#and the ugly yellow desk is back...

[caramelcuppaccino]

03.10.2022 • i'm back with a study post after a while! it was the first day of uni and i just rewrote the notes i'd taken during the class earlier. and wanted to share my desk setup in my dormitory room. (⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠)

i'm still writing the prompts for my autumn studying challenge, and i hope i'll be able to share it with you this week :].

[audisive]

♪ MILLION DOLLAR MAN. (💌)

౨ৎ simon 'ghost' riley | reader

synopsis: you need a bodyguard, and simon's the only one you can trust. for now.

tags: fluff, angst (ish), hurt/comfort, romance, soft!simon, bodyguard!ghost, model!reader, trust issues, hints to a panic attack, you have a bad dad (and family)

        There's an ugly yellow folder on your vanity, sticking out like a sore thumb.

That's the first thing you see.

There's a hitch in your breath before you speak. "Vel," you walk over to your desk and call out to the lovely girl with your coat over her arm, your favorite maid. "What's this?" With manicured nails, you pick up the folder cautiously with the feeling of familiarity and déjà vu.

Veliana tilts her head to the side, the clueless little bird she is. "A folder, miss." You huff a smile out at her simple response, the pretty little thing never knowing better. "Please give Noah a call." You tell her and she nods her head automatically, still smiling at you.

When she carefully places your coat on the rack, she scurries off to who knows where. You're left in the comforts of your too-large room, a delicate piece of work that you'd paid thousands of dollars for after your face had snatched the interests of magazines, reporters, and such. You find that there are even uglier men inside when you open the flimsy thing in your hand.

Veliana is breathless when she comes back to you like the obedient girl she is, handing over the phone with your manager's name on it.

"What's wrong, darling girl?" Noah asks, annoyance seeping into his tone despite the usual pet name. "What's with the profiles?" you question right back, flipping through the folders, carefully scanning each gruesome man with horrifying detail. You already know the answer, but you dread it.

"About time you actually considered my suggestion," he voices out. "You need a new bodyguard."

  You find that your new bodyguard is just as noticeable as the folder you threw away without much thought. There's people staring at him when they would be gawking at you. 

Simon Riley is a trusted man; at least that's what you try to tell your manager. A remarkable 6'4 military man who should be off in a bar with beer – he drinks whiskey, imbecile – or resting in a broke-down apartment, not babysitting his model of a friend. Honestly, you wouldn't have minded it if he acted just a little annoyed at you, but he doesn't even spare you so much as a glare. You're not sure if you should be glad or not.

You have to admit that you do feel a little smug when your manager avoids yelling at you with Simon glaring daggers at him. Then again, there's this anxious feeling pooling at your stomach when he gets a little too close. He's certainly scarier than the last one.

His large hand calms you down when it lands on your lower back and sneaks his warmth through your thin clothing. You let out a breath, as if he'd just commanded you to do so without a word.

  Simon should be in his awfully empty apartment, sleeping the day off or making a small trip to the groceries for necessities fresh out of deployment. But when he opened the door to you, who's clearly so troubled and almost begging to help you out with.. whatever it was you asked, how could he say no? 

"It's just temporary, I swear. I just need some time to do a proper background check on the other bodyguards."

Given that your shitty father's in jail with unfinished as well as illegal business, it wouldn't be proper of him to let a civilian walk around with danger right at her back. That's what he says to himself, anyway.

He's just not so sure he signed up for the right job as a bodyguard. Truth be told, he would've preferred to be your boyfriend.. but as long as he has rights to protect you, then he won't complain.

He's well aware of the men coming for your neck for a variety of reasons. Some out of jealousy – Simon thinks that the fashion industry might as well be a warzone. Maybe that's why he accepted this in the first place – and some because of your problematic family.

He's also heard about your past cowardly bodyguards, if you can even call them that after they'd left you in the face of death. It's a wonder how you're still alive, but he wouldn't dare question it.

It doesn't help, not really, when there's an ear-deafeaning explosion and a panicked angel in his arms, clutching onto him for dear life. "Simon," you all but whimper, labored breaths and uncontrollable tears slipping out of you.

He hushes you, coos at you as sweet as he possibly can. He soothes you and cradles you against his chest as he shoots back at death and carries you to safety when the storm of chaos calms. And he never leaves. Not once.

Not even when you're well and sitting on the cold bed of an even colder hospital room. You'd begged him to stay and lay with you, and when he does, you insist that you owe him your life, and he tells you he's just doing his job.

Still, you can't help that you push yourself closer to him. "Thank you," you whisper, "for staying."

"'M yours to keep." Simon gruffs out, "my loyalty and life belongs to you. All of it." And so does his heart.

(bodyguard!ghost is just modern knight!ghost to me :3c)

        divider by @cafekitsune !

[jungkookstatts]

University Superstar

[Summary]: Jeon Jungkook is your University’s biggest rock-star-athlete-hot guy. It literally prides itself on his attendance at the school — walking around with his “big name” (captain of the lacrosse team), tattoos, and rude, jock-like personality. You hate him. You hate that he can’t apologize for being a complete asshole. But what you don’t hate is how he visits your office every day. You also don’t hate that your feelings for him are crawling back into your system…

[Theme]: Jock!Jk, LacrossePlayer!JK x TeacherIntern!Y/N, Friends(?)ToLovers!AU, EnimeisToLovers!AU

[Rating]: 18+, explicit content, lots of hickies, mentions of blowjob, consistent flirting, JK is an extreme asshole (he actually got on my nerves for some of it lol), insensitive JK, lots of passion, squirting, kissing, pining after one another (mainly JK)

[Word Count]: 10,291

[Author’s Note]: I didn’t plan on making Y/n an education major…? But then I was thinking of JK in a bomber jacket and jock x teacher!AU and…yeah no, it had to happen.

[Masterlist] [Sequel] [Drabble (1), (2), (3)]  

Jeon Jungkook.

The name makes you hurl a little in your mouth. Yesterday’s lunch makes its way to the back of your throat. But you swallow it down, telling yourself to be strong and that he will go away soon.

“So,” he banters a smile at you. That stupid yellow and blue lacrosse bomber jacket puffs out around his shoulders, the number “07” poking out in the ugliest school-sprit font you’ve ever seen on his sleeves. His elbows rest on your desk, arms delicately pushing some of your papers and trinkets out of his way. The action only fuels your anger.

“7 o’clock. You and me. Chipotle.”

“In your dreams, fuckboy,” you scoff. The audacity he has to ask you out. The audacity he has to find the school you intern at (literally on your universities campus, but still), interrupt your work, and ask you on a date for the nth time since a few weeks ago.

You think this might be the 5th time this week he’s asked you out on a date. And it’s only Wednesday.

The amount of explaining you still have to do to your coworkers, and even your kindergartner students, is exhausting. Everyone knows who he is. He’s the captain of your Universities lacrosse team, probably the most popular guy on campus…one of “the hottest” guys in the school (according to your coworker and best friend, Aecha)

You remember asking her a while back why he was always “the talk of the town”, and all she could say was: “Well, look at him. How could he not be?”

You get it. He is hot. But that doesn’t stop you from absolutely hating his guts. Not after he spilled his hot, black coffee all over your white shirt and pants a few weeks ago. Not after he stained all of your precious student’s artwork with his scorching hot Americano.

You were on your way to the school to hang them up in your classroom. Stopping at your University library’s coffee shop, you decided to start your day with a little bit of matcha before you decorated your space.

Your students had just completed a “What I Love About Me” project, and their responses literally made you cry…maybe made you ugly cry. So innocent and honest in their responses, this project was probably the most precious to your heart. You had wished you did something like this back when you were so young. Maybe then you would have a reminder on your bad days what younger you always admired before nasty comments and puberty hit your system.

So, when Jeon Jungkook completely drenched them in his black coffee, your stained (and very expensive) white work shirt and pants didn’t even matter. The sopping-wet look of your student’s artwork made you fight to gulp back tears. But you couldn’t help the water that begged to break free from behind your eyelids.

“Oohh!” he laughs, the stupid jock in him making a scene. “Jeez! I’m sorry.” you can feel the antagonizing smirk on his lips as he looks at what he’s done to you. “Here, let me get a napkin,”

Jungkook exits your line of vision and you try to make your way out of the library before he comes back. But, ever the athlete he is, Jungkook is back before you can blink with a giant wad of the coffee shop’s crappy brown napkins.

You don’t even know who is talking to you until you take the napkins from his hands, recognizing those ugly, stupid, hot hand tattoos. Who couldn’t recognize them when the whole university makes Jungkook’s tattoos each and every one of its personality traits?

The realization of your perpetrator being Jeon Jungkook only makes you more upset. Had it been anyone else, the hurt in your heart from your damaged projects might have been less painful.

You immediately start wiping off your student’s projects, placing them on the nearest table and patting them dry, trying your best not to smear the Crayola marker on some of them.

“Woah, hey,” he chuckles to himself again. “Nice line work. Didchya draw those?”

“Please, stop talking.” you spit at him. Finally, you look up at his face, hoping he gets the point.

You think he does, because the minute he catches your gaze, his face freezes. The look adorning your features was angry, but that tear in your eye from what he did to your papers made you really upset. Which, for some reason, made Jungkook's heart clench. Hoping he can’t see the tears trying to break free from your eyelids, you look back down and continue your previous actions.

“I-I, um,” he stutters, his voice much meeker than what it antagonized you with just moments ago. “Look, is there anything I can do? A free drink? New clothes? A personal invitation to Min Yoongi’s New Year’s Party? An escort around the men’s lacrosse team's locker room? …During uniform change?”

“Thanks, but the best thing you can do is leave,” you reply. Just about done drying your projects up the best you can, you gather them in your arms and face the man once again. This time, you stare at his face for more than just a few seconds. You hate that he’s handsome; it only makes it harder to stop looking at the playful smirk forming on his lips from mentioning the men’s locker rooms.

“You sure? Heard this year’s party is supposed to be a banger.” he bribes, the mole under his bottom lip showing as he smiles.

“Min Yoongi is a close friend. I am invited to his parties every year. Now, I have to go—”

“No way?!” he exclaims, the permed dark curls over his eyes bouncing as he places a large hand on your shoulder. You shrug it off, but he acts like he did nothing wrong at all. “How come I haven’t seen you before? I’d totally recognize you. You’re smokin', by the way.”

Your lips and nose cringe at his statement.

“I don’t usually go,” you explain. “Now, please move before I push you out of my way myself.”

“Hah!” he laughs. “Like you could. Hey, are you an elementary teacher or just a shitty artist?”

“I’m not answering that,” you say.

His comment hurts you. This is precious art to you. The fact that he has no regard—didn’t even say sorry meaningfully—for your papers that you are obviously upset about makes your heart sink. All you can see are the faces of your students.

“Okay, well, that offer for a free drink, or clothes, or uh—oh yeah. The men’s locker room deal,” he winks. “Is still on the table.”

“I’ll pass,” you flash a tight-lipped smile his way before brushing a shoulder past him and exiting the library.

The first tear makes its way down your cheek, and you quickly wipe it off before anyone has the chance to see it. You think Jungkook might have through the window of the shop, but you assume he is looking at his order number he placed for a new coffee on the screen above it. It would appear more fitting. He clearly has no care in the world that he did something that made someone else upset. From his own actions. But are you really surprised that he wouldn’t care?

The rest of your walk to the elementary school is filled with blasting music in your headphones and a scowl on your face. What was once sadness is now anger. You’re angry. So fucking angry. Your blood is boiling.

“How could he?” you exclaim as you barge into the teacher’s lounge.

“Woah—” Aecha observes. “Is this a new print or something?” she asks, referring to your white-brown shirt and pants. “Please don’t tell me this is a new ‘thing’? No offense, but it’s kind of ug—”

“No, it’s that stupid Jungkook-jock-fuckboy-asshole-bitch—”

You silently thank an existing god that the kids have off today.

“Jeon Jungkook?” Aecha’s jaw drops.

“Don’t even start. I hate that man. Look what he did,” you seethe, slapping your student’s projects on the table.

“Awww,” Aecha’s eyes go beady, her fingers delicately shifting through the precious artwork. “Did he ruin them?”

“Yes,” you fight the urge to swipe all the shit on the coffee bar onto the floor. “Yes, he did. And now I have to give these back to the kids, hoping that when they’re 15 years older they can actually make out what it's saying.”

“I’m sorry,” she pouts. “That’s really shitty. Did he apologize?” she asks, sorting through the damp papers. “They don’t look too distraught. I can still read them,” she assures you.

“He apologized as the third phrase he said to me. The first was an ‘Oohh!’ accompanied by a mocking laugh and then a ‘jeez!’ Didn’t even realize I didn’t care about my damn shirt until he pointed out how ‘shitty my artwork was’.”

“Wow,” she gapes. “That’s totally Jungkook, that’s for sure,” she nods in agreement, thinking upwards. “You know, now that I’m imagining the scenario, it’s kinda hot.”

“Aecha!”

“Okay listen,”

“No, I won’t.”

“Okay, fine,” she gives up. You dig underneath the coffee cabinet, pulling out a spare hairdryer and plugging it into the wall. Your school is filled with mostly women teachers, so finding something like this in a coffee room is not that unordinary here. The room is soon loud with the sound of the machine as your try to dry them completely. “You going to Yoongi’s party, by the way?” she asks you.

You remember Jungkook’s offer to invite you to said party. You scoff at the memory. What was once a plan to tell Yoongi that you were, in fact, going to attend...is now a “no” from you. Not when you know Jungkook will be there. He is always there, just too drunk to remember you, probably. He even danced with you a few times, grinding on your ass with a beer in his hand and his other on your waist.

You remember it all too well. That was back when you had positive thoughts about the man. But then he became the captain of the lacrosse team. And then he became obsessed with the amount of “get out of jail free” cards he suddenly obtained from his popularity, hotness, and good standing on the school board. When you heard about what he was like from Aecha, your friends, the school news, YouTube, etc., you stopped finding him fancy. You couldn’t see the same man you saw that night. Especially not with how he treated you just an hour ago. Sad, but you washed away any hint of a crush you might've had on him after then.

“No, not anymore,” you reply, loudly speaking over the blow dryer. It is loud enough to where you don’t need to yell, but you wouldn’t be able to hear her response if you both talked normally.

“What?!” she drops her shoulders in disappointment. “But Hoseok is going to be there…you told me you’d go with me if he was!”

You know Aecha has been chasing after Hoseok since she first talked with him at last year's party. She doesn’t know anyone else who is going besides Yoongi and Hoseok. Being they’re both men, she doesn’t know if she feels 100% comfortable going alone, even though you and her both know they would never dare to hurt her or make her feel unsafe. It is more of a girl code—arriving and leaving together—than it is anything else. So you understand.

You had forgotten about said agreement, and you groan in frustration. Now, you have no other choice.

“Y/n, I need to bag this man. I need to,” her voice is laced with determination. “I am like—I am tired of waiting and this is my one last chance and—”

“Okay!” you hush her. “Fine, I’ll go.

She claps her hands and does a happy dance. You wish you could find her reaction endearing, but now you’re dreading the upcoming events of this party.

----

The week is going by fine until you get unexpected amounts of bouquets and Edible Arrangements all addressed to you from…Jungkook. You send them all back, just to get an angered Jungkook storming into your office a few days later.

“You know how expensive those were?!” he half-shouts at you. He quiets his voice, noticing the quiet setting he is in. However, he doesn’t seem to care that he has intruded on your space during your work time. He closes the door to your office anyways, trapping you in it with him.

“How did you get this address…and how do you know I work here?” you interrogate, going back to typing on your computer. The things you type are a mix of keyboard slam and words you’re thinking, faking work at its finest because some abnormally hot jock-asshole needs to make it known that his gifts are not to be returned.

“Min Yoongi is a man of many talents,” he responds. Taking a seat in one of the chairs across from your desk, you watch him as he plays with your nameplate on your desk. “Ms. Y/n L/n. Cute.”

You snatch the gold engraved tag out of his hands and place it back on the desk where it was before. “Please don’t touch my thi—”

“So, you are a teacher, then, I suppose?” he interrupts you. You don’t know it, but Jungkook is really trying here. It took a lot and nothing at all for him to walk in here. Truthfully, he has no idea how to apologize to you. A simple, sincere, “sorry” would probably do it. But he even practiced it in the mirror. Literally impossible. It’s like his mouth was forbidden to say the word without gagging at himself.

Apologizing was never his strong suit. Before coming to college, he was a good boy. Sweet and kind, never once a popular kid until he hit puberty and was suddenly his high school’s prom king. That’s when he started doing things he is not that proud of. It became a habit, but the good boy in him has a hard time practicing apologizing. Mainly because... he never really had to do it before becoming a total high school popular kid and a university super-star player.

But he really fucked up this time. And, he was hoping you would just let it go like people always seem to do when he can’t admit things correctly. But after seeing that tear fall down your face after you left the shop, that clench in his heart followed as you walked away. He couldn't stop thinking about how bad he felt all week. Those really meant something to you and he knew it. He just didn’t know how to admit he was being an asshole.

“I am,” you reply. “You here for some lessons?”

“Stop,” he grins. “Teacher—student sex has always been a fantasy of mine.”

“Please,” you scoff at him. The audacity. “As if I’d fulfill that for you.”

“A man can only dream,” he shrugs.

“Yeah, well keep doing that. What do you want, Jungkook?”

“I want to know why you sent back my flowers. And my Edible Arrangement! I was fighting the urge not to just eat it when I picked it out for you.”

Truthfully, you were too. You love Edible Arrangements.

“Because I don’t want your sympathy because you realized you were an asshole,”

“Why not?”

“Because none of that matters to me. I’m not an ex-girlfriend who caught you cheating on me. I’m just a stranger you met last week. I want an apology. An honest apology from you. And that’s it.” you explain.

Jungkook puffs his cheeks out.

“You’re difficult,” he raises his eyebrows. “I like that,” he smirks at you.

“I don’t have time for your flirting, Jungkook,” you roll your eyes at him, focusing back on your screen. “Please go home.”

The next time he comes in is around 3pm the following day. The kids are out of school by then, but all your coworkers are still here. So is Jungkook, apparently. Aecha tells you he’s been talking it up with the principal since he got here.

You groan, hoping he is just here to speak with the principal and not you. It is a farfetched hope, though. You don’t know what business he has with the principal, or anyone else here besides you, for that matter.

It is around 5 when he barges into your office again. You’re packing up your things, dreams crushed when you thought you could exit work without running into the alleged lacrosse star.

“Hey, sexy,” he flirts, eyeing your flowy, loose, figure-hiding, ugly, dark-brown art dress. You roll your eyes again, knowing he’s making fun of you. It was art day, and you had to wear your paint-stained art-apron dress. It’s the only one you don’t care about other than the shirt he ruined just a week ago.

You ignore his comment, zipping your bag and slinging it over your shoulder.

“Reconsidering tutoring?” you mock. Jungkook laughs at you, trying to hide the blush on his cheeks. You’re really cute when you mock him. It kinda gets him going.

“How’s about 9:00pm next Saturday at Min Yoongi’s?” he asks, trying to get you to go to the party again. Little does he know that you’re going. But you don’t want to amuse him too much.

“Funny,” you banter, making your way to the door. But he blocks your path, his arms resting against the door frame as he stares down at you with those white teeth and bunny eyes. You want to squish his cheek between your forefinger and thumb for reasons you don’t understand. All he has done is make fun of, flirt, and annoy you since you two met. Why do you feel the heat in your cheeks when he slips a finger underneath your chin, dark eyes staring into your soul? Why does your heartbeat in your throat when you look at the glossiness of his lips so close to your own?

You back away, releasing yourself from his flirtatious actions.

“What if I begged on my knees?” he blurts out.

You snort out in laughter at that. The thought of Jungkook: the tall, big guy with tattoos and an award-winning lacrosse scholarship? On his knees in front of you? Begging you to go to some party? That’s rich.

Jungkook blushes harder at your laughs. Fuck, your laugh is so cute. He wants to make you laugh like this a lot. Maybe forever, even. You’re music to his ears.

“What’s so funny?” he chuckles with you. “Think I can’t?”

“Please,” you smile wide, a hand covering your mouth, trying not to muster up any more laughs. “That would be too much. You sure you want to pleasure me?”

Jungkook’s mouth grows dry. Um…yes?? He would, in fact, like to pleasure you. Maybe not in that way, but he’d do it if it meant you were pleased with him. Fuck! If only he could admit things properly.

“Um, no, never mind” he goes against his wish. “I don’t think I could stand the content look on your face.” He totally could??? What the hell is he saying?!?

Jungkook runs a hand through his thick, brown locks, looking at you as you die down your laughter. If only you knew he’s been after you since two New Year’s parties ago. You think he doesn’t remember, but he totally does. The way your hips swayed against his, pressing your ass into his front. He remembers how soft your skin felt underneath his tattooed hand. All he remembered is how he wanted to mark you up, kiss the skin of your lips, neck, and shoulders and claim it as his own. But he had one too many drinks that night, and he found himself passed out on Min Yoongi’s couch the next morning. Jungkook started off the New Year with his clothes on, cheeks flushed, a terrible hangover, and no sight of you anywhere.

He had been trying to find you for a while on campus, but little did he know you were all the way on the opposite side of it in the Education sector. When you didn’t show up to Yoongi’s New Year’s Party the following year, he realized he may never see you again. Until he ruined your clothes. And your valuables. And your heart. And god-knows-what else. If only apologizing didn’t completely break his fragile ego, maybe he would be kissing you right now. Maybe he could have been spending all his time kissing you and holding you every day since the incident.

“Whatever you say, fuckboy,” you smile at him. “Now let me go — and stop coming into my office. It’s annoying.”

“Principle Green is actually so rad, though. I might come back just for him,” he comments, moving out of your way.

“I don’t care who is rad, I don’t want you interrupting my work.”

“Oh, so I’m a distraction?”

“No, you’re a nuisance,”

“Ouch,”

“Goodbye, Jungkook,” you flash him a grin, turning off the lights in your office. You look at Aecha in the teacher's lounge where you exit. She is completely baffled, eyes wide, her mouth dropped, and her bagel falling out of her hands and onto the table. Cream-cheese side down. She heard everything, and you know what she’s thinking.

Luckily, you can leave without either of them making conversation with you.

Entering your car, you let out a huge breath you didn’t know you’d been holding in. You look at yourself in your sun blocker's mirror. Cheeks red and lips cracked from all the laughing, you’re a total mess! As if your crush on Jungkook is coming back. It can’t be. He’s a total asshole now.

But a charming asshole.

Fuck! Stop it, y/n. You can’t do this to yourself.

And so, you don’t. You blast your music and drive away, pretending you don’t see a waving, smiling Jungkook from the school’s entrance in your rearview mirror.

----

Three knocks on your door and an uninvited Jungkook makes his way into your office. Again.

Jeon Jungkook.

The name makes you hurl a little in your mouth. Yesterday’s lunch makes its way to the back of your throat. But you swallow it down, telling yourself to be strong and that he will go away soon.

Last night, after Jungkook’s daily visit to your office (one that ended up with a 3-hour conversation about how Thor is the best Avenger next to Spider-Man), you realized that it’s been almost two weeks since you met him in the coffee shop. Almost two weeks and you have yet to receive a proper apology like you had asked him to give you the first time he visited you at work.

This is the 7th visit since two weeks ago, and still no apology. Despite his charm and how easily you were almost tricked into letting it all go, you remembered you were still supposed to be mad at him. And that you should still be mad at him no matter how many bunny-smiles, flirtatious comments, and talks about the Avengers and Principle Green that shoots straight to your heart. And to other places…

“So,” he banters a smile at you. That stupid yellow and blue lacrosse bomber jacket puffs out around his shoulders, the number “07” poking out in the ugliest school-spirit font you’ve ever seen on his sleeves. His elbows rest on your desk, arms delicately pushing some of your papers and trinkets out of his way. The action only fuels your anger.

“7 o’clock. You and me. Chipotle.”

“In your dreams, fuckboy,” you scoff. The audacity he has to ask you out. The audacity he has to find the school you intern at (literally on your universities campus, but still), interrupt your work, and ask you on a date for the nth time since the start of this week.

You think this might be the 5th time since Sunday he’s asked you out on a date. And it’s only Wednesday.

“Woah, why the ‘tude?” he defends, putting his palms up as he slides back into his “designated” chair in your office.

“There is no ‘tude.”

“There totally is ‘tude!”

You glare at him from over your laptop screen. "See!” he points at your scowl.

“Jungkook, get out please,” you sigh. You really don’t want to deal with his antics today.

“What? Why?” he asks you. His voice is defensive like you just told him his dick is short and thin. Which, it totally is not by the way. He’d tell you about it, but it doesn’t appear like you’re up for that conversation.

“Because, Jungkook, I’m done with this.”

“With what?" he scoffs. "We’re not even a ‘this’,” he says the last part with finger air quotes.

“Exactly, so please stop visiting me. I don’t want your distractions to make me forget about the fact that you still haven’t apologized.”

“Oh, please, y/n,” he drags out a laugh, slouching on your chair. “I don’t even need to apologize. They were just some shitty drawings. I can assure you that if you go back into that classroom and call an ‘art sesh’ they’d make up a bunch of equally as shitty pieces for you.”

You can feel your fingers nearly breaking the screen of your laptop before shutting it close. You stand up in your seat, motioning your finger toward the door. “Get out.”

Jungkook knows he stepped over the line with that one. He really doesn’t know what the hell he’s saying. He knows those meant something to you! Why is he acting like he doesn’t? Why does he choose to say words that hurt you? It only hurts him, knowing that even though he wants so badly to be the person that comforts you and who tells you you’re okay; saying the opposite is only going to make it worse.

Duh!

Right now, he wants to beat himself up so badly that he’s lost the ability to speak another word.

That clenching feeling he has in his chest is back. He can see the anger in your heart, reaching out to protect the innocence of your students. It’s endearing, really. But he’s in the crossfire. And he’s on the side of your wrath he doesn’t want to be on. He’s the reason you’re protecting your students in their absence. He is the reason why you might never forgive him for this one.

“Y/n, I,” he stutters, standing up. He really thinks he’s about to apologize until something within himself blocks him from doing so again. His heart wants to say it, but his egotistical brain isn’t allowing him. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Then what did you mean it as?” you ask him. Hands running through your hair, you laugh at yourself in disbelief. “You know, I don’t even know why I’m asking you that. I don’t even know why I expect anything from you at all. All you’ve been doing since you got your damn scholarship and your damn popularity has been treating others like how you are treating me right now. Like their feelings don’t matter, like no one else exists in this world besides Jeon Jungkook. Maybe if you had a project like the one I assigned to my students, then maybe you’d have a reason to look back on what it means to be kind to others. Maybe you’d realize that people get hurt because of people like you. Me included. So please, leave my office and don’t show your face in this school ever again.”

Jungkook is at a loss for words. What can he say? You called his bluff. He taught himself how to block out others as a defense mechanism a long time ago. Its consequence: confidence as a new defense mechanism. Confidence is always good, right? So why it felt wrong when he started showing that side of him 100% more than it was before was beyond him. And, well, this is why it felt so wrong. He's lost the ability to humble himself down. And he hurt you because of it. He’s hurt a lot of people because of it. If only he knew how to balance himself properly.

Jungkook leaves your office, not batting an eye at you, feeling like a student who just got expelled. The jock in him would say it was hot, but that part of him is not there. Nothing but shame fills his body. He feels ashamed of himself. Especially as he catches light of one of the coffee-stained projects on the lounge-room walls.

[I love my _______ because it makes me feel ________] is the prompt. This one had the most outrageous spelling he thinks he’s ever seen. Backward “e”’s and random capitalization and sizing and all. But he makes out “heart’ and “wanted”.

Something in him pulls on his heartstrings again. He can see why those projects meant so much to you. Just that one simple response was enough to feel regret all the way from the follicles of his scalp to his big toe, as if he didn’t regret it already. How is he going to make it up to you? He has no idea. But he can’t lose sight of you, even when he knows he's pissed you off and hurt you. He has to find a way to make it right.

He has to apologize. Sincerely. Like he’s been practicing in the mirror and with his roommates, Taehyung and Jin, for the past two weeks. It’s easier with them. They don’t make his heart beat abnormally fast. They don’t send smiles (other than teasing, antagonizing ones that make him feel embarrassed and give up) that make him want to kiss you until you’re breathless beneath him.

But he needs to. And it needs to happen soon.

----

“So,” you smile at Aecha across your kitchen counter. She’s wearing the skimpiest hot pink dress you have ever seen. No doubt trying to be a tease for Hoseok. No one would guess she’s a preschool teacher with the way she’s dressed. “What’s the plan?”

She turns around, pinning the last bobby pin in her stiff, hair-sprayed-bobby pinned high bun.

“Okay,” she smiles. “We go in, right? Then I see Hoseok. Then we dance. Then we kiss. Then we f—”

“Okay!” you stop her, laughing. “I get it. Go in, dance, fuck. What do I do?”

“Hmmm,” she thinks. “Drink?? Get high? Maybe mock my actions on a certain captain of the lacrosse team…?”

You give her a knowing look.

“I know!” she puts her hands up. “Was just a thought.”

A great thought, at that. You’ve been wanting to jump his bones since three New Year's parties ago. But you’ve long accepted that’s no longer on your agenda. Jungkook has proven to you that he is a lost cause. You can’t expect anything from him, no matter how charming his smile is, no matter how well he dances, or how his touch makes butterflies flow through every vein in your body.

You have to put him in the back of your mind and move on. Maybe tonight you can find someone to do that with.

“You know that guy from Bread Club?” you ask her, fingers pinching the skin between your eyebrows in thought.

“Which one? That club was full of male nerd—oh! The hot one? Park Jimin?” she recalls.

“Yes!” you exclaim. “Him! Do you know if he is coming?”

“Oooooo,” she coos at you. “Does y/n see a potential crush on bread-boy Jimin?”

“Not a crush. Although, he is really handsome.” you blush. “I just never gave him a proper chance.”

“You’re right. I did suspect an underlying mutual attraction. My guess would be that he is going. I’m pretty sure he’s with that whole group. If I’m not mistaken, I want to say he’s Taehyung’s brother. Tae rooms with Jungkook and Jin.”

“Ah,” you nod, understanding the explanation. Although, all you hear is Jungkook. You hate that even his name in a conversation not even about him puts a sad feeling in your heart. You really do pity him. You also really want to forgive him. But after what he said back in your office, you don’t think you have the means to. His words hurt. They always do. But, he doesn’t know how to apologize. At least not to you. You remember how Aecha was surprised when you explained the situation and told her that he still hasn’t apologized since the incident. It made you wonder if you were the only person he refuses to apologize to.

“Okay, I’m ready. We both look hot. Let’s go,” Aecha says, matter-of-fact. She slaps her pocket mirror closed and shoves it into her purse.

----

You arrive at the sickest party Min Yoongi has ever hosted. Jungkook was right, this year’s party is a banger. Endless drinks, endless space for dancing, endless games, and endless men…boy you have many options tonight.

Aecha claps your shoulder in excitement, telling you that she sees her prey. You understand, letting her make her progress towards bagging Hoseok.

You continue smiling until your eyes land on Jungkook’s. He’s at the beer pong table, a beer in one hand and a pong in the other, ready to throw his next shot. Although, his progress towards throwing it stops when he sees you.

You’d be lying if you said you didn’t want to keep looking at him. Dressed in all black with silver accents accompanying his wrists, ears, eyebrows, and lips. One could say he completely complemented your own outfit.

The fact only makes your heart hurt more. Why? You don’t know. You dropped him. He’s done. Wasn’t even a crush for longer than a day three years ago. Why you’re so hung up on him, you don’t know. The realization has you tearing your eyes away from his man-bun that looks too perfect framing his face, and onto the drinks in the room next to you.

You grab a shot or two. Or three. Or four. But who’s counting? It’s New Year’s Eve, you’re single, have nothing to lose, and have strange feelings toward a man you want to forget. Tonight is the night to get so wasted that you end up achieving that goal.

You think you will be successful when a familiar voice calls your name. Turning around, your eyes meet with Park Jimin’s. The bread-boy. Just the man you wanted to see tonight.

“Jimin!” you hug him. “No way! How long has it been since we baked banana nut bread together?!”

Jimin laughs out loud, hugging you back. “About a year, I’d say,” he smiles. His smile is really cute, reaching from cheek to cheek with that insanely addicting voice of liquid he uses to coat his words. “You’re looking really good tonight, Y/n.” Maybe he will be your saving grace tonight, after all.

“Thanks,” you smile. “You’re not looking too bad yourself.”

“Glad to know you’re pleased.”

“I am,” you smirk. “Somewhat.”

“Oh?” he raises an eyebrow.

“Come,” you change the subject. For some reason, flirting with Jimin feels wrong. Even though you want parts of him, even though you want to be able to flirt with him, something about it just doesn’t feel right. Maybe it’s the intense eyes you feel at the back of your head when you dance on Jimin in the middle of the dance floor. Maybe it’s when you kiss Jimin that you feel as if you’re imagining it’s Jungkook who you’re pressing your lips to.

It’s all wrong. Everything is wrong.

But Jimin touches you like it is right, and you feel somewhat assured until an extra hand is pulling you away from him. Suddenly, you’re drunken vision sees Jimin standing on the dance floor moving farther and farther away from you as this mystery person takes you away from him. Stumbling to keep up with this person’s pace, you turn around and attempt to pry off the strong arm that wraps around your wrist.

“Wha-What do you—who are you?” you ask this person. It isn’t until you realize that the person’s arm is tattooed. It isn’t until you realize that these tattoos are familiar and that they belong to Jeon Jungkook. “Jungkook, let go!”

To which he does, but only when he’s pulled you out of the house and into the alleyway between another house and Yoongi’s. Jungkook pins you against the wall, his forearms pressing against the brick next to your ears.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he demands, voice low and eyes foreboding. Those eyes you’ve never seen before. They’re dark and angry; far, far away from his playful innocent-looking ones. They scare you a little. But you’ve always been good at facing your fears.

“I’m having fun,” you respond, not a smidge of the jitters you're feeling consuming your voice. “What are you doing?”

“Making sure you don’t make any mistakes,” he responds.

“Hah!” you laugh, the alcohol causing you to tilt your head back harshly. You forget there’s brick there, and you’re thankful Jungkook’s reflexes are fast enough to slide his hand beneath your head before it smacked against the brick. “You’re so funny, Kook. You know, that’s actually a good idea. Because the last time I danced on someone like that was with you. And I really regret that.”

Jungkook’s heart pangs in his chest, showing how your words affected him so by closing in on you. His face towers over yours, even though he’s been trying to keep his height as level with you as he can by bending his body at his hips to match your own height. But the closer he gets, the taller he becomes, and the more you have to look up in order to look into his eyes.

You can smell the cologne on his body along with the faint smell of booze on his breath. You hate how his scent makes you fawn over him. All you want to do is kiss him silly. But you’re still mad at him. You're still arguing with him right now.

“You don’t,” he scowls, more so at himself for letting it get this far. The sight of Jimin holding you like that when it was supposed to be him made his blood boil. Fury grew in his veins as he realized he needed to make this right. Right now. Before it’s too late and you’re truly moving on.

“And what if I do, Jungkook?” you lower your voice, words feeling heavy on your mouth. “What if I regret letting my feelings continuously be hurt by you?”

“And what if I told you that I regret it,” he holds your chin in his fingers. “Saying those things to you. I do, y/n. I regret it, and I don’t know why I kept saying those things. And I-I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It was never my intention to hurt you.”

You pause at his apology. Are you hearing this right? Did Jeon Jungkook just apologize to you? Twice??

“W-Well,” you stutter. Tears start to brim your eyes again for reasons you don’t understand. Maybe because you’re a crybaby. Maybe because this was your reason for not chasing after the man you liked so much. Maybe because his apology gives you the ‘go’ for smashing your lips onto his, feeling his honey lips collide with yours.

They’re just as soft as you imagined they would be. And god, is he a good kisser. His lips alone make a pool in your panties. Your hands slide around his neck, fingertips intertwining in his tied-up locks.

Jungkook’s body nearly stutters when you kiss him. Out of all things, this was the last he expected. Maybe a well-deserved slap or a kick on the shin, but never the feeling of your embrace.

Nevertheless, he doesn’t complain one bit. He’s been dying to feel you. Your lips on his was an imagery he thought he would never have the chance to live out. But, here you are, holding his body close and kissing him like he is the last person you will ever have the chance to kiss in your life.

Desperation crawls into his veins, lifting you up around his waist, and pressing you against the wall.

He’s been craving this for far too long. Craving you for too long. Jungkook can’t stop touching you, your body is just as soft as he remembered. His curiosity begs him to explore more and more of you. But he’s done enough without your permission. So he waits, continuing to kiss you until you take control.

“I’ve been dying to have you like this,” you say between trailing kisses down to his neck. Jungkook moans as you find his sweet spot, and you think it was the prettiest thing you have ever heard in your lifetime. Sucking on the spot, he raises his chest, trying to control his pleasure but nonetheless fails when you bite down on him.

“Y-Y/n,” he calls out your name, just loud enough for you to hear. His breath tickles your name on the shell of your ear, and you think you might have gushed arousal out of your cunt. “Not here,” he pants, trapping your chin between his fingers again. He motions your jaw up to his, tempting himself with light scrapes of his lips touching yours. “I don’t want anyone else to see you.”

“Then where?” you whisper back at him. It is so hard not to smash your lips onto his again, but you want this to continue. And if Jungkook wants you where no one but himself can see you, then you’re bound to be wherever that is.

“My place,” he brushes his nose against your cheek before returning your trail of kisses on his neck back to yours. “No one’s home. I brought a car.” He sucks your neck, leaving bruises all over. He's determined to find not just one sweet spot of yours, but to find them all.

“Wh-Why not the car?” you ask between moans. Jungkook is so good at this. He’s suede and smooth with his touches, hot and passionate with his kisses. He knows how to make you puddy in his hands.

Jungkook chuckles in your ear. “Not with the things I want to do to you,” he bites down on your neck, eliciting a sweet panted moan from your throat. “That won’t work.”

“Then let’s go,” you hold his neck firmly in your palms, stopping him from his parade of kisses. “I don’t want to waste more time.”

“Someone’s eager,” Jungkook smirks, kissing you once before setting you down and taking his keys out of his pocket.

“You have no idea.”

----

The ride over to Jungkook’s is spent palming him in the driver’s seat and Jungkook struggling to focus on the road. He’s not as consumed with alcohol as you might be, even though the effects of it on you stopped midway through making out with Jungkook back at Yoongi’s.

You know you’re doomed when the car abruptly stops. His fist pushes the stick into park, and he rips open the car door, walking around the front of it to come over to you.

You’re still tipsy, however. So, when you’re met with Jungkook’s erection right in your face you can’t help but laugh a little.

“What’s so funny?” he asks you, a little pissed off at your laughter. It’s hot.

Trailing a finger on the zipper to his black jeans, you outline the length of his cock slowly, admiring its size right in front of you. You dream of it fucking you, as if the man in front of you wasn’t on a mission to check that off your list right now.

“You’re so big,” you sigh like a teenage girl. “I want you inside of me, Jungkook,” you smirk, looking up at him from the passenger seat. Jungkook swears his heart leaps out of his chest. He thinks his voice might crack if he says another word, so he clears his throat, dick twitching simultaneously, before he responds.

“Then, c’mon,” he takes your hand, pulling you up and out of the car. “We’re here.” Jungkook smiles at you sweetly. He almost thinks that he should just wait until the morning to fuck you because of your tipsy-drunk moment until you’re kissing and palming him again. Jungkook moans into your mouth, stumbling with you toward his townhome’s entrance. Key fob in hand, Jungkook presses it underneath the door nob, hearing a sound of approval from the security system not long after.

“Teasing me in the car,” he growls against your ear, pushing you against the nearest wall once the door to his home shuts. “You think you weren’t going to get punished for that?”

All you can do is moan. Jungkook’s hands waste no time ripping off every piece of clothing you have on, dying to see you in all your glory.

“Holy fuck,” he pants. It’s almost as if he’s cumming his pants right now at the sight of you. “You’re gorgeous, Y/n,”

You can’t help but blush a little, his glare on you makes you think that he’s not actually saying these things about your body. Not this man. Not the ripped, 6-packed athlete with incredible strength and muscles that could pop you with one headlock around the neck. Maybe it's the booze.

“Take your clothes off, fuckboy,” you demand.

Jungkook shimmies off his black blazer, eyes still on your tits. He wants to suck them and leave marks all over the softness of them. He wants you to be completely covered in him tomorrow morning.

“Don’t call me that,” he walks closer to you, trapping your naked body between his half-clothed one. “I’m not a fuckboy.” he replies, taking off his mock-turtle neck tanktop. You thought it was tight enough on him before, but the sight of his muscles underneath the shirt makes you realize that the shirt did not do him enough justice. Never in a million years did you think Jungkook was this ripped. He basically has boobs. He could probably fit into your bra…

“Then what are you?” you ghost against his lips.

He would like to say “yours”, but he remembers that you’re still tipsy. Would you agree to that? Do you still hate him? He'd like to think 'no' considering how you two are both eager to have each other right now, but he's got a lot of things to ask and make up to you before any titles are made. So he holds off.

“We can decide that in the morning,” he settles on, flashing you a small smile before delving into your lips. His chest is firm against yours, his back so wide, you struggle to wrap your arms around it as he leads you to what you assume is his bedroom.

His room is just as you expected it would be. Covered in trophies and pictures, as neat and organized as you expected. But what really catches you off guard is how comfortable his bed is. The smell of him engulfs you as he gently places you on his bed. You think about how this night would be if you decided to fuck in the car. How you wouldn't be able to see this view on top of you so clearly if you did. You’re thankful Jungkook insisted on his bedroom. Now, you can see his handsome face clearly in the lighting of his room as he pulls his pants down to his ankles, leaving himself in a pair of white Calvins. They do nothing to hide the length and girth of his cock, and you shutter knowing that he’s going to completely rip you open.

“Don’t worry, I’ll prep you,” he whispers in your ear, sensing your worry. Jungkook’s lips find your neck again, gently kissing his previously left bruises before leaving more of them on the areas of your clavicle and chest.

“What if I don’t want to be prepped?” you whimper, back arching into his chest when his mouth engulfs your nipple, sucking on it hard. “W-What if I want you ri-right now?”

Jungkook laughs deeply as he twirls your nipple around with his tongue. He releases you with a quick “pop”, which makes your head fall back in pleasure. You can feel Jungkook’s body moving up to come face-to-face with yours. “Patience,” he gives you a quick kiss. “I refuse to hurt you any more than I have already.”

“Jungkook,” you coo, holding his jaw in your palm. He looks ashamed of himself. You’ve never seen this side of him, and it feels good knowing that he does harbor those kinds of feelings. Especially since he is comfortable with you seeing him display them. “I forgive you, Kook.”

“You shouldn’t,” he buries his face in your neck again, kissing you lightly as his hand trails down to your wet cunt. His fingers find your clit. You moan when he starts circling slow infinities on the sensitive bud.

“But I do, Jungkook,” you pant, hand coming up to drag your fingers through his hair. You pull out his bun, watching as his hair falls over the crown of his head and onto your skin. It smells like coconut, and you can’t help but bury your nose in it as he continues to gather your juices on his fingertips.

“I was bad to you,” he grumbles against your neck. This time, his fingers circle your entrance. Legs wrapping around his hips, you invite his fingers inside, to which he obliges. Just his index finger feels you first. Jungkook ruts against the mattress at the feeling, imagining the walls that squeeze his finger tight around his cock. Yeah, you definitely need prepping.

“But, you apologized,” you whisper to him, massaging his scalp. Your hips twitch when he adds another finger. You can’t imagine the size of him in you like this. Two of his massive fingers are enough to make you feel close to cumming around them. He’s going to be the death of you.

Pumping in and out of you, Jungkook moves his head to face yours, his nose kissing your own.

“I’m sorry,” he says once again. “I’m sorry for spilling coffee on you, and being an asshole, and making fun of your student’s art, and showing up at your work, and pissing you off, and making you hate me so much you—”

“J-Jungkook,” you stop him. It’s hard to concentrate on a response when his pace quickens with every mention of something he did wrong, as if he was getting angrier the more he realized how much he did to hurt you.

“All I wanted to do was the opposite of what I did,” he kisses your cheek. “B-But it’s hard for me to face negativity without being cocky and stupid about it. I thought that by making it worse, I could make it better.”

“What a strange tactic,” you chuckle against his cheek. Your heart thumps when he flashes you a smile, telling you with his eyes that he’d never do something like that to you ever again. “I’m proud of you.” You smile.

“S-Stop,” Jungkook adds his thumb to your clit as his fingers continue to fuck you slowly. The addition causes you to arch your back into him. Jungkook takes the opportunity to wrap his arm underneath your spine, holding you secure against his body. “You’re going to make me want to claim you if you say that kind of shit to me.”

“What if I want you to claim me?” you challenge.

Jungkook nearly growls into your neck, fighting the urge to just flip you over and ravage you. “Stop doing that to me, y/n,”

He feels your fingers start to tug at the rim of his boxers, and Jungkook can’t be any more excited to feel you around him. He presses one more finger into you before allowing you to shove his boxers halfway down his thighs.

Jungkook moans at the feeling of your soft fingers around his cock, head falling into the crevice of your neck again. His dick is red and angry and begging to fuck you hard and deep. You swirl the precum that leaks from him and circle it around his cockhead, eliciting a strained moan into the skin by your ear from the man above you. His hips jerk at the sudden movement, preparing themselves to fuck you hard and fast.

“I think I’m ready, Kook,” you whisper into his hair.

Jungkook detaches himself from your neck, standing up to quickly knock off his boxers onto the floor. He takes your calves in his hands, spreading you before his fingertips spread your pussy open slowly. Jungkook takes a long look at you. You're basically drooling from your cunt, the slick creating shiny lines off his fingers as he moves them up and off your pussy. Glistening and pulsing for him to fill you up, he knows you’re going to be a tight fit. The fact only excites him further.

He pulls himself onto the bed, pushing your thighs up with his body. Pumping his cock a few times, he lines you up with his dick, pressing his cockhead against your slick.

“You sure you want this?” he leans down to your face. Your thighs are trapped against your torso, Jungkook folding you up for him nice and good. You appreciate that he doesn’t do a thing without your consent, that he doesn’t dare to do anything unless you’re comfortable. A complete 180 from the emotionally constipated Jungkook you’ve been experiencing for the past two weeks.

You nod to him, looking into his eyes. But this doesn’t satisfy him.

“I need a verbal answer, y/n,” he kisses your cheek, dick rubbing up and down your warm entrance.

“Yes, Jungkook. I want you,” you lean into his cheek.

The feeling of his girth stretching you open is enough for you to dig your nails into the smooth skin of his back. Never in a million years did you think you’d be stretched this good.

He doesn’t go in all the way, letting you adjust to his girth before slipping his length all the way into you.

You swear his tip kisses your cervix. When he pulls out and slams back into you, you can confirm that he did, in fact, kiss it. Jungkook moans against you, gripping your hands in his own and pinning them above your head. His hips are strong, slamming into you with everything he has left in him. You’re a goddess below him, legs around his shoulders, fingers digging into the upper side of his palm, tears streaming down your cheeks as you feel all he is giving you.

“F-Faster,” you beg. Jungkook is happy to obey.

He takes your hips and flips you over, his hands pressing against the upper of your back, pushing your chest down into his sheets. Once satisfied, Jungkook firmly grabs your hips and pistons into you faster, just like you wanted. You’re a moaning mess beneath him, fingers gripping the sheets, legs twitching in resistance as he fucks into you like a madman. His nose is crunched, lip bleeding between his teeth as he tries to hold back his orgasm. Usually, he never feels ready to release this early. But, you’re the girl he’s always wanted. And now you’re in his bed, begging him to fuck you without prepping you and go faster and claim you, and—god, it's all too perfect. You’re too perfect.

Your moans are like honey in his ears, the sweetest music he’s ever heard. He slaps your ass hard—once, twice, so many times. You scream to it all, each one pushing you over the edge.

“This is mine, you hear?” he growls from behind you, gripping your ass in his hand before slapping it again. “You hear me?” he asks again, gripping your hips tighter and forcibly slapping them against his own hips. The impact makes you gush around him, your high following his forcefulness in squirts of your release. You don’t see it, but Jungkook’s eyes roll to the back of his head at the sight. No way did you just squirt all over his cock. Can this night get any better?

Maybe it can, because he feels his own release closely following. But he edges himself, pulling out of you to look at the mess you made instead of chasing his high.

You’re so embarrassed, digging your face into your hands as you hear him press his hand into his sopping wet duvet cover.

“I-I’m so sorry,” you whimper. You refuse to meet his eyes, even when he flips you over and sits next to your face.

“C’mere,” he pats his lap.

“Jungkook,” you whine, absolutely mortified. Is he mad? You can’t tell. He hasn’t mentioned anything about your release.

“Baby, come here,” he speaks to you with honey laced in his voice. Your heart thumps at the fact that he called you “baby”. Were your dreams coming true?

You gather yourself and weakly climb onto his lap, immediately digging your face into his shoulder.

“Was that bad? You didn’t cum,” you ask him, voice trembling into his neck. God, this is so mortifying. “I won’t do it again, I pro—”

“Like fucking hell you won’t,” he holds your waist firmly again. “That was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen y/n,” he bites your ear. “It’s taking everything in me not to be gentle with you right now.”

Your eyes meet his hungered ones. You were wrong, and you know it not only from him saying so but also from his pulsating cock below. It is twitching and leaking with so much precum, you almost think that it is his cum itself if it weren’t for the clearness of it. And then you realize that he’s edging himself.

“I-I want this to last longer, but I don’t want to hurt you cause I—” his head falls back in a strained moan when you press a finger to his tip, playing with the precum leaking down himself. “Cause I know I will if you don’t take control of me right now…so, ride me,” he demands.

You kiss his neck, feeling lighter that you made him feel strong enough to nearly lose his control just from your orgasm. With power in your hands, you lift your hips just enough to hover your pussy over his twitching cock, sliding down slowly.

Jungkook’s hands come to your hips again, completely out of breath. “H-Holy shit, y/n,” he gasps when he stares down at his dick disappearing and reappearing as you bounce on his cock. “God, you’re going to murder me, aren’t you?”

You laugh at his comment. Although, he’s far from laughing, focusing all his energy on controlling his orgasm. Face falling into your neck, he’s mumbling things you don’t understand as you massage his sweaty scalp again. He moans at your touch, feeling overly sensitive and extremely, beyond-belief, horny. He wants to cum so bad, but he also wants this to last.

“You can cum, Kook,” you whisper into his scalp. You don’t know if you have it in you to cum again. Squirting is so powerful, and it usually takes everything out of you. But you might, considering you have the strength to ride him to no tomorrow. “It’s okay.”

“N-No,” he breathes against your neck, panting. “Can’t. Want it to last.”

“Don’t worry,” you laugh against his cheek. “I don’t plan on making you a one-night, Jungkook.”

“A-Ah,” his hips twitch into you. “I-um, ffuccck, y/n!” he sways your hips back and forth on his cock rapidly. “Y-You sure? It’s going to be a lot.”

“Mhm,” you smile down at him.

“Fuck, o-okay,” he breathes out shakily. Jungkook then bucks his hips fast into yours from underneath you, unrelenting and ruthless. You feel his hot ropes fill you up just seconds later. For what feels like a full minute of him pumping his cum into you, his face resting against your breasts in fucked-out glory.

You two rest there, letting his cum pool at the connection of your bodies while you rest against each other. What finally breaks you out of your own daze is the sound of fireworks just outside Jungkook's bedroom window.

You can see the array of colors lighting up the sky, his digital clock on his nightstand reading 12:00am.

“Hey,” you whisper into his hair, kissing his sweaty scalp. “Happy New Year.”

Jungkook detaches his cheek from your chest, bringing his face up to graze his nose against yours. Smiling into your lips he whispers,

“I’m gonna make it right, y/n. This will be our year.”

---

[Bonus]

[Aecha]: Hope you got home okay.

[Aecha]: Ended up a little stuck between Hoseok’s thighs.

[Y/n]: Funny story.

[Y/n]: I never made it home last night.

[Aecha]: WHAT?!

[Aecha]: Are you okay??

[Y/n]: More than okay.

y/n sent an image

[Aecha]: No

[Aecha]: Fucking

[Aecha]: Way

[Aecha]: I—AKJDAKSJHFJKASFKLDJSAFKLJSFA!!! Y/N!!!!

[Y/n]: So like.

[Y/n]: I’m no longer a single lady?

[Aecha]: AHHHHHHHHH Y/N!!!!!

[Aecha]: JESUS DID HE LEAVE ANY INCH OF YOUR SKIN Y/S/C?!?

[Y/n]: We had a lot of…catching up to do lol.

[Aecha]: I’d say.

[Aecha]: I’m the maid of honor. Understand me?

[Y/n]: Lol. You got it.

~~

[End. Do not copy. Original work of @jungkookstatts , 2023]

[rae-writes]

Such a Wh*re (I love it)

Mephisto x reader

wc : 1.k

warnings : nsfw, name calling [whore], mc is accused of fooling around with the brothers and other four dateables [however it’s neither confirmed nor denied for reader interpretation] 

synopsis : Mephisto would rather die than admit jealously over some human so you’ll just have to make him choke on his words instead 

“What a whore.” 

You slam your D.D.D down a little too hard on the desk, eyes cutting dangerously at the purple haired noble, “I beg your fucking pardon?” 

Mephisto doesn’t back down. Typical. “Don’t act like it’s not true, Mc, we all see how you interact with the seven brothers, Solomon, Simeon, Barbatos, and even our Prince. I just don’t see how Lord Diavolo thinks it savory to meddle with someone such as yourself on any other basis except for being an exchange student.” 

While a bit dumbfounded that he was talking to you like this, you still find it in yourself to give him an irritable smirk, “Oh? Are you jealous, Mephistopheles?”

“As if. I just thought you should know how you look, flaunting yourself around like that.” 

With your hues darkening mischievously, you make your way towards him, “So you admit to watching me?” Using his surprise at your closeness, you take the opportunity to grip his tie. 

“I never said— h-hold on, w-what do you t-think you’re d-doing?!” 

You huffed out a ‘cute’, grin getting impossibly sharper at his sudden stuttering. Swiftly, you undo the knot and yank the accessory off, using it to tie his hands behind his back. 

Trying to choke out a proper sentence, Mephisto gapes at you, eyes widening when you mutter a spell to make the tie inescapable. “Mc! I-I demand you answer me!” 

“What’s it look like, pretty boy? ‘M being the whore you seem to so desperately want me to be— and I’m not even going to charge you for the front row seat you’re in.” 

His breath quickens as you shove him back into a chair, eyes darting from you to the door that’s only half closed; anyone could walk in here- it was the newspaper club’s office room. 

“Don’t worry your pretty little head.” With a wave of your hand, the door slams shut and locks itself. “No one’s gonna see you all embarrassed and humiliated but me today.” 

“N-no one h-humiliates me.” 

You lick a stripe up his neck, working on undoing his school shirt buttons after opening his blazer, “Watch me.” 

It takes less than a minute- to expose his chest and tug his pants down just enough to free his leaking cock. Mephisto can’t decide whether it’s because you’ve had practice or because in this position, he’s more pliant than he’s ever been. He chooses the former to save face. 

“You know, for having such an ugly mouth, you sure are pretty. Pretty eyes, pretty hair, pretty body…” your eyes flit downward with an amused twinkle, “Pretty dick.” 

Mephisto swallows the gasp that wants to escape at your words, instead choosing to screw his eyes shut and tilt his head back. Wrong move. 

Because now you're attacking it with sucks and bites, leaving no patch of skin untouched by your lips, and he can feel the bruises forming, feel the sharp bloom of pleasure when you bite down harder and it makes him keen. 

And you know he’s given up his facade when he doesn’t even acknowledge the sounds he’s making, especially when his hips jerk as you grip the base of his cock. 

“C’mon, ‘phisto.” Your free hand grips his jaw and yanks his head down so brilliant green hues are staring back into yours; one eye still holds your own color while the other is a mix of blue, pink, and yellow. “Don’t you think ‘m pretty too?” 

Yes his brain supplies, but nothing comes out of his mouth other than a strangled groan. And when you pout at his lack-luster response, he feels the need to get on his knees and praise you until you’re smiling again. 

Moving down his tensed up figure, you come to a stop in front of his legs and wrench them apart so you can fit in the middle. “Maybe I need to go ask someone else? Maybe…Lucifer?” 

Hearing his rival's name while you’re inches away from his cock makes Mephisto strain against the bindings keeping his arms in place, eyes glaring down at you heatedly. 

“No?” You hum in mock thought, swirling your tongue around the tip of his cock absentmindedly, “Then tell me I’m pretty.” 

“F-fuck, you’re pretty, you’re so fucking pretty, Mc.” 

“Yeah?”

“Yes!” The noble groans, “Especially when you’re looking at me.” He doesn’t even care about his pride on the line here as long as he keeps your—

“Attention, hm? That’s what gets you going, is my attention? Why didn’t you just say so, silly demon.” You wrap your lips around him, taking his cock all the way down so casually he almost thinks he’s dreaming.

“S-shit! Oh, fuck, f-fuck!” Mephisto feels you laugh freely, sending his back arching at the vibrations. He knows his cheeks are ablaze, embarrassingly so, but- “P-please, please don’t stop!” 

Laughing again, you come off his cock with a pop, using your hand instead so you could coo at him, “Look at you, Mephisto. Whining, begging, and trembling because of me.” 

He tries to shake his head to deny it, but it only adds to his thrashing as he feels himself getting closer and closer to that delicious edge. 

“I think…” You dig your tongue harshly into his slit, making him cry out so loud it bounces off the walls, “I think you’re the whore.” 

At that, Mephisto just falls apart in your hands, toes curling in his shoes while his body shakes so much he’s almost afraid he’s gonna fall off the chair he’s on. 

It’s a gorgeous sight. Purple hair all mussed up, cheeks a pretty dark pink, eyes half lidded, and tongue lolling out just the slightest amount. His chest, framed by the wrinkled uniform, is streaked with white, as are his blazer and pants. It’s such a sight that you can’t help but…

The sound of a shutter going off brings Mephisto back to reality, weakly opening his eyes to see what the noise was. What should be a cold wash of dread is instead a shock of heat forming in the pit of his stomach as he watches you hold up his camera. 

You take your time connecting said camera up with your D.D.D, successfully transferring the picture over. It’s only when you place the electronics down does he finally speak. 

“So what? You gonna leak that to everyone now that you’ve done your part at humiliating me?” Although he can’t help but find the predicament he’s landed himself in very hot, he still has a sliver of nervousness in his tone. 

“Course not.” Walking back over to him, you lick some of the cum off his chest, “Looking like this? You’re all mine.” You savor the taste a bit more theatrically than you should, but the whimper that escapes Mephisto is all too worth it. 

“M-Mc—“ he’s cut off by your lips crashing onto his and he doesn’t waste a single second in kissing you back, bullying his tongue into your mouth impatiently. 

You moan at him in return, tangling your tongue with his before you pull back, a little breathless from the encounter, “Pretty, pretty, Mephistopheles…” Capturing him in another kiss, you make sure this one is slow and sensual to keep his attention on you.

It works. He doesn’t even realize you’ve undone your spell or that you’ve begun untying his restraints. All he’s focused on is your taste mixed with the faintness of his own and the warmth of your breath when you break away for a quick moment, just to come right back. It was intoxicating and he loved it. Craved it. 

Pulling away one last time, you gaze at him thoughtfully, “I wonder if your mark is as pretty as you…maybe you’ll let me find out someday, hm?” And then you’re grabbing your phone, waving at him, and exiting the room, taking a piece of his pride with you. 

But Mephisto doesn’t mind, not really. Even when he scrambles around to clean himself off and make himself presentable again to go meet up with his prince because he’ll sear his pact into you, no matter who says otherwise. You asked for it and he’s ever so glad to deliver. 

[starlightkun]

❧ word count: 18.3k ❧ warnings: cursing, renjun gets CONSENSUALLY dosed with a magical aphrodisiac For Science ❧ genre: fluff, humor, one (1) heavy makeout scene but no actual smut, 0.1 seconds of angst if you can even call it that, academic rivals to lovers, modern magical creatures au, college au, siren reader, human renjun ft. siren ten, same universe as strawberry sunday ❧ extra info: in my lore, siren scales are visible when they’re in more human-like forms because of magic, and it’s not an indication of their skin tone at all. so when the reader’s scales are mentioned, please don’t take this as any sort of allusion to them being pale/light-skinned! i tried to take care and make sure i wasn’t implying that in how i wrote it, but please tell me if it reads like that this work is set in the same universe as strawberry sunday but can be read as a standalone! there is no continuing plotline between fics in this universe, they simply take place in the same world/magic system and may have overlapping characters (neos may pop up in more than one work!) ❧ author’s note: y’all. get ready for this one. no spoilers but renjun and reader r both crazy and nobody should be subjected to them except each other. like they both look at the other and think “i could fix them but whatever the fuck is wrong with them is infinitely funnier to me” but they’re both Wrong. they could not fix the other. i don't want what they have but good for them. anyway as always i had way too much fun writing this that it went over my projected word count and i hope y’all have a lot of fun reading it too

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ explore the strawberry sunday universe more here!

“Would you shut up?” You sat back up, grabbing him by the hair.

“Why?”

“I’m trying to kiss you again, idiot.”

2608, 2610, 2612…

The numbers of the study rooms you passed by went up, up, up, as you continued your hunt. You knew he’d be here. It was the day before the first test in your Linguistics in Magical Creatures Studies class, meaning he was going to be holed up in the library until closing time. Now it was just a matter of finding him. Somewhere quiet, obviously, which was why you’d completely skipped the first floor with its wide-open “collaboration areas.” The second floor was all bookshelves and private study rooms that would hold four or five students at most. You peered into the narrow window on each painted metal door as you walked down the hall. While the first floor was recently renovated with new technology and upgrades such as the “collaboration areas” and bright pops of your university’s school colors that made for great promotional photos to put on the website and pamphlets to hand out to new students, this floor hadn’t had seen anything more than a janitor in a good couple decades. The musty, stale smell of old, unused books was all around you, the air conditioning hummed and clicked irregularly, all the furniture had ugly, outdated patterns, and the exactly three desktop computers they did have in a far back corner were practically as old as you. Which, in the digital age, meant that they were artifacts belonging in a museum.

And of course, sitting at very last one, as if he had been hiding behind all of these bookshelves from you personally, was Huang Renjun.

Renjun was sat in the wooden chair facing the computer, clearly deep in thought. He had one foot propped up on the wide chair seat as both of his hands were on the archaic-looking keyboard, speedily typing something out. He wore a pair of jeans, yellow hoodie, and a red backwards baseball cap kept his hair out of his face. An open energy drink can and empty bag of chips on the desk next to him belied that he had already been there for some time.

Now that you had found your target, you put on a burst of speed, stalking up to him from the side and smacking your hand down on the tabletop beside him. “Renjun.”

The human jumped in his seat, looking up from his screen to you. Taking his hands from the keyboard, he made a couple quick clicks on the mouse as he used the other to take his headphones out of his ears. “Y/N. Fucking hell… is your new strategy this semester to give me a heart attack and kill me?”

“If murder was on the table as part of our little academic rivalry, don’t you think I would’ve just drowned you after our Intro course freshman year?” You asked, tilting your head innocently. After all, you were a siren, that would be much easier than scaring him into an early cardiac episode.

Huang Renjun was not your friend. Not necessarily an acquaintance either, you’d known him for going on four years now, since your first class on your first day of college. The two of you were in the same Introduction to Magical Creatures Studies class. He had sat in the very front row, you just behind him in the second row. When your professor had asked an open question to the class, both you and Renjun eagerly blurted out the answer, Renjun just a millisecond before you. Dr. Li gave him the credit, and also requested that you two raise your hands in the future. And from then on you hated Huang Renjun.

Well, hate may be a strong word. You overlapped in at least two classes every semester being in the same major, and were both chronic overachievers. The first to raise your hands when a question was asked, studying in the library until closing (separately), and visiting professors’ office hours just to discuss topics from class further. Your professors noticed this. Some would pit the two of you against each other, and others would try to pair you up, whether on projects, research, or just in general, as a meeting of the minds or whatever. And you two would get your project done, pocket your As, and part ways again. Academic rival slash frenemy was the best way you could describe who Huang Renjun was to you.

“Who knows, you might still, if they ask me to carry the banner,” he muttered, picking his pen up and spinning it between his fingers.

This was your last semester, both you and Renjun were graduating in just a few months. At commencement, each department picked one “outstanding student” to lead the progression, carrying a flag with the department’s name and seal on it. This semester it was Magical Creatures Studies’ turn to select a student for the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, and your program head had already heavily implied that they could choose either you or Renjun, but they hadn’t made their final decision yet.

This was actually a pretty good segue into what you were really here to talk to him about. Pulling your lips into an alluring smirk, you nodded, “You’re right. It doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to figure out that—”

“A fucking what?” He cut you off, his face scrunching up as he blinked at you in confusion.

“Obviously it’s going to be one of us two, since we’re the two best students in the program.”

“Well, yes.” He nodded, seeming to let go of what had presumably been another one of your jumbled human malaphors. You admittedly hadn’t been living among humans for terribly long, and for some reason their idioms just didn’t stick in your brain very well.

“I mean, we not only are dedicated to the field itself and the content we study in class, but the program too. We probably know everybody in it, professors and students, right? Between the two of us?”

Renjun considered this for a moment. “Yeah, probably. We’ve both taken on a lot of SI and tutor opportunities for lower-level classes.”

“Right. So, you know those forums the school has on the online class platform? The general message boards?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I’m going to need you to sit tight with me on this until I finish talking, okay?” You pointed at him sternly. He nodded slowly. “Good. Back in the fall, about the end of September, I was on the message boards, just browsing around killing time. I was in the Tips & Advice section and saw this post. It was a gryphon who was losing feathers on one specific spot on her wing, and she didn’t know why. The witch she went to didn’t know why, nobody could figure it out. I was about to reply asking if it was her left or right, when I saw that somebody else already had. It was her left, and she’s a lefty. The same person replied again, asking if she sleeps with her wings out or not. She sleeps with them out. It turns out she was stress-preening in her sleep. Username: dr_magic2303. A couple weeks later, same message board, Tips & Advice, a human is suddenly producing dark purple goop from his feet but it’s so slippery he can’t even leave to go see a doctor or a witch and he was typing the post from his bathroom. Within an hour, this Dr. Magic is back telling him someone’s put an aether ooze hex on him, and to sit down and scoot on his butt to the kitchen and gather up all these ingredients for a cleansing foot bath. And if he doesn’t have them, then he’ll have to butt-scoot his way to an apothecary or call one who does home deliveries. Now people are posting on there specifically asking Dr. Magic to come heal all their magical aches and pains.”

Renjun stared at you, unblinking. The pen had gone still in his hand.

You breathed in, continuing, “I tracked this Dr. Magic all the way back to their first post in the first week of fall semester of this year. Now, I’ve been trying to figure out who they are on my own, and I’ve made a lot of progress on who they aren’t. But I’m going to lose access to those message boards once we graduate at the end of the semester. I know Dr. Magic has to be an MCS major, there’s no way they would be able to have to breadth, depth, and flexibility of knowledge by just Googling this stuff. And you and me, Renjun, I know we can do this. Not only do we know MCS, but we know the department, the people in it. It has to be us.”

He was still staring at you, mouth slightly agape. Then, his whole demeanor shifted. He dropped his leg so that both his feet were on the ground, and he resumed spinning the pen.

“Okay. I’ll help you.” He nodded thoughtfully. “If you’ll do something for me.”

“Do what?” You straightened up.

“I’ll tell you after we find Dr. Magic.”

You crossed your arms. “No, tell me now or no deal.”

“I tell you after, but you can still say no then if you don’t want to do it.” He bargained.

“That just sounds even more concerning, Renjun. Tell me now or I’ll do it myself.”

“I’m hurt. What happened to ‘it has to be us?’”

“I’m a siren, I know how to sweet talk. Don’t take it personally.” You snorted. “Now, what do you want from me?”

“You’re a siren,” he echoed plainly, as if that were all the explanation you needed.

“And you’re a genius.” You retorted. “Tell me now or I walk out.”

“I... want to experience siren venom. For science.”

Oh, you could kiss him right now, no deal necessary. He was meeting your gaze head-on, a slightly unhinged glint in his eye. Not a hint of fear, just a craving for new experiences, unbridled curiosity. Yeah, he was a bit crazy, you were realizing four years on, and you wanted him.

“You’re insane.”

He leaned back in his seat, putting his hands up in front of him in an ‘I-don’t-care’ gesture, “If you don’t want to find Dr. Magic—”

“I didn’t say no, I said you’re insane,” you corrected him with a grin, dragging your eyes up and down his form as he sat so confidently, negotiating with a siren like it was any average Tuesday for him.

“So do we have a deal?” He set his pen down and held a hand out to you.

“You help me find Dr. Magic, then I’ll spit in your mouth.” You momentarily thought about the disparity in division of labor on that, but decided not to point it out aloud. Easiest handshake of your life. “Deal.”

You wanted to eat him alive.

“You’ve tried IP tracking?” Renjun asked, scrolling through your word document of notes that you’d accumulated on Dr. Magic.

“‘You’ve tried IP tracking?’” You mimicked him under your breath, making your voice so high-pitched to the point of mocking.

He rolled his eyes.

This was your first meet-up to try to hunt down Dr. Magic together. It was a couple weeks after he had agreed to help you in the first place. There was a test and some assignments in a few of your classes to get through first before either of you had enough spare time to dedicate to this. But now the two of you were back in the library, having taken a study room on the second floor and set up with your own laptops. You’d sent him your notes to look through on it while you perused the message board for any new posts from Dr. Magic.

“You do know that any geographical location an IP address can give you will just be the city, right? It’s not like the movies,” you snorted, dropping your voice back down to your normal intonation as you shook your head. “Anyway, I did do some extra legwork with the IPs, and matched most of them to desktop computers here in the library. I think the others are a personal device, their laptop or something.”

“They’re all different.”

You tutted at him, “Oh, you sweet Thursday’s child…”

“That’s not the say—”

“They’re all somehow on other continents. Now, I don’t think Dr. Magic teleporting abroad and cross-dimensionally to make forum posts.”

“VPN?”

“Definitely. They’re covering their tracks, they almost never use their own device, and when they have to, they use a VPN to cover up the IP address of it.”

He made a noise of acknowledgement, eyes still focused on his screen.

Then, something on the forum caught your eye. “Oh! Right here. Thirty-six minutes ago, a dryad posted that she can’t sprout daffodils from her body anymore. Every other plant and flower are fine, except daffodils. She posted it specifically asking Dr. Magic if they know what’s wrong with her.”

“Huh.” Renjun’s brow furrowed. “Just daffodils?”

“That’s what it says,” you confirmed, making a few clicks on your computer. “And… ‘notify me.’”

“You can turn on notifications for forum posts?”

“You can’t,” you informed him smugly. “But one of the sirens in my pod, he’s got a bunch of CompSci friends who I paid to write a browser extension for me that bookmarks forum posts and sends me email notifications when anybody replies to them. So I’ll know exactly when Dr. Magic responds.”

“You…”

“Have definitely spent too much time, energy, and money on this, I know. Sunken cost fallacy, look it up.”

“I was going to say ‘are insane,’” he breathed out, his voice a mixture of awe and disbelief.

When you looked up from your computer at him, you saw that he had a curious gaze fixated on you, eyes narrowed slightly, mouth parted, and head tilted ever so slightly to the side.

You leaned forward minutely, holding his eye contact. “Takes one to know one, Junnie.”

He looked down at his keyboard, shifting in his seat before he looked back up at you. “Why are you calling me that?”

“Do you not like it?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“So you do like it.” You smirked.

He frowned. “I didn’t say that either.”

“Well do you?”

“Answer my question.”

“Answer mine.”

“I asked first.”

“Ooh, how very primary school,” you teased, setting your chin in your hand.

“It’s only fair.” He pointed out.

“We could flip a coin.”

“Y/N.”

“Junnie.”

The human sighed, holding your eye contact wordlessly, looking entirely unamused.

You finally gave in with a casual shrug. “I just am.”

“Seriously? We’ve known each other for four years and you’ve never called me that—you’ve called me plenty of other things—but now suddenly you’ve got a nickname for me?”

“I’m not trying to be derogatory with it, if you’re worried about that,” you clarified. “Just sort of happened. I’m a siren, I flirt with cute people, sorry. Do you want me to stop calling you that?”

He ran his fingers through his hair, pushing some off his face as he turned his focus back down to his screen. “It’s fine.”

“Anyway, I bookmarked the new forum post, so it’ll go on the board.”

“The board?”

“I, uh, I may be using a spare wall in my apartment to host a conspiracy theory board with you know, the red string and thumbtacks and stuff…” You admitted quietly.

“Can I see it?”

“Ho-ly shit,” Renjun breathed out, staring up at the multiple time-stamped printouts of forum posts, pictures of classmates and faculty, sticky notes, and yards of red string that you had pinned to a blank wall in your apartment.

You stood next to him, gazing up at your creation with a strange mixture of pride and embarrassment. This was the first time you’d let someone see this, and you were kind of glad it was Renjun. He actually seemed impressed. You were sure that any of your friends and family would be weirded out at best, and very concerned at worst.

“Yeah, I’m adding color copies off the school printers to the invoice I’m sending Dr. Magic at the end of all this.”

“You’re sending them an invoice for your self-assigned mission to hunt them down?” He snorted.

“Yup. It’s their fault for not using their school-issued login.” You crossed your arms. “Makes them enigmatic.”

Your classmate pointed to one of the headshots. “Is that Dr. Li?”

“Did you think our scope was narrowed to just students? Faculty have access to the message boards, too. And we’ve learned everything we know from our professors, so they obviously have the knowledge and skill to be Dr. Magic.”

“And their names also start with Doctor.” He added dryly, which you took to be a joke.

You decided that it wasn’t at your expense, though, and after giving a short chuckle, continued on with your explanation of why you specifically had your program head up on the board. “When I was grilling Dr. Li for information in the fall, he was giving me very duplicitous answers. Pointed me towards a freshman who I swear didn’t even know the difference between Arctic sirens and glacial sirens.”

“You think it was a diversion.”

“Obviously.”

Renjun tapped his chin thoughtfully. “What sort of questions were you asking him?”

“I couldn’t straight up ask him if he was Dr. Magic. So I was asking him things like... other than you and me, who did he think was the best student in the program, that kind of stuff. Said that kid reminded him of you and me on that first day of Intro to MCS.” You couldn’t help but let out an indignant scoff at the idea. “Can you believe? Didn’t know the difference between Arctic and glacial sirens…”

“Who was it?”

“Some basilisk in one of his Intro classes last semester. Uh…” You snapped your fingers as you tried to remember his name. “Seunghan! Hong Seunghan!”

“Seriously?” The human turned to look at you incredulously, clearly offended at the comparison as well.

“Seriously!”

He clutched at his chest like he was about to have a heart attack. “That’s who he thinks is the next us? I was an SI for that class…”

“I know! He’s not the brightest tool in the shed, huh?”

“So close, Y/N. So close…” He sighed.

“It almost completely threw me off my search for Dr. Magic. I figured I needed to seriously step up my game in his undergrad research or something.” You shook your head at the horrible memory. “Then I realized he might have been trying to get me to do exactly that.”

“Huh.” Renjun folded his arms over his chest as he looked away, pretending not to seem interested. “You did research with Dr. Li last semester?”

“Don’t give me those kicked puppy dog eyes, you’re doing research with Dr. Kwon this semester and she’s like, my academic idol!” You pointed at him accusatorily.

“And Dr. Li is mine!”

You waved your arms in front of you, shaking yourself out of the academic envy-induced frenzy you’d gotten worked up into. “We’re getting off-topic. We’re here to catch Dr. Magic, remember?”

“Right…” He took a deep breath, turning back to the conspiracy wall.

As Renjun studied your work, you studied him. You had a strand of fairy lights clipped up above the conspiracy wall for light and ambiance (mostly ambiance), and they now lit his features from the front. He didn’t have a baseball cap on today, leaving his brown hair to fall over his forehead, down past his eyebrows and just into his eyes. He blinked and shook his head slightly. A piece had presumably been bothering him. The curving slope of the bridge of his nose, his lips, his chin that he still had one hand propped up to hold, a finger tapping against his cupid’s bow like a metronome. You listened closer, curious if it would be mimicking the beat of his heart. The tapping was just slightly slower than his heart, and would stop if he found something that he took particular interest in, then start back up when he moved on again.

Not that you were going to tell him, but you were double motivated to find Dr. Magic now. Seeing Renjun under your venom was going to be a reward all on its own. You understood full well why he felt like he needed to ask you as part of an exchange like this, but he seemed to greatly underestimate his own selling value. Which was good for you. This was a win-win-win in your eyes.

Thinking of the deal made you curious, though. He had that request ready to go almost like…

“So, do you want to be petrified by a basilisk, too?”

Renjun didn’t take his eyes off the wall. “Already have been.”

“Really?”

“My friend Mark is a basilisk. When he had just gotten his powers a couple years ago and couldn’t control them, he kept accidentally petrifying his human roommate. So I figured out when it was most likely to happen, invited myself over and hid his sunglasses. It was strange, being able to think but not speak, see but not blink, and telling my muscles to move and not having them obey.” He casually detailed what sounded like one of the most horrifying experiences ever to you, leaning in towards a specific post from November. “But it only lasted one minute and twenty-nine seconds.”

You stared at him with both admiration and alarm. “You manufactured an opportunity to get petrified.”

“I knew he wouldn’t do it if I asked. He’s a wimp. That, and he couldn’t do it on command at the time, even if he did agree.”

“Have you had your blood drank?”

“Yup.”

“Been flying?”

“How so?” His eyes flicked over to you for a second, and you were glad that you had relaxed again with the more casual conversation.

“With a gryphon, phoenix, take your pick.” You shrugged.

“Uh-huh.”

“Do you have a list for this stuff or something?”

“Written down, no. But I suppose I have a mental list.”

“Poisoned by a wyvern?”

“Would have to find one first.”

You felt your eyes bug out of your head. “You want to be poisoned by a wyvern? You know there’s no cure for that, right?”

“Yes, I took the same class that you did on them last spring.” He reminded you tersely. Your head jerked back minutely, surprised for a second that he had noticed, remembered, and brought it up. The two of you didn’t have a spat in that class, taking an ‘ignore and pretend the other doesn’t exist’ approach that semester when you could, and hadn’t mentioned it since. Seeming to realize what he’d done, Renjun rushed to move on, “So I also know that there’s no cure because they went extinct hundreds of years ago.”

“Supposedly.”

“You think they’re still out there?”

“Maybe.”

“Hm.” He stepped to the side to read over the next post from the first week of December.

You scoffed. “Okay, coming from the guy who believes in aliens.”

“We haven’t explored all of space. But we know what habitats wyverns lived in, and they’re not there anymore.”

“They could’ve adapted, gone somewhere else,” you tried to argue. “I’m not exactly splashing around the ocean right now, am I?”

“Where did they go, then?”

“I... I don’t know,” you admitted, holding yourself by your arms protectively.

“Hmph.”

You tightened your grip, swallowing hard against the lump threatening to grow in your throat. “I just don’t want to believe they’re gone, okay?”

“So this isn’t a scientific hypothesis, but some rosy daydream?” Renjun’s disapproval of the lack of academic rigor in your argument was clear in his tone as his eyes never left your wall, following a red string up to your next connection for Dr. Magic.

“I don’t want to believe that wyverns went extinct because that means that sirens could too! Alright?” You finally snapped, hands squeezing tightly around your biceps as your claws came out with the raw burst of emotion. “I know that Magical Conservation was just some class to you, but I had to sit there and take notes on how exactly the native habitats of sirens—me, my friends, my family—are shrinking, and could theoretically lead to our extinction, and then write a discussion post on it after like it was some intellectually stimulating bit of information. So yeah, maybe I like to imagine that there’s still wyverns out there somewhere, because it gives me a modicum of hope that after everything, there could still be sirens, too. Sorry that that’s not academic enough.”

The image of Renjun that you had been yelling at in front of you was wavering as tears swam in your vision. He’d turned around to listen, mouth parting as he seemed to immediately realize his mistake. The human nodded regretfully, running a hand through his hair before finally picking his words.

“I’m sorry, Y/N. I didn’t mean to be so dismissive. I-I misread the tone of the discussion. Sirens aren’t wyverns, and you won’t meet the same fate they might have. Siren advocacy and conservation groups are making huge progress. The world now is a lot different than it was hundreds of years ago,” Renjun said, and you could hear both the remorse and firm belief in his tone. “And who knows, maybe there are still some wyverns out there. I could be wrong... it’s been known to happen before.”

You took a deep breath, your claws receding back into your fingers and just leaving your normal fingernails. As you looked down at your arms, though, you let out a sigh.

“Damn, I got myself.” You clicked your tongue in your throat regretfully, spotting a few drops of what looked like molten silver metal welling to the surface where you’d punctured your skin.

“Ooh,” Renjun winced sympathetically. “Do you have some… bandages?”

“Even better, I’ve got running water.” You started towards the door, then noted that there were no footsteps behind you. Turning back around, you looked at the human knowingly. “Do you want to watch, Renjun?”

He perked up. “Please?”

“Come on,” you jerked your head, holding your arms level as you shuffled towards your kitchen.

Thankfully, you hadn’t been nearly deep enough to get your scales, just the skin overtop. Turning the kitchen faucet on, you grabbed one of your sleeves, then looked at your classmate imploringly.

“A little help, Junnie?” You nodded towards your other arm, where the end of your sleeve was getting close to your blood.

“Oh, sure.” He surged forward to help you roll up the other one.

“I know you know this but be careful not to touch my blood,” you reminded him, finally pulling up the sleeve you’d started on well enough. Siren blood was a neurotoxin to humans—and not the fun kind like your venom, but a proper ‘kill you in an excruciatingly painful way’ kind.

“Uh-huh, got it.”

A couple drops on your left and a drop on your right had run down to your elbows, and you just managed to catch yourself so that they dripped into the sink and not onto your counter (or gods forbid, Renjun). Looking over to make sure he was watching, you stuck your left bicep under the stream of water first. The ocean blue scales that peeked through your skin shimmered in the kitchen lights directly above your head. Thankfully you hadn’t come anywhere close to nicking one of those. That would’ve actually hurt. Within a second of touching the water your skin had meshed itself back together. You turned your arm to rinse off the blood, then brought it back out to show that there was no scar left. Doing the same with the other, it healed just as quick, no mark left behind to indicate that anything had ever happened.

“Yep…” Renjun breathed out as you grabbed a hand towel and went to dry off your arms. “I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of that.”

“How many does that make?” You giggled.

“What?”

“How many creatures have you seen magically heal themselves? What number am I?”

“You make me sound so…”

“Like a common MCS whore?”

“I was going to say clinical, but damn, tell me how you really feel, Y/N.”

Both of you laughed, and you put the hand towel back.

“You’re the first siren,” Renjun answered your question genuinely anyway.

You hummed as you mulled this over. “I’ll take it.”

He made a dramatic motion of wiping sweat off his forehead, and you reached forward to smack his forearm. You two laughed again.

After a bout of comfortable silence, your eyes settled on him again, still thinking about exactly how you’d accidentally stabbed yourself in the first place.

“I forgive you, by the way,” you said. “I don’t think I said that.”

“You didn’t.” He nodded. “Thank you.”

“You really mean all that? You think I’ll—we’ll be okay? Sirens?”

“Of course I mean it. Or I wouldn’t have said it. It’s the most scientifically plausible. I did take that Magical Conservation class seriously, you know. I know it couldn’t have meant the same thing for me as it means to you, but I did my final paper on siren conservation projects in the Arctic. The progress that’s being made there is incredible. I-I don’t want to tell you about your own species’ problems, obviously, but—”

“I did mine on siren conservation in the tropics.” You let out a dry chuckle at the flawless symbiosis. “You can tell me about your paper sometime, Renjun.”

“And I’d love to hear about siren conservation in the tropics.”

“Ah, ‘a meeting of the minds.’” You did your best impression of Dr. Li, thinning your voice out to sound like an elderly man, which garnered a smile from Renjun. “Isn’t this what our professors always wanted?”

“Uh-oh. We’re giving them exactly what they want.” He shook his head ruefully. “Quick, you need to start yelling at me about something.”

“Well you need to say something obnoxious first.”

Another gentle lull in the conversation, and you watched as Renjun looked around your apartment a lot more carefully than when you two had first entered. Your destination then had been solely the conspiracy wall, but now he seemed to be really taking it in.

“So why don’t you have like… a fish tank or something?” He asked.

“Because that would be cruel! Imagine if someone kept you in a 2-foot by 2-foot box!” You jabbed a finger into his chest accusatorily.

He held his hands up in surrender. “You’re right. That was a stupid question.”

“I’m glad you said it, because I was about to.”

“So why don’t you reply? To the posts.” Renjun asked curiously, back to trolling the message boards for new Dr. Magic posts. You two were holed up in your second floor study room again. “You’ve been tracking Dr. Magic so closely, you’re getting to these posts before they do, and you can help all these students, too. So why don’t you just reply instead?”

Yours and Renjun’s search for Dr. Magic had been going on for a month now, and he’d been proving himself useful. He’d finally convinced you to rule out Dr. Li as a suspect when he found a message board post made from a school computer while Dr. Li was away at a conference giving a presentation. Confirmed to be done at the exact same time. So you’d found another wrong person, but you still didn’t feel any closer to the right person. The remaining people felt like they were going to turn out to be dead ends, and there was nobody good to rule in either.

Spring break was coming up in a few weeks, which meant that commencement preparations would be starting, which meant that the colleges would be announcing who would be chosen to carry their banners, which meant the actual students who were going to be chosen would be told at least a week or two ahead of time. Every time you thought about that you wanted to bite something. Maybe there was some ancestral link between sirens and werewolves. Another paper waiting to be written.

“They don’t want me. They want Dr. Magic.” You told Renjun, hating the irritable edge in your voice when you addressed him. You weren’t upset with him, you were just anxious in general. He didn’t deserve to have you take it out on him.

“Right. Sorry…”

“No, Renjun, I’m sorry,” you sighed, taking the wood pencil out of your mouth that you had been gnawing on. “I just want to get this Dr. Magic stuff over with before midterms because you and I are both going to get super busy studying for midterms, and then no matter which one of us gets picked to carry the banner, that’s going to suck up a lot of time preparing for commencement too. I shouldn’t have snapped at you though, sorry.”

He offered you a small smile. “It’s okay, I get it. It’s another deadline. But it’s a group project, remember? We’ve got this, Y/N.”

You nodded. “Yeah, I know. Just feeling the pressure. I’m going to get something from the vending machine. You coming?”

“No, I’ll keep chugging along.”

“Okay. You want anything?”

“Nah. Thanks, though.”

“Alright,” you nodded, standing up and rolling your neck out. “I’m going to stretch my legs while I’m up, so I’ll be a few.”

“I won’t sound the alarm then.” He gave you a two-fingered salute as you headed to the door.

You meandered around the second floor, taking your sweet time to get to the stairs. There was a vending machine on the second floor, but it had a limited selection. The good snacks were all in the vending machines on the first floor, by the collaboration zones. Your back cracked all on its own as you plodded down the steps, and you let quiet groans with each one, until you finally landed on the first floor. There was a noticeable hum to the first floor, which only increased as you neared the two-thirds of the floor that was taken up by the collaboration zones. The vending machines were on the boundary of the bookshelves and the open spaces filled with tables and TV monitors and so many students.

Stopping in front of the drinks machine first, you mused over the options for a moment. Picking out your preferred seaweed-infused iced tea—an option you only saw sirens and the really hardcore human health-nuts drink—you then sidestepped to the snacks. It took you just a second to select a pack of mini peanut butter sandwich cookies. Neither peanut butter nor peanuts themselves were in the regular diet of a siren, but Renjun sometimes had the cookies on him for one of his werewolf friends and you’d picked up a taste for them. You would’ve never considered even trying them before hanging out with Renjun. Being an MCS major, you didn’t like to admit it, but your social circle wasn’t very diverse species-wise. You had your siren pod, and you were very happy sticking with them, thank you. Renjun, meanwhile, seemed to be best friends or friendly acquaintances with everything except a wyvern. You knew plenty about other species, after all, you excelled in class. But practical experience, you were finding you seemed to be lacking in. Maybe you should start your own Renjun-esque bucket list. Something to consider after finding Dr. Magic.

Taking a step back over to the drinks machine, you made the split-second decision to get Renjun’s favorite non-caffeinated, non-alcoholic drink. Honeydew melon soda. He had already said that you didn’t need to get him anything, but you wanted to.

“Hey, Y/N!” A cheerful voice greeted you, and you spun around, your two drinks and bag of sandwich cookies in hand.

You already knew who it was going to be, smiling at the familiar face of Ten. He was not only another siren, but specifically a siren from your pod, ocean blue scales and golden eyes matching your own. You threw your arms around his neck to give him a hug. “Ten! Ah, hey!”

“Are those… peanut butter?” He looked at the snack in your hand suspiciously.

“Uh, human study buddy,” you brushed off his concerns nonchalantly.

“Right, gotcha.”

The two of you usually hung out a lot—about as much as you and Renjun were together now, you figured—but since your spare time had been taken up with putting the search for Dr. Magic on full throttle, you were blanking on the last time you’d seen him. The beginning of the semester. Oh shit, you felt so guilty now.

The apology immediately started spilling out of your mouth, “Gods, I am so sorry we haven’t hung out, I wish I could say it was classes, or even research or something, but I’ve got this project. I can’t even really explain it without sounding crazy but—”

“Woah, Y/N, it’s okay,” Ten reassured you with a laugh, the same bright smile on his face as always. “I know how you get when you get really into one of your projects. Just let me know when you’ve finished it, and we can hang. Or if you ever need a break from it, too. It’s fine. If you weren’t a little crazy and obsessive, I wouldn’t be able to recognize you.”

He ruffled your hair with a snicker for good measure, and with your hands full of food, you couldn’t fight back, just huff and try to duck out of the way. But he was genuine about his sentiments, which really did make you feel better.

“Thanks, Ten. I’ll get in touch soon, I promise. I think I’m almost done!” You told him proudly.

“Soon in normal person time or soon in Y/N time?”

“Me time…”

“That’s what I thought. I’ll see you in six months then.”

“I’m not that bad!”

“Remember when I wondered aloud if sirens at the North and South poles were related, and you ended up spending our entire winter break researching that?”

“It only took four weeks!”

“You said it would be a quick search.”

“Exactly! People will dedicate their entire lives to that kind of research! I vastly condensed it!”

He shook his head fondly at the memory, elbowing you gently. “Get back to your project so you can finish early again and we can hang out soon, okay? And scoot, I’m trying to use the vending machine. You’re always in my way, I swear.”

You playfully pretended to block him, laughing as he nudged you out of the way with his shoulder. Starting back off towards the stairs, you turned around to give a cheery, “See you, Ten!”

“Bye, Y/N!” He waved to you with one hand, punching in the vending machine code with the other.

In better spirits having seen your friend, you traipsed up the stairs with extra pep in your step. Except Renjun wasn’t in your study room. Huh. Well, nothing in the rules saying a guy can’t take a bathroom break.

Setting his melon soda down next to his laptop, you plopped back down in your chair and kicked your feet up on the table. You ripped open your peanut butter sandwich cookies and cracked open your tea. The cookies were sweet, and while you didn’t have any oceanic reference for what peanut butter tasted like (you were told that “nutty” was a flavor profile unto itself, which wasn’t very helpful), you had decided that you liked it.

Waking your laptop back up, you saw that you had a new email, and shot up in your seat when you saw the subject.

dr_magic2303 replied to a post.

8 minutes ago.

Holy fucking shit, 8 minutes ago. While you were in the library? They could still be there. You looked around frantically. Where the fuck was Renjun when you needed him? Shooting to your feet, you snatched your phone from the table and rushed to throw the door open. Into Renjun’s face.

He stumbled back, holding his face as he let out a string of curses.

“Shit! Sorry, Junnie!” You didn’t sound all too sorry as you bounced on your feet, antsy to get a move on with your search. “No time for an ice pack though. Dr. Magic just replied to that dragon post we had bookmarked eight minutes ago. Which means that they’re probably still in the library! We need to go look for them right now!”

You took off in the direction of the desktop computers on this floor, keeping your voice at a fervent whisper-yell. The second floor computers were their favorite, according to the IPs.

“I know!” Renjun hurried after you, still clutching his nose. “I saw the email, and I tried to call you, but you left your phone in the study room.”

Checking your phone, you did in fact have a missed call from Renjun from 6 minutes ago. Well shit.

“So I went to go get you, but you weren’t at the vending machines, so I came back up to the study room and then nearly got my nose broken.”

You looked over your shoulder at him with wide eyes. “You went to get me? Not look for Dr. Magic on the freshest lead we’ve ever had? When they were quite possibly around the corner?”

The two of you had arrived at the desktops, and there was nobody in sight. One was awake, on the account login screen, the other two asleep on the ancient screensavers. You let out a heavy sigh, looking over at Renjun.

“I went to get you because this is your thing, not mine. I don’t know, I’d figured you’d want the satisfaction of taking the mask off them.”

You nodded. “Thanks, Junnie. Next time, though, just get them.”

“And how about you keep your phone on you?”

“So we both fucked it up.”

He gave you a one-shouldered shrug. “There’s still three more floors, Y/N.”

“Right, come on. You take the first, I’ll go up to the fourth since I smacked you with the door.”

The other floors were busts, and when you finally met back up with Renjun in your study room, you were glad to have your cold bottle of tea waiting for you. Knocking back a third of it in one go, you let out a noise of relief. Renjun had already opened the soda you’d gotten him.

“Thanks, by the way.” He held it up gratefully before taking a sip.

“You’re welcome.”

“And, I’m sorry. That I let Dr. Magic get away.”

“We don’t even know what floor they were posting from yet. They’ve could’ve been on the fourth floor and would’ve been gone by the time you got there anyway.” You brushed away his apologies. “Or they could’ve been on the second and been a psycho and you would’ve been a poor defenseless human all by yourself.”

“Oh, right, without my big strong siren to protect me.” He scoffed. “Woe is me.”

“Exactly,” you laughed, shutting your laptop. “Anyway, I’ll take a look at the IP later. Who knows, they might not have even been in the library. Might’ve been one of those rogue VPN posts.”

“Yeah, maybe.” He looked over you packing up your things. “You heading out?”

You nodded, zipping up your bag and tossing it onto your shoulder. “Prior arrangements. Sorry to cut this short, completely forgot about it when we agreed to meet up.”

“You’re so popular.”

“I know!” You mimicked his sarcastic tone, holding the door open with your foot as you stopped in the threshold. “Oh, hey— the midterm in MCS Linguistics. It’s my only one this semester, I’ve just got papers in all my other classes. Do you want to study together for that?”

“Yeah, sure, sure.”

“First session Saturday? My place for lunch?”

Renjun grimaced, presumably remembering your typical stock of pantry items tailored to a siren’s food preference. “I’ll pack a lunch.”

“Cool. See you in class, Junnie!” You waved to him cheerily as you took off for the faculty advisor meeting with Dr. Kwon that you were going to need to run across campus to be on time for.

“What is it?” Renjun set his book down where he was sat across your coffee table from you, an inquisitive eyebrow quirked up at you.

“What? Nothing.” You bit down on your lip, eyes boring holes into your computer screen.

“No, it’s not ‘nothing.’ You’ve been staring at me ever since I got here, while also refusing to make eye contact with me. What? Something in my teeth? My hair look bad?”

Normally that would’ve made you chuckle—he was wearing a backwards baseball cap again today—but you just bit down harder on your lip and shook your head.

“Now you’re refusing to talk?” He scoffed. “Did you get hexed or something? I can’t believe you’re refusing to talk.”

“No, I can talk,” you insisted. “What uh, what’d you get for number four? On the review packet?”

“Don’t tell me you’re still stuck on number four. Y/N, I’m almost done, and there’s twenty-five questions on this.”

“I’m not, I finished and went back, it was just one that I didn’t—”

But Renjun had grabbed your computer and turned the screen around, and you knew he could see that you had only done the first one. You buried your face in your hands, your skin prickling uncomfortably with shame. Your friend’s sigh was audible, but surprisingly, the next thing said wasn’t a string of derision. Instead, you heard the shuffle of clothes against your rug, and then he was sitting shoulder-to-shoulder and knee-to-knee with you.

“Y/N, what’s going on with you today? Or, not today, the past couple days? You weren’t all there in class yesterday either. I left it alone then because it was Dr. Hyun, and nobody is ever all there for her classes but— what’s wrong?”

You slowly shook your head.

“You can’t tell me?”

You nodded.

“Okay. Is it bad? Like, dangerous?”

You shook your head.

“Alright, that’s good.” The relief was audible in his voice. “Is it family? Or, pod?”

You shook your head.

“School?”

You nodded.

“Alright, yeah. A lot going on. Is it like burn out?”

You shook your head.

“So, new stuff?”

You nodded.

He put an arm around your shoulders. “I’m sorry, Y/N. I know you already had a lot. Getting this midterm over with will be one more thing off your checklist, right? That’ll open a spot for this new thing.”

With a sniffle, you nodded.

“Ah, but you’re not going to be any good studying like this.” He sighed again, dropping his arm from around your shoulders and his presence shifted away from your side. “Come on, quick field trip. Then we’ll come right back to the MCS Linguistics grind. Sound good?”

You finally took your hands from your face to look up. Renjun was standing right next to you, offering you a hand. You tentatively put yours in his, and he tightened his grip to pull you up to your feet.

The two of you ended up in a froyo shop down the street from your apartment. You gleefully picked a gummy shark off the top of your swirl, biting the head off first before tossing the rest in your mouth. Renjun lifted a meticulously curated spoonful of froyo and toppings to his mouth, satisfaction on his face as he tasted his perfect bite. You watched in amusement as he went to start creating his next scoop that had the precise ratio of yogurt and every single topping he had chosen—each partitioned to their own area atop the froyo. You decided to save your second big gummy shark for last, and took a big spoonful from the melting edge of your froyo.

“Why not me?” Renjun asked abruptly, his gaze still on the dessert in front of him.

“Huh?” Your jaw dropped. How could he have known what—

“You haven’t asked me if I’m Dr. Magic. Why not?”

Ah, Dr. Magic. Of course.

“You were my first guess, and the first person I ruled out back in like September,” you admitted with a shrug.

His head snapped up at that. “What? Why?”

“Because you’re such an arrogant, neurotic overachiever that you’d want credit if you did all this. You wouldn’t use an alias.”

“Oh. Huh.” Renjun looked between you and his froyo, a sheepish smile coming to his face. “Strangely, that makes me feel better.”

You watched a dollop of froyo fall off your spoon and plop back into your cup. “And I nabbed your IP address off your laptop the first time we hung out in January and double-checked it with every Dr. Magic post. Just in case.”

“When I was in the bathroom?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Of course you did.”

“Were you taking it as an insult to your intelligence that I had apparently not considered you as an option?”

“Maybe…”

You laughed, and laughed, and laughed. You laughed so hard your sides hurt, there were tears in your eyes, and you genuinely started wheezing. Renjun pretended to roll his eyes, but you saw the smile on his face and knew what he was thinking: success, no more mopey siren.

Once you had enough air back in your lungs to talk, you pointed your spoon at him firmly. “See? Just proving my point. You want people to know you’re smart.”

He crossed his arms. “As if you don’t.”

“Oh, I definitely do. But I know I’m like that.” You put a hand over your chest, looking him dead in the eye. “Do you?”

With your head screwed back on the normal amount, you and Renjun were able to dive back into your study session at your apartment. Several hours into it, though, you noticed Renjun blinking like way too much and constantly rubbing at his eyes. It was to the point where it was distracting for you.

“What’s wrong with your eyes?” You asked bluntly.

That immediately burst the Renjun griping dam (which was really held together with tape and prayers anyway). “The screens hurt my eyes and human blue light glasses don’t do shit and no fairy has let me try theirs out. I know I should probably just take the plunge and buy them but I really can’t justify the price and—”

“Try mine.” You stood up, walking over to a display shelf on the other side of the living room.

“You have a pair? Why? Sirens don’t—”

“You collect magical experiences. I collect magical things.” You said nonchalantly, grabbing the pair of silver frames from where they sat between a phoenix feather (a gift) and a small wristwatch that would tell the correct time until it was put on, then it would be set on the time and date most significant to the wearer in that moment until it was removed. Walking back over to him, you held them out to him insistently, “Here, try them.”

“Oh. Thanks.” Renjun gingerly took them, sliding the arms over his ears and the frames onto the bridge of his nose. The pair you had was a little older, admittedly. You’d picked them up at a novelty shop, so they had some retro charm to them. An older style of frame, thicker lenses. But you thought it added a quaintness to their look. Especially on Renjun, he just looked downright adorable in them.

You sat back down to watch with your head in your hand as his brown eyes blinked from behind the thick lenses, and he looked around your living room like a newborn woodland animal. His face had already relaxed, and he turned his focus down to his laptop screen next, messing with the brightness up, then down. After that, he took out his phone, doing the same with that device.

“Well?” You prompted him, though you truly would’ve been content with watching him look around as if he’d been born colorblind and it were his first time seeing in color. Which, you had an enchanted pair for that too, but he wasn’t colorblind to your knowledge.

The human looked at you, a giddy smile stretching across his face. “They’re perfect! Thanks, Y/N!”

His hand reached up to take them off, but you stopped him.

“Keep them—”

“No, these had to be so expensive!” He protested immediately.

“Just for a week or so,” you finished your sentence pointedly. He was cute, but not that cute. “Make sure you really like them before you buy, okay? If you end up hating them, give them back. If you like them and buy your own pair, you can give them back whenever yours arrive in the mail.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, it’s not like I’m using them. Superior siren eyesight.” You tapped next to one of your eyes for emphasis.

“Thanks for not rubbing it in or anything.”

Scrambling to dial Renjun’s number, you put your phone on speaker as you fervently flicked through all of your Dr. Magic notes. You’d been laying in bed binging some mindless baking competition to numb your brain from all the studying you’d been doing when an email notification had popped up alerting you to a new Dr. Magic post.

“Y/N?” Renjun answered the phone, sounding utterly confused. “What’s—”

“New Dr. Magic post. I ran the IP and they’re in our city!” You blurted out.

“Okay… Well we already knew that, right?”

“Yeah, but this is an IP in our city that they posted from at midnight on a Saturday. Not any of the school computers.” You hit CTRL + F, typing in the string of numbers to quickly cross reference it with your extensive list. “This could be their IP. Like, their actual one, from a personal computer.”

“Oh, yeah. Could be.”

“Can you give me a little more enthusiasm here, Junnie? Did I wake you up or something? It’s only—” You stopped like you’d just walked face-first into a brick wall, eyes locked on the search result.

“Yeah, only quarter after midnight,” he scoffed.

You clicked the next arrow on the search bar, but that was the only match. 1/1 results.

“Y/N?” Renjun called for your attention. “You there?”

You hung up.

Not wanting to lose your nerve, you pressed the doorbell over and over insistently. You could hear the complaining tone of the occupant before his words were even audible.

“Christ, I have neighbors, you know?” Renjun swung open the door with a scowl. The human was in a big, slouching hoodie and pajama pants. His hair was stuck up in a couple different directions, making you think he might’ve just woken up. Except behind him, you could see that his kitchen light was on, and a couple books and his laptop were open on his kitchen table. Late night studying. And the fact that you’d just talked to him on the phone fifteen minutes ago.

“Can I come in?” You requested, fidgeting with the sleeve of your cardigan.

His face immediately softened. “Yeah, of course.”

“Sorry to just show up like this,” you said as you took off your shoes by the front door before following him further into his apartment.

“It’s okay.” He stopped you two in the kitchen, picking up a colorful, patterned cardboard box. “Uh, I was just about to make a midnight snack. Pizza bites, you want some?”

“I… don’t think I’ve ever had them.”

“Perfect, you can try one now then.”

“Mm,” you made a non-committal noise, leaning against his kitchen counter to watch him pour out the frozen food onto a baking sheet.

The oven beeped, and he put the tray in before pressing a couple more buttons.

“So, I was thinking about the Dr. Magic stuff. Not the IP stuff but like… What even is your plan for when you do find Dr. Magic?” Renjun asked as he put the remaining pizza bites in his freezer.

“What do you mean?”

He leaned against the countertop across from you, though in the narrow space of his kitchen, you were practically knee-to-knee. “Like, say we finally find out who they are, we run up to them in the library or on campus or something. Then what? What are you going to do? What are you going to say? You’ve done all this, and I know why you had to. I get it. But, do you know what you’re going to say to them?”

“Probably something along the lines of…” You trailed off, giving an exasperated sigh. Dropping your chin to your chest, you groaned, “Gods, I don’t know.”

“Hey, that’s why you got me. So you can bounce ideas off someone, do a dry run.”

“I thought the words would just come to me, and now that I’m trying, I can’t—”

“It’s fine, Y/N. Let’s think about why you did this. I know it’s really hard to put into words. I mean, I know why you did. I get it. It’s that need to know. Not because you can, but because you have to, right? It’s curiosity in its rawest form. So obviously it’s not going to be some schmaltzy ‘haha I caught you’ spiel or anything.”

Looking up from the kitchen tile to Renjun’s eager features, you shook your head in disbelief. “You’re still helping me… when I know it’s you, Junnie.”

He tilted his head to the side, a comical noise of confusion coming from his mouth, “Uh?”

“I know it’s you, and you know that I know that it’s you.”

“You already ruled me out, because I’m an arrogant—”

“Junnie, you made a post on the forums from your laptop. No VPN. When you knew I was still tracking Dr. Magic’s IP on every post they made, and that I had your IP. That’s not a whoopsie that you make unless you want to be caught.”

The human crossed his arms over his chest, but otherwise seemed entirely calm about being caught. “And you didn’t come in here guns blazing now that you’d caught me, either. Why?”

“I didn’t know how to say it. I mean, you’re right, I only did all this because I needed to know.”

“And now you know.”

“Why now? Why just give up now?” You asked with a shake of your head. “You started posting as Dr. Magic back in August, and I came to you in January. You knew everything I was doing; you could have cruised through the rest of the semester and I’d have never caught you.”

“You wanted to find out who it was by midterms. One less thing on your plate.”

“And now I know…”

“So how does it feel? Finally catching Dr. Magic?”

You wrinkled your nose and sighed, “Bit disappointing. I was right on my first guess.”

“And you immediately dismissed me out of hand for being an arrogant, neurotic overachiever on your first guess,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, but I didn’t really know you then. If I’d known you then like I know you now, I would’ve known as soon as I saw the first post.”

Renjun batted his eyes teasingly. “Aww, Y/N…”

“Doctor underscore magic two, three, zero, three? Twenty-three, oh-three? That’s your birthday, Junnie,” you deadpanned.

“Right.”

Pushing off the counter to stand up straight again, you said, “Anyway, you did help me find Dr. Magic. So, my turn.”

“Oh, no, you seriously don’t have to do that. I rigged the deal—”

“Yeah, about that.” You took a step forward. “How did you think that was going to end up for you, anyway? Were you going to sell somebody else out as Dr. Magic and hope I wasn’t going to talk to them? Spit in your mouth first and ask questions later?”

“I was thinking on my feet.”

“Maybe think laying down next time, Junnie.”

“Ouch.”

“Anyway, come on, you’ll want to sit down for this.” You grabbed his wrist, pulling him towards the living room.

“You don’t need to feel like you have to do this,” he reassured you.

Stopping the two of you in front of the couch, you turned to face him with a smirk. “Believe me when I say that it is going to be a treat unto itself for me to see you under the effects of siren venom. M’kay?”

Renjun’s surprise was evident on his face. “Oh.”

You stepped closer to him, delicately placing a hand on his chest. “Now unless you want me to literally spit in your mouth, I’m going to have to kiss you, to administer the venom.”

His eyes flicked between the hand you had on his chest and your face as he replied. “I’m okay with that—the kissing—if you are.”

“Renjun, I’ve been ready to eat you alive since you said the words ‘I want to experience siren venom for science’ to me.”

“Really?”

“Mhm. So why don’t you sit?” You guided him with the hand against his chest to sit back against his couch. Swinging one leg over his hips, then the other, you lowered yourself onto his lap. “Is this okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he nodded, tentatively settling his hands on your thighs. “Is this okay?”

“More than.” You smiled, looping your arms around his neck. “Now, a couple things, before we get started.”

“We haven’t started?”

“You’ll know it when we do.”

“Right.”

“I know you think you know what siren venom is like, but whatever scientific articles you’ve read, or documentaries you’ve watched, or slides you’ve studied under microscopes in lab, cannot actually prepare you for what it’s like. Which, I imagine is why you want to experience it for yourself.” You smirked down at him as you watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down with a gulp. “So before I actually dose you up with it, I need you to tell me what you’re actually okay with doing and what you’re not. Because once you get my venom in you, you’re going to want to let me do anything and everything to you, up to and including kill you, remember?”

“Well that’s off the table.”

“Good to know,” you snorted, running a fingernail down the nape of his neck. You felt a shudder go through him. “Is this okay?”

“Y-Yeah.” He seemed to be fighting to keep his eyes open. You halted your motions to let him think, and watched in amusement as he blinked his mind clear.

Once enough time had passed, you prompted him, “So?”

“I think just kissing,” Renjun answered. “Like, making out, or whatever. If you want…”

You snickered. “What part of ‘eat you alive’ was I unclear about?”

“The ‘eat’ part, actually. How literal is that?”

“Guess you’ll find out,” you teased. Then, you focused again as you sat back a little. “Okay, making out. Making out means different things to different people. So… we know kissing’s on the table. Tongue?”

“Yeah.”

“Teeth?”

“Where?”

“Waist up. You got somewhere you don’t want them?”

He took a moment to think about this. Then shook his head. “No. You can use them. Anywhere.”

“Same goes for you. Hickies?”

“Giving or receiving?”

“Both. You first.”

“Both are okay. You?”

You were already zeroing in on his neck and a small part of his collarbone peeking out from under his hoodie. “Same. Touching over clothes?”

“Okay, as long as you don’t think it’ll be too much with the venom…”

“Oh, Junnie, everything is going to be too much.” You grinned down at him.

His breathing had picked up pace as the two of you were talking. “You? The touching?”

“Good. Great. Touching under clothes?”

Renjun squirmed underneath you, but maintained your eye contact. “Just under my shirt.”

“Smart boy,” you said approvingly. “Me too.”

“Is that it?” He asked quietly, eyes now flicking down to your lips.

“I think so…” You looked around the room to buy a couple extra seconds of thinking time. When you hadn’t come up with anything else, you looked down at the human below you once more. “Ready, Renjun?”

“Yes.”

You took one final look over him like this, how much he already wanted you before he’d even gotten any of your venom in him, and dragged the tip of your tongue over your bottom lip instinctually. His heartrate jumped, and you wondered if it was fear—if the motion had reminded him perhaps of a hungry predator—or need. Or maybe a bit of both.

But you couldn’t tease him nor yourself any longer, swooping down to connect your mouths. You started off with just a couple light, closed-mouth kisses, to ease him into it. You heard him inhale quickly through his nose, his grip on your thighs tightening minutely. Swiping your tongue across the seal of his lips, you were delighted when he immediately parted his mouth in response, his tongue seeking yours out. You hummed contentedly into his mouth as you started stroking a fingernail down the back of his neck again. At the same time, your venom was beginning to mix in with your saliva, being passed onto Renjun.

Once his jaw started going slack in the kiss, and his hands slowly slid off your legs entirely to rest lamely at his side, you deemed him plenty dosed up. Consciously, you blocked off your venom glands once more. When one particularly drawn-out scratch down the back of his neck finally elicited a noise from him, an involuntary whine, you felt something in you snap. You needed more of that.

“So this is what siren venom feels like…” He mumbled breathily, letting his head loll back against the couch cushion as you kissed a path down his jawline and neck. When you felt his breath hitch in his throat over one particular spot, you decided to take your time there, sucking and nipping a mark into his skin.

When humans were… locked in a lover’s embrace, they let off a certain perfume distinguishable only to sirens—which was what made them the favored prey of sirens for so long. A human under the influence of siren venom? Delectable. And every human’s was unique too, so Renjun under the influence of your venom? Absolutely addictive.

With each kiss you stole from his lips, every nip you left on his neck that you then soothed over with your tongue, you got another taste of it. A sweetness that came with a bite, like ginger candy.

Renjun was still talking, though, his vocal cords vibrating under your lips. “My-My heart’s beating so fast, and I’m so warm—that’s so the ocean water doesn’t feel cold, of course—”

“Would you shut up?” You sat back up, grabbing him by the hair.

“Why?”

“I’m trying to kiss you again, idiot.”

“Oh. Right.” He closed his mouth, looking up at you with glassy eyes, waiting. Gods, he was so pretty like this.

You crashed your lips back on his, a mess of teeth and lips and tongue as he tried to keep up with you. But you knew that your venom was in full effect now, every single one of his nerve endings was approximately three and half times more sensitive. So you were sure it was all a little overwhelming. But he was definitely trying his best, kissing sloppily into your mouth with hungry, desperate whines.

Pulling him back off with your grip in his hair, you traced a thumb over his kiss-swollen bottom lip, cooing over how fucked-out he looked like this. “Oh, baby. Oh, poor Junnie. What’s wrong? Can’t even kiss me properly because it feels too good? Baby’s overwhelmed with just a little bit of kissing?”

He opened his mouth wider, darting the tip of his tongue out to brush against the pad of your thumb. You pushed the finger in his mouth, groaning as he immediately closed his lips around it. “Gods, you’re perfect, Junnie.”

Taking your thumb back out of his mouth just to grab his chin with the same wet digit, you attacked his lips with yours again. Ginger candy. His hands that had been lamely resting at his sides the entire time now fumbled at something in the area where your hips met.

“What? What are you trying to do, baby?” You asked, leaning back to look down. He was grabbing at the hem of his hoodie, unsuccessfully yanking it up towards his head as part of it was stuck under one of your thighs.

“‘m too hot. Please…” He panted, dropping it as he looked up at you pleadingly.

You nodded slowly in understanding, knowing that one of the effects of the siren venom was an increase in body temperature, not to mention what you two were just doing. The collar of another shirt was visible underneath the sweatshirt. “Okay, Junnie, we can take your hoodie off. But only the hoodie. Your other clothes are staying on, understood?”

He nodded quickly, hips bucking up against you. Sweat was beading up on his forehead, his hair getting stuck to the damp skin. You shifted back on his lap so that none of the sweatshirt was under you anymore, grabbing the hem and reaching behind him to yank up from underneath him as well.

“Sit forward for me, baby?” You requested in his ear sweetly.

Renjun obliged as best he could, leaning forward to get his back and shoulders off the couch. You pulled the hoodie up over his head, tossing it off to the side, leaving him in a black t-shirt that certainly couldn’t be helping much either. But having that heavy layer off seemed to provide some relief for him, as he let out a sigh, falling back against the furniture again.

You giggled as you settled back into the crux of his lap again, lacing your fingers together behind his neck. “Is that better now, Junnie?”

He shook his head, and you arched an eyebrow curiously.

“Oh? What’s wrong, then?”

Renjun tugged gently at your cardigan where it had shrugged down to show one of your shoulders. “Please?”

Pulling your bottom lip in between your teeth, you thought this over. You had a tank top on under the cardigan, and both of you were still wearing everything else. Not to mention that you were starting to get a bit warm too. Sirens ran naturally cooler than humans, so you were sure that to him, you felt practically refreshing right now, but you honestly were a bit hot for a siren’s tastes.

Giving a contemplative hum first, you finally relented, “Alright, Junnie. But just my sweater. Everything else stays on, because we didn’t talk about that before the venom, do you understand?”

He rushed to strip you of the knit cardigan, his mouth following his hands’ path down your skin. First on your shoulder, then down your arm. You let the garment drop on the floor behind you as he kissed back up along your shoulder, then over the fabric of your tank top until he got to your collarbone, and finally the hollow of your throat. Fondly stroking the back of his head, the pleased purr that had started in your chest turned into a surprised moan when he licked a long stripe up your throat.

Holding his face in your hands so that your noses brushed, and your lips barely ghosted over each other, you let your breaths mingle in the meager space afforded. Renjun ended your little anticipation game quickly, kissing you tongue-first, and you kissed him back just as eagerly, sucking on his tongue with lewd, wet noises. He moaned into your mouth, his hands grabbing at your waist for purchase first, then slipping and curling into the material of your shirt, bunching it in his fists.

Slowing the pace of your kisses, you eventually sat back, appraising the state he was in. You affectionately ran a hand through his hair as you took in his blown pupils, kiss-swollen lips, and pink cheeks. “Junnie? How are you feeling? Need a break?”

You hadn’t given him another dose of venom since the initial one, which wasn’t very large to begin with. But this was his first time experiencing it, so you wanted to check in. He should be just past the peak of it by now, starting to come down but for all intents and purposes still very much intoxicated. Siren venom wasn’t meant to last very long, after all, it took an adult human less than a minute to drown.

“Need you…” He insisted, arching up towards you.

Indulging him in one, two more feverish kisses, you pulled away once again. “I know, baby. And you’ve been doing so good for me. So I need you to tell me if you need a break. Okay?”

“’kay.” He agreed before you sealed your mouth over his again.

Kissing down from his mouth to just under his jaw, at the same time you trailed a finger down the center of his front until it got to the hem of his t-shirt.

He nodded fervently before you could say or do anything more. “Please… please…”

“Shh, shh, shh,” you quieted him down gently. “Doing so good for me, Junnie. The best.”

You slipped your hands under his shirt, just to stroke his waist. His muscles tensed under your touch, and he let out a sound of satisfaction. He grabbed at your thighs again, but you couldn’t tell if it was an attempt at reciprocity or to have something sturdier to ground himself to than your flimsy tank top. The corner of your lips quirked up as you pressed a couple more kisses down his neck to hover your lips over his pulse point, content to start a new mark there as your hands continued to explore under his shirt. It was when you gently raked your nails down over his pecs that you got the loudest moan out of him yet, and you groaned in response.

“Gods, you’re perfect,” you nuzzled your nose into Renjun’s neck, then pressed a couple relatively chaste pecks to his cheek. “Just perfect…”

Taking your hands back out from his shirt, you silenced his whine at the loss of contact by slotting your lips together once more. You cupped his face with one hand, using the other to take one of his hands off your leg and lace them together, palm to palm. This seemed to make him content once more, especially when you brought your connected hands up to the back of the couch, pinning his behind his head. He squirmed under you, letting out a familiar noise of pleasure into your mouth and squeezing your hand tightly.

You knew the venom was well and truly starting to wear off when Renjun began keeping pace with your slow, lazy kisses, his mouth not as sloppy but no less delightful as it moved in tandem with yours. The thumb of the remaining hand on your thigh started to stroke over your skin, and the hand that you were holding gave yours a gentle squeeze. You gave him one, two last lingering kisses, drinking in the dwindling taste of ginger candy while you could, Renjun matching you beat for beat.

Unlacing your fingers and dropping your hand from his face, you drew back from him. Before you could say anything, though, Renjun grabbed you by the back of the neck and pulled you in for one more kiss, sinking his teeth into your already tender, over-kissed bottom lip. You gasped into his mouth, which gave him the perfect opportunity to intertwine his tongue with yours again on his apparent mission to try to kiss the breath from you. A nigh impossible task for a human to do to a siren, but it definitely felt like he was succeeding. He was crushing his lips against yours so hard you were worried about him drawing blood—not because you would mind the pain, but for fear of his safety if he got a direct hit of your blood in his mouth.

In the back of your mind, you were desperately trying to remember if you had maybe accidentally opened your venom glands a second time later on, but just drew a blank. That wasn’t something you did unaware, it wasn’t automatic, it had to be done on purpose. Then, for a brief moment, you were worried about secondary wave syndrome—some humans break down siren venom in two phases instead of one, and the second one almost always kills them if they’re not brought to a human medical doctor for treatment—and you started running through the symptoms as well as the nearest human emergency rooms in your mind. Burst capillaries in the eyes, refusal of food and water, the hospital three blocks over should have an ER, right? But the kiss didn’t feel like when he’d been intoxicated on your venom before, this one felt deliberate, in control. He was in control. You let out a small moan at the thought, and Renjun’s lone hand on your thigh tightened in response.

Once he finally let you go, you both sat there in silence for a good few seconds, you still on his lap. You stared extra hard at the whites of his eyes. They looked normal. He seemed… normal.

It was rare for either of you to be speechless, much less the both of you.

“Well…” you broke the silence. “That was siren venom. You should drink some water. Stay right here, I’ll get it.”

You climbed off of him, heading into his kitchen. Looking at the oven, you were wondering how the timer hadn’t gone off in that entire time when you saw that it wasn’t on. The words ‘TIMER SET?’ were flashing on the screen at you, and the preheat hadn’t been started either. The pizza rolls had just been slowly defrosting on a pan in the cold oven. You couldn’t help but laugh, reaching into his fridge for his Brita filter then securing a couple cups from the cabinets.

Walking back into the living room, you handed the human his cup of water and remained standing as you took a sip of yours.

“You didn’t start the oven, for your pizza rolls,” you informed him quietly.

“Wh— oh, shit,” Renjun groaned, tipping his head back. “I guess I don’t get to give you your first pizza roll tonight.”

“That’s okay.” You dropped onto the couch next to him, shoulder to shoulder.

“So… that was siren venom,” he breathed out, then took a long gulp of his water. Definitely not second wave syndrome.

“That was siren venom,” you confirmed with a laugh, fondly brushing a piece of sweaty hair off his forehead.

“You were right… I was not prepared,” he admitted with a laugh, taking another drink.

“So do you think you would’ve let me kill you?”

“Yeah. I would’ve given you my credit card info, bank password, spilled all of my friends’ worst secrets, let you kill me, killed someone else if you asked me. God, that was…” He said with wide eyes, shaking his head. But there was a familiar glint in his eye as a smile cracked across his face, “Incredible.”

“Glad you think so,” you giggled, patting his chest. “Now don’t become a venom junkie, okay? I couldn’t live with myself if you did and it was my fault.”

“I won’t. Not really what I meant anyway.”

You grinned slyly at what he seemed to be implying, that it might not have just been the siren venom, but that it was you and your venom that made it so incredible. Like how every human had a slightly different essence, every siren had a unique chemical signature in their venom. It’s why using it non-consensually nowadays would be extremely stupid (as well as just an immoral thing to do and also a crime)—it can be matched to the siren in a lab like DNA. In addition, anecdotally, every siren’s venom was said to produce a slightly different high, but no mass studies had backed that up. You were inclined to believe the stories, though.

Renjun was still a bit hazy, though, still riding the high of the venom, so you decided to tuck a conversation like that away for another time.

“So why did you pick Magical Creatures Studies? Other than you’re insane?” You redirected the topic to a more neutral one.

Renjun didn’t seem put off at all about this jump. “When I was a kid, my family traveled around a bunch, for my dad’s job. I got to meet a lot of different kinds of beings, some of them became my best friends, and I never wanted to stop learning about it all.”

“What does your dad do?”

“Government job,” he answered, suddenly interested in picking at his nails.

You furrowed your brow thoughtfully. “Wait a minute… Huang Renjun. As in, your father is Ambassador Huang? That we’ve had to write papers on in class?”

Ambassador Huang was the first human ambassador sent on diplomacy trips to outside nations of magical creatures post-integration. His trips had largely been considered a monumental success, and credited as a big driver behind the huge uptick of immigration that your city has been seeing from outlying areas in the past couple decades. You’d hardly gotten through a single contemporary MCS class without directly learning about him or at least hearing his name. And you’d apparently been going to school with his son for four years and just pumped said son full of your venom and made out with him while he was high on your venom.

“Yeah…”

“Dude! What the hell? You didn’t think to mention that at some point?” You asked incredulously.

“And sound like some uppity nepo kid bragging about my dad? No thanks,” Renjun snorted.

“Yeah, maybe not like day one but like… I don’t know, before I used my venom on you!” You nudged his arm teasingly.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“I just venom-ed Ambassador Huang’s son!”

“Oh my God, could you not call me that?” He snapped at you. “This is why I don’t tell people! Because now I don’t have a name anymore, I’m just Ambassador Huang’s son.”

You immediately realized your mistake, your stomach dropping as you heard the hurt in his words. “Renjun, I’m—”

“Just go.” He demanded, standing up from the couch and putting distance between you two again. “We both got what we wanted, right? You found out who Dr. Magic was, and I experienced siren venom. That’s all this was, so you can go. You don’t owe me anything else.”

You clenched your jaw, setting your cup on the end table beside the couch. Picking up your cardigan from the floor with as much dignity as you could, you pulled it back on. Neither of you said another word as he watched you stalk over to the front door, shove your shoes back on, throw the door open, and slam it closed behind you.

Drumming your fingertips along your keyboard, you squinted at the flashcards on your screen. You were in a sour mood, which had persisted ever since you’d left Renjun’s last night feeling used.

Ten was next to you at your picnic table outside the student union, finishing up a pencil portrait sketch of one of his other friends—one of the CompSci majors you’d paid to write your browser extension, actually. Dejun, a dragon, whose slit pupils, many bejeweled earrings, and a singular fang poking out from under his top lip featured prominently in the portrait. The sketch was part of Ten’s midterm portfolio check-in for one of his classes. Midterms were literally this week. Like, right now. You forced your sharp teeth further into the wooden pencil in your mouth.

“You’re going to ruin your cuspids like that, Y/N,” Ten chastised you calmly, rubbing at a line with the pad of his ring finger to smudge it before flipping his own non-mangled pencil around and continuing to sketch with the graphite.

“I’ll grow another set,” you grumbled, but took the writing utensil out of your mouth nevertheless.

“And have no teeth in the meantime. Real sexy siren stuff. Sure to lure all the hotties to their deaths looking like GamGam missing her dentures.”

“Shut up!” You shoved his head away, earning a loud peal of laughter from your friend. “As if you’ve been pulling anybody yourself. You’re literally a siren art major covered in tattoos that he designed himself, more piercings than a dragon, including nipple rings, and you haven’t been on a date in… what, almost a year?”

“So we’re both disappointments to the good siren name, huh?” He held up his hands in surrender, still grinning. “Just a couple of poor, celibate sirens doomed to be disgraces to their species forever…”

“Can you not yell that to the entire courtyard, dude?”

“What? Not announce very loudly that you haven’t been with anybody in exactly four—”

You lunged to cover his mouth before he could publicize precisely how long it’s been since you’d hooked up with someone. Ten immediately broke down into laughs behind your hand that was covering his mouth, his shoulders shaking even as you smacked him on the back of the head with your other hand.

“Gods, what is wrong with you?” You hissed at him. “You’re a menace to society. And me.”

When you’d finally let go of his face, he said through a couple more chuckles, “Hey, you could easily do it back to me.”

“Why would I want to do that? And the fact that you’re suggesting it makes me think that you want me to do that, which makes me want to do it even less. You freak.”

Before your podmate could respond, you caught sight of a figure approaching your table head-on. Setting your jaw, your body immediately tensed. There was no mistake, Huang Renjun was walking straight towards you. Ten seemed to have noticed the shift in your body language and mood, as he didn’t say anything further, quietly going back to his sketchbook as you watched Renjun get nearer and nearer.

“Y/N,” he said your name quietly, stopping not quite at the end of the table beside you, but next to the end of the bench across from you.

“What do you want from me now, Renjun?” You replied bitterly, pretending to return your hands to your keyboard as if you were going to refocus on your studies.

“Uhm, to talk, I guess?”

Ten interjected, “Do you guys need a second? I can go—”

You held him in place with a hand around his wrist, your voice curt, “No, Ten. Stay. This will be short.”

Your friend lowered himself back down into his seat.

You then set your hard gaze on Renjun. The marks you had left on his neck were still visible above the collar of his t-shirt. Moving your eyes from that to his face, you cocked your head to the side. “What’s in it for me? You established that our relationship is purely transactional, remember? We apparently just use each other. You scratch my back, I spit in your mouth, quid pro quo.”

“Okay, I’m going now,” Ten declared, wrenching his arm from your grasp to grab his sketchbook, pencils, and backpack before taking off.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. I don’t see you like that at all, I just... I got defensive and snapped. It’s not an excuse, but still, I want you to know that I don’t mean anything I said. I’m sorry.” Renjun shifted uncomfortably on his feet, but you could see the genuine remorse on his features.

You breathed in, then out.

“I’m sorry too,” you sighed, letting your voice relax back to the natural softness that it held around Renjun. “You’re your own person, aside from just ‘Ambassador Huang’s son.’ I’m sorry for treating you like anything other than Renjun.”

“It’s not that I’m not super proud to be his son or anything, I think he’s really awesome. He was my hero growing up; still is. I mean, I’m going into the same field as him. Kind of. You know? It’s just because we’re going to be doing the same kind of thing, I want to be able to be looked at for what I do. Good or bad.”

“Bad? You plan on using your degree for evil, Renjun?” You teased, scooting over on the bench seat to take Ten’s previous spot and freeing up a place for Renjun to scoot in beside you.

“I could,” he played along, gladly taking the seat offered.

The two of you made eye contact, then burst into laughter at the same time.

“What?” He questioned in mock offense. “I think I’d make a great evil dictator, personally. You don’t think so?”

“Not at all, you’d be great at it.”

“Thank you. My friends don’t take my threats so seriously.”

“Which will ultimately be their downfall.”

Renjun looked back out at the campus in front of you two, his voice turning serious again, “But, seriously, I mean, I don’t want people having all these lofty expectations for me and then be disappointed when I don’t change the whole world, nor do I want them making things easy for me because they know my dad.”

“That’s fair. Unattainable, but fair to wish for,” you nodded in understanding.

“Ugh...” He slumped forward, dropping his head into his arms atop the table.

“Look, Renjun…” You rested one hand on his arm as the other rubbed up and down his back supportively. “You can’t change who your dad is, and you said it yourself, it’s not like you’re ashamed of him either. So don’t brag, and don’t be a dick when somebody brings him up either. Just do your best to show people who Huang Renjun is. And if they still don’t get it, that’s their loss. Because I already know him, and I think he’s pretty cool.”

Renjun sat back up to look you in the face with a skeptical eyebrow raised. “You’re such a cheeseball. Aren’t sirens supposed to be alluring and enchanting?”

“Shut up! I will drown you! See how alluring I am when you’re under a siren call,” you huffed, crossing your arms over your chest.

“I’m kidding.” He grinned at you, nudging your shoulder with his. “That really did make me feel better, thank you, Y/N.”

You smiled back. “You’re welcome, Renjun.”

The two of you kept smiling at each other for a moment before he broke the eye contact, looking down at his hands then shifting his gaze back to the courtyard.

“Uhm, while we’re airing stuff out about last night...” He cleared his throat awkwardly.

“Yeah, Junnie?” You tilted your head to the side, watching as his cheeks started flushing.

“I don’t think I ever said thank you. I kind of popped off on you right after... everything. But thank you, for taking care of me before, during, and after. It didn’t even occur to me to talk about what we could and couldn’t do beforehand. Thank you for that, and for getting me the water. And... all of it in between...” His ears were bright red too at this point, but he managed to look you in the eye as he gave you his genuine gratitude.

You nodded in understanding. “You’re welcome. I’m glad that you felt cared for during all of it. In addition to, you know, everything else you felt.”

“Mm, yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck.

Studying his face curiously, you said, “You look like you want to ask me something else.”

“Well, I feel like you still weren’t very clear on the ‘eat me alive’ thing.”

You rolled your eyes. “Gods, Junnie, I’m not going to actually eat you—”

“I mean...” Renjun took a deep breath. “I kind of always feel like I’ve got a little bit of siren venom in me when I’m around you, Y/N. My heart races, and my skin is warm, and everything is just better when I’m with you. I want to see you when you’re not around, and when things are hard for you, I want to make everything better. I like you, and between the Dr. Magic deal, and our stupid academic rivalry, and what we did last night, I don’t know what I am to you, but that’s how I feel.”

If someone had told freshman you that Huang Renjun would ever say words like that to you, you’d have laughed in their face to the point of tears— or slapped them. And yet, in that moment, you weren’t surprised in the slightest. It was the most natural, beautiful, delightful, perfect thing that could’ve happened. Just like you leaning over to give him a modest, near-demure kiss on the cheek, absolutely beaming at him as you pulled back.

“I like you too, Renjun,” you admitted.

His eyes went wide before a broad, tender smile spread across his features and he wrapped an arm around your shoulders. He let out a drawn-out sigh of relief, “Ohh, that’s one weight off my chest for this week.”

You laughed in agreement. “Me too. Actually makes everything feel lighter.”

“Yeah, it does,” he said, squeezing your shoulder. “So how much do I owe you?”

“What?”

“You said you were going to invoice Dr. Magic. For the browser extension, and the color copies, and whatever else. How much do I owe you?”

You tapped a finger against your chin, pretending to think before a smirk pulled across your lips. “Mm, should be exactly the price of one nice dinner and a movie.”

“Dinner and a movie? Just how many copies were you making?” He asked with a chuckle and a shake of his head.

“A nice dinner,” you reiterated. “I paid those CompSci majors fairly for their time.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Friday night after your last midterm, you were knocking on Huang Renjun’s door. The two of you had seen each other this week for your Linguistics in MCS class, but had been utterly locked into academic mode and hadn’t met up aside from that. So, per his invite, you were here in your “midterms best”— i.e., the pajamas you had been wearing at your own apartment since submitting your last mid-semester draft earlier today. You’d been told this wasn’t going to be a fancy affair.

Judging by the pajamas that Renjun had also answered the door wearing—giving you vivid déjà vu to the last time you were here—you were dressed appropriately for the occasion. He led you in by the hand, informing you there was something he wanted to show you in the kitchen.

You came to a stop in front of a plate piled high with small, pillow-shaped pieces of dough, some with bursts of red sauce leaking out of them. You couldn’t help but let out a sputtering laugh. “Pizza rolls? Did midterms scramble the egg on your face so bad that you missed the part where I said nice dinner?”

You might not have ever eaten pizza rolls, but you knew what section of the grocery store they came from.

“I can’t even tell what that was supposed to be… You’re so beautiful…” He was staring at you with a look of pure adoration, and surprised you by giving you a fleeting peck on the cheek, gone as soon as you’d realized what he was doing. Your hand instinctually came up to brush at your skin, almost in disbelief, as he went back to explaining his plans for tonight. “Anyway, I didn’t get to give you your first pizza roll the other night, and I figured that the last thing you actually wanted right after midterms week was to go out to some hoity toity place and be out at the movie theater really late, right? So, I’ve got pizza rolls, peanut butter cookies, your seaweed tea, and like way more snacks and candy and stuff. So we can chill and watch whatever movies you want tonight, unwind from midterms. And then next weekend, we’ll do your nice dinner and go to the movie theater. Think of it as an IOU.”

A fond smile tugged at the corner of your mouth as you nodded your approval. “Mmm… you’re right. This is great, Junnie. Thank you.”

Set up on Renjun’s couch with the assortment of snacks—pizza rolls included—and your first movie chosen, you settled in next to him, knee to knee, under the same blanket as the two of you ate. You decided that pizza rolls weren’t that bad (you still liked peanut butter sandwich cookies better), convinced Renjun to try some of your ocean flakes again—a favorite snack of sirens, which he’d already tasted on one occasion at a Dr. Magic hunting session and hated—to similar results, and finished off a bottle of seaweed-infused tea by the time the first movie was about a third of the way done. At this point, you were pretty satiated food-wise, and set your empty drink bottle on the coffee table to sit back on the couch.

Linking your arm with Renjun’s, you rested your head on his shoulder as he was still finishing up his plate of pizza rolls. “That was good, Renjun. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I call dibs on little spoon first, by the way.”

“Damn.”

Once he was done eating as well, you laid down to eagerly take your promised place as little spoon. Renjun stayed partially propped up against the arm of the couch so he could see the TV as you were nestled back against his chest, one of his arms slung over your waist. Your fingers played with his under the blanket absentmindedly as you got used to your new place, with him, in his arms.

“Renjun?” You said into the quiet. The only noises were coming from the TV. The movie was nearly done, just a couple little resolving scenes after the climax left. You’d seen it plenty of times before—both of you had, it was a favorite that you’d discovered you two shared earlier in the semester—which was why you’d picked it, an easy watch that you both liked. But nothing that required your full attention, so you could talk or miss scenes if you wanted.

“Yeah?” He responded just as softly.

“This is really nice. Hanging out, just us. No school, no Dr. Magic.”

“I know. Almost doesn’t feel real.”

“What? That we’re hanging out without trying to kill each other?”

He let out a couple laughs, catching your hand that had been playing with his under the blanket and lacing your fingers together. “I think there’s definitely some people that would be shocked to see us right now. But I meant more-so that we don’t have any schoolwork to do right now, and that the whole Dr. Magic thing is finally over. Other than the dinner that I owe you.”

“Oh… I owe you… I-O-U…” you sounded the words and letters out slowly. “I get it now.”

“God, you’re perfect,” he sighed dreamily, brushing your hair away from your face to press two kisses to your temple in quick succession.

You turned over to face him to properly protest, “Hey, I didn’t grow up around humans, you know that, right? I just came here to go to school! I moved here like, two weeks before our first day of freshman year—”

“I’m not making fun of you, Y/N!” He promised, sandwiching your hand between both of his and squeezing it tightly. “I respect how difficult it must have been for you to acclimate to the new culture and city when you moved, and so suddenly, on top of starting school. I just love y- love when you do that. Genuinely, I’m so charmed by it. Endeared. Bewitched. Whatever word you want to use. It’s something I never noticed until this semester, when we started doing the Dr. Magic stuff together. Despite knowing you for so long, in the department, in classes.”

“You know what I never knew about you before this semester, Junnie?”

“What?”

“That you were such a softie,” you snickered fondly. “I thought you were all textbooks and GPA and flashcards and whatever.”

The human ducked his head bashfully. “It’s something I’ve been working on this year.”

“Between this and Dr. Magic, I think you’ve been doing pretty well.”

“Thanks.”

“So, why did you do it, Junnie?” You asked curiously. “Not be a softie, I mean, but…”

“What? Be Dr. Magic?” He clarified, to which you nodded. “I didn’t mean to make a persona like that, really. I had to pick a screenname, and the guys had jokingly called me that a couple times when I helped them out with some problems. That’s all.”

“I know why you started the account. Knowledge. That’s also why you didn’t get the credit. You just needed to know. Though, the story behind the name is cute,” you pinched his cheek, and he tried to deter your hand with his shoulder half-heartedly. “I mean more like, why were you hiding your IP and using VPNs and stuff before you even knew that I was trying to track you down? In the fall.”

“I made the first couple posts from the school computers just because I like to do my work there, I wasn’t trying to cover anything up. Then I pictured what I’d do if I found someone posting like I was on the forums. And I would’ve tried to find out who they were. So I started covering my tracks a bit more intentionally after that. Didn’t want any groupies rolling up on me.” He pinched your side teasingly with the last sentence, and you slapped his hand away with an eye roll.

“Oh shut up!” You scoffed, ignoring his hands as he tried to pull you back towards him again.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding, I’m sorry,” he apologized through his chuckles. “If anything I’m your groupie, I swear. Your number one fan from the moment you showed me your conspiracy board.”

“Mm, fine.” You scooted closer to him, letting him wrap his arms around you once more. “Glad we got that cleared up.”

Renjun shifted to lay on his back, and you easily followed the move to snuggle in mostly on top of him, resting your head in the crook of his neck and your hand on his waist, fingers innocently smoothing over a patch of skin above his hipbone where his shirt had ridden up. It sounded like the credits were on by now, but you didn’t really care about picking another movie as Renjun hummed along to the familiar song that played over the scrolling names. You’d sing along too, if you were alone at your own place. But now you didn’t dare even hum like the human with you for fear of what it could do to him. Renjun’s voice was plenty lovely enough though, even just this casual little bit humming. You’d see if you could get him to sing for you properly one of these days. If an opportunity came before graduation. Who knew what your days would even look like before then.

Gods, graduation. You felt like you could shrivel up and die just thinking about it. Not to mention that you hadn’t even told Renjun that you’d—

“Hey. What are you thinking about?” He suddenly asked, his disapproving tone clear.

You gulped. “How could you tell I was thinking about something?”

“For one, you’ve got your bad thinking face on.” He pinched your bottom lip. “You pout. It’s very dramatic. You look very concerned.”

“I have different thinking faces?”

“Yeah, you look different when you’re studying. I’ve seen you do plenty of that to know the difference. And you’ve got a third face when you’re contemplating. Usually you do that one when you’re looking at menus.”

“I didn’t know I was apparently an open book.” You covered your face with your hands in embarrassment.

“It’s cute, Y/N. You’ve got a cute face, and you make cute facial expressions with it, don’t cover it up.” He gingerly grabbed your hands to encourage you to take them off. “Except I am worried about what’s making you make your bad thinking face right now. What’s wrong?”

With a sigh, you pushed up into a sitting position. Renjun followed your lead curiously, a thoughtful frown on his own features as he watched you pull your knees to your chest.

“Renjun, I need to tell you something.”

He regarded you with a skeptical eyebrow raised. “Okay… go for it.”

Nervously, you smoothed out some wrinkles in your pajama pants as you confessed, “Uhm, Dr. Kwon asked me to carry the banner at commencement. I said yes.”

“I knew that.”

“What?” You looked up at him in disbelief.

“Well, since it was midterms already, I figured that if they’d picked me, they would have asked me by now and since they hadn’t, then they must have picked you. I was just waiting for you to tell me so I could tell you… Congrats.” Renjun grinned brightly at you, reaching out to rest his hand on your arm.

“You’re not upset?” You asked trepidly.

“We’re not petty little freshmen anymore, Y/N. No, I’m not upset. I’m proud of you, you deserve it.”

“So did you.”

“Not any more than you did.” He shook his head firmly. “So would you just accept my congrats already?”

You gave a small, shaky smile. “Thank you…”

“There we go.”

“This is what I was so freaked about… when we went to get froyo.”

“You were afraid of me being mad at you for being picked to carry the banner?” Renjun asked incredulously.

“I didn’t know how to tell you!” You defended yourself. “And now I have to do the commencement practices, on top of senior capstone and my extracurriculars…”

He wrinkled his nose. “Ew, commencement practices. So glad I didn’t get picked now, actually.”

“And that was so convincing, Junnie.”

“You remember what you said to me when we got froyo?”

Scrunching your face up, you struggled to think back to the exact conversation you had that day—you’d been really stressed. “Uh, ‘exactly two gummy sharks on mine please?’”

“Well, yeah, your hyper-specific froyo order—”

“Throwing stones at black kettles much?” You teased.

“Excuse me?” Renjun’s eyes went wide.

“Is that not—? I really thought I got it that time.”

“Did you mean to say ‘throwing stones in glass houses’ and/or ‘the pot calling the kettle black?’”

“…Yes.”

He turned very serious as he went to tenderly cradle your face in his hands. “I’m going to kiss you in like two seconds after I finish what I was saying, okay?”

“Oh, okay,” you agreed weakly, wishing very much that he’d just do it now instead of making you wait. He then let your face go.

“When we were talking about wanting people to know that we’re smart,” Renjun clarified. “You said that we’re both like that, and you knew that you were like that. And then you asked me if I knew that I was like that. I had tried to swear up and down this entire time that I was doing all of this—the needing to be the best—for myself. But it wasn’t. I’m like that too. That’s kind of what Dr. Magic was, me taking a step back from needing everyone to know I was the smartest person in the room. A quasi-experiment, to see if I could do it.”

“I think that after graduation, maybe we both chill on being the smartest person in the room, and try to just spend a summer working on that magical bucket list of yours?” You suggested.

“Oh?” He perked up at this. “Really?”

“You ever seen a werewolf shift?”

“No…”

“That sounds like a ‘not yet’ to me.”

“Sounds like a plan.” He confirmed with a conspiratorial grin that mirrored the one that you could feel across your own face. “You know how sirens can’t get dosed up on their own venom?”

“Yeah…” You nodded, wondering where he could be going with this.

“Well, I know a witch with a proprietary love potion blend that I think we might be able to modify to produce similar effects.”

“Fascinating.” You thought on this for a second, very quickly running through your knowledge of potion properties to imagine what it could be. “Two-factor blood potion?”

“Yes. But we’d put your venom in it instead of your blood so it wouldn’t kill me.”

“That could work…” You mused. “Speaking of, I should really give you a full dose one of these days.”

He breathed in sharply. “That wasn’t a full dose?”

“Nope.”

“Holy shit…”

“Have you ever watched a phoenix reincarnation?” You added another suggestion to your joint summer bucket list.

“Have you? Wouldn’t that literally blind us?” Renjun questioned, something akin to genuine concern on his face now.

You shrugged. “Allegedly. It’s never been recorded in a lab setting, so who really knows.”

“I think we’re going to get each other killed before we can get our PhDs,” he declared with a fond smile and shake of his head.

“Hey, the betting pools said we’d kill each other by junior year, so I think we’re doing well for ourselves.”

“Do you think we can collect on those bets when we graduate and we’re both still alive and have all of our limbs?”

“We’ll burn that bridge when we get there.”

“Oh my god, come here,” Renjun groaned deliriously, kneeling to grab your face with two hands and crash his lips to yours. You curled your fingers in the front of his shirt, pulling him down with you as you fell back against the arm of his couch, still connected.

Yeah, you’d drive off that burning bridge when you got there.

⤷ blog masterlist  ⤷ anthology masterlist

[crookedkryptonitebeliever]

It was only supposed to be a one-night stand (Part 1)

TW: suicide attempt, mentions of self harm, smut (kinda), yandere shenanigans

okay i mayyy have made this after like seeing a bunch of hot construction workers around my campus doing tinkering and shit and my saviour complex is also kinda flaring up too

and also this is my first ever cringefail yandere, he's not rich and he barely has connections and mans was suicidal

enjouy

Part 2

Everyone doesn't know why you didn't just block him, call the cops on him, or just... anything! You don't either.

This man has been following you around for months now. Leaving you flowers on your office desk, dropping parcels of gifts in front of your door, and visiting your workplace to give you boxes of freshly made takeout.

He's not much of a talker. Maybe it's because he can't exactly speak English well. But that was the only language he had ever spoken or written in before, as far as you know.

He's definitely intimidating everyone around you. Standing at an imposing height of what you think is 6'5, his back alone is usually enough to block the sun from your eyes. With his shaggy, brown hair covering his eyes, unkempt stubble covering his face and scruffy clothes; he usually wears an olive green shirt under his very worn chore jacket and a pair of shabby khaki pants. The man wears a pair of mildly tattered combat boots. He isn't ugly, perse, but he definitely isn't the standard of beauty in society. Your stalker has this rugged and disheveled vibe to him that some may like and most look down upon.

You think he's homeless, living in his beaten car and going to public gyms to shower. You've never seen him eating something he cooked himself, it's either he's eating something out of a styrofoam box, or a package good from convenience stores.

But he isn't unemployed. You know he is a construction worker, you caught him many times staring at you longingly as you hasten your pace, fleeing the soon-to-be shopping complex near your office. He was carrying a heavy set of wooden planks on his shoulder effortlessly, the stranger wiped his sweat using the back of his hand before adjusting his hard hat.

You didn't know that he worked in this field when you first met him. You always had a good heart... or at least a heart that simply cannot handle bystander guilt.

You were walking towards the subway one day, and it was late because you agreed to work overtime. The sky was pitch black, and the only thing that illuminated the path ahead was the lamps swarmed by millions of moths.

Entering the tunnel, there were only a few people around; either waiting for the train, for someone, or for a miracle. Regardless of what they're there for, they're all occupied in their own little world.

You were about to be immersed in the world of social media too, but your blasted phone died. So you're forced to stand in silence and become aware of your surroundings, nothing to numb yourself from the daily mundaneness.

And it was this awareness that led you to notice the man in the first place. You were guarded, taking a few steps away from him as he seemed extremely intoxicated. He was swaying and stumbling, in his calloused hand, held a brown glass bottle with liquid sloshing in it. The man was mumbling something, but it was too soft and incoherent for you to hear. He kept wiping his face using the back of his knuckles.

He, just like everyone else except you, is in his own personal hell too. He spared no attention for you or anything else except his own drunken stupor, so you deem it relatively safe to watch him from where you're standing. The stranger is your only source of entertainment at the moment anyway, the train is coming soon, so why not watch him for a bit more and laugh at him internally for being at his lowest? Certainly, it would never happen to you.

You were snapped out of your own thoughts when you saw him going dangerously close to the ledge, crossing over the yellow line. At the same time, the sounds of wind rushing and rumbling reached your ears, if he falls onto the rails, he will definitely be done for. You looked behind your shoulder and saw bright lights coming from one end of the tunnel, calculating that you only have a couple seconds to make your decision.

You shouted for his attention, catching it and a few others around you. He stared at you with bloodshot, glassy eyes. However, he lost his footing and was about to fall to his ultimate demise.

The adrenaline rush amplified by the roar of the train wheels made you propel your feet toward him. You stretched your arm, grabbed him by the back of his jacket, and yanked him out of the danger zone with all your might. It definitely wasn't easy to move this hunky mass at all, but you did. And you saved him just at the nick of time, as the train rushed by, blasting a gust of wind against the two of you.

You must have underestimated your strength because he was flung back at high speeds. He grabbed your arm by instinct, trying to re-balance himself, and brought you down to the grimy subway floor with him.

You groan as you rush to sit up, cradling the arm that made contact with the ground. Scowling at the stranger for pulling such a stupid stunt in his inebriated state, upset that now you had a few pairs of judging eyes on you. You froze when you saw his eyes though, a unique glimmer made its way to his dark irises. His mouth is slightly ajar, he is staring at you with such intense reverence and adoration which you mistake as a mere alcoholic's intoxicated stare.

You screeched when he suddenly emptied the contents of his stomach on your work blouse. Shouting angry curses at him as his head was slumped to the ground and his eyelids shut.

You got up and tried to swipe as much puke away from you as you ran to the train. The last you saw him that night was in an extremely pathetic state, unconscious in his own puddle of vomit, a bottle of booze rolling away from him. People either crossed over him or walked over his body, sparing a few glances of pity or contempt before boarding the train themselves.

You thought that you were never going to see him again, with that much alcohol in his system, you would be surprised that he could even remember his own name. And you couldn't be more wrong.

A few days after that, you were in the same station, taking the same train because your boss needed you to finish the report by that day. This time, you're exhausted. Not sleeping, eating or enjoying your hobbies puts a toll on your energy levels, what a surprise.

You were nodding off in the train, struggling to keep yourself awake.

Maybe if you let yourself doze off, you'll wake up just in time for your stop. And so, you did, you let yourself drift into slumberland.

It was a mistake.

You were harshly woken up with a torch shining in your eyes and a booming voice telling you that the both of you have to leave, as this is the last stop. Lifting your head from a headrest, which actually was someone's broad shoulder. But you didn't realize that.

You were still half asleep, groggily and hastily gathering your things, not registering that the employee was also referring to another person in your proximity.

You muttered a small good night to the staff before exiting the train, yawning and stretching. Smacking your lips as you realized that your briefcase wasn't with you, must've left it back on your seat. So you turned around and walked forwards, only to ram yourself onto what you thought was an oddly shaped pillar. Cussing under your breath as you stumbled backwards, rubbing your head.

You let out a shocked yelp when you realized that it's the man instead. You were about to say something to him but your eyes landed on his side; he was holding the suitcase for you.

You stammered a quick thank you as you snatched it away from him, picking up the pace as you walked away. Howeever, you heard footfalls behind you.

Looking over your shoulder, you saw him following closely behind.

Perhaps he is also looking for an exit, so you silently lead the way to the nearest opening. But as you walk, you start to wonder; did he purposely stayed on the train with you? If he had to go somewhere he would have gotten off by then, if this was his stop, he would have left before the lights went out.

Finally, having to breath in fresh air once you exit the dusty station, you turned to look at him. Trying to discern which way is he heading.

He isn't moving. The man stood next to your side, staring straight ahead. As if he's waiting for you to take another step. After a few more seconds of idling, he turned his gaze to you.

Understandably being creeped out by this, you told him not to follow you. He blinked a couple times before continuing to stare.

Sighing, you asked him if he is lost. And you got no response.

You asked him if he is stupid. And you got no response.

Not giving a shit anymore, you picked a direction and walked. It's a long walk home and there will not be any trains left until the sun rises. As expected, he followed you all the way.

He is useful in warding off midnight catcallers and other seedy individuals that hang around alleys and empty streets. Who wouldn't be wary of him? He looks like he could easily pick them up by the scruff and fling them to the rooftops. But that means he could do that to you too, and that isn't comforting to know at all.

You reached home after an hour and a half of walking. The man is still on your trail, crowding you around the door as you unlocked it. You opened the door and immediately slipped in, he tried entering as well but you slammed it against his face. He watches you lock and latch your door through the window, he placed his hand on the glass and clawed at it a bit. You simply drew the curtains shut, praying hard that he isn't going to be there by sunrise.

Your prayers wasn't answered because you decided to check up on him an hour later. You saw him laying on the porch with his eyes closed and that tugged at your heartstrings a bit.

Maybe it's the sleep deprivation that is lowering your inhibitions, or you're just lonely and he doesn't look half bad. It could also be the cold one you cracked open that's screwing up with your soberness. Either way, you would have given yourself shit for opening the door and letting him in your house while the world is still asleep. If you get murdered, at least you won't need to go to work next week.

It was a blur, you remembered bits and pieces of his hands roaming your bare back, his cock impaling into you as he sloppily kissed you from the jaw to your neck. How his rough fingers fondled your genitals and how you were gripping your bedsheets as if your life depended on it.

Bouncing on him while you shoved your tongue down his throat was fun, especially when he wrapped his hand around the back of your head, preventing you from escaping him. Feeling the pleasant pressure on you as he pinned you to the firm bed. It was kind of him to shield your head with his hand from hitting the bedframe while he plows you from behind, iron gripping your hips with the other.

You remember starting it, demanding that he gives you something in exchange for staying a night here, you remembered pulling him into a deep, passionate, drunken kiss before he has a foot into the living room. You didn't give a shit about knowing his name or if he had any STDs, you just need to release a lot of frustrations.

You woke up hungover, with you being the small spoon while he held you tightly in his strong arms. They were littered in old scars, some clearly self inflicted.

You turned your head to see that he's still asleep, soft snores escaping his lips. Annoying to some.

Squinting as you let the sharp rays of light stab your eyes, you saw that your clothes and his were strewn all over the bedroom, the door wide open with a stray shoe resting next to it's hinges.

You looked at the clock and realized that you're going to be late. Being the workaholic you are, you shook the stranger in your bed awake. He was groaning and quietly whining about not wanting to get up, but shuts up as soon as you hurled his clothes at his face.

He shot up and cowered behind his arms as you continued throwing his articles of clothing at him, telling him that he has to leave because you need to go to work.

While he's composing himself, you rush to the bathroom to take a quick shower, pretending the cold stream of water is washing away all your sins from the night before. You lather up some soap before scrubbing your skin, internally beating yourself up for your irresponsible choices.

A familiar pair of arms snaked around your torso as you're pulled back into a strong chest, a pair of lips decided to flutter smooches on your temple and ear. His hands explored your naked body, utilizing the suds and the water to give you that electrically tingling sensation.

Of course, this intrusion wasn't taken lightly. You screamed and kicked him out of the shower, telling him to leave your house. You caught a glimpse of his confused and crestfallen look in his eyes, paired with his dripping wet hair and sopping wet body.

You finished your business, threw on a set of fresh clothes and rushed out of the door. And definitely dragging him out of there with you too, not giving a crap that he was in the middle of wearing his shirt.

You ran as fast as you could, wanting to catch the next train. And so did he, he chased after you and squeezed himself into the carriage.

Everyone was also rushing to work, there were no seats left nor were there any standing spots. Shoulders were bumping shoulders and the shorter passengers were at an all time disadvantage. You couldn't reach the handles; but he could.

As the door closes, the man held you close to him and rested his free hand on the small of your back. To outsiders, you and him looked like a run of the mill couple having each other. They couldn't be more wrong, you don't even know a single thing about him.

You just endured it, having no choice but to stick next to him. He yawned and frowned, looking quite displeased that he was not in your bed. Well, that's his fault, no one forced him to follow you back home, and no one forced him to stick himself inside of you.

Among the busy chatter in the train, you and him stayed silent. Gradually feeling comfortable in each other's embrace.

You mumbled curses under your breath, he knows where you live and he is going to know where you work. Couldn't this year get any worse?

As soon as the doors open, you make a mad dash out of the station. Running as fast as you could, not caring who you had to shove to clear your way.

You never looked back, but you made sure to take as many detours as possible to mess with his direction if he somehow managed to catch up to you. But your lungs and your out-of-shape-office-worker legs can only take you so far, you reach a nearby tree in a park next to your building.

You panted as you scanned your surroundings, only seeing the elderly, children, athletic adults, and their pets. No sign of that man you slept with last night.

You took a couple more minutes to catch your breath, knowing fully that your boss would chew you up for being close to an hour late. Whatever, you're here now. Let's earn your salary.

So you walked, it's just a couple minutes away. Nothing else should go wrong today-

You had an incredulous look on your face when you saw him loitering at the entrance. Your colleagues glance him up and down, some admiring the way his muscles slightly stick out of his shirt, some wondering what an unkempt hunk like him is doing in front of such a corporate, sanitized venue.

There was no way to sneak past him, you just had to face him. It was... cute that his eyes lit up as soon as he saw you. So you sighed as you marched up to him, requesting him to leave you alone as politely as you could. There was an edge to your tone, he must either be oblivious to it or he's simply choosing to ignore the fact that you're unhappy with him here.

During mid-sentence, he presented you with a paper plate that had a hotdog on it. You were speechless, it had everything on it: ketchup, mustard, relish, pickles, mayonnaise, cheese, Jalapeño slices, onions, beef chili, and other heaps of things that you couldn't identify. With the number of toppings, you couldn't tell that it was a hotdog in the first place, it was just a mountain of random savory foodstuffs. Your eyes darted to his other hand, it also had a hotdog wrapped in a napkin, except his one only had relish.

"I didn't know what you liked..." He mumbled, voice so deep that you could feel the vibrations in your own chest. The man looked at you with hope, wanting you to accept the plate of everything as breakfast.

You shook your head and said you were late to work. Pushing him away from the door before entering the building, some of the topping amalgamations spilled onto his shirt. Probably staining it forever with its oil content.

He stood there with a frown, he craned his head downwards to stare at the spill.

Then, he looked back up to see that you were out of sight. His shoulders sagged as he placed his own hotdog on top of your plate of horrors.

The man walked away as he pulled out a plastic spoon that he tucked in his pocket, it was given to him by the vendor because it is impossible to eat your order with hands.

He began digging in, throwing one last glance at the main door behind him.

[mrs-weasley-reid]

Colored Bullets

Summary: BAU team x agent fem!reader. All fun and games until one of the BAU members gets shot... with a paintball.

WARNING: nothing besides mention of guns (paintball) and shooting, just a silly time with the BAU team 

found the gif somewhere round the web, so whoever created this credits to u :))

None of you knew how things ended this way. Not even someone who pranked death like Emily could explain the maroon smears that horrifyingly decorated every crooks and crannies in the bullpen.

"I don't think I can take it anymore," Spencer cried as he leaned his back against the foot of his desk, hiding under his once peaceful workplace.

A bruise was forming on his temple, and another by his neck. He was a mess. His hair flew out like a birds nest.

"You better not give up on me, Reid. Or I will shoot you myself." Emily growled, peeking out to fire a shot. Her ponytail was loose, dried yellow paint spreading on the left side of her head.

"What the fu—" Derek groaned from another end, also hiding under his desk. He felt the pang of Emily's bullet on his shoulder, wondering when everything went wrong.

In fact, all of you were taking shelter under your desks. Albeit, you sharing yours with JJ, who had a maniac smile on her face as she fired her gun in whatever direction she could.

The bullpen was painted red. A dead battlefield. God knows what the midnight janitor would think when he finds the place drowning with fired bullets and various bright paints.

And just before you were about to shoot Spencer's ugly crying face, Rossi swung the glass door open.

"I don't want to know." Rossi immediately stated.

All of the agents stood up, a special mention to Derek, who hit his head midway. You snorted at that, and continued a laugh when he glared at you.

Rossi's eyes roamed all over the bullpen, taking note of your bruised faces and paint-splattered vests. He looked at all of you disappointedly, "None of you can wait for tomorrow's paintball match?" He immediately knew that asking was a big mistake.

"Derek started it!" You roared immediately.

"What?! It was Emily! She shot me—" Derek pointed a finger towards the dark-haired woman.

Emily rolled her eyes, "I wouldn't have started it if JJ didn't pull the trigger and accidentally shot me." She air-quoted with her gun clutched under her ring and pinky finger.

JJ's jaw dropped, frowning her eyes at Emily. "It was an accident! Spencer was asking how to use the paintball gun." 

"And I regret it. I don't feel like joining the team tomorrow." Spencer placed his small gun on his desk and hooked his messenger bag over his shoulder. He survived worse before, but a war with his friends without hesitation was more traumatizing than being kidnapped.

And all of you began to blame each other like children, shouting over one another. Rossi winced at the sound of all of your voices. He couldn't believe that after three wives, the thing that made him want to smash his head on the wall, was all five of you.

“And I just had to ask.” Rossi muttered to himself, closing his eyes as he placed a hand over his forehead. He silently retreated back to his office.

But before he could even step on the first stair, a hard impact spread on his back. Rossi turned around with furrowed eyebrows. Someone did not just mess with his suit.

Everyone’s index fingers synchronously pointed towards you, a fake innocent look over your face as you held your paintball pistol.

"You will regret this, Kiddo." Rossi sped to his office to grab his paintball gun, simultaneously dodging your fires that ran after him.

And you finally got to shoot Spencer, much to everyone's enjoyment. He took his gun and shot you back, straight on your chest. “Oh, you’re on, smarty pants!” You scoffed, reloading your gun as fast as you could.

Meanwhile, Hotch just stepped out of the elevator, coming back from a meeting and unaware of what lies behind the double glass doors. “Of course, Jack. You can wear my vest for tomorrow’s paitball tournament.” He was about to walk in the bullpen when Penelope blocked him.

Hotch knitted his brows, giving her his signature stern confused look. "Save yourself. It's war in there." Penelope said in horror, peeking through the glass door and squealing at the sudden splatter of red paint right in front of her eyes.

[josephquinnswhore]

Good Girl

Pairing: Male Nurse Joel Miller x female patient reader.

Summary: the nurse in triage calls you a good girl.

Word Count: 2k

Content Warning: Joel Miller with curly hair and glasses, praise kink. Taking pills—painkillers and steroids. Implied age gap, older Joel—mid twenties reader. No outbreak.

Note: based off the sexy male nurse tonight at hospital that called me a good girl 😭 maybe it was innocent but I have a praise kink baby! Anyway, I’m high off painkillers and steroids and I’m super sick so this is probably a terrible fic. Anyway enjoy… or don’t!

You were worn from the endless beat down and busyness that work had drained you with. Your car keys in hand jingle in the silence of the night, glad you put on that ugly navy-blue hand knit old man’s sweater you’d brought from lowes. It was cold—perhaps a symptom of her sickness, or maybe it was just cold.

It was too quiet for your liking—never taking too kindly to hospitals, let alone at 10:00pm, in the complete darkness. It was silent, not one pair of footsteps, not a monitor beeping. It sets the anxiety on hold in your throat skyrocketing into nausea.

Your converse on the ugly off-white tile is comforting, at least you’re not completely alone in the eerie building. You look around the front desk, sighing in annoyance that to your surprise, there’s no one there. The box of masks and tissues occupy the space of the counter. And a sign; made by the staff.

The notice was printed on a foul-yellow in big bold writing.

“STAFF ON BREAK. GONE FOR 30 MINUTES. PLEASE SEE TRIAGE IF STAFF NOT AVAILABLE.”

Oh—okay, that’s fine. Everyone needs a break, especially healthcare workers in these dire times.

Walking back past the section of the building you’d come through initially, the permanently open sliding doors, you come to find again; no one at the triage.

But there’s no note, perhaps they’re just busy tonight. If so; why was it so silent? The ache in your ear dulled, but still caught the sound of someone shuffling in the background, through the window you could see an older lady, short with greying hair and rectangular glasses remaking a bed.

You decide to press the giant green button that says “call.” The woman notices the sound, turning the alarm off as she approaches the desk.

Her voice is irritable; like you’re interrupting the most important task of her damned life. “Can I help you?” She asks rudely.

A man in dark blue scrubs interrupts. “Are you here to see a doctor?” His voice is husky, tired sounding but still kind.

“Yes, please.” You plead tiredly, eyes dropping lazily and scoffing at how late it was, and how you’d have to be at work tomorrow.

Damn it all, right?

“Come in sweetheart.” He swipes his card on the door that’s attached to the pocket on his scrubs, unlocking the door with a beeping sound, he holds the door open for you.

“Thank you.” You wearily and slowly walk into the triage, the body aches infecting every limb of yours too to bottom.

“Just sit down here, and we’ll get some of your details. My name is Mr Miller, but you can call me Joel.” He grins cheekily.

You sit on the uncomfortable leather seat, a monitor right next to you, a second seat next to your own remains unoccupied as you arrived alone.

The details are boring, your name, birthdate, address and allergies are all rushed through quickly, although you did seem to notice how the man’s ears reddened at the sound of your name.

Great, now you’re sick and delusional.

He scoots his chair over to you, the wheels rolling along the slick floors, his legs guiding him to the monitor, he puts the cuff around your arm and checks your blood pressure.

He frowns at the result.

You refrain from looking until he’s back at his desk typing notes. That can’t be good.

“Alright, what brings you in tonight lovely?” The man’s attention was undivided. Those deep brown—chocolate eyes were watching you. It felt a little intimidating.

“I’ve had a cough for a few days, but I’m struggling to eat and drink due to how swollen my tonsils feel. There’s also an ache in my left ear.” You explain hoarsely, your voice seemed to have changed as a result of your withering condition, even had started losing your voice.

“Alright now, I’m going to check your temperature first, so I need you to slip this under your tongue, okay?” Enamoured by how soft this man’s voice was, you only nodded in compliance.

He puts a small disposable plastic cover over the thermometer and when it beeps he throws the cover in the bin and hums to himself. “Temperature is okay.”

“Just going to have a look in that ear and see if there’s anything unusual going on, just hold on tight.”

You remain patient, watching his every move, eyes veering back and forth as you watch him, noting how small the ear torch thingy looked in his hands, Christ, was that even normal?

“Ears look alright.” He states confidently. “Now I just want to check your mouth, open up wide for me.”

You comply, wordlessly, tongue hanging out of your mouth, he can’t seem to find his torch as he rummages through his things, deciding to use the torch off his phone.

A phone that seemed old school to be owned by a nurse. “Just try and relax that tongue for me.” His voice was soft, squinting as he tried to see the condition of your throat.

He jumps in thought, pulling the small pair of glasses from his top pocket, he looks so sweet with them on.

“Let’s try again, just try and relax your tongue, keep it down on the bottom of your mouth if you can.” He encouraged, “relax that tongue for me.”

He pulls away, turning the torch off on his phone.

“Sorry sweetheart I’m going to need to use the tongue compressor.” He chuckles, you let out a huff of a laugh, due to your hoarse and irritated voice.

“Sorry—I was trying to keep it still, it’s hard when you’re trying to consciously keep it from moving.”

The man walks to the other side of the room, he lets out a laugh. “It’s alright—we’ll get you sorted.”

You notice more things about him as he walks around, the half sleeve that covers his elbow. Black and grey mainly, but a cherry blossom flower in pink. Not entirely neat, the ink had faded, you could only presume it was a result of being tattooed many years ago. Perhaps before your time.

His arms were thick, muscly. The poor seams of his uniform sleeves were holding with all their might in the double stitch. His neck were thick, and even though you could only see a small portion of his chest, you notice the defined collarbones and black coarse chest hairs that come up to the base of his neck. His hair was slightly grown out, curly hair seemed free range. The grey hairs in his hair matched his patchy—but neatly shaven beard.

God he looked tired, his expression matching your own, he yawned underneath the mask he wore haphazardly. “Pardon me, it’s getting to that time of night.”

“I feel you,” you mumble, tiredness laced in every syllable.

He takes the paper wrapper off the wooden stick, holding it out as he sits back in his chair, across from you. “Just gonna hold your tongue down and get a look.” He firmly presses the stick into your mouth, holding your tongue down to prevent it blocking where he needs to see.

Your tongue seems to dispute the sudden constriction and wiggles which he laughs at.

“Good girl, thank you.” He praises, sparing a glance before wheeling back to his desk to throw the wooden stick in the bin, going back to his computer to type in his notes.

Good what now? Surely that’s not apart of a normal checkup, or procedure, right? Your whole body tingles and you feel yourself feeling warm, almost faint at his praise.

“Alright darlin, if you wanna sit in the waiting room and wait for the doctor you’ll be right in,” he gives a polite smile, you miss the way he looks you up and down. He holds the door open for you, slowly you’re able to lift your aching body off the seat that's noulded around you, offering him a small smile as you walk past him. “Thank you so much.”

You hobble to the stiff seats, taking a spot in the second row from the front—directly across from the front desk.. where typically the attendant had turned the light on and sat back down, she stares at you as she takes down her sign.

The tv was quiet, but it depicted a movie you were quite fond of; Kingsman: The Golden Circle.

Well—your love for Pedro Pascal made the movie more enjoyable.

He made a fine cowboy after all.

After a few minutes of watching the scene on the quiet tv, and snap chatting with your friends to let you know that you’d been praised by a sexy nurse, you’re called into the doctor's office. In which; the sexy nurse himself was there, assisting the doctor.

“I hear you’re not feeling too well, young lady.” The doctor was an older man, lean and tall, one white patch at the front of his otherwise untouched brown hair.

“I’m just going to check a few things out, we’ll get this all sorted for you so you can go home.” He said cheerfully.

The doctor, same as Mr Miller—Joel.. checked your mouth, tongue, ears and asked a few of the same questions. After assessing you; he finally had an answer.

“Sounds like a viral infection—we’ll get you some pain killers, steroids and a list of symptoms we’ll need you to come back for, if you experience them. I’ll be back in one moment!” The lanky doctor exclaimed.

The nurse—Joel, stayed. “Why don’t we get you seated, you don’t look well.” His large hand guides your mid-lower back, taking your hand to sit you onto the freshly made bed, the linen now tainted with your sickness.

“Thank you,” a whisper is all your aching throat can manage.

The moment is ruined by the doctor. “These are the steroids and pain relief. I forgot to ask—do you need a medical certificate?” He tilted his head, handing you the small white paper cup that had 4 pills, two large and two small. With a cup of water.

“Yes please, I’m scheduled to work tomorrow but I don’t feel fit enough to work.” You manage softly, although feeling a little embarrassed to complain about working in your condition.

Joel looked tired and stressed, yet here you were complaining. You begin swallowing the tablets, the two large first, unable to stop yourself from gagging as the pill gets lodged in your throat—the swelling of your tonsils makes it difficult to swallow.

But you manage, thank t to the encouragement of Joel. “It’s alright, easy now, don’t rush.” He croons, standing a little too close to you.

You take his advise, taking a few moments to swallow the pills and eventually you’re done. “There you go, easy now sweetheart,” he murmurs gently. Your body halts it’s shuffling to get off the bed, but the man takes your plastic and paper cup and put it in the bin for you. You’re stunned by how thoughtful and beautiful this older man was.

“Medical certificate and some pain killers to take home.” The doctor stated, interrupting your delusion, sitting them down on the work bench across from your position on the bed. “If you start to feel worse, fevers, vomiting, shortness of breath please come back.”

You stand, suppressing a groan as your stiff ankles hold the ache for your weight. “Thank you so much. Have a good evening.”

He bids his farewells, and you pick up your paperwork and medication, noting how once again, the nurse is holding the door open for you, the stronger man gives you a soft smile.

“Feel better sweetheart. Don’t hesitate to come back. Want you looked after, yeah?” It sounded like a coo, like he was pleading for your condition to improve.

“Thank you for all your help.” You muster, feeling better already thanks to the fast working medication.

“See you around.” His hand brushed against your lower back as you walk past. “Have something to eat when you get home, won’t you?”

Your cheeks felt inflamed, not from sickness, but bashfulness. “I’ll do that.” You promised, making your exit out of that stale smelling room. Your stomach grumbled, as if it also wished to comply to this man’s sweet demands.

The only thought of that handsome man on your mind, was she imagining things.. surely not?

Either way, your immune system was no good, it was almost a guarantee you’d be back sooner or later.. you just hoped, nurse Joel Miller would be on the clock to assist you back to health.

[fan-goddess]

His pretty muse {3)

Pairing: Modern!Aegon Targaryen x reader

Summary: Aegon finds what he thinks is love simply by looking through his camera lens. The only issue is, you don’t know how much he truly admires your beauty and how much he comes to crave you

Warnings: Dark themes mentioned, masterbation, pervy!aegon, talk of male oral, (any I missed let me know)

Story Taglist: @jamespotterismydaddy, @chompchompluke, @flrboyd, @teazlic, @sajida-cameron, @valeskafics,

Author Note: If you wish to be added to the taglist then please comment. If you wish to be taken out of it then say that here aswell. If it’s in bold I am unable to tag you

Other Chapters: one, two, three,

Other links: My Pretty Muse Masterlist

Aegon doesn’t regret a thing when he wakes up that morning and uses you as a way to rid himself of his morning wood. His hand finds itself sliding under the thin blanket he slept in last night and grips himself tightly. Your name is muttered like a prayer under his breath as his head goes back to those images of you last night.

He knows he could easily just go get his laptop to look at the pictures more clearly, but he’s way to lazy to go and grab it even if it’s only a few steps away. Besides, he’s already moved on from thinking of those photos to thinking of scenarios of you in such scandalous positions it’d make the maiden blush. His favourite by far, and the one that makes him cum, is the thought of you on your knees in-front of him looking up at him through your lashes while you struggle to take all of him in your mouth.

He grabs a random sock on the side of his bed and wipes himself down when he’s finished, before trailing to the shower and blasting himself in some cold water. After he dries himself off he debates on what to wear to take you on a supposed tour of the town, but to be perfectly honest, he knows jack shit apart from a spot that famous for suicides. Though he honestly doubts he’ll be able to weave that fact in without making you run for your perfect fucking family…

He decides on some butt ugly polo shirt he accidentally stole of his brother years ago when he left. It’s slightly tight on him cause of how bigger he’s gotten practically living of fish and chips, but hey, anything for his girl right? He even puts some weird conditioner thing in his hair before ultimately rethinking about how freakishly like his brother he became in that moment. “Like a god damn vampire…” he giggles slightly when he looks at himself in the mirror, before sticking his head under the tap and rinsing it to start all over again.

He’s eventually done though, and walks to the direction of your house with his hands in his trouser pockets and his camera tucked away on his desk, for once by on him. He refuses to scare you away just yet, even though the thought kind of excites him. He even whistles a part of a song he heard walking past a house with an open window. He thinks it’s called pumped up kicks or something like that.

When he gets to your house, he finally gets a chance to look at it in the sunlight. It’s a decent sized bungalow, but the paintwork is fucking ghastly. It’s supposed to be a golden yellow, a colour he knew well in his former life, yet here it’s changed into some sickly jaundice piss stained yellow. If you ever ask if he wants to help with housework, he’s starting with this whether you agree with him or not.

The house he can hear has already come alive with people. Children’s screams and adults shouting echo of the house in waves. He even hears his own ‘name’ shouted. “Sissy your lover boy is here for you!”

It almost brings a sort of smile to his face when he knocks, and the chaos within seems to get ten times louder. He hears you most clearly. Demanding your parents/grandparents to keep the kids away from the town that day so you can’t run into them, with the whining of the kids following swiftly afterwards. You come out a couple minutes later. Your cheeks are red with he assumes is embarrassment yet his head can’t help but think of the possible reasons for having red cheeks.

“Sorry about them. My family’s kinda annoyed I’m not going with them on this stupid walk they planned, yet gave no one else a heads up on about until this morning-“ Usually he finds himself wanting to smack ramblers who can’t get to the point. Yet while you do so he can’t help but find it cute and endearing. He hears you talk but he doesn’t really listen, cause all he can think while you’re doing it is how cute you are. Your hands are moving in time with your voice. When it rises, your hands rise too. It’s an awfully funny thing to witness not that he’s noticed it.

He doesn’t even realise that the two of you are walking though while he pretends to listen to you. Yet your sudden direction of voice brings him out of this little bubble he made just for you. “I thought you said about giving me a tour?” You giggled as you spoke, yet when you raised your eyebrow almost daringly you somehow manage to turn something so perfectly innocent, into something so damn seductive.

“Well sorry princess. Kinda got caught up in your story. I mean, what is a guy supposed to focus on when a beautiful womans talking to him? Not give her attention? Now that’s just cruel of him.” His fuckboy charm doesn’t seem to have any problem coming back to him. Even after a couple years of not using it it seems he still has the swagger. It practically roars in remembrance when you blush at the compliment.

“Wow you’re a real charmer aren’t you PM…” That fucking nickname mixed with the fucking smile you have, it nearly makes him pop a boner there and then.

“Hell yeah I am princess.” It’s a simple response mixed with a simple lazy wink, yet that combo seemed to make you react the most. Your face turns a light pink and your mouth moulds itself into a bashful smile. It’s got to be one of his best works yet he’s got to say.

The walk he hadn’t even realised they were on continues. He halfheartedly talks about the buildings they pass, playing into that tour guide thing he said he’d do but had no intention of actually doing. He makes sure to put in his own personal spin to it though. He makes sure to say stories about the people who live their or frequent there.

“A man named Paul lives there. He’s goes absolutely fucking mental when you step on his grass. Parently he sprayed some little kids with his hose a couple years ago when they played on it. Even gave one a bloody nose cause they fell down getting sprayed or some shit.”

“No!” You gasped. It goes on like that for around an hour. Just him and you messing about discussing gossip about people like the weird women at his mothers boring as fuck book club.

Whilst he’s in the middle of the rumour on one of the fisherman shagging the fish however, you stop, and when he looks back you’ve got a massive grin on your face.

“Something wrong pretty girl?” He asks. It’s strange, as he both does and doesn’t mean the sentimental tone behind it. You don’t respond immediately, only pointing to something behind him with that grin still on your face.

When he turns around, the memory of it hits him like a freight train. It’s an ice cream shop, and he said he’d buy you an ice cream. An internal panic hits him suddenly. What if he has no money on him? Would you think he’s poor for not having any money on him? (Even though he knows he technically is no doubt) or would you pity him and try and play a sympathy card?

While you walk to the entrance, his hands frantically shake and pull at any and all of his pockets, and low and behold the faint sigh of relief when his hand clasps on a lim forgotten twenty pound note hidden away. His footsteps slap against the hard shop as he enters and finds you grinning with rosy cheeks waiting for him.

“You already know what you want princess?” He asks.

“I’m thinking vanilla. It’s basic but a classic.” You ponder. When he looks at the flavours he remembers why he never comes in here. He’s an indecisive little shit.

“Good choice!” The kid behind the counter smiles. It’s obvious the kids not entirely thrilled to be there. The smiles too forced and the eyes look way to dull. Even the way he spoke the generic saying Aegon would bet his boss told him to say, was as if the freaking Terminator voiced him. And the cherry on top, the kids name tag says his names Geoffrey. What kind of sick fuck names there kid Geoffrey in this time? Sociopaths from the fucking thirties, that’s who.

When you turn to him, the kids eyes seem to droop down to look at your tits, and it takes everything in him not to leap over that counter and beat him till he’s unconscious with that stupid ice cream scooper he’s holding.

“Hey kid” The attentions of the tits now, and the kid can no doubt see the anger in his eyes. “I’ll get a vanilla too. In a tub, not a cone though.”

He can already feel the judgment radiating off in waves. Reflecting off the once vibrant now sickly shade of yellow of the ice cream parlour walls. The two of you don’t have to wait long till the kids calling for the two of you, as unsurprisingly enough, no one wants to go in the piss coloured ice cream parlour.

When he walks outside, holding the door open for you like from some stupid romcom movie his sister always raved on, he leads you to an old bench overlooking some trees. It’s like one of those things old married couples do. Sit on an old bench no doubt dedicated to some old person and feed the ducks.

Before the two of you have even sat down, he’s already ditched the pathetic pink plastic spoon the kid gave him. So instead, he uses his preferred method of eating ice cream. Holding the tub to his lips and licking it straight from the tub. He can feel your eyes watching him. Though whether it was from the way he was eating it or the tub itself he has no idea.

“Oh princess your staring” he practically sings. From the corner of his eye he sees your head quickly turn back to your own food and lick it a couple times. It takes everything in him to not groan out loud when he eagerly watched you kitten lick the white liquid that already begun to drip down your hand from the heat.

The silence between him and yourself though he finds is strange nice. Every so rarely often with the move of his arm his elbow brushes against your own arm, and Aegon has to stop himself every time from obsessing in his mind over the small contact.

Eventually the sun gets to his ice cream, leaving the dessert to pool in his cup. So he does what any sane person would do. He tilts it back and drinks it like a shot. He can see your head turn to him while he does this, the slurping sound not silent in anyway whatsoever. When he’s done and wipes whatever remnants stayed on his face he hears a little giggle coming from his left. A little giggle coming from you.

Aegon turns to you with a lazy grin. Mainly to tease you about the giggle, yet his gaze seems to zero in on a small dollop of ice cream that hangs in the corner of your mouth. He can’t even find himself able to look away. The once lazy grin he can feel fade as his hand moves with a mind of its own to wipe away at the white stuff with his thumb. It doesn’t end there, as he next licks at that very same thumb to get rid of the ice cream while making direct eye contact with you.

“Sorry…” He awkwardly smiles. Deep inside, he knows damn well he doesn’t mean the apology. He’d probably do it again if it meant he could touch you over and over. He’s probably even lick the remnants straight of your skin if you asked him to.

“It’s okay” you still someone manage to smile so cutely with a blush that’s taken your face hostage. “Why do you do that? Eat ice cream with a tub?”

Aegons never really had to think about it. Even though no one ever asked. Maybe it was cause he always hung about with the sheep kids in school. The ones who only hung onto your every word cause you had more money than them, and by the seven did he have a lot. “I’ve never had a cone before. Plus It always seems to go soggy whenever ice creams there for too long and all I can think about when I see it is wet cardboard.”

“Okay.” That’s all you say? Okay! Where’s the judgement?! Where’s the calling him a weirdo?! Where’s the normal human response?

“You don’t think it’s weird?” He’s insecurity creeps up on him as his nail gets pushed further into his palm. It’s a bad habit yes, learnt straight from mother dearest, but it distracts him from the humiliation with a nice feeling of pain. So why stop when he’s having fun?

“We all have our preferences, and you just have yours. Who am I to judge?” You say with a shrug as you go back to eating your cone. It’s simple how you said it. It was so simple and short. Yet why does he feel like he’s having a heart attack?

Aegon doesn’t speak for the rest of the ice cream part of the, is it a date? Do you count it as a date? He probably would count it as a date but only if you-

“You okay?” It’s your voice that brings him out of whatever mind melt he just went through. Yet he could never tell you that. If there’s one thing he got beat into him, men don’t show emotion. Or at least that’s what he was taught and shown anyway.

“I’m fine princess.” Again, the fuckboy smile comes out and is rewarded with a blush. His heart goes fast at the sight of it. It beats even fast when there’s more white ice cream on the corner of your lip, slowing dripping down the side of your mouth. If there’s a god out there, he’s currently torturing him.

It’s only worse for him when this time, you feel the ice cream and lick it away with your tongue. The sight of it makes his pants stir.

“What now- oh shit!” The shocked face you make leaves his head spinning. He turns his head a couple times to see if it’s something around the two of you which made you act so… surprised, but there’s no one but him and you, as-well as some old cat that wonders around. You couldn’t be that much of a cat lady right?

“I still don’t really know your name! I’m practically on a date with a complete stranger! Good gods for all I know you’re planning on taking me back to your place and locking me in a basement!” That’s actually sort of close… only he doesn’t have a basement. Should he invest in a basement?

“No one knows my real name princess. That’s kinda the point of why people call me PM.” Aegon attempts to diffuse the sudden tension with another fuck boy smile, but if anything it seems to make it worse…

“So you’re telling me no one in this entire town knows who you really are?”

“Nope.” It’s a simple answer, for a simple question. Yet it makes him think about it all. No one in this town does actually know who he is. The hair should’ve been a dead give away for who he was, yet no one questioned him about it. No one in any conversation he’d ever had in this town ever really asked him questions about him…

“What’s it begin with?” Your voice breaks him out of the tangent, yet when he turns his to look at you he’s forced to look straight into your eyes. Your very pretty, very close to him eyes.

“What?”

“Your name. Your real name. Not some made up alias you came up with but your actual, parent given or whatever adult given name. Tell me what it begins with if your not comfortable to say it fully.”

Aegon sighs in defeat when he sees your determined eyes. Again, your very close to him eyes that make his own want to drift to your lips and see if they taste of the vanilla ice cream. “My father picked my name, mainly cause he was a traditional cunt. It begins with an A.”

“Anthony?”

“Like that Bridgerton dude?”

“You watch Bridgerton?”

“No I remember when I was on the beach and a bunch of girls in skimpy bikinis were talking about the dude. Sounds like a dick for ditching his betrothed for her sister if you asked me.”

“Gonna just ignore that for the bigger issue… Arnold?”

“GET TO THE CHOPPER!”

“Dear gods give me strength… How about Archie?”

“Nope”

“Archibald?”

“Is that what I am to you princess? A fucking duke from the m 1800’s? I’m very harshly offended!”

“Achilles?”

“Are you trying to ask insinuate something princess?”

A frustrated sort of growl rips from your throat, and Aegon can’t help himself from thinking that’s the most hottest thing he’s ever heard. It almost naws at his head the idea that you growl like that in bed. When he takes you from behind, would you growl like that just for him while he’s cumming inside and paining your insides white? He certainly hopes so. He’s not very sorry for the fact he can feel himself getting hard in front of you. As why should he? He’ll be hopefully fucking you soon enough.

“You are so annoying!” You moan with your hands clenched in what he assumes is frustration. It makes him subconsciously smile from amusement.

“That’s the goal princess.” He winks for what feels like the tenth time today. That inner fuck boy really seems to be coming back full swing, though the worst part is he can’t tell if it’s a good or a bad thing. The good part is, he’s able to flirt with you like a bird flying. Scoring a couple deep blushes he’ll store the image of later. The bad part however, now that part of him is unlocked, the thoughts of that lifestyle are hitting him full force.

The images of you with that ice cream on your lips sending his mind racing. Sounds of you groaning playing again and again as if they’re on some old record player he can’t turn off. The taste of the ice cream is what he’s thinking your lips would taste like if he was to kiss you.

To be honest, the rest of the date not date went like a blur. As if he’d somehow snorted some sort of coke and was in some hallucinagenic high or something. Yeah, he remembers showing you the rest of the shitty buildings and telling you peoples secrets like you and him were on some shitty quiz show (unlike catchphrase if you ever dissed catchphrase he’d probably have to kill you). But honestly, it was as if he was watching it from above. The only way he can think of to describe it is from that marvel movie Dr Strange with the weird ghost thing they do.

The only way he’s brought back to his own body is when he felt the sudden warmth of your body on his. The feeling like his soul was entering his body hitting him harshly and quickly as he realised what was going on. You were hugging him. Your hands were wrapped around him and your head was in his neck.

Aegon can’t deny he didn’t enjoy the feeling of your warmth, but he also can’t deny the uncomfortable feeling of the hug itself. His arms though did not move, only limply and awkwardly stiff at his sides. His chin was brushing against the shell of your ear. Worst of all, he could feel his chest beating like he ran one of those marathon things, it’s almost worst that he doesn’t know if why his heart was beating so fast whether because it was from the sudden affection, or because while you hugged him he realised he could feel the imprint of your breasts.

You look up at him with your chest still in quite close proximity to his own, and your hands placed on his forearms. You seem to ponder something with a raised brow, as your mouth already begins to move.“You’re not a big hug kinda guy are you?”

“No I guess not.” He simply shrugs. His arms still hang limply, while your face is still close. He’s almost tempted to lean forward and close that gap. See if your lips will taste like the vanilla ice cream you were licking not long ago. He can’t deny though that he likes this act even better than going for the taste. A small torture for a large reward. Maybe it’s the masochist in him? Or the sadist that revels in the cat and mouse game your not even aware your playing. Call him insane, it’s not like he’s never heard it before anyway.

[wishfullyeternal]

William Afton x Reader

A/N- What up guys it's me again, college is awful and I hate every second of it. Anyway, watched the FNAF movie and had an absolute AWAKENING in the theatre. This does not follow the lore (bc I am lazy and stupid), so don't comment on that lol. Debating on making this nsfw or not, haven't decided yet, so if you like it lemme know. Y'all are awesome :) (There will be a part 2, and possibly a part 3, I already have most of it written just need to edit it)

Words- 1,662

Warnings- Language, mentions of murder/crimes

You stared up at the neon lights, illuminating the wet ground below. The lights reflected onto the puddles, and you found yourself zipping up your jacket to escape the frigid wind. At least the storm was finally subsiding.

Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria

The building wasn't particularly cutting-edge, and the sign definitely had a bit of wear and tear on it, but it was good enough for now. You just needed a job, and quick. You didn't know how many more times you could ask for just one more day to your landlord.

You took a deep breath and pushed open the obviously marked pull door.

Embarrassing.

Regaining what little dignity you had left, you went up to the counter and spoke to a very chipper teenager, who seemed like she genuinely enjoyed her job.

"Hello! Welcome to Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria, what can I help you with?"

You, a bit startled, took a second to respond.

"Yeah, I had an interview a couple of days ago for an opening? Today is my first day..."

"Oh, awesome! Come this way!" She exits from behind the counter and leads you through a maze of tables, past a door that says Employees Only in big red print. You finally arrived at an office door at the end of the hallway, it was noticeably less...Cheerful. The floors had changed to concrete, and the walls were not adorned with bright paint. Instead, it was a drab yellow, with slightly peeling wallpaper.

"Wait here just a second," She says, and goes inside the office, speaking quietly to whoever is inside. You assumed it was the man you spoke with before when interviewing for the job, you thought his name was Henry, but you weren’t sure. You took a deep breath and it caught in your throat as the lady from before opened the door quite quickly.

     “He will see you now!” She said, smiling at you. You took the handle of the door and opened it, stepping inside. The floor had changed to carpet, and the office looked quite cozy. It was adorned with many pictures of the grand opening, different groups of kids posing in front of various animatronics, and even a yellow bunny posing with a little girl. That one was the most worn down and yellowed. Like it had been taken out of its frame and looked at multiple times, before being shoved back in.

     The man noticed your silence and motioned for you to sit down. This was not the same man from before, this man was a bit more serious, and his voice was soft yet commanding at the same time.

     “Welcome to Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria! My name is William Afton, co-owner and founder. You probably met Henry, correct?” The man smiled, he had a few permanent wrinkles, especially towards his eyes, and wore a (quite frankly) ugly yellow dress shirt that was a tiny bit too big. Probably due to his height, he looked tall just sitting down. His tie was a muted purple, and he clasped his hands together on the desk, looking at you with sharp silver eyes. To be honest, he was a bit intimidating. He loomed over you even when sitting across from you at the desk, and there was no way he was less than six feet tall. When he moved the coffee cup next to him out of the way, you noticed the way his hands engulfed the cup. They were big too. This man was just, large.

     “Uh, yeah, I spoke to Henry on the phone and we had an interview a couple of days ago, he said I could start today in the prize corner…” You trailed off, your small voice echoing off the walls.

     “Well then, here’s some paperwork for you to fill out and I’ll pair you with Barbara today for your first day of training. Normally we do about two weeks of training and then you’ll be an official Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria team member! Exciting, isn’t it?”

     You nodded, looking at him gathering the papers from random places around his desk, even his hands engulfed the papers. He pushed up his glasses and fumbled around for a pen. His desk was extremely neat, and you assumed that William knew exactly where everything was, and exactly how it should be. He definitely ran this place like a Navy ship.

     “Thank you,” You said, grabbing the paperwork and beginning to fill it out. William excused himself from the room and left you there alone, to do the paperwork, and only the paperwork.

     You definitely weren’t going to snoop around a bit. I mean, how could you not? This place had an air of something strange. Like something had gone horribly wrong. You scribbled down more nonsense on the pieces of paper. One question caught your attention.

     Are you scared of animatronics, marionettes, or other children’s toys?

     Huh? You thought to yourself, what a strange question. You guess it made sense, you were going to be around them a lot, and it wouldn’t be a good fit for the company if you were terrified of them, but then, why would you even apply? You tucked away that information for later, perhaps you would ask him. Finally, you finished the paperwork and got up from the chair. You were careful and calculated in your steps. The first thing you went over to was the picture. You took it off the shelf and squinted at it. There was someone in a golden bunny costume, and a little girl, no more than eight, beside him. His hand was draped over her shoulder, and she had a gleaming smile. The words Fredbear’s Family Diner were up at the top, and it looked like this place had just opened. It was a cute picture, but something felt off. The girl was a tiny bit too far away from the man in the bunny suit, you then realized that the man in the bunny suit must have been close to seven feet tall. He was quite literally towering over her. You put the picture back, making sure the angle of the picture was just how you found it a minute prior. You then went over to Williams's desk and opened up the first drawer. Pens, pencils, post-it notes, staples, and write-up citation notices were in the drawer. That was extremely normal. You weren’t sure why you were convinced you were going to find something. The man had been nothing but normal. Absolutely normal.

     Maybe he was too normal. You closed that drawer and opened up the second, it was filled to the brim with different notebooks, picture books, and other random stacks of papers. You then tried to open the third. It was locked.

     Locked? You thought, what reason would he have to lock a desk drawer? You pulled at it more, but nothing budged. There was, however, a tiny sliver where you could see through, and to be honest, you couldn’t see much of anything.

     Something reflected the light, something yellow. Dirty. It smelled like polyester and a hint of something else. You couldn’t tell. You then decided to go back to your chair and gaze around the room more. Thank god you did, because the door opened back up about a minute later.

     “All done?” He quips, you nod, and he sits back down on the desk and takes the paperwork, looking over it.

     “Looks good, I’ll lead you to Barbara at the prize corner, and she’ll teach you the ropes.” He smiled gently, and you smiled back. He opened the door and held it open for you, before leading you through the maze again, footsteps loud on the concrete.

     “Thanks for the job, Mr.Afton, it really means a lot to me.” You spoke quietly, he hadn’t heard you.

     “Hm?” He sighs,

      “Sorry, my hearing isn’t what it used to be, being around loud arcade games for years definitely hasn’t helped. What did you say?”

     You stammered, now obviously embarrassed.

     “Thanks for the job Mr.Afton, I really appreciate it,” William smiled, then held out his hand for you to shake. You did, and his hands were probably twice your size. It was firm, but kind.

     “Happy to have you on the team… And please, William will do,” He led you towards Barbara, and she greeted you with as much excitement as the teenager at the front did earlier, her ginger hair shone in the backlights of the prize corner. She seemed proud of her prize display and was eager to show it off to you.

     She took you through your first day, and it was a breeze. She explained the ticket counter, the prizes, how easiest to remember how many tickets each prize required, and taught you how to deal with problematic children. You couldn’t have asked for a better co-worker. However, something changed when you asked a relatively simple question.

     “So what is Fredbear’s Family Diner?” Barbara froze, and her blue eyes widened in the tiniest of ways. If you hadn’t been staring at her eyes, you would have missed it entirely. She smiled again, and you could tell something was wrong. She grabbed at her tie and loosened it a bit, like she was uncomfortable. You felt like you had crossed an invisible line, or gone past obviously marked caution tape. Barbara spoke gently, and carefully.

     “It was the restaurant Mr.Afton and Mr.Emily had first, it was closed down due to electrical issues.” You decided not to push further, it was obvious that she didn’t want to talk about it. Why though? You thought, trying to make sense of it. If William had a picture of it in his office, it must have meant something to him, why close it down and open something that would basically be the same? What happened?

     The rest of the day went smoothly, and you went home with a lot more questions than before.    

     How could a pizzeria hide so many secrets?

[askmewntwo]

(blueespeon) Nahi @ Joey

[The yellow mew seems concerned] Joey, I REALLY have to ask you, do you actually know what you are doing?

I have questions on how you are able to understand how these machines work simply by watching, namely, how do you know that they might be released with no issues? Have you seen them release experiments before?

Are you doing this by instincts, or do you truly know what to do?

Oh, look! Another Mew! What’s with all of you coming here? It’s been nonstop. Are you all like on the same wavelength or something?

Joey turns his attention away from the Mew as he begins to work at the computer again, tiny paws furiously tapping the keyboard.

Anyways, if you MUST know. YES. I totally know what I’m doing. My cage has been parked right behind this desk my ENTIRE LIFE. I have seen the scientists utilize this machine multiple times, all day, every day. I’ve even been part of the experiments the computer runs so, yeah. I could probably do this with my eyes closed.

As if he was showing off, Joey closes his eyes briefly as he continues to tap away at the keyboard.

It’s not like anyone who’s come by could do any better.

Snapping his eyes back open, Joey lowers his voice to a whisper.

Besides, who cares? If it doesn’t work out, I’m still free. That pink guy over there would probably be too distraught to follow through on its threats to throw me back in my cage.

Joey seems to pause before waving off his visitor.

Anyways. I’m really busy here, yeah? Almost done. Can’t have anymore distractions. You should get going. It could get… ugly here soon.

It seems Joey doesn’t wish to be bothered right now.

@blueespeon

[madnessandentropy]

Summary: A fic set in hell in which my original character (she is NOT an HB/HH oc and neither is the other one) has a horrible experience while at therapy. Basically expanding on the concept of hospitals, therapists, and rehabs in hell being designed specifically to not help you (also a critique of irl therapists)

CWs: Bad therapists, victim blaming , sexual harassment, cannibalism, fatphobia

(Pls reblog and leave a comment, constructive criticism is also welcome ❤)

Therapist From Hell

The therapist would not stop smiling.

Sharp white teeth lined that mouth in neat rows, a set of razors for each jaw.

Morgan shifted and looked at her lap. Her blood rushed in her ears and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.

She inhaled slowly, and focused on her clothes for a distraction. Her long purple and black dress was one of the few splashes of colour in the room, a beacon in a sea of grey and black.

That was one of the problems with this awful place. Nearly every single thing in this room was either black or various shades of grey.

The carpet was dark grey and mottled with little black spots that made Morgan feel nauseous.

The walls were light grey as was the desk and the stiff, uncomfortable chair jutting into Morgan's legs and scratching at her skin.

Tick tick tick

The clock. The stupid clock. It was so loud. It was ugly, hexagonal and black and silver, mounted on a wall next to a black bookcase.

Tick tick tick

The ticks were so loud. Morgan's ears screamed in pain with every little movement of the bulging, twisted third hand.

"Miss Vettä."

A low voice forced forest green eyes to lock with sickly yellow.

Tick tick tick

The therapist would not stop smiling.

His eyes crinkled from the stretch of his grin and they flickered with an indecipherable emotion.

He was a perfect match to the rest of the room.

His skin was ash grey, stretched thin over an impossibly gaunt face decorated with black scales and black lipstick. He was skeletal, cheekbones protruding and the rest of his form rail thin.

His hair was long and black with a single grey stripe runnig down the right. It was wavy and thick, the style almost reminding her of a king cobra's hood.

His suit and shoes were black too, paired with a dark grey tie and socks.

His eyes, those nauseatingly yellow eyes, were the only splash of colour on him. They were accentuated by black and grey eyeshadow, making them look brighter. Scarier.

He was handsome, that couldn't be denied, but his very presence filled Morgan with a fear so primal she was tempted to flee.

Tick tick tick

"Miss Vettä, you've barely said a word. This may turn into a wasted session, I fear."

His voice was so painfully professional. It was smooth and deep, laced with an accent Morgan couldn't place, sickly sweet.

"I... I can't think of anything to talk about." Morgan mumbled, feeling slightly delirious. The overpowering scent of lavender pouring from the various incense dispensers in the room made her head hurt.

Tick tick tick

That horrible, toothy smile widened just a fraction.

"Well then, dear, let me help you." The therapist said sweetly.

He reached next to him and took hold of a clipboard. He gripped it with bony ash grey hands, bespeckled with scales, that faded to black at his fingers which extended to claws.

Something in his left pocket squirmed.

Tick tick tick

"In our last session you mentioned that in your previous life you were harassed by a classmate at your university. Why don't you tell me about that?"

Tick tick tick

Morgan's tongue stuck to the roof her throat and her heart sank.

"N-No... I'm not... I'm not comfortable with sharing that."

Tick tick tick

The therapist's smile faded slightly. He leaned forward.

Tick tick tick

"I don't think you underssstand the effort I put into ssspending my time here with you when I could be treating more talkative patientsss."He hissed. The lights flickered. His eyes glowed brighter. "Tell me or choossse ssssomething elssssse."

Tick tick tick

Morgan swallowed. "I-"

God, why was that clock so fucking loud?

As if a higher being heard her thoughts, the ticks were drowned out by a single gunshot.

Morgan jolted in her seat and swivelled towards the nearest window. The blinds were drawn, obscuring the chaos outside. However, she could still hear muffled cuss words and screams of pain.

"Ignore that." The therapist said breezily, as if somebody wasn't screaming in agony right outside the window.

Morgan swallowed.

"Go on." The therapist coaxed. "Tell me absolutely everything."

"W-Well..." Morgan's mouth started moving before she could stop it. "There was this new guy in my uni class that arrived in the second term. He was older than the rest of us, said he was changing careers, and he was awful. And creepy. He always made me feel unnerved."

"My, how judgemental." The therapist purred.

There was a pen in his hand now- black and silver- and the ink was a very specefic shade of red that made Morgan's skin crawl.

"It was valid I swear!" She shrieked. "He was a creep! He made comments about all the girls and stared at the ones who wore skirts and told them to 'pull it higher'. It's... it's why I just switched to wearing jeans."

Embarrassment washed over her when she finished her tangent when she saw the therapist's smile twist into a bemused smirk.

"A-Anyways, he equally caught an interest in me. At first he left an anonymous notes on my table. He would tell me I looked pretty, that I was cute or other things like that. It wasn't anything creepy yet, and I will admit I was quite flattered at the time. 'Secret Admirer' and all that, you know?"

"Then he got hold of my number." Morgan took a shakey breath, trying not to look at the thrashing lump thar was the therapist's pocket.

"I don't know how. But he did. He messaged me, telling me it was him who left the notes and asking if I liked them. Then... he started saying things that weren't as sweet. Telling me about how thought about me when he- saying I looked pretty but he thought I would sexier if I... if I lost weight. Stuff like that."

"I know I'm not exactly-" Morgan gestured to herself. "-thin, but that was such an awful thing to say. I-It made me so upset. He wouldn't stop messaging me though, he kept sending me gross messages and..." She shuddered. "Pictures."

The therapist would not stop smiling.

"The block button is there." His tone was professionally dismissive. "Did you press it? Or... did you like the attention? You mentioned you have self image issues before, after all."

Morgan sat up straighter and glared at the therapist.

"I blocked him." She growled through sharp clenched teeth. "And then he found me on other social media and I blocked him there too. Then he just went back to putting written notes on my desk."

The therapist would not stop smiling.

"Did you report him?"

Morgan hesitated.

"...Not at first. I was afraid of how he would react and I wasn't sure if I'd be believed. Complaints against him were always dismissed and those who lodged them always looked so... a-afraid afterwards."

As Morgan spoke, her voice quivering, the therapist opened his mouth. Wide.

A large pair of fangs flicked out, glistening with something sickly, and a black forked tongue slid out to slide across them. He looked utterly delighted.

Morgan trailed off,coming to a sudden stop as she watched the display in mild horror. Gooseflesh rippled across her dark blue skin.

The therapist would not stop smiling.

"Don't mind me." He cooed, fangs retracting. His voice made her teeth itch. "Continue."

"I-I only reported him after... after a dance our class put together. It was going to be so much fun and apparently he wasn't coming, so I got excited and brought a really beautiful dress for it. It wasn't fancy and it was kinda short, but it looked good on me and it had a good price."

"Turns out that asshole was coming. He made it his business to feel me up and whisper really gross shit to me even after I told him to stop multiple times." She buried her face in her in her hands. "The staff did nothing."

There was a brief silence after that, filled only with the scratching of a pen and the ticking of that damn clock. The lump was still moving, making a faint rustling noise.

The therapist would not stop smiling.

He tilted his head and blinked owlishly.

"Why did you wear that dress?"

"What?"

"You said it was quite small. You know how dressing like that is interpreted . Why did you wear it? It's almost like you were asking for it."

Morgan gaped, flabbergasted. "I-"

She was cut off by a brief ringing noise and the therapist sighed.

"That's the end of our session I'm afraid. Thank you for your time. This was a most productive discussion. I'm quite hungry now."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a... a mouse?

It was white with pink stripes running down its back and large pink eyes. It squirmed in the therapist's hold, squealing and flailing like a mouse gone mad.

Something about it was strangely familiar.

"Want a bite?" The therapist asked, teeth glinting.

Morgan shook her head wordlessly.

The therapist did not stop smiling. He simply shrugged.

"Ah, more for me then."

He tilted his head back, dangled the mouse by the tail over his open mouth, dropped it in, and swallowed it whole.

Morgan watched, mortified, as a visible lump slid slowly down the therapist's throat.

What had she just witnessed?

The therapist acted like nothing happened, picking up a notepad off his desk and scribbling something on the first page before tearing it off and handing it to her.

"What's this?" Morgan asked, squinting at the unreadable scrawl.

"A prescription."

The therapist's smile was so wide it took up half of his face.

"For a medicine to help with weight loss. It'll help those image issues of yours. The medicine and me prescribing it to you will cost extra."

"W-what?" Morgan stuttered. "I can't afford paying extra!"

She had learned through other patients that refusing a prescription outright ended very poorly, and it was best to try and bargain.

"That's something for you to sort out with the front desk." The therapist cooed, ushering her out the door. "See you next week!"

He slammed the door shut and Morgan was left standing alone in an empty hallway.

With no one else there and the prescription paper unreadable, Morgan had nothing to distract her from the... mouse.

That mouse.

That. Mouse.

It was so familiar.

White. Pink streaks. Pink eyes with a flicker of orange.

It looked so scared.

Green eyes widened.

Oh.

O h.

Morgan suddenly felt very very sick.

She saw that mouse.

She saw it last week. But not as a mouse. As a person. Crying, telling the disinterested cleric that they couldn't afford their prescription charge.

Morgan's stomach churned and bile rose in her throat.

She raced to the front office, paid for her session and prescription with shaking hands, shoved her new bottle of pills into her back, raced outside and proceeded to throw up all over the pavement.

Panting, she turned to glare at the tall, grey building stretching up to the blood red night sky.

She gasped.

At the window on the ground floor, peering at her from between the now open blinds, was the therapist.

Sickly yellow eyes glowed dangerously. There a mouse tail protruding from between his teeth.

Morgan started crying.

The therapist did not stop smiling.

-End

.....................................

A/N: Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed! I've never written in quite this style before.

Tagging: @onehelluvatime please let me know what you think!

[yourdeepestfathoms]

Vanessa and (plush) Glitchtrap

(based on this post because i thought of more stuff for it and think it’s funny)

Have you ever been bitch slapped by a rabbit stuffed animal? Because Vanessa has

Despite lacking muscles, that little bitch can SWING

It HURTS

Glitchtrap walks around her apartment like he owns the damn place

Vanessa is still forced to call him “Mr. Afton” lmao

“What’s for dinner tonight?” “Soup.” “I don’t want soup.” “YOU CAN’T EAT”

Glitchtrap can, will, and has stabbed Vanessa in the foot whenever he doesn’t get his way

A coworker: omg, Vanessa, why are you limping??

Vanessa: *remembers how her evil stuffed rabbit roommate stuck a knife into her heel because she didn’t lift him onto the counter to see what she was doing (he can literally teleport, he just likes the satisfaction of having her obey)*

Vanessa: oh, i just sprained my ankle!

They sit on the couch and watch shows together

And then argue about what to put on

“I DON’T WANT TO WATCH THOSE STUPID HOME RENOVATION SHOWS” “I DON’T CARE! I DON’T WANT TO WATCH THE NEWS! AND BESIDES, IT’S MY TV!” “YOU ARE MY HOST!” “THAT DOESN’T MEAN YOU GET TO CHOOSE THE CHANNEL!”

He’ll sit on her head and pilot her around like in Ratatouille, but instead of pulling on her hair, he just slaps the shit out of her until she does what he wants

Someone: why is your stuffed animal in the corner??

Vanessa: i’m angry at it

Glitchtrap: YOU SHOULD KNOW THAT YOURE UGLY BY NOW HOW ARE YOU STILL GETTING UPSET WHEN I TELL YOU SO

Vanessa is ordered to buy a really big bag so Glitchtrap can sit inside of it when she goes places

Catch Glitchtrap out here in one of these bad boys

She’ll be at the grocery story, and these long yellow rabbit ears will just perk out of her bag because he’s interested in what she’s doing

“You need milk.” “Thanks.” “Yeah.”

He’ll ask her to show him different items so he can inspect them, and it looks so weird because it just seems like she’s holding shit to her bag for no reason

One time, Vanessa was mugged, and when the dude took her bag, Glitchtrap jumped out like a rabid squirrel

Long story short, Vanessa got her bag back

“SHE’S MINE, YOU BITCH!” “YEAH, YOU BITCH!”

While at work pre-night guard job, she’ll put him in the corner of her desk and just talk to him sometimes because she gets bored punching numbers into a keyboard all day

“Idk, sometimes it all feels so futile, you know?” “Why do you think I went into the engineering business? It’s better than this.” “I guess so. But doesn’t engineering take some level of desk job experience? And, besides, it isn’t all just building robots for fun.” “You’ve got me there. You pulled the short stick.”

Whenever Glitchtrap sees a typo in whatever Vanessa is typing, he’ll smack her hands aside with his little paws and start revising it himself

“Are you trying to make us look stupid?? Here, let ME do it.”

Once she gets her night guard job, he’ll sometimes go with her to work and will actively walk around beside her, since it’s not like he’ll be caught

Whenever Vanessa hears an animatronic coming, she punts him away like a football

Freddy: who were you talking to?

Vanessa: what? oh, i had a phone call!

Gltichtrap, at the other side of the room: OW YOU WHORE

Glitchtrap would definitely try to fistfight Mini Music Man

Glitchtrap, to his old body down in the old pizzeria: look at me, Vanessa. this was me in my PRIME!

Vanessa: you in your prime looks a lot like a gross corpse,,

She got smacked real hard for that one

He usually oversees the work on the Burntrap body in this form

By this I mean that he literally sits on her shoulder and makes sure she doesn’t do Anything Wrong

Glitchtrap: i can’t see. put me up high.

Vanessa: *puts Glitchtrap on her shoulder*

Glitchtrap: much better!

This but it’s Vanessa and Glitchtrap

[angel-eyes05]

bite the hand (chapter 6)

PREVIOUS CHAPTER

pairing: spider-woman!oc x miguel o’hara 

summary: lorena's whole world was taken away from her in the blink of an eye, after she accidentally broke a canon event. lucky for her though, she was able to find a portal watch in her dimension and used it to get out before she glitched out of existence. unfortunately though, running from dimension to dimension, she's been named as an anomaly by the spider society. now, she's constantly on the run from them, their leader in particular. when she eventually gets caught though, she's recruited onto a mission to catch another anomaly who might be from her past. to her dismay though, her partner on this mission is her very captor. will she be able to stop arguing with him for long enough to get the job done?

info: enemies to lovers, maybe a slow burn depending on chapter count, oc is 24 and miguel is 27, both oc and miguel are super sad lmao, they're also both super violent so, they also hate each other what a slay, in regards to my oc you can read her character sheet right here

warnings: there might be spoilers for atsv in this so watch the movie before reading this, cursing, implication of suicidal thoughts, blood mention, ANGST SO MUCH ANGST

word count: 2.4k

notes: thank you olivia rodrigo for dropping vampire in the middle of me writing this because that was such good backing music for the argument🤭  (i love angst if you couldnt tell)

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

As the soft, delicate rain turned into a heavier pour, Lorena started to wish she went inside the motel lobby with Miguel, instead of waiting outside.

Miguel had gone in about five minutes ago and still hadn’t come out. Now having moved underneath the awning, she was enjoying watching the rain, and different civilians running through it on the street. Her momentary peace was interrupted when Miguel came slamming through the door, wiping his hands across his face and groaning. “I didn’t know booking a hotel room could be so stressful,” Lorena joked. “You’re gonna hate me,” he said, sounding genuinely sorry. Lorena sighed. 

She had seen this trope play out in movies all the time. “You got the keys?” she asked, avoiding his statement. He held up the keys in one hand and jingled them sarcastically. “Ok, lets just get going before we get even more drenched,” she said, guiding her hand to the stairs so Miguel can lead the way up to the room. 

Lorena headed up the stairs slowly, still in a good amount of pain from her earlier wounds. Once she and Miguel made it to the door, and he unlocked it, she was met with the very thing she was dreading this whole time.

One king sized bed, smack in the middle of the room. Not even a couch for one of them to lay on. 

Lorena sighed before walking in. “I’ll take the bathtub,” she said exhaustedly before walking in. “You sure you don’t want me to take it?” he asked kindly. “You really think you’ll be able to fit in that?” she asked rhetorically, looking back at him and pointing up and down at his massive body. He shrugged it off. “Ok, but I need to shower first, so at least take the bed for now,” he insisted. 

The room was a decent size. A king sized bed in the middle, with a desk by the far away window. A dresser was perched in front of the bed with a medium sized TV straight above it. The bathroom on the other hand, was much more of a mess, conveniently. The tub was an ugly teal color with cracked linoleum tile floors. An orange-brown rust shrouded all the metal material, and the yellow overhead light was headache inducing. Perfect environment for sleeping. 

While Miguel was in the shower, Lorena sat on top of the tacky looking quilt while she flipped through free movies on the cable. It wasn’t like she was actually going to pay attention to any of them, but having one on in the background would at least make time seem like it was moving a little bit faster. She eventually just landed on Coco, a cute little movie to just have on, and left it playing in the background as she let her thoughts wander off. 

It just clicked to her now that this was the first time that day she had a moment to rest. Whether it was running around New York City, almost falling to her death, or patching herself up, her adrenaline had been at an all time high for the whole day. As a result, it felt weird to just be sitting and doing nothing, even if it was relaxing. Especially while she knew he was out there. 

Her Spider-Sense was going crazy, even though she wasn’t in any immediate danger. It was just the fact that she was going to have to see him again that wanted to make her pull her hair out. It had been so long, she was even beginning to forget what he sounded like. She promised herself she never would. Yet here she was. Searching deep through her memories to try and remember his diction. 

The way he would hang on his vowels a little, and extend the last syllable of the word, like he wanted to keep it in his mouth a little longer. He always had a relaxed tone to his voice, combating her quick, harsh one. He matched her so well, she could never imagine herself with anyone else. Or at least she used to think that. That’s why Miguel scared her so much.

Almost as if on cue, the door to the bathroom opened, steam clouding its way into the main room, and Miguel standing in the doorframe with a towel tightly wrapped around his small waist. Lorena had to keep herself from admiring his chiseled body. Although, when she was able to move her eyes away from his six-pack, she only felt more butterflies in her stomach from the sight of his wet, sloppy hair. It was so different from his put together, almost uptight appearance.

In a desperate attempt to get away from her own lustful thoughts, she blurted out, “Lo juro por dios, if you used up all the hot water O’Hara.” “Don’t worry, don’t worry, there should be enough left for at least a quick rinse,” he defended, taking another smaller towel from the closet in the small hallway and ruffling it across his hair. 

She got up quickly and made her way to the bathroom, before she heard Miguel say, “Do we really have to watch this movie.” She paused. “What’s wrong with Coco?” she said jokingly, and almost like she was offended. “I just don’t wanna watch it,” he responded flatly. “I didn’t know you were too grumpy to enjoy a kids movie.” “Can you just cut it out.” Lorena was getting energized off of the banter though, deciding to continue it by running to snatch the remote just before he could. “Lorena, give me the remote.”

Took a moment. So did he, realizing what he just did. She pointed her finger up at him in a mocking manner. “Ha! You did it! You said my name!” “I don’t have the energy for this, anomaly.” “Nuh uh, no take backs” she teased like a child, jumping around the room while he tried to grab the remote while still holding up his towel. 

“Would you just give it to me?” he almost shouted, trying to block out the sounds of the TV while the lullaby rendition of “Remember Me” started playing in the back. “Oh come on, why can’t you just have a bit of fun for a little, Mr. Grumpy-Pants,” Lorena continued. “Just give me the fucking remote already!” Miguel was now full on shouting at her. “Just tell me what’s wrong with the fucking movie then!” she shouted back, getting a little more annoyed at his actions. “Because this was my daughter’s favorite movie!”

Lorena froze, embarrassment showing bright on her cheeks. Miguel sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose while the song finished. Lorena quickly shut off the TV as silence filled the room. “I…I didn’t know,” she tried to apologize. “It’s fine, just forget it,” he said, taking the remote and placing it on the desk next to him. “Can I ask what happened,” Lorena said meekly. All the attitude and cockiness she previously flaunted was broken down now. Miguel sighed, took a seat on the bed, and patted next to him. Lorena took her place on top of the bed as well. 

“It was a while ago. That I had her. Gabriella.” Lorena tried not to look at him, as if it would alleviate any embarrassment he might’ve been feeling. “It was a different universe. Other than my own. I wasn’t supposed to be there…but I had to. I was…” he took a deep breath. “I was so tired of being alone.” Lorena knew how that felt.

Shortly after Eddie’s death, she had gone down a dark path herself. If she didn’t have her aunt there with her, she might not have been sitting there on that bed right now. 

“It was so wonderful. She was wonderful. She was such a bright girl. Had a little spark to her. You would’ve liked her,” he pushed at her shoulder with his, getting Lorena to blush a little. “...What happened,” she hesitantly asked. Miguel took a bit to answer. “Like I said. I wasn’t supposed to be there.” 

“Oh.”

“It happened the same way yours did. She glitched away in my arms.”

Lorena’s attitude quickly changed when she heard the first part of that statement. “What do you mean ‘it happened the same way yours did’?” she asked, a tang of anger and confusion in her voice. Miguel knew he made a mistake the minute the words left his mouth. But he had gone too far to go back now. “I’m the reason the canon collapsed and destroyed Gabi’s Earth.”

Lorena stood up slowly from the bed, and turned away from him as she felt her face and eyes get hotter. “So…we made the same mistake…right?” she asked slowly. Miguel sighed, knowing where this was going. 

“Yes.”

She let out a slight laugh to herself, wiping her mouth with her hand as she felt the anger rising inside of her. “And you get off scot-free right?”

“Lorena, it’s not like that-”

“No, you know what, it sure seems it's that way. Big shot Miguel O’Hara gets to strut around destroying universes at his own will-”

“That’s not true and you know it.” He was starting to yell now too, standing up now as well.

She continued though. “While the rest of us can’t even get a restful night of sleep without fearing that some guy in a red and blue suit is gonna come from behind and slit our backs open?!”

“I’m trying to stop it from happening again!”

“Then why are you always too late, huh?”

Silence echoed through the room. 

“If you’re trying so hard to stop the same thing from happening again, why is my entire home gone? Why is everyone I love fucking dead Miguel?!” she shouted, her volume growing louder and louder. 

“That isn’t my fault!”

“And it’s not mine either, so why should I be punished for it?! Do you think I asked for this? I didn’t ask to watch my entire world disappear before my eyes as I ran away like a fucking coward!”

“You know what, you are a coward. Because at least I didn’t run. At least I tried to help!”

“Oh how noble of you! Everyone give it up for Miguel O’Hara, the hero who can do no wrong!” Lorena mocked. “You’re a fucking hypocrite, Miguel!” This conversation was the first time she used his first name as well, but both of them were too busy clawing at each other’s throats to notice. 

“At least I’m doing my job right! The more anomalies like you I put away, the better the multiverse will be. You sick fucks don’t do anything except cause trouble for everyone else. And to the ones who’s worlds are already gone? You creatures had it coming to you. You deserved what happened to you, you fucking anomaly!”

Miguel felt the sharp sting of Lorena’s palm against his cheek. “You call me that word again O’Hara and I swear to god, I won’t hesitate to kill you, take your watch, and run,” she stated, boiling with rage, before storming off into the bathroom and slamming the door shut.

She pressed her hands to the door as her back slid down it. She then slammed her fists onto the hard tile, repeatedly, her own strength cracking it even more. Blood flew from her skin as she continued to take her anger out on the floor, until her hands were shaking out of control. His words continued to echo through her head. You deserved it. Coward. Anomaly. 

Shakily, she stood up from the ground, and leaned her bloody hands on the sink counter in front of the mirror. Her own reflection looked ashamed of her. Memories ran through her head. Her uncle shot dead on the street. Her aunt looking to her, eyes wide, unsure of what was happening to her as she disappeared from existence. Then, it was coming to her again. Eddie.

~~~~~~~~~~~

She had been fighting the symbiote for what felt like hours. Thankfully, the surrounding area of the city had already been evacuated, so she wasn’t as worried about the alien hurting civilians. But she was beginning to get tired, and the gashes in the side of her suit from the alien’s claws were starting to take a toll on her. Remembering a lesson in class about symbiotes and their weaknesses, she took two metal poles from the destruction around her, and banged them together to break apart the alien. 

As its warped screams tore through the atmosphere from the clanging, Lorena took the opportunity to finally use her acid webs to slice off one of its arms. It worked. While it was still broken apart, she managed to stab the body inside the alien straight in the chest with a jagged pole. Once the symbiote fell to the ground, and the black goo started to crawl away from the body in search of a new host, Lorena could feel her heart sink into the bottom of her stomach. 

Even while dying, he was still beautiful to her. 

Eddie Brock. The boy she loved her whole life. 

His arm was sliced off and blood was gushing out of his midsection. Lorena ripped her sweaty mask off her face as she rushed towards his body. “No no no no Eddie, what are you doing here,” she asked him, while pressing her hands to his chest to stop the bleeding, as if that would actually do anything. “I-I…didn’t k-know,” was all he could manage to get out. “Shhh, it’s okay, I’m gonna get you out of here, it’s gonna be fine,” she blurted out, hot tears already burning her face. She felt his hand grab hers, then pulled her head down to his lips. She pressed her lips to his as the tears transferred down from her face to his. Once he let go, he managed to whisper something to her. 

“Don’t lose your heart.”

Lorena feverishly shook his body as the light left his eyes. “Eddie please don’t do this to me, please just stay with me, don’t do this,” she pleaded and begged to him over and over and over again. Her suit was stained in red from sitting next to his bleeding body for so long, her hands most effected. She sobbed over his body until morning, fleeing the scene when the police came to inspect the area.

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

She cradled herself into a little cocoon on the shiny, yellow tile as she silently wept. Miguel was right about her. And she knew it. 

Once she was finally finished, she stood up and wiped her swollen eyes. “Idiot,” she said quietly to herself.

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

NEXT CHAPTER

a/n: the chapter was starting to get super long so i just decided to split it into 2 so chapter 7 should be out pretty soon since i've already got most of it done

taglist: @the-ikran-man @jenniferdixon05207 @yuuuumii @elwyn7 @waniesss @lust-for-pan @natthernandez @pix-stuff @ang3lf4c3 @artfulthoughtswp

[clovermarigold]

Daggers & Daffodils Chap.25

Dagur x Reader

Sorry for the wait guys! As recompence I give you an extra-long chapter! Enjoy!

"So, this is your workshop?" Heather looked around your room and the pile of papers, herbs, and pestles covering your desk. "Somewhat. Sorry for the mess, I didn't exactly have time to clean up" you said, gathering things off your desk. "It's nothing, really" she held up her hands with a smile, "I've been living camp to camp for these past few years, this is nothing".  

After convincing Heather to come back to the edge you had thought everything was going great. The others fawned over Windshear and Heathers newfound intensity. Or as Astrid liked to put it, 'hardcore'. Regardless, however, Hiccup insisted that he would still have to address why she was attacking ships. 

"Heather, we should probably talk" Hiccup approached her in the dragon pen, nearing sunset, "Sure. about what?". "About the ship that you and Windshear destroyed" Heather pet her dragon with a guilty expression, "Oh... That ship". "Heather, what are you doing out there?" your brother pushed. "I'm just taking care of business. It's nothing you need to worry about--" Hiccup interrupted, "Yeah, but I do worry about it, Heather. If dragons are attacking ships, I worry".

"Look, Hiccup, a lot has happened in the last few years. We're not kids anymore. Everything's. changed". Hiccup walked closer, "This can't be you, it can't be". Heather crossed her arms and avoided eye contact, "Well, it is now. The last time you saw me, I-- Never mind. If, if you want me to leave--", "I didn't say that. No, whatever it is you're going through, we can help. All of us. There's always another way". Heather pulled Hiccup into a hug, "You're so sweet. Thank you Hiccup. You've always been a great friend to me".

A sharp stabbing followed by large weight on your stomach stole you from your peaceful sleep. "OW what the--" blearing your eyes open you are met with large yellow eyes. "Silver Tongue, what are you doing?" you sigh, partly from relief as he steps down from your stomach. The sound of yelling from the clubhouse tells you enough. "Ugh, we can't have one normal day where nothing happens, can we?" You hop on one foot, struggling to put a boot on the other. 

"We trusted you" Snotlout says, not yelling, but irritation present on his tone. "Look, I'm sorry I locked up your dragons. I just didn't trust that you guys would let me go after Dagur" Locking your wide eyes with Hiccup at the mention of your fianc-- Dagur, "I'll fill you in later".

"Trust does need to be earned with people and dragons" Fishlegs says sympathetically. "Thanks for understanding Fishlegs" Heather says tucking her hair behind her earning a fake gag from Tuff. "I don't really trust these guys either, Heather" Snotlout chimes in.

"You know we can hear you" Astrid says with a hand on her hip. "Jealousy in an ugly quality, Astrid. But clearly, I understand where it comes from" he says snidely, causing both you and Astrid to roll your eyes. "The point is, we have your back, Heather. You're one of us" Hiccup places a hand on her shoulder. 

"Yeah, I stocked Windshear's stable with buckets of sea slugs" Fishlegs said, Snotlout quick to put a handout Infront of him. "And I made room for you in my hut". Both you and Astrid groaned in disgust at the thought of having to share a hut with Snotlout. "And I've made it clear to Snotlout that you're not staying in his hut" Heather gave a smile of relief.

"Even though YOU were the rogue dragon rider, and YOU sabotaged our dragons, and YOU snuck away in the dark of the night. Wait, why do we like you again" Tuff said with his hands on his hips.  Heather put a hand to her chest, face sullen, "I'm truly sorry, Tuffnut".

"Woah! That was... sincere. What am I supposed to do with that?" he began to breathe heavily, "I'm feeling a bit flushed and overwhelmed. Little help here? People!". "And if you need any help with Windshear--" Snotlout was quick to interrupt Fishlegs, "Why don't I show you around the Edge? I'm basically chief". You roll your eyes at Snotlouts poor attempt at showboating. 

"Ok!" Astrid quickly grabs both yours and Heathers arms, "Let's go have some girl time". "Thank Thor, yes" you close your eyes with a breath. 

"Ha!" the two axes were wedged in their targets at nearly the exact same spot. "I don't know it's cutting it kind of close. Y/N, you judge. Which is closer?" Inspecting the two, your answer was only inconclusive. though it made you create a mental note not to get on their bad sides when an axe was within reach. 

"Hmm, well. Two axes are better than one" Astrid held up two fingers. "True", Heather agreed, "Unless you have one of these" she held up her double-sided blade made from Windshear's scales. "You really have to show me how you made that" Heather smiled. "Sure, but I prefer close combat to throwing. So, I can stare my enemy in the eye". "Not a bad tactic" you hummed, "Buuuut" you threw three of your daggers at the tree behind her, perfectly missing her sides. "The element of Suprise. I like that" you laughed. "It's one of Hiccups favorite tactics, those two are way too alike" Astrid said retrieving her axe. 

"So, you two are a thing, right?" She asked causing you to snort and nearly double over when you were trying to pull your knife from the tree. You turned quick to see Astrid with a near invisible sheen of pink tinging her face, and if you hadn't known her for so long, no doubt would have missed. Similar to her axe, which widely missed her next target, almost hitting a night terror. "What? No, just friends" she waved her hands fast. "Pfft" she shot you a steely glare, though it did nothing to stop the wide smile that had taken control of you. 

"What? Is he not good enough for you, Astrid?" you asked in mock offence. "He's kind of cute" Heather said, stoking the flames. "I guess. If you like that unassuming, heroic, dragon rider type". You gasped, "Astrid! That is my brother you're talking about. Think of the girl code! Platonic thoughts only!" she punched your side making you clutch your ribs, both from pain and laughter. "Wow, Astrid. I thought you were better than that" Heather put her hand on her hip with fake disappointment. 

"Huh... Now, you and Snotlout, that's a match made in Valhalla" the three of you broke out into laughter. "I don't know whether to thank you or to feel sorry for you". "I can handle Snotlout" she said, "And besides, I'm not into the macho Viking type. I like a little smarts. Like Fishlegs".

"Fishlegs?" Astrids voice was humorous, "Seriously?". "What? I think he's funny and cute". "We're talking about Fishlegs, right? The guy with the Gronkle?". "And rock collection he alphabetized" you added. "Okay, all right. Enough boy talk. what else do you do for fun around here?" the three of you began to walk towards the cliffs, you and Astrid sharing a look, and the same thought. 

"Keep up!" Astrid yelled as the two of you ran past Heather, jumping off the cliff. The two of you fell through the air, basking in the freedom before grabbing onto your dragon's tails. "Wahoo!" the sound of Heather's cheers was unfortunately short as Windshears wiry and thin tail slipped through her fingers. Thankfully, however, her dragon's quick reaction speed made up for it, grabbing onto her shoe, just before she could hit the rocky floor. 

"Wanna go two out of three?" Astrid asked, still adrenaline high. "Um, no" Heather said, gracefully still in a good mood, despite nearly being flattened. "I want to show you guys something. If you can keep up" Windshear took off into a soar. "Get 'em Stormfly". "Oh no" you were quick to grip onto your saddle, just before, Silver Tongue, ever the competitive dragon, rushed to catch up, nearly throwing you off in the process. 

"What are we doing back at your campsite?" the three of you landed on the familiar small island, "Did you forget something". "Nope." Heather said, in a more serious tone, walking confidently through the site. "Oh, it must be here" you and Astrid shared a look. 

"You gonna clue us in on what we're doing here?" Astrid asked, watching as heather searched. "I'm looking for something" the slight rustling sound that came from the bush to your right tipped you off. "Looking for something like--" in a swift move you grabbed whatever was in the push and pulled it out. "Trader Johann?" Astrid asked looking down on him, with her axe pointed his chest. "Miss Astrid! Miss Y/N! So lovely to see you again. Would you mind, please, lowering your axe so my frightened soul might be granted safe passage back to my body?".

"Johann! Thank Thor" Heather was quick to help him back up. "Oh, Miss Heather! I'm overjoyed you're not dead. When the terrible Terror returned with the message I sent you, I was sick with worry. Then, when I arrived here and saw your campsite had been abandoned, I feared the worst".

"Alright! Someone needs to tell me what's going on" Astrid spun the axe in her hand once. "You see, Miss Astrid, if you need exotic spices from a foreign land, or one-of-a-kind cured leathers, or incredibly-difficult-to-obtain information detailing the exact whereabouts of a certain dastardly Berserker, " He pulled out a map with a number of red x's, one of which was circled, "Trader Johann is your man".

"Dagur" the two of you said in sync, albeit yours more worried than Astrid. "And if you need a warrior to take care of that dastardly Berserker..." with a flourish she swung her double-sided axe into the ground, "I'm your girl". You swallowed, "So he's got the info and you've got the axe. Now what?" Astrid asked. 

"Dagur is set to purchase a fleet of new ships from a group of salty undesirables in the Sea of Despair. But be wary. These new ships for his armada are outfitted with powerful anti-dragon winches and catapults! After the deal is done, I won't be able to find him again. Dagur will be back in the wind. Adrift, like a leaf in a stream. And I've used my last grapevine, so I won't be able to offer my invaluable, yet expensive information".

"Got it. Thanks, Johann. Come on, guys" Heather nodded with a smile to the man. "Wait, were not actually considering this, are we?" you asked Astrid when Heather turned away. "If we leave Heather to do this by herself, she could get seriously hurt" She was right, based on what Hiccup had told you happened last time, she had nearly gotten caught. You could barely stomach the thought of what would have happened to her, and worse, Windshear. "I don't like going behind Hiccup's back" Astrid nodded, "It's just to keep her safe".

The idea of you flying into a growing armada without your brother, led by your crazy ex-fiancé was definitely not comfortable. But you would most certainly be less comfortable with the idea of Heather and Windshear doing it alone. "Ok, but no killing. It's one thing to go after Dagur alone. Killing him without giving anyone else a say is too much" Astrid nodded.

Flying back to the edge, where your brother was still gone, the others were standoffish to the idea of going after Dagur. "We gotta go now. Dagur won't be out in the open for long" Heather reasoned. "Wait a minute, you wat us to battle Dagur and the Berserkers without Hiccup and Toothless?" Fishlegs asked. 

"Guys, I wish Hiccup and Toothless were here, trust me. But they're not. And we can't wait. Dagur's ships have dragon-proof chains and grappling hooks. And the ships he's buying are even more powerful. But with all of us attacking at once, Dagur won't know what hit him".

Fishlegs rubbed the back of his neck, uncomfortable "Uh any arial assault of this magnitude would be foolish without Toothless. He's the most powerful dragon in our arsenal" a number of the dragons, Silver Tongue and Hookfang namely, let out a growl of disapproval. "And I mean... Y/N, you of all people should feel the most uncomfortable with this righ--" you shook your head quickly to cut him off. "What does he mean by that?" Heather asked.

"I'm just not used to not telling my brother about things like this" you lied. The last thing you needed was for Heather to know about your engagement. Previous engagement! "Well it's not like we need Hiccup and Toothless" Snotlout interjected. His obnoxiousness for the first time being useful and taking attention away from you. 

"You heard Johann, Astrid. This is our last chance. Tell them" She looked from you back to Heather. "Well... Look Heather--" Heather's face dropped before twisting into hurt. "You too? Just forget it. All that stuff about trust and having my back, I guess that was just talk" she turned and walked away. "....Akwar--" you elbowed Snotlout un the stomach making him keel over. 

"Looks like it's just you and me Windshear" heather saddled her dragon outside the clubhouse, now packed and ready to take off. "Hey" Astrid called the rest of you and your dragons included. "If we're gonna do this, it has to be a capture mission, not a kill mission. Agreed?". "Agreed" she smiled, "We'll sink Dagur's armada, drag him back to Outcast Island. Let him rot there". "Okay, then we're with you--".

"You can thank me!" Snotlout said boisterously, "I was the one who rallied these guys". "Thats not how I remember it" you say. "As soon as she left, your lips started to do that cute little quiver thing" Fishlegs mocked. "Quiet fish face! Thats a tic!". "So, what's your plan" Astrid asks, "Hit him when he least expects it".

Dagur sighed enjoyment as he stretched in the sun. "Ah, it's a good day to strengthen my armada. Then again, it's always a good day to strengthen my armada". Savage approached his chief warily, "The gold is ready for the exchange sir. Should we move it to the deck--".

"Leave it down below" he said with finality, barely attempting to even look at the thin man. "But. sir, when they arrive with the ships, they'll be expecting our gold". "YES--" he screamed before stopping himself, putting a hand up like an annoyed father would, "And instead of our gold, we'll give them our steel".  A wicked smile grew on the old Outcast soldier. 

You looked down at Dagur's ships, "There he is". "Alright let me guess" Tuff said to Heather, "You want to attack like the rogue dragon rider that you are. A full-frontal assault!". "No" Heather said, turning to you, "Element of surprise?". 

"Dragon's incoming!" one of the Berserkers called as they spotted Snotlout, Ruff, Tuff, and Fishlegs flying towards them from the front. "Prepare the grappling hooks!" Dagur called. He looked at the four laughing, "It's hunting season".

Team diversion stayed just high enough out of reach that the Berserker's weaponry couldn't reach them, every so often taking a quick shot that would miss. This of course infuriating Dagur to no end, "What are they doing up there?" you almost found it cute, with how he sounded genuinely confused. You, Astrid, and Heather, along with your dragons had crept up the sides of the ship and snuck into the deck of the ship Dagur was currently on. One by one, you singled out and knocked out each of the Berserkers on board. 

A large rock in the ship from the ripples of one of the others missed shots was the tipping point for Dagur who grabbed one of the chains to throw himself. As Dagur threw the chain back, Astrid interrupted its path with her axe, allowing her to pull him back. You were quick to tie him by his wrists, using the full weight of your body pressed against him to hold him down long enough, and to keep him from thrashing. "What the--" he looked up to see Astrid and Heather standing smugly in front of him. "Ugh, you two" he grimaced. "Surprise, Dagur" Heather pointed his axe at his head. " Two axes are better than one". 

"And twelve ships trumps two axes." the shrieks of your dragons were quick to change his mind. "Heh, should've seen that coming" it came out almost child-like before his eyes locked on Silver Tongue which made the realization pop into his head. "Y/N" he smiles, struggling to angle his head back to see you. You got off him quick, just long enough to flip him onto his back and cover his mouth before he could say anything. Though his eyes were saying more than enough, and you were thankful that Heather was angry enough to not notice the wide puppy love excitement he had in them. "Windshear finish it".

"No!", "Heather, don't. You promised us a capture mission" Astrid pleaded, while you looked up at your friend whose narrowed eyes were scorched in rage at the man beneath you. "Sorry. I changed my mind. Dagur didn't 'capture' my village. So this ends here" she wielded her axe and swung it towards him, but paused as you were still in the way, and on top of him. 

Dagur began to break out into laughter, "If you kill me Heather, you'll never know--" you covered his mouth again. "Y/N, get out of the way!" Windshear screeched to your left. "Heather, I can't let you do that" you were panicking, Windshear, having heard the call of her rider was trigger happy. And at this point, Heather was too. "You know what he did to my village! Yours too! Why are you defending him!?", "I just can't let you do this!" sensing your distress Silver Tongue became tense, now screeching at Windshear as if to tell her to back off. The two dragons were similar to their riders. 

"I trusted you!" Heather shouted, in tandem with the howls and snaps of your dragons. This was too much. Your anxiety spiked, the yelling, the dragons, the squirming of the man beneath you... you were going to have another panic attack. Your realization of this fact however was too slow, your brain throbbing as the world began to become too fast. Dagur's movements stopped entirely as he felt your hand loosen. In an instant he threw you off, flipping you over so you were in front of him while he supported your frame from behind., the two of you still on your knees. "Dagur! Don't you touch her!" Heather yelled at him brandishing her axe. 

"Deep breathes" The world was still spinning, and you struggled to make out what was happening. Choosing to listen to the voice you focused on your breathing, though in hindsight you should have recognized Dagur's voice relatively easy. Dagur continued to hold you up and rub your sides. 

"Heather don't!" Astrid yelled as Heather went to strike the Berserker before a purple blast knocked it out of her hand. "Stop! Heather stop" It was Hiccup, landed and quickly jumped off of Toothless to rush in-between you, Dagur, and Heather. "Move Hiccup" she picked up her axe "You promised me there would be another time, and this is it!". 

"Look, you told me your father gave you this" he held up a horn, "Yeah. he did but what--", "This is my father's Chief Seal". Her face twisted in confusion as she took the horn out of Hiccups hand, lowering her axe. "Stoick's seal is carved in my horn? What are you saying?". Your breathing leveled out and your vision began to focus, Dagur still focusing all his attention on you. 

"Years ago, Stoick gave this horn to the Chief of the Berserker Tribe, Oswald the Agreeable as a gift for his newborn daughter. You were that newborn, Heather. Oswald the Agreeable is your father. And he is also Dagur's father". Heathers face dropped as she looked at him, "no". Dagur shrugged as if it were common knowledge. "Heather, Dagur is your brother. You can't kill him" she was shocked turning to you then Astrid. "I--" a rock in the boat interrupted, as the rest of Dagur's ships had learned the truth of their deception. 

"Heather, we have to go!" the other ships boxed you in, beginning to plank over. She dropped her axe wordlessly. Dagur, having learned you were cognitive, had finally broken out of his ties and stood up completely, after propping you up against the ship.

"I have to admit, you never disappoint, brother. Or maybe you're actually my uncle. Who knows in this crazy world?" he broke out into a deranged laugh. The Berserkers began to board the ship and your brother called out to Heather "Heather, we have to go!".

"Heather, I'm the only family you've got left." Toothless was quick to jump in front of her, keeping him from getting any closer. "Join me sister. Don't fight destiny. I know you feel the Berserker blood flowing through your veins". Heather gave a twisted smile, eerily similar to that of Dagur, psyching him to believe she would consider his offer before leaping over him and pulling you up from the ground and helping you onto your dragon. The two of you took off, leaving Dagur to call out to you, "Come back, sis! Heather the Unhinged has a nice ring to it, no?", "Y/N, come on! You'll have a sister-in-law!".

Heather turned to look at you, confused. One look at you was enough, however as she pieced everything together. Her face twisted, and instead of saying anything she chose to speed up, flying past you. "You'll be back, and I will welcome you with open arms" Dagur finally called. And you looked back at him with a glare. Dagur watched as the two of you flew off. "We'll have to wait on that reunion, pity" a whistle from behind him caused him to turn only to be knocked to the ground by Toothless. "I should've seen that one coming, too". "Alright gang, back to the edge" Hiccup said.

Well, there went any chance of Heather teaching you how to make an axe.

[staycalmandhugaclone]

If you're new, this all starts with Touch Starved - Echo! You can read this little chunk as a standalone, or head back to the beginning for the full experience!

Febuwhump Day 2 Ch 4 - continuation to Flinching

Flinching – Med OC&TBB

Warnings: Summarized attempted SA, reference to physical assault, reference to victim blaming. The first half is heavy, not gonna lie, but there's nothing explicit.

WC: 3,052

Back rigid, arms locked tight at my side, I stood at attention in perfect stillness; that relentless tremor of earlier anxiety overruled upon finding one of the most well-known jedi masters seated before me in the relatively small room, a curved desk lying between us with a chair clearly intended for me already pulled out expectantly across from them. I'd expected the soothing visage of General Shaak Ti, already familiar with the kindness in those dark eyes from fleeting interactions with her while meandering through Kamino’s labyrinth of halls, but General Kenobi’s presence took me by surprise.

“I hope it’s alright that it’s just the four of us. Given the unfortunate nature of this, I thought you might be more comfortable with fewer participants. If that's not the case, though, I'm sure we can make an exception.” Kenobi started, voice flowing in a gentle cadence that would have calmed anyone not trained to use it themselves.

“This is fine, General.” The automatic response was just shy of sharp, nerves tightening around my throat. He studied me a moment before letting his attention shift briefly to his datapad.

“Your squad offered a few… opinionated reports.” He risked only the lightest touch of humor in the statement. My brow quirked at that. A few? I’d known Tech reached out to the commander but hadn’t thought any of the others bothered adding their own report.

“It’s clear they care deeply for you, and I believe we have you to thank for ensuring this is handled through the proper channels rather than resolving the issue themselves.” General Ti added with a knowing smile, and I was glad for the cover of my armor shielding the blush creeping up my neck but cursed the ease with which the mic picked up my tiny huff of laughter, teeth immediately locking around my lip to silence it.

“An effort we very much appreciate.” Kenobi murmured. “From our understanding of what happened, I’d much rather his punishment be public – a reminder that such actions have no place in the Republic.” I felt the shift as vividly as if I’d just stepped into the icy waters of some forgotten lake; pleasantries were over. Their regretful expectation weighed heavily in the air around us, both pairs of eyes finding a sympathetic resolve as they watched me.

“Please,” Kenobi motioned toward the chair, “You’re welcome to take your helmet off if you’d like. We understand you recorded images of your injuries before tending them?” I stared at the offered seat for a beat too long, limbs frozen in a final moment of rebellion against tearing at wounds that hadn’t yet begun to heal. Air held trapped in burning lungs lest they hear how near to breaking I was, I forced myself across those few steps and sat stiffly before them, movements almost robotic as I stripped myself of that precious layer of concealment, unable to fully restrain the longing way my eyes watched my own hands set the helm atop the desk before finally meeting their gazes absent that cover of impenetrable transparasteel.

I knew the reason behind the sudden darkness in Kenobi’s eyes, the carefully restrained pity in Shaak Ti’s, and my jaw ground against the deep urge to turn away from them, to hide the ugly yellows still just tinted with purple that swelled over almost the entirety of the left half of my face, the thick lines of fresh scar tissue splitting my lower lip and stretching across the bridge of my nose.

“You should see the other guy.” There was a touch of disdain in my voice that I couldn’t help but let out, expression carefully blank as I pointedly returned their stares. Without giving them time to respond, I slipped the datapad from my waist, tongue darting out nervously to wet my lips as I blindly opened the file containing the collection of images I tried violently not to look at before passing the device across the table to them. It was Shaak Ti who reached out to take it, glancing only briefly at the screen before letting those dark eyes return to mine.

“I am sorry to ask this – I truly am… but would you tell us what happened?” She whispered, voice a quiet melody amidst the wretched stillness awaiting my answer. “No detail is too small. The more we know, the more we can help.” My gaze dropped once more to the gleaming white of my helmet, lingering over the strip I’d had to paint over after being pulled from my last squad at the heartbreaking understanding that I couldn’t wear their colors anymore.

I didn’t try to drag my attention away from that pristine surface again, barely noting the emotionless words trying vainly to tangle against my tongue as I recounted every moment I’d spent with the mercenary chosen to lead that mission. I told them of my quiet attentiveness in the briefing just prior to landing, of the seemingly pointless chats I’d found myself in with nearby soldiers but never directly with him, in the offhanded quip I’d made after their effortless victory of my job being the most difficult among them.

I didn’t pause as I spoke of him calling out to me just before I’d reached my room, the not-so subtle request for a medic’s attention and my equally unsubtle refusal. I recounted his every movement as though reading from an instruction manual, ridding even the tone of my voice of anything near to the panic I’d felt; the shock and rage and terror. I recounted each blow he’d landed with the same emptiness as I did when describing mine, the final kick to his knee that granted me enough time to dart through my door and engage the lock; how I’d kept myself trapped in there for the three days it took Hunter and the others to reach me, and the speed of my flight to reach the Marauder in hopes of avoiding even seeing the merc as I fled.

There was little comfort in the quiet that finally fell between us. I could feel them watching me, feel the tightness in their jaws as they forced back their own opinions to remain as outwardly impartial as possible. I expected nothing less, now awash with the dread of awaiting their judgement, terrified that they might disregard what had happened to me in favor of the military worth of a man capable of such success, or worse, that they’d feel my verbal attempts to dissuade him had been insufficient and that he held no fault for his actions.

The hiss of my datapad being pushed slowly across the table toward me finally drew my attention back to Kenobi. There was no blame in his eyes, and that, at least, granted me some small whisper of relief. Still, I found myself holding my breath, almost reluctantly returning the device to my waist.

“You must feel quite betrayed right now.” He offered quietly, and I felt myself cringing at whatever apologetic line he had prepared, “That was a man awarded a position of power by your superiors – an oversight that should never have happened. I understand-”

“With all due respect, General, I don’t think you do.” Soon, I would find myself horrified that I’d interrupted him. Soon, just thinking about the blatant disrespect of what I’d done would send my heart racing. Soon… but, as I met the crisp blue of his eyes, I didn’t shy from the title or power he himself seemed to disregard. I saw the pain he felt for me, the sincerity of his regret, and I spoke to him without reservation of rank or standing. “Having someone you’re supposed to trust do something like that… I hope it’s something you never have to understand.” My voice was soft. I didn’t blame him for this, but I needed to make sure he knew the weight of my words, the responsibility sharing them with him placed on his shoulders.

“I was lucky. I was able to fight back, and I have the support of my men to help me through it. But you’d be a fool to think this was his first time, and you’d be a greater fool to hope it’ll be his last.” He didn’t balk at the threat of insult, and I didn’t doubt the depth with which he felt everything I’d left unspoken; the dread that my words would go unheeded, the rage and guilt of what might happen if they did… the desperate plea for them to honor the horror of reliving that night that they might ensure it never happens again. He said nothing as his head dipped in a nod, and the sorrow he managed to portray in that simple gesture quieted me.

“If that’s all, Generals?” I asked, and I could hear the exhaustion finally creep into my voice. Kenobi’s gaze softened with a sympathy I wanted to balk at, but the gentle kindness in those eyes stilled even that.

“Of course. Thank you for trusting us with this. You’re dismissed… Cody?” Without another word, the commander nodded and stepped forward to lead me from the room.

-

“That was well spoken.” He didn’t look at me as he said it, posture still every inch the visage of quiet power the Marshall Commander was renowned for as he walked at my side. “I’m sorry there was any need for this at all, but I’m impressed with how you’ve handled it.” I almost replied, throat already shifting around a quip about how that made it all worthwhile, but the words died well before being granted speech, gaze merely falling back to the path before us.

I’d spent the walk trying to let my mind wander about nothing, ignoring the suddenly interested looks of nearby clones at my change of companion, tried not to hear their whispered theories or teases before the slightest shift of Cody’s helmet sent them scurrying. It was done. I’d fulfilled my part to the fullest. Now all I could do was trust the jedi, and hope…

“Ma’am, if you wanted to take some time to recover from this,” It wasn’t until we’d nearly reached that final stretch of halls that he finally spoke again, “I can promise no one would think any less of you for it. General Kenobi already suggested paid medical leave. He also mentioned offering you a transfer.” My body froze, foot still hovering mere inches above that meticulously polished tile. “I know Hunter and the others had nothing to do with what happened, but going through something like that… it can alter the dynamic of a group, make it harder to move on.” I could barely force breath through the sudden mass in my throat, shoulders aching from the tension coursing through them.

“You don’t have to answer now, but the offer to rejoin your old squad is there.” He shifted to continue forward, but paused upon realizing I made no move to join him. Did he note the sudden harshness of my too-deep breaths? The way my hands had balled into fists? With a painfully controlled motion, I slowly removed my helmet once more, this time driven with the intention of letting him see every ounce of my emotion – the utter fury burning through my eyes and the rage just twisting my lips into the beginnings of a scowl.

“No.” I didn’t grant him the respect of ‘sir.’ Not after what he’d said. “If I leave now…” The tense words just managed to growl through ground teeth, “do you have… any idea what that would do to them?” His head lifted, and I couldn’t tell if it was out of insult or shock, but I didn’t care. “I leave, then it doesn’t matter what anyone tells them – they’ll blame themselves even more, and I will not let that happen.” Fingers straining against the rigid plastoid tucked under my arm, I stole a half step toward him, glare burring into the empty darkness of his visor. “They get enough osik from every kriffing reg in this force-forsaken city! You’re the only clone I know whose name doesn’t make them shut down. Do not do that to them.” I stole several tense breaths, granting myself a few seconds to find some echo of calm before letting my tongue slip over my lips and willing some of that rage to settle.

“I love my old squad.” I told him, voice dropping into something nearer to a whisper. “I would kill and die for them in a heartbeat… but they don’t need me.” I hated the subtle plea just bleeding into my words but couldn’t bring myself to force it back. “This is where I’m supposed to be – this is where I want to be.” I was begging him. “Don’t take me away from them… please.”

He was still for a long moment, broad shoulders dancing beneath the subtle movement of unhurried breaths, and it was hard to imagine that there was a person under the impassive image of armor and stillness before me, that there was a man of flesh and blood, and I felt a brief flash of fear. Would the simple existence of my emotional attachment be all the justification he needed to submit a transfer? Had I sealed my fate in my very attempt to avoid it?

I didn’t move as he finally broke the painful stillness, mimicking my earlier gesture in the slow removal of his own helmet. He wasn’t looking at me, gaze staring blinding that the floor just beyond my boots as he tucked the awkward piece of armor under his arm. When he let that strangely familiar face find mine, it was with a deep reverence that left me frozen, struck by the tension in his jaw; the crushing weight in eyes I’d seen a thousand times in a thousand faces, each carrying a lifetime of experiences and hopes and fears that left them all unique in stunningly beautiful ways.

“Thank you.” That was it. He said nothing more before returning to the anonymity of his bucket and continuing down the hall. I hesitated mere seconds before quickly moving to follow him.

Echo tread through the door well before we’d reached it, and I felt the fond smile pull at my lips the instant his golden eyes seemed to sweep over me in an instinctive search for injury before turning to greet the commander standing beside me.

“Everything settled?” He asked, voice deep with an anger I knew would be slow to fade. Cody nodded, arms absently folding behind his back as he addressed his brother.

“Take care of this one, Echo. She’s worth holding on to.” The shock that wrenched my gaze back to that orange-streaked bucket drew a chuckle from the intimidating clone that left me even more taken aback, lips just falling open in a gasp as the man turned and began his trek back as though nothing had happened.

“Well, you made an impression.” He teased, and I couldn’t dismiss my relief upon seeing that smirk on his pale lips.

“I… I guess?” I stammered, unsure how to respond to the commander’s words. Blowing out a deep breath, I tried to let the events of the past hour fade into the background, attention shifting away from the steadily retreating figure. “I hope you guys didn’t get into too much trouble without me?” His grin grew, nodding over his shoulder with a nearly threatening silence. Lips bunching against a whisper of uncertainty, I tread lightly behind him into the barracks. And I instantly stilled.

“W… what’s all this?” I asked, gaze shifting between the handful of small canisters littering the large table normally home to countless piles of electronics and half-broken gear. Hunter stepped forward at my question, a glint of something too raw to risk naming shining in those eyes.

“Paint.” He stated simply, allowing just a moment for my confusion to begin to shift into a tentative understanding as Wrecker moved to join him, beaming grin stretched across his excited face. “If you’re going to be on this squad, it’s time you look the part – make sure everyone knows who they’re dealing with if they try to give you trouble.” My jaw ground against the way my breath suddenly hitched, shattering as my brows pinched together over eyes burning beneath that first flood of tears. “If you want?” He added, only just letting it drop into a question.

In a burst of motion, I threw myself forward, arms latching around him with every ounce of strength in me, body shaking with some indistinguishable mixture of sobs and laughter. He’d only just begun to recover from the sudden attack, hands hesitantly moving to settle against my back when I released him to charge Wrecker with the same burst of adoration and gratitude. He didn’t share even an ounce of Hunter’s surprise, instantly crushing me against him in an unrestrained embrace, deep chest shaking with his own booming laughter.

After several unsteady breaths, I tried to turn my attention to Echo, but Wrecker’s arms held me fast, and a flood of giggles burst through the smile stretching across my face. I didn’t have to look to know it was Echo’s hand that reached up to settle fondly against my shoulder. When he finally set me down, the initial fit of manic glee was quelled into something quieter, gaze turning to find Tech and Crosshair in turn.

“Thank you.” The words threatened to break, just escaping in a whisper. Tech responded with the briefest hint of a smile, while Crosshair offered only a short nod before letting his eyes drift quickly away from mine. Hunter ruffled his hand through my hair, and I readily shot him a squinted glare, but stilled as he leaned over me, lips near enough to just feel brushing against my ear as the quiet rumble of his voice murmured almost silently between us.

“You forgot about Rex.” Those barely audible words sent a fire blossoming up my neck, cheeks instantly flushing deep red. With a quiet chuckle, he merely stepped back toward the awaiting supplies and, flashing a knowing smirk, offered me a paint-covered brush. With a helpless scoff, I let my lips pull up into a grateful smile and stepped toward him.

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