where Kujou Sara had to forcibly send him on vacation so he could take a break and properly process your death.
Despite his protests, Heizou knew he wasn’t much use in his current state, so he took this free time to visit your family and mourn together with them. He apologized for not doing a better job of protecting you, fully expecting your parents to lay blame on him for not protecting their child. To his surprise, your parents didn’t blame him at all. They even thanked him for catching the murderer and helping them to feel a little more at peace. Heizou’s interaction with your family helped him feel a tiny bit less guilty about your death.
The experience left him feeling a little less broken, so in the following days he sorted through your belongings in your shared home. He packed away some items to return to your parents, some things he put in storage, and others he gave away that he remembered you wanting to get rid of. A few of your items he kept for himself, one of which was a scarf you mentioned you bought because it was the same shade of green as his eyes which reminded you of him.
Heizou wore your scarf as a keepsake and good luck charm and would hardly be seen without it when he finally came back to work. What once served as your reminder of him, now served as his reminder of you, the person he loved with his whole being. But with the memories of you came the reminder of how you died. Though the memory was painful, it helped Heizou work up the will to keep pursuing his goal of eradicating crime. Even when the case was extremely tough with conflicting clues, your scarf would remind him to not give up, to not let another incident like yours happen again, and Heizou would persevere. He would continue to persevere no matter how long it took because he didn’t want innocent lives like yours to be snatched away so cruelly. Maybe one day, he will see you in the afterlife and proudly tell you all about how he achieved his dream. Until then, he will work hard to be worthy of the title of Inazuma’s best detective.
🍷 Kaveh
Kaveh had a lot of work to do. He was saddled with creating drafts for another large project while also trying to work on the commission for constructing a library in Aaru village for the children. Wanting to help alleviate his burden, you offered to take the finished drafts over to Aaru village yourself so he could focus on finishing up work for his other project. Kaveh tried to object, saying you really didn’t need to trouble yourself on his behalf, but you insisted, expressing your desire to help him finish his work sooner so the two of you could spend more time together again. After some deliberation, he let you go to the village by yourself, confident that you could make the trip since you accompanied him there several times before.
A few days later, Kaveh received news that you had died on your return trip from the desert. When he heard the cause of your death, his stomach roiled. You perished in quicksand just like his father. You died doing something for his sake, just like his father did.
Whatever future plans he was building together with you, whatever progress you made in helping him slowly heal from his trauma, it all came crashing down around him. Your death reopened old wounds Kaveh was only starting to heal from, as well as left new scars that tormented him every waking moment.
The first few weeks, Kaveh couldn’t stand to be in your shared home. It was full of memories of you, and each and every one of your belongings would stab at his heart like a blade. Moreover, the house felt so silent without you around. It reminded him of when his mother left for Fontaine, leaving him alone in a house too big for only him to live in. Now, he was reliving that moment all over again, but it was worse this time because, unlike his mother, he would never see you again.
Kaveh also couldn’t stand to look inside his sketchbooks. The pages were covered in various sketches of you, and looking at them only made the anguish and guilt grow in him tenfold. He blamed himself for your death, attributing it to being his fault just like he attributes his father’s death as his fault too. No matter what anyone says to console him, he will never stop believing it’s all his fault.
Fueled by guilt and self-loathing, Kaveh spent several weeks visiting Lambad’s tavern practically every day. One could even say he lived there since the architect seldom went home. He used what little money he had to buy alcohol, especially of the stronger kind. He wanted to numb the pain in his heart and to pretend that you weren’t really gone from this world. The alcohol helped to muddle his mind until his intoxicated brain conjured happy memories of you together, and Kaveh would mumble your name in a drunken haze. Other times it didn’t help, and Alhaitham, Cyno, or Tighnari could often find a drunk Kaveh quietly crying while slumped over a table and trying their best to drag him home while listening to his drunken babble of self-loathing and regret.
It will take a long time for Kaveh to feel okay again, and even then, he will never be the same optimistic and cheerful person he used to be. You were his muse, the one who made him feel like maybe he was deserving of love after all. But with you gone, he lost his creative spark. His designs no longer held the same extravagant and artistic flair they used to. Now, they’re more tame by comparison. With your passing, you took with you the little bit of joy he felt towards the world, and it seemed more bleak than it used to be when he was with you.
Kaveh refused to seek out love after your death. He’s lost too many people he held dear and has been left alone over and over again. The pain of being left behind and of feeling like he will only bring misfortune to those he cares about, made him seal off his heart. He doesn’t want to let people close to him like that again, and neither does he want to replace you. You were, and still are, very special to him.
Despite numerous years going by after your passing, Kaveh never forgot you, and he didn’t want your memory to be forgotten either. He built an art school and dedicated it to you in honor of being the one who inspired him so much in his creative endeavors. He hopes that your name will live on and continue to inspire future generations of artists long after he is gone from the world.
🎩 Lyney Having grown up in the House of the Hearth with Lyney and Lynette, the twins were practically like family to you. Though admittedly, Lyney and you developed romantic ties rather than familial ones the more you got to know each other. It was no surprise to anyone when the two of you became a couple, and Lynette even encouraged it.
Being a member of the Fatui, you were often sent out on dangerous missions to infiltrate enemy territory and report your findings back to Arlecchino. You were good at your job and had major successfully completed missions under your belt, but even the best slip up sometimes. After infiltrating enemy headquarters, you regularly reported your findings back to the House, however, one day the correspondence stopped. You went completely silent. The thought of you being caught immediately crossed Lyney’s mind, but he was hopeful that as an experienced agent, you would manage to find a way out somehow. You always have in the past, and after having worked together with you during joint missions, he saw first-hand how capable you were. To pass the time, he focused on polishing a magic trick he wanted to show you upon your return.
Days go by, and just as the magician is about to lose his patience and run off to try and find you, news about your body washing up on a riverbank reaches his ears. The heartbreak Lyney experiences upon hearing the news is indescribable. He felt lost, disoriented, and anguished. A part of him refused to believe the facts, but after witnessing the gruesome sight of your corpse, he had no choice but to face reality.
You were dead.
Lyney wondered at length about the cause of your death, and while his own guesses made his stomach knot, the autopsy report he read a few days later made him livid. Numerous torture and abuse marks were found on your body. It seemed that the enemy had captured and tortured you, hoping to force you to spill some of the Fatui’s secrets. Judging by the severity of the most recent wounds, you must have kept quiet because more brutal torture methods were used on you until the enemy figured out they wouldn’t get anything out of you, and disposed of you. Lyney knew how loyal you were to your family. You would never betray them even at the cost of your own life, but in that moment, he really wished you would have treasured your life more. Maybe then you could have survived. Maybe then he would have had the chance to hold you in his arms and tell you he missed you while you were gone. Maybe he would have had an opportunity to show off the magic trick he created specifically for your eyes only. But now, he’ll continue to miss you until the day death comes for him too. Lyney’s initial reaction upon hearing of your torture is overwhelming fury. Lynette had to hold him back from recklessly running off to take revenge against the enemy. It took a lot of reasoning on her part, but eventually, her brother calmed down.
Once his bout of anger passed, Lyney broke down. Lynette didn’t hide her own tears as she held her brother in her arms while he cried. The siblings both missed you dearly and mourned your loss, but Lyney took your death especially hard. He felt broken. One of his most precious people was taken from him in such a cruel manner, and the mere thought of how you must have spent your last few waking hours made him feel horrible.
He was anguished and angry, and the potent concoction of negative emotions weighed down on his heart and mind. Gone was his cheerful smile and outgoing attitude, replaced with a cold and somber frown. His calculative side took center stage. Though his initial burst of outrage passed, he wouldn’t give up on his desire for revenge until the act had been carried out. Aside from the twins, Arlecchino also refused to take your death lying down. You were her precious child, someone she put in a lot of love and effort to raise, and this transgression angered her as much as it angered Lyney. Together with Arlecchino, Lyney and Lynette infiltrate enemy headquarters and make every person a part of that organization pay. The magician ensures that the perpetrators experience the same pain you went through during your torture, and by the time they’re done, not a soul is left alive.
Even after exacting revenge, Lyney barely feels a smidge better. Though your captors have been neutralized and won’t hurt anyone the way they hurt you ever again, it doesn’t satisfy Lyney. At the end of the day, all he wants is to have you back in his life. He consoles himself with pieces of your clothing. Your clothes smelled like you, and Lyney hugged one of your items every night, breathing in your scent and soaking the material with his tears as he quietly cried. It takes a long time for Lyney to get himself together and act like himself again. Though he could easily put on a fake smile for his audience, his heart still aches inside. He misses you no matter how many months go by, and Lynette has her hands full comforting him when he breaks down at night and cries about how much he wants to see you. Lyney would have had an easier time accepting your death if you had passed away more peacefully, but knowing you were tortured to death will forever haunt him.
Once he feels more like himself, Lyney incorporates the magic trick he originally wanted to show you upon your return into his magic shows. He only performs it during special occasions so it would leave a great spectacle upon his audience. It was once made to awe you, but now it awes his audience, and a part of him feels some semblance of catharsis in knowing he could inspire others to feel the same joy you made him feel using just this trick. At times like these, Lyney feels as if a part of you was still there with him, enjoying the show he secretly dedicates in your honor.
⚖️ Neuvillette
You were visiting your friend Navia in Poisson, when the Primordial Sea flooded the area and caused a great catastrophe that took the lives of many of its residents. Neuvillette was aware you were in Poisson when the disaster struck, and he tried to get there as quickly as he could to check on you. He would have arrived there immediately were it not for the pressing matters he had to settle prior. He hoped the Traveler and Paimon would find you and keep you safe since they knew you were the Iudex’s beloved.
When he finally made it to Poisson, to his morbid surprise, he found neither you nor Navia, but some Fatui members helping to mitigate the damage. When he asked about your whereabouts, he was told that nobody had seen you. Immediately, his thoughts ventured to the worst scenario, but he refused to believe in his fears until he could get confirmation. He held out hope that you were alright, and went in pursuit of Navia and the Traveler, hoping that maybe you were with them, or they knew what happened to you.
It wasn’t until he was saving Navia from getting dissolved in the Primordial Sea water, did he catch a glimpse of your face. You were trying to protect Navia from certain death, along with Silver and Meluse. At the time he was too anxious about saving Navia to fully register the implication, but an unsettling thought sprang in his mind that maybe you really were— No, he didn’t want to accept it.
When Navia regained consciousness, Neuvillette asked her about your whereabouts. Her answer pierced through him like an ice-cold lance. With tears in her eyes, Navia recounted how you were helping Silver and Meluse rescue the residents of Poisson when the Primordial Sea flooded in, and how she saw your body dissolve in the water along with her loyal subordinates with her own eyes. The news settled in Neuvillette’s stomach like a boulder, causing it to sink and make him feel nauseous. Dread filled him, but he could only muster a quiet “I see…” and stare off into the distance. He felt crushing sadness, but he wasn’t given time to properly process his emotions and your death until he managed to make it out of the ruins.
That evening, Fontaine was hit by a torrential downpour that lasted several days. The rain fell in heavy sheets, flooding the streets and urging most of the citizens to seek shelter in their homes. Only the Chief Justice had the gall to stand outside and let the rain seep and soak through his clothes.
Neuvillette let the water droplets cascade down his face, imitating the tears he wished to shed as the realization that he would never see you again settled in. It was strange. Though he was on land, each waking moment he was pursued by a constant feeling of drowning. His chest felt heavy as if burdened by a great weight that made each breath he took feel like a herculean task.
Neuvillette felt a lot of emotions he couldn’t find the words for. He was frustrated and angry that innocent civilians had died in the flood because nothing was done to prevent it. So many people died. You died. If nothing else, he wanted to get justice for your and the others’ deaths.
However, Furina refused to provide answers to his questions despite his probing and insistence that now was not the time to keep secrets that could potentially help prevent an even greater catastrophe. That was when he turned to seeking aid from his companions, in the hopes that Fontaine could still be saved. Neuvillette lost and gained many things in those few days. The citizens of Fontaine were freed of their curse, and Neuvillette had obtained a position of complete authority, however, it all came at the cost of the lives of innocent civilians, Focalors’s life, Furina’s mental state, and… your life. Those were great prices to pay, and Neuvillette mourned each and every sacrifice.
Now that he had some time to himself to process his feelings, Neuvillette recognized that what he felt was grief and longing. He wanted to see you at least one more time, to feel you in his arms again. To have you taken from him so suddenly was too painful. He never got to tell you one last ‘I love you’, and he could only hope that his words reach you wherever your consciousness might be now. Fontaine will see frequent rainfall in the coming months. It won’t be easy for Neuvillette to get over your death, and some part of him will always ache and yearn to see you again. But one thing he can do is strengthen his resolve to make Fontaine into a nation that both you and Focalors would be proud of. A nation where tragedies like these will never happen again.
🍃 Venti
Venti liked to climb up on high places like his statue in front of the Favonius church, the rooftop of the Cat’s Tail, or the great tree at Windrise. Today, you found him high up in the tree, absentmindedly strumming a new tune on his lyre. Wanting to surprise the bard, you tried your best to climb the tree as quietly as you could, but right as you were about to pop up and surprise him, the branch you were on snapped, and with a heart-stopping shriek, you plummeted down to the ground.
Your scream alerted Venti. He felt your presence before you even started climbing the tree, but he failed to foresee the danger until it was too late. He didn’t react fast enough to summon a gust of wind to safely lower you down. The sickening crunch of your skull hitting the ground made his stomach roil, and for a brief moment he felt as if the blood in his veins turned to ice. He felt frozen in place.
Snapping out of his momentary stupor, Venti rushed to your side to check on you, but the enormous pool of blood blooming around your lifeless body made him throw up.
Not again. He lost someone he loved once more. The painful emotions of losing you triggered a cascade of memories of seeing the broken body of that one boy he called a friend thousands of years ago. The same boy whose face he now wore as a way of honoring his memory and giving him an opportunity to live out his dreams of freedom through Venti.
Venti felt that same feeling of heavy emptiness once again as he cradled your lifeless body in his arms, your blood smearing the white sleeves of his shirt. One of the bard’s hands cradled your still-warm cheek, and he wept. To have you taken away so easily through such a small accident… it was too much.
Venti didn’t attend your funeral. He couldn’t bear to. However, he forced himself to watch from a distance as your loved ones gathered around your grave. He fully empathized with their grief.
In the following days, one could often find Venti at a tavern. He started with Angel’s Share, but after consecutive days of heavy drinking and drunken ramblings about how remorseful he felt and how you deserved better, Diluc put a stop to Venti’s visits. The Anemo Archon wasn’t getting any better from drinking himself into a stupor until he could barely hold himself upright. It was heartbreaking to see.
Even after being banned from the Angel’s Share, Venti would visit other taverns in the city and rinse and repeat. He so badly wanted to numb the pain in his heart and forget the awful memory of your lifeless body. Only after several bans did Venti finally stop coming to the city altogether. He disappeared for a while, and nobody was able to find him. Only after many weeks did the bard suddenly pop up in the town square with his lyre in hand.
During his absence, Venti wrote a few songs as a way to cope with his grief, and after a while, finally felt well enough to play them. As a bard, he was well-known in Mondstadt for playing cheerful and beautiful tunes, but this time his melodies were melancholic, even sad. They listened to him sing about a love he can no longer say ‘I love you’ to anymore, someone he can no longer forge new memories with and can only carry on in his heart as a memory. The music he played captured the attention of every member of the audience and touched their hearts so deeply that they, too, could feel the sorrow the bard was trying to convey through his melodies. His pain became their pain, too. The heartache was so profound, so raw and crippling, that many people couldn’t hold back from crying.
Venti wasn’t playing the songs to earn money or share his sadness with others. He was playing them for you. He hoped that his feelings would reach you wherever you were and that your memory wouldn’t fade away even if he remained the last person alive who knew of your existence. His songs will keep your memory alive in the hearts of the Mondstadt citizens, never to be forgotten.
☂️ Wanderer
You have been fighting chronic sickness for months, but despite the treatments, each week you seemed to get worse and worse. Neither the doctors of Sumeru nor even Nahida herself could figure out a cure for your condition. You were bedridden with barely any strength to move. Wanderer took responsibility for nursing you back to health by helping you get to places you needed, cooking all your meals and feeding you, as well as getting your medicine and administering it.
Despite his efforts, you could tell you wouldn’t last long. While you still had the strength to talk, you apologized to him for being forced to part from him.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he scoffed, with a frown pulling at his lips. “Rather than talk about such nonsense, use that energy to get better instead.”
He didn’t want to face the facts, to accept the reality that you could disappear from his life. But then came a day where you no longer opened your eyes when he called your name, nor stirred when he tried to shake you awake. Your body was cold and stiff and so unlike what he was used to seeing you as. The life you possessed was gone in all senses of the word.
Something in Wanderer snapped that day. Falling to his knees, he let out a guttural scream that tore at his vocal cords. He unleashed a wail that carried all the anguish and misery he’d been keeping bottled up inside for hundreds of years. He’s lost so many people he cared for in the past. Each time he met someone he grew attached to, fate would always tear them away from him, and you were no exception.
He cried bitter tears in the privacy of your shared home, cursing Fate for doing this to him over and over again. He was angry and heartbroken. Though he lacked a real heart, the sensation in his chest felt like something inside him broke into a million tiny fragments. As if sharp needles pierced through his non-existent heart and caused him to scream until he lost his voice.
He wanted revenge, but how can one get vengeance against Fate itself?
You were gone, so cruelly torn away from his side despite his best efforts to keep you alive. You were the little ray of light that never gave up on him no matter how cold he was towards you or how much he pushed you away, and helped him heal little by little. You accepted him in his entirety and wormed your way into his non-existent heart, so how dare Fate mock him like this? Wanderer truly felt as if Fate was purposely torturing him by taking away all those whom he held dear.
Helpless and anguished, Wanderer reverted to the days when he used to be Scaramouche, the sixth of the Fatui Harbingers who was infamous for his callousness and mercilessness. His roiling emotions spurred him to repeat these spiteful acts against anyone who got in his way. It was the only way he knew of how to vent these overwhelming emotions that made him feel like he was choking on his grief.
It took Nahida’s interference to calm him down and get through to him that you wouldn’t want him to be like this. The Wanderer you fell in love with wasn’t such a hateful person driven by negative emotions, and though he was loathe to admit it, the God of Wisdom was right.
Having quelled the initial burst of wounded anger, Wanderer would think more clearly about what he should do from now on. He could keep all your items, photographs, and letters, but they would never replace you, only help preserve some of the memories attached to them, which a puppet like him had no need for. He won’t forget even the smallest thing about you, not as long as he’s alive.
Wanderer becomes a regular visitor of your grave, taking care of it so your name won’t be erased from the gravestone by time too quickly. He would frequently bring your favorite foods and flowers and place them in front of your grave, before taking a seat next to it and staring off into the distance without saying a word. He did this mostly at night so he could stargaze, just like how you both used to when you were alive.
Even centuries later, when everyone who knew you took their memories of you to their graves, Wanderer will remain to watch over your final resting place, unwavering in his devotion.
🐺 Wriothesley
You accompanied Wriothesley on another one of his swims out in the open waters surrounding the Fortress. Since you weren’t a vision holder, you had to wear a diving suit to breathe, unlike your beloved Duke. You’ve had these private little swim dates a few times before, so your guard was down when you swam through some jagged areas of the Fortress’s scaffolding. The shoulder of your diving suit caught on a sharp edge of metal and tore a hole in it. The tear was fairly large, and you panicked when you felt water rush inside your suit. Wriothesley was quick to freeze the hole and pull you up to the surface to get the suit off of you, but by the time he did, it was too late. You had inhaled too much water and were unresponsive. Wriothesley tried to keep his anxiety at bay and utilized all the CPR knowledge he learned from Sigewinne to try and save your life. He breathed air into your lungs and did chest compressions with enough force to hear your ribs crack, but even after 30 agonizing minutes of trying, you wouldn’t wake up.
Wriothesley had no choice but to accept the fact you died. Wriothesley doesn’t cry for you. He’s no stranger to death. His exposure to it in his younger years made him all too aware of how easy it is to die, and that death came for all without exception. As a result, he was able to accept your death a little easier than most, but it doesn’t mean he made peace with it. The staff and inmates at the Fortress all said Wriothesley looked the same as usual even after your death. He kept up his laidback yet intimidating demeanor and busied himself with the variety of work someone in his position was required to take care of. Only Sigewinne could tell that Wriothesley was not alright despite all the strained smiles he gave everyone. The bags under his eyes grew more prominent by the day, a clear indicator he wasn’t sleeping well. She saw how he threw himself into his work, barely taking any time to rest properly, as if wanting to keep his mind busy from the horrible memory of seeing your corpse. Though he tried to mask it, in truth, your death affected Wriothesley deeply. He had frequent nightmares about watching you drown and being unable to save you, and they would keep him up at night. He usually awoke in a cold sweat, his heart pounding from intense panic and dread until his mind cleared, only to be replaced with a stone-cold reality that made the feelings of guilt come rushing back. Out of habit, he turns to your side of the bed to seek comfort in your presence but seeing it cold and empty served as yet another harsh reminder that you were gone. Wriothesley can’t sleep after his nightmares, so he opts to work out or fuss over his gauntlets to distract himself from his feelings. It takes all his self-control to keep a lid on his emotions and not become the angry, irritable mess he knows he will be if he’s not careful.
When he makes tea, Wriothesley accidentally makes two cups out of habit. One for you and one for him. Even weeks after your passing, it was still a difficult habit to break. For the first while, Wriothesley would even stop drinking your favorite tea blend because it reminded him of you. Rather than enjoy the flavor, all he tastes is bile in his throat. The flavor of your favorite tea makes him nauseous because it makes him think about how you will never taste this again or have another tea date in his office.
There was one occasion when he tried to drink your tea shortly after your death. He thought maybe the flavor would remind him of the happy times he shared with you, but all it resulted in was a broken teacup from the force of his grip, and Sigewinne fussing over his cuts and burns. He didn’t drink your favorite blend for a long time after that, only being able to find enjoyment in it again many years later when the startlingly clear memory of your death didn’t hurt him as much. Wriothesley felt lonely without you. You were the friend and confidant he told his deepest and darkest secrets about his past, the comfort he sought after a difficult day, and the soothing presence that made him feel accepted for who he was without all the embellished titles. But after your passing, the Fortress of Meropide seemed cold and gloomy, as if devoid of the warmth it once had that made him call it home. It was as if your death snuffed out the little ray of warm sunshine he felt when spending time with you.
4K notes · View notes
aroaessidhe · 4 months
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media
2024 reads / storygraph
A Dark and Drowning Tide
gothic fantasy romance
a folklorist is chosen as the co-leader of an expedition to find a fabled magical spring for the king, along with 6 nobles
when her mentor, the other leader, is found dead on their boat in the middle of the night, she has to figure out who did it; while continuing the mission through the wilderness and navigating the potential political fallout
and the only one she can probably trust is her academic rival, a naturalist, who she hates
dark folktales & creatures
Jewish lesbian MC
arc from netgalley! out sep 17
putting both covers here because they’re both so beautiful!! (artists: Audrey Benjaminsen, & Erica Williams)
#A Dark and Drowning Tide#aroaessidhe 2024 reads#I really loved this! so atmospheric and full of things I like. Love the characters and folklore and the creatures…..#I think it was well balanced between the plot worldbuilding and romance -#though if you’re not into any of the elements it might all fall flat for you. but I love all these things. so I had a good time.#I did feel like some parts of the narrative/character relationships went a bit fast and I wanted a little more detail in between?#Plus the ending wrapped up easier than I expected. I wanted to get to know the side characters a bit more#and a bit more of the backstory/leadup (how they all knew each other; sylvia’s time in the war??)#I also couldn’t stop thinking about how taxing the environments they’re in would be on their bodies/gear..aghjs you mght have seen my post#I was getting distracted from the plot thinking about it. Not to say that it mentioned at all and I’m aware too much would have taken#away from the story. Lets take it as an indication of just how lush and atmospheric the writing was. I was having flashbacks.#I put the book down three separate times to draft three separate fanarts.#but listen. you stick two lesbians in a forest/mountain/cave and put a couple Creatures in there too and I will eat that up#one thing I did note is that I don't recall any non-white characters? I may have missed a description.#I try to take notice if a book has an entirely white cast bc like....does it need to#sapphic books
23 notes · View notes
meiieiri · 6 months
Text
𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐨 𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐩 [toji fushiguro]
Tumblr media
synopsis: toji will never forget the first night he spent away from the zenin clan and the day he met you.
pairing: toji fushiguro x f!reader | song inspo: saw you in a dream, timeless | hidden inventory: the lost tapes series masterlist
warnings: mentions of emotional abuse but generally pretty much a fluff fic where toji and y/n meet for the first time. | a/n: finally launching my little love project called “hidden inventory: the lost tapes”! 🍒
Now isn’t this just perfect?
Toji’s is just one inconvenience away from just going back to the Zenin clan with his tail between his legs. First, he underestimates just how expensive living in Tokyo is so, with what little pocket money his emotionally distant mother gave him before he left the estate, the first thing he does is spend it all on a girl — in broad daylight — he’s heard his brother, Jinichi, talk about those cute little call girls that crawl the streets of Kabukichō with flyers in their hand for thirty-minute “massages”. Naturally, as a young man who is only first experiencing the carnal joys the city has to offer, Toji was curious and he took the bait.
A bait that cost him ¥30,000 and the girl was unfortunately sloppy at best.
Now, he doesn’t have money to buy so much as a soggy red bean pancake for dinner. He doesn’t know how long he’s been walking around this dingy part of Shinjuku but as long as the red light district’s trashy ambience is distracting him from the growling of his stomach, then, he’ll stumble around this hellhole until morning.
“Ha! You won’t even last two minutes out there!” That’s what Naobito Zenin, the head of the clan said to him when he left. “Only two things await you when you get out of here, either you’ll die hungry or a cursed spirit will get to you first — either way, you’ll die with your eyes wide open with no one!”
Overrun by his thoughts, Toji doesn’t even notice that he accidentally intruded on a random cockroach and curse-infested alleyway that apparently belonged to some junkie who is now angrily telling him to get lost. “I was just looking for a place to sit down,” Toji scoffs. Weren’t they both bottom feeders in this city? Why was this rancid-smelling meth addict acting like he’s any better than him?
“Well, go sit somewhere else, this place is off-limits!”
It was almost funny how Toji thought that the world beyond the gates of the Zenin estate was any better than the shit show he was born into.
He should have known better than to be enticed by the glitz and glamour of living independently from his abusive family who at least had the decency to feed him maggoty rice from the estate’s second storehouse dedicated to prepare the animals’ food. They also gave him shelter, of course, he’s had to live in the Zenin estate’s shed for a while now since his father discovered he was born useless without an ounce of cursed energy. But at least he was warm, and the termites made him feel less lonely.
He continues on in his aimless quest. The night is still young. There’s plenty of time for self-depreciating introspection.
Hopefully, that grade three cursed spirit that’s been following him around the block for a while now gets to him first before the rain does.
Tumblr media
“That guy over there,” your coworker whispers to you from the cash registers. “He’s been there for a while now and he hasn’t ordered anything.”
You look up from your pocketbook, your eyes curiously trained on the rugged looking man whose eyes were downcast, trained on the service water he requested from the counter when he came in. As if he could feel a pair of eyes on him, he looks up, and glances your way for a bit but you quickly hide your face behind your book.
“He kinda looks like trouble, no? Shady too, just look at the scar on his lip…”
“It’s not fair to judge someone like that, Rika-chan,” you whispered to your junior, turning to arrange the menus, painstakingly wiping each one clean with a cloth dampened with sanitizer. A small smirk appears on Toji’s lips at your passive defense of his character and as if to goad you on, he drums his fingertips against the table daring you to say another word. “Anyway, I’ll handle closing the shop tonight. You need to get home since you have class in a few hours.”
That seemed sudden. Rika looks at you funnily before shrugging off her apron in favor of her raincoat. “Well, alright, if you insist. Should I clean up the kitchen at least?”
“I’ll handle it,” you give her a thumbs up, waving her goodbye as she leaves through the backdoor. Now that you’re alone, you could hardly stop yourself from glancing at the mysterious man, and Toji himself wonders if his presence here is starting to turn into a nuisance. You were probably waiting for him to step out so you could close shop for the night but it’s raining hard right now and there are no other places open nearby to take shelter in.
The chair’s feet screeches against the wooden floorboards and you head to the restaurant’s kitchen. Toji stares at your retreating form, looks like he overstayed his welcome. He searches around for a few coins to give to you for your hospitality, of course, it probably doesn’t mean jack shit, but you must have known he didn’t have enough money for a meal when he came in here. You would have realized that immediately. But you allowed him to stay regardless.
You return a couple of minutes later with a bowl miso soup with ginger pork gyoza and shredded cabbages. You set the bowl down in front of him and Toji is thoroughly taken aback, he looks at you dumbfounded. “I don’t have any money,” his voice comes out a little gruffly but you barely flinch at the sharp edge of his tone.
“Don’t worry about it.”
Refilling his water, you explained that while you could have easily stuffed those leftovers back in the freezer, customers wouldn’t want to eat frozen food, so, you decide to heat these items up to give to him instead. “Oh,” Toji answers a little dumbly. “Or you could have thrown them out.” He stares at the sumptuous meal in front of him. Even in the Zenin estate, he never had such good food laid out in front of him before and it was surreal to see a stranger do the things his family should have done for him.
You return to the counter, leaning on your forearms as you engage in light banter with him. “You’re saying I should feed rats over people?” you chuckled, sitting back down, smiling softly when Toji gingerly bringing the bowl of miso soup to his lips, the rich earthy broth warming his throat that he lets out a content sigh.
He smirks at your little remark. “I’m saying you shouldn’t make a habit of feeding strays.” He polishes his soup bowl clean within minutes and you have to remind him to slow down every now and then as you watched him eat ravenously. “You never know when you could get that dainty hand of yours bitten off.”
You blushed pink at that. He was right, being too generous could cost you dearly one day but being the altruistic soul that you are, you’ll probably continue to be graciously selfless despite the risk of being taken advantage of. It’s just how you are as a person who believes that a little kindness can make the world better than it was yesterday. “I…don’t really know about that…whether I get bitten or not by the people I help isn’t really something I can control. The world would be better off if people just learned to be kind to one another.”
Toji hums at your naive countenance, folding his arms over the table. The room is silent for a few minutes save for the occasional rumble of thunder in the distance. “You’re kinda dumb, aren’t ya?”
“And you’re a pessimist,” you answered, quirking an amused eyebrow at him. “Who doesn’t even know how to say thank you.” You stand up to clear out the table, a teasing glint in your eyes as your curious orbs collide.
Toji scoffs, leaning against his seat, crossing his legs. At his reluctance, you shake your head, giggling softly. What an infuriating interesting guy. Toji hears the rushing of tap water from behind the counter and he smiles inwardly. The rain begins to slowly stop and he takes this window of opportunity to leave.
You don’t even try to hide your disappointment when you come back to the dining room only to find it empty, the stranger having left nothing in his wake — not a goodbye, not a thank you, and certainly not his name — except a single rusty five yen coin on the table.
Tumblr media
Clang-dong!
“Hello, welcome—“ You stop mid-sentence. Your throat constricting with a mix of emotions, the most dominant one being joy at this happy chance, you’d recognize those sharp dark green eyes anywhere despite only first seeing them a week ago. After all, they looked so dangerously beautiful under the dim light of the dining room’s ceiling lampshade. “—back. Welcome back,” you smiled brightly at Toji.
Toji nods, his hand coming up to cover his lips as he coughs once. “Thanks…ah, right — shit, where is it?” After rummaging around his parachute jacket’s many pockets, he finally takes out his wallet and you look at him, bewildered, when he hands a few hundred yen bills to you. “For last week. Sorry I couldn’t pay you back then.”
“It’s fine.” You take his larger, calloused hand and return the money which Toji responds to by stubbornly placing it on the table.
Toji pinches the bridge of his nose when you playfully return the gesture by rolling it up and placing it in his jacket pocket, buttoning it. “Look, it was real nice of you to treat me back then, but I’m not a charity case, alright? I just wanna pay my dues.”
“Then, a simple ‘thank you’ is enough.” Toji just couldn’t understand you. You have absolutely no reason to be nice to him, but you are. For a moment, he begins to fall into the enticing thought that maybe life outside the Zenin estate won’t be too bad after all if there are people like you still around just waiting at random corners to be found in joyful happenstances such as waiting out a storm at a random family-style restaurant over a heartwarming serving of miso soup with tender pieces of gyoza and cabbage.
Relenting, he smirks at you, unable to figure you out. “Thank you.”
“Anyway, need a table for lunch?” you smiled warmly at him as you lead him to the table he sat in a week ago which you now affectionately refer to as ‘his’ table instead of table number four.
Toji nods following your lead and chuckling when you hand him the menu. “Where’s that thing I had last time?“ he oddly flips through the booklet.
“Oh uh…it’s not on the menu actually, but I could make that for you if you’d like.”
“Sounds good.” Toji hands you back the menu. You are just about to scurry away to the kitchen when he calls out to you. “So, do you have a name or should I just keep referring to you as gyoza girl or something?” Embarrassed at the way your knees seem to become weak at his boyish grin, you have to take a few deep breaths before turning around to face him again. “I’m Toji.”
He doesn’t say his last name. He doesn’t feel the need to anymore now that he’s finally closing the door to his past. You nod, noting how the name suited him. It’s brief but strong, muted but loud in its rhythm. Toji. At that moment, you find it impossible to name a prettier sound. After a few excruciating minutes in the kitchen, you come back out with two bowls of miso soup this time around and you sit down on the chair directly in front of him.
“Y/N.”
Toji repeats the melody of your name in his head. “And how much do I owe ya for this, Y/N?”
You shrugged as the two of you dig in, your hand coming up to cover your mouth as you chew the steamed gyoza, joining him as he laughs (well, he’s scoffing more than actually laughing, really), his eyes alight with wonder, when you simply say, “Five yen.”
2K notes · View notes
ichorai · 10 months
Text
wool ; coriolanus snow.
Tumblr media
pairing ; young!coriolanus snow x capitol!reader (gender-neutral)
synopsis ; when you laughed, airy and light and reminiscent to that of wind chimes, coryo wished he could bottle up the sound and keep it as his, only his.
words ; 1.5k
themes ; mild fluff/angst, slightly suggestive
warnings / includes ; set before events of tbosas so no actual spoilers, making out, clemensia appearance, mentions of other characters, coryo's paranoia, he's not exactly toxic yet but the seeds are very much planted, i tried to keep him in character as best i could, let's pretend the academy also serves dinner
a/n ; this man has consumed me body and soul. this fic was inspired by the song wool by flatland cavalry on the movie soundtrack! let me know if you guys would like a second part :)
series masterlist. main masterlist.
Tumblr media
Coriolanus Snow was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He bore an aristocratic last name—yet you noticed that his dress shirt’s buttons seemed to be various different shades of black and slightly misshapen. His voice, so sweetly saccharine, charming, seductive—would whisper falsities like it was second nature. He would often claim that he wasn’t hungry, but you’d catch the longing glint in his pale irises as he eyed the steaming bread rolls Sejanus slathered with generous helpings of butter. 
Control. That was all he needed. 
It crumbled, ever so slightly, when you nudged your slice of apple pie in his direction. His eye twitched, and you pursed your lips, pulling your plate back to you. You ate quietly, and Coryo stared at you all the while, as if he were mentally dissecting your mind—studying you. 
You knew. It was all too clear, even if he wouldn’t tell you. And if he wouldn’t tell his closest friend—or, the closest thing he had to a friend, the two of you certainly did things that friends wouldn’t do—he most definitely wouldn’t let it slip that he was financially strapped to anyone else.
That same day, he met you in the back of the library. The two of you were supposed to be studying history—Professor Demigloss was one of the nicer teachers at the academy, but that didn’t mean he was any less strict with grades. And neither you nor Coryo could afford slipping now. Not if you both wanted to get into university. Being on top meant that there was only greater distance to fall.
But there were… distractions.
Mainly, his foot knocking against yours under the table. Your hand over his jostling knee. His teeth digging into his bottom lip. When you shifted so that your thighs brushed against his, the books spread out over the table were entirely forgotten.
He pushed you against the bookshelves a mere second later, the wood digging into your back uncomfortably, and kissed you until you grew dizzy. You were a welcome distraction—he could taste the apples on your tongue. The way you snaked your arms around his neck, toying with his pale blonde curls, pulling him closer until his body slotted against yours just perfectly—clicking into place like a pair of magnets facing opposite directions. It was desperate and heavy and he could only barely pull away to inhale sharply before cradling the base of your head to tilt your jaw back and kiss you even harder. Coryo swallowed any muffled whimpers that slipped from you when his free hand traveled lower.
Lower, lower, dangerously low—
When Clemensia’s voice echoed through the library in search of her lab partner, the two of you sprang apart, gasping for air.
She rounded the bend, and her dark eyes landed on the two of you. Keen, observant, narrowed. Coriolanus was flushed, hair mussed, lips swollen, chest rising and falling erratically. You were looking anywhere but the two of them, smoothing out your clothes and wiping your mouth with the back of your hand.
“Oh! I guess I’ll just have to find another time to bother you, Coriolanus,” she tittered, sickly sweet. She tilted her head with a tempered smile. “What’re you guys studying?”
Snow rolled his eyes in exasperation. “History,” he said. Curt, simple.
“Right.” She eyed you curiously. When she spoke again, it was directed more to you than him, sounding uncharacteristically void of frigid scorn. “I’d be careful if I were you. You sure he’s not just sleeping with you because you’re the top of the class?”
You stiffened, and Coryo bristled. 
“I’ll be fine, Clem. See you tomorrow.” 
There was another beat of terse silence. Her eyes darted warily between the two of you, and she whisked away in a flutter of red and black.
You blew out a breath. Your mouth tingled with the phantom memory of his lips planted over yours, and your cheeks flushed with heat. The two of you sat back down, both quiet. You worked in fluid tandem with each other, as you always did. His hands kept to himself this time. 
“I’m not using you,” he whispered, eventually. “It’s not like that.”
“I know,” you replied hesitantly, testing the waters. “It’s not like you’d need to. Your grades are just fine as is.”
The two of you kept working until your fingers cramped with overuse and his head pulsed with the beginnings of a migraine. 
“Dinner?” you asked once the clock struck six, nudging him. “I think they’ll be serving mashed potatoes today.”
His stomach clenched at the thought of warm food. Control.
“Sure,” he replied coolly, flicking his books closed and gathering up all the papers to stuff into his bag. “I’m sick of mashed potatoes, though.”
You shot him an incredulous smile, brows quirking up. He was lying, but you didn’t know. “Not even when it’s seasoned with roasted garlic? A dash of the freshest of herbs?”
The blue of his eyes gleamed when they bore into yours. “Not even then.”
“You’re a strange man, Coriolanus Snow.” Your lips twisted downward, but it was more of a smile than a frown. When your eyes darted below to glance at his school uniform, you couldn’t help but notice the unironed creases in the carmine fabric. One of the buttons—the very top one—was oddly shaped and a different color from all the rest. It reminded you of his dress shirt. You quite liked that dress shirt. He looked handsome in it, but you chalked it up to his uncanny ability to look handsome in just about anything.
Your head tilted to the side, molten eyes fixed on the button. You knew. He knew that you knew. Panic seized in his chest, an irrational clawing sensation searing within his lungs. Would you tell the rest of the class? What would you say to them? That he was living as filthily as a District boy? That he skipped meals because he couldn’t afford them? That his cousin mended his clothes for him?
But your frown-smile deepened. Fondness stained your expression, clear as day. Coriolanus found himself surprised, as he often did around you. 
“I love your buttons, by the way,” you mumbled, reaching out to trace it with a finger. He held his breath on instinct. “Is it a stylistic choice? Having them all irregular like this?”
Stylistic. Coriolanus almost laughed.
“Mhm. It’ll be in fashion one day. I’m just ahead of the trends,” he murmured charmingly. A bluff.
When you laughed, airy and light and reminiscent to that of wind chimes, Coryo wished he could bottle up the sound and keep it as his, only his. 
“Maybe I’ll start wearing mismatched buttons now, too. Rebel against uniformity.” You stood up from your chair as you spoke, not catching the way Coriolanus’ expression faltered momentarily with your last three words. It was a joke, he had to remind himself. Just a joke. “Come on. Let’s go have dinner. I’m starving.”
He jerkily stood up. Grabbed your hand just because he could, fingers folding over your wrist. He could feel your pulse, thumping quicker and quicker. You regarded him curiously. Snow’s remaining spindly hand cradled your face and he stepped closer, intuitive eyes roaming over your face, wondering just how much of you was real. How much of you was lying, just as he was?
His lips fell over yours again. This time, the kiss was sweeter. Slower, more languid. His nose brushed over your cheekbone, warm to the touch. You hummed pleasantly against him, before placing a hand flat over his chest—over the crooked button—and pulled away with a dazed smile. It felt dangerously good that you hadn’t tugged your hand out of his grasp yet. His grip tightened in a near possessive manner.
As the two of you began walking out of the library, Coriolanus couldn’t help but think back to your hyperbole—about how far from starving you truly were. You wouldn’t ever know, not when your family was the very epitome of Capitol wealth. But he was glad he wasn’t the only one lying, for once, even if your lie was merely an inflation of the truth. 
After dinner, Coryo worked off the top button of his uniform with repeated tugs to the threads, pulling apart Tigris’ handiwork. He slid it over the table to you, watching the way your countenance softened in endearment. He kissed you again in the dark hallways outside the cafeteria, finding it difficult to get your lips to melt away from your tightly-stretched grin.
He walked home with a mirroring smile and a missing button that night. One less piece of the wolf’s sheeply clothes.
4K notes · View notes
beneathashadytree · 2 months
Text
EATEN ALIVE - SYLUS QIN X READER
Tumblr media
Warnings : biting, Sylus likes feeling his lover’s weight, neck kisses, BDSM mention, implied scent kink, reader is gender-neutral!
Genre : spicy fluff <3
Word count : 0.9K words
Additional notes : This brainrot is a result of that one homescreen interaction where you give him his palm and he bites you, and that one bond story where he’s sitting on the couch reading at some point. The image drove me a lil crazy😵‍💫 Also this was inspired by the song Eaten Alive by Diana Ross 🙏🏽
Tip jar!
Masterlist
Tumblr media
“Another book on firearms?” they asked, leaning over him to get a glance at what he was reading.
Sylus didn’t look up from the page, glasses perched on his nose and legs crossed underneath his silk robe in the picture perfect image of regal serenity. The only acknowledgment he gave them was a hum, before simply saying, “Not this time,” and returning to his quiet laser-focus.
Annoyance flashed behind their eyes at his complete ignoring of their presence in front of him. And to make matters worse (or in this case, simply more irritating), from their position they couldn’t even read a single sentence upside down. “Aren’t you gonna tell me, then?”
At that, a smirk touched his lips, knowing that he got the desired reaction from them. “You do know that curiosity killed the cat, right?” The look in his eyes was every bit as fierce as it was taunting. “You seem hell-bent on using up all your nine lives.”
Bastard. He loved to tease them relentlessly, didn’t he?
Snapping the book shut with one hand, he pushed it aside face-down. He was taking all the possible measures to make sure they wouldn’t be able to read the title, it seemed. Would a kick to his shins procure the answer they wanted?
Before they could think of another tactic, he clasped their hand in his, unceremoniously tugging them down onto his lap. Yelping as he caught them off-guard, they barely managed to balance themself over him, hovering a little as they tried not to crush him—something he must’ve noticed, given the way he arched his eyebrow at them.
“Put your whole weight on me. I like that.” Sylus’ grin was wicked as he said that, but it was all parts tempting, luring them in like it always did. Maybe it was a figment of their imagination, but they could’ve sworn that they saw his eyes gleam brighter as they settled down properly in his lap. “That’s it, sweetie,” he purred, his hands quick to seek purchase in the fat of their hips.
His touch leaving a burning ache in its wake, he gently caressed every inch of skin he could reach. The hem of their top raised, nimble fingers dancing over their back and trailing over paths he’d long-memorized, he looked like he was truly enjoying the way their breath hitched in their throat, and how they squirmed against him.
“You’re too much,” they managed to huff out, trying their best to school their expression to one of indignation. “Weren’t you… just acting like I was distracting you?”
“A welcome distraction, if anything.” His free hand came up to remove his glasses, a mischievous look in his eyes. “If you hadn’t come for me, I would’ve gone looking for you in a bit anyways.” As though swearing his honesty, he pulled them closer and began pressing open-mouthed kisses against their neck, softly sucking at the warm skin. With every nip of his teeth, he earned a hiss of pain-pleasure, and a jolt of their hips bringing them closer to his. “You taste divine,” he groaned into their neck. “Smell so good too.”
“Hey.” It was supposed to sound admonishing, but it came out as a half-moan, half-whisper. “Stop trying to keep me off-track.” But were their words convincing, when they were writhing in his lap just at his kisses like that? “You’re… hah… avoiding me.”
“‘M not.”
Another kiss, this time at the junction of their jaw and neck, earning a small cry of his name, and that snapped them out of whatever daze they’d been trapped in. With a push to his chest, they managed to pry him off and cover his sinful mouth with their hand, though it seemed that it only spurred on the desire brewing in his scarlet eyes.
“Answer my question.” Panting and their head swimming, it was a wonder they were able to say anything coherent at all. “What were you reading and so hell-bent on hiding?”
As Sylus chuckled into their palm, he merely reached out a finger to drag the book in, quickly flipping it back up.
‘Screw the Roses, Send Me Thorns.’
Oh.
Pure delight danced in his eyes as he relished in their expression as realization dawned on them. Taking advantage of that split-second of their shock, he caught their hand in his, and bit into it—lightly, but just enough to sting in that way he knew deep down they liked so much.
Jumping, they were quick to snatch their hand away from his mouth, cheeks burning with warmth. Before they could even think of snapping at him, he’d licked his lips, as though savoring the taste of them that lingered.
It was all too hot, all at once and in all the most dangerous places of their body.
“I didn’t want to scare you off,” he coolly said, leaning back against the back of the leather couch and eying them with a practiced sultry-sweet gaze.
A promise lingered there; a promise of a forbidden fruit dangling right before their eyes and practically begging to be stolen and feasted on. Their hands itched to take him for themself, but would they do that without being devoured first? A chilling thought, and yet… the warmth in their core seemed to anticipate the moment either of them would snap and give in wholly.
Sylus quietly laughed at their heavy silence and glazed over eyes. At that moment they knew, that they’d fully played right into his hands where he’d wanted them. “But… judging from your reaction, I guess my worries were all in vain, hmm?”
Tumblr media
Taglist: @mrlovesimps @snowyfragrance @lara635kookie @xinnn6 @moonlight-inthe-sea @canyonlouist @number-1-harumi-hater @2angelbaby2 @jinnieats @blobfishbumblebee @aesmstar @klutzycora-san @inkblotgalaxies @mxrissaauuu @rissaaaaaa @lilithmoonlite @wooyoungsfairygf @lemonsupernova @kpop-and-otome @elizabeth916 @cherrikissez @xcalkenf + my old taglist before Sylus was added (since I don’t know who wants to be tagged): @angry-and-yandere @nxx-jordiepord @honestlyjustablog @dawnbreakersgaze @tartartagliaboo @lucis-noctiana @mushriiin @flurrina @reika-desu @randomidk-123 @tikitsune @cofijelli @roll-of-royces @loveyoutodeep @belovedof @obiwanmcprobie @hawtlineblingz @kalatipunan @eurekazz @bifedebruxa @thescribeswife @mysticangel123 @xenasolos @jvnluvr @dann-acalle @rosariymchapter @rin-sv14 @yololesgo @an-ever-angry-bi @semi-orangeapple @lavanderbliss @myturnwhen @winterlvod @carsonology
Sign up for my taglist here!
891 notes · View notes