#and staying awake late to watch them move around in the sky every hour

[scorpia-is-babey]

Scorpia (plus all Hordies) being obsessed with the twelve Etherian moons post-war

[kairawrites]

love & basketball.

🌺masterlist🌺

pairing: aurélien tchouaméni x reader

summary: It's 95 degrees in LA, but your boyfriend's never really needed a reason to take his shirt off.

You stood at the three-point line, body still heavy with sleep. The warmth of the late afternoon sun filtered through the trees, casting long shadows across the court.

After the day at the beach with friends, everyone dispersed for showers before settling into their rooms to relax, nap, or watch movies.

The sight of you in your bikini drove Aurélien crazy all morning. He’d found every excuse to touch you—rubbing sunscreen into your skin, his hands lingering a little too long on your waist, your shoulders.

By the time you all finally made it back to the rental, he was at his limit. The moment your feet touched the surface of the top floor, he'd lifted you off the ground, carrying you straight to the bed.

Now, you wore his shirt, the one he’d abandoned on the floor just a few hours prior, tugging it off in a frenzy as his hands and mouth had been more preoccupied with untying your bikini.

The shirt hung loosely on you, the fabric brushing against your thighs as Aurélien approached, a basketball in hand. You’d woken to find him already up, the sun lower in the sky, casting a golden hue across the court. The remnants of the day lingered on your skin—the warmth of the sun, the salt of the ocean, and the feel of his touch still fresh in your memory.

Aurélien had been on the court, the one piece of the property that finalized his decision. He'd used it nearly every day during your two week stay.

"Alright, let’s see what you’ve got," he teased, his hands pressing the basketball into your arms.

You groaned softly, still not fully awake. "I’m not sure I’ve got anything right now," you muttered, shifting the ball between your hands. "How are you not tired?"

He chuckled, stepping closer until his chest was flush against your back. His hands slid over your arms, guiding them into position. "This your way of saying I wore you out---"

Aurélien's laughter rang free, echoing across the yard as you threw a playful jab back to his ribs. It was a sound that brought a smile to your lips.

"I think it was the sun that did that," you giggle, relaxing against him as he pressed a kiss against your neck.

"...yeah, okay..." His voice comes out muffled against your skin, his arms wrapping around your waist. Giving you a gentle squeeze, he leaves a final kiss against your skin.

"Okay, what's this grand advice I'm supposed to be getting?" You sigh, still trying to figure out how you've ended up here.

You had no intention of playing basketball when you'd gone searching for your boyfriend. Yet somehow, here you are.

"First, you need to relax," he said, his voice a low murmur in your ear. "Don’t think too much about it—just feel it."

You couldn’t help but smile at his serious tone, feeling the heat of his body behind you. "Feel it, huh?" you teased lightly pressing your body back into his. The moment you did, you capitalized on the opportunity, your hips grinding back.

Aurélien's breath hitched, his fingers pressing into the dips of your hips.

"Oh, so that's how it's gonna be?" He murmured, voice a mixture of amusement and surprise.

"I'm a hands on learner," you giggled, the teasing of your boyfriend has always proved to be your favorite task.

"Don't start something you can't finish," Aurélien grinned, his hands moving to adjust your stance, gently nudging your feet into the correct position. "First, your feet—shoulder-width apart. Good. Now bend your knees a little. It’s all about balance." His hands lingered on your waist, guiding your hips into alignment with the basket.

You followed his instructions, but your mind was more on the way his fingers traced small circles on your hips than on the basketball in your hands. "Like this?" you asked, trying to focus.

"Perfect," he whispered, his voice dropping a notch as he leaned closer, his breath warm against your neck. The only problem with teasing your boyfriend, he's just as good. The soft kiss he leaves against your skin temporarily pulls your eyes from the hoop. You catch sight of his playful brown eyes before he's nodding forward. "Now, keep your eyes on the hoop. Imagine the ball going in. It’s all about the follow-through."

He brought his hands up to your arms again, guiding your elbows into the right angle, his chest pressing against your back, offering steady support. "When you release, let your wrist snap forward, like this." His hand covered yours, demonstrating the motion.

You nodded, trying to concentrate, but the closeness of his body and the warmth of his breath on your skin made it nearly impossible. You took a deep breath, finally locking your gaze on the hoop.

“Go ahead,” he urged, his voice soft and encouraging. “Just let it fly.”

You exhaled slowly, then pushed off your back foot, releasing the ball in a smooth arc. It bounced off the rim, missing the shot. You groaned in frustration, your shoulders slumping.

Aurélien chuckled, jogging after the ball. "Not bad for a first try. Just a little more follow-through, and you’ll have it."

He stopped alongside you, eyes briefly meeting yours before smiling.

Aurélien dribbled the ball a few times, the rhythmic sound echoing through the quiet court. His movements were fluid, each bounce perfectly controlled, his focus sharp. With a quick, confident glance at the hoop, he planted his feet.

With an easy flick of his wrist, he sent the ball arcing through the air. The shot seemed effortless, almost casual, but there was an unmistakable precision in the way he released it. The ball soared, spinning in a perfect backspin, before dropping cleanly through the net with a satisfying *swish*.

Aurélien landed lightly on his feet, a small, self-assured smile tugging at the corners of his lips. He turned to look at you, the pride in his eyes evident.

You rolled your eyes, a smile breaking through despite your attempt to feign annoyance. "Show-off," you teased, though you couldn’t help but be impressed by how effortless he made it look.

Aurélien retrieved the ball with the same easy grace, dribbling it back toward you. "I couldn't resist," he replied, his tone light and teasing, but there was a glint in his eyes that showed he was enjoying every moment of impressing you.

"Always showing out for a pretty girl?" you asked, raising an eyebrow with a playful smirk.

He stopped just in front of you, holding the ball casually at his side. "Only for you." The way he looked at you made your heart skip a beat.

You couldn’t help but laugh softly, shaking your head. "Well, I’m not that easy to impress, you know," you teased, though your smile gave away the truth.

Aurélien leaned in closer, his eyes never leaving yours. "Guess I'll just have to keep trying then," he murmured, pressing a quick kiss to your cheek, before stepping back.

His eyes passed over the shirt you wore.

It was one of his favorites, but not because of its design or any sentimental attachment to where he bought it. It was simple—black with faded lettering and a worn texture from too many washes. The Kobe Bryant photo emblazoned across the front was cracked, showing signs of its age. On him, it fit snugly across his chest and shoulders, a staple of his casual wardrobe, something he threw on without much thought. But on you, it was different.

The shirt had become his favorite for one reason alone: the way it looked on you.

He loved how the sleeves slipped past your elbows, the neckline dipping just enough to tease a glimpse of your collarbone. It hung loose, brushing your thighs, leaving just enough to the imagination. The first time he saw you wearing it, fresh out of the shower, he’d almost forgotten what he was doing. You weren’t trying to impress him—just looking for something comfortable—but seeing you in his clothes had done something to him.

Then there were the lazy mornings after long nights, when you’d pad barefoot around the kitchen in nothing but that shirt, making coffee while he watched, pretending to care about the cup in his hand when really all his focus was on you. Or the times you’d steal it after a day at the beach, the sun warming your skin as the fabric stuck to your damp body. Every time, it was a reminder that something of his had become yours, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

It was as if it had been made for moments like this, when it was just the two of you, laughing, playing, and challenging each other.

“So that’s where my shirt went.” His voice was light, but there was a hint of playful accusation in it.

You glanced down at yourself and smiled, tugging at the oversized fabric. “I woke up to find you gone. Figured I’d claim it since you weren’t around to stop me.”

Aurélien took a step closer, his gaze dropping to the shirt that swallowed your frame. “I don’t know… looks better on me, don’t you think?” he teased, reaching out to playfully tug at the hem.

You smirked, raising an eyebrow. “I don’t know, looks like it fits me just fine. But if you’re that pressed about getting it back, we could always settle it here.”

His grin widened, eyes gleaming with amusement. “Alright,” he replied, his tone a challenge. “Let’s see who deserves to keep it.”

At first, you thought he was joking. After all, it was just a shirt, right? But then Aurélien’s serious expression told you otherwise. He wasn’t backing down. He wanted to play for it.

"Wait, you’re actually serious?" you asked, raising a brow.

Aurélien crossed his arms, the challenge clear in his posture. "I don’t play around when it comes to my favorite shirt. One-on-one. Winner keeps it."

You blinked, a mix of surprise and excitement bubbling up in you. “What are the rules?"

Aurélien stepped closer, his eyes locking onto yours with that playful intensity he always had when he was about to make things competitive. He folded his arms across his chest, the smirk on his face widening as he considered how to outline the rules for this little challenge.

“Alright,” he began, taking the ball from you with a smooth flick of his wrist. “We’re keeping it simple. We’ll play Horse—take turns shooting. You miss, you get a letter. First one to spell ‘Horse’ loses.” He paused, letting the words hang for a moment as he casually dribbled the ball, the rhythmic bounce filling the air between you.

“Except,” he continued, stepping closer, “we’ll add a little twist.” His voice dropped, low and teasing. “Every time you get a letter…you lose a piece of clothing.” His grin turned wicked, and his eyes gleamed with anticipation as if daring you to react.

You raised an eyebrow, folding your arms in response. “And what about you? You lose clothing, too, right?”

“Of course,” he nodded seriously, though the sparkle in his eyes said he was fully enjoying himself. “I’m nothing if not fair.”

You couldn’t help the laugh that escaped you. “You’re serious?”

“As serious as I can be,” he replied with a wink, tapping the ball against your hip. “So, what do you say? Think you can handle it?”

“I’m game. But don’t think I’m letting you win your shirt back that easily.”

Aurélien stepped closer, holding out his hand with his pinky extended, his eyes locked onto yours with a familiar look of seriousness mixed with playfulness. It was your tradition—one that had started almost as a joke but became a ritual whenever something important was on the line.

You smiled softly, already feeling the warmth of the moment as you curled your pinky around his, the soft press of his skin against yours a silent promise.

“No backing out now,” you teased, your voice light but full of trust.

Aurélien’s lips curved into a grin, his eyes softening. “I wouldn’t dream of it,” he replied.

Then, as always, he sealed the pinky promise with a kiss. His lips gently brushed the spot where your fingers linked, lingering just long enough to send a familiar flutter through your chest. It was tender, intimate in a way that went beyond the playful challenge you had set. It was your thing, a small act of affection that held more weight than any words.

He looked back up at you, his smile deepening. “Now it’s official,” he murmured.

You couldn’t help but laugh softly, feeling that warmth spread through you. “Now it’s official.”

"First shot," Aurélien grinned, dribbling the ball with confidence just outside the three-point line. "Let's see how long you can keep that shirt on."

With a smooth motion, he released the ball, the arc perfect as it sailed toward the hoop. You could already tell it was going in, and sure enough, it swished cleanly through the net.

He let out a low whistle, clearly satisfied with himself as he jogged to retrieve the ball. Stopping just a few steps from you, he left a playful distance between you, his eyes gleaming with challenge.

Bouncing the ball to you, Aurélien tilted his head, his smirk widening. "Square up, baby girl."

"First shot and you’re already losing," Aurélien teased, bouncing the ball a few times as he stood at the three-point line. "Might as well surrender that shirt now because I’m just getting started."

You rolled your eyes, accepting the ball from him with a smirk. "Don't get ahead of yourself," you muttered, lining up your shot. Taking a deep breath, you focused and released the ball. But it clanged off the rim, missing the hoop entirely.

The sound of your miss was met with a look of pure triumph on Aurélien's face. His grin stretched wider, his eyes twinkling with amusement as he jogged over to retrieve the ball.

Hands on your hips, you watched him with a knowing look, already bracing yourself for the inevitable teasing. He stopped in front of you, grinning from ear to ear.

"That’s an H," he declared with a triumphant laugh. "You know the rules—I’m gonna need a piece of clothing."

His gaze lingered on the shirt you were wearing, clearly hoping to get it back. But instead of giving in, you bent down, slipping off your sneakers before tugging off your right sock. Holding it up with a smug smile, you raised an eyebrow.

Aurélien’s eyes widened in mock surprise before he let out a hearty laugh, shaking his head. "A sock? Really? You’re going with that?"

"It counts," you replied with a shrug, still grinning.

He chuckled, eyeing the single sock dangling from your hand. "Alright, alright. I’ll let you get away with it... for now." His playful tone lingered as he dribbled the ball once more. "Next shot?"

Deciding to play it smart, you took a few steps closer to the hoop, lining up your shot from the free throw line instead. With a smooth flick of your wrist, the ball sailed through the air and swished into the net without even touching the rim. You let out a small cheer, throwing your arms up in victory.

Aurélien arched a brow, clearly amused by your choice to move closer, but smiled as he grabbed the ball. "Taking the easy way out, huh?" he teased, walking over to the same spot. "Alright, let’s see if I can match that."

But just as he lined up his shot, you decided to up the ante. With a mischievous grin, you moved closer, playfully pressing up against him with your arms raised in a mock attempt to block him. The suddenness of it threw him off balance, and with you giggling right against him, his concentration wavered. He released the ball, but it wobbled, hit the rim, and bounc3d right out.

You burst into laughter, your hands lightly pressing against his chest. "That’s an H, baby!" you teased, fingers playfully tugging at the hem of his shirt.

Aurélien shook his head, biting back a grin. "I didn’t realize we were getting this kind of competitive," he said, his tone dripping with mock seriousness.

You shrugged, flashing him a playful wink. "No excuses, Auré," you replied, still giggling. "Apparently my boyfriend’s good at every sport on the planet. I gotta level the playing field somehow!"

He smiled down at you, shaking his head.

Without hesitation, he tugged his shirt over his head in one smooth, practiced motion, revealing the toned muscles of his chest and arms. The fabric dropped to the ground with a dramatic flourish, as if he were performing for an audience of one—just you.

"Of course, you’d take off the shirt first," you giggled, but your voice faltered as your gaze lingered on him. The way the sun bathed his skin in a golden light, highlighting the sharp contours of his chest and the hard lines of his arms, made it almost impossible to look away. His skin glistened slightly under the warm sun, every flex and movement drawing your attention like a magnet.

You couldn't deny it—Aurélien was a sight to behold. The playful remark you'd been ready to toss at him faded from your lips as you became momentarily lost in the view, appreciating just how every inch of him seemed to come alive under the sun’s caress.

His smile only widened, a knowing smirk creeping across his face as he caught you staring. The corners of his eyes crinkled in that familiar, boyish way that always made your heart skip.

"You gonna be able to stay focused?" he teased. The challenge was clear in his tone, and the way his eyes held yours said he knew exactly the effect he had on you.

Before you could respond, he dribbled the ball to the three-point line, still grinning like he had the game already won. He lined up his shot with smooth, practiced ease, his movements deliberate and confident. The ball sailed through the air, and with a perfect swish, it dropped cleanly through the hoop.

Aurélien turned to you, his grin only growing wider. "I hope you’re ready to keep up," he said, a playful glint still in his eyes.

"You picking threes is totally unfair," you said, hands on your hips as you watched him retrieve the ball.

Aurélien smirked, tossing the ball casually from hand to hand. "It’s not in the rules," he shrugged, his eyes gleaming with playful mischief.

"Add it, then," you challenged, raising an eyebrow.

He shook his head, grinning wider. "Too late for that. You should’ve thought of it sooner."

You couldn’t help but laugh, stepping closer to him. "Think I can change your mind?"

Aurélien’s brow arched with interest, his smirk never faltering. "I think a kiss might be good motivation."

With a giggle, you leaned in and kissed him quickly, just a light brush of your lips against his before pulling back. His grin faltered for a split second, then he pouted, shaking his head. "That doesn’t count."

"Should've specified the type of kiss," you tease.

You couldn’t help but laugh again, but your focus returned to the game as you took a deep breath, lined up your shot from the same spot, and let the ball fly. This time, it sailed well over the rim and landed with a dull thud.

You sighed, knowing what was coming next. With a dramatic flair, you bent down, tugging off your second sock and holding it up in mock surrender.

Aurélien watched, clearly amused. "Cute, but I think you’re going to need to step up your game," he teased, still bouncing the ball with ease.

Mentally noting that you now had an H and an O, you decided to go for a layup. Moving closer to the hoop, you prepared to make your shot, but Aurelien positioned himself to guard you just as you had guarded him. He stuck to you like glue, becoming your personal shadow.

As you approached the basket, his hand settled on your hip, his touch warm and distracting. His close presence caused a moment of hesitation, and your shot missed its mark, bouncing off the backboard and rolling away.

You sighed, a reluctant smile tugging at the corners of your lips. Hooking your thumbs into the waistband of your shorts, you rolled your eyes. With a small shake of your head, you tugged your shorts down, stepping out of them with as much grace as you could muster.

"Looks like things are getting interesting." He chuckled, jogging to retrieve the ball "You could still back out what is that? An R?."

You watched Aurélien with a smirk as he dribbled, effortlessly moving the ball between his legs and around his back, his grin widening with each trick. "You’re getting too cocky," you teased, shaking your head at his showmanship.

"Too cocky?" he repeated, raising an eyebrow in challenge as he spun the ball on his finger. "Or just confident?"

"Let’s see how confident you are when I take the ball," you shot back, stepping closer with a determined glint in your eyes.

As Aurélien continued dribbling, you positioned yourself in front of him, fully intent on making it difficult for him to get past. Your arms stretched out, feet firmly planted, you mirrored his every move with laser focus.

He tried to fake you out with a quick move to the left, but you were right there, blocking his path. He shifted to the right, but you followed him step for step, your defense unwavering.

"You’re really not going to make this easy for me, are you?" he asked, his voice filled with playful frustration, even as his grin grew wider.

"Not a chance," you replied.

You positioned yourself to guard Aurélien, your hand pressing lightly against him as he dribbled. His movements were too easy to match. The realization that he was taking it easy on you made you giggle, but your laughter and smile seemed to fuel his playful energy. With a smirk, Aurélien pulled back, his movements throwing you off balance. Stepping around you, he went in for the layup. The ball rolled around the rim before bouncing to the ground.

Before he could react, you snatched the ball and burst into laughter at the surprised and amused expression on his face.

Aurélien scratched the back of his head, a sheepish grin spreading across his face. "Well, I guess I had that coming," he admitted, still chuckling as he straightened up.

"Yeah, you kinda did."

You stopped just in front of him, the ball resting on your hip as you grinned up at Aurélien, his expression a mix of amusement and resignation. He shook his head, hands finding their place on his hips.

Smiling, you let your hand find its way to his skin, your fingers gently tracing the defined lines of his abs. You felt the subtle catch in his breath as your touch lingered lower, his reaction unmistakable. Your eyes locked with his, a playful glint in them as you teased. "Looks like it's your turn to strip. Want me to help decide what goes next?"

Aurélien’s gaze darkened slightly with the challenge, a slow smile tugging at the corners of his lips. "I’ve got a pretty good idea of what you want," he chuckled. His hand covered yours, guiding it to the waistband of his shorts. With one last look into your eyes, he pushed them down, the fabric pooling around his ankles.

As he stepped out of them, his smile widened at the clear lingering of your gaze. "Satisfied?" he asked.

You couldn’t help but laugh softly, stepping back just a little to take in the sight of him. "For now," you replied, grinning as you tossed the ball to him.

Aurélien’s eyes met yours, and you knew exactly what he was planning before he even took a step. Standing there in nothing but his socks and briefs, he was still determined to put up a fight. You couldn't help but smile as you called out his name, a playful warning in your tone.

He shrugged casually, flashing you that mischievous grin that always made your heart skip. "All’s fair in love and basketball," he said, walking back to the three-point line. Without hesitation, he lined up his shot and let the ball fly.

You turned just in time to watch it sink perfectly through the hoop, barely making a sound. Typical.

When you turned back to him, Aurélien was grinning, and not just any grin—the kind that reached his eyes, pure satisfaction glowing in every line of his face. You shook your head, smiling despite yourself. "You’re way too competitive, you know that?"

His smile softened. "Didn’t you say that’s what you like about me?"

He wasn’t wrong. The same competitive streak that made him relentless on the basketball court or in any game was what transformed him on the pitch. It was something you admired deeply—how your caring, charming, boyish man could shift into a confident, unstoppable force when in the zone. The look in his eyes when he was running high on adrenaline did something to you. It was a look you loved, the fire behind it undeniable.

Aurélien stepped closer, his hands grazing your leg before settling warmly on your hip. "So, what’s it gonna be?" he asked, his voice low, the challenge clear. "Surrender? Or are you gonna shoot the three?"

You pretended to think about it, your eyes narrowing in playful concentration. "I could make it," you teased, grinning.

He chuckled, shaking his head as his hand gave a gentle squeeze on your hip. "I’m not doubting that, but it’s not gonna stop the inevitable."

"The inevitable?" you echoed, raising an eyebrow.

"Me winning," he said with a smirk, lifting the hem of your shirt just slightly as he leaned in, his lips brushing against your neck.

Your eyes rolled, but a contented sigh escaped your lips as your arms instinctively wrapped around his neck. The heat of his kiss lingered on your skin, and before you knew it, he had lifted you off the ground with ease, his strength evident as you laughed, your legs dangling playfully in the air.

"Aurélien!" you giggled, holding onto him tighter, though you had no intention of letting go.

"Might as well take this inside," he chuckled. "You owe me a shirt."

[tinyboobsbignipples]

Insomnia.

Reader has trouble sleeping.

Abby Anderson x Reader

Word count: 1058

Warnings: Sfw. Established relationship. A very slight and tiny hint toward sex. Not proofread. Pet names used instead of y/n. Babe, bun, love. Reader referred to as girl.

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Your eyes watched the night sky. A faint breeze came through your open window. Every so often Abby would cuddle closer to the pillow she was holding when a cold gust of wind would fly through the room. You smiled to yourself seeing as the pillow was practically being crushed by Abby's strong arms. You were once in the pillow's place. After laying in bed for what seemed like hours you quickly replaced yourself with the pillow in hopes of not waking Abby. Usually, she would wake up when you removed yourself from her embrace but today she was extremely tired so you got lucky in not interrupting her slumber.

Now, you were sitting below the window ledge, you were positioned on your knees which were currently cushioned by your favorite pillow, blocking you from the hard floor. Your back was stretched as far as it could go and your forearms were against the ledge while your cheek was smashed into the back of your hands. You loved looking at the stars. It was always so peaceful at night. You looked at the clouds. You could only tell that they were there if you focused your eyes on them. As your eyes danced from star to star you began to hear the sound of your puffy comforter moving around. Your quickly turned toward your girlfriend.

The tired blonde had a confused expression on her face as she began to realize you weren't laying next to her. She searched around the bed, her sleepy state making her mind take a few seconds longer to fully register that you weren't in bed. "Babe?" Her raspy voice asks although it could have easily been mistaken for a random groan. "I'm right here." You call out. She looks up to you and her shoulders instantly relax seeing as you're okay and still in the room with her. "What are you still doing up, bun?" Abby asks. "I can't sleep." You respond simply and look back up at the moon. "Looking at the sky again?" She asks. "Mhm," You hum with a slight nod. "The stars seem brighter tonight for some reason."

Abby lays back down and stares at the ceiling. You both know that she won't be able to fall back asleep unless she is able to feel you. The silence that filled the room was interrupted by a sigh from Abby. "Do you want to come up here or am I gonna have to go down there with you?" Abby asked as she propped herself up on her forearms. She knew all too well about your insomnia and she was sure you had tried to fall asleep many times before you decided to get up and sit on the floor. "I dunno." You responded. You looked at the clock. 4:38 am. "I can't sleep. I've tried everything." You mumbled referring to a book Abby had gifted you not too long ago. While she was out she found a book full of methods to help insomniacs sleep. However, none seemed to help your case.

"I'm sorry, bun," Abby said. You moved from your perched position and laid down on the bed next to Abby. "Can we stay awake together?" You ask as you look into her eyes. "Yeah, we can. I'll stay awake while you're still up." Abby yawned. "What do ya' wanna talk about?" Abby asks knowing that conversation always manages to get a yawn out of you. "I dunno." You say making Abby chuckle slightly. "Well, what's on your mind?" Your girlfriend asks you. You take a second to respond, trying to think of an answer. "I was just looking at the stars. My thoughts were kind of, I don't know, frozen? I guess. Like I wasn't really thinking? I don't know how to explain it..." You sigh. "... Do you think it's too late for me to go to bed? Should I just wait for the morning?" You ask.

Abby turned her head to look at the clock even though no matter what time was shown Abby would have given you the same answer. "You need your rest, love. You know how you get when you're low on sleep." You sighed knowing Abby was right. You scoot closer to Abby, resting your head on her chest. Your arm wrapped around her torso and you threw your leg over hers. Her strong arm wrapped around your body securing your position. She placed a soft kiss on your forehead. The two of you lay there with each other. Neither of you said anything. A few minutes passed by and you were almost sure she had fallen asleep but to your surprise, she spoke up.

"Is there anything I can do for you?" The blonde asks. You shook your head 'no.' Her hand trailed down to the waistband of your shorts. Her fingertips toyed with the elastic. You giggled at her silent suggestions. "No." You grinned. "No?" Abby asked. With the tone of her voice, you could tell she was smiling. "I think that's a first." She joked and removes her fingers that were tucked under your waistband and moved them to your waist.

"Shut up." You yawn and push your head further into Abby's chest. With her free hand, she moved a strand of hair that was covering your face. "That's my girl." She praised as you yawned into her chest. You blush at the girl's words. She kissed your forehead again and began rubbing your back. You close your eyes and focus all of your attention on Abby. The way her hand was slowly but surely hiking up your thin t-shirt with the way her hand was going up and down your back. Her chest rose and fell with every breath she took. Your breathing was in sync with hers. You focused your hearing on the sound of her breath and her soothing heartbeat which was right below your ear.

Soon enough you let sleep take over you. Abby wasn't sure when exactly it happened but it was now 5:12 am. She fought sleep for as long as she could. Every time she felt her eyes closing she lifted her eyebrows in an attempt to lift her heavy eyelids. She kissed your forehead once more then finally let herself fall asleep with the morning sunrise peeking through the window.

[lilyoffandoms]

Blades Drabble - Aerin x Raine

Warnings & A/N: Nothing that’s not canon compliant. Angst no happy. For @oh-so-youre-a-nerd. Totally thought I had posted this weeks ago.

Raine jolts awake. His heart racing, his breathing short, adrenaline coursing through his body. It takes him a moment to remember where he is. He’s here, it’s familiar. Not there, it’s not suffocating. There is still pain, always pain, but it is not that searing pain, it is an empty pain.

The night is still late, dark, but not in the oppressive way he remembers feeling in his nightmares. Stars still paint the sky above him and those fires remind him that he is in the realm of Light. They are visible unlike in his nightmares. He recognizes the constellations and realizes he could find his way home if he wished, unlike there, unlike in his nightmares.

He lays and listens to the night around him. The lonely wind shifting the sands into smooth patterns. The same sun-warmed sand, now cold beneath him, with the temperature having dropped considerably lower than when they had settled in for the night. But it feels familiar. It feels comforting in its own way, not like the bone-numbing coldness of there. Not like his nightmares.

He rolls onto his side and watches the fire dance in the breeze before him. Tyril having clearly kept it lit throughout his watch. Across the firelight, Raine recognizes the shapes of his travel companions.

He frowns. Shouldn’t he call them his friends? Didn’t he call them his friends yesterday? He worries that thought in his head. When did he stop calling them his friends?

Only yesterday he would have called them his friends. But yesterday was so long ago, wasn’t it? Yesterday was exactly a year ago, a long time for all of them, his friends. 

Time. 

Giving them plenty of time.

Time to find new friends.

Time for new adventures.

Time for new lives. 

Time to forget him. 

Time to move past him.

He groans and rolls onto his back again, running a hand down his tired face before rolling from the fire to look out into the night.

This dark is different from the other dark he is all too familiar with now. Somehow that dark feels like it’s crept into him. He supposes that makes sense. If you spend so long in one place, it can seep into you and find a home in all the unmapped corners of your being. And shadow thrives in those hidden corners.

A year.

A year is a hell of a long time.

Time.

Time to find yourself changed. 

He saw it in all of them but it didn’t feel real. It felt otherworldly. It felt like a parallel world where his friends looked like his friends, sounded like his friends, but with subtle changes that he could chalk up to a year having passed without him.

He’s alive, that’s what matters. Or at least that’s what should matter, he tries to remind himself. But he had to save himself. No one came for him. He crossed the known realm and another realm to reach his brother but no one could be bothered for him.

They didn’t cross the realms, they stayed where they were comfortable. Mal in Whitetower, continuing to thieve his way through every noble’s treasury. Nia in Whitetower, continuing to serve a religion that sought its wealth and importance on the backs of the poor. Imtura, continuing to look for entertainment at the bottom of every cup and the edge of every blade. Tyril, continuing his mission to better the elves and their kingdom while strengthening his own house. Kade, continuing his organization of the vast libraries of Whitetower that undoubtedly contained the knowledge needed to save his brother.

Not one of them bothered to look for more than a fleeting moment in time. Had they at least spent a few months searching for a way to save him or had it been merely weeks? Days? Hours?

It didn’t matter, what mattered was that no one came. Not one of them.

Then there was Aerin.

At one time Raine would have believed that Aerin would have come for him if he had been free but Raine had ensured his imprisonment by returning him to the Light realm and his father’s justice.

In a way, Raine supposed, he had sealed his own fate. The one person in the realm probably capable of freeing him from the Shadow realm was stuck behind bars because of his sense of moral superiority. He had wanted justice, wanted to show Aerin that there are consequences to each action we take.

Would Aerin have saved him from the Ash Empire if he had been allowed to remain in the Shadow realm?

“Fuck,” he whispered into the cold desert night.

If it wasn’t the consequences of his own actions now in the empty void of this all.

No. No he would not have.

Raine refused to believe that Aerin would have saved him even then. For the truth was, Aerin runs. 

He had shown Raine his true feelings when he left him alone in the bed they had shared with nothing but a note filled with platitudes and zero explanation. 

The real truth was staring him in the face as he looked over the emptiness of the desert.

No one would have come for him.

No one cared to risk that for him.

No one. Not for him.

He was alone. And that truth remained.

He is utterly alone.

——————————

Choices Tag: @storyofmychoices @aallotarenunelma @inlocusmads

[flurrys-creativity]

Above the clouds

Pairing: Boo Seungkwan (Seventeen) x GN!Reader; Genre: Angst, Fluff, Ghibli AU, a little Romance, S2L; Rating: sfw, PG-13; Warnings: an earthquake, crumbling buildings, getting injured with a metal stick, mentions of a sprained ankle, blood, a hospital stay, sadness and lots of resignation but a happy ending, also two kisses; Wordcount: 2.623

Summary: Ready to give up and move back home, Seungkwan didn't expect to meet you again - and he didn't expect for you to be the reason he didn't give up on his dream.

Part of @daemour‘s third annual Ghibli Collab. Based on the movie “Like the wind rises”

The second Seungkwan stepped out of the train he knew his life was about to change. Unlike the small village he grew up in, this city was bustling with life. Everywhere he looked he saw hundreds of people, rushing through the streets towards their destination.

Soon enough he would be one of them. He could already picture himself rushing from his apartment to a bakery to get some bread and from there to the pilot school. 

He stopped and tilted his head back, looking up into the sky. Seungkwan had to squint his eyes from the sun but it didn’t prevent his grin spreading over his face. 

Ever since he was a small boy, Seungkwan had admired the sky and used to watch the birds for hours on end. 

“The sky's the limit.” That’s what his mother always told him and it was enough for him to become obsessed with the idea of spending as much time in the air as possible. And with the push of his late teacher Seungkwan actually moved from his small village to attend pilot school.

His mind and soul - no - his whole body vibrated with excitement.

Seungkwan took a deep breath, ready to continue his way, when he noticed the vibrations weren’t limited to his body alone.

Small tremors ran through the ground, shaking the lamp posts, letting the signs on buildings rattle and every person around come to a stop. They looked at the ground and at each other, confusion and a glimmer of worry written over their faces. 

A few started walking again as the tremors subdued and even Seungkwan considered continuing on his way when a larger hit shook the streets. Elderly fell to their knees, unable to keep their balance. Children started to scream and cry as fear made its way through the masses.

Seungkwan couldn’t react fast enough before people started running and pushing, screaming to find some sort of rescue.

Even though there was none.

Only after parts of the street cracked and buildings crumbled did Seungkwan awake from his stupor. He never encountered an earthquake before and with the panic rising he struggled thinking clearly. What was he supposed to do again when everything around him fell apart?

Without wasting more thoughts on what to do, Seungkwan rushed through the streets. He hoped once he’d reach the dorms of the pilot academy he’d know what to do.

It came close to a miracle that Seungkwan made all his way to the dorms without even getting a scratch. There were still people running around and screaming while he tried catching his breath. His eyes frantically darted from one side to the other as he turned on his own axis. 

Smoke rose into the sky from a nearby crumbled building. Sirens filled the air, ringing loudly in his ears. And again he got pushed around. 

Seungkwan stared at the dorm, noticing a large crack making its way through the outer walls. The first parts fell to the ground, slowly becoming bigger and bigger. 

Transfixed on the building he noticed someone running out of it, frantically looking around the area. “Y/N!” He ran his hands through his hair in desperation. “God dammit, where are you?!”

Seungkwan watched the man run somewhere else, still screaming your name at the top of his lungs as he tried overpowering all the noise outside. His gaze returned to the dorms, too stunned with everything that was happening. Seungkwan couldn’t move, his emotions - fear, sorrow and worry - kept him rooted on the spot.

That’s when he saw you through the open front door of the building. You leaned against the wall heavily, unable to step on your left foot with your full weight. You flinched and made yourself even smaller when another tremor hit the building.

Without hesitation Seungkwan dropped his suitcase and ran into the building, quickly stopping at your side. “Let me help you!” He wrapped his arm around your middle and placed your arm around his shoulder. “It’s not safe inside the dorms.”

You shortly thanked him, doing your best to follow his speed with your sprained ankle. You two were a few steps away from the door when you heard another loud crack. You looked up at the door frame and dread filled your insides. 

There was no way you’d make it through that door before it would crash down.

Seungkwan noticed the same thing. He half dragged you and half carried you towards the exit. Another crack sounded through the air and the door frame fell apart right in front of your eyes. Seungkwan pulled you around, shielding you from the falling debris.

You heard him cry out in pain but he continued to hold you tight against his chest, not letting anything hurt you.

Once the rumbling ceased and only Seungkwan’s heavy, painfilled breathing could be heard within the building, you tried to wriggle yourself out of his hold. “Are you okay?”

Seungkwan winced and pressed his hand against his collarbone. His other arm hung uselessly at his side. He could feel blood trickling down his arm and falling to the ground from his fingertips.

“Shit”, you cursed as you saw the metal stick lodged in his shoulder. “That shouldn’t be there.” You watched him grimace in pain, closing his eyes tightly as he tried breathing as shallow as possible. 

“We should get out of here. Your friend was looking for you, Y/N.” Seungkwan groaned and slowly started turning around, taking in the damage around him.

“You know my name? Oh! So Hansol made it out of the building?” You laughed in relief, pressing your hand over your chest. “Lucky bastard. He was always the lucky one in our family.”

Seungkwan guided you to a broken window, thankful you kept talking. If he were to be alone in a situation like this he would have been sitting on the floor with tears streaming down his face. His sisters used to tease him that he was a little too emotional, some of his friends used to make fun of that too but Seungkwan couldn’t help it.

He looked verily at the window with the few shards of glass still hanging from it.

You grabbed a larger piece of the debris and used it to remove the glass shards. Deeming it safe enough you placed your cardigan over the windowsill and leaned out, checking whether it was a good idea to climb out or not.

Seungkwan helped you up to the best of his abilities, feeling a huge burden lifted from his shoulder as soon as he saw you being in safety. Clumsily, he dragged himself out of the window as well, groaning and whimpering with every movement that pulled at the metal stick in his shoulder.

“Y/N!” 

You turned around and waved at Hansol, calling him over to help as well since you weren’t doing a good job at stabilising your saviour.

“Where were you? I called out to you several times, dummy! Mom will chew my head off if she hears we got separated.” 

Seungkwan barely listened to their banter. Even though he stood outside and the earthquake had stopped he still felt like the ground was shaking. The numbness from his arm slowly spread through the rest of his body and spots of black appeared at the edge of his vision.

The last thing he heard was your voice begging Hansol to bring him to the nearest hospital.

~~~

Seungkwan woke up again with a massive headache and feeling extremely disorientated. The stale, white room didn’t spark any of his memories nor did the scent of disinfectant. A part of his consciousness mused that he found himself in a hospital bed but he couldn’t recall the reason for that.

“Hey, good morning. You’re finally awake.”

Seungkwan turned his head to the door. The second he saw you, memories of the earthquake flooded his mind. He groaned in pain and closed his eyes, pressing his hand against his forehead. 

“Not the reaction I expected”, you snorted and walked into the room, sitting down next to his bed.

“Sorry, it’s just”, Seungkwan sighed heavily, “a lot of memories at once. What happened after I passed out?”

You quickly told him how your brother carried him to the hospital where a team of doctors immediately prepared a room to remove the metal stick from his shoulder. “They’re optimistic you’re going to recover well, but there might be some limitations to your movements.”

Seungkwan swallowed heavily, gently caressing the bandages along his collarbone and arm. His gaze became distant and tears welled up in his eyes. “Will I be able to become a pilot with this?” Seungkwan’s eyes snapped back to you, seeing how you bit on your lower lip. He noticed the apologetic look in your eyes and didn’t need for you to actually answer him.

“I’m sorry.”

Seungkwan shook his head before he hid his eyes behind his hand, refusing to let you see his tears. He had known reaching this city would change his life but he didn’t expect it to be to his disadvantage. 

“If you really want to become a pilot you shouldn’t give up. There might be a chance?” 

Seungkwan knew you only tried to cheer him up but right now he felt like being consumed by the void. “All I ever wanted was to be in the sky”, he murmured - more to himself than to you.

Pilot regulations were quite strict and even the smallest injury could become the reason for someone to fail entrance. Even if an injured shoulder wouldn’t be an issue, the time until Seungkwan finally healed enough to start this path would be too late. He couldn’t ask his parents to finance such a delay.

Seungkwan barely noticed how you bid your goodbyes and left the room, leaving him behind in his misery.

He actually barely registered anything going on around him from then on. Every day Seungkwan stared outside his window and into the sky, listlessly following the floating clouds with his eyes. 

When it came to the day of his discharge he got ready to walk to the train station, moving back home and helping his parents with their business instead.

Seungkwan had gotten a letter from the pilot academy a few days prior, telling him that they were sorry about everything that happened but that they couldn’t let him continue his studies. That letter had finalised his decision to go back home - that and the hours on end he thought about all the what ifs and maybes.

He was able to move his arm and shoulder again, though he had to admit it always felt slightly off. The doctors mentioned it could be like that for a while but should he continue to train his arm regularly it might go away as well.

Seungkwan rolled his shoulder and signed the discharge paper, ready to close this rather short and extremely sad chapter of his life.

“Seungkwan!”

Surprised he turned around, seeing you waving your hand over your head and running towards him. Ever since the day he woke up, Seungkwan hadn’t seen you again and he didn’t expect you to be here.

You stopped in front of him and took a deep breath. “I need you to come with me!”

Seungkwan frowned in confusion and a small yelp left his lips since you grabbed his lower arm and pulled him with you. “Wha-? Where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise!” You pulled him out of the hospital and towards a parking car, ushering him inside and quickly following.

“Hey”, Hansol greeted him from behind the steering wheel, shortly nodding into the rearview mirror before he started the engine.

Seungkwan blinked several times before he turned to you with a perplexed expression. “What’s going on?”

You grinned brightly. “You’ll see.”

Hansol only chuckled when he met Seungkwan’s overwhelmed expression, knowing his sister could be a little too much at times.

Seungkwan noticed how the car drove further out of the city, leaving all the high buildings and masses of people behind. Soon enough large fields took place instead of buildings.

“We’re here!” You exclaimed and leaned over Seungkwan to point at a giant hot air balloon. The second Hansol parked the car you jumped out and pulled Seungkwan with you once more. You ushered him into the wooden basket of the balloon and hopped in right after him. 

“Ready for take off!” You motioned to Hansol, who leisurely walked around the balloon and capped all the security lines holding it to the ground.

“Why did you take me here?” Seungkwan asked, watching with worried eyes how the last line got removed. He flinched and grabbed onto the basket when a burst of fire got released over his head. “Holy, that was loud!”

You giggled softly and released another - longer - burst of fire, taking both of you higher into the sky. Once you reached a height where the wind slowly carried you above the clouds you turned to Seungkwan. “You don’t have to give up on your dream.”

Seungkwan stared at you with wide eyes, trying to process what you wanted to tell him. His eyes wandered from your face to his surroundings. Sky - as far as his sight could reach. He carefully leaned over the railing and looked towards the ground, exhaling sharply when he noticed how far up you two were and how small everything seemed in comparison.

“My brother and I will continue our dad’s hot air balloon business and if you want to you could become one of our pilots.”

“How do you steer it?”

You snickered and grabbed his hand, pulling him over to your side. You laced your fingers with his and pulled on a rope together with him. “I don’t steer the balloon. The wind does.”

Seungkwan tilted his head in confusion, though having you right in front of him with your back pressed against his front didn’t help his thinking either. “Then what did you just do?”

“We just released some hot air from the balloon, which in turn lowers us to another stream of wind. That’s how you steer a balloon. You use the warmth of the fire to adjust your height and let nature do the rest for you.”

You let go of his hand and turned around, standing now face to face with him. “I know you won’t travel as far as a pilot of a plane and you’d be much more reliant on the weather but if you really only wanted to be in the sky…” You bit on your lower lip and avoided eye contact. “Maybe this is still good?”

“Good?” Seungkwan repeated in a whisper, letting his eyes once again roam around the area and the hot air balloon itself before they landed on your form. “This is better than good!” A wide grin spread over his lips while his vision became blurry from tears of happiness. “You gave me something to dream about again. You gave me hope!” 

Overwhelmed with emotions Seungkwan cupped your face and pulled you in for a kiss. It took him a few seconds to realise what he did. He pulled back and stared at you with wide and apologetic eyes. Though before he could voice his apology, you grabbed him by the collar and pulled him back into a kiss.

You wrapped your arms around his neck and pressed yourself against his form, deepening the kiss until Seungkwan melted into it as well. “I wanted to do that ever since you saved me”, you whispered against his lips with a giggle.

Seungkwan could feel the heat rushing to his cheeks. “It definitely made my heart soar even higher into the sky.”

© all rights reserved  

Taglist: @xavi-in-kpopland​ 

[lilac--sugar]

Content Warning: Sexual content at end (Nothing too explicit)

There’s a sweet-sick feeling twisting through his stomach. The kind that only happens from lack of sleep. He’s spent too many hours trying, sleep never coming to claim him. His body is uncomfortable in that restless kind of way. No matter what position he curls himself into he can’t relax. Not that there’s ever really any good position when you’re in the back seat of a taxi.

Eddie presses his head against the window, it surprisingly not as cool as he’d expect. L.A. never really allowing for the kind of cold he’s used to, to grace her temperate lands.  He watches the cityscape pass by. Concrete and asphalt shrouded in orange incandescent streetlights. Light and shadow passing over his face as they drive down the highway.

There’s a hollowness in his chest. A void left from months of long distance. He presses a hand to it, thinks covering it might make it hurt less. He looks for distraction, fills his time looking up at the tall buildings framing the street. He’s always liked the lit windows, finds some comfort in the knowledge that he’s not the only one awake. He thinks of stories for them. Someone’s up eating a late-night sandwich. Maybe there’s a couple having a movie marathon. The ache deepens as he imagines it’s him and Steve.

Too much time apart. These long tours always are. He thinks he’d rather lose an arm than stay away this long again. Needs Steve. Thinks of his smile. The taxi passes through a tunnel, blinding white lighting the way.

“God,” he whispers, breath fogging up the glass as he presses his eyes shut. Way too much time apart.

The plane ride isn’t any better. Neck pillow doesn’t help. Sleep mask, fuck that. He settles back in his seat, restlessness riding up his spine. He closes his eyes, thinks of Steve’s laugh. The person next to him turns on their reading light, warm light shines through his lids. He takes a breath and pulls out his Walkman, sliding his headphones on. He hopes the music will drown everything else out.

By the time the plane lands pink is blooming into the purple sky, orange just on the edge of the horizon. It’s so quiet. Eddie thinks this is what it must be like in apocalypse movies. Everything gated and lights turned off. Barely anyone around as the tiny plane of people from the red eye make their way to baggage claim.

He’s mindlessly watching the conveyor belt. Boring bag after boring bag when-

“Hey,” He knows the voice probably better than his own. A breath escapes him and he allows himself to fall back. It’s less of a timber and more of a full collapse. He’s caught in broad strong arms, warmth and safety flood over him.

“Hey,” Eddie slowly opens his eyes to look up. Sunlight pours over Steve’s shoulders, casts a golden halo over the puff of his effortlessly perfect messy hair.

“Hey,” Steve smiles down at him. His voice softer this time, affection spilling out from every bit of the little word. They take a moment to just stare at each other. Hungry eyes finally taking in the only thing they’ve been wanting to see. It takes all his will power but Steve breaks first, hauls Eddie back up to his feet, wanting to keep the affection going but there’s too many people. Too many eyes already drifting to them. It doesn’t help that there’s a teen nudging their mother’s arm, trying but failing to discretely point at Eddie. “It’s him! It’s him!” screaming out in the action.

Eddie graciously waves at the kid. In turn the kid looks to their mother as if asking, “can I?” to which she nods and she comes running up to Eddie.

“Here,” Steve’s passing him a sharpie, already prepared for this to happen, “I’ll get your bags,” Steve says as he moves away to look for them.

By the time they’re saying their goodbyes, Eddie giving the kid a quick hug, Steve is wandering back. Guitar slung over his shoulder and luggage being wheeled behind him. They walk out side by side, falling into that “safe” public distance they both so hate.

“Fuck these things,” They’re halfway down a backroad when Eddie’s pushing up the middle armrests of their car. He’d bought a 1989 Lincoln Continental a while back just for this purpose and this purpose alone. Steve’s quick to pull over, tossing the car in park. Seatbelts thrown off and the two of them crash into one another.

Warm breath coming out in puffs between their lips in the still cold car cabin. Hands grasp at clothes, fingers curling into fabric, nails grazing skin. Eddie’s pulling Steve over him with strength Steve wasn’t expecting from a half-asleep Eddie.

“Needed you,” Eddie breathes and Steve can’t keep back the noise Eddie pulls out of him with a sharp tug to the hair at the nape of his neck. Months apart have left them both aching. It kills Steve he can't just tour with Eddie. "Take my heart when you go." "Take mine in it's place." They trade hearts, always do when Eddie goes on tour. It's never enough, both needing the other close, closer than they'll ever be able to get. Need to be soul deep.

Eddie presses his tongue into Steve’s mouth who accepts it eagerly. More noises spill out of Steve's lips as Eddie rocks his hips up. Even through jeans the other’s body feels so good against their own. The thought of ‘too long.’ rings out in Eddie’s mind again. Once again it’s Steve with the will power.

“Home,” He sighs into Eddie’s ear as Eddie bites and licks up his neck, causing him to whimper. Steve licks his lips and swallows hard, “Let’s get you home.”

Eddie grins against Steve’s skin. Wrapped in Steve’s light, Eddie knows, “I already am,” and he pulls Steve in to another kiss.

(A/N: The "Take my heart when you go." "Take mine in it's place." line is from Westworld S02E08. I just really loved it and could very much see Eddie and Steve saying it to each other.)

[sunshine-luca]

before

The pilot was as crotchety and as difficult to work with as everyone warned him to be… But Luca fell in love with him anyway.

He’d arrived Heathrow in the early hours of the morning, before the sun had risen into the sky he thought- until he realised it was just the dreary English weather leaving a pall over his jetlagged mood. He trundled out of the airport with his suitcase and straight into a row of gleaming black cars while a guy not much older than himself with blue eyes and a ready smile held his name up on a plaque.

“Seamus, right?” Luca said, squinting into the fog. Fuck, he was tired. He hadn’t managed a wink of sleep on the twenty two plus hour flight over, too anxious, too nervous to be leaving his home and venturing somewhere new. He’d insisted on heading to the UK for his gap year, just like every one of this classmates and well against his father’s advice. Luca couldn’t blame Isaac really. They’d found each other late in life, when Luca was almost fully grown and the surprise of Luca’s parentage had been a shock to them both.

But of all nights Luca had laid awake as a child, wishing his long lost parent would come to rescue him from the depressing hell of the group home, he never expected his biological father would be a military captain, one of the youngest officers to ever to take command of the SSV Berlin.

Nor would Luca have expected his complicated birth story, or the part Isaac’s lover Mason, a secret super-solider of a paramilitary organisation no one had ever heard of to be a part of it. Mason had tracked Luca down and fallen in love with Isaac in the process of reuniting them.

Part of Luca felt bad for leaving the base in Sydney and going half way around the world. He felt bad, but not… wrong. Something was calling him. Something that had made him yearn to see the wilds of Scotland for as long as he could remember. He wondered if it was something to do with his mother, except he didn’t quite have a mother. No one knew who she was, or where she came from, her records expunged from the lab’s logs years before Luca ever ended up in the home. But Luca wondered. He wondered if the pull he felt for a country he had never been to was because of her.

“Rourke, actually,” the man laughed. He didn’t have the thick Scottish brogue Luca had expected. This man sounded almost… American. “I’ll still answer to Seamus but most people call me Rourke.”

Luca tried not to think too hard about that. His brain wasn’t functioning with so little sleep anyway. “Uh. Okay.”

Rourke tilted his head, studying Luca. “You look dead on your feet. Come on, get in the car and I’ll take you back to the estate.” He glanced at the two men Luca hadn’t initially noticed, one big and dark gold, the other pale like the sun. Both in black, both mildly terrifying. They moved away, one sliding into the car, the other keeping watch while Rourke herded Luca into the plush leather seats of the back of the black Audi.

Rourke slid in beside him and the doors slammed. They were soon peeling away from the curb, past the crush of people coming and going from the terminal. Luca tried to answer the few questions Rourke had for him, friendly things, getting to know you things, but he was too tired to stay awake.

He fell asleep before they even hit the highway.

--

The estate was unlike anything Luca had ever seen. It was sprawling and ancient, and more like a compound than what he would have expected from some prissy little country manor. The title of castle that Rourke casually threw around as a moniker was more accurate than Luca realised. The main house was beautiful and old but meticulously maintained. The money it must take to upkeep this estate must be phenomenal but when Rourke started to talk about the private airfield and the collection of planes the O’Riain family held, Luca soon learned that money wasn’t an issue.

When Luca had rebelled against Isaac’s reluctance to allow him to join the estate, Mason had pulled him aside quietly.

“You don’t know what you’ll become a part of, Luc,” Mason said. His green eyes were troubled. “What they do… what they control… It’s not for the faint of heart.”

Luca had scoffed. “Mase, what do you think is going to happen? I just want to work on the planes and see a bit of Scotland while I’m there. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. I mean, these guys have their own private collection – and I’ll get a chance to work on all of them. How many people will get to say that? Let alone my age!”

Mason hadn’t said much more. It would have fallen on deaf ears anyway. Luca was determined to go and he was determined to put his degree to good use and get his hands on the private collection of vintage planes and private jets that the eldest O’Riain held dear.

Luca had wondered about him with a bit of apprehension when Isaac had mentioned him in passing. By all accounts, Lt. Blake Ryan was a hardnosed man who didn’t suffer any bullshit. He served with Isaac back in the day and the two had remained friends. Luca had tried to press for details but Isaac had been tight lipped. He was apprehensive about meeting the pilot but reasoned he probably wouldn’t really have all that much to do with him. He’d be in the air, Luca would be on the ground. Maybe one day, Luca might bother to get his flight hours up, but the urgency wasn’t there. He was only twenty one, there was plenty of time for that.

Rourke showed him to his room – more of a suite really – all brocade and gilded gold surfaces, a four poster bed and a view over the estate gardens and the distant rugged highlands in the distance. Luca barely noticed the finer details, kicking off his shoes and falling down face first onto the sheets.

Rourke chuckled from behind him. “Alright, I’ll leave you to get settled then.”

The door closed with a soft snick and then Luca was alone.

--

It took Luca four days to truly overcome his jetlag and make the mental switch from southern hemisphere to northern hemisphere. Everything was back to front – he’d left in the autumn, just as the cool was starting to creep but here there was new life blooming everywhere. Even the weather – foggy and cold and grey in London, was a distant memory in the Scottish countryside.

He started to learn his way around the castle. From the inside, it really did feel like a castle with long dark hallways and flickering lights in the wall sconces. They didn’t flicker because of a naked flame, but more because the wiring in this particular wing was dated back before the war and was sorely in need of an upgrade. Luca didn’t mind it though. Sometimes walking back from the dining room at the front of the sprawling building, he would pad along the marble floors and imagine himself in flowing robes with a circlet of office perched on top of his unruly curls. A silly little fantasy he would had quickly grown out of except that it followed him into his dreams.

And his dreams. He told himself it was the jetlag, but his heart whispered something else.

He dreamed of the Scottish countryside, the windy mores and tight forests. He dreamed of fire pits and the clash of swords, of hands on his skin and long hair the colour of flames. One night he had even dreamed of soft linen, draped over a swollen belly – his swollen belly and woke up in a cold sweat with his heart racing so hard he thought he might vomit.

The pull he thought would ease when he finally touched down in this land didn’t fade. It only grew stronger.

By day five, he felt he had a handle on the time zones and the estate. Rourke was a good guy, and Luca felt an odd kind of kinship with him being another ‘outsider’. Rourke had more of a claim than Luca realised though. He was O’Riain blood too, but like Luca, had grown up away from the centre of the vortex that made him. Rourke introduced him to the staff, showed him around the estate and when Luca finally declared himself ready and able to get to work, Rourke’s private smile had been hard to read.

“I have to warn you, Ryan is… a hard man to get to know.”

Luca shrugged as he climbed into the car beside Rourke. He was dressed to get down to business, overalls and boots, his jewellery left back in his room. The only nod he kept to his individual style was his black painted fingernails. They’d probably get all greased up anyway.

“Everyone keeps telling me. I can’t wait to meet this big, bad scary pilot,” Luca teased. He wasn’t lying, he did want to meet Blake O’Riain, but mostly so he could put a face to the name everyone whispered. Would he look like his sister, the formidable and stunningly beautiful Skye? Luca had been struck speechless when he’d met her briefly in the hallways one morning. Her stilettos were sharp enough to kill someone and they only served to make her already impressive height even more pronounced.

She was incredible.

Or would the pilot be as crotchety as they claimed, middle aged and grumpy, dismissive of the family name and the work his sister did to keep the funds flowing so that he could indulge in his private passion for planes?

Luca was so curious to find out.

The Range Rover bumped along the rocky ground to the airfield. In the distance, the state of the art hangar came into view. Low and squat and gleaming silver, it looked surprising not out of place in the rugged Scottish countryside.

“Wow,” Luca said, eyes wide. “That’s the hangar?”

Rourke’s grin was smug. “It’s one of three. This is the main operational hangar though. The one with the working planes.”

The ones you’ll be expected to maintain, Rourke didn’t say.

There was already a car in place, parked on the far side of the hangar near the secured doors. Rourke pulled the Range Rover up in a crunch of gravel and got out. Luca followed, watched keenly as he did something complicated on the keypad then handed Luca a card of his own.

Rourke’s blue eyes had momentarily lost their warmth. “We don’t fuck around with security.”

Luca thought of the hulking shadows, never too far out of reach, always lurking in the corners of the estate and a shiver ran down his spine. He took the card carefully and slipped the lanyard over his neck before tucking it on the inside of his shirt. “Understood.”

Rourke seemed pleased with that and pushed the door open. It immediately opened into a cavernous space, shiny concrete floors that stretched as far as the eye could see. The entire space was air conditioned and well lit, because fuck, of course it would be. These O’Riain’s wanted for nothing and Luca felt a burst of excitement to know this is where he was going to be working.

At the far end of the space, a walled space jutted out and glass windows showed a figure moving around on the inside. The offices. On the other side of that, more rooms hug the distant walls- more offices, a kitchen and a lounge. Above the offices hugging the domed ceiling was another set of rooms.

Rourke caught the way Luca’s eyes followed the white spiral staircase to the upper level. “That’s Ryan’s space. He doesn’t often come back to the main house.”

“He lives here?”

Rourke shrugged. “When he’s not in the air.”

Luca’s heart fell slightly. If Ryan was as grumpy and as difficult to work with as they all seemed to hint, it might not be much fun having him in such close proximity when he wasn’t flying.

Rourke struck out across the hangar, passing by the belly of the nearest jet. Luca had expected only one to be in the hangar but as they passed, he saw another two beautiful birds standing silent nearby. Holy shit. These were state of the art and costly and only a handful of them existed in the world.

His excitement grew and his brain skipped ahead to the moment when he would be able to call his father and gloat that the planes he was going to be able to work on would look pretty fucking ace on his resume.

They were halfway across the hangar when the office door crashed open and the figure inside strode out. His face was contorted in barely restrained annoyance and even from this distance, Luca could see the same O’Riain shade of blue of his eyes. He wasn’t as old as Luca had expected, mid-thirties with lines around his eyes and mouth that showed a life well lived. His hair didn’t match the reddish tint of his close beard and for a second, Luca’s gaze was stuck on the streak of silver that was just beginning to form at his forehead when it caught the light.

But it was his strong, tattooed hands when he started gesturing that made something hot and tight coil in the centre of his belly.

“Well, it’s about fookin’ time,” Ryan was muttering as he approached. Luca hung back, hiding a little shamefully at Rourke’s back. He wasn’t a tall guy, he was fine boned and small and Rourke was none of those things. It was easy to hide. “I was expectin’ ye hours ago.”

Rourke was unperturbed by Ryan’s apparent temper. “Why? Have you got somewhere you need to be?”

“Aye, as a matter of fact, I do. I need these birds fuelled up and ready to go, and the last fookin’ numpty you left me bolted two days ago without a single fookin’ word.”

“Did you try asking him nicely where he was going?”

Luca tried to hide his snicker at Rourke’s mildly asked question. The smirk on the younger man’s face was unmistakable, and probably really brave from what Luca understood. Ryan stopped in his tracks and levelled a glare at Rourke that was cold enough to rival the arctic.  

“Just because ye’ve got my sister’s ear right now doesn’t mean I cannae make life a living hell for ye too, boyo.” Ryan’s gaze shifted as Luca stepped out from behind Rourke’s shadow. For half a second, he looked like he’d been struck with something – his mouth twisted silently, his eyes widened – barely a flash before he was back to scowling. “And who the fuck is this?”

--

Ryan wasn’t as scary as they let on, providing Luca knew the work.

Which he did.

Rourke had left him in Ryan’s hands and Luca moved fast to familiarize himself with the birds in question, the tools and equipment on display. Normally a pre-flight check like this would take a few hours but Ryan had already made a start on it. Luca liked that. Ryan wasn’t just a pilot, he knew his way around the guts and hearts of the planes too.

There was a lot Luca was surprised to like about Ryan.

At first, Luca kept his distance where he could. He had to. The weird, instant spark of attraction that had flared to life burned steadily in his gut. Ryan looked good. He smelled good. The warmth radiating off him when Luca moved too close felt like the sun and Luca wanted to be Icarus. He found himself listening to every word Ryan said, committing all of it to memory. The timbre of his voice made Luca itch under his skin, the movement of his hands made Luca wonder what it would be like to have those hands on him- And the ink… it was everywhere. Luca shouldn’t have been surprised, knowing Skye’s penchant for art on her body, but Ryan’s made him stare, made him wonder what else he had painted on his skin. Made him wonder if every time Ryan handed him a tool or brushed past him as he climbed into the plane or held his gaze a little longer than necessary – if maybe the same burn was low in Ryan’s gut too.

It was bad, though, wasn’t it? To want a man like Ryan. There were so many reasons why it was a bad idea – but when he went back to the castle and lay in his suite under the canopy of the four poster bed and jerked off to thoughts of the pilot, Luca couldn’t remember what any of them were.

[lexosaurus]

Birthmark

Phic Phight oneshot for @datawyrms: Danny Phantom's jumpsuit is hiding a secret he'd rather not reveal to anyone.

---

“Shit,” Valerie cursed, deactivating her hoverboard and gently placing the figure on the ground. “Shit, shit, shit.”

Bright green liquid soaked the ghost’s body, dripping off his waist and painting the grass in a steady stream. It was ectoplasm, something inhuman and twisted, and yet when Valerie looked down, all she saw was how closely it resembled blood. 

She raised a shaking hand and attempted to brush away some of the green on her suit. But she looked more green than red at this point and all she could think of was how much ectoplasm was outside the ghost’s body. 

It was too much.

They’d been ambushed after a ghost fight, the Guys in White having caught them in one of their special nets. Valerie had tried to yell out that she wasn’t a ghost, she was human, but it was no use. They zapped the net, and her vision was shrouded in darkness.

The next thing she knew, she was in a van, trapped with her biggest rival in Amity Park. Phantom was awake, but he didn’t know how long they’d been in the van for. Hours passed before the van stopped at last. But at that point, they had a plan.

As soon as an operative opened the back, Valerie was on him. She knocked him out, stole his gun, and bolted.

Apparently, Phantom wasn’t so useless without his powers either. By some miracle, he managed to find a way to remove his inhibitor collar and take flight.

But that was when all hell broke loose. Right as he’d paused to free Valerie from her inhibitors, someone landed a shot on him.

And he fell.

Valerie didn’t have time to think. She just grabbed his body, activated her hoverboard, and flew, not sure where she was going but unwilling to stop until she was sure she’d lost the agents. 

“Fuck.” She threw off her helmet and looked down at Phantom’s unconscious form. There was a hole in the stomach of his suit, and ectoplasm bubbled and sparkled in the harsh sun.

He was going to die, Valerie realized. What happened when a ghost died? Could they even die? 

“Stay with me,” she whispered.

She shoved a hand in her belt for her emergency supplies, but her glove was too slippery, and her hand trembled too much. She couldn’t do this. She ripped off her glove and tried again, trying to ignore the way the ectoplasm trickled between her fingers.

She had a bit of gauze, a tube of instant clot powder, a few butterfly clips, and a few large bandages. It wasn’t much, but it would have to work.

Because the alternative…

She set the supplies down and turned back to the unconscious ghost. His glow was almost nonexistent, and for the first time she could see his face clearly. All the grooves of skin, his pores, the individual hairs on his eyelashes and eyebrows. He had freckles. That tiny, human detail Valerie would have thought impossible for a ghost. 

Even the more humanoid ghosts always had some slight haze to them, something that just made them more like a realistic doll than a person. But not Phantom. If it weren’t for the white hair and ectoplasm, she would have thought him to be just a regular teenager.

“Stay with me.” 

She needed to take his jumpsuit off. Could she even do that? Was it attached to him? Would taking it off just hurt him more?

For a moment, Valerie knelt there frozen, unsure of what to do. She felt lightheaded, dizzy, nauseous. Her nostrils were filled with the scent of burnt battery acid and lime, and she could only stare as the Phantom’s face slowly grew paler and paler.

She pinched herself. “Snap out of it.” She’d dealt with worse, this was just a ghost. A ghost that she didn’t even like. A ghost that she’d spent the last two years chasing out of Amity Park.

She could do this.

Grabbing her swiss army knife out of her belt, she began carefully slicing through the fabric. Her damp hands were immediately filled with green goo, and for a moment she panicked, thinking that her fears were correct and that the jumpsuit acted like a second skin for Phantom.

But then she saw a black t-shirt peeking out underneath the jumpsuit, and she realized with a shaky breath of relief that the suit simply melted if it wasn’t attached to the host.

Of course, that made sense. She’d seen Plasmius rip off his cape before and it had dissolved in thin air. How could she have forgotten?

She made quick work with removing the jumpsuit, and had started on the undershirt as well when Phantom groaned.

She froze, unable to move the slightest muscle, as she watched Phantom’s drunk green eyes slowly flutter to life. 

“Don’...” he slurred.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice cracked. “You’re hurt, I’m sorry.”

She tried to resume cutting his shirt, but he lazily swatted her hand away. “Don’...”

“Phantom, stop. I need to get this off you.”

“Stop...”

“I gotta do this,” she said, tearing his t-shirt. “It’s just a shirt.”

“S’ugly,” he mumbled, his eyes rolling back. His head lolled to the side, and he was out again.

Valerie rolled her eyes. “Oh, don’t be—” 

Her voice cut off, and she sucked in a breath. Tattooed on Phantom’s skin were glowing lightning figures that branched from his shoulder, snaking around his chest and stomach as if they were alive.

Valerie had never seen anything like it before, and she could have dismissed them as just ectoplasmic tattoos. But from Phantom’s reaction, she had a sneaking suspicion that these were something much more serious. Much more personal.

Something that she didn’t have time to think about right now. Something that was getting covered by ectoplasm, something that was losing its bleak glow as the aura around Phantom faded to nothing.

Time was up. She needed to act now.

Ripping off the packaging, Valerie got to work.

---

The sky was clear, glittering with thousands of stars. It was one of those rare nights where the milky way was visible, arcing the sky with its brilliance. 

Valerie had never been one to care about nature. Growing up rich in the city, her focus was always materialistic. She just wanted to fit in with the other girls, so she’d been more than willing to follow along with their hobbies and model her life after their trends.

Nature? Space? Stars? She never gave them a second thought.

Until her life was turned upside down, that was. Suddenly, Valerie went from hardly spending time outside to now soaring through the sky every night, weather be damned. It didn’t take long for her to appreciate the beauty of a clear, warm, night sky.

She landed on top of a building and collapsed her hoverboard. It had been quiet thus far, with only a few ambient blob ghosts roaming around a warehouse. Although at the beginning of her ghost hunting career, Valerie had spent each night painstakingly capturing every ghost in sight, she’d grown since then. She wasn’t so angry, so vengeful now.

And aside from being completely harmless, even Valerie had to admit there was something almost cute about the tiny bulbs of ecto energy.

Her suit dinged, signaling a ghost nearby, and Valerie groaned. There really was no rest for the weary, it seemed.

She raised her radar watch to her eyes to see a familiar ecto signature reading pop up in the corner.

One that was heading towards her.

Shit.

She hadn’t seen Phantom since that day. He’d been avoiding her. And maybe a few months ago she wanted him to avoid her, but now...

That day had changed her.

It was terrifying the way the government had so easily lumped her in with the ghosts just because they detected ectoplasmic readings from her suit. She woke up not knowing where she was, where she was going, if she’d ever see her father again.

Part of Valerie had insisted that once they saw her without her helmet, they’d call her dad and drive her back. It would have all been a big misunderstanding.

But a different part of her, one deep down inside, knew she was just lying to herself.

The government operated the way she did when she first started ghost hunting. All black and white, no room for grey. Ghost were evil and all ectoplasm needed to be destroyed. Period.

After she patched Phantom up in that grassy field, she flew and flew until she stumbled across a nearby town. She hid Phantom in a warehouse and sat with him for hours, forcing herself to stay away and stand guard in case the GiW found them. 

He didn’t wake up until the next morning, taking one look between Valerie and his exposed torso before panic struck his features and he simply disappeared. Before Valerie could gather her wits to hunt his ungrateful ass down and kill him again, he reappeared, suit intact, and began leading their way back to Amity on instinct alone.

Phantom refused to look her in the eye for the entire trip home. And when they finally got to Valerie’s apartment, left her with a “get some sleep” before disappearing once again.

Her watch buzzed lightly against her skin, signaling that he was close. Valerie leaned back, waiting. Seeing if he’d actually come to her, or if he’d bail and pull the vanishing act he was so famous for.

But then he appeared. Right in front of her. His glow was vibrant against the night sky, covering his body in a shimmery aura. His acidic green eyes glistened in the dark.

He really looked no worse for wear after his injury. That kind of hit would have landed Valerie in the hospital. And yet, Phantom was back the next day, full of bright smiles and puns for the people of Amity.

She wondered how often this kind of thing happened to him. Just how many times had he been nearly slaughtered only to pop back into the public eye pretending like nothing happened?

He gave her an awkward wave. “Hey, Red.” 

“Phantom.” She greeted cooly.

Just because lately she’d been seeing Phantom as someone who didn’t have an inherently evil Obsession didn’t mean that she liked him. At best, he was cocky, arrogant. At worst, he’d dumped her back at her apartment and left her by herself after the complete shit show that was their kidnapping.

So yeah, maybe she was a little bitter. Sue her.

“Uh, do you mind if I…” He gestured to the roof.

She pretended to mull his proposition over, watching as his ghostly tail flickered in anxiety.

He was ready to bolt, and she didn’t blame him. They’d never really talked before.

“Do what you want. I don’t feel like fighting tonight,” she finally conceded.

Relief spread across Phantom’s features, and Valerie was once again reminded of how human he was. She once thought that ghosts couldn’t feel any emotions. While it was doubtless that the way they experienced emotions was different than how humans did, there was just no way that Phantom was able to nail all those tiny details so accurately. Even if he was one of the more powerful ghosts out there, it would have been near impossible to mimic the full range of human emotion so quickly and precisely.

He settled down next to her, his tail morphing into legs positioned criss-crossed against the concrete. He turned to her, rubbing the back of his neck.

Valerie said nothing, just allowing the blanket of awkwardness to settle over the pair. If he wanted to say something, he could say it. Valerie wasn’t going to hand-hold him through a conversation.

When the tension was reaching the point of unbearable, Phantom finally broke the silence. “It’s a nice night.”

“Sure is.”

“I haven’t—uh, seen any ghosts. Tonight, I mean. Like outside. Or inside, too. Uh...it’s a quiet night. Ghost free. Well, except for me, I guess.”

“Yeah.”

He ran a gloved hand through his white hair. “Not that I’m really complaining. It’s kinda nice to have a break for a change.”

Valerie grunted in agreement, even though she was sure Phantom was lying through his teeth. Ghosts lived for their Obsessions, and Phantom was no different. She knew that deep down, he reveled in ghost hunting even more than any human ever could.

The duo was lapsed back into another tense silence, one that Valerie didn’t try to break. She didn’t understand what his goal was with the petty chatter. Did he think they were suddenly friends now? After he discarded her back at her apartment like she was a used rag and disappeared without a hint of remorse?

After she carried him hundreds of miles away from the Guys in White compound, bandaged his wounds, and then stayed up all night just to make sure he was safe?

She could have left him there. She could have been home before her father had woken up the next morning in a panic because his daughter was nowhere to be found. She could have avoided the phone call to the police, the missing child report, the whole mess that had followed.

And he couldn’t have even been bothered to say thank you afterward. Just dumped her and left.

So if he thought she was going to help him out now, he had another thing coming.

“How have...um, how have you been? Since…”

“Fine.” She said. “My dad’s been better.”

He winced. “Yeah…”

“Not that you care.”

He jolted up, turning around to face her. “What?”

“You know what I’m talking about, spook.”

“I thought we were over the whole ‘spook’ thing,” he said, his face twisting in annoyance.

“And I thought you were over being an inconsiderate jerk. But I guess I was wrong.”

“Listen, Val—”

“Don’t call me that,” she snapped.

He pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “Okay, Red. Listen, I’m sorry. Okay? I got freaked out that you—you saw…” He let out a shaky breath. “I didn’t know what to say. I’m sorry you got caught up in my problems, I’m sorry they thought you were a ghost, and I just...yeah.”

Valerie sat there for a moment, glaring out at the night’s sky. “It was a big mess, you know.”

“I know.”

“The police were involved and everything.”

“I heard.”

“And you know the worst part? I couldn’t even tell them the truth.” She let out a bitter laugh. “I got kidnapped by my own government and I couldn’t even tell my dad. I had to lie and say I got lost while out on a nature hike. How stupid is that? I nearly got killed by the freaking government and I haven’t been able to say a damn thing to anyone.”

“I’m sorry.” His voice was quiet.

“Yeah, well…” Valerie swallowed the lump in her throat. “You know. Hazard of the job, I guess. Still would have been nice if you hadn’t just left on me. After everything.”

Phantom lowered his head, allowing the white strands of hair to cover his eyes. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“It was a dick move.”

“It was.”

“I just wanna know why.”

He looked up, startled. “Why? Why you were captured, or—”

“Why the silent treatment? Was it because I saw those glowing lightning tattoos under your jumpsuit?”

He flinched back as if he’d been struck, his body lifting to hover over the cement. He stared at her open mouthed, as if he didn’t think she’d even dare to mention it.

But Valerie couldn’t find it in her to be joyous at his hurt expression. “Seriously? You were mad about that? Like I care about what you put on your body.”

“No, no.” Despite looking like he wanted to take flight, he managed to lower himself back onto the roof. “No, they’re...it’s complicated.” 

“Oh, wonderful,” she said sardonically. “So let me get this straight, ghost boy. I save your ass from the government, pull an all-nighter guarding your lifeless body in a warehouse, and the best you can give me is an it’s complicated? Thanks a lot. It really makes me feel better.”

“No, it’s…” He trailed off, rubbing a hand over his face. His eyebrows were pinched and he looked almost sick. When he finally spoke, his voice was small. “They’re not tattoos.”

“Oh? What, an unlucky birthmark?”

He didn’t respond.

Valerie turned to him, realization hitting her with full force. Unable to keep the surprise out of her voice, she said, “Really? That’s it?”

He pulled his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around his legs. His eyes were distant, far away. Lost in some other world.

He’d been electrocuted. Struck to death by lightning, or something similar. And now it was branded on him, as some twisted reminder of the ugly creature that extended its spindly claws and ripped his humanity from his body.

“Damn.” Valerie blew out a breath. “Of all the ways to go, huh?”

“I—Yeah…”

She couldn’t help herself. “Do all ghosts have one?”

“No.”

Valerie didn’t know if that made it better or worse. Questions swirled through her brain, but she bit her tongue. She didn’t know much about ghost culture, but she was fairly certain that there was a taboo against asking ghosts about their deaths.

So she stayed silent, pretending to focus back on the stars but stealing glances to the teenage ghost beside her. His brows had furrowed, as if he were having an internal war. Whatever it was, Valerie didn’t pry. Even if her curiosity burned brighter with each passing moment.

Finally, he sighed, dropping his forehead into his knees. “It’s fine,” he said, though his voice sounded anything but. “You can ask.”

She hesitated for a brief moment before relenting. “Why do you have a mark?”

“They’re called Lichtenberg figures,” he explained. “They just happen. If the shock is bad enough. But they, uh, are supposed to fade in a few days. You know, if you’re...human.”

“But yours didn’t.”

“No, mine didn’t.” He raised his head, opening his mouth slightly, before slamming it shut.

This was unmarked territory she was stepping into. Hell, she doubted even the Fentons had ever talked to a ghost about their death before.

“Do you remember it?” she tried.

“Yeah.” 

That surprised her. She’d read some of the Fenton’s papers, and even they were uncertain of how much a ghost remembered about their death. 

The question must have shown on her face because Phantom added, “Not everyone does. I think...I think it has to do on their power level. And, uh, how old they are. I think some of the more ancient ghosts just kinda...forget. But I don’t know much. We don’t really talk about it.”

“Oh.”

Phantom nodded, staring down at his gloves. He sighed, and then started pulling one of them off.

Valerie froze, her eyes locking onto the movement. She’d never seen Phantom remove them before, and frankly she wasn’t even sure if they could be removed.

The glove left his skin and dissolved into ectoplasm, splashing onto the concrete roof. And there, left on his otherworldly skin, were the cobwebs of the lightning scar that covered his torso. It was brighter, glowing with more precision than Valerie remembered from before. 

He pushed his sleeve up to his elbow, revealing more of the Lichtenberg figure. It traveled up his wrist, spiraling throughout his arm before it disappeared into his suit. The branches were thin, glowing with the same ectoplasmic energy that ran through the ghost’s core.

Valerie didn’t know what to say. Here Phantom was, her biggest rival in Amity Park, revealing his creation, the moment that turned him into what he was today.

“It was an accident.” He finally spoke. “I was being stupid, I don’t know. My friends and I were fooling around with this...this machinery, I guess, that we knew we weren’t supposed to be near. I grabbed a malfunctioning piece of equipment—I didn’t realize it was plugged in—and that...was it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well…” Phantom pushed his sleeve back down. He closed his eyes, willing the glove to  materialize back onto his hand. He looked at her and offered a feeble smirk. “Teenagers, am I right?”

Valerie forced a polite smile in return, hoping it didn’t look too pained. 

He cleared his throat. “But, you know,” he said, allowing some of that familiar cocky energy back into his voice. “It’s in the past now. I’m over it.”

Valerie doubted that much. After all, he was still a ghost.

“I mean, I get to do really cool things now. Like helping people. Protecting the town. You can’t exactly do that as a human.” He froze, his eyes flickering to her. “I mean, aside from you. You’re great at it!”

Valerie flipped him off. “Whatever, ghost boy.”

“No, I’m serious! You’re really good as a ghost hunter.”

“I know I’m good! I don’t need your flattery to give me self-esteem.” Her voice sobered. “But really, Phantom. I’m sorry that happened to you.”

He frowned, and looked up at the sky. The brilliance of the stars reflected on his form, giving his body an almost ethereal presence. 

“It’s okay. It was a long time ago.”

---

Thanks for reading!

[loousir]

[Naga] Snake Bites

Naga Male x Bold (& kinda dense) Artist Male Reader

Syerca

Setting: Mostly a Naga's cave deep into a forest.

Warnings: Soft lime at the end (marking/mate), bad (was the first oneshot in the original book), slight mention of naga attacking reader

Masterlist

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

The fall breeze blew gently, tossing some fallen leaves around some worn shoes. The man who wore said shoes brushed away the strands of hair that had fallen into his face. He stared out into the woods, eyes following a gorgeous path until it disappeared.

"Hope you don't plan on goin' out there, " An older resident said. They were at the edge of a small cabin town. Some houses we're newer than others but that didn't seem to bother anyone. The houses were decently spaced and it was pretty active for being where most elders come to retire.

The man shrugged at the other's comment and adjusted the large hiking bag on his shoulders. "You shouldn't. Most don't make it back." The other male rolled his eyes and looked back to the elder. "I'm well aware of what lurks out there." He turned away from the other and set out on the path.

The path almost instantly secluded anyone who walked it from the chaotic world around it. He examined the terrain and all it had to offer, collecting some things along the way. His side bag was full of odd rocks and a book that had some pressed foliage, now had ones he hadn't collected before.

The walk was peaceful. Birds chirping as the wind rustled the leaves. The path was mostly covered but the leaves caused rays of light to shine through, giving him inspiration. He eventually found a spot to rest and decided to paint the path he was walking. Once his bag was set down, he pulled out a roll of canvas and laid it as flat as he could.

There were some paints and brushes in a holder in the middle of the roll and he smiled softly as he picked them up. He opened the bag and pulled out what he thought he needed as well as a small jar that held water to clean the brushes.

Close to 30 minutes had passed when he got a slight chill down his spine. He paused his painting and looked around. His eyes only saw the woods so he somewhat hesitantly went back to painting. After another 40-ish minutes passed, he finished his first of few paintings.

Luckily, the breeze dried his paints quicker than he had anticipated. He very carefully added a few layers of a sealant he had and let it dry. The same chill from earlier came around again but it was a bit more intense. He looked around as he finished cleaning and putting things away, noticing something in the distance.

Whatever he was looking at disappeared and he sighed as the now dry canvas was gently rolled and placed back onto the bag. He stood up, stretched, and continued his mostly peaceful walk, forgetting what he had seen earlier.

Some hours had passed, his periodic breaks allowing him to gain inspiration for future paintings. It was just after noon when he decided to make his own path. He pulled out a book and wrote directions so he could find his way back. In the process of creating his own path, he stumbled upon one of the most stunning places he'd ever seen.

It was a small, oasis-like area that had a magical feel to it. He stopped what he was doing and found the perfect spot to paint the scene in front of him.

While he painted, some birds had visited him and even a small snake had managed to befriend him and his paints. The snake had coiled gently around his wrist while he worked which made him smile.

The man had sat and painted the space for another 2 hours, finishing at around 2 o'clock. His (e/c) eyes looked up to the sky and he sighed, sealing his now finished work before packing everything away.

The snake was still on his wrist, not even bothering to leave so he just dealt with it. He continued on his own path for another hour. It was still fairly bright when he found himself at the entrance of a cave.

The small snake uncoiled itself and slid into a pocket on his cloak. The cave went deeper but he was cool with not going into it since he was going to leave soon anyway.

He stayed at the entrance and found a nice area to sit and relax, maybe get another painting done of what the cave looked like. It was gorgeous after all, nature framed the entrance perfectly, leaving some vines to hang down, moss covers rocks and small fungi scattered every so often.

He decided on just relaxing as he set his stuff down and leaned against a wall.

Soon enough, he had dozed off into his dreamland.

------

I ssswear I'll kill that woman...

Ssshe won't leave me alone...

The large, gorgeous albino Naga slithered through the leaves, carefully making his way to his home. He had noticed some newer prints, clearly from something with two legs, but he didn't pay too much mind to them.

He reached the cave and sighed as he entered. Bright blue eyes scanned the area and his heart sank to his stomach when he saw a (tall/short/avg) man with (h/l) (h/c) hair leaning against the wall.

Pleassse dear godsss tell me he iss alive...

He quickly made his way to the motionless body, not noticing said body's items not too far away.

If ssshe killed another human to try to pleasse me... I ssswear...

As he was lost in thought, the other stirred thanks to his intense staring and slightly heavy breathing. The human yawned and stretched his back slightly as he looked up to the Naga with a slightly annoyed expression.

"Is there something you need?"

The Naga jumped slightly and stared down at him with shock but also joy, happy he wasn't dead.

"I apologize... I wasss afraid you had passsed..."

The Naga paused for a moment while the other rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.

"Wait... You aren't... Afraid of me?"

The (h/c) shook his head and looked up to him again. "If you don't mind, I would like to take my leave." He said placing his hands on the ground in preparation to stand. The Naga stood speechless, staring at the smaller human sitting in front of him.

"Can you move please?"

With a nod and small apology, the Naga moved away from the male who carefully stood and stretched his limbs.

The white and yellow snake watched as the other took out a small pocket watch, that the small snake from earlier was now holding on to, and checked the time. "When the hell did I get so late..." The man mumbled to himself. The time read 8:11 and judging by the lack of light it was night time. He slipped the watch and snake back onto his pocket.

"Well, I better get going." He said grabbing his bag and putting over his shoulder. The Naga still stood, watching as the male walked to the mouth of the cave.

"W-wait!"

He looked back to see that the other had slithered closer and held a worried look on his face. "P-please don't leave! Y-you can't!"

"Oh yeah, and whys that?"

"I would rather not find sssuch a beautiful man ssslaughtered on my cave-step in the morning..."

Said beautiful man turned to look at him, slightly shocked at the statement.

"Pleassse just ssstay with me till the morning and I'll essscort you back to the village..." He looked frantic and genuinely seemed like he cared.

With a sigh, the other looked to the pleading blue eyes and said, "I don't bunk with strangers. I'll be fine." He turned and walked out of the cave, leaving the Naga shocked and frozen.

"Wait! I'm ssserious! Pleassse!" He followed after the human and froze once again when he saw him pinned by the she-devil herself. His bag had been tossed to the side, most of the contents falling out. She had him wrapped in her tail and smiled as he struggled to get free.

His shy demeanor had dissipated rather quickly. The small snake had gotten out of the other's pocket and hid in the nearly empty bag.

He suddenly lunged towards the woman he hated so much. She clearly hadn't noticed him before then and threw the human off to the side, his body slamming into a tree. The two of them fought as the one tossed aside slowly passed out, struggling to stay awake.

------

Soft hands gently rubbed his back as he awoke again. His (e/c) eyes looked around the best the could but they didn't see much other than a wall. His whole body was sore but those hands were working wonders. The room was warm and whatever he was laying on was extremely comfortable. He closed his eyes and let out a pleased groan.

The hands froze and pulled away quickly, making him turn his head the other way. A set of bright blue eyes were staring with surprise that the male was awake. "H-hello there..." The human smirked and slowly blinked, "Hey sexy, why'd ya stop?"

The blonde blushed and looked away. "I dessspissse that remedy ssso much..." He mumbled as his hands carefully went back to massaging. "Mmm... I'm soooo tired... Will you cuddle with me?"

"No... Just go back to sssleep human..."

"Mm... Oh-kay."

------

A soft warm light lit the room, if you could really call it a room. A rather noisy yawn resonated from a still fairly sore male. He carefully stretched and sat up, almost instantly laying back down.

"Fuuck me..."

His hand fell from what he now knows as a large hammock. Soft locks brushed against his fingers and without thinking he gently combed them, enjoying the soft and cool feeling on his slightly rough hands. The owner of said locks leaned into the hand, clearly not realizing whose hand it was.

The two enjoyed each other for a moment before the blonde realized the situation. He pulled away and sat up, looking at the still sleepy human in his bed. "Are you feeling better? Do you need anything?" He asked leaning in slightly.

"Something to drink, and maybe a name?" The Naga nodded and got a cup of water first. He sat up in the hammock carefully and crossed his legs slightly. Looking around, the room was neat yet cluttered with various items. He spot his stuff and cautiously, yet somewhat reluctantly, left the hammock to inspect them.

He sat on the large plush rug and rummaged through his own things, glad to see that everything he had was still there. Other than his canvas. He panicked slightly and looked around, immediately regretting the sudden movement.

Laying back, he closed his eyes and sighed. Mr. Naga came back and looked at the other on the ground. He hovered over him slightly till he opened his eyes. "Here, it'sss fresh ssspring water."

"Thank you." He said carefully sitting up and drinking what he was given.

"My name is Sssyerca." The other nodded. "(Y/n). Do you happen to know where my canvas is at Sssyerca?" He asked mimicking the way the other said it. Syerca blushed and nodded, moving over to a small table to grab it. (Y/n) stood up carefully from the floor and followed him to said table.

There was a large couch, clearly made for the naga, that (Y/n) sat on. Syerca sat next to him, and (Y/n) leaned on him, closing his eyes as he took in the snakes, surprising, warmth. Said snake blushed and looked down to the (h/c). He gently took the cup from (Y/n)'s hand and set it on the table.

"I hope you don't mind that I may have looked at your paintingsss..." (Y/n) shrugged and looked up to Syerca, one eye pressed against his side. "Are they ok? Physically?"

"Ah, yesss! They're fine. And quite beautiful if I might sssay..." Syerca said with a soft tone. (Y/n) smiled and looked down to the rolled canvas. He stood up and Syerca watched as he stood on the opposite side of the table. "Lie on the couch and get comfortable. Let me grab something real quick." He said walking over to his bag and rummaging around for a moment.

Syerca hesitantly did as the painter asked and made himself comfortable on the couch. (Y/n) found all of the supplies he needed and set them on the floor next to the table before sitting on his knees. "May I make a request?" He asked looking up to Syerca. The Naga nodded as he watched (Y/n) unroll the canvas. "Look cute and don't move till I say you can." Syerca blushed and adjusted slightly so that he was looking at the other.

(Y/n) started to put blobs of color onto the canvas. Syerca watched as the soft yellows and whites turned into his tail, then tans to his chest, and so on till it had gotten to his head, his face still not painted.

It had been close to 2 hours by that point but neither had seemed to notice the time go by due to being entranced by the painting. "Syerca. Could you look at me? Don't look at the painting." (Y/n) said, starting at the other's eyes. He blushed softly and looked into (Y/n)'s (e/c) eyes.

Syerca took this opportunity to examine the human closely. His (e/c) eyes we're soft yet focused, while his (h/style) (h/c) hair moved slightly with his gentle head movements. He blushed and bit his lip slightly as he looked at his lips. They were a soft pink color and we're parted slightly as he worked, the occasional blep happening due to his focus.

Many minutes had passed before (Y/n) looked up and said. "Alright. You can move again." Syerca snapped out of his trance and looked down to the canvas. (Y/n) cleaned up as Syerca turned the canvas to look at properly. His eyes shined as he looked at it closer. "The amount of detail iss amazing..." (Y/n) looked up and smiled. "You can have it if you want it. I'll put it on a frame and sign it if you do." He said with a small laugh.

Syerca looked up as his eyes widened slightly. "Really? That would be lovely..." (Y/n) nodded and said, "I'll have to head back to my home though. If you'd be willing to come with me I could do it today." He went to get his pocket watch to check the time when he heard Syerca get off the couch. (Y/n) though nothing of it but tensed when he was hugged from behind.

He turned his head slightly to look at Syerca who buried his face into the crook of (Y/n)'s neck. "Uh... What are you doing that for?" The other stayed silent for a moment before responding. "I know thisss is extremely sssudden... But... Would you be willing to become my mate?"

"... What would be in it for me?" (Y/n) asked looking to Syerca who pulled away. "Protection from any other Naga, free-range of my territory... It will finally let me rid thisss world of that vile woman that attacked you..." He said mumbling the last part. His eyes looked to (Y/n)'s (e/c) eyes and the other said,

"So you wanna be my boyfriend?"

Syerca was quiet before he broke out in laughter, his eyes closing as he did. "Yesss... I-if that'sss what humansss call... Call matesss." (Y/n) looked up and shrugged. "Ok. I'm single anyway." Syerca smiled and hugged him, gently pressing their foreheads together. "Would it be ok for me to mark you?" He asked quietly, looking into (Y/n)'s eyes.

"I-I don't know what that entails but um... Sure..." (Y/n) gently wrapped his arms around Syerca's bare torso. He gently rubbed the others back. It was smooth but the occasional line like bump came up, telling there was a scar there. Syerca leaned down to (Y/n)'s neck and placed soft kisses under his jaw. (Y/n) gasped and shivered, slightly tightening his grip on the male, not expecting what he did.

Syerca continued to kiss before mumbling, "Sssorry... But thisss might hurt..." (Y/n) was about to speak up but Syerca bit down on his neck, his canines sinking in. (Y/n) gasped and let out a small moan of pain as he hugged him. Syerca pulled away slightly and licked the spot where he bit. It left a tingling sensation behind and (Y/n) felt a bit weak after.

"Are you ok..? The mark will tell that your claimed... My ssscent will remain and only be picked up by other naga..." He gently brushed (Y/n)'s hair back. "I wish you told me that's what you were going to do..." Syerca looked away and sighed, "I didn't think you would allow me if I told you."

(Y/n) looked up to him and moved his hands from the others back to his cheeks. He gently rubbed them with his thumbs. Syerca smiled and (Y/n) smiled too. His thumbs gently rubbed over Syerca's lips, they were thin but still nice. Syerca smiled more and stuck his tongue out, showing it's slit. "I don't know what's in that... Saliva of yours but it made me feel pretty good."

Syerca moved (Y/n)'s hands from his face and interlocked their fingers. "Also what's with you and making me feel good?" He asked, resting his face on Syercas chest. "I apologize... But... Thank you for letting me... M-mark you." (Y/n) pulled away and looked up to the others eyes. "Let's get to know each other before we call it official though." Syerca nodded and rested his forehead against (Y/n)'s.

"I'll take you back to your village a little later. For now, let'sss get to know each other... Like you sssuggested..."

----

3066

Definitely not my fav but hey

[fandom-imagines-stories]

Worth the World

Spike x Reader

Words: 2459

Summary: On a particularly bad day, the reader can barely bring herself to get out of bed. Spike does his best to comfort his girlfriend without being overbearing. 

Notes: This is inspired by one of my favorite fics ever by @suckmysupernatural. I got this idea when having a depressive episode myself, so I hope you guys enjoy a little comfort fic with one of my favorite vamps. Plus, I’ve never written for Spike before and since I’m getting back into Buffy, I thought this would be the perfect time. (Also, this is entirely based on my own experience, so it might not be everyone’s experience with this kind of thing {but please be nice, I just used a few of the things I felt so it’s all based on my own emotions and insecurities!}) Enjoy!

Warnings: Depression, self-loathing, anxiety (This imagine was really just a way for me to put down my emotions and write something comforting, but I hope you all like it too)

-

You didn’t want to move. You weren’t really sure if you could. Your limbs just felt… heavy. Forcing your legs to move, you slowly swung them over the side of the bed, using all the strength you could muster to sit up straight. 

It wasn’t that something terrible had happened. In fact, the day before had gone pretty well. You’d spent most of it watching movies with Willow and Buffy and, when the sunset, you went on a long evening walk with your boyfriend. There were no deadly forces plotting world domination, no vengeful vamps after you or your friends. Hell, your favorite restaurant was open and you brought home leftovers for breakfast. 

Now, the idea of eating made your stomach turn. You managed to shuffle your way to the kitchen of your apartment, but just stood in front of the counter, leaning on the marble top for support. Just standing there felt like it took every ounce of energy you had. It was almost painful, tears pricking the corners of your eyes. You did your best to keep them from falling. You had places to be today, meeting up with the gang and  you didn’t want to worry them with your moping. 

With slow steps, you made your way back to your room to get dressed. Of course, most of your clothes were dirty and you didn’t care enough to wash them. So you threw a sweatshirt over your pajama top and put on some shoes, hoping no one would ask about it. You caught your reflection and felt that dark, empty feeling in your chest grow. Pathetic. Your shoulders sagged forward and you blinked away more tears as you watched them well in your eyes. You didn’t have the right to feel like this. How much had Buffy been through and she still greeted every day with a smile. Everything was perfect and yet you were pathetic enough to still want to crawl back into bed. You just hoped that you would feel better by the time you saw everyone. Especially Spike. 

-

You sat with your legs pulled up to your chest. Xander and Willow were debating whether or not using wooden bullets would be a good vamp killer. Buffy was listening in amusement and Giles just looked exasperated, distracting himself by putting books back in their proper place on the shelves. No one said anything about your pajamas. You actually felt kind of invisible, like no one even really knew you were there. It made the empty feeling that much worse. 

“What do you think, Y/N?” 

“Xander, don’t you think that’s a little insensitive?”

“What? It’s not like we’re planning on dusting her boyfriend. Even if he is annoying and evil and-”

“Xander.” Willow said sternly. When you looked up, everyone’s eyes were on you. 

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t really paying attention.” Your voice held little to no emotion. You were almost too exhausted to feel anything. You just felt hollow. 

“If I shot Spike with a wooden bullet do you think he would, you know,” Xander made a motion with his hands that was meant to simulate a vampire dying. “Just theoretically, of course.” 

Everyone was expecting a witty remark. You and Xander were close and teased each other often, especially about your relationship with Spike. Instead, you just shrugged, your eyes fixating on a spot on the table. 

“Maybe.” 

The group collectively exchanged a look of concern, but didn’t press anything. After all, what reason could there be for you to be upset? They knew that if something had happened with Spike, you would tell them and there weren’t any recent deaths to worry about, so they continued on with their playful conversations about breaking curses and some movie that they had watched recently. It felt like you were intruding- like an unwanted bystander that everyone wished would just disappear. While no one had said anything like that, the thoughts filled your head nonetheless. 

This wasn’t the first time something like this had happened, but you’d never told them. An episode like this hadn’t happened in months so you had hoped they had stopped. Some days you were as happy as you ever had been, but others you felt like a burden. Worthless and pathetic- pitying yourself for no reason at all. 

Spike didn’t even know, even after almost a year of dating. You never dreamed of telling him. Spike was always saying that you were the strong one. You were the one that helped him through every day of his endless living. He got his soul for you. What would he say if he saw you like this? If he knew the doubts and loathing going through your head. He would know that you’re weak and vulnerable and you didn’t want that to happen. 

So you didn’t tell them. You kept all of your thoughts inside of you as they ate away at your mind. On the outside, you just looked tired. Everyone knew that you stayed awake into the late hours because of Spike, so you hoped that’s what they would think. You were tired, but it wasn’t from lack of sleep. It was like your body just wanted to give up. Maybe if you could just wake yourself up, everything would go back to normal. 

Buffy and Willow went out for coffee, so you went with them, hoping the caffeine would be enough to shake you out of this. Instead, it just made you more jumpy and anxious. The cup shook in your hand, but you kept drinking, still hoping that it would give you enough energy to fake it. This, like your out-of-it demeanor, did not go unnoticed. 

“Hey, are you feeling okay?” Buffy asked, suddenly stopping her conversation with Willow about shoes. At first, you didn’t realize she was talking to you. You were so focused on the thoughts swarming around in your head, you hadn’t noticed they were both looking at you with concern. 

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” 

“Because you’ve been spacing out all morning. What’s going on?” 

“I guess I’m just tired.” You shrugged, grimacing from the effort the small movement took. 

“Are you sure? Did Spike do something stupid, because you know I’ll-”

“Really, Buffy, I’m okay. I think I just need to go home and rest for a while.” You finished the rest of the coffee, feeling your heart beat faster as the anxiety built up in your chest. “I’ll see you guys later, okay?” 

“Okay.” Buffy gave you a skeptical glance and Willow smiled sincerely.

“Feel better, Y/N.” 

“I’ll see you guys later.” You faked the best smile you could before turning away from them. 

“Is she going to be okay?” Willow wondered, watching the way you nervously messed with the hem of your shirt as you walked. Buffy narrowed her eyes and grabbed her bag. 

“I don’t know, but if she won’t talk to us about it, there’s one person she will.” 

“Oh do we have to go there? You know that place gives me the creeps.” Willow whined. Buffy just gave her a look and the two trekked off in search of your sun-hating boyfriend. 

-

You stood in the middle of your living room as the tears slowly started to pour down your cheeks. The coffee must have given you enough energy to cry and now you couldn’t stop. You couldn’t speak, you couldn’t move, you just stood, frozen by the overwhelming emptiness inside you. Pathetic. Useless. Worthless. Everything was swirling around your head, breaking you down further until you had to lean against the window sill to stay standing. 

You could faintly hear something outside your door, but you made no motion to open it. It sounded far away, or maybe you were just blocking it out. All you could hear was your heart pounding, along with the hundreds of doubts rattling in your head. It was until the door burst open that you flinched. 

“First, the slayer comes banging on my crypt, telling me that something’s wrong and then you leave me to break down your door- if I could die, you would have scared me to death. Why didn’t you open the door?” Spike huffed in frustration. You didn’t turn around. Frankly, you hardly noticed he was there. His irritation quickly faded, replaced by worry. “Y/N, love, what is it?” 

You still didn’t respond, keeping your back turned with your hands clinging to the window sill to keep from falling. Spike approached you slowly and you thought you heard his footsteps, but part of you thought you were just imagining him. Why would he come for you? It was the middle of the day and the sun was high in the sky. A rush of guilt washed over you. He came here despite the danger of being burned and you didn’t even have a reason. You’d put him at risk for your own pitiful problems. 

“Darling, why won’t you look at me?” He took another step towards you, but stopped. The sun’s rays created a shield around you, preventing him from pulling you into his arms. “If you could just lower the blinds, that would make this far less awkward.” 

“You d-didn’t need to come here. T-the sun.” You stammered. You wanted to reach for the curtains, but you still couldn’t move your arms without your legs giving out. 

“A little sunlight isn’t going to stop from me from getting to you,” he said sincerely. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw him rush to the window, the sound of his skin sizzling in the light made you let go of the ledge. Your legs buckled just as he got the curtains closed. 

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” You had hurt him. All you had to do was reach up and shut out the sunlight and you couldn’t even do that. He burned himself just to reach you. 

“It’s alright. I’ve got you. It’s alright.” He held you up for a moment before sinking to the floor to hold you in his lap. “I’ve got you love, I’ve got you.” 

“Y-you shouldn’t be here, Spike. I’m not-” You hid your face from his view so he would see the tears. “I’m not worth all of this. There’s something wrong with me. One minute I’m fine and the next I’m like this and I don’t even know why. I don’t have a reason to feel like this. It’s like I’m… broken or something.” 

“You aren’t broken.” Spike said softly, tucking your head under his chin and gently rocking you back and forth. “You’re human.” 

He held you like that for a long while, not saying anything or even moving off of the floor. He didn’t make you look at him until he was sure you had relaxed enough. Putting a finger under your chin, he gently lifted your face to meet his. 

“I’m sorry about all this.” You sniffed, using your sleeve to wipe some of the dampness off your cheeks. 

“I don’t want to hear those worse from you for the rest of the day.” Spike gave you a small smile and pressed a kiss to your forehead. “I would trek across deserts wrapped in a blanket if it meant being here with you. Every second is worth it.” Now, he lowered his lips down to yours for a slow, sweet kiss. When he pulled back, his eyes were shining with the soul of a man in love. “To me, love, you’re worth the world.” 

You stared into his eyes and knew that he meant every single word. While it didn’t chase away your doubts or the empty feeling in your chest, it helped you see that this feeling would end. And for now, that was enough. 

“I love you.” You whispered, pulling him closer. He kissed the top of your head. 

“I love you too, darling.” He hooked his arm under your knees and stood, holding you against his chest. “Now, why don’t I get you something to eat and we can spend the day in bed?” He wiggled his eyebrows. “I’ll behave, I promise.”

“Spike.” You laughed lightly. 

“There,” He beamed, “I knew I could get a smile.” 

He carried you into your room and placed you on your usual side of the bed, laying your fluffiest blanket over top of you. Then he vanished into your kitchen, the sound of your cupboards opening and shutting reminding you that he had no idea where anything was. It almost made you smile. He came back in with a bowl of your favorite cereal, a class of milk, and a thin leather bound journal. 

“What’s that?” You wondered as he climbed into the bed beside you. He handed you the cereal and milk and put his arm around you, pulling you close. 

“Eat your cereal.” He ordered teasingly, opening up to the first page. You tried to look over his shoulder, but he pulled the book away, laughing. “Do you want me to read or not?” 

“What is it?” Your curiosity made your tone amused and playful. You were starting to sound like you again. 

“Well, ever since I got this pesky soul back, I’ve had an unbearable amount of feelings running about in my head, so I figured I could at least put them to good use.” 

“Spike, are they…?” You perked up with excitement. He smiled sheepishly. 

“Poems.” He looked down at seemingly endless pages of his writings and back at you. “They’re mostly about you, of course. I thought, maybe, you’d like to hear them. See if they’d make you feel a little better.” You were almost too awestruck to nod. 

“I’d really like that.” 

With your cereal in hand, you curled up beside him, laying your head back against his shoulder. He read softly and slowly, his gentleness with his words almost lulling you to sleep. The poems were beautiful, forcing you to stay awake if only to hear one more word. Spike felt you relaxed against him as he read and paused his reading to kiss your forehead, then your cheek, and lastly your lips. 

You felt the emptiness for a few more days, but each day, he was by your side, making sure you ate and gave yourself time to breathe. By the time you started to feel normal again, he’d read most of his poems and continued to write more and you were able to go for your evening walks without feeling exhausted. Your friends were more than supportive and helped you through it all while still giving you the space you needed. 

It wasn’t the last time an episode like this happened, but now you always knew that, no matter what, you’d never be alone.

-

General Tag: @rae-gar-targaryen; @takemepedropascal; @childhood-imagination;  @mylovegoesto; @yellowbadgergirl; @itmejado; @suckmyapplejacks; @kendahl0216

[heezoneie]

Enhypen: when you wake them up just to say "I love you"

i love this one 🥺! thank you for the request! <3

group: enhypen

member: all

genre: the fluffiest

word count: 1.5k

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Heeseung: You had just gotten home from a long day at school/work, and all you wanted to do was cuddle with your boyfriend and eat some food. As you set your stuff down, you looked around noticing your boyfriend was no where to be seen. You looked at the time on your watch: 8:30 pm. “It’s not that late,” you thought. Making your way to your shared bedroom, you saw the door slightly ajar. You quietly pushed opened the door and walked in to see your boyfriend passed out in the middle of the bed. Smiling fondly, you walked up to Heeseung. His adorable face was squished against the pillow, and to you that was the best sight ever. After admiring Heeseung for a little, you went to put on some more comfortable clothes for the night. You crawled into bed and snuggled up to Heeseung. His eyes fluttered open. “Hi baby,” He said with a raspy voice. Looking at him, your eyes held nothing but pure adoration for him. “Hey,” you whispered. He put his face in the crook of your neck, “When did you get home?” “Just now, you look so cute while you sleep,” you mused. He buried his face deeper as heat rose to his cheeks. A comfortable silence fell, and neither of you wanted to leave your current position. “I love you,” You said with sincerity. Heeseung’s eyes met with yours, and he leaned in to connect your lips. “I love you too.”

Jay: The journey home was long. Sitting in the back of the travel van, Jay rested on your shoulder. You had your earbuds in, listening to whatever shuffled through your playlists. While one hand was latched with Jay’s, you used the other to adjust the air to make sure it wasn’t too cold for him. The passing lights mixed with the moon beams cascaded onto your boyfriends face. You didn’t think it was possible for someone to look so ethereal. Even though he wasn’t all dressed up as he normally is, you couldn’t have been more in love. His dark hair falling over his forehead perfectly, while his body was covered in a simple sweatshirt and a pair of shorts. You were truly in love. You began to pepper kisses lightly over his face. Lifting his head up, he looked at you with droopy eyes. “How did i get so lucky?” You said without thinking. A blush found it’s way to the tips of his ears and cheeks. “Honey....” He trailed off, taken back from just waking up. It wasn’t very often Jay got flustered like this. You decided to take it to your advantage. “I’m so in love with you, I don’t think you understand.” Jay could see the genuine glint of love in your eyes. “I love you too, honey.” He pressed a soft kiss to your lips, leaving you falling deeper in love with the boy in front of you.

Jake: The sun was beginning to set, the purple and pink hues in the sky slowly dissipating into the twinkling black night. Your head rested on Jake’s chest as you two stared at the stars. It was a normal thing for you two to go stargazing. There was something so special and intimate about the moments that only you, Jake, and the stars would ever know about. The countless kisses and jokes made under the stars were something that you couldn’t replace with anything else. You had been rambling about a possible shooting star, when you noticed Jake’s breathing had gotten heavier and slower. You looked up from you position on his chest, to see your amazing boyfriend illuminated by stars. The shine of moonlight graced his face like a painting made by the most exquisite of artists. Every detail of him made you fall deeper and deeper into him. Moving some hair out of his eyes, you whispered, “I love you, so much. I’ll never be able to express how much Jake.” His mouth curved up into his heart-melting smile. “I’m glad we feel the same way angel.”

Sunghoon: Curled up under blankets, you and Sunghoon’s eyes were glued to the tv in font of you. You guys were having your annual movie night. Typically, it would be loud, as the other boys join you, but tonight they were all busy doing who knows what. Of course, neither you nor Sunghoon were complaining, this just meant more alone time. With their comeback happening, you and Sunghoon haven’t been able to be alone, him doing show after show, stage after stage. Being the supportive s/o you were, you made sure not to complain, all you wanted was to see your boy happy. You began to notice how Sunghoon’s eyes started to get heavier, trying to stay awake for you. You slowly reached your hand to his head, tangling your fingers in his soft hair. After his eyes finally shut, you placed a kiss on his head, “I love you Hoonie.” Too tired to make coherent words, Sunghoon snuggled impossibly closer as to return the gesture.

Sunoo: The sounds of the rain and the soft music leaving the speaker filled the silence of the room. The space illuminated by the candles lit on the bedside table. Even though it was a rainy and cold day, you couldn’t help but relish in the time you were being granted with Sunoo. You both were cuddled together under the fluffy comforter in his bed. You two had been in his room for the past couple hours, hiding from his fellow members, and cherishing being with each other. The day consisted of you two whispering sweet little words and playful cuddles, falling deeper in love. You did whatever you could to make sure you got see the beautiful smile that could easily put any diamonds or gems to shame. After deciding to rest, Sunoo fell asleep rather quickly, leaving you time to admire his features. A quiet “I love you,” slipped past your lips and into his ears. Despite being in dreamland, he still heard you. Mumbling a sleepy, “I love you too,” Sunoo’s grasp on you tightened. Smiling softly at the sight, you laid your head down and followed him into a deep sleep.

Jungwon: Gathering every pillow in sight, you and Jungwon began to build the most epic pillow fort anybody could have seen. Laughing amongst yourselves, the other members helped bring you guys blankets for your little fort. After about an hour of trial and error, you both finally were able to find a sturdy way to keep your fort from falling. Setting up extra blankets and pillows, you both cocooned yourselves together in the fort. A laptop sitting in the middle of the fort played a movie, which helped give some light in your otherwise dark space. Adjusting to a more comfortable position, you and Jungwon tangled your legs together. Your head in the crook of his neck, and his own resting over top yours. Jungwon soon fell asleep, unbeknownst to you. Hearing some mumbling coming from the boy, you assumed he was still awake. Some more incoherent words fell from his lips, and you decided to speak up, “Wonie? I can’t understand what your saying.” Lifting your head, you looked at his sleeping face. As you did so, his words began to get more clearer, “I love you...” A blush formed on your cheeks, and you laid your head back down. “I love you too, Wonie.”

Ni-ki: Riki had come to spend the day with you at your house, as he had time away from the company. He arrived at your house around lunchtime, with a bag of food he picked up on his way over. After eating the food, you both retreated to your living room to hang out. “We should play Just Dance,” Riki said looking over to you. “Nooo, you know your gonna beat me. You have an unfair advantage.” You huffed. Chuckling, he stood up to turn on the game system anyways. He walked back over to where to sat on the couch, and handed you a controller. “Get up, we are gonna have fun. If it makes you feel better we can do the team setting so you are guaranteed to do good.” He offered. Deciding to participate, you stood up. “Fine, but ONLY if we do teams.” Smiling, he pulled you to the middle of the room and you two began your Just Dance marathon. After a couple of hours, you both collapsed on the couch, Riki on top of you. “Wow, i’m so tired after that. I feel like i just ran 80 miles.” Laughing at your statement, Riki found himself falling asleep rather quickly to the feeling of your hand running through his hair. Feeling his breathe even out, you whispered a quiet “I love you,” in his ear. “I love you too,” he whispered back. After some time, you realized you were both sweaty, “Riki, we both need to go take showers.” As he lifted his head, you saw a mischievous smile on his face. Looking at him questionably, his hands rose to your sides and began tickling you. It was safe to say neither of you got to take a shower for a while.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I hope you all enjoyed! feel free to send in any requests, thoughts, or ideas! <3

[bunnysuit-femboy]

Slumber Party

Pairing: Sasha x Reader

Word Count: 5.8k

Warnings: Implied Praise Kink, Cunnilingus

Quick Summary: Sleepover with Sasha turns sexual.

Notes: This was inspired by the song Slumber Party by Ashnikko, I hope you guys enjoy!

6:13 PM

Your feet ran down the stairs quicker than you could keep up with after you heard the familiar ding of the doorbell. You ran through your living room, and right to the front door. You knew who waited on the other side - since she waited there every Friday night - but you were still filled with excitement at finally seeing her again.

Once you had unlocked the door handle, you swung the door open immediately, taking no time to think about what you were doing. Light flooded in from the outside, the sun setting in the distance and Sasha’s shadow laid on the living room’s carpeted floor.

Sasha stood in front of you with her duffel bag over one shoulder and her phone in the opposite hand. She wore jean shorts - since today had been one of the hottest days all summer - and a grey tank top. She also wore a pair of flip flops with a bright blue anklet around her pale ankle.

Sasha glanced up from the messages open on her phone, “Hi.”

You smiled wide at your best friend, “Hi.” Sasha quickly locked her phone and dropped her bag, opening her arms wide for you and you walked forward to accept the hug. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too. We haven’t seen each other in like-” Sasha took a second to think about her next words- “Two days?”

“Three,” You said against her shoulder, “If you don’t count our FaceTime calls.”

“Right,” Sasha said into your hair, “‘Cause if we were counting those, I saw you two hours ago.”

You took a step back from Sasha, “Well, I needed somebody to tell me my makeup was pretty.”

“That’s not fair.” Sasha grinned. “You always look pretty.”

You playfully pushed Sasha’s shoulder, trying to distract her from seeing your obviously embarrassed face. Your face and ears were heating up with blood and you couldn’t wipe the wide smile from your mouth. You didn’t want your best friend to see how physically embarrassed you got from hearing her compliment you; you refused to give her the satisfaction of seeing how high you hold her opinion.

It wasn’t strange to hear Sasha compliment you - in fact, it would have been weirder if she hadn’t complimented you - but hearing Sasha say a sweet word about your person always made you crawl back into your metaphorical hermit shell. You never knew how to respond to Sasha’s kind words about your appearance because they always felt genuine instead of a way of being generally nice.

“I was thinking we could order pizza later,” You said, “And I have ice cream in the freezer and I made sure to buy some soda for you-”

“Did you remember my favorite kind?” Sasha’s face was taken up mostly with a wide smile as she awaited your answer.

“Of course.” You grinned softly to the brown haired girl in front of you. “I always remember everything you tell me.”

Sasha giggled before taking your distance from the door as a way of entrance. She walked inside the apartment she’s been to a million times. But, this time felt different almost - as if she could feel the impending series of events for the next day and a half playing out in front of her already.

8:47 PM

“Well,” You said as your hips shifted closer to her hips, “If you stop squirming, then it won’t be so hard to get the eyeliner just right. Got it?”

Sasha furrowed her already filled eyebrows at you, “But, I have a cramp in my hip. I can’t not shift when all I’m feeling on my left side is pure pain.”

It wasn’t completely a lie, Sasha was in pain but not exactly how she had disclosed to you. Sasha could feel her stomach inflating with nerves the longer you leaned in to be so close to her. She was used to you deciding to do activities in the spur of a moment, but she wasn’t expecting you to beg her to let you do her makeup if she showed you that picture - she wasn’t really sure why you chose this way to do her makeup either.

Usually, when a person gets their makeup done, the makeup artist will be sitting right beside them, leaning in close and getting everything just right. Which is not at all what you’re doing at the moment, you’re leaning in close - sure, but that’s where the similarities in the two scenarios end.

You were sitting on Sasha’s hips atop of the neat covers of your bed. You were straddling her waist and pressing yourself deeper into her pelvis with each concentrated movement. She knows her hip doesn’t hurt as badly as she says - in fact, she could sit underneath you all day long if you’d have her - but, she feels her stomach flutter with butterflies the longer you’re on top of her, and she wishes she could touch you but she doesn’t know if the action will make you uncomfortable or not, so she doesn’t.

You sigh before picking up your hips from her hips, “I’ll move but I’m not finished with your makeup.”

“Huh?” Sasha asks with bright red cheeks and widened eyes. She thought complaining about her hip would surely make you scram but you almost seem determined to stay on top of her.

“Here.” You lifted your hips enough so that her’s could be free underneath you. You still straddled her sides, but now you situated your ass into the air and your shirt had shifted forward. Sasha wasn’t sure how it was possible, but she knew the situation had gotten worse - or maybe, better - for her. All she wanted now was either to look down your shirt, place her hands on your ass and grind you down into her or kiss you passionately from underneath you - but, she didn’t know how you’d feel about any of those options so she stays still in silent agony.

She closed her eyes when you asked, she blinked slowly when you asked, and she puckered her lips when you asked. And, even though she couldn’t do what she wanted to do, she still got a bit of pleasure every time she did as you asked. You’d make sure to tell her exactly how you felt about her submission, whispering praise into the space between your faces - each praise giving Sasha another thing to worry about between her hips.

11:24 PM

The blanket kept falling off of your shoulder, exposing the bare skin to the coldness of your living room. You snuggled your body in closer to Sasha, pressing the cold skin of your shoulder against her warm bicep. She leaned into your touch, gently laying her head on top of your own in order to trap your cheek to her body.

You could fall asleep where you sat, cuddled close to your best friend and barely listening to the distant sounds of the movie in front of you. The coldness of the room was working as melatonin to your already tired body. Your eyes fluttered closed, snapping open every few minutes once your mind realized you were starting to drift off.

“This is the best part,” Sasha suddenly said by your side. You nodded weakly against her arm which got Sasha’s attention. She glanced at you for a moment, watching you from the corner of her eyes. “Are you even watching?”

Sasha looked over to your partially open eyes looking up into her face through your thick eyelashes. You swallowed back the sleepiness that had crept so steadily upon you as you attempted to look awake. But, Sasha saw right through your poor facade, shaking your head from her shoulder with disappointment.

“You’re asleep!” Sasha turned to you, her eyes wide with shock. “But, this is the best part!”

“I’m sorry,” You groaned the words out, “I’m just so tired.”

Sasha pouted at you, “Do you not like the movie?”

“No.” Adrenaline shot through your body as you attempted to convince your best friend. “I- I really like this movie! I just need a cup of coffee or something! The movie’s really good, I swear.”

Sasha took a deep breath, “It’s too late for coffee.” Your eyes darted behind Sasha’s shoulder at the living room window. She was right, the moon was high in the sky and only darkness seeped in through the glass behind the curtains. Sasha's next words came out as a question, “But, it’s not too late for ice cream.”

Your eyes snapped back to Sasha’s filled with sudden excitement, “I do have ice cream.”

Sasha smiled wide, “Perfect!” She leaned over and grabbed the remote from the coffee table, swiftly pausing the movie.

You led Sasha from the living room and to the kitchen, and you could feel her eyes on your back as you walked. It was hard not to look at you, especially in the pieces of clothing you wore as pajamas. You walked around your apartment in a velvet pair of sleep shorts and a tank top that stopped right above your belly button, creating a stripe of soft skin between the hem of your shirt and the waist of your shorts.

You didn’t leave your apartment most nights, either by yourself or with Sasha. You preferred dressing scandalously to bed and cuddling deep into your blanket to keep your body warm. And, when Sasha slept over, you instead used each other’s body heat to keep warm during the night, snuggling close to each other under your thick blanket.

You felt Sasha’s gaze heavy on the skin of your back and then again as it moved to your hips and ass. She watched as your sides moved back and forth with each step. She stared mindlessly at the dimples that swayed on the small of your back.

You turned around to Sasha once you stood in the middle of the kitchen. Sasha’s gaze slowly found your face, instead running gently over the front of your body. Then, finally, Sasha’s light brown eyes stared into your own.

You looked away from Sasha’s peering eyes. Sometimes holding eye contact with her was too much for you, it all felt much too intense and overwhelming. Holding eye contact with her made your stomach turn with butterflies and made your mind go wild with random thoughts that you tried to ignore most days. Thoughts of something big happening, whether it be a long awaited simple kiss or an asteroid through the room you both sat in.

You instead stared at the tiled floor of the kitchen as she watched you, “I have rocky road and metropolitan.” You glanced back at Sasha to see her smiling at you. You furrowed your eyebrows at your best friend, trying to keep your body from feeling like static. “And sprinkles.”

Sasha grinned, “I’ll have some rocky road-” After you had turned around and walked off towards the fridge, Sasha added- “Oh, and with sprinkles on top.”

You grinned into the freezer, your skin erupting in goosebumps from the wandering cold air. You grabbed the two cartons of ice cream, placing them on the counter beside the fridge before walking towards the lazy Susan in which the sprinkles were.

You turned from the corner of the kitchen, now realizing the new obstacle in your way of the sprinkles. Sasha had found her normal spot in the kitchen, sitting on the counter above the lazy Susan. Her feet dangled in front of the cabinet, and her eyes watched you as you walked around the kitchen with a purpose.

You walked over to Sasha, grinning at her before glancing at the cabinet she sat in front of. You were hoping your best friend would get the message without you having to ask because you weren’t sure how to ask for permission between her legs without seemingly asking for everything you’ve ever wanted.

“Sash’,” You said sweetly, “Can I-?” You pointed at the lazy Susan, silently asking her the rest of the question.

All she did in response to your question was tilt her head and grin playfully. She seemed to be playing a game - and it made your heart skip a beat - but you weren’t completely sure if she was. You were crazily rash sometimes, but when it came to friendship, you wouldn’t take a risk unless it was a heavily calculated move.

“What’s up?” Sasha asked innocently.

You grinned, “I need in that cabinet-” Sasha glanced down at the cabinet and then back at you, all without moving her body. “The sprinkles are in there. I need between your legs.”

Oh shit, there it is, the words you didn’t want to have to say. You couldn’t help how uncomfortably hot your body got after saying them, shifting from one leg to the other as if that would cool yourself down. And, you wished you hadn’t seen Sasha’s sudden surprise at the request, her eyes widened and her mouth in a permanent smile.

“Oh,” Sasha said with a tone dripping with cockiness, “You need between my legs? Then, what’s the password?”

You stared at Sasha with squinted eyes, “You have a password for between your legs? Are you wearing a chastity belt or something?”

“I guess that’s the only thing that would make sense.” Sasha giggled before raising a single eyebrow at you. “But, what’s the password?”

“You were serious?” Sasha nodded before you started thinking about what this mysterious password could be. “Is it 0-7-2-6-0-1?”

Sasha raised her eyebrows, “Huh?”

“Is it the same as your phone password?”

Sasha grinned, “Oh-” Sasha looked around the kitchen for a few moments before finally answering. “No.”

You sighed and thought again about what Sasha could make as a spur of the moment password. Obviously she didn’t have a leg password before this moment, so it had to be something she made up on the spot. And, a lot was on the line for you knowing this vital part of information - not only would it prove how deeply you knew Sasha, but the damn ice cream was starting to melt.

“Okay,” You said as you crossed your arms against your chest. “I’m going to spitball some out, and you tell me if I get it right, okay?”

Sasha nodded, “Alright, deal.”

This game was harder than you originally thought it would be, maybe you didn’t know Sasha at all. You thought you’d be able to guess it almost immediately, you thought you knew nearly everything about the other girl. But, she must have the most obscure leg password ever, you wouldn’t be surprised if it were in a different language altogether.

“French fries,” Sasha shook her head. “Hamburgers,” Shake. “Sausage,” Shake. “Pork,” Shake. “Milkshake.” Shake. “Is it-?”

“Why are you only guessing menu items from a diner? I like other things, you know?”

You shrugged, “I know, you just really like diner food.”

She likes other things, huh? Sure, she likes food - more than anyone you’ve ever seen in your whole life. But, it must be something outside of food, what else does Sasha like?

She likes cats, and she likes hunting and fishing with her dad, and she likes roller coaster rides that go backwards. She likes a vast array of things, so to choose just one she would think of in the matter of a few seconds seemed almost impossible.

Except, there was one thing you knew she liked more than any of those other things. She talked about it all the time, from conversations that were progressively led to the subject to randomly texting you another fact long past the time you had gone to bed and she should have gone to bed as well. She talked about it almost all of the time, how could you forget?

It was alcohol, it had to be alcohol related!

So, you thought of anything under the category, anything at all. You thought of vodkas, and rums, and whiskies - but you know she prefers mixed drinks so you switched to those names. You couldn’t think of many drinks that would make sense as her password, except for maybe strawberry daiquiri - though, that one didn’t seem to be right.

In a second, you thought of the one drink she always asks for. She asks for them no matter who the bartender is, whether it’s Jean or Connie that week. She asks for them when she sees your bottle of peach liquor sitting on the floor of your closet. She even asks if you think a place will have them when you walk past a bar you can’t get into yet since you’re both underaged. It was the only drink that completely made sense for it to be her legs' password, she loved them too much.

In a moment of adrenaline pumping through your veins at the realization of what the password must be, you screamed the drink name louder than you needed to.

“Sex on my face!” You yelled, your body going hot with the realization of what you just shouted at your best friend.

Sasha raised her eyebrows at you, “You want me to what?”

You tried to laugh off the embarrassment, but it didn’t work properly. You instead decided to smile into your hands as you covered your face. This moment wouldn’t have been embarrassing if it were anybody else, there was just too much sexual tension between you and Sasha for this conversation to be normal.

“That’s my next guess, I’m guessing the password is sex on my face.” You took a deep breath between your palms, embarrassment finally settling in and even beginning to fade the longer you didn’t think about what happened.

“It’s not,” Sasha said with a grin. “But, it was a good guess, so go ahead.”

You nodded as Sasha jumped from the counter, allowing you access to the lazy Susan. You made the adventure quick, not wanting to dwell on what you said in order to be allowed to grab the sprinkles. It was even embarrassing to feel Sasha’s eyes on your body as you crouched over and into the cabinet, something that otherwise wouldn’t have openly bothered you much.

“Do you want to know my real password?” Sasha asked as you scooped the half-melted ice cream into a bowl. You nodded, not wanting to say much of anything after what happened. “My real password was peanuts, because you have peanuts on the counter.”

You glanced at the bag of peanuts near the sink and then back to the bowl. “I guess I shouldn’t have put much thought into it, since it took you a second to even think about it.”

“You were smart with the game,” Sasha admitted, “You thought of passwords I wouldn’t have thought of in a million years, but not smart enough, I guess-” There was a moment where the only thing that could be heard was the buzzing coming from the working fridge. “Even though I do love sex on my face - take that however you want to.”

You felt your body heat up again, even as Sasha walked away from beside you. Take that however you want to. Oh my god, was Sasha hitting on you?

2:22 AM

If you moved your foot just an inch to the right, you’d be able to feel Sasha’s shin. You almost wanted to move your foot forward and finally touch her. You wanted to scoot your body across your sheets, to feel her body close to yours and feel your skin ignite with a new passion you hadn’t let out in a very long time.

You opened your eyes to see Sasha’s brown eyes staring into your own. You grinned at the girl, feeling like speaking was the only way to eliminate the awkward tension now present in the air. Part of you wished her eyes hadn’t been open, you were okay with watching her in silence - something about her knowing you liked looking at her made your stomach turn with nerves.

“Hey,” You whispered into your partially dark bedroom, “Are you tired?”

Sasha shook her head against the pillow, smushing her cheek even deeper into the plushness, “Not even a little bit. How about you?”

You sighed, “Nope.”

The silence was back, but it wasn’t awkward like the last time - this was a new comfortable silence. In the moment, all you could do was watch Sasha and all she could do was watch you right back.

You wondered what the brown haired girl was thinking about. Your first assumption was food considering the girl’s eating habits, but after a second thought - you knew better than to guess that. You then assumed that maybe the girl was thinking of you.

Sasha was probably tossing and turning the idea of you in her head, or at least you hoped she was. You hoped she was thinking about the way you look right now with the moon shining in through the window behind you. And, you hoped she thought about how warm you felt on the couch, pressed up against her earlier. And, you hoped she thought about how warm you would feel underneath her, completely naked and-

Not now. You closed your eyes to hide the thoughts in your head, and you hoped covering your irises would keep Sasha from knowing what you were thinking about. Now wasn’t the time to think about your best friend that way, not when the option was so possible.

“Hey,” Sasha whispered into the quiet space between you, “What kind of car would you be, if you had to be one?”

You opened one of your eyes, “What?”

“You heard me.” Sasha grinned as she watched you think of the few types of cars you could actually name off of the top of your head. “I think I’d be a pickup truck-” Sasha ignored your loud snort- “Because I’m tall, kind of. And, I like carrying things, I don’t really know why - I guess I like being helpful. And, my dad’s got a farm, so it’s perfect.”

You smiled wide at Sasha, “Do you want to try again and maybe pick any other car on the planet?”

“What’s wrong with pickup trucks?” Sasha tucked a fallen strand of hair behind her ear. “Pickup trucks are cool, right?”

“Oh, yeah,” You said sarcastically.

Sasha playfully pushed at your shoulder, “Alright, if I have to choose a different type of car, then I guess I’d be a-” Sasha took a second to think- “A tractor.”

“Shut up,” You spoke through a loud fit of laughter.

“I’m serious.” Sasha giggled with you. “I’d either be a pickup truck or a tractor - I mean it.”

“One,” You said with a grin, “Tractors aren’t even considered cars. And, two, no you wouldn’t be a tractor because they are loud and dirty and-” You shrugged- “Actually, that kind of works for you.”

“Hey!” Sasha's voice had gone up a few octaves for that one word. She pushed at your shoulder again, this time her hand lingering on your body.

You giggled, “You’re the one who said it, Sash’, I was only repeating it.” Sasha grinned at you, her hand still on your shoulder and now making its way down your bicep. “And, I think I’d be a mustang. One, I’m sleek and luxurious. And two, I like to go fast.”

“Really?” Sasha’s fingers drew invisible circles above your elbow. Her fingers were slender and warm and the circles were drawn in a smooth and consistent motion. “Could you have picked a more cliché type of car?”

You wrinkled your nose at the girl, “At least I chose a car.”

The room grew quiet again, but the silence was different from the last two times - neither awkward nor comfortable. Instead, the silence was full, like there were so many words being spoken into the space around you. The darkness of the room told each other your deepest, darkest secrets and part of you knew Sasha could hear your every thought that kept you awake at night.

She could hear what you thought about before eventually falling asleep. She could hear your mental grocery lists about the things you needed to pick up the next evening. And, she heard your mental relivings of memories you only thought about when nobody could see the pain written across your face. And, she heard the feelings you had bottled up for so long - feelings all about how badly you wanted to feel her hands all over your body.

And, what was so wrong with wanting your best friend on top of you, honestly? Everybody felt this way at least once in their lives. And, what was so wrong with finally going for it? Every single sexual or romantic relationship started with one of the people taking a chance, and it seemed you just had to be that person.

“Sasha,” You whispered into the dark space between both of your faces.

“Mhm,” Sasha mumbled back, her hand finally reaching your wrist.

You took a deep breath, “Do you ever think of me at night?”

Sasha grinned, “All of the time - why do you ask?”

Sasha’s fingers now found your palm, the tickling motion causing your own fingers to jump. Her hand was so warm against your hand, and you didn’t want her to stop touching you. You would prefer if she touched you all over your body, but you were willing to settle with just holding her hand in the darkness, if that’s all she wanted.

“Because,” You said with a smile, “I think about you too - at night, during the day, in the mornings, in my dreams - all of the time, like you said.”

Sasha’s fingers intertwined with your fingers, her palm resting gently against your own. Sasha didn’t need to say anything for you to suddenly hear her thoughts. She must have felt the same way considering her hand stayed against your own even when she leaned in to kiss you.

Sasha’s mouth was soft, and you could taste the ghost of her strawberry chapstick still on her lips. Her mouth moved gently at first, metaphorically testing the waters before diving in. Her kisses were merely innocent pecks for a moment, until she leaned back and whispered to your mouth.

“Was that what you think about all the time?” Sasha’s breath fanned across your face with her words.

You grinned to yourself, “I’ve thought about much more than just that.”

Sasha’s lips were back on yours, her mouth making up for wasted time. You had felt this way about her for as long as you’ve been her friend, and for just as long, she’s felt the exact same way. And finally, months longer than you’d have liked, Sasha is actually kissing you.

Sasha removes her hand from yours and instead brings them to your sides. She feels her way up your hips and ribs, her fingers gently tickling the skin she touches. Her fingertips play with the hem of your shirt and the waist of your shorts, teasing you with the idea of her removing your clothes from your body.

You moved your arms around her neck and brought her face closer to yours. Her tongue was warm when it swooped into your mouth, licking across the roof of your mouth in one swift movement. Her tongue was so warm and arousing in fact that she drew a soft gasp from your mouth which only encouraged her further.

Sasha’s hands found your hips just before you rolled up on your knee, now straddling her lap. You were in the same position as earlier, sitting gently on her hips as you lean downward towards her face. But, instead of carefully applying eyeliner to her eyelids, you now kissed Sasha so roughly that your front teeth chattered against her front teeth.

Sasha ran her hands over your hips and ass, touching the places she had wanted to, but didn’t, touch earlier. Her fingers moved gently against your thighs, digging her nails into the plush skin. Her hands pressed onward, hellbent on finding their ways under the bottoms of your sleep shorts.

You let out a short gasp when you felt Sasha’s smooth fingers find the soft fabric of your panties. She grinned once she felt your surprise and whispered into your mouth.

“Did I shock you?” Sasha asked with a smile, “Did you expect me not to touch you when you’re on top of me like this?”

You breathlessly mumbled against her mouth, “‘Guess I didn’t expect you to be so determined.”

“Let me show you just how determined I am.”

Sasha pulled on the bottom of your shirt and you raised your arms, letting her remove the fabric from your body. Sasha throws the shirt to the ground, taking in the new sight in front of her - you sitting on top of her in only your sleep shorts and panties. Sasha had seen you in a bikini and even in your bra plenty of times but nothing could have prepared her for how beautiful with a bare chest.

You leaned down and pecked Sasha before your mouth traveled past her mouth and down her body. You kissed her jaw, the side of her neck, and behind her ear. The kisses that you left on Sasha’s skin tickled her body, causing her to let out breathy pants and soft giggles from between her lips.

Sasha arched her back towards you before suddenly switching positions with you. She pushed you onto the bed beside her, your back now against the comforter you were formerly lying underneath. Sasha sat above you, leaning back on her calves on the right side of your legs.

Sasha quickly pulled her shirt from her body, throwing it thoughtlessly to the ground. You reached towards her, placing your hands gently against the smooth skin of her stomach. Your fingers slowly made their ways up her ribs and to her chest, letting your fingertips rub gentle shapes into the sensitive skin of her tits.

Sasha bent down towards you, pressing her lips to yours as your hands continued to palm her. Sasha moaned into your mouth in between kisses, feeling herself growing hotter with every second your hands were on her. Sasha moved an inch back from your lips, whispering heavily into your mouth.

“Can I taste you?” Sasha came back in for another kiss.

You nodded against her face, “Yes, please.”

Sasha moved back onto her calves, smiling down at you for a second before moving her hands to the waist of your shorts. She pulled your sleep shorts down your thighs and legs, shoving them off of the bed and out of the way.

Sasha moved in between your legs, wrapping her hands around your body before leaning down. She spread a kissing trail from your navel down to the waistband of your panties. And once she reached your panties, she looked up at you - silently asking for permission to proceed.

“Please.” That one word came out in a desperate squeak.

Sasha giggled into your body, “‘You really that excited for me?”

Sasha slowly pulled your panties down your legs, tossing them to the floor as well. You felt the heartbeat between your legs pound as Sasha kissed slowly down your leg: a peck to your ankle, to your calf, to the side of your knee, to the inside of your thigh and finally to the most sensitive skin right beside her destination.

A loud moan erupted from your mouth when Sasha’s mouth found the place you needed her most. Her tongue licked against the slick that had collected in the area, drinking it into her mouth which only caused you to create more. Sasha’s mouth moved expertly between your legs, her tongue moving itself in and out and around your entrance.

You arched your back into the air as Sasha’s hands moved from your back to your ass and hips. She moved her fingers against your hips bones, squeezing the skin and pulling your body closer to her mouth until your thighs were practically suffocating her. But, Sasha didn’t stop, the possibility of death only encouraged her further - Sasha supposed if she had to die anywhere, she’d prefer to die between your thighs and tongue deep in your pussy.

Deep within your folds, Sasha used her tongue to write the same thing over and over again. Silently communicating with you through her movements, and even marking the area as her own. S-A-S-H-A, her tongue spelled out her name for you, each time driving you closer and closer to your orgasm, S-A-S-H-A.

You felt your legs shake on either side of Sasha’s face, your whole body jumping with arousal. You pushed your fingers into Sasha’s hair, fisting the strands into your palm in an attempt to alleviate the pressure growing in your stomach. Sasha moaned into your pussy, aroused by the idea of just how much pleasure she was giving you.

The growing pressure in your stomach started spreading to your entire body, causing your hips to buck forward from your impending orgasm. You pushed Sasha’s face deeper into your body, silently influencing her to continue exactly what she was doing. All it took was one more swoop of her tongue and you were unraveling into her mouth.

Sasha licked up every single drop of wetness, slowly bringing you back down from your high. Sasha sat up from between your legs, looking at you from where she sat on her calves. She grinned at you, her chin and cheeks drenched in what remained of your orgasm.

“So,” Sasha said with a large smile, “How was that?”

You giggled breathlessly into your hands, suddenly feeling the need to cover your face. All you could remember was just how loud you got while she was between your legs, the room echoed with the sounds of every moan that came from between your lips. You felt embarrassed by just how much you enjoyed Sasha’s tongue because what if she now knew how much you like her?

Sasha’s hands gently removed your palms from your face. You looked intently into her eyes and cursed just how deeply the other girl knew you. She’s your best friend and a good one at that, of course she can read the embarrassment written so obviously across your face.

“Hey,” Sasha said delicately, “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about, babe. I enjoyed it just as much as you did.”

You sighed, “How about I give you something to enjoy? Wanna’ let me return the favor?”

“Oh?” Sasha raised a single eyebrow at you. “Hell yeah.”

You pushed Sasha into the bed the same way she had to you. You placed your thigh between her legs, pressing down into her before giving her a passionate kiss. Sasha groaned against your lips which only encouraged you to give her just as much pleasure she gave you. You stayed up all night with her, your lips against her lips and your thigh between her legs as you drank down every moan she gave you until the sun eventually came up on the other side of your bedroom window.

[otptings]

Insomnia

-Idol ~ Kun

-Genre ~ Sick Fic, Smut, Fluff

-Warnings ~ insomnia, lack of appetite & weight loss, pillow princess by force, oral (f receiving), passionate fucking, dry humping? (she's half naked but he's fully dressed), daddy kink, rough sex, choking, degradation,

-Word Count ~ 2.9k+

-Synopsis ~ Sleeping never comes easy to. You've tried everything from exercising, to warm milk. Maybe the one thing you've been missing is some late night loving?

-A/n ~ loosely inspired by sky Insomnia, the rose insomnia, and dreamcatcher sleep-walking. best to listen to any of those songs as you read it, might help set the mood even though those are all break up songs lmfao. I also have my ko-fi link in my bio help raise more money to help me buy essentials for my emotional support animal, I cannot work at the minute because of my treatment for type 1 bipolar disorder, and door dash doesn't allow me to save up abundantly enough, if you could even only share it I would greatly appreciate it. anyway hope you enjoy this and thank you for reading

Sleep and you have always had a complicated relationship. Fighting sleep as a kid, climbing out of your bed after your parents tucked you in, playing with your toys until you passed out among us. At sleepovers you were always the one who stayed up all night, too excited to actually get tired.

As a teenager spending nights before school desperately trying to finish homework, staying up until the early morning hours, quickly taking a shower before running to the bus. If you had no assignments your crush at the time would distract you, joking and blushing until it was time to leave for school, bags under your eyes prominent, but the loss of sleep was worth it.

Now the only thing you wanted was to sleep.

Insomnia took over your life. Staying up sometimes days at a time, struggling to calm your racing thoughts that were determined to keep you up at night. They won most nights. Laying in your bed, struggling to get comfortable or staring up at the ceiling, willing sleep to overtake you. Even with the medication from the doctor you struggled to get more than 3 hours a night.

You tried other remedies too. Drinking warm milk with cinnamon and vanilla, the warm concoction soothing but never tiring you out. Exercising before bed that truly made you feel amazing but never worked to tire you out, only forcing you to feel the soreness in your body as you laid in bed. No electronics before bed helped you finish multiple books series that you had wanted to start but never had time for, but didn't work.

Everything you tried was in vain. Sleep continued to evade you, and it only took a higher toll on your physical body.

Your appetite started to lessen, your weight slowly declined. The bags under your eyes only got deeper and darker. Concerns about your physical state came form your friends, their worries growing as you continued to get worst and worst. It came to a peak when you almost passed out at an outing, shaky from the constant stream of caffeine that you were consuming in order to function properly, your eyes fluttering close as you collapsed into their arms. Concern was properly covering their face, and they rushed you to the hospital, you were too weak to even try and decline them.

At the hospital they gave you strict instructions to stay home and rest, with someone watching you over to make sure that you were properly taken care of. Along with instructions you got even stronger medication, 20 mgs stronger than what you were currently taking.

Kun being the thoughtful person he is offered to watch you while you were on bedrest. He was the best candidate out of your friends, the others practically pushing you to accept him.

Kun has been the best assistant? nurse? friend that you could ask for. Constantly at your beck and call making sure that you were drinking plenty of water, cooking you fresh homemade meals, and making sure your medication was taken on time. Along with that he also did the awkward task of helping you to the bathroom, since you were still shaky and weak at times.

He did this all without complaint, catering to you everyday and making sure that you were cared for. Sometimes when he wasn't busy with his own work he would sit and watch a drama with you, or just engage in conversation telling you about his day, and the funny things he did and heard.

Having him helping you 24/7 for 2 weeks straight, had caused some unwelcome feelings. Your friends weren't surprised at that, having been part of the reason why they suggested he did it, knowing your past feelings for him. With only a week left of your bedrest you were saddened at the thought that he was leaving, going back to only talking to him once or twice a week whenever the friend group hung out.

Kun had actually been the one who surprised you. Seeing that you were still up one night, thoughts of him running through your mind when he entered your room. Upon seeing you awake he sat on your bed, holding your hand as you asked what's up. You weren't truthful. Who would be truthful in that scenario? 'Hey actually I was up thinking about my crush on you and the desire that I constantly have to kiss you."

You were positive that wouldn't have gone through well.

Kun rubbed your hand soothingly, listening patiently to you as you lied about what you were thinking about, fake worries and complaints about going back to work. Offering you advice was always Kun's strong suit so you were ready for some good advice despite your lies.

That's what got you in this peculiar position.

Lip tucked tightly between your teeth, the taste of copper on your tongue. One hand grasping at the pillow behind you squeezing it tightly between your fingers, the other intertwined with dark blue hair as you tried not to pull too hard.

Kun thought the best thing to clear your mind was sex, and who were you to deny his generous offer.

You felt your hips jerking as tongue pressed his tongue against your hole, shallowly fucking into you. His free hand rubbed up your thigh, the sensation combining with him eating you out causing your mind to start to go blurry. His hand continued to glide up, before pressing down on your hips, forcing them down on the bed.

Without the ability to move you could only lie there as he continued to tongue fuck you. The fire in your stomach increasing, and Kun seemed to know it as he kissed your clit before sucking on it aggressively, causing your first orgasm to rip through your body.

Kun continued his ministrations, licking up your cum causing the fire to come back threefold. Kun sucked on your clit, flicking his tongue over it as you wriggled from the sensitivity. He seemed to be made for this, the way his tongue knew the perfect ways to fuck you open, and he hadn't even involved his fingers or cock yet.

Pulling away from your cunt you saw your juices covering Kun's mouth leaking down his chin. His hair was sticking every which way how you were messing, and pulling on it. Kun looked like all of your wet dreams had happened to come through.

"So pretty." A laugh let his mouth, a smiling spreading over his lips.

"Wish you could see yourself," Kun slid his hand up and down your thigh, rubbing it soothingly, "You're gorgeous. I've been wanting to do this for so long."

Kun changed the positions so that you were on top, straddling his thighs. You could feel his cock straining against his jeans, rubbing over your oversensitive clit in the best way possible. A whimper left your mouth as you started to rock on him, but Kun stilled your hips. His hand slid to your chin, rubbing his thumb along the side of your jaw.

"Can I kiss you?" You didn't bother answering, meeting him halfway. His chapped lips moved against your own as if you've done it before, there was a familiarity to it that made you wrap your arms around his neck pulling him flush against your chest. Sliding his hands up and down your body, lips moving in sync against yours. You nipped at his lip, causing a loud groan to leave his mouth as he opened it for you. Sliding your tongue into his mouth you reveled in the feeling of him taking dominance. His hands gripping your ass tightly, his tongue roughly dancing with yours.

You pulled away, placing your hips on his shoulders as you continued to grind against him. Another groan leaving his mouth as he moved you against him, forcing you to press down harder and faster against him.

"God baby." He leaned back as he looked at you, admiring the way you moved against him, needy and wanting to cum again. "You're so need baby. Who's got you like this hm?" You dropped your head back, continuing to rock your hips against his. Kun felt his cock twitching in his pants at the sight, grabbing the back of your neck and pulling you close to him, placing kisses along your neck and collarbones.

"Kun I need you." You tried to sound strict but it came breathy, a moan following it as he kisses over your jugular, nipping at it before listening to your 'command'. Flipping you over he gave you a peck, before pulling away to take off his clothes. You decided to join him stripping out of your shirt and throwing it across the room.

Kun crawled back over you, but he stopped just taking the time to stare at you.

"I need to say this before. I'm not just fucking you because of your insomnia, I'm not just fucking you to fuck you." Kun intertwined your fingers, "I really like you. I don't want this to just not mean anything to you, when I really like you. Even thought we're doing this backward I hope you can at least think of going on a date with me." You felt your face heat up, and the familiar feeling of fluttering in your stomach at his confession. Placing your hand on his cheek you leaned up, placing a quick kiss on his lips.

"I like you too Kun. More than I can put words to." A big smile spread across his face as he leaned down, showering your face with kisses. "But if you don't put your dick in me right now, you might not ever get that date." A laugh left his mouth as he placed one last kiss against your check, before grabbing the base of his cock and rubbing it up and down your cunt. Collecting some of your juices over his tips he looked down as he pressed into you, muttering a fuck at the sight of you taking him in so well. You threw your head back feeling the fuzziness come back, feeling how well he slid into you.

When Kun bottomed out he placed your still intertwined hands on the pillow beside you, his other hand sliding back to your hip.

"Fuck you feel so good." He growled as he waited for you to adjust, feeling your tight walls practically sucking him in.

"Please move. Please I need you." Kun placed a gentle kiss on your pouty lips before pulling. Thrusting back into you he set a slow pace, being gentle with you not forgetting that you were still on bed rest. Your other arm wrapped around his neck, pulling you closer to him. Feeling skin against skin as he continued to slowly fuck you, enjoying the feeling of him being close to you.

It was more intimate than it should've been, being the first time that you two were having sex but with Kun it felt right. This was more love making than casual fucking and you wouldn't have it any other way. The coil in your stomach started to tighten, Kun's groans helping greatly to push you towards the edge, but the pace he had set wasn't doing it for you.

"Kun." He slowed down, hearing the desperation in your voice and not wanting to hurt you.

"Yes baby? Am I hurting you?" You could hear the slight panic in his voice and shook your head, before meeting his eyes.

"Faster please. I need you rougher." Kun pushed your hair back, before cupping your cheek.

"Are you sure? I don't want to hurt you, you were just hospitalized."

"Please fuck me harder. I need you to ruin me daddy." At your words Kun's eyes darkened and without warning he thrust into you hard, causing a punched out moan to leave your mouth.

The mood changed just the way you needed it to, instead of being slow love sex Kun was fucking you. Hips meeting during every perfectly timed thrust, hitting deep within you as the sound of his balls smacking against your ass filled the room. He let go of your hand, instead opting to grab your waist and pulled you to meet him halfway on every thrust.

Ceaseless moans leaving your lips at the feeling of him fucking into you so beautifully, filling every inch of you. Opening your eyes that hadn't even realized had closed you were met by the sight of Kun, sweat glistening over his abs and dripping down his face. His hair plastered to his forehead, as he bit his lip harshly trying to hold back his groans. Your neighbors should really thank him for having some self control.

Kun slowed down as he lifted your legs up, pushing them towards your chest, folding you in half as he continued his rough pace. This new position causing you to feel him in your chest, the feeling of fullness completely overtaking you as you orgasmed for the second time. He fucked you through your orgasm, the tingly feeling spreading towards your hips as overstimulation set in. Even though his cock was dragging against your walls beautifully, blunt tip pressing into your g spot it started to get painful.

The feeling of it being too much, but not enough at the same time. Tears welling up in your eyes, as Kun pressed against your legs pushing them back further and forcing his cock impossibly deeper.

"F-fuck daddy please." You didn't even know what you were begging for anyway, him effectively fucking you dumb, his hands gripping your thighs tightly to the point where you knew you'd have bruises the next day.

"So tight around me, your pussy is sucking me in even after two orgasms? What's wrong baby? Two isn't enough, you need me to milk another one out of you?" You couldn't respond to him, only listened to him as he spoke, groans leaving his mouth harmonizing with your moans almost.

"Poor baby is fucked dumb," A cruel laugh left his mouth as he stuffed two fingers into your mouth. You sucked on his fingers, twirling your tongue around them. "Can't even speak, only babble and suck on my fingers huh? Lucky you're so cute. You liked being called dumb huh? Can feel the way you're pussy clenched around me? Must be close again." You could only let out a muted moan, Kun's fingers still pressed against your tongue, gagging you effectively.

Pulling his fingers out of your mouth he slid his hand around your throat, tapping his too soaked fingers on the side of your neck.

"So close baby. So. fucking. close." Punctuating his words with an extra hard thrust in between you had lost the ability to think, his hand gently around your neck, more like an accessory but just at the thought of him choking you felt yourself drooling, his thrusts still reaching that spot inside of you that was so deep it'd never been touched before.

As if hearing your thoughts, Kun's hand tightened around your throat, pressing you against the mattress. You came at that moment, Kun's tip hitting your g spot perfectly. Your eyes rolled back as you felt like you had exploded, all of your energy draining out of you with your third orgasm of the night.

At the feeling of you clenching around him so tightly, practically holding you in place Kun pulled out and quickly jerked himself off, cumming over your lower stomach. Kun marveled at the sight of you laid out below him, lips swollen from biting them, hair frizzy from rubbing against the pillow, his white cum painting your stomach, a light red mark around your neck from his hand.

Kun let you sit for a couple minutes before carrying you to the bathroom for a well needed shower. Setting you on the toilet, he let you pee while he started the warm. When you were finished and the water was warm enough Kun helped you into the shower, letting you lean against him as he started to clean the cum from your body.

"Are you okay?" You looked up at Kun, basking in the feeling of the warm water running down your body as Kun rubbed the soapy loofa over your body.

"Never felt better." A crooked smile spread across your face, too tired to even continue the conversation. Kun kissed you on your temple , seemingly sensing it and helped you rinse out. After getting you redressed and back into your bed with clean sheets, Kun went to go to the living room until you grabbed his arm.

"Can you stay?" Even after having sex Kun was still nervous to sleep in the bed with you, but he obliged hearing your soft, sleepy voice. Climbing into bed with you he pulled you into his chest, wrapping his arms around you.

"Thank you." Kun hummed, the vibration spreading through his chest and making you giggle.

"For?"

"Taking care of me." Kun placed another kiss on your head.

"You don't have to thank me. I wanted to care for you. Now get some sleep." Cuddling further into Kun, the beat of his heart along with the rise and fall of his chest lulled you to sleep.

For the first time in years, you slept like a baby.

[plush-rabbit]

Late Night Talks

Request: Hey! I hope you’re well sweetheart! I have a request, so I’m the youngest of my family (unfortunately) and a lot of the time I’m unheard and dismissed because of this, ngl I don’t have the best relationship with my family so it’s hard to connect with them, or talk to them. I kinda feel like white noise ya know? So Compress, Twice, and Dabi are my closest comfort characters. So how about them suddenly seeing the reader (probably late at night) talk about the things they enjoy with just stars in their eyes. It’s a harsh comparison to how they act during the day, it’s still them, but it’s just more raw.

🙇‍♀️

thank ya babes

A/N: I hope that you like this, I’m not sure what the harsh comparison was supposed to be but Im guessing it was supposed to be more reserved? (also babes, feel free to gush here, i love talking to yall)

-

Bubaigawara Jin:

Jin’s need for interaction and want for friendship makes him the perfect partner to talk to. He loves talking to you, his legs bouncing and hands flapping as he mentions something that he likes. Sitting beside you, he does most of the talking, how energy out matched and while he does talk, he also looks to you for commentary, wanting to remember that he isn’t alone. There are rare instances when you two are alone that you’ll talk more. The roles will be reversed and you’re talking about anything and everything, smiling at him and for the moment when your eyes lock, he feels the weight on his shoulders lift.

It’s not uncommon to find the villian and you in a single room together at night, often the words will travel the halls and you have to muffle your laughter. This night is one of those- he’s in your room at night, resting beside you as you talk about this new thing that you’re into. You’re eager, shifting in your seat, a bowl of popcorn nearing the end of the bowl, kernels accidentally grabbed at. You’ve grown so excited, your words tripping over each other as you try to find a way to make yourself comfortable all while he stares at you. You’re processing the words fast, trying to tell the story in a cohesive way but with your excitement you are unable to. You look at him with wide eyes and a grin that can nearly blind him.

You’re different at night. He’s unsure whether because your mind has grown groggy with sleep or if it’s because the likelihood of someone interrupting the both of you has lowered, but you’re different. You’re much more prone to touch- you reach for him and you playfully push at his shoulder, your tongue stuck between your teeth as you give him a coy grin. Perhaps it's due to you being so touchy, that he grows bolder with his movements, grabbing your hand and playing with it as you continue to speak, the bite to his words softening whenever you tease at him.

If it were up to him, he would listen to you for hours on end, locking the door and making sure that you two could just talk until time ran out. But, he knows that that’s impossible, so he lays down on your bed, his head resting on his palm as his elbow digs into your pillow. You’re much different to him when the dim lighting is all that illuminates the room, your hair holding a soft glow, the features on your face almost softer and he’s unsure whether it’s exhaustion that grips at him or something else, but he wants to stay awake, he wants to listen to you every night. You mean a great deal to him and he wants to hear you speak, will take every word and keep the important ones so he knows what you like and what to do.

Despite being tired, he wants to continue talking to you, hearing you talk but the night continues to go on, the sky turning a softer shade of blue, and your words are starting to drift. Jin will take over at that point, laying beside you, talking as you start to drift. He mentions things that you said, making a point to mention that you were the one who came up with that observation and talk about how that really stuck out to him. You voice continues, your words growing softer and your gaze on him now barely peeking between your lashes and yet, he is unable to tell you to go to sleep. It’s selfish of him, but he wants to hear you talk until you’re whispering your words into a single breath. The next day, when you can barely keep your eyes up and you’re talking to him, he’ll have an inside joke, your grin widening as you take joy that he listened to you. Under the table, his knee nudges against yours, his smile ever growing when you return the gesture.

Dabi:

Dabi enjoys hearing you talk- it’s soothing for him, something where he’s able to rest his head on your lap and have you play with his hair as he listens to you gush about whatever it is that you like. However, while he does so, he realizes that he has a habit of falling asleep on your lap. It isn’t because you’re boring, you’re just nice to listen to. Laying with you and hearing you talk is one of the few times where he’s at peace, safe in your arms and touched gently. However, he’s noticed the implications of it, noticing that you don’t talk as much as you did. His piercings are warm as they press against his palms, his eyes half-lidded as he tries to figure out a way to make it up to you or to show you that he does actually care for what you have to say.

Unable to sleep, he arises from his bed, walking towards the living area trying to find some sort of sleeping aid. Instead of sleeping aids, he finds you curled up on the couch, the screen of your phone lighting across your face. You give him a smile as a greeting, your focus returning to your show. He can see heavy bags under your eyes- you’re forcing yourself to stay awake. The couch is soft under him, his arms spread as he turns his gaze over to your show. Without a word, you align your phone to make sure that he’s watching it, your words are whispered as you explain the plot and the characters but as you continue to do so, your words excite and your volume raises gradually.

The night is somewhat young and as far as he knows, there’s no mission that he has tomorrow. He has to fix his past mistakes and he wants to hear you talk. He pushes more, asking about the relationships between the characters and even wanting you to restart the series from the first episode- if you want to, of course. When you do so, he makes himself comfortable on the couch, stealing your blanket and laying down, offering for you to sit close to him in a much more relaxed manner. He covers the both of you with the blanket, his arm stretched behind your back and hand resting on your shoulder.

In between episodes, you start to muse once more, ranging from the metaphors to your favorite lines, and to the designs that you like. Your legs bounce, shaking as you try to contain your excitement despite it being written all over you. He gives you his full attention, nodding his head along as you ramble. Your words are rapid, your expression focused entirely on him and he wonders if you’ve always been hiding all this excitement. You’re much more animated, moving your hands and arms, shifting as you speak and there’s a certain tone to your voice that makes him unable to look away.

Every word of yours is coated in sugar and honey, and he clings to it, nodding along and looking at you with half-lidded eyes, unable to wipe the soft smile off of his face. The show is forgotten, your phone now showing him pictures from different stills and you’re much more relaxed, leaning against him, your head pressed against his side. You have a wide smile, your eyes shining with stars as when you look up to smile at him, he returns it as all air escapes his lungs. Once Dabi can properly think, he enters the conversation, offering more than soft hums and words of interest. At night, he can see your smile, the way that you look at him with wide eyes, the giddiness in your voice is enough to wake up from his growing slumber. He could fall asleep listening to you, but he doesn't want to miss how you look when it’s just you and him.

Sako Atsuhiro:

Atsuhiro adores hearing you talk. He’s rather eccentric, always wanting for the spotlight to be on him, but when you talk, he doesn’t mind being the one entranced by you. He wants to hear you talk, to see the light in your eyes. Yet, he can tell you’re holding yourself back- you play with your hands, tug at the ends of your hair, and laugh nervously as you apologize, telling him that you didn’t mean to talk for so long. While it’s true that you might talk over people, he knows it’s because of how excited you are, willing to share whatever is on your mind before the thought fades.

It’s a late night for him, phantom pains that make it unable for him to sleep and even with the medication acting as a placebo, he’s unable to truly find peace. He finds you in the kitchen, mumbling to yourself as you prepare a late night snack. He knocks against the wooden wall in an attempt to announce himself before startling you but you still jump, turning around with wide eyes and a parted mouth, before relaxing once you take notice that it’s just him. When you ask why he’s up so late, he gestures to his arm, making a strained face as his hand clamps around the residual limb, the pain sharp as it shoots up into his shoulder. He asks what you were muttering about and when you turn your head, your lips pulled into a straight line as you’re clearly flustered at having been caught, he laughs, telling you to tell him- to get his mind off of the pain.

You start off slow, mumbling between words and telling him about a new thing that you like. Your words increasingly start to grow with confidence, your eyes on him as you share your late night snack. He listens to you, nodding along and saving the best piece of the snack for you, his chewing trying to be quiet so as to not interrupt your words. While he also wants to start to talk about one of his hobbies, he much rather listen to you. When you do take a bite, he asks his questions, encouraging you to continue talking, his arm resting against the table and he leans towards you, eager to grasp at every word that leaves past your mouth.

Stars are in your eyes, your tone softer and you go to hold his hand, your thumb, index and middle finger hooking over his middle and ring finger, your eyes wide and smile whimsical as you talk. Under the bare light of the kitchen, you’re softer, your eyes shadowed and your touch gentle as you begin to toy with his hand. You’re passionate about what you talk, and he wonders if when you look so eager, and so full of life, if it’s only something that you show to whoever catches you at night, to someone who can glimpse a version of you so real that he’s almost at a loss for breath.

Sleep gnaws at him, but he is unwilling to do so. His pain is gone, replaced with a dull ache that he knows he can sleep off, but he has stars in his eyes as he listens to you talk. Your voice is soothing, your laugh like a lullaby that only pulls him in further to you. His hand is warm, hispalm tickled by your nails and the snack now lays forgotten on the plate. He almost feels bad for wasting food, but he doesn’t have the will to pull his hand away and finish the food that you prepared. Every word that you speak only makes Atsuhiro want to smile, to lay on his bed and think about you and how you spoke to him. You talk, and he’d do anything to keep your voice memorized, to stay awake long when you've fallen asleep just to remember how your voice lilts when you start to get excited or how it drops during a serious part as if you were telling him a secret.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

For Vampire Chris! What if he and Jake went to a museum and came across some of Tooley's paintings? And Chris has a panic attack! We would finally get some Jake comfort. And maybe Chris would reveal more horrible things that Tooley had done to him.

CW: Discussion of death, blood, vampire whumpee, caretaker and whumpee

The sun sets early in the winter, and it's the only reason they can make this work.

Chris is barely awake even so, sipping from a coffee cup Jake filled with the contents of one of his blood packs, hoping he doesn't trip and spill and lead to Jake having some very awkward, panicked explanations to make to anyone nearby.

He'd slept in the truck Jake borrowed from Nat most of the way over here, curled in the passenger seat. He looks for all the world like any high schooler who stayed up too late the night before, dragged out by his family, forced to go learn when all he wants is rest.

Chris is draped in a hooded sweatshirt pulled on over his head, hair mussed from sleeping in the closet in the little nest-bed he made for himself in there. It sticks out like stray from beneath the hood he's pulled up, coppery strands occasionally covering his eyes and making him shove them out of the way with a snort that has no right to be as adorable as it is, considering the monster who makes the sound.

Not a monster, no. Not really.

Or his monster, anyway, the same way his mother is his mother. Jake is starting to understand the little vampire - more than three times his own age - has chosen him for family now.

The sweater he wears is kind of a joke, actually. Jake bought it weeks ago from a website that puts the covers of books on clothes, and it's an old cover image from Dracula.

Jake thought it was funny, anyway. Nat was less amused. Chris only smiled and said something about being happy the hairy palms thing isn't true.

The air is chilly, and Jake shivers a little as they head in from the parking lot across a small sidewalk next to a park and toward the museum itself, but of course Chris doesn't even notice. He seems to be enjoying it, the way it blows around his hair as they make their way slowly up the steps and past the row of Grecian-style columns that mark the entrance.

Jake has to visit for one of his classes, an extra-credit something-or-other, and Chris had asked to go along with him.

Jake had been hesitant, but seeing the way the vampire's green eyes sparkle as he moves around in public like any other person, well... he feels like he made the right choice to bring him along now.

"Finish up your drink, you can't take anything in once we pay and get past the lobby," Jake says, and Chris nods, gulping the last of the blood as fast as he can as they push through wide double-doors. Jake tries not to imagine how it must feel, swallowing thick congealing cooled blood. Someone's life, someone's heartbeat, down your throat...

Really, is he that much different? Jake has eaten a dozen cows' worth of beef in his life.

Does Chris see them all as just livestock? He doesn't act like it, but then, there are people who treat pigs or cows like pets and not like food...

His stomach flips a little and he forces himself to look around, up at the chandelier at the high ceiling, the heavy wooden desk they have to walk to off to the side to get their tickets. To stop trying to understand if Chris is a sort of stray they've adopted, or if he's a higher-level predator living with prey.

Once Chris drops the cup into a trash can, Jake throwing a couple wadded-up tissues on top so no one can accidentally see the smear of red around the edge of the lid, they buy their tickets, and wind their way through and past the little velvet ropes that mark off the entrance.

The museum opens before them into a grand hall, with paintings the size of two-story buildings on either side, permanent installations in the museum. Commissioned for its opening, sometime back in the 70's.

Jake picks up a brochure so they know which way to go - LGBTQ+ Art in Pre-War America is the temporary exhibit he's here to see, traveling work that is usually housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

"Oh, nice, it's on the first floor. Looks like you go through a couple of 'specialty' rooms, just showing off stuff from the in-house collection. Sounds cool, right?"

Chris, looking from side to side at the gigantic paintings that hang on the walls in the opening hall, hums softly, a tuneless constant sound. He doesn't answer Jake's question. He hums often, and Jake barely notices any longer, but there's something edged to it, now. As if just being around the paintings is making him nervous.

"Okay, little man, let's go over here." He touches Chris's arm, lightly, through the thick fabric of his sweater. The vampire looks over at him, smiling with his lips pressed together to hide his teeth from any potential prying eyes.

He follows easily, but he sticks closer to Jake than he normally does, and his eyes are constantly roving. They move through an exhibit of Pre-Colombian pottery first, on their way to the room in the back where the temporary showcase is.

Jake watches Chris's fingers twitch with the urge to touch, to learn by feeling the bumps and ridges in the ancient clay, and how he holds back as best he can. His urge to lift the clear protective plastic boxes right off the pottery so he can get at it is nearly physically painful.

Jake pretends not to see it when Chris's fingers trail along a column, settling for the white-painted rectangle the pottery is balanced on, taking in the rough texture smoothed by the matte paint.

"Did you ever meet anyone like you that was old enough to have made stuff like this?" Jake asks, stopping in front of a water jug in the shape of a man playing a flute with a dog at his feet. The dog wears a carved smile marked with disturbingly human-looking teeth. The paint it must have been covered in is worn by time, leaving the reddish-brown of the clay behind, with the faintest streaks of white still in the crevices.

"No," Chris replies, tilting his head, making direct eye contact with the statue in a way he never quite can do with any real person. Not comfortably, anyway. Jake has seen him force it and shudder afterwards, overwhelmed. When he'd asked about it, Chris had said he never liked looking at anyone's eyes, even before, when he was alive. It's too much, was all he would say. It's always too much. "None, um, none of us live that long."

"Why not?" They're alone in the room. It's the only reason Jake feels safe asking.

Chris's tongue runs over the sharpening bumps of his growing-in fangs, pressing against them, easing the itch and the ache of their return. After a second, he pulls a plastic bat on a cord from inside his sweater and puts the bat into his mouth, chewing on it idly, jaw working. "I, I, I don't know. That's just what what what my, my, my pack told me."

"I thought vampires lived in covens."

"No." Chris doesn't elaborate on this one. He can be weirdly secretive about how he lived before he came to Nat's, before he was pulled out of a basement, a living drug for a wealthy asshole.

Secretive, or just forgetting whatever wasn't essential.

He moves away to another pedestal, a shard broken off of a larger vessel, marked with a deep white and intense black angular design. He hums again, and Jake takes the hint and leaves him alone.

They spend several more minutes looking over the pottery before they head through a second room full of what must just be the favorite pieces of museum employees, as there doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason, and each little card with the name of the piece and its maker has a paper next to it with a note on why each employee loves this piece in particular. Chris lingers around older things, a woven tapestry from medieval England, landscapes from the 19th century. He stares for a while at a painting called The Country Path by Joseph Poole Addy, a pale watercolor of winter trees with bare branches breaking the line of sky and a woman bundled in a coat carrying a basket down an equally colorless road.

Chris's humming getting louder, and he rocks a little, forward and back, his eyes moving again and again through the lines of the painting.

Jake wonders what it is about this one specifically that catches Chris like that, and when the vampire finally moves on he checks the employee's statement. Joseph Poole Addy, Irish painter in the 19th and 20th centuries, blah blah, something something countryside... Jake frowns, and glances over at Chris, who isn't looking back. He's moved on to something else.

Jake decides to ask him later.

They make it to the exhibit they're here to see, and Jake whistles under his breath as he enters. There are vibrant, saturated paintings lining the walls, a couple of large sculptures on the floor that still are taller than he is, a few smaller ones on pedestals. The work is mostly figurative, although there's some early abstraction there, a hint of the contemporary push to take even figurative work out of simply being an echo of a real life thing.

Chris looks at a sculpture, his head cocked so far to the side it looks almost birdlike, not quite human. Jake thinks his own neck would ache for days if he tried to do that. "Must've been, um, later," He mumbles to himself.

Jake files that away in his mental list of things to talk to Chris about later.

He walks slowly along the line of paintings. The whole point of being here is that he's supposed to pick a specific piece and write a short essay about it and the artist who made it, prove he saw it in person.

The class itself is about how to encourage better outcomes for healthcare in marginalized populations - but if she's giving out extra-credit for looking at queer art, well, Jake is happy to spend an hour in a museum.

After his dismal performance on the last test, he could use whatever credit he can get. Besides, the exhibit is actually kind of cool with that in mind. Every one of these artists was in some way outside of the sort of het ideal, and Jake smiles a little as he catches the heaviness of a look between two men seated across a table from one another, looks over the clasped hands of women, sitting with everything from shoulder to hip touching, who are listed as 'friends visiting the riverbank'.

Art that celebrates, hidden in plain sight. Art that rebels by sliding details in under the surface where only those looking for them will find them.

Each piece has another little paper, although this just has details about the artist and their work, what they were known for. He can use it as a jumping-off point for his paper, anyway.

"You, you, you finished her," Chris whispers, standing in front of a sculpture of a woman with her head thrown back as if in uproarious laughter, a woman with curls expertly carved so that her hair seems to have been there before the stone it's made of somehow. "I wonder if she, um, if if if she saw it."

"What'd you say, Chris?" Jake blinks, pulled out of his own internal reverie.

"Nothing," Chris responds, and walks slowly around the statue. The woman's smile is a shining light in the room. No one could carve like that without being at least a little in love with the subject.

Jake wanders away and then comes to an abrupt stop before a large painting, probably taller than Chris is. The background is near-total darkness with only a suggestion of stone, a single beam of light shining down to illuminate the central figure.

A naked boy clothed only in scraps of torn cloth that only emphasize his nakedness everywhere else is crouched in terror. His knees are bent and his feet are on the floor, one hand holding his weight with fingers slightly curled, his spine bent and arched as if he is caught in the midst of turning to look up to find the direction of the light. His other hand is thrown out, as if trying to ward off an attack.

He bleeds from a dozen or more places, the blood curving perfectly around his form, giving it extra weight and heft that makes it seem like he'll step out of the canvas, grab Jake, and shake him.

Jake's heart starts to race as he stares.

There are bones littering the ground around the thin, wasted boy, not bleached but sort of yellowed, marked with little notches as if cut with a knife. There might still be bits of skin attached to some of them, a hint of muscle. The detail makes Jake sick, but his panic, that comes from something else entirely. Just behind the panicked boy there is a body, as if just fallen, the eyes still open in the final terrified throes of death. The body's fingers are still dug into the dirt floor as if the dead man had been trying to pull himself somewhere, to escape.

A skull watches with eerie cheer from one corner of the painting, a few teeth missing and knocked out from its garish grin.

Barely visible, a thin wash of grayish-white, there is a pale, gnarled hand near the bottom reaching out from the background as if to grab the boy's ankle and drag him into the darkness.

Count Ugolino's Last Son, oils, 1932, reads the little plaque beside the painting. Its faint brassy shine glints in the carefully calibrated light. Edward Tooley, 1907 - 1936.

Jake swallows, but the lump in his throat doesn't budge, and he swallows again. And again. He can't take his eyes off the boy's painted hair, a dirtied copper, strawberry-blond badly in need of a wash. The wide green eyes with their terror writ large and clear, painted with lovingly perfect detail.

The boy in the painting is the perfect identical twin of the vampire who is still staring at the sculpture on the other side of the room. The fear in his face is so expertly done as to seem more photographic than painted in oil. The blood that drips to the ground follows his anatomy with absolute perfection. The bones are not bleached by they so often are in paintings, no, these...

These...

Jake holds his phone up and takes a photo, and then another of the little plaque.

"Chris." His voice cracks and Jake clears his throat. His heart is still pounding. "Chris, come look at this."

"Yes, Jake," Chris answers, sounding a little faint, and then he seems to simply appear at Jake's elbow, the teenage boy who has seen two world wars and a half-dozen smaller, stupider ones.

He goes still at Jake's side when he looks up. Jake looks over, just slightly, glancing sidelong to see a look of something like... wistfulness on the vampire boy's face.

"Tooley," He breathes. His hand goes up, and out, and he would have touched the canvas if Jake hadn't reached out and grabbed on to stop him. Chris jumps a little and turns to meet Jake's gaze. His eyes are pink-tinged in the whites, as if he's holding back tears. "Is, is, is he famous?"

"I guess. He's... he's here, isn't he?"

"He always wanted to, um, to to to to be famous." Chris's eyes move over the details, but it's not with surprise, it's with easy familiarity. He's seen this painting before.

He's been this painting before.

"That's you, isn't it?" Jake asks in a hushed voice. "Like, that was really you."

Chris looks away again, a faint flush in his cheeks. He's full enough of blood for it to happen, and you'd never know he isn't alive if you didn't already. "Yes," He whispers, and wipes at the corner of his eye with one hand. "That, that, that's me."

"Were you his model?" Jake blinks, looking back over the painted twin of the vampire beside him. The fear in the boy's face, woven in with a kind of awful resignation. It's all so perfectly rendered.

"Yes. Sort, um. Sort of. He, he, he kept me in a room." Chris exhales, slowly, and his eyes shift over to the paper with the little bit of biographical information on it. Edward Tooley's early works focused on landscapes or retreads of common historical subjects, only to find greater excellence and focus when he began to paint, again and again, the same figure - a representation of the darkness of the human soul - he stated appeared to him and demanded to be portrayed... art historians believe Tooley was driven by the demons of the Great War that had taken his family from him one by one to seek out uncomfortable subjects that force viewers to see the damage humans do to one another...

Chris's nose wrinkles as he reads, his lips moving slightly with the words as he takes them in. "I never did that. Never, um, wanted to be painted. Also, um this, um. He was... wasn't... he wasn't... wasn't like the paper says."

Jake looks over, reads it himself. Gregarious, sociable, popular with the libertine art crowd... he frowns. "What part is wrong?"

"This." Chris points, this at least he can safely make contact with, and presses the pad of his finger under a sentence that reads took inspiration from the ugly side of the city hidden under its shining lights. "He, he, he he didn't care about anyone in the city. He thought everyone who, who who who who-who wasn't him was, um, was stupid."

"What did he care about?" Jake imagines telling his professor that instead of an essay, he's going to bring in a vampire who literally knew one of the artists in person. How she might react.

Probably call the cops and report an unsecured vampire loose on the streets. But maybe she'd listen to what Chris had to say first.

"Blood," Chris says, softly. His voice is getting lower and lower, until it's barely more than a whisper. "Pain. Fear. Being... being the the the the last person who, who saw someone. He, he, he, he liked to lay them out and paint them, liked me to, to, to... arrange them for him."

Jake's eyes go unwillingly back to the dead body behind the scared boy in the painting. The grasping fingers, the open eyes that look sightless, lifeless, at nothing at all. When he looks, he can see - more suggestion than made clear - that the body's throat is torn open, as if by an animal's teeth.

Now, only now that he's looking for it, does he realize there is the slightest hint of red tears on the cheeks of the painted boy, a sheen of pink on his teeth where he begs for mercy from the grasping singular hand coming out of the dark.

His stomach flips again. "Chris, are you saying-"

"His, his, his name was Ben." Chris nods at the dead body in the painting. "I asked. Before..." He gestures, a little vaguely. "That."

Jake feels a sudden, wild urge to look up missing persons cases from New York City in 1932. See if there's anyone named Ben on there. He knows without having to do so that there definitely will be.

"What happened to him... after?"

"I don't know. I, I, I was never let out when Tooley was gone. I... wonder how, how, how many of me there are." Chris looks up at the echo of his own face, his head tilting again. His lips tremble, just a little, and then part to show the hint of white teeth wet with pinkish saliva. "On walls, in houses, in... in places like, um. Like this. How many there are... is, is, is, is that what I still look like?"

Jake clears his throat again, looks down at his feet. This feels, suddenly, like he's walked in on someone looking down at his own dead body in a funeral home. Interrupting a moment so immensely private it shouldn't even exist.

"Yeah," he says, a little gruffly. "Yeah, that's it. More or less. Except I hope I scare you less than that. Also you wear a lot more clothes with us."

Chris laughs - it's a huff of sound, barely-there. Then he turns away from himself. "We, we, we can't see ourselves, in mirrors," He says, and he's got the little plastic bat back in his hand, rubbing his thumb over the carved silicone. "But I have mirrors everywhere. On these walls."

He goes suddenly terribly still. He isn't breathing.

He doesn't have to, but the realization that he isn't even pretending is a jolt of awareness of exactly how dead Chris is. He leaves the exhibit, and Jake is left to scramble after him, struggling to catch up to someone he should be able to easily outrun.

He breaks into a flat run when they get outside the double-doors, jumps the steps three at a time with grace, and runs across the grass and towards the stand of trees halfway across the park. Even Jake, who works out four days a week, is breathing hard and has a hitch in his rib by the time he catches up.

He finds Chris curled up under a tree in the evening dark, the stars starting to twinkle overhead as the sun finally allows them a clear night sky to shine in.

Jake drops to his knees, ignoring the damp that seeps into his jeans from soil that still hasn't dried since yesterday's rains, and he leans over, putting a warm hand to either side of the vampire's face.

Chris looks up, his eyes glinting like a cat's briefly in the dark, and there are trails down his cheeks, his lips pulled back from his teeth in a snarl that is anything but angry.

No, this is grief.

This is loss.

Jake knows the feeling.

"Talk to me," Jake says softly. "Tell me what it was like, what it's been like for you. Tell me about the life you've lived before I knew you."

"It, it, it hurt," Chris whispers, and his own hands cover Jake's. They're the same temperature as the air around them, and Jake shivers a little. It's almost a chill. "Every time. I, I, I try not to kill, Jake, I try so hard, but but but he would keep me so hungry and I couldn't-... stop..."

Jake thinks about the robbers Chris killed - for him, to save him from them - and how he'd locked himself in the closet afterward. Had he cried like this, over taking lives even when in defense?

"The museum thing said this guy Tooley died in 1936. He was only, what, twenty-nine? Did... did you-"

"Yes." Chris's voice is thick but it's not quite with regret. "I was hungry. He, he he he he didn't bring food. I was so hungry... then I was, um, was alone for a while... then, then, then, then then then I was taken for, for, for the, um, the trade, for my v-venom, and..."

"Got it. I got it, Chris. It's okay," Jake says, softly. "It's going to be okay. You're with us, now. And we'll never, ever make you hurt someone that way. We'll never make you go hungry. We'll never hurt you or use you."

Chris ducks his head, rocking forward until it knocks into Jake's shoulder, and Jake slides his arms around the vampire's shoulders, listening to his soft, muffled sobs, wondering how red his shirt will be stained by the time the vampire's tears have been cried out.

The same mouth that tore out the throat of a dead body that lays in a painting on the wall is so close to his neck it would take less than an inch for him to bite down. Even without fangs, he could lock his jaw and break the skin.

The same dangerous monster that has killed likely dozens to stay alive, the same stalking predator that has been the last sight of far too many, cries in his arms. Just a teenage boy who has been lonely, and terrified, and hurt for too long.

A teenager... and a monster that hunts prey after dark. Jake tightens his arms around Chris, holds him tighter.

It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter how long he's been alive, not really.

He's just Chris.

That matters more.

-

@mylifeisonthebookshelf @insaneinthepaingame @keeper-of-all-the-random-things @burtlederp @finder-of-rings @newandfiguringitout @astrobly @endless-whump @pretty-face-breaker @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @doveotions @boxboysandotherwhump @oops-its-whump @cubeswhump @whump-tr0pes @downriver914 @whumptywhumpdump @whumpiary @orchidscript @nonsensical-whump @outofangband @what-a-whump

[gohyuck]

pairing: head knight!jeno x monarch!reader (reader has genitals attributed to those considered biologically female but no pronouns are actually used)

genre: fluff, mild angst (they discuss an oncoming battle they must prepare for), smut (it’s mostly smut)

word count: 6.5k

warnings & notes (nonsexual): mentions of war/battle, mentions of injuries retained from past skirmishes, jeno is as tall as you need him to be in order to rest your head against his chest without leaning down, it’s kind of cheesy tbh they are disgustingly head-over-heels in love with each other, also a peryton is a fantasy creature that’s essentially a stag + a bird, also i know y’all must be tired of royalty aus but i swear this is almost pwp (except there’s context so there’s plot) so give it a chance (if you’re legal) i guess

warnings & notes (sexual): oral (giving and receiving for both parties), fingering (reader receives), spit kink (lmao sorry), general messiness honestly, mild knife kink (no blood drawn, he just uses a dagger to tear apart clothing), gratuitous usage of the name ‘lionheart’, jeno has a big dick because i cannot stop myself from doing that to y’all for some reason, some choking

special thanks to @moonlit-jeno​ @domjaehyun​ @waithyuck​ for reading parts of it/all of it beforehand!

the soft hours of twilight have their holds on you, chilling you to your bones even as you pull the heavy fur cape tighter around your body. you should’ve pulled something over your thin nightgown, you suppose, something to act as a middle layer between silk and skin and peryton fur, but it’s too late for that. you’re already out on your private balcony, overlooking a kingdom you’d do anything to see the sun rise on day after day. 

far, far past the outskirts of your humble realm, barely visible to your own eye, an unsettlingly large camp of soldiers is finishing setting up camp for the night. you watch as tiny, tiny orange pinpricks - no doubt the fires they’d set to make food, to alert you of their presence - begin to get snuffed out. finally, they sleep.

if you were any worse of a person, of a ruler, you would send your army after them now, hours before the battle is set. perhaps, if you were any less selfish, you would do so regardless of keeping your status as a good and just monarch. if you were any less selfish, you would shake awake the love of your life and hand him his cape after shedding it from your shoulders. you would tell him to rouse his men and women, to arm them to their teeth, and to fight for what is right using means that are entirely wrong. 

as if privy to your thoughts, your head knight stirs in the too-large bed behind you. you turn just in time to see him sit up and twist his body left, right, left as he stretches to rid himself of sleep. it’s too late - or maybe too early - for either of you to be awake. maybe you should have stayed within his warm embrace rather than gotten out of bed to size up the army of the kingdom of crithage. 

even now, you can’t help but strategize, at least on a basic level. crithagians are unused to the cold of your beautiful - but often frigid - ekoria. they won’t expect your people to fall upon them from the icy cliffs that surround their camp, nor will they be able to see over the oncoming blizzard your royal sky-reader has predicted. she has not been incorrect in many, many years. ekorians have, over the years, grown accustomed to heavy snows, among other weather phenomenon, so your army’s visual acuity is not to be questioned. 

that, and your troops are in the hands of the best warrior ekoria has ever had.

jeno. your jeno. your lionheart. you rein your thoughts in just as he pulls open the balcony door, closing it behind him with a soft click as he steps over the threshold separating in from out and warm from cold. goosebumps rise across his bare flesh the moment his skin meets air, and you don’t hesitate to slide his cape off and thrust it towards him, knowing full well that his arms will provide more than enough heat for you. he fastens it with ease, seeming slightly amused at how you’d been using it as a blanket, and gently grabs ahold of your wrist before pulling you into his chest and wrapping an arm around your waist. with his other hand, he takes a corner of his cape and wraps it around you, leaving you enveloped in both his hot-to-touch skin and the comforting fur. 

“they’re out in the valley, aren’t they?” he finally murmurs, leaning to place his mouth against your ear. jeno’s voice is thick and sleep-ridden, still raspy in a way that settles around you, inside you, within you. you lean back slightly, raising a cold hand to rest against the tattoo of a lion that adorns his left pectoral, mane stretching up to his collarbone and encroaching on his bicep. the lion has a scar on its right cheek. you pull away more, eyes landing on the thin discolored line underneath your lover’s same eye. 

it had been a longsword, meant to slash across your throat. jeno, with the speed of a star falling from grace and enough adrenaline to fuel a hundred men, had leapt across you in order to take it across the face. for crown and for country, bard’s songs later regaled of him. for you, he’d whispered to you that same night as you’d stitched him up, using the threading tactics you’d learned from the castle medic as a child. for you. always for you.

“my love?” jeno prods, and you realize you haven’t given his rhetorical question any acknowledgement. you hum, meeting his eyes with your own, and watch as he allows one corner of his mouth to turn up. 

“they only just put out their fires.” you finally respond, moving to be against his chest again. you rest your head against the intricate ink against jeno’s skin, finally letting out a breath of what one might consider worry. the air that leaves your lungs manifests into wisps out in the cold world that surrounds you. your lionheart pulls you ever closer. 

“you need not stress.” he says simply, and an outsider to your relationship would see no cohesion between your statement and his. still, you know precisely what jeno means, why he’s said what he’s said. you turn, pressing your lips against the lion’s forehead. above you, your own lion brushes his lips against your temple. 

“i have an army, a kingdom, even, to worry about, and yet i only fear tomorrow for whatever outcome befalls one man.” you whisper, and even you are surprised to find tears catching in your throat. you do not cry easily, not when you know firsthand how cruel the world can be. 

you only reign because your parents no longer breathe. 

tomorrow’s battle could easily bleed into next year’s war, and while your kingdom is prepared for such a thing, your heart may not be. your people are not belligerent, and neither are you. crithage had been the one to throw the first stone, had sent word that if you refused to relinquish your throne and bow your head, they would aim the first arrow, draw the first blood. no tears had been shed then, not even when you’d paced around your bedchambers, reading and rereading the note signed with blood red ink until jeno had physically pulled it out of your tight grasp. you hadn’t cried, not even when he’d said that he was willing to die if it meant keeping crithage out of ekoria, out of the kingdom you’d both built from ground up after the war that had taken your parents, out of the home you’d created together. 

“wherever you take us, i will follow. wherever you need me, i will lead.” he’d murmured the words against the lobe of your ear, standing beside and slightly behind your throne as you’d written out your reply to crithage in a room full of your advisors. nobody else had moved a muscle then, not even as you closed the envelope with hot wax and the royal seal. 

you’d sent back a much, much shorter letter than their own in response. 

a time and date for battle. nothing more and nothing less.

that had been so many months ago, so far away that the concept of time dissipates when you attempt to organize it in your harried mind. with a hostile army on your doorstep, everything suddenly feels far more real than it has before. your people have been evacuated, your troops have been trained. your lionheart is unafraid to the world, standing tall and proud at your side as he always has.

a sigh that starts from deep in jeno’s chest brings you back to the present. tomorrow is it, you’re reminded. crithage has seiged almost every other state between themselves and your beloved ekoria. if they get to you, they’ll have your head, raised high on a stake they’ll erect outside of the gates they’ll install to the place you call home. if they get to you, it means they’ll have gotten through jeno.

you can’t live in a world without him. it’s a dangerous attachment for a ruler to have, you’re well aware. if other kingdoms find out that your weakness is a person, one that lives and breathes, you’re not likely to ever see your love again.

it’s little comfort that jeno can’t live in a world without you, either. 

“i worry about not being here, at the castle, to protect you,” he mumbles into your hair. “i know that you are perfectly capable, and that you’ll have your own faction of our knights with you, but i- it feels as if i’m about to open my chest and leave my naked heart unguarded, right there for any arrows to pierce.”

jeno’s confession is simple, beautiful in the way the most ornate of daggers are: that is, you feel as if he’s just dragged a sharp edge down the length of your sternum, taking you apart piece by piece. his words cage you in, force you deeper into your own head in a way you can’t afford, not right now. 

“eloquent,” you hum, unable to resist teasing him even as the moment does not call for it. it’s to save yourself from your heavily beating heart. “it isn’t too late to make you my poet laureate, you know. no need to wield a sword tomorrow then.”

“and who would be your head knight then, hm? the current laureate? you want renjun to lead the charge against the crithagians? to be your lionheart?” your lover draws back to ensure that you can see his eyes, glimmering with mirth. renjun is an able man, and one of your best friends, but he is not the warrior jeno is. 

nobody is the warrior that jeno is. 

“such a foolish thing to say,” you smile up at him, lips folding from joking to earnest within moments. the merriment fades a little from jeno’s eyes at recognizing the change in your expressions. “you’re my only lionheart. always have been and always will be, even when you’re too old and gray and slow to be my head knight.” 

“someone seems confident of that happening.” he says quietly, raising the hand at your waist to come up and rest over your own hand that lies against his chest. you swallow, your own spit feeling too heavy for you to stomach, your throat dry and scratchy. 

“who else can have confidence of a victory rather than a monarch?” you ask, a smile that isn’t quite sad - but isn’t quite self-assured either - resting on your lips. jeno raises your hand to his lips, pressing one, two, three chaste kisses to the back and then repeating the pattern against your palm. he does not let go.

the two of you stand there for a stolen moment. you lay your head back against his chest, listening to the thundering of his heartbeat below the ink and skin and muscle and bone. he is real, and he is here. 

he is real. he is here. 

“the monarch’s lionheart, of course,” he murmurs, finally dropping your hand to reach back and push open the balcony door. “we only have four more strokes of time until i must go, my love. is this truly how you want to spend it?”

it’s evident that jeno no longer wants to mull over the what-ifs, not when he prefers living in the present more than anyone you’ve ever known. unsurprising, you suppose, for someone whose livelihood involves strategizing away his own mortality. you allow him to pull you back into your bedroom, immediately more comfortable when the door closes behind you, keeping you in with the body heat of your lover and the warmth of the crackling fire on the hearth in the corner of your room. jeno sheds the cape, draping it over the nearest chair, before bringing you back to his chest by placing his large hands against your waist.

it takes feeling his fingers against your skin through the thin silk of your slip to remember that jeno has nothing on. he’s always preferred to sleep naked, unlike you. though you hardly have any undergarments on, you at least wear a sheer gown most nights. 

you’d ridden him passionately before bed, tiring both of you out in order to get any semblance of sleep. as your lionheart pulls you flush against him, though, it’s difficult to avoid the way his cock hardens against your hip once more. you want to quip about how jeno’s insatiable, but he trails a hand up, up over your body to swipe a thumb over one of your hardened nipples, and you can’t help the sigh that escapes through your prettily parted lips. 

“will you get on the bed for me, love?” jeno’s voice is smoother now that he’s more awake, though you can’t help but miss the low growl that had come with the earlier rasp. he may be asking you a question, but you know that it’s an order in disguise. wordlessly, you step back, back, back until the wood of your bedframe presses against the soft plushness of the back of your thighs. jeno has not moved, choosing to stay put and appraise you instead. his eyes are hooded now, and as his gaze trails from your neck - he’d marked it up earlier, the kiss-bitten bruises not yet having faded from your skin - down to the curve of your chest, over the expanse of your thighs, he can’t help but reach one hand down to his dick, swiping two fingers over its head to collect his precum on his skin. 

jeno says nothing else, makes no other move. it’s to give you an illusion of control, you suppose. not that you need one. 

“should i rid myself of this, lionheart?” you ask, the words coming out breathier than intended. the nightgown leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination, and you’re sure he can even see the slick wetness that’s pooling against your inner thighs. jeno adores seeing your body more than anything, but the gown does not inhibit that. 

it’s no surprise, then, when he shakes his head no, instead finally moving to stand at the edge of the bed, slotting himself between your thighs as they naturally move apart to fit him in. his clean hand slides up under your gown, resting just above your cunt, as he raises his other hand to your face. 

“lie back, and open.” jeno states, no air of leniency about him anymore. you oblige, and your love leans over you, his dark gaze centered on your parted lips. 

he lays his two precum-coated fingertips against your tongue, pressing in and then down and revelling when you don’t gag but instead run your tongue over his fingers, cleaning them off for him. you haven’t gagged in a long time, your reflexes getting used to him in the way the rest of you is. when he withdraws his hand, your mouth stays open, and jeno can’t help himself as he leans over you and, after gathering it in his own mouth for a moment, allows his own spit to fall from his own tongue and onto yours. 

your eyes go wide at the action, and you know that he notices it even as he does not acknowledge it. even so, you don’t miss the smirk that crosses his face upon hearing your breath hitch. jeno has you in his palm.

satisfied, he stands, and you close your mouth and swallow a part of him with a part of you. jeno’s no longer looking at your face, but you can’t bring yourself to care, not when he’s ruching up your nightgown with growing hunger, not when he’s kneeling on the stone ground just to make himself eye-level with your pretty, pretty pussy. 

“i took you hardly any time ago,” he murmurs, breath hot against your skin as his mouth nears where you so desperately need him. “and yet here you are, laid open once more, all for me. only for me.”

“always you, jeno, please - ” you can’t get any more words out, the air being pulled out of you as he dives in and circles your clit with his tongue, bringing his two spit-soaked fingers up to press into you with almost no resistance. your reaction is instantaneous, walls clenching like a vice around his fingers as he lays a filthy kiss against your bundle of nerves, hips jumping up only to be kept down by jeno’s other hand, pressing down against the bottom of your stomach. 

“patience.” he pulls off of your clit just to growl the word out against the skin of your inner thigh, and the wet heat of his mouth directly against your flesh has you practically gasping out. when jeno sinks his teeth into your thigh as he’s often wont to do, you let out a full-bodied whine, the kind that starts in the back of your throat and rises up through the inner column of your neck, meant only for your lover’s ears. jeno laves his tongue over the marks he’s just created, as if to wash the pleasurable pain from your body. 

he does not reattach his mouth to your core, choosing instead to fall back and watch, eyes trained, as he scissors you open. with hardly any warning rather than his gaze jumping up to meet your own momentarily, jeno presses his thumb into your clit, using your slick wetness to eliminate any raw friction as he rubs slow circles against your nerve endings. he’s never failed to bring you to the edge with ease, and now is no different. you’d be embarrassed at how easily you fall apart just from his simple simultaneous motions, in and on you, but it’s jeno, and he knows your body maybe even better than he knows his own. 

keening, a loud, gasping wail, falls from your lips only for jeno to rise from his place in between your thighs and swallow your sounds with his open mouth, his clean hand coming up to cage you in against your sheets. the way you raise your arms to loop them around his neck is akin to the way a drowning man would grab on to a lifeline, and once he rises you pull him back into a longer, filthier kiss, where your teeth click against his and his tongue opens up your mouth the same way it feels like his touch opens up your body. 

you feel as if you’re being flayed, as if hellfire is the only thing comparable to the heat against your skin. jeno steps closer, just by the tiniest bit, and you feel his hand - the one shining with your arousal - brush past your hip before he uses it to wet his cock with one, two, three firm strokes. copious amounts of precum arise from the tip before being pulled down against his flesh with expert downstrokes. your mouth waters as you watch.

“my mouth, lionheart, please?” you finally gain the courage to ask what is on your mind, sitting up on your elbows as you begin to slowly find your strength. your love raises an eyebrow, and not without reason: jeno is a big man, making even you - a literal monarch - feel small at times, and this does not end with his personality or his person: you have never been able to take all of him into your mouth. the ache borders on painful, frankly, and jeno himself refuses to harm you in that way. 

“this, now, is about you.” he responds, and your heart cracks as you register that as a ‘no’. still, you speak again. you need him in your mouth, suddenly. it isn’t just a want. something has to anchor you to the here and now, it may as well be the head of his cock, heavy against your tongue.

“what is about me is about you as well,” you respond, and before he can lay his refusal down out flat, you slide onto the floor - warmer than expected - and tuck your heels behind your bare ass. “i need this. please.”

you’re directly in front of him now, face parallel to his strong thighs. jeno strokes up, squeezes tighter just below his frenulum, and you watch, struck, as precum beads at the tip and then splits into two streams, half sliding down his hard dick and the other slowly-but-surely falling to the ground, hardly a quarter of a step from one of your knees.

“give me your hand, then,” your knight murmurs from above you, drawing your gaze from his leaking cock up past the dainty curve of his lip to his hard eyes. “now.”

when you raise your hand up, you only put it up limply, unsure of what he means to do with the limb he’s asked for. your eyes must be swimming with questions, because jeno gives you a hint of a sweet, reassuring smile before allowing his expression to become stoic again… right before he grasps your given hand and straightens it out, gentler than expected from such a great warrior but harsher than he truly ever treats you. 

he’s passionate. this demonstrates it. 

before you can react, your body following your hand up off of your heels, though only slightly, as he yanks up your hand, jeno leans down and licks up your hand, from the bottom of your palm to the top, all while maintaining eye contact with you. he lets go, though you keep your hand raised, your gaze obviously dumbfounded. 

“a dry hand would rub me raw,” he explains, though the smirk that’s tugging at one corner of his mouth shows that he finds your wide-eyed expression at least mildly amusing. “we do not want that, do we?”

it’s amazing how easily he can get you under his thumb when you give out orders that hold his life in the balance on a day-to-day basis. maybe that’s why he finds taking charge in private so easy. maybe it’s his way of evening your dynamic out. even now, as he asks you an innocent question with no hidden meaning or reaction, you find yourself shaking your head along enthusiastically. no, of course you don’t want to rub him raw. of course you and him don’t want that. 

you raise the hand now deemed ‘not dry’ up as jeno watches, finally, finally wrapping your hand around it. your thumb and middle finger do not meet, no matter how tight you squeeze. your lover lets out a fulfilled groan at finally feeling a touch other than his own on his hard cock, and it’s a beautiful sound. you want more of it. you want more of him. 

as if mesmerized, you lean closer, darting out your tongue to lick experimentally at his slit. he holds his breath, a large hand coming to rest lightly against the back of your head and base of your skull, waiting. you take this as a sign to stretch your lips wider, engulfing the entire tip of his cock in your hot mouth. his grip tightens in your hair, and, in return, you clench around nothing. 

as you struggle to take more of jeno in your mouth, you do your best to stroke the rest of his cock with a tight enough grip to make him feel everything, but not tight to the point where you’re hurting him. regardless of how little you can take on your tongue - not your fault, by any means - jeno seems happy, barely able to stop himself from bucking up into the back of your throat. at this point, you’re essentially just warming his cock, so you pull off with a slick pop to look at him with slightly watery eyes. a string of precum and saliva connects your bottom lip and his tip, and when it breaks, you’re acutely aware of the mixture dripping down your chin and onto your nightgown. it’s no matter.

jeno’s thumb runs over your scalp, just above the bottom of your skull. you close your eyes momentarily to take in a deep breath. 

“you can force yourself down my throat, you know,” your voice is raspy when you speak, eyes fluttering open almost drearily. “i’m not too delicate for it.”

there’s something simultaneously raw and pure about the way you speak, and jeno recognizes that your headspace has changed, just a little. your need truly is all-encompassing now. he must tread more delicately than usual.

there’s so much love, so much adoration in your wide-eyed gaze. he only wishes to return it with the same intensity and double the care. 

“i know, love,” jeno responds, finally moving his hand in order to place two fingers under your chin. he tilts your face up, taking note of the way your eyes run over his tattoo before looking at his chin, then his jaw, then his nose, then his forehead, until, finally, you land on his eyes. you’re a tad bit unfocused, full of need, but that’s okay. you’ll always come back to him. he continues speaking. “you’re so strong. always so strong for me. that’s why you deserve to be rewarded, yes?”

“rewarded?” you’re confused, to say the least, though you do not dislike the direction jeno is suddenly moving towards. he only smiles, gentle and kind and good and yours. all yours. 

“on the bed, (name).” he tilts his own head, jutting his chin towards the bed you’d slid off of earlier. you don’t hesitate to follow, pushing yourself up onto your feet and all but scrambling backwards to be seated against the soft mattress. the blankets are all haphazard and the pillows aren’t straight, but that’s the least of your worries right now. jeno gives no other orders, only stepping closer and, without warning, winding his arms underneath your thighs and propelling you backwards, causing you to land, back flat, in the center of your bed. 

it had always felt inescapably large when you’d slept in it alone. now, it feels welcoming. safe. 

“you’re ready for me, yes?” the tone of voice jeno uses is soft, even as his rough palms push apart your thighs. you nod, murmuring a small ‘yes’ once you realize he’s waiting for you to verbalize your thoughts. this is all jeno needs to climb onto the bed and move in between your spread legs, settling back on his calves as his hands smooth over your hip bones and waist. it’s evident that he’s bent on taking his time with you tonight, likely under the illusion that that is what you want. 

it is not what you want. it is most definitely not what you need. 

“i need you within me, lionheart,” one of your hands clutches at the sheets beneath you while you stretch the other towards your lover, imploring. “soon. now. please.”  

“absolutely impatient,” jeno only chuckles in return, drawing an indignant whine forth from the base of your throat. he looks over your barely covered body once more before finally - almost in slowed motions as if to tease you further - rising up onto his knees. his hands stop moving against your skin, finally circling around the soft meat of your upper thighs. swiftly and fluidly, jeno pulls your body towards his, wrapping your legs around his own waist. his wet cock lies heavy against your pelvis, leaving slick precum against the apex of your thighs and the bottom of your stomach. he smirks. “is this what you wanted?” 

the motion of being pulled into your knight had forced the air from your lungs in a surprised yelp, and the feeling of his warm skin - he’s always supplied so much heat, it baffles you to no end - against your own momentarily blanks your mind. jeno repeats his question twice, cocky grin growing with each utterance, before you nod vigorously and sputter out something vaguely affirmative. yes. yes, this is exactly what you wanted, exactly what you want. 

you’ve been growing steadily wetter the longer your foreplay had drawn out, but jeno, ever-caring, still pulls back - his cock sliding against your thigh has you moaning - to slip two thick fingers into you, adding a third when he’s absolutely sure that you can take it. in no time at all, you’re grinding your clit against his rough palm, the friction absolutely heavenly. jeno makes no move to stop you, only gently forcing his fingers in deeper. 

a fourth finger is added just as your abused clit can’t take anymore, and you spasm on his hand as you fall past the point of no return. your second orgasm of the night washes over you, and you can’t help the muted but harried gasps you let out as your hips buck up, driving your head back into the mattress. jeno draws his fingers out slowly, licking your essence off of them with practiced ease. once your body has calmed down, you can only let out a small whimper, still basking in the intensity you’ve just experienced. 

jeno knows your limit, and knows damn well that you haven’t reached it yet. it’s because of this that, even as your walls are still clenching around nothing due to aftershocks that wrack your body, he places the fat head of his cock against your hole and slowly but surely slides in. the hands on your thighs move up to wrap around the sides of your waist, and his grip is bruising as he pushes deeper and deeper. even as he goes at a snail’s pace, you feel as if you’re being pulled apart only to be pieced back together again. you hold your breath.

jeno is halfway in when he realizes you still aren’t quite wet enough. he shifts slightly, carefully moving one of your legs up just a little bit higher, before swiping over your raw clit with a thumb he’s wetted with his own tongue. a moan flies forth from your mouth immediately, and a gush of wetness coats jeno’s cock anew as he circles over your bud with abandon. he’s finally free to surge forward and bury himself within your warm walls without fear of repercussions on your own body… so he does. the breath you’d been holding in is punched out of you, replaced with an honest-to-god wail. tears bud at the corners of your eyes at the stretch, falling as he pulls out almost entirely and slams into you again. 

jeno does everything in his life in order to live up to the name you’ve given him: lionheart. he is just and loyal and thoughtful as an advisor, and analytical and fearsome and ruthless as a warrior. sex is where both sides of him meet. it is where he is not just the kingdom’s bravest knight, or the crown’s right-hand man. it is where he is your lionheart, and yours alone, where your souls intertwine at the place your bodies meet. 

he notices how your hands come up to reach for him, leaning down so you can place one hand against his heart - against his tattoo - and throw the other one over his other shoulder. jeno’s nose is almost touching yours, though your bodies shift continuously as he keeps drawing back and driving his hips into yours with force.

he never ceases to make you feel full. 

your walls grip his cock tightly, amplifying every movement jeno indulges you in. the slide is slick and wet and perfect, but it is not easy. the head of his dick catches on your clenched walls every time he pulls out just to slam back in, forcing you to feel him with everything you have. it’s exactly what you want. 

he slows down his thrusting for a moment as he moves forward slightly, leaning closer still as he places one forearm against your head and raises his other hand to fondle your chest over your sheer clothing. somehow, this is no longer enough for you. jeno’s cock is fully sheathed within you as he swipes a thumb over one of your nipples, and the feeling of his skin pushing the cloth against one of your most sensitive areas has you shuddering in a way that causes you to squeeze even tighter around him. his hips stutter slightly, driving him impossibly deeper into you.

“jeno,” you rasp out, tongue heavy and dry. “my pillow. beneath my pillow.”

his eyes go wide as he processes what you’ve just said, his shallow thrusts slowing down. jeno gulps audibly. 

“your- love, your dagger?”

“need you to touch me.” you respond, holding his gaze and watching it clear up from confused to comprehending you entirely. he pushes himself up from his forearm to his hand, sliding out of you in the same movement. you whine sadly at the loss of contact, but jeno mutters a good-natured ‘be quiet’ almost immediately. 

“you know,” he starts, voice teasing, even as he pulls your dagger - black steel, quillions and hilt encrusted with blue jewels, black tempered glass at the pommel - out from beneath your pillow using the hand that had been fondling you earlier. he moves back down to his prior position, and your breath hitches as he presses the apex of the knife against the collar of your nightgown. “i’m already touching you.”

“more,” you moan out, the end of your word coming out almost breathlessly. one of your hands slides against his tattoo once more, as if feeling the lion will make it roar to life. “touch me more.” 

jeno chuckles, albeit darker than he had been earlier, and digs the dagger into the cloth in front of it without any further ado. you hold your breath willfully this time, not wanting to actually nick yourself on the blade, as he moves down your body, cutting the sheer gown open down its direct center. your lionheart dots his lips against your flesh in a trail in his wake, scraping his teeth against your skin as he sees fit. 

he leaves a quick, but filthy, kiss against your clit for good measure, eyes lighting up as you attempt to close your legs around his head on impulse, only to have them pushed apart even farther than before by his strong hands. once he gets to the hem of the slip, he throws your dagger somewhere on the stone floor - neither of you pay any heed to where it clatters - and rips it apart with his bare hands, hardly able to bear not feeling you around him for much longer. 

before you can do anything or say anything or even think anything at all, your lover surges forward and presses himself back into you with a grunt that sounds almost like a growl. his hands knead at your thighs as he finds his rhythm with ease, pounding into you with practice as if you’re an art medium and he’s a skilled master. he’s everywhere, all around you and inside of you and in the air and in your skin, and it’s all you’ve ever wanted.

“touching - ha - touching you enough now?” he asks, resolve crumbling bit by bit as he fights to keep himself from tumbling over the cliff’s edge before you do. you can’t dignify him with a response, unable to do anything but claw at his back and pin yourself further against his chest as if it’ll make even more room for you in his heart than there already is. he doesn’t need a response, anyways. jeno already knows. 

he knows just how close you are, too. just as close as he is. it’s because of this that jeno moves a hand up to curl around your throat just as he circles your clit with two fingers of the other hand, continuing to fuck into you at the same rate as best he can. with a sharp cry and the arching of your back off the bed, you clench around him for one final time before he comes to a halt, barely holding himself up over you as he releases within you with a shuddering, gasping groan. 

moments pass, stretching into longer than they typically are. jeno takes care as he slides out of you, climbing onto the bed and flopping down next to you right after. the feeling of his release, sticky and wet against your inner thighs, is unpleasant at best, but you can’t bring yourself to clean up just yet. instead, you turn your head to your side, your nose immediately brushing against jeno’s sternum as you realize that he’s turned his entire body towards your own. he lets out an airy laugh at the sensation, pushing half of the sliced cloth off of your body in order to run a wide open palm down your naked side. 

“good?” he speaks first, asking an arbitrary question. ‘good enough to make you forget?’ is what he means, knowing full well that you could never lose thought of what awaits the two of you. the sentiment is what’s important, though, and you let out an agreeable hum as a reply. the sex itself was great, of course. he’s well aware. 

“sleep, lionheart,” you say just as silence attempts to cloak the two of you. “we must be ready soon, as it is.”

jeno gives you no response, and you do not require one from him. instead, he pulls you even closer into his chest as if doing so will protect you from the crithagians across your kingdom. his entire world rests between his arms. you are both tired enough that sleep forces your eyelids closed swifter than expected, and as you fall asleep to your lover’s slowed breathing and muted heartbeat, you can’t help but, just this once, allow your worries to slip off your body as your torn nightgown does. 

just before the rise of the sun, jeno will have to get out of bed and clean you up as best he can before donning his clothing, his armor, and his cape. you’ll put his helmet upon his head, pull his visor down over his face after sharing a kiss that could be your last. it is always like this. jeno will rouse the army, you will dress and arm yourself, and meet with your own private troops. 

as the sun begins to take its place in the morning sky, luckily opposite your gaze, jeno will lead his people into battle, riding his steed far, far from you. you will watch him go, but he will not look back. doing so is unfortunate luck at best. you’ve ingrained this into his mind. 

you do not know whether he will be back or not.

you desperately need him to come back.

all of that will happen in due time, but now, you drift to dreamland, safe in the arms of the man you’ve sworn to be with until the end. he tightens his hold around you, and that is how you spend the night before battle, in total comfort and full of love. no matter what tomorrow brings, at least you have this now. at least you will always have this moment. 

the lionheart and his liege. your lionheart and his love. 

for now, you are at peace in the calm before the storm.